#and he is a little more nuanced than most of the people who peddle this sort of stuff.

[punisheddonjuan]

There was a second event that revitalized interest in a psychosomatic approach to cancer. In 1989, David Spiegel and his colleagues at Stanford University published the results of an unplanned survival analysis. The results were a big surprise and have since been cited more than 3000 times.

In the 1970s, Spiegel and colleagues had conducted a randomized trial of supportive group therapy for patients with metastatic breast cancer. The goal of the therapy was to support patients to live life as fully as possible in the face of death. The study was published as a success. After treatment, patients in the intervention group reported less anxiety and depressive symptoms than those in the control group.

As psychosomatic ideas received more attention because of the books by Simonton, and Siegel, the Stanford group was tempted to see if their intervention also increased survival rates. This was never the goal of the treatment but it was thought that negative results would be useful, for example, to debunk false ideas. To their surprise, however, there was an effect and not a small one either. Patients in the intervention group lived significantly longer. The results were published in The Lancet and became the hot topic of the day. Eysenck, for example, frequently referred to this publication to argue that the data of Grossarth-Maticek was not that extreme after all…

There were, however, some problems with the data. Most notable was the survival curve of the control group. People who did not receive the intervention seemed to have died quickly and around the same time. As explained by Bernard Fox: “the curve dropped rapidly to zero survival, with no patients having relatively longer survival than the rest. This was of interest because most survival curves are skewed, having a tail that indicates a few people with unusually long survival compared with the rest of the group.”

When Fox compared the results with survival rates from a regional database of patients with metastatic breast, it became clear that the control and not the intervention group was unusual. Fox didn’t think these results would be replicated. He was right.

Several large studies were initiated, trying to match the design of Spiegel and colleagues as closely as possible. These studies convincingly showed that supportive group therapy did not prolong survival. Even Spiegel’s own replication study came to that conclusion. The hype was based on nothing.

Because the trials were measuring survival, it took almost a decade before the results were in. In the meantime, patients were frequently told that joining a support group to encourage the expression of emotions, would help them live longer. It caused unnecessary pressure and guilt in fragile patients who were already struggling with a horrific disease

[...]

Although there are no scientific studies on the impact of psychosomatic myths on cancer patients, anecdotal evidence suggests that it caused a lot of damage. When discussing the psychoanalytic literature of the 1950s and 1960s, one review noted:

“In retrospect, one cannot help but feel that insult was added to injury by suggesting to cancer patients that immature personality development or a real or symbolic loss precipitated their malignant illness.”

Many of the psychosomatic myths still linger on to this day. A 2001 survey of breast cancer survivors found that “Despite lack of evidence substantiating stress as a cause of breast cancer, many breast cancer survivors believed stress caused their cancer.” When asked what prevented cancer recurrence 60% attributed it to a positive attitude, and only 3.9% to tamoxifen.

In his 2011 book “When the body says no, the cost of hidden stress”, Hungarian physician Gabor Maté enthusiastically refers to the dubious research mentioned in this blog series. Maté uses the work of Kissen, Temoshok, and Gossarth-Maticek to claim that “repression of anger increases the risk for cancer for the very practical reason that it magnifies exposure to physiological stress.” Despite the lack of scientific evidence, this idea remains attractive. Maté’s book was an international bestseller and was translated into 15 languages.

Ha! I fucking knew that Gabor Maté was absolutely full of shit, I just never dug into him enough to find out how he was full of shit.

Anyway, this was a good blog post, actually the whole series of blog posts is really good and well worth reading. Just as an aside, guess who funded the majority of research claiming psychosomatic factors were involved in causing cancer, the Tobacco industry. It was all bullshit and they knew it. The parallels to all the primary researchers pushing GET/CBT for ME/CFS having close ties to the insurance industry are obvious.

Here's a link to the introductory post which contains links to further posts covering the histories of psychosomatic theories for a number of diseases (MS, Cancer, Asthma, Epilepsy, Autism etc.):

[momo-de-avis]

Your video talk reminded me of an archeologist guy that saw so much mis/disinformation and conspiracy theories being peddled on tiktok, that he started to make videos debunking all that bullshit, and ended up kinda making a career out of it. Milo Rossi, Miniminuteman on YouTube, he's hilarious.

lmao know exactly who he is, he's so goddamn funny, he doesn't even debunk shit, he just clowns on conspiracy theorists now which honestly is the way to do it

my whole reaction yesterday came from a video I came across some little boy who was talking about a "great book he read" and its a book Ive seen, never felt inclined to even touch it, smelt of shit to me in the distance, it's "as razoes do atraso portugues" or something like that by some economist (economists always think they know history) and this little dude summarised the book and its apparently... bc of the MArquis of Pombal. And he did this in the Gen Z tone which made it even more obnoxious "yeah, the guy we were taught at school was so awesome! that guy!" what school? what school taught you that? "he ruined our economy because he made sure the gold found in brasil [which had been pouring in since before he was minister of jack shit] was misapropriated and then he kicked out the jesuits who were responsible for education" absolutely no nuance on matter, one of the most interesting, most controversial figures in our history that I always describe to my clients as "one step forward, two steps back" a guy who is described by Brazilian historian Laurentino Gomes, who dead describes XVIII portugal as the most backwards and delayed european nation (because it WAS), as the only moment of progress in our history because how hard can it be to grasp that a man who was raised on the Republic of Letters, who was taught among some of the brightest Liberal minds of Austria and England was responsible for some of the most incredible progress in Portugal AND YET was also responsible for some of the greatest set backs due to his paranoia and dictatorial ruling as Prime Minister? Where is nuance?

The dude in the video also said that, according to the book, the Marquis of Pombal was responsible for implementing Absolutism... is John V a joke to us? Do you think absolutism sprouted from Pombal's ass one day when he went to take a shit in Rua do Século after the earthquake? Do you think we call Manuel I proto-absolutist because it's just a fun little quirky thing historians dug out of their sphincter?

Why do yall think the medallion with his face in Commerce Square is there with the completely wrong that, something like 1838?

Did people lose their ability to think?

Stop reading history books written by economists. I am a fair believer than anyone can become a historian so long as they learn the methodology and digs into the sources (I'm not a historian myself, I'm an art historian) but economists are doomed to fail man, fuck them

[ride-thedragon]

Do I think the writers understood the context changes that would occur when casting the Velaryons with black actors, nope, not one bit.

They cuckold a black man when it was more ambiguous in the books and then had him abandon the family he just firmly recommited too.

They make Daemon's arguably favorite wife in the books a placeholder for his preferred Valyrian bride, his white niece.

They give the very distinct twins almost the exact same personality but made space for the white girl to have a trait she didn't in the books and give one of their love interest a sweeter scene than anything they got on screen together. They also reduce them to set dressing and plot drivers, not whole characters in this world.

Back to Laena, they gave her a brutal death scene as opposed to the bitter sweet one she had in the books. Gave her friendship/ relationship/ sexual ambiguity to a white woman while reducing her to less than 20 minutes of screen time.

And back again to Laenor, they made him an absent father who only wished to be back at war. That doesn't happen in the books.

Corlys is the only one that has a good enough storyline, but next season, he'll be a cheater with an outside family without any set up other than leaving when things get hard, while adoring his wife on the show mind you.

Not to mention the brutality of Vaemond's death.

This doesn't exist in a monolith. Obviously, you can write these storylines for black characters. However, the necessary nuances needed to allow these things to work were not used.

Baela could be trying to conform for everything she believes is expected of her as Jace’s Betrothed until she is there next season with a new book authentic look.

Laena could be like her book counterpart, caring more about dragons than boys, but when she has to marry chooses the person who she thinks would give her the most freedom and work as Co parents if not being a loving couple with their children.

Laenor could do his duty despite himself and have conflicting emotions towards Rhaenyra and Harwin not putting more effort into their secret relationship. Those boys could be Laenor's still and have his own sexuality, Rhaenyra's promiscuity and Alicent’s weaponizing these little things to spread the bastard rumors. And or casting Ser Harwin to look more ambiguous.

Laena's and Vaemond's deaths should have been closer to the books to show Daemon's care for people who accept him and Rhaenyra accepting the power she is given.

There was no reason why Laena shouldn't have claimed Vhagar on screen even if they kept the shows death for her, it becomes full circle that in the moments she knows she's going to die she would cling to the thing that makes her feel complete. Her dragon. And a setup for the Dragonseeds when they claim their dragons.

I just, the idea of black dragon riders and black Valyrians, was so interesting and I wish they had given the idea the nuance it deserved instead of placing them on the back peddles and reducing their stories to stereotypes we've seen time and time again without care or thought for how it would be perceived.

Let's not begin to talk about the genetics test needed by most of the white actors they cast who are direct descendents of Alyssa Velayron.

[levyfiles]

Noting that you wrote a twt thread supporting Watcher for giving lgbt youth just a little tiny fraction of their revenue for reluctantly splashing there shit w/ rainbow aesthetics and they even used a line from Shane acting so weird around a person for saying they're bisexual. Like are you kidding me? Even you didn't find that funny! how can you feel good about yourself? are you that braindead about your perfect Steven?

Ohhhkay. To start off with, congratulations, your ask was the least abusive one lambasting me on this topic so yours is the one I've decided to give a platform to.

So, as someone who has been present with Watcher since their launch, I can attest that I and many others were actively campaigning for pride merch the moment we knew we could make suggestions. When we heard the merch shoot was coming, I and many other fans were thrilled they were finally unveiling a line that was specifically like a love letter to us. We wanted to enjoy the thing we liked while also enjoying the fact that a company loved its supporters right back and knew to express that every other day of the year. Queerness is deeply interwoven in so much of their content, the people they have on as guests, and they, I have said this in my tweet that offended you so, they have queer employees who they are paying well to whom they, unlike most companies, ensure have appropriate holidays and full benefits! And then of course, this calls into question why so many of us are adamant about not forcing people to out themselves in defense of engaging in queer culture and media until such a time that we find it inconvenient?

Let's put the rest under a read more because I got a lot to say.

Secondly, the entire premise of the discourse over rainbow capitalism and its harms is that the companies that are guilty of it are not only conglomerates who with one hand peddle the gay aesthetic during June but with the other turn around and donate to organisations and lobbyists who actively seek to harm and destory the lives of queer people all over the world. Watcher is a company we watched being built from the ground up and watched push through the most devastating year for small businesses because they took care of their employees. During an AMA on their discord, at some point, Katie confessed that she thought she would be out of a job last April but they powered through this and even offered to pay Matt Real for work he was rendered incapable of doing due to the pandemic. This is not even a hugely established company with loads of investors. They have done what they can to keep afloat while also pressing the largest efforts toward making their audience feel included and accepted. It is also a big deal that they work with a supplier for their merch that is not only on board to make the best quality of the Pride merch they can but willing to match their donation. That's a whole 30% of proceeds (some of which go to Gianthugs anyway).

Thirdly, the saying. I would challenge you to actually go back through my old asks and posts about Shane's reaction to Tonya and find where I didn't even find Shane's saying funny. I think the way he said it and the timing of his delivery is in keeping with how deeply he wants his audience to know where he stands and it should also tell you a lot more about how absolutely terrible Shane is at weighing in on discourse next to his cofounders; if I can take us back to some older discourse about Shane's very obvious silence during the anti-asian hate campaign as well as BLM.

Lastly, the Steven thing. Just. Really? I hesitate to engage over this particular brand of hate because it lacks conviction. Moreover the fact that you took a broad leap from your transgression with Shane to try to pin that on Steven is so transparent to me. People will write endless disclaimers about why they're so weird about Steven simply because he's religious and religious trauma is a thing and believe me when I say that I know how that feels as a queer mixed person who grew up firmly esconced in the brainwashing of fundamentalist christianity but then again, I find that more of the prejorative weight of historical harm practiced by the christian church was perpetrated by white colonizers and somehow and in someway people take Shane at face value. It's almost as if the weight of a community's actions can only be demonstrably forgiven with the future actions of their descendents.

Earlier today I saw someone ask one of the people pushing the "Steven is homophobic" campaign that if they really think Steven hates queer people wouldn't that make Ryan and Shane guilty by association and the person actually replied "no because grown adults are allowed to have different opinions than other grown adults even if they're friends with them" which?????? That is the exact reason the twitter teens got so mad at Steven lol I'm reeling. Guys, just do better. Actively interact with nuance please. Step away and afford yourself the luxury of participating in conversations with other queer people that isn't black and white and for god's sake, if your last defense to people disagreeing with you is to cite the way they enjoy fandom as your thinkpiece, maybe you're not really fighting in defense of marginilised people; maybe you want to center yourself in a campaign that makes allowances for you to bully and harrass people.

[dailycharacteroption]

Alley Witch (Witch Archetype)

 There used to be a short comic floating around Tumblr called “Cornerwitch”, which was a tale of a woman in need of magic to help face an overwhelming world, which blossoms into sapphic romance at the end.

Well children, today’s archetype taps into the same ideas of hedge mages and practitioners of the old ways that do not live on the fringes of civilization, but deep within its heart, peddling their magic to those who need it.

While civilization is normally the resting place of wizards and alchemists, these so-called alley witches provide healing and magical blessings for those in need, perhaps providing such magic in return for favors whenever funds are short, making for a spellcaster that is much more accessible than most.

As we shall see, alley witches are more in tune with the city around them than most.

 Unlike other witches, these mystics are much more in tune with civilization than they are nature, so much so that they don’t have a traditional patron. Whether their patron is a spirit of civilization or the collective unconscious of the city’s denizens, they gain access to a handful of spells that revolve around gathering information, being discreet, providing for others, and even crafting temporary servants or extradimensional sanctums.

By linking their spirit to whatever city they happen to be residing in (a lengthy process that takes a month), these mages become so in tune with the urban landscape that they can read it’s flow, knowing instinctively who is best to ask a question, where to find hidden things, the nuances of the residents, and when danger is imminent.

Perhaps the most iconic ability of these witches, however, is their ability to infuse their hex magic into trinkets for others to use, be it allied adventurers, or paying customers looking for a magical edge. Of course, doing so briefly prevents the witch from using the power stored within. Most often, these will be benevolent hexes that others seek to purchase, but unscrupulous alley witches might sell access to a cursing hex to someone seeking petty vengeance.

While the ability to get a buff to several different skills and a nice utility spread of spells is good, the hex-gifting ability is what will draw many players to this archetype, providing buffs to allies that they can use at their discretion. Plus, the aesthetic of offered gifts of magic will appeal to many as well. I’d recommend a supporting buffing, debuffing, and control build, with a handful of item crafting feats as well, adding to the range of things that an alley witch can provide to not just their party, but to prospective customers.

 Depending on how accepted they are in a community, alley witches might be very public figures that are constantly working to better their home, or they might be reclusive, accepting business but keeping people at arm’s length. Regardless, their connection to the city might mean their behavior is at least partially influenced by the city they are currently bonded to.

  Called all manner of unsavory names, Vesca and her wife Bellanna sell magical trinkets to those in need despite the risk of being apprehended by the city guard or inquisition. It helps that the two of them have magic to easily escape such persecutors, continuing their good works.

 Sokho hates the city, absolutely hates it. There’s barely anything green around, there’s too much noise, and it smells funny. However, the orang-pendak hates to admit it, but he loves the people, and so he stays, infusing the magic of his people into potions and baubles for a price, which he occasionally waives for those without means.

