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novelconcepts · 4 years ago

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I’m sure I’m not the only one hoping you’ll expand on your earlier post about the greenhouse “flat above the pub” flirt-o-Rama if Flora hadn’t...gone and been possessed and all.

“You know I live above that pub, right? Told you that already. Got a little flat right above the boring little pub.”

She knows what she’s doing, is the thing Jamie can’t quite wrap her head around. She absolutely knows what she’s doing. Where on earth is the woman from five days ago, the one who looked at her with such bruised eyes and swollen lips and tried plaintively to pull at her jacket? Where did she go, and who is this bold version in her place?

Dangerous, probably. Already, she’s lowering whatever meager defenses Jamie had managed to craft over the past week. Already, she’s blowing right past them as though never there at all, and Jamie doesn’t fully understand this. She’s never had trouble blocking someone out before--at least, not someone like Dani, who makes her feel...makes her feel...

Good. Makes her feel like the brightest thing in the room, most days. Makes her feel like no one has ever wanted her there so badly before.

The woman’s only kissed her once, and already it feels like she’s made a home for Jamie somewhere in her heart. Somewhere under all the bad she’s carrying, under all the flinching she’s done, all the death and loss and fear, there’s a place for Jamie. If she wants it.

She’s looking at Jamie now like she’s proud of how she walked in here this morning. Like she’s proud of how closely she’s standing, how she’s biting her lips now to hold back a grin so enormous, Jamie can’t help but return it. Five days away, and she returns to someone who knows what she’s doing--and what she’s doing is flirting so hard, it’s a wonder the table doesn’t catch fire.

Did that on purpose, she thinks wonderingly. What the fuck is happening.

***

The coffee, in its own way, worked. Not that she thought Jamie would actually like it, because honestly, it’s bad coffee--and Jamie is just too British for words--but the thing is, it was never meant to be liked. It was only meant to make Jamie smile.

Which it did. Eventually.

Or, she did. Is doing. Right now, as the words tumble out of her--Would you wanna get a drink? Away from the house. Away from all this. That could be kinda boring, right?--a part of her is desperately terrified to realize, she is doing this. She is leaning against this table, clutching a mug of truly toxic coffee, watching Jamie suck in her cheeks like it’s doing a damn thing to erase that smile. She is saying the words she’s been playing over and over in her head for five days running:

“You. And me. Could get a boring old drink. In a boring old pub.” God, her heart is sprinting. It’s entirely possible she won’t get out of this sentence, with all its halting hesitation, alive, much less this greenhouse. “And see where that takes us.”

And this is the part where Jamie will melt, she hopes. Swoon, even. The part the coffee laid road leading to, a glorious red herring approach. Here, where Jamie will see that she means what she says, and she’ll grow faint with whatever affection Dani has earned, and this will all be--

She’s grinning. Jamie, not quite facing her, is grinning.

“You know I live above that pub, right?” This is not, Dani recognizes, exactly what one might call a swoon. This is the expression of a woman who has done extremely quick math and come up with a calculation Dani had sort of hoped she’d swing right past. When she’d swoon.

She is not swooning. She is, instead, leaning slightly back, eyebrows raised appraisingly, reminding Dani in one fell swoop that there are people who are eager to flirt and people who are good at the art. And that Jamie, for all her glower and loner tendencies, is very, very good at the art.

“Told you that already, didn’t I?” Her voice is almost soft, definitely teasing, her expression perfectly arranged to say this is my territory, Poppins, and you had best be careful how you tread in my garden. “Got a little flat. Right above the boring little pub.”

And then she’s...turning back to the work. Turning away, not a blush to be found, not even the hint of a swoon. Dani’s expression, so carefully schooled into neutrality, is breaking into the biggest grin of her life and Jamie has the temerity to not even keep eye contact.

“I mean--you maybe...mentioned it--”

“Only,” Jamie goes on, still focused on the task at hand--which Dani does not in the least understand, though there’s something to be said for Jamie in profile: head bent, eyes attentive, hands working into soil. Jamie never quite looks so alive as when she’s working, as though it is only in garden or greenhouse that she truly allows herself to flourish.

Would she look that alive, Dani wonders with unbidden curiosity, anywhere else? Maybe in the boring little flat, maybe with me, maybe--

“Only,” Jamie repeats, darting a small glance her way. Dani realizes she’s staring, closes her mouth. “I figure there are plenty of places two people could go on a date. Which is, if I’m not mistaken, what you’re suggesting. Isn’t it?”

“It...I--yes.” No point denying it. No point trying to wash away the simple brazen fact. A boring little date. It’s not a big deal. It doesn’t have to be a big--

“So,” Jamie says, her voice still doing that dangerous thing Dani doesn’t quite understand and can’t quite turn her attention from. That dangerous half-soft, half-amused thing that is all accent, all in control, all turning Dani’s own courage back on her like a firehose. “We could do it anywhere, couldn’t we? Doesn’t have to be the pub.”

“I--” Dani resists the urge to close her eyes. She’s going to make me say it. She really is. This wasn’t the plan, exactly. The plan had been so much simpler. It had not taken into account Jamie, who is going down into this thing with her willingly--but maybe not easily. “I mean, I just--”

“Just curious,” Jamie goes on breezily, drawing her hands from the soil at last and taking a slow step closer. The space between, already limited at best, reduces to nearly nothing in that single motion. Dani swallows.

“About?”

“It’s particular,” Jamie points out. A slight shift of hips, a nearly negligible twist of the waist, and she’s got Dani backed into a corner. Or, more accurately, against a table. “The pub. Bit curious, is all, why you’d want to get me into that pub.”

***

This poor woman is going to burst into flames, Jamie thinks, and maybe they’ll both deserve it. She isn’t upset with Dani anymore--has found in the span of about five minutes that there’s no staying upset with Dani when she turns those huge blue eyes on full-force, stands just so, puts on the bravest face Jamie has seen her wear since stalking Peter Quint through the night. She isn’t upset, exactly.

But Dani seems to think this was going to be easy. A cup of coffee. A slick line. She seems to think Jamie was just going to lean into it.

Which she is. In her own way.

She’s careful not to touch Dani, not to press in with her body to such a degree that Dani will feel trapped. She’s only standing, a tiny width of space between them, her hands loose at her sides. Only standing, polite, smiling, waiting for an answer.

“Bit curious, is all, why you’d want to get me into that pub.”

“I don’t--I think--I mean--” Dani shakes her head slowly, her eyes wide and imploring. “Do you not...want to get a drink...”

“Didn’t say that.” The last five days haven’t been enjoyable. Burning sick days, pretending to be too ill to check in on the house, had felt cowardly. The shame in her stomach, twisting like acid around the hot desire of the memory, had felt familiar in the worst way--like being seventeen again, not knowing where to put all of these too-fierce feelings. Anger would have been easier. Disappointment, shame, embarrassment--each too heavy to put down on its own--had made for the worst kind of cocktail.

This, though. Dani looking at her--not needing to tip her head back, not needing to peer down, simply looking straight ahead and making perfect eye contact--feels good. Feels better than good. Feels like she’d felt in the moments before the flinch, when Dani had grinned into her mouth and pushed hard against her like she’d been waiting for this moment for days. This, Dani drawing deep breaths, clutching her mug, feels liking picking up right where they’d left off.

Dangerous, she thinks again. Dangerous, to let Dani in this way. Dangerous, to admit how alive she feels, teasing her this way.

Dangerous, every time Dani’s eyes flick to her lips and back again.

“You’re really not going to say it,” she says, shaking her head in a parody of disappointment, reaching in gently to pluck the mug from her hands and set it aside. “Poppins. Really. First rule of flirting.”

“What’s that?” There’s a challenge in Dani’s smile, she thinks. A challenge so light and so free--and so intoxicating in its authenticity--she can’t help but laugh. She makes a show of leaning close, watching Dani’s eyes darken, watching Dani’s breath catch.

“Always be ready to commit.”

***

She’s going to kiss me, Dani thinks. Here. Now. Six in the morning, she’s going to do it.

But, of course, Jamie doesn’t. Jamie, who thought it had been her Dani was trying to get away from the other night. Jamie, who took it so to heart she hadn’t even come back for nearly a week.

It’s been so strange, going through the motions without Jamie around. Strange and hollow, and Dani knows--the way you know you can’t keep holding your breath much longer--life will never feel quite as vibrant without Jamie in it.

Didn’t take long at all, she thinks, remembering the shadow of a young man standing before a dying fire. Didn’t take long at all, but I can’t not know that.

Jamie’s here now, a crooked little half-smile on her lips, her eyes bright, but there’s something she’s still holding back. Something she’s still not absolutely sure Dani won’t let fall, split upon collision with the ground.

She isn’t going to kiss Dani. She’s just going to stand here, making her crazy, smiling exactly like that.

“Always be ready to commit.”

And there are other things Dani could do, it’s true--laugh, push at her shoulder, make another horrific stab at imitating her accent. There is plenty Dani could do.

But just now, with Jamie standing this close, with the air crisp and this single room so different than it had felt days ago, she’s not sure she can be blamed for what she settles on.

Not sure anyone could blame her for sliding a hand around Jamie’s middle, pushing off the table, using the momentum to twist until it’s Jamie backed against the table, Jamie looking at her with genuine surprise on her face.

That, Dani thinks with terrified glee. That’s the look I was going for.

"Consider me committed,” she says, and though Jamie had been careful not to touch her, she finds herself unable to do the same. Her hips press Jamie backward, one hand clenching at the small of Jamie’s back. The other finds Jamie’s sleeve, less for contact, more a desperate bid for balance.

“Touché,” Jamie says in a low voice--not that easy flirtation tone this time, but something less in control. “My, ah. Hands are dirty.”

“Do you want me to come back later?”

Jamie laughs, leans forward, shakes her head. “Didn’t say that.”

It wasn’t the plan, to kiss her here. She’d meant only to apologize--or, not apologize, but make clear that she was sorry how it had gone, that there are paths she very badly wants this to take that are the right way, the best way, the way it should have been all along. She’d meant only to make that clear, to land her proposal, to make Jamie feel a fraction as giddy as Jamie makes her every damn day.

And yet, with Jamie kissing back, Jamie making a helpless sound of frustration as her hands tip backward to grip the table behind her instead of ruining Dani’s coat, it feels right. It feels like meaning what she’s said. It feels like commitment.

“For the record,” she adds, pulling away to breathe. Jamie’s knuckles are stark around the table, her elbows bent, her chest heaving. “This is why I’d like to get you into that pub. Or your boring little flat. More of this.”

“Could’ve just said so,” Jamie says, and maybe it’s not swooning, exactly--but the flush in her face is deeply satisfying all the same, particularly when she tips her head back to allow Dani access to her neck.

“I thought I’d be polite about my desire to get you into bed, thank you.”

