#jefferson has my vote

[bereft-of-frogs]

well friends, I am down to the last 2 Expanse books. At current pace, I'd say I'm about 2-3 weeks away from finishing them. We are now in 'post-series crash damage control mode' aka, I am at grave risk of crashing into a slump and being unable to pick anything else up, or getting stuck in a spiral where I just cycle back to Leviathan Wakes and start all over again'.

...who am I kidding....I've already done that lol, sometimes when I'm trying to pace myself I'll backtrack to favorite sections of past books when I need an audiobook for chores or something. I have a problem. This is slightly helped I WILL get to cycle back to the start when I finally start the show, but my audiobook listening time is in peril of becoming me just spinning my wheels because I can't let go. This has happened before, I know myself too well. XD

So in the interest of keeping the momentum going and not absolutely crashing into a slump, I've already selected my next audiobook series: Murderbot! I read the first one a couple years ago but at that time the wait times at the library were obscene so I never got to the second. But I think I should be able to make the audiobooks work without waiting crazy long in between entries. Feels timely, I doubt I'll get through them all before the new show premieres but I should be able to make some headway.

BUT the question is now: regular narration or full-cast audio? Both are available to me with no difference in cost/wait time, I could really pick either.

It seems like Murderbot is an active and opinionated fanbase, is there a consensus on which version is better for a (mostly) first time listener?

thank you in advance murderbot fandom 👍

[fwitolei]

GUYS

i don’t think anyone’s done this and I NEED SOMEONE TO DO THIS

ELECTION OF 1800 BUT IT’S TRUMP, KAMALA, AND RFK—

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Scientific American endorses Harris

TONIGHT (October 23) at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, GEORGIA, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

If Trump's norm-breaking is a threat to democracy (and it is), what should Democrats do? Will breaking norms to defeat norms only accelerate the collapse of norms, or do we fight fire with fire, breaking norms to resist the slide into tyranny?

Writing for The American Prospect, Rick Perlstein writes how "every time the forces of democracy broke a reactionary deadlock, they did it by breaking some norm that stood in the way":

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-10-23-science-is-political/

Take the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, and the Reconstruction period that followed it. As Jefferson Cowie discusses, the 13th only passed because the slave states were excluded from its ratification, and even then, it barely squeaked over the line. The Congress that passed reconstruction laws that "radically reconstructed [slave states] via military subjugation" first ejected all the representatives of those states:

https://newrepublic.com/article/182383/defend-liberalism-lets-fight-democracy-first

The New Deal only exists because FDR was on the verge of packing the Supreme Court, and, under this threat, SCOTUS stopped ruling against FDR's plans:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/20/judicial-equilibria/#pack-the-court

The passage of progressive laws – "the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, and Medicaid" – are all thanks to JFK's gambit of packing the House Rules Committee, ending the obstructionist GOP members' use of the committee to kill anything that would protect or expand America's already fragile social safety net.

As Perlstein writes, "A willingness to judiciously break norms in a civic emergency can be a sign of a healthy and valorous democratic resistance."

And yet…the Democratic establishment remains violently allergic to norm-breaking. Perlstein recalls the 2018 book How Democracies Die, much beloved of party elites and Obama himself, which argued that norms are the bedrock of democracy, and so the pro-democratic forces undermine their own causes when they fight reactionary norm-breaking with their own.

The tactic of bringing a norm to a gun-fight has been a disaster for democracy. Trump wasn't the first norm-shattering Republican – think of GWB and his pals stealing the 2000 election, or Mitch McConnell stealing a Supreme Court seat for Gorsuch – but Trump's assault on norms is constant, brazen and unapologetic. Progressives need to do more than weep on the sidelines and demand that Republicans play fair.

The Democratic establishment's response is to toe every line, seeking to attract "moderate conservatives" who love institutions more than they love tax giveaways to billionaires. This is a very small constituency, nowhere near big enough to deliver the legislative majorities, let alone the White House. As Perlstein says, Obama very publicly rejected calls to be "too liberal" and tiptoed around anti-racist policy, in a bid to prevent a "racist backlash" (Obama discussed race in public less than any other president since the 1950s). This was a hopeless, ridiculous own-goal: Perlstein points out that even before Obama was inaugurated, there were more than 100 Facebook groups calling for his impeachment. The racist backlash was inevitable had nothing to do with Obama's policies. The racist backlash was driven by Obama's race.

Luckily, some institutions are getting over their discomfort with norm-breaking and standing up for democracy. Scientific American the 179 year-old bedrock of American scientific publication, has endorsed Harris for President, only the second such endorsement in its long history:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vote-for-kamala-harris-to-support-science-health-and-the-environment/

Predictably, this has provoked howls of outrage from Republicans and a debate within the scientific community. Science is supposed to be apolitical, right?

Wrong. The conservative viewpoint, grounded in discomfort with ambiguity ("there are only two genders," etc) is antithetical to the scientific viewpoint. Remember the early stages of the covid pandemic, when science's understanding of the virus changed from moment to moment? Major, urgent recommendations (not masking, disinfecting groceries) were swiftly overturned. This is how science is supposed to work: a hypothesis can only be grounded in the evidence you have in hand, and as new evidence comes in that changes the picture, you should also change your mind.

