#Trump's health picture

[sl-lovely]

I'm Back Baby Boos... Tons of New Content 100s of pictures and videos No Pay Walls just subscribe and have fun Join Me Today

patreon.com/sllovely

[troybarnesbucky]

just returning here after 2 years of not being on this cursed app to say one thing and one thing only. i LEFT this app because of rampant antisemitism and dehumanization that i witnessed two years ago. my last post was about the death of sarah halimi z’l, which you were all silent about. today, six months after the most violent and deadly attack on jews since the Shoah, i return to see how the virulent and disgusting antisemitism that pushed me away from here is even worse than it ever was. i was on tumblr, with various accounts, for more than a decade. it was NEVER this bad but then again, the dehumanization of jews has become so normalized in the last five or six years, so idk why i’m surprised.

well i’m not really surprised. but i’m here because i want to say i told you so, but it’s pointless. you all don’t care. you don’t care that jewish people in your own countries, let alone israel (god forbid lollll) are being abused, attacked, bullied and dehumanized at pre-Shoah levels. you would rather that happen than exhibit nuance, empathy for everyone, or stay silent when you don’t need to say a fucking thing about a conflict miles and miles away from you, in distance and in reality. i’ve lost friends, i’ve lost my last year of education, i lost my mental health, all because when it comes to jews, no amount of repeating the same stupid, violent pattern of dehumanization will teach you non-jews (and yes, some of you jews too) the lesson of antisemitism and its poisonous, conspiratorial and dangerous nature.

we know you don’t care. it’s been made so abundantly clear, not just now but in the last six, seven, eight years. when the only antisemitism you cared about was in a harry potter book, or in trump’s dumbass comments, or in a movie about a jew with a prosthetic nose. and even then most of you didn’t care, you didn’t let us jews define our oppression — so we know you don’t care enough to give us that “privilege” now.

but i know, maybe twenty or thirty years from now, you’ll look at pictures and maybe even history books and remember what you said, did, and fought for. maybe you won’t. maybe you’ll still be sick, poisoned by antisemitism and unable to shake it off. or maybe not, and only then will you realize that you perpetuated this violence, evil, this dehumanization of jews. you called us nazis, you spit at our faces while we begged to be seen, you engaged in violent antisemitism comparable to nazi-era rhetoric. and maybe THEN you’ll feel bad. but then it’ll be too late.

to any jew that comes across this post, you’re not alone. my DMs are always open — i don’t come on this app much but will always be happy to talk. am yisrael chai ❤️

[boopshoops]

Heya!

Things are lookin rough right now, huh? But here are a few reminders:

Your blorbo will still be here tomorrow.

You have people who love and care and support you.

Policies and enactments will not all be immediate. Everything will not go to shit all at once.

Things getting harder doesnt mean they're impossible.

It's okay to be upset. It's okay to be scared. It's okay to cry. That does not make you weak.

I know there are some individuals like me who did not feel safe voting due to outside factors, like living with individuals who support trump or being disabled, do not blame yourself. (Excuse me for getting personal, yes I do want to move out. Very badly. Sadly my mental and physical health are not in a space to do so yet).

This is the last term he is allowed in office. After that, I can't help but think about how the more extremist supporters- would they even want to vote? Idk. But it's food for thought. Safe to say the voter turnout for either side was insane compared to previous years, if we keep that stride up, I honestly think and hope the democrats are almost guaranteed the next election. But this is just me blabbing.

Block tags you aren't in the mindset for seeing rn. It's okay, no one is going to villainize you when the election process is giving you a panic attack. If they try, ignore them. This is for you, not them.

We've survived through one term. We can survive through another. I know it feels difficult right now while thinking about things like access to healthcare or prices skyrocketing or job security, but we really have. Things will get better. We will push through.

Here are some ideas that might help with mental health right now:

Eat some of your favorite food

Look up pictures of your favorite animal

Watch some funny or wholesome videos

Go for a walk

Exist. Because sometimes that is enough

Positive affirmations

Schedule an appointment with your therapist if you have one

Drink water. Or dont! Maybe drink a different thing that you like.

Remind yourself that these feelings will pass.

They cannot steal your identity from you. Internally, you know who you are. Even if you're still figuring it out. They can't take your mind. Your thoughts.

To those like me dealing with finals right now. Its okay. Take that break.

I love u /p

[bunjywunjy]

I'm the 'it looks like trump might win' anon. Sorry, I have a panic disorder so I have a hard time judging outcomes because of catastrophizing. I see posts talking about dying and I can't help but picture being like dragged off for being queer as soon as he takes office. And I have a hard time talking myself down. But I understand you aren't responsible for my mental health so I apologize and appreciate your honest answer. I did vote. So I would also like $100 from anyone who did noy.

hang in there

[tomorrowusa]

Four years ago today (March 13th), then President Donald Trump got around to declaring a national state of emergency for the COVID-19 pandemic. The administration had been downplaying the danger to the United States for 51 days since the first US infection was confirmed on January 22nd.

From an ABC News article dated 25 February 2020...

CDC warns Americans of 'significant disruption' from coronavirus

Until now, health officials said they'd hoped to prevent community spread in the United States. But following community transmissions in Italy, Iran and South Korea, health officials believe the virus may not be able to be contained at the border and that Americans should prepare for a "significant disruption." This comes in contrast to statements from the Trump administration. Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said Tuesday the threat to the United States from coronavirus "remains low," despite the White House seeking $1.25 billion in emergency funding to combat the virus. Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, told CNBC’s Kelly Evans on “The Exchange” Tuesday evening, "We have contained the virus very well here in the U.S." [ ... ] House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the request "long overdue and completely inadequate to the scale of this emergency." She also accused President Trump of leaving "critical positions in charge of managing pandemics at the National Security Council and the Department of Homeland Security vacant." "The president's most recent budget called for slashing funding for the Centers for Disease Control, which is on the front lines of this emergency. And now, he is compounding our vulnerabilities by seeking to ransack funds still needed to keep Ebola in check," Pelosi said in a statement Tuesday morning. "Our state and local governments need serious funding to be ready to respond effectively to any outbreak in the United States. The president should not be raiding money that Congress has appropriated for other life-or-death public health priorities." She added that lawmakers in the House of Representatives "will swiftly advance a strong, strategic funding package that fully addresses the scale and seriousness of this public health crisis." Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also called the Trump administration's request "too little too late." "That President Trump is trying to steal funds dedicated to fight Ebola -- which is still considered an epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo -- is indicative of his towering incompetence and further proof that he and his administration aren't taking the coronavirus crisis as seriously as they need to be," Schumer said in a statement.

