#at least trump is gonna keep out people who are gonna take our jobs and keep lowering our wages.

[bubble-you]

what if you give people who live in rural areas money so they can homeschool their kids (as long as it’s, y’know, factual)

but wives aren’t teachers of everything. this is why the education system needs reform. but only local taxes go towards local education? why not give like federal taxes to rural areas. more teachers smaller classes. how do you improve rural education? how is trump going to help people keep jobs???

[what-even-is-thiss]

so are you going to vote for biden?

Yes I am because I don’t want to vote for trump. And if you sent me this ask to send me a follow-up ask with something along the lines of “oh so you support genocide then?” No I do not but I do firmly believe that trump would make the situation over in Gaza and Ukraine and China and everywhere else we’ve got our fingers in even worse. He already did that while he was President. He made stable situations go unstable. He made our relationship with several countries go even more sour than they already are. And I’m also not putting up with trump potentially appointing more Supreme Court judges and ruining all of our lives for the next 50 years. I’m voting for the least bad option that has a chance of winning. And if you can’t see why I’m focusing on harm reduction I doubt you’re looking at the whole picture. Besides, Biden has done some good things. That doesn’t cancel out the bad things, but I’d also rather keep his good policies in place for as long as possible. And for the foreseeable future the only way to do that is to keep him in office even if I’d rather have somebody else.

Tbh I’m never gonna 100% like any candidate for President because the sort of people who would willingly take on that much power and make the kinds of tough decisions presidents have to make are not the sort of people I’d actually want to have that job but they’re also the only people that are going to be doing that job so I’ll have to pick the least bad one.

Also, President isn’t the only thing on the ballot in November. I’m not exactly sure where I’ll be living in November because I’m job searching right now but wherever I end up I’ll also be voting with that same mindset for everything else. Pick the least bad option. Because that’s how democracy works. I’m not abstaining from democracy just because my country is doing bad things. My country is always doing bad things. If liberals and progressives only vote when all available options are good then they’ll never vote and conservatives and fascists will run this country and that’s just how it is. I’d rather have a guy that’s not doing the best job on the international relations front than give the nuclear codes back to Don.

[cyarsk52-20]

Yess he’s worthy of my support, any of those weak links in the democrat party will never get a vote or support from me. I’m going independent, from now on They must earn my support. Support is not gonna be given towards anyone and especially not someone who is spineless

My 2025 goal is to just let shit play out. When I see Trump doing stuff that is harmful I will post 🤷🏽‍♀️ because people were warned. And I’m not gonna apologize or feel any guilt about that. Politics will not drain my energy. I have my phone taken multiple times over this, I didn’t have my phone throughout May and July because of this. I have even wanted to leave my house out of anger.

One act of rage had my mother so outraged that she held me up and push me onto the floor and made me bleed and she said if I ever acted that way again, I don’t need to worry about me leaving out voluntarily because she’ll throw me out! I refuse to let my mom or dad push them to the point where they will pushed to a level of rage that leads to what some people will call “them being abusive and for that reason they both should be killed for it even if that abused ends up doing to them what the Mendez Brothers did to their parents”

It’s not my job to fix whats broken. Somethings just be repaired. And even if it does, it will never be the same. It’s not a pessimism it’s reality.

I’m not part of the “resistance”. Those days are over. 🧵

What I will be doing is paying attention to and posting about what is happening in Michigan at the state & local level and keeping up with my our congressional delegation. It’s time to get back to the basics because all politics is local.

I am tired and I know many of you are as well. Go on vacation, spend time with family, and just go live your best life. I am not trying to be on social media as much because people have truly lost their damn minds. 2024 was insane and rest is needed. This election nearly killed me, it was nearly unaliving me and my livelihood , because I spent all my days ranting about a man who doesn’t care about me anyway and it’s not even worth talking about at least if I want to keep my phone for the rest of the year and next year and my sanity(but mostly my sanity)

Trump and republicans can no longer lie and hide behind the lies that democrats are the ones doing everything they have the White House senate and congress whatever happens after January 20 2025 until January 20th, 2029 it’s on them. Those who allow it don’t owe us who warned about it any apologies . I don’t want you to beg on your knees for forgiveness, I just want you to change, you upset about it, do something about it. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t wanna be a hero for everyone anymore. I choose to be my own hero, tired of saving people from their mistakes. They wanted this so let’s see how they pick themselves up. They asked for all this suffering. I’m just gonna sit there and watch.

My resistance is resting. My resistance is saving money and spending it on what I need and Less on what I want. My resistance is increasing my spiritual relationship with Christ. My resistance is living my life rebuilding my mental health and state of mind. And if it means, I got a step back and not take such a political approach unless it’s from a state and local perspective (unless it’s the 2026 midterms, though I said mf the midterms but in my defense, I said that out of anger and 2028 elections) then so be it. And speaking the 2028 elections if the dems wanna maintain the base , they need to choose a candidate that is not weak minded, and determined (and they better not backstab him or her either, because the base will not forgive or forget) the base is black ppl more specifically black womenfolk.

until then we need to get back to having fun again. Yeah Having fun while the country burns down is a lot less fun tbh. But there's nothing we can do about it except watch. They(hews, Latinos for Trump, free Palestine and uncommitted) chose this. I just hope that this country doesn’t go through another virus where I have to stay home for the majority of the year

Don’t get me wrong I’ll pay attention to the local and state elections in Michigan but as far as this on a national level, yeah Politics can kiss me for a minute. I’ll try it again in 2026 and 2028. Hopefully whoever becomes the leader of the free world after these next four years , doesn’t make America more screwed up than it already is about to be for the four years after these four years

[the-firebird69]

These people suck real bad causing problems with their son in just about everybody it's time for them to pick up this weight and carry themselves in other words if you wanna start cause problems which you are so we have all sorts of ways of doing that and one of them is a witness from Trump's side as to who that guy was in that video about 9/11 it's not really gonna help anybody. And they keep changing the news and it's inaccurate and your lies are very overt we don't need you people doing all this and we're going to start getting rid of you all earlier on and it is working. You're a tiring lunch to say the least we are going to attack you.

---= So yeah Ben Arnold's made an attempt to actually arrest our son and he is headed off and Trump tried and was headed off and we don't think any of you are responsible people in any way It's going to be an interesting day tomorrow but a lot of you have **** in the frontal lobe Your rebellion against yourselves and it's a mess it doesn't do enough to stop you so we will but today was abysmal your performance was horrible you know a bunch of losers and liars and mean people and low lights they don't do a damn thing around here for our son at all you just absolutely were made to run that laundromat by some people. And you should see who it is to get back at you and it's something that actually helped you but yeah you don't see what's going on our son saw it and said look we think that you're making stupid things happen like you're telling everybody and our son says he has a retired frontal lobe and you're very insensitive to your own situation meaning man proper not mac daddy so they'll continue to yap they said and I said that's a good idea that's what these people do and really it's not our job to keep you from being children

---= And it's the end of the day out in the rings today from when they reloaded they lost about 3 billion it's not the most but it's about the same as the past two days and this would be the third day. Their leadership is taking a pounding Right now we have them at 6.4% and that's the Max Morlock about 11.9% that's the pseudo empire and 24.5% of the clones they are a wreck and they're coming in crashing and that's gonna be it they're gonna be gone. Today about 1% of their group the Mac Morlock got up to leave from all over the place areas like Florida each area is 1% of the 30 to 35% population in those areas it's about average and here they got up and said We don't like you at all you're all jerks and you're all being mean but really they're going to the West to try and enact their plan and to get ready for it. And they want to attack us. We don't like you people at all and what you're saying is getting you hit because we don't think that you should survive after this idiot **** you're doing. But we do have news that tonight two households plan to go out there Well it's more like 20 and yeah the the water finally broke and it's because the pseudo empire ups are going out there and they can't do it when they're doing it and allow it to happen or their people would just be slaughtered. And now the clones are sending higher ups from the neighborhood we see two households and the Pseudo Empire are sending 10 households from the neighborhood so the Mack Morlock decide to send 20 so really it's 32 households. And the 97 represents these groups and the ones that were here originally the other households which are about 200 have been taken over by a different group mostly minority morlock no they have been taken over by clones but they only have like 20 households and they're not included in the 97 so mac morlock had the enire neighborhood. and hey left the hard way mostly yes. still do. out of the 6.5% remaining leadership or 6.4 only 1.4 percent is found to be in the West and about 2.4 percent are here and yeah 3.8 percent so once they get down to 4 everybody will know the only ones left are right here in Charlotte County for the most part but with these twenty households out of the 97 Mack Morlock households comes to armies and that's going on tonight they are probably only three that are miscellaneous mac Morlock 7 that are trump and 10 are BJA And that are that is a normal spread but Trump does not have that many left here he has a total of about 23 and most of the rest are BJA Most of the and we are watching them deteriorate mentally and physically and this time they're getting worse shortly they're going to be out that's considerable numbers soon they will fall. fully. leaders out nd chaos insues. what awaste they hve been

Thor Freya

Olympus

a true waste

Hera

solid waste

Zues

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #090

(taken december 15th last year; uploading surveys taken while gone)

Do you like pickles? I do, but only dill. There's another kind that some people use for burgers that is way too sweet.

What does your favorite shirt say about you? Currently, people probably correctly assume that I'm very much an advocate for equality (the shirt says "equal in our bones"), like skulls (features one), and am a supporter of Mark and Sean (Cloak is Markiplier and jacksepticeye's business). I am quite quite sure though that I'm getting a Rammstein shirt for Christmas (my mom is full aware that I am obsessed and it was one of the highest items on my list), and it's probably gonna be my new favorite or tied with the Cloak one, depending on how it fits probably.

Have you ever thought you could do a better job at being president? Than Trump? Yep, and that says A LOT because I hate politics and want NO position in the limelight, but a fucking toddler coulda done better than him. Any other president, no, I don't think so, at least not off the top of my head.

Best field trip experience? 5th grade, to the Asheboro Zoo. At that time they had meerkats and I thought I was going to pass out seeing them for the first (and so far only, sobs) time lmao.

How do you feel when you meet someone with the same music taste as you? It's exciting and I wanna know their favorite bands and songs, lol.

Is there anyone in your life who consistently angers you? My sister's husbands and really her in-laws in general.

If you have a job, who is your least favorite coworker/manager? Unemployed.

Favorite episode of Spongebob? Maaaan that's hard, Spongebob slaps. Maybe the pizza delivery one.

Do you have any silly/odd emotional connections to anything/anyone? The pebble I got for my "graduation" from the partial hospitalization program that changed my life. Everyone who was finishing the program was able to pick one from a jar, and it was meant to symbolize how stones go through such immense stress and pressure to become something shiny and beautiful. My classmates all held it in their hands as they told me goodbye and wished me well. I would break the fuck down if I lost that pebble, I'm seriously starting to tear up just talking about it. It's literally on this desk for me to see.

What bug frightens you most? Murder hornets lmfao. Stag beetles also seriously creep me out, but they look cool.

Are your parents supportive of you? Yes.

When was the last time you cried and why? Earlier today, a little bit. Ma and I drove to Wal-Mart to pick up a grocery order, and we passed by this clearly homeless woman that stays in this shopping center with some stuff in a cart. Mom sees her every time she passes. It is absolutely frigid and really rainy out today, and Mom decided to go to the Chick-fil-a across the street to get her food and a coffee. (I want to take a moment to add my mother helps out homeless people a lot with food and I think once even a drive somewhere, she is just so fucking generous.) I've been with her before when she's done stuff like this, but idk, this time just really fucking moved me and I started smiling so big and crying a bit as I watched her go over to the woman. This poor woman was keeping warm with some little candles lit in her cart, leaning over it. It just broke my heart so, so deeply. I'm crying now writing about it, I just wish this world was nicer to people. This world's an unfair nightmare.

How’s your week been? It's... actually been decent? I went up on a med recently and I've been notably more motivated and just happier.

When did you last eat pizza? [TW: EATING DISORDER MENTION/BEHAVIOR-ISH] Mom put a small one in the oven the other day when Girt was here. He didn't eat any though, he's stubborn as a mule about eating these healthy dinners he routinely orders, and he almost always brings one here when he visits. I have absolutely nothing whatsoever against him wanting to be healthy, but I still worry because this man is in perfectly healthy shape and is still convinced he needs to lose weight so sticks to them. He's very into the idea of losing I think like ten pounds and me, his family, and my mom are all like... you'd be underweight. And he once got pretty defensive about it with his sister, like he clearly believes he's not where he should be when he is, and I really do worry he has a degree of self-image issues he's never admitted to. Wow, this was a question about pizza lmao.

Are you currently frustrated with someone? No, not that I can think of.

Has anyone recently told you something you didn’t want to hear? Yeah; my (sadly, now former) therapist had to give up on getting me into pretty much the best mental health service in this area; she and the psychiatrist that worked with her/me were only ever meant to be temporary, and my visits are up with them/insurance won't cover any more, and the desired place was simply much too far behind on referals to get me in in time. I was real bummed. I've instead been accepted somewhere else that Mom doesn't like, but Samantha (old therapist) reassured her their mental health care was well-received, so we're trying it anyway. I don't have much of a choice. I was supposed to be settled with an official psych care team in MARCH right when I got out of the hospital. The year is ending.

What was the last thing you heated up in your microwave? Pizza rolls.

Were you born somewhere other than a hospital? Nope. Just a pretty wild fun fact though, the same doctor who delivered my sisters and me also delivered Ashley's kids, haha. ... I think? Maybe just one or two? He retired at some point.

Are you currently listening to music or watching TV? I'm listening to "Lydia" by Highly Suspect.

What was the last thing you watched on TV? The first two (or three?) episodes of 1899 w/ Girt. I actually really wanna watch more of it this weekend since he's staying with me, I am SO curious about the story.

When you go out drinking, what do you prefer to drink? A margarita or sangria. Something sweet that doesn't have a strong alcohol taste.

