#Posting from the hospital with garbage internet connection
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specialagentartemis · 11 months ago
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I promise this has lore but it’s equally silly, so:
Young Daniel Fenton, only four-and-ten Years on this turning Earth had he yet seen, When the most peculiar machine His parents built, to view beyond their ken. Their disappointment overcame them when It failed; but Daniel, with his interest keen, Made the fateful choice to look again.
A flash! and then his whole world came undone. His atoms ripp'd asunder, in a glow Of green. His hair was bleach'd as white as snow. But he was not alone. A fearful squall Of spirits enter'd Earth under the sun. Phantasmic Daniel, he would catch them all!
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berf-a-smurf · 1 year ago
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I’ve really been trying to avoid posting this but I’m desperately seeking help. I need to make rent, utilities, gas, insurance, and groceries for December.
CA$ 0 / CA$ 1500
(ETA: loan received Nov. 25; no longer desperately seeking financial aid.)
Interested parties, please read below the cut.
[ TLDR:
I’m struggling hard. Please consider browsing my photography for sale (http://mwac.logicality.ca) or sending some spare change my way via the methods listed under “HOW TO HELP” near the end below or on my purchasing page (http://mwac.logicality.ca/purchasing.html). Thank you immensely 🫶
]
My story
[TW: mention of suicide. Sensitive persons, please skip to “[END TW]” below.]
In July, I left my job as a bottled water (of the 5 gallon type) delivery assistant to attempt taking my life. I sweet talked a cab driver to take me and a nitrogen tank into the middle of nowhere.
For vulnerable people: that is not to give you ideas; instead PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE reach out to someone (my dad has since surprised me with his support; you never know who is really there for you until you ask) or even message me. Genuinely, sincerely, I will do my best to help everyone who messages me 🫶
My nitrogen tank and I sat in the woods for hours while I contemplated my plan. I felt so alone, like my disappearance would really mean nothing to anyone. My struggles and lack of skills (not to mention relentless imposter syndrome) would never let me keep a job. I was so hopeless. I continued on with my plan. I moved onto cleaning up my pictures. If my body and belongings were found, I wanted my family to have the good pictures to remember me by. No dumb screenshots, no nudes, etc. I didn’t get to the part where “my life flashed before my eyes”, but I stepped through it one picture at a time.
My pictures reminded me that I was capable of travelling and that there was so much beyond Canada that I still wanted to see. My pictures reminded me that I am capable of connecting with people and I shouldn’t leave my sister behind. And that I’ll find another partner to love as deeply as my ex. I remembered things I’ve achieved and that I’m capable of some pretty cool things.
I called 9-1-1 and asked for a police officer to pick me up and bring me to the psych ward. (I deemed them the best option as our paramedics are already stretched thin and our firefighters were busy with the province burning.) They ended up sending 3 squad cars - one with a dog to find me in case I did end up offing myself before they got there. They did the standard handcuffing, questioning, searching my person and belongings, and had me agree for them to seize the nitrogen tank.
[END TW]
They brought me to our hospital for more questioning, blood samples, the works. I stayed the night before being transported to the next town’s hospital’s psych ward. I was there for two nights and the whole thing crippled my belief in our mental health care system. But they got me referred to a psych clinic in my town so there’s that.
Even though my psychologist says it’s too soon for me to be working, I’ve had no choice but to seek employment. The water company was open to hiring me back but I haven’t heard from them since. I’ve also not heard from the places I’ve applied at. I received one of two months of EI that I applied for - I reported a day’s worth of work I did for one of my dad’s customers and they cut me off and I keep getting told that the adjudicator will reach out but it’s been months now.
I am continuing my therapy plan and continuing to apply for positions. It’s getting down to the wire now, though, and I may lose everything if I can’t get through December.
For transparency, my breakdown of expenses are as follows:
$815.00 for rent due Dec. 1st (water, sewer, garbage included)
$107.59 for Telus internet due Dec. 1st
$128.77 for car insurance due Dec. 7th
~$40.00 for electricity (I currently have a $30 credit on my account but am projected to use about $70 worth. My apartment is electric heat so the bill climbs as the temperature drops.)
Groceries are about $40/week
And the remainder is for gas for me to go to my in-person therapy appointments, attend work interviews, and visit my parents who live out of town.
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TO HELP:
I am selling my photography for CA$5 per image as wallpaper or CA$30 per image as wallpaper with rights to print and post. More info on my purchasing page.
I also warmly accept donations of any size through PayPal.Me or Interac eTransfer.
Personal PayPal (https://www.paypal.me/joshmdm)
Photography PayPal (https://www.paypal.me/MiedemaWithACamera)
eTransfer to [email protected] (I worry that bad actors would maliciously email my personal inbox or use it distastefully so I’m only providing my MWAC one)
I only ask for money you can spare. If your finances are tight, please like and reblog.
Thank you thank you thank you a million times from the bottom of my heart for reading and a million more in advance for any and every penny I’m offered. 🫶
To avoid doing an FAQ, please ask questions in the replies.
I wish you the best possible day!
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I've probably been over this in snippets across other posts but there are layers to this:
I'd just be the morally ambiguous, but generally likeable, 'knife guy' to most people, whatever much weaker ability I could pretend to have with my real ability, I would form an entire persona around, and what would make me the 'villain' would largely be my personal selfish goals, and victimless crimes that are still illegal, like piracy and stealing from Walmart and other criminals, Think Magneto pretending to be a knife throwing version of Gambit. Reform bait to the heroes, able to gather information, unsuspected of more
Behind the scenes I would have a loosely implied persona. That persona would be getting the real shit done, but it would be quiet things that are questionably not even illegal or immoral. Landfills would be emptied of whatever resource I could make use of, broken old satellites would come back online under new command, but they had just been space trash, There's free internet for all now and no one knows who's doing it, something or someone is stripping extra carbon out of the atmosphere, but all of it unsanctioned, the ultimate purpose unknown, none of it is bad enough to bother stopping whoever is doing it, indeed stopping them would kind of make you look like the bad guy because they're helping people, but the amount of resources and power they are potentially gathering -if they are all the same guy- is very suspicious and makes you VERY nervous. You can't be sure they're actually bad, but they aren't playing by the rules, they aren't claiming credit, and every time you catch up with this big man thing you expect to be responsible, it's basically another doom-bot.
Eventually someone very clever and heroic might figure out that little unassuming 'knife guy' is affiliated with the big [bad??], and they keep disappearing, and the heroes make it their mission to save their precious harmless seeming bisexual disaster, occasional thief, Knife Guy from who they think is a separate entity.
Eventually 'Knife guy' me is forced to use my full abilities to save the team or myself, or the only explanation for me being alive [after what you assumed was a noble sacrifice] is that I am actually the questionable entity with their full powers, whatever those ultimately are. Maybe I came back from too many 'deaths' and your batman made the connection...
It's too late. Nothing I have done is strictly illegal, and the things that were you were morally on board with because I was saving people, and you realize it all was that one guy, me, I control every junk satellite in the sky, I have built islands out of what was garbage, discarded, unwanted scraps. Legally, I have done nothing you can come after me for, you can't prove any of it anyway. In the public eye I'd be a saint, I saved so many people, built schools and hospitals, legally I am operating as a legitimate corporate entity. YOU still aren't SURE I'm actually BAD at all, and WORSE... You kind of really came to like Knife Guy, knife guy saved you, saved your loved ones, makes breakfast on Saturdays, you cried at their funerals, hugged them so tight when they came back... And so far you can't argue with the work I have done except that you are suspicious of what my real motives are... Because I hid so much, I amassed so much, I didn't let -you- in.
And still, there is the inescapable fact that I am slowly coming to own and control everything, and even if I am only helping people with it so far... Who is keeping me in check? Who do I answer to? Why the perfect villain aesthetic? Why hide it all? Legally your hands are tied. Morally you feel like your hands are tied. Emotionally you don't actually want to stop me, you miss Saturdays and those kids needed a hospital anyway, is it even a bad thing it came from corporate scraps? All you can do, really, is keep reminding me you have your eye on me... But hundreds of drifting stars in the night sky are blinking back.
what do y'all think you would be like as supervillains??
personally i think i'd be this tall thin suit guy with a ✨spinny chair✨ and a cat in my lap that i pet menacingly as i slowly swivel around to tell the heroes I've been expecting them
i would have all sorts of cybernetic enhancements and big, flashy weaponry, and i would stay resting at the top of an enormous tower, preferring to crush my enemies from afar via my giant robots and such
for my motivation, i would not come close to thinking anything i do is even remotely justifiable. i would simply want to be remembered, and a vile dictator is always burned into the public consciousness for years to come
rb with your ideas
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rwood2477 · 4 years ago
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Dude has been in office for 3 years.... what has he done? Other than dodging the darts the media and Pelosi have thrown?!?
what has PRESIDENT TRUMP and his cabinet accomplished.....
Here you go.
* Trump recently signed 3 bills to benefit Native people. One gives compensation to the Spokane tribe for loss of their lands in the mid-1900s, one funds Native language programs, and the third gives federal recognition to the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Montana.
* Trump finalized the creation of Space Force as our 6th Military branch.
* Trump signed a law to make cruelty to animals a federal felony so that animal abusers face tougher consequences.👀👀
* Violent crime has fallen every year he’s been in office after rising during the 2 years before he was elected.
* Trump signed a bill making CBD and Hemp legal.👀👀
* Trump’s EPA gave $100 million to fix the water infrastructure problem in Flint, Michigan.
* Under Trump’s leadership, in 2018 the U.S. surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest producer of crude oil.
* Trump signed a law ending the gag orders on Pharmacists that prevented them from sharing money-saving information.
* Trump signed the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act” (FOSTA), which includes the “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act” (SESTA) which both give law enforcement and victims new tools to fight sex trafficking.👀👀
* Trump signed a bill to require airports to provide spaces for breastfeeding Moms.
* The 25% lowest-paid Americans enjoyed a 4.5% income boost in November 2019, which outpaces a 2.9% gain in earnings for the country's highest-paid workers.
* Low-wage workers are benefiting from higher minimum wages and from corporations that are increasing entry-level pay.
* Trump signed the biggest wilderness protection & conservation bill in a decade and designated 375,000 acres as protected land.
* Trump signed the Save our Seas Act which funds $10 million per year to clean tons of plastic & garbage from the ocean.👀👀
* He signed a bill this year allowing some drug imports from Canada so that prescription prices would go down.
* Trump signed an executive order this year that forces all healthcare providers to disclose the cost of their services so that Americans can comparison shop and know how much less providers charge insurance companies.
* When signing that bill he said no American should be blindsided by bills for medical services they never agreed to in advance.
* Hospitals will now be required to post their standard charges for services, which include the discounted price a hospital is willing to accept.
* In the eight years prior to President Trump’s inauguration, prescription drug prices increased by an average of 3.6% per year. Under Trump, drug prices have seen year-over-year declines in nine of the last ten months, with a 1.1% drop as of the most recent month.
* He created a White House VA Hotline to help veterans and principally staffed it with veterans and direct family members of veterans.👀👀
* VA employees are being held accountable for poor performance, with more than 4,000 VA employees removed, demoted, and suspended so far.
* Issued an executive order requiring the Secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs to submit a joint plan to provide veterans access to access to mental health treatment as they transition to civilian life.
* Because of a bill signed and championed by Trump, In 2020, most federal employees will see their pay increase by an average of 3.1% — the largest raise in more than 10 years.
* Trump signed into a law up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave for millions of federal workers.
* Trump administration will provide HIV prevention drugs for free to 200,000 uninsured patients per year for 11 years.👀👀
* All-time record sales during the 2019 holidays.
* Trump signed an order allowing small businesses to group together when buying insurance to get a better price👀👀
* President Trump signed the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act that provides funding for states to develop maternal mortality reviews to better understand maternal complications and identify solutions & largely focuses on reducing the higher mortality rates for Black Americans.
* In 2018, President Trump signed the groundbreaking First Step Act, a criminal justice bill which enacted reforms that make our justice system fairer and help former inmates successfully return to society.
* The First Step Act’s reforms addressed inequities in sentencing laws that disproportionately harmed Black Americans and reformed mandatory minimums that created unfair outcomes.👀👀
* The First Step Act expanded judicial discretion in sentencing of non-violent crimes.
* Over 90% of those benefitting from the retroactive sentencing reductions in the First Step Act are Black Americans.
* The First Step Act provides rehabilitative programs to inmates, helping them successfully rejoin society and not return to crime.
* Trump increased funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) by more than 14%.👀👀
* Trump signed legislation forgiving Hurricane Katrina debt that threatened HBCUs.
* New single-family home sales are up 31.6% in October 2019 compared to just one year ago.
* Made HBCUs a priority by creating the position of executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs.
* Trump received the Bipartisan Justice Award at a historically black college for his criminal justice reform accomplishments.
* The poverty rate fell to a 17-year low of 11.8% under the Trump administration as a result of a jobs-rich environment.👀👀
* Poverty rates for African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans have reached their lowest levels since the U.S. began collecting such data.
* President Trump signed a bill that creates five national monuments, expands several national parks, adds 1.3 million acres of wilderness, and permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
* Trump’s USDA committed $124 Million to rebuild rural water infrastructure.👀👀
* Consumer confidence & small business confidence is at an all time high.
* More than 7 million jobs created since election.
* More Americans are now employed than ever recorded before in our history.
* More than 400,000 manufacturing jobs created since his election.
* Trump appointed 5 openly gay ambassadors.👀👀
* Trump ordered Ric Grenell, his openly gay ambassador to Germany, to lead a global initiative to decriminalize homosexuality across the globe.
* Through Trump’s Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team (ACTeam) initiative, Federal law enforcement more than doubled convictions of human traffickers and increased the number of defendants charged by 75% in ACTeam districts.
* In 2018, the Department of Justice (DOJ) dismantled an organization that was the internet’s leading source of prostitution-related advertisements resulting in sex trafficking.
* Trump’s OMB published new anti-trafficking guidance for government procurement officials to more effectively combat human trafficking.
* Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations arrested 1,588 criminals associated with Human Trafficking.
* Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services provided funding to support the National Human Trafficking Hotline to identify perpetrators and give victims the help they need.
* The hotline identified 16,862 potential human trafficking cases.
* Trump’s DOJ provided grants to organizations that support human trafficking victims – serving nearly 9,000 cases from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018.👀👀
* The Department of Homeland Security has hired more victim assistance specialists, helping victims get resources and support.
* President Trump has called on Congress to pass school choice legislation so that no child is trapped in a failing school because of his or her zip code.👀👀
* The President signed funding legislation in September 2018 that increased funding for school choice by $42 million.
* The tax cuts signed into law by President Trump promote school choice by allowing families to use 529 college savings plans for elementary and secondary education.👀👀
* Under his leadership ISIS has lost most of their territory and been largely dismantled.
* ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was killed.
* Signed the first Perkins CTE reauthorization since 2006, authorizing more than $1 billion for states each year to fund vocational and career education programs.
* Executive order expanding apprenticeship opportunities for students and workers.
* Trump issued an Executive Order prohibiting the U.S. government from discriminating against Christians or punishing expressions of faith.
* Signed an executive order that allows the government to withhold money from college campuses deemed to be anti-Semitic and who fail to combat anti-Semitism.
* President Trump ordered a halt to U.S. tax money going to international organizations that fund or perform abortions.
* Trump imposed sanctions on the socialists in Venezuela who have killed their citizens.
* Finalized new trade agreement with South Korea.
* Made a deal with the European Union to increase U.S. energy exports to Europe.👀👀
* Withdrew the U.S. from the job killing TPP deal.
* Secured $250 billion in new trade and investment deals in China and $12 billion in Vietnam.
* Okay’d up to $12 billion in aid for farmers affected by unfair trade retaliation.👀👀
* Has had over a dozen US hostages freed, including those Obama could not get freed.
* Trump signed the Music Modernization Act, the biggest change to copyright law in decades.
* Trump secured Billions that will fund the building of a wall at our southern border.
* The Trump Administration is promoting second chance hiring to give former inmates the opportunity to live crime-free lives and find meaningful employment.
* Trump’s DOJ and the Board Of Prisons launched a new “Ready to Work Initiative” to help connect employers directly with former prisoners.👀👀
* President Trump’s historic tax cut legislation included new Opportunity Zone Incentives to promote investment in low-income communities across the country.
* 8,764 communities across the country have been designated as Opportunity Zones.
* Opportunity Zones are expected to spur $100 billion in long-term private capital investment in economically distressed communities across the country.
* Trump directed the Education Secretary to end Common Core.👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀
* Trump signed the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund into law.
* Trump signed measure funding prevention programs for Veteran suicide.👀👀
* Companies have brought back over a TRILLION dollars from overseas because of the TCJA bill that Trump signed.
* Manufacturing jobs are growing at the fastest rate in more than 30 years.
* Stock Market has reached record highs.
* Median household income has hit highest level ever recorded.
* African-American unemployment is at an all time low.
* Hispanic-American unemployment is at an all time low.
* Asian-American unemployment is at an all time low.
* Women’s unemployment rate is at a 65-year low.
* Youth unemployment is at a 50-year low.
* We have the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded.
* The Pledge to America’s Workers has resulted in employers committing to train more than 4 million Americans.
* 95 percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future— the highest ever.
* As a result of the Republican tax bill, small businesses will have the lowest top marginal tax rate in more than 80 years.👀👀
* Record number of regulations eliminated that hurt small businesses.
* Signed welfare reform requiring able-bodied adults who don’t have children to work or look for work if they’re on welfare.🙌🙌
* Under Trump, the FDA approved more affordable generic drugs than ever before in history.
* Reformed Medicare program to stop hospitals from overcharging low-income seniors on their drugs—saving seniors 100’s of millions of $$$ this year alone.👀👀
* Signed Right-To-Try legislation allowing terminally ill patients to try experimental treatment that wasn’t allowed before.
* Secured $6 billion in new funding to fight the opioid epidemic.❤️❤️
* Signed VA Choice Act and VA Accountability Act, expanded VA telehealth services, walk-in-clinics, and same-day urgent primary and mental health care.👀👀
* U.S. oil production recently reached all-time high so we are less dependent on oil from the Middle East.
* The U.S. is a net natural gas exporter for the first time since 1957.
* NATO allies increased their defense spending because of his pressure campaign.
* Withdrew the United States from the job-killing Paris Climate Accord in 2017 and that same year the U.S. still led the world by having the largest reduction in Carbon emissions.👀👀
* Has his circuit court judge nominees being confirmed faster than any other new administration.
* Had his Supreme Court Justice’s Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh confirmed.
* Moved U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.👀👀
* Agreed to a new trade deal with Mexico & Canada that will increase jobs here and $$$ coming in.
* Reached a breakthrough agreement with the E.U. to increase U.S. exports.
* Imposed tariffs on China in response to China’s forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and their chronically abusive trade practices, has agreed to a Part One trade deal with China.
* Signed legislation to improve the National Suicide Hotline.👀👀
* Signed the most comprehensive childhood cancer legislation ever into law, which will advance childhood cancer research and improve treatments.
* The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by Trump doubled the maximum amount of the child tax credit available to parents and lifted the income limits so more people could claim it.
* It also created a new tax credit for other dependents.
* In 2018, President Trump signed into law a $2.4 billion funding increase for the Child Care and Development Fund, providing a total of $8.1 billion to States to fund child care for low-income families.
* The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) signed into law by Trump provides a tax credit equal to 20-35% of child care expenses, $3,000 per child & $6,000 per family + Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) allow you to set aside up to $5,000 in pre-tax $ to use for child care.
* In 2019 President Donald Trump signed the Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education and Support Act (CARES) into law which allocates $1.8 billion in funding over the next five years to help people with autism spectrum disorder and to help their families.👀👀
* In 2019 President Trump signed into law two funding packages providing nearly $19 million in new funding for Lupus specific research and education programs, as well an additional $41.7 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the most Lupus funding EVER.
* Another upcoming accomplishment to add: In the next week or two Trump will be signing the first major anti-robocall law in decades called the TRACED Act (Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence.) Once it’s thelaw, the TRACED Act will extend the period of time the FCC has to catch & punish those who intentionally break telemarketing restrictions. The bill also requires voice service providers to develop a framework to verify calls are legitimate before they reach your phone.
* US stock market continually hits all-time record highs.
* Because so many people asked for a document with all of this listed in one place, here it is. No links provided to remove bias as Google search is easy. Print this out for family, friends, neighbors, etc. I encourage you to drop this list off to voters before the 2020 election too!
*Trump did all of this while fighting flagrant abuse and impeachment charges.
——-please explain to me why you have a problem with OUR president? Because he has misspoke a few times? Tell me when you find a perfect person, please....I’ll wait! I’ll tell you why, because the media has skewed him in such a negative light and unfairly report his accomplishments to undermined those achievements! Why? Because the media is complicit in every single thing this man is trying to undo! Start thinking for yourself!
🇺🇸WWG1WGA🇺🇸
🇺🇸🇺🇸Are you tired of winning yet?🇺🇸🇺🇸
❤️SHARE THIS❤️
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newstfionline · 4 years ago
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Monday, May 3, 2021
Global coronavirus cases are surging, driven by India and South America (NYT) The number of new daily cases has exceeded 800,000 for more than a week. The spike is largely driven by the outbreak in India, which now accounts for more than 40 percent of the world’s new cases. The U.S. plans to halt travel for non-U.S. citizens from India starting Tuesday. Vaccines in India are running short, hospitals are swamped and cremation grounds are burning thousands of bodies every day. Health experts and political analysts say that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s overconfidence and domineering leadership style bear a huge share of the responsibility for the crisis. Meanwhile, Indians living abroad are frantically seeking to help sick relatives. Much of South America is also faring poorly. Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Peru, Argentina and Colombia all rank among the 20 nations with the highest number of Covid deaths per capita.
Elderly statesman? (NYT) Arnold Schwarzenegger left the California governor’s mansion 10 years ago. He is a more popular political figure today than when he was elected. Over the past year, the former Republican governor, now 73, has been in demand, embracing an unlikely role that he describes as “elderly statesman.” He’s made public service announcements on hand washing, raised millions of dollars for protective health gear and is now being sought out for guidance on the Republican-led effort to oust Gov. Gavin Newsom, the same mechanism that led to Schwarzenegger’s election in 2003. “When you leave office, you realize—well, I realized—that I just couldn’t cut it off like that,” he said in a three-hour interview.
Looming showdown as Michigan governor orders Canadian pipeline shut down (Washington Post) For Michigan’s governor, the 645-mile pipeline jeopardizes the Great Lakes. For Canada’s natural resources minister, its continued operation is “nonnegotiable.” The clash over Calgary-based Enbridge’s Line 5, which carries up to 540,000 barrels of crude oil and natural gas liquids across Michigan and under the Great Lakes each day, is placing stress on U.S.-Canada ties. In a move applauded by environmentalists and Indigenous groups on both sides of the border, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) in November ordered the firm to shut down the nearly 70-year-old lines by May 12. Canadian officials, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, have appealed to their American counterparts, including President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm for help. Joe Comartin, Canada’s consul general in Detroit, said a shutdown would have “significant” impacts on both sides of the border. He predicted effects ranging from months-long propane shortages to higher costs for consumers to fuels being carried by rail, truck or boat—methods that he said are less emissions-friendly and more dangerous than a pipeline. One “irritant,” he said, is “the claim from the state that they are doing this to protect the Great Lakes, that they’re more interested in protecting the Great Lakes than we in Canada are. Basically, we reject that completely.”
