#t: dec 2017

[verstappen100]

An ongoing Daniel Ricciardo video collection ❤️🍯🦡☀️

adding links to vimeo and youtube finds (under the cut, so it'll update reblogs as I add more links over time!)

hello!! This is definitely not a comprehensive list, mostly filing under things that are just new to me as a more recent fan! it's cool when I stumble upon a vid I haven't seen or one I recognize from a gif set! so I'm adding them in a list of links here in case anyone else is curious ❤️ some are like 30 second commercial spots & others are longer interviews, most so far from 2014-2020 🎥🎤✨

okay allons-y!!

Sourced from Vimeo

not chronologically organized (yet!) so I've just added the upload date atm for a date approximation; have yet to look into all the uploading accounts, too, so there is definitely way more out there to see!

📍Update 01-01-2025:

Btw if you click a link in the tumblr app and it shows a tumblr page saying "There's nothing here" sadly many of the vimeo links are not redirecting correctly atm 😭

the videos are still up and available (thankfully!! and they can be found by searching the titles on vimeo [which are listed for each vid before the upload date part below]) but!! I will be making like a Google doc with all the links, since tumblr insists on adding this redirect bologna and I'm not tech savvy enough to know why its not working hehe 🙃 I'll be back this weekend with a fix and the new link list!

lastly here's the link for DR's brand vimeo which also has the overall site search option at the top for easy access 🔍 not linked but copy-and-pastable into Google or Safari etc: https://vimeo.com/user50821531

thanks y'all!! ❤️

update 01-05-2025 I'm sorry y'all!! I have been fighting a fever all weekend 😭 so I have yet to compile everything, but the Google doc with all the working links will be here asap!! ❤️ (update 02-02-2025 omg I'm taking 5ever! Sorry y'all, I've not forgotten, life has been hella busy but I'll be adding all the vimeo links to a file soon!! Thanks for being so patient with me! hope everyone is well!! ❤️)

definitely starting with the dozens of videos on DR's official brand Vimeo (which has the delightful Sunday Night Flights series of casual post-race recaps) link

Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen paint Aston Martins in Hosier Lane - Uploaded on Mar 21, 2018 - link

Daniel Ricciardo - T Magazine Aus BTS spot - Uploaded on Jan 14, 2023 - link

Ricciardo, favorito para el GP de Singapur - Uploaded on Oct 25, 2016 - link

Red Bull - Camper Race BEHIND THE SCENES | Max Verstappen und Daniel Ricciardo - Uploaded on May 29, 2017 - link

Red Bull InFrames - Singapore GP with Daniel Ricciardo - Uploaded on Oct 25, 2017 - link

Daniel Ricciardo drives Renault Clio - Uploaded on Jul 24, 2014 - link (ah the image in the collage above is for the other Clio commercial linked below and vice versa!! I got them mixed up when adding screenshots hehe. Pobody's nerfect)

Daniel Ricciardo | Race Service (parallel parking with some slightly haunting editing) - Uploaded on May 22, 2022 - link

Season Break - Daniel Ricciardo - Uploaded on Jan 30, 2020 - link

Daniel Ricciardo x Hilton - Uploaded on Feb 7, 2023 - link

Optus TVC Daniel Ricciardo - Uploaded on Dec 17, 2024 - link

Fox Sports - I Am Daniel Ricciardo (bananas editing /positive) - Uploaded on Apr 9, 2017 - link

ESPN AUSSIES ABROAD: DANIEL RICCIARDO - LIFE IN THE FAST LANE Opener - Uploaded on Apr 21, 2016 (I have yet to watch the full documentary!) - link

ESPN AUSSIES ABROAD- DANIEL RICCIARDO - LIFE IN THE FAST LANE Preview 2 - Uploaded on Apr 21, 2016 - link

Daniel Ricciardo: Uncut (😳🥴 sorry mind in the gutter, this is a longer interview tho!) - Uploaded on Sep 17, 2017 - link

Daniel Ricciardo Feature - Uploaded on Mar 28, 2018 - link

Renault Clio I Ricciardo I Augusto Gimenez Zapiola - Uploaded on Sep 3, 2020 - link

Sky Sports Ident - F1 - Ricciardo - Uploaded on Jan 5, 2018 - link

PIRELLI: DANIEL RICCIARDO P ZERO WORLD - Uploaded on Aug 12, 2016 - link

C4F1 Daniel Ricciardo Interview Australia 2019 - Uploaded on Mar 20, 2019 - link

Daniel Ricciardo_comp_1005 - Uploaded on Dec 11, 2017 - link

Daniel Ricciardo x Artura - Uploaded on Feb 10, 2021 - link

Daniel Ricciardo drives the Triple Eight Project Sandman V8 Supercar - Uploaded on Mar 16, 2016 - link

Red Bull Racing x PUMA USGP Launch at Austin Speed Shop - Uploaded on Mar 7, 2017 - link

TAG Heuer Aston Martin Red Bull Racing 2018 Global Commercial - Uploaded on Jul 12, 2019 - link

Red Bull : One day in the life of Daniel Ricciardo - Uploaded on Apr 15, 2016 - link

Carsales // Celebrity Drive with Daniel Ricciardo - Uploaded on Aug 1, 2023 - link

On_set_with_Daniel_Ricciardo.mov - Uploaded on Nov 22, 2021 - link

Castrol EDGE Daniel Ricciardo Live on The Edge - Uploaded on Jun 4, 2020 - link

Aston Martin Racing - Daniel Ricciardo vs Darren Turner - Uploaded on Dec 17, 2021 - link

Red Bull Racing Daniel Ricciardo Photoshoot - Behind the scenes - Uploaded on Sep 16, 2020 - link

Dan Ricciardo and Alissa Smith - Silverstone 2018 Interview - Uploaded on Apr 14, 2019 - link

YouTube

omg I have yet to properly dive into YouTube! probs this section will just be as I come across things (Vimeo is much more manageable for perusing)

[2017 F1]日本GP ダニエル・リカルド&マックス・フェルスタッペン トークショー Daniel Ricciardo & Max Verstappen's talk show - 10-08-2017 - link

Added 01-01-2025 - Daniel Ricciardo on Malaysian GP - 09-27-2017 - link

Added 01-02-2025 - Q & A with Tonio Liuzzi and Daniel Ricciardo - 08-31-2011 - link

Added 01-05-2025 - Trackwalk with Daniel Ricciardo, Korea - 10-17-2011 - link

Added 02-02-2025 - Daniel Ricciardo's "Ultimate F1 Track Layout" interview - 09-22-2016 - link

more to come soon!! ❤️ thank you for stopping by!

[twig-tea]

Love in the Big City Timeline in the Series

Here are the facts I've put together about the timeline in the series (which feels, unlike the book, a little more linear and so actually possible to do this with):

[indeterminate, elementary school, est. early 2000s] Yeong's mom finds out about Yeong's father's second family and divorces him

[indeterminate, high school, est. late 2000s] Yeong is caught kissing another boy on the playground and institutionalized by his mother

2012: The year that T-ara's song Sexy Love comes out (at this point I've just kept this on here for reference)

2014: As per his own narration in ep5, this is the year Yeong contracts HIV (in Feb) and is diagnosed by the military (and he only spends 1 month in the military before getting a medical discharge). He meets with the T-aras a few months later and says they're next for the military (shoutout to @impala124); he meets Nam Gyu and Mi Ae in late 2014, and Mi Ae tries to bum a cigarette from him in Dec 2014 (shout-out to @my-rose-tinted-glasses); Yeong moves in with Mi Ae in either late 2014 or early 2015, and soon after that is the T-ara karaoke sendoff after which he breaks up with Nam Gyu.

2015: Mi Ae's application to her job had 2015 on it; Mi Ae goes to the job retreat for a month, meets Jun Ho, and then several months after that, Yeong stops talking to Mi Ae for 10 months after she outs him. Some time in late 2015/early 2016, Yeong breaks things off with Nam Gyu again.

2016: We know Yeong won the contest in 2016 as per the book we see on Yeong Su's nightstand, and since Yeong called Mi Ae after that, we know they reconciled in 2016. Also, as per the last text message from him, Nam Gyu dies in 2016. After his funeral, Yeong takes over Mi Ae's apartment and Mi Ae gets married. Also, Yeong's mother gets diagnosed with cancer 3 years before she dies, which would be 3 years before Yeong tells Gyu Ho about Kylie, so that means her cancer diagnosis was also in 2016.

2017: Yeong Su tells Yeong he's moving to America [guessing based on how much time seemed to pass in their relationship]; Yeong attempts suicide

2018: Yeong Su sends Yeong the manuscript (which he throws out) [we know this was a year after Yeong Su leaves, but before Yeong's mother dies]

2019: Yeong's mother dies [I'm inferring because we know Yeong tells Gyu-Ho about Kylie in Jan 2020 after his mother's death and after they'd been seeing each other for a little while, so that puts Yeong's mother's death in 2019]

2020: We see Yeong's phone date the day he tells Gyu-Ho about Kylie as Saturday, Jan 25, which was a date in 2020 (but not 2019) [shoutout to @my-rose-tinted-glasses for pointing this out]; Yeong also has an article in his office with 2020 on it, so he was definitely dating Gyu-Ho and had moved from his job at the musical theatre to the company by 2020.

