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potofsoup · 5 months ago

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Happy July 4th, everyone, and good luck to the UK voters out there!

Wow it's Year 11 of doing these!! Here's the AO3 link to the past 10 years, and here's the tumblr link.

Reminder that this is a long game -- some of the judges making decisions were appointed back in the 80s. Many of the cases that were decided this round were from Trump's term. So it's going to take long-term, consistent voting over a decade to start tipping things in the other direction. (Which I talked about in 2018 re: Trump shenanigans and 2022 re: Dobbs).

A lot has been done by the Biden administration (I'm assuming most folks have seen this post by boreal-sea with their very helpful sources), and much of that will be overturned by Trump, especially if he gets the Senate, and especially now that he would have a blank check for anything "official". So let's make sure that doesn't happen.

And even if Trump does get elected, your decisions down-ballot might effect control of the House or Senate, or might make it easier to vote next time, plus the whole plethora of state and local issues. It's Republican state attorney generals who are challenging climate regulations, for example.

Plus, when you really get down to it, only one of the candidates plans on pardoning himself and all his friends if he wins, and attacking the government if he loses. Maybe that guy shouldn't be the President.

If you're new to voting, remember to check voter registration deadlines! I'm a permanent vote-by-mail voter and it's so nice. :)

Transcript under the readmore

Page 1: Sam and Bucky meet up with Steve for a picnic. Steve: Thought you guys were still in Sudan? Bucky: I’m forcing Sam to take a break.

Sam collapses onto the picnic blanket. Sam: Oof, it just never stops, does it? Steve: Nope.

Bucky hands Sam an orange popsicle. Bucky: Eat and relax for a bit, Sam. Sam: Thanks.

Page 2: Bucky asks Steve: How are things state-side? Steve responds: HORRIBLE. Bucky: I thought you’ve been tentatively hopeful about what Biden has been able to achieve? Steve: I was! Student loans, child care, climate regulations, infrastructure, labor, trans rights … he’s quietly done a lot through regulatory improvements and congress bills. But now all people will talk about is how he’s OLD. And then there’s the Supreme Court’s decisions … Chevron and immunity… Steve puts his head in his hands, while Sam and Bucky look on with some concern.

Page 3: Bucky hands Steve a blue/raspberry popsicle: Steve, take a deep breath, and a popsicle. Sam: Sounds like we missed a lot. What’s going on? How bad is it? Steve: Pretty bad. The Supreme Court has made some decisions that give the Court and the President A LOT of discretionary power. Sam: Yikes, that doesn’t sound good. Steve: Well, the Chevron thing means that judges with life-term appointments can override policies made by government agencies. And now it’ll be harder to hold a President accountable because he will have immunity for any “official” actions.

Page 4: Sam: So if the President tries to, say, overturn a democratic election result, he’ll be allowed to as long as it’s in his job description? Steve: I don’t think threatening state electors is “official” business, but that will be decided by federal judges. Who get their jobs by approval from both the President and the Senate. Bucky: Yeesh. No wonder you’re stressed. Any good news? Steve: Well, thanks the Biden and the razor-thin Senate majority, the newer bills don’t rely on the Chevron deference. Still not great but not catastrophic. Sam, squirting ketchup on his hot dog: So what I’m hearing is that it’s now more important than ever to have a President and a Senate who you can trust to appoint fair judges, pass bills, and not commit crimes.

Page 5: Steve: Plus all of the state level offices, now that more and more deciding power has been thrown back to the states — abortion, LGBTQ rights, voting access… Bucky: Hey, at least this is a big election year so we can actually do something! Steve, with his arms crossed, looking surly: Except that all people want to talk about is how Biden is “too old” and “not doing enough,” as if that is on par with Trump’s desire to dismantle basic rights! As if the candidate who doesn’t embody ALL their ideals is not worth voting for! Bucky interrupts with a smart and a loud “PFFT.”

Page 6: Bucky: Um, Steve. YOU were like that in 1940. Sam, nudging Bucky: “Oh, this I gotta hear. Spill, Barnes.” In sepia, Steve is pacing around their apartment while Bucky is sitting and reading a newspaper. Steve: I can’t believe he’s running for a 3rd term! we need a fresh candidate to vote for! This is hardly a choice at all! AND he refuses to engage in Europe! All of Europe under fascist control and we’re just twiddling our thumbs? He’s letting millions die through his inaction! Bucky: Most people don’t want another war, Steve. If he came out for it, he would lose. Steve, indignant: But Buck, it’s your Polish relative who are in danger! Bucky, closing his newspaper and looking at Steve: Yeah, and between FDR and Willkes, I trust FDR to help if he could.

