#National Park Service Tactics

[mostlysignssomeportents]

#RedForEd rides again in LA

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in CHICAGO with PETER SAGAL on WEDNESDAY (Apr 2), and in BLOOMINGTON on FRIDAY (Apr 4). More tour dates here.

The LA Teachers' Union is going on strike.

Fuck.

Yes.

The last time the LA teachers struck was in the midst of the 2019 #RedForEd wave, which kicked off during the last Trump presidency. All across the country, teachers walked out – even in states where they were legally prohibited from doing so. These strikes were hugely successful, because communities across the nation rallied around their teachers, and the teachers returned the favor, making community justice part of their goals.

This was true across America, but it was especially true in Los Angeles, where the teachers were militant, united, relentless, and brilliant. The story of the 2019 LA Teachers' Strike is recounted in Jane McAlevey's essential 2021 book A Collective Bargain, which recounts her history as a union organizer on multiple successful unionization drives and strikes, including that fateful teachers' strike:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

McAlevey learned her tactics from a lineage of organizers who predated the legalization of unions and the National Labor Relations Act. Accordingly, her organizing method didn't rely on bosses obeying the law, or governments sticking up for workers. She fought for victories that were won by pure worker power. The 2019 LA teachers' strike is a fantastic example, a literal textbook case about rallying support from the entire shop – including affiliated workers, like bus-drivers – and then broadening that massive support by bringing in related trades (the LA charter school teachers walked out with their public school comrades), and the community.

The LA teachers' community organizing was incredible. They worked with community groups to understand what LA families really needed, and made those families' demands into union demands. The LA teachers' demands included:

in-school social workers;

parks and green-spaces in or near every LA public school; and

a total ban on ICE agents shaking down parents at the school gates.

Environmental justice, immigration justice, racial justice – these issues were every bit as important to the LA teachers in 2019 as wages, working conditions and vacation pay. And. They. WON.

Not only did the LA teachers win everything they struck for, they built an enduring community organization that ran a massive get out of the vote effort for the 2020 elections and flipped two seats for Democrats, securing Biden's Congressional majority.

So now the teachers are walking out again, and while their demands include wage increases (the greedinflation crisis wiped out many of the gains won in the 2019 strike – though imagine how much worse things would be without those gains!), the demands also include a slate of bold, no-fucks-given, material measures to fight back agains the Trump administration and its fascism:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-03-26/l-a-teachers-union-pursues-salary-hike-progressive-goals-amid-trump-agenda

This time around, the LA teachers are demanding:

"targeted investment in the recruitment and retention of BIPOC, multilingual and immigrant educators and service providers" – that's right, the DEI stuff that makes Trump's incipient aneurysm throb visibly in his temple (keep throbbing, li'l guy, I believe in you!).

"support for, defense and expansion of the school district’s Black Student Achievement Plan and Ethnic Studies" – the same programs that make wrestling faildaughter Linda McMahon get the fantods.

“strengthened policies to support LGBTQIA+ students, educators and staff” – take that, Elon.

"increased support for immigrant students and families, with and without documentation, including support for newcomers" – up yours, Stephen Miller, you pencilneck Hitler wannabe.

Where'd all these demands come from? 665 meetings that solicited input from "students, parents and other community members." In other words, these are our demands – the demands of Angelenos.

Trump is a scab. Musk is a scab. They hate unions. They've put the National Labor Relations Board into a coma, illegally firing a board member so that the board no longer has a quorum and can no longer take most actions. But the tactics the LA teachers used to organize their victory under the last Trump regime didn't rely on the NLRB – it relied on worker power. That power is only stronger today. The NLRB exists because workers built power when unions were illegal. Killing the NLRB doesn't kill worker power. Worker power comes from workers, not the government:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/29/which-side-are-you-on-2/#strike-three-yer-out

Now that Trump has canceled labor laws, all bets are off. Trump is illegally breaking the contracts of federal workers, as a prelude to eliminating unions nationwide. As Hamilton Nolan writes, this is the time to take a stand:

It is unreasonable to run around demanding a general strike every time a single union gets in a hard fight. It is not unreasonable to demand a general strike when the very existence of unions is under direct attack by a government that cares nothing about us, and does not respect our contracts, and is attempting to throw in the trash the union contracts covering hundreds of thousands of our fellow union members, as a step towards doing the same thing to millions more of our fellow union members. This is the bombing of Pearl Harbor, against the labor movement. Will we say, “We are filing a lawsuit against this illegal bombing, and we will keep you all updated as it progresses?” Will we say, “Pearl Harbor is way out in Hawaii. I’m glad those bombs didn’t fall where I live.” These are the terms that the union world needs to be thinking in, right now. This is not an exaggeration. If we do not go to war, the husk of American unions that emerges at the end of the Trump administration will be, probably, about half as big as it was when the Trump administration started, and immeasurably weaker. That is not an acceptable outcome if you believe that increasing organized labor’s strength is the key to saving this country, which it is.

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/they-are-going-to-take-everything

McAlevey – who died in 2024 – agreed with Nolan. She wrote vibrantly about how union organizing, and the solidarity it nurtures, was the key to a revitalized democracy and a nation that truly takes care of its people, rather than lining them up in billionaires' feedlots.

I gotta go. I'm on my way to a Tesla protest. Maybe you could find one near you to join, too:

https://actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/teslatakedown

But if I don't see you at this one, I'll see you on the picket line – with the LA teachers, the federal workers, and everyone else who's taking a stand against this scab presidency.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/29/jane-mcalevey/#trump-is-a-scab

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed for Kettering Foundation:

The months since Trump’s election have been brutal for transgender people like me. States are churning out laws that strip us of legal recognition, bar us from bathrooms, void our IDs, and more. That should be enough, but 2025 has delivered a different, more insidious threat—one we were unprepared to face. It isn’t just the executive orders banning our passports, blocking transgender visa seekers from entry, threatening teachers with investigations for using our names, or erasing us from federal websites—though those do play a role. The real danger has come from mass overcompliance: institutions, including well-meaning ones, rushing to carry out the administration’s anti-trans agenda without being asked. These attacks began with us, but the consequences won’t end there. The country needs to understand the lesson being written in real time: do not comply. 

An Explosion of Targeted Attacks 

The first of Trump’s executive orders targeting transgender people came with a loaded title: “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” The order declared that sex is binary and fixed at birth and uses rigid definitions of “man” and “woman” that fly in the face of established science. Without statutory authority, it then applied these definitions across all US code—resulting in sudden policy shifts like the revocation of gender marker updates on passports. The fallout has been immediate and destabilizing: some transgender people have had their passport renewals denied or even had documents confiscated, while others are left unsure whether they can safely travel at all. Compounding the damage, the administration has treated any contradiction to its definitions as justification for stripping federal grants—an abuse of executive power that sidesteps congressional authority. 

As executive orders continued to cascade from the Trump administration, an expanding list of policies became mandatory not just for federal agencies but for institutions across the country. One order barred transgender athletes from competing in everything from darts to disc golf to dance and threatened to strip funding from any school that adopted local or individualized policies. Another order targeted hospitals, warning that providing gender-affirming care to anyone under 19—including legal adults—could trigger federal investigations and funding cuts. Meanwhile, the cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have dominated headlines as organizations scramble to comply with vague and nebulous policies. Many organizations complied under the direct or implied threat of losing critical resources. 

The Danger of Pre-Compliance 

This last phase of reactionary compliance is where something more insidious began to unfold. Organizations, including those with long histories of supporting LGBTQ+ people, started erasing trans and queer communities from their websites, shuttering resources, and, whether out of fear or compliance, became willing enforcers of Trump’s anti-trans agenda.   The first signs came from government websites. Research papers on transgender health funded by federal grants were quietly removed or retracted. The National Park Service altered language at the Stonewall National Monument, stripping the TQ+ from LGBTQ+ and rewriting history to frame the uprising—led in large part by transgender people—as a fight solely for “LGB rights.” Even the biography for Sylvia Rivera, one of the most prominent transgender figures at Stonewall, was edited. Her section on the National Park Service’s Stonewall page now says she fought for “gay and rights”—a clumsy, ahistorical revision that manages to erase her identity while mangling the grammar. Such attempts to revise history and control language are designed to cleave away would-be allies, a common tactic of authoritarian regimes. 

[...] Many readers have likely noticed diversity, equity, and inclusion resources are quietly disappearing from their workplaces. Corporate donations to pride parades have dried up. Entire diversity departments and programs have been cut. In some cases, companies are scrubbing references to transgender and queer people altogether, fearful that even acknowledging our existence could jeopardize federal contracts or funding.  A chilling veil of silence has fallen over LGBTQ+ people in America—our existence is now considered too risky to even name. 

Fear and Uncertainty Breed Anticipatory Obedience 

A lesson can be found in all of this. The most devastating damage from these executive orders hasn’t come from their direct mandates but from their vagueness. The orders are deliberately opaque and create just enough uncertainty to push institutions into overcompliance. Risk-averse legal teams, fearful of losing federal funding or becoming political targets, preemptively erase transgender people from policies, programs, and public language. The cruelty lies in the ambiguity. These orders don’t explicitly bar specific conduct but deputize decision-makers to interpret them in ways that inflict the greatest harm on disfavored communities. 

[...] We are, in many ways, teaching those in power what they can get away with by complying with regulations that have no legal basis.  I understand the fear that organizations are responding to. Each individual decision that erases a mention here or cuts a program there can feel rational. Everyone wants to keep their head low, but fear calcifies into cowardice. And cowardice, when widespread, leads to the erosion of every value we claim to hold. 

Erin Reed wrote for the Kettering Foundation on the Trump Regime's war on trans people (and LGBTQ+ people in general). The overarching message: do not comply with Tyrant 47's demands.