“Polite,” Jamie repeats, her voice sharpening when Dani slips a hand into her hair and kisses just above the collar of her jumpsuit. “Right. Completely slipped my mind.”

“I am,” Dani insists, pushing her harder against the table, “very polite.”

She is alive, here in this greenhouse, choosing Jamie. She is alive, and she is free, and she is all but breathless when Jamie--patience giving at last like the final strand of a snapping rope--slips both hands into her coat and clenches her hips. Jamie, who is so alive with her hands at work, and so much more so now, kissing until Dani is sure they’re both going to give up the idea of a date altogether and just settle for that rumpled little couch.

“Okay,” Jamie says at last, tipping her head away. Her hands are under Dani’s sweater, tracing the warm skin of her back, and Dani finds she couldn't care less about the dirt. “Okay. You’ve made your point, Poppins.”

“I have?”

“Mm.” Jamie leans her head down against Dani’s shoulder, exhales almost shakily. “No scary-bug flinch. Very good. Best save the rest for the boring little pub, yeah?”

Dani doesn’t want her to go. Doesn’t want her to pull free, put those hands back to work with plant and seed and root. Jamie is grinning again, brighter than anything Dani has seen in days, and Dani wants to stay within sight of that smile for the rest of her life.

“You’ve got kids to wake. And I’ve got...um...things.”

“Things,” Dani repeats. Jamie nods.

“Important things. With...plants...the work.” She reaches vaguely for a trowel, gestures with it like she’s considering bringing it to war. “Look, it’s early, I was not prepared for any of this, Poppins.”

Dani laughs, extricating herself at last and recovering her mug. Leaving is the last thing she’d like just now, but Jamie isn’t wrong--the kids will be up soon, and the day will fall into its usual register. Except, this time, she’ll know Jamie is out here, thinking about boring pubs and boring dates and the least boring kiss of Dani’s life.

“Would,” she says, pausing at the door to glance back, “you call what you’re feeling now a swoon, by chance?”

Jamie blinks. “I--um.”

“Never mind.” The answer, Dani decides, is almost certainly yes.

***

Honestly, thinks Jamie, watching her stroll--stroll! as if Dani Clayton strolls anywhere!--out the door, she did every last bit of that on purpose.

“Swoon,” she mumbles, shaking her head. “Don’t fuckin’ swoon.”

It would, she thinks as she tries in vain to remember where she’d left off, explain the vague sense she might at any moment pass out--but Dani doesn’t need to know that.

If she gets any more brazen, after all, Jamie is going to be in serious fucking trouble.

#fanfiction #ficlet #the haunting of bly manor #the haunting of bly manor spoilers #dani x jamie #damie #there we go--we love an extended scene that just gently snips out the ghosts #from a...glorious ghost show it's fine we're all find here enjoy the lack of possessed-child interruption

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senjuhashirama · 4 years ago

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One thing I wish canon could have given us was a fleshing-out of Hashirama's family life and his relationship with Mito. The first Hokage and the first jinchuriki for Kurama--if not the first jinchuriki period--what an intriguing marriage that must have been! Do you have any headcanons as to what their dynamic could have been like? Thanks again!

Hello ♥ thank you for the ask! I have so many headcanons that this took me some time to write, so I’m sorry for the wait! This is just a part of my what I remember and I have much more. I will also use the - in names for now so it doesn’t appear in tags.

I love HashiMito. The only problem is that it’s basically always Hash-ramaxOCwife. She can be mean, she can be outgoing, she can be shy, she can be like Kushina – so it’s sometimes hard for me to tell I ship it, because it depends on portrayal, although I do firmly believe that it was a marriage out of love. Even if they arranged it, I don’t think Hash-rama would marry someone he wouldn’t love. So even i fit was political, Hash-rama was in love with Mito.

I usually headcanon they met maybe ~ ten months after Mad-ra left Konoha, so Hash-rama must have been 27-29. Hash-rama wasn’t doing very good and was often grief stricken. And then Mito came and painted Hash-rama’s world.

I headcanon that before meeting Mito (and this is one of my oldest headcanons) Hash-rama wasn’t able to create beautiful details with mokuton. He tried, but it was never like he could do some jewerly, wooden brooch, or create an ornamental furniture – that’s why his hobby is wood sculpting, because he wasn’t able to do it just with chakra. And after meeting her, somehow, it worked, like he was a source of peace and inspiration for him.

Now, my headcanons about how they were and how arranged the marriage was, differs from universe to universe. I roleplayed with a few Mitos and each one was different. Since I actually had Mito when I started to rp Hash-rama, before I even understood him properly, this person’s roleplay affected my headcanons a lot (I also had Mad-ra who affected my headcanons and rp from this angle.)

Generally, I have two alternative headcanons for Mito’s behavior.

(1) The strong type that grounds Hash-rama and has none of his shit. She sees through him and if he goes to a pub, she will make sure he doesn’t have more money than he can afford to lose. She calls him out on his behaviour and actually knows him. It’s a tough love, but Hash-rama needs it. She knows more about Hash-rama than he knows about himself and knows that he is sometimes delusional and lives in a complete denial, even about his feelings towards Mad-ra. This is where Hash-rama feels seen and understood and respects Mito a lot.

(2) The type that loves Hash-rama, but doesn’t see through him and lives in her own version of denial even when he tries to tell her once he has a moment of weakness. If Hash-rama would tell her he loves Mad-ra by some accident, she would tell him that she knows that he loves him as a friend. This universe is not that happy for Hash-rama as he feels like his needs are ignored even if he’s doing his best to communicate them – his best isn’t good enough though.

My alternative headcanons on how they met:

(1) It was an arranged marriage. Hash-rama went to see her to the Whirlpool village, but didn’t think he would like this girl enough to marry her. Then, he saw her, talked to her the whole night, and in the morning knew that he wants to be with her forever.

(2) This is where they met once when they were younger. He pretended to be a sailor and thought she is some beautiful sirene from the sea. But they don’t get each other’s names. After a few years, when Mad-ra is in village, Mito’s father approaches Konoha and asks for an arranged marriage between them, but Hash-rama refuses, because he wants to live his single life with Mad-ra and party hard with Mad-ra. Plus, he doesn’t know it’s the girl he saw once. So, Mito’s father arranges a marriage between her and feudal lord. After Mad-ra leaves, Hash-rama is invited to the engagement celebration. He realizes Mito is the girl he once saw and that he refused to marry her before and now she has to marry the feudal lord. The problem is, Mito doesn’t like the feudal lord, so Hash-rama tells her to run away with him and they run away to Konoha, breaking the engagement. Mito’s parents then have to pay penalty which is ruining the Whirlpool country (for the future drama)

Other headcanons:

(1) Mito’s father is the leader of Whirlpool village (not very original, but hey!)

(2) They have six children and they both love them.

(3) https://oh-my-Hash-rama.tumblr.com/post/190474408495/i-have-a-melodramatic-headcanon-that-mito-was Mito and Kyuubi - headcanon (I swear I saw this being used in some fic after I published this and idk if it’s a coincidence or not? Is it that obvious? I’d just like to know) tw abortion

(4) They have a big house in Konoha that Mito’s father paid for

(5) Before Hash-rama died, he started to build a room for Mito in the attick where she would relax and read and take a break from the children. He created bookshelves with his mokuton, made beautiful libraries, bought her books and paid people to make a beutiful chairs and coaches. He spent lot of time on it, so much that Mito thought he’s trying to avoid her. He planned to give it to her on her birthday, May 3rd. But before her birthday came, Hash-rama died.

So Mito discovered the room after his death. And it was a place she grieved him the most. One day she realized that she can see his face on the mountain from the window and that the sun shines on it right before the sunset.

(6) Tob-rama has quite a crush on her and really respects her.

#super-kame-love #headcanons #for future #change the names #long post #hashimito #mito #uzumaki mito #tw long post #tw:long post

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gaslightgallows · 6 years ago

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A ficlet prompt if you're interested: “Tell me, when you are alone with him, does he take off his face and reveal his mask?” The pairing would be Loki/Val, but the conversation would be btw Thor and Val.

(Hopefully, an antidote to yesterday's Valkiangst-o-rama...) (Read at AO3)

Thor looked up at Valkyrie entered the tavern and waved aninvitation to join him at his table. "Alone again?"

Valkyrie took the bottle and, for the sake of politeness,poured herself a glass rather than just taking a giant swig. There were otherpeople in the tavern, after all, and you had to be at least a littledeferential to the king, even if he was someone you'd fought the undead withand shared some of the most unimaginable swill in the known universe with."Loki begged off. Said he had paperwork to do."

"He never wants to join me in the evenings now,"said Thor, rather sadly. "I'd hoped, after everything that's happened,that we could mend our friendship, even if we couldn't ever be the brothers weonce were..."

"It's not that," Valkyrie said, feeling more thana little uncomfortable discussing this in public. Something about her posturemust have communicated itself to the people nearby, because as one, they allgot up and moved over to the bar, leaving her and Thor with a bit more privacy."It's... well, it's the whole 'tavern' thing."

"...I don't follow."

"You know. Taverns, drinking, rowdy drunk people? He,uh..." She searched for a tactful way of expressing the things Loki hadtold her as well as the things he had not but which she knew via osmosis andgossip anyway. "He had his fill of all of that. On Sakaar."

Thor's expression changed, and Valkyrie actually felt alittle chilled. "He won't speak of Sakaar to me," he said, his voicea low, unhappy rumble in his chest. "I have, uh, well, anidea of what happened to him while he was there,but..."

"That idea is probably just the tip of the iceberg. I'mnot surprised he won't talk about it with you. This won't be news, but yourbrother has one hell of an identity complex, where you're concerned."

"Yes, I'm aware. Thanks for that." Thor grabbedthe bottle and upended its contents into his giant glass mug. "But... hetalks to you?"

"We talk a lot, yeah. He talks, anyway. I don't say toomuch. Not sure why he decided I'd be the best person to unload his personaldemons onto, but," she shrugged, "at least he doesn't expect me to doanything about them."

"He hides from me," Thor muttered. "Still. Hehas the same face as always and he is helpful and hard-working and loyal. It'salmost like having my brother back, after all these years of fighting andtorment. But he is not the same. The face he shows me and the rest of theworld, it's nothing but a mask."

Valkyrie didn't want to agree, if only because she feltincreasingly awkward having this conversation at all, but she couldn't denythat Thor was right. "Loki... has a lot of masks," she said finally."Just mask stacked over mask. I'm not even sure he knows which one is hisactual face, anymore. Or if he has one."

"But he shows you those masks?"

"He does." For all that they butted headsconstantly, and sometimes literally, in public, their time on Sakaar - Loki'squick and intense and destructive, Valkyrie's drawn-out and soul-numbing - leftthem standing a little apart from the rest of the Asgardians, and even from theremaining gladiators who had come to Earth with them.