NYC Eyes Reopening (Bloomberg) New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said yesterday the city would aim to fully reopen July 1, lifting restrictions on restaurants, gyms, and all other businesses. A return to normal would mark a symbolic moment for both New Yorkers and the country—America's most populous city was a global epicenter early in the pandemic, registering an average of 800 deaths per day last April. The city is averaging roughly 1,700 new cases per day, down 70% since January, reporting about 30 deaths per day.
Kissinger warns of ‘colossal’ dangers in US-China tensions (AFP) Acclaimed diplomat Henry Kissinger said Friday that US-China tensions threaten to engulf the entire world and could lead to an Armageddon-like clash between the two military and technology giants. The 97-year-old former US secretary of state, who as an advisor to president Richard Nixon crafted the 1971 unfreezing of relations between Washington and Beijing, said the mix of economic, military and technological strengths of the two superpowers carried more risks than the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Strains with China are “the biggest problem for America, the biggest problem for the world,” Kissinger told the McCain Institute’s Sedona Forum on global issues. “Because if we can’t solve that, then the risk is that all over the world a kind of cold war will develop between China and the United States.” While nuclear weapons were already large enough to damage the entire globe during the Cold War, he said advances in nuclear technology and artificial intelligence—where China and the United States are both leaders—have multiplied the doomsday threat. “For the first time in human history, humanity has the capacity to extinguish itself in a finite period of time,” Kissinger said.
Thousands march in Colombia in fourth day of protests against tax plan (Reuters) Thousands of Colombians took to the streets on Saturday for International Workers’ Day marches and protests against a government tax reform proposal, in a fourth day of demonstrations that have resulted in at least four deaths. Unions and other groups kicked off marches on Wednesday to demand the government of President Ivan Duque withdraw the reform proposal, which originally leveled sales tax on public services and some food. Cali, the country’s third-largest city, has seen the most vociferous marches, some looting and at least three deaths connected to the demonstrations.
Europe’s economy shrinks amid slow vaccine rollouts and lockdowns (Washington Post) With swaths of Europe still under lockdown restrictions and facing a stuttering vaccination rollout, the region’s economy slid into a double-dip recession in the first quarter of the year, in contrast to a rosy outlook in the United States. The European economy shrank by 0.6 percent in the first quarter of the year, according to data released Friday. The U.S. economy grew by 1.6 percent over the same period, amid massive federal stimulus spending and a speedy vaccination rollout. Export-dependent Germany, which had already been heading toward recession before the pandemic as manufacturing dropped off, saw its economy shrink by 1.7 percent, the most in Europe. The economies of Spain, Italy and Portugal also contracted. Much of Europe is battling a third wave of coronavirus infections. Germany has a nighttime curfew in place in 15 of its 16 states, and shopping requires booking appointments and getting a negative test.
Dozens of German police injured in May Day riots (AP) At least 93 police officers were injured and 354 protesters were detained after traditional May Day rallies in Berlin turned violent, Berlin’s top security official said Sunday. More than 20 different rallies took place in the German capital on Saturday and the vast majority of them were peaceful. However, a leftist march of 8,000 people through the city’s Neukoelln and Kreuzberg neighborhood, which has often seen clashes in past decades, turned violent. Protesters threw bottles and rocks at officers, and burned garbage containers and wooden pallets in the streets. There’s a nightly curfew in most parts of Germany currently because of the high number of coronavirus infections. But political protests and religious gatherings are exempt from the curfew.
Big Myanmar protests aim to ‘shake the world’; seven killed (Reuters) Myanmar security forces opened fire on some of the biggest protests against military rule in days, killing at least seven people on Sunday, media reported, three months after a coup plunged the country into crisis. The protests, after a spell of dwindling crowds and what appeared to be more restraint by the security forces, were coordinated with demonstrations in Myanmar communities around the world to mark what organisers called “the global Myanmar spring revolution”. Streams of demonstrators, some led by Buddhist monks, made their way through cities and towns including the commercial hub of Yangon. The protests are only one of the problems the generals have brought on with their Feb. 1 ouster of the elected government. Wars with ethnic minority insurgents in remote frontier regions in the north and east have intensified significantly over the past three months, displacing tens of thousands of civilians, according to U.N. estimates. In some places, civilians with crude weapons have battled security forces while in central areas military and government facilities that have been secure for generations have been hit by rocket attacks and a wave of small, unexplained blasts.
Vaccinated faithful throng Jerusalem church for Holy Fire (AP) Hundreds of Christian worshippers made use of Israel’s easing of coronavirus restrictions Saturday, packing a Jerusalem church revered as the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection for an ancient fire ceremony a day before Orthodox Easter. The faithful gathered at The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, waiting for clergymen to emerge with the Holy Fire from the Edicule, a chamber built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was buried and rose from the dead after being crucified. As bells rang and the top clerics from different Orthodox denominations appeared, the worshippers scrambled to light their candles and pass the fire on. Within a minute, the imposing walls of the old church glowed.
Israel asks whether autonomy of the ultra-Orthodox contributed to the deadly stampede (Washington Post) Israel’s ultra-Orthodox residents exist in a world within the world, citizens of Israel but pledging their allegiance, attention and obedience instead to their rabbis and God. In isolated enclaves, they are exempt from the military draft, outside the national school system and—in apartments usually without Internet or television—largely oblivious to the surrounding culture. Now, this shocked country is asking whether that self-segregation—and the secular politicians who have enabled it for decades—is responsible for the worst civilian catastrophe in Israel’s history, the trampling death of 45 ultra-Orthodox men and boys at a massively overcrowded religious festival in the early hours of the morning Friday. The ultra-Orthodox, or Haredim as they are known in Israel, follow some of the most conservative tenets in Judaism and have a lifestyle based on the Jewish culture that evolved hundreds of years ago in the communities of Eastern Europe. Since Israel’s founding, state leaders have sought preserve this culture after much of it was devastated during World War II.      When more than 100,000 members of the Haredim convened for a boisterous annual festival at an ancient rabbi’s tomb on Mount Meron, they overflowed a narrow, sloped compound known to both government and religious leaders as a potentially dangerous setting. Sunday, as the final victims were being buried and flags around the country flew at half-mast in a national day of mourning, multiple investigations were getting underway that will target police planning, local regulators, site managers and national ministries with responsibility for oversight. Already, journalists and whistleblowers have unearthed a shocking paper trail of warnings ignored, recommendations overruled and absent supervision. Officials have been called to account for meetings in recent weeks in which specific recommendations from health and safety authorities were overruled at the behest of Haredi groups.
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halorocks1214 · 5 years ago
Text
the law of relativity
AO3 Link
Word Count: 9963
Summary: The Law of Relativity states that each person will receive a series of problems (‘tests of initiation’) for the purpose of strengthening the ‘light’ within. We must consider each of these tests to be a challenge and remain connected to our hearts when proceeding to solve the problems. This law also teaches us to compare our problems to others’ problems and put everything into its proper perspective. No matter how bad we perceive our situation to be, there is always someone who is in a worse position. It is all relative
Previous Parts (in order): Alan | Virgil | You are here! | Gordon
WHY 👏🏼 CANT 👏🏼 I 👏🏼 WRITE 👏🏼 FICS 👏🏼 IN 👏🏼 MO 👏🏼 DER 👏🏼 RATION 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 also just bluuuergh. dont ask about this fic. part of it was written in a dark auditorium, another was written in a different state, another was written on a frickin bus, this fic has been places ill tell you what. half the time i think this is hot garbage and the other half i think its actually decent so im posting this while my head is in a good headspace and then promptly yeeting myself off the internet for a few hours to wait and see what happens. this series is becoming less of a canon divergence AU and more of a straight-up AU because of certain details im trying to worm in there buT IM TRYING MY BEST
thanks once more to @gumnut-logic, because of the length, this time i used three prompts, them being "What do you mean?", crease, and dream (and they werent even used that much sksksksk)
Warnings for both graphic and non-graphic depictions of violence, as well as mentions of torture and other PTSD/panic attack related stuff. I went deep with this one fellas
Orphan.
The word tasted dirty in his mouth.
He can still see the footage in the backs of his eyelids from when he watched it exactly one year ago. He was the only other (living) adult at the time in the family outside of Grandma, so he was permitted to see it. He remembered they originally didn’t want to show him, mainly because of his age, but Grandma was fierce, and she put one hell of an argument on the table.
One Scott refused to let fall through the cracks by breaking down. If only Grandma knew how he cried his eyes out and screamed to high heaven that night in the hotel room after essentially watching his father be blown to bloody smithereens then she was a goddamn saint for keeping it a secret. It made sense, she was the mother to his father. She had quite the line up of stories from Jeff’s childhood. Scott sensed the early-greying of his hair came from her, heh.
The rest of his family eventually saw it, of course, they did. Scott couldn’t shield them forever. What he will protect, selfishly he might add, was how angry he was at how much better they took it than he did. They cried, yes they did, but they never fully broke down like Scott did. Later in life, he wondered if it was jealousy: jealousy at not truly being able to let go. Whatever it was, he made sure to swallow it along with whatever alcohol he chose for the weekend.
Just add it to the ever-growing pile of shit he had to deal with. Nothing new.
Suddenly he’s 20 again and seated in a plane to be taken to his first stint in the Air Force. He said his goodbyes to Virgil, Gordon, and Alan back at home while Grandma and John metaphorically held his hand all the way to the airport. John was… quiet, more so than usual, but Grandma was stuck right in the middle between being a sobbing mess and ecstatic at the fine young man he’s become.
You’re just like your father. He would be proud.
Scott was secretly glad she never physically said it. It gave him plausible deniability in thinking that those words weren’t laced behind her big, bright, prideful eyes.
The first time went well, maybe even great. He stayed for a couple of months, did some flight tests, and while the training was brutal, boy did he learn a lot. When he came back home it was to a family slowly stitching itself back together. Grandma was a full-time house member, Virgil had taken up painting, Gordon talked about potentially going back to his swim meets, and while Alan was still as silent as ever, he was perkier than when Scott last saw him.
It would be on and off for the next few years: a couple of months at home, slowly and painfully taking over the role their father had (he can’t remember when he essentially received joint custody of his younger siblings with Grandma, but hey, he’s not complaining), then a couple of months out at the Air Force base where he slowly climbed up the ranking platform. He became skillful, perhaps too skillful. When he got his rank of Captain he felt it was less of an honor and more of something they owed him.
He was getting cocky. Never enough to be a danger to his fellow men, but enough to be somewhat of an occasional annoyance. Charles smacked him upside the head more than once. It felt like the world was right-side-up for once. Scott made many-a-calls to John and Virgil, the former enjoying his first few rotations up in space and the latter squarely in the middle of college. Gordon was being offered sponsorships to hell and back, and Alan was quietly getting along with the other kids at his school. Grandma was on welcoming duty for Kayo, who was taking her slot in the Tracy family with grace, though, a warning that their family would take custody of her if something were to happen to her parents would have been nice, Dad.
Of course, nothing ever goes right for their family for too long.
Orphan.
Age 24, it was supposed to be a simple retrieval mission of civilians. Scott was put in charge of his squad and then some. At night, they rolled-- well, flew out to get the job done. Scott can’t even remember the country anymore when minding his own business. Australia? Finland? Perhaps Bangladesh? There was a place John was insistent Scott never do rescues in, Virgil tended to agree, and the eldest unhealthily let them banish him from ever stepping foot there without argument. He could never remember the name off the top of his head until John’s familiar International Rescue, we have a situation rung out in the living room followed by the name of the country.
He would immediately forget it later, trauma too strong, too volatile, but the way his heart stopped and his head shattered and the way he felt ice water rush down his back was a good enough reason to quietly leave the room and let John delegate the job to one of his brothers. Sometimes John found him retching in the toilet halfway through the mission. He made sure to always mute Scott’s wrist communicator, even if it was never turned on in the first place.
The plane touched down. Orders sent the ground team out. But then the ground team took longer than estimated. Scott tensely waited where he was told to. It wasn’t the first mission that took a little longer than predicted and knowing humans, it surely wouldn’t be the last. Then, words mixed with heavy static came over the radio. H--p. Co-- ---7--. --nd ba---p --me--at--y.
Scott sat tensely in his seat, remembering his orders and suddenly hating them. Radio back to home if the mission goes south. Well, it didn’t look like they had the radio anymore. Still didn’t hurt to try at least. Scott spoke the familiar protocol that was ingrained into him when trying to call base. Dammit. Nothing. Probably some kind of blocker of sorts. Sitting up straight as a board, Scott looked through his options.
… He was in charge here. If something happened to his team the fault would lie squarely on his shoulders. Going against everything but his gut, he went out to help his squad. He can’t really remember what he exactly did anymore, but he does remember that it made a noise. Like a Looney Tunes scene: he flinched, froze, waited to see if anything or one heard, breathed a sigh of relief, and continued.
He eventually stumbled across one of his closest comrades, Arnold Brigeets. Yes, the name was ironic and half the reason he joined the force in the first place. The guy was one of the people that actually trained Scott and also seemed to be one of the few that was genuinely proud when Scott became a higher rank. It’s why Scott was more appreciative of Arnold than others, that, and well… Scott thought his fatherly abilities were good. The guy did have three kids back home.
Orphan.
Ducking down behind the cover his older friend was semi-situated behind, Scott watched as Arnold jumped at the intrusion before sighing. Scott had run into some enemies that he swiftly took down-- nothing too serious, he didn’t have the time or weapons for such an act, but they definitely would be out of it for a while-- so Arnold must have too on his way to find cover as well, hence why he was so on edge.
“Thank God,” Arnold wiped his forehead, “Glad to see you join us, kid.”
Scott was breathing heavily, but the grin he attempted was still there, “Y-Yeah, so what happened? More threats than we thought?”
Arnold shook his head, “Yes and no. There were a lot more baddies than we thought, but that’s because the civilians weren’t civilians. It’s a tr--”
Boom. The familiar sound of a gunshot.
Arnold fell over. Never got back up. Dropped like a rock in a lake, never to come up to the surface again.
Scott was so caught off guard he couldn’t react to the gun that swiftly beat him over the head, knocking him out cold. The only thing on his mind was oh fuck oh fuck I messed up I shouldn’t have come I wouldn’t have made any noise that way why did I--
They had him for roughly two weeks. Scott always thought the plotline in movies where the villain vehemently denied knowing any important information was dumb as hell. We’re not stupid. We wouldn’t go after someone if they didn’t know something.
The things they did hurt and no amount of I don’t fucking know anything! would help. Those two weeks were lost to Scott in a sea of pain and torment. The only thing he remembered was being captured, then waking up in a hospital drugged up to his gills with his superiors staring at him like he cured cancer.
“You saved the rest of your squad from sharing the same fate as the first half.”
“I-I did?”
“You betcha, son. I only wish I was there to see it! People be saying you were like an animal in how you took ‘em all down.”
Scott’s never remembered, and he wanted to keep it that way.
He was given the highest honors, even the chance to skip a couple of ranks to be at the same level as the big boys, but the night they were going to share the news to the golden boy himself, they found him in one of the bathrooms with a bloody hand and a mirror shattered with no hope of fixing it.
He was honorably discharged to a family that was so thankful he was home. Words like missing in action and POA never stopped haunting their nightmares. Scott was too, God, of course, he was, but sitting around and doing nothing was the last thing his traumatized mind wanted or maybe even needed. After doing what he considered to be the biggest fuck-up of his life, he needed to feel important.
This isn’t the first time he’ll say this and it surely won’t be the last: thank Christ for Grandma.
“You want me to take over?...”
“Yep, it’s about time Tracy Industries received a new pair of eyes. The Board certainly thinks so.”
“But… they’d rather have a crazy, PTSD-infected veteran over you?”
A rough pinch to his ear, “Hey now, don’t call yourself that,” the gentle motherly tone was back as soon as it left, “Besides, that crazy might exactly be what they want. Half of their argument is that I “don’t take enough risks.” They’re getting tired of listening to an old fart like me.”
A moment of contemplation, followed by the cheeky raise of an eyebrow, “So you’re saying you want me to take so many risks they have no choice but to take you back?”
A bark of laughter, “Damn straight.”
He learned the ropes faster than normal (healthy, is probably the correct term), and he immediately won the hearts of both young and old in the company. Instead of flying planes every few months, he worked on business reports and vetoed new ideas every couple of weeks. It felt satisfying for the most part, and his family was just happy he was still alive to enjoy it.
However, there was a slight roadblock on his way to becoming a somewhat stable person.
He became prone to violent blackouts. It had to have started when he blacked out and saved himself from those two weeks of hell, which made the most sense. Something was always destroyed when he came back to life. John was the best at calming him down due to his own experience with panic attacks, however, John couldn’t always be there, and the next rotation for NASA was coming swiftly. Scott swore up and down he would be fine, he could figure something out. John went back into space with an eyebrow permanently raised.
It was just him and Virgil home (Grandma had taken Alan and Kayo to watch Gordon swim) when he, unfortunately, proved John right. Scott wasn’t sure what triggered it, but he vividly remembered coming back in Virgil’s extremely tight hold. The first thing Scott thought to say was damn, beanstalk, when did you get so strong? but then he laid his eyes upon the forming bruise on his younger bro’s face and hasn’t recovered since.
Virgil swore he never held it against Scott. Scott definitely thought he should have.
That night brought sudden clarity to Scott that he was doing this horribly wrong. He was a ticking time bomb, and it wouldn’t be long before something was damaged in a way that couldn’t be fixed. Scott needed an anchor. Something to ground him before he took it too far. John wasn’t going to be earthside forever, Grandma was busy with Kayo, Alan was just a kid, and Gordon was living the dream. None of them were viable.
Then, as he was thinking, he was suddenly aware of how calming Virgil’s arms were around him, how they were preventing the growing panic attack in his chest from getting even bigger.
It was easy.
For once in Scott’s life, his eyes were big and young as he asked Virgil, “Help me, please.”
After a few brief seconds, Virgil gulped, “Okay.”
From then on, Virgil was Stone Number One. Scott’s admiration for Virgil outweighed the guilt of putting the black-haired man in that position in the first place. Virgil was glad to follow his older brother’s leadership, but just as qualified to bring him the hell back when he went too far. From getting too sacrificial to preventing a good punching-out some of the idiots they dealt with, Virgil made sure Scott knocked that shit off.
Time went on, Scott was a top-notch CEO at Tracy Industries, John was having one hell of a time up in space, Virgil was graduated and had so many life opportunities to pick from, Alan was thriving at being a (mostly) stable kid, Kayo was 100% acclimated to the family, and Gordon--
Scott found himself gripping the wooden desk very abruptly. He was shocked he didn’t snap a chunk off in the process. Why was he thinking about this right after a giant business conference? Who knows at this point. If this giant origin story seemed jagged and jumpy, maybe even somewhat vague, good, that’s how it fucking felt.
Back to said story.
Scott always thought he and Gordon would have the least amount in common.
They do, but out of all the things they could have picked to be similar, why did it have to be the PTSD caused by military-related jobs? Scott was 24 when he got his, Gordon was just under 20. It may have been a few years since their respective accidents, but they’re never going to go another day without it feeling like it was just yesterday.
At this point, Gordon was up and walking again, mainly thanks to John and Alan while Virgil and Scott helped in their own ways. Grandma’s cooking was what probably motivated him the most though, ha, the need to get away from it… Scott smiled. Grandma was always a constant. Honestly, if it weren’t for her, the family might have fallen apart. Literally.
What has he been saying throughout this whole shindig? Thank Christ for Grandma.
One day out of the blue, Grandma reserved the entire family (yes, even Kayo and Alan) private plane tickets so they could spend some time on the mainland for a few days. Honestly, even if the island wasn’t getting major renovations, you hooligans need to get out more. Have some fun. Try not to kill anything, especially each other, she all told them while creepily grinning. John and Virgil smacked Gordon more than once on the plane for insisting that she finally snapped, dudes, she’s gonna kill us.
Most of the time during their little vacation, Scott heavily focused on his breathing. He was pretty sure he knew what she was doing. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous, but the same went for his excitement.
Dad showed him these plans the day after his 18th birthday. You’re a man now, Scotty, I need your help making this big boy decision with me.
As soon as they reset foot down on the island, Scott took a deep breath and felt relaxed at the salty taste in the air. It was weird, nothing on the outside was changed, and yet… it still felt different.
“Guys!” Virgil yelled out, “Stop playing in the water! We just got back, aren’t you two tired?!”
Blinking back to reality, Scott looked over to see his two youngest brothers doing exactly what Virgil was yelling at them for. Poor Johnny was a little damp too, which is what probably caused Virgil to shout at them in the first place. The blondes didn’t care. They continued to prance around in the shallow waves with their pants legs rolled up, acting as if they didn’t hear anything outside of their laughter. Gordon shoved his hands down into the liquid and threw some directly at Alan, nailing him right in the face.
Scott exhaled slowly. He couldn’t imagine them doing this 8 years ago.
Regardless, the artist was right, and they couldn’t waste too much time. Kayo was swift in grabbing both gentlemen by the ears and dragging them onto dry land. They all painstakingly trekked their way up to the-- what would you call Tracy Island? Mansion? Over-blown cabin? Well, whatever it was, Scott would always be willing to call it home.
Stepping inside, each brother took in the view, which was underwhelmingly not that much different, except for one tiny thing. John suddenly noticed a figure already standing in the living room and blinked, “No way… it’s--”
Gordon jumped in, both with his body and his words, “Brains?! Dude, how’s it hanging?!”
The scientist in question jumped at the voices before clearing his throat and readjusting his glasses, “O-Oh, hello again, T-Tracys. It’s good to see you all once more.”
Virgil slung an arm around his shoulder, ignoring the blatant squawk, “Man, how long has it been?! What made you finally decide to crawl out of your hole?”
Snickers came from all corners of the house. Brains stood up straighter, “W-Well, I was contacted b-by Mrs. Tracy over here with an offer I c-couldn’t turn down.”
Eyebrows tilted in all shapes and sizes. Someone cleared their throat. Everyone turned to look at Grandma once again, “I think if you all follow me, you’ll swiftly understand what I’m talking about.”
I already do, Scott thought matter-of-factly. John seemed to be understanding it now, Virgil was on the cusp of remembering what his father was hinting at for him, and Gordon was just as lost as Alan. It made sense, Jeff talked to all of them about it, but the oldest had seniority. The two youngest not remembering just by words was expected, especially since that was going to be rectified very quickly.
The hangar under the island was beautiful. Point blank. It smelt of iron and steel and grease and engine and that was the first time since Scott had been in the Air Force that he didn’t gag or flinch at the thought of flying something again. Scott had seen the plans his father drew. He assumed Jeff finished building it, but he never got to physically see it since…
In some ways, he was glad he didn’t. Now he got to experience it with (most of) his family, and that made it ten times better.
After letting them absorb the scenery, Grandma slowly turned around to look at them all, “You remember that dream your father had?”
The four oldest blinked, Kayo simply raised her eyebrows, meanwhile, Alan, being the teenager he was, didn’t read the emotion in the room, “Oh, yeah! Aunt Casey always talked about how he was going to “change the world” and stuff. What did he call it again?”
Scott felt way more confident than he had in a while, “International Rescue.”