2021: [This is a guess, but we know Yeong's been together with Gyu-Ho for a year when he complains to the T-aras about their relationship and they suggest a trip, so I'm guessing the trip to Bangkok took place in Feb 2021 (around Chinese new year)--my best attempt to date this was the reference to the construction of the Pearl Building in Bangkok but that was constructed 2015-2017]

2022: Shoutout to @my-rose-tinted-glasses for catching the label on the package of his suitcase that Gyu-Ho buys for Shanghai, which says Jan 2022. We know Gyu-Ho leaves for Shanghai soon after that because in Feb 2023 the T-aras check in with Yeong saying it's 'that time of year'.

2023: In Feb 2023 we see Yeong quits his company to be a full-time writer; he writes the date on the book he signs for his former colleague and on his phone screen we can see Feb 2023 as well. We also got some confirmations of the timeline above, since he says in his voiceovers in eps 7&8 that it's been a year since Gyu-Ho left and he's been living with Kylie 9 years. [Note: there were subs in ep7 that said 2022, but they don't align with what's actually on screen]. In March, Yeong goes to Bangkok with Q/Habibi (Habibi's phone screen says it's March 8 when Yeong looks at it in the shower).

Feel free to correct me or add any concrete dates that I missed! I've now updated this with details from the last 2 episodes on Nov 12.

[thankyouforthememoriesworld]

Found a post of an old Boneyard forum from December 2017 posting an excerpt from an article:

But more important to the Huskies were three high school stars sitting in the front row: 2017 United States U-16 teammates junior forward Aliyah Boston (Worcester Academy), sophomore point guard Paige Bueckers and freshman wing Azzi Fudd. For the Minnesota native Bueckers and Virginia native Fudd, it was their second unofficial visit to UConn in a month. All three have scholarship offers from UConn.

So then I thought, well hold on, there must be footage for that Dec 2017 ND game....peep behind the UConn bench :D

https://youtu.be/mTrlJ0JusaQ?si=WrCmG7ZOh9Ju-YgN&t=231

So I guess that is timeline confirmation for December 2017 visit together. But anyway, I'm literally at the word limit for that timeline so I'm not touching it lmao but always nice to see I'm right! On a different note, this is a young Paige and Azzi watching Gabby and Phee and Lou in college which I thought was cool! And now I'm going to see if I can confirm the other dates with highlights but for now, I think watching Paige and Azzi cheer for UConn in matching sweatshirts at 15/16 is adorable

-🔎

Having Azzi, Paige, Aliyah and I think Nat seeing this team win against ND is really neat 🤩.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hello ☺️ first of all, I'd like to THANK you for all those ficrecs, thanks to them I've discovered many awesome stories!

I know it may be early for some,but do you happen to have a Christmas fic rec list? I am desperate for some bitter sweet Christmas stories 👀

Hey Lovely!!

NEVER too early! This is the perfect time to start is early December if you want a month of fuzzy feels!!!

Check out these lists of mine to please you!

Christmas Fics (Dec. 2017)

Christmas: Oblivious That One or The Other is In a Relationship

Christmas 2019 Part 1 (All Bookmarks XMas and New Years)

Christmas 2019 Part 2 (Marked for Later)

G / T / K+ Rated Christmas Fics (Dec. 2018) (Updated Dec 2021)

Community Recs: Christmas 2020 (Updated Dec 2021)

Christmas Trees / Decorating

Christmas-Time Love Confessions

Christmas & NYE 2023 Pt 1: Bookmarks & WIPs

Christmas 2023 Pt 2: Marked For Later

New Year’s Fics (Jan 2018)

New Year’s Fics (Jan 2023)

Hot and Cold Fics (June 2022)

And if anyone has a NEW fic this year that they or wrote or want to promote, please let us know!!!!

EDIT: AND just for shizz and giggs, here's some other people's lists I've reblogged in the past:

SilentAuror’s Fics 2019

Johnlock Comes A-Wassailing (Chriscalledmesweetie)

bluebell’s Sherlock Winter Holiday Bingo Contest 

apliddell’s Christmas fics

ineffable husbands Christmas fics (additions to my lists)

favourite johnlock christmas fics by starfleetholmes

Non-Christian Winter Holiday Fics

A J. Baillier Christmas Fic Package

A Very Johnlock Christmas by a-different-equation

Some Christmas Fics by discordantwords

Five Festive Fics Friday by 7-percent

calaisreno’s Christmas Fics 2021

Silent Auror’s Christmas Fics

Khorazir 2021

Calaisreno 2022

Berty’s Festive Fics 2022

helloliriels holiday list

thegildedbee 2023

Christmas Advent Pt 2 (swissmiss)

Mystrade Holiday Collection 2024

Enjoy!

[vintagelasvegas]

Silver Palace to Mermaid's, 1956-2016

Silver Palace (1956), 32 Fremont St, Las Vegas. The casino was built in place of the W. R. Thomas building and had six different casinos names over its 60 years, aka Carousel Club, Gambler's Hall of Fame, Sundance West, Sally Sally's, and Mermaid's.

Silver Palace ('56-'64)

'54-55: The casino is planned in ’54. The W.R. Thomas building on this corner is deemed unsafe by the city and demolished in Jan. ’55. The casino also takes the place of Silver Cafe, closed Jan. ’55 after being sold to the casino group by owners Sui Mong Fong and Kim Fong.

'56: Silver Palace premiere opening is 5/25/56, with grand opening 6/8/56. Spinning Wheel Corp is the owner with over 20 licensees. Earl Snyder, president. Zick & Sharp, architect; Lee Linton, interior design. The casino is modern, with the city’s first escalator, casino, restaurant, and slot machines designed to resemble medieval castles. Signs by Heath Sign Co of Los Angeles. The casino is open only six months, closed by IRS, Nov. 30.

'58: Silver Palace reopens, 5/20/58, operated by Marion Hicks and parters of the Thunderbird. The restaurant is Louigi's Broiler.

'59: Silver Palace and Louigi's Broiler closed 6/30/59.

'61: Silver Palace reopened by Myron Lewis, 5/5/61.

'63: Lewis remains property landlord as Melvin Axler group takes over Silver Palace business in Oct.

Carousel Club ('64-'74)

'64: Renamed Carousel Club in Aug; Whiskey A' Go-Go in the basement floor. Carousel Club closed 9/23/64.

'65: Carousel Club reopened by B. Mclaney group in Jun. Carou-Cellar discotheque in the basement in Jul. Building sign changed to “McLaney’s Carousel.”

'67: Carousel Club licensees change to Salvator A Rizzo, Robert Ayoub, Rocco Paravia in Apr. American Federation of Casino and Gaming Employees leader Tom Hanley accuses the casino of taking orders from hidden owners, prompting Gaming Board investigation; AFCGE pickets the club in Aug-Sep. Owners close on 11/19/67 citing IRS charges.

'68: YESCO sues Carousel owners for unpaid sign lease in Jul. Marty Kutzen as Marlee Inc. buys the club with a Teamsters loan, reopens 8/30/68. “McLaney’s” removed from the sign.

'69: Al Garbian buys Marlee Inc, Carousel Club.

'73: Deil Gustafson buys Marlee Inc., Carousel Club.

Gambler's Hall of Fame ('74-'76) Sundance West ('76-'79)

'74: Carousel’s name changed Gamblers Hall of Fame in summer; remodeled by architect Lee Linton, and Ad-Art designer Charles Barnard.

'76: Gambler’s Hall closed 2/4/76 after bankruptcy petition is filed against the casino by a lender. Al Sachs buys the casino out of bankruptcy in May. Sachs reopens as Sundance West, 7/1/76. Facade updated, signs by Ad-Art.

'78: Cosmo's Underground restaurant opened by Tony Calabrese in the lower level of the building.

'79: Sundance West sold to Herb Pastor, closes for remodeling in Dec. Facade updated, signs by Ad-Art.

Sassy Sally's ('80-'99) Mermaid's ('99-'16)

'80: Reopened as Sassy Sally's, 4/1/80. Sally was the name of Pastor's babysitter.

'94: Cosmo's Underground closes.

'99: Casino remodeled as Mermaid's.

'06: Pastor sells Mermaid's, along with Glitter Gulch and La Bayou, to son Steve Burnstine (Granite Gaming Group).

'16: Burnstine sells Mermaid's, along with Glitter Gulch and La Bayou, to Derek and Greg Stevens. The property was demolished in 2017.

