#Like I hate to break it to you but most of America is super conservative even the liberals

[ellipsiseffervescent]

anyone who is gloating that this is what the dems get for not being more left needs a reality check. i think u should ask urself what good that really does, or if u are celebrating a petty victory that comes at the cost of far more lives than if Harris had won. bc it was never really about saving lives, was it? not about protecting the rights of marginalized ppl, but proving ur unshakable moral purity.

and of course, this is a far more nuanced conversation when discussing Arab Americans, especially those w family in Palestine. However, I feel like I've seen this sentiment rampant in other communities, especially white online leftist spaces, and tbh, it's hard not to see these accounts as engaging in white savior behavior - at the cost of all marginalized groups that hung in the balance during this election. The idea that more deaths and taking more rights away is an acceptable outcome to prove one's moral righteousness, or even to gloat over, is fucking inhumane. Go touch grass outside those online leftist spaces ffs.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Paygo, false consciousness and the IRS

John Steinbeck diagnosed an important American pathology in 1966 when he called the US a nation of “temporarily embarrassed capitalists” — people who see themselves as the wealthy-in-waiting and therefore fight policies that reduce the power that comes from wealth.

It’s a restatement of Engels’ idea of “false consciousness,” and it’s the result of a deliberate strategy on the part of wealthy people — many of whom believe that they were literally genetically destined to be wealthy — to convince the rest of us that “anyone can succeed.”

Part of the false consciousness program is the money story that goes like this: the US government takes away “taxpayers’ money” from “makers” to fund “programs,” the bulk of which go to the “lazy takers,” who experience the “moral hazard” of subsidized unemployment.

But of course, that’s not how money works. Money originates with the federal government (and its fiscal agents, the banks). In order for the public to have money to pay off its tax liabilities, the government must first spend that money into existence.

The IRS doesn’t take our tax dollars, pile them up, and give them to Congress to spend on programs. When the IRS taxes our money, they annihilate it, removing it from circulation. When Congress spends, new money comes into existence.

The US government can’t run out of money any more than Apple can run out of Itunes gift cards. It can spend too much money — so much that prices go up because too many dollars are chasing too few goods — but it can’t run out of money.

Fed spending is constrained by resources (what’s for sale in dollars) not money (how many dollars there are). If the ratio of dollars to resources gets out of whack, there’s a risk of inflation.

There are many ways to fix this ratio. For example, the government usually issues T-bills (savings bonds) whenever it spends more than it taxes. When you buy a T-bill, you take dollars that might circulate around the economy, chasing goods and labor, and you sequester them.

A T-bill is just a dollar you’re not allowed to spend. In exchange for surrendering the right to spend your dollars for 1, 5, 10 or more years, the government offers you interest, trickling out that money over a long period.

That way the government can buy things today without bidding against your dollars.

But that’s not the only way to fight inflation while spending new money into existence. The other major way is taxation: simply removing money from the economy and annihilating it.

Taxation fights inflation. When the government runs a deficit, that means that it created more money this year via spending than it destroyed via taxes. The “government deficit” is the “public surplus” — the money left in the economy for all of us to spend on stuff.

Likewise, when the government runs a “surplus” that means it taxes more money out of existence than it spends into existence. In a year where the government runs a surplus, it means that the power of the private sector — you and me — to buy stuff has decreased overall.

This is fine if there was too much money to begin with — if inflation was kicking off — but if there’s not enough money in circulation (e.g. if there’s a recession), it just makes things worse…but not for everyone.

When the economy is starved of money, banks go to work creating new money through loans. These loans pay interest (to rich people like bank shareholders and people who securitize and buy debt).

That’s the one-two punch of spending cuts during a downturn:

I. The real economy is starved of the capital it needs to pay workers and make things for workers to buy;

II. The financial economy grows as desperate real-economy firms borrow from banks to keep the lights on.

Despite all their talk of “spending taxpayers’ money,” the wealthy understand how money works. That’s why they were totally indifferent to the running $1t/year deficits created by the Trump tax-cuts (and likewise about the Obama finance bailouts).

Giving money to rich people causes asset-bubbles (driving up the prices of houses), but not inflation (a sustained rise in the price of all goods). That’s because rich people can’t buy enough stuff (fridges, cars, oranges) to drive up prices.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/08/howard-dino/#payfors

After you’ve bought three houses and three SubZero fridges and filled them with the beef of three Kobe cows and three cases of Moet, there’s still a LOT left over (even if you’re Jeff Bezos and buy a superyacht with its own, smaller superyacht).

Those leftovers go to socially useless things, like buying houses to turn into rent-generating slums (Wall Street is fast becoming America’s biggest landlord, and single family homes are sold for cash to investment funds instead of families).

And they go to influence campaigns designed to make regular people defend massive cuts to the IRS and opposition to public spending on infrastructure, education, health, and other necessities.

This isn’t just about Republicans. For years, the Democratic leadership has supported “balanced budgets” (spending so little that no new money is left in the economy after all taxes are paid).

The “paygo” rule (which requires all new spending to be matched with cuts or tax-hikes) is religion for the likes of Pelosi and Schumer. That’s why the Democratic caucus is mired in stupid arguments about “how we will pay for the stimulus.”

As bad as the paygo rule is, though, Republicans have made it worse, by demonizing and starving the IRS. Paygo means that the US government operates under the artificial constraint of only spending if it can make cuts or raise taxes.

Raises taxes is really unpopular, for obvious reasons.

Now, raising taxes on the 1% — who have a lot of excess money that’s fueling political corruption and asset bubbles — is one way around this.

Theoretically, taxing the 1% should have a 99% approval rating.

But canny Republicans have figured out how exorcise temporarily embarrassed capitalists about the “unfairness” of taxing their bosses, in part by just flat-out lying about who new taxes would implicate.

But there’s yet another way to satisfy paygo’s artificial constraint, without changing the a single word in the tax-code: simply fund the IRS so that it can collect the trillions that the ultra-wealthy illegally avoid in tax-payments every year.

But this strategy is also a bust. The GOP campaign to destroy the IRS has been too successful.

It’s a longrunning campaign, but it achieved liftoff in 2013 when the Tea Party baselessly accused the IRS of discriminating against conservative groups seeking nonprofit status.

The work-the-ref strategy paid off, providing political cover for deep cuts to the IRS and putting IRS staffers on notice so they green lit every dark money group that applied for nonprofit status, no matter how obviously corrupt they were.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/fallout-from-allegations-of-tea-party-targeting-hamper-irs-oversight-of-nonprofits/2017/12/17/6403c1c0-c59e-11e7-a441-3a768c8586f1_story.html

After the cuts, the IRS grew easier to discredit. Understaffed and under siege, the agency’s behavior grew erratic, then indefensible. There were runaway automated processes that sent out erroneous property-seizure notices that no one could rescind:

https://theintercept.com/2019/01/14/irs-shutdown-federal-government-shut-down-irs-asset-seizures/

Then there was the aftermath of the Equifax breach, where the IRS first told Americans that it didn’t matter because they’d already been doxed by other bad companies:

https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/355862-irs-significant-number-of-equifax-victims-already-had-info-accessed-by

Then came news that the IRS couldn’t cancel Equifax’s no-bid, $7.5m anti-fraud contract because it didn’t have the resources to do its own fraud prevention (Equifax eventually lost the contract because it served malware from its anti-fraud site).

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/equifax-irs-data-breach-malware-discovered/

The rich waged a successful all-out war on the IRS. Take the Global High Wealth unit. For every hour an auditor from GHW worked, they brought in $4500 in taxes the super-rich had dodged. Even by the topsy-turvy logic of “government as a business,” this was good business.

After a concerted harassment and political influence campaign, the GHW abandoned the super-rich and switched to the merely wealthy, bringing in less money and pissing off a lot more people.

The other shoe dropped in 2019, when the IRS admitted it had switched to preferentially auditing poor people because it was too politically and legally fraught to audit rich people, even the most flagrant cheaters.

https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-sorry-but-its-just-easier-and-cheaper-to-audit-the-poor

That was the first year that America’s 400 highest earners paid a lower tax rate than the average American worker:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/06/opinion/income-tax-rate-wealthy.html

The IRS’s transformation into a facilitator of illegal wealth retention by the super-rich and petty harassment of the rest of Americans made them very easy to hate.

To that, add the concerted corporate campaigns to use the IRS to rip off workers.

For example, for 20 years, Intuit lobbied the IRS not to make tax-filing automatic, painless and free, ensuring that Americans would continue to pay billions to send data to the IRS that it already had:

https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free

Reading the IRS’s internal emails from this battle reveals an agency in retreat, where demoralized and ineffectual government employees simply rolled over for one of the greatest ripoffs in American history:

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-tried-to-hide-emails-that-show-tax-industry-influence-over-free-file-program

Intuit wanted to rip us off with taxes. Microsoft, by contrast, just wanted to break the law. Working with KPMG, the convicted monopolist created a “transfer” scheme of breathtaking illegality, using its tax-savings to bankroll its war on the IRS:

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-decided-to-get-tough-against-microsoft-microsoft-got-tougher

Which brings us to today, where Democrats are held hostage to the “payfor” rule and trying to figure out how to mobilize the trillions Biden has pledged for infrastructure, health, and care.

Republicans — pushing the big lie of “taxpayer money” — are dogwhistling hard. Senator John Thune, responding to Biden’s proposal for $80b for the IRS, says any tax enforcement efforts “must strike an appropriate balance between taxpayer responsibilities and taxpayer rights.”

Meanwhile Senator Chuck Grassley takes the nonsensical position that funding the IRS won’t help it do its job (“simply throwing money at a problem doesn’t necessarily yield a solution”).

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/553704-lawmakers-bicker-over-how-to-go-after-tax-cheats

Then there’s Rep Kevin Brady, warning that a fully funded IRS would “unleash tens of thousands of new IRS agents on families, farms and businesses.”

But the Democrats own the paygo rule, not the Republicans, and their leadership have added their own special touch to make funding the IRS impossible.

https://prospect.org/politics/infrastructure-at-a-crossroads-biden-public-investment/

According to the rules Congress gives to the Congressional Budget Office (which calculates the cost of government programs), the CBO isn’t allowed to factor in the projected additional revenue from funding the IRS, only the cost of doing so (!).

Which means that they must factor in the salaries that IRS Global High Wealth auditors will draw — but they are forbidden from counting the $4500/hour they generate when they puncture the tissue-thin financial lies of the super-rich.

The payfor and “taxpayer money” are lies.

It’s a shuck sold to the rubes, not economics. Because it’s a shuck, it doesn’t have to make any sense — and it doesn’t. We shouldn’t run government like a business, but if we must, let’s at least count revenues as well as costs.

Image: Mike Licht/notionscapital.com https://www.flickr.com/photos/notionscapital/48857033957/

CC BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[qqueenofhades]

Everytime I read "Nicolo di Genova" my brain glitches and I read "Nicolo do Genovia" instead so /whispers/ Kaysanova Princess Diaries AU?

...yes. Did someone say Gay Champagne Romcom? Because that is my Brand.

Nicolò is an Italian-American graduate student living in New York City with his widowed Italian mother and working on an engineering degree at NYU. He was thinking about joining the priesthood for a few years and recently dropped out of seminary and is feeling that Millennial Crisis that all of us know about. He has gone on a few Tinder/Grindr dates, but it’s hard enough to meet someone in this city even when you’re not a gay ex-priest engineering student living in his mother’s rent-controlled apartment in Morningside Heights because have you seen the property prices in New York. Plus WHENEVER he brings a nice boy home, HEY PRESTO there’s his mom waiting eagerly up in the front room, “NICOLÒ WHO IS THIS HANDSOME YOUNG MAN, DOES HE HAVE GOOD PARENTS, IS HE A CATHOLIC NICOLÒ” and of course that instantly kills any kind of romantic mood. Nicolò is like “let’s just go over to yours PLEASE.” But he tends not to see his dates again anyway, and it’s equally depressing, and it’s nice that his mom isn’t homophobic or anything, but he’d like to just meet someone without his mother instantly planning the Big Fat Gay Italian Wedding, and yes he knows this is a nice problem to have but STILL

Anyway, then of course the Dead Dad Circus rolls into town, and Nicolò learns that he’s not actually the son of a nice hardworking Italian immigrant, but of His Serene Highness Prince Domenico Grimaldi of Genovia, who wouldn’t you know it, has recently died too young from cancer and left no legitimate heir except the result of his rebellious teen fling with a cocktail waitress in Capri – which would be, you guessed it, Nicolò. While Nicolò is still processing the horrifying mental image of his mother being a cocktail waitress in Capri and having to look up Genovia on a map, the rest of the royal machine is kicking into overdrive. This involves a very awkward meeting in a very fancy Manhattan hotel with Nicolò’s magnificent but rather out-of-touch royal grandmother, Her Serene Highness The Queen Mother Maria Elisabetta Henrietta Julia Victoria Mignonette Grimaldi of Genovia. She’s basically Julie Andrews because obviously. She informs Nicolò of his Solemn Duty to return to Genovia and become Prince Nicolò and eventually be prepared to take the throne and submit to a fascinating life of minor European royal family ribbon-cutting duties. Oh, and getting married and producing more heirs to the throne, on pain of breaking a thousand-year-old bloodline, though she doesn’t say this out loud. Her loyal right-hand man, driver, and general bodyguard/fixer/man about town, Sebastien le Livre aka Booker, gives Nicolò various sympathetic looks but does not interrupt.

Nicolò obviously freaks out and runs off to call up his best friend at NYU, Andy. Andy is some indeterminate degree of years older than him, in some indeterminable stage of her Classics PhD, and sometimes says weird things like how badly the Library of Alexandria had already been defunded by the Roman emperors before it finally burned, like she was there and holds a personal grudge about it. She is a cranky vodka-drinking lesbian who rides a motorcycle, gets them into periodic scrapes, and understands his shit dating life. She deeply empathizes with all his “I’m not going to run away and leave my life in New York to become part of some creakingly antique regressive imperial monarchic system of racist and homophobic oppression, NO SIR!” Fight the power, Nicolò. Fuck those guys.

Of course, however, Julie Andrews Grandmother Maria prevails and Nicolò is forced to take Prince Lessons, which he hates but tries to be a good sport about, because, well, he’s Nicolò and he’s a good person. He is then whisked off on a private plane to Genovia, because they want to see him in situ before they make a final decision on accepting him as their prince. There of course we have the high-life palaces and parks and snooty clueless aristocrats who look at Nicolò like he’s a prize racehorse and have absolutely zero clue, none, nada, about the real world. Just as Nicolò is about to firmly decide that this is a complete crock of shit and he’s going back to NYU, he meets….

Prince Yusuf “call me Joe” al-Kaysani.

Joe is a minor member of one of the Middle Eastern royal families, some fictional tiny Gulf kingdom that is super SUPER oil rich. He has a title and a lot of money but doesn’t have a clearly defined role in the family, other than that he’s been ordered not to embarrass it. Nicky does not know this when they first meet, but obviously it’s not possible to be an out gay prince in a conservative Arabian-peninsula Islamic kingdom, and therefore the fixers have arranged for Joe to be publicly dating a daughter of the Malaysian sultan, Quynh. (We are making her Malaysian in this instance so she can also be Muslim and hence an appropriate match for Joe.) Except Princess Quynh is also hella lesbian and is getting the same thing out of the fake dating with Joe that he is, i.e. throwing people off the scent of their real selves. They spend their time together in private eating popcorn, commiserating about their lives and crazy royal families and the press invading their privacy, watching romcoms, and Judging the Straights. They’re actually best friends and text each other all the time, so at the royal function where Joe runs into the stiff and nervous and clearly overcompensating New Guy who’s evidently the New Prince of Genovia, and oh my god Q he’s the Most stuck up person I’ve EVER MET, Quynh is the first to hear ALL about it. She immediately suspects that Joe doth protest too much.

Meanwhile, Nicky meets Nile Freeman, another young American (from Chicago, obvs) who is working at some important EU institution currently headquartered in Genovia. They also hit it off and Nile tells Nicky about the things she wants to do to help change the world and why she’s here, and he is moved by her kindness and altruism and remembers that that was what he wanted too, and why he joined the priesthood in the first place. He opens up to her about the shock of learning the truth about his now-dead dad and the crazy whirlwind he’s been sucked into and how he doesn’t know what to do, and their friendship is beautiful and we love it.

Meanwhile, of course, Nicky and Joe keep running into each other and getting on each other’s nerves, Nicky is thisclose to calling up Booker and ordering him to deport Joe because why is he always here (Booker, of course, will eventually become a secret ally in helping them see each other, but that is not quite yet). There is some Shenanigan where they end up both getting into trouble, Grandmother Julie Andrews is not amused, and finally they are forced to sit next to each other for a whole state dinner and Be Polite, because Genovia is trying to forge better relations with Joe’s kingdom. (Genovia is tiny, ancient, and broke, Joe’s kingdom has obviously a ton of money, there are old historical ties between them, some Genovians traveled to the kingdom in the past, Genovia’s trying to improve its human rights record and take in more refugees, etc. Nile is also helping with this last). So Nicky and Joe get ordered to fake a highly convincing bromance and pretend they’ve been best buddies all along (think Red White and Royal Blue) and that means they have to actually learn about each other and spend time together and ugh, he’s a spoiled rich playboy brat, and ugh, he’s a clueless American who thinks he’s better than us, and…

Oh no.

Yes, of course they fall in love, they deny it as hard as they can, Nile and Quynh and Booker are all increasingly exasperated by their attempts to pretend they’re not, and finally they kiss and make love and admit their feelings and that they want to be together. Then of course they get outed by some scheming evil cabinet minister (Merrick) who doesn’t want Nicky to become king and disapproves of him dating (gasp) a MUSLIM WHO IS ALSO A MAN, and there’s a huge scandal and a ton of drama and the usual Romcom Breakup Angst as they decide whether they can still see each other. Andy flies out to Genovia to comfort Nicky, Booker has a Word With The Queen, and Joe hides in his room until Quynh (along with Nile, who she’s met and hit it off with) appears to tell him that he has to be brave, she’ll help.

