#prosecutor s gambit

[ndvydual]

Really major spoilers, you should play the game blind if you haven't

[vgtrackbracket]

Video Game Track Bracket Round 3

Eustace Winner - Winning Independence from Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit

vs.

Weather Report Battle from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven

Propaganda under the cut. If you want your propaganda reblogged and added to future polls, please tag it as propaganda or otherwise indicate this!

Weather Report Battle:

Sounds like a news’ weather report, fitting because his name is weather report

[redsnerdden]

Every Announcement From June's Nintendo Direct

Every Announcement From June's Nintendo Direct #Nintendo #VideoGames #NintendoSwitch #NintendoDirect

There was a lot to take in at this month’s Nintendo Direct. Three monumental announcements were revealed today, and each one made fans lose their minds completely, Capcom finally giving fans that long-awaited Marvel vs Capcom collection, Rare’s Perfect Dark got that Nintendo Switch Online release, and Metroid Prime 4 finally has a release date window. Let’s take a look at the newest…

[operationrainfall]

Hold It! Capcom Announces Ace Attorney Investigations Collection

[fraeuleintaka]

AAIC: The Title Change

This is the 5th post in the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection Countdown: 76 days left until release!

Today's topic: the Title Change! Originally the Investigations games were known as "Ace Attorney Miles Edgeworth Investigations" and "Ace Attorney Miles Edgeworth Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Path", the latter being the fan translated subtitle name. The collection not only changes the logo, as is fitting for a remastered collection, it also changes the titles of the individual games in the collection.

The first one is now called "Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth". It rearranges the order of the title parts which may not seem like much but it feels like a clever way to brand this type of spin-off to the AA main series as "AA Investigations" without necessarily associating it with the name of the protagonist. Something similar was done with the other AA collections, focusing more on the shared "Ace Attorney" (and "Great Ace Attorney") instead of a character name. I'm just speculating here but this would lay the groundwork for making more Investigations games in the future and ones that could focus on different prosecutors. Maybe even my hypothetical dream Investigations 3 with Miles and Sebastian as duo-protagonists!

The larger title change is for the second game which drops the "Miles Edgeworth" entirely, making it Investigations 1's subtitle, and goes for "Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit" instead. The different translation is no surprise and, while I'm used to "Prosecutor's Path" and love the nice ring it has to it, I do think "Prosecutor's Gambit" works even better as a title. It continues the chess theme Investigations 2 has going on and fits perfectly to what the mastermind does in the story (which you can very much call a gambit but I won't go into detail to avoid spoilers). The fan translated title focuses more on the decision Miles has to make over the course of the story which also fits really well, especially because there's a lot of talk of characters choosing different paths, it just has no chess connection on top of that.

I also love the colour choice. The burgundy red was already the main colour for the Investigations titles, as it's Miles' main colour, but it seems like the golden shade of Investigations 2 (in contrast to Investigations 1's yellow) is chosen as the second main colour for the collection which looks beautiful together!

[almond-tofu-chan]

nobody asked but heres my ranking of every ace attorney game bc im feeling silly 🤪 ((this is soso biased lmao take w/all the salt))

TGAA Resolve

Trials & Tribulations

TGAA

Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney

Apollo Justice

Investigations Prosecutors Gambit

Spirit of Justice

PW Ace Attorney

Justice For All

Investigations

Dual Destinies

i yap so so much under cut if you wanna know my thought process

(this is all mainly for me to see how/if my opinions change at all after i replay all of em, not to spark conflict at all. no hate at all i genuinely love all of these games!!)

TGAA2: I genuinely believe that the chronicles should be counted as one game, and they���re the best game, but if I had to choose the stronger of the two, I’d have to say Resolve. I genuinely believe that it may be Shu Takumi’s best work- it takes all the best aspects of each Ace Attorney game that the series has spent the past 23 years refining and showcases all of them at their best. the cases all seamlessly add to one large story, while still each being unique on their own, the setting is beautiful, and nearly every character has their own gorgeous arc which comes to a head in this game. literally I genuinely think this might be a perfect game

T&T: what can I say about this game that hasn’t already been said? it acts as a perfect conclusion to every plot thread the games have spent building up, and a beautiful conclusion to so many characters’ arcs. not only does it have some of the most satisfying and heartwrenching plot twists and characters, it also features some of the most memorable cases of the entire series, with only one (debatably two) real let downs, but even those have something to love. genuinely all around great game.

TGAA: the only reason TGAA1 is lower is because it has a much less satisfying conclusion that feels forced. TGAA spends all its time setting up character arcs for TGAA2 to finish, which is why I really think they should be counted as one game. however, TGAA1 is still an amazing game, with some of the best cases in the entire series by far, and really pushes the setting to its limits in ways I wish the series did more. Speckled Band and Runaway Room really feel like they take ideas previous games toyed with and explore them to their fullest and i love them

PLVSPW: okay this is definitely a controversial one, but plvspw, I genuinely believe, is just a perfect little game! its a little goofy, but it takes the best aspects of both series and uses them beautifully. while the plot ends a little... crazily, every step of the way there is fun. and since there were so few restraints, they had the freedom to use the characters however they want, so its little surprise that this game has some of the characters at their best, with truly heartbreakingly emotional moments. even if youre not a fan of either series, this game acts as a perfect standalone game that can act as an entry into either, but also is an amazing game on no merits but its own

AJ: this game is basically tied with PLVSPW. the only reason this game isn’t as well liked is because the series did such a retcon to act like it never happened (thanks takeshi yamezaki /s). the changes to the setting, the plots it sets up, and all the characters are amazing and have so much potential, only to end up wasted on future games. the darker, more serious plot doesn’t clash at all with the goofy vibes ace attorney is used to, and the plot itself uses the characters wonderfully, and the gameplay is fresh and new. I genuinely think that if DD never happened this would have been an amazing introduction to a new era of games, but alas. yamazaki 😔

AAI2: probably yamazaki’s best work by a long shot. the new gameplay is an amazing change I wish the series kept, and the plot, while a little contrived, is interesting, and not as moonlogicy as future games would get. the spritework is maybe the best in the series, the new characters are all amazing, and it has some truly amazing arcs. it uses the characters to their fullest, better than even the original trilogy sometimes imo

SOJ: I know having this game so high is definitely controversial, but I think this game has so many more redeeming qualities than people want to remember- namely, it’s treatment of past characters. personally I hate 90% of the newly introduced plot and characters in this game, but the way it attempts to make up for DD’s mistakes with AJ characters is so good. 6-2 and 6-4 are maybe some of the most slept-on cases which really flesh out Trucy and Apollo’s characters how they never got to in the last game, and Athena and Blackquill weirdly get an extremely compelling case which showcases their wonderfully entertaining sibling dynamic we rarely get to see. I hate khura’in with a passion, I hate how Maya gets characterized, and I think 6-5.1 is genuinely the worst case in the entire franchise, but 2 and 4 are so good I genuinely think it redeems this game slightly, at least in my eyes. it makes an attempt to make up for DD’s mistakes, which does not go unnoticed.

PWAA: this game suffers the same problem as TGAA, in that it sets up a lot of plots which later games flesh out, but all fall somewhat flat in this game. 1-4 is such a good case that people seem to forget how lackluster the rest of the cases are, namely 1-1 and 1-3, which are pretty boring. 1-2 suffers from the game’s short run and lack of care put into the characters, and, again, serves better to set up plots than resolve them meaningfully. i think, had we better known the characters before the case, it would have had much more of an emotional impact. however the game is overall a good time, and isn’t bad by any means, just uses its run to set up plots for the future

JFA: I genuinely wanted to put this game lower, but like physically could not. 2-4 might be the best case in ace attorney imo, like genuinely S tier case, but that alone can’t save the fact that every other case in this game is so bad. 2-2 is by far the second best in the game but, again, suffers from existing moreso to set up plots than resolve them. it does have an extremely satisfying conclusion that could only benefit from Lotta’s absence PLEASE. 2-1 and 2-3 are so bad though, they singlehandedly drag this game down with them.

