#fuck Biden too

[lupa-von-wolf]

I very rarely make serious posts on here, but this is a very serious one, and I need it to be shared as quickly as possible.

Friday, June 28th, the US Supreme Court overturned Chevron. What this means is that the Supreme Court will now have ANY and ALL power over any decision that has any generalizations that has come through congress. Previously this has been delegated to federal agencies that specialize in these generalizations, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Occupational Heath and Savety Administration (OSHA), the Federal Avian Administration (FAA), just to name a few.

Previously, the levels of harmful objects found in food, such as rat droppings or pesticides, were monitored and maintained by the FDA, going forward it will be up to the Supreme Court to decide what these levels will be.

And this is only exacerbated by the fact that the Supreme Court has also made it legal to bribe them into deciding in your favor (as long as the "tip" comes after the decision). They've made it legal to be bought by corporations so they can turn a blind eye to the safety hazards that they'll be allowing.

The vote for overturning Chevron AND the "tipping" decision were both 6-3, with all 6 conservative justices voting in tandem, 3 of which were appointed by Trump during his presidency.

This election is more important than just "I'm going to show how I feel about the state of things by not voting." Rights and safeties are deteriorating before our very eyes.

Trans people are going to be forcefully detransitioned, and in the state of Florida, the state officials can rip apart families if *anyone* in the house is trans. Being trans in the state of Florida, if there are children present, is considered a sex crime, which can be punishable by execution. Trump has already stated that he wants to eliminate term limits if he wins again, and make it so he can't be removed from office. He wants to force the country into a theocracy and is complete against abortions, no matter what, including loss of life, ectopic pregnancies, or impregnation by rape or incest.

Refusing to vote, or choosing to vote for Kennedy is choosing to vote for genocide. It's choosing to vote for Trump, because we all know each and every one of his cultists is showing up. It's choosing to vote for the death and annihilation of your friends, your family, and America.

Yes, Biden is fucking terrible. But he's not Trump.

[punkrockpariah]

The entire democratic political strategy is The Sword of Damocles Hanging impending far right fascism over voters heads as a threat to force people to vote for them without actually standing to improve the lives of the people

They have no interest in actually combating fascism because if they did they'd have to find a different way of getting people to vote for them other than fear mongering

[thisgunisonfire]

Happy save democracy day everyone!

[maggiemooo]

Remember, every time you see one of those "vote (for Biden) like your life depends on our posts" that personal fear is the main way genocide is sold to people.

Before the primaries even started, we saw Democrats start campaigning for genocidin Joe with this tactic. There's no plan to make things better, they never even considered running another candidate. There's no discussions, there's only manipulations of your fears to support a president and his genocide.

[queen-evanlyn]

learning things about american politics makes me feel crazy. one of the two men who will be president next year wants to start a christian nationalist autocracy and it’s just on wikipedia? can anyone else see this??

[navree]

genuinely would love for some of the "both parties are the same" people to name me a single election in the entirety of the twenty first century where the outcome for the country wouldn't have been better if a democrat had won

[timeisacephalopod]

If American politics wants to be the funniest 2 weeks to a month before the election both Donald Trump and Joe biden would die of natural causes

[busterballsblog]

JD Vance HUMILIATES Kristen Welker when she tries insulting him on live tv

[kcdodger]

If voting didn't work, they wouldn't gerrymander.

If voting didn't work, Donald Trump would have won 2020.

If voting didn't work, they wouldn't try to rig elections.

If voting didn't work, you wouldn't see Republicans bitch about mail in ballots.

If voting didn't work, you wouldn't see Republicans try to stop minorities from voting.

Get your head out of the fucking sand. Go vote when the time comes.

Because you aren't going to raise arms, and everyone knows it.

[luvmoonie]

is this not.. world war 3??

[ispyspookymansion]

some of you guys post on here like.