Page 7: Steve, in sepia, looking away: Should he be encouraged to do more? Maybe I should vote for Browder. The Communists have historically be Anti-Fascist.

Sam interrupts off-screen: Waitaminute! STEVE was going to PROTEST-VOTE? Steve: We were in a Blue State, Sam! Sam: But what about the down ballot races?! Steve: RELAX, I did my due diligence down-ballot. I wanted a senate that’s more progressive than the President.Voted LaGuardia for Mayor, too. Steve hesitates: Then, when I got to the President… I realized that the Best case scenario would be that my vote did nothing, versus if it actually spoiled the election. And when I asked myself who I could trust to work with my Senator… well, FDR had a good record with Labor. (sepia shot of young Steve voting) Bucky interrupts: Hold on, Steve.

Page 8: Bucky, eating a cookie, arching an eyebrow: You didn’t vote for Browder? Why didn’t you tell me? Steve: And have you say “I told you so” for the next century? Bucky: Heh.

Steve, with hand on his chin: What’s weird was that, despite everything, I still felt HORRIBLE when I ticked that box. Sam: Sounds like you built up the meaning of that vote far too much in your head. Logically, we know that a single box can’t represent all of the complexity of a whole system, but the desperately WANT it to. Just look at how people have built up so much around the term “Zionis” that it’s made productive conversations difficult.

Page 9: Sam and Steve speak in the background while Bucky reaches into the cooler and pulls out a box. Steve: Sigh. And that’s something that goes beyond the election. Sam: Which is why we need to vote, AND do other things. Bucky, looking at Steve and Sam: Like how Steve works to push organizations on the local level? Or like all the work you do as Captain America? Sam: Exactly. Vote AND.

Sam looks at Bucky fondly: Like how you vote AND make me and Steve take breaks. Bucky, looking stern because he can’t handle compliments: Shush, Sam.

Bucky holds up a cake that has the number “107” on it: It’s time for cake. Happy Birthday, Steve.

#happy birthday steve #supreme court #election #steve rogers #bucky barnes #sam wilson #11th year holy fuck #mine #my comic #oh hey i'm traveling for the next month so i might be not very responsive #longpost is long but I think everyone has the longpost shrinker by default now?

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niuniente · 3 months ago

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While doing these tests I was thinking about my ex-coworker who had gotten a permanent government level office job in the 1970's at the age of 19 because she knew how to write fast with a typewriter....

#niu seal #niu drawings

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luffington · 7 months ago

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young master ♡

➤ summary: You don't worship the ground Doflamingo walks on, and it turns him on a little too much. (18+)

➤ pairing: doflamingo x afab!reader

➤ word count: 3.7k

➤ warnings: kinda sub!doflamingo (he’s a horny menace), mild dubcon, possessive doffy, spit kink, oral (f receiving), masturbation (m receiving), degradation, name-calling

➤ notes: this takes place before dressrosa but i’m only halfway done with the arc so sorry for any inaccuracies! i haven't posted my writing online in years so please lmk what you think :3

NSFW under the break! minors dni thank uuu

Doflamingo was sulking. His signature smile was comically turned upside down and his arms were crossed over his chest. Feet resting on top of his desk as he leaned back in his plush office chair, crumpling the important documents strewn underneath them that he was meant to review and sign. He knew he probably looked like a petulant child, and he felt like one, too. This was all your fucking fault.

Even though you were only in your twenties, you were already a well-known Vice Admiral. Vergo had informed Doflamingo of your impressive Haki abilities months ago, but that wasn’t the only reason he kept a close eye on you. You were sexy as hell, even in a Marines uniform, and he delighted in every brief interaction he had with you at Warlord meetings. When you decided to take some time off, he snatched you up immediately with a tantalizing job offer. After all, working for him was technically still a Government job, and he was helping so many countries in need!

You made it clear from the very beginning that this was a temporary gig and you had no intention of permanently joining the Donquixote Family. You were his business partner, not his subordinate. He never planned on honoring that agreement, of course, but you were making his plans particularly difficult.

The man had hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of loyal and passive subjects. Obedient workers who never questioned his judgment and praised his iron fist, from the filthy commoners at the bottom to the Elite Officers up top. But not you.

You had the kind of effortless confidence that got under his skin. You were unbothered and detached from his evil antics, from him. He made his presence known everywhere he went and was always the focus of the room, but it seemed like you paid more attention to the damn servants than him. His threats and intimidation which made thousands tremble in fear hardly made you flinch. When he revealed the secret of Dressrosa’s toys in hopes of getting a reaction from you, you practically yawned.