Do you prefer regular or electric toothbrushes? Electric.

Have you received any compliments about your appearance today? No, only my mom's seen me and I've got nothing special going on.

What is your favourite type of cat? ORIENTAL SHORTHAIRS!!!!! lil Dumbo alien cats <333333

What religion were you raised in? Are you still that religion, if you had one? Roman Catholicism, and hell fucking no. Even as a child it didn't sit right with me, but I "believed" because I didn't want to go to Hell. Teaching your children that's their fate if they don't believe in a magical, manipulative, imaginary cast is abuse, btw.

What religion/spiritual path intrigues you the most, if any? Pagan stuff, like Wicca, or even atheistic modern Satanism (do your research before you get any ideas). I personally don't hold any of these belief systems because I think they make us humans seem more important than we really are (to me we are literally but little specks in an infinite space, in a tiny snapshot of time, that gives no shits about us), but the idea of finding holiness and divinity in oneself is absolutely alluring.

How many members are there in your favorite band and which is your favorite member? Gotta be honest, the only band member I know in Ozzy's solo career that is still a part of it is himself, haha. But man I would pick Ozzy REGARDLESS of the others, lol. For Rammstein, there's six guys, and I pray to Richard Kruspe at night while also utterly adoring Ollie because we're actually very similar, at least from the things that are public about him. I love all of them though, they are SUCH characters and absolute goofs together.

What heritage does your last name imply? Irish.

Name a stereotype from your country/culture. Do you agree with it? North America thinks it owns the whole fucking world, and in general, I do feel like most Americans think that, that we're like the main protagonists in life's story. Hell no we're not lmao.

Do women breastfeeding in public make you feel uncomfortable? Why or why not? No, because guess what the fuck tits are for, and a hungry child should be fed when it's fucking hungry. I get HEATED about this topic. I'm that person that would genuinely sit with the woman if she was nervous to be a very willing guard dog, my shyness would be GONE.

In the last week, what’s the kindest thing that someone has done for you? Girt showing up with that squishmallow *and* his entire work schedule printed for the whole next year really meant a lot. ;__; The plush came from nowhere and he wanted me to have his work schedule just so I know where he is, what days are candidates for hanging out, etc. I did emphasize to him though that even on days he's off, if he doesn't wanna hang out and I ask, he better be honest about it because that is entirely fine, he's allowed to have personal time whenever he wants, and I do think he understood and is willing to do that, he's always been very honest.

What was the last kind of crisps you ate? Uhhhh crunchy hot Cheetos awhile back.

Do you think it is bad to have sex at your age? I am almost 27 bro, absolutely not.

Will you be having sex in the near future? To be entirely transparent probably because my mom is about to be out of state for almost a week, Girt is planning on staying with me so I'm not alone, and the only reason we HAVEN'T gone that far yet is because we both live with our moms right now and the idea of going that far with a mom like in the next room or something is Very Uncomfy lmao especially when I'm a virgin so I have zero idea how I'd react.

What is your ring tone? Something that came with the phone. It's always on vibrate, so I really don't even know what it is.

Have you ever phoned a sex hot line? ON GOD when my little sister, neighbor, and I had our prank call phase as kids, we once accidentally found one 😭

When was the last time you made friends with old enemies? I mean I guess when Rachel (Jason's ex/first real gf) reached out to me on Facebook and we became friends. She hated my guts in high school because first Juan wanted me instead of her (I STILL don't know if they ever actually dated or what the hell they had going on), and then I dated Jason so apparently I "had a thing for her leftovers." She once even threatened to punch me and once aggressively snatched my arm during lunch to pull me in and tell me something that resulted in me leaving Juan (which ultimately was a blessing in disguise for sure). We're totally cool now though, she was a boy-crazy teenager with an attitude, but now we'll sometimes like comment on each others stuff, react, yada yada, we're cool. She grew up, and so did I. She actually recently got married to one of my former classmates, I even almost WENT to the wedding (via public invite to FB friends) but decided I didn't care THAT much, lol.

Is there something that someone has done to you that you cannot forgive? Invalidate my trauma.

Do you find body hair sexy? Depends, I guess. I THINK I'm more attracted to less but idk.

Who was the last person in your bed other then yourself? Besides my cat, Girt.

Has anyone ever drunk called/texted you? I don't think so?

What is your current MySpace song? Ancient survey, but I DO remember it was fucking "Pocketful of Sunshine" lmfao

Can you do a backwards london bridges? God no, even when I was fit I couldn't bend back and do it. I could lay DOWN on the ground and push myself up to do it, but that's it.

Are any of your pets “overweight”? No. A vet said Cookie could lose a little bit of weight and be perfect, but she's not considered overweight either.

Has anyone ever bought you a ring? My mom has, as well as Jason. I ended up losing the one mom got me down the sink (was not happy, it was really pretty), and the one Jason got, the gem actually came off really quickly and I kept it and the ring itself in a treasure box for a while, but not anymore.

Name three of your favorite colors: Light pink, coral, and hot/neon pink. Basically, PINKS lmao.

Have you ever been baptized? I was as a baby, yeah. Wish I'd made it boil. :^)

Have you been circumcised? I'm a cis female so have not been in this situation.

Would you circumcise your son? This is a decision that I would mostly leave to Girt. Being naturally a woman I simply can't properly relate to/fathom this topic. From the perspective I DO have from what I *can* understand, I'd absolutely want my son to have ease of staying clean, and I also would never want him bullied (not that I'd want or expect my kid to share this information with pretty much anyone), but at the same time, genital mutilation is not fucking cool. I have zero idea what anesthetics (if any) they use or ANYTHING, so I'd have to research this topic more and get input from the dad.

[TW: RAPE/MOLESTATION] Have you ever been raped or molested? Not to my memory, though so many docs by now have asked me, and it's been brought up before that I might have SOME sort of repressed memory because of so, so many signs. I genuinely don't think I have been, like I remember NOTHING, but who the hell knows. I had two boys in pre-k that absolutely harassed me (I've talked about this recently so not doing it again), but I wouldn't call it anything more than that, I think.

Have you ever been sick on your birthday? Hm not quite, at least I don't think so. I do remember I was RECOVERING from a stomach bug one year; I didn't feel wonderful, but we went to dinner at Olive Garden, and at this time Jason worked there and got them to do the whole "happy birthday" singing thing.

Have you ever tried to poison someone? Uh NO??????????

Have you ever saved anyone from a fire? I've never been in this situation, and hopefully I absolutely never will be.

Have you ever had a seizure? No, but I pretty much constantly felt on the verge of having one when I was on the med that made me manic, and at one point I came VERY near to going to the ER because my body was just violently, and I mean violently, seizing at very short, random intervals. I was entirely convinced I was about to have a seizure, but thankfully I fell asleep after being awake for three straight days. Stopped the med the next morning.

Have you ever had pneumonia? No.

Have you ever had a tooth knocked out? I had some molars broken when I fainted onto my chin on the bathroom floor.

Have you had a menstrual period? I'm a cis female so yes, I've had one since I was like, 13-ish. I actually asked Ma when I started today bc we were talking about how one of my nieces is nearly old enough to start and I wanted to pass away right then and there, on god. She is NOT allowed to hit puberty ok.

Have you ever had kidney stones? No.

Have you ever been bitten by a venomous animal? No.

Have you ever been pregnant? No, and I better never be.

Have you ever been sedated or put under anesthesia? Yeah, to get my cyst removed. Best sleep of my life lmfao

Have you ever used shrooms or any other hallucinogen? Nah.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Corruption

“Corruption” conjures images of bags of cash changing hands in deserted parking garages, but I’d like to propose a simple and concrete definition that goes beyond that: “Corruption” is when something bad happens because its harms are diffused and its gains are concentrated.

Here’s what I mean. West Virginia is known as coal country, but coal is actually a small, dwindling industry in WV; WV’s biggest industry is chemical processing, dominated by Dow — chem processing, like many industries, is heavily concentrated into a few global monopolies.

WV has a water crisis, with frequent “boil water” advisories. Its origins are in the chemical industry — specifically, in a regulatory proceeding where state regulators sought comment on whether to relax the EPA’s national guidelines on chemical runoff into drinking water.

Dow, acting through the manufacturers’ association it controls, argued the people of WV could absorb more poison than the national average because they were much fatter than the median American, and when they drank, it was mostly beer, not water.

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/03/14/the-real-elitists-looking-down-on-trump-voters/

No, really.

Here’s the thing. I’m not qualified to set the safe levels of different kinds of runoff in water-tables. It’s probably not zero (at least, not for most chemicals), but it’s also not “anything goes.”

It’s a question that requires subtle, interdisciplinary expertise: chemistry, health, environmental science. It’s an area where people of good faith can disagree.

These thorny, high-stakes technical questions that cross disciplines are the norm, not the exception.

Even if you have the technical knowhow to evaluate whether wearing masks fights covid, that doesn’t answer questions about vaccine safety, or whether zoom-school will turn your kid into an ignoramus.

Answer those questions and you’re left with still more: should you get in one of Southwest’s recertified Boeing 737-Max airplanes? Is the code specifying the reinforced steel joist that holds up your roof adequate, or is your building gonna collapse?

Should you eat carbs? Will your 401k preserve you through a dignified retirement? Answering all of these questions definitively for yourself requires earning 50+ PhDs, but also, people who have those PhDs don’t all agree with one another.

In a technologically complex world, there will always be official advice whose technical arguments we can’t understand. Our only reassurance is the process by which that advice is arrived at.

We may not understand the arguments, but we can recognize an open, independent process refereed by neutral regulators who show their work and recuse themselves if they have a conflict of interest.

We don’t always understand what goes on inside the box, but we can tell whether the box itself is sound. We can tell judges are financially interested in outcomes, whether they publish their deliberations, whether they revisit their conclusions in light of new evidence.

That’s all we’ve got, and it depends on a balance of powers that arises from a pluralistic, diffused set of industrial interests.

When an industry says with one voice that West Virginians are so fat that we can poison them without injury, it carries a lot of weight.

(so to speak)

It’s a stupid argument. It’s a wicked argument. It’s a lethal argument. It’s the kind of argument that might get you laughed out of the room if it is filled with hundreds of squabbling chemical companies looking to dunk on one another.

That’s the thing about conspiracies (and Dow was, in fact, engaged in a conspiracy to poison West Virginians to enrich its shareholders) — they require a lot of discipline, with all the conspirators remaining loyal to the conspiracy and no one breaking ranks.

The bigger a group is, the more it struggles to keep a united front. That’s why there’s so much billionaire class solidarity. Sure, it’s hard to maintain unity among a clutch of grandiose maniacs, but it’s much harder to maintain unity among billions of their victims.

Monopolization is corruption’s handmaiden — not just because it lets Dow hire fancy lawyers and “experts” to dress up “fat people are immune to poison” as sound policy, but because the industry can sing that awfful song with one voice.

Dow spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to win a policy that will save it millions — and cost the people of WV hundreds of millions or even billions in health costs, lost productivity, and, of course, the intergenerational trauma of ruined and lost human lives.

The reason millions in gains can trump billions in losses is that that the millions are reaped by just a few firms, who can wield them with precision to secure the continued right to impose costs on the rest of us, while the losses are spread out across the whole state.

For Dow to corrupt West Virginia’s legislature, it need only tithe a small percentage of its winnings to political causes and dark money orgs.

For West Virginians to fight corruption in the cash-money world of political influence campaigns, they have to overcome their collective action problem and outspend Dow — all while bearing the human and monetary costs of Dow’s corruption.

America is a land of manifest, obvious dysfunctions, and close examination reveals their common root in corruption.

Take the health-care system: Americans pay more for worse outcomes than anyone else in the rich world.

Their healthcare is rationed by faceless, cruel bureaucracies. They ration their medicine or skip necessary procedures. Patients hate this — but so do doctors and nurses, who have to hire armies of bureaucrats to fight with insurers.

Everyone hates this system. Everyone knows it’s rotten. Everyone — except for a handful of pharma, hospital and insurance monopolists, and the propagandists they pay to busily race through the crowd, busily swapping hats and shouting, “SOCIALISM! BOO! SOCIALISM!”

But while the US healthcare system is terrible at providing healthcare, it’s very good at jackpotting for monopolists. They reap billions while costing the public trillions, and they hand around millions to keep that situation intact.

We can see that in action right now. Nina Turner is running to take over a Congressional seat in northeastern Ohio vacated by Marcia Fudge when she joined Biden’s cabinet.

https://www.dailyposter.com/dems-launch-proxy-war-on-medicare-for-all/

For 30 years, every Congressional rep for Ohio’s 11th supported Medicare for All — a commensense measure to end the long waits, price gouging and cruel bureaucratic rationing of for-profit care. Unsurprisingly, Turner also supports M4A.

https://twitter.com/ninaturner/status/1404793650895331337?s=20

In response, a group of corporate, establishment Congressional Dems have launched an all-out attack on Turner’s candidacy, joining forces with health-care lobbyists to raise vast corporate fortunes to support her primary challenger, Shontel Brown.

The seven Dem lawmakers attacking Turner have collectively taken in $5m from pharma and health-care monopolists. James E Clyburn alone has pocketed $1m from pharma. He’s leading the charge against Turner.

https://twitter.com/TaylorPopielarz/status/1405121330433957888

Before Clyburn accepted $1m worth of pharma money, he co-sponsored Medicare For All legislation. Now he’s its most bitter opponent, insisting that it’s political poison (a majority of his constituents support M4A).

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/live-blog/south-carolina-primary-live-updates-democrats-vote-2020-candidates-n1145296/ncrd1146076

One million people in Ohio lost their jobs — and health care — during the pandemic. The system is murdering and maiming people. It’s a wasteful boondoggle that’s bad for everyone except a tiny minority of shareholders and the corrupt officials who accept their blood-money.

