#i voted mike... FOR COMMUNISM

[belanova]

honestly i shouldve made the question better why did you vote for the presidential canditate that you did, i wanna hear in the tags

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

* * * *

"Russia, Russia, Russia. It's always Russia!"

October 9, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

On a day of major political stories, the Earth is reminding us that we are guests on this planet subject to our collective good behavior over the long term. Hurricane Milton is threatening Florida like no other storm in the last century. Millions are (wisely) evacuating in the face of strong winds and a record storm surge that will inundate coastal areas.

Two months ago, Trump joked about human-caused climate change creating “more beachfront property.” In 2021, 175 House Republicans and 35 Senate Republicans voted to defund FEMA. See MTN News, A Whopping 175 House Republicans Voted Against FEMA Funding in 2021. Many of those lawmakers are now criticizing FEMA for being overwhelmed and under-resourced. Last week, Speaker Mike Johnson refused to call a special session of the House to enact emergency supplemental funding for FEMA.

Jokes aside, the substantive policy of the Republican Party is to promote fossil fuels and undermine green energy. See Center for American Progress, Project 2025 Would Jeopardize Global Climate Action. One of Trump's first acts in 2017 was to serve notice that the US would withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords, and one of Joe Biden’s first acts was to rescind that notice. If Trump is re-elected, we should expect that Trump will again seek to withdraw from global efforts to fight human-caused climate change. See NBC News, Mike Johnson won't commit to bringing House back before the election for more hurricane relief.

The weather is not the climate and record-breaking weather events are not (in themselves) climate change. But acceleration in global climate trends over time are evidence of human caused climate change. Indeed, the tendency of hurricanes to rapidly increase in intensity—like Hurricane Milton—is part of a new trend in hurricane behavior. See NBC News, Hurricane Milton's rapid intensification is part of a climate-fueled trend.  

Climate change is maddeningly difficult because its effects are difficult to track—until they are not. We may be living through one of those moments in which the effects of climate change are undeniably manifest. The question facing us is whether we have the capacity to maintain our concern and sense of urgency after the water has receded and the news crews have moved to the next breaking story. We need the ability to engage in long-term thinking and the patience to allow solutions to work over decades (or longer).

Many worthy and effective organizations are focused on fighting human-caused climate change. I have previously endorsed and appeared before Third Act, an organization started by Bill McKibben. Third Act describes itself as “a community of Americans over sixty determined to change the world for the better. Third Act harnesses an unparalleled generational power to safeguard our climate and democracy.” Check out Third Act—or highlight your climate focused organization in the Comments section.

In the meantime, my wife and I express our concern and empathy for the hundreds of thousands of Floridians affected by Hurricane Milton. Be safe and follow the guidance of authorities!

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[porterdavis]

Preaching to the choir

Here are quotes from the people who know Donald Trump best:

Mike Pence — Trump's Vice President

“It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year.”

Mark Esper — Trump's Secretary of Defense

“Trump is not fit for office because he puts himself first and I think anybody running for office should put the country first.”

James Mattis — Trump's Secretary of Defense

“Trump's use of the Presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice. Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people - does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us.”

John Kelly — Trump's Chief of Staff

“Trump is a person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. He's a person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.”

Mick Mulvaney — Trump's Chief of Staff

“I am working hard to make sure that someone else is the nominee.”

Mark Milley — Trump's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

“Trump is a wannabe dictator. We don't take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America - and we're willing to die to protect it.”

John Bolton — Trump's National Security Advisor

“There will be celebrations in the Kremlin if Trump is elected in November. Putin thinks that he is an easy mark. Donald Trump wants Americans to treat him like North Koreans treat Kim Jong Un. Get ready.”

Cassidy Hutchinson — Trump's Assistant to Chief of Staff

“If Trump is elected president again in 2024, I do fear that it will be the last election where we're voting for democracy because, if he is elected again, I don't think we'll be voting under the same Constitution.”

Stephanie Grisham — Chief of Staff to Trump's Wife Melania

“I did not vote for Trump in 2020.”

Sarah Matthews — Trump's Deputy Press Secretary

“Trump has a history of making unhinged comments. He helped incite a deadly insurrection on our nation's Capitol.”

Anthony Scaramucci — Trump's Director of Communications

“Trump's going to make things rougher for people. He has already said he's going after his adversaries using the Department of Justice. When someone's telling you they're going to flex and be a dictator on day one and go after their adversaries, this is against the 200+ year experiment of America.”

Alyssa Farah Griffin — Trump's Director of Strategic Communications

“The reason that I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump this year also has to do with the fact that he is walking away. Not just from keeping faith with the constitution on January 6th, but also from a commitment to fiscal responsibility, a commitment to the sanctity of life, a commitment to American leadership in the world.”

Bill Barr — Trump's Attorney General

“I have made clear that I strongly oppose Trump for the nomination and will not endorse Trump. One of the reasons I'm against Trump as the nominee is I don't think he's going to move the country forward.”

HR McMaster — Trump's National Security Advisor

“It would be terribly divisive for our country for Trump to run again.”

Take it from those who know him best!

[whenmemorydies]

Violence and Love in Monkey Man

Dev Patel's Monkey Man has played at my mind for two weeks now. This is for reasons that I'm able to articulate and for many that I probably have not yet been able to find the words for. This post is, in part, my attempt at sorting through some of my thoughts. My tumblr is all spoilers all the time. If you don’t want that, then please don’t read on.

Violence

Like most places in the world, systemic violence is a scourge in India. Monkey Man does not shy away from this reality and depicts Hindu nationalist state violence and violence against women and gendered minorities in the country to chilling effect.

We come to see this in the brutal rape and murder of Kid's activist mother at the hands of the police, while she tries to shield her child and her land from police and state terror. We see it in the treatment of (largely femme-presenting) sex workers in the two brothels featured in the film, including one frequented by the police and political elite. We see it in the violence and ostracisation meted out against the hijra, or third gender community by individual actors and the state more broadly. We see it in the state-orchestrated razing of an entire community after the land on which it sits is declared a "holy site". We see it in the movement of people from the regions to the city after their land has been stolen and the grinding poverty they face as a result.

Unlike so many action films, none of the violence in Monkey Man occurs in a vacuum. Even Kid's original means of making money in an underground fighting ring is done against the backdrop of his forced displacement from regional India to the city - a migration pathway that many in the country have been forced to take and which is a direct result of land theft and resource extraction in the regions by local and multinational corporations as well as federal and state governments.

The truth is that so much in relation to state and societal control is enacted in painful and violent ways on the bodies of the marginalised and oppressed. And I often think about how the horror and action genres are some of the best suited to speak about systemic injustice because of their capacity to make that violence uncompromisingly visible (one recent example is Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass which depicted the bloody fallout of the Christian missionary/colonial project in vivid crimson, splashed all over a non-descript maritime town in present-day America). The violence in Monkey Man is no different.

