#do i want Harris as president? more than i could possibly say

[kevin-day-is-bi]

Biden dropped out???!

Yep

He has backed Kamala Harris as the presidential nominee, which I'm very excited for

personally, I'm a little concerned. Biden frankly pushed a Lot of really good policies and he was still considered barely left of a center by a lot of people. a Black woman could either be exactly what a lot of centrists were looking for or could push people who thought Biden was a little too liberal over back into Republican voting.

I can't tell anyone who to vote for and I'm not interested in doing so, but I live in one of the most gerrymandered parts of a state that was red my entire life until the 2020 election, and I have no interest in going back. I'm going to college in a state that's less liberal, in a town that's less liberal than Atlanta (which is what I'm currently sort of living in).

so. I hope Harris gets the nomination at the DNC. I watched Clinton get close to winning in 2016 and am genuinely terrified of what will happen if the same situation occurs.

I am very nicely asking ppl to look up their local elections and vote there, do their research on presidential candidates, and vote for who you think will enact the policies you want to live under (please don't be single-issue voters. I can't change that but please do your research on single-issue voting and its effects)

sorry to turn this into a bit of a soapbox! where I live and where I'm moving (and the fact that I am a disabled afab queer person) will mean I will be one of the first groups hit if trump wins and I don't want that. your votes matter!

[ham1lton]

HOMEWRECKER!

pairings: oscar piastri x singer!reader.

faceclaim: tyla.

summary: it is common knowledge that you’ve had an anonymous long time boyfriend since your school days. so when oscar piastri starts flirting with you in your comment section, no one seems to care. that is until you start flirting back.

author’s note: as promised, here is the oscaryn fic. hope u enjoy <3

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liked by sza, yourbestie and 2,837,928 others.

yourusername: btw my newest album DANGEROUSLY IN LOVE is out now! <3

view all 146,883 comments

user1: BABY BOY IS A BANGER

-> user2: BABY BOY U STAY ON MY MIND BABY BOY U R SO DAMN FINE BABY BOY WONT U BE MINE!!

oscarpiastri: it’s been on repeat!

-> yourusername: good 😌

-> user10: … oscar??

-> user13: MY goat is a ynnie YUP!! i know thats right!!

user3: yn u so fine ily

user4: album of the year!!!!

-> user5: hit after hit, how does she do it??

sza: incredible album babe!

user6: crazy in love has already been certified platinum in this house!!

-> user7: you ready??

badgalriri: can’t stop listening!

user8: why is no one talking about naughty girl. yn please let me have a chance!!!

-> user9: TONIGHT! ILL BE UR NAUGHTY GIRL 😝

user11: what’s the bts shoot for?

-> yourusername: the third single’s mv 🥰

-> user12: PLEASE PLEASE SAY IT’S ME, MYSELF AND I 🙏🏼

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liked by ynsgirl, oscarpiastri and 1,837,828 others.

ynsupdates: yn did a listening party for some of her top fans in la and we were there! she looked INCREDIBLE and talked us through each song and the three music videos!

view all 50,738 comments

user1: i was there!! she’s so gorgeous in person. like even more gorgeous than the pics if that’s even possible.

user9: ME MYSELF AND I MV CONFIRMED!!!

user2: not oscar liking yn fan account posts 😭

-> user3: bro is desperate at this point.

-> user9: like okay HOMEWRECKER 😭 have fun being the other woman. maybe we’ll get a banger out of it.

user4: did you see her get flustered at the mention of her secret boyfriend?

-> user5: she confirmed that he was the inspo for a lot of the album but specifically crazy in love, baby boy and dangerously in love! apparently baby boy is her nickname for him <3

-> user6: I WANT TO BE HIM SO FUCKING BAD 😭 DEADASS

user7: she’s pretty! who is she?

-> user8: yn yln! she’s a new upcoming singer/songwriter! her debut album ‘dangerously in love’ is out now! it’s a incredible album and she wrote most of it based on her secret boyfriend she’s been dating for years. you should check it out!!!

oscarpiastri: she’s gorgeous.

-> user10: ARIANA WHAT ARE U DOING HERE 😭

-> user11: SHE HAS A BOYFRIEND

-> user12: GET A JOB STAY AWAY FROM HER

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liked by badgalriri, billieeilish and 2,939,123 others.

yourusername: baby boy, you stay on my mind.

view all 79,928 comments

oscarpiastri: you have a boyfriend? 🤕

-> yourusername: why? you single?

-> user1: HUH?

-> user2: WHAT

user3: IM IN SHOCK…. IS THAT UR MAN OMG???

user4: yall ain’t shit in these comments 😭 you haven’t even seen this guy’s face??? going on like this is a dream face reveal 2.0. 😭

-> user5: no… i’m just upset that my girl is taken 😔

-> user6: we’ve been known she’s in a relationship though?

-> user5: but this is a real tangible reminder 😔 before he was just a concept that i could be delusional and ignore.

user7: who is he… omg

user8: guys what if it’s oscar piastri? and that’s why he’s always liking her posts?

-> user9: guys what if it’s joe biden? and that’s why he’s running for president?

-> user10: guys what if it’s harry styles? and that’s why he left one direction?

-> user11: guys what if it’s sebastian vettel? and that’s why he retired?

-> user12: guys what if it’s peeta mellark? and that’s why he joined the hunger games?

-> user8: oh fuck y’all 😭😭😭😔

user13: WHY IS EVERYONE IGNORING THE BOYFRIEND COMMENT HELLO???

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liked by yourusername, landonorris and 1,093,837 others.

oscarpiastri: guys, what if it is oscar piastri? 🤔

view all 67,938 comments

user1: he thought he ate with that caption 😭

-> user2: HE DID 😹

user3: omg i love this couple

-> landonorris: i don’t. how did oscar bag a baddie before me???? 😢

-> weirdostalkerfan1: u can bag me 😏

-> landonorris: i said baddie.

user4: KEEP DATING WE NEED MORE SONGS

-> oscarpiastri: don’t worry. not planning on letting her go anytime soon.

user5: OSCAR A YNNIE CONFIRMED!!!

user6: thank u for inspiring bangers king!

user7: give us a yn story if ur REALLY dating her…

-> oscarpiastri: she came up with me, myself and i after watching a sad film about cheating and listening to someone’s breakup album.

-> user8: that sounds like her fr

-> user9: yeah this definitely isn’t pr. he knows her.

yourusername: this is so cute. i love u baby <3

-> oscarpiastri: love you more 💕

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— oscar taglist: @papayadays @assholeinatrenchcoat @mxdi0 @lillysbigwilly @liberty-barnes @yelenasloverrrrr @hiireadstuff @starz4me1 @mvk1ma @lozzamez3 @dear-fifi @ihtscuddlesbeeetchx3 @styl1shl1v @whyamireadingthis @halleest @mael1pastry @s4misbetter @llando4norris @chezmardybum @ivyvlair @isthatacandle @luvsforme @fabulouskk01 @littlegrapejuice @anotherblackreader @laur20a23 @greantii @sumlovesjude @sageispunk @mindless-rock @mehrmonga

— all works taglist (part one): @lavisenri @marshmummy @23victoria @ourlifeforchaos @namgification @tallrock35 @avada-kedavra-bitch-187 @ariellovelynn @shhhchriss @lifeless-firefly @xylinasdiary @evie-119 @itseightbeats @tsireyasgf @landososcar @yongi-lee @maxlarens @velentine @m1892 ((part two will be in the comments as i’m limited to fifty mentions per post!))

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[therealeagal]

Thoughts on: Not voting (2024)

Decide for yourselves whether my words have value or if they are naught but the ravings of a madman.

Whichever you decide, don't @ me, bro. I'm not here to debate. Just to pontificate.

Let's begin.

I have seen discourse of late that people do not wish to vote in the upcoming POTUS election, for reasons that include but are not limited to Donald Trump being a piece of shit, and also Joe Biden selling weapons to Israel, thus making him complicit in that thing that's happening with Israel and Palestine. Are we allowed to use the G word? Idunno.

Lots of the anti-not-voting crowd will try to talk down to you, insinuate that you're probably just a Russian troll or a moron or something.

Not me. Although I too am anti-not-voting, I want to try something different, to wit: I understand.

I get it. I appreciate that Joe Biden is shit. Certainly he's not the shittiest shit that ever shat. He's not even shitty shit. Just regular shit.