Grandma nodded, gleeful at the happy look on her oldest and youngest grandsons’ faces, “Well, I’ve been thinking about some things. I know we don’t exactly worry about money, but after everything your father put into these girls… I’d hate for them to go to waste.”
The Tracy family jumped at that. John’s mouth was wide open in shock, yes, shock, “That station is still up there?”
Grandma sighed, “You mean ‘Five? Not for long. Not if we don’t send someone up there within the next few days.”
John blushed at the grin Grandma gave him. Clearing his throat, his big brain came to a startling conclusion, “Wait… you brought Alan along?”
The other big brothers in the room jumped at that. Kayo was the only one with enough balls to say the truth out loud, “Mrs. Tracy, I mean no offense, but he’s--”
“Just a kid?” Grandma smirked, “A kid that’s topped the VR charts for Intergalactic Fury for weeks straight while simultaneously getting nothing but A’s in his classes?”
Scott nodded slowly in comprehension. He remembered Alan talking about that game for a while. It was some kind of online racing simulator of sorts. Scott caught the prettiest string of words from Alan when going to bed one night. Nearly made him shit his pants. He made the kid promise to keep it PG-13 if he wanted to keep playing.
Still, the elders in the family slowly turned to look at the freckled boy with both shock and pride. Alan blinked with wide-eyed innocence, “But my English class is only at a B--”
“Shh, kiddo, I’m making a point,” Grandma rolled her eyes. The other brothers snickered. Yep, still Alan. Grandma sighed, “Now before you point out that video games are different, I know, but the difference between them and this is that video games don’t have some of the most talented older brothers in the world to guide him.”
Said older brothers jumped at the idea. Before any objection could be made, Grandma continued, “Besides, the GDF seemed to be okay with it. The Colonel was willing to oversee some of his training too.”
John flinched at that, “But IR is supposed to be independent!”
Grandma slightly frowned. She didn’t exactly like it either, “It still is, but in the world of business, compromises have to be made.”
Virgil huffed and crossed his arms, “Well, that’s… rough. Here I thought only Scott would have to deal with the bullshit of business.”
Grandma chuckled at the somewhat un-Virgil-like behavior, “It really is, Virgil. But about that Scott part,” she slowly turned to look at him and him only, “I hate to give you more work to do, but if you want to work within their restrictions?”
Suddenly every pair of eyes in the room was on the head of the family. Gulping, Scott looked down at his feet to think. It was a tense few moments, nobody sure what he was going to decide, least of all him, before the brunette cleared his throat and brought his face back up with a grin.
“Well then,” Scott turned to look at the bright tip of ‘One, chest fluttering with a feeling that became unfamiliar to him over the past few years, “I guess now it’s time to state the obvious.”
From then on, every time he loaded into that cockpit of his girl, he felt lighter than air.
“Thunderbirds are GO!”
Everything was okay again.
Mostly.
Orphan.
Scott took another sip of his whiskey and refocused on his reports.
---
Scott was in some kind of dissociative state the whole way home.
Alan doesn’t deserve this. He’s still a kid, barely an adult, and he’s going to go through utter hell because you screwed up. You were 24, Gordon was just under 20, Alan was barely 18. Alan’s going to get fucked up like you and it’s all your fault.
His movements were robotic and rigid. Anyone with a working eye could tell he was deep in shock and running on autopilot. Mostly Jeff. Especially Jeff. The rest of the brothers all noticed too, but they were also running on their own empty fuel tanks, so the only thing they could do was guilty send their older brother the occasional glance of pity and concern.
Jeff was going to need to talk to them about that. Somehow. Maybe he shouldn’t be the one to point it out since he feels just as bad. His sons were too much like him, sometimes, and that made his guilt burn all the same. He should’ve been there to warn his sons about the dangers of unnecessary guilt. Having that kind of guilt was a parent’s job, dammit, and maybe grandparents only occasionally.
But then he remembered where he’s been for the past 8 years and… who really was Alan’s parents anymore? His gut was screaming it sure as hell isn’t you, but he knew his sons would want him to step back into the role as soon as he was physically fit to do so, not just for Alan, but for themselves as well. They would deny it, but they probably just wanted to be kids again too, even if it was only brief, fleeting moments.
Who was to tell the protective, fatherly side of Jeff no to that? No better time to fix things like the present after all.
He saw Scott go up the stairs when they first stepped into the living room, so that’s where Jeff was going to go too. Footsteps light, Jeff retraced his eldest’s pathway to his bedroom. Only, he stopped before said bedroom. Unfavorable noises were coming from the closed bathroom door, and Jeff could only swallow whatever emotion it made him feel. Taking a deep breath, he slowly opened the (unlocked) door to the bathroom and laid his eyes upon the incriminating scene.
Jeff was met with the sight of Scott retching his entire stomach into the toilet, hands aggressively grabbing his sticky, hair-gelled hair and trying to make himself bald from the strain.
Jeff’s reaction was always based on autopilot, and it will never stop being so.
Ignoring his protesting body, Jeff kneeled and placed a hand on his son’s back, only to abruptly pull back like he touched a hot stove when Scott only got more hysterical at the contact. The brunette clenched his eyes shut even more (and they were already shut as much as possible) while his head became a special kind of crease. Like he was in pain, “God, I wanna go home. Why won’t they listen I swear I’m telling the truth! Please, I just want Dad--”
Jeff was frozen on the spot, heart stopping in the process. His brain shut down while he watched his son continue to mindlessly ramble and panic. His freaked-out mind barely registered footsteps from behind in the hallway, followed by a voice going what’s going-- holy--
Something thundered past him. Blinking once, Jeff guiltily watched as Virgil kneeled behind the eldest and wrapped his arms around the thin man’s shoulders while taking Scott’s hands in his in a protective blanket, “Scott! Jesus-- we’re at home, you’re safe and it’s June 14th, 2--”
Scott only struggled more, panicking at the fact he could no longer yank his hair out. Dammit, it was the only way he could feel in control, don’t take that away too! “No! I swear I’ve said everything! Please--”
Virgil immediately knew that this was one of those attacks that Scott wasn’t coming back down from with pure human intervention. Add-on the sight of his father’s big eyes signifying the man was at a loss at what to do, Virgil had no choice. He snapped loudly, remembering the comms were still on and only feeling slightly bad at the way Scott flinched in his arms, “Shit-- John! It’s Scott! Get the stuff! We’re in the upstairs bathroom!”
Muffled footsteps through a few walls in the house could be heard. Jeff’s mind was only starting to catch up when the brother Virgil called for came rushing into the bathroom (Jeff never remembered it being big enough to hold four of them) and ignoring Jeff (practically shoving him out of the way too, man, this was bad) on his way to the main problem at hand. Landing on his knees in a way that made Jeff wince, John gently grabbed one of Scott’s arms from Virgil’s hold and subsequently pulled a needle from nowhere and injected something into Scott.
The response was instantaneous.
Scott’s breathing, while still labored, got slower. He stopped struggling as well, and the way he sagged reminded Jeff of ice melting into a puddle. The two other brothers’ shoulders also sagged, relieved at the crisis averted. John stood up, knees cracking as he rubbed the back of his neck. Then, he froze at the sight of something in the doorway, “G-Gordon…”
Virgil snapped his head up from where he was looking at Scott. Jeff did something similar. Yup, in the doorway was the strawberry blonde, eyes wide, making him younger by about 10 years. The ex-Olympian in question inhaled, closed his eyes, and soon speed-walked his way out of the entrance to the bathroom. Dammit, neither Gordon or Alan have seen something like that and it probably spooked him more than anything. He’d understand with his own PTSD-related issues, but still, seeing the “never weak” big brother freak out in such a scary way...
John combed a hand through his hair, shaking his head. As he started walking out of the room, he whispered to himself, probably hoping no one heard him, “Dammit, this is all so fucked…”
Unfortunately, Jeff did hear, and the dirty language made the father flinch. John was always the best about making sure Grandma didn’t wash his mouth out with soap, and the fact that he so willingly didn’t care meant that everyone was at the end of their rope. Still reeling at the sight, Jeff couldn’t react to the gentle arms that picked him up off the floor and slowly led him out of the suddenly stuffy room.
With the click of the door shutting, Jeff realized what Virgil did, “W-Wait, Scott--”
“Will be okay for a few seconds,” Virgil finished for his dad, “I know it’s nearly been a decade, but the one part of you I definitely know hasn’t changed is the need to comfort us, just like we hoped.” The small grin that fell over the middle child’s face put Jeff a little bit at ease, but Virgil wasn’t completely done, “So, I’m going to let you take care of this, but I just want to make sure you’ll handle it with grace. Take this slowly, okay? Scott might be doped up, but he’s still… volatile, in a sense.”
Jeff cleared his throat, suddenly choking on the unneeded tension, “Okay, Virgil, I promise, just… what happened? That was… bad, and really bad at that too. I know Scott would never let something that severe willingly come out in front of his family.”
Virgil rubbed the back of his neck, clearly not ready for this conversation, “Listen, Dad,” he inhaled sharply, cutting himself off before sighing in a way that said fuck it, might as well get this over with, “As much as it felt like it did, the world didn’t stop spinning because you… well, we had lives we somehow wanted to continue living. We all have lives and stories now, and this is Scott’s story to tell.”
Jeff was getting misty-eyed again. Back when he was just a kid, Virgil couldn’t keep a secret to save his life, mainly in part due to his insomnia-related issues (Jeff has to wonder if he still has them, more problems for the future) and general lack of filter because of sleep-deprivation. Now Jeff knew there was a starch difference between a kid who couldn’t keep his mouth shut and a man who genuinely knew how to respect another man’s privacy, but…
It just hammers home how much he’s missed with his boys. Gulping, Jeff made a mental note to talk with his mom about certain things he’s missed. She’ll know a lot more than he would, “Okay, Virge. Thank you, for stepping up there.”
Virgil’s shoulders relaxed at Jeff’s words, as well as his father’s hand patting him on the shoulder, “Thanks, Dad. Just… go easy on him. I know it’s a little late for this but none of us ever properly talked about things. It was very unhealthy, deep down we all knew that, but…”
“You just couldn’t get the proper emotions out?” Jeff finished for his son. At Virgil’s soft nod, Jeff exhaled, “I’m not going to say that it was a smart decision, but we’re all here now. We can move forward with this.” Jeff squeezed where his hand laid.
Virgil blinked before curtly going, “Yeah. Goodnight, Dad. Take care of Scott.”
Virgil stepped around his father and walked to where his bedroom most definitely was not, but Jeff could deal with that in a little bit. He had another son who he was pretty sure just had a violent PTSD attack of some kind, plus, Virgil seemed to sour at something Jeff said. The ex-astronaut wasn’t sure what it was, so he didn’t chase after him out of worry that--
Wait.
We’re all here now.
Dammit, Jeff. Out of all the sentences you could’ve picked...
Alrighty, just add that to the ever-growing pile of things that need to be talked about later. No biggie. Jeff found himself sighing and rubbing the back of his neck much like Virgil did a few minutes ago. Turning around, he was met with the bathroom door once more. Shaking his head, Jeff slowly crept into the room and saw that not much was different, especially with Scott.
His heart softly cracked, but, again, he can deal with it later.
Sitting down on the ground and grimacing at the way his body ached (was gravity always this rough?), Jeff leaned against the floor cabinets about 2-3 feet away from Scott, who made himself into a nice comfortable ball in the corner next to the toilet, his palm smushed against his forehead. Jeff waited a few seconds. Then minutes. Then he realized he would have to be the one to initiate the conversation. He probably should’ve realized that right when he came back in. He opened his mouth, but his wasn’t the one that words came out of.
“It was… Zambia.”
Jeff’s heart stopped and his mouth snapped shut. He couldn’t stop the way his eyes clearly showed his panic, but hopefully, he guiltily thought, Scott was a little too doped up to not realize it, “Scotty, what do you mean?”
Scott shrugged in a way that spoke he thought what he was admitting wasn’t a big deal. Yep, clearly not with it, “Mission went bad… caught for a couple of weeks.”
Jeff was hoping his first fuck back on Earth, spoken to himself like right now or otherwise, would have been a comedic thing, but the way nausea rose in his throat said this was anything but funny.
Scott wanted to be in the Air Force. Badly. Who was a father to deny his son’s want to be part of such a noble cause? He gave him tips, took him to meet friends in high places, sometimes even sparred with him when he turned 18, but then Jeff was suddenly thousands of miles away with no hope of ever having the chance of sparring with his eldest again. Despite it, Jeff hoped Scott went on to become the best pilot the world has ever seen.
Part of this looks like he did, but at what cost?
As much as it felt like it did, the world didn’t stop spinning because you… well, we had lives we somehow wanted to continue living.
Aw hell, “Jesus, Scott…” Jeff couldn’t tell if it was the brashness or the lack of a nickname that made Scott flinch and he hated it. He immediately softened his tone and brought his 27-year-old child into his arms, “Shh, shh, we’ll be okay. We’ll figure this out.”
Like father like son, old habits die hard, and as easy as it was to still be able to comfort his children, Scott seemed to just as easily take it as he used to 8 years ago, “Alan doesn’t deserve this kind of hell, God, he’s barely not a kid anymore! Why--”
Jeff tightened his hold to keep his son in reality, and because he didn’t like the tone behind those words, “Hey, you didn’t either--”
Scott somehow managed to fling himself out of the hug, focus incredibly on point for someone who was doped up to his eyelids five seconds ago, “But I fucked up! I made the wrong call and then suddenly Arnold was dead and he had a wife and kids-- shit, what the hell did I do?”
Okay.
First of all: way to put him back in that headspace when that’s the exact opposite you were going for, Jeff, father of the year. Second: dammit. Just… dammit. This was a big fat hand grenade in a giant handbasket that they didn’t have time to gently get out while simultaneously not yanking the pin clean off with the grace of a drunk elephant. Jeff was no stranger to Survivor’s Guilt, but there was a whole untapped pile of metaphorical C4 within his son’s head that was ready for someone to push the goddamn button.
He wanted it to be him, desperately, because it sounded like he already failed his family enough, it was all he could do at this point, but he absolutely hated that he couldn’t do it right now. This was going to take a lot of time, which they didn’t have, plus, Jeff thought he had a pretty good understanding of this new Scott and the rest of his kids. Jeff was aware that if he didn’t help his sons find their baby as fast as possible over everything else it’ll lead to a fate nobody wanted.
A shaky sigh, “Okay, Scotty, let’s get you to bed. We’ll talk strategy in the morning.”
Scott simply nodded as his father flung Scott’s arm around his broader shoulders and picked him up. Slowly and painfully but surely, father and son meandered their way to Scott’s room. With a thump a little harder than Jeff wanted, Scott flopped down on top of his sheets and immediately started snoring. Despite everything that just happened, the father couldn’t help but grin at the sight. Well, there was another thing Jeff gracefully passed onto his son.
Jeff only took Scott’s shoes off. He would’ve loved to pull the sheets up around him too, but the father didn’t want to take any chances at waking him up. Slowly tip-toeing out of the room, Jeff gave one last glance back at his son before finally letting him be and gently shutting the door. He had three other sons he needed to console, but his tired joints told him to selfishly take a moment for himself for right now unless he wanted to collapse and give his family more to deal with.
Jeff eventually made his way to his room-- which was sadly unkempt, he noticed-- and sat down on the edge of his unfamiliar bed to think.
He’ll figure something out. If he had to crawl through images of his son being brutally and bloodily tortured then by God he would with the fury of a thousand suns.
He was back and he wasn’t going to throw away any second or even third chance he was given.
---
“I got him.”
Virgil turned his comms back on, and with it, Scott’s heart restarted for the first time in a few weeks. Taking a moment for a breather, Scott leaned against the wall while practically wheezing. They have him back, holy shit, they have him back. Scott vaguely heard Gordon cry in pure relief and joy. He saw John’s side of the comms flutter for a bit before a bright flash happened. Blinking away the white spots, Scott looked at his wrist to see a fully detailed map of the compound.
Gordon spoke what they were all thinking, “Woohoo! First Allie comes back, then Johnny-boy gets us a free ticket out of here! We’re winning this race, baby!”
A very loud moment of silence. John cleared his throat, “Actually, I was going to say glad to see you in one piece, you little shit,” a playful gasp came from Virgil’s side. It was too high pitched to be from the pianist’s mouth. Scott chuckled, but the paranoid part of his brain said John wasn’t done. His brain was right, ‘“But guys… that wasn’t me. Or EOS. We still haven’t found a way to get past the metal they made these walls out of.”
That silence was even more deafening than the last, and before Virgil could utter out his typical what the fuck, a small logo appeared at the corner of their new map. One that was all too familiar. The Chaos Crew wasn’t the only one who could brand their awful deeds.
Son of a bitch.
Virgil’s order over the radio was meant for Alan, but Scott couldn’t help but listen to it too.
“Shit, Alan, you need to run.”
Making quick work of the compound once more, Scott, while booking it even quicker than last time, opened a private line between him and Gordon, “Hey, how would you feel if I said go help Virgil while I cover Alan?”
The first response was stuttering, which Scott expected, but then it was followed up by something completely out of left field for Gordon, “... Okay, just as long as you promise to bring Alan back in one piece.”
Part of Scott wanted to console Gordon, another was questioning why Gordon was so quick to give up, another wanted to say of course, I will, idiot, but the first part that made itself verbal was easy, “You know I will, buddy.”
Scott could physically picture Gordon’s tiny, little, somber nod clear as day, “Sounds good, captain. See you on the other side.”
With a click, Scott was back on the group comm. Suddenly remembering what exactly his job was, he pulled out the map so graciously given to them by The Hood. Looking at all the dots, one was heading towards a prone one (oh if that asshole did anything to Virgil…) while another one was heading right for Scott himself. Actually, in just a few seconds, right as Scott rounded the corner he would--
“Woah, look out there, Tigger!”
Yes, you heard that correctly: not tiger, Tigger. Tigger hadn’t been used since Alan was itty bitty. It always seemed like the kid had endless energy with the way he wouldn’t stop bounding off the walls and furniture. Even as a baby, Lucy had to sit with him for a few hours while he slept in his crib to make sure he would stay there. In fact, their mother gave Alan that nickname herself. She was quite the Winnie the Pooh fan, and the rest of the family figured it would be one of the ways they could keep her legacy alive for the tiny potato.
Wrapping his arms around said flailing potato, albeit much bigger than a baby, Scott thought he would collapse then and there. Alan was here, in his arms, and yeah, the sight of his dirty and somewhat ripped up IR uniform made him mad, but Scott, for once in his life, decided to focus on the here-and-now, aka his precious, alive little brother, who finally stopped struggling at the realization that hey, the person holding you is a good guy, time to turn off fight mode.
Smushing their foreheads together as much as possible, Scott desperately fought to keep the waterworks back, a smile from ear to ear hopefully taking whatever energy his tear ducts had, “You are getting such an ass beating when we get home, little bro.”
Alan jumped back with a look of What the hell?! What did I do now?!
Scott simply rolled his eyes, “Really? “Not important”? You graduated high school, tiny dude! That’s huge! You remember Gordon’s party, right?”
Alan’s mouth gaped before he closed it with slightly puffy cheeks. Those same cheeks tinged with a small blush. Alan wasn’t exactly expecting to be smothered so soon (well, he did cry his eyes out on Virgil’s shoulder, but that was different!). Shaking it off, Alan moved his hands rhythmically and rapidly, To be fair, we weren’t sure he was going to get one for a while.
Scott faltered a little bit at the ASL. Darn, he should’ve seen Alan’s lack of talking from a mile away. Scott carefully hid his disappointment from Alan. Lord knew what the kid would take it as, “Yeah, that’s what he got for barely making it. Imagine what you’re going to get!”
Scott assumed his semi-fake charm worked, as Alan seemed to play along without any kind of suspicion, Oh yeah. Fair enough.
This kid, man.
Then, slow clapping came from a dark corner, making Scott’s heart leap out of his throat as well as push Alan behind himself. Glaring as much as he could towards the invisible evil-doer, Scott didn’t have to think twice, “Alan, take my map and find Virgil and Gordon.”
The youngest looked like he was going to object.
“Go.”
He no longer did. Good.
Listening to the field commander’s orders, Scott felt his wristband slip off his wrist and a warm body leave his vicinity. An inhale. Also good. An exhale, followed by an even darker glare, “What more do you want?”
Short and straight-to-the-point and angry, two things Scott typically wasn’t. Regardless, like a cold gust of wind, footsteps started approaching him from the shadow. Once Scott saw the outline of a body, he tensed even more. Virgil would snap at him for clenching his jaw so much.
A dark chuckle reminded him of what was important. The voice that spoke reminded him of something completely different, “Now then, brother, let’s not be rude to each other!”
Scott’s pupils shrunk at the familiar sight of Gordon stepping towards him. Except it wasn’t Gordon, because Scott knew that Gordon knew better. He also knew Gordon didn’t cheekily smile like that, even after a prank, nor did he walk that straight. He always had a funny walk after WASP, and Gordon wore that fact like a badge of honor.
Oh no, Scott definitely knew who this was, “What the hell are you playing at?”
Fake-Gordon rolled his eyes, like it wasn’t obvious, “I mean if we want to go that route, why did kid insist you being in the military was the coolest thing he’d ever heard you do? Maybe I wouldn’t have been pressured into joining a branch myself in the end.”
Scott’s nostrils flared, and by God, his pupils might have actually slitted like a snake’s, or possibly even a dragon’s, “Excuse me?”
Scott blinked, and suddenly he was met by not-Virgil, “Plus, why was our conclusion after hearing a three-year-old wanting to see snow to go to a ski resort? It had to have been those big, selfish, beady eyes, right?”
“C’mon, Scotty, we gotta give you some kind of calming exercise. There’s going to come a time when neither me or John are going to be there.”
“Hmm… does yoga work?”
A snort, “Well, that’s not too bad of an idea. Maybe the person pissing you off will stop whatever they’re doing at the sight of you spontaneously doing downward dog.”
Laughter, an unfamiliar action, “Yeah, okay, but for real, those breathing exercises I’ve seen you do look okay. Let’s start there.”
Scott was not a liar by heart. He had to admit that those exercises were doing jack shit right about now.
Another blink, another brother. Familiar ginger hair was all Scott could see, “To continue that previous point, why did Dad start International Rescue again? And what led to his demise?”
“Sounds like a piece of work. Why do you keep dealing with these people again?”
“Someone has to pay the bills, Johnny. Grandma’s too focused on making the perfect poison for us.”
A roll of eyes, “Right, because the billions we have saved wouldn’t be enough to last a couple of families a few lifetimes. Glad to see your calming exercises are working at least. How’s that going for you, by the way?”
A pause. A flicker of vision around the room. Someone cleared their throat, probably himself, “It’s probably not as bad as whatever space is throwing at you. You handling it okay up there?”
Another pause, followed by a sigh, “Well, since you asked so nicely…”
Scott wanted to deflect the truth so badly right now more than anything else. Telling him he couldn’t pilot ‘One anymore would be a much more enticing option than what he was hearing.
Suddenly, Scott was looking in a mirror, “Besides, I know more than anybody that he wasn’t wanted. A mistake. I thought we Tracys hated being imperfect?”
