#carter-is-a-disaster

[fifteenth-entity]

yeah but what would the number mean tho?

Oh look, a victim!

So. This wonderful specimen of a person is someone who I consider to be one of my best friends.

They are my co conspirator when it comes to all things tumblr. We're in not a LOT of the same fandoms, but enough that is kinda friendship defining. They also proved to me that neither of us are immune to propaganda. They got me into the owl house (thank you forever carter that is quite possibly one of the biggest favors you have done me thus far) and I got them into critical role as a whole (you're WELCOME). I think the biggest "offender" fandom that we were both in together at the same time was Sk8 the infinity? Maybe? Idk, but tumblr had a big ass play in that.

Also do you know that meme of "writers, make sure you have a doctor friend"? Carter is the doctor friend. The amount of medical questions I have asked this man (gender neutral) in order to torture my ocs is enough to get them a medical degree. And they answer! So if any of you get mad at me for hurting my ocs, they're giving me the ammo :)

Also both of us share the emo/punk experience (tm) which... shows. Irl.

Also we are both so gay and mentally ill that neither of us understand the few straight people we converse with, so now our conversations have divulged into different flavors of "straight people are weird".

I won't get into a lot of the personal stuff but I fucking miss talking at the stairs of our highschool with this guy about ocs, that shit was super fun. We still talk about ocs and fandoms, just not at the staircase of our highschool. We do it irl at a park or sth or dms.

I think that's all I have to say? Anywho I love my friends vol 1.

... The number means nothing btw.

SUCH AN EXTREMELY IMPORTANT EDIT BTW: I would take a bullet for this guy. This is like true for all of my friends but I need all of you to know that we live 5 hours away from each other and if anything happened to them I would spend absurd amounts of money to be there ASAP. Also I'm currently trying to get them to play Deltarune with me and they're trying to get me to watch OFMD and Good Omens. Both of us are failing.

[kylorenscar]

"...and I have to live with that. Forever."

[whumpypepsigal]

@whumpgifathon | Day 19 (alt. prompt): “Protective”

Tyler Owens in Twisters (2024)

[inafieldofdaisies]

Twisters (2024) | Cinematography appreciation

[aceofwhump]

Twisters (2024)

[stuff-diary]

Twisters

Movies watched in 2024

Twisters (2024, USA)

Director: Lee Isaac Chung

Writer: Mark L. Smith (based on a story by Joseph Kosinski)

Mini-review:

This was exactly what I expected and wanted it to be: a thrilling piece of popcorn summer entertainment. Is it a great movie? Definitely not, but I had a lot of fun watching it in the theater. Mostly, it's a brilliant showcase for Daisy Edgar-Jones' and Glen Powell's star power and charisma. Also, while the story has quite a few silly moments, Lee Isaac Chung manages to elevate the material with his masterful, classy direction. And the CGI is much better than the stuff we've been seing lately in Hollywood movies, too. So yeah, Twisters is not a perfect film by any means, but as far as summer blockbusters go, it's arguably one of the best we've gotten in the last few years.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Alicia Sadowski and Isabella Corrao at MMFA:

In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, right-wing media falsely claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden administration are ignoring millions of Americans impacted by intense flooding. Media personalities and MAGA influencers have falsely and dishonestly claimed that victims are only entitled to $750 in aid, when in reality that is just the start of federal benefits.

FEMA can provide assistance for victims of Hurricane Helene, but chronic underfunding and climate change, not undocumented migrants, threaten future aid availability

In addition to FEMA providing residents of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia with “a one-time $750 payment to help with essential items like food, water, baby formula and other emergency supplies,” victims can also qualify for “disaster-related financial assistance to repair storm-related damage to homes and replace personal property.” After visiting the wreckage in Georgia, Harris reiterated that “FEMA is also providing tens of thousands more dollars for folks to help them be able to deal with home repair, to be able to cover a deductible when and if they have insurance, and also hotel costs.” [The White House, 10/2/24, 10/2/24]

After President Joe Biden signed a stopgap spending bill in September, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said FEMA can properly respond to Helene recovery efforts. FEMA spokesperson Daniel Llargués said that FEMA is in a “good position” to respond to Hurricane Helene relief efforts after the agency received $20.3 billion under the spending bill. Biden has suggested bringing lawmakers back to Washington to provide additional funding for disaster relief, but Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has claimed “there’s no necessity for Congress to come back”. [The New York Times, 9/26/24, 10/2/24; Roll Call, 10/3/24; FEMA, 10/3/24]

Future concerns for FEMA’s funding are attributable to chronic underfunding by Congress and increased costs associated with extreme weather disturbance as a result of climate change, not aid given to undocumented immigrants. Mayorkas warned that FEMA “does not have the funds to make it through the [hurricane] season.” A DHS spokesperson clarified, however, that aid provided to undocumented immigrants through the Shelter and Services Program is “a completely separate, appropriated grant program that was authorized and funded by Congress and is not associated in any way with FEMA's disaster-related authorities or funding streams." [The Associated Press, 10/3/24; Axios, 7/14/23; Bipartisan Policy Center, 7/23/24; Newsweek, 10/3/24]

Right-wing media have pushed the cartoonishly false claim that Hurricane Helene survivors are only entitled to $750 in aid, when in fact that the $750 is the beginning.

