#nov 11 2020

[icaruspendragon]

the best days to have been on the internet:

1) nov 5th 2020

2) the day the queen croaked

3) april 1st 2013 (mishapocalypse)

4) april 1st 2024 (boop)

5) when the evergiven got stuck in suez canal

6) when trump got covid

7) four seasons landscaping

8) jan 6th insurrection

9) skeleton war

10) dashcon

11) bisexual firefighter

12) battle of the joshes

13) dec 21st 2012

[liatkolink]

For people still in denial whether Israel has committed war crimes, here is a comprehensive list of war crimes Israel has committed both before and after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, the list being taken from the Wikipedia article of war crimes with some notable missing examples being the usage of chemical weapons, famine, disease and apartheid. The 7th of October attack did not occur in a vacuum, but is the product of decades of Israel not being held accountable for its war crimes.

Killing civilians:

Israel/Palestine: Unlawful Israeli Airstrikes Kill Civilians by Human Rights Watch on 15/Jul/2014

‘Not a normal war’: doctors say children have been targeted by Israeli snipers in Gaza – The Guardian on 2/Apr/2024

Israeli attack on Rafah tent camp kills 45, prompts international outcry by Reuters on 27/May/2024

Intentionally killing PoWs:

Israel’s Hush-Up Machine in Action: Denying Story Israel Executed Egyptian Prisoners by Washington Report on Middle East Affairs on 8/Apr/2010

Torture:

Israeli government report admits systematic torture of Palestinians by The Guardian on 10/Feb/2000

Israel/OPT: Horrifying cases of torture and degrading treatment of Palestinian detainees amid spike in arbitrary arrests by Amnesty International on 8/Nov/2023

Israel: Palestinian Healthcare Workers Tortured by Human Rights Watch on 26/Aug/2024

Taking hostages:

Infographic: How many Palestinians are imprisoned by Israel? by AlJazeera on 17/Apr/2022

The thousands of Palestinians Israel arrests, tortures, holds even in death by AlJazeera on 17/Apr/2024

UN report: Palestinian detainees held arbitrarily and secretly, subjected to torture and mistreatment by the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner on 31/Jul/2024

Unnecessarily destroying civilian property:

Israel destroys Gaza tower housing AP and Al Jazeera offices by Reuters on 15/May/2021

Israel targets infrastructure in Gaza to ramp up civilian pressure on Hamas, report claims by PBS News on 11/Dec/2023

Widespread destruction by Israeli Defence Forces of civilian infrastructure in Gaza by the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner on 8/Feb/2024

Deception by perfidy:

Israeli soldier gives 74-year-old Palestinian woman water then shoots her in the head by Middle East Monitor on 20/Jan/2015

Israeli special forces disguised as doctors kill three militants at West Bank hospital by The Guardian on 30/Jan/2024

NBC News investigation reveals Israel strikes on Gaza areas it said were safe by NBC News on 26/Apr/2024

Wartime sexual violence:

Stripped, beaten and blindfolded: new research reveals ongoing violence and abuse of Palestinian children detained by Israeli military by Save the Children on 10/Jul/2023

Israel/oPt: UN experts appalled by reported human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls by the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner on 19/Feb/2024

‘Everything is legitimate’: Israeli leaders defend soldiers accused of rape by AlJazeera on 9/Aug/2024

Pillaging:

The Biblical Pseudo-Archeologists Pillaging the West Bank by The Atlantic on 28/Feb/2013

Jewish Soldiers and Civilians Looted Arab Neighbors' Property en Masse in '48. The Authorities Turned a Blind Eye by Haaretz on 3/Oct/2020

Israeli soldiers boast about looting from Gaza by AlJazeera on 14/Feb/2024

Any individual that is part of the command structure who orders any attempt to committing mass killings:

Netanyahu incites violence by casting protesters as clear and present danger by Middle East Eye on 30/Jul/2020

Israeli minister's call to 'erase' Palestinian village an incitement to violence, US says by Reuters on 1/Mar/2023

Netanyahu cites 'Amalek' Theory to justify Gaza Killings by Times of India on 29/Oct/2023

Database exposes 500 instances of Israeli incitement to genocide in Gaza by TRT World 4/Jan/2024

Genocide:

The Genocide of the Palestinian People: An International Law and Human Rights Perspective by Center for Constitutional Rights on 25/Aug/2016

Genocide Warning: Israel & Palestine by Genocide Watch on 21/May/2021

A top U.N. court says Gaza genocide is 'plausible' but does not order cease-fire by npr on 26/Jan/2024

‘Reasonable grounds’ to believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, UN rights expert says by CNN on 27/Mar/2024

Is Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza? New Report from BU School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic Lays Out Case from Boston University Today on 5/Jun/2024

