#realized obama's election was also a big deal that way for a lot of people and thought he was a cool guy

[katebihshop]

honestly? 5 year old me was right

[leupagus]

On being a boss

Piggybacking off my earlier comment about how politicians are employees; I don’t think enough people realize that that means we are their bosses. And while I know many folks who are reading this have never thought of themselves has being in a position of authority over anyone, the minute you become an eligible voter, that’s literally what you are. There are different names for it—voter, constituent, stakeholder—but it all means the same thing. You’re a boss, baby.

And that means you need to be an effective boss.

Think about how authority figures in your life have influenced you, either well or badly. Did the PTA meeting between your parents and your teachers always fill you with dread? That’s how politicians feel about polls. Do you hate getting summoned into a boss’s office to get reamed over something you did wrong? That’s how politicians feel about town halls. Did you get absolutely devastated over losing a job or not getting a job you really wanted? That’s how politicians feel when they get beaten in elections.

I’m not saying this to encourage you to have empathy for politicians—although honestly maybe remembering that they’re human beings once in a while wouldn’t kill some of you—but rather to show you how to be effective at getting your employee to do what you want.

Now, obviously there are some big differences in terms of scale; you are, please remember, not this politician’s only boss and almost certainly not their most influential. And politicians also listen to people who aren’t their bosses, like their donors or their family or their friends or their party leaders or the companies they came from pre-political career or the ones they want to join post-political career (they call it the revolving door for a reason). Those people aren’t their bosses, but they have pull all the same. So there’s that.

But even though the scale is different, all of us, no matter how young (including the 12-year-old who’s stumbled on this post) have had to deal with the pressures of multiple authority figures wanting us to do completely different things RIGHT NOW. So think back on those situations and consider what choices you made in those moments. Whose “orders” did you follow: was it the boss who would be most upset if you disappointed them, was it the boss who would retaliate the most harshly if you crossed them, was it the boss who would reward you if you pleased them, was it the boss who wanted you to do something that you yourself already wanted to do/planned to do anyway?

That’s not a trick question, I promise; chances are that your answer changes based on a shitton of variables. And because politicians are human beings, they also have different answers to that question. Sometimes they go with the people who gave them the most money in the last election (although that happens less often than you think, and way less often the more powerful a politician gets, for obvious reasons). Sometimes they go with the people who agree with them. Sometimes they go with the people who voted for them. Sometimes they even go with what they sincerely believe is right (anybody rolling their eyes at this wasn’t paying attention during the political massacre that took place after Dems rammed through the ACA in 2009; there are a dozen or so people whose political careers ended because they voted for it).

So as your politician’s boss, you have to figure out what tactic is most effective to get your employee to do what you want, because as nice as it sounds, you can’t just fire them every time they piss you off. So think about a politician whose mind you want to change—your Congressman doesn’t want to support climate legislation, let’s say. Look at her record and her interviews and past elections: what’s influenced her over the years and what’s changed her mind. Then you know where the pressure points are.

Of course you, by yourself, can’t make your politicians do whatever you want every time; not even whatever boogeyman people conjure up like the Koch brothers or Bill Gates or George Soros can do that (and believe me, a lot of them have tried). But, you do have more power than you think: you can attend a town hall and confront your wayward politician, you can volunteer for promising opponents, you can call her office and find out if her staff take in-person meetings (less common these days but my mayor does do zoom calls, lol). You can even run for something yourself; it’s really not as stupid as it sounds, especially if you’re not the only one in the field, because more people running is always a good thing. These are all time-consuming and energy-consuming options, and I know we’re all exhausted. But we’re also bosses, and we’ve got to do what we can to ensure our employees do the best job they can.

Besides, politicians change their minds based on their voters’ influence all the time—Bernie Sanders, for example, is a principled opponent of the US’s foreign policy and believes we should withdraw from the “forever wars” that we’ve been embroiled in for decades. But he also championed the construction of the... uh, not-exactly-practical F-35 fighter jet, which over the years has cost almost as much as the entire COVID relief bill that just passed. Sanders didn’t support it because he’s a hypocrite or a warmonger in disguise; he supported it because it brought crucial, desperately-needed jobs to Vermont, and he genuinely cares about his constituents. Sanders has also credited the influence of his constituents on his championing of queer rights and gay marriage, before most other politicians were sticking their necks out in support, because the people who spoke with him changed his mind. And while you can argue that Sanders is unique amongst politicians, he really isn’t; Biden himself came out in support of gay marriage just a couple years afterward—in an election year, no less, and I remember the absolute panic that set in about whether or not his radical notions would cost Obama reelection. (It’s weird thinking that it’s been a little under six years since Obergefell, isn’t it???)

Every day we’re seeing politicians getting pushed one way or another by their voters; the mayor of Austin had to go to court to defend his city’s mask mandate, for example, and Florida cities are fighting to keep their own mandates going despite their shitty governor doing everything he can to undermine them. (There are other examples but it’s Saturday morning, what do you want from me.) They can be pushed, and they should be.

To write politicians off as evil monsters who are doing a bad job because they’re just amoral is to ignore your job as their boss; if you want your employee to work for you, you’ve got to figure out why they aren’t (or if they aren’t, which: I could go into that whole thing but this is already longer than my dick). And then you can decide whether to push your influence, which you do in fact have, to either change them or replace them. It’s up to you. Go be a boss, baby.

[freddyfreebat]

Luca Guadagnino on Creating His HBO Series, Trump’s America, and Why He’s Remaking ‘Scarface’

by Brent Lang

Luca Guadagnino, the Oscar-nominated auteur behind “Call Me By Your Name,” is taking his swooning, lyrical style to the small-screen with “We Are Who We Are,” an immersive and deeply moving coming-of-age story.

The HBO-Sky series, which debuts this September, follow two teenagers, Fraser (Jack Dylan Grazer) and Caitlin (Jordan Kristine Seamón), who live on a military base in Italy. It explores their burgeoning friendship — Fraser is artistic, shy, and volatile, while Caitlin is more outgoing, but also dealing with her own nagging insecurities. The series, Guadagnino’s first for TV, also grapples with issues of sexuality and gender identity. He directed all eight episodes of “We Are Who We Are,” and says he purposely set the show in the midst of the 2016 U.S. presidential election as a way to comment on the political tumult unleashed by Donald Trump’s victory.

Guadagnino spoke to Variety shortly after the first trailer for “We Are Who We Are” was released.

How would you describe “We Are Who We Are”? Is it a TV series, a longer narrative feature, a miniseries?

I feel like on the one hand that this is a new film of mine. It feels like a movie to me, but I enjoyed the episodic-ness of the story. This is a series and it depends on how it clicks with an audience if we will see these people again. I have sort of a penchant for bringing back to life characters that I love. I truly love all the characters in this show. The greatness of doing TV is that if there’s a good outcome, this can come back, which would be beautiful to me.

What inspired the project?

Lorenzo Mieli [ed. note: who produced the show for The Apartment along with Mario Gianani for Wildside, both Fremantle companies] and Paolo Giordano and Francesca Manieri had developed a concept about the life of teenagers today vis-à-vis gender fluidity in American suburbia. When they talked to me about it, the first thing I said was I’m less interested in the topic as a sort of starting point. I’m more interested in the behavior of these people. I think in order not to be generic why don’t we set this in a micro-America, a place that can work as the part for the whole. I proposed the military world. I had a very wonderful conversation once many, many years ago with Amy Adams — you get to have these meetings with these great actors as one of the privileges of this work — and she told me that she spent part of her upbringing in Vicenza, in a military base in Italy. From synapses connecting to each other, I had this image in my mind.

Because this is a series, I said to Lorenzo, “If this goes well, next time they can move to another base. They can be in Japan or Africa or anywhere.”

In the show, the characters refer to the military base as ‘America’ despite the fact that it is in the middle of Italy. That geographic dichotomy seems to mirror the way that many of the characters feel a kind of emotional displacement or discomfort. Did you view the setting as a larger metaphor?

I always feel displaced. I never feel in the right place as a person. I do believe that despite every action we can take to claim the nature of our identity, eventually the human condition is that we are always trying to reclaim an emotional state of belonging. This show is about the kids not knowing who they are, not knowing what they are, and feeling displaced. Of course, there’s a transitional element of being a teenager that is specific to that age. It’s said that when you’re grown up, you know more about yourself, but truthfully all of these characters feel lost.

Fraser and Caitlin are both 14. That strikes me as an interesting age, because you’re definitely developing a stronger sense of identity, and yet you’re still wholly dependent on your parents.  Why did you want to focus on characters at that particular age?

If I remember when I was 14, I was deeply, deeply unsatisfied by my incapacity to understand how to put in action the big plan I had for myself in my mind. I knew what I wanted, but I didn’t know how to get it. Eventually I even realized that I didn’t completely know what I wanted. I love this age, because you have grand ambitions and at the same time you have no means to fulfill those ambitions. You have only curiosity, only craving, only the capacity for experimentation. Every day seems to be a fight between life and death. That’s something beautiful about that age.

When the trailer for “We Are Who We Are” dropped, there were a lot of comparisons online to “Call Me By Your Name.” Both works are set in Italy and involve younger men. Do you see a commonality?

I will never complain about people’s laziness, but that sounds very lazy. “Call Me By Your Name” is about the past seen through the prism of a cinematic narrative and this is about the here and now. This is about the bodies and souls of now. I think they are so different.

Why did you decide to set the show during the 2016 presidential election?

The effects of the 2016 election are still being felt right here, right now. The seismic shift throughout America and the world of what it meant that Obama’s presidency was followed by Trump’s presidency and how people did not see it coming, are still being grappled with. It has to be said, that just as [Silvio] Berlusconi was the autobiography of Italy, Trump can also be seen as a sad chapter in the autobiography of the United States.

We are dealing with a kind of populism that springs from the plutocrats. It is shaping the world while at the same time a phalanx of youth is shaking the world as well and not taking that bitter medicine.

“We Are Who We Are” has a fair amount of full-frontal male nudity. That’s rare in American films and television shows. Why do you think that’s the case?

I always felt embarrassed when I saw in films the camera strategically not showing something. I also think that to show nudity — male, female — if it’s in the context of something that makes sense, is a way to liberate the eye. HBO has been wonderful in endorsing my choices. They could have felt provocative or radical, but I saw them as organic. By the way, there is nudity in general in my movies. That’s part of living. We are naked part of the day and part of the day we are dressed up. I always think I should pay respect to that condition of being human. Sometimes we’re naked, so why not?

You have about a half-dozen projects listed as in development on your IMDB. What’s behind that?

I am a relentless workaholic. I’m someone who has never tried any drugs, because I’m too scared for my own health. But I feel like when I was born, I fell on a “Scarface” mountain of cocaine, because I work 13 hours a day.

Are you working on a sequel to “Call Me By Your Name”?

I call it a second chapter, a new chapter, a part two or something like that. I love those characters. I love those actors. The legacy of the movie and its reception made me feel I should continue walking the path with everybody. I’ve come up with a story and hopefully we will be able to put it on the page soon.

You’re also attached to a remake of “Scarface.” What attracted you to that project?

People claim that I do only remakes [ed. note: Guadagnino previously remade “Suspiria” and his film “A Bigger Splash” was inspired by “La Piscine”] , but the truth of the matter is cinema has been remaking itself throughout its existence. It’s not because it’s a lazy way of not being able to find original stories. It’s alway about looking at what certain stories say about our times. The first “Scarface” from Howard Hawks was all about the prohibition era. Fifty years later, Oliver Stone and Brian De Palma make their version, which is so different from the Hawks film. Both can stand on the shelf as two wonderful pieces of sculpture. Hopefully ours, forty-plus years later, will be another worthy reflection on a character who is a paradigm for our own compulsions for excess and ambition. I think my version will be very timely.

What have you been watching during lockdown?

I watched again “Comizi d’amore” (Love Meetings) by Pasolini. I saw a great movie called “The Vast of Night,” and I watched for the second or third time “Doctor Sleep,” which is a movie I admire greatly.

[antoine-roquentin]

First, take a look at the very equivocal position of the Democratic leadership. One little noted detail is important. An amendment inserted in the lame-duck legislation that enshrined the “Swaps Pushout” weakening of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill in January 2015, made it easier for big donors to funnel much larger sums of money to the national party committees. This has, I think, made it even easier for blocs of big donors to control those committees, even as small contributions sometimes surge. Not only in 2018, but in the 2020 primaries, I think this mattered.

As a result, the Democratic National Committee has not been subordinated to the Biden campaign, at least not yet. The surge in the southern Democratic primaries that destroyed the Sanders boom involved many big Democratic donors along with many black congressmen and women, together with the political and financial networks of former president Barack Obama and the Clintons. It was a coming together of the entire Democratic establishment to stop Sanders. Congressional black leaders were thus heavily identified with the “Stop Sanders” movement, too.

But with the combined economic collapse and the pandemic revealing the bankruptcy of the traditional establishment, the whole top of the party has had to scramble. How they have responded is very interesting. Thanks to the dissemination of so many videos, the realization about the racism that black Americans face — and not just by so many police — is very widespread. The revulsion is deep and real.

In response, the Democratic establishment is taking a leaf from the past — not the late ’60s, when groups highly critical of the Democrats became prominent, but the early ’60s. Joel Rogers and I described the process in our book Right Turn. When the civil rights movement emerged, major foundations, prominent business leaders of major multinationals, and foundations allied to them heavily supported that groundswell. John F. Kennedy famously called Martin Luther King in jail, while prominent Wall Street lawyers flew down south or otherwise helped represent civil rights campaigners who were under legal attack. That’s what’s happening right now, with groups closely allied with the Democratic Party helping to raise money. There will be tensions now, as there were then, between the party and the movement, but that’s the basic direction things are taking.                

So how does this play into the election?                                   

I think the basic script each party is following is evident. Democrats are hoping for a repeat of 2008. In that election, policy was hopelessly bungled by the Republican leadership. After Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, nobody in opposition had to say very much. Democrats could just sit and watch John McCain flail helplessly.

Donald Trump, by contrast, is clearly copying the Nixon playbook, though because he’s in power, 1972 is closer to the mark than 1968. His administration’s heavy-handed appeals to “law and order” are obvious, and so are the ways he tries to bait protesters. The “law and order” mantra is looking a bit thin, though, partly because the videos and protests so clearly touch a chord with many members of the public. But it is also apparent that the US military wants no part in quelling domestic protests, so that the best Trump is likely to be able to do is to try to irritate protesters and hope for strong public reactions. Attorney general William Barr is also pitching in, in spectacular fashion.

The other thing the White House is bent on doing is finding a way to levitate the economy. In 1972, Richard Nixon famously relied on Arthur Burns at the Fed to engineer a legendary political business cycle. Today’s Fed certainly reacts to pressures from Trump, but the drastically different world situation severely limits its room for maneuver. It can hardly do more than it has even if it wanted to.

This is why the president and the vice president are trying so desperately to downplay the pandemic. They want to drive people back to work and push up the GDP. Vice president Mike Pence is plainly encouraging state leaders to talk up their successes and downplay bad news, including spiking COVID-19 cases in the South and West. The White House thinks they have to get the economy moving again or Trump will be toast in November.           

How different is this from what the administration was doing earlier?  

It represents a doubling down on policies that Trump and his camp wanted to promote earlier and did for a while. As the pandemic hit, all over the developed world, prominent business figures and conservative economists warned about the dangers of a long lockdown. Some, including an occasional central banker, even talked sotto voce about how such policies would reduce state pension obligations. In the United States, the UK, and other European countries, advocates talked up the idea of “herd immunity.” Trump’s “kitchen cabinet” of business figures, including prominent private equity managers, were repeatedly cited as pushing the president to take a “go slow” attitude on lockdowns.

After the publication of the Imperial College estimates of the death rates such policies would entail, though, enthusiasm waned. The UK changed policy. The switch definitely affected the Trump administration’s attitudes. It helped, along with the ghastly reality of what was happening on the ground, especially on the East and West coasts of the United States, to force the administration to accept lockdowns and sheltering in place. Both in the United States and in the UK, though, pressures from business groups for rapid reopening remained very strong. Conservative groups have even urged reopening without establishing a viable testing regime, which is exactly what the administration has now done.

Clear camps are forming within business, and those look to be seeping into politics. Many small companies whose business models rest on low wages, along with financiers — meaning private equity first and foremost — whose strategies depend on buying and breaking up firms, continue to plump for rapid reopening.

By contrast, many firms in the rest of finance, and especially in high-tech and capital-intensive industries whose strategies do not rest on low wages, are less heedless of the dangers of quick opening. Many tech firms enthusiastically promote their products as solutions to the problems the pandemic creates — as is obvious with many internet and software companies. Robert Rubin called for joint panels of medical professionals and economists to decide when reopening was feasible and for contact tracing; even robotic assistance has been touted.

Where the rubber meets the road, though, is the critical question of worker safety. Trump gutted the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Not only is the number of inspectors way down, but key appointees are plainly uninterested in regulating on the issue at all.

It seems to me that this is a potentially fateful intersection between the movement growing out of Minneapolis and the Democrats. Calls to reopen quickly are basically demands by affluent white-collar managers who can work at home. They want to send blue-collar workers back to work under conditions the senior executives would not accept for themselves. Many of the blue-collar workers are, it is important to add, black or Latino. Though you would never know from reading any major newspaper, wildcat and other strikes have soared since Minneapolis. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of them, as Mike Elk’s Payday Report website is documenting. It seems clear that the protests have inspired many black and Latino workers to demand safe working conditions.

I don’t have much to say for the classic financial bailouts the United States has pursued — they protect the wealth of those that have it, while the government does something, but not much, to protect the livelihood of average citizens. But it would make a great deal of sense to move onto the national balance sheet the costs of redesigning work to make it safe. That would be a really good use of public resources.                              

So how does this play out in the election?                                                   

Right now, COVID-19 cases are soaring in many Southern and Western states, whose Republican governors had followed the White House lead and pretended the pandemic was over or would somehow never reach them. As a result, you can feel a seismic tremor in Trump’s support: the fabled 40 percent or so base level for him that people thought could never be breached is being broken.

But I remember 1988 very well, when Michael Dukakis was almost 20 points ahead of George H. W. Bush in late summer. A lot can happen to change what looks like an all but insurmountable advantage. One needs to remember that Biden looks good mostly next to Trump; the Democratic candidate doesn’t generate much enthusiasm from voters on his own. How the Biden campaign can tap the energy that fueled Sanders, and, to some extent, Warren, is not clear yet. The terms of trade between the camps are still being worked out, and the effort could fail. If Democratic elites are dumb enough to believe the claims so many have made that 2016 had nothing to do with economics, they could repeat that disaster.

I have a hard time believing that people who are out of work and watching how the government is allowing insurers to slip out of covering the costs of COVID tests will be inspired to vote for Biden without something far stronger than a “public option” for health care instead of Medicare for All, for example.

Plenty else can go wrong, too. Let’s just bracket the possibility of some foreign crisis, especially in the South China Sea, since it’s also clear Trump right now is still hoping that a big trade deal with China might come through. Otherwise, there are the old reliables for the GOP: efforts to hold down voter turnout and giant flows of big money.

This year, though, there’s a wrinkle to the first one. Trump’s campaign against the Post Office may have started out as a fight with Amazon, but right now, it’s clearly turned into something else. Empirical evidence from the Wisconsin primary is clear that voting in person led to several waves of new COVID infections.

As a result, interest in mail balloting is way up. Of course, Republicans are mostly opposed to that, though empirical evidence up to now does not suggest that mail ballots have strong partisan advantages one way or the other. But, of course, a broke Post Office won’t be delivering much of anything. My guess is that you’ll see Trump dig in ever more obdurately on this issue as election day approaches.

Which brings us to the money question. Here, I don’t have much to add to what my colleagues Paul Jorgensen, Jie Chen, and I wrote earlier in the year. In 2016, we found that Trump floated to victory on a big wave of late money from large private equity firms, among others. We also conjectured that the perfect correlation for the first time in American history between Republican success in Senate elections and the outcome of the presidential vote in states was not an accident. That turned out to be true. Trump did a bit better in states with Senate races. We’ve now shown how late money turned around those Senate races, when prospects just weeks before the election looked hopeless. That example is instructive. Democratic candidates who lost elections in those final days have told me how they watched the inflow of money turn around what had seemed a favorable situation. Problems with even counting ballots are, I think, likely to make 2020 very tense, no matter what polls say now or even the day before. Whether we live in a pre- or a post-apocalyptic era might be tested.