It’s not just healthcare. Think of Exxon Mobil’s crime against humanity and Earth: the 40-year coverup and disinformation campaign to delay action on the climate emergency. Exxon spent millions, made tens of billions, and cost us all trillions.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/30/climate-crisis-crime-fossil-fuels-environment

The megadroughts, once-in-millennium heatwaves, raging wildfires, annual floods-of-the-century and zoonitic plagues Exxon bought with their millions were objectively a very bad deal — but their concentrated gains beat our much larger diffused losses (so far). #ExxonKnew.

But corruption creates policy debt, and the interest on that debt compounds — in a degraded environment, worsening health, precarious work, and a collapse in trust in institutions. The corrupt have a structural advantage, but it’s not a sure thing.

Take Ohio (again). The GOP-dominated Senate passed legislation to ban Ohio cities from offering municipal broadband. Now, municipal broadband is the best internet in America: cheaper, faster and more reliable than anything the telecoms monopolists offer.

There are ~900 (mostly Republican) towns and counties where people get their internet from their local government:

https://muninetworks.org/communitymap

And they fucking love it, just as much as their Comcast-burdened peers elsewhere hate their service:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180808223947/https://www.consumerreports.org/phone-tv-internet-bundles/people-still-dont-like-their-cable-companies-telecom-survey/

Muni networks are better at everything to do with the internet: connection speeds, price, and customer service. There’s only one area in which they underperform relative to telecoms monopolies: generating profits for shareholders by overcharging and underinvesting.

There’s only a tiny minority of people who’d trade good internet service for profitable internet service (namely, the people receiving the profits). But the pro-monopolists have concentrated gains, while the public experiences diffused losses.

That’s why the Ohio Senate passed its budget bill banning municipal networks. But when the budget was reconciled in the Ohio House, the measure was killed, thanks to an all-out uprising led by the people of Fairlawn, who stepped up to defend Fairlawngig, their muni ISP.

The victory for muni broadband is a triumph of evidence over corruption — proof that the diffused nature of corruption losses can be overcome. It’s cause for hope, especially in light of this week’s collapse of the antitrust case against Facebook.

https://www.wired.com/story/ftc-antitrust-case-against-facebook-very-much-alive/

Facebook escaped justice by citing the theories of Robert Bork, Nixon’s chief criminal co-conspirator and Ronald Reagan’s court sorcerer. Bork insisted that anittrust law had but one purpose: to keep prices down.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/28/dubious-quant-residue/#incinerators-r-us

Any other consideration, especially political corruption arising from market concentration, was out of scope.

The court agreed. No surprise; 40% of the US Federal judiciary has attended a lavish “Manne Seminar,” junkets where they are indoctrinated into Borkism.

But the absurdity of ruling that Facebook isn’t a fit subject for anti-monopoly law is the beginning of the end for Borkism, prompting bipartisan calls — led by Elizabeth Warren — to explicitly redesign American antitrust.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/facebooks-surprise-antitrust-victory-could-inspire-congress-to-overhaul-the-rules-entirely/ar-AALCJz8

Corruption has many costs: monetary, human, environmental. But every bit as important is the cost to institutional credibility. Remember, none of us are capable of understanding the technical nuances of the dozens of life-or-death decisions we face daily.

If we can’t trust our institutions — if we don’t believe that regulators are neutral, good-faith experts in ardent pursuit of the truth and the public good — then our very idea of shared reality collapses, as Snowden has written:

https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/conspiracy-pt1

It’s hard to overstate the sheer, reeling epistemological terror of institutional collapse. When the EPA allows the chemical industry to poison America, how can you know whether the products in the store can be trusted not to kill your family?

https://theintercept.com/2021/06/30/epa-pesticides-exposure-opp/

Remember, the Flint water crisis came about as the result of corruption: the promises of “experts” that taking shortcuts to save money would come out all right, despite the copious evidence to the contrary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_Water_Crisis

What parent of a permanently damaged child, poisoned by lead deliberately introduced to save pittances for a tiny group of people, could ever trust any “expert” process again?

Michigan Republicans saved millions at the expense of billions, but the gains were concentrated among the wealthy white taxpayers of the state who enjoyed cuts to the top marginal rate, and the costs were born by the Black families of Flint. That’s corruption.

[staywritten]

All In│Bang Chan «Chapter TwentyTwo»

Synopsis: After a messy break up your sophomore year, you decided that the best thing for you was to finish off your college career single. You wanted to focus on yourself, grow as a person and finish off your degree strong. There’d be plenty of time for love after college. But after losing your camera you become friends with the seemingly perfect boy that threatens to ruin your plans.

Genre: SocialMedia!AU, College!AU, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Smut

◄Back «Masterlist» Next►

*Chapter Rated Mature, contains smut

Written Portion of the Chapter Below

It took absolutely everything in Chan to come to your apartment. You invited him but it still felt like he was somehow violating your space. That this was the sole thing he’s been wanting and yet it felt so surreal to get this far. There were only two possible outcomes after he left here. It was either he continued to be someone you allowed in your life or he wasn’t. That in itself was nerve wracking. He took a deep breath before finally knocking on your apartment door. 

Momo swung the door open, glaring at him. “Chan.”

“Hi Momo… it’s been a while”

“I honestly could have gone longer without seeing you” she sighed letting him in. “But if you’re here to just break her heart some more, I’ll save you the trouble.”

“I’m not...I’m trying to make things right…” he looked down fiddling with his hoodie sleeves. “I just want her to be happy…”

“I’m serious Chan...I’ve never seen her as happy as she was with you...but I’ve also never seen her so heart broken as she is now…” she pressed her manicured finger into his chest. “Fix this.”

“All I can do is beg for her forgiveness”

“She’s in her room...I’m going to dance practice” Momo grabbed her bag “Good luck” 

Chan looked at your door, his hand hovering over it before falling back to his side. He didn’t really know what he was gonna say, his only plan was to answer any question you had and try to be as upfront with his feelings as possible. But he knew in the back of his mind that there was a strong possibility that it just wasn’t going to be enough, that he wasn’t going to be enough and this could be the last conversation he had with you and that in itself terrified him. 

After what felt like an eternity the door opened, Chan’s hand falling back down to his side again, never finding the courage to knock. “H-How’d you know I was here?”

“Momo said she was gonna get the door a while ago…”

“Sorry...I got nervous…” 

You nodded “It’s ok…” you stepped aside letting him inside your room, and gesturing for him to have a seat on the bed. “We needed to talk...I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you...I just...I wasn’t ready…I needed to organize my thoughts”

“No, I’m sorry. If I had just been upfront about everything this wouldn’t have happened.” he bowed. “I’ll answer anything”

“Chan I ran away from you instead of letting you talk. I’m at least partly to blame” You hugged yourself, gaze falling to the ground. 

His eyes widened hearing you can him Chan, it’d been such a while since he heard you say that. It was so unfamiliar off your lips. You were still distancing yourself from him. He nodded “Mistakes were made… I don’t have any excuses to offer you… I’m just trying to be honest...I want to have what we had before...I wanna make you happy again”

“What is Rosie to you…?” You didn’t know if he knew that Rosie reached out to you and gave you her side of the story. After your talk with Rosie, and Changbin you realized they were right. Chan wasn’t the kind of person to purposely hurt you. It did seem like a genuine misunderstanding. Perhaps it was self sabotage, like it was so unbelievable that you were happy in a relationship that the moment something wasn’t perfect you fled. It wasn’t fair to him and it wasn’t fair to everyone that put up with you. You already knew your decision about Chan before he even arrived but you needed to hear him say it. 

You needed confirmation. 

“Rosie was…” he sighed “No, Rosie is one of my best friends, especially growing up. We met in primary school and were friends all the way until graduation. Sometime during my freshman year of highschool feelings developed and we just kind of ended up dating. We never really had a talk or anything about it, things just progressed naturally. I did like her a lot and at the time I’m sure I could have called it love. There was no reason to break up until graduation. I knew I wanted to move to Seoul, and Felix was gonna join me here in a few years.” He fiddled with the sleeves of his hoodie, looking up at you sincerely. “Rosie was gonna stay in Sydney she wanted to be a singer there and already signed to a company”

You nodded taking in his story. “Why didn’t you break up when you moved?”

“I guess we thought we’d make it work? When I first got to Seoul I was overwhelmed, there was culture shock, a huge workload with classes and the swim team. I even had a part time job. I barely even spoke to Rosie, she had a career. We’d talk occasionally but there was never an urgency.” he gave you a small smile. “I don’t think either of us were that invested in our relationship. But when I went back home to see my parents me and Rosie would pick up where we left off, we’d act like a couple again filling each other in on lost time. That kind of thing worked for us.”

“You said before, you guys were on a break… When did you guys decide that?” 

“Sometime during my sophomore year I told her I wasn’t able to come home for her birthday and she told me not to worry about that anymore, that she didn’t want to pressure me. She was the one who suggested the break, said there was a guy she was starting to get close to but wasn’t sure if it was more than friendship.” he laughed “It was selfish but we both decided that it was good for us. Honestly neither of us wanted to deal with the guilt from talking with other people but we were cowards and didn’t want to break up properly.”

“How is that fair to anyone? It’s like you have one foot out the door in every relationship… This other person is all in and you guys are just playing with them, because if it doesn’t work out you both had a trump card” you hugged yourself “It’s cruel to date someone and make them think that they’re your number one when they’re actually just on a wait list”

“I know that now… I promise we didn’t think of it like that… We were just trying to spare each other's feelings… I think we both thought the other was in love and the only thing in the way was distance but it was more than that… But you’re right that whole one foot out the door thing...it was the reason why me and Rosie both failed with other people.” 

“What are your feelings for her now?”

“She’s still a great friend, we’re both busy with life so we only keep up through instagram. I don’t regret my relationship with her, but I do regret not ending it properly in the beginning. We could have spared a lot of people's feelings. We broke up officially right before I went back to Australia.” he gave you a sheepish smile. “She has a boyfriend that she was hesitant on living with because of the guilt and I’ve never seen her so happy.”

“Does he know about this?”

“When I went to visit her we both talked to him and apologized. It took a little bit but he understood…It was the mistake of two very immature kids who held on to a memory, and ran from our feelings…”

You stood in front of him with a pout on your lips. “Very selfish, immature kids…” 

“Very very selfish” he looked up at you and held your fingers, as gently as possible, gauging your reaction. It was the first physical contact he had with you in so long. He missed your warmth, how you felt in his hand. How you immediately calmed his rising anxieties. 

“How do you feel about me? Was I just a fling? Was I just another person you were trying out while waiting for Rosie?”

“No...you were never a fling...I never meant to fall so hard...so fast, but I know I love you.” h e looked down at your intertwined fingers, rubbing your hand softly. “The first time I saw you with Hyunjin I thought you were so beautiful… It was only for a moment you were waiting for him outside the gym but i just couldn’t stop thinking about you… When we finally started talking because of your camera i was happy enough… I could be happy with just a friendship, but then I-” he stopped himself to look at you, to gaze in your warm eyes that gave him the courage to continue. “I couldn’t stop imagining you by my side, thinking about you when I went to sleep...You were my first thought when I woke up…I never felt like that before”

Your frown turned into a small pout. All the time lost and heartbreak could have been avoided had you two just communicated better. If your first instinct wasn’t to run,if you didn’t let your past trauma dictate your present. Yugyeom took a lot of things from you. You weren’t going to let your pain from him take away your present happiness anymore. “I love you too” he gently tugged pulling you on his lap and cupping your face, his thumb tracing over your bottom lip. 

“I’m so sorry for all the trouble and heartbreak I caused you… You have to know it’s my worst nightmare to hurt you.”

“Don’t do it again…” you whispered against the palm of his hand, leaning into his touch.

“You forgive me?” his voice barely a whisper. 

“I’m not gonna hold your past against you. After talking to you...and to Rosie...I’m ready to forgive you. But you have to be all in… No backup plans…no cards up your sleeves” you made him look into your eyes, squishing his face in your small hands. 

“I’m all in” He brushed his nose against yours, smiling brightly. “Will you be my girlfriend?”

You laughed and nodded “It almost sounds silly to hear at this point.”

“I’m done with ambiguous relationships” he smirked “I want to be very clear with what we have… Can you say it for me?”

“Yes, Chris. I’ll be your girlfriend” you giggled as he pulled you into a deep kiss, his fingers tangling in your hair. 

“I missed you so much…” he mumbled against your lip. “I’m not letting you go again...I promise…” his heart fluttered seeing your smile brighten, he could practically see the sparkle in your eyes. He chuckled as you tried to chase his lips every time he pulled away. 

“If you missed me, then kiss me” you pouted in frustration, whining when his lips were always out of touch.

His eyes raked over your face, the little scrunch of your nose, the furrow of your brow, how your pout deepened. His thumb traced your features slowly. “My gorgeous babygirl…” he whispered against your skin.

You couldn't help but feel so exposed as he just stared at you, like he was trying to memorize every feature. It honestly made you feel so vulnerable. “Chris….stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” his smile turned into a playful smirk. “How am I looking at you?” 

You caressed his cheek, your eyes softening at his gaze. “Like I’m precious…”

“Because you are…” the moment the words left his mouth he hid his face in your sweater.

“Chris…” you brought his chin up to you, your nails running through his curly hair. “Make love to me…”

He pulled you down with him, rolling on top as he peppered your faces with kisses. His warm fingers running down your side and pushing your night shirt up. “My beautiful girl…” He nipped at your lips, cupping your breast from under your sports bra. You shivered under his touch as he made quick work of your shirt, tossing it behind him. “Stop~” he groaned as you covered your chest, shrinking yourself the moment he took off your bra, leaving you in your panties. “Lemme see”

You huffed pushing him away with one hand. “No, I’m too naked and you’re fully clothed.”

“Then undress me” his voice laced with teasing. 