Conservatives hated this. They claimed that scientists were "flip-flopping" and therefore "didn't know anything." Many concluded that the whole covid thing was a stitch-up, a bid to control us by keeping us off-balance with ever-changing advice and therefore afraid and vulnerable. This never ended: just look at all the weirdos in the comments of this video of my talk at last summer's Def Con who are absolutely freaking out about the fact that I wore a mask in an enclosed space with 5,000 people from all over the world in it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EmstuO0Em8

This intolerance for following the evidence is a fixture in conservative science denialism. How many times have you heard your racist Facebook uncle grouse about how "scientists used to say the world was getting colder, now they say it's getting hotter, what the hell do they know?"

Perlstein points to other examples of this. For example, in the 1980s, conservatives insisted that the answer to the AIDS crisis was to "just stop having 'illicit sex,'" a prescription that was grounded in a denial of AIDS science, because scientists used to say that it was a gay disease, then they said you could get it from IV drug use, or tainted blood, or from straight sex. How could you trust scientists when they can't even make up their minds?

https://www.newspapers.com/image/379364219/?terms=babies&match=1

There certainly are conservative scientists. But the right has a "fundamentally therapeutic discourse…conservatism never fails, it is only failed." That puts science and conservativism in a very awkward dance with one another.

Sometimes, science wins. Continuing in his history of the AIDS crisis, Perlstein talks about the transformation of Reagan's Surgeon General, C Everett Koop. Koop was an arch-conservative's arch-conservative. He was a hard-right evangelical who had "once suggested homosexuals were sedulously recruiting boys into their cult to help them take over America once they came of voting age." He'd also called abortion "the slide to Auschwitz" – which was weird, because he'd also opined that the "Jews had it coming for refusing to accept Jesus Christ."

You'd expect Koop to have continued the Reagan administration's de facto AIDS policy ("queers deserve to die"), but that's not what happened. After considering the evidence, Koop mailed a leaflet to every home in the USA advocating for condom use.

Koop was already getting started. His harm-reduction advocacy made him a national hero, so Reagan couldn't fire him. A Reagan advisor named Gary Bauer teamed up with Dinesh D'Souza on a mission to get Koop back on track. They got him a new assignment: investigate the supposed psychological harms of abortion, which should be a slam-dunk for old Doc Auschwitz. Instead, Koop published official findings – from the Reagan White House – that there was no evidence for these harms, and which advised women with an AIDS diagnosis to consider abortion.

So sometimes, science can triumph over conservativism. But it's far more common for conservativism to trump science. The most common form of this is "eisegesis," where someone looks at a "pile of data in order to find confirmation in it of what they already 'know' to be true." Think of those anti-mask weirdos who cling to three studies that "prove" masks don't work. Or the climate deniers who have 350 studies "proving" climate change isn't real. Eisegesis proves ivermectin works, that vaccinations are linked to autism, and that water fluoridation is a Communist plot. So long as you confine yourself to considering evidence that confirms your beliefs, you can prove anything.

Respecting norms is a good rule of thumb, but it's a lousy rule. The politicization of science starts with the right's intolerance for ambiguity – not Scientific American's Harris endorsement.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/22/eisegesis/#norm-breaking

[deadpresidents]

If you don't mind me asking, who is your favorite president? What about your least favorite?

My favorite is Lyndon B. Johnson. Besides LBJ, while I enjoy reading and learning about all of the Presidents, I tend to find the more obscure Presidents more interesting. I wouldn't necessarily call them my "favorites", but I do tend to enjoy discovering more about Presidents like Franklin Pierce, Chester Arthur, James Garfield, etc. If you go through my archives, you'll find more pieces about the least-known Presidents than the most well-known -- especially when it comes to Pierce, who I have written about frequently. The first thing that I wrote about Presidential history and shared publicly was a short piece in 2004 for a website the New Hampshire Historical Society had created for the bicentennial of Franklin Pierce's birth. After years of studying the Presidents, I just feel like I learn more new things about the obscure Presidents as opposed to, say, George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln, who I feel like everybody already knows so much about. Over the past two or three years, I've also started to really like and appreciate Gerald Ford even more than I previously did. John Quincy Adams has always been near the top of the list, too.

As for least favorite, I think it's pretty clear that it's Donald Trump. I'm guessing that is the default answer for most people (well...I guess "most people" other than the 77 million+ American idiots who voted to send him back to the White House). Other than Trump, I'm not a big fan of Woodrow Wilson. I understand that he was an important President and some historians even argue that he was a great President (I do not -- I think he's tremendously overrated), but I don't enjoy reading about him. In 2013, Pulitzer Prize-winning author A. Scott Berg wrote an excellent biography about him that is simply titled Wilson (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) and easily it's in the top tier of all-time Presidential biographies. I'm glad it exists, I would recommend that everybody check it out if they get the opportunity, and I'm glad that I read it because it gives me the excuse to skip other Wilson books since Berg's biography is such a definitive work.

[kingoftheclaudes]

Propaganda

Senator Joseph Harrison Paine (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) - Every time I watch this movie, I feel such a rush of good feelings. There are so many wonderful characters in this film but I adore watching Senator Paine every second he's on screen. He's such a tragic character too and we see his hesitation about turning on Jefferson. These people he's worked with, the little guys, were the people he's built his platform on. That Academy Award nomination was so well-deserved and I'm disappointed he never got much more than a nod. I'm also upset that the film cut out the ending portion of the script where Jefferson sees Paine and invites him to walk in the parade with him and brings him home for dinner. Pledge your vote for Paine!