[thedreideldiaries]

Hey, friends! I thought I’d take this opportunity to expound in my political choices a bit - specifically to give some context for my choice of Sanders over Warren. Note for a few of my followers who know me elsewhere: this is copied over from other social media, so if it sounds familiar that is why.

First, I want to reiterate that I like Warren. So, if anyone reading this is torn between her and any of the other clowns who have thrown their sorry hats into the ring, then please: do me and the rest of the world a favor, stop reading this right now, and go ahead and give Warren your vote. I won’t be mad. Promise. If you’re on the fence between Warren and Sanders, though, then I implore you to read on.

Okay, is it just us in here? Cool.

For my friends torn between Warren and Sanders (like I was at the beginning of the primary), I’ve tried to distill my reasoning. As you know, a lot of the discourse surrounding Warren’s campaign constructs her as a younger, female version of Sanders. If I believed that, I’d be solidly in her corner, but a few differences between them make this simply not the case. Here are the ones I find most salient:

1. Let’s look at Bernie’s base. As much as we love to talk about representation in politics, a candidate’s demographic background tells us nothing about who they’re going to fight for. Their voting base, on the other hand, tells you who has placed their confidence in that candidate’s promises.

A good proportion of Warren’s supporters are white college graduates (young and old).

By contrast Bernie’s base is overwhelmingly working class, non-white, urban, and, perhaps most tellingly, young. You could attribute that to naivete, but I think something else is going on here: the demographic group with the most to win or lose from this election are people under 30. We’re the ones who will have to live with the most devastating effects of climate change, and we’re tired of the so-called adults in our lives not taking that rather pressing concern seriously. We don’t care if our candidate is old or young - we care if they listen. Which brings me to:

2. The Youth. Young people in America are disillusioned with democracy - not because we’ve decided it’s not a good idea, but because we’ve literally never seen it in action. We live in a corporate plutocracy where the financial barriers to running for office have rendered most politicians ridiculously out of touch. And Sanders, more than any other candidate in the primary, knows how to talk to young people.

And look - I’m planning to vote for whoever wins the primary. But if 2016 is anything to go by, if the youth demographic doesn’t get a candidate they can get behind, they won’t vote strategically for the lesser of two evils. They’ll stay home, and given what the Democratic party has done for them over the past 20 or so years, I can’t say I blame them.

3. The same goes for his endorsements. I’d be out of my lane if I spent too much time talking about what Sanders wants to do for people of color, but I think it’s telling that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar - three politicians showing real determination to shake things up in Washington - all chose Bernie over Warren. I think it’s telling that AOC cited his campaign, not Warren’s, as her inspiration for running for office (if anyone’s a female Sanders, it’s not Warren - it’s AOC).

4. Sanders is, quite simply, the genuine article. He’s fought for important causes (climate justice, healthcare, workers’ rights) since long before they were cool. He’s *not* perfect, but criticisms of him rarely touch his political history.

Warren’s record of activism is, by contrast, unimpressive. She used to be a Republican corporate lawyer, and while I absolutely respect that someone can change their mind about politics, and I applaud her for doing so, it worries me that what changed her mind wasn’t the Iran-Contra scandal, or the AIDS crisis, or the brutal crushing of the labor movement. It was the realization that Republicans were doing capitalism wrong. I can’t exactly argue with that (show me a Republican politician who truly supports a free market and I’ll eat my beret*), but it doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.

*This is a joke. I do not have a beret.

5. Warren’s a capitalist; Sanders is a democratic socialist, and I think the difference is important. Warren supports a wealth tax, and she wants everyone to have healthcare, and I appreciate that she has the guts to talk about those things on national television, but at the end of the day, she’s a proud capitalist who believes the system needs to be corrected, not overhauled.

Sanders is a self-professed democratic socialist, and has built a popular movement around that label. And honestly, I’m not too worried about redbaiting. Yes, it’s a common Republican tactic, but the sentiment of “yes I would vote for Democrats but not for Socialist democrats” is a rare one, if it exists at all. And if it works against any of the primary candidates, it’ll work against all of them. They used anti-Commmunist rhetoric against Obama, for goodness’ sake. Look how much of an advocate for the working class he turned out to be.

Courting the centrist vote is a waste of time. Tiptoeing around conservatives alienates left-wingers and doesn’t actually sway Republicans. It’s a bad move strategically, in that it makes us look like cowards, and morally, because it means not getting very important things done.

Sanders doesn’t want to play the game better. He wants to start a whole new game. Warren’s economics platform seems to boil down to “50s but less racist,” and while that sounds nice, it’s just not possible. We can’t go back there - we have automation now, not to mention a global economy the likes of which we barely dreamed of in the 1950s, and it’s not realistic to try to make that happen again. We need something new.

6. People over party. In a lot of ways, Warren reminds me of the best parts of The West Wing. I like that show, but it was a comforting fantasy - a vision of what the Democratic Party could have been like with a little more gumption and a lot more luck. It never happened because the Democratic party and politics aren’t like that in real life. I have confidence in Sanders because his loyalty isn’t to the Democratic Party. It’s to the American people. He’s proved that over and over again over the course of his political career.

7. Bernie is an organizer. The “not me - us” slogan is very telling. Democracy is participatory. We don’t just need a candidate with a plan to fix everything. We need a candidate with a plan who acknowledges that the people hold the real power. We need a candidate who respects the will of the people and inspires them to get involved. We can’t win this election and stop thinking about politics. We never get to stop thinking about politics. We need someone who can inspire people to keep fighting.

The heart attack was a big deal, but the truth is, it’s never been about Bernie as an individual. His immediate reaction after getting out of the hospital was “I’m lucky to have healthcare; everyone should have healthcare; let’s get back to work.” That, more than anything, has given me the confidence that Bernie wants his policies to last long after he’s gone.

Also, people regularly have heart attacks and live another several decades. This is *literally* why we have vice presidents. If Sanders can get elected and pick a good VP and a cabinet (plus, you know, fill any Supreme Court vacancies that happen to arise over his tenure), his health won’t matter as much, because we don’t need a messiah right now. We need a resurgence of participatory democracy. We need more AOCs to take the stage. We need young people at the polls, not just in 2020, but beyond that.

8. I don’t like to talk about electability for a couple of reasons. One: centrists love to bring it up, usually in the service of talking about how policies they have zero stake in will never work. Two: Trump was supposed to be unelectable, and we all saw how that turned out.

That said: Warren’s currently polling third, which is not a great place to be. And while I don’t share some people’s cynicism about Warren, I have to agree that her response to Trump’s attacks has not impressed me. I’m confident that if Trump attacks Sanders, Bernie won’t take the bait, because he’s so on-message you can’t get him off-message. Like I said: he had a heart attack and immediately spun it back into the healthcare conversation.

And the polls are clear: head to head, Sanders beats Trump. Warren’s chances are far dicier.

9. And the most important issue, without which nothing else really matters: the climate crisis. I’d love it if we could wait for the country’s ideas to catch up to Sanders’ socialist rhetoric, but the truth is we are running out of time. I’m voting for Sanders because I have two nieces under 5 years old and a nephew who was just born, and I want them to grow up on a habitable planet, and they won’t get a chance to vote on that. I’m doing it because I want to have kids of my own someday, and while I absolutely respect the choice of anyone deciding to reproduce right now, I don’t have the emotional energy to raise a family during an apocalypse. And while I like Warren, and she’s expressed support for a Green New Deal, Sanders is the only candidate I trust to both beat Trump in the general and put his foot down to the DNC and their ilk.

10. Foreign policy!

First of all: guess who else hates American Imperialism? That’s right; it’s Bernie Sanders. Significantly, he has the guts to bring up America’s habit of meddling in Latin America’s democratically elected governments, which is something you pretty much never hear about from pretty much any other candidate.

https://www.vox.com/2019/6/25/18744458/bernie-sanders-endless-wars-foreign-affairs-op-ed

Foreign policy came up a lot during 2016 primary, with Clinton’s supporters trotting out the bizarre argument that a long history of hawkish policies is better than no policies at all. What with all that, I was surprised to learn that Sanders is actually quite well-traveled and has a long history of trying to mend fences between the U.S. and other world powers: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/bernie-sanders-foreign-policy/470019/

When it comes to climate change and foreign policy, Sanders acknowledges not only that it requires innovation (let’s not forget his early and vehement support for the Green New Deal), but also international cooperation. From the link below:

“To both Sanders and his supporters around the world, it is impossible to fight climate change without international cooperation. To that end, a group called the Progressive International was announced at a convention last year held by the Sanders Institute, a think tank founded by the presidential contender’s wife and son.

“The network of left-wing politicians and activists hopes to fight against "the global war being waged against workers, against our environment, against democracy, against decency,” according to its website.”

He’s also popular with left-wing leaders around the world, and it’s those kinds of politicians who we need to get us out of the climate crisis.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/04/bernie-sanders-global-popularity-1254929

And finally, to stray briefly into comparison: again, I like Warren, but even so, I like her better domestically than internationally. The progressivism she touts at home comes up short abroad. I’m sure you’ve heard about it already, but I think it’s worth remembering that Warren voted for Trump’s military budget in 2017; Sanders didn’t. She talks a lot about peace, but her history on foreign issues looks pretty similar to that of other centrist democrats. This is a problem not only in terms of American Imperialism, but also because the U.S. military is one of the world’s leading causes of climate change. Her voting history and her cozy relationship with defense contractors have me pretty worried. This article goes into more detail about her history with various foreign powers as well as her general attitudes on American imperialism:

https://jacobinmag.com/2019/05/elizabeth-warren-foreign-policy

We all pretty much knew what we were getting with Clinton. Warren worries me not only because she seems to align with the rest of the party on our endless foreign wars, but because she keeps her support for the military-industrial complex behind a facade of progressive rhetoric that reminds me of the early Obama years. We can’t be let down like that again. Even if we ignore the devastating human cost, the planet doesn’t have time.

Further Reading - obviously I don’t agree with everything in every one of these pieces, but they offer a leftist critique that often goes missing from other, more superficial problems people bring up about Warren.

The polling bases of the primary candidates: https://www.people-press.org/2019/08/16/most-democrats-are-excited-by-several-2020-candidates-not-just-their-top-choice/pp_2019-08-16_2020-democratic-candidates_0-06/?fbclid=IwAR2G8np2q9N4P6DArdI-gPhA5Wp_SYDZPKQDpDhxVZ4YbwnAEmFd65swMOA

An interesting take on Warren’s policies vs Bernie’s movement: https://jacobinmag.com/2019/04/elizabeth-warren-policy-bernie-sanders-presidential-primary?fbclid=IwAR14wWjYDNuNMrXN7YjVFFFHXmoMWKpDVqBcbPBlQUUrA354iIyRAbKXG30

An opinion piece on the contrast between them:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/08/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-democratic-party-elite-2020-presidential-race?fbclid=IwAR3vA54QveM2cCTxQ2BbVXh_IICgTxweKVBLMRjhSFyyAdspnibJ50seDjY

Another one:

https://forward.com/opinion/432561/the-case-for-bernie-sanders-the-only-real-progressive-in-the-race-sorry/?fbclid=IwAR1vwONZ7azJQcoeo_KYNYiJ8ekzHhJsZ4Ms0UzDHI59j7Q6oio-5uJOGcI

Warren’s political history:

More about that from a different source:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/10/why-criticize-warren?fbclid=IwAR0NTP0cRbSnr-a6HCuxE-4SCJZEqU2EAL1Gnx70FME-9UMBg-xYE5t7g7Y

A prequel to the former (beware - this one’s scathing as heck):

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/09/the-prospect-of-an-elizabeth-warren-nomination-should-be-very-worrying?fbclid=IwAR03d5I5j72s4kQC9wgRSrXnbmWsp_9HUvRWBZwzcfsT9RsZP-lSAX4aPz0

[realtalkingpoints]

Opinion:  How social media and the Obama administration lead to the Impeachment of Donald Trump.

Placed historically, the real explosion in social media use occurred during the Obama administration. Advances in technology were allowing developers to create new platforms and new versions of old platforms faster and faster, each time learning from previous builds.  Big data was coming into it's prime, learning more about user habits than ever before. For the first time in history, millions and millions of people had not just cell phones in their pocket, but smart phones that could access the internet.  And cell phone services, along with internet capabilities were expanding to handle the new demand.  The Obama administration created subsidy programs offering low cost or no cost smart phones and service providers to low income households that qualify.  And apps for phones were developed, to be small versions of popular websites, to run fast, efficient, and anywhere people wanted to pull out their phones and surf them.  The stage was set for a social media explosion.

All different kinds of platforms were introduced.  We know the most popular ones, because they've gone viral and turned into the worlds most powerful platforms, and some are still growing.  Perhaps startups today, will topple the giants in tomorrows media fad. But what we know now, is that people love to chat with each other, and interact with each other in real time, at the speed of the internet, across continents.  People want to share stories and photos, promote businesses, and discuss the news of the day.  The people of the world have never had an exchange of information that was this fast, this easy, and this accessible to literally billions of people.  It was only a matter of time before news and politics moved at the pace of social media, and not the other way around.

Having not done or even read any case studies, and cannot conclusively say, but it seems obvious to me that younger generations were the first to adopt the internet, and social media.  If you have seniors in your life, it's no secret, that they struggle at times with internet technology.  The internet didn't even exist for most of their life, and now suddenly in twenty or thirty years its users have gone from thousands of college geeks and researchers, to billions of excited people trying to find one another.  Our youngest generations don't know a world without the internet, some don't know a world without smartphones, google or twitter.  And when a new platform idea comes along, even one with a seemingly silly name like 'Twitter', there's plenty of young people comfortable enough with internet and smart phone technology, to give it a try.  They don't fear the unknowns, the hacking and 'spying' and data collection that has the older generations so apprehensive. To the younger crowd, the worst that can happen is they don't like it and they delete the app.  But the good ones don't get deleted.  The ones that are effective at capturing people's attention with reality tv type stimulation and peer to peer interaction, grow exponentially into massive social media networks. According to my theory, the first massive waves of users were younger.

These days, younger means more progressive, more liberal in political leaning.  Their comfort level with the internet means they look there first to answer any question they might have, or for things the want to purchase.  They have developed a sense of enlightenment, confident that they can find instantly, the answer to any of life’s mysteries.  While waiting for a latte, while sitting on a bus, beach, or the couch at home, they can satisfying their deepest curiosities, and perhaps too often, accepting the veracity of the information delivered to them without question.  

It doesn't take a genius to see the gold mine of opportunity that influencers of all types saw in social media platforms.  Millions upon millions of young impressionable minds, looking for answers and perspective from their peers.  Advertisers and retailers have embraced the social media craze, inventing creative new strategies to reaching new customers, specially those willing to try something new.  It has literally created new industries because someone tried something, told their friends, and now everyone is selling it.  For example, what is 'goat yoga'?  Don't know, just google it.  Its a thing, it's out there, and it owes it's success to social media.  It's a revolution in the exchange of information like never before in history.  Before long, social media would also be recognized as an essential tool in the fight over politics.

How better to potentially reach millions and millions of people with your political message than to put it on social media, and allow people to share that idea just by clicking a button.  It's too easy.  In the 2008 Presidential election, Barack Obama harnessed the networking power of social media for the first time in a Presidential election.  Using still developing platforms like Twitter and Facebook, he connected with millions of young, progressive thinking voters, most of whom were willing to share his message with their peers. It was a major advantage to his campaign, since supporters of his opponent, John McCain were much older on average, and therefor much less likely to even be on social media.  It gave a free soapbox to Obama that was heard by millions and millions of progressive Americans, and it was virtually all his.  The voices of opposition just weren't there.  The hoards of young impressionable minds thought that everyone agreed with the exciting ideas they were hearing from an enthusiastic Barack Obama.  They had accidentally created their own media bubble of like minded, similarly motived, ideologues, all enjoying a strong confirmation bias.  Slowly, the older more conservative Americans did adopt social media platforms, but they had a lot of catching up to do.  When re-election came around, Obama's opponent in 2012, Mitt Romney made a modest effort to connect with supporters on social media.  Reporting at the time was something like $8 million by Romney vs $45 million spent by the Obama campaign on social media advertising.  It was clear, that the social media advantage was still firmly in the hands of the progressives, and the number of users was growing rapidly.

A skillful politician, Obama quickly learned how to generate large swells of social media activity to support his various agenda items.  I'm sure they had lots of data, certainly from intelligence agencies, about the habits of trending topics on social media.  Being the first American presidential administration to preside over a social media crazed nation, there must have been moments of epiphany with regards to the reaction(s) of social media communities on various policy decisions and press releases.  As Facebook has acknowledged, social media cause the Arab spring.  How much the Obama administration had to do with that is still up for debate.  Ideas were ready to go viral in their respective communities, they just needed to be put out there at the right time, by the right influential people.  

Just as politicians saw the obvious advantages to social media messaging, so did the press and news media.  Journalists would use their own social media accounts to post their news stories and build followings that would supplement their print or tv audiences.  I would assume the same principles apply, that younger more progressive journalists migrated toward the platforms first, giving them a jump on their older more conservative counterparts.  Furthermore, the fact that these platforms are presumed to be populated first with predominantly young progressives, the approval rate and popularity of ideas and stories reported by early journalists on social media is likely skewed towards liberalism.  Many of these young progressive reporters and the networks employing them rode the social media bubble to prominence and challenged their older more conservative colleagues on the national stage in popularity ratings, often successfully.  The result of this effect was a national news media that favored a  more progressive, liberal narrative.  An unfortunate side effect of this, was the reality that popularity of news stories among social media followers, not accuracy or factual reporting, was driving viewership ratings.  As news outlets realized that their new social media followers enjoyed stories about successful progressive policies and praise for the Obama administration, they began to build their staff and organizations around a strategy to deliver just that.  Seemingly out of no where, Obama became the darling of the liberal press and social media.  

The endless stream of positive feedback from the press and social media had it's effect on the Obama administration.  They soon realized that blunders and mistakes could get washed up in a circular round of praise and applause on other topics of the day, while the bad news went completely ignored by a majority of the news media.  Their audience simply didn't want to hear the bad news, so they just didn't report it.  Knowing their misdeeds would go largely forgiven by a lapdog media, the Obama administration began to push the norms of public approval with their progressive policies.  The highly controversial Affordable Care Act, was signed into law despite zero Republican votes for the package.  Republicans were waiving their hands in the isles of congress, shouting as loudly as they could that the math didn't work, and that millions of hard working middle class Americans were going to carry the burden of this bloated package.  But they didn't have the social media push or news media support to get their message out, and those Republicans were labeled as one of many hateful stereotypes by the social media mob. Other Obama moves like the targeting of conservative non-profit groups by the IRS during the 2012 presidential election, and the dreadful Iran deal, which should have received much media scrutiny, all got passing grades from news reporters and their social media echo chambers.

It was probably during Obama's second term, conservatives woke up to realize that social media was where the real conversation is.  Not that they hadn't been participating thus far, but as a whole, the conservatives had been sluggish to migrate toward social media platforms.  But watching liberalism taking over news media, and frightened for the future of their nation, conservatives began to challenge progressive liberals on social media in numbers large enough to cause a stir among their ranks.  And many of them reacted poorly.  Platforms that had long been safe spaces for liberal rants and conservative defamation were suddenly being challenged by patriotic Americans who showed up and said, 'I disagree, here's why, and here's the evidence'.  The young, progressive ideologues who had populated social media en masse had never needed evidence to back up their opinions, nor encountered such opposition to their group think, and began to lash out at their new critics.  Twitter battles flared, and for the first time, young progressive social media users were forced to examine their hardened ideals in the light of contradicting evidence.  But many of them had taken very public, emphatic positions based on liberal policies and news reporting that they had taken as gospel.  For many liberal ideologues, backing down from their stated positions was more injury than they could conceivably sustain, and instead would band together with their news media heroes to defend their proclaimed moral high ground at all costs.