[lilyginnyblackv2]

April 5th Hands Off! Protest & March Numbers As of April 6th 2025

Text:

Alt National Park Service (20m)

Yesterday was incredible. The official count is in — 5.2 million people joined the #HandsOff protest nationwide. So many are asking: what’s next? Mark your calendars: 4/19 is the next nationwide day of protest. Let’s go even bigger — our goal is to get 3.5% of America in the streets. Some media outlets are reporting only “tens of thousands” participated, but that’s no accident. Downplaying the turnout is a tactic to suppress momentum. But you were there. You saw the crowds. Even small red-district towns showed up in force. Don’t let them rewrite the story. It was a historic day — and we’re just getting started. We are proud of all of you — for many, this was your first protest, and you showed up with strength and purpose. Thank you to all the local authorities who helped keep everyone safe, and to the many military members and off-duty officers who attended and monitored the situation. Keep your signs, make new ones, and start preparing now. Let’s make history again on 4/19.

Text:

Alt National Park Services

Estimates were based on reports from over 1,600 events nationwide. More than 21,000 coalition members traveled across the country to volunteer and help monitor safety at each location. These volunteers worked closely with local authorities to assess crowd sizes. Their reports were compiled and added together to arrive at the overall participation estimate.

---

If you aren't following the Alt National Park Services, you absolutely should be! I'll link to their FB and BS accounts below in the comments.

[bnnuyko]

RPD - Main Hall

Screenshots in-game of the smaller details that authors may be interested in — ♡

TW; blood

Feel free to request any other details you wish to see — ♡

main hall;

The Daily Raccoon RACCOON CITY, 1998 MISSING MAN FOUND DEAD IN RACCOON CITY Body discovered after five days of searching.

'Family looks for missing teen'

RACCOON TIMES June 22, 1998 Horror in Raccoon City ﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌ More Victims Dead ﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌ The bodies of a young couple were found early Sunday morning in Victory Park, making Deanne Rusch and Christopher Smith the eighth and ninth victims in the reign of violence that has terrorized the city since mid-May of this year. Both victims, aged 19, were reported as missing by concerned parents late Saturday night and were discovered by police officers on the west bank of Victory Lake at approximately 2 A.M. Although no formal statement has been issued by the police department, witnesses to the discovery confirm that both youths suffered wounds similar to those found on prior victims. Whether or not the attackers were human or animal has yet to be announced. According to friends of the young couple, the two had talked about tracking down the rumored "wild dogs" recently spotted in the heavily forested park and had planned to violate the city-wide curfew in order to see one of the alleged nocturnal creatures. Mayor Harris has scheduled a press conference for this afternoon, and is expected to make an announcement regarding the current crisis, calling for a stricter enforcement of the curfew.

CITYSIDE Raccoon City's #1 Newspaper June 21, 1998 "S.T.A.R.S" SPECIAL TACTICS AND RESCUE SQUAD SENT TO SAVE RACCOON CITY With the reported disappearance of three hikers in Raccoon Forest earlier this week, city officials have finally called for a roadblock on rural Route 6 at the foothills of the Arklay Mountains. Police Chief Brian Irons announced yesterday that the S.T.A.R.S. will participate full-time in the search for the hikers and will also be working closely with the RPD until there is an end to the rash of murders and disappearances that are destroying our community Chief Irons, a former S.T.A.R.S. member himself, said today (in an exclusive Cityside telephone interview) that it is "high time to employ the talents of these dedicated men and women toward the safety of this city. We've had nine brutal murders here in less than two months, and at least five disappearances now-and all of these events have taken place in a close proximity to Raccoon Forest. This leads us to believe that the perpetrators of these crimes may be hiding somewhere in the Victory Lake district, and the S.T.A.R.S have just the kind of experience we need to find them." When asked why the S.T.A.R.S hadn't been assigned to these cases until now, Chief Irons would only say that the S.T.A.R.S. have been assisting the RPD since the beginning and that they would be a "welcoming addition" to the task force currently working on the murders full-time. Founded in New York in 1967, the privately funded S.T.A.R.S. organization was originally created as a measure against cult-affiliated terrorism by a group of retired military officials and ex-field operatives from both the CIA and FBI. Under the guidance of former NSDA (National Security and Defense Agency) director Marco Palmieri, the group quickly expanded its services to include everything from hostage negotiation and code breaking to riot control. Working with local police agencies, each branch office of the S.T.A.R.S. is designed to work as a complete unit itself. The S.T.A.R.S. set up its Raccoon City branch through the fund-raising efforts of several local businesses in 1972 and is currently led by Captain Albert Wesker, promoted to the position less than six months ago.

Alberto Paque Ramirez David Cockman Katie Chevalier Manuel Trillo Carmona Stefano Ivan Stinga

In loving memory of those who served with the valor of lions, the nobility of unicorns, and whose ultimate sacrifice is as pure as the maidens of old.

Laura Salomon Ugo Ricard Janet Hsu Luca Baldassarre Francis Ishii

[uwmspeccoll]

Milestone Monday

On this day, November 25, 1863, the Battle of Missionary Ridge occurred. During this military engagement, Union troops, led by General Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885), defeated the Confederate forces commanded by General Braxton Bragg (1817-1876) at Missionary Ridge in Tennessee, successfully concluding the Siege of Chattanooga.

The outcome of the Battle of Missionary Ridge had major implications for the Confederate Army. It exposed vulnerabilities in their defensive strategies and highlighted the challenges of commanding a dispersed and demoralized force. In the aftermath of the defeat, General Braxton Bragg faced intense criticism from both his troops and Confederate leadership, which eventually contributed to his reassignment.

The success at Missionary Ridge marked a key turning point in the Civil War. It secured control of Chattanooga and opened up the Deep South for subsequent Union offensives. This triumph set the stage for General Sherman's Atlanta Campaign and his infamous March to the Sea. It also reinforced the Union's commitment to prevail against Confederate forces until the war's conclusion in 1865.

The success of Union forces during this battle underscored the importance of strong leadership and coordination among troops. General Ulysses S. Grant, known for his aggressive and strategic military tactics, was later appointed commander of all Union armies and played a pivotal role in the war's conclusion. He would later become the 18th president of the United States.

Today, Missionary Ridge is preserved as part of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, where visitors can learn about the battle strategies, the soldiers' experiences, and the broader context of the Civil War.

The images come from the following books in our Civil War Collections:

Lee and His Generals by Capt. William P. Snow, published in New York by Richardson & Company in 1867.

Braxton Bragg, General of the Confederacy by Don C. Seitz, published in Columbia, S.C. by The State Company in 1924.

The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant by Colonel J. F. C. Fuller, published in New York by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1929.

Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant published in New York by C. L. Webster in 1885.

Life and Public Services of General Grant Being a Complete Life of the Great Hero Following His Career from the Cradle to its Close ... by William Ralston Balch, published in Chicago by J.S. Goodman in 1885.

View more of our Milestone Monday posts

-Melissa, Special Collections Graduate Intern

[artistic-vixen]

Juniper "Vixen" Parks (Shadow Company au)

Name: Juniper Parks 

Aliases: Shadow 7-13/ Vixen  Nicknames: June, Juni, JuJu 

Nationality: Britian Ethnicity: White  

Age: 28   

DoB: Dec 6th, 1995 

Pronouns: She/her/hers  

Gender: Female  

Sex: Female 

Sexuality: Demisexual 

Height: 5’5 

Languages: British, English, French 

Which CoD universe: Modern Warfare reboot 

Branches of Service: Army/ Marine corps 

Affiliation: Us Army (formerly)/ Shadow company (Currently/ AU) 

Rank: (N/A at this moment) 

Specialties: (N/A at this moment) 

Personality: (N/A at this moment) 

Alignment: (N/A at this moment) 

Backstory: [CLASSIFIED] 

Issues: (N/A at this moment) 

Habits: (N/A at this moment) 

Scars: (N/A at this moment) 

Preferred method of showing care/affection/love language: Food (Baking, cooking candies) and touch 

Preferred way of receiving care/affection: Touch, Food,  

Eye Color: Blue 

Hair description: Thick curly hair with a few strands of sliver throughout, short and barely touches the nape of her neck.  

Clothing description: In uniform: She wears a long sleeve turtle neck, tactical vest, dark denim pants, black boots, knee shoulder and elbow pads, and a black balaclava.  Out of uniform: When she’s out of uniform she likes to wear mostly neutral colors, although purple is her favorite color. She likes long flowy skirts, long sleeve shirts or anything frilly. She also absolutely loves wearing overalls if the weather allows. 

Body description: Vixen is chubby but the athletic kind of chubby. She does have stretch marks on her legs, arms and chest. She has freckles that dapple her face, shoulders, arms, back and legs. She has pale skin, and dark bags under her eyes. 

Favorite activities: (N/A at this moment) 

Blood type: (N/A at this moment) 

Favorite animal(s): Cats, dogs, snakes and jumping spiders 

Favorite food/dessert: (N/A at this moment) 

[ranahan]

Free tactical medicine learning resources

If you want to learn first aid, emergency care or tactical medical care for real, you will need to practice these skills. A lot. Regularly. There’s no way to learn them just from books. But if you’re looking to supplement your training, can’t access hands on training, are a layperson doing research for your writing or otherwise just curious, here are some free resources (some may need a free account to access them).

TCCC

The current gold standard in the field is Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC), developed by the US army but used by militaries around the world. There is also a civilian version of the system called Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (TECC). Training materials, Standards of Care, instructional videos, etc. can be accessed at deployedmedicine.com. You’ll need a free account. This should be your first and possibly only stop.

There’s also an app and a podcast if those are more your thing, although I haven’t personally tried them.

More TCCC (video) resources

STOP THE BLEED® Interactive Course

TCCC-MP Guidelines and Curriculum presentations and training videos

EURMED’s Medical Beginner's Resource List has suggested list of video materials (disclaimer: I haven’t watched the playlists, but I have been trained by nearly all of the linked systems/organisations and can vouch for them)

Tactical Medical Solutions training resource page (requires registration; some of the courses are free)

North American Rescue video downloads

Emergency medicine

WHO-ICRC Basic Emergency Care: approach to the acutely ill and injured — an open-access course workbook for basic emergency care with limited resources

Global Health Emergency Medicine — open-access, evidence-based, peer-reviewed emergency medicine modules designed for teachers and learners in low-resource health setting

AFEM Resources — curricula, lecture bank, reviews, etc.