 The party hears a scream down an alley, as small, foulness-filled oozes roll out of an alley. It seems Niala the witch was sold a bad batch of ingredients, causing her latest potion to transform into a mass of boilborn. Cleaning up the little blighters is only the first step, next is convincing the guard that the old mystic was not “conspiring to disturb the peace”. The reward for doing so is a pendant loaded with one of her many hexes.

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Magnolia

I don’t know much about Magnolia or Paul Thomas Anderson, but I do know that it takes someone paying me to get me to watch a 3-hr+ drama that doesn’t star Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio, and a really big boat. This is one of my mom’s favorite movies which is why she requested it for me to review. It’s packed with a balls-to-the-wall star-studded cast (Tom Cruise! Julianne Moore! Phillip Seymour Hoffman! John C. Reilly! William H. Macy! Felicity Huffman!) and I’m genuinely excited to see how they all fit together. Cause they have to all fit together in some coherent way, right? Well...

Do you remember in Sorry to Bother You when the Equisapiens came out and things just took like...a real turn? That’s kind of what this was like. Whereas StBY pushed a thought to its most extreme, but logical, conclusion, what Paul Thomas Anderson has done here feels like a magician doing a lot of impressive illusions - sawing a lady in half, making a motorcycle disappear, pulling smaller things out of bigger things - and then for his final trick, walking onstage amidst a grand plume of smoke, dropping his pants, taking a gigantic shit, and then saying, “You’ve been a great audience, thanks a lot and goodnight!” It’s not like you can say the experience was BAD. Everything up to the finale was a really great time! But when you’re left on a note that is that bafflingly odd, it kinda colors the way you’ll remember the whole thing.

Magnolia is the story of one long day in the life of 12 people living in Los Angeles who are all connected via an extensive web from acquaintances to married couples to parents and children to paid caregivers and beyond. It’s a day that has the same kind of ups and downs as any other day until it, well, turns into something else entirely. I’m not sure how else to explain it, but if you want to know more, spoilers will be spoiled below.

Some thoughts:

Patton Oswalt cameo! I am a massive fan and thought I knew his whole filmography and OMG how did I not know that he was in this!!

Ok, in spite of my skepticism this entire opening sequence about coincidence had me hooked IMMEDIATELY. Like, this is some damn good storytelling, if this were a novel, I would not be able to put it down - that pull, that’s what it feels like.

Am I the only person whose encyclopedic memory of character actors/roles gets distracted when they see someone from something that is wildly disparate compared to the role you’re currently watching? For example, I had to pause the movie and confirm via IMDB that I did just see Professor Sprout from HP scream “Shut the fuck up!” at her husband while brandishing a shotgun.

Would people really recognize a grown ass man from being a successful child game show contestant? I’ll tell you the answer, no they wouldn’t, because no one realizes that Peter Billingsley (aka Ralphie from A Christmas Story) is the head of the elf production line in Elf.

I knew this was a stacked cast, but holy SHIT this is a stacked cast. If I had $1 for every fantastic character actor I recognize in this, I would have at least $37, and these are people in the film who have maybe 2-3 lines each. It’s a deep bench is what I’m saying.

This makes me miss Phillip Seymour Hoffman so, so very much.

Watching PSH care for and be so compassionate and gentle with his hospice patient, Earl (Jason Robards),makes my heart ache terribly. All of the people who have been unable to perform this kindness, this type of compassionate care for their closest loved ones as they lie dying in isolation of Covid...it’s overwhelming.

OMG I’m counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Very Good Dogs in the old man’s house!

I know Scientology is evil and he’s undeniably a complicated and morally grey person. I know all that. But goddamn I just love watching Tom Cruise COMMIT. Particularly when he commits to just absolute fucking sleazebag slimeballs. And boy oh boy is Frank Mackey an absolute fucking sleazebag slimeball.

Related - I know Frank looks like Tom Cruise, so he could get people to sleep with him no matter what, but I honestly feel like as a human being, this flesh suit is WAY more attractive balding and fat in Tropic Thunder than he is in this shiny brown shirt/leather vest/long hair combo.

I’m getting an uncomfortable vibe about these black characters being written by an artsy white dude, because I don’t know any young black kids who want to hang around with cops and offer up information about who committed a murder in their building. In fact, the way all of the black characters are treated in this film - as liars, criminals, the disingenuous “main stream media,” and thieves - feels rooted in some racist ass bullshit. We see a lot of nuance in our white characters, but even in a film that has, shockingly, more than one key black role, we don’t get that spectrum or nuance.

There is nothing I would love more than to learn that Frank Mackey is 1) gay 2) impotent or 3) both. He’s so disgustingly over-the-top misogynistic, it honestly feels like it should all be a complete act.

I confess I am on the edge of my seat trying to figure out how all these narrative threads tie together. It’s compelling as hell, even though half the time I don’t know why these people are having these long, meandering conversations. The pacing feels so deliberate, like a puzzle coming together. There’s real craftsmanship in how every scene is plotted to feel connected rather than manic or disjointed.

This pharmacist is being unprofessional as hell. Judgy McJudgerson, mind your fucking business, Julianne Moore’s father is dying! [ETA: ope, that’s embarrassing, Earl is actually her husband.]

NO THE DOG IS EATING THE PILLS OH NO VERY CONCERNED ABOUT THE DOG.

I think I knew this, but this soundtrack is fantastic. All Aimee Mann and Supertramp, and Jon Brion’s score is this thrumming, anxious thing full of strings that underscore all these nervous conversations, and then it shifts into these low, mournful horns when things start to take a turn and everyone is reaching their lowest points.

I love this interviewer (April Grace) who is taking Frank (Tom Cruise) to task. I think it’s particularly noteworthy that she is a black woman, because the kind of misogyny Frank peddles is rooted in white supremacy.

Stanley (Jeremy Blackman) is breaking my goddamn heart here. I think he and Phil (PSH) are my favorite characters.

Jim (John C Reilly) is the perfect example of how even a cop with the best intentions, with absolute kindness and love is in heart, is abusing his power and sexually harassing a woman he encountered in the line of duty, who is eager to appease him because she doesn’t want to be charged with a crime. This movie reads a LOT differently than it did in 1999.

I normally really love Julianne Moore, but she is a screeching mess in this. I can’t stop staring at her mouth and all the contortions it makes as she delivers every line in hysterics. She’s one of the few weak spots for me here.

Listening to Frank go on his whole diatribe about what society does to little boys to break them and victimize them HAS to be the source of where Keith Raniere got at least half of his NXIVM bullshit. Like, some of these points are word-for-word.

Also if Frank makes as much money as he seems to, there’s no way he would drive a shitty Saturn sedan.

It feels like the common thread of this movie is everyone is terrible and cheats on their spouses, and you should come clean when you get cancer so you can die peacefully. Weird moral, but ok.

If Jim is a cop, how does he not see that this woman he’s interested in (Melora Walters) is coked out of her mind?

Y’know for being a quiz kid, Donnie (William H. Macy) sure is kinda stupid.

I confess I’m not taking many notes throughout this because I’m just kind of sitting breathlessly still watching all these conversations unfold because I am on the edge of my fucking seat to find out how all this is gonna come together.

Secret MVP of this movie is the mom from A Christmas Story (Melinda Dillon) who is giving the performance of her goddamn life as Jimmy Gator’s wife.

Did I Cry? On the surface it appears ridiculous, but when Tom Cruise is having his breakdown at his dying father’s bedside, I admit, that really got me. If you’ve ever been faced with that kind of hysterical, I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening, it feels like the whole world is ending kind of shock and hurt and anger, that’s what the crying looks like.

Are those......frogs?? That landed on Jim’s car? It’s raining fucking frogs???? OK for those of you sensitive to frog harm, this movie is going to take a real hard left turn for you, because I swear that came out of NOWHERE.

Um.

What.

Pray tell.

The fuck.

The climax of this movie - is when literal frogs rain from the sky.

And we finally got resolution about the dog, and the dog DID die, and I’m pissed about it. It’s offscreen but still.

I'm sorry - I know I’m fixating. But how is it possible that I knew about all the characters performing a sing-along to Aimee Mann’s (excellent) song “Wise Up” but I did NOT know that the climax of the film involves literally thousands of frogs falling to their death from the sky? How is that something that escapes entry into the cultural zeitgeist? I’m with it, you guys. I have been Very Online for over a decade, and before that, I read a lot of Entertainment Weekly, and like it just seems that this is something that pop culture really should have told me.

I think the funniest moment of this movie might be the credits in which I discovered that not only is Luis Guzman playing a man named Luis, he’s actually playing himself. I don’t know why, but I can’t stop laughing about it. That was a 189-minute setup to one dumb punchline.

I think I loved this movie but I don’t quite know. The frog thing really threw me. What I’m taking away from it is that even when it doesn’t feel like it or seem like it, we are all connected to each other, always, in ways we can’t see or know. As Wife astutely pointed out, it’s reminiscent of the pandemic - we’re all in the same storm, but we each have our own boats and our own experiences within that storm. And it’s kind of nice to remember that right now, that connection still exists even when it feels so far away. Just not if you’re a frog I guess, cause they really got the short end of the stick here.

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

[demonicintegrity]

PATTON ANALYSIS SVS REDUX SPOILERS I’m on mobile so I can’t cut it under a read more I’m sorry

Boy oh boy oh boy

Patton seems a bit off this time around. Everyone does to be honest. Everyone seemed tensed after the wedding. Naturally so I suppose because Thomas had such complicated feelings towards it.

At first Patton stops himself from trying to correct Thomas and tries comforting him instead. A nice gesture. Yes Thomas was a little hurt, but it was the right thing to do for people he cared about so much! They’d done so much for him, and likely would do the same for him, so it only makes sense he should go. Roman pops up during this discussion and is just as conflicted as Thomas is on the whole ordeal.

Most of it was started in that song! (I adore it by the way) I noticed that not only with the fun graphics of the three as chibis and the pixel drawings, the bottom of the screen was like a rhythm game. Tap the buttons in rhythm with each person singing. I know it’s a fun gag but I can’t help but think it’s symbolic. I think this song with the rhythm game motif shows that they were all in sync. All on the same page and same train of thought, hence coming together to create one song. After that though, it gets rocky.

Roman wanted that call back, acting and preforming is his whole thing so of course he wanted nothing more than to give it a shot! But again, Patton tries to comfort the two. This segways into the ethics discussion as a whole. Why was that the right thing? What do you mean the right feeling?

Patton is more than happy to explain his reasoning, he holds back certain phrases as to try and not upset Thomas (as a result of Remus’ debut episode) but happily explains none the less.

But then there are more questions, more nuance is introduced, the problems get more complex and it becomes much more confusing. Roman and Thomas kept looking for Patton for concrete answers to some very complex questions. This soon got him flustered.

It’s no wonder he got flustered. Patton has always been the more child-like and this more “simple” character. He finds himself there to give moral/emotional support and guide Thomas. He’s been the comedy relief to sides as he brings them down to Earth with his simple thoughts and ideas.

But lately, he can’t be so simple. That simple mindset starts to hurt Thomas as he gets older. It starts with the episode that debuts his room (I can’t remember the name of it for the life of me) his room and how he was treating the things in it/the others was starting to cause Thomas harm. Yea it probably was fine and worked wonders when he was kid, but applying the same strategy to every problem starts to do a whole lot more harm then good.

I think that was the start of Patton realizing he might just be in over his head with Thomas. Sure he’s always been there and guided him through a lot of Thomas’ life, but he can do Thomas harm, and I don’t think that sat with him well. When you built your whole self on doing good for others, acknowledging to can/have harmed others is super difficult. Of course that didn’t come into full view until the intrusive thoughts episode. Logan point blank tells him he was the problem as he was too hard on Thomas. That struck a nerve. Ouchie.

And now it happened. Throughout the video it’s clear through Thomas and Roman’s questioning (bordering on intergation) with him that he’s can see himself putting more pressure on Thomas. He has those expectations for Thomas but now that he realized it hurt him he tries to soften it, often just back peddling entirely on certain concepts. He doesn’t let go of his pressures on Thomas, nor does he let go of the pressure on himself. Patton kept trying to have concrete answers as the two kept asking question. Not once did he allow himself to not have a answer until he broke down into lilypadton.

He broke down. Just as Deciet said Thomas was having a mental breakdown under all the pressure, Patton himself broke under the pressure of having to know. He introduces himself as Morality, he is Thomas’ morality, he holds all his morals, so he assumed he had to know the answer to every question. After all, when Thomas was facing more simple problems he did have every answer. “Why is killing and stealing illegal?” “Because it’s bad.” “Whys it bad?” “Because it hurts people.” I think he grown accustomed to always having a “right” answer so the idea of not knowing was insane to him!

So he hurt Thomas in the process of his breakdown. Many of us do hurt the ones we love when we’re having a breakdown and/or trying to do what’s right. And that must’ve just broke poor Patton. But it finally nailed the lesson in. Patton knew he was too harsh on Thomas, it was already stated to him, but he didn’t really understand it until he actually realized the hurtful impact he had on Thomas.

It’s an unfortunate reality for a lot of lessons. We all know we have the capicity to hurt the people we love, but it’s not until we actually do it do we realize just how hurtful we can be.

So what does this mean? Now that Patton finally hit a low point, he can grow as a person. He already show growth as he accepted Deciet and apologized to Thomas. I think this means we can get a more “mature” Patton. He has a chance to grow out of his child-like persona and thus, calm down and be more mature when addressing future moral and emotional issues.

Which I think is going to be put to the test sooner rather than later as Roman seemed pretty upset at the end of the video... and who knows how Virgil will react to Deciet getting a place at the table.

[bustedbernie]

Hi @heatherleee .

I don’t “hate” anyone. But as far as politicians go, Sanders has a comportment that is totally unacceptable. And it’s not just about policies.

So, i worked for the Obama and Clinton campaigns in 2008, 2012, and 2016. I’ve volunteered for local and state level candidates in both the Albuquerque area and in rural parts of New Mexico. This is to say that I am a democrat and have been working for actual democrats for longer than Bernie himself has been. That’s part one why I dislike Bernie. He is not a democrat. He is not “blue.” If he wants support from actual democrats, than that means he’d have to do several things. 1) either apologize for his past and current antagonism toward democrats or at least claim to “evolve” on this. 2) fundraise BIG for downballot democrats both in his home state and across the country. 3) Work for the actual party 4) register as a democrat through and through and run as a democrat in his senate elections. He hasn’t really done any of this. I’m sorry, but if he is expecting people like me who have spent time calling, canvassing, data banking, knocking on doors and donating to be on his side if he got the nomination, that’s insane. This is hard work and takes a lot of sweat, tears and dollars. We see him as a conman who is using our carefully built infrastructure while not doing the above to help. We don’t stand for that. And add in him getting involved with OUR campaign and saying OUR man, the first black president, needed to face a primary while we were dealing with a very powerful candidate emerging in Mitt Romney? It was not only totally irresponsible and disrespectful, it was a slap in the face. Don’t forget that Bernie has long held onto the idea that democrats and republicans are “the same.” Why would I like him after all that? 