The Hood must have known their backstories from internet articles, and being the mastermind he was, it probably took him all of three seconds to see Alan had some hidden self-worth issues. By playing the biggest Guess Who? game of all time, The Hood was most likely able to figure out some less-than-positive ideals Alan thought about himself throughout his childhood and danced circles around his already weakened mind to string together some spineless blame to put on the kid by sheer evilness alone.
Knowing his kid brother, it worked.
Scott wasn’t thinking straight-- maybe even at all when the first punch was thrown.
Just like that, Scott blacked out and was running on terminator mode. John would be disappointed. Virgil would be horrified. Gordon might find it funny. Alan wasn’t here, and thank God for that. Scott wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing. All his mind was telling him was make lots of pain hard and fast. His brain also blocked out any hit The Hood was giving him in return. Pain flared for a few seconds, then it was swept away in the puddle of rage his mind was currently being consumed in.
Soon, his out-of-it mind found its target and gripped his-- The Hood’s arm, no disguise would make him have an identity crisis, thank you very much-- nice and rough.
Scott heard the familiar snap of cartilage and felt only partially bad. If he was thinking more clearly, he would be disgusted with himself. Yes, even The Hood didn’t deserve this level of Scott’s fury. Oh, he definitely deserved to be hit by a truck, but not by Scott. It was mostly due to Scott’s sanity. If he could be this graphic and violent at all, even to the worse possible criminals, that meant he could be that way during other moments, and that was not a territory he wanted to cross into.
Welp, he was here now, and he’ll hate to admit it in the future, but the only thing that brought him out of it was a tiny gasp from a few feet away. Snapping his head up, Scott’s eyes landed squarely on a smaller-than-normal Alan, who was currently clutching his arm to his chest in an emotion Scott didn’t want to figure out at the moment. So much for going and finding Virgil and Gordon.
“Allie, help…” fake him grunted out, only making real Scott growl and tighten his hold (and probably making his case worse). Looking up from the person in his arms, Scott felt his heart split in two at the sight. There was fear and uncertainty in Alan’s blue eyes and boy did it hurt. Scott couldn’t tell if it was because even seeing a potentially-fake Scott being beaten up was bad or if it was because he’d never seen big brother be this brutal, even towards their enemies. Whatever the reason, it involved Scott being the main root of the problem.
Wait, that was The Hood’s plan. Shit… make Scott act past the point of no return in a way that was unfamiliar to Alan so the kid couldn’t be fully sure who was who, and Scott fell right into his trap, hook, line, and sinker.
Fuck.
Bloody well done, Scott, you absolute moron.
Scott faltered a little bit, “A-Alan, I--”
That falter was enough for The Hood to break an arm out of his grip and elbow him in the face. In the brief second of freedom he had, he tried dashing towards Alan, but Scott was too quick for everyone’s good and soon had the imposter back in his arms, both of them struggling in a way that made them look like they were tied into the weirdest knot in existence.
Then, an earthquake struck.
No, literally.
A big shake of the abandoned compound threw the look-a-likes about and subsequently off the platform they were on. The place was old; it didn’t take a lot of weight for that guard rail they made their way over towards while fighting to snap right off. With a yelp, the two of them gripped the edge as much as they could and held on. Crap, I know we talked with Fuse about potentially setting some stuff off, but--
Blinking, Scott saw a familiar mop of blonde hair come into view. Alan was rather panicked, clearly not sure which Scott was the real Scott. Not only that, he had little time to decide which one to save. Goodie, another reason to despise The Hood: not only has he put Alan through weeks of torment, now he’s forcing the kid to decide to either save his oldest brother and biggest hero or his personal torturer.
And Alan won’t know until he picks.
Holy hell, this was getting worse by the second. Hopefully, big brother charm can work its magic and get them the hell out of there.
“Alan, quickly, over here!”
“I can’t hold on for much longer, Alan, hurry!”
The two Scotts glared at one another in the exact same way, not making Alan’s job much easier. Another shake, another slip down the metal cliff, more screams, and Alan looked ready to tear his hair out. Scott watched as the kid looked around rapidly, probably praying for a miracle in the process. Suddenly, the kid jumped when he must have spotted something important. Within the blink of an eye, he was gone and out of their range of visions to retrieve it.
Whatever the hell he noticed better be important, because if just ended up wasting precious time then--
Another shake, probably the last one. Still, it was enough.
Both their grips gave away at the same time, screams identical (God, did he always sound that wimpy?) as they plummeted to their demises. Scott was briefly able to look up to see his brother pop his head over the cliff like a chipmunk again and grab the (albeit broken) arm of The Hood and save him. Dammit, Scott should have expected that, though, that display of anger was uncharacteristic to Alan. Probably terrified him even more than he already was. Fuck, Scott deser--
Suddenly, a rope wrapped itself around Scott’s left arm and stopped his descent. Hard. Hopefully, it was only torn stuff, they didn’t have time to deal with dislocation--
Wait.
Scott wasn’t dead if he could think about these kinds of things.
Blinking, he looked at his arm to see the familiar rope of his grappling hook around his forearm. Moving his eyesight to look past that, he saw the wide, blue eyes of his baby brother struggling to stay on top. The Hood was using his non-broken side to try and climb his way back up to safety. Huh, that’s weird. When did Alan get ahold of that? Scott must have dropped it during his scuffle with--
That’s when it hit Scott.
Alan saved them both.
Alan saved them both.
And it would be all for jack shit if Scott didn’t get his ass up there to help.
Panicking, Scott gripped the rope and started to ascend. He had two working arms and a smother complex to boot; it wasn’t long before he overtook a struggling Hood, who could only use one arm and a weakened brother (that bastard was so lucky Alan had a literal heart of gold).
Flinging his arms over the edge and pulling himself up-- and shrugging off the extra help Alan offered. Save your strength, baby bro-- Scott was in a much calmer search-and-destroy mode. He yanked his evil look-a-like up, turned him on his stomach, pinned him down, and before he could even watch Alan blink, “Sign something.”
There, now he watched Alan blink.
Scott pulled out one of his best ‘big brother’ smiles ever, “Tell me something in ASL. I don’t think The Hood learned that kind of etiquette.”
The body beneath him growled, making Alan jump and Scott tighten not only his hold but his glare. Further prove big brother’s point, why don’t cha? He lost the angry look immediately to grin at Alan once more, who seemed to be slowly getting the picture. With a gulp, the blonde slowly strung together a sentence that Scott had to laugh at, just a little bit.
Damn, could you teach me to fight like that, Scooter?
Nodding his head, Scott had to concede, “Sure. Consider it a graduation present.”
Alan blinked again, and the immense relief that washed over the boy’s shoulders would be enough to banish nightmares for at least a couple of days. Suddenly, The Hood’s disguise blinked out of existence, making both brothers jump that time. Scott didn’t falter in his grip, however. This man was going down right here and now, Scott thought darkly, staring at the prone body beneath his.
Scott saw Alan continue to sign out of the corner of his eye, You know you look like shit, right?
Scott chuckled. Alan was always able to put a smile on his face no matter the circumstances, “Yeah, well, kindred spirits, little bro.”
Scott was probably as pale as Alan was with such lack of sleep and food. Running on what was essentially a prolonged PTSD attack wasn’t healthy in the slightest, and no doubt whatever kind of bruises and scratches The Hood gave him didn’t help, however, seeing hope fill those deep-blue eyes when Alan learned he was truly being saved drowned everything out, including the way those freckles were getting lost in those eye bags.
Yeah, their entire family probably looked like shit, and the recovery process was going to be even shittier, but they were going to suffer through it together as a family would.
That made it all worth it.
Shuffling himself so one arm was free while the other kept The Hood pinned, Scott held it out towards Alan. The flinch the youngest made tore a hole in Scott’s heart that was only slightly patched when Alan leaned into the warmth and safety of his biggest bro. Long recovery process, remember? Regardless, Alan still took to the hug like a dehydrated zebra did a pond, and that was good enough for Scott.
The Hood groaned underneath them.
Yep, good enough.
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frankics · 5 years ago
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hello  all  you  lovely  lovely  people  !  thanks  again  for  applying  to  this  rp,  you  have  NO  idea  how  excited  i  am  to  get  this  going.  i’m  lily,  i’m  newly  20,  in  the  est  timezone  and  my  pronouns  are  she/her.  i  love  trash  tv,  my  puppies,  and  the  collected  works  of  the  greatest  band  in  history  (one  direction).  this  is  my  trash  daughter  frankie,  she  truly  belongs  in  the  garbage  but  i  love  her  so  much.  below  the  cut  is  my  long  ass  intro  for  her,  i  forgive  you  if  you  don’t  read  it  all  because  looking  at  it  now  i  wouldn’t  want  to  either  !  anyway,  if  you’re  interested  in  plotting  with  me  and  frankie,  hmu  on  discord  and  you  can  check  this  blog  for  some connections  i  would  love  to  see  !
( alisha boe, cisfemale, she/her, MUSE E ) — oh my god, i totally just saw FRANCESCA ARCHER walking through greenwich village! you know, she plays SKYLAR ELLIS on that new netflix show, the village? i can’t believe they’re already famous at TWENTY-ONE. i’ve watched all of their interviews, and they totally come off as IMPERTINENT and RECKLESS, but they can also be ROMANTIC and WITTY. based on their social media, i’d describe FRANKIE like ( worn out black high-tops, mischievous smiles, nails painted different colors, peach vodka, swimming in an ocean during a storm ) — totally makes sense that people call them THE SPITFIRE.
important links: bio. statistics. filmography. muse posts. social media. 
warning: death tw on the 5th bullet point!!
the frankie archer story begins in 1996, when her mother yasmiin moves from her home of somalia to brooklyn to pursue an art career. she moved into a tiny apartment halfway across the world, knowing nothing and no one, looking for inspiration. she found it in the form of lorenzo archer, her next door neighbor. they dated for two years, but neither family approved of the other as a match: yasmiin’s family wanted her to return to somalia, and lorenzo’s roman catholic family were not pleased about their son selecting a non-catholic woman. but lorenzo and yasmiin didn’t care, and got married at new york city hall with the court appointed witness. two weeks later, yasmiin was pregnant with frankie. 
francesca simone archer was born on june 9, 1999. she is a gemini sun, a scorpio moon, and an aries rising. she was named francesca for her grandmother on the paternal side, and simone after nina simone, the singer that was playing on lorenzo’s record player when they first met. her two siblings, nala archer and zahi archer, were born in 2001 and 2003 respectively. 
her childhood is generally quite happy. lorenzo and yasmiin were born to be parents and they love frankie, nala, and zahi endlessly, the type of supportive love that makes children thrive. frankie possesses a natural wit and excels academically, nala is the star athlete, and zahi is a wizard with watercolor. frankie loves the movies and decides she wants to be an actress when she grows up, so lorenzo and yasmiin enroll her in acting classes and improv camps. things chug along in the archer family beautifully. 
that is, until frankie gets a high school scholarship to packer collegiate institute, located in the affluent neighborhood of brooklyn heights. she takes it, of course, with her parents’ full support. but she is nothing like anyone else who attends packer, and for a 14 year old who wants to blend in, that is the worst possible thing. she is suddenly, painfully aware of her worn-out clothes, her used books, her strange mother with paint stains on her bleached out jeans. frankie lashes out, screaming and storming off and slamming doors. she and her mother are hurricanes and the rest of the family simply battens down the hatches. one day when frankie is 15, she tells her mother that this family is her worst nightmare. it is the last words she will ever speak to her mother. 
a few hours after, the archers get a call that yasmiin has been in an accident. it was a hit and run: a drunk driver t-boned her, and they’re rushing her to the hospital. when the family arrives, the doctors break the news that yasmiin is comatose and that things aren’t looking good. lorenzo refuses to take her off life support, insisting she’ll recover. she is in a coma for nearly a year and a half before he is convinced to pull the plug. 
and now, the part of the frankie archer story that everyone knows, the serendipitous hollywood beginning. she’s just a charming, talented, grieving, all-american girl from brooklyn, heading off to juilliard in the fall. on her 18th birthday, the first one spent without her mother, she attends an open call for a role in an indie film called thursday mourning. she thinks it’ll be a fun way to spend the day, or at least distracting enough. and then she gets the fucking part. 
long story short, the film blows up. it’s shown at venice, winning the golden lion and a prize for frankie as the most promising young actor in the festival. it’s nominated for four oscars, including a best supporting actress nom for frankie. she doesn’t win, but it’s created a path for her to do whatever she wants, acting-wise. she does three more films in the next two years, gaining a reputation as an indie darling before realizing that indie films don’t make all that much money. 
and she needs money, because her father is drowning in hospital bills from yasmiin’s death that he can’t pay. that’s when the offer comes through from her agent: a starring role in an ensemble cast netflix show called the village. she’s planning on throwing the script away. she’s not interested in any television show, much less a teen drama. she’s a serious actress and she certainly doesn’t want to be the next veronica lodge, made fun of on the internet by strangers with discerning taste. but with a little coaxing from her agent, she reads the script, and the role is good, the writing strong. so she takes the village, even though she wants to do movies more, even though she might get memed into oblivion. one episode will halve her father’s debt. 
frankie was tapped for the village because while she’s definitely not as famous as some of her other castmates, nor does she have the hollywood background, she has consistently received acclaim for her performances. the producers think it will bring them some clout with the critics, and she has a sterling reputation as a hard worker on set.
so that’s the basic bio of frankie! now onto her personality >:-)
first of all, and most importantly, if you call her francesca you are DEAD.
frankie’s described by the media as a spitfire, and she definitely lives up to that description. she’s not particularly patient with interviews or paparazzi, she has a nasty mouth and an acerbic sense of humor, and to the general public she probably comes across as quite guarded and private about her life. she got into this business to be an actress, not a celebrity. 
nevertheless, if she wanted to be a celebrity, she could probably be a pretty beloved one. frankie has a very charismatic, charming way about her, that probably lets her get away with more in the public eye than she should. there’s just something about that hollywood story that makes people relate to her and root for her. 
the number one defining characteristic of frankie is her passion. she throws herself intensely into everything she does, feels emotions too vividly, fights for what she wants. she cares so much about everything. acting is her main passion, her forever love. it’s why she’s so good at what she does: she’s not the most talented, she doesn’t have the most training, but she feels so intensely. it also makes her very emotional (classic cancer!) if you’re close with her
also because of this passion, she’s probably the most competitive person you’ll ever meet in your entire life. she’s like, slightly insane about it? she wants to win everything, but she hates losing even more than she likes winning. she’s the type to throw a tiny tantrum if she loses a game of uno. 
frankie’s always been bold, likes to live life on the edge, but it became something much uglier after her mother’s death. she’s reckless to the nth degree: doing her own stunts, drinking and partying the night away. she’s not suicidal, but in some ways, it’s like she doesn’t have a huge regard for her own life. 
in her private life, frankie is pretty different. it’s not so much that her negative qualities disappear -- she still swears like a sailor and is less than patient. but rather, the flaws become less apparent when you get to know her. she’s sort of a goofy little marshmallow wearing a giant suit of spiky armor. 
one of the most loyal people you will ever meet, because she throws herself headlong into friendships and relationships. she’s sort of an all or nothing type gal, so if you befriend frankie expect it to be a very close relationship whether you like it or not. 
she is kind of the crazy friend? she’s baby? like she’s absolutely the person who’s encouraging everyone else to do dumb shit, and she’s always coming up with ridiculous ideas and pranks. side note give frankie a prank buddy on set!
she’s really quite witty. she absolutely loves twitter, which is basically the only glimpse the general public would get as to who frankie is in private. her twitter filled with her dumb jokes and random thoughts. in another life, she might have been a twitter comic.
she is a hopeless romantic, which she will never admit to anyone in the world unless it’s layered under 100 miles of sarcasm. the only relationship she’s really ever known is her parents’ relationship, and they were madly in love til the bitter end. she desperately wants something like that, but hasn’t quite found it. she’s been in exactly one pr relationship, but nothing particularly real or long-lasting.
she loves fashion. her mother taught her to sew and she sketches and makes some of her own clothes. her absolute dream is to collab with a designer on a fashion line: some of her favorite labels are marc jacobs, jean paul-gaultier, sies marjan, and moschino! she’s also had a lot of positive press for her red carpet looks. 
she has a dog, who she loves more than anything! his name is duke, he’s a staffie rescue, and she brings him on set frequently. she’s lobbying to get him cast as someone’s dog. 
she’s playing skylar ellis on the village, and because this is literally so long you can find some info about skylar at these links: statistics, muse posts, social media. i haven’t finished writing her entire bio yet but here’s the rundown: skylar appears to everyone like the pretty princess who has everything she could ever want. her parents are rich, she’s beautiful and smart, and she has a perfect relationship with phillip. but on the inside, she’s drowning. her dad wants her to take over the family company but she wants to be a writer, and the worst part is that she’s good at writing and horrible at business! she’s always been content to go with the flow (aka, what her parents want) because things are good in her life, but after her encounter with james over the summer, she’s realizing that she is completely trapped in a life she doesn’t want in the least. now she’s a conflicted mess of emotion trying to figure out what to do. 
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ahamay79 · 4 years ago
Text
President has been in office for 3 years and what has he done? Other than dodging the vile, fake news media, and Pelosi?!?
What have PRESIDENT TRUMP and his cabinet accomplished you ask? Since the liberal media won't tell you, we will.
Here you go.
* Trump recently signed 3 bills to benefit Native people. One gives compensation to the Spokane tribe for loss of their lands in the mid-1900s, one funds Native language programs, and the third gives federal recognition to the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Montana.
* Trump finalized the creation of Space Force as our 6th Military branch.
* Trump signed a law to make cruelty to animals a federal felony so that animal abusers face tougher consequences.👀👀
* Violent crime has fallen every year he’s been in office after rising during the 2 years before he was elected.
* Trump signed a bill making CBD and Hemp legal.👀👀
* Trump’s EPA gave $100 million to fix the water infrastructure problem in Flint, Michigan.
* Under Trump’s leadership, in 2018 the U.S. surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest producer of crude oil.
* Trump signed a law ending the gag orders on Pharmacists that prevented them from sharing money-saving information.
* Trump signed the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act” (FOSTA), which includes the “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act” (SESTA) which both give law enforcement and victims new tools to fight sex trafficking.👀👀
* Trump signed a bill to require airports to provide spaces for breastfeeding Moms.
* The 25% lowest-paid Americans enjoyed a 4.5% income boost in November 2019, which outpaces a 2.9% gain in earnings for the country's highest-paid workers.
* Low-wage workers are benefiting from higher minimum wages and from corporations that are increasing entry-level pay.
* Trump signed the biggest wilderness protection & conservation bill in a decade and designated 375,000 acres as protected land.
* Trump signed the Save our Seas Act which funds $10 million per year to clean tons of plastic & garbage from the ocean.👀👀
* He signed a bill this year allowing some drug imports from Canada so that prescription prices would go down.
* Trump signed an executive order this year that forces all healthcare providers to disclose the cost of their services so that Americans can comparison shop and know how much fewer providers charge insurance companies.
* When signing that bill he said no American should be blindsided by bills for medical services they never agreed to in advance.
* Hospitals will now be required to post their standard charges for services, which include the discounted price a hospital is willing to accept.
* In the eight years prior to President Trump’s inauguration, prescription drug prices increased by an average of 3.6% per year. Under Trump, drug prices have seen year-over-year declines in nine of the last ten months, with a 1.1% drop as of the most recent month.
* He created a White House VA Hotline to help veterans and principally staffed it with veterans and direct family members of veterans.👀👀
* VA employees are being held accountable for poor performance, with more than 4,000 VA employees removed, demoted, and suspended so far.
* Issued an executive order requiring the Secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs to submit a joint plan to provide veterans access to access to mental health treatment as they transition to civilian life.
* Because of a bill signed and championed by Trump, In 2020, most federal employees will see their pay increase by an average of 3.1% — the largest raise in more than 10 years.
* Trump signed into law up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave for millions of federal workers.
* Trump administration will provide HIV prevention drugs for free to 200,000 uninsured patients per year for 11 years.👀👀
* All-time record sales during the 2019 holidays.
* Trump signed an order allowing small businesses to group together when buying insurance to get a better price👀👀
* President Trump signed the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act that provides funding for states to develop maternal mortality reviews to better understand maternal complications and identify solutions & largely focuses on reducing the higher mortality rates for Black Americans.
* In 2018, President Trump signed the groundbreaking First Step Act, a criminal justice bill that enacted reforms that make our justice system fairer and help former inmates successfully return to society.
* The First Step Act’s reforms addressed inequities in sentencing laws that disproportionately harmed Black Americans and reformed mandatory minimums that created unfair outcomes.👀👀
* The First Step Act expanded judicial discretion in the sentencing of non-violent crimes.
* Over 90% of those benefitting from the retroactive sentencing reductions in the First Step Act are Black Americans.
* The First Step Act provides rehabilitative programs to inmates, helping them successfully rejoin society and not return to crime.
* Trump increased funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) by more than 14%.👀👀
* Trump signed legislation forgiving Hurricane Katrina debt that threatened HBCUs.
* New single-family home sales are up 31.6% in October 2019 compared to just one year ago.
* Made HBCUs a priority by creating the position of executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs.
* Trump received the Bipartisan Justice Award at a historically black college for his criminal justice reform accomplishments.
* The poverty rate fell to a 17-year low of 11.8% under the Trump administration as a result of a jobs-rich environment.👀👀
* Poverty rates for African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans have reached their lowest levels since the U.S. began collecting such data.
* President Trump signed a bill that creates five national monuments, expands several national parks, adds 1.3 million acres of wilderness, and permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water, Conservation Fund.
* Trump’s USDA committed $124 Million to rebuild rural water infrastructure.👀👀
* Consumer confidence & small business confidence is at an all-time high.
* More than 7 million jobs created since the election.
* More Americans are now employed than ever recorded before in our history.
* More than 400,000 manufacturing jobs created since his election.
* Trump appointed 5 openly gay ambassadors.👀👀
* Trump ordered Ric Grenell, his openly gay ambassador to Germany, to lead a global initiative to decriminalize homosexuality across the globe.
* Through Trump’s Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team (ACTeam) initiative, Federal law enforcement more than doubled convictions of human traffickers and increased the number of defendants charged by 75% in ACTeam districts.
* In 2018, the Department of Justice (DOJ) dismantled an organization that was the internet’s leading source of prostitution-related advertisements resulting in sex trafficking.
* Trump’s OMB published new anti-trafficking guidance for government procurement officials to more effectively combat human trafficking.
* Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations arrested 1,588 criminals associated with Human Trafficking.
* Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services provided funding to support the National Human Trafficking Hotline to identify perpetrators and give victims the help they need.
* The hotline identified 16,862 potential human trafficking cases.
* Trump’s DOJ provided grants to organizations that support human trafficking victims – serving nearly 9,000 cases from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018.👀👀
* The Department of Homeland Security has hired more victim assistance specialists, helping victims get resources and support.
* President Trump has called on Congress to pass school choice legislation so that no child is trapped in a failing school because of his or her zip code.👀👀
* The President signed funding legislation in September 2018 that increased funding for school choice by $42 million.
* The tax cuts signed into law by President Trump promote school choice by allowing families to use 529 college savings plans for elementary and secondary education.👀👀
* Under his leadership, ISIS has lost most of its territory and been largely dismantled.
* ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was killed.
* Signed the first Perkins CTE reauthorization since 2006, authorizing more than $1 billion for states each year to fund vocational and career education programs.
