#The Senate Torture Report

[xtruss]

More Than 10 Years Later, The Senate Torture Report Is Still Secret

I Filed A Lawsuit To Obtain The 6,700-Page Report with “Excruciating Detail” About The CIA’s Abuses.

— Shawn Musgrave | June 27 2024

The Control Tower is seen through the razor wire inside the Camp VI Detention Facility in Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, in 2019. AP

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence submitted its 6,700-page “torture report” about the CIA to the White House in April 2014. More than 10 years later, the full report remains secret after a federal appellate court dismissed a lawsuit I filed in the hopes of forcing its release.

The document “includes comprehensive and excruciating detail” about the CIA’s “program of indefinite secret detention and the use of brutal interrogation techniques,” the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who chaired the Senate intelligence committee at the time, wrote in a 2014 summary.

For years, there have been calls to release the full report, including from human rights watchdogs, one of its authors, and even Feinstein and some high-ranking Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee.

“The full report details how the CIA lied to the public, the Congress, the president, and to itself about the information produced by the torture program,” said Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, which has fought to obtain CIA records. “We need to know our real history so we don’t repeat its crimes.”

So far, efforts to obtain the torture report using the federal Freedom of Information Act have been unsuccessful. In late 2016, despite the CIA director’s objections, former President Barack Obama placed a copy in his presidential papers. But that copy is not subject to FOIA until 2029 — 12 years after Obama left office.

The CIA and a handful of federal agencies also have copies of the torture report, although the Trump administration returned several of these to the Senate intelligence committee vaults in 2017.

The Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations all fought strenuously against FOIA requests for these agencies’ copies. In 2017, the Supreme Court declined to consider a challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union. A law professor’s attempt to obtain the report under FOIA is currently pending before the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, following oral argument last fall.

In 2021, my lawyer, Kel McClanahan of National Security Counselors, tried a different tack. We sued the Senate intelligence committee itself and its current chair, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., for a copy of the full torture report.

FOIA explicitly does not apply to Congress. Instead, McClanahan argued that the public is entitled to the committee’s copy of the torture report under the common law right of access, a doctrine that is well developed when it comes to court records but less so regarding the records of Congress.

“It is high time that this critical piece of American history is made public,” McClanahan said.

The district court rejected this argument in 2022, ruling that it had no jurisdiction to order the committee to disclose the report because of the U.S. Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause, which protects members of Congress from being sued for legislative activities. Last week, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling.

“In sum, we conclude that the report is a legislative document, and that the Speech or Debate Clause therefore protects it from compelled disclosure,” wrote Judge Cornelia Pillard for the unanimous panel.

If courts continue declining to wade into the matter, Congress could also take steps to make the torture report available before 2029. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who still sits on the intelligence committee, has previously called for it to be declassified.

“I’m not holding my breath,” Blanton said.

[cherryblossomshadow]

#IM STILL MAD ABOUT THE IRAQ WAR #I WILL BE MAD FOREVER ABOUT THE IRAQ WAR #god knows what you kids are being taught in what remains of our schools #but it was an atrocity #start to finish (tags courtesy of @roach-works)

Nothing. I was in 4th grade when obama got elected, and our “current events” textbook hadn’t been updated to include information past the turn of the millennium. we talked a bit about Arab Springs, but literally everything I learned about the Bush Administration I learned from tumblr. and I went to a californian school system that talked about colonization and slavery and why they were bad (comment courtesy of @magic-gps)

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He was Secretary of Defense for President George HW Bush, which also included what later became the Department of Homeland Defense. Gulf War I was a taste, just enough to get their beaks wet. (comment courtesy of @montereyjackrubytuesdayweld)

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Hey, don't sleep on the time he shot a guy In. The. Face. And the guy had a press conference to apologise to Dick The-Guy-Who-Shot-Him-In-The-Face Cheney I mean it doesn't compare to all the torture and war crimes and gestures at mountain of stone but let us not forget that the guy was evil and scary enough that a dude got shot in the face, had a heart attack because of a pellet too close to his heart, and 6 days later felt compelled to PUBLICLY apologise to the man behind the trigger for causing HIM discomfort by getting shot by him. (comment courtesy of @arwynnywra)

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Yes, Trump is too much even for Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney was a refined kind of evil, that shoot you in the face and make you apologize for it kind of evil…not this crass gold toilet moronic hate-savant evil. (comment courtesy of @shantismurf)

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Not to excuse Cheney or anything, but my take on him is that his evilness and cruelty has always tried to have a point or purpose. Usually imperialist or profit or other perceived benefit, but there was a point, and a chain of logic that you could comprehend. The cruelty and lack of ethics wasn't the sole purpose, but a byproduct. Even Gitmo had the excuse of "wanting intelligence".

So I think it's probably more accurate to say that Trump is too stupid of a politician for Cheney to work with, because Trump's actions often don't have a point beyond cruelty for its own sake. Not profit for the oil companies, not reconstruction money diverted into private accounts, not imperialist control of foreign regions for American nationalist interests...

Indeed, the majority of his actions that do make sense only make sense in the viewpoint of "Putin is Trump's idol and puppetmaster", and to a man like Cheney, who views the USA as the sole rightful superpower in the world, there is no greater evil than selling out the US to Putin.

But yeah, it certainly says a lot that a man who viewed "enhanced interrogation techniques" as acceptable, even desirable, has looked at Trump and gone, "You are too evil for me to work with." (comment courtesy of @the-library-alcove)

Quotes:

When a small terrorist cell headed by a saudi arabian royal based out of afghanistan smashed two planes into new york, we somehow ended up invading Iraq for uhhhhhhh *checks notes* an entire generation.

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8 trillion dollars of american taxpayer money … was paid to dick and his pals to slaughter a generation of middle easterners whose only crime was being born in the gap between valuable resources and evil men.

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it's probably more accurate to say that Trump is too stupid of a politician for Cheney to work with

I can't get over the fact that Dick fucking Cheney said, basically, that Trump is too evil of a dude for him to get behind.

That's like... fuck, idk... that's like Dick Cheney saying a politician is too fucking evil for him to work with. The dude who famously shot a dude in the face and the dude apologized to him. That fucking guy.

[macybay947]

not that i expected anything different, but the senate intelligence committee's report on torture is truly horrific

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jay Kuo at Think Big Picture:

For years, critics of Vladimir Putin have been warning that the Russians have taken over parts of the Republican Party. They raised the alarm as Republicans defended the Russian leader, parroted clear Kremlin talking points, and became mules for disinformation campaigns. In recent weeks, that criticism has shifted to include not just Republicans who have left the party, including former representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, but current GOP members. Recently, two powerful Republican chairs of the House Intelligence Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee warned openly about how Russian propaganda has seeped into their party and even made its way into speeches on the House floor. Other members are now even openly questioning whether some of their fellow officials have been compromised and are being extorted. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) suggested in a recent interview that the Russian spies may possess compromising tapes of some of his colleagues. It’s unclear where he’s getting his information or how accurate it is.

And then there’s this: According to a report by Politico, a number of European politicians were recently paid by Moscow to interfere in the upcoming EU elections by Russians pretending to be a “media” outlet called “Voice of Europe.” The Kremlin-backed operation used money to influence officials to take pro-Russian stances. Authorities have conducted some money seizures and launched an investigation into which members of the European Parliament may have accepted cash bribes. This in turn raises an important question for our own politics: Are the Russians doing the same with U.S. politicians, directly or indirectly? This piece walks through the three types of compromise—disinformation, extortion, and bribery—to give a sense of what we know and what we don’t really know, and, importantly, where we should be on our guard. As this summary will show, from the 2016 election till now, there’s enough Russian smoke now to assume there is a fire, one that compromises not only the integrity of our own system of elections, but the safety and security of the free world. Duped.

Over the past year, we have witnessed two distinct kinds of Russian propaganda in action. Both use our own elected officials and intelligence processes to amplify and even weaponize disinformation. The first kind originates online through Russian-backed internet channels. Information operatives begin spreading false rumors, for example about Ukraine, that then get repeated within right-wing silos before reaching willing purveyors of it within the halls of Congress. A chief culprit in Congress is Georgia’s Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Among the Russian-originated false narratives she has uplifted is the patently false claim that Ukraine is waging a war against Christianity while Russia is protecting it. On Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, Greene even claimed, without evidence, that Ukraine is “executing priests.”

