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itsclydebitches · 3 years ago

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Rewatching RWBY there's this chilling lack of empathy through the volumes that I used to just wave off. Yang has no empathy for Tai, Blake is just entirely about what Blake needs, Weiss almost kills a woman at a party and her takeaway is 'my dad is mean so I'm going to run away'. Qrow sinks hard into depression in vol. 6 and Ruby's reaction is to yell she's never needed him. No one has EVER helped a civilian. It's so prevelant. Knowing how 7&8 go really changes the earlier writing.

I think there was a great deal of well-written empathy in the early volumes — after all, this cast was designed as the kind, well-meaning heroes — but that care was expressed almost solely within the group itself. Ruby sits by Jaune in the hallway and says "Nope!" to his self doubt. Weiss offers Ruby a hand up after she fails to kill the death stalker. Yang seeks out Blake and gets her to open up about what's bothering her. Now, I want to emphasize that there's nothing inherently wrong with this. It actually makes perfect sense. These are our main characters and they're written as peers co-habiting the same space. Of course whatever emotional growth we get, which automatically includes moments of compassion, would be directed towards each other. Similarly, the dynamics originally introduced — that of teachers and parents — likewise (rightly) puts the burden on the adults to provide the comfort, not the other way around. Port snaps Weiss out of her arrogant mindset. Ozpin reassures Ruby about her leadership worries. Tai is there to support his daughter when she's recovering from a lost limb. That's the natural order of things, so to speak.

The problem, to my mind, begins to occur when the group exits those dynamics. They're no longer students, they're licensed huntsmen. They're no longer kids, but equals who never needed adults in the first place. They're no longer doing things for themselves and their friends on personal downtime, they're doing them for the community at large as a profession (to say nothing of the world-altering war they've insisted on shouldering responsibility for). That's what a huntsmen is meant to be, a defender of the people, not someone who uses that power for personal interests alone. All of this is a huge change from where we started out: cutesy kids going off on comparatively low-stakes adventures because one or more of their teammates are invested, only just beginning to realize that they're signing up for a job where their desires come second (that fireside conversation at Mountain Glenn).

This change invites — demands, really — that the audience read them differently too. Qrow's spiral in Volume 6 is a good example of this. If Ruby is demanding to be treated not just as an equal in terms of maturity and experience, but also as the primary leader of this group, then the viewer expects her to treat her uncle as an equal too, not dismiss his hardship. I've seen numerous fans defend that arc with some version of, "He's her uncle. He's supposed to take care of her. He's failing" but that, according to the show, is no longer the dynamic. Qrow is now just a member of Ruby's team, someone she's responsible for as their leader. It's easiest to see the problem if we switch out Qrow for any of the other members. If Blake developed a drinking problem, do we think Ruby would just shout at her until she magically got over it? If Jaune endangered the group, do we think they'd all be angry about it, rather than trying to figure out the source of what caused the mistake? We don't even need to think hypothetically for that one because we saw it on screen. Jaune attacked Oscar and drove him off, not just threatening him, but arguably endangering the whole team by requiring a search party. Fans have long insisted they had to steal that airship right then because being in Argus was too much of a risk, but if we buy that reading (which I personally don't, but), then that means Jaune made things exponentially worse by forcing them out into that super dangerous city, rather than allowing everyone to stay hidden inside. He made a massive mistake which, according to the logic of Qrow's arc, should be met with frustration, disdain, and eventual demands to get over his anger at Ozpin or ship out. But, of course, he received nothing but concern. Yang was worried about him, not Oscar. The search becomes about his grief for Pyrrha and his team's willingness (as well as Pyrrha's family member) to provide more comfort. Suddenly, the tendency to express care solely towards those within the group becomes a flaw the story won't acknowledge.

And then it spirals. The thing to remember is that no single act here is bad on its own, especially when we consider that yes, we want flawed characters. Rather, it's about the pattern. Ruby is allowed to get mad at Qrow for his behavior and chuck her scroll in frustration. She's human. I'd be crazy frustrated too. However, if Ruby is meant to be written as a caring, sympathetic character, she should not only respond to the situation with frustration, yelling, a refusal to listen, and demands that he follow her lead, no questions asked. We can, and should, acknowledge that Weiss was the victim during that party. Her father was hurting her, the woman was beyond insensitive, Weiss was triggered in regards to a horrific event, and her power acted on its own. However, if we want to write Weiss as a compassionate, mature huntress to-be, she should acknowledge that she nearly killed someone — even an asshole someone — and vow to work on her control because she's not willing to put someone in danger like that ever again. Both of these moments have a "They could have been handled better" response attached to them — the former more-so than the latter imo — but these moments are made far, far worse due to later events in the show, events where the characters are cruel without any justification attached. Weiss didn't mean to attack that woman, but she did mean to ignore Whitely and threaten him with her weapon. So once we see that, it informs our understanding of what came before it. "Oh. The fact that Weiss never reacted to nearly killing someone isn't just a bit of missed potential, it's an early indicator that she... doesn't seem to care. If she endangers people, threatens people... that's fine with her." The group has a right to be frustrated with Qrow. The group did not have the right to magically steal Ozpin's entire life story, assault him, and blame him for the world's problems until he felt his only course of action was to run from them. So when we see that it becomes, "Oh. The fact that the group treated Qrow so poorly isn't just a one-time mistake born of a stressful situation and young adults being out of their depth in regards to alcoholism. They really will just abandon anyone the moment they start making mistakes." Anyone outside of their group, that is.

To say nothing of how all of these moments interconnect. Yang's recovery isn't just about getting used to not having an arm, it's about getting used to having a new one. Weiss' party isn't just about nearly killing someone, it's about not committing manslaughter because someone else stepped in. The Volume 6 arc isn't just about trying to escape with the Relic, it's about trying to get it somewhere safe. Fans frustrated with Ironwood's treatment don't harp on these details out of some desperate attempt to make him look good post-murder spree, rather, they recognize that he's a character that's been around since nearly the beginning, originally written as a good guy, and thus has accumulated a number of key connections with the cast. So when none of those connections are acknowledged during an arc about trust... that makes the group look very uncaring. Yang doesn't care that he gave her the arm, Weiss doesn't care that he saved her from hurting/potentially killing someone, Qrow doesn't care that he's trusted Ironwood for years (in a rival-bros way) and that they've been heading towards him this whole time. And when Ironwood begins to spiral, they don't do anything to try and help him, let alone acknowledge that their own choices, that lack of trust and empathy, had a hand in getting them here. "But it's not their responsibility to fix him!" Isn't it? Even a little? Just as human beings seeing an ally struggling under horrific decisions and circumstances? Sure, they don't have to try... but that doesn't make them look very heroic to my mind. And we can't even shrug that off by simplifying things with, "Well, Ironwood is evil now so who cares about him." They simultaneously don't care about finding Qrow who is missing, then captured. They don't do anything to try and find their missing teammates, with the exception of sending May to do it instead. They don't help the army fight off the grimm. Don't try to make sure Pietro and Maria had portals to escape through. Barely hesitate when the newly resurrected characters goes, "Kill me. That's the easiest thing for everyone." And these are just a few of the big ticket moments. It doesn't even begin to cover all the details we get that paint a picture of, "Wow okay. They just really don't care about people outside the group, huh? I mean, they say they do, in a life-or-death way, but they're not putting forth effort to show it on a daily basis."

And if you pick up on all that, if you acknowledge how much the group has changed based on where they started out, you might wonder when in the world that started. Surely we didn't just flip a switch around Volume 6. So you re-watch early stuff and, sure enough, there are moments that feel like setup for what's to come later. Not intentional setup (quite obviously), but a lack of care towards details across the series that, once the dynamic changed, became far, far more pronounced. Characters should be at least somewhat recognizable from start to finish, especially characters who have only experienced about two years of in-world time, so if we now get to see Ruby blandly commenting on all the people who are dying, or Weiss using her weapon as a means of coercing her little brother into doing what she wants, or Yang and Jaune dismissing Ren until he gives in to their point of view... we're going to look for the beginnings of that behavior early on. As you say, we were able to wave all those little details off due to a number of important factors. Now though? Now they feel like they hold a lot more weight, simply by virtue of that early material proceeding what we have now.

#rwby #rwde #mymetas

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spilledreality · 3 years ago

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Bateson's reframe of the "power" metaphor

From Guddemi 2006: "Breaking the Concept of Power":

On the subject of power, Gregory Bateson was outspoken. Power was an epistemological mistake, a false metaphor. It was, like energy, an improper concept for the living world, imported from the world of physics, the world of forces and impacts. It was a self-validating cultural myth, based on a fiction of unilateral control.In fact, control of this kind was not possible, because any system in which control is attempted is structured in circular systems of feedback. Even the biggest dictators have to calibrate their actions to what they can find out about the public’s opinion, as Bateson—who sided very strongly with the Allies during World War II—often noted with respect to Goebbel.

Bateson was very interested in nontransitive comparisons, possibly because they subvert the commonsense transitivity of hierarchy and dominance which in many cases we read into the data because of our expectations. We rank sports teams for a winner at the end of the season, yet this final ranking aggregates a lot of non-transitivity in the meantime, in which the Angels beat the Braves, the Braves beat the Cardinals, and yet the Cardinals beat the Angels.

...as Bateson put it in words a Wittgenstein might have said, power is a “vasttangle of interlocking notions,” none of which give credence to any analogy to the power known to physics. Bateson’s candidate for “the nearest ‘reality’ to the metaphoric myth of power” is“a large or important part of an ecosystem” (p. 27). This ecosystemic theory of power bears witness to Bateson’s holistic approach, which distinguishes him from most contemporary theorists.

Bateson often noted the difference between the biological, social,and communicational worlds, which he denominated creatura , and the physical world of forces and impacts, which he denominated pleroma. He would note that, if you kick a stone, the stone will roll using the energy you imparted to it, but if you kick a dog, the dog may turn around and bite you based on its metabolic energy, which it received from its food... perturbations are interactions between the system and its environment, or context,or niche, which trigger changes of state. As Bateson pointed out, this does not involve transfers of energy as in billiard ball physics. Organisms react according to their own organization and history, energized collaterally by their metabolisms.

Such a relationship can be called an ecological relationship, or a symbiotic relationship (in the widest sense of the word), or in some cases a social relationship (see Maturana and Varela, 1987, p. 180). It can also be called a relationship of mutual adaptation, because both parties are seen to adapt themselves to each other. (Maturana and Varela write, “The adaptation of a unity to an environment, therefore, is a necessary consequence of that unity’s structural coupling with that environment” (1987, p. 102). It is possible in such relationships that an observer will note greater perturbations in one party to the relationship than in another, as the result of their mutual interactions. By greater perturbations I may mean that the observer notes morechanges in A’s structure than in B’s, or that the changes in A’s structure are more fundamental to the preservation of A’s organization as an autopoietic being than the changes in B’s structure are to its self-preservation. I submit, given these premises, that the domain of this inequality between co-interacting, co-structurally-coupled autopoietic systems, is the domain of what we call power, in at least one sense of the term, and also it is the domain of much of what we call dominance in the biological world. And that this is so equally in ecology, animal social organization, and human society.

The relationship becomes asymmetric in “power” if B , in maintaining B’s autopoiesis, is observed to respond to the presence and activities of A more than A is similarly observed (in maintaining A's own autopoiesis) to respond to the presence and activities of B. The “more” in the last sentence is misleading if it is taken to indicate a simple quantitative relationship like gravity (which is, however, similarly mutual); the “more” may refer to a difference in the profundity of the possible consequences of not responding to the other.

In Batesonian (second-order cybernetic) terms, relational asymmetry of this type might translate out as follows. Given organisms A and B co-interacting in each others’ environments, certain of the descriptive properties which are true (observed to be enduring) of A, entail or have consequences for B which are more significant to B’s prospects of enduring than the descriptive properties of B are for A.

(As a result, the less powerful organisms must "fit" themselves to the more powerful organisms.)

Like Foucaultian power, relational asymmetry does not flow from the top down—it can be distinguished by observers as a feature of everyday as well as large-scale social relations, rather than of a distinctive realm of the political that presupposes the actions of governments—and it is, obviously, relational. On the other hand, this view of“power” arising from cybernetics respects, I think, a fundamental and irreducible autonomy of living systems, including human beings, more than some versions of a post-Foucaultian approach seem to do.

#power #gregory bateson #michel foucault

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duhragonball · 4 years ago

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Hellsing Liveblog Ch. 41-44

THERE’S A LONDON CONFLAYRATION OF SAVINGS AT MENARDS!

Okay, these next four chapters each have their own title, so these are “The Screamer”, “Aubird Force”, “Gun Bullet” and “Baloon Fight”. Seriously? “Gun Bullet?” I looked it up and yeah, it’s the name of a video game, like “Baloon Fight” and “Final Fantasy” and so forth, but it’s a stupid title.

