#slash purges

[sesamestreep]

I guess I’m not done talking about Milverton yet, because like I know Watson explicitly says he’s not giving dates for any of it to protect the people involved, so it could conceivably fit anywhere in the canon, but I like to imagine it’s still post-hiatus, post-final problem/empty house, post-Holmes’s return because it makes this scene much more poignant to me

I know Watson uses the word “adventure” here but I can’t imagine his main concern is being in on the action (right after he basically says that Holmes disappeared for several days IN DISGUISE and Watson asked zero questions about that) for the sake of the story (especially knowing with hindsight that he won’t write it or publish it for a long time). I think the obvious reason he wants to go is to protect Holmes (I mean, what else can “You can’t tell what may happen” mean, right?)

Anyway, imagining this conversation in a post-reichenbach setting is more compelling to me (although, as I said, you can imagine it anywhere thanks to Watson’s intentionally vague timeline) because it puts the “then you are not going” into a heartbreaking context. How many times during Holmes’s absence when he was presumed dead has Watson condemned himself for not being there when Holmes needed him? How can a man whose honor clearly means so much to him not blame himself in some way for what happened? Especially knowing that Holmes knew the letter that took Watson away from him before his confrontation with Moriarty was a fake, how many arguments do you think they had once Holmes came back (that Watson chose not to include in his stories) about Holmes not running headlong into danger by himself AGAIN?? “Other people beside you have self-respect and even reputations” !!! John Watson, the MAN YOU ARE.

[izzi-rads]

we agree none of you are allowed to scroll too far down my archives right? right.

[j-crow]

i love arguing with dumb ppl on tiktok

[s3znl-gr3znl]

weird that this gif is 3 hrs long

NEW SECRET LEVEL TRAILER IS SO PEAK

[beloveds-embrace]

YOU GET MEEEE LIKE YES THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I HAD JN MIND FOR MAIL ORDER KONIG TOO 😩😩 and the dialogue was too good not to add, so thank you sm ☕️ anon!! <33

Reader x mail-order soldier könig

You weren’t proud of the choices that led to this.

In your defense, when your unhinged, narcissistic ex-fiancé decided to take “I can do better” as a personal threat and “leave me alone” as a flirtation, your options shrank quickly. Police were useless, restraining orders were suggestions, and the panic room catalog had a three-month shipping delay you really couldn’t afford at the moment.

So you did what any desperate, slightly unhinged person with Wi-Fi and a bottle of wine would do at 2AM: you shopped online.

Not for a therapist- you didn’t like being robbed more than once per month- and not for new locks, and not even for a machete and a training montage or karate lessons.

You shopped for a bodyguard. And not just any bodyguard- mail-order, military-grade, possibly-black-ops (you didn’t know exactly what that meant, but you knew black belts were the strongest in karate so it probably applied here too) bodyguard. Because you weren’t looking for subtle; yoh were looking for make him cry and question his choices.

The site was slick, you could admit. Black and red and sleek fonts, the kind of design that screamed we definitely waterboard people but make it ✨fashion✨. The site also billed itself as Elite Protection Services: Discreet, Deadly, Dependable. It might as well have been Bodyguards R Us. You scrolled past the profiles like you were picking out a toaster.

“Ex-Interpol, trained in Systema, bilingual in seven languages.”

Nope. Too smug-looking. Kinda reminded you of Johnny Bravo but without the appeal.

“Specializes in anti-stalking protocols. Former MMA champion.”

Too pretty. Psycho ex would take that as a challenge.

You scrolled past endless profiles: more ex-SEALs, ex-spies, people who listed training styles like they were personality traits. Everyone looked like they were auditioning for a movie about stopping nuclear threats with emotional damage and well-fitted tactical pants.

Until you found him.

KÖNIG.

That was it; no last name, no smiling profile pic. Just one blurry photo that looked like it was taken from a security feed during the purge. A massive man mid-stride, face obscured by a tattered executioner’s hood (does he like cosplay?), one arm casually holding what was either a high-powered sniper rifle or a small medieval ballista. Just the quiet threat of do not attempt to engage unless you are fireproof and have no dreams… and hopefully have a will.