* Executive order expanding apprenticeship opportunities for students and workers.
* Trump issued an Executive Order prohibiting the U.S. government from discriminating against Christians or punishing expressions of faith.
* Signed an executive order that allows the government to withhold money from college campuses deemed to be anti-Semitic and who fail to combat anti-Semitism.
* President Trump ordered a halt to U.S. tax money going to international organizations that fund or perform abortions.
* Trump imposed sanctions on the socialists in Venezuela who have killed their citizens.
* Finalized new trade agreement with South Korea.
* Made a deal with the European Union to increase U.S. energy exports to Europe.👀👀
* Withdrew the U.S. from the job-killing TPP deal.
* Secured $250 billion in new trade and investment deals in China and $12 billion in Vietnam.
* Okay’d up to $12 billion in aid for farmers affected by unfair trade retaliation.👀👀
* Has had over a dozen US hostages freed, including those Obama could not get freed.
* Trump signed the Music Modernization Act, the biggest change to copyright law in decades.
* Trump secured Billions that will fund the building of a wall at our southern border.
* The Trump Administration is promoting second chance hiring to give former inmates the opportunity to live crime-free lives and find meaningful employment.
* Trump’s DOJ and the Board Of Prisons launched a new “Ready to Work Initiative” to help connect employers directly with former prisoners.👀👀
* President Trump’s historic tax cut legislation included new Opportunity Zone Incentives to promote investment in low-income communities across the country.
* 8,764 communities across the country have been designated as Opportunity Zones.
* Opportunity Zones are expected to spur $100 billion in long-term private capital investment in economically distressed communities across the country.
* Trump directed the Education Secretary to end Common Core.👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀
* Trump signed the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund into law.
* Trump signed measure funding prevention programs for Veteran suicide.👀👀
* Companies have brought back over a TRILLION dollars from overseas because of the TCJA bill that Trump signed.
* Manufacturing jobs are growing at the fastest rate in more than 30 years.
* Stock Market has reached record highs.
* Median household income has hit the highest level ever recorded.
* African-American unemployment is at an all-time low.
* Hispanic-American unemployment is at an all-time low.
* Asian-American unemployment is at an all-time low.
* Women’s unemployment rate is at a 65-year low.
* Youth unemployment is at a 50-year low.
* We have the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded.
* The Pledge to America’s Workers has resulted in employers committing to train more than 4 million Americans.
* 95 percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future— the highest ever.
* As a result of the Republican tax bill, small businesses will have the lowest top marginal tax rate in more than 80 years.👀👀
* Record number of regulations eliminated that hurt small businesses.
* Signed welfare reform requiring able-bodied adults who don’t have children to work or look for work if they’re on welfare.🙌🙌
* Under Trump, the FDA approved more affordable generic drugs than ever before in history.
* Reformed Medicare program to stop hospitals from overcharging low-income seniors on their drugs—saving seniors 100’s of millions of $$$ this year alone.👀👀
* Signed Right-To-Try legislation allowing terminally ill patients to try an experimental treatment that wasn’t allowed before.
* Secured $6 billion in new funding to fight the opioid epidemic.❤️❤️
* Signed VA Choice Act and VA Accountability Act, expanded VA telehealth services, walk-in-clinics, and same-day urgent primary and mental health care.👀👀
* U.S. oil production recently reached an all-time high so we are less dependent on oil from the Middle East.
* The U.S. is a net natural gas exporter for the first time since 1957.
* NATO allies increased their defense spending because of his pressure campaign.
* Withdrew the United States from the job-killing Paris Climate Accord in 2017 and that same year the U.S. still led the world by having the largest reduction in carbon emissions.👀👀
* Has his circuit court judge nominees being confirmed faster than any other new administration.
* Had his Supreme Court Justice’s Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh confirmed.
* Moved U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.👀👀
* Agreed to a new trade deal with Mexico & Canada that will increase jobs here and $$$ coming in.
* Reached a breakthrough agreement with the E.U. to increase U.S. exports.
* Imposed tariffs on China in response to China’s forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and their chronically abusive trade practices, has agreed to a Part One trade deal with China.
* Signed legislation to improve the National Suicide Hotline.👀👀
* Signed the most comprehensive childhood cancer legislation ever into law, which will advance childhood cancer research and improve treatments.
* The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by Trump doubled the maximum amount of the child tax credit available to parents and lifted the income limits so more people could claim it.
* It also created a new tax credit for other dependents.
* In 2018, President Trump signed into law a $2.4 billion funding increase for the Child Care and Development Fund, providing a total of $8.1 billion to states to fund child care for low-income families.
* The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) signed into law by Trump provides a tax credit equal to 20-35% of child care expenses, $3,000 per child & $6,000 per family + Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) allow you to set aside up to $5,000 in pre-tax $ to use for child care.
* In 2019 President Donald Trump signed the Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education and Support Act (CARES) into law which allocates $1.8 billion in funding over the next five years to help people with autism spectrum disorder and to help their families.👀👀
* In 2019 President Trump signed into law two funding packages providing nearly $19 million in new funding for Lupus specific research and education programs, as well an additional $41.7 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the most Lupus funding EVER.
* Another upcoming accomplishment to add: In the next week or two Trump will be signing the first major anti-robocall law in decades called the TRACED Act (Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence.) Once it’s the law, the TRACED Act will extend the period of time the FCC has to catch & punish those who intentionally break telemarketing restrictions. The bill also requires voice service providers to develop a framework to verify calls are legitimate before they reach your phone.
* US stock market continually hits all-time record highs.
* Because so many people asked for a document with all of this listed in one place, here it is. No links provided to remove bias as Google search is easy. Print this out for family, friends, neighbors, etc. I encourage you to drop this list off to voters before the 2020 election too!
*Trump did all of this while fighting flagrant abuse and impeachment charges.
——-please explain to me why you have a problem with OUR president? Because he has misspoken a few times? Tell me when you find a perfect person, please....I’ll wait!
I’ll tell you why because the media has skewed him in such a negative light and unfairly report his accomplishments to undermined those achievements!
Why? Because the media is complicit in every single thing this man is trying to undo! Start thinking for yourself!
🇺🇸WWG1WGA🇺🇸
🇺🇸🇺🇸Are you tired of winning yet?🇺🇸🇺🇸
❤️SHARE THIS❤️
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itiswhattitis · 5 years ago
Text
Dude has been in office for 3 years.... what has he done? Other than dodging the darts the media and Pelosi have thrown?!?
what have PRESIDENT TRUMP and his cabinet accomplished.....
Here you go.
* Trump recently signed 3 bills to benefit Native people. One gives compensation to the Spokane tribe for loss of their lands in the mid-1900s, one funds Native language programs, and the third gives federal recognition to the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Montana.
* Trump finalized the creation of Space Force as our 6th Military branch.
* Trump signed a law to make cruelty to animals a federal felony so that animal abusers face tougher consequences.👀👀
* Violent crime has fallen every year he’s been in office after rising during the 2 years before he was elected.
* Trump signed a bill making CBD and Hemp legal.👀👀
* Trump’s EPA gave $100 million to fix the water infrastructure problem in Flint, Michigan.
* Under Trump’s leadership, in 2018 the U.S. surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest producer of crude oil.
* Trump signed a law ending the gag orders on Pharmacists that prevented them from sharing money-saving information.
* Trump signed the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act” (FOSTA), which includes the “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act” (SESTA) which both give law enforcement and victims new tools to fight sex trafficking.👀👀
* Trump signed a bill to require airports to provide spaces for breastfeeding Moms.
* The 25% lowest-paid Americans enjoyed a 4.5% income boost in November 2019, which outpaces a 2.9% gain in earnings for the country's highest-paid workers.
* Low-wage workers are benefiting from higher minimum wages and from corporations that are increasing entry-level pay.
* Trump signed the biggest wilderness protection & conservation bill in a decade and designated 375,000 acres as protected land.
* Trump signed the Save our Seas Act which funds $10 million per year to clean tons of plastic & garbage from the ocean.👀👀
* He signed a bill this year allowing some drug imports from Canada so that prescription prices would go down.
* Trump signed an executive order this year that forces all healthcare providers to disclose the cost of their services so that Americans can comparison shop and know how much less providers charge insurance companies.
* When signing that bill he said no American should be blindsided by bills for medical services they never agreed to in advance.
* Hospitals will now be required to post their standard charges for services, which include the discounted price a hospital is willing to accept.
* In the eight years prior to President Trump’s inauguration, prescription drug prices increased by an average of 3.6% per year. Under Trump, drug prices have seen year-over-year declines in nine of the last ten months, with a 1.1% drop as of the most recent month.
* He created a White House VA Hotline to help veterans and principally staffed it with veterans and direct family members of veterans.👀👀
* VA employees are being held accountable for poor performance, with more than 4,000 VA employees removed, demoted, and suspended so far.
* Issued an executive order requiring the Secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs to submit a joint plan to provide veterans access to access to mental health treatment as they transition to civilian life.
* Because of a bill signed and championed by Trump, In 2020, most federal employees will see their pay increase by an average of 3.1% — the largest raise in more than 10 years.
* Trump signed into a law up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave for millions of federal workers.
* Trump administration will provide HIV prevention drugs for free to 200,000 uninsured patients per year for 11 years.👀👀
* All-time record sales during the 2019 holidays.
* Trump signed an order allowing small businesses to group together when buying insurance to get a better price👀👀
* President Trump signed the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act that provides funding for states to develop maternal mortality reviews to better understand maternal complications and identify solutions & largely focuses on reducing the higher mortality rates for Black Americans.
* In 2018, President Trump signed the groundbreaking First Step Act, a criminal justice bill which enacted reforms that make our justice system fairer and help former inmates successfully return to society.
* The First Step Act’s reforms addressed inequities in sentencing laws that disproportionately harmed Black Americans and reformed mandatory minimums that created unfair outcomes.👀👀
* The First Step Act expanded judicial discretion in sentencing of non-violent crimes.
* Over 90% of those benefitting from the retroactive sentencing reductions in the First Step Act are Black Americans.
* The First Step Act provides rehabilitative programs to inmates, helping them successfully rejoin society and not return to crime.
* Trump increased funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) by more than 14%.👀👀
* Trump signed legislation forgiving Hurricane Katrina debt that threatened HBCUs.
* New single-family home sales are up 31.6% in October 2019 compared to just one year ago.
* Made HBCUs a priority by creating the position of executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs.
* Trump received the Bipartisan Justice Award at a historically black college for his criminal justice reform accomplishments.
* The poverty rate fell to a 17-year low of 11.8% under the Trump administration as a result of a jobs-rich environment.👀👀
* Poverty rates for African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans have reached their lowest levels since the U.S. began collecting such data.
* President Trump signed a bill that creates five national monuments, expands several national parks, adds 1.3 million acres of wilderness, and permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
* Trump’s USDA committed $124 Million to rebuild rural water infrastructure.👀👀
* Consumer confidence & small business confidence is at an all time high.
* More than 7 million jobs created since election.
* More Americans are now employed than ever recorded before in our history.
* More than 400,000 manufacturing jobs created since his election.
* Trump appointed 5 openly gay ambassadors.👀👀
* Trump ordered Ric Grenell, his openly gay ambassador to Germany, to lead a global initiative to decriminalize homosexuality across the globe.
* Through Trump’s Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team (ACTeam) initiative, Federal law enforcement more than doubled convictions of human traffickers and increased the number of defendants charged by 75% in ACTeam districts.
* In 2018, the Department of Justice (DOJ) dismantled an organization that was the internet’s leading source of prostitution-related advertisements resulting in sex trafficking.
* Trump’s OMB published new anti-trafficking guidance for government procurement officials to more effectively combat human trafficking.
* Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations arrested 1,588 criminals associated with Human Trafficking.
* Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services provided funding to support the National Human Trafficking Hotline to identify perpetrators and give victims the help they need.
* The hotline identified 16,862 potential human trafficking cases.
* Trump’s DOJ provided grants to organizations that support human trafficking victims – serving nearly 9,000 cases from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018.👀👀
* The Department of Homeland Security has hired more victim assistance specialists, helping victims get resources and support.
* President Trump has called on Congress to pass school choice legislation so that no child is trapped in a failing school because of his or her zip code.👀👀
* The President signed funding legislation in September 2018 that increased funding for school choice by $42 million.
* The tax cuts signed into law by President Trump promote school choice by allowing families to use 529 college savings plans for elementary and secondary education.👀👀
* Under his leadership ISIS has lost most of their territory and been largely dismantled.
* ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was killed.
* Signed the first Perkins CTE reauthorization since 2006, authorizing more than $1 billion for states each year to fund vocational and career education programs.
* Executive order expanding apprenticeship opportunities for students and workers.
* Trump issued an Executive Order prohibiting the U.S. government from discriminating against Christians or punishing expressions of faith.
* Signed an executive order that allows the government to withhold money from college campuses deemed to be anti-Semitic and who fail to combat anti-Semitism.
* President Trump ordered a halt to U.S. tax money going to international organizations that fund or perform abortions.
* Trump imposed sanctions on the socialists in Venezuela who have killed their citizens.
* Finalized new trade agreement with South Korea.
* Made a deal with the European Union to increase U.S. energy exports to Europe.👀👀
* Withdrew the U.S. from the job killing TPP deal.
* Secured $250 billion in new trade and investment deals in China and $12 billion in Vietnam.
* Okay’d up to $12 billion in aid for farmers affected by unfair trade retaliation.👀👀
* Has had over a dozen US hostages freed, including those Obama could not get freed.
* Trump signed the Music Modernization Act, the biggest change to copyright law in decades.
* Trump secured Billions that will fund the building of a wall at our southern border.
* The Trump Administration is promoting second chance hiring to give former inmates the opportunity to live crime-free lives and find meaningful employment.
* Trump’s DOJ and the Board Of Prisons launched a new “Ready to Work Initiative” to help connect employers directly with former prisoners.👀👀
* President Trump’s historic tax cut legislation included new Opportunity Zone Incentives to promote investment in low-income communities across the country.
* 8,764 communities across the country have been designated as Opportunity Zones.
* Opportunity Zones are expected to spur $100 billion in long-term private capital investment in economically distressed communities across the country.
* Trump directed the Education Secretary to end Common Core.👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀
* Trump signed the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund into law.
* Trump signed measure funding prevention programs for Veteran suicide.👀👀
* Companies have brought back over a TRILLION dollars from overseas because of the TCJA bill that Trump signed.
* Manufacturing jobs are growing at the fastest rate in more than 30 years.
* Stock Market has reached record highs.
* Median household income has hit highest level ever recorded.
* African-American unemployment is at an all time low.
* Hispanic-American unemployment is at an all time low.
* Asian-American unemployment is at an all time low.
* Women’s unemployment rate is at a 65-year low.
* Youth unemployment is at a 50-year low.
* We have the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded.
* The Pledge to America’s Workers has resulted in employers committing to train more than 4 million Americans.
* 95 percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future— the highest ever.
* As a result of the Republican tax bill, small businesses will have the lowest top marginal tax rate in more than 80 years.👀👀
* Record number of regulations eliminated that hurt small businesses.
* Signed welfare reform requiring able-bodied adults who don’t have children to work or look for work if they’re on welfare.🙌🙌
* Under Trump, the FDA approved more affordable generic drugs than ever before in history.
* Reformed Medicare program to stop hospitals from overcharging low-income seniors on their drugs—saving seniors 100’s of millions of $$$ this year alone.👀👀
* Signed Right-To-Try legislation allowing terminally ill patients to try experimental treatment that wasn’t allowed before.
* Secured $6 billion in new funding to fight the opioid epidemic.❤️❤️
* Signed VA Choice Act and VA Accountability Act, expanded VA telehealth services, walk-in-clinics, and same-day urgent primary and mental health care.👀👀
* U.S. oil production recently reached all-time high so we are less dependent on oil from the Middle East.
* The U.S. is a net natural gas exporter for the first time since 1957.
* NATO allies increased their defense spending because of his pressure campaign.
* Withdrew the United States from the job-killing Paris Climate Accord in 2017 and that same year the U.S. still led the world by having the largest reduction in Carbon emissions.👀👀
* Has his circuit court judge nominees being confirmed faster than any other new administration.
* Had his Supreme Court Justice’s Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh confirmed.
* Moved U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.👀👀
* Agreed to a new trade deal with Mexico & Canada that will increase jobs here and $$$ coming in.
* Reached a breakthrough agreement with the E.U. to increase U.S. exports.
* Imposed tariffs on China in response to China’s forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and their chronically abusive trade practices, has agreed to a Part One trade deal with China.
* Signed legislation to improve the National Suicide Hotline.👀👀
* Signed the most comprehensive childhood cancer legislation ever into law, which will advance childhood cancer research and improve treatments.
* The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by Trump doubled the maximum amount of the child tax credit available to parents and lifted the income limits so more people could claim it.
* It also created a new tax credit for other dependents.
* In 2018, President Trump signed into law a $2.4 billion funding increase for the Child Care and Development Fund, providing a total of $8.1 billion to States to fund child care for low-income families.
* The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) signed into law by Trump provides a tax credit equal to 20-35% of child care expenses, $3,000 per child & $6,000 per family + Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) allow you to set aside up to $5,000 in pre-tax $ to use for child care.
* In 2019 President Donald Trump signed the Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education and Support Act (CARES) into law which allocates $1.8 billion in funding over the next five years to help people with autism spectrum disorder and to help their families.👀👀
* In 2019 President Trump signed into law two funding packages providing nearly $19 million in new funding for Lupus specific research and education programs, as well an additional $41.7 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the most Lupus funding EVER.
* Another upcoming accomplishment to add: In the next week or two Trump will be signing the first major anti-robocall law in decades called the TRACED Act (Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence.) Once it’s thelaw, the TRACED Act will extend the period of time the FCC has to catch & punish those who intentionally break telemarketing restrictions. The bill also requires voice service providers to develop a framework to verify calls are legitimate before they reach your phone.
* US stock market continually hits all-time record highs.
* Because so many people asked for a document with all of this listed in one place, here it is. No links provided to remove bias as Google search is easy. Print this out for family, friends, neighbors, etc. I encourage you to drop this list off to voters before the 2020 election too!
*Trump did all of this while fighting flagrant abuse and impeachment charges.
——-please explain to me why you have a problem with OUR president? Because he has misspoke a few times? Tell me when you find a perfect person, please....I’ll wait! I’ll tell you why, because the media has skewed him in such a negative light and unfairly report his accomplishments to undermined those achievements! Why? Because the media is complicit in every single thing this man is trying to undo! Start thinking for yourself!
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strike-back-now-info · 4 years ago
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TRUMP DID WHAT?? 🤔
Dude has been in office for 3 years…. what has he done? Other than dodging the darts the media and Pelosi have thrown?!? what have PRESIDENT TRUMP and his cabinet accomplished…..
Here you go.
* Trump recently signed 3 bills to benefit Native people. One gives compensation to the Spokane tribe for loss of their lands in the mid-1900s, one funds Native language programs, and the third gives federal recognition to the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Montana.
* Trump finalized the creation of Space Force as our 6th Military branch.
* Trump signed a law to make cruelty to animals a federal felony so that animal abusers face tougher consequences.👀👀
* Violent crime has fallen every year he’s been in office after rising during the 2 years before he was elected.
* Trump signed a bill making CBD and Hemp legal.👀👀
* Trump’s EPA gave $100 million to fix the water infrastructure problem in Flint, Michigan.
* Under Trump’s leadership, in 2018 the U.S. surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest producer of crude oil.
* Trump signed a law ending the gag orders on Pharmacists that prevented them from sharing money-saving information.
* Trump signed the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act” (FOSTA), which includes the “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act” (SESTA) which both give law enforcement and victims new tools to fight sex trafficking.👀👀
* Trump signed a bill to require airports to provide spaces for breastfeeding Moms.
* The 25% lowest-paid Americans enjoyed a 4.5% income boost in November 2019, which outpaces a 2.9% gain in earnings for the country’s highest-paid workers.
* Low-wage workers are benefiting from higher minimum wages and from corporations that are increasing entry-level pay.
* Trump signed the biggest wilderness protection & conservation bill in a decade and designated 375,000 acres as protected land.
* Trump signed the Save our Seas Act which funds $10 million per year to clean tons of plastic & garbage from the ocean.👀👀
* He signed a bill this year allowing some drug imports from Canada so that prescription prices would go down.
* Trump signed an executive order this year that forces all healthcare providers to disclose the cost of their services so that Americans can comparison shop and know how much less providers charge insurance companies.
* When signing that bill he said no American should be blindsided by bills for medical services they never agreed to in advance.
* Hospitals will now be required to post their standard charges for services, which include the discounted price a hospital is willing to accept.
* In the eight years prior to President Trump’s inauguration, prescription drug prices increased by an average of 3.6% per year. Under Trump, drug prices have seen year-over-year declines in nine of the last ten months, with a 1.1% drop as of the most recent month.
* He created a White House VA Hotline to help veterans and principally staffed it with veterans and direct family members of veterans.👀👀
* VA employees are being held accountable for poor performance, with more than 4,000 VA employees removed, demoted, and suspended so far.
* Issued an executive order requiring the Secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs to submit a joint plan to provide veterans access to access to mental health treatment as they transition to civilian life.
* Because of a bill signed and championed by Trump, In 2020, most federal employees will see their pay increase by an average of 3.1% — the largest raise in more than 10 years.
* Trump signed into a law up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave for millions of federal workers.
* Trump administration will provide HIV prevention drugs for free to 200,000 uninsured patients per year for 11 years.👀👀
* All-time record sales during the 2019 holidays.
* Trump signed an order allowing small businesses to group together when buying insurance to get a better price👀👀
* President Trump signed the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act that provides funding for states to develop maternal mortality reviews to better understand maternal complications and identify solutions & largely focuses on reducing the higher mortality rates for Black Americans.
* In 2018, President Trump signed the groundbreaking First Step Act, a criminal justice bill which enacted reforms that make our justice system fairer and help former inmates successfully return to society.
* The First Step Act’s reforms addressed inequities in sentencing laws that disproportionately harmed Black Americans and reformed mandatory minimums that created unfair outcomes.👀👀
* The First Step Act expanded judicial discretion in sentencing of non-violent crimes.
* Over 90% of those benefiting from the retroactive sentencing reductions in the First Step Act are Black Americans.
* The First Step Act provides rehabilitative programs to inmates, helping them successfully rejoin society and not return to crime.
* Trump increased funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) by more than 14%.👀👀
* Trump signed legislation forgiving Hurricane Katrina debt that threatened HBCUs.
* New single-family home sales are up 31.6% in October 2019 compared to just one year ago.
* Made HBCUs a priority by creating the position of executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs.
* Trump received the Bipartisan Justice Award at a historically black college for his criminal justice reform accomplishments.
* The poverty rate fell to a 17-year low of 11.8% under the Trump administration as a result of a jobs-rich environment.👀👀
* Poverty rates for African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans have reached their lowest levels since the U.S. began collecting such data.
* President Trump signed a bill that creates five national monuments, expands several national parks, adds 1.3 million acres of wilderness, and permanently reauthorises the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
* Trump’s USDA committed $124 Million to rebuild rural water infrastructure.👀👀
* Consumer confidence & small business confidence is at an all time high.
* More than 7 million jobs created since election.