Where would Greene have gotten this wild, concocted notion? We don’t have to look far. Russian talking points have included this gaslighting narrative for some time. The twist, of course, is that, according to the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance, it is the Russian army that has been torturing and executing priests and other religious figures, including 30 Ukrainian clergy killed and 26 held captive by Russian forces. The Russians have also targeted Baptists, whom they see as U.S. propagandists, according to an in-depth Time magazine piece on the violence and death directed toward evangelicals. The Congressional propaganda mouthpieces for Russia aren’t limited to the U.S. House. Over in the Senate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance was also recently accused of spreading Kremlin-backed disinformation about Ukraine, this time over spurious allegations that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy siphoned U.S. aid to purchase himself two luxury yachts.

[...]

The accusation that Russians are presently extorting and blackmailing U.S. politicians into supporting Russia’s agenda has some broad appeal. It would help explain some mysteries, including why people like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) suddenly is no longer as supportive of Ukraine as before and constantly kisses the ring of Donald Trump these days—after presciently saying in 2016 that the GOP would destroy itself if it nominated him. 

The problem has been that these accusations aren’t supported by much evidence. That means that political extortion by the Russians is either not a very prevalent practice, or it’s so effective that no one dares expose it. Either way, we’re left without much to go on. The Russian word kompromat came into common parlance around the time that Buzzfeed published a salacious story about another intelligence report back in early 2017. In that instance, the author, a former British intelligence officer named Christopher Steele, was concerned Russia had compromising data on the soon-to-be president, Donald Trump.

That report never wound up being substantiated, and its sources and funding came into question as well. But intelligence agencies are in general agreement that obtaining kompromat is standard practice by Russia, and someone like Trump could have been an easy mark considering the company that he kept (e.g. Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell) and the projects he was involved with (e.g. the Miss Universe contest). Lately, the notion of kompromat emerged once again, this time not from Democratic-paid outfits but from within the GOP itself. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) is one of the more “colorful” characters within the GOP, primarily known lately for being one of the eight members who voted to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and even for getting into public jostling and shouting matches with McCarthy.

The Republican Party (or at least its pro-MAGA faction) is compromised by Russian kompromat.

[shadowmaat]

Thanks for the Lift

Corrie Week, Day 5: Fix-It (major character death, but it's only Palpatine)

-

Fox heard the noise from his office. The grinding screech of tortured metal was accompanied by a vibration that knocked over a stack of datapads on his desk. He knew, instinctively, what had happened and was already out the door before the first shouts.

The Corrie's lift was a death trap and everyone knew it. It groaned and rattled even at the best of times, but it was the easiest way to get to the Guard sector. Even so, most chose to take the stairs or come around from the outside of the building unless they were in a hurry.

There was already a small crowd gathered around the lift doors. They were still closed, but a huge gash had sheared through the reinforced metal and smoke was leaking through it.

"Don't just stand there!" Fox snapped at the gawkers. "Get those doors open! There could be an injured trooper in there!"

It was a lie and they all knew it; if anyone had been onboard there was little chance they'd survived. That didn't mean they couldn't hope and try.

His sibs jumped into action, two of them running for the heavy equipment locker while the rest gathered to try and open the doors through brute force.

Rattle stood nearby, swaying on her feet. Her armor rattled worse than usual.

"Rattle, you okay?" Fox walked into her line of sight. Her helmet was off, dropped to the floor beside her, and her eyes didn't seem to track him.

"Lieutenant Rattle! Report!"

She shuddered, snapping to attention and firing off a salute on sheer muscle memory.

"Sir!" She fixed her eyes on him. "I was waiting for the lift! I heard..." Her mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, her eyes wide and shining. "I heard a scream," she whispered, voice squeaking.

Fuck. Fox pulled his helmet off and looked her in the eye.

"It's alright, Rattle." He kept his voice soft as he reached out, cupping the back of her neck. She twitched, but didn't look away.

"There's nothing you could have done. The important thing is that you're safe, yeah?"

"I... I don't..."

"I do know," Fox assured her, briefly pressing his forehead against hers. "Now, go check in with Nudge. Tell him what happened and make sure he's ready for whatever we find."

"I... yeah."

The strength seemed to come back to her. "Yessir," she said, nodding acknowledgement of the order. "I'll do that!"

She fast-marched down the hall toward the infirmary, so Fox turned his attention to the current disaster.

How many repair requests had he sent about this damn lift? Always rejected. Always ignored. He'd even taken the chance of mentioning it to the Chancellor once, only to be given a patronizing excuse about the "war budget" and "money goes where it's needed most." Probably right into the coffers of the warmongering Senators.

And now someone was dead because of it.

Fox channeled his rage into helping. The doors had been knocked off their tracks and wouldn't budge more than an inch or two, but Nubs and Burke soon returned with the hydraulic rescue tool and they were able to pry open the broken doors.

Helmet-mounted floodlights revealed more of the carnage. Dangling wires sparked and flakes of metal glittered. The permacrete interior of the shaft was scored and crumbling in places. The only thing missing, however, was the car that had fallen.

"Did it... did it crash right through the floor?" Burke asked.

This was supposed to be the bottom level in this part of the building. There shouldn't be any more down to go. And yet the hole where the bottom of the shaft should have been swallowed up their lights.

"No sign of floor for it to crash through," Fox observed, which was irritating. He was supposed to know the layout of the entire Senate, dammit. He'd downloaded all the schematics, old and new, so he could be sure no one could break in through hidden passages. And yet here was a hidden passage right in their Storms-damned territory.

After a brief but intense discussion, climbing gear was retrieved from storage and Fox led a team down into the unexplored depths below them.

The shaft continued down a long way. Long enough that he was getting concerned about running out of rope before their lights finally reflected off the remains of the damaged lift.

Recovery began. Equipment was hauled down to them and the broken remains were photographed, catalogued, and hauled back up out of the way. Spur and his forensics team were being meticulous about everything. Not that anything would come of it, of course. No one would care about the death of a single trooper, even one who'd been the victim of faulty equipment.

Fox oversaw it all, as was his duty, and was first into the destroyed car once Spur declared the scene stable.

There wasn't any way to identify the remains. Whoever it was hadn't even been in armor. Fox said a few words while Spur collected samples and sent them up for analysis.

"Uh... sir?"

Burke's voice was strained over the comm.

"I think... I think you'll want to see this, sir."

Fox couldn't get a ping on Burke's location, but a gap in the doors showed that he'd likely gone exploring whatever space was at the true bottom of the shaft.

"It better not be more dead bodies."

"Uh..."

The hesitation was ominous.

Fox let Spur know where he was going and wriggled through the broken doorway into a large open space.

There was lighting down here. Good lighting. Fox almost wished it wasn't.

There were tanks with... things floating in them. It looked like something out of a scene from one of those damned horror flicks Thire loved. Some of the shapes were humanoid and gave him bad flashbacks to Kamino. Others were more confusing. One contained the embalmed head of a muun, displayed like a trophy.

"This looks like weird shit, Burke," Fox said.

"Sorry, sir," Burke replied.

Fox hated weird shit. And it was just his luck that Coruscant seemed to be Weird Shit Central.

That's when he noticed the transplas box in front of the head. The transplas box that contained contained a metal cylinder with an ignition switch.

"Garbage detail for a month, Burke."

When his attempt to contact Thire failed, he headed back to the shaft, not as surprised as he should have been that as soon as he squeezed through the doors he had a signal again.

"Thire, we've got a problem," he said, switching to private comm.

"That's a fucking understatement. They're gonna pin this on us, you know."

Fox frowned. "What? How the hell were we supposed to know about a secret lab that wasn't on any of the schematics?"

"Secret lab? I'm talking about Chancellor Pastepatine. You know, the body in the lift?"

Fox closed his eyes and counted to ten. It didn't help.

"So we have a dead Chancellor who should never have been on that lift, a secret nightmare lab at the bottom of that lift, and some kind of Jedi shit, based on the lightsaber I just found?

Thire swore, long and hard.

"That's it," Fox said. "I'm calling the Jedi."

"You're calling the Jedi?" Thire repeated.

"This isn't just weird shit, it's weird Jedi shit and I'm going to dump the whole thing in their laps and go on holiday somewhere on the Outer Rim."

Thire scoffed. "Good luck with that. Be sure to send a holocard."

-

Fox didn't get his vacation, of course. But he and the Guard were absolved in the death of the Chancellor; all the repair requests he'd submitted helped prove that.