“Close your eyes” you warned, waiting for the moment he closed his eyes before you took off his shirt. Your fingertips lingering for a moment too long on his strong abs. Your eyes watching the slightest movement of his body as he took in a breath. He peaked an eye open to watch you follow the rigids of his abs down toward his belt loop. While working on undoing his belt you looked up from the feeling of being watched. “Hey you’re supposed to-”

He silenced you with a deep kiss, smiling against you. “How could I…” he smiled brightly, placing his hands on top of yours helping you get the belt off. “I don’t wanna miss a second of you…” his expression was just so soft, so gentle. His little butterfly kisses working down your body, as he occasionally stopped just to maintain eye contact with you, making you squirm before you shut your eyes in embarrassment. He chuckled watching you get shy. “God I missed you…” he pressed a kiss against your panties, his tongue teasing you from the outside. 

“Chris…” his name a prayer on your lips, only encouraging his teasing. 

Slipping your panties down your leg he returned to your core, hooking your thighs over his shoulders

You whimpered feeling his tongue dive in. Your back arching against the mattress “Chris you don’t have to-Ah” you gripped the bedsheets harder. 

“I want to…” he gave you the softest puppy dog pout “I want to make you feel good… I want you to only think of me…” his dark eyes watched you, making sure this was ok “May I?” 

You nodded, breathlessly giving him permission to continue. From how he held you, to how his tongue flattened against all the right spots you were at his mercy. He made sure to work you over with his fingers, letting you ride out your orgasm. Your vision, blurring from the pleasure.

He left kisses back up your body, his full lips covered in your slick as he kissed you. You deepen the kiss, holding him as close as you could. “I need you…” you begged. “Please Chris…”

“I love you..” he cupped your face before kissing your nose, your cheek, your throat. “You have me Baby girl…” he rubbed himself against you, slowly pushing himself inside. Letting you take him inch by inch, slowly finding his rhythm. He never broke eye contact with you as he moved faster. He spoiled you with sweet kisses as you held on to his shoulders, your nails dragging down his back as you held on to him. 

And as much as he brought you immense pleasure while making love to you. The things that really got you were his little giggles when he’d catch your smiles, the way his free hand would always find yours to hold your hand and give you reassurance. How his kisses always managed to taste like watermelon juice. 

“I love you so much Christopher…” you whispered between moans, holding his face closer to you, his lips ghosting yours. 

He buried his face in your neck, pressing a kiss at the base of your throat. “Please don't’ let me go again…” his hand gripped your intertwined fingers as he reached his climax, you following right behind him. Despite him cumming he continued to pump you a few more times, each one becoming lazier than the last. “Stay with me…” he whispered more so to himself, not intending for you to hear him. 

“I’m not going anywhere…” you brought his lips back to yours in a sweet chaste kiss. You two definitely weren’t perfect, and mistakes were made. There was no telling that your relationship was going to be perfect from now on. But some things were worth taking a gamble on. He was worth trying for. You weren’t gonna run away from this one. 

To be continued…

That was a lengthy chapter, but thank you guys for being so patient while waiting for the update. I was dealing with a lot of bugs with the app and finally managed to get through it. There’s only two more chapters of this series left 

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[evilelitest2]

What is the dirtbag left? People keep talking about it but I have no clue what it is

Oh this answer is gonna suck.  Good question as always though.  

Ok before we can get into the dirtbag left, I want to talk about the major factions of leftist in the United States, and I am discounting Moderates/Centrist/Blue Dog Democrat's, I am specifically focused on people who support actual left wing policies.  Roughly speaking they can be broken up into the following groups though each group is a lot more complicated than I am implying here

The first and most dynamic faction are the progressives, people who are focused on the rights of marginalized people.  Sometimes they are called “identity Politics”  They are further subdivided into a bunch of specific interest groups, but their main unifying argument is “society is specifically persecuting towards certain groups and we need to address that” 

Civil Rights, who focus on the rights of African Americans 

Feminists who focus on the rights of women

The Queer Community, who are focused on the rights of Gender and Sexual Minorities (Gay people, Trans people, Non Binary people, Bi people, intersex, asexual ect

This group is really divided within itself but lets not get sidetracked

Groups focusing on the rights of Latin Americans, both citizens and immigrants

Groups focusing on the rights of Muslims/Middle Easterners

Groups focusing on the rights of Jews/Combating antisemitism

Groups focusing on the rights of Asian Americans

And finally groups focusing on the rights of the disabled 

The next major group is the labor movement, who focus on the rights of workers, focusing on things like Unions, increasing the minimum wage, addressing the wealth gap and very New Deal FDR policies, and tend to be anticapitalistic or at least Social Democrat.   

Environmentalists, who want the world to not die

Anti War advocates

Pro Education/Pro Science anti Fundamentalists' people who just want good goverment.  

And some post modernists thrown in because why not?

The two main groups that make up the left are the first two, the issues of Identity Politics and Class, and there is a LONG history of these two groups having trouble le working together.  One of the major issue is that a lot of poor whites would happily welcome a lot of leftist social policies, but vote conservative if they believes those policies will help black people, even if it hurts their own best interest.  I mean take the New Deal, which was among the greatest economic period of US history and was popularly supported by most Americans.  However a lot of poor whites supported it because Latinos and Blacks were not allowed access to most of its benefits.  ANd once the Democratic Party started to pursue desegregation and women’s rights, these poor whites abandoned the party which gave them a future and voted for policies that hurt their own best interest because of their extreme bigotry.  Which is the most frustrating part of American History.   

And among a lot of Democrats (mostly centrist) there is this idea that the best way to win elections is to stab marginalized communities in the back in order to win Republican voters.  When Bill Clinton won in 1992, he did so in large part by abandoning a lot of leftist principles, he embraced Third Way style Liberalism and deregulation (which led to the 2008 crash thanks Clinton) but he also happily supported Right wing ideas about trying to keep crazy radicals minorities from advancing too far in politics.  Basically try to rebrand the Democrats as “we aren’t as crazy as the Republicans, but we ditched all of that lame uncool parts of politics that makes your family uncomfortable”.  

So the Dirtbag Left (there term not mine) was like “Hey could we do this...but for communism?”  And like most bad things, its origin is with Nazis.

The Dirtbag Leftist are Marxists who think the best way to win Trump voters over to the left is to combine Socialist style economic/welfare policies with conservative styles attacks on “Free Speech” and “Identity Politics.”  The “nicer” version of these guys basically say “ok we win them in with the economic policies and once we implement that, we can work on the other issues”.  The cruelr version of that basically want a socialist state...for white straight men and nobody else.  

This happened because some communists were looking at how the Alt-Right was radicalizing apolitical young men and were like “wait we can do that too”  

See if you have ever had the misfortune of being in Nazi/Red Pill/Gamergate style spaces you will notice that they actually share a lot of the left’s complains about the status que.  They dislike both parties, they don’t like capitalism, and they think our current consumerist way of life is souless drudgery.  So some communists were like “What if we found the exact same demographic as these guys but tried to turn them to communism instead of Fascism?”  Which sounds like a good idea but here is the problem

The type of people who become Nazis had to already be bigoted anti intellectuals in the first place.  All you have done is given some of them Marxist Rhetoric rather than Nazi Rhetoric, they are the exact same toxic people.  And in trying to cater to them, you have allowed them to infiltrate's your movement.  

The other quality of the Dirtbag Left is that they think that the Centrist Democrats (Clinton, Obama, Biden ect) are a greater threat than the conservatives, and that if the Far Right and the Far Left can team up to destroy the center, the radicals can work out their issues.  Which has never worked ever in human history but they keep trying.  

Initially the DIrtbag Left was basically vulgar leftists who wanted to down play the issues that trigger conservatives (Abortion, minority rights, feminism, being nice to people) in order to get them to support their social/economic policies, but it quickly became co-opted by the Alt Right themselves, and now they are basically just advocates of a Herrenvolk style social state.  Or really...they are what would happen if the Nazis actually tried to combine Nationalism with Socialism.  

And  while they aren’t a large group, like the Alt-Right they are really really prominent online and are constantly engaged in wide spread harassments campaigns that are basically find/replace Gamergate harassments campaigns.  They attached themselves pretty hard to Bernie's Sanders campaign and did a really good job in ruining his chances in both primaries, and then attached themselves to Tulsi Gabbard’s fucking toxic campaign after that.  At this point they are basically just Alt Rightists with a socialist brand reskin.   Sometimes called the Red Brown Alliance

[mackenzie-lukasiaks]

~chloe’s cat saga~

putting various asks about chloe’s cat/what it says about her finances under the cut. spoiler alert: she didn’t spend $3000 on the cat.

Chloe didnt buy Noble she found him as a stray. in what world would a tabby cat be $3000?

chloe found noble and the other cat (who passed away) in a dumpster bc they were abandoned...

I thought Chloe's cat was one that had been abandoned? There were two others, but they died. Even so, all the Dance Moms families are privileged. Chloe earned that money, she's paying for college, which is more than some of them are.

Christi literally said Noble is a rescue. People really need to stop trying to villanize Chloe.

I mean that’s why I was confused lol. $3000 seems like an insane amount of money, even if she had gotten him from a breeder. rescuing him makes a lot more sense.

when it comes to chloe paying for college though, I do wonder if she has taken out any loans. pepperdine certainly isn’t cheap, plus she seems to be living off-campus. but the lukasiaks probably are in a pretty good financial position when it comes to paying for college.

The problem isn’t that the lukasiaks are rich. I mean it was inevitable they’d all get rich after the show. The problem chloe shaming those who’s only goal is to make money while doing the same thing herself. That’s the problem.

I think you’re missing the point of the lukasiak wealth thing. Their wealth is not the problem. It’s chloes words and her contradictory actions that are the problem. She tries so hard to be woke by liking the right stuff on Twitter, posting the right stuff on her ig stories, and even named a plantAOC in order to prove that she’s not your typical money hungry capitalist. But then continues to take product endorsements. I mean ffs her latest vid was a glorified ad. At least own your wealth. Acknowledge you have privilege. Instead of talking about things she clearly doesn’t understand.

okay I do get these criticisms, and I think naming her plant after aoc is kind of cringey. but I guess my thing is that, number one, I think people are really taking that quote of hers about money and running with it. chloe probably should’ve been more precise with her words, but looking at the quote again, she says, “And it’s not because they don’t agree with my political views. But, oftentimes, people who have differing political views, to me, all that says is that you care more about your money than you care about human rights. Umm that you care more about your political party and unimportant things more than you care about Black Lives Matter, LGBTQIA+ community, women, uh minorities.” 

she’s specifically talking about tr*mp supporters caring more about money and keeping money and accumulating money over human rights. looking at when that article was published (on my birthday coincidentally lol), it was only a month after the election. if you’ll recall, prior to the election, there were people (including quite a few celebrities) coming out about how they were going to vote for tr*mp because “biden is going to raise our taxes!!1!1!1!!!!” that stuff also tied in with the fear of biden ~ruining the economy~ or that he would be raising taxes to ~fund grifters sucking on the government’s teat~ or how he would be ~giving jobs away to illegals~ or whatever. it’s pretty callous to be more worried about all these hypothetical biden plans (that were rarely rooted in reality anyway) than about, you know, all the horrible shit that tr*mp did over 4 years. I think it’s kind of reading into that quote to say that chloe said, “money is Evil and Incompatible with caring about human rights,” and I think the context of the quote being about tr*mp supporters is also important.

now again, I get that some of the stuff that chloe is saying and doing can easily come off as her being your stereotypical ~cringe liberal~, as twitter would say. but I don’t think that chloe saying that tr*mp supporters were more worried about money than human rights in any way suggested that she was like advocating for class warfare or to abolish capitalism lol. if she has said stuff more specifically like that, please feel free to correct me. 

Chloe: *rightfully criticized trumpies support of a terrible person and their need to prioritize money over actual humans when asked about it*

Hating ass anons: WeLL ShE BoUgHt aN ExPeNsiVe CaT SoOoO EvErYtHiNg ShE SaYs iS WrOnG

I’m sorry but are people really that mad because she bought a fucking CAT?? They’re mad because she has money?? Mad because she can do what the fuck she wants with her money? Like it’s not new information that Chloe has money and is obviously gonna spend it and people are gonna know because she’s on social media? Like who really fucking cares?? Like genuinely who actually fucking cares?? There are way bigger fish to fry? At least she’s giving a cat a nice home tf? These anons are REACHING! Her buying a cat didn’t have shit to do with what she said about trump supporters, but the mad ass trump supporters are gonna watch her every move and wait for any moment to be like “SEe ShEs WrOnG!!” Like get a life omfg.

I swear these anons take any chance they get to make a mountain out of a molehill just so they can have something to say about the Lukasiaks. It Is Not That Deep.

I think there’s a split between anons who want to criticize chloe because they just don’t like her/the lukasiaks, anons who are straight up tr*mp supporters and are big mad, and a couple of anons (who I’ve included in this post) who are probably more liberal/leftist who are critical of her from that end. when it comes to the first two groups, I agree, they’re just looking for things to get pissed about/reasons to dunk on chloe/ways to prove that I “coddle” the lukasiaks. for the third group, I understand some of their criticisms, but also think that what chloe has said has been overblown to make their argument.

and since other anons have pointed out that chloe did not, in fact, spend $3000 on this cat, but rather took it and some of its littermates in as strays, this whole argument just feels like exactly what you said--Not That Deep.

[omegangrins]

Chibnall, Children, Choice and Consequence

Allow me to introduce a companion piece to A Treatise on the Doctor:

It's pretty simple:

Chibnall knows what he's doing and is playing a long game to show how the Doctor needs to take more responsibility.

Let me start off with my favorite examples. That's right, plural.

Every single villain 13 faces is never defeated, merely pushed away from causing them any immediate problems. Tim Shaw being the prime example.