* More Americans are now employed than ever recorded before in our history.
* More than 400,000 manufacturing jobs created since his election.
* Trump appointed 5 openly gay ambassadors.👀👀
* Trump ordered Ric Grenell, his openly gay ambassador to Germany, to lead a global initiative to decriminalise homosexuality across the globe.
* Through Trump’s Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team (ACTeam) initiative, Federal law enforcement more than doubled convictions of human traffickers and increased the number of defendants charged by 75% in ACTeam districts.
* In 2018, the Department of Justice (DOJ) dismantled an organization that was the internet’s leading source of prostitution-related advertisements resulting in sex trafficking.
* Trump’s OMB published new anti-trafficking guidance for government procurement officials to more effectively combat human trafficking.
* Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations arrested 1,588 criminals associated with Human Trafficking.
* Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services provided funding to support the National Human Trafficking Hotline to identify perpetrators and give victims the help they need.
* The hotline identified 16,862 potential human trafficking cases.
* Trump’s DOJ provided grants to organizations that support human trafficking victims – serving nearly 9,000 cases from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018.👀👀
* The Department of Homeland Security has hired more victim assistance specialists, helping victims get resources and support.
* President Trump has called on Congress to pass school choice legislation so that no child is trapped in a failing school because of his or her zip code.👀👀
* The President signed funding legislation in September 2018 that increased funding for school choice by $42 million.
* The tax cuts signed into law by President Trump promote school choice by allowing families to use 529 college savings plans for elementary and secondary education.👀👀
* Under his leadership ISIS has lost most of their territory and been largely dismantled.
* ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was killed.
* Signed the first Perkins CTE reauthorizing since 2006, authorising more than $1 billion for states each year to fund vocational and career education programs.
* Executive order expanding apprenticeship opportunities for students and workers.
* Trump issued an Executive Order prohibiting the U.S. government from discriminating against Christians or punishing expressions of faith.
* Signed an executive order that allows the government to withhold money from college campuses deemed to be anti-Semitic and who fail to combat anti-Semitism.
* President Trump ordered a halt to U.S. tax money going to international organizations that fund or perform abortions.
* Trump imposed sanctions on the socialists in Venezuela who have killed their citizens.
* Finalised new trade agreement with South Korea.
* Made a deal with the European Union to increase U.S. energy exports to Europe.👀👀
* Withdrew the U.S. from the job killing TPP deal.
* Secured $250 billion in new trade and investment deals in China and $12 billion in Vietnam.
* Okay’d up to $12 billion in aid for farmers affected by unfair trade retaliation.👀👀
* Has had over a dozen US hostages freed, including those Obama could not get freed.
* Trump signed the Music Modernisation Act, the biggest change to copyright law in decades.
* Trump secured Billions that will fund the building of a wall at our southern border.
* The Trump Administration is promoting second chance hiring to give former inmates the opportunity to live crime-free lives and find meaningful employment.
* Trump’s DOJ and the Board Of Prisons launched a new “Ready to Work Initiative” to help connect employers directly with former prisoners.👀👀
* President Trump’s historic tax cut legislation included new Opportunity Zone Incentives to promote investment in low-income communities across the country.
* 8,764 communities across the country have been designated as Opportunity Zones.
* Opportunity Zones are expected to spur $100 billion in long-term private capital investment in economically distressed communities across the country.
* Trump directed the Education Secretary to end Common Core.👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀
* Trump signed the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund into law.
* Trump signed measure funding prevention programs for Veteran suicide.👀👀
* Companies have brought back over a TRILLION dollars from overseas because of the TCJA bill that Trump signed.
* Manufacturing jobs are growing at the fastest rate in more than 30 years.
* Stock Market has reached record highs.
* Median household income has hit highest level ever recorded.
* African-American unemployment is at an all time low.
* Hispanic-American unemployment is at an all time low.
* Asian-American unemployment is at an all time low.
* Women’s unemployment rate is at a 65-year low.
* Youth unemployment is at a 50-year low.
* We have the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded.
* The Pledge to America’s Workers has resulted in employers committing to train more than 4 million Americans.
* 95 percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future— the highest ever.
* As a result of the Republican tax bill, small businesses will have the lowest top marginal tax rate in more than 80 years.👀👀
* Record number of regulations eliminated that hurt small businesses.
* Signed welfare reform requiring able-bodied adults who don’t have children to work or look for work if they’re on welfare.🙌🙌
* Under Trump, the FDA approved more affordable generic drugs than ever before in history.
* Reformed Medicare program to stop hospitals from overcharging low-income seniors on their drugs—saving seniors 100’s of millions of $$$ this year alone.👀👀
* Signed Right-To-Try legislation allowing terminally ill patients to try experimental treatment that wasn’t allowed before.
* Secured $6 billion in new funding to fight the opioid epidemic.❤️❤️
* Signed VA Choice Act and VA Accountability Act, expanded VA telehealth services, walk-in-clinics, and same-day urgent primary and mental health care.👀👀
* U.S. oil production recently reached all-time high so we are less dependent on oil from the Middle East.
* The U.S. is a net natural gas exporter for the first time since 1957.
* NATO allies increased their defense spending because of his pressure campaign.
* Withdrew the United States from the job-killing Paris Climate Accord in 2017 and that same year the U.S. still led the world by having the largest reduction in Carbon emissions.👀👀
* Has his circuit court judge nominees being confirmed faster than any other new administration.
* Had his Supreme Court Justice’s Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh confirmed.
* Moved U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.👀👀
* Agreed to a new trade deal with Mexico & Canada that will increase jobs here and $$$ coming in.
* Reached a breakthrough agreement with the E.U. to increase U.S. exports.
* Imposed tariffs on China in response to China’s forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and their chronically abusive trade practices, has agreed to a Part One trade deal with China.
* Signed legislation to improve the National Suicide Hotline.👀👀
* Signed the most comprehensive childhood cancer legislation ever into law, which will advance childhood cancer research and improve treatments.
* The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by Trump doubled the maximum amount of the child tax credit available to parents and lifted the income limits so more people could claim it.
* It also created a new tax credit for other dependents.
* In 2018, President Trump signed into law a $2.4 billion funding increase for the Child Care and Development Fund, providing a total of $8.1 billion to States to fund child care for low-income families.
* The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) signed into law by Trump provides a tax credit equal to 20-35% of child care expenses, $3,000 per child & $6,000 per family + Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) allow you to set aside up to $5,000 in pre-tax $ to use for child care.
* In 2019 President Donald Trump signed the Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education and Support Act (CARES) into law which allocates $1.8 billion in funding over the next five years to help people with autism spectrum disorder and to help their families.👀👀
* In 2019 President Trump signed into law two funding packages providing nearly $19 million in new funding for Lupus specific research and education programs, as well an additional $41.7 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the most Lupus funding EVER.
* Another upcoming accomplishment to add: In the next week or two Trump will be signing the first major anti-robocall law in decades called the TRACED Act (Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence.) Once it’s thelaw, the TRACED Act will extend the period of time the FCC has to catch & punish those who intentionally break telemarketing restrictions. The bill also requires voice service providers to develop a framework to verify calls are legitimate before they reach your phone.
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empathdespoina · 4 years ago
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Who am I?
Unfortunately I was not able to put a title on my first post; since I was using the app on my iphone, late at night on composing that first post.
In this area, I’m going by the name Despoina.
Why that name you ask? 
Well one, I like that name being one of the few daughters of Poseidon and use it for my video games characters. But mostly it’s so no one sees my real name and try to search for me. I’ve seen enough crazy things in this world, to know smart people who are good at internet tracing on finding people. To give examples you don’t have to look to far for a few “Karens” who were caught on social media being racists as fuck and found their job and where they live; causing them to lose their job. Which is good social justice; but even in the same breath people who are doing good could be found by the wrong people...for example a Judge, that this person didn’t like her and was hoping to kill her before the upcoming case, in regards to him or someone else close to him... instead the crazy killed her son, who was trying to protect his father and she wasn’t home; and this was found out due to her address being public knowledge as a Judge, now think how dangerous that is for those who don’t want to go to jail and figure they can get away, killing the Judge to not have a court case (which is stupid, due to the fact that person would get a different Judge assigned to the case). And more recently what could have happened with the Montana Governor. So pardon me if I prefer to be called by this.
Also to be honest my photo image is probably in my mid 20s... I’m 34yrs old as this is being composed. I thought this photo of me in a bath tub under water... seem best to symbolize my account. And the fact most Empaths are comfortable around water.
When did I learn I was and Empath and fully commit to it? 
Well I oddly found out when I was briefly living in Las Vegas for a few short years and I found my path along the lines of practicing Wicca; which I felt a better connection to, compared to the religions I was brought up on. So one store I went to called the “Psychic Eye” was having a psych class lesson that was a mix of different things to learn about different psychic gift abilities. The person who was running the class, a nice old lady; who could hold her own authority, and be sweet too. I forget how exactly it started...but one day I was last to leave this short weekly session and we were talking. She asked me a few questions and one that stuck to me was “Do you feel comfortable around water?” I told her yes. She informed me that I was an empath and I could feel other people’s feelings. Now some might think...that this woman was leading me on...but the minute she told me Empath... its as if something click in my mind from my subconscious to my conscious, saying this is the piece I’m missing to better understanding myself.
Heh after that I found a meetup group for those learning about Wicca... and wasn’t necessarily working towards controlling my abilities as an empath. Since around that time... I had got rid of the toxic people around me...who wanted to draw off my energy. Yet it was this one night at a Denny’s...where the group met up, every so often. That I felt my chakra points, which I had already learned about those points and did brief reading of books about empaths; that my Heart and Solar Plexus Chakra points were being hit hard as fuck. It felt as if someone speed up my heart out of nowhere and making me feel sick to my stomach...after I had just finish eating my food, ten minutes prior. There was also someone else in that group getting hit by it too. And unfortunately for me...I didn’t have any of my stones with me to help me focus, nor be able to shield myself or be able push out this person’s energy that LITTERLY was consuming me... almost like when Venom engulfs Spider-man or any other Marvel Hero. Someone let me grab onto a stone that was a keychain on their bag.. and I was looking around as if I was in high tide with ripe tide added into it find where in the hell this was coming from. I was able to zone in on the person, almost like a radar single but in a different way. It was a young woman with a man and judging by her body expressions she was breaking up with him.... now I wasn’t that far away from them; nor was she shouting loud to draw attention to her from the restaurant.
Later in my life I would have two other moments my chakra points were taking me over... but that be a story for another time...because the experiences were way way different; especially my second experience...compared to the Denny’s one.
Later on in my life, I would on and off read e-book on amazon about empaths and surprisingly enough; there seems to be a higher level of this genre as e-books. It’s only recently during COVID, and me still without a job and having to deal with my mom doing a close fracture (meaning bone didn’t break through the skin) on her right ankle and I had to be downstairs every single day since September 9. Which wasn’t that great because my mother and I are not close (another story about that and my empath abilities being taken advantage of); so I decided to start reading books and worked on focusing again about being an Empath and controlling my abilities. I did buy four small books from Barnes and Nobles...where mostly were really really small. Majority were good and some I question the author or author pissed me off on their school of thought process on being an Empath.
At this point I would say, I am having a better grasp at shielding myself.. which took a bit to figure out; since there is NO real way on how to do it. There’s constant talk in the many books I’ve read about shielding yourself and keeping it up; to ward off the negative energy and only get a taste of the emotions to know what’s going on with the person. Yet sadly I couldn’t due that, until I asked one of the owners at “Amityville Apothecary”, who gave me pointers on a way to do it and it worked.  I will share that in another blog, down the road...I have a few points or a process on how I want to put these posts out. Kinda like teaching a lesson (was an art teacher, briefly)...in hopes of making it easier for others.
Why did you want to start this blog?
Why is because I’m starting to notice a few more people close to me and some people I interact with don’t know that they’re empaths... and unfortunately with these past four years under Trump and his encouragement to do negative things to others. Interesting enough I did a search to see what the professionals would psychoanalyze him as (which is not an official diagnosis, but based on past experience with other patients and/or studies on mental health) and he would be considered a Narcissi Personality Border. Pretty much he was obsess as a child to please his sociopathy father that showed no emotions and how he had Daddy issues and clung to Putain and North Korea’s Great Leader (yes as bad as this was to see this dictator of North Korea, I am still impress another nation’s governing person was able to talk to him; besides South Korea always trying. Hey it’s not the best thing, but I give credit on that...knowing how North Korea keeps others out so much); so these two had similarities to how his daddy was; when Trump’s father was alive. It’s like Daddy issues mixed with the crazy thought process of the main character in Talladega Nights movie on having to be the best and a person with God-like complex or spoiled child on getting their way...seeing how people are afraid to say NO to him and him getting away with a lot of things. It seriously makes me question his mental state of mind and even more once he’s out of office.
Sorry I got a bit off topic...but due to Trump being this crazy and erratic and not being punish; including those around him were afraid to say no to literally a crazy man...and to be honest seeing some people not as bad as Trump; is pretty fucken scary. Well it encourage other people who were secret assholes and sociopaths and everything else mentally wrong in the brain...to disregard society’s standard of right and wrong...just let their evil side out and more people were getting killed by others; you had people who were not white, being trailed by crazy white people. And all those people who are Trump supporters and not right in the head. All this chaos this president has created and made it even worst this year with COVID...proving he didn’t care about others and just wanted people to fight each other...so no one would care about what was happening in the world and not pay attention to the fact, he wasn’t doing his job properly as a President. Which some of us in this world were wiser to know; especially how he treated the virus, even after getting it.
So of course there’s going to be a heavier rise of negative energy, compared to the past years; and love ones around you and friends believing all the social media garbage from the republicans. And no matter what, you can’t have a healthy mind conversation about who would become President...where for example my mom thought Biden’s campaign design symbolized China...which I know she’s been using Facebook a lot lately and see all those false information and not cross checking the information to be true and her friend who survived cancer...also on facebook; and I know this friend is going through chemical brain...because I’ve seen it before in others and how it changes the person completely.
And I have been hearing, from those I play dungeons and dragons; and them feeling things much harder. And then recently talking to the vet, due taking the older family dog, Buddy for a visit, and for me to realize that she was an animal empath; based on the comments at this animal hospital she works for on being nicknamed “Dr. Death” due to how gentle she is on putting the animal down; and she feels the animals’ pain...and yet she doesn’t know how to control it and she’s got to be in her late 50s. Then there is the Vet’s daughter, who feels people’s energies far much harder than me...that she’s thought of suicide a few times, visiting the hospitals due to that and putting her on psych meds...when the case is; is that if her daughter was taken to a positive area, she be alright. No psych meds required or being in a psych ward.
So honestly I want this blog to help other people, to make them feel less crazy about themselves and not give into negativity on being told how different you as a person reacts with your feelings, compared to others. And lastly, I think there’s a higher need of people learning about empaths and knowing if they are full blown or have some abilities; because we need to find a way to control the raging storm in the USA. Plus it helps bring you to a better understanding of yourself; since we are such complex people. So come along this journey with me as I teach you about Empaths and the abilities associated with this gift.
So blessed be and may the sun give you the strength to rise for the day; as the moon soothes you at night and your troubles away.
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djkid-420-blog · 4 years ago
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Fact check it 👇
Dude has been in office for 3 years.... what has he done? Other than dodging the darts the media and Pelosi have thrown?!?
what have PRESIDENT TRUMP and his cabinet accomplished.....
Here you go.
* Trump recently signed 3 bills to benefit Native people. One gives compensation to the Spokane tribe for loss of their lands in the mid-1900s, one funds Native language programs, and the third gives federal recognition to the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Montana.
* Trump finalized the creation of Space Force as our 6th Military branch.
* Trump signed a law to make cruelty to animals a federal felony so that animal abusers face tougher consequences.👀👀
* Violent crime has fallen every year he’s been in office after rising during the 2 years before he was elected.
* Trump signed a bill making CBD and Hemp legal.👀👀
* Trump’s EPA gave $100 million to fix the water infrastructure problem in Flint, Michigan.
* Under Trump’s leadership, in 2018 the U.S. surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest producer of crude oil.
* Trump signed a law ending the gag orders on Pharmacists that prevented them from sharing money-saving information.
* Trump signed the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act” (FOSTA), which includes the “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act” (SESTA) which both give law enforcement and victims new tools to fight sex trafficking.👀👀
* Trump signed a bill to require airports to provide spaces for breastfeeding Moms.
* The 25% lowest-paid Americans enjoyed a 4.5% income boost in November 2019, which outpaces a 2.9% gain in earnings for the country's highest-paid workers.
* Low-wage workers are benefiting from higher minimum wages and from corporations that are increasing entry-level pay.
* Trump signed the biggest wilderness protection & conservation bill in a decade and designated 375,000 acres as protected land.
* Trump signed the Save our Seas Act which funds $10 million per year to clean tons of plastic & garbage from the ocean.👀👀
* He signed a bill this year allowing some drug imports from Canada so that prescription prices would go down.
* Trump signed an executive order this year that forces all healthcare providers to disclose the cost of their services so that Americans can comparison shop and know how much less providers charge insurance companies.
* When signing that bill he said no American should be blindsided by bills for medical services they never agreed to in advance.
* Hospitals will now be required to post their standard charges for services, which include the discounted price a hospital is willing to accept.
* In the eight years prior to President Trump’s inauguration, prescription drug prices increased by an average of 3.6% per year. Under Trump, drug prices have seen year-over-year declines in nine of the last ten months, with a 1.1% drop as of the most recent month.
* He created a White House VA Hotline to help veterans and principally staffed it with veterans and direct family members of veterans.👀👀
* VA employees are being held accountable for poor performance, with more than 4,000 VA employees removed, demoted, and suspended so far.
* Issued an executive order requiring the Secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs to submit a joint plan to provide veterans access to access to mental health treatment as they transition to civilian life.
* Because of a bill signed and championed by Trump, In 2020, most federal employees will see their pay increase by an average of 3.1% — the largest raise in more than 10 years.
* Trump signed into a law up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave for millions of federal workers.
* Trump administration will provide HIV prevention drugs for free to 200,000 uninsured patients per year for 11 years.👀👀
* All-time record sales during the 2019 holidays.
* Trump signed an order allowing small businesses to group together when buying insurance to get a better price👀👀
* President Trump signed the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act that provides funding for states to develop maternal mortality reviews to better understand maternal complications and identify solutions & largely focuses on reducing the higher mortality rates for Black Americans.
* In 2018, President Trump signed the groundbreaking First Step Act, a criminal justice bill which enacted reforms that make our justice system fairer and help former inmates successfully return to society.
* The First Step Act’s reforms addressed inequities in sentencing laws that disproportionately harmed Black Americans and reformed mandatory minimums that created unfair outcomes.👀👀
* The First Step Act expanded judicial discretion in sentencing of non-violent crimes.
* Over 90% of those benefitting from the retroactive sentencing reductions in the First Step Act are Black Americans.
* The First Step Act provides rehabilitative programs to inmates, helping them successfully rejoin society and not return to crime.
* Trump increased funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) by more than 14%.👀👀
* Trump signed legislation forgiving Hurricane Katrina debt that threatened HBCUs.
* New single-family home sales are up 31.6% in October 2019 compared to just one year ago.
* Made HBCUs a priority by creating the position of executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs.
* Trump received the Bipartisan Justice Award at a historically black college for his criminal justice reform accomplishments.
* The poverty rate fell to a 17-year low of 11.8% under the Trump administration as a result of a jobs-rich environment.👀👀
* Poverty rates for African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans have reached their lowest levels since the U.S. began collecting such data.
* President Trump signed a bill that creates five national monuments, expands several national parks, adds 1.3 million acres of wilderness, and permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
* Trump’s USDA committed $124 Million to rebuild rural water infrastructure.👀👀
* Consumer confidence & small business confidence is at an all time high.
* More than 7 million jobs created since election.
* More Americans are now employed than ever recorded before in our history.
* More than 400,000 manufacturing jobs created since his election.
* Trump appointed 5 openly gay ambassadors.👀👀
* Trump ordered Ric Grenell, his openly gay ambassador to Germany, to lead a global initiative to decriminalize homosexuality across the globe.
* Through Trump’s Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team (ACTeam) initiative, Federal law enforcement more than doubled convictions of human traffickers and increased the number of defendants charged by 75% in ACTeam districts.
* In 2018, the Department of Justice (DOJ) dismantled an organization that was the internet’s leading source of prostitution-related advertisements resulting in sex trafficking.
* Trump’s OMB published new anti-trafficking guidance for government procurement officials to more effectively combat human trafficking.
* Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations arrested 1,588 criminals associated with Human Trafficking.
* Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services provided funding to support the National Human Trafficking Hotline to identify perpetrators and give victims the help they need.
* The hotline identified 16,862 potential human trafficking cases.
* Trump’s DOJ provided grants to organizations that support human trafficking victims – serving nearly 9,000 cases from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018.👀👀
* The Department of Homeland Security has hired more victim assistance specialists, helping victims get resources and support.
* President Trump has called on Congress to pass school choice legislation so that no child is trapped in a failing school because of his or her zip code.👀👀
* The President signed funding legislation in September 2018 that increased funding for school choice by $42 million.
* The tax cuts signed into law by President Trump promote school choice by allowing families to use 529 college savings plans for elementary and secondary education.👀👀
* Under his leadership ISIS has lost most of their territory and been largely dismantled.
* ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was killed.
* Signed the first Perkins CTE reauthorization since 2006, authorizing more than $1 billion for states each year to fund vocational and career education programs.
* Executive order expanding apprenticeship opportunities for students and workers.
* Trump issued an Executive Order prohibiting the U.S. government from discriminating against Christians or punishing expressions of faith.
* Signed an executive order that allows the government to withhold money from college campuses deemed to be anti-Semitic and who fail to combat anti-Semitism.
* President Trump ordered a halt to U.S. tax money going to international organizations that fund or perform abortions.
* Trump imposed sanctions on the socialists in Venezuela who have killed their citizens.
* Finalized new trade agreement with South Korea.
* Made a deal with the European Union to increase U.S. energy exports to Europe.👀👀
* Withdrew the U.S. from the job killing TPP deal.
* Secured $250 billion in new trade and investment deals in China and $12 billion in Vietnam.
* Okay’d up to $12 billion in aid for farmers affected by unfair trade retaliation.👀👀
* Has had over a dozen US hostages freed, including those Obama could not get freed.
* Trump signed the Music Modernization Act, the biggest change to copyright law in decades.
* Trump secured Billions that will fund the building of a wall at our southern border.
* The Trump Administration is promoting second chance hiring to give former inmates the opportunity to live crime-free lives and find meaningful employment.
* Trump’s DOJ and the Board Of Prisons launched a new “Ready to Work Initiative” to help connect employers directly with former prisoners.👀👀
* President Trump’s historic tax cut legislation included new Opportunity Zone Incentives to promote investment in low-income communities across the country.
* 8,764 communities across the country have been designated as Opportunity Zones.
* Opportunity Zones are expected to spur $100 billion in long-term private capital investment in economically distressed communities across the country.
* Trump directed the Education Secretary to end Common Core.👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀
* Trump signed the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund into law.
* Trump signed measure funding prevention programs for Veteran suicide.👀👀
* Companies have brought back over a TRILLION dollars from overseas because of the TCJA bill that Trump signed.
* Manufacturing jobs are growing at the fastest rate in more than 30 years.
