#national rent control

[guildmasterbeaver]

I’m so damn tired of this

[alanshemper]

the rent is too damn high

[punisheddonjuan]

Fuckin' pigs are dismantling the tents set up in the little parkette on our street. They haven't been there very long, a few weeks at most. I guess that's all we're going to do to solve the housing crisis in this city, just continually harass these people and force them to decamp for somewhere else over and over again like some twisted version of musical chairs.

[jeff-davis]

RENT CONTROL

RENT CONTROL RENT CONTROL (Feed generated with FetchRSS) via Just A Thought January 29, 2024 at 09:12AM

[metamatar]

some of you are being outflanked from the left by the jacobin. lol.

For many loyal Democrats, this will not compute. The Biden economy, party-loyal pundits have said over and over again, is tremendous — low unemployment, strong GDP growth, slowing inflation, a booming stock market — and anyone unhappy about it must simply be brainwashed. Out of view in this self-congratulatory hall of mirrors were the constant statistics that said otherwise: evictions up past pre-pandemic levels, record-high homelessness, cost-burdened renters at an all-time high, median household income lower than the last pre-pandemic year, inequality returning to pre-pandemic levels, and food insecurity and poverty growing by large double digits since 2021, including a historic spike in child poverty. Here’s another thing you might not have heard. Largely due to a trick of history, including the COVID-19 pandemic and a Democratic-controlled Congress, Trump was partly responsible for the creation of what the New York Times called “something akin to a European-style welfare state” in 2020 that reduced inequality and even helped some Americans improve their finances for a short spell — and under Biden, all of it went away. Sometimes that happened due to factors outside Biden’s control and sometimes because of his own decisions, but it always took place with little fight from the president, and it contributed to the ominous rise in hardship under his tenure. That meant not only adding to people’s already onerous monthly expenses — in one case in a self-imposed October surprise that made student loan repayment much more unforgiving for tens of millions of borrowers just before voting. It also saw twenty-five million people being thrown off their public health insurance, many of them in some of the battleground states Harris lost last night. Recall that one of Biden’s attack lines against Trump four years ago was that Trump was going to strip twenty million people of their health insurance. This might have been mitigated had the president passed the flagship policies on his agenda, helping people weather the storm of rising living costs. Those that he did enact he sometimes self-sabotaged. (...)

As a result, Harris’s run was a major downgrade from the 2020 Democratic effort. Biden’s never-passed ambitions to historically expand the social safety net became firmly relegated to distant memory, never to be revived; only the child tax credit and a modest expansion of Medicare benefits survived. The campaign combined a sharp rightward lurch on foreign policy and immigration with a handful of laudable populist proposals to ban price gouging and help out first-time homebuyers (while largely avoiding the national 5 percent rent cap that Biden desperately took on before dropping out and that had earlier made its way into the Democratic platform). Beyond the Medicare proposal and vague promises to protect and strengthen Obamacare, the idea of reforming the broken US health care system — one of Americans’ biggest and most anxiety-inducing costs — was almost entirely absent from the campaign. When voters in a Univision town hall came to Harris with their bleak personal stories of suffering under the health care system and asked how she would solve them, she could give them nothing, because her only real major health care policy was for those over sixty-five and already insured under Medicare.

[welcometoqueer]

U.S. programs and services in danger of being diminished or fully cut:

Social Security

Department of Education

Department of Labor

Department of Transportation

Medicaid

Medicare

Obamacare

FDA

CDC

USDA

FAFSA

FEMA

ACA

SNAP

EPA

FTC

FEC

HUD

HHS

NOAA

SCHIP

FAA

National Weather Service

Hurricane and other disaster warnings

Unemployment services

Student loans

Pell grants

Libraries

Fluoride treatment in our water

Meat and food inspections

National Parks

Other concerns:

(International relations)

Loss of U.S. membership in NATO

Potential UN ramifications

Tariffs

Support of Israel winning the war

Putin and Russian relations

(Loss of Rights)

Voting rights

Miranda rights

LGBTQ+, POC, and other minority rights

Reproductive rights

Protection against pre-existing conditions

Protection against assault and harassment

Child labor protections

(Daily living)

Prescription prices skyrocketing

No rent control

Little to no reproductive or health care access

Legalized police brutality

Diminished or cut protections and rights for minority groups

Restrictions on gender affirming care or legal services

Increased taxes and cost of living for the non-wealthy

No more $35 insulin

No labor laws - 40+ hour work weeks, no mandatory breaks, no paid sick or vacation leave

[apas-95]

Is there a story behind China's one child policy that makes it not as horrifying as western media claims?

The defining feature of China's development for the past 70 years has been the urban-rural divide. In order to develop a semi-feudal country with a very low industrial level into an industrialised, socialist nation, it was necessary to develop industrial centres. To 'organically' develop industrial centres would have taken many decades, if not centuries of continued impoverishment and starvation, so programs were put in place to accelerate the development of industry by preferentially supporting cities.