Anyway, etc etc., Drama, “I love him no matter what, if you don’t accept him you don’t accept me and your STUPID BLOODLINE CAN CHOKE” speeches from Nicky, Julie Andrews sees the light, they decide that Nicky and Joe can keep seeing each other, and it’s all rather sweet. There’s a lot of public relations to be managed and whether Joe’s family is going to disown him and what this will mean for the whole international relations thing, but… one thing at a time.

Nicky agrees to become Prince of Genovia as long as he can be with Joe, Joe decides that hey, he likes Nile too and there’s plenty of meaningful work to be had here and the three of them can join forces to do good things and he’s going to stay, and the Genovian public obviously comes around and loves them. Nobody can find Princess Quynh. It’s rumored she ran off to America with a cranky vodka-drinking PhD student of indeterminate age and was last seen on the back of a motorcycle heading west.

Everyone lives happily and gayly ever after.

The End.

[rotationalsymmetry]

At the risk of losing all my (probably pretty limited) anarchist cred, I just gotta go off about what the American ideals are.

(There’s a certain amount of “America is the best” that goes around among Americans (especially conservatives) and I don’t really want to come across like that? An analogy: at some point we got this idea that apple pie is this really classically super American thing but it’s not like other places don’t have apple pie; when I say freedom and equality are American values I don’t mean that other places don’t have those values or for that matter that America is especially good at embodying values of equality and freedom. Just that they are values that we nominally aspire to and that they are good values to aspire to. Anyways.)

(Individual) freedom. Rights. Liberties. To say what you want, believe what you want, hang out with who you want to hang out with, and tell the government off when it’s messing up without being punished (at least by the government) for it. And the US is pretty hard core on free speech: there’s not a lot that the government is allowed to censor, including for instance Nazi stuff. Whether that’s the right call there is an open question. (And…in practice people do get in trouble for specifically their political views, it’s just the government has to break its own rules to do that and it doesn’t really have popular buy-in. For instance, when San Francisco Food Not Bombs was facing mass arrests, the police were pretty open about it being because FNB is an anarchist group, but it did make them look bad and they eventually stopped doing it. (Legally it was “not having a permit”, but uh, that wasn’t the actual reason.)

One place the US both fails to live up to that ideal, specifically on the “believe what you want” front, is that Christmas is a national holiday and US Christians and social Christians (people who aren’t Christian but do celebrate secularized versions of Christian holidays and aren’t strongly tied to a tradition with different holidays and practices) tend to be massively in denial about how that privileges Christianity over other religions. For instance, Jewish people tend to have to specifically ask for Yom Kippur off from work or school and aren’t necessarily able to travel to spend Passover with family. Whereas, apart from people who have jobs that have to be done all the time like nurses, Christians generally don’t have a problem with getting Christmas off, not even having to ask, just automatically. Sure, we don’t have an official religion, technically, but in practice there are things the government (not to mention society as a whole) does to make it easier for Christians than non-Christians.

Still, that’s better than where we started. In the decades around American independence, many states switched from having an official Protestant religion that got government funding, while other denominations had to scramble for funding from congregants who were supporting a religion they didn’t belong to with their taxes, to not having that.

Legal protections against unfair convictions and cruel punishments. Now, if you’ve been following along you know the US has a criminal justice system problem. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I strongly recommend reading The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. Also great as an audiobook.) So, we’re not putting this one into practice well, because racism. But in theory, trial by a jury of one’s peers is a good thing, due process is a good thing, not having to testify against yourself is a good thing, legally not being allowed to torture people is a good thing (again, theory vs practice), and innocent until proven guilty if you have to have a punitive justice system is better than not having an “innocent until proven guilty” approach. All this is super corrupted and we fail to live up to this ideal hard and there should be more about giving people a fresh start after they’ve served their time. But, it’s still good stuff, we just need to live it out better.

Speaking of racism, we value equality. In theory. And some things have gotten better over time. Certainly rules about who can vote have gotten a lot more inclusive.

Maybe if we keep believing that we should treat everyone equally hard enough one day we’ll actually get there. Maybe we get there one piece at a time. One teacher who calls on girls as often as boys, one real estate agent who treats the same sex couples the same as the opposite sex couples, one college admissions person who doesn’t mark down the essays that talk about participation in race based school clubs. Maybe it’s always going to be a process.

(Representative) democracy. It’s possible to overplay this, but yeah, it’s a value we got. That decisions should ultimately be in the hands of people collectively. That legislators etc should be accountable to the people.

Federalism: so, there’s a hierarchy where the national government can overrule state and local decisions. But, this is important, it’s a limited hierarchy in that the people higher up the hierarchy don’t pick and can’t replace people farther down the hierarchy. The state governor gets elected by the people. The city mayor gets elected by the people. So do the legislative branches at all levels. If the President of the US hates the guts of the governor of California, too bad, he’s just gotta deal with it. People higher up in government don’t appoint people at a lower level of government.

Plus, see “freedom” above, there’s limitations on what the national government can actually do. (These limitations are somewhat weakened because the national government can regulate interstate trade and that covers a lot these days, but there’s still lines it’s not allowed to cross.)

Similarly the “checks and balances” concept — the President has a lot of power but he’s not a dictator, and he can’t just do anything. Most things require Congress’s approval. And the Supreme Court can rule on what’s constitutional, this is how we got nation-wide legal same sex marriage and nation-wide abortion protection. Far from a perfect system and one of the big holes is how only Congress can declare war so we just haven’t “declared war” since WWII. So clearly the US hasn’t been in a war since then. Anyways.

Anyways this is why I’m not actually that thrilled about the “but Biden can just executive order everything” approach. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. If you don’t want the President to have dictatorial power, you have to accept limitations on the President’s power even when he’s Team Blue. And the more power the president has, the more wild swings we see on things like immigration policy which is not actually a good thing.

We initially had a “no political parties” concept. That worked out abysmally. Probably if we’d actually allowed for political parties we’d have rules about them that actually made sense and might limit the amount of fuckery that goes on.

Now some ideals that I’m less happy about. These are things I don’t endorse or approve of, but I’m mentioning them because they are common American values. Meritocracy: the idea that sure there’s wealth and power inequality but that’s ok as long as the people with more earned it. Fuck that.

(Well, in theory it’s got some advantages over “powerful people pass that power on to their kids no matter how incompetent,” except in practice meritocracy is often a cover for just that.) (Anyways, in theory we like people to succeed based on merit, which is better than a belief system that some types of people are naturally superior to and more capable than other types of people. So there’s worse ideals. There’s better ones too.)

Capitalism.

Hard work. Grind culture baby. Work all the time. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps

Puritan bullshit. You don’t need contraception. Just keep your legs closed. If we don’t teach kids about sex they won’t have sex. Also, don’t do drugs. Also, religious people are better than atheists. (Also, specifically Christians are better than everyone else. Real Christians. Not like those (other denomination).)

Melting pot/assimilation: sometime multiculturalism gets into the value stew and I’m all for respecting multiple cultures and recognizing that America is made up of people from a wide variety of different backgrounds, not just people from England/northern and western Europe/Europe. And that we do in fact get our values from a wide variety of cultures (including Native American cultures) and not just Greco-Roman Whatever. (Like seriously: US democracy is as much a child of the Iroquois Confederacy as Athens.) Other times the value is “you’re here now, forget where you’re from and blend in.” And part of that is about not judging people by where they’re from and that’s good! But it shouldn’t be tied to “ew, you’re having that for lunch?”

Manifest Destiny. Yeah. Fuck that.

I’m probably leaving stuff out. Whatever. I’m tired. I’m just going to post. If I want to clean it up later I can make a new post.

[astralastrid]

USUK/UKUS survey by @americapersonified

Tagged by @hariible so here we go!

In what decade did they officially become involved?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

The fics have ruined me. So I'd probably say during or after WWII. Plus that's when the "Special Relationship" was coined.

Who tops? (USUK or UKUS?)

*Looks at the UKUS server I made* idk you tell me

Honestly though Arthur probably has more relationship experience, so he's more confident and willing to take the lead. Alfred is actually secretly shy and modest about this stuff! (I mean, I do think we Americans are more conservative and modest when it comes to romance?) Plus like, Alfred finally feels like he can trust someone and let them take care of him, that he's loved when the whole world mocks him... Whoops got a little angsty there

Was either of them a virgin before their first hookup?

It's time for me to unveil my demi!America headcanon that's just me projecting aw yeah

Alfred is. He actually thought he was ace before he met Arthur because he was never interested in that kind of stuff, preferring to cuddle instead. But once he met Arthur he trusted that he'd take care of him and stuff and wanted to try it.

If not, to whom did each lose his virginity?

Alfred to Arthur.

Arthur to? Idk Francis probably? I do see FrUk as like, a past thing. Along with SpUk and PortEng. So one of them probably.

(Read more bc LONG post)

Are they more patient with each other in private, or do they bicker/tease each other all the time?

Haha projection time 2.0

Bro, like, a good relationship should have teasing anyway (unless your partner isn't ok with it!) so definitely. But Alfred actually gets self-conscious about the things that Arthur teases him about so he has to stop and tell him how much he loves him and stuff. But in general they're more patient because they've come to understand each other and love the other's quirks.

Will they ever get married?

Yeah but after a while. Alfred wants to do it right away but Arthur rejects him, saying that the don't need rings to prove that they love each other. He promises he will eventually. I like to think after gay marriage legalized in the States they celebrated by getting married.

If so, where will the wedding be held? (Add other details if you wish.)

Hopeless romantic Ame time!

Can you have more than one ceremony? No? Oh well. Summer wedding in America, Fall Wedding in England. I don't know much about wedding planning but I read a headcanon that was like "their vows were so beautiful it made everyone cry" and I support that. Both of them cry during the other's too. Lots of tears shed on both sides during everything. Lots of white and silver and gold because yeah. None of this stupid "one of them wears a dress" business. Like, it's ok for a relationship to be masc/masc and fem/fem like don't heteronormalize it. So two tuxes. Probably no "walking down the aisle?" Maybe they both come in from the sides idk. A cheer when they kiss. "Can't Help Falling in Love" by Elvis is their first dance. Arthur probably sings "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" after their first dance. Wedding cupcakes is galaxy brain so wedding cupcakes. Multiple flavors.

At whose house do they most often stay together?

Alfred's. It's larger anyway.

Do they refer to each other by their nation names or human names?

Human names. Nation only for business.

What pet names do they have for each other?

Arthur: Love, (The most common one) Darling, Dearest, Dear, Poppet (2nd most common) Alfie (extremely rare, or when drunk. Alfred adores when he calls him this though.)

Alfred: Babe, Baby, Artie, Art, Honey, Sweetie, Sweetiepie, Sweetheart, Sweetcheeks.

Who drives?

Both, Alfred loves to drive! But Arthur gets nervous because Alfred can drive like a New Yorker, (that is, aggressively, quickly, a bit dangerously, lots of honking from him and others) especially when he's in a rush or late, and god help everyone when he has road rage.

So Arthur judges the mood and insits if he knows Alfred is probably gonna drive like that.

Is Alfred good at making Arthur’s tea?

Dude of course. It's never quite perfect of course, but you don't date someone for decades without learning how to make their lifeline. In this vein Arthur also knows how to make Alfred's coffee. (And since this isn't a question, Alfred likes it blacker than black in the mornings, and all sugared and creamered up after work and in the evenings.)

It’s universally accepted that Arthur sucks at cooking. Does Alfred enjoy cooking? Is he good at it? Or does he usually stick to McDonald’s and fast food?

Ok yeah but I headcanon Arthur can bake, like really well. Ok yeah I know about his scones but maybe he's just bad at making those specifically.

Alfred loves to cook. He loves to grill even more. But he likes to experiment and try new stuff and he's damn good at it (because cooking is just another science!) So his meals are like comfort food. Almost restaurant quality. Boy could be a chef. But he also loves his fast food and instants. (Kraft's Mac and Cheese is so good.) And yeah he loves Mickey D's but have y'all ever been to like, Noodles and Company or Sonic? Like, there are some GOOD fast food joints and I'm sure he loves them all. Arthur probably doesn't like burger joints but does like places like Panera.

Do they shower together? (Often; not specifically for sex.)

Sometimes? Idk man it's hard as shit to wash your back so yeah? Also the tenderness of giving your lover a bath? I'm🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

Who smells better? (In your opinion.)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

People just smell like, people, and to the other they each smell like home.

How vocal are they in bed?

Alfred’s so LOUD lmao. But Arthur loves it. If he was more of a memelord he'd record and make a remix of his sounds.

Who has the more active libido?

Definitely Arthur.

Is spending time together easy, or are they forced apart for long periods at a time?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't know how politics work? Do important government officials have to be there in person for meetings?

Let's have two senarios here:

Let's say they do, and they have to be apart for periods of time. Both the boys have separation anxiety and HATE being apart, so there's always the fear and the paronia and concern when they are apart, and they have almost daily video chats. It's really hard on both of them. They text and call often too. They miss the other dearly. When they reunite they kiss and cuddle like they need it to survive. They're much more affectionate with each other and spend every moment they can together to "recharge" before the "hyper-affectioness" goes down. Leaving is super difficult. Lots of tears and hugs, promises to be back asap, longful stares and apologies. Cursing their job and such. Desire to quit or face the consequences and just stay. (Which is completely blocked by the other.)

Let's say somehow they work something out and they can spend long amounts of time together with minimal travel. Sometimes they get into fights or just get on each other's nerves or just need some alone time. Alfred will go run or excercise while Arthur goes to a café until they're ready to make up/miss and want to see the other. Business trips help keep tensions low, but they're still painful.

Are they wealthy? Or do they live modestly?

I’d say like average people. Arthur probably likes it a bit more tasteful and stylish though, so little hints of wealth. Also, Arthur basically has a library for his book collection that acts as his study and Alfred has his own study and a gaming room. They have the prettiest garden you ever did see though. And a really nice patio. With a nice backyard and grill.

For Alfred specifically: Glasses on or glasses off?

On! Except in the bedroom.

How often do they break up?

Rarely if at all. They probably did once and missed the other so badly that they promised never to do it again, and always talk it out. Sure they get into fights and one of them will storm off, but they both understand that that usually means the other needs to cool down before they can talk.

Open relationship?

No.

Did Arthur actually care for Alfred before the American Revolution?

I really want to say yes, because of how it was portrayed, but honestly? I don't think the U.S. was any different from England's other colonies. He'd occasionally check up on all of them, but he was super surprised at how fast America grew.

Of course once the war happens he's riddled with regret. Maybe if he treated him better this wouldn't have happened. War with a colony for their independence is ugly anyway. Even after the war, I don't think England was as heartbroken as it was portrayed. I think he was depressed about it for a while, but eventually got over it. It still took him, like any colonizer, a while to see him as an equal though, which infuriated America. However they are both completely over it and don't talk much about it anymore. It's all in the past for them.

@milopottz (I know we don't interact but 👀)

Tag people if you want, so

Also @alifeasvivid and @anyone who wants to

[lycanthrology]

endgame sucks

a few years late but im angry so lets go

disclaimer: ive only managed to sit through eg once in the cinema and most of points have been said before by people who can say them better than me. i could probably elaborate on these points and explain much more clearly but whatever

It cant decide on its tone. One minute eg is a serious drama, then the characters are doing stupid jokes and slapstick comedy. It completely breaks the immersion and I hate it a lot

The colouring is really ugly to look at. Especially that end fight. It’s hard to see what’s happening as most things in shot are shades of browns, dark reds/purples, black that merge into each other

Unnamed Gay Russo Brother

I hate the white suits. They’re really ugly and strip the characters of their individuality considering individuality is one of the selling points of the avengers to get you to invest in all their separate stories but whatever whatever

Most scenes are just completely filled with little nods and references to past events with no substance. Again, makes it very disjointed and if I was going to watch without seeing other mcu films to see what the hype was about, I would be completely lost.

They killed off all the women lmao

I hate Professor Hulk more than anything. a) he looked hideous and cgi was a mistake b) it didnt really explain it to the audience? Bruce’s whole arc was about controlling the Hulk and we’ve watched him deal with that for all of the films then suddenly its sorted off camera?? shut up c) his dab means the movie is gonna age like milk

Fat, depressed, alcoholic Thor treated like a joke. I was really excited to see a strong character a lot of ppl find sexy in this position because I thought we’d get an arc about being strong whilst being depressed like it can coexist. Or that superheroes can be fat and still save the day. Etc. But no ppl think hes sexy but now hes fat so its funny hahah

Why did Tony go on that rant then collapse? i cant even remember what he said but i do remember being bored in the cinema so idk fuck tony <3

Actually yeah most of the way through I remember feeling really bored

every single ‘good’ ending is literally if youre white and straight with kids you’re happy like shut up. steve gets peggy and he’s happy. tony gets pepper and the little rat idk her name and dies but hes happy coz he had the family. Clint and Scott are happy because they have wives and families. It’s so tiring

RED SKULL OKOK RED SKULL IS THE CAPTAIN AMERICA VILLAIN OK AND STEVE NEVER EVEN SEES HIM!!! HES ONLY THERE FOR THE AUDIENCE TO GO ‘OOOOO RED SKULL!!’ NAT AND CLINT HAVE NO IDEA WHO THAT FUCK IS

Loki disappearing set up a loki spin-off so blatantly it was irritating

I’m very happy about Sam as Captain America, I adore his comics and honestly cant wait. But the films set up Bucky as Cap with the amount of times he picked up the shield and used it in the other movies. If they had planted more Sam using the shield moments in past films, it could’ve set up the transition better.