It was a bizarre aping of friendship, but she couldn't denythat Loki's pain called to her, in the same way that hers had piqued hisinterest. She didn't want to examine it, for fear that it would crumble if shetried to actually make sense of it, but it was real and it was something tolean on, for both of them.

"And..." Thor traced lined in the frost riming hismug. "Is he still in there, do you think? Under all of those faces, all ofthose masks, is there still a person?"

"If any of us can say we're still people under all ofour masks... then yes."

#writernotwaiting #mcu #space vikings #thor #valkyrie #valki-adjacent #prompt and ye shall receive #prompt fill #prompt fic

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patriotsnet · 3 years ago

Text

How Often Does Joe Manchin Vote With Republicans

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-often-does-joe-manchin-vote-with-republicans/

How Often Does Joe Manchin Vote With Republicans

The West Virginia Senator Was Cozy With Trump For Political Reasons But Hes Less Of An Obstacle To An Ambitious Agenda Than An Organized Gang Of Senate Moderates

There is now a new most powerful person in the United States: Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. With the Senate evenly split, Manchin, a Democrat representing a state in which nearly 70 percent of the votes cast in both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections went to Donald Trump, has the power to break a tied vote on almost any legislative business requiring a simple majority to pass. He can even decide which bills to be passed with a simple majority.

For some liberals, this is a disheartening prospect. Manchin voted with Trump more than any other Senate Democrat, opting to confirm two of the former presidents three Supreme Court nominees and evenflirting with endorsing Trumps reelection campaign.* If the new Democratic majority is forced to craft legislation designed to win over Manchin, it could all but guarantee a watered-down and compromised version of the big and transformative agenda Joe Biden began promising last year.

But, honestly, negotiating with Manchin may not be as difficult as liberals fear. A much more worrying alternative is not just possible but may be taking shape at this very moment.

Joe Manchin is, considering his circumstances, by no means the worst Democratic senator. He is quietly a semi-reliable partisan who opposed the GOPs tax bill and the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. And while he later suggested to the press that he would consider endorsing Trump, Manchin did vote to oust him in his first impeachment.

Stop The Steal Unfolding In Plain Sight

But you know who would gladly use a wacked out video clip to contest a free and fair election? Republican state legislators, local officials and members of Congress.

Much like the Jan. 6 insurrection, the GOP plan to steal the next presidential election is unfolding in plain sight. The goal isnt just to make it harder to vote but to also undermine the administration of elections, remove any official who stood in the way of Trumps attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, and then give Republican legislatures new powers to interfere in elections when they dont like the results.

This is happening as Republicans are preparing new electoral maps that will almost surely allow them to take back the House, while earning far fewer votes than their opponents. And if Republicans control Congress, the chances of a duly elected Democratic president having a victory accepted in both the House and Senate are plunging toward zero.

Faced with what Ari Berman, author of the book “Give Us The Ballot,” calls a concerted attempt to end the second Reconstruction, whats Manchin thinking about?

In an op-ed Sunday, Manchin insisted, The right to vote is fundamental to our American democracy and protecting that right should not be about party or politics. This sentence should be the foundation of a stinging rebuke to Republicans who are undermining that right across the country, but the West Virginia senator used it to slam his fellow Democrats.

How Does The John Lewis Act Differ From The For The People Act

Descriptions of the two pieces of legislation are often boiled down to the For the People Act as broad and the John Lewis Act as narrow. Thats true, but the bigger difference is that the For the People Act is a highly prescriptive bill that preempts state voting and election laws, mandates many practices and prohibits many others .

The John Lewis Act would create procedural rules governing voting-rights violations. This is similar to Section 2 of the original Voting Rights Act, which established legal grounds for private parties or the federal government to challenge state laws that are intended to, or have the effect of, diluting minority voting rights. . The far more powerful Sections 4 and 5 created a system whereby jurisdictions with a history of discriminatory practices would have to submit changes in voting and election laws to the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department for review and preclearance as non-discriminatory before they could take effect. It was Section 4, which set up a formula for determining which jurisdictions fell under the Section 5 preclearance requirement, that the Court killed largely killed in its 2013 Shelby County v. Holder ruling, claiming it was based on outdated evidence of discriminatory practices.

Despite Manchins Continued Demands For Voter Id Rules And Against Mail

After an all-night vote-a-rama on the Democrats $3.5 trillion budget resolution, the Senate early this morning took a step forward on voting rights legislation, with a 50-49 party line vote that discharged the For the People Act, also known as S. 1, from the Rules Committee. The vote was designed to give Senate Republicans a chance to support the process of moving forward, or to demonstrate to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., that Republicans had no such intentions.

The vote came after weeks of negotiation with Manchin over S. 1, in which he arrived at a place where he was ready to support the legislation, just as long as it wasnt the full bill that he had already vowed to oppose. Manchin often extracts a round of concessions before offering his support to the party, and he appears to have done so again on S. 1.

I have made it crystal clear that I do not support the For the People Act, Manchin said on the Senate floor, referring to Oregon Democrat Sen. Jeff Merkleys flagship reforms to protect democracy. I have worked to eliminate the far-reaching aspects of that bill and amend the legislation to make sure our elections are fair, accessible, and secure.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., nevertheless admonished the proposal as an illicit attempt to advantage Democrats in elections.

Joe Manchin Opposes Voting Rights Bill And Defends Filibuster In Blow To Democrats

Senator key to progress cites Republican opposition as reason

In a huge blow to Democrats hopes of passing sweeping voting rights protections, the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin said on Sunday he would not support his partys flagship bill because of Republican opposition to it.

The West Virginia senator is considered a key vote to pass the For the People Act, which would ensure automatic and same-day registration, place limits on gerrymandering and restore voting rights for felons.

Many Democrats see the bill as essential to counter efforts by Republicans in state government to restrict access to the ballot and to make it more easy to overturn election results.

It would also present voters with a forceful answer to Donald Trumps continued lies about electoral fraud, which the former president rehearsed in a speech in North Carolina on Saturday.

In a column for the Charleston Gazette-Mail, Manchin said: I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy, and for that reason, I will vote against the For the People Act.

Manchins opposition to the bill also known as HR1 could prove crucial in the evenly split Senate. His argument against the legislation focused on Republican opposition to the bill and did not specify any issues with its contents.

Manchins op-ed might as well be titled, Why Ill vote to preserve Jim Crow

Havent you empowered Republicans to be obstructionists? Wallace asked.

A daily play-by-play of congressional news in your inbox.

Despite Trumps recent criticisms of him, Manchin maintains a line with Trump. They last talked two weeks ago after Trump teased him in front of GOP senators and the Democratic senator is hopeful that Trump will treat him with kid gloves this fall. In Manchins estimation, he is often the only thing keeping the president from becoming a down-the-line partisan.

At times, Manchin was the only Democrat who clapped during Trumps State of the Union address. This spring, Manchin killed liberals hopes of blocking Gina Haspel for CIA director by getting behind her early. Manchin supported Trumps Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, voted for now-embattled EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and even backed the presidents hard-line immigration proposal.

Im with him sometimes more than other Republican senators are with him, Manchin said.

But Manchin has been frustrated that every time he thinks he’s got the president in a moderate place on immigration or background checks for guns, Trump goes to the right. And he hasnt always been there for Trump, most conspicuously on the GOPs tax reform bill, which attracted no Democratic votes. He also voted against Betsy DeVos to be education secretary, Tom Price to lead the Health and Human Services Department and Obamacare repeal.

Summing up his predicament, Manchin said, Washington Democrats are making it more difficult for me to be a West Virginia Democrat.

Joe Biden Wrong About Voting Records Of Joe Manchin Kyrsten Sinema

If Your Time is short

Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema support the continued use of the Senates filibuster rule. This stance imperils the prospects for key elements of Bidens agenda.

However, on actual votes taken in the Senate, both Manchin and Sinema supported Bidens position 100% of the time.

In a speech marking 100 years since a race massacre in Tulsa, President Joe Biden gave a rhetorical nudge to two senators hed like to see greater support from.

“June should be a month of action on Capitol Hill,” Biden said in Tulsa on June 1. “I hear all the folks on TV saying, Why doesnt Biden get this done? Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House and a tie in the Senate, with two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends. But were not giving up.”

Biden didnt specify which Democratic senators he had in mind, and the White House didnt respond to an inquiry for this article. But observerswidelyassumed that he was referring to Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, whose words and positions have not always been in lockstep with Bidens.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., surrounded by reporters at the Capitol on May 26, 2021.

However, in his Tulsa remarks, Biden was wrong to say that Manchin and Sinema or any other Senate Democrat, for that matter “voted more” with Republicans than with Biden.

Featured Fact-check

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., outside the Capitol on Feb. 5, 2020.

Joe Manchins Hard No On Voting Bill Leaves Democrats Seeking New Path

The West Virginia senator has stated, in an op-ed, that he will not back the For the People Act unless it has bipartisan support

For months, Democrats in the US Senate have danced delicately around Joe Manchin, giving him space and holding out hope that the West Virginia Democrat would eventually come around and give his must-win vote to legislation that would amount to the most sweeping voting rights protections in a generation.

That detente effectively ended on Sunday, when Manchin authored an op-ed making it clear he will not vote for the bill, leaving Democrats to find a new path forward that is, if there is one at all.

Manchin did not raise substantive concerns about the legislation, the For the People Act, in the Senate but rather said that he would only support it if it was bipartisan. He also reiterated his resistance to eliminating the filibuster, a legislative rule that requires 60 votes to move most legislation forward in the Senate. Getting 10 Republicans to sign on to voting rights legislation is a fools errand, many observers say, pointing to how the party has embraced Trumps baseless lies about the election and is actively trying to make it harder to vote.

Republican intransigence on voting rights is not an excuse for inaction and Senator Manchin must wake up to this fact, said Karen Hobart Flynn, the president of Common Cause, a government watchdog group, which backs the bill.

The Middle Ground Could Be Found

Manchins upbringing centered on understanding and hard work.

For a long time in the state, it was Republicans, not Democrats, who needed to find political friends on the left to get anything done. And as Manchin rose through local politics, first as a member of the House of Delegates, then as a state senator, secretary of state and finally governor, Manchin was known for including Republicans in negotiations, even if Democrats enjoyed sizable majorities in the state.

He told me one time, I will never forget, if you have an issue where you cannot get one vote to go with you from the other party, regardless of who is in the majority it is probably a bad idea, recalled Mike Caputo, a Democratic state senator in West Virginia who served as majority whip in the House of Delegates during Manchins time as governor.

He added: Joe has always been the kind of guy that has always believed you can find common ground if you work hard enough. I know when he was governor, we had major disagreements, but he always believed that if we talked long enough and both sides wanted to find a resolution, the middle ground could be found.

Manchin signaled this position remains inside him in an interview on Thursday, telling CNNs Manu Raju that he was not ready to get rid of the Senate legislative filibuster, a move that would allow Democrats to do more without Republican support.