While Kid's realisation of the interconnectedness and heavy hand of the state not just in the violence experienced by his mother, but also by the hijra, and by sex workers like Sita comes later in the movie, we as the audience are given this insight earlier. Recall Kid pointing out to Sita that her tattoo is of a koel, not a sparrow as originally misidentified by the Australian client sexually assaulting her minutes earlier in the film.

Kid goes on to say that he grew up in the forest and woke up to koels singing everyday. Its the longest conversation that the two have but in those brief words, we understand that Sita too has likely been displaced to the city from the regions, probably under very similar circumstances to Kid. The way this displacement maps itself onto her body is distinctive to how it does so for Kid, with gender playing a large role in this.

Other factors like caste, class and religion also impact on how the characters in this film experience or perpetrate violence. I would write more on these intersections but then this post is going to get more unwieldy than it already is.

I will say though, that in India, where fascist Hindu nationalism is being used by government to harm minority communities, steal land and secure populist votes, Patel makes a distinction between revelatory and weaponised faith. Kid is raised in peace by his mother with the former, but as an adult he lives in a world where the latter has taken hold and is being used by those in power to shore up more of that power for themselves.

For me - as the descendant of parents, grandparents and great grandparents who lived through anti-Tamil pogroms led by Sinhalese chauvinists weaponising Buddhism as part of their fascism in Sri Lanka, who like the rest of us, is living in an election year for Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India, and who is also frustratingly, helplessly bearing witness as the state of Israel and it’s allies conflate Zionism with Judaism in defence of the genocide being waged against Palestinians - watching this action film make the distinction between revelatory and weaponised faith was profound.

Love

Patel makes it a point in this film to show how Kid's most nourishing relationships, the ones that sustain him - indeed the ones that literally save his life - are those that he has with women and with people who don’t conform to the gender binary. In doing this, we see what Kid is fighting tooth (quite literally) and nail for throughout the film. We see what is at stake - what we stand to lose - if perpetrators get to rule without accountability.

Its also no mistake that these relationships are all tied visually to the natural world in the film: Kid's mother's deep ties to the earth, rivers, trees and roots that she leads him through as a child. Alpha and the hijra's sanctuary, the Ardhanareeshvara temple with its most sacred space being the roots of a holy tree. Sita and her koel tattoo: the memory of the forest carried on her skin while she traverses the brutal reality of the city. Patel is making a point here too. About nourishment of another kind, through our connection with the earth instead of extraction from it. The visuals in the film drive this point home, particularly when contrasted with the industrialisation and poverty of the city.

Two particular loving relationships that stood out for me were the love shared between Kid and the hijra community as well as between him and his mother.

Alpha, hijra Elder and the hijra community

Keeper of the Ardhanareeshvara Temple and hijra Elder, Alpha becomes a mother-figure to Kid after he is rescued with near-fatal injuries. It is Alpha who keeps watch over him as he recovers, helps Kid to confront the totality of his past memories which his trauma has kept fragmented, and who ultimately leads a veritable hijra army to join forces with him to assassinate some fascists.

Alpha's gentleness with Kid was so moving to see, in particular during the conversation they have about his attempt as a child to save his mother from the fire set by her rapist and murderer. That exchange moved me to tears.

Kid: I failed her.

Alpha: No. You tried to save her. You see scars. I see the courage of a child fighting to save his mother.

The wider hijra community at the temple also take Kid in and care for him during his recovery. Truly, the scenes at the temple were some of my favourite in Monkey Man. Outside of his memories of his mother, they are the only scenes where we see love, peace and joy on the faces of any of the characters in this film.

Also witness this moment of delight below as the hijra at the temple appreciate a fine ass man channelling his righteous anger and fucking up a punching bag full of rice. I note that the music during this training montage is simply stunning. Ustad Zakir Hussain's rapid fire tablas punctuated by each of Patel's landed punches and kicks and then followed by Jed Kurzel's achingly soaring instrumentals (listen to "The Kid" from the movie's score) were just *chef’s kiss*.

Another favourite moment for me was when Kid decides to go back to the underground fight ring one last time and not throw his matches (as he had been doing prior). He bets on himself and when he inevitably wins his fights, he takes the money and gives it to the hijra, ensuring that they can continue to live at the temple without fear of being evicted. We love to see a man who literally pays his rent.

Neela, his mother

Kid’s first teacher and the center of his life as a child. In almost every memory we are shown of her, Kid remembers his mother walking through a forest, sharing her ecological and religious knowledge with him and in doing so, positioning him within the wider world.

GIF by dailyflicks

We watch as he takes this understanding with him forward through the remainder of the film. His conversation as an adult with Alphonso as they drive through the city in the latter's tuk tuk is emblematic of this. "They don't even see us", Kid says of the elite who frequent the club where he has just gained employment, "they're all up there living and we are stuck in this."

His mother showed him what it was to live: to be still and in concert with the world and the Divine around you, to be loved fiercely, and to thrive as a result. This is in stark contrast to what Kid has had to learn to do in the city: to survive, to merely exist. He is never depicted resting or at home as an adult. He's always working, hustling and planning for the next thing, his next step. When he loses his village, his land and his mother as a child, Kid also inevitably loses his sense of home. It’s no coincidence that the tracks “Home” and “Mother” on the movie’s score sound almost identical.

Later at the end of the film, we see Kid close his eyes, having done what he set out to do. The last thing he sees is his mother, smiling at him in the forest. Her face is the face of God he gazes at before he succumbs to his injuries. This devotion to his mother is not just that of a child to a parent. Its also deeply tied to his Hindu faith which calls on its followers to honour the Divine Mother, the supreme feminine energy, Aathi Parashakthi, in all her manifestations including in those who mother us.

The movie ends with Kid’s deep, revelatory faith - instilled in him by his mother - and with the death of the man who weaponised that faith for power and wealth. It left all of us in the cinema seated in stunned silence even as the credits began to roll.

To describe Monkey Man as simply a revenge film does it an absolute disservice. This is not revenge. It is defence borne out of deep love for community and righteous opposition to injustice. Seeing hijra warriors dressed as Kali, the goddess of destruction, dealing death blows against fascists while spinning in the most beautiful lenghas was exhilarating (I literally screamed “YESSSSSSS!” at the screen when they arrived). Seeing Sita take out pimp and sex trafficker Queenie got me cackling and yelling “whoooop!”. Seeing Kid, a masculine character act to defend women and people outside of the gender binary, from further systemic harm without any ulterior motive was absolutely unreal to witness on the big screen. Seeing a person of faith act in deep connection to that faith without judgment against anyone but those who perpetrate harm made me feel hopeful in a way that took me by surprise. Kid acted out of love and respect. I would argue that Sita, the hijra and Kid all acted out of recognition of a shared humanity.

