#shenker

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Pizzaburger Presidency

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

The corporate wing of the Democrats has objectively terrible political instincts, because the corporate wing of the Dems wants things that are very unpopular with the electorate (this is a trait they share with the Republican establishment).

Remember Hillary Clinton's unimaginably terrible campaign slogan, "America is already great?" In other words, "Vote for me if you believe that nothing needs to change":

https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/758501814945869824

Biden picked up the "This is fine" messaging where Clinton left off, promising that "nothing would fundamentally change" if he became president:

https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-nothing-would-fundamentally-change-if-hes-elected/

Biden didn't so much win that election as Trump lost it, by doing extremely unpopular things, including badly bungling the American covid response and killing about a million people.

Biden's 2020 election victory was a squeaker, and it was absolutely dependent on compromising with the party's left wing, embodied by the Warren and Sanders campaigns. The Unity Task Force promised – and delivered – key appointments and policies that represented serious and powerful change for the better:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/10/thanks-obama/#triangulation

Despite these excellent appointments and policies, the Biden administration has remained unpopular and is heading into the 2024 election with worryingly poor numbers. There is a lot of debate about why this might be. It's undeniable that every leader who has presided over a period of inflation, irrespective of political tendency, is facing extreme defenstration, from Rishi Sunak, the far-right prime minister of the UK, to the relentlessly centrist Justin Trudeau in Canada:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-05-29-three-barriers-biden-reelection/

It's also true that Biden has presided over a genocide, which he has been proudly and significantly complicit in. That Trump would have done the same or worse is beside the point. A political leader who does things that the voters deplore can't expect to become more popular, though perhaps they can pull off less unpopular:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-left-is-not-joe-bidens-problem

Biden may be attracting unfair blame for inflation, and totally fair blame for genocide, but in addition to those problems, there's this: Biden hasn't gotten credit for the actual good things he's done:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoflHnGrCpM

Writing in his newsletter, Matt Stoller offers an explanation for this lack of credit: the Biden White House almost never talks about any of these triumphs, even the bold, generational ones that will significantly alter the political landscape no matter who wins the next election:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-does-the-biden-white-house-hate

Biden's antitrust enforcers have gone after price-fixing in oil, food and rent – the three largest sources of voter cost-of-living concern. They've done more on these three kinds of crime than all of their predecessors over the past forty years, combined. And yet, Stoller finds example after example of White House press secretaries being lobbed softballs by the press and refusing to even try to swing at them. When asked about any of this stuff, the White House demurs, refusing to comment.

The reasons they give for this is that they don't want to mess up an active case while it's before the courts. But that's not how this works. Yes, misstatements about active cases can do serious damage, but not talking about cases extinguishes the political will needed to carry them out. That's why a competent press secretary excellent briefings and training, because they must talk about these cases.

Think for a moment about the fact that the US government is – at this very moment – trying to break up Google, the largest tech company in the history of the world, and there has been virtually no press about it. This is a gigantic story. It's literally the biggest business story ever. It's practically a secret.

Why doesn't the Biden admin want to talk about this very small number of very good things it's doing? To understand that, you have to understand the hollowness of "centrist" politics as practiced in the Democratic Party.

The Democrats, like all political parties, are a coalition. Now, there are lots of ways to keep a coalition together. Parties who detest one another can stay in coalition provided that each partner is getting something they want out of it – even if one partner is bitterly unhappy about everything else happening in the coalition. That's the present-day Democratic approach: arrest students, bomb Gaza, but promise to do something about abortion and a few other issues while gesturing with real and justified alarm at Trump's open fascism, and hope that the party's left turns out at the polls this fall.

Leaders who play this game can't announce that they are deliberately making a vital coalition partner miserable and furious. Instead, they insist that they are "compromising" and point to the fact that "everyone is equally unhappy" with the way things are going.

