#sanders sides spook 2018

[notveryglittery]

sanders spook #1

prompt: haunted house words: ~1k / ships: royality (up to you tbh!) & analogical (implied romantic) notes: peep @sanderssidesspook for the prompts!! read on ao3!! / read more of my spooky prompts!

“I’m not so sure I’m down for this.”

“We’re already here, though!”

“It’s okay if you want to sit this one out, kiddo. I’ll hang with you. We could go get shaved ice from that place down the road!”

“Oh, but, dearheart, I’m so looking forward to your reactions! You always compliment the actors on their makeup and costumes. It’s just the cutest thing.”

“Well, they work so hard to look so good!”

“I wouldn’t mind accompanying Virgil if he decides not to participate.”

Virgil dropped his head into his hands and groaned. The other three went silent, waiting patiently while Virgil internally debated the pros and cons. It took a few minutes but he eventually lowered his arms, shaking them out as he did so.

“Alright,” Virgil said finally. “Alright, fine! Let’s get this over with.”

Roman and Patton cheered. Logan looped an arm through Virgil’s and followed after the more energetic pair. Virgil kept in step with him, counting each of his breaths as he did so.

“It’ll be alright, yeah?" He asked Logan quietly.

“Of course,” Logan assured him. “They are, after all, only actors and they aren’t allowed to touch you. The decor is fake. If at any point, you feel that closing your eyes may help, do so, and I will guide you through safely.”

“That’s so sweet,” Roman stage-whispered, sending a conspiratorial glance over his shoulder to Virgil, whose cheeks were suddenly quite red. He looked very pointedly away from Logan.

Patton pinched Roman’s earlobe, teasingly scolding him for interrupting their moment. After a few more minutes, they all found themselves at the front of the line to enter the haunted house. Tickets had been relatively cheap despite the spectacular reviews and Roman refused to pass up such a deal. It wasn’t so much a “house” as it was an abandoned JOANN Fabric and Crafts store. The space was large, allowing for a maze of sorts that lead through various themed rooms. It was pitch black the moment they stepped in, though a flashlight was shoved into Patton’s free hand.

“You just get the one,” a voice hissed in his ear.

He startled towards Roman at the suddenness before laughing it off. He clicked the light on and glanced back to Logan and Virgil.

“Shall we?” He asked, as if they had any choice in the matter.

Roman grasped Patton’s other hand firmly in his own and began to lead the way. He was eager to see how much work had been put into this apparent 4 out of 5 star haunted experience and whether or not it would meet his expectations.

“Ro, honey,” Patton giggled, “I’m the one with the light!”

Still, they continued much as they’d begun. Roman took the front with Patton and Virgil following while Logan took up the rear. Virgil had almost immediately moved on from simply linking arms with Logan and instead had a vise grip on his hand. With Logan’s reassurances still fresh in mind, Virgil found it easy to handle the gore surrounding them. The first few rooms were tame and the only performers they came across kept to their corners.

It wasn’t until Patton’s flashlight flickered that Virgil began to worry. Patton screamed in the darkness, but it wasn’t necessarily frightened. Through the sound of his heart racing in his ears, Virgil vaguely heard Patton complimenting whoever had scared him.

Roman was laughing. Logan squeezed Virgil’s hand.

Every so often, Patton’s flashlight would conveniently go out, and a specter or an axe murderer or a witch would pop out and scare them. They seemed to pay most attention to the ones leading the way, for which Virgil was grateful. At some point, Logan stepped closer into his personal space and while Virgil would normally complain about it, the familiar scent of Logan’s cologne helped to calm him down.

“Are you doing alright?” He asked, breath ghosting against Virgil’s skin.

“Peachy,” Virgil answered shakily.

“Don’t forget what I—”

The sound of a chainsaw revving interrupted Logan before he could continue.

“No way,” Virgil snapped.

“Last room!” Roman shouted, tugging Patton further along.

Logan, keeping Virgil’s hand clasped in his, looped their arms together once more, and began to lead the way. He had no doubt that Roman and Patton, and their light source, would leave them behind without meaning to. Being even more in the dark wouldn’t help Virgil in the least.

“Last room,” Logan echoed, tapping a 4-7-8 rhythm against Virgil’s arm with his free hand. They were so closely wound together, Virgil was surprised they weren’t tripping over each other’s feet.

The last room wasn’t exactly the scariest but it was certainly the most chaotic. All the creatures they’d encountered on the way seemed to have congregated here as if to make one last ditch effort the scare their visitors. Roman was laughing breathlessly while Patton tried to shower praise onto any actor that would listen.

They’re good at their jobs, Virgil thought, finding that not a single one of them were breaking character, despite Patton’s enthusiasm.

While they were distracted, Virgil sped through the space and towards the final door. An exit sign lit up in red (there were safety protocols to follow, after all) promised freedom. Just as Virgil was in arm’s reach of the handle, a figure barely five feet in height leapt in his way. He yelped in alarm, stumbling backwards, and into Logan who had been directly behind him.

“Back, you demon!” Roman exclaimed, playing his favorite part as if he were part of the show himself. He’d taken the flashlight from Patton and was brandishing it like a sword, the beam of light cutting through the darkness.

They snarled at Roman before melting back into the shadows. Roman spun to face his friends, wearing a most charming smile.

“Yeah, yeah, thanks so much,” Virgil said, waving a hand dismissively. “Can we go now?”