Enter Donald Trump.  No stranger to the media spot light, real estate developer and reality tv star Donald Trump was a natural at using news media to reach the American public.  He saw the trends and recognized how to maximize his influence.  He grew his Twitter audience with constant engagement and used even bad press coverage to get his message out.  Much like Obama in 2008 and 2012, Trump used social media to achieve victory in the 2016 presidential election, this time by appealing to the millions of new, perhaps more conservative minded social media users, who felt alienated and bullied by the entrenched liberal social media mob.  The liberal reaction was swift and often unruly.  Think Women's March, Antifa, and Russia Collusion.  Unable to manifest their desired reality through social media and news stories, the liberals resorted to real world activism in an all out effort to undo an election result that they could not fathom.  They looked to their hero Obama and his collection of bureaucrats installed in the nation's intelligence community to dig for evidence that he had cheated the election.  We know now, that multiple efforts (likely underhanded in nature) to sabotage his election were underway.  The social media mob and their news media cohorts pushed relentlessly to add credibility to claims of Russian Collusion by the Trump campaign and worked 24/7 to drive incriminating headlines into the homes and minds of Americans.  Biased, partisan investigations lead to a special counsel investigation that progressives hoped would finally get the goods and rid them of the surprise President that had popped their media bubble paradise.  But this time, the social media push was from the right, and verifiable evidence of corruption and bias of investigators was plastered on social media for everyone to see.  Conservative news media had finally landed a foothold on social media platforms and began to tell its side of the story to an American public eager to hear some truth.  

Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation ended with no hard evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians to cheat the 2016 election, delivering yet another heavy blow to liberal America, who had spent many years under Obama, assuming that their positions would always be supported by bureaucrats and news reports.  Trump blamed 'the deep state' for the internal attempts to sabotage his presidency.  He asked the DOJ inspector general to investigate the investigations that had targeted individuals from is campaign, and the IG report has confirmed, that many inside the FBI and DOJ were willing to bend or break the rules to obtain surveillance approvals on Trump campaign members.  This provided conservatives with yet another huge victory over their liberal activist counterparts, who still can't believe what is happening.  Many of the young progressives who had driven the political agenda through social media activity had never experienced a news cycle that they couldn't control with their activism.  And many liberal politicians and deep staters who relied on the media mob for support and cover for their potential misdeeds had never considered what they would do if suddenly all the negative news stories actually got printed.  Claims of political favoritism, liberal election rigging, and big money foreign policy peddling are now a daily occurrence, and both the politicians and the media mob are in a panic.

So that brings us to our current situation.  The liberal's last stronghold of power in American government resides in Nancy Pelosi and the House of Representatives.  They have engaged in partisan investigation after investigation, hoping to find something to re-ignite their liberal base, that would warrant the removal of Trump from office.  Impeachment.  Special counsel and IG investigations delivered reports that devastated the credibility of the liberal news media, along with politicians and intel personalities that still claim Trump is the one lying.  Seemingly out of nowhere, a whistleblower report lands on the desk of discredited intel committee chair Adam Schiff, that President Trump has been bribing the Ukrainian government to interfere in the 2020 presidential election by investigating Joe Biden.  Unable to stunt the flow of news and information the way they once had, media mob liberals are as aware as there rest of us, that the origins of said whistleblower complaint are highly questionable, and that there are credible allegations of Biden's mis-dealings in Ukraine.  Indeed, congressional impeachment hearings produced a parade of witness testimonies that stated, one after another, they had heard from others, sometimes others who had heard from others, that the president had done something wrong.  Literally no one was able to testify that they had been instructed to withhold foreign aid to Ukraine in exchange for an investigation of the Bidens.  American news polls show Americans are tiring of the endless investigations of Trump and the push for impeachment. Once again, the liberal news media and the progressive social media ideologues had been unable to sway the news cycle in a decidedly favorable direction.  But they pushed hard.  So hard in fact, that Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler are moving forward with the impeachment of the president of the United States of America.  

It appears that they will have the votes in the House to impeach the president.  Democrat house members appear to be unaffected by the lack of hard evidence against Trump, or the mounting pile of evidence that this was a setup to oust Trump and protect a swamp of corruption from being exposed by impending DOJ criminal investigations.  Instead, a Trump re-election is what they fear the most.  Most Democrats in Washington see impeachment as their most destructive tool in the fight against Donald Trump.  Impeachment is their destructive response to a power vacuum they never saw coming.  Having become complacent with years of favorable media coverage, and friendly social media audiences, the liberals and Democrats let their corruptions run unchecked.  They did not predict the storm that is Donald Trump, or the urgency with which the conservatives would take to social media to defend truth in news reporting and accountability in government.  The Democrats have lost control of the narrative and they know it.  They now see no other option but the Hail Mary impeachment of Donald Trump.  Polls suggest it still won't prevent his re-election, but they are out of ideas, and out of time.  Considerations that this impeachment on flimsy evidence will lead to many unfounded future impeachments are not in their calculation.  This is purely desperation.  I for one, hope that the news media, social media and the American public will punish the Democrats for decades over this irresponsible abuse of their constitutional authority.  

[evilelitest2]

Do you know of any good resources on how and why Reagan won? He seemed to have a lot of resistance from the Republican old guard and all four of my grandparents absolutely despised him. But he somehow won with what sounded like was a very unpopular platform, and I don't understand exactly what happened.

I mean most electoral histories will have you covered, are you looking from a cultural perspective or an electoral perspective, or just a general overview of the 1980 election?  Personally I recommend the book “Backlash” on the larger reactionary movement of the 80s which is in no way relevant today...

But in short there are many reasons why Reagan won, many of them depressing familiar today

1) Ronald Reagan was an actor and was a really charismatic speaker, specifically he was very good at seeming friendly, approachable and non condescending.  It was extremely easy to understand Reagan’s message if you weren’t paying attention and he didn’t seem like some sort of elite who understood policies or knew where Cambodia was on a map, because he didn’t either.  With the possible exceptions of JFK, and OBama, Reagan is likely the most charismatic president in the last century and that makes a big difference in the election

2) Jimmy Carter was a bit of a mess.  I love Carter and I think he is one of the most moral people to ever be president (judging on a scale) but...his administration was extremely chaotic, inept, and really bad at messaging.  

3) Reagan cheated.  At his most famous debate with Carter, it turns out Reagan’s team had actaully managed to get Carter’s debate plans before hand, so Reagan knew exactly what Carter was going to say which is why Reagan seemed so invincible in the debate

4) The Economy.  Due to a wide variety of reasons including but not limited too the fallout of the Vietnam War, the OPEC oil crisis, the natural eb and flow of the market, and the failure of Kenysian economics meant that when the 1980 election was happening, America was in a pretty bad economic place.  Unemployment was high, inflation was spiraling and for many white people it was the first time they had ever experienced an economic downturn

This wasn’t really Carter’s fault, just like the economic boom in the 80s wasn’t really Reagan’s fault (though the initial crash certainly was) but that is how it was perceived.

5) The Failure of Kenysian Economics.  Now when I say “failure” i don’t actually mean “this is a bad system” Kenysan economics got us out of the Great Depression after all and lead to the largest economic boom in US history.  However they aren’t the end all, especially when politicians running things don’t really understand what they are doing.  So while they aren’t nearly as awful as the Free market economics that would follow, people were becoming disillusioned with the prior economic model

6) Vietnam.  Oh dear god Vietnam.  Reagan would be the first president who didn’t preside over Vietnam in any way, which meant he wasn’t tainted by the total fuck up that was that war.  America was still reeling from losing our first major war to a small nation that nobody had heard off before they started to kick our ass, and the battle over Vietnam has basically torn the country apart.  A huge amount of people felt pissed and humiliated over the defeat, and rather than question why we went to war or the morality of our tactics, blamed protesters and leftists for not supporting the war enough, a stabbed in the back myth if you will.  Also Vietnam was a Democrat fuck up, Republicans weren’t in power when it started under JFK and LBG, who collectively created the horrific circumstances of the war.  The republicans who oversaw it were the comparatively (to Reagan) more ‘moderates” of Nixon and Ford.  So American both felt humiliated and weak from looking a major war to a people we saw as inferior and was blaming everything associated with the left for it.  Reagan’s “Make America Great Again” message was extremely attractive to a lot of people, and since he didn’t have anything to do with the war, you couldn’t blame him for its failure.  

7) The Soviet Union.  The presence of the USSR hung over every US election since Woodrow Wilson, but after Vietnam a lot of Americans felt like the USSR was winning.  This was ironically utterly untrue as the Soviet Union would collapse only 11 years later, but the perception in America was that the US had been defeated by COMMUNISM and needed to get our groove back for round II.  And Reagan was by far the most aggressively confrontational anti Communist president we have had since FDR, so much so that he accidentally almost triggered a nuclear war and destroyed all of civilizations...whoops.  But that is what American wanted back then

8) The rise of the religious right.  For most of the 20th century, while religion was certainly a thing which effected politics, the US political landscape was largely secular, religion being evoked more than it made its own demands.  But due to rise of the Counter Culture movement, religious folks sort of went into panic mode and suddenly conservative fundamentalist Christianity was one the rise.  And Reagan embraced them 100%, leading to the fundementalist cancer that lives with us to this day

9) The death of the Counterculture.  At the exact same time as the Religious Right came into power, the group it was opposing had largely collapsed.  I mentioned this before when talking about the civil Rights movement, but once overt legal segregation had been outlawed, what was left were the far more serious, complicated and unclear problems, which lead to a lot of hippies burning out, falling into infighting, declaring victory and going home, or turning to more radical and largely ineffectual approaches.  And since so much of the counter culture was linked to to its fashion and aethetic, as the Hippie style/music/clothing/demeanor became lame and uncool, the causes behind them were seen as uncool as well.  Also the most dedicated leftists quickly turned to auto cannibalism and spent more time fighting each other rather than focusing on their enemy a dynamic which the left can always be counted on (cough what happened to Counterpoints cough) 

10) The larger cultural backlash.  America as a whole was feeling threaten by the left, and by extention the progressive made for women, racial minorities, and sexual minorities, and was pushing back against them.  The 60s and 70s was a moment of sudden shocking change which took the old guard by surprise and they didn’t know what to do, but once the left had burned themselves out a bit, the Right was able to reorganize, refocus their efforts, and remake their arguments to reassert the oppressive systems they so valued.  And for a lot of Americans who were passively bigoted, the incredibly fast pace of change got them scared and they sought comfort in the return of the familiar.  Again Reagan wasn’t just an actor, he was a cowboy actor from shitty kitch family films.  And as we’ve seen before in terms of Whitelash or Male Fragility, fear of losing privilege can get people to vote against their own interest (cough union workers cough)

11) America was facing a big choice.  After WWII, we were basically the only major nation with a good economy, which we were able to turn into a great economy, and had an over 20 year post war high.  But other nations started to compete with us (most notably Japan) and our status as the singular nation started to be threatened by the EU, India, China, Latin America, and our own changing history.  For the first time, Americans started to realize that maybe, not right away, but eventually, we would just be one nation among many again, rather than the only superpower.   Simultaneous, the threat of Climate change first started to be noticed, and Americans started to realize that maybe we should tone down the materialism, the consumerism, and the reliance on fossile fuels.  Carter infamously wore sweaters in the white house to save on gas and put solar panels on the roof, which was seen by many Americans (idiots) as weakness.  

Basically we had a choice, we could either 

A) Prepare our nation for the transformation period we were going for, and slowly start to move off oil as our economy changed and we had to make adjustments for it 

or

B) FUCK THAT.  THIS IS AMERICA AND WE DON”T COMPROMISE FOR ANYTHING.  YOU KNOW WHAT...LETS BE EVEN MORE RECKLESS

Americans were asked to choose between accepting an uncomfortable reality or embracing a comforting delusion.  

12) The Iran Hostage crisis.  This made Carter look weak internationally and everybody knows that America looking weak is worth destroying our own internal economy.  

13) The Democrats were in the middle of a civil war.  The Civil Rights movement and the Great Society had torn the democrats apart which means Carter was never really able to get his own party to obey him like the Republicans did.  WHats worse is that the aftereffect of the Vietnam War had basically crippled LBJ’s Great Society Program, meaning the Democrats were really chaotic

14) Finally, it is important to remember, the Democrats had held power from 1932 all the way to 1980s, the US was kind of a single party state for most of the century, and a lot of people were pretty sick of them.  Corruption, incompetence and hypocrisy are around in every party and the democratic congress in particular was widely hated, so the Republicans felt like this new exciting thing, something which could maybe bring a new era in America.  “Its morning in America”

And of course, Reagan was in many ways what white America wants, a giant self congratulatory message that lets us avoid dealing with real issues....

[theliterateape]

Fear of a Sanders Candidacy

By Peter Kremidas

Look, it breaks my heart to say this, but I don’t think Bernie is the one. Not this time.

Believe me, I’m a Sanders supporter to such an extent that I’m a stereotype. I’ve liked him from the time I saw him so vocally support Occupy Wall Street in what now is back in the day. I voted for him in 2016. I am totally that guy who argued with Hillary supporters online about him (Yes, I voted for her in the general, and proudly. A topic for another day). I think that Bernie was the preferable candidate, hell, I think he even could have won in 2016 on the same anti-establishment sentiment wave Trump clumsily surfed into office on. He’s consistent. He’s honest. He scares the bad guys. I believe his model for political revolution is our only chance to turn things around. He has been consistently been proven correct time and time again for years. His last debate performance was fantastic and I would love to see him debate Trump. I really could go on and on about all the things I like about Bernie Sanders. In fact, the reasons I don’t think he’s our guy have absolutely nothing to do with anything wrong with him, nor to do with anything he has done wrong.

I just think that, in 2020, it’s too big a risk. And here’s why…

What’s different now than in 2016, huh? HUH!?

Trump is running with the incumbency, the full backing of the RNC, a billion dollar war chest, and, unless Mitch McConnell decides otherwise, a currently non-functioning Federal Election Committee, which means that there will be cheating. Whoever the candidate is needs to overwhelm all this, and I think the extra baggage Bernie carries, some that did not exist in 2016, just exacerbates this. What baggage, huh? HUH!?

A lot of democrats hate him, the media hates him, and republicans believe that he is literally Joseph Stalin.

HUH!?

Bernie Sanders, despite being a great candidate with the right answers, despite the debt that I believe America owes to him for making policies like Medicare for all into the mainstream, has an uphill battle that other candidates simply don’t have. And it’s not his fault. And it’s not fair.

Democrats

Democrats are not Bernie Sander’s friend. And I don’t just mean the establishment. We all know there is some suspicion or resentment for Sanders from the democratic donor class. He is not the guy rubbing shoulders five thousand-dollars-a-plate dinners making friends with the right people and playing the game. That’s one of the things that’s so great about Bernie. But I am also talking about many, many democratic voters.

There are a lot of Hillary supporters from 2016 who just are not over it, and aren’t going to get over it. They hate Bernie Sanders and you aren’t going to convince them otherwise. Not all Hillary supporters, but a sizable portion. I have met many a democrat who believe Sanders is an ego maniac. Many believe he is sexist and actually blame him for Trump’s victory. All nonsense from the resentful who apparently forgot what a perfectly normal primary looks like, to be sure, but you aren’t going to convince them otherwise.

It’s probably the least significant confluence of things working against Bernie Sanders, but it matters. It steepens the slope to his victory, even if slightly. I believe the amount of resentment that exists from democrats is enough to cost him favors and votes (believe me, the number of Never Bernie democrats, both from resentment and the belief that he is too far left, is not insignificant) in what is sure to be an extremely close election.

To be honest, I’m much more worried about…

The media

The media hate Bernie Sanders. And of course they do, we’re talking about a guy who’s an existential threat to the system that props up the owners of mass media conglomerates. A quick Google search will show you the amount of false narratives and hit pieces pedaled by all major national newspapers (most notably The Washington Post) and all three major news channels.

Before you say “The media hates Trump,” hold on. They certainly report true stories about Trump that prove to us on a weekly basis that he is, against all odds, an even bigger asshole than we thought last week. But Donald Trump has been a business boon for mass media. People either love him or hate him, and both have a hard time looking away. They gave Trump a huge amount of free press in 2016, and there is no reason to believe that they will change in 2020. After all, they have not stopped since.

I’m not saying that the reporting on Trump has not been newsworthy. It is. My point is only that the business of media has a financial incentive to keep Trump around, and Bernie Sanders presents a potential loss of profits both due to policy and because he is not a lightning rod for controversy (and sweet, sweet ratings) the way having an insane narcissistic man baby as president is.

Based on what incentivizes media, and how they already treat him, I think the media contributes to a steeper climb to the White House than other candidates face.

It’s not fair. It’s not Bernie’s fault. But it’s real. We can’t trust the news to give Bernie a fair shake.

Our best case scenario we can hope for is that they talk about Trump and Sanders as if they are equally extreme, and that is also a sucky lie.

Republicans

This is why the ‘S’ word matters. The fact that Bernie calls himself a democratic socialist (despite that he has the policies of an FDR–style social democrat) is going to scare the shit out of old people and the republican base. No they will not make a distinction between socialist and democratic socialist. They are going to believe that the time has come, the jig is up, and communism has come to our shores. They are going to believe that this is a battle to save America from the gulags and paltry rations of bread.

I highly doubt that right wing media will anything to disabuse their base of these notions.

Yes, they are going to call the democratic candidate a socialist no matter what. But it’s one thing when republicans are saying it, it’s quite another when their opposing candidate is saying it too.

No it doesn’t matter what the actual type of socialist he is, we are talking about people who credibly believed, and probably still do, that Barack Obama was not born in The United States.

For all the typical non-voters you will get out the door excited by Sanders (mainly the youth vote), you are going to get the same amount, if not more, right leaning non-voters who are going to believe what they are told and fight to prevent the communist takeover of The United States.

The right wing base is already terrified, terrify them more and you get a huge turnout. And there are millions of these people, and they live in swing states.

The suburbs, and elsewhere

He’s a hard sell to many swing voters, especially the suburbs, where they can’t wait to vote against Trump but Sanders is too extreme for them. The media will back up this narrative. This means either stay home and vote for neither, or a vote for Trump.

It does not matter that his policies are reasonable and that he is not nearly as far left as the right in this country is far right. People do not tend to vote based on issues, they mostly vote based on feelings. Many many people are just going to feel that Sanders is a trade from one extreme to another, and absent an economic meltdown it’s going to be hard to move them to the change vote.

Yes, I realize he polls ahead of Trump in many places right now. That’s over a year out and absent any of the things I’ve discussed here being present in the context of a high stakes national election dominating everything you see, everywhere, all the time.

Conclusion

Look, I’m not happy about this. And hopefully I’m wrong. I know that Sanders also has crossover appeal, and there is an argument to be made that his portrayal in the media could feasibly work for him by way of cementing his status as anti-establishment. But I think there’s just too much at stake here, and he’s just got more extra stuff to deal with that other candidates simply don’t. And it’s not his fault.

It’s not Bernie. It’s the flawed world. I predicted Trump’s victory based on, among other things, my commitment to never underestimate how dumb the American voter can be as an aggregate. The fact that Trump’s approvals remain around 40% tells me that it isn’t time to abandon this assumption about the electorate any time soon.

I love you, Mr. Sanders. But I don’t trust all these other folks over here.

So it’s gotta be someone else this time.

Sorry.

[anthonybialy]

Classy Meddling

The party that once pretended to want government out of our lives didn't realize how cool it was to boss others around. That's what business success is about, right?

Republicans discovered they need to make up for lost fun through worshipping their executive, which really aligns with that whole commitment to natural rights. As the brightest object in the sky, Donald Trump knows where lesser loser stars will lead us next.

The personal is the political, according to those bad at both. The only way to make conflating the two worse is to be smug while being skilled at neither. Applying fake business lessons to a really lousy government is just another rotten example of why we should be left alone that's now disregarded by both parties.

The dedication to image sure has made Trump dominant, he'll tell you. The man who it's still tough to believe is the damn president pursues what he thinks you think is successful. Inferior nations fear one whose leader pulls up in a Lamborghini with a Penthouse Pet hanging off his arm.

Your very secure leader still thinks you're impressed by seeing “TRUMP” on buildings in gold. Did you know that particular element is valuable? You can't argue with success, or at least a simulacrum of it. Short of offering a quality product like casinos or vodka, you can convince people you're awesome.