Global Emergency Medicine Academy Resources (links to more resources)

OpenStax Anatomy and Physiology textbook

Open-access anatomy and physiology learning resources

OpenStax Pharmacology for nurses textbook

Principles of Pharmacology – Study Guide

Multiple Casualty Incidents

Management of Multiple Casualty Incidents lecture

Bombings: Injury Patterns and Care blast injuries course (scroll down on the page)

Borden Institute has medical textbooks about biological, chemical and nuclear threats

Psychological first aid: Guide for field workers

Prolonged field care

When the evac isn’t coming anytime soon.

Prolonged Field Care Basics lecture (requires registration)

Aerie 14th Edition Wilderness Medicine Manual (textbook)

Austere Emergency Medical Support (AEMS) Field Guide (textbook)

Prolonged Casualty Care (PCC) Guidelines

Wilderness Medical Society Clinical Practice Guidelines

Austere Medicine Resources: Practice Guidelines — a great resource of WMS, PFC, TCCC, etc. clinical practice guidelines in one place

The Wilderness and Environmental Medicine Journal (you can read past issues without a membership)

Prolonged Field Care Collective: Resources

National Park Services Emergency Medical Services Resources

Guerilla Medicine: An Introduction to the Concepts of Austere Medicine in Asymmetric Conflicts (article)

Mental health & PTSD

National Center for PTSD

Psychological first aid: Guide for field workers

Combat and Operational Behavioral Health (medical textbook)

Resources for doctors and medical students

Or you know, other curious people who aren’t afraid of medical jargon.

Borden Institute Military Medical Textbooks and Resources — suggestions: start with Fundamentals of Military Medicine; mechanism of injury of conventional weapons; these two volumes on medical aspects of operating in extreme environments; psychosocial aspects of military medicine; or Combat Anesthesia

Emergency War Surgery textbook and lectures

Disaster Health Core Curriculum — online course for health professionals

Médecins Sans Frontières Clinical guidelines

Pocket book of hospital care for children: Second edition — guidelines for the management of common childhood illnesses in low resource settings

Grey’s Quick Reference: Basic Protocols in Paediatrics and Internal Medicine For Resource Limited Settings

The Department of Defense Center of Excellence for Trauma: Trauma Care Resources (links to more resources)

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from the New York Times:

As Elon Musk’s Starship — the largest rocket ever manufactured — successfully blasted toward the sky last month, the launch was hailed as a giant leap for SpaceX and the United States’ civilian space program.

Two hours later, once conditions were deemed safe, a team from SpaceX, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a conservation group began canvassing the fragile migratory bird habitat surrounding the launch site.

The impact was obvious.

The launch had unleashed an enormous burst of mud, stones and fiery debris across the public lands encircling Mr. Musk’s $3 billion space compound. Chunks of sheet metal and insulation were strewn across the sand flats on one side of a state park. Elsewhere, a small fire had ignited, leaving a charred patch of park grasslands — remnants from the blastoff that burned 7.5 million pounds of fuel.

Most disturbing to one member of the entourage was the yellow smear on the soil in the same spot that a bird’s nest lay the day before. None of the nine nests recorded by the nonprofit Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program before the launch had survived intact.

Egg yolk now stained the ground.

“The nests have all been messed up or have eggs missing,” Justin LeClaire, a Coastal Bend wildlife biologist, told a Fish and Wildlife inspector as a New York Times reporter observed nearby.

The outcome was part of a well-documented pattern.

On at least 19 occasions since 2019, SpaceX operations have caused fires, leaks, explosions or other problems associated with the rapid growth of Mr. Musk’s complex in Boca Chica. These incidents have caused environmental damage and reflect a broader debate over how to balance technological and economic progress against protections of delicate ecosystems and local communities.

That natural tension is heightened by Mr. Musk’s influence over American space aspirations. Members of Congress and senior officials in the Biden administration have fretted privately and publicly about the extent of Mr. Musk’s power as the U.S. government increasingly relies on SpaceX for commercial space operations and for its plans to travel to the moon and even Mars.

An examination of Mr. Musk’s tactics in South Texas shows how he exploited the limitations and competing missions of the various agencies most poised to be a check on the ferocious expansion of the industrial complex he calls Starbase. Those charged with protecting the area’s cultural and natural resources — particularly officials from the Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service — repeatedly lost out to more powerful agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration, whose goals are intertwined with Mr. Musk’s.

In the end, South Texas’ ecology took a back seat to SpaceX’s — and the country’s — ambitions.

Executives from SpaceX declined repeated requests in person and via email to comment. But Gary Henry, who until this year served as a SpaceX adviser on Pentagon launch programs, said the company was aware of the officials’ complaints about environmental impact and was committed to addressing them.

Kelvin B. Coleman, the top F.A.A. official overseeing space launch licenses, said he was convinced that his agency was doing its duty, which is to foster space travel safely.

“Blowing debris into state parks or national land is not what we prescribed, but the bottom line is no one got hurt, no one got injured,” Mr. Coleman said in an interview. “We certainly don’t want people to feel like they’re bulldozed. But it’s a really important operation that SpaceX is conducting down there. It is really important to our civilian space program.”

[onlyforpjm]

Agent Emerald

Episode 2; Only When I Have Something to Lose

❧words: 3,737

❧ warnings:gun violence, violence, blood, minor deaths, one sided love

❧pairing: agent!jimin x agent!y/n ft jungkook

❧genre: strangers to lovers

❧au: national intelligence service/agents/bodyguards 

summary: Protecting Jungkook as you work for the secret service was a walk in the park, until things change for the worse and a new recruit is assigned as your partner, Agent Dorem.

The silence that follows Jin’s announcement is thick, almost suffocating, a charged pause stretched between breaths, broken only by the soft hum of the lights above and the occasional distant echo of footsteps down sterile NIS corridors.

Jimin, or rather, Agent Dorem, moves with quiet precision as he lowers himself into the seat at the far end of the long briefing table. His posture is relaxed, almost casual, but his eyes sweep the room like a blade in the dark. Calculating. Measuring. Assessing.

They pause on Jungkook.

Then flick to you.

The contact is brief, but you catch it. He offers you a nod. Polite. Controlled. Confident. Too confident.

There’s calm in his expression, yes, but it’s the kind of calm forged in fire. Not the absence of danger, but the control of it. And it’s unnerving.

Jungkook shifts uncomfortably in his seat, his body stiff with unease. He doesn't like this, doesn’t like surprises, and certainly doesn’t like strangers being added to his detail without explanation. Especially not when his life already feels like it’s spiraling out of control.

He finally speaks, voice low and hoarse. “Why do I need another agent?”

His words aren’t aggressive. But they’re not welcoming either.

Jin, standing at the head of the table, folds his hands carefully in front of him. His gaze is steady, but there's weariness behind his eyes, the kind that only comes from carrying too many secrets for too long.

“Because you’re the primary target now,” Jin says plainly. “And Agent Emerald can’t be expected to handle everything alone, not with the threat level we’re facing.”

He pauses, letting the weight of that statement settle before continuing.

“Dorem was pulled from deep undercover operations in Prague for this mission. That should tell you something.”

Your eyes drift to Jimin, studying him more closely now. Agent Dorem. You’ve heard the name whispered through NIS hallways. Sometimes with respect. Sometimes with fear. The kind of operative who didn’t just complete missions, he ended them. No mess. No witnesses. No fingerprints.

The ghost behind a locked dossier.

And now he’s been assigned to your mission. Your mission.

Your fingers twitch against the fabric of your tactical pants, your gut tightening. You’re not afraid of Jimin. But you’ve learned enough to know: people like him don’t walk into rooms without knowing how they’ll walk out of them.

Jimin finally speaks, his voice smooth, warmer than you expect, but with something unmistakably sharp beneath it. Like honey poured over broken glass.

“Don’t worry, Jeon Jungkook,” he says evenly, leaning back slightly in his chair. “I’m not here to replace anyone.”

Jungkook’s jaw tenses. “I want to know why I’m being hunted like prey,” he snaps, voice suddenly cracking with the weight of anger he’s been holding back.  “Why I can’t walk across my own campus without wondering if there’s a bullet with my name on it.” 

There’s a beat of silence. And then Jin sighs softly. Not out of frustration, out of grief. “You’ll know everything in time,” he says gently, but firmly. “For now, Agent Dorem and Agent Emerald will operate as your protection team, effective immediately. Full co-operative oversight. We’ll be running intel on the Choo Mafia around the clock, tracking Sunghoon’s every move.”

The name slices through the air like an unsheathed knife.

Sunghoon.

Your father.

You keep your expression unreadable, but Jin notices the shift in your body, the way your shoulders tense, the way your jaw clenches.

President Jeon, silent until now, leans forward at the end of the table, fingers steepled. His voice is low and cold. “And when we find him?”

Everyone’s gaze turns to Jin. There’s a pause, long, deliberate.

Jin doesn’t hesitate out of fear. He hesitates because he knows the weight of what he’s about to say.

He looks at you.

“We eliminate the threat.”

The words land like a gunshot. You swallow hard. You know exactly what eliminate means. And you know exactly who will be expected to pull the trigger when that time comes. You.

Your hand curls into a fist under the table, fingernails digging into your palm. You’ve trained your entire life for moments like that. But this one… this one cuts differently. Because the man you're being asked to kill isn't just a target in a file. He’s your blood. 

The meeting dissolves slowly, tension rising like steam as chairs scrape back and agents begin to file out, murmuring among themselves. You stay seated, unmoving, until Jin steps to your side and places a hand gently on your shoulder. “Stay back a moment, Agent Emerald.”

Jungkook turns in the doorway, his dark eyes locking on yours, searching. For what, you’re not sure. You offer him a nod. “I’ll be right there,” you murmur. It’s the softest thing you’ve said all day. He doesn’t look satisfied, but he nods once and walks out.

The door clicks shut. And then it’s just you and Jin. The silence stretches between you, heavy with things neither of you want to say out loud.

