#Johnson Zhou

[blackramhall]

Death and Other Details | Chapter Nine: IMPOSSIBLE Created by Heidi Cole McAdams and Mike Weiss

Foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes. WS, Ha Avatar pic by Mitchell Turek

[boomgers]

Todos los sospechosos se encuentran abordo… “La Muerte y Otros Misterios”

Ambientada en el glamoroso mundo de la élite global, la serie se centra en la brillante e inquieta Imogene Scott, quien se encuentra en el lugar y momento equivocado y se convierte en la principal sospechosa de un misterioso asesinato dentro de una habitación cerrada con llave.

¿El escenario?, un transatlántico mediterráneo lujosamente restaurado. ¿Los sospechosos?, todos los huéspedes mimados y todos los miembros de la exhausta tripulación. ¿El problema?, para demostrar su inocencia, debe asociarse con un hombre al que desprecia: Rufus Cotesworth.

Estreno: 16 de enero de 2024 en Star+.

Escrita por Mike Weiss y Heidi Cole McAdams, la serie cuenta con las actuaciones de Violett Beane, Mandy Patinkin, Jayne Atkinson, Linda Emond, Danny Johnson, David Marshall Grant, Lisa Lu, Angela Zhou, Pardis Saremi, Lauren Patten, Rahul Kohli y Hugo Diego Garcia.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Nick Anderson/Political Cartoonist :: @Nick_Anderson_

Spreading like...

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 13, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 14, 2025

The incoming Trump administration is working to put its agenda into place.

Although experts on the National Security Council usually carry over from one administration to the next, Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller of the Associated Press today reported that incoming officials for the Trump administration are interviewing career senior officials on the National Security Council about their political contributions, how they voted in 2024, and whether they are loyal to Trump. Most of them are on loan from the State Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Central Intelligence Agency and, understanding that they are about to be fired, have packed up their desks to head back to their home agencies.

The National Security Council is the main forum for the president to hash out decisions in national security and foreign policy, and the people on it are picked for their expertise. But Trump’s expected pick to become his national security advisor—his primary advisor on all national security issues—Representative Mike Waltz (R-FL) told right-wing Breitbart News that he wants to staff the NSC with people who are “100 percent aligned with the president’s agenda.”

Ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA) warned that the loyalty purge “threatens our national security and our ability to respond quickly and effectively to the ongoing and very real global threats in a dangerous world.”

But during Trump’s first term, it was Alexander Vindman, who was detailed to the NSC, and his twin Eugene Vindman, who was serving the NSC as an ethics lawyer, who reported concerns about Trump’s July 2019 call to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to their superiors. This launched the investigation that became Trump’s first impeachment, and Trump appears anxious to make sure future NSC members will be fiercely loyal to him.

With extraordinarily slim majorities in the House and Senate, Republicans are talking about pushing through their entire agenda through Congress as a single bill in the process known as budget reconciliation. Budget reconciliation, which deals with matters related to spending, revenue, and the debt limit, is one of the few things that cannot be filibustered, meaning that Republicans could get a reconciliation bill through the Senate with just 50 votes. If they can hold their conference together, they could get the package through despite Democratic opposition.

House speaker Mike Johnson and Republican leaders have said that the House intends to pass a reconciliation bill that covers border security, defense spending, the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, spending cuts to social welfare programs, energy deregulation, and an increase in the national debt limit.

But Li Zhou of Vox points out that it’s not quite as simple as it sounds to get everything at once, because budget reconciliation measures are not supposed to include anything that doesn’t relate to the budget, and the Senate parliamentarian will advise stripping those things out. In addition, the budget cuts Republicans are circulating include cuts to popular programs like Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act (more commonly known as Obamacare), the Inflation Reduction Act’s investment in combating climate change, and the supplemental nutrition programs formerly known as food stamps.

Still, a lot can be done under budget reconciliation. Democrats under Biden passed the 2021 American Rescue Plan and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act under reconciliation, and Republicans under Trump passed the 2017 Trump tax cuts the same way.

A wrinkle in those plans is the Republicans’ hope to raise the national debt limit. As soon as they take control of Congress and the White House, Republicans will have to deal immediately with the treasury running up against the debt limit, a holdover from World War I that sets a limit on how much the country can borrow. Although he has complained bitterly about spending under Biden, Trump has demanded that Congress either raise or abandon the debt ceiling because the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the tax cuts he wants to extend will add $4.6 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years, and cost estimates for his deportation plans range from $88 billion to $315 billion a year.

Republicans are backing away from adding a debt increase to the budget reconciliation package out of concern that members of the far-right Freedom Caucus will kill the entire bill if they do. Those members want no part of raising the national debt and have demanded $2 trillion in budget cuts before they will consider it. Tonight, Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SD) told Jordain Carney of Politico that Senate Republicans expect the debt limit to be stripped out of the budget reconciliation measure.

So Republicans are currently exploring the idea of leveraging aid to California for the deadly fires in order to get Democrats to sign on to raising the debt ceiling. Meredith Lee Hill of Politico reported that Trump met with a group of influential House Republicans over dinner Sunday night at Mar-a-Lago to discuss tying aid for the wildfires to raising the debt ceiling. Today, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) confirmed to reporter Hill that this plan is under discussion.

Indeed, Republicans have been in the media suggesting that disaster aid to Democratic states should be tied to their adopting Republican policies. The Los Angeles fires have now claimed at least 24 lives. More than 15,000 firefighters are working to extinguish the wildfires, which have been driven by Santa Ana winds of up to 98 miles (158 km) an hour over ground scorched by high temperatures and low rainfall since last May, conditions caused by climate change.

On the Fox News Channel today, Representative Zach Nunn (R-IA) said: "We will certainly help those thousands of homes and families who have been devastated, but we also expect you to change bad behavior. We should look at the same for these blue states who have run away with a broken tax policy.... Those governors need to change their tune now.” Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) blamed Democrats for the fires and said of federal disaster relief: “I certainly wouldn't vote for anything unless we see a dramatic change in how they're gonna be handling these things in the future.”

Aside from the morality of demanding concessions for disaster aid after President Joe Biden responded with full and unconditional support for regions hit by Hurricane Helene (although Tennessee governor Bill Lee is still lying that Biden delayed aid to his state, when in fact he delayed in asking for it, as required by law), there is a financial problem with this argument. As economist Paul Krugman noted today in his Krugman Wonks Out, California “is literally subsidizing the rest of the United States, red states in particular, through the federal budget.”

In 2022, the most recent year for which information is available, California paid $83 billion more to the federal government than it got back. Washington state also subsidized the rest of the country, as did most of the Northeast. That money flowed to Republican-dominated states, which contributed far less to the federal government than they received in return.