Dr. Jack Griffin (The Invisible Man) - He may be an invisible loser but he's MY invisible loser! He's my favorite Universal Monster and just a whole lotta growling energy packed into a small package. I love his laugh and his soft moments when he's with Flora. It really brings a sense of humanity to a "monster" and those thirty seconds he's "visible" gave me a "Oh, no! He's hot!" reaction. His monologues pop off and he can do so much with his voice, going from 0 to 100 in a millisecond. Not to mention, I think he has the highest kill count for a Universal Monster, which is surprising. I guess only an invisible English dude with a vendetta is more powerful than Dracula, haha!

This is round three for The King of the Claudes tournament and other matchups can be found here!

Additional Propaganda under the cut!

Senator Joseph Harrison Paine

This movie honestly means so much to me and it was one of the first "serious" movies I watched as a kid. Claude's performance is delightful and heartwarming. I see the love he has for Jeff throughout and those little moments of 'I care about this kid' sprinkled through make it all the much realer.

Dr. Jack Griffin

I like my men how I like my science experiments - crazy. He's an unhinged little freak with a huge ego and a penchant for stripping and terrorizing small English villages. He's a delight to watch and I'm so happy he kicked off his movie career with such a banger and without this role, I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't remember what a great actor he was.

[mx-heinous]

So I Wanna Talk About Jefferson

If he ever shows up, I think he would be such a petty bitch cuz LOOK

He's like, if California and Oregon had a rebellious kid that absolutely hates their guts. Typical child of divorce. Keep in mind that this is his official flag, and it's practically screaming, "Hello, backstabbers :)"

California (begrudgingly) has main custody while Oregon gets weekends.

Just straight up declares himself the 49th state. The thing that gets me here is the fact that he literally just... seceded every Thursday. Ah yes, what a perfectly normal mundane activity to schedule.

Jefferson: Wha'd'ya mean I can't go to the meeting?! It's Thursday, so I'm a state!

California: Seceding weekly does not legally make you a state

Jefferson: I don't have to listen to you! You're not my dad >:(

And when they were going to vote on whether to make him a state, goddamn Pearl Harbor of all things happen.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Steve Brodner

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 24, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 25, 2024

Tonight, President Joe Biden explained to the American people why he decided to refuse the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination and hand the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris. 

Speaking from the Oval Office from his seat behind the Resolute Desk, a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880, Biden recalled the nation’s history. He invoked Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence; George Washington, who “showed us presidents are not kings”; Abraham Lincoln, who “implored us to reject malice”; and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who “inspired us to reject fear.”

And then he turned to himself. “I revere this office, but I love my country more,” he said. “It’s been the honor of my life to serve as your president.” But, he said, the defense of democracy is more important than any title, and democracy is “larger than any one of us.” We must unite to protect it. 

“In recent weeks, it has become clear to me that I need to unite my party in this critical endeavor,” he said. “I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future, all merited a second term. But nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition. So I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. It’s the best way to unite our nation.”

There is “a time and a place for long years of experience in public life,” Biden said. “There’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now.”

Biden reminded listeners that he is not leaving the presidency and will be continuing to use its power for the American people. In outlining what that means, he summed up his presidency. 

For the next six months, he said, he will “continue to lower costs for hard-working families [and] grow our economy. I will keep defending our personal freedoms and civil rights, from the right to vote to the right to choose. I will keep calling out hate and extremism, making it clear there is…no place in America for political violence or any violence ever, period. I’m going to keep speaking out to protect our kids from gun violence [and] our planet from [the] climate crisis.”

Biden reiterated his support for his Cancer Moonshot to end cancer—a personal cause for him since the 2015 death of his son Beau from brain cancer—and says he will fight for it, (although House Republicans have recently slashed funding for the program). He said he will call for reforming the Supreme Court “because this is critical to our democracy.”

He promised to continue “working to ensure America remains strong, secure and the leader of the free world,” and pointed out that he is “the first president of this century to report to the American people that the United States is not at war anywhere in the world.” He promised to continue rallying a coalition of nations to stop Putin’s attempt to take over Ukraine, and vowed to continue to build the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He reminded listeners that when he took office, the conventional wisdom was that China would inevitably surpass the United States, but that is no longer the case, and he said he would continue to strengthen allies and partners in the Pacific. 

Biden promised to continue to work to “end the war in Gaza, bring home all the hostages and bring peace and security to the Middle East and end this war,” as well as “to bring home Americans being unjustly detained all around the world.”

The president reminded people how far the nation has come since he took office on January 20, 2021, a day when, although he didn’t mention it tonight, he went directly to work after taking the oath of office. “On that day,” he recalled, “we…stood in a winter of peril and winter of possibilities.” The United States was “in the grip of the worst pandemic in the century, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.” But, Biden said, “We came together as Americans. We got through it. We emerged stronger, more prosperous and more secure.”

“Today we have the strongest economy in the world, creating nearly 16 million new jobs—a record. Wages are up, inflation continues to come down, the racial wealth gap is the lowest it’s been in 20 years. We are literally rebuilding our entire nation—urban, suburban and rural and tribal communities. Manufacturing has come back to America. We are leading the world again in chips and science and innovation. We finally beat Big Pharma after all these years to lower the cost of prescription drugs for seniors…. More people have health care today in America than ever before.” Biden noted that he signed the PACT Act to help millions of veterans and their families who were exposed to toxic materials, as well as the “most significant climate law…in the history of the world” and “the first major gun safety law in 30 years.”