LOOK at the campaign promises youre being STUPID if you cant understand the clear great option in this usamerican election year:

view of: TRUMP BIDEN

finding atlantis ❌ ✅

UBI** ❌ ✅

genocide ✅ ✅

“trans rights” ❌ ✅

cars 5 movie ❌ ✅

ending gravity ❌ ✅

just LOOK at the list its all right there the obvious right answer because politicians never lie and we have NO term to look back on to showcase whether or not thats true so just VOTE BLUE!!!!

[fionatheicicle]

I hate that this needs to be said, i also hate that i’m saying this. I do not support biden at all. He is a despicable excuse for a human being. However the truth is: a third party candidate CANNOT WIN THE ELECTION. If we do not vote for biden then PROJECT 2025 WILL HAPPEN, the conservatives will genocide every single individual who doesn’t believe what they do. It will be WORSE than the handmade tale. They will make the Spanish Inquisition seem like a pleasure cruise. Iran will look positively tame. It will usher in another dark age. Please do not let your attitude at biden allow trump to win. Vote blue.

Edit: it is with both satisfaction and a bit of anxiety that i announce that as of 7/21/2024 Joe Biden has dropped out of the presidential race. I will be both updating this post and making a new post (will be similar in nature to this one) upon a candidate being selected at DNC.

[spartanlocke]

Hi so if you see this post on twitter, do not listen, do not retweet it.

I understand people think voting third party will magically solve our problems, but it won't. Mainly because the electoral college is quite literally rigged by Democrats and Republicans against third parties to prevent them from winning. And this mindset that "if just enough people vote third party we'll win!" is one of the major reasons Trump won in the first place.

And I need to you listen, ok? I need you to listen closely.

If Trump wins, we'll lose the entire Democratic party, he'll have personal control over the military to go after anyone who opposes him, including other politicians and protesters. Pornography will be criminalized alongside surrogacy, contraceptives and divorce. KOSA will be implemented and anything even slightly "unchristian" will be censored on the internet. Women will be forced to marry their rapists, immigrates will be forced out of the country, queer people will be massacred, and PoC and disabled people, all of us, will lose our rights.

This. Is. Not. The time. To be gambling. With third parties.

Additionally, Cornel West is only available on ballots in two states, meaning most people can't vote for him. On top of that he supports Russia and wants to disband NATO, praised Reagan, and owes half a million in taxes and child support. He's not going to fix our problems, and with so few states even offering the option to vote for him, he's basically already lost.

Do not vote third party. Do not gamble our future. Biden is our best chance at stopping Trump and Christofacism, just vote for him.

[hotmess-exe]

"MY life has gotten marginally better or been unaffected under the current administration, so give the Democrats YOUR vote"

that's what y'all sound like. fuckin entitled. or do none of y'all actually believe in one person, one vote lol

just say that other people's problems, well-being, stability, and dignity is secondary to your fucking comfort under the status quo.

if things are "better under Biden" for you to such an extent that you feel entitled to other people's fucking votes, I got news for ya — you were probably fine under Trump too 🙃

[pippsbeb]

Trump does not have an agenda. as he's explained before "i started saying this or that at a rally, and people liked, so i kept saying it"

the only thing he wants is money. he measures value by money and power, and power allows you to get more money. he does not like people of color or women, but is not as repulsed by them or gay people or muslims as many who surround him

the ones w the agenda are the people that have positioned themselves around him. the heritage foundation et al. the supposed 'adults in the room', the people that could curb his worse tendencies, the ones that thought they could be pupet masters

he does not care ab project 2025 one way or another, he does not concern himself w policy. just money

[compacflt]

if you're open to angsty prompts - tgm mission goes bad and Ice gets to accept Bradley and Mav's flags at their funerals? (but only if you're feeling angsty. if not, feel free to ignore!)

San Diego, California. November 2016.