Finally, Jin speaks. “Y/N…” His voice is soft. Careful. “Where’s your head?”

You answer automatically. “I’m focused.” He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. “Try again.” You look away. He steps forward, standing directly in front of you now. “I know what he did to you,” he says quietly. “I was there when you showed up on NIS steps, bruised and bleeding, begging for a new life. I took you in. Trained you. Gave you a mission.”

You meet his gaze. “And now,” he continues, “you’re going to have to look him in the eye again. But this time… it’s not just memory.”

His eyes hardened slightly. “This time, if it comes to it, you may have to kill him.” Your heart kicks against your ribs, but your voice doesn’t shake.

“If he threatens Jungkook. Or the president. Or anyone else I’m assigned to protect… I won’t hesitate.” Jin studies your face for a long time.

What he sees there seems to satisfy him. Finally, he nods once. “Then let’s start preparing.” He turns away, but before he can reach the door, he adds over his shoulder: “Because war is coming, and it’s going to hit closer to home than either of us expected.”

When you step into the hallway, the air feels different. Charged. Thinner somehow. Jimin leans casually against the wall, hands in his jacket pockets. He’s watching you with a knowing smile, not mocking, just amused. Like he’s already ten steps into the game. 

“Hope you’re ready to share the spotlight, Emerald,” he says with a wink. You roll your eyes, brushing past him. “Just try not to slow me down.” Jungkook stands between the two of you, arms crossed, shoulders tight with tension. His gaze shifts from you to Jimin and back again, confusion flickering behind his eyes. He doesn’t say anything.

He doesn’t need to. He’s caught between two lives. Two protectors. 

The three of you fall into step, walking side by side down the corridor toward the briefing room. Your boots click softly against the linoleum, your shadows stretched long under the cold ceiling lights.

You, Agent Emerald — trained, loyal, deadly, haunted by blood that won’t wash off.

Jimin, Agent Dorem — a mystery wrapped in charm, precise and unshakable.

And Jungkook — the boy at the center of a war he never asked for.

And as you walk together into the unfolding storm, one truth rises above all the others: This mission isn’t just about justice anymore. It’s personal. And it always has been.

Jimin broke the silence as the elevator descended, rocking slightly on his heels. “So… are we all pretending this isn’t painfully awkward, or are we saving that for the ride?”

Jungkook shot him a look. “I was planning on faking sleep the entire way.” You let out a quiet sigh. “Let’s save the whole bonding experience for after we’ve survived our first mission without strangling each other.” Jimin raised an eyebrow, hand over his heart with exaggerated offense. “Noted. I’ll cancel the trust fall and campfire songs.”

You finally looked up. “Prague survived you. That’s impressive.”

“Barely,” Jungkook muttered under his breath.

Jimin pointed at him. “See? He gets it.”

As the elevator dinged open to the underground level, the tension hadn’t quite settled, not distrust, exactly. Just the sharp edges of three very different people trying to figure out if they were teammates, or just passengers in the same doomed carpool.

Jimin casually tossed the keys up. “I’ll drive.” You raised an eyebrow. “You sure that’s wise? First impressions are important.”

“Relax,” he said, grinning as he unlocked the SUV. “I only hit one curb. Ever.” You just rolled your eyes and settled into the passenger seat.

With a low hum, the engine started.

The drive was quiet. Too quiet. The soft hum of the engine filled the air between the three of you, a static lull thick with tension and everything left unsaid. Streetlights cast passing glows across the interior of the matte-black SUV as it cut through the heart of Seoul. Outside, the city was winding down, but inside the vehicle, everything felt like it was still holding its breath.

Jimin drove with one hand draped over the wheel, the other occasionally tapping the turn signal, eyes locked on the road ahead. Calm. Confident. Controlled.

From the backseat, Jungkook was stiff, arms crossed, shoulders squared, chin tilted toward the window as if he could phase through it and vanish into the night. Every so often, his jaw would twitch like he was grinding down a thousand thoughts behind clenched teeth.

You sat beside him, eyes flicking between the rearview and the tension practically vibrating off of him. “Hey,” you said softly, leaning in just a little. “You okay?”

A beat. 

“No.”

His voice was quiet, but flat. Honest. You didn’t push. Just waited.

“I trust you,” he muttered after a long pause, not looking at you. “You’re the only one I trust. And now he’s here.”

Your gaze shifted to the rearview mirror, where you could see Jimin’s eyes briefly glance back, unreadable. “I get it,” you murmured. “It’s a lot. And it happened fast. But this isn’t about trust, it’s about keeping you alive.” Jungkook turned toward you, finally, eyes sharp. 

“You’re saying I should trust him?”

“I’m saying you don’t have to trust him. Just let him do his job.”

“He’s not you.” The words were raw. Unfiltered. And they landed heavier than you expected. You opened your mouth, but Jimin’s voice cut in smoothly from the front seat. “I don’t plan on being her. But I do plan on keeping you breathing, so if it helps, pretend I’m just another weapon in your arsenal.” Jungkook scoffed.

Minutes later, the car descended into the underground garage of Jungkook’s penthouse. Jimin parked clean and fast, like clockwork. Engine off. Silence again. Jungkook was the first to get out. His movements were brisk, almost like he couldn’t get away fast enough.

You followed close behind. Jimin shut the driver’s door with a quiet thud and took a slow glance around the concrete structure, scanning the corners, exits, and cameras. Always analyzing.

The three of you moved as a unit toward the private elevator. Fingerprint scan. Retinal confirmation. Security code. You completed each step with smooth, practiced ease. Jimin lingered near the keypad, watching. “Not bad,” he remarked.

“Though I would’ve installed a silent failsafe in the hallway. Pressure sensors.” 

You arched a brow. “We’re not fortifying a bunker.” 

“Might as well be.”

When the elevator dinged and opened, Jungkook stepped in first, not waiting. You and Jimin followed. The tension in the confined space was palpable. 

As you ascended to Jungkook’s floor, Jimin broke the silence.

“This place doesn’t make sense,” he said. “You’ve got the president’s son stashed in a luxury apartment complex with a bunch of civilians two floors below. That’s your security plan?” You didn’t look at him, just folded your arms. “NIS has him protected.”

Jimin gave you a look like that wasn’t enough.

You sighed. “High-profile targets get pulled into private safehouses, sure, but keeping someone like Jungkook locked in a bunker 24/7? That would draw more attention than protection. Everyone watches the buildings with the gates and the security. But no one suspects the top floor of a luxury high-rise with a tight internal system and anonymous NIS tech running behind the scenes.”

Jimin raised an eyebrow. “Anonymous?” You smirked. “The neighbors think they’re just lucky to have clean elevators and stable power. They don’t realize the guy next door is being protected by three surveillance satellites, six rotating agents, and a dog trained to kill on command.”

The elevator chimed. You stepped out first, scanning the corridor with muscle memory. Jungkook moved to his door. Jimin trailed behind, still absorbing the unseen layers around him.

“Ok so,” Jimin said casually as he made his rounds, “If you’re supposed to be watching over Jungkook 24/7…” He turned toward you with a smirk. “Why don’t you just live with him?” 

You turned mid-stride, your expression unreadable, and raised a finger. “One,” you said, voice calm, “Jungkook is a grown man. I’m sure he wouldn’t want to be rooming with his female best friend. He deserves his privacy.”

Jimin raised a brow.

You lifted a second finger. “Two. He has his panic button. And Bam.”

You stopped in front of the next door, turned, and added a third finger. “Three. I’m his next-door neighbor.”

You flashed Jimin a sly smile and pointed to the door to your own apartment. Jimin blinked. “You’re serious.” You shrugged, leaning against the doorframe. “Close enough to be first if anything happens. Far enough to give him space.” Jungkook, without missing a beat, muttered, “Could’ve fooled me with how often you’re knocking on my door like a neighborhood watch.” That earned a small laugh from Jimin, the kind that was trying very hard not to be a smirk. He simply offered a low chuckle. “Well, this is going to be fun.” You rolled your eyes. Jungkook didn’t say anything else. 

He unlocked the door to his apartment and stepped inside. The lights flicked on automatically, revealing the familiar, sleek interior. Marble floors. Chrome finishes. Modern art that probably costs more than most cars. And yet… it didn’t feel like home tonight. A familiar sound echoed from within Bam’s claws clicking against the hardwood as he came bounding into view. “Hey, Bam,” Jungkook murmured, kneeling to greet his dog. Bam immediately pushed his nose into Jungkook’s hands, tail wagging wildly, whining with recognition and relief. Jungkook let out the smallest sigh, pressing his forehead against Bam’s.“Missed you too, buddy.” Then Bam turned, padding toward Jimin with slow curiosity. He gave a cautious sniff, circling once, then looked up at him with narrowed but interested eyes. 

“He’s sizing you up,” you commented with a knowing smirk. “Seems fair,” Jimin replied, letting Bam sniff his hand. After a moment, the dog gave a single wag of approval and padded over to you. You knelt briefly, stroking behind his ears.

Jimin did a silent sweep the moment he stepped in. Corners. Windows. Closets. Jungkook didn’t like it. And it showed. 

“You’ll be staying at my place. Next door. We rotate shifts, but until we have a read on Sunghoon’s next move, you’re sticking close.”

Jimin didn’t argue. “Got it. Hope you have good coffee.”

You chuckled. “I don’t drink coffee.” Jimin blinked. “Wait, what?”

You shrugged. “It makes me jittery. I like knowing I can be that sharp on instinct alone.” He chuckled under his breath. “Terrifying. And impressive.” As he followed you toward your apartment, Jungkook stood quietly inside his own, watching the door you just disappeared behind. 

Your apartment was expected. Neat but lived-in. Weapons hidden in plain sight if you knew where to look. A wall of shelves stacked with case files, weapons manuals, and well-worn copies of novels about betrayal and war. On the coffee table, a half-built pistol sat next to a mug of untouched herbal tea.

Jimin gave a low whistle. "Feels like a safehouse. Smells like vanilla.”

You shrugged, locking the door behind him. "Helps me sleep."

He walked further in, letting his eyes scan every inch, habit more than suspicion. "You always keep your place this ready?"