Going on, I can’t forgive nor overlook his sexism and racism. This is kinda a big deal. His plans are not intersectional. Even to cite himself and many of his supporters, he bases much of his ideology on marxism. Marxism comes from a specific time and place and our point in history is quite different. I am quite smitten with many radical thinkers and philosophers, which is why I see Marxism and marxist writings/thoughts as foundational to a certain worldview in the same way Aristotle is. They’re great, but we’ve built on that worldview and adapted it, and we now have thinkers who speak not only of the facetious nature of “revolution,” but also the need for intersectionality and how “revolutions” often come at the expense of oppressed groups. Bernie’s ideology has not caught up. If you hear me say things like “Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris are far more progressive than Bernie Sanders,” this is why. Their plans actually address issues of racial justice and gender issues while Sanders sees them, at best, as a secondary issue. He himself has called them “distractions,” while also peddling the idea that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” This just isn’t the case. If he is truly as revolutionary, futuristic, and truly the justice candidate, why in the world can’t he support or speak to issues that black americans, queer americans and indigenous folks deal with everyday? Saying a “rising tide lifts all ships” is to ignore us, to leave us unseen and to castigate the very base of the democratic party. Why can he speak to the so-called “white working class” but not anyone else? 

We can use your housing plan as an example. On the surface, I support many of Bernie���s goals and even many of his plans. But on this issue, you can see that he is peddling ideas that became popular in the 60s and 70s and were implemented in some areas. But, his program is outdated and racist, and doesn’t address the need for black wealth building programs. It also uses blanket policies that aren’t good for certain urban areas. Furthermore, his plan makes little room for new housing development which is actually the largest issue with rent and home prices currently. His plan would actually perpetuate problems by ignoring the supply-side issue. This is seen throughout much of his policies and proposals. 

Let’s get into why that’s an issue. Bernie supporters will tell us that it should be “just about policy,” yet, Joe Biden has now created a public transport plan that is the gold standard in this primary. Elizabeth Warren’s housing plan addresses the issues I outlined above. Kamala Harris’ plan did as well and arguably was better than either Warren or Biden’s current plans. Both have been attacked by Bernie supporters on this issue in breathtaking ways. They have been labelled land developers (which i’m not sure as to why that’s a pejorative), neoliberals, centrists, republicans even. This is not a policy debate. In this example, I’ve mentioned three candidates that have had policies. Instead of engaging on the policies, they attack the very character of the candidates. Whether you support Biden, Buttigieg, Warren or yes, even Sanders, they ALL have very similar goals and ideas. They may have very different timelines for those goals or funding mechanisms or might value some goals more than others, but we are all on board. Yet, we are attacked as if we don’t want healthcare or housing for the poor, as if we don’t want some form of debt relief, etc. There is no nuance allowed and I see frequently the idea that “Bernie is the ONLY one fighting for [X,Y,Z].”

And that’s the largest reason I don’t like Bernie. He has built up a very dangerous cult of personality. It feeds a form of discourse that is corrosive, divisive and actually benefits our largest rivals more than it benefits any type of progressive goal. Me, and many others, place much of the blame for 2016 at Bernie’s feet. You don’t have to agree, but that’s that. I, personally, will not forgive him for what he said and did against Hillary Clinton. I won’t forgive his campaign or his followers for lying on Kamala Harris. And I am not a super big fan of Warren or Biden and here I am finding myself defending them because many in your cohort are spreading the same kinds of lies and conspiracies and propaganda as the MAGA people. And yes, I am fully aware I am making an equivalency between Trump and Sanders with that statement, and I fully stand by it. This black and white worldview is why we have a discourse where “Bernie is the only candidate that has done [X,Y,Z]” is taken seriously by some voters, many of whom either don’t believe Bernie has ever evolved on issues (guns, LGBT rights, women’s rights, states rights, military, etc) or are willing to give Bernie the right to grow and evolve as a politician while not allowing the same of other candidates. It’s not right nor is it okay. 

So I don’t hate Bernie for any one policy, I am more than happy to engage in policy debates and accept that we all have slightly different views on that. But, those debates need to be done in good faith and that’s simply not something we get from Bernie or a majority of his supporters. If this were a policy thing, I could talk about Bernie the same way I talk about Warren or Biden or Buttigieg, and say they’re okay people with okay ideas but they need to pay attention to X,Y,Z because of A,B,C. But when I said I like Kamala’s health plan best for X reasons, I got told i was a fascist or centrist or neoliberal or whatever. I NEVER had a discussion where someone told me why they thought Bernie’s plans were better. Same with Hillary Clinton. Same with everyone still running today. As for this blog, I made it because I was frustrated by all of the above and wanted a place to vent + I wanted to make sure there was at least some content on Tumblr challenging the idea that Bernie is perfect, unproblematic or the undisputed winner. B/C that narrative really made people who spend a ton of time on the internet freak out when it turned out not to be true in 2016. I STILL see people who say “I don’t know a single Joe Biden supporter” on here. I’ve seen that for several other candidates as well. If this blog helps demonstrate that not all democrats/leftists are not on board with Bernie, maybe it will help just a little bit to lessen that blow. I’ve met people who have supported most all of the candidates. The echo chamber needs to have some challenge to it. That echo chamber only feeds the awful cult of personality that i really can’t stand and that I feel is very dangerous. 

[level99games]

Five Top 4's

I was asked by a friend to share some of my favorite media, so this post is a list of my personal favorite Books, Video Games, Board Games, Movies, and etc. Perhaps this will give you some insight into my creative tendencies, or perhaps it will just be a good opportunity for you to comment and agree/disagree/discuss with me!

Originally this was going to be a top 5 list, but I found myself with 4 obvious answers, and struggling to name a fifth in each category. So I just made it top 4—if it didn’t come to mind immediately, then it doesn’t really deserve that recognition, after all. Without further ado, here goes!

Top 4 Books

Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures - I love all of Walter Moers’ books, and if you haven’t read this author’s work before, you’re really missing out. The Zamonia series builds a wonderland-like world where whimsical species live in harmony with one another.

Good to Great - My favorite business manual. Good to Great showcases what specific elements of leadership, discipline, focus, and culture contribute to success. It’s something I’ve worked tirelessly to replicate in the offices of Level 99 Games.

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - One of the most influential philosophy books for me, the Meditations is a classic that instructs the reader in a calm, measured approach to life and its challenges. Much of the book deals with overcoming fear and the internal challenges that are formative to us all in growing up.

Blazing Aces: A Fistful of Family Card Games - Perhaps the best game-related book I own. Reiner Knizia turns a standard deck of playing cards on its head and uses it to play 15 stunningly original games, all based around the evaluation of Poker hands. If you want to see a real master of the game design genre at work, this is the book to get.

Top 4 Board Games

Libertalia - This game is an incredible feat of design, and it combines the simultaneous selection of games like BattleCON and Exceed with a clean resolution system and mechanics that make it appropriate for up to 6 players. The style of the game is excellent, and the mechanics lead to interesting, loaded choices every single turn. This is one game I always want to show my friends, and its something that I would recommend to players of any skill level.

Magical Athlete - Magical Athlete is not at all what we would define as a “modern” game. However, I never fail to have fun with friends when I pull this out and bring it to the table. I keep a copy in the office to remind myself that it’s important not to get too caught up on high-concept mechanics and high-budget art—all this is merely in service to fun, which can be achieved just as easily with simple mechanics and whimsical gameplay.

Dominion - Dominion is one of the most influential board games on my own personal style, and is the game that, to me, signals the temporal and stylistic break between the classic hobby games and modern ones. The incredible amount of modular content generated by shifting setups inspired the many variables present in games like BattleCON and Exceed.

Unlock Adventures - Evocative and interesting without being overwrought, Space Cowboy’s Unlock Adventure series is just the right size for a game you can only play once. I’ve got the whole collection, and eagerly watch for any new ones that drop. I love playing these with my wife and with friends, and they take only a few minutes to teach with the built-in tutorial.

Top 4 Music Artists

Scooter - Spotify tells me that Scooter is my most-listened-to artist of 2019, and a few past years to. I really enjoy the personality and character of these tracks—a Scooter album is always a bit more than an ordinary techno/trance album. 

Masterplan - Classic Power Metal. I enjoy their work just a little bit better than Symphony X, Jag Panzer, and Helloween. The characters presented in the songs are a bit more interesting, and songs have a kind of progression of story that you don’t see in a lot of other outfits.

Avantasia - I’m a huge fan of Tobias Sammet’s Edguy, which is more of a traditional Power Metal outfit. Avantasia’s tunes are more orchestral and fall squarely into the Fantasy Metal genre. I love the long epics such as “Raven Child” and “The Scarecrow.”

Electric Six - Electric Six is somewhere between comedy and irony. I enjoy the catchy lyrics and tunes, with some tracks being quite nuanced, others being pure nonsense, and some simply self-aware schlock peddled for laughs.

Top 4 Video Games

Legend of Mana - A game that I’ve idolized since I first played it nearly two decades ago. There’s so much happening in this game, and so many different systems—magic, crafting, golem making, farming, music—that all feel like they fit seamlessly into the universe. On top of that, I love the world with its fantastic races. Far more than a typical “fantasy world” with a bunch of human-like peoples, Legend of Mana presents a wonderland of mythological creatures, animated objects, and talking animals as its cast.

Crono Trigger - While many games have come after it, Crono Trigger still holds a special place. It takes an incredible feat of writing to make such a well-interlaced and cohesive series of parallel worlds. I still hum the tunes from its soundtrack to this day, and the game’s most memorable moments have inspired hundreds of later games. I also enjoyed Crono Cross. I don’t care what you think.

Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky - I’ve played a large number of the games in the Atelier series. I love the aesthetics of it, and I really enjoy the puzzle of making items. I’m one of those people who plays an MMO just for the gathering and crafting systems. If you’re anything like me, you’ll likely enjoy this series. Escha & Logy has a great balance of combat and crafting, and is an excellent entry point to the series.

Danganronpa - Say what you like about it, this dark, closed-room mystery series defines the visual novel genre for me. Danganronpa’s cast and situations are wild, but it really draws you in. It has a great pacing and character development that will make you love or hate every member of the cast individually, and the mysteries always take a surprising turn.

Top 4 Movies

The Lighthouse - My favorite film of 2019. Masterful film work and character acting make this CGI-free Black & White picture a modern masterpiece of suspenseful storytelling. The Lighthouse establishes Robert Eggers as the true modern successor to Hitchcock.

Wild Tales - It’s impossible to sum up this movie in just a short paragraph, so go watch it instead. This is a vignette film about revenge and human emotion, and the lengths we will go to settle the score against perceived injustice. It’s also just fun.

The Rocketeer - Between a beautiful soundtrack, high adventure in the early age of aviation, and memorable villains, there’s a lot to love in this classic. Even more than Indiana Jones, I consider this to be the quintessential pulp-action film.

Tampopo - A classic Japanese film that remains interesting time and again. Like Wild Tales, this is a vignette film consisting of several interlaced stories about our relationship with food and with each other, all tied together by a central thread.

Anyway, there’s my list! If you have checked out any of my favorites, or if you check them out due to reading about them on this list, please leave a comment and let me know! I’m curious to hear your opinions as well!

About the Author

D. Brad Talton Jr. is the President of Level 99 Games, as well as the designer of BattleCON, Millennium Blades, Pixel Tactics, Exceed, and many more games. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his wife Lynda and daughter Kathryn. 

[chan-gemma]

i hate the media

long rant probably ahead but....... i’m just so. tired. i’m tired. i’m tired!

i lost respect for the media when i read an insider’s account of how it works behind the scenes a few months ago. the big publications have shoddy sourcing practices (if any are done at all); they prioritise getting clicks, getting attention, from which they earn revenue. one of the most effective ways of attracting buzz is through anger or outrage, which explains a ton.

i’m not saying that social justice is a bunch of reactionary bullshit. i’m not saying that anger invalidates a response. as a bisexual asian girl myself, i get angry too. in fact, i get angry often. believe me; i’m not at all the type who uses the term “sjw” or “feminist” derogatorily. but the way the internet receives and processes news is truly flawed. an unduly great portion of the time, we aren’t provided the whole story and sometimes most people don’t even bother to think about it or verify.

the media has been so ugly. they’ve been circulating headlines that claim taron “defended” k*vin sp*cey. in their headlines, they trumpet taron saying honestly that he PERSONALLY hasn’t had bad experiences with sp*cey, leaving out something crucial taron said about sp*cey in the same interview: that what sp*cey’s done is “unacceptable” (his exact word!).

even though the truth that he did not defend k*vin sp*cey is right there and so easily accessible (SAME! INTERVIEW! AS THE MEDIA’S CHOICE QUOTES!), there are still headlines being churned out about how taron “defends k*vin sp*cey”!

as for the #MeToo media shitstorm, taron????? didn’t say anything bad holy shit????? his phrasing could’ve been better, as it’s a very delicate subject. but, holy shit, i’ve been sexually assaulted multiple times as a kid and i’ve been suffering from trauma for years. if he’d said something shitty, i would be saying so right now. but the really awful-sounding bits were stuff tacked on by the press. his words were just that the movement has made him RE-EVALUATE HIS OWN BEHAVIOUR (because he’s always been in a position of privilege, and society has normalised misogyny and other actions that may make people uncomfortable; even i, a girl of more than one marginalised identity, used to be completely unaware of how wrong some normalised shitty things are! so were the rest of the population at some point.) and he’s being more careful now, avoiding being alone with certain PEOPLE, not just women. how does that mean that hes saying he cant control the urge to overstep boundaries when hes alone with other women(/people)? when you realise you could make people uncomfortable without necessarily meaning to, and you’re trying even harder to learn things about power dynamics that you benefit from, it’s understandable that you would avoid situations where you could make people feel that way. i honestly just think he’s just keeping a respectful distance, especially because #MeToo has shed light on how even little, normalised things can make people feel uncomfortable.

i’m just... sick of it. i’m sick of it. the media has shown that integrity is not a priority when they peddled false “facts” and articles about how he “isn’t going to be in kingsman anymore” and “came out” (both confirmed untrue) the past few weeks, and now this. it’s especially shitty because journalists are lionised, on many occasions by themselves, as noble seekers and purveyors of truth and justice. but they can’t even be bothered to do a fundamental part of their literal job description, which is to find out the facts. as for the internet, i’m so sick of it........ sick of how, similar to the situation with the kingsman and instagram bullshit taron had to deal with the past few weeks, many people online are choosing to go with misdirected outrage and/or ignoring facts + the nuances and/or blowing things out of proportion, taking them out of context.

i’m sick and tired

[antoine-roquentin]

Julie Hall smiled on the witness stand as she recalled a memory of her old client Joseph Wood. He had spent most of the last two decades living in solitary confinement, with his recreation confined to a cage, when the Arizona Department of Corrections began to loosen some restrictions over people on death row. A basketball court was built outside his unit on the sprawling desert prison complex in Florence, about an hour south of Phoenix. At 55, Wood was relatively healthy — “he loved going out and playing,” Hall said. A prison sergeant even played a round of basketball with Wood, which meant a lot. “He felt like he was being treated like he was human for the first time in a long time.”

Hall’s smile disappeared when she described the day Wood died. It was July 23, 2014. His execution was scheduled for 10 a.m. Hall arrived at the prison that morning at 6:45, then waited almost an hour to see him. When the Arizona Supreme Court granted a temporary stay of execution, Hall told him the good news. Wood was prepared to die, she told the court; ever since he committed the murders that sent him to death row, he had felt he did not deserve to live. Still, “he wanted someone to listen to us when we said that this was an experimental method of execution.”

