#oligarchs are stealing everything

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

Four minute YouTube video that details how the oligarchy is going to punish their MAGA base. The narrator is the acerbic Rick Wilson, author of Everything Trump Touches Dies.

👆highly recommend.

[brieftimetravelwhispers]

On 26th October and even before that, Georgian Dream patry decided to steal elections in Georgia. The ruling party decided to strip us from our constitutional right to vote anonymously, they decided to steal our future and steer us back towards USSR, our dark past that promises us dark future.

In the last two years GD party has introduced at least two new laws that were used in Russia in past to solidify Putin's regime. Namely Law against foreign influence, that christens every NGO that is financed from abroad as an agent of foreign influence; and law regarding protecting family values and minors that forbids LGBTQ+ 'propaganda', meaning that symbolism associated to it, as well as literature, art or any kind of public expression that somehow informs about or includes non traditional family values, sexual orientation or gender identity is banned. We can no longer read Oedipus King in university, Sappho, Gilgamesh and many more starting from December, sections from cultural anthropology will be banned as well, and it's simply matter of time before critical skills and knowledge will no longer be reachable. This is authoritarian regime, where everything happens on a whim of one oligarch, what he says is a law for lawmakers, his slaves and he himself is subordinate of russian regiment.

Today, just several minutes ago, 'Parliament' declared itself legitimate, even though members of opposition are rejecting their seats, even though the President doesn't acknowledge fairness of elections, even though constitution clearly says that parliament needs at least 2/3 of deputies to do so. If that is not enough, constitutional court currently is discussing legitimacy of all 150 deputies per the Presidents suit, that automatically pauses working of the new parliament according to the constitution.

Georgia needs desperately to be in spotlight right now. Foreign support is all we have, as court, church, police is corrupt. Police keeps breaking up peaceful demonstations, beating up and jailing protesters, court keeps postponing their hearings as they know that the President, only pro-western institute right now, will use her right to pardon them and she wont be able to do that after her term is up in following months.

We've had painful past, full of protests, bloodshed and fighting for our nations survival. That's what being neighbour to Russia means for us. We won't stop fighting for our future and independence, won't let our ancestors sacrifice to be wasted.

20% of Georgia is occupied by Russia. And even today, there are some people, some georgians who prefer occupants claws, false sense of 'security' to fighting for our freedom.

This is not all, there's lot more that's impossible to fit in one post, for example GDPs pre election promises were pretty alarming, their rhetoric is horrendous, words they use are plain manipulative and dehumanising. They have their own pro government media that is brainwashing people and destroying every critical thinking brain cell. I am angry, I am disappointed and tired and so are hundreds of thousands.

Some sources about the situation:

[softer-ua]

I think Hori did a great job showing that societal changes can happen, the world has gotten better before and it can again, but that change isn’t always linear or noticeable in the moment unless you actively choose to see it and be grateful for it

Because the fight for change takes everyone consciously doing their part as well as creating systemic changes

It will be full of loss, big and small, in the end it may not even feel like much has changed and the accomplishments don’t always measure up to amount of grief accrued

because it’s the next generation and the generations after that really get anything from our efforts

Think of society as the field where we plant ourselves, and think of the oligarchs(rich fucks in charge) of the past who stole the people’s harvests, limited what was allowed to grow, and forced overworking the land to the point of poisoning crops

They do the same now stealing the fruits of our creativity passions and dogged work ethic, they limit where we can direct those efforts so we only grow in ways that benefit them, and they demand we drive ourselves to burnout and all creativity must equal profit

You see the land and your people dying, so you work yourself to the bone to turn the inhospitable over farmed land into something farmable again and you do your best everyday to inspire others to join the cause

In the beginning crop yields are still small and people are barely surviving off the rations, so much work for so little, but you beg they remember that what they grew is heartier than the failed crop last year, the effort wasn’t in vain

You have to work with a lot of shitty people, and they don’t all get less shitty, and those that do can’t undo the harm they caused. But over all less harm is being perpetrated, pieces of the cycle have been broken off giving room for something better to grow.

This is the cycle for a few years, only small sections of land have seen change and it’s a delicate balance because it could easily be over farmed and collapse again, it feels hopeless at times but a dedicated few keep inspiring others to keep going

Then a decade goes by, nights of going to bed hungry become a distant memory for the children, even while you go to bed haunted by the memory of those who didn’t survive the winter.

Some ghosts are leave a lighter touch, it’s unfair their bodies gave out but they find rest in knowing the world is changing and you held their hand the whole way.

The worst ghosts are from those whose soul fled long before the wasting took them, the ones who festered in fear/anger/resentment/isolation . Those whose suffering made them cruel and leaked rot on to the lives of others.

They claw at your nerves, demanding the unanswerable, why? Why didn’t change come sooner, why wasn’t this all prevented, why them, why not you?

Could you have given more of yourself to save them? They were hurting others, all your empathy couldn’t change that, so you hurt them and all our empathy doesn’t change that either.

B&W thinking, or nuanced gray. Both have their place, but neither replaces grief, you can’t intellectualize away a hit nerve.

Pain demands to be felt, but the future demands your present and to get through everything you closed that door and put so many locks on it

It feels like it was a life time ago, it was such a different versions of you, the one who closed the door doesn’t seem to be here anymore and what if you can’t recognize what’s left of the you that’s been locked up for so long.

There’s ghosts on both sides, how many are malevolent? All the benevolent ghosts bid adieu, so what if that old you has soured and become the most malevolent of all?

It’s been rotting behind the door with all your unresolved fears, bloated with your insecurities, everything about yourself that you didn’t believe could survive and yet it’s still there, but you have changed so completely so is it really still there?

Pain demands to be felt, the future demands that you are present, you must make space for the past, the past doesn’t exist, you can’t move forward holding on to all this, the future is NOW

You let some of the ghosts go, some don’t let you go. Some we wish we could have kept

Sometimes building the future means you never get to reconcile all of your past, sometimes closer is just time passed

You can never be the same again, some doors stay locked, you take whatever closure you can get, and you stay grateful for whatever the future brings

You serve the children hardier meals, they grow up strong enough to keep tilling the land with the knowledge you gave them about what greed does to the land and how we hope to prevent it.