The Jedi swarmed the lab, and each secret they uncovered seemed to be more horrible than the last. High General Windu himself was put in charge of the media circus regarding the death of the Chancellor, although a lot of important details were left out of the things he had to say.

Like the fact that the Chancellor was a Sith. And that he'd been playing both sides of the war. And that the clones were an unwitting part of his grand conspiracy to seize power.

Contrary to popular belief, Fox didn't hate the Jedi, he'd just never seen much use in them. Until now. Now he was very, very grateful that they were on his side. Maybe he'd even let that Orve kid join the Guard, since it seemed the war was going to be winding down soon.

Maybe just a little bit of weird shit, once in a while, could be a good thing after all.

[zvaigzdelasas]

Decades after many other rich countries stopped forcibly sterilizing Indigenous women, numerous activists, doctors, politicians and at least five class-action lawsuits say the practice has not ended in Canada. A Senate report last year concluded “this horrific practice is not confined to the past, but clearly is continuing today.” In May, a doctor was penalized for forcibly sterilizing an Indigenous woman in 2019.[...]

There are no solid estimates on how many women are still being sterilized against their will or without their knowledge, but Indigenous experts say they regularly hear complaints about it. Sen. Yvonne Boyer, whose office is collecting the limited data available, says at least 12,000 women have been affected since the 1970s.[...]

In 2018, the U.N. Committee Against Torture told Canada it was concerned about persistent reports of forced sterilization, saying all allegations should be investigated and those found responsible held accountable.[...]

Until the 1990s, Indigenous people were mostly treated in racially segregated hospitals, where there were reports of rampant abuse. It’s difficult to say how common sterilization — with or without consent — happens. Canada’s national health agency doesn’t routinely collect sterilization data, including the ethnicity of patients or under what conditions it happens.[...] In response to questions from the AP, the Canadian government said it has taken steps to try to stop forced sterilization, including investing more than 87 million Canadian dollars ($65 million) to improve access to “culturally safe” health services, one-third of which supports Indigenous midwifery initiatives.[...]

In 1976, the U.S. found that forced sterilizations happened in at least one-third of the regions where the government provided health services to Native Americans. The U.S. government has never formally apologized or offered compensation. Indigenous leaders in Canada say an official apology would be a critical step towards rebuilding the country’s fractured relationship with First Nations people. Only the province of Alberta has apologized and offered some compensation to those affected before 1972.

12 Jul 23

[southeastasianists]

The Philippines is known as a country that supports political dynasties, and powerful clans have played a major role in the country’s politics for decades. But in the last week of June, Vice President Sara Duterte made an announcement that rocked the nation as her family appears to be gearing up to take political dynasties to the next level. On June 28, the vice president confirmed that her father, Former President Rodrigo Duterte, and her brothers, Davao First District Rep. Paolo Duterte and Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte, will all run for senator in the 2025 elections. 

Social media is all abuzz with news of this development, with those supporting the Duterte camp ecstatic at the possibility of having all three Dutertes in the Senate. However, those who are staunchly against this have been equally loud on Twitter and Facebook, calling the country’s political system a joke. As one of the most influential political families in the country have benefited from the results of a well-executed social media strategy in the last presidential elections, Filipinos can expect that the Internet will once again turn into an all-out war zone in the coming months. But can social media bring about the downfall of political dynasties, or will it take them to new heights? Here’s what you need to know about the influence of social media on political dynasties in the Philippines. 

Social Media Brought the Marcoses Back to Power

For two decades, Filipinos had to submit to the rules of Ferdinand Marcos’ regime as the former president enforced Martial Law. Historians attest that his dictatorship resulted in over 3,000 extrajudicial killings and more than 30,000 tortures, apart from other human rights violations. The Marcoses also infamously stole $5 to $10 billion from the Central Bank of the Philippines as stated in the documents provided by the Presidential Commission on Good Government. 

After the assassination of opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr., Marcos was blamed for his death. The family immediately fell from grace as Aquino’s supporters joined hands to support his widow, Corazon Aquino, during the People Power Revolution of 1986. Mrs. Aquino became the new President of the Philippines, while the Marcoses were exiled in Hawaii. In 1989, the matriarch, Imelda, as well as Marcos’ children were allowed to return to the country, and from there, they started planning their political comeback. Their return to politics started with Imelda winning a congressional seat in 1995, while her children, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and Imee Marcos, won positions in local government. 

After Bongbong was elected as a senator in the 2010 elections, it was only a matter of time before he decided to run in the presidential elections. In 2022, Bongbong was up against nine other presidential candidates, the most notable being Leni Robredo, who was the Vice President at that time. It was reported that social media campaigns to discredit Robredo, a strong disinformation campaign, and online efforts to revise history contributed to Bongbong’s win, putting the Marcoses firmly back in power. That election year was one of the most divisive times in Philippine history, as it resulted in the falling out of families, the shut down of a major TV network, and increased hostility in social media platforms. 

Political Dynasties and Their Hold on Social Media

Political analysts are saying that the Philippines is where it is right now because certain politicians have turned public office into family businesses. With everyone complaining about the ever-increasing prices of commodities, lack of jobs, and non-stop graft and corruption for so many years now, many would think that Filipinos should have had enough of political families by this time. However, with politicians becoming social media savvy in recent years, it’s likely that more political dynasties will rise in the future. With the majority of Filipinos perpetually online, it’s likely that political clans will take to the Internet to gather support for their family members who are vying for a place in politics.

Other than the Dutertes, political analyst Edmund Tayao predicts that there will be more families running together in the upcoming senate elections. Siblings Pia and Alan Cayetano currently have seats in the senate, and so do Cynthia Villar and her son Mark. They are all projected to run for reelection in 2025. Meanwhile, 3 members of the Tulfo family, which has four members in congress, are also said to run in the senate elections. Their bid for a senate seat will be confirmed upon the filing of Certificates of Candidacy in October.

Countering Political Misinformation on Social Media

Certain influencers have found ways to spread disinformation on social media as a way to promote some political families, but anti-disinformation advocates have also taken to TikTok and Facebook to fight political misinformation. Genealogist Mona Magno-Veluz is one such TikTok personality who is actively battling historical and political misinformation. There’s also the local civic society organization Break the Fake movement, which regularly holds seminars to train influencers to fact-check their sources. 

AI tools have also been used by fact-checking initiatives such as FactsFirstPH to fight disinformation. Meanwhile, to inform the youth about election-related information, nonprofit corporation Pinas Forward created the E-Boto website, which contains background information for all national candidates, presented in a Gen Z-friendly, TikTok style.

Can Social Media Eradicate Political Dynasties in the Philippines?

Social media has made it easier to access information, but it has also created opportunities to spread disinformation and propaganda techniques to sway the results of elections. Knowing how to distinguish facts from lies, and putting a stop to historical revisionism can protect Filipinos from repeating past mistakes. Fact-checking information, hearing the opinions of a diverse group of people, and educating the public about the dangers of disinformation, fear mongering, hate speech, and cyberbullying may all help to boost the nation’s media literacy and prevent political families from dominating in the upcoming elections. 

But as long as Filipinos keep voting for candidates who share the same beliefs and principles as their family members who are in power, no amount of protests on Facebook or Twitter can change the country’s political landscape. As proven by the current administration, social media will continue to be a valuable tool for political dynasties jockeying for power. After all, it helped a once shunned family to regain their place in politics, so no one should be surprised if it enables multiple family members – even those who are blatantly unqualified – to be elected into public office. 

Nina Sumsy Nina Sumsy is a freelance writer with a background in journalism

[slaptasticturtle]

Dark Side

Yandere Male Sith x GN Soldier Reader

Warnings:Death (not reader), unhealthy relationships, mentions of stalking, torture

The sith empire had launched its third attack on Coruscant, hoping to once again destroy the Republic's capital. The Sith Civil War had recently ended after Darth Malgus was killed by the Emperor's Wrath. The Emperor, to boost morale to the citizens of their empire, ordered that Coruscant be taken. That is what the Emperor's Voice claimed, anyways.

Y/n had risen the ranks in previous battles, taking Kashykk back, defending Naboo, and helping the divided Alderan people during a skirmish that luckily did not turn into a civil war; they were now a commander. They led a small battalion of soldiers, and now only needed to listen to the Jedi General. The General assigned to them was Jedi Knight Milo Cortez, a great duelist but arrogant. His arrogance almost caused the loss of Naboo and the soldiers under his command when ordered a charge on a well defended fort. Only due to the quick thinking of Y/n, who led the remaining troops through the forest and launched a surprise attack on the imperial camp, were they able to win.