This school of politics – "Everyone is angry at me, therefore I am doing something right" – has a name, courtesy of Anat Shenker-Osorio: "Pizzaburger politics." Say half your family wants burgers for dinner and the other half wants pizza: make a pizzaburger and disappoint all of them, and declare yourself to be a politics genius:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/17/pizzaburgers/

But Biden's Pizzaburger Presidency doesn't disappoint everyone equally. Sure, Biden appointed some brilliant antitrust enforcers to begin the long project of smashing the corporate juggernauts built through forty years of Reaganomics (including the Reganomics of Bill Clinton and Obama). But his lifetime federal judicial appointments are drawn heavily from the corporate wing of the party's darlings, and those judges will spend the rest of their lives ruling against the kinds of enforcers Biden put in charge of the FTC and DoJ antitrust division:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judge-rules-for-microsoft-mergers

So that's one reason that Biden's comms team won't talk about his most successful and popular policies. But there's another reason: schismogenesis.

"Schismogenesis" is a anthropological concept describing how groups define themselves in opposition to their opponents (if they're for it, we're against it). Think of the liberals who became cheerleaders for the "intelligence community" (you know the CIA spies who organized murderous coups against a dozen Latin American democracies, and the FBI agents who tried to get MLK to kill himself) as soon as Trump and his allies began to rail against them:

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

Part of Trump's takeover of conservativism is a revival of "the paranoid style" of the American right – the conspiratorial, unhinged apocalyptic rhetoric that the movement's leaders are no longer capable of keeping a lid on:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

This stuff – the lizard-people/Bilderberg/blood libel/antisemitic/Great Replacement/race realist/gender critical whackadoodlery – was always in conservative rhetoric, but it was reserved for internal communications, a way to talk to low-information voters in private forums. It wasn't supposed to make it into your campaign ads:

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/05/27/texas-republicans-adopts-conservative-wish-list-for-the-2024-platform/73858798007/

Today's conservative vibe is all about saying the quiet part aloud. Historian Rick Perlstein calls this the "authoritarian ratchet": conservativism promises a return to a "prelapsarian" state, before the country lost its way:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-05-29-my-political-depression-problem/

This is presented as imperative: unless we restore that mythical order, the country is doomed. We might just be the last generation of free Americans!

But that state never existed, and can never be recovered, but it doesn't matter. When conservatives lose a fight they declare to be existential (say, trans bathroom bans), they just pretend they never cared about it and move on to the next panic.

It's actually worse for them when they win. When the GOP repeals Roe, or takes the Presidency, the Senate and Congress, and still fails to restore that lost glory, then they have to find someone or something to blame. They turn on themselves, purging their ranks, promise ever-more-unhinged policies that will finally restore the state that never existed.

This is where schismogenesis comes in. If the GOP is making big, bold promises, then a shismogenesis-poisoned liberal will insist that the Dems must be "the party of normal." If the GOP's radical wing is taking the upper hand, then the Dems must be the party whose radical wing is marginalized (see also: UK Labour).

This is the trap of schismogenesis. It's possible for the things your opponents do to be wrong, but tactically sound (like promising the big changes that voters want). The difference you should seek to establish between yourself and your enemies isn't in promising to maintaining the status quo – it's in promising to make better, big muscular changes, and keeping those promises.

It's possible to acknowledge that an odious institution to do something good – like the CIA and FBI trying to wrongfoot Trump's most unhinged policies – without becoming a stan for that institution, and without abandoning your stance that the institution should either be root-and-branch reformed or abolished altogether.

The mere fact that your enemy uses a sound tactic to do something bad doesn't make that tactic invalid. As Naomi Klein writes in her magnificent Doppelganger, the right's genius is in co-opting progressive rhetoric and making it mean the opposite: think of their ownership of "fake news" or the equivalence of transphobia with feminism, of opposition to genocide with antisemitism:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

Promising bold policies and then talking about them in plain language at every opportunity is something demagogues do, but having bold policies and talking about them doesn't make you a demagogue.

The reason demagogues talk that way is that it works. It captures the interest of potential followers, and keeps existing followers excited about the project.

Choosing not to do these things is political suicide. Good politics aren't boring. They're exciting. The fact that Republicans use eschatological rhetoric to motivate crazed insurrectionists who think they're the last hope for a good future doesn't change the fact that we are at a critical juncture for a survivable future.

