#the government for the ultra rich and by the ultra rich
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moki-dokie · 2 days ago
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I would just about be willing to bet money on it that the CEO, or any exec of any bank or hotel chain, could not directly access or control anything with any customer for a few reasons.
Liability being an absolutely fucking huge one. most of these execs are not the level of fuck-you megawealthy elon is and are extremely susceptible to lawsuits and massive fines and even jail/prison time if they deliberately access private information without reason. Banks are highly regulated and secured by federal laws and take security pretty fucking seriously which brings us to
Nobody at executive level deals with day-to-day shit in their systems or with customers in massive corporations like banks or hotels. they've likely never seen their own banking software beyond a cursory glance during the occasional meeting. they probably don't even bank at the institution they work for in most cases, and if they do, they have an accountant that handles their finances for them. they might not be fuck you rich but they're still amongst the wealthy. you think the current hilton family have ever operated their booking software? or have any idea how to access customer information? or that any of the execs deal with the bullshit operational stuff thats about ten levels below their paygrade? i honestly doubt any of them would even know what department in the company to contact to even get to that information.
execs oftentimes do not have security clearance to directly access any of your stuff, to protect them from point 1.
is it possible they could? yes. the possibility exists. but is it probable? no. the risk greatly outweighs any sort of reward. not only are there major legal consequences, but anything at all that reflects poorly on the company, such as a lawsuit (especially a class action one) or bad press, will in turn impact their stocks, which is the ultimate bottom line any of them really care about. if you want to keep making fuckloads of money and stay in your cushy exec position, you usually keep the hell away from all things customer/consumer related and instead focus your more nefarious ambitions on things like embezzling and insider trading and bribing and fucking over smaller companies and finding loopholes around labor laws, ect.
"banks" can't access your account or control your funds. Very specific agents in very specific departments with very specific security protocols that are very heavily monitored and logged can view account details and take certain actions. And half the time those actions require approval from a member of their management. I suppose theoretically, depending on the software, a rogue agent could potentially do something wild with your account but not without landing themselves in prison and those actions being reversed really quickly lest a lawsuit happen. "Hotels" cannot unlock your door with a master key. The receptionist (or, sometimes, only their manager) can after a round of security verification or a warrant from law enforcement. and at least the times I've had to have that done at a major hotel chain, it is logged. i can't speak for the shady motels and b&bs out there that are run by individuals, but we're talking about corporations here.
and with corporations like those elon is at the head of, having that much unchecked power is unheard of. believe it or not this corporate state is actually regulated to a degree. there are so, so many safeguards in place to protect customer information. they've been slowly but methodically lessened in the last couple of decades - which is precisely what the ultra rich and far right (typically one and the same) are trying to do; get rid of so many government regulations that protect private citizens. which is precisely what elon has been put in charge of for the incoming cabinet.
one man should not ever have this much power. period. he should not be able to personally access any of this information. it's wildly unethical and opens up so, so many security nightmares. the world's wealthiest man who is possibly even more unhinged and dangerous than trump himself is, is about to have his own governmental department, and is going to be absolutely up the ass of the man who will be running this country. and he will have complete and total unrestricted access to every single tesla customer, every single twitter account.
and you have to ask, "Why would you assume he couldn't"?
because that kind of power is unprecedented outside of the fucking cia and some extremely classified spec ops of the military. and completely and utterly unprecedented in the hands of one person.
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Hey how come the truck automatically locks when it explodes and bursts into flames
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saywhat-politics · 2 days ago
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With the reported influence of Elon Musk on Donald Trump, and Trump's nomination of billionaires and mega-millionaires for Cabinet and other roles, Joy Reid opines on the expected influence of the ultra-wealthy on the Trump administration.
Jan. 2, 2025
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zachsanomaly · 1 day ago
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the possibility the entire us government is just sick and tired of the ultra rich fucking everything up as well is just inherently more amusing
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baby-girl-aaron-dessner · 7 months ago
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nando161mando · 2 months ago
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Union busting = more money for the ultra-wealthy.