The “violent crime rate is at a 50-year low,” he said, and “[b]order crossings are lower today than when the previous administration left office. I’ve kept my commitment to appoint the first Black woman to the Supreme Court of the United States of America. I also kept my commitment to have an administration that looks like America and [to] be a president for all Americans.”

Then Biden turned from his own record to the larger meaning of America.

“I ran for president four years ago because I believed…that the soul of America was at stake,” he said. “America is an idea. An idea stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, more powerful than any dictator or tyrant. It’s the most powerful idea in the history of the world.” 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” he said. “We are all created equal, endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. We’ve never fully lived up to…this sacred idea—but we’ve never walked away from it either. And I do not believe the American people will walk away from it now.

“In just a few months, the American people will choose the course of America’s future. I made my choice…. “[O]ur great vice president, Kamala Harris… is experienced, she is tough, she is capable. She’s been an incredible partner to me and a leader for our country.

“Now the choice is up to you, the American people. When you make that choice, remember the words of Benjamin Franklin hanging on my wall here in the Oval Office, alongside the busts of Dr. [Martin Luther] King and Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez. When Ben Franklin was asked, as he emerged from the [constitutional] convention…, whether the founders [had] given America a monarchy or a republic, Franklin’s response was: ‘A republic, if you can keep it.’... Whether we keep our republic is now in your hands.” 

“My fellow Americans, it’s been the privilege of my life to serve this nation for over 50 years,” President Biden told the American people. “Nowhere else on Earth could a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and in Claymont, Delaware, one day sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office as the president of the United States, but here I am.

“That’s what’s so special about America. We are a nation of promise and possibilities. Of dreamers and doers. Of ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things. I’ve given my heart and my soul to our nation, like so many others. And I’ve been blessed a million times in return with the love and support of the American people. I hope you have some idea how grateful I am to all of you.

The great thing about America is, here kings and dictators do not rule—the people do. History is in your hands. The power’s in your hands. The idea of America lies in your hands. You just have to keep faith—keep the faith—and remember who we are. We are the United States of America, and there is simply nothing, nothing beyond our capacity when we do it together. So let’s act together, [and] preserve our democracy. God bless you all and may God protect our troops. 

“Thank you.”

And with that, President Joe Biden followed the example of the nation’s first president, George Washington, who declined to run for a third term to demonstrate that the United States of America would not have a king, and of its second president, John Adams, who handed the power of the presidency over to his rival Thomas Jefferson and thus established the nation’s tradition of the peaceful transition of power. Like them, Biden gave up the pursuit of power for himself in order to demonstrate the importance of democracy. 

After the speech, the White House served ice cream to the Bidens and hundreds of White House staffers in the Rose Garden.

And when the evening was over, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden posted an image of a handwritten note on social media. It read: “To those who never wavered, to those who refused to doubt, to those who always believed, my heart is full of gratitude. Thank you for the trust you put in Joe—now it’s time to put that trust in Kamala.” 

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[mammon-reblogzz]

oh

IF I GO MISSING YOU KNOW WHERE I AM

[cmfr7423]

hamiltons "the election of 1800" is so fucking funny to me like

people: "how are you voting?"

hamilton, glancing from side to side: "it's quiet uptown..."

people: "hammy how are you voting"

hamilton, stepping away: "ITS QUIET UPTOWN..."

man knows he's gonna cause issues™️and he's TRYING TO AVOID IT BUT MY GOD THE CHAOS IS SO TEMPTING AND-

"Thomas Jefferson has my vote."

~A. Ham

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Marisa Kabas at The Handbasket:

Principal Jaime Cook describes one of the third graders in her northern New York school as particularly rambunctious. In a phone call with me Saturday evening, she says this particular student loves to sing and loves to dance. But last week this child was handcuffed and taken by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), along with other family members—two of whom are high school-aged kids. While they all remain jailed in Texas, classmates leave cards on the student’s desk and hang a welcome home banner they hope will be seen. As people across the country assembled Saturday to tell the Trump regime to keep their “Hands off!”, a protest in the tiny town of Sackets Harbor, NY caught my eye. While this one was certainly related to the larger theme of the day, the impetus was much more specific: A worker on a local dairy farm who had no criminal record and was awaiting legal immigration proceedings was disappeared late last month by ICE along with her three children. Agents were executing a search warrant for an unrelated suspected criminal who lived on the same block, and somehow the family was swept up and whisked away to Texas. And around 1,000 people came together this weekend to rally for their safe return and to send a message that this won’t be tolerated there—or anywhere. “There was the concern in our little small town that if we speak out too loudly, there might be hateful voices from far away,” Cook tells The Handbasket. She wonders: “Are we gonna become the center of something that becomes really ugly?” But ultimately she and her staff decided anything less than loud and unwavering support was unacceptable. And as a result, the rest of the country has taken notice. The town of 1,300 people has just one school for all children K-12 where they graduate approximately 40 students each year. It’s an affluent and idyllic-looking town on the shores of Lake Ontario in a county that voted 61% for Trump in 2024. And when protesters marched down the streets in solidarity with their stolen neighbors, they made sure to pass by the home of one community member in particular: Tom Homan, Trump’s Border Czar. Homan grew up nearby and still has his primary residence in Sackets Harbor, presumably splitting time in DC to spearhead Trump’s campaign of terrorizing immigrants.  “This isn't like a situation where a politician has multiple houses,” Cook told me. “Tom Homan lives in Sackets Harbor. I believe that in the hours when this was unfolding, he was receiving a lot of calls on his personal cell phone.” In anticipation of Saturday’s march, the Mayor of Sackets Harbor declared a state of emergency. Law enforcement officials from the village police department, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, state police, and state park police were all called to the gathering to remind protesters of what they would face if they put a toe out of line. Cook has spent the past 10 days worried sick about her students in the 3rd, 10th and 11th grades at her school. Saturday morning she posted a statement on Facebook addressing the situation head on:

[...]