Manchin Goes Full Maga

The vulnerable West Virginia Democrat is embracing Donald Trump, figuratively and literally: We just kind of do the man-bump type thing.

06/06/2018 04:02 AM EDT

Sen. Joe Manchin talks with a local reporter on June 5 in Ranson, W.Va. The president’s popularity in the state has Republicans salivating over the prospect of knocking off the 70-year-old senator this fall. | John Shinkle/POLITICO

RANSON, W.Va. Joe Manchin wants you to know he really likes Donald Trump.

The West Virginia senator doesnt put it quite that way. But more than any other Democrat in Congress, he’s positioned himself as a vocal Trump ally. In fact, the senator, up for reelection in a state Trump won by more than 40 points, told POLITICO he isnt ruling out endorsing Trump for reelection in 2020 a position practically unheard of for a politician with a D next to his name.

Im open to supporting the person who I think is best for my country and my state, Manchin said this week from the drivers seat of his Grand Cherokee, insisting hes game to work with any president of either party. If his policies are best, Ill be right there.

The president recently mocked Manchin in front of the Senate GOP caucus as trying to hug him all the time only a slight exaggeration, by Manchins telling.

We just kind of do the man-bump type thing. Thats it. And I think hes pulling me as much as Im pulling him, Manchin said in describing his physical embraces with the president.

Can The John Lewis Act Conceivably Get Through Congress Without Being Filibustered

The premise of Joe Manchins argument for making the John Lewis Act rather than the For the People Act the main vehicle for voting rights action in Congress is that the Voting Rights Act was last extended by a unanimous Senate vote and a Republican president . Thus legislation to restore it should command considerable bipartisan support. The trouble is, it doesnt. When the bill passed the House in 2019, only one Republican voted for it. As noted above, no Republicans voted for the new version.

It is true, perhaps, that killing the John Lewis Act would be marginally more embarrassing to the GOP than killing the For the People Act, given the partys past support for the VRA. But theres little doubt Republicans will find a way to justify doing it in, by either taking the Supreme Courts position a bit further and arguing racial discrimination in voting simply no longer exists, or arguing any voting-rights legislation must include election integrity provisions addressing their phony-baloney fraud claims. Whataboutism has become the standard Republican excuse for refusing to do the right thing. So actual passage of anything like the John Lewis Act remains impossible for the foreseeable future, at least so long as Democrats cannot muster the internal Senate support to kill or modify the filibuster.

This piece has been updated.

Joe Manchin Was Never A Mystery

Its always been pretty obvious who he is: a middle-of-the-road guy with good electoral instincts, decent intentions, and bad ideas.

About the author: David A. Graham is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

The failure of the For the People Act in the Senate yesterday evening didnt provide much drama. All 50 Democrats backed the voting-rights bill, but with no Republican support, they didnt have enough votes to break a filibuster. That Democrats didnt have the votes was clear from the start of the Congress.

But journalism requires drama, which means that over the past few months Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has been the subject of extensive coverage. The problem with this coverage is not that Manchin is unimportant; as the most moderate Democrat in a 50-person caucus, he is crucial. Its that there is no mystery to him.

Trying to figure out who Manchin is and what he wants, or how hes changedthe natural and reasonable defaults of political-profile writingassumes theres something more than meets the eye. Really, though, Manchin is who hes always been: a middle-of-the-road guy with good electoral instincts, decent intentions, and bad ideas.

Reporters and pundits engaged in a frenzied hermeneutic quest to decode what Manchin wanted and what hed allow. But trying to make sense of it all was a waste of time. The important thing was he was against nuking the filibuster then, and he is now.

Why Democrats Were Desperate To Win Joe Manchin’s Vote For An Already

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large

On Tuesday night, the “For the People” Act will fail.

fait accompli Every single Democrat wanted to make elections more fair and open. And every single Republican stood in opposition to that effort.“Today’s debate about how to best protect our right to vote and to hold elections, however, is not about finding common ground, but seeking partisan advantage. Whether it is state laws that seek to needlessly restrict voting or politicians who ignore the need to secure our elections, partisan policy-making won’t instill confidence in our democracy â it will destroy it.“As such, congressional action on federal voting rights legislation must be the result of both Democrats and Republicans coming together to find a pathway forward or we risk further dividing and destroying the republic we swore to protect and defend as elected officials.”

Whats In It For Republicans

Manchin has suggested that any voting rights reforms must be bipartisan, and hes resisted filibuster reform in the past. So even Manchins somewhat watered-down voting rights proposals face a tough road in the Senate unless hes willing to reconsider his desire to secure Republican votes.

That said, Manchins proposal does include a few ideas that may prove enticing to some GOP senators.

He would impose a nationwide voter ID requirement meaning voters would be required to show some form of identification before casting a ballot. Such laws enjoy broad support from Republicans, who often claim they are necessary to combat voter fraud.

In reality, such fraud is virtually nonexistent, and many voting rights advocates fear that voter ID prevents left-leaning groups, such as students, low-income voters, and voters of color, from casting a ballot because these groups are less likely to have ID.

New research, however, suggests that voter ID laws may not have much of an impact at all that is, they neither prevent fraud nor do much to disenfranchise voters. And Manchin also proposes a fairly permissive form of voter ID. While some states have strict voter ID laws that require voters to show specific forms of photo identification, Manchin would permit voters to cast a ballot if they show alternative forms of ID, such as a utility bill with their name and address on it.

Dc And Puerto Rico Statehood

In a November 10, 2020, interview, Manchin said that he did not “see the need for the D.C. statehood with the type of services that we’re getting in D.C. right now” and that he was “not convinced that’s the way to go.” Of Puerto Rico statehood, Manchin said that he opposed it but was open to discussion. In a January 10, 2021 interview, he did not affirm his opposition to statehood for D.C. or Puerto Rico, saying only, “I don’t know enough about that yet. I want to see the pros and cons. So I’m waiting to see all the facts. I’m open up to see everything”. On April 30, 2021, Manchin came out against the D.C. Statehood bill that had passed the House of Representatives, suggesting that D.C. could instead be given statehood by constitutional amendment.

The Deal Hes Pitching To Replace Hr1 Isnt Much Of A Deal At All

WSJOpinion

Senate Democrats tried and failed Tuesday to move their version of H.R.1, the bill to impose a federal election code on all 50 states. That 800-page travesty was doomed once West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin came out against it. But now Democrats are rallying around Plan B, which is based on a three-page memo circulated by Mr. Manchins office.

Its a curious document. The preamble insists that any voting bill must be the result of both Democrats and Republicans coming together. But then it suggests an H.R.1 compromise that is no bipartisan kumbaya. As Republican leader Mitch McConnell said last week in ruling out Mr. Manchins wish list, it still involves an assault on the fundamental idea that states, not the federal government, should decide how to run their own elections.

To start, Mr. Manchins memo suggests mandating at least 15 consecutive days of early voting. Yet one prominent Democratic opponent of H.R.1., New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner, has objected that his states constitution dates to 1783, and it requires that a voter must be present on Election Day unless absent from the town or city, or physically disabled. Yet New Hampshire, he added, has had the third highest voter turnout in the country for each of the last four presidential elections.

The Pressure Of Legacy

Another lens through which West Virginians understand Manchin that national media tend to overlook is by knowing who came before. Manchin holds the seat of the longest-serving senator in U.S. history, Democrat Robert C. Byrd, and served alongside another Senate great, Jay Rockefeller.

For Manchin, the shadows of these two men surely loom large. Both were known for their commitment to working in a bipartisan manner, bringing members of their chamber together across the aisle to do what was right for the country.

Both rallied Congress around significant shifts in policy in their time. Byrd was known as the rules man; he essentially wrote and rewrote Senate rules on order and the filibuster in his 51 years in the body, and also knew better than anyone how to work the system to bring millions of dollars of federal investments to the state to the continued benefit of West Virginians.

Rockefeller, who spent 31 years in the chamber, has said his most prized accomplishments included authoring legislation to create CHIP and helping shepherd the passage of the Affordable Care Act, just to name a few of the more than 2,000 pieces of just health care-related policy he had his hands on.

Both were true statesmena designation that I would argue few politicians in Washington and any other Capitol deserve today. The legacy of both, and how his own legacy will compare, must weigh heavy on Manchin.

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sewingscars · 8 years ago

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Diversion!!!

To all the trans military and veterans who have fought for our freedom, WE SEE YOU AND WE THANK YOU!!! .

We will NOT be posting any articles about the Anus-Mouthed-Leathery-Tangerine's tweets from his shitter. This is not to devalue or distract from this mornings news. On the contrary, it is simply a reminder.

This piece of shit H.R.2796 - Civil Rights Uniformity Act of 2017 was introduced into Congress on 6-7-2017.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2796

.Civil Rights Uniformity Act of 2017

This bill prohibits the word "sex" or "gender" from being interpreted to mean "gender identity," and requires "man" or "woman" to be interpreted to refer exclusively to a person's genetic sex, for purposes determining the meaning of federal civil rights laws or related federal administrative agency regulations or guidance.

No federal civil rights law shall be interpreted to treat gender identity or transgender status as a protected class unless it expressly designates "gender identity" or "transgender status" as a protected class.

YESTERDAY DAY 187- 1/ Senate Republicans secured the 51 votes needed to advance their health care bill after Pence cast the tie-breaking vote. The Senate will now begin debating, amending, and ultimately voting in the coming days on the future of Obamacare. The vote was too close to call until the last moments, when several Republican holdouts announced their support, including Rand Paul, Dean Heller, Rob Portman, and Shelley Moore Capito. Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski both voted against the motion to proceed. (New York Times / Washington Post / CNN)

2/ The Senate will now have 20 hours of debate the health care bill, evenly split between the two sides. Senators can bring up and debate an unlimited number of amendments to the bill as long as they are “germane” to the bill and would not add to the budget deficit. Then a period known as vote-a-rama happens, where Senators votes on the amendments. The first amendment will be the Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act, which repeals most of the Affordable Care Act without a replacement. If that fails (as is expected), Senators will then vote on the Better Care Reconciliation Act, which cuts massive portions of the ACA. Because of reconciliation rules, these amendments would require 60 votes to pass. If BCRA fails, Senators will consider what is being called a “skinny repeal,” which repeals the individual mandate penalty, the employer mandate penalty, and the tax on medical devices. (New York Times / Vox / Time / NBC News) John McCain returned to the Senate for the health care vote after being diagnosed with brain cancer last week. McCain’s vote is critical to today’s procedural vote. His absence would have left Senate Republicans with no margin of error. (Washington Post / Politico) Senate Republicans don’t know what’s in their health care plan, but they voted anyway on the motion to proceed. About a half-dozen senators were publicly undecided about whether to start debate on rolling back the Affordable Care Act. Several senators have said they want a “replace” plan ready to go before voting “yes.” An agreed upon replace plan is not in place. The bill will have to pass the House before making its way to Trump’s desk. McConnell forced the procedural vote to put every senator on record. (Politico / Vox / CNN).

