#U.S Special Representative

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[filosofablogger]

Filosofa Rants (Just a Little Bit)

At 3:00 on Thursday afternoon, the U.S. House of Representatives adjourned for the weekend.  On Thurdsay.  After a completely non-productive short work week.  When I worked for a living, if my work wasn’t done by Friday afternoon, then I took work home and/or came into the office on Saturday, and often Sunday as well.  The goal was to get the job done and done right.  That’s what they paid me to…

[soon-palestine]

We write this call from our student movement in the Gaza Strip, from the heart of occupied Palestine, from under the brutal Zionist bombing, explosions, and the clutches of the monstrous nightmare of death that lurks around us in every corner, house, and street.

We raise it from prison cells, from beneath the destruction, and from inside the rubble, to send it to our fellow students, our comrades, brothers and sisters, in all the universities, schools and institutes of the world everywhere, & we address the global student movement… that was launched in order to stop the genocidal war that is being engineered and financed by the governments of the United States, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia and others… this courageous student movement that was born in the universities as an integral part of our struggle, that expresses the conscience of students and peoples who yearn for justice and freedom.

We in the Gaza Strip look at you with pride and honour, as you are a revolutionary fighting vanguard, and a natural and integral part of our Palestinian liberation movement. You have come in a resounding, honest and clear response against the Israeli massacres and those who finance them, confronting the companies of the Zionist war of genocide and ethnic cleansing that have claimed the lives of thousands of Palestinian students of all ages… including hundreds of struggling Palestinian student cadres, wounded and imprisoned, in addition to our great loss in the martyrdom of our professors and teachers, and the destruction of our universities, institutes and schools.

Today, we call on you, from the midst of massacres and siege, to a new revolutionary phase of comprehensive escalation. We call on you to raise the pace and ceiling of your struggle and your honorable stances, quantitatively and qualitatively, against the institutions, corporations, and governments that participate in the slaughter of our children, our students, and our people.. In Rafah, Jabalia, Khan Younis, and the entire Gaza Strip, and against the settler gangs, armies of Zionist killers, that commit their crimes in camps, cities and villages in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. We call on you to besiege the White House in Washington, and to surround Western colonial governments and Zionist embassies, and the corporations that finance the Zionist entity and arm its criminal army with all kinds of bombs and means of death and destruction. These criminal colonial symbols represent the forces that support “Israel” to kill us – with your tax money and the money spent at complicit corporations, to destroy our homes, our society, and our future.

Therefore, we call on you to blockade them until the American Zionist aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip stops. At the same time, we renew our call to the teaching, academic, and union bodies in universities, as well as cultural, academic, and scientific figures, to advocate for and support student movements until they achieve their goals. Today we turn to high school students all over the world to participate widely in the struggles and activities of the university student movement, organizing demonstrations, and organizing educational days about the Palestinian struggle for liberation and return.

Secondary schools constitute a strong fortress and a great support for university students everywhere. Once again, we send special greetings to our brothers and sisters, the students of Palestine in the diaspora.

We greet our comrades and colleagues in Students for Justice in Palestine, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Palestine Action, and the academic boycott and divestment campaigns, and we salute everyone who participated and participates in student encampments. The duty and responsibility of Palestinian students in the Gaza Strip and all of occupied Palestine is steadfastness, commitment, resistance, unity, and alignment with the resistance and the people… …until the U.S. – Zionist aggression stops and the occupation is defeated and removed from our land — all our land, from the river to the sea.

Long live the struggle of Palestine’s students for return and liberation.

Long live international solidarity. And together we will be victorious!

Secretariat of Palestinian Student Frameworks – Gaza Strip

(available in AR original, EN, ES, FR, NL, DE)

https://samidoun.net/2024/05/a-call-from-the-palestinian-student-movement-in-gaza-time-for-revolutionary-escalation-of-the-global-intifada/

[qqueenofhades]

I suddenly thought of an interesting question. What is the purpose of democracy? Is it democracy for democracy's sake? democracy exists to protect human rights. Voting is one of the most typical expressions of democracy, but if, due to the tyranny of the majority—the so-called ‘will of the people’—the human rights of the country’s citizens are actually severely harmed (as in the case of this U.S. election), what then? Does democracy, at this stage, still have any meaning to uphold?I mean, suppose, at this moment, one party were to take power through undemocratic means, such as election manipulation, a coup, or assassination, but this party’s policies were, comparatively, more protective of human rights than the opposing party’s. From an objective standpoint of justice, should it be supported at this stage?🤔

I think this is indeed an interesting question and I'll try to answer it in two parts.

First, the idea that "democracy exists to protect human rights" is a considerably recent idea, and doesn't actually figure much into classical expressions/conceptions of democracy. As it was originally practiced in Athens, it had nothing to do with safeguarding the rights of marginalized groups (indeed, if anything, the opposite). It was just a system where groups of people, i.e. property-owning citizen men, were allowed to make decisions collectively, but it was still able to be adjourned at any time for a despot (in the classical sense) to resume autocratic authority. It just means a system in which the people (demos) have authority (kratia). That means, therefore, who constitutes as a "person" under the law is one of the longest-running questions (and struggles) in the entire history of the concept.

As it was then thought about in the Enlightenment and the 18th-century context in which the founding fathers wrote the US Constitution, "democracy" was very much the same idea of a small group of "worthy" but ordinary men making decisions in a quasi-elected framework, rather than as a single inherited monarchy. There was still no particular idea that "human rights" was a goal, and would have been foreign to most political theorists. There was an emerging idea of "natural rights" wherein man (and definitely man) was a specially rational creature who had a right to have a say in his government, but yet again, that depended on who was viewed as qualified to have that say. (The answer being, again, white property-owning Christian men.) There have been many constitutional law papers written on how much the founding fathers trusted the American electorate (not very) and how the American government was deliberately designed to work inefficiently in order to slow down the implementation of possibly-stupid decisions (but therefore also potentially-helpful ones). The Electoral College, aside from being an attempt to finesse the slavery question (did slaves count as people for purposes of allotting House representatives? James Madison famously decided they counted as three-fifths of a person), was a further system of indirect republicanism. Likewise, US Senators were not popularly elected on a secret ballot, the same as the president, until the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1913.

Of course at the same time in the 19th-early 20th century, the Civil War, Reconstruction and its end, Jim Crow, women's suffrage movements, were all ongoing, and represented further challenge and revision of what "democracy" meant in the American context, and who counted as a legally recognized person who was thus entitled to have their say in government. It was not until Black people and women began insisting that they did in fact count as people that there was any universal idea of "human rights" as expressed in popular democratic systems. This further developed in the 20th century in the world war context, and then in the decolonization waves in the 1950s and 1960s that dismantled European imperialism and gave rise to a flood of new nation-states. Etc. etc., the Civil Rights movement in America, the gay rights movement starting with Stonewall, and further expansion of who was seen as a person not just in the physical but the legal and actionable sense.

That's why we have political philosophy concepts of "electoral" and "liberal" democracies, and why they're not quite the same. In an electoral democracy, people have the right to vote on and elect their leaders, but there may be less protection of associated "liberal" rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of expression and assembly, and other characteristics that we think of in terms of protected groups and individual rights. Liberal democracies make a further commitment to protect those rights in addition to the basic principle of voting on your leaders, but as noted, democracy does not inherently protect them and if you have a system where a simple majority vote of 49% can remove rights from the other 48%, you have a problem. Technically, it's still democracy -- the people have voted on it, and one side voted more than the other -- but it's not compatible with justice, which is a secondary question and a whole other debate.

In the modern world, autocrats have often been popularly elected, which is technically a democratic process, but the problem is that once they get there, they start dismantling all the civic processes and safeguards that make the country a democracy, and make it much harder for the opposition to win an election and for power to meaningfully change hands. See for example India (Narendra Modi/BJP), Turkey (Recep Tayyip Erdoğan/AKP), Poland (Jarosław Kaczyński/PiS), Hungary (Viktor Orbán/Fidesz), Russia (Vladimir Putin/United Russia) and America (Donald Trump/GOP). Some of these countries were more democratic than others to start with, but all of them have engaged in either significant democratic erosion or full authoritarian reversion. The US is not -- yet -- at the latter stage, as I have written about the features of the system that make it different from other countries on that list, but it's in the danger zone.

Lastly, the idea of "we're morally better and protect human rights but are willing to launch a coup/assassination/etc of the current government" has been claimed many, many times throughout history. It has never been the case. Not least since if a party in a democratic system, however flawed, is willing to throw aside the core feature of that system, they simply don't respect human rights in any meaningful sense. That's why we kept having "the people's revolutions," especially in the 20th century, that promised to uphold and liberate the working class and all ended up as repressive communist dictatorships functionally indistinguishable from the autocracies or even quasi-democracies they had replaced. In this day and age, does anyone want Online Leftists, who will cancel and viciously attack fellow leftists for tiny disagreements on the internet, deciding that they're going to overthrow the government and announce themselves the great protector of human rights? Aside from the fact that they couldn't do it even if they ever tried and stopped being insane keyboard warriors, I don't think anyone would believe them, and nor should they, because violent antidemocratic groups are bad. This is the sixth-grade level explanation, but it's true.

