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uk-news-talking-politics · 4 years

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Marcus Rashford and the rise of the political influencers

By Tom Westgarth and Walter Pasquarelli

Politicians are not known for their humility. However, as the second wave of the coronavirus swept through Britain, Conservative MP Steve Baker wasn’t afraid to show some on social media.

Baker had been asked by Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford to allow him to reply to the MP’s Tweet about extending the school meals vouchers given to children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to a later date (Baker had turned off the ‘reply’ function). Baker replied, arguing that these measures would cause severe economic harm.

But the most interesting part of Baker’s response wasn’t the economic claim. His response stated: “You have 3.4 million followers Marcus, to my 96k. The power is yours here”. The white flag of surrender had been raised; Baker’s relatively smaller following meant that he had lost the online argument. The government later pledged £400 million to tackle living costs over the next 12 months for the most disadvantaged families.

Despite being one of the most influential backbenchers in the country, somebody who has one-to-one’s with prime minister Boris Johnson; how did Steve Baker succumb to feelings of powerlessness in the face of a footballer? At what point did a combination of an inspirational backstory and enormous online presence become more pivotal to shaping public policy than being an elected official?

The answer to this question cannot be realised without understanding ‘influencers’. Defining an ‘influencer’ is actually surprisingly hard to do, but they can essentially be described as individuals or small groups that exert a topical influence over a certain group of people through their online presence.

This could take the form of vloggers via their YouTube channel, or celebrities who are highly active on social media. Whilst Rashford’s initial celebrity came from a more traditional background (as a sports star), his consistent online activities mean he likely falls into such a bucket. Vlogging to a camera and casual tweeting evoke a sense of ‘relatability’ that distinguishes influencers from regular celebrities.

Internet sensations of this kind are highly sought after by brands, who pay them handsomely to promote various kinds of products. What gives these brands the bang for their buck is not the influencer’s industry knowledge, but the charismatic authority they exercise.

Despite this, many may dismiss influencers as irrelevant to social affairs. Critics lambast them as superficial figures that care more about views than values. They are often seen as symbolic of a generation glued to their screens on platforms that are eviscerating adolescent mental health.

But what these attacks on influencers appear to miss isn’t to do with their values. It is that their power is significantly underestimated. Part of the reason why the British government made such a hash of the Rashford-school meals saga was that they failed to predict the cut-through that a young, black footballer would have with the wider public.

Not every influencer has the sort of power Marcus Rashford has. But the political domain has evolved to a point where there are more than a handful of Rashford-like individuals out there. Governments and political parties need to recognise this, as influencers will increasingly start to engage in political activity.

***

At the heart of this trend is an ongoing seismic shift as to whom we trust and ascribe authority of knowledge production. Now, this did not happen overnight of course, but it is part of an ever changing historical process.

In the beginning there was God. For centuries the church and its representatives were seen as the sole and only fountain of truth.

Then came science. In a large part of the West, science replaced religious belief as the main source of truth. The scientific method offered an alternative to the dogmatic teachings of the church, allowing flexibility to approve and reject previously-held beliefs as our methods and accuracy of inquiry evolved.

Such progress produced the internet. This provided everyone with a voice and ability to both obtain as well as disseminate information. But online, often authority can be associated with whoever shouts the loudest.

Academic and intellectual institutions, seen as the bastion of scientific progress, now come under fire. Facing charges of group think and reductive analysis, they no longer possess the same authority as they did in previous decades.

Simple analysis, and social media platforms that prefer disseminating information through retweets, shares and followers, are what makes the age of influencers so prevalent. It is under these environments that influencers are emerging as a new voice of trustworthiness, providing an alternative source of truth and knowledge. The follower count, amount of engagement and interaction have become a direct source validating their credibility akin to academic citations.

The internet and digital technologies created a vacuum as to who should be wearing the crown of trust. With traditional sources of authority becoming ever-less relevant, influencers have become credible actors for filling this gap.

*** It would be a mistake to ascribe influencers' success merely to some shallow numbers though. There is a much deeper connection, a unique relationship that they build with their followers, which makes them crave for new content like the new season of a real-life character from their favorite Netflix series. The intimate nature of this informational distribution, where a creator is speaking down the lens of their camera, makes viewers feel as if they have a special relationship with the influencer - which is a trait that fundamentally distinguishes them from celebrities who are perceived as being polished, even from another planet.

Kenneth Burke described this phenomenon in his 1969 piece “A Rhetoric of Motives”. Burke explained that humans have an urge to identify with other groups and people. As biologically separate beings, humans seek to overcome this state of separateness through communication, music, red MAGA caps, you name it.

In times of identity politics, when voters formulate their political priorities based on the identity they espouse, influencers are set to accumulate increasing power over setting the tone. Influencers speak like you and I, fire updates in a continuous loop, broadcasting a shared sense of identity unifying a critical mass of people under a common purpose.

It is this cocktail of omnipresence and relatability that creates a weird attachment and ultimately loyalty - the most valuable currency in the political casino.

***

The UK government thought they had seen the last of Rashford over summer, once they had awarded him an MBE. Many viewed this honour as a cynical but deserved ploy to keep the Manchester striker on side. Of course, somebody as driven by the issue as Rashford ploughed on, forcing the prime minister to call the 23 year-old in order to assure him that the government was on the right track. This should serve as a case study for governments worldwide trying to work out how to engage with powerful influencers on matters of public policy.

Should they bring them on side, early doors, in order to keep them within touching distance? People are less likely to decry governments if they have a seat at the table.

The answer to this depends on several factors. One is, of course, the issue at hand. A less controversial issue may warrant greater collaboration. For example, the Sidemen, a group of British YouTubers with over 10 million subscribers, made a widely shared ‘Stay at Home’ video during the first wave of COVID-19. However, anti-establishment parties, in turn, could use influencers to destabilise the status quo from the outside.

Eventually, there may well be a point where such influencers decide to become politicians themselves. In the game of politics, the ability to carry millions with you on issues that one cares about is a highly valuable currency. If it is possible to have the adoration that many have for the likes of Trump, Farage and Johnson, without the detractors, then this makes for unbelievably powerful leadership qualities.

Objections to this belief are reasonable. Currently, influencers curry favour with a young audience that is widely geographically dispersed. In many voting systems, this will mean that building a significant coalition of support would be tough.

However, many influencers are moving away from youth-facing platforms into the ‘mainstream media’. KSI, a British YouTuber who came to fame playing FIFA in his bedroom, is now a chart-topping rapper. He twice sold out huge arenas to have a boxing bout against American vlogger Logan Paul (whose own charisma helped him recover from major controversies). These stars are by no-means ‘staying in their lane’, meaning they will capture both traditional and new forms of public life. When will we have our first YouTuber politician?

Finally, there seems to be little sign that Marcus Rashford is stopping. Not only has he released a BBC documentary on food poverty, he has partnered with publisher Macmillan to promote reading for economically disadvantaged children. Maybe he will stand for parliament one day, maybe he won’t. What is clear, though, is that influencers have the potential to become serious political players in the issues of tomorrow. But perhaps this time the politicians in question won’t come of age playing at Eton, but playing Esports.

Tom Westgarth and Walter Pasquarelli are policy consultants at Oxford Insights. They specialise in understanding trends in emerging technologies and AI.

#influencer

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nellie-elizabeth · 5 years

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Grey's Anatomy: Give a Little Bit (16x18)

I knew Andrew was gonna be right... ugh... poor thing.

Cons:

I really cannot get a read on how I'm meant to feel about Teddy right now, but I basically think she's the worst. She's hurting Tom, she cheated on Owen, she seems completely selfish in all of her motivations. She thought Owen might have gotten another woman pregnant before they were even together, and because of that she slept with another man multiple times. Like... how am I supposed to feel sympathy? This whole plot thread is attempting to paint Owen as this super sweet, super good guy who is being hurt by those around him, but let's be real. Owen has the most terminal case of Nice Guy syndrome I've ever seen in my life, and he gets away with being emotionally unfaithful by giving puppy-dog eyes to everyone. I think he's boring and I think he's scummy.

The hospital is having a pro bono surgery day, and things are chaotic and way too busy, so Meredith extends the day, and says they're going to have pro bono surgeries once a month. This is after she finds out that the billionaire dude from last week's episode gave an insane amount of funding to the hospital, and she learns about Koracick's unethical practices to get that money. I agree that the American healthcare system is bonkers, and it's nice to see the show tackle that in a more meaningful way this season. But all of this just seems wacky to me. Can Meredith really make a promise like that? Wouldn't you think that doing something so ostentatious would draw attention to the hospital and make it more likely that Koracick's crime would be discovered?

Okay, so, the DeLuca situation is that he suspects a woman of human trafficking who comes in to the ER. He's been acting erratic, though, so people don't believe him until it escalates. Turns out, as we see when the woman and her victim leave, DeLuca was right, and they got away. I don't mind the idea of DeLuca having some issues and also being right, but the problem is in the way he couldn't get a single other person to take him seriously. Even Bailey only did a cursory once-over before deciding that DeLuca was delusional. If any other doctor had raised that concern, everyone would have taken it more seriously. I guess I just wish for a bit more balance on this kind of thing, and I hope Bailey feels like crap for doubting him when the truth comes out.

Pros:

Jackson had this cute little subplot where he goes around trying to find someone to go to a basketball game with him. Vic was supposed to go, but they've broken up. He asks Owen, who turns him down. He asks Jo, who is offended at being a backup choice. He asks Hayes, who says it's not really his thing. Jackson has been pissing me off this season, so I'm always on the lookout to be frustrated by the plot threads he's given. But I like how his loneliness and feelings post-breakup have led to him seeking companionship in this sweet way.

He and Maggie have a totally civil exchange as they talk about Richard and Catherine's divorce, and it turns out Jackson has been trying not to take sides, but of course Richard doesn't know that. With guidance from Maggie, Jackson asks Richard to go to the basketball game, and he gleefully accepts. I thought that was really cute! It's nice to see Maggie and Jackson acting like adults around each other for once, and Richard and Jackson finding ways to stay close is something I didn't know I wanted to see until I had seen it.

So... Levi and Nico have broken up. This has been the way the wind was blowing for a while. There's a part of me that feels frustrated that Nico didn't get a fair shake from the writers. We didn't get much time to actually learn about him as a person, separate from what he meant to Levi. But that said, if we take Nico's behavior at face value, Levi really needed to get out of that relationship. Just the fact that Levi wanted to talk, and Nico said "what now" is enough of a red flag for me on its own. What the hell, Nico. And I think Levi is in this strange position of feeling a special connection to Nico because he helped him realize who he is, and come to terms with his sexuality. And yet honestly, Nico has not treated him well recently. At all. And Levi is learning how to be in a relationship, learning how to ask for what he wants. It's not unreasonable to expect to be at least a consideration in Nico's mind as he contemplates taking a job that will keep him on the road half the time. The fact that Nico doesn't take Levi into account is proof that they're not on the same page.

Jo's struggle this week is about what people should call her. She's not Dr. Karev anymore, and she doesn't like Dr. Wilson either... so for now she'll be Dr. Jo. Obviously I'm going to be frustrated about the Alex thing for a very long time, but if this is what we have to work with, I'm glad Jo is doing alright in the aftermath. She's sleeping on her couch instead of her bed, but at least she's sleeping. She's grumpy about going into work, but at least she goes.

My favorite exchange in the whole episode goes to Jo and Levi, actually. As they both lament the ends of their relationships together, Jo offers to let Levi come stay with her for a while. He replies: "Jo, that time in my mom's basement was a one-time thing, I'm a gay man." Jo lets out a peel of her infectious, joyous laughter, and says: "That's why you're getting the invite, dummy!" I've always loved Jo's laugh, and it was really heartening to see her in a place where she could be cheerful like that. I'm all for Levi and Jo being weird roommates for a bit!

The ongoing saga of Owen/Teddy/Koracick/Amelia/Link drama will never fail to piss me off, but it does appear that one "branch" of the drama is officially over. Last week I hoped that Amelia would tell Owen right away that the baby's not his, so we could knock off at least one cause of stupid angst. And lo and behold - right at the start of the episode, Amelia marches into the room, and tells Owen and Teddy both: "the baby is Link's!" I was so happy about this, even as I continue to be pissed off at Teddy for trying to use the possible paternity of Amelia's baby as an excuse for her infidelity.

Tom Koracick really is a good man. He talks about how he's slept with a lot of women, but he has a code about it, and he's not going to sleep with Teddy if she's married. He basically lets her go, and tells her to go fix things with Owen. See, despite all of this stupid shit with him basically accepting a bribe, I still really like this character and I want him around more. Teddy doesn't deserve him, frankly. Maybe Owen does. Have I mentioned that I'm not a fan of Owen?