Programs like the 'urban-rural price scissors' placed price controls on agricultural products, which made food affordable for city-dwellers, at the direct expense of reducing the income of rural, agricultural areas. This hits on the heart of the issue - to preferentially develop industrial centres in order to support the rest of the country, the rest of the country must first take up the burden of supporting those centres. Either some get out of poverty *first*, or nobody gets out of poverty at all. The result being: a divide between urban and rural areas in their quality of life and prospects. In order to keep this system from falling apart, several other policies were needed to support it, such as the Hukou system, which controlled immigration within the country. The Hukou system differentiated between rural and urban residents, and restricted immigration to urban areas - because, given the urban-rural divide, everyone would rather just try to move to the cities, leaving the agricultural industry to collapse. The Hukou system (alongside being a piece in many other problems, like the 'one country two systems', etc) prevented this, and prevented the entire thing from collapsing. The 'one child policy' was another system supporting this mode of development. It applied principally to city-dwellers, to prevent the populations of cities expanding beyond the limited size the agricultural regions could support, and generally had no 'punishments' greater than a lack of government child-support, or even a fine, for those who still wanted additional children. Ethnic minorities, and rural residents, were granted additional children, with rural ethnic minorities getting double. It wasn't something anyone would love, but it served an important purpose.

I use the past-tense, here, because these systems have either already been phased out or are in the process of being phased out. The method of urban-rural price scissors as a method of development ran its course, and, ultimately, was exhausted - the negative aspects, of its underdevelopment of rural regions, began to overwhelm its positive aspects. So, it was replaced with the paradigm of 'Reform and Opening Up' around the 1980s. Urban-rural price scissors were removed (leading to protests by urban workers and intellectuals in the late '80s), and the Hukou system, along with the 'one child policy', were and are being slowly eased out as lessening inequality between the urban and rural areas make them unnecessary. Under the new system, the driver of development was no longer at the expense of rural regions, but was carried out through the internal market and external capital. The development paradigm of Reform and Opening Up worked to resolved some contradictions, in the form of the urban-rural divide, and created some of its own, in the form of internal wealth divisions within the cities. Through it, over 800 million people were lifted out of extreme poverty - almost all of them being in rural areas - and extreme poverty was completely abolished within China. 'Extreme poverty' can be a difficult thing for westerners to grasp, wherein poverty means not paying rent on time, but to illustrate - many of the last holdout regions of extreme poverty were originally guerrilla base areas, impassable regions of mountainside which were long hikes away from schools or hospitals, wherein entire villages were living in conditions not dissimilar to their feudal state a century before. These villages were, when possible, given infrastructure and a meaningful local industry accounting their environment and tradition (like growing a certain type of mountainous fruit), or entirely relocated to free government-built housing lower down the mountain that was theirs to own. These were the people the 'one child policy' was aiding, by reducing the urban population they had to support. Again, there were exemptions for rural and ethnic minority populations to the policy.

Even now, Reform and Opening Up is running its course. Its own negative aspects, such as urban wealth inequality, are beginning to overcome its positive aspects. So, the new paradigm is 'Common Prosperity', which will work to resolve the past system's contradictions, and surely introduce its own contradictions in the form of chafing against the national bourgeoisie, as it increases state control and ownership of industry, and furthers a reintroduced collectivisation. Organising a nation of well over a billion people is not simple. It is not done based on soundbytes and on picking apart policies in the abstract for how 'dystopian' they sound. It is an exceedingly complex and interconnected process based on a dialectical, material analysis of things; not a utopian, idealist one. What matters is this: those 800,000,000 people now freed from absolute poverty. The things necessary to achieve that were, unquestionably, good things - because they achieved that. They had their negative aspects, as does everything that exists, but they were unquestionably correct and progressive things.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Lies, damned lies, and Uber

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT in PHOENIX (Changing Hands, Feb 29) then Tucson (Mar 10-11), San Francisco (Mar 13), and more!

Uber lies about everything, especially money. Oh, and labour. Especially labour. And geometry. Especially geometry! But especially especially money. They constantly lie about money.

Uber are virtuosos of mendacity, but in Toronto, the company has attained a heretofore unseen hat-trick: they told a single lie that is dramatically, materially untruthful about money, labour and geometry! It's an achievement for the ages.

Here's how they did it.

For several decades, Toronto has been clobbered by the misrule of a series of far-right, clownish mayors. This was the result of former Ontario Premier Mike Harris's great gerrymander of 1998, when the city of Toronto was amalgamated with its car-dependent suburbs. This set the tone for the next quarter-century, as these outlying regions – utterly dependent on Toronto for core economic activity and massive subsidies to pay the unsustainable utility and infrastructure bills for sprawling neighborhoods of single-family homes – proceeded to gut the city they relied on.

These "conservative" mayors – the philanderer, the crackhead, the sexual predator – turned the city into a corporate playground, swapping public housing and rent controls for out-of-control real-estate speculation and trading out some of the world's best transit for total car-dependency. As part of that decay, the city rolled out the red carpet for Uber, allowing the company to put as many unlicensed taxis as they wanted on the city's streets.

Now, it's hard to overstate the dire traffic situation in Toronto. Years of neglect and underinvestment in both the roads and the transit system have left both in a state of near collapse and it's not uncommon for multiple, consecutive main arteries to shut down without notice for weeks, months, or, in a few cases, years. The proliferation of Ubers on the road – driven by desperate people trying to survive the city's cost-of-living catastrophe – has only exacerbated this problem.

Uber, of course, would dispute this. The company insists – despite all common sense and peer-reviewed research – that adding more cars to the streets alleviates traffic. This is easily disproved: there just isn't any way to swap buses, streetcars, and subways for cars. The road space needed for all those single-occupancy cars pushes everything further apart, which means we need more cars, which means more roads, which means more distance between things, and so on.