The empire had amassed a massive navy; 20 destroyers, 3 capital ships, and 14 carriers. They would easily overwhelm the current Coruscant navy. The Imperial fleet was under the command of Darth Dread, a Formidable sith who had not yet lost a conflict. He had killed his master within a week of being an apprentice, killed his handler during the selection process, and killed a darth who he believed was keeping the empire from winning the war on Daantoine. He was awarded the title of Darth after he lead a major victory on Tatooine, which left the republic Influence on the planet as non-existant.

The main Battle would be on the surface. The Emperor's voice states that the emperor wanted to capture the capital as intact as it could be, so it could become a symbol of the empires strength. That is why Darth Dread was chosen, he preferred beating his enemies with better tactics and skill rather than just bombarding them. Unfortunately, that meant that Y/n's platoon might run into him.

Y/n's platoon had been there by chance, having only gone to receive a mission and so that Milo could brag about his glorious victory of Alderan (which his efforts made the situation worse.) He was astonished to see that Y/n was made a commander, as he viewed them as nothing but a distraction from his own greatness. Why did there need to be a commander, when he was the general? Regardless, Milo viewed the upcoming war as a great way to flex his greatness. Y/n viewed it as a incoming Republic massacre that they were not ready for. When the first republic ship was destroyed, Y/n immediately ordered the senate tower to be barricaded. They ordered their troops to get in position and recommended that Milo be ready to duel Darth Dread if he arrives. Milo scoffed, but took the order anyways; defeating Darth Dread would surely make him a master, maybe even a council member.

Darth Dread, still on his ship, watched the barrage of lasers being shot from his ion cannons towards a Republic Cruiser. He turned to his deck hand and gritted his teeth in anticipation

Darth Dread:"how many troops has our spy reported?"

Shiphand:"Not many, the Republic was not suspecting an attack. Only the Coruscant guard, a few jedi, and a platoon that arrived by chance."

Darth Dread:"tell me about the Jedi and the platoon."

Shiphand:"there is four Jedi Knights and one master Jedi. The platoon is a small incursion force, meant to launch attacks when least expected, fortify undefendable positions, and help with violent political issues. They are lead by a Jedi Knight named Milo Cortez and a Trooper named Y/n that was promoted to Commander when they arrived."

Darth Dread:"I have heard of this platoon, the recent loss on Naboo infuriated my former Apprentice who lead the battle. He complained that the Commander defied the idiotic Jedi and won the battle. The Jedi should be easy to dispose of, but I want that Commander, alive. Their tactics might be good use to the Empire."

Shiphand:"yes my lord."

Darth Dread stared at the planet surface. He had killed his apprentice after the battle of Naboo. The commander that outsmarted his apprentice intrigued him. His apprentice was not one that could have been easily bested; so maybe the commander, if force sensitive, could become his new apprentice. Otherwise, they could be his new deckhand. His current one was growing lax which allowed a rebel fleet to escape while he took Tatooine.

Y/n was busy preparing the defence. One entrance, no exits, only retreat would be to random senator chambers and offices. The Republic could not hold this position forever, but they could go down swinging. If Y/n had to guess, they could easily kill 20 Imperials for every republic soldier lost. That was, of course, if Milo did not screw anything up. Milo had grown jealous of a fellow Jedi who had been crowned the Hero of Tython, and now Milo would do risky maneuvers that looked grand to hopefully boost the publics view of him. He wanted to be as famous as the Hero of Tython, if not more.

Y/n didn't have their normal weapons on them. They left them on the ship, as no weapons were allowed inside the senate tower unless you were a coruscant guard. Luckily the armory had more than enough blasters, but Y/n's custom blaster rifle and revolver were still on the transport. The troops around Y/n were nervous. They knew that they would die, but they still bad a small amount if hope that a counter attack could appear before then. Y/n knew that would not happen. The largest issue with the republic was that each planet had the complete control of their own troops and ships. No one would risk their entire defense just so Coruscant could be saved. Coruscant would have to be retaken after this battle was far over. They were going to be left to die.

Darth Dread had taken his personal transport to the surface, where most of his troops had already landed. His army matched the coruscant guard nearly 10 to 1, and on top of that; the guard was mostly on the lower levels of coruscant. Darth Dread marched his way to the senate tower and noticed the entrance was barricaded. He drew his lightsaber, igniting it into a dark crimson. He twirled it in his hand a few times before thrusting it into the barricade. He dragged it the the ground before pulling the blade out. He walked a few steps back, turned, and thrust his hands forward. The barricade split into two and flew from the entrance. No republic troops stood behind it, but he noticed a Jedi stand and ignite their blade into a bright blue. Darth Dread could feel the arrogance and feeling of superiority of the jedi, and Darth Dread smirked. He turned to the troopers and noticed the commander with their arm up, signaling a "hold your fire" command. He felt a strong hatred in them and the troops towards the republic that left them to die. He announced to the troops

Darth Dread:"anyone in the platoon lead by Commander Y/n can live if they lay down their arms. I respect Y/n's ingenuity and would like to offer them a job. I shall not kill or allow the death of anyone who does not fire a shot at me or my soldiers."

Y/n paused, but as they opened their mouth to respond, Milo spoke up

Milo:"MY troops will not listen to the words of a sith. They are loyal to me and only me. Surely you have heard of me, as I am the one who leads these troops. Face me, and meet your demise sith."

Darth Dread looked annoyed, his yellow eyes gaining a bit of fire orange in them, before he smirked once again

Darth Dread:"General Milo I presume, my spies were right about you. Arrogant, Boastful, and Jealous. Not the traits of a jedi. You are the only one I shall not spare. Now then, I am asking your troops if they wish to live."

Y/n looked around at their troops. None of them seemed to want to fight. Y/n knew these people, none of them cared for the republic. They joined because they were conscripted. Now they were being left to die by the republic they were supposed to protect. While Y/n did not agree with the empire, or how they allowed the sith to run amok, Y/n did know that Darth Dread was a man of his word. One of the few sith that actually made moves to end the war. While working for the empire would mean doing bad things, it meant they wouldn't have any bad thing happen to their troops. Y/n looked around one last time before peering over their fortification.

Y/n:"My troops have no loyalty to the republic, Jedi, Sith, or Empire. They only have loyalty to eachother. That will exist no matter who they serve. If you give your word that no harm shall come to any of us, I'm sure my troops will surrender. However, I shall only join if you promise that you shall lead us personally. I do not want my troops going to any other sith or officers."

Milo looked shocked, then rage filled his face. He pointed his blade towards the direction of Y/n. He began to walk forwards when he felt a shift in the force. He quickly turned and narrowly blocked the blade of the sith. Darth Dread didn't even glance at Milo, staring at Y/n. He spoke, not putting effort into the fight with the struggling Milo.

Darth Dread:"I give you my word that I shall personally command your troops. Once I have dealt with this jedi, I shall bring you aboard my ship."

Y/n nodded, and without saying a word, began to walk towards the exit. All of their troops followed. All of them had seen the worst of the republic. The republic, before the war, was better than the empire. However they had become corrupt, and allowed this nearly thousand year war consume the entire identity of the republic.

Milo was shocked. His entire platoon had just betrayed him. He clashes his blade against Darth Dread's, who was deflecting and blocking blows while not even looking at the fight. He just watched the platoon leave the tower. Darth Dread turned as the last troop left and smirked. He thrust his blade towards Milo's leg, who barely blocked. Milo took a step back and deflected another blow. Milo realized how truly weak he was at that moment. It was taking nearly everything out of Milo, yet Darth Dread had not even tapped into the force to aid him. The blades clashed once again, Milo's arm slamming into the wall as the force of the hit was to much. He quickly regained his footing, while Darth Dread only watched.

Another Jedi entered from one of the offices. They had been guarding the senator from Mon Calamari, but had decided to join the battle when they heard the clash. The jedi was a Master, which was shown by their robes. They drew a green blade and leaped into the battle. Upon the entrance of the jedi, Darth Dread drew a second Saber. It ignited a deep amber, and he held it up in time to block the strike. He backed up so both jedi would be infront of him. He was finally going to use some effort.