Krugman noted that “if West Virginia were a country, it would in effect be receiving foreign aid equal to more than 20 percent of its G[ross] D[omestic] P[roduct].” Krugman refers to the federal government as “an insurance company with an army,” and he notes that there is “nothing either the city or the state could have done to prevent” the wildfires. “If the United States of America doesn’t take care of its own citizens, wherever they live and whatever their politics, we should drop “United” from our name,” he writes. “As it happens, however, California—a major driver of U.S. prosperity and power—definitely has earned the right to receive help during a crisis.”

Today, Biden announced student loan forgiveness for another 150,000 borrowers, bringing the total number of people relieved of student debt to more than 5 million borrowers, who have received $183.6 billion in relief. This has been achieved through making sure existing debt relief programs were followed, as they had not been in the past.

Establishment Republicans continue to fight MAGA Republicans, and MAGA fights among itself: former Trump ally Steve Bannon yesterday called Trump’s sidekick Elon Musk “truly evil” and vowed to “take this guy down.” But even as their enablers in the legacy media are normalizing Republican behavior, a reality-based media is stepping up to counter the disinformation.

Aside from the many independent outlets that have held MAGA Republicans to account, MSNBC today announced that progressive journalist Rachel Maddow will return to hosting a nightly one-hour show for the first 100 days of the Trump presidency.

And today journalist Jennifer Rubin joined her colleagues who have abandoned the Washington Post as it swung toward Trump. She resigned from the Washington Post with the announcement that she and former White House ethics lawyer Norm Eisen have started a new media outlet called The Contrarian. Joining them is a gold-star list of journalists and commentators who have stood against the rise of Trump and the MAGA Republicans, many of whom have left publications as those outlets moved rightward.

“Corporate and billionaire owners of major media outlets have betrayed their audiences’ loyalty and sabotaged journalism’s sacred mission—defending, protecting and advancing democracy,” Rubin wrote in her resignation announcement. In contrast, the new publication “will be a central hub for unvarnished, unbowed, and uncompromising reported opinion and analysis that exists in opposition to the authoritarian threat.”

“The urgency of the task before us cannot be overstated,” The Contrarian’s mission statement read. “We have already entered the era of oligarchy—rule by a narrow clique of powerful men (almost exclusively men). We have little doubt that billionaires will dominate the Trump regime, shape policy, engage in massive self-dealing, and seek to quash dissent and competition in government and the private sector. As believers in free markets subject to reasonable regulation and economic opportunity for all, we recognize this is a threat not only to our democracy but to our dynamic, vibrant economy that remains the envy of the world.”

In what appears to be a rebuke to media outlets that are cozying up to Trump, The Contrarian’s credo is “Not Owned by Anybody.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[misfitwashere]

January 13, 2025 

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JAN 14

The incoming Trump administration is working to put its agenda into place.

Although experts on the National Security Council usually carry over from one administration to the next, Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller of the Associated Press today reported that incoming officials for the Trump administration are interviewing career senior officials on the National Security Council about their political contributions, how they voted in 2024, and whether they are loyal to Trump. Most of them are on loan from the State Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Central Intelligence Agency and, understanding that they are about to be fired, have packed up their desks to head back to their home agencies.

The National Security Council is the main forum for the president to hash out decisions in national security and foreign policy, and the people on it are picked for their expertise. But Trump’s expected pick to become his national security advisor—his primary advisor on all national security issues—Representative Mike Waltz (R-FL) told right-wing Breitbart News that he wants to staff the NSC with people who are “100 percent aligned with the president’s agenda.”

Ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA) warned that the loyalty purge “threatens our national security and our ability to respond quickly and effectively to the ongoing and very real global threats in a dangerous world.”

But during Trump’s first term, it was Alexander Vindman, who was detailed to the NSC, and his twin Eugene Vindman, who was serving the NSC as an ethics lawyer, who reported concerns about Trump’s July 2019 call to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to their superiors. This launched the investigation that became Trump’s first impeachment, and Trump appears anxious to make sure future NSC members will be fiercely loyal to him.

With extraordinarily slim majorities in the House and Senate, Republicans are talking about pushing through their entire agenda through Congress as a single bill in the process known as budget reconciliation. Budget reconciliation, which deals with matters related to spending, revenue, and the debt limit, is one of the few things that cannot be filibustered, meaning that Republicans could get a reconciliation bill through the Senate with just 50 votes. If they can hold their conference together, they could get the package through despite Democratic opposition.

House speaker Mike Johnson and Republican leaders have said that the House intends to pass a reconciliation bill that covers border security, defense spending, the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, spending cuts to social welfare programs, energy deregulation, and an increase in the national debt limit.

But Li Zhou of Vox points out that it’s not quite as simple as it sounds to get everything at once, because budget reconciliation measures are not supposed to include anything that doesn’t relate to the budget, and the Senate parliamentarian will advise stripping those things out. In addition, the budget cuts Republicans are circulating include cuts to popular programs like Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act (more commonly known as Obamacare), the Inflation Reduction Act’s investment in combating climate change, and the supplemental nutrition programs formerly known as food stamps.

Still, a lot can be done under budget reconciliation. Democrats under Biden passed the 2021 American Rescue Plan and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act under reconciliation, and Republicans under Trump passed the 2017 Trump tax cuts the same way.

A wrinkle in those plans is the Republicans’ hope to raise the national debt limit. As soon as they take control of Congress and the White House, Republicans will have to deal immediately with the treasury running up against the debt limit, a holdover from World War I that sets a limit on how much the country can borrow. Although he has complained bitterly about spending under Biden, Trump has demanded that Congress either raise or abandon the debt ceiling because the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the tax cuts he wants to extend will add $4.6 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years, and cost estimates for his deportation plans range from $88 billion to $315 billion a year.

Republicans are backing away from adding a debt increase to the budget reconciliation package out of concern that members of the far-right Freedom Caucus will kill the entire bill if they do. Those members want no part of raising the national debt and have demanded $2 trillion in budget cuts before they will consider it. Tonight, Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SD) told Jordain Carney of Politico that Senate Republicans expect the debt limit to be stripped out of the budget reconciliation measure.

So Republicans are currently exploring the idea of leveraging aid to California for the deadly fires in order to get Democrats to sign on to raising the debt ceiling. Meredith Lee Hill of Politico reported that Trump met with a group of influential House Republicans over dinner Sunday night at Mar-a-Lago to discuss tying aid for the wildfires to raising the debt ceiling. Today, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) confirmed to reporter Hill that this plan is under discussion.

Indeed, Republicans have been in the media suggesting that disaster aid to Democratic states should be tied to their adopting Republican policies. The Los Angeles fires have now claimed at least 24 lives. More than 15,000 firefighters are working to extinguish the wildfires, which have been driven by Santa Ana winds of up to 98 miles (158 km) an hour over ground scorched by high temperatures and low rainfall since last May, conditions caused by climate change.