It is an undeniable fact that geometry hates cars. But geometry loathes Uber. Because Ubers have all the problems of single-occupancy vehicles, and then they have the separate problem that they just end up circling idly around the city's streets, waiting for a rider. The more Ubers there are on the road, the longer each car ends up waiting for a passenger:

https://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Uber-Lyft-San-Francisco-pros-cons-ride-hailing-13841277.php

Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops. After years of bumbling-to-sinister municipal rule, Toronto finally reclaimed its political power and voted in a new mayor, Olivia Chow, a progressive of long tenure and great standing (I used to ring doorbells for her when she was campaigning for her city council seat). Mayor Chow announced that she was going to reclaim the city's prerogative to limit the number of Ubers on the road, ending the period of Uber's "self-regulation."

Uber, naturally, lost its shit. The company claims to be more than a (geometrically impossible) provider of convenient transportation for Torontonians, but also a provider of good jobs for working people. And to prove it, the company has promised to pay its drivers "120% of minimum wage." As I write for Ricochet, that's a whopper, even by Uber's standards:

https://ricochet.media/en/4039/uber-is-lying-again-the-company-has-no-intention-of-paying-drivers-a-living-wage

Here's the thing: Uber is only proposing to pay 120% of the minimum wage while drivers have a passenger in the vehicle. And with the number of vehicles Uber wants on the road, most drivers will be earning nothing most of the time. Factor in that unpaid time, as well as expenses for vehicles, and the average Toronto Uber driver stands to make $2.50 per hour (Canadian):

https://ridefair.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Legislated-Poverty.pdf

Now, Uber's told a lot of lies over the years. Right from the start, the company implicitly lied about what it cost to provide an Uber. For its first 12 years, Uber lost $0.41 on every dollar it brought in, lighting tens of billions in investment capital provided by the Saudi royals on fire in an effort to bankrupt rival transportation firms and disinvestment in municipal transit.

Uber then lied to retail investors about the business-case for buying its stock so that the House of Saud and other early investors could unload their stock. Uber claimed that they were on the verge of producing a self-driving car that would allow them to get rid of drivers, zero out their wage bill, and finally turn a profit. The company spent $2.5b on this, making it the most expensive Big Store in the history of cons:

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/infighting-busywork-missed-warnings-how-uber-wasted-2-5-billion-on-self-driving-cars

After years, Uber produced a "self-driving car" that could travel one half of one American mile before experiencing a potentially lethal collision. Uber quietly paid another company $400m to take this disaster off its hands:

https://www.economist.com/business/2020/12/10/why-is-uber-selling-its-autonomous-vehicle-division

The self-driving car lie was tied up in another lie – that somehow, automation could triumph over geometry. Robocabs, we were told, would travel in formations so tight that they would finally end the Red Queen's Race of more cars – more roads – more distance – more cars. That lie wormed its way into the company's IPO prospectus, which promised retail investors that profitability lay in replacing every journey – by car, cab, bike, bus, tram or train – with an Uber ride:

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1RN2SK/

The company has been bleeding out money ever since – though you wouldn't know it by looking at its investor disclosures. Every quarter, Uber trumpets that it has finally become profitable, and every quarter, Hubert Horan dissects its balance sheets to find the accounting trick the company thought of this time. There was one quarter where Uber declared profitability by marking up the value of stock it held in Uber-like companies in other countries.

How did it get this stock? Well, Uber tried to run a business in those countries and it was such a total disaster that they had to flee the country, selling their business to a failing domestic competitor in exchange for stock in its collapsing business. Naturally, there's no market for this stock, which, in Uber-land, means you can assign any value you want to it. So that one quarter, Uber just asserted that the stock had shot up in value and voila, profit!

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/02/hubert-horan-can-uber-ever-deliver-part-twenty-nine-despite-massive-price-increases-uber-losses-top-31-billion.html

But all of those lies are as nothing to the whopper that Uber is trying to sell to Torontonians by blanketing the city in ads: the lie that by paying drivers $2.50/hour to fill the streets with more single-occupancy cars, they will turn a profit, reduce the city's traffic, and provide good jobs. Uber says it can vanquish geometry, economics and working poverty with the awesome power of narrative.

In other words, it's taking Toronto for a bunch of suckers.

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/2024/02/29/geometry-hates-uber/#toronto-the-gullible

Image: Rob Sinclair (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Night_skyline_of_Toronto_May_2009.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

[ayeforscotland]

First five things you’d do as First Minister with a huge majority?

Massive housing reform - Rent Controls, increased taxation on 2nd properties, massive regulation brought against AirBnB landlords, and increase the number of social housing.

Universal Basic Income/Government Job Guarantee Program - Job guarantee program would create a true national living wage

Massive Digital Transformation overhaul for the Public Sector - Get everyone speaking the same language, focus on regional economic development

Adopt immigration policy that encourages more people to come to Scotland

Abolish Conversion Therapy, pass Gender Recognition Reform and officially recognise non-binary genders.

Answering this as if I was FM of 1st Indy Scottish Government.

[opal-owl-flight]

I absolutely adore your agent lore SO MUCH it feels really canon to me, just in a darker and realistic way!!

I am kind of wondering what your thoughts are on octavio, especially in this verse- if you have any of course LMAO 👍 so fair if you don't he just lives in my braincells rent free.

"You. Were not so different, you and I."

"|Shut. Up. Dont compare yourself to me. I did everything for this fragile world. A world you yourself almost destroyed twice.|"

"Aah, so did I, young squid. So did I."

3 rounds on the imprisoned geezer. Some thanks he got, after saving the world. The Captain was almost as bad as their old superior.

He only crosses his arms tighter as they clacked their beak.

"|The destruction of my world does not justify yours' survival.|"

Theres a dry chuckle from within the glass globe.