If the GOP wins this coming election – or when Pierre Poilievre's petro-tories win the next Canadian election – they will do everything they can to set the planet on fire and render it permanently uninhabitable by humans and other animals. We are running out of time.

We can't afford to cede this ground to the right. Remember the clickbait wars? Low-quality websites and Facebook accounts got really good at ginning up misleading, compelling headlines that attracted a lot of monetizable clicks.

For a certain kind of online scolding centrist, the lesson from this era was that headlines should a) be boring and b) not leave out any salient fact. This is very bad headline-writing advice. While it claims to be in service to thoughtfulness and nuance, it misses out on the most important nuance of all: there's a difference between a misleading headline and a headline that calls out the most salient element of the story and then fleshes that out with more detail in the body of the article. If a headline completely summarizes the article, it's not a headline, it's an abstract.

Biden's comms team isn't bragging about the administration's accomplishments, because the senior partners in this coalition oppose those accomplishments. They don't want to win an election based on the promise to prosecute and anti-corporate revolution, because they are counter-revolutionaries.

The Democratic coalition has some irredeemably terrible elements. It also has elements that I would march into the sun for. The party itself is a very weak institution that's bad at resolving the tension between both groups:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/30/weak-institutions/

Pizzaburgers don't make anyone happy and they're not supposed to. They're a convenient cover for the winners of intraparty struggles to keep the losers from staying home on election day. I don't know how Biden can win this coming election, but I know how he can lose it: keep on reminding us that all the good things about his administration were undertaken reluctantly and could be jettisoned in a second Biden administration.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/29/sub-bushel-comms-strategy/#nothing-would-fundamentally-change

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

KAMALA HARRIS' MILWAUKEE DEBUT: "WE'RE NOT GOING BACK!"

TCINLA

JUL 23, 2024

This is from Anand Giridharadas’ Substack “The Ink”:

I’m on an airplane as I write this. And one measure of the excitement in the country is that, as Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at her first rally since the dramatic events of recent days, virtually every in-seat television screen I could see was set to a live feed of her in Wisconsin.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ debut rally was outstanding, drawing on so many lessons of persuasion that others neglect.

She very pointedly took the fight to Trump at the beginning, carving the contrast narrative of a prosecutor versus a felon, a fighter for justice versus a perpetrator of injustice. But then she pivoted and made clear that beating Trump isn't enough. Nor is saving democracy.

It's about, she said, the ability to fight for you, for your family. This is what the Harvard scholar Daniel Ziblatt calls the "bank shot" to save democracy: we have to save democracy and defeat a fascist, but not only for its own sake, but also to have the tools to make your life better tangibly.

When it came to talking about policy, she kind of didn't! Which is terrific! As Anat Shenker-Osorio, the messaging guru, says, sell the brownie, not the recipe. Policy is a recipe. She spoke instead of the human end states of policy. Having childcare, being able to live and thrive and rise. Brownies are yum.

Harris also did a great job of framing the two visions as forward versus backward, past versus future, but then, again, she made it about us. You have the choice between going forward and backward. You decide what kind of place we are. Simple, sharp, clear, empowering of us.

On a more superficial but no less important level, she was having fun up there. She would rather be up there than anywhere else. Too often, movements for progress don't embody the joy they promise to usher in with policy. She is showing that freedom is more fun than tyranny.

The pro-democracy movement has in recent years somehow allowed the fascists to throw the better party. To be the exuberant, joyous ones. To be energetic. She is reminding us that you can't just appeal to the head; you have to throw a cookout that people want to be at. Period.

We might have seen a catchphrase be born in real time: "We're not going back." Has it all: the "we," the adamant refusal, the calling out of retrograde nostalgia.

So a few core themes become clear: She and Trump are foils who have lived opposite lives. He and his extremist and rich friends aren't focused on your life, but Dems are. There is a choice between taking on the future and going back to the past, and it's ours to make.

It's one speech, and it's early days. But in recent years, a lot of very cutting-edge new thinking in messaging, such as that practiced by Shenker-Osorio, has come to light, and too many Democrats have ignored it. Today's rally marked a break. This is how you speak and win today.

