#forge smid

[taylorscottbarnett]

Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/17/us/politics/trump-plans-2025.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

A reminder the GOP is directly planning to take all federal power and place it directly in the hands of the president.

To and I quote "identify the pockets of independence and seize them"

That the next Republican president would habe direct, unchecked, control over all federal law enforcement and run that directly through the DOJ.... for his own benifit.

That the next Republican president would wield direct and unchecked control over independent government agencies like the FTC and FCC.

That the next Republican president would be able to take control of private buisnesses for his own benifits via the powers of the FTC, that the next Republican president would revive an old and illegal practice of impounding funds appropriated by Congress-- refusing to spend them. Taking away the basic power of congress' control over the purse strings.

All the power of the federal government concentrated in the hands of one individual with no other authority allowed to constrain him.

Congress created these specialized technocratic agencies inside the executive branch and delegated to them some of its power to make rules for society -- however it did so on the condition that it was not simply handing off that power to presidents to wield like kings — putting commissioners atop them whom presidents appoint but generally cannot fire before their terms end, while using its control of their budgets to keep them partly accountable to lawmakers as well. It left them nimble enough to act when congress cannot or will not, but still with the oversight of the legeslative branch.

Including but not limited to a president being able to order the Federal Reserve to lower intrest rates before a reelection, somthing Trump often vented about.

Trump has went so far as to threaten to impound funds passed by Congress -- a tactic Congress has made illegal since the days of Nixon.

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47/agenda47-using-impoundment-to-cut-waste-stop-inflation-and-crush-the-deep-state

Just incase you needed a reminder that Donald Trump and today's GOP are fucking fascists.

Of note, how does that old saying go again?

What do you call 100 fascists at the bottom of the sea? A good start.

[tracygrenier-blog]

NYTimes: Why Vultures Might Just Be the Smartest Birds Above the Block

Why Vultures Might Just Be the Smartest Birds Above the Block https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/12/science/vultures-conservation-intelligence.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

[mars-incorrect-quotes]

Forge: You're gonna need a gun. Don't worry it's unloaded.

[Gun fires]

Forge: Its unloaded now.

[nummymuffin]

A man and his #forge. #openluchtmuseum #loerbeek #smederij #blacksmith #smid (at Nederlands Openluchtmuseum) https://www.instagram.com/p/CU6qpz_g_SY/?utm_medium=tumblr

[ateliervianneydeseze]

Charly marche dans les pas de son père Pierre, qui m'a transmis l'amour du métal, de la ferronnerie et de l'artisanat ... Ils sont grillageurs et escaliéteurs... Ça ne veut pas dire qu'ils font du grillage mais des grilles. Un savoir-faire bordelais qui a son esthétique propre et que vous pouvez admirer dans toute la ville... +++++ Reposted from @charlybrownblacksmith Pretty proud of this one ⚒🔥 #atelierferemeraude #laferrailledecharlybrown #charlybrownblacksmith #forge #forged #ferronneriedart #ferronnier #blacksmith #blacksmithing #⚒ #handwork #metalwork #metal #metalart #ironwork #ironworkers #schmied #eusenhütte #herrero #smid #wrought #wroughtiron #wroughtirondoors #grilleferforgé #xviiiesiècle #bordeauxmaville #restaurationdupatrimoine - #regrann https://www.instagram.com/p/B7rGqO1IZRd/?igshid=zip2sps1g6v0

[willowmoon-92]

"While the corps was not perfect — only men were hired, work camps were segregated, and some projects caused ecological damage — the C.C.C. was the most expansive and successful youth employment program in American history. It also played a crucial role in forging the Greatest Generation, which defeated fascism and built the strongest economy in the world. Today, there’s plenty to do for a revitalized conservation corps that would put young Americans back to work"

[mediaeval-muse]

The Morrill Act was a wealth transfer disguised as a donation. The government took land from Indigenous people that it had paid little or nothing for and turned that land into endowments for fledgling universities.

An investigation we did for High Country News found that the act redistributed nearly 11 million acres, which is almost the size of Denmark. The grants came from more than 160 violence-backed land cessions made by close to 250 tribal nations. When adjusted for inflation, the windfall netted 52 universities roughly half a billion dollars.

...

Profiteering from dispossession hardly made land-grant universities unusual at the time of their founding. The Pacific Railway Act and the Homestead Act, the other two Civil War-era laws flagged for inspiration by The Times, followed a similar pattern while redistributing far more land. Thousands of other federal laws, emboldened by racism and designed to expand United States territory, converted a continent’s worth of Indigenous territory into settler property.

This process was so fundamental to the history of the United States that it’s easy to overlook or compress into perfunctory acknowledgments. But continuing to champion legislation built on ideas of racial superiority won’t lead us to a fairer future. It maintains the status quo by erasing Indigenous communities. This stolen land brought intergenerational wealth to settlers, their corporations and institutions; created tax bases for state and local governments; and disadvantaged citizens of tribal nations in ways that persist today.

And yet the Morrill Act is a practical starting point for imagining a new chapter for the United States. Unlike homesteaders who passed away long ago, the Morrill Act’s original beneficiaries are still here and their gains are still on the books. And unlike railroads, whose corporate charters favor shareholder interests, land-grant universities are committed to serving society.