His bio was just as minimal as his name, but thankfully not bolded and capitalized like he was the living version You-Know-Who: Former special forces. Classified background. Urban combat. High-threat asset protection. Temperament: Reserved. Languages: German, English. Hobbies: [Redacted]

And honestly? He was perfect.

You hit “Hire” with all the solemnity of pulling a lever on a guillotine.

The meeting, then, was scheduled at a “neutral location” (aka: a converted warehouse that probably used to be a meth lab but now boasted folding chairs and bulletproof windows and claimed to be state-of-the-arts just). You were told to wear neutral colors and avoid sudden movements like he was a military contractor-slash-deer.

He was lucky you didn’t have a driving license or car yet.

The facilitator, woman named Claire who radiated HR department energy and quiet terror, greeted you with a nervous clipboard smile.

“Please remain calm during the introduction process,” she said, like she expected you to run. Like he was a bull and she forgot to tell you not to wear red even though you were very sure bulls didn’t actually get bothered by the color. “Sometimes clients are… startled.”

You waved her off; you were not going to be startled. You were in charge. You were the employer. You were cool and rational. You were the man-

And then the door opened, and he walked in.

It wasn’t so much a walk as a tectonic shift, honestly. The lights dimmed- or maybe your brain flickered like a dying flashlight trying to process the sheer volume of the man now in the room with you because the damn profile and profile pictures absolutely did him no justice at all.

Easily built like a walking mini-cathedral, every step he took echoed with the weight of someone who didn’t walk so much as advance steadily like a cursed forest creature with war crimes on his résumé.

The hood was real, by the way. Not a vibe, not a metaphor, not a cosplay prop. A literal ragged executioner’s hood, like someone had looted a plague doctor’s wardrobe and decided to lean in (actually… were those shirt sleeves-)

Anyways, he said nothing, and so you stared with your mouth half-open and your neck craned and your buffering. There was a pause, the kind of silence that usually precedes a boss fight or a marriage proposal but without the music for both, and you weren’t sure which direction this was going to go.

Claire cleared her throat with the delicacy of someone trying not to disturb a sleeping lion.

“Well, if you’re not feeling a connection, we can always-“

“Don’t you dare.”

It came out louder than intended and far more desperate than you’s ever hoped anyone would hear you. You pointed at König like someone calling dibs on a rare Pokémon, and almost gave yourself a whiplash from how quickly you turned your head to glare at her.

“He’s perfect. Get your own!”

Claire blinked and König didn’t move. But you could feel him blinking behind the hood, probably wondering what, exactly, he had just been spiritually adopted into.

There was another pause.

König tilted his head, then slight nod that was just enough to suggest acknowledgment… or possibly pity. You’d need to peer into his eyes and make him do different expressions so you’d understand what he was thinking behind that hood, because you weren’t sure if his nod meant I accept this job, please never yell again, or you are an unhinged rat and I respect that, but either way: he was yours now.

You turned back to Claire with all the confidence of someone who had definitely just bought an armored tank off Craigslist.

“Where do I sign?”

Claire, likewise, slowly handed you the paperwork like she was passing off custody of a weapon of mass destruction. Something like an armored tank bought off Craigslist.

“…Please don’t antagonize him.”

“I would never,” you replied, already mentally redecorating your apartment to accommodate a seven-foot medieval cryptid with probably boundary issues. You couldn’t imagine anyone with those backgrounds not coming with built-in issues unless they were rich and old.

König, for his part, said nothing. Just stood there, looming like an ancient ruin that had wandered into a security job. But you swore- when you weren’t looking directly at him- you caught the faintest rise in his shoulders. Like a chuckle.

Or maybe a sigh.

Either way, you’d take it; you had a human mountain now. And your ex?

Was going to shit bricks and you’d be there to film and enjoy every. single. second. of it.