[krovscastlerpg]

Dmitri Ivanovich Shenker | Slave | 39 | Werewitch (Omega) | Top

"Next time you see me, I may be smiling. I’ll be in prison or in the TV, I’ll say the sunlight brought me here."

Dmitri was born on an isolated commune of political dissidents somewhere in the obscure Russian wilderness. His mother, Thalia, was a witch from the Mayfair coven who had fallen in love with the werewolf Ivan after meeting him in Prague. Ivan had persuaded her to abandon the right-wing leaning coven in favour of his rag-tag group of left-wing supernaturals, mostly werewolves, eager to escape the watchful eye of the Kremlin. Ivan had been a Bolshevik during the Russian revolution, but with the various changing regimes had fallen out of political favour and he and his allies had eventually been declared enemies of both the state and the vampire council for their radical ideas, most of which involved creating a mass social uprising. Thalia’s defection was scandalous at the time it happened in the mid-seventies. Though Thalia and Ivan never formally married, Dmitri was born in 1985.

For the first thirteen years of his life, Dmitri lived on the commune, entirely off the grid. They were under constant threat of discovery by both Russian loyalists and the vampiric council, as well as environmental pressures. Russian winters were harsh and the commune went through periods of intense hardship, often involving food shortages and outbreaks of disease among the weaker, human members. When Dmitri was thirteen, he was out hunting with his father when the inevitable discovery came. Russia loyalists killed Ivan in front of Dmitri’s very eyes. He escaped by the skin of his teeth and was able to return in enough time to warn the rest of the commune, who scattered to the four winds. Thalia returned home to Mayfair with her tail between her legs and her son in tow. In exchange for various protections for herself and her son, she turned in the remaining members of the commune. Being witness to this, Dmitri grew to resent his mother, viewing her as a traitor.

Adjusting to life in London was incredibly difficult for Dmitri. Initially, he spoke no English and was incredibly undersocialised, as there had been no other children living on the commune. He had to be taught very simple things like not to bite other children when they upset him. His mother had become incredibly strange after Ivan’s death and spent most of her time in her rooms, talking to herself. Within a couple of years, Dmitri had come into both his magic and his status as an omega werewolf. Whilst he took to magic easily, favouring, mostly, abjuration, he had many more issues with his werewolf side - specifically, being an omega. Dmitri had encountered other omega werewolves on the commune and noted that they were treated as pseudo-female, which upset him deeply. As he began to explore his sexuality, he developed both a deep-seated paranoia about becoming pregnant and an insistence on being the dominant force in any sexual encounter. Dmitri became gender nonconforming in how he kept his appearance, favouring make-up, skirts (especially utility kilts) and jewellry, but remained insistent that he was very much a man, just an incredibly well-dressed one.

Despite outwardly integrating into the Mayfair coven, Dmitri’s political leanings ran deep and inwardly, Dmitri wanted nothing more than to burn down the entire system that oppressed so many and had killed his father before his very eyes. The witches of the Mayfair coven saw the risk of Dmitri swinging the way his father had and kept a watchful eye on him but it was already too late. Dmitri had made connections in radical leftist political groups and struck out on his own and was already deep in political schemes and machinations. In particular, he was focused on the Kremlin and the Russian Councilman, who he viewed as directly responsible for the death of his father. After years of planning, he eventually put his plans into motion and detonated a magical bomb inside the Kremlin, taking down a significant chunk of the building, killing several high ranking vampires and nearly finishing off the Councilman himself.

Dmitri had expected to die in his scheme, but this was not the case. Within hours, Dmitri had been brought down and captured. Without even a whisper of a public trial, he was sent to Krovs, both as a punishment and to keep him as isolated from the rest of the world as possible. Now he is absolutely furious and determined not to behave, intent on causing whatever damage he can should he get even the vaguest hint of an opportunity.