On the Fox News Channel today, Representative Zach Nunn (R-IA) said: "We will certainly help those thousands of homes and families who have been devastated, but we also expect you to change bad behavior. We should look at the same for these blue states who have run away with a broken tax policy.... Those governors need to change their tune now.” Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) blamed Democrats for the fires and said of federal disaster relief: “I certainly wouldn't vote for anything unless we see a dramatic change in how they're gonna be handling these things in the future.”

Aside from the morality of demanding concessions for disaster aid after President Joe Biden responded with full and unconditional support for regions hit by Hurricane Helene (although Tennessee governor Bill Lee is still lying that Biden delayed aid to his state, when in fact he delayed in asking for it, as required by law), there is a financial problem with this argument. As economist Paul Krugman noted today in his Krugman Wonks Out, California “is literally subsidizing the rest of the United States, red states in particular, through the federal budget.”

In 2022, the most recent year for which information is available, California paid $83 billion more to the federal government than it got back. Washington state also subsidized the rest of the country, as did most of the Northeast. That money flowed to Republican-dominated states, which contributed far less to the federal government than they received in return.

Krugman noted that “if West Virginia were a country, it would in effect be receiving foreign aid equal to more than 20 percent of its G[ross] D[omestic] P[roduct].” Krugman refers to the federal government as “an insurance company with an army,” and he notes that there is “nothing either the city or the state could have done to prevent” the wildfires. “If the United States of America doesn’t take care of its own citizens, wherever they live and whatever their politics, we should drop “United” from our name,” he writes. “As it happens, however, California—a major driver of U.S. prosperity and power—definitely has earned the right to receive help during a crisis.”

Today, Biden announced student loan forgiveness for another 150,000 borrowers, bringing the total number of people relieved of student debt to more than 5 million borrowers, who have received $183.6 billion in relief. This has been achieved through making sure existing debt relief programs were followed, as they had not been in the past.

Establishment Republicans continue to fight MAGA Republicans, and MAGA fights among itself: former Trump ally Steve Bannon yesterday called Trump’s sidekick Elon Musk “truly evil” and vowed to “take this guy down.” But even as their enablers in the legacy media are normalizing Republican behavior, a reality-based media is stepping up to counter the disinformation.

Aside from the many independent outlets that have held MAGA Republicans to account, MSNBC today announced that progressive journalist Rachel Maddow will return to hosting a nightly one-hour show for the first 100 days of the Trump presidency.

And today journalist Jennifer Rubin joined her colleagues who have abandoned the Washington Post as it swung toward Trump. She resigned from the Washington Post with the announcement that she and former White House ethics lawyer Norm Eisen have started a new media outlet called The Contrarian. Joining them is a gold-star list of journalists and commentators who have stood against the rise of Trump and the MAGA Republicans, many of whom have left publications as those outlets moved rightward.

“Corporate and billionaire owners of major media outlets have betrayed their audiences’ loyalty and sabotaged journalism’s sacred mission—defending, protecting and advancing democracy,” Rubin wrote in her resignation announcement. In contrast, the new publication “will be a central hub for unvarnished, unbowed, and uncompromising reported opinion and analysis that exists in opposition to the authoritarian threat.”

“The urgency of the task before us cannot be overstated,” The Contrarian’s mission statement read. “We have already entered the era of oligarchy—rule by a narrow clique of powerful men (almost exclusively men). We have little doubt that billionaires will dominate the Trump regime, shape policy, engage in massive self-dealing, and seek to quash dissent and competition in government and the private sector. As believers in free markets subject to reasonable regulation and economic opportunity for all, we recognize this is a threat not only to our democracy but to our dynamic, vibrant economy that remains the envy of the world.”

In what appears to be a rebuke to media outlets that are cozying up to Trump, The Contrarian’s credo is “Not Owned by Anybody.”

—

[jack-doohan]

FORMERLY ROSENQVISTS !!

★ ABOUT ME ★

★ hi, i’m ciara! | nineteen | she/they | motorsports brainrot for life!!!! | this is a sideblog, i follow from @mone-chiba !!!! ★

★ BANNER IS BY THE LOVELY @brawngp2009 !!! ★

★ SIDEBLOGS ★

tennis 🎾: @dianashnaiders | film 🎞️: @userlovewitch | music 🎧: @evilways

★ IMPORTANT TAGS ★

indycar | CART | champ car | indy nxt

nascar cup | nascar xfinity

WRC | wec | imsa

formula 1 | classic f1 | f1 academy | formula e | formula 2

women in motorsport | art | blog updates | the doohan archives

stuff i’ve posted tags are currently a WIP!

★ FAVORITES BY SERIES ★

INDYCAR: rosenqvist | veekay | kirkwood | newgarden | lundqvist | malukas | siegel | power | mclaughlin | rahal | legge | c. herta | o’ward | dixon | armstrong | lundgaard | ilott | palou | rossi | rasmussen | ericsson | harvey | castroneves | sato

retired / former / other: hinchcliffe | bourdais | blomqvist | andretti green dream team: b. herta | wheldon | franchitti | kanaan || indycar on nbc cast, especially diffey | mi. andretti | g. moore

FORMULA 1: doohan | magnussen | albon | mick schumacher | russell | hamilton | bottas | piastri | colapinto | bearman | lawson | tsunoda | zhou | leclerc | ocon | norris | verstappen | stroll

retired / reserve / other: vettel | button | räikkönen | vesti | drugovich | jessica hawkins | n. rosberg

CLASSIC F1: häkkinen | g. villeneuve | de angelis | pironi | hunt | lauda | prost | peterson | ma. andretti | mansell | clark | g. hill | ickx | scheckter | arnoux | michael schumacher | k. rosberg | j. villeneuve | d. hill

F1 ACADEMY: pulling | pin | hausmann | chambers | weug | nobels | edgar | block | h. + a. al qubaisi

FORMULA E: günther | wehrlein | JEV | de vries | cassidy | frijns

NASCAR: reddick | cindric | blaney | logano | buescher | hocevar | wallace | hamlin | bell | elliott | bowman | allmendinger (+ champ car) | keselowski | truex jr | ky. busch | chastain | suarez | van gisbergen | briscoe | byron

retired / former / other: j. johnson | d. earnhardt jr | harvick | gordon

WRC: neuville | rovanpera | toivonen | c. mcrae | vatanen | kankkunen | alen | salonen | kivimaki | mikkola | mouton | rohrl | geistdorfer | pons | eriksson

★ CARRD: WIP ★

↓ mostly accurate indycar/f1 drivers tierlist ↓

(indycar tierlist originally made by @tyresdeg !!)