It should not be surprising that the complicated politics of a funeral like Mitchell’s supersede even the national grief of losing him, but of course it is. The Defense Department and the new administration (loudly Tweeting out of their asses because the President-Elect hasn’t yet been sworn in) want to hold it in Arlington. Do it in D.C., show American unity, show how proud we are of our fallen aviator, who sacrificed himself for America’s national interests, bury him in Virginian soil next to Kennedy’s eternal flame… It’s not a terrible idea, geopolitically speaking. But the Republican leadership of the state of Texas wants a piece of him, too. Why not bury him in the National Cemetery in Dallas? That’s where he’s from. Lay him to rest in the soil of his forefathers, as all good men should be. But the entire Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy, it is argued by people who aren’t Kazansky, also has a stake in this. Bury him at sea. He gave his life for the Navy. This is how it ought to be. Bury both Mitchell and Bradshaw at sea the way we buried other American Navy heroes like John Paul Jones. (When he hears this argument, Kazansky also remembers that we buried Osama bin Laden at sea, too.)

The whole political clusterfuck is put to rest at last in mid-November, when someone bothers to ask Kazansky what he thinks, and Kazansky says, “I’ll remind you that there’s absolutely nothing left of him to bury. But Mitchell lived in California for the last thirty years of his life. He told me he’d want to be buried in San Diego. I don’t really care where you put him. But that’s what he said he wanted.” And after Pacific Command leadership hears this and communicates it to the White House, everyone all of a sudden bends over backwards to organize a joint funeral in San Diego, where Bradshaw’s parents are buried, anyway. Maybe it really is fitting. Okay.

It’s a funny thing, ritual. The military’s full of it. A funeral: that’s a ritual. So, too, is promotion, retirement, commissioning in the first place. So, too, is the everyday ritual of getting dressed, donning battle gear, which today is dress blues, the way it was the day Mitchell died. Medals instead of ribbons. The President posthumously gave Bradshaw and Mitchell Medals of Honor. Their bodies would be wearing them, if there were bodies to bury. The President prehumously gave Kazansky and Seresin Medals of Honor as well. Kazansky’s is sitting around his throat like a noose. He feels like nothing but a body himself, no soul, already passed-on. They’ll lower Mitchell’s empty casket into the ground this afternoon and Kazansky’s already thinking about climbing inside it before they do. He’s not so un-self-aware that he can’t see the absurdity in that thought. But he’s also not so self-aware that he isn’t having that thought.

It’s the highest-profile funeral Kazansky’s attended in a few years. The Secretary of State is here. The Secretary of Defense is here. The Secretary of the Navy is here. The Vice President is here. He, too, has only recently lost a son; he, too, has already lost someone he thought he’d spend the rest of his life with. They don’t talk, but when they shake hands, it feels like stronger solidarity than all the Sorry for your losses Kazansky’s received over the past couple weeks. Everyone here knows about him and Mitchell, in a way that had once been Kazansky’s worst nightmare; now, his actual worst nightmare having been realized, he can’t bring himself to care, and no one’s making a big deal out of it. When they say, Sorry for your loss, they don’t mean in the “loss of two highly strategic assets for the U.S. Pacific Fleet” sense, they mean in the “loss of the only two people you cared about more than your career” sense. Sorry for your loss. It’s not so bad. And because everyone knows, in a way that had once been Kazansky’s worst nightmare, no one bats an eye when Kazansky realizes his actual worst nightmare and accepts Mitchell’s folded flag. No, they weren’t legal family. But everyone knows they were close enough.

He tacks his own Naval aviator wings onto Mitchell’s empty casket. Twenty-one guns fire. He salutes. They lower two empty caskets into the ground and he’s still standing. It doesn’t really mean anything. It’s not really a goodbye, because neither Mitchell nor Bradshaw are actually inside. He watches Seresin struggle not to cry. He stands before a few hundred people and makes a short boring speech about service and sacrifice that he did not write. This is all political. This is all just for show. Most ritual usually is. So who gives a fuck.

He disappears before anyone can pin him down to apologize again and again, but finds that his intended hideout location has already been claimed: by the time he makes it to Goose’s grave, Seresin’s already standing there alone, his hands in his blues pockets, his cap tucked under his arm.

“I just,” says Seresin stupidly. His eyes are red-rimmed and his face is sallow. They’ve never really spoken, the two of them, but Kazansky’s heard the rumors about him and Bradshaw. And he’s sure Seresin’s heard the rumors about him and Mitchell. They’re in the same leaking boat, here. “Bradley talked about him all the time.” Gestures down to the grave. “And about you. And about Maverick.”