Anyway, Milennium invaded London last time, and Alexander Anderson showed up with a contingent of assassins from Section XIII, the Iscariot Organization. They were ordered to stay out of the conflict, but Anderson found Sir Integra cornered by Nazi Vampires and just couldn’t stay out of it.

Meanwhile, Iscariot’s leader, Bishop Enrico Maxwell, is chillaxing on the coast of France. Specifically, he’s on the opposite side of the Strait of Dover, which I guess puts him near the town of Calaism which is as close as he can be to London without leaving Continental Europe. Point here is that he’s been monitoring the Millennium invasion of England very closely, at least when he’s not taking a nap.

One of his aides wakes him up to inform him of recent developments, including a vampire attack in the White House. We don’t get a lot of details, but apparently Millennium got a Presidential aide to sell out their country in exchange for that sweet, sweet artificial vampirism, and they became a sleeper agent for the Major. When I watched the OVA in 2016, I remembered some mention about something going on in the USA, but it wasn’t Millennium opening up a second front, it was just an isolated vampire attack designed to keep the U.S. distracted from the invasion of London.

And I guess this explains all those arrows on the big world map in the Major’s blimp. His true objective has always been Alucard, and the attack on London is part of that plan, so everything else we’ve seen has simply been a means to achieve that end. Earlier, the Major claimed that his Last Batallion of 1000 vampire soldiers was the equal to an army of one million humans, but they’re still not unbeatable. If the RAF had managed to shoot down those blimps over the Atlantic, that would have put an end to their little pary before it could start, and if the U.K.’s allies could send in some bombers, they could neutralize Millennium pretty quickly, even if it meant turning London into a crater. At this point I’m not sure there’s much left of London to save anyway.

But the Major took all of this into account, and that’s why he set up all these sleeper agents to activate at the decisive moment. They disrupted communications across Great Britain, and they threw the U.S. into utter chaos, preventing Britain’s staunchest ally from interfering. It’s probably safe to assume that they did the same thing with other NATO member nations as well.

Maxwell isn’t too concerned about the United States because it’s just one vampire, and he’s already got people on the scene to take out that vampire if and when the situation gets out of hand. See, Iscariot is the Catholic counterpart to England’s Hellsing. They’re also a secret anti-monster force, but in this situation, Maxwell isn’t in any hurry to respond to this crisis. As far as he’s concerned, this whole Millennium invasion works to his favor, so he’s letting things play out for as long as it continues to suit his interests.

And so we have in the Hellsing story this threefold conflict. The Major’s Millennium vs. Maxwell’s Iscariot vs. Hellsing’s uh, Hellsing. In theory, Hellsing and Maxwell should be on the same side, but in practice they’re bitter rivals, owing to the schism between Catholics and Protestants. Early in the story, we learned that there was a treaty between Iscariot and Hellsing, with each side respecting the other’s jurisdiction, but places like Northern Ireland are a grey area, and zealots like Anderson and Maxwell aren’t always respectful of the agreements, since they deem Protestants as heathens beneath contempt. The difference between Maxwell and Anderson is that Anderson has a sense of honor, which is why he respects Alucard and Sir Integra as warriors, if not allies.

Maxwell, on the other hand, is solely interested in power. He sees the carnage unfolding in London and seeks only to use this as a way to invade Britain and claim it for the Vatican. It’s an interesting development, because he was the one who seemed so outraged by the traitors within the Church who helped Millennium during World War II. Through his inaction, he’s helping Millennium today, but he doesn’t see any moral problem with that, because he’s still loyal to the Vatican in his efforts.

So Maxwell’s ultimate goal here is to invade England himself, and he’s got an army of troops to do it. I don’t know why they’re all dressed like Klansmen. I could probably find out what these guys’ exact role is in this fantasy version of the Catholic Church, but suffice to say that these are roughly 3000 humans armed with anti-vampire weapons collected by Iscariot’s sister organization, Section III, the Matthew Organization. Together, they declare themselves as the Ninth Crusade, and Maxwell is promoted to Archbishop as he assumes command of the force. “Ninth Crusade” is based on the historical Crusades during the 11th, 12th, and 13th Centuries. The numbering of the Crusades is kind of subjective, but the 8th Crusade was in 1270, and I guess Kouta Hirano decided that this was the last one that counted, so Maxwell’s party is number 9.

One matter does give Maxwell pause: a report comes in that the H.M.S. Eagle is slowly moving towards London. Recall that Alucard is stuck on the Eagle, and both Millennium and Maxwell seem to have written him off, but now he’s heading back to England.

But Maxwell isn’t worried because he also knows his advance squad, led by Anderson, has captured Sir Integra, and she’s Alucard’s master, so that ought to be enough to neutralize him. Uh, not sure that’s how it works, but okay. He orders his troops to proceed with his plan.

Back in London, Anderson’s team have killed the Millennium troops who were threatening Sir Hellsing, but they lost about half of their guys in the battle. Heinkel Wolfe wants to take Hellsing captive, but she refuses to submit to them, and doesn’t care that Heinkel is holding a gun on her. Yumi suggests tying Integra up, but Anderson won’t have that. He even goes so far as to order his team to escort Integra back to her home.

Speaking of Integra’s home, it’s under attack. Zorin Blitz has been sent to Hellsing Manor, but her orders were to wait. She watches as the Major fires V1 rockets at the house, but then the rockets all get shot out of the sky. What’s happening to all the rockets?

Um, this happened, you Nazi assholes. Seras Victoria’s up on the roof, shooting anti-aircraft guns like they’re small pistols. Because she has vampire strength, you see. Also keen vampire aim, too.

Downstairs, the Wild Geese are defending the building, and she and Pip Bernadotte banter back and forth. Not sure why the manga translation calls him “Vernedead”. Is that even close to a real name?

Blitz realizes that they won’t last long against Seras’ firepower, so if the blimp is going to crash, it might as well crash straight into Hellsing HQ.

Except Seras shoots grenade launchers at the blimp, causing it to crash before it can get close to the building. Don’t fuck with Seras, is the moral of this story.

I’m a little confused about Zorin’s actions here. I thought she was directly ordered not to attack, but then the Major fired on the manor instead, so that was what she was supposed to wait for, wasn’t it? Any action she took afterward was in self-defense, as Seras would have shot her blimp out of the air whether Zorin attacked or not. But I’m pretty sure Zorin defied the Major’s orders here, although I’m not quite sure how.

Then again, she does lead a ground attack on the Hellsing HQ next time, so this alone might be what the Major warned her about. We’ll get there when we get there.

#2021hellsingliveblog #hellsing #enrico maxwell #sir integra hellsing #alexander anderson #heinkel wolfe #yumiko takagi #zorin blitz #seras victoria

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urmckidding · 4 years ago

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╰ °✧ that’s MARLENE MCKINNON and SHE seems to look a lot like NANA KOMATSU. according to ministry files, the PUREBLOOD used to attend HOGWARTS and be in GRYFFINDOR. now, they’re TWENTY and is A RADIO BROADCASTER. red wine stains on white linen ; bloody lips pulled into a defiant grin ; plunging into cold water ; the twist of your gut before you make a stupid decision ( still laughing despite the fear ) ; loud and unapologetic laughter echoing out ; a soldier — scared but marching on nonetheless ; a bonfire roaring to life, wood hissing and sparks flying are the best way to describe them. it doesn’t say in their file, but word around the street is that they’re a ORDER MEMBER.

hullo , it’s ME , bri ( she/her , 23 , est tz )!! this is my trash daughter , marlene , but don’t tell her i said that because she will bully me. any who , you can find more about miss mckinnon under the cut including wanted connections ( at the way bottom so feel free to skip the about bit if it’s too long )! and feel free to check out her ABOUT PAGE & PINTEREST.

𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐒

FULL NAME: marlene isadora mckinnon

AKA: marlie , len , mckinnon

AGE: twenty years old

BIRTHDAY:

GENDER & PRONOUNS: cis woman

PRONOUNS: she/her

SEXUALITY: biromantic bisexual

BLOOD STATUS: pureblood

FORMER HOUSE: gryffindor

OCCUPATION: radio host , order of the phoenix member

marlene’s radio show is anonymous and she mainly uses it to shit talk the deatheater movement and share stories about the order of the phoenix and their allies. it’s fairly similar to the potterwatch radio show that lee jordan runs during the seventh book. of course , since this is marlene she’ll also put on some music during the breaks.

FACECLAIM: nana komatsu

𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐑

POSITIVE TRAITS: humorous , protective , spirited , passionate , loyal , courageous , persistent , independent , playful

NEGATIVE TRAITS: bullheaded , impulsive , impatient , self destructive , arrogant , attention seeking , argumentative

DEMEANOR: marlene can come off one of two ways : friendly and playful or cruel and spiteful. she is a person set in her ways , that means she probably has already decided how she feels about a person either before or in the first couple minutes of meeting them. to her friends and family , marlene is a spitfire with a penchant for adventure and trouble. she likes to make her loved ones laugh and have fun and is incredibly protective of them. however to those she’s not so crazy about , she’s a spitfire in a less fun way. she’s hard to win over if a person has already felt her judgement but it’s possible ... maybe ... who knows.

𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 ( trigger warning : the death of a family member - i will tag the paragraph it’s in. )

the mckinnon brood resides in SCOTLAND , her father’s family having settled there for quite some time while her mother’s side has never left japan — save for her mother of course. they are a large crew even when only counting marlene’s immediate family. she has four siblings , all older. it had been a contentious subject whether to send the kids to hogwarts or mahoutokoro in japan. her father won the fight eventually and the mckinnons went on to scatter themselves throughout gryffindor and ravenclaw.

as a note , the mckinnons have not mingled with many of the other zealous pureblood families for a long while now having marked themselves as blood traitors generations ago. they’re a rough and tumble kind of group who don’t care for haughty parties or the politics of it all.

marlene has always been a whirlwind of spirit and trouble. she was infamous for the pranks she played on the family’s tutors and her disappearing acts , though her parents could hardly blame her with the kind of examples they set ; both aurors who threw themselves into trouble even when the odds were against them. marlene grew up hearing stories about their misadventures , all tied up in a nice little bow as if her parents weren’t risking their lives as the war worsened. but it was not them that marlene wanted to be like. no , she completely adored and idolized her grandmother.

KIRA MCKINNON was a staple in the mckinnon household , floating in and out as if it was her own home. she doted on marlene as her youngest granddaughter. she would often steal her grandchildren away to different adventures in town or the lands surrounding the mckinnon manor. marlene always looked forward to her grandmother’s visits.

even when marlene was whisked off to hogwarts , she and her grandmother exchanged letters — probably the one thing that marlene would let her friends tease her about solely because she didn’t care.

marlene was sorted into gryffindor , like her father and older brother. she made herself comfortable quickly and garnered a reputation as a fairly opinionated and sharp witch. she liked the flashy spells and never cared for the classes where she was required to sit still — “ what a bore. ” she would often say during history of magic and potions classes.

she had grown up playing quidditch with her family and tried out as soon as she was able to , earning a proper spot on the house team in her third year ( either beater or chaser , whichever position works with the other gryffindor headcanons! ).

most notoriously , marlene had trouble picking her fights wisely. she has always been the type of person to act first and think later , which during her time at hogwarts got her into an awful amount of trouble — fights on the pitch , in the corridors , sometimes even in classes. it was difficult for her to stand down when she had a problem with someone ...

this passion became more and more focused around equality efforts for muggles and muggleborns. that conversation was had frequently at the mckinnon house and it was clear who her family stood with : the order. however , marlene’s passion for it was based in the seeds her family planted. i think that if the mckinnons sided with the death eaters , marlene would have fought just as passionately for that ... at least until around the time the rp takes place because this is when she begins to form her own opinions.

FAMILY MEMBER DEATH TRIGGER WARNING BEGINS ... though marlene was obvious in where she stood in the war , it never became real to her until her seventh year. she had nursed a quiet fear for what waited for her outside of hogwarts’s walls until she received news of her grandmother’s death. kira mckinnon had garnered her own reputation throughout her career. she was no one to scoff at as a looming figure in the efforts to catch war criminals. however when she retired those she had helped imprison didn’t forget what she had done. she had been on the death eaters’ hit list for quite some time and they finally crossed her off — marking the beginning of the mckinnon family’s demise. marlene refused to leave school and took her grief out on students who she suspected stood with voldemort. it nearly got her expelled. but her grandmother’s death left her with a nearly paralyzing need to fight. TRIGGER WARNING ENDS.

upon graduation , marlene — seventeen and burning with purpose — signed up to join the order. her family welcomed her , though her parents had reservations about their youngest and most reckless joining up. they tried to keep her off missions as long as possible and so marlene went elsewhere to try to help.

she began her radio show , title TBD , when she was nineteen. it requires a special tune in in order to hear and is riddled with passcodes and code names but she mainly reports on news and stories , including her own passionate rhetoric. she operates it out of a wizarding network who she hosts a show for during some weekdays but at night she uses the instruments to hold her own show. of course there is music during breaks because marlene needs to jam.

since she’s joined the order she’s actually been included on missions and meetings. all she can see is the fight right now , but in that reckless and young perspective where she can only see it ending well for her and her friends. because of that she tends to act fearless and downright stupid , glossing over her fears and worries with humor and general avoidance.