Casino to Replace Oldest Building Erected Here. Review-Journal, 12/29/54; Songs May Open New Cafe. Review-Journal, 1/4/55; Appeals Group Told to Study Building Case. Review-Journal, 1/20/55; At Long Last. Review-Journal, 2/1/55; Silver Palace to Open Friday. Review-Journal, 5/24/56; Silver Palace Opens Doors on Fremont Street Friday. Review-Journal, 5/25/56; T-Men Close Silver Palace Doors. Review-Journal, 11/30/56; New Group Negotiates for Casino. RJ 7/1/59; Casino Center to Use Silver Palace for Meets. Review-Journal, 11/20/60; Carousel Padlocked by Owner. Review-Journal, 9/24/64; City Approves Carousel Licenses. Review-Journal, 4/6/67; Roy Vanett. Hidden Casino Owners Block Talks - Union. Review-Journal, 8/10/67; Gaming Pickets Hit LV Carousel. Review-Journal, 8/25/67; State Eyes LV Casino. Review-Journal, 9/26/67; Carousel Club Closes: IRS Demand Blamed. Review-Journal, 11/20/67; Carousel Wins Okay. Review-Journal, 8/30/68; Associated Press. Board OKs Nugget, Carousel stock sales. Review-Journal, 7/12/73; Garbian to be active in casino activities. Review-Journal, 12/27/74; Al Sachs hold keys to Gamblers Hall. Review-Journal, 5/3/76; Closed Down. Review-Journal, 12/7/79; Opening. Review-Journal, 3/9/80; Charles F. Barnard. The Magic Sign. ST Publications, '93.

[beardedmrbean]

WASHINGTON — President Biden issued a pardon Monday for his brother James Biden, effectively burying the final details of a more than five-year probe into the first family’s influence peddling to save them from possible repercussions under the incoming Trump administration.

Congressional Republicans subpoenaed James Biden, 75, along with first son Hunter Biden, 54, in 2023 to investigate their involvement in the family’s domestic and foreign business dealings — after evidence emerged that both men repeatedly involved Joe Biden in their lucrative relationships.

Republicans accused James of lying to Congress and requested criminal charges. They also suggested his dealings may have amounts to unregistered foreign lobbying, another crime.

“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me��the worst kind of partisan politics. Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end,” the outgoing president said in a statement minutes before leaving office.   “I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics. But baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety, and financial security of targeted individuals and their families. Even when individuals have done nothing wrong and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage their reputations and finances.”   Biden added: “That is why I am exercising my power under the Constitution to pardon James B. Biden, [his wife] Sara Jones Biden, [first sister] Valerie Biden Owens, [her husband] John T. Owens, and [first brother] Francis W. Biden. The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense.”

It’s unclear why Biden pardoned some of his relatives, though Sara Biden was involved with some of her husband’s business relationships, and Biden’s brother Frank allegedly used his brother’s name in business dealings. The timeframe covered by the clemency grants also was not immediately clear.

Biden previously issued an unprecedented pardon on Dec. 1 spanning 11 years of his son’s conduct — stretching back to 2014 when Hunter Biden joined the board of Ukrainian gas giant Burisma Holdings — heading off sentencing on gun and tax evasion convictions and potential additional charges.

James Biden, unlike his nephew, was not charged with committing any federal crimes, though his conduct was actively investigated by House Republicans and the press.

The pardon of James Biden, who struggled to manage his own finances despite earning large sums, indicates the president likely feared the incoming Trump Justice Department would further investigate his family’s dealings, as James was involved in many key initiatives that included the president and Hunter.

The first brother for decades monetized his proximity to power — dating to Joe Biden’s 36-year Senate tenure — and House Republicans turned up records that he sent $240,000 to Joe Biden in 2017 and 2018 from funds linked to alleged influence peddling, which James said were personal loan repayments.

‘A line of 747s filled with cash’

In one of the earliest known instances of his dealings that garnered scrutiny, James in 2006 allegedly crowed, “don’t worry about investors, we’ve got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden” when he and Hunter Biden were in the process of taking over a New York City hedge fund.

“We’ve got investors lined up in a line of 747s filled with cash,” Politico reporter Ben Schreckinger wrote in a 2021 book.

Joe Biden was the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time.

Law firm SimmonsCooper — associated with wealthy asbestos lawyer Jeff Cooper — invested $1 million in 2006 to that hedge fund. The same year, Congress considered asbestos reform legislation, in which then-Sen. Biden (D-Del.) played a pivotal role in blocking a change that could have limited funding for payouts after lobbying by Cooper’s firm.

A Biden spokesman claimed in 2008 that the money was unrelated to the bill and that the investment was later returned.

Cooper subsequently partnered with the Biden family on business pursuits in Mexico during the Obama-Biden administration — and posed for a 2015 group photo with Mexican guests and Joe Biden at the official vice president’s residence and riding aboard Air Force Two for an official 2016 trip to Mexico.

James Biden was wiretapped by the FBI in 2007 — when his brother was still a senator — as part of a bribery investigation of Mississippi lawyer Dickie Scruggs, the Washington Post reported in 2023.

Biden, who was not charged in the case, was in talks with Scruggs and conspirator Tim Balducci about setting up a law firm that would have employed himself, his nephew Hunter Biden, and James’ wife.

Scruggs at one point flew Joe Biden to a fundraiser on his private plane, the Washington Post reported.

Then-Sen. Biden went from opposing federal legislation to punish tobacco companies for lying about the addictiveness of cigarettes to a supporter after Scruggs — the architect of a multibillion-dollar litigation plan — paid James Biden’s lobbying firm $100,000 in 1998, the Washington Post also reported.

“I probably wouldn’t have hired him if he wasn’t the senator’s brother,” Scruggs told the paper.

Another disbarred Mississippi attorney, Joey Langston, who was convicted in a different bribery case, told House impeachment inquiry investigators that he loaned James Biden $800,000 in 2016 and 2017 during Joe Biden’s final term in office, but only got $400,000 back.

The troubled attorney, who had hosted fundraisers for Joe Biden, ProPublica reported, was unsuccessfully trying to overturn a bribery conviction in court in 2016 — raising questions about whether he was also seeking a federal pardon from Obama while Biden was his No. 2.

China funds ‘laundered’ to Joe: GOP

James Biden was involved in an arm’s length of controversial foreign ventures.

Corporate bankruptcy documents say that James Biden received $600,000 in loans in 2018 from rural hospital provider Americore, including an initial $400,000 that January and a later $200,000 on March 1, 2018, by pledging to “obtain a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections.”

Politico reported that “one person on the receiving end of Jim Biden’s health care pitch recalled a phone call in which Jim Biden said he was sitting in a car next to his brother Joe.”

James Biden in 2018 apparently made a pitch to Qatar to invest $30 million into a troubled rural hospital provider and directly mentioned that he was the “brother” of then-former Vice President Biden in 2018 in a presentation, according to documents obtained by Politico.

James told impeachment inquiry investigators that investor Amer Rustom, whose corporate biography describes him as having “strong ties with many of the Middle East and North African leaders and country officials” referred him to another businessman, Michael Lewitt, for a potential $20 million investment in Americore, but that it didn’t materialize in time to save the company financially.

The Securities and Exchange Commission in 2023 charged Lewitt, a Florida resident, with stealing $4.7 million from investors of his own fund.

James Biden wrote his brother a $200,000 check shortly after receiving his final installment from Americore.

The first brother insisted the payment was a legitimate loan reimbursement. Democrats said that bank records showed the Joe Biden had transferred that amount to James previously, Republicans said no loan paperwork existed and questioned whether Joe Biden had actually transferred the initial funds, which flowed from a law firm associated with the family.

James Biden also sent $40,000 to Joe Biden on Sept. 3, 2017, which House Republicans said came from “laundered” funds from CEFC China Energy, a Chinese state-linked firm that paid Hunter and James Biden millions of dollars in a venture that one Biden family associate infamously penciled in a 10% cut for Joe Biden, whom they referred to as the “big guy.”

The source of that $40,000 sent to Joe was trackable due to the near-empty balance of James’ account, investigators pointed out.

James defended his work with CEFC in his impeachment inquiry testimony, though his description of his duties drew questions about his possible liability under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires Americans to register before lobbying for certain foreign clients.

“Relying on the extensive network of contacts I had developed over many decades, I quickly identified a number of promising opportunities. For example, I reached out to a number of investors who were friends and who expressed serious interest in working with us,” James said.

“In addition, I connected with Richard Ieyoub, an old friend and the former long-term Attorney General of Louisiana, who by 2017 was the state Commissioner of Conservation. Mr. Ieyoub directed me to a number of projects, including Monkey Island LNH, a property off the coast of Louisiana with opportunities for the onloading and offloading of liquid natural gas. 

“Of all the projects, this was the one that proved most attractive to CEFC, whose representatives presented the opportunity to the Chairman [Ye] and gave an informal go-ahead for the project. We even marked the occasion with a celebratory lunch.”

Joe Biden allegedly met in early 2017 in Washington with CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming shortly before the company opened the spigot of funds flowing to the family, former Biden family associate Rob Walker testified.