Darth Dread flicked his fingers forwards, launching a barrage of lightning towards Milo. Milo was to slow to respond and was hit by it. He was launched into the wall and had to take a second to regain his breath, limbs still twitching from the electricity. Darth Dread quickly engaged the master jedi, striking quickly and powerfully. The master stayed on the defense, but was slowly being backed into a wall. Milo rushed forward and attempted to strike Darth Dread in the back. Darth Dread lept into the air and landed behind Milo. Milo noticed he only had one blade and heard a sharp gasp behind him. A amber blade was stuck in the master's chest.

Dread saw an opening as he leapt, and threw his Saber into the masters chest as he reached the maximum height of the leap. The master, not expecting this, took a fatal wound. The sith now looked only at Milo, who was shocked. Milo grew angry and charged at Dread. Dread ducked under the blade, extended his arm, and called his still ignited blade back to his arm. Milo did not see this, to blinded by his emotions, which only ended when he felt a sharp pain. He glanced down, eyes widened in shock and pain, and saw the same amber blade glowing out of his chest. The saber fell to the ground, the blade retreating into the hilt, and Milo collapsed to his knees. He dropped his Saber to the ground as Dread walked to him. Dread simply glanced for but a moment, before kicking Milo over. He grabbed both his and Milo's blade, turned and left. He ordered his troops to execute every body that was still in the senate tower, other than his spy; the senator from Coruscant.

The remaining battle took only a few minutes before every senator on Coruscant was dead. Luckily for the republic, only 8 senators were stationed there. Y/n's troops waited for Dread's orders as he approached. Y/n spoke first.

Y/n:"My lord, what are our orders?"

Darth Dread:"your troops shall enter the transports. You shall follow me."

The troops saluted and walked to the sith troopers and the transports being boarded. They were welcomed with open arms as the sith troopers celebrated the major victory. Y/n followed Dread to his personal ship. Dread turned to them and began to explain.

Darth Dread:"I have heard of you and your achievements. You were able to catch my former apprentice off guard, which is not an easy task. The reason I spared you and your troops is that I respect you. I have felt a power emanating from you, and feel that I should train you. You shall become my apprentice. Please remove your helmet."

Y/n, shocked, slowly nodded and removed their helmet. Darth Dread, upon seeing their face for the first time, felt something pleasant. Something they had not known before. They had an attraction to Y/n. Surely this would pass, the sith thought, and he turned and motioned for Y/n to board the ship.

A few years of training passed. Y/n had learned the basics of the force and was surprisingly powerful. Not as much as Dread, but they far surpassed Milo and most Jedi/sith. Dread was a strict teacher, but felt his attachment grow stronger. His obsession began to fuel his powers more than his anger, and he had unknowingly become stronger than even the immortal Emperor. The emperor felt this, but was unable to do anything about it. He sent his wrath, who was quickly slain. He tried to drain the force out of Dread, which failed. His only hope was that Dread did not wish to engage him in combat. Vitiate was already hidden, but his fear grew every day that Dread grew in power. He ordered that nobody in the empire was to remove Y/n from Dread, as he feared that Dread would destroy the universe.

Dread, meanwhile, had noticeably gotten softer to Y/n. He no longer tortured them, allowed them to sleep for far longer, and refused to injure them during spars. He still did not allow them to win the spars, but he would not harm them. Y/n would often feel the force presence of Dread when they were supposedly alone. This was due to Dread feeling a need to watch his love. While he viewed them as beyond attractive, their personality is what created this strong obsession. He needed them. He craved them. Soon nothing would stand in either of their way.

Dread walked to the bridge of his ship, turned to the deckhand and gave the command.

Dread:"make way to Korriban."

Dread had one last obstacle in his way. He needed the war to end so he could indulge in his obsession fully. He was going to destroy the republic and the empire.

[therealmlpguy]

propoganda:

The Enigma of Amigara Fault: They are soulmate, they are destined to be one, but the hole will change Owaki till he is not even more human

Star Wars:

Leia and Tarkin are an insanely dysfunctional match… He is a 64 year old highly ranking military leader and politician for an authoritarian/fascist regime (the Galactic Empire) which usurped the galaxy’s government in the same year of Leia’s birth. She is the 19 year old crown princess and Imperial Senator for the peaceful planet of Alderaan, and secretly uses her status in order to spy and deliver supplies and information for the Rebel Alliance— a small, plucky band of freedom fighters seeking to overthrow the Empire and return democracy/peace/freedom etc. Could I make it anymore obvious 😐 It’s very heavily suggested in the film, and shown in supplementary material (books, comics, etc) that Leia and Tarkin have always hated each other’s guts. Tarkin has long suspected both Leia and her family, the royal house of Alderaan, of being rebel agents/sympathizers. In the book Leia: Princess of Alderaan we see him stalking them about it and trying to exploit Leia’s vulnerabilities to get her to crack.

He invites her to to his office for tea and basically implies that he will have her parents assassinated and install her as a puppet ruler of her planet in their stead. She’s also sixteen at that point. Then, at the beginning of the main film, Leia— now nineteen— gets captured by Darth Vader while on a mission— Vader is also kind of sort of under Tarkin’s command at the time. Leia is taken to the Death Star— a giant battle station which can blow up planets, which Tarkin has been given charge of— and held as a prisoner. There she is tortured using spooky sci-fi devices for information about the rebels, including the location of their base, which Tarkin and Vader want to destroy. Vader’s the main torturer but it is clear that Tarkin is involved in supervising the whole thing and may have participated directly off screen. (The torture includes stuff like: injecting her with hallucinogenic drugs that make her believe herself to be in super duper pain (like she’s on fire), shocking her, pinching and poking her with stuff, etc etc). Leia does not tell them anything.

When Vader reports back to Tarkin that he hasn’t broken Leia, our crusty villain is not pleased. Until he comes up with a worser more evil plan…. And so he has Leia brought to the bridge of the station to show this evil plan off. He orders her execution and taunts her about it while creepily touching her face, then blows up her entire home planet of Alderaan in front of her as an elaborate means of psychological torture. Keep in mind Alderaan is full of a ton of civilians who have nothing to do with the war. This is a war crime. Beforehand a horrified Leia feigns breaking and giving him the rebel base’s location in order to try and buy time to save her people; Tarkin thinks she told the truth but still destroys Alderaan anyway because the planet she named was “too remote to provide an effective demonstration” of the Death Star’s capability. In short he has no respect for life and wants to see her suffer.

The entire time this scene happens he’s being very cold and clearly taking sadistic amusement in Leia’s pain and in getting to kill all these innocent people. He also invades Leia’s personal space a lot in a very creepy way. We can see that Leia— who is genuinely a very brave girl— is pretty scared by him at this point. But also very angry. The moment he finds out Leia’s information was a lie he becomes enraged (he can excuse planetary genocide but he DRAWS THE LINE at getting tricked by a teen girl he’s holding captive) and demands that she be terminated (executed) immediately. Fortunately da boiz (Luke Skywalker Han Solo Chewbacca Obi wobi etc) arrive on the Death Star just in time to save the beautiful princess from dying of Terminal Old Man.

She leads said boiz back to the real rebel base and delivers the plans to the Death Star so that they can blow the thing up. They blow it up, killing Tarkin. TL;DR -This ship is between a very young girl and a very old man and that’s the least of their problems -They hate each other and are political enemies. Moreover he kind of borderline stalked her as a teen. -She was captured and became his prisoner. He had her tortured for information. -when she didn’t break, he blew up her entire planet, killing 2 billion innocents solely to traumatize and spite her. -He sentenced her to be executed, and she played a vital role in the battle that led to his actual death. Both have strong intentions to kill the other. There is not a UNIVERSE in which the relationship between these two wouldn’t be something messed up and VILE. That is a big draw for them. They have a weird sort of chemistry. I love them sosososososoo much. Hopefully this educated you on how messed up they are. Like sure your enemies to lovers ship is good I bet but is your bad guy an irredeemable fascist who killed 2 billion people because your heroine made him mad??? Probably not. 

[walkawaytall]

sometimes when you're supposed to be finishing the multichapter you've been working on for a year and a half and you are just so close you can practically taste it, you end up writing the prologue for an Organa Twins AU that's probably not going anywhere?

(But also might be something because I've already thought of how I want Luke, Han, and Chewie rescuing Leia from the Death Star to go down in this AU and it's real fun.)

“Pregnant, she must still appear. Hidden, safe, the children must be kept.”

“We must take them somewhere the Sith will not sense their presence.”

“My wife and I will take the babies. We've always talked of adopting. They will be loved with us.”

