#but it doesn't mean much when his and his party's actions helped hand the election over to a fascist

[anjumzm]

Midnight Summer

A Legacy of Gods fanfic

JerCes Daughter x LanMia Son

Chapter 3.

Theodore Sokolov King.

Nearly three days of waiting and no response from the little bird, makes me wonder if the hints I'd left are enough, she seemed like an intelligent person, but I could be wrong.

Judging by her reaction during the Bratva meeting, I thought she'd be here by now, seems like I'll have to up my game a notch. Initially I'd not planned to expose the Volkov's vulnerability at the Bratva meeting, but since Williamson had been making his move after the so called leaks over media, all thanks to yours truly, the news reached the Bratva Headquarters. Williamson threatened to expose the Bratva secrets and try to break other alliances too, due to the fact that the Bratva failed to keep up it's end of the deal. Which is why it became important for me to jump in, you see even if I'm untouchable, the Volkovs net of spys and organization preeceeds anyone else's in the entire US, UK and Russia combined. Sooner or later my involvement with the incident would come up, although personally I couldn't give any fucks about the Bratva business and try to keep away as much as possible, my cousin and grandparents at my mother's side are higher ups in the organization, so it's necessary for both our sakes to keep my name clean, which is why I came upfront to the Pakhan, and made it look as though I'd gotten back the files through unknown sources, shooting two birds with a single stone. Williamson would keep quite for a while now since he might be busy cleaning the mess created before next elections, and the Pakhan now thinks I'm someone who could be relied upon, a fact that doesn't seems to sit well with the Volkovs given the history between my father and Jeremy Volkov, both of whom tolerate each other due to the fact that Cecily Knight or Mrs Volkov is a friend to my Father and Aunt Ava, while my mother , Mia , is a friend to Jeremy and his entourage involves my Uncles Killian and Nikolai. This doesn't lessen the tension whenever the two parties meet for family dinners or so.

Just when I'm thinking about another way to trap my birdie, a loud and obnoxious presence derails my thought process "What the fuck do you think you're doing motherfucker ?" Punch. "Why, hello to you too cousin dearest" I say clutching my jaw, the uncultured piece of crap almost ruined my masterpiece of a face. "I specifically told you to stay away from Aaron and the Volkovs, this ain't your playground Theo, it's the Bratva where there are incomprehensible consequences to your actions" "Is that concern I hear in your voice, Dommy boy?" "Not even in your dreams, the only thing I'm concerned about is getting myself out of this shit show you've put up, which puts me in a tight spot with Aaron, I don't like this Theo, not even a bit" "Do you want to Fuck him? Aaron Volkov I mean?" "What!! NO! Whats wrong with you man! Why would you even think that?" "Good, it's enough that our little helion of a cousin Jessica is obsessing over him, such a downgrade for being a King, I'd bet the lapse of judgment and lack of taste on the Carson genes" "Wow. Just Wow. How can you be so nonchalant about this entire thing?" "Don't stress, I have a plan" "You better do. And it better be something that won't get us in the middle of whatever fuckery is going on between you and the Volkovs, I'm tired already man. I just wanna ride my bike, rail and maim people for fun, eat sleep and repeat, this ain't something I signed up for." "Trouble in Paradise?" Sean comes in with a wicked smile planted on his face. "You better keep your mouth shut big bro, if only you didn't let your hand loose, we wouldn't have to take this psycho's help" "A Thankyou would suffice" I chime in Sean raises his hands up, as if surrendering "those idiots had it coming for a while, they asked and I served, besides you're the last person who should be giving me lectures on "not letting my hand loose", seriously did you forget all your rendezvous including but not exclusive to an attempt to murder?" " Yes, but we never cross a line, not where our families are involved. Seriously Theo what is it that you're planning, why steal from the Volkovs, knowing you, I bet there's more to this than what meets the eye" "I was bored" "WHAT??, do you seriously think I'd believe that bullshit , "Well if you know me so well, you'll get to know my ultimate goal, have patience cousin dearest" "Whatever, this is the last time I'm taking your side over my friends, the next time you fuck up, I'll be sure to help Aaron dig your grave. Don't worry I'll lend Aunt Mia a shoulder" "Sure thing, Dom" Just when he's about to spew some more nonsense, my assistant and guard, a gift courtesy of my Grandad Kyle Hunter arrives in. "What's the update Shera?" "The plan's executed and met it's goal as expected, my sources reported that Ms.Aanya Volkov just left the property and the drive with the files missing too" "Wait, go back, did Shera just say "Aanya Volkov? as in the Volkov princess?" Says Dom with a murderous expression, "Have you lost it you motherfucker, you know that my Dad is her Godfather and would maim you to death if a single hair of hers is out of place?" "Good thing I have Uncle Brans unwavering support" I add in. "What do you mean the pendrives are gone, you trying to double cross me you twat?" Sean says in his cold tone. I zone out and don't pay attention to the two, my minds already high with all the plans I have to play with the little bird, or should I call her little fox, judging the fact that she easily managed to pull something that would have been a difficult feat for others She's cunning, I'll give her that. "You guys are thinking into this too much, trust me I won't get you guys or our families involved, like I said I have a plan. So please remove your unnecessary presence from my vicinity so that I can concentrate on the issues at hand, the doors to the left. Thanks"