While there's something ridiculous about the whole "pro bono days every month" thing, and I wish we could get more into the ramifications, I will say that I love the way the broken healthcare system is being demonstrated, by showing all of these patients that the system has failed. Particularly, a black woman in extreme pain who has been turned away by several doctors, and a veteran who has severe PTSD and has been lashing out and having seizures. Both of these patients are having to advocate way, way too hard to get the help they need, and Meredith responds to this, vowing to do what she can to help. These stories really worked to highlight the situation. They were memorable and they made me want to see success!

I think that's where I'll stop. There are things about this show that will always frustrate me, but there are also always thing to enjoy. That's my mantra when it comes to Grey's Anatomy!

7.5/10

#review #grey's anatomy #grey's anatomy review #greys anatomy #greys anatomy review #grey's abc #greys abc

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ty-talks-comics · 5 years

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Best of Marvel: Week of August 28th, 2019

Best of this Week: Spider-Man Life Story #6: The ‘10s - Chip Zdarsky, Mark Bagley, Drew Hennessy, Frank D’Armata and Travis Lanham

All good things must come to an end. That’s the main theme of this final issue of Chip Zdarsky and Mark Bagley’s phenomenal Life Story miniseries as it recounts the last adventure that Spider-Man goes on as he leaves the world free and safe in the capable hands of the new generation of superheroes.

Comic books are cyclical. For some heroes, you get a short run, 6-12 issues and then they disappear for years until they’re needed again for some big event. For the bigger heroes, there are ongoing series that last years upon years with some BIG changes that inevitably get reversed for the sake of reestablishing the status quo. It’s understandable, recognizable names draw big money, but there’s only so many times you can see a hero fight a particular villain before it becomes trite and meaningless.

The same goes for their daily lives as well. Peter Parker has been stuck as a meandering young adult for the better part of a decade since the events of One More Day and he hasn’t been allowed to grow past his immaturity, save for the few times when the situations have become desperate and dire. Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows tried to posit a family man Peter Parker in an alternate universe, but for the most part he came off as just regular Peter with a kid to banter off of. Nick Spencer and Tom Taylor are doing their best in their respective Spider-Man series to get Spider-Man back to a position where things actively change for him, but Chip Zdarsky has gone the extra mile.

The Spider-Man Life Story miniseries goes through Peter’s life if he actually aged with the decades that all of his comics took place in. He goes through the struggles of being an American citizen straddling the fence during Vietnam, the aftermath boiling to a superhuman civil war, a better Clone Saga of the 90s, Aunt May’s death, the start of the information age and finally having children and watching them grow up. Peter Parker is allowed to grow old, change with the times. He sees old friends die, new heroes emerge, give his take on current events of the time and it’s all been amazing.

I know I mentioned that fighting the same villains over and over can seem trite and meaningless, but that’s only when they’re done for the sake of being done. In this fantastic take on the Superior Spider-Man story, Peter and Otto have their absolute final confrontation with one another over the body and soul of the young Miles Morales. Peter and Miles are shot into space to stop some sort of satellite created by Doctor Doom that allowed him to fill the power vacuum left by Captain America and Iron Man’s Civil War. As the two explore, Peter is attacked by Kraven wearing the Venom symbiote, but he dispatches the villain easily and it’s revealed that the suit was just piloting a are skeleton.

Miles questions how it was possible and Peter replies that all of his old enemies are dead and rightfully accuses Miles of being Otto Octavius, Doctor Octopus. Otto reveals his scheme, but instead of fighting Pete physically, he chooses instead to go into the mindscape and have a battle of the intellect as they were always destined to do.

Bagey pulls out all of his stops as he draws Spider-Man costumes from the various decades as well as beautifully illustrates some of the best of Spider-Man’s rogues gallery as they battle for supremacy. Set against a white background, the characters shine with their vibrant colors, dynamic posing and Bagley’s ever amazing facial expressions. I have never seen Otto look so menacingly mad and subsequently, once Peter defeats him, absolutely crushed.

Using the only person that Peter knew Otto cared about, Aunt May, she’s able to convince Otto to let go of his hatred and rage. She tells him to let Miles live his life, to move on. I really felt this and inside, it feels like Zdarsky is also telling us that sometimes we have to let the status quo go. Spider-Man has been around for longer than some of us have been alive and will be long after most of us are gone. Do we really want him to be the same mid-20s to early 30s hero that we knew, or do we want to spend our time with someone new? Miles Morales is a little more than ten years old, he’s fairly young as a character and I wholeheartedly believe that he can carry on the Spider-Man name on his own.

As the satellite starts to collapse and there’s only one escape pod left, Peter chooses to save Miles and sacrifice himself so that the future can flourish in peace due to his heroism. It’s a true heroes death and something that we almost never see (and likely never will), but if this were a true moment of closure, then I would be happy with it. Peter Parker is known for having more guilt than a Catholic who hasn’t been to Mass for a month (or Daredevil) and as he finally closes his eyes for the final time, he has a nice conversation with Mary Jane and recounts his recurring dream of the day he truly learned about power and responsibility. The last panel is his guilt finally being washed away.

If there is one series I would recommend anyone read, hands down, without a doubt it would be this one. Chip Zdarsky has a strange yet beautiful understanding of how to tell a story with characters that some of us know better than our own family members. Mark Bagley has the art skills to make us care about them immensely as well. Putting these two together as well as their amazing inker in Andrew Hennessy and colorist in Frank D’Armata, they sell you on each decade presented and how Peter changes throughout.

Spider-Man isn’t the same plucky youth we met in the 1960s. By the end of his story, he’s led a full life full of adventure and his time has been well spent making sure that it was a future worth living in. Isn’t that something that we all can only dream of?

---------------------------------------------------

God is Here.

Runner Up: Absolute Carnage #2 - Donny Cates, Ryan Stegman, JP Mayer, Frank Martin and Clayton Cowles

After the events of the last issue there aren’t enough words to describe just how hopeless things are looking for anyone who has ever worn a symbiote.

Spider-Man and venom have been backed into a corner by Carnage and his horde of infected inmates at the Ravencroft Asylum. With no other options Eddie decides it best to break out and punches a hole through the wall for a tactical retreat. Eddie is typically known for his ability to brute force his way through any problem, but Carnage is a new monster altogether and as he sees Spider-Man running out of energy, he gives into the fear that they might die.

In the past, the combined might of Spider-Man and Venom has been more than enough to combat Cletus Kasady. Even when Cletus had help, he still couldn't hold a candle to the heroes, but now, they're almost low tier by comparison.

Spider-Man notes that he's almost out of web fluid, so there's no way that they're swinging out of there, so Eddie and the Symbiote utilize one of their badass upgrades, spreads his wings and flies out of Ravencroft with Peter screaming frantically "WHATISGOINGONRIGHTNOWIHATEALLOFIT!" They then land on a roof in the city, defeated and horrified that they may not be able to stop Carnage this time.

Spider-Man says that he'll try to get a hold of Wolverine and Captain America and Eddie says that he'll go find any of the lowlifes that have been Symbiotes and the two split to complete their missions. Carnage chooses not to follow after them, instead he waits and plots. This issue then turns into a bit of a catch up game for the other tie in issues while Carnage gloats to Norman that everything is running smoothly and that the world will be painted red soon enough.

Ryan Stegman absolutely smashes the art in this issue with absolutely killer detail, expressions of fear and disgusting visuals, especially in Carnage's underground lair - The sprawling mass of symbiotic flesh that covers New York's sewage system, packed full of infected humans is a dreadful sight. In the beginning of the issue, Stegman drew a splash page of Carnage with other panels overlaid, showing one of his eyes of madness and the decayed flesh that's absolutely under the symbiote. It's an absolutely terrifying sight that set the tone of this horror show.

Not only were these shots great, but Stegman kills one of the moments that happens in the Miles Morales tie-in where Miles and Scorpion (Mac Gargan) fight off the infected hordes trying to take Gargan's spine. In the tie-in, the art is more subdued and less violent, but here, Stegman turns it into something to get squeamish over. Gargan tries to abandon Miles to fight the infected alone, but is thrown back into the fight by Venom.

Unfortunately, Carnage is there waiting to pounce. He plunges a tendril into Mac's back and DIGS around to get that spine. There's no need to leave anything to the imagination as the blood spurts out, Gargan screams in agony and Kasady looks like he's having the goddamned time of his life. Mayer and Martin's colors and inks really sell just how violent all of this is. It's almost gross just how close they get the color right and how dark the scene is. Miles swoops in to save him, but… no good deed goes unpunished.

Absolute Carnage absolutely does what it set out to do. I have never been more afraid for the Marvel Universe than I am right now. Of course, there have been universal threats, but with how close and personal this feels and the looming feeling of dread knowing that Knull is THIS close to returning is mortifying. Normally a villain will just kill a hero or destroy them and whatnot, but Carnage wants nothing but massacre. If there's not torture and blood then what is it all worth?

Everything that Cates and Stegman have been building to has lead us here. To say that it's beginning to lay off would be an understatement. The dividends of fear are fore more exponential than anyone could have anticipated and this will likely go down as one of the greatest Venom/Carnage stories ever written. Absolute High Recommend.

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maydei · 6 years

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Making Headlines: Part One

one-time cw: mention of nonsexual physical assault and transphobia

genderfluid!will & doctor!hannibal

[read the ongoing saga on AO3]

One gunshot wound, successfully stitched closed, and the patient stabilized. It’s his third surgery of the night; the first involved putting pins in a compound-fractured tibia, the second was reattaching the partially-severed finger of a drunk man attempting to operate a table saw. Hannibal has only barely exited the operating ampitheatre when he is accosted by a nurse.

“Oh, Doctor Lecter. I’m really sorry to bother you, um…” Bernadette, one of the newer hires, shuffles in place. She has not yet gotten to the point where she uses her no-nonsense tone on him—Hannibal almost finds it funny. Nurses are without a doubt the backbone of the emergency room. He simply goes where they bid him, and now is not the time for her hesitation.

“I understand, of course. Duty calls. Is there another one?” His shift is nearing an end; Hannibal has the good sense to admit he is growing weary. When he’s tired, he’s ineffectual. An ineffectual surgeon can be a death sentence. He is weighing the options of taking on another patient, depending on severity, when she interrupts his thoughts.

“Kind of—Dr. Guthrie is with a patient, and Dr. Cruz just stepped out. We have two patients in their early 20s who were just escorted by police. Suspected concussion and badly bruised rib cage; the other one is in pretty good shape, aside from a split lip and a probably-fractured hand, but they won’t let anyone get near them.”

“Assault?” Hannibal asks, and removes his soiled gloves. He quickly, thoroughly washes with the pungent antibacterial soap up to his elbows. “Assuming it’s not an emergency, then.”

“No,” she says, and uncertainty threads through her voice.

“What is it, Bernadette?”

“One of the patients is gender non-conforming,” she says. “And the police seem to be pretty laser-focused on them.”

Hannibal is silent while he considers this. Transgender and nonbinary people face a much higher risk of assault. It is an unfortunate side to his job that he sees them fairly often. But he has developed something of a reputation for his understanding in dealing with them—in that regard, he’s not surprised Bernadette has brought this to him in absence of searching out Dr. Cruz, who is… decidedly less accepting. He shakes the water from his hands and reaches for paper towels to blot himself dry.

“Understood,” he replies. “Do you have their chart? I can provide an assessment of the situation.”

Bernadette practically deflates with relief. “Thank you, Doctor. Here. I’ll show you to them.”

Hannibal flips the chart open, scanning as he follows his nurse, dodging the hustle and bustle of the busy Saturday-night Emergency Room as a practiced participant. The data in the chart is minimal: William S. Graham, twenty years old, student at the University of Maryland. Nothing in the medical history to cause alarm. Insurance provided through his—their—school.

And then Bernadette leads him behind the curtain, and Hannibal absorbs everything at once.

The officers stand on either side of the bed; there is no safe haven for William to draw away, and thus, they have drawn in on themselves. Their hair is frazzled, piled atop their head in a haphazard knot; damp with nervous sweat at the hairline, wisps of curled bangs hastily swiped away from carefully-outlined blue eyes by bloody knuckles. Their teeth are bared, a row of straight, sharp teeth painted red by a split lip, dripping blood over the artificial sheen of lipgloss.

Hannibal’s keen eyes immediately make note of the darker patches on the knees of their black denim pants that disappear into black boots; contusions on the knees. Their flannel shirt is green and black plaid, smudged with blood and dirt and what appears to be brick dust. It hangs unevenly open, clutched closed by Will’s other hand; a cracked pair of glasses is folded over the gaping collar. Through the gap that reveals smooth, pale skin, Hannibal sees a flash of a black satin undershirt.