"It’s not readiness. It’s muscle memory." You gestured to the couch. "You can crash there, or in the spare room down the hall. Sheets are clean. Don’t bleed on them." He chuckled and dropped his bag by the couch. "Not planning to." You studied him for a second longer than necessary, then turned away. "Kitchen’s stocked. Just don’t touch the left cabinet. That’s mine." He glanced at it with mock suspicion. "Explosives?"

"Snacks. You can guess which ones I’m more protective over." Jimin’s laughter softened the edge in the room. It was strange. For two people trained to kill in silence, the quiet between you felt manageable. Even comfortable. Not quite trust. But not quite danger either. You handed him a spare blanket, then paused. "You snore?"

Jimin looked almost offended. "Only when I’m dreaming about saving your life." You rolled your eyes. "Good. Then let’s hope tonight is dreamless."

He didn’t say anything as he sank onto the couch, finally allowing his body to relax. You flicked off the lights and disappeared into your room, leaving the door slightly ajar.

The next morning arrived far too early for anyone's liking.

Before the sun had fully crested the skyline, a sharp, rhythmic knock echoed from Jungkook's bedroom door. The sound wasn’t frantic. It was deliberate.

“Jeon Jungkook,” you called through the door, voice steady. “Up. Now.”

Inside, Jungkook groaned into his pillow, dragging a blanket further over his head like it might protect him from your persistence. He knew better. Seconds later, his door creaked open and you stepped inside with your usual no-nonsense stride.

“Is it an emergency?” he mumbled, face still buried. You marched up to the bed, grabbed the covers, and yanked them off in one smooth pull.

“Only if you consider being helpless in a combat situation an emergency. Which you should.” His eyes cracked open, confusion still hazy. “It’s four. In the morning.”

“That’s when agents train,” you replied without missing a beat. “You want to survive? Then you train like us.” Jungkook sat up slowly, rubbing his face. “You didn’t say anything about this last night.” You tossed him a hoodie. “If I had, you’d have spent the night pretending you were sick. Surprise is a better motivator.”He muttered something under his breath, dragging himself out of bed. “I thought I had two agents assigned to me.”

“You do. But we can’t babysit you forever.” Your voice turned more serious. “If something happens. If we’re not there. You need to be able to hold your own. NIS protocol or not, you’re the president’s son. That makes you a target. Which means now, it makes you one of us.”

“Yay. So honored,” Jungkook deadpanned as he pulled his hoodie over his head.

An hour later, the three of you stood in front of NIS Headquarters under a sky still tinged with dawn. The towering glass and steel building gleamed with a quiet authority, its mirrored surface reflecting the empty roads and shifting clouds overhead.

Security was tight, but no one stopped you. Facial scans, retina recognition, biometric clearance. You breezed through them all.

Inside, the halls buzzed faintly with the pulse of the nation’s intelligence nerve center. Agents moved with purpose, reports in hand or earpieces chirping with coded updates. As the trio descended into the sublevel training complex, the air thickened with energy. The muted thud of sparring hits, the sharp retort of gunfire from the shooting ranges, and the rhythmic pounding of boots against obstacle course pads all formed a pulse you could feel in your bones.

You led them into a private training room reserved for elite ops. Massive, padded floors, reinforced glass observation panels, racks of training weapons, and programmable combat dummies lining the wall.

“Welcome to the jungle,” Jimin muttered with a grin, dropping his gym bag to the floor and stretching his neck until it cracked.

Jungkook looked around, arms still folded across his chest. “This feels excessive.”

“Excessive is staying alive,” you shot back. “You're not just a protected anymore. You’re a liability if you can’t defend yourself.”

You tossed him a pair of grappling gloves and padded forearm guards. He caught them awkwardly. “First lesson,” Jimin said, stepping onto the mat, “is that your body isn’t your enemy. Fear is.” Jungkook groaned, already dreading the soreness he’d be feeling by noon. “Remind me again why I’m doing this?”

“Because I didn’t give you a choice,” you said, voice clipped, but not unkind.

“Let’s start with stance,” Jimin added, motioning for Jungkook to step up. “Basic guard. Legs apart, dominant foot back, fists up. Pretend I’m about to kill you.”

Jungkook blinked. “Again, loving the positive energy in this room.”

You paced around them as Jungkook hesitantly mirrored Jimin’s posture. You observed with sharp eyes, occasionally stepping in to reposition his elbows, widen his stance, lower his shoulders. He was tense, but coachable. You could work with that.

The first hour was nothing but conditioning. Footwork, balance, agility drills, all under your sharp commands. Jungkook fell twice. Then four times. He was drenched in sweat by the time Jimin called a break.

You handed him a bottle of water and a towel, crouching beside him.

“You’re not bad,” you said. “You’re just not used to fighting back.”

He looked up at you, chest heaving. “Didn’t think I’d have to.”

You stared at him a moment longer. “You’re going to have to do a lot of things now.”

“Great. Can’t wait to add dodge-rolls and trauma to my resume.”

Across the room, Jimin was resetting the dummies and entering new difficulty levels into the control panel. He glanced over his shoulder.

“After this, we’ll hit the range. I want to see how well you aim under pressure.” Jungkook’s groan was theatrical. “You guys really don’t believe in breakfast first, huh?”

“Pain before pancakes,” you replied with a smirk.

“Can I at least get pancakes after?”

“No promises.”

Jimin grinned. “If you survive the day without crying, I’ll consider it.” You chuckled softly, surprising even yourself. Jungkook, still sprawled out on the mat, glanced between the two of you. His curiosity finally got the better of him. “Okay,” he said, pointing between you and Jimin, “Be honest. Who’d win in a spar between you two?” You and Jimin exchanged a slow glance. Jimin raised a brow, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. “Want to find out?”

You cracked your knuckles. “You sure you want him to see you lose on his first day?”

“Oh please,” Jimin laughed, already stepping onto the mat. “Let’s give him a show.” Jungkook scrambled to the side like a kid at his first martial arts tournament, wide-eyed and eager. “This is the best day of my life.”

You both circled each other on the mat. Tension coiled between you like a live wire. Jimin moved first — a calculated jab that you ducked before sweeping a leg toward his feet. He jumped, spun, and landed with a grin.

“Not bad,” he said.

“You’re slow,” you countered.

They traded blows, swift and fluid. Neither of you gave the other the upper hand for more than a second. Jungkook’s head moved like he was watching a ping-pong match. At one point, you rolled across Jimin’s back and landed on your feet. He managed to block your follow-up kick by a hair.

After five intense minutes, both of you broke into a sweat, breathing hard, grinning. Jungkook stood and clapped, completely invested. “Okay, I take back everything I said about this training being unnecessary. That was sick.”

You smirked at Jimin. “Call it a draw?” Jimin nodded, chest still rising and falling. “Until next time.” Before the sweat could even dry on your backs, you nodded toward the back of the room. “Range. Let’s go.”

Jungkook groaned dramatically from where he still sat, wiping his forehead with a towel. “You two fight like you're auditioning for a spy movie and now you want me to shoot things?” You tilted your head. “Yes. Because people are trying to shoot you. Figure it out.”

Jimin clapped a hand on Jungkook’s shoulder as he passed. “Don’t worry. The first time I held a gun, I dropped it. You can’t do worse than that.”

“You dropped it?” Jungkook asked, both alarmed and curious.

“I was eleven,” Jimin replied with a grin. “Also, it was loaded. Also, it shot a hole through a cement wall.”

“Wow. Okay. Feeling super safe now.” The range was dim, sterile, and humming with pressure-sensitive floor panels. You handed Jungkook a matte black pistol with practiced ease. He stared at it like it might bite him.

“Grip is firm but relaxed,” you said, stepping beside him. “Don't overthink. Just feel the weight. Trust your aim.” Jungkook took the stance Jimin had shown him earlier. Elbows tight. Shoulders stiff. Jimin chuckled. “He’s wound up like a pretzel.” You moved behind Jungkook, gently guiding his arms down, adjusting the angle of his grip. “Relax. If you shoot like you’re bracing for an earthquake, you’ll miss every time.” He let out a breath. “No pressure or anything.”

“Safety’s off. You’re live.” The first shot cracked through the room. It hit wide, barely grazing the edge of the target. Jungkook frowned. “Seriously?”

Jimin leaned against the wall. “Hey, at least you hit the paper. That’s better than my first shot.”

“Liar.” Jungkook narrowed his eyes and took another breath. This time, he adjusted slightly. Fired. A little closer to the center. You gave the faintest nod. “Better.”

“Don’t get cocky,” Jimin warned. “Now do it again. And again. Until your hands don’t shake anymore.” Jungkook glanced at him. “Is that how you learned?” Jimin’s smile faded into something quieter. “Yeah. More or less.”

You watched Jungkook’s grip tighten. There was no shortcut to strength. But he was willing. That was enough for now.

“We’re done for today,” you announced, your voice firm but not unkind as you ejected the magazine from your pistol and set it on the bench. “Gear down.”

Jungkook let out a breath, part relief, part sheer exhaustion. Jimin didn’t speak, already disarming his weapon with the practiced ease of someone who had done this more times than he could count. The range, moments ago filled with the echo of gunfire and sharp commands, now felt too quiet. The only sounds were the distant whir of the air system and the dull clatter of equipment being returned to its place. You stepped back from the shooting lane and pulled off your gloves, watching as Jungkook sluggishly unfastened the gear strapped to his torso. He was slow but focused. It was the kind of exhaustion that came with learning the hard way. He didn’t complain. The three of you moved through the motions in silence, stowing weapons, stripping off vests, and grabbing your bags. The transition from fieldwork to downtime was always a strange shift, a kind of unspoken decompression. But this time, it felt more like survival. Earned and necessary. “Let’s go,” you said, slinging your bag over your shoulder.

No one argued. Jimin opened the door and led the way out of the training floor. The hallway was dim and cold by contrast, lined with concrete and steel. You walked in step behind him while Jungkook followed, slower, his footsteps a little uneven. The elevator hummed as it descended toward the lower level of HQ, toward the locker rooms and that familiar, muted world agents returned to when they needed a breath. Jungkook didn’t ask where you were going. He just kept moving forward.