"Which world has the zapfishes. Which world is close to the sky? Which world allows everyone to...act the way you do. That annoyingly fresh attitude that just rubs in our face how much better you have it."

3s looking more unsure now, their hands clasping tight on their arms whenever theyre not signing. Thats a surprise.

"Mm. Do you understand, agent?"

The hesitance disappears, and their eyes and spots glint threateningly. "|Im the Captain now, and I will prefer to be referred to as such.|"

The king rolls his eyes. Mocks a salute.

"Stuffy kid. Damn. Alright, Captain.

Let me illuminate it a little more clearly for you.

You train your agents to keep my people underground. Sometimes, to the point of breaking their spirit. Because you want to keep them safe -- from me, from my troops, from anything the rough seas can throw at em. Right?"

"|I dont do it like you do. Hypnosis? Mind control? Eight ran away because of that!|"

"Who told you I used that on my entire nation? Damn old fool, that Craig.

As for your "Agent Eight"...

that one...

...had her reasons.

I hold no ill will towards her, or the others, for running.

In fact, I dont blame them one bit."

3 squints.

"They wanted a life that I cannot provide.

Its hard, underground. Constant energy crisis. Constant food shortage. Constant resource depletion. Who would stay? Except those who want to make it a better world to live in?

And you, Captain. What would you do in my place?"

And they stay quiet...

Before their voice rasps through a low hiss.

"Act...in a way... you wont."

"Hoh! So you can speak! Impressive.

But you know youd do similar. Ive heard how much Agent 4 hates your guts. Its not as easy being a leader, isnt it."

3 hisses louder, balling their fists.

"I...am not...you."*

"Yes. You. Are." The king presses his tentacles on the glass. "I did all I did for my fragile world. I continue to run my nation the way I do so everyone stays safe from the danger YOU bring. You and the REST of your nation. My troops are family. My troops are all Ive got."

He casts a glance at 4 (pre-Captain my Captain), who was approaching for her training.

"Even if they end up hating me."*

3 catches 4s gaze.

"Even if they end up deserting."

4 turns her gaze away, to look directly at Octavio.

"Do you understand?"

Now its 3 who looks, understanding dawning in their eyes.

Hes right.

"I must do what I need to, even if it hurts me. Id risk my life, my honor, my everything, for my people.

If I dont, who else will?"

3 thinks of the times theyd swooped in to save the newly returned 4 from hazards in the newer missions. The verbal and physical abuse from her beak and fists. The way they had to give her easier missions despite saying that it was tougher, just so shed have a more gradual growth. Have higher chances of surviving. Even if...underhanded.

4 herself breaks the silence, and their train of thought.

"Talking to the damn geezer again, Captain?"

"|He spoke first.

...but he makes good points.|"

"You cant seriously- hey. HEY! CAPTAIN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!"

theres a loud crash.

"|I dont think it fair to keep him here after he helped us save the world.|"

"Hohohoh! You are not so bad, Captain."

"GRAMPS IS GOING TO KILL YOU."

"Hah! No he wont. I know your old man. And for once in his life, he actually made a good call.

Captain.

Agent Three."

The mention of their old number, to refer to them, almost made tears spring to their eyes.

Almost.

After all, this was the reason they were dragged into this mess. But can they really keep blaming him for all this, after all this time?

Octavio shows...a hint of a smile.

"You make a fine protege for the man I used to know.

Keep it up."

3 holds 4 back from rushing the Octarian leader. "Go...back. Take care...of your people."

"Aye aye. Heheh. So long, suckers!!!"

And he was gone.

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #18

May 10-17 2024

The Justice Department endorses lifting many restrictions on marijuana. Since the 1970s marijuana has been classified as a Schedule I controlled substance, the most restrictive classification for drugs that are highly addictive, dangerous and have no medical use, like heroin. Schedule I drugs are nearly impossible to get approval for research studies greatly hampering attempts to understand marijuana and any medical benefits it may have. The DoJ recommends moving it to Schedule III, drugs with low risk of abuse like anabolic steroids, and testosterone. This will allow for greater research, likely allow medical marijuana, and make marijuana a much less serious offense. President Biden welcomed DoJ's decision, a result a review of policy he ordered. Biden in his message talked about how he's pardoned everyone convicted of marijuana possession federally. The President repeated a phrase he's said many times "No-one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana,"

The Department of Interior announced no new coal mining in America's largest coal producing region. The moratorium on new coal leases has been hailed as the single biggest step so fair toward ending coal in the US. The Powder River Basin area of Wyoming and Montana produces 40% of the nations coal, the whole state of West Virginia is just 14%. The new rule is estimated to reduce emissions by the equivalent of 293 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, the same as taking 63 million gas powered cars off the road.

Vice-President Harris announced that the Biden-Harris Administration had broken records by investing $16 billion in Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Harris, a graduate of Howard University, is the first President or Vice-President to have gone to a HBCU. The Administration's investment of $900 million so far in 2024 brought the total investment of the Biden-Harris administration in HBCUs to $16 billion more than double the record $7 billion. HBCUs produce 40% of black engineers, 50% of black teachers, 70% of black doctors and dentists, and 80% of black judges. HBCUs also have a much better record of helping social mobility and moving people out of generational poverty than other colleges and universities.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced $30 billion dollars in renewal funding for the Housing Choice Voucher Program. The program supports 2.3 million families that are in need of housing with vouchers that help pay rent. This funding represents a $2 billion dollar increase over last year.

The Department of Agriculture announced $671.4 million in investments in rural infrastructure. The money will go to project to improve rural electric grids, as well as drinking water and wastewater treatment infrastructure. The money will go to 47 projects across 23 states.