*****

When it came to disappearing entirely, Tatooine was as good a place as any. Ben Kenobi harbored no particular fondness for the planet, but it offered the sort of anonymity that was difficult to come by closer to the Core, and being in Hutt Space guaranteed some separation from Imperial officials.

Tatooine was also where it had all gone wrong and, as such, was the only place Ben could hope to find answers regarding how to prevent such a tragedy from occurring again.

He was running out of time, though he had felt that way for nearly two decades. Two decades spent under the torturous heat of twin suns, searching for a why or a how. Two decades befriending his nearest neighbors in hopes that he would discover something that made what he knew make sense, that he might hear a story or a description preceded by Shmi said he always… that would cause everything to fit together.

Two decades paying penance for every move he had made that culminated in Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side.

It shouldn’t have taken two decades. He was supposed to have moved on, was supposed to have started training the children on some other backwater planet where they were unlikely to be discovered. In fact, Bail Organa had contacted him nearly ten years prior to inform him that, after months of careful observation, he and his wife, Breha, had determined that their daughter, Leia, was exceptionally good at keeping secrets — “not just good for a ten-year-old; good by any metric.” Leia’s twin, Luke, was…improving in that area, and should be adequately trained by the time the school term ended. They were preparing the children for a change in scenery for their instruction. What month did he think was best to begin?

That month certainly hadn’t been a good one, nor was the next. Ben still hadn’t determined what exact course of events had caused Anakin’s fall. He didn’t know if there was something genetically malevolent about the Skywalker line or if Anakin’s surroundings had played a significant part in his embracing of the Dark Side. If he didn’t know what caused it, how could he possibly prevent it from happening to another Padawan? How could he prevent Luke and Leia from turning?

Really, the entire year had ended up being bad timing, as had the next and the next. When Bail contacted him mere days after the twins’ fifteenth birthday, Ben had been fairly certain he would be ready the next time his old friend commed.

But he didn’t comm.

Ben didn’t pay much mind to the silence. He assumed Bail or Breha would get in touch again if they truly thought the children ready, and by then, Ben would be ready, too.

The next time he saw Bail’s face wasn’t through direct contact, but via a galactic news report being shown in a local cantina. The viceroy was announcing the date of his retirement from the Galactic Senate. He confirmed that, after an apparent landslide victory in an election on Alderaan, the pale young woman with big, brown eyes standing next to him would take his place.

Ben could hardly look at her for more than a few seconds before focusing his attention back on Bail. She looked like her mother.

He wondered how Bail could manage having the living, breathing reminder of the loss of Padme stare across the breakfast table at him every day. He could barely stand the mere memory of her ultimate fate. He still had dreams about her sixteen years after she’d breathed her final breaths, dreams in which she lived, dreams in which she died in a variety of ways, dreams in which she joined Anakin as he had wanted her to.

Leia spoke calmly and clearly, with fire simmering just under the surface of every word that reminded him simultaneously of all of her parents, both biological and adopted. Breha and Bail had clearly trained her to communicate well, though she possessed her own sort of easy charm and wry wit that Ben had no doubt had endeared her to the public.

He wondered about the boy, wondered what Luke was up to while his sister shackled herself to the impossible ideal of equitable politics. Bail had mentioned something about him learning to fly larger ships the last time they had spoken, and Ben had briefly wondered if the children were involved in the insurgent activity that he knew Bail continued to engage in.

Surely not. Bail and Breha were devoted to their causes, but they had always been protective of their children. They wouldn’t allow such young people to involve themselves in something as dangerous as the rebellion.

In the more than three years that had passed since Bail’s retirement announcement, Ben had hardly had to wonder what the twins were doing at any given moment. Leia was the darling of the Senate as far as the general populace was concerned, and it was no wonder: she spoke up for the poor and needy, raised the issue of abolishing slavery of all sentient species galaxy-wide as often as she was allowed, and routinely seemed to represent the interests not just of Alderaanians, but of any being who had struggled under the crushing hand of the Empire. They would never say so publicly, but Ben couldn’t imagine a galaxy in which at least two-thirds of her fellow senators didn’t despise her.

Luke’s presence was less obvious, but Ben gathered that the boy was acting as extra security when his sister traveled on her many diplomatic missions. Her transport was sometimes shown taking off or landing on one planet or another, and it was always flanked by a minimum of two X-wing starfighters. Luke appeared to be flying one of them every time Ben saw a report of Leia traveling.

They seemed to be doing well despite their lack of training. As a senator, Leia had no doubt met both Palpatine and Vader, and yet it seemed as if they were none the wiser. She was shielding her Force-sensitivity somehow, and since Luke appeared to be with her most of the time, Ben had to assume he was as well. They were better off without being trained by him, without ever knowing of their familial baggage.

He assumed he wouldn’t hear from the Organas again.

As spring slipped into summer on Tatooine, many locals shifted their habits to align with the evening hours. The days were barely tolerable during less-extreme seasons, but they were unbearable during the summer. Ben took to sleeping during daylight hours, the same way his neighbors did.

He was surprised to be woken by frantic knocking on his door a mere hour before midday. Ben squinted at his chrono a moment longer than usual to make sure he was reading the time correctly. He tried to ignore the knocking, but it only increased in volume and speed.

Something must be wrong, he thought as he hauled his aging body out of bed. Why anyone would come to him for help was beyond him, but he could at least see what they needed.

He swung the door to his small dwelling open and was immediately blinded by the midday suns. His vision took seconds to adjust, and he squinted at the person standing outside his home.

Blue eyes set beneath a mop of sandy hair met his. The young man was sunburned and covered in sand. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse.

“Uncle Ben?”

[mariacallous]

Dianne Feinstein, California’s longest-serving U.S. senator who led San Francisco through its darkest and most violent days as mayor in the 1970s and later authored a federal ban on assault weapons that lasted a decade, died Thursday night, according to multiple reports.

At 90, she was the oldest member of Congress and the longest-serving female in the chamber’s history.

...

At the start of her career, Feinstein was a trailblazer for women and gay rights, and after the 1978 assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, she emerged as a reassuring leader and formidable force who pulled together the city that was still reeling from the Jonestown Massacre in Guyana 10 days earlier, where 900 people connected to the San Francisco-based People’s Temple died.

In what would become known as “The Year of the Woman” in 1992, she shared a historic moment with Barbara Boxer when they were both elected to the U.S. Senate and California became the first state with two women senators. Feinstein won in a special election and was sworn in first.

“She had tenacity. She never gave up,” especially in passing the Assault Weapons Ban in 1994, Boxer said in an interview with the Bay Area News Group. “I will always remember how proud I was when she stood her ground on the floor of the Senate, when some of the men said, ‘Well, you don’t even understand what an AR-15 is,’ and she said, ‘I understand what gun violence is. I had to put my finger through a hole in the wrist (of Harvey Milk).’ It was very emotional.”

Feinstein also pioneered a number of other firsts: first woman mayor of San Francisco, first woman to chair the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the first woman to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee, a watershed moment after public outrage over the handling of Anita Hill’s testimony during the male-dominated Supreme Court nomination hearings of Clarence Thomas in 1991.

In 1994, the same year she passed the weapons ban, Feinstein wrote the California Desert Protection Act that established Death Valley and Joshua Tree as national parks. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, as chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, she publicly released the “Torture Report” that exposed the CIA’s interrogation program that failed to work on terrorist suspects and, along with the late Sen. John McCain, authored legislation outlawing the CIA’s use of torture.

For those old enough to remember the shocking assassinations at San Francisco City Hall in 1978, however, it was her brief videotaped news conference and its aftermath that launched her national political career. Standing outside the supervisors offices, news cameras illuminating her face, she delivered the shocking news: “As president of the board of supervisors, it’s my duty to make this announcement. Both Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk have been shot and killed,” she said as the media erupted in gasps and shouts. “The suspect is Supervisor Dan White.”

She would later detail her actions that morning, that when she heard the shots, she raced into Milk’s office. “I tried to get a pulse,” she said, “and put my finger through a bullet hole.”

Duffy Jennings, a former San Francisco Chronicle reporter who was in the crowd when Feinstein made the announcement, said her leadership through a tumultuous era would come to define Feinstein.

“She was incredibly resilient, strong and decisive,” Jennings said in an interview with the Bay Area News Group. “It wasn’t just Jonestown and Dan White. The ‘70s had the Zodiac killer, Patty Hearst, the SLA, the New World Liberation Front, counterculture extremism. It was a horrific decade in San Francisco and the Bay Area. And politically, she was as strong as anybody in holding the town together.”

