#hardline mike

[plantsucc]

Hatsune Miku, but autocorrected - Hardline Mike sketches from February!! the vague lore I thought of was that he wanted a more masc look, so he rebranded for an American audience or sth? is that how the Mikuverse works?

I also did a “HarderLine Mike” who was muscular but those drawing are too embarrassing to be shared

[pixeljade]

Look i know that it will never be a truly faithful adaptation (honestly how could you) but id love to see what a Mike Flanagan take on House of Leaves could look like

Imagine, he's already shown us how perfect he is at understanding symbols, especially of what a house is as a symbol. And he can really do a perfect story-within-a-story, and even play with formatting to make us question whether or not we're being shown the truth or not. Its a story built of almost all the same pieces as his Netflix series. I think whatever he ends up making with it would be incredible, regardless of truth.

[bigscaryartist]

Hardline Mike 2

[samwiselastname]

your mangled brain would like you to know that there is a vocaloid called hardline mike

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday appointed two far-right Republicans to the powerful House Intelligence Committee, positioning two close allies of Donald Trump who worked to overturn the 2020 presidential election on a panel that receives sensitive classified briefings and oversees the work of America’s spy agencies.

The appointments of GOP Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Ronny Jackson of Texas to the House Intelligence Committee were announced on the House floor Wednesday. Johnson, a hardline conservative from Louisiana who has aligned himself with Trump, was replacing spots on the committee that opened up after the resignations of Republican Reps. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Chris Stewart of Utah.

Committee spots have typically been given to lawmakers with backgrounds in national security and who have gained respect across the aisle. But the replacements with two close Trump allies comes as Johnson has signaled his willingness to use the full force of the House to aid Trump’s bid to reclaim the Oval Office. It also hands the hard-right faction of the House two coveted spots on a committee that handles the nation’s secrets and holds tremendous influence over the direction of foreign policy.

Trump has long displayed adversarial and flippant views of the U.S. intelligence community, flouted safeguards over classified information and directly berated law enforcement agencies like the FBI. The former president faces 37 felony counts for improperly storing in his Florida estate sensitive documents on nuclear capabilities, repeatedly enlisting aides and lawyers to help him hide records demanded by investigators and cavalierly showing off a Pentagon “plan of attack” and classified map.

Johnson did not release a statement on his picks for the committee.

Perry, who formerly chaired the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, was ordered by a federal judge last year to turn over more than 1,600 texts and emails to FBI agents investigating efforts to keep Trump in office after his 2020 election loss and illegally block the transfer of power to Democrat Joe Biden.

Perry’s personal cellphone was also seized by federal authorities who have explored his role in helping install an acting attorney general who would be receptive to Trump’s false claims of election fraud.

Perry and other conservatives have also pushed Congress to curtail a key U.S. government surveillance tool. They want to restrict the FBI’s ability to use the program to search for Americans’ data.

“I look forward to providing not only a fresh perspective, but conducting actual oversight — not blind obedience to some facets of our Intel Community that all too often abuse their powers, resources, and authority to spy on the American People,” Perry said in a statement.

Jackson, who was elected to the House in 2020, was formerly a top White House physician under former presidents Barack Obama and Trump. Known for his over-the-top pronouncements about Trump’s health, Jackson was nominated by Trump to be the secretary of Veterans Affairs.

He withdrew his nomination amid allegations of professional misconduct. An internal investigation at the Department of Defense later concluded that Jackson made “sexual and denigrating” comments about a female subordinate, violated the policy on drinking alcohol on a presidential trip and took prescription-strength sleeping medication that prompted worries from his colleagues about his ability to provide proper medical care.

Jackson has denied those allegations and described them as politically motivated.

The House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol also requested testimony from Jackson as it looked into lawmakers’ meetings at the White House, direct conversations with Trump as he sought to challenge his election loss and the planning and coordination of rallies. Jackson declined to testify.

The presence of Jackson and Perry on the committee could damage the trust between the president and the committee in handling classified information, said Ira Goldman, a former Republican congressional aide who worked as a counsel to the intelligence committee in the 1970s and 1980s.

He said, “You’re giving members seats on the committee when, based on the public record, they couldn’t get a security clearance if they came through any other door.”

[mooestriovermind]

Hardline Mike

If you get it you get it

[tanadrin]

i know you have to have sort of an unreasonable belief in your own popularity to be a politician, but i’m confused that mike pence thinks he has a shot at the republican nomination. i never got the impression that pence, like, had a natural constituency on his own--he was meant to be sort of the token normal conservative in the trump administration (and failed at that). desantis is, i suppose, trying to be the trumplike politician who happens not to be under indictment for a long list of felonies, and other candidates like chris christie seem to be trying to fill the less-obviously-hardline niche. but does pence really appeal to anyone? he was part of the trump administration so it will be hard for him to avoid the association with trump among people for whom that is a liability, yet he is distancing himself enough from trump that it will not be a plus for people who might otherwise like that about him.