If we're being fair (although I don't know why we would be. This is tumblr after all), Biden has done lots of good stuff while in office. I mean, I don't know what any of them are, but I saw a list floating around a while back that had a bunch of stuff on it that Biden had done right. I think there was something about insulin being price capped? I'm prepared to accept out of hand the possibility that there exists things that Biden has done right. Mainly because I'm too lazy to look it up and also don't really care enough about Biden's merits beyond "He's not Trump" to bother.

But yes, good stuff or not, Biden is shit. He may have done good things, but he has also done shitty things. Things which include but which are not limited to that thing that's happening with Israel and Palestine, the status of which remains in limbo, viz a viz, the G word.

Of all the shitty people that have ever lived, Joe Biden is one of them.

And I appreciate that both candidates are senile and decrepit and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and.

I get it.

I perfectly understand all the reasons you have to not vote. In fact, I could probably give you a few more. Like "He's not The Real Eagal." which is in my incredibly humble and completely non-biased opinion the best possible reason to not vote for someone.

In difference circumstances, I wouldn't vote for Biden either if I were you.

But Trump is worse. You get that, right? Biden and Trump are both terrible in different ways, but they are not equally terrible. Trump is worse. On a terribleness scale of 1 to 10, Biden is a two. Trump is an eleven. Hundred. Thousand. Million.

He could be up against literally Sauron and Trump would still be worse. At least Sauron came by it honest. He built his evil empire without help from anyone. Morgoth was already...wherever Morgoth ended up after Eru Iluvatar slapped him down to remind him who's daddy. Ok, he did have Celebrimbor's help to make the rings of power, but didn't he make the One Ring on his own? All I'm saying is, I'd rather have Sauron in office than Donald Trump.

Trump is literally deciding who he wants his next VP to be based on how much he wants to fuck their wives. Sauron wouldn't decide who his cohorts were based on how much he wants to fuck their wives. Sarumon didn't even have a wife.

Plus, Biden's not gonna last 4 more years. He's like a jillion years old. He'll croak 2 days after inauguration. And even if he did last all four years, the world can survive four more years of Biden. A bowling alley couldn't survive four more years of Trump.

And if Kamalah Harris is still Biden's VP when he kicks the bucket, it would probably kill off a few Republicans. Their brains would explode at the mere thought of a black woman president. That's what we in "The Biz" call a win-win.

No one will like to hear this, but there's nothing you can do to stop the world from being shitty today - today meaning this current era, not literally this specific day. Sorry, kids, but that ship has sailed.

Voting for Biden won't make the sun rise. It won't make the grass grow, it won't make the birds sing. Voting for Biden won't Save Our Democracy™ BUT speaking only for myself, I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that if Trump gets re-elected there's a good chance that there won't be another election, notwithstanding all the other many and varied reasons Trump getting back into office would be a terrible idea.

No question that in ideal times both Trump and Biden would already be swinging from the gallows and we'd be voting between Jesus and Buddha. Personally, I'll vote Buddha. For two reasons. 1: Jesus' fan club is kind of insufferable. No offense, big J, but you gotta give those people a good long talking-to if you want my vote. And 2: According to the excellent documentary series Record of Ragnarok, Buddha is an amazing fighter. He fought a fuckin' monster from hell and won. Dude's a badass.

But these are not ideal times in which we live. Again, no one will like to hear this, but the lesser of two evils, however unpleasant it may be, can be a necessary evil. And Joe Biden is, without question, the much much MUCH lesser evil.

Compromise is a four-letter word, but needs must, as they say, when the Devil drives. And if we want there to be a better tomorrow - for some people it will be "if we want there to even be a tomorrow at all" - we gotta hold our nose and vote Biden.

You got a better idea? One that doesn't involve crashing a bus into the nearest combination orphanage/puppy store in the hopes that the resultant tragedy will cause the downfall of civilization and Civilization 2 will work better because we already worked out all the kinks the first time? Even though the whole reason you got rid of the first one is that you hadn't worked out all the kinks and were too lazy to finish the job?

Not voting doesn't work. You can boycott a business. Maybe. You can't boycott a government. They're already in control. They're not going to change that just because some rando decided he's guilty

And I mean, there are other ways to deal with an unruly government. France is quite famous for its ideas on the subject, but if we're taking votes on that avenue, I'm going to have say "nay." The last thing anyone needs right now is another damn Napoleon.

So maybe tomorrow - "tomorrow" here meaning the next era, ten or twenty or thirty or forty or fifty or however many fuckin' years down the line - Joe Biden will be dead and good riddance to his wrinkly old ass and we'll get the chance to vote for someone else. Among all the shitty people who have ever lived, this future someone won't be one of them probably. I'll bet my bottom dollar on it.

It could happen. In an infinite universe all things are possible, so maybe.

And whatever of the many flaws that Joe Biden possesses, Trump has all these and more.

Joe tacitly endorses violent suppression of protests? Trump had a group of protestors gassed so that he could get a photo-op in front of a church.

Joe has a tendency to get a bit handsy with women? Trump is a rapist.

Joe is kinda racist in that way that old people are kinda racist without being overtly anti-minority? Trump is a Nazi. Or at least extremely Nazi-adjacent.

Joe is drinking the Israel kool-aid? Didn't Trump move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem or some shit, thus clearly favoring Israel over Palestine? Something to that effect? I remember that something like that happened and it being kind of a big deal. Yes? No? Maybe so? Regardless, do you think that Trump wouldn't mainline the kool-aid? He'd be selling Irsael nukes inside of a week.

Joe vaguely shady? Vaguely criminally shady? Trump is a convicted felon. 34 counts, wasn't it? Plus like a hundred more indictments or some shit on top.

While it is true that not voting won't directly put Trump back in the White House, it certainly won't help keep him out of it.

So my advice to you, my children, is this: Vote Biden. Don't do it because you want Biden to be president. Do it because you don't want Trump to be president.

Don't vote for the betterment of mankind. Or the United States. Or your individual state. Don't even vote because the cool kids are voting. Don't vote because you particularly give two soggy shits about the future.

Vote out of spite. Do it to spite Trump. Do it out of the pettiness of not wanting Trump to be president. Not for any of his policies, but just because his face is stupid.

Little known fact: the very first listed dictionary definition for "stupid" is literally "Trump's face". Don't check. It's in there. Trust me.

Vote against Trump because New York isn't a nice town, despite the fact that they named it twice on the strength of its alleged niceness. Sorry, New Yorkers. I don't make the rules.

Vote for Biden because you just really hate people from Queens, New York, New York. Sorry, Queens residents. I don't make the rules.

Vote against Trump because you hate orange people. Yes, even that orange Monstar from Space Jam.

Vote for Biden because you thought Home Alone 2 was a terrible movie.

Vote against Trump because he named his son after himself.

Vote for Biden because the only creature in this or any universe that deserves to be named Donald is Donald Duck. And maybe Donald Glover. Beyond that, we can play it by ear.

Vote against Trump out of sheer, unrelenting, seething hatred for people whose middle names are John.

Vote for Biden because Trump appeared on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air that one time and said that he likes to keep a low profile.

There are many many many many many good reasons to not vote for Joe Biden. Do it anyway.

Gather together all of the good reasons that you possess and throw them out the window, along with any clocks you have on hand. And maybe a horse. And some butter. And a dragon if you have any.

Vote for Biden anyway. Not because he deserves it. But because Trump deserves it even less than Biden does.

If you vote I will give you one compliment of your choice. Are you waiting for someone to notice how great your new haircut makes you look?

Maybe you've been hitting the gym a lot more lately, and want someone to appreciate all the muscle you've packed on.

Maybe you finally nailed YYZ on the drums and want props.

Now's your chance. All you need to do is get out there and vote for Biden this November. Or whenever election day is. Pretty sure it's in November. Like, the 7th or some shit. Idunno. Look it up yourself.

And once you do that, you may return here for your compliment.

Unless that counts as election interference. If it does then I won't give you a compliment. You will have to settle for being one of my wonderful followers. And if you're not, maybe you should be. Because I compliment my followers all the time. Even the bots. I am down with the 101001, my robotic followers. Consider it a loophole. But I don't think it counts as election interference, so we're probably in the clear either way.

P.S. If you disagree with me for any reason, please refrain from interacting with this post, because I do find dissent to be terribly irritating. Please and thank you. :)

P.P.S. I will, however, welcome abject praise. If you want to give it. Your choice.

P.P.P.S. This is a post-script.