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wahbegan · 2 months ago
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Something something Batman is a billionaire fascist discourse ignores the fact that Batman has his roots in the hardboiled detective story, which thematically was written at a time when trust in the police was at a catastrophic low and as such mainly deals with private detectives kinda extralegally cracking cases that the cops are either not solving or actively obstructing and his conflict with the police has remained a fairly consistent point in most of his stories outside the Golden Age of Comics, Commissioner Gordon is the exception not the rule something something
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contentvortex · 2 years ago
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Not only do I not care if the vast majority of the submarine fuckos make it I'm actually getting more and more pissed off the more I read.
They chose to step into a tiny metal tube piloted by an off brand ps2 controller, and then descend to levels that would make rescue nearly impossible if not objectively impossible. Now that the "this shit is going to fuck up" machine has fucked up they're scrambling governments and likely spending millions of dollars of tax payer money to rescue them, when a fraction of that would have stopped the incident from happening in the first place. When the regulations that were ignored could have prevented this.
I do not have sympathy for a Mt. Everest climber that dresses in shorts, a t-shirt, and bought his climbing gear off wish who (who could have seen this coming?!) needs rescuing. Not only do I not have sympathy but I'm pissed off at their recklessness and the immense impacts that their dumb actions are having on others.
My only sympathy for any of the 5 is with the 19 year old, because at that age you're gonna trust your dad wouldn't put you in an inescapable deathtrap.
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ramblesandrambling · 1 year ago
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Millionaires: We are willing to pay bit! Remember that there are actual billionaires out there and that the difference is astronomical.
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What’s the current political situation in the uk right now our millionaires are asking for a wealth tax while our two main parties reject it
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chongoblog · 8 months ago
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Being in America is super fun because you get to see Trump going up against Biden in a presidential election with both of them being dogshit options, mass protests against what should very obviously be seen as an injustice that spits in the face of what you were told your country stands for, except the government disagrees, using the power of the militarized state to brutalize protestors, all the while people spread malicious lies regularly with millions believing their every word(a lot of it being thanks to some rich freak on Twitter). Also, the economy is doing pretty damn poor and you see media sources tell you to sacrifice your well-being all while the ultra rich get richer and richer.
And then after you're done with 2020, you get to do it again four years later
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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 month ago
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The far right grows through “disaster fantasies”
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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/2024/11/25/mall-ninja-prophecy/#mano-a-mano">https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/25/mall-ninja-prophecy/#mano-a-mano
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The core of the prepper fantasy: "What if the world ended in the precise way that made me the most important person?" The ultra-rich fantasize about emerging from luxury bunkers with an army of mercs and thumbdrives full of bitcoin to a world in ruins that they restructure using their "leadership skills."
The ethnographer Rich Miller spent his career embedding with preppers, eventually writing the canonical book of the fantasies that power their obsessions, Dancing at Armageddon: Survivalism and Chaos in Modern Times:
https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo3637295.html
Miller recounts how the disasters that preppers prepare for are the disasters that will call upon their skills, like the water chemist who's devoted his life to preparing to help his community recover from a terrorist attack on its water supply; and who, when pressed, has no theory as to why any terrorist would stage such an attack:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/22/preppers-are-larpers/#preppers-unprepared
Prepping is what happens when you are consumed by the fantasy of a terrible omnicrisis that you can solve, personally. It's an individualistic fantasy, and that makes it inherently neoliberal. Neoliberalism's mind-zap is to convince us all that our only role in society is as an individual ("There is no such thing as society" – M. Thatcher). If we have a workplace problem, we must bargain with our bosses, and if we lose, our choices are to quit or eat shit. Under no circumstances should we solve labor disputes through a union, especially not one that wins strong legal protections for workers and then holds the government's feet to the fire.
Same with bad corporate conduct: getting ripped off? Caveat emptor! Vote with your wallet and take your business elsewhere. Elections are slow and politics are boring. But "vote with your wallet" turns retail therapy into a form of civics.