* Stock Market has reached record highs.
* Median household income has hit highest level ever recorded.
* African-American unemployment is at an all time low.
* Hispanic-American unemployment is at an all time low.
* Asian-American unemployment is at an all time low.
* Women’s unemployment rate is at a 65-year low.
* Youth unemployment is at a 50-year low.
* We have the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded.
* The Pledge to America’s Workers has resulted in employers committing to train more than 4 million Americans.
* 95 percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future— the highest ever.
* As a result of the Republican tax bill, small businesses will have the lowest top marginal tax rate in more than 80 years.👀👀
* Record number of regulations eliminated that hurt small businesses.
* Signed welfare reform requiring able-bodied adults who don’t have children to work or look for work if they’re on welfare.🙌🙌
* Under Trump, the FDA approved more affordable generic drugs than ever before in history.
* Reformed Medicare program to stop hospitals from overcharging low-income seniors on their drugs—saving seniors 100’s of millions of $$$ this year alone.👀👀
* Signed Right-To-Try legislation allowing terminally ill patients to try experimental treatment that wasn’t allowed before.
* Secured $6 billion in new funding to fight the opioid epidemic.❤️❤️
* Signed VA Choice Act and VA Accountability Act, expanded VA telehealth services, walk-in-clinics, and same-day urgent primary and mental health care.👀👀
* U.S. oil production recently reached all-time high so we are less dependent on oil from the Middle East.
* The U.S. is a net natural gas exporter for the first time since 1957.
* NATO allies increased their defense spending because of his pressure campaign.
* Withdrew the United States from the job-killing Paris Climate Accord in 2017 and that same year the U.S. still led the world by having the largest reduction in Carbon emissions.👀👀
* Has his circuit court judge nominees being confirmed faster than any other new administration.
* Had his Supreme Court Justice’s Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh confirmed.
* Moved U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.👀👀
* Agreed to a new trade deal with Mexico & Canada that will increase jobs here and $$$ coming in.
* Reached a breakthrough agreement with the E.U. to increase U.S. exports.
* Imposed tariffs on China in response to China’s forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and their chronically abusive trade practices, has agreed to a Part One trade deal with China.
* Signed legislation to improve the National Suicide Hotline.👀👀
* Signed the most comprehensive childhood cancer legislation ever into law, which will advance childhood cancer research and improve treatments.
* The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by Trump doubled the maximum amount of the child tax credit available to parents and lifted the income limits so more people could claim it.
* It also created a new tax credit for other dependents.
* In 2018, President Trump signed into law a $2.4 billion funding increase for the Child Care and Development Fund, providing a total of $8.1 billion to States to fund child care for low-income families.
* The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) signed into law by Trump provides a tax credit equal to 20-35% of child care expenses, $3,000 per child & $6,000 per family + Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) allow you to set aside up to $5,000 in pre-tax $ to use for child care.
* In 2019 President Donald Trump signed the Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education and Support Act (CARES) into law which allocates $1.8 billion in funding over the next five years to help people with autism spectrum disorder and to help their families.👀👀
* In 2019 President Trump signed into law two funding packages providing nearly $19 million in new funding for Lupus specific research and education programs, as well an additional $41.7 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the most Lupus funding EVER.
* Another upcoming accomplishment to add: In the next week or two Trump will be signing the first major anti-robocall law in decades called the TRACED Act (Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence.) Once it’s thelaw, the TRACED Act will extend the period of time the FCC has to catch & punish those who intentionally break telemarketing restrictions. The bill also requires voice service providers to develop a framework to verify calls are legitimate before they reach your phone.
* US stock market continually hits all-time record highs.
* Because so many people asked for a document with all of this listed in one place, here it is. No links provided to remove bias as Google search is easy. Print this out for family, friends, neighbors, etc. I encourage you to drop this list off to voters before the 2020 election too!
*Trump did all of this while fighting flagrant abuse and impeachment charges.
——-please explain to me why you have a problem with OUR president? Because he has misspoke a few times? Tell me when you find a perfect person, please....I’ll wait! I’ll tell you why, because the media has skewed him in such a negative light and unfairly report his accomplishments to undermined those achievements! Why? Because the media is complicit in every single thing this man is trying to undo! Start thinking for yourself!
🇺🇸🇺🇸Are you tired of winning yet?🇺🇸🇺🇸
❤️SHARE THIS❤️
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sending-the-message · 7 years ago
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Apotemnophilia by Middlenameredundant
Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve never really felt at home in my own body. Early on, it was just the sense that there was something not right. Later, that sense of unease solidified and became clear. My body didn’t feel like my own. Even though it looked like it should, according to most definitions of ‘should,’ to me, it looked grotesque and ugly. There was just too much of it.
They used to call it apotemnophilia, but my therapist says that’s old-fashioned. “Body Integrity Identity Disorder” is what they call it now. Much more clinical, much more safe for people to talk about. Instead of saying “I want to cut off my own legs because they don’t feel like they belong on me,” I can now say “I’m a sufferer of BIID.” So much better.
Whatever it is, it makes me hate myself and this body I’m trapped in.
Can I tell you about the times when my body has let me down? About those times in my childhood when I would dig my dirty fingernails into the flesh of my thigh just to get a semblance of relief? Of how I would sit on my legs until they went numb? The pleasure of for once feeling ‘right’ would wash over me in waves until the sensation once again returned to those hateful appendages.
For most of my life, I thought I was alone in my particular brand of torment. No one could really understand this desire I had. Occasionally I would see some trashy daytime talk show where people like me were guests. The audience gawped and hooted and the host smirked incredulously, as if asking the audience “can you believe these freaks?” But I saw something different in those shows. When I looked at the faces of the people who had successfully transformed their bodies into the right shape, I saw happiness. Not even the disgust emanating from the audience could take that away from them.
I was incredibly jealous of those people, and lonely in my jealousy. No one could possibly understand what I felt; society had deemed it wrong. We’re taught from the moment of birth that our bodies are precious, temples even, and that we should do whatever we can to preserve them. We look at people with physical disabilities as if they are somehow wrong. That’s not what I see at all.
The internet was a godsend for me, and other people like me. In my adolescence I discovered newsgroups for people with apotemnophilia, and later on message boards for those with BIID (by that point the language had ‘evolved’). I was able to finally connect with other people who understood me as I had always wanted to be understood. It was as if a weight had been lifted from me, and I could finally be myself. In these groups, I wasn’t a freak or a mistake, I was accepted.
We didn’t meet in person for a long time. Most of us lived far away from one another, and many of us were too poor or too young to travel halfway across the country. We did talk, though, and formed deep friendships. We played role-playing games on those message boards, each of us disappearing for a moment into a world where our perceptions matched our bodies. In my fantasies, I was me, but without the dead meat hanging from my hips. I wheeled around town, satisfied and whole, even though parts of me were missing.
When eventually I would snap back to reality, depression would overcome me. That’s when the friendships I had developed were their most precious. We all could share in that feeling. We all could comfort one another, even though we were miles away. Those groups were how I survived this long. If not for them, well, I don’t know that I could have kept myself from doing something stupid.
Late last year, I discovered that three of the people in our group lived in my city. It was like learning I had a long-lost twin. We talked for months, growing our bond through the internet, before we opted to meet in person. It was necessary to wait, given how disingenuous some people can be online.
Grace and Howard were both near my age, and had struggled with BIID for their entire lives. Kyle was slightly older, and no longer considered himself a sufferer of BIID.
We all met up at a coffee shop downtown. I arrived first, and I knew Kyle the second I saw him. I could tell it was him: he had one arm, and the biggest smile I’d ever seen. Grace and Howard arrived a few minutes later, and we immediately got down to sharing our stories. When it came time for Kyle to share his, we all listened with rapt fascination.
“I always knew I was wrong,” he said. We nodded in understanding.
He continued. “The arm that was attached to me was not my own. It was like I knew it instinctively from childhood. It drove me crazy. Every day I’d look at it and feel hate well up inside of me. I used to cut it, little strokes to see what it was like. It didn’t help. I only wanted it gone. It was an obsession, really. All I thought about all day every day was getting rid of my arm.
“Then, one day, I’d had enough. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to do something. I was so keyed up and I did the only thing I could think of. I turned on the garbage disposal, and before I could talk myself out of it, shoved my arm into it.
“I passed out from the pain, I’ll admit. Thankfully my wife came home just after it happened. They got me to the hospital in time to save my life, though I was unconscious for it all. When the long-faced doctor came to tell me that the couldn’t save the arm, I nearly jumped for joy. I tried to hide it, but honestly it was the happiest day of my life.”
We stared at him in shocked envy.
“And did it make you feel better, long-term, I mean?” I asked.
“Maggie, it made me feel like I was complete. Since that day, my life has been so happy. So fulfilled. I don’t regret it for a second.”
Howard, Grace and I exchanged looks. I knew what we were all thinking: how can we do the same thing? Kyle must have understood that look, because he piped up again.
“Listen, though, happy as I am, you do not want to go about things the way I did. It’s incredibly risky, and you could easily die.”
“But what are the alternatives?” asked Grace. “I’ve been to every surgeon in the state, and no one will remove an undamaged limb.”
“It’s true even out of state,” grumbled Howard. “They don’t understand what it���s like to wake up every day in a body that isn’t your own.”
Kyle nodded. “I know, I know,” he said. He looked around the room, and leaned in, whispering. “What if I told you there is a surgeon who will do it?”
Grace laughed. “Some back-alley amputation? There’s no way anyone would do that.”
“There is, though,” said Kyle. “I know it sounds crazy, but there’s this guy, Dr. Felix, and he helps people like us. It’s his life’s goal. And he’s legit.”
I sat back in my chair, chewing on my bottom lip. If this was true, if a doctor really would do the surgery without damage to the limb, it could be a life-changer.
Kyle once again spoke up. “What would you have him do, if you could?”
“My left leg,” Howard said, not even pausing to consider.
“Both of my legs,” I replied.
“Same as Maggie,” said Grace. We exchanged glances as Kyle smiled.
“It can absolutely be done.” He pushed a business card across the table toward us.
I debated calling the number for days. We all did. In the end, we each decided that only one thing could make us happy. We all eventually called Dr. Felix. He agreed to come to town, and scheduled appointments with each of us.
The surgery would be done in my own house, as hospitals and doctors’ offices were much too dangerous. Dr. Felix was adamant about discretion; his license was on the line, after all. I agreed, and the date was set for a month out.
I spent the next few weeks in a tizzy. I bought a wheelchair and practiced maneuvering around my house, picking up or rearranging anything that got in my way. I studied post-surgery care instructions, and read up on the procedure. The days passed in agonizing slowness.
When the day of the surgery came, I felt like a weight had been lifted. I met Dr. Felix at my front door. Anticipation and excitement bubbled up inside of me, just like the Christmases of my childhood. Finally, it would all be okay.
He greeted me warmly, taking my hand in both of his.
“Maggie! How nice to meet you. I know you’re excited to get started, but I want to go over a few things with you first.”
I nodded my assent.
“You wish to have both of your legs amputated, correct? Above the knee?”
“Yes, that’s correct,” I said, barely able to contain myself.
“And you understand the ramifications of the surgery? I know this sounds stupid, but you do realize that once your legs have been removed, there is no getting them back?”
I smiled broadly at him. “Yes, Dr. Felix. I understand that perfectly.”
“Okay,” he said, “let’s get to work then.”
I waited in the kitchen while Dr. Felix prepared the bedroom. It had to be sanitized for the surgery, and I understood that it would take some time. Every second of waiting felt like an eternity. Finally, he appeared in my doorway.
“It’s time. Your room has been prepared.”
I let out a little squeak and followed the doctor to the bedroom. Crisp, clean white linens lay on my bed, and an IV drip sat next to it. I changed into a gown and lay on the sheets. The doctor made quick work of cleaning my legs and inserting the IV. I watched as he pulled a syringe from the table beside the bed, and injected its contents into the IV bag.
I felt myself relax and waited for the unconsciousness that would usher me into my new life.
It did not come.
After some seconds, I tried to move, to alert the doctor that I was still awake. I found that I could not. I was paralyzed.
“You may be wondering,” Dr. Felix said as he moved around the bed, “why it is that you are both awake and immobile. Well, that’s simple enough. I need you to be aware of what I’m doing. I need you to see the procedure unfold. Unfortunately, there will be some pain.”
I tried to force my body to move, tried to wrench myself free of the drug-induced prison I was in, but I could not. Was he really going to cut off my legs with me awake? As the thought passed through my mind, Dr. Felix propped me up slightly and positioned my head so that I was looking directly at my legs.
“I’ve been working on a treatment, you know?” He looked at me as if I could answer him, and then shrugged his shoulders.
“No one really knows what causes BIID. Some think that it’s the brain’s inability to accurately map the body. Others take a more Freudian stance on the whole thing, saying that it’s those all-important early childhood experiences. That’s, of course, complete hogwash.”
I could only stare as the doctor pulled another needle from his bag. He tapped it twice with his forefinger and then injected it into my IV.
“My theory, which I will need your help to test, is that it’s actually a...well, that’s not for me to say. Wouldn’t want to confound my research, would I? All I can tell you is this drug you’ve been given is a cure, plain and simple.”
The doctor hummed to himself as he began taking his instruments from his bag. Panic welled inside of me with each subsequent tool he produced. The scalpel, the oscillating saw, the ligature. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and wanted desperately to shut my eyes. Try as I might, however, my eyelids stayed open and unblinking.
As the doctor began to tie off my right leg above the knee, a new and unfamiliar feeling washed over me. Suddenly, and with the force of jackhammer to the gut, I did not want to lose my legs. I felt a surge of desire so strong it was overwhelming. I needed to keep my legs. They were part of me. They were my legs. Mine. I would have cried if I could, would have screamed out until my throat was raw. But I could not. I could only watch while he brought the scalpel to my skin. I could only watch as a line of bright red appeared on my thigh.
I felt the cut throughout my entire body. The pain was sharp and radiant. I can’t say whether the pain distracted from the regret or whether the regret distracted from the pain; all I know is that my mind mixed the two together until they became one in the same.
I’m not sure how deep the doctor got before I lost consciousness. That blissful escape as my brain shut down might have lasted a few moments, or might have lasted hours. I faintly recall coming to at the sound of the oscillating saw cutting into my femur before blacking out once more. When I finally awoke for good, I was lying in my homemade hospital bed. I was alone, and my legs were gone.
I screamed, both relieved and frightened that I could once again move my body. At the sound of my voice, Dr. Felix entered the room.
“What have you done to me?” I asked, angry at myself for the way my voice sounded, like a petulant child’s voice.
“I have eliminated, permanently, your BIID. You are quite welcome.”
“You took my legs!”
“Yes, well, you did request that, did you not?”
“You changed my brain. You made me want my legs, and then you took them!”
“My dear girl, don’t you see? You have been instrumental in providing a cure for this wretched disease! I “messed” nothing up, only repaired a broken neural pathway.”
I stared at him.
“Now, of course, it won’t be your name in the literature, but you’ll be there just the same. Patient 7, cured of her Body Integrity Identity Disorder.”
“But why take my legs? Why take them from me just as I want to keep them?”
“Oh, well, I do have to be rigorous, do I not? If I had given you the shot without taking your legs, you might not have come to the realization that you desired them. You might have rationalized away your newfound affection for your own body.”
“But, doesn’t that just confound your research? I mean, how do you know it was the drug and not the realization that I was losing my legs that made me want to keep them?”
He stared at me for a long time before finally speaking again.
“It’s not your place to know my methods. Your reaction upon waking told me more than any post-intervention interview could have. Now, no more talking, girl. You need your rest.”
I watched as he pulled a syringe from his pocket and injected it into the IV. He faded from my vision as I lost consciousness.
When I awoke again, Dr. Felix was gone. I was alone in my room; my wheelchair sat beside me, with a packet of post-surgery instructions in the seat. I saw that straps had been installed above my bed, presumably to allow me to move from bed to chair.
For hours I sat in my bed, alternating between bursts of crying and fits of rage. How could he have done that to me? I’m ashamed to admit how long it took for me to think of the others. Grace and Howard. They had appointments with Dr. Felix, too.
I felt along my bedside table until I could locate my phone. I turned it on and immediately called Grace. There was no answer. Neither was there an answer at Howard’s. I sat still as the realization hit me fully. We were all his test subjects. I didn’t want to think about Howard and Grace, about how they too would have felt the same fear and regret as I had.
As I sat with my thoughts, I began to feel a dull throbbing in my legs. No, in the remnants of my legs. The pain medicine was evidently wearing off. I reached for the bottle of Vicodin that the doctor had left on the nightstand, only to find that it was empty. I shook the bottle, but heard nothing.
All the while, pain began to prick the nerve endings up and down my legs. I reached down to rub the spot that hurt the most, and encountered only empty sheets. My leg was gone, but still pain pulsed through it. Phantom limb. I had read about it in my surgery preparation, but the reality shocked me still.
Alone and butchered in my room, I screamed.
It was days later before I heard from Grace. By then, I was moving around the house as I’d practiced. I was recovering physically, but mentally, I was a wreck. My legs throbbed with pain from my ankle to my hip, and no pain medication could soothe the limbs that weren’t there. They burned and pulsed, as if punishing me for ever having hated them.
Grace had fared no better. We spoke on the phone for hours, each mostly just crying into the receiver. In her desperation, she had even gone to the police. But once she told them she’d consented to the surgery, they only referred her to a psychologist.
She had also heard from Howard, she told me, and he was doing slightly better than us. He’d only lost the one leg, after all. She and I resolved to find as much information as we could on Dr. Felix. Tracking him down became our only goal.
We met up, Grace, Howard and I, a few weeks after our surgeries to exchange notes and try to find the good doctor. We had all come up with nothing.
“His office is empty,” said Grace over a steaming mug of coffee at my kitchen table. “I went by last week. No sign that anyone had been there in ages.”
“And you asked the neighbors?” Howard asked.
Grace looked irritated. “Of course I asked the neighbors! They hadn’t seen anyone that fit the doctor’s description.”
“I couldn’t find a thing about him, not in any of the medical journals. Whoever he really is, he’s not publishing his work,” I said.
“Figures,” said Grace. “I tried to track down his phone number, but it was a burner. No record of the guy anywhere. No trace of Kyle, either.”
“Goddamnit!” Howard shouted, slamming his palm on the table.
We jumped back, startled.
“It’s just…” he started, “it’s just so unfair. This was all I ever wanted, and he’s turned my dream into a living hell.”
Grace and I each reached out to Howard, holding him as he started to cry. We sat like that for what could have been hours, consoling each other through the tears. We had all gotten what we wanted, and now we’d have to live with it for the rest of our lives.
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prettygaleliose · 8 years ago
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I usually don't reply to any posts, but this one made me angry.
$500 a month for rent? I wish I could find an apartment in California for that much money, but a single room apartment around my area is about $1,500 a month. It has one room, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a living. A two room apartment is $1,600. None of it includes parking which you have to pay for each month (at my apartment complex, I'm not sure about others). I'm lucky my apartment includes water, garbage disposal, and gas. Electricity? I'm pretty sure we pay for that separately. Internet? We have to pay for that separately too.
Now imagine having a family of seven: mom, dad, grandfather, and four kids. Mom and dad made enough money during the kid's childhood to pay the (most likely cheaper) rent. Then the mom get cancer. Hospitals bills are a bitch, and the doctors didn't find it until it was almost too late. Good thing she had health insurance. But before the bone marrow surgery, she dies. If you didn't know, coffins are expensive. You also have to pay for each viewing day so people are able to see her and schedule when to be at the burial. The headstone, burial services, etc. all pile up to about $20,000.
Then we have the family members who have to survive on a single person's income. Four kids and a grandfather. The kids are ten, eight, six, and five years old. The dad is doing alright for the first few months then his company gets sold and he’s laid off. He gets a job at WalMart and uses the government money the kids get to help pay the rent & food for the week because three of the four kids are boys and they eat a lot. He finds a better paying job, but still works overtime to be able to pay the rent.
He makes about $300 a week regularly and about $400 - $500 if he does overtime (which he does a lot).
$300 x 4 weeks = $1,200 which is not enough for them to pay rent let alone eat.
$400 x 4 = $1,600 which pays ONLY rent
So $500 x 4 = $2,000 which pays for rent with $400 left over.
Internet is about $15 or so a month because it's the cheap kind that loses connection easily. Electricity is about $100 a month.
Now we're down to $285. 
$285 for food, gas, clothing, & anything each individual person needs.
$285 for six people.
Do you know how much growing boys eat? You have to buy food each week to be able to keep feeding them. Do you know how many clothes growing boys go through? You have to buy them new clothes at least every month, but if they're going through a growth spurt? Every two weeks. Multiply that by three.
Don't forget the lone girl. The one who needs menstruation products every month, skincare items, and other female products.
Don't forget the grandfather who needs good healthcare so he can go to the ER as his body starts to fail on him.
So fuck your "in every Southern state (didn’t have time to look at the rest of the country) you can find some sort of studio apartment for around $500 per month, sometimes less than that. Why bother lying about something so easily disproven?" bullshit. Fuck you and your high horse because I've had to struggle living above the poverty line for almost my entire life.
Yes, my dad can still spoil me sometimes. You know why?
Because he's working his ass off trying to make sure me and my brothers can go to school without worrying about money and whether or not we'll have a place to stay. He didn't want me working my first two years of college because he knows how hard it is to transition from a high school setting to a college one, and he didn't want my grades to suffer. He didn't want me to drop out of school to help pay for rent, utilities, etc., because he knows that if I start working at a minimum wage job that I might not be able to get a degree if I'm worrying about money all the time.
So fuck you and your bullshit because it's obvious that you don't understand how a minimum wage job can make or break people.
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dan-eugene-holton · 4 years ago
Text
President Trump has been in office for 3 years.... what has he done? Other than dodging the darts the media and Pelosi have thrown?!?
what have PRESIDENT TRUMP and his cabinet accomplished.....
Here you go.
* Trump recently signed 3 bills to benefit Native people. One gives compensation to the Spokane tribe for loss of their lands in the mid-1900s, one funds Native language programs, and the third gives federal recognition to the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Montana.
* Trump finalized the creation of Space Force as our 6th Military branch.
* Trump signed a law to make cruelty to animals a federal felony so that animal abusers face tougher consequences.👀👀
* Violent crime has fallen every year he’s been in office after rising during the 2 years before he was elected.
* Trump signed a bill making CBD and Hemp legal.👀👀
* Trump’s EPA gave $100 million to fix the water infrastructure problem in Flint, Michigan.
* Under Trump’s leadership, in 2018 the U.S. surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest producer of crude oil.
* Trump signed a law ending the gag orders on Pharmacists that prevented them from sharing money-saving information.
* Trump signed the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act” (FOSTA), which includes the “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act” (SESTA) which both give law enforcement and victims new tools to fight sex trafficking.👀👀
* Trump signed a bill to require airports to provide spaces for breastfeeding Moms.
* The 25% lowest-paid Americans enjoyed a 4.5% income boost in November 2019, which outpaces a 2.9% gain in earnings for the country's highest-paid workers.
* Low-wage workers are benefiting from higher minimum wages and from corporations that are increasing entry-level pay.
* Trump signed the biggest wilderness protection & conservation bill in a decade and designated 375,000 acres as protected land.