Wood was the first to face a new form of lethal injection in Arizona that used a combination of the opioid hydromorphone and the sedative midazolam. The latter had raised controversy over its use in executions. Florida first tried it in 2013 to kill a man named William Happ “in what seemed like a labored process,” according to one media witness. Happ “remained conscious longer and made more body movements after losing consciousness” than people executed under the old formula, according to another report. The Florida Department of Correction, which refused to say how it chose the drug, dismissed the concerns — and soon other states were trying out midazolam. In January 2014, Ohio used it to execute Dennis McGuire. Witnesses described how he struggled and gasped, clenching his fists and striving to breath. A few months later, in April 2014, Oklahoma used midazolam to kill Clayton Lockett in one of the most notorious botched executions in recent memory.

But Arizona stuck to the plan. By noon that day, Wood’s stay of execution had been lifted. Prison staff provided Hall with a pencil and paper and led her to the witness chamber. No phones were allowed. Once inside, she was told, she would be forbidden from leaving the room. Hall watched as a pair of TV monitors were turned on above the closed curtains. “That’s where we could view the insertion of the IV lines,” she explained. Hall was surprised at the amount of blood she saw — some of it dripped onto the floor. With the IVs eventually placed, the monitors went dark. The curtains opened. Wood lay strapped to the gurney, thick straps over his arms and a white sheet covering his legs.

At 1:52 p.m., a voice came over the loudspeaker. The lethal injection was about to start.

After five minutes, with the first dose of midazolam presumably administered, a man entered to conduct a consciousness check on Wood. The voice came back to announce he was sedated. But three minutes later, Hall said, “I saw a quiver in his cheek, which surprised me a little.” She didn’t know whether it was normal or not. It was two minutes after that when she saw Wood gasp for air. Then he did it again. And again.

“He just kept gasping,” Hall said. She began counting the gasps on her notepad. After 20 minutes and 134 gasps, she stopped counting. “I just didn’t know what the point was anymore.” Hall struggled to describe what it looked like. It reminded her of a fish that was dying after being pulled from the water — “that opening of the mouth; trying to get air and just not getting it.”

At 2:50 p.m., Dale Baich, supervising attorney of the Arizona Federal Public Defender’s Capital Habeas Unit, who was seated behind Hall, passed her a note. “Go now,” it said, instructing her to call their colleagues in Phoenix. Hall hurried out of the witness room and asked a guard if she could use his phone. He refused, then escorted her outside of the death house, through a maze of sally ports and checkpoints, and finally, out to the administration building. It took nine minutes. Only then was Hall able to make a call, to tell someone that “something was going very, very wrong and it looked like Mr. Wood was suffering.”

Hall was still on the phone when Wood was finally declared dead at 3:53 p.m. The next day, media witness Michael Kiefer published his own account of Wood’s struggle to breathe. Over the two-hour execution, he reported, Wood gasped more than 640 times.

Hall told her story in fits and starts, answering questions in a courtroom in Nashville, Tennessee. It was July 9, 2018, day one of Abu Ali Abdur’Rahman v. Tony Parker, a trial over Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol. Parker is the head of the Tennessee Department of Correction, or TDOC. The named plaintiff is one of 33 men facing execution under a new formula that includes midazolam. Three have been scheduled to die by the end of the year. One of them, Billy Ray Irick, is set for execution on August 9.

Hall was one of more than 20 witnesses called by the plaintiffs, including some dozen defense attorneys who had witnessed their clients’ executions. They dramatized what lawyers argued in their trial brief: that Tennessee’s new protocol violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. First issued in January, it called for the injection of three drugs: midazolam, followed by a paralytic called vecuronium bromide, and culminating with potassium chloride to stop the heart. With midazolam chosen to provide anesthesia, the attorneys argued it was not only possible but very likely their clients would suffer. What’s more, they said, the protocol prevents defense attorneys from having access to a phone during the execution, in violation of their clients’ constitutional rights.

The witnesses described executions in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Ohio, Virginia, Florida, and Oklahoma. Many had never spoken publicly. Their accounts ranged from subtle but unusual movement on the gurney to gasping, lurching, and clenching of fists. They were bolstered by leading medical experts who explained the scientific reasons why midazolam was inadequate to provide anesthesia.

One pathologist presented evidence that had never been shown in court. He had reviewed 27 autopsy reports out of the 32 total executions carried out using midazolam. In most of the cases, he found signs of pulmonary edema — fluid in the lungs that indicated the men had been in respiratory distress. The inescapable conclusion was that states have almost certainly been torturing people to death in their execution chambers — and that Tennessee might be ready to do the same.

After weeks of testimony, a ruling came quickly, on July 26. It sided with the state. In her order upholding Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol, Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle wrote that the plaintiffs had failed to prove their case, while acknowledging that the use of midazolam might leave them vulnerable to pain during their execution. The U.S. Supreme Court was “aware of the risk of midazolam,” she wrote, and upheld it anyway in Glossip v. Gross. Though “dreadful and grim, it is the law that while surgeries should be pain-free, there is no constitutional requirement for that with executions.”

For anyone who has followed the legal evolution of lethal injection, Lyle’s ruling was not a surprise. The decision ultimately turned not on midazolam, but on a different provision of Glossip. Under the ruling, the plaintiffs had to prove not only that Tennessee’s protocol was cruel and unusual, but that there was a viable alternative. In her dissent in Glossip, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor decried this “surreal requirement,” one that puts attorneys in the perverse position of identifying methods that should be used to kill their clients. Though Lyle conceded that this law “seems odd,” the requirement was clear. “That proof has not been provided in this case.”

Decisions in chancery court have limited sway. Under Tennessee’s Declaratory Judgment Act, Lyle’s ruling amounts to a “declaration” — an opinion that can only be weaponized by bringing it to a different forum. Most lethal injection challenges are brought before federal courts that have the power to stop executions. Lyle did not. In bringing the lawsuit in chancery court, Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry hoped to win a ruling that could influence the state Supreme Court or governor to intervene.

Yet the order belies the significance of the trial itself. As Henry said in her closing argument on July 24, it was the first time a three-drug protocol using midazolam had been the subject of a “real trial.” Until now, most hearings on midazolam were on whether to grant a preliminary injunction to stop a looming execution. Such hearings are rushed by their nature — witnesses often appear by Skype. This was not the case in Nashville. Though the trial moved quickly, the testimony was extensive and nuanced, providing a much fuller picture of the science behind the drugs used in lethal injection. Lyle was deliberate and measured — and cautious not to allow witnesses to testify beyond their expertise.

The questionable analysis of expert witnesses has had major consequences where lethal injection is concerned. At the preliminary injunction hearing that paved the way for Glossip, Alabama-based pharmacist Dr. Roswell Lee Evans peddled opinions divorced from scientific reality. Among his claims was that 500 milligrams of midazolam — the same dose as in the Tennessee protocol — would render someone unconscious to the point that they would not feel pain. Anesthesiologists adamantly disagreed. In an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, 16 professors of pharmacology cited the “overwhelming scientific consensus” that midazolam was incapable of inducing the “deep comalike unconsciousness” called for in lethal injection. On the eve of oral arguments in Glossip, the case was embroiled in controversy over the revelation that Evans had relied on sources like the website Drugs.com.

There is “no debate around midazolam,” anesthesiologist Dr. David Lubarsky told the court in Nashville. Among such experts, Evans has no credibility. But among prosecutors intent on carrying out executions, Evans remains a useful and willing witness, “recognized by numerous state and federal courts,” as Deputy Attorney General Scott Sutherland told the court. If anyone lacked credibility, he suggested, it was the “highly biased” defense attorneys who watched their clients’ executions, he said, quoting a 6th Circuit ruling over Ohio’s lethal injection protocol. As a more authoritative source, Sutherland offered the official department of correction records from 19 executions carried out using midazolam in Arkansas, Florida, and Ohio. Many of them were described as problematic, but these records showed everything had gone fine, he said....

Henry pushed back against the state’s argument that the true effects of large quantities of midazolam are unknown since there have been no “human experiments” to collect data. “Unfortunately, we do have human experiments,” she said. “We have 32 human experiments. Men who were executed using a protocol that involves midazolam.”

Sutherland began by invoking the gruesome crimes for which the plaintiffs had been convicted. “These facts provide context for this court as to why we are here,” he said.

With a low voice that was sometimes hard to hear, Sutherland wore a look of mild irritation — and the slightly casual air of a man who knows the law is on his side. He quoted Justice Samuel Alito’s reasoning in Glossip: “Capital punishment in this country is constitutional, and it follows, necessarily, that there must be a constitutional means of carrying it out.” The Constitution does not require a painless execution, Sutherland went on. It only prohibits the deliberate infliction of torture, such as disembowelment or being burned alive. What’s more, “in the history of its existence,” the court “has never invalidated a state’s chosen method of execution as cruel and unusual punishment.” As for midazolam, there was nothing new to discuss.

Sutherland seized on the main problem with the plaintiffs’ lawsuit. They argued in favor of a one-drug protocol using the barbiturate pentobarbital, a formula used by states like Texas. But they showed no proof that pentobarbital was available, he said. Instead, they argued that TDOC never made an effort to procure it. This was not true, Sutherland said, but regardless, “it’s not our burden to prove that it’s unavailable.” The plaintiffs had to prove that it was....

On the stand in 2003, Heath explained that if the first drug in the protocol, sodium thiopental, was not adequately administered, the pancuronium bromide would cause suffocation while creating a “chemical mask,” concealing any evidence of the excruciating burning pain that would result from the injection of the third drug, potassium chloride. Lawyers called a woman named Carol Weihrer, who described her terror during eye surgery in 1998, when she woke up while under the effect of pancuronium bromide and was paralyzed, unable to alert her doctors.

Presiding over the 2003 hearing was Ellen Hobbs Lyle, the same judge who handed down the ruling last month. On June 1, 2003, Hobbs sided with the state, concluding that lawyers for the condemned had failed to prove that Tennessee’s protocol was unconstitutional. But she was critical of the lack of research behind the protocol — and particularly pointed in criticizing Pavulon, “a drug outlawed in Tennessee for euthanasia of pets.” It served no purpose except to give “a false impression of serenity to viewers, making punishment by death more palatable,” she wrote. And if the anesthetic failed to work, she warned, the paralytic would hide the “excruciatingly painful ordeal of death by lethal injection.”...

Henry reiterated an argument she had tried to make at the end of the trial. If the state could not carry out an execution using the alternative they had put forward — a single dose of pentobarbital — the plaintiffs moved to amend their complaint to consider an “alternative to the alternative”: a two-drug cocktail that removed the vecuronium bromide altogether. This option is “clearly available and readily implemented,” which would satisfy the Glossip requirement. And it would remove one of the well-established risks: that their clients would be paralyzed, suffocating, and suffering as the lethal drugs took hold.

It seemed simple enough. Parker himself has suggested it would be possible. Indeed, Lyle had been among the first in the country to criticize the paralytic back in 2003. “If the state is sincere in its belief that midazolam will work the way that they say it will work,” said Bradley MacLean, counsel for Abu Ali Abdur’Rahman, “there is no reason why the state should oppose this.”

But it did. Sutherland called it a “desperate” move, while Lyle explained that the law prevented her from granting the motion. As for her prescient opinion 15 years ago, she wrote in her ruling, it came before Baze and Glossip. The Supreme Court had found a legitimate purpose for the paralytic: hastening death, while dignifying the process for witnesses and the condemned alike. Her previous decision was “of minimal use.”

[florrickandassociates]

TGF Thoughts: 2x07-- Day 450

Recap under the cut!

Big things, of the secret variety, are happening at LG. The conference room’s walls are covered; NDAs are laid out on the table. There is also one big, comfy looking chair in the conference room, looking out of place amid all the standard office chairs.

Lucca’s the first to ask what’s going on. Marissa isn’t sure—it’s top secret; all she knows is that the partners’ schedules have all been cleared.

“Have you seen this?” Marissa changes the subject. “Chicago lawyer playing cards.” “What?” Lucca asks. “Most wanted playing cards. They already have the four dead lawyers,” Marissa explains. The website peddling these cards? Is in Comic Sans. Thank you, whoever made that choice. I’m guessing you did it intentionally and I appreciate it. It’s an alt-right website, Marissa says. “What are you doing looking at an alt-right website?” Maia asks. “I look at everything,” Marissa states. I don’t think it’s that weird! Weren’t they just on a case about belonging to radical groups online?

Lucca wants to know if any of the RBL lawyers are in there. Marissa says she’s going to order a deck and find out. Maia’s appalled at the thought of giving this group money (tbh I am too).

Maia asks what’s going on in the conference room, and Marissa shrugs and says, “The ways of the partners are mysterious to us mere mortals.” Have I mentioned that I love it when we can see the power structures at work? Because I do.

Marissa tries to get information out of Diane—even how long the meeting will last—but Diane doesn’t say anything.

Luckily for us, we’re viewers and not employees, so we get to know what’s happening. It’s an audition for the DNC’s business, conducted by Ruth Eastman. I didn’t expect to see Ruth back on the show, ever, after how badly the writers botched her season seven arc (so much promise squandered!) But here she is. And she’s used much more effectively in this episode.

While I’m thinking of it, the promo for this episode was in Russian, but nothing in the COTW (aside from a few mentions of collusion) is about Russia. So… was the entire promo a shout-out to the TGW/F/The Americans fans? It wouldn’t be the first time. And I’ll take it.

“We’re in a very peculiar time,” Ruth says. Diane laughs, because a good 25% of Diane’s dialogue these days is just laughter. Ruth isn’t bothered: she says laughing is the “only sane reaction these days.” Diane agrees wholeheartedly. “We’re living in a time of farce, not tragedy,” the writers have Ruth explain. (I phrase it like that because, come on, that’s exactly the point of this season’s tone.)

Ruth is there with an interesting opportunity: the DNC wants a plan to impeach 45 ready to go if a blue wave happens in November, and so they’re auditioning law firms to decide which arguments (and which lawyers) will be the most effective. For now, this all has to stay hush hush, lest voters get the idea that a vote for a Democrat is a vote for impeachment and get scared off.

After some build up, Ruth turns to write on a white board. The marker doesn’t work. “New!” she says, pleasantly, discarding it. She starts the build up again: “This is the question we want you to ponder and answer…” But the next marker doesn’t work either. “WELL, SHIT!” she says angrily, throwing the marker to the floor. This is the best thing Ruth has done on this show.

Carine, a woman on Ruth’s team, volunteers to get more markers. Ruth keeps going with her spiel.

Carine grabs the nearest employee, who happens to be Maia, and asks where the black markers are. They flirt/banter on their way to the supply closet, and Carine thinks Maia looks familiar. Maia deflects the question and shows Carine the markers (they only have pink and purple, because it’s funnier that way).

“Seriously, I know you from somewhere. Where?” Carine insists. Maia thinks for a minute. “Okay, so you know how we just had a little exchange back there and I made you smile, you made me smile?” “Yes, I remember.” “Well, remember that when I tell you who I am,” Maia says. I wonder how many times she’s used (or will use) that line.

“Are you a serial killer?” Carine jokes. “Oh, close. Maia Rindell,” Maia introduces herself. Hee.

Carine recognizes that name. Maia walks away to avoid prolonging the awkwardness, but Carine isn’t as put off as Maia assumes…

Meanwhile, Lucca is working on a case about a film shoot when she notices Francesca walking down the stairs. She excuses herself from a meeting, and her client assumes it’s because she has to pee. His pregnant wife always has to pee, so he feels it is his place to inquire about Lucca’s bathroom habits. No matter how many times Lucca says she doesn’t have to go to the bathroom, the client won’t believe her.