Now that the first phase of the plan is complete, time to set the playground for a new game.

[emptymanuscript]

I tell ya, you give the legal maximum to one campaign ONCE, and the political fundraising requests NEVER go away.

*sigh* I wish I had slightly more respect for the law and slightly less respect for morality. I actually would give more money. I just don't think anyone should be able to donate to a politician that doesn't represent them.

Legally, there's zero stopping me. Philadelphia needs money, here ya go, have $5. But I don't live in Philadelphia. I don't even live in Pennsylvania. And the exact same principle applies the other way. A Republican Christofascist piece of shit could need money in my hometown and any Fundie who wants to can send him $5 making it more likely I'll live in a tyranny. Which means they can influence the way I live when they don't have skin in the game. And that just seems wrong to me.

On the other hand, I'm far past the idea of there being any moral way to tolerate the GQP. The only moral course of action is to push against them. Neutral doesn't cut it.

Which means my morals are hitting each other.

Why are you hitting yourself? Why do you think this is a good idea?

Which is more important - that someone who is not directly affected by rulership decisions should not have the right to influence who gets to rule OR that the GOP has renounced all legitimacy and should not be allowed to hold any offices?

One of my (appellate lawyer) sister's arguments back in the day was that I AM affected by these other people. Mitch McConnell, even though he is not elected as a representative of my location DOES exercise power over me because of his position as Senate Minority / Majority Leader. That gives me the right under my own moral code to donate to his opponent.

But, my counterargument is that that is a separate election, one I am not allowed to influence. It is only AFTER the election that elevates him back to being a Senator that represents Kentucky which I don't feel I should have a say in because I don't live in Kentucky, that there is then a separate election held only among GOP Senators that elevate him to the Leader. If I support his opponent and he still wins and then he doesn't become leader and someone else does, that justification no longer applies.

My own counterargument back to myself at this point, some years later, is that the right relies on itself as a system. The power the GOP is able to wield is utterly dependent on how much influence the GOP is able to wield in total nationwide. Take away any support and the system weakens to some degree. Add any support and the system of Christofascism strengthens. Therefore every Republican influences how I will be ruled and every Republican deserves push back.

Which I then answer myself, because I am clearly an evil wizard, that wouldn't hold if it were a different organization. I wouldn't buy this argument for say a politician who belonged to the Constitution Party, even though they publicly stand for what the GOP actually does - think of them as Republicans but not as light - because the Constitution Party simply isn't in a position to do the real harm the Republican Party can. Which makes me feel like I'm just trying to justify contributing to my own side against the side I don't like in a way that I would object to if the situation was reversed.

Which leads directly to the question: is it incumbent on me to act morally in the same way as I would if my opposition is valid when I actually, firmly believe they are not? Is my moral stance that I shouldn't help fund anyone who doesn't (and shouldn't) stand for me a way of avoiding the responsibility to act against what I perceive as an evil when I am capable.