The right-wing noise machine also dishonestly blamed undocumented immigrants by baselessly accusing them of plundering FEMA funding.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 30, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Oct 01, 2024

One hundred years ago tomorrow, former president Jimmy Carter arrived in the world in Plains, Georgia. According to the Atlanta Constitution of that date, he arrived just after the worst wind and rainstorm of the year passed off to sea. His home state of Georgia, along with North Carolina and Virginia, sustained significant damage, with railroad tracks and bridges washed out, crops damaged, and at least seven lives lost. 

Today, almost a hundred years later, the destruction from Hurricane Helene continues to mount. At least 128 people have died in six states, and many more remain unaccounted for. Roads remain closed, and power is still off for more than 2 million people. In remarks to reporters today, President Joe Biden called the damage “stunning” and explained that the federal government is providing all the support it can. He noted that federal help was on the ground before the storm and when asked if there were more the government could be doing, answered no and explained that the administration had “preplanned a significant amount of it, even though they…hadn’t asked for it yet.” 

Biden said this morning he will not tour the damaged areas until his presence will not disrupt emergency response operations. This afternoon, he said he would travel to North Carolina on Wednesday for a briefing and an aerial tour of Asheville, after ensuring the travel “will not disrupt the ongoing response.” He has also said he may have to ask Congress to come back into session before its mid-November return date to pass a supplemental spending bill. Punchbowl News political reporter Melanie Zanona noted that Congress left disaster aid out of the short-term continuing resolution to fund the government it passed before leaving town. 

And yet, the hurricane has become the latest topic of disinformation for MAGA Republicans. Social media today is full of accounts claiming that the federal government is not responding to the crisis in western North Carolina because it prefers to spend money in Ukraine and on undocumented immigrants. Newsmax host Todd Starnes claimed that FEMA’s “top priority is not disaster relief” but to push diversity, equity and inclusion. “So, unless you’ve got your preferred pronouns spraypainted on the side of your submerged house—you won’t get a penny from Uncle Sam. Western North Carolina is just too Conservative and too Caucasian for FEMA to care.” The House Judiciary Committee posted that “Joe Biden was at the beach.”

These posts echo Russian disinformation, and Trump was on board with it. Touring Valdosta, Georgia, today, as a private citizen where people are still without power amidst the devastation, Trump said he had spoken to Elon Musk to get his Starlink satellites into North Carolina; FEMA has already provided 40 of the systems to North Carolina. He claimed that Georgia governor Brian Kemp is “having a hard time getting the president on the phone. They’re being very non-responsive.”

Kemp himself told reporters that Biden had called yesterday. “And he just said, ‘Hey, what do you need?’” Kemp told him, “We got what we need, we’ll work through the federal process. He offered that if there’s other things that we need just to call him directly, which I appreciate that.” South Carolina governor Henry McMaster, a Republican, called it “a great team effort…the federal government is helping us well, they’re embedded with us. There is no asset out there that we haven’t already accessed.” 

Republican governor of Virginia Glenn Youngkin told reporters that he was “incredibly appreciative of the rapid response and cooperation from the federal team at FEMA.” Asheville, North Carolina, mayor Esther Manheimer told CNBC “We have support from outside organizations, other fire departments sending us resources, the federal government as well. So it's all-hands-on-deck, and it is a well-coordinated effort, but it is so enormous….” 

FEMA spokesperson Jaclyn Rothenberg responded to a post claiming that FEMA was refusing to help certain Americans, saying: “This is a lie. We help all people regardless of background as fast as possible before, during and after disasters. That is our mission and that is our focus.” 

In contrast, numerous posters today noted that Trump repeatedly withheld federal aid from Democratic governors—including that of North Carolina—after disasters in their states. After the Trump campaign organized a fundraiser for victims of the hurricane, David Frum of The Atlantic reminded readers that in 2019, Trump was fined $2 million and three of his children were ordered to take classes as a penalty for taking for their own use funds from charities they ran.

When a reporter asked President Biden and Democratic North Carolina governor Roy Cooper to respond to Trump’s accusation that they are ignoring the disaster, Biden responded: “He's lying. And the governor told him he was lying…. I've spoken to the governor, spent time with him…. I don't know why he does this. And the reason I get so angry about it, I don't care about what he says about me, but I care what he communicates to the people that are in need. He implies that we're not doing everything possible. We are…. I assume you heard the Republican Governor of Georgia talk about that he was on the phone with me more than once. So that's simply not true. And it's irresponsible.”

Economist Paul Krugman noted: “We’ve all become desensitized, but it’s amazing how at this point the Trump campaign rests entirely on denouncing things that aren’t happening—[an] imaginary bad economy, imaginary runaway crime and now an imaginary failure of Biden and Harris to respond to natural disaster.”