“Look, you’re facing arrest for assault and forgery of documents. You shouldn’t have been out at that bar. Just tell us where you got your fake ID, and maybe we can let some of this slide—”

“Are you kidding me?” they snap. Their eyes flash to Bernadette and Hannibal, then back to the cops. “I’ve told you anything relevant. If you can’t do your jobs with what I’ve given you, then you don’t deserve your badges. There had to be thirty witnesses back at the bar.”

“The witnesses don’t change the fact that you were breaking the law,” one of the officers says, and Hannibal feels his blood run cold like ice, slicing through his veins. “Lying about your age, presenting yourself under false pretenses—”

It is a strange sensation, sympathy. One that Hannibal is in no hurry to embrace, and no rush to repeat. But he has always found the treatment of LGBT individuals by law enforcement to be tasteless.

And this is his domain, at least for the moment.

“Officers, I will have to ask you to step outside the curtain,” Hannibal says smoothly. “My name is Doctor Hannibal Lecter, I’m here to tend to the patient.”

“He’s suspected of a crime,” one officer says, short and mean-eyed, and for a moment, Hannibal considers what the flesh of his belly might taste like, rounded as it is beneath his uniform blues. It’s been months since his last display, and of course, this is too close to home—but still, he considers the benefits. “We’re not going anywhere.”

“Short of attempted murder, I will have to insist,” Hannibal replies. His gaze slides to William, and finds himself being sized up, measured by the fury behind sharp blue eyes. There is a predator living inside that skull—or, at the very least, anger enough to fuel one. “HIPAA privacy laws are very clear. I will supervise here; Bernadette, if you would care to escort the officers to question the other patient? This interview seems quite one-sided, considering most of what I see at first glance is an extensive collection of defensive wounds.”

The officers bristle; Bernadette radiates satisfaction. Police escorts are not uncommon in the emergency room, of course, but neither are victims being pressured before being properly tended to… or without legal counsel. Hannibal intends to remedy at least one of those issues.

“Officers, follow me, please,” Bernadette says. “I can lead you to Mr. McCallum, and then to our front desk to fill out chain of custody paperwork.”

They go. Some tension seeps from William Graham’s shoulders, but none of the anger from their face.

“My nurse informed me you wouldn’t let anyone tend to you,” Hannibal says, and makes no move to approach quite yet. “Would you allow me to disinfect your cuts?”

Slowly, slowly, they nod.

Hannibal gathers supplies from the cabinet; sterile wipes, non-stick gauze, and a collection of bandages and paper tape. He rolls the nearby stool to the edge of the bed and sets everything there for William to see, pulls on a pair of nitrile gloves before holding out one hand in silent query.

One shaking, bloody hand is set gently into Hannibal’s palm, and he gets to work.

“What are your preferred pronouns?” Hannibal asks, careful to keep his voice even. He tears open a sterile wipe and swipes in short strokes over the abrasions on bruised knuckles.

“I don’t care,” they reply quietly. “He and him is fine, I guess. I’m not trying to lie to anyone.”

Hannibal nods once. “You have no need to explain yourself. Gender identity is a deeply personal thing. Do you prefer to go by William, or do you have something else you’d like me to call you?”

He swallows. With the rage melting from his body, all that is left is exhaustion and simmering anger, a thin blanket to mask his fear. “Just Will.”

“Hello, Will.” He glances up and offers a small smile. He rarely has cause to use it in the operating room; it feels rusty with disuse, but knows it appears sincere. “I’ll warn you, I am usually a trauma surgeon. I was alerted to the situation by your nurse. I may be called away if another emergency arises, but in the absence of one, I am qualified to tend to your wounds.”

Will says nothing. He takes a deep breath and lets it out; it shudders, and he shivers, drawing his other arm tight around his body. “I was just defending myself. Now they’re coming after me about my fake ID.” He laughs once, bitterly. “Cops don’t care about fake IDs. Not really. They only care because of how I look.”

“And how do you look?” Hannibal asks, curious as to what Will might say.

Will glances up. He meets Hannibal’s eyes and holds them. “Different.”

Hannibal discards one blood-soaked wipe and reaches for the gauze. He wraps Will’s first hand, and tapes the bandage into place. He considers this. “Are we not all different?”

Will scoffs. “Only a special kind of different gets guys to try to beat you up outside a bar.”

Hannibal tsks and holds out his hand for Will’s other. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to belittle your experience. Gender and sexuality-nonconforming individuals are at a much higher risk of violence. I see it often enough within these walls to not be ignorant of the cause.” He sets to work on Will’s other hand; the skin on his fingers is callused with years of hard work, but his fingernails are painted with sheer varnish and carefully shaped. His knuckles, though, are swollen purple and blue—very likely broken. “You will need an x-ray of your hand. It appears you may have fractured your first and second metacarpals.”

Hannibal gently flexes Will’s wrist; when he detects no flicker of a wince or any indication of pain, he hums with consideration. “No inflammation elsewhere; you know how to throw a punch.”

At that, Will grins. It makes his lip stretch, crack, and bleed again. The scent of artificial cherry is the only indication that the flushed color of his mouth is not solely from spilled blood. “Yeah. Learned that one early on.”

Hannibal answers with a small, satisfied huff. He holds off on wrapping Will’s broken hand and stands to reach for a hospital gown. He sets it on Will’s lap. “There’s blood on your pants; it seems you may have cut your knees. Do you think you can get undressed without hurting your hand and without assistance?”

Will grimaces; the wolf’s smile is gone. “I’m sure I can manage.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Hannibal replies patiently. “I’d be happy to get a nurse to help you—”

Will shakes his head. “Don’t. If you could just…” Will looks frustrated with his own inability, so terribly, vulnerably young. “If you could help me unzip my boots, I can do the rest on my own. I’m not going to hurt myself getting out of my clothes.”

“People manage to hurt themselves doing much less.” Hannibal’s voice is droll and perhaps exasperated, but the most miraculous thing happens:

Will laughs. “Seeing the most graceless of humanity day-in and day-out must get exhausting,” he says with a smile.

Hannibal is stunned. The monster inside him is vindicated, though he does his best to hide it. How strange, the worldly secrets that spill so carelessly out of the mouths of babes. “And the accident-prone.”

“And the violence-prone,” Will adds. He reaches for his boots and winces when he puts weight on his injured hand; shuffles to readjust and recalculate.

Hannibal interrupts before he gets that far. “Allow me.” He keeps himself steady and clinical as he lifts one black leather boot and unzips it from calf to ankle. There is a strange, sensual weight to Will’s eyes on him that borders on unprofessional. He probably should have gotten a nurse to assist Will after all, but alas—“The other, please.”

There is a considering tilt to Will’s smooth jaw, a cautious grace as he uses his toe to push the first boot off, then offer the next. Hannibal narrowly resists wetting his lips at the flash of sheer black stockings underneath.

What a fascinating conundrum.

“I’ll give you a moment,” Hannibal says. “I’m just going to check and make sure there haven’t been any intakes since you’ve arrived. I’ll be right outside.”

“Not worried I’m gonna run?” Will asks. He slips his other foot free and peels the stockings off, turning them right-side out with his careful hands and folding them together in one neat, fluid movement that is unhampered by injury. He leans back against the incline of the hospital bed, and with a flash of challenge and consideration, moves slowly to reach for the button of his pants.

Hannibal waits until his fingers reach the narrow waistband before he averts his eyes and stands. He does not consider it a failure; he knows he shows no disgust on his face, no inappropriate intrigue. The only intrigue he feels is well-concealed, and not so crudely manipulated.

“Without your shoes?” Hannibal replies with a faint tilt of a smile as he heads to the curtain, soiled wipes gathered into his palm to be discarded. “Where would you go? Slip away into the night and back to your dorm? Tend to your wounds yourself?”

“I might do better than you’d expect.” He hears the creak of the hospital bed as Will stands, the rustle of fabric as he begins to undress. It’s crass. Cheeky. Against his better judgement, Hannibal finds it amusing rather than offensive. Will’s attitude is intelligent; not purely reactionary. “I’m resourceful.”

Hannibal resists the urge to look back and behold the sight of Will Graham laid bare. No, not so soon. His shift is near done, but his night has only just become interesting. If nothing else, Hannibal is a patient man.

Something tells him that Will Graham is worth savoring piece by piece.

“I believe you,” Hannibal says, and to his own surprise, he does.

#hannigram #hannigraham #making headlines fic #hannibal nbc #nbc hannibal #hannibal lecter #will graham #journalist au #luc writes #dei's fics #luc does prompts #tbc

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darling-i-fancy-you · 7 years

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Waiting For A Girl Like You - Steve Harrington x Reader

[A/N: An ongoing saga of my enemies to friends to lovers series, this is Part Three and Part One and Two can be found here and here.

From here on out I believe I will be titling these short fics with titles of 80′s love songs, we start off with Foreigner’s ‘Waiting For A Girl Like You’.]

The soft melodies of Hawkins 0.97 station filled the empty air of your room, a quiet rock ballad was interrupted by the heavy banging of a hand on your windowpane. Your head whipped around from your desk and towards the offending noise, you groaned at the sight at your window.

‘Harrington, what hell?!’ You questioned in a hushed whisper.

You scurried to the window as he attempted to knock again, in one quick motion you opened your window and Steve fell through onto your carpet. Softly he groaned and held his hand to his face.

‘You gonna tell me what happened?’ You asked impatiently, standing over his curled up body.

‘Hargrove.’ He moaned.

‘Again?! I thought that feud was over.’ You grumbled, motioning for him to sit on your windowsill.

‘Never over.’ Was his stubborn reply as he raised himself off the floor.

You sighed as you assessed the damage done to his face, a bruise had begun to blossom across his right eye, underlined with a deep red wound you guessed had come from one of Billy’s rings.

His lip sported a similar cut, you noticed as he ran his tongue across it and swiped away the blood.

‘You’re a stubborn ass.’ You muttered. ‘What am I supposed to do with you?’

Steve smiled despite the pain.

‘Clean me up.’ His smile turns into a smirk as he runs his tongue over his lip once more.

‘Gimmie a sec.’ You whisper, getting up to go and get the first aid kit from the bathroom.

Before you left the room you turned the radio up slightly to mask the sound of your voices, if your parents knew you had a boy in your room Harrington would have more than bruises on his face to worry about.

Moments later you returned sporting the first aid kit. Steve was now lying in the middle of your bed with his eyes closed and look of pain etched on his face, his trainers and jacket discarded back by the window.

‘Harrington.’ You sighed in frustration. ‘Who said you could make yourself at home?’

‘I could swear you did.’ He smiled and cracked open an eye. ‘Take pity on me, please.’

He did look pretty pitiful. Cautiously you made your way over to the side of your bed, perching yourself next to him.

‘This might sting.’ You warned before lifting an antiseptic wipe up to his face.

He hissed as you gently dabbed at the fierce cut.

‘I did warn you.’ You teased.

Silently you mused to yourself as you petted Harrington’s face, when had this become a thing? Why was he here in your room, asking you to tend to his battle scars? Why did you so readily agree to do it?

Steve’s face had begun to soften as he became used to the sting of the wipe, you studied his features, his bruised skin, his strong nose, the plumpness of his torn lip. The wipe swept gently across his lip as you thought of them, thought of how they usually looked and what they’d feel like against yours.

‘Done.’ You gasped lightly as you shook your head of the invasive thoughts.

You gathered the damp wipes in one hand and threw them into your small trash can. Steve pushed himself further up your bed so that he was resting against your headboard, he folded his hands over his stomach and smiled softly at you.

Awkwardly you smiled back before averting your gaze to the softly buzzing radio.

‘You wanna know what we were fighting about?’ He asked, you turned back to look at him.

‘I don’t know, do I?’ You replied with snark.

Steve’s eyes were soft, his face unsure yet revealing all you needed to know.

You.

‘Harrington.’ You groaned. ‘You don’t need to fight my battles, especially not against Billy Hargrove. Who gives a shit what that guy has to say?’

‘Listen,’ Steve sat up straight and stared you down intensely. ‘when he’s bad mouthing you, I especially give a shit.’

You rolled your eyes.

‘A few months ago we weren’t even friends, Harrington. You’d be joining in with him if things were still the same.’

‘But things aren’t the same.’ Steve argued. ‘Things couldn’t be more different and you’re too scared to admit that.’

‘Harrington.’ You warned, he was running headfirst into dangerous territory.

‘Stop it with that bullshit, Harrington, we aren’t like that anymore!’ Steve all but shouted.

You sucked in a sharp breath and held your tongue, this wasn’t going to happen, you were not going to go there.

‘I think you should go before you wake up my parents.’ You muttered lamely.

‘You really want me to go?’ He asked in disbelief, you nodded. ‘Fine. Fine, I’ll go.’