If you're so drastically committed to your ideology that you're willing to destroy everyone else for not agreeing (and even then, post-revolution, the revolutionaries always start eating each other), then you're not special or enlightened. You're the exact same kind of ideological zealot who has been responsible for most of the worst atrocities throughout history. When "I need to kill for my beliefs but I'll clearly only kill the right people" is your guiding philosophy, the "right people to be killed" quickly expand past any controls or laws. Why not, especially when you've just declared the law to be invalid? Pretty soon you're into death-squads and extrajudicial-assassinations territory, and no matter how soaringly noble your aims were to start with, you've become much worse than what you replaced.

This does not mean "we all have an obligation to obey oppressive governments because the alternative is worse," which has been likewise used by the oppressive governments who benefit from it. It just means that if a democracy is violently overthrown, what emerges from it -- no matter how nice their rhetoric might initially sound -- will invariably be much worse. Winston Churchill famously remarked that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the alternatives, and in this, I tend to agree with him. It sucks, but there's nothing that has yet been invented that can take its place or that has any interest in protecting human rights in the way that 21st-century liberal democracy has generally accepted it has an obligation to do, however partial, flawed, and regressive it can often be. Indeed right now, in this particular historical moment, the only feasible alternative is quite clearly far-right populist fascist theocratic authoritarianism, and that -- for you fortunate Americans who have never lived under anything like that -- is much, much worse. So yeah.

[mediocre-shark-tales]

US Texas GP

Masterlist

Walking into the paddock at the Circuit of the Americas for the first time as a driver at my home Grand Prix was nothing short of surreal. The hum of the crowd, the familiar twang of American accents, and the sea of red, white, and blue paraphernalia felt different—this wasn’t just any race. This was my race.

Billboards and posters with my face adorned the venue, some with bold captions like “Homegrown Talent” or “The Lone Star of Formula 1.” I couldn’t help but smile as fans called out my name, waving signs and flags in support. For all the challenges I’d faced this season, this moment made it worth it.

I’d spent weeks planning my outfit for this race, knowing it would be scrutinized and remembered. I wanted something that paid homage to my American roots but also represented me—a mix of boldness, resilience, and a little flair.

The first piece I chose was the hat: a sharp, black Western hat with a silver band that caught the light with every step I took. Centered on the band was a bull head emblem, strong and unmistakably Texan.

Underneath, I kept it simple with a crisp white shirt, its fabric soft and well-worn, tucked neatly into high-waisted dark denim. The belt was a statement piece—a leather strap with an ornate rodeo buckle that glinted as I moved. Draped over my shoulders was a suede jacket with fringe, its design both practical and eye-catching.

The boots were my favorite part. Worn-in leather, scuffed just enough to show their authenticity, they echoed the long road I’d traveled to get here. And the lasso? A playful touch, slung over one shoulder, reminding everyone that I was here to rope in the competition.

The outfit wasn’t just clothing—it was a statement. It said, This is who I am. Take it or leave it.

As I walked through the paddock, I felt the energy shift. Journalists turned their heads, cameras clicked furiously, and fans cheered louder.

“She’s gone full Texan!” someone shouted, eliciting laughter and applause.

Franco was the first to greet me, his grin as wide as ever. “Hermosa, you’re stealing the show already. Lando’s going to be jealous.”

Lando appeared not far behind, dramatically placing a hand over his heart. “You’ve outdone us all. I should’ve worn a cowboy hat.”

“You couldn’t pull it off,” I teased, adjusting the brim of mine.

“True,” he admitted, with a playful shrug.

As part of the home race experience, my media duties were doubled, if not tripled. I made my way to the press conference room, where a mix of local and international journalists eagerly awaited.

The questions were predictable at first:

“What does it mean to race at your home Grand Prix?” “How do you feel about the fan support here in the U.S.?”

I answered them all with the same passion I’d carried all week. “It’s incredible to see the support from my fellow Americans. Racing here is a dream come true, and I want to make everyone proud.”

But then, as always, the conversation shifted.

“Your outfit today—does it symbolize anything about your journey?”

I smiled, tipping the brim of my hat slightly. “It’s a nod to where I come from. I wanted to bring a little piece of home to the paddock, and, well, I think it worked.”

Another journalist asked, “With all the pressure of a home race, how do you plan to stay focused?”

I paused thoughtfully before answering. “Every race has pressure, but this one is special. I’m not just racing for myself—I’m racing for everyone out there who’s ever been told they couldn’t do something. That’s the focus.”

As the day wore on, I walked the grid with my team, taking in the sights and sounds of the track. The familiar roar of engines echoed in the background, and the smell of rubber on asphalt filled the air.

Fans leaned over barriers, waving hats and flags. Some called out personal messages—encouragement, gratitude, even a few heartfelt wishes of luck.

One little girl, no older than six, caught my eye. She was wearing a tiny cowboy hat and holding a handmade sign that read, “Girls can race too!”

I walked over, crouching to her level. “You’re absolutely right,” I said, signing the brim of her hat. “And one day, I’ll be watching you out here.”

Her eyes lit up, and her parents thanked me profusely. It was a small moment, but it reminded me why I fought so hard to be here.

By the time I returned to my motorhome, the sun was setting, casting a warm orange glow over the paddock. I took a moment to stand on the balcony, looking out at the track. Tomorrow, the real work would begin—practice sessions, debriefs, and the constant grind of preparation.

But for now, I allowed myself a moment to soak it all in. This was my home race, and I was ready to give it everything I had.

The atmosphere in the garage buzzed with energy as I stepped in, already suited up for FP1. It was my only practice session before heading into a jam-packed sprint weekend schedule. With just one hour to learn the track and figure out how the car would handle here in Texas, there was no room for error. Every lap counted.

The familiar weight of my regular helmet rested in my hands as I made my way to my car. This one wasn’t flashy, but it was comfortable—a trusted companion that had been with me all season. I planned to save the special designs for later, where they’d make the biggest impact.

My team had worked closely with me to craft two helmets that truly represented what this weekend meant to me.

For the sprint race, I wanted something bold—something that screamed America without apology. The design featured an angry eagle, its wings stretched wide as it tore through the imagined sound barrier, painted to resemble the American flag. The sunset hues blended seamlessly with the imagery, creating a helmet that felt larger than life.

On the top sat a reimagined Route 66 sign, reshaped into my race number, 66. It wasn’t just a nod to my roots, but a symbol of the journey I’d taken to get here.

The race helmet, however, held an entirely different meaning. It was a replica of Logan Sargeant’s design. Though I didn’t know Logan personally, I respected his journey and the fact that he, too, had carried the weight of representing America on the grid.

We made only subtle changes: swapping out his name and number for mine, adjusting the sponsors to reflect my team, and making sure the craftsmanship was impeccable. I’d asked for it to remain a complete surprise, something for the fans and paddock alike to discover only once I stepped out onto the track.

Sliding into the cockpit, I felt a familiar surge of adrenaline. The team gave me the all-clear, and I fired up the engine. The Texas heat radiated off the tarmac as I rolled out of the garage, ready to get a feel for the track.

The Circuit of the Americas was a beast of a circuit. Long straights, tricky esses, and elevation changes that could throw off anyone not paying attention. But I loved it. There was something about racing in my home country that made me want to push just a little harder, take the corners a little sharper.

FP1 was productive, though not without its challenges. The car felt decent, but there were a few areas where balance issues cropped up. I spent the session giving constant feedback, running through different setups to prepare for both the sprint and the race.

“Car feels a little light in the rear through Sector 1,” I said over the radio after my third lap. “We’ll need to stabilize it for the race pace.”

By the end of the hour, I felt confident. There were still improvements to be made, but I had a solid foundation to work from.

I returned to the garage as the session wrapped up, my mind already switching gears for the upcoming sprint qualifying. With about an hour to spare, I decided to stretch my legs and shake off the lingering tension. The Texas sun was relentless, but the walk between garages helped me cool off while keeping my muscles loose.

With my racing overalls tied around my waist and a water bottle in hand, I jogged lightly from one end of the paddock to the other, weaving through the crowd of team personnel and fans. Just as I rounded a corner, someone barreled straight into me at full speed.

The collision sent me sprawling onto the pavement. I landed hard on my backside, groaning as I caught my breath. The other person, however, was already profusely apologizing, their accent immediately familiar.

“Sorry, sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going!”

I blinked, looking up into the grinning face of none other than Liam Lawson.

“Liam?” I exclaimed, my surprise quickly morphing into delight.