Patton skipped passed Roman and pushed the door open. A blast of cool air cleared the musty atmosphere and Virgil was the first to rush outside, dragging Logan with him. Roman came next. Patton took his time leaving, yelling back into the room how proud he was of everybody and what a good job they had done — Roman eventually took him gently by the wrist and pulled him outside. The door slammed shut.

“That was exhilarating!” Roman said, pacing through the parking lot behind the building that the door had let out into. There was a booth nearby set up with merchandise and a tip jar. “Definite four out of five! I give it the Roman Stamp of Approval!”

“That is not a thing that exists,” Logan told him, disbelieving.

Roman pouted. “Well, it should!”

Patton ushered them along to the display stands so they could all get a matching trinket. Of course, he continued to offer admiration to any employee that would listen. (And if Virgil held onto Logan’s hand a bit longer than needed, well, he had a perfectly good reason to, so there.)

[megacircuit9universe]

Trumpty Dumpty

WED FEB 05 2020

There used to be a legend, in my family, that my mom’s grandfather on her mother’s side, was the son of an, “Indian squaw.”  Without getting too technical, research on Ancestry.Com about the woman in question, proved beyond all doubt that she was white as the driven snow.

Why?  Because she happened to be Mormon... and Mormons happen to be extremely serious about genealogy... and have been since long before the internet came along.

This woman, my great great grandmother, had a thoroughly researched family tree on Ancestry going back to the Mayflower*... as do all Mormons, because they take history seriously.

I am certain this is why Mitt Romney, today turned out to be the one and only Republican who voted to convict and remove Donald Trump.

...Because while all this talk about how they’ll be viewed by history rings hollow to every other GOP Senator currently in Congress, to Mitt Romney, it means something, because he knows his descendants will never forget who he was, or what he did with his life... and that to join in on the acquittal of Trump would bring shame to his family for generations to come.

And he knew that... because we all know, that nobody in the near future, or the distant future, or the very remote future, will ever think of Donald Trump as anything but a shitty person, a terrible President, and an appallingly myopic world leader.

But yes... there was no flash removal of Trump today.  He was acquitted, to the shock of  nobody.  But it is worth mentioning that the 48 Senators who voted to convict and remove Trump, represent eighteen million more people than the fifty-two Senators who acquitted him.

Eighteen million.

Immediately after his acquittal, Trump tweeted a CGI video flying over Trump campaign signs that said, “Trump 2020,” then, “Trump 2024,” then 28, 30, 40, and so on until beyond the year 9000 or some bullshit, before ending on Trump 4EVA.

I saw this, passing by a TV at work today, an it spooked me pretty good, because... well, here at MegaCircuit9Universe we talk a lot about time travel and in our model, he (his hyperversal twins on all worldlines) are well known for always attempting to, and sometimes succeeding at, becoming a dictator for life.

News folk passed this tweet off as a simple troll, as the video was a modified version of one created last year by Time Magazine (of all magazines) to promote an article about how Trumpism will outlast Trump.

I didn’t read that article, so I can’t comment on it, but the point here is, that was not just a simple troll.  That was Trump, surviving one of the final checks on his power, putting us on notice of his intention to be our new dictator for life.

I wonder what the AI bot coalition is thinking about that today... especially since yesterday, at the State of the Union address, he continued to crow about, and take full credit for, the booming economy... that they continuously keep from derailing... because for most of them, it is the primary objective.

I would presume that they, as bots, would seek to exhaust every other possible option available, before actually allowing the economy to tank.  And... there are still other options to exhaust in the quest to dislodge Trump from power... within a reasonable time frame.**

This same truth is what likely lead Speaker Pelosi to, just at the end of Trump’s ridiculous SOTU speech (in which he stopped to administer surprise gifts to audience members, encourage cheers of four more years, and in general made the affair a circus of lies) To tear up her copy of the speech, on camera, standing directly behind him.

I should stop to note here that his SOTU, for as crazy as it was, was quite positive in tone... so, very much the opposite of the one I recently suggested might flip the Senate against him... one full of wrath and nonsensical raving.

At any rate, Pelosi’s stunt of ripping up the speech had the immediate effect of stealing all the press coverage about SOTU for the rest of the night and into today.  From the minute the speech was over, the only thing anybody in the media or online wanted to talk about was this stunt of hers... with it going viral on social media in the form of animated GIFs... being praised by the left, and decried by the right.

But many now speculate that this was also a signal that the House is not done with Trump.  Indeed, some say the whole Impeachment trial, it’s timing delayed by a month, thanks to the Speaker, has been a kind of opening act to warm the audience up for the headliner act... which will be about court cases landing against his obstruction of subpoenas, his taxes coming out finally, more FOIA requests coming to fruition, more crimes coming to light, etc.

It doesn’t require any aluminum foil to imagine that such a second act... or third act, if you count the Mueller probe as act one... could finally bring the roof down on Trump’s head in this, an election year.

We all know the Ukraine shakedown was just the tip of an enormous iceberg, which, beneath the water’s surface, is the size of Mauna Kea... and that a shit ton of it will be coming to light soon... as courts strike down his past attempts at damage control... grant information requests to newspapers... as oversight hearings continue in the house... as books are published... and on.

What’s different now, after the impeachment trial, is that we all now also know which Senators are consciously complicit in Trump’s grand crime scheme, and it’s cover up.

We’ve had an idea for a while which House Representatives were complicit (Nunes), but that’s not such a big deal anymore, as we got back the House in 2018, but it took this impeachment trial to expose those poker faced Senators.