Captain Marvel was in 2 scenes?? im not that much of a fan but considering how much they hyped her up and got all the men angry about it. its a bit cringe

TALKING OF CRINGE I AM IRON MAN AKSGKAGAKAGAKFAJAG

Again, the hype around Wakanda and then they dust T’Challa?? I cant remember if Shuri, Okoye or any of the Dora Milaje are in endgame but if I can’t remember them theyre probably in it for one scene total

Rhodey was the only black person that wasnt dusted?? I’m pretty sure he’s the only poc in a main-ish role but that could be wrong

Still no bi valkyrie

It’s almost as if disney does the bare minimum to try to draw in different audiences but still panders to the conservative viewers so they don’t alienate them hm

THE MUSIC SUCKS

I’m super into movie scores and this one was bad ok it was just the avengers theme played again and again at different tempos

Anyway it was really funny when tony died 10/10

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Do all younger Democrats have an Uncle Joe that they hate or something? Because there’s a good chance that Democrats under the age of 45 will prove crucial in preventing former Vice President Joe Biden from winning — or even getting close to winning — the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Younger Democrats, particularly younger white Democrats, are emphatically rejecting his candidacy. That cohort is a big reason why Biden has struggled in the first three states and fallen from front-runner status.

In fact, age might be the most important fault line in the 2020 Democratic primary.

Of course, Biden’s weakness among younger Democrats is in part the result of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s strength with that group. But Sanders’s appeal doesn’t totally explain Biden’s struggles. In Iowa, for example, Biden received just 4 percent of the under-45 vote, according to entrance polls. That trailed Sanders (41 percent), but it also lagged behind former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg (21 percent), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (16 percent) and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang (10 percent). Biden also finished in the single digits among voters under 45 — and behind Buttigieg, Sanders and Warren — in New Hampshire and Nevada. A recent poll of Democrats in California, a Super Tuesday state, found Biden at 9 percent among voters under 45. He’s not faring better in other Super Tuesday states, as recent polls have him at 4 percent in Colorado, 11 percent in Texas and 11 percent in Virginia with this group.

Biden has a real problem with young voters

Candidate vote shares from entrance polls in Iowa and Nevada and from exit polls in New Hampshire, by age

Voters under 45 Over 45 Iowa N.H. Nev. Iowa n.h. Nev. Biden 4% 5% 8% 25% 10% 23% Buttigieg 21 22 13 24 25 16 Klobuchar 5 8 4 19 27 13 Sanders 41 42 56 8 18 21 Warren 16 10 13 17 9 13

Sample size was 1,636 in Iowa, 2,774 in Nevada and 2,932 in New Hampshire

Source: Edison Research

If you start breaking down that under-45 group, there is some variation in how well Biden does, but not a ton. His numbers are especially bad among the youngest cohort of voters, 17 or 18- to 29-year-olds,1 but he generally does only slightly better in the 30-to-44 bracket. And we don’t have a lot of data breaking down the views of voters under 45 by race, but national polling and a recent survey in South Carolina suggests Biden is at least in double digits among black Democrats under 45. So the results in Iowa and New Hampshire and in other surveys make me think that Biden is particularly weak with younger white Democrats.

Not surprisingly, Biden’s weakness among these voters has a huge effect on his overall viability. In the first three states, exit and entrance polls suggest between one-third and 45 percent of Democratic primary voters were under 45. In other words, this is a big group.

And it’s not like this weakness for the Biden campaign came out of nowhere. HuffPost did an extensive story on Biden’s struggles with young voters in December. At the time it was written, though, the primaries had not actually started, so Biden’s lack of appeal among younger voters was just theoretical. And back then, it looked as if Biden and Sanders’s support simply mirrored one another: Sanders seemed as weak with older voters as Biden was with younger ones. But so far in the actual voting, these problems have not been equivalent: Biden beat Sanders by 2 percentage points among voters over 45 in Nevada, according to entrance polls, while Sanders beat Biden by 48 points among voters under 45.

The natural question is … why? Why is Biden struggling so much to win the support of younger people — not only trailing Sanders, but Buttigieg and Warren too? Here are the four most obvious explanations:

1. Younger Democrats are more liberal and anti-institutional

In some ways, 2020 is just a repeat of 2016: The party establishment and older Democrats embraced more center-left figures — Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Michael Bloomberg, Buttigieg and Biden in 2020 — while younger voters got behind the more liberal Sanders. Clinton lost to Sanders among younger voters by around 50 points in New Hampshire in 2016 — an even larger margin than Biden’s deficit this year.

Indeed, the Democratic Party appears to be in the midst of a generational fight that started in 2016 and is continuing now. For example, the left-leaning but gray-haired commentators on MSNBC have been deeply frustrated by the rise of Sanders. Conversely, it’s hard to find much Biden support on Twitter, which tends to be used by younger people and more liberal Democrats. Buttigieg and Warren, while not as liberal or as anti-establishment as Sanders, are also to the left of Biden, which in part explains why the ex-vice president isn’t the clear second-favorite of younger Democrats either.

The big difference between 2016 and 2020 is that Clinton was dominant among voters over 45 in many states, so she could overcome being the establishment candidate who young people weren’t excited about. In contrast, Biden has not consolidated that older bloc.

2. The electability argument doesn’t land

Polling suggests that the majority of Democrats this year are prioritizing a candidate who can defeat President Trump (a mantel Biden has claimed) over a candidate who they agree with on major issues. But that varies by age — older Democrats are more likely to say they prioritize “electability,” while those under 45 are much more split on this question.

This data may be a bit circular — perhaps the younger voters who support Warren or Sanders tell pollsters that they don’t prioritize electability because that is not a big part of either senator’s message, and maybe older people who are inclined to support Biden and Buttigieg point to electability because it’s been core to both candidates’ messages. But I think it’s also possible that many voters who are more liberal and interested in seeing systemic change genuinely don’t find Biden’s electability message that compelling. In this sense, I wonder if Biden’s struggles with young voters were almost inevitable — presenting himself as the party’s best hope for the general election may have required Biden to keep the Democrats’ younger, more liberal cohort somewhat unsatisfied during the primary.

3. Biden isn’t wooing younger voters well

In 2019, the former vice president and his team seemed to deeply internalize the conventional wisdom among many establishment and center-left figures: that “Twitter is not real life” and that Democrats should not be too “woke.” Biden has seemed very frustrated at times with young liberal activists who have confronted him at rallies and argued that he was too conservative on some issues. He was fairly dismissive of criticisms of his handling of the Clarence Thomas hearings and his touching of women in ways that some of them considered inappropriate. He suggested the views of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez didn’t represent those of many other Democrats. His campaign aides downplayed the power of “Pod Save America” and did little to court the “black left.”

This all looked fairly savvy (or at least somewhat harmless) … until voting started. And you wonder now whether the Biden campaign could have at least competed for young voters by taking a different approach.

4. Younger Democrats don’t want to repeat the Obama presidency

This overlaps a bit with No. 1, but it’s worth mentioning because carrying on Barack Obama’s legacy has been such a central part of Biden’s message. (The former president is immensely popular among Democrats.) But a HuffPost/YouGov survey conducted in April 2019 found that 42 percent of Democrats ages 18-29 want the next Democratic nominee to be more liberal than Obama, while only about a quarter of Democrats 30 and over had that view. So Biden’s strategy of positioning himself as Obama’s heir, while probably not costing him voters, may not help him court younger Democrats.

It’s still possible that Biden wins the nomination without carrying young Democrats. If older voters really mobilize behind him, he could defeat Sanders the way Clinton did in 2016. Perhaps more voters, old and young, will come to the vice president as the field narrows.

But it’s hard to see Biden securing the nomination without improving his appeal among voters under 45. If I were Biden, I might lean into strategies to excite younger people. At this point, I think it’s unlikely that younger elected officials in the Democratic Party are going to endorse Biden in meaningful numbers. But there’s nothing stopping Biden from effectively endorsing them. He could, for example, strongly imply that he would tap Stacey Abrams for vice president if he wins the nomination. (At 46, Abrams is not that young herself, but her campaign events during the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race were, I noticed throughout the course of my reporting, often packed with young Democrats.) Or perhaps Biden could shift his message a bit.

[nativemossy]

Cap-IM Rec Week 2019 - Wednesday

Rec Week- Angsty Wednesday @cap-ironman 

Don’t forget to leave kudos and comments for your hardworking authors! they deserve the credit for the hard work they put into entertaining us with their fabulous works of art!

disclaimer: i genuinely struggle with the difference between angst and h/c, so the way i’m differentiating those lists is (mostly) by what the author tagged. 

the stillness of forgetting - by nasa

“Who are you?” Tony asks every morning when he wakes up and finds Steve lying next to him.

“I’m your husband,” Steve always replies.

-

aka Tony has Alzheimer's.

why rec?: ouchie, this one makes me cry a lot, so I don’t read it often. memory loss fics really get to me, so if thats something youre interested in this has it in stock! its so heartrendingly sweet and i just love it a lot

Orbital Mechanics - by Sabrecmc

Freshly out of the ice, Captain Steve Rogers definitely does not want to Bond with anyone. Until he does.

(Steve's POV for Celestial Navigation)

why rec?: tbh i’d recommend anything of Sabres (and multiple times at that - hence why i posted abt this on monday as well), but Celestial Navigation and by extension Orbital Mechanics both have permanent places on my instant classics list. just a lovely fic all around.

Something Death Can Touch - by thatdammeddame

Tony nearly dies in the field on a Saturday.

Steve breaks up with Tony the Wednesday after he's released from hospital.

why rec?: sad!! with happy ending!! its got a nice round conclusion, everyone comes full circle and is better for it.

Like A Comet Streaming On - by Sineala

Tony escapes Afghanistan with a functioning Iron Man suit and a perfectly normal heart. He even manages to bring Ho Yinsen home safely at his side. But he may as well have lost everything... because his wolfbrother is dead. Six months later, the Avengers find Captain America, frozen in ice, miraculously alive. Everything and everyone Steve has ever known is gone -- except his wolfsister, the recipient of the lupine version of the super-soldier serum, who was frozen in his arms. Tony has everything but his wolf. Steve has only his wolf. This is how their lives fit together.

why rec?: another fic that lives in my phone and travels with me - this is an instant classic for sure. i feel like i’ve recced this before no but i will be reccing it’s “fanfic of a fanfic” in tomorrows post, so I have talked about it. I love the psychic wolf premise, I hope to maybe do something in the future with it, though I could never dream of coming close to this amazing fic. If i’ve read this once i’ve read it dozens of times and loved it more each time. 

Wait & Sea - by Lenalena 

In which Tony and Steve get sent on an undercover mission aboard a cruise ship to make contact with Hydra. In this AU the military has kept the discovery and defrosting of Captain America a secret, so Steve and Tony have never met before. Yet they are to pose as newlyweds....

why rec?: tagged as angst and humor and if memory serves that’s exactly right. perfect blend of the humor of the identity porn trope with the angst of constant misunderstandings. 

Born From The Earth - by venusm

Tony Stark's born an omega in a world where that means he's supposed to follow certain social rules. He becomes Iron Man anyway: Fuck biology.

If only his biology (and the world) would quit fucking him back.

why rec?: i debated real heavy about including this because it’s technically steve/tony/omc, but hear me out: A great part of this fic focuses on the developing relationship between Tony and Steve, as well as Tony’s relationship with himself and the world around him. This is, hands down, my favorite fic of all time. as far as writing in general goes it’s right up there with my favorite authors. if i could only read one fic for the rest of my life this would undoubtedly be it - unfinished or no. i cannot even begin to impress upon you how much I love this fic. I can only aspire to write like this. the author makes you angry when they want you to be angry, sad when they want that too. It’s a beautifully orchestrated rollercoaster of emotion and I fall a little more in love every time I read it (which is frighteningly often).

Never Too Late for Love - by Sineala

Steve has always believed that a soulbond is a blessing -- a rare and beautiful miracle, joining the thoughts and feelings of two people forever, from the first time they touch. Steve knows he's not going to be one of the lucky ones. He knows Gail isn't his soulmate. But he loves her, even if they're not soulmates, and he's going to do right by her. After the war's over, he's going to marry her, and they're going to settle down. They'll buy a house. They'll have children. He'll see his family again. Maybe Bucky will live next door. It's going to be a good life. He doesn't need a soulbond. He'll be fine without one.

Then Steve wakes up sixty years in the future to find that his wonderful life has moved on without him. His family is long dead. His fiancée married his best friend. And the only purpose he has left is leading the Ultimates, a misbegotten team of superheroes with flaws too numerous to count. Steve hates everything about the future -- but most of all he detests Tony, flashy and flirtatious, who embodies everything Steve hates about a world he never wanted to live in.

And, oh, yeah, Steve has a soulmate after all: Tony fucking Stark.

why rec?: so much relationship angst. so. much. angst. Steve has to get his ass in gear and his brain into the 21st century, and Tony probably needs to go easy on the poor guy. its also ultsfic, which I’m usually not a giant fan of bc of the assholery but the dynamic works for me here

Senseless - by Scavenge4Dreams

Blinded, deafened, exhausted, injured and afraid, Tony raised himself up into a defensive position, the knife coming up just like Nat had taught him.

“That had better fucking be you, Steve Rogers- it had better be you. Fucking disarm me. If you let me kill you, I swear I will be very, very pissed.” Tony snarled, sure it was Steve approaching. Had to be. Had. To. Be.

What if it wasn’t?

why rec?: it’s been a while since i’ve read this, but I remember this being a good one that involves a rescue, injury recovery, and some eventual upon a brief reread I can say that this fic also has established relationship going for it! it’s tagged angst but it’s definitely got it’s fluffy parts and a really fun ending

Thrust Issues - by Sineala

A battle gone wrong leads Tony to the unexpected and pleasant discovery that Steve is much more well-endowed than he could ever have imagined. But when Tony learns that Steve has never actually been able to sleep with anyone because of his size, Tony does what any good friend would do: he offers to relieve Steve of his virginity. Personally. Tony's determined, Tony's methodical, and Tony has a plan. He's going to get Steve laid. Tony just needs to make sure Steve never finds out that Tony's in love with him.

why rec?: look at this point i think we can all agree that i might be a little bit of a fan of sineala’s. just wanted to throw that one out there to start us out. 

so my rec has little to do with the oodles of pining angst (of which there is plenty) and much more to do with there being a specific line in this fic that boils down to “friends fist friends right?” and I think of it at least biweekly. the rest of the fic is beautifully written and the characterization is to die for, plus its got a lovely happy ending!

She - by isozyme

Iron Man is strong and muscular and masculine, and Tony Stark wears a three-piece suit and walks with his hips stiff.  No colors other than navy or muted red. No prints bolder than a pinstripe. No luxurious silks and linens. His outfits are tailored to hang crisp and straight, his slacks hemmed to a conservative medium break.  The public won’t know. Nobody will go digging deeper, for classified ads and witnesses who remember him from half a decade ago. Steve will never find out all the ways Tony’s ruined himself.

why rec?: i’m putting this here just in case I don’t make a post for Sunday. This is one of those fics that hurts so good - it’s so well written sometimes it makes my teeth ache because it’s so sad and as the reader you can see all the pieces but a character cant. I love that feeling, its a great feeling. Some of this stuff can hit close to home so heed the warnings and read the tags!

[firesidefantasy]

so last night i realised i had almost hit 500 posts on this account. and then i had the brilliant, genius idea to make a post with 500 facts about monster house for my 500th post.

this was not a genius idea in any way shape or form.

i am not a genius.

but i did it anyway, so now i present to you:

five-hundred-fucking-facts about monster house

enjoy. 

