#and how badly john wants joseph's attention and approval

[direwombat]

ooooh. wait. i've been scratching my head to find ways to give john more page time in katc and what if i wrote a scene where john is marching syb and a few other prisoners (maybe hurk and sharky) up towards the remains of the YES sign (destroyed by syb, hurk, and sharky) and he holds them at gunpoint while they start rebuilding it.

[vampireninjabunnies-blog]

Fluffy Friday

Don't know if fluffy Friday is a thing already but my last few wipes and blurbs have all been downers. So now it is.

Here is a little fluff featuring John and Esther.

Tagging @inafieldofdaisies @strangefable @socially-awkward-skeleton @direwombat @detectivelokis @hopecountyisforlovers @voidika @aceghosts @baldurrs and anyone else I missed

Esther chuckled as John impatiently paced around the room. He hated the clinic almost as much as he hated waiting.

"Why is it taking so long?" He huffed finally sitting down beside her, idly playing with the stirrups on the exam bed she was laying on.

"They have other patients hummingbird. Besides it's only been ten minutes. Relax."

He sighed forcing himself to calm down. "I guess but Cohen is one of us. Why couldn't he just come to the house?"

"It's a good thing to have members of the project help out in the community." She reached over to stroke his cheek. He leaned into her hand.

"I know, I know." He put his hand on her stomach. Rubbing the small bump that had started to show there. The first visible proof of the tiny life growing inside.

He was about to say something when Dr. Cohen walked in. "Well how are we feeling today Esther?"

"We're doing alright Rajesh. Although I still can't seem to keep anything down for long. And someone's a little antsy."

Rajesh smiled warmly at John. "Totally normal. Most first time fathers are." He turned his attention back to Esther. "And the nausea should pass soon but I can give you something for it just in case."

John sat back, resting his hands on his knees, not listening as they talked. Refusing to look at the good doctor. Rajesh made him uncomfortable. He always expected to find hate burning in those green eyes when they looked at him. But he never did. His handsome face was marred by several deep scars, though his clothes hid the far deeper scars that littered his tall frame. Scars that John had given him.

Rajesh had joined the project not long after he and Esther had gotten married and his confession hadn't gone well. John had been manic, frenzied and had gone much too far. He hadn't meant to hurt him so badly. He really hadn't. It was only by the grace of God that Esther had wandered in, looking for him. Her own confession, if you could really call it that had been a tender, gentle moment that Joseph surely wouldn't have approved of.

She'd never seen what it could be, he remembered the horrified look on her face before she jumped forward to stop him from inflicting more harm. Calling for help her quick action had saved Rajesh's life. But John had been certain at the time that she'd leave, once she'd learned what a monster he truly was.

But she hadn't left him. She hadn't even seemed to be afraid of him. She'd soothed and comforted him. Told him he wasn't a monster, that he just needed help and begged him to please let her help him. Now here she was sitting with a man who should hate him but didn't, preparing to give him a gift John hadn't even realized he wanted. Something he'd assumed he could never have.

"John? Hummingbird...look."

Her voice pulled him back to the present. He'd been so lost in his thoughts he didn't notice Rajesh begin the ultrasound.

"That's your baby." Rajesh looked back at him. "Perfectly healthy."

He grabbed Esther's hand, squeezing a bit tighter than he should, staring in awe at the image on the screen. At this tiny little miracle God had decided to bless them with.

"You okay John?"

He looked down at Esther, finding in her dark eyes the same love he always found there. And just nodded, fighting back tears of joy. Feeling his heart swell with a depth of love he hadn't known he was capable of feeling. For their baby. For this woman who had without asking for a single thing in return, given him the whole world with her heart.

[brajeshupadhyay]

'It's unthinkable': Donald Trump angrily denies report he called fallen US World War I soldiers ‘losers’ and ‘suckers’

Washington: President Donald Trump heatedly denied on Thursday night that he had referred to American soldiers killed in combat during World War I as “losers” and “suckers,” moving quickly to avoid losing support among the military and its allies just two months before an election.

Marching over to reporters under the wing of Air Force One after returning from a campaign rally, a visibly angry Trump rebutted a magazine report that he decided against visiting a cemetery for American soldiers in France in 2018 because he feared the rain would mess up his hair and he did not believe it was important to honor the war dead.