“C’mon, big boy,” you grinned at him, taking one of his big hands and tugging uselessly. “We have so much to do!”

[jupiterjunebug]

Trying to adapt wrestling to an au is insane just bc of the. Back and forth nature of the plotliness some of them have w longtime friends/enemies. Yes currently kenny omega is normaller than a lot of the other ppl in this fic but if u ask him to talk abt his life story hangman across the room suddenly develops a thousand yard stare. Its hard being a youtuber.

[ellipsus-writes]

Ellipsus Digest: March 18

Each week (or so), we'll highlight the relevant (and sometimes rage-inducing) news adjacent to writing and freedom of expression.

This week: AI continues its hostile takeover of creative labor, Spain takes a stand against digital sludge, and the usual suspects in the U.S. are hard at work memory-holing reality in ways both dystopian and deeply unserious.

ChatGPT firm reveals AI model that is “good at creative writing” (The Guardian)

... Those quotes are working hard.

OpenAI (ChatGPT) announced a new AI model trained to emulate creative writing—at least, according to founder Sam Altman: “This is the first time i have been really struck by something written by AI.” But with growing concerns over unethically scraped training data and the continued dilution of human voices, writers are asking… why? 

Spoiler: the result is yet another model that mimics the aesthetics of creativity while replacing the act of creation with something that exists primarily to generate profit for OpenAI and its (many) partners—at the expense of authors whose work has been chewed up, swallowed, and regurgitated into Silicon Valley slop.

Spain to impose massive fines for not labeling AI-generated content (Reuters)

But while big tech continues to accelerate AI’s encroachment on creative industries, Spain (in stark contrast to the U.S.) has drawn a line: In an attempt to curb misinformation and protect human labor, all AI-generated content must be labeled, or companies will face massive fines. As the internet is flooded with AI-written text and AI-generated art, the bill could be the first of many attempts to curb the unchecked spread of slop.

Besos, España 💋

These words are disappearing in the new Trump administration (NYT)

Project 2025 is moving right along—alongside dismantling policies and purging government employees, the stage is set for a systemic erasure of language (and reality). Reports show that officials plan to wipe government websites of references to LGBTQ+, BIPOC, women, and other communities—words like minority, gender, Black, racism, victim, sexuality, climate crisis, discrimination, and women have been flagged, alongside resources for marginalized groups and DEI initiatives, for removal.

It’s a concentrated effort at creating an infrastructure where discrimination becomes easier… because the words to fight it no longer officially exist. (Federally funded educational institutions, research grants, and historical archives will continue to be affected—a broader, more insidious continuation of book bans, but at the level of national record-keeping, reflective of reality.) Doubleplusungood, indeed.

Pete Hegseth’s banned images of “Enola Gay” plane in DEI crackdown (The Daily Beast)

Fox News pundit-turned-Secretary of Defense-slash-perpetual-drunk-uncle Pete Hegseth has a new target: banning educational materials featuring the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. His reasoning: that its inclusion in DEI programs constitutes "woke revisionism." If a nuke isn’t safe from censorship, what is?

The data hoarders resisting Trump’s purge (The New Yorker)

Things are a little shit, sure. But even in the ungoodest of times, there are people unwilling to go down without a fight.

Archivists, librarians, and internet people are bracing for the widespread censorship of government records and content. With the Trump admin aiming to erase documentation of progressive policies and minority protections, a decentralized network is working to preserve at-risk information in a galvanized push against erasure, refusing to let silence win.