KENZI

1) Kenzi was abandoned as a baby 2) She was adopted by Monster House 3) She does not know when her birthday is 4) Her best friend growing up was Toby 5) Kenzi thought she was a vampire when she was a kid 6) She went around biting people’s necks for weeks 7) Kenzi loves photography, Instagram, and modelling 8) She has ran four marathons and six 10ks 9) She has been dying her hair since she was 14 10) Kenzi’s favourite chocolate brand is Cadbury’s 11) She loves cooking and hosting parties 12) She hates being human and wishes she was a monster too 13) She is almost fluent in French 14) Kenzi has no idea what she wants to be when she’s older 15) She never wants to leave Monster House 16) Kenzi is always chewing gum

HARLOW 17) Harlow dyes her hair black 18) She plays drums because her dad told her it was for boys 19) She plays basketball because her dad told her it was for boys 20) Her mum died three years ago and Harlow has never got over it 21) She lives with her dad, their relationship is recovering 22) Harlow won’t leave the house without a beanie 23) She loves video games like overwatch and call of duty 24) She is absolutely shit at video games 25) Doritos are her favourite snack 26) Harlow has lost count of how many cousins she has 27) If she could be any monster, she’d be a vampire 28) She’s in a college band called ‘4am’ 29) They’ve played three actual gigs so far 30) Harlow wants to be in a famous band 31) Harlow does NOT want to ever get a real job 32) She writes a lot of songs 33) Nobody will ever see these songs 34) She hates the beach 35) The only thing she hates more than the beach is spelling errors 36) She also hates vegetables and weather over 20 degrees C 37) She loves the sound of rain and thunder 38) She hoards TV boxsets and prefers them over Netflix 39) She loves antique stores and charity shops 40) She has an impressive vinyl collection

TOBY 41) Toby is bisexual but prefers guy 42) He’s known he was bisexual since discovering Tom Holland 43) His favourite superhero is Iron Man 44) Spider man is a close second 45) Toby wanted to be a superhero when he was a kid 46) Now he wants to be a super villain (#edgyteen) 47) He’s enrolled in school part time 48) Avoiding sunlight makes school difficult 49) The kids at school joke that he’s a vampire because of this 50) They don’t know why that’s so funny 51) He plays bass guitar but never lets anyone else listen 52) Except Matty. Sometimes he joins in with the ‘drums’ 53) Toby loves going to the skate park at night 54) He once wrote a 500 word essay on why the moon is better than the sun 55) He knows every constellation and loves stargazing 56) He loves sitting on his dad’s balcony and watching the stars 57) Toby doesn’t know who his mum is 58) Metal and rock music is his favourite 59) He chews on his finger to satisfy his desire to bite things 60) Sometimes he’s tempted to see if he could bite his finger off 61) He never has 62) Toby loves tomato ketchup 63) Immortality intimidates him 64) He only wears band tee shirts 65) He starts wearing beanies everywhere after meeting Harlow 66) Toby idolises Harlow 67) His favourite food is pancakes with chocolate sauce 68) Kenzi makes him pancakes to apologise after they fight 69) Toby buys her bars of chocolate to apologise 70) Kenzi and Toby bicker a lot 71) They are also best friends 72) Toby’s favourite period of history is the Roman emperors 73) Caligula was his favourite emperor 74) Toby almost turned Kenzi when they were 14 75) He despises pop music 76) Kenzi and Toby fight over nothing more often than pop music 77) Custard makes him want to throw up

KAI 78) Kai has six older sisters 79) He is one of two guys in the witches coven 80) He speaks French and Italian (almost) fluently 81) He volunteers at the local animal shelter 82) He does not get along with his family 83) Kai tries to fit in but he isn’t very good at it 84) He gets very upset if his hair doesn’t look right 85) He struggles with dysphoria but his parents won’t let him get T 86) Kai loves doing jigsaws and watching reality shows 87) He listens to music to drown out his parents arguments 88) His oldest sister Natalia is his favourite 89) She cut his hair and bought him guys clothes after he came out 90) Natalia plays board games with him and helps with homework 91) Kai loves baking - especially banana bread 92) He hates bananas but could eat banana bread all day 93) Being a witch is hard and he’s really really bad at it 94) Kai once turned a dining room chair into a frog 95) He also turned his mother’s earrings into a donkey 96) They never let him keep the animals 97) Pop music and indie rock are his favourites 98) Kai is scared of the dark 99) Science and maths make no sense to him 100) He plans on leaving the witches coven when he’s 18

PHILLIP 101) Philip is a history professor at Seabrooke University 102) He was born in 1893 under the reign of Queen Victoria 103) He campaigned with the suffragettes - and even broke a window once 104) He is a hardcore liberal and despises the conservative party 105) He attended the 1908 summer Olympics held in London 106) He once had a fling with a maid of George V’s 107) Phillip had entered a competition to be on the titanic 108) He was an engineer during world war 2 109) His nose was broken at a protest for women to be given degrees 110) Phillip has been married three times 111) The first died, the second left him for another man 112) The third was a Vegas marriage about 30 years prior 113) Phillip is straight - but he’s experimented extensively in the past 114) He does the newspaper crossword puzzle every morning 115) He bans TV until after 3pm 116) Phillip moved to Monster House in the 70’s 117) He despises the movie ‘Twilight’ above all else 118) He is the one who decided to adopt Kenzi 119) Phillip is essentially in charge of Monster House 120) He adores barbecues with his family 121) He hates Russia, incorrect grammar, and coffee

MATTY 122) Toby brought a stray dog in one day 123) The next morning, a toddler was asleep in their living room 124) Phillip decided to keep him 125) His hobbies include chewing people’s shoes and phone chargers 126) He has broken exactly seven bones 127) There is no soul clumsier than Matty 128) His face is full of freckles and his cheeks are always red 129) He runs everywhere 130) He wants to be a footballer or an astronaut when he’s older 131) Matty breaks Phillip’s morning TV ban so he can watch cartoons 132) His favourite game is fetch 133) Toby created a machine for him that throws a ball over and over 134) Matty hates it - he likes playing with an actual person 135) His wolf form is small, fluffy and a little too blonde 136) Phillip has been assured that he will get less blonde as he grows up 137) Toby once tried to enter him in a dog competition 138) They won £20 and bought the biggest ice creams they could 139) Matty loves porridge almost as much as he loves shoes and Toby 140) He has an imaginary friend called Boris who he blames for everything

CALLIE 141) Callie is half fae and half human 142) Her full name is Calypso, but everybody calls her Callie 143) She cannot tell lies, but is excellent at talking around the truth 144) She’s introverted and shy - but also amazing at public speaking 145) She wants to be a legal aid barrister 146) Her hair is naturally brown but she dyes it red 147) She plays acoustic guitar in 4am - the same band as Harlow 148) Her roommate is a werewolf but she doesn’t know about it yet 149) She has travelled to France and Italy 150) But she wants to travel the world 151) Her bedroom walls are covered in maps 152) She has an emergency supply of snacks in a room at all times 153) Her biggest dream is to have her own library room once day 154) With a secret bookshelf door, of course 155) Her lava lamp and beanbags are her prized possessions 156) She does not have a good relationship with her parents 157) She struggles with insomnia and rarely sleeps 158) Coffee is her one true love 159) She adores long car rides and she adores driving 160) She works part time at a coffee shop 161) Her car is her other prized possession 162) Callie can devour bags of skittles in an instant 163) She forgets everything in her personal life 164) And remembers everything in her academic life 165) She loves fire and will sit and stare at it for hours 166) Sometimes she goes to the local aquarium to study 167) Change is her worst enemy - everything needs to be consistent 168) She has been a straight A student all her life 169) She goes for a long walk every Saturday afternoon 170) Callie writes songs when she’s feeling bad

MILO 171) Hiding antlers in public is the bane of his existence 172) He is part of a group who want to tell humans about monsters 173) Milo does not particularly like humans 174) He has curly blonde hair that is usually a mess 175) One of his eyes is darker blue than the other 176) He loves blanket forts and fairy lights and hot chocolate 177) He has a part time job delivering pizzas 178) This means he gets a discount on pizzas, which he takes advantage of 179) Percy Jackson is the main reason he’s doing a classics degree 180) He enjoys writing fantasy books in his free time 181) He is reasonably fluent in Ancient Greek and Latin 182) ‘Out of Bounds’ signs are a welcoming invitation to Milo 183) He will explore everything and anything 184) Milo wants to travel to South America the most 185) He has two mums 186) They both adore Callie 187) He goes rock climbing in his free time 188) This is so he can climb trees, fences, and monuments better 189) He claims he’s climbed several mountains 190) Callie does not believe this claim 191) He was not raised in Seabrooke and had few monster friends as a kid 192) Milo is a nymph 193) His father is one of his mother’s best friends - also a nymph 194) His ‘father’ taught him to garden and to bake 195) Milo never called him dad - he was always Uncle Barney 196) He loves growing his own flowers 197) Nymph magic allows him to grow the most beautiful plants and flowers 198) It also allows him to bake exceptional cakes and cookies 199) He adores his younger brother and sister 200) He is double jointed and left handed

KENZI AND HARLOW 201) Making out is their favourite pastime 202) Harlow spends most of her free time at Monster House 203) They enjoy joking about how ‘platonic’ their relationship is 204) Kenzi loves cooking for Harlow 205) They spend a lot of time watching TV shows together 206) Stranger Things and Friends were their last binge-watches 207) Harlow is always invited round for Friday Board Game Night 208) Kenzi constantly steals Harlow’s clothes 209) Harlow loves playing with Kenzi’s hair 210) Harlow loves holding Kenzi’s hand 211) Harlow just loves touching Kenzi as much as possible 212) They both have a years pass to the local petting zoo 213) Kenzi goes to all of Harlow’s band gigs and basketball games 214) She wants to set up a cheer leading squad for the basketball team 215) Harlow just wants to see Kenzi in a cheerleader costume 216) Harlow asked Kenzi to be her girlfriend 217) Kenzi said I love you first 218) They’re planning on getting an apartment together after graduating 219) Also a dog 220) Harlow adores getting Kenzi to play (and fail at) video games 221) Kenzi is a massive flirt - Harlow does not appreciate it 222) Harlow once stabbed Kenzi on the hand whilst cooking together 223) Kenzi and Harlow do not cook together 224) They bicker a lot 225) But Harlow adores Kenzi more than anything else, and vice versa

TOBY AND KAI 226) Toby only got the guts to ask Kai out because his dad made him 227) They are polar opposites in just about every way 228) Toby didn’t know what being transgender meant before meeting Kai 229) Toby calls Kai ‘sunshine’ 230) Kai calls Toby ‘grumpy guts’ for the most part 231) They fall asleep on the phone together a lot 232) They also fall asleep in the same bed a lot 232) Kai’s parents do not like vampires so they don’t know about Toby 233) They met through the Monster House toddler group when they were kids 234) They both went to the Monster House study group as kids/teenagers 234) Nowadays, they ‘study’ in Toby’s room instead 235) Kai drove Toby mad up until very recently 236) It wasn’t exactly love at first site 237) Toby threw up on Kai - the hatred only grew from there 238) Over time, Toby developed a soft spot for Kai 239) Nowadays, Kai still drives him crazy, but in a good sorta way 240) They have every intention of moving in together after school ends 241) Kai has a drawer of clothes at Toby’s place 242) Toby has punched six people in defence of Kai 243) One was an eleven year old. He has no regrets 244) Toby frequently takes Kai stargazing 245) Toby also taught him how to skate 246) Kai speaks French to Toby and he loves it 247) Sometimes Kai takes Toby to volunteer at the animal shelter with him 248) Their biggest fights are over pop music and science 249) They plan on getting a turtle when they move in together 250) Kai loves sitting on Toby’s lap 251) He also loves stealing his sweaters 252) He also loves fixing his hair 253) He frequently picks flowers for Toby and spends hours arranging them 254) Kai also loves falling asleep on Toby 255) Toby kisses Kai’s cheek a lot 256) Toby adores Kai, but he rarely admits to it 257) He took Kai to a Troye Sivan concert in February 2019 258) Kai sends Toby selfies a lot throughout the day 259) Toby saves every single one to his phone - but won’t admit to it 260) Toby’s dad r e a l l y wants him to marry Kai

CALLIE AND MILO 261) They met when they were both searching an abandoned church 262) They thought the other was a ghost 263) For the longest time, Callie was ‘ghost girl’ in Milo’s phone 264) Their first date was in Starbucks 265) But they tell people it was back in that abandoned church 266) They are both too terrified to ever go back to that church 267) They have plants to travel the world together 268) Callie’s phone background is Milo and his messy bed head 269) Milo’s background is Callie in one of his sweaters 270) Callie hoards Milo’s sweaters 271) Milo practically lives at Callie’s apartment so he doesn’t mind 272) Callie only really sleeps when she’s with Milo 273) Milo likes playing with her hair while she reads out loud 274) The sound of her voice calms his anxiety 275) Callie frequently plays guitar and sings for Milo 276) He considers himself her number one fan 277) Callie likes listening to him ramble about history and classics 278) She often falls asleep while he talks - he never seems to notice 279) Callie drives Milo everywhere 280) Milo always makes the best road trip playlists and snacks 281) Milo’s mum’s adore Callie 282) They go for family dinner every other Sunday 283) They are going to Greece together over the summer holidays 284) Their opinions on monster politics differ wildly 285) Callie enjoys teaching Milo how to play guitar 286) Milo grows his own flowers to give Callie 287) He also enjoys cooking for her 288) Sometimes he brings her breakfast in bed 289) He usually gets a blowjob in exchange for this 290) They make a game out of fucking in as many places as they can 291) This has included: the grocery store, a church, the forest 292) Milo’s parents frequently bring up marriage 293) They’re both quite content with how things are 294) One day, they’d both like a small wedding in Europe somewhere 295) Zoos, petting farms, and aquariums are their favourite dates 296) Milo is basically Callie’s pillow 297) Callie writes songs for Milo 298) Her parents do not approve of her dating a Nymph 299) Callie’s roommates adore Milo and love that he basically lives there 300) They fight about how much wardrobe space Milo takes up frequently

BACKGROUND CHARACTERS 301) Callie’s roommate is a werewolf 302) She doesn’t know that Callie isn’t human and vice versa 303) Werewolf roommate (Arya)’s family is originally from India 304) Arya loves escape rooms 305) Callie loves petting Arya in wolf form 306) Milo is the only one who questions why there’s a wolf in the kitchen 307) But Milo still feeds Arya-in-wolf-form blueberry muffins 308) Bruce the Minotaur has lived in Monster House forever 309) Nobody really knows where or when Bruce came from 310) He has a very distinctive Greek accent 311) Bruce makes the best waffles 312) And he knits a damn good scarf and woolly socks 313) Which is incidentally what everybody gets for their birthday 314) Sheryl the Siren is like a crazy aunt to the kids in Monster House 315) She auditioned for X Factor once - she didn’t get in 316) Her vocal inspirations are beyonce and mariah carey 317) Sheryl is married to Mary-Anne the Mermaid 318) Mary-Anne lives in the coves behind Monster House 319) Sheryl loves singing for Mary-Anne 320) Maybe it’s the water-clogged ears, but Mary-Anne enjoys the singing 321) They had a beautiful beach wedding twelve years ago 322) Kenzi was a flower girl, Toby was a page boy 323) There is a ghost living in the attic of Monster House 324) It never seems to come out 325) Bruce sits outside the attic door each night to keep it company 326) Sometimes it likes to play drums with pots and pans 327) Nobody really has a name - it’s just ‘the ghost in the attic’ 328) They leave cookies for it at Christmas - they always get eaten 329) Sometimes Matty gets there first 330) Grace the Gorgon is an interior designer 331) She wears a veil-like head cover to hide the snake hair 332) Most humans just assume the head cover/snake hair is a new trend 333) Grace constantly redecorates Monster House 334) The house usually puts everything back overnight 335) Monster House does not like change 336) Grace is a wanted felon for the murder of a man named Perseus 337) Humans seem to be destined to forever walk past Monster House 338) Thus, Grace has never been caught 339) It is rumoured that she was once called Penelope 340) Nobody quite knows what Perseus did to warrant murder 341) Nobody quite trusts Grace with a knife, either

SEABROOKE 342) Seabrooke is a small, sleepy seaside town in southern England 343) It is the suburban hot spot for Monster life 344) Seabrooke has a population of 4,500 345) Around 250 of these are monsters 346) For some reason, Seabrooke has it’s own university 347) Nobody really knows why - it’s possible Phillip had a role in this 348) Seabrooke has two primary schools, a secondary, and a sixth form 349) It gets a lot of tourists during the summer 350) Everybody hates the tourists - especially Monsters

WITCHES COVEN 351) When Bruce the Minotaur gets sick - he can’t be taken to the doctors 352) The Witches Coven is the main place Monsters go when they’re sick 353) Witches are difficult creatures and the Coven are no different 354) If you get on their bad side, they’ll refuse you service 355) The Witches Coven therefore practically run the town 356) There are three families that make up the Coven 357) Admittance is only to witches with the blood of prestigious families 358) Kai is part of the Witches Coven 359) Kai’s family practically runs the Witches Coven 360) There is a lot of tension between the Witches and Phillip 361) Largely because they both have a lot of influence over Seabrooke 362) Regardless, Phillip still genuinely likes Kai 363) The Witches tend to be high maintenance and spoilt 364) The parents are like the worst white suburban soccer mums ever 365) Regardless, they are excellent at healing magic 366) But also excellent at ruining your life 367) They have definitely killed a few monsters - but it cannot be proved

LOCAL NEWSPAPER 368) The Daily Seabrooke is ran by shapeshifters 369) Nobody remembers when the TDS was started 370) Philip adores it for the crosswords 371) Apparently the crosswords are ‘out of this world’ 372) TDS is ran by a group of crazy looking students 373) Of course, they’re shapeshifters, so they’re probably all 1000+ 374) The shapeshifters behind TDS don’t mingle with other monsters 375) At least not as themselves 376) They report on human politics and news as well 377) Only monsters are sold the copies with monster news included 378) Half of TDS is gossip about the people in Seabrooke 379) Nobody is really safe from their snooping 380) Their methods include being a literal fly on the wall 381) Most breakups, Witches Coven drama, and Vamp/Wolf fights are put in 382) TDS is extremely controversial amongst Monsters in Seabrooke 383) Kenzi thinks it’s fucking hilarious

SEABROOKE UNIVERSITY 384) The University is crawling with monster life 385) Several professors are monsters 386) Most notably are Phillip and Steven 387) Phillip teaches Modern History 388) Steven teaches Medieval History 389) Phillip is a Vampire, Steven is a Werewolf 390) They have a competition for who gets History Professor Of The Year 391) This competition frequently gets out of hand 392) Everybody knows about their rivalry, few knows why 393) Nobody knows how long the two have worked there - most say forever 394) That wouldn’t be far from the truth 395) Steven happens to be Arya (Callie’s Roommate)’s father

MONSTER HOUSE 396) Monster House is practically alive 397) It constantly expands and shrinks 398) There are always exactly as many rooms as are necessary 399) Only the first floor can be seen by passersby 400) And they often walk straight past it 401) Ordering pizza is a nightmare 402) It’s like the human brain cannot comprehend where it is 403) Even though it’s in an incredibly obvious location 404) When they do see it, they see only a normal house 405) The construction of the house makes no sense 406) There are rooms hanging over nothing and stairs leading to nowhere 407) Sometimes bedrooms move and finding them is a nightmare 408) The living room and kitchen like to switch places 409) On Monday’s the kitchen is green and nobody knows why 410) It is black and white the rest of the time 411) It is almost impossible to paint or decorate Monster House 412) It prefers to do that itself 413) Somehow the bedrooms always look exactly how they are wanted 414) At least they save on paint - that shit is expensive 415) Unfortunately, Monster House doesn’t clean itself 416) Toby has registered several complaints about this