Ethnic cleansing:

UN Human Rights Council: ‘Israel engaging in ethnic cleansing’ by the European Union Parliament on 23/Mar/2011

Israel's ethnic cleansing in Palestine is not history - it's still happening by Middle East Eye on 22/May/2019

UN expert warns of new instance of mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, calls for immediate ceasefire by the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner on 14/Oct/2023

‘Plan for ethnic cleansing’: Israel’s north Gaza siege sets off alarms by AlJazeera on 22/Oct/2024

Granting of no quarter despite surrender:

White Flag Deaths Killings of Palestinian Civilians during Operation Cast Lead by Human Rights Watch on 13/Aug/2009

Investigators: Israel fired on Gaza civilians carrying white flags by The Electronic Intifada on 28/Jan/2015

3 hostages killed by Israeli soldier in Gaza were waving a white flag, Israel says by npr on 16/Dec/2023

A group of Palestinian men waving a white flag is shot at, killing 1 by NBC News on 24/Jan/2024

She was fleeing with her grandson, who was holding a white flag. Then she was shot by CNN on 26/Jan/2024

Two brothers shot by Israeli forces in Khan Younis, white flag ignored by AlJazeera on 29/Jan/2024

Conscription of children in the military: First one where I couldn't find anything. Way to go, Israel!

Flouting the legal distinctions of proportionality and military necessity:

Israel violates the principles of necessity, proportionality in its attacks on Gaza by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor on 13/May/2023

Enough: Self-Defense and Proportionality in the Israel-Hamas Conflict by Just Security on 6/Nov/2023

War Crimes and Accountability: The Case Against Israel’s Military Operations in Gaza by JURIST News on 5/Jul/2024

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Boss politics antitrust

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/2024/11/12/the-enemy-of-your-enemy/#is-your-enemy

Xi Jinping inaugurated his second term with an anti-corruption purge that ran from 2012-2015, resulting in a massive turnover in the power structures of Chinese society.

At the time, people inside and outside of China believed that Xi was using the crackdown to target his political enemies and consolidate power. Certainly, that was the effect of the purge, which paved the way for reforms to Chinese law that have effectively allowed Xi to hold office for life.

In 2018, Peter Lorentzen (USF Econ) and Xi Lu (NUS Policy) published a paper that used clever empirical methods to get to the bottom of this question:

https://web.archive.org/web/20181222163946/https://peterlorentzen.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Lorentzen-Lu-Crackdown-Nov-2018-Posted-Version.pdf

Working from the extensive data-files published during the corruption trials of the purged officials, Lorentzen and Xi Liu were able to estimate the likelihood that an official had really been corrupt. They concluded that overwhelmingly, the anti-corruption purges did target corrupt officials, some of them very highly placed.

But when they considered the social graph of those defenestrated officials, they found that they came from blocs that were rivals of Xi Jinping and his circle, while officials who were loyal to Xi Jinping's were spared, even when they were corrupt.

In other words, Xi Jinping's anticorruption efforts targeted genuinely corrupt officials – but only if they supported Xi's rivals. Xi's own cronies were exempted from this. Xi did use the anticorruption effort to consolidate power, but that doesn't mean he prosecuted the innocent – rather, he selectively prosecuted the guilty.

Donald Trump will be America's next president. He campaigned against "elites" and won the support of Americans who were rightly furious at being ripped off and abused by big business. The Biden administration had done much to tackle this corruption, starting with July 2020's 72-point executive order creating a "whole of government" approach to fighting corporate power:

https://www.eff.org/de/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

Trump will have to decide what to do about these efforts. It's easy to say that Trump will just kill them all and let giant, predatory corporations rip, but I think that's wrong. After all, the Google antitrust case that the DoJ just won started under the last Trump administration. Trump also sued to block the absolutely terrible merger between Warner and AT&T.

I think it's safer to say that Trump will selectively target businesses for anticorruption enforcement – including antitrust – based on whether they oppose him or suck up to him. I think American business leaders know it, too, which is why every tech boss lined up to give Trump a public rim-job last week:

https://daringfireball.net/2024/11/i_wonder

Trump killed the AT&T-Time Warner merger to punish CNN. He went after Google to punish "woke" tech firms. That doesn't make AT&T, Time Warner or Google good. They're terrible monopolists and the US government should be making their lives miserable.

Trump will not need to falsify evidence against corporations that are disloyal to him. All of America's big businesses are cesspits of sleaze, fraud and predation. Every merger that is being teed up now for the coming four years is illegal under the antitrust laws that we stopped enforcing in the Reagan era and only dusted off again for four years under Biden. They're all guilty, which means that Trump will be able to bring a valid case against any of them.