Steve pushed himself from off your bed and took two long strides over to your windowsill. Silently he shoved his feet into his trainers and picked his jacket up from off the floor, you sat motionlessly on your bed your eyes trained on your hands.

As he made his move to exit you quietly stood from your bed.

‘Steve.’ You muttered, he paused with his back to you, one foot already on the ledge of your window. You took the few steps to your window and grabbed the hand from his side, it was warm and calloused.

You pulled on his arm until he was back facing you, the space between you was limited and you could smell a fragrance that was so distinctly Steve. He looked down at you through his dark lashes and you guessed he could practically feel the heat that radiated from your face.

With your free hand you reached to cradle his cheek, the pad of your thumb ran over the welt underneath his eye. Without thinking about it you slowly pulled his face down to meet yours, his lips were on top of yours before you could register it happening.

They were soft and plump, and you could still feel the scratchiness of his broken skin against yours. His large hands found the sides of your hips, absentmindedly he rubbed at them and swayed you under his touched.

Here you were, in your room, kissing Steve Harrington.

You pulled back reluctantly.

‘Not kidding,’ you sighed, ‘but you do really have to go.’

Steve raised an eyebrow.

‘Seriously, after that?’ He asked in disbelief.

‘If my Dad walks in you’re gonna have to worry about more than a few cuts and bruises, we’re talking broken bones.’ You smiled softly as you pushed him closer to the window, Steve sighed.

‘Thanks for cleaning me up.’ He smiled as he looked down at you once more, now perched outside of your window. His head ducked down to peck at your lips, taking you by surprise at how natural it felt to do that.

‘Don’t make it a regular thing, Steve.’ You sighed, knowing full well that this wouldn’t be the last time you tended to a bloody and bruised face.

‘I’ll try not too.’ He lied, smirking and began to make his way down your drainpipe.

You continued to watch him until he had made his way down and was in your front yard waving at you from below, you smiled and gave him a small wave back before he turned and made his way down the street and to his car.

Closing your window, you sat yourself on the floor and wondered, what the heck just happened?

#steve harrington x reader #Steve Harrington #Billy Hargrove #Stranger Things #Stranger Fics

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starberry-cupcake · 8 years

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Gifs freeze in gifsets for no reason: the ongoing saga

Have you noticed lately, in your dashboard or when you visit someone’s blog, in your mobile/s or your computer/s, that there’s one gif not moving in a gifset? Normally just one, maybe sometimes more? Most frequently with gifsets that aren’t new, maybe months or years old? Perhaps you did and thought it was just you, your internet connection or that the person who originally uploaded it wasn’t careful with the sizes. I’m here to tell you it’s probably not that.

I started noticing this over a month ago. I came across one of my older gifsets and one of the gifs wasn’t moving properly. I thought I had, for some reason, messed up the sizes, so I made it again, re-uploaded it and it got fixed. All was well, until I realized that it was happening with more of my gifsets, some of which I had their respective files still saved in my computer. When I re-uploaded the same exact gif as it was originally uploaded, it got fixed. When I tried downloading the one which didn’t move and compare it to either the original or another one, which was moving, from the same gifset, the one not moving seemed like a still image in photoshop, without the frames and with a different size than it originally had. I started fearing there was a glitch or something ruining my gifs and I was going to have to replace each one manually for them to work properly again.

So I gave up trying to figure it out and mailed the Staff. I sent them the link to my post and a copy of the gif I had originally uploaded, so they could see it wasn’t the size. Their response was that they saw the gifset perfectly, that I must have been the one with the problem (!!!!). They gave me the normal instructions (check all your extensions, update your Chrome, restart your computer) but nothing worked. And I knew it wasn’t going to anyway, because my sister, who also uses tumblr, had seen this happen in other gifsets from other people as well.

Feeling like the lead in a horror flick of the early 2000s when they know the house is haunted but people around them insist they just need some sleep, I decided to get some back up and asked people about it, in and out of tumblr. I sent the link out in social media to know what others saw in the same gifset. Out of 13 people who responded to me that same day, only 2 people saw it perfectly. The other 11 saw one gif not moving, some saw the same one I did and others saw another gif not moving, but there was always at least one. This was not my problem for sure.

I sent this to the Staff with gif screencaps of what I saw in my blog, my dash and the pop-up sidebar on my dash (because the gifs not moving change in one or the others sometimes). And then asked my brother about it. He said it was probably how Tumblr is handling proxy so we used a proxy site to change different servers to the link. Lo and behold, in a European server, for example, the gifset moved perfectly, but in a US one, one of the gifs didn’t move, however, it wasn’t the same one I saw not moving from Argentina, it was another one. Whatever is happening, there’s where the issue lies.

Basically, it’s not me. Or you, if this has happened to you. And your gifs aren’t ruined or not properly sized or have a glitch. As of today, the last message I got from the Staff was that they were working on it and passing it to the appropriate people to handle, so we’ll have to wait patiently until it’s solved. I’m leaving it be and it’s in their hands now, but at least I have a vague idea of where the problem lies. So if this is something you have experienced in the past months, now you know why it might be happening. For some reason, I haven’t seen many posts about this, maybe people thought it was their internet connection or their extensions or that OPs messed up sizes and kept scrolling without paying it any mind. Maybe I missed a huge post about it and what I’m saying isn’t news to anyone. Still, I thought it was appropriate to let you know.

Whenever I get a message from the Staff, I’ll update this post.

UPDATE (May 2017): I ended up never receiving an answer back from the staff. I continued monitoring the gif situation in gifsets I knew I had problems with, from different sources. Some time after my conversation with the staff, and after other messages were sent by various other users who replied to this post with their experiences (and who received the same exact answer I did, word by word, you can see it here), the problem seemed to have been resolved. I waited to update this post because, shortly after, I experienced in my location another brief period of proxy issues (I had experienced them before in our servers here, during them images don’t load properly, they show as if the internet service wasn’t working correctly, and the only way to fix it is using a proxy based app like Hola and changing proxy to another location). I decided to wait and see if that resolved itself like the other times, and it did, but I’m assuming it won’t be the last time we have these kinds of issues, since that wasn’t the first. So, long story short, now it seems the gif problem is solved, for what I can see, but I didn’t receive any response from the staff about it and there are still proxy issues going on in different servers from time to time.

#frozen gifs #broken gifs #still gifs #tumblr problems #luly rambles #gif problems #long post

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grizzlefur · 7 years

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WWEm - The War of Hardy's Incisor

Transmission date: Monday 15/Tuesday 16 May 2017

Walking up to the club like what up I got a haunted tractor and it's running away backwards, it's THURSDAY AFTERNOON RAW!

cold open on a dramatic recap of the ongoing saga of big angry man vs ambulance

and by 'dramatic', i mean 'really fucking long'

it's only just occurred to me from seeing them in the title sequence, but i'm astonished they haven't made more of all of the shield being on the same show yet

like, i'm all for delaying gratification, but wwe isn't usually

we're in newark, and i have nothing interesting to say about that

and tonight we have dean/miz for the belt

but first, let's have a kurt

thousands of fans chant YOU SUCK with all the love in the world

sport is weird

kurt's here to talk about the braun situation

apparently he shattered his elbow, and could be out for six months

newark are not impressed, and neither am i

oh, and apparently that's legit

booooooo

so at extreme rules, they're having a fatal five-way for the contendership that apparently braun had

for the universal belt, that is

seth/joe/finn/roman/bray

newark want it to be finn or bray

and also for roman to go fuck himself

and that's a five-way extreme rules match

so that should be pleasingly mental

kurt tries to leave, enter said self-fucker to argue with him

roman has decided that he's number one contender because he beat taker and braun, neither of whom were at all connected with the belt last i checked

one uninspiring promo later, here's finn to improve the conversation

with things like a real case for the belt and actual charisma and shit

cheers for walking through frame halfway through that promo, kurt

roman claims that finn doesn't have the killer instinct to beat brock

cue derisive laughter

so finn brings up the fact that he totally beat roman his first night on raw

ooooooh

WOMP WOMP WOMP

joe's here to be like i could fucking kill all of you

which is fair

the only problem there being that bray could still win after joe killing him

as soon as i type that, wyatt cut through joe's promo as he teleports into the ring

seth cuts in a couple of seconds into bray's promo, because he's a don't-give-a-shit kind of babyface

he's like fuck all this talking i'm here to fight joe

so he does so

bray takes out finn, and he just lies there while we have joe/seth and bray/roman

seth takes joe's knee out and he runs away like a bitch, bray takes seth down, roman takes bray down, finn gets up and proceeds to murder everyone available

and then threateningly squat in the ring as his music plays

but now, here are the hardyz backstage

jeff's fighting sheamus next

but first, seth, finn and roman shout at each other backstage

until kurt comes in to be like come one guys i'll put you in matches if that'll stop you hate-pissing all over this arena

so later we have seth/bray (apparently the first time ever) and roman/finn

but now, the hardyz are here

jeff runs up and down the ramp high fiving everybody within reach

it felt like that would have been the point for the hardyz to talk, but apparently not

i do feel like they're giving matt the mic as little as possible because who knows what the fuck he'll do

let's have another recap of sheamus kicking jeff's tooth out, because that's what this feud has become about

The War of Hardy's Incisor

jeff's gear now has weird translucent leopard print on the outside halves of the sleeves

odd choice

bell rings, violence immediately hits seventh gear

sure, he's older than he used to be, but jeff is still really fast and doesn't give even 12% of a fuck

double leg drop to the balls, which you can apparently get away with if your name is jeff hardy

meanwhile, matt's hyping the crowd, a process which is mostly accomplished by him being present and occasionally raising his arms

sheamus rolls backwards up the turnbuckle to the top rope, which is actually really impressive for a guy that big

cesaro tries to interfere, matt pushes him away, sheamus hits matt with two brogues, but jeff hits a twist of fate and a swanton bomb off the distraction for the pin

p sure it was only meant to be one brogue, but matt just didn't bump for some reason

booker calls jeff's swanton a 'coup d'état'

i would mind this less if the correct phrase wasn't the actual name of a finisher on this fucking show

but now we have sasha/alicia again, after the weird-ass pin last week

and noam's here to lurk in his girlfriend's corner

sasha has apparently been watching the jeff/sheamus situation, knees alicia in the face even harder like fuck you with your only knocking one tooth out

alicia drops a northern lights for no particular reason again

does she even have a finisher any more

wikipedia tells me it's a scissor kick

and the moment i read that, she hits it and pins sasha clean

huh

not what i saw coming

noam runs in to carry her on his shoulders in celebration, and end segment

not sure what was going on with all that

but up next, we have that ic title match

which isn't the main event for some reason?

have raw borrowed smackdown's editors for this episode or something

but here are miz and maryse, and they've got the wrestlemania jackets again fucking yes

and dean's splashed out for a new merch vest

make an effort, dean

corey claims miz's mindset is 'take what you can, give nothing back'

isn't that fucking pirates of the caribbean?