* Trump signed the Save our Seas Act which funds $10 million per year to clean tons of plastic & garbage from the ocean.👀👀
* He signed a bill this year allowing some drug imports from Canada so that prescription prices would go down.
* Trump signed an executive order this year that forces all healthcare providers to disclose the cost of their services so that Americans can comparison shop and know how much less providers charge insurance companies.
* When signing that bill he said no American should be blindsided by bills for medical services they never agreed to in advance.
* Hospitals will now be required to post their standard charges for services, which include the discounted price a hospital is willing to accept.
* In the eight years prior to President Trump’s inauguration, prescription drug prices increased by an average of 3.6% per year. Under Trump, drug prices have seen year-over-year declines in nine of the last ten months, with a 1.1% drop as of the most recent month.
* He created a White House VA Hotline to help veterans and principally staffed it with veterans and direct family members of veterans.👀👀
* VA employees are being held accountable for poor performance, with more than 4,000 VA employees removed, demoted, and suspended so far.
* Issued an executive order requiring the Secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs to submit a joint plan to provide veterans access to access to mental health treatment as they transition to civilian life.
* Because of a bill signed and championed by Trump, In 2020, most federal employees will see their pay increase by an average of 3.1% — the largest raise in more than 10 years.
* Trump signed into a law up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave for millions of federal workers.
* Trump administration will provide HIV prevention drugs for free to 200,000 uninsured patients per year for 11 years.👀👀
* All-time record sales during the 2019 holidays.
* Trump signed an order allowing small businesses to group together when buying insurance to get a better price👀👀
* President Trump signed the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act that provides funding for states to develop maternal mortality reviews to better understand maternal complications and identify solutions & largely focuses on reducing the higher mortality rates for Black Americans.
* In 2018, President Trump signed the groundbreaking First Step Act, a criminal justice bill which enacted reforms that make our justice system fairer and help former inmates successfully return to society.
* The First Step Act’s reforms addressed inequities in sentencing laws that disproportionately harmed Black Americans and reformed mandatory minimums that created unfair outcomes.👀👀
* The First Step Act expanded judicial discretion in sentencing of non-violent crimes.
* Over 90% of those benefitting from the retroactive sentencing reductions in the First Step Act are Black Americans.
* The First Step Act provides rehabilitative programs to inmates, helping them successfully rejoin society and not return to crime.
* Trump increased funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) by more than 14%.👀👀
* Trump signed legislation forgiving Hurricane Katrina debt that threatened HBCUs.
* New single-family home sales are up 31.6% in October 2019 compared to just one year ago.
* Made HBCUs a priority by creating the position of executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs.
* Trump received the Bipartisan Justice Award at a historically black college for his criminal justice reform accomplishments.
* The poverty rate fell to a 17-year low of 11.8% under the Trump administration as a result of a jobs-rich environment.👀👀
* Poverty rates for African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans have reached their lowest levels since the U.S. began collecting such data.
* President Trump signed a bill that creates five national monuments, expands several national parks, adds 1.3 million acres of wilderness, and permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
* Trump’s USDA committed $124 Million to rebuild rural water infrastructure.👀👀
* Consumer confidence & small business confidence is at an all time high.
* More than 7 million jobs created since election.
* More Americans are now employed than ever recorded before in our history.
* More than 400,000 manufacturing jobs created since his election.
* Trump appointed 5 openly gay ambassadors.👀👀
* Trump ordered Ric Grenell, his openly gay ambassador to Germany, to lead a global initiative to decriminalize homosexuality across the globe.
* Through Trump’s Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team (ACTeam) initiative, Federal law enforcement more than doubled convictions of human traffickers and increased the number of defendants charged by 75% in ACTeam districts.
* In 2018, the Department of Justice (DOJ) dismantled an organization that was the internet’s leading source of prostitution-related advertisements resulting in sex trafficking.
* Trump’s OMB published new anti-trafficking guidance for government procurement officials to more effectively combat human trafficking.
* Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations arrested 1,588 criminals associated with Human Trafficking.
* Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services provided funding to support the National Human Trafficking Hotline to identify perpetrators and give victims the help they need.
* The hotline identified 16,862 potential human trafficking cases.
* Trump’s DOJ provided grants to organizations that support human trafficking victims – serving nearly 9,000 cases from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018.👀👀
* The Department of Homeland Security has hired more victim assistance specialists, helping victims get resources and support.
* President Trump has called on Congress to pass school choice legislation so that no child is trapped in a failing school because of his or her zip code.👀👀
* The President signed funding legislation in September 2018 that increased funding for school choice by $42 million.
* The tax cuts signed into law by President Trump promote school choice by allowing families to use 529 college savings plans for elementary and secondary education.👀👀
* Under his leadership ISIS has lost most of their territory and been largely dismantled.
* ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was killed.
* Signed the first Perkins CTE reauthorization since 2006, authorizing more than $1 billion for states each year to fund vocational and career education programs.
* Executive order expanding apprenticeship opportunities for students and workers.
* Trump issued an Executive Order prohibiting the U.S. government from discriminating against Christians or punishing expressions of faith.
* Signed an executive order that allows the government to withhold money from college campuses deemed to be anti-Semitic and who fail to combat anti-Semitism.
* President Trump ordered a halt to U.S. tax money going to international organizations that fund or perform abortions.
* Trump imposed sanctions on the socialists in Venezuela who have killed their citizens.
* Finalized new trade agreement with South Korea.
* Made a deal with the European Union to increase U.S. energy exports to Europe.👀👀
* Withdrew the U.S. from the job killing TPP deal.
* Secured $250 billion in new trade and investment deals in China and $12 billion in Vietnam.
* Okay’d up to $12 billion in aid for farmers affected by unfair trade retaliation.👀👀
* Has had over a dozen US hostages freed, including those Obama could not get freed.
* Trump signed the Music Modernization Act, the biggest change to copyright law in decades.
* Trump secured Billions that will fund the building of a wall at our southern border.
* The Trump Administration is promoting second chance hiring to give former inmates the opportunity to live crime-free lives and find meaningful employment.
* Trump’s DOJ and the Board Of Prisons launched a new “Ready to Work Initiative” to help connect employers directly with former prisoners.👀👀
* President Trump’s historic tax cut legislation included new Opportunity Zone Incentives to promote investment in low-income communities across the country.
* 8,764 communities across the country have been designated as Opportunity Zones.
* Opportunity Zones are expected to spur $100 billion in long-term private capital investment in economically distressed communities across the country.
* Trump directed the Education Secretary to end Common Core.👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀
* Trump signed the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund into law.
* Trump signed measure funding prevention programs for Veteran suicide.👀👀
* Companies have brought back over a TRILLION dollars from overseas because of the TCJA bill that Trump signed.
* Manufacturing jobs are growing at the fastest rate in more than 30 years.
* Stock Market has reached record highs.
* Median household income has hit highest level ever recorded.
* African-American unemployment is at an all time low.
* Hispanic-American unemployment is at an all time low.
* Asian-American unemployment is at an all time low.
* Women’s unemployment rate is at a 65-year low.
* Youth unemployment is at a 50-year low.
* We have the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded.
* The Pledge to America’s Workers has resulted in employers committing to train more than 4 million Americans.
* 95 percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future— the highest ever.
* As a result of the Republican tax bill, small businesses will have the lowest top marginal tax rate in more than 80 years.👀👀
* Record number of regulations eliminated that hurt small businesses.
* Signed welfare reform requiring able-bodied adults who don’t have children to work or look for work if they’re on welfare.🙌🙌
* Under Trump, the FDA approved more affordable generic drugs than ever before in history.
* Reformed Medicare program to stop hospitals from overcharging low-income seniors on their drugs—saving seniors 100’s of millions of $$$ this year alone.👀👀
* Signed Right-To-Try legislation allowing terminally ill patients to try experimental treatment that wasn’t allowed before.
* Secured $6 billion in new funding to fight the opioid epidemic.❤️❤️
* Signed VA Choice Act and VA Accountability Act, expanded VA telehealth services, walk-in-clinics, and same-day urgent primary and mental health care.👀👀
* U.S. oil production recently reached all-time high so we are less dependent on oil from the Middle East.
* The U.S. is a net natural gas exporter for the first time since 1957.
* NATO allies increased their defense spending because of his pressure campaign.
* Withdrew the United States from the job-killing Paris Climate Accord in 2017 and that same year the U.S. still led the world by having the largest reduction in Carbon emissions.👀👀
* Has his circuit court judge nominees being confirmed faster than any other new administration.
* Had his Supreme Court Justice’s Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh confirmed.
* Moved U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.👀👀
* Agreed to a new trade deal with Mexico & Canada that will increase jobs here and $$$ coming in.
* Reached a breakthrough agreement with the E.U. to increase U.S. exports.
* Imposed tariffs on China in response to China’s forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and their chronically abusive trade practices, has agreed to a Part One trade deal with China.
* Signed legislation to improve the National Suicide Hotline.👀👀
* Signed the most comprehensive childhood cancer legislation ever into law, which will advance childhood cancer research and improve treatments.
* The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by Trump doubled the maximum amount of the child tax credit available to parents and lifted the income limits so more people could claim it.
* It also created a new tax credit for other dependents.
* In 2018, President Trump signed into law a $2.4 billion funding increase for the Child Care and Development Fund, providing a total of $8.1 billion to States to fund child care for low-income families.
* The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) signed into law by Trump provides a tax credit equal to 20-35% of child care expenses, $3,000 per child & $6,000 per family + Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) allow you to set aside up to $5,000 in pre-tax $ to use for child care.
* In 2019 President Donald Trump signed the Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education and Support Act (CARES) into law which allocates $1.8 billion in funding over the next five years to help people with autism spectrum disorder and to help their families.👀👀
* In 2019 President Trump signed into law two funding packages providing nearly $19 million in new funding for Lupus specific research and education programs, as well an additional $41.7 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the most Lupus funding EVER.
* Another upcoming accomplishment to add: In the next week or two Trump will be signing the first major anti-robocall law in decades called the TRACED Act (Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence.) Once it’s thelaw, the TRACED Act will extend the period of time the FCC has to catch & punish those who intentionally break telemarketing restrictions. The bill also requires voice service providers to develop a framework to verify calls are legitimate before they reach your phone.
* US stock market continually hits all-time record highs.
* Because so many people asked for a document with all of this listed in one place, here it is. No links provided to remove bias as Google search is easy. Print this out for family, friends, neighbors, etc. I encourage you to drop this list off to voters before the 2020 election too!
*Trump did all of this while fighting flagrant abuse and impeachment charges.
——-please explain to me why you have a problem with OUR president? Because he has misspoke a few times? Tell me when you find a perfect person, please....I’ll wait! I’ll tell you why, because the media has skewed him in such a negative light and unfairly report his accomplishments to undermined those achievements! Why? Because the media is complicit in every single thing this man is trying to undo! Start thinking for yourself!
🇺🇸🇺🇸Are you tired of winning yet?🇺🇸🇺🇸
0 notes
poli-tea-cal · 4 years ago
Text
Dude has been in office for 3 years.... what has he done? Other than dodging the darts the media and Pelosi have thrown?!?
what have PRESIDENT TRUMP and his cabinet accomplished...?
Here you go.
* Trump recently signed 3 bills to benefit Native people. One gives compensation to the Spokane tribe for loss of their lands in the mid-1900s, one funds Native language programs, and the third gives federal recognition to the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Montana.
* Trump finalized the creation of Space Force as our 6th Military branch.
* Trump signed a law to make cruelty to animals a federal felony so that animal abusers face tougher consequences.👀👀
* Violent crime has fallen every year he’s been in office after rising during the 2 years before he was elected.
* Trump signed a bill making CBD and Hemp legal.👀👀
* Trump’s EPA gave $100 million to fix the water infrastructure problem in Flint, Michigan.
* Under Trump’s leadership, in 2018 the U.S. surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest producer of crude oil.
* Trump signed a law ending the gag orders on Pharmacists that prevented them from sharing money-saving information.
* Trump signed the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act” (FOSTA), which includes the “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act” (SESTA) which both give law enforcement and victims new tools to fight sex trafficking.👀👀
* Trump signed a bill to require airports to provide spaces for breastfeeding Moms.
* The 25% lowest-paid Americans enjoyed a 4.5% income boost in November 2019, which outpaces a 2.9% gain in earnings for the country's highest-paid workers.
* Low-wage workers are benefiting from higher minimum wages and from corporations that are increasing entry-level pay.
* Trump signed the biggest wilderness protection & conservation bill in a decade and designated 375,000 acres as protected land.
* Trump signed the Save our Seas Act which funds $10 million per year to clean tons of plastic & garbage from the ocean.👀👀
* He signed a bill this year allowing some drug imports from Canada so that prescription prices would go down.
* Trump signed an executive order this year that forces all healthcare providers to disclose the cost of their services so that Americans can comparison shop and know how much less providers charge insurance companies.
* When signing that bill he said no American should be blindsided by bills for medical services they never agreed to in advance.
* Hospitals will now be required to post their standard charges for services, which include the discounted price a hospital is willing to accept.
* In the eight years prior to President Trump’s inauguration, prescription drug prices increased by an average of 3.6% per year. Under Trump, drug prices have seen year-over-year declines in nine of the last ten months, with a 1.1% drop as of the most recent month.
* He created a White House VA Hotline to help veterans and principally staffed it with veterans and direct family members of veterans.👀👀
* VA employees are being held accountable for poor performance, with more than 4,000 VA employees removed, demoted, and suspended so far.
* Issued an executive order requiring the Secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs to submit a joint plan to provide veterans access to access to mental health treatment as they transition to civilian life.
* Because of a bill signed and championed by Trump, In 2020, most federal employees will see their pay increase by an average of 3.1% — the largest raise in more than 10 years.
* Trump signed into a law up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave for millions of federal workers.
* Trump administration will provide HIV prevention drugs for free to 200,000 uninsured patients per year for 11 years.👀👀
* All-time record sales during the 2019 holidays.
* Trump signed an order allowing small businesses to group together when buying insurance to get a better price👀👀
* President Trump signed the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act that provides funding for states to develop maternal mortality reviews to better understand maternal complications and identify solutions & largely focuses on reducing the higher mortality rates for Black Americans.
* In 2018, President Trump signed the groundbreaking First Step Act, a criminal justice bill which enacted reforms that make our justice system fairer and help former inmates successfully return to society.
* The First Step Act’s reforms addressed inequities in sentencing laws that disproportionately harmed Black Americans and reformed mandatory minimums that created unfair outcomes.👀👀
* The First Step Act expanded judicial discretion in sentencing of non-violent crimes.
* Over 90% of those benefitting from the retroactive sentencing reductions in the First Step Act are Black Americans.
* The First Step Act provides rehabilitative programs to inmates, helping them successfully rejoin society and not return to crime.
* Trump increased funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) by more than 14%.👀👀
* Trump signed legislation forgiving Hurricane Katrina debt that threatened HBCUs.
* New single-family home sales are up 31.6% in October 2019 compared to just one year ago.
* Made HBCUs a priority by creating the position of executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs.
* Trump received the Bipartisan Justice Award at a historically black college for his criminal justice reform accomplishments.
* The poverty rate fell to a 17-year low of 11.8% under the Trump administration as a result of a jobs-rich environment.👀👀
* Poverty rates for African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans have reached their lowest levels since the U.S. began collecting such data.
* President Trump signed a bill that creates five national monuments, expands several national parks, adds 1.3 million acres of wilderness, and permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
* Trump’s USDA committed $124 Million to rebuild rural water infrastructure.👀👀
* Consumer confidence & small business confidence is at an all time high.
* More than 7 million jobs created since election.
* More Americans are now employed than ever recorded before in our history.
* More than 400,000 manufacturing jobs created since his election.
* Trump appointed 5 openly gay ambassadors.👀👀
* Trump ordered Ric Grenell, his openly gay ambassador to Germany, to lead a global initiative to decriminalize homosexuality across the globe.
* Through Trump’s Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team (ACTeam) initiative, Federal law enforcement more than doubled convictions of human traffickers and increased the number of defendants charged by 75% in ACTeam districts.
* In 2018, the Department of Justice (DOJ) dismantled an organization that was the internet’s leading source of prostitution-related advertisements resulting in sex trafficking.
* Trump’s OMB published new anti-trafficking guidance for government procurement officials to more effectively combat human trafficking.
* Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations arrested 1,588 criminals associated with Human Trafficking.
* Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services provided funding to support the National Human Trafficking Hotline to identify perpetrators and give victims the help they need.
* The hotline identified 16,862 potential human trafficking cases.
* Trump’s DOJ provided grants to organizations that support human trafficking victims – serving nearly 9,000 cases from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018.👀👀
* The Department of Homeland Security has hired more victim assistance specialists, helping victims get resources and support.
* President Trump has called on Congress to pass school choice legislation so that no child is trapped in a failing school because of his or her zip code.👀👀
* The President signed funding legislation in September 2018 that increased funding for school choice by $42 million.
* The tax cuts signed into law by President Trump promote school choice by allowing families to use 529 college savings plans for elementary and secondary education.👀👀
* Under his leadership ISIS has lost most of their territory and been largely dismantled.
* ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was killed.
* Signed the first Perkins CTE reauthorization since 2006, authorizing more than $1 billion for states each year to fund vocational and career education programs.
* Executive order expanding apprenticeship opportunities for students and workers.
* Trump issued an Executive Order prohibiting the U.S. government from discriminating against Christians or punishing expressions of faith.
* Signed an executive order that allows the government to withhold money from college campuses deemed to be anti-Semitic and who fail to combat anti-Semitism.
* President Trump ordered a halt to U.S. tax money going to international organizations that fund or perform abortions.
* Trump imposed sanctions on the socialists in Venezuela who have killed their citizens.
* Finalized new trade agreement with South Korea.
* Made a deal with the European Union to increase U.S. energy exports to Europe.👀👀
* Withdrew the U.S. from the job killing TPP deal.
* Secured $250 billion in new trade and investment deals in China and $12 billion in Vietnam.
* Okay’d up to $12 billion in aid for farmers affected by unfair trade retaliation.👀👀
* Has had over a dozen US hostages freed, including those Obama could not get freed.
* Trump signed the Music Modernization Act, the biggest change to copyright law in decades.
* Trump secured Billions that will fund the building of a wall at our southern border.
* The Trump Administration is promoting second chance hiring to give former inmates the opportunity to live crime-free lives and find meaningful employment.
* Trump’s DOJ and the Board Of Prisons launched a new “Ready to Work Initiative” to help connect employers directly with former prisoners.👀👀
* President Trump’s historic tax cut legislation included new Opportunity Zone Incentives to promote investment in low-income communities across the country.
* 8,764 communities across the country have been designated as Opportunity Zones.
* Opportunity Zones are expected to spur $100 billion in long-term private capital investment in economically distressed communities across the country.
* Trump directed the Education Secretary to end Common Core.👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀
* Trump signed the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund into law.
* Trump signed measure funding prevention programs for Veteran suicide.👀👀
* Companies have brought back over a TRILLION dollars from overseas because of the TCJA bill that Trump signed.
* Manufacturing jobs are growing at the fastest rate in more than 30 years.
* Stock Market has reached record highs.
* Median household income has hit highest level ever recorded.
* African-American unemployment is at an all time low.
* Hispanic-American unemployment is at an all time low.
* Asian-American unemployment is at an all time low.
* Women’s unemployment rate is at a 65-year low.
* Youth unemployment is at a 50-year low.
* We have the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded.
* The Pledge to America’s Workers has resulted in employers committing to train more than 4 million Americans.
* 95 percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future— the highest ever.
* As a result of the Republican tax bill, small businesses will have the lowest top marginal tax rate in more than 80 years.👀👀
* Record number of regulations eliminated that hurt small businesses.
* Signed welfare reform requiring able-bodied adults who don’t have children to work or look for work if they’re on welfare.🙌🙌
* Under Trump, the FDA approved more affordable generic drugs than ever before in history.
* Reformed Medicare program to stop hospitals from overcharging low-income seniors on their drugs—saving seniors 100’s of millions of $$$ this year alone.👀👀
* Signed Right-To-Try legislation allowing terminally ill patients to try experimental treatment that wasn’t allowed before.
* Secured $6 billion in new funding to fight the opioid epidemic.❤️❤️
* Signed VA Choice Act and VA Accountability Act, expanded VA telehealth services, walk-in-clinics, and same-day urgent primary and mental health care.👀👀
* U.S. oil production recently reached all-time high so we are less dependent on oil from the Middle East.
* The U.S. is a net natural gas exporter for the first time since 1957.
* NATO allies increased their defense spending because of his pressure campaign.
* Withdrew the United States from the job-killing Paris Climate Accord in 2017 and that same year the U.S. still led the world by having the largest reduction in Carbon emissions.👀👀
* Has his circuit court judge nominees being confirmed faster than any other new administration.
* Had his Supreme Court Justice’s Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh confirmed.
* Moved U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.👀👀
* Agreed to a new trade deal with Mexico & Canada that will increase jobs here and $$$ coming in.
* Reached a breakthrough agreement with the E.U. to increase U.S. exports.
* Imposed tariffs on China in response to China’s forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and their chronically abusive trade practices, has agreed to a Part One trade deal with China.
* Signed legislation to improve the National Suicide Hotline.👀👀
* Signed the most comprehensive childhood cancer legislation ever into law, which will advance childhood cancer research and improve treatments.
* The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by Trump doubled the maximum amount of the child tax credit available to parents and lifted the income limits so more people could claim it.
* It also created a new tax credit for other dependents.
* In 2018, President Trump signed into law a $2.4 billion funding increase for the Child Care and Development Fund, providing a total of $8.1 billion to States to fund child care for low-income families.
* The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) signed into law by Trump provides a tax credit equal to 20-35% of child care expenses, $3,000 per child & $6,000 per family + Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) allow you to set aside up to $5,000 in pre-tax $ to use for child care.
* In 2019 President Donald Trump signed the Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education and Support Act (CARES) into law which allocates $1.8 billion in funding over the next five years to help people with autism spectrum disorder and to help their families.👀👀
* In 2019 President Trump signed into law two funding packages providing nearly $19 million in new funding for Lupus specific research and education programs, as well an additional $41.7 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the most Lupus funding EVER.
* Another upcoming accomplishment to add: In the next week or two Trump will be signing the first major anti-robocall law in decades called the TRACED Act (Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence.) Once it’s thelaw, the TRACED Act will extend the period of time the FCC has to catch & punish those who intentionally break telemarketing restrictions. The bill also requires voice service providers to develop a framework to verify calls are legitimate before they reach your phone.
* US stock market continually hits all-time record highs.
* Because so many people asked for a document with all of this listed in one place, here it is. No links provided to remove bias as Google search is easy. Print this out for family, friends, neighbors, etc. I encourage you to drop this list off to voters before the 2020 election too!
*Trump did all of this while fighting flagrant abuse and impeachment charges.
——-please explain to me why you have a problem with OUR president? Because he has misspoke a few times? Tell me when you find a perfect person, please....I’ll wait! I’ll tell you why, because the media has skewed him in such a negative light and unfairly report his accomplishments to undermined those achievements! Why? Because the media is complicit in every single thing this man is trying to undo! Start thinking for yourself!
🇺🇸WWG1WGA🇺🇸
🇺🇸🇺🇸Are you tired of winning yet?🇺🇸🇺🇸
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