Instead of clinging to an origin story that starts with free land, those universities have a chance to acknowledge debts that are impossible to repay but unconscionable to ignore.

Ideas for reconciliation include curriculum reform that includes the mandatory teaching of this history, budget reallocation to aid Indigenous students and faculty, the establishment of satellite campuses on reservations, and buyback programs to purchase and return land to tribal nations.

...

If the United States is to have a serious dialogue about forging a fairer nation, it must face its history of genocide and dispossession. Land-grant universities could provide the leadership to take concrete action, or risk reinforcing the racism that built this country.

[music899]

By Andrew Das

March 8, 2019

All 28 members of the world champion United States women’s national team filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the United States Soccer Federation on Friday, a sudden and significant escalation of a long-running fight over pay equity and working conditions that comes only months before the team will begin defense of its Women’s World Cup title.

In the lawsuit, filed in United States District Court in Los Angeles, the 28 players accused the federation — their employer and the governing body for soccer in the United States — of years of what they labeled “institutionalized gender discrimination.” The issues, the athletes said, affected not only their paychecks but also where they played and how often, how they trained, the medical treatment and coaching they received, and even how they traveled to matches.

The lawsuit’s points mirrored many issues raised in a wage-discrimination complaint filed by five United States players with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2016. The lack of a resolution, or even any noticeable action, on that now three-year-old complaint led the players to seek, and receive, a right-to-sue letter from the E.E.O.C. in February. The decision to take their case to federal court effectively ends the E.E.O.C. complaint.

The players — a group that includes stars like Carli Lloyd, Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan but also reserve players — have requested class action status. They are seeking to represent any current or former players who have represented the women’s national team since Feb. 4, 2015 — a cohort that could grow to include dozens more players — and are requesting back pay and damages and other relief: a potential award that could reach into the millions of dollars.

U.S. Soccer, which had not seen the complaint, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The players’ action is the latest flash point in a yearslong fight for pay equity and equal treatment by the national team, which has long chafed — first privately but, more recently, increasingly publicly — about its compensation, support and working conditions while representing U.S. Soccer. The women’s players argue that they are required to play more games than the men’s team, win more of them, and yet still receive lesser pay from the federation.

The American soccer players who filed the suit are some of the most well-known female athletes in the world and their prominence and willingness to leverage their profiles and their enormous social media followings to their cause has paid dividends already: the team has not played a match on artificial turf, a surface many players dislike, since 2017, for example, and its union holds biweekly meetings with U.S. Soccer to keep the team informed of everything from upcoming opponents and training camps to hotels and travel plans.

Direct comparisons between the compensation of the men’s and women’s teams can be complicated, however. Each team has its own collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Soccer, and among the major differences are pay structure: the men receive higher bonuses when they play for the United States, but are paid only when they make the team, while the women receive guaranteed salaries supplemented by smaller match bonuses.

One of the biggest differences in compensation is the multimillion-dollar bonuses the teams receive for participating in the World Cup, but those bonuses — a pool of $400 million for 32 men’s teams versus $30 million for 24 women’s teams — are determined by FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, not U.S. Soccer.

Still, the American women have made significant gains at the negotiating table in recent years. In 2017, after more than a year of acrimonious negotiations and a lawsuit by U.S. Soccer that blocked a potential players strike on the eve of the Rio Olympics, the team forged a new collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Soccer. The players opted to surrender on their push for absolutely equal pay, though, in exchange for a deal that included not only better compensation and changes to working conditions but also carveouts that now allow the players to pursue commercial opportunities through their union.

[bytheanchorarchived]

Sebastian Smythe, Shadowhunters verse.

Sebastian Highsmith (from Smythe :  The Highsmith surname is derived from the Old English words "heah" meaning "high" and "smid" meaning "smith, blacksmith or ferrier." Smythe, topographic name for someone who lived by a forge, or a metonymic occupational name for someone employed at a one, from Middle English smithe, smythy 'smithy'. variant of Smith. ) is the son of Philippe Highsmith, who (with now deceased wife Alice Highsmith) became leader of the Paris Institute, after the uprising. 

Sebastian was born and raised in Paris, and grew up under the disapproving gaze of his father and whatever Clave members passed by, what with his partying, Downworlder lover, inconsequential, unpredictable, rule breaking, fame. 

When he was born, they considered him to be a girl, but as he started to grow up, health complications led him to be examined by the Silent Brothers, who then gave the news to his parents that he was one of a number of “incomplete” children that appeared once in a while, and that (since it was beyond their capabilities of treatment) he’d never truly develop into a healthy, strong, warrior’s body, and would likely have a sickly and difficult life. Sebastian’s father, at the news, was hearbroken and furious, and declared they would keep him hidden, out of the battle field, and away from where he could bring shame upon them. His mother, however, refused to settle for either the Brother’s diagnosis, or his father’s decisions, and in secret, looked for a warlock’s help. The warlock was much more receptive to Sebastian, and after examining him, declared that a treatment of monthly potions would suffice to make sure he’d grow fully and become a true warrior, if he wanted to. The warlock also told his mother that he did not sense Sebastian’s essence to be that of a girl, and that that sometimes happened, specially so with children like him.