A reminder that Trump had been leaving many positions vacant – part of a Republican strategy to undermine the federal government.

Here's a picture from that ABC piece from a nearly empty restaurant in San Francisco's Chinatown. The screen displays a Trump tweet still downplaying COVID-19 with him seeming more concerned about the effect of the Dow Jones on his re-election bid.

People were not buying Trump's claims but they were buying PPE.

I took this picture at CVS on February 26th that year.

The stock market which Trump in his February tweet claimed looked "very good" was tanking on March 12th – the day before his state of emergency declaration.

Trump succeeded in sending the US economy into recession much faster than George W. Bush did at the end of his term – quite a feat!. (As an aside, every recession in the US since 1981 has been triggered by Republican presidents.)

Of course Trump never stopped trying to downplay the pandemic nor did he ever take responsibility for it. The US ended up with the highest per capita death rate of any technologically advanced country.

Precious time was lost while Trump dawdled. Orange on this map indicates COVID infections while red indicates COVID deaths. At the time Trump declared a state of emergency, the virus had already spread to 49 states.

The United States could have done far better and it certainly had the tools to do so.

The Obama administration had limited the number of US cases of Ebola to under one dozen during that pandemic in the 2010s. Based on their success, they compiled a guide on how the federal government could limit future pandemics.

Obama team left pandemic playbook for Trump administration, officials confirm

Of course Trump ignored it.

Unlike those boxes of nuclear secrets in Trump's bathroom, the Obama pandemic limitation document is not classified. Anybody can read it – even if Trump didn't. This copy comes from the Stanford University Libraries.

TOWARDS EPIDEMIC PREDICTION: FEDERAL EFFORTS AND OPPORTUNITIES IN OUTBREAK MODELING

Feel free to share this post with anybody who still feels nostalgic about the Trump White House years!

[covid-safer-hotties]

The US Government Has Abandoned Us to Endless COVID. We Can Do Better. - Published Aug 10, 2024

The pandemic isn’t over. Why is it so hard to find accurate information about it?

This week, Nassau County, New York, passed a mask ban. Those wearing face masks will now face the possibility of up to a year in jail or a $1,000 fine. Angry at the power of anti-genocide protests, lawmakers banned one of the most basic forms of disease protection just as the world is experiencing a record surge in COVID cases. While officials insist that the law will not be used against those masking for medical reasons, disabled activists protesting the move say they were intentionally coughed on during the city council meeting where the bill was passed.

In a world of airborne contagious diseases, everyone has a medical reason for masking. So why doesn’t our public health policy recognize that?

In 2020, at the height of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, then-President Donald Trump was excoriated for saying that “when you test, you create more cases.” This statement was met with outcry by journalists and public health professionals and pundits from all major outlets.

Trump’s statements and policies on COVID were regularly and widely critiqued. In October 2020, CNN launched a tracker of “every time Trump said that the coronavirus pandemic was over, but it wasn’t,” which juxtaposed Trump’s words with the number of new cases in the United States.

Since President Joe Biden took office, many of the same things that Trump was excoriated for have been implemented as policy. In September 2022, Biden suddenly declared the pandemic over at the Detroit Auto Show, and in May 2023, Congress ended the federal emergency. Both moves were unrelated to any data about case numbers, yet no similar media outcry about premature or imaginary declarations has dogged the Biden administration.

Trump’s outrageous argument that if the U.S. collected less data, the picture would be rosier has been made into official policy under the Biden administration: As of May 1, 2024, hospitals are no longer required to report admissions, and most of the other data collection infrastructure on COVID test rates, like local dashboards and easily readable trackers on cases and deaths, has already disappeared.

By mid-July 2024, it was possible for Biden to have an active case of COVID and to claim that he is going home to isolate while simultaneously appearing on video in a group of people unmasked, without major media outlets blinking an eye about this contradiction. At this point in the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website is no longer a go-to place for clear COVID information, but instead muddies the difference between COVID and the common cold in its prevention recommendations. As Caroline Hugh, an epidemiologist who volunteers for the Public Health Collective, told Truthout, it is hard to know what’s going on because the “picture has gotten a lot fuzzier and a lot more complicated.”

As Supports for COVID Sunset, Access Is Obstructed It is worth stating explicitly that the COVID pandemic is decidedly not over, despite the end of the U.S. federal emergency. The policy and response have changed, without any real relationship to changes in the illness and how it affects people.

The basic facts about COVID have not evolved that much: It is a highly contagious airborne disease, tight-fitting masks are effective, regular vaccinations are helpful in avoiding more serious illness, and isolation (some experts insist longer than five days) is warranted to avoid getting other people sick. It can cause death and long-term or permanent disability.

What has changed in the last four years is that it has become harder and harder for people to remain clear on this information and to put these basic guidelines into practice. The information about the risks of COVID and how to avoid them has gone from being mainstream advice to countercultural information that people have to search out. In this information-poor environment, the risks to disabled people, to those who work directly with the public (disproportionately BIPOC people) and anyone else with an increased COVID risk level are dramatically increased.

It is also now much harder to put this information into practice as government and institutional support for COVID safety practices has all but evaporated. Tools that were used earlier in the pandemic like free testing, masks and vaccines, have almost all been phased out, often shifting the financial burden for these to individual patients. The expectation to work while sick has been reimposed. The public has repeatedly been told “we have the tools,” but with tens of millions of people kicked off Medicaid in 2024, Paxlovid — a rapid treatment that reduces the risks of the infection — is difficult to obtain for most people, and expensive for almost everyone. Even the Bridge Access program, which funded COVID vaccinations for those without private insurance to cover them, is sunsetting this fall. “It is absolutely unaffordable to get COVID for the vast majority of working Americans, for people who are not working, who are retired and disabled on SSDI, on a limited income, on SSI. This is a catastrophic cost to be exposed to right now,” Beatrice Adler-Bolton, coauthor of Health Communism and co-host of the podcast “Death Panel,” told Truthout.

One of the ways that misleading information becomes normalized is by making it challenging for people to act on any other information.

“Immunity Debt” and Other Commonly Circulated Myths With the disappearance of supports and these changes to the mainstream media narrative, it has become harder to feel sure about COVID. The dramatic wind down of data available has been coupled with a major shift in framing from the CDC, which has communicated in ways that fail to counter the U.S. public’s widespread turn toward a mentality that is resonant with Trump’s misleading push for “herd immunity” in 2020.