Senators play things a lot closer to the vest (Except for McConnell and Graham) which is natural, given that there are only 100 of them, and each one has a lot more power than the average House Rep... thus, a lot more power to lose, if they dirty their shoes in the muck that Reps will occasionally roll about in like swine.

The Impeachment essentially put a gun to their heads... confess your loyalty, Trump or the Constitution... because it cannot be both.

And now that 52 of them confessed, beyond any doubt, that their loyalty is to Trump, over the Constitution... well, now they’re all fair game, when it comes to exposing the greater bulk of that corruption iceberg.  

Lev Parnas named Lindsey Graham as being in the loop with the Ukraine extortion scheme... and Bolton named Cipollone.  And now you can bet your ass a lot more Senators and White House cabinet members will be exposed as being in that loop... and other loops... all looping around Trump... who is looping around Putin.

And I’ll leave the impeachment and SOTU analysis there for tonight.

Because I still have to talk about Iowa!

-------------------------------

So, in chronological order, on February 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th, it was... Super Bowl, Iowa, SOTU, and Impeachment.

Ignoring the Super Bowl, which had no real impact on anything here, Iowa, back on the 3rd, is still not resolved tonight as I write.

The Iowa Democratic Party refused to release any election results at all, the night of the caucuses... citing bullshit technical problems.  The next day, they released 62% of the results.  Then today... released up to 81% of the results... which were found, by sharp eyed election officials to have glaring errors, which IDP then, grudgingly corrected... while still not giving us 100% of the results at the time of writing.

In a nutshell, the original excuse of technical problems with some app they were using doesn’t hold water two days later, because there should have been plenty of time by now to count the paper record by hand, and so it does look as though the IDP simply did not like the results on election night... and has been scrambling to finesse them, ever since.

Why did they not like the results?  Because, as I predicted, Joe Biden bit the dust, in this first primary election of the season, coming in a distant fourth place. But even worse... Bernie Sanders knocked it out of the park.

That, for the DNC, is not an acceptable outcome, and so, one would assume, they put pressure on IDP to hold off on announcing and, please double, triple, and quadruple check everything, until... they get something they can live with.

We saw the DNC do this in 2016, when Hillary was their darling, so... the only thing surprising here, is the level of desperation... over-reaching this far to suppress the results, this early on in the game.

The Faustian bargain the DNC (and IDP) are soo sloowly arriving at, is that Pete Buttigieg, who seems to have come in second in reality, should be presented to the world as having come in first... because if there’s no amount of finesse that can save Joe Biden from his pitiful numbers, then hand the centrist torch to  Buttigieg.  But no way in hell can Bernie Sanders get the political momentum he, and his voters earned out of this!

This does tend to expose how corrupt the DNC still is, and serve to remind us how we got Donald Trump in the first place... after they played this game in 2016, manufacturing consent for Hillary Clinton that did not exist on the ground.

But this time around, it’s not gonna play.  

It’s not gonna wash.

It’s not gonna work.

It won’t work because, Bernie has too much of a head of steam, and there is nobody else in the field that can stop him.  

Warren looked good until she revealed that she was not really for Medicare for all, but just some public option compromise bullshit.  She’s been failing ever since that reveal, and her lame attempt to cast Bernie as a sexist hurt her even worse.

Biden, as predicted earlier in this blog, just has no game, and is running out of money quick.  He’ll be gone before Super Tuesday in March.

Buttigieg blew his wad on Iowa and at the moment is simply a centrist place holder for Biden.  All of his support will go to Bloomberg, as soon as Bloomberg enters the race in March.

This will leave it between Bernie and Bloomberg through the spring... but Bloomberg has no legs.

How do I know that?  Well, as a billionaire trying to buy the election, he’s hemorrhaging millions out of pocket right now, just to stay relevant.  And, while being a billionaire,  he can afford to hemorrhage millions forever, without feeling the slightest bit faint, it’s a sign of failure that he has to go this route.

Where are his donors?  He doesn’t have any because he has no ground game at all.  All he has are ads.  This is just a publicity stunt at it’s heart.

Obama, famous for his relentless ground game, blew away this kind of media blitz, money-is-no-object, opposition both times out.  In his case they were being funded by SuperPacs, but it’s the same strategy of just pouring millions into ads without knocking on any doors.

Bernie Sanders has an even more relentless ground game than Obama ever had, without being funded by any corporate donors or super pacs... with more money than any of his rivals (other than Bloomberg) coming from the donations of regular wage workers.

He also has one magic card that even Trump can never possess... the 18 to 45 vote!

Trump won in 2016 by cobbling together a coalition of white schizophrenics, criminally insane white nationalists, Book of Revelation lunatics, and a freight train of garden variety conservative cowards, groomed by their elders to worship whoever seems to hold the scepter of authority no matter what they say or stand for.

That was a clever way to wring the last ounces of water there was left out of the damp cloth that is the white, conservative, male vote, in a post Obama universe.

But!..

Those hard won numbers in just the right districts, in just the right states... pale in comparison to the numbers available to he who can unlock the all-race, all-gender, 18 to 45 vote.

And Bernie has done that, this time around. 

There is opposition to him, among the centrist boomers, and even some GenX and so-called, X-ennials... fearing that his nomination is just what Trump wants, and will seal our doom.  

But even in the Primary season to come... that’s not gonna make a difference.  By the Convention, the DNC will have no other choice than to nominate Sanders.