The contrast between Homan and Cook couldn’t be more stark. Cook says she grew up on welfare and food stamps and says that being “disempowered” and “discarded by the system” has always helped her empathize with people in peril. I tell her that her Facebook statement and comments to a reporter at the protest have people online hailing her as a hero. Then I ask her how she feels about that characterization.  “I think that's silly,” she says. “I think anybody who's been a public school teacher knows that people are doing this stuff all day long. And I think that the only reason that people might think that this is out of the ordinary is because educators are so frequently underestimated and their contribution is not seen for what it is.” Cook is tackling the situation boldly, despite having only been principal in Sackets Harbor for less than one school year. The California native has lived in the area for 15 years and says the community has welcomed her with open arms—which has made it easier to feel empowered to speak up. “You just gotta put your money where your mouth is and you gotta live by your conscience,” she says, “and you gotta know that your livelihood cannot overpower your conscience.” The school has been in touch with ICE since the family’s arrest, and Cook says she feels hopeful about the chances of them being home soon. She says one of her teachers who has been the immigration agency’s main point of contact has been waiting for “the call” letting them know the family is free to go, and believes that call is imminent. But even once they’re freed, ICE will do nothing to transport them back to the home from which they were snatched. Fortunately the town has come together to make sure there are people on the ground in Texas waiting to accompany the family when the time hopefully comes.  "They can rally and protest all they want, but I'm not gonna be bullied. I'm not gonna be intimidated,” Homan told the local news prior to Saturday’s rally. Meanwhile, Sackets Harbor 10th graders leave flowers on their jailed classmate’s desk in hopes of a safe return.

Seeing ICE haul away three children and their mother in Sackets Harbor, NY to a concentration camp down in Texas is an abomination. It’s also an excellent case for ICE to be abolished. #AbolishICE

[leohtttbriar]

Letters from an American

H. C. Richardson (Oct 24)

[...] And then there are the Republican voters, some of whom are abandoning the MAGA Republicans who are now openly embracing fascism. Today, Republican state senator Rob Cowles of Green Bay, Wisconsin, who has served for almost 42 years, announced he would vote for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. David Holt, the Republican mayor of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, also indicated he would be casting his ballot for Harris. In 1880, when the Democrats went off the extremist cliff, voters forced it to move to the center. In 1879, after the bitterly contested 1876 election, voters gave Democrats control of Congress. So convinced were Democrats that the American people backed their determination to overthrow Reconstruction, they refused to fund the government unless Republican president Rutherford B. Hayes pulled the federal government out of the southern states. (They also tried to get a federal pension for Confederate president Jefferson Davis.) “If this is not revolution,” Civil War veteran House minority leader James A. Garfield (R-OH) said, “which if persisted in will destroy the government, [then] I am wholly wrong in my conception of both the word and the thing.”  Observers had expected the 1880 election to be a romp for the Democrats, who reiterated their demands in their party platform, but voters backed Garfield’s defense of the country and of Black rights and elected him to the White House.  The unexpected loss prompted the Democrats to toss aside their former Confederate leaders and shift toward the northern cities. For president in 1884 they backed former New York governor Grover Cleveland, who had broadened Black appointments to office and desegregated the New York City police force, and who had worked closely with New York Assembly minority leader Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, to reform the worst abuses of the industrial system. Cleveland won with the help of significant numbers of crossover Republican voters, dubbed “Mugwumps,” thereby securing the roots of the modern Democratic Party.

[mcondance]

no like y'all rlly don't understand. burr’s journey with hamilton is insane. from burr’s initial reluctance to even associate himself with hamilton.. to their "friendship" — which wasn't even a friendship at all, the two could barely stand each other. to burr's jealous introduction of him in "a winter's ball" after washington brushed him off to speak to hamilton.. "how does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore, go on and on, grow into more of a phenomenon, watch this obnoxious, arrogant, loudmouth bother be seated at the right hand of the father... but hamilton still wants to fight, not write". burr is clearly upset that washington chose this unpredictable brat over him. his confusion at hamilton's insistence to fight.. the double meaning of "not write / right". their relationship is a thinly veiled rivalry at best, and a long history of hatred at worst.

hatred on burr's side, at least. i don't think hamilton even knows the hate that he caused to fester in burr's heart, i think he sees it all as another game, another mountain to climb, another challenge to conquer. he sees it as fun; burr sees it as anything but. while hamilton sees them as friends, burr sees hamilton as the man who has everything he wants, but takes it for granted. burr hates hamilton from the beginning, though he tries to hide it.

it's there from the beginning, from his introduction of alexander. we as the viewer don't know their history, so we take it as a regular introduction, just the way it was written. but then the introduction changes; he's a bother, he's arrogant, he's a bastard, he's a whoreson. the introduction's tone becomes angrier, whether burr realizes it or not.