Liam Lawson—the guy I’d been through hell and back with during my karting days, my confidant, my pseudo-brother—stood there, a sheepish grin plastered across his face. We’d been inseparable as kids, supporting each other through the highs and lows of our careers. Even now, as we both fought tooth and nail for a permanent seat in F1, there was never an ounce of jealousy between us. Just unrelenting pride for one another.

Liam extended a hand to help me up, his laughter bubbling over as I dusted myself off. “Fancy seeing you here,” he teased.

I smirked, immediately falling into our usual rhythm of playful banter. “Look who it is—newly promoted F1 driver Liam Lawson. The same guy who conveniently forgot to tell his best friend about said promotion, so she had to hear about it through the media.”

Liam winced dramatically, placing a hand over his chest. “Ouch. Straight for the heart.”

“You deserve it,” I shot back, crossing my arms but unable to hide the grin spreading across my face. “Seriously, Liam, how could you not tell me?”

He scratched the back of his neck, looking genuinely apologetic. “It all happened so fast. I was going to call, I swear, but then everything blew up, and I didn’t want to jinx it.”

I rolled my eyes but couldn’t stay mad at him for long. This was Liam, after all—the same guy who had stayed up all night helping me perfect a karting setup before a big race and had cheered the loudest when I’d landed my reserve driver role.

“Well, I’m proud of you,” I said, pulling him into a quick hug. “Even if you’re a terrible best friend.”

“Thanks,” he said with a laugh, stepping back. “But I’m not that terrible. I brought something for you.”

He reached into his backpack and pulled out a small container. “Hannah made cookies, and she insisted I bring you some.”

I couldn’t help but grin. His girlfriend, Hannah, was amazing—kind, funny, and incredible in the kitchen. She was the one person I could see Liam settling down with, and I secretly hoped they’d make it official someday.

“You’re forgiven,” I said, grabbing the container and popping the lid open to sneak a cookie. “Barely.”

We spent the next few minutes catching up, trading stories and laughs like no time had passed. Seeing Liam here, in this moment, reminded me just how far we’d both come. The journey hadn’t been easy, but having someone like him in my corner made it all worth it.

As the clock ticked closer to sprint qualifying, I reluctantly said goodbye, knowing I had to refocus.

“Good luck out there,” Liam said, clapping me on the shoulder. “Show them why you’re a part of the future of this sport.”

“You too,” I replied with a wink. “And next time, don’t make me find out through a press release, Lawson.”

He laughed, throwing his hands up in mock surrender. “Yes Sir.”

As I jogged back toward my garage, the encounter left me feeling lighter, a renewed sense of determination coursing through me. Having Liam there was a reminder of why I loved this sport and the friendships it had given me along the way. Now, it was time to focus and make the most of my home race weekend.

The moment I strapped back into the car, all the outside noise disappeared. The roar of the crowd, the hum of conversations, even the buzz in the garage faded into the background. It was just me, the machine, and the track ahead. The familiar ritual of adjusting my gloves, checking my visor, and gripping the steering wheel calmed my nerves. I was ready.

The green light for Sprint Qualifying flicked on, and the engines roared to life. The Texas air was dry and crisp, the track shimmering under the afternoon sun. I was hyper-aware of every little detail—the vibrations under my seat, the hum of the car as I weaved through the out-lap, and the occasional crackle of my engineer's voice over the radio.

“Let’s bring it home today, 66. Focus and execute,” my race engineer, Landon, reminded me.

The first run was solid but unspectacular. My times were competitive, but not groundbreaking—hovering around P8. The team made quick adjustments to the car, tweaking the front wing and tire pressures to give me just that little bit more grip. I sat in the cockpit as the mechanics worked around me, closing my eyes and replaying the corners in my head.

Stay calm. Be smooth. Push where it counts.

The second run felt different right from the start. The track was warming up, the grip improving, and the car responding beautifully. As I hurtled down the long back straight, the roar of the home crowd grew louder. Even inside the car, I could feel the energy.

“Purple Sector 1,” Landon’s voice came through, even-toned but with a hint of excitement.

My heart raced, but I forced myself to stay focused. The esses flowed under the car like a rhythm, and I nailed the exit onto the next straight.

“Good exit,” Landon confirmed.

The car was alive under me, every input translating perfectly to the track. I pushed through Sector 2, catching a slight slide out of Turn 12 but recovering without losing much time.

“Green Sector 2. Keep it clean,” Landon instructed.

The final sector was always the trickiest, but I braked late and hard into Turn 15, carrying just enough speed without overshooting the apex. The last few corners blurred together in a haze of precision and adrenaline as I blasted toward the finish line.

As I crossed the line, I held my breath, waiting for Landon’s voice.

“You’re P4!”

For a second, I didn’t believe him. “Repeat that?”

“P4, P4! Excellent job!” Landon’s voice was louder this time, barely containing his excitement.

The realization hit me like a tidal wave. P4. My best qualifying result yet. I was on the second row of the grid, closer to a podium than I’d ever been. And in my home race, no less.

“YES!” I screamed into the radio, pounding my fists on the steering wheel. “YES, YES, YES!”

The emotions bubbled over as I slowed the car and brought it back to the garage. Pride, excitement, disbelief—it all hit me at once. My engineer’s voice was drowned out by the cheers of my team as I rolled into the pit lane. The Aston Martin Team near the entrance of Parc Fermé were alive with energy, mechanics and engineers high-fiving each other, their faces beaming with pride.

As I climbed out of the car, the roar of the American crowd greeted me. I pulled off my helmet, letting the cheers wash over me. My home race, my people, and they were celebrating with me.

Lando appeared out of nowhere, grinning ear to ear. “P4? Are you kidding me? That’s insane!”

I laughed, still trying to catch my breath. “I can’t believe it.”

“You better start believing,” he said, slinging an arm around my shoulder. “Because that was incredible.”

Franco rushed over next, practically tackling me in a hug. “That’s my girl! P4 at home? You’re a legend!”

The overwhelming support from my team, my friends, and the fans brought tears to my eyes. I wiped them away quickly, not wanting to let the moment overwhelm me too much.

“Thank you,” I said, my voice trembling with emotion as I waved to the crowd. “Thank you so much.”

As I basked in the energy of the moment, a familiar voice called out from behind me, cutting through the noise of the garage.

“Well, well, look at you!”

I turned to see Liam Lawson striding toward me, his ever-present grin plastered across his face. Right beside him was his girlfriend, Hannah, looking just as thrilled. Liam wasted no time, wrapping me in a bear hug that nearly lifted me off the ground.

“P4!” he exclaimed, shaking me slightly. “In your home race! That’s huge!”

I laughed, squeezing him back. “I know! I still can’t believe it.”

Hannah stepped forward as Liam let go, her expression warm. “We’re so proud of you,” she said, pulling me into a gentler hug. “You’ve worked so hard for this, and it’s amazing to see it paying off.”

“Thank you,” I said, my voice cracking slightly as the emotions started to creep in again.

Liam ruffled my hair playfully. “Not gonna lie, I’m a little jealous. But seriously, this is your moment, and no one deserves it more. You’ve proven all those doubters wrong today.”

“Thanks, Liam,” I said, grinning. “Now you just have to catch up and get P4 for yourself.”

“Oh, I will,” he shot back with a wink. “But don’t think I won’t brag about this for you in the meantime.”

Hannah chuckled, giving me an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “Just soak it all in. You’ve earned it.”

As they stepped back to let me continue celebrating with my team, I watched them go with a full heart. Liam and Hannah had been constants in my life for years, and having their support on a day like this meant the world.

With their words still echoing in my mind, I turned back toward the garage, taking in the scene around me. Mechanics and engineers buzzing with excitement, Lando and Franco trading jokes, the hum of the crowd still faintly audible in the background—it was all so surreal.

For the first time, I felt like I truly belonged here. This wasn’t just about making a mark in F1 anymore—it was about showing the world, my team, and myself what I was capable of.

As the sun dipped lower in the sky and the garage buzzed with post-qualifying excitement, I let myself savor the moment. Tomorrow would bring new challenges, but tonight, I was living my dream.

[tanadrin]

Honestly, I *don't* want to mix things with proportional representation. I see proportional representation as an excellent way of increasing the importance of dealings between politicians and reducing the incentive effects of the voters. But in my ideal world I'll need to negotiate with people who do like proportional representation, and this system is a compromise I could get behind. Plus you can plug and play any three different electoral systems for different compromises.

First past the post is a bad, undemocratic electoral system. First past the post privileges large parties by making small ones unviable, and distorts the composition of parliaments by wasting votes. It can be gerrymandered in a way proportional representation cannot be. It produces highly unrepresentative outcomes. It is a bad electoral system! All good voting systems are to some degree inclined to more proportional results.

I've never heard the accusation that PR "increases the importance of dealings between politicians," but look. I don't know how else to put this. That is a stupid objection. Just absolutely boneheaded. You haven't thought about this at all, I reckon.