James said in his own testimony, said his brother “had no information at all about the source of the funds I used to repay him.”

“I never asked my brother to take any official action on behalf of me, my business associates, or anyone else. In every business venture in which I have been involved, I have relied on my own talent, judgment, skill, and personal relationships — and never my status as Joe Biden’s brother,” he said in the testimony in February.

He insisted that the money he transferred to the president were all short term loans that were for tuition payments for his children, unforeseen medical expenses and storm damage on his house.

“The Committees have asked about those loans from my brother. They were short-term loans that I received from Joe when he was a private citizen, and I repaid them within weeks…. The complete explanation is that Joe lent me money, and I repaid him as soon as I had the funds to do so.”

“What I can say is not that I’m aware of,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Dec. 12 about a James Biden pardon. “But I just don’t have anything else beyond that, and the president certainly is going to as it more broadly speaking, as we move forward to the next couple of weeks, he obviously is going to review with his team about other clemency decisions, and they’re taking additional steps, and so that’s what I can speak to at this time.”

[9w1ft]

Hi 9, can I ask you something DNPy?

I am a baby kaylor so I am still gathering and processing info and lore; my question is, during 2017, do we know for sure kaylor were still together? I mean, is there any lore or coincidences that support this?

🤍 thanks

nothing dnp-y about this ☺️ there’s plenty of lore and coincidences. here are some things for you to consider:

karlie put out a celebratory valentine’s day vlog in 2/2017 where she does obvious visual copying of the vogue best best friend video, and taylor recorded the reputation at&t now promo sometime before rep release in 11/2017 which also copies parts of the vogue best best friends video.

reputation promo photography shows taylor wearing both the evil eye ring and the vsfs angel wing ring, which are both kaylor rings. here is one example but you can look up more, like the ups promo video or other at&t promo photos. because promo would have been done months before release date, this implies she was more than fine wearing kaylor symbols in the middle of 2017.

yes. vsfs angel wing ring is a kaylor ring through and through. go actually read the masterpost if you haven’t. i’ve put a lot of work into it!

taylor wears the vsfs angel wing ring and the evil eye ring when recording several rep songs, which can be seen in the behind the scenes making of a song clips (check youtube) and footage from miss americana

the J necklace made its first public appearance dec 26, 2016, and can be assumed that we’re supposed to assume it was a birthday or christmas present. and she’s wearing it during the filming of the recording of call it what you want, which also references the necklace. so assuming you don’t believe toe is real, her happily recording call it what you want after dec 13 2016, and then performing it with a huge smile on her face on SNL in nov 2017 are both hints

call it what you want is a song that is obviously meant to sound like she says karlie in several different ways. karlie what you want / call it what you want karlie / karlie would you want to?

there’s the whole business of the clip of taylor singing call it what you want acoustic while playing guitar, the idea that she’s debuting the song to karlie in this clip. it makes sense because as i mention above, the song is sung in a way that sneaks in ways for her to sing “karlie” and taylor is wearing the vsfs ring in the clip.

there’s also the point about how a lot of us who really know what karlie’s voice sounds like (since we have watched so much of her content) can hear karlie singing along to the song, when taylor points to the filmer for the line “i did one thing right” as well as the “yes” part

karlie posted from london in december 2016 and december 2017. and in between we also know she was in london throughout 2017 because she went to london fashion week, british fashion awards, several other events. just search the internet for “karlie kloss 2017 london” etc. this pokes holes in any argument that puts taylor running away to london as some sort of kaylor disqualifier. karlie was seen in london too. she was also posting from nice france over the summer in 2017, which is just a chunnel away from london if you think about it. she was plenty close more than several times to where people like to say taylor was.

derek tweeted what is basically an easter egg to call it what you want being about karlie, just about a week before it was released

also another big group of things is just how there’s an obvious reason for taylor and karlie not being seen together throughout 2017:

taylor and karlie disappeared only as the election results came in. they were literally seen together on the eve of the general election in 11/2016. its at this point, literally from this day, that taylor begins wearing the vsfs angel wing ring (read the masterpost linked above). by process of deduction you can prove she’s wearing it in the pic of her and karlie kissing lorde’s cheeks, because she was papped wearing it to the party. i just mean this to say that it makes sense that they stopped being seen for 2017, because they had a reason. the election results.

the glitch 2190 days of our love blackout line represents the amount of time between when they went dark in 2016 til midnights release

in the lavender haze explainer video taylor describe how she and her lover had to combat weird rumors for the past six years. this also neatly fits the time between when they went dark after the election and the release of midnights

miss americana and the heartbreak prince, which is about the 2016 election, includes the line “it’s you and me that’s my whole world”

call it what you want, again, is a song about running away with someone and nobody hearing about you for months, which fits the rep social media hiatus where taylor was not seen

this is more of an opinion i guess but i happen to think that taylor’s “darkest night” was sometime between 2016 and 2017 and i think that call it what you want’s “starry eyes sparking up my darkest night” connects to renegade’s “i tapped on your window on your darkest night” and the lover album prologue and this continued theming of karlie having been there for taylor when taylor was at her lowest.

i could go on and on with the lyric parallels that show the narrative post-election but it’s kind of never ending so anyways.. i’ll keep my list of things to everything right here. hope this all helps!

[lectern-fullcauldron]

do you know your hermistory? hermitcraft debuts in order

Short ID: an infographic illustrating each current hermitcraft whitelist member's hermitcraft debut date by season. Each hermit is illustrated next to an abridged tfc quote that reads 'a great big dysfunctional family'

Long ID below cut

Image ID: a long single panelled infographic on a rainbow gradient background. Down the right hand side reads "a great big, dysfunctional family". The infographic has the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 down the left hand side, each with a corresponding colour on the gradient.

Section one: down the left hand side of this section are the following stats: 'April 2012: Hypno, Xisuma', 'May 2012: Keralis, Joe Hills' 'Jan 2013: Bdubs'. All of the above hermits are illustrated in the section. Keralis, Xisuma, and Hypno stand at the top as founding members of the server. There is an illustration of a leaf block on a two high fence next to Keralis labelled 'booshes' and an arrow points at Hypno reading 'website admin'. Below them, Joe Hills reclines in a Uno wildcard themed bubble reading a book called 'scam'. An arrow points to this bubble that reads 'the original new guy'. Bdubs' appears waving in a small white circle below Joe with the caption '2 eps in S1. Coming soon!'

Section two: a neon green arrow bridges this section to section one. It comes from Joe Hills and reads 'coup!'. Down the left of this section are the following stats: 'June 2013: Cleo, Mumbo', 'Oct 2013: TFC', 'Dec 2013: iJevin', 'June 2014: False', 'July 2014: Tango', and 'Sept 2014: xbcrafted'. Cleo and mumbo sit together with an arrow pointing at them reading 'both too shy to talk to people' - this text also has an arrow pointing at falsesymmetry. Tfc is depicted carrying a pair of binoculars and has an arrow pointing at him that reads 'branch mine advocate' of which the branch is underlined. Ijevin carries a stopwatch and False a diamond sword. Tango holds a minecraft oak door and has two bits of text pointing at him. The first reads 'early iron farm visitor' and the second reads 'redstone genius'. This second text has arrows that also descend down to impulse, doc, and etho in section three. The final hermit in section two is xb, who is lying on his stomach, kicking his legs and looking up at tango.

Section three: the stats down the left hand side of this section read 'Jan 2015: impulse', 'march 2015: etho, doc'. Impulse is depicted falling into a yellow pentagram with the caption 'summoned to help with quad witch hut'. Below this, doc and etho stand side by side (doc a head taller than etho). Doc has a pen and a clipboard and the pair are labelled 'mindcrack refugees'.

Section four: the stats down the left hand side of this section read: 'Feb 2016: Welsknight, Iskall, Scar, Ren, Cub', 'Sept 2016: Beef'. The five hermits for Feb 2016 are depicted in a line with a box grouping cub and scar with a note that reads 'do not separate'. Below them is the caption 'kingdomcraft'. Beef reclines alone below them, with a note beside him that reads 'mesa-ing around' (title of cub's first hermitcraft episode).

Section five: the stats down the left hand side of this section read: 'April 2017: Stress, Bdubs, Zed'. This section is relatively small. Stress is in a GG get gorgeous t-shirt, holding an allium. Bduds is asleep on Zed, wrapped up in his moss cloak. Above him reads 'NHO time!'

Section six: the stats down the left hand side of this section read: 'July 2018: grian'. This section depicts grian t-posing with white wings and orange goose feet. He has two captions, the first reads 'started a war' and has an arrow pointing up to stress as well. The other reads 'horrible goose t-posing to assert dominance'.

Section 8: the stats down the left hand side of this final section read: 'June 2021: Gem, Pearl'. Gem and pearl are depicted hugging with the captions 'moon big' and 'gem is great'. Pearl's face is depicted as a moon and her eyes are craters. She still has blonde hair to match her minecraft skin.