in scenes where burr and hamilton jest with each other, there's an obvious energy imbalance. like i said, hamilton sees burr as a friend, and burr sees alexander as anything but. perhaps the festering envy and hatred influences burr's interactions with hamilton, makes him see hamilton as a threat while hamilton sees him as a friend.

that's another problem, i think. i think burr knew hamilton didn't take him seriously. burr is fully aware that he is just another joke to alexander, that the best he can do for him is help him with the constitution. he knows hamilton does not see him as an equal. hamilton sees him as a scared man, a man who’s too weak to take what he wants.

and when hamilton votes for "thomas jefferson, his enemy, a man he's despised since the beginning" for those reasons, burr cannot handle it. how dare hamilton make him into a joke again? how dare hamilton think he knows him? how dare hamilton, of all people, tell him that he has no beliefs?

how dare hamilton belittle him once again.

everything that was building up throughout the play— remember, burr’s focus in “washington on your side” was standing up to hamilton’s mouth, because of his personal reasons, not like jefferson and adams — comes to a head. the festering hatred eats him up and leaves a shell of a man, or rather, he becomes hatred. burr becomes rage.

he is a man who’s watched someone he deems as irresponsible and unworthy take everything he feels he deserves from him. he is a man who’s tried to befriend and mentor this brat, only to become his lesser. he is a man who has finally snapped. when hamilton utters the words “jefferson has my vote,” burr is defeated. once again, hamilton has snatched something away from from him, for a reason hamilton believes is right, for a reason burr sees as hamilton taking him for a fool.

alexander does not take burr serious. burr is tired. he’s tired of being treating as lesser by a man he sees as lesser. he finally cracks.

[brb-on-a-quest]

Well im back now and I have found my history notebook (debating whether I should throw it away but I did a good job decorating it)

so. @igotthisaccountunderduress let me tell you about Aaron Burr.

Aaron burr was an orphan raised by an uncle, went to lawschool, stopped lawschool to fight under benedict arnold (ha. ha. ha. this really shouldn't be that funny but it is -> benedict arnold was a traitor from US to British ppl). He got appointed to George Washingtons personal military cabinet before both men realized they got a long like stray cats (not very well at all) and Burr was transferred to some other not-as-important dude.

Then him and hamilton got Beef (very famously) but this kind of all started when Burr beat out Hamiltons Father In Law in political stuff and then FIL beat out Burr during the next thing so things are all dandy.

And then he got in as vice president under jefferson. How this worked back then (doesn't now) is that whoever got the Most Votes is now in charge and whoever got second most votes is now VP.

As you can imagine this doesn't lead to really great coworker dynamics especially if you and ur boss/vp are like so opposite. Like when Thomas Jefferson was VP to president John Adams, Adams hated Jefferson so much that he didn't let Jeffy have a say in anything. Like thomas Jefferson did one thing once in all the two terms John Adams was in charge I think, idk, it was something rediculous.

But anyway, all this to say, Aaron Burr is now vp under jefferson. And as you can imagine, they do not get along well (Jefferson accused burr of 'secret dealings'). but their differences are mainly due to opposing beliefs on whether we should support or rewrite the constitution fo the united states.

Anyway, time for reelection, Burr doesn't get enough votes for either presidency or VP and he decides to try and get governership of New York where he was actually really popular.

Remember how hamilton didn't really like him becus of burr's political campaign against his FIL? Hammy decides to send a rediculous amount of irl subtweets (derogatory letters) against Burr to get him to lose.

Burr takes this very personal and challenges Hamilton to a duel, stepping from across New York to New Jersey. This is because, although duels were outlawed in both places, penalties were less severe over the border.

Now take this next part with a grain of salt bc it comes direct from the history prof.

Duels were common; but they were never usually fatal. Essentially it was like lukewarm Christians going through the motions on a sunday in church. A lot of the stereotypes still apply. Two people back to back, walked a x amount of feet, turned around and would usually shoot upward or otherwise shoot to miss the target.

Burr was not one of those people. Alledgedly, he told Hamilton he meant to kill him and he didn't care wether hamilton would try to shoot him or not. No one's sure whether hamilton was like "haha bet" and tried to kill him or whether he was like shooting up in the air as the practice usually went. Either way sum of that was Burr: 1 (unharmed), Hamilton: 0 (very much shot due to Burr's word, and died the following day).

Aaron Burr... idk if he didn't think this through but he's now considered a murderer for challenging Hamilton to an agreed-upon duel. So he runs to join his new BFF who is secretly in the pay of pain and wants to take over the US napoleonic style. Burr gets *to into it* to the point BFF turns him into Jefferson. He gets cleared.

he then gets involved with the Essex Junto, an organization in New England, tries to help the secede from the entire country (New England hated US before it was cool to) and then he did the same thing again somewhere in the middle west (I forgot where, sorry Dr. W). He gets away both times because even though Jefferson hates Burr's stupid guts, John Marshall is head of the supreme court (John Marshall also hates Jefferson sees this as a very innocent way to undermine him) and Marshall creates the definition of reason that we still have today that basically says Burr gets off scot free twice because we're not at war so there's no enemy for Burr to be helping.

Burr finally accepts that he is now a persona non grata and fucks back off to NY where he marries a second widow for money (again) and she divorces him on the grounds of adultery. This divorce finally is finalized on the day Aaron Burr dies.