And at a time when folks from marginalised communities are being subjected to horrendous violence worldwide, both interpersonal and systemic, watching the oppressed take their perpetrators out…and I mean out (see: a rapist and murderer getting bludgeoned to death with a glittery high heel and a fascist, self-proclaimed “holy man” being stabbed in his third eye by the blade he hid in his own “sacred” pathankal/paduka), well, it was cathartic to see.

Am I saying violence is the answer to systemic violence? I think the answer to that question is context-specific. Non-violent resistance has a place, but it’s by necessity a performance and requires an audience. What do you do when no one’s watching? What do you do when the people who are watching are doing nothing to stop your suffering? What then? These questions are what many liberals refuse to grapple with because the answers are too uncomfortable for their polite sensibilities. But if you keep your foot on someone's neck long enough, you should expect them to fight back, by any means necessary. In Monkey Man, we have an action film where we get to witness that resistance in all its visceral glory.

[shitswiftiessay]

“multiple posts in support of the lgbtq community”

her LGBTQ “activism” pretty much started and ended with the lover era. she released the musical equivalent of “it’s ok to be gay,” she waited until she was in a blue state on the eras tour to even barely address the anti trans legislation that was being passed in OTHER states (states she had just performed in where her speech would’ve made much more of an impact). and telling people to go vote without specifying who you’re voting for or bringing attention to the important issues is not activism. it’s merely a voting reminder. which is fine, but, y’know, it doesn’t make you an lgbt advocate. which she promised to be as she accepted an award for it.

and despite the fact that she’s reportedly “spending a lot more time” in fuckass missouri to be with travis, she’s yet to say anything about the anti lgbt legislation being passed in that state.

she also went off tumblr because people asked her to talk about BLM and swifties act like it was the cruelest thing in the world to expect of her 🙄 but she made a whole thing in her documentary about wanting to be on the “right side of history.”

and taylor did the black square too so if you’re gonna attack joe for that 💀

and she made some promises on twitter to be “loudly and ferociously anti-racist.” then she went on to date racist pos matty healy… and use ice spice as a shield. AND she also made sure that her publicist let everyone know that the “controversy” surrounding matty’s racism had NOTHING to do with her decision to split from him.

so… yeah.

these same miserable fucking swifties used to praise joe alwyn for speaking out against men abusing their power over women in hollywood but now their whole blogs are basically dedicated hate blogs to him. because he committed the crime of not marrying taylor so now they’ve decided he’s the worst man on the planet. 🙄

meanwhile taylor’s working with rapist directors, hanging out with SA apologists and high-fiving an abuser at football games. her feminism and “advocacy” is limited ONLY to herself and it’s painfully obvious she does not give a shit about anything that doesn’t directly affect her.

also, joe’s name wouldn’t have been added to that ceasefire letter if he didn’t WANT it added. it’s a risk to anyone in the entertainment industry to openly support palestine and no one’s name is going to be “just added” without their consent. signing that ceasefire letter may be bare minimum shit, but it’s still more than anything Miss Americana has said or done regarding this issue, which is absolutely nothing, and you have to ask yourself WHY.

also if you’re upset about people saying that taylor was encouraged to be more political because of joe… idk what to tell you that’s literally a canon event that came straight from taylor’s own mouth.

and it’s not that i think she’d be a trump supporter without joe but… it’s pretty obvious that since they’ve broken up (and even in the year leading up to the breakup) she’s not dared to do anything remotely resembling activism or being “controversial.” if anything she’s just too fucking narcissistic and self-absorbed to care about anything going on in the world, just like her bestie selena.

[meret118]

"When I open my Bible, I don’t see any verses about abortion, but I see more than 2000 verses about economic justice. I don’t see any verses about gay marriage, but I see hundreds of verses about welcoming the stranger and feeding the hungry and healing the sick and freeing the oppressed.”

The biblical truth of that message notwithstanding, groups like Evangelicals for Harris know that it’s not one that the bulk of conservative Christians will be able to hear. But in the context of this election, they are not trying to save the conservative church from itself; they are trying to elect Kamala Harris. “When people hear about what we do, they think that we are in the persuasion business, that we’re going around trying to argue Trumpers into a different political opinion,” says Ryerse. “That’s a misunderstanding of what we’re trying to do.”

Instead, the group recognizes that there have been “inflection points” — kids in cages, maybe, or Jan. 6, or Trump’s felony conviction, or former Vice President Mike Pence’s disavowal — that have caused Christians who have always voted Republican to “begin to undergo some kind of political identity crisis,” as Ryerse puts it. “What we’re trying to do is not persuade the 85 to 95 percent that are not flippable. What we’re trying to do is make it easy for the 5 to 15 percent that are already in the midst of that political identity crisis, to say, ‘Hey, you’re not alone. There’s an on-ramp for a different way of engaging.’”

. . .

For the conversations that aren’t lost causes, however, Pagitt treads far more lightly. He has come to understand the delicate psychology of a Trump voter who has lost or is in the process of losing the (political) faith. He knows that it can be a lonely and alienating experience, that people would often rather be wrong and in community than right and by themselves. He’s talked to people who’ve driven out of state to attend Vote Common Good’s rallies in secret because they own the local hardware store and don’t want to be driven out of business, or because they pastor a church and don’t want to alienate their parishioners in states so red that their votes won’t matter anyway. He understands the entrenchment that can happen when someone who thinks they’re doing the right thing is told by the larger culture that it’s horribly wrong, and he’s careful not to “beat up on Trump too much” for that very reason. “We know the social costs that people are paying and how they internally feel,” Pagitt says. “In their experience, they’re going from, ‘I was the hero when I did this behavior. Now I’m going to do the opposite behavior. How am I still the hero?’ You have to help people get there.”

Mainly, Vote Common Good does that by telling them that they are still heroes, that their heroism remains intact. “Part of our theory of change is that behavioral change happens before identity change,” explains Ryerse. “We’re not out here trying to make more Democrats. We’re trying to get people to behave differently, i.e., to vote differently. The permission structure is, ‘Listen, I’m not asking you to be a Democrat. I’m asking you not to vote for Donald Trump in this election.’ What it does is [say], you can preserve your identity and change your behavior.”

Once behavior changes, of course, there’s the possibility of changing identity as well.

----

Terrific article! I hate what conservatives have done to my faith. We're not all like that!

I'm so glad I happened to see this. It really lifted my spirits.

Use this site if you want to read it.

[mariacallous]

LAVEEN VILLAGE, Ariz. (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday formally apologized to Native Americans for the “sin” of a government-run boarding school system that for decades forcibly separated children from their parents, calling it a “blot on American history” in his first presidential visit to Indian Country.

“It’s a sin on our soul,” said Biden, his voice full of anger and emotion. “Quite frankly, there’s no excuse that this apology took 50 years to make.”