Let us know if you find something other writers should know about, (or join our Discord and share it there!) Until next week, - The Ellipsus Team xo

[burntheedges]

hey yall here are some handy things to read on fandom censorship, in case you’d actually like to learn about the history of fandom:

Fanlore page on censorship

Fanlore timeline on fandom purges

The FFnet NC-17 purges (2002 and 2012)

The Three Laws of Fandom discussion, 2016

ao3 and censorship discussion, 2016

Strikethrough (censorship on LJ), 2007

Media imperialism, fan resistance and state censorship: BBC Sherlock Slash fandom in China (academic paper)

Porn bans, purges, and rebirths: the biopolitics of platform death in queer fandoms (academic paper)

The online free speech debate is raging in fan fiction, too (the verge, 2018)

Puritanism took over online fandom — and then came for the rest of the internet (Vox, 2023)

and just a bit more:

The Rise of Digital Authoritarianism, Freedom House 2018

[liberalsarecool]

Here's Trump's next target — according to the tyrant's playbook | by Robert Reich

Trump is following Putin’s, Xi’s, and Orban’s playbook. First, take over military and intelligence operations by purging career officers and substituting ones personally loyal to you.

Next, subdue the courts by ignoring or threatening to ignore court rulings you disagree with.

Intimidate legislators by warning that if they don’t bend to your wishes, you’ll run loyalists against them. (Make sure they also worry about what your violent supporters could do to them and their families.)

Then focus on independent sources of information: the media and the universities. Sue media that publish critical stories and block their access to news conferences and interviews.

Then go after the universities.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Last week, Trump threatened in a social media post to punish any university that permits “illegal” protests. On Friday he cancelled hundreds of millions in grants and contracts with Columbia University.

This is an extension of Republican tactics before Trump’s second term. Prior to Trump appointing her ambassador to the United Nations, former Representative Elise Stefanik (Harvard class of 2006) browbeat presidents of elite universities over their responses to student protests against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, leading to several presidents being fired.

Senator Josh Hawley (Stanford class of 2002 and Yale Law class of 2006) called the student demonstrations signs of “moral rot” at the universities.

But antisemitism was just a pretext.

JD Vance (Yale Law 2013) has termed university professors “the enemy” and suggested using Victor Orban’s method for ending “left-wing domination of universities.”

I think his way has to be the model for us: not to eliminate universities, but to give them a choice between survival or taking a much less biased approach to teaching. [The government should be] aggressively reforming institutions … in a way to where they’re much more open to conservative ideas.”

Trump is also targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs on university campuses.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

But of all Trump’s and Republicans’ moves against higher education, the most destructive is the cancelation of research grants and contracts. The destruction is hardly confined to Columbia and other suspected left-wing bastions.

Research universities depend on funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Trump reportedly aims to slash the budget of the National Science Foundation by up to two-thirds. And he’s instructed the National Institutes of Health to no longer honor negotiated rates for “indirect costs” on grants that it administers — money that universities use for laboratory space and research equipment.

In defiance of court orders, Trump has largely maintained a freeze on NIH funding.

As a result, many of America’s great research universities have stopped hiring and are cutting Ph.D. programs — in some cases rescinding offers to accepted students.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Trump’s moves are consistent with the tyrant’s playbook, but they’re also jeopardizing America’s national security and competitiveness.

Trump speaks of putting America First, but his attack on the nation’s great research universities is ensuring that the U.S. comes in second — to China.

Although America has long been the global leader in scientific output, China is now surging ahead. Even before Trump’s cuts in research funding, China was projected to match U.S. research spending within five years.

China has already surpassed the U.S. as the top producer of highly cited papers and international patent applications. It now awards more science and engineering Ph.D.s than the U.S.

Tyrants close universities. Fascists burn books. Trump is destroying America’s most important asset — its innovative mind.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

[artbyblastweave]