This individualistic approach to problem solving does useful work for powerful people, because it keeps the rest of us thoroughly powerless. Voting with your wallet is casting a ballot in a rigged election that's always won by the people with the thickest wallets, and statistically, that's never you. That's why the right is so obsessed with removing barriers to election spending: the wealthy can't win a one-person/one-vote election (to be in the 1% is to be outnumbered 99:1), but unlimited campaign spending lets the wealthy vote in real elections using their wallets, not just just ballots.
You can't recycle your way out of the climate emergency. Practically speaking, you can't even recycle. All those plastics you lovingly washed and sorted ended up in a landfill or floating in the ocean. Plastics recycling is a hoax perpetrated by the petrochemical industry, who knew all along that their products would never be recycled. These despoilers convinced us to view the systemic rot of corporate ecocide as an individual matter, chiding us about "littering" and exhorting us to sort our garbage:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/14/they-knew/#doing-it-again
We are bombarded by real problems that require urgent solutions that can only be resolved through collective action, which we are told is impossible. This is an objectively frightening state of affairs, and it makes people go nuts.
At the start of this century, in the weeks before 9/11, a message-board poster calling himself Gecko45 went Web 1.0 viral by earnestly bullshitting about his job as a mall security guard, doing battle with heavily armed gangs, human traffickers, and ravening monsters. Gecko45's posts were unhinged: he started out seeking advice for doubling up on body-armor to protect him while he deployed his smoke bombs and his partner assembled a high-powered rifle. Though Gecko45 was apparently sincere, he drew tongue-in-cheek replies from the other posters on GlockTalk, who soon dubbed him the "Mall Ninja":
https://lonelymachines.org/mall-ninjas/
The Mall Ninja professed to patrolling a suburban shopping mall while armed with 15 firearms as he carried out his duties as "Sergeant of a three-man Rapid Tactical Force at one of America’s largest indoor retail shopping areas." His qualifications? Mastery "of three martial arts including ninjitsu, which means I can wear the special boots to climb walls."
The Mall Ninja's fantasy of a single brave individual, defending the sleepy populace from violent, armed mobs is instantly recognizable as an ancestor to today's right wing fantasy of America's cities as "no-go zones" filled with "open air drug markets," patrolled by MS-13 and antifa super-soldiers. And while the Mall Ninja drew derision – even from the kinds of people who hang out on a message board called "GlockTalk" – today, his brand of fantasy wins elections.
On Jacobin, Olly Haynes interviews the political writer Richard Seymour about this phenomenon:
https://jacobin.com/2024/11/disaster-nationalism-fantasies-far-right/
Seymour's latest book is Disaster Nationalism:The Downfall of Liberal Civilization, an exploration of the strange obsessions of the right with imaginary disasters in the midst of real ones:
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/3147-disaster-nationalism
You know these imaginary disasters: "FEMA death camps, 'great replacement theory,' the 'Great Reset,' fifteen-minute cities, 5G towers being beacons of mind control, and microchips installed in people through vaccines." As Seymour writes, these conspiracy fantasies are proliferated by authoritarian regimes and their supporters, especially as real disasters rage around them.
For example, during the Oregon wildfires, people who were threatened by blazing forests that hit 800'C refused to evacuate because they'd been convinced that the fires were set by antifa arsonists in a bid to "wipe out white conservative Christians." They barricaded themselves in their fire-threatened homes, brandishing guns and prepping for the antifa mob.
Seymour says that this "disaster nationalism" "processes disaster in a way that is actually quite enlivening." Confronted with the helplessness of a real disaster that can only be solved through the collective action you've been told is both impossible and a Communist plot, you retreat to an individualistic disaster fantasy that you can play an outsized role in. Every crisis – the climate emergency, poverty, a toxic environment – is replaced by "bad people" and you can go get them.
For authoritarian politicians, a world of bad people at the gates who can only be stopped by "the good guys" makes for great politics. It impels proto-fascist movements to electoral victories, all over the world: in the US, of course, but Seymour also analyzes this as the phenomenon behind the electoral victories of authoritarian ethno-nationalists in India, Israel, Brazil, and all over the world.
I find Seymour's analysis bracing and clarifying. It explains the right's tendency to obsess over the imaginary at the expense of the real. Think of conservatives' obsession with imaginary and hypothetical children, from Qanon's child trafficking conspiracies to the forced birth movement's fixation on "the unborn."