You knew who he was. You knew what he was capable of. You didn’t fucking care.

You weren’t afraid of him, and this greatly disturbed him.

A few days ago, you had strolled into his office without even knocking on the door. He furrowed his eyebrows in annoyance, but you barely took notice. You were there to discuss your agreement in order to figure out a time frame of how long he needed you. He threw his head back and laughed loudly as he said, “That’s adorable. You really think you can get away from me, hm?”

Perceptive as always, you noticed the slightest twitch of his middle finger and immediately held an Armament Haki-coated hand in front of your chest, blocking the nearly invisible string flung your way. “Doffy, I’m being serious.”

He frowned and narrowed his eyes. Diamante used that nickname once in front of you and now you wouldn’t call him anything else. You thought it was cute. “Since when can you block my strings?”

“Do you really think I’d be a Vice Admiral if I couldn’t do that? You were so obvious about it, too.” You clicked your tongue, knowing full well that anyone less powerful than you wouldn’t be able to perceive his movement. Prominent veins popped in Doflamingo’s forehead but the blonde man stayed silent. “I think I’ll stay here for a few more months, at least. Maybe longer if I don’t have a terrible time here. Dressrosa is kind of growing on me.”

“You’re acting like I can’t keep you here by force.” Doflamingo interrupted your train of thought. “I could have Sugar turn you into a cute little doll, and then your Vice Admiral position would disappear. Or Giolla could turn you into a painting to hang on my wall.” He paused as if considering his options, knowing full well what he truly wanted. “Maybe I’ll keep you tied up with strings as my own personal pet.”

Many times he’d pictured you tied to the headboard of his bed, stripped naked and covered in his drying cum as he used you however he wanted. Perhaps then he’d finally ignite a spark of fear in you.

“If you actually wanted to do that, it would’ve happened already. But you’re the one who hired me, remember?” You acted like you were explaining something obvious to a kid. “If you try anything against me, I can always call up the Navy and tell them what you’re doing to your poor innocent citizens. Maybe even let them know your alias? Begins with a J, right?”

“You wouldn’t dare.” He snarled, sitting up in his seat immediately and binding strings around your wrists to keep them pinned above your head. You kept your eyes trained on his, a determined and almost taunting glint in them.

“I’m not a big fan of blackmail, so I don’t want to do that,” you replied in an even tone. “I’m just saying that I can. Now, are we gonna talk business, or are you gonna play cat’s cradle all day?”

Doflamingo should’ve killed you right then and there. That would’ve put an end to his confusing thoughts about you, but your conversation only made them worse. You were on his mind constantly, to the point where he couldn’t focus on anything else. It was an obsession, an infatuation, one completely unbecoming of a heavenly being like himself. People were meant to grovel at his feet and kiss the very ground he walked on – why the fuck were you not affected?

He finally had enough. He pushed the chair away from his desk and stormed out of his office. Servants hurried away in fear, knowing that his scowl and heavy footsteps meant nothing but trouble. A whirlwind of thoughts swirled around his mind — he wanted to make you scream, to completely immobilize you with his power, to kiss you so hard you saw stars. No, that wasn’t it.

He wanted you to call him ‘Young Master’.

Doflamingo threw open the double doors to a secluded drawing room in his typical dramatic flair. You were alone, reclining on a couch and reading a book. Even this pissed him off – you were in a potential viper’s nest, surrounded by powerful people who could turn on you at any point, yet you didn’t feel the need to keep others around you for protection. You turned your head towards the intruder in confusion. His massive body filled the door frame and light from the hallway illuminated him and his feathery coat from behind, making him look like a fallen angel.

“What Devil Fruit did you eat.” It was a statement, not a question. His voice was a dangerously low growl.

“I already told you, I didn’t eat one.” You said slowly, slightly thrown off by his demeanor but still not afraid.

“You lying bitch!” He roared, using his strings to slam the doors behind him as he crossed the room towards you in three giant steps. “You must have some kind of mind control ability, or manipulation, or… I don’t fucking know! Tell me what’s happening!” He threw his head in his hands and crouched over, almost as if he was in pain. “Why can’t I stop fucking thinking about you!”

Your mouth opened slightly and you blinked a few times to process the situation, and then it hit you. A sly grin slowly formed on your face as you dog-eared your book and set it down next to you. You knew this man was incapable of love in its purest sense, but maybe… “Doffy, have you never been attracted to someone before?”