This will create a trap for people who hate Trump but don't pay close attention to anticorruption cases. It's a trap that Trump sprung successfully in his first term, when he lashed out at the "intelligence community" – the brutal, corrupt, vicious, lawless American spy agencies that are the sworn enemies of working people and the the struggle for justice at home and abroad – and American liberals decided that the enemy of their enemy was their friend, and energetically sold one another Robert Mueller votive candles:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/

Over the next four years, Trump will use antitrust and other corruption-taming regulations to selective punish crooked companies. He won't target them because they're crooked: he'll target them because they aren't sufficiently loyal to him.

If you let your hatred of Trump blind you to the crookedness of these companies, you lose and Trump wins. The reason Trump will find it easy to punish these companies is that they are all guilty. If you let yourself forget that, if you treat your enemy's enemy as your friend, then Trump will point at his political rivals and call them apologists for corruption and sleaze – and he'll be right.

It is possible for Trump to fight corruption corruptly. That's exactly what he'll do. But just because Trump hates these companies, it doesn't follow that we should love them.

[henrykathman]

The Miraculous Horror of Stop Motion

From the same artform that brought you Coraline and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, comes three stories that evoke the existential fear of art.

Original Music by Molly Noise

Bibliography below

Atrocity Guide. “The Animators Who’ve Spent 40 Years on a Single Film.” YouTube, 9 Oct. 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=73hip3pz0Xs&pp=ygUMdGhlIG92ZXJjb2F0. Accessed 19 June 2024.

Brubaker, Charles. “The Japanese Studios of Rankin/Bass.” Cartoon Research, Jerry Beck, 14 Apr. 2014, cartoonresearch.com/index.php/the-japanese-studios-of-rankinbass/.

Bute, Paris. “Introduction to “a Rankin/Bass Retrospective from a New Perspective.”” Citizen Jane, Stephens College, 19 Nov. 2021, www.citizenjane.org/home/cwwicd2ucb2fvs64kgfaocfykjhaum. Accessed 19 June 2024.

Crome, Althea. “Coraline.” Althea Crome | Micro Knitter, 2012, www.altheacrome.com/coraline. Accessed 19 June 2024.

Harold Halibut. Directed by Onat Hekimoğlu, Slow Bros., 16 Apr. 2024.

Hekimoglu, Onat, and Gabriel Schmitz. “Unite Berlin 2018 - Harold Halibut and Making a Stop Motion Game.” Unity, YouTube, 6 Aug. 2018, youtu.be/9usssSQc0wQ. Accessed 6 May 2023.

Jon "Sikamikanico" Clarke. “The Making of Harold Halibut.” XboxEra, YouTube, 21 Mar. 2024, youtu.be/WMyxM9t3o7A. Accessed 19 June 2024.

LAIKA Studios. “Sweater and Gloves: Knitting Coraline by Hand.” YouTube, 11 July 2017, youtu.be/zUvkfcGR-7U. Accessed 19 June 2024.

Mad God Productions. “Phil Tippett’s “Mad God.”” Kickstarter, 17 May 2012, www.kickstarter.com/projects/madgod/phil-tippetts-mad-god/posts.

Olson, Mathew. “Report: Michel Ancel Accused of Abusive, Disruptive Practices on beyond Good & Evil 2.” VG247, 25 Sept. 2020, www.vg247.com/report-michel-ancel-accused-of-abusive-disruptive-practices-on-beyond-good-evil-2. Accessed 19 June 2024.

Ono, Kosei. “Tadahito Mochinaga: The Japanese Animator Who Lived in Two Worlds.” Animation World Network, AWN, Inc, 1 Dec. 1999, www.awn.com/animationworld/tadahito-mochinaga-japanese-animator-who-lived-two-worlds.

Orland, Kyle. “Claptrap Voice Actor Accuses Gearbox CEO of Assault, Underpayment.” Ars Technica, 7 May 2019, arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/05/claptrap-voice-actor-accuses-gearbox-ceo-of-assault-underpayment/. Accessed 19 June 2024.

Pilling, Jayne. A Reader In Animation Studies. Indiana University Press, 1998. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/book/40033.

Prehistoric Beast. Directed by Phil Tippett, Tippett Studios, 1984. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlaXIRTjNfo

Randles, Jonathan. “VFX Studio with Star Wars, Jurassic Park Credits Goes Bankrupt.” Bloomberg Law, 1 May 2024, news.bloomberglaw.com/bankruptcy-law/vfx-studio-with-star-wars-jurassic-park-credits-goes-bankrupt. Accessed 19 June 2024.

Shanley, Patrick. “Gearbox Software CEO Accused of Contempt in Latest Filing.” The Hollywood Reporter, 27 Aug. 2019, www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/gearbox-software-ceo-accused-contempt-latest-filing-1235064/. Accessed 19 June 2024.