Maia greets Francesca. Lawyer, professional greeter, same diff.

Francesca has brought Lucca a present, and Lucca asks Maia to go deal with her client (“and tell him I’m not going to the bathroom”). I have a question! If Lucca could spot Francesca from the room she and the client were sitting in, can’t the client see that Lucca is by the stairs and not, in fact, in the bathroom? ANYWAY. Maia’s job in this episode consists of knowing where markers are kept, greeting visitors, and informing Lucca’s clients she’s not in the bathroom. Is… there no work for Maia to do? Should I be concerned about RBK’s future? Are they overstaffed?! WHY DOESN’T MAIA DO WORK?

“Very nice meeting you. I think your dad stole some of my husband’s money,” Francesca tells Maia. Ok, People Recognizing Maia is my new favorite running gag. “Sorry,” Maia apologizes. “That’s a good thing. He’s an asshole,” Francesca says, emphasizing asshole. She’s so fun.

In Lucca’s office, Francesca tells her that she’s given up drinking, except wine. Well. That’s… something, I guess?

Francesca’s gift is a stuffed dog that sings “If You’re Happy and You Know It” and claps its hands and waves its ears. It is adorable and grating. “For my grandchild,” Francesca says, touching Lucca’s stomach. Why do people just go and touch pregnant women’s stomachs without asking if they can? I have never understood this.

Over the course of this whole scene, the dog’s flapping ears are visible, at least in part. It is wonderful and distracting and the only thing that could make it more Good is if they were in an elevator.

Even rewatching this scene, with captions on, I cannot see anything other than the dog and its ears. I think Francesca is saying she wants to be in the baby’s life and Lucca’s saying she doesn’t want Francesca involved. But I don’t know. Because ears.

After Francesca leaves, Lucca immediately moves to discard the dog. Francesca doubles back and almost catches Lucca in the act, but the second she turns around again, Lucca shoves the dog in a drawer.

“People understand emoluments,” Adrian is saying when we return to the conference room. They do? By that name? ‘Cause I just had to spell-check that word (even though I know what it means). I’m joking, because I think what Adrian means is that people understand the idea behind it. Still, a weird sentence.

Julius is opposed to the whole idea. He thinks the Dems are starting with the goal and working backwards. Some other partner wants to go after collusion. And Diane wants to go for obstruction, because of the precedents. (And the fact that there are so many paths that could make a good case is why I disagree with Julius. Maybe they’re starting with the goal, but how much does that matter if there are many valid reasons for having that goal? But then, I guess Julius would take issue with my use of “valid”…)

Adrian is against what Andre (the other partner) wants to pursue: collusion. He thinks it has too many Russian names for the public to understand it. Adrian’s whole strategy here is to find the argument that will be the easiest to sell.

Diane is so fired up about this, and I love it. (I also think she’s making the best case.)

“He’s not above the law!!” Diane exclaims. Nobody’s above the law! (Sing it with me!)

Julius won’t quit with these silly arguments. Now he’s comparing Republicans wanting to impeach Obama to what’s going on here. I don’t think it’s just my political bias speaking when I say that’s ABSURD.

Julius’s whole thing is that 45 was voted into office so he shouldn’t be impeached and then removed from office. So… Julius is anti-the concept of impeachment? I think his argument is a little more nuanced than that and he’s making the better case: that impeachment isn’t a tool for political parties that didn’t get their way. I’ll spare y’all my half-informed political rants and instead make this point: I appreciate that even Julius’s points have some validity to them. Too often, this show simplifies these arguments or handles them poorly, and this episode… does a pretty good job.

Ruth steps out for a minute, and reminds RBL of their mission: to choose a strategy, something that will stick the way emails stuck to HRC. (Don’t remind me!! Those goddamn emails.)

With Ruth out of the room, Adrian tries to get Julius to stop losing them a client. Julius says he’ll play devil’s advocate. Then Adrian tries to get Liz to speak up. She’s been watching and taking everything in.

Ruth takes a call about “Barnsdale. Illinois 1st.” She asks Lucca if she can use some random office, and commandeers it before Lucca can respond. She picked a bad office to have a private conversation in, though, because it’s one of the ones with the angled glass walls. These offices—which I’ve been wondering about for WEEKS because they don’t seem the slightest bit private—have gaps in the windows and it seems like (and turns out to be the case that) someone in the hallway would be able to hear every word said inside of the office.

And it just so happens that Lucca overhears the exact conversation she needs to overhear: a Congressman up for reelection is being asked—well, more like told—by the DNC that he can’t run again because he’s a groper. Lucca recognizes what this means: it’s the district Colin was thinking of running in.

So Lucca does what all Good characters would do: distracts Colin at work with her presence until he forgets what he’s talking about, then walks away.

Colin’s first thought is that something happened with the genetic screening. Lucca says it’s not that; it’s about his mother. “I didn’t want to run; my parents wanted me to run,” Colin says when Lucca asks him about the Illinois 1st. “Oh, so you’re not running?” Lucca counters. And Colin? Can’t answer that definitively.

Colin says he won’t run if he has to campaign, but if all he has to do is get the support of the DNC, he’ll run. Uh huh.

Lucca’s fear is that she’s being used for political gain. It’ll look better if she and Colin are together. Colin tries to keep Lucca out of it, even going so far as to say Lucca can tell his mother to “fuck off,” but… you don’t have to watch the rest of the episode to understand that’s never going to happen.

Then Colin asks about the genetic testing. Lucca says, “Oh, everything’s… good.” Colin mentions a family history. Does anyone else feel like she might be hiding something here? This is a weird scene. She’s already said the baby’s fine, yet they have her double back for this conversation AND they mention Colin’s family history? It would not shock me if Lucca was waiting on some test results and keeping it to herself. But also, like, I have seen this show and it would surprise me even less if we never heard about this again.

I may have to take back what I just said about Julius, sadly. Diane makes the more nuanced point I extrapolated from Julius’s words and Julius tries to rebut it. So. Whatever. It’s in early scene cross-talk (you know, the lines that aren’t meant to make a point but are rather meant to show you that there’s heated debate, so you can jump in mid-scene and it won’t feel awkward), and I’ve heard weirder things (like Alicia explaining why we don’t need female politicians in 220, a line I don’t think I was supposed to notice because I was supposed to be paying attention to her poise and the ease of her answers) in early scene cross-talk.

This audition doesn’t seem to be going well. That’s when Liz speaks up. She starts talking about some evidence that came across her desk at the DOJ. At first, I thought the writers were trying to introduce new facts into their hypothetical, and I was disappointed. But that’s not what they’re up to. Instead, they’re having Liz tell an increasingly elaborate, and possibly not baseless (would ANY of you be surprised if pieces of evidence similar to the ones Liz invents actually existed?) story to prove her point. Liz is demonstrating that the story keeps changing. “You’re all missing the point! It’s not about choosing one charge or another for impeachment. It’s about everything. It’s about who he is. It’s about what the presidency is. Charging him with obstruction, that’s going by the old rules. And the new rules are these. ‘I have a tape.’ ‘Where’s the tape?’ ’15-year-old was raped, and I’ve got the evidence.’ ‘Where’s the evidence?’ ‘Same place as the tape.’”

Diane laughs. “My God, this is insane!” Julius replies.

“No, no no no. This is shameless,” Liz clarifies. “And impeachment has to be shameless, or else it’s gonna fail.”

“So. You lie,” Julius accuses.

“No, no no no no no. You just don’t back down,” Liz says. “But there is no tape!!” Julius says. “Uh-uh. That’s what you said. I didn’t say that,” Liz argues. God, that’s what reading the news today feels like. Like logic and facts are no longer persuasive.

“Listen. This isn’t about truth anymore. And it’s not about lying. It’s about who’s backtracking, and who’s attacking,” Liz concludes. I don’t know what to think, and I love that. Liz’s approach is outlandish. It’s also convincing. And it’s maddening. These things should be based on facts. And yet!

I love that I can agree with Liz and think her point is absurd/laughable at the same time. I love that the show is able to capture the way that laughable and strategic can be the same today. It’s super effective.

When Ruth leaves for the day, Adrian immediately begins talking down to Liz in front of all of the partners. “Liz. Liz, Liz, Liz, what the fuck are you doing?!” I do not like this side of Adrian, especially when Liz is (obviously) being strategic and novel.

And also effective! Ruth tells her colleagues at the DNC that “we might have something here.”

Aaaand, credits. Another female writer this week! She wrote an ep last season too. And she’s great: I spent 17 minutes convinced the Kings had written this one because she captured the tone and the big moments so well. Also, I just googled her (her name’s Tegan Shohet) and she has a really fucking impressive resume. She did her undergrad at Harvard, has a law degree from Yale, and she has another degree from Oxford.

Maia and Amy (hello, Amy!) are kissing at a bar after the credits end. They’re out on a double date with Marissa and Drew, the guy from the ricin scare. Drew has this look in his eyes like he’s on something. I don’t like it one bit.

He and Marissa start making out mid-conversation. It’s almost aggressive, and not like Amy and Maia’s kiss just moments ago. Part of that is, I think, that we’re supposed to see Amy and Maia as a bit passionless right now, but it also seems… weird. Something is up with this dude. I don’t trust him.

But I would rather watch him and Marissa making out than hear Amy and Maia state “facts” that screw up the timeline!!!!!!!!!!! LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU WITH YOUR “WE’VE KNOWN EACH OTHER FOR FOUR YEARS” BUSINESS WHEN I LITERALLY WATCHED YOU MEET AT MAIA’S 18TH BIRTHDAY PARTY; I’M BUSY WATCHING THIS AWFUL DUDE STICK HIS TOUNGE IN MARISSA’S MOUTH.

Drew also has no filter. Oh, and then he gets up at hits someone, claiming they took an upskirt of Marissa. But before that happens…

Amy and Maia are talking about getting married! And we didn’t get to see how they smoothed things over after 2x02? What a shock…

(Well, also, I feel like this ep pretty strongly suggests they didn’t really work through that.)

Seriously though, what the hell is Drew doing? What is his deal?

Marissa, who believes someone took an upskirt photo of her, reacts to Drew’s actions as though he’s a hero. She rewards him with a kiss. That makes Maia smile, because… I don’t really know. It makes Amy roll her eyes. Can we have Amy as a regular and not Maia?

“We need to toast your news!” Marissa says, making plans for the second consecutive weeknight. “Our news?” Amy wonders. OOOOOF. That relationship cannot be in a good place.

Maia seems kind of… turned on? By Drew and Marissa.

Amy doesn’t believe that the dude in the bar was actually trying to take an upskirt. Amy thinks Drew just wanted to hit someone. I agree with Amy here.

Amy then asks if they have to see them again. Maia says that Marissa’s a friend. 

Amy tells Maia to talk to Marissa because people like Drew can be “dangerous in a relationship.” I had that same thought just from the way he was kissing her in public (it seemed quite possessive). And you know what I don’t need? For another investigator on this show to end up in an abusive relationship.

(That said, this is MILES better than any Kalinda/Nick bullshit.)

Now cameras are being installed in the conference room.

Marissa clearly stayed out for several more hours after Maia and Amy headed home. She’s wearing sunglasses at her desk and can barely answer questions. That’s also a big warning sign. Marissa’s hungover at work. It’s not a pattern yet, but I’d hate to see it become one.

Lucca meets with some partners about her client, Lock. She wants to give them a heads-up, but it seems he’s already left the firm because of Lucca’s pregnancy. Well, he said her “mood swings,” but lol.

Even Liz, who’s very understanding, is inclined to believe the client. Every time Lucca tries to defend herself, someone tries to comfort her or calm her or tells her not to get upset. I love Cush’s delivery of the line, “I’m not getting upset…” because she says it with just a hint of confusion. She doesn’t sound upset (at least not unreasonably so). She sounds like someone who’s slowly realizing that no one will take her words seriously as long as she’s pregnant.

Every time Lucca tries to take action, the partners shut her down and offer to help. It’s just weird. I can’t speak to whether or not it’s realistic because I’ve never been pregnant, nor do I work at a law firm managed mostly by non-parents (or any sort of law firm, for that matter), but it feels like it’s realistic. It’s subtle and the partners are encouraging, but they are making assumptions about Lucca’s work performance and capabilities based on the fact she’s having a baby.

Ruth appears! RBL is now one of four! Naturally Adrian believes this is because of what he and Diane were saying, and not because of anything Liz said. He believes this so strongly he calls Liz aside to give her an order. “No more shit Liz, okay?” He says like she’s a child (a child with a potty-mouth, I guess). She calls him on it. “Adrian, when did you get the impression that you could order me around?” He denies it, and Liz goes STRAIGHT to talking about their marriage. The teacher who married his student for her ties in the legal world CONDESCENDED TO HER? I’m just shocked. (Lol no, this is how I have been picturing their marriage for a few weeks now.)

Adrian asks Liz again to get behind the obstruction charge (Diane’s idea) so they can seem united. She says she’ll consider it.

I wonder if the reason Adrian can’t see that Liz has a plan, and that her plan is working, is that he’s so used to underestimating her.

Adrian and even Julius get behind Diane’s plan. It’s so transparent that they’re trying to show they’re united. “Now, we may disagree, but we find consensus,” Adrian explains. LULZ.

As soon as Adrian says “consensus” and Julius echoes it, Diane announces she’s changed her mind and now sides with Liz. This surprises even Liz! Ooh, will we get more on the Diane/Liz tension?

“I’m tired of ‘when they go low, we go high.’ Fuck that! When they go low, we go lower. Impeachment isn’t just about the law. It’s about persuading people. And if it’s one thing that we’ve seen this past year, it’s that lies… persuade. Truth only takes you that far… and then you need lies.” Guys, I’m seriously terrified by how much I understand this. Even the fact that my first reaction upon hearing this was, “she has a point” and not, “what??? That’s a lie!” scares me. When TGW was airing, I wouldn’t have believed that Diane would ever say this. And I wouldn’t have believed that would be my reaction. But, then, I also wouldn’t have believed this country would elect Donald Trump. What I’m saying is that regardless of whether this is a good strategy or not, or if it’s morally sound, or hypocritical, the way that it’s not easy to dismiss or laugh at is… the point.

Julius calls this “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” “You’re just as bad as you’re accusing him of being,” he explains. ACCUSING? Come on, Julius. If you think the word “alleged” would need to be in a sentence that calls him a liar…

Anyway. Another thing I love about Diane’s speech is that it’s coming both from a character place AND a political place. The next part of her rant makes this point well: “I’m just done with being the adult in the room. I am done with being the compliant and sensible one. Standing stoically by while the other side picks my pockets, while the other side gerrymanders Democrats out of existence. A three million person majority and we lost the presidency. A Congress that keeps a Supreme Court justice from being seated because he was chosen by a Democratic president.”

(I am gonna keep going on this but LOL Julius what planet do you live on where that’s not what happened? FACTUALLY THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED.)

Diane has always been the adult in the room. That’s a role she’s fantastic at playing, and she loves it. And now she’s tired of it?! That can’t just be because of Trump. That’s what someone who lost her best friend, lost her husband, lost her money, lost her clout, watched her candidate lose an election, and, finally, felt and still feels like there’s a target on her back would say. Why should she be the one to hold things together when everything else is falling apart? What’s the point of acting like the rules still apply?

Julius says some nonsense about how if Diane really believes that, she’s lost all faith in the law. To which Diane replies that she has a gun in her desk “and I’m this close to taking to the streets.” That, my friends, is someone who is all of the things I said above, and also on drugs, would say. And somehow, that person is… Diane Lockhart.