↓ my blog mottos (aka the silly memes) ↓

[little-butterfly-writes]

Commissions

Hello everyone! I know it has been a while, but I hope you are all well.

I’m happy to be here with everyone, but I have an ulterior motive (and I apologize for this being my comeback post). Recently, there was a fire in my sister’s neighborhood and it spread to her house.

Why is this important?

Due to the fire spreading, my sister’s house took a lot of damage. With damage comes (expensive!!) costs to repair the building and replace furniture. Fortunately, no one was in the house at the time of the fire and my sister is safe.

To help my sister out, I am opening commissions where all profits go to her. As long as the rules are followed, I will be writing something personal for you! Down below, my rules, what I refuse to write, fandoms I write for, what I will write, and costs.

Here is the link to our Cash App for all purchases or donations. - Pay $LittleButterflyWrites

Note: Anyone who has made a request before the date of me posting this (07/02/2024) will get their requests free of charge as originally intended before my unannounced hiatus.

This is available until July 30th, (07/30/2024), so please act fast since I'm not sure if I'll open them again! Read more if you're interested!

Rules *read and approved by my sister

I have the right to refuse any request. Respect my final decision and read what I will not write for before making a request.

Refunds will only be available 24 hours after you place the order. If you do not tell/ask for a refund within 24 hours of your transaction, I will write what you requested and you will  NOT get your money back.

Before making a request, please consult with me about what you want for your writing. See below on how to request. This makes things easier in case I am unable to fulfill/accept a request, AND it prevents you, the buyer, from spending money before you get an answer.

If you want any changes to the details, let me know within 24 hours of talking to me.

If you request for a character letter, you will have to give PROOF OF PERMISSION by an adult if you are a minor. You will also have to be comfortable with giving me your address.

If I find that you request anything NSFW as a minor, you will be BLOCKED AND REPORTED. I will reject your request and you will get your money back.

What Do You Refuse To Write?

Dub/non-con

Incest

Hate towards another group of people (race, orientation, gender, etc.)

Beastiality/Zoophilia

Pedophilia

I will NOT write NSFW for certain characters. Said characters will be in a bracketed list after their name. (example: [Character] = no NSFW). The NSFW list of characters will always be BEFORE the NO NSFW character list.

Anything I am not comfortable writing. Again, I reserve the right to refuse any request. If you are unsure and need clarification, please message me with questions.

What Fandoms Do You Write For?

With this new post comes some new fandoms!

Mystic Messenger

- Yoosung Kim, Zen/Hyun Ryu, Jaehee Kang, Jumin Han, 707/Saeyoung Choi, Ray, Saeran Choi, V/Jihyun Kim, Rika Kim, Vanderwood

Mr. Love, Queen’s Choice

- Lucien Xu, Victor Li, Gavin Bai, Kiro Zhou, Shaw Bai

Stardew Valley

- Alex, Elliot, Harvey, Sam, Sebastian, Shane, Abigail, Emily, Hayley, Jodi, Leah, Maru, Penny, Caroline, Robin, Sandy, Willy, Wizard M. Rasmodius - [Clint, Demetrius, Evelyn, George, Gunther, Gus, Jas, Kent, Krobus, Leo, Lewis, Linus, Marnie, Pam, Pierre, Willy, Wizard M. Rasmodius, Vincent]

Monster Prom/Camp

- Vera Oberlin, Damien LaVey, Zoe, Polly Geist, Miranda Vanderbilt, Calculester Hewlett-Packard, Scott Howl, Liam de Lioncourt, Joy Johnson-Johjima, Dahlia Aquino, Aaravi Mishra

Ikemen Sengoku

- Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Akechi Mitsuhide, Date Masamune, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Ishida Mitsunari, Uesugi Kenshin, Takeda Shingen, Sanada Yukimura, Sarutobi Sauske, Kennyo

The Walking Dead - Up to season 5 in the TV show OR first comic compendium. I can write apocalypse TWD or non-apocalypse lives, just tell me your preference.

- Rick Grimes, Lori Grimes, Shane Walsh, Glenn Rhee, Maggie Greene, Daryl Dixon, Tyresse, Sasha, Abraham Ford, Carol Peletier, Michonne, Negan, Tara Chambler, Rosita Espinosa, Gabriel Stokes - [Herschel Greene, Dale Horvath] - *I will write NSFW for Beth Greene or Carl Grimes BUT they will be AGED UP TO BE 18 or OLDER.

What Will You Write?

Comfort

Fluff

Angst

SFW

NSFW

Character x Character

OC x Character

Unnamed FemReader x Character

Unnamed MascReader x Character

Unnamed GenNeuReader x Character

CMC x Character

What Can I Get And For How Much?

*Before making a request, please consult with me about what you want so I can give you a set price before I start working. Some prices depend on the details like how many characters you want, so talk to me before paying!

Personalized Playlist - $2

I make you a playlist for your character x character, OC x character, or CMC x character. I will give you links via Spotify or YouTube using my taste in music along with your taste. Minimum of 20 songs.

Headcanons - $3-6 (Depends on the amount of characters. Maximum of 8 characters)

I write headcanons about the character, how they interact with other characters within their fandom, and how they interact with your OC/CMC.

Matchmaker - $3-9 (Depends on amount of characters

You choose between 1-3 characters from any fandom (can be different fandoms) and give a description of yourself to me (including MBTI, hobbies, likes/dislikes, and preferences). Can be SFW or NSFW.

Dabble (500+ words) - $4

A small piece with details you customize for a character. This can include interactions with other characters in their fandom, interactions with OC/CMC, or something about themself.

Character Letter (Only within the US and Canada) - $6 + any mailing fees

A letter from a character of your choice. Must show PROOF OF PERMISSION if you are a minor as we mail it to your address.

Fic (1000+ words) - $7

A piece with details you customize for a character. This can include interactions with other characters in their fandom, interactions with OC/CMC, or something about themself.

Oneshot (1500-2000+ words) - $10

A larger piece with details you customize for a character. This can include interactions with other characters in their fandom, interactions with OC/CMC, or something about themself.

How Do I Order A Commission? *Very important!

Look at the list of fandoms/characters I will write for.

Choose what you would like me to write for you. (Example: FemReader x Character, SFW, Dabble, with [insert details]).

Consult with me BEFORE PURCHASING to determine if I will accept the request and set the price.

Once all details are given and the request is approved, continue with purchase using the link to the Cash App linked above.