His head shot up and he narrowed his eyes at you furiously behind his sunglasses. Of course he’d fucking been attracted to people – he refused to settle for nothing but the best with his lovers. He had fucked enough sexy men and women over the years to form a small army. But none of them were like you.

They were all cheaply made toys, suitable for one or two uses then tossed in the trash when they broke or when he got bored. He was a greedy and spoiled child who always got what he wanted. But with you… it felt like he was staring through the front window of a shop at a shiny new toy. So close and so enticing but completely out of reach.

“Fuck you! I… I…” You would never know how that sentence was supposed to end, because he sunk to his knees and hung his head in frustrated shame. He slammed his fist against the floor hard enough to rattle the room. “Why won’t you belong to me?!”

The almighty King of Dressrosa, the feared Warlord, the powerful underground broker, was on his knees begging for you. He knew he sounded pathetic. He felt pathetic. But he couldn’t go a moment longer without getting what he wanted, what was rightfully his.

To say you were shocked was an understatement. You had always stood your ground because you knew your worth, but sometimes you did it to purposely push the blonde man’s buttons since no one else seemed to have the courage to do so. But you were just teasing him – this was not the outcome you had in mind.

You slowly stood from the couch to move in front of him. Even bent over, the massive man was practically your height, but he had never seemed smaller.

“Doffy,” you began in a quiet voice and reached out to gently touch his feather-clad shoulder, but he slammed the ground again.

“I don’t need you to patronize me! I need…” he trailed off again and hesitated for a moment before realizing what he needed to do to calm the fire roaring inside him. Fine, he would give you a fucking reason to worship him. He threw himself at your midsection, making you yelp in surprise. He had finally drawn a reaction out of you, and it spurred him on even more. Rough hands yanked your shirt up to your breasts and he hungrily mouthed at the soft skin of your tummy, a frenzied mess of tongue and teeth and soft lips. “I need you. Give yourself to me.” He said breathlessly, punctuating his words with a sharp bite at your hip.

You were frozen in place but weak in the knees, unable to do anything but accept his bites and bruises. You’d be lying if you said you’d never imagined what his long tongue and nimble fingers felt like on your body, in your body. He nipped at your skin hard enough to bruise then soothed it with his tongue, sending heat straight to your core.

Doflamingo was in a drugged-like haze, mind clouded with a dizzying mix of lust and hatred and longing. He belatedly noticed that you weren’t resisting him when he popped the button on your jeans. When he looked up, he realized your cheeks were flushed and your gaze was trained on his long fingers dancing along the waistband of your pants.

He smiled wickedly, feeling a sliver of regained control. “You fucking whore. You want this, don’t you?”

“Doffy, you’re the one literally trying to get in my pants.”

“Shut up.” He snarled, annoyed yet allured by your sweet giggle afterwards. He yanked your jeans down to your ankles to reveal pretty pink lace panties underneath. They practically matched the color of his coat – you had to have worn those just for him. Might as well take them later.

A needy and unashamed whine tore from his lips when he saw your pussy. Even more perfect than he’d imagined all those times he fucked his fist alone in bed. He told himself this was what was necessary to crush that annoying ego of yours, knowing full well he was nearly shaking with pure carnal desire. He grabbed your hips hard enough to bruise and shoved your thighs apart before diving in. His tongue was ravenous, licking a sloppy stripe from your ass to your clit, mouth closing around the nub and sucking harshly. The sweetest moan he’d ever heard fell from your lips and he echoed it, eager to hear more.

Fingers tangled in his short blonde hair as you tried to steady yourself. It was too much all at once. You tried to tug him away to tell him to slow down, yet wanted to pull him even closer. Doflamingo flinched at the contact. Part of him wanted to tie your hands behind your back because how dare you touch him without permission. But instead, he groaned at the rough pull on his scalp, which went straight to his hardening cock. His grip on you tightened as he dragged you further onto his face.

His long tongue lapped messily at your folds then slipped into your cunt, shallowly thrusting the wet tip in and out. He laughed in delight at your delicious juices coating his tastebuds and making his head spin.

“You’re so fucking wet.” He panted and rubbed his nose against your clit, making you jump. A sloppy string of his saliva still connected his mouth to your entrance. “I think you like me after all.”

“I’d like anyone who eats me out this good,” you quipped.

“But no one’s as good as me, hm?” To prove his point, he shoved the entirety of his skilled tongue deep inside you. You threw your head back and whined as the wet muscle curled and twisted inside you, hungrily lapping at your sensitive inner walls. “No one will ever be as good as me. Say you’re mine and you can have this every day.”