That’s my prediction.

Okay... extra long entry for an extra crazy start to February.

I’m going to bed.

*When you go back enough generations, everybody has some claim to a Mayflower passenger in their family tree... just as everybody can claim to be a descendant of Genghis Khan.  

It’s just a quirk of the fact that every generation you go back, you are covering exponentially more people.

The point here is that my great great grandmother had an exhaustive family tree researched by many others... going back to the point where it becomes meaningless (mayflower) which guarantees beyond any doubt, she was not an, “Indian squaw,” as family legend contended.

** Economy Bots seek to unseat Trump because he has abused the legacy Presidential power of tariffs, which artificially changes the prices of things in a way they cannot control.

Thus, the reasonable time frame for removing Trump, is... sooner than he can tank the economy all by himself... which, since the inverted yield curve of mid 2018, has meant:  as soon as possible.

[autisticmight]

4, 5, 6, 11, 13, 29

oh my gosh i forgot about this!!! but hell yeah ily

4)   a song that makes you feel strong

oh fuck. um. babymetal, karate. good for carving wood to and also alternating between power-walking down the street and bouncing up and down

5)   a song that makes you sad

most of them. but, uh, i guess i’ll be going with when by dodie, bc at different points in my life in the past few years, different lines have hit me in different ways

bonus: dear happy by dodie, with thomas sanders also being there. if no other part of me is into guys, my ears are

6)   a song that cheers you up

...well FUCK

and then i was just scrolling down my youtube feed and. here it is. the most joyous song (cw for cartoony food pictures and food mentions, it’s an oster project song)

music like magic by oster project, for the 2018 miku expo!!! i still remember the dance that they put out to make up for the lack of free glowsticks that they were handing out, but i brought glowsticks and my friend sou brought five wotagei stick thingys so we were Set

11)  a song that brings back good memories

gonna out myself as an autistic with no rights rn bc this is a thing that people think is Cringey and you all already know that i’ve read fanfiction of it anyway so

remember how i had that year out of education when i turned eighteen? bc i couldn’t pursue higher education bc my confidence and energy was so knocked by the mandatory sixth form/tech college law in the uk? and how that led to the best thing in my life, poppy, happening?

sanders sides was being released very regularly, while being a very new thing, at the same time

poppy had to listen to this so much

(and then the episodes started getting longer and i got spooked so i didn’t watch all of the newer ones until dealing with intrusive thoughts turned it into a special interest and i’m furious. i was saving that special interest for bnha)

13)  a song from a musical

oh fuck you. fuck you, fex. you know that i’m Like This. just “a song”. no specifics

here. it might make you uncomfortable. listen to it, fex. listen to it

29)  a song by a band you don’t usually like

most christmas songs. this totally didn’t take me ten minutes to figure out an answer to. next question

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.

Poll of the Week

Most polls survey people who are either registered — or at least likely — to vote, but a new Knight Foundation poll interviewed over 12,000 people who don’t vote.

These are people who are eligible but not registered to vote, or who are registered but rarely vote. Nonvoters make up a sizable percentage of the eligible voting-age population, too — about 100 million people, or 43 percent. But they’re kind of a mystery. We know a fair bit about these nonvoters demographically — they’re young, less educated and a bit poorer than the electorate — but they could be hugely influential if they actually turned out. After all, the share of voters who didn’t vote in 2016 was larger than the share of voters that voted for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

It’s not entirely clear, though, which party would benefit if they did vote in 2020. “Conventional wisdom has been that if all nonvoters turned up to vote there would be an overwhelming win for the Democratic Party,” said Evette Alexander, a director at the Knight Foundation who participated in the survey design. “But I think what we’re seeing in the survey is that both parties can and should try to engage. There is room for both parties to engage nonvoters and to both have turnout increase.” Here are some insights into who these nonvoters are:

1. Nonvoters are less white, less educated, poorer, younger and more likely to be women than those who do vote. So based on demographics alone, nonvoters sound like a large pool of potential Democratic voters, as Democrats tend to skew younger and more racially diverse than Republicans. But this doesn’t account for how the makeup of nonvoters can vary pretty dramatically from state to state. A New York Times Upshot/Siena College poll conducted in six battleground states last fall found, for instance, that less educated white voters were overrepresented among nonvoters in battleground states and were more likely to vote for Trump. The Times also found in that survey that while black voters are a huge source of support for Democrats, those who hadn’t voted in recent elections weren’t necessarily likely to vote Democratic. The Knight Foundation survey provided further evidence that Democrats may not hold an edge in reaching nonvoters, as it found that factors like education and income were more important in predicting whether someone was a nonvoter than factors like race and gender, and those factors worked in Trump’s favor in the last presidential election.

2. Nonvoters lean slightly Democratic overall, but they favor President Trump in some key states. The poll also asked nonvoters who they would vote for if they were to vote, and found they were almost evenly split — 33 percent say they would vote for the Democratic nominee, 30 percent say they would vote for Trump and 18 percent say they would vote for someone else. However, this breakdown varied quite a bit in battleground states, which Knight sampled heavily. Nevada’s “chronic nonvoters,”1 for example, split evenly, but those in Pennsylvania and Florida skewed heavily toward Trump while those in Georgia would skew Democratic if they all voted.