“If people really exist that would have said that, they’re lowlifes and they’re liars,” Trump shouted above the noise of the plane’s engines. “And I would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes. There is nobody that respects them more.” He added, “What animal would say such a thing?”

The report in The Atlantic magazine by its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, attributed the episode to “four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day,” but he did not name them. During a conversation with senior officials that day, according to the magazine, Trump said: “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” On the same trip, the article said, he referred to American Marines slain in combat at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

The article also said that Trump’s well-known antipathy for Senator John McCain, R-Ariz. and a Vietnam War hero, was on display after the senator’s death in August 2018. “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral,” the article quotes Trump telling his staff. He became furious at seeing flags lowered to half-staff. “What the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser,” the president told aides, according to the article.

The report could be problematic for Trump because he is counting on strong support among the military for his reelection bid. He has made his backing for increased military spending, troop pay raises and improved veterans care pillars of his campaign at the same time he boasts of ratcheting down “endless wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But he has also clashed with the military leadership by extending clemency to accused and convicted war criminals, seeking to order active-duty forces into the streets of Washington to crack down on demonstrations and trying to block an effort to change the names of Army bases named for Confederate generals.

A new poll by The Military Times taken before the party conventions last month and released this week showed former vice-president Joe Biden leading Trump, 41 percent to 37 percent, among active-duty troops, a stark departure from the military’s long-standing support for Republicans.

People familiar with Trump’s comments say he has long scorned those who served in Vietnam as being too dumb to have gotten out of it, as he did through a medical diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels. At other times, according to those familiar with the remarks, Trump would marvel at people choosing military service over making money.

Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, sought on Thursday night to capitalize on the Atlantic article, quickly issuing a statement condemning the president and saying it demonstrated that Trump was not fit for the office. Biden said the article, if true, showed “another marker of how deeply President Trump and I disagree about the role of the president of the United States.”

“I have long said that, as a nation, we have many obligations, but we only have one truly sacred obligation — to prepare and equip those we send into harm’s way, and to care for them and their families, both while they are deployed and after they return home. That’s the foundation of what Jill and I believe,” said Biden, whose late son, Beau Biden, served overseas. “If I have the honor of serving as the next commander in chief, I will ensure that our American heroes know that I will have their back and honor their sacrifice — always.”

Trump’s trip to Paris in November 2018 came at a tense moment for him. Republicans had just lost the House in midterm elections when he flew to France to attend a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.

During the trip, he was angered when President Emmanuel Macron of France seemed to rebuke Trump by saying in a speech that “nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism by saying: ‘Our interest first. Who cares about the others?’”

But it was Trump’s failure to go through with a planned visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery at the foot of the hill where the Battle of Belleau Wood was fought that drew the most attention.

Aides at the time cited the rain in canceling a helicopter flight, but the president’s absence went over badly in Europe and in the United States. Trump did pay respects to the war dead the next day at the Suresnes American Cemetery outside Paris.

At the time of the visit to France, advisers were blunt in confiding that Trump was in a foul mood and was quizzing aides about whether he should replace John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general and his White House chief of staff at the time.

Several White House officials at the time said the decision that Trump would not take Marine One to the Belleau Wood cemetery was made by Zachary Fuentes, a deputy White House chief of staff and close aide to Kelly, without consulting the president’s military aide.

Others argued that a motorcade trip by road would have taken too long, at roughly two hours. Administration officials said at the time that Fuentes had assured Trump it was fine to miss the visit. Kelly traveled to the cemetery himself in the president’s place along with General Joseph Dunford, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Trump insisted on Thursday that it was the weather, not disrespect, that forced the visit to be scrapped. “It was raining about as hard as I’ve ever seen,” he said. “And on top of that, it was very, very foggy. And the helicopter was unable to fly.”

To go by ground, he added, the motorcade would have had to wind its way through congested areas of Paris for more than two hours. “The Secret Service told me, ‘You can’t do it,’” he said. “I said, ‘I have to do it. I want to be there.’ They said, ‘You can’t do it.’”

A half-dozen current and former aides to Trump backed him up with Twitter messages disputing The Atlantic article. “I was actually there and one of the people part of the discussion — this never happened,” wrote Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was then the White House press secretary. “This is not even close to being factually accurate,” added Jordan Karem, the president’s personal aide at the time.