TLDR; marlene is a chaotic dumbass who runs a secret radio show under the guise of an actual radio host for a wizarding network. she’s a dedicated order member who will absolutely throw herself in harm’s way because ... she’s a chaotic dumbass.

𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

RIDE OR DIE’S — these are the people marlene would go to battle for. she is a fiercely protective friend and would rather herself get hurt than those she cares for. these are also the people she would actually confide in too. she very rarely shares what’s going on in her brain except for when it involves these people. on the flip side , if no one’s in peril , marlene is that friend who always pushes her limits a little too much. she wants everyone to enjoy themselves but it won’t stop her if they decide not to partake. she’s a bad influence point blank.

HOOK UPS & FLINGS — marlene is straight up afraid of serious relationships. she sees her parents and their parents and relationships like theirs seem so out of reach. i wouldn’t say she’s a serial one night stander but she has definitely left some broken off flings in her wake because of this. any gender , anyone.

LOVE INTEREST — me: *says marlene is afraid of serious relationships* also me: *puts love interest under wanted connections* exCUSE ME if i’m a sucker for a guarded person falling in love oK. anyway this could really be any dynamic but personally i am a sucker for a past hook up catching feels but marlene doesn’t return the sentiment unTIL LATER or enemies to friends to lovers or literally anything , it does not take much to please me. again , open to anyone.

RIVALS & ENEMIES — marlene is an absolute rage machine and has probably started fights with a lot of people. with that said , her favorite people to hate are death eaters or their sympathizers. other than that , rivals or enemies could be a former school/quidditch competitor to someone who looked at her funny once.

MENTOR — hello i am a sucker for the mentor - student dynamic and if anyone wants to knock some sense into marlene , please do not hesitate to do it. she’s young and stupid and naive about the war efforts , she doesn’t have an accurate view of the world , a place she thinks is neatly divided into black and white. your character can tell her she’s not all good and she can be a pain in your character’s ass!! a win - win honestly.

LITERALLY ANYTHING — i ,, Love to plot and am so down to brainstorm new fun things with y’all!!

#death tw #mm.intro #( ✩. 𝒇𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒅 𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓 ⍮ 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 𝐈𝐒 𝐀 𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐑 / study )

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icannotreadcursive · 5 years ago

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Cats 2019, Dir. Tom Hooper

Overall Quality ⭐️1/5

Entertainment Value ⭐️1/5

Story ⭐️1/5

Visuals and Craft ⭐️⭐️2/5

There is so much potential for artistic and cinematic greatness in a modern, high budget film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's beloved, though admittedly peculiar, musical Cats. Tom Hooper's attempt squanders every drop of that potential. I expected it to be bad, just based on the trailer. I was prepared for it to be an unmitigated disaster. Somehow it managed to be worse that I ever imagined. It is the worst movie I have ever seen.

Cats is a very weird musical—among theatre folk it's pretty strictly a you love it or you hate it show, with some people falling in a third camp where it's not really their cup of tea and they're really not fans, but they can't help but acknowledge that the show is high quality theatre, regardless of how kitschy and odd it is. There are a lot of people, myself included, though, who love this musical. They are a built in audience of thousands, possibly millions, and they are who this movie should have been made for. The filmmakers' first mistake among many was that instead of making a Cats movie for the people who love Cats as it is, they tried to make a Cats movie for the people who don't get it and don't like it. That was an incredibly stupid decision. You're never going to bring those people around, it's a waste of time and resources to try, and the most damning thing is that all the baffling changes the filmmakers made to the musical and its story to try and make it more palatable to those who don't like the show as it exists, only serve to alienate the diehard Cats fans who should have been their strongest supporters.

Every problem in Tom Hooper's Cats comes down to gross misunderstanding of the source material and what people enjoy about it, and a shocking degree of disrespect for the show and its characters. I can comfortably call myself something of an expert on Cats in the theatre—I've seen several productions, been in one, written academic papers about the show, and the book of poetry upon which its based, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot, sits on the shelf about ten feet from me as I type this review. I do not expect anyone to have the same intensity of interest or depth of understanding for Cats as I do; it wouldn't be reasonable. But I do expect anyone making a film adaptation of anything to put effort and serious thought into their project, and to care for and appreciate the source material they're working with. No one in decision making positions on this film seems to have done that. I wouldn't be surprised if I learned that neither Tom Hooper nor screenwriter Lee Hall had ever even seen the show.

Where even to begin with all the bizarre and terrible choices that went into this dumpster fire of a film? This is going to take a while; there's a lot bad filmaking to break down on several levels.

Broad strokes, the movie completely misunderstands what the plot of the stage show actually is, then proceeds to shoehorn in new and unnecessary scenes in what I can only imagine is an attempt to make the plot make more sense. This fails spectacularly, since they're wrong in the first place about what the plot is, thus they succeed only in destroying the actual story of the show, muddying the overcomplicated and misguided narrative they've hamhandedly cobbled together, and interrupt the natural flow of what is supposed to be a sung-through musical such that the entire thing drags on like a last hour math class on Friday before school break. This is worsened by the fact that the film stops dead in the middle of musical numbers several times for the sake of uninspired, usually offensive, and extraneous gags.

To be clear, the plot of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats, as spelled out fairly explicitly by Munkustrap early in the show, is that every year, one night on the full moon, all the members of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles get together to have a big party called the Jellicle Ball, at the end of which their leader, Old Deuteronomy, selects one member of the tribe who has lived a full life and can now be reborn. Over the course of the Ball, several prominent members of the tribe get songs sung about them. The general vibe is very much big family reunion where your uncles, siblings, grandparents, and cousins tell stories about what they've been up to since you last saw them, or about how things were back in their day, depending.

The plot of Tom Hooper's Cats is that every year, one night on the full moon, a bunch of cats get together, allegedly to have a party called the Jellicle Ball, even though most of the movie they seem to be more or less aimlessly wandering the same two or three streets, and over the course of the party some of them sing songs about themselves as part of a competition to try to convince their leader, Old Deuteronomy, that they are the one she should pick to be reborn so they can come back and be “who they really want to be.” This year, it just so happens that a completely unrelated cat has been abandoned in the exact back ally where the Jellicles are hanging out before the Ball. Oh, and this year this one other cat, Macavity, has decided to kidnap all of the other cats that are competing to be chosen to be reborn, so he'll be the only contestant left and Old Deuteronomy will have to pick him.

The idea that the cats with individual songs about them are competing to be chosen to be reborn is a pretty common misunderstanding of the show, but it's one that doesn't hold up to much scrutiny. For one thing, several of the individual songs take place before Old Deuteronomy arrives at the Ball, so the songs clearly are not being presented to Deuteronomy for judgment. For another, most of the characters who have individual songs come across as quite young, only one (Gus) is elderly, and if you pay any attention to the lyrics of their songs, these cats are loving their lives. It makes no sense that they would want to die and give up the lives they are still living to their fullest. Clearly no one involved in this movie bothered to take even two seconds to think that through. As for the idea that the chosen cat comes back as “who they really want to be,” I have no idea where the filmmakers got that.

The central themes of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats are identity, community, and dignity. The film kind of, sort of keeps the theme of identity, at least as far as they kept in most of the song “The Naming of Cats,” which is about identity, sense of self, and the difference between how one is seen by others and how one sees oneself. They omit roughly half the song.

The theme of community is mostly lost, and what little of it remains is twisted strangely by the decision to make Victoria an outsider. In the stage show, all the cats are Jellicles, they are tribe, a family, and they are proud of it. Grizabella is ostracized because she left a long time ago and, it seems, abandoned the tribe. So, now that she's old and lonely and wants to come home, they don't want her back. The emotional climax of the show is when, after the iconic lament of lost youth and righteous demand to be respected as an individual that is “Memory,” Victoria reaches out and touches Grizabella, accepting her back into the tribe and recognizing her as a fellow with the first feline contact Grizabella has had the entire show. This moment is robbed entirely of its power in Tom Hooper's film, largely because all of Grizabella's agency has been taken from her and given to Victoria. Instead of Grizabella stepping up for herself and asserting that she is still a part of this community and deserves to be treated with respect, Victoria physically escorts her in and instructs her to sing. Bear in mind that in the context of the film, Victoria is not a member of the tribe, she's just been inexplicably allowed to tag along, and thus is in no position to be the one accepting Grizabella back.

When it comes to dignity, Grizabella suffers as well. Not only is she stripped of her agency, but “Memory” is turned into a melodramatic self-pitying mess. Bad directoral choices remove every bit of strength and self esteem Grizabella has, especially during that song, which is an unforgivable waste of Jennifer Hudson. Almost every other character is treated as badly, or worse.

Macavity is taken from a truly frightening and threatening—but sexy—figure of mystery and demoted to pathetic, desperate cartoon villain that I think was supposed to be funny. He wasn't funny. This was a waste of Idris Elba, an excellent actor who could have brought refreshing and terrifying depth to what is an often neglected character.

Rum Tum Tugger does not have his usual badboy rockstar jerk with a heart of gold persona, he's just an egotistical asshole.

Grizabella, Macavity, and Tugger are the only characters in the film who visually read as POC through all the CG. They are all pathetic, unlikable, or both. Intentional or not, that feels really racist.

Bombalurina loses her entire character. Instead of a lovable rogue, member of the tribe who knows a questionable amount about Macavity, which gives her her own air of mystery, she's reduced to a flat, weirdly sexualized henchman. This may in part be due to Taylor Swift being too expensive to give more screen time, so they couldn't allow the character to breathe. If that's the case, they should not have cast Taylor Swift—she's not a bad choice for the role, but she is not worth destroying the character for. She certainly hasn't helped the film so much as break even on its budget.

Gus the Theatre Cat is played by Sir Ian McKellen, who is probably the best actor alive on the planet for that role, they could not have cast anyone better, and yet they waste him as well. Gus is old, Gus is physically and mentally feeble, but—on stage—the tribe still love and respect him. In the film, he's framed as pitiable, even laughable. The ageism isn't as overt as it could have been, but it is sickening.

Bustopher Jones (James Corden) and Jennyanydots (Rebel Wilson) are treated worst of all. Both characters are usually portrayed as on the heavy side. Bustopher is directly described in his song as “remarkably fat,” and Jennyanydots tends matronly by theatre tradition. Both characters are unambiguously described as very proper and clean freaks. The filmmakers elected to ignore this characterization in favor of making them both crude, messy, food obsessed slobs, which is shockingly fatphobic.

The only characters who come out more or less unscathed are Old Deuteronomy and Munkustrap. I personally do not agree with the casting of Dame Judy Dench as Old Deuteronomy, the gender flip strikes me as unnecessary and a cheap grab at woke points, but I love Dame Judy and she is a fantastic actor. She brings the grace and poise the role requires and embodies the character as well as anyone could in the middle of such a mess. For his part, Robbie Fairchild as Munkustrap benefits from neglect. The filmakers don't seem to have given Munkustrap much thought or much direction—the role is unchanged from the stage show, except, maybe in that the film doesn't allow him to be as central a character, since it's so obsessively focused on Victoria. Fairchild himself clearly studied Munkustraps in other productions. He feels like the same character, even in how he moves, while still making the role his own.

Several characters are simply deleted. Jemima is awkwardly combined with Victoria, who keeps getting other characters' agency and purpose bestowed upon her, yet isn't allowed to have her crowning moment of awesome in the White Cat Dance to herself. Demeter supposedly exists in the film, played by Daniela Norman, but gets left out of her main musical number so that Taylor Swift can hog it. Jellylorum is omitted entirely, which leaves Gus seeming both isolated and full of himself.

The visual effects are awful. Trying to make the cats look “realistic” was a horrible choice, and poorly executed. The faces are all far too human, and everyone looks uncomfortably naked. The ears and tails aren't an inherently bad idea, but the tails are too long and move too much and just wind up being creepy. Frequently, characters' feet do not look like they're in contact with the floor—Gollum in Lord of the Rings was better rendered and incorporated eighteen years ago. On the subject of feet, some cats have shoes, all of which look somehow wrong, and those that are barefoot have extremely unsettling hybrids of human feet and cat paws. Once, Victoria seems to dance en pointe barefoot on those mutant toes, which illicited in me a visceral body horror. Much of the character design is just baffling. Victoria, whose defining physical characteristic is that she is the one white cat in the tribe, is not a white cat. She has spots now for some reason. Jennyanydots takes off her skin to reveal bedazzled fur, hot pants, and a halter top underneath. Skimbleshanks looks like a rejected member of the Village People. I can't tell if Deuteronomy's fur is supposed to be her fur or a coat.