One thing I appreciate conceptually about the prequels right, is that in the originals the Jedi are present archetypically- the wise mentor, the eccentric little hermit-slash-fairy-godfather- Luke experiences them as archetypes, they're mediating his whole view of this thing. Then we rewind to the prequels, the world is made to feel lived in, and it turns out that when there's more than three of these guys alive at the same time they coalesce into an institution- One of many institutions that had to drop the ball again and again, in concrete political terms, for the archetypical goodies-and-baddies evil empire setup of the originals to come into existence. Dogmatic, hidebound, beholden to politics despite their best intentions, and ultimately, doomed. Of course, where it falls flat for me is that when it comes to the kind of real life organization that the Jedi are referencing- actual monastic orders, religious institutions with state backing, and so on- all of my criticisms of those real things ultimately flow from the fact that none of that is fucking true. They made all that up. It's not real. When the Jedi get purged that is, within the logic of the fiction, evil triumphing over good, but when the Knights Templar get purged that's two different sects of grifter wrestling over who's got the God Ball that'll lend a veneer of legitimacy to their self-interested slaughter. Every single real version of the thing that the Jedi are, is a cult that outlasted their L. Ron Hubbard figure. Whereas in Star Wars, the entire thing is predicated on the thing the Jedi worship being basically true and the Jedi specifically having more or less the right stance on all of it. Very little of the story works if you don't buy that premise. And that sort of pre-emptively puts a cap on how effectively you can use the Jedi as the site of criticisms of any real analogous organization. When you're going after the Catholic church you don't have to frontload every criticism with "obviously they're generally correct, buuuuut-". Unless you are yourself Catholic, of course, in which case I think you are at any given time squirming with cognitive dissonance basically as much as is appropriate

[chaotic-archaeologist]

Hey Reid!

I'm an archaeologist working at a museum in Australia and we're currently facing the loss of our visitor engagement team.

The visitor engagement team is responsible for sharing our knowledge and passion about science and history (and archaeology of course) with the wider public. The proposed changes would significantly impact visitor experience and learning within our museums.

I would really appreciate it if you had a look at my pinned post and maybe even sign our petition.

Yes, of course! I've signed and I would encourage my followers to do likewise.

Also, I don't know how helpful this would be, but an added point you could make is that the United States government is currently undertaking a fascist purge of historical institutions, slashing funding, eliminating positions, and doing untold damage to our institutions and public access.

Australia has the opportunity to Do Better™ and stand in opposition to this incredibly concerning trend. Eliminating this position is... maybe not a great look for doing that? I know that running counter to our current bullshittery is a thought on a lot of Australian's minds right now, and if you can make use of that to save an important post then by all means, please do so.

Tagging your fellow Australian archaeologists @micewithknives and @acearchaeologist to spread the word.

-Reid

[rageofthenerd]

Well, it's actually here. Though some of you may know me as Phyona, the fic writer behind The Last Drop, A Need for Breathing, and Nerve Endings, I've finally completed my first original novel after 10 years of work.

It's a queer, creepy urban fantasy novel, featuring psychic trauma, body horror, a murder mystery, and a tragic love story. A bit of a departure from my sickfics, but writing slash taught me everything I know (way more than the whole MSc in Creative Writing ever did, frankly). If you vibe with A Song of Achilles, CS Pacat, NBC Hannibal, and Stephen King, this one is for you.

Pre-orders are up now on:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

mollydowdsullivan.com

Liam O'Connor is special. When a Fissure opens in someone's mind, he's the one who sews it up again. When a parasite creeps through that Fissure, Liam is the exterminator who purges it. And when Liam loses everything, he's the coward who runs. But when he moves to an old house in coastal New England, hoping for isolation, something from his past follows. Fissures start tearing open; minds are devoured. People die. It's not long before Liam realizes a murderer has come to Shoalport, and he's the only one who can stop them.

Well, him, and the man who keeps haunting his dreams.

INCREDIBLE character art by: @quelmdn

I never could have done this without the support of my fic readers. Your kind words meant everything to me <3

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Abby Monteil at Them:

The Trump administration is poised to remove all members of the 30-year-old Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA). Two anonymous sources “familiar with the matter” confirmed the council members’ removal to Reuters. According to an archived version of the council’s website, PACHA had over 30 members before Donald Trump’s second presidential term began. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon confirmed to Reuters that PACHA will “continue to provide advice, information, and recommendations” to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. However, he did not provide additional details about when new members might be appointed. Per PACHA’s official website, the council’s members offer advice to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Assistant Secretary for Health, and the Director of the White House Office of National AIDS policy regarding HIV and AIDS “diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and quality services.” Appointed by the Secretary, members serve for overlapping terms of up to four years. The council was formed in 1995 under President Bill Clinton. News of PACHA members’ dismissal comes less than two weeks after Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) sent “reduction-in-force” (RIF) notices dismissing an estimated 10,000 employees within the Department of Health and Human Services beginning April 1. [...] The second Trump administration has spent its first months gutting vital HIV and AIDS aid, including attacks on US-funded aid abroad and HIV research grants. In February, the administration slashed tens of billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid, including the President’s Emergency Plan For Aids Relief (PEPFAR). According to a new analysis published in the medical journal The Lancet on April 8, if PEPFAR programs are not restored, “[a]n additional 1 million children will become infected with HIV, 0.5 million additional children will die of AIDS, and 2.8 million children will additionally become orphaned by AIDS” throughout Africa by 2030.

The Trump Administration keeps embarrassing themselves as usual… this time by removing all members from the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.

See Also:

The Advocate: Trump quietly purges presidential HIV advisory council, sparking public health fears (exclusive)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The GOP is not the party of workers

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/2024/12/13/occupy-the-democrats/#manchin-synematic-universe

The GOP says it's the "party of the working class" and indeed, they have promoted numerous policies that attack select groups within the American ruling class. But just because the party of unlimited power for billionaires is attacking a few of their own, it doesn't make them friends to the working people.

The best way to understand the GOP's relationship to worker is through "boss politics" – that's where one group of elites consolidates its power by crushing rival elites. All elites are bad for working people, so any attack on any elite is, in some narrow sense, "pro-worker." What's more, all elites cheat the system, so any attack on any elite is, again, "pro-fairness."

In other words, if you want to prosecute a company for hurting workers, customers, neighbors and the environment, you have a target-rich environment. But just because you crush a corrupt enterprise that's hurting workers, it doesn't mean you did it for the workers, and – most importantly – it doesn't mean that you will take workers' side next time.

Autocrats do this all the time. Xi Jinping engaged in a massive purge of corrupt officials, who were indeed corrupt – but he only targeted the corrupt officials that made up his rivals' power-base. His own corrupt officials were unscathed:

https://web.archive.org/web/20181222163946/https://peterlorentzen.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Lorentzen-Lu-Crackdown-Nov-2018-Posted-Version.pdf

Putin did this, too. Russia's oligarchs are, to a one, monsters. When Putin defenestrates a rival – confiscates their fortune and sends them to prison – he acts against a genuinely corrupt criminal and brings some small measure of justice to that criminal's victims. But he only does this to the criminals who don't support him:

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/03/29/1088886554/how-putin-conquered-russias-oligarchy

The Trump camp – notably JD Vance and Josh Hawley – have vowed to keep up the work of the FTC under Lina Khan, the generationally brilliant FTC Chair who accomplished more in four years than her predecessors have in 40. Trump just announced that he would replace Khan with Andrew Ferguson, who sounds like an LLM's bad approximation of Khan, promising to deal with "woke Big Tech" but also to end the FTC's "war on mergers." Ferguson may well plow ahead with the giant, important tech antitrust cases that Khan brought, but he'll do so because this is good grievance politics for Trump's base, and not because Trump or Ferguson are committed to protecting the American people from corporate predation itself:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/12/the-enemy-of-your-enemy/#is-your-enemy

Writing in his newsletter today, Hamilton Nolan describes all the ways that the GOP plans to destroy workers' lives while claiming to be a workers' party, and also all the ways the Dems failed to protect workers and so allowed the GOP to outlandishly claim to be for workers:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/you-cant-rebrand-a-class-war

For example, if Ferguson limits his merger enforcement to "woke Big Tech" companies while ending the "war on mergers," he won't stop the next Albertson's/Kroger merger, a giant supermarket consolidation that just collapsed because Khan's FTC fought it. The Albertson's/Kroger merger had two goals: raising food prices and slashing workers' wages, primarily by eliminating union jobs. Fighting "woke Big Tech" while waving through mergers between giant companies seeking to price-gouge and screw workers does not make you the party of the little guy, even if smashing Big Tech is the right thing to do.