The locker room was cool and quiet, a sanctuary of steam and silence compared to the chaos below. It wasn’t the communal one used by junior agents; this was tucked deeper inside HQ, lined with reinforced lockers, softly humming air vents, and an atmosphere worn down by experience.

Jimin dropped his bag onto the bench with a grunt and stretched his arms overhead. “Remind me not to volunteer for sparring before coffee again.”

You managed a faint smile. “Remind me why you keep thinking I’d go easy on you.”

Jungkook was the last one in, slower with his movements. He just looked like he’d finally begun to understand how heavy this world could be. After a quick rinse and a change of clothes, you led the way through the corridor past the locker room, a route most agents didn’t know existed. A hidden hallway with no label, just a fingerprint panel and an unassuming steel door. Inside was the lounge reserved for high-clearance operatives: all quiet sophistication, dim lights, and plush chairs that invited exhaustion.

This was where agents went when they didn’t want to be seen. But didn’t want to be alone. And today, it was yours.

Jimin was the first to drop into one of the low armchairs, exhaling slowly like the tension was finally starting to bleed out of his shoulders. He slung a towel around his neck and stared at the ceiling like it might offer answers. You took a seat on the edge of the couch across from him, sipping from a bottle of water, your mind still half on the training floor. Jungkook hovered nearby at first, pacing a little, arms crossed like he hadn’t quite decided if he belonged in this space yet or in any of it.

The quiet settled between the three of you until Jungkook’s voice cut through it.  “Do you remember your first mission?”

You glanced over at him. Neither you nor Jimin answered right away.

You leaned back into the cushions and let your gaze wander toward the far wall. “Recovery op,” you said finally. “Two agents went dark. No comms. No intel. They sent us in blind.”

Jungkook tilted his head. “Did you find them?”

“One,” you said, your voice soft but steady. “The other... wasn’t in one piece.”

The weight of the words hung between you all. Even the filtered air felt heavier now. Jimin exhaled, long and slow. “Mine was in New York,” he said, his voice quieter now. “We had to get a scientist out before he was handed over to the wrong people. It was supposed to be quick, in and out.” He paused. “But our intel was off. The exit point was compromised. Everything went sideways. I had to get him out on foot, through crowded streets, in the rain. He was bleeding badly, and I dislocated my shoulder helping him over a wall.” He gave a half-shrug. “Not exactly what they put in the training manuals.”

You arched a brow at him, and for a beat, he gave the ghost of a grin. But he didn’t elaborate. Jungkook finally dropped into the seat beside you, his posture folding in slightly as the weight of what he’d asked and what he’d heard settled into his bones. “So you both almost died,” he murmured. “And now you’re here. Babysitting me.”  You looked at Jungkook, your expression softening just a touch. “You’re not dead weight, Jungkook. You’re the mission. And if that means we’re risking our necks to keep you alive, then so be it.”

He studied his hands, fingers twitching faintly. “Does it ever get easier?”

You didn’t answer immediately. You glanced at Jimin, who didn’t say anything either. Finally, you drew a breath. “No,” you said. “But you get better at carrying it. You learn when to put it down. And when not to.”

Jungkook nodded, but it was slow, not because he disagreed, but because he was still parsing the truth of it. The cold, sharp edge of the world you lived in was starting to press into him now. After a while, he leaned forward again, elbows on his knees. His voice was almost hesitant now.

“Do you guys ever get scared?” You didn’t look at him. Instead, you stared down at your hands, at the calluses and fading bruises. You didn’t speak for a long moment. “Only when I have something to lose,” you said quietly.

Jimin’s gaze flicked over to you, unreadable, but something in the tightness around his eyes shifted. He didn’t speak, but you saw the faintest flicker in his expression. Agreement. Or maybe memory. The room fell into another silence, but this one was different. Heavier, yes, but not cold. Not stifling. It was a silence that knew it didn’t need to be filled. For the first time since this mission started, you weren’t just three people thrown together by NIS protocol. You were starting to feel like a team. And underneath all the training and silence and combat drills, that realization was the only thing that offered any comfort at all.

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[mariacallous]

The April 10 legislative elections in South Korea loom especially large for President Yoon Suk-yeol. After winning his election in March 2022 by the narrowest margin in the country’s history, the conservative Yoon inherited the National Assembly elected in 2020, in which South Korea’s liberals won a historic landslide thanks to the Moon Jae-in administration’s strong response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Out of the legislature’s 300 seats, the liberal coalition won a 180-seat majority, the largest margin of victory in South Korea’s democratic history.

Two years into his five-year presidential term, Yoon has left a mark in areas that are down to the president alone. Yoon made profligate use of presidential decrees, executive orders that don’t require legislative approval. In his first year, Yoon issued 809 presidential decrees, while his two immediate predecessors, Moon and Park Geun-hye, issued 660 and 653 decrees, respectively, in their first years. Yoon also exerted influence through his appointments—most notably Park Min, the new head of the state-owned broadcaster KBS who sacked popular liberal journalists as soon as he took office. In foreign policy, Yoon capitulated to Japan’s demands to sideline World War II-era Korean forced laborers and release wastewater from the failed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, paving the way for U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral cooperation.

But in areas that require legislative assent, Yoon has been stymied. The South Korean Constitution allows the executive branch to directly propose a bill to the legislature. For the first six months of Yoon’s presidency, the National Assembly refused to pass a single bill proposed by the government. Yoon’s campaign pledge of abolishing the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, pandering to the toxic misogyny rampant among young Korean men and fueling their conservative turn, has not come to pass because a reorganization of cabinet ministries requires passing a law. (Yoon has responded by simply refusing to appoint a gender equality minister.)

Meanwhile, the opposition Democratic Party has leveraged its commanding majority to pass laws that could have been highly damaging to Yoon, such as providing for special prosecutor investigations of the Itaewon Halloween disaster, in which 159 partygoers died in crushing crowds in Seoul’s popular nightlife district, and the alleged stock pump-and-dump scheme on the part of first lady Kim Keon-hee. Each time, Yoon responded by exercising a presidential veto, quickly racking up nine vetoes in the first two years of his presidency—equal to the total number of vetoes exercised by six of his predecessors combined.

Naturally, the Yoon administration and the ruling People Power Party (PPP) are heavily focused on recapturing the legislative majority in elections this month. Yoon was able to win the presidency by flipping a significant part of Seoul from liberal to conservative between 2020 and 2022, by pandering heavily to grievances over rising property tax. The real estate slump since Yoon’s election—Seoul’s condominium prices dipped by more than 7 percent in the past year—threatened to erode that support, as the lower condo price damaged upper-middle-class Seoul residents’ primary investment while the decreased profits and higher interest rate pushed large construction companies to the brink.

In response, South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service audited banks for charging what the regulators claimed were overly high interest rates, in a move seen as a tactic to pressure banks to extend loans to companies that posed a credit risk. The government also delayed the publication of major economic indicators such as the previous year’s budget deficit and the rising price of consumer goods until after election day on April 10.

For its interim leader in the run-up to the election, the PPP tapped Han Dong-hoon, Yoon’s justice minister and heir apparent. Because of his patrician air and relative youth at 51 years old, Han has been hailed as representing the next generation of conservatives. In the words of conservative columnist Kim Soon-deok of Dong-A Ilbo, Han stands in contrast to Yoon in three ways: “First, he does not drink. Second, he is not a stinky old man. Third, he dresses well and speaks with refined language.” With Han at the center, the conservative party has been able to distance itself from the deeply unpopular president.

The Yoon administration also enjoyed a bump in popularity with its proposal to increase the number of medical students by 2,000—a significant jump from the current level of around 3,000. South Korea has a very low number of doctors, which has resulted in a lack of access to medical care especially outside the Seoul metropolitan area. At just 2.6 doctors per 1,000 people, it’s as low as in the United States, which also has a significant and artificially created shortage, and less than half of the number of most developed countries. Doctors reacted strongly, with more than 90 percent of interns and residents going on strike. Nevertheless, the Yoon administration effectively painted doctors as money-grubbers who wished to artificially restrict the size of their ranks to protect their bottom line. With all these moves, by late February it appeared that Yoon and the conservatives had put themselves in the pole position.

Meanwhile, South Korean liberals have been mired in a civil war. Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the Democratic Party and a former presidential candidate who opposed Yoon, began as a member of the minority faction within his party. As the Democratic Party finalized its slate of candidates in February, the legislators not aligned with Lee found themselves sidelined from running for their seats again. Many of them—including high-ranking members such as Assembly Deputy Speaker Kim Young-joo—quit the party, casting their lot with the PPP or seeking a third-party bid with former Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon, who lost a bitter presidential primary against Lee in 2021.

But the campaign landscape changed dramatically in March as a new third party, the Rebuilding Korea Party (RKP), took the scene by storm. The RKP was founded by Cho Kuk, who was widely considered to be the heir apparent to Moon as the liberal president’s justice minister. Instead, Cho’s short time in office fueled the rise of Yoon.

As South Korea’s prosecutor general at the time, Yoon conducted a massive investigation campaign against Cho and his family, eventually putting his wife in prison for forging a service certificate that was included in their daughter’s college applications. Yoon’s prosecution of Cho galvanized the conservatives, who saw Cho as a symbol of liberal hypocrisy. Liberals, on the other hand, saw Cho as a martyr whose family was destroyed for the sake of Yoon’s quest for power.

With Yoon’s unpopularity, the latter narrative began to win out. The RKP’s slogan is not subtle: “Three years is too long,” referring to the remaining term of Yoon’s presidency. The new party quickly became the rallying flag for South Korean liberals critical of Yoon but disappointed with the Democratic Party’s internal squabbling. Even moderates began joining the RKP ranks, attracted by the clear message of punishing the Yoon administration. Within weeks of its launch, the RKP became South Korea’s most popular party with approximately 25 percent support.