1&10. Seriously, Tim Shaw. Her plan was to use his own bombs on him and then teleport him off the planet. Even without Ranskoor Av Kolos, the Doctor should have thought to check in on him. Especially after The Ghost Monument showed the Stenza were a greater threat than she knew. She still hasn't even checked up on WHAT THE HELL THE STENZA ARE! They sound worse than Daleks but naw, let's go rain-bathing in the upper tropics of Canstano instead.

2. Ghost Monument. We saw the END of an interuniversal race. What the fuck is the beginning that got them there? Who is Illyn and how and why did he orchestrate a super race?

3. Krasko. Sent back in time. Really, Doc? Not gonna take a look at the device and see where Ryan sent the prick so you can double check that he's not gonna cause anymore damage?

4. President Trump analog. Ooooo, you looked at him menacingly, Doc, that'll show him!! Not like he's gonna KEEP DOING ILLEGAL SHIT LIKE THIS.

5. The Pting. She literally shunted it off ship to be dealt with by someone else BUT DOESN'T GO BACK TO BE THAT SOMEONE ELSE ONCE SHE HAS HER TARDIS. That's like leaving a living nuke floating around after sweeping it under the rug while you fly off to Paris.

6. The Pakistani-Indian conflict still happens and millions still die. Not her fault but still....

7. Kerblam. Sure, Charlie's terrorism was solved but not the underlying problem that led to it. Humans still can't work because corporations like profits over people.

8. Similar to the Punjab, how you gonna solve sexism, classism and all the -isms?

9. WHY WAS THE SOLITRACT THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE??!! It's been around since before the universe. Why'd it decide to come back now? It's a whole universe trying to hug our universe to death. Maaaaaaybe we should check out why.

11. She's gets a pass on the Dalek. Fucking impossible to eradicate them.

12. The Master!!! Finally she checks up on something after the adventures... and it's horrible. With everything gone to shit in her absence. Seeing a pattern yet?

And Barton? And the Cassaven? They didn't disappear into smoke.

13. Multiple Earths being multiply fucked. Remember when I said the Doctor couldn't solve racism, classism, sexism, or any of the other -isms? Starting to look like she needs to TRY.

14. The Skithra FLY OFF after getting hit by a laser beam. That kind of thing tends to piss people off. Even if they're idiots using other's technology.

15. Jack. The Judoon. The Ruth Doctor. All things I'd start checking out if I had a time machine BUT

16. WE CAN'T cause the TARDIS emergency alert is going off and we need to hurry up and run and solve this problem before we run out of time in our TIME AND SPACE MACHINE. Leading to another problem the Doctor could help solve but won't. Plastic and over-consumption.

17. Oh yeah, let's trap two Eternals from another universe in the same place. There's NO WAY that could ever turn out bad.

18,19,20. And again. Cyberium. Pushed off Shelley onto herself and onto Ashad and onto The Master.

That's almost 20 "enemies" the Doctor still needs to deal with.

Oh, not to mention that they let UNIT go defunct because they didn't have the forethought to ask if they needed any money in their alien fighting budget. After asking for an office, a desk, and a job. Kinda funny that way, aren't they?

I hope by now you've gotten the idea that this is VERY deliberate. This is Chibnall laying down some very heavy pipe to smack the Doctor like a clothesline. There isn't a one of these situations that can't come around to bite her in the ass.

Barton, Roberts, Skithra. These are all very loose strands for a time traveller like the Doctor to get tripped up on. Chibnall's past episodes prove it. They're all about the Doctor learning how to take responsibility.

42: The Doctor almost gets Martha killed and almost gets himself killed trying to fix it.

The Hungry Earth: The Doctor (a thousand year old "adult") tells Elliot (a 10 year old kid) that "Sure it's totally fine to go get your headphones while we prepare for an approaching unknown alien force." And 11 rightfully gets his ass chewed for it by the child's mother when the kid goes missing because OF COURSE THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS, JACKASS!

Cold Blood: I could write an entire essay about the Doctor's guilt over the Silurian/Human conflicts they've witnessed, but I don't need to. Because every single Silurian centered episode written in the new era is from Chris Chibnall. And you can feel the sad knowledge of Classic Who spill through. He KNOWS how many times the Doctor has fucked up with the Silurians (about 8 times in television format. And it's rough everytime. Rough.) and he writes those episodes like an apology on behalf of the whole human race. And the Doctor. You know why people are put off by Warriors of the Deep? 5 releases a gas that melts the Silurians. And though it's cheesy, the idea and execution is still horrible.

Add to that if the Doctor hadn't stopped to check the crack, then Rory wouldn't have waited and been around to be shot then absorbed by the time crack.

Power of Three: An entire episode about how the Doctor has a problem slowing down and really taking account of the lives of their companions.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship: The Doctor actually tries to be responsible and pick the right people for a job. For once. But gets angry when they realize it's too late and there's another bunch of Silurians they failed to save. Classic!

Like I said, if you can't see the pattern, you're not paying enough attention to your responsibilites.

Which leads me to the why.

When you fly around time and space for thousands of years, you develop a few duties of care along the way. In every situation, you're the oldest. Technically the only adult in terms of experience. You have a responsibility to act a little less rude and be a bit more aware than needing cue cards to tell you that you should be sad about things around you. And that's the purpose of 13. She's unlucky but learning. Like 12 telling himself something with his face he couldn't say out loud, 13's instincts are leading her to a new place for the Doctor: being a caring, responsible person. Not so much laughing hard or running fast, but being kind. It's the one thing they recognized as a problem in themselves when seeing 1. Being a Doctor is about being kinder than that. Just because you HAVE to saw someone's leg off, that doesn't mean you can't wait a little and comfort them before you do it.

You wanna know what gave me every faith in Chibnall showrunning Doctor Who? 13 staying for Grace's funeral.

Do you understand how unprecedented that is? This is the same person who never said Goodbye to Jo Grant as she got married and fucked off into the night. The same Doctor who said, "I don't do domestic.", did it with Rose a regeneration later, and then closed himself off to everyone but a married couple he felt guilty about who ended up birthing his wife. Have you any idea the number of funerals the Doctor should have the common decency to sit through? This many.

So for 13 to stay around for the death of a woman she has only just met and not only that, BUT call out Ryan's father for not doing the same, it shows tremendous character growth. It's taken millennia but they're still changing.

Something similar happens with Rosa and The Witchfinders. Realizing that there a lot of companions who have been in situations that are sometimes worse than aliens, but they still manage to make it through. So she needs to buck it up and persevere for everyone else.

That's where her anger comes from, and really it's one of my favorite traits on her. It reminds me of 7. Someone impossibly old and impossibly kind saying to hell with it and at least having some fun with the evils who drag us through the universe. And just like Cartmel planned for 7, 13's past will come to haunt her.

That's where children come in. Most of us are crying babies to the Doctor.

There's this thing you notice most in British shows about answering the question directly as asked. Someone says "Are you sure?", you answer "Sure". That's a direct acknowledgement that you heard the question, understood it, and processed it enough to respond in a manner directly correlating to the question asked. Yas and Graham got it and said "Sure" but Ryan missed it and said "Deffo". This is like Elliot with the headphones. The Doctor should have immediately been like, "Okay, Ryan, it's obvious that you're still dealing with the trauma of your grandmother's death and probably not processing things on a logical level. I said "Are you sure?" Not "Are you deffo?" Because we are most definitely not deffo, Ryan. Graham, you wanna help here?"

I'm being sarcastic for points sake but you understand the idea. The Doctor knows better and has a responsibility as such. She should've really sat down with Ryan and Graham and seen if there was a better way to process their grief.

Because I'm fairly certain that "Deffo" is gonna lead to Ryan's death and Graham's cancer resurging as time cancer (I don't know what time cancer is. I just know it's bad.)

And that is gonna piss Yas off. Which will give you all that character you think she's missing (she isn't. Her character is in her subtleties and silences.). That's WHY her character is a police officer (like how does no else see that the man who wrote Broadchurch wrote an inspector character companion?) Imagine you're Yaz and you see the Doctor flying around in a big, magic box that says POLICE. As a fellow officer, you're gonna expect some basic safety protocols.

Like do a background check on everyone flying in the TARDIS to know whether they're stable enough (mentally, physically, emotionally) for time and space travel. It's no picnic. These people are going to go through hell. A little vetting and planning like Time Heist or Dinosaurs on a Spaceship goes a long way.

Secondly, full fucking disclosure.

"Oh. I can't die because I change my body. Oh. I have arch enemies that will try to kill and torture us any chance they get. Oh. My home planet is full of the biggest assholes in the universe and I'm including my arch enemies."

Third, police like to do this thing called "check-ups" where they go back to the scene of the crime in order to see if there is any more information that can be gleaned which you might not notice when you are busy running around trying not to be killed... Like, the Doctor has the perfect machine to do this with, but nope. Adventure done, run to the next place!!

These are all things you'd expect any reasonable person to do and say when taking others flying off into time and space and "helping". Even if they are an idiot passing through and learning. Especially when you consider the Doctor is vastly older and more experienced than everyone they encounter. They SHOULD know better. And they've got the lifespan to slow down. It's not like they need to be in a hurry because they're going to die at any moment like humans. The Doctor could easily stay for tea and it would be less than a drop in their lifespan.

Now, as usually is the case when I make these theories, I have a parts 1,2,3,4 and 6. There's allways this 5th piece I miss but I manage to get at the end.

But the 6th piece is the Timeless Child. The Doctor isn't a Time Lord anymore. They're not beholden to those people and ideas anymore. Even moreso, those people basically raped her childhood for their own gain so it's not like you'd really listen to them and their "policy of non-intervention".

I'm sensing a coming Trial of a Time Lord season (even believing these two seasons are the opening statement and preliminary evidence of the trial itself) wherein the Doctor finally gets the turnaround 6 deserved. A Trial of the Time Lords, if you will.

"In all my travels through time and space I have battled against evil, against power-mad conspirators. I should have stayed here! The oldest civilization: decadent, degenerate and rotten to the core! Power mad conspirators? Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen — they're still in the nursery compared to us! Ten million years of absolute power: that's what it takes to be really corrupt!"

This is what it's all coming down to. Chibnall's takedown of the Time Lords. And The Master is going to play the most crucial role of all.

They're going to be revealed as an Ux alongside the Doctor and show how the only constants they have in this universe are each other and it's about damn time they work together and tell these high collars to eat Schitt while they explore every star and planet they can find.

Come on, the episode is called The Timeless "Children". If it was just the Doctor it'd be called "The Timeless Child". The Master says as much with the misdirect line, "built on the lie of the Timeless Child." since we see two kids playing in that flashback.

"Since always. Since the Cloister Wars, since the night he stole the moon and the president's wife, since he was a little girl. One of those was a lie, can you guess which one?"

Now we know which one was a lie, we know the Master HAS known the Doctor since they were a little girl. THAT little girl...

But this is all just speculation. It's not like Chris Chibnall could have been thinking about this for the past 40 years and was given a blank slate to do whatever he wanted for five years on his favorite TV show. If y'all want to think he took those reigns and is choosing to make things worse...

Well then you don't know much about responsibility.

I'll let the man himself tell you about it.

"Very early in my career,” says Chibnall, “someone told me that you learn more from a failure than you do from a success. And then I lived out that phrase for a year in Los Angeles. I learned that I would not work that way again or be put in that situation again.” The essential lesson was: “You either have to be in total control of a show or working with people who share your vision and will work with you to achieve it. Also, never work with 13 executive producers.

“Camelot was the classic case of too many cooks. It wasn’t a harmonious set-up and I think that does manifest itself on screen.

“I had a fantastic cast but you have to be free to tell the story you want to tell in the way that you want to tell it. What ended up on screen was not what I wanted and so it is a blemish on my CV.”

Credit to @thirteenthdoc

“You immortals - so entitled, so spoiled. You never clear up after yourselves and you always leave stuff lying around.” - Thirteenth Doctor in Can You Hear Me?

[struwwelzeter]

So I read your reply to Nyarisu's comment on Lionheart and I'm really intrigued by your comments about how people understand punk compared to what it was initially. Could I possibly ask you to expand on this? Pretty please?

Yes you could! This is a very (very?) personal point of view and I know a lot of people will disagree, but here goes nothing, I guess. If you disagree with me (and somebody will), that’s fine, but I will not engage with anything that’s not a constructively put argument. I’ve spend too much time thinking about this for a “I don’t like what you’re saying and that’s why you’re wrong” anon to change my mind. Just putting that out there - with love 💜.

The thing is, especially on tumblr but I think just in generally aswell, the idea of punk is presented as this ... Robin Hood kind of thing. Beat the system, stand up to bullies, live your own truth, all of that, but it always is presented as something that is supposed to come from a ... dare I say, nice place? Like those pictures of people in studded and sprayed leather jackets rescuing puppies. All of that, you know? And I don’t want to say that is wrong, because it isn’t, and I love the idea of that, it’s just not the entire truth.

Especially in the early to mid 70s, when arguably punk started, there was a lot of fatigue between an old and stuffy establishment and the lovey, dovey peace and love “let’s all be happy” movement of the hippie scene. I was at Force Attack in 2006, which is a punk festival (and possibly dirtiest place in the world) that got established in the early 90s and went on til 2008 (?), and even then some of the “death to hippies” sentiments ran pretty deep. And I know the counter argument to that will be a well meaning “well, that’s not real punk,” the problem is that I think it actually partly is. (Please keep the partly in mind for the rest of this argument.)