Schools of Magic: Abjuration / Earth Magic (expert), Enchantment / Fire Magic (advanced), Conjuration / Electricity Magic (advanced)

Positive Traits: Loyal, quick-thinking, observant, caring, passionate

Negative Traits: Stubborn, secretive, manipulative, self-sacrificing, blunt

3 turn-ons: Rough sex, power exchange, biting

3 turn-offs: Feminisation, infantilisation, breeding kink

[stuffiveseenontv]

Dress is from Victoria Beckham

[boomgers]

En Nueva York, el mercado inmobiliario es despiadado… “Dueños De Manhattan”

El reality abre las puertas al glamoroso sector inmobiliario de lujo de Nueva York de la mano del célebre CEO y agente de bienes raíces Ryan Serhant, que hace hasta lo imposible para comercializar las propiedades más exclusivas de la ciudad.

Estreno: 28 de junio de 2024 en Netflix.

Ryan Serhant y su equipo conformado por Tricia Lee, Jessica Taylor, Jessica Markowski, Chloe Tucker Caine, Genesis Suero, Jade Shenker, Savannah Gowarty, Nile Lundgren, Jeffrey St. Arromand, Jordan Hurt, Jordan March y Jonathan Frank Nørmølle, trabajan incansablemente para convertirse en el mejor grupo inmobiliario del mundo.

Los Agentes Inmobiliarios

[vintagelasvegas]

Dunes Hotel & Casino '55-'93

Dunes, 1955. Kodachrome photo from Charles Phoenix.

Timeline of the Dunes

’53-54: First announced as Hotel Araby (RJ 11/1/53), then became known as Vegas Plaza, and Hotel Deauville (RJ 1/20/54, 4/23/54). Named the Dunes by the time of groundbreaking, 6/22/54 (RJ).

’55: May 23, original owners Robert Rice, Al Gottesman, Joseph Sullivan, Alexander Barad and Jason Tarsey open the $4 million Dunes Hotel-Casino with 200 rooms on an 85-acre site. Architect J Replogle, designer R. Dorr Jr. Signs and Sultan figure by YESCO (RJ 5/23/55).

’55: Aug., Dunes leased by Sands partners and reopened in Sep. Subsequent financial difficulties cause the casino to be closed, 1/56.

’56: Bill Miller, Major A. Riddle, and Robert Rice are licensed to reopen the casino in May. In Nov., the license is changed to add M&R Investment Co. as the company that operates the Dunes.

’57: Jan., Minsky’s Follies opens the first topless show at a Strip resort.

’59: Convention Hall addition.

’61: Olympic Wing addition.

’62: Riddle sells 15 percent of the stock to M&R Investment Corp., whose stockholders now include Charles Rich, Sidney Wyman and George Duckworth. Tower groundbreaking, 10/21/62.

’64: Construction of "Miracle Mile" golf course. Sultan figure moved to golf course in May. In Oct-Nov, the 180-ft sign is installed in Oct., and switched on 11/12/64.

’65: Jun, opening of Dome of the Sea and the 24-story tower. Dunes Golf Course opened.

’69: Continental Connector Corp., a publicly traded company, buys the Dunes in a $59M stock transfer in May. In Dec, the SEC charges that CCC defrauded stockholders in the proxy statement it issued offering to buy the Dunes. CCC settles the SEC complaint in ’76. At this time, bankers E. Parry Thomas and Jerome Mack are principals in M&R and CCC.

’74: In Sep., Gaming Control Board files a complaint against the Dunes for catering and "comping" alleged Kansas City mob chief Nick Civella, one of 11 members of the Black Book, Nevada's List of Excluded Persons. The Dunes ultimately was fined $10,000.

’75: In Feb., Morris Shenker buys an interest in M&R through his IJK Nevada Inc. Later in the year, Dunes owners Shenker and Riddle are asked about allegations that reputed mobster Anthony Spilotro had "set up shop" at the Dunes. Spilotro reportedly was spending up to 14 hours a day in the poker room and appeared to be using it as an office.

’76: In Jun., Shenker sues the Teamsters Union for $140M for backing out of a loan commitment, which was to be used to add another 1,000 rooms. In Oct., Dept of Labor intervenes, saying the loan was prohibited. In ’80, Shenker's breach of contract lawsuit is tossed out of court by U.S. District Judge Roger Foley.