AAI: another case of a game with a lot of good aspects being dragged down by so so much trash. all the stuff thats good about this game is done better in the second. the cases are convoluted, the plots are simultaneously so big and yet so boring, and the characters are not at their best. seriously, aai2 does everything so much better than this game. it does do a lot of fun stuff with trilogy characters and for that i love it, but the gameplay is also not working in its favor. + no eustace so :/

DD: im sorry, i really want to love this game, but all its good stuff is just fine, and all its bad stuff is abysmal. the new characters and ideas it introduces are all so good!! in theory- but then they cast them all aside in favor of callbacks and characters from past games. but then they do those past characters so horribly dirty that its not even enjoyable. DD takes a list of all of ace attorney’s worst traits and treats it like a checklist- and by god does it tick every box. what makes me hate this game so much is that it has so many good ideas that i genuinely love!!! but it uses none of them to their full potential in favor of doing so much stupid shit. SOJ at least tried to do something new- it failed, but an effort was at least made. DD wears the soulless, flayed skin of previous ace attorney games with no understanding of what made them good and does nothing new or interesting. be good, be bad, but for the love of god, dont be boring. i love athena though shes bbg <3

[capsulecomputers]

Ace Attorney Investigations Collection – Gameplay

The Ace Attorney Investigations Collection from Capcom brings both Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth and Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit, the latter in English for the very first time, and we dive into the first case in the first title only to find ourselves having to solve a murder that happens right in Edgeworth's own office. Using a variety of new and familiar mechanics it is up to us to find the culprit.

Miles Edgeworth's dramatic turnabouts take center stage! Experience both Ace Attorney Investigations games in one gorgeous collection! Investigate crime scenes and solve tough, intriguing cases through logic and deduction. When Edgeworth's past and present collide, his future begins!

Ace Attorney Investigations Collection Developer: CAPCOM Co., Ltd. Publisher: CAPCOM Co., Ltd. Platform: Windows, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch Release Date: 6 Sep, 2024 Price: $39.99 USD

Available here - https://www.ace-attorney.com/investigations1-2/

[xtruss]

It’s a Familiar Story: Women of Color Get Tasked With Cleaning-up The Messes Made By White Men. Randian Kamala Devi Harris and The Dangers of The “Glass Cliff”

— Samhita Mukhopadhyay | July 23 2024

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania — November 02: Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) addresses supporters during a drive-in rally on the eve of the general election on November 2, 2020 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who is originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania, remains ahead of President Donald Trump by about six points, according to a recent polling average. With the election tomorrow, Trump held four rallies across Pennsylvania over the weekend, as he vies to recapture the Keystone State's vital 20 electoral votes. In 2016, he carried Pennsylvania by only 44,292 votes out of more than 6 million cast, less than a 1 percent differential, becoming the first Republican to claim victory here since 1988. (Photo by Mark Makela/Getty Images)

On Sunday, President War Criminal and Genocidal Joe Biden announced that he would be ending his run for the Democratic Party presidential nomination and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. The decision came after a weekslong battle following Biden’s disastrous showing at a debate against Republican nominee Donald Trump, a press conference that only slightly assuaged anxieties about his faculties, and a bout of Covid.

For a major political party to change tack this late in the game reeks of a crisis. By its nature, the move is a gambit, a major risk. The shift sets up a candidate who was never overwhelmingly popular — Harris — as a political savior. As a savvy politician whose candidacy has already spurred Democratic enthusiasm, Harris has a real shot at pulling it all off, but the fact of the matter is the situation she has been handed is ripe with the potential for failure.

It’s a familiar story: a quick fix job, a woman of color tasked to clean up the mess made by a bunch of white men. Welcome to the “glass cliff.”

A now 20-year-old term, the notion of the glass cliff is a nod to the “glass ceiling” — that unseen but impenetrable barrier to the upward advancement of women. The “cliff” refers to the phenomenon of women being promoted or hired when an organization is on the brink of failure.

Coining the term in a 2005 research paper, British organizational psychologists Michelle K. Ryan and S. Alexander Haslam studied businesses in the London Stock Exchange and found that “companies who appointed women to their boards were more likely to have experienced consistently bad performance in the preceding five months than those who appointed men.”

The pressures of that moment are often insurmountable. A woman in this position is tasked with saving the organization: doing the cleanup job, cutting budgets, laying people off, and reorganizing. She’s heralded as a first of her kind, a historic moment, an opportunity to change directions, the dawn of a new day — but she’s also often paid less than the failed (male) leader who came before her. The “cliff” is the invisible ledge; one misstep, and you go barreling down the side.

It’s not difficult to see how this all applies to Harris.

Harris is an exceedingly qualified candidate who has the skills to do the job of being president. Why wasn’t she called in earlier? The party had months, if not years, to change course as the evidence of Biden’s decline became clear. Instead, Democrats waited until their hand was forced. Now Harris is being called upon to save the day.

Whether Harris can, in fact, save the day is another question. Her history as a prosecutor haunted her last presidential run, dampening enthusiasm among the party’s progressive base. Or will the country be haunted by the question of whether voters are ready to accept a mixed race Black and South Asian woman? (Many observers said the country simply wasn’t ready for a white one after Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss, though a number of factors were clearly at work.) Harris’s perceived weaknesses — particularly alleged missteps on immigration — make her exactly the sort of foil the Trump campaign is looking to exploit.

At the same time, as Prem Thakker wrote, she doesn’t carry the same baggage as Biden when it comes to Israel’s war on Gaza and holds the potential to change direction. She was also one of the most solid liberals in the Senate, setting her up to unite the party around issues like abortion rights, something 85 percent of Democratic voters support. There is also early evidence that she is waking up the political machine, motivating both funders and door-knockers to get involved.

Whatever One Personally Thinks of Harris, given the current slate of candidates and the growing threat of another Trump term, Democrats appear to have made the most solid choice they could have at this moment to help win the election. Because of her past run, Harris has already been vetted. The governors and senators named as other likely candidates would have left sometimes vulnerable empty seats in gubernatorial mansions and Congress. And an open convention could descend into chaos, resulting in Democratic disarray as the clock winds down on the race.

The potential for failure, however, remains. The polls have been daunting, and a total reverse is unlikely. It will require a feat of organizing to harness excitement about the change of candidate into a formidable ground operation. And Republicans will keep trying to tie Harris to Biden, attempting to weigh her down with his flagging popularity.

The bigger challenges she will face have less to do with her qualifications or ability to do the job and more to do with vast disinformation, a party plagued with infighting and — should she win — a host of intractable problems ranging from the climate crisis to a revanchist Supreme Court.

Harris isn’t solely responsible for her circumstances or the larger mess Democrats find themselves in, but she is now being tasked to lean in and fix it in the final hours.

Harris has also recently been attacked as a “DEI” candidate — a token of Democrats’ diversity. (Lydia Polgreen has argued that, if we label Harris as a diversity candidate, we should do the same for Trump’s vice presidential pick, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio.) The suggestion itself is racist: This diminishes Harris’s qualifications and longtime record as a Democratic power player.

There is, however, a lens through which the idea of Harris as a “DEI” candidate is not totally off. After all, when women and people of color are promoted amid a failing state of affairs, they are often heralded as wins for diversity. And though neoliberals may disingenuously tout the accomplishment of a victory for diversity, these sorts of wins can be genuinely positive developments for our politics — positive, that is, except for when things collapse.

That’s when the cynics come in. Instead of assessing how the system set Harris up to fail, the national conversation is overrun by handwringing over how she probably shouldn’t have gotten the nomination in the first place.

It’s a potential pitfall so great, so hard to see coming, that you might even call it a glass cliff.

[typingtess]

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NCIS: Los Angeles Season Eleven Rewatch:  “Mother”

The basics:  Someone from Hetty’s past puts the team in danger.

Written by: Eric Christian Olsen and Babar Peerzada - first writing credit for both men.  

Directed by:  Dennis Smith directed “Fame”, “Standoff”, “Rocket Man”, “Cyberthreat”, “Exit Strategy”, “Patriot Acts”, “Out of the Past” part one, “The Livelong Day”, Between the Lines”, “Deep Trouble” part two, “Black Budget", “Black Wind”, “Blame it On Rio”, “Defectors”, “Matryoshka” part one, “Granger, O”, “The Queen’s Gambit”, “Hot Water”, “From Havana With Love”, “Plain Sight”, the delightful romp that was “Monster”, “Superhuman”, “One of Us”, "Smokescreen” part one and "Decoy".  

Guest stars of note:  Peter Jacobson is back from season 10’s “No More Secrets” as Special Prosecutor John Rogers, Carl Beukes as Ahkos Laos, Nitya Vidyasagar as Natasha Ali, Todd Jeffries as Barrett Fimmel, Brian Leigh Smith as Bomb Tech Aaron Roberts.  Episode co-writer Babar Peerzada plays Oratile Wallace, the man who approaches Hetty in the cemetery.

Our heroes:  Get put through the ringer by Eric Christian Olsen in episode 250.

What important things did we learn about:

Callen:  Will deal with whatever woes are coming Hetty’s way as a family. Sam:  Fell in love with the country when he joined the Navy. Kensi:   Pulls Deeks from a fiery, explosive death. Deeks:   Door-surfing away from a fiery, explosive death. Eric:  Call him Carmen San Diego because he traced a call made with a sat-phone that was routed around the world four times. Nell:  Realizes what is happening occurs when someone plays God in the lives of people they say they love. Hetty:  Brought up Callen and the anti-Callen.