[best-tv-theme-song]

Polls will start to be posted within the next week or so.

Bracket list under the cut!

UPDATE: LIST CANCELLED

*Starred shows have multiple theme songs or I have combined shows in a franchise in an effort to include as much as possible. These will have preliminaries built-into their polls on the first round. This is how it works: 1. all of the songs will go into a poll together against one other show; 2. the COMBINED votes for those songs will determine which show wins that poll; 3. only the top voted song for that show/franchise will move on, if the show has won the poll. (If you are confused it will make more sense when we start, I promise!)

The 100

30 Rock

9-1-1*

The Addams Family

Adventure Time*

The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

All That

The Amazing World of Gumball

American Dragon: Jake Long

Animaniacs

Arcane: League of Legends

Arrested Development

Arthur

Assassination Classroom*

Austin & Ally

The Backyardigans

Barney & Friends

Barry

Batman*

Bear in the Big Blue House

Ben 10*

Better Call Saul

Beverly Hills, 90210

The Big Bang Theory

Big Time Rush

Bill Nye the Science Guy

Black Sails

Bluey

Bob the Builder

Bob's Burgers

BoJack Horseman

Bones

Boy Meets World

The Brady Bunch

Breaking Bad

Bridgerton

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Buffy the Vampire Slayer*

Captain Planet and the Planeteers

Charmed

Cheers

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers

Choo Choo Soul

Code Lyoko

Codename: Kids Next Door

Cold Case

Community

Cory in the House

Cowboy Bebop

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend*

Criminal Minds

CSI*

Cyberchase

Danny Phantom

Daredevil

Dawson's Creek

Death Note*

Desperate Housewives

Detective Conan

Dexter

Dexter's Laboratory

Diff'rent Strokes

Digimon*

Doctor Who*

Dora the Explorer

Downton Abbey

Dragon Ball*

Dragon Tales

Drake & Josh

Ducktales*

ER

Ever After High

The Fairly OddParents

Firefly

The Flintstones

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends

Fraggle Rock

Frasier

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

Friends

Fringe

Full House

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood*

Futurama

Game of Thrones

George Lopez

George of the Jungle

Gilmore Girls

Glee

The Golden Girls

Good Omens

Gravity Falls

Grey's Anatomy

H2O: Just Add Water

Hannah Montana

Hannibal

Happy Days

Hawaii Five-0*

His Dark Materials

Horrible Histories

House, M.D.

How I Met Your Mother

How It's Made

Hunter × Hunter

Huntik: Secrets & Seekers

I Dream of Jeannie

I Love Lucy

iCarly

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

The Jeffersons

Jeopardy!

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure*

Jonas

Justice League

Kim Possible

The Last of Us

Laverne & Shirley

Law & Order*

LazyTown

The Legend of Vox Machina

Leverage

Lilo & Stitch: The Series

Little Einsteins

Lizzie McGuire

Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies

The Love Boat

M*A*S*H

Mad Men

Madoka Magica*

The Magic School Bus

Malcolm in the Middle

The Mandalorian

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Merlin

Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir

Mister Rogers' Neighborhood

Mob Psycho 100

The Monkees

Monster High

The Muppet Show

Murder, She Wrote

Murdoch Mysteries

My Babysitter's a Vampire

My Hero Academia*

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

The Nanny

Naruto*

NCIS

Neon Genesis Evangelion

The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

New Girl

NFL (various network themes)*

Ninjago

The O.C.

The Office

One Day at a Time*

One Piece

Only Murders in the Building

Orange Is the New Black

Ouran High School Host Club

The Owl House

Parks and Recreation

The Partridge Family

Phil of the Future

Phineas and Ferb

Pinky and the Brain

Pippi Longstocking

Pokémon*

Power Rangers

The Powerpuff Girls

Pretty Little Liars

The Price Is Right

The Proud Family

Psych

Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure

Reading Rainbow

Reba

Red Dwarf

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Riverdale

Rugrats

Sabrina the Teenage Witch

Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat

Sailor Moon

Sanford and Son

Saturday Night Live

Schitt's Creek

Scooby-Doo*

Scrubs

Seinfeld

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Sesame Street

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Sherlock

The Simpsons

Smallville

Sofia the First

Sonny with a Chance

The Sopranos

Spider-Man

SpongeBob SquarePants

Star Trek (instrumental themes)*

Star Trek: Enterprise

Star vs. the Forces of Evil

Stargate*

Steven Universe

Stranger Things

Succession

The Suite Life of Zack and Cody*

Suits

Taskmaster

Ted Lasso

Teen Titans

Teen Wolf

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Teletubbies

That '70s Show

That's So Raven

Theory of Love

Thomas & Friends

Tokyo Ghoul

Total Drama

Totally Spies!

Transformers*

True Blood

The Twilight Zone

Twin Peaks

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

VeggieTales

Veronica Mars

Victorious

Voltron: Legendary Defender

W.I.T.C.H.

The Walking Dead

WandaVision*

Welcome Back, Kotter

The West Wing

Westworld

What We Do in the Shadows

The White Lotus

Wild Kratts

Winx Club

The Wire*

The Witcher

Wizards of Waverly Place

Wonder Pets!

Wonder Woman

Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!