At one point, New World Liberation Front – an anti-capitalist terrorist group – planted a bomb on the windowsill of her daughter’s bedroom. It failed to explode.

Born in San Francisco in 1933, Feinstein was the daughter of a prominent surgeon. Feinstein was Jewish but attended the prestigious Convent of the Sacred Heart Catholic girls school, where she acted in plays and – because of her 5-foot-10-inch height – often played male roles. She attended Stanford University in the early 1950s, where she was elected vice president of the student body.

When Feinstein entered San Francisco politics in the late 1960s, “nobody took her seriously,” said Jerry Roberts, the Chronicle’s former executive editor who wrote an early biography called “Never Let Them See You Cry,” named for one of Feinstein’s tips for businesswomen.

Early media reports of her campaigns, he said, were “unbelievably sexist,” and often characterized her as a “raven-haired beauty” with a “slender figure.” Her husband at the time, Dr. Bertram Feinstein, was widely mocked as a “first husband.”

“Just in terms of the cultural obstacles that she had to overcome to be taken seriously and to win is something people don’t think a lot about now,” Roberts said. “She was never a movement feminist, but she was a feminist.”

She kept a firefighter’s turnout jacket and helmet in her trunk to race to fires, and once gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a man she saw collapse in the Tenderloin. She listened to a police scanner in her office.

Although she opposed domestic partnership legislation for the city in 1982, when the AIDS epidemic broke out, Feinstein “got right on it. I mean, instantly,” said Louise Renne, whom Feinstein appointed as San Francisco’s first woman City Attorney. “The folks at San Francisco General were pulled in to deal with the AIDS epidemic, and San Francisco took a leadership role in solving that problem.”

Feinstein was considered moderate politically, supporting environmental causes but also encouraging commercial high rise development in downtown San Francisco. She is credited with completing the Moscone Convention Center project, renovating the city’s cable car system and retrofitting Candlestick Park before the Loma Prieta earthquake struck during the third game of the 1989 World Series.

Feinstein ran for governor of California in 1990 and lost to Republican Pete Wilson, whom she would replace in the Senate. In 1996, she was one of only 14 senators who voted against the Defense of Marriage Act that prevented the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages.

Feinstein’s leadership opened doors for two San Francisco women who would become the most powerful female politicians in the country – Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House and Kamala Harris as vice president.

...

Looking back, Boxer recalls when she and Feinstein were first elected to the Senate, her colleague sat her down and told her, “You’ve got to stick with this. The longer you stay, the better you’ll feel, the more you’ll get done.”

Feinstein stuck with it on Capitol Hill for three decades, perhaps summing up why in her final acceptance speech before her re-election in 2018, years before the political implications of her frail health in her final years threatened her legacy.

In the speech, she called serving in the Senate “the greatest honor in my life.”

[ghostofskywalker]

i ran clone xreader bingo this year, and it was SO much fun!! here's a list of all the fics i created! i may try to finish my last two squares before december 31st, but i'm posting this now as an example for other participants who may be stuck on formatting their own masterlists.

if you want to peruse the plethora of amazing fanfiction that was created for this event, check out @clonexreaderbingo on tumblr and the event's AO3 collection!

a 💐 next to a fic's title means it's a personal favorite of mine (i picked two)

coruscant guard's (unconventional) dating service: free for clones named fox || commander fox

square: "this is awkward" summary: this celebration only came once a year, and this time, the coruscant guard enlisted some help from other battalions to make sure that fox would finally admit his feelings for you.

a show of trust || commander wolffe

square: "do you trust me?" summary: sometimes the best solutions come from the minds of those who aren't soldiers, and wolffe has to get used to trusting others that are not his general or his vode.

filed under: incident reports || no romantic relationship 💐

square: 79’s summary: managing a bar was never easy, but you tried your best to keep things running smoothly, even if sometimes you had to make hard decisions or alternatively: a collection of 79’s most hilariously infamous incident reports, some which made you ponder a career change.

don't wait for the sky to clear || hunter

square: "you're an idiot" summary: When you wake up to hear a storm outside where the ship is parked, you recruit Omega to have some fun in the pouring rain with you. The only downside is the tired admonishment you'll inevitably receive from your boyfriend when he sees the two of you.

in the heat of battle || crosshair

square: bounty hunter summary: When Crosshair disobeys your direct orders in battle, you come to confront him about it. Things get a little heated from there.

dreaming of this || echo

square: "you're lucky you're cute" summary: You and Echo share a quiet moment and a dance before Cid's bar opens for the day.

weep not for what you've done, but rather who you've lost along the way || commander cody 💐

square: heartache summary: it wasn't supposed to happen like this, the man you loved wasn't supposed to be the one to end your life. and to make matters worse, you had to keep reliving it, over, and over, with no end in sight and no clear reason why you were subjected to a torture worse than your darkest nightmare.

you would have thought this heist would have been slightly more thought out, given the circumstances || platonic bad batch & reader

square: "let me do the talking" summary: Hunter has to sit out on an assignment because of an injury, and it becomes remarkably clear to everyone else that the position of "voice of reason" is not something that can be replaced, especially not when you're there.

no flirting in the jedi archives || fives

square: archive summary: When on shore leave, one could usually find Fives in the basement of the Jedi Temple, flirting with the primary caretaker of the Archives (even though he denies it when his brothers ask). Finally, he decides to just ask her out.

a little brotherly teasing || thorn

square: "your flirting skills need work" summary: He’s a high ranking commander, an expert in weaponry, and the Coruscant Guard’s man on the inside for this Senate gala, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to get a pass from the teasing. And it’s all because he’s a little too obvious about his giant crush on you.

ally, rival, friend? || rex

square: "you owe me" summary:  It’s not that he hates his general’s bounty hunter friend, but Rex is a little more prone to headaches whenever you’re on the flagship. This time though, he sees the chance to start over with you.

almost disasters || tech

square: cooking summary: Your beloved attempts to put together a surprise for you. Nothing about it really goes to plan. 

the strength to keep going || jesse

square: haunted summary: the more time you spent in the GAR, the more you came to know grief, especially when the casualties of the war were people you had grown close to. Jesse notices that you're struggling, and reaches out to help.

deep space delicacies || echo

square: stuck summary: In the midst of the war, you manage to find the time to bring about a different, more welcome kind of chaos: teaching the clones how to bake. The 501st take the opportunity to force you and Echo to admit how you feel about each other.

[loukaiitis]

Evan Ramsey: 1997 Bethel Regional High School

Summary of the 1997 Bethel Regional High School shooting committed by Evan Ramsey. Note: this is for informational, educational purposes only. Post is below the cut.

Background:

Evan Ramsey was born on February 8th, 1981, in Anchorage, Alaska to Don and Carol Ramsey. When Evan was five years old, his father was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison for attempted kidnapping, aggravated assault, and reckless endangerment at the Anchorage Times building. The incident occurred after Don Ramsey’s attempts to speak with government officials about his family’s poor living conditions were unsuccessful. This failure led Don on a campaign to slander government officials in hopes that they would be removed from office. One part of this campaign included a full-page advertisement against Senator Frank Murkowski, which was paid for by Don. The advertisement only ran for a short period of time before being redacted from future publications. On October 21st, 1986, Don Ramsey entered the Anchorage Times building with guns, grenades, and other hand weapons with the intent of killing Robert Atwood, the publisher he deemed responsible for the removal of his advertisement and a fire that caused extensive damage to the Ramsey’s apartment a few months prior. He was subdued by employees in the building and arrested. 

After her husband’s arrest, Evan’s mother spiraled into a severe case of alcoholism and began dating abusive men. As a result of neglect, Evan and his brothers were placed in the foster care system. The Ramsey brothers lived in ten foster homes in the span of two years, many of which ranged from unsuitable to violent. In one of these foster homes, Evan and his brother faced severe physical abuse from their foster parents. The biological son of these parents would also torture Evan and his brother; being attacked, urinated on, and sexually abused were common occurrences. After a school nurse noticed signs of physical abuse on Evan and his brother, the Department of Youth and Family Services was notified, and the boys were relocated to the home of Sue Hare. Evan described Sue as a positive role model for him. When he told her about the bullying he faced at school, she encouraged him to report the instances of bullying and to not retaliate. However, his problems in school persisted.

“Well I can tell you that the Superintenant Sue Hare has been the nicest person I’ve ever met cause she took both William and I in and didn’t get any money for it, and she like was a mother for William and me.“ - excerpt from Evan Ramsey’s suicide note written shortly before the shooting (1997)

Evan had been dealing with depression as early as the age of 10, and even attempted suicide (possibly multiple times) between the ages of 10-16.