Here’s another link for purchases or donations in case you don’t want to scroll up! - Pay $LittleButterflyWrites

Reblogs are always helpful if you are uninterested or want to help :)

[compneuropapers]

Interesting Papers for Week 22, 2024

The influence of natural image statistics on upright orientation judgements. A-Izzeddin, E. J., Mattingley, J. B., & Harrison, W. J. (2024). Cognition, 242, 105631.

Noradrenaline tracks emotional modulation of attention in human amygdala. Bang, D., Luo, Y., Barbosa, L. S., Batten, S. R., Hadj-Amar, B., Twomey, T., … Montague, P. R. (2023). Current Biology, 33(22), 5003-5010.e6.

Diverse mechanisms of taste coding in Drosophila. Dweck, H. K. M., & Carlson, J. R. (2023). Science Advances, 9(46).

Goal-Dependent Hippocampal Representations Facilitate Self-Control. Edelson, M. G., & Hare, T. A. (2023). Journal of Neuroscience, 43(46), 7822–7830.

Reliable population code for subjective economic value from heterogeneous neuronal signals in primate orbitofrontal cortex. Ferrari-Toniolo, S., & Schultz, W. (2023). Neuron, 111(22), 3683-3696.e7.

Need for cognition moderates the relief of avoiding cognitive effort. Gheza, D., Kool, W., & Pourtois, G. (2023). PLOS ONE, 18(11), e0287954.

Developmental changes in exploration resemble stochastic optimization. Giron, A. P., Ciranka, S., Schulz, E., van den Bos, W., Ruggeri, A., Meder, B., & Wu, C. M. (2023). Nature Human Behaviour, 7(11), 1955–1967.

Early visual experience refines the retinotopic organization within and across visual cortical regions. Heitmann, C., Zhan, M., Linke, M., Hölig, C., Kekunnaya, R., van Hoof, R., … Röder, B. (2023). Current Biology, 33(22), 4950-4959.e4.

Hippocampal neurons code individual episodic memories in humans. Kolibius, L. D., Roux, F., Parish, G., Ter Wal, M., Van Der Plas, M., Chelvarajah, R., … Hanslmayr, S. (2023). Nature Human Behaviour, 7(11), 1968–1979.

Judging the difficulty of perceptual decisions. Löffler, A., Zylberberg, A., Shadlen, M. N., & Wolpert, D. M. (2023). eLife, 12, e86892.3.

Against cortical reorganisation. Makin, T. R., & Krakauer, J. W. (2023). eLife, 12, e84716.

Complex spikes perturb movements and reveal the sensorimotor map of Purkinje cells. Muller, S. Z., Pi, J. S., Hage, P., Fakharian, M. A., Sedaghat-Nejad, E., & Shadmehr, R. (2023). Current Biology, 33(22), 4869-4879.e3.

Periodic attention deficits after frontoparietal lesions provide causal evidence for rhythmic attentional sampling. Raposo, I., Szczepanski, S. M., Haaland, K., Endestad, T., Solbakk, A.-K., Knight, R. T., & Helfrich, R. F. (2023). Current Biology, 33(22), 4893-4904.e3.

Neural landscape diffusion resolves conflicts between needs across time. Richman, E. B., Ticea, N., Allen, W. E., Deisseroth, K., & Luo, L. (2023). Nature, 623(7987), 571–579.

Variational log‐ Gaussian point‐process methods for grid cells. Rule, M. E., Chaudhuri‐Vayalambrone, P., Krstulovic, M., Bauza, M., Krupic, J., & O’Leary, T. (2023). Hippocampus, 33(12), 1235–1251.

Preserved neural dynamics across animals performing similar behaviour. Safaie, M., Chang, J. C., Park, J., Miller, L. E., Dudman, J. T., Perich, M. G., & Gallego, J. A. (2023). Nature, 623(7988), 765–771.

A thalamo‐parietal cortex circuit is critical for place‐action coordination. Simmons, C. M., Moseley, S. C., Ogg, J. D., Zhou, X., Johnson, M., Wu, W., … Wilber, A. A. (2023). Hippocampus, 33(12), 1252–1266.

Neural mechanisms to incorporate visual counterevidence in self-movement estimation. Tanaka, R., Zhou, B., Agrochao, M., Badwan, B. A., Au, B., Matos, N. C. B., & Clark, D. A. (2023). Current Biology, 33(22), 4960-4979.e7.

The shared and unique neural correlates of personal semantic, general semantic, and episodic memory. Tanguay, A. F., Palombo, D. J., Love, B., Glikstein, R., Davidson, P. S., & Renoult, L. (2023). eLife, 12, e83645.

Temporally specific patterns of neural activity in interconnected corticolimbic structures during reward anticipation. Young, M. E., Spencer-Salmon, C., Mosher, C., Tamang, S., Rajan, K., & Rudebeck, P. H. (2023). Neuron, 111(22), 3668-3682.e5.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Li Zhou at Vox:

In their opening wave of attacks on the Democrats’ likely presidential nominee, some Republicans are homing in on Vice President Kamala Harris’s race and gender — despite certain party leaders’ pleas for them to steer clear. Members of the religious right have dubbed her a “jezebel,” while other conservative activists suggested that she’s slept her way to the top by citing past romantic relationships she’s had. GOP commentators have also echoed many of the same “birtherism” attacks that were once used against former President Barack Obama, falsely claiming that her candidacy isn’t viable because her parents were Jamaican and Indian immigrants. (Harris is a US citizen who was born in California.) And they’ve tapped into common GOP talking points about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), implying that Harris isn’t up for the job and was selected for VP solely because of her identity.

“The media propped up this president, lied to the American people for three years, and then dumped him for our DEI vice president,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) said in a post on X. (Burchett has since said he wishes he hadn’t said this, while adding that it’s the “truth.”) There is a common thread in all these attacks: They take aim at Harris’s identity, rather than her agenda or experience. And they come despite the fact that last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson implored his party to focus their criticisms on policy and politics. “This is not personal with regard to Kamala Harris, and her ethnicity or her gender have nothing to do with this whatsoever,” Johnson said. Many of these remarks are simply hateful and examples of misogynoir, a compounded form of sexism and racism directed at Harris, a Black and South Asian woman. But there’s a sinister political calculus to them as well. Collectively, they aim to undercut Harris’s legitimacy as a candidate and are one prong of sweeping critiques Republicans have made about her eligibility. Plus, they strive to leverage existing racism and sexism against Harris, activating voters who share those biases.

“They hope to taint her with the suspicion of not having earned the positions she has achieved and harness the fears of those who resent seeing women and people of color in elite spaces,” says Juliet Hooker, a Brown University political scientist and author of Black Grief/White Grievance, a book on race and politics.