(And weirdly, while I can’t say it’s necessarily the direction I want to see the writers take Diane, I can’t honestly say it’s out of character. Terrifying, right?)

IT DID NOT CATCH MY ATTENTION THE FIRST TIME THROUGH BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT MAIA IS DOING AT WORK? CHECKING TWITTER. (I mean, I check Twitter at work. I’m sure most people check their phones at work. You could catch the most productive employee on Twitter at work. But somehow we have endless amounts of time to show Maia not working and no time to show Maia working.)

Carine is back, to tell Maia about her own father. He was a disgraced senator, so she’s part of the “damaged offspring club” too. Hey, where are Zach and Grace? Is Zach still in Paris (lol) with his wife (hahahaha) writing his memoir (bwahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahaha)? How’s college treating Grace? ANYWAY. NOT THE POINT.

The point is that Carine and Maia are making a connection.

Also that in one scene, Maia manages to: Surf Twitter on her work laptop, flirt, and make plans to go drinking. Writers, come on. Throw me a bone. Give Maia work to do. (Two of these things are not her fault—Carine and Marissa come over to talk to her—but still!)

Marissa pops by to invite Maia to go out dancing at 10 pm on a work night. Maia turns it down initially, but then says maybe. What does she have to lose? She could show up hungover the next day and it wouldn’t matter. IT’S NOT LIKE SHE HAS ANY WORK TO DO!!!!!!

When Marissa leaves, she’s all “luv uuuuuu” (that is my approximation of the tone) and Maia quietly whispers back “love you.” Am I supposed to be getting the feeling that Maia’s crushing on Marissa? She also smiles a little after Marissa walks away.

“There’s a tweet I think you should see,” Maia informs Lucca. Lucca asks if it’s about work (of course it isn’t; that would require Maia to be working NO I WON’T STOP) and it’s about Colin’s campaign. Specifically, a horribly racist tweet about how he got a “black girl” pregnant (“hashtag Sally Hemmings”)

“So I’m a black girl. A black, pregnant, plantation girl,” Lucca responds. Maia is like “I don’t think it implies that” which, I mean, I buy Maia holding that opinion because it would mean she is super privileged, white, and didn’t pay attention in history class and you KNOW I would believe all of those things. But also, it’s a mean tweet that refers to Lucca as “a black girl.” Why would Maia even want to defend that?

Lucca’s TRENDING too. I wish Lucca would trend. Not for this. I mean publicity for the show.

Also trending is Earth Day. Wanna know something fun about Earth Day? It is in April. Specifically it’s April 22nd (which is a Sunday and the day of the next episode, but I will ignore that because it’s close enough and Earth Day could be trending in advance). Lucca is due in May. She is four months pregnant. WHAT MONTH IS IT, SHOW?

Maia accidentally kicks a drawer under Lucca’s desk and it begins to sing. “What is that?” she asks. “It’s a dog,” Lucca replies, as though that explains anything.

Lucca furiously begins to type—to Tweet! This is a bad idea. Has Twitter ever been a good idea on this show when it was controlled by anyone other than Eli or Marissa Gold? (No.)

Lucca (@lquinn) has fired off a reply tweet (“I’m the black woman having Colin Morello’s baby and my name is Lucca Quinn. Did Sally Hemmings have a law degree? #MoreLikeMichelle”) that is snarky and probably misguided, especially since it’s a trap laid by Colin’s campaign manager NotEli. (He isn’t getting a name.)

More bickering, verging on nervous breakdowns, are happening on the DNC live feed. The juiciest live feed since the NSA was listening to Alicia? Anyway.

“I’ve spend the last few months feeling fucking deranged! Like I’m living in some bad reality show! Going numb! All Trump, all the time! What’s real? What’s fake? Well, you know what? I just woke up,” Diane yells. And by yells, I mean yells. Damn.

Liz takes Ruth outside to try to get her to get Julius out of the audition. Liz always has some kind of plan.

Later, Adrian walks into Diane’s office, concerned. “I have never been more all right,” Diane says. U SURE? Did you just take a hit of something? Adrian asks how much of this is show and Diane is like, it’s a show!

Adrian wants to know about the gun in her desk. Yeah, I feel like that’s a valid concern, given that there is a GUN IN HIS WORKPLACE. Not only is that probably illegal but it’s also a hazard.

Marissa brings more bad news: the Chicago lawyer playing card deck, and we get to hear a few of the names in it. David Lee (IS ANYONE SURPRISED?). Patti Nyholm (Ditto). Laura Hellinger. WAIT WHAT? LAURA HELLINGER IS THE SWEETEST. (Can you tell I just rewatched season 4?) What is there to hate about Laura Hellinger!? Why bring her name, of all the names, into this?!

The partners decide to ignore it for now—why give it more attention?—but Adrian, Liz, and Diane are all in the deck. Damn.

Upon seeing her own face on a card, Diane says, “To answer your question, Adrian, yes, I have a gun in my desk.”

It’s at that moment Ruth interrupts to ask Julius not to join the RBL team for the remainder of the audition. Julius, after hearing he’s out, flips off the other partners. Professional. Though I can’t really criticize him, because it’s not like anyone else is being professional.

Maia tries to convince Amy to go to the dance club with her. Amy has a trial starting the next day and she doesn’t want to go, so it’s an impossible sell. Maia makes a bogus excuse: she thinks she should go so as not to be impolite. To Marissa. She sees. Marissa. Every. Day. She and Marissa are friends. It is not impolite to say no to going to a dance club at 10 pm on a work night with someone you went out with the night before. This is an excuse. Maia wants to go out; Amy doesn’t. So Maia’s looking for any reason she can find to go out.

Maia also misses a crucial detail—that Amy’s trial starts tomorrow so there’s no reason to wish her good luck now. This seemed weird the first time through, but then I realized: Maia and Amy live together. And that’s the kind of comment you make to someone you’re not going to see for a little while.

Lock wants Lucca to be his lawyer again. Lucca suspects that Maia might have called him (no that would involve Maia taking initiative so it’s unlikely). But no. The answer is that he’s on Twitter. And that’s when Lucca realizes that she has power.

She shows up at Colin’s door. “I’m not gonna marry you. I’m not gonna pretend otherwise. I’m not gonna lie, I’m not gonna mislead, and I’m not gonna be the woman who stands by your side. I’m the mother of your child, a close friend of yours, and a registered voter in the 1st Congressional District of Illinois. You want my support, you’re gonna agree to my terms,” she demands.

She goes on: she will do one appearance a month, issue a statement, and do interviews. Damn. Colin didn’t even have to negotiate for that.

Francesca is also at Colin’s house. So is NotEli, whose first words to Lucca are “Wow, that’s pregnant.” Off to a great start!

NotEli’s name is Stephen Rankin-Hall. I will continue to call him NotEli.

Now we get some exposition about the campaign. We’re actually doing this. The writers wrote Alicia out and found a way to bring campaigns back.

More deliberations in the conference room. The DNC is watching in real time, and they’re missing the fire of the deliberations with Julius. Using all the coded language in the world, Ruth requests that RBL show their “more pugnacious attitude.”

As soon as she leaves, the partners prove they got the message loud and clear. “They want us to be street,” Liz says, with a trace of anger. No one’s thrilled about it, but they’re all willing to play along. “I will be the angry black woman,” Liz decides. “And you can be Black Lives Matter,” she says to Adrian. (He chuckles.) “What about me?” Diane wonders. “You keep us calmed. But we can’t be calmed. But you’re the white conscience,” Liz says. LOLLOLLOLLOLLOLLOLLOL.

And back to the conference room they go, playing their roles perfectly until they’re screaming at each other about how fantastic Ta-Nehisi Coates is. It’s hilarious. And it piggy-backs off of the point the show made last week: there are certain roles that even (especially) those who call themselves progressives expect people to play based on their race. Diane’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown and she gets to be the conscience because she’s a classy white lady. Liz and Adrian have been strategic throughout all of this and they’re understood when they play up their anger in a very specific, stereotypical way.

(I don’t know that this strategy actually works in the context of the show, since we know that Liz and only Liz is chosen, and I’m going to guess her initial idea helped her more than this show. Even still. The firm is flat out told by the DNC that they will do better when they fit into an easy, familiar (racist) narrative.)

Liz and Adrian sit together in his office after their performance. “I never know how far is too far,” Adrian says. “At least you’ve reached a point in your life where you can admit it,” Liz says. That’s pointed.

Just want to take a moment to say I’m very happy with the addition of Liz. She’s fascinating, Audra’s fantastic, and I can tell so much about Liz from even the tiniest moments. Also, usually characters who are as sneaky as she is towards the other regulars come off as villains. That’s not how Liz comes off, and she was literally introduced as Alicia’s biggest rival and reintroduced as someone who made a move against Diane.

Maia invites Lucca out dancing. She’s going to turn it down anyway, but then Colin, Francesca, and NotEli show up and she has a good excuse not to go.

NotEli and Francesca want Colin and Lucca to get their story straight. “Look, we’re not expecting you to be the good little wife or girlfriend. That’s the old playbook. It stopped working in 2016,” NotEli says. Oh for fuck’s sake. You can’t just add the word “little” in there and distract me from the fact you are talking about Alicia.

But this line reminds me of two things that I’ve been thinking about lately. The first is that the Good Wife narrative really isn’t timely anymore. It certainly was in 2008. It even was in 2011 when I started watching. But now? Who cares? A dude abuses his office, and now, I think, the media is more likely to wonder about what woman is going to run for his seat than about whether or not his wife will stand by his side. Well, either that happens or absolutely nothing happens and millions of people think it’s perfectly okay to have a president who makes comments about “grabbing women by the pussy.” Either way: it’s not the narrative that fascinates people (or the media) today. And if you’re not caught in the middle of a scandal? It’s even less essential. “Family values” haven’t totally disappeared from politics by any means, but this isn’t 2008.

The other thing this line reminds me of is that, well, I fucking miss Alicia Florrick. It may be accurate to say that “the good little wife” is the old playbook. It’s been on the way out for a while now, so it’s only semi-accurate to say it stopped working in 2016. It is, however, accurate to say that The Good Wife ended in 2016. I like the idea of revisiting these themes, in a very different world, with a very different character. What I don’t like as much is that every time I see Lucca get pulled into situations that very, very few people would understand, I can’t help but want her to call up her close friend who’s lived through it. There are very few other moments when I long for Alicia to be on this show. And I still don’t, really, want her to make a guest appearance. But I want Lucca to have a friend. I want Lucca to have that friendship. And I can’t believe that Lucca and Alicia had a falling out, off screen, big enough that Lucca wouldn’t have reached out to Alicia for advice. If they’re not going to give me Alicia, can they at least stop teasing me?

(“Good little wife”? TEASE.)

Anyway I love how blunt Lucca is. For some reason, NotEli believes Lucca and Colin will be asked where their child was conceived, and he also believes this is a question they should answer. Colin starts to answer, saying things got intense when they were on opposite sides. Lucca jumps in and bluntly says, “So we worked through all that tension by fucking in the courthouse restroom.”

NotEli and Francesca stare at her and Francesca laughs, thinking (hoping) Lucca’s joking. But she’s not done. “It was a family restroom, so we locked the door,” she adds. NotEli says maybe they’ll have to massage this a little. Or you could, like, not talk about where you fucked?

And then the toy dog starts to sing, because of course. (It’s less effective this time.)

Now we’re at the club with Marissa and Maia. Maia’s theme song is playing. Seriously, just read these lyrics: “I clock out my 9:00 to 5:00. I’m ready for the weekend to bring me back to life. Don’t live to work, I work to live.” See?! It’s Maia’s song! Working normal hours (in a profession notorious for requiring long hours) and viewing a job as a chore and not something she’s passionate about!

MAIA IS SO AWKWARD, BUT SHE IS ALSO SO COMMITTED TO ACTUALLY TRYING TO DANCE.

(As you might expect, Marissa is not at all awkward.)

Carine appears at the bar when Maia goes to get a drink! They start talking about their fathers until Maia’s like, “Do you really want to talk about this?” and Carine says no. And then Maia says she wants to dance, so they start dancing. And they get pretty into it.

A little later in the evening, Maia and Marissa talk at a table. Marissa has her arm around Maia. “Am I boring?” Maia asks. You want me to answer that, Maia? You are, and it’s not because you have a stable relationship. I actually find that interesting. ANYWAY. In the world of the show, Maia is worried she’s boring because she’s in a long-term relationship.

Marissa calls Maia a “fucking ninja.”

“I feel like I’m cheating,” Maia worries. “You’re dancing. Or do you mean with me? Because I’m ready for anything,” Marissa responds. Is Marissa saying she’s bi? Or is she joking? Or just drunk? I feel like we may see more on this front. But maybe not.

Oh my God. I have accidentally paused the screen on the most awful drunk!Maia face and I’m not going to post it because I’m not cruel.

“What do you want?” Marissa asks. “I don’t know. Sometimes I want stability. Sometimes I don’t,” Maia answers. Hmmm. Much as I would love to see Maia in a committed relationship, what I would love even more is an arc where Maia, whose life had been very stable up until the scandal, realize that actually, maybe she doesn’t need to follow the easiest, most stable path. Maybe she’d rather be single, or with someone else, at this stage in her life. Wanting stability is a very Alicia thing. It doesn’t have to be a Maia thing, too.

(Nope, I will not turn this into a backdoor way to talk about Alicia and her priorities. I am tempted, but I will resist the temptation.)

Marissa just asks Maia wants right now and Maia says, “That’s the question.” Marissa tells her to go dance, but Maia decides to leave instead.

Maia also tells Marissa that Drew is “great.” I am on Amy’s side here…

Carine finds Maia outside and starts to say goodbye when… Maia kisses her. In the middle of the street. Carine kisses her back. And then they get in an Uber together and make out. Nice, Maia.

I don’t have strong feelings on Maia cheating, mostly because I am not sure I consider her a cheater for this. This behavior—and the behavior we’ll get to in a minute—is cheating. But… she’s cheating on someone she’s had doubts about, someone she barely wants to spend time with, someone who testified against her in court (??), and someone we’ve barely gotten to know. That’s not to say that cheating is justified if that’s the case. It’s not. My point is that I don’t know what Maia’s going to do next. If what she does next involves keeping this from Amy and acting like everything is normal, then yes, she is a cheater and ughhhhhh, Maia. But if this is really the final straw/a wake-up call that causes her to either work through her issues with Amy (including actually telling her she cheated) or break up with her, then it feels like less of a betrayal to me. I don’t know where I’m going with this. Moving on. I am sure I will have more thoughts, hopefully clearer and more fully formed ones, once the next episode (that addresses this plotline) airs.

Carine gets called into work, where she falls on the ground because she is drunk. They have to leave, but she wants to stay a few more days!

Ruth tells the name partners the DNC’s decision: they’re hiring a team of lawyers from various firms, and they just want Liz. “Like the Avengers,” Diane observes. Yes, you read that right. Diane made that observation. Diane Lockhart.

Adrian calls Liz “Wonder Woman” and Ruth corrects him that “That’s the Justice League.” Hee. Look at Diane and Ruth, knowing their superheroes better than I do! (Though I actually understood both of those references.)

Will Liz actually take the offer? I’m unsure. I don’t want anything that means less Liz, so I’m hoping either she doesn’t take it or she does but it doesn’t reduce her screentime.