A major turning point came on March 18, when Yoon made a highly publicized visit to a supermarket—a photo op to show that the president was tending to the wild increase in food prices. In January and February, the cost of food in South Korea increased by 6.7 percent year over year, with popular items like apples rising by as much as 121.9 percent in the same period, resulting in some supermarkets selling a single apple for 19,800 won (about $15).

At the supermarket, Yoon held up a bundle of scallions and said: “I do a lot of grocery shopping, and 875 won for a bundle seems reasonable.” But in most grocery stores around South Korea, a bundle of scallions typically sells for between 4,000 and 7,000 won; the supermarket that Yoon visited just happened to be running a suspiciously well-timed promotion on scallions.

Yoon’s attempt at Potemkin produce, over a household item whose price is common knowledge, instantly became fodder for viral mockery. Especially in the Seoul metropolitan area, where partisanship is relatively weak and election results tend to alternate, support for the conservatives began crashing. Yoon’s gaffe, and the rise of his nemesis Cho, is threatening to reverse the gain that South Korea’s conservatives have made in Seoul in the past two years.

Seeking to recapture the momentum, Yoon took to the bully pulpit on April 1 to exhort the striking doctors to return to work. But the government’s standoff against doctors is now losing popularity, as the public is facing the consequences of a lack of medical care, such as emergency rooms rejecting ambulances and cancer surgeries being delayed indefinitely. The newly elected head of the Korea Medical Association vowed that the doctors would not negotiate unless Yoon apologized and sacked the health minister.

In his April 1 statement, Yoon offered no compromise—a stance that has done little for conservatives as election day approaches. After the president’s address, one unnamed conservative legislator despaired: “I feel like a dinosaur looking up at the oncoming comet, sensing our extinction.”

[misfitwashere]

The Abandonment of Ukraine

The American strategy in Ukraine is slowly bleeding the nation, and its people, to death.

By Karl Marlantes and Elliot Ackerman

On a recent trip to Ukraine, we walked through the rubble of a children’s hospital in Kyiv targeted by the Russians, toured an apartment building in Kharkiv where floor after floor had been destroyed by Russian missiles, and visited the front lines to meet with soldiers who spoke of the brutality of Russian human-wave tactics. But the most unsettling thing we saw was the American strategy in Ukraine, one that gives the Ukrainian people just enough military aid not to lose their war but not enough to win it. This strategy is slowly bleeding Ukraine, and its people, to death.

Our visit was facilitated by With Honor, a bipartisan political-action committee that supports veterans in Congress, and we toured Ukraine alongside Republican and Democratic lawmakers. We are both Marine Corps veterans. We have a combined 60-year breadth of combat experience between us, including Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The horrors of war are not unfamiliar to us. Yet both of us felt deeply disturbed as we finished our trip.

In Kharkiv, we met with a group of Ukrainian combat veterans. Before the war, Victoria Honcharuk, a 24-year-old medic, lived in the United States, where she’d been accepted to a graduate program at Harvard while working in New York City in investment banking. When war broke out in February 2022, she left that life behind and returned home to defend her country. Her unit of medics, composed entirely of volunteers, draws no pay. Approximately half of the friends she began service with have been killed or wounded. When she enumerated her concerns for the future, they included the safety of her family and her friends but also how she would make payments on her U.S. student loans while fighting a war for her country’s survival. When a member of our group observed that Ukraine’s future would involve young people, like her, leading and rebuilding her country, she paused and politely reminded us that they could rebuild it only if they survived.

After, we drove into the nearby countryside to a field a few miles back from the front lines, where we met up with the drone unit from the 92nd Assault Brigade. It had parked tactical vehicles and an assortment of drones beneath camouflage nets to avoid aerial observation. The unit’s commander, nicknamed Achilles, walked us through a presentation of the soldiers’ capabilities. This included a live-fire demonstration of one of their first-person-view drones destroying a target. Lethal drones and reconnaissance drones alike are reshaping the battlefield at an unprecedented pace. The U.S. military has yet to reckon with this. The current family of low-cost, highly effective drones used by the Ukrainians are all manufactured in China. No U.S. equivalent exists in the marketplace, as the efforts of several American companies have stalled.

Read: ‘We only need some metal things’

Achilles presented us with an elaborate series of slides that broke down by cost each drone in his arsenal. While lethal U.S. drones such as the Switchblade cost approximately $60,000 to $80,000 a unit, the drones employed by the Ukrainians are a bargain, most costing in the low four figures. That is cheaper than a single artillery shell. The briefing given by Achilles wasn’t simply a summary of capabilities; it was a sales pitch. If an ideological argument for supporting Ukraine wasn’t sufficient, Achilles was willing to make an argument around the numbers and America’s potential return on investment. If the United States wants to keep Vladimir Putin in check and halt the advance of China and Iran, he suggested, Ukraine offers a bargain. His presentation ended with a slide that broke down how, for about $100 million, a drone unit like his could sustain itself in the field for an entire year, conducting approximately 5,000 lethal strikes. The rate of return: one dead Russian for every $20,000 spent.

Achilles made his appeal with an urgency that American policy makers don’t seem to share. The speed of innovation on the battlefield has made some long-awaited Western weapons systems all but obsolete by the time they were delivered. Two weeks before our trip, yet another M1A1 Abrams main battle tank was destroyed in a top-down attack by a kamikaze drone. Only 20 of the 31 Abrams tanks delivered by the U.S. in February remain. Ukrainian soldiers at the front told us that any innovation they develop is countered by a Russian response within weeks. Both armies are innovating at a pace that is leaving the sclerotic U.S. and NATO defense industries behind.

An example of this is HIMARS, the long-range rocket artillery that the U.S. has provided at a maddeningly slow pace. A year ago, HIMARS was the most in-demand system on the battlefield. Now it has a success rate of less than 10 percent because of Russian innovation in electronic warfare. Each rocket fired by HIMARS costs roughly $100,000. Because of the rapid decrease in HIMARS’s effectiveness, the Ukrainians have developed a drone that has a similar impact of the early HIMARS and costs about $1,000. The Ukrainians, however, are rightfully worried that, within a few weeks, the Russians will develop countermeasures that bring the effectiveness of this kind of drone down to that of the current HIMARS. It is, literally, an arms race.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has spent a great deal of time pleading with his allies for weapons and permission to use them to their full capabilities. But his administration is now pleading simply for the delivery of weapons that have already been pledged. Currently, these delays are the result of U.S. Department of Defense protocols that affect the drawdown rates of U.S. stockpiles. Each of the services is required to keep certain quantities of weapons and ammunition in reserve in case of war, and they are not allowed to dip below these levels. Such concerns are not without precedent. In the Second World War, during the German invasion of France in 1940, Winston Churchill had to deny French requests for Royal Air Force support. Churchill knew that every British plane would be required for the upcoming Battle of Britain. However, the United States is nowhere near such a crisis. If anything, and ironically, we keep our weapons in reserve for a crisis exactly like the one playing out in Ukraine. We must make those weapons available to those who would use them in our shared defense.

Read: Zombie history stalks Ukraine

The war in Ukraine is at risk of being lost—not because the Russians are winning but because Ukraine’s allies have not allowed them to win. If we encourage the Ukrainians to fight while failing to give them the tools they need for victory, history will surely conclude that the Russians weren’t the only ones who committed crimes against Ukraine.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Reblogged from https://www.tumblr.com/vermillionquinn

[felipeandletizia]

Felipe and Letizia retrospective: November 29th

2004: Lunch offered to the Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade and his wife, Viviane, at the Royal Palace.

2011: Meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Royal Institute of International and Strategic Studies & Gala dinner for the awardees of “Mariano de Cavia”, “Luca de Tena” and “Mingote” awards

2012: Premios Magisterio 2012& Traveled to Mexico to attend the investiture of new president Enrique Peña Nieto

2013: Attended the exercise of the Mechanized High Availability Tactical Grouping in Zaragoza & Visited El Rastrillo

2016: Visited the Science and Technology Park (UPTEC) at the Porto University during their state visit to Portugal; Visited Lisbon’s City hall during the second day of their state visit to Portugal& Gala dinner at Palacio de las Necesidades during the state visit to Portugal in Lisbon, Portugal

2018: Inauguration of the “40 años de diplomacia en democracia. Una historia de éxito” (40 years of diplomacy in democracy. A success story) exhibition & 40th anniversary of the previous National Employment Institute, current Public Employment Service State (1, 2)

2019: Visited the Operational Headquarters (ESP OHQ) Atalanta and the Marine Corps

2021: Graduation ceremony of the 70th class of the judicial career & Delivery of the 14th Carles Ferrer Salat Awards and Commemorative Medals of Honor for the 250th anniversary of Foment del Treball

2022: Interval exercise of the 12th rotation of the Enhanced Forward Presence in Latvia & 38th Francisco Cerecedo Journalism Awards

F&L Through the Years: 1094/??

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Michael de Adder :: @deAdder :: Nov 1 :: The Toronto Star

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 3, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

NOV 4, 2023

Today, Representative Ryan Zinke (R-MT), who was former president Trump’s Interior Secretary until he left under accusations of misconduct, introduced a bill to ban Palestinians from the United States and to revoke any visas issued to Palestinians since October 1 of this year. Although the U.S. has resettled only about 2,000 Palestinians in the last 20 years, ten other far-right members of the House signed onto Zinke’s bill, which draws no distinction between Hamas and Palestinian civilians.

This blanket attack on a vulnerable population echoes Trump’s travel ban of January 27, 2017, just a week after he took office. Executive Order 13769 stopped travel from primarily Muslim countries—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen—for ninety days. The list of countries appeared random—Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, countries from which terrorists have sometimes come directly to the U.S., weren’t on the list—and appeared to fulfill a campaign promise and assert a new view of executive power.

Insisting that immigrants endanger the country is a key tactic of authoritarians. Excluding them is a central principle of those eager to tear down democracy: they insist that immigration destroys a nation’s traditions and undermines native-born Americans. With tensions in the nation mounting over the crisis in the Middle East, this measure, introduced now with inflammatory language, seems designed to whip up violence. 