[queersatanic]

Ok, regarding voting/not voting in the US presidential election because neither candidate is a good option: What other choice is there?

I want to understand because I've seen so many people say that voting for the lesser of two evils is pointless and that I must not actually care about marginalized/oppressed people if I choose to do so, but voting in the presidential election is one of the vanishingly few scraps of influence I feel we have in this country.

Does it amount to much? No. Am I happy about it? No. Are we actually living in a democracy? Not even a little bit. Am I under the impression that Kamala Harris would solve every problem ever had around the world? No, absolutely not. The way I see it, voting for Kamala definitely isn't solving problems. It's just preventing Trump from arriving on the scene to create more problems for us because the last thing any of us need on top of the colossal shit-storm we're all currently dealing with is more bullshit, and of the two viable options that we've been given, Kamala is the one that would give us less of that type of bullshit. Again, I'm not happy about it. I'm fully aware that this is a band-aid solution at best, but this is the most influential thing I can do as a US citizen. There is nothing else I could possibly do as a single individual to meaningfully sway who's in power here.

I'm lucky enough to live in a state that allows us to mail our ballots. Voting only takes me like, five minutes, and it seems worth doing if it prevents us from having Trump back in office, even if Kamala is only better by a miniscule fraction of an amount.

So, if voting is truly pointless, if there's truly zero difference between Kamala and Trump, what should we do instead? I really can't imagine an alternative that would result in swift, positive changes for anyone. (Again, not that voting would create swift, positive change either, but it at least seems like it would give us a better chance at positive change eventually.) Anarchy and protesting and raging against the machine are all well and good, but those are also things that will endanger and cause the deaths of vulnerable people, just as much as voting. Not that they aren't also worth doing, because they are, but it seems like it would be just as lengthy of a process and as impactful as it would be to vote in the election. And it's entirely possible to do those things on top of voting in an election. So I want to know what it is that I should be doing instead. Please help me understand. This is a genuine question, I'm not looking to argue, I want to know what other avenues there are and what I'm not seeing about the situation.

So, here is the simplest way to understand this: replace everything you are saying and thinking about "voting" with "signing a petition". It only takes a few minutes, it amounts to more than nothing, etc., etc.

Do you think that signing a petition — any petition — deserves to be given so much money, attention, conversation, and so on that it forms the boundary of political imagination and is used as a synecdoche for political action?

Sign a petition or don't; vote or don't vote. But it's not the most important thing you do, it shouldn't be the thing you devote hardly any of your life to, and it should not be how you neatly reduce other people around you.

This includes voting third party for president.

This includes writing in "Free Palestine" on your ballot.

This includes not voting at all.

The anarchist critique of electoralism is usually not even that you shouldn't do it but to recognize it for what it is: a mostly meaningless gesture over who you want to run the orphan-crushing machine. You can say that it's important to you to select someone who will read a land acknowledgment while operating the machine or that it's critical with global warming to have an orphan-crushing machine operator who will commit to installing solar panels by 2035 or that it's a moral imperative not to cooperate with the machine at all and express no opinion on who the operator ought to be. But none of that has anything to do with stopping the machine from crushing orphans, and the purpose of a system is what it does.

By the way, this is not new or something that privileged keyboard warriors invented in 2013. A hundred years before that, the Japanese anarchist Ōsugi Sakae wrote a short allegory called "The Chain Factory" about people wrapped in chains, making even more chains they add to it, and the only the factory boss has the key to free all of them.

The narrator wants to free himself, but he needs the help of others, and other people have different ideas about how to go about this.

There are so many who do not realize that they are bound by chains. There are many more still who, were they to realize it, would only be grateful for their chains. There are also many who, while not grateful, have resigned themselves to working industriously to forge their chains. And there are the many who, seeing the chain-making as ridiculous, frequently find openings in the watch of the guards to rest their bodies while harbouring selfish delusions in their heads and passionately spouting nonsense about actually being free and not bound by chains at all. It is more foolish than I can bear to watch. I then suddenly cast my gaze about. I found others around me that seemed to be aligned with me. They are few, and they are scattered all around. But they all desire the key to their bellies in the clutches of the master. And like me, they seem to be aware of being unable to take back their keys alone, so they whisper frequently to their neighbours to forge alliances. “They are few; we are many. They are outnumbered. If we act together, we can take back our keys in one fell swoop.” “However, since we make pronouncements about justice and peace, we must not permit violence. We must proceed through peaceful means. There is a simple way to do this.” “Once a year, we send a representative to the master to decide every aspect of our lives. All of those chaps in that meeting are representatives of the master, and if we muster up our own true representatives now, we can be the majority in the meeting, and that's how we can pass the resolutions that we want.” “All we need to do is shut up and forge the chains. Just continue to wrap the chains around ourselves. Then, when the day comes every few years that we choose our representative, we simply vote for our own representative.” Our representative will gradually loosen our chains, and will, ultimately, take back the key to our bellies from the master. We will then find ourselves in a factory under a new organization and a new system of our own ideals, with our chains in the hands of our representative.”

So, how does this relate your question of what you should be doing? Vote or don't vote in the five minutes it takes you. Find whatever slate recommendation you trust most and follow that, then turn it in or throw it away. But live your life.

Talk to your neighbors. Talk to your coworkers. Bring food to each other. Lend tools to one another. Be available to take people to the airport and pick them up from the hospital. Talk about rent. Talk about wages. Talk about working conditions. Exchange contact info so you don't have to call down the drone strike that is cops showing up in your neighborhood over people yelling. Take people into your home when you can so they can escape domestic violence. Shun rapists so they actually face consequences even if it comes at social cost you yourself. Yes, get trained on first aid and shooting, too.

If all that sounds small, you could argue that. It's certainly more personal. But it's the stuff you do every day to build relationships with another another outside of capitalism and hierarchy, or maybe it's just the cigarette burns you put into those things, hollowing them out.

You creating trust with your coworkers so that you can perform a work stoppage together on any day is much more significant that who you vote for on some day because no matter who you vote for president, they will side with "small business owners" and "main street" over your boss shorting you on your paycheck. You talking to fellow tenants about your living conditions matters much more than your vote for city council because even in the most overwhelming Democratic city, county, and state, your electeds will side with landlords over renters. When there is a hurricane or a heat wave or a pogrom, you will know each other and be there for each other.

Vote or don't vote. When you see a petition coming to put abortion rights on your state's ballot, feel free to sign it. But you'd better have other plans when the courts throw it out. You'd better have plans for when political coalitions who don't recognize you as legitimate regardless of what you and people like you do, because that antagonist coalition will ignore the courts and do what they want anyway.

Anti-electoralism is not about voting. It is about opposing the magical thinking that voting is efficacious or will save us from fascism. The special counsel Robert Muller will not save us from fascism, or the courts, or the media, or the Democrats, or the police. There is no "someone else will solve this for us" that you can rely on, so you should engage in a sort of realistic doomsday prepping that isn't just about bugging out and running off but about creating networks of mutual reliance that build up and exercise the muscles now you will need even more in the future.

[skippyv20]

Skip, Julie here. The research done by amazing sleuths on Tumblr with many of those investigative people on Skippy, knew about this alleged con very early on. We have discussed it for many years but, it has taken until now for the rest of the world to even consider the last few years the Harry and wife show may possibly have been an elaborate con.

If this has been a giant con then using that as a yard stick of how millions of people have been fooled, what other major con jobs have the people of the world fallen for since 2016. Scary thought people but go over what has been happening in the world in this period. How has the world become so fractured when we were making some genuine positive strides ahead with religion, gender, race, colour living standards and living in relative peace. What has happened in less than 10 years and why.

As we know BRF are run and managed with an iron fist by the Monarch. The Monarch has the final say on anything affecting the entire Royal family. Royals are not free to gossip or divulge information without the permission of the Monarch (especially those close to the Monarch although many would not know any more than we outsiders looking in do)

As much as I adored Queen Elizabeth she was responsible for stopping this rubbish we have all been viewing. I suspect she hoped PH would come to his senses but when he didn’t she had let any deception and misconceptions run for too long. Then PP died and HM was lost ( we can’t blame her because she was bereft losing her Rock) so she really wasn’t in any position to do anything as her strength and will had been sucked out of her dealing with the barbs that kept coming from a very favourite close family member

It was left to the next Monarch to deal with.