And sometimes, every so often through your life, you get to greet a day that is so different from the world you were born into that you can feel lives being saved just because they were born in a world you held create

What’s more, sometimes, sometimes you do get everything you ever wanted, and you get to share that future with the people you loved through all of it

[disregardcanon]

a few thoughts about the us tiktok and the rednote thing

and a link to an article from npr detailing it

bytedance's first app was a comedy meme platform that was forced to shut down by the chinese government. bytedance is not some arm of the chinese government that's happily giving away foreign data. they're a company whose first attempt at a social media platform was banned in their home country for being subversive. they are not purposefully giving away foreign data.

on top of that evidence, the company has tons of foreign investors and the interfaces for tiktok and its chinese counterpart are both housed in their respective companies, making it much harder for them to even procure the data if the chinese government somehow tried to force them to give it up.

the chinese internet IS highly censored and the government IS authoritarian. however, the us government won't give any information about why they think this is happening, why it would be dangerous, or what else they would DO about it, which leads most of us to believe that it's a red-scare propaganda attempt as well as an act of corporate greed. if the company sells an american company then one of OUR oligarchs gets to take hold of a great interface, steal the interface for their own financial gain, and make changes that make it harder to be "unamerican" on the platform.

us tiktok users are understandably upset about this. as a matter of spite, lots of them are moving to a different chinese social media app: rednote.

rednote

i made an account there and have been having fun with it. i don't plan on making it like, my main social media presence, but i LOVE exploring. i'm gonna hang out for some memes, cat pics, work on my mandarin and help some nice people with their english homework.

before i get too starry eyed about it... the people ARE very nice. it IS cool to get to talk to people that live somewhere else and this CAN facilitate that. there are definitely some real conversations happening here and it's letting people make good, difficult connections. however... rednote is the Squeaky Clean Perfect Version of the people on it. they have to do their best salesperson for china act to maintain access to this platform.

any legitimate complaints that they would like to make about their OWN government CAN'T be made in a forum like this because of the censorship from the chinese government. OVERT censorship vs the more covert version americans are used to. https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/07/how-xiaohongshu-censors-sudden-incidents/

i one hundred percent understand the urge to "enemy of my enemy is my friend" something, but... more than one government is capable of Doing Propaganda at the same time. if you go on rednote and go "everything is actually so nice and wonderful and perfect in china all the time!!!! they have everything right!!!" then... you probably shouldn't be on rednote. or have a chat with the nice mormon missionaries that rang your doorbell.

a quick reminder about the treatment of uyghur muslims under the chinese government

okay now i'm done

[viridescentvoid]

fuck you jeff benzo and elon must and mark suckerberg and tramp and all you fucking pedos and weirdos who uphold white supremacy.

humans are nature. nature is god.

we are power, collectively.

what happens when all the data you're stealing to train AI is from people who fucking hate you? I hope it ends in justice.

I can't stop thinking about those who are going to be forcibly separated from their families and loved ones due to Trump's call for mass deportation. I cant stop thinking about how awful those ICE camps are and how inhumane it is. this motherfucker said he's going to sign 100 executive orders tonight. I can't stop thinking of those in Palestine, the women in Afghanistan, those in the Congo and the indigenous communities across the world who have been protecting the Earth against the horrors of colonization for centuries.

I will do everything in my power to resist and create community because these tech oligarchs are insane and will continue to destroy our natural resources while our government who is funded by these hoes is letting us die.

[redinkquill]

Warnings and Hope

Fascism has risen in America’s land

Delivered through oligarchs hands

First comes the camps for the outsiders

Arrested by ICE, the fascist outriders

Deportation is stymied by home countries

America turning on allies and dispensing with pleasantries

Camps start to concentrate when workers are reduced

Slave labor working fields and products produced

Eventually the turn from ‘work is freedom’

To ‘death delivered’ with rhetoric fearsome

Allies get tariffs and prices rise

Put into place with evil lies

Tensions ramp up and soon there are wars

Invading for land and settling scores

Expanding borders while people suffer

The rich are hoarders and everything gets rougher

Taxes rise on the masses and lower for the top

Pressure builds until it explodes with a pop

The next elections much be watched like a hawk

For all of this madness to end and come to a stop

Helpers can hide the pursued if they are quiet about it

People can march and disrupt and riot about it

Support the organizations who show up

Help each other and glow up

For the writers and creatives, create to make hope

To help people effect change and to do more than cope

Journalists can expose the horrors

And lawsuits can be filed by lawyers

Mutual aid for community support

We can get through this if enough of us get aboard

I won’t allow these things to pass without trying stop it

I won’t let this boil grow without trying to pop it

Donald Trump and his ilk are an existential threat

He is burdening us all with essentially debt

We must turn the tables, the sides are set

Good must come out so evil is met

Will you be on the side of the heroes?

Or will you be on the side of the zeroes?

The future hasn’t been written yet

______________________________________

In case you don’t pay attention to the news at all. Donald Trump is president and had admitted to Elon Musk stealing the election for him. Since becoming president Elon has performed the Nazi salute thrice on live TV. Trump had signed chaotic executive orders removing birthright citizenship. People that work in this country and pay taxes have been arrested and put in camps. The original intent for the camps is deportation, but that is also how the Nazis started their camps and they ended up just killing everyone in them so it seems we are heading in that direction. Trans people have been said not to exist. Women are getting laws put in place to kill them if they seek an abortion for any reason in South Carolina. Our clean water rules are getting slashed and burned. While a new pandemic rages, Trump cripples out health agencies to communicate about the Bird flu at all. Prices are rising on groceries because of tariffs. Prices on everything are going to rise while our minimum wage stays at 7.25. People can help by quietly driving people to clinics, hiding the people being detained secretly. They can march and support the organizations marching. Be prepared for police resistance and perhaps bring first aid instead of a phone because they can track you with it. Learn a skill to prepare for an uncertain future. If you can create to help that would be super. We must secure our elections from being hacked as they try to stack the deck. We must legally challenge every decree. We must resist camps and perhaps be prepared to tear them down. Start breaking small rules to cultivate your minds pathways for resistance to rules. Don’t obey in advance. We must create a coalition of many people to stop this from happening. As RedInkQuill I will write in red ink to highlight what I see. I hope those that agree will join me.