While the CDC does acknowledge that “reinfection can occur as early as several weeks after a previous infection,” much of its recent messaging on COVID has tended to bolster the widespread public sense that hospitalization and COVID deaths have largely decreased because of immunity from prior infection or vaccinations. (Only 28 percent of adults in the U.S. are up to date on COVID vaccinations.) For example, PEW Research Center cited the CDC in its statement that “The vast majority of Americans have some level of protection from the coronavirus because of vaccination, prior infection or a combination of the two. This has led to a decline in severe illness from the disease.”

Adam Moore, a virologist working towards a Ph.D. at the University of California, Davis, says that while this claim is accurate, the overall framing is “dishonest” because it underemphasizes how quickly natural immunity can wane after a COVID infection. He also argues that this frame underemphasizes how COVID can have serious impacts on a person’s immune system and their ability to fend off any kind of illness.

Fundamentally, it is complicated to assess why fewer people are being hospitalized or dying of COVID despite continued high rates of circulation. The reason is not necessarily solely related to immunity (through exposure or vaccination), especially given the disease’s quick evolution that has resulted from the failure to contain it.

The data collection on who has been hospitalized or even died with an active case of COVID has also become less reliable, as many hospitals no longer report all COVID cases, but instead make a distinction between people hospitalized “with COVID” and people hospitalized “for COVID.” And, undercounting of deaths has been a pattern throughout the pandemic.

Most importantly, experts who spoke to Truthout emphasized that death and acute illness like hospitalization are not the only serious outcomes from an illness. Most of us would like to avoid serious injury, traumatic events and long-term disability that fall outside the purview of the basic and extreme indicator of death. Pandemic indicators and figures that do not tell us how many people are developing or living with long COVID, for example, fall far short of offering a complete picture of the risk of COVID infection.

The push for “herd immunity” to COVID is only one of several common misleading ideas about immunity. Another is immunity debt, the claim that if a person missed getting a cold or respiratory virus in 2021 they were more susceptible to getting sick in 2022. Immunity debt, although popularized in some media outlets, is not a scientifically accepted idea. The immune system is a not a “muscle that needs exercise to get stronger,” explained Moore.

COVID goes against a lot of what people in the United States have been told about viruses and what has come to be common sense. The most common viruses in the U.S. are seasonal, but COVID circulates year-round, more like tropical viruses. Moore highlights that this makes COVID fundamentally different from the flu and, crucially, the vaccination cycle for the flu, where annual vaccination works because it can account for the variants that have evolved in the opposite hemisphere. Since COVID circulates everywhere year-round, annual vaccinations are not enough to keep up on the latest variants. Beatrice Adler-Bolton adds that COVID surges in the United States are not related to seasons but rather to moments of intense travel, like Memorial Day weekend, Labor Day weekend, the holidays in November and December, and Spring Break.

Good Information Is Available — If You Know Where to Look The people who spoke to Truthout for this story recommended many sources of robust, trustworthy information about COVID. These sources are not invested in making sure the economy continues going as it is, which has been one of the biggest reasons government and mainstream sources misrepresent COVID data. Many also have a commitment to disability and racial justice and are actively organizing for improved public health information and infrastructure.

Recommended resources include Noha Aboelata and Roots Community Health’s “people’s health updates” on YouTube; Ground Truths, the newsletter of Eric Topol; The Sick Times, a weekly newsletter focusing on Long COVID; and Adler-Bolton’s podcast, “Death Panel,” which provides regular deep dives and analysis of COVID policy.

Local mask blocs are another good source of information. These local mutual aid groups provide low-cost or free masks to community members (via bulk purchasing), and they share a lot of locally relevant information about COVID (often on Instagram).

Nationally, groups like the People’s CDC, the Public Health Collective and the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative are synthesizing technical information and sharing it to a wider community with a disability justice lens. Hugh highlighted the importance of reading and combining a variety of information, rather than relying on a single source.

Repetition Is a Democratic Power The most powerful part of COVID disinformation is its simple repetition through multiple channels constantly, says Adler-Bolton. But repetition can work both ways. Those pushing for more accurate COVID information that allows everyday people to be in solidarity with one another can also use this power of repetition, but “we have to be relentless.”

Undoing the damage of bad information is difficult, because “breaking the mystification of disinformation” can’t be done by simply changing the information that goes through those same media channels, said Adler-Bolton. Instead, people must work with each other through personal connection. “There is a kind of trust that we can build between each other that goes further than the trust any one person can have with any media project, no matter how good the project is.”

Information that rejects ableism and white supremacy raises the stakes by asking people to reject the comforts they have been promised by racial capitalism. Sharing that information with each other is part of a collective struggle for disability and racial justice.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Robert Reich's Substack:

Friends, For years, conservatives have railed against what they call the “administrative state” and denounced regulations. But let’s be clear. When they speak of the “administrative state,” they’re talking about agencies tasked with protecting the public from corporations that seek profits at the expense of the health, safety, and pocketbooks of average Americans. Regulations are the means by which agencies translate broad legal mandates into practical guardrails. Substitute the word “protection” for “regulation” and you get a more accurate picture of who has benefited — consumers, workers, and average people needing clean air and clean water. Substitute “corporate legal movement” for the “conservative legal movement” and you see who’s really mobilizing, and for what purpose.

**

[...] Last week, the Supreme Court made it much harder for the FTC, the Labor Department, and dozens of other agencies — ranging from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Food and Drug Administration, Securities and Exchange Commission, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and National Highway and Safety Administration — to protect Americans from corporate misconduct.

On Thursday, the six Republican-appointed justices eliminated the ability of these agencies to enforce their rules through in-house tribunals, rather than go through the far more costly and laborious process of suing corporations in federal courts before juries. On Friday, the justices overturned a 40-year-old precedent requiring courts to defer to the expertise of these agencies in interpreting the law, thereby opening the agencies to countless corporate lawsuits alleging that Congress did not authorize the agencies to go after specific corporate wrongdoing. In recent years, the court’s majority has also made it easier for corporations to sue agencies and get public protections overturned. The so-called “major questions doctrine” holds that judges should nullify regulations that have a significant impact on corporate profits if Congress was not sufficiently clear in authorizing them.

[...] In 1971, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, then a modest business group in Washington, D.C., asked Lewis Powell, then an attorney in Richmond, Virginia, to recommend actions corporations should take in response to the rising tide of public protections (that is, regulations). Powell’s memo — distributed widely to Chamber members — said corporations were “under broad attack” from consumer, labor, and environmental groups. In reality, these groups were doing nothing more than enforcing the implicit social contract that had emerged at the end of World War II, ensuring that corporations be responsive to all their stakeholders — not just shareholders but also their workers, consumers, and the environment.