Trump's hatred of Big Tech is highly selective. He's not proposing to do anything about Elon Musk, of course, except to make Musk even richer. Musk's net worth has hit $447b because the market is buying stock in his companies, which stand to make billions from cozy, no-bid federal contracts. Musk is a billionaire welfare queen who hates workers and unions and has a long rap-sheet of cheating, maiming and tormenting his workforce. A pro-worker Trump administration could add labor conditions to every federal contract, disqualifying businesses that cheat workers and union-bust from getting government contracts.

Instead, Trump is getting set to blow up the NLRB, an agency that Reagan put into a coma 40 years ago, until the Sanders/Warren wing of the party forced Biden to install some genuinely excellent people, like general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, who – like Khan – did more for workers in four years than her predecessors did in 40. Abruzzo and her colleagues could have remained in office for years to come, if Democratic Senators had been able to confirm board member Lauren McFerran (or if two of those "pro-labor" Republican Senators had voted for her). Instead, Joe Manchin and Kirsten Synema rushed to the Senate chamber at the last minute in order to vote McFerran down and give Trump total control over the NLRB:

https://www.axios.com/2024/12/11/schumer-nlrb-vote-manchin-sinema

This latest installment in the Manchin Synematic Universe is a reminder that the GOP's ability to rebrand as the party of workers is largely the fault of Democrats, whose corporate wing has been at war with workers since the Clinton years (NAFTA, welfare reform, etc). Today, that same corporate wing claims that the reason Dems were wiped out in the 2024 election is that they were too left, insisting that the path to victory in the midterms and 2028 is to fuck workers even worse and suck up to big business even more.

We have to take the party back from billionaires. No Dem presidential candidate should ever again have "proxies" who campaign to fire anti-corporate watchdogs like Lina Khan. The path to a successful Democratic Party runs through worker power, and the only reliable path to worker power runs through unions.

Nolan's written frequently about how bad many union leaders are today. It's not just that union leaders are sitting on historically unprecedented piles of cash while doing less organizing than ever, at a moment when unions are more popular than they've been in a century with workers clamoring to join unions, even as union membership declines. It's also that union leaders have actually endorsed Trump – even as the rank and file get ready to strike:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Yz_Z08KwKgFt3QvnV8nEETSgTXM5eZw5ujT4BmQXEWk/edit?link_id=0&can_id=9481ac35a2682a1d6047230e43d76be8&source=email-invitation-to-cover-amazon-labor-union-contract-fight-rally-cookout-on-monday-october-14-2024-2&email_referrer=email_2559107&email_subject=invitation-to-cover-jfk8-workers-authorize-amazon-labor-union-ibt-local-1-to-call-ulp-strike&tab=t.0

The GOP is going to do everything it can to help a tiny number of billionaires defeat hundreds of millions of workers in the class war. A future Democratic Party victory will come from taking a side in that class war – the workers' side. As Nolan writes:

If billionaires are destroying our country in order to serve their own self-interest, the reasonable thing to do is not to try to quibble over a 15% or a 21% corporate tax rate. The reasonable thing to do is to eradicate the existence of billionaires. If everyone knows our health care system is a broken monstrosity, the reasonable thing to do is not to tinker around the edges. The reasonable thing to do is to advocate Medicare for All. If there is a class war—and there is—and one party is being run completely by the upper class, the reasonable thing is for the other party to operate in the interests of the other, much larger, much needier class. That is quite rational and ethical and obvious in addition to being politically wise.

Nolan's remedy for the Democratic Party is simple and straightforward, if not easy:

The answer is spend every last dollar we have to organize and organize and strike and strike. Women are workers. Immigrants are workers. The poor are workers. A party that is banning abortion and violently deporting immigrants and economically assaulting the poor is not a friend to the labor movement, ever. (An opposition party that cannot rouse itself to participate on the correct side of the ongoing class war is not our friend, either—the difference is that the fascists will always try to actively destroy unions, while the Democrats will just not do enough to help us, a distinction that is important to understand.)