People hate on "politicians" as a generic class, but it's like hating on lawyers as a generic class. You need politicians. You want politicians. You want people whose specialized job it is to read legislation, fight about what should go in it, represent your interests, and come to balanced compromises about those interests. People percieve politics as messy, venal, and corrupt, and it can be all those things, but guess what? The alternative to career politicians is part-time citizens who don't know what the fuck they're doing, have no expertise in the legislative process, and therefore are at the mercy of lobbyists who can walk them like a dog because they're naive and inexperienced.

There's this especially (but not exclusively) American pathology that is a suspicion of government that works too well. This peculiar notion that if only we sabotage government a little bit it will keep tyranny in check and make politicians more honest... somehow. But filling government with random yahoos doesn't get you a noble collegium of Tocquevillian citizen-lawmakers, it gets you a pack of Marjorie Taylor Greens and Lauren Boberts. You know--morons. Americans will support all these ballot initiatives that fuck up government on purpose, like term-limiting legislators and keeping their salaries low so only rich people can afford to go into politics (and even then are only willing to do it as a stepping stone to other gigs), and vote for people who promise to make government work even worse by cutting the budget and lowering taxes, and then have the absolute gall to whine about how badly the government works. My fellow Americans, you did that on purpose.

(And there's this weird paradox where Americans all loathe Congress. Who keeps voting these creeps in? Well. You do. Congresscritters are generally pretty highly approved of by their own constituents. The stereotype of lazy, stupid, venal politicians always seems to apply to the other guys.)

And you will also note that since the abolition of things that used to facilitate deals between politicians in the U.S. congress--since the abolition of earmarks and chummy socials between congressmen and the post--generally, since the post-Gingrich upheaval in the House--it has gotten harder to pass even necessary, basic legislation, because it is harder to make the basic compromises necessary to keep government functioning. Having three separate legislatures that each can claim a different sort of democratic mandate isn't a recipe for good legislation, it's a recipe for paralysis and constitutional crisis.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

By Betsy Ladyzhets

Since early in the pandemic, people with Long COVID have faced challenges in applying for disability benefits, including from their employers, insurance providers, and the U.S. Social Security Administration. Applications often take a long time and are denied even for people who clearly have debilitating symptoms, leading to years-long, arduous appeals processes. The same has been true decades prior to 2020 for people with other infection-associated chronic diseases.

To learn more about the disability insurance system, Betsy Ladyzhets spoke to Barbara Comerford, a long-time disability lawyer based in New Jersey who specializes in these cases. Comerford has represented people with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome or CFS), for more than 30 years, including high-profile cases like that of journalist Brian Vastag.

Comerford discussed how the process works, her advice for putting together applications and appeals, how Long COVID has impacted her practice, and more. This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Comerford’s tips for disability benefit applications:

Comerford recommends that people applying for benefits extensively document their symptoms. Medical tests such as neuropsychiatric testing and cardiopulmonary exercise testing are her recommended method for documentation, though she acknowledges that these tests can be expensive. Comerford suggests that applicants should be careful to find lawyers and medical providers who have experience with these cases and won’t dismiss their symptoms. During the appeals process, Comerford recommends requesting a company’s administrative record and combing through it for any evidence that they abused judgement, cherry-picked evidence, or made other errors in assessing the case. Make sure to follow deadlines for filing appeals, as cases are closed if documents are not submitted on time.

Barbara Comerford: Should we focus on disability insurance, or do you want to focus on social security disability, or both?

Betsy Ladyzhets: Both, because people [with Long COVID] are applying for both.

BC: Right. And often, people think they should only apply for one, [but they should apply for both.]

Most of the disability plans that people have are often through their employer. Those plans are known as ERISA plans, that refers to Employee Retirement Income Security Act. It was created in the 1970s… Congress created this regulatory scheme, and then immediately created a zillion loopholes that corporations can drive a truck through. Later, ERISA covered all employee benefits in general.

Insurance companies wound up selling policies to corporations saying, “You can get the best people if you offer incentives.” And what’s a better incentive than, if someone gets sick, they can collect a substantial percentage of their salary until full retirement age? These are the sorts of perks that… People think, “If something happens to me, I’ll be protected.” The promise of these policies is that they will give people, usually, between 50% and 80% of their pre-disability income if they satisfy the requirements. Well, that’s a big if.

I’ve been doing this for 38 years. And I can tell you that 38 years ago, these [disability claims] were not problem cases. I used to do them for free for my litigation clients… But over the years, and really starting after 2001 with September 11, all hell broke loose. They [insurance companies] began to get very aggressive. Every time there is an economic downfall, whatever it is, they get extremely aggressive. So you can imagine, with the onset of the pandemic, they knew what was coming.

I did, for many years, advocacy for ME/CFS cases. I represented thousands of people… A lot of my colleagues say, “Long COVID social security cases are almost impossible,” because they don’t know what to do with them. My office hasn’t found that to be the case. I think the difference is, you have to document these cases with as much objective documentation of symptoms that people have… Get neuropsych testing, cardiopulmonary exercise testing, and other tests.

I started doing webinars and seminars [about disability benefit applications] in 2020, because I knew this was coming. At that point, they weren’t calling it Long COVID, they were just saying, some people with COVID weren’t getting better. But I knew it was going to turn into another ME/CFS disaster.

BL: How have you found the rise of Long COVID has impacted your practice? Do you find you’re more in demand now?

BC: We’ve always had a high volume of cases. Quite a few of them were ME/CFS cases. We did a case, Vastag v. Prudential, in 2018. Brian Vastag, who was a science writer for The Washington Post, was my client, and I could not get over how aggressively Prudential was just dismissing him because it was an ME/CFS case.

And the same is happening with Long COVID. We do cases all over the country on Long COVID and ME/CFS. It’s my livelihood, so it’s important for me, but it also makes me a little crazy that people get treated the way they do and that they have to hire people like me.

One of the things that people get upset about is that they have to spend money to medically document their symptoms. And worse than that… I see these Long COVID clinics, with doctors who are completely ignorant on Long COVID, who surreptitiously write notes in the chart that they think it’s a psychiatric case. I don’t know how familiar you are with this.

BL: Unfortunately, I’m very familiar.

BC: It’s awful. Not only is it really hard on my clients… It triggers them to read things that might not be what they said or might not be pleasant. And the number of times that I have seen that and it has sabotaged cases! I have to reconstruct the cases and have the clients contact the clinic [and get them to make corrections].

Mental/nervous limitations exist in all of these [insurance] policies… They can limit someone’s payments to two years if the case is a psychiatric case or mental/nervous limitation with a DSM diagnosis.

BL: I wanted to ask also — there’s been a lot of research on Long COVID at this point, and there was a report this summer from the National Academies specifically in response to a request from the Social Security Administration about Long COVID as a disability, in which they found that this disease can result in inability to work, poor quality of life, all that stuff. Have you seen that report, or other research, like the growing body of research on these diseases, have an impact?

BC: I was asked to comment on that [report]. Part of the problem with Social Security’s initiatives in this regard is that every social security case goes through what they call “sequential evaluation process.” You have to go through five steps to determine whether or not someone’s disabled. And among those steps is [matching people to a “medical listing of impairments,” but the list doesn’t include major symptoms for ME/CFS and similar diseases].

Years ago, there was a ME/CFS ruling called 99-2p. It offered guidelines [for ME/CFS cases that don’t fit the typical Social Security process]. After that, I was asked to present to the national association of Social Security judges, there were 500 judges in the audience. And I asked, “By show of hands, how many of you are familiar with 99-2p?” Two hands went up.

Despite the guidelines, in practice, [the judges aren’t familiar with these diseases]. Until there is a time when we can come up with a firm diagnostic criteria for Long COVID, and we can say, “This is what you have to document for this illness.” … And it can’t just be a positive COVID test, because many people got sick before testing was prevalent or they got sick after people stopped documenting that they were positive.

The other problem for Long COVID cases is it’s not like cancer or a broken leg or herniated disc or something that people are accustomed to. Those people are not told they’re crazy. Those people are not told they’re imagining it. Those people are not told, “Well, we just don’t buy it.” This is what happens with [Long COVID] and ME/CFS. The psych component that they try to pigeonhole these cases into is really a master stroke by the insurance industry that spends billions of dollars trying to persuade people that anyone who files for these benefits is a crook or fraud.

BL: It’s infuriating, especially when you see how deeply people’s quality of life is impacted by these diseases.

BC: Yes, every part of their life is impacted.

BL: I see what you’re saying about needing diagnostic criteria. In this time where we don’t have that yet, what would you want to see the Social Security Administration or other government agencies do to make it easier for all these people who are applying for benefits with Long COVID and ME/CFS?

BC: They should [reevaluate] the sequential evaluation process, which has been there forever, and look at medically determinable impairment in the context of Long COVID and ME/CFS. These diseases can be documented by things like neuropsych testing.