The Making of “Jurassic Park.” Directed by John Schultz, Amblin Entertainment, 1995. https://youtu.be/8r01mk6F_Pk

The Making of Mad God. Directed by Maya Tippett, Shudder, 2021. https://youtu.be/sfUOHh0xmwc

The Tale of the Fox. Directed by Irene Starewicz and Ladislas Starevich, UFA GmbH, 10 Apr. 1941. https://youtu.be/Us_Pn6Q1dBQ

Wikipedia contributors. "List of films with longest production time." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 12 Jun. 2024. Web. 19 Jun. 2024.

Wikipedia contributors. "List of media notable for being in development hell." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 19 Jun. 2024. Web. 19 Jun. 2024.

Wikipedia contributors. "List of Rankin/Bass Productions films." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 9 Jun. 2024. Web. 19 Jun. 2024.

Wikipedia contributors. "Tadahito Mochinaga." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 28 Nov. 2023. Web. 19 Jun. 2024.

Wilson, Josh. “Phil Tippett: 24 Frames per Second < the Fabulist Words & Art.” The Fabulist Words & Art, 5 Nov. 2021, fabulistmagazine.com/24-frames-per-second-the-phil-tippett-interview/.

Worse than the Demon. Directed by Maya Tippett, Shudder, 2013. https://youtu.be/ghKqvDNRe4c

[myloveonherknees]

@/hisethelcain. “(📸 @/expiredidealist)” twitter, 11 nov 2020.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hi Steph ! I do realise you get an enormous amount of requests, but I hope you'll find time to answer mine. I hope this hasn't been answered before ?

What are, in your opinion, the most in-character, and BBC accurate Johnlock fanfics you've ever read ?

I'm currently looking for something very canon-compliant, and I'm having a bit of trouble. Any length and rating will do !

Thank you for everything you do ! Your work for the Sherlock (especially johnlock/TJLC) has always been quite remarkable :)

Excellent day to you !

-Mea

Hi Lovely!

Thank you for your kind words, it's much appreciated!!!

As for in-character fics, I should state here that "in-character" is subjective to each individual, so my idea of "in-character" will be different from other people's!

That said, any of my fic recs on any of my Fic Rec Lists that aren't appended with MFL (because I haven't read them) could be considered what I call in-character, LOL. BUT if you want some of my faves, these will be the ones to start with:

I-J’s Last 50 Bookmarked Fics (June 2017)

Last 17 Bookmarked Fics (July 2017) 

Last 30 Bookmarked Fics (November 2017)

Last 86 Bookmarked Fics (Jan 2019) || [MOBILE]

Top 20 Fave 40K+ w. Fics (April 2017)

Ten Fave Short Johnlock Fics (Easy Reads April 2018)

25 Fave Johnlock One Shots (April 2018)

Top 10 Fave Fics (September 2018)

Top 20 Bookmarks of 2018 (March 2019)

Another Top 10 Fave Fics (June 2019)

Top 30 Read-Again Fics (March 2019)

Top 30 Read-Again Fics Pt. 2 (Sept. 2019)

Fave Read-Again Fics (10) (Dec 11/20)

Top 25 Fave Non-Ao3 Fics (Nov. 2019)

Top 25 Fave Non-Ao3 Fics Pt 2 (Apr 2022)

Top 25 Fave Non-AO3 Fics Pt 3 (May 2023)

Top 25 Bookmarks of 2019 (Dec. 29/2019)

Top 30 Bookmarks of 2020

Top 25 Bookmarks of 2021

Top 20 Bookmarks of 2022

Top 35 Bookmarks of 2023

Top 20 Comfort Fics (Feb 2022)

Top 30 Fave Angst Fics Under 10K

25 Fics for Fic Rec Bingo

10 Current Fave Multi-Fandom Fics (June 2023)

Alternate First Meetings (Canon-Feeling)

Sorry I can't be more specific, but I genuinely would be listing dozens of fics for you, LOL.

Let me know if there's anything else I can help you with, and again, I hope you enjoy your time here!!! *HUGS*

[dribs-and-drabbles]

This shirt (photos below) has now been worn ✨seven✨ times in Thai bls...but who wore it best? Propaganda for your favourite is always welcome. Thanks to @troubled-mind for the suggestion!

Edit: @telomeke is absolutely correct that it's Boss as Payu in LITA (and not Fort as I have erroneously written 🤦🏽‍♀️). So ignore my mistake.