Cosigned.

[andreablog2]

The whole production of this purging of “useless” jobs obviously comes from a cold, efficiency obsessed angle, but also such a stupid one. It’s incredibly counterintuitive to celebrate layoff while boasting to care about the function of society. News of mass layoffs used to inspire sympathy now there’s this really sick and twisted glee people are getting over government workers losing their jobs. The argument for cheering the purge of “useless” jobs obviously comes from a cold, efficiency-obsessed angle. People like Elon Musk or really any hardcore economists who fetishize productivity….think if they get rid of the fat, keep the machine lean, focus on jobs that “matter.” Ideally is frees up resources, cuts waste, and maybe even forces people to level up their skills for roles that actually move the needle. In theory, an economy of “essential” jobs could mean more innovation, less busywork, and a tighter focus on survival-level stuff—food, tech, healthcare ect….but nothing is stopping from that extra revenue from following directly upwards and not to the people who suddenly have more pressure or perform well. Useless jobs are actually like an essential buffer option to a functioning society imo that provide more function than UBI. They’re low-stakes, low-pressure gigs where people can coast, clock out, and still pay the rent. Receptionists who barely answer phones, middle managers shuffling papers, corporate box-tickers—these aren’t curing cancer, but they keep people fed without demanding soul-crushing effort. Strip those away, and you’re left with a world where every job is do-or-die, high-stakes, “essential.” That sounds exhausting. Imagine a society where everyone’s either a doctor, a farmer, or a coder—no chill, no slack. Stress levels would skyrocket. There’s also the human side, not everyone’s cut out for “essential” work but they should keep their minds active, whether that’s socially or mentally. Some people thrive in low-key roles, and useless jobs give them a niche. Plus, what’s “useless” anyway? One person’s pointless gig might be another’s lifeline, or even a weirdly satisfying way to spend 40 hours a week. The celebration probably comes from a mix of deep callousness, elitism and blind faith in progress. People see a company like Twitter slash half its staff and still run, and they think, “Wow, proof we don’t need all that bloat!” But they’re not the ones suddenly jobless, or stuck in a world where every gig demands you bleed for it. Useless jobs might just be the grease that keeps the whole mess from grinding us all down. People are going to lose their fucking minds soon if this is any indication of the future.

[mariacallous]

Earlier this week, a federal judge in Boston explicitly called out the Trump administration for its “palpably clear” discrimination against racial minorities and LGBTQ+ Americans in a case involving canceled grants from the National Institutes of Health.

“Have we no shame?” Judge William Young asked, in an unmistakeable echo of attorney Jack Welch, who famously punctured Joe McCarthy’s popularity with his simple plea for decency.

Seventy-five years ago, McCarthy and his sidekick Roy Cohn hunted Communists. Now, Donald Trump, who was mentored by Cohn, hunts a different kind of subversive. In executive orders signed during his first weeks in office, he targeted “Illegal DEI and DEIA policies,” claiming that they violate civil rights laws. He declared that “it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” and branded “efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex” as discriminatory against women and girls.

This is a radical misstatement of the law. No court in the land has ever held that DEI — whatever that means — constitutes racial discrimination, or that allowing trans people to participate in society amounts to gender discrimination. It also defies the medical and scientific consensus about sex, gender, and biology. But no matter! The president redefined reality by executive fiat, and then instructed his minions to carry out a purge consistent with his edict.

And purge, they did! The administration immediately moved to kick trans service members out of the military, reorient the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to focus on “DEI-related discrimination at work,” and pulled down websites on everything from baseball icon Jackie Robinson to transgender health care.

But while the government was busy deleting pronouns from civil servants’ signature lines, it also slashed thousands of federal grants because some DOGE bro (or possibly an AI) decided that the recipient was vaguely “woke” — whatever that means. At NIH, more than a $1 billion of funding was cut because of its supposed association with “woke” ideologies.