It was a moment of both contrition and frustration as the president sought to recognize one of the “most horrific chapters” in the national story. Biden spoke of the abuses and deaths of Native children that resulted from the federal government’s policies, noting that “while darkness can hide much, it erases nothing” and that great nations “must know the good, the bad, the truth of who we are.”

“I formally apologize as president of United States of America for what we did,” Biden said. “The Federal Indian boarding school policy — the pain is has caused will only be a significant mark of shame, a blot on our record history. For too long, this all happened with virtually no public attention, not written about in our history books, not taught in our schools.”

Democrats hope Biden’s visit to the Gila River Indian Community’s land on the outskirts of Phoenix’s metro area will also provide a boost to Vice President Kamala Harris’ turnout effort in a key battleground state. The moment gave Biden a fuller chance to spotlight his and Harris’ support for tribal nations, a group that historically has favored Democrats, in a state he won just by 10,000 votes in 2020.

The race between Harris and former President Donald Trump is expected to be similarly close, and both campaigns are doing whatever they can to improve turnout among bedrock supporters.

“The race is now a turnout grab,” said Mike O’Neil, a non-partisan pollster based in Arizona. “The trendlines throughout have been remarkably steady. The question is which candidate is going to be able to turn out their voters in a race that seems to be destined to be decided by narrow margins.”

Biden has been used sparingly on the campaign trail by Harris and other Democrats since he ended his reelection campaign in July.

But analysts say Biden could help Harris in her appeal with Native American voters — a group that has trailed others in turnout rates.

In 2020, there was a surge in voter turnout on some tribal land in Arizona as Biden beat Trump and became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since Bill Clinton in 1996.

Biden, whose presidency is winding down, had promised tribal leaders nearly two years ago that he would visit Indian Country.

For decades, federal boarding schools were used to assimilate children into white society, according to the White House. Not everyone saw the apology as sufficient.

“An apology is a nice start, but it is not a true reckoning, nor is it a sufficient remedy for the long history of colonial violence,” said Chase Iron Eyes, director of the Lakota People’s Law Project and Sacred Defense Fund.

At least 973 Native American children died in the U.S. government’s abusive boarding school system over a 150-year period that ended in 1969, according to an Interior Department investigation that called for a U.S. government apology.

At least 18,000 children, some as young as 4, were taken from their parents and forced to attend schools that sought to assimilate them.

“President Biden deserves credit for finally putting attention on the issue and other issues impacting the community,” said Ramona Charette Klein, 77, a boarding school survivor and an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. “I do think that will reflect well on Vice President Harris, and I hope this momentum will continue.”

Democrats have stepped up outreach to Native American communities.

Both Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, met with tribal leaders in Arizona and Nevada this month. And Clinton, who has been serving as a surrogate for Harris, last week met in North Carolina with the chairman of the Lumbee Tribe.

The Democratic National Committee recently launched a six-figure ad campaign targeting Native American voters in Arizona, North Carolina, Montana and Alaska through digital, print and radio ads.

Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, who is locked in a competitive race with Republican Kari Lake for Arizona’s open Senate seat, has visited all 22 of Arizona’s federally recognized tribes.

Harris started a recent campaign rally in Chandler, near where the Gila River reservation is located, with a shoutout to the tribe’s leader. Walz is scheduled to go to the Navajo Nation in Arizona tomorrow on Saturday.

The White House says Biden and Harris have built a substantial track record with Native Americans over the last four years.

The president designated the sacred Avi Kwa Ame, a desert mountain in Nevada and Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon in Arizona as national monuments and restored the boundaries for Bears Ears National Monument in Utah.

In addition, the administration has directed nearly $46 billion in federal spending to tribal nations. The money has helped bring electricity to a reservation that never had electricity, expand access to high-speed internet, improve water sanitation, build roadways and more.

Biden picked former New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland to serve as his Interior secretary, the first Native American to be appointed to a Cabinet position. Haaland is a member of Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico.

She, in turn, ordered the comprehensive review in June 2021 of the troubled legacy of the federal government’s boarding school policies that led Biden to deliver the formal apology.

Thom Reilly, co-director of the Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy at Arizona State University, said both Harris’ and Trump’s campaigns — and their allies — have put a remarkable amount of effort into micro-targeting in Arizona.

“They are pulling out every stop just to see if they could wrangle a few more votes here and there,” Reilly said. “The Indian community is one of those groups that Harris is hoping will overperform and help make the difference.”

[beardedmrbean]

An instructor at the University of Kansas has been placed on leave after a video on X showed him suggesting to his class that men who won't vote for a female president should be shot.

"(If you think) guys are smarter than girls, you've got some serious problems," the man in the video said. "That's what frustrates me. There are going to be some males in our society that will refuse to vote for a potential female president because they don't think females are smart enough to be president. We could line all those guys up and shoot them. They clearly don't understand the way the world works.

"Did I say that? Scratch that from the recording. I don't want the deans hearing that I said that."

The university confirmed the video was recorded during a class this semester.

"We are aware of the video, which was recorded during a class earlier this semester," said Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, a KU spokesperson. "The instructor is being placed on administrative leave, pending further investigation. The instructor offers his sincerest apologies and deeply regrets the situation. His intent was to emphasize his advocacy for women’s rights and equality, and he recognizes he did a very poor job of doing so. The university has an established process for situations like this and will follow that process."

In a similar statement on X, KU added that the comments "made an inappropriate reference to violence."

Who is the KU instructor in the video?

Barcomb-Peterson confirmed that Phil Lowcock is the instructor in the video.

Lowcock's name had been circulating on social media. His staff page on the KU Athletics website no longer exists, and at least one social media post by an athletics account that mentioned him — a staff highlight in April — has been deleted. As of Wednesday afternoon, he was still listed on the university's online directory as a lecturer.

The 2015 KU track and field media guide said Lowcock has taught at KU since 1984. As of 2015, he was an academic adviser for multiple athletics teams while doing support work for international student-athletes in addition to be an adjunct faculty member in the health, sport and exercise science department.

A request for comment sent to Lowcock's KU email account was not immediately returned.

Kansas Republican Party chair Mike Brown wrongly identified the speaker in a press release and now-deleted social media post as a journalism professor who retired in December 2019.

Kansas Regents oppose 'violent rhetoric'

The University of Kansas is under the Kansas Board of Regents, which oversees the state's public higher education institutions.

Blake Flanders, the KBOR president and CEO, said in a statement that he was aware of the video, and that the instructor was place on leave pending investigation by KU "in accordance with their established processes."

“The Board believes every American citizen has the right to vote how they see fit without fear of retribution or violence," Flanders said. "All of us, especially those in positions of authority, have a responsibility to respect and uphold that right. The Regents firmly oppose the use of violent rhetoric in our political discourse."

Free speech group calls for instructor's reinstatement

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, an organization that promotes free speech by students and faculty on college campuses, called for KU "to refrain from punishing faculty for protected speech and to restore this instructor to the classroom immediately."