The reported comments about McCain, though, were consistent with Trump’s publicly expressed view of the senator. In 2015, while seeking the Republican nomination over McCain’s opposition, Trump famously mocked the senator’s military service and 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

McCain remained a thorn in Trump’s side after he won the presidency, blocking an effort to overturn President Barack Obama’s health care programme, a vote Trump never forgave and still speaks about with bitterness. When McCain died, aides said at the time, the president had to be shamed into lowering the flags and he was not invited to the funeral.

But speaking with reporters Thursday night, Trump insisted that he respected McCain even though they disagreed.

“I was never a fan. I will admit that openly,” Trump said. But “we lowered the flags. I had to approve that, nobody else, I had to approve it. When you think — just thinking back, I had to approve either Air Force One or a military plane to go to Arizona to pick up his casket. And I approved it immediately. I had to approve the funeral because he had a first-class, triple-A funeral. It lasted for nine days, by the way. I had to approve it. All of that had to be approved by the president. I approved it without hesitation, without complaint.”

He seemed to suggest that The Atlantic’s article came from several former aides that he had in mind. “Probably it’s a couple of people that have been failures in the administration that I got rid of,” he said. “I couldn’t get rid of them fast enough. Or it was just made up. But it’s unthinkable.”

Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman c.2020 The New York Times Company

via Blogger https://ift.tt/3i0em02

[fullspectrum-cbd-oil]

As Trump Returns to the Road, Some Democrats Want to Bust Biden out of His Basement

While President Donald Trump traveled to the battleground state of Arizona this week, his Democratic opponent for the White House, Joe Biden, campaigned from his basement as he has done throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

Those optics have some Democrats increasingly concerned.

The freeze on in-person campaigning during the outbreak has had an upside for Biden, giving the former vice president more time to court donors and shielding him from on-the-trail gaffes.

But the coronavirus lockdown also has deprived Biden of chances to showcase what allies see as his major asset contrasting with Republican Trump in a time of crisis: his empathetic personality.

“I personally would like to see him out more because he’s in his element when he’s meeting people,” said Tom Sacks-Wilner, a fundraiser for Biden who is on the campaign’s finance committee.

With Biden badly overshadowed by Trump and a few national opinion polls showing his lead ahead of the Nov. 3 election slipping, some Democratic operatives are urging the Biden campaign to boost his profile, worried the broadcasts from his basement in Delaware are falling short.

Onetime campaign advisers to former President Barack Obama penned two op-eds this week calling on Biden to raise the tempo of his campaign through more robust digital operations and help from celebrities, former rivals and Democratic governors at the forefront of the pandemic response.

Several allies also are encouraging Biden’s team to consider visits such as to essential workers, if those could be done safely and in line with public health guidance.

“The Biden campaign is going to have to think about ways in which they can drive the news every day, and that is a challenge during the crisis,” said Joel Benenson, a pollster who worked for Obama and 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. “The president has the bully pulpit.”

Biden, a classic retail politician whose social media following pales in comparison with Trump, himself has expressed frustration with the limitations of communicating with voters remotely.

At the same time, he has routinely bashed Trump’s push to reopen the U.S. economy more quickly despite the concerns of public health experts who fear a second wave of coronavirus cases if social distancing is relaxed too soon.

Though his team wants to campaign in person as soon as doing so is safe, no imminent public appearances are planned.

“The health and safety of our supporters, staff and the American people is our top priority, and our decision-making on how to campaign will be guided by public health experts with that in mind,” said Biden campaign spokesman TJ Ducklo.

‘CANDIDATE OF SANITY’

While Trump’s stop in Arizona on Tuesday was not an official campaign trip, it demonstrated the advantages the presidency affords him.

As he pledged more than $600 million in coronavirus response aid to two Native American nations, standing with tribal leaders in person, Biden’s campaign sent a message on Facebook pledging to “stand with” native people in their fight against sex trafficking.

Trump was heavily criticized, however, for not wearing a mask while greeting workers in Phoenix at a mask-making facility, where a sign noted masks were required. A video of his appearance at the factory, as the song “Live and Let Die” played in the background, went viral.

Trump’s overall popularity has been mostly flat throughout the crisis, with the number of adults who approve of him wavering between 40% and 45% from March to May, according to Reuters/Ipsos national opinion polls.

Despite mounting economic damage that saw 20.5 million Americans lose jobs in April, most Americans have consistently said in polls they want to maintain social distancing to protect themselves from the virus.