[...] The so-called “conservative legal movement” of young lawyers who came of age working for Ronald Reagan — including Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. — were in reality part of this corporate legal movement. And they still are. Trump’s three appointments to the Supreme Court emerged from the same corporate legal movement. The next victory of the corporate legal movement will occur if and when the Supreme Court accepts a broad interpretation of the so-called “non-delegation doctrine.” Under this theory of the Constitution, the courts should not uphold any regulation in which Congress has delegated its lawmaking authority to agencies charged with protecting the public. If accepted by the court, this would mark the end of all regulations — that is, all public protections not expressly contained in statutes — and the final triumph of Lewis Powell’s vision.

Robert Reich wrote an interesting Substack piece on the history of the right-wing war on regulatory power that began with the infamous Powell Memo by Lewis Powell, and culminated with the recent Loper Bright Enterprises, Jarkesy, and Trump rulings.

[wheelingwithgrace]

I'm as pro-life, conservative, and Catholic as they come, but in this election, I'm voting for Kamala Harris. There is no doubt in my mind. Economically, financially, socially, I have to.

Looking at Trump's time in office and his administration vs. Kamala

Trump, on multiple occasions, tried to get rid of the affordable care act

Trump cut down on medicaid

Trump administration had proposals to reduce social security and supplemental security income

Trump's budget proposals included SNAP (food stamps)

Gave tax cuts to corporations

Trump opposed raising the minimum wage

Trump has had multiple sexual assault/harrassment allegations against him during and after his time in office

During covid-19, Trump downplayed the virus and resisted public health efforts

Although I am pro-life and I believe life begings at conception and many values align with those traditionally seen in Catholicism, I truly believe that the extremist bans many conservative politicians are proposing can and will affect not only healthcare access but also the quality which is already not the greatest for women in particular. For example, I am being Catholic, I do not particularly agree with using contraceptives. However, I myself do take birth control pills for medical reasons. I worry that my right to take them could be affected by bans that are being proposed by politicians.

Furthermore, I do not agree with Trump's actions or his character. Being a disabled woman, he has done harmful things.

In 2015, he mocked a disabled journalist, Serge Kovaleski

He has, on many occasions, compared women to "fat pigs" and "dogs"

Many or most of us are aware of his comment stating to "grab her by the p**sy"

He has referred to African nations has "shithole countries"

During his time in office, he prevented transgender people from serving in the military

Let's look at some of the things Kamala has done and supported

Advocated for healthcare access and protecting disability rights

Supported economic policies aimed at the working class

Addresses racial inequality, police and criminal justice reforms

Advocates for women's rights, including but not limited to childcare, workplace equality, and gender equality

I'm not saying that Kamala is the greatest politician in existence. Her track record as a district attorney can most certainly attest for that. She's had her problematic moments, but we can find that in essentially every politician. Not a single one of them will be perfect. But if we look at the bigger picture and compare them, I'd rather take my chances on Kamala.

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

Kategate is nuts. It has a whiff of decadence, too. I can’t be the only person wondering what it says about our country that so many people have oodles of time to scrutinise a pic like jumped-up Columbos. Do people work? ‘This photo raises even more questions about Kate’s health and whereabouts!’, The kate truthers cry. No it doesn’t. Your obsession with it raises questions about your sanity, though..

Leave Kate Middleton alone

12 March 2024, 12:25p Brendan O’Neill

Well done everyone for ruining Mother’s Day for the Princess of Wales. I hope you’re proud of yourselves. A young-ish mum posts a lovely photo of herself surrounded by her beaming kids and instead of saying ‘Ahh’ you pore over it like lunatic sleuths for signs of villainous photoshopping. End result: mum issues an apology. For doing something sweet. On Mother’s Day. You all need to get off the internet.

The obsession with that pic of Catherine and her three children has become unhinged. It’s still on the front pages of the papers. ‘PICTURE OF CHAOS’, screams the Mirror. Oh behave. There’s war in Europe and the Middle East, an energy crisis, a lame-duck government waddling to defeat and people waiting five days in A&E to see a nurse, and you’re still yapping about a princess slightly misaligning her daughter’s sleeve while editing a family photo? 

Kategate is nuts. It has a whiff of decadence, too. I can’t be the only person wondering what it says about our country that so many people have oodles of time to scrutinise a pic like jumped-up Columbos. Do people work? ‘This photo raises even more questions about Kate’s health and whereabouts!’, the Kate truthers cry. No it doesn’t. Your obsession with it raises questions about your sanity, though.

Hypocrisy is at play. I bet you every one of the hacks writing breathless reports about Kate’s scandalous doctoring of a photo have on occasion filtered themselves into oblivion for profile pics on social media. Everyone does. Colour added to pallid faces, crow’s feet trimmed, blemishes erased. I thought we all knew that pretty much every photo we see online – whether of celebrity or civilian – has been touched up in some way?

The way people are banging on about the princess’s photoshopping – which caused tiny...

Joe Biden is the presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic Party after his victory overnight in the Georgia primary pushed him passed the threshold of 1,968 delegates.

Donald Trump also passed the threshold of 1,215 delegates.

[kyouka-supremacy]

Okay about Beast sskk; because I realized I've got a very definite picture of what the Beast post-canon is like that is only in my mind and I never actually put down, so here we go. Very needed content warning of sickeningly fluff and Beast sskk being disgustingly in love with each other, I suppose.

After Dazai killed himself, Atsushi is reasonably tormented, and can't sleep at night. Roaming across Yokohama late at night, he always ends up at Akutagawa's– instinctively, unconsciously, to an extent even unwillingly. He doesn't choose to, it's more about countless nights unable to sleep spent wandering with no destination and still always finding himself in front of Akutagawa's place for some reason. Akutagawa somehow always knowing when it's going to happen so that he can face him before Atsushi has time to hesitate and run away. How they don't really need words or explanations most of the time, how for Atsushi knowing that there's another person who understands is enough, and everything he needs. How before Atsushi realizes it (and thus keeping him from trying and prevent it), Akutagawa's house has become the only place where he can fall asleep.

That's how they start living together before even being together. They might not even have an actual “getting together” moment, you know? The development of their relationship is so natural and spontaneous, it was meant to end that way from the beginning. Besides, Beast sskk don't really need words between them, so... I suppose an actual confession, albeit nice, would be almost superfluous.