’79: South tower opened in summer. Shenker announces the Dunes will construct a $65M hotel-casino in Atlantic City. FBI affidavits are unsealed claiming that two confidential informants "both advised that the Kansas City organized crime group headed by Nick Civella has a concealed interest fronted by Shenker at the Dunes." Shenker denies the allegations.

’80: In Jan., alleged members of the NY Columbo family are discovered staying for free at the Dunes. Gaming Control Board Chairman Richard Bunker says the "comping" did not violate the law or gaming regulations. Later, four of the group, including Joseph Columbo Jr., are indicted on charges of obtaining money under false pretenses in an airline ticket reimbursement scam. The indictment is dismissed by District Judge Joseph Pavlikowski and in ’84 was reinstated by the NV Supreme Court.

’82: Aug., the $17M Oasis Casino opens, doubling the existing casino space at the resort. Design by Farris Alexander Congdon Architects. New 2-floor casino includes Xanadunes electronic gaming area, and Video-Video arcade space (RJ 8/13/82, 8/20/82).

’82: Dec., Stuart and Clifford Perlman agree to buy the Dunes for $185M. The brothers loan Shenker $4M and $2.9M of that sum is used to pay overdue federal payroll taxes and avoid the seizure of assets by the IRS. Shenker denies the resort is on the verge of bankruptcy. Docs filed with the SEC indicate the property is in default on a number of loans and a number of creditors threaten foreclosure action.

’83: The Perlmans assume management of the Dunes in Apr., and operate it for four months before the sale collapses in Aug.

’83: Oct., a foreclosure sale of the Dunes' golf course and some other property is averted when problems are worked out with the trustees of the Hotel & Restaurant Employees and Bartenders Int’l Union and the trustees of the Nevada Culinary and Bartenders Pension Trust, which are owed $1.5M for non-payment of union benefits.

’83: Dec., a federal jury in Las Vegas decides that Shenker owes $34M to the So. Nevada Culinary and Bartenders Pension Fund for defaulting on loans in ’73-’75 to two of Shenker's land companies, Sierra Charter Corp. and IJK Nevada.

’84: Feb., Shenker files for personal bankruptcy in Missouri to protect his assets from the $34M judgment. The IRS claims that the 78-year-old Shenker owes $66M in unpaid taxes stretching back 20 years. Shenker's bankruptcy filing claimed assets of $82M and liabilities of $197M, the largest debt ever recorded in the St. Louis bankruptcy court.

’84: Mar., Valley Bank of Nevada heads a consortium to lend the Dunes $68.6M as part of a debt restructuring plan.

’84: May, John Anderson buys a controlling interest in the Dunes with his JBA Investments Inc. Anderson signs a $25M note to pay the Perlmans for the $35M they invested in the resort. Shenker's 26 percent interest remains under the control of the bankruptcy court.

’84: Jun., the FBI alleges that Shenker approved $600,000 in kickbacks to alleged Milwaukee crime boss Frank Balistrieri in connection with loans from the Teamsters Union to Allen Glick, who later bought four Las Vegas resorts before being forced out of gaming by Nevada officials. Shenker denies the kickback allegations. No charges are filed.

’85: Feb., Dunes is cited for failing to retrofit the property to meet fire safety standards. About $2.2M is spent on retrofitting during the first half of the year.

’85: May, former Gaming Control Board Chairman Richard Bunker leaves his position as corporate treasurer of Circus Circus Ent. to become president of the Dunes.

’85: Aug., Jack Bona buys out the Dunes' 49 percent interest in its Atlantic City property in a $21M sale. The next day, Bona places the property in a Ch. 11 reorganization in bankruptcy court.

’85: Sept. 27, Dunes defaults on the $68.6M bank loan and Valley Bank moves ahead with the legal steps required for a foreclosure sale Dec. 23.

’85: Oct. 24, Federal marshals begin seizing cash from the Dunes casino cage to pay a $2.7M judgment obtained by trustees of the Culinary and Bartenders unions. They accept a $200,000 check and leave the cash in the cage.

’85: Nov. 1, Marshals return to collect the remaining $17M owed to the unions but are halted by a last-minute restraining order.