The cats are inconsistent in size with relation to the world around them, and that world is inconsistent is seeming like it's for humans or for cats played by humans.

The music from the show is great, and should have been a redeeming quality in the film, but they managed to screw that up too. Almost every song has the life drained out of it, which is not the fault of the actors, all of whom I know from their previous work to be strong enough performers to carry their roles, if only they had been directed well. I've already discussed how “Memory” was ruined. “Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer” is unrecognizable, the tune and many lyrics are changed. Despite the 1930s-ish setting, several songs have been pop-ified or hiphop-ified seemingly at random. There are weird lyric changes throughout, often taking the form of altered verb tense, that serve no discernible purpose. The film is apparently allergic to group musical numbers, so sections that are usually sung in groups get split up one line at a time, which does not work, and all the cats that have individual songs sing about themselves rather than their peers singing about them, which makes them all come across as self centered and narcissistic.

Cats is a musical usually marked by having a huge among of excellent dancing. The dancing here is all awkward and often unsettling. Additionally, the language of movement companies of actors performing cats usually exhibit that lets them read as feline is entirely lacking. Robbie Fairchild is the only one who seems to try at all. To his credit, he succeeds.

The best we can hope for this film is that it quickly fades of public memory. To the cast, I hope they at least had fun making fools of themselves. To T.S. Eliot, I'm sorry this happened. To Andrew Lloyd Webber, how did you let this happen? To Tom Hooper, your movie is bad and you should feel bad.

The worst thing about this unredeemable disaster of a film is the handful of times you can just catch a glimpse through all the bad decisions and worse CGI of how good it might have been.

#movies #movie review #eiiri reviews movies #cats #cats musical #cats movie #cats 2019 #tom hooper #cats review #long post

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blackfreethinkers · 4 years ago

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A racial realist IS a white supremacist!!!

By Greg Miller

In unguarded moments with senior aides, President Trump has maintained that Black Americans have mainly themselves to blame in their struggle for equality, hindered more by lack of initiative than societal impediments, according to current and former U.S. officials.

After phone calls with Jewish lawmakers, Trump has muttered that Jews “are only in it for themselves” and “stick together” in an ethnic allegiance that exceeds other loyalties, officials said.

Trump’s private musings about Hispanics match the vitriol he has displayed in public, and his antipathy to Africa is so ingrained that when first lady Melania Trump planned a 2018 trip to that continent he railed that he “could never understand why she would want to go there.”

When challenged on these views by subordinates, Trump has invariably responded with indignation. “He would say, ‘No one loves Black people more than me,’ ” a former senior White House official said. The protests rang hollow because if the president were truly guided by such sentiments he “wouldn’t need to say it,” the official said. “You let your actions speak.”

In Trump’s case, there is now a substantial record of his actions as president that have compounded the perceptions of racism created by his words.

Over 3½ years in office, he has presided over a sweeping U.S. government retreat from the front lines of civil rights, endangering decades of progress against voter suppression, housing discrimination and police misconduct.

His immigration policies hark back to quota systems of the 1920s that were influenced by the junk science of eugenics, and have involved enforcement practices — including the separation of small children from their families — that seemed designed to maximize trauma on Hispanic migrants.

With the election looming, the signaling behind even second-tier policy initiatives has been unambiguous.

After rolling back regulations designed to encourage affordable housing for minorities, Trump declared himself the champion of the “Suburban Lifestyle Dream.” He ordered aides to revamp racial sensitivity training at federal agencies so that it no longer refers to “White privilege.” In a speech at the National Archives on Thursday, Trump vowed to overhaul what children are taught in the nation’s schools — something only states have the power to do — while falsely claiming that students are being “fed lies about America being a wicked nation plagued by racism.”

The America envisioned by these policies and pronouncements is one dedicated to preserving a racial hierarchy that can be seen in Trump’s own Cabinet and White House, both overwhelmingly white and among the least diverse in recent U.S. history.

Trump’s push to amplify racism unnerves Republicans who have long enabled him

Scholars describe Trump’s record on race in historically harsh terms. Carol Anderson, a professor of African American Studies at Emory University, compared Trump to Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Abraham Lincoln as president and helped Southern Whites reestablish much of the racial hegemony they had seemingly lost in the Civil War.

“Johnson made it clear that he was really the president of a few people, not the American people,” Anderson said. “And Trump has done the same.”

A second White House official who worked closely with Trump quibbled with the comparison, but only because later Oval Office occupants also had intolerant views.

“Woodrow Wilson was outwardly a white supremacist,” the former official said. “I don’t think Trump is as bad as Wilson. But he might be.”

White House officials vigorously dispute such characterizations.

“Donald Trump’s record as a private citizen and as president has been one of fighting for inclusion and advocating for the equal treatment of all,” said Sarah Matthews, a White House spokeswoman. “Anyone who suggests otherwise is only seeking to sow division.”

No senior U.S. official interviewed could recall Trump uttering a racial or ethnic slur while in office. Nor did any consider him an adherent of white supremacy or white nationalism, extreme ideologies that generally sanction violence to protect White interests or establish a racially pure ethno-state.

White House officials also pointed to achievements that have benefited minorities, including job growth and prison-sentence reform.

But even those points fade under scrutiny. Black unemployment has surged disproportionately during the coronavirus pandemic, and officials said Trump regretted reducing prison sentences when it didn’t produce a spike in Black voter support.

And there are indications that even Trump’s allies are worried about his record on race. The Republican Party devoted much of its convention in August to persuading voters that Trump is not a racist, with far more Black speakers at the four-day event than have held top White House positions over the past four years.

This story is based on interviews with more than two dozen current and former officials, including some who have had daily interactions with the president, as well as experts on race and members of white supremacist groups. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing a desire to provide candid accounts of events and conversations they witnessed without fear of retribution.

Coded racial terms

Most attributed Trump’s views on race and conduct to a combination of the prevailing attitudes of his privileged upbringing in the 1950s in what was then a predominantly White borough of New York, as well as a cynical awareness that coded racial terms and gestures can animate substantial portions of his political base.

The perspectives of those closest to the president are shaped by their own biases and self-interests. They have reason to resist the idea that they served a racist president. And they are, with few exceptions, themselves White males.

Others have offered less charitable assessments.

Omarosa Manigault Newman, one of the few Black women to have worked at the White House, said in her 2018 memoir that she was enlisted by White House aides to track down a rumored recording from “The Apprentice” — the reality show on which she was a contestant — in which Trump allegedly used the n-word. A former official said that others involved in the effort included Trump adviser Hope Hicks and former White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders.

The tape, if it exists, was never recovered. But Manigault Newman, who was forced out after clashing with other White House staff, portrayed the effort to secure the tape as evidence that aides saw Trump capable of such conduct. In the book, she described Trump as “a racist, misogynist and bigot.”

Mary L. Trump, the president’s niece, has said that casual racism was prevalent in the Trump family. In interviews to promote her recently published book, she has said that she witnessed her uncle using both anti-Semitic slurs as well as the n-word, though she offered few details and no evidence.

Michael Cohen, the president’s former lawyer, has made similar allegations and calls Trump “a racist, a predator, a con man” in a newly published book. Cohen accuses Trump of routinely disparaging people of color, including former president Barack Obama. “Tell me one country run by a Black person that isn’t a s---hole,” Trump said, according to Cohen.

These authors did not provide direct evidence of Trump’s racist outbursts, but the animus they describe aligns with the prejudice Trump so frequently displays in public.

In recent months, Trump has condemned Black Lives Matter as a “symbol of hate” while defending armed White militants who entered the Michigan Capitol, right-wing activists who waved weapons from pickup trucks in Portland and a White teen who shot and killed two protesters in Wisconsin.

Trump has vowed to safeguard the legacies of Confederate generals while skipping the funeral of the late congressman John Lewis (D-Ga.), a civil rights icon, and retweeted — then deleted — video of a supporter shouting “White power” while questioning the electoral eligibility of Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), the nation’s first Black and Asian American candidate for vice president from a major party. In so doing, Trump reanimated a version of the false “birther” claim he had used to suggest that Obama may not have been born in the United States.

These add to an already voluminous record of incendiary statements, including his tweet that minority congresswomen should “go back” to their “crime infested” countries despite being U.S.-born or U.S. citizens, and his claim that there were “very fine people on both sides” after torch-carrying white nationalists staged a violent protest in Charlottesville.

In a measure of Trump’s standing with such organizations, the Stormfront website — the oldest and largest neo-Nazi platform on the Internet — recently issued a call to its followers to mobilize.

“If Trump doesn’t win this election, the police will be abolished and Blacks will come to your house and kill you and your family,” the site warned. “This isn’t about politics anymore, it is about basic survival.”

As the election approaches, Trump has also employed apocalyptic language. He recently claimed that if Democratic nominee Joe Biden is elected, police departments will be dismantled, the American way of life will be “abolished” and “no one will be SAFE.”

Given the country’s anguished history, it is hard to isolate Trump’s impact on the racial climate in the United States. But his first term has coincided with the most intense period of racial upheaval in a generation. And the country is now in the final stretch of a presidential campaign that is more explicitly focused on race — including whether the sitting president is a racist — than any election in modern American history.

Biden has seized on the issue from the outset. In a video declaring his candidacy, he used images from the clashes in Charlottesville, and said he felt compelled to run because of Trump’s response. He has called Trump the nation’s first racist president and pledged to use his presidency to heal divisions that are a legacy of the country’s “original sin” of slavery.

Exploiting societal divisions

Trump has confronted allegations of racism in nearly every decade of his adult life. In the 1970s, the Trump family real estate empire was forced to settle a Justice Department lawsuit alleging systemic discrimination against Black apartment applicants. In the 1980s, he took out full-page ads calling for the death penalty against Black teens wrongly accused of a rape in Central Park. In the 2000s, Trump parlayed his baseless “birther” claim about Obama into a fervent far-right following.

As president, he has cast his record on race in grandiose terms. “I’ve done more for Black Americans than anybody with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln,” Trump said July 22, a refrain he has repeated at least five times in recent months.

None of the administration officials interviewed for this story agreed with Trump’s self-appraisals. But several sought to rationalize his behavior.

Some argued that Trump only exploits societal divisions when he believes it is to his political advantage. They pointed to his denunciations of kneeling NFL players and paeans to the Confederate flag, claiming these symbols matter little to him beyond their ability to rouse supporters.

“I don’t think Donald Trump is in any way a white supremacist, a neo-Nazi or anything of the sort,” a third former senior administration official said. “But I think he has a general awareness that one component of his base includes factions that trend in that direction.”

Studies of the 2016 election have shown that racial resentment was a far bigger factor in propelling Trump to victory than economic grievance. Political scientists at Tufts University and the University of Massachusetts, for example, examined the election results and found that voters who scored highly on indexes of racism voted overwhelmingly for Trump, a dynamic particularly strong among non-college-educated Whites.

Several current and former administration officials, somewhat paradoxically, cited Trump’s nonracial biases and perceived limitations as exculpatory.

Several officials said that Trump is not a disciplined enough thinker to grasp the full dimensions of the white nationalist agenda, let alone embrace it. Others pointed out that they have observed him making far more offensive comments about women, insisting that his scorn is all-encompassing and therefore shouldn’t be construed as racist.

“This is a guy who abuses people in his cabinet, abuses four-star generals, abuses people who gave their life for this country, abuses civil servants,” the first former senior White House official said. “It’s not like he doesn’t abuse people that are White as well.”

Nearly all said that Trump places far greater value on others’ wealth, fame or loyalty to him than he does on race or ethnicity. In so doing, many raised a version of the “some of my best friends are Black” defense on behalf of the president.

When faced with allegations of racism in the 2016 campaign, Trump touted his friendship with boxing promoter Don King to argue otherwise. Administration officials similarly pointed to the president’s connection to Black people who have praised him, worked for him or benefited from his help.

They cited Trump’s admiration for Tiger Woods and other Black athletes, the political support he has received from Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and other Black lawmakers, the president’s fondness for Ja’Ron Smith, who as assistant to the president for domestic policy is the highest-ranking Black staffer at the White House, and his pardon of Black criminal-justice-reform advocate Alice Marie Johnson, expunging her 1996 conviction for cocaine trafficking.

In his speech at the Republican National Convention, Scott used his personal story of bootstrap success to emphasize the ways that Republican policies on taxes, school choice and other issues create opportunities for minorities.

Trump “has fought alongside me” on such issues, Scott said, urging voters “not to look simply at what the candidates say, but to look back at what they’ve done.”

For all the prominence that Scott and other Black Trump supporters were given at the convention, there has been no corresponding representation within the Trump administration.