What not so important things did we learn about:

Callen:  Draining three-pointers. Sam:  Doesn’t judge a fish by his ability to climb a tree. Kensi:  Surprised Deeks shops at Walmart. Deeks: Stares at security cameras at Walmart. Eric:  Wants to be high-fived or told he is a genius when he discovers secret files.   Nell:   Finds it is faster to high-five Eric to get it out of the way. Hetty:  Still has the courtside Lakers tickets.

Who's down with OTP:  Kensi and Deeks are having a family, home schooling the kids, teaching them French and surfing as they live in a van right after Kensi hits the restroom.  Eric has to work a little to get Nell back into saving the day and away from looking at what Hetty’s done with a critical eye.  

Who's down with BrOTP:  Sam wonders why Callen does what they do.  

Any pressing need for a young FBI Agent:  Any and all help would have been greatly appreciated today.

Who is running the team this week?  Hetty but as the center of the case, a returning John Rogers has some pull.  He also has some evidence against Hetty’s past actions.

Fashion review:  In the gym, Callen is wearing a blue tee-shirt with grey gym shorts.  Sam is in a black tee-shirt with black and red long basketball shorts.  Kensi is wearing an off-white sleeveless cut-off tee with black leggings.  Deeks is in a grey tank top, dark blue joggers and a backwards blue baseball cap.  Eric wears a white tank top and oh-so very short red shorts.  For the majority of the episode, Callen wears a blue button-down shirt.  Sam is wearing a plum long-sleeve tee.  Kensi is wearing a long-sleeve v-neck tee.  Deeks is a medium blue long-sleeve sweatshirt.  Eric is wearing a red rugby top with blue and off-white stripes – I think that’s a new addition to the Eric Beale style book.  Nell is in a dark dress – she’s in Ops for the entire episode and often with the power out - it is hard to see.  Hetty wears a dark blue suit.  In the cemetery, she wears a spectacular blue/grey herringbone trench coat with a cameo broach.  

Music: “Fourth of July” by Sufjan Stevens is playing in the enclosure in the warehouse, drawing Deeks in.  An instrumental portion of the song is playing as Laos dies.

Any notable cut scene:  No, but the DVD had a 3-minute vignette about the episode.  Executive producers R. Scott Gemmill and Frank Military thought the 250th episode was a good place for a mythology (hey, an old X-Files line where Military was a guest star/vampire back in the day) episode about Hetty, writing by ECO and his friend Babar Peerzada.  Military said that when a non-staff writer writes an episode, they are not usually involved with the show’s history – they do more a standard case-of-the-week hour.  Having this deep dive into the show’s history and Hetty was “cool” according Military.

Callen, according to Gemmill, goes into the episode to save his “mom” and “finds out your parents had nine other kids just like you.”  The idea was to throw the characters into “a spin” that keeps them interesting not only to the audience and the writers but also to the actors.

Hetty is an interesting character where those around her think she’s their “best friend” but she also has an agenda that is much bigger than that.  She is committed to “the cause” but not everyone knows what the cause is.  Hetty’s actions are the personification the question of the ends justifying the means  It makes the characters more interesting – they think what they’re doing is right but do they have the right to do it.

Quote:  Nell:  “This is what happens when you try to play God in the lives of those you say you love.”

There are a ton of great lines – both deadly serious and unbelievably funny in this hour.

Anything else:   A bright red Porsche pulls into a gated mansion in the Hollywood Hills.  In the driveway is a restored Ford Mustang convertible, a military-style Hummer and a motorcycle.  An older man leaves the Porsche and uses voice activation to open to front door.  “Welcome Home Mr. Fimmel,” the security system replies and he’s inside.

Grabbing a beer from the fridge, he’s surprised to see a tea cup with a tea bag sitting on the kitchen island.  Opening the weapons drawer on the island – probably not a common upgrade on the typical island – he finds his guns are gone.  Taking a knife from the kitchen’s knife set, he walks to the living room.  

At the top of the stairs, with the sunlight behind him, is the intruder.  Fimmel pretends to know the intruder, promising to kill him and his whole family.  As the intruder walks down the stairs, Fimmel does recognize the man.  “You, you died,” Fimmel tells the very not-dead man coming at him with a machete.  Fimmel takes a weak hack at the intruder who not only brushes it away but winds up taking the knife from Fimmel.  Asked by Fimmel what the intruder wants, the man answers “everything.”

The team is playing basketball – Kensi and Deeks vs. Callen and Sam.  Winner gets Hetty’s courtside seats that night for Lakers-Clippers.  Giving Callen the ball, Deeks allows “age before beauty.”  Callen sinks a three-pointer.  After dribbling for a while, Deeks passes to Kensi who is fouled by Callen.  She misses, Callen calls the shot clean.

Kensi gets two free-throws.  After she successfully shoots the first one underhand, Eric arrives dressed in very tight red gym shorts and a white tank – very 1970’s gym teacher complete with whistle.  After trying to imply he was left out for his great skills, Eric is calling them to Ops with a security breach.  Sam passes Eric the ball who obviously is unfamiliar with the basketball.

Up in Ops, Nell has the security camera outside the office’s driveway on the screen.  A woman wearing all black is sitting the driveway with a square box, about 12X12.  Sam thinks she’s lost but Nell points out the woman is staring directly into the security camera.  Deeks says he does the same thing when he shops at Walmart.  Callen doesn’t understand why, Kensi didn’t know Deeks shops at Walmart.  He thinks they should talk more.

The woman starts writing on the box.  Turning it to the camera, she wrote “Hello NCIS”.  Callen orders a perimeter set up around the office.  The box could contain a bomb.

Callen, Sam, Kensi and Deeks are at the office door while the woman is still focused on the camera.  Kensi grabs the woman, who is brought into the office and taken, with Deeks, for fingerprints.   Bomb expert Sam thinks he’s over his union quota for defusing bomb.

In interrogation, Deeks is impressed the woman did not speak the entire ride over.  Kensi notices scaring from burns on the woman’s face and right hand.  She is not talking in interrogation either.

The box is inside the office with a member of the bomb squad when John Rogers walks down the hall.   Callen and Sam are surprised to see Rogers.  Rogers says he was only there because someone promised sandwiches.  The bomb squad tech announces there is no bomb in the box but “you might have preferred a bomb.”  Inside was an amputated hand with a knife through it.  

After Sam makes a joke about Callen’s exes while Callen reads the note with the hand:  "Through me you go into a city of weeping; through me you go into eternal pain; through me you go amongst the people lost.”  Rogers would have preferred a bomb.  An arriving Hetty recognizes the quote – it is from “Dante’s Inferno”.

Eric can’t find anything on the woman with the box.  He’s checked US and international databases – “she’s a ghost,” according to Callen.  Rogers points out she’s a ghost with the classified location of the office.  Sam doesn’t believe in ghosts.  Nell, however, believes Eric can find the woman’s background.  He’s already found the “owner” of the severed hand.  Barrett Fimmel was CIA, head of covert operations from 1998-2008 in North Africa and the Middle East.  He led a destabilizing force, which Sam translates as running an assassin team.  Eric corrects Sam – Fimmel, a former Marine, trained the assassins in methods like car crashes and drug overdoses.

Callen asks what happened in 2008 to cause Fimmel to leave the CIA.  He retired to become a private contractor, working for the top bidder.  “Less oversight, more money,” according to Kensi, who is still at the boat shed with Deeks.  Sam wonders if the career move was worth his hand.  Either dead or being held hostage by the “sociopathic poet”, the team needs to find him.  With the woman not talking, Callen and Sam are off to interrogation.

As Callen starts an interrogation, the woman is writing on the desk top with her finger.  After Callen passes her a note pad, the woman scribbles something that Sam photographs and sends to Eric.  

Callen and Sam join Kensi and an annoyed Deeks in the main room of the boat shed.  Deeks can’t understand how they interrogated the woman for two-hours with no response while Callen said two words to start the interrogation and is suddenly sharing.  Sam tells Deeks not to worry, “I don’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree.”  

Eric and Nell pop up on the plasma.  The woman wrote the address of two locations in Los Angeles.  One is a warehouse downtown, the other is an estate in the hills.  Both are owned by a shell corporation based in Liberia.  Deeks’s guess was Bette Midler.  Both properties are off the LA grid – no power from the electric company, not water from the city.  They are completely self-sufficient.  Kensi jokes about preparing for the zombie apocalypse.  Sam thinks it is something worse.  Kensi and Deeks are off to the hills, Callen and Sam are going downtown.

In the warehouse, there are some desks tossed on their sides and file cabinets in the middle of the room.  There are no lights.

Kensi and Deeks enter Fimmel’s home.  He goes upstairs, she’s checking out the first floor.