’85: Nov. 6, Dunes' operating company. M&R Investment, files for reorganization under Chapter 11.

’87: Masao Nangaku buys the Dunes for $157M.

’92: Nov., Dunes bought by Mirage Inc. for $75M.

’93: Jan. 26, closed. North tower and sign demolished 10/27/93.

‘94: Jul. 20, South tower demolished.

A major source for the timeline is Jane Ann Morrison. Judge Approves Payday for Dunes Employees. Review-Journal, 11/7/85.

Dunes, 1955. This is the original layout of the resort, before the addition of the Convention Hall and Olympic wing. Photo by Ed Screeton. Dunes Hotel Photograph Collection (PH-00281), UNLV Special Collections & Archives.

Late '64. The 180-foot sign has recently been completed. Dome of the Sea restaurant and the hotel tower are nearing completion. Culinary Workers Union Local 226 Photographs, UNLV Special Collections & Archives.

[azspot]

It's all fun and game to watch MAGA at war, we deserve the holiday cheer. But voters don't care about intricacies of H1-B visas; we must talk MAGA's about impact on lives & livelihoods. Ridiculing Trump et al for their incompetence, highlighting their crimes & engendering revulsion for their agenda.

Anat Shenker-Osorio

[magnais]

for @dmitri-shenker

Magnai had heard plenty of stories out of Krovs that might've warranted his return. One of them was practically worth making the decision all on its own -- if the varcolac had his druthers, Shenker would dead and buried already in a shallow grave, if there was nothing left to interrogate out of him. But someone liked making examples too much for that level of common sense. Magnai would see for himself how well the castle had done at taming such a poor candidate for a slave and if it was poorly... well, he'd worked with cruder material before.

He pulled the playroom door shut behind him with a heavy sound, Magnai's eyes trained immediately on the room's only occupant. He'd given Dmitri fifteen minutes alone once the guards had left the slave, the first step to any stress test: how well they responded to waiting. Magnai stood there without a word for a long moment as he gauged the smaller man, arms folding over his chest, expressionless but for the first curl of his lip at the omega's scent. The second step, and one he had a strong idea as to the outcome of: gauging how well-trained the slave was at knowing when to hold their tongue.

"Dmitri Shenker..." He growled finally, his mouth wrapping around the sounds of the name with the easy familiarity of one who spoke the same tongue, "I'll start easy with you and it'll be the last time I do. I want to know why you think you're here today."

[protoslacker]

What Democrats must reckon with is that, outside of hard partisans, most voters think most politicians lie most of the time. Post election, 72 percent of voters said Republican leaders lie sometimes or always, and 70 percent said this of Democratic leaders. This is extraordinarily beneficial to Republicans, as on-the-fence voters routinely told us that “Trump just says things, he doesn’t mean them.” And it is extraordinarily destructive to Democrats, as voters disbelieve their messages about past accomplishments, future plans, and MAGA dictatorship warnings.

Anat Shenker-Osorio at Rolling Stone. The Electoral Problem for Democrats: It’s the Neoliberalism, Stupid

In the 2024 contest between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, voters rejected the status quo — as our polls and focus groups warned would happen

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Shenker-Osorio says the left’s enemy isn’t the right, it’s cynicism. The problem isn’t that authoritarians want to erase the division between church and state, or take away our right to control our bodies. The problem is that this minority can get away with these unpopular proposals because the people who disagree with them think nothing can be done to stop them. For Shenker-Osorio, the tonic for this is to switch from the negative framing (“abolish ICE”) to positive ones: “respect all families.” Rather than saying “end the climate emergency,” she wants us to call for “ensuring clean, safe air to breathe and water to drink.” When the right says they want to cut taxes to improve the economy, we counter with, “we’ll raise wages and increase consumption, which is better for the economy.” Shenker-Osorio proposes a three-step method for changing minds. First, identify a shared value (“people who work for living ought to earn a living”). Move on to a problem (“our divisions distract us while rich people pick our pockets and hand the spoils to their corporate cronies”). And then, the solution: “rewrite the rules so that the wealthiest few pay what they owe and all of us have what we need for generations to come.”