[...] These statements include implications that Harris is promiscuous and that she’s weaponized her sexuality to get to where she is — a misogynistic claim that’s often used against successful women to question whether they deserve the position that they’re in. Such attacks have manifested in conservative references to her past relationship with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and repeated offensive taglines like “Joe and the Ho.” That’s often paired with questions about why Harris hasn’t had any biological children, and how that discredits her from being a leader due to claims that she’s not sufficiently invested in the country’s future. Beyond the fact that this line of attack is incredibly dismissive of the role of stepparents in America (Harris is the stepmother to a son and daughter), these sexist statements both superimpose traditional expectations on women and seek to undermine the VP by arguing that she doesn’t conform to those standards.

Racist narratives, including “birtherism” style attacks that question Harris’s citizenship status, similarly seek to cast doubt on whether she’s eligible for office. It’s part of a long tradition of conservatives portraying nonwhite politicians as short of “real Americans” and therefore not fit to hold these positions. And statements referring to Harris as a “DEI candidate” also intend to poke at her qualifications and ignore the significant experience she’d bring as a nominee.

Those remarks stem from Biden’s statement committing to selecting a woman as his number two when he ran for office in 2020. He then narrowed his final list of contenders to include four Black women. Those choices were intended to improve representation and diversity at the highest levels of the party, which had never previously had a Black woman as president or vice president. Republicans, however, have seized on his decision to suggest that Harris was picked only for this reason, and not because she also brought significant qualifications including decades of experience as a legislator and prosecutor. Such monikers are so demeaning because they suggest that people of color are undeserving of the roles they get, and “implies that [they] can only succeed when we are needed to fill quotas, and not because of merit, hard work or talent,” writes Variety’s Clayton Davis. The misogynoir directed at Harris aims to suggest that she’s somehow illegitimate as a candidate, and signals to people who hold these biases that the GOP is a home for them. 

The MAGA cult’s sexist and racist attacks against Kamala Harris are about fears and anxieties of a woman of color potentially leading the nation.

[darkmaga-returns]

This is, well, all too believable. The time frame, according to the video, is “January, a year ago,” so, January, 2024. Apparently a similar story was frontpaged on the WSJ, that Zhou hasn’t really been president for the last year and a half. But, of course, these things don’t typically happen overnight—there are at least warning signs, and usually a developmental phase before this degree of loss of mental capacity. Which raises the question, why didn’t the Dems dump him much sooner? That much fear of Kama Sutra? Preference for Anglo-Zionist puppet show?

Collin Rugg @CollinRugg NEW: During a one-on-one meeting, Speaker Johnson asked President Biden why he paused LNG exports to Europe, says Biden was completely unaware he had done so. The United States hasn't had a president for four years. Johnson says Biden was completely unaware of an executive order he signed. The comments from Johnson came during an interview with @bariweiss. Johnson said after fighting for 9 weeks with Biden's staff, he was finally able to get a meeting with the president. When he arrived, Johnson says he was "ambushed" by Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. Biden, who apparently didn't know what was going on, asked the others to leave so he could meet privately with Johnson. "It occurred to me he was not lying to me. He genuinely did not know what he had signed. I walked outta that meeting with fear and loathing because I thought, 'We are in serious trouble.'" Video: @TheFP 7:06 AM · Jan 18, 2025

But the bigger issue is that Zhou’s lack of mental capacity was THE BIGGEST non-secret in DC. Everyone knew it—perhaps not quite as close up and personal as this anecdote illustrates, but everyone knew it. Well, we all knew it, too. Tens of millions of Americans would have voted for four more years of it, if they’d been given the chance—another thought to induce “fear and loathing”. Still, the people who had taken oaths of office to uphold the constitution somehow decided not to tell the rest of us? Was it total irresponsibility, or were they afraid to say anything—afraid for their lives?

[eahostudiogallery]

Yard Sale

.

Cy Twombly

::

Isa Genzken - Untitled, 1987

::

Daniele Papuli & Michele De Lucchi

::

José Zanine Caldas

::

folk art checkerboard

::

Jenny Holzer

::

Domenico Gnoli

::

jozefvanwissem album cover

::

Barry Johnson - Untitled - #175

::

Magdalena Frauenberg

::

Zhou Wendou - transparent and opaque 2017

::

Elizabeth Wyn Wood

::

Gian Maria Tosatti - L’Estate

::

Alicja Kwade

::

Jacques Monneraud ceramic

::

keybord for dislexics

::

Lucy Mackenzie - Modern Art

::

Nam June Paik - iconoclastic TV Bed

::

Rachel Whiteread - Threshold II

::

Vija Celmins - House #2

::

[yourreddancer]

Heather Cox Richardson

January 13, 2025

Jan 14

The incoming Trump administration is working to put its agenda into place.

Although experts on the National Security Council usually carry over from one administration to the next, Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller of the Associated Press today reported that incoming officials for the Trump administration are interviewing career senior officials on the National Security Council about their political contributions, how they voted in 2024, and whether they are loyal to Trump. Most of them are on loan from the State Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Central Intelligence Agency and, understanding that they are about to be fired, have packed up their desks to head back to their home agencies.

(NOTE: THIS IS A VIOLATION OF THE HATCH ACT - THOSE GRILLED BY TRUMP'S TEAM SHOULD FILE A CLASS ACTION SUIT AGAINST THEM!!)

The National Security Council is the main forum for the president to hash out decisions in national security and foreign policy, and the people on it are picked for their expertise. But Trump’s expected pick to become his national security advisor—his primary advisor on all national security issues—Representative Mike Waltz (R-FL) told right-wing Breitbart News that he wants to staff the NSC with people who are “100 percent aligned with the president’s agenda.”

Ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA) warned that the loyalty purge “threatens our national security and our ability to respond quickly and effectively to the ongoing and very real global threats in a dangerous world.”

But during Trump’s first term, it was Alexander Vindman, who was detailed to the NSC, and his twin Eugene Vindman, who was serving the NSC as an ethics lawyer, who reported concerns about Trump’s July 2019 call to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to their superiors. This launched the investigation that became Trump’s first impeachment, and Trump appears anxious to make sure future NSC members will be fiercely loyal to him.

With extraordinarily slim majorities in the House and Senate, Republicans are talking about pushing through their entire agenda through Congress as a single bill in the process known as budget reconciliation. Budget reconciliation, which deals with matters related to spending, revenue, and the debt limit, is one of the few things that cannot be filibustered, meaning that Republicans could get a reconciliation bill through the Senate with just 50 votes. If they can hold their conference together, they could get the package through despite Democratic opposition.

House speaker Mike Johnson and Republican leaders have said that the House intends to pass a reconciliation bill that covers border security, defense spending, the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, spending cuts to social welfare programs, energy deregulation, and an increase in the national debt limit.