And don't worry, if you really want to buy it I'm sure @hughungrybear will find it for you 😏

[sixohsixoheightfourtwo]

literallyyyyy ...... sorry to be petty but the cw (RIP) spent YEARS making shows with female leads conscious diversity more gay characters than i can be bothered to remember AND in many cases what can only be described as. extremely camp sensibilities... i am not saying that they were necessarily good characters or good shows! and i understand some of the storylines were not well handled / some shows were prematurely cancelled - but it's truly an excessively fandom brained take to forget about all of that and effectively define queer content as 'the canonisation of the ship i like in the currently airing show i like', to define it as 'the thing i am personally into the thing i personally care about'. i mean - jane the virgin spoilers I guess -

you may disagree with this as television or even as representation! but it's most definitely gay . the fact is we hate the cw not because they made the angel gay but because they made the angel gay and were then like. what angel! and killed dean.

sorry to whoever this person was I took this screenshot from. absolutely peak behaviour of some kind ... . person who has never seen or been aware of riverdale, crazy ex girlfriend, jane the virgin, roswell new mexico, etc, decides to log on to tumblr dot com and compare television networks

[berrychanx]

Tokyo Mew Mew x Princess Cafe (Again)

This is the second time that Princess Cafe does a Cafe Themed Collaboration withTokyo Mew Mew, the first one occurred in 2020 to promote Tokyo Mew Mew New.

Check out @envyplays review and experience here

The original post was announced yesterday, 01/11/2024 on the official twitter page.

Only the chedule and merchandise, with Mia Ikumi art, the previous one had original artwork for its merchandise (acrylic figure, acrylic Keychain, coasters, prints) and Mia Ikumi artwork (as pins, stickers and coasters) , were revealed.

Further details will be announced on the official Twitter account ☕

Schedule:

Date: 22 Nov (Fri) - 8 Dec (Sun) 2024 💘Tokyo: Harajuku Alta 2F

💘Osaka: Abeno Harukas 9F event hall

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Rick McKee, Augusta Chronicle

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 11, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 12, 2024

The day after Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Afghanistan’s Taliban offered its congratulations to the American people for “not handing leadership of their great country to a woman.” 

Taliban leaders expressed optimism that Trump’s election would enable a new chapter in the history of U.S-Taliban relations. They noted that it was Trump who suggested a new international order when he inked the February 29, 2020, Doha Agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban. That deal cut out the Afghan government and committed the U.S. to leave Afghanistan by May 2021, closing five military bases and ending economic sanctions on the Taliban. This paved the way for the U.S. evacuation of the country in August 2021 and the return of the Taliban to power. 

The Taliban prohibits girls’ education past the sixth grade and recently banned the sound of women’s voices outside their homes.

In Russia, Russian thinker Alexander Dugin explained the dramatic global impact of Trump’s win. “We have won,” Dugin said. “The world will be never ever like before. Globalists have lost their final combat.” Dugin has made his reputation on his calls for an “anti-American revolution” and a new Russian empire built on “the rejection of [alliances of democratic nations surrounding the Atlantic], strategic control of the United States, and the rejection of the supremacy of economic, liberal market values,” as well as reestablishing traditional family structures with strict gender roles. 

Maxim Trudolyubov of the Wilson Center, a nonpartisan foreign affairs think tank, suggested Friday that Putin’s long-term goal of weakening the U.S. has made him more interested in dividing Americans than in any one candidate. 

Indeed, rather than backing Trump wholeheartedly, Russian president Vladimir Putin has been undercutting him. He did not comment on Trump’s election until Thursday, when he said that the power of liberal democracies over world affairs is “irrevocably disappearing.” Although Ellen Nakashima, John Hudson, and Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post reported that Trump and Putin had spoken on Thursday, Putin denied such a call as “pure fiction.”

Exacerbating America’s internal divisions and demonstrating dominance over both the U.S. and Trump might explain why after Trump became president-elect, laughing Russian media figures showed viewers nude pictures of Trump’s third wife, Melania, taken during her modeling career.

In an interview, Putin’s presidential aide Nikolay Patrushev said today: "To achieve success in the election, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. As a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them." Meanwhile, U.S. and Ukrainian officials report that Russia has massed 50,000 soldiers, including North Korean soldiers, to reclaim territory in the Kursk region of Russia taken this year by Ukrainian forces. 

Trump claims to have talked to about seventy world leaders since his reelection but has declined to go through the usual channels of the State Department. This illustrates his determination to reorganize the federal government around himself rather than its normal operations but leaves him—and the United States—vulnerable to misstatements and misunderstandings.

The domestic effects of Trump’s victory also reveal confusion, both within the Republican Party and within national politics. Voters elected Trump and his running mate, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, but it’s hard to miss that billionaire Elon Musk, who backed Trump’s 2024 campaign financially, seems to be “Trump’s shadow vice-president,” as Nick Robins-Early of The Guardian put it. Sources told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that Musk has been a constant presence at Mar-a-Lago since the election, sitting in on phone calls with foreign leaders and weighing in on staffing decisions. Yesterday at Mar-a-Lago, Musk met with the chief executive officer of the right-wing media channel Newsmax.