Deeper in the warehouse is a screen showing the bombing of a home somewhere from what looks to be a drone or military jet’s camera.  Sam can’t figure out the location – Afghanistan, Pakistan or Syria.  Callen thinks Fimmel ran his business from this location – Sam points out the amount of high-end tech in the building that was all beat up and pulled apart.  A phone rings – Sam tries to find it.

In the house, Kensi finds the tea cup – now without the tea bag.  Instead, it is filled with blood.  Deeks wonders if Kensi is speaking metaphorically like the tea cup is filled with wine like the blood of Christ.  She’s not.

Sam finds the ringing phone in a box.  After checking for bombs, he opens it.  The phone is in what is likely Fimmel’s other hand.  Callen answers, identifying himself.  “My brother, I am you when the pennies drop,” the voice on the line tells Callen.  “Once the favorite son, now a fallen angel.”  Callen is sorry to hear that and asks about Fimmel.  The man on the phone says he saved humanity from Fimmel’s transgressions.

In Fimmel’s bedroom, Deeks calls for Kensi.

The man on the phone asks Callen to “tell Mother, I’m coming home.”  

Kensi enters the bedroom and is stunned.  Fimmel’s body has been cut in half.  His upper body - torso, handless arms and head - are “sitting” on top of the white bedding in a pool of blood.  AHKOS is carved into his chest.

In Ops, Nell provides a rundown on the word Ahkos.  It is from an ancient Greek dialect that in its more accurate translation means “the grief of the people.”  Callen brings up the fallen son, mother statement.  Hetty pops on the screen.  She is mother, the message was for her.  Sending Eric a file, Hetty provides the background on an Ahkos Laos.  As a child, he was sent to Botswana because his parents believed he was “devil born.”  Hetty assures the group he was not.  

Hetty saw a young boy who was misunderstood looking for what everyone is looking for in life.  Callen says “a mother” but Hetty disagrees.  Laos was looking for a home, an identity, “and something to keep the darkness at bay.”  Hetty took him in, trained him.  Everyone is working hard not to look at Callen.

In 2006, Laos was part of a black site military R&D project run by Fimmel.  The knife in Fimmel’s hand was the last gift Hetty gave Laos – a parting gift.  His file has him dead for over ten years.  John Rogers pops up on the big screen.  The woman in the boat shed gave him another address – the Hollywood West Cemetery.  While Callen and Sam were ready to go, Rogers notes the instructions for the address included “For Mother Only”.  Hetty is going with a tracking lapel and Callen and Sam running overwatch duties.

At the cemetery, Hetty has not only the tracking lapel but the overwatch spray.  Sam notices that Hetty is not pleased.

Back in Ops, Eric traced the location of the phone that called the severed-hand, routed off a sat phone that sent it around the world four times.  He also found LAX security video of the woman in the boat shed leaving the airport.  Her passport is a fake from Canada but her name is listed as Norma Baker.  Her flight was in from Pakistan.  Kensi and Deeks are off to visit the location where the call to the phone was made, Eric is going to send the passport details to Rogers.

Sam asks Callen if he can ask a “real talk” question.  Callen says no – “real talk” questions means Sam wants to know something deep and important from Callen and right now he’d just like to work.  Sam asks anyway – “do you love what we do?  Is this what you wanted to do with your life?”  Callen does not think sitting in a cemetery waiting for a psychopath to kill “my coworker” was a life plan.  Sam talks about his life in the Navy, how it made him fall in love with the country.  He became a SEAL to protect the country and the world for Michelle, for his children, “God willing for their kids.”  Sam wants to know if Callen ever asks himself why he does this job.  He started doing it so young he knows no other life.  Callen doesn’t have kids, doesn’t talk about having kids.  Why would he do their job?

Standing alone, Hetty remembers sitting in a museum, reading “Dante’s Inferno” to the young Laos.  A man walks up to Hetty.  She asks, “where is he?”

At their workstations, Eric and Nell are waiting for an update from Rogers when all the power goes out.  The entire system goes down.  Nell orders emergency protocols.

Rogers interrogates Norma Baker who is really Natasha Ali, daughter of Zakir and Ayesha Ali, born in Pakistan.  He asks about the scars on her face and right hand.  She calls them the scorched earth of US policy.  “Henrietta’s debt has now come due.”  

Kensi and Deeks pull up at a warehouse in an area full of warehouses.  As Deeks is about to crowbar open the warehouse’s door, Kensi is able to pick the lock to the warehouse garage entrance.  The warehouse is largely empty in the front.  In the rear, they find an office filled with papers, file cabinets, an old desk with equally old desk lamps.

Kensi finds a large bulletin board with a map of LA and dozens of pins in different locations, all connected with red string.  As Kensi takes a look at the map, Deeks sees something in the distance.  She takes a photo of the map while Deeks investigates what’s in the distance.

Everything has gone to hell in Ops.  There is auxiliary power but comms are down, trackers are down.  Eric calls Callen and Sam on a landline – he’s heard from Rogers, this isn’t a meet, it is something else.  As Callen and Sam get the call, a helicopter flies over the cemetery.  Callen runs on foot to Hetty, Sam takes off in his car trying to track the helicopter.  Callen finds Hetty’s handbag, along with her phone and a photo of her with Laos on the ground.  Sam crosses by.  Callen realizes Laos is going to kill Hetty.

Deeks makes his way alone to a structure built inside the warehouse.  As with all key Kensi and Deeks moments in the last few seasons, Sufjan Stevens is playing in the background.  This time, “Fourth of July” with the lyrics “”What could I have said to raise you from the dead” playing as Deeks walks into the structure.

Kensi removes a pin from the map – one on the California coastline.  She sees something under the pin and starts pull at it.

Deeks picks up piece of cardboard with the words “The path to paradise beings in hell.” Written on it.

Pulling away the map, Kensi sees a photo from the wedding.  She calls to Deeks.

Moving the piece of cardboard away, Deeks sees the wiring for a bomb and a countdown clock in a glass-covered case.  The door behind him slams.  He’s got less than 15-minutes before the bomb explodes.  He yells for Kensi as she screams for him.

Eric tells Callen he thinks the office was hit by an EMP while Kensi explains to Sam that Deeks is trapped in a room with a bomb.  Callen and Sam aren’t sure what they’re supposed to do.  Callen orders Eric to find Hetty’s lapel pin.  Sam has Nell calling the bomb squad to free Deeks.  The bomb squad’s ETA is 15-minutes.  Eric cannot connect to Hetty’s pin or the overwatch spray.  

Sam wants direction from Callen.  Callen has Eric tell Rogers to interrogate faster.  With 15-helipads to their west and 200 to their east, Callen and Sam are going east.

The room is nearly soundproof.  Kensi asks Deeks how much time is left on the clock.  Just over 11-minutes makes the ETA “the wrong side of 11.”  

Knowing that the country hurt Ali, “maybe orders, maybe an accident,” Rogers understands her anger.  Laos, however, is not some idealist looking to take down the country.  He is on a personal vendetta against Hetty. Rogers wants to know why Ali is helping.  Explaining that eight years ago at her brother’s wedding – a joyous time for all – their home was bombed.  She lost everything and everyone.  A drone “wiped out” everyone she loved.  Laos dragged her from the rubble.  He not only saved her, he trained her.  

The helicopter with Hetty had no tail identification and no transponder.  Hetty’s lapel pin comes on line – it is the middle of Echo Park Lake.  Callen wants to know what that means.  Eric has three options – the helicopter crashed, someone in the helicopter found the lapel pin and tossed out or some in the helicopter tossed Hetty out.

Sam is working with Kensi on the phone, warning her to keep Deeks from touching any of the bomb wires.    Deeks can’t touch any of the wires – they are under thick glass.   After not being able to understand what Kensi is asking about the bomb, Deeks shoots out the door’s window.  They are nine minutes left.

Callen wants to go to Echo Park Lake.  Sam does not – he does not believe Laos set all this up to throw Hetty out of a helicopter in the middle of the day.  Sam is sure Laos’s men found the lapel pin and tossed it.  “You want to take that chance?” Callen asks.  Sam says the bigger risk is stopping the chase to look at the lake.  They are going downtown.

Rogers is sympathetic to Ali’s losses.  The US had inaccurate information about her father.  Rogers passes how the inaccurate information about her father came to the US’s attention.

Calling Callen, Eric tells him there is a body in Echo Park Lake. Sam turns the car around – they’re going to Echo Park Lake.

Deeks is trying to open the case holding the bomb with no luck.  Trying to shoot it causes the bullet to ricochets around the room holding Deeks.  He won’t be doing that again.  

As Callen and Sam pull up to Echo Park Lake, Eric has news.  Hetty’s overwatch signal was picked up just west of downtown for a second.  Callen sees the body in the lake isn’t Hetty.  They’re going downtown.