But Li Zhou of Vox points out that it’s not quite as simple as it sounds to get everything at once, because budget reconciliation measures are not supposed to include anything that doesn’t relate to the budget, and the Senate parliamentarian will advise stripping those things out. In addition, the budget cuts Republicans are circulating include cuts to popular programs like Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act (more commonly known as Obamacare), the Inflation Reduction Act’s investment in combating climate change, and the supplemental nutrition programs formerly known as food stamps.

Still, a lot can be done under budget reconciliation. Democrats under Biden passed the 2021 American Rescue Plan and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act under reconciliation, and Republicans under Trump passed the 2017 Trump tax cuts the same way.

A wrinkle in those plans is the Republicans’ hope to raise the national debt limit. As soon as they take control of Congress and the White House, Republicans will have to deal immediately with the treasury running up against the debt limit, a holdover from World War I that sets a limit on how much the country can borrow. 

Although he has complained bitterly about spending under Biden, Trump has demanded that Congress either raise or abandon the debt ceiling because the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the tax cuts he wants to extend will add $4.6 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years, and cost estimates for his deportation plans range from $88 billion to $315 billion a year.

Republicans are backing away from adding a debt increase to the budget reconciliation package out of concern that members of the far-right Freedom Caucus will kill the entire bill if they do. Those members want no part of raising the national debt and have demanded $2 trillion in budget cuts before they will consider it. Tonight, Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SD) told Jordain Carney of Politico that Senate Republicans expect the debt limit to be stripped out of the budget reconciliation measure.

So Republicans are currently exploring the idea of leveraging aid to California for the deadly fires in order to get Democrats to sign on to raising the debt ceiling. Meredith Lee Hill of Politico reported that Trump met with a group of influential House Republicans over dinner Sunday night at Mar-a-Lago to discuss tying aid for the wildfires to raising the debt ceiling. Today, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) confirmed to reporter Hill that this plan is under discussion.

Indeed, Republicans have been in the media suggesting that disaster aid to Democratic states should be tied to their adopting Republican policies. The Los Angeles fires have now claimed at least 24 lives. More than 15,000 firefighters are working to extinguish the wildfires, which have been driven by Santa Ana winds of up to 98 miles (158 km) an hour over ground scorched by high temperatures and low rainfall since last May, conditions caused by climate change.

On the Fox News Channel today, Representative Zach Nunn (R-IA) said: "We will certainly help those thousands of homes and families who have been devastated, but we also expect you to change bad behavior. We should look at the same for these blue states who have run away with a broken tax policy.... Those governors need to change their tune now.” Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) blamed Democrats for the fires and said of federal disaster relief: “I certainly wouldn't vote for anything unless we see a dramatic change in how they're gonna be handling these things in the future.”

Aside from the morality of demanding concessions for disaster aid after President Joe Biden responded with full and unconditional support for regions hit by Hurricane Helene (although Tennessee governor Bill Lee is still lying that Biden delayed aid to his state, when in fact he delayed in asking for it, as required by law), there is a financial problem with this argument. As economist Paul Krugman noted today in his Krugman Wonks Out, California “is literally subsidizing the rest of the United States, red states in particular, through the federal budget.”

In 2022, the most recent year for which information is available, California paid $83 billion more to the federal government than it got back. Washington state also subsidized the rest of the country, as did most of the Northeast. That money flowed to Republican-dominated states, which contributed far less to the federal government than they received in return.

Krugman noted that “if West Virginia were a country, it would in effect be receiving foreign aid equal to more than 20 percent of its G[ross] D[omestic] P[roduct].” Krugman refers to the federal government as “an insurance company with an army,” and he notes that there is “nothing either the city or the state could have done to prevent” the wildfires. “If the United States of America doesn’t take care of its own citizens, wherever they live and whatever their politics, we should drop “United” from our name,” he writes. “As it happens, however, California—a major driver of U.S. prosperity and power—definitely has earned the right to receive help during a crisis.”

Today, Biden announced student loan forgiveness for another 150,000 borrowers, bringing the total number of people relieved of student debt to more than 5 million borrowers, who have received $183.6 billion in relief. This has been achieved through making sure existing debt relief programs were followed, as they had not been in the past.

Establishment Republicans continue to fight MAGA Republicans, and MAGA fights among itself: former Trump ally Steve Bannon yesterday called Trump’s sidekick Elon Musk “truly evil” and vowed to “take this guy down.” But even as their enablers in the legacy media are normalizing Republican behavior, a reality-based media is stepping up to counter the disinformation.

Aside from the many independent outlets that have held MAGA Republicans to account, MSNBC today announced that progressive journalist Rachel Maddow will return to hosting a nightly one-hour show for the first 100 days of the Trump presidency.

And today journalist Jennifer Rubin joined her colleagues who have abandoned the Washington Post as it swung toward Trump. She resigned from the Washington Post with the announcement that she and former White House ethics lawyer Norm Eisen have started a new media outlet called The Contrarian. Joining them is a gold-star list of journalists and commentators who have stood against the rise of Trump and the MAGA Republicans, many of whom have left publications as those outlets moved rightward.

“Corporate and billionaire owners of major media outlets have betrayed their audiences’ loyalty and sabotaged journalism’s sacred mission—defending, protecting and advancing democracy,” Rubin wrote in her resignation announcement. In contrast, the new publication “will be a central hub for unvarnished, unbowed, and uncompromising reported opinion and analysis that exists in opposition to the authoritarian threat.”

“The urgency of the task before us cannot be overstated,” The Contrarian’s mission statement read. “We have already entered the era of oligarchy—rule by a narrow clique of powerful men (almost exclusively men). We have little doubt that billionaires will dominate the Trump regime, shape policy, engage in massive self-dealing, and seek to quash dissent and competition in government and the private sector. As believers in free markets subject to reasonable regulation and economic opportunity for all, we recognize this is a threat not only to our democracy but to our dynamic, vibrant economy that remains the envy of the world.”

In what appears to be a rebuke to media outlets that are cozying up to Trump, The Contrarian’s credo is “Not Owned by Anybody.”

[blackramhall]

Death and Other Details | Chapter Eight: VANISHING Created by Heidi Cole McAdams and Mike Weiss

Foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes. WS, Ha Avatar pic by Mitchell Turek

[ginevrastilinski-ocs]

💜 + Catarine Johnson

My tiny lesbian! Okay, no logistic (since technically her story is setted during ToA), just vibes vibes vibes!

Cassie Rose

Other than my love for Meg Donnelly, they just would fit so well together! They give me vibes, like, the most powerful yet sweetest "demigod" on Earth met this murderous blondie and just went "I would kill and die for you"

Leda Zhou

They just give me so much Powerful Lesbian Couple Energy. Also Pink Vibes x Violet Vibes, which I love tbh.