It apparently takes the toughest of presidents to whine about unfairness. Tariffs are so economically illiterate that only liberals could believe they help. Enter a president who's spent most of his life as a Democrat, as he's the only one who could save us from Democrats. American businesses could just try something like competing, but it's easier to whine one's way to alpha male dominance.

Rather vigorous federal action is conflated with strong leadership by a wholly secure leader. Someone with enough nerve to trust people encourages confident performances. But a president who thinks he alone can fix it going to conclude even the simplest tasks are too important for you to attempt. Leaning over you to hold the pool cue will surely improve your shot.

Trump doesn't have faith in fellow Americans to do the right thing, which is why nobody is a winner like he is. We still have the nerve to purchase products made in different countries. Only a nightmare of a micromanager can fix habits of choice and economy.

Discredited notions of what works pair with outdated notions of what impresses others. Those still seduced by Trump's boasting of dominance might want to check if words match actions one of these decades.

An American president in his 70s who's the best businessman ever failed to learn what a trade deficit is. I suffer loss with the Bourbon Outlet if you measure by currency. But I got something in return, namely plastered. A guy who prides himself on deals that are artistic should know you get products for money.

At least Trump has a lot of cash. He's not going to stay rich by spending it, silly. The demand you believe he's worth precisely 10 billion dollars surely isn't masking anxiety with bombast. It's such an oddly precise amount in an arbitrary way. But at least an election confirms who's the best, as I guess also happened with Barack Obama.

The constant conflation of quality with popularity is something the coolest kids in junior high can confirm is wise. Trump thinks winning an election means he's good and not that he ran against the worst candidate in the universe's history. Opinion polls define what's worthwhile as if The Big Bang Theory is funny because it ran for 12 freaking seasons.

This is all dated. Any mark who still falls for Trump’s carnival barker pitch is pretending he offers something fresh when he's pushing notions as antiquated as parachute pants. Fretting about the menace of foreign trade harkens to his hoary fetish for black glass he wishes he could stick on the White House. His ancient aesthetic feels as current as rock and wrestling united, which befits a WWE Hall of Fame president.

Trump has to present the image of utter control as his shtick's core. Does this feel like limited government to you? As with every federal program with a massive carbon footprint due to incinerating cash, he doesn't care about the actuality.

The only thing that matters is enough suckers being convinced his authority is ultimate. It's reminiscent of a purported business empire based around slapping one's name in that cheesy serif font on any garbage product, including a presidency.

[antoine-roquentin]

You’ve been an activist since you were a teenager. You’ve been very visible in the Occupy movement. When it comes to raising awareness for change, how different are you finding the power of a movie from the power of the street?

With a movie, you have the power of putting out an idea about the world and for people to take it seriously. I think often the stuff that we see just re-situates the status quo and confirms it. But my hope is to talk about things that could be.

I think the movements — even ones that I’ve been involved with — over the last 50 years have been mainly about spectacle, mainly about showing that people are fed up with something and not one that’s power-based, whereas movements of the ’20s and ’30s used the withholding of labor as their power base.

When they came out on the street in the ’20s and ’30s with 50,000 workers, they were able to say, “These are 50,000 people who can shut down your industry.”

And that was just a demonstration — that was a demonstration of power. What are we demonstrating when we get 50,000 people on the street today? We are demonstrating that it’s great for us to talk to each other because it allows us to say, “Well, here are people that are thinking the same thing I am, and people who are fed up.”

But in the end, it doesn't have the ability to exact change. It doesn’t have the ability to exact a demand. And in that way, it’s spectacle.

Therefore, doing a movie is similar in some regard, in the sense it is spectacle. It is talking about ideas. But I was involved in Occupy Oakland. And we have the most people of Occupy [nationally] to show up because we’ve called for a general strike in Oakland. And we got 50,000 people to show up because people were like, “Wow, this is something that might be able to do something.”

We all — even at a base level, even a Republican — understand that the people with the money are the ones with the power. We all learn that.

But what we don’t learn is that we are the ones that give the folks with money their wealth, and that we can cut those purse strings or hold back on them, and therefore have a conversation with power by using our power.

There are many people who, like your character Cassius — Cash — who say, “Look, I agree with you, but I need to pay the bills, and if I have to cross a picket line to do it, so be it. I’ll take whatever they pay me, and I’m happy to get it.” What makes these people feel they have any power?

I think that people end up realizing, in those situations, that they are just pawns as well, and they’re by themselves. You can’t get much done by yourself. Speaking as someone who made a movie — and it took hundreds of people to make it happen — I can say that. And any movement that we see, any big change, does take other people.

I actually don’t think most people would make those decisions [like Cash]. I think some would relate to what he’s saying.

One the one hand, many movements have put being involved in social justice as an extracurricular activity, as something you do when you’re off work or on Saturdays or whatever. And people say, I can’t be involved in it — I got to pay the bills. And we haven’t been organizing in the way that helps people pay the bills.

If there is a different kind of movement, where it is organizing around those things, organizing around putting food on the table, I think we’ll have a whole different look at these movements. People shouldn’t have to get involved after work; they should be able to get involved at work.

In the film, you make a lot of points by exaggeration. But it’s not that much of a stretch. For example, in China, you’ve got suicide nets hanging outside dormitories where workers live. And in your movie — I won’t ruin it for anyone — you make the point about workers being literally dehumanized.

In the movie, there’s [the fictional mega-corporation] Worry Free, which does lifetime contracts; you’re guaranteed housing, employment and food for life, and these things don’t exist in the U.S. It’s not only that they exist in other countries, but they really exist here because [of the overseas corporations] making things for U.S. corporations, so the exaggeration is only of geography.

There are so many things in this movie that, when I wrote them, hadn’t happened yet. For instance, one character in the 2014 version has the line that “Worry Free is making America great again.”

The reason that these things are becoming more and more clear to us now is because it’s connected to our economic system, not just connected to who’s in elected office.

You use humor as a storytelling device. The Coup’s 1993 album, “Kill My Landlord,” made me think of the old Eddie Murphy “Saturday Night Live” sketch “Kill My Landlord.” So the steel wrapped inside the smile seems to work a little better than all steel?

See, I don’t even look at it that way. I came up around organizers, a group of them who had come from the British mining strikes of the ’80s, and then some who were older and had been in the whole CP [Communist Party] days. These are jokesters. They know how to relate to people. They’re full of jokes, and the way that they’re pointing out things is really true.

The reason why it’s funny is this: Analysis is looking at how something works, and when you’re explaining how something works, that means explaining the contradictions in it. That point of contradiction is very similar to irony, and irony and humor go hand in hand.

And so it’s all one thing to me. It’s not like I have to put sugar on it.

When you wrote your screenplay around 2012, Barack Obama was the president and he was being reelected. But you also had Mitt Romney talking about the 47%. What’s changed in those years that your movie now gets made and distributed?

Movements. Movements coming to fruition. There’s been the Black Lives Matter movement, Occupy — all of those things showing that people want something different.

Also there was a [movie] development process that had to happen between then and now. At that time, I hadn’t gone through the Sundance [Institute screenwriting] labs, which gave people a lot more confidence in what I was doing.

There’s just a confluence of so many things that came together for this to happen. And I’m glad it didn’t happen before.

Why?

I probably would have been so eager for it to happen that there may have been other things that I would have compromised about. Through the process of the Sundance lab, I got a lot of good notes [about the screenplay]. I will say that the screenplay was controversial, in the sense that narrative-structure wise, it doesn’t do everything it’s supposed to do — “supposed to” in quotations.

And they’re all giving me advice, some of them that are extremely contradictory to each other. And then at some point, some of them are getting in heated conversations, and then I realized through this that nobody knows what they’re doing, and it’s up for grabs, right? You can do something different and fail, meaning it doesn’t connect to people. Or you could do something different, and it really works.

But it’s true about people wanting a good story, and a good story having to keep people on their toes to a certain extent.

If we were to update a movement anthem — maybe from “We Shall Overcome” — could you write one? What would it sound like? What would it say?

It would probably be a song from my last album, a song called “The Guillotine.” It’s a metaphorical guillotine because [if] you use the guillotine for real, just more of them pop up.

It’s talking about the idea that we have the ability to have a society where the people democratically control the wealth that we create with our labor, so we don’t have someone ruling us in that way.

Is this a system you’d ever take part in by running for office?

Nope. Here’s the thing: I know where the seat of power really is. And it’s not in the elected office.

Where is it?

It’s in the ruling class, the folks that have the money. For lack of a more understandable thing, the 1%, you know. Those are the puppeteers. The folks in office are the puppets. If we can make a movement that can get to the puppeteers, then the puppets will do whatever we want.

Think about it like this: Affirmative action came in under [President] Nixon, and it’s not because he just had one contradiction where he had some progressive idea and was like, “Hey, let’s do this.” No, it’s because the ruling class was afraid of this movement that was building.

Let’s take it back to even the New Deal. It’s the biggest liberal reform we’ve had in the 20th century — that and the civil rights bill. But that didn’t come because of a big campaign to get FDR in office. That came because all throughout the South, and places like Alabama, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, there were mining strikes, shutting down mines.

In the Midwest at the same time, in the ’20s and ’30s, there were people occupying factories. On the West Coast, at that time, there were the longshoremen who were shutting down the ports to create there, for the first time, a union.

In that milieu, with revolutions going on all around the world, the ruling class was afraid of an actual movement, perhaps a revolutionary movement happening, and because of that, we’ve got the New Deal, specifically because that’s what the left focused on — movements that were able to withhold labor.

So if we’re looking for extreme changes like that, and we want elected officials to make big changes like that, we’ve got to stop focusing only on elections because then we’re going to get caught in this cycle.

Right now, the next time a Democrat gets in office, all they have to do is be two inches to the left of [President] Trump.

The evil genius of Trump is that he’s already got the Democratic Party and people who want him out to move to the right in order to get him out. You got people cheering on the CIA and the FBI, this false nationalism where people are cheering, “Let’s only use politicians that only take U.S. billionaires’ money.”

There are people that are doing this that know better. But the opportunism of electoral politics makes people lie to each other.

Usually people ask filmmakers, “What do you want the audience to come out of the theater thinking?” But I’d like to know what you’d like the audience to come out of the theater doing.

I’d like people to get involved in campaigns and get involved in organization that can actually effect change. I hope that people are able to be involved in movements that take place at their job, that creates them, all of those things. For that to happen from the movie, that would be a lot, but that would be a great thing if it did happen.

But hopefully what happens is that organizations that are already taking on campaigns to change things, they will use the knowledge — one of the reasons that people like this movie is that it talks about changing the world — to get people involved in what they’re doing.

[kootenaygoon]

So,

Until I moved to the Kootenays in 2014, I’d never been politically engaged enough to be able to make an informed vote at the municipal level. Politically I had UVic-style leftward leanings, but that didn’t mean I understood the implications of the sort of decisions a city’s mayor and council would make. What did I know about bylaws? Or taxes? I thought it was stupid that we had to buy stickers to put on our garbage bags, but beyond that I didn’t have any pressing concerns about how they were running things down at Nelson city hall. 

With the election coming up, I knew I had to wrap my head around the various issues in the city and how they related to the people we were voting into power. The mental health crisis was going to be a talking point, I knew from Police Chief Wayne Holland, and there was talk the dog bylaw might finally be overturned. The most interesting element to me was weed legalization and its implications. The hottest topic was affordable housing. When Calvin assigned me to interview all of the city council and mayoral candidates, at first I felt daunted by the scope of the project — more than 10 interviews and thousands of words over the course of a few weeks. I realized pretty quick, though, it was my opportunity to deep-dive into this shit. 

If I was going to be a real journalist, I would have to get into politics.

Greg was on the city hall beat at that point, and anytime Tamara, Calvin or I had a question about the election or the people involved, it was him we went to. Some of the candidates Greg knew from growing up in the area, others from covering them in previous elections, but there was nobody he couldn’t give us a multi-year rundown on. He would swivel in his chair and gesticulate with one scholarly finger in the air, opining in his radio announcer voice. The longer I worked alongside him the more I admired his encyclopedic knowledge, how relentless he was about pursuing the truth, sometimes scouring through old archives to better understand a crime that happened 100 years before he was born and other times harassing clerks to get damning documents on criminals still working their way through the court system. He was the Star’s greatest asset, and everybody understood that.

One afternoon I sat in the newsroom with Greg and talked about the elections of the past and how they influenced the one coming up. He told me Phil McMillan, the compassion club director, had run for mayor on a cannabis slate around ten years previous. And a local actor named Richard Rowberry had campaigned as the ghost of Nelson’s first mayor, John “Truth” Houston. One former mayor he spoke about with affection was Dave Elliot, who was remembered mostly in town for stopping an expansion of the local Walmart. The executives were in back-room negotiations to double the store’s size into the next lot when Elliot broke confidentiality and raised the alarm with the community. Ultimately he purchased the neighbouring land, along with a number of other Nelson families, just to stop the deal from going ahead. The property had been sitting vacant ever since — a visual testament to the Kootenay spirit of opposing development. A number of projects had tried to get off the ground there, including a condo complex, but the math just didn’t seem to be right. It was prime lakeside property, fenced off, the yard full of abandoned machines, broken concrete and waist-high grass. 

Depending on who you asked, it was this move that got ultimately got Elliot ousted. Some felt he over-stepped. The right-wing types felt he was too hippy dippy, and wanted someone who would champion the small businesses on Baker Street with more diligence. Dooley was a reliably conservative city councillor at this point, and ended up taking the big seat in 2005. By the time I showed up in the Kootenays he was the longest serving Nelson mayor in history. 

According to Greg, Dooley was hyper-popular and heavily favoured to win. But there were murmurings in the community about dissatisfaction. He seemed like a perfect Irish gentleman to me, polite and amiable, but apparently some felt he was a a bully in the council chambers — as evidenced by the signs stapled to telephone poles around town that read ‘Bully for Mayor’. That being said, he had a number of impressive accomplishments under his belt and had proven himself adept at finding new revenue streams for the community, whether it was from the provincial and federal governments or from organizations like the Columbia Basin Trust. Many credited his contribution for making the new skate park possible. No matter what anyone said, they couldn’t question that he loved his community deeply, and wanted to create a better future for its residents.

*

Then there were the cops.

“What are they going to do about that cop that punched the woman? That’s what I want to know,” Paisley asked one evening, while I was watching TV. She had come up with a plan, along with her new burlesque friends, to hold a topless protest outside the NPD station. 

She carefully poured vegan muffin batter in to a baking sheet.

“I can’t believe we’ve got a proven woman-puncher just working away at the police station like nothing happened. That fucker needs to be fired.”

“He still might be. Depends on how things go with the trial.”

“What’s left to know? Didn’t he admit doing it?”

That situation was an ongoing black eye for the NPD, and they were also under scrutiny because they were requesting a $300,000 boost to their budget. Another smouldering question was how they would deal with the end of cannabis prohibition. They were still busting people routinely, whether it was for grow-ops or possession, and residents wanted to know when that would change. The new mayor would be head of the Nelson Police Board, giving them power over Holland and his force, so this was an opportunity for pot advocates to land an ally in a strategic spot. Dooley was openly hostile to cannabis, and had gone on record a few years previous vehemently opposing an anti-violence initiative related to pot decriminalization, so he clearly wasn’t the right champion. That’s why a new provincial organization called Sensible BC, represented by pot activist Dana Larsen, announced its intentions to get involved in an attempt to eject him. 

They wanted someone pot-friendly running the province’s weed capital.

One afternoon I met the local Sensible BC representative, Herb Couch, who was perfectly named for his position. He wanted to see less money wasted policing cannabis, and announced his intention to quiz each candidate on their stance and instruct his followers to vote accordingly. Couch had the backing of Phil McMillan and over 1000 dispensary members, so his influence wouldn’t be insignificant. He was a chill, soft-spoken former high school teacher sporting a signature cowboy hat and a vibrant orange shirt. Relentless about his activism, to the point of annoying some, he’d also been a vocal advocate for the preservation of Red Sands Beach. 

I liked him right away.

“Sharon wants to know why we’re writing so many stories about pot,” Calvin said, after the interview with Couch ran. “I don’t think she’s a fan of this Herb character.”

“So many stories? We’ve just done the one.”

“Well, and it’s come up as a topic in some of the other stories about the election. The candidate profiles, a few of them had whole sections about their views on weed.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“She says this isn’t even a relevant municipal issue. Legalization is a federal issue.”

“Right, but it has municipal implications.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like it will affect the police budget. How’s that not relevant?”

“Let’s just cool if with all the weed stuff, okay? People want to know about their taxes, about affordable housing, about all kinds of other stuff. This whole election can’t just be about marijuana.”

*

The moment Severyn announced his candidacy, the campaigning got ugly. Late-night vandals drove all around multiple neighbourhoods to collect his lawn signs, which featured cartoon moustaches, and dump them outside of town. He showed up at the Star office distraught, frustrated that his comrades in the police department weren’t doing more to figure out who the culprits were. (“You know how much those things cost? And that comes right out of my pocket,” Severyn lamented.) He made totally inappropriate accusations about Dooley, yelling in our foyer, and the rhetoric continued to devolve from there. It was clear to even the casual observer that the two men absolutely hated each other. 

Dooley was furious that Severyn would even consider running against him, and more furious that the political dunce seemed to have hundreds of voters’ worth of support. He took it as a personal insult. During campaign events Dooley barely contained his frustration. I watched him repeatedly lose his cool.

Into this mix came Deb Kozak. Sporting a tidy grey bob and a simple pearl necklace, she had a sing-song friendliness to her voice and a fierce determination in her eyes. She’d been on council with Dooley and, though she wouldn’t say it directly, clearly had issues with his leadership. Observers believed she would’ve never been able to take Dooley on in a two-way race, but with Severyn as a wild card she stood a chance to take a strategic majority. If successful, she would be the first female elected mayor in history — a feat fellow councillor Donna Macdonald had tried and failed to accomplish twice. Deb had a maternal energy, and a general optimism about bringing people together and accomplishing positive things. It was a hopeful time in politics, with Obama in power down in the U.S., and I believed things were trending upwards. Culturally we were evolving, and our leadership reflected that, right down to the municipal level. By the end of our first interview it was clear she had my vote, whether I could admit it openly or not. 

She seemed audacious.

“One thing I’ve learned as a councillor, and even before that, is I’m good at conversation. And I’m good at welcoming even difficult conversations. We have a diverse community, and sometimes that leads to conflict. I think you work through those things, and you make better decisions when all those groups are pulled together, or at least have an opportunity to share what they think about the future,” she said.

Kozak had arrived in Nelson in the 80s, just after David Thompson University and the Kootenay Forest Products plant shut down. The economic downturn was in full swing, and she’d been inspired by the ambitious moves made by the council at the time. They set out to give the downtown core a makeover, making it more attractive to tourists.

“It was a very frightening time. But it was at that time that the council of the day took a bold step forward to rejuvenate Baker. They said ‘we’re going to rip off all the old clapboards off these beautiful buildings and we’re going to go for it,” she said.

She wanted to be similarly ambitious. 

“I bring to the table experience, passion, heart and mind. What I have to offer is almost fearless exploration of who we can be.”

The Kootenay Goon

[patriotsnet]

Are Republicans Or Democrats Better For Small Business

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/are-republicans-or-democrats-better-for-small-business/

Are Republicans Or Democrats Better For Small Business

Small Business And Government Regulations

AOC Blasts Republicans Who Blame Democrats for Holding Up Small Business Aid

Democratic views on small business revolve around the theory that, while government cannot guarantee the success of a small business, it can implement the conditions that support hiring of new workers through providing tax relief and increasing the availability of Small Business Administration resources.

During the Obama administration, President Obama cut taxes for small businesses no less than eighteen times. Also at President Obamas direction, the Small Business Administration administered more than 70,000 loans for businesses, offering those businesses with the much needed capital to invest and grow.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that was signed into law by President Obama states that business that hire previously unemployed workers are eligible for tax cuts and can write off the purchase of new equipment. Most of the small businesses are eligible under the Affordable Care Act for tax credits to offset the insurance costs for their employees. Democrats are fighting to defend the progress made and ensure that the new president Donald Trump cannot disrespect the American small businesses.