While driving, Sam asks Kensi if Deeks can identify any of the bomb components.  C-4, three mercury switches, two batteries from cordless drills.  Deeks can’t disarm the bomb.  Looking around the warehouse, Kensi sees the walls are lined with bombs.  They need the bomb squad now.

As the lights are flickering in Ops, Nell notes that this is what happens when you try to play God in the lives of those you say you love.  Eric gets Nell back into what they’re doing.  Eric is trying to cross reference Hetty’s last known location with downtown helipads.

The bomb squad is still six-minutes away and still too far away.  Kensi is near tears telling Nell that it isn’t good enough as she tries to use an axe on the door with no luck.  Deeks has her stop.  Explaining that sometimes he wakes up unable to breathe because the world is so terrible, he feels claustrophobic – his chest is caving in and he thinks he’s going to die.  Kensi is stunned.  But then he looks at her – usually drooling on herself and snoring like a chubby dachshund – and knowing that she’s there and she chose him.  That makes him relax, find peace.  When he looks at her, he sees the two of them so he can fall asleep.   Kensi is crying – this can’t be the end.  He tells her it is OK, she’s the best thing that ever happened to him.  They share I love yous.

Deeks wants her to leave the warehouse.  She suddenly has an idea – telling him not to go anywhere.  He’s not sure where he’d go.

Ali pushes the file back at Rogers.  The file was provided by the State Department.  Laos was the source for the incorrect intelligence about Ali’s father.  Laos made her father out to be a high-level target, he knew the family wedding would happen on the day of the bombing.   She calls the file lies.  Rogers knows now the file was wrong but Laos wrote it.  He was the monster who killed her family.  Ali thinks everyone involved is a monster.  Rogers may agree but there will be no justice for Ali’s family if Laos kills Hetty.  Rogers promises justice for Ali if he can spill Laos’s blood and seek justice against Hetty.  Ali provides the location – the Century History Museum.  Nell calls that in to Callen.

The museum is being renovated.  The lions exhibit where Hetty read to Laos as a child is still there, being restored.  Laos greets an arriving, hooded Hetty – “home sweet home.”  He speaks about the lion – the king – eating his prey – peasants – and wonders if the king has become “a ruined thing.”  Laos still has his machete as he asks about the place of a ruined king.

Kensi brings the Audi into the warehouse.  She tells Deeks she wants to have kids with him.  “What, we’re making babies?” he asks.   Taking a rope from the back of the Audi, she wants to sell the house, buy a Sprinter van.  They can teach the kids how surf, speak French and pick berries.  Deeks doesn’t speak French and worries about poisonous berries.  Deeks thinks their kids should be in school.  Tying the rope to both the door and the back of the Audi, Kensi explains how they will homeschool the kids in the van.

With just under three minutes left, Deeks thinks this is a terrible plan.  The home schooling or the rope, Kensi asks.  Both, Deeks thinks.  It is a bad plan but a worse plan is “scraping your remains off the celling.”  Deeks agrees.

His only happy memories are sitting on the bench with Hetty as she read to him.  He asks if she has nothing to say to him.  She does – she’s the one who put him on this path and she’s sorry.  “A mother doesn’t abandon her child,” Laos says.  Hetty claims he was taken from her.  Furious, Laos reminds her a mother’s job is to protect.  She fed him “to the jackals.”  She talks about the number of lives he’s taken – the number of women and children.  When she apologizes again, he yells at her to stop saying that.  His heart is black.

In an alleyway outside of the museum, Callen and Sam pull up. While Sam exchanges fire with the men, Callen jumps out of the passenger’s seat and into the back of the museum.  

Kensi and Deeks exchange one last round of I love yous as Kensi gets into the driver’s seat and revs up the engine.  Deeks talks about living in a van before noting this is a terrible idea.

At the lions exhibit, Laos asks why Hetty “enslaved” him in this life.  Hetty explains that the life gives them purpose, meaning and gives to others in the world.  “That others sleep peacefully in their beds at night because creatures such as you and I stand ready to commit violence on their behalf.”  Laos thinks that is a lie Hetty tells the demons she created.  Hetty says they are also the lies she tells herself.  Laos believes the two of them betrayed humanity.  A debt that can only be paid in their blood.

Kensi drives the Audi out of the warehouse, dragging the door and Deeks strapped to it behind her.  When the door opens, the bombs in the warehouse start to go off.  Deeks tells Kensi to go faster as the fire is all around him.  Flattening himself on the door, Deeks misses a few fireballs as Kensi drags him to safety.  Once clear of the building, Kensi runs to Deeks, jumping on his as he tries to free himself from the door.

Just as in “Deliverance”, she lands on top of him with explosions all around.  Also as in “Deliverance”, Kensi needs to pee and Deeks is pretty sure just did.

Callen goes through the museum, shooting all of Laos’s men and shooting them again just to make sure they are dead.  He did this in “Lange, H.” when he and Sam went to rescue Hetty.  Walking into the lions exhibit, Callen is knocked off his feet by Laos.  Holding the machete over Callen, Laos tells his “brother” that he was warned about rescuing Hetty.  As Laos is about to lower the machete into Callen, Hetty stabs Laos several times from behind.

As Laos collapses, he asks Hetty if she’s proud of what she brought into this world.  Callen just stares.  Hetty cradles the dying Laos and recites from “Dante’s Inferno” with Sufjan Stevens playing.  Dying, Laos recites the end of the section Hetty use to read to him.  He finally dies.

Ali provides Rogers with all the information Laos made her memorize - missions, ghost hits, illegal trade enforcement and the people who ordered the actives.  Rogers promises Ali her cooperation will be considered when she’s sentenced.  Looking at the list, Hetty’s name appears several times.  Rogers seems pleased.

Finishing a scotch in her office with Callen, Hetty regrets not protecting Laos.  Callen asks from who – the military?  Fimmel?  She thinks herself.  Callen believes she did all she could for Laos – someone she loved.  Hetty does not know how to instill morality when she is not sure she has her own.  She failed him – he was not suited for their life.  Maybe it is not the life for Callen.  Or for any of them.  

Callen talks about Sam’s questions earlier in the day.  After a big case, two or three-days later he goes to where it all happened.  He watches as real life happens – a guy with a dog, a couple holding hands, kids playing.  All the violence and chaos has been replaced by a life Callen helped give them.  He thinks that world is worth fighting for – it all makes sense.  Callen tells Hetty she never failed him or the team.  She is worried she already failed the team – she’s just waiting for the pennies to drop.  If that is true, Callen says they will deal with it as family.  

Leaving, Callen turns and asks Hetty “how many of us are there?”  Hetty doesn’t answer.  Callen leaves.

What head canon can be formed from here:   There are nice callbacks to past episodes in 250.  This is the first real full team episode of the season.  Laos isn’t a surprise since season four had Grace, another one of Hetty’s troubled youths turned badass NCIS agents.  

There were callbacks to the explosion in “Deliverance” (which sold me on the Kensi-Deeks UST), “Lange, H.” (when Callen rescued Hetty) and “Hit List” (when Rogers was introduced as someone out to get Hetty).

Episode number:  250.  That is 23 more than JAG, the show that started this all, 136 episodes fewer than the mothership and 123 episodes more than the New Orleans sibling.  It was episode 10 of season 11.

[theculturedmarxist]

The New York Times is literally a propaganda outlet and Timothy Egan is a deceitful chode. His every word drips with the anxious desperation of the Democrats who know their goose is cooked.

Watching “Succession,” the HBO show about the most despicable plutocrats to seize the public imagination since the Trumps were forced on us, made me want to tax the ultrarich into a homeless shelter. And it almost made a Bernie Bro of me.

That’s the thing about class loathing: It feels good, a moral high with its own endorphins, but is ultimately self-defeating. A Bernie Sanders rally is a hit from the same pipe: Screw those greedy billionaire bastards!

Sanders has passion going for him. He has authenticity. He certainly has consistency: His bumper-sticker sloganeering hasn’t changed for half a century. He was, “even as a young man, an old man,” as Time magazine said.

But he cannot beat Donald Trump, for the same reason people do not translate their hatred of the odious rich into pitchfork brigades against walled estates.

Because powerful oligarchs that own their government murder them with impunity when they do.

>March 7 was a bitterly cold day in Detroit, and a crowd estimated at between 3,000 and 5,000 gathered near the Dearborn city limits, about a mile from the Ford plant. The Detroit Times called it "one of the coldest days of the winter, with a frigid gale whooping out of the northwest". Marchers carried banners reading "Give Us Work, "We Want Bread Not Crumbs", and "Tax the Rich and Feed the Poor". Albert Goetz gave a speech, asking that the marchers avoid violence. The march proceeded peacefully along the streets of Detroit until it reached the Dearborn city limits.