... I feel like I need a Talmud study group for this. Or something. There's got to be some mile long essay on this done by people smarter than me. Because it always breaks down for me. I just can't make myself feel good about either direction because of the other. I simply can't figure out which is the greater directive.

[mrlisterincanada]

From Globe and Mail September 2019: (I condensed this and removed pledges that were too general)

Liberals

The carbon tax is at the centre of the Liberal plan, and is a lightning rod for federal and provincial conservatives. It kicked in at $20 a tonne − on April 1, and rises $10 each year to $50 a tonne in 2022.

The carbon tax system put in place by the Liberals has a carrot and stick approach. On the one hand, the price on carbon acts as an incentive for companies and individuals to find a way to reduce their carbon footprint in order to avoid the higher costs associated with a carbon tax. On the other hand, the rebate that is given to consumers acts both to cover the costs for people who have no other option but to drive their car and has the added benefit of rewarding consumers who reduce their footprint because they get the same rebate no matter how much pollution they create. A new Liberal government would also have to finalize the proposed Clean Fuel Standard, which would require energy companies to reduce the overall GHG content of the fuels they sell by mixing in biofuels and other renewable sources, making their processing operations more energy efficient and gaining credits by financing other emission-reduction projects.

THE GAPS

the government’s own numbers show their plan will fall short. UBC Professor Kathryn Harrison said “the gaps, or the missing parts, of the Liberal plan are how to fill the shortfall" and she noted that the hole has “almost doubled” since the Liberal’s climate change plan was announced in 2016.

Detractors point to the government’s decision to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion for $4.5-billion as proof of the imbalance. The pipeline will allow for much more oil-sands development – a key contributor to greenhouse-gas emissions – even as Canada touts the need to cut emissions.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/environment-commissioner-julie-gelfand-disturbing-climate-change-1.5081027

Conservatives

THE PLAN

The centrepiece of the plan is what it won’t include: Mr. Scheer vows to repeal the federal carbon tax as well as the planned Clean Fuel Standard. the Conservative Party’s climate platform relies on tax incentives and spending to support the development of technology that would allow consumers and industry to improve their energy efficiency and reduce the carbon content of the fuels industry produces. It promotes carbon capture and storage − which has been adopted by two oil refineries in Alberta and a coal-fired generating station in Saskatchewan − as the kind of technology that Canada can not only deploy at home but sell to the rest of the world.

While the Conservatives pledge to eliminate the federal carbon tax as it applies to both consumers and large industrial polluters, they would replace it with “emission standards” for major industries that would require them to reduce GHGs to a prescribed limit. The platform gives no indication where those limits would be set, how they will be enforced or how much of a penalty companies would face if they exceed them. Instead, it says companies would be required to invest a set amount per tonne into technology that would help them lower their emissions.

The Tories also propose a two-year program of tax incentives for homeowners to undertake energy retrofits in order to cut their energy consumption and related GHG emissions. A household could save up to $3,800 annually if they spend $20,000 on energy-saving renovations.

THE GAPS

The Conservative Party approaches climate-change policy with two baselines that separate it from the other parties: it staunchly supports the oil and gas sector and its continued expansion and does not believe that policies tackling climate change should impact household pocket books. The policy options left to the Tories then are limited and several experts have concluded that they will fall far short of Canada’s commitment.

Simon Fraser University’s Mark Jaccard, who sits on the UN’s advisory panel on climate change, modelled the impact of the plan and said it would lead to increased greenhouse-gas emissions between 2020 and 2030.

The Conservatives’ plan to cap emissions for large emitters and charge those who blow past their limits is in effect a carbon tax.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/scheer-climate-plan-fact-check-1.5215541

New Democrats

THE PLAN

The NDP says it would ramp up Canada’s plans to cut greenhouse-gas emissions − bringing them 38 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. The party says that’s what is required for Canada to do its part to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees above preindustrial levels.