Exactly who is in control of the party is unclear, and in the short term that question is playing out over the Senate’s choice of a successor to minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). In the new Congress, this Republican leader will become Senate majority leader, thereby gaining the power to control the Senate calendar and decide which bills get taken up and which do not. 

Trump controls the majority of Republicans in the House, but he did not control Senate Republicans when McConnell led them. Now he wants to put Florida senator Rick Scott into the leadership role, but Republicans aligned with McConnell and the pre-2016 party want John Thune (R-SD) or John Cornyn (R-TX). There are major struggles taking place over the choice. Today Musk posted on social media his support for Scott. Other MAGA leaders fell in line, with media figure Benny Johnson—recently revealed to be on Russia’s payroll—urging his followers to target senators backing Thune or Cornyn.

Rachael Bade and Eugene Daniels of Politico Playbook suggested that this pressure would backfire, especially since many senators dislike Scott for his unsuccessful leadership of the National Republican Senatorial Committee that works to elect Republicans to the Senate. 

Trump has also tried to sideline senators by demanding they abandon one of their key constitutional roles: that of advice and consent to a president’s appointment of top administration figures. Although Republicans will command a majority in the Senate, Trump is evidently concerned he cannot get some of his appointees through, so has demanded that Republicans agree to let him make recess appointments without going through the usual process of constitutionally mandated advice and consent.

Trump has also demanded that Republicans stop Democrats from making any judicial appointments in the next months, although Republicans continued to approve his nominees after voters elected President Joe Biden in 2020. Indeed, Judge Aileen Cannon, who let Trump off the hook for his retention of classified documents, was approved after Trump had lost the election.

All this jockeying comes amid the fact that while Trump is claiming a mandate from his election, in fact the vote was anything but a landslide. While votes are still being counted, Trump seems to have won by fewer than two percentage points in a cycle where incumbents across the globe lost. This appears to be the smallest popular vote margin for a winning candidate since Richard Nixon won in 1968.

While voters elected Trump, they also backed Democratic policies. In seven states, voters enshrined abortion rights in their constitutions. Two Republican-dominated states raised their minimum wage to $15 an hour; three enshrined mandated paid leave. In exit polls last week, sixty-five percent of voters said they want abortion to remain legal, and fifty-six percent said they want undocumented immigrants to have a chance to apply for legal status.

The gap between what Trump has promised MAGA supporters and what voters want is creating confusion in national politics. How can Trump deliver the national abortion ban MAGAs want when sixty-five percent of voters want abortion rights? How can he deport all undocumented immigrants, including those who have been here for decades and integrated into their communities, while his own voters say they want undocumented immigrants to have a path to citizenship? 

Trump’s people have repeatedly expressed their opinion that Trump was stopped from putting the full MAGA agenda into place because he did not move quickly enough in his first term. They have vowed they will not make that mistake again. But the fast imposition of their extremist policies runs the risk of alienating the more moderate voters who just put them in power.

In September, as the Taliban enforced new rules on women in Afghanistan, they also began to target Afghan men. New laws mandated that men stop wearing western jeans, stop cutting their hair and beards in western ways, and stop looking at women other than their wives or female relatives. Religious morality officers are knocking on the doors of those who haven’t recently attended mosque to remind them they can be tried and sentenced for repeated nonattendance, and government employees are afraid they’ll be fired if they don’t grow their beards. According to Rick Noack of the Washington Post, such restrictions surprised men, who were accustomed to enjoying power in their society. Some have been wondering if they should have spoken up to defend the freedoms of their wives and daughters.

One man who had supported the Taliban said he now feels bullied. “We all are practicing Muslims and know what is mandatory or not. But it’s unacceptable to use force on us,” he said. Speaking on the condition of anonymity because he feared drawing the attention of the regime, another man from Kabul said: “If men had raised their voices, we might also be in a different situation now.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[thingsorganizedneatly]

“Rock, (Toilet) Paper, Scissors”, 2020

“Rock, (Toilet) Paper, Scissors”, 2020 is a sculpture made for Marta Gallery (@marta.losangeles) and Plant Paper’s (@plant_paper) “UNDER / OVER” group exhibition of toilet paper holders, running from Sept. 10–Nov. 1., 2020.

Each edition of the work is made from two existing found objects: a pair of 11” Klein Scissors (with varying color handle), and a fiberglass faux rock.

[asgoodeasgold]

Are you ready to immerse yourself in Elizabethan times? allsoulsdg Shadow of Night (Book 2 of A Discovery of Witches trilogy) read along starts on Monday! Three chapters will be read and discussed on their social media every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday between 11 Nov and 11 Dec. I will be posting edits from series 2 of the show alongside the read along 🧡.