Eurydice Truett

She's just my baby. That's it.

[botanyone]

Fungal Friends Help Young Trees Thrive in Mixed Forests

Fungal Friends Help Young Trees Thrive in Mixed Forests https://ift.tt/EbNQutH For generations, foresters have observed a curious phenomenon: certain trees grow better when planted alongside different species. Now, research from Zhou and colleagues has revealed the hidden mechanics behind this “nursing effect”. They studied how different combinations of trees affected the growth of Sitka spruce, Britain’s most important timber tree. They found that pines help foster beneficial soil fungi that can aid the young spruce trees. The effect was large. Sitka spruce seedlings grew up to 60% more when planted in soil previously inhabited by Scots pine. The increased growth was correlated with a doubling in root colonisation by beneficial ectomycorrhizal fungi – from roughly 20% in spruce-only soil to over 40% in pine-conditioned soil. These fungi helped the saplings by helping them access nutrients, particularly by transforming phosphorus into forms the young trees. The researchers devised a two-part experiment at Cannock Chase Forest in the UK to peek into the hidden life of forest soils. First, they carefully tended different tree combinations – spruce growing alone, pine growing alone, birch alone, or all three mingling together – for 34 weeks. Next, Zhou and colleagues planted spruce seedlings in these “conditioned” soils. They then watched the saplings grow for 24 weeks, measuring everything from root patterns to fungal connections. The results won’t surprise foresters. It’s been known for a long while that diverse woodlands often flourish where single-species plantations struggle. The value of this research is that it explains why. There’s more to a forest than a lot of trees. They’re communities where species interact with each other in many different ways. With a theoretical basis for how these species help each other, there’s now a basis to work out how mixes of species can help each other. Zhou, Y., Tao, T., Cox, F., & Johnson, D. (2024). Plant–soil feedback drives the ‘nursing effect’ on Sitka spruce. Journal of Applied Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14848 (FREE) Cross-posted to Bluesky & Mastodon. Cover: Canva. The post Fungal Friends Help Young Trees Thrive in Mixed Forests appeared first on Botany One. via Botany One https://botany.one/ January 20, 2025 at 09:00AM

[leohtttbriar]

Letters from an American, January 13, 2025, Heather Cox Richardson

With extraordinarily slim majorities in the House and Senate, Republicans are talking about pushing through their entire agenda through Congress as a single bill in the process known as budget reconciliation. Budget reconciliation, which deals with matters related to spending, revenue, and the debt limit, is one of the few things that cannot be filibustered, meaning that Republicans could get a reconciliation bill through the Senate with just 50 votes. If they can hold their conference together, they could get the package through despite Democratic opposition.

House speaker Mike Johnson and Republican leaders have said that the House intends to pass a reconciliation bill that covers border security, defense spending, the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, spending cuts to social welfare programs, energy deregulation, and an increase in the national debt limit.

But Li Zhou of Vox points out that it’s not quite as simple as it sounds to get everything at once, because budget reconciliation measures are not supposed to include anything that doesn’t relate to the budget, and the Senate parliamentarian will advise stripping those things out. In addition, the budget cuts Republicans are circulating include cuts to popular programs like Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act (more commonly known as Obamacare), the Inflation Reduction Act’s investment in combating climate change, and the supplemental nutrition programs formerly known as food stamps.

Still, a lot can be done under budget reconciliation. Democrats under Biden passed the 2021 American Rescue Plan and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act under reconciliation, and Republicans under Trump passed the 2017 Trump tax cuts the same way.

A wrinkle in those plans is the Republicans’ hope to raise the national debt limit. As soon as they take control of Congress and the White House, Republicans will have to deal immediately with the treasury running up against the debt limit, a holdover from World War I that sets a limit on how much the country can borrow. Although he has complained bitterly about spending under Biden, Trump has demanded that Congress either raise or abandon the debt ceiling because the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the tax cuts he wants to extend will add $4.6 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years, and cost estimates for his deportation plans range from $88 billion to $315 billion a year.

Republicans are backing away from adding a debt increase to the budget reconciliation package out of concern that members of the far-right Freedom Caucus will kill the entire bill if they do. Those members want no part of raising the national debt and have demanded $2 trillion in budget cuts before they will consider it. Tonight, Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SD) told Jordain Carney of Politico that Senate Republicans expect the debt limit to be stripped out of the budget reconciliation measure.

So Republicans are currently exploring the idea of leveraging aid to California for the deadly fires in order to get Democrats to sign on to raising the debt ceiling. Meredith Lee Hill of Politico reported that Trump met with a group of influential House Republicans over dinner Sunday night at Mar-a-Lago to discuss tying aid for the wildfires to raising the debt ceiling. Today, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) confirmed to reporter Hill that this plan is under discussion.

Indeed, Republicans have been in the media suggesting that disaster aid to Democratic states should be tied to their adopting Republican policies. The Los Angeles fires have now claimed at least 24 lives. More than 15,000 firefighters are working to extinguish the wildfires, which have been driven by Santa Ana winds of up to 98 miles (158 km) an hour over ground scorched by high temperatures and low rainfall since last May, conditions caused by climate change.

On the Fox News Channel today, Representative Zach Nunn (R-IA) said: "We will certainly help those thousands of homes and families who have been devastated, but we also expect you to change bad behavior. We should look at the same for these blue states who have run away with a broken tax policy.... Those governors need to change their tune now.” Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) blamed Democrats for the fires and said of federal disaster relief: “I certainly wouldn't vote for anything unless we see a dramatic change in how they're gonna be handling these things in the future.”

Aside from the morality of demanding concessions for disaster aid after President Joe Biden responded with full and unconditional support for regions hit by Hurricane Helene (although Tennessee governor Bill Lee is still lying that Biden delayed aid to his state, when in fact he delayed in asking for it, as required by law), there is a financial problem with this argument.

As economist Paul Krugman noted today in his Krugman Wonks Out, California “is literally subsidizing the rest of the United States, red states in particular, through the federal budget.”

In 2022, the most recent year for which information is available, California paid $83 billion more to the federal government than it got back. Washington state also subsidized the rest of the country, as did most of the Northeast. That money flowed to Republican-dominated states, which contributed far less to the federal government than they received in return.

Krugman noted that “if West Virginia were a country, it would in effect be receiving foreign aid equal to more than 20 percent of its G[ross] D[omestic] P[roduct].” Krugman refers to the federal government as “an insurance company with an army,” and he notes that there is “nothing either the city or the state could have done to prevent” the wildfires. “If the United States of America doesn’t take care of its own citizens, wherever they live and whatever their politics, we should drop “United” from our name,” he writes. “As it happens, however, California—a major driver of U.S. prosperity and power—definitely has earned the right to receive help during a crisis.”