To get there, the NDP says it would continue with Canada’s carbon-pricing regime, including maintaining the pricing set by the Liberals from 2019 to 2022.

However, New Democrats do plan to tweak the carbon tax. According to the party, the rebates that are currently sent to all households will no longer be sent to millionaires, and the extra exemptions that the Liberals gave to trade exposed industries through the output-based pricing system will be removed. This means all industrial heavy emitters will have to pay a carbon tax on emissions once their emissions exceed 70 per cent of the industry average. Under the Liberal government’s policies, the benchmark is 80 per cent and some sectors were given higher exemptions.

The NDP is committing to a suite of aggressive timelines to remove fossil fuels from the electricity grid, transportation and building sectors. It would offer low-interest loans in order to finance energy-saving retrofits of all Canada’s housing stock by 2050, with half of them completed by 2030.

THE GAPS

Experts who spoke with The Globe and Mail said the key questions around the NDP’s plan come down to timing, details, and a failure to address jurisdictional barriers.

“They haven’t got the detail of how they would get there,” Prof. Harrison said, pointing out that it’s not clear how much emissions reduction would occur from electrification of transportation, or from home retrofits.

The same questions apply to the carbon tax, which under the NDP plan appears to have roughly the same trajectory as the Liberal levy.

Prof. Jaccard said that to be able to assess the party’s plan, he would need to see a carbon price that is progressively more stringent, but he said that option isn’t detailed in the plan. Similarly, he notes that none of the party’s goals around retrofits, the electrical grid or zero-emissions vehicles are accompanied by enforcement mechanisms. Without those mechanisms, he said, the uncertainty around their impact increases.

Finally, Prof. Leach, of the University of Alberta, notes that the plan set out by Mr. Singh would spark even more jurisdictional fights between Ottawa and the provinces. For example, building codes are adopted and enforced at the provincial level, rather than the federal level as suggested by the NDP’s plan.

Greens

THE PLAN

The party is pledging to double Canada’s GHG-reduction targets, bringing Canada’s goal to cut emissions to 60 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

The Greens say they would hike the carbon tax annually by $10

The party also says it will eliminate all fossil-fuel subsidies and ban hydraulic fracking, which is used by non-oil-sands oil and gas producers throughout Western Canada.

The Greens would also stop all pipeline expansion, including the Trans Mountain pipeline project.

They would require all new cars sold in Canada to be electric by 2030, and phase out all traditional cars by 2040. They pledge to require energy-saving retrofits of all buildings – residential, commercial and industrial – by 2030. And they propose to eliminate coal and natural gas from Canada’s electricity generation by 2030.

THE GAPS

The concerns expressed by experts over the timing, costs and lack of detail about the NDP’s plan are amplified when they turn to the Green Party. A question echoed by profs Jaccard, Harrison and Leach was “how” the party would meet the goals.

A regional dimension that is not addressed in the Green Party’s plan is what happens to refineries in Montreal and New Brunswick when the Green Party bans fossil-fuels

Its proposal to phaseout all fossil-fuel electricity hits up against regional and timeline challenges, which Mr. Leach said “make it nearly impossible.” Electricity is a provincially regulated business, and in some cases, provincially owned.

Alberta is currently in the midst of replacing coal with renewable sources and natural gas. That cuts related emissions in half but it’s still a fossil fuel.

The mammoth task of retrofitting all housing stock also raises timeline questions, according to several experts who spoke with The Globe. Put in perspective, it would require 10 per cent of people to be moved out of their houses each year for a decade in order to complete the retrofits in the time prescribed by the party.

“It’s more of a signalling device than a credible plan,” Ms. Winter said.

https://davidsuzuki.org/action/jobs-justice-clean-energy/

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/06/26/Experts-Evaluate-Party-Climate-Plans/

[grison-in-space]

Yeah, I got that. Trust me--I was a DC kid and grew up on the Hill, I know how politics work, and I also know that giving people something to look forward to and expect is a much more powerful motivating force than pre-emptively telling them that they should look forward to everything being shittier for decades. It might be true; it might not. To my mind, a campaign promise is an attempt to try. And goddammit, Democrats so fucking frequently don't even try.