LULU 417) Lulu’s full name is Lucifer 418) It has been living in the basement since the beginning 419) It has only been seen by four people 420) Phillip and Kenzi are two of those 421) They call it Lulu because Kenzi couldn’t pronounce Lucifer as a kid 422) The nickname kinda stuck 423) Lulu gets fed raw fish every morning 424) They just dump a bucket full down the hatch in the kitchen 425) Sometimes Toby threatens to feed Matty to Lulu 426) This causes Matty to have nightmares and sleep in Toby’s bed 427) So that one kinda backfired on Toby 428) Nobody actually knows what kind of creature Lulu is

MISC. FACTS 429) Harlow’s favourite song is ‘Lights Down Low’ by Max 430) Seabrooke is not on any map - nobody knows why 431) I really regret this 432) Never ever try to write 500 facts it will not be fun 433) Callie’s favourite kind of law is criminal law 434) Particularly fatal offences 435) She also likes land law because she’s fucking weird 436) Kai got into reality TV because of his sisters 437) One of the arcades in Seabrooke is monster themed 438) Toby works there on Saturdays - always taking the night shifts 439) Kai really wants to own his own bakery one day 440) He tried to get the local bakery to hire him but he’s too young 441) Kai also wants to live in France or Italy 442) He also wants to be on reality shows and get a fake tan 443) (Okay. Toby is pretty sure he was joking about that) 444) Kai always has to wish on a lucky star 445) Milo wants to be a published author one day 446) Kai has tried to run away from home twice 447) His parents put a tracking spell on him and found him too fast 448) Toby wishes he could skate at the park with the other kids 449) But he also secretly likes that everyone finds him mysterious 450) Toby used to have a (massive) crush on Kenzi 451) Now they’re both pretty gay 452) Everyone is gay tbh 453) Monsters have no concept of heteronormativity 454) Kenzi’s favourite colour is pink 455) Callie’s favourite animal is an octopus 456) Kai has a picture of him and Toby stuck on his bedroom wall 457) Kai has had a crush on Toby since they were kids 458) Coming out as trans wrecked Kai’s relationship with his parents 459) It is seen as a disgrace for witches to have male sons 460) Men are submissive in witch culture 461) Kai’s parents frequently misname and misgender him 462) The kids at school are much more accepting 463) Kai came out when he was 14 464) Toby has actually been one of his biggest supporters 465) Natalia has been his main supporter as well 466) Toby likes Kai a lot more since he came out 467) Kai feels more real to him now - and irritates him less 468) Toby doesn’t know how long Kai has liked him for 469) Kai is pretty open about being trans 470) Seabrooke is quite accepting, even if his parents aren’t 471) Kenzi is terrified of being rejected by the monster community 472) She really wants Toby to turn her so she can be an actual monster 473) She wears contact lenses so her eyes look purple 474) She doesn’t really like school and puts the bare minimum effort in 475) Harlow is taking four a levels - a difficult thing to do 476) Fuck this was the worst idea 478) Harlow channels her anger out through drumming 479) It’s therapist mandated so her dad cannot stop her 480) Even though he very very much wants to 481) Harlow’s favourite video game is overwatch 482) Her mains are lucio, junk rat, bastion and rein 483) Harlow despises spelling and grammar errors 484) Matty likes stealing Toby’s tee shirts 485) Between Matty & Kai, Toby barely has any clothes left 486) Which is fine as far as Kai’s concerned 487) Matty is like a little brother to Kai 488) Originally, Callie & Arya were part of a polygamous relationship 489) I cut that out, though, because I couldn’t think of a third girl 490) Seabrooke tends to have mild weather 491) During the summer, the heat can spike to 25-30 C max 492) It rarely snows, but it does rain a lot, and there’s a lot of wind 493) Most of the houses in Seabrooke were built 100ish years ago 494) It has a train station - nobody knows why - it’s the last stop 495) There is a Seabrooke museum ran by a vampire and a Fae 496) There is a secret monster section in the back 497) Idle Town by Conan Gray reminds me of Seabrooke 498) As does This Town by Neil Horan (I think that’s the name idk) 499) Fuck you to @livvywrites for not stopping me 500) I am never doing this again

tag list: @livingthelovelylife, @commasinsidequotes, @4kidsopfan, @thatworldinverted, @livvywrites @ravenpuffwriter @the-writer-turned-procrastinor @livingthelovelylife  (ask to be added or removed more likely after this shit)

[tessatechaitea]

Teen Titans Spotlight #11: The Brotherhood of Evil

Judging by the last few issues starring Robotman, Beast Boy, Mento, and the Brotherhood of Evil, this series could have been Doom Patrol Spotlight On:.

Warp might be the most intelligent super villain in the DC Universe!

Actually I'm not quite done not talking about The Brotherhood of Evil! I don't mean to suggest that the people who fled one kind of oppression weren't the best and kindest people in the world! The only reason I said all the awesome people wound up in California is because I'm from California and my family is pretty awesome. Don't worry! I can see all of the erasure in the above statement! It's just sometimes, you're speaking about a thing and you can't get bogged down by small details like Native American genocide or blatant anti-Chinese laws enacted in San Francisco (pretty much the coolest place in the U.S. (at least before the tech boom fucking turned it into a capitalist fascist run by tech start-ups and the angels who finance them)). The main point was that some people become comfortable with a status quo that oppresses others. And instead of fighting it, people flee from it. The people who flee often do so because they have their own status quo they want to enact and it's rarely one that provides opportunity for everybody. At least in the modern view, I tend to think (and hope it's more than hope and fantasy and wishful thinking) that those fleeing small town bigotries into big cities are actually more compassionate toward the entirety of humanity. We still make lots of mistakes but the key point is that we're trying to do better. When people discuss locking up immigrants at the border, you can either fight against the injustice and racism inherent in the entire process or simply shrug your shoulders like a douchebag and try to sound super smart by saying, "Well, they should have thought about that before they came here!" As if everybody in the world has access to media that somehow preempts the two hundred years of American propaganda that we're willing to accept the hungry and the tired and those yearning to breathe free. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 70s and the reality of the world that existed around me at the time was fucking Star Trek: The Next Generation compared to what's going on in 2019. We had station ID breaks on KTVU Channel 2 out of San Francisco that would show a kid running around and playing and introducing the viewer into their world that would end with the kid saying, "I'm proud to be a Chinese American!", or "I'm proud to be a black American!" It's the kind of thing that would get so many people in a huff now and yet it was a simple and effective means to introduce younger viewers to the heterogeneity of their community. And now, in 2019, we have Comicsgate who can't stand to be reminded that people other than white people can be protagonists. It boggles my mind that people can get so upset over shit that won't make a millimeter wave on the cultural yacht they were born on. Fucking grow up, assholes. Not everything is about you. I think I was going to say more things about erasure! I don't mean to make light of it since it's absolutely a strategy used to disenfranchise groups or exclude them from social movements. But it's your go-to argument against everything you read, you're not going to make many friends. Lots of essays or articles or arguments need to be specific and they can't include every situation or group in the specific argument being made. Maybe it's tough to accept laser focused arguments on the Internet when the audience is harder to gauge. I know peanut allergies exist and they're deadly but I still stick the knife I just used for peanut butter in the preserves. Not because I don't give a fuck but because I know the audience using my apricot preserves. But if I were to mention this on the Internet, everybody who knows nothing about the context of my preserves and my audience and my entire existence would jump all over me saying things like, "That's really irresponsible!" and "You're going to kill somebody!" and "Apricot? You fucking monster!" I usually hate analogies but sometimes they're fun. The general problem with analogies is that people don't use them to help clarify arguments; they use them to try to simplify their argument into something nobody can disagree with. But by that time, the relationship between the actual argument and the analogy is tenuous at best! But I think my peanut butter allergy analogy is pretty rock solid! Hey! You know who's diverse?! The Brotherhood of Evil! They have a French gorilla and a British woman and a bald white guy (also French but what can you do? This team was all up in France and shit) and a brain in a jar. Hopefully Brain was African or Chinese or Pakistani. Maybe he was also autistic. He's enough of a cypher to allow any reader to identify with him, I guess. He's definitely gay! Unless he's into bestiality. One of those reasons is why he winds up fucking the French gorilla. Hmm, maybe not making it clear what Brain's intent was was a mistake by DC because doesn't that just amplify anti-gay sentiment by associating it actual deviant behaviors? If DC did make it clear and I'm the one who's obfuscating the matter, I should probably shut up. The Brain and Mallah are definitely gay for each other's human dicks. The fact that Mallah's dick is gorilla and Brain's dick is non-existent shouldn't hamper their love. The Brotherhood of Evil are being set up by some guy named Toulon. There was a lot of narration boxes that explained it but I was too busy thinking, "How is Brain going to suck Mallah's cock?" So all I know is that Toulon managed to fuck up Warp's powers and he teleported the Brotherhood to a strange world.

Hmm, looks like Earth-11 to me!

I know this takes place after Crisis on Infinite Earths and Earth-11 shouldn't exist but it does! Maybe this story takes place before Crisis? Maybe when the story reveals they're on Earth-11, the editor will provide a note, "*This story takes place before Crisis on Infinite Earths! -- Know-it-all Knobby!" Mallah introduces himself to Tin, the leader of the good guys, I guess?, by saying, "We're the Brotherhood!" I suppose I'd shorten the name of my organization when I met new people too if it were called The Brotherhood of Evil. Unless the new guy I was introducing myself to was like Kim Jong-un or Donald Trump or Mark Zuckerberg. I'm so tuned in to world events that I first typed "Mark Zupperberg" and couldn't figure out why it looked wrong.

Welcome to my new preschool, Tiny Tots Fucktown.

You might want to be upset with me for sexualizing young children but I'm not the fucking monster who made that advertisement. Ad Exec #1: "What if we show a guy building the model with a bunch of hot women getting wet over how well he's done it?" Ad Exec #2 Who is in Prison Now: "What if they were little kids?!" Was Earth-11 the one where DC put Tin Tin after they bought the rights? I mean, I don't know if they ever bought the rights but this guy is definitely Tintin, right?

He also rides a big white dog that he has yet to call Snowy but it's only a matter of panels.

Trapped on a world about to be destroyed (in a worse way than Tintin and his cohorts know! Crisis is coming! Or came? No, no! I sometimes forget comic books can tell tales from the past! Although weren't writers supposed to completely ignore the Pre-Crisis universe once Crisis on Infinite Earths completed? Or why even fucking bother?!), The Brotherhood of Evil decide to help Tintin and his rebels take back control from some guy called Minos. But they're only doing it for their own selfish ends. You might remember how their name has "evil" tacked onto the end.

You might have thought "cutting them down like grass" was the correct phrase and "mowing them down like paper mache" is stupid but this is Earth-11, dumb dumb.

Paper mache is how you spelled "papier-mâché" before you had the Internet. There might some other difference in this comic book due to the place in time it was written:

Fuck. Now I'm horny.

The Brotherhood help Tintin and his friends steal a space ark from their enemies so that Tintin and his friends can survive the destruction of Earth-11. Never mind what happens to the people of Earth who weren't offered the opportunity to become one of Tintin's group. In payment for their help, The Brotherhood of Evil are helped back to their own Earth where they can continue to be weird and impotent. The conclusion of the story has something to do with Doctor Mist and the Global Guardians helping make the universe a better place by saving Tintin (somehow! I mean, Crisis, right?! What the fuck?), getting some guy named Toulon killed (he's only "some guy" to me because sometimes these espionage plots are just too convoluted with too many normal characters I don't care about), and getting the Brotherhood of Evil killed. They fail in getting the Brotherhood killed but seem content with their other machinations. Plus, I'm sure Doctor Mist was happy to get a small role in this comic book to pay for his bowel cancer treatments. Teen Titans Spotlight #11: The Brotherhood of Evil Rating: B-. You know I don't put any thought into the grades I give these comic books, right? You know this isn't really a review site and just a way for me to enjoy my time reading comic books while journaling, right? You know my nemesis is still the Weird Science comics blog, right? What a bunch of squares!

[riding-alpacas]

Walking on a volcano

Making it home safe and sound I'm now sitting in mandatory self-quarantine for another 9 days. It took me a while to digest everything but currently I'm just grateful that I made it back and optimistic that we'll all tackle this situation together.

I don't have too much to do and can't go anywhere, so I'll just keep writing. There are a few more things I wanted to write about in this blog before I put down the virtual pen for an unknown period of time. One of these things is my last adventure I experienced before I packed up: A hike to the summit of an active volcano.

The little town of Pucón ended up on my radar for only one reason: You can climb 2,860 metres high Volcán Villarrica which has an active lava lake within its crater. When I arrived in town I immediately realised that I'd hate everything else about this place. It was another extremely touristy location and seemingly the centre for all adventure travellers who haven't done any of the usual shit (skydiving, rafting, canyoning etc.) in their life yet. My hostel was pretty awesome though: It offered private rooms in form of little hobbit houses! Cheesy, I know, but I always wanted to stay in one of those, so I took that opportunity.

A hobbit in Chile

The climb to the volcano can only be done with a guide unless you can prove that you have all the required gear and enough experience to tackle it on your own. They offered tours in the hostel but given that it was shoulder season I was hoping to find a group with only very few people.

During my stint in San Martín I accidentally bumped into Audrey - one of the girls that I spent some time with in Bariloche. We decided to move on together given that she had similar plans for Pucón. We went to a few independent travel agencies in a quest to find one that was affordable, reputable and not too busy. There weren't too many differences between all of them, likely due to the strict regulations that are in place for this kind of activity. Mawida Adventures offered us to do the tour even if it'd just be the two of us, so we chose them and booked us in for the next day.

The next day my alarm went off at 5:30 in the morning and I made my way to the meeting point. Luckily it was just Audrey, myself and our guide Ermin - nobody else signed up the day before. We packed up our bags and one hour later were the first ones at the lift. The real adventure basically started after a chairlift brought us up to 1,700 metres. From there it was a 45 minute walk through some grayish rocks until we got to the start of a glacier that covers the mountain. Crampons on and now it was time to zigzag through the ice. When we started our hike we were wondering why we had to wear helmets but it became pretty obvious now: The wind was constantly pushing little rocks from the top down the glacier. Even though they were the fluffy kind of volcanic rocks, they were pretty fast and sharp so you really don't want one of these falling on your bare head.

We were lucky with the weather

Great views from the start

Zig zag

The glacier wasn't as nice as Perito Moreno. It was covered in fine, black particles and there was no meltwater around. Apparently it goes straight under the ice. We still stopped at some impressive crevices though and had some little breaks in between to admire the view behind us. Towards the end the trail became extremely steep and it was more challenging than I thought.

Don't wanna fall into this one

Quite steep

Close to the summit the ice disappeared and we were walking through a rocky environment again. Audrey and I are both quite fast walkers so we were the first ones who made it to the top that day - and what a rewarding walk it was. The views were absolutely spectacular! But looking into the crater itself was also quite astounding. Rust-coloured rocks to the left, sulfur-coloured rocks to the right. Loud roaring from within the crater, gases  hissing out of it and what are these funnily structured rocks over here? Oh right, it's the ice from the glacier. It was an interesting world up there with lots of strange shapes to discover at every corner. At one point I decided to put on my gas mask as the wind started to push the smell right towards us. We admired the view - which included a feminist flag that a female guide positioned there a couple of days earlier on International Women's Day - and after 15 minutes we had to make our way down again.

No lava today

Did I mention the views?

This was an adventure in itself. When we climbed up we could already see some pre-grooved chutes. We were about to use them right now. Both of us were carrying around a little piece of plastic with us. It was now time to get them out and sled down the glacier! I was looking forward to this but it actually turned out to be a bit shit. Because of us walking up so fast, most of the slides were still very icy. I had a lot of trouble breaking with my ice axe and ended up crashing into some of these fluffy rocks halfway through the slide. I bruised my fingers and lost my ice axe but fortunately was still able to stop. The second part was a bit more slushy, so breaking actually worked but I have to say that I didn't enjoy this activity as much as I thought I would. I much more enjoyed the final section of the descent. It was very sandy and we could basically run down sliding our feet through the super fine ground.

Audrey getting ready to toboggan

Back in Pucón we were greeted with some drinks, grapes and cheese which was a nice touch. It was a good opportunity to catch up with our awesome guide Ermin who told us a lot of nice stories about the mountain, the town and how he ended up doing this kind of work. As a side note: Don't ever do a rafting tour when you're in Pucón. Apparently the guides are extremely underpaid.

For the following days I tried to find something that would bring me away from all the noise in the town. My first try was a little overnight kayak trip on one of the surrounding rivers. I quite enjoyed the kayak thing I did in El Bolson but unfortunately they didn't have enough people to do it.

My second option was to rent a car and drive 2 hours up to Conguillío National Park and do some hikes. I already had an eye on rental cars a few days before I arrived in Pucón. Apparently Hertz had a branch in town and when I checked, they always had cars available. The day I was finally ready to book, they didn't have any anymore. I thought this would be because it was quite short-notice now, so I decided to go to the branch directly and just ask. It turned out that the branch actually doesn't exist. Standing in front of the address I found a... craft shop. When I did a bit more research I noticed that I wasn't alone read some fascinating stories. Some people actually booked a car online, went to the non-existent branch and were later fined by Hertz for not picking up their vehicle. It's a mystery to me how something like this can happen to such a well-known global brand!

I wasn't ready to give up just yet and found another car rental in town. But when I checked out their fleet I only found some very old and small Suzukis - highly doubting they'd make it through 100 kilometres of gravel. That was the point when I gave up on option number two and decided to just head up to Santiago to sit down and think about what I'd do next.

The volcano wasn't the last and only activity I did in Pucón though. On my last day, Audrey and I decided to head to El Cañi, a little conservation area where you could find the infamous monkey puzzle trees that grow in the area. The seeds from these trees are sold everywhere in the streets of Pucón and unfortunately I missed to try them.

We did a little hike that I didn't have any expectations about and it turned out to be quite nice. After a super steep and slippery ascent over an old logging road we found ourselves in a beautiful lush forest, surrounded by a surprising amount of bamboo. Towards the end we also finally saw heaps of monkey puzzle trees and walked a little circuit that led us to seven different lagoons. It felt a bit like an enchanted forest - also because we got lost once, ran into some stinging bush and became very confused by the marks more than once. But we also met two cute puppies at one of the lagoons which made up for everything.