[mariacallous]

Elon Musk is a man comfortable with risky bets. He pledged to send 1 million people to Mars (SpaceX), to fill factories with humanoid workers (Tesla Bot), and to create a network of highways deep underground (the Boring Company). All of these bets are yet to pay off. But six years ago, Musk took a leap of faith that would also affect him personally. He tied his own pay at Tesla to a series of financial targets over the next decade, including boosting the company’s market value from $59 billion to $650 billion. Such targets were decried by commentators at the time as “jaw-dropping” and “his most unlikely goal yet.” And Musk’s wage from the company if he didn’t pull them off? Nothing at all.

The board agreed to the plan in 2018. However, a heavy-metal drummer named Richard Tornetta, who owned just nine Tesla shares, did not. In June of that year, he decided to sue, claiming the pay package was unfair to investors like him. By the time the case reached court in Delaware in 2022, Musk had just one milestone left before the big payout. But the judge agreed with Tornetta in January, voiding what she called an unfathomably large pay package and describing the directors who negotiated it as beholden to Musk.

Musk succeeded in hitting those 12 jaw-dropping targets by the close of 2023, following Tesla’s brief spell as a trillion-dollar company. And now, despite what happened in Delaware, he’s demanding to be paid. At Tesla’s annual meeting on Thursday, shareholders are being asked to vote again on whether Musk should receive what has by now swollen to a nearly $50 billion pay package, the biggest in US corporate history. The $50 billion question for shareholders is: Is Musk worth it?

Posing the question of whether he deserves his pay packet at all marks a significant shift for the relationship between Musk and the electric automaker he has led since 2008. “The resistance shows that there is a ceiling to the influence that a single person has on the company,” says Mike Ramsey, an automotive analyst at the consultancy Gartner. “This is the the first time Tesla shareholders might be willing to say, ‘You can’t have unlimited power.’”

The vote comes at a difficult time for Tesla. For the first time in the company’s history, Tesla is facing intense competition in the electric car market—especially from cheaper Chinese competitors. Meanwhile, some observers have puzzled over Musk’s response and his pivot to robotaxis and artificial intelligence.

“The debate here really is about the future, not the past,” says John Colley, professor of practice in strategy and leadership at the UK’s Warwick Business School. “Tesla has become a mature business, and it’s got all the problems that mature carmakers have now.” Whether a visionary like Musk is the best man to lead a mature business is unclear, he adds.

The pay package is just one in a series of measures that shareholders have already been asked to vote on by proxy, ahead of Thursday’s meeting. Others include whether Tesla’s incorporation should move from Delaware to Texas, whether the company should soften its hardline stance on labor negotiations, and whether the company should preemptively impose a moratorium on using minerals mined from the seabed.

Yet none have been as divisive as Musk’s pay. Deep rifts among investors have been exposed in the lead-up to the vote. Tesla board chair Robyn Denholm has backed the pay package, as has billionaire investor Ron Baron. “Tesla is better with Elon,” Baron wrote in an open letter last week. “Tesla is Elon.” Yet the deal’s opponents include two influential proxy advisory groups, which guide institutional investors on votes, as well as shareholders from the Nordic countries, where Tesla has clashed with workers over labor rights.

Norway’s trillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund has said it will vote against the pay deal, as will the country’s largest pension fund, KLP. “While we acknowledge that the company has grown significantly and successfully during the performance period, we still note that the total award value remains excessive,” Kiran Aziz, KLP's head of responsible investments, told WIRED, adding the fund will vote in favor of the motion urging Tesla to engage in labor negotiations. “Recent [dispute] between Tesla and the company’s workers in Sweden as well as Tesla’s history of accusations of interference with workers’ rights is of great concern and shows that the company needs to do better work in the area.”

Behind the scenes of the vote, lobbying has been intense. Tesla has paid for ads on Google and X, which is owned by Musk, telling investors to “protect your investment” and support the proposal, according to a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In April, Tesla also launched a website urging shareholders to vote against the Delaware court decision and support the pay package. “The Court’s decision, if implemented, means that Elon would not receive any compensation for the tremendous accomplishments that have generated significant stockholder returns in less than six years,” the website reads.

“This is the most advertising I can remember from any proxy solicitation,” says Robert Anderson, a professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law. He believes the Musk effect—the CEO’s ability to attract endless publicity—has contributed to this situation. But the pay package and the proposed Texas move are both unprecedented in the business world, he adds. “Either [of] those things by themselves would be pretty significant, even if he were not a public figure.”