I’ll quickly go through the five-step sequential evaluation process. The first step is, “Is the person engaged in substantial gainful activity?” That is something you can do predictably, something that will last at least 12 months, and something that leads to gainful work, where you get paid and you can report for a job either part-time or full-time. In Long COVID cases… you have to document that this person is not engaged in substantial gainful activity because they don’t know tomorrow if they’re going to be able to get up and get out of bed and take shower, never mind report for work.

If you satisfy step one, they go to step two. There, they ask, “Do you have the ability, in light of your disability, to perform basic work-related activity?” Sitting, standing, reaching, pushing, pulling, reading, concentrating, things of that nature. And, “Does the disability negatively impact your ability to do these things?” [You need medical evidence, which can come from] a physician’s evaluation from a Long COVID clinic, for example.

If you have that, you go to step three, which is where that horrible “medically determinable impairment” crap comes in. There isn’t {a specific listing} yet for Long COVID, although they’re talking about it. Frankly, we’re still waiting for them to do one for ME/CFS, so I’m not holding my breath. That’s the only step in the process where, if they don’t satisfy it, you can still move on to the next step.

The fourth step is, “Is this person capable of performing the work that they performed for the last five years?” Until June of this year, it was the last 15 years… So we go through each job they had, all their symptoms and limitations and why they can’t do [the job anymore]. If we document successfully that they can’t perform their past relevant work for the last five years as a result of their disability, we can then go to step five.

Step five, the burden shifts to the Social Security Administration. Social Security has to document that, in light of a person’s age, education, and work experience, that there is no work in the national economy that they could perform. [To do this], Social Security has a big graph called the “medical vocational guidelines.” And essentially, the younger you are, the more skills you have, the more education you have, and the more skills that are transferable, generally you are found not disabled. But the graph is not supposed to be used for cases that involve what we call non-exertional and exertional complaints together. Pain, fatigue, things of that nature are all part of the non-exertional limitation.

That is how we lift ME/CFS and Long COVID cases out of that graph. Despite the fact that many of our clients are very young, many of them are highly educated, many of them have developed skills that are not only transferable, but are also in high demand in the national economy — [we say that] because they can’t predictably perform sustained work of any kind, the grid should not be used to find them not disabled. But with all of this, every one of these cases, medical documentation of limitations is crucial. I can’t emphasize that enough.

BL: I know a lot of people in Long COVID community, they’ve already sent in their applications, and then it gets denied, and then they have to appeal. What is that process like, and how would you suggest people go about finding someone like you?

BC: It’s really important to do some research. You want to know if the doctor or attorney you’re dealing with has experience in these cases… I do [webinars and one-on-one education] for lawyers all the time, because I’d rather them hear what has to be done, and understand what happens if they don’t do it.

If I’m giving people advice on appeals… If it’s coming from a United States employer, you’re going to be governed by ERISA. That’s important because people might file a claim without knowing the exact company policy. Despite the fact that federal regulations require employers to give that information to employees, when someone gets sick and files a [short-term] disability claim, they are immediately cut off from the employee benefits portal [that has all the exact policy information]. So then I’ve got to write a letter to the employers, and fight to get that information.

You can’t even get discovery in these cases… Sometimes they will award benefits, and then six months in they’ll say, “We no longer believe you’re disabled.” Under ERISA, [employers and insurance companies] get all the advantages.

BL: It seems like people should know, if you’re filing against an employer, to save that policy information before you lose access to it.

BC: When you get the notice of a denial, you can request a complete copy of the administrative record. You are entitled to see everything that the insurance company had on the case, and under federal regulations, they have 30 days to produce it.

And then you have 180 days to appeal that [denial]. People say that’s a long time. It’s really not. Because you’ve got to go through thousands of pages of documents. You’ve got to document where they abuse their discretion. It’s not enough to have medical evidence… [The standard you have to push back on is that] the insurance company or the employer has a “reason” to deny the claim.

The lawyer’s job or the claimant’s job is to show all the examples they found in the administrative record that show [mistakes or poor judgement on the part of the insurance company or employer]… Sometimes, you will see reports of experts that they’ve retained to review the case, and the expert will say, “I think it’s a payable claim.” And then the next thing you find is them looking for another doctor who’s a little more receptive to their suggestions. If we see they’ve ignored the opinion of one of their experts, that’s an example of abuse of discretion and arbitrary, capricious conduct. Cherry picking the evidence is another thing you often see in these cases.

BL: So it’s not just sending your own medical records, you have to show that the company has messed up.

BC: The insurance company or the employer, whoever is paying, you have to show that they abused their discretion.

BL: Is there anything else, any other advice or resources you would give people?

BC: This is really important. If it’s an ERISA case and they do not get that appeal in within 180 days, they’re foreclosed from pursuing it any further… [It’s a big mistake] if you blow those time deadlines.

All articles by The Sick Times are available for other outlets to republish free of charge. We request that you credit us and link back to our website.

[astronomodome]

Astronomodome's 2024 US Presidential Election Liveblog

First of all I want to say I have other stuff to work on today so I might not be super up to date with stuff but I'll try my best to give my thoughts as to what's going on.

So first, how do we tell who wins?

In the U.S., the popular vote doesn't decide who wins the presidency. Instead, we use the (much hated) electoral college. Here's a helpful visual.

Every state (and DC) is given at least three electors, usually more based on population (which is why states like California and Texas have so many). There are 538 in total. To win, a candidate needs more than half of these- half of 538 is 269, so a candidate needs at least 270. (Interestingly, it is possible for both candidates to receive exactly 269 electors, in which case the universe corrupts and we all die infinitely the House of Representative chooses who wins, with each state getting one vote.)

The national popular vote may not matter, but the popular votes of each of the states do. Whoever wins the popular vote in each state (except Nebraska and Maine bc they're weird but that's not too important) wins all the electors for that state. It's very all-or-nothing which is why a lot of people don't like it.

This is a map from election forecaster 538, one of many such organizations that use polling and algorithms and election magic or something to predict who is likely to win each state. They have a lot of good graphs and stuff to look at on their site if you want to learn more about the stats of everything. As the key notes, we can see which way each state is expected to vote, as well as a few states highlighted in bold as likely swing states.

Swing states are basically wherever the election is close and the number of electors is high enough to 'swing' the election. Basically, while all the other states are mostly decided based on precedent (though surprises are possible), these states could reasonably go either way. This is why both candidates hold so many rallies in Pennsylvania, for example- it's competitive, and they want to boost their chances of winning those electors by currying favor directly with those voters.

One thing this map doesn't show is what I lovingly refer to as the Bar. It looks like this. I bring it up because if you follow the election news you'll see it. A lot.

The arrows in the middle point to 269.5, the exact midpoint. Whoever reaches that midpoint by filling up the bar wins (the beige in the middle are the tossup states who could go either way).

For example, let's look at 270towin. (the forecast websites love their special numbers.) They have a fun interactive map where you can make the votes go wherever you want to see what would happen.

^ Here's their prediction based on consensus.

^ Here, I changed Florida so it votes blue. Not likely unless I can bribe enough officials to make it so my ballot is the only one that counts (fair and just). We can see that the Bar has shifted, and the blue side has almost reached the arrows. Let's see what happens if we add another blue state. Let's say... Georgia, for example.

Wow! If the states were to vote this way, the Democrats would win, even if all the other undecided states went red. Is it likely? No. But, well, how do we know that?

In short, we don't. But we can guess, and that's what polls are for. There are several different types, but the most important ones for right now are exit polls. They'll start coming out soon, I think. I'm not sure if they have to wait until all the polls close (so people don't see them and decide not to vote or something because of it) but I think they do, at least in some states. Exit polls are conducted right outside of voting locations as voters exit, which makes them more accurate than other polls. They're not free of bias, though, so as always take them with a grain of salt. They're the first indicator we'll have of how it went, but they're not the final numbers.

One ray of hope I want to point out is the currently infamous Selzer Iowa poll (not an exit poll but still relevant). Ann Selzer is a really trusted pollster, known for a long streak of accuracy. She published a poll a day ago that indicated that Harris was beating Trump (!) in Iowa (!!) by 3 points (!!!). Iowa is... not considered a Democratic state; it went for Trump last election by 14 points. So this is really surprising (understatement). And yes, it could mean absolutely nothing... but it certainly shocked a lot of people, including Trump, who tweeted angrily about it.

States count their votes in different ways. Some results will be out within the day, others might take weeks. But usually most states can be 'called' for a candidate before every vote is counted. This is because the leading candidate will have more votes than can be overcome by the other one, even if every vote counted was for them. The important thing is that, as polls close over the next couple hours, they'll be counting. I saw one report that said election officials in Idaho, for example, plan on counting every vote "before they go to bed that night," which I thought was kind of a cute way to put it. Most states will release vote counts in batches or by county, which means that other batches or counties might still be counting as others submit their counts. That last sentence had a lot of 'count' related words in it, huh.