“F-fuck, Doffy… so, mmh, good…” He ate you out like a man starved, desperately sucking at every part of your pussy he could reach. One hand moved from your hip, leaving dark blue fingerprint-shaped bruises behind, and plunged into his own pants. He let out a deep groan at the contact.

“Call me Young Master.” Doflamingo breathed heavily as he pulled his pants down slightly. Your jaw dropped when he revealed his massive and fully erect dick, leaking beads of precum and bobbing against his stomach. You knew he’d be big based on his height, but this was inhuman. The blonde man noticed your hungry gaze and chuckled. “You want me so badly. Stop denying the truth and I’ll give you everything you want. I am a benevolent king, after all.”

You actually laughed at that, and he didn’t even try to be angry – being on full display for you meant he couldn’t hide the way your disobedience made his cock twitch. His other hand slithered between your legs and rubbed at your folds and the smile fell off your face.

You stumbled backwards – there was nothing behind you to lean on and your legs were quickly turning into jelly. “W-wait, Doffy, I can’t, ahh, l-let me sit…”

Two of his fingers moved downwards and bound your feet to the floor with his string. Immobilizing your bottom half like a statue but intentionally leaving your top half free to grab at his hair and body as you pleased. “Your king will grant you permission to move when I want to.”

“S’okay, I l-like seeing you look up to me for once.” Your witty reply was lost on the blonde, who had spread your folds apart and was hypnotized by your entrance clenching around nothing. You were so fucking tiny compared to him and he ached at the thought of molding your insides to take him and him alone.

Just one thick finger was enough to make you moan and pant, slowly pushing its way inside your cunt. “Shit, you’re so tight.” The soft squelches of your inner walls rang in his ears and pretty pearls of precum leaked from his dick. “Perfect fucking pussy. Give it to me.”

A second digit was soon added, scissoring you apart expertly. Unsurprisingly, the man really knew how to use his fingers. He crooked them and brushed against your most sensitive spot, causing you to cry out and hold onto him even harder. Sharp teeth playfully bit at your inner thigh in response. Doflamingo gathered some of the constant dribble of precum from the tip of his cock to lube his rough palm. He considered making you spit on his hand to ease the glide, but a better idea came to mind.

“Spit in my mouth.” He ordered, tilting his head up and sticking his tongue out. Waiting for you to follow his command like a good toy.

You were taken aback by the sudden request, but you gathered a ball of spit in your mouth like you were told… and it landed directly on the lens of his sunglasses, obscuring the vision of one eye. Doflamingo knew that it wasn’t just badly aimed. This was an act of defiance. You intentionally spit on his defining accessory, his very essence.

“You stupid slut.” The venomous insult came with a maniacally pleased grin. He pushed the stained glasses onto his forehead and you finally saw his eyes for the first time. Gorgeous and bright blue with lust-blown pupils. Looking at his beautifully depraved expression in its entirety, you briefly wondered if he really was an angel. His fingers sped up to a nearly brutal pace and he slipped in a third digit, causing you to choke on your spit. “Love me. Love me.”

A divine being who fell from heaven to beg at your feet.

“Y-you’re fucking insane,” you panted with a blissful smile, your cunt clenching down deliciously on him. “Make up your, mmh, mind.”

“Adore me.” He responded immediately. “Say you’re mine. Be mine.”

Even though you refused to respond, the blonde was lost in his fantasies yet grounded in the reality of your beautiful face scrunched up in pleasure. Mouth hanging open, hands nearly going numb from how hard you held onto him. He needed to see you like this every day – no, every hour. He could keep you under his desk like a pet, ready to suck his dick whenever he allowed you to. Or maybe you’d sit in his lap all day, one of his hands fondling your tits as he attended meetings and forced his subordinates to watch him play with his favorite toy.

But that was too mundane. He could snatch up anyone in Dressrosa right now and do the same. No, the twisted fantasy that really made his cock ache was already happening. That annoyingly sexy confidence of yours was threatening his godliness.

Maybe he’d make you step on him next time.

“Call me Young Master,” he begged again, too far gone to realize how ridiculous he sounded. Tongue hanging out like a dog (and panting like one, too), he rutted into his hand even faster. His cock was absolutely throbbing, red and angry and dripping precum. He was in no position to be giving orders. You stifled a giggle with your hand, which quickly turned into a moan as his fingers bumped against your cervix.

“I already t-told you,” you sucked in a few shaky breaths. He was watching you intently and still smiling, but his fingers never slowed down. “You’re not my –mm– Master, I don’t, ahh, work for you…”

“But why not?” He whined again. “At least call me it when you cum. I’ll fucking kill you if you don’t.”