Nonvoters lean toward Trump in some key states

Vote preference for nonvoters (people eligible to vote but are not registered, and those who are registered but have voted only once in the last six national elections)

State President Trump Democratic Nominee Lean Alabama 34% 25% R+9 Pennsylvania 36 28 R+8 Florida 36 31 R+5 Virginia 35 31 R+4 New Hampshire 30 29 R+1 Minnesota 29 29 0 Nevada 33 33 0 Michigan 31 32 D+1 Wisconsin 31 33 D+2 Georgia 29 34 D+5

The survey did not distinguish between nonvoters who plan to vote in the 2020 general election and those who do not.

Source: Knight Foundation

3. It’s possible that some of these nonvoters will vote in 2020. A large majority of nonvoters (71 percent) say they plan to vote in 2020, and 55 percent express “absolute certainty” that they will vote this year. Of course, even though enthusiasm is relatively high in 2020, that doesn’t mean everyone who says they’re interested in voting will ultimately cast a ballot. Alexander told FiveThirtyEight that the question was intended only to measure enthusiasm, not to predict turnout. She explained that most nonvoters were probably still unlikely to turn out, but the fact that so many expressed an interest shows that there is a group — especially among those who follow news more closely, are more educated and have higher incomes — that could be persuaded.

4. Many nonvoters say the main reason they don’t vote is because they feel disengaged. While some chronic nonvoters could turn out, the Knight Foundation poll also asked an open-ended question about why nonvoters choose not to vote. The two most common responses were nonvoters don’t like the candidates (17 percent) or they think their vote doesn’t matter (12 percent). Among those who are not registered to vote, a plurality (29 percent) said that they’re simply not interested or don’t care. Reaching nonvoters could be difficult as well. Seventy-three percent of voters said they actively seek out news and information, while only 56 percent of nonvoters said so. The rest said that they “mostly bump into news and information as [they] do other things or hear about it from others.”

The results of the poll indicate that an overall increase in turnout may not be an overwhelming benefit to either side, but either Trump or the Democratic nominee could benefit from finding ways to activate the nonvoters who are more likely to vote for them. Activating nonvoters could be a difficult and expensive venture for campaigns, though, and many nonvoters may still ultimately not turn out, but if 2020 is an especially close election, who doesn’t turn out could matter a whole lot. If both parties work to reach disengaged Americans and convince people that their vote matters, that would be a “win for democracy,” said Alexander.

Other Polling Bites

Democrats in Nevada will be caucusing on Saturday, and FiveThirtyEight’s primary forecast gives Sen. Bernie Sanders a 3 in 4 chance of winning the most votes. Sanders also leads in FiveThirtyEight’s polling average with 27 percent support, but Nevada is a notoriously difficult state to poll and recent polls are scarce. Of the five polls we have from February, Sanders has anywhere from a double-digit margin to a 6-point deficit in a poll in which billionaire Tom Steyer leads the pack.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine could face a competitive race this fall, according to a Colby College poll of registered voters in the state. Forty-two percent of respondents said they would vote for Collins, while 43 percent said they would vote for Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon, a Democrat challenging Collins for her seat.

In Wednesday’s debate, the Democratic candidates (with one notable exception) subtly and not-so-subtly argued that nominating someone who identifies as a Democratic socialist could spook general election voters. And while 50 percent of Democrats have a favorable impression of socialism, according to a recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, only 27 percent of registered voters do. A whopping 60 percent do not have a favorable view of socialism, so this could be an issue for Sanders moving forward.

Roger Stone, a former Trump advisor, was sentenced on Thursday to more than three years in prison after being convicted of making false statements to Congress and witness tampering during a congressional investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. And perhaps unsurprisingly, given how split Republicans and Democrats were on the merits of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 election, views about the conviction were split along party lines. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans said Stone’s trial and conviction was more a case of “political prosecution” than proper law enforcement, compared with 12 percent of Democrats, according to a poll from The Economist/YouGov.

According to a Pew Research Center survey, Americans are now just as likely to say that the president and Congress should make protecting the environment a top priority (64 percent) as they are to say building a strong economy (67 percent). Both Democrats and Republicans seem to be driving this change, too. Eighty-five percent of Democrats and 39 percent of Republicans say protecting the environment should be a top concern, up from 62 percent and 28 percent, respectively, in 2016.

The Houston Astros dropped from ninth to dead last in net favorability among all 30 MLB teams in a Morning Consult poll. The poll surveyed adults before and after the league released a report last month outlining how the team had been cheating for years by using electronics to steal pitchers’ signs in violation of MLB rules. Your humble correspondent has roots in Houston, but condemns cheating in sports.

57 percent of registered voters in Georgia say they prefer Chick-fil-A over other fast-food chicken restaurants, according to a University of Georgia poll. Just 19 percent of respondents said they preferred Zaxby’s, and 14 percent Popeyes. Democrats and Republicans both preferred Chick-fil-A over the other restaurants, too, but there was still a partisan split with 70 percent of Republicans putting Chick-fil-A as their No. 1 choice compared with only 46 percent of Democrats.

Iranian parliamentary elections will be held on Friday. Public opinion polls for the elections are scant, but the ones we did find, including one poll from the Iranian Students Polling Agency conducted in January, hint that turnout may be low in Tehran Province. The Guardian Council, a powerful body currently dominated by conservative politicians, has disqualified thousands of candidates, including 92 sitting lawmakers, from running in the election. Some Iranians have called for a boycott, labeling the election a sham.