HUD announced a record breaking $1.1 billion dollar investment in Tribal housing and community development. HUD plans just over 1 billion dollars for the Indian Housing Block Grant (IHBG) program. This is a 40% increase in funding over 2023 and marks the largest ever funding investment in Indian housing. HUD also is investing $75 million in community development, supporting building and rehabbing community buildings in American Indian and Alaska Native communities.

The Department of Transportation announced $2 billion in investments in America's busiest passenger rail route, the Northeast Corridor between Washington DC and Boston. This is part of a 15 year, $176 billion plan to rebuild the corridor’s infrastructure and prepare for increased ridership and more trains. So far investments have seen a 25% increase, 7 million riders, over figures last year. a fully funded plan would almost double Amtrak service between New York City and Washington, D.C., and increase service between New York City and Boston by 50%. It would also allow a 60% increase in commuter trains.

HUD announced plans to streamline its HOME program. Currently the largest federal program to help build affordable housing, the streamlining of the rules will speed up building and help meet the Biden Administration's goal of 2 million new affordable housing units. HUD announced last week $1.3 billion dollars for the HOME program, which built 13,000 new units of housing in 2023 and helped 13,000 families with rental assistance

The Department of Interior announced $520 million in new water projects to help protect against drought in the western states. The funding will support 57 water related projects across 18 western states. The projects focus on climate resilience and drought prevention, as well as improving aging water delivery systems, and improving hydropower generation.

The Departments of Agriculture and HHS have stepped up efforts to wipe out the H5N1 virus prevent its spread to humans while protecting farmers livelihoods. The virus is currently effecting dairy cattle in the Texas panhandle region. The USDA and HSS are releasing wide ranging funds to help support farms equipping workers with Personal Protective Equipment, covering Veterinary costs, as well as compensating farmers for lost revenue. HHS and the CDC announced $101 million in testing an monitoring. This early detection and action is key to preventing another Covid style pandemic.

The Senate confirmed Sanket Bulsara to a life time federal judgeship in New York and Eric Schulte and Camela Theeler to lifetime federal judgeships in South Dakota. This brings the total number of judges appointed by President Biden to 197. For the first time in history the majority of a President's judicial nominees have not been white men.

Bonus: The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that transgender health insurance exclusions were illegal. The ruling came from a case first filed in 2019 where an employer refused to cover an employee's gender affirming surgery. The court in its ruling sited new guidance from the Biden Administration's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that declared that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects trans people in the work place. These kinds of guidelines are often sited in court and carry great weight.

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Celia Johnson (Brief Encounter)—She had the most soulful eyes! Like an anime character, it's insane. And she was fantastic in Brief Encounter. I also like that she's relatively ordinary looking, compared to some of the really glamorous Hollywood celebrities? She had an understated beauty, you know? And she's British so horray for national pride, lol.

Hedy Lamarr (Samson and Delilah, Ziegfeld Girl)—Look. I'm sure someone has already submitted Hedy Lamarr because she was spectacularly beautiful, and a very strong lady too: she fled both an abusive marriage AND nazi persecution at a very young age and rebuilt a life for herself pursuing her love for acting all on her own!! Her career as an actress was stellar; while she began acting outside of Hollywood (her very first movie, Ecstasy, won a prize at the Venice Film Festival), she conquered American hearts very quickly with her first movie in the US, Algiers, and then just kept getting better and better. If all this isn't enough, she was also an inventor: her invention of the frequency-hopping spread spectrum radio transmission technique forms the base of bluetooth and has a lot of applications in all kinds of communication technologies. I think that deserves a prize, don't you?

This is round 2 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Celia Johnson:

An argument actually broke out in a film course I was taking, mostly filled with pensioners, because someone called Celia Johnson "not that beautiful" while we were talking about Brief Encounter. I don't understand how anyone can watch that movie and say that, she's got such magnetism and I think she's so gorgeous!!!

This woman set the bar for romantic doomed love and NO ONE has ever bettered it.

Hedy Lamarr:

The only person you can find both on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in the Inventor's Hall of Fame--her radio-frequency-hopping technology forms the basis for cordless phones, wi-fi, and a dozen other aspects of modern life. She was also passionate in her efforts to aid the Allies in WWII (unsurprising for a Jewish-Austrian Emigree to America), and her name served as the backbone for one of the best running jokes in what is possibly Mel Brooks' best movie. Look, Louis B. Mayer apparently believed he could plausibly promote her as "The world's most beautiful woman". Is an entire website full of people going to be less audacious than one Louis B. Mayer? I didn't think so!

Described as "Hedy has the most incredible personal sophistication. She knows the peculiarly European art of being womanly; she knows what men want in a beautiful woman, what attracts them, and she forces herself to be these things. She has magnetism with warmth, something that neither Dietrich nor Garbo has managed to achieve" by Howard Sharpe, she managed to escape her controlling husband (and Nazi Germany) by a) Disguising as her maid and fleeing to Paris or b) Convincing the husband to let her wear all of her jewelry to a dinner, only to disappear afterwards. Also she was particularly clever and helped develop Frequency-Hopping Spread Spectrum (I can't really explain it but anyway...)

One of the most beautiful women ever in film, spoken by many critics and fans. Beautiful shapely figure, deeper seductive voice, and often played femme fatale roles. She was also brilliant and an inventor. Mainly self-taught, she invested her spare time, including on set between takes, in designing and drafting inventions, which included an improved traffic stoplight and a tablet that would dissolve in water to create a flavored carbonated drink, and much more.