"The First Amendment protects professors who tell brief, off-topic jokes in the classroom," said Graham Piro, FIRE program officer, in a statement. "It also protects hyperbole. In order to constitute a true threat, a speaker must communicate a serious intent to commit an act of unlawful violence against a specific individual or a group of individuals.

"The viral video shows an instructor making an off-handed joke — not communicating a serious intent to commit unlawful violence. That's protected speech, and people advocating that the instructor be punished for his expression are advocating for the erosion of the First Amendment."

FIRE's 2025 college free speech rankings list KU's speech climate as "below average."

What Kansas politicians are saying about KU instructor's comments

The video was posted Wednesday morning by Ned Ryun, who works in conservative politics and is the son of former U.S. Rep. Jim Ryun, R-Kan., who was a KU track superstar.

"Seriously ⁦@UnivOfKansas⁩?" Ryun posted. "You're letting this be said in your classrooms? That men who won't vote for Kamala Harris for President should be lined up and shot?? ⁦@RogerMarshallMD⁩ ⁦@JerryMoran"

That post was shared on X by both U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., and Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach.

"KS Regents: We educate leaders, build communities, and make discoveries that change the world," Kobach said. "KU prof: Some males in our society will refuse to vote for a female prez, because they don't think females are smart enough to be Prez. We could line all those guys up and shoot them."

Marshall called for Lowcock's immediate firing.

"The University of Kansas must fire this professor immediately," Marshall said in a statement. "Anyone who says that people who don't vote for Kamala Harris should be 'lined up and shot' are completely deranged and shouldn't be around students nor in academia. This promotion of political violence should be met with quick action by KU."

In a post on X, U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., called the video "disturbing and inappropriate."

"There should never be a call for violence anytime or anywhere in the classroom," Moran added. "We must cool down the political rhetoric and be respectful and civil to each other, & that is especially true for someone charged with teaching our young people."

“While healthy political discourse is paramount to our democratic society, violent rhetoric is never acceptable," Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly said in a statement. "We must strive to make our classrooms a place where diverse viewpoints are respectfully discussed, and politics is not weaponized to make our students feel unsafe or demonized for having differing opinions. I appreciate the university’s swift action to address this matter."

[sarkos]

On Thursday, 38 Republican senators joined 48 Democrats in voting to move the legislation forward. Only Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, voted against advancing the bills. A vote on final passage is expected next week, sending the measure to the House, which has adjourned for the summer and is set to return in September. Lawmakers in the Republican-led House have proposed a far narrower online safety measure that would impose strict safeguard requirements only on platforms that generate more than $2.5 billion in annual revenue, or video games that have more than 150 million global users in a three-month period. Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, said earlier this week that he was “committed to working to find consensus in the House,” but he did not commit to bringing the Senate legislation to the floor. “Parents should have greater control and the necessary tools to protect their kids online,” Mr. Johnson said in a statement. “I am looking forward to reviewing the details of the legislation that comes out of the Senate.” The measure generated narrow but intense opposition in the Senate. Mr. Paul called the bill “the Pandora’s box of unintended consequences” in a speech on the floor before Thursday’s vote, arguing it would stifle First Amendment-protected speech. Other critics said they were worried that limiting children’s access to certain content on social media could further isolate vulnerable youths, including those in the L.G.B.T.Q. community [...]“Does anybody have a background in regulating the internet?” Mr. Cassidy said before Thursday’s vote. “I think people are very nervous about unintended consequences.”

Child Online Safety Bill Clears Senate Hurdle, but Its Fate Is Uncertain - The New York Times

[miscellaneoussmp]

My love letter to qsmp and qsmpblr.

I saw other people doing this, so I might as well too!!!! I like the positivity of it all!!!

My story with qsmp is kind of a sad one, so sorry, but warning for the death of a loved one is mentioned in the second paragraph.

Originally, I was very excited about qsmp from the day it was announced. Quackity had been one of my favorite content creators for years at that point. Although, the day it started, I was on vacation with my mom and grandma for my little sibling's birthday. I didn't have time to watch day 1, so I just didn't get into it. I got updates through a friend of mine (Hi Warren!!!) meaning I had some idea of what was going on. Plus, I watched clips here and there. (Also, fun fact!!! I voted in the elections for Bad even though I didn't know what was going on!!)

Okay, here's the sad part. In early July of 2023, my grandfather on my mom's side died. It sucked. I was closer with him when I was little, so I didn't know what to feel. It hurts, I think. Everything about that situation sucked, from getting there to the mess that is my big ass family. Though on my last night there, I was thinking about the qsmp for whatever reason. I decided that I wanted to get into it there and then. I sat in the airport waiting to get on an airplane to go home watching qsmp compilations to get caught up. It was amazing. I felt better, just a bit.

I made my first post with the qsmp tag on July 13th, 2023, and y'all have been stuck with my ass ever since.

Now!!! It's time to shout out the lovely people of qsmpblr!!! (Under the cut cause I think this is getting long)

@kadextra Kade!!!! You're the first person I ever followed in qsmpblr and the person who inspired me to keep writing. I can never ever thank you enough for that. Your art is wonderful!!! Please keep creating!!!

@disfrutalakia Kia!!!!! You literally mean the world to me!!!! You were my full introduction to the Brazilians of the server, and I can't thank you enough for that!!! You say my characterization of Pac and Mike is amazing? Well, I couldn't have done it without you!!! Also, thanks for letting me live in your inbox for literal months!!!

@thesmpisonfire Des!!!! Hi bestie!!!! Before we were friends, whenever you were in my notes, I would get so excited!!! I thought you were the coolest person and still do!! Thank you for letting me ramble to you endlessly!!! I love everything we've made together!!!

@ultra-raging-ghost Ghost!!!! King!!!! The beloved ghostie on my dash!!!! And my beloved coauthor of Freaks and Their Tapes!!!! There's a lot I couldn't do without you!!! Thank you for being an amazing friend!!!!! Love you /p <3!!!!

@factorialsotherfandoms Factorial!!!! Beloved!!!! You're an amazing writer and kind friend!!!! I think about your fics all the time!!!! Please keep writing forever and ever!!!!! Please!!!

@iridescentpull Aynée!!!!! My fellow demigod Pac enjoyer!!!!!! I literally screamed when I saw we became mutuals!!!! You're so fucking cool and your writing is amazing!!!! I created demigod Pac content for us only tbh!!!!

@fitpacs Tumblr user fitpacs!!!!! The light on my dash!!! Please keep being so bright!!! I love seeing whatever you post!!!!!

@wsdanon wsd!!!!! The #1 Felps writer in my eyes!!!!! Your writing is beautiful, and characterization is everything!!!!! Adore seeing you on my dash!!! Please keep being you!!!!!

And to any mutuals, anyone in my notes, or just in the community in general!!!! This place would be nothing without y'all!!!!!

Thanks again!!!!!