Ruth tells her assistant to turn off the DNC cameras. But he can’t, because Maia and Carine are busy having sex, on camera, in the office. You’re such a good employee, Maia.

Carine would know about the cameras, but I don’t think this is a set-up (I think she’s just drunk, though wouldn’t be shocked if it was a set-up). Maia wouldn’t know about the cameras, but for fuck’s sake, Maia, do you think you’re supposed to be having sex at the office? Oh, you know what? It’s Maia. She probably thinks that’s what offices are for.

(I so badly want to end my recap there, but also, this Trump impeachment Schoolhouse Rock style song is A++++++ and I’m not sure why it exists but I’m glad it does. It’s also by the same guy (Jonathan Coulson) who did all the BrainDead recap songs (if you did not watch BrainDead, you should) so I’m a very happy fan.)

(Omg, and the slow instrumental “If You’re Happy and You Know It” over the credits is great.)

[multipleservicelisting]

Trump’s Ideas Flourish Among State and Local Republicans

In Cleveland County, Okla., the chairman of the local Republican Party openly wondered “why violence is unacceptable,” just hours before a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol last week. “What the crap do you think the American revolution was?” he posted on Facebook. “A game of friggin pattycake?”

Two days later, the Republican chairman of Nye County in Nevada posted a conspiracy-theory-filled letter on the local committee website, accusing Vice President Mike Pence of treason and calling the rioting a “staged event meant to blame Trump supporters.”

And this week in Virginia, Amanda Chase, a two-term state senator running for the Republican nomination for governor, maintained that President Trump might still be sworn into a second term on Jan. 20 and that Republicans who blocked that “alternative plan” would be punished by the president’s supporters.

“They’ve got Mitch McConnell up there selling out the Republican Party,” Ms. Chase, who spoke at the protest in Washington last week, said in an interview. “The insurrection is actually the deep state with the politicians working against the people to overthrow our government.”

As Mr. Trump prepares to exit the White House and face a second impeachment trial in the Senate, his ideas continue to exert a gravitational pull in Republican circles across the country. The falsehoods, white nationalism and baseless conspiracy theories he peddled for four years have become ingrained at the grass-roots level of the party, embraced by activists, local leaders and elected officials even as a handful of Republicans in Congress break with the president in the final hour.

Interviews with more than 40 Republican state and local leaders conducted after the siege at the Capitol show that a vocal wing of the party maintains an almost-religious devotion to the president, and that its members don’t hold him responsible for the mob violence last week. The opposition to him emerging among some Republicans has only bolstered their support of him.

And while some Republican leaders and strategists are eager to dismiss these loyalists as a fringe element of their party, many of them hold influential roles at the state and local level. These local officials not only serve as the conduits between voters and federal Republicans, but they also serve as the party’s next generation of higher-level elected officials, and would bring a devotion to Trumpism should they ascend to Washington.

The continued support for the president is likely to maintain Mr. Trump’s influence long after he leaves office. That could hamper the ability of the party to unify and reshape its agenda to help woo back moderate suburban voters who play a decisive role in winning battleground states and presidential elections.

At the same time, stepping away from the president could cost the party his supporters — millions of new working-class voters who helped Mr. Trump capture more votes than any other Republican presidential candidate in history.

“It is priority No. 1 to retain Trump voters,” said Harmeet Dhillon, an R.N.C. member from California. “There is no way to do that with rapid change, tacking in a different direction. Voters are looking to the party for continuity and to stay the course.”

An Axios-Ipsos poll released Thursday showed that a majority of Republicans support the president’s recent behavior and say he should be the Republican nominee in 2024.

Already, some from the Trump wing are threatening primary challenges to Republicans deemed insufficiently loyal to the president and fierce opposition to any Republican who works with the new Biden administration. With Mr. Trump barred from prominent social media platforms, they’re immersing themselves in right-wing media outlets and waiting for new conservative social media platforms many say are being set up.

“The party is definitely with Trump,” said Debbie Dooley, a conservative activist in Georgia. “I’m seeing anger but it’s kind of nuanced. There are people that are angrier at these Republicans that have turned their backs on Trump than they are at Democrats.”

That was evident shortly after 10 Republicans joined with Democrats to support impeachment on Wednesday. Within hours of the vote, Drew McKissick, the chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, blasted out a statement attacking Representative Tom Rice, a Republican from his state who had backed impeachment.

“We completely disagree with this sham and to say I’m severely disappointed in Congressman Tom Rice would be an understatement,” Mr. McKissick said.

Several House Republicans also called for Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a high-profile voice for impeachment, to step down from her leadership position in the party’s caucus.

Anthony Sabatini, a Florida state representative, described Ms. Cheney and other Republicans who voted for impeachment as “artifacts,” saying they were out of step in a party that has embraced a more populist platform opposed to foreign interventions and skeptical of free trade.

“She’s like a fossil,” he said of Ms. Cheney. “The party is completely and totally realigned. Mitt Romney wouldn’t win in a primary today. He would not be able to be elected dogcatcher today.”

For years, opponents to Mr. Trump argued that he would lose his hold on the party after a devastating event — like unrest or violence that would shock the nation. Last week’s breach of the Capitol appears to have presented that opportunity to Republicans who want to refocus the party around Mr. Trump’s policies, and dispense with the polarizing language and divisive unrest that marked his four years in office.

“In this world, I think there’s lots of room for the Republican Party,” said Juliana Bergeron, an R.N.C. member from New Hampshire. “I’m not sure there’s room for the Republican Party of Donald Trump.”

But for many grass-roots Republicans, the episode at the Capitol was not the inflection point that some Republicans in Washington assumed it would be.

“No, Trump does not have any blame, but the Democrats certainly do, along with all the Republicans that follow with them,” said Billy Long, the Republican Party chairman in Bayfield County, Wis., who said he was planning to break away from the G.O.P. to start a local Trump-centric third party. “The Trump movement is not over; like Trump said himself, we are just getting started.”

Republican voters, too, have largely drawn a sharp distinction between the president and those who stormed the Capitol, with 80 percent saying they do not hold Mr. Trump responsible for the riot and 73 percent saying he is protecting democracy, according to polling released by Quinnipiac University this week.

Even in blue states, Republican leaders find themselves still grappling with Mr. Trump’s politics of grievance. In the New Jersey State Senate, Republicans were split on a resolution condemning Mr. Trump for inciting the riot in the Capitol. The majority of Republicans chose to abstain, and many used their time on the floor to try to flip the debate to the protests against racial injustice over the summer, and had to be reprimanded by the Senate president for veering off topic.

Even if Mr. Trump fades from political life, losing his social media megaphone and bully pulpit, his supporters say his message will be carried forward by a party remade in his image and with strong structural support at all levels.

Since Mr. Trump’s 2016 victory, 91 of the 168 positions on the Republican National Committee have turned over, with virtually all of the newcomers elected by Trump-aligned state parties.

The president received widespread praise at a national party meeting held two days after the siege, and was greeted with applause when he called into a breakfast gathering.

Already, battle lines are being drawn between the Trump wing and those who would like to move past the president.

Efforts to mount primary challenges to incumbent Republicans are already underway in several states, with the encouragement of Mr. Trump. In Georgia, potential primary candidates are reaching out to conservative activists about challenging the Republican governor, lieutenant governor and secretary of state. Other targets may include Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio and Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and John Thune of South Dakota.

“The election was crooked and Republicans who could have done something did very little,” said Dave Wesener, the chairman of the Republican Party in Crawford County, Wis. “Those Republicans who have not been supportive I affectionately call RINOs. All RINOs should be primaried by conservatives.”

Along with his Green Bay Packers season tickets, which he is giving up to protest the team’s painting of racial justice slogans on its home field, Mr. Wesener plans to give up his role in his local Republican Party next month to demonstrate his disappointment that the party did not fight harder to overturn the results of the election.

In Virginia, Ms. Chase is likely to face a multicandidate Republican field for governor, which will be decided at a convention of party activists this summer. Though state G.O.P. officials opted to avoid a primary in hopes of denying Ms. Chase their nomination at a convention, the party’s activist base is filled with Mr. Trump’s most die-hard supporters.

“I’ve been called Trump in heels,” Ms. Chase said. “The regular grass roots of Virginia who are not part of the Republican establishment elite, they’re supporting me.”

The siege at the Capitol last week has drawn an even brighter line dividing the party. State legislators from more than a dozen states attended the protest, with at least one facing criminal charges for breaching the Capitol as part of the riot. Meshawn Maddock, an activist who is poised to be the incoming Michigan Republican Party co-chairwoman, helped organize busloads of supporters from her state to travel to the Capitol. In the days after the violence, she joined a conservative online group where some participants openly discussed civil war and martial law.

Many continue to defend their role in the event.

“Those who hold sway in Congress today look out on much of the country with disdain. Trump has never done that,” said State Representative David Eastman of Alaska, who attended the protest. “I, along with nearly a million other Americans, was glad to travel to D.C. to hear the president speak and thank him for his four years in office. Those in today’s ruling class will never truly understand why.”

Nick Corasaniti contributed reporting.

    Multiple Service Listing for Business Owners | Tools to Grow Your Local Business

www.MultipleServiceListing.com 

from Multiple Service Listing https://ift.tt/3iikDVR

[iampaulywalnuts]

Casting “Obstruction”, the Inevitable HBO Original Film on All This Shit

Perhaps it’s because reality has felt very much like a prestige drama recently that I have started wondering “who’s going to play these guys in the HBO version of these guys?” 

Methodology: VERY SCIENTIFIC!

First I chose who I believe are the ten most important players in the real life obstruction, between the time Trump won the election and his future indictments.

It was tempting to try to capture the whole 2016 election, and other GOP cowards, but then we’d be here all day, and the New York Times already did that sort of. So no Bannon. No Stephen Miller. No Jaime Foxx...I mean Ben Carson. I also didn’t include Sean Spicer or Sarah Sanders, because they might as well not even be there they know so little. 

I tried to select from actors that I knew offhand, but when that well dried up after about three minutes, I reached out to some trusted friends, Wikipedia, etc. I asked myself:

1) Does it look like their real life counterpart?

2) Could they pull off the role as a lead? 

So let’s get started! ACTION!

Group 1: The Obstructed

1) James Comey

The now former FBI director, once hated by every liberal in America, now holding the torch to guide America out of the darkness I guess. Election manipulating dickhead. 

Bryan Cranston

Rationale: Originally I was overthinking the height issue; for a while all I could come up with was Adrien Brody and I thought for a second “now I’ll never make it as a casting director”. Cranston is a boring selection but it’s the right one to play the careful, calculated Comey. Make him seem taller like in the other one. Can’t go wrong.

2) Sally Yates

Former deputy US Attorney General. Holdover from the Obama administration who informed the Trump White House that Michael Flynn was compromised before being fired for, basically, being a competent woman. 

Amy Sedaris

Rationale: I really think I nailed this one. The first time and pretty sure only time I have ever seen Amy Sedaris was in that scene in Louis CK’s Horace and Pete, and I was totally blown away like everyone else. She was a light in the darkness of that miserable place.. When I think of Yates my mind goes to how she handled Ted Cruz like a 6th grader who thinks he knows shit in that Senate meeting. I get that same feeling! She’s unflappable, so obviously smarter than you, a light in the darkness! Plus, Yates and Sedaris could be sisters. Genius!

3) Preet Bharara

Former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Led investigations into Trump finances before being removed from his position by Trump. Revered by his peers and those who worked for him. We don’t hear as much about him but in a movie called “Obstruction” you can’t leave him out.

Erick Avari

Rationale: Surprise! I don’t know many Indian actors :(  I do recognize this guy from everywhere, however. Avari’s mostly in sci-fi films and television, although he’s also been in classics like The Mummy, Independence Day, Mr. Deeds, and whatever’s on TNT right now. This is the best I could do sorry Indian people don’t hate me!

Group Two: The Complicit Enablers

4) Paul Ryan 

Speaker of the House and Representative from Wisconsin. Backed a monster because he wanted to cut taxes and take health insurance away from poor people. Embarrassment to Pauls everywhere. 

Jeremy Renner

Rationale: The key to a good Paul Ryan performance is capturing his enthusiasm for allowing people to die. Paul Ryan smiles when he talks, not because he wants to give Americans “more choice” on health insurance, but because he knows if you support what he says you will die, and is excited by the prospect. Anyway, Renner’s pretty good and they kinda look the same. 

5) Mitch McConnell

Senator from Kentucky, majority leader. Everything that is wrong with politics. Currently awaiting his stay in hell. 

Tim Robbins

Rationale: Recreating the ugliness, on the inside and out, of Mitch McConnell, requires the combined craftsmanship of a master actor and make up team (perhaps enlisting the experts on Game of Thrones would be wise). I know this casting is unduly generous to Mitch McConnell. I can’t imagine a bigger gulf between how much I enjoy looking at two different men. But Robbins does have the height, and could nail McConnell’s gravelly, unfeeling Kentucky accent. And Robbins is the definition of PRESTIGE. 

GROUP 3: The Spy

6) Sergey Lavrov

Russian foreign minister and spy. Fooled Trump into giving away highly sensitive information and compromising intelligence partnerships. A shark swimming with really dumb fish.

Boris Lee Krutonog

Rationale: I reached out to my only Russian friend about this casting. You look at Krutonog and think “oh he’s the bad guy in that one movie” (side note: “that one movie” is always The Italian Job), which is ultimately all we’re going to need for this story. I’d probably know of more Russian actors if I watched The Americans --he’s in the The Americans--but there are way too many shows. If he can say nice things in English followed by mean things in Russian in front of whoever is playing Trump for a scene we’ll be ok! 

Group 4: The Criminals 

7) Michael Flynn

Retired General and former National Security Adviser. Winner of Russian medals. Failed to register as a foreign agent after taking money from the foreign governments. Chanter of “Lock Her Up”. Soon to be locked up. 

Christopher Waltz

Rationale: Waltz seems to always play eccentrics, and Flynn certainly would qualify in a conspiracy theory peddling Islamaphobe kind of way. We of course have seen Waltz in military attire in Inglorious Basterds, and Nazi-garb aside it suits him. The key moment for Flynn will be as he’s listening to his sentence read aloud,  staring into the void, finally discovering that he was the bad guy all long. Can’t wait!

8) Jeff Sessions

Middle name is Beauregard, yeah ok. Attorney General. Lied to Congress about connections to Russia. Recused himself from Russian investigation only to be interviewing new FBI directors weeks later. So much awfulness outside of this scandal but we have to press on.

Chris Cooper

Rationale: We know Chris Cooper from many of his films and performances, the most memorable to me in American Beauty as a bitter man stuck in his ways, afraid of the future as the world progresses around him. Jeff Sessions plays that role in his normal life every day, the only differences being he has terrifying power, and we don’t know he’s a closeted homosexual. He could be!

9) Jared Kushner 

Senior (lol) Adviser. Delegated by Trump to perform all duties of the presidency. Likely suggested and encouraged the firing of James Comey. Failed to disclose financial ties to Russia before entering White House. Proof that nothing matters.  

Paul Dano

Rationale: In Little Miss Sunshine, Paul Dano played a kid who couldn’t become a fighter pilot because he was colorblind, and so took a vow of silence for some reason I forget. Maybe Jared Kushner has taken a vow of silence, because as it’s been noted elsewhere, I don’t think we’ve ever heard him actually speak! Don’t even give Dano any lines. He can just occasionally throw on a pair of black Ray Bans and look dumb. 