One thing to note about vote counting is that absentee or mail-in ballots often take longer to be received and counted than in-person votes. This can cause a phenomenon called "blue shift"- basically, a lot of mail-in ballots are cast by college students (like me!) or people who live overseas, and those groups tend to vote more Democratic than in-person voters. That means that late in the counting process, totals will often shift more towards the Democratic candidate. Famously, this is how Biden ended up winning Georgia in 2020- initially it was forecasted to remain red, but it inched over slowly as mail-in ballots were received.

So, in short, that's how we figure out who will be president. I'll be keeping track of what happens tonight, but it's very possible we won't know who wins until tomorrow morning or even later. Let's hope for the best :)

[mydaddywiki]

Jack Reed

Physique: Average Build Height: 5'6" (1.68 m)

John Francis "Jack" Reed GOIH (born November 12, 1949) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Rhode Island, a seat he was first elected to in 1996. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the U.S. representative for Rhode Island's 2nd congressional district from 1991 to 1997. Best known for his repeated efforts to set a deadline for the withdrawal of American military forces from Iraq. He is the dean of Rhode Island's congressional delegation.

Cute little guy whose diminutive height makes him a perfect pocket daddy. Born and raised in Cranston, RI and grew up on Pontiac Avenue, Reed graduated from the United States Military Academy and Harvard University, serving in the U.S. Army as an active officer from 1971 to 1979.

Now, what exciting facts can I tell you about Sen. Reed? Well he's married to Julia Hart Reed and together they one daughter. He is a graduate of West Point. Over the course of his military career, he earned the Army Commendation Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, Ranger Tab, Senior Parachutist Badge, and Expert Infantry Badge.

With diminutive height 5 feet 7 inches on a good day, makes his Special Forces background seem both improbable and all the more intimidating. So he probably has a Napoleon complex and would pound you into the bed to prove his worth. And I can work with that. Come on Jack, show me what a big man you are.

[mariacallous]

A famous parable revolves around the troubled relationship between a scorpion and a frog. A scorpion needs to cross a river. Unable to swim, the scorpion asks a frog to carry him on his back. Listening to the request, the frog responds that he is hesitant because he fears that the scorpion will sting and kill him. After the scorpion assures his new friend that he would never do that, the frog agrees. Halfway through the journey, the scorpion stings the frog. Slowly dying, the frog asks, “Why did you do this?” The scorpion responds, “I’m sorry, but it’s in my nature.”

The story is a classic lesson about how dangerous people don’t usually change. Even when promising that they will act differently, the likelihood is that they won’t. It is also a tale about taking warning signs seriously. The frog understood the risks that he faced, yet he chose to ignore them.

U.S. presidential elections frequently involve warnings signs. Over the course of a campaign, voters learn a great deal about the candidates running and the potential costs of putting someone in office. Sometimes, a majority of voters decide to heed those warnings, yet there are other times in U.S. history when voters end up the frog.

In 2024, there are more warnings signs than usual about one of the major candidates: the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump. There are big red flags from both his first term in office and his post-presidential years waving over and over about what Trump 2.0 would bring. Another one came on Wednesday, when the Washington, D.C., district judge handling the federal election conspiracy case against Trump unsealed a 165-page document with the fullest picture of what special counsel Jack Smith had found.

To understand how voters have the capacity to cover their ears to avoid hearing alarm bells, look back to 1972, when President Richard Nixon won reelection in a landslide victory against Democratic Sen. George McGovern. Too often, the story of Nixon’s reelection in 1972 and Watergate are treated separately. The thing is, there were, in fact, many people warning of who Nixon was as a politician and what he would likely do when freed from the restraints imposed by having to worry about reelection.

The familiar narrative on the 1972 election is that, riding high on diplomatic breakthroughs with the Soviet Union and China, Nixon defeated McGovern in a stunning victory that rivaled President Franklin Roosevelt’s coalition-building reelection win in 1936. There were many Americans who didn’t like Nixon or his policies, but it wasn’t until investigations in 1973 that his severe abuses of presidential power were revealed. Had the country only known more, so the story goes, the electorate could have averted the disaster they collectively faced on Aug. 9, 1974, when Nixon stepped onto a helicopter, leaving the White House in the middle of his second term.

In fact, numerous representatives and senators had been trying to expose Nixon’s nature even before that election. After Nixon announced on April 30, 1970, that he had secretly deployed troops to Cambodia and conducted a massive bombing campaign, there was a fierce outcry from Democrats about how he had lied and threatened the balance of power to accelerate a disastrous war. Idaho Sen. Frank Church and Kentucky Sen. John Sherman Cooper began drafting a bill to prohibit the president from using congressional funds for operations in Cambodia. Congressional critics railed against Nixon’s turn to impounding funds that they had appropriated and which he failed to veto. Soon after the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate building in June 1972, Democratic Rep. Wright Patman, a Texas populist, attempted to launch an investigation into the connections he suspected between the burglars and Nixon’s reelection campaign. The effort, covered by the press, was undercut by Nixon and his allies on Capitol Hill.

Journalists and public intellectuals were on Nixon’s case long before most voters cast their ballot. In 1971, the administration’s efforts to prevent the press from publishing the Pentagon Papers, a secret Defense Department study exposing the lies told to justify the war in Vietnam, required the Supreme Court to intervene, culminating in the 6-3 decision in New York Times Company v. United States, which allowed publication. The media praised the decision as a blow to a president who was intent on stifling the press. In March 1972, Life published a story based on a nine-month investigation that accused the Nixon administration of having “seriously tampered with justice” to insulate supporters in San Diego from criminal prosecutions involving illegal campaign contributions. “The administration has in several instances taken steps to neutralize and frustrate its own law enforcement officials,” the magazine noted.

By mid-October 1972, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Time were publishing stories about an FBI investigation into whether Nixon’s reelection team was involved in sabotage operations, including the break-in at the Watergate building, against the Democratic campaign. On Oct. 16, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein published a blockbuster story about how Nixon’s personal lawyer, Herbert Kalmbach, revealed that he “was one of five persons authorized to approve payments from the Nixon campaign’s secret intelligence gathering and espionage fund.” Nixon campaign manager Clark McGregor was so frustrated with reporters that he accused the press of acting politically, stating, “the Post has maliciously sought to give the appearance of a direct connection between the White House and the Watergate, a charge the Post knows—and a half dozen investigations have found—to be false.”

And then there was McGovern, who made Nixon’s corruption a major theme in his final months on the campaign trail. In his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention, McGovern said, “From secrecy and corruption in high places, come home, America.” In late September, during visits to three states on the East Coast, McGovern called Nixon “scandal-ridden” and “corrupt.” Speaking to labor leaders in Atlantic City, he warned that “If we let this Nixon-Agnew administration have another four years, I think they’ll make Warren G. Harding look like a Sunday school teacher.” McGovern called the Nixon administration the “trickiest, most deceitful” in U.S. history. On Oct. 17, he told a rally in Fort Worth, Texas, that Nixon was attempting to “escape responsibility” for the break-in and, in the process, “polluting the faith of the American people in government itself.”

McGovern’s emphasis on corruption intensified in the final weeks of his campaign. “As the net of truth closes tighter and tighter around the president himself,” he said, “they try to persuade us that the spying, and lying, and burglary, and sabotage will not affect the election because people expect these things of politicians.” If voters chose Nixon, he said, they would be selecting four years of “Watergate corruption.”

The problem was that McGovern was running against the wind. In mid-October, Gallup found that a minute percentage of Americans ranked corruption as a top issue; only 52 percent had even heard of the Watergate affair. The public concluded that both parties were equally corrupt, so it didn’t matter who was in office.

Nixon defeated McGovern by winning 49 states, including a sweep of the South, and 60.7 percent of the vote.

Today, the warning signs about Trump are all in broad daylight.

The first threat is Trump’s embrace of election denialism. The former president demonstrated that he is willing to destabilize the democratic system when election results don’t go his way. Multiple investigations have unpacked the systematic campaign by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election, which culminated in the violence of Jan. 6, 2020. Since the insurrection, Trump has continued to deny the outcome—as did Sen. J.D. Vance during his debate against Gov. Tim Walz, when he refused to acknowledge that Joe Biden won. Moreover, the Trump campaign has made several strategic moves, such as supporting a change of rules by Trump-allied members of the Georgia State Election Board that will make it easier for local officials to question and delay the counting of ballots; this could easily create a certification crisis.