Her depiction of Delilah and Samson and Delilah just lives rent free in my head. The woman was gorgeous.

Gorgeous and brilliant pioneer of modern technology and the middle part.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Olivia Reingold

On October 7, 2024—one year after Hamas invaded Israel, murdering 1,200 people—The New York Times published an episode of its flagship podcast, The Daily. It featured two men on opposite sides of the conflict: an Israeli man who’s moved from hotel to hotel after Hamas destroyed his community, and a father trying to survive in Gaza. 

But while the Israeli man was described in full—as a “liberal” 44-year-old father named Golan Abitbul, born and raised on Kibbutz Be’eri, the Palestinian man’s identity was shrouded in secrecy. The New York Times simply referred to him as “Hussein, a Palestinian man living in Gaza.” The host, Sabrina Tavernise, did not ask Hussein any follow-up questions when he revealed that, unlike most Gazans right now, he has “a good income” and is able to pay about $1,000 a month for rent. And she let him explain—uninterrupted—about why, a year later, the war ravages on.

“I’m surprised that there is humans doing this force,” Hussein said of Israeli soldiers, in broken English. “How could human became this evil, killing others, imposing collective punishment on over two million people with no reason? What are they going to gain? Why they are doing this?”

But what Tavernise did not say is that “Hussein” is Hussein Owda, whose name is listed in the show notes on audio platforms that host the podcast, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. And what The New York Times does not reveal is that Owda’s background suggests links to Hamas. A simple Google search turns up his LinkedIn page, where he publicly lists an eight-year stretch working for the Municipality of Gaza, which sources told me is controlled by Hamas; a new job at the controversy-riddled United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (also known as UNRWA); and an eight-month stint at Muslim Hands, a nonprofit exposed by the UK’s Telegraph in 2014 for having “close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.” Hamas was originally established in the 1980s as the local Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.Hussein Owda (via LinkedIn)

From September 2015 until August 2023, Owda lists his job as the head of public relations for the Municipality of Gaza. “Every government structure in Gaza was run by Hamas,” Jon Schanzer, a former terrorism analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, told me. “The people that were paying his salary ultimately would’ve gone up the chain to Hamas itself.” Schanzer added that Owda, as the former head of public relations for the Municipality of Gaza, likely was “providing propaganda” to advance the mission of Hamas.

Meanwhile, three on-the-ground sources in Gaza—two of whom were provided through The Center for Peace Communications, which has a network of sources in the region—all confirmed to The Free Press that Owda has links to Hamas. One Gazan man who has met Owda said that “Employment at the municipality requires approval from the internal security, the local mosque’s emir, and Qassam Brigades intelligence,” referring to Al-Qassam Brigades, the militant wing of Hamas behind the group’s October 7 attack. Another Palestinian source in Gaza told The Free Press, “It’s impossible to get a job in the municipality unless you’re with Hamas.” (All sources in Gaza asked to withhold their names to protect them from possible retaliation by the terrorist group.)

[milf--adjacent]

Green party policy: "Nationalize it, rent control, fuck rich people and private property."

Everyone who criticizes it: "Yeah, but what about my dream of owning a $3 million dollar private home in the middle of a city? What if I don't want to live next to poor people?"

[hwanghyunjinenthusiast]

Kinkuary Day 6

AN: Let it be known that this Chris lives in my head rent-free. I know exploring free use with a dominant partner isn't a new concept, but I still don't see it explored as much, so I thought it would be fun to try my hand at it. Especially with the king of the service doms.

Synopsis: Everything sucks. Today might be one of the worst days of your life (and that's against some stiff competition). Fortunately for you, you have a boyfriend who is more than happy to distract you.

General tags and warnings: Christopher Bang/Bang Chan x Fem! Reader, established relationship, some angst early on but, nothing too bad imo, Christopher being the nation's best boyfriend and that's it. This is pretty much porn with very little plot.

Primary kink: Free use.

Smut tags and warnings: Chris struggling to relinquish control lmao but, Soft Dom! Chris nonetheless, sub! Reader but she does take charge quite a bit in this, free use, facesitting, slight overstimulation (f. receiving), piv sex without a condom, dirty talk, lots of praise and petnames because it's Chris, Daddy kink, creampie and nipple play (f. receiving).

Word count: 2k.

I will block you if you are a minor and/or have no easily visible indication of your age on your blog if you interact with me in any way.

You're surprised you're able to still trudge through your front door after the day you've had. Between completely forgetting about an assignment that was due today, six separate customers yelling at you and your phone screen shattering, saying today has been a bad day would be putting it kindly. You've never wanted to just disappear to a cottage in the countryside more. You're sure you could convince Chris to leave with you.

Speaking of which, the sight of your boyfriend on your shared couch does help ease some of the overall terribleness that has been weighing you down all day. Dropping your bag, you make your way over to him. Wrapping your arms around his broad, solid body while you nuzzle against his neck. His mere presence is enough to relax the tension in your shoulders and soothe the anxiety that never seems to quite go away.

“Hi baby. Didn't know you were home. How was your day?” He asks, taking off his headphones. Placing them and his laptop on your coffee table, which does make you pout a little since he's no longer in your arms. However, he does turn to you and you're struck with just how soft and handsome he looks. That, combined with his question, makes your throat burn and your eyes start to sting.

“Horrible,” you mutter, nestling yourself into his chest and sighing contently when he rubs your back and happily crushes you to his frame. It's easy to forget everything when he holds you like this. All the shitty professors, entitled customers and piles of coursework fade away and there's nothing in your mind but, Chris.