School Life:

Along with his ever-changing and abusive home life, Evan claimed to be frequently teased and bullied at school. He has stated that this was likely due to him being mixed– he was targeted by both white and Indigenous students, and he did not feel accepted by either group. Students nicknamed him Screech after a character from the television show Saved by the Bell. Former friends of Evan described him, along with the rest of their friend group, as outsiders. Despite being a target for physical and verbal bullying, Evan was described as an empathic and funny friend. 

Around two weeks before the shooting, students at Bethel Regional High School had heard of Evan’s plans to bring a gun to school. Reports claim that at least 15 people knew of his plans. In fact, some students encouraged these plans and helped him. Two of Evan’s friends, James Randall and Matthew Charles, helped Evan organize a “hitlist” of people who had bullied him. James also taught the inexperienced Ramsey how to load and shoot a gun. Instead of taking the threat seriously and reporting it, students planned to bring cameras to school to record the event.

Shooting:

On February 19th, 1997, Evan Ramsey concealed a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun in his pants and walked to his normal bus stop. He made small talk with others while waiting for the bus. After arriving at Bethel Regional High School, Evan entered the commons area and shot three students. Although the other two students survived their injuries, Fifteen-year-old Josh Palacios, who was shot in the abdomen, succumbed to his injuries shortly after. Art teacher Reyne Athanas and another teacher pleaded with Evan to stop three times. Instead of surrendering, Evan continued the shooting in the main lobby, where he fatally shot principal Ron Edwards twice. He returned to the commons with the intention of killing himself. After shooting one round at nearby police, he positioned the shotgun under his chin. However, Evan did not shoot. He abruptly decided to not kill himself and was quoted saying “I don't want to die” as he placed the gun on the ground and surrendered.

“I don’t know who came to the school that day, but it wasn’t my friend. It wasn’t Evan, and I think whoever that person was that came must have killed him too.” - a friend of Evan Ramsey, interviewed for “Bethel, 20 Years Later”

Evan wrote two notes prior to the shooting: 

“I have thought to myself, what kind of damage can a 12 gauge slug do to a human’s internal organs or their head? Well today I found out, and so did everyone else that is in school . . . No, I am not on drugs . . . ciggerettes, that’s all. I am not really depressed just that the fact that I want people, the world, or maybe just Bethel, to know how [expletive] and cruel the world is or can be. This school has got to get its [expletive] together ’cause there are too many deaths this past 2–3 years. Well I can tell you that the Superintenant Sue Hare has been the nicest person I’ve ever met cause she took both William and I in and didn’t get any money for it, and she like was a mother for William and me. But anyway I’m dead you guys are living, you should be happy.“

“Hey Every body!! I feel rejected, rejected, not so much alone, but rejected. I feel this way because the day-to-day treatment I get usually it’s positive but the negative is like a cut, it doesn’t go away really fast. I figure by the time you guys are reading this I’ll probably have done what I told EVERYONE I was going to do. Just hope 12 gauges don’t kick too hard but I do hope the shells hit more than 1 person because I am angry at more than 1 person. One of the Big [expletive] is Mr. Ron Edwards, he should be there, I was told this will be his Last year, but I know it WILL BE HIS LAST YEAR. The main reason that I did this is because I’m sick and tired of being treated this way everyday . . . By the way every one allways told me “Don’t Judge A Book By It’s Cover.’’ This saying is true because I was told that my teachers say that “He’s Such A Good Kid.’’ But they Say that About everyone. I don’t think I’m a good-Hearted person. LIFE SUCKS in its own way, so I killed a little and killed myself. Jail isn’t and wasn’t for me, ever”

Trial:

During the trial, the defense argued that Evan’s understanding of guns and murder were based on video games such as Doom. Specifically, he was under the impression that people could not die from a single gunshot wound. Because of this, the defense claimed he could not have foreseen or understood the effects of his actions. It was also argued that Evan was suicidal and never intended on killing anyone but himself, but one of the notes he wrote prior to the shooting implied otherwise. The letter also implied that Ron Edwards was a main target, leading to first-degree murder charges. The defense wanted to use Evan’s history of abuse in the foster care system as evidence, but this was opposed.

On December 2nd, 1998, Evan Ramsey was found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder, and fifteen counts of second-degree assault. He was originally sentenced to 210 years, but this sentence was later changed to two 99-year sentences with the possibility of parole in 2066. James Randall and Matthew Charles were charged and sentenced as juveniles for their involvement in the shooting, but both have since been released.

Appeals and Recent News:

In 2002, Evan Ramsey attempted to appeal his case. The primary reason for the appeal was because Evan’s defense was not allowed to introduce past physical and sexual abuse as evidence. However, this appeal was denied.

In 2005, Evan Ramsey appealed his sentence, which led to the sentencing of 2 99-year sentences with the possibility of parole in 2066.

Although apathetic during the shooting and trial, Evan’s mindset towards the event has since changed. He stated in an interview that the death of his mother gave him perspective as to how drastically his actions changed the lives of others. He has stopped trying to appeal his sentence, as he realized it would only cause more pain to the families affected.

"I would tell them the situation they're in now is not half as bad as the situation they're going to be in if they do something similar to what I did. It will only get worse." - Evan Ramsey, when asked what he would tell potential school shooters (2001)

[unexpectedtechnicality]

The AUDACITY of the senate council to not take Hera’s word on Thrawn?

On one hand, I completely get what they’re saying. Imagine you’re trying to run an entire galaxy, and this woman keeps coming to you trying to find one. person. Definitely a small and frustrating problem! It doesn’t seem reasonable at all!

But then this woman comes back with another report, and says she thinks Thrawn is alive. Well none of them had to deal with Thrawn! They don’t know what a threat he is.

Hera, on the other hand, was literally personally captured and interrogated by/under orders of Thrawn. This man had her tortured and drugged. He paraded her kalikori in front of her and mocked her for the family she has lost that it represented. Thrawn had a personal grudge/interest in her family, both her blood relatives and the crew of the Ghost.

Hera’s crew was the one that got rid of Thrawn. Clearly that is known- Ezra is recognized and remembered for his heroics. Hera is a general, who has never been proven to be reckless or over emotional. I saw another post (I can’t remember where or who by, I’m so sorry) about how she always follows protocol and procedure. They have no reason to distrust her.

And yet, they dismiss her concerns, despite her probably being one of the ONLY PEOPLE who truly knows what is going on, and can back it up!

Side note, how much must it hurt Hera to be denied her urgent request, have all the memories of her capture, Thrawn, and the night she lost Kanan (and subsequently Ezra!) be stirred up, and then immediately run into Jacen. Imagine raising your (force sensitive??) son in a world you MADE SAFE for him that is now threatening to fall right back into the same war that has shaped your life. How much she must love him, and how much she must fear for him.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then San Francisco (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

#15yrsago Chinese gold farming https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/mar/05/virtual-world-china

#10yrsago Comment-spammers threaten to sabotage their victims through Google Disavow if the evidence of their vandalism isn’t removed https://ellis.fyi/blog/gordon-sands-threatens-seattle-bubble-google-disavow-comment-spam/

#10yrsago Obama whirls the copyright lobbyist/government official revolving door https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/03/obama-nominates-former-sopa-lobbyist-help-lead-tpp-negotiations

#10yrsago CIA spied on Senate committee writing damning torture report and Obama knew about it https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/05/obama-cia-senate-intelligence-committee-torture

#5yrsago Jibo the social robot announces that its VC overlords have remote-killswitched it, makes pathetic farewell address and dances a final step https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/3/4/18250104/jibo-social-robot-server-shutdown-offline-dead

#5yrsago Bowing to public pressure, Coinbase announces it will “transition out” the ex-Hacking Team cybermercenaries whose company it just bought https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvyndw/coinbase-says-ex-hacking-team-members-will-transition-out-after-users-protest

#5yrsago The NSA has reportedly stopped data-mining Americans’ phone and SMS records https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/us/politics/nsa-phone-records-program-shut-down.html

#5yrsago Facebook forces you to expose your phone number to the whole world in order to turn on two-factor authentication https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/03/facebook-doubles-down-misusing-your-phone-number

#5yrsago America is not “polarized”: it’s a land where a small minority tyrannize the supermajority https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/opinion/oppression-majority.html

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