3/ Trump ripped Jeff Sessions on Twitter, calling him “very weak” when it comes to investigating Hillary Clinton. Trump has repeatedly taken aim at Sessions in recent days, leading to speculation that it’s just a matter of time before the attorney general resigns or is fired. The recent tweets come a day after Trump publicly described Sessions as “beleaguered.” (NBC News / CNN)

4/ Later in the day, Trump added that he is “very disappointed in Jeff Sessions” but won’t say if he’ll fire him. Trump has previously discussed replacing Jeff Sessions in a move viewed by some of Trump’s advisors as part of a strategy for firing special counsel Robert Mueller in order to end his investigation into the campaign’s efforts to coordinate with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 election. Sessions recently asked White House staff how he could patch up relations with Trump, but that went nowhere. Instead, Trump floated longtime ally Rudy Giuliani as a possible replacement for Sessions. (Wall Street Journal / Washington Post / Associated Press)

5/ Sessions is “pissed” at Trump for the attacks, but doesn’t plan to quit. Senate Republicans have said that attacks on Sessions, who spent 20 years in the Senate, strain their relationship with Trump. Many GOP senators have expressed annoyance with Trump’s tweets, saying “I really have a hard time with this” and "I’d prefer that he didn’t do that. We’d like Jeff to be treated fairly.” Senators have also been nonplussed by Trump’s criticism of Sessions’ decision to recuse himself, saying “Jeff made the right decision. It’s not only a legal decision, but it’s the right decision.“ Trump’s senior policy adviser Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon also support Sessions. (The Daily Beast / McClatchy DC)

6/ Anthony Scaramucci says it’s "probably” correct that Trump wants Sessions gone. The new White House communications director didn’t want to speak for the president, but said he thinks Trump has a “certain style” and he is “obviously frustrated.” (The Hill)

7/ Senate Democrats are planning a procedural move to prevent Trump from making recess appointments by forcing the Senate to hold “pro forma” sessions – brief meetings, often only a few minutes. Democrats are worried Trump could attempt to bypass Congress and appoint a new attorney general and undermine special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing probe into alleged Russian meddling in the US election during the planned August recess. (CNN / Reuters)

8/ The Senate Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena to Paul Manafort to testify in its Russia probe. Manafort had agreed to provide notes of the meeting at Trump Tower last year with the Russian lawyer, according to a person close to the investigation. Committee chairman Chuck Grassley and ranking member Dianne Feinstein said they had been “unable to reach an agreement for a voluntary transcribed interview with the Judiciary Committee” with Manafort. (ABC News / Politico) . UPDATE: **The Senate Judiciary Committee has dropped the subpoena against Paul Manafort **and plans are underway for the former Trump campaign chairman to speak to investigators. (Politico)

9/ Parents are angry after Trump delivered a politicized speech to tens of thousands of boy scouts. Over 35 minutes, Trump threatened to fire one of his Cabinet members, attacked Obama, dissed Hillary Clinton, marveled at the size of the crowd, warned the boys about the “fake media,” mocked the polls, and said more people would say “Merry Christmas.“ Responding to criticism, the Boy Scouts of America insisted it was "wholly non-partisan and does not promote any one position, product, service, political candidate or philosophy.” (Washington Post / BBC) Trump joked he would fire Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price if the health care bill doesn’t pass. “Hopefully he’s going to get the votes tomorrow to start on the path to kill this thing called ObamaCare that’s really hurting us,” Trump said during a speech to Boy Scouts at the 2017 National Jamboree. “He better get them, otherwise I’ll say, ‘Tom, you’re fired.’” (The Hill)

10/ Trump confirmed a covert CIA program while tweeting that the Washington Post had “fabricated the facts” about his decision to end a program aiding Syrian rebels fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Trump was referring to a story about ending an Obama program where the CIA armed and trained moderate Syrian rebels, a move long sought by the Russian government. (Washington Post / Politico)

11/ A federal judge ruled that Trump’s voter fraud commission may request voter roll data from states. Opponents contend the effort could infringe on privacy rights. The judge said the lawsuit did not have grounds for an injunction because the commission was not technically an action by a government agency – the commission is an advisory body that does not have legal authority to compel states to hand over the data. (Reuters)

12/ Jared Kushner bought real estate from an oligarch’s firm represented by the Russian lawyer. Lev Leviev was a business partner at Prevezon Holdings, where Natalia Veselnitskaya acted as legal counsel. Prevezon was being investigated by Preet Bharara for money laundering before he was fired by Trump in March. Prevezon Holdings attempted to use Manhattan real estate deals to launder money stolen from the Russian treasury. In 2015, Kushner paid $295m to acquire several floors of the old New York Times building at 43rd street in Manhattan from the US branch of Leviev’s company. The Prevezon case was abruptly settled two days before it was due in open court in May for $6 million with no admission of guilt on the part of the defendants. (The Guardian)

13/ A White House press aide resigned after Anthony Scaramucci said he planned to fire him over alleged leaks. Michael Short is the first to leave after Scaramucci promised all aides “a clean slate” and “amnesty” to prove that they were not leaking. “This is the problem with the leaking,” Scaramucci told reporters outside the White House. “This is actually a terrible thing. Let’s say I’m firing Michael Short today. The fact that you guys know about it before he does really upsets me as a human being and as a Roman Catholic.” Short, who initially said Tuesday that he hadn’t yet been informed of any decision, resigned Tuesday afternoon. (Washington Post / Politico / The Hill)

DAY188 - Trump TWEETS ( NO official report, NO press release, NO executive order) that trans people are banned from the military. The Internet explodes. Everything that has been happening is no longer discussed. His diversion has been executed perfectly. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. #lightingahellfiretocoverashitstorm

#trump #trans rights #transphobia #trans inclusion #transgender veteran #FtM Transgender #transgender rights #transgender military #resist #fuck trump #trump diversions

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kendrixtermina · 8 years ago

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Kenny Reacts to: Ramayana (& Hindu Mythology in General)

So, for those who don’t know, “Ramayana” is one of the big epics of Hindu Mythology, comparable to the Illiad or other legendary Kings such as David or Arthur, centering around Prince/King Ramchandr, one of the Avatars of Vishnu

My boyfriend (who happens to be Indian) introuced me to a TV show based on it, and I, being a mythology nerd, couldn’t resist...

Since a lot of people actually believe in this as a religion, first a disclaimer: I’m a complete atheist with no belief in the supernatural whatsover, but I’m a huge believer in the value of storytelling (and a writer - the more mythological references the better, at least if you’re aiming for as much of an ‘universal’ flavor as possible) and do hold that myth holds an important place in the human experience. I will be approaching this completely from a literature perspective.

My boyfriend is not a believer either, though he used to be an actual Hindu growing up & still has it as a cultural background (I know myself that the stories you’re brought up on do influence you just by the archetypes and poetic shorthands they make available to you) - apparently he found it quite interesting to see me react to it & see it properly from start to finish. (though it has actually caused a resurgence in childhood song earworms)

So, with that out of the way, let’s get to the actual “review”

What did I watch

It’s a somewhat older show from the 80s or 90s so the special effects could have been better - but I say that only because with a concept like “Demons versus monkey people” and “battles with dark sorcery and vaguely described divine weapons” there is a lot of potential for creative visuals.

In this implementation the style of costumes was more “historical” overall, but great care was taken nonetheless.

Indeed, though childhood nostalgia filter my boyfriend likes this particular version because it was made by an 80 year old dude who dreamt all his life of making a TV show out of this story & worked hard to make everything ~just right~ - there have been never, fancier interpretations since but they tend to be more generic & plasticy in terms of the actual screenplay (my boyfriend, though biased by childhood exposure, says that “You don’t get the feeling that you’re looking at Ram, you’re looking at a supermodel”) whereas in this one, the director took great care to write all the songs & handpick the actors -

Which, with those mythical, ‘archetypical’ characters is quite important, they have to have the right ‘aura’, ‘presence’ or ‘atmosphere’ around them to connect to the larger-than-life timeless ideas they’re intended to embody. They made sure to cast tall, wry dudes as the monkey people, had some really good acting, made sure supposed relatives actually look alike etc.

This adaptation (at least insofar as I’ve watched it) seems to have gone with the “good ending”, that is, the version where the Prince & his wife live happily ever after returning to their home city (for a change, the original/older one... though it makes little sense to debate about the true version of a myth, it’s their very nature to be passed around & reinterpreted and for each listener & reteller to put their own spin on it) - there’s a second one that’s much more anal about social divisions, harder on the mysoginy and ends with him disowning her ass, though there’s some ring to the idea of the Princess returting to whence she came (mother Earth) in humiliation. It depends on what sort story you want though it doesn’t seem to fit with Ram’s characterization as the type who always looks to resolve things peacefully & reasonably & think before acting, & he may lose some of what makes him interesting if you take that away.

Indeed the director saw the need to sanitize even the orginal “chastity test by fire” scene - more than I would have done even if I wanted the Prince to keep looking heroic, I suppose, a lot like how many Christians will explain away many inconsistencies in the bible (and pretty much everything in the book of Judges) because they need their headcanon to be consistent with what they associate with the deities.

The Cosmology

One of the interesting parts about this particular ‘verse that got me more interested in it beyond my initial watching of that show is the rather complex makep of the world -

In most places religion has gone though certain discrete stages in accordance to the civilization that thought it up, with the various ideas (animism, polytheism, dualism, monotheistm etc.) all influecing each other subtly by the need to react to each other but in this case you had this evolution happening gradually without the previous being completely discarded.

So you have river spirits, sacret trees, elemental monsters, demons, titan/jötnar like entities, your basic greek style deities, a big head honcho lord of the universe, concepts of self-enlightenment and pantheist universal unity all coexisting in the same setting.

It’s basically a religion kitchen sink. (and I mean that in a good way, though I get why some may prefer the more ‘streamlined’ ideas of modern Christianity or Islam)

Impressions & Surprising things

Very interesting - because of my familiarity with mythic universals & certain shared cultural roots ( They even have their own wandering handsy thunder god! - though he’s squarely in the middle of the cosmic hierarchy and seems to be the designated Worf Effect recipient) , I could count down all the tropes and see a lot comming but because of different cultural ideals there were many points where I REALLY didn’t know what was going to happen next

Also, it was a veritable soap opera and I did not expect the feels. The heroes were more adorable than I’d ever have thought.

The level of “Honor Before Reason” and “Because Destiny Says so” is about comparable to the ancient greeks, but the “humble sinless all-loving hero come to earth for an ardurous mission” might remind one of Jesus, especially in the conception that “The Hero”, in the most archetypical sense, is to be not just badass but moral - though rather, Jesus resembles Ramayana because Ramayana came several centuries first; Just a sign IMHO that there myths come from the human mind and humans everywhere are more similar than different.