10) Donald Trump 

CEO of Trump Steaks. Vessel of ignorance and hatred. President of the United States.

Hologram of Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Rationale: PSH was too talented to play someone as widely parodied as Trump, but as the scandal rages on, and reports come out of Trump summoning his communications staff and going off on epic tantrums I think he’d be perfect.

Hoffman also played a misogynistic, lying con artist in The Master; specifically a cult leader in the vein of L. Ron Hubbard. One of my favorite scenes is when he’s confronted by a persistent skeptic during a session with a wealthy patron. This is the first time in the movie Hoffman’s character, The Master, is questioned at length, and you can see him slowly losing composure before blowing up in an angry “PIG FUCK”. It’s an awesome scene and demonstrates why, among many other reasons, Hoffman would have made a great Trump. We have plenty of “TV Trump” impressions; the catchphrases, bloviating, etc. I would want an actor could tap into his boundless anger and fear as he slowly wilts under the pressure of his own incompetence and senility. Hoffman could bring a level of nuance to such a shallow figure.

Great job, everyone! Less than six months into Donald Trump’s presidency and we already have AT LEAST one HBO-ready prestige scandal, so for that let’s give ourselves a round of applause, America. Our ratings are going to be SICK...and so is everyone with a pre-existing condition! 

No one knows what the future will bring, but we’ll be watching. Not TV. HBO.

[gibsongirlselections]

The Case for Kanye

On Independence Day, Kanye West announced a last-minute bid for the Oval Office, setting up the rapper, sneaker mogul, and Kardashian-by-marriage to square off against Trump and Biden as an independent. While it may sound like a joke (or the kind of publicity stunt that West has been known to pull in the past) the announcement quickly drew support from a few significant public figures: his wife Kim, Elon Musk, and Mark Cuban.

These endorsements are noteworthy because they come from some of the few A-listers who have at one time supported Trump—though Cuban had already jumped off the Trump train by election day 2016. Across the aisle, Kanye’s announcement has sparked concerns that a young black rapper—one of the most popular artists of all time—might pull key demographics away from the doddering, septuagenarian nominee of the self-anointed party of the future. West’s transpartisan appeal and the exceptional confusion of the current moment make a Kanye presidency…well, maybe not likely, but surprisingly possible.

Unfortunately for West, he has already missed the deadline to file as an independent in multiple states, so the logistics of victory would be difficult, to say the least. More fundamentally: he’s Kanye West. He’s a pop-culture celebrity whose presidential aspirations—if they are even real—are obviously tied up in his ego and his flair for the dramatic. There’s no way he can win against serious politicians, and no reason he should. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

In fact, just about every conceivable argument that might be brought against Kanye’s candidacy from the right could have been leveled against Trump in 2016, and was. He has absolutely no relevant experience. His public statements have often bordered on the genuinely insane. His past actions might raise serious concerns about his character. He has displayed no broad or consistent fidelity to mainstream conservative principles. His chances at winning are minuscule. We have heard all these things before, and answered them at the ballot box.

But it became evident fairly early on that Trump would be, in the best case, our Julius Caesar: a catalyst for radical change who—despite seeming at first like a savior in himself—would merely prepare the way for a leader and an age to come. What was not evident—what seems, even now, fairly ridiculous—was that our Octavian might be a bombastic rapper from the South Side of Chicago. There had been, until the fourth of July, only two likely scenarios for the conservative succession to Trump.

The first was grim: Joe Biden wins in November. Quick on the heels of loss come the inevitable evaluations of where we went wrong, and the powers that were will insist that our fatal error was the abandonment of the old consensus. Trump’s defeat will reopen the Republican power vacuum, and the old guard will quietly slink back in. We will watch a few more decades of bargain-bin Reagan clones score a string of pyrrhic victories. The Trump moment will be dismissed as a minor aberration until a moment like it inevitably comes again. The day of reckoning will be all the more difficult for the time we held it off.

The second is, at this point, wishful thinking: after a 2020 victory and four more years of Trump leadership, the reins of the party are handed over seamlessly to someone who can put a more positive spin on the populism Trump has tapped into. Senators Hawley, Rubio, and Cotton are the obvious contenders. Under this new generation of leadership, a pro-family, pro-labor, pro-American party offers a serious, earthbound answer to the Left’s apocalyptic vision. We get the realignment we hoped for four years ago. What’s more, we manage to free it of any unpleasant Trumpian entanglements.

This was probably the best argument for reelecting Trump in 2020. He would serve as a placeholder for four years, and we might even get another justice on the Supreme Court in the meantime. But a seamless transition from Trump to a renewed GOP is no longer plausible. This is in part because Trump has not been the disruptor we expected. Despite some intense rhetoric and a few outlying policies, this has been a fairly standard Republican administration. We cannot reasonably expect any seismic shifts in the party platform, and we certainly can’t expect any mass migrations into its electoral base. While the administration bears some blame for this latter fact, there are also unavoidable complications of this particular moment at play: any hope of electoral windfall from the once-booming economy, for instance, has been buried by the COVID crisis. Even if he scrapes out a victory in November, the possibility that Trump might, like Nixon, usher in decades of Republican dominance has vanished into thin air. The party and the movement will merely find themselves limping along the scenic route to the same long-term result as scenario number one.

Kanye’s entry into the race presents us with a third way. The controversial rapper, who has drawn sharp criticism for his past support of Trump, has a few defining qualities that may make him the best available successor to the current commander-in-chief. He may be our only hope to actually force the realignment we expected from Trump, and avoid a backslide into the GOPs old losing strategy.

The first point in West’s favor is actually rather practical—and timely. It is clear now more than ever that any conservative coalition that hopes for lasting success in American politics must involve the millions of socially conservative black Americans who have been abandoned to the Democratic machine by an apathetic Republican establishment. Trump is obviously not the person to bridge that gap—to incite one of those electoral mass migrations that would be vital to sustained political success. Kanye may well be, and not just because of the color of his skin—though the electoral benefits of shared identity should not be underestimated. West is at his most coherent (and his most insightful) when he talks about the troubles plaguing black communities: violence, addiction, “welfare mentality”, single motherhood, birth control, abortion. West recognizes the roots of the problem—and the solutions in policy and practice that support family and enterprise—with a clarity and a conviction that neither the left nor the mainstream right approaches by a mile.

The benefit of West’s insight would not be limited to black America, either. The social and economic solutions to these problems are consistent over nearly all of our nation’s divisions: strong families plus a people-centered economy is a winning formula across the board, not to mention a morally sound one. West has even waded into policy domains that have been untouched by conservatives for decades, but deserve and desperately need our attention: land reform, contraception, school prayer, and more.

Trump, at his best, showed no resistance to these things: he was willing to ride populist and reactionary waves, but he was never particularly invested in the ideas that drove them. Meanwhile, for all the outrageousness of both Kanye himself and his equally famous relatives (his wife, Kim Kardashian; his father-in-law, Caitlyn Jenner), nobody who has been paying attention could honestly deny that West is passionately devoted to strong family—both on the personal and the societal level. Some may question the sanity of his somewhat heterodox Christianity, but nobody doubts its sincerity. We may likewise lament the lack of nuance and erudition in Kanye’s platform while appreciating the general direction of his vision, and the energy with which he pursues it.

That energy is another of West’s defining traits, and it actually parallels one of Trump’s. Both possess an undeniable explosive power. Trump’s is corporate: when supporters said in 2016 that they wanted Trump to run the government like a business, they meant specifically one of his businesses. Whether the moribund GOP went the way of Trump Steaks or the Grand Hyatt Hotel didn’t make much of a difference. They simply wanted the disruption that Trump had been peddling for decades in the public sphere.

But the New York businessman, expected by his supporters to be immune to the forces of the swamp, turned out to be overcome by them with remarkably little resistance. Not only are we not experiencing the positive realignment which Trump supporters hoped for, we aren’t even really seeing the intermediate disruptive stage—the swamp-draining, in Trump-speak—that should have been our consolation prize. If anyone can actually deliver the disruption—and thus force the renewal—that Trump had promised, it’s sure to be Kanye West. This is in part because West’s energy and genius, as an artist, is of an entirely different kind from Trump’s, and far less easily reined in.

More importantly, however, in the wake of his recent conversion to a zealous (if nebulous) Christianity, West’s energy is actually aimed in a clear and positive direction. Trump was always merely a disruptor, but West’s combination of chaotic potential and moral vision positions him perfectly as a transitional figure between the old age and the new. The Art of the Deal has done all it can to cure mainstream conservatism’s many ills. It’s time to take Jesus is King for a spin.

Declan Leary is TAC’s Collegiate Network Fellow and a graduate of John Carroll University.

The post The Case for Kanye appeared first on The American Conservative.

[michaelfallcon]

There’s A Decaf-Only Micro-Roaster Boom Happening Right Now

Are you a mod or a rocker? Eat lunch with the jocks or the burnouts? Team Edward or Team Jacob? Rest assured, one milieu in this modern era no longer demands that you choose socio-culturally defining sides: coffee. That is, whether you drink it with or without caffeine.

You see, in the last few years there has been a burgeoning of specialty coffee micro-roasteries that specialize in decaf. They use green beans decaffeinated by natural methods, and as much as their caff counterparts, prioritize flavor while maintaining the same high standards in sourcing and processing. Although the bigwigs in third wave include decafs in their collections (Intelligentsia offers a whopping four online), for this newest generation of roasteries, decaf is a starting point rather than an afterthought. The result is delicious, complex, and varied coffee that could well disarm the death-before-decaf set and lift the Lenten gloom of those who abstain for medical reasons. Some of these roasters were once regular regular coffee drinkers themselves, still are, and/or simply do not dichotomize the joy of a cup’s contents into caff and non-caff camps.

This capacity for coexistence is patently encapsulated in a tagline on the Talking Crow Coffee Roasters website: “He drinks regular—she needs decaf.” Those pronouns’ antecedents are Eric and Carol Blanchet, who established their Sultan, Washington-based roastery in late 2018. Their “predominately decaf” business, as Carol describes it, ideally carries three regular roasts alongside seven decafs. “We roast both so that we can compare our decaf with the regular to be sure we are spot-on with our roast profiles.

“We have a large family (eight children) and we home educate, which makes for crazy-busy days,” Carol explains via email. “A few months after our last child was born, I suffered with extreme adrenal fatigue, which required, among other things, that I give up caffeine. That was really hard because I love coffee and really depended on it to function throughout the day.”

In similar want of salubrious substitution, Kait Brown last year founded Savorista Coffee in Dayton, Ohio. “I first fell in love with coffee as a teenage barista for Boston Stoker,” she recalls. But as an adult, a stressful period compounded by work pressures and her father’s cancer compelled Brown to quit caffeine because it was exacerbating sleeplessness. Eventually, she went seeking drinkable decaf.

“In Colombia, at a blind cupping of decaf and caffeinated coffees, I tasted an incredible coffee. It was one of my two favorites on the table, the flavor notes were really complex and it had a lot of brightness,” she relays by email. “I was shocked to learn that this coffee was a decaf! I realized incredible decaf was possible.”

That Colombian was Savorista’s first coffee. Nowadays, Brown is launching a remarkably berry-toned Ethiopian decaf and “actively looking for more coffees to add to our portfolio, but this has been very challenging,” she says. “I’m not looking for coffee that is ‘good for a decaf.’ I’m looking for coffee that is incredible, full stop, and just happens to be a decaf.”

Some decaf roasteries were born to fulfill not the founders’ desires, but rather their loved ones. Peter Andrews began Sydney’s Playground Roasters in 2016, “when my special lady gone and got herself pregnant, again,” he writes. “It occurred to me that no one was really putting a strong focus on decaf for the coffee enthusiasts amongst us.”

People who connect most with his decaf blend, which is available in cafes around the city, comprise “the growing world of healthy-lifers, the sugar-free movement,” Andrews finds, and “typical cafe-loving mums who so want to have a great coffee, but feel like they just have to go without until they ween the little one.” Though decaf is something he himself has only “occasionally in the afternoon or evening,” he admires the loyalists—included among them are his wife, presently expecting their third child.

“When a customer orders decaf, they are genuinely ordering a coffee for flavor alone—no buzz attached! You could put a case forward that the decaf drinker is the true coffee purist, searching for flavor and flavor alone, while the rest of us are just addicts needing a hit!” he says.

What is more, not all decaf projects are a response to doctor’s orders or an antidote to the jitters.

“We were visiting family in Maine and giving coffee we had roasted as a gift,” Jamie Morganstern recollects of a winter holiday in 2017, when he and his partner, Sara Serino, conceptualized Dewired Coffee. “The days are short in Maine that time of year so we were drinking a lot of decaf, especially when the sun went down. Everyone loved this ritual!”

Today their Berkeley, California-based business offers, on average, three types of decaf. They themselves drink it regularly, but when Morganstern blames buns in the oven, he is not referring to pregnancy. “Sara is always a huge baker, so we’ve pretty much gotten accustomed to having a cup [of decaf] in the evening with a plate of cookies or a slice of pie,” Morganstern says via email.

Though their nights sound traditionally more momcore than millennial-chic, Morganstern is 33 and Serino is 32. They substantiate industry claims that decaf is having a renaissance and young people are its patrons.

“Decaf coffee is also shedding its stigma of being a drink that only the older generation enjoys,” Andrea Piccolo, a senior brand manager at leading specialty decaffeination plant Swiss Water, tells Sprudge. “With millennials leading decaf consumption, the demand is surely to continue its upward growth.”

Still, others attribute decaf’s slow evolution thus far to the specialty scene’s relative infancy.

“Most caffeine-troubled people are not so young and outside of the interest span of these young baristas and roasters,” theorizes Rob Berghmans, who 16 years ago revolutionized Antwerp’s coffee scene with his espresso bar and roastery, Caffènation. “Me myself, I am not addicted,” he says with a laugh.

Yet even Berghmans, ever upfront about the nature of the psychotropic he peddles—his company’s slogan is “One drug, one nation, one Caffènation”—says they have “always been roasting decaf” and are lately enjoying the popularity of their new Caldono.

Another playing-both-sides perspective comes courtesy long-time San Francisco Sprudge contributor Noah Sanders. In “Searching For The Dark Art Of Decaf,” Sanders reveals how during the early aughts he and fellow baristas sometimes punished “the very worst type of customers” by secretly serving them decaf.

Questioned in 2019 about his own relationship with the substance, he admits: “When I was a barista, I drank six cups of coffee a day until an acupuncturist told me it was undoubtedly the cause of the mildly crippling panic attacks I’d been experiencing. I drank some decaf after that.” These days, he notes: “I try—and fail—to give up caffeine every six months or so and decaf is the lifeline I then cling to, but then only paired with a large-ish amount of steamed milk.”

Now, disguise with dairy no more. At any time, sun up or sun down, you can have your coffee and drink it too. Thanks to these emergent micro-roasteries, contemporary decaf little resembles Grandpa’s Sanka (though what a cute corporate portmanteau that name turns out to be: from the French for sans caffeine). This is certainly NYMD (not your mother’s decaf). As specialty coffee grows up, the black-or-white big-gulp attitudes of yesterday are getting displaced by the nuanced fluidity of personal preference.

We say bring it on. Or more simply put, decaf gives us life.

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge.

The post There’s A Decaf-Only Micro-Roaster Boom Happening Right Now appeared first on Sprudge.

There’s A Decaf-Only Micro-Roaster Boom Happening Right Now published first on https://medium.com/@LinLinCoffee