Virginia Republicans Have Been Warning Democratic Control Was Bad For Business Cnbc Disagrees

By: Graham Moomaw and Ned Oliver– July 13, 2021 6:33 pm

The sun rises over the Virginia Capitol.

After Democrats took control of the General Assembly in 2020, a common refrain emerged among Republicans who opposed legislation that raised the minimum wage and added new anti-discrimination protections for employees.

The Democrat majority has done much to diminish Virginias reputation for being Americas best state for business, said Senate Minority Leader Tommy Norment, R-James City, as Democrats first legislative session in power in more than two decades came to a close, invoking a ranking bestowed annually by the cable news network CNBC.

Two years later, it looks like at least some of those Democratic priorities actually helped the states business reputation.

For the second time in a row, Virginia was named the best state for business , which this year began factoring things like anti-discrimination laws and voting rights protections into its rankings under the heading of inclusivity.

Our economy in the Commonwealth of Virginia is roaring, Gov. Ralph Northam said during a victory-lap news conference in Norfolk on Tuesday. Its why companies of all sizes are choosing to call our commonwealth home. Virginia is proving that when you treat people right, its good for everyone and its also good for business.

Youngkins campaign downplayed the CNBC ranking Tuesday, arguing the state is underperforming in key metrics like cost of living and cost of doing business.

Committee Republicans Send Letter To Biden Pelosi Slamming Democrats’ Tax Hike Proposals On Small Businesses

WASHINGTON, D.C. Today, all House Small Business Committee Republicans – led by Ranking Member Luetkemeyer – sent a letter to President Biden and Speaker Pelosi highlighting the negative impacts the Democrats’ tax hike proposals would have on small businesses. As Democrats prepare to take historic steps to recklessly push forward trillions of dollars in spending paid for by small businesses across the country, Committee Republicans are standing up for Main Street USA. Small businesses are focused on recovering from the economic effects of the…

Also Check: Why Do Republicans Hate John Mccain

Small Business And Taxes

Trump has supported significant cut on the income tax on all companies to 15 percent. Business groups also want to see partners, sole proprietors and corporate shareholders whose business income is reported on their personal returns benefit from these changes.

While the party has gotten a great deal of pushback because these policies would benefit big business, what many fail to realize is how essential these policies are to the survival of small businesses.

Staying Afloat During Covid

Brianna Knight, a 31-year-old Fresno resident with clients across the state, was one of the fortunate ones. Her holistic skincare business has done well during the pandemic.

The state grants helped, but so did her overplanning six months ahead at some points. Before the pandemic, Knight also launched a clinical skincare line, enabling her to package at-home facial kits for her clients once COVID-19 hit.;

Despite staying afloat, Knight said she is undecided how she will vote on the recall. She said she needs to research the candidates more, and wants to see how the next phase of the pandemic goes.

I definitely think that we need new leadership, but I dont know if right now is the time, she said. And I only say that because right now California is in the purple and we do foresee a possible shutdown again. So transitioning leadership right now sometimes it gets worse.;

Knight said she wantsnew leadership because of the way the pandemic was handled, including shutting down businesses that state leaders deemed non-essential.

I do corrective skincare, so acne, so even in a pandemic, those clients are still dealing with an issue, she said. I think that what they considered wasnt as important was important to a lot of people, and we werent recognized.

I definitely think that we need new leadership, but I dont know if right now is the time.

Brianna Knight, business owner from fresno

Also Check: Are There Any Republicans Running For President Other Than Trump

History Of The Republican Party

The Republican Party came into existence just prior to the Civil War due to their long-time stance in favor of abolition of slavery. They were a small third-party who nominated John C. Freemont for President in 1856. In 1860 they became an established political party when their nominee Abraham Lincoln was elected as President of the United States. Lincolns Presidency throughout the war, including his policies to end slavery for good helped solidify the Republican Party as a major force in American politics. The elephant was chosen as their symbol in 1874 based on a cartoon in Harpers Weekly that depicted the new party as an elephant.

Regulating The Economy Democratic Style

The Democratic Party is generally considered more willing to intervene in the economy, subscribing to the belief that government power is needed to regulate businesses that ignore social interests in the pursuit of earning a return for shareholders. This intervention can come in the form of regulation or taxation to support social programs. Opponents often describe the Democratic approach to governing as “tax and spend.”

Recommended Reading: Who Raises More Money Democrats Or Republicans

Left Wing And Right Wing Politics

Politics is said to be split in half and you either have left or right political views. Left-wing politics is typically associated with progressive ideas and equality. Democrats are viewed as left-wingers. Right-wing politics values tradition, equity, and survival of the fittest. Republicans are viewed as right-wingers.;

Left-Wing

Left-wing beliefs are liberal in that they believe society is best served with an expanded role of the government. Examples of an expanded role for the government include entitlement programs such as social security and Medicare, Medicaid, universal healthcare, food stamps, free public education, unemployment benefits, strong environmental laws, and other regulations on industries.

Right Wing

Right-wingers believe that the best outcome for society is achieved when individual rights and civil liberties are paramount and the role and especially the power of the government is minimized. Right-wing ideology would favor market-based solutions to the issues that these government programs aim to tackle. For example, encouraging a freer marketplace for healthcare, driven by consumer choice to drive down costs. Or privately held retirement accounts like 401 plans instead of government-guaranteed Social Security.

Study: Republicans Are 24 Percent More Likely Than Democrats To Be Business Owners

Lou Dobbs: NYC is a very difficult environment for any small business owner

According to the Small Business Administration, there are about 28 million small business owners in this country and approximately 22 million of them are self-employed or non-employer firms. The rest of these small firms are employing more than 120 million people. Thats a pretty big voting bloc of small business owners and their employees.

Thats probably good news for Republicans.

According to;a survey;recently released by data research firm Infogroup, most small business owners vote Republican.

The company merged voter registration data from critical swing states with its proprietary database to come up with a combined pool of 5;million businesses and consumers that were asked questions about their party affiliation and other topics.

Of those surveyed, 24 percent of business owners were more likely to be Republican than Democrat. Republicans are way more likely to be presidents, vice-presidents and finance executives than Democrats and the hot industries for Republicans appear to be real estate, financial services and wholesale trade.

The study also found that Republicans tend to have stronger financial indicators than Democrats, such as higher household income, home value, net worth and likelihood to invest. They are also much more likely than Democrats to have a home office, purchase small business insurance, fly more frequently and invest more often in real estate.

For someone in marketing, sure. But what if youre a presidential candidate?

Read Also: Who Controls The House Of Representatives Republicans Or Democrats

Politics And Small Business

“The immediate shift in forward-looking sentiment that small business owners reported following the election reveals how deeply politics has become embedded in the public’s assessment of the economy, and in particular how divided the country is,” said Laura Wronski, research science manager at SurveyMonkey. “We’ve seen evidence of that every quarter, with Republican small business owners consistently reporting a higher degree of confidence than Democrats, but the election of Joe Biden is the first opportunity we’ve had to see whether that would flip if presidential power changed parties and it did dramatically.”

Among Republican respondents, the small business confidence index score fell from 57 in the third quarter to 42; among Democrats, confidence jumped from 46 to 58. The lowest previous confidence reading from Republican business owners was in Q2 2020, at 54.

We’ve seen evidence of that every quarter, with Republican small business owners consistently reporting a higher degree of confidence than Democrats, but the election of Joe Biden is the first opportunity we’ve had to see whether that would flip if presidential power changed parties and it did dramatically.Laura Wronski, SurveyMonkey research science manager

Histories Of The Parties

The Democratic party started in 1828 as anti-federalist sentiments began to form. The Republican party formed a few decades later, in 1854, with the formation of the party to stopping slavery, which they viewed to be unconstitutional.

The difference between a democrat and a republican has changed many, many times throughout history. Democrats used to be considered more conservative, while the republican party fought for more progressive ideas. These ideals have switched over time.

Recommended Reading: Where Are Republicans On The Political Spectrum

How Republicans And Democrats Compare As Small Business Owners

COSTA MESA, Calif.A new analysis shows that Republicans make up the largest percentage of U.S. small business owners, and that they have the highest average business loan balances and lowest delinquency rates.

With the presidential election less than a year away, Experian looked at the financial and demographic characteristics of small business owners by political affiliation. The report found that approximately 35% of all small business owners identify as Republican, while 29.4% identify as Democrat and 15.8% identify as Independent.

Small businesses are a major area of interest for a number of political campaigns and justifiably so, given their positive impact on employment rates and importance to local economies, said Pete Bolin, director of consulting and analytics for Experian business information services. Gaining insight into the characteristics of specific segments of the small business owner population enables government officials, lenders and business professionals to better understand them and take appropriate action to help these small firms grow.

Section:

Crisis On Top Of Crisis

Thousands of small business owners across California are still trying to survive a pandemic now in its fourth surge. Even with the reopening, some restaurants and other service establishments are having trouble hiring workers or are having to pay more and offer perks.;

Then, there are businesses that also have to deal with wildfires and drought.

Data from San Francisco-based software company Womply showed that the deadly 2018 Camp Fire resulted in 13% of local businesses near the fire shutting down permanently, while in 2019, 6.6% of businesses closed after the Kincade Fire in Sonoma County.;

In 2020, California experienced its most destructive fire season in history, with 4.2 million acres burned. In 2021 so far, it isnt much better. The still-burning Dixie Fire is already the second largest in state history, having blackened more than 600,000 acres in Butte, Plumas, Lassen and Tehama counties.;;;;;

Meanwhile, California is in the grip of its worst drought since 2015. This week, Newsom raised the prospect of mandatory water conservation statewide.

John Kabateck, California director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, said;opinions on the recall vary among its members, but many are too busy dealing with bigger concerns. Among them: finding qualified employees, meeting payroll and readying for a huge spike in their unemployment insurance taxes.

So hes willing to give Newsom the benefit of the doubt.

Recommended Reading: What Republicans Are Running For Governor In Nevada

Obamacares Impact On Small Business

Opponents of the Affordable Care Act argue that the ACA has forced small business owners to pay a lot of money they dont have, that the rising cost of medical insurance and the associated fees has forced companies to lay off workers or to halt expansion plans, and that the tax incentives offered to small businesses isnt guaranteed and its too complicated.

Proponents of the ACA argue that the tax incentives are a great help, and assist them in the added costs of the health insurance premiums. They state that the majority of the expense falls with big businesses, not small businesses. They also argue that many small businesses will fall into the category of under 50 employees, and therefore will not be impacted by the act anyways, aside from the supposed lowering of healthcare costs that it offers.

What Is At Stake For Small Businesses In The 2020 Election

This combination of pictures created on October 22, 2020 shows US President Donald Trump … and Democratic Presidential candidate and former US Vice President Joe Biden during the final presidential debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, on October 22, 2020.

Tomorrow, voting concludes in one of the most contentious elections of our lives, but its just another chapter in the wild story that has been 2020. Weve had a pandemic, heightened racial tensions and a faltering economy.;A client told me last week that he feels like the world around him is on fire. And with Covid-19 infections coming back with a vengeance, stimulus talks at a standstill and an unpredictable election, things are set to only get more tumultuous.

You may be election-exhausted by now. You may be one of the 92 million Americans who have already voted.;But no matter who wins on Tuesday , its important ;to understand whats at stake for small business owners tomorrow and in weeks and months to come.

More Stimulus

But now, as CARES impact fades, we are still far from full recovery. The recent rise in coronavirus cases, new lockdown orders looming, 12.6 million workers on unemployment and eight million American pushed into poverty all jeopardize continued recovery in the fourth quarter. ;;

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Clinton Vs Trump: Who’s Better For Your Small Business

AP 1-/10/2016

At 7 a.m. local time on Nov. 8, 2016, polls will open for the 58th quadrennial U.S. presidential election to determine the 45th president. Regardless of your political party or if youre voting for Clinton or Trump, its one of the most important elections in the countrys history.

Thefirst of four presidential debates took place on Sept. 26, and both candidates expressed that this election is about getting the economy working for average Americans again and that means small business owners. According to the Small Business Administration , small businesses provide 55 percent of all jobs and 66 percent of all net jobs since the 1970s. The problem is that recent data from the National Federation of Independent Business found that political uncertainty is at an all-time high because neither candidate is speaking in detail to issues that small business owners care about.

This post will take a look at what Clinton and Trump have said about small businesses, whether their proposed plans help or hurt and what they could do differently. The best way to remedy political uncertainty is to know what the candidates stand for and what proposed policies and beliefs mean in the long run.

Hillary Clinton Wants to Be theSmall Business President

Sounds Great, But is it Too Good to be True?

Where Does Trump Stand With Small Businesses?

His Real Stance Is Still Up For Debate

Have a Voice and Vote

Democrats Raise Red Flags On Gop Small Business Plan As Biden Weighs In

Republicans join Democrats to advance $1tn infrastructure bill

When it comes to some of the broad strokes in the small business plan, Republicans and Democrats appear to be close to agreement.

07/28/2020 04:56 PM EDT

Link Copied

Democrats are gearing up to push for changes to a small business aid plan pitched by Republicans as part of the latest economic relief package, as former Vice President Joe Biden called for major new investments in firms owned by people of color.

While the small business rescue plan released by Senate Republicans Monday included bipartisan priorities including a second round of forgivable government loans Democrats are targeting what they say are key omissions.

Among them, according to sources familiar with the matter, is the absence of new funding for the Small Business Administration’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, which offers direct aid to employers. Democrats also say there is insufficient support for Community Development Financial Institutions and Minority Depository Institutions, which focus lending on populations lacking access to traditional banks.

Democrats may also try to bar executive branch officials and members of Congress from obtaining government-backed business loans. The bill proposed by Republicans only requires the officials to disclose their status when applying.

CORONAVIRUS: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

President Donald Trump and Melania Trump have tested positive for Covid-19.

The latest news in employment, labor and immigration politics and policy.

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[davidjjohnston3]

It appears as if my dream is coming true without me; racial understanding and unity are being achieved.  Madison, Wisconsin these days reminds me of Rutgers and China.  The sky seems almost unreal. In the past I didn't realize how big China is; I only thought about Chinese moms and girlfriends... or spies. * When I was 14 I seem to have been offered a happiness.  At 16 I had that happiness taken away and distrusted the people broke it up.  At 17 I liked or loved one of those people but was wary of her father whom I never met and didn't dare to ask a question. Instead of taking nothing, I took something else which was offered. I was offered a second or final chance recently but was unprepared or failed to follow through  / deliver the complete ready 'suitcase.'  Today I feel beyond sadness.  I have not felt guilt in a long time either but fear of the sky and the new day.  I also sense I taught the wrong things to the wrong people at the wrong time, and they became... I don't know why I tried to be so many things, or hold so many dreams.  I never followed through on one true thing.  I never awaited or sought God's confirmation. All I see is light and beauty.  The population of the United States is increasing / has increased.  I thought my life was over; I was satisfied with my 'museum.'   I wonder whether this is a new 'classical' age a la Yeats 'Leda and the Swan' but I hate things like that. I remember my Taiwanese aunt Jamie and I am thinking of Chairman Mao. Originally my aunt's name was 'Gloria.'  I do not know her Chinese name.  I know she lives in Redlands, CA, and last I checked had a long commute in LA traffic to a Buddhist college. I just want to disappear.  In all my life only two people trusted me, and I ripped them off - one I misunderstood; the other I miscarried or betrayed. I had all these dreams that were alive or lifelike, physical, fleshly - 'carnal' as Houellebecq says in 'Liquid Birth.'  But what's the point? I used to ride the bus around Korea thinking about an old war but now I don't know why.  It was one of those 'parallel' novels with small and large: here is the war, here is someting else, a relationship, as though to say, 'And while __ also __.' I was in Delafield which I visited first in 2009 and thought about the Iraq War.  I thought about General Mattis.  Before attacking a certain Iraqi city the Marine Corps played 'Hell's Bells.'  Why were they so eager to hurl souls into Hell instead of reaching out to them some other way?  Or am I misunderstanding? I was sitting by this river in 2009, wondering about renting an apartment - 'Do you like Asian art' said the person.  In the end I gave him like 500 dollars for the rent-deposit but didn't live there or something.  'Dirtbag!' I met Zola Jesus the same year and also gave her and her brother 500 or so. The Great Recession was cozy for me.   I was happy in a way with my downsized life, as if the pressure were off. I remember the McCain v. Obama election.  At first I was happy John McCain came from behind to win the Republican primary. It occurred to me again that I and McCain are 'Japanese' in some sense of accepting failure and wanting to go down as having had the right idea. I don't know why I lobbied for so long to get fair treatment from the world when I wasn't even asking either what I meant or ultimately wanted, or what God wanted for me, or what was going on or had been going on perhaps since the Lutheran Reformation and the Reformation Wars  - one long war, perhaps since the civil wars marking the Fall of Rome.  As if everywhere is 'Germany; the Holy Roman Empire.' * In the past I read Ecclesiastes a lot - 'and the ocean is not filled.'  I don't know why in some sense I thought I could fill the ocean, or wanted to keep sinking things in there. I remember in 2007 or so I ate buffet food with Taiwan-GF and her parents and they said, 'Why do white people eat Jell-O?'   We also ate some rice with raisins and nuts or something. I don't know why I was eating everything with everyone, trying to be cultured in small ways instead of 'made,' 'made for a purpose.' Nowadays everything seems like Rutgers with these modded cars and people 'expressing themselves.'  I don't want to critique others anymore 'cause I am not a teacher or social critic or columnist or whatever.  I wish I wrote a column for the Joongang but I don't understand their 'angle' or 'cropping' either.  I always just want to make giant arguments and if my organized argument doesn't work I tend to take a 'Red Army' approach as with pedagogy; cf. Kruschev in 'Enemy at the Gates,' saying 'Lose the other half [of your troops].'   People gave me all kinds of 'sign' advices and I don't know what I was thinking experimenting with their advice. I wish I were just working at a gas-station or something with my wife like my boss's Korean parents who became millionaires but the world is bigger now.  These country road I used to yearn to have one of to myself; my grandfather's house at the foot of the San Bernardino's, somehow reminding me of Belgium(?) or Alsace-Lorraine.  I guess in retrospect my happiness place was my apartment in Korea with its fire-door or suicide-door or whatever it was, feeling like a coffin of safe-deposit box; and 'office-tel.' I used to get mad at people for not doing what they talked about.  'My dream school; I'm offering you an idea...' No you're not.  'I want to start a kongbubang' - then he made a Smoothie King instead.   I don't know what anyone is trying anymore or what they dream.  Everyone seems to be trying everything; relationships are what they would have.   I thought of 'a small personal voice,' Chekhov, or something Nabokov said about Chekhov, about people confessing things in quiet voices.  I wanted to scream and yell at people when I was younger but I couldn't in my family and then the moment passed; I wanted to teach HS but was corrupt by then.  Nowadays people can't guess my height; they said I look 6'1 or somtehing but it's really like 5'10 5'11.  All kinds of failures and people I nuked and feeding toxic chemicals to people who love chemical-warfare. I remember in a way the person I wanted to be or the one person I tried to be was in 2002-2003 at the South Mountain Arena ice-skating with HK-ex-girlfriend.  I just liked that image of myself with my nose.  But why?   I keep trying to make a self.  There is this Korean poem, 'I made a self; like peeling an apple; like running off with a woman who was my social superior.'   I never ran away with anyone that I know of; I went to 'Taiwan and Its Contexts' Yale Conference with TW-1, ate some rice and shellfish and the guy said, 'Many of my white students become lawyers.'  I thought about IP and wrote some stuff about teaching HS civics after making money when in the back of my mind I thought, 'If a BigLaw associate makes 160K first year, in 10 years how much money can I have so I can retire and write.'  then at UW-Madison the average starting was like 90K, so... then I remmebreed S'hai's letter about not wasting your 20's and was like what if I just made a ittle deal with myself, my parents, a semi-noncomittall offering to S'hai-1?  What is the point of such gambits(?). I miss 'Maria.'  I like her sunny voice and wish I met her mom or knew more about her.  I taught 'process-writing' which in retrospect was a mistake b/c 'process-writing' is 'German, socialist, patching, bit-by-bit.'  It also mixes past and future, admits failure, and denies individuality or rather implies that individuality comes from other people or something.  Like if Chairman Mao kisses me here, KJU kisses me here, Rose-Apple kisses me here, overall, I'm the Blarney Stone of David Johnston, 'the glass man without external reference.'  Why?   The Bible says, 'God will establish you' or something... I remember all these Democrats saying stuff like, 'In my day we took our neighbors' kids aside and blah blah...'  Communists... My uncle 'Uncle Hammer' once told my dad, 'Discipline your kid.'  My dad walked out and never entered that house for years.  Years later he said, 'Actually Uncle Hammer is right DAvid is a terrible arrogant person etc...'  at the same time Dad was stealing my IP like, 'Let's figure out all DJJ's pornographic adventures, eat his brain and live vicariously...' Everyone was like, 'When everyone says something about you it's probably true...' I don't know if I have anything to say fairly about any of this.  People supposedly derive their impression of God from their parents / father but I've had more than enough time and spiritual 'invasions,' really, to have more direct knowledge of God.  I just had all other affections and dependencies and side-projects and assumed 'trying this would be good enough' without asking. I just wanted my 'little life' and later felt done.  I thought I was sincerely schizophrenic.  I was glad the pressure was off b/c everyone seemed to blow up in my face or doors closed; or I didn't know.  I looked all these Edu. programs but never determined in my heart or mind or prayed for the right to join. All these psychopaths... My dad studied Economics - my family are 'Chinese' - and now his dreams are coming true.  I wanted to be 'RCCP Mediator.'  I studied nuclear weapons but never wanted to drop them.  I was interested in 'nuclear sublime' an idea about Japanese cinema / anime.  'God gave us nuclear weapons to _ _ _.'  I wasn't there to hear His voice so I wouldn't know.  Truman said, 'The power of the sun, something something...'   Later I became intent on 'petite culture' and 'the feminine' and so on.  'I am not gonna think about this.'  I don't work for the Pentagon.  I should've applied to Cornell Hotel Management.  In the summer of 2003 I ate the hearts of burnt-outside oatmeal-cookies and thought / didn't think about Korean-Presbyterian.   * Xi Jinping is going to visit Korea after Covid.  'What's his angle?'  I didn't dislike Xi; I believed in 'Rule of Law,' questioned the Cultural Revolution.  My 'apologetics' for all this were / was flawed in that I argued about weapons-systems killing everyone and how that's why we should love each other, love / obey God.  'OMG weapons-systems?!'   I thought today of my Ukrainian old friend Stan.   I once wrote or started, 'Everything Is Spies.' I think it was about Jiheon Fromis_9(?).   Today I thought about, 'Brides.'  I wanted to say, 'You were like this, that, Korean, Black - just be someone's wife or rather you could be a bride, w/ covered hair.'  I admire the aesthetics of the Catholic Church and their talking about demons and stuff but what if... I feel like I was always reading to lose everything and I gave everything to the wrong people who just eat and eat and eat, then examine the excretions too.  I saw this picture of LOONA Yves and thought, 'My daughter, hold her.'  A beautiful hand, neither boneless nor bony like it has many purposes.  'A wifely smile.'  None of these people care what I say; they don't see what I see.   I remember being happy listening to Wonder Girls' 'Draw Me' and writing stuff.  Most of these people will never care.  Glee, glee, glee.  'Spend my life-savings!'   I wish I could offer myself as a resource to someone but no one's got questions for me anymore.   Everyone figured out what I had to say and what I was right about; those who didn't are determined to be wrong or evil anyway.  And I was evil in trying to make everyone 'right.'   I thought about 'character.'  I pretended to have good character but never stuck to it. I wasn't manly either and never studied manliness.  I didn't think about offering myself to a woman or loving a wife as Christ loved the Church; only 'making deals.'  Later I thought investing in the younger generation would be better; and I was happy to 'downsize' myself. I do not know either why I believed everything was suddenly going to change after Covid Alpha.  People still have secrets, holdings, ambitions, relationships, things which made them special, records, fellowship or lackthereof.  I thought the Millennium was upon us; foolishly as well 'engaged every target' in job-hunting and wasn't ready and I didn't understand journalism either or things like whether NK, TW is a legitimate government in terms of God ordaining a government.  I also didn't know how much of news was propaganda or not; I used to believe everything was lies or disblief was smart then believed everything in books.  I didn't understand 'the game.'  I loved Creation.  'Classic garden.'  Why not train people well?  All these well-made Koreans.  Before KR I hated others and in KR 2012 hated myself or felt alone or IDK.  It's a big country.  These AmKor Twitter ppl, Korea small blah blah.  IDK if they are even being sincere or just peddling cliches. I thought today, 'I am a failed Korean' - or 'failed to be a Korean.'  For a while I thought everybody in the future wanted to be a Korean but I guess they wanted to watch the Olympics. The Midwest is full of farmland more than ever. Man is continuing to subdue the Earth, to be fruitful and multiply. I have no excuse for myself.  What is the future? I didn't go to China so perhaps I do not know. I wonder whether people in the Midwest are still thinking, 'Sth's going to happen.' I have had too many options.   I always thought that I could 'parlay this in to that.'  I considered my CV as a series of changes or mutations.   'Seek thee first the Kingdom of God / and His righteousness'