You didn’t acknowledge the ridiculously empty threat, instead throwing your head back when his fingers crooked against your most sensitive spot. Slick was dribbling down your legs – Doflamingo licked it off of your thighs before slurping around his digits buried inside you. The blonde echoed your unashamedly loud moans, practically on the edge himself. He only needed one thing to send him into a rapturous white bliss.

He stared up at you unblinkingly, face frozen in a grin as he took in all the telltale signs of your approaching orgasm. Sweat dribbled down your forehead, eyebrows furrowed together, body tense and breath hot. “I-I’m gonna… gonna…” He crooked his fingers inside you the way he’d done thousands of times to turn people into obedient little puppets.

“Doffy~!” Your face contorted into the most divine expression he’d ever seen, crying out his name like a desperate prayer.

You ignored his order. You used that stupid fucking nickname.

He came hard.

The tight coil that had been building in his groin for days at the mere thought of you finally snapped. An animalistic moan left his lips as thick ropes of cum coated his hand and spilled onto his abdomen. He looked even more blissed out than you, panting hard and shuddering and nearly overstimulating himself with the hand on his cock still slowly moving up and down.

Doflamingo finally removed his fingers from inside you and loudly sucked them clean of your essence. Still craning his neck upwards so he wouldn’t break eye contact with you. You could lose yourself inside that piercing gaze, so full of obsession and hunger, especially when it was coming from a position of worship rather than condescension.

Blinking out of your stupor, you realized the blonde’s cum-coated hand was in front of your mouth. If you were anyone else, he would’ve shoved his fingers all the way to your throat and made you choke on it. Instead, he stayed still and kept quiet. This was an offering.

You grabbed his wrist and kitten-licked his sticky palm twice, humming thoughtfully as if appraising the taste. His grin grew even wider. Then you pulled away and teasingly said, “You take care of the rest of it.”

Doflamingo simply giggled in delight — you’d willingly tasted the essence of a god, one that was soon to be your god, but you were still too stubborn to give in. He didn’t expect you to crumble so easily and he didn’t want you to. He was having way too much fun. The blonde smeared the rest of his cum on the crotch of the pink panties still pooled around your ankles.

“That’s disgusting.” You huffed in annoyance and rolled your eyes. “What am I supposed to wear out of here?”

The man chuckled lowly and rose to his feet, suddenly towering above you at full height. He wiped the dried spit off of his sunglasses before returning them to their rightful place on the bridge of his nose.

“Who said anything about leaving?” You paled at the sight of his devilish grin but felt your core clench in need. “You still haven’t called me by my proper title.”

#mine #doflamingo x reader #doflamingo smut #doffy x reader #doflamingo #doffy #one piece x reader #one piece smut #my fics #donquixote doflamingo

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jobsnotices · 5 months ago

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CTEVT Vacancy 2024 for Assistant, Officer, and Instructor

CTEVT Vacancy 2024 for Assistant, Officer and Instructor. Council of Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT) Recruitment Committee, Sanothimi, Bhaktapur has issued notification regarding open, inclusive and internal competitive recruitment. Read below or visit the official site for more details. CAREER OPPORTUNITY CTEVT Vacancy 2024 for Assistant, Officer and Instructor In…

#Accountant Jobs #Assistant jobs #Council of Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT) Vacancy #CTEVT #CTEVT Vacancy 2024 #Government Jobs #Instructor Jobs #Job Vacancy #Jobs In Nepal #Officer Jobs #Permanent Job Vacancy #Teaching jobs

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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 days ago

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Expert agencies and elected legislatures

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/21/policy-based-evidence/#decisions-decisions

Since Trump hijacked the Supreme Court, his backers have achieved many of their policy priorities: legalizing bribery, formalizing forced birth, and – with the Loper Bright case, neutering the expert agencies that regulate business:

https://jacobin.com/2024/07/scotus-decisions-chevron-immunity-loper

What the Supreme Court began, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are now poised to finish, through the "Department of Government Efficiency," a fake agency whose acronym ("DOGE") continues Musk's long-running cryptocurrency memecoin pump-and-dump. The new department is absurd – imagine a department devoted to "efficiency" with two co-equal leaders who are both famously incapable of getting along with anyone – but that doesn't make it any less dangerous.

Expert agencies are often all that stands between us and extreme misadventure, even death. The modern world is full of modern questions, the kinds of questions that require a high degree of expert knowledge to answer, but also the kinds of questions whose answers you'd better get right.