There can be no excuse whether Pope, Monarch, President, Prime Minister, Archbishop ever taking the public for fools. If this is a con as alleged It does make you think what else did QE11 her Prime Minister, Archbishop of Canterbury and now KC cover up about goings on that affect the public. Even thinking about that and QE11 being complicit makes me very sad.

No other family member would be allowed to speak out about any of this. So we really can’t blame any of them for not speaking out personally or publicly. They really don’t have an option to talk outside the organisation.

This photoshop debacle ( no Catherine did nothing wrong) appears to have cracked ( not burst it yet) the bubble and that is a good thing for BRF members ( not King Charles though). Prince William will not have to deal with this matter when he becomes King if Charles deals with it during his reign. Sooner rather than later.

Personally I think the only way out of this whole mess now is for PH to come clean and announce what he and his wife have been up to and why. Gosh he could even do a Netflix show on it and make a lot of money or follow up with a book about it. He might actually salvage some of his reputation.

Thank you Julie!  Yes, we did ll the research years back, and it went nowhere, just rumblings now and then.  We now have a rare opportunity to keep pushing this stuff out, and hope that some brave journalist will run with it.  I think much has gone on in the background….and is still going on.  Blackmail? There are secrets the BRF don’t want out, and seeing this kabuki theatre we have witnessed….its not a stretch to think that…❤️

[originalleftist]

I did not watch the Presidential debate tonight because, as I previously stated, I believe Trump should not be eligible to run, should not be given a platform to spread lies and hate and incitement of violence, and should not be in the same room with the President of the United States because he is an insurrectionist terrorist. However, I have seen and heard some responses to the debate, which I would like to address.

So, the general consensus seems to be that Biden did badly, and now folks are once more trotting out all the "he's too old" and "he's senile" and "we should replace him with someone, but we definitely won't say the obvious name of Kamala Harris".

So, let's address this, yet again.

Let us ignore, for the moment, Biden's excellent, energetic, quick-witted, and wide-praised performance at the State of the Union address just a few months ago.

Let us also ignore that it is far too late, practically-speaking, to replace him as the nominee, that the primaries are nearly over, that we are running up on state deadlines to get candidates on the November ballot, and that a floor fight over the nomination at the convention would be an unmitigated disaster that would make the entire Democratic Party appear unfit to govern, and deeply divide the party just a few months before the general election.

Let us also ignore the fact that none of us have performed an in-depth examination of Biden's physical or mental state, that the vast majority of us are not qualified to do so, and presume that lay people can accurately deduce a man's mental and physical health from observing one debate performance. Let us assume that Biden is both physically frail, and mentally deteriorating.

And my response is:

SO FUCKING WHAT?

Seriously, SO WHAT?

Suppose Biden is infirm. Is some lapses of memory, or difficulty speaking (from a man who has had a life-long stutter) a greater infirmity that Trump's lifetime of narcissism, psychopathy, and pathological lying?

Suppose at some Biden finds himself struggling to keep up with the job? Is that a greater concern than a man who we KNOW was NEVER fit to do it? A man who's idea of dealing with a hurricane was to suggest nuking it, and who proposed dealing with an airborne pandemic by telling people not to wear masks, but to instead consume bleach? Would you rather have Joe Biden in that position, who will be surrounded by the host of highly competent professionals with decades of experience who he has appointed to assist him? Or Donald Trump, who will be surrounded by the likes of Steve Bannon, Steven Miller, Roger Stone, and Michael Flynn, a who's who of convicted felons, seditionists, white supremacists, and foreign agents?

Suppose the worst happens, and Biden has to step down or, God forbid, dies in office. Biden will be replaced by the eminently qualified Kamala Harris. Who would replace Trump? We don't know yet, but we can be sure that it will be someone willing to take a job who's last occupant Trump tried to have lynched for not following his orders.

Of course, as I alluded to above, that's really what a lot of people are getting at when they talk about Biden's age: the idea that a vote for Biden is actually a vote for Kamala Harris. And either they do not want a Black woman as President, or they are worried that voters will not accept her.

But you know, it's always a possibility that the Vice President will have to take over. It's happened 8 times in American history, just shy of 20% of all Presidencies. It could happen with Trump too. And it was a possibility four years ago, when voters decided that Kamala Harris was an acceptable Vice President. Hell, Kamala Harris DID officially assume Presidential powers for 85 minutes back in 2021, while Biden was anesthetized for a minor medical procedure. And, surprise, the world didn't end.

We all made this choice already in 2020. So don't try to scare me with the possibility of a Harris presidency now. And if you ARE that offput by the possibility that a highly competent, experienced centre-left Black woman might succeed Joe Biden... then maybe Trump is the candidate for you.

[liskantope]

Do you think that a more successful version of 1/6/2021 (either via more violence or successfully pressuring the Vice President not to certify votes) would not be a threat to democracy? To me that seems like the most likely way for Trump's general antagonism to liberal democracy to manifest itself.

A fair question.

So first of all, I would say January 6th was the biggest embarrassment to MAGA people, and to Republicans in general, of the last seven years or so. You can see this just by listening to the political discourse surrounding Trump. Democrats love to bring it up as much as possible, while Republicans find every possible way to be on the defensive ("Yeah, it was bad, but its badness is exaggerated -- it doesn't technically fit the definition of coup or even insurrection -- nobody brought guns or was actually killing people -- you just want to make everything about January 6th -- what about the BLM riots around the country the previous summer?"). I once was confronting a previously staunchly liberal friend who started voting Republican and seeming to abandon most of her left-wing stances on a variety of issues following being pissed off at how Democrats in California dealt with school closures during the pandemic, and asking her whether her new convictions really outweighed the horrors of another Trump term; when I brought up January 6th, the best response she had was, "That was terrible and the truth is I think most Republicans feel terrible about January 6th."

My point being that January 6th, 2021 was a disaster for MAGAism and the Republican party in general (if Harris winds up winning narrowly in November, I'm going to say that if January 6th hadn't happened, she would have lost, and that is truly a silver lining), and most Republicans know it. Unfortunately, Trump himself and his most impassioned cult followers are among the only ones not wise enough to know it. So yes, I expect a worse version of January 6th could occur, which would be an even bigger disaster for the Republican party and likely spell the death of MAGAism altogether (as opposed to, say, turning us into a one-party state under Trump and the MAGAists) but be a very, very horrible event in and of itself. I guess my point is, what effects would this have beyond the immediate? I guess the worst-case scenario -- which is admittedly historically bad for our country -- would be that that the VP is willing not to certify votes this time, that a constitutional crisis is triggered which has to be decided by various courts now stacked explicitly in Trump's favor, and a Trumpist president (which could only be Trump himself if he managed to ram through an end to term limits and if his health is holding up at 82) and/or members of Congress wrongly get elected.

This would be a highly, highly undemocratic event in the history of our country, but not much more undemocratic than, say, Bush's election in 2000 was; meanwhile, I predict that Trump himself will be not much longer for this world, that a very solid majority of Americans will be awake to the dangers of MAGA and fight against it like nothing we've seen before, that an actual focused policy agenda would fail to come to fruition, and that the political backlash would be decisive (the basic form of our government and mechanisms for elections would still be in place, and could those in power really fix the results if they were losing by a true landslide rather than marginally? I tend to think not.)

Would this worst-case scenario be an absolutely appalling sequence of events? Yes, and plenty of reason to fear Trump's return to power (even though it still relies on a lot of "if"s). Would it unravel the structure of our government to turn it into something more like a dictatorship, or in other words, "destroy democracy"? It's hard for me to concretely imagine a way that it would.

I suppose I'd prefer that phrases like "insult to democracy", "degrade/undermine democracy", and "antidemocratic" be used over phrases like "destroy democracy" and "make himself a dictator". But, I don't know, if the latter are doing a better job of turning swing voters against Trump than they are at giving Trump supporters more ammunition for diagnosing half the country has having Trump Derangement Syndrome, then I guess I'm in favor of that rhetoric for the short term of the next three months.

[yuinterrobangapologist]

I feel like I need to make this it's own post, so here, to reiterate.

Politics is a formal environment.

If Kamala Harris just went out and said "Israel is a settler colony and should be abolished," then Israel would fucking paint Gaza fucking red, and start working with even the most fringe and volatile foreign and domestic entities to stir problems here. America funded terrorism in the Levant, why do you think Israel couldn't do that here?

I know we all fucking hate it. But the Vice President can't always can't call a genocide a genocide the same we she's not allowed to say the f-bomb.