Soon enough they move together to a small apartment near the ada (I'm assuming Atsushi has still enough money saved from his old job). Against popular belief, with time it kind of crystallized in me the idea that Atsushi wouldn't join the ada? His life to that point has constantly been doused by violence and pain and death, he deserves a long break to cope with all the trauma; throwing him right back to another environment where he's constantly pushed to fight and use his ability would not do any good to his mental health; especially when he's got such a conflictual and hating relationship with Byakko, even worse than it is in canon. I wasn't kidding about the house husband thing. Beast Atsushi stays home and chills down and is safe and away from all major sources of stress and triggering environments. Slowly, with time, he goes out more often, gradually relearns what normality is supposed to be like, and bit by bit all his traumatic experiences get more distant, and the nightmares more rare. Akutagawa follows up with his ada job– obviously! There's a whole deal in the end about how important it is for him to keep doing his job and trying to be good. I do believe the ada is the right place for Akutagawa. He returns home to Atsushi who always welcomes him with warmth and joy, and they cuddle a lot.

But I also believe that there would be times when Atsushi is required to go back to action and fight– he's not a member of the ada and he doesn't work for them, but it's obvious that when the ada is in danger and Yokohama is facing serious threats, the guild and the rats and ultimately the doa, the times will call for his intervention. He usually comes to help or rescue Akutagawa, a trump card of sorts. And it's endearing, how Akutagawa is always the one, even among the ada, most contrary on getting Atsushi involved, how he wants to protect him and keep him away, how more than anything he wants him to be safe. As for Atsushi, I really like the concept of this man who retired from action, that spends most of his time at home or chatting with the seniors in the neighborhood, who joins the fight only when the situation is most desperate and reveals himself to be the most powerful and destructive beast to have ever walked on earth. He reluctantly fights, and together with Akutagawa they end up saving the day for everyone, because as Dazai himself said nothing can stop the both of them together.

On the other hand, when the world isn't ending Atsushi solves that very specific role of crime drama protagonist's husband who's very supportive of their partner and listens to them ramble at home about their cases. He often offers useful insights on how criminal organizations work.

Atsushi didn't replace his collar after it broke. They're barely visible under his turtleneck, but he has now wrapped bandages in its place: to hide his scars, to keep the memory of Dazai with him everywhere he goes, to remember what he's lost but also what he's gained.

Ah, and when it comes to the fight against Fukuchi, Atsushi is the one to die for Akutagawa, of course.

Headcanons that directly contradict something stated above but that I still like:

Sskk get together after six months– it's got an ironic taste to it, the timestamp their canon counterparts set to kill each other now being the time they declared their love to each other. It's so soon, but also is it really? They immediately clicked the moment they met each other, and they were always destined to be. At that point, there's no one in the world they need more than they need each other.

In case of Atsushi still wearing the collar for some time after the canon events: sskk had their first kiss when Atsushi took the collar off for the first time. Ever since Dazai died, Atsushi is haunted and unstable; he's throughout scared of taking off the collar, terrified by the idea of hurting someone unintentionally, now that Dazai can't be there to controll him (both through his ability and by the general power he used to have over Atsushi's psyche). Akutagawa sees how much Atsushi is physically hurting, and insists on him taking the collar off; they fight over it for months (verbally, for the most part, except for a couple of times when the fights become physical– but without abilities), before Akutagawa finally manages to convince Atsushi to take it off for a few hours. When they're alone, because after months of being persuaded, Atsushi can trust Akutagawa to be able to defend himself; and also something about “you would never hurt me”. Thing is, when Atsushi finally takes it off, he quickly spirals into a HUGE panic attack, not able to trust himself not to harm the people he cares about; and the only person around is Akutagawa, and he cares about him deeply. The tiger is taking over, and Akutagawa is panicking, and he's desperately looking for a way to quickly ground Atsushi so he just. Kisses him. Which effectively works in the way it immediately distracts Atsushi, as well as causes him to zone out for several minutes. Akutagawa immediately apologizes, and then panics again when Atsushi doesn't answer for a while. It's kinda cute. After that, Atsushi gradually learns to take his collar off more and more often; this time, he can really trust that, if Akutagawa is with him, everything is going to be okay.

[mariacallous]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/17/samuel-alito-leonard-leo-gloria-von-thurn-und-taxis-napa-institute

Well then.

The supreme court justice Samuel Alito and a German aristocrat and “networker of the far right” from whom Alito accepted expensive concert tickets, are both linked to an ultra-conservative Catholic US group whose board members include the dark money impresario Leonard Leo and the founder of a hardline anti-abortion Christian group, documentation reviewed by the Guardian shows.

In 2018, Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, told the New York Times about attending a dinner hosted in Rome by James Harvey, an American cardinal and hardliner, and sponsored by the Napa Institute, a group founded by Timothy R Busch, a conservative Catholic businessman and political activist.

Leo, 59, is an activist and fundraiser who worked on the confirmations of all six rightwing justices who now dominate the supreme court, Alito among them. Now controlling billions of dollars in funding for rightwing groups, Leo is a director of the Napa Institute Legal Foundation, also known as Napa Legal Institute, and the Napa Institute Support Foundation.

Also among Napa Legal Institute directors is Alan Sears, founder of the Alliance Defending Freedom. The ADF was the principal driver of Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case in which the supreme court ended the federal right to abortion, with Alito writing the ruling handed down in June 2022.

In 2017, the Napa Institute hosted a two-day symposium at the Trump hotel in Washington, during which Alito attended a dinner.

Writing for the Washington Post, John Gehring, an author and reporter, said the symposium “mixed traditional Catholic religious practices with moments that felt uncomfortably nationalistic”, including a “reading in the rosary booklet from [the Confederate general] Robert E Lee that [seemed] … stunningly insensitive at best … at a time when the ‘alt-right’ and white nationalism are basking in the glow of renewed attention and proximity to power”.

Alito is not the only supreme court justice with links to the Napa Institute. In September 2021, as part of a series sponsored by the group, Justice Clarence Thomas spoke at the University of Notre Dame.

“The court was thought to be the least dangerous branch and we may have become the most dangerous,” Thomas said, attacking judges he deemed to be “venturing into areas we should not have entered into” – meaning politics.

Thomas and Alito, however, have been the subject of numerous reports about undeclared gifts from rightwing donors, fueling an ethics crisis now stoked by news of Alito’s acceptance of concert tickets valued at $900 from von Thurn und Taxis.