>There, the Dearborn police attempted to stop the march by firing tear gas into the crowd and began hitting marchers with clubs. One officer fired a gun at the marchers. The unarmed crowd scattered into a field covered with stones, picked them up, and began throwing stones at the police. The angry marchers regrouped and advanced nearly a mile toward the plant. There, two fire engines began spraying cold water onto the marchers from an overpass. The police were joined by Ford security guards and began shooting into the crowd. Marchers Joe York, Coleman Leny and Joe DeBlasio were killed, and at least 22 others were wounded by gunfire.

>The leaders decided to call off the march at that point and began an orderly retreat. Harry Bennett, head of Ford security, drove up in a car, opened a window, and fired a pistol into the crowd. Immediately, the car was pelted with rocks, and Bennett was injured. He got out of the car and continued firing at the retreating marchers. Dearborn police and Ford security men opened fire with machine guns on the retreating marchers. Joe Bussell, 16 years old, was killed, and dozens more men were wounded. Bennett was hospitalized for his injury.

> All of the seriously wounded marchers were arrested, and the police chained many to their hospital beds after they were admitted for treatment. A nationwide search was conducted for William Z. Foster, but he was not arrested. No law enforcement or Ford security officer was arrested, although all reliable reports showed that they had engaged in all the gunfire, resulting in deaths, injuries and property damage. The New York Times reported that "Dearborn streets were stained with blood, streets were littered with broken glass and the wreckage of bullet-riddled automobiles, and nearly every window in the Ford plant's employment building had been broken".

The United States has never been a socialist country, even when it most likely should have been one, during the robber baron tyranny of the Gilded Age or the desperation of the Great Depression, and it never will be. Which isn’t to say that American capitalism is working; it needs Teddy Roosevelt-style trustbusting and restructuring. We’re coming for you, Facebook.

Yeah, just look how well that’s worked out, you fucking idiot.

The next month presents the last chance for serious scrutiny of Sanders, who is leading in both Iowa and New Hampshire. After that, Republicans will rip the bark off him. When they’re done, you will not recognize the aging, mouth-frothing, business-destroying commie from Ben and Jerry’s dystopian dairy. Demagogy is what Republicans do best. And Sanders is ripe for caricature. 

The same Republicans that got their breakfast ate by the dottering windbag cheetoman? The same Republicans that are unpopular with over half the fucking country? The same Republicans which have shown majority support for Sanders’s policies in the past? Those are the Republicans you’re talking about, right, Timothy, you fucking asshole?

I’m not worried about the Russian stuff — Bernie’s self-described “very strange honeymoon” to the totalitarian hell of the Soviet Union in 1988, and his kind words for similar regimes. Compared with a president who is a willing stooge for the Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, a little vodka-induced dancing with the red bear is peanuts.

Nor am I worried about the legitimate questions concerning the candidate’s wife, Jane Sanders, who ran a Vermont college into the ground. Again, Trump’s family of grifters — from Ivanka securing her patents from China while Daddy made other promises to Beijing, to Don Jr.’s using the White House to leverage the family brand — give Democrats more than enough ammunition to return the fire.

This is fun. Due to a complete lack of incriminating conduct, little Timmy has to invent wrongdoing to libel Jane Sanders. I suppose he’s relying on his readers being too stupid to read the article that he himself links, another NYT hitpiece that desperately tries to paint Ms Sanders as a shady character without anything in the way of tangible proof.

>Federal prosecutors have not spoken publicly about their investigation, though late last year, Ms. Sanders’s lead lawyer said he had been told it had been closed. And while doubts remain about the contribution pledges claimed by the college, the lawyer has said that neither Ms. Sanders nor her husband was even questioned by investigators, indicating a lack of significant evidence of a crime.

>After Ms. Sanders’s ouster, the college’s troubles worsened. It abandoned a promising effort she had undertaken to sell some of its new land to improve its finances, interviews show. A few years later, when it did begin selling, it was to a consortium that secretly included at least one member of its board, raising conflict-of-interest questions.

>There is little question that the college’s 2016 demise can be traced to Ms. Sanders’s decision to champion an aggressive — critics say reckless — plan to buy the land. But with potential students put off by the lack of a campus, and with many such colleges struggling at the time, her move was the academic equivalent of a Hail Mary. Her allies said she never had a chance to fulfill her vision.

>“Jane made an audacious gambit to save the college,” said Genevieve Jacobs, a former faculty member. “It seemed to be a moment of ‘change or die.’”

>In interviews and emails, Ms. Sanders expressed frustration at her dismissal and the college’s failure to continue her rescue plan.

>“They went a completely different direction in every way than what we had proposed and decided upon as a board — with the bank, with the diocese, the bonding agency,” she said. “They didn’t carry out any of the plan. It was very confusing and upsetting at the time.”

The TL;DR seems to be: Jane Sanders tried to save a struggling school with an audacious but risky plan that ended up being aborted when she was let go by by a board, some of the members of which may have had a stake in seeing it fail. At the very least, a much more complex situation than the aspersion of “running it into the ground.”

Trump bragged about sexual assault, paid off a porn star and ran a fraudulent university. He sucks up to dictators and tells a half-dozen lies before he puts his socks on in the morning. A weird column about a rape fantasy from 1972 is not going to sink Bernie when Trump has debased all public discourse.

No, what will get the Trump demagogue factory working at full throttle is the central message of the Sanders campaign: that the United States needs a political revolution. It may very well need one. But most people don’t think so, as Barack Obama has argued. And getting two million new progressive votes in the usual area codes is not going to change that.

“Ah jeez, ah fuck, he has no sexual indiscretions that I can dredge up and his Feminist polemic against pornography and the rape culture that it engenders is old news, and if I actually reported on it honestly people might actually read it and support his ideas. Oh, well, you see, despite the incredible groundswell of support for just such a thing, Barack Obama, the man that gave the banks trillions of dollars and then allowed the state apparatus to function as their gestapo-cum-storm troopers, says we don’t need one!”

Timothy Egan wants to dismiss “two million new progressive votes” after doing a little gaslighting. His Democrat masters don’t want people to remember that it was Obama’s promises of Hope and Change after 8 years of Republican tyranny that generated a record breaking voter turnout. They would also like you to forget that 2016 was a 20-year low in voter turnout. Do you think those things are related, Mr Egan? Do you think that there might be some connection between Obama taking advantage of the desperation of millions of people, betraying them, and then those people not fucking showing up next time, causing your party to lose to the dimwit that they themselves boosted to the position?

Give Sanders credit for moving public opinion along on a living wage, higher taxes on the rich and the need for immediate action to stem the immolation of the planet. Most great ideas start on the fringe and move to the middle.

But some of his other ideas are stillborn, or never get beyond the fringe. Socialism, despite its flavor-of-the-month appeal to young people, is not popular with the general public. Just 39 percent of Americans view socialism positively, a bare uptick from 2010, compared with 87 percent who have a positive view of free enterprise, Gallup found last fall.

“Just” 39 percent of Americans, up 4% from 2016. This is ignoring for the moment that due to Americans’ piss-poor education system they have no idea what “Socialism” means aside from “more government.” Looking at the breakdown of results, it seems as though they just asked people off the top of their head what they thought about X, no definition or elaboration given. Unsurprisingly, when you look at the actual numbers on specific issues, you can see exactly why Egan has to play this deceptive bullshit: of respondents 18-34, 52% have a favorable view of “Socialism,” as opposed to 47% supporting “Capitalism.” This is in sharp contrast to the 35-54 and 55+ cohorts. 65% of Democrats have a favorable view of “Socialism.” Those with a “Liberal” ideology are even more in favor at 74%, Timothy Egan, you massive shithead.

What’s more, American confidence in the economy is now at the highest level in nearly two decades. That’s hardly the best condition for overthrowing the system.

"The highest level in nearly two decades.” That’s faint fucking praise right there.

You can see the tremendous fucking crater caused by the crash in 2007/8, a reversal of a whopping -81 points from the previous year. With many economists forecasting recession beginning either this year or the next, we’ll see how long the confidence lasts. 

So-called Medicare for all, once people understand that it involves eliminating all private insurance, polls at barely above 40 percent in some surveys, versus the 70 percent who favor the option of Medicare for all who want it. Other polls show majority support. But cost is a huge concern. And even Sanders cannot give a price tag for nationalizing more than one-sixth of the economy.

A ban on fracking is a poison pill in a must-win state like Pennsylvania, which Democrats lost by just over 44,000 votes in 2016. Eliminating Immigration and Customs Enforcement, another Sanders plan, is hugely unpopular with the general public.

“Medicare for all is really unpopular, except when it isn’t.”

Hmm, you know? Hmmm.