📷 Calendar is from AllSoulsDG IG + my edits from Sky / Bad Wolf A Discovery of Witches (2020) s2

[cenestpaslavie]

Election Fraud?

You've seen this image:

It’s a graph from a website named ZeroHedge. Its purpose is to highlight the dramatic increase in democrat votes in 2020, and the subsequent decrease in 2024. This is to bring attention to the theory that the 2020 election was a farce. However, this graph is not viable evidence of election fraud. All it shows is that more people, overall, showed up to the 2020 election. I believe this increased turnout can be attributed to the unprecedented circumstances at the time.

Firstly, it is clear that Democrat and republican votes increased from 2016 to 2020. For Democrats, it was a 23% increase, and for Republicans, it was 18%. It then seemingly drops to normal levels for Democrats in 2024, but not for Republicans. It should be considered that this is a developing situation, the article this graph was created for was posted on November 6th, while votes were still being counted. Currently, on November 8th, the graph would look more like this:

As the rest of the votes are counted, the graph will continue to shift. It’s still a significant loss in Democrat votes, but it’s definitely not the flat line shown in the original graph anymore.

The drastic increase in the votes of Democrats and Republicans (though admittedly, mostly Democrats), can be attributed to the issues at the time. In 2020, there were the George Floyd protests, which went on the entire year (and almost another two after that), there were the California wildfires which decimated 4.3 million acres, and of course, the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdowns, which ruled over the entire year. In times of exceptional social tension, voter turnout will increase; this has always been true. For example, in the first election after 9/11, democrats showed a 16% increase in votes, and Republicans showed a 23% increase, based on the votes of the previous election. An increase, which is proportionally very similar to 2020, only reversed. Another important factor is the social distancing protocols in 2020, where the reasons a person could request to vote by mail were expanded, and many states sent all registered voters a ballot by mail. So, people who had not voted before had a mail-in ballot dropped in their lap and might have already been pushed into action by the increasing social tension.

In the 2024 election, though, the drop in voter turnout was not proportional to what we saw in 2008, the second election after 9/11. Though, again, as the votes are counted, this gap will decrease. It is my belief that many typical Democrat voters were feeling disillusioned with the state of things. Trump’s campaigning was ever-present, the assassination attempt caused massive publicity, and Kamala only had a few months to campaign. The biggest issue many left-winged people were concerned with this election was the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Since both Trump and Kamala did not plan to stop funding Israel’s invasion, many people voted third party or did not vote. While Kamala did show more empathy towards the Palestinian people than Trump, it was not enough to sway the majority to her side.

In conclusion, there was not and is not an election fraud. The results are what they are, and trying to prove a voting fraud distracts from the action that needs to be taken now to win back the Democrat votes for 2028. It also risks re-empowering the 2020 election fraud movement, which was violent and conspiratorial.

I would also like to add that despite the mostly neutral tone in this post, I am firmly a leftist. It is genuinely gutting to see the outcome of this election, not because of fraud, but because all of those people really approved of such archaic, hateful ideas.

Sources: 

Durden, T. (2024). Trump Wins: Here Are The Economic, Market, Tax, Tariff, Immigration And Regulation Implications. [online] Zerohedge.com. Available at: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/trump-wins-here-are-economic-market-tax-tariff-immigration-and-regulation-implications [Accessed 8 Nov. 2024].

This is the ZeroHedge article which contains the original graph.

HOW WE VOTED IN 2020 A TOPICAL LOOK AT THE SURVEY OF THE PERFORMANCE OF AMERICAN ELECTIONS. [online] Available at: https://electionlab.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2021-03/HowWeVotedIn2020-March2021.pdf.

This is a breakdown of voting methods in 2020, used when talking about the increase of mail in ballots.

The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica (2017). United States Presidential Election Results. In: Encyclopædia Britannica. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-States-Presidential-Election-Results-1788863.

This is an official record of the United States presidential election votes. This was used to calculate the increase of Dem and Rep voters, and to construct the updated graph.

Molski, M. (2024). How voting demographics changed between 2020 and 2024 presidential elections. [online] NBC4 Washington. Available at: https://www.nbcwashington.com/decision-2024/2024-voter-turnout-election-demographics-trump-harris/3762138/.

A comparison of voter demographics between 2020 and 2024. Used for me to get a general idea of the situation.

Kerlin, Katherine E. “California’s 2020 Wildfire Season.” UC Davis, 4 May 2022, www.ucdavis.edu/climate/news/californias-2020-wildfire-season-numbers.

Acres burned in the 2020 wildfires.

[helloliriels]

2020 Tumblr Top 10

1. 850 notes - Dec 5 2020

2. 460 notes - Oct 4 2020

3. 270 notes - Dec 4 2020

4. 267 notes - Nov 26 2020

5. 249 notes - Dec 27 2020

6. 218 notes - Dec 19 2020

Watson: Who hurt you? Sherlock: *laughs* you want a list? Watson, pulling out a gun discreetly: Yes.