[pcwpolwrestling]

Extreme Election Night 2020 Preview

(PCW 15th Year Celebration- Taped Earlier This Year)

The Scene: A meeting room inside a hotel.  At the front of the room, PCW Owner Dawn McGill stand behind a podium with a sign in front that reads “PCW 15 years.”  She’s dressed nicely for the occasion.

PCW Owner Dawn McGill

Dawn McGill: Welcome to the fifteenth year of Political Championship Wrestling.

The camera pans around the hall at the politicos from both sides – all whom played major roles in PCW over the past fifteen years – as they applaud.

There’s ‘The Mastermind’ Karl Rove who claps his hands and then points to his temple to make sure everyone knows he’s a *BLEEP*-ing genius.

The Clinton Political Pitbulls (James Carville, Terry McAuliffe, and Sidney Blumenthal).

’The Alaskan Pitbull’ Sarah Palin (AK-American Patriots).

Rahm Emanuel- he’s about the drop an F-Bomb but realizes he’s on camera so he doesn’t.

‘Screamin’ Howard Dean (VT-Progressive Alliance)…

Howard Dean: YEEEEEEEEEEEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

…who’s sitting uncomfortably close to one Alan Simpson (WY-American Patriots)…

Alan Simpson: STOP YELLING IN MY *BLEEP*-DAMN EAR!

…Mitch McConnell (KY-American Patriots) stands and claps…

Mitch McConnell: Spending obscene amounts of cash in order to gain influence with our leaders is a First Amendment right!

…Nancy Pelosi (CA-Progressive Alliance).  She hides behind of wall of bodyguards.  Get it?  Hiding behind a wall.  A wall of bodyguards?

Then there’s a quick shot of the PCW Hall of Famers on hand: ‘Not Just Unbearable…Not Just Intolerable…He is…’ Justin Sufferable, PCW tag team legends The Flyin’ Martini Brothers (Independent), ‘No Frills’ Chris Escondido, and ‘The Original Rookie Sensation’ Starz N. Stripes (Kevin Scott)

Back to McGill up front.

Dawn McGill: Let’s now welcome the living former PCW CEO’s.  First, Jimmy Carter.

John Denver’s ‘Thank God I’m a Country Boy’ heralds the entrance of 96 year old Jimmy Carter (GA-Progressive Alliance) as he’s wheeled into the hall.

Dawn McGill: Bill Clinton.

Clinton (AR-Progressive Alliance) strides out as a video plays of an old episode of ‘Bill Clinton’s Hot Tub’ plays…

VIDEO: Bill Clinton’s Hot Tub – November 2nd, 2010 episode of Extreme Political TV Clinton glumly sits in his hot tub…alone and flanked by two Secret Service men.  Off to the side of the hot tub lies a ladybug costume that he had brought anticipating that Christine O’Donnell was going to be his guest on the show.

Bill Clinton: I don’t know what else I could have done.  I even brought her a ladybug costume just so she’ll feel comfortable.   *sigh*

Secret Service Agent 1: I don’t think Miss O’Donnell is coming sir.

Bill Clinton: This makes me profoundly sad.  (bites lip)  I feel my pain.

==

Dawn McGill: George W. Bush.

Dawn watches as George W. Bush’s (TX-American Patriots) perpetually off-key mariachi band leads former CEO George W. Bush to the ring with another horribly played, but rousing, rendition of “Hail to the Chief.”

Dawn’s face contorts and cringes every time the off-key mariachi band hits a particularly sour note.

Dawn McGill: Barack Obama.

*flute and clarinet flourish*

Two men come out and unroll a white carpet to the ring steps. Dancers then dance. Ballet dancers…ballet? Little children walk up the white carpet and drop rose petals. Someone lets loose some pigeons…we’re still not sure just how they’ll get out of the building.  Former PCW CEO Barack Obama (IL-Progressive Alliance) appears with his former Aide de Camp Joe ‘the Big F-ing Deal’  Biden (DE-Progressive Alliance) by his side.

Dawn McGill: And our current CEO, Donald Trump.

PCW CEO Donald Trump (NY-American Patriots) comes out on stage.

The supporters chant “TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP!” which merges with the melody of the Imperial March and becomes:

♫ TRUMP.

TRUMP.

TRUMP.

TRUMP-TRUMP-TRUMP

TRUMP-TRUMP-TRUMMMMP♫

♫ TRUMP.

TRUMP.

TRUMP.

TRUMP-TRUMP-TRUMP

TRUMP-TRUMP-TRUMMMMP♫

After Trump sits down at the dias with the rest of the other former CEO’s, McGill continues.

Dawn McGill: Tonight is not about politics as usual.

As she speaks, the caterers roll out a huge cake.

Dawn McGill: Tonight is about celebrating what we have in common and what binds us together.

Close up to the item sitting on top of said cake- it’s a giant briefcase with money overflowing from inside of it.

Dawn McGill: It’s about…all of us…

As the caterers situate where the cake is to go, one of them bumps into the cart.  The giant briefcase starts to sway back and forth.

Dawn McGill: …It’s about the people…

Finally, the briefcase slides off the top and falls towards the floor.

Close up- Mitch McConnell.  His eyes light up and drool forms on the edge of his mouth.

Dawn McGill: …because we may have our differences…

The briefcase hits the floor and opens up.  There’s a lot of cash inside and some of it spills out onto the floor.

Close up- Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton: Ohhhh baby.

Everyone looks around at each other.

Dawn McGill: …in the end, we all share a common thread the binds us all together…

Silence…several seconds of silence.

Bill Clinton’s gaze meets up with James Carville.  Clinton nods and winks.  Carville smiles and then…

George W. Bush: Wait for it.

At once, Carville and everyone else shoot up from their chairs and dives towards the open briefcase.  McConnell jumps in.  Pelosi’s ‘wall’ of bodyguards barge in and try to plow a path to the cash.

Also wading in: John Boehner (OH-American Patriots), Harry Reid (NV-Progressive Alliance), and Paul Ryan (WI-American Patriots) and people from both sides of the aisle attempt to burrow their way through the pile of humanity.

Rahm Emanuel (IL-Progressive Alliance) runs down and starts dropping people left and right with F-Bombs.

Close up of Jimmy Carter’s reaction to the scramble for cash: disappointment and disgust.

Unidentifiable person in the middle of the scrum: OWWWWW!  HE’S BITING!  HE’S BITING!

Close up- it’s James Carville.

Close up of George W. Bush’s reaction: whimsical smile.

W taps Clinton on the shoulder.

George W. Bush: Not a whole lot of strat-tee-ger-ree goin’ on here.

Bill Clinton: Nope.

Another unidentifiable person in the middle of the scrum: OWWWWW!  WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!

Close up- it’s ‘The Alaskan Pitbull’ Sarah Palin.  She’s not biting though.  She’s using a power drill to get to the bottom of the pile.

Sarah Palin: DRILL BABY DRILL!

Another unidentifiable person in the middle of the scrum: AAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHH!

Close up of Barack Obama’s reaction: rising above the fray.

Barack Obama: *I* would not do that.

Obama turns to Biden.

Barack Obama: But *I* also know you’re just itching for a fight.

Joe Biden: You know it.

Barack Obama: Go for it.

Biden leaps over the table and literally cannonballs into the pile of humanity.

A third unidentifiable person in the middle of the scrum: OWWW!  DAMMIT! WHO KEEPS BITING?

Close up- it’s Alan Simpson- Simpson’s not after the money, he’s just being his usual irascible and ornery self.

W leans in towards Bill Clinton.

George W. Bush: Where’s Hillary?

Close up of the pile.  Two legs wearing white pants stick out of the huge pile.

George W. Bush: Oh.  Never mind.

Trump shakes his head.

Close up- Dawn McGill at the podium.  She rolls her eyes and takes a sip from her drink.

McGill’s POV: both sides scratch, claw, gouge, use steel folding chairs, regular chairs, and anything else that can be used as a weapon- all to get at the cash in the briefcase.

She sighs and rests her chin on her hand propped up by her elbow on the podium as the chaos continues…

Political Championship Wrestling Preview of Extreme Election Night 2020 Hack’s Rusty Nail Saloon Wauseon, Ohio Sunday December 27th, 2020

Johnny Suave (voiceover): “To say that the last year have been frustrating for Dawn McGill would be an understatement of epic proportion.  Having her show taken off the air and having to endure the Star Chamber of Pelosi, Schiff, and Nadler and their investigation had been not only tough on her but the PCW talent as well.  Yes, house shows continued to be run but PCW was off television.  As 2019 came to a close, Dawn fired off a shot across the bow when a PCW Christmas show suddenly aired causing a few eyebrows to be raised.  The show featured PCW mainstays Rah and Halitosis headlining against The Professional Bad Guys- Hans Grueber and Carl Vreski in a Nakotomi Towers Death Match.”

(REPLAY: PCW Christmas Show- December 2019) Grueber and Vreski send Rah over the top rope to the floor.  Grueber slides out and pulls something out from underneath the ring.  It’s an eight foot by four foot piece of glass.

Johnny Suave: What the hell is he doing?

What he’s doing is setting up the piece of glass in the corner and motioning Vreski to do something with it.  Vreski doesn’t quite understand what Grueber wants him to do and shrugs.

Grueber again motions to the glass- Vreski still doesn’t know what he’s got in mind.  He shrugs again.

Now agitated, Greuber makes an exaggerated motion pointing at the glass.

Again, Vreski doesn’t quite get it.

Finally…

Hans Grueber: SHOOT…THE GLASS!

Grueber positions Halitosis in front of the glass.  Vreski finally gets it.

Carl Vreski: Ohhhhhhhh!

Vreski rushes forward and spears Halitosis right through it, sending glass flying all over the place.

Johnny Suave: Whoa!

Crowd: HOLY *BLEEP*…HOLY *BLEEP*

Johnny Suave: Hey, that’s Laura Bergman looking on.  She’s Halitosis’s wife.

…

Rah hits a bulldog and drops ax handles on the back of Vreski.  Then he takes Vreski’s chain and wraps it around his neck.  Vreski frantically tries to get away.  He tries to throw himself out of the ring but the chain catches and hangs him up.

Rah drags Vreski back to the ring and signals it time to sacrifice him to the Temple of the Sunshine God.  He looks over at his faithful worshipers-

…and they’re not paying attention to what he’s doing.

Rolling his eyes, Rah looks over at McGill- she’s looking at her compact and redoing her lipstick that got mussed up when she Singapore caned Vreski.

Sighing, Rah then turns to the fans at ringside and finally receives the adulation he’s looking for.  He places Vreski’s head between his legs and looks towards the heavens with arms stretched out soaking in the praise and worship of the fans. After receiving the necessary strength, Rah picks Vreski up and drives him down onto the canvas with the Eye of RAHHHHHH (jackknife powerbomb).

Rah walks with a deliberate gait over to Vreski.  He should pin him right then and there but something catches the eyes of the Sunshine God.  In the stands, he sees Hans Grueber with a firm grip on the hand of one Laura Bergman and dragging her up the steps towards the top with him.  A few feet below, Halitosis, bloodied and just a mess, climbs up the steps a few feet behind them.  Rah watches as Grueber reaches the top and sees Joe coming for him.  He threatens to throw Laura off the back of the stands if he takes another step forward.

Laura stomps on Grueber’s foot.  Halitosis lurches forward and unleashes his lethal breath of death on Grueber.  Grueber clutches his throat at the stench and gets perilously close to the edge.  Laura shoves Grueber over the edge but the German grabs on to Laura’s wrist as he topples over and begins to pull her down with him – Joe grabs Laura and holds on for dear life.

Grueber has a hold of her watch.  He tries to reach up with his free hand as Laura feverishly loosens the watchband.  It slips off her wrist and…

Grueber falls and crashes through two tables that’s been conveniently set up below him.

Johnny Suave: I wonder who put those tables up?

Quick cut to Dawn McGill, filing her nails behind the stands and nodding at her handiwork as Grueber lays in the wreckage of the tables.

*             *             *

Johnny Suave (voiceover): “So as 2020 arrived, McGill was ready to say the hell with it and pull the trigger.  Then she was unceremoniously hauled before the Pelosi-Schiff-Nadler hearings again.”

*             *             *

(PCW Headquarters-Washington D.C. -February 2020)

Johnny Suave (voiceover): “The hearing with the express purpose of determining whether or not Dawn McGill would be removed as the Executive Director of Political Championship Wrestling.  Now, you may be asking yourself: Wait a second.  I thought she owned PCW. Well, let’s go back a few months to May of 2019.”

[REPLAY: 5/2/2019-Donald Trump (R-NY)] The CEO of Political Championship Wrestling Donald Trump explains why the Red Brand and Blue Brand went dark, shows were cancelled, and why PCW ran replays of shows from ten years ago over the past two weeks. Short and to the point, Trump states the current method of doing business with three brands wasn’t working so, he felt it was time to make a change.

Trump reaches under the podium and pulls out an Infinity Gauntlet (ie…the very same Infinity Gauntlet featured in the recent Avengers movie). He places said Infinity Gauntlet on his right hand. Trump raises his hand in the air.

Then he attaches a red stone to the gauntlet. Then he snaps his fingers and says Red Brand is no more. The press- except for most of the Fox News contingent – let out a loud cheer.

Trump then attaches a blue stone to the gauntlet and snaps his fingers and proclaims the Blue Brand. No more. The press- except for most of the Fox News contingent – groan.

Then Trump attaches a white and black stone with PCW written on it to the gauntlet. But this time he doesn’t snap his fingers. Trump announces he made PCW owner Dawn McGill a generous offer for PCW that sets her up for life and she accepted.

So what does that mean? McGill’s investment in trying to keep PCW alive just paid off for her in a big, big way. The Red and Blue Brand will consolidate under PCW. So, who will lead PCW going forward?

Dawn McGill comes out followed by PCW Hall of Famers “No Frills’ Chris Escondido and Justin Sufferable. McGill shakes Trump’s hand as does Escondido and Sufferable.

There’s a disturbance and male voice shouts out: “GET THAT GAUNTLET! THE FATE OF THE POLITICAL UNIVERSE DEPENDS ON IT!”

Suddenly, Captain America (aka Chris Evans dressed in costume), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.- in costume), and Captain Marvel (Brie Larson- in costume) rush towards Trump and his Infinity Gauntlet that’s made the Red Brand and Blue Brand specific shows disappear.

But before they can reach him: Escondido steps in to kick Evans in the balls. He then power slams Evans.

Sufferable chops Downey Jr. with an open hand and drives him to the floor with the Lou Thesz press.

McGill stops Larson in her tracks with a Spinning Heel kick and then follows with the McGill Bomb (sit-out powerbomb).

(END VIDEO)

Sitting at a table cutting a solitary figure with a glass of water placed next to her elbow, Executive Director Dawn McGill faced the stern glare of one Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Adam Schiff (D-CA).  She wasn’t happy to be there and made sure both Pelosi and Schiff knew it in her opening statement.

Dawn McGill: I said this before but let me make this clear to the Establishment…PCW is not here for you. PCW is here for…THEM…the fans.

Pelosi called the hearing to order following McGill’s opening remarks and Schiff announced that the minutes will be waived.   He announced that he will proceed with questions towards the Executive Director of PCW.