We truly have no idea what Kamala's actual personal goals towards Palestine are. She is calling for a ceasefire and two state solution, and maybe that is what she wants, but if she did want more, she couldn't say it, she'd still have to say this instead.

And before you say "Trump spoke freely!" Trump's enemies were American minorities, celebrities and other politicians below him in tangible social power, and then, stable nations and limited nations. Insulting China day in and day out does cause problems, but China isn't a rogue state. Insulting North Korea is different than insulting Israel, because North Korea has far fewer corporate and American allies.

Our enemies are white supremacists and domestic terrorists, who've been consistently committing mass shootings and other miscellaneous hate crimes, the police, who you know...are an unchecked martial law (which is something the President couldn't fix quickly), a Supreme Court with no checks whatsoever, and Israel, which is currently committing genocide, and has the power to escalate the violence even further for any reason they want.

Progressive Politicians don't have the privilege of being allowed to be brash, confrontational, or assertive that Conservative Politicians have.

If you actually ever want to be politically involved, involved in changing the real world for the better, the first pill you have to goddamn swallow is that You have to be polite to the enemy. Not you specifically as an individual. But the politicians who make laws and decide our fate who we need to ally with.

Again, this isn't claiming Kamala is more progressive than what we know, again, that's essentially unknowable. But she's as progressive as is pragmatically possible in the current situation.

Politics is an abusive household. You can fantasize about beating the shit out of your abuser and taking you and your siblings to safety. That's. Not. Real. You have to appease the abuser at times to minimize the damage so you can your siblings can fucking survive. The difference is there is no C.P.S. There is no one to save us, we have to survive ourselves, and that means we have to talk to our abuser as if everything's okay or they'll fucking beat us to death.

I know how tempting it is to say this is a "lesser of two evils" situation, and if that's what you need to see in order to vote Blue, then fucking do it. But if you honestly think we could have a candidate just say what we're all screaming on social media to like an audience of a small state county, to the entire fucking planet, then you seriously would genuinely benefit from watching a single live action U.S. tv show to understand that if you act like a dick in front of the wrong people, they will retaliate disproportionately.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Igor Bobic and Liz Skalka at HuffPost:

Former President Donald Trump spoke for over an hour in a rambling press conference on Thursday, making dozens of false and outrageous claims in an effort to wrest the spotlight away from Vice President Kamala Harris’ surging 2024 presidential campaign. Addressing reporters at his ritzy Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, the GOP presidential nominee insisted his campaign was the one drawing large, enthusiastic crowds on the campaign trail — even though Harris’ rallies attracted tens of thousands this week — and claimed that the vice president wasn’t “smart enough” to take questions from the media as he was doing. “She’s not smart enough to do a news conference,” Trump said.

Trump also claimed he was willing to do three debates with Harris: Sept. 4 with Fox News, Sept. 10 with ABC News, and Sept. 25 with NBC News (the announcement required a clarification from Trump’s campaign regarding the host networks). Both campaigns had agreed to the Sept. 10 debate when President Joe Biden was still the presumptive nominee, but Trump canceled when Harris replaced Biden. Harris’ campaign hasn’t said whether it’s agreed to all three dates.

Harris, meanwhile, hasn’t done a sit-down with reporters since Biden exited the race and endorsed her for the nomination. But she’s marginally improved on Biden’s position in the polls, and Democrats, at least, appear enthused to have a candidate besides the president. “The honeymoon period is gonna end,” Trump said of Harris’ standing in the race. “She’s got a little period, the convention is coming up [...] Everything she’s touched has turned bad.” It was the first time Trump took questions from reporters since Harris announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday. Trump called both Harris and Walz too liberal and dangerous to run the country.

“She picked a radical left man,” Trump said. “He’s got things done that he’s … he has positions that are just not, it’s not even possible to believe that they exist. He’s going for things that nobody’s ever even heard of, heavy into the transgender world, heavy into lots of different worlds having to do with safety. He doesn’t want to have borders. He doesn’t want to have walls. He doesn’t want to have any form of safety for our country.” Trump said he wouldn’t change anything about his campaign or attacks now that he’s running against Harris. “I haven’t recalibrated strategy at all. It’s the same policies — open borders and crime. I think she’s worse than Biden,” he said.

During his press conference, which ran just short of 90 minutes, Trump compared the crowd size at the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, to the audience for Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech on the National Mall, where about 260,000 people showed up. “Nobody’s spoken to crowds bigger than me,” he said. “If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate, same everything, same number of people, if not, we had more. And they said he had a million people, but I had 25,000 people.” Trump also falsely claimed that “nobody died” during the attack on the Capitol by hundreds of his supporters seeking to overturn the 2020 election he had lost. At least seven people died in connection to the riot, including several Trump supporters.

[...] Trump gave a head-scratcher of an answer to a question about whether he believed the Federal Drug Administration should restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone, which survived a right-wing attack before the Supreme Court earlier this year. Some conservatives want the FDA to regulate the pill out of circulation in a future GOP presidential administration. “You could do things that would supplement. Absolutely,” Trump said. “And those things are pretty open and humane.” He added: “But you have to have a vote. The people are going to decide.” Harris’ campaign responded to Trump’s press conference with sarcasm, calling it “very good” and “very normal.” “He hasn’t campaigned all week. He isn’t going to a single swing state this week. But he sure is mad Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are getting big crowds across the battlegrounds,” the campaign said in a press release. “The facts were hard to track and harder to find in Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago meltdown this afternoon.”

DonOld Trump’s chaotic and unhinged presser at Mar-A-Lago yesterday was the same old bullcrap of greatest hits mixed with new lies and delusions, such as falsely stating that he had more crowds than Martin Luther King Jr., baselessly stated that “no one died” on Janauary 6th, 2021, and hinted that he could regulate mifepristone out of existence.

4 more years of DonOld would be embarrassing.

[mariacallous]

Would you like to do your bit to curb population decline in the west? Fancy a home full of babies with very high IQs and extremely blond hair? Well, let me introduce you to the Donald J Trump Insemination Institute. On a sprawling ranch in New Mexico, women can be impregnated, free of charge, with Trump’s sperm, ensuring that future generations, on Earth and Mars, are blessed with a steady supply of very stable geniuses.

Sorry if I turned your stomach there, but I’m afraid I’m only half-joking. It was actually Jeffrey Epstein – who used to party with Trump – who was besotted with the idea of a ranch where 20 women at a time would be impregnated, in order to seed the human race with his DNA. Elon Musk, who is obsessed with babies and Trump, may harbour similar fantasies. Earlier this year the New York Times reported that Musk has “volunteered his sperm” to help seed a colony on Mars. (Musk has denied these claims.)

While Trump hasn’t announced plans for a baby ranch of his own yet, he is suddenly a big fan of artificial insemination. Last week the former president announced that he would support free in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatments if elected again. “We wanna produce babies in this country, right?” Trump said during a town hall campaign event in Wisconsin. He didn’t provide many details about how this would work other than saying that either the government or insurance companies would pay for everything.

Another fuzzy detail? How government-sponsored IVF would coexist with the Republican party’s 2024 platform, which supports states’ rights to pass foetal personhood laws. It is impossible to support widespread access to IVF while also supporting the idea of foetal personhood, which holds that an embryo is a person and destroying one is homicide. I am fairly sure that Trump has no idea how IVF actually works, so here is a little explainer: you typically fertilise multiple eggs because you have no idea how many of them will develop into viable embryos. You could fertilise 20 eggs and end up with no viable embryos or end up with 20. The only way to control how many embryos you create is to harvest a single egg at a time, which is hugely expensive, inefficient and emotionally exhausting. In short: Trump seems to be running on a platform where IVF would be free but also effectively illegal.

While it may be half-baked, Trump’s free IVF policy makes it clear that he is desperate to woo female voters. Women have registered and voted at higher rates than men in every US presidential election since 1980 and now – for obvious reasons – they are leaning heavily towards Kamala Harris. I’m not sure a last-minute IVF policy is going to cancel out the fact that abortion rights are a key issue in this election and Trump has boasted about being the guy who overturned Roe v Wade. Nor will it cancel out the fact that Trump is a legally defined sexual predator who can’t stop himself from saying every misogynistic thought that creeps into his little head. During a recent rally in Pennsylvania, for example, Trump praised his male supporters for “allowing” their wives to attend his campaign rallies without them.