- Misc, the most annoying qsmp blog ever <3

[funkycave]

since tthe majority voted "yes", then-- meet the Chaos symbiote!

here will tell you about Chaos and its universe.

but before that, a small digression. :))

finally done with this.

added some more small references so that you can understand what my AU looks like, what’s going on there and who has what kind of relationship with whom. most of it will probably be about the Chaos symbiote. :))

if you are interested, then read on.

thank you very much, @kaijuparfait , for your support and for expressing your adoration for Chaos and this AU. <33

name: Chaos.

aliases: Chaos symbiote, Kay (for its parents and relatives. but more for its parents, since that’s what they affectionately call it).

parents: Eddie Brock and the Venom symbiote.

siblings: Sleeper, Carnage, Scream, Phage, Riot, Lasher, Agony.

marital status: single, no host.

gender: agender.

height: 2.55m (8'4, variable).

weight: variable.

eyes: white.

skin: black, dark orange, dark gray, midnight purple.

origin: symbiote (eighth offspring of the Venom symbiote).

living status: alive.

reality: earth-C05.

place of birth: New York City.

sharp teeth, there may be sharp spikes in case of danger, but usually they are soft. Chaos can be without a host, since it was born on Earth, when it grows up it can take any form without a host. bonded with a host it can also take on its any form and camouflage itself(as well as without a host).

the eighth offspring of the Venom symbiote. appeared some time after the Sleeper symbiote. Eddie and the Venom symbiote really missed Sleeper, so after thinking about it, they decided that they wanted the last offspring, so that it would stay with them and they would teach it correctly in order to be a good, kind, supportive and helpful symbiote.

lives with its parents, a very smart and hyperactive symbiote who wants to know everything, but is in no hurry to fly out of its parents’ nest, because it loves them very much, just as they love it. Eddie and the Venom symbiote teach the Chaos symbiote a lot and try to adapt it to life on Earth. Chaos is very attentive and when it becomes very active(hyperactive), it can destroy the house in search of something that it hid from its parents, to show later or just to fool around.

The Chaos symbiote loves to learn everything new, but at the same time it asks its parents, because their opinion is important to it and it wants to be good. is not currently looking for a host because it is too young. speaks like its parent, the Venom symbiote, but sometimes phrases or dialogues can flash, like its father, Eddie Brock. cannot read minds, but can communicate through them.

a little about Eddie.

after Sleeper left to explore the world on its own, Eddie became very attached to his Other. he values ​​their relationship and wants to be a good and irreplaceable host for his love.

they quarrel less, seek compromise and listen to each other. the Venom symbiote also does not want to replace Eddie with anyone else, so it marks him with the fact that they are married and always forms a wedding ring on Eddie's finger from itself.

they have true love, not like in Donny Cates, who i haven’t read, but like in Mike Costa. they live in love and harmony, although sometimes they may quarrel!

Eddie has long wavy hair, which the Venom symbiote simply adores and loves to stroke and play with. Eddie also has piercings on his ears, which you can see in the reference. and also he paints his nails in black, as a reminder of his love for the symbiote.

Eddie had a difficult childhood and has three scars on his right hand from a knife, which were not made by him himself, but by someone whose name cannot be spoken in their house.

as a result of Eddie and his Other being in complete symbiosis, Eddie began to develop sharp teeth, and when he is angry, his eyes can turn black and his nails become sharper.

phew, think that’s all and i didn’t write all this in vain! :))

if you have questions, you can ask them in the comments or in my ask box, will be happy to answer, maybe even with drawings, we’ll see! ;)))

that's all, thanks to everyone who read this nonsense to the end. wish you all a wonderful day/evening, take care of yourself!!! <333

[belanova]

since i have seen no support for mike ill have to be the mike supporter then: SUPPORT COMMUNISM TODAY!!!!!!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Will Bunch at The Philadelphia Inquirer:

The most wildly misunderstood yet commonly used word in American politics is “gaffe.” The dictionary defines it as “an unintentional act or remark causing embarrassment to its originator; a blunder” — and that’s not wrong. But on the campaign trail, 95% of the time a much-talked-about “gaffe” is the blunder of a politician accidentally blurting out the truth. You’ve been hearing a lot about Donald Trump’s disastrous, Nazi-echoing rally at Madison Square Garden, and “comedian” Tony Hinchcliffe’s vote-killing “jokes” about Puerto Ricans and African Americans, and that’s been a game-changing development. But over the last week, it’s also been open-mic night for the Republicans who want to run Congress, and the embarrassing blunder of accidental truth-telling has been coming faster than Henny Youngman one-liners. Election Day will tell whether the joke is on the GOP, or on the American people for electing them.

[...] In fact, the current GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson, with a 50-50 chance of clinging to that job next January, has been barnstorming America in a festival of truth-telling “gaffes,” including the revelation that his party dreams of not just gutting Obamacare — as McCormick suggested on that hot mic — but repealing the ACA altogether. This despite Trump’s September debate admission that after a decade of talking about this, he only has “concepts of a plan” (and in reality he doesn’t even have that) on how to replace a program that has saved thousands of American lives.

“No Obamacare,” Johnson responded to a voter’s comment during a news conference in Pennsylvania, before suggesting that Republicans, if it’s in their control, will make major but totally unspecified changes to a program that is broadly popular with the American public while currently insuring more than 21 million. He added: “The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.” Yeah, sure, Mike. But like Bluto in Animal House, the House speaker was now rolling. Only a day or so later, campaigning for an embattled House ally in upstate New York, Johnson replied to a student journalist from Syracuse University asking if Congress would also repeal 2022′s bipartisan CHIP and Science Act, which is aiding an $100 billion new plant in that New York candidate’s district creating thousands of new jobs. “I expect that we probably will but we haven’t developed that part of the agenda yet — we gotta get over the election first,” Johnson said.

This time, Johnson soon realized that he’d gone too far even for today’s Republicans, and he rolled back the comment with the hard-to-believe claim that he’d misheard the clearly audible student journalist just a few feet away. But while the semiconductor-aid program, and its large-scale job creation, appear to be safe for now, we should take Johnson, McCormick and their colleagues seriously, if not always literally. To reach their true spiritual goal of taking America back to a time when white men like them ruled without challenge — not only on Capitol Hill but in every household — they are willing to willy-nilly repeal anything passed not just by President Joe Biden but LBJ and maybe even FDR. They want to bring back an uneven playing field for women, Black and brown folks, or the LGBTQ community, even if it also hurts the white middle class they claim to be representing.