Kazansky says, “Would you want to have lunch with me? I’m not very hungry. But maybe we can talk.” He’s trying. Too little too late, but he’s trying.

He exchanges his jingling blues coat for a regular suit jacket in the armored Suburban. Takes the Medal of Honor off as he does. Seresin, still only a lieutenant, doesn’t have the luxury of a general staff who will carry around a wardrobe change on his behalf. He’s gonna have to make do with his dress blues. He’s nervously fingering the Medal of Honor around his neck, and will continue to do so long after they’ve taken their seats in a restaurant downtown where Kazansky used to take Mitchell out for dinner, not so long ago. He can hear his chief flag aide kindly whispering to their waiter: Somewhere in the back. Where they won’t be bothered. Everyone’s being so kind.

“I could kill him,” Seresin says after a few minutes.

“Who?” says Kazansky incuriously. He’s been running his fingers over the condensation on his water glass. Now his fingertips are wet. Actions and consequences.

“Cyclone. He’s the one who refused to send me. And he didn’t launch search-and-rescue, either.”

Kazansky blinks, then looks down at his menu. “No, son, that was me.”

Seresin’s Then I could kill you goes unsaid. It’s quiet for a long time, long enough that Kazansky’s read through the menu—every word—twice. Then Seresin says, “Why?”

“You would’ve searched for the rest of your life and rescued nothing, and blamed yourself.”

“I blame myself for not going anyway. For not disobeying orders. —Maverick would’ve gone.”

Yeah, he probably would have. Kazansky remembers, in a split second, a story Mitchell had only told him a few years ago, lying next to him in the dark, a little tipsy after dinner and touchy-feely as he always was lying next to Kazansky in the dark: I don’t think I ever told you the story of how I saved Cougar’s life. His warm hands, gentle and unhurried, sliding up and down Kazansky’s abdomen: it’s so funny the details you choose to overlook at the time, and only remember when you lose them. / Well, I never wanted to ask. You hate telling those stories, I thought, Kazansky had said. Because it was true. At any party, Mitchell could tell the stories of how he saved Cougar’s life and how he ejected out of a flat spin at TOPGUN and how he shot down three MiGs not two weeks later—but he’d always have nightmares about all of it the night after. He hated telling those stories. He’d only do it if people asked, so Kazansky never asked. / You’re here in bed next to me, Mitchell said, so I’ll sleep just fine. Let me be a hero for you for once. —It was the day I saw that first Soviet MiG up close. Remember that? Negative four-G inverted dive? That was real, baby. Scared the shit outta Cougar. Messed him up bad. I mean, he thought we were all cooked. He wasn’t gonna land, I mean. Or if he tried, he was gonna plow right into the side of the boat. Couldn’t see straight. You ever been so scared you couldn’t see straight? He was dipping his wings, power too low, basically drunk-driving his Tomcat, I mean, it was freaky. So I touch-and-goed my F-14. / Against orders, surely, Kazansky’d said. / Oh, of course. You’ve met me, haven’t you? Of course, against orders. We were both outta gas. But I took off again and circled around to find him, and guided him in, you know, level off, call the ball, there you go, Coug, you got it, you got it. Don’t know if he ever told you this—he probably did ten million dollars of damage to that plane. Fucked up the landing gear and snapped off his tailhook and ground up into the fuselage. / But he lived. / But he lived, Mitchell said, and that’s how I got sent to TOPGUN. And that’s—with a soft sweet kiss—how I met you. / My hero, Kazansky’d said.

“Yeah,” he says noncommittally. “Maverick would’ve gone. —But he’d have searched for the rest of his life and rescued nothing, and blamed himself.”

Seresin says, “Is that what happened with him and Bradley’s dad? Is that what happened with Goose?”

“Yeah.”

They sit in silence for another while. The waiter comes by to take their orders. Kazansky’s not hungry and orders a beer. Seresin’s starving and orders a burger and a side of onion rings and a glass of wine.