The official photo stream of Trump’s presidency is a slide show of a commander in chief surrounded by White faces, whether meeting with Cabinet members or posing with the latest intern crop.

From the outset, his leadership team has been overwhelmingly White. A Washington Post tally identified 59 people who have held Cabinet positions or served in top White House jobs including chief of staff, press secretary and national security adviser since Trump took office.

Only seven have been people of color, including Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who are of Lebanese heritage. Only one — Ben Carson, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development — is Black.

Under Trump, the nation’s federal courts have also become increasingly White. Of the 248 judges confirmed or nominated since Trump took office, only eight were Black and eight were Hispanic, according to records compiled by NPR News.

Retreating from civil rights

Trump can point to policy initiatives that have benefited Black or other minority groups, including criminal justice reforms that reduced prison sentences for thousands of Black men convicted of nonviolent, drug-related crimes.

About 4,700 inmates have been released or had their sentences reduced under the First Step Act, an attempt to reverse the lopsided legacy of the drug wars of the 1980s and 1990s, which disproportionately targeted African Americans. But this policy was championed primarily by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and former officials said that Trump only agreed to support the measure when told it might boost his low poll numbers with Black voters.

Months later, when that failed to materialize, Trump “went s---house crazy,” one former official said, yelling at aides, “Why the hell did I do that?”

Manigault Newman was similarly excoriated when her efforts to boost funding for historically Black colleges failed to deliver better polling numbers for the president, officials said. “You’ve been at this for four months, Omarosa,” Trump said, according to one adviser, “but the numbers haven’t budged.” Manigault Newman did not respond to a request for comment.

White House officials cited other initiatives aimed at helping people of color, including loan programs targeting minority businesses and the creation of “opportunity zones” in economically distressed communities.

Trump has pointed most emphatically to historically low Black unemployment rates during his first term, arguing that data show they have fared better under his administration than under Obama or any other president.

But unemployment statistics are largely driven by broader economic trends, and the early gains of Black workers have been wiped out by the pandemic. Blacks have lost jobs at higher rates than other groups since the economy began to shut down. The jobless rate for Blacks in August was 13 percent, compared with 7.3 percent for Whites — the highest racial disparity in nearly six years.

Neither prison reform nor minority jobs programs were priorities of Trump’s first term. His administration has devoted far more energy and political capital to erecting barriers to non-White immigrants, dismantling the health-care policies of Obama and pulling federal agencies back from civil rights battlegrounds.

Under Trump, the Justice Department has cut funding in its Civil Rights Division, scaled back prosecutions of hate crimes, all but abandoned efforts to combat systemic discrimination by police departments and backed state measures that deprived minorities of the right to vote.

Weeks after Trump took office, the department announced it was abandoning its six-year involvement in a legal battle with Texas over a 2011 voter ID law that a federal court had ruled unfairly targeted minorities.

Later, the department went from opposing, under Obama, an Ohio law that allowed the state to purge tens of thousands of voters from its rolls to defending the measure before the Supreme Court.

The law was upheld by the court’s conservative majority. In a dissenting opinion, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that voter rolls in African American neighborhoods shrank by 10 percent, compared with 4 percent in majority-White suburbs.

The Justice Department’s shift when faced with allegations of systemic racism by police departments has been even more stark.

After the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles in 1991, Congress gave the department new power to investigate law enforcement agencies suspected of engaging in a “pattern or practice” of systemic — including racist — misconduct. The probes frequently led to settlements that required sweeping reforms.

The authority was put to repeated use by three consecutive presidents: 25 times under Bill Clinton, 21 under George W. Bush and 25 under Obama. Under Trump, there has been only one.

The collapse has coincided with a surge in police killings captured on video, the largest civil rights protests in decades and polling data that suggests a profound turn in public opinion in support of the Black Lives Matter cause — though that support has waned in recent weeks as protests became violent in some cities.

A Justice Department spokesman pointed to nearly a dozen cases over the past three years in which the department has prosecuted hate crimes or launched racial discrimination lawsuits. In perhaps the most notable case, James Fields Jr., who was convicted of murder for driving his car into a crowd of protesters in Charlottesville, also pleaded guilty to federal hate crime charges.

“The Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice is vigorously fighting race discrimination throughout the United States. Any assertion to the contrary is completely false,” said Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband. “Since 2017, we have prosecuted criminal and civil race discrimination cases in all parts of the United States, and we will continue to do so.”

But the department has not launched a pattern or practice probe into any of the police departments involved in the killings that ignited this summer’s protests, including the May 25 death in Minneapolis of George Floyd, who asphyxiated after a White policeman kept him pinned to the ground for nearly eight minutes with a knee to his neck.

The department has opened a more narrow investigation of the officers directly involved in Floyd’s death. Attorney General William P. Barr called Floyd’s killing “shocking,” but in congressional testimony argued there was no reason to commit to a broader probe of Minneapolis or any other police force.

“I don’t believe there is systemic racism in police departments,” Barr said.

Deport, deny and discourage

Days after the 2016 election, David Duke, a longtime leader of the Ku Klux Klan, tweeted that Trump’s win was “great for our people.” Richard Spencer, another prominent white nationalist figure, was captured on video leading a “Hail Trump” salute at an alt-right conference in Washington.

People with far-right views or white nationalist sympathies gravitated to the administration.

Michael Anton, who published a 2016 essay comparing the country’s course under Obama to that of an aircraft controlled by Islamist terrorists and called for an end to “the ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners,” became deputy national security adviser for strategic communication.

Ian Smith served as an immigration policy analyst at the Department of Homeland Security until email records showed connections with Spencer and other white supremacists. Darren Beattie worked as a White House speechwriter before leaving abruptly when CNN reported his involvement in a conference frequented by white nationalists.

Stephen K. Bannon, who for years used Breitbart News to advance an alt-right, anti-immigrant agenda, was named White House chief strategist, only to be banished eight months later after clashing with other administration officials.

Stephen Miller, by contrast, has survived a series of White House purges and used his position as senior adviser to the president to push hard-line policies that aim to deport, deny and discourage non-European immigrants.

While working for the Trump campaign in 2016, Miller sent a steady stream of story ideas to Breitbart drawn from white nationalist websites, according to email records obtained by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In one exchange, Miller urged a Breitbart reporter to read “Camp of the Saints,” a French novel that depicts the destruction of Western civilization by rampant immigration. The book has become a touchpoint for white supremacist groups.

Miller was the principal architect of, and driving force behind, the so-called Muslim Ban issued in the early days of Trump’s presidency and the separation of migrant children from their parents along the border with Mexico. He has also worked behind the scenes to turn public opinion against immigrants and outmaneuver bureaucratic adversaries, officials said.

To blunt allegations of racism and xenophobia in the administration’s policies, Miller has sought to portray them as advantageous to people of color. In several instances, Miller directed subordinates to “look for Latinos or Blacks who have been victims of a crime by an immigrant,” then pressured officials at the Department of Homeland Security to tout these cases to the press, one official said. Families of some victims appeared as prominent guests of the president at the State of the Union address.

In 2018, as Miller sought to slash the number of refugees admitted to the United States, Pentagon officials argued that the existing policy was crucial to their ability to relocate interpreters and other foreign nationals who risked their lives to work with U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“What do you want? Iraqi communities across the United States?” Miller erupted during one meeting of National Security Council deputies, according to witnesses. The refugee limit has plunged since Trump took office, from 85,000 in 2016 to 18,000 this year.

In response to a request for comment from Miller, Matthews, the White House spokeswoman, said that “this attempt to vilify Stephen Miller with egregious and unfounded allegations from anonymous sources is shameful and completely unethical.”

As a descendant of Jewish immigrants, Miller is regarded warily by white supremacist organizations even as they applaud some of his actions.

“Our side doesn’t consider him one of us — for obvious reasons,” said Don Black, the founder of the Stormfront website, in an interview. “He’s kind of an odd choice to be the white nationalist in the White House.”

Trump’s presidency has corresponded with a surge in activity by white nationalist groups, as well as concern about the growing danger they pose.

Recent assessments by the Department of Homeland Security describe white supremacists as the country’s gravest domestic threat, exceeding that of the Islamic State and other terror groups, according to documents obtained by the Lawfare national security website and reported by Politico.

The FBI has expanded resources to tracking hate groups and crimes. FBI Director Christopher A. Wray testified Thursday that “racially motivated violent extremism” accounts for the bulk of the bureau’s domestic terrorism cases, and that most of those are driven by white supremacist ideology.

Major rallies staged by white nationalist organizations, which were already on the upswing just before the 2016 election, increased in size and frequency after Trump took office, according to Brian Levin, an expert on hate groups at California State University at San Bernardino.

The largest, and most ominous, was the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville.

On Aug. 11, 2017, hundreds of white supremacists, neo-fascists and Confederate sympathizers descended on the city. Purportedly there to protest the planned removal of a Robert E. Lee statue, they carried torches and chanted slogans including “blood and soil” and “you will not replace us” laden with Klan and Nazi symbolism.

The event erupted in violence the next day, Saturday, when Fields, a self-proclaimed white supremacist, drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, tossing bodies into the air. Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old Virginia native and peace activist, was killed.

Trump’s vacillating response in the ensuing days came to mark one of the defining sequences of his presidency.

Speaking from his golf resort in Bedminster, N.J., Trump at first stuck to a calibrated script: “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence.” Then, improvising, he added: “on many sides, on many sides.”

In six words, Trump had drawn a moral equivalency between the racist ideology of those responsible for the Klan-like spectacle and the competing beliefs that compelled Heyer and others to confront hate.

Trump’s comments set off what some in the White House came to regard as a behind-the-scenes struggle for the moral character of his presidency.

John F. Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general who was just weeks into his job as White House chief of staff, confronted Trump in the corridors of the Bedminster club. “You have to fix this,” Kelly said, according to officials familiar with the exchange. “You were supporting white supremacists. You have to go back out and correct this.”

Gary Cohn, the White House economic adviser at the time, threatened to resign and argued that there were no “good people” among the ranks of those wearing swastikas and chanting “Jews will not replace us.” In a heated exchange, Cohn criticized Trump for his “many sides” comment, and was flummoxed when Trump denied that was what he had said.

“Not only did you say it, you continued to double down on it,” Cohn shot back, according to officials familiar with the exchange. “And if you want, I’ll get the transcripts.”

Trump relented that Monday and delivered the ringing condemnation of racism that Kelly, Cohn and others had urged. “Racism is evil,” he said, “and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups”

Aides were briefly elated. But Trump grew agitated by news coverage depicting his speech as an attempt to correct his initial blunder.

The next day, during an event at Trump Tower that was supposed to highlight infrastructure initiatives, Trump launched into a fiery monologue.

“You had a group on one side that was bad,” he said. “You had a group on the other side that was also very violent. Nobody wants to say that. I’ll say it right now.” By the end, the president appeared to be sanctioning racial divisions far beyond Charlottesville, saying “there are two sides to the country.”

For all their consternation, none of Trump’s top aides resigned over Charlottesville. Kelly remained in his job through 2018. Cohn stayed until March 2018 after being asked to lead the administration’s tax-reform initiative and reassured that he could share his own views about Charlottesville in public without retaliation from the president.

Kelly and Cohn declined to comment.

The most senior former administration official to comment publicly on Trump’s conduct on issues of race is former defense secretary Jim Mattis. After Trump responded to Black Lives Matter protests in Washington this summer with paramilitary force, Mattis responded with a blistering statement.

“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try,” Mattis said. “Instead, he tries to divide us.”

In some ways, Charlottesville represented a high-water mark for white nationalism in Trump’s presidency. Civil rights groups were able to use footage of the mayhem in Virginia to identify members of hate groups and expose them to their employers, universities and families.

“Charlottesville backfired,” Levin said. Many of those who took part, especially the alt-right leadership, “were doxed, sued and beaten back,” he said, using a term for using documents available from public records to expose individuals.

“When the door to the big political tent closed on these overtly white nationalist groups, many collapsed, leaving a decentralized constituency of loose radicals now reorganizing under new banners,” Levin said.

Some white nationalist leaders have begun to express disenchantment with Trump because he has failed to deliver on campaign promises they hoped would bring immigration to a standstill or perhaps even ignite a race war.

“A lot of our people were expecting him to actually secure the borders, build the wall and make Mexico pay for it,” Black said.

“Some in my circles want to see him defeated,” Black said, because they believe a Biden presidency would call less attention to the white nationalist movement than Trump has, while fostering discontent among White people.

But Black sees those views as dangerously shortsighted, failing to appreciate the extraordinary advantages of having a president who so regularly aligns himself with aspects of the movement’s agenda.

“Symbolically, he’s still very important,” Black said of Trump. “I don’t think he considers himself a white supremacist or a white nationalist. But I think he may be a racial realist. He knows there are racial differences.”