-Pizzaburgers: “Everybody hates this idea, so it must be great”

[devoted1989]

Patty Shenker is an American animal and human rights advocate.

Image found on Pinterest.

[councillor-roland]

closed starter for @dmitri-shenker

It was fairly late, or early depending on your definition, well past midnight in any case. The party was still in full swing and likely would be until the sun came up. Roland had enjoyed himself and was rather pleasantly buzzed on the various blood and blood alcohols he'd sampled. While he'd had various tumbles and trysts throughout the evening he was in the mood for another, moving through the crowded streets and looking for likely candidates. He happened to see spot a Dalmation costume and a guard walking beside the man wearing it and grinned. Of course he was aware that there was one slave in the Undercroft who was supposed to be constantly accompanied and had heard plenty about him from Rhys besides. Now was as good a time as any for them to meet, at least in Roland's mind, so he made his way over to see the defiant pup for himself.

"I see someone's chosen to dress you appropriately." Roland mused, old fashioned heeled shoes clicking on the cobblestones as he approached, smirking. It was purposely antagonistic but Roland liked a challenge, it kept things interesting. Besides, the idea of riling the werewitch a little amused him. "Perhaps I'll hold your leash for a while and give your escort a break. What do you think of that, petit chiot?" The wig and gloves that went with his costume were long gone but he still cut a fine figure and didn't look incomplete.

[masterxhunter]

Halloween was a night for fun and fucking and feeding, and Hunter planned to do just that once he'd captured his prey for the evening. There were a lot of slaves that caught his attention, but he needed someone.. someone with a bit more bite to them than most. Hunter didn't want someone obedient (for a change).

He was spending the evening prowling the streets and clubs, finding himself in Cannabites and spotting someone dressed as a Dalmatian. Not the sexiest costume he'd ever seen but he could deal. Approaching the stranger and wielding his axe, Hunter gave the other a grin that was bordering on dangerous and a touch psychopathic. "You got an owner, mutt? Or are you a stray?"

@dmitri-shenker

[soundsanssprechen]

Do You Think?

Could you learn to count in base 7? To be one step away

from counting each day

Away from Seven in Me

Divinity? 

Could you learn to not count in 6? Not count in After Eights? 

But learn instead to count in a baser form

Sans forêt au Forlorn 

The scientific basis

Just musical theory

It’s just a 6/8 don’t you see?

Why some people Waltz 0.75 so biAtomically

While others play rock music nonDiatonically? Why soundtracks sometimes seem to speak

“No!”, Diegetically 

Osmosis Welsh 

Dragon of my west

Scale my down

Shenker hurts me! 

Your size is my grotesque

Your depth is my ABYSS

SITHISIT calls… 

CUD U LRN TO TOK LYK DIS? 

[grechtcr]

It was, indeed, rare for Gideon to take matters into his own hands. More often than not, he found himself unbothered by the wiles and ways of those residing in the undercroft, refusing to utilize the proper title due to his own dislike for it. But this particular child had garnered his attentions in the more negative aspects. He'd requested the boy be brought to his suite, knowing full well that once the other was here, he'd move in quickly with his gifts to disarm the other. The ability to manipulate emotions wasn't one he used often. But there were times where the job had to be done, and Gideon could feel the poisonous sensation of the other moving into his space. The negativity surely didn't belong within his space and he quickly dissipated any feelings of angst, anger, or disgust into feelings of warmth, calm, and serenity in the other. Essentially, malleable for everything Gideon had in mind as he heard the steps behind him. "There's a chair in the main room. You should make yourself comfortable." He instructed as he rolled up his sleeves. Moving, he turned to the other, leaning against the counter, camera now facing the boy. "A proper introduction needs to be made. My name is Gideon. I'm the councilman for Israel. And I've heard tell you're not the biggest fan of people in my position." But Gideon assessed the other before him, small grin coming to his features. "Tell me, Dmitri..." He utilized his ability to peer into and unlock the subconscious of the other right away. "It's a safe space. What do you fear more than anything?"

@dmitri-shenker