End ID

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Random Fics (7) Masterlist

part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six

A Leap in the Dark (ao3) - Bleeding Phass Incident (doctorwhat420)

Summary: Dan’s fingers brushed Lester’s face on the screen. Cold, plastic, hard… Yeah, it was probably just like the real deal.

An Island in the Mediterranean (ao3) - natigail

Summary: A holiday just for them and their friends. A little break filled with calmness by the seaside. Five precious moments shared on Instagram. September 2017

As the World Caves In (ao3) - cosmic_angel_writes

Summary: Dan and Phil vs The Zombie Apocalypse

Boys on Fire (ao3) - transdimensional_void

Summary: Dan is visiting Phil for the second time ever and a little Buffy viewing session turns into sexy times.

cherry lips and crystal skies (ao3) - orphan_account

Summary: It’s summer in England and Phil gets invited to a high school pool party to survive the heat wave. There, he meets a flirty and mysterious Dan Howell.

Come along (ao3) - ottertrashpalace

Summary: In medieval England, a young knight rides north, sent to serve at the court of the quiet young Duke of Lancaster.

Crushes and Waterslides (ao3) - orphan_account

Summary: Dan has a massive crush on one of the supervisors at his local water park, which is why he goes back every single week even though he doesn’t even like watersides.

Deeper (ao3) - Scuddleduck

Summary: Inspired by the idea of "Pass Around Party Bottom Dan."

Don't Blame Me (ao3) - ForeverJustAnEmoKidAtHeart

Summary: When Phil gets a new job at the Tops Only Bar, he's just looking to make ends meet over the holiday period. He doesn't expect how he'll feel about one of the performers or how hard that'll make his job.

envelop the lonely places (ao3) - cityofphanchester

Summary: Dan in his arms is like remembering how to breathe.

(reunion fic, dec '22)

Green (ao3) - iihappydaysii

Summary: When a man hits on Dan at a party, Phil knows it doesn’t really matter, but he still doesn’t like it.

How I Met My Boyfriend on Queer Eye (warning: super gay) (ao3) - danhoweiis, twoheadlights (fizzfic)

Summary: au where dan is a hero on queer eye and accidentally falls in love with one phil lester

i thought that i was dreaming (ao3) - twoheadlights (fizzfic)

Summary: Dan and Phil and the beds they've shared. Basically.

in this smoking chaos (ao3) - writingcollective

Summary: Dan bottoms for the first time, not being able to shut down his inner demons that whisper internalised homophobic thoughts into his ear. But Phil guides him through it, somehow.

life happens, coffee helps (and so do you) (ao3) - halfofacrackedbluesky

Summary: Dan makes friends with the barista at the local coffee shop.

Like Fine Print (ao3) - totalincandescense

Summary: Every few weeks, Dan was given an unfriendly reminder of at least one of the many reasons why he never went outside. The most frequently recurring thing on the list being the general existence of people. But more specifically, the existence of people who flirted with Phil.

Love That Passes (Is Enough) (ao3) - nihilist_toothpaste

Summary: Phil is a sad divorcee who lives in a mansion. Dan starts as a nervous and weirdly loud law student hired to work part-time as Phil's poolboy-slash-housekeeper and turns into so much more.

Just go with me on this.

move your body when the sunlight dies (ao3) - phegetarian

Summary: dan is cursed, phil is a witch.

and i can't do summaries.

one night stand (ao3) - dizzy

Summary: Dan meets a stranger in a bar during after one of his shows on the We’re All Doomed tour.

Phil’s ASs (ao3) - transdimensional_void

Summary: Dan can’t help but worship Phil’s perfect posterior

Phome is where the heart is (ao3) - blossomsphan

Summary: dan and phil go shopping at target while in Seattle for tit. they’re feeling festive for the season and a little sappy bc, well, duh 🧡

Precious Baby Angel (ao3) - toadsappho

Summary: Phil shows Dan his new t-shirt, but that's not the only surprise he has for him.

remember me, love? (ao3) - CapriciousCrab

Summary: The club was a bit crowded tonight for his taste; the sound of beating hearts and gallons of blood rushing through veins an annoying distraction from his hunt for something to sate his hunger.

Silver Arrows To The Heart (ao3) - evermorepeyton

Summary: Phil loves his life, he loves being a Mercedes Formula 1 driver and he loves being PJ’s teammate, friend and neighbor. He loves the routine he has going on. He lives in a perfect bubble.

But now that bubble is about to burst when the news that PJ is leaving Mercedes hit the tabloids. And worst of all, his replacement is Red Bull’s two-time world champion Daniel Howell, who has a reputation for having a little bit of an ego.

Phil isn’t exactly happy about this.

To put it lightly, he fucking hates it here.

sunkissed (ao3) - ivylakes

Summary: Maybe Phil was made to pour warmth into this man and leave little marks all over his body the way the sun does when it covers his skin with freckles. Maybe everything they’ve ever done and every little way they’ve loved each other has culminated in this very moment, where they can hardly see each other in the low light but are still brighter than the yellow light that breaks through the sky and glitters on the ocean.

Or, Dan and Phil go on holiday, and every photo they take tells a story.

"that's what makeup is for!" (ao3) - latenightfanfic

Summary: dnp finally have a night alone to themselves in a hotel after a few drinks after being cooped up in a tour bus.

The Most Beautiful Forbidden Fruit - botanistlester

Summary: In a world where witches and humans live side-by-side, a war breaks out after the two species procreate, producing bloodthirsty children. As a result, the government puts laws into place: Witches and humans must never fall in love or bear children. It’s a rule that Dan Howell and his family have lived hand-in-hand with, even going so far as to make sure that Dan never has prolonged contact with the other species. When Dan goes to his favourite magic shop one day, he meets the new employee, Phil Lester. A human who he can’t seem to get rid of.

the pool noodle fight (ao3) - jonsaremembers

Summary: Navigating the emotional aftermath of Phil's near-death experience with the help of, uh, some foam pool toys.

Time is on our side (ao3) - Mysticallykai

Summary: In 2010, AmazingPhil decided to make a video trying to time travel. He ends up meeting his boyfriend Dan in the year 2023 as well as himself, and he has a lot of questions.

Us, As Told by Other People (ao3) - jestbee

Summary: People make a lot of assumptions about Dan and Phil, but what happens when Dan starts believing some of them. You can’t actually ship yourself with your best friend, can you?

Or: the five times Dan was guilty of over-thinking things, and the one time he wasn’t.

waiting outside the lines (ao3) - dizzy

Summary: An not-really-coffee-shop, not-really-uni au in which Phil is confused, Dan is cute, no one does youtube, and there's still a happy ending.

we got the north lights (ao3) - dizzy

Summary: Sex by the pool in Australia.

you look so good it hurts (in my favorite t-shirt) (ao3) - phantasticworks (steddieworks)

Summary: Phil is gifted with a "Mega Dilf" shirt. Guess who picked that shirt out?

you should’ve raised a baby girl (i should’ve been a better son) (ao3) - thislifedoesnotexist

Summary: Fiona has had a best friend, and she’s had a crush, and Dan is both and neither and something new and transcendent altogether.

(2009 and it’s the same but they’re transfem so it’s not)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Drew Sheneman, Newark Star-Ledger

* * * *

Lucian Truscott Newsletter

The limitations of loyalty

Lucian K. Truscott IV

Dec 01, 2024

What is Donald Trump so afraid of? I ask the question because in the military, it has long been known that only frightened, little men – it has always been men – appoint toadying loyalists to positions under their command. If a frightened little man wants his orders carried out, even when his orders are likely to cause deaths of his compatriots by their idiocy and cravenness, then he must appoint people who will follow his orders unquestioningly. Fellow frightened little men fit that requirement to a T.

All the news stories last night and commentators today on the appointment by Trump of Kash Patel to head the FBI have started out with the proposition that he is a “dangerous” and “shocking” appointment. He is neither. He’s not shocking, because Trump has made it clear over the last two years that he was going to put someone like Patel in the job of FBI Director. He’s not dangerous, because you’ve got to be effective to be dangerous, and Patel hasn’t been effective at anything he’s ever done.

Patel got his start as an aide to Devin Nunes when he was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee in 2017. Nunes, with the able help of Patel, fucked up that job by the numbers. He claimed he received classified documents from unnamed sources that would prove that President Obama had “tapped my wires,” as Trump had claimed, and he would show them to the White House. The documents came from two National Security aides in the White House, with whom Nunes met secretly one night in early March of 2017. Nunes and Patel took the documents, which turned out not to be secret at all, back to the Capitol, where Nunes shared them with the press, and then made a show of taking them to the White House to show them to Trump, whose aides had had them all along. Even Trump toady Lindsey Graham compared Nunes to the fictional and incompetent “Inspector Clouseau.”

Patel stayed with Nunes throughout his comical attempts to prove anything Trump said about “Russia Russia Russia” was true. The problem was, they kept running up against uncomfortable facts. Trump’s campaign aide George Papadopoulos had, in fact, met with Russian agents of the GRU who offered “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. When Nunes traveled to London to meet with MI5, MI6, and GCHQ, the British office of government communications, no one would meet with him. Patel was his aide on all this.