[el-yon]

[ personal sharing time ]

beyond all the character/narrative reasons for Ichigo to live a full life, I have a very personal/political/professional (cannot dissociate the three) appreciation for the fact that he does not join the Gotei - nor any organization, for that matter.

I know Kubo draws mainly from Buddhism, and I don’t think he’s worried about political organizations at all, since his message is about self-realization. However, as he takes us through Ichigo’s journey, he does take us through different political arrangements, meaning, organizations of violence: oligarchic and militaristic regimes, colonialism/imperialism, theocratic and totalitarian ideologies, you name it. For instance, I think Kubo said somewhere he chose the spanish/latin motif to Hueco Mundo and the Arrankar/Hollowfication stuff because he thought it sounded sensuous, which makes sense with the uh... subtext of it all, BUT, the predatory viciousness of Hueco Mundo is such a strong colonization subtext too!. Also, expropriating a population/territory (Karakura) to literally fabricate and access sovereignty (the Royal Key)... wow. Then you know, don’t even need to get into Ginjo literally stealing powers, or everything about the Wandenreich.

But the most important “organization of violence” here is not the one that imposes one’s will onto another, but the individual one that informs human agency and autonomy. Ichigo happens to have all the available types of power in his hands, he has a lot of means to inflict violence, but he gets to learn how to use them to be his own person.

No gods, no hierarchies, no masters but himself.

When we’re kids, we’re vulnerable. Things happen to us, and we are powerless. Then, as we grow up, we gain physicial strenght, we get the chance to walk on our own, to actually do things, to be active - we get access to power, including, to do things to others. When we start Bleach, Ichigo gets this immediate power boost in his life and we see him fighting the world: he chops off Sora’s hand, he chops off the serial killer hollow and he is angry, he’s brutal, he’s violent - as we see even more clearly in the whole hollowfication journey. A journey that, beautifully, comes to its closure when he finally learns the truth about himself, stops trying to supress it, and learns how to use it, how to regulate it, and once he relies on Orihime. Which brings me to the next part.

Growing up right beside him, we have the development of three other young people, each one relating to particular aspect of his own powers, dealing with violence too: Chad is a window to racial violence and learns how to fight back on his terms, Orihime is a window to gender violence and learns how to fight back on her terms, Uryu is a window to genocide and learns how to fight back on his terms. And they are also helping and being helped by Renji and Rukia, two people who have been hurt by class opression and nobility dynamics, who also found their own way to make it work - the “we gripped each other’s hand instead of the blade” is very important to lil old me.

In a world that is terrible, but also full of possibilities, Ichigo and Karakura are (to me, this is a personal take) an amazing ode to human agency that is informed by self-improvement, desire to help, to care and protect more than any disciplinary power out there, and I love that for them.

[theculturedmarxist]

I think what artists, musicians, writers, pretty much every creative person really, all need to understand is that under capitalism, everything they make is worthless. AI, piracy, whatever, they're all just windmills you're tilting at. Even if by some miracle you did manage to defeat it, it would soon be replaced by some other terrible mechanism which alienates you from your creation, because that's how Capitalism works.

This is just the latest iteration of a process that's been happening for over 500 years now. It's just now instead of enclosing a physical commons for the private profit of aristocrats, oligarchs are enclosing the digital commons. Consolidating the public spaces of forums, message boards, webrings, and other democratically driven online spaces into the few mega-sites of Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, and so on has run its course. Now the capitalists have turned to trawling the rest of the internet to try and wring whatever value they can get from it.

And just like the process of enclosure or mechanization or industrialization, there's no putting that genie back in the bottle. They've already scoured the internet for untold trillions of pages of data and images and what not. The damage is done. It doesn't matter what further damage is going to come from it either, because the dirty not-so-secret of the tech world is that this is it. They have no more bright ideas. Pretty much every great thing to Google's name, they bought. All their in house initiatives failed. Google video? Google groups? Google glass? They make their money selling ads that nobody cares about. Same with Facebook. They just spent billions to create a crappy Second Life clone that no one gives a fuck about. These tech corporations are massive, lumbering, doomed empires, especially now that covid has pretty much brought the era of 0%-interest loans to an end. Without the billions of dollars of venture capital being pumped into Uber and Twitter and all the rest, now they've got to actually start making money, which none of them are actually able to do. Now they're desperate for some new gimmick to latch onto to try and turn a profit or attract ever dwindling venture capital. Bitcoin was the last big scam. Remember Libra? NFTs were the big thing after that. NFT images! NFT tv shows! NFT games! Here we are a year later and no one fucking talks about them any more. AI is just more of this magic bean bullshit.

Aside from all of that, even if AI was managed to be beaten back, you can assume that whatever the cure the powers that be settle on will be worse than the disease. Whatever "protections" get put into place will only be used against individual artists. At the end of the day, these big corps are just going to end up keeping all the information they've already stolen, the algorithms they used to steal it, and then will put laws into place legitimizing that theft after the fact. You're simply not going to win that fight, because the battle's already been lost.

The only long term solution to this is to attack the root cause, which is a system that relies upon exploitation in order to accumulate profit. Profits are what feed these massive corporate beasts, and as they're starved by falling profits, they'll only grow more ravenous and rapacious. We're only at the opening stages of this trend now, and things are only going to get worse.

[refugeecats3]

Kleptocracy is biological. It consumes everything in its path like a parasite.

In Russia it ate Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky and shit out alcoholism and hopelessness.

Justin Kennedy (justice kennedys son) was the inside man at Deutsche bank that was getting all trumps toxic loans approved.

No other bank but Deutsche bank would touch trump and his imaginary valuations.

Why?