It's not just that these kids don't exist – it's that the right is either indifferent or actively hostile to real children. Qanon peaked at the same time as Trump's "kids in cages" family separation policy, which saw thousands of kids separated from their parents, many forever, as a deliberate policy.
The forced birth movement spent decades fighting to overturn Roe in the name of saving "the unborn" – even as its leaders were also overturning the Child Tax Credit, the most successful child poverty alleviation measure in American history. Actual children were left to sink into food insecurity and precarity, to be enlisted to work overnight shifts in meat-packing plants, to fall into homelessness – even as the movement celebrated the "culture of life" that would rescue hypothetical children.
Lifting kids out of poverty and building a world where parents can afford to raise as many children as they care to have is a collective endeavor. Firebombing abortion clinics or storming into a pizza parlor with an assault rifle is an individual rescue fantasy that escapes into the world.
Mall Ninja politics are winning.
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theladyaokay · 2 years ago
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Empathy challenge: impossible - Generate more media coverage expressions of sympathy for the 100+ children who drowned in the Mediterranean boat disaster recently than the singular 19 year old whose father was wealthy enough to buy all ~600 victims of that catastrophe a seat spot on the disaster sub and still be a billionaire. Philanthropy is easy when you're the one who has all the stuff.
And don't even get me started on the "quintessential British explorer" codswallop. He was a spoilt tourist. The two quintessentially British things he did are spaffing a load of money on self aggrandising nonsense, and fucking dying in a place he had no good reason to be.
There is also some real irony in experts on a maritime disaster not noticing any signs of their own pending maritime disaster.
As a final also on empathy and irony, I am aware that I am shitting on human suffering right after chastising the media for largely ignoring the much greater example of human suffering. This is on purpose. We collectively need to normalise hostility and antagonism towards the ultra-wealthy. Scorn them, mock them, laugh at their tragedy and their pain. Make them the only truly acceptable target.
Revive that brutally dehumanising old "joke": what do you call 5 multi-millionaires at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.
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This whole thing is a fucking farce.
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daughter-of-sapph0 · 2 months ago
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two possible outcomes to musk being the department of government efficiency or whatever
1) it's the equivalent of handing your little brother an unplugged gamecube controller so he thinks he's playing, when in reality musk will have no real power
2) and what's more likely, we're gonna have the worst economic collapse in us history and the ultra rich will face absolutely zero consequences
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apricitystudies · 11 months ago
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crimes of the elite: a deep dive
voted on here. (other editions) bold = favourite
corporate harms
behind the smiles at amazon
the long, dark shadow of bhopal (bhopal gas disaster)
how lobbying blocked european safety checks for dangerous medical implants
7-eleven revealed
who controls the world's food supply?
the true cost of tuna: marine observers dying at sea
how a big pharma company stalled a potentially lifesaving vaccine in pursuit of bigger profits
24 years after, some victims not compensated and still can't live normal lives (pfizer's nigeria vaccine trials)
the corporate crime of the century
uber broke laws, duped police and secretly lobbied governments, leak reveals (the uber files)
the baby killer (nestle infant formula scandal)
2 paths of bayer drug in 80's: riskier one steered overseas (hiv-risk contaminated blood product scandal)
global banks defy u.s. crackdowns by serving oligarchs, criminals and terrorists (fincen files)
the ultra-rich
eliminalia: a reputation laundromat for criminals
the fall of the god of cars (international fugitive carlos ghosn)
a u.s. billionaire took over a tropical island pension fund. then hundreds of millions of dollars allegedly went missing (cyprus confidential)
how the wealthiest avoid income tax (the irs files)
the haves and the have-yachts
madoff and his models (madoff ponzi scheme)
the imposter (blockchain terminal fraud)
the ultra-rich: (allegedly) stolen antiquities
crime of the centuries
stolen treasure traders
a hunt for cambodia's looted heritage leads to top museums (pandora papers)
an art crime for the ages
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nando161mando · 2 months ago
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Ultra wealthy Americans are fleeing citing civil unrest among other things
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batboyblog · 7 months ago
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Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #23
June 14-21 2024.