Is it a gaffe that we’re learning in the campaign’s final hours that Team Trump plans to give enormous power over public health policy to former-candidate-turned-Trump-ally and anti-vaccine nutjob Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who tweeted Saturday night that he literally wants to take America back to the 1950s by removing fluoride — which has improved the dental health of U.S. children for decades — from public drinking water. Make all the jokes you want about the John Birch Society or Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove, but — just like Hinchcliffe’s MSG put-downs of Latinos and Black people — their push to unravel modern American progress is no laughing matter. Voters understand RFK Jr.’s words are serious because we’ve already seen in one hugely important area — reproductive rights — what happens when the barking dog of GOP policy nonsense actually catches the car. The Trump-fried U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 reversal of Roe vs. Wade has taken women’s health care back more than 60 years, and now we are learning the stories of the women who are dying as a result. How many more Americans will die needlessly if Johnson, McCormick, Trump and their ilk keep driving their 1950s Rambler policies off the cliff?

[...] The GOP’s 11th-hour policy truth bombs aren’t getting the media attention they deserve. They are competing with the increasingly racist, violent and unhinged rhetoric from Trump’s allies but especially from the 78-year-old candidate himself, who seems to be descending into madness in what, either way, are (probably) his last days ever on the trail. We should be paying great attention to events like his nearly six-hour Manhattan hatefest. But understand that the cruelty is the point of the modern MAGA movement, and Trump’s despicable language and attitudes toward women and nonwhite men will be translated on Capitol Hill into cruel policies — political neutron bombs that will devastate everyone, even the folks lining up in Appalachia or the prairies of the Great Plains to vote for Trump.

Will Bunch delivers a truthbomb in his latest Philly Inquirer column that the GOP’s deranged quest to repeal CHIPS Act and Obamacare, along with pandering to anti-fluoride cranks, will doom them.

See Also:

HuffPost: Republicans Close Out Final Week Of 2024 Race By Saying The Quiet Part Out Loud

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

David Rowe

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 31, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 01, 2024

House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has responded to news stories about his plan to get rid of the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare) by claiming his comments at the closed-door campaign event on Monday were taken out of context. But they weren’t. The tape is clear. Johnson said that Republicans want “massive reform” to the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.” When an attendee asked, “No Obamacare?” Johnson laughed and agreed: “No Obamacare. The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.” 

MAGA Utah senator Mike Lee reposted the video of Johnson and commented: “Kill Obamacare now[.]”

Trump today posted on social media that he never mentioned repealing the Affordable Care Act, “never even thought of such a thing.” But this was either a memory lapse or a lie, because in 2016 he ran on repealing the ACA and his 2016 platform called for “a full repeal of Obamacare.” Within hours of taking office in 2017, Trump issued an executive order weakening the law, and when the Republican-dominated House voted to repeal the law, Trump held a celebration in the Rose Garden and declared the ACA “essentially dead.” 

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) bucked Trump to protect the ACA then, and Trump began this year’s campaign with a promise to get rid of it before backing off. Even still, the vague promise in the 2024 platform to “increase Transparency, promote Choice and Competition, and expand access to new Affordable Healthcare” sounds a lot like Johnson’s promise to restore “the free market” to health care. 

While Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris has been campaigning in the swing states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Trump today held a rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a state President Joe Biden won by almost 11 points in 2020 and that Democrats are likely to win in 2024. Trump had to hold the rally at a private airplane hangar after city officials refused to rent the Albuquerque Convention Center to the campaign because it still owes Albuquerque almost $445,000 from a similar rally in 2019.  

Once there, he made it clear he was trying to repair some of the damage caused by the extraordinary racism and sexism on display at his Sunday rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, where a comedian called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.” 

Courting offended voters, he said: “Don’t make me waste a whole damn half a day here, OK? Look, I came here. We can be nice to each other, or we can talk turkey. I’m here for one simple reason: I like you very much, and it’s good for my credentials with the Hispanic or Latino community.” That outreach might not be enough to bring back the voters lost after the Madison Square Garden event.

The campaign is seeing other weaknesses, as well. Meredith McGraw and Jessica Piper of Politico reported today that nearly half of the ballots already cast in Pennsylvania have come from voters over the age of 65, and although the numbers of registered older voters are divided evenly between the parties, registered Democrats have made up about 58% of Pennsylvania’s early votes, compared to 35% for Republicans. Those numbers might well simply reflect different approaches to mail-in ballots, but they also might explain why Trump is already claiming fraud in Pennsylvania. 

He is also seemingly nervous about Pennsylvania because women are voting there at a much higher rate than men in the early vote: 56% to 43%. And Democratic women are the biggest group of new voters in the state. New voters who were too young eight years ago to hear the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women, have been hearing it on TikTok lately, as younger users record their reactions to it and call out their older male relatives for voting for anyone who would talk as Trump did. 

“I moved on her, and I failed,” Trump says in the tape. “I’ll admit it. I did try and f*ck her…. I moved on her like a b*tch, but I couldn’t get there, and she was married,” Trump said. “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful— I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the p*ssy. You can do anything,” he said.

The Harris campaign and pro-Harris organizations leaned into the history of women’s suffrage today with videos highlighting those who fought so that women could vote and reiterating: “We are not going back.” To assist those women who might not feel safe letting their husbands know how they voted, women have been posting notes in women’s public bathrooms assuring other women that their vote is secret. A Democratic advertisement voiced by actress Julia Roberts powerfully makes the point that women do not have to tell their husbands how they vote.

Right-wing figures like Charlie Kirk have expressed alarm at the gender gap in voting. As well, there has been a right-wing backlash to the idea that women will vote for Harris while letting their husbands assume they’re voting for Trump.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), who famously cheated on both of his first two wives, expressed dismay at the idea that a woman might need to keep her vote secret from her husband. “For them to tell people to lie is just one further example of the depth of their corruption,” he said. “How do you run a country…saying wives should lie to their husbands, husbands should lie to their wives? I mean, what kind of a totally amoral, corrupt, sick system have the Democrats developed?”

On the Fox News Channel’s The Five this morning, host Jesse Watters said that if he found out his wife “was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that’s the same thing as having an affair…. That violates the sanctity of our marriage.” Christian pastor Dale Partridge posted: “In a Christian marriage, a wife should vote according to her husband’s direction. He is the head and they are one. Unity extends to politics. This is not controversial.” But, he added, “submission does have limits. A wife doesn’t need to submit to her husband in sin (in this case voting democrat).”

Tonight, at an event with right-wing host Tucker Carlson in Glendale, Arizona, Trump seemed to move beyond misogyny to murderous intent. He turned his increasingly violent rhetoric against former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who has urged Republican women to vote against Trump. “She’s a radical war hawk,” he said, “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”  

Carlson is friendly with authoritarian Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who has undermined democracy in his own country and is close to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Today Orbán posted that he had “Just got off the phone with President [Trump]. I wished him the best of luck for next Tuesday. Only five days to go. Fingers crossed[.]“

Meanwhile, a lot more major endorsements for Harris have been coming in. 

Today basketball legend LeBron James released a powerful one-minute ad with clips of Trump’s many racist statements and drawing a straight line from him back to the most violent days of the civil rights movement. “HATE TAKES US BACK,” it says. In a post sharing the video, James wrote: “When I think about my kids and my family and how they will grow up, the choice is clear to me. VOTE KAMALA HARRIS!!!” James has 53 million followers on X. 