The vote will be decided by a mix of institutional investors as well as an unusually large cohort of retail investors, who control around 44 percent of the business. Among shareholders, there are concerns that if Musk does not win his compensation, “his attention might drift to some of his other ventures a little bit more,” says Anderson. Musk managed to juggle multiple ventures for years, but he has been more publicly distracted since acquiring the social media service Twitter and renaming it X. There, his visible turn to right-wing politics has garnered new fans and left some old ones behind.

Whatever happens this week, Tesla and Musk may emerge looking a bit less superhuman. For years, the two have insisted that Tesla is a tech company, with a Silicon Valley–style startup scrappiness. “We should be thought of as an AI or robotics company,” Musk told investors—or voters—in April. “If you value Tesla as just an auto company … fundamentally, it’s just the wrong framework.”

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Madeline Peltz at MMFA:

The Family Research Council, an extreme anti-LGBTQ group and Project 2025 partner, is leading a new initiative called the “Platform Integrity Project” calling on the public to get involved with an effort to pressure the Republican Party to adopt a hardline anti-abortion stance as it drafts its platform for the 2024 campaign. FRC president Tony Perkins is a delegate to the GOP platform committee, a position he’s held twice in the past. The Platform Integrity Project website reads, “The GOP Platform has a strong pro-life, pro-family, and pro-freedom track record. Encourage your state’s delegates to protect these fundamental issues when they meet in Milwaukee to draft the new Platform July 8 and 9."

According to the site, which includes a prayer for “state delegates and other officials” writing the new party platform to receive God-given “wisdom and discernment,” the initiative is backed by more than 20 other conservative groups. This push comes amidst an intense intra-party fight over the GOP party platform as the Republican National Convention approaches. The platform has not been updated since the 2016 election, before Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022. Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that a coalition of 10 conservative groups, including the Family Research Council, sent a letter to former President Donald Trump in June urging him to “make clear that you do not intend to weaken the pro-life plank,” while also praising him as “the most pro-life president in American history.” Other signatories of the letter include anti-abortion leaders from Project 2025 partners like Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Concerned Women for America.

[...] Reporting indicates that some at the RNC and in President Trump’s inner circle see taking a hardline as a mistake. According to NBC News, the campaign is taking an active role in stopping the party from moving what it sees as too far right on abortion and marriage. And according to the Times, “In the two years since the Supreme Court that Mr. Trump transformed decided to overturn Roe, he has grown ever more convinced that hard-line abortion restrictions are electoral poison." That’s not to say that Trump is not an anti-abortion extremist. He has reportedly expressed private support for a national 16-week abortion ban and in the 2016 campaign made a promise to sign a 20-week abortion ban into law. He has taken credit for appointing the justices that voted to overturn Roe, and as president took steps to curtail abortion access. FRC has also recruited the support of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who recently told Perkins in an interview, “I think it’s a mistake for Republicans to avoid such an important critical issue. And I know it’s controversial,” adding “I think it is so central to who we are as Americans to understand the value of every human life."

An intra-party fight in the GOP over abortion language in the platform is happening now, and Family Research Council and other right-wing anti-abortion groups are demanding that the party enact a hardline anti-abortion platform.

[beardedmrbean]

House Speaker Mike Johnson is not worried about Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene as he attempts to galvanize enough of his conservative colleagues to avoid a government shutdown.

Johnson, who took over the gavel in late October following the ousting of Kevin McCarthy, is finding himself in a similar position to his predecessor. Although Johnson has met with President Joe Biden and Democratic Senate leaders to avoid a partial government shutdown by the January 19 deadline, hardline House conservatives who are worried about the $34.06 trillion national debt could derail any legislation—notably related to funding for the U.S.-Mexico border and Ukraine.

Greene, a Georgia Republican, has urged her conference to focus on domestic issues and spending related to stopping the flow from migrants from Mexico. Last Friday, she said continued Ukraine funding would be part of "a failing, losing strategy" and even floated the idea of vacating Johnson if he advocated for it.

Kaitlan Collins, host of CNN's The Source, asked Johnson on Wednesday about threats by Greene and other GOP hardliners and whether he's worried about his future as speaker.

"No, I have a job to do," Johnson said. "We all have to do our jobs. Marjorie Taylor Greene is very upset about the lack of oversight over the funding and over the lack of an articulation of a plan, as am I. All of us..."

Collins cut him off, saying that Greene is a 'no' vote on any legislation that includes Ukraine funding.

"I understand," Johnson said. "I've talked with her about it personally at great length and she's made her position very clear. We have to do our job. We have to continue to ensure that we're covering all these bases and we'll see how this all shakes out.