Funny thing is, since christian apologetics have this complex to prove how “special” their religion is (I mean it is unique in that no one has the exact same combination of traits but that’s true of every religion and the elements are universal), they spend a lot of time dismantling Islam (often with bonus racism) but usually completely dismiss Hinduism because “Well, they’re polytheists” when the two religions actually have a lot of ideas in common - indeed a lot of beievers will speak of the Hindu Trinity (or their favorite part thereof) or the Mother Godess much like the average dualist or monotheist would talk of their god, like, “O supreme being that dwells in all goodness” etc.

Unlike Jesus (who, despite his popular interpretation, in the original bible had quite a temper) Rama’s patience & forgiveness is a bit less of an informed ability, though you do get the sense that this comes from a warrior culture as well as a very stratified society where living up to your given social role (including that of a wife) is everything - in a Western work Ram probably would’ve seized the city with the support of the citizens. XD

One could comment that Ram & his brothers are still royalty & that the focus is on that whereas Jesus deliberately took the shape of an ordinary dude, though Ram still gets to spend years as a hermit & Jesus is still convolutedly made to be descended from David - the Jesus myth being the way it is probably has more to do with the political circumstances of its origin (conquest by rome) than the nobler meanings ascribed to it later.

Another, subtler/ less apparent aspect of the destiny trap thing is that if everyone has their fate, no one can be blamed all too badly. (Deathbed redemptions galore) Nonetheless, as the prover goes, “karma is a bitch” and these people invented it.

That said, tough still a simplistic story (that purtports there’s only one clear universal law everywhere and that the good guys always win - That’s an air castle if there ever was one, we need to work for that) I was actually surprised by the sophistication of morals & politics at times, it went into specific questions (hypocrite accusations, hypocratic oaths, how to charioteer, what a good king should be like etc. )

This is probably an artefact of being written from the PoV of royals & warriors, or just an indication of the great asian civilizations having existed so long & relatively unbroken compared to the many shifts in where things where going on in the nothwest.

This is the first time in ANY mythical story that I’ve seen anyone raise the concern of preserving the innocent citizens of the enemy faction and how to stabilize the political situation afterwards (after dethroning the local evil overlord, they put in his turncoat brother who joined the good guys for damage control), something that I haven’t seen a SINGLE time in the Bible (and I’ve read the whole thing), though the heroes steer clear of the line to “simplistic stupid good” if you discount the “honor before reason” parts.

There’s 4 ways you can do ‘archetypical’ characters: Wholly & completely stick to the simple archetype, bring the archetype to full circle & detail while milking it for maximum symbolism, “not what they seem/contrast” and giving them depht without having them ever stop to be their archetype - it’s the latter that was done magnificiently here, especially in terms of 3Dimensional antagonists, they have enough redeeming qualities for it all to strike you as a tragic waste of life, but not enough to let go of their pride and avert the divine punishment.

(The “wicked cultured” Dark Sorceror Evil Overlord being interesting is a given, but of all characters, the cocky big mouthed Demon Prince was the last one I expected to have hidden dephts)

#hindu mythology #ramayana #hindu gods #mythology

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automatismoateo · 5 years ago

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David Eller's 67 Atheism Aphorisms. Two examples: "The best argument against any religion is all the other religions" and "An atheist is not a person who knows too little about religion. An atheist is a person who knows too much about religion" via /r/atheism

Submitted August 26, 2019 at 09:02PM by PrometheanOblation (Via reddit https://ift.tt/2ZlMKgE) David Eller's 67 Atheism Aphorisms. Two examples: "The best argument against any religion is all the other religions" and "An atheist is not a person who knows too little about religion. An atheist is a person who knows too much about religion"

All from his book Atheism Advanced (2007), which I can't recommend highly enough.

An atheist is not a person who knows too little about religion. An atheist is a person who knows too much about religion

There is no such thing as religion – only religion-s

There is no such thing as morality – only moralit-ies

It has been said that if you don’t believe in god(s)

you will believe in anything

But the opposite is true

If you will believe in a god, then you will believe in anything

Belief is a habit that, once acquired, knows no limits

You say your god is unknowable?

But the unknowable and the non-existent

are indistinguishable

A cult is a religion you disapprove of.

A religion is a cult that has gained acceptance

A myth is somebody else’s belief.

A belief is a myth taken seriously

So many gods, so little reason

The problem with religion in the public square is that

there are so many religions but only one public square

If one has belief, knowledge is lacking

If one has knowledge, belief is unnecessary

The difference between science and religion:

When knowledge is inadequate,

science poses a question,

but religion proposes a belief

The trouble with leaps of faith is that there are

so many directions to leap in – most of them wrong

Groups are almost always irrational:

one reason why it is difficult to have atheist groups

Order is not necessarily by design.

Design is not necessarily good design

Good design is not necessarily benevolent design

If atheism is a religion, then bachelorhood is a marriage

If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby

The first reaction to human difference is usually conversion or

extermination. The second reaction is segregation.

Only the last reaction is toleration

Religion is not so bad – unless you believe it.

If people say atheism is a religion,

do they mean it as a compliment or an insult?

Most religions do not even have gods – they are a‧theistic

Science does not so much disprove god(s) as disregard god(s)

Tertullian said, “I believe because it is absurd.”

Did he mean that

absurdity is a sufficient reason to believe something,

Or that the only way to hold an absurd position is by belief?

The best argument against any religion

is all the other religions

Faith is not different from belief,

nor is it the basis of belief.

It is the same thing as belief:

accepting the false and unfounded as true.

In the absence of evidence,

The scientist says, “I do not know,”

But the religionist says, “I believe.”

Is a meaning only meaningful if it is universal?

Is a value only valuable if it is absolute?

Perhaps ‘local’ meaning or value is enough

-and must be, because it hat is all there is

‘Spirit is either a claim or a metaphor.

If a metaphor – not to be taken seriously

If a claim – not to be taken seriously

Great minds think alike.

Small minds believe all kinds of things

America is not a Christian county; it is a free country

If America is a Christian country

Because it was founded by Christians, is it also a white country because it was founded by whites?

A male country because it was founded by males?

The problem with organized religion

is not that it is organized but that it is religion

One can ask, “How do you know?” and expect to get reasons.

One cannot ask, “How do you believe?” at all.

Belief is how you believe

Spirituality is the alienation of humanity: the human

(and the best part of human) attributed to the non-human

You cannot believe in a generic god or a generic religion

anymore than you can speak a generic language.

You can only speak a particular language

or believe in a particular god or religion.

Science not only produces knowledge but solves problems

Religion neither produces knowledge nor solves problems

Religion is not always wrong

It just has no better chance of being correct than guessing

Freethought is the only kind of thought there is.

If it is not free, it is not thought at all.

Tertullian again: If he believes because it is absurd,

How does he decided which absurdities to believe?

There are so many to choose from.

The question is not whether a thing is possible.

Many false things are possible.

The question is whether there is any reason

even to seriously consider the thing in the first place.

If not, its possibility means nothing.

One does not have to prove a negative.

One should assume a negative.

Some argue that it takes perfect knowledge

to prove a universal negative.

Actually it takes perfect knowledge to prove a universal positive.

How would you know if a god knows everything or is everywhere

Unless you yourself know everything or have been everywhere?

Theists sometimes say that their god is possible,

but no one goes to church to worship a possibility

Every religion thinks it is true.

All religions cannot be true simultaneously.

but they all can be false simultaneously

If power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,

then wouldn’t an all powerful god be all-corrupt?

The claim that “evolution cannot account for complexity”

is a universal negative – and religionists like to argue

that you cannot prove a universal negative

So maybe evolution can account for complexity

Religion is neither all good nor all bad.

It is human

-And therefore diverse, ambiguous, and contradictory.

Old gods don’t get disproved.

They get forgotten

Since there are so many religions

and none of them can claim a majority of humanity,

whatever you believe,

you are in the minority.

If people are Christians because they use money with

“In God We Trust” on it, are they also Egyptians

Because they use money with a pyramid on it?

Religion did not invent beauty or love or awe,

nor kindness, nor hope, nor generosity.

They are all human qualities

and religion only appropriated them

An extreme answer is usually simple, usually appealing

-and usually false

Descartes should have said, “I think, therefore god isn’t

If the Christian god was a real human father

he would be in jail for child abuse

War on Christmas?

Atheists are as interested in Christmas

as Christians are interested in Ramadan or Diwali or

Buddha’s Tooth Day – which is not at all.

Atheists are not at war with Christmas;

they are indifferent to Christmas.

But to believers, indifference feels like war,

People argue over the religious beliefs of the “Founding Fathers.”

But their religion is less important than their politics

– and their politics was to separate church from state

If there is an Intelligent Designer, scientists only have to revise their

Science books. If there is no Intelligent Designer, Christians have to

throw out their Christian book. Science could live with a Designer;

Christianity would die without one. That is why

Christianity fights so hard for what it claims is a scientific idea

If there is no such thing as god(s), then theology is a futile and

Meaningless as unicornology or leprechaunology.

You cannot study the non-existent

If someone asks whether you believe in god

(or heaven or hell or soul or sin), do not say yes or no.

Say, “I don’t know what you mean – and neither do you.”

For those who would like to have prayer in school,

A few humble suggestions for prayers:

“There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.”

Or “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna,

Hare Hare. Hare Rama, Hare Rama

Rama Rama, Krishna Krishna.”

Or “Namo myoho renge kyo.” Or “Om.”

The moral: there is no such thing as a non-sectarian prayer.

Prayer is what you do when you can’t do something useful.

Kierkegaard once said that to believe, one must crucify the intellect

Sadly, he was right. Even more sadly, he approved

Jesus has been called a great teacher.

However, his own apostles often did not understand what he said,

Few people today understand or follow his teaching, and many of his

teachings are absurd or would get you killed if you followed them.

That is the mark of a failed teacher

“Let children acquire reason and critical thinking, then introduce

them to religion and let them choose for themselves.”

What religion has ever said that?

They would not dare.

There are those who insist that atheism is negative, because it is

against theism. Atheism, they say, is not for anything, just against

something. If that were true, then anti-smoking campaigns are

negative, because they are against smoking. But anti-smoking

Campaigns are not just against smoking; they are in favor of health.

True, if there were no smoking, there would be no anti-smoking

Movement. But then everyone would be a non-smoker.

If there were no theism, there would be no atheist movement

– but then everyone would be an atheist

The ‘new atheism’: ‘Normal’ theism operates on the god-paradigm,

but ‘normal’ atheism operates on the same paradigm

Only in the negative (arguing against gods).

The revolution in atheism, a truly new atheism,

will only come when we have a paradigm shift

– when we discard the god-paradigm

and stop speaking god-talk at all

Religion is less about belief than it is about habit.