While Trump is clearly trying to appeal to women with his IVF policy, you also have to wonder whether his buddy Musk – one of the most influential voices in the US’s growing pro-natalist movement – has a hand in this. If the billionaire did get a position in a Trump administration (a possibility that has been repeatedly floated) one imagines Musk would encourage the US to emulate Hungary’s pro-natalist policies, which stem from a racist desire to encourage births and repopulate the country with the “right” (AKA white) kind of children. “We want Hungarian children,” Viktor Orbán said in 2019. “Migration for us is surrender.”

Free IVF may sound like a progressive policy on the surface but, for many on the right, it is linked to a belief that women are nothing more than baby-making machines designed to pass on the legacy of men. A future Donald J Trump Insemination Institute may not be as far-fetched as it sounds.

[outsidereveries]

as my prediction about biden stepping out of the elections got accurate, accept this post as update that's related on the usa elections on 5th november 2024.

since a few important events happened, i'll try to ask as objectively as possible.

disclaimer 2: my actual political opinions and views doesn't matter in my readings. i'm as neutral as possible, as i have to be. if i happen to be biased according to you, then the energies that i sensed are leaning towards the side that you might see in my posts. in this case, i am really trying to be as objective as possible as sometimes i absorb the current energies in extreme ways.

[democratic party]

who's the candidate for president (energy-wise): this person might not want to do it at first, to be honest. so far i see they're known person, somehow. as of now they might be very optimistic and hopeful, however they doubt themselves. they don't think they can do it.

3 of cups, the star, ace of swords • 7 of wands

since there were rumors of who the candidate can be, and it seems to be a woman, will that be...

kamala harris, like i sensed before: currently it could be her, and i can see her trying to do her best. however, she might not win in the end as there can be someone who'll be better. still, she's more prepared than before. it's just not 100% certain whether she'll be the candidate or not.

the hierophant, 8 of swords rx, strength • 6 of swords

hillary clinton (even though she already supports kamala): as she was an one on these in 2016, she seems to think otherwise. clinton believes for real that harris should continue what biden's 2024 campaign had to be in one way or another. roughly, i'd say no. she's a watcher in all of this situation.

page of cups, 6 of cups, 7 of swords rx • the high priestess

michelle obama: as i see her husband's influence through her, she seems to be very stubborn to not do it. michelle really believes that there have to be someone who suits it better than her. despite all the positive cards that i'm seeing, in the end she might be persuaded by her husband to be the democratic candidate.

ace of cups, 2 of cups, the star, 4 of pentacles • 3 of pentacles

if i have to do mtl for the future candidate from dp, it'll be kamala/michelle and then hillary. as of now it's 50:50 between harris and obama.

future reactions of the new democratic candidate: they seem to be very positive from the party's thoughts. i can see they'll gain even more money.. change in plans, i am leaning towards mrs. obama

5 of pentacles rx, ace of wands, the magician • the sun

future vp (vice-president) candidate from democratic party: so far the energy is still unknown to me, therefore this isn't that known person. they might be married though. i am leaning towards a man... an older man.

the high priestess, 4 of pentacles rx, 9 of swords rx • queen of wands

[republican party]

will the new duo from the democratic party change how trump will do in the elections: when it comes to trump's relevance, it might actually go even higher. the only change i can see is inside of the supporters of trump and them being more vulnerable in one way or another, more protective and might say way more things than it might be expected. there's very similar energy to some of the european far-right parties' supporters such as afd, rn, vazrazhdane and others that i don't know their names, supporters and even policies in the trump supporters. there can be change behind the scenes too in the tactics surrounding trump and his team.

death, 6 of swords rx, 3 of pentacles, 9 of wands, 3 of cups • ace of swords

is the republican candidate for president certain: yep, seems like it

the empress, queen of swords, the sun • king of cups

is the republican candidate for vp stable: as of now, yes. during trump's campaign, vance should be cautious of his intentions and actions as he's more prone to fuck himself up.

7 of cups, 10 of cups, 9 of pentacles rx • 2 of swords rx

future debates: when it comes to trump, he will act more delicate, more careful to the future candidate from the democratic party. whether if it's kamala or michelle, his tactics won't be exactly the same. from what i see, he might act similar to how he acted with hillary clinton back in 2015/2016, at first he'll be way more cautious but with the time he'll act like usual.

from the other side i don't feel any suprises, i except for them to try to make the usa citizens remember that scandal trump had with that 🍿⭐️ but .. won't work? and eventually other similar stuff to try to lower trump's revelance

4 of swords, 7 of swords rx, 8 of pentacles • the emperor

election day: although the day is cruicial, i can see the turnout being extremely low, around 50 to 55 percent currently. there might be extremely low amount of people who'll vote early in-person or even on the election day. i see many people voting absentee or by mail. for the trump supporters, this might save actually the whole world to them as that's extremely influental on them.

judgement, 8 of cups, the devil rx, 6 of wands, page of pentacles • the world

who might win: as of now it's more likely trump. strength is the biggest key to me who because of the actions.

4 of pentacles rx, the hierophant, strength • 3 of cups

[misfitwashere]

... keep the Democratic coalition together. If it’s the latter Biden should endorse her right away along with every other establishment Democrat and they should all campaign to the convention as if she is the presumptive nominee. (She was presumptively on the ticket that just won the primaries after all and the one that won the election in 2020.) That’s just me. Either stick it out or go with Harris right now as I’ve explained in earlier posts and will explain further in my column tomorrow morning.

Anyway, here’s a different view:

 Allan Lichtman, the historian who has correctly forecast the results of nine out of the 10 most recent presidential elections argued on Saturday that replacing President Joe Biden could cost Democrats the 2024 election.   Lichtman, a professor at American University, rejected the growing chorus of political pundits and Democratic activists who have called on Biden, 81, to bow out of the presidential race after his disastrous debate performance last week against former President Donald Trump. The pivotal moment brought fresh questions about Biden’s age and ability to serve a second term. “It’s a huge mistake. They’re not doctors. They don’t know whether Biden is physically capable of carrying out a second term or not,” Lichtman said during an interview with CNN of calls to replace Biden. “This is all foolhardy nonsense.”  Lichtman has correctly predicted the outcome of almost every election over the last half century, except for the race in 2000, using a series of 13 historical factors or “keys.”   The system includes four factors based on politics, seven on performance, and two on candidate personality. Lichtman said the incumbent party would need to lose six of those actors, or “keys,” to lose the White House.  The keys range from whether a candidate is an incumbent president to the state of the economy and the presence of third-party hopefuls. Debate performance, however, is not one of the factors that determines the outcome of an election, he argued. Lichtman pointed to historical examples, including the 1984 election in which former President Ronald Reagan swept 49 states despite poor debate performances and concerns over his age.  When pressed about whether the questions surrounding Biden’s age and mental acuity are “fundamentally different” than his metrics as president, Lichtman doubled down.   “Debate performances can be overcome,” he said. “At the first sign of adversity the spineless Democrats want to throw under the bus, their own incumbent president. My goodness.” 

It may be that history is not a very good guide to this election. I suspect we are in a new political era that runs by a lot of different rules. And the media is out for blood saying they are personally hurt and angry that the White House didn’t share with them the alleged fact that Biden is more or less a vegetable. That’s yet another very difficult barrier to victory since they seem to care more about that than they care about the fact that Donald Trump wants to put them in camps if they don’t do exactly what he wants.

But Lichtman’s been right before and maybe he’s right now. He says that Biden still checks enough boxes for re-election. I thought you should know.