“Trump has decided to go all-in, risk the death,” said John Morgan, a Florida trial lawyer who has raised money for Biden.

Biden, he said, has to be the “candidate of sanity and security.”

Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said Trump has a duty to protect both the safety of Americans and the economy.

“We have to get moving again when and where it’s safe, because long-term economic inactivity comes with its own set of problems,” Murtaugh said.

‘REFERENDUM ON TRUMP’

Biden advisers said the more critical months for the campaign would be in the fall, when more voters will be paying attention than they are during the pandemic that has infected more than 1.25 million in the United States and killed over 76,000 people.

Meantime, Biden has made near daily appearances virtually, for media interviews, fundraisers, late-night comedy shows and Instagram events with famous people such as soccer star Megan Rapinoe. He has begun to film on the property outside his home, providing a more varied set of backdrops.

The Biden campaign’s video content was viewed 113 million times online in March and April, a campaign official said.

On Thursday, Biden was interviewed by news outlets in battleground state Florida, held an event on Zoom with black leaders in Jacksonville and hosted a virtual rally for Tampa voters.

His campaign also again denied an allegation by former Senate staff assistant Tara Reade, who in March accused Biden of sexually assaulting her in 1993 and on Thursday said he should drop out of the White House race.

With no travel schedule, Biden has spent more time calling donors, aiming to close the approximately $180 million gap he had with the Trump campaign at the end of March.

Biden held several fundraisers since mid-April that took in more than $1 million each.

“There’s a huge cash deficit to make up right now,” said an adviser for a former rival Democratic presidential campaign. “If Joe Biden has the luxury of sitting in a room and calling 100 rich people a day, do it.”

Biden campaign advisers say another immediate goal is to find more ways to put Biden’s personality on display.

His campaign recently tweeted a video in which Biden’s eyes well up with tears as he speaks on a call with an intensive care nurse who describes herself as “tired” and “scared every day.”

Jim Margolis, a Democratic Party ad maker, said there is only so much Biden can do from home while Trump gets non-stop coverage. But with scientifically questionable medical advice and frequent misstatements, Trump’s unfiltered media appearances have done more harm than good, Margolis said.

“At the end of the day, this campaign should fundamentally be about Donald Trump,” Margolis said. “It needs to be a referendum on Donald Trump.”

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Elizabeth Culliford and James Oliphant; Additional reporting by Joseph Ax, Steve Holland and Chris Kahn; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Soyoung Kim and Grant McCool)

from IJR https://ift.tt/2WM0u0i via IFTTT

[brajeshupadhyay]