So atheism is not so much refuting a belief as breaking a habit.

And belief is a habit too – a habit of mind.

I do not disbelieve in god(s). I do not even disprove god(s)

I disregard god(s), dismiss god(s), discredit god(s).

I am disinterested in god(s)

Atheism is – or should be – freedom from god(s)

#reddit

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themastercylinder · 7 years ago

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SUMMARY

Ezra Cobb lives with his mother in an unidentified region of the Midwest. His mother, a religious fanatic, has indoctrinated him since childhood to hate women. Upon her death, Ezra digs her up again, believing that she is still alive. Ever more deluded each passing day, Ezra digs up various bodies, restoring them from their decomposition and even using them as home decor. Soon, Ezra’s obsessions go beyond the dead themselves, and he becomes a serial killer. Luring women into his grasp, he soon finds various other “creative” ways in which to decorate his home.

DEVELOPMENT

Made in early 73 and released by AIP, DERANGED is the most fact based film yet made based on the exploits of Wisconsin farmer/murderer/grave robber/cannibal Ed Gein. Roberts Blosson is alternately horrifying and hilarious as the shy and polite Ezra Cobb, “the butcher of Woodside,” in this incredible truly twisted semi comedy in which Ezra/Ed jokes about his killing and grave robbing with his neighbors, has a seance with a horny widow, and rebuilds his rotting mother, who earlier describes women as “a lot of filthy, black-souled sluts with pus-filled sores…who carry more diseases than ticks!”

Deranged was originally the brainchild of producer Tom Karr. Although he was only a small child in 1957 when the discovery of Gein’s crimes appalled and fascinated the nation, the memories of the Wisconsin maniac’s exploits stayed with him for life. “I always remembered the headlines about Gein in the Chicago Tribune,” he says. “and when you see things like that on the front page every day for two or three weeks, and all your friends and neighbors are constantly talking about them, you can’t help but take notice. Something as weird as this case only comes along once in a lifetime, and I’d always kept it filed away in the back of my mind. I knew that if I ever got into the movie business, I wanted to do the Ed Gein story, because it hadn’t ever been done faithfully. I thought it would probably make a lot of money. because it was unique and exciting enough to satisfy people who like horror movies.”

Producer Tom Karr

Producer Tom Karr raised $200,000 budget from the money he earned as a concert promoter for acts such as Led Zeppelin, Three Dog Night, The Temptations and Rod Stewart.

Fortunately, he was able to hook up with a group of filmmakers who were not only young and hungry, but also talented. Anyone who’s seen the unusually clever, offbeat Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things (1971) and Deathdream (1972) will recognize the names of Alan Ormsby. Jeff Gillen and Bob Clark as a stamp of quality.

“My first professional contact in the film business was a guy named Bob Kilgore,” Karr says, explaining how he came to meet the Miami based bunch. “Kilgore operated a company called Europix, which handled movies on a distribution basis for up-and-coming filmmakers.” Drive-in movie devotees will recall Europix as the banner under which low-budget favorites like Deathdream, I Dismember Mama and the Immortal Orgy of the Living Dead triple bill reached U.S. screens.

Ed Gein

“I went to an industry convention in Kansas City called the Show-A- Rama ’72 to meet with Kilgore and find out more about the movie business,” Karr continues. “Bob took that opportunity to introduce me to Alan Ormsby, who was there promoting and selling Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things. They had this actor from Children walking around the place dressed up like a zombie and attracting a lot of attention. I was really impressed, and that’s when I started talking to Alan about writing a script for me.

“Since Alan already had a whole group of filmmakers associated with him, it was easy to go right into Deranged with the same people from Children and Deathdream,” Karr relates. “But before I hired any of these people, I wanted to see what they had done. After the Show-A-Rama ended, Ormsby told me they were having a screening of Children in Miami for the cast and crew. So I went down to Florida, and that’s where I met Bob Clark and Jeff Gillen and all the rest of the people. I thought Children was very good; these guys had just done the type of film that I wanted to do, and they had certainly proven that they could do it for the budget I was shooting for. In fact, Children was done on about one-third the budget of Deranged! So we started talking seriously right then and there.”

The Crew

PRODUCTION

Misconceptions about Clark’s role in the making of Deranged have been all too common in the years since its release. Clark has been incorrectly cited as the film’s director.

“Bob didn’t want his name on Deranged because he felt it was too strong for him, and it might hurt his career,” Karr says. “But he was very helpful as a mentor, because he guided Jeff and Alan in their directorial efforts. He also guided me as a producer and helped me over any hurdles I encountered. Bob didn’t want to be right out on the front lines with this picture, and I respected his decision.”

Gillen confirms Karr’s statement. “Bob was, in essence, the executive producer,” he says. “He was ultimately the one who would sign the arrangements and so forth, but he had nothing to do with directing or writing the film.”

“Jeff was originally set to direct the movie, but I wanted to go to bat for Alan, because Alan had originally talked to me about directing as well as writing the script,” Karr says. “I compromised and said they could both direct. That compromise was agreeable to everybody.”

The original screenplay for Deranged was entitled Necromania, a moniker which stayed with the film until roughly halfway through the shooting. “I basically wanted the film to present the Gein story as closely as possible,” Karr says. “I gave Alan all the original press clippings from the Chicago Tribune as well as the Life magazine coverage of the case. Alan came up with something along those lines, but it wasn’t exactly what I wanted at first.”

“I wrote ’em pretty quickly in those days,” Ormsby recalls. “On Deranged, I basically used my research on the Gein case pretty straightforwardly, but I gave it a black-comedy twist. I don’t think Tom was quite prepared for the comic aspect of the script. He was worried that it would be too funny and not horrifying enough. He wanted it straighter than we played it, but he eventually accepted it.”

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Production Stills

While Karr may have conceded to Ormsby’s humorous angle on the story at the time, it was a reluctant acceptance. To this day, Karr takes issue with the film’s lighthearted approach to its heinous subject matter. “I never did want the black humor in there, or any kind of humor at all,” the producer emphatically states. “The comedy took away from the real horror of the story, and I felt it made light of a very serious subject. Alan and Jeff assured me that they thought the film was so strong that we had to put a little comic relief in there; I think their exact words were that we had to relieve the tension.’ I still don’t agree with that today, and if I had to do the story over again, I would do it with no humor whatsoever. But I must admit, a lot of people seem to like the humor, so I’m not saying they’re right or wrong.”

All of the film’s players were cast out of Toronto, with one notable exception. “The advance people went up to Canada before I did,” Karr explains. “Alan and Jeff and some others cast everybody up there, including a guy they’d selected to play the part of Ezra Cobb—but when I got there, I didn’t like him. I wanted to give it one more shot, because the entire film would revolve around this one character. We couldn’t find anybody else in Canada, So Alan and I jumped on a plane to New York and got a hold of a casting agent named Vic Ramos, who’s still in business today. Harvey Keitel and ‘Christopher Walken’ both auditioned for the role of Ezra Cobb in New York. Tom Karr felt they were a bit too young for the part though. Roberts Blossom was the last to audition and Tom knew he had his man. DERANGED was Blossom’s only lead role in a feature, although hard to see these days, is a horror classic, almost on a level with TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (which was made later). Both were inspired by the famous real Ed Gein. Blossom is excellent as Ezra Cobb, “the butcher of Woodside,” a simple minded backwoods guy with a serious mother problem. At one point he digs up his mother’s grave. He skins a woman alive, talks to mummified Corpses and wears a human skin.

“Roberts was very much a loner during the shoot,” Gillen recalls. “He had a strict regimen, and was so perfect for the part that he barely needed to be directed. He was always in character; he assumed the role completely. So from that standpoint, he was easy to work with.”

Blossom also added some amusing improvisational touches to his character. For instance, in one scene the screenplay specified that Ez is eating crackers, peanut butter and chicken while talking to his mother’s corpse. To further enhance the dementia, Blossom came up with the idea of Ezra actually dipping the chicken in the peanut butter during his hilarious soliloquy on the virtues of an obese woman.

You’ve seen that? That was made in Canada. Shot in Oshawa (just outside of Toronto) over a month. I believe I saw it once. I remember it went smoothly and they were very satisfied with a couple of takes. I took it because I needed the money. I wasn’t entirely proud of the script. I found it a funny script though. But I didn’t think it was supposed to be funny when I first read it. The author said to me, ‘Oh yes, you can laugh.” And I thought, “Oh. It was a true story by the way, did you know that? Happened in Wisconsin. Some people liked it. I didn’t.” Blossom used a frequent facial twitch for Ezra. “I think it just came to me and I was pleased with how I looked, so I kept it. The humor just came out of the performance. I was trying to find the truth of the man. I don’t think any murderer thinks, “I’m a murderer and I like it,” I don’t think that’s part of the psyche. It’s more complicated.” – Robert Blossom

LOCATION

Karr wanted to shoot in Ed Gein’s hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin to give it the real feel needed with lots of snow. The town council there told Tom they would never okay it since the town already had enough notoriety over the murders there. Tom then tried other towns in Wisconsin and was basically told to never come back. It was then that he talked to Bob Clark about filming in Ontario, Canada for the tax benefits and because of the snowy resemblance to Wisconsin. “Since it was deer hunting season when the story broke, we needed snow, and the only place we could be sure of having snow was Canada,” Karr explains. According to Gillen, there were several other factors that helped make Deranged a Canadian event. “Bob Clark had an editing deal in Canada at the time (for Deathdream), and he’d also found the Ukrainian film studio where we built most of the sets, along with the farmhouse location. There was also a financial advantage at the time to shooting films in Canada.”

The interiors of Ezra’s house were all constructed within the studio’s walls. For a bar scene, the filmmakers used the basement lounge of the hotel where the cast and crew resided. Other locations included a hardware store (in real life, Gein was convicted of murdering hardware store owner Bernice Worden) and an abandoned farmhouse which was used solely for exteriors. Art director Albert Fisher dressed the Deranged Set based on news reports describing the inside of Gein’s farmhouse, even including such details as the stacks of old crime and girlie magazines which Gein was fond of perusing. “Fisher was brilliant,” Karr raves. “I didn’t provide him with any photos of Gein’s farmhouse, but he came up with something realistic just based on verbal descriptions.”

SPECIAL EFFECTS

Once more, Ormsby employed the help of Tom Savini, this time getting his first solo makeup effects credit. Savini did some incredible work, much of it visible only in the uncut version.

Tom Savini had just come off the set of Deathdream, where he served as Ormsby’s assistant, when he was hired to head the makeup crew on Deranged. Savini was assisted by Ormsby’s friend Jerome Bergson on such tasks as creating a roomful of decomposing bodies and such morbid artifacts as a “belly drum.” “I remember that the weather was extremely cold, and the snow outside the studio door was always red,”

Savini says of the Deranged shoot. “We were constantly mixing up blood in the kitchen, trying out different formulas. Alan suggested adding peanut butter at one point to thicken the blood mixture. Later on, I got a hold of Dick Smith, and I’ve been using his formula ever since.” When asked how he feels now about his work on Deranged, Savini good-naturedly replies, “It looks pretty good. The effects were very crude, but back then I didn’t know any better. Today, if you wanted a body made, you’d order a skeleton and decorate it, but back then we built them out of chicken wire, dowel rods, latex and cotton!”