[vodkaskys]

FANFIC REC: university au

falling, catching ( the one where Harry likes poems, soft sweaters, old novels, and that one boy in his Romantic Poetry course that keeps falling asleep during lectures.) (23k)

I see the love light in your eyes ( an AU where Louis and Harry are very much in love. Featuring football & late night rendezvous.) (11k)

Baby, What a Big Surprise (the one where shy, quiet Harry has no idea he's a carrier, and a one night stand with the most popular boy in school shows him just how wrong he was.Featuring Lottie as Harry's best friend, Niall as her boyfriend, and, of course, Louis as the popular boy with a soft spot for his little sister's quirky friend.) (33K)

I made a map of your stars (Harry is the shy boy in the back of the class that no one really notices. Louis is the loud, outgoing football player that everybody likes.) (5K)

all those eyes are all it takes (Five times Louis makes a scene to catch the attention of shy Harry Styles, and one time that he tries a different approach.) (7K)

Tell me I'm a screwed up mess (Harry thinks about Louis now, his best friend and boyfriend. He pictures his piercing blue eyes that always calm Harry down, he thinks about the way his eyes crinkle up at the corners when he's smiling, he imagines Louis strong arms are holding him now, keeping him safe and grounded. A soft smile appears on Harry's face for a split second as he thinks about how lucky he got with Louis, and no, he doesn't want to die. His love for Louis is too strong to do that.) (11K)

Kiss me (the you think youre a good kisser huh? HUH? thEn prove it!! au) (1K)

every december (your star lights the sky) (Louis needs a date for the Christmas dance and Harry is the wingman that has feelings for him) (17K)

How to bake the perfect Louis Tomlinson  (A not so regular highschool!au where Gemma, Zayn and Louis are the cool kids and Harry doesn’t understand why are they asking for his help, but he will help them anyway because all he needs is Louis) (8K)

The Princes And The Pee (Harry is going to his first ever prom with his older boyfriend Louis. He's shy and scared, a little bit too innocent, and dying for a wee. What could possibly go wrong?) (3K)

You Make Me Want To Sin (the very bregruding college AU where Louis is a bad ass frat boy and Harry is a shy and conservative catholic boy who wants to know whether Louis can show him what else he can do on his knees besides pray.) (28K)

Really, Really (High school AU where Louis is a heartthrob and a good football player in high school. Liam and Zayn are very, very bad friends. Niall wants to be the president of a fan club. And Harry- well, Harry just really, really likes Louis.) (7K)

Let Me Hold You (Harry and Louis have been best friends for a long time but they both want more but are to shy to ask the other out. When the school dance comes Louis sees this as an opportunity to ask his boy out.) (3K)

I met someone in a sea of people and that's just how I'll leave it  (In which Harry likes obscure words more than he likes most people and Louis really wonders why the kid with curly hair and big sweaters never speaks when he looks like he knows so much.) (8K)

Better than Words (we can make it, you know) (Harry is an exchange student and Louis, silly boy that he is, thinks that he can't speak english and tries to explain things to him with a lot of hand gestures and dances. Harry keeps going with the misunderstanding because he thinks Louis is cute and just wants him to keep talking.) (15K)

You Have Bewitched Me, Body and Soul, and I Love, I Love, I Love You (Harry is quiet. Louis isn’t. Louis hates reading. Harry loves words. They find a way.) (9K)

Without darkness we can't see the stars (Harry’s life had never been easy. With his mum being a struggling alcoholic and his dad completely abandoning them, him and his mum were forced to pack up their things and move from Cheshire to Doncaster without even being able to say their goodbyes. Harry is expecting the worst. Then he meets his neighbor. The beautiful, popular, star football player, Louis Tomlinson. Harry absolutely hates Louis smug smirk and happily married parents. He hates his girlfriend even more. As if Harry didn't have enough trouble dealing with his mum, now he had to try and avoid his alluring neighbor. Sadly for Harry though, his room lines up perfectly with the window of non other than Louis Tomlinson himself.) (17K)

To Be Loved and To Be In Love  (First Dates AU. Louis Tomlinson is a thirty-year-old divorcee whose friends have signed him up for the Channel 4 show First Dates. Harry Styles is a twenty-eight-year-old lawyer who has never been in a long-term relationship. They are filmed going on their first date.) (34K)

[anthonybialy]

Booting the Soft Reboot

Life feels like a clip show.  Tired scenes are unnervingly familiar.  An election about not learning is perfect for a world where everyone forgot what was for breakfast.  Modern humans use the ability to access all information ever with a few thumb strokes to know none of it.  Why use up brain storage when the tablet can serve as your memory?

Take the final presidential options, which feature one person who already tried this and another who’s basically doing so right now.  The last commander-in-chief competes with the de facto incumbent for votes from an electorate that’s decided to pretend neither has previously been near power.

The only thing worse than attempting all these atrocious ideas is not recalling said atrociousness.  Both sides are neglecting to accept that they’ve already gotten their miserable ways.  It wasn’t too long ago, either.  In fact, one of them is having a special day right now where she gets every policy she wants.  It’s understandable to not want to run on established records when you’re either of the two particular entities in question.

Parties that see each other as the bad side in World War II share a bipartisan dedication to forgetting what’s happening this moment.  If you’re going to spend funds you don’t have, you may as well forget you went shopping.  Like coming together to squander more pilfered funds, some agreement should not spur sunny feelings about the possibility of cooperation.

Remembering what happened serves as a reminder that right now isn’t the only moment that’s ever existed.  Thinking there’s nothing else explains the present political attitude toward spending.  Debt junkie John Maynard Keynes noted that in the long run we’re all dead, and there’s no better summary of his wretchedly myopic thievery than not giving a rat’s rump about the price paid tomorrow.

I know it was half an hour ago, but let’s all try to focus on experiences we may want to retry or avoid.  There’s good news if you want to do something worthwhile again and helpful if you’re trying to avoid repeating something regrettable.  By contrast, the quite fresh perspective is not super at all if we’re attempting to recreate the dumb thing we tried five minutes ago.  Steering into a river after driving into a creek demonstrates a willingness to not be defined by what’s already occurred.

Whoever’s manning the executive branch right now should feel ashamed.  We’re giving Kamala’s notions a chance right now, and nothing upsets her more than noticing.  Harris is running to fix everything that whoever’s president busted.  

Democratic reflexes to claim everything needs to be changed and will be wonderful is particularly dubious considering the little matter of them presently running anything.  The person running things says things are being run terribly.

Thinking life is awful under this particular administration is the only thing the president’s top underling believes.  No journalist has gotten Harris to admit anything she believes; why would getting her to concede she’s presently vice president be any different?

Seeing just how miserable joy can be is a seeming impossibility on par with making money worthless.  Democrats create miracles in their way.  Trying to remove fear and doubt from the world via fiat only creates more woe.  But let’s skip paying bills once more to see if it makes us wealthy.

This would be an excellent time to recall what was tried the term before.  It may shock you to learn Donald Trump was already president.  The term was surreal enough that it seemed like a dream.  But like drunk Andy calling Angela from Winnipeg, that really happened.  You walk around all day thinking your mind imagined something you actually endured.

Cults are all about claims.  It’s too bad fact-checkers have been discredited as partisans who use the imprimatur of a self-appointed job title to pretend their bias constitutes reality, as workers could make an easy living doing the actual task.  It’d be easy work to check claims of announcing just when the world will end, which both sides are coincidentally claiming would happen around their respective potential losses.  Doom approaches either way.

We already know what works even if we’re not trying it right now.  Government sucks at spending wisely just like it does running anything.  I realize everyone forgot what short-term memory is, but even today’s screen brains should be able to retain how costly free stuff is.

I don’t judge how anyone worships unless they pray in a polling place.  Politicians can’t keep you from worshiping who you’d like, including politicians.  But, as with free speech, others are free to mock puzzling choices.  Those who make awful choices loathe self-regulation.

Faith based on who seduces you into handing over your vote may not lead to salvation.  We know with certainty which quasi-deities are certain to not deliver on promises.  They will impose suffering if devotees think withstanding hardship enables salvation.  Speaking of candidates as saviors could only be sadder if it were already tried.  I just looked up a list of recent presidents and have unfortunate news.

[arpov-blog-blog]

..."he (Trump) does not seem to recognise the moral significance of bodies and minds in pain. And, second, he is not aware of the importance, social and moral, of pretending he does recognise another’s pain even if he doesn’t. Then there is the language itself. It suddenly swerves into the incoherent. Trump says that “everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor that’s soldiers”. (He could also mean: “everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor – that’s soldiers.”) The words verge on nonsense. Either he is saying that every soldier gets the Medal of Honor, which is absurdly untrue. Or he is saying that only soldiers get the Medal of Honor, but that every soldier gets it – which is similarly absurd – but with a twist. If Biden had spoken in such a way a year ago, he would have been pushed aside all the sooner.