You're not stupid, nor are you foolish. You could go and learn everything you need to know to evaluate the firmware on your antilock brakes and decide whether to trust them. You could figure out how to assess the Common Core curriculum for pedagogical soundness. You could learn the material science needed to evaluate the soundness of the joists that hold the roof up over your head. You could acquire the biology and chemistry chops to decide whether you want to trust produce that's been treated with Monsanto's Roundup pesticides. You could do the same for cell biology, virology, and epidemiology and decide whether to wear a mask and/or get an MRNA vaccine and/or buy a HEPA filter.

You could do any of these. You might even be able to do two or three of them. But you can't do all of them, and that list is just a small slice of all the highly technical questions that stand between you and misery or an early grave. Practically speaking, you aren't going to develop your own robust meatpacking hygiene standards, nor your own water treatment program, nor your own Boeing 737 MAX inspection protocol.

Markets don't solve this either. If they did, we wouldn't have to worry about chunks of Boeing jets falling on our heads. The reason we have agencies like the FDA (and enabling legislation like the Pure Food and Drug Act) is that markets failed to keep people from being murdered by profit-seeking snake-oil salesmen and radium suppository peddlers.

These vital questions need to be answered by experts, but that's easier said than done. After all, experts disagree about this stuff. Shortcuts for evaluating these disagreements ("distrust any expert whose employer has a stake in a technical question") are crude and often lead you astray. If you dismiss any expert employed by a firm that wants to bring a new product to market, you will lose out on the expertise of people who are so legitimately excited about the potential improvements of an idea that they quit their jobs and go to work for whomever has the best chance of realizing a product based on it. Sure, that doctor who works for a company with a new cancer cure might just be shilling for a big bonus – but maybe they joined the company because they have an informed, truthful belief that the new drug might really cure cancer.

What's more, the scientific method itself speaks against the idea of there being one, permanent answer to any big question. The method is designed as a process of continual refinement, where new evidence is continuously brought forward and evaluated, and where cherished ideas that are invalidated by new evidence are discarded and replaced with new ideas.

So how are we to survive and thrive in a world of questions we ourselves can't answer, that experts disagree about, and whose answers are only ever provisional?

The scientific method has an answer for this, too: refereed, adversarial peer review. The editors of major journals act as umpires in disputes among experts, exercising their editorial discernment to decide which questions are sufficiently in flux as to warrant taking up, then asking parties who disagree with a novel idea to do their damndest to punch holes in it. This process is by no means perfect, but, like democracy, it's the worst form of knowledge creation except for all others which have been tried.

Expert regulators bring this method to governance. They seek comment on technical matters of public concern, propose regulations based on them, invite all parties to comment on these regulations, weigh the evidence, and then pass a rule. This doesn't always get it right, but when it does work, your medicine doesn't poison you, the bridge doesn't collapse as you drive over it, and your airplane doesn't fall out of the sky.

Expert regulators work with legislators to provide an empirical basis for turning political choices into empirically grounded policies. Think of all the times you've heard about how the gerontocracy that dominates the House and the Senate is incapable of making good internet policy because "they're out of touch and don't understand technology." Even if this is true (and sometimes it is, as when Sen Ted Stevens ranted about the internet being "a series of tubes," not "a dump truck"), that doesn't mean that Congress can't make good internet policy.

After all, most Americans can safely drink their tap water, a novelty in human civilization, whose history amounts to short periods of thriving shattered at regular intervals by water-borne plagues. The fact that most of us can safely drink our water, but people who live in Flint (or remote indigenous reservations, or Louisiana's Cancer Alley) can't tells you that these neighbors of ours are being deliberately poisoned, as we know precisely how not to poison them.

How did we (most of us) get to the point where we can drink the water without shitting our guts out? It wasn't because we elected a bunch of water scientists! I don't know the precise number of microbiologists and water experts who've been elected to either house, but it's very small, and their contribution to good sanitation policy is negligible.

We got there by delegating these decisions to expert agencies. Congress formulates a political policy ("make the water safe") and the expert agency turns that policy into a technical program of regulation and enforcement, and your children live to drink another glass of water tomorrow.

Musk and Ramaswamy have set out to destroy this process. In their Wall Street Journal editorial, they explain that expert regulation is "undemocratic" because experts aren't elected:

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/musk-and-ramaswamy-the-doge-plan-to-reform-government-supreme-court-guidance-end-executive-power-grab-fa51c020

They've vowed to remove "thousands" of regulations, and to fire swathes of federal employees who are in charge of enforcing whatever remains:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/20/24301975/elon-musk-vivek-ramaswamy-doge-plan

And all this is meant to take place on an accelerated timeline, between now and July 4, 2026 – a timeline that precludes any meaningful assessment of the likely consequences of abolishing the regulations they'll get rid of.