Monkey puzzle trees

More of them

Puppy!

I wasn't super keen on this walk but I'm thankful that Audrey convinced me to do it. It was a great way to escape the hustle and bustle and be out there in the quiet nature for a day.

You all know what happened then after I took the bus to Santiago. On the first day I was still optimistic and explored the city a tiny bit. My hostel was very close to the centre of the civil protests and I actually experienced these a little bit because my first night was on a Friday - the day the protests take place. The whole evening there was a lot of noise outside with firecrackers going off everywhere. We even had a pepper spray grenade being thrown into the yard of my hostel. Quite intense but I don’t think I was in danger at any time.

Police getting ready

I don't think they like their government very much

However, I mainly wanted to use the time to research what I’d do next, but instead I researched COVID-19 and made the very spontaneous decision to abort my trip. A couple of days later, Chile decided to close all their borders and the whole of South America is in a state of emergency now. I have heard a lot of stories from travellers who decided to stay and are now being kicked out of their hostels and moved around by the police. Sounds like I made the right decision.

In the next few days I'll write a few more articles about some other random things. Hopefully one day I can continue travelling through South America and bring this blog back to life.

[go-redgirl]

The Five 8/2/19 | Breaking Fox News News August 2, 2019

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INDIVIDUALS/COMMENTS/POSTS:

Hannity Pinned by Hannity 18 hours ago FULL SHOW UPDATE : https://youtu.be/AgA6LPbesDE

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REPLY Don Quijote 1st thing I check: Juan's NOT there!! 😂😂😂🎉🎊🎇🎆

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REPLY

Johnny Lawrence 18 hours ago TRUMP 2020!!!! The train is moving full steam ahead 🚂🇺🇸MAGA🇺🇸

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Maurice Belanger 18 hours ago

NO  JUAN  WOW 😮👍❤️💕🇺🇾

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REPLY

Ken Overman 17 hours ago There is no one on the Democratic side that can beat our President Donald J Trump

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REPLY Maxxwell Maxxwell 18 hours ago No Juan 👌🏻

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REPLY Grim Reaper  17 hours ago YES!! No Juan. It's a much better show without him.

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REPLY Audrey Carroll Greg! PLEASE keep Capri and axe Juan🙏🏽

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REPLY Steven Johnson 17 hours ago Obama will not Help the next DNC Candidate. Democrats are what they have always been. Fools!!

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REPLY Pete Duncan 18 hours ago Trump has become everybody's Presedent.

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REPLY ptsd and me 47 hensley 18 hours ago every election that i can remember  [i am 71 ] they are going to fix the inner city. in 4 years it will be the same.  stop the bs

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REPLY joe moreira 18 hours ago (edited) Shes a thousand times more tolerable then jaun when she talks about dems reality in dem is rear trump2020

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REPLY Tay Tollefsen Juan must go!!!!

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REPLY

woodstock I am so proud of our people. NO Chant just like the president asked. We are gonna win. Sorry. You can't beat integrity, honesty, hard work and loyalty. Democrats have none of that.

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REPLY freethinker 45 18 hours ago President Trump the Peoples President

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REPLY Lisa Noel 17 hours ago Ben. Carson will prayvfirst and then GET IT DONE .WE LOVE. TRUMPS FRIEND BEN CARSON.

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REPLY mr ady and mim yay 17 hours ago Had Cummings shared the 16 billion with his residents, an average household with 4 people would have received $100'000. That would help to pay off some debts and get people back on their feet.

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REPLY Lawrence Foster Lawrence Foster 18 hours ago If YOU LOOK AT ANY DIVESTATED CITY HE SAID.

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REPLY Kathy Sloan 17 hours ago First - Michelle is NOT the most admired 'woman' in the country.  More FAKE polls and FAKE news.  How about doing some investigating for a change like on the video I found. 

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REPLY Lee North 17 hours ago "If the Kingdom of God is within you then everywhere you go you outta leave a little bit of heaven behind" #spreadlove

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REPLY Joy Jarrelson 18 hours ago No classes Trump's got 2020 vision lmfao

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REPLY toneman335 17 hours ago President Trump 2020

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REPLY Made In USA 15 hours ago I live in southern California, and Trump is absolutely right. The Democrats have run our great state in to the ground. I hope he keeps up this theme so we can win back the House.

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REPLY Heinzy 16 hours ago Sorry I'm not American but why is M. Obama admired? Just wondering, not being insulting.

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REPLY mario pena mario pena Julian Castro .. was mayor of San Antonio texas.. LATINOS and Black neighborhoods are poorest.. westside and Eastside.. LATINO for trump.. 2020 . For the private sector.. from San Antonio texas

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REPLY Stephen Nguyen 16 hours ago Yeah, no stupid Juan. Thank you Fox

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REPLY Nirvana 99 17 hours ago No Juan Williams 🥂🍻

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REPLY Dennis Navarro 16 hours ago JUAN PLEASE STAY GONE. JUAN PLEASE STAY GONE. JUAN PLEASE STAY GONE.

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REPLY rogeliogarcia07 16 hours ago I like LIZA BOOTHE,why the 5 don't invite her to the program ?

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REPLY willard fillmore 16 hours ago Obozo was the worst whatever of anyone who sat in our oval office.. He is a bold faced liar. He is a traitor and a big time pedophile..!! I would be very embarrassed to even mention his name..!!

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REPLY Richard Martin 17 hours ago Barak Obama single most significant achievement was the creation and election of Donald J trump, Obama’s failures and smugness put Donald trump the 45th president of the United States 🇺🇸 in the Oval Office

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REPLY Emma White 17 hours ago NO Juan, 👍, I'm watching the " Five ", this lady that took his place it's worth listening. Thanks FOX News from New York, I live in California a blue state, Where I have to keep my mind quiet.❤

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REPLY Sofa Joe 17 hours ago @emilycampanio... you went to go see Guns and Roses the other night, one of your favorite songs is Night Train?... I was in love with you before but now it's official.

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REPLY Mary Annette 18 hours ago Sorry about that but my Mother never forgot her eight kids.  Tragic situation.

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REPLY deathvalleyalex 17 hours ago Mr President   let's focus  on the sanctuary  of California  and the sanctuary  cities  like los angeles ,  San Francisco  ,Oakland   and all the other sanctuaries  the democrats  decided were more important than taking care of americans that are ill, hungry .  jobless or. Homeless

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REPLY Bad Bob 17 hours ago John Wayne had some really interesting music. He made a song called "The Hyphen". That song explained so much in understanding how to relate to an American and not an ethnic label!

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REPLY Tim Schjei 17 hours ago Baltimore received 16 billion dollars in 2018. With 2 billion dollars they could have hired over 16,000 law enforcement individuals for two years, LA has 9000 sworn officers and should have 10,000 more. Where did the money go?

#1 priority of government is the safety of its citizens.

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REPLY Ralph Geigner 16 hours ago OBAMAS  Regime ! Many in the Military felt him and his regime was weak leadership !  EXAMPLE ! Look at Putin's expressions, actions during interviews !    We had funding $ issues for repair parts and equipment overall !  We had Pay $ issues during his regime !  There was many issues at the VA's !   NEVER RATS !   Go ARMY

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REPLY John Kidd 16 hours ago Love the deranged Dems. Waiting for Michelle and Hillary to declare before the deadline. Now that would be a cat fight.

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REPLY Oceans 17 hours ago This President is completely transparent and everyday he is making huge strides in bringing America back to greatness. He knows he has a relatively short time, 4 years, to undo past disasters and give Americans something they can be proud of for generations to come. Your energy is beyond amazing  out at the crack of dawn and working hard until the midnight hour and beyond. AND not taking a penny for your work. 

How many people can say that. You are what America has needed for many years and I continue to be amazed at the monumental changes taking place in the Country you love. Read more

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REPLY James Woodman James Woodman 15 hours ago Dems are the party of Globalist and anti American

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REPLY Gene Lonnon 18 hours ago Bagalia starting chant for Hillary, only hope for Dims, playing out exactly as I called it 2 years ago.  Can you say brokered convention?

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REPLY MCccc7 Cortes 17 hours ago Obama's Legacy First Year: hiked up prices on candy & soda,  Increased prices on automobile plates.( They had to have security at DMV, cause ppl were flipping out) You had to buy or get a free unit to watch Hump back Tv., We now have to use Curly light bulbs, Cash for Clunkers. Obama phones.  Good going Obama great Legacy! Lmao! Read more

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REPLY phantom 7 cross rose 15 hours ago damn, I have to say it,  the 2 conservative babes are hot as most conservative babes are, by contrast, dem women exude hatred, very off putting, but the conservative babes make my sticker peck up😇

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REPLY Jim McCarley 17 hours ago I think President Trump hates wort hogs! Ever notice you never see him with one! I never saw an article where he invited a wort hog to the oval office! You recon he ever invited a wort hog to his mansion for lunch! Oh my! I just realized "for lunch"! He hates wort hogs! He hates wort hogs!

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REPLY Tietje Weaver 16 hours ago Beta males, yeah, we don't want to follow them lol

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REPLY Timeless 16 hours ago

OMG! Brian is no longer a book end, but part of The Five Squad? Fox is improving and Brian looks so relaxed 😎 now. Free!

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REPLY Rebecca Perez 17 hours ago

No this is not human behavior Greg... Children are suppose to be the most important person in someone's life... No... No... No... Lock him up...

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REPLY

Arioch IV

17 hours ago

Can we replace Juan with this woman?

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Tim Schjei 17 hours ago Both the Republicans and the Democrats have been wimps since after Ronald Reagan and prior to Donald Trump.

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REPLY Dave Sandlin 15 hours ago This Kevin guy is sure on some powerful crack.

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REPLY JVONROCK 16 hours ago Seattle’s wayward  citizens same as those all over the west coast.   Perverted leaders still haven’t a clue. But disease has a way of cleaning.

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REPLY nobodybutme1000 16 hours ago Emily looks hot...as usual.  Seems she's looking super fit too

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REPLY Ron Fall 16 hours ago Terrible analagy GREG!!!!!  When you have kids then you can TALK!!!!!!! No defense of this guy no matter what.

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Tom Brown 14 hours ago Can someone please tell me what the hell Michelle Oboma can do.  The only thing I remember her doing is ruining school lunches and trying to ban bacon. And lieing about how wonderful Berry was.

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REPLY

Andyzerg 11 hours ago Emily Compagno monologue 7:53 SPLOOSH!!

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REPLY Hose Kim 9 hours ago Is Juan completely gone?

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REPLY Penni Bingaman 12 hours ago If a woman would forget her child in the car, it wouldn't matter. She's be prosecuted.

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REPLY Steven Johnson 17 hours ago Thoughtful opinions by all on the "Hot Car Case".

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REPLY Trudi Jones 17 hours ago Juan good, but I miss Jesse

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Jethro Payson 17 hours ago Being poor is not a crime.  Making money off of it, lying, and letting criminals fester is different.

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Neide Durant 17 hours ago Get rid of Juan , it was a very pleasant five today !

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gaspar ortega 17 hours ago Kevin you are dreaming

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REPLY tkell31 14 hours ago Haha, the chunky democrat pretending that Pocahontas helps warren.  She knows it's a killer.  Hits right at her character or more accurately her lack of character.  And yeah, +1 for no Juan.

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REPLY Ronnie Bishop 10 hours ago Trump will help the inner city’s if they will have enough sense to vote for him.

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REPLY RayLo RayLo 17 hours ago Hot car kids case: (19:00) You DON'T forget your kids!!! I don't care what may happen to distract you!!! You DON'T forget your precious babies in the back seat!!! Did he not recover in the 8 hours he was working that he realized  'My God, I forgot the kids'???!!!

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REPLY Annette Scott 59 minutes ago (edited) Liz warren milked the school system of thousands because the schools she attended as a student believed her. Dont forget this. This raises school costs on all of us.

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REPLY Downunder Thunder 11 hours ago Talk about depresive talk about Obama. Talk about racial hatred talk about Obama. Lost their jobs lost their homes if your a rapper you feel these bones. Oh we miss you Obama like a rat in trap so glad he is gone will never look back!

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REPLY Kelly Sebzda 17 hours ago Most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard trump doesn’t care about the inner city at all

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REPLY Bea Payne 14 hours ago Trump is doing a great job keep it up.

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REPLY John Lee 17 hours ago Nobody ever intends to kill their child?

Is Emily a lawyer or a hood ornament?

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REPLY Dan Henry 14 hours ago Glad Juan is not there

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REPLY R- Sunday 16 hours ago Did Trump throw out DEPLORABLE?!?!

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REPLY MrJorjohn 13 hours ago it is a tragedy that he lost his own based on his mistake. Justice has been served by he. Himself. far worse than any criminal proceeding. Throw salt on his wounds forever.

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REPLY James Smith 17 hours ago Something is going on.  I can not watch    Other news.  I am able to see you and I never choose     Watch out America something is going on already.

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REPLY Tim White 15 hours ago

Love this woman that is the Dem representative......defends her party, but not so rigid that she avoids the facts.

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REPLY Julie Carveth 14 hours ago Every one Obama campaigned for lost

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REPLY unmolested mind 7 hours ago (edited) Fella killed his kids. kids are way to noisy to forget a car is a very small area

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REPLY Steven Johnson 17 hours ago Where can I go to get a full episode of the five?

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REPLY George Sanders 18 hours ago Obama did nothing in 8 years origami did but giveaway America to Europe in everybody else I thought I did nothing Obama is Antichrist helper that darn Antichrist is here and he had three major helpers, is one of them got it yet wake up in the name of God

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REPLY Sally Goozee No Juan, yay!

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REPLY Rayvon Hickman 15 hours ago 😂😂😂what a joke fox news

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REPLY gaspar ortega 17 hours ago Trump 2020

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Lili Tincher 15 hours ago Thy feel sorry for the stupid man that left his two children for their lungs to explode from the heat in the car, after forgetting to drop them off at daycare and taking them to work and forgetting them in the car?  How about feeling sorry for the children that suffered a horrible death!!!

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REPLY rogeliogarcia07 16 hours ago DEMS BUNCH WIMPS.

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REPLY Lisa Noel 17 hours ago The Democrats don't apparently care about old diseases that we. Irradiated along time ago . Lockjaw for stepping on rusting nails. Yellow fever Bubonic Plague. That could take out millions. Of people . A very dangerous disease.  Many others that are coming back because of illegal aliens and. Dirty cities. Clean up the dumps.

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REPLY Craig Johnson 17 hours ago

lose the coffe cup. Stop supporting child grooming!

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REPLY Steven Looney 17 hours ago

Fox News when Obama is elected - "It's been 3 years, he can't use George Bush as an excuse on the deficit anymore." Fox News on Trump - "These problems were there for years before he was elected." No, no bias here to see at all, move along.

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REPLY Lisa Noel 17 hours ago

I WOULD RATHER HAVE BEN CARSON AS PRESIDENT THAN. MRS. CONNECTED TO PRESIDENT OBAMAS  CORRUPTION. NEVER VOTE FOR MICHELLE SHE IS TOO CONNECTED TO MOVIE STARS. DEMOCRATICALLY CORRUPT.

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David Garber 17 hours ago Bad news all the way. Poor kids. Dad screwed up. Bad bad news.

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Timothy Walters 17 hours ago This hot car topic , they say to put something in the back seat with your child , something you wont forget , like a phone or your purse . I can't believe it . INSANE ! You wont forget your phone but you can forget your child , or TWO of them ! This is mind numbing !

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William Gleaton 18 hours ago When I was a kid in Philadelphia  in 1961 and on my mom was my only parent their fore we were poor and lived in the projects off Ridge Ave. I was surrounded by black children and their families, all that time I never experienced any kind of racist remarks or did I ever feel differently NO! . I guess my point is as children the world is amazing, full of wonder and we don't know hate, we don't know about meanness, or racism we have to be taught those things. Let's be more childlike in our hearts (what do ya say) can't hurt. ✌️ Read more

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REPLY fern senchisen 8 hours ago

So Obama created a bunch of democratic politicians the even he cant support? Thanks Obama.

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REPLY tkell31 14 hours ago Come on, they have to attack obammy because he's too tied to Trump.  You can't attack Trump on immigration without attacking Odumbo, you cant attack Trump on inner cities without going after the cult of odumbo.

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REPLY Larry L No Juan equals good show

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REPLY MrJorjohn

13 hours ago i think democrats only vote because it is their duty to elect a democrat. they have no idea who they are voting for because the do no research and they care nothing for politics.. they make decisions for you the other Americans. The enlightened Americans. Illegal aliens are being let in because they know about as much as democratic voters so they also vote democratic.

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REPLY Pam S 16 hours ago Oh please, Obama was not more moderate to the left, he was the stepping stone to the far left, Hillary would have been the final nail in the coffin  We would have lost this great nation.

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REPLY View reply fern senchisen When Democrats and Republicans hear from the people nothing happens. Trump has no choice but to act for the people even when no one supports him. He will do what helps Americans even if he has to walk into a wasp nest.

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REPLY John Kidd No appointment of Trump's will escape sleazy attacks by the Dumb Dems. Now that he's removed Ratcliffe from the DNI nomination, they think they've won. Haha, how does Trey Gowdy suit them or Jason Chaffetz, both of them would be the Dems worst nightmare. Be careful what you wish for. As usual, in opposing everything Trump does, the Dems have shot themselves  in the balls again.

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REPLY

Prissy Lovejoy Why do so many tv shows and videos show Trumps hair as bright red or “orange” when in actuality it’s almost completely white now.

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REPLY Adrian Johnson The hot car dad is a military veteran, no? I not a parent but if so, am I being unreasonable to have slightly higher expectations of him?