“I'm sorry, baby. Do you want to talk about it? How can I make it better?” God, does he have any idea how irrevocably in love with him you are? Sometimes, you think you might have been some hero in a past life for him to wind up in your life. However, you mull his offer over before an idea finally sets in.

“Lavender?” You ask, blinking up at him and pressing yourself as close to him as humanly possible. Clutching at his simple, thin shirt while you wait for his answer.

“Are you sure? You have had a pretty shitty day so I don't know–”

“Yes, Daddy. I'm sure. So, lavender?” You don't mean to cut him off but, you really do need this right now. His concern is sweet and you always appreciate it but, you just need to shut your brain off for a few hours.

Exhilaration creeps up your spine as you watch the way his face shifts when your words register to him. His hold on you tightening marginally but you notice it all the same.

“Okay, lavender.”

That's all it takes for you to launch yourself into his lap. Nearly toppling both of you over in the process but, Chris steadies you while you make yourself at home in his lap. Holding his face in your hands while you slot your mouth against his. It's messy and more eagerness than anything on your end but, it feels so good to just kiss him again. Chris does try to bring some order into your uncoordinated liplock, guiding your mouth against his while his hands rest on your hips.

Sex wasn't on your mind before you walked through the front door but, now? Grinding down on the hardness you can feel starting to form under you while you explore Chris's mouth? Desire twists like a knife in the pit of your stomach. Your clit throbbing with every clumsy brush against his lap and your walls starting to clench and unclench almost painfully. It's probably some record how quickly your panties become a mess while you hump against Chris for dear life.

“Off please,” you breathe once the two of you separate to catch your respective breaths. Saliva smeared across both of your mouths and you would dive back in if you weren't so focused on getting his shirt off. Luckily for you, Chris is just as impatient as you are so he tugs it off within seconds. Tossing it to be forgotten on your living room floor.

You can't help the moan that bubbles out of you at the sight of his bare chest. You've seen it thousands of times and it still never fails to turn your blood molten. Palming as much of him as your hands can, you litter his neck with kisses and nips. Whimpering into his skin when his hands drift from your hips to grab and knead your ass over your work skirt. His hips shallowly thrusting up into you. Fuck, you're already so tightly wound.

A startled noise leaves Chris when you (gently) shove him onto his back but, he doesn't complain otherwise. Just watches you with a mixture of want and curiosity through his curly hair. His eyes widen when you eventually shuffle up his body until you're hovering over his beautiful face. A shudder runs through you when his tongue darts out to lick his full lips before his dark eyes meet your own again.

You're too desperate to care about getting undressed so, you hurriedly shove your panties to the side before easing yourself onto his face. The first touch his mouth against your drenched, puffy folds sends you reeling. You grab the back of the couch in an attempt to steady yourself but, Chris doesn't give you a chance. Lapping and sucking at you with so much intensity from the get go that you can already feel your thighs starting to quiver.

“Ah, Daddy,” you whimper when he decides to focus all of his attention and energy on your clit. “Fuck, oh my god,” comes your broken moan when he attaches himself to it. Licking and drawing patterns into that you couldn't hope to decipher at the moment when it feels like you're able to break into a million, little pieces soon. It's all so lewd and obscene and hot. The wet sounds of him eating you coupled with your wanton noises of pleasure seeming to echo throughout your entire apartment.

Your hips move on their own accord. Using his unfairly gifted mouth and cute nose to get yourself off. You're practically riding his face at this point and, based on the moans Chris presses into you, he's enjoying this just as much as you are. You know if he had it his way, he'd be using his hands to shove you even further into his face but, he's happy to lay there and let you use him until you're satisfied.

Which doesn't take all that long. Usually, you're pretty good at being able to tell when you're about to orgasm but, this time it catches you completely off-guard. A jumbled mess of ‘Daddy’ and ‘Chris’ fall from your lips as your body convulses. Your fingernails dig into the couch so fiercely that for a fleeting moment you're worried you might have ruined it.

Chris doesn't allow your mind to wonder for too long, though. Licking your gushing wetness like it's the first bit of liquid he's had in days while his nose brushes your throbbing clit. Your thighs shake and tightening around his head as the familiar burn of overstimulation starts to settle in the apex of your thighs and creep to your extremities.

“Da–Daddy,” you choke out, winding your hand into his hair and tugging his mouth away from you, “To–Too much,” you finish with a great deal of effort. Using all of your strength to move off of him until you're hovering over him. Your respective, unsteady breathing all that can be heard.

Cracking an eye open to look at him is a grave mistake. Between his wild eyes, unruly hair, flushed cheeks and full, bruised lips covered in you, you never stood a chance. And the sporadic clenching and unclenching of your still not filled pussy helps make that abundantly clear.

Chris watches you while you shift down his body. Air catching in his lungs when your hands reach for the waistband of his sweats and impatiently tug them down. He's so hard and a teasing dribble of pre-cum leaks from his tip that you can't help yourself from bending down and licking it.

“Fu–Fuck, sweetheart,” he groans, throwing his head back while his hands clench and unclench at his sides. Cute. His hips just barely jerk up in search of more relief from your mouth but, you don't give him the satisfaction. You have other plans in mind.

Grabbing his thick cock, you guide it to your dripping entrance. Just barely able to keep your eyes open to watch him as you sink down onto him. You lose that battle very quickly. Your eyes fluttering shut with every inch of him you sink down on until he's fully inside of you. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. You can already feel tears building up at the corners of your eyes just at the sheer fullness you feel right now.