“Can I ask you a question?” Seresin says after another few minutes. “Are you, like, a coward, or something? —That speech you gave was pretty neutered, sir. You loved him and you can’t even say it at his funeral?”

It’s a stupid, immature question. The Navy doesn’t deserve to hear that out loud. Nor does Mitchell’s empty casket. Only Mitchell did, and too late now. Kazansky shrugs. “If I were a brave man,” he says, “do you think I would have let him go?”

“I’d like to think I’m a brave man,” says Seresin. “I let Bradley go because I trusted him to come back. —Honestly, I’m kind of fucking pissed about it, to be honest. Sorry for the language. But it’s the truth. The night after he died, I mean, I went apeshit. Tore up our photos, punched the wall, cried myself fucking dry, that kind of stupid shit. I was so mad. I trusted him to come back, and he didn’t. Thought he was a good pilot. —Sorry. Is that sacrilegious to say? We aren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead, are we? I don’t care. I’m still mad about it. I know I shouldn’t be. But it’s the only thing I know how to be, is angry. Does that make sense?”

“It makes sense.”

“Are you angry?”

“Yes, but not at Mitchell. You know that saying, we have old pilots and bold pilots, but never old, bold pilots? Maverick was an old, bold pilot. We both knew he was living on borrowed time. That’s how he lived.”

“Pretty fucking defeatist.”

Kazansky shrugs again. He is a man defeated.

Seresin says, “Are you gonna be okay?” Then, in the resulting silence, he says, “Sorry, stupid question. Sorry. It’s just—“ He hesitates. It’s only now that Kazansky sees the dark circles under his eyes, the tremor in his hands, the desperation in the stiffness of his shoulders. “Look, it’s just that I don’t think I’m going to be okay, and you’re a lot older than me, and I keep thinking you have, like, the answer. Some wisdom, you know what I mean? How am I gonna be okay? You’re the Commander of the Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy. Aren’t you supposed to know what to do? Aren’t you supposed to give me orders? What do I do?”

“If I were a wise man,” Kazansky says, “do you think I would have let him go?”

Seresin is quiet. His food comes. He immediately launches into it, eats ravenously and silently for a few minutes.

Then he says, around a bite of his burger, “You know, I was gonna ask him to marry me.”

“Bradshaw?”

“Who else?”

Kazansky blinks. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Yeah,” says Seresin. “You know, fucking everyone is.”

“Lunch is on me,” Kazansky says.

Home, afterwards, is silent and lonely. Of course it is: Mitchell’s not here. Of course. Kazansky’s settling into it. Life so rarely gives you a choice, when assigning you ritual, routine. There’s still legal paperwork to fill out. That he can do. And there are still letters of condolences to respond to: Thank you for your kind words. Maverick was… figuring out how to end that sentence will give Kazansky a way to occupy his time for a while. And there are flowers to throw out—no one wants flowers after someone they care about has died. They stink up the house and permeate everything with their reminder of grief and mourning, and you’ll find the dried petals even months later and grieve and mourn all over again. Kazansky throws them all out before they can start shedding. There are friends to call and thank for coming. “I don’t know what to say,” Slider says over the phone. / “Yeah, neither do I,” says Kazansky, so they sit in silence on the line together for a while, and that’s pretty nice. / “He was the best of us,” says Sundown, and Kazansky thinks about what Seresin had said a few hours ago: Thought he was a good pilot. It’s a cruel thought, but sometimes the only thing you can be is angry: if Maverick really was the best of us, he should’ve come home. / “You know, I’m still in his debt,” says Cougar. “He saved my life thirty years ago. It’s so fucking stupid, you know what I mean, this idea that I should’ve saved his in return? Feels like it’s my fault that he died. Maybe I’m too superstitious. I’m indebted to a fucking dead man. I’ll never be able to pay him back. —Sorry, Ice. Sorry. I don’t mean to make it all about me. I can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now. I’m so sorry.”