Because Deutsche bank was infested with Russian oligarchs.

For 50 years the oligarchs consumed everything in soviet Russia. They stole everything of value including the hope of Russians.

The corruption eventually collapsed the Soviet Union like the carcass of a parasite riddled host and the oligarchs were forced to expand their feeding grounds.

In 89 the Soviet Union fails and for a couple of years they hid all their ill gotten gains under a mattress until they started buying condos at trump towers.

They made stops in Ukraine, Cyprus and London but they landed in New York because that was what everyone wanted in the late 80’s.

Levi’s, Pepsi, Madonna tapes that weren’t smuggled bootlegs, Wall Street cocaine

They all bought new suits and cars and changed their title from “most violent street thug in moscow” to “respectable Russian oligarch” but they didn’t leave their human trafficking, narcotics or extortion behind. It was their most lucrative business model.

Trump and Giuliani just opened the doors and let the predators in to feed. They all bought condos at trump towers and used trumps casinos to launder their money.

In 89 three of trumps casino execs start asking why their books don’t make sense and they die in a helicopter crash that Roger Stone pulls trump off of at the last minute.

https://pressofatlanticcity.com/gallery/oct-10-1989-3-trump-execs-2-pilots-die-as-helicopter-crashes-in-parkway-median/article_40ea7e95-9309-5e01-89ba-7f6c30409ff3.html

Guiliani redirected NYPD resources away from his Russian allies intentionally and onto the Italian mob. It let him claim he cleaned up New York and it lets the russians a perk of doing business with trump.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/09/a-new-rudy-scandal-fbi-agent-says-giuliani-was-co-opted-by-russian-intelligence/

The attorney/client privilege is their continual work around they use to accept bribes and make payments up and down the mob pyramid.

The insane valuations coming out in trumps fraud trial are a necessity of the money laundering cycle that duetschebank was doing with the Russians.

The reason trump cosplays as “folksy” is because he is feeding on the U.S. middle class, not because he is one of us.

The GOP fell in line to MAGA because Trump did what pathological liars do, they told them anything they wanted to hear.

Trump with his money laundering and child raping buddy Epstein, Roger Stone with his sex clubs in DC and Nevada, and Paul Manafort with his election rigging pretty much everywhere, sat down at a table with Mike Johnson and the extreme religious right and convinced them that they were the same.

They self evidently are not, at least at a surface level, but there is enough common ground in the exploitation of children, Russian kompromat, desire for unilateral control that they became the worlds weirdest and most dysfunctional orgy.

Trump belongs to the authoritarians. The GOP now belongs to trump.

But their overall goal is the same.

Kleptocracy.

Putin became one of the richest people in the world by stealing from Russians first. The Russian oligarchs used perestroika to privatize all the assets of the USSR by stealing them from the hands of the decent people because that’s what predators do.

We don’t have a political problem. We have a predator problem. Like murder hornets that invade a beehive and destroy a bee every 14 seconds until the hive collapses the oligarchs want to move into the United States and do the same because none of them want to live in Russia.

Who would? after all, it was destroyed by oligarchs and nobody steps away from the mob, they get retired through violent means.

But all these oligarchs are old now and know they can’t keep ahead of the slightly more violent and ambitious lion cub beneath them who is growing tired of paying the old man when he does all the dirty work.

The soviet oligarchs ate Russia to death with their greed. Then Ukraine. Now they are designing a perestroika 2.0 to put 330 million Americans into real estate default so they can come in and buy everything up at 3 cents on the dollar. Trump just enabled them.

It’s the collapse of the USSR, American edition using the naive and compromised GOP as their assault force, But your slave masters are the same. The 3% that are so devoid of empathy that they put their wealth above everything else

Kolomoisky was the putin puppet in Ukraine that bought most of downtown Cleveland.

Before that he started privatbank which was taking IMF loans which the oligarchs would loan to themselves and never repay.

When the IMF figured it out they tried to force Zelensky to have the Ukrainian people pay it back before they would extend any more aid.

Kolomoisky wasn’t alone. He was just the crossroads between Rudy Giuliani, trump and Kushner.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/inside-anatevka-the-curious-chabad-hamlet-in-ukraine-where-giuliani-is-mayor/

https://www.timesofisrael.com/giuliani-associates-leveraged-gop-access-to-seek-ukraine-gas-deal/

When Ukraine arrested him last year for corruption it cracked the whole network open.

Trump can’t stop lying now or his MAGA base tears him apart when they realize he is literally the man who stole the world.

Trump is a pathological liar. But lying is an expensive habit. If you tell the truth, you can say it once and it’s finished. You have expelled all the energy necessary for it to stand on its own for eternity.

Lying requires infinite and exponentially more energy input in the form of more lies, bribes, extortion and murder to keep it covered.

Trump is now testing this theory on a worldwide scale.

Putin is tied to him by the purse strings and so is everyone who pushes Putin’s narrative because puppet strings work both directions. Why would any sane human push a psychopaths lies unless they are heavily invested in it?

The difference is, this is the first time in known human history that the Information Age happened. You can hide your neighborhood bullshit in 1980. It’s harder in 2000. By 2024 the internet knows more about a narcissistic oligarchs movements than he knows about himself.

It’s just a matter of organizing that data.

They couldn’t self regulate their greed. It’s just following the roach trail back to nest after that.

https://www.ft.com/content/8c6d9dca-882c-11e7-bf50-e1c239b45787

https://www.amlintelligence.com/2020/09/deutsche-bank-suffers-worst-damage-over-massive-aml-discrepancies-in-fincen-leaks/

https://www.occrp.org/en/the-fincen-files/global-banks-defy-us-crackdowns-by-serving-oligarchs-criminals-and-terrorists

https://www.voanews.com/amp/us-lifts-sanctions-on-rusal-other-firms-linked-to-russia-deripaska/4761037.html

https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/final_-_minority_status_of_the_russia_investigation_with_appendices.pdf

#196

[star-onion]

So this is kind of rambling but I did my first four quadrant reading in a while and basically we’re in for a wild ride

Obviously the oligarchs are stealing away with all the resources and they’re like just getting started with this nastiness and humans have just about had it like we’re almost to the breaking point and something’s about to give.