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radramblog · 4 years ago

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A recap of a D&D One-shot: The B-Team

This is a little bit late, frankly, since the one-shot in question took place quite some time ago. But it’s pseudo-sequel is upcoming, and I’ve been building a character for that, so.

The B-Team was a very cool and good one-shot that turned into a two-shot because things kinda just kept going on for a bit, and that’s okay because we were having fun. It was the first D&D (or tabletop in general, excluding TCGs) I’d played in quite a while, since nobody’s campaigns had spare space and it’s not like I feel experienced enough to DM my own one.

It was also heavily inspired (I believe) by a movie I haven’t seen, so until it was literally spelled out for me I had no idea about that. Oops. Anyway.

I’m not sure this is going to be the most interesting content, but this is also going to nudge my memory about the setting and such, which is relevant for one shot two, so. At the very least, my mates who read this and weren’t there can get a rundown, even if it’s a little late.

We did so much crime.

The B-Team opens with our titular party returning to Huckston (a city I had assumed was spelled differently) from a job for local mob boss Seamus Greenleaf, a halfling sorcerer whose accent was as silly as his name implied. Dude was basically an extremely dangerous leprechaun. Said job involved the retrieval of a ring whose name I forgot but basically just gives regenerative immortality.

Our party was comprised of 4 members, each with a very particular set of skills that probably would have worked a little better if we’d communicated better beforehand. We had Prissy, a Half-Elf Courtesan and Wizard who was theoretically the party face but more importantly a nigh-untouchable Bladesinger, Vael, a Human Circle of the Shepherd druid who is likely single-handedly responsible for getting that subclass softbanned from our tables for just spamming rats and bears everywhere and making keeping track of things a pain, and Stitches, a Half-Orc Rogue who had to take up the tank/melee role even though their class was not suited to it, because the rest of the party was casters.

And then there was my character, Parri. A Kobold Artificer/Alchemist, who I’d essentially flavoured as someone who digs through dumpsters to find usable components to do the grossest possible magi/science possible. I’d deliberately taken spells that were less useful than they were flavourful- this snappy mans is very likely to have Grease handy since he’s probably rooted around in a nasty restaurant bin, he’ll have Heat Metal (a spell I didn’t realise was as good as it is) since that would be a useful tool for making things to hold dangerous ingredients, and y’all know he’s taking Acid Arrow. Actually, you get that one for free as an Alchemist anyway, so.

Parri was…interesting to play, to say the least. I’m sure people complain a lot about this sort of thing, but his accuracy with spells was frustrating at best. Alchemical Savant, on the other hand, was an excellent little boon that made sure said spells were dealing some sexy damage. I probably goofed up when I took Cantrips- Poison Spray was solid enough, but Mending was something I’m pretty sure I never used- while it makes sense for someone going through garbage to want to fix up the things they find, we did a lot more breaking than we did fixing. Parri was also a major Critical magnet, including on the opening turn of the final battle, so he spent a lot of time healing himself with various abilities.

Artificer is also a class I will probably wait a while before going back to, because it has a lot of little tinkering going on, appropriately enough. By level 9, where we ended the campaign, he had a sizable pile of spells with 3 levels, the Magical Tinkering ability to basically have a bunch of little things that do semi-useful stuff, 6 infusions- basically self-made magic items, with a huge list to pick from and 3 active at a time, the ability to make tools at will, two randomised Experimental Elixirs every long rest, that also give temporary HP, the ability to cure statuses and diseases pretty much at will, and the extremely useful Flash of Genius feature for yourself and allies. Added onto the Kobold stuff of Grovel, Cower and Beg (an ability that, despite being nutso bonkers, I literally Never Used), there was a lot to keep track of, and I’m much more keen to go back to something a little simpler.

These 4…adventurers? Would show up to Greenleaf and hand over the ring, only to discover that it was not the ring they had assumed it was, or at least, it didn’t seem to work. Assuming we, his loyal hench-group, were trying to screw him, he sicced his boys on us, forcing us to flee to safe haven, and attempt to make a next move.

Each of our characters had a person or group we knew in the city who could help (I deadass don’t remember Vael’s one, though), and as a team now being hunted by the largest gang around, we were hunting for options. Stitches had family working in the docks, who fortunately knew a guy who could promise us safe passage the hell out of dodge- and considering the circumstances, that seemed like the best idea if we wanted to keep our lives. His fee, however, was well beyond our price point, so our goal was, in fact, to get rich quick. For our lives.

And that’s just what we did, using the only thing we knew best: Crimes. Using Prissy’s contact- a hole-in-the-wall bar she used to work at (or at least, she knows the owner), we had ourselves a relatively safe base to work from for a few days, from which we could sneak off to the city’s underbelly- literal in this case, since it was in the sewerage- and find jobs of Questionable Repute to do. Lucrative, but dangerous. We took a couple contracts, bought some shit from Parri’s contact (Black Market Magic Items!), and got to work.

It is worth noting that, of course, our travel was not particularly free, as the price Greenleaf put on our heads was astronomical. So just about everywhere we went, we were met with someone or another trying to kill us for a reward. This was a great excuse to have Lots of Fights, but it meant that our resources were somewhat limited. Everything from goblins to fully trained Dragonborn warriors and tamed Drakes was on our ass, and fortunately, we survived each encounter.

The first job we took was pretty much the reason the game was extended to a second session- the assassination of a major noble pretty much turned into a murderous heist movie scene. With the noble in question being a sleazeball, it’s not like we really minded (Parri was evil-aligned anyway). It ended up a surprisingly involved plan, with Vael shapeshifting into a rat and Stitches doing Rogue Shit in the background to keep things moving, Prissy doing what courtesans do best and stab people to death in bed, and Parri disguising as a waiter, doing not a great job of it, but eventually enabling the escape by causing a distraction in the form of setting loose the noble’s pet Lion (via melting the chains, because subtlety is dead) and fleeing in the ensuing chaos. It was kind of a blast to put together, though particularly nerve-wracking- especially because if anything went wrong, or the set-lion-loose plan failed, Parri was in the middle of a room with many, many guards.

But it did go right, and the Lion even got to survive, after shrugging off a spell or two from the wizards guarding the place, so we got paid, called it a night, and called it a day in game because it was like 6 or something at this point I think.

After a week (or two?), we reconvened for the second part of what was now the B-Team two-shot. Our objective of Get Gold was not fully completed, but we’d gotten the majority of our funding sorted, so our next job would be something a bit easier and safer. As it turns out, that job would be Bullying Shopkeepers for Protection Money, something that made me vaguely uncomfortable IRL but hey, it’s only game.

Over the course of this job, we threatened a local blacksmith, a potion-seller (Parri made off with a brew or two), and a small local Goblin gang named the Green Mongrels. While this particular altercation turned violent, Prissy had just picked up Fireball, so you can guess how that one went. Two of the gang’s three leaders ended up so much dust on the ground, let alone the grunts, and the final one surrendered, which was appreciated. Especially since it meant we had a couple extra spell slots for the fight on the way back, being the one with the aforementioned tamed drakes.

Cash in hand, it was now time to get ourselves smuggled out of dodge, levelling up in the process. We actually levelled a few times over the course of the campaign, an accelerated pace mostly because it’s a short thing so it doesn’t really matter, and because levelling is both fun and lets the GM throw harder things at us.

Our attempt at escape was somewhat thwarted, as upon reaching the shore and farewelling our now quite rich trafficker, we were ambushed by our final foes. Because of course, if there was a B-Team, there would of course be an A-Team. This was a pretty interesting idea for a fight, a squad of four deliberately mirroring our own- A Goblin Artificer on the Artillerist stream, a Rogue preferring bows to swords and spending most of their time peppering us with arrows while stuck to the side of a cliff, a Druid that turned themselves into a monster rather than summoning like ours did, and a Wizard who’s class I don’t really know but boy did he like Counterspells.

This was a long, and protracted, and kind of brutal fight that took a lot out of the group, and I’m pretty sure more than one person (and by that I mean more than Parri, because he got shot right in the face for a crit immediately) was downed over the course of it. But eventually, the Rogue was knocked off the cliff enough times, the Wizard was downed and drowned, the Druid ran out of things to transform into, and the Artificer got taken apart with extreme prejudice.

But it didn’t seem to be over. As we were scrounging the bodies, someone attacked Stitches, and it was unclear whom or from where. We assumed it was the Wizard having somehow survived, as he’d been walking on water and thus his body ended up in the depths- couldn’t find it. Parri casts detect magic, and one very dead Wizard was found.

And a very suspicious Necromantic signature coming from Vael.

Turns out he’d had the reviving ring the whole time, and it was driving him completely mad. A final fight ensued, arguably our biggest damage dealer, currently unable to die, against the remainder of the party. And it was similarly brutal.

The tech ended up being for our not particularly strong characters to have to get close enough to pry the ring off his fingers so that they could actually become cold and dead. This was somewhat complicated by Parri getting very quickly downed by bats and bears, and Stitches being actually killed by such. After some healing and teleportation thanks to Prissy, however, we were just able to not only get the ring and finally put Vael down, but Parri, having recently learned Revifify and acquiring a jewel to burn on it, managed to un-kill Stitches.

Betrayal is a great way to make the closing moments of an adventure particularly memorable, I think.

Put mostly together, the ring and bodies disposed of (no-one holding on to this fucker anymore, ideally), 3/4ths of the B-Team wandered off into the sunrise, to restart their lives anew somewhere else. I like to imagine Parri opened a potion shop somewhere, but who knows if any town would actually suffer a Kobold long enough for him to do so.

And that was the campaign. It was a lot of fun, though it had been so long since a previous tabletop adventure that I don’t really have a lot to compare it to. The table seemed to get along well enough (I mean we were all friends beforehand, so der), aside from some somewhat awkward pauses.

And considering the sequel to this campaign is coming, with different characters and the same people (now significantly less stressed out since the Uni break is here), I’m extremely excited to get back into it. I have a new extremely small man to play as, and I couldn’t be happier to bring him to the table. Just…not as many nonsense abilities this time.

#ramble #tabletop #dungeons and dragons #very long! oops

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techcrunchappcom · 4 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/allegations-of-racism-have-marked-trumps-presidency-andbecome-key-issue-as-election-nears-the-washington-post/

Allegations of racism have marked Trump’s presidency and become key issue as election nears - The Washington Post

In Trump’s case, there is now a substantial record of his actions as president that have compounded the perceptions of racism created by his words.

With the election looming, the signaling behind even second-tier policy initiatives has been unambiguous.

“Johnson made it clear that he was really the president of a few people, not the American people,” Anderson said. “And Trump has done the same.”

A second White House official who worked closely with Trump quibbled with the comparison, but only because later Oval Office occupants also had intolerant views.

“Woodrow Wilson was outwardly a white supremacist,” the former official said. “I don’t think Trump is as bad as Wilson. But he might be.”

White House officials vigorously dispute such characterizations.

White House officials also pointed to achievements that have benefited minorities, including job growth and prison-sentence reform.

Coded racial terms

Others have offered less charitable assessments.

These authors did not provide direct evidence of Trump’s racist outbursts, but the animus they describe aligns with the prejudice Trump so frequently displays in public.

Exploiting societal divisions

None of the administration officials interviewed for this story agreed with Trump’s self-appraisals. But several sought to rationalize his behavior.

Several current and former administration officials, somewhat paradoxically, cited Trump’s nonracial biases and perceived limitations as exculpatory.

Trump “has fought alongside me” on such issues, Scott said, urging voters “not to look simply at what the candidates say, but to look back at what they’ve done.”

For all the prominence that Scott and other Black Trump supporters were given at the convention, there has been no corresponding representation within the Trump administration.

Retreating from civil rights

Months later, when that failed to materialize, Trump “went s—house crazy,” one former official said, yelling at aides, “Why the hell did I do that?”

Later, the department went from opposing, under Obama, an Ohio law that allowed the state to purge tens of thousands of voters from its rolls to defending the measure before the Supreme Court.

The Justice Department’s shift when faced with allegations of systemic racism by police departments has been even more stark.

The authority was put to repeated use by three consecutive presidents: 25 times under Bill Clinton, 21 under George W. Bush and 25 under Obama. Under Trump, there has been only one.

“I don’t believe there is systemic racism in police departments,” Barr said.

Deport, deny and discourage

People with far-right views or white nationalist sympathies gravitated to the administration.

As a descendant of Jewish immigrants, Miller is regarded warily by white supremacist organizations even as they applaud some of his actions.

The moral character of his presidency

Trump’s presidency has corresponded with a surge in activity by white nationalist groups, as well as concern about the growing danger they pose.

The largest, and most ominous, was the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville.

Trump’s vacillating response in the ensuing days came to mark one of the defining sequences of his presidency.

Trump’s comments set off what some in the White House came to regard as a behind-the-scenes struggle for the moral character of his presidency.