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REPLY max man half of the five

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REPLY DominusLuna Shouldn't Caputo be on Mslsd or something

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REPLY Chris Mc Not full show

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REPLY Mortimer Brewster The saddest comment was about the father who left his kids in the car and they died. The middle guy (forget his name) said leave something in the backseat that you can't go without so you have to go back there and then you'll see the kids. What is so sad is that a phone or backpack would be considered my important than the children. It's tragic and I don't think the guy should go to prison (he will be forever punishing himself) but people need to put more priority on their kids than a phone. Also, learn how to drive. I wouldn't be able to forget the kids because I use my rear view mirror all the time -- I see the backseat and someone driving properly would see the backseat and the car seats.

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REPLY Steve Hev THE GREAT DIVIDER  umm

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REPLY mike Lane love it

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REPLY ScootinNPootin ForUHemmroids 18 hours ago

It's funny how now NYC is begging  for the powers that be back them and want the citizens at large to also back them   I always have BUT, now when Officers across the US allow thugs to beat down an elderly woman, I draw the line.  If we have to fin for ourselves so do they.

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Linda T

16 hours ago Go Trump Go!

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REPLY DAT DAT 15 hours ago M.Obama happened upon fame and fortune just by marital association to the elected 44th.  Other than that, she's not qualified to be in the political field...let's get real people.

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REPLY Zoukie Zouk 14 hours ago Cant stump the TRUMP.

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REPLY apache pete 16 hours ago Hey Juan , just cos your Not here ... doesn't mean we miss you .. WE DON'T .. and by the way that Lumpy whale in the white dress smells of Democrap. .. just Another Swamp creature lover.

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REPLY Jimmy Yeakel 17 hours ago I'm having a hard time with the "forgetting" kids in the car opinions. So, if I can prove no intent and my kids died because I forgot about them for 8 hours while I'm at work, no charges but........If I lock the kids in the car for a couple minutes to grab my dry cleaning and they don't die or suffer any physical trauma, I should be charged ?

 I'm not saying locking the kids in the car with the motor and AC running is acceptable, I'm simply saying why charge the case that caused no harm and not charge the case that resulted in death ? Essentially, your charging some one for what "might" have happened and not charging someone for something (death) that actually happened. 

Do the terms "gross negligence" and "extreme carelessness" ring a bell ? Intent was the same issue brought up Jim Comey (after rewording "gross negligence" which is chargeable with "extreme carelessness" which is not) while refusing to charge Hillary Clinton. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REPLY willard fillmore 16 hours ago

TRUMP 20/20..!!!

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REPLY Crystl Fire 14 hours ago If president obama would have given all 350 million citizens in this country one million dollars, just think how great he would have left this country. INSTEAD he spend ELEVEN TRILLION dollars and got nothing for it, he would only have had to spend $350 million and got free college and free healthcare for all!!

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REPLY woodstock 17 hours ago that is because there is no democrat strategy. it is just a bunch of virtue signaling driven by corporate leftists on the coasts. they want to try to remake america in the face of google, apple, the NYT etc. the problem is all the hypocrisy among them. it isn't going to happen. I believe in democrat proposals more than the people espousing them do. that is why i will vote trump. I know the difference between virtue signaling and sincerity. I will take sincerity every time and I will be voting trump for that reason.

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REPLY

willard fillmore 16 hours ago (edited) Wow..!! What a heartbreaking story. I pray for him and his family..!! Just having to live with such a grief driven mistake. Is going to be his life sentence.. He will suffer enough..God Bless..

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REPLY The LoftCast 18 hours ago How can someone forget their children are in the car? I m sorry guys but ones children should be the most important thing on any parents mind so I disagree with what you say. It's gross negligence and the guy should face jail?

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REPLY

Tim Carter

16 hours ago I disagree with all of them. When you have children, you are responsible for their lives. Even if it was an accident, as they say, it warrants at least a manslaughter charge.

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REPLY Glockbeard 17 hours ago Rumor is Tyrus body slammed Juan into Oblivion

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REPLY MrFetusPretzel 18 hours ago "Put something in the back of the car that you can't leave there"......like your kids?smh

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REPLY Crystl Fire 14 hours ago Harris can beat Trump and Michael obama can beat Trump...ROFL...LOL...LMAO...are you out of your simple mind. NO ONE CAN STAND that boyfriend of obama (michael) NO ONE!! Are these jokes living on another planet??  They must be living on uranus!!

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REPLY CHRISTOPHER BOWEN 14 hours ago If I accidentally kill you am I exonerated? I didn't notice you were in front of my car.

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REPLY Bolt Hayday 17 hours ago

I’m sorry but there is just too many parents killing their kids using a car. All ya gotta do is cry 😭 and say I forgot! Those were NOT newborns. And they weren’t 1st born. Forget the kids but don’t forget your sunglasses 🕶 don’t forget your phone 📱. Anyway an alarm should go off if the seatbelt is still plugged in the back and the vehicle is off. Or the windows roll immediately down. So simple car companies. But omg be sure we have the latest update to make ya comfortable driving!

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REPLY Suzanne Arsenault 17 hours ago There must be some Republican cities that are deplorable?

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REPLY Andy Greaves 17 hours ago Trump supporters are "stable geniuses!' LOL red-neck hicks!

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REPLY ivy kkb 17 hours ago Trump...r u talking about yourself??? WHERE the fund goes....???

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REPLY JOSE BURGOS 17 hours ago JUAN AND M WALLACE SHEP SMITH WHY THIS GUY'S KEEP FOX IN. BUSINESS THE OTHER TRUMP SIDE 👎 TAKING ABOUT TRUMP FRIENDS A CHILD MOLESTER AND NOW HE DONT KNOW HIS COCAINE PARTY FRIEND

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REPLY underdog ishere 18 hours ago Republican Tim Scott  of South Carolina   you never see him backing Trump.  You all watch people he will be running for President one Day 8 =12= 16 years down the road but could be after Trump Leaves.

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REPLY

David Pursel, Snake Hunter 18 hours ago C’mon, this has gotta be a bogus account. You can’t do any better than 480p? Are you serious?

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REPLY Karen D'Asero 13 hours ago Bummer, no Jesse.

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REPLY

Diana is a Democrat it shows in all her response.  She’s An Anti-Trump person.

[samuelfields]

How To Plan For Your Retirement The Second Time Around

The main reason why I’ve gotten more conservative with my investments is not because valuation for the S&P 500 is near an all-time high and earnings growth is decelerating.

Nor have I gotten more defensive because housing inventory has shot up across major parts of the country and prices are clearly declining.

No. The main reason why I’ve gotten more conservative with my investments is because I’m very close to retiring for a second time.

Let me recap my background and share some retirement preparation plans if you’re also planning on retiring soon.

The Return To Retirement Living

After first retiring in 2012, I spent about nine months living the early retirement lifestyle. I wrote a book about my experience negotiating a severance and my wife and I traveled around the world for about 12 weeks.

By the beginning of 2013, I no longer told anybody I was retired. People gave me funny looks whenever I mentioned I had left corporate America for good. I also felt stupid saying I was retired in my mid-30s.

I longed for more purpose and a more acceptable identity that didn’t require explaining my background each time. So I decided to pivot from early retiree to full-time writer and entrepreneur.

Almost immediately, I felt better about my new role in the world. Growing Financial Samurai all these years has been incredibly fun.

On average, I spend about three hours a day on the site, which is one of the main reasons why it’s been so enjoyable. If I was forced to work 10 hours a day on FS and commute, I’d have probably started hating it after a year.

Having something intellectual to do, especially after my son was born in early 2017, has been a blessing. Being cooped up in the house all day is no fun for this stay at home dad.

Another thing I’ve enjoyed doing in my second career is mastering everything that relates to online publishing. From writing, to marketing, to business development, I now have a strong grasp on all the things it takes to build and run an online media company from the ground up.

Although it’s been seven years since I left full-time work, it’s been almost 10 years since I started Financial Samurai in 2009.

Back then, I had told myself that if I could reach various stretch goals by the summer of 2019, I would give myself the luxury of taking it easy once again.

The main stretch goal was to regularly generate over one million organic pageviews a month.

As fate would have it, I have the option to let go this summer and fully retire once more.

The Origin Of Luck And Fear

What I realize now is that whether by coincidence or on purpose, I’m living my life in 10-year cycles.

I first got a job out of college in 1999. Getting a job at a major investment bank was mostly luck because graduates out of a non-target public school usually don’t get these front office jobs in NYC.

Although there was the dot com bust in 2000, the 10-year journey from 1999 to 2009 was an overall positive for my career.

After about two years at the first investment bank, I got my second lucky break when a recruiter placed me at a new firm in 2001 in San Francisco. If I had not changed jobs, I would have been kicked to the curbed after my two years were up.

Then, of course, everything started crashing in 2008 – 2009. I was scared for my future given Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns, Washington Mutual, and a bunch of other firms had collapsed. Friends were losing their jobs, their houses, and their savings.

Somehow, I managed to escape seven rounds of layoffs in a two year period at my firm. My immediate boss had left the firm to become a client the year prior. Thus, if the firm was to lay me off, it wouldn’t have had anybody to run the business. Another lucky break.

I was so worried about my future in 2009 that I decided to finally start Financial Samurai, an idea I had had since graduating from business school in 2006, but had been putting off.

If you look at the chart of when Financial Samurai was started, you’ll see that it was started at the exact bottom of the previous financial crisis in July 2009.

To start Financial Samurai at the bottom of the last financial crisis and then have a massive bull market help propel the site forward was also tremendously lucky.

Yes, I’ve spent many hours developing this site, but I fully admit that most of the growth is serendipitous. Living in San Francisco, the epicenter of technology and financial innovation has also helped me develop some key industry relationships.

If you started something in 2009, it would be relatively hard not to have successfully grown your business or your wealth.

The tailwind is like having a mentor who is actually the CEO of your company and also happens to be your dad who wants to give you the company. In such a scenario, how can you fail?

Since 1999 I’ve constantly wondered when my luck will run out. I’ve already talked about experiencing survivor’s guilt after my friend passed away when I was 15. All the good that has transpired since has only made me wonder more about the future.

Don’t Push Luck Too Far

Despite the good fortune, 2009 still burns deep in my psyche because of how badly my finances got crushed. Perhaps this is how survivors of the Great Depression felt for the rest of their lives.

I don’t want to ever again suffer through a 2009-like experience. I recently got a taste of temporarily losing lots of money in 2018, and that was enough.

I’m so thankful we’ve recovered and I no longer wish to push my luck.

2019 is the year where I plan to retire again after 10 years of running Financial Samurai. I’ll either sell the site, write less, or hire talented staff writers or guest writers to write using the Financial Samurai principles.

It’s been a great run, and I want to leave on an up note. If you are thinking of retiring for a first or second time, here are some things you should consider.

Retirement Planning Checklist

1) Adjust your risk exposure down.

As with any classic retiree in their 60s or 70s, it’s important to take down risk exposure because you no longer have the ability or the desire to work any longer.

Measure your risk tolerance in terms of the Financial SEER ratio. In other words, how many months are you willing to work to make up for a potential loss in retirement.

Once you’ve retired, you don’t want to be forced to go back to work. Giving up precious time for money is one thing, but so is the embarrassment of having to go back to work because of poor financial planning.

Debt should be completely eliminated or reduced to a level that will never be able to sink your finances.

2) Calculate your various income streams.

If after taxes, your income streams can sustain your desired retirement lifestyle, you’re golden. If not, keep working or build more side hustle income. To be conservative, it’s best to have at least a 20% cushion above your living expenses.

Plan out a tax-efficient safe withdrawal strategy based on a combination of your pre-tax and post-tax retirement accounts.

Those who want to stay conservative should try to only live off their after-tax passive income and never touch principal. Only when Required Minimum Distributions are in effect should you start drawing down principal.

3) Make sure you’ve accomplished all your goals.

When you leave your profession, you want to leave with as few regrets as possible. The best way to leave with few regrets is by fulfilling your stretch goals.

One of the reasons why professional athletes retire after winning the Super Bowl, a Major, or the NBA Championship is because there is no greater glory. During the rare times when such a champ tries to make a comeback, it’s often a sad affair filled with struggle.

If you cannot reach the pinnacle of your profession, one thing you must ask yourself is whether you’ll be leaving the place better than when you first started. If the answer is no, then you must take measures to rectify or continue working.

Retiring when your fund or company burned to the ground will make you feel like an unsettled ghost, unable to rest in peace. You want to go out on your own terms, which is why negotiating a severance can be incredibly powerful to your mental well-being.

4) Ensure your legacy will be left in good hands.

The longer you’ve worked, often the harder it is to walk away. The transition is made easier if you have someone you’ve trained or trust to take over once you’re gone.

The last thing you want is to have all your good work get undone by someone with a completely different philosophy. If this happens, you will feel as if you wasted many years of your life. Find an excellent successor and don’t leave until you do.

5) Have a next purpose.

You don’t want to retire into nothingness. Going from working 12 hours a day to having all the free time in the world can be very disconcerting. After being so used to structure for so long, you might start wondering what else is there to life. Some of you might even get depressed if you don’t have purpose.

Instead, diligently map out your retirement goals months or even years before you retire. You want to retire to something, not from something.

Start talking to people in the fields that interest you when you still have a job. Once you retire, it may be tougher to build relationships because society tends to look down of those who no longer work.

Having a clear purpose in retirement will make your remaining days at work even more meaningful. You’ll also experience a much more joyful retirement life.

Retire As Many Times As You Can

There doesn’t need to be only one retirement in your life. Instead, I encourage you to retire multiple times because that means you’re challenging yourself with new endeavors.

Whether you decide to retire for six months or for six years is up to you. There’s nothing more professionally fulfilling than mastering a new skill and enjoying its accompanying rewards.

Skills are highly fungible today thanks to technology. So long as you’re able to work hard, communicate intelligently, get along with others, and produce more than you cost, you can do well at almost anything because the rest is learned on the job.

I truly hope we never see another 2008 – 2009, nor am I anticipating a correction of such magnitude. I’m just not willing to take unwarranted chances given I’m satisfied with what I have.

With now a wife and son to take care of and potentially zero active income if I sell Financial Samurai, I can no longer afford to take any excess risk. To go through another 40% loss as I did in 2009 at this stage in my life would be devastating.

Our passive income should keep us afloat, but I haven’t truly been able to means test it yet due to my severance that paid out from 2012 – 2017 and the active income I’ve been generating from Financial Samurai.

From July 2019 – July 2029, I plan to spend my 40s primarily focused on raising my boy and spending time with my parents. If we relocate to Hawaii, we’ll have more than enough activities to keep us busy in our second go around.

Let’s pray the next 10 years are as lucky as the past 10!

Related Posts:

The First Rule Of Financial Independence: Never Lose Money

The Fear Of Running Out Of Money In Retirement Is Overblown

Readers, anybody on a 10-year cycle like me? How do you plan to ensure good fortune for the next 10 years of your life? Anybody retire a second or third time? How long did each retirement last and what did you do? What else should people do to prepare for retirement?

The post How To Plan For Your Retirement The Second Time Around appeared first on Financial Samurai.

from Finance https://www.financialsamurai.com/how-to-plan-for-your-retirement-the-second-time-around/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[ronaldmrashid]

How To Plan For Your Retirement The Second Time Around

The main reason why I’ve gotten more conservative with my investments is not because valuation for the S&P 500 is near an all-time high and earnings growth is decelerating.

Nor have I gotten more defensive because housing inventory has shot up across major parts of the country and prices are clearly declining.

No. The main reason why I’ve gotten more conservative with my investments is because I’m very close to retiring for a second time.

Let me recap my background and share some retirement preparation plans if you’re also planning on retiring soon.

The Return To Retirement Living

After first retiring in 2012, I spent about nine months living the early retirement lifestyle. I wrote a book about my experience negotiating a severance and my wife and I traveled around the world for about 12 weeks.

By the beginning of 2013, I no longer told anybody I was retired. People gave me funny looks whenever I mentioned I had left corporate America for good. I also felt stupid saying I was retired in my mid-30s.

I longed for more purpose and a more acceptable identity that didn’t require explaining my background each time. So I decided to pivot from early retiree to full-time writer and entrepreneur.

Almost immediately, I felt better about my new role in the world. Growing Financial Samurai all these years has been incredibly fun.

On average, I spend about three hours a day on the site, which is one of the main reasons why it’s been so enjoyable. If I was forced to work 10 hours a day on FS and commute, I’d have probably started hating it after a year.

Having something intellectual to do, especially after my son was born in early 2017, has been a blessing. Being cooped up in the house all day is no fun for this stay at home dad.

Another thing I’ve enjoyed doing in my second career is mastering everything that relates to online publishing. From writing, to marketing, to business development, I now have a strong grasp on all the things it takes to build and run an online media company from the ground up.

Although it’s been seven years since I left full-time work, it’s been almost 10 years since I started Financial Samurai in 2009.

Back then, I had told myself that if I could reach various stretch goals by the summer of 2019, I would give myself the luxury of taking it easy once again.

The main stretch goal was to regularly generate over one million organic pageviews a month.

As fate would have it, I have the option to let go this summer and fully retire once more.

The Origin Of Luck And Fear

What I realize now is that whether by coincidence or on purpose, I’m living my life in 10-year cycles.

I first got a job out of college in 1999. Getting a job at a major investment bank was mostly luck because graduates out of a non-target public school usually don’t get these front office jobs in NYC.

Although there was the dot com bust in 2000, the 10-year journey from 1999 to 2009 was an overall positive for my career.

After about two years at the first investment bank, I got my second lucky break when a recruiter placed me at a new firm in 2001 in San Francisco. If I had not changed jobs, I would have been kicked to the curbed after my two years were up.

Then, of course, everything started crashing in 2008 – 2009. I was scared for my future given Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns, Washington Mutual, and a bunch of other firms had collapsed. Friends were losing their jobs, their houses, and their savings.