Schiff doesn’t waste time cutting to the chase- he wants to know about the deal Donald Trump made with her in May 2019.

McGill responded directly that the deal was a basic business transaction to bring PCW back under the political universe umbrella while rewarding her for her hard work over the past five years trying to keep PCW alive.

Schiff fired back that he believed it’s easy to connect the dots.  He demands to know if there was any quid pro pro- McGill sold PCW in return for Trump putting an end the Red and Blue Brand shows.

Brushing off Schiff’s challenging demeanor, McGill smiled and then recalled the intense reaction of the Progressive Alliance – most notably Jerry Nadler’s (D-NY) Oversight committee – to the deal made.  Her description of the response was

“predictable.”

McGill also made sure to recognize that the American Patriots didn’t take the news so well either.

Schiff continued to press the issue and asked if McGill took into consideration that Trump could be breaking the law by making a deal with her.

With a bemused grin, McGill asked which particular law Schiff was referring to.

Schiff said that’s what they’re trying to find out.

Dawn McGill: Oh? Is that kind of like passing a bill just to see what exactly is in the bill?

Pelosi was not amused.  She brought up the fact that McGill hired back Russian referee Corrina Romanov after previous PCW CEO Barack Obama had fired her after Extreme Election Night 2016 as a striking example of the ‘poor judgment’ McGill has.

McGill retorted she couldn’t help that elements remained inside the Progressive Alliance who still blamed Romanov for Trump defeating Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Before Pelosi can respond to that, McGill also threw in for good measure the fact that Pelosi also continued to be chapped at her because she refused to back down and give in to her demand that the 2020 CEO candidates return to the old way where their candidates would hire surrogate wrestlers to wrestle in their place- unlike in 2016.

Pelosi made sure to reference the match at 2008’s Extreme Election Night between then-champion Starz N. Stripes (now Kevin Scott) – representing John McCain- and challenger O’Beck Bahama- representing Barack Obama- perhaps one the greatest matches ever in PCW history.  She implored McGill to be reasonable and allow a return to that very system.

McGill remained steadfast.  She told Pelosi that both sides have allowed others to fight their battles for too long and maintained 2020 would have the same format of 2016.

Pelosi strenuously objected and called her a puppet- one more reason why she should be impeach- . . . er .  .  . removed as the Executive Director of PCW.

Nancy Pelosi: The people vying to become the next CEO of the Political Universe are not ‘ordinary’ men and women and should not be treated as such.

McGill fired back that regardless of what special privileges she feels they are owed, the fact remained that they are ‘people’ and should be subject to the same rules everyone else is.

Schiff responded it didn’t matter.

Adam Schiff: We’ve received two dozen reports of individual acts of perversion, so profound – and disgusting – that decorum prohibits listing them here.

Schiff declared there is a solution to this problem- the removal of Dawn McGill followed by strict oversight of PCW by Schiff’s and Nadler’s committee.

McGill’s response?

Dawn McGill: Yeah, that’s not happening.

Pelosi threatened McGill that oversight is coming whether she likes it or not and if need be they will personally take control of PCW to ensure that there’s appropriate oversight.

Dawn McGill: Oh?  Like the one Joe Biden was proposing?

(VIDEO: 6/10/2019 PCW Extreme Political TV) Joe Biden’s voice: Perhaps I can be of assistance.

Joe Biden, former Aide de Camp to former PCW CEO Barack Obama (D-IL) and the  twenty-second candidate to declare for the 2020 race, comes out.

He strolls out to the ring and stands behind McGill.

Joe Biden: If I become the next CEO of the Political Universe in 2020, I plan on taking a more ‘hands-on’ approach than Donald Trump has.

As he talks, Biden puts his hands on McGill’s shoulders- much to her surprise…and annoyance.

Joe Biden: Not to say that Ms. McGill-

Dawn McGill (pointedly): Miss!

Joe Biden: …has done a bad job of running PCW…

Biden rubs McGill’s shoulders.

Joe Biden: …but we need a different approach than the one offered by Donald Trump. I plan on bringing a new vision to bring us closer together…

His hands start moving down- much to McGill’s alarm. She finally turns around and whispers something in Biden’s ear.

Joe Biden: …huh?

McGill continues to whisper something to Biden.

Joe Biden: If I don’t stop doing that you’re going to do what?

McGill rolls her eyes and explains to him again what the problem is and what will happen if he doesn’t stop.

Joe Biden: I’m sorry but that seems physically impossible to do- to yourself.

Dawn McGill: How bad do you want to find out?

Biden wisely removes said hands from McGill’s person. (END VIDEO)

Dawn McGill: Yeah. Again, not happening.

Nadler accused her of ‘obstruction’ of his oversight.

Pelosi again threatened to take matters into her own hands if McGill did not acquiesce to her demand.

McGill called herself a businesswoman – an ordinary person trying to make ends meet in an increasingly toxic atmosphere by politicians just like Pelosi and Schiff.

Dawn McGill: Perhaps if Joe didn’t send Hunter Biden to try to buy my silence after he got all handsy on me-

Pelosi quickly cut her off.

Nancy Pelosi: Well, I think we’ve heard enough.

Jerry Nadler: I agree.

Adam Schiff: Let’s finish this damn thing right now!

Dawn McGill: Yes.  Let’s finish this now.

McGill stood up from her chair.

Dawn McGill: We’re not going to sit here and take this from you anymore.  If Dianne Feinstein can leave early, we’re going to leave too.

McGill turned and motioned to the PCW supporters in the hearing room who suddenly prepared to take their leave.

Dawn McGill: Ladies?  Gentlemen?  We’re done here.

And with that, they began to exit from the hearing room while humming ‘The Star Spangled Banner’- kind of like this…

This, of course, pissed off Pelosi and Schiff to no end.

Nancy Pelosi: Where do you think you’re going?  You’re not walking out on this one!

But they were.  The PCW supporters continued to exit as Schiff banged the gavel on the table and tried to restore order.

Nancy Pelosi: You’ve bought it this time.  You’re finished!

More supporters left while Schiff continued to bang the gavel down on the table.

Nancy Pelosi: I’m taking you down.  I’m taking ALL of you down.

And more supporters streamed from the hearing room.

Nancy Pelosi: No more PCW.

McGill bent down and furiously scribbled away on a sheet of paper.  Finally she glanced up and faced Pelosi.

Dawn McGill: And just to clarify. When Trump ‘purchased’ PCW, he bought the right to air and produce the show. *I* still own the PCW name. *I* still own the shows and intellectual property. *I* still own the pay per views.

She held up the paper.

Dawn McGill: And with my signature right here on this sheet of paper, I just reclaimed my right to air and produce PCW shows as I see fit.

Pelosi and Schiff’s jaws dropped.

Dawn McGill: You can call this…a wres-xit.

Then she turned and left with the rest.

*             *             *

Johnny Suave (voiceover): “But then COVID happened and like many small businesses, McGill and PCW found themselves shut down while larger, corporate wrestling organizations continued to run.  After running a few house shows in January and February, PCW went dark in 2020.  But that didn’t mean there were forces in play intending to put on Extreme Election 2020 without her.  George Moros and the Coke Brothers- big time billionaires with money to burn on political things- announced in September they planned to run an Extreme Election Night 2020 show in November 2020.  There was just one problem- the nanosecond Dawn McGill caught wind of this scheme, she marched right into a courthouse and initiated legal action.  Suffice to say, Moros and the Coke Brothers were not pleased with her response.  You see, McGill, Moros, and the Coke Brothers had butted heads before…”

(VIDEO: February 2019-After PCW’s D.C. Armory Supershow) It’s late.  The fans have left.  The wrestlers have left.  PCW Owner Dawn McGill finally walks out of the D.C. Armory two and a half hours after the show ends.  She gets into her rental vehicle and pulls out of the parking lot.

Dawn heads north on 19th Street SE and stops at the light at East Capitol Street NE.  Traffic is light and she’s the only one stopped at the intersection.

Her mind occupied, she did not see the pair of headlights coming up fast behind her.

But she felt the impact when the vehicle slammed into the back of her car.  Dawn gets pitched forward but the airbag immediately deploys and the seat belt holds firm.

Four men exit the large SUV equipped with a heavy duty front bumper that easily absorbed the collision.  One man rips open the driver’s door and another one helps him pull a dazed McGill out of the car.  A third man swoops in and places a strip of duct tape over her mouth.  The fourth yanks her arms behind her back and zipties her wrists together.

They drag her back to the SUV and throw her into the back seat.  It’s there she finds out who’s behind this.

The Coke Brothers and George Moros.  Financiers of both factions.

George Moros: We all need to have a little talk here.

Then a cloth hood is placed over her head.

Of course, McGill would respond at the next PCW Extreme Political TV show.

(VIDEO: 2/17/2019-PCW Extreme Political TV) Dawn McGill: I so did not expect to spend my Saturday night after the show ziptied in the back of a SUV.

The crowd boos.  McGill tells them it’s okay.  The Establishment got pissed off at her so she got to go for a little ride around Washington D.C. while Coke Brothers and George Moros tried to intimidate her.

More boos from the PCW fans.

McGill explains the Cokes and Moros were a little upset that PCW got to keep running while the Red and Blue shows were shut down…they impressed on her that PCW could be squashed like a little bug like many other small time, mom and pop, undercapitalized businesses are when they run up against the big boys.

Dawn McGill: They basically wanted me to back down and go away because I was ‘distracting’ people away from their ‘business’…their high priced wrestlers paid for by their high priced money masters.  I told them they could kiss my ass.  Oh…and I also told them they could go *BLEEP* themselves.

The PCW fans stand up and let out a loud, loud cheer,

McGill says that contrary to the spin and the media’s narratives, PCW is doing a lot better than anyone could have imagined.  A lot better.

Dawn McGill: We’re proving that you don’t need corporate money to succeed.  We’re proving that you don’t need a governmental bureaucracy to succeed.  All we need is an equal playing field.  All we want is for everyone to play under the same set of rules.  No special dispensations.  One set of rules for EVERYONE no matter WHO you are!  We’re building PCW from the ground up and we’re doing it ourselves!

The crowd stands and cheers when McGill proclaims that ‘we ain’t going nowhere!’ and *BLEEP* the Establishment!

Johnny Suave (voiceover): “McGill prevailed over Moros and the Coke Brothers and she made sure PCW Extreme Election Night 2020 did in fact take place on November 3rd, 2020.  How would it go?  We’ll find out soon enough.  Thursday December 31st.  PCW presents Extreme Election Night 2020.  Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden.”

PCW EXTREME ELECTION NIGHT 2020

MAIN EVENT: Donald Trump (American Patriots) vs. Joe Biden (Progressive Alliance)- winner becomes the CEO of PCW for the next four years.

PCW TITLE MATCH: ‘Starz N. Stripes’ Kevin Scott (American Patriots) vs. ‘Mr. Hollywood’ Kevin Daniels vs. ‘Prairie Populist’ William Daniels Bryan (American Heartland Coalition)

PCW WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH: Kathryn Randall Collins (Progressive Alliance) vs. ‘Alaskan Rogue’ Sierra Whalen (American Patriots) vs.  ‘Extreme Pizza Delivery Girl’ Tessa Martin (American Heartland Coalition)

PCW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Jill Berg Enterprises: P.M.C. Banks and Kirk Walstreit (American Patriots) vs. The Green World Order: GreenPete and ‘Vengeful Vegan’ Brock Cole Lee (Progressive Alliance) vs. The Vice Squad: Al Cahall and Nic Koteen (American Heartland Coalition)

PLUS:

ARIZONA SENATE MEDALLION MATCH: Martha McSally (American Patriots) vs. Mark Kelly (Progressive Alliance)

MICHIGAN SENATE MEDALLION MATCH: Gary Peters (Progressive Alliance) vs. John James (American Patriots)

SOUTH CAROLINA SENATE MEDALLION MATCH: Lindsey Graham (American Patriots) vs. Jaime Harrison (Progressive Alliance)

[careyourself]