Von Thurn und Taxis, 64, is a former punk turned billionaire, also known as Princess TNT, with close links to the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. News of her gift to Alito was accompanied by reporting of further links between the two, including a picture of Alito and another rightwing justice, Brett Kavanaugh, posing at the supreme court in 2019 with the German socialite; Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, a German hardliner; and Brian Brown, a prominent US anti-LGBTQ+ campaigner.

Von Thurn und Taxis told German media that Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann, attended a concert at her castle in Bavaria last year as “private friends”. In emails to the Guardian, the aristocrat clarified: “We never speak about politics nor religion at the table, because we believe it limits the possibility to make friends.”

The socialite, who rejects the label “networker of the far right”, also said it would “never occur” to her to speak about “touchy subjects” like abortion with someone she knew socially, and claimed not to know that “the Dobbs decision” referred to the supreme court abortion rights ruling written by Alito.

In a speech at the National Conservatism Conference in Brussels last April, von Thurn und Taxis said European leaders were “financ[ing] the killing of our offspring” in an apparent reference to the availability of reproductive rights in Europe. She added: “Does this make any sense? Is there some kind of racism? Are we not supposed to reproduce?”

Alito and his wife have also been outspoken about abortion and other hot-button cultural issues. In June, the progressive activist Lauren Windsor released recordings in which Justice Alito agreed that the US should “return … to a place of godliness” and said, “I don’t know that we can negotiate with the left”. Regarding her supposed persecution from those on the left, his wife said: “Look at me, look at me. I’m German. I’m from Germany. My heritage is German. You come after me, I’m gonna give it back to you.”

Caroline Ciccone, president of Accountable.US, which campaigns for court reform and which highlighted links between the German socialite, the Napa Institute and Alito, said: “When a supreme court justice like Samuel Alito pals around with influential rightwing figures like Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis and Leonard Leo, it raises concerns about fairness and impartiality.

“These relationships aren’t just about gifts. They reflect a deeper effort to manipulate our legal system in ways that could impact the rights of everyday people.”

Ciccone added, “What’s disturbing is that this happens behind closed doors – at parties at the Bavarian castle – away from public scrutiny. We’re talking about relationships that can affect everything, from reproductive rights to environmental protections” – both the subject of recent supreme court rulings widely seen as victories for the political right.

“The American people deserve a judiciary that serves justice impartially,” Ciccone said, “not one that can be bought.”

[advancedgalaxyy]

#1

Hello, I understand there is a lot happening with US politics right now. As a queer person myself with family from another country I am scared too. I want to offer resources to all of you that may be struggling to cope with the result of the election. Listed will be ways to contact the government to express concern, keep people around you safe, support for those who are suicidal, and much more. Hotlines/Suicide Hotlines Call Blackline: 800-604-5841 ~ Centers BI&POC, LGBTQ+ Black Femme Lens Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860 (US), 877-330-6366 (Canada) ~ Run by and for Trans people. Wildflower Alliance Peer Support Line: 888-407-4515 ~ Trained peer supporters. StrongHearts Native Helpline: 844-762-8483 ~ Centering Native Americans & Alaska Natives Thrive Lifeline: 313-662-8209 ~Trans-led and operated. LGBT National Help Center: 888-843-4564 More resources: InclusiveTherapists.com/crisis Hotlines that May Call the Cops LGBTQ Trevor Project Lifeline: 866-488-7386 (Call), 678-678 Text "START", Trevor Project Website National Suicide Crisis Hotline: 988 (Call), PRIDE (Text) Ways to Save Lives (Yours and Others) If you know anybody who may be Trans you can still respect them in private, in public you will not know they were trans. Do something productive to distract you or somebody else from the current chaos, either by drawing a picture, reading a book, learning to bake, or even playing board games. Never mention possible pregnancy/abortion to anybody, not even through social media apps. Delete any and all period tracking apps and start using a planner or physical calendar. Book appointments for a form of birth control (if possible), or to always carry condoms for yourself and others. Look into sterilization options if that's what you're going for (A list of 1000 doctors who will sterilize you, no fight necessary) Protect anybody around you who may be harmed/affected by new policies. Remind loved one that you are there for them. Remind stressed relatives/friends that not all votes have been counted and there is a large push for a recount, Trump will need 2/3 of senate (60)/ 2/3 of the house of representatives (290)/ 3/4 of the states (38) to push for anything truly major. Places to Donate National Network of Abortion Funds Trans Law Center Other Ways to Improve Life Tiktok will be banned, look for other social media sites. Learn to garden as prices for items will skyrocket, especially in winter. Get an air purifier, The Clean Air Act will most likely be stripped of its power. Supply your children with history/social studies education. (If you have any) Do your best to be aware of your health before January. Contact the US government/Ensure your Vote/ETC Ensure your vote is counted via Vote Curing Visit the ALCU (The ALCU is an organization that specifically fights back against harmful laws and bills - They fought Trump off Rapidly during his first presidency and they're overall good for keeping track of resources and similar things.) 1) https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ 2) Submit directly to the president. 3) Click/Type your reasoning as, "Election Security" 4) State these reasons in a paragraph, "32 fake bomb threats were called into democratic leaning poll places; rendering polls to be closed for at least an hour, this all occurred in swing states (PA, Nevada, Georgia, ETC.), this is all too coincidental that these things happen and swing in his favor after months of hints of foul play, a lot of people reporting their ballots weren't counted for various reasons that are not very sound seeming (Signature Invalidation, Information that voter could not have had), directly state that an investigation for tampering/interference/fraud is required; not just a recount." 5) *Optional* Use a template, "I would like to add my voice in the call for a re-vote/recount of the 2024 presidential election.

[watermelonsloth]

naruto was the hokage but shikamaru was the one running konoha all the time, so it was like naruto wasn't really the hokage but the face. he was there to fight and play the hero but never to run anyone. he would just say “put the police at my house on watch” but nothing else (he's the ninja with the best sensory abilities in the world but the poor guy couldn't handle it).

a hokage needs to be someone outside to protect the village like the trump card. no one chooses a weak hokage no matter how good a leader he may be, he needs to have some defensive skills. that's why they even have two assistants/advisors. for naruto it was shikamaru the main one and then shizune who lived for two reigns, but shizune was removed to put her as sakura's assistant instead.

a hokage needs to be a konoha shinobi and needs to go through all ninja stages genin (beginner), chunin (team leaders above average ninja) and jonin (military large scale leaders and elite ninja). naruto left, he's good a talk-no-jutsu and he wanted to surpass the other kage and be acknowledged and he did.

shikamaru, sakura, rock lee, neji (rip), temari and hanabi, the main konoha jonin have these skills. team ebisu too but they're frauds who are very weak.