The problem with having the exact choice between “get a good job, built a nice house, think of what the neighbours will say, and don’t ask me about what I did in the war” and “we’re all a big part of one human family, and isn’t nature beautiful, lets all make peace, and btw we would have never done what our parents did” is that both models aren’t a sustainable life style for everyone. That’s why you get alot of people saying this is all fake bullshit, and they start being purposely offensive. This is why you get alot of Swastikas around the sex pistols, you get all these artists singing about suicide and incest and rape. It’s not that uncommon for some of those early acts to play with Nazi imagery, or claim that homosexuality is disgusting (despite the scene always being full of LGBTQ+ people), or idk, thinking it’s fun to piss on someone while they’re asleep. It’s alot of outcry, of saying life actually is this shitty and disgusting and I am gonna be that because in a way you will hate me either way. And it’s not always nice. Disdain and hate and petty selfishness are common human emotions and many of them are low and unhealthy, and honestly not nice or helpful or inclusive, but they are there, and I think alot of that early spirit was just about stopping to pretend that they don’t exist.

I think a reason for why we don’t think of the scene that way anymore is that many people very quickly outgrew that, and said “actually, we’re better than that, that’s not who we actually are. I sadly can’t find that interview right now, but Die Ärzte are actually a good exemple of that and they even admit it themselves, that there was a sense of “enough with the happy hippie bullshit, let’s disgust them” and then later going “uhmm - maybe that went a bit far.” I mean offensive or not, but ultimately a scene that is centered around artistic expression always ends with that question of creation, maybe like “if the world isn’t like what we want it to be, how do we make one we like?” - and then you end up with having to come up with answers that are more than just destruction. And then it turns into something else - something that I think is alot more like what tumblr seems to think punk is. And that’s a wonderful thing. Still - a side of punk, whatever that is, has always been what people like GG Allin (please read the wiki for context) have taken and pushed to the limits, and it just - isn’t nice. And here is where things get a bit tricky.

Because against that backdrop, things like John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) suddenly being a dirty old Trump supporter aren’t that surprising anymore. And then you get these 20 year olds “cancelling” the Sex Pistols, and I think there is just a bit of ... missing the point going on. I’ve read a comment on here recently, that basically said something like Richard should stop supporting the Sex Pistols (because he has that album in the back of the studio), and it’s just ... asking for a history to be erased that has rightfully been made obsolete but has still happened and was necessary at the time. You can take any of these early bands and pick their lyrics apart and find something that from our perspective now is disgusting, mean, exclusive, or outright racist. Songs about Fucking? Part of that record is a mysogynisy shitshow, something they were very aware of even at the time, and they still did it anyway because being disgusting was part of the point. The thing is though, the Sex Pistols were hugely influential, and alot of the positive things that grew out of that wouldn’t have been possible if kids like young Richard, or any of the bands you love that were influenced by them, wouldn’t have gotten that moment of “finally a place where I can put all of my petty hate”. It matters, and just because that moment is overcome, it doesn’t mean it should be forgotten, or stops existing in the people that lived through it.

I understand that the question of how much we should justify things with “it was the time” and how we deal with the result is an ever ongoing debate and their are many good arguments for why maybe we shouldn’t try to defend the wrongs of the past that way, and I want to point out that while I rarely agree on that in the first place (because I understand history as a natural learning curve where people aren’t perfect at the first try and it’s doing a disservice to humans just doing their best, but I digress and that’s a bit of another duscussion), I want to point out that I don’t want to defend anyone, rather I want to say “actually, being that horrible was often calculated, part of the point, and if you don’t like it, just leave it, fight it or debate it, but don’t pretend like it was a “missstep” or just a few black sheep of a scene that was never as nice or perfect as you want it to be.” You don’t get to erase half of a movement simply because you wish it wouldn’t exist the way it does - or well. I guess in this case mostly did - past tense.

The ugliness is part of the story to me, and it’s actually the bigger part of why I love this scene. I don’t need “punk” to define my politics, I need it to soothe my soul, and so did many, I think. The Sex Pistols breaking happened 20 years before my time, but I still feel connected to that world, and in particular the ugly parts of it. I often feel like I look at the world, and there are people that seem honestly shocked by the idea that maybe sometimes I find doing the right thing really hard, that I want petty, self serving revenge, that I don’t find it easy to not be selfish and unkind or sometimes want to hurt people because I am hurting myself and see an opportunity to do that. Obviously those aren’t nice things and I don’t want to be that way, but are you honestly telling me you don’t feel that? I find that hard to believe, and it leaves me with an ongoing question of if I am just worse than most people or if most people are just more fake. Both scenarios are equally shit. The ugly side of punk provides - not an answer to that - but maybe a partial solution, at least for me.

Another discussion we have all the time is about how what we consume or allow in artistic expression is influencing how we act as people in real life and how we want the world to be. Where do we draw the line? What is still ok? If I put me entertaining ideas about murder on a canvas, is that still good? what if it’s racism? What if it’s rape? We argue alot about how providing a safe space in art for those feelings is actually preventing us from acting on it in real life, how it’s an outlet of something we would never actually want or do, but then where is the limit to that? I am putting this intentionally controversial, but if we admit that most of us grow up with internalized racism and mysogyny, by that logic, why can’t I paint something that is blatantly hateful if I have those feelings? Maybe that is my way of fighting it, you don’t have to look at it? Not saying that’s what I am doing or would want to do, but what if? For some people Rammstein singing about not wanting to be Angels is crossing that line, for some of us that line is drawn alot later. Who is right? Isn’t that just personal sensitivity? Can you honestly rationalise that? Isn’t it just processing our different levels of petty hate in different ways? I don’t have the answers to any of that, it’s just questions I often have and that I think have to do with this, because alot of the nasty bits in punk will justify it exactly that way, as artistic expression. Alot of it isn’t as political as this scene is made out to be, it’s simply asking those things. I personally relate to that alot, as someone who arguably would draw the line of “we should stop doing this” in art very, very, very late - and certainly later than my own personal comfort zone.

I’m not sure if any of this makes any sense at all. I hope it does - and if it doesn’t it’s probably because I don’t know either, or because I don’t want to fully blow this up into an essay (sorry, too late?) or because I suck at making a point, or maybe because we simply disagree. All I know is that I sometimes see these posts of “what is punk and what isn’t” and it leaves me with this taste of “you’re describing a utopia and it’s cute and I want that too, but it’s not everything punk as I know it is, and it feels like you don’t want to see something that mattered too - even if it was brutal and disgusting.” And everytime I see it I feel alien, like something that mattered to me so much as a teenager and young adult gets taken away from me and made into something so sleek and pretty it becomes something unattainable to be that I simply don’t manage to live up to in the way I would like. I guess that is a petty, selfish way of looking at it too.

«It's a repressive society where you can't be horrible, I'm not horrible, they made me horrible, I'm just honest.»

- John Lydon

[skittles1229]

Old Expectations Die Hard (Dashie x Reader Fanfic)

Chapter One: Weird Circumstances

You know your life is complicated when the friend you always complain to says "you never have a dull moment do you?" I sigh as the weight of the world seems to make it impossible to breath. You see recently things have been rough. I lost my job and my fiance all in the same day, that itself was an unbelievable story. I was so upset and strung out on thoughts of what to do that once i got home early from work i didn't notice the extra car in the driveway. i stepped into my home and my own floors felt as if they'd given way when i saw the guy i thought i'd be spending my life with in bed, with my sister... my sister and i hadn't been on good terms for a while and for a good reason! The drugs she took either made her unreliable and selfish or crazy and murderous. He, of course, pulled the its not what you think, id never hurt you, it was a mistake, and honestly i could write a book out of the excuses i heard in the time of two minutes but maybe another time. Needless to say i left. I never thought about going back and to be honest my sister looked more hurt then i was. I took a job in California a few weeks ago and moved in with my friend (BFF Name). They always seemed to know what to say and honestly i truly believe They  knew me better then i know myself. 

California gave me the biggest culture shock I've ever had. I came from Mississippi, the bible belt and the most rural part of the world. California was sooooo different then what i was use to. The weather is awesome. There's lots of jobs for technical people, at least until you're 45 and then you're considered ancient and you can't possibly know anything when some 23-year old out of Stanford tells you that they know it all. (a little bit of sarcasm there) It's a great place to start a new company, money is available as is talent. The risk of starting a company is lower since you can always find a new job The politics are insane, if you aren't towing the progressive party line you should just STFU. If you even once say that Trump has done something positive, or that Obama did something negative prepare for the wrath. Read the stuff behind the recently filed lawsuit against google for a taste of what it's like. Seriously, don't say a word. The state if structurally bankrupt, although the finances look good because so much stuff is off of the balance sheet. The public pension liability dwarfs the "good" part of the budget, and some day it is coming home to roost. Watch out when it does. The cost of living is absurd, really absurd. I'm not talking just a place to live but gas, electricity, haircuts, milk, pizza, you name it. The traffic is absurd too. (can you tell i like the word absurd) The public transit, although usually on time, is a mess. People are pigs, they throw trash everywhere, the cars are overcrowded almost all the time. 

I've got to say, from how much it sounds like i hate California, i actually don't.  Mainly because its so far away from my original family, leaving really helped me start to grow up and feel like maybe i was getting a hold of my life again. Only problem has been getting to my new job on time. I work as a barista and a waitress at a brunch place a good minute away from the apartment. The money is good, otherwise i wouldn't waste my time with the commute everyday. i keep being late to work because i still haven't adjusted to how terrible traffic is and so my boss was "nice" enough to switch me to the later shifts. The hours are long and boring because my shift starts in the middle of rush hour to the slowest hours at the end of the day meaning you have to find things to keep yourself busy with. the only good thing is, we can wear pretty much anything we want as long as its black. all i wear is dark colors so i didn't have to spend any extra money on a uniform and i didn't have to wear the same thing everyday. Today i decided i wear a v-neck shirt that with an emperor waist (body forming) with black skinny jeans and my regular converse. i decided against driving to work and decided it would be far smarter to catch a bus to the nearest destination. My (hair color) hair was done is a fishtail messy braid, i always liked this style because it made me look like i had a head full of hair when in reality i thought i was going bald. 

My personality was a little odd, you see some days i felt like the beautiful nerd who has no confidence and wants to hide away in a hole. other days i feel like a model from Victoria secrets, of course those are the days i get the most tips. today was honestly a mutual day, where id rather be at home in my bed asleep, or listening to music. The bus finally stopped a block away from my job and i sighed obviously not wanting to go into work. surprisingly there wasn't nearly  as many cars as there usually is around this time but i wasn't complaining. i walk in to see that most of the downstairs was empty but whoever was upstairs definitely had a loud mouth. i walk to the back in order to clock in and i bump into melany ( the girl im shifting with). "wow you actually got here on time! Maybe the boss's mood will cheer up." i huffed a little. "yea, i dont know why i thought id need a car in California, say whats with the low level of customers? its NEVER this slow." she looked at me in disdain, "some guys reserved the entire upstairs and we had to make this huge table out of all our tables up there, glad im not gonna be the one fixing it later." i rolled my eyes, i hated when a huge family came in and they just had to move everything around because little johnny wants the sit next to suzzie and suzzie HAS to sit by her parents bc she likes to throw her food on the floor, all fake names but a real situation ive been in before. "well have they at least been fed so that i only have to clean up after them?" she shook her head while hanging up her apron. "nope, they've only ordered their drinks and they are getting those onto trays now." so today was gonna be like every other day. "guess i better go help them take those upstairs then, have a good rest of your day." i walk away and slip on my apron, grabbed one of the trays of drinks while another waiter grabbed the rest of the drinks. Once i got upstairs, that's when i met him...

Chapter Two: Last Will and Testament

          He was sitting on the far end of the long table of people laughing and joking. everyone seemed to be loud and all had their own inside jokes. This guy, he stuck out. i changed my attention to the task at hand, finishing this shift. i hated when people moved all the tables and seating around. all the waiters and waitresses have to go back behind them and look at the layout of the floor to put them all back exactly as they were before. it was a struggle and because of this nobody actually wanted that job so usually the manager gives it to her least favorite workers and i happened to be one. "who all had coke?" nobody answered me so one of the men bellowed out the same line and somehow was able to get a show of hands. i walked around handing  out drinks, catching the lingering smell of strong liquor. i could tell by the end of tonight they would all be wasted and loud. please, just don't make more of a mess then you have to, i thought to myself. i had one drink left on my tray, "sweet tea?" the guy i saw before at the end of the table waved his hand and i dreaded going over there, i always seem to make a fool of myself when it matters. 

     i make my way slowly down the table with the tray under my arm and the tea in my hand. i lean over to sit his drink on the table.."here's your t-" *CRASH* while joking with one of his friends his elbow crashes into my hand sending the tea flying all over me and the cup crashing to the floor, thank god i wore black. he turned around and looked more horrified then i did. "i'm sorry! i'm so sorry!" his voice was deeper then i imagined it'd be. "no, it my fault i'm sorry ill get you a new one." i turned away to hide my embarrassment and walked away really just trying to get away from the situation. i could tell from the silence behind me that all eyes were on me. i ran to the back where the lockers were for the service. i went to the bathroom and stripped the sticky clothes off throwing them aside. i sat on the toilet  trying to catch my breath, my social anxiety had struck me  hard. a feeling of worthlessness and dread fell over me like a blanket. after the past few months i've had just one day without something terrible happening would mean the world to me. i heard a knock on the door, it was melany, she walked in with a towel from the kitchen. "hey, i heard what happen upstairs are you ok?" i covered my breast trying keep myself as unexposed as possible. "oh yea im fine, im just cold, and sticky, and... covered in tea." melany and i made eye contact and both laughed just to lift the dread in the air. "let me guess, all the guys are getting a kick out of watching me fumble again huh?" i said a little less concerned and more annoyed. she rolled her eyes "they are boys, they get a kick out of picking their own nose. we both slid to the floor beside each other, she hands me the damp towel. i get most of the sticky off as possible, throwing my hair up to make it look less clumped together by the sugar. "i have an extra black t shirt in my locker but i don't know how it will fit you. your breast are at least a size larger then mine." i shrugged my shoulders, "who cares ill make do. thanks for your help melany." she smiled her weird anime girl smile and ran to get the shirt from her locker.