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THIS WEEK WAS DEATHLY KAMALI HARRIS CLOSELY TAKING THE I Kinda Don't Care Humor T Shirt POSITION OF VP FOR THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND THEN THE FIRST ARTICLE IS WIKILEAKS POST UTTERED IN 37 DOCUMENTS ON KAMALI HARRIS HOURS AFTER SHE WAS NAMED JOE BIDEN’S RUNNING MATE THEN WE HAVE THIS IS REALLY BIG DOWN THE LEGAL. Tupac is amazing is very good I just didn’t like the Snoop Dogg character I thought that was sad I didn’t look or feel like Snoop Dogg certain things get the feeling off but I it was I a good movie it’s good to check it out I think it’s impossible to contact his whole life two hours so that poor young saluteand Gigi Mayo did a good job may not did a good joband off course Grady did a good job rabies my guy as he did a great job he played a perfectly but yeah man I go’s latest hours yeah I was a great topic know how would now like you might not like it tell you right back has they would wanted to go to he would probably wanted to go deeper into his life but I think I think you should go see the movie event because I cannot get support things like this in the culture anyways okay so in the end this is good I’m not telling you anything bad it wasn’t a bad movie is a good movie I would tell you it was trash out was actually I was satisfied when I leftand you know you don’t see that movie at this as I was satisfied I got paid my money saw that movie actually bought three tickets are a why why didn’t know what I wanted to go side by three different ticket so I ended up spending 21 see the movie way it’s good I got to go see it that way in Michigan in early dealing I went at 10 AM yet definitely also lucky organized you can be happy sought that because it’s two hours of gray filmmaking okay there might be a few characters that didn’t play detect the characters we know in real life like Snoop Dogg that’s okay your stoveand enjoy the movie hundred percent pay they show every a showing of illness too much they just don’t going total depth of the do you go in the just theater now I didn’t I went to ANSI I know Johnson had here in Atlanta check that out there’s also a Cindy bistro but I went to ANSI the reclining seats not taking part wouldn’t go see JGI now I mean you know I think there needs to be another Tupac I think there needs to be a longer Tupac moving his his life he can’t I still can’t believe he was only 25and did all the things he didn’t like this guy like let’s bring up the staff to say it I how many movies is Tupacand I think he was in seven movies he was an 11 movies 11 movies how many how did the any reported 12345677 now moansand then 7 pounds while he was aliveand then after his death wine 234 5678 910 like her 11 hours after his death I think even more than maybe 12 that’s crazy because think about it most people can’t do that their whole life he didn’t like years that’s crazy as first argument 119 91 Tupac Now that’s crazy man so he he was really like active active like six years that’s it six years man that’s crazy man in a day show everything him even wanting to kinda get off death row that the way he died way that a problem with some crib members right before he died think they can show everything generally leads to much outmanned so as for everyone to play now appreciate you broke appreciationand salute Yogi Banks was good to Tupac was pretty amazing brought me to do all that in such a short amount of time that’s crazy we that’s think about that Mandy that no one is ever to be like pot hate it when people compare themselves to talk like even Wyattand Lucci dropped something today saying something pot did know you near Pac Man you can’t be out for two yearsand compare yourself to talk I’m sorry man I’m sorry if you a betting thugand attend movies if you been an 11 moviesand you haven’t done seven now moans within five years get I hearand also had deftly watch the movie the least two hours two hoursand 20 minutes is pretty long but doesn’t feel that long cuts like you going through that timeline talks deftly the greatest just product the jaded JPEGand said her character was a bunch of lies they put in what the movie guys okay there was they had to establish that jaded taking Tupac had a special relationship that was deeper than just being friends it was a soul sold their souls matched rightand I was the only way they can kinda show that in a short amount of time so they had to show interaction with him in jail that was really deep in the content they had to embellish a little bit go totally crazy with itand show jaded Tupac in effect seen Ernie think that she even said their relationship was deeper than sex they never had sex it was deeper than sex because they it was a mental bondand you know she said you only get one of those friendships your whole life nowand I you know that they did for the movie I don’t think a hand biotics aren’t always exactly on a percent okay but you know annulment JT never was going to leave death row JT yes he was actually Wendy day who was friends with talk he was leaving death row he just couldn’t get off because they worry that he would have to get lawyers everything to he was in the process of doing honestly the last three months he was trying to get his paperwork right to get off the death row but you don’t just tell himand walk away like Dr Dre did it savage life but he had moneyand he started a labeland Dr Dre produced his own shared everything so he didn’t need anybody Tupac had to doand difficult awake is the way he he was on pal from death row it they were buying a house everything he was too tightand it was it would take him a few months to on ravel from death row on my arm to come out soon is joking to Jordan for retro shop tomorrow okay cool I think the movie was asked it was just it was good Okay I’m not I’ll think so afraid of the movie was okay it wasn’t trash it was good I think it was good I thinkand encourage everybody to go see it it wasn’t the best bioticand fiber seen think the strata Compton was fucking go feeling to it is that it was missing that feeling but still get why is your character she played a big role in cycles of yet they missed out a few people but in the mist at the scene where he spent on the infamous stingray spent on the the I reportersand 40 guy I heard about 40 got was pop today are I hope he pulls through nine John Singleton has a real spooky shit going onand I I think it would be good if he he was turning it too deep with it was it better than the movie the movie was more cinematic than this was I can’t say it was better though they were about equal now peace mode staffand how they betray the relationship between pocketand his mother that was dealt those were the two strongest characters meand I’m right just talk about the movieand I will talk about tomorrow to if you guys but I it ways that those were the two strongest characters man they showed how strong the bond was between his mother how his mother was there form after she got cleanand he had some successand got her cleanand everythingand she was more clearheadedand help was there for Pokand warned him about certain things going on in that your target on his back as he was a black leader evaluate it was definitely was it’s definitely were seeing Jason was definitely worsening is get Richard tried die trying a better movie better yes it is because think about it. You know interaction ever had because you couldn’t speak at all thank you everybody else took offense to everyone who came as something they would take a look at say anything back so they would just say everything is going to say my face would just tell also’s argument was that your Film I get out there that think they are right baseball garden I did bring you it is betterand has been so interested is a friend of my body get out there the antibody is in a hospital make their case advantage of them in any way you possibly can move on to our first story here todayand is according to the high reporter scares me that actually deadline high reporter broke a story about a lot of yesterday deadline is not about the new villainand wonder woman to is none other than Sheena played by Kristen Wade apparently paycheckand has had her eye on wake for a while now to play this roleand it looks to be confirmed so that she is going to be going up against wonder woman in the sequel to this massive wonder woman they came out last year the new movie comes on November 1 2000 19th J Washington in any way on the panel knows a little something about Sheena is get a VU what does this mean for wonder woman to you no more you know what for first was one of one woman’s biggest adversaries which is cool use granted they didn’t do in the first movie you burned her out from World War Iand had going forward for two Christian week is interesting casting choice as we been seeing a lot lately with comedic actorsand actresses black I said this on twitter if we can get great Elizabeth Banks is repulsing granted the movie the powerand the heart of the story the cake they did on Rita was nice the way she looked at the different look the vision of a Christian week plan is now will she be as serious or comedic is the question you know now also the story of cheetah is a British archaeologist who goes in Africa they had an opportunity to make this potentially a black British woman there’s a lot of things you do great don’t have to change the cultureand the nationality of the character but you done about bunch of things Christian week is a good choice I believe black will have to see you know when you quit yesterday about the rhetoric also compares it was an interesting one at a very early going on to policy your readerand are in the phase where you will reader processing the I actually like our industry in a limitedand I know the old school reader pulseand everybody was hoping to see in Greenwich have to change things sometimes so using the way they get Elizabeth with this one the Krispy Kreme things a little too much I limit like the look is what I was talking about we can expect her to look as bad as she didand who is a Christian we can look like an incredibly soft terrifyingand look like everything that nightmares are because I know that person that scale afterand I had decided not to go sleep that night like this character sheet in general it is likely because of the complaint getting a lot of Power Rangersand about Elizabeth is reader repulsive she was doing her job if your job was to be in the 90s show Power Rangers seem to fit in with the time when the new movie was trying to do so how’s the character like cheetah who from the fanart for whatever is you are looking to come up with seems a little more outlandish than what we got in wonder woman the first movie I was I get a job with the town because this is the first outlandish character to get that’s a human who transformsand something else with justice league you halfstep more that’s in our worldly creature is in itself with complementingand get everything that’s naturally in Atlanta so we understand that this is gonna be something new to see the DCU you know that to be the interest of our behind again we dealt with psychological sale a question when dating Ghostbustersand other films but this has to be something different will have a comedic element potentially Casio serious will see Harry immediately relocatedand seeing like comedians turn into the deep illness rolesand I rooted for everyone in the marketing point of vampire only those crazy if I were to do a rather like the movie didn’t work as well rises to be in one hour photo resigning like this could work out I think it did think Connex can test it to a darker side of their personality getting Kristen Wade is going to be able to do you I have made during especially the just need your initial impression is lie regarding the morning moreand more I read the other where twins are rolling over she’s going to be a good work can know that she is a good idea if Peterson is really talking on the show where it’s like you feel about one wayand in the next week you feel the same exact way did you get this newsand then have an initial reactionand has that changed all sense you heard about this yesterday plates at the words were not including the reference got into because I first heard the confidenceand Christian way to be able to take her time fender from the community of economic theory generally by tradition works much better than tomato doctors trying to go however my question really affect the talent of what wonder woman he was going to be because if they are bringing Christian right are they planning to make it more the sort of lighthearted comedic type of film compared to the first one where there very negligible humor so much of the few moments of levity but it’s not going the route of life like they do in the NICU movie maxed out when they are trying to may be asking rather than actually having Kristen be super hard core cannot write most of the last few got from wonder woman were were very genuine think the reason for that is because she was allegedly try to find her way in the man’s world so to speak because she went out of her boss Dennis Garethand her interactions the chemistry Chris finds where we got most of the yacht if you will get a movie like Ghostbusters obviously that’s more spoof the then I think you get to see if you wanted so here’s the big question you are left to get over to the panel as a fan person wayand that they can be won over to her performance the one I wanted is under just a little bit of pressure yet again because the first time a woman came outand had to rescue us from this dark gray toneand it succeededand then you have justice leagueand now very divisive movie again so whatever man does with my CAN have a more serious darker tone seems once again is directing it what do we need wonder woman to have in order to make Kristen Wade fit into this balance because as we saw with justice league trying to shift the entire town of DC name from Zach Siders darker version to Joss Wheaton’s line or humorous version the China ship Nike seven Apple man James one says dark black James wants a what you expect I think it’s the balance you’re gonna have a humorist element with one woman like you said in the first you have those humorous moments when you tap into that a little more Diana plays around that we seem that she jokes moreand now she’s more accurate to the world again if this present day is his will to but it doesn’t matter I think I will have a lot more humorand Patty Jenkins also ceased exercising more than anything else so that’s what I would single phase it is Kathy Parsley I can send out the rest of the DCU yelled at everyone with your director changes with your your hiringsand firings of executives with your cash comingand going like the movie I want to make I guess Kristen Wade is a cheetah going to do it I can do I want right now how skinny my confidenceand she sort of envisioned Christian right brain itselfand the one she essentially is writing the role for Christianand the only present quite depressing right was Christianand I think that will be sort of tailored to Christian relaxing make this work a lot more holisticallyand cohesively been made in micro barring a comedic actress integral where really wasn’t for you See Other related 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And Michael Bloomberg meanwhile profiting from continued to make official White House tricks to keep landscapes where he campaigned against binding in Scranton and former VP birthplace been the subject of so out this week when he was criticized by his predecessor Barack Obama rebranded in Wilmington Delaware with the weather finally the speech just hours before he to the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination theme for the final night at their convention Americans campaign officials say bilingual vision for how to deal with the crisis facing America he will also pick up on threads from vice presidential candidate Jell O bring together and can get it and make sure that we are prepared for the next one painstakingly express the speech and will bring it administration something argue is lacking in private intron had been when a There Was A Girl Who Really Loved Baking And Dogs It Was Me T Shirt 16 we were boldly deal with challenges honestly tell you about my friend Joe by former Pres Barack Obama to be his running mate in 2008 after their history together 12 years ago. Well it’s about damn time estimate two half years ago I made this marble synthetic universe in chronological order video ever since then the question is in the most is wins election coming out so with avengersand Cindy working out in about a weekand that is a big sign is a need to do one last one of theseand yes this will most likely be the last of theseand seek analogies because after this this university to be weighted a trick out this video is high enough to make already just be the moviesand TV shows in the short filmsand even the tying comics as this video is ridiculously hilariously long but considering everything a document here in total is about 256 hours long condensing ends in two hours I think is not bad but maybe to watch this on one setting or do be impressive to just put a few disclaimers upfront if you must get themand find the video you can click to this time go had I will be too offended 170 states are to be 100 accurate that you might be assumptions recipe name hereand there because there are a lot of weird names of artifactsand planets also considering the stuff I need to cram into this I will be painting with a pretty broad brush for some of these especially TV shows I can go into every tiny subplot of agents of shield as much as I’m I went to’s that wasn’t super obvious spoilers ahead for everything like having everything I know I said sit back relaxand let’s get this thing started before we had to get into the eventsand everything are few things you should know about this universe is elite think of this universe is having two main sections there is the normal universe first which has earth that branches off to the rest of space goes to the galaxiesand planetsand guardians even further to planets like Asgardand the restaurants now in other card realms not planets but for my researchand understanding that realms are just planets deep out in spaceand is not specifically are connected to each other by Qaeda system called Yggdrasil basically just think nine important different planets connected to each otherand it got names from Norse mythology for the sake of not starting massive argument in the comments plan arounds from the out the nameplate around his Asgard with aliens living there have technology so advanced that they appear to be godsand also yeah have some magic powers that make them pretty godly then be on this regular universe in this other section there are hundreds thousands infinite number of parallel dimensions to this world all this is called the multi verse we mainly say our dimensions at this but in the story to be a lot of references to other dimensions basically universes that existed Dr strange portal with Myers so there planets switched rounds find twoand then there are the dimensions which will point out along the way okay I don’t Arity lots of people not set up but now it actually it started before the universe existed several billion years ago there were six singularities that eventually morphed into tiny gems with the powers of the universeand the powers of time power reality space the souland the mind in this pre universe darling on us to call it is a race of aliens called the dark elves who rule this place cousins are comprised of darknessand the love that I can’t get enough of darkness then the universe starts the dark elves don’t like this is no more infinite darkness so they would return the universe to how was before without of these planetsand speciesand whatnot so the albino leader of the dark elves Malikand gets his hands on the reality stoneand turns it into a substance called the ether basically turns a stone into a substance he can use as a weapon then as the universe evolves these giant spaceguard type things called celestial startup where we don’t really know the power to manipulate huge massand energyand so they are able to use the most powerful objects in the universe the infinity stones these into planetsand civilizations wherever they want is there just got pics like that of the celestial’s called egoand he finds being spaceguard disk kind of lonely he discovers he can manipulate the matter around himand create shells ponchos himself until he is an actual planet being a planet boring though so creates a smaller avatar from self to explore the universe over the next millions of years he finds tons of planets around the universeand decides he must conquer all of them he does this with a well thought out plan we start supplanting little seasonal planets that can turn this planets into extended versions of himself but to activate them the power of another celestial so how do you get another celestial you bang anything that moves in the entire universe apparently ego gets busy across the universeand since people church or the kids he makes for him one of these retrievers is eventually undo but were getting out of ourselves as pre pesto because none these kids inherit his celestial powersand so their useless 10 so he kills them all in stores the corpses in the lower part of the planet just technically inside of himself ill I at this point earth has finally formed kind of an immediate right filled with a superstrong element called by brainyand crash landsand what will become Africa because it’s awesome the rebellion gives the pilot around it special powersand extra strength had a few million yearsand now humans have evolved on earth in Africa five tribes of humans discovered the vibratingand decide to build a home around itand call it Wakonda that drives us fighting until one day one of the tribes warriors gets a message from the panther goddess passed to consume this plant affected by the librarian called the heart shaped herb okay pods yes there is apparently a panther goddess maybe this was just a hallucination as guy had a something because there’s really no expiration plan is universe whatever maybe does exist in part but anyway is he consumes the vibrating power plant superstrength speedand enhancing sinks from losses like yeah right as prequel he should be arcaneand so the tribes are united under his ruleand live in peace in Wakonda except for Jabari tribe who decide to live in the mountains instead a guy who eats the heart shaped herb also becomes the Black Panther the warrior protector of a condo over the centuries the natural kingand Black Panthers passed down with the help of the heart shaped herb also because they have a boatload by brainy him over the centuries work on it develops into an incredibly technologically advanced country far more advanced than anywhere else in the world however they decide to hide themselves so they don’t assure the techand wealth with the otherwise pretty sucky world of timeand so discuss themselves as a poor Third World country meanwhile this being somewhere else in the world who might be human might not it’s not really clear called out tomorrow discovers the Mystic arts basically realizes magic Israel Mr guards essentially allows you to manipulate those alternate dimensions I mentioned beforeand also do other cool stuff like make magic shields because this secretes a little club called the Masters of the mystic arts with a bunch of humansand start training in this art of energy manipulation magic really at some point he uses his magic powers to get his hands on the time infinity stone which he uses to make the Iraq Amato so he can control it as their fancy necklace he puts of three symptoms around the world to protect the world from threats from other dimensions these are symptoms in Hong Kong Londonand New York or what will eventually be displaces threats from other dimensions you ask my ass like for example this big amorphous that called her mother who is the Lord of the dark dimension that our dimension is one as many dimensions that exist out there in the multi verse time does not exist there that’s important detail the mother wants to conquer every dimension in the multi verse is he’s a giant superpower for bad guyand so he just wants to consume worlds it’s also possible to draw power from the dark dimension that old let’s say let you live for superlong time by is generally not a good idea to do so because the memo can influence youand come throughand destroy literally everything it’s not recommended now over to I called Oden who is the heir to the throne of that plan around the mentioned before Asgard currently the king is this guy called bore Asgard is a tale told of ragged rock this event that will destroy Asgardand sci fi demon called starters can do that using the eternal flame which basically gives them loads of powerand can resurrect that people like the sound of any of that so he fights orderand locks up on another plan around called Miss Lewis behind Danny Locke’s eternal flame is big screen textile vault back homeand Asgard will be stubborn rock from ever happening please take note as does the first of countless times Oden sucks at hiding stuff fast forward of itand the convergence is happening physically this means that all the nine plant rounds align with each otherand so they’re much easier to get to like literal portals open up between themand the fabric of reality starts getting weird so that race of aliens from before the universe called dark elves who are credentialing on the planet realm of content it take this opportunity to try destroy the universe again using the ether reality stone their stop by these guardians led by King Borer who also take ether from corpus either way were known find it kind of delicateand some of his troops managed to escapeand put themselves in hibernation until the next chance comes now back outthere’s a space of aliens called the Cree what you need to know about them is that they’re just the worst like pretty much all the time there also were with some other aliens at this particular time their suffering huge casualties in the war anyway to get the upper hand so they’re trying to search for that eventually they come across Earth set aside humans aren’t exactly good weapons but if the modified they can become good weaponsand so they decide to make in humans is not because the next part of this is slightly gatedand very important to the rest the story Cree experiment humansand give some of them powers that only manifest exposed to a missed called carriageand missed this mist is released by Turgeon crystals this process is called terror Genesis when she becoming human usually does get some sort superpowerand maybe deformity does the Cree put these Turgeon crystals in these weird shipping is called diviners while they were there the Cree decided also to go to Puerto Rico where they built a giant underground city where you can easily release the Turgeon list to activate your dormantand human powers if human with the inhuman Jean touches this divider Turgeon crystal carrier they had visions of a big that cities so they go thereand get their powers confused or just going started the Cree are happily making superpowered humans but after a while they like a these kind of suck let’s get out here when the first humans are made from this mine Hunter turns out to be a super powerfuland dangerousand human called hive who has a tentacle face is so powerful that the Cree want to get rid of them so they find a planet called Navistar Mavis found the universe call Mammothand build a portal called the monolith to easily transfer the human there to get rid of him they do soand he destroys the entire planet turning it into a barren wasteland however this hive has some followers back on earth that they believe that eventually can be brought back to rule the world so they started trying to get them backand built a whole society around the idea this secret organization became known as Hydra yes Hydra wasn’t always crazy Nazis they were originally crazy tentacle monster worshipers one point Hydra gets its hands on the monolithand transitionsand people to get hive but they never come back anyway the Creekand hallway from Earth but one poor Cree died while thereand so’s corpses just left behind at some point years well something humans that are left on earth find a way to get to the moon or a portal maybe anyway they get to the moon build a city thereand set up their own monarchyand society where the people who get good powers get to be royalty in divorceand lives while the people who get less can powers have to work in the mindsand remember you’re supposed to root for the rich people here for some reason back Asgard has become the King he has a daughter called hello who is now the heir to the throne decides he wants to expand as God’s powerand brings kingdom more glory does run the nine plant rounds of helloand conquers them sometimes that means that aren’t necessarily very sanitary eventually though multi lung style house a mission goes too bigand she gets a little too let’s say crazy with murdering so I banishes her to the plan around of hell is only capable realized yet is kind of a bad dude I was getting ashamed of all the terrible stuffand held it together so we just covered a lot then act like it never existed like the hero hits out finally were in the 80s metal multi verse thing where there are bunch of different dimensionsand another one of these dimensions theirs is awesome mystical city called Conlon which appears on earth somewhere in China about every 15 years or so in the city this group of monks called the order of the Crane mother teach the art of G this mystical life energy in every living thing is we can help you heal people superfast or can be used for fighting purposes also did I mention that dragons live in the city because they do that without style dragons over the years often die out except for one college shall allow is also always one special trainee in the order of the Crane mother who if there super amazing at punchingand kicking testified the Dragon shall allowand when the powers of the immortal iron fist the damage eventually achieve one fist to make it really strong busing heal peopleand you’re really good at fighting the orifice job is to defeat the enemies of the order of the Crane motherand got a secret passageway to come onand the metals passed down from generation to generation think of it as the city’s Black Panther minus the cloth it but things are all sunshine shall beatings and their five students one immortality using the Chi door of the grandmothers likeand so these five get banished to earth those five are called because no madam gal Alexandra Murakamiand so one day they been together to form an evil organization called the hand very sinister name figure out around the world their opponents while those dragons died scattered undergroundand through these bones they can get an elixir that lets you bring that people from the dead take elusive on time which is what they want has to strive to conquer Asia getting their own little army of ninjas together so the group called the chaste who don’t like that stand up against themand they battled for centuries to come the chased a big believer’s income line in the iron fistand they’d really like iron fist to help them out they had to go around being able to one point destroy the city of Pompeii is still a twin helland she hates it so she tries to escape ownsand his army of super bass worriers called the Valkyries to stopper they do it but all the Dina process except for one of them called Brunhild make a medical doctor for the rest of this she’s pretty shaken after seeing literally all of her friends get murdered so she goes off of the universe as her faith in Asgardand all that is shaken Jens Obama’s junk planet on space called cigar more or less all the garbage in the universe goes where she slowly turns in a Han Solo mixed with archer also has another kid with his lovely as guardian wife Freda called Thor Thor is now the heir to the throne of Asgard as hell it totally doesn’t count later on in another plan around cardio nine there’s a species called the frost giants who want to conquer earth they came that guard which again guest yes Earth is another planet realm so they start invasion in the heart of the earth Scandinavia in Norway these guardians meet themand paddle them all the way back to your nine where they defeat them also licking the frost giant has a baby but he just is not to die outand find that baby is like God’s cute so he keeps in the namesand Lokiand he raises him with his actual son Thor never telling him that he’s actually frost giant nice of negotiate a peace treaty with frost giantsand take their source of power at the casket of ancient winters he also present on his vault Loki grew up togetherand they love each other even though they don’t always get along snake transformed into himselfand make Loki’s generally just kind of envious of Dorcas secretly gets more attentionand Thor also gets kind of writing area as he grows up as a is a prince those blue aliens called the Cree welder still hated by actually everyoneand so the end of starting a war with this huge Empire space called the no vampire this empire spends a lot of planets that were last for a long long time don’t worry we’ll get back to it Asgard also has his army of special soldiers a bit super enragedand store everything called the berserker Army one member of this army after a battle on earth decides to stay thereand he ends up living in a quaint little monastery in Ireland is berserker staff makes a person superstrong so he split it up into three piecesand distributed around the world is still a pretty busy kingand so he gets his hands on another infinity stone the space stone which is also called the Tesseract is IK the subject of insane power the most secure place in the universe Norwayand so he does also this as guardian woman whose voice ensnares men called Laura lie goes around nine plant around collecting an army of slave men she stoppedand imprisoned by as guardian where your name sift though still in Asgard yes a bunch of as good stuff happens this time there’s this blacksmith called how dear which if I was using my Danish voice would probably be had to buy this videos in Danish so hold dear anyway this guy finds artifact called the cup of glory but Loki seizes him because he’s Loki things a plan to steal it insults hold yearand gets chased by Holger sunblock Thor stuff the Chaseand Loki says it should have a contest of skill intelligenceand virtue to settle the matter in teams together this challenge enters tricksand schemes Loki steals a cup of in the process however through circumstances that really unimportant here Thor is arrogantand tries to take the cup they are realized the companies at the worst of them looking at what he did how do those crazy with power because the cupand trust sealed until Thorand then Thor was the fightand that’s the end of that Burger King time comic I’m not getting nothing really important happened for about 300 years by the 1800s hydra still sitting people through portals to the novice to get their tentacle leader back I on the other side keeps killing themand taking on the bodily forms to stop himself from dying some pieces also cut off from the monolithand given to the biggest fatcatsand Hydra now over the next 100 years hydra sort of moves away from the Holton Gloucester thing becomes more focused on just world domination as you do still doesn’t the above there are still big passing also the hand still rock about just being eviland stuff just don’t forget in the 1930s this kid called Howard Stark make some pretty crazy inventions because he’s a genius uses these at his other brilliant ideas to become a multimillionaire at a relatively young age there’s this sickly skinny sad kid called Steve Rogers in Brooklyn who has a heart of gold this other guy called Bucky Barnes helps them with some bulliesand so they become testes for decades to come like a lot of decades 1934 one of the biggest members of hydra is a guy called Johann Schmidt now that the Nazisand taking over Germany you want to join up with them Schmidt meets with Hitler is IK unable your evil let’s do thisand it was like sounds good to also needs the scientist called Arden Zola yes Arden not Armen starts working closely with him Hydra is now the Nazi deep science divisionand Schmidt has quite a few things on his to do list was a turn itself into a super soldier weapon for hydra he wants to adopt special weapons for the Nazis to use is looking defining the mythical Tesseract since it’ll probably be pretty useful in the whole taking over the world thing Howard Stark in his billionaire ring also meets Dr Abraham or Scott a German scientist was working on a serum that enhances a person’s physical abilities to the max super soldier serum if you will that is like KS it was a serum convenientand so Schmidt capturesand forces her skyand make the serum threatening to kill as a family Hydra continues to develop high tech next suits weapons but don’t have the extra to make them super laser heand cinematic yet the rafters Steve Rogers’s mom Sarah Rogers dies of tuberculosis is not often but Bucky helps to get through the tough times is with them to the end of the line over in Soviet Russia the red room program is started by the Soviet government is designed to brainwashand train young women to be super deadly assassin’s physical tank of shooting forceful sterilizationand ballet a little girl who would later be called Dottie Underwood is draining this program to become a superspy out Stark has all this moneyand all this tackling around so he starts of the company for all his awesome inventions called Stark industries which start stealing scienceand eventually weapons with the help of his own resources Stark also comes across in that I bring him that still left over in Africa takes the tiny man he finds back USA to work on now there’s this woman called Peggy Carter she’s a code breaker in England working for the British she doesn’t get married to this guy called Fred her brotherand BFF Michael recommends her to be a field agent because she such a badass the pays like I can fight this guy you hate Michael but then Michael diesand this pushes Peggy to become field agentand call for wedding needs to start working with Chester Phillips in the US Army. And see you want to show in and on our supposed to possibly kill the enemy and and not the no feverish and will will in this and that’s not the problem is not going all five and you sold me know you are and that they go to the oh so real about is moving company off the money I will be in this will not only the cost know about me goal so don’t go now and that I was in this is that some smart is not okay what portion they know what they will about 1 See Other Shirt: There Was A Girl Who Really Loved Baking And Dogs It Was Me T Shirt