shikamaru made it to jonin which means he's cut out for military level leadership, so hundreds and thousands of people. he is made to lead others to victory, to save people if his friends help him with their combat capabilities. that is why he is an excellent advisor, he relies on others while he's the mastermind.

idk if you read boruto but having a weak hokage is the reason why konoha is doing so extremely bad right now. shikamaru is an amazing leader, the best in konoha, but he is physically weak and in real combat he is useless unless he already knows his enemy's abilities and has some good teammates to help him. he should have stayed as advisor and have the hokage be kakashi again or better sakura, who has the most powerful defensive ability in the world with katsuyu (the village will be destroyed pain level).

sasuke is a good choice. he has been a good leader of taka, he's the strongest shinobi in the world next to naruto and he's also leader material but only in battle. sasuke doesn't have the patience to talk to daimyo or do business, inaugurate a building, take pictures, etc. he fights for others but he is not cut out to lead an evacuation without jumping right into the action. he's not cut out for a chair either, neither were naruto or kakashi for that matter (kakashi always begged to leave his office). they're men of action.

he would be great if he also wasn't too haunted by his previous ideals of what hokage meant and moved forward (kishimoto's sasuke would move on) but he's also the kind of man that wouldn't do it alone unless it's with naruto or his teammates, like he does now as shadow hokage.

and while sakura is also a woman of action, she's more cut out to be hokage. not just because her two masters are hokage, but also because her training and her lifestyle are more suited for combat and office duties. she's used to working in a hospital since she finished her training with tsunade and was already vaunted as the top 3 as a teenager, to handling tsunade's paperwork while she was hokage, to being present in the office when important matters had to be discussed and giving her opinion, she founded her own mental health clinic so she knows how to handle for the public, etc.

she also made it to jonin, the only k12 with shikamaru and rock lee, which contrary to her chunin comrades who lead small teams of 4 to 5 shinobi, the three are military leaders. sakura is one of 4 (counting temari) who can lead and protect a village. they're large scale leaders and sakura was already aiding shizune handle the several injured in her camp, and when she was promoted she was already leading teams of medics she chose on her own. she's currently the head of a whole department and a hospital full of people. she's leading a mini konoha inside the walls of the hospital, inside her office but also acting on her duties herself.

also, kishimoto said of team 7 sakura would be the best instructor.

I’m gonna assume that this is a response to my post about Naruto not being a good leader and that you sent this as an ask because you wanted a response of some kind. If not, feel free to ignore this.

Here are my ramblings about the Hokage and what I think makes a good one.

Just to make my thought process easier to understand, I’m gonna do a quick rundown of what I interpret the responsibilities of the Hokage to be. (Keep in mind, I’m taking this from the Naruto manga, a little from Boruto, and nothing from the novels.) Because I’m American and this is the easiest way for me to wrap my head around how the village works, I think of the Hokage as being a mix of the shogun from when Japan had shogunates and the president. So, basically: they have full or mostly full control of the military, they (theoretically) answer to the daimyo, they don’t make or pass laws but they play a large role in enforcing them, they aren’t diplomats but they are expected to maintain relations and support major political alliances, they are public figures both to represent Konoha/the Land of Fire and to act as deterrents to war (and thus can’t be pushovers in skill or personality), they decide how dissenters are dealt with, they’re responsible for maintaining national security, they command forces during war time, they stay in the village to protect it against threat, etc. etc. etc.

TL;DR A good Hokage is someone who’s good at politics, a skilled military commander, and isn’t someone people want to fuck with.

For the most part, the Hokage fit this well.

Hashirama is a charismatic leader who was commanding the Senju clan for who knows how long before building the village, and he’s so strong that he can get away with his goofball antics. Plus, we know from his fight against Madara at the Valley of the End that he is not a pushover, knows when it’s time to get serious, and is absolutely not afraid to be ruthless.

Tobirama is Tobirama. He’s far from being a pushover, seems like a Lyndon-Johnson-esque political leader who’s willing to step on a few toes and use intimidation if he deems it necessary, has about as much experience as a shinobi as Hashirama and likely acted as a general during the warring states era, and even if he isn’t as strong as his brother, he’s still smart enough and has enough variety in his skillset that most shinobi aren’t gonna want to fight him.

Hiruzen is liked by the people of Konoha (and probably the daimyo) and is strong enough to protect the village in case of an emergency. However, it also seems like he isn’t a good leader and doesn’t bring the intimidation factor a Hokage should (at least from what we’ve seen, this could’ve been different when he was in his prime). I think he got away with lacking in those areas for three reasons: 1. Konoha had many jounin/rising shinobi who were more competent leaders than him (the three sannin, Sakumo, Minato, Fugaku, Shikaku, etc.) who could cover for his failings on the field. 2. Hiruzen was following Hashirama and Tobirama (two stronger and much more intimidating Hokage), so villages would’ve been hesitant about messing with Konoha even if Hiruzen wasn’t a walking deterrent like they were. 3. Danzo covered his weaknesses (say what you want about him, but Danzo was the head of anbu, knew how to get what he wanted, and had enough of a presence that even Tsunade didn’t want to get in his way too much).

I think I’ve made my point enough that I don’t need to get into Minato and Tsunade, so let’s get back on topic and talk about the characters you brought up.

I’ve already mentioned that I don’t think Naruto would make a good Hokage. He’s definitely strong enough that defending the village/intimidating other nations wouldn’t be a problem and with some more maturing I can see him being able to act as a political figure, but I’ve already said that he isn’t much of a leader and I doubt he’ll ever not get restless being cooped up in the village doing the day-to-day work.

When it comes to Sasuke, I think that he could be Hokage since he meets all of the requirements, but he wouldn’t be the best because of his personality. I think he could be a reasonably good public figure and handle the more tedious parts of being Hokage fine, if he thought they were important. If he thought they were necessary or would have a positive impact, he could do all of those things fine; but he probably wouldn’t bother with them at all if he didn’t see the point. There’s also a problem with what he would find important because, like Naruto, he tends to treat important matters as personal responsibilities. That’s fine if he’s off wandering the world alone or if he’s on a small team, but that doesn’t work if he’s supposed to be running an entire system’s worth of people.