Trump Approval

According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 44.0 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 51.5 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -7.5 points). At this time last week, 43.9 percent approved and 51.8 percent disapproved (for a net approval rating of -7.9 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 41.9 percent and a disapproval rating of 53.9 percent, for a net approval rating of -12.0 points.

Generic Ballot

In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot, Democrats currently lead by 6.4 percentage points (47.7 percent to 41.3 percent). A week ago, Democrats led Republicans by 5.7 points (47.2 percent to 41.5 percent). At this time last month, voters preferred Democrats by 5.7 points (46.9 percent to 41.2 percent).

[oldguardaudio]

Rush Limbaugh is Right -> Republicans Still Let Democrats Set the Narrative

rush obama shadow government against trump at HoaxAndChange.com

Rush USA Flag at HoaxAndChange.com

rush-limbaugh @ Old Guard Audio

Mar 2, 2017

RUSH: Bobby in Richmond, Virginia. I’m glad you waited, sir. Welcome to the program.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. I appreciate you taking my call. The question we need to be asking ourselves is: Why are these Republicans accepting the media narrative? And when I ask myself that question, there’s only two things that it could be. One, they have an inability to learn how to beat the Democrats, or they’re progressives that are actively working against what we voted for — and in either case, we have to get rid of them. We have to find true candidates that are not politicians. We need to find people with common sense and critical-thinking skills that can understand how to beat these folks, because what they’re trying to do is ruining this country, and we’ve known it for my entire adult life. I’ll be 50 years old this year, and these people are actively working against what this country was founded for.

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RUSH: Name some names here. What Republicans are you referring to?

CALLER: I mean, what in the world is Chaffetz thinking? Do these guys not understand? I mean, McConnell? I don’t… You know, I heard Gingrich on with O’Reilly the other night talking about how McConnell knows more about how the Senate works than he ever will. Well, who cares if he knows how it works? He’s not getting anything done. I mean, we’ve had, what, six times we’ve sent bills to Obama to repeal and replace Obamacare, but we don’t have a bill waiting? That’s absurd, Rush. It’s ridiculous, and it is insulting to me as a person that voted for change, to even try to make me think that it’s true.

RUSH: Jason Chaffetz has a great reputation as a great guy. He’s thought of as a reliable conservative. Why do you think that he is jumping on this train suggesting that Sessions might be wise to recuse himself as the investigation goes forward? Kevin McCarthy is the other. Senator Lindsey Graham has now said that he thinks that… (paraphrased) “He’s my dear friend, too. Jeff’s one of my closest friends, but I really think Jeff needs to get out of there during this investigation, too many potential conflicts.” Why do you think these guys do it? You think it’s they’re either “progressives” or that they’re just don’t know how to fight the Democrats? Which one do you think it is?

CALLER: I think they’re progressives. I do not believe that these guys have a… I don’t think they have our best interests at heart. They have getting elected, they have getting reelected as their primary goal every day when they wake up: “What do you have to do to get reelected?” And until we start holding them accountable at the ballot box, running viable candidates against them… Make them expend some capital. Make them understand that we’re not playing games anymore. They do not want our federal government turned back over to the people. They want the power. They want the influence.

RUSH: Well, okay. I’m sure you have a lot of people who agree with you on that. I’d like to trace this back and try to find things that happen over and over again when you’re looking for explanations. Because if you can find repetition, you’ll probably find an answer. And the one thing that appears to me here is that the Democrats, because they are the media, still establish the narrative for Washington every day. And whatever that narrative is, the Republicans — for some reason (I think it’s force of habit and years and years of conditioning) — still become subservient to whatever that narrative is.

Now, the narrative that we’re talking about here is the Russians hacked the election, interfered with the election and screwed Hillary out of the presidency. That’s what all this is. Now, when did this start? I’ll tell you, red flags went up for me months ago, folks. Months ago when this talk about the Russians interfering in the election started, when I saw Republicans just willingly accept that premise and acknowledge that, “Yeah, yeah, we need to get to the bottom of this,” that’s when the danger flags went up. I’m talking about during the campaign last summer and into last fall.

Because this is a complete concoction of the Democrat Party. It is a complete narrative — daily soap opera script, however you want to refer to it — of the Democrat Party. And, of course, the media is the implementation engine for this. And that got started because of the hack on the John Podesta emails that ended up on WikiLeaks, and then we had an official investigation as to how that happened and some reputable IT people said, “Yeah, well, we got some fingerprints we’ve seen in there from the Russians!”

What they really said was the fingerprints are from two different Russian intelligence agencies who didn’t know that the other had also hacked. And then there’s a hacker by the name of Guccifer that people were trying to track down. But they think that it’s the modern equivalent of the KGB in one instance and another Russian intel group that were trying to hack both the DNC and the RNC computer networks, and that they succeeded in the DNC by getting past their security and their firewalls. But apparently the RNC network was so secure the Russians couldn’t get in.

That’s what we’ve been told. Because, you see, folks, I’m sure it was very embarrassing for Podesta and the Democrats and Hillary — infuriating, too — to have all of those emails out there. They never denied the contents of them. They did their best to ignore ’em and they tried to jump on the press for publishing. The press didn’t focus all that much attention on ’em, not the Drive-By press. It just became an automatic conclusion that the Russians did it. And I guarantee you, if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency, there wouldn’t have been another word said about this. Not a syllable. There wouldn’t be an investigation.