we're not saying miz is a pirate, but he's totally a fucking pirate

apparently miz threw dean into the ring steps during the ad break

that seems like the kind of story beat that should have actually made the show

maryse is doing some outstanding ringside predatory glaring here

is she just incarnating steph, since she's not on the show

dean lands a suicide dive that seemed to consist mostly of pushing miz out of the way and hitting the barricade headfirst

maybe don't do that

dean does a la magistra cradle for a near-fall like fuck you all i'm not just idiot dives i can do technical wrestling

dean counters miz off the top rope, aided by the fact that that jump was never going to be anything even if it had landed

counter to dirty deeds counter to skull-crushing finale counter to small package near-fall

this is a really good match

speaking of stiff head kicks, that...was not what that was

vicious kick to the air in the vague neighbourhood of dean's face

skull-crushing finale, dean kicks out

probably would have been better if he'd countered it, but whatever

clearly this is just me

dean prepares for an elbow drop to the outside, miz acquires his usual meatshield

who then just moves, allowing dean to land it

maryse distracts the ref, miz goes for a dick punch, dean counters it and kicks miz in the crotch for the dq

miz lies on the floor like aaaaagh my groin, dean stands in the ring mugging at the crowd like welp what was i supposed to do

and now charly talks to finn about how great his life is with his documentary and contendership match and opportunity to kick roman’s face in tonight

he's just like yeah i know i'm awesome and walks off

but now, here's alexa

fan goes for a high five as she walks down the ramp, her expression is, as ever, priceless

recap of her title win at payback, sponsored by just for men moustache and beard

does anyone else see the issue here

cut back to the ring, alexa's trying to come up with a catchy slogan for newark

settles on 'the sweat gland of america'

i've just noticed how comically oversized that belt looks on her

crowd starts shouting at her, she comes back with if you're a failure say what, crowd bites

casually takes credit for the winner of miss usa, at which point bayley cuts in

like, you can be a bitch, but the integrity of beauty pageants is inviolable

bayley's here to be like okay yeah you've won a ton of things but have you maybe considered not being such a twat

and she's here to invoke her rematch clause at extreme rules

alexa's like do you really want to take me on when the rules aren't there to protect you

condescends frantically

so bayley just coldcocks her and dropkicks her in the face

seems perhaps excessive

alexa facebusters her on the ropes, then goes for a kendo stick

i am in favour of this

when did we even last have a proper women's hardcore match

one back shot with the shinai later, bayley ends up on the floor like aaaaagh thou hast slain me

but up next, cruiserweight tag time

after another advert for the finn documentary

still wince whenever i see that clip of him knocking his shoulder out and back in

we come back on kurt on the phone to somebody, when miz and maryse come in to rant about him getting kicked in the crotch

kurt's like yeah fine valid point stop fucking shouting at me

and miz demands a match with no champion's advantage, which kurt gives him because everybody knows dean can be a dick when he wants to

maryse still isn't happy, goes into an amazingly flowery québécois rant which i caught like 40% of, kurt replies in terrible schoolboy french, and enter elias fucking samson

kurt just looks at him like the fuck has happened to my life, he strums and walks off

cut back to the arena, where corey puts forward the entirely plausible argument that samson is stalking him

but now it's cruisertime, with neville and tjp vs austin and jack

the real question is has jack been giving austin more pint-downing instruction

because he needed it

bell rings with neville and austin in, neville just gives him this beautifully disdainful look and tags his apprentice

jack straight-up throws austin at neville and tjp, because he is still way stronger than he looks

neville tosses austin out of the ring, then distracts the ref while tjp beats him into the barricade

because, as ever, organisation is evil

speaking of organisation, the crowd are unanimously shouting something, but i have no fucking clue what it is

austin gets caught on the ropes by tj, then rolls forward over him and tangoes him from behind

the man has some interesting transitions

jack sets up his dropkick, neville comes in to get in the way, austin comes in to fight him, tjp chop blocks austin in his bad knee

austin takes out neville, jack chins tjp and sets up for another dropkick, neville grabs his leg, takes a discus fivearm on the outside, but jack eats a detonation kick for the pin

neville and tjp swagger backwards up the ramp like we're awesome fuck you

but now the announcers tell us how much good stuff there is on the network this week

(it's a lot)

roman/finn up next, which is apparently half of a double main event

so we're having seth/bray as our actual main event

but now, in the trainer's room, a medic puts a shoulder brace on bayley

kurt comes in like hey how you doing that looked painful

promises to make their match at extreme rules a regular match

bayley's like fuck that i want a chance to hurt her back

so kurt makes it a kendo stick on a pole match

is it 2003

oh look, here's goldust

that was fucking perfect

truth is here to apologise for costing them the match last week

so goldust gives him a motivational speech

apparently they're fighting gallows and anderson tonight

rip

but yes, now it's finn/roman

*does the arms*

the back of his jacket still has the old balor club logo on it

gallows and anderson's lawyers will be in touch

cut from finn's entrance to another recap slideshow of braun

seriously, this is some top-grade blue brand editing

if he's out for six months, he's going to be over as fuck when he comes back at survivor series

did we really need that dramatic multi-angle playback of braun getting his elbow broken?

bell rings, roman runs finn into the corner and then tosses him halfway across the ring, finn just gets up and looks at him like ok what's your point

apparently the most important thing about finn is that he's special

bold claim, booker

care to elaborate?

thought not

roman is wearing just a comical amount of bandages and tape on that bad shoulder

finn bullfights him into the post shoulder-first at a hundred miles an hour, he bumps so hard he flies though the ropes and lands outside the ring, finn follows up with a punt to the face and a double stomp from the apron

yeesh

i really hope that shoulder injury's mostly worked, because otherwise that was dumb as fuck

cut to ads, cut back to them still outside, somehow not dq'd, and roman pickin finn up and running the length of the ring to slam him into the post

and then putting him onto the apron and running all the way along the ring to driveby him into the post

that's a nice twist on a signature move

finn comes back, goes for a sling blade, roman counters it beautifully into a spinout powerbomb in a sequence that impressed me far more than is probably warranted

roman goes for a superman punch, finn kicks him out of the air

roman goes for another powerbomb, finn counters out into a lovely jumping double stomp on his chest

sling blade, eliciting the usual pop from me, goes for the corner dropkick, roman counters with a superman punch, near-fall

they are both looking absolutely destroyed by now

roman goe for a spear, finn knees him in the face, sling blade #2 into the corner dropkick

tortuous climb to the top rope for the coup de grace, roman knocks his leg away to crotch him on the turnbuckle, spear for the pin

that was honestly the most i've ever enjoyed a match where roman won

genuinely a really good match

but then, finn could wrestle a potato and i'd watch the fuck out of it

midway through corey talking about how good that was, lights drop and we go to bray doing a sermon about how brock ain't shit

was there meant to be a wyatt cut there?

apparently he's going to kill brock with the spear of destiny

wait, is brock jesus now?

he's also here to address seth like oh hey you're a kingslayer that's cute if only i was just a king

blows lantern out, cut to ads

and we come back on charly interviewing seth for any opinion on that

seth's like yeahhhhhhhh fuck that noise

claims his knee almost fell off his body

interested to know how that works

but now we have the golden truth and their mistimed karaoke subtitles

and nobody told the subtitle guy they weren't doing the second verse

truth does his introductory cheap pop, goldust lariats his head off his body, which eagle-eyed viewers will notice i fucking called

half a dozen people in the front of the crowd clearly dislike truth, start a thank you goldust chant

wow, he is just beating the shit out of him

threw truth clean from the ring into the barricade, which is just impressive any way you slice it

the announcers are all like what's happening with goldust he's such a lovely fun guy this is so unlike him

like dude

did you not follow most of his career

crouches over truth, intones 'that's what's up', poses, end segment

i am so up for goldust having a solo run and not being tied to bullshit comedy skits any more

and now...we have an advert for injustice 2

which looks sick as hell, but i was not expecting to see here

with follow me into the jungle over it, because we haven't heard that in enough adverts on the network

back in the ring, we have enzo and cass

who are from new jersey, so probably fucked

corey is excited because there must be some outstanding warrants on enzo so with any luck he'll never see him again

but naturally, the homeground thing means enzo gets mic time

or at least, he was doing that

until titus turns up to do his own version of enzo's intro

accompanied by apollo, who's like jesus dude do you have to do this i am very uncomfortable

titus is the weird uncle who brings you to the cool parties but you want to disassociate yourself with as miuch as possible

tituts plugs his ted talk, promises that his boy's going to fuck enzo up

cass is like um did you read the card this match is me and you

titus comes back like um no this suit is far too nice

cass is like yes that suit is nice still gonna kill you

bell rings

titus kicks cass into the corner, takes a break to take off his apparently $3100 suit

or at least the jacket

takes off his belt, threatens cass with it, enzo shouts at him, cass kicks him in the face for the pin

so yeah

that happened

apollo comes into the ring to help out his embarrassing coach, while enzo steals titus's phone and does a selfie with apollo and titus

so apollo dropkicks him in the head

seems perhaps excessive, but i think most of us would take that opportunity

but up next, seth/bray

after an advert for 205, and neville comes into the locker room to congratulate tjp

tjp's like okay yeah i was pretty boss can i have my title shot yet

neville's like patience young one

we will finish destroying austin's knee on 205, and then we can talk about that

but enough of that, now we have main event #3 now

yeah, it's only technically #2, but that ic title match was a main event by any real metric

cole thanks the fans in every country the european tour went to individually, which is a nice touch

and corey immediately calls him out for missing denmark

moment's gone

if the finn/roman match was one of the main events tonight and was as good as it was despite involving roman reigns, i am pumped as fuck for this one

and not just because bray is wearing a shirt i own

seth drags bray out of the corner by his beard, because he is the shitheeliest of babyfaces

and then throws him out of the ring, suicide dives on him, and goes for a crossbody off the barricade

bray catches him into an uranage onto the barricade

we are just pulling it all out immediately

bray pulls seth half off the top turnbuckle, then turns that into a nasty draping neckbreaker

and then puts him back up there for a superplex

with the amount of quality offence bray's getting in, he's probably fucked

or maybe that's just me going on the fact that bray doesn't get to win things

bray goes for another uranage, seth counters into another suicide dive, bray just punches him in the head as it comes out of the ropes

goes for seth back in the ring, seth counters into a blockbuster and a sling blade

i am kind of struggling to keep up

seth throws bray outside, dropkicks him through the ropes, and then hits yet another suicide dive

seth enzuigiris bray, sets up for another one, and bray just whips round at the last second and clotheslines him like a truck

seth tries to come back, counter into another uranage

goes for sister abigail, seth counters into a small package and a falcon arrow

see, this is how you preserve a finisher

lots of signatures, lots of finisher counters, no finisher kickouts

seth goes up top, bray rolls out of the ring, seth crossbodies him anyway, and here comes joe to punch seth for the dq

speaking of things i totally called

joe beats seth into a coma, bray turns up, they face off briefly, then both just kick the shit out of seth

right up until bray hits sister abigail on joe because what the fuck did you expect never trust a man who has proclaimed himself a god to honour your alliance

bray picks up seth, sister abigail, kneels over his fallen foes, follow the buzzards, wyatt cut, end

right, i'm still ill, so i'm off to make some offerings to my shrine to the devil, his sister/daughter, and his earthly incarnation

smackdown will happen sooner or later, depending on whether bloody belphegor is on the helpline again

stupid hell bureaucracy

-----------------------

protip: if the only way you can communicate to human ears is by modulating the piercing buzz of a roiling swarm of hornets, maybe don't man the fucking phones

sigh

well, now that that's over (i am feeling much better though, thanks, powers of darkness), who wants some FRIDAY AFTERNOON SMACKDOWN?

(hopefully you, cos you're getting it)

no cold open for once, but we do start with somebody's music accidentally playing over the intro

oh right, yeah, it was kevin's

and now we're having it for real, because he's here

to do his own version of the highlight reel

sadly, he's not just doing the entire segment in french

he should so do that some time

kevin is here to do the highlight reel because apparently chris will NEVER EVER EVERRRRRRRR be seen again

let's have a recap of kevin murdering him

i had forgotten quite how brutal it was

kevin, stop swaying as you do this promo

it's really offputting

kevin's going to introduce his guest for the evening in french for shits

but aj enters halfway through that, because he don't want none of that french

aj is generally skeeved out by kevin stealing chris' life

kevin's like fuck off i didn't invite you do you not speak french or something

aj's like nope, gets a pop for that because speaking different languages is evil

aj promises to bring the belt back to the good old us of a

if he promises to make it great again, i'm turning this off

he challenges kevin right now, but here's jinder to offer an opinion

apparently he was meant to be the guest

he cues a recap of him stealing a win last week

jinder, you have weird pecs

and now i can't stop looking at them

it's like your chest is a weimaraner or something

jinder quotes gandhi in punjabi, the crowd are unsure how to take that

gandhi good, other languages bad, gandhi in other languages ?????

kevin's just like welp aj looks like you're gonna get fucked over twice this week

aj goes for him, kevin runs, aj invites jinder to his highlight reel

which, as it turns out after the ad break, is just a match

but with kevin on announce, so that's exciting at least

is there someone different on the announce team tonight, or does byron just have a cold or something?

but meanwhile, this match is good

jinder has improved so much just recently

i am so looking forward to the 3mb badass reunion in like a year

at ringside, the singhs are wearing the same shirt this week, so i have even less chance than normal to remember which is which

weirdly for a styles match, most of this so far is just a straight striking fight

singhs make a distraction, jinder hotshots aj and takes him down into a kind of quarter crab crossface thing

a very 'this is a submission hold, take our word for it' kind of hold

honestly, kevin's lacking a bit of his usual fire on announce

lovely sequence from aj there

doing the universal, drops down into a chop block on jinder's leg, springboards into a forearm drop

jbl likens jinder to leicester city

seriously, the london show was the one time he didn't talk about european sport

ushigoroshi (which doesn't sound nearly as good any more) into a baseball slide because aj won't take your shit

sunil distracts the ref, kevin hits aj in the knee with the belt, khalass for the pin

tom really needs to learn that the language is called punjabi

punjab is a place

but moving on, apparently we have randy vs baron later

what the fuck did we do to deserve this

okay, i may have badmouthed belphegor on this blog

fair point

but up next, we have a contract signing for the women's tag match

after an advert for takeover chicago

which is gonna be so good

and a lanesque video

two bits of music i like there, but in very different ways

now i'm imagining fozzy playing this trash jazz

and another fashion files video

i am not ready for this

fashion files: fashionable intent

pan across their pinboard of why all the other tag teams ain't shit

and also shinsuke

tyler comes in seamlessly disguised as a janitor, fandango can't say 'reconnaissance'

and he has evidence of the bad merch of baron, sami, and the usos

and then starts having a freakout about how beautiful the usos' hair is

fandango breaks him out of it

"You're in too deep, man!"