"Chesterton's Fence" – a thought experiment from the novelist GK Chesterton – is instructive here:

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

A regulation that works might well produce no visible sign that it's working. If your water purification system works, everything is fine. It's only when you get rid of the sanitation system that you discover why it was there in the first place, a realization that might well arrive as you expire in a slick of watery stool with a rectum so prolapsed the survivors can use it as a handle when they drag your corpse to the mass burial pits.

When Musk and Ramaswamy decry the influence of "unelected bureaucrats" on your life as "undemocratic," they sound reasonable. If unelected bureaucrats were permitted to set policy without democratic instruction or oversight, that would be autocracy.

Indeed, it would resemble life on the Tesla factory floor: that most autocratic of institutions, where you are at the mercy of the unelected and unqualified CEO of Tesla, who holds the purely ceremonial title of "Chief Engineer" and who paid the company's true founders to falsely describe him as its founder.

But that's not how it works! At its best, expert regulations turns political choices in to policy that reflects the will of democratically accountable, elected representatives. Sometimes this fails, and when it does, the answer is to fix the system – not abolish it.

I have a favorite example of this politics/empiricism fusion. It comes from the UK, where, in 2008, the eminent psychopharmacologist David Nutt was appointed as the "drug czar" to the government. Parliament had determined to overhaul its system of drug classification, and they wanted expert advice:

https://locusmag.com/2021/05/cory-doctorow-qualia/

To provide this advice, Nutt convened a panel of drug experts from different disciplines and asked them to rate each drug in question on how dangerous it was for its user; for its user's family; and for broader society. These rankings were averaged, and then a statistical model was used to determine which drugs were always very dangerous, no matter which group's safety you prioritized, and which drugs were never very dangerous, no matter which group you prioritized.

Empirically, the "always dangerous" drugs should be in the most restricted category. The "never very dangerous" drugs should be at the other end of the scale. Parliament had asked how to rank drugs by their danger, and for these categories, there were clear, factual answers to Parliament's question.

But there were many drugs that didn't always belong in either category: drugs whose danger score changed dramatically based on whether you were more concerned about individual harms, familial harms, or societal harms. This prioritization has no empirical basis: it's a purely political question.

So Nutt and his panel said to Parliament, "Tell us which of these priorities matter the most to you, and we will tell you where these changeable drugs belong in your schedule of restricted substances." In other words, politicians make political determinations, and then experts turn those choices into empirically supported policies.

This is how policy by "unelected bureaucrats" can still be "democratic."

But the Nutt story doesn't end there. Nutt butted heads with politicians, who kept insisting that he retract factual, evidence-supported statements (like "alcohol is more harmful than cannabis"). Nutt refused to do so. It wasn't that he was telling politicians which decisions to make, but he took it as his duty to point out when those decisions did not reflect the policies they were said to be in support of. Eventually, Nutt was fired for his commitment to empirical truth. The UK press dubbed this "The Nutt Sack Affair" and you can read all about it in Nutt's superb book Drugs Without the Hot Air, an indispensable primer on the drug war and its many harms:

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/drugs-without-the-hot-air-9780857844989/

Congress can't make these decisions. We don't elect enough water experts, virologists, geologists, oncology researchers, structural engineers, aerospace safety experts, pedagogists, gerontoloists, physicists and other experts for Congress to turn its political choices into policy. Mostly, we elect lawyers. Lawyers can do many things, but if you ask a lawyer to tell you how to make your drinking water safe, you will likely die a horrible death.

That's the point. The idea that we should just trust the market to figure this out, or that all regulation should be expressly written into law, is just a way of saying, "you will likely die a horrible death."

Trump – and his hatchet men Musk and Ramaswamy – are not setting out to create evidence-based policy. They are pursuing policy-based evidence, firing everyone capable of telling them how to turn the values espouse (prosperity and safety for all Americans) into policy.

They dress this up in the language of democracy, but the destruction of the expert agencies that turn the political will of our representatives into our daily lives is anything but democratic. It's a prelude to transforming the nation into a land of epistemological chaos, where you never know what's coming out of your faucet.

#pluralistic #politics #political science #department of government efficiency #loper bright #chevron deference #david nutt #drugs #regulation #democracy #democratic accountability #ukpoli #nutt sack affair #war on drugs #war on some drugs

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