Washington: President Donald Trump heatedly denied on Thursday night that he had referred to American soldiers killed in combat during World War I as “losers” and “suckers,” moving quickly to avoid losing support among the military and its allies just two months before an election. Marching over to reporters under the wing of Air Force One after returning from a campaign rally, a visibly angry Trump rebutted a magazine report that he decided against visiting a cemetery for American soldiers in France in 2018 because he feared the rain would mess up his hair and he did not believe it was important to honor the war dead. “If people really exist that would have said that, they’re lowlifes and they’re liars,” Trump shouted above the noise of the plane’s engines. “And I would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes. There is nobody that respects them more.” He added, “What animal would say such a thing?” The report in The Atlantic magazine by its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, attributed the episode to “four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day,” but he did not name them. During a conversation with senior officials that day, according to the magazine, Trump said: “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” On the same trip, the article said, he referred to American Marines slain in combat at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed. The article also said that Trump’s well-known antipathy for Senator John McCain, R-Ariz. and a Vietnam War hero, was on display after the senator’s death in August 2018. “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral,” the article quotes Trump telling his staff. He became furious at seeing flags lowered to half-staff. “What the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser,” the president told aides, according to the article. The report could be problematic for Trump because he is counting on strong support among the military for his reelection bid. He has made his backing for increased military spending, troop pay raises and improved veterans care pillars of his campaign at the same time he boasts of ratcheting down “endless wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq. But he has also clashed with the military leadership by extending clemency to accused and convicted war criminals, seeking to order active-duty forces into the streets of Washington to crack down on demonstrations and trying to block an effort to change the names of Army bases named for Confederate generals. A new poll by The Military Times taken before the party conventions last month and released this week showed former vice-president Joe Biden leading Trump, 41 percent to 37 percent, among active-duty troops, a stark departure from the military’s long-standing support for Republicans. People familiar with Trump’s comments say he has long scorned those who served in Vietnam as being too dumb to have gotten out of it, as he did through a medical diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels. At other times, according to those familiar with the remarks, Trump would marvel at people choosing military service over making money. Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, sought on Thursday night to capitalize on the Atlantic article, quickly issuing a statement condemning the president and saying it demonstrated that Trump was not fit for the office. Biden said the article, if true, showed “another marker of how deeply President Trump and I disagree about the role of the president of the United States.” “I have long said that, as a nation, we have many obligations, but we only have one truly sacred obligation — to prepare and equip those we send into harm’s way, and to care for them and their families, both while they are deployed and after they return home. That’s the foundation of what Jill and I believe,” said Biden, whose late son, Beau Biden, served overseas. “If I have the honor of serving as the next commander in chief, I will ensure that our American heroes know that I will have their back and honor their sacrifice — always.” Trump’s trip to Paris in November 2018 came at a tense moment for him. Republicans had just lost the House in midterm elections when he flew to France to attend a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. During the trip, he was angered when President Emmanuel Macron of France seemed to rebuke Trump by saying in a speech that “nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism by saying: ‘Our interest first. Who cares about the others?’” But it was Trump’s failure to go through with a planned visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery at the foot of the hill where the Battle of Belleau Wood was fought that drew the most attention. Aides at the time cited the rain in canceling a helicopter flight, but the president’s absence went over badly in Europe and in the United States. Trump did pay respects to the war dead the next day at the Suresnes American Cemetery outside Paris. At the time of the visit to France, advisers were blunt in confiding that Trump was in a foul mood and was quizzing aides about whether he should replace John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general and his White House chief of staff at the time. Several White House officials at the time said the decision that Trump would not take Marine One to the Belleau Wood cemetery was made by Zachary Fuentes, a deputy White House chief of staff and close aide to Kelly, without consulting the president’s military aide. Others argued that a motorcade trip by road would have taken too long, at roughly two hours. Administration officials said at the time that Fuentes had assured Trump it was fine to miss the visit. Kelly traveled to the cemetery himself in the president’s place along with General Joseph Dunford, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Trump insisted on Thursday that it was the weather, not disrespect, that forced the visit to be scrapped. “It was raining about as hard as I’ve ever seen,” he said. “And on top of that, it was very, very foggy. And the helicopter was unable to fly.” To go by ground, he added, the motorcade would have had to wind its way through congested areas of Paris for more than two hours. “The Secret Service told me, ‘You can’t do it,’” he said. “I said, ‘I have to do it. I want to be there.’ They said, ‘You can’t do it.’” A half-dozen current and former aides to Trump backed him up with Twitter messages disputing The Atlantic article. “I was actually there and one of the people part of the discussion — this never happened,” wrote Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was then the White House press secretary. “This is not even close to being factually accurate,” added Jordan Karem, the president’s personal aide at the time. The reported comments about McCain, though, were consistent with Trump’s publicly expressed view of the senator. In 2015, while seeking the Republican nomination over McCain’s opposition, Trump famously mocked the senator’s military service and 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” McCain remained a thorn in Trump’s side after he won the presidency, blocking an effort to overturn President Barack Obama’s health care programme, a vote Trump never forgave and still speaks about with bitterness. When McCain died, aides said at the time, the president had to be shamed into lowering the flags and he was not invited to the funeral. But speaking with reporters Thursday night, Trump insisted that he respected McCain even though they disagreed. “I was never a fan. I will admit that openly,” Trump said. But “we lowered the flags. I had to approve that, nobody else, I had to approve it. When you think — just thinking back, I had to approve either Air Force One or a military plane to go to Arizona to pick up his casket. And I approved it immediately. I had to approve the funeral because he had a first-class, triple-A funeral. It lasted for nine days, by the way. I had to approve it. All of that had to be approved by the president. I approved it without hesitation, without complaint.” He seemed to suggest that The Atlantic’s article came from several former aides that he had in mind. “Probably it’s a couple of people that have been failures in the administration that I got rid of,” he said. “I couldn’t get rid of them fast enough. Or it was just made up. But it’s unthinkable.” Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman c.2020 The New York Times Company

http://sansaartimes.blogspot.com/2020/09/its-unthinkable-donald-trump-angrily.html