     ill have to admit, she was right about the size thing. it was far to small around the chest area but the rest fit fine. after the incident my boss stuck me down stairs wiping tables and sweeping the floor, i dont mind though because i get to experience the day coming to an end with a beautiful sunset over California. i secretly kept the the window to watch as the sun fell from the sky. the sky seemed to burn and darken while the clouds began to glow with the last bit of sunlight left. the sky filled up with burning Burgundy and faded orange and yellows, the tallest buildings seemed to reach for the skyline as if it were a sunflower moving to the last drip of sunlight. moving here had been hard, and this had become one of the things i looked forwards to. living in the apartment with my friend was nice, buts its not the same as coming home to someone you use to lay with every night. sleeping alone seemed so much colder and emptier then i remembered from childhood. my mother would be so disappointed in the way i turned out, in the places id gone and the decision to spend my life with someone who was most obviously the wrong one. she would have told me to slow down and to take my time, that growing up wasn't everything. she would have said love isn't something you just wake up and have, its something you make. i wasn't anywhere close to where i thought id be by now, and i could see that. it tears at my heart everyday, not being able to see her or any of my family. sometimes it felt as if they'd all died in the fire that night. 

     i suddenly heard a boom of voices making their way down the stairs, i hadn't realized how close to closing time it had become. all of them walk out stumbling and laughing at their own jokes, seems they all got a good bit of drinking in, all except one. The guy i ran into on accident seemed as sober as ever, designated driver i think, he was much taller now. he seemed muscular but in such a fitting way for his body. his teeth sparkle because their so white, his smile complimented him best. his high cheekbones made his chocolate brown eyes his best feature. His skin was glowing with a sweet honey hue and before i could notice that i was staring he turned his head. his eyes met mind before i could think twice and that's when i felt the heat rise to my cheeks. weather it be from embarrassment or silly school girl shyness i didn't know . i turned my face away but it was too late, i turned my face a little just to catch a glimpse of him before he made his way out of the door and that's when i noticed his cheeks had gone from a burnt caramel to a rosy color. i felt my body shiver at the thought that maybe, just maybe he found me as attractive as i found him. i shook the thought from head realizing they had began locking the place down. as i helped close up shop and wash dishes i couldn't help but to let my mine wander to all different kinds of thoughts, funny thing was they always fell back to him and his rosy  cheeks. i couldn't help but smile as i felt my heart race at the thought of him, even though id made a fool of myself today i was glad i hadn't ruined my chances. Even if he'd never get with me or i wouldn't ever see him again, i'd still take it as a compliment that he even looked my way. 

     before long we were all outside laughing and talking about today. The manager locked the doors and said his goodbyes. i turn to walk towards the bus station when i see a man standing aside awkwardly between the restaurant and the parking lot. suddenly my eyes adjusted and once they did, the joyousness butterflies came back and the blush suddenly reappeared on my cheeks..

There are lots more chapter after this if you are interested you can find them here

https://my.w.tt/sosFRmianbb

[the-firebird69]

We have great news for you in fighting genius horbag Morelock and it goes like this the Mac Proper wanna bring foreigners in and keep them from bringing heavy here and create an infight and they're gonna have you start with the minority Moorlock while they're taking you apart and that's your job to kick it off of them and they do want them here without its best purpose for them to succeed here they suppose the toughest place and take over the rest of the areas over Earth and so forth no let's say it pretty clearly A lot of you are unprofessional in your approach to us to say the least they have you do that and it's upsetting and we are filing charges on people who threaten us in the old school way the new school way including lawsuits I am you see the game but you're losing yours morlock then associated to the Mac proper and you insist on trying to assault us. You've been very very mean to our son and daughter we're going to be extremely mean to you we know it makes you tick we know how to ruin your day we send it to you before and we're saying it again you're on our toes and soon you're going to be off our toes what you're saying to our son is ridiculous matter of fact we're gonna start soon you now suing you that's a group lawsuit and the names of those are hidden and it's used in this case where the employers are dangerous impose a threat to those issuing the lawsuits one group that's suing another clones and for discrimination they have Michael Roach on videotape it's stormwestern development yelling at Latina workers and using racial slurs abundantly and launching personal attacks on them of slanderous nature. Also issuing threats on them to leave the job because it was getting done you know son hired them Penn Phillips Kent was called and he said this he's postponing the job and I can see it and I'm starting to think we have someone who's stupid here so he's putting it together this guy's in the way of everything he's really young and has been doing things to our son in everyone's name and he has to be stopped no trump figured that out and that is at him with a vengeance non stop and about all sorts of stuff so began a big fight. We can hear them yapping saying they don't like it it's a big mystery why we don't like it they say then you start their insane **** Rent and we don't want it anymore we don't wanna hear this **** you gonna have to stop doing it we are not your mom or your dad you say the **** you're gonna get your **** kicked. There's a lot of stuff going on and there's a lot of things happening we have to use a lot of caution to make sure we have these insane people covered because they are criminally insane

And yes Queen Elizabeth the second and her son were conspiring to do all sorts of things and he says i'll have to work the other side and tie them up and she said good it will get you out and she snibbled a little and said he's working on it and he think it might be that in a similar stuff and she said wow that's good so she looks and says it's impenetrable but there's a lot of weird things and said I could be okay and he says it happens all the time too often as a matter of fact I think my brother actually planned it'cause he can't go up there it'll track people up there so she calmed down and said that could be right and she started playing it and she's a very sharp woman and dangerous and she had worked with her son on rebel stuff for a long time and she helped train him to be more proper and to sit right and to act right and to speak to people correctly and to give respect to get respect and more and these idiots are trying to trample on it and we need them away this is going to be great though it's working and he's holding it very well in his working. He's a temper he's in a three year old child's body he's a middle aged man in Earth and it's very young but he controls it and she helps and we're working on it but he has laid out some awesome things for us to do we have a lot of work we need all of our people on board we need tons of personnel now and all of us have to be aboard our arcs and it is mandatory as as you can't scan the whole planet without people being off it

more shortly

Thor Freya

Olympus

i love my husband and he wont give up on me ever..and checks and helps and our perverted trash. and he sees. a hard life here these leed too harsh. wants me to be ok and ok this sucks they sit smoking...soon up. nd have to. and why to try for you as theyd o i think mb for earth and either way they strike and coming up he says

Hera

It's been sitting there for a while and she knows and she's used to it but she's a little freaked out because their stone ships and he says the crappy stone ships but some of them aren't and it's a good training exercise and we know it works and they have that covered and she was better and she understands what we're saying so she checks and it's good. But they are just sitting there being a nuisance 30% around 20% are heated 50% are sitting there being a damn nuisance but you're telling her once again to not be afraid that it is a function and the function is destroying these and kicking off a huge huge plan of ours and it's working great. And she wants to know how and so you're gonna have to pay attention and help me out and it happened and she's very happy about it. And she should see after a time these ships will be gone instead it can happen any moment but they're going to get really outlandish and we'll have to be roped in and destroyed like the other fleets will be shortly but it's kind of starting to heat up now for real it's beginning right now the thing with Stan and Trump is coming to a head the thing with BJA and Trump is coming to a head the thing with the Mac proper and Trump is coming to a head and the thing with foreigners and Trump and minority morlock and miscellaneous with Trump at these locations cause he's sitting on most of them and that is a fact. Now these caverns had uranium in them and people are checking for that and they are checking other places and they're finding some in places they don't want to find them in

Thor Freya

Zues Hera but they need arms and now it will be for real and the tale of two cities yes. tons of it shortll

and we go on it now

Olympus ready too yes

[beatriceeagle]

Gonna toss off a couple of Good Place thoughts that aren’t quite formed enough for a full blog post:

I liked the idea of what The Good Place did with Simone and Chidi in the most recent episode. Simone is a character that we, the audience, fundamentally sympathize with, presenting an argument that I think the writers felt was missing from the show’s moral argument: Why should you go out of your way to help bad people?

In particular, Simone isn’t trying to answer that question. She’s introducing it. She’s problematizing the entire foundation of the The Good Place, a show about how people can become better by reaching out to each other. Simone is saying, “Well, wait. If I’ve given this guy chance after chance after chance to treat me with respect, and he’s never done so, what reasonable ethical code would require me to risk my life for him?”

And The Good Place, to its credit, doesn’t argue her down or explain her away. It recognizes her perspective as valid, if irreconcilable with its own. That’s why she and Chidi leave things the way they do: “I respect your position.” “And I respect yours.”

This is a vital piece of perspective, if you’re going to go from having four basically good-hearted fuck-ups gel as a team to trying to redeem The Face of Trump’s America. But there are two problems that keep this plot turn from really functioning effectively.

First, it’s just not set up very well. Simone’s ethical perspective has gotten exactly one episode of air time. She spent the first two episodes of the season in a solipsistic haze, then she was backgrounded almost entirely while we focused on Michael-and-Janet shenanigans, and finally we got her showdown with Brent in episode 6. But up until that point, Simone could hardly have been said to have a perspective. She was, in fact, the least developed of the experimental subjects, in the sense that I couldn’t have told you what she needed to improve upon. Simone and Chidi’s break-up, and Simone’s principled split from the group, should hit with the kind of inevitable-in-hindsight freight train oomph of—well, maybe not the season one reveal, but a baby version of that. Like getting mowed down by Thomas the Tank Engine. There should be a specific history to Simone and Brent, and Simone and Chidi, and Simone and Eleanor, that led us to this moment. This break should matter. Simone should matter.

Simone should matter. And she doesn’t, either to the emotional narrative of the show, or, if you really fundamentally dig into it, to the ethical narrative. Because Simone runs off in Brent’s Escalade, leaving Brent to his doom, and Michael and Eleanor lose their minds because oh no, oh no, we’re fucked, the humans didn’t overcome their basic selfishness to save the complete and total asshole, and nobody in the room stops to think that maybe Simone was right. I mean, Chidi says that he respects her perspective, but Chidi’s just a human. Michael and Eleanor are operating as higher beings, here. They don’t get to see the points, but they know the points exist. They know how they’re divvied out. They have some sense of what actions get them, and what don’t. But more to the point, they’re the people who designed this whole damn experiment. They’re the people who set its parameters. And the parameter they set was: People are going to make other people better.

And the thing is, I don’t think that Simone is inherently opposed to that idea. Her argument is that it’s unfair to ask her, specifically, to take on the responsibility of making Brent, specifically, better. Because why should that be Simone’s job? From Simone’s point of view, Eleanor and Michael are the authority figures, and she and Brent are either their charges or their victims or their subjects, depending on whether this is The Good Place or The Bad Place or some kind of weird experiment, but no matter what, Brent is their responsibility, not hers. Aren’t Eleanor and Michael people? Aren’t they the ones in charge here? Why aren’t they doing the work of trying to change Brent?

And of course they are, but the inherent weirdness of season four of The Good Place is that they’re trying to do so almost entirely through the medium of the other experimental subjects. There’s a weird mismatch of scope here, and it leaves Simone out to dry: She hasn’t done anything except try to protect herself, and argue, not incorrectly, that a man who has repeatedly insulted and demeaned her is not her responsibility—but the narrative requires that, in doing so, she doom humanity. It requires that she be wrong, even if Chidi says that he respects her position, because what we really need right now is a big point boost, and points come from selflessness, no matter the context.

The Good Place is a show whose societal and individual ethics are sometimes hard to disentangle. The first season is basically just about how to be a good individual person. But as the show has progressed, and its world has expanded, it’s become unavoidable that its ethical questions have become larger: What is an ethical system of punishment? How can “goodness” really be measured at scale? Is it possible to be an ethical individual when the consequences of our choices are so complicated that they are unknown to us?

Season four is addressing a fundamentally societal question—is ethical rehabilitation possible?—but it’s placing the burden of that work on the shoulders of four individuals. And by that I don’t just mean that Simone, Chidi, Brent, and John are the test subjects; I mean that they are being asked to do the work of rehabilitating each other.

But in a society, it is no one person’s responsibility to rehabilitate any other person. We do—we should—have a responsibility as a community to rehabilitate rather than take revenge, but we need systems for that, and volunteers, and procedures. Asking a random woman like Simone to live with and rehabilitate a random man like Brent isn’t just horribly unfair to Simone; it’s almost certainly going to fail.

Eleanor and Michael represent the authority, here, both within Simone’s point of view, and, to a certain extent, in reality; they set the parameters of the experiment. It was their responsibility to rehabilitate Brent, not Simone’s. These four people didn’t need to cohere as a group; they needed individuated therapy. Brent needed to be told he was in the Bad Place, and forced to accept (measured) consequences for his actions; Simone needed basically that one conversation with Chidi; Chidi needed to talk to Eleanor and/or whoever and get out of his shell; who the fuck knows what John needed, that character was barely part of the plot. Eleanor and Michael forcing everyone together was a failure both from Simone’s point of view (in that they’re not doing a good job of addressing problems within the neighborhood) and their own (in that they’re not effectively rehabilitating people).

None of which is to like, tear down Eleanor and Michael, who are very pointedly fallible, and who are trying their best to do right by all of humanity, including Simone. It’s just that as much as I appreciate the idea of Simone’s story, as much as I like that the writers of The Good Place saw the potential response to their moral argument and sought to acknowledge it, I think she represents more than an alternate perspective; she represents a real failing on the show’s part to separate “what we owe to each other” in an individual sense from “what we owe to each other” as a society.

(And this is all with the caveat that The Good Place doesn’t bring this all up and hash it all out in the next episode, of course, of course. But I suspect they won’t. Mike Schur is really all-in on altruism, and “I respect your perspective” had the ring of a thematic statement.)