The most outrageous gore set piece in Deranged occurs when Ezra brings Miss Johnson’s decapitated head back to his home workshop for some Gein-style “repairs.” In a truly jaw-dropping display of grue, the good-natured ghoul shoves a spoon into the dead woman’s eye socket, removes an eyeball, saws off the top of the head, scoops out the brains and crafts a skin mask from the remaining flesh. True. it’s not in good taste, but then again, neither were the Gein crimes themselves…and besides, anyone out to make an exploitation film is not going to be concerned with “good taste.”

Missing for years from prints of the film, the sequence has recently been restored and gives H.G. Lewis a run for his money in the splatter sweepstakes.

“That head was just thick latex molded around a plastic skull with a wig attached to it; I think the brains were made out of Jell-o!” Savini reveals. I can’t believe how crude that stuff was!” Crude, yes, but certainly effective; just try and suppress the nausea when Ma Cobb (Cosette Lee) has an on-camera hemorrhage while the dim-witted Ez attempts to spoon pea soup into her blood-spewing maw. This particular scene was accomplished in one take using a simple rubber-hose rig attached to an off-camera blood pump.

Bob Clark Interview

There’s a lot of confusion around your next project, Deranged. You’ve been listed in the credits as producer, producer and director and not listed at all.

CLARK:: Alan directed it and I produced it. But I decided to take my name off it. It was too good. It was so real and so horrible as it was played.

But you liked it?

CLARK:: I thought the look of the film was remarkably good. We were going for a Police Gazette look and I think we achieved it.

What exactly prompted you to take your name off it?

CLARK:: It was based on Ed Gein, the man who was also the basis for Psycho. In Deranged you feel for this character because he doesn’t know he’s murdering people. He thinks he’s killing and skinning deer, and you see that in the film. That’s where I had trouble with the film. You feel for him. It’s chilling, because when he kills and mutilates people, you do feel something for him. It was too much. The film is Alan Ormsby at his drollest, it’s got some brilliant black, black comedy in it. But the end of the film is absolutely brutal, to the point where I was quite horrified personally.

The film’s climax, wherein our hero hunts down a young woman at length and then kills and disembowels her was originally going to be intercut with shots of a deer being gutted to establish the fact that Gein was a schizophrenic, who believed that the human meat he ate (and reportedly gave to his neighbors as Xmas presents) was venison.

Was the ending changed?

CLARK:: There were supposed to be subliminal shots of the deer being gutted, with shots of the girl, to show what the murderer saw. But we couldn’t get a deer. We simply couldn’t get one and we weren’t willing to get someone to shoot one. We tried to get one that had been hit by a car. That ending would have softened it considerably for me. It would have shown his state of mind. A deer to him was no different. As it is, it’s considerably more horrible. Robert Blossom also did a marvelous job with the character, so that makes it even worse.

Without that device to soften the finale’s disturbing tone, and the fact that the audience winds up sympathizing, even liking the lead character, unsettled Bob enough to take his name off the credits. To avoid much confusion once and for all, Alan wrote the film and directed it with Clark regular, Jeff Gillen and Bob produced with Tom Karr.

Did it do well when it was released?

CLARK:: Not really. It was just too horrible for people. AIP released it. But I didn’t want to be associated with it. Actually, Vincent Canby (of the New York Times) did a review of that film. He saw the film and thought, where did that movie come from? He talked about the consciousness behind the film, which is interesting because clearly the film works on several levels.

POST PRODUCTION

The filmmakers also saved money by relentlessly using the same piece of droning music (“The Old Rugged Cross”) over numerous scenes in the movie. While this may seem nerve-racking to some viewers, it adds to the general tone of gonzo American Gothic which pervades the entire film.

“Carl Zittrer did the music for Deranged,” Gillen recalls, “and was also working on the soundtrack for Deathdream, which Bob Clark was editing. I think it was actually Carl who said, ‘Let’s use “The Old Rugged Cross,” which influenced us a lot. There was quite a bit of that going on with our group; everybody made suggestions.”

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Lobby Cards

Deranged’s credits list no editor which points to some behind-the scenes confusion. “Alan and I thought we were going to edit the film,” Gillen says. “We went back to Toronto after the movie was done. But for a number of reasons, it was made difficult for us to stay in Canada, and we left.” Ultimately, it was Clark who took over the final cut of Deranged. “Bob and I had a falling out at some point, and I left,” Ormsby recalls. “We disagreed about how the editing should be done. He cut some stuff out, and one of the reasons he gave me was that it was too good for the movie. So I was locked out of the final cut.

DISTRIBUTION

Karr’s early attempts to sell Deranged to distributors didn’t result in immediate success. “I took the film to LA, and brought it to (exploitation legend) Joe Solomon, who had just had a big success with Evel Knievel,” the producer recalls. “Solomon and I went to a screening room, where he taught me one of my first lessons in selling a film: He only wanted to see the first and the last reel. I remember thinking that I wasn’t sure if I should be insulted by that or not, but I brought the two reels up to the projection booth. Joe sat down with a big cigar, and after watching the beginning and end, he said it was too rough for him. That was the end of Joe Solomon,”

Solomon was not the only Hollywood huckster to be repulsed by the film’s graphic content, as Karr recalls. “I remember showing Deranged to a guy at the William Morris Agency in hopes of getting myself an agent,” he says. “And this guy was talking on the phone in the screening room while watching the movie. When the scene came up where Ezra scoops the brains out of the severed head, he put his hand over the telephone receiver, turned to me and said, I can’t believe what I’m seeing!’ Then he went back to his phone conversation. So that’s your typical William Morris agent, a guy who can talk on the phone and watch a movie at the same time!”

Other distributors who passed on Deranged included Crown International and Fanfare. Eventually. Karr was able to attract the interest of American International Pictures, who released the film in February 1974. Deranged went out to theaters with an R rating, which meant the removal of the infamous dissection scene and the trimming down of Ezra’s antics with Mary Ransom (minor blood and nudity).

CREDITS

Directed by Jeff Gillen/Alan Ormsby

Produced by Tom Karr

Written by Alan Ormsby

Starring

Roberts Blossom

Cosette Lee

Leslie Carlson

Robert Warner

Music by Carl Zittrer

REFERENCES and SOURCES

Psychotronic Video 14

Fangoria 131

Wikipedia

Bob Clark Director Profile Part Three SUMMARY Ezra Cobb lives with his mother in an unidentified region of the Midwest. His mother, a religious fanatic, has indoctrinated him since childhood to hate women.

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patriotsnet · 3 years ago

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How Often Does Joe Manchin Vote With Republicans

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How Often Does Joe Manchin Vote With Republicans

The West Virginia Senator Was Cozy With Trump For Political Reasons But Hes Less Of An Obstacle To An Ambitious Agenda Than An Organized Gang Of Senate Moderates

But, honestly, negotiating with Manchin may not be as difficult as liberals fear. A much more worrying alternative is not just possible but may be taking shape at this very moment.

Stop The Steal Unfolding In Plain Sight

But you know who would gladly use a wacked out video clip to contest a free and fair election? Republican state legislators, local officials and members of Congress.

Faced with what Ari Berman, author of the book “Give Us The Ballot,” calls a concerted attempt to end the second Reconstruction, whats Manchin thinking about?

How Does The John Lewis Act Differ From The For The People Act

Despite Manchins Continued Demands For Voter Id Rules And Against Mail

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., nevertheless admonished the proposal as an illicit attempt to advantage Democrats in elections.

Joe Manchin Opposes Voting Rights Bill And Defends Filibuster In Blow To Democrats

Senator key to progress cites Republican opposition as reason

Many Democrats see the bill as essential to counter efforts by Republicans in state government to restrict access to the ballot and to make it more easy to overturn election results.

It would also present voters with a forceful answer to Donald Trumps continued lies about electoral fraud, which the former president rehearsed in a speech in North Carolina on Saturday.

Manchins op-ed might as well be titled, Why Ill vote to preserve Jim Crow

Havent you empowered Republicans to be obstructionists? Wallace asked.

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Im with him sometimes more than other Republican senators are with him, Manchin said.

Summing up his predicament, Manchin said, Washington Democrats are making it more difficult for me to be a West Virginia Democrat.

Joe Biden Wrong About Voting Records Of Joe Manchin Kyrsten Sinema

If Your Time is short

Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema support the continued use of the Senates filibuster rule. This stance imperils the prospects for key elements of Bidens agenda.

However, on actual votes taken in the Senate, both Manchin and Sinema supported Bidens position 100% of the time.

In a speech marking 100 years since a race massacre in Tulsa, President Joe Biden gave a rhetorical nudge to two senators hed like to see greater support from.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., surrounded by reporters at the Capitol on May 26, 2021.

However, in his Tulsa remarks, Biden was wrong to say that Manchin and Sinema or any other Senate Democrat, for that matter “voted more” with Republicans than with Biden.

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Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., outside the Capitol on Feb. 5, 2020.

Joe Manchins Hard No On Voting Bill Leaves Democrats Seeking New Path

The West Virginia senator has stated, in an op-ed, that he will not back the For the People Act unless it has bipartisan support

That detente effectively ended on Sunday, when Manchin authored an op-ed making it clear he will not vote for the bill, leaving Democrats to find a new path forward that is, if there is one at all.

The Middle Ground Could Be Found

Manchins upbringing centered on understanding and hard work.

Manchin Goes Full Maga

The vulnerable West Virginia Democrat is embracing Donald Trump, figuratively and literally: We just kind of do the man-bump type thing.

06/06/2018 04:02 AM EDT

RANSON, W.Va. Joe Manchin wants you to know he really likes Donald Trump.

The president recently mocked Manchin in front of the Senate GOP caucus as trying to hug him all the time only a slight exaggeration, by Manchins telling.

We just kind of do the man-bump type thing. Thats it. And I think hes pulling me as much as Im pulling him, Manchin said in describing his physical embraces with the president.

Can The John Lewis Act Conceivably Get Through Congress Without Being Filibustered

This piece has been updated.

Joe Manchin Was Never A Mystery

Its always been pretty obvious who he is: a middle-of-the-road guy with good electoral instincts, decent intentions, and bad ideas.

About the author: David A. Graham is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

Why Democrats Were Desperate To Win Joe Manchin’s Vote For An Already

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large

On Tuesday night, the “For the People” Act will fail.

Whats In It For Republicans

That said, Manchins proposal does include a few ideas that may prove enticing to some GOP senators.

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The Pressure Of Legacy

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