The X-Files

Xena: Warrior Princess

Yellowjackets

Yu-Gi-Oh!*

Yuri on Ice

Zoboomafoo

Zoey 101

[misfitwashere]

March 15, 2025

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAR 16

March 15 is a crucially important day in U.S. history As the man who taught me to use a chainsaw said, it is immortalized by Shakespeare’s famous warning: “Cedar! Beware the adze of March!”

He put it that way because the importance of March 15 is, of course, that it is the day in 1820 that Maine, the Pine Tree State, joined the Union.

Maine statehood had national repercussions. The inhabitants of this northern part of Massachusetts had asked for statehood in 1819, but their petition was stopped dead by southerners who refused to permit a free state—one that did not permit human enslavement—to enter the Union without a corresponding “slave state.” The explosive growth of the northern states had already given free states control of the House of Representatives, but the South held its own in the Senate, where each state got two votes. The admission of Maine would give the North the advantage, and southerners insisted that Maine’s admission be balanced with the admission of a southern slave state lest those opposed to slavery use their power in the federal government to restrict enslavement in the South.

They demanded the admission of Missouri to counteract Maine’s two “free” Senate votes.

But this “Missouri Compromise” infuriated northerners, especially those who lived in Maine. They swamped Congress with petitions against admitting Missouri as a slave state, resenting that slave owners in the Senate could hold the state of Maine hostage until they got their way. Tempers rose high enough that Thomas Jefferson wrote to Massachusetts—and later Maine—senator John Holmes that he had for a long time been content with the direction of the country, but that the Missouri question “like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed indeed for the moment, but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence.”

Congress passed the Missouri Compromise, but Jefferson was right to see it as nothing more than a reprieve.

The petition drive that had begun as an effort to keep the admission of Maine from being tied to the admission of Missouri continued as a movement to get Congress to whittle away at slavery where it could—by, for example, outlawing slave sales in the nation’s capital—and would become a key point of friction between the North and the South.

There was also another powerful way in which the conditions of the state’s entry into the Union would affect American history. Mainers were angry that their statehood had been tied to the demands of far distant slave owners, and that anger worked its way into the state’s popular culture. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 meant that Maine men, who grew up steeped in that anger, could spread west.

And so they did.

In 1837, Elijah P. Lovejoy, who had moved to Alton, Illinois, from Albion, Maine, to begin a newspaper dedicated to the abolition of human enslavement, was murdered by a pro-slavery mob, who threw his printing press into the Mississippi River.

Elijah Lovejoy’s younger brother, Owen, had also moved west from Maine. Owen saw Elijah shot and swore his allegiance to the cause of abolition. "I shall never forsake the cause that has been sprinkled with my brother's blood," he declared. He turned to politics, and in 1854 he was elected to the Illinois state legislature. His increasing prominence brought him political friends, including an up-and-coming lawyer who had arrived in Illinois from Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln.

Lovejoy and Lincoln were also friends with another Maine man gone to Illinois. Elihu Washburne had been born in Livermore, Maine, in 1816, when Maine was still part of Massachusetts. He was one of seven brothers, and one by one, his brothers had all left home, most of them to move west. Israel Washburn Jr., the oldest, stayed in Maine, but Cadwallader moved to Wisconsin, and William Drew would follow, going to Minnesota. (Elihu was the only brother who spelled his last name with an e).

Israel and Elihu were both serving in Congress in 1854 when Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, overturning the Missouri Compromise and permitting the spread of slavery to the West. Furious, Israel called a meeting of 30 congressmen in May to figure out how they could come together to stand against the Slave Power that had commandeered the government to spread the South’s system of human enslavement. They met in the rooms of Representative Edward Dickinson, of Massachusetts—whose talented daughter Emily was already writing poems—and while they came to the meeting from all different political parties, they left with one sole principle: to stop the Slave Power that was turning the government into an oligarchy.

The men scattered for the summer back to their homes across the North, sharing their conviction that a new party must rise to stand against the Slave Power. In the fall, those calling themselves “anti-Nebraska” candidates were sweeping into office—Cadwallader Washburn would be elected from Wisconsin in 1854 and Owen Lovejoy from Illinois in 1856—and they would, indeed, create a new political party: the Republicans. The new party took deep root in Maine, flipping the state from Democratic to Republican in 1856, the first time it fielded a presidential candidate.

In 1859, Abraham Lincoln would articulate an ideology for the party, defining it as the party of ordinary Americans standing together against the oligarchs of slavery, and when he ran for president in 1860, he knew it was imperative that he get the momentum of Maine men on his side. In those days Maine voted for state and local offices in September, rather than November, so a party’s win in Maine could start a wave. “As Maine goes, so goes the nation,” the saying went.

So Lincoln turned for his vice president to Hannibal Hamlin, who represented Maine in the Senate (and whose father had built the house in which the Washburns grew up). Lincoln won 62% of the vote in Maine in 1860, taking all eight of the state’s electoral votes, and went on to win the election. When he arrived in Washington quietly in late February to take office the following March, Elihu Washburne was at the railroad station to greet him.

I was not a great student in college. I liked learning, but not on someone else’s timetable. It was this story that woke me up and made me a scholar. I found it fascinating that a group of ordinary people from country towns who shared a fear that they were losing their democracy could figure out how to work together to reclaim it.

Happy Birthday, Maine.

[Photo by Buddy Poland.]

[wielderofarrows]

WHO DO YOU PROMOTE 🎤

….

Jefferson has my vote.