"I'm not worried about that. I got a job to do here. And we have to make sure we get the answers that we demanded."

Newsweek reached out to Johnson, Greene and the White House via email for comment.

Sign up for Newsweek’s daily headlines

More than three dozen House GOP members who are part of the Freedom Caucus expressed similar antipathy toward Johnson's discussions with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the White House, which led to a proposed spending deal that includes $704 billion for non-defense and $886 billion in defense spending to be allocated by the Appropriations Committee for specific government departments and agencies.

Another $69 billion side deal in adjustments in non-defense spending was also reached in principle.

"He should have never been hired," Ohio Representative Warren Davidson told reporters on January 10, just after he stormed out of a GOP-only members meeting.

Texas Representative Chip Roy, whom Johnson said he also has spoken with regarding the negotiations, said last week that he and others were "angry" with Johnson's approach and priorities.

Johnson's job security could come further into question pending the outcome of the negotiations, combined with multiple House GOP members leaving Congress and making a currently slim conservative majority even thinner.

[sir-qwillian-ferne]

woopsie daisy forgot about you anyway *AHEM*

Hatsune Miku was the first Vocaloid developed by Crypton Future Media after they handled the release of the Yamaha vocal Meiko and Kaito. Miku was intended to be the first of a series of Vocaloids called the "Character Vocal Series" (abbreviated "CV Series"), which included Kagamine Rin/Len and Megurine Luka. Each had a particular concept and vocal direction. She was built using Yamaha's Vocaloid 2 technology, and later updated to newer engine versions. She was created by taking vocal samples from voice actress Saki Fujita at a controlled pitch and tone. Those samples all contain a single Japanese phonic that, when strung together, creates full lyrics and phrases. The pitch of the samples was to be altered by the synthesizer engine and constructed into a keyboard-style instrument within the Vocaloid software.Crypton released Hatsune Miku on August 31, 2007. Crypton had the idea to release Miku as "an android diva in the near-future world where songs are lost." Hatsune Miku was released for Vocaloid 3 on August 31, 2013, including an English vocal library. She was the first Vocaloid to be developed by the company, following their commercial release handle of Yamaha Corporation developed vocals Meiko and Kaito, making Hatsune Miku the third Vocaloid to be sold commercially by the company.

-🍭 Anon

hardline mike

[bacon]

omg.... hardline mike......

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A photo of Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez smiling as House Republicans struggled to elect a Speaker for the second day in a row during Wednesday's Congress meeting went viral on social media.

The image shot by photographer Anna Moneymaker and shared on Twitter in the aftermath of the 118th Congress' second meeting, shows Ocasio-Cortez laughing as Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz—who's among the 20 defectors who voted against Kevin McCarthy's bid to become House leader—makes an impassioned speech to his fellow Republicans opposing McCarthy.

"AOC smiling in the background of the ongoing GOP dumpster fire," commented a Twitter user, comparing the image to a well-known meme of a girl standing in front of a house on fire.

"There is so much to be said about the Old Masters-style composition of this photograph by ANNA MONEYMAKER for GETTY IMAGES," lawyer Mike Godwin tweeted.

"Living vicariously through @AOC right now," wrote Gen Z activist Olivia Julianna, who last year raised over $1.5 million for abortion funds after being body-shamed by Gaetz.

Between Tuesday and Wednesday, McCarthy lost six consecutive votes, failing to gather enough support to become the Speaker of the House—a historic defeat for the Republican representative.

The opposition to McCarthy of 20 House Republicans, most of whom are hardliners and members of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus, has paralyzed Congress and thrown the GOP into turmoil.

Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow Democrats have been accused of reveling in the chaos unfolding within the Republican Party, with Republican Representative Kat Cammack accusing Democrats of getting drunk during voting.

"Diversity of thought is a good thing," Cammack said during a speech in Congress on Wednesday. "But they want us divided. They want us to fight each other. That much has been made clear by the popcorn and blankets and alcohol that has come in over there."

Ocasio-Cortez has fought back against the accusation, writing on Twitter: "If only! If Dems took a shot every time McCarthy lost a Republican, we'd all be unconscious by now."

Congress is set to reconvene at noon on Thursday to nominate a House Speaker.

[allthegeopolitics]

The United States House of Representatives with broad bipartisan support has passed a $95bn legislative package providing security assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, despite bitter objections from Republican hardliners. The legislation proceeded on Saturday to the Democratic-majority Senate, which passed a similar measure more than two months ago. US leaders from Democratic President Joe Biden to top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell had been urging embattled Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to bring it up for a vote.

Continue Reading.