The Economist today endorsed Harris, warning that “a second Trump term comes with unacceptable risks.” Former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg also posted on social media that he had voted for Harris “without hesitation,” and added that he hoped undecided voters would join him. “Trump is not fit for high office,” he wrote in a Bloomberg op-ed. He praised Harris’s positive vision and bipartisan outreach. 

Conservative judge J. Michael Luttig published an op-ed in the New York Times on Tuesday, titled: “My Fellow Republicans, It’s Time to Say ‘Enough’ With Trump.” The former president is unfit for office, Luttig wrote. “When we entrusted our Constitution and our democracy to him before, he betrayed us.” Luttig assured readers that “[t]here  could be no higher duty of American citizenship than to decisively repudiate” Trump.

He reminded his fellow Republicans that they had always “proudly claimed they would be the first to put the country above all else when the time came. That time has come…. ​​All Americans, but especially Republicans, will live with their decision the rest of their lives.” “The choice for America next Tuesday,” Luttig wrote, “could not be clearer.”

Ever since Vice President Harris tapped Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate, Democratic governors have been demonstrating their support for one of their own. Today, for Halloween, Democratic  governors Wes Moore of Maryland, Janet Mills of Maine, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and Phil Murphy of New Jersey each dressed to match a photograph of Walz.

“No tricks this Halloween!” Whitmer posted. “Just dressing up as our friend [Tim Walz]—excited to elect him and [Kamala Harris]. If you haven’t yet, make a plan to vote: http://iwillvote.com[.]”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[milevenweek24]

Welcome!:)

This is the official sideblog for Mileven week 2024, a community event to celebrate the couple Eleven and Mike from Stranger Things.

The poll is still running (vote here), but the week of Nov 4th seems most likely and most fitting, as Nov 6th is Stranger Things Day (so hopefully a bit new S5 content!) and Nov 7th is the date that Mike and El first met.❤️

Every day of this special week will have a prompt to inspire you to create edits, fanart, fanfiction, poetry, analysis, music, random text posts, memes, or anything else to celebrate mileven.

Ideas for prompts will be collected and anounced nearer to the date, so in the meantime, stay tuned and please spread the word - thank you!

(Please note that this is a sideblog, so I can't like or follow back)

[matchingbatbites]

wip wednesday

So, final results from yesterday's poll?

🦇 familiar!Eddie 🦇

I want to say I'm surprised, but I'm really not, lol. We love us some bats in the Steddie fandom. I'm not sure if you 34% were hoping for vampires, but I hope you're pleasantly surprised regardless.

I had a lot of fun with the poll idea, and I hope you all did too! As you can tell, I didn't actually vote myself because I wanted to be surprised by the results, so I've spent the last 24 hours bouncing off the walls lol. Thanks to everyone who voted!! I might do this again next week, we'll see :)

I promised a synopsis and a snippet, so here you are! Snippet is under the cut!

Synopsis:

Supernatural Creature AU. Dustin is a witch whose familiar, a bat named Eddie, is not as cooperative as other familiars he’s met. The little creature has a big personality and isn’t afraid of doing whatever he wants, and Dustin is more than used to dealing with how sassy the bat can be. It would also be good if Eddie didn’t go off on his own every chance he got, although he seems to have a built in homing-beacon for locating one Steve Harrington, a Merman adopted into Dustin’s little friend group that the witch not-so-secretly adores.

When Dustin tries to cast a spell that lets him communicate with Eddie, it backfires and turns his familiar into a human. He knows that Eddie can’t stay at his house - he’s not even supposed to be using magic on his familiar, not until he gets older, so his mom will flip if she finds out. The witch begs Steve to keep an eye on the new human while he figures out how to reverse it and Steve agrees, completely oblivious to the fact that he’s going to fall head over heels for the man in the two weeks they spend together. 

And then Dustin's mom finds out. 

She’s upset, of course, but she knows how kids can be. She says she can fix it, she knows what Dustin did wrong and is able to reverse it. But because Eddie is human now, he has human rights, so he gets a choice: does he choose to return to being a bat, to being what he’s always known? Or does he choose to stay human, to exist as something other in the world?

(We all know he chooses Steve, in the end.)

Snippet:

Steve is lounging by the pool, basking in the sun warming his skin and scales alike, the fin of his tail floating lazily in the salt water. He's on the verge of falling asleep - he put on enough sunscreen that it wouldn't be any worry, and it's so tempting with how quiet it is right now. No kids bugging him, nowhere to be any time soon. For once in a while, he's free to just chill.

The relaxing atmosphere is ruined when something crashes into his chest, and - yeah, he screams, but it caught him off guard, okay? He grabs at the object, intending to throw it away from him, but immediately releases it when he hears an annoyed squeak. Startled, he looks down to find- 

"Eddie! That’s the third time this week, you little monster!"

The bat looks up at him from its position with its wings splayed across Steve's chest and makes another, much happier noise. Steve can't help but smile even as he whips his tail out of the pool, flicking water onto the creature who lets out an affronted squeak and quickly crawls up to bury itself in the crook of Steve's neck.

The Mer chuckles softly and brings one hand up to gently scratch at Eddie’s head, and reaches over with the other to dig his walkie free from where he'd wrapped it in a towel to keep it dry.

"Dustin, this is Steve. Come in, over."

A brief pause, then a soft crackle. "This is Dustin, what's up? Over."

"Your familiar got out again, over."

"Shit. He must have got out when I left for Mike's. Is there any way you can bring him to me? Over."

Steve frowns at the idea of having to get up and get dressed when he had planned to do absolutely nothing but lounge around all day. Eddie gives a soft grumble and Steve starts up his idle scratching again, and he feels the bat practically melt into a puddle at the gentle affection.

“I can, but do you mind if I bring him later? This is the first chance I’ve had to sun my scales in like, two weeks, over.”

Dustin gives a long suffering sigh that makes Steve roll his eyes, before giving a disgruntled “I guess. Just be glad I don’t actually need him today.”

“Hey! It’s not my fault that your familiar likes me so much. I’m not even a witch but he latches on to me any time he sees me.”

“He’s a familiar, Steve! He’s attracted to magical energies or something, I dunno!”

“I mean, you can just admit that I’m Eddie’s favorite-”

Eddie gives a soft chirp at the sound of his name, but for Steve it almost feels like an agreement. He coos softly at the creature as the walkie crackles to life again.

“Just- Get him back before dinner, okay? I don’t want my mom to worry about where he is.”

"Roger that. Over and out Dust Bunny."

"That's not my-"

Steve clicks the walkie off, something he knows he'll get an earful for later, but right now he sets the device to the side as he shuts his eyes again, enjoying the heat of the sun and the soft noises from the bat cuddled in the crook of his neck.