“That’s okay,” says Kazansky. “Don’t, um—look, I’m just curious. How did he save your life? Would you mind telling me?”

“I don’t remember too much of it, to be honest,” says Cougar. “That’s why I quit, isn’t it? Something wrong with me. I was so scared I couldn’t see straight. You ever been so scared you couldn’t see straight? I wouldn’t have landed if it weren’t for Maverick. Or, if I had tried, I think I would’ve plowed into the side of the boat. Dipping my wings, power too low, basically drunk-driving my Tomcat. There was something wrong with me. You know, they could’ve kicked him out for that stunt, touch-and-going his F-14 like that. We were both outta gas. It could’ve killed him, too. But he guided me in. Saved my life. —I don’t think I ever told you this. I probably did about ten million dollars of damage to that plane. Fucked up my landing gear, snapped off my tailhook, ground up into the fuselage.”

“But you lived.”

“But I lived,” says Cougar. “And I came home to my family. Only ‘cause of him.”

“He was a hero.”

“He was a fucking hero,” says Cougar. “To the very fucking last. Sorry you had to go and fall in love with him. They advise against that, don’t they?”

“What, falling in love with heroes?”

“Yeah. —Sorry. Not funny.”

“A little funny. In a cosmic sense. Means it’s my own fault.”

Cougar pauses. “It wasn’t your fault, Ice.”

There’s still a Fleet to be run. Still work to be done. Kazansky can do that. People will laud him for the rest of his life for his professionalism under duress. He works when he should be grieving. Work is a ritual, too. Take some time off, sir, one of the Chief of Naval Operations’ aides had begged him. You need time. But he can’t. Only thing to do is keep working until all the work is done. The geopolitical situation after the mission, which was still classified as a success, is quite bad. They knew it would be. A bombing mission on Russian territory right near the American general election? Yeah, that’s bad. Russia’s Foreign Ministry has openly stated that if they find any remains of Mitchell and Bradshaw’s bodies, they will not extradite them home to the United States. I’m sorry you had to hear that, the President e-mailed him personally. But it’s fine. Kazansky likes the chaos. Means there’s work to do. He works.

When he can’t work anymore, because he’s done all the work that needs to be done, he takes care of another ritual. Life assigned him this one without giving him a choice, too. It’s past 2200. He turns no light on. He’s not sleeping in their bed, which is pretty cliché, and maybe he should be stronger than that, but you do have to make some concessions to your own grief when something like this happens. But he’s strong enough to sit on the side of it that had been his and open his phone and dial the number of his only favorited contact and hold the phone to his ear. It gives the dial tone five times, as is routine, and then Mitchell picks up the phone, as is routine. Hi! Captain Pete Mitchell here! Unfortunately I’m not able to come to the phone right now. Leave a message, or if it’s Navy business, you can shoot me an e-mail at C. A. P. T. dot P. dot Mitchell at navy dot mil. Thanks! Bye. Maybe Mitchell’s just busy. Maybe Mitchell’s somewhere without cell service. Maybe Mitchell’s just out flying.

Kazansky considers leaving a message, as is routine; realizes he doesn’t know what to say, as is routine; and hangs up, as is routine.

He takes all his medals off the rack of his double-breasted blues coat, packs them back into their clear-plastic-velvet boxes. He considers, momentarily, throwing out the Medal of Honor with the flowers. But he’s too self-aware to do that. He hangs up his coat on its felt-lined hanger, steams it straight, does the same to his slacks, slips the ensemble back into its garment bag, hangs it up next to Mitchell’s in their closet. This is a ritual, too. He takes a shower. He eats something. He answers a couple e-mails. He climbs into a bed that is not his own. He holds one of Mitchell’s college sweatshirts over his face and breathes in. He takes stock. His fuel gauge is reading pretty low. He knows his wings are dipping. If he really thought about it, he’d say he’s so scared he can’t see straight. And the truth is—he’s not so un-self-aware that he can’t recognize this, however numbly—Maverick’s not coming home to guide him in to land. Maverick’s never coming home again. Thought you were a good pilot. He closes his eyes. He tries to sleep.