Patel got a job as a counterterrorism specialist on the Trump National Security Council and promptly inserted himself right in the middle of Trump’s botched attempts to use Rudy Giuliani and Lev Parnas – remember him? – to pressure Ukrainian President Zelenskyy to open a fake investigation of Joe Biden that Trump could use against him in the presidential campaign. Patel’s many laughable maneuvers in that clusterfuck are too numerous to go into here, but suffice to say that Patel’s frequent contacts with Giuliani tell you pretty much all you need to know about how effective and successful that scam was.

Patel next popped into public view when Trump appointed him as Chief of Staff to Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, who replaced Mark Esper in the job after Patel accused him of being disloyal to Trump by refusing to deploy active-duty soldiers to put down George Floyd protests. During Patel’s three months in the Pentagon, he served alongside Ezra Cohen-Watnick, one of the sources who provided Nunes with the fake documents that “proved” Obama had tapped Trump’s “wires.”

While Trump was out of office, Patel was given a job with Trump’s social media company and with one of his superpacs, where he was paid several hundred thousand dollars for what amounted to no-show jobs. Patel also earned money hawking pro-Trump T-shirts and other cheap trash under the company name “K$H.” He also sold pills he claimed would reverse the effects of the COVID vaccine and wrote a series of children’s books that featured the character of “King Donald.”

Okay, Patel is one more grifter in the great panoply of Trump loyalists who have made careers out of their closeness and loyalty to the Great Man, for which he was promoted ever-upward. Every person who has ever had a government job at any level – county, city, state, federal – or in a corporation, has known a Kash Patel, a creepy little briefcase-carrier who’s always currying favor with the boss, and despite any evidence of having skills other than self-promotion and ass-kissing, just keeps getting promoted or shifted job titles that keep him or her employed and in a position where they can serve the interests of the boss.

That’s the point, how common the Kash Patels of the world are, how well known they are to anyone who has a job where they are actually required to produce stuff, whether it’s studies, or plans, or construct roads, or build cars, or come up with ideas for products that will produce income or in government, programs that are successful in what they are intended to do. Sniveling little suck ups like Patel are so prevalent in American life that everyone has had to suffer under them during their professional lives. So, if you know anything you say to a certain co-worker is going straight into the ear of the boss, you tend to keep your mouth shut about things you don’t want the boss to hear about. If one of these Patel-like suck ups is known for taking credit for ideas he or she didn’t come up with, then ideas of those down in the trenches of the government agency or corporation aren’t shared with that person. If a suck up is known for stabbing others in the back to get his or her way, then people learn not to present their backs in such a way that they will be easily accessed by a knife.

Here is how Patel described in a recent right-wing podcast interview what he would do if he was appointed FBI Director: “I’d shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state. And I’d take the seven thousand employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops. You’re cops, go be cops. Go chase down murderers and rapists and drug dealers. What do you need seven thousand people there for? Same thing with DOJ. What are all these people doing here? Looking for the next government promotion.”

There are about 35,000 people who work for the FBI in all kinds of capacities, from field agents to office staff to evidence analysis to legal advisors to certified public accountants involved in investigating financial crimes. It’s a long list of people, many of whom have had long careers in the FBI doing the work of law enforcement, some of it drudge work that isn’t fun to do, but must be done if crimes are to be investigated and criminals are to be caught and put in prison. Many of these people in the FBI are very smart. Some FBI agents have law degrees. The minimum requirement is a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, accounting, forensic science, and other professional fields. They must have at least two years work experience in some form of law enforcement. Employment in the FBI is highly competitive. Only 20 percent of those seeking jobs with the FBI are accepted to begin the process of meeting employment qualifications. Many are eliminated by failing writing tests, interviews, medical and physical fitness exams, background checks, or field training schooling at the FBI Academy. As few as two to three percent of applicants meet all the requirements and become FBI agents.

My point is, the FBI isn’t a number like Patel’s 7,000. It’s people. They know stuff. They read the newspapers. They watch the news on TV. They are well-informed. When Kash Patel describes them as people who are just “looking for the next government promotion,” they know he is describing himself, not them.

The FBI is full of expert bureaucratic in-fighters. The people who reach positions of leadership are in charge of hundreds of employees under them and budgets in the millions that they have to fight for. Some fight for the FBI budget in Congress, some fight for departmental budgets inside the FBI. They’re not just sitting around twiddling their thumbs.

They see Kash Patel coming, and they’re not going to lie down and take it from this sniveling little fool.

Bureaucrats are experts at delay, obfuscation, dodging orders, putting things off for another day, flooding the zone with paperwork, overloading the system with unmanageable data, creating streams of seemingly important but useless data. You name it, they can do it. Kash Patel will land at the FBI, and he won’t know whether he’s coming or going. His instinct will be to hire and surround himself with other Trump toadies like Cohen-Watnick and Michael Ellis, the other Trump national security council official who provided Nunes and Patel with the fake secret documents that failed to prove Obama tapped anybody’s “wires,” least of all Donald Trump’s.

The problem with loyalists is their predictability. Patel will lash out without thinking, make assertions that cannot be proven, flaunt conspiracy theories that are dead letters on arrival. The problem is, he will be at the head of an agency that is evidence-based by its very nature, employing thousands of people who have spent their lives being tested in courts of law, where telling a lie can get you put in prison.

Loyalty is not a measure of a person’s worth unless that loyalty is to something greater than oneself. Patel will imitate the man who put him in power. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it’s a piss-poor way to run a railroad, or the FBI, as the saying goes.

[Lucian Truscott on Substack]

[darkmaga-returns]

Starshield satellites can operate as a swarm in low orbits, offering the most pervasive real-time surveillance of human beings in history. These ‘low orbit satellite swarms’ are what we call drones.

Karen Kingston

Dec 27, 2024

December 27, 2024: With the recent news buzz about the unverified drones hovering over towns and military bases throughout the United States, I believe this March 2024 Kingston Report on Elon Musk’s Starshield Global Surveillance drone system may present an alternative hypothesis as to what the drones are, and who they belong to.

March 18, 2024: On December 19, 2017, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitle, “How China’s Surveillance State Overwhelms Daily Life.” The article details how the Chinese government turned Xianjing, China into a, “…remote laboratory for its high-tech social controls. Security checkpoints with identification scanners guard the train station and roads in and out of town. Facial scanners track comings and goings at hotels, shopping malls and banks...”

Not only are China’s 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week (24/7) surveillance policies and technologies highly invasive, many western nations consider the use of these surveillance systems as a violation of human rights. In August of 2022, a U.N. High Commissioner for human rights found that China’s policies on religion, biometric surveillance (i.e. public facial recognition cameras), DNA surveillance (human identification kits), criminal medical experimentation, and the overall 24/7 police surveillance of Xiangjiang residents were human rights violations, and in some cases, crimes against humanity.

Unfortunately for global citizens, a highly-advanced 24/7 surveillance system is currently being deployed on civilians in the United States of America and in other nations around the globe.

[rvveal]

🍀 BASICS !

✦ . STAGE NAME REYES ✦ . BIRTH NAME BAI ZIXIN ✦ . ENGLISH NAME REYES BAI ✦ . NICKNAMES REY, REYREY, XIN, ZI

✦ . AGE 22 ✦ . DATE OF BIRTH 13 OCT 2001 ✦ . ZODIAC SIGN LIBRA ✦ . CHINESE ZODIAC SIGN SNAKE

✦ . NATIONALITY CHINESE ✦ . ETNICITY CHINESE ✦ . PLACE OF BIRTH TAIPEI CITY, TAIWAN ✦ . HOMETOWN TAIPEI CITY, TAIWAN and OVIEDO, SPAIN

✦ . HEIGHT 175 CM ( 5'9'' ft ) ✦ . WEIGHT N/A ✦ . BLOOD TYPE A POSITIVE

✦ . FACE CLAIM LIU YANGYANG ✦ . VOCAL CLAIM MARK LEE ✦ . RAP CLAIM MARK LEE ✦ . DANCE CLAIM KANG YEOSANG ✦ . SPEAKING CLAIM WANG YIXIANG ✦ . LANGUAGES MANDARIN ( fluent, native ) + SPANISH ( fluent ) + KOREAN ( proficient ) + ENGLISH ( proficient )

✦ . GENDER CIS MALE ✦ . SEXUAL ORIENTATION HOMOSEXUAL ( public ) ✦ . RELATIONSHIP STATUS IN A RELATIONSHIP ( public )

🍀 CAREER !