During his time in office, Trump refused to accept that there were limitations on what a president could do. Surrounded by advisors who believed in the unitary executive theory, Trump did what he wanted to do until someone was able to stop him. Formal or informal guardrails were not his thing. Trump’s expansive, and dangerous, views of presidential power were clear during the first impeachment trial when the United States learned how he had threatened congressionally appropriated aid to Ukraine if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did not agree to help dig up dirt on Biden and his son. Trump and his supporters were very clear that he will flex even more of that muscle should he be given another chance to do so. He has often spoken in public about collapsing the firewall that has separated the president from the Justice Department since Nixon’s downfall, and he has threatened to use that prosecutorial power to go after his opponents. In one Truth Social post about Smith’s investigation, Trump said that there would be “repercussions far greater than anything that Biden or his Thugs could understand.” Written by many high-level officials in Trump’s operation, including Stephen Miller, Project 2025 is a 900-page road map to a massive expansion of executive power.

Finally, Trump poses a serious risk to human rights. Between 2017 and 2021, undocumented immigrants were subject to intense and inhumane punitive measures, such as the separation of families, in an effort to disincentivize border crossings. In response to #BlackLivesMatter, Trump asked former Defense Secretary Mark Esper about shooting civil rights protesters in 2020. He famously had peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park cleared out with tear gas all so that he could get a photo-op. Finally, he was the instrumental force behind the creation of the 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade.

The United States paid a high price for its decision in 1972. Nixon’s second term was consumed by the Watergate scandal, which rocked U.S. politics, traumatized and divided the nation, and resulted in decades of deep distrust of government. In 2024, will voters heed the warning signs?

[racefortheironthrone]

Since SAG AFTRA has also gone on strike, does that mean the negotiations between the WGA and executives went poorly?

This is a great question, because it allows me to do some educating about labor law!

Today's topic: "bad faith" bargaining.

While often honored more in the breach than the observance, U.S labor law requires employers to engage in collective bargaining with unions, once those unions have been recognized as the "exclusive representative" of the workers via card check or union election.

Because Leon Keyserling and Senator Robert Wagner were not idiots and could see it coming that employers would drag out negotiations in order to try to destroy the union through attrition, the Wagner Act of 1935 required employers to not just negotiate with unions, but to negotiate "in good faith" and made it a violation of the law to negotiate in bad faith.

Two major forms of negotiating in bad faith are "dilatory tactics" (deliberately using the procedures of collective bargaining and labor law more generally to delay the process) and "surface bargaining" (where the employer goes through the motions of meeting with the union, but refuses to engage in substantive discussions). This can include stuff like sending representatives who don't have authority to negotiate, refusing to schedule sessions or trying to unilaterally control the timeline, not asking questions or engaging in back-and-forth discussion, refusing to discuss topics that are germane to conditions of employment, and so forth.

These kinds of actions are considered Unfair Labor Practice violations and the NLRB can issue "cease and desist" orders and "affirmative bargaining" orders, as well as some rather creative "special remedies" that get around the Wagner Act's lack of monetary penalties. As that suggests, however, part of the problem is that because the Wagner Act doesn't have significant monetary penalties, a lot of companies will just budget a line item for breaking the law and treat that as the cost of doing business, while using the same dilatory tactics to appeal NLRB decisions through the courts in the hope that they can outlast the union. (This is why one of the most effective labor law reforms that could be passed in a Democratic Congress would be adding compounding daily monetary penalties and streamlining the ULP process in both the NLRB and the courts.)

From what I've read of the negotiations, I think there's a pretty clear cut case that AMPTP engaged in surface bargaining and used dilatory tactics, with the intent to run out the clock and thus provoke a strike in which they believed economic pressure would force the union into surrender, essentially a lock-out without declaring a lock-out.

I think it's backfired on them. A big part of AMPTP's strategy for winning that strike was to divide-and-rule - hence why they came to an agreement with the Director's Guild - by getting through the lean months by filming and releasing shows and movies with already-completed scripts. Now that SAG-AFTRA is on strike, that lifeline of content is immediately cut - which means AMPTP is going to run out of revenue in the near future, which as WGA leaders have pointed out means bad quarterly earnings reports, which means stock prices tank, which means investors and boards of directors get angry and executives become the ones facing the prospect of losing their jobs at the same time that all the compensation they've structured as stock options to avoid taxes loses value.

[workersolidarity]

[ 📹 More than 70 civilians were killed over the previous 24-hours resulting from the Israeli occupation's surprise offensive into central Gaza after weeks of fighting in Gaza's north and south forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into the central Gaza Strip. ]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

ISRAELI OCCUPATION'S GENOCIDE IN GAZA DAY 243: NY TIMES ARTICLE SAYS ZIONIST REGIME LAUNCHED A DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN IN US, OCCUPATION ARMY CREATES NEW UNIT TO KEEP PALESTINIANS IN OUTDOOR PRISON OF GAZA, OCCUPATION ARMY RAISES CONSCRIPTION CAPS, NEW ISRAELI GROUND OFFENSIVE TARGETS CENTRAL GAZA, MASS SLAUGHTER OF CIVILIANS CONTINUES

On 243rd day of the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 4 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 36 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, while another 115 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

It should be noted that as a result of the constant Israeli bombardment of Gaza's healthcare system, infrastructure, residential and commercial buildings, local paramedic and civil defense crews are unable to recover countless hundreds, even thousands, of victims who remain trapped under the rubble, or who's bodies remain strewn across the streets of Gaza.

This leaves the official death toll vastly undercounted as Gaza's healthcare officials are unable to accurately tally those killed and maimed in this genocide, which must be kept in mind when considering the scale of the mass murder.

"Israel organized and paid for an influence campaign last year targeting U.S. lawmakers and the American public with pro-Israel messaging, as it aimed to foster support for its actions in the war with Gaza, according to officials involved in the effort and documents related to the operation."

That's according to an investigation conducted by the New York Times revealing a covert disinformation campaign launched by the Israeli occupation to target US lawmakers and the American public.

According to the Times, the disinformation campaign was "commissioned by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, a government body that connects Jews around the world with the State of Israel."

The Times article stated that the Israeli occupation "allocated about $2 million to the operation and hired Stoic, a political marketing firm in Tel Aviv, to carry it out."

The campaign started back in October and "remains active on the [social media] platform X."

At its zenith, the campaign used "hundreds of fake accounts that posed as real Americans on X, Facebook and Instagram to post pro-Israel comments," with the majority of the accounts focused on "US lawmakers, particularly ones who are black and Democrats, such as Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader from New York, and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, with posts urging them to continue funding Israel's military."

"ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, was used to generate many of the posts. The campaign also created three fake English-language news sites featuring pro-Israel articles," the Times stated, later adding that "the secretive campaign signals the lengths Israel was willing to go to sway American opinion on the war in Gaza."

In other news for Wednesday, the Israeli occupation army has created a new unit, the "Lotar Cover," with the purpose of protecting Zionist settlements surrounding the Gaza Strip.

An Israeli army spokesperson said the "Awtf" unit will operate within the 143rd Division, with the express purpose of providing a rapid response to any potential threats to settlements coming out of the Gaza Strip.

The occupation army says the unit will consist of “reserve fighters who graduate from elite units who live in or around the [Gaza] cover settlements and who will be on alert to operate in the region. The soldiers will undergo a special training and qualification process, at the end of which, they will be qualified to deal with the challenges of the region.”

In the meantime, the Israeli occupation has made the decision to raise the number of reservists the occupation army is authorized to call-up for service.

According to reporting in the Hebrew media, the Israeli occupation army will now be authorized to call-up for service 350'000 citizens, up from 300'000, which the Israeli army claims has "nothing to do with tensions in northern Israel."

The occupation authorities claimed the reason for the shift "relates to the operation in southern Gaza's Rafah taking more personnel than initially planned."

Previously, as a result of the Israeli occupation's ongoing genocide campaign in Gaza, the Israeli occupation army called-up a total of 287'000 reservists.

However, many have already been released from duty for the time being. The draft marked the largest call-up of reservists in the occupation's nearly 80-year history.

Elsewhere in international news reports, the Slovenian Parliament has officially approved the government's decision to recognize the State of Palestine as an independent and sovereign state, on Wednesday.

Previously, on Thursday of last week, the Slovenian Prime Minister, Robert Golub, announced that his government would recognize the State of Palestine under its 1967 borders in accordance with international law and UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.

The Slovenian Prime Minister said the decision “sends a message of peace,” stressing that “the time has come for the entire world to unite its efforts towards a two-state solution that will bring peace to the Middle East.”

By recognizing the State of Palestine, Slovenia joins the ranks of several other countries to recently announce their recognition of Palestine as a state, including Spain, Ireland and Norway, all of whom announced their recognition last month, bringing the total number of countries to recognize Palestine to 148, out of a total of 193 member-states belonging to the United Nations.

In other news, after several weeks of Israeli assaults on the north and south of Gaza, pushing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into the central areas, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) announced a new campaign of terror targeting the residents of the central Gaza Strip.

The latest ground offensive is to be conducted by the 98th Division, and is expected to focus on neighborhoods east of the Bureij Refugee Camp, as well as the east of Deir al-Balah, where one of the last large, functional hospitals standing in Gaza, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, remains in operation.