There wouldn’t be anybody pulling their hair out. Obama wouldn’t have left a trail of evidence for investigators. They wouldn’t have cared. Because it’s nothing more than an artifice that has been created by the Democrats and the media, first as a protective measure — a defensive measure — against their own incompetence. It’s their own incompetence that led to Podesta’s emails being discovered. It’s their own incompetence and laziness. These are the people that rig elections! Let us not forget, the Democrat National Committee rigged the primary for Hillary Clinton.

That was discovered as a result.

Some of the Podesta emails proved this, and some of the other things that were found.

The Bernie Sanders campaign is fit to be tied to this day over what happened to them. If you want to talk about any actual tampering or interfering with elections, you have to go right to the Democrat National Committee and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, because that’s where whatever they’re alleging here actually did happen. They made it possible. They engineered it so that Bernie Sanders did not have a prayer of winning the nomination. He was never gonna win it. Never. It was made to look like it was legitimate, that he had a chance and so forth, but the game was rigged, and it was stacked against him from the get-go. And this has been established.

And now all of a sudden that is ignored and instead we’re trying to connect dots on some sort of conversations that have happened that nobody can find any evidence for that have resulted in Hillary losing. And I’m gonna say this, I’m gonna keep saying it until it becomes an automatic reaction to people. The story here is the effort on the part of the Democrat Party and their willing buddies and accomplices in the media to sabotage, to undermine the election of Donald Trump and to sabotage his presidency.

We even had a story today in the U.K. Daily Mail that Valerie Jarrett has moved into Obama and Michelle’s House in the Kalorama section of Washington, DC. She’s moved in, she’s an adult. Presumably she has the money to afford her own crib. But she’s moved in with the Obamas. This is highly abnormal, if you ask me. An adult woman moving in with Barack and Michelle, she’s not family or whatever. This is odd. This is really odd. The oddity, the abnormality, the weirdness is all on the Democrat side, to me. And the U.K. Daily Mail says that the Obama home is the nerve center for this effort to undermine the Trump presidency.

Let me read to you a paragraph from The Politico story today, the one that’s headlined, “With a Single Speech Trump Rattles the 2018 Landscape.” The Democrats figured 2018 would mark the beginning of their comeback. They haven’t the slightest idea what their reality is.

“It’s far too early in his term to speculate about what the 2018 political climate might look like. And one speech can’t paper over a polarizing policy agenda,” supposedly Trump’s. But if a large part of Democrats’ plan for the 2018 midterm elections was to let Trump stumble his way into a pile of Republican losses, his speech to Congress on Tuesday reminded them it would not be that easy. At the same time, it reassured Republicans spooked by recent town hall intensity that the president might not be the flat-out liability he once seemed in the chaotic early days of his presidency.”

Do you realize how much fake news there is in this paragraph? Trump’s agenda is not polarizing. A majority of Americans voted for it. A majority of Americans are clamoring for it. A majority of Americans are asking the Republicans in Congress to get off their hands and implement it! Trump’s agenda is not polarizing except to the establishment and to the Democrats and the media. But it’s not polarizing out in the country.

All of these protests at town halls? Fake, bought and paid for. We know how this happened. “It reassured Republicans spooked by recent town hall intensity the president might not be the flat-out liability –” Trump’s not a liability. Trump’s the president. Trump won. Trump’s supporters are clearly behind him and that speech he gave I’m sure has expanded his base and the intensity of support that he has.

These protests at town hall meetings? Are we really to believe the Republicans were, “Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, Trump’s killing us, oh, my God.” That’s what they want everybody to believe ’cause that’s the story they want to create, that is the narrative they want you and millions of Americans to accept. It is arrogant, it is condescending and it’s contemptible. What is polarizing in this country is the Democrat Party agenda. What is polarizing and divisive is the Democrat Party agenda and the things they have been trying to do.

If anybody’s out of touch in this country, if there is this big divide and big disconnect, it’s in the Democrat Party and the people of this country. When I read things like the Republicans are worried this and worried that, what I hear is that the Republicans still allow the Democrats to establish the narrative every day in Washington to which everyone responds. And today it’s Sessions needs to recuse, Sessions needs to be charged with perjury, Sessions needs to quit because he lied to Senator Franken about talking to the Russians. Which I guess I better deal with that and help you to try to understand that next, so don’t go away.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, look at this. The Democrats are now demanding a criminal probe. I told a friend of mine last night, when I first got wind of this Sessions business last night, I said, “You keep a sharp eye because they are going to demand impeachment or perjury. They’re gonna demand a perjury charge against Sessions and go after him on a criminal basis.”

And that’s what they’re talking about. Their probe is more anal than it is criminal, but they’re out there demanding it. And Bret Baier on Fox just pointed the Claire McCaskill tweets and the hypocrisy. She’s tweeting (imitating McCaskill), “I’ve been on the Foreign Relations Committee for a thousand years, and I’ve never talked to a Russian ambassador.” And then we find two tweets of hers bragging about meeting them.

But again, you can point out all this stuff all day long and it’s not gonna change the narrative. What’s the media gonna say, “Oops, okay, so McCaskill’s done all this, too? Okay. Well, I guess we’ll pull back on Sessions.” It ain’t gonna happen that way. That’s not how this stuff is gonna get beaten back. And it has to be beaten back. The Republicans ought to be running that town. The Republicans won the election. Where is the attitude of victory? Where is the glow of victory on the faces of Republicans in that town? I don’t see it yet.