7. 191 notes - Dec 2 2020

8. 184 notes - Dec 24 2020

9. 177 notes - Dec 27 2020

10. 163 notes - Oct 11 2020

Created by TumblrTop10

From my first year here ... 😎😭memories ... !

[destielfandomlore]

What happened with destiel and was it queerbaiting, queercoding, or both, and why? Also, why are we like this now, several YEARS after the finale?

Hi everyone. This blog is meant to be an archive to collect data to attempt to answer those extremely important questions and then work toward coming up with some sort of viable explanation of events for the past sixteen years. Basically, we’re trying to figure out intent on destiel and its impact on fandom.

Additional research questions we are considering:

1. Who are the players involved and what were/are their views? 

This includes the main cast, other cast, writers, crew, directors, network, general/casual audience/outsiders, con organizers, and fandom.

2. What happened in the narrative? 

This is examining the source material of the show itself to show evidence (or not) of the destiel subplot, including deleted scenes, cut or changed lines, etc.

It’s helpful to mentally break up the narrative into: s4-7 (early seasons), s8-11 (mid seasons), s12-14 (late seasons minus last season), s15, and spnwin.

3. What happened outside the show itself?

This is documenting the events and comments made surrounding the narrative and hopefully being able to come up with a comprehensive timeline of events.

When did destiel stop being a bit and start being written romantically (if it did)?

We’re also working on establishing what happened on Nov 5th and the resulting fallout since then, including destiel-related spn s16 content (referring to 2020-present, not a revival).

4. Why did things happen the way they did?

What was the point of all of this? Was destiel included in and outside of the narrative as queerbaiting or queercoding (+censorship/gaslighting by TPTB) or both?

Did the creatives involved (writers, actors, crew, directors, etc) tell the story of destiel intentionally, or was all of this an accident/coincidence and/or fanon?

What were the real world social contexts that influenced all of the above events? This is considering the impact on destiel of LGBTQ+ history in the US, toxic masculinity, social/political attitudes and differences across the country, role of internet access for fandom, etc. that may help explain what happened.

5. What is the impact of destiel on fandom, tv shows, etc. going forward?

I guess this is something we'll have to wait to find out 🤷🏻‍♀️

So that's that. As always, feel free to send an ask/submission or @ us, and if you want to help us with the chaos, you are more than welcome to reach out via DM to one of the admins!! 💙💚

(Edit 6/30/24: Right now we are good on admins but ofc you can contribute in other ways!!)

[petals2fish]

Petals what are your top five favorites you've ever written?

I am only doing this for one shots nonny :p idk if I could rate my multi chapters its like rating Taylor Swift albums hahaha

See fics belowwww

WILF by PetalsTheFish 

Fandoms:Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling  

Mature

No Archive Warnings Apply

F/M

Complete Work

28 Feb 2023

Summary

“What’s so funny?” “Nothing,” he said as his arms shook, “it’s just—you’ve got to be mental if you don’t consider him a WILF.” “A what?” Lily asked incredulously, grabbing his wrist. James stared her dead in the eye as he repeated slowly, “WILF. W—I—L—F. Wizard I’d Like to Fuck.”

Moral of the Story by PetalsTheFish

Fandoms:Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling  

General Audiences

No Archive Warnings Apply

F/M

Complete Work

30 Aug 2022

Summary

James tucked his head to look behind them, where Snape was looking at them from the parking lot. “Quick, laugh.” He ordered. Lily stared at him, “laugh?” “You know, like I said something funny.” Lily snorted mirthlessly, “you should say something funny then.”

Radio Echoes by PetalsTheFish 

Fandoms:The 100 (TV)  

Teen And Up Audiences

No Archive Warnings Apply

F/M

Complete Work

11 Aug 2020

Summary

Bellamy confronts Clarke about the radio calls, wondering why she only cared to call for him. Not Raven. Not Emori. Not Monty. Not even Harper. Just Bellamy.

Prodigal by PetalsTheFish 

Fandoms:Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling  

Teen And Up Audiences

No Archive Warnings Apply

F/M

Complete Work

14 Nov 2021

Summary

"Charming girl. I used to tell her she ought to have been in my house. Very cheeky answers I used to get back, too."

Girl Crush by PetalsTheFish 

Fandoms:Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling  

Teen And Up Audiences

No Archive Warnings Apply

F/M, M/M, Multi

Complete Work

20 Jan 2021

Summary

Jealousy was a monster that, left untamed, could turn even the slightest anger into a crusade. She acted like she loved Peter like she loved the others. That was the worst part, because no one could ever love him.