As for fracking, from his own link:

>A November poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Cook Political Report found that only 39 percent of Pennsylvania swing voters saw a fracking ban as a good idea, even as nearly 7 in 10 of those same voters said they supported the idea of a “Green New Deal” for the environment.

Democrats are whinging on the jobs “lost” to a fracking ban as though it exists in isolation. 39% might support a fracking ban, but 70% support the GND, which could potentially offset the “job loss” with industry that has the potential not to leave their state as a fucking environmentally ruined horror show. I haven’t run the numbers on this, but not living in a cesspool of polluted air and water tends to be pretty popular, Timbo.

More shellgames from Mr Egan regarding abolishing ICE.

> Only 1 in 4 voters in the poll, 25 percent, believe the federal government should get rid of ICE. The majority, 54 percent, think the government should keep ICE. Twenty-one percent of voters are undecided. 

That sounds bad. Maybe it’s not such a good ide

>But a plurality of Democratic voters do support abolishing ICE, the poll shows. Among Democrats, 43 percent say the government should get rid of ICE, while only 34 percent say it should keep ICE.

Oh.

Sanders is a rigid man, and he projects grumpy-old-man rigidity, with his policy prescriptions frozen in failed Marxist pipe dreams. He’s unlikely to change. I sort of like that about his character, in the same way I like that he didn’t cave to the politically correct bullies who went after him for accepting the support of the influential podcaster Joe Rogan.

Democrats win with broad-vision optimists who still shake up the system — Franklin Roosevelt, of course, but also Obama. The D’s flipped 40 House seats in 2018 without using any of Sanders’s stringent medicine. If they stick to that elixir they’ll oust Trump, the goal of a majority of Americans.

Democrats lose with fire-and-brimstone fundamentalists. Three times, the party nominated William Jennings Bryan, the quirky progressive with great oratorical pipes, and three times they were trounced. Look him up, kids. Your grandchildren will do a similar search for Bernie Sanders when they wonder how Donald Trump won a second term.

“Failed Marxist pipe dreams.” Aaaaay lmao. You should also have an inkling something is wrong when you have to go all the way back to FDR to find someone that supports your point. Talk about “poison pills,” Obama proved himself to be as much of a snake as the rest, and the effects of that resonated in 2016 when the Dems ran on a platform of “that’s a nice country you have there, you wouldn’t want Trump to get elected, would you?” How did that work out? You ran one of the most unpopular politicians in the country—after very blatantly rigging the primaries against Sanders to do so—against one of the most unpopular capitalists in the country, and lost, dipshit!

Ironically, I think Timbob’s closing statement will prove true, though not in the way his clown ass intends. Shills like Egan are doing everything they can to try and poison public perception against Sanders and his policies, who only proves increasingly popular as time goes on, so much so in fact that the DNC is already biting its nails and muttering to itself about ways it can try and cheat his supporters again.

In conversations on the sidelines of a DNC executive committee meeting and in telephone calls and texts in recent days, about a half-dozen members have discussed the possibility of a policy reversal to ensure that so-called superdelegates can vote on the first ballot at the party’s national convention. Such a move would increase the influence of DNC members, members of Congress and other top party officials, who now must wait until the second ballot to have their say if the convention is contested.

They deny it in the article, claim that changing the rules would be “bad sportsmanship,” but one would be a fool to believe them. If anything, their ambivalence towards relying on Superdelegates would make me even more nervous at this stage. Politico wants it to seem like the DNC is bent on playing fair, but more likely than not they have no intention of changing the convention rules because they believe there’s no need. With Warren’s flagging support and the luke-warm response to Biden, I doubt they’re overcome with optimism of beating Sanders in an honest primary. With all the shenanigans from last time’s primaries in mind, it’s likely that the machinery to rig the results their way is already in place—the primary could already be over before it even begins.

[circularfire]

Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformation

Note: The first rule and last five (or six, depending on situation) rules are generally not directly within the ability of the traditional disinfo artist to apply. These rules are generally used more directly by those at the leadership, key players, or planning level of the criminal conspiracy or conspiracy to cover up. 1. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Regardless of what you know, don't discuss it -- especially if you are a public figure, news anchor, etc. If it's not reported, it didn't happen, and you never have to deal with the issues. 2. Become incredulous and indignant. Avoid discussing key issues and instead focus on side issues which can be used show the topic as being critical of some otherwise sacrosanct group or theme. This is also known as the 'How dare you!' gambit. 3. Create rumor mongers. Avoid discussing issues by describing all charges, regardless of venue or evidence, as mere rumors and wild accusations. Other derogatory terms mutually exclusive of truth may work as well. This method which works especially well with a silent press, because the only way the public can learn of the facts are through such 'arguable rumors'. If you can associate the material with the Internet, use this fact to certify it a 'wild rumor' from a 'bunch of kids on the Internet' which can have no basis in fact. 4. Use a straw man. Find or create a seeming element of your opponent's argument which you can easily knock down to make yourself look good and the opponent to look bad. Either make up an issue you may safely imply exists based on your interpretation of the opponent/opponent arguments/situation, or select the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Amplify their significance and destroy them in a way which appears to debunk all the charges, real and fabricated alike, while actually avoiding discussion of the real issues. 5. Sidetrack opponents with name calling and ridicule. This is also known as the primary 'attack the messenger' ploy, though other methods qualify as variants of that approach. Associate opponents with unpopular titles such as 'kooks', 'right-wing', 'liberal', 'left-wing', 'terrorists', 'conspiracy buffs', 'radicals', 'militia', 'racists', 'religious fanatics', 'sexual deviates', and so forth. This makes others shrink from support out of fear of gaining the same label, and you avoid dealing with issues. 6. Hit and Run. In any public forum, make a brief attack of your opponent or the opponent position and then scamper off before an answer can be fielded, or simply ignore any answer. This works extremely well in Internet and letters-to-the-editor environments where a steady stream of new identities can be called upon without having to explain criticism, reasoning -- simply make an accusation or other attack, never discussing issues, and never answering any subsequent response, for that would dignify the opponent's viewpoint. 7. Question motives. Twist or amplify any fact which could be taken to imply that the opponent operates out of a hidden personal agenda or other bias. This avoids discussing issues and forces the accuser on the defensive. 8. Invoke authority. Claim for yourself or associate yourself with authority and present your argument with enough 'jargon' and 'minutia' to illustrate you are 'one who knows', and simply say it isn't so without discussing issues or demonstrating concretely why or citing sources. 9. Play Dumb. No matter what evidence or logical argument is offered, avoid discussing issues except with denials they have any credibility, make any sense, provide any proof, contain or make a point, have logic, or support a conclusion. Mix well for maximum effect. 10. Associate opponent charges with old news. A derivative of the straw man -- usually, in any large-scale matter of high visibility, someone will make charges early on which can be or were already easily dealt with - a kind of investment for the future should the matter not be so easily contained.) Where it can be foreseen, have your own side raise a straw man issue and have it dealt with early on as part of the initial contingency plans. Subsequent charges, regardless of validity or new ground uncovered, can usually then be associated with the original charge and dismissed as simply being a rehash without need to address current issues -- so much the better where the opponent is or was involved with the original source. 11. Establish and rely upon fall-back positions. Using a minor matter or element of the facts, take the 'high road' and 'confess' with candor that some innocent mistake, in hindsight, was made -- but that opponents have seized on the opportunity to blow it all out of proportion and imply greater criminalities which, 'just isn't so.' Others can reinforce this on your behalf, later, and even publicly 'call for an end to the nonsense' because you have already 'done the right thing.' Done properly, this can garner sympathy and respect for 'coming clean' and 'owning up' to your mistakes without addressing more serious issues. 12. Enigmas have no solution. Drawing upon the overall umbrella of events surrounding the crime and the multitude of players and events, paint the entire affair as too complex to solve. This causes those otherwise following the matter to begin to lose interest more quickly without having to address the actual issues. 13. Alice in Wonderland Logic. Avoid discussion of the issues by reasoning backwards or with an apparent deductive logic which forbears any actual material fact. 14. Demand complete solutions. Avoid the issues by requiring opponents to solve the crime at hand completely, a ploy which works best with issues qualifying for rule 10. 15. Fit the facts to alternate conclusions. This requires creative thinking unless the crime was planned with contingency conclusions in place. 16. Vanish evidence and witnesses. If it does not exist, it is not fact, and you won't have to address the issue. 17. Change the subject. Usually in connection with one of the other ploys listed here, find a way to side-track the discussion with abrasive or controversial comments in hopes of turning attention to a new, more manageable topic. This works especially well with companions who can 'argue' with you over the new topic and polarize the discussion arena in order to avoid discussing more key issues. 18. Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad Opponents. If you can't do anything else, chide and taunt your opponents and draw them into emotional responses which will tend to make them look foolish and overly motivated, and generally render their material somewhat less coherent. Not only will you avoid discussing the issues in the first instance, but even if their emotional response addresses the issue, you can further avoid the issues by then focusing on how 'sensitive they are to criticism.' 19. Ignore proof presented, demand impossible proofs. This is perhaps a variant of the 'play dumb' rule. Regardless of what material may be presented by an opponent in public forums, claim the material irrelevant and demand proof that is impossible for the opponent to come by (it may exist, but not be at his disposal, or it may be something which is known to be safely destroyed or withheld, such as a murder weapon.) In order to completely avoid discussing issues, it may be required that you to categorically deny and be critical of media or books as valid sources, deny that witnesses are acceptable, or even deny that statements made by government or other authorities have any meaning or relevance. 20. False evidence. Whenever possible, introduce new facts or clues designed and manufactured to conflict with opponent presentations -- as useful tools to neutralize sensitive issues or impede resolution. This works best when the crime was designed with contingencies for the purpose, and the facts cannot be easily separated from the fabrications. 21. Call a Grand Jury, Special Prosecutor, or other empowered investigative body. Subvert the (process) to your benefit and effectively neutralize all sensitive issues without open discussion. Once convened, the evidence and testimony are required to be secret when properly handled. For instance, if you own the prosecuting attorney, it can insure a Grand Jury hears no useful evidence and that the evidence is sealed and unavailable to subsequent investigators. Once a favorable verdict is achieved, the matter can be considered officially closed. Usually, this technique is applied to find the guilty innocent, but it can also be used to obtain charges when seeking to frame a victim. 22. Manufacture a new truth. Create your own expert(s), group(s), author(s), leader(s) or influence existing ones willing to forge new ground via scientific, investigative, or social research or testimony which concludes favorably. In this way, if you must actually address issues, you can do so authoritatively. 23. Create bigger distractions. If the above does not seem to be working to distract from sensitive issues, or to prevent unwanted media coverage of unstoppable events such as trials, create bigger news stories (or treat them as such) to distract the multitudes. 24. Silence critics. If the above methods do not prevail, consider removing opponents from circulation by some definitive solution so that the need to address issues is removed entirely. This can be by their death, arrest and detention, blackmail or destruction of their character by release of blackmail information, or merely by destroying them financially, emotionally, or severely damaging their health. 25. Vanish. If you are a key holder of secrets or otherwise overly illuminated and you think the heat is getting too hot, to avoid the issues, vacate the kitchen.