In Florida, though, Governor Ron DeSantis says his state does not need more federal help. “We have it handled,” he said. DeSantis might be eager to downplay the damage to the state in part because in May he joined other Republican leaders in an attack on Biden’s actions to address climate change. 

DeSantis signed into law a new Florida measure that erased any references to climate change in state law, where they had been included in a 2008 climate change and renewable energy package then backed by the state’s Republicans. The new law prohibited cities and counties from approving restrictions on energy policy, relaxed regulations on natural gas pipelines, and state and local governments from taking environmental concerns into consideration in their investing policies. DeSantis also rejected more than $350 million in federal funding for initiatives to promote energy efficiency, and $320 million for reducing vehicle emissions. 

Like DeSantis, the authors of Project 2025 claim that those working to address climate change are part of “the climate change alarm industry,” which is “harmful to future U.S. prosperity.” 

In fact, the U.S. economy is booming in part thanks to the climate change initiatives begun under the Inflation Reduction Act, which have prompted both domestic and foreign investment in alternative technologies. Biden approached the need to address climate change as an opportunity to create good jobs, including union jobs, in the United States.

With those investments, economist Mark Zandi wrote yesterday that the U.S. economy is one of the best performing economies in the past 35 years. “Economic growth is rip-roaring, with real GDP up 3% over the past year. Unemployment is low at near 4%, consistent with full employment. Inflation is fast closing in on Fed’s 2% target—grocery prices, rents and gas prices are flat to down over the past more than a year. Households’ financial obligations are light, and set to get lighter with the Fed cutting rates. House prices have never been higher, and most homeowners have more equity in their homes than ever. Corporate profits are robust, and the stock market is hitting a record high on a seemingly daily basis.” 

Zandi noted that there are “blemishes.” Lower-income households are struggling, there is a shortage of affordable housing, and the government is running large budget deficits. As always, things could change quickly. “But in my time as an economist,” he wrote, “the economy has rarely looked better.”

North Georgia, the area represented by MAGA Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, is one of the areas that has been revitalized with new solar panel manufacturing funded by the Inflation Reduction Act. Yet Phil Mattingly and Andrew Seger of CNN reported on Friday, September 27, that while voters there like the strong economy, in this year’s election they say they still plan to back Trump, who has called Biden’s green energy initiatives a “scam” and vowed to claw back any money still unspent from the Inflation Reduction Act.  

Aaron Zitner, Jon Kamp, and Brian McGill of the Wall Street Journal today called attention to this paradox, that people in counties that vote for Trump are significantly more likely than those that vote for Democrats to rely on federal government funding. This is in part because they are older and thus receive Social Security and Medicare, and in part because they live in areas hollowed out when industries there left. These are the areas the Biden-Harris administration have targeted for investment.

The authors note that these government-funded pro-Trump counties are clustered in the swing states that will decide the election. About 70% of the counties in Michigan, Georgia, and North Carolina rely significantly on government income. So do nearly 60% of the counties in Pennsylvania. 

In other news today, in Georgia, Fulton County Superior Court judge Robert McBurney struck down the state’s six-week abortion ban, which prohibited abortions before many women know they’re pregnant, as unconstitutional. A government investigation recently showed that two Georgia women died after being unable to obtain abortion care in the state shortly after Georgia’s ban went into effect. 

In a searing 26-page decision, the Republican-appointed judge wrote that the state cannot force a woman to carry a fetus that cannot live on its own. “Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote. Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy.” 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[katiajewelbox]

My original AI art inspired by the Martian Series novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

This series of science fiction / planetary romance novels from the early 20th century follow the exciting lives of heroic characters like John Carter, Dejah Thoris, and Tars Tarkas as they explore the fascinating fictional world of Barsoom (the natives' name for the planet Mars). Although the characters and plots are fairly simple, the world building is what hooked me on this series. It's an ancient and complex world that has seen the rise and fall of many different civilisations as well as environmental catastrophes. I books' imagery of ruined white cities on dried up sea beds inspired these haunting views in my AI art.

Media: AI generated art made with my original text prompts via Copilot using DALL E 3.

[lanihaluki]

day 2 of James Riley appreciation week: Beach Day

[incorrectkembleford]

Father Brown: You know that voice in your head that tells you that you're doing something wrong?

Sid and Bunty: You mean the one that sounds like Mrs. M?

[inafieldofdaisies]

Twisters (2024) | Cinematography appreciation

[aceofwhump]

Twisters (2024)

[nycorix]

Kaz Brekker is basically a young steampunk Tommy Shelby and Freddy Carter is as much a god of immersive acting as Cillian Murphy send tweet

[honeyxmonkey]

LOOK AT MY ADORABLE LITTLE GUY

HES SO FUCKIN CUTE IM GONNA SCREAM

[montanamp3]

34?

what i find attractive in women:

[JESUS AIMS A SNIPER RIFLE AT THE BACK OF MY HEAD]