The revolution is nigh.

Nothing is ever going to be the same again. But that is the way of the universe. The earth will recover after the human experiment has blazed away to embers and ash.

In the meantime, our brains are just beginning to awaken new levels of empathy and compassion. We are one generation removed from Jim Crow. We’re barely one generation into the age of the internet where we can connect human to human on a more massive scale than ever before. Of Course extremes are blazing up. Our psyches are fragile and strange and entire universes of swirling stars and stories and love and we have so many billions of them.

And every little human spec will continue to love. We will decorate our little corners. We will share meals with loved ones. Until the last glimmer, we will learn and love and witness the oddity of humanity. Of life. Of planet earth. Even if the end of our era is nigh.

God it’s going to be hard. And scary. Things we thought we knew to be true and solid will seem to dissolve into chaos because everything is made up and the rules are going to change.

We have to anchor ourselves in each other and what we know to be right and true and good, and fight for that. There will be times of beauty and breakdowns aplenty. But we have the stuff to handle it. Humans are so very adaptable. We’ll figure it out.

Choose to anchor in love. In compassion. In kindness. And those things will win. Even if it’s just in your own little universes.

[yourreddancer]

The best people in American federal law enforcement, national security, and national intelligence are being fired. The reasons given for this are DEI and trumpwashing the past. Of course, if you fire everyone who was concerned in some way with the investigations of January 6th or of Russia, that will be much or even most of the FBI. Those are bad reasons, but the reality is worse: the aim is lawlessness: to get the police and the patriots out of the way.

If you voted Republican, and you care about your country, please act rather than rationalize. Unless you cast your ballot so that South African oligarchs could steal your data, your money, your country, and your future, make it known to your elected officials that you wanted something else. And get ready to protest with people with whom you otherwise disagree.

Almost everything that has happened during this attempted takeover is illegal. Lawsuits can be filed and courts can order that executive orders be halted. This is crucial work.

[obsidianmichi]

I'm going to point out that the Right and the MSM are hammering on Biden being old is their only talking point. Why?

BECAUSE AFTER FOUR YEARS THAT'S ALL THEY HAVE.

The party that brought you the Alzheimer President and still worships him today is upset about one very healthy old man being old and cognizant. Nothing else they've tried sticks, even Israel and Palestine hasn't managed to stick. The Right is desperate for Biden to drop out. They want the Left to commit political suicide. They want a redux on 2016. They want you to be depressed. They want you to stay home instead of using your vote to enact change.

Biden is the most progressive president we have had since FDR, and the rising tide of congressional democrats are also pulling left. Federal institutions like the NLRB have transformed from toothless into powerful advocates for worker's rights. Democrats have dominated the last two elections. SCOTUS rulings and Roe have resulted in a massive unprecedented leftward voting swing largely in spite of expected trends and polling to the contrary. Did you know that the 2022 midterms had historic democrat turnout? Did you know a Republican candidate almost lost a Kentucky special election this year in a district that went 20+ for Trump? COVID did a number on the boomer voting bloc, and millennials aren't growing more conservative as they get older. The rules have changed.

Don't buy into the bullshit. Trump has been bankrupting the Republican Party to pay his legal bills. Many Republican state parties are bankrupt from their own corruption and they can't turn to the national party for funding. Republican small dollar donors are exhausted from years of being over tapped. All the republicans have are their oligarchs. Their leadership is inexperienced and has been kicking out their experienced players for Trump loyalists. They have no ground game to get out the vote and no means to fund it outside the smaller PACs. Despite every presentation of strength and bluster, they are weak. Their candidates are weak. Trump can't string a coherent sentence together, much less do it without outrageous lies. Trump is a convicted felon. He's a court adjudicated rapist. He failed on every count during his presidency. He enacted the Muslim ban. He pulled the US from the Paris Climate Accords and the Iran nuclear deal. Trump claimed the success of the Obama economy, which he wrecked through mismanagement. He's the reason your taxes are higher. His inaction on COVID killed millions of Americans. He tried to steal the 2020 election and attempted a coup. Listen to him talk, he sounds like he's lost his mind. His campaign is struggling to book venues, and the only people showing up for him are largely the ones who follow him from state to state. His approval ratings are in the toilet. The debates were much worse for him with independents than they were for Biden. Most of the MSM are leveraging everything they can to convince you the opposite is true.

This is not about Biden being old. This is about Biden's government being a threat to our ruling corporate class. This is about Trump being weak, and about making sure democrats and independents stay home.

If you've ever dreamed of a mass democratic tide to make significant change and push back against the conservatives in their strongholds now is the time.

That said, the MAGA NC candidate for governor is openly running on stripping voting rights from women and killing liberals. The head of the Heritage Foundation is making terrorist threats. SCOTUS is ruling the president (but only a Republican president) is a king. If they win, you can expect to see every major gain in the last forty to sixty years rolled back to the time when rivers were on fire from pollution, homosexual relationships were outlawed, company towns existed, divorce was nearly impossible, and school segregation was the de facto norm. Republicans also know now is the time.

You need to choose right now whether purity or reality is more important to you. The reality will come for you whether you're pure or not. Both candidates are not the same. Whoever becomes president will fundamentally alter your lives over the next four years and the lives of those you love. It will decide whether Palestine has any chance at a two state solution. It will directly affect the fate of both Ukraine and Taiwan. The election 2024 may even be the last real election in the US.