✦ . OCCUPATION IDOL ✦ . YEARS ACTIVE 6 YEARS ( 2017 - present ) ✦ . YEARS TRAINED 5 YEARS ( 2012 - 2017 ) ✦ . AGENCY CRE.KER ENTERTAINMENT ( 2017 - 2021 ) + IST ENTERTAINMENT ( 2021 - present ) ✦ . GROUP THE BOYZ ✦ . POSITIONS MAIN RAPPER, LEAD DANCER, MAKNAE ✦ . DEBUT DATE 06 DEC 2017

✦ . REPRESENTATIVE EMOJI 😺 + ⭐ ✦ . REPRESENTATIVE ANIMAL CAT ✦ . INDIVIDUAL FANDOM NAME N/A ✦ . INSTAGRAM REYREYES + ZOMBAIII

🍀 PERSONAL !

✦ . MBTI INTP-T ( TURBULENT LOGICIAN ) ✦ . POSITIVE TRAITS OPEN-MINDED, LOGICAL, INDEPENDENT, ORIGINAL, CURIOUS ✦ . NEGATIVE TRAITS OVERLY EMOTIONAL AT TIMES, NAIVE, IMPATIENT, OVERTHINKING, DISCONNECTED

✦ . LIKES cheesy romantic dramas, staying in his room and doing his own things, paintings, playing nintendo games, animal crossing and mario kart, sleeping in late ✦ . DISLIKES strongly scented things, allergies, the airport, large bodies of water, being woken up early ✦ . HOBBIES watching dramas, painting, playing his favorite games, being a menace, dancing ✦ . PHOBIAS autophobia ( fear of being abandoned ) + thalassophobia ( fear of the ocean or other large bodies of water )

[captain-price-unofficially]

A T-64BV mod.2017 tank of the 17th Tank Brigade near the front. Dec 2023

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hey Steph,

I am in the mood for some really long fics. Preferably not AU as I find those hard to get into. Although, like always, I am open to your all your suggestions.

Loves Seven.

Hi Lovely!!

Ahhh, I've a TONNE of long fics, and a lot of them AREN'T AUs! I'm gonna use your ask as an excuse to post a new list, and please check out the other pages linked below! I label if a fic is an AU or not, so just skip over those if you're not up for them! Enjoy!

NOVEL LENGTH FICS: 50 to 100K Pt 4

See also:

Novella Length Fics: 20 to 25K (Oct 2020)

Novella Length Fics: 25 to 50K (Aug. 2019)

Novella Length Fics: 25 to 50K Pt 2 (July 2022)

Novel Length Fics: 50 to 100K (Nov. 2018)

Novel Length Fics: 50 to 100K Pt 2 (May 2020)

Novel Length Fics: 50 to 100K Pt 3 (Jul 2022)

Novel Length Fics: 100K+ w. (May 2019)

Novel Length Fics: 100K+ w. Pt 2 (Aug 2020)

Novel Length Fics: 100K+ w. Pt 3 [MFL’s] (Dec 2020)

Long Domestic Johnlock (50K+ w.) (March 2023)

Smut-Free Fics Over 50K (Aug 2019)

Top 20 Fave 40K+ w. Fics (April 2017)

Long S3/Post-S3 Fics (20K+ w.) [Apr 2020]

Hurt / Comfort Pt. 4: 50K+ Words Pt. 1

Anxious / Worried Sherlock Pt 2 (Over 20K w.)

Long Pining Fics (50K+) [March 2023]

G,T, & M-Rated Johnlock for Newcomers Pt. 3 (20K+)

Genius is a Star Whose Light (is Soon to Sink in Endless Night) by LoloLolly (M, 51,812 w., 11 Ch. || Canon Compliant Through TFP/S4 Is Canon, Aftermath of Serbia, Alternating POV,  Established / New Relationship, Parentlock with Rosie, Explicit Torture, Mentions of Sherlock’s PTSD, Mentions of Human Trafficking, References to Child Abuse, Violence, Kidnapping, Captivity, Angst with Happy Ending, Fluff, Case Fic, BAMF / Soldier John, Sherlock Whump, Mycroft and John Work Together, Marriage Proposal, Autistic Sherlock, Lestrade Finds Out, Polyglot Sherlock) – Sherlock had buried the past. Shut Serbia away in the attic of his mind palace. Muddy footprints at a heinous crime scene, however, have led him right back to old enemies. And right back to captivity. For God’s sake, Mycroft. Part 2 of the Earthly Pomp (Is But a Dream) series

Spare Parts by Raina_at (E, 63,497 w., 10 Ch. || 24th Century / Futurism AU || Post TRF, Pre-TRF Relationship, Case Fic, Mutual Pining, Estrangement, Reconciliation, Science Fiction, Reunion, Nightmares, Angry John, Cybernetic John, Emotional Discussions / Heart to Heart, POV John, Scars, Past Drug Use, Forehead Touching, Emotional Lovemaking, Kissing, Apologies, Kidnapping, Rescue Mission, BAMF John, Bed Sharing, Top Sherlock) – Two years ago, Sherlock Holmes jumped off the roof of New London Hospital. Two months ago, he walked into John's clinic as if no time had passed at all. John hasn't seen him since. But then Sherlock knocks on John's door with a case he can't say no to, and while figuring out why the biggest manufacturer or synthetic limbs in the System is going after veterans, they also need to find out whether there's a way to fix what's broken between them. Part 1 of Realigning Gravity

Swallow the Night by ArwaMachine (E, 87,873 w., 15 Ch. || TSo3/Stag Night Fix It, TAB/S4 Divergence, Toplock, Mutual Pining, PWP, Drunk / Public Sex, Anal Fingering/Sex, Alcohol-Induced Amnesia, Everyone Knows Except Them, Emotional Love Confession, Demisexual Sherlock, Internalized Homophobia [John], Parentlock with Rosie, First Kiss, Drug Relapse, Infidelity, Texting, Masturbation, Oblivious John, Emotional Love Making, Angst with Happy Ending, Dreams and Nightmares) – “Do you know how long,” John panted, his cheek scraping against the wall, looking back at Sherlock through half-closed eyes, “I’ve wanted this?” Sherlock pressed himself against John’s back, biting at John’s ear. “Not nearly as long as I have,” he whispered.

Bakers with Benefits by Raina_at (E, 88,130 w., 14 Ch. || Great British Bake Off AU || Strangers to Lovers, Switchlock, Friends with Benefits, Mentions of Alcoholism / Past Drug Use, Banter, Flirting, Fluff, Light Angst, Semi-Public Sex, Past Sherlock/Victor, Mutual Pining, POV Sherlock, Obsessive Sherlock, John’s Bum) – Sherlock Holmes has a successful YouTube baking channel, but what he really wants is his own bakery. When an old friend sends him a call for the very first Great British Bake Off, he seizes the opportunity to finally win a sponsor for his bakery. Here's the plan: Win Bake Off, get the bakery, don't fall in love with the handsome Army doctor at the neighbouring station. Easy.

Fade To Black by twistedthicket1 (M, 93,389 w., 29 Ch. || Split Personality Disorder / DID, Action, Romance, Violence, Implied Rape/Non-Con, BAMF John, Fluff and Angst, Baskerville, Human Experimentation, PTSD, Implied Self Harm, Trauma Amnesia, Past Child Sexual Abuse, Protective Sherlock, Smoking, Meddling Mycroft, Past Victor/Sherlock, Gay Sherlock, Sherlock’s Past, First Kiss/Time) – John Watson believes one day he'll just fade. That he'll drown in the black spaces of his mind, and that one day he will no longer exist. It's always been like this, the dark spots marking out moments in his life he can't remember. Where for just a moment he's someone else. Having a Dissociative identity disorder, he can't even be entirely sure he's really who he says he is. Then he meets Sherlock Holmes. A brilliant detective who when he looks at you can read your entire life story. John is immediately fascinated and afraid, half-wondering if maybe Sherlock can see the other personalities in him and half terrified of the thought of him finding out. Becoming his flatmate seems at once to be a wonderful and horrible idea. Yet as John's Blackouts become more and more severe and his other personalities begin to truly awaken and show themselves with Sherlock's help, the two soon discover that sometimes even the kindest person can harbour a demon best left untouched inside of them. Because not all of John's other personalities play nicely and some may be hiding secrets best left undisturbed...

[misfitwashere]

Tulsi Gabbard Holds the Knife

An Operation We Might Not Survive

TIMOTHY SNYDER

DEC 7

Imagine that the day has come for your brain surgery. You are lying, immobilized and vulnerable, on the operating table. Something is wrong, but you hope that it can be repaired. As the anesthesia sets in, you reflect. To be sure, your brain hasn't always performed the way you wished it had. You have made some mistakes, and done some stupid things, regrettable things, wrong things. But still, it is the brain that allows for a reconsideration of all that, to adjust, to have some hope and some possibility of doing better next time. Your brain keeps you going, keeps you in touch with the world. Hopefully, yours can be repaired, and you can get back to thinking, being, becoming. You could get better. As darkness descends, you catch a glimpse of a person dressed as a surgeon, approaching your head with a knife and a smile. It's Tulsi Gabbard. Hope gives way to horror.