“Not only did you say it, you continued to double down on it,” Cohn shot back, according to officials familiar with the exchange. “And if you want, I’ll get the transcripts.”

Aides were briefly elated. But Trump grew agitated by news coverage depicting his speech as an attempt to correct his initial blunder.

The next day, during an event at Trump Tower that was supposed to highlight infrastructure initiatives, Trump launched into a fiery monologue.

Kelly and Cohn declined to comment.

“A lot of our people were expecting him to actually secure the borders, build the wall and make Mexico pay for it,” Black said.

Julie Tate, Matt Zapotosky, Josh Dawsey, Dalton Bennett and Josh Partlow contributed to this report.

#allegations #become #issue #marked #presidency #racism #trump #Politics

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soggymilkchronicles · 5 years ago

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Lockdown protests are shameless astroturfing, and the establishment makes #FloridaMorons of us all

Stuck at home with your HBO account and food delivery apps? Looking for something to be pissed off about? Wonderful! The mainstream media would like to direct your attention to a coordinated string of right-wing protests for an end to the lockdown, and away from— well, whatever it is the people who cut their checks are up to. Conservatives in power, like Betsy Devos, whose family funded the protest against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s Stay at Home order, and Trump, who’s brazenly encouraged the demonstrations, are attempting to shift our baleful gaze to local government, the Democrats, and the Chinese. Authoritarians, they cry! Communists! Elitists! The Democratic elite, through the megaphone of mainstream media outlets they keep in their pocket, would like to convince you it’s the Conservatives’ fault. Racists! Philistines! “Why is it the right-wingers always seem to need their screws tightened?” one man wrote in a tweet about the Michigan protests. And so it goes. As long as you remain in the stands, watching the Reds and Blues bat blame back and forth like a tired tennis ball and cheering for your favorite team, you’re right where they want you.

Both parties would like you to believe they’re ardent champions of the working man, their efforts hampered only by the self-serving interference of the opposite side— and, crucially, the ordinary people who elected them. Who they really want us to blame is ourselves. Didn’t vote Clinton in 2016? Might wanna wash the blood off your hands. Not social distancing? Don’t have a mask? This is your fault, and you must be punished (for the safety of the American people, of course). In Philadelphia, a man was physically pulled off a bus by several police officers for not wearing a mask. A New York woman was arrested for not social distancing and thrown in a cell with two dozen others for 36 hours. These are far from isolated incidents. The government primes us to accept them by painting our fellow working people (and the migrants, the Chinese, the Russians, et al., depending on your political leanings) as the enemy they’re protecting us from. If we stay divided, frightened, and vengeful, we remain prey to the real enemy— our American aristocracy. Distracting us with political white noise ensures that the current system won’t be held responsible for the violence it caused.

The re-opening protests being pushed in our face are a perfect example of this. The protests are a sloppy spectacle of astroturfing— the practice of concealing the sponsors of a movement so it appears to have grassroots origin and mass support. In other words, something that seems like a spontaneous expression of the zeitgeist but is actually a few rich pricks using their immense wealth to change our perception of the political landscape. Americans on both sides of the party line are falling for it.

If it seems like this movement popped up overnight, it’s because it did: tech-savvy Redditor sleuths discovered that the protest websites (reopen[state abbreviation].com, although in some cases this re-directs to a page on a different website, like minnesotagunrights.org, the domain always registered to the same LLC) can be traced to at least two professional astroturfing firms (or, as they call themselves, “digital advocacy solutions”). The sites for PA, MN, IA, VA, WI, and OH— all presidential election swing states— were made by OneClickPolitics, and the sites for MD, MJ, and NJ were made by UJoin. Strategies like this can be incredibly impactful; digital astroturfing was employed by AggregateIQ/Cambridge Analytica in the Brexit campaign, for instance. If you’re confused about what exactly these companies do, that makes two of us— but you can get an idea from OCP’s website:

“Are you launching a new coalition or association and need more members now? Want 10,000 signatures for your petition from residents of a certain state? Are you battling a legislative issue in a location where you don't have enough advocates, who are constituents of the legislators you are attempting to influence? Or would you like to impress your boss by reporting a 15% growth in membership in less than 90 days? If your answer is yes, keep reading!

OneClick Acquisition is your solution for generating immediate legislative actions from new supporters within mere days. We deliver “on demand, organic supporters” through our proprietary digital ad placement technology.”

It’s unknown who’s paying for these campaigns, but I could hazard some guesses. After all, Republican puppetmasters are making less effort to hide than ever before— FreedomWorks, the thinktank behind the Tea Party movement, is “holding weekly virtual town halls with members of Congress, igniting an activist base of thousands of supporters across the nation to back up the effort,” according to an Associated Press article titled “Powerful GOP allies propel Trump effort to reopen economy”: history repeating itself as farce. Besides DeVos, these “powerful allies” include The Heritage Foundation and Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity.

Americans have become so reverent of wealth and power, so blind to class distinctions, that they see billionaire chessmasters as their “allies” protecting their inalienable “right to work”: the right to sacrifice themselves at the altar of capital so their families get some Eucharistic breadcrumbs. It’s incredible that elites funding supposedly populist political maneuvers can be construed as a good thing— a philanthropic thing, even. In case it isn’t obvious, not only is the ruling class not acting in our best interest, or trying to keep us healthy, or preserve our freedom, they are acting in their best interest, which is to limit our freedom and maximize our productivity as much as possible. And before you go and tweet about those MAGA hat-clad #FloridaMorons, you should consider the elites you’re prepared to trust— like, I don’t know, richest man in the world Bill Gates, or certified worst person in the world Nancy Pelosi and the “experts” bearing her seal of approval.

Whether you’re out protesting in your truck with an American flag or at home with your gourmet ice cream tweeting angrily about it, the establishment is laughing all the way to the bank (they just auctioned your liberty and privacy off to the highest bidder!). Wake up, sheeple. It’s 2020. The two party system is a joke. It doesn’t really matter who’s behind the astroturfing, because the only lines that matter right now are class lines: it’s not Enlightened Democrats vs. The Trumpian Troglodytes, it’s Normal People vs. the rapidly dystopic Big-Data-Big-Pharma-Privatized-Government Orwellian Technocracy of the new world order. Uniting under our shared interests is our only hope. Well, that and Bill Gates, of course.

#lockdown protests #operation gridlock

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upshotre · 6 years ago

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Abati, Osun Governorship Poll and the Supreme Court Verdict

By Semiu Okanlawon Rueben Abati is a household name, at least for those literate enough to consume media contents of the print and television channels. And I respect him. He has a rich profile as a writer and columnist of note; rising to stardom as member and later Chairman, Editorial Board of one of Nigeria’s most thriving newspapers, The Guardian; one time spokesman of a Nigerian former president; founder of a blog, www.ruebenabati.com.ng and a regular anchor on one of the most watched television channels in Africa, Arise. With a First Class degree in Theatre, holding a doctorate degree, Abati simply should be one of the most brilliant minds around. Just as many of us, as school boys, ‘worshipped’ the writings of notable Nigerian writers and columnists such Alaba Ogunsanwo, Tola Adeniyi (Abba Saheed), Bisi Onabanjo (Ayekooto), Alade Odunewu (AllahDe) and even much more contemporary ones like Ray Ekpu, Dare Babarinsa, Onome Osifo-Whiskey and that generation of opinion molders, it is obvious that some Nigerian young minds aiming at careers in journalism and writing may have come under the ‘spell’ of their supposed model; savouring his ideas the way kids savour and devour noodle meals. It is not unlikely that within the academic community as well, some budding researchers in stylistics, writings, communications, dramatic arts and other related knowledge fields may have been making his works subjects of their dissertations. Such are some of the additions that fame can bring. The dossier above has necessitated this piece as a response to Abati’s article with the title Osun, Supreme Court And The Violent Senator. In the said piece, Abati had tried frantically to discredit the judgment of the Supreme Court on the Osun governorship poll which declared that Gboyega Oyetola of the All Progressive Congress was indeed the winner of that election. In summary, he posited that the Supreme Court judges were wrong to have relied on technicalities of the law and also said that the verdict runs contrary to what the common man on the streets expected. This must be made clear at this juncture. Abati’s piece could not have been an unbiased, fair representation of the facts as they are on the Osun governorship poll and the attendant legal wrestling that followed. And lest his audience believe the article was one of the numerous interventions on issues of national importance, we must remind them that Abati, far from being a commentator, detached from the emotions and sentiments of partisanship, wrote his piece to protect the interests (wrong or right) of the political party he to which he belongs. Those who may have forgotten should be reminded that the author of this article in question contested election in Ogun State in 2019 as the running mate to the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Buruji Kashamu. He is not an uninterested party. Now to his bone of contention! The Osun 2018 governorship election has come and gone including the litigations up to the apex court in the land. Expectedly, the outcome of the litigation certainly will continue to be at the centre of political and legal discussions for some time to come. The Supreme Court, on Friday July 5th, 2019 laid to rest all the issues in controversy regarding the said election and affirmed Oyetola of the All Progressive Congress as the Governor of the State. The Supreme Court of Nigeria is the apex court in the land, thus placing it in a vantage position to do and undo. Its finality is much more embedded in Justice Oputa’s dictum in the celebrated case of ADEGOKE MOTORS LTD. V. ADESANYA & ANOR thus ‘’It is not part of jurisdiction or duties of this court to go on looking for imaginary conflicts. We are final not because we are infallible; rather we are infallible because we are final.’’ The finality of the Supreme Court also enjoys constitutional provision. Thus it is the last bus stop for all appeals. Judges of the Supreme Court are human beings capable of erring, since ‘’to err is human.’’ I, however, hold the view that it has demonstrated unusual courage in matters before it. The court’s decision on Rivers and Zamfara states’ congresses, which were nullified are still fresh culminating in victories for the opposition Peoples Democratic Party in those states. In those instances cited above, when the PDP and their allies threw lavish parties and regaled in their ‘deserved’ victories, the Supreme Court did well! Now that the apex court affirmed the position of the Court of Appeal on Osun’s case, name-calling, skepticism as well as implied casting of aspersions on the character and integrity of those judges may not be ruled out. What hypocrisy! It is needless to state that the apex court in adjudicating upon cases before it, has demonstrated an unusual candour and courage to take the best decisions regardless of whose ox is gored. This has attracted commendations and condemnations from political gladiators depending on their sentiments. It is imperative that the court would not act in vacuum in deciding cases but based on established legal and judicial principles. Responding to Supreme Court’s verdict on Osun governorship election, he had argued that the judgment was based much more on technicality as same was hinged on the absence of Justice Obiorah at the February 6 sitting of the election tribunal, which made the Court of Appeal and the Apex court to nullify the majority decision of the tribunal delivered by Justice Obiora J. Wendel Holmes had stated that ‘’life of law is not logic but experience.’’ It is the latter that culminate in sacrosanct doctrine of stare decisis which urges courts not to depart from principles earlier laid down by them. This ensures consistency of principles of law, which is sine qua non to a formidable legal system. The law has been settled by the apex court in KALEJAIYE v. LPDC which is to the effect that where a member of a judicial tribunal did not participate in a trial and thereafter gives a decision in the matter, the decision is nothing but a nullity. That was why Wole Olanipekun SAN, in his submission at the Court of Appeal equated Justice Obiora’s act to judicial hearsay which has no place in our law. I am of the opinion that informed legal opinions even have much more jurisprudential authorities to back this than the case of KALEJAIYE V. LPDC. It is convenient for this writer to amplify alleged intimidations during the rerun election which were never proved but ignore the fact that the PDP candidate could not indeed have come near the votes he scored in the main election had there been credible voting in Ede South, Ede North, Egbedore where the PDP and its candidate and allies perfected their electoral malfeasance. I invite Dr. Abati to place side-by-side the number of polling units where the rerun took place and those in the three local government areas where APC loyalists were locked indoors to avert the bloodshed they had been promised if they ever voted against a “son of the soil?” Abati further raised in his piece, that the apex court did not consider some issues before it. The answer is simple. It is a well-established principle of Appellate Practice that a single issue, well-formulated, germane, successfully argued and considered by an Appellate Court such as the Supreme Court of Nigeria can dispose off an appeal. As disciples of the Realist School of Jurisprudence that believe in nothing but what the law courts say as law, we need not reiterate that the law as it stands today is what the apex court says in the Osun governorship election tussle. The Supreme Court has power to overrule itself when opportunities present themselves. Until then, the court’s verdict on the 2018 Osun election dispute is not only the extant position of the law but a precedent to be followed by the court when cases that are on all fours with the Osun case come before it. Kindly perish the thought that the positions of the dissenting judges both at the Appeal and the Supreme courts would end up being much more useful to justice and humanity than the majority decisions. There is a complex case of self-contradiction if Dr. Abati in one breath argued that “It is not the duty of judges to rely on public sentiments for determining cases” and in the same breath queries “What does the ordinary man think?” If, using his own words, “it seems to me that the ordinary man in this case considers the ruling of the Supreme Court, an anti-climax,” Dr. Abati appears to have arrogated the right to think for the common man to himself. If justice is to be served based only on the opinions and emotions of the common man, the cases in Zamfara and Rivers would most probably have gone in favour of the APC. Let it be said that in spite of the generally widespread knowledge of Nigeria that the elite claim, we must never conclude we fully understand the real, critical issues that determine and sway the psyche of the common man when he is taking decisions such as those he takes when holding ballot papers at polling stations. The point is this: The ordinary man in Osun, in their huge majority with some card-carrying PDP loyalists, would queue behind a Gboyega Oyetola instead and not an Ademola Adeleke. Forget about someone’s dancing steps. That’s not an issue. There are many other critical considerations that set apart these two personalities and those factors are there for all right-thinking people to see especially when it comes to the serious issues of governance. I conclude by stating that every other argument over this matter amounts to mere linguistic gymnastics aimed at some political intrigues. Let Dr. Abati save himself the trouble of compelling the discerning segment of his readers and followers to question the rationales behind his writings on issues of national relevance. My humble advice! *Semiu Okanlawon, journalist, Communication and Strategy Consultant was Special Adviser, Information and Strategy in Osun and writes via [email protected] Read the full article

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eichy815 · 6 years ago

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You Forgot The Unisex Bathrooms

Originally Published on June 20, 2015 on Eichy Says

Many of you may remember, back in 2004, when same-sex marriage was a contentious topic as part of the national dialogue. Karl Rove led the Bush Administration and the Republican Party in turning it into a “wedge issue” to mobilize evangelicals and socially-conservative voters.