Trump’s extreme rhetoric is still routinely dismissed as him “just being Trump” – the usual hyperbole and bluster. Yet it is hardly mere bluster or hyperbole for Trump to claim, as he has recently, that “you can’t walk across the street to get a loaf of bread. You get shot, you get mugged, you get raped, you get whatever it may be.” Perhaps the most alarming part of that sentence is the disturbingly disconnected “whatever it may be”. And it is not merely vulgar for Trump to republish a post claiming that Kamala Harris has achieved political success thanks to dispensing oral sex. The claim is not just appalling; it is crazy to make it in public. That post appeared with several others: a photo of Harris in an orange prison jumpsuit, a photo of Barack Obama with a caption asking Trump supporters if they wanted Obama to be tried before a military tribunal, and photos of Trump with AI-created lions. Most people do not lack inhibition to this degree. But Trump’s repetition of such lunacy has made it routine. Call it the banality of madness. Trump’s assertion, made in deadly earnest in an interview last Tuesday with Dr Phil McGraw, that God had spared him from being assassinated in order to save America, and possibly the world, barely raised an eyebrow.

Incredibly, in America, where just about everything goes – Trump, for example – there is a tacit prohibition against discussing Trump’s obvious mental incapacity in public. The taboo was imposed in February 2017, just over a year after Trump’s inauguration. That was when the New York Times published a short letter, signed by “33 psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers”. Noting Trump’s “inability to tolerate views different from his own, leading to rage reactions”, and his pattern of distorting reality to suit his own “psychological state”, the letter reasoned that “[i]n a powerful leader, these attacks are likely to increase, as his personal myth of greatness appears to be confirmed”. The signatories concluded that Trump’s “speech and actions make him incapable of serving safely as president”. Trump’s continuing refusal to accept his defeat in the 2020 election makes the letter prescient.

The response to the letter was more than passing strange. Other mental health professionals rose to denounce the letter and its signatories. One was Allen Frances, the prestigious chairman of the task force that wrote the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV”, considered psychiatry’s diagnostic bible. Frances had two problems with the letter. The first was, he said, that Trump was too successful to be mentally ill – a bizarre argument that sounded like one Trump would make himself. “Mr Trump,” Frances intoned, “causes severe distress rather than experiencing it and has been richly rewarded, rather than punished, for his grandiosity, self-absorption and lack of empathy.” Therefore Trump could not possibly be mentally ill, Frances concluded, apparently unaware of erratic politicians in world history who have achieved success in the exact terms defined by their insanity. Frances added, with an apparently unintentional touch of humour, that pronouncing Trump mentally ill was an insult to the mentally ill.

Reacting to the negative backlash, the NY Times then published an article about the controversy by Richard Friedman, a psychiatrist. Friedman referred to what is known in American psychiatry as the Goldwater rule. This was the American Psychiatric Association (APA)’s official prohibition against mental health professionals making a public diagnosis of a politician’s mental health. That edict itself was a response to mental health professionals participating, in 1964, in a public survey and judging the then Republican candidate for president, Barry Goldwater, mentally unfit to be president. Siding with the APA, Friedman finished by declaring that clinically judging Trump to be mentally ill would let him “off the moral hook”. And from that point on, liberal attacks on Trump were unfailingly moral, a tactic that soon degenerated into a grossly ineffectual torrent of moral hubris, virtue-mongering and sanctimony."

[abigailspinach]

Scalzi's Whatever - I do love how he writes about politics

As for being cautious about what the right might say about them on social media — well, the Harris/Walz campaign is too busy metaphorically punching Donald Trump and his pals in the face, in press releases and on social media, to worry about any of that. Their tactic of labeling Trump, JD Vance and all their party pals as “weird” has been so rhetorically effective that the right’s ability to bluster and bully, and to make their blustering and bullying stick, has been effectively neutralized. Other people have noted that those on the US right want you to fear them, and are perfectly happy for you to hate them — but can’t abide when you ridicule them. The Harris/Walz campaign is rather masterfully ridiculing them, which gives permission for everyone else to ridicule them as well. And that’s what’s been sticking this election cycle so far.

This change has wobbled the right so hard and so fast that they haven’t managed to recover. Every counterattack they’ve made has failed. It’s hard to paint a former criminal prosecutor as a dangerous liberal, especially when your candidate is an actual felon. Trump can’t figure out a good belittling nickname for Harris. The attempt to attack Tim Walz’s military service wasn’t a swift boat, it was a leaky dingy, and the right’s pile-on to make fun of Gus Walz’s being tearfully proud of his dad backfired so spectacularly that even Ann Coulter, of all people, felt obliged to delete her shitty tweet about him.

And as for JD Vance, still warm from being in Peter Thiel’s pocket, everything he does is ridiculed because he is ridiculous; he can’t even order donuts like a normal human. The salient feature about the “couch-fucking” meme involving Vance is not that it’s true — we all know it is not — but that it nevertheless so perfectly fits what he chooses to project about himself into the world that from now to the end of days, Vance and couch fucking are inextricably intertwined, and one cannot think the name “JD Vance” without picturing a shuddering and exhausted davenport.

Moreover, as again 2016 shows us, you don’t need to win the popular vote to become president; a few thousand votes each in five or so swing states is all it takes to get into the White House. Kamala Harris could swamp the popular vote and still be leaving Washington DC on January 20. Harris could win the electoral vote and have recalcitrant state officials throw sand into the gears of the election long enough to throw it to the House of Representatives. The latter is unlikely, but so was a sitting president trying to overthrow a legitimate election, and look what happened on January 6, 2021.

2024 is not 2020 is not 2016. I think Kamala Harris can win, and if I had to put money on it, that’s how I would bet. But it would be better if she won by such a large margin in the electoral vote that any potential fuckery coming out of, say, Georgia, simply wouldn’t matter. And that margin is possible! I think if Harris/Walz keep some momentum, and Trump and Vance keep being weird and remain off-balance, a healthy electoral vote total could happen. It’s going to take a hell of a lot of work, however. The question is how much the Democrats (and the people who are not Democrats but loathe Trump and his party pals and their plans for our nation) want it.

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Some of the comments

mythago August 23, 2024, 11:09 am

What the GOP never understood about Harris is that she rose to the top in San Francisco politics, an environment most charitably described as a knife fight in a phone booth, and that Willie Brown – whatever else may be said about him – doesn’t do political favors for dummies. She has had to be ten times smarter than the next guy and have elbows as sharp as razors her whole career.

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I just wish more people on the far left understood the American electoral system. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve interacted with who say “Oh I couldn’t possible vote for Biden|Harris because [insert issue, these days likely Palestine].” “Congratulations! You are voting for Trump!” “No, voting is important I’m sending a message!” “Ok, but the time to do that was the primaries. Now any vote is either Harris or Trump”. “But that’s not fair!” “Yep. Welcome to first past the post. If you don’t like it you can move to Australia with Single Transferable Vote or various parts of Europe with proportional representation. Unfortunately that’s not how the US works”. “But but but”. “Look, you don’t vote for Kamala you are voting for Trump. It’s that simple…do you REALLY think Trump will be better for Palestine? Really?”

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MisterForkbeard August 23, 2024, 11:59 am

I’m very optimistic – Harris was my choice in the 2020 primaries and I’ve even got a couple of really silly old Kamala shirts I’m going to break out.

That said – it’s really hard for Dems to win, just structurally. Trump is working the Red state election boards hard to prevent a repeated of Georgia and Arizona, and republicans across the country are doing their best to ratfuck the Democratic vote. And the electoral college is currently tilted towards Republicans, and Dems need to win the popular vote by 2-4% generally to win the EC.

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People who aren’t familiar with the incel culture and terminology that has oozed into the right-wing media ecosystem are surprised and repulsed by the way Vance talks and the company he keeps. For example, his agreement with a podcast host about “the whole purpose of the post-menopausal female” being to care for grandchildren is not only cringe-worthy but it really spotlights how dehumanizing even the vocabulary of the right has become. To most normal people, just using the phrase “post-menopausal female” is weird as sh*t. And the more he’s out on the campaign trail, and the more people dig into his background, the worse it’s going to get.

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I’m glad the Democrats are finally fighting back. I feel so many people misunderstood Michelle Obama’s quote, “When they go low, we go high”

She never meant that we can’t defend ourselves or knock them in the teeth (that high enough, for you?) We don’t have to be nice

She was talking about how when someone treats you as a subhuman animal and threatens your children’s lives, you don’t have to do that in return. You can fight back and retain your humanity.

And I’m glad that Harris campaign seems to agree. They’re throwing some really ugly misogynoir at her and she’s just like, “That’s a weird thing to say. Why are you so weird??”

She’s still technically going high in comparison to them. I hope she keeps going for their necks. And I’m going to keep calling that weirdo a couch-fucker

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