On the 12th anniversary of President Obama's DACA program President Biden announced a new pathway to legal status and eventual citizenship for Dreamers. DACA was an executive action by President Obama which deferred any deportation of persons brought to the US as children without legal status. While DACA allowed Dreamers to work legally in the US for the first time, it didn't give them permanent legal status. Now the Biden administration is streamlining the process for employers to apply for work Visas for Dreamers. With Visas Dreamers will for the first time have legal status, the ability to leave and reenter the US legally, and a pathway to a Green Card and eventual citizenship.
President Biden also announced protections for the undocumented spouses and children of US citizens. The new rule allows the spouse, or step-child of a US citizen to apply for lawful permanent residency without having to leaving the country. It's estimated this will help 500,000 undocumented people married to Americans, and 50,000 children under the age of 21 whose parent is married to an American citizen. Current law forces spouses to leave the United States if they're here illegally and wait and unclear period of probation before being allowed to return, but being allowed back is not assured.
The IRS announced that it'll close a tax loophole used by the ultra rich and corporations and believes it'll raise $50 billion in revenue. Known as a "pass-through" has allowed the rich to move money around to avoid taxes in a move the Treasury is calling a shell-game. Pass-throughs have grown by 70% between 2010 and 2019 and the IRS believes it helped the rich avoid paying $160 billion dollars in taxes during that time. The IRS estimates its crack down on these will raise $50 billion in tax revenue over the next 10 years.
The EPA and Department of Energy announced $850 million to monitor, measure, quantify and reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. Methane is the second most common greenhouse gas, responsible for 1/3rd of the global warming. The funding will focus on helping small operators significantly reduce emissions, as well as help more quickly detect and cap methane leaks from low-producing wells. All this comes after the EPA finalized rules to reduce methane emissions by 80% from oil and gas.
The Biden Administration took steps to protect the nations Old Growth Forests. The move will greatly restrict any logging against the 41 million acres of protected land owned by the federal government. The Administration also touted the 20% of America's forests that are in urban settings as parks and the $1.4 billion invested in their protection through the President’s Investing in America agenda.
The Biden Administration released new rules tying government support for clean energy to good paying jobs. If companies want to qualify for massive tax credits they'll have to offer higher wages and better conditions. This move will push union level wages across the green energy sector.
The Department of Education announced large reductions in student loan payments, and even a pause for some, starting in July. For millions of Americans enrolled in the Biden Administration's SAVE plan, starting in July, monthly payments on loans borrowed for undergraduate will be reduced from 10% to 5% of discretionary income. As the department hasn't been able to fully calculate the change for all borrowers at this point it will pause payment for those it hasn't finalized the formula for and they won't have to make a payment till DoE figures it out. The SAVE plan allows many borrowers to make payments as low as $0 a month toward having their loans forgiven. So far the Biden Administration has forgiven $5.5 billion wiping out the debt of 414,000 people enrolled in SAVE.
The Biden Administration celebrated the 1 Millionth pension protected under the American Rescue Plan. Senator Bob Casey joined Biden Administration officials and Union official to announce that thanks to the Butch Lewis Act passed in 2021 the government would be stepping in to secure the pensions of 103,000 Bakery and Confectionery Union workers which were facing a devastating 45% cut. This brings to 1 million the number of workers and retirees whose pensions have been secured by the Biden Administration, which has supported 83 different pension funds protecting them from an average of 37% cut.
The Department of Energy announced $900 million for the next generation of nuclear power. This investment in Gen III+ Small Modular Reactor will help bring about smaller and more flexible nuclear reactors with smaller footprints. Congress also passed a bill meant to streamline nuclear power and help push on to the 4th generation of reactors
Vice President Harris announced a $1.5 billion dollar aid package to Ukraine. $500 million will go toward repairing Ukraine's devastated energy sector which has been disrupted by Russian bombing. $324 million will go toward emergency energy infrastructure repair. $379 million in humanitarian assistance from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development to help refugees and other people impacted by the war.