The 98th Division is the same military group that just recently withdrew from Jabalia in Gaza's north, committing horrific crimes against the Palestinian residents there, and also previously terrorized the citizens of Khan Yunis, south of Gaza.

The Zionist army says the operation was launched following intelligence that Resistance operatives and infrastructure, both above and below ground, were located in the area.

The operation has already seen occupation soldiers advancing into the east of the Bureij Camp, in addition to the east of Deir al-Balah on Tuesday, while simultaneously, a "large wave of airstrikes" were conducted targeting so-called "weapons depots, underground infrastructure, buildings used by terror groups, and other sites," according to the occupation military.

The Israeli occupation claims several Hamas operatives were killed in the operations, while an airstrike supposedly targeting a "Hamas compound," in the Bureij Camp, [a seeming impossibility when Hamas keeps its military infrastructure deep in underground tunnel networks] which was "based out of a United Nations School."

[This is typically how the occupation army admits to bombing civilian infrastructure such as schools, water facilities and displacement shelters.]

The Zionist military stated that several Hamas operatives were "gathered at UNRWA's Abu Alhilu School when the strike was carried out," further claiming that the strike was “carefully planned and carried out using precise munitions, while avoiding harm to uninvolved [civilians] as much as possible.”

Meanwhile, local Palestinian media reported that 72 Palestinian citizens were killed during Israeli operations in central Gaza over the previous 24-hours, while scores of others were wounded in the same period.

Witnesses said the Israeli occupation forces' ground operations targeted areas of the Al-Bureij and Al-Maghazi Camps, in addition to neighborhoods east of Deir al-Balah, while occupation bombing and artillery shelling targeted the Nuseirat Camp.

As ground operations targeted central Gaza, intense waves of bombing and shelling also targeted various other sectors of Gaza as well, including in the north and south of the enclave.

In one example, Zionist warplanes bombed a residential home belonging to the Hussein family in the vicinity of the Abu Rasas roundabout in the Bureij Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, killing one civilian and wounding a number of others.

Similarly, occupation fighter jets bombed a residential house belonging to the Kirdi family on Block-5 of the Bureij Camp. After the strike, the body of one civilian and several wounded were transported to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.

Additionally, another occupation airstrike targeted a house belonging to the Al-Dawli family near the entrance to the Bureij Camp, resulting in the deaths of two Palestinians and wounding several others.

Another 5 civilians were wounded following an Israeli airstrike in the vicinity of a UNRWA clinic in the area and the Services Club nearby.

Zionist occupation forces also dropped several violent firebelts between the Bureij and the Al-Maghazi Camps, one of which targeted a residential building in the Al-Bataniyya neighborhood of the Al-Maghazi Camp, killing four Palestinian civilians.

In particular, the strikes killed Majd Darwish, his wife and his two children, and also wounded a number of others.

In another criminal atrocity, occupation aircraft bombed a civilian residence belonging to the Qatawi family in the Al-Maghazi Camp, in central Gaza, killing two civilians and wounding several others.

At the same time, another massacre occured when Zionist warplanes bombed a residential apartment in the Aslan Building, in the vicinity of the Qattoush roundabout in the Al-Maghazi Camp, resulting in the martyredom of 8 civilians and wounding a number of others.

Yet another occupation airstrike targeted and destroyed a four-story residential building belonging to the Al-Barr family near Salah al-Din, west of the Maghazi Camp.

The horrors went on when Israeli fighter jets bombed a residential house belonging to the Al-Louh family overnight, east of Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, killing at least 5 civilians and wounding several others, while yet another airstrike targeted the Al-Masdar family home in the vicinity of the Al-Masdar Mosque, wounding several people.

Two more civilians were killed, and a number of others wounded, after Zionist artillery detatchments shelled a house in the Abu Al-Ajen area, southeast of Deir al-Balah.

According to local reports, the Israeli occupation army also arrested a number of Palestinians, including women, after the occupation forces surrounded a house belonging to the Abu Luz family, east of the Abu Al-Ajen neighborhood, southeast of Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, with the kidnapped persons taken to an unknown location.

Local civil defense and paramedic personnel also reported recovering the bodies of dozens of martyrs and wounded from neighborhoods east of the central Gaza Strip following a night of intense and violent bombardment of the Al-Bureij and Al-Maghazi Camps, as well as the town of Al-Masdar and Deir al-Balah, with the many wounded transfered to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.

Further airstrikes targeted neighborhoods east of Khan Yunis, south of Gaza, while occupation vehicles opened fire east of the town of Al-Qarara, coinciding with intense artillery shelling of the area.

Additionally, the European Gaza Hospital reported the arrival of two dead bodies of Palestinians following Israeli drone strikes east of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, north of Gaza, occupation warplanes bombed a residential home belonging to the Dalloul family in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, resulting in the wounding of at least 7 citizens, while occupation bombing also targeted the Tal al-Hawa and Sheikh Ajlin neighborhoods, coinciding with intense machine gun fire, in addition to occupation drones which opened fire near 20th Street, east of the Nuseirat Camp, in central Gaza.

In Rafah, south of Gaza, Zionist artillery forces fired several shells into residential areas east of Al-Qarara, northeast of Khan Yunis, in the south of Gaza.

Zionist air forces also bombed a gathering of civilians in the Al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City, resulting in the murder of four Palestinians.

As a result of the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the infinitely rising death toll now exceeds 36'586 Palestinians killed, including upwards of 10'000 women and over 15'000 children, while another 83'074 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression, beginning with the events of October 7th, 2023.

June 4th, 2024.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

[mypatchworkreflection]

"Lily Greenberg Call, a special assistant to the chief of staff in the Department of the Interior, became the first Jewish political appointee to resign her post in protest of U.S. President Joe Biden's support for Israel's genocide in Gaza."

"Call announced her resignation on Wednesday, which is also the 76th anniversary of the Nakba—or the expulsion of the majority of Palestinians from their homes in 1948 as part of the process of creating the current state of Israel.

"Nakba and Shoah, the Hebrew word for Holocaust, mean the same thing: catastrophe," Call wrote in her letter. "I reject the premise that one people's salvation must come at another's destruction. I am committed to creating a world where this does not happen—and this cannot be done from within the Biden administration.""

[blackxlesbianxstanacc]

My Mini Blog Biography

Purpose of Blog

⚢ The purpose of this blog is to provide a place of community for Black lesbians of all different body types, ages, cultures, and gender expressions. From Black high femmes to Black stone butches and studs, I hope that you can feel represented and seen while you are here. I hope that this space makes you feel loved and appreciated exactly as you are now. Through historical analysis, art appreciation, and theory, we can learn together about the beauty of Black lesbianism in all of its different forms. 🤎🖤🤎🖤

Background Info (Blog Owner)

⚢ Hey I’m Kiliyah. I prefer she/her pronouns but I’m comfortable with they/them.

⚢ I’m a 23 year old Capricorn ☀️ with an Aquarius 🌙 and Sagittarius 🌅 I love learning about astrology and Human Design, I’m a Generator!

⚢ I identify as a fat high-femme lesbian. I’m also Muslim and Black (African “American”). I exist for the Black Butch Lesbians and hope to marry a Black Muslimah Butch one day (InshaAllah) 😽

⚢ Politically I identify as an anti-imperialist. Referencing the Black Alliance for Peace’s definition, I recognize imperialism as the highest form of capitalism and therefore one of the most destructive forms of oppression. I honestly think the U.S., NATO, and every other imperialist nation are the anti-thesis of humanity. I hate all U.S. presidents and I pray each day for the freedom, protection, and liberation of all oppressed nations in the world. 🌎

⚢ I’m currently receiving my master’s degree to become a therapist soon. I want to specialize in the fat identity, more specifically supporting fat clients with the stressors and disorders that are created and perpetuated by fatphobia and anti-fatness. I plan to support fat people with eating disorders, anxiety disorders, and mood disorders. I also want to become a couples therapist to support lesbian couples and their families. 🧠

⚢ I run a second blog called @fatxpsychology where I talk about the psychology of the fat identity and relay information through art appreciation, theory, and history!

⚢ My hobbies are crocheting, watching dark TV dramas (e.g., Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, and Wentworth), cooking, blogging, and I want to get into baking soon. 🧁

⚢ I am always looking for more fat lesbians, Black femmes, and Black fat queers to connect with and become friends with. Please send a DM if you want to be friends ❤️

[girlactionfigure]

A US representative announces suspension of UNRWA funding is now permanent. 

The cessation of American funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency is now irreversible, confirmed a top U.S. envoy during an event hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 

U.S. special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues, David Satterfield, emphasized bipartisan congressional support for ending funding to UNRWA and exploring alternative U.N. agencies to assume humanitarian responsibilities in the Gaza Strip. 

Satterfield clarified that Congress has unequivocally prohibited further funding to UNRWA, characterizing it as a permanent cessation rather than a temporary suspension.