This dark fantasy suggests, on a very small scale, the national trauma that lies before us. Gabbard is Donald Trump's choice to operate American intelligence. In the intelligence system, a kind of national brain, the Director of National Intelligence oversees and coordinates the work of agencies charged with knowing the world, protecting the integrity of digital systems, anticipating and preventing terrorism, and evaluating national security threats. Gabbard is the opposite of qualified for such a role: she is a disinformer and as an apologist for the war crimes of dictatorships.

Gabbard appears on the world stage as a defender of a million violent deaths. 

She is an apologist for two of the great atrocities of the century: the Russian-Syrian suppression of the Syrian opposition to the Bashar al-Assad dictatorship, which has taken about half a million lives, most of them civilians, some of them by chemical weapons; and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has also taken about half a million lives, and has brought the destruction of whole cities, the kidnapping of children, mass torture, and the large-scale execution of civilians.

That is it. That is her profile. Disinformer and apologist. Beyond the United States, in the larger world that US intelligence agencies are tasked to understand, she is associated with her pro-Assad and pro-Putin positions. (In third place, I suppose, would be her propensity to provide the Chinese state media with useful sound bites).

Until 2014, Gabbard said nothing remarkable about foreign affairs. In 2015, just before Putin intervened to save Assad, she began her extraordinary journey of apology for atrocity. In September of that year, Putin sent Russian mercenaries, soldiers, and airmen to Syria to defend Assad. The great advantage Putin could bring to Assad was to multiply the regime's air strikes, which were turned against hospitals and other civilian targets. Hospitals were and remain a Russian specialty.

In June 2015, as a congresswoman from Hawai'i, Gabbard visited Syria. During her stay, she was introduced to girls who had been burned from head to toe by a regime air strike. Her reaction to the situation, according to her translator, was to try to persuade the girls that they had been injured not by Syrian forces, but by the resistance. But this was impossible. Only Syria (at the time of her visit) and Russia (beginning weeks later) were flying planes and dropping bombs. 

Either Gabbard was catastrophically uninformed about the most basic elements of the theater of war she was visiting, or she was consciously spreading disinformation. Those are the two possibilities. The first is disqualifying; the second is worse.

And if she was spreading disinformation consciously, she was also doing so with a pathological ruthlessness. Anyone who would lie to the child victims of an air strike to their burned faces would lie to anyone about anything. In January 2017, she visited Syria again, this time to speak to Assad. She began thereafter to deny that his regime had used chemical weapons on its own people. That was a very big lie.

In Washington, in speeches in Congress, Gabbard showed an uncanny ability to turn almost any issue into a justification for defending the Assad regime. In 2016, concern for Christians in Syria was a pretext to defend the Assad regime. In 2017, she presented worries about terrorism as a reason to defend of the Assad regime. In 2018, the anniversary of 9/11 was her prompt for defending the Assad regime. In 2019, she found her way from the genocide of Armenians a century earlier to the need to defend the Assad regime. She even worked hard to segue from the lack of affordable housing in Hawai'i to the need to defend the Assad regime. Gabbard's support of Assad was so well known that her colleagues, Republican and Democratic alike, were worried that she would reveal the identity of a Syrian photographer brought to Congress to testify about Assad's atrocities.

For Russia, Syria was a testing ground for Ukraine. The atrocities perpetrated by Russians in Syria were repeated in Ukraine. In 2021, the largest donor to Gabbard’s PAC was an apologist for Putin. When the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February of the following year, Gabbard, a consumer of Russian propaganda, was immediately ready as a channel for the Russian line, including obvious Russian disinformation. Again and again, over and over, her public statements were strikingly similar to Putin’s,

Amidst the farrago of lies that Russia used to justify its full-scale invasion invasion was the completely bogus claim that Ukraine was site of American biolabs that were testing which infections would be most harmful to Slavs (and thus Russians). This lie originates in Russia and was spread by Russian media, along with some Chinese and Syrian echo chambers, and with a setof western helpers -- one of whom was Tulsi Gabbard. She also urged, "in the spirit of Aloha," that Ukraine react to the invasion by surrendering its sovereignty to Russia. She later justified Russia's invasion of Ukraine by the notion, common in Moscow, that Russia was the victim of American attempts to overthrow Putin. She was specifically thanked by Russian state media for defending Russian war propaganda.

To be sure, the wars and the regions are complex. Even if Assad falls, as now looks increasingly likely, Syria will be a mess, with unsavory and dangerous people in power. There is, of course, room for disagreement about American foreign policy, including with respect to Assad and Putin and their twinned atrocities. That can all be taken for granted, and provides no excuse whatever for Gabbard's very unusual behavior. It is strange, to say the least, that Gabbard says nothing about these regimes that they have not first said about themselves, and that she uses her platform to spread their own very specific disinformation.

One feature of disinformation is that it is factually incorrect: and so the very least (or most?) that can be said about Gabbard is that she consistently wrong on matters of the greatest moral and political significance. But the other element of disinformation is that it is consciously and maliciously designed to confuse. These memes (biolabs!) are tested and perfected before they are released. Disinformation is the opposite of an innocent mistake: it is concocted to make rational reflection and sensible policy difficult. Disinformation, in other words, is a weapon that one regime tries to spread within another society or -- in the dream of a hostile spy chief -- within another society's intelligence service. That is part of what Gabbard offers America’s enemies, and it is bad enough, because it means that systems meant to protect Americans instead put them in danger. It goes without saying that American allies would be unable to cooperate with the United States, and that patriotic intelligence officers would resign in droves. Informers around the world would cease their work. The US government would be cut off from the world. 

As Director of National Intelligence, Gabbard would do enormous harm, unwillingly or willingly. She is not just completely unqualified for this role -- she is anti-qualified. She is just the sort of person enemies of the American republic would want in this job. This is not a hypothetical -- Gabbard is the specific person that actual enemies of the United States do want in the job. The Russian media refers to Tulsi Gabbard as a "Russian agent" and as "girlfriend," with good reason.

Gabbard is worse than unfit. Her public record is as a disinformer and apologist for mass murderers. And there is nothing on the other side of the ledger. There are no positive qualifications. (Yes, she wrote a bestselling book. It became a bestseller because she scammed her followers into donating to a PAC which bought the book in bulk.) 

Gabbard is just as qualified to operate on your brain as she is to operate the national intelligence services. Would you let her? She clearly wants to take up the knife. Whose idea, one wonders, was that?

Imagine, because it is true, that the day will soon come when we name the person who will operate the national intelligence services. To be sure, like our own minds, the intelligence services of the United States haven't always performed well. There have been mistakes, and manipulation, and downright evil. But there has also been learning, and some recent, impressive showings, as in the precise and public prediction of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Intelligence services are a central part of government. Just as a brain might need surgery, American intelligence needs reform. But it does not need to be butchered for the pleasure of enemies.

[trump-executive-orders]

Declassification of Records Concerning the Assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Issued January 23, 2025.

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Policy and Purpose. More than 50 years after the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Federal Government has not released to the public all of its records related to those events. Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth. It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay.

The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 required all records related to the assassination of President Kennedy to be publicly disclosed in full by October 26, 2017, unless the President certifies that: (i) continued postponement is made necessary by an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations; and (ii) the identifiable harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure. President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, section 5(g)(2)(D), Public Law 102-526, 106 Stat. 3443, 3449-49, codified at 44 U.S.C. 2107 note.

I previously accepted proposed redactions from executive departments and agencies (agencies) in 2017 and 2018, but ordered the continued reevaluation of those remaining redactions. See Temporary Certification for Certain Records Related to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, 83 Fed. Reg. 19, 157-58 (Apr. 26, 2018). In the Presidential Memorandum of April 26, 2018, I also ordered agencies to re-review each of those redactions over the next 3 years and disclose information that no longer warrants continued withholding under the standard set forth in section 5(g)(2)(D) of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.

President Biden issued subsequent certifications with respect to those records in 2021, 2022, and 2023, which gave agencies additional time to review the records and withhold information from public disclosure. See Temporary Certification Regarding Disclosure of Information in Certain Records Related to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, 86 Fed. Reg. 59,599 (Oct. 22, 2021); Certifications Regarding Disclosure of Information in Certain Records Related to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, 87 Fed. Reg. 77,967 (Dec. 15, 2022); Certification Regarding Disclosure of Information in Certain Records Related to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, 88 Fed. Reg. 43,247 (June 30, 2023).

I have now determined that the continued redaction and withholding of information from records pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is not consistent with the public interest and the release of these records is long overdue. And although no Act of Congress directs the release of information pertaining to the assassinations of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I have determined that the release of all records in the Federal Government's possession pertaining to each of those assassinations is also in the public interest.

Sec. 2. Declassification and Disclosure. (a) Within 15 days of the date of this order, the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General shall, in coordination with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the Counsel to the President, present a plan to the President for the full and complete release of records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

(b) Within 45 days of the date of this order, the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General shall, in coordination with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the Counsel to the President, review records related to the assassinations of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and present a plan to the President for the full and complete release of these records.

Sec. 3. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.