[ndvydual]

Squetches

Pages from my squetchbook

[vgtrackbracket]

Video Game Track Bracket Round 4

Eustace Winner - Winning Independence from Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit

vs.

Rising Sun from Ōkami

Propaganda under the cut. If you want your propaganda reblogged and added to future polls, please tag it as propaganda or otherwise indicate this!

Rising Sun:

It's very good! Its the main theme of the game I believe.

[canaryatlaw]

okay I should write, but it’s officially been my birthday for 40 minutes!! So that’s fun. sadly I’ll have to entertain myself for most of the day, but I’ll probably sleep in and then maybe go out to some of the shops on main street (like Francesca’s) and do some shopping, and then later on I’m gonna go to Olive Garden with Jess and then to see Captain Marvel and then get ice cream for part 1 of birthday celebrations, part 2 will be on Saturday when we can go up to where they have the cheesecake factory and the fancy movie theatre where we will go to eat and see Shazam, so I’m excited for that. But anyway, today. I was in and out of sleep for a bit before getting up around 1ish. I spent a while just getting breakfast and checking things out on my computer. When I was done with that, I grabbed the receipt the dry cleaner’s had given me to get their phone number, the clothes were supposed to be ready by today but the receipt said “ready by 5 pm” on that day, so I wanted to call and make sure they were ready before I came down there, so I called and they said they were so I got ready and started walking there. It was like high 30′s today which is colder than the last few days at least so I grabbed my winter coat, but that was definitely a mistake as I started overheating very quickly. I made the walk down and stopped at the chase bank along the way to get cash since the dry cleaner’s had signs saying “cash payments are appreciated” and Chase is my bank so I get free ATM use, so I stopped in there and got some cash from the ATM before continuing on. The whole transaction was easy enough, I gave them the receipt and they brought the clothes out, I paid the amount specified and was good to go. Since I was now carrying a decent amount of clothing, I was gonna see if I could catch the bus back instead of walking the half a mile or so it is carrying the clothes, but this would depend how close the next bus was since it’d be pointless to wait for it for like 10 minutes. so I checked the bus tracker and it said the next one was only 3 minutes away, so I was pleased with that. the bus was kinda crowded and stopped at every stop along the way, but it was at least less physical exertion and knowing that my arms would’ve been killing me if I walked home. so I got home and put the clothes away, and then started my next task of dyeing my hair. I do dearly love my bright red hair, but I’m at the point where I can’t let something as stupid as hair color jeopardize my chance of getting a job, especially when I have *the* interview on Wednesday, so it had to go. I can’t even remember the last time I used a box kit on my own hair, but it got the job done. It was like a auburnish color, brown and red mix kind of. I was a little worried it wouldn’t quite turn out that color because the hair it was going on was so bright, but that didn’t end up being a problem. but yeah, I’ve done this enough to know how it works, so getting it in wasn’t an issue. it said to only wait 25 minutes before rinsing which seemed kind of short to me, but I kept to it pretty much. They said no shampoo for 24 hours, just rinse and use their conditioning thing, the same basic stuff, so that was no problem. Once I was done with that I set out to do my final planned task for the day, which was cleaning up the kitchen, mainly by taking out the trash and doing the dishes. The trash was WAY overdue to be taken out, to the point where there were some paper bags outside the trash bin also filled with trash. so I tried to pull the overstuffed bag out, only to find the bottom of it had ripped, and leaked god knows what all over the bottom of the trash bin. WELL CRAP. so I had to grab another trash bag and stretch it into the trash bin, then lower the first one into it and over it so it wouldn’t leak everywhere. it was....difficult lol. But I took that out along with the paper bags and the cardboard for recycling. I did my best to clean most of what I could out of the trash bin, but some of it I just couldn’t reach despite my best efforts, so I ended up just putting a new trash bag in and figured we’ll deal with it at some point in the future. From there I started doing the dishes, putting away the clean ones and washing through the dirty ones, then putting those away, so everything in the kitchen was handled. It was fairly close to 7 when Arrow was on at this point so I got some dinner and went to the den and turned the tv on for that, set to livetweet for the dctvpodcasts twitter account. Interesting episode, probably kept my attention more than most of the episodes so far this season, but that’s not saying very much I suppose. It was fairly obvious to me that Emiko was all in with the bad guys, not being coerced into it. I was NOT PREPARED for the reveal in the last flashback regarding the queen’s gambit, though I was a little confused as to who exactly was pulling the strings and who did the actual work there, was she working with Merlyn or what? weird. Otherwise in the plot, my lawyer brain had to jump to the obvious 4th amendment issues with Felicity’s proposed tracking system. not that they would care about silly little things like constitutional rights here. The whole subplot with Dinah and Laurel was?? weird?? normally I enjoy my girls interacting but this week was just kinda funky. I am of course looking forward to what next week will bring since it of course features the return of Sara which I am eagerly awaiting, so here’s hoping that will be a great episode. After Arrow was over I switched over to 9-1-1 which had just started, which was a pretty good episode. I swear this show makes me cry every damn week lol it plays on my emotions very well, but I very much enjoyed the plot with Howie the firefighter guy (still terrible with character names) and his journey as to how he got where he was and of course for it to end with him being stabbed and unconscious after encountering Maddie’s violent ex-husband who was coming to kidnap her. So I guess we’ll have to wait until next week to see how that plays out. After that I switched over to The Fix since that was airing then. It was a decent episode, I’m not totally in love with the show but it’s had some good moments. It’s VERY obvious they’re closely tracking the OJ case and what might have been if he had ended up in this situation (which is of course to be expected given that one of the writers/producers is the OJ prosecutor). It’s interesting for me to see the tactics the defense attorney was using and how they blew up in his face so badly this week, and seeing them play the secret tapes Jessica had made for the media to see and them cutting to his daughter when he had just promised to her that he had never hit Jessica and now she was finding out that was a huge lie....that was very well done. so I’m still on board for now, we’ll see where it goes from here. After that I just watched the news for a bit and then some Jimmy Kimmel before starting to get ready for bed, didn’t need to shower since I did so earlier when I was getting the hair dye out, so I took my pills and grabbed my computer to start writing this and now I am here. It’s 1:16 am and I am getting a bit sleepy, so I think I will end this here. Looking forward to birthday fun tomorrow. Goodnight peeps. I hope my birthday is a great day for you too.