Somehow, I managed to escape seven rounds of layoffs in a two year period at my firm. My immediate boss had left the firm to become a client the year prior. Thus, if the firm was to lay me off, it wouldn’t have had anybody to run the business. Another lucky break.

I was so worried about my future in 2009 that I decided to finally start Financial Samurai, an idea I had had since graduating from business school in 2006, but had been putting off.

If you look at the chart of when Financial Samurai was started, you’ll see that it was started at the exact bottom of the previous financial crisis in July 2009.

To start Financial Samurai at the bottom of the last financial crisis and then have a massive bull market help propel the site forward was also tremendously lucky.

Yes, I’ve spent many hours developing this site, but I fully admit that most of the growth is serendipitous. Living in San Francisco, the epicenter of technology and financial innovation has also helped me develop some key industry relationships.

If you started something in 2009, it would be relatively hard not to have successfully grown your business or your wealth.

The tailwind is like having a mentor who is actually the CEO of your company and also happens to be your dad who wants to give you the company. In such a scenario, how can you fail?

Since 1999 I’ve constantly wondered when my luck will run out. I’ve already talked about experiencing survivor’s guilt after my friend passed away when I was 15. All the good that has transpired since has only made me wonder more about the future.

Don’t Push Luck Too Far

Despite the good fortune, 2009 still burns deep in my psyche because of how badly my finances got crushed. Perhaps this is how survivors of the Great Depression felt for the rest of their lives.

I don’t want to ever again suffer through a 2009-like experience. I recently got a taste of temporarily losing lots of money in 2018, and that was enough.

I’m so thankful we’ve recovered and I no longer wish to push my luck.

2019 is the year where I plan to retire again after 10 years of running Financial Samurai. I’ll either sell the site, write less, or hire talented staff writers or guest writers to write using the Financial Samurai principles.

It’s been a great run, and I want to leave on an up note. If you are thinking of retiring for a first or second time, here are some things you should consider.

Retirement Planning Checklist

1) Adjust your risk exposure down.

As with any classic retiree in their 60s or 70s, it’s important to take down risk exposure because you no longer have the ability or the desire to work any longer.

Measure your risk tolerance in terms of the Financial SEER ratio. In other words, how many months are you willing to work to make up for a potential loss in retirement.

Once you’ve retired, you don’t want to be forced to go back to work. Giving up precious time for money is one thing, but so is the embarrassment of having to go back to work because of poor financial planning.

Debt should be completely eliminated or reduced to a level that will never be able to sink your finances.

2) Calculate your various income streams.

If after taxes, your income streams can sustain your desired retirement lifestyle, you’re golden. If not, keep working or build more side hustle income. To be conservative, it’s best to have at least a 20% cushion above your living expenses.

Plan out a tax-efficient safe withdrawal strategy based on a combination of your pre-tax and post-tax retirement accounts.

Those who want to stay conservative should try to only live off their after-tax passive income and never touch principal. Only when Required Minimum Distributions are in effect should you start drawing down principal.

3) Make sure you’ve accomplished all your goals.

When you leave your profession, you want to leave with as few regrets as possible. The best way to leave with few regrets is by fulfilling your stretch goals.

One of the reasons why professional athletes retire after winning the Super Bowl, a Major, or the NBA Championship is because there is no greater glory. During the rare times when such a champ tries to make a comeback, it’s often a sad affair filled with struggle.

If you cannot reach the pinnacle of your profession, one thing you must ask yourself is whether you’ll be leaving the place better than when you first started. If the answer is no, then you must take measures to rectify or continue working.

Retiring when your fund or company burned to the ground will make you feel like an unsettled ghost, unable to rest in peace. You want to go out on your own terms, which is why negotiating a severance can be incredibly powerful to your mental well-being.

4) Ensure your legacy will be left in good hands.

The longer you’ve worked, often the harder it is to walk away. The transition is made easier if you have someone you’ve trained or trust to take over once you’re gone.

The last thing you want is to have all your good work get undone by someone with a completely different philosophy. If this happens, you will feel as if you wasted many years of your life. Find an excellent successor and don’t leave until you do.

5) Have a next purpose.

You don’t want to retire into nothingness. Going from working 12 hours a day to having all the free time in the world can be very disconcerting. After being so used to structure for so long, you might start wondering what else is there to life. Some of you might even get depressed if you don’t have purpose.

Instead, diligently map out your retirement goals months or even years before you retire. You want to retire to something, not from something.

Start talking to people in the fields that interest you when you still have a job. Once you retire, it may be tougher to build relationships because society tends to look down of those who no longer work.

Having a clear purpose in retirement will make your remaining days at work even more meaningful. You’ll also experience a much more joyful retirement life.

Retire As Many Times As You Can

There doesn’t need to be only one retirement in your life. Instead, I encourage you to retire multiple times because that means you’re challenging yourself with new endeavors.

Whether you decide to retire for six months or for six years is up to you. There’s nothing more professionally fulfilling than mastering a new skill and enjoying its accompanying rewards.

Skills are highly fungible today thanks to technology. So long as you’re able to work hard, communicate intelligently, get along with others, and produce more than you cost, you can do well at almost anything because the rest is learned on the job.

I truly hope we never see another 2008 – 2009, nor am I anticipating a correction of such magnitude. I’m just not willing to take unwarranted chances given I’m satisfied with what I have.

With now a wife and son to take care of and potentially zero active income if I sell Financial Samurai, I can no longer afford to take any excess risk. To go through another 40% loss as I did in 2009 at this stage in my life would be devastating.

Our passive income should keep us afloat, but I haven’t truly been able to means test it yet due to my severance that paid out from 2012 – 2017 and the active income I’ve been generating from Financial Samurai.

From July 2019 – July 2029, I plan to spend my 40s primarily focused on raising my boy and spending time with my parents. If we relocate to Hawaii, we’ll have more than enough activities to keep us busy in our second go around.

Let’s pray the next 10 years are as lucky as the past 10!

Related Posts:

The First Rule Of Financial Independence: Never Lose Money

The Fear Of Running Out Of Money In Retirement Is Overblown

Readers, anybody on a 10-year cycle like me? How do you plan to ensure good fortune for the next 10 years of your life? Anybody retire a second or third time? How long did each retirement last and what did you do? What else should people do to prepare for retirement?

The post How To Plan For Your Retirement The Second Time Around appeared first on Financial Samurai.

from https://www.financialsamurai.com/how-to-plan-for-your-retirement-the-second-time-around/

[raisingsupergirl]

I Don't Serve the United States

Trump, Jr. said something mean about some teachers last week. Obama declared some states of national emergency a few years ago. Social media is a battleground, and more brothers are turning against each other now than they have since the Civil War. The liberals are all socialist snowflakes, the conservatives are all uneducated fascists, and the libertarians are just happy they got invited to the party. But I've been struggling with something for a while now. It's been a point of confusion bordering on concern for my own moral center. You see, I just can't for the life of me find an ounce of fear or anger for everything going on in our country right now. And for the longest time, I worried that it meant that I was ignorantly blissful. That I didn't deserve to be here. That I didn't appreciate my freedom or my American heritage. Thankfully, I've finally realized the real reason behind my zen.

I had a brief political Facebook exchange recently (yes, it is possible). The original post pointed out that Jesus gave to the poor indiscriminately while current US conservatives seem hell-bent on leaving the poor and needy out in the cold because they somehow don't deserve our charity. I didn't so much address the original political claim as I did the post's bigger assumption. My response was this: "A country with Christians isn't the same thing as a Christian country. Compare the USA to the biblical Israel to see the difference in a religion-centered country and one that has a generic "In God We Trust" written in a couple of places. I love my country, but I have no illusions that our constitution, legislation, etc. have been formed with the New Covenant in mind."

So, I'll admit that my comment is perfectly refutable. The biblical Israel was a mess. They were just as corrupt as modern day America (or anywhere else for that matter), and we certainly have more of a religious framework than some countries. But my point was this—there's a huge difference from our nation and one that develops its government alongside its religion. Judaism was a nomadic tribe that developed into a powerful country (and then two countries), and the one thing that held it together was its devotion to Yahweh, the one true God. So it only made sense that every law and ritual would be centered around that devotion. A lot of it made no social or political sense on the surface. Breaking their ritual purity, Sabbath practices, and Passover rituals were often severely punishable. For example, touching a menstruating woman and then entering the Temple could get you exiled from the country. It doesn't make any sense to us because our laws are set up to maintain the earthly safety and freedom of our citizens, but to Jews, observing these government-mandated rules meant avoiding divine punishment.

By the time Jesus of Nazareth came along, the Jews had some trouble because they were ruled by the Roman government, which was a lot like ours in many ways. In fact, in the New Testament, we find that the Jewish Sanhedrin (their ruling body) had to beg Pontius Pilate (Judea's Roman prefect) to crucify Jesus for breaking their laws because they, themselves, had no legal authority to do so. Since then, the Jewish nation has been somewhat neutered in their legal execution of religious laws because they continue to abide by more widely accepted political practices. But that doesn't mean we don't have a modern-day example to point to. The Islamic nation has continued the Jewish tradition of forming a political system around a religious system. In fact, Islam has been so effective at indoctrinating its Islamic law that it carries out ritual practices with little to no resistance from its "citizens," even known they appall the rest of the world.

So, setting aside any personal opinions of whether burkas and ritual beheadings are okay, does the US government look like the Pakistani government (before the US started trying to supplant the Pakistani government with its own)? Obviously not. A truly "Christian" USA would basically be a nation of hippies having block parties and giving their clothes to each other. In some ways, we would be socialist, but we would be super chill about it. We might have some form of central governing body, but they'd be just as poor as everyone else, and they'd never get anything done because they'd make sure the rest of their brothers and sisters completely understood what they wanted to do before they did it. And after a few years, we'd get taken over and slaughtered by some jerks overseas. And we'd be okay with it because this was just our temporary home, and our real reward was in the afterlife.

Okay, okay, I'm sure this description isn't 100% correct, but who can truly correct me? No one. Why? Because Jesus was clear about the state of our world. There will always be men and women who want to try to claim power for their own. We will always live under the rule of sovereign nations. In Jesus's day, Rome oppressed and controlled the Jews, but it also protected them from other nations, usually. And probably the most significant thing I will quote in this blog post is this little line from Jesus: "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's."

There's a crazy amount of unpacking, studying, and discussion that can come from that one line, but my point is this—Christians do not seek to rule the world. We do not seek to form our own sovereign nation. Why? Because, as I said before, our hope is not that we will create a perfect world with our own hands. Our hope is that we can spread as much Truth (the Good Word preached by Jesus Christ, if you will) and love as possible during our time here, and God will take care of the rest in time. I once told an atheist friend that I would be happy to give up my life if it led to the salvation of another person's soul. He completely shot me down, saying there was no way that was true, but it is. I may not sacrifice my life to save some stranger from dying, but my mortal life is not worth another's soul. And this is the heart of Christianity, whether you think it's crazy or not. And so, you start to understand why I have no hope (or even any desire) that the USA will become a perfect nation as defined by Christianity. And you may even start to understand why it doesn't surprise or upset me that our noblest political leaders continue to fail us time and time again.

My hope is not of this world. I serve the Triune God, not the United States. Jesus commands me to render unto the USA what belongs to the USA because the USA protects me. Its history has given me my present. Its brave soldiers have given me my freedom. Its laws have given me the opportunity to be a Christian without fear. For that, I will always be indebted. For that, I will remain loyal to the USA over other countries, but only insofar as it aligns with my service to God. In short, my eyes are on the long game. There are many of you who think I'm insane, naïve, and a part of the problem. And that's okay. The Christians in the New Testament were hated and looked down upon as well, and Jesus called them blessed. And I'm happy to be a part of that group. I'm far from being a perfect Christian, but that's okay, too, because this isn't about me. It's about whom I choose to follow. And the blind are better off being led by One who can see.

[savetopnow]

2018-03-15 12 TECH now

TECH

Ars Techica

US buys Afghanistan “Eliminator” attack planes—Cessnas with Hellfires

Bay Area: Join us 3/21 to explore the future of video game design

Research hints at tipping point in the Atlantic’s currents

Samsung is offering same-day repairs for busted Galaxy phones across the US

SEC charges Theranos with “massive fraud,” CEO Holmes stripped of control

Buzzfeed Tech

The Seven Biggest Lies Theranos Told

The Future Is Faster Bitcoin, Say Guys Who Made Faster Bitcoin

Twitter Is Experimenting With A Way To Show You Even More Breaking News Tweets

Google Will Ban All Cryptocurrency-Related Ads Starting June 2018

YouTube Said It Will Link To Wikipedia Excerpts On Conspiracy Videos — But It Didn't Tell Wikipedia

CNet

LG may make iPhone X-like screen notch optional on G7 - CNET

Lyft hits the gas pedal on self-driving tech, partners with Magna - CNET

Break up with Apple: The Pixel 2 is the best iPhone upgrade - CNET

Toys R Us will close all 900 US and UK stores - CNET

Trump blocks Broadcom-Qualcomm merger video - CNET

Clean Technica

New Material Made From Wood Is Biodegradable Super Insulation

Variety With Electric Car Propulsion Design Offers Safety & So Much More Than Conventional Cars, Part I

Biggest Koch Whore In Congress Is New US Secretary Of State

I Know We Can Make It: Clinging To Conservation Progress In Hard Times

Blue Planet Energy Supplies Energy Storage & Training In Puerto Rico

Hacker News

Git Magic: A Usage-First Guide to Git

SRI confirms nuclear fusion startup's reactors are producing excess energy

Brainless Embryos Suggest Bioelectricity Guides Growth

Astronaut’s DNA No Longer Matches His Identical Twin’s After Year Spent in Space

Zendar is hiring a Research Engineer

Mashable

Elon Musk drops epic Falcon Heavy launch trailers made by 'Westworld' co-creator

Zoos are rating animals online and it's too good

'The New York Times' profiled the most selfish person in America

Twitter reportedly suspended users that steal memes and force viral tweets

Why did ABC shelve this 'Black-ish' episode?

Motherboard

Reddit Has Been Quietly Banning Cryptocurrency Ads Since 2016

Can Wikipedia Solve YouTube's Conspiracy Theory Problem?

Everything You Need to Know About the Congressional Cryptocurrency Hearing

Trump Thinks a Militarized ‘Space Force’ Is a ‘Great Idea’

Verizon Forced to Repair Broadband Infrastructure It Has Literally Let Fall Apart

New York Times Technology

Ex-Leader of Baltimore County Schools, a Tech Booster, Pleads Guilty to Perjury

The One Thing That Protects a Laptop After It’s Been Stolen

Lyft to Bring Driverless Car Tech to Broader Auto Industry

Broadcom Drops Bid for Qualcomm After Trump’s Intervention

Google Bans Bitcoin Advertisements in Policy Change

Recode

Twitter stock is up on a bunch of news we already knew about

Full transcript: Chain CEO Adam Ludwin answers cryptocurrency questions on Too Embarrassed to Ask

Greylock investor Josh Elman is joining Robinhood, the stock-trading app, as its new product chief

Facebook finally suspended the anti-Muslim political group that President Trump retweeted last year

Credit Karma has acquired an instant message bot, Penny, that helps people track their spending

Reddit Technology

Adidas sold 1 million shoes made out of ocean plastic in 2017 - “Each pair of shoes reuses 11 plastic bottles.”

Facebook Quietly Hid Webpages Bragging of Ability to Influence Elections

California Unveils a Tough Net Neutrality Bill Comcast Will Hate

The Smallness of Mark Zuckerberg—and why he should not be trusted as the world’s custodian of information

A New Backdoor Around the Fourth Amendment: The CLOUD Act

Reuters Technology

Samsung Electronics says to break ground on new China memory chip line this month

Auto parts maker Magna invests $200 million in Lyft

Broadcom ends bid for Qualcomm after President Trump nixes deal

Democrats cite Tesla probe in raising self-driving car bill concerns

Tesla says Model S, Model X production efficiency much improved

Slashdot

Microsoft Removes Antivirus Registry Key Check for Windows 10 Users

Jewelry Site Leaks Personal Details, Plaintext Passwords of 1.3 Million Users

Air Pollution is Bad For Productivity, Even in Office Jobs

Tesla Employees Say Automaker Is Churning Out a High Volume of Flawed Parts

Toys R Us To Close All 800 of Its US Stores

TechCrunch

Alas, Digg Reader is shutting down at the end of March

MIT gadget puts multiple artificial organs into a paperback-sized connected system

TypingDNA launches Chrome extension that verifies your identity based on typing

Spotify tests native voice search, groundwork for smart speakers

Lyft is building a self-driving platform with auto supplier Magna

The Next Web

‘Stephen Hawking’s Favorite Places’ is a 3-part documentary series that’s available free for a limited time

I still hate email, but I love Canary

Cryptocurrency News March 14 – what if 100% brain?

Review: SteelSeries’ Arctis Pro is a gaming headset made for audiophiles

No cable? No problem: Here’s how to watch March Madness online

The Verge

When a filmmaker discovered a mountain lion in his backyard, he made a documentary

Tinder’s new chronological Feed of recent match activity is rolling out to all users

Now your Audi can read Washington DC’s traffic lights

Google Assistant now supports Dunkin’ Donuts mobile ordering

Netflix decides not to gamify children’s shows after all

WSJ Tech

Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Charged With Fraud

Lyft, Magna in Deal to Develop Hardware, Software for Self-Driving Cars

Dropbox Pitches Investors on Scale, Growth and Collaboration

Publishers Eye Facebook's Push for News Videos With Caution

Europe Tightens Screws on U.S. Tech

Wired

Don’t Do Drugs and Watch ‘Annihilation’

‘Dr. Strangelove’ Is Basically a Documentary

Total Clips

Aliens Would Probably Like It If You Gave them Flowers

All About HomePod