There are more of us than there are of them, but we'll only win if you choose to show up.

if i see one more article, post, or news anchor talking about how joe biden is old, i'm putting my fist through a window. i feel like i've gone through the fucking looking glass.

this is project 2025, trump's plan for what he'll do if elected. whatever you think is in there, it's worse. watch a breakdown of the highlights here. this man wants to unravel the fabric of our democracy for good - this all aside from his vitriolic hatred of poc, his determination to start ww3, and the fact that he can't string a sentence together without telling outrageous and easily verifiable lies. his administration will start their crusade to exterminate trans people on day one, and they won't stop there.

do not talk to me about how joe biden is old, as if that could ever matter to me more than my life or the lives of my friends and family. my little sister is 14, she's trans, and i don't know what to tell her when we talk about politics, because one of these people wants her dead and the other one is old and some of you are still acting like those problems are equals.

i can't fucking stand this. i'm not hearing it this time, we are not repeating 2016. refusing to vote is not an act of protest, it is an act of complacency, and our most vulnerable will suffer for your negligence. vote like your life depends on it, because for some of us, it really fucking does.

[nityarawal]

8/20/24

Magic Man

Morning Songs

Everyone Wants A Magic Man

A Bit Of Jolly

To Ease Their Nerves

Everyone Wants A Bit

Of Magic Man

Peeps Complain

There's Too Much Money

After Stealing Everything

Rumored Oligarchs

Raided In A Military Coop

Everyone Wants A Magic 

Man

Jupiter To Ease Their

Nerves

Magic Man

Butter Them Up

Magic Man

Do Your Thing

Stay Calm

Magic Man

Butter Them Up

Magic Man

On This Sacred Blue

Moon

Magic Man

Won't You Stop Elon's

Teens

He's Been Crying

On Rewind

His Daughter

Today

Will She Detransition

Tomorrow

Tell Us About Her

Woes

Castrated To The Knuckle

Will She Be Happy

Being The Perfect

Transgender Candidate 

Will She Be Happy

Or Will She Wish

She'd Never Done It

You're The Best Cannidate

Did Grimesz And

Talulah Goad Her

You're The Best Cannidate

For Eloning

In This War

Did She Long To Be

A Venus Beauty

Fling Her Long Golden

Hair

But Was The Payoff

What It Promised

Or Will She Be On

Adderall For Life

Like Her Court Lair

Did Demons

Greet Her In The Night

Coerce Her In A Political

War

Sixteen Years Old

Is Too Young

To Let The Courts

Chop Your Junk

And More

Even Bruce

Preserved His Manhood

As Catalyn

We Preferred Him

As Dad

Peace & Love Eternal,

Nitya Nella Davigo Azam Moezzi Huntley Rawal 

Encinitasbeachhome.com 

[garudabluffs]

Russia's Sopranos June 26, 2023

"The bizarre events in Russia over the weekend provide a glimpse into the reality that the country is not a nation, but an empire with warring factions that is run by a mafia. Vladimir Putin has reigned as the “Boss” for 23 years and remained in place by enriching Russia’s thugs, bridling them, and playing one off against another. Under his rule, they have built palaces, stolen the national wealth, become warlords, amassed staggering portfolios, and lived like Czars. But on February 24, 2022, Putin decided to escalate the grift by invading Ukraine to steal more of its resources. Now this war is failing, as is Russia’s economy and Putin’s grip on power."

"There’s little likelihood that a grassroots movement against Moscow will sprout around Prigozhin because it is a reign of terror and because he’s another thug whose forces have killed many Ukrainians and others. But his popularity was rising in polls before his armed mutiny because his rants resonated with civil society, mostly younger people. He also attracted international recognition with his condemnation of the war itself in the days leading up to the confrontation: “The war wasn’t needed to return Russian citizens to our bosom, nor to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine,” he said. “The war was needed so that a bunch of animals could simply exult in glory.”

"But the country is run by gangsters who have upended the world order. Only “100 beneficiaries and several thousand accomplices” own everything, said Mikhail Kodorovsky, an oligarch jailed by Putin in 2005 on trumped-up charges. “Most of these people began their careers in the criminal underworld of St. Petersburg. Despite having now taken control of the Presidency, the group retains every aspect of the criminal ilk from which they came.” 

Putin’s Russia is a criminal organization that must be overthrown. And finally, one of its own has told the world, and Russian people, why it must disappear."

READ MORE https://dianefrancis.substack.com/p/russias-sopranos/comments

22 Comments

[piratesfromspace]

What happens in Siberia… (141xReader)

Pairing: Reader x Ghost x Soap x Price x Gaz Rated: Very Explicit Word count: 2.7k Summary: the squad celebrates your first successful mission in their own way. Note: This is just pure filth, just bring me to horny jail at this point. In the same universe as my "Rain or Shine" fic. Reader callsign is "Rain", she's bi and autistic (I am autistic myself). Inspired to finish this wip by the queen @yeyinde and her Body Electric, go read it.

Content: group sex, oral, p-i-v, praise kink, size kink, alcohol, probably some warcrimes, overall canon typical violence

MASTERLIST // PART 1 // PART 2 // <> // PART 4 // PART 5

They are at the end of the world. Far East. Miles and miles of snow and ice and the occasional patch of dark trees. It’s just the five of them: Price, Soap, Gaz, Ghost and her.

They've been hiking for days now. Camping along the way, never really leaving their heavy gear. All-white winter jackets and pants, the gray of the kevlar vests, the black of their weapons. The blizzard makes everything blur. The cold - deadlier than any heat - numbs the fingers and the senses. 

They're used to the humid furnace of the jungle, the burning sun of the desert, but the freezing temperatures of Siberia are seriously undermining their mood. It was the only way to discreetly reach the compound of this Russian oligarch they need to steal intel from. The mission was simple enough : reach the damn place, eliminate everyone in a surprise attack, find the hard drive with the info in it and wait for evac. Simple. The difficult part was getting there without being killed by the cold or the beasts living in those damned icy woods. Soap swears he saw a wolf the size of a jeep. Or maybe it was a bear. Hard to tell when you have to wear a ski mask so your eyeballs don’t freeze in your skull. 

When the 141 strikes, they sweep the place clean. The handful of guards don’t stand a chance against them despite the weariness of the travel. They had found an entrance in the sewer system, reached the basement and its concrete walls, but when they climbed to the higher levels of the building, they suddenly found themselves in an imitation of a luxury cabin. Warm wood, white furs thrown on sprawling beige sofas, a fireplace big enough for a child to stand in it. A chef kitchen. Half a dozen bedrooms with king size beds and ensuite bathrooms.