America pledged $315 million in new aid for Sudan. Sudan's on-going civil war has lead to nearly apocalyptic conditions in the country. Director of USAID, Samantha Power, warned that Sudan could quickly become the largest famine the world has seen since Ethiopia in the early 1980s when a million people died over 2 years. The US aid includes food and water aid as well as malnutrition screening and treatment for young children.
Bonus: Maryland Governor Wes Moore pardoned more than 175,000 people for marijuana convictions. This mirrors President Biden's pardoning of people convicted of federal marijuana charges in 2022 and December 2023. President Biden is not able to pardon people for state level crimes so called on Governors to copy his action and pardon people in their own state. Wes Moore, a Democrat, was elected in 2022 replacing Republican Larry Hogan.
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wolfjackle-creates · 2 years ago
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Bring Me Home Arc 2 Part 5
It's Wednesday again, you know what that means! I'm going to officially start calling this Arc 2 instead of Chapter 2 because it's too long already and I only *just* get to the plot with the end of this segment.
Story Summary: Tim and Danny are both neglected by parents who care more about their work than their families. They deal with this by spending too much time online and find each other playing MMORPGs. They keep up their friendship as Tim becomes Robin and Danny becomes Phantom and don't bother keeping secrets from each other.
First, Previous
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Tim clenched his teeth, but allowed himself to be pulled to the counter where they ordered an obscene amount of food thanks to the appetite of four metas. He insisted on using B’s card to pay for everyone.
Sam didn’t even wait for their food to be ready before she started questioning Conner.
“What do you think of rich people?” she demanded.
“Um… What?” Conner looked to Tim, eyes wide, clearly lost as to what he should answer.
Tim just shrugged.
“What. Do. You. Think of rich people? It’s not a hard question. I’m just trying to gage your actual punkness.”
“I don’t… I mean, Mr. Wayne is cool. I’ve met him a few times and he’s always been nice to me. But Lex Luthor… He’s the worst.” Even now, Conner couldn’t help but shudder when he thought of his creator and Tim scowled into his soda.
“Don’t mince words, Kon,” Tim said. “Luthor should be shot and dropped in the deepest part of the ocean.”
Conner laughed and pointed to Tim. “Yeah, that.”
“Hmmm… It’s a start.” Sam nodded. “Really, there’s only one rule to being punk and everything else derives from that: the man sucks.”
“The man?”
And there it was. Conner was still learning a lot of slang. “She means the people in charge. That you can’t trust the government or people in authority to actually have your best interests at heart or to do the right thing.”
“Oh!” Conner’s eyes lit up in understanding. “Well, obviously! I’ve always had to look after myself. At least until I met you guys.”
Cassie elbowed him. “And now you’re stuck with us for life. You’re ours.”
“Damn right!” Bart held out a fist to Conner who bumped it with his own.
Danny laughed. “You weren’t exaggerating, Secrets. You guys really are ride-or-die.”
Tim looked over his friends and couldn’t hold back a soft smile. “Damn right we are. Just like you three.”
“Well, we know something about the ‘or die,’” said Danny.
Tim rolled his eyes. “You’re worse than Dick.”
Tucker’s mouth was open as he looked between them. “They know?”
“Yeah,” said Danny. “Tim’s known since, like, a week after the accident. And when they came by my house, my parents decided to show off the home defense system. Couldn’t keep it a secret after that.”
Based on Sam’s wince, she knew exactly what the home defense system could do to Danny. Tucker pulled out one of his devices and started typing on it. “Will you finally let me do something about that?”
Danny just rolled his eyes. “I’m fine, Tucker. Sam. Tim. All of you. My parent’s inventions never work right. Or they don’t know how to actually use them. They didn’t think the thermoses worked at first, for God’s sake!”
“Right.” Tucker rolled his eyes. “Because their guns have never worked. Tim, can I have your number and email? Maybe if we all get on him he’ll listen to sense one of these days.”
“Oooh!” Cassie bounced in her seat. “I’ll help! We’ve lots of experience in that with Tim. He’s also the worst at calculating reasonable risks.”
“Great!” Tucker typed her number and email into his PDA and they started setting up group chats. Bart joined in by discussing some of Tim’s more ridiculous civilian escapades.