Representative Greg Landsman (D-OH) called out his Republican colleagues on social media. “Un-American and definitely NOT in the Bible, [Speaker Johnson],” he wrote. “You going to tell them to pull this bill?”

But, far from trying to work across the aisle, Johnson has been throwing red meat to his base. In the last two days, for example, the House has voted to slash 39% of the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and 13% of the budget of the National Park Service. It voted to require the Biden administration to advance oil drilling off the Alaska coast. It has voted on reducing the salary of the EPA administrator, the director of the Bureau of Land Management, and the Secretary of the Interior to $1 each.

Yesterday, Johnson told reporters he considers extremists Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) close friends and said “I don’t disagree with them on many issues and principles.”

To direct his communications team, Johnson has tapped Raj Shah, a former executive from the Fox News Corporation, who was a key player in promoting the lie that Trump won the 2020 presidential election. As the head of the “Brand Protection Unit,” Shah demanded that the Fox News Channel continue to lie to viewers who would leave the station if it told the truth. Johnson has hired Shah to be his deputy chief of staff for communications and, according to Alex Isenstadt of Politico, “help run messaging for House Republicans.” 

The extremists are doubling down on Trump and his election lies even as his allies are admitting in court that they are, indeed, lies. Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows is in trouble with the publisher of his memoir after admitting that under oath that the election had been fair. The publisher is suing him for millions in damages for basing his book on the idea that the election had been stolen and representing that “all statements contained in the Work are true.” 

The publisher says it has pulled the book off the market. 

House extremists continue to back Trump even as he is openly calling for an authoritarian second term. In September, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley had to take “appropriate measures” for his own security after Trump accused him of disloyalty to him, personally, and suggested that in the past, such “treason” would have been punished with death. 

On Wednesday, Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage, and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times reported that Trump was frustrated in his first term by lawyers who refused to go along with his wishes, trying to stay within the law, so Trump's allies are making lists of lawyers they believe would be “more aggressive” on issues of immigration, taking over the Department of Justice, and overturning elections. 

They are looking, they say, for “a different type of lawyer” than those supported by the right-wing Federalist Society, one “willing to endure the personal and professional risks of association with Mr. Trump” and “to use theories that more establishment lawyers would reject to advance his cause.” 

John Mitnick, who served in Trump’s first term, told the reporters that “no qualified attorneys with integrity will have any desire to serve as political appointees” in a second Trump term. Instead, the lawyers in a second term would be “opportunists who will rubber-stamp whatever Trump and his senior White House staff want to do.” 

Trump has also made it clear he and his allies want to gut the nonpartisan civil service and fill tens of thousands of government positions with his own loyalists. Led by Russell Vought, who served as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, Trump’s allies believe that agencies like the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Securities and Exchange Commission should not be independent but should push the president’s agenda. 

This week, Trump vowed to take over higher education too. In a campaign video, he promised to tax private universities with large endowments to fund a new institution called “American Academy.” The school, which would be online only, would award free degrees and funnel students into jobs with the U.S. government and federal contractors.

“We spend more money on higher education than any other country, and yet they’re turning our students into communists and terrorists and sympathizers of many, many different dimensions,” Trump said. “We can’t let this happen.” In his university, “wokeness or jihadism” would not be allowed, he said.

In admirable understatement, Politico’s Meridith McGraw and Michael Stratford noted: “Using the federal government to create an entirely new educational institution aimed at competing with the thousands of existing schools would drastically reshape American higher education.”

Trump has made no secret of his future plans for the United States of America. 

Meanwhile, Republicans appear determined to push their agenda over the wishes of voters. In Ohio, where voters on Tuesday will decide whether to amend the state constitution to make it a constitutional right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions,” Republicans first tried to make it harder to amend the state constitution, and then, when voters rejected that attempt, the Republican-dominated state senate began to use an official government website to spread narratives about the constitutional amendment that legal and medical experts called false or misleading. 

Adding reproductive health protections to the state constitution is popular, but In an unusual move, the Republican secretary of state, Frank LaRose, quietly purged more than 26,000 voters from the rolls in late September. LaRose is a staunch opponent of the constitutional amendment and is himself running for a seat in the U.S. Senate. 

In Virginia, where Republicans are hoping to take control of the state legislature to pass new abortion restrictions as well as the rest of Republican governor Glenn Youngkin’s agenda, a study by the Democratic Party of Virginia shows that officials are flagging the mail-in ballots of non-white voters for rejection much more frequently than those of white voters. As of today, 4.82% of ballots cast by Black voters have gotten flagged, while only 2.79% of the ballots of white voters have been flagged.

In Richmond, The Guardian’s Sam Levine reported, city officials flagged more than 11% of ballots returned by Black voters but only about 5.5% of ballots cast by white voters. After the ballots are fixed, or cured, the rate of rejection for Black voters remains more than twice as high as that of white voters. 

Virginia officials also reported last week that they had accidentally removed more than 3,400 eligible voters from the rolls.

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[scotianostra]

John Cairncross WWII intelligence officer and Soviet spy was born on 25th July 1913 in Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire,.

Cairncross's father was the manager of an ironmonger's and his mother a primary school teacher. John Cairncross was one of a family of eight, many of whom had distinguished careers. All three of his brothers became professors. One was the economist Sir Alexander Kirkland Cairncross (a.k.a. Alec Cairncross). The journalist Frances Cairncross is his niece. Cairncross grew up in Lesmahagow attending the town's Academy, before going on to University of Glasgow; the Sorbonne and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied French and German.

it was while at Cambridge Cairncross was introduced to Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess and soon became a Communist working with the Cambridge Spy Ring. Monitored by Soviet agent Samuel Cahan, he received a short course in espionage tactics before taking the Home Office and Foreign Office exams, receiving the highest scores on both.

Cairncross briefly with Donald Maclean at the Foreign Office before the war, he was assigned to Bletchley Park in 1942/43 but unlike in The Film The Imitation game it is highly unlikely he would have met, let alone blackmailed Alan Turing. He did however pass on cases full of intercepted German messages which he transported in the back seat of his car to the Soviet Embassy. Cairncross joined Secret Intelligence Service MI6 in 1944 and continued working for them until 1951 when sensitive documents in Cairncross’ handwriting were found in Guy Burgess apartment after he and Maclean fled to Russia. He was thus fired from his position in the British Treasury department, although he denied being a spy. He turned to scholarly activities and humanitarian efforts for the United Nations.

In 1964, Sir Anthony Blunt confessed to being a Soviet spy and in return for leniency identified Cairncross as another Soviet agent. When confronted with the evidence, Cairncross admitted to his espionage, explaining that he had not spied for several years, saying that he spied only during World War II, when Russia was a British ally.

Soviet defectors later disputed Cairncross statements about his limited involvement in espionage. They claimed that he had turned over countless reams of information.

Fearful of negative publicity and scandal, the British government hushed up his activities, declining to prosecute him for espionage or to expose him to the public. Cairncross, in fact, remained for a time in his job as with the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization.

He was finally outed as a spy in 1981 but no charges were ever brought against him. Cairncross spent most of his life in exile but returned home in 1995 dying later the same year after a stroke.

[queenofcandynsoda]

Sol Fertilis: Levels of the National Police Service

There are five branches of the National Police Service.

Civilian Police: The Civilian Police is the branch of Sol Fertilis law enforcement that deals with specific areas such as traffic control, parking enforcement, and public safety at events or gatherings. They ensure compliance with regulations related to transportation, public spaces, and crowd management. It consists entirely of Beta Pluses. 

Civic Police: The Civic Police is the branch of Sol Fertilis law enforcement that specializes in maintaining public order, enforcing local laws, and providing general community policing services. They focus on day-to-day law enforcement activities, such as patrolling neighborhoods, responding to emergencies, and conducting investigations into minor offenses. It consists of Delta Minuses and Beta Pluses. 

Elite Police: The Elite Police is the branch of Sol Fertilis law enforcement that consists of highly trained and skilled officers who handle high-risk situations, such as counterterrorism operations, hostage rescues, and specialized criminal investigations. They are equipped with advanced weaponry, tactical gear, and specialized training to handle complex and dangerous missions. It consists of Delta Minuses and Beta Pluses.

Military Police: The Military Police is the branch of Sol Fertilis law enforcement that relates to the Ministry of Defense. Their jobs are to maintain discipline, enforce military regulations, and provide security within military installations and operations. They also assist with investigations related to military personnel and crimes that occur within the military environment. In terrorist attacks, they help other branches to maintain order, evacuations, close off areas, and apprehend suspected terrorists. It consists of Delta Pluses, Delta Minuses, and Beta Pluses.

Intelligence Police: Known as the Sentinel Police, it is the secret police branch of Sol Fertilis law enforcement. They operate covertly and focus on gathering intelligence, conducting surveillance, and combating threats to national security. They work in close coordination with intelligence agencies and are responsible for detecting and preventing espionage, subversion, and other activities that pose a threat to the nation. Whoever is in it is unknown but it is speculated that it consists of Alphas, Delta Pluses, Delta Minuses, and Beta Pluses. They are connected to the Ministry of Counter-Intelligence.

[sonneillonv]

I completely understand why y'all would assume that members of the national park service would have access to their own systems (since that's how that's supposed to work). But this is DOGE's tactic - in some cases, people didn't even know they were fired from their federal jobs until they realized they'd been locked out of their computer systems. These high schoolers get into government programs, make the changes Elon wants, then lock everybody out. And they do it fairly sloppily - you can find some news online of instances where they've had to roll it back or try to undo their changes and... uh.... it did not go well.

So yeah. These federal agencies are NOT, for the most part, cooperating of their own free will. These changes are being forced on them, and they're being blocked from reverting them.

national Park service didn’t remove the T. It was done to them by DOGE. More info on their FB page, they’re were very upset about it too!

maybe i'm stupid but why don't they change it back? like why are they sitting around as if they can't go back in and change their own website. sorry but if this is the "non-compliance" that's happening where, sure, they don't take initiative to comply with executive orders, but they just sit back and let someone else do it anyway and go "oh well, that's that", should we really be patting them on the back lol