The place is stocked for literal orgies. Champagne and vodka and cocaine - and the drawers in the bedrooms are full of condoms and lube. The kind of place rich assholes spend their winter vacation in when they go skiing in the Alps. It fits with what they know of the owner.

Once they secure the hard drive, and make sure nobody else is alive in there, they all stagger to the living room with a palpable relief. Evac will be there in a little less than 48 hours. Two whole days in Nowhere, Siberia, with nothing else to do except rest in this 5-stars chalet after days of miserable trek in the snow.

“I really need a shower” Rain mutters, and she makes a beeline for the main suite. Ghost follows without a word. When it’s just them and the core squad they don’t bother to hide anymore. It was Rain's first field trip as not just a supply manager. Of course they had her at the back of the group when they breached the building, Ghost the first to break in as usual. She did not even have to fire a single bullet. But she went in with her gun tightly clutched in her hand and her night vision goggles on nonetheless. 

They are doing shots. Tsarskaya vodka, straight from Saint Petersburg. The hot meal has been the best she had in months thanks to the freezer of the pantry being full of stupidly expensive delicacies. Price, Gaz and Ghost are sprawled across the sofa, Soap and her are sitting on the plush fur carpet. They’re all down to cargo pants and T-shirts, a blessing after days in those heavy and cumbersome jackets. She could cry at the relief of feeling something else than the wooly inside of her gloves under her fingertips. Her limbs still ache from days of fighting the cold and sleeping on the ground, but the fatigue has been somewhat dulled by the vivid memory of Simon’s tongue between her legs when he dropped to his knees during the shower she took earlier. Her back is warmed by the fireplace, her belly is full and she still feels a bit light-headed from the fight. She wants nothing more than to indulge in the playful atmosphere and the many promises of those two full days of rest with her squad.

“A toast” Price starts, raising his vodka “to Rain - for her first mission accomplished!”

“Please Captain, you make me sound like a damn rookie. I’ve been in the team for a year now. And I’m older than Soap for fuck sake!” 

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?”

The easy banter goes on, more vodka burns her throat, she bares her neck and laughs - and Ghost’s eyes narrow with a glint. 

Nah, I tell you, you're still a rookie. Oh yeah? I bet you could not think of something I haven’t done that MacTavish has. Easy, you never killed. Not because you never see me do it means I didn’t do it before. (there is a silence)  Let’s lighten the mood… ‘bet you never kissed a girl. Come on, I’ve had more girlfriends than you, Soap.  Never had a threesome?  I did once back in college. Why, you’ interested, Gaz? (it’s a joke - but also not really)

It lasts for a while until Soap grins victoriously.

“You never kissed me.” he beams, even though it doesn't really make sense for the little game they’re playing. She’s too tipsy to care.

“If that’s the only thing to shut you up.” and she leans into him, grabs his thigh for balance and just like that - she kisses him. Her tongue breaches his lips and she can taste the vodka they’re drinking and the sugar of the russian caramel they had for dessert. The kiss lasts only a couple of seconds, but Soap is glass eyed when she sits back down. 

Price lets out a low whistle. “Damn, Rain...”  “Thank you, Captain.”  “John for tonight” “Thank you, John.” she whispers, tone low and suggestive. “I’m gonna get more dessert!” she announces all of a sudden - she had always craved sugar - and she bounces to the kitchen, leaving them all a bit stunned. 

Price glances at Ghost. For once, he has no clue how he will react. To his girl openly flirting with others, to his girl initiating something they won’t be able to come back from. 

“She decides.” Simon’s voice is even more gravelly than usual. “You follow.” he asserts, and that’s all the instructions they will get from him. It’s clear enough though - she’s the one in charge from there, Ghost trusts them to do as she says, and he trusts her to ask for what she needs.

When she comes back, she sits down next to Soap, leans heavily on him. He brushes her hair out of her pretty face, and she looks at him with intent, daring him to continue what they started. It’s like she provides him with a pool of gasoline, and hopes for nothing more than a spark to light it all and let the fire consume them both - and by a chain reaction consume them all.

He doesn’t resist and kisses her again. She lets him. She even moans against his lips when he grabs her nape. It’s like the match has been cracked, it’s too late now. No coming back from that. The flames are already spreading. Gaz falls on his knees behind her, strong hands on her waist, his mouth against her earshell.

“Is this okay? ‘This what you want?” She breaks the kiss just enough time to answer a breathy yes.

The rest is a blur. Someone removes her T-shirt, lays her down on the fur. Expensive vodka poured into the divot of her navel.

“It’s cold!” she protests with a laugh until Gaz laps the alcohol from her skin with a gaze so sinful it warms her right up. 

Ghost is right there by her head, a hand spanning her neck, holding her jaw. Through his mask, he whispers sweet praises to her, walking her through it. Soap is playing with her tits, teeth grazing the gentle curve of her breast before his latches on one of the tender buds. Gaz is laying on his belly, tongue buried in her cunt. She’s still sensitive from what Ghost did just before during their shower, but Gaz is different in his approach, he takes his time, goes slow, licks her clit like they’ve got all night (they have). 

He sinks one finger into her then a second. “Fuck she’s tight.” He exhales against her folds, half-wonder, half-worry. “Let me do it.” It’s Price - he’s been hovering around them all, carefully observing, waiting for the right time to step in. It’s not that easy for him, he’s their Captain, even though he had the intuition to forbid her to use his title earlier. But if they’re going to do this, he wants to do it right - right by her. He won’t let her be hurt on the battlefield, no reason to stop caring for her now. 

He takes Gaz's place between her legs.

“Open your mouth for me darling.” he croons and he coats two of his fingers with her saliva, presses on her tongue and rewards her with a good girl when she licks at the rough pad of his fingers. Price sinks into her cunt again, gently fucks her with two fingers, scissors her open with an infinite patience. Gaz pets at her clit, circles slow and wide, not enough for her to come, but definitely enough to make her forget the burn of the stretching process. 