after examining the usos' DAY ONE ISH shirts, they plan to defeat them at backlash, and "Then OUR day one will be H!"

best joke in the wwe in a long time

go for a high five, then dramatically freeze frame for an uncomfortable length of time

these videos are fucking gold

but next, they're fighting the colóns

wait, what happened with the contract signing?

but anyway

renee captures randy backstage to ask him whether he thinks jinder is shit

(spoiler: he ain't)

seriously, whoever puts this show together needs a refresher on the meaning of 'next'

so yes, now we have breezango going over the colóns

match starts during the ad break because fuck you

byron compares breezango to the apa, it doesn't go over well with the rest of the panel

dear jbl: 'colón' has two syllables, please stop calling them the clones

tyler gets beaten all over the ring by primo, counters out with what's basically a beauty shot, but i guess that's not their tag finisher any more so it doesn't count

and then clearly shouts AH SHIT as he gets tossed out of the ring

and meanwhile, fandango falcon arrows epico for the pin

and here are the usos to talk shit

extended prison metaphor and all the thug vocab we could put in this while keeping it pg

do you get where we're going with this gimmick

they read them their thug rights, which boil down to you have the right to get fucked by us because we're gangster

they are doing their best talking ever atm

here come the face half of the women's division

after a uk special advert, because that's totally happening in the future i wonder how those marquee matches will go

still gonna be good, though

back to the ring, and here's a shane

who gets closer to that steve buscemi fellow teenagers gif every day

he just wants you to know how achingly cool and not middle-aged he is

with his chucks and his v-neck tshirt

he's here to tell us how great smackdown is, and specifically its women's division

which is a little weird given that their are only half a dozen of them, and they're all in the same match

here come the welcoming committee to smug all over us

or just to loom, in the case of one of them

and also james, because of course he's here

and shane introduces the faces individually

charlotte flair, who now has her full name on her tron

shane introduces becky, says 'pure straight fire', has never sounded so old

naomi comes in with a new shirt with her name on the front in flourescent, so that works

nattie calls the faces BFFs

somebody remembers old nxt

and she's just like you do realise we've beaten you every time we've had the opportunity right

and signs the contract

aww, i was waiting for james to try and sign it

becky promises to slap all their faces off

not paraphrasing

and signs

naomi insults everybody's hair, calls ellsworth a girl, lol so edgy

and charlotte's just like you do realise how utterly pathetic you all are, right

and btw after we win i'm going for that belt you are not actually my friends

shane starts declaring the match official, james interrupts for...some reason

shane is just like wut

apparently james is convinced becky's in love with him

and also charlotte

he's here to let them down easy

and also just tell naomi she ain't shit

she goes for him, shane holds her back, james disappears entirely

so shane's like fuck it you want a fight let's have a fight carmella/naomi someone do the thing

but first, enjoy this advert for backlash

and we're back in

tom introduces the match while sounding absolutely shocked that a contract signing would turn into a match

who could ever be so unprofessional

gasp

naomi is just maximum aggression and trying to wreck carmella's hair

that is a weird fixation of hers

and carmella is doing basically nothing, which is also weird given how good she can be

naomi goes for a dropkick, ellsworth pulls carmella out of the ring (which mostly just dropped her on her face), and the ref ejects him

carmella fakes trying to escape, does a lovely superkick on naomi

i get how the narrative works, but i still think it's funny that carmella only gets her offense phase in when ellsworth leaves the room

have they considered that he might be carrying a curse

no matter how often she does it, naomi's roundhouse kick over the ropes is always impressive

naomi goes up top, tamina looms at her, the ref says okay fuck this noise and ejects the whole committee

but instead they start brawling with the faces outside

and carmella gets a rollup off the distraction

her pins are even cheaper than she looks

heels are smug, end segment, let us tell you how you should get the network

a reminder that we're getting saddled with randy/baron later

but now a motivational video from the new day

promising to make wwe great again

they can get away with that

and now dolph does a piece to camera in a locker room for some reason

talking about doing his research into how good shinsuke is

proposes to show us a vt of all the impressive things he's done here

couple of bars of his intro, test card

so he's like oh yeah he hasn't done shit enjoy this package of all the cool shit *i've* done here

dolph wants to beat nakamura and spit in all of our faces

slow down a bit there, champ

but now, dasha interviews sami

to announce that he's requested a match with baron at backlash

for vague reasons

apparently baron has been targeting him throughout

which...i'm not convinced is true

rants about baron a bit, gets totally unexpectedly blindsided, dasha evaporates

baron promises to kill sami if he turns up on sunday

but now it's our main event time

which is *sigh* orton/corbin

i'm really trying to give a shit, but i can simply find no shits to give

i checked down the back of the sofa and everything

on which note, i guess i can give six ants and a fruit pastille about this match

i swear, randy's entrance gets longer and duller every time

but now, enjoy this advert for how much charity shit wwe does please love us

apparently talking smack has naomi, becky, charlotte, jinder and the singhs, and...erick rowan?

that should be interesting

and here's tjp to smug us into watching 205

come back to the ring, randy is still hearing voices

this fucking song is going to be stuck in my head for ages

finally, here comes baron to replace it with some less catchy bad music

i tell you, this baron corbyn couldn't be more different from his dad

jbl, stop saying it only takes one rko

it's just factually untrue

well, this match is every inch as dull as expected

let's liven it up with this ad for backlash and video package about shinsuke/dolph

but now we're back to the match

booooooo

baron kicks randy in his knees and elbows, randy has this tortured expression like alas why would anybody do such a thing

apparently he's been joining jbl in not paying attention to his matches

baron takes a moment mid-offence to elucidate that he's only hurting randy because the crowd like him

clearly baron is a bitter, bitter man

goes for an end of days, counter, bullfought into the post

randy starts his finishing sequence, lariat, lariat, powerslam, baron tries to escape, draping ddt, pose for cameras

strikes up the snake

goes for the rko, baron's just like um no, pushes him away, and then counters into deep six

which remains the best thing about baron corbin

scuffle, baron leaves the ring, comes back in and eats an rko for the pin

yep, that was certainly a thing that happened

oh hey, here comes jinder

in a completely unforeseen turn of events

to promise to destroy randy and take his bling

and while he intones this, the singhs blindisde randy

it goes poorly for them

goes for a double draping ddt, jinder gets involved

the singhs hold randy down while jinder kicks him, and then a khalass

and jinder poses with the belt he keeps stealing

and we fade on the three of them being like we stole this dude's belt fuck the police

with the khalass, did they just pick the finisher that'd be the easiest to counter into an rko?

because it's basically the same stance

anyway

that was smackdown, it was a bit shit but that's pre-ppv shows for you

hopefully get this up before tonight's uk championship show, and i'll be live on twitter @waruce for that, takeover, and backlash

so much wrestles

times are good

#WWE #WWE Raw #wwe smackdown #Wrestling

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thisdaynews · 5 years

Text

The Roger Stone pardon saga

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/the-roger-stone-pardon-saga/

The Roger Stone pardon saga

And it’s all become the worst kept secret in Washington: Trump won’t let Roger Stone go to prison.

“It’s not a question of if,” said a former senior administration official who remains in contact with Trump and his senior advisers. “It’s when.”

While Trump has been coy about his intent — “I haven’t given it any thought,” the president recently told reporters — he has spent the past two weeks loudly complaining about the treatment of his longtime confidant.

Trump aides in the White House and circling around his 2020 reelection campaign say the president is just being cautious and heeding advice to at least wait to move on Stone until after the court process plays out a little bit more. And among people close to Stone, there’s high confidence that the president will remember the 35-plus year relationship the two men share and ultimately spare him from going to prison.

“You can count on the usual suspects who competed with Roger Stone to have strong opinions,” said Michael Caputo, a former Trump 2016 campaign aide who is spearheading the effort to secure a Stone pardon.

“In the end the only opinion that matters is the president of the United States,” he added. “We feel President Donald Trump understands exactly what has happened here and will show mercy to his old aide Roger Stone.”

Stone faces a maximum 50-year prison sentence stemming from his November conviction on seven felony counts, including lying to Congress and stymying House and FBI investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Ultimately, the sentence from U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson is expected to be much less than that.

A fierce debate over the length of Stone’s sentence has become the flashpoint in a brewing war over judicial independence and how much Attorney General Bill Barr and the president should meddle in the prosecution of high-profile political cases.

Barr unsettled the legal world last week when he suddenly intervened to overrule career prosecutors who had recommended that Stone should be sent to prison for seven to nine years, in accordance with federal sentencing guidelines. The move came after Trump had already complained about the sentence recommendation, raising concerns the attorney general was doing Trump’s bidding. Despite Barr’s insistence that he made the decision independently, the four prosecutors assigned to Stone’s case resigned in protest.

Barr then went on television to implore the president to stop his public commentary about ongoing cases, saying it was making his job “impossible.” But the president has only barrelled forward, defending his right to comment on any legal case and continuing to stump for Stone to get an entirely new trial.

Amid this backdrop, Stone will get his sentence on Thursday — but he won’t be immediately sent into custody. Judge Jackson earlier this week promised that Stone won’t be sent to prison right away after he learns his punishment. Instead, Stone’s start date in a federal penitentiary will be deferred until Jackson, an appointee of President Barack Obama, resolves a separate request that Stone has made for a new trial.

The move has bought Trump a little more time before he needs to make any clemency moves. And the delay has heartened Stone allies who fret that top White House aides including Jared Kushner and Pat Cipollone, Barr, or even outside heavy hitters like Donald Trump Jr. and Corey Lewandowski would get into Trump’s ear and urge him to stay away from a move to wipe Stone’s record clean.

They are also banking on the decades-long history between the president and his longtime GOP confidant. Stone and Trump have a history unlike anyone else around the president. They’ve known each other since Ronald Reagan’s 1980 White House campaign and maintained a rapport that includes Stone counseling Trump during four potential presidential runs and Trump hiring Stone as a lobbyist to represent his gambling, airline and hotel businesses.

In his most recent book, Stone boasted that he knew about Trump’s 2016 plans more than two years before the formal campaign announcement. And even after Trump and Stone officially parted ways not long after the campaign launch, the two continued speaking, with Stone serving as the campaign’s unofficial conduit to WikiLeaks, the controversial Julian Assange-led outfit that published scores of stolen emails embarrassing to Hillary Clinton during key moments of the presidential race.

“There’s very few people who know Donald Trump before the presidency better than Roger Stone,” said Morgan Pehme, the co-director of the Netflix documentary “Get Me Roger Stone.” “And as entangled as Roger Stone is in his life, the president has a vested interest in making sure they are on the most amicable terms.”

Indeed, Trump has maintained interest in Stone’s legal situation from the get go, and the president’s public comments at several key moments along the way have drawn scrutiny from legal experts who warned they could be construed as presidential interference. In December 2018, for example, Trump faced questions that he was witness tampering after he lauded Stone’s statement pledging not to testify against Trump.

“Nice to know that some people still have ‘guts!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Nearly two months later, when special counsel Robert Mueller unveiled the Stone indictment, Trump complained about the manner of Stone’s arrest and asked why a number of top law enforcement officials didn’t face similar legal scrutiny.

The president has kept up a similar line of public criticism as the Stone case wound its way through court. Trump tweeted about the jury verdict just minutes after it came down. Then, of course, there was the kerfuffle over the prison sentence recommendation. Trump also recently attacked a woman who has identified herself as the Stone jury foreperson over social media posts critical of his presidency.

While Barr did intervene to lower Stone’s prison sentence recommendation, he has also endorsed the DOJ’s work going after Stone.

“I thought that was a righteous prosecution. And I was happy that he was convicted,” Barr said.

How Barr would come down on a Stone pardon remains unclear. He’s a staunch defender of executive power and during his first stint as attorney general under President George H.W. Bush advocated for clemency on behalf of several Reagan-era officials caught up in the Iran-Contra scandal. He ultimately pushed for more pardons than the one Bush handed out to former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger.

“There were some people arguing just for Weinberger, and I said, ‘No, in for a penny, in for a pound,” Barr said in an oral history to the University of Virginia.

As for Stone’s critics in Trump world — and he has many — most have been hesitant to get in the way of a possible presidential pardon.