At first, Sebastian’s father was hesitant (and repulsed) about accepting a Downworlder’s prognosis, and the fact his wife had shared their secret with one. He was even more taken aback by her idea that Sebastian might be happier growing up as a boy, but allowed her to at least try it, even if he did his best to overlook the obvious good results. But once Alice suffered an attack during a mission, he made a promise to her, on her deathbed, that he’d keep the treatments on, and that he’d allow Sebastian to grow up as Sebastian, and do whatever it took to make sure he’d be safe. He then used the mess of records that had been left after the uprising, to cover up Sebastian’s original records, stating that his “daughter” had died, and informing that Sebastian was a boy who’d been born an year after his sister. 

Sebastian grew up strong, fast, and with a talent for any weapons that used aim, specially throwing knives, but he also grew up grieving his mother, and resenting the father that kept him at arms length. The only way he could get his father to pay him any attention was when he misbehaved, so he became the very best at it. During his teen years, it balled up into a problem, where he was always hungover, missing training sessions, and ignoring orders. It was during that phase that his father tried to get him to settle down by giving him more responsibilities within the Institute, and making him temporary head, while he was away at meetings. Sebastian was in the outskirts of Paris, in a raid with a team of his Shadowhunters , a ruse, when Valentine attacked the Institute, to get the Mortal Sword, he’d thought to be there (which it had been until that morning, when it was sent back to the Silent Brothers). They came back to the place in crumbles, and everyone that was left behind, gone into the night, or dead. After that, the Institute was dismantled while it was rebuilt, and the Shadowhunters left, sent around the world. Sebastian was sent to New York to work under the Lightwoods.

He blamed himself greatly for what happened, and the burden of it put a damper on his attitude. He decided that whatever he did against the rules, from then on, would be because he thought it was the right thing to do. He clung onto the memory of his mother and the kind of woman she’d been, and burned with the desire to make her proud, for all the sacrifices, as he thought, she’d made for him.

In this verse, unless objected to, once he was sent to NYC, he lost contact with his warlock supplier, and was forced to reach out to Magnus Bane, so he could keep paying for his potions to be made regularly. 

[barcimedia]

Die With Me: A Mark Tartaglia Mystery [paperback] Forges, Elena https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0887848044/ref=cx_skuctr_share?smid=A1J7ZDK32VF5IP

[tracygrenier-blog]

NYTimes: A Legacy of Colonialism Set the Stage for the Maui Wildfires

A Legacy of Colonialism Set the Stage for the Maui Wildfires https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/27/opinion/maui-wildfire-colonialism.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

[mars-incorrect-quotes]

Cabbar: If your arm got cut off, would it hurt??

Dom: Yes????

Cabbar: How?

Arave: Cause... your arm got cut off.

Cabbar: But where are you gonna feel the pain???

Dom: On your... arm...?

Arave: How are you gonna feel the pain...

Cabbar, Arave and Dom simultaneously: -if your arm is gone?

Forge, about to snap:

[ateliervianneydeseze]

Charly est ferronnier d'art . Son père a formé mon premier patron avant lui... +++++ Reposted from @charlybrownblacksmith (@get_regrann) - Wrought Junction ⛓⚒🔥 #atelierferemeraude #laferrailledecharlybrown #charlybrownblacksmith #forge #forged #ferronneriedart #ferronnier #blacksmith #blacksmithing #⚒ #handwork #metalwork #metal #metalart #ironwork #ironworkers #schmied #eusenhütte #herrero #smid #wrought #wroughtironwork #wrought_iron https://www.instagram.com/p/B5TUKplowpT/?igshid=3qf149we4sv6

[communistrupture]

Far from being a conspiracy, let alone a coup, the October Revolution was perhaps the most publicly planned uprising in history. Two of Lenin’s oldest comrades on the party’s central committee remained opposed to an immediate revolution and published the date of the event. While its final details were obviously not advertised beforehand, the takeover was swift and involved minimal violence. That all changed with the ensuing civil war, in which the nascent Soviet state’s enemies were backed by the czar’s former Western allies. Amid the resulting chaos and millions of casualties, the Bolsheviks finally prevailed — but at a terrible political and moral cost, including the virtual extinction of the working class that had originally made the revolution. The choice that followed the revolution of October 1917 was thus not between Lenin and liberal democracy. The real choice was to be determined instead by a brutal struggle for power between the Red and White armies, the latter led by czarist generals who made no secret that if they won, both Bolsheviks and Jews would be exterminated. Pogroms carried out by the Whites saw entire Jewish villages wiped out. A majority of Russian Jews fought back, either as members of the Red Army or in their own partisan units. Nor should we forget that a few decades later, it was the Red Army — originally forged in the civil war by Trotsky, Mikhail Tukhachevsky and Mikhail Frunze (the former two killed later by Stalin) — that broke the military might of the Third Reich in the epic battles of Kursk and Stalingrad. By then, Lenin had been dead for almost two decades.