They take turns making her shatter to pieces only to carefully rebuild her after. Soap takes her in long lazy strokes, before guiding her lips on his cock and she can taste herself on him - it’s enough to make her whimper around his flesh. Price maneuvers her on her hands and knees, grips her hips with large hands, fucks her in powerful thrusts and drown her in praises.

You’re so fucking pretty like this You tell me if it’s too much Fucking hell, you feel so good

She keens and laughs as she comes for the third time of the night. It’s a lot but they don’t stop, not as long as she welcomes them. Not as long as the embers of her desire are still shining gold. Gaz has her ride him on the couch, Ghost holding her waist to help her get up when her legs become too shaky. They work as one, just like they did hours before. They take care of each other in so many ways, it was just a matter of time before such a night would happen.

Ghost is finally shedding the last of his gear - he’s naked except for the mask. The flames of the fireplace frame his devilish figure with an unnatural glow - an Angel of Death, covered in so many scars he looks like he’s been to Hell and back a few times. Muscles rippling fat and strong under his skin, light trails of blond hair leading down to his leaking cock. Rain is not the only one to stare, but she’s the only one he sees, and when she pleads his name, he drapes his body over hers.

One of them has brought back lube from one of the bedrooms. Simon coats his length in the shiny liquid before burying to the hilt into her cunt. Despite the fair share of preparation, she’s still panting at the sudden pressure. Her little pained whimper has them suddenly on high alert. But Simon is handling her with the confidence she can take it, he offers shallow trusts and reassuring words until the burn of the stretch turns into blistering pleasure.

He brings her legs on his shoulders, his arms the size of her thighs, and if she already appeared small compared to the rest of them, Ghost is dwarfing her. Soap is mesmerized by it, how Simon’s dick fits inside her despite the absurd size difference. Ghost moves again and the change in position has him hit that spongy spot hidden just behind the bone of her pelvis that makes her moan and whimper. Johnny had already dreamed about it, imagined it, heard it from the other side of a door, but actually seeing her lips part around cries of pleasure under his lieutenant, it makes his cheeks burn even more than when he was the one hitting the end of her soft cunt.

He’s taken out of his trance by Rain’s pleading voice. Please Johnny she begs - and she begs so pretty he would do anything she asks him - and she catches his hand and brings it just where Ghost and her are connected. When he presses on her clit, she arches off the sofa, and when he keeps rubbing in time with Simon’s thrusts, she comes so hard she drenches his whole hand. 

There is a pause in the non-stop sex, someone presses a glass of water to her lips, another digs his fingers into the muscles of her back. She closes her eyes and sighs in contentment, lulled by the soft crackling of the fire and the satisfied groans of her lovers. She thinks they’re all sated, but it’s her Captain - no, it’s John - that cups her cheek and asks oh so gently will you have me again, sweet thing?

How can she say no when he talks to her like this? She’s raw between her legs, delicate flesh all swollen and still wet, and she will regret it tomorrow - will she?. She nods, and he moves her back down on the pile of throws. His rough hand on her delicate neck, he feels the warm pulse of her life - he has her life between his hands everyday, tonight is just more literal. What did he think would happen back when she appeared on base for the first time?

Despite everything, she had survived her first few months with them, had embedded herself so far in their team, she is impossible to remove now. The men foolish enough to try would have to step through their fire. It was inevitable, actually. The squad swore to do anything to protect each other, and it’s even more obvious with her. One could mistake it for machismo, the reality is they do their best to understand what it’s like for her to live in this world made of ongoing threats - coming not only from their enemies but also from the other soldiers they sometimes share their missions with. The revelation that she had killed before - before them - is no real surprise for Price. He’ll ask her more, maybe, when the time is right. When the place they’re in will be no more than ashes and smoke, white and gray and covered in fresh snow.

When they are done, nerves raw and skin too sensitive to the touch, it’s her captain who carries her under the shower, letting the water soothe the last of their fever. Once he’s sure she can still walk, he reluctantly lets her go. She needs to be alone, needs to reset away from their eyes. You alright sweetheart? Was it too much? - Price is suddenly anxious, the pungent bile of doubt pooling under his tongue. Her temples burn, she’s a bit ashamed of what she’s about to say but here in a place that no one knows about and that will vanish from the surface of the earth, she feels like she can admit it, that her secret will be safe, thrown out in the blind blizzard of Siberia. It was perfect.

She steals the largest T-shirt discarded in the living room - Simon’s - before crashing into one of the beds. Ghost materializes by her side, like a cryptid she can’t quite get rid of even if she wanted to. He glues himself to her back. Check-ins and praises whispered in the icy black of the night.

Fucking hell, you were so -so good. Are you okay pet? Didn’t know you had this in you.

She finally falls asleep just as the foggy glow of dawn starts creeping up the dark sky. They still have one whole day and one whole night before packing up and dowsing the place in gasoline, before cracking a match and watching it burn. They’ll make the most of it.

NEXT PART

[beesandwasps]

Note that Putin, who we’re all supposed to hate nowadays, was the anti-communist Yeltsin’s VP. That’s how he got his start as a national leader, and the US funded and boosted the campaign that put him there — the cover story of Time Magazine in the issue of July 15, 1996 about how the US covertly helped Yeltsin overthrow the majority-Communist Russian Parliament, with self-congratulatory quotations from the Bush and Clinton administrations about how undermining the USSR’s constitution was a great achievement that they had been so clever to carry out:

(We really only started hating Putin because he was smart enough to see that the intent of the US was to steal all Russian resources under the cover of “free markets”, and refused to allow a deal which was arranged during the late Clinton administration which would have sold basically all of Russia’s oil reserves — which had been set up through one of those now-hated oligarchs with ties to the Russian mafia — to the US for pennies on the dollar. Before that, the US loved Putin regardless of what he did to his own people; after he refused to let us steal everything he was declared an enemy.)

"stop supporting communism!! its the worst thing that ever happened to my country, you have no idea how bad it actually was for the people who live here!!" and its always coming from a 22 year old whose grandparents would strongly disagree