Lewandowski famously sparred with Stone during the 2016 campaign and celebrated his conviction in November. But in a Newsmax interview last week, Lewandowski appeared to be using some of the same talking points that others around the president have deployed to bash a possible lengthy prison term.

“As much as I’m not a fan of Roger Stone, this notion that he was going to receive a recommendation of seven to nine years in jail for lying to Congress or obstruction is completely absurd,” Lewandowski said.

Asked about Stone’s pardon prospects, Lewandowski replied, “I think that’s for the president to decide.”

Stone allies are keeping tabs on others around Trump, including the president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr. They were dejected, for example, to hear Trump Jr. in a Sirius XM interview last week seem to downplay Stone’s involvement in the 2016 presidential campaign.

“Roger Stone was one of those guys who was trying desperately to be relevant, so he was in a dark room throwing darts and he actually hit something,” Trump Jr. said.

But they also quickly took comfort in comments Trump Jr. made on Saturday during an appearance on Fox News that argued Stone hasn’t been treated the same as several former top law enforcement officials who the president and allies claim long ago set out to frame the president.

“The double standard is what’s sickening, and I think that’s what’s so frustrating to us,” Trump Jr. said. “Like, I don’t care if we play hardball or if we play t-ball. But we’ve got to be playing the same game, and we’re not.”

All of the clamor surrounding a Stone pardon has followed a similar pattern as some of the other high-profile cases where celebrities or other people close to the president work channels outside the traditional DOJ clemency process to secure his attention.

Kim Kardashian West, for example, encouraged Trump to commute the sentence of a grandmother serving life without parole for a nonviolent drug crime — a move that Trump’s campaign trumpeted earlier this month in a high-priced Super Bowl commercial.

On Tuesday, Trump’s White House acknowledged that former San Francisco 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo, Jr., was pardoned for pleading guilty to fraud in part because of the advocacy of NFL greats Jim Brown, Joe Montana and Jerry Rice.

For Stone, Fox host Tucker Carlson has helped carry the torch by dedicating significant air time to the subject.

Then there’s Caputo, another longtime Trump associate who worked on the 2016 campaign and who visited the president at the White House last April just days after the conclusion of the Mueller probe. Caputo declined to say what kind of direct outreach he’s had with Trump in recent weeks about a pardon except to say that they’re trying to hold back on applying maximum pressure until Stone must report to prison.

“As long as Roger Stone is free, we’re not going to rush the process,” said Caputo. “It’s sacrosanct.”

Trump’s interest in helping out Stone is rooted in his belief that anyone tied up in the Mueller probe has been mistreated.

“Somebody has to stick up for the people,” the president said Tuesday.

Trump has faced questions over whether he’ll also dole out a pardon to Michael Flynn, the former Trump national security adviser who has been fighting the Justice Department over his attempts to withdraw his guilty plea for lying to the FBI.

“Look at him,” Trump said of Flynn. “I mean, his life has been destroyed.”

But Flynn might not even need Trump’s clemency to stay out of prison. The retired Army general faces a five-year maximum prison sentence for his false-statements felony charge, but prosecutors have urged the judge handling the case to consider a sentence between no jail time and six months behind bars.

“With Flynn, who knows? This guy may not end up needing a pardon,” said the former senior administration official.

Then there’s Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman who has about six years left on a prison sentence tied to a series of lobbying, financial fraud and witness-tampering crimes. Trump has said he feels “very badly” for Manafort, and his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has stayed in contact with the imprisoned ex-lobbyist.

Still, the former senior administration official said, “I don’t think you’re going to find a ton of people who are wanting to associate themselves with Paul Manafort.

Trump critics say they’re bracing for the inevitable when it comes to Stone — though they differ on when it might happen.

Annemarie McAvoy, a defense attorney and media consultant who early on in the Mueller probe represented former Trump campaign deputy Rick Gates, predicted Stone will likely have to wait beyond November.

“I never say never, but would be extremely surprised if the president were to pardon Roger Stone before the election,” she said. “Doing so right now, given the recent comments from Bill Barr, would make the situation even more volatile.”

During a CNN appearance last week, former FBI general counsel James Baker said Trump shouldn’t even wait for Jackson’s sentencing decision.

“I think everybody knows the president is going to pardon Roger Stone,” he said. “Just do it. Like, just do it now. Don’t wait until the day after the election when you’re probably going to do it.”

#Foreign #pardon #Politics #Stone

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move2thailand · 5 years

Link

A possible way around the remaining 400 k balance for retirement extension ? Sorry to bore everyone with the ongoing saga but after a previous post i made on this topic i had many replies saying there will be no checks on financial status at ninety reports for a retirement extension. If this is the case ( for those depositing 800 k ) i can only assume you would be refused the following year for a new extension if your funds dropped below the required minimum. Ok what happens if annually you open a new bank ac with 800 k 2 months before new renewal and close and destroy existing bank ac ?

0 notes

bountyofbeads · 5 years

Text

https://www.politico.com/amp/story/2019/06/24/flynn-attorney-sidney-powell-sentencing-1378324?__twitter_impression=true

UPDATE: Flynn just left DC court after nearly 2-hour closed door meeting with his new attorneys. When I asked Flynn about reason for the shift, his new lead lawyer Sydney Powell replied: 'No comments.' Earlier: https://t.co/PbnB1K5aWW

Flynn's sentencing delayed again so new lawyer can study up

The lawyer, Sidney Powell, said she needed the extra time to work her way through three hard drives delivered from Flynn’s former lawyers.

By DARREN SAMUELSOHN and NATASHA Bertrand | Published 06/24/2019 12:51 PM EDT,

Updated 06/24/2019 02:01 PM EDT | Politico | Posted June 24, 2019 |

Michael Flynn’s sentencing has been delayed — again.

The latest postponement is the result of a legal switch Trump's former national security adviser made recently, firing his group of attorneys in favor of Sidney Powell, an outspoken critic of special counsel Robert Mueller.

At a hearing Monday, Powell said she needs at least another 90 days to get up to speed on the case before Flynn receives his punishment for pleading guilty to lying to the FBI about his communications with a top Russian official.

The judge overseeing the case, Emmett Sullivan, decided to essentially grant Powell two months, ordering another status report at the end of August.

Powell said she needed the extra time to work her way through three hard drives delivered from Flynn’s former lawyers.

“And there’s still more to come,” she said, during a separate Monday morning hearing at which Sullivan was considering a Washington Post request to remove several redactions made on documents tied to the Flynn case.

Powell took over earlier this month as Flynn’s lead lawyer. Given Powell's prior Mueller criticism, the move prompted speculation Flynn is making a play for a pardon from President Donald Trump, who hailed Powell on Twitter as a “GREAT LAWYER” after the hire. Flynn has not given a reason for firing his previous attorneys.

Monday afternoon, Flynn also made his first court appearance since a contentious December hearing that ended with an unexpected delay in his sentencing.

At the gathering, Powell said she and Flynn's other attorneys are working on getting a security clearance to review classified documents as part of Flynn's case.

That appeared to confuse federal prosecutor Brandon Van Grack, who told Sullivan that the government never provided any classified material to the defense as part of the discovery process. He noted that of the 20,000 pages of documents the government handed over, none of them were marked classified.

As such, “the government is not aware of what the defense is reviewing," Van Grack said. Sullivan said he'd leave it up to Flynn's lawyers, the government, and the court's classified information security officer to determine next steps.

Sullivan also denied a request by Powell to ease Flynn's travel restrictions and allow him to travel to California, Texas and North Carolina, saying that he didn't want it to seem like he was giving Flynn "special treatment."

At the beginning of Monday's status hearing, Sullivan thanked Powell for her kind words about him in her 2014 book "License to Lie," in which she praised him for his handling of a public corruption case against former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens nearly a decade ago.

Sullivan added that he had checked with his colleagues about whether he needed to recuse from the case now that Powell is Flynn's lawyer, but was advised against it.

Sullivan has not been sympathetic to Flynn during the court proceedings. He has criticized the former Trump aide over his role in the Russia saga, and told him at the December hearing: “Arguably, you sold your country out.”

Sullivan during that hearing was expected to hand down Flynn’s sentence, but at the last minute he instead suggested the defendant take more time to fulfill his cooperation obligations to the government.

Since then, attorneys for Flynn and the federal government have three times requested delays in sentencing, including one made earlier this month for an additional 60 days.

Powell said during the status hearing that Flynn's cooperation is "fully ongoing" in the government’s upcoming trial against his former business partner, Bijan Rafiekian, which is set to start on July 15. Rafiekian was indicted last December for acting as an unregistered agent for Turkey in the U.S. and a related conspiracy charge. Flynn is expected to testify at the trial.

#donald trump #u.s. news #politics #trump administration #president donald trump #trump #white house #politics and government #trump scandals #republican party #legal issues #Michael Flynn #Cult45 #Mueller Report #Read The Mueller Report

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girlseg · 6 years

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Trail Blazers’ Kanter, former teammate Turkoglu spar again about Turkey’s government

The volatile, longstanding dispute between Portland Trail Blazers center Enes Kanter and Turkish government officials has added another chapter, this time in separate interviews conducted by E:60’s Jeremy Schaap, with Kanter again comparing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to a dictator, and former NBA player Hedo Turkoglu, now a Turkish government official, accusing Kanter of abandoning his homeland to support a "terrorist."

The on-camera interview with Turkoglu — now a chief adviser to Erdogan — is the first with American media about Kanter. Turkoglu, who played with several NBA teams, including the Orlando Magic and San Antonio Spurs, played with Kanter on the 2011 Turkish national team. He is also head of the Turkish Basketball Federation. The interviews aired Sunday morning.

Turkoglu spoke carefully and deliberately to Schaap, saying that Kanter has been "openly supporting a terrorist leader" — Fethullah Gulen. Gulen is a U.S.-based Turkish cleric who has been living in exile from Turkey since 1999; he is Kanter’s spiritual adviser and a bitter rival of Erdogan’s. The Turkish government has accused Gulen of masterminding a failed military coup in the country in 2016. Gulen has denied the allegation, and the U.S. government has rejected Turkey’s requests to extradite him from his home in Pennsylvania.

Former NBA player Hedo Turkoglu, left, and Portland’s Enes Kanter played together on the 2011 Turkish national team but are at complete odds over the governance of their home country.

In the 32-minute E:60 interview, Turkoglu only referenced Kanter by name once and said he had nothing to say to his former teammate: "I don’t send messages to terrorist organization supporters." In response to a question about how Americans should view the saga between Kanter and Turkish government officials, Turkoglu said: "All I have to say to all my American fellows, be careful."

Erdogan and Gulen were once political allies, but after a 2013 corruption scandal reached all the way to Erdogan and his family, Erdogan blamed Gulen for having a role in exposing the scandal, and their relationship fractured. Kanter has been an outspoken critic of the Turkish government and Erdogan since.

Kanter, who has played for the Utah Jazz, Oklahoma City Thunder and New York Knicks, frequently has been quoted saying Erdogan is the "Hitler of our century." In December 2017, Turkey’s state-run news agency, Anadolu Agency, reported that Kanter faces more than four years in prison for insulting Erdogan and Turkoglu in a series of tweets posted in 2016. In May 2017, Kanter’s Turkish passport was canceled while traveling overseas. He ultimately was able to return to the United States through London. A few weeks later, Kanter’s parents’ home was raided, and his father, Mehmet, was taken into custody and charged with being a member of a terrorist group. Enes Kanter believes the Turkish government targeted his father, a genetics professor, because of the player’s critical stance against the country’s government.

In his E:60 interview, Kanter told Schaap his public pronouncements infuriate Turkish leadership: "When I talk, or when I tweet something, or when I say anything about the government, it goes everywhere, all over the world, and they hate it. And they know there is no way they can buy me." He told Schaap that if he returned to Turkey, he’d be killed.

While he says his resolve is strong, he told Schaap that being perceived negatively in Turkey is "tough."

"I mean, Turkey is my country. You know, it’s my flag. That is where we’re raised. … My family is born there. So that’s why, like, it’s tough to see that … your country don’t want you. People say, ‘Where are you from?’ What should I say? ‘Turkey?’ No. They don’t even want me there."

After the failed coup, Kanter’s father sent a letter to a Turkish newspaper, disowning his son due to his vocal support of Gulen, saying Enes had been "hypnotized" by the Fethullah Terrorist Organization. He apologized "to the Turkish people and the president for having such a son."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, and Fethullah Gulen were political allies for many years, until a 2013 corruption scandal was exposed. Agence-France Press

Kanter told Schaap he can’t remember when he last spoke with his parents. He said he believed his father wrote the letter "so the government can leave them alone." But a few months later, his father was dismissed from his university position.