[thetaylorfiles]

Republican anon here. I love politics so happy to come back. Let me preface with my problem with democrats is they live in the twitterverse, which is one heavily censorshiped and two not really used by as many people they think, (I think there is even a study that shows 80% of the activity is by 20% of the users). They make their decisions by the radical left that live there and think thats a populas thought. 4 weeks ago if you had asked me who I was voting for I would have said Biden. Unfortunately if I had to walk into today, I would vote for Trump. Its not a vote for him its a vote for the constitution. I don't see Biden as strong enough to fight off Sanders, AOC and Pelosi and also think we all know it's gonna be President Harris. So I cant vote for his tax hikes, packing the court, eliminating the electoral, adding seats and the green new deal. I didnt realize what a flawed candidate he was until I really looked into his 47 years in politics, and both him and Harris just come off of as liars. I'm waiting for something to change my mind in the next week but honestly I dont know what it could be because he has been caught in so many lies I can't believe him. Also everything with Hunter scares me because he clearly owes someone something (and clearly its China). I cant have a President willing to sell out our interests if his son becomes compromised. My biggest group of friends are basically like me liberal conservatives and conservative liberals and we all sort of feel the same. Thats probably why one of the biggest google trends is "can I change my vote". I also think you cant not acknowledge the huge gains Trump has made with the hispanic and conservative black votes. I think this year we are looking at another redo of Regan 1984. Either way whatever happens happens and I will just deal with it and hope Pelosi doesnt 25th amend him. Although to wrap up this ramble the twitter thing I memtioned is the same as the original tumblr point I made. No one in politics cares about people shipping in Tumblr or the trending topics on Twitter. So again I just find it funny they dont know enough about it, but think they know everything about it.

Hopefully that makes sense... Also hope I didn't disappoint you on my voting answer. It's really a tough decision this go around.

I don’t want to get into this too much because I don’t think it’s ideal to discuss politics online. It’s much better done in person because you need tone of voice and humanity. For me, anyway.

And while I get what you don’t want (and believe me, I am not as far liberal as the ones you fear taking over. And I also strongly disagree with the fact that they will take over), I think that to be able to gloss over what an abhorrent and unintelligent man Trump is is to truly do a disservice to our country.

And I when I say this, please know that I’ve never been a supporter of Republican presidents as I didn’t love their policies and such, but I sure as hell respected them. And I sure as hell admired them. And I thought them all to be genuinely great men. People who I believed to have the country’s best interest at heart and any persons best interest at heart. I trusted them, and their leadership, even when I didn’t agree with the decisions they made (some not all).

For as far back as I can remember, I have respected each Republican President. Trump is an absolute game changer. His character and lack of empathy and care and honestly, intelligence, plus the fact that the man is incapable of lying every second sentence, is something that I feel like should supersede any “voting for the constitution”.

Biden? At least we know he’s a good man. Both sides of the aisle - everyone has said that the one thing they can say about Biden is he’s a truly good man. And I long for a genuinely good person in office. Because we don’t have one now.

What you think is going on with Biden’s son should t matter for two reasons: one - most of it is unsubstantiated and two - no one cared about what the presidents children or siblings or family was doing before Trump brought his whole damn family on board into the White House. If you want to talk corrupt? Having something on them? Let’s look to the Trump family. If it doesn’t bother you there, why would Hunter bother you?

Those are rhetorical questions. I really don’t want to get into this. I am happy that it seems to be that the polls are showing a good lead in favor of Biden. Is he ideal? Of course not. But he’s moderate compared to the liberals out there ans I personally think he’ll do a good job of keeping it that way. I am liberal and I think my side has gone too damn far left. Biden isn’t perfect, Biden isn’t amazing, Biden isn’t going to make America a superpower. But he’s genuinely a deeply good man who knows his way around politics and respect and is liked by both sides of the aisle. All we need right now is some good leadership to get us out of this shitshow that is Covid. We need a president who doesn’t lie to us about it. Who doesn’t send us mixed signals. Who listens to scientists. Who gets us to where the other countries are who have beaten this thing down better than we have.

We are an embarrassment around the world. We never were before Trump. And now we are. People pity us and laugh at us. Thanks to Trump. I’m so tired of being a laughingstock.

I hope you reconsider. I hope the scare tactics don’t get you. I genuinely believe Biden will not step down so that we will have a Harris presidency. I genuinely believe he will be moderate and work to keep things the least devisive as possible. Please vote for a man who doesn’t call people names. It’s like, the number one thing you teach children: don’t be mean. Don’t call names. Don’t hurt feelings. Let’s strive to be better than that. Let’s have a President that doesn’t call anyone and everyone he doesn’t like a mean name and who also doesn’t lie constantly. (I know politicians all lie to an extent, but no one can argue that Trumps grandiose sense of self causes massive lies to erupt every time he speaks).

I beg of you to reconsider.

Thanks for having this discourse with me.

Ans btw, agreed about Twitter. It’s a cesspool of the worst of the left in an echo chamber. Trust me. I can see the worst of my side!

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

13 Keys to the White House: 2024

Historian Allan Lichtman has produced an astonishingly accurate system for predicting presidential elections; although first implemented in 1984, going backwards it correctly accounts for every election since 1860, with the only hiccup coming from the hotly contested 2000 election. He predicted Gore would win, and he wasn’t entirely wrong, there was just some brotherly nepotism and Supreme Court fuckery. Anyway, his system posits 13 yes or no scenarios about the state of the union; if at least 8 are true then the incumbent party wins another term, less than 8 and the challenging party wins. Simple.

It’s pretty early in Biden’s term to tell for sure, but we can make some soft predictions that we can refine over the next few years before solidifying in 2023 or 2024.

Midterm gains: after the midterms, the incumbent party holds more seats in the House than they did in the previous midterms. Almost certainly false. 2022 will see new districts drawn by the predominantly Republican statehouses, giving them an immediate advantage. Democrats have a razor thin majority as is, it’s never been this close to tied before, I can’t see them holding on when you take into account new census data and partisan gerrymandering.

No primary contest: is there no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination. Almost certainly true. Like him or hate him, Democrats are stuck with Biden. There hasn’t been a serious primary challenge in either major party since Reagan tried to take on Ford in 1976.

Incumbent seeking re-election: the incumbent candidate is the president. Again almost certainly true. There was an unspoken agreement that Biden would only run for one term, considering the fact that he’ll be 82 at the end of it, but o think he thinks he’s in for the long run now. If he does in office, Harris will become president and run for re-election herself, so the only way this would flip false would be if Biden just decides not to run again. In that case, the #2 might also flip false because I could see a weak senator like Joe Manchin running against Harris to get out of his own impending failure in West Virginia.

No third-party: no significant third party challenger. Too soon to tell, though I’m leaning towards true. The last nationally successful third party candidate was Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996. He didn’t win any states, but he split some states nearly in thirds; Clinton and Bush and Dole all won states with less than 50% of he vote because Perot split the ticket. In 2000 Ralph Nader lost New Hampshire for Al Gore, giving it and the presidency to George W. Bush, and the same thing happened with Jill Stein in 2016 in the Midwest. Spoilers don’t need to be major on the National scale to have significant effects in specific states. Lichtman only flips this one false when a third party candidate wins 10% of the vote, so I’m going with true.

Short-term economy: the economy is not in recession. Probably true, but still too early to tell. We are either in the middle or nearing the end of a covid recession, I can’t see it lasting three more years without recovering at least a little, especially with the $2 trillion stimulus package they just passed. The economy is random, but if you look at a plot of unemployment since the Great Depression you will see that it consistently trends up under Republicans and trends down under Democrats. Trump was the only president is recent history to actually destroy more jobs than he created, so Biden could. It have inherited an easier path to victory. He shouldn’t be able to fuck up when the bar is so low, but I’m not holding out hope.

Long-term economy: real pet capita growth equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms. Probably true, too soon to be sure. We’re so deep in the hole after Trump that any even remotely upwards tick will count as growth. I can’t see us dipping deeper than 2020 anytime soon, but then again that’s what they said in 2008, so who even knows?

Major policy change: the incumbent administration effects major change in national policy. False, I can call it now with utmost confidence. With Manchin and Sinema protecting the filibuster, Biden will get absolutely nothing substantive done in his first two years. He’ll end up losing one or both houses in the midterms, accomplishing even less in his next two! If he loses the Senate, it’s all over. It’ll be 2016 2.0, no more appointments, no more nominees, complete and utter obstruction until the Republicans take back he presidency and fill all the vacancies themselves.

No social unrest: no sustained social unrest during the term. Too soon to tell, but maybe true. 2020 was an anomaly, a once in a generation thing like 1968, so many crises all compounded together; the pandemic, the George Floyd protests, the wild fires, the hurricanes, utter chaos. I don’t see 2024 being as bad, but don’t quote me on that.

No scandal: incumbent administration is not tainted by scandal. Who knows?!? Biden seems pretty white bread/plain vanilla/mayonnaise, but Republicans insist he’s the most corrupt politician since their own guys (Trump and Nixon; lowering the bar for all their successors). They milked Benghazi for years and found nothing, but still tanked Clinton’s integrity going forward, I’m sure they’ll try to milk whatever BS They can find on Hunter Biden, especially if they retake the House or Senate. Whether any accusations will stick is up in the air, but I could see Republicans impeaching Biden just because they can.

No foreign/military failure: incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign/military affairs. Who knows? Biden’s foreign policy isn’t significantly different than Trump’s, so there’s no telling what could go wrong. The Saudis will keep cutting people’s heads off, North Korea will never disarm itself, Iran will probably arm itself, Afghanistan will drag on forever, and I can smell war brewing in the Caucasus, Venezuela, and Bolivia. The future is as clear as milk.

Foreign policy/military success: incumbent administration achieves major success in foreign/military affairs. Probably not, but too soon to tell. Succeeding is very different from not failing, so 10 and 11 aren’t necessarily linked. You can not fail AND not succeed, they’re not mutually exclusive. I don’t see anything good happening overseas for a very long time. If we pull out of Afghanistan, the power vacuum will pave the way for ISIS 2.0, so our hands are tied there. Our best bet would be to renegotiate a nuclear deal with Iran, but then we’ll just be back to status quo anteTrumpum, zero sum gain.

Charismatic incumbent: the incumbent party nominee is charismatic or a national hero. False, false, a million times false. Biden isn’t even beloved by his entire party, let alone the country; Republicans hate him even more than they ought to just because he wears a blue tie instead of a red one (his policies are so middle-of-the-road inoffensive to them that they shouldn’t have a problem with him, but Trump told them to, so they do). If Biden dies or refuses to run, Harris is even more divisive because she’s a woman and a disingenuous liar (she pretends to be super progressive, but she’s a cop, a Clintonesque moderate through and through). Obama in 2008 was a breath of fresh air which got very stale by 2012; 2008 was lightning in a bottle, and neither Biden nor Harris could ever dream of catching it again. They’re nowhere near as nationally beloved as the Roosevelts or Kennedy or Reagan.

Uncharismatic challenger: the challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero. True, true, a million times true. It will almost certainly be Trump again in 2024, and he is even more despised than Biden. Sure, he’s beloved by his own party, but they make up less than half of he country. He never had majority approval and lost the popular vote twice, he’s a loser! If by some miracle he chooses not to run, the Republicans will be running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to appoint a successor. They’ll want one of his kids to run, maybe even his daughter in law who is looking to run for senate in 2022, but they’re tainted by affiliation to the Gonad Lump himself; they’re all the same. Ted Cruz sucks ass, Ron DeSantis might actually have an intellectual disability so I feel bad making fun of that piece of shit bastard, I pray that Rick Scott and Josh Hawley and Matt Gaetz suffer debilitating brain aneurysms on live TV, Nikki Haley is a nobody, and Lauren Boebert and Majorie Taylor Green are too regional to have national appeal (though Green will probably run against Raphael Warnock in 2022, so she will almost certainly be a senator by 2024). There are no nationally beloved politicians on either side of the aisle, so I would expect Republicans to cheat like they tried in 2020 to stop black people in swing states from voting.

So, the tally stands thus:

3 are certainly true

4 are probably true, leaning uncertain

2 are uncertain

1 is probably false, leaning uncertain

3 are certainly false

Democrats need 8 true to win, Republicans need 6 false to win. Right now, Biden had a slight edge because it is historically difficult to defeat an incumbent, Trump just sucked. I don’t see a rematch being significantly different, I suspect Biden would still win the popular vote, but Trump could eke by with the electoral college like he did in 2016, especially now that Republicans are taking over the judiciary in Pennsylvania (they’re changing the rules so that judges are elected in gerrymandered districts instead of statewide races). You saw how hard Republicans fought in 2020, they’re not going to change tactics in 2024, they’re gonna double down and try even harder next time. Fewer polling places, fewer drop boxes, shorter early voting, shorter hours, more stringent ID laws. Their MO is systemic voter suppression because their rhetoric has become too toxic to win on a national level. The majority of Americans vote against them in almost every election, general and midterm, but they continue to rule in the minority.

Something has got to give, this can’t go on forever, eventually the situation is going to boil over, be it in a civil war or a constitutional convention to overhaul the entire country; neither are probable, and either outcome would almost certainly hurt people of color in predominantly conservative states.

Biden thought he would be an arbiter president, he thought he would be able to unite the country, heal the divide, being both sides together under mutual compromise, but he failed to understand that Republicans hate him on principal. Doesn’t matter how much he tries to appease them, they still hate him because they have to hate him, even if they agree with him. It would be political suicide for any of them to side with Biden on anything, Trump has already vowed to support primary challengers, his presidency was the final nail in the coffin of bipartisanship. Bipartisanship is dead, it hasn’t been alive in decades, and the only people who call for it are the minority party.

Trump is hard liquor, unappealing to anyone but his alcoholic voters; Biden is diet ginger ale, inoffensive and boring, nobody really wanted him, he only ran to try and settle everyone’s stomachs, and he hasn’t been very successful yet. He honestly believed he would be a neutral alternative for the alcoholics; that level of optimism would be adorable if it weren’t so pathetic. It’s gonna take a lot more than 12 steps to break the country’s addiction.