Look, for all of you out there frustrated by this, I just want to tell you, I’m with you. The idea that the Democrats still get to set the narrative in that town. I know they have the media and so forth. There’s no reason we have to play along with it. And now this Adam Schiff guy, he’s a Democrat congressman, he’s the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee. He’s been out there just whining and moaning for the past two weeks on this investigation. And he’s been saying, we don’t have anything.

So there’s a story here in The Politico: “Rep. Schiff Accuses Comey of Withholding Information on Russia Probe.” Poor Comey. Now he’s in the middle of it again. Now the Democrats are accusing him of having investigatory information that he’s not sharing with them. There isn’t any! The New York Times has admitted that none of these Obama surrogates, saboteurs, deep state embeds, whatever you want to call ’em, in three different New York Times stories now, the reference is clear that none of these people have found any evidence.

All it is is nameless sources alleging that it is possible and requires an investigation. But so far there’s no evidence to support allegation. No evidence. And so Schiff is demanding that Comey turn it over. There isn’t any. You know, I’m starting to get suspicious of this word “investigation.” Do you realize what that all now encompasses?

When you hear the word “investigation,” what do you think? You think of a bunch of private eye type guys, detectives and cops, and they’re always on the go, and they’re out there and they’re walking the streets and they’re beating the shoe leather and they’re interviewing people and they’re taking notes and they’re turning things upside down, they’re getting search warrants.

When you think of an investigation, you think of something that has a lot of action to it. Well, the way “investigation” is being used now, it’s basically used to accompany or signify anybody’s curiosity about something. When you say that there’s an investigation going on, it implies that it’s a serious matter and that there are really powerful law enforcement people doing the investigation, and it conveys something far more serious and detailed than may what actually be going on.

Rush Limbaugh is Right -> Republicans Still Let Democrats Set the Narrative Rush Limbaugh is Right -> Republicans Still Let Democrats Set the Narrative Mar 2, 2017 RUSH: Bobby in Richmond, Virginia.

[notveryglittery]

sanders spook #2

prompt: sunsets in sweaters words: ~600 / ship: moxiety (platonic or romantic) notes: reminder that these prompts won’t take place in the same universe!! if they do, i’ll be sure to link back to the one(s) before it! @sanderssidesspook and the prompt list itself!

read on ao3!! / read more of my spooky prompts!

There was a bite to the air, as one would expect for cool fall weather; the sun had shone consistently throughout the day so it wasn't terribly chilly. With the light fading now from the sky, however, night would be cold enough to warrant long sleeves and layers.

Thankfully, Patton and Virgil were no strangers to wearing long sleeves and layers.

Bundled in his usual black and purple patched hoodie, Virgil was so far doing just fine, leaning back on his forearms, and staring up at the sky. Patton was sat cross legged next to him, wearing the cat hoodie Logan had gifted to him a few birthdays ago, as well as mittens with paw pads on them. A thermos of hot tea was clutched between his hands and he held it close to his chest, inhaling the scent of apple and cinnamon.

"Today was fun," Virgil murmured, breaking the silence.

"Yeah!" Patton agreed without hesitation, "I'm so glad we got our decorations all up in one go!"

While it was a hell of a task, the pair had managed to decorate the exterior of the apartment while playing Halloween themed music all the while. The building manager had even swung by and complimented them on their "eye for design" before thanking them for sticking to the rules in the contract. A story followed of a group of tenants who had put out fog machines and strobe lights one year, which was very out of line due to safety concerns. Patton had laughed and promised they'd never do something so extreme while Virgil internally panicked at the image of such a disaster scene.

Inside their apartment, it wasn't quite as detailed. The fake spiderwebs were meant solely for outside and where Patton frequented the least. So instead, they strung fall colored leaves along the walls and into the corners. All of the candles were autumn scented and they'd replaced the couch pillows with ones themed for the occasion. The occasion being, of course, the season of spooking.

As a well deserved break, the pair had made the short trek to a nearby hiking trail. They'd headed up while it was still bright out and were happy to see that the outlook wasn't already occupied. Laying out the quilt Patton had been working on for roughly three years, they'd gotten cozy to watch the sun travel lower and lower through the sky, for a dazzling display of pinks, reds, purples, yellows, and oranges.

"Sunsets in sweaters!" Patton had exclaimed when he realized they were both wearing their favorite outerwear.

As the sun disappeared, so did the heat. The two gravitated towards each other naturally, seeking warmth. Patton was soft and squishy where Virgil was lanky and bonier; somehow, they fit together just right and never failed to find the most comfortable position for cuddling. They shared Patton’s tea and planned to make hot cocoa when they got back home.

“What do you think Roman’s got planned for Halloween this year?” Patton asked quietly.

“Something just as obnoxious as last year,” Virgil laughed, “if not even more so.”

“His parties always do end up being so much fun, though!”

“Yeah, I can’t argue with that. Even if I could, I wouldn’t want to argue with you.”

“Aww! Virge!” Patton squealed, snuggling closer.

For roughly half an hour more, the two stayed underneath the stars, simply enjoying each other’s presence and the distant sounds of the city. Eventually, when Patton began to shiver, Virgil decided it was time they head back. Shaking the quilt out of grass and leaves, they folded it neatly, and returned to the trail. It was slow going due to only having moonlight and the flashlights from their phones to guide them (and Patton wanting to detour so he could step on every crunchy leaf in their path) but they made it eventually.

Once the hot chocolate was made (with marshmallows, of course), they settled on the couch and decided to see how many of the Halloweentown movies they could watch before sleep took them.