“–so tight. Such a good girl. Always so fucking good,” Chris's words bring you back down for a moment and you blink your bleary eyes open to look at him. Your walls clamp down on him harshly when the sight of your sweaty, flushed boyfriend greets you. That's all the prompting you need to start a brutal pace. His cock just opens you up so deliciously that you can't help but bounce on it. The sounds of your skin hitting his and the filthy squelching between your thighs nearly drowning out your shared noises of pleasure.

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” you chant, impatiently tugging open your work shirt and shoving down your bra until your breasts are finally free. Chris's eyes burn as they watch you palm your tits and tug on your nipples until you're just barely able to focus on fucking yourself stupid on him. “I feel so good, Daddy. Your cock makes me feel so full,” you whimper after an especially harsh twist of your nipples.

“Yeah?” He pants out, his dark locks starting to stick to his sweaty forehead while his eyes struggle to pick between looking at your beautiful face, your hands toying with yourself or his cock disappearing inside of your scorching pussy. “Does my princess like using Daddy to get herself off, hmm? Does it feel good to fuck yourself on Daddy's cock while he just lies here? Tell me, baby.”

“Y-Yes, so good, Daddy. Your cock feels ah fuck so amazing, Daddy. You feel so good, Daddy.” You whine, one of your hands snaking its way between your thighs to rub against your swollen clit. A fractured moan bubbling out of your throat while you rub frantic circles against yourself and try to maintain the pace you set on Chris's cock.

“That's good. You look so pretty using me to get yourself off, sweetheart,” he coos, giving you a smile so soft that you can feel your heart grow in your chest while your release grows closer and closer. “Are you going to cum, baby? Gonna cum all over my cock, beautiful? Hmm? I want you to. Wanna see you cum so badly. Wanna feel you make a mess all over me.”

And just like that you feel your entire body seize. You're not even aware of what's coming out of your mouth right now but, you can't bring yourself to care. Your vision blurs at the edges while your entire body shudders. It takes every ounce of you not to completely collapse ontop of him while you ride out the waves that keep crashing into your limp body.

“–my girl,” is all you hear in the distance before you feel his large hands grab your hips and something warm filling your spasming walls. Opening your eyes with a great deal of effort, you're greeted with the sight of a panting, fucked out Chris. His cock pulsing inside of you with every rope of cum that shoots out of it. That does eventually prompt you to collapse onto his sturdy chest. Nuzzling into his neck while your shared releases start to leak out of you.

“Feel better?” He asks, rubbing your back soothingly while pressing featherlight kisses against your forehead.

“Yes, thank you. I love you,” you mutter tiredly into his skin, pressing yourself as close to him as you can.

“I love you too, baby,” are the last words you hear before succumbing to the fatigue that's been calling you all day.

Reblogs are greatly appreciated.

Do not repost, edit, copy and/or translate my work. I do not give you my permission to do so, nor will you ever receive it.

Kinkuary Masterlist | Stray Kids Masterlist | Ko-Fi.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Joan McCarter at Daily Kos:

President Joe Biden isn’t accepting the idea that he’s a lame duck president. He continues to build on his already impressive record with actions and ideas to help the American people. He’s also setting up Kamala Harris for potential presidential success, which could end up being the most profound part of his legacy. The most recent incredible success from Biden and his team is securing the release of two Americans detained in Russia, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive from Michigan. Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Washington Post opinions contributor, are also being released as part of the deal. Gershkovich and Whelan had been convicted of bogus espionage charges by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s regime. Bringing them home was a promise Biden made in his Oval Office speech explaining his decision to end his reelection campaign.

[...]

At home, Biden is committed to seeing through his student loan debt relief plans. The administration sent out emails to borrowers Wednesday, letting them know that some—or in some cases, all—of their debt will be canceled this fall when his executive order is fully implemented, and explaining how they can benefit. That’s relief for about 30 million borrowers, according to the White House. “Despite attempts led by Republican elected officials to block our efforts, we won’t stop fighting to provide relief to student loan borrowers, fix the broken student loan system, and help borrowers get out from under the burden of student debt,” Biden said. 

Biden also developed a sweeping plan for combatting housing costs and out-of-control rent inflation. It’s an ambitious proposal, giving corporate landlords a choice: “either cap rent increases on existing units at 5% or risk losing current valuable federal tax breaks.” That last part would take Congress’s help. The action he can, and is, taking on his own is ordering agencies to inventory federal lands that can be repurposed “to build tens of thousands of affordable homes.”  Biden’s Department of Housing and Urban Development just announced $325 million in Choice Neighborhoods grants, which will be used to “build over 6,500 units of new housing, support small businesses, build childcare centers and new parks, and will be used to leverage more than $2.65 billion in additional public and private investments in these neighborhoods.” Choice Neighborhoods is a HUD initiative to revitalize struggling neighborhoods into mixed-income housing.  In another family-friendly action, Biden is fighting to keep airlines from price-gouging families. He’s proposing a ban on the extra fees airlines charge parents to sit with their children.

[...] Biden is also looking to future-proof against the potential dangers of AI technology with an order directing every federal agency and department that could be affected to create standards and regulations overseeing AI—that’s everything from health care to housing to national security. [...] The Biden administration is also galvanized to step up the fight against fentanyl, with Biden on Wednesday directing all related federal agencies to coordinate actions to stop the flow of the drug.

President Joe Biden is still fighting for Americans, even after he passed the torch to Kamala Harris. #JoeBiden