Since the failed coup in July 2016, hundreds of thousands of Turkish residents have lost their jobs and have been subjected to criminal investigations, Amnesty International’s Turkish director, Andrew Gardner, told E:60. Tens of thousands of people have been held in pretrial prison detention, including two of his Amnesty International colleagues, for what Gardner described as "absurd, baseless allegations that they were connected to terrorism. … This is something that is really being used to target people in civil society, such as journalists, activists and human rights defenders as well."

Schaap asked Turkoglu about the firings and jailings, and he responded: "My government [is] just exposing the people who has relationship with Fethullah Gulen organization."

In his interview, Turkoglu repeatedly referenced Gulen as a terrorist and Kanter’s support of him as treasonous. Turkoglu said Kanter uses his NBA stardom as a "platform for propaganda of [a] terrorist leader." He said he spoke to E:60 to raise awareness about Turkey’s view of Kanter and Gulen. "So, obviously, it’s our job sometimes to speak loudly and clearly to inform everybody about the real situation."

Gulen’s culpability in the coup attempt has been the subject of debate in documentaries and in-depth investigative reports.

Former NBA player Hedo Turkoglu, now an adviser to the president of Turkey, said the Knicks’ Enes Kanter’s reasons for not traveling to London are visa-related and the center’s fears for his life are "irrational."

Steven Cook, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think-tank, told E:60 that the Turkish government has yet to provide, to the U.S. government, concrete evidence of Gulen’s involvement in the coup attempt.

"There really is no direct evidence that Fethullah Gulen himself gave the order," Cook says. "It certainly stands to reason that Gulenist-affiliated, or followers of Gulen within the military, took part in the attempted coup. All of the evidence that has come out in trials in Turkey are suspect, because there are serious allegations that these are confessions that were made under extreme pressure. And there’s been no independent investigation in Turkey."

The U.S. government does not regard Gulen and his supporters as terrorists. But Gulen’s presence in the United States hasn’t been without controversy. There have been multiple investigations into Gulen-affiliated charter schools over financial and immigration concerns. And Cook told E:60 that the U.S. Department of Justice is "looking into this network of charter schools in the United States."

Officials in Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs met with E:60 at their headquarters in Ankara last month. After the meeting, ESPN followed up with a list of specific questions about both Kanter’s and his father’s criminal cases. Officials would not provide any court documents involving Kanter or his father, but the government did confirm there is ongoing prosecution of Kanter. No indictment has been issued; Mehmet Kanter was conditionally released in June 2017, and according to Enes Kanter, his father’s trial is scheduled for Thursday.

Turkey asked INTERPOL to issue a Red Notice, which is "a request to locate and provisionally arrest an individual pending extradition," according to INTERPOL. E:60 asked INTERPOL about the request, and the press office replied that agency officials do not comment on specific cases or individuals "except in special circumstances and with the approval of the member country concerned. We would therefore advise you to contact the Turkish authorities."

Turkish government officials declined to provide information to E:60 that had been provided to INTERPOL. When asked for specific details, such as the evidence presented to INTERPOL or the crime Kanter has been accused of, Turkish officials did not provide them. But E:60 obtained Turkey’s INTERPOL request, and in it, the Turkish government accuses Kanter of helping fund Gulen’s movement, which it considers a terrorist organization. If he is apprehended and found guilty, Kanter’s sentence could be between seven and 15 years in prison.

Istanbul-based journalist Engin Bas contributed to this report.

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latestnews2018-blog · 6 years

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UK watchdog orders Cambridge Analytica to give up data in US voter test case

New Post has been published on https://latestnews2018.com/uk-watchdog-orders-cambridge-analytica-to-give-up-data-in-us-voter-test-case/

UK watchdog orders Cambridge Analytica to give up data in US voter test case

Another big development in the personal data misuse saga attached to the controversial Trump campaign-linked UK-based political consultancy, Cambridge Analytica — which could lead to fresh light being shed on how the company and its multiple affiliates acquired and processed US citizens’ personal data to build profiles on millions of voters for political targeting purposes.

The UK’s data watchdog, the ICO, has today announced that it’s served an enforcement notice on Cambridge Analytica affiliate SCL Elections, under the UK’s 1998 Data Protection Act.

The company has been ordered to give up all the data it holds on one US academic within 30 days — with the ICO warning that: “Failure to do so is a criminal offence, punishable in the courts by an unlimited fine.”

The notice follows a subject access request (SAR) filed in January last year by US-based academic, David Carroll after he became suspicious about how the company was able to build psychographic profiles of US voters. And while Carroll is not a UK citizen, he discovered his personal data had been processed in the UK — so decided to bring a test case by requesting his personal data under UK law.

Carroll’s complaint, and the ICO’s decision to issue an enforcement notice in support of it, looks to have paved the way for millions of US voters to also ask Cambridge Analytica for their data (the company claimed to have up to 7,000 data points on the entire US electorate, circa 240M people — so just imagine the class action that could be filed here… ).

The Guardian reports that Cambridge Analytica had tried to dismiss Carroll’s argument by claiming he had no more rights “than a member of the Taliban sitting in a cave in the remotest corner of Afghanistan”. The ICO clearly disagrees.

Cambridge Analytica/SCL Group responded to Carroll’s original SAR in March 2017 but he was unimpressed by the partial data they sent him — which ranked his interests on a selection of topics (including gun rights, immigration, healthcare, education and the environment) yet did not explain how the scores had been calculated.

It also listed his likely partisanship and propensity to vote in the 2016 US election — again without explaining how those predictions had been generated.

So Carroll complained to the UK’s data watchdog in September 2017 — which began sending its own letters to CA/SCL, leading to further unsatisfactory responses.

“The company’s reply refused to address the ICO’s questions and incorrectly stated Prof Caroll had no legal entitlement to it because he wasn’t a UK citizen or based in this country. The ICO reiterated this was not legally correct in a letter to SCL the following month,” the ICO writes today. “In November 2017, the company replied, denying that the ICO had any jurisdiction or that Prof Carroll was legally entitled to his data, adding that SCL did “.. not expect to be further harassed with this sort of correspondence”.”

In a strongly worded statement, information commissioner Elizabeth Denham further adds:

The company has consistently refused to co-operate with our investigation into this case and has refused to answer our specific enquiries in relation to the complainant’s personal data — what they had, where they got it from and on what legal basis they held it.

The right to request personal data that an organisation holds about you is a cornerstone right in data protection law and it is important that Professor Carroll, and other members of the public, understand what personal data Cambridge Analytica held and how they analysed it.

We are aware of recent media reports concerning Cambridge Analytica’s future but whether or not the people behind the company decide to fold their operation, a continued refusal to engage with the ICO will potentially breach an Enforcement Notice and that then becomes a criminal matter.

Since mid-March this year, Cambridge Analytica’s name (along with the names of various affiliates) has been all over headlines relating to a major Facebook data misuse scandal, after press reports revealed in granular detail how an app developer had used the social media’s platform’s 2014 API structure to extract and process large amounts of users’ personal data, passing psychometrically modeled scores on US voters to Cambridge Analytica for political targeting.

But Carroll’s curiosity about what data Cambridge Analytica might hold about him predates the scandal blowing up last month. Although journalists had actually raised questions about the company as far back as December 2015 — when the Guardian reported that the company was working for the Ted Cruz campaign, using detailed psychological profiles of voters derived from tens of millions of Facebook users’ data.

Though it was not until last month that Facebook confirmed as many as 87 million users could have had personal data misappropriated.

Carroll, who has studied the Internet ad tech industry as part of his academic work, reckons Facebook is not the sole source of the data in this case, telling the Guardian he expects to find a whole host of other companies are also implicated in this murky data economy where people’s personal information is quietly traded and passed around for highly charged political purposes — bankrolled by billionaires.

“I think we’re going to find that this goes way beyond Facebook and that all sorts of things are being inferred about us and then used for political purposes,” he told the newspaper.

Under mounting political, legal and public pressure, Cambridge Analytica claimed to be shutting down this week — but the move appears more like a rebranding exercise, as parent entity, SCL Group, maintains a sprawling network of companies and linked entities. (Such as one called Emerdata, which was founded in mid-2017 and is listed at the same address as SCL Elections, and has many of the same investors and management as Cambridge Analytica… But presumably hasn’t yet been barred from social media giants’ ad platforms, as its predecessor has.)

Closing one of the entities embroiled in the scandal could also be a tactic to impede ongoing investigations, such as the one by the ICO — as Denham’s statement alludes, by warning that any breach of the enforcement notice could lead to criminal proceedings being brought against the owners and operators of Cambridge Analytica’s parent entity.

In March ICO officials obtained a warrant to enter and search Cambridge Analytica’s London offices, removing documents and computers for examination as part of a wider, year-long investigation into the use of personal data and analytics by political campaigns, parties, social media companies and other commercial actors. And last month the watchdog said 30 organizations — including Facebook — were now part of that investigation.

The Guardian also reports that the ICO has suggested to Cambridge Analytica that if it has difficulties complying with the enforcement notice it should hand over passwords for the servers seized during the March raid on its London office – raising questions about how much data the watchdog has been able to retrieve from the seized servers.

SCL Group’s website contains no obvious contact details beyond a company LinkedIn profile — a link which appears to be defunct. But we reached out to SCL Group’s CEO Nigel Oakes, who has maintained a public LinkedIn presence, to ask if he has any response to the ICO enforcement notice.

Meanwhile Cambridge Analytica continues to use its public Twitter account to distribute a stream of rebuttals and alternative ‘facts’.

http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

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endenogatai · 6 years

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UK watchdog orders Cambridge Analytica to give up data in US voter test case

The UK’s data watchdog, the ICO, has today announced that it’s served an enforcement notice on Cambridge Analytica affiliate SCL Elections, under the UK’s 1998 Data Protection Act.

Important development. @ICOnews agrees with our complaint and orders full disclosure to @profcarroll following findings of non-cooperation by Cambridge Analytica / SCL. We look forward to full disclosure within 30 days. Decision here: https://t.co/X5g1FY95j0 https://t.co/ZsonQhPsKQ

— Ravi Naik (@RaviNa1k) May 5, 2018

It also listed his likely partisanship and propensity to vote in the 2016 US election — again without explaining how those predictions had been generated.

So Carroll complained to the UK’s data watchdog in September 2017 — which began sending its own letters to CA/SCL, leading to further unsatisfactory responses.

In a strongly worded statement, information commissioner Elizabeth Denham further adds:

Though it was not until last month that Facebook confirmed as many as 87 million users could have had personal data misappropriated.

“I think we’re going to find that this goes way beyond Facebook and that all sorts of things are being inferred about us and then used for political purposes,” he told the newspaper.

Meanwhile Cambridge Analytica continues to use its public Twitter account to distribute a stream of rebuttals and alternative ‘facts’.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8204425 https://ift.tt/2KDyRzt via IFTTT

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abckidstvyara · 6 years

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UK watchdog orders Cambridge Analytica to give up data in US voter test case

The UK’s data watchdog, the ICO, has today announced that it’s served an enforcement notice on Cambridge Analytica affiliate SCL Elections, under the UK’s 1998 Data Protection Act.

— Ravi Naik (@RaviNa1k) May 5, 2018

It also listed his likely partisanship and propensity to vote in the 2016 US election — again without explaining how those predictions had been generated.

So Carroll complained to the UK’s data watchdog in September 2017 — which began sending its own letters to CA/SCL, leading to further unsatisfactory responses.

In a strongly worded statement, information commissioner Elizabeth Denham further adds:

Though it was not until last month that Facebook confirmed as many as 87 million users could have had personal data misappropriated.

“I think we’re going to find that this goes way beyond Facebook and that all sorts of things are being inferred about us and then used for political purposes,” he told the newspaper.

Meanwhile Cambridge Analytica continues to use its public Twitter account to distribute a stream of rebuttals and alternative ‘facts’.

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techietrends · 6 years

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The UK’s data watchdog, the ICO, has today announced that it’s served an enforcement notice on Cambridge Analytica affiliate SCL Elections, under the UK’s 1998 Data Protection Act.

— Ravi Naik (@RaviNa1k) May 5, 2018

It also listed his likely partisanship and propensity to vote in the 2016 US election — again without explaining how those predictions had been generated.

So Carroll complained to the UK’s data watchdog in September 2017 — which began sending its own letters to CA/SCL, leading to further unsatisfactory responses.

In a strongly worded statement, information commissioner Elizabeth Denham further adds:

Though it was not until last month that Facebook confirmed as many as 87 million users could have had personal data misappropriated.

“I think we’re going to find that this goes way beyond Facebook and that all sorts of things are being inferred about us and then used for political purposes,” he told the newspaper.

Meanwhile Cambridge Analytica continues to use its public Twitter account to distribute a stream of rebuttals and alternative ‘facts’.

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2KDyRzt via

#Blogger #technology #tech news

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