Democrats are still suffering from the attacks of centrism that have plagued the party my entire adult life, despite the rise of the Tea Party during Obama's first term, despite four years of Trump under our belts, despite, despite, despite. One major reason for this is Congress, which has been swallowed up by increasingly unreasonable Republicans for about the last fifteen years. This means effective law doesn't get written, which means that popular initiatives deigned to fix any of the many problems bedeviling us don't get passed. But another major reason for this is that Dems have been certain that just acting like the abusive GOP can be reasoned with will fix the problems inherent in working with bad-faith actors. And that is plain foolish.

This is a fight that will be won and lost on the fields of belief in one's army. When real armies fought pitched battles, the willingness of soldiers to trust that the next guy will hold the line is an enormous factor in whether that army stayed fighting on the battlefield--or whether confidence broke and the soldiers decided to go invest their energy and resources elsewhere.

Right now, a lot of people are considering whether to stay and fight a pitched political battle or whether the odds look too bad to stay. Bluntly, I am one of them, and I am telling you, the way you keep those people is you promise them that you are going to fix this country and KEEP it fixed if they can hand in one more election. You tell them this is a battle that can be won and that it is deadly, deadly serious to try; you tell them that this is serious business against foreign corruption in our government; you tell them that they can do specific things to save their homes; you provide a plan to make this shit stop happening and build in some fucking guardrails and prosecute treason with vehemence, and you goddamn well promise to fix things to the best of everyone's ability, with fucking resources, every time you try to gin up your base. It's the only way you build and keep enough momentum to have half a chance in hell of getting enough votes to pass your agendas. Lowering expectations lowers momentum. Momentum is crucial here.

There is a reason I keep invoking FDR. What FDR won on, more than anything else, was belief that this man would try to do his best by working people. It was trust. It was all that ephemeral shit. Vibes matter. Maybe more than practice shit does, right now, because all of that shit has long since hit the fan. And he paid that belief back with immediate action with tangible effects, which is why he was allowed to serve for 12 years in the first place.

That is why I spent so much time talking about what the man did in his first 100 days in office: because he did it effectively given the resources at his disposal. Stop insisting that the only way to win is to comply in advance. Take a lesson from a weasel: sometimes confidence, bravery, and speed seize the day against enemies many times your size.

The thing is, a bureaucracy is a system. Building a system from the ground up is not that hard if you set it up to build on itself in rolling ways. ("Not that hard" == sleepless months for the poor fuckers building it, but there can be a lot of them, too, and that helps. In computing, we parallelize tasks; in governance, we delegate. The more people we set to working under competent leadership, the faster the work happens, the better it goes.)

The real problem is going to be finding people to run our new systems. The more people change careers (because entire industries are being destroyed and broken--hi, feds, but I'm over here in Team Science and we are also struggling), the less people there will be who know how to run a department, or who know how to motivate people, or who have personal relationships with various groups, or whatever the hell. We lose our knowledge by bleeding people, not by losing our departments and agencies.

Here's the thing, though: it is a lot more popular, and better rhetoric to boot, to say "We care about all Americans, especially our retired and our elderly! The incumbent damaged a lot of shit, but we are throwing money at the problem and hiring the best people we can find, and we are going to make sure that Grandma gets her checks as fast as we can!" than to say "well, shit, we lost all our SSA staff and none of them will work for us again, and we can't figure out the system, and the bureaucracy is really hard, so we're trying but...." You have to keep moving. You have to keep confidence in your abilities high. And if the Democrats do not have the ability to govern, even when the other party is run by a demonstrably corrupt Russian puppet who keeps firing half the government and makes the stock market dance for fun and personal profits, then this ship is going the fuck down and I should get out of this country and go somewhere I can find work now. Is that the line of argument you want to be making? Think about your rhetoric. Can I expect that if I invest my time in this country, that it will return my investment by investing in me as a citizen?