Shikamaru and Sakura would make bad candidates for similar reasons. Yes, they both meet certain requirements and I can see why people think they’d work—both can be very charismatic when they need to be and they take charge when the situation calls for it or they’re personally motivated to, Shikamaru is probably the best strategist in the series, and Sakura has the strength and skills to protect the village in case of emergency—but people also tend to overestimate how much charge they actually take. Shikamaru only acts as a leader when he’s ordered to and when Asuma died; Sakura only acts as a leader when nobody else can or will. They also both tend to abandon those leadership positions as soon as someone they think is more qualified steps up to the plate. Basically, they’re both too much of pushovers to act as Hokage (hence why I think they work much better as enforcers or advisors). If either were to be Hokage, it would have to be a Hiruzen situation where they have someone right next to them to cover their blind spots.

(Also, I’m not sure why you brought up Kishimoto saying that Sakura would be the best teacher of team seven because that’s a fundamentally different career path.)

As for Kakashi, I’d actually say that he makes a damn good Hokage. He has years of experience working closely with previous Hokage and leading different teams, he has the notoriety to act as a deterrent, he has the skill to protect the village, he knows how to get (very important) people to listen to him, he knows when and how to make difficult decisions, he takes charge at a moments notice, he maintains self control and levelheadedness under pressure, he asks for second opinions and knows when he can/should rely on others, he is stubborn in his beliefs but he still knows how to compromise, and he’s incredibly smart. He knocks it out of the park in all categories, even personality. If I had to choose someone to be Hokage in Naruto’s place, it would be Kakashi. The main issue with him being Hokage is that he doesn’t want to be the Hokage.

[lasttarrasque]

Typical American

Making everything about yourselves

This is so funny to me because I think your trying to make the argument that the US isn't explicitly invested in overthrowing the government of Venezuela in order to expand it's imperialist reach, like it should be clear to everyone, even if you are not familiar with Venezuelan history, just how ridicules of a argument that is.

Like here is an article about how former national security adviser John Bolton admitted to planning to overthrow the government of Venezuela.

Like the US has a placed extreme deadly sanctions and embargos on Venezuela for years now, and is only ramping them up after Venezuelan people once again refused to open their country up the US oil before. And before anyone says "they are because Muraro is a dictator" remember that the US has no problem with the absolute monarchies of the gulf states. We had no qualms about installing Augusto Pinochet. If these sanctions are really about democracy, then why are they not applied to the Gulf Monarchies? These sanctions are not something to brush off by the way, according to a report from the Centre for Economic and Policy Research back in 2019, the sanctions have cost the lives of some 40,000 people, many of them children (who are most venerable to poverty-based health problems such as malnutrition and disease) due to forced poverty. Since then, many, many more people have died, and as the US further ramps up these sanctions, things will only get worse.

Furthermore the history of US imperialist interventions in South America should be well known to just about anyone, the following is an (outdated) map detailing most of the US military interventions in South America and the Caribbean.

Ofc it's not just military interventions, the US has also supported both rightwing candidates and right wing death squads throughout the years. For example the US provided Juan Guaidó (former opposition leader) $52 million in a clear case of foreign election interference (that does not sound very democratic) as detailed in this artical (an artical which learly has zero love for Mudaro).

I could go on but I think you get the picture

[shootingstarpilot]

Another great reason to vote for Harris is the mpox virus. It is a virus similar to smallpox that is currently causing a public health emergency in Africa, and it might become the next global pandemic. And we all remember how poorly Trump handled the last pandemic. And mpox is far scarier than Covid. To get an idea of what it could be like, look up pictures of smallpox patients. Please, vote for Harris to spare this country from Trump’s incompetency. If he gets in the White House, he will do just as horrible a job of handling the mpox pandemic as he did with Covid.

This is an excellent point.

Y'all, if you're not watching the DNC, try to catch at least a bit. I have been reeling over the past few days, almost dizzy with a foreign type of glee. This is the first political convention I've ever made an effort to watch, and I don't regret a single second of it. In the face of... everything, it's so nice to remind myself to make room for joy.

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Newsom warns of ‘forces of darkness’ ahead of presidential debate

The California governor repeatedly blasted Republicans and suggested the country is on the brink of fascism.

Newsom warns of ‘forces of darkness’ in State of the State video

By Lara Korte

06/25/2024 01:32 PM EDT

SACRAMENTO, California — Gov. Gavin Newsom struck a somber tone in his annual remarks to Californians on Tuesday, warning that the state’s democratic values are at stake while taking the opportunity to castigate Republican opponents for rolling back reproductive rights and failing to pass meaningful immigration reform.

“This year, we face another extraordinary moment in history — for California, for the country, and for the world,” he said. “We are presented with a choice between a society that embraces our values and a world darkened by division and discrimination.”

For a State of the State address, Newsom’s speech leaned heavily into national issues, playing up his role as a surrogate for President Joe Biden ahead of the first presidential debate with Donald Trump on Thursday. Newsom opened with a “warning from the past,” harkening back to 1939 Europe when the forces of fascism were spreading across the continent and then-Gov. Culbert Olson implored Californians to preserve civil liberties and democratic institutions.

The second-term governor has increasingly positioned himself as an attack dog for national Democrats while batting down questions of whether he himself would challenge Biden for the White House in 2024.

Newsom’s pre-recorded remarks were intercut with images and videos — including a picture of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis popping up as Newsom mentioned “California bashers.”

The speech echoed Democrats’ national talking points in a stark and dramatic fashion — accusing “extreme” Republicans of lying to women to control their bodies with draconian policies and characterizing residents of red states as fugitives, fleeing from abortion laws written by men a century ago.

“We are protecting women, medical providers, doctors and health care facilities from the forces of darkness in this country,” he said.

The governor also emphasized California’s status as a border state, arguing Congressional Republicans have chosen cynicism, partisanship and chaos instead of doing their job.

“Republicans in Congress, when presented with an opportunity to assist border states, have turned their backs,” Newsom said.

As an avid consumer of conservative media, Newsom also sought to settle the score with detractors, defending the blue state’s efforts to curb homelessness and crime. The governor touted the billions of dollars California has spent on housing and homelessness since he took office in 2019 and his efforts to hold local governments accountable.

He also slammed red states for criticizing California’s crime rates while dealing with high homicide rates of their own, criticizing what he described as “wall-to-wall right-wing media coverage about lawless blue cities and blue states.”

Throughout the speech, Newsom sought to position California as a “beacon” of American exceptionalism and civil liberties — arguing it was Democratic policies that made it that way.

“There’s only one state in America with a dream — the California Dream,” he said. “It’s a dream built on opportunity, a dream built on pushing boundaries and celebrating, not merely ‘tolerating,’ diversity.”

Filed under:

California,

Gavin Newsom,

2024 Presidential Debates,