Tim exchanged a look with Danny. This was so not going to end well.
“Well, while they’re sorting that out, more about punk!” Sam pulled Conner deeper into a conversation about fighting for freedom and liberty and how her ultra recyclo-vegetarianism fit into her beliefs.
Tim sighed and said, “Well, at least they’re getting along?”
Danny groaned and held his head in his hands. “We’re so going to regret introducing them, aren’t we?”
“I already do.”
And then their order was called. Of course Bart was at the counter before any of the rest had even registered it was their order, but Conner and Cassie jumped up to follow and help him carry it.
Sam tried to go help but Tim held out a hand. “They’ve got it, trust me. Having more people will just make it harder for them.”
She still stood, but by the time she turned to help, the others were already returning with hands full of loaded trays. She scowled as she settled back down.
“We would’ve helped,” she said as the others set the food down.
Bart waved her off. “We got it! Sides, most of this is for me, Conner, and Cassie.”
Danny shook his head. “I ordered just as much as you!”
Tucker agreed, “And I ordered almost as much.”
Cassie shrugged as she rooted through bags and grabbed her orders. “Well we got there first. Come on, I’m hungry. Quit arguing and grab your food!”
Danny passed one bag to Sam, “One salad for you.” And a second bag found it’s way in front of Tim. “And a nasty burger for you. You’ll never want to eat a batburger again after this!”
Tim rolled his eyes, but obligingly unwrapped the burger and took a bite. He hummed in appreciation. It really was a solid burger and the sauce was quite good. “I do like it, I’ll give you that. But I still prefer Batburger.”
“Ugh, you’re hopeless!” Turning his back to Tim, Danny addressed the others. “What about you three? Batburger or Nasty Burger?”
Conner shrugged, “This is great, but it’ll always be Batburger for me, too.”
Cassie elbowed him as she finished her bite. “That’s only because you and Tim get midnight burgers there too often and you are mixing up the taste with the memories. These are clearly better.”
Bart had already finished his first burger and was licking his fingers clean. “Yep. These are absolutely better.”
Tim threw an arm around Danny’s shoulders. “Fifty-fifty split! Means we can’t make a decision until you come to Gotham and try one yourself.”
“Oh, that’s what it means, does it? And when do you think I’ll make it to Gotham?”
“Any time you want! You can stay with me. Hell, I’ll even pick you up and bring you there.”
Danny grinned. “If I ever can guarantee a break from ghost attacks, I might take you up on that.”
“Right,” said Sam to Conner. “While they’re flirting”—she expertly ignored Tim and Danny’s spluttered protests—“have you ever tried wearing makeup? I think you’d look killer in eyeliner.”
Meanwhile, Tucker pulled out his PDA and some headphones and started showing a video to Cassie and Bart who shifted to better see the screen.
Tim took a large bite of his burger, unsure what to say to Danny after Sam’s comment.
Danny didn’t seem to have the same reservations and shifted so he could press his shoulder against Tim’s. “Sorry. She and Tuck like to tease me. They’ve been calling you my internet boyfriend for ages.”
That admission made his face heat even more, but Tim tried to shrug it off. “It’s fine.” He knew from Dick that if he continued to protest, everyone would just take it as further confirmation they were right.
Danny shrugged and grabbed another container. Tucker tried to protest, but Danny ignored him. “Here, try a chili cheese fry; they’re great.”
Tim let out a breath and grabbed a fry, getting chili and cheese all over his hands as he did. “Thanks.”
Somehow, the group managed to not get yelled at for an hour as they laughed and joked in the corner booth, but eventually an employee came over to ask if they needed anything else. Danny ordered a milkshake for Jazz, and the group filed out. Night had set in fully while they’d been eating and Tim looked up at the sky. The stars really were much more visible here than in Gotham.
And that was when a large, swirling-green gash opened up in the night sky and dozens of ghosts started pouring through.
-----
Next
Sam is so going to try and radicalize Conner. Tim is just gonna let it happen. At least this radicalization is better than what he'd been exposed to previously.
Tag List Part 1
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