Well, I think it can. If the Democrats are capable of leveraging the truly impressive levels of rage and fury being thrown off by the population, I think we can turn this ship around. But if they are going to be mealy-mouthed and try to tone down expectations, I'm going to New Zealand or Canada or Europe, somewhere with some fucking vision and politicians who are capable of getting people excited. Which you are actively undermining, by the way, by arguing that no matter how hard people win, we can't replace the systems that relied on the people--good people--that we are losing right now. And that argument is just plain wrong.

It turns out that when the federal government wants to do something new, and it's not deadlocked, it can actually move pretty fucking fast. Look at how quickly COVID tests and the COVID stimulus funds were mobilized once the relevant law passed. In the case of the stimulus funds, was an entirely new system with new cohorts of people doing something that there had almost never been a precedented reason to do. And yet it was accomplished with, yes, a few mistakes here and there--but I got my check right on time, and so did nearly everyone else I knew. That is enough for most people. Truly it is. There are people who are going to bitch no matter what, and there are death cultists who will never be satisfied, but most people will be roughly satisfied if life stops being a complete firehose of suck and they have some kind of hope in the future again.

At the same time, when the COVID vaccines rolled out, we had to vaccinate an entire giant population as quickly as possible. There's another almost unprecedented public health effort, and while feds didn't run all of it by a long shot, well--my partner was actually involved with the municipal government rollout of a mass vaccination clinic in a major US city, and we straight up have not done that in this country since the days of the Salk vaccine either. And yet it was accomplished as quick as public trust in the vaccine's efficacy could be built.

The problem is not governmental ability to execute a complex task. The problem is that we keep electing increasingly deranged Republicans to office and that Dems keep playing by Marquis of Fantailler rules. Changing that doesn't mean Dems have to break the law ourselves in order to fight effectively--and yes, I am aware of the double standard the media holds Dems vs Republicans to, yes it is weirdly sexist as all hell, yes the only way to change that public perception is to stop pretending that the occupiers of our nation are worthy of basic respect. For example, full-throated calling for arrests and consequences for any of the GOP fraudsters would be a good first start. Hell, even blaming the GOP for governmental failures and detailing all the working people that get hurt by this bullshit somewhere public, eloquent, and direct would be good.

Ditto imposing consequences for Supreme Court Justices; Thomas in particular should be impeached yesterday. That might not be possible until enough of Congress is clawed back, but Dems should still be trying every potential avenue to retaining power. Cory Booker's filibusterite stunt was a great example. Start being the grit in the wheels. Democrats could actually be a whole fucking lot more obstreperous than they are; hell, Schumer is out here crowing that it's fine to hang out with Republicans because they're nice at the gym. So remove Schumer from power. Enforce consequences within the party if you can't do it outside of it. If people are going to fuck around, they need to find out, because that kind of bullshit erodes morale in the exact base that gives the Dems electoral access in the first place.

When one is desperate, one starts to fight creatively. That is where we are now. Look at how many of the funny, silly shit spreads across social media, without relying on blatantly conservative-slanted media like the NYT. Look at how many small wins give people heart. Don't bleed those hearts dry when we absolutely need every pump of blood and sweat and fury that can be summoned. I am fucking begging you here, reconsider this line of argument.

Hey. Look at me. Please leave yourself a note somewhere you'll see it later that says "it is going to take years if not decades to get the United States government to the level of functionality it had in November of 2024." If we elect a democrat in 2028, we are not going to be up and running by 2032.

Please make sure you have a reminder in your phone reminding you to not look at 2028/32/36 Democratic candidates and say "why are they not promising/delivering Cool Shit?" because you are going to understand that to get Cool Shit we must have competent people running a decently funded government, and we are not going to have that.

We are not getting UBI. We are not getting single payer healthcare. We are not getting free college or free preschool. We are not redistributing wealth on a large scale. We are not getting free internet. We are not getting ranked choice voting.

If we are lucky, we are going to get an IRS that can collect taxes, qualified schoolteachers, research grants, Social Security, and a government that thinks maybe it should be a priority for people around the worlds to not have AIDS, malaria or TB.