Meanwhile, countless Democrats shied away from the discussion – either taking middle-of-the-road stances that embraced civil unions, or simply sidestepping the issue altogether (when asked for their opinions on it). Some brave progressive Democrats embraced gay marriage outright, while a handful of conservative Democrats scoffed at how even the mere compromise of allowing same-sex civil unions would be “going too far.”

The GOP used that hot button issue as a way of motivating fundamentalists to flock to the Bush/Cheney ticket – and, in the same fell swoop – dividing establishment Democrats over how to address it.

This tactic was particularly effective in the Deep South, where it (at least in part) helped give the edge to Republican candidates farther down the ticket (as the GOP picked up U.S. Senate seats in Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, and, in the Midwest, South Dakota).

I was a college student at the time, and my campus held a televised debate on this topic that spring. Unlike the screaming matches from CNN’s 1982-2005 debate show, Crossfire, this exchange (hosted by our student-run closed-circuit campus TV station) offered civilized decorum from participants on both sides. Two of my friends from our on-campus LGBT student organization, Marcy and Greg, argued the “pro” side; representing the “con” side were the then-president of the College Republicans along with a local youth ministry leader.

My favorite part of the debate was when the College Republicans’ chapter president expressed that legalizing same-sex marriage could supposedly become harmful by causing confusion in terms of gender roles. He added, as an afterthought: “How long will it be before we stop having separate restrooms for women and men?”

To which Marcy replied, casually and matter-of-factly:

“Well, you forgot the unisex bathrooms.”

And the audience (admittedly filled with college-aged supporters of same-sex marriage) proceeded to laugh uproariously. But not out of ridicule – their laughter was largely supportive...due to Marcy having pointed out the absurdity of the guy’s logic.

In recent weeks, the public glimpse that Caitlyn Jenner has given us into her gender-based transformation only underscores what a continuing debate this will be. Jenner, who has transitioned out of her former identity as a beloved Olympian named Bruce to a woman who now will be able to live her true self, is receiving a largely positive response from Americans – but also a firestorm of negativity from social conservatives and paleoconservatives who seem to believe rigid gender roles should still be promoted across-the-board.

These latter outdated attitudes were echoed by former Arkansas Governor (and current Republican presidential candidate) Mike Huckabee during a Nashville campaign stop earlier this month.

While speaking in front of the National Religious Broadcasters Convention, Huckabee opined

Now I wish that someone had told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE. I’m pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, ‘Coach, I think I’d rather shower with the girls today.’ [in response to audience laughter] You’re laughing because it sounds so ridiculous, doesn’t it?

It’s clear that Huckabee is missing the point (or, he’s intentionally trying to misrepresent the discussion in order to advance his own twisted ideology).

Gender-neutral spaces are not about forcing people outside of their comfort zones. Rather, it’s a solution to create “safe spaces” for people who don’t cling to gender binaries...as well as families who want their children to be protected.

Many TV fans recall the 1997-2002 legal dramedy Ally McBeal, which was set in a law firm with its iconic unisex restroom frequented by female and male employees alike.

But life often imitates art. A growing number of public meeting places, recreational facilities, college campuses, and even K-12 schools, are retrofitting their communal areas with bathrooms or changing rooms accessible to citizens of all gender identities.

Historically, the trend of segregating public restrooms in the Western World began in the early-Eighteenth Century, and picked up steam (particularly in America) throughout the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. The U.S. seems to maintain some of the most puritanical attitudes toward shared-gender spaces, as many restroom/changing areas throughout Europe are unisex in the modern era.

Yet, sex-segregated spaces have historical precedent, as well. Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman societies mandated separate public bathing areas for males and females. Japanese onsen are geothermally-heated hot springs – with some indoors, some outdoors, some sex-segregated, and some mixed gender.

My view is that history, when coupled with contemporary social norms, would suggest there can be room for both options in our society. Because of the status quo favoring sex-segregated private spaces, it’s incumbent upon those of us who support modernized options to make a case for them.

The first – and perhaps timeliest – benefit of having more unisex bathrooms is to provide spaces where transgender people can feel more comfortable. Visually speaking, people who are transitioning from male-to-female or female-to-male are often mistaken by others for the opposite sex of that with which they identify. This can lead to awkward encounters and misunderstandings where a transgender person is being accused of using the “wrong” restroom.

Having a unisex bathroom or changing room available would alleviate the problem.

This dynamic even extends beyond people who are taking hormones or actively preparing for gender-reassignment surgery. Sometimes there are Americans who AREN’T actually transgender...yet, they outwardly possess sexually-ambiguous traits that might cause a male to be mistaken for a female, or a female for a male. What happens when a “traditional-looking” female screams in fear because she sees another female – who might physically appear “mannish” or “tomboyish” – enter the private space, and she mistakes that female for a male (even though the female-in-question might be neither male nor transgender, despite the perception that she doesn’t look “feminine enough”).

When it comes to unisex bathrooms, transgender people aren’t asking for unreasonable privileges (or “special rights”). There is a clear constructive benefit to such facilities that affects others as well.

This isn’t solely a “transgender issue.” Having unisex rest areas can also serve the interests of traditional (or modern) families. For example, what about instances when one parent is the only chaperone accompanying a child of the opposite sex out in public? A mother can’t accompany her young son into the men’s room, nor can a father accompany his young daughter into the ladies’ room. This dynamic accounts for why we’re seeing a rising trend of “family changing rooms” (which are unisex, by definition) at YMCAs or other facilities with swimming pools.

It’s especially relevant when mothers are afraid to send their sons into a men’s restroom or men’s locker room alone due to the possibility of male pedophiles being present. It tends to be less of a concern to fathers that their unaccompanied daughters will be confronted by females in a women’s restroom or women’s locker room (although I feel that this mindset irresponsibly gives female pedophiles a free pass). Yet, when women bring little boys (or preteen boys) into a female-only changing room or bathroom – or when men bring little girls (or preteen girls) into a male-only changing room or bathroom – that violates the comfort level of patrons who are using those respective rooms (as well as, potentially, the comfort level of the children themselves).

The best way to avoid these tricky scenarios would be if unisex bathrooms and changing rooms were more prevalent in more places.

Then there are the realities of gender inequity. Currently, in most places, the women’s restrooms will get full a lot more quickly than male restrooms. Obviously, it’s because (anatomically speaking) women require more bathroom stalls more frequently than men do.

Due to this disparity, the lines (and waits!) become a lot longer in front of the ladies’ room than in front of the men’s room. If there were more restrooms where all people were welcome (unisex), that would certainly alleviate (at least, in part) high traffic through the ladies’ room, as patrons of the unisex bathrooms would probably be disproportionately female.

Finally, there’s the matter of supervision in schools or at youth centers where parents can’t regularly remain in proximity to their own children. At present, there’s a double standard in our schools where female staff and faculty members are viewed as “more trustworthy” than their male counterparts (again, probably due to the greater rates of reported pedophilia from males). Yet, this often shortchanges boys in our schools because they, numerically speaking, have fewer male role models whom they can look up to.

I’m living proof of this. In 2008, I was hired at a local elementary school as a playground/noontime aide. I believe (and was told, in so many words) that one major reason why I was hired was because the staff had a higher ratio of female staffers, and the principal and vice-principal (both of whom were females) wanted more male authority figures on their staff.

The point is that the presence of some optional unisex changing areas or bathrooms in schools or after-school centers would enable adequate staff supervision of girls and boys alike – regardless of whether the staff itself has a higher female or male skew. It would also be beneficial in scenarios where faculty/staffers are supervising coed groups of children with special needs. Out in the public sphere, it would accommodate adults with severe disabilities who might be accompanied by a caretaker of the opposite sex. And it could make some supervision tasks easier for lifeguards at pools or counselors who run youth programs.

Plus, these public spaces could be cleaned by custodians with less awkwardness – regardless of whether the custodian happens to be female or male.

Of course, I’m not suggesting that unisex bathrooms (or unisex locker rooms) be the ONLY option in public places. As it is, lack of funding and space limitations make the integration of new unisex restrooms (as part of existing facilities) a major challenge.

I don’t support colleges, universities, and K-12 schools making unisex spaces into the ONLY option for students. Whenever we divert from the status quo, people should always be given a choice. Some women prefer to only shower, urinate, and change clothes in front of other women. Likewise with men who’d rather limit their showering, urination, and changing clothes to being done in front of other men. For this reason, sex-segregated facilities should remain as an option in our schools, restaurants, gyms, day spas, and athletic centers.

I wouldn’t have wanted to use a communal dorm bathroom (used by both guys and girls) back when I was in college, because I was a bit modest and preferred only letting other guys see me in various stages of undress (at least, when I was sober).

However, if I have to use the bathroom really badly in a particular (emergency) instance, I wouldn’t mind using a unisex bathroom as long as I had access to a private stall.

So how can we accommodate the needs of different people?

One solution is for cities and municipalities to mandate that all single-occupancy restrooms be made “unisex” by definition. Last year, such an ordinance was proposed in Austin, Texas.

When it comes to children, teenagers, and young adults, the key is to give them the option ahead of time. For instance, the University of Missouri (MU) will provide gender-neutral bathrooms and gender-neutral housing as opportunities for its students this upcoming fall. However, students who wish to live there will have to sign an agreement in advance consenting to living in housing with these unisex features.

State Representative Jeff Pogue (who represents a southeastern district of Missouri) has taken a page from Huckabee’s bluster by sponsoring two bills: one to outlaw this practice altogether, and one to ban any public funding for gender-neutral spaces.

Another remedy would be to repurpose some existing restrooms so there are unisex options in each building. Perhaps the men’s room and women’s room on the second floor of a building could remain sex-segregated after renovation; but the men’s room and the women’s room on that same building’s first floor could both be renovated into unisex restrooms (that are also handicap-accessible).

This has been done on a smaller scale within the Oconomowoc School District (in Wisconsin). Some restrooms previously designated as “faculty-only” have been repurposed into unisex bathrooms available for additional student/parent use.

Above all else, unisex facilities need to be made into a core element of future infrastructure funding. This can be done at both the state and federal levels; it’s just a matter of letting lawmakers know that usage of them would be a citizen’s individual choice...instead of a coercive, across-the-board building code.

Please make this clear to the skeptics, whenever you hear them question the clarity of having unisex bathrooms. We cannot allow self-serving bigots such as Huckabee and Pogue to hijack the narrative.

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dailycharacteroption · 8 years ago

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Insinuator (Antipaladin Archetype)

Regardless of their differences, the majority of paladins and antipaladins serve greater powers while doing what makes them happy. However, there is a certain group that is utterly self-serving, offering their allegiances for sale to any power, specifically for what specific benefits such a power can grant them, only to drop them later in favor of a new power the next day.

Named for the version of the term insinuate meaning to move oneself into a favorable position, these antipaladins have no loyalty save for to themselves, and this is reflected in their oath and abilities, becoming utterly self-serving and performing no charity, nor any service for another without adequate compensation (unless of course doing so fulfils their own goals).

Exactly what the goals of these mercenary villains are varies, but it likely will not be good for the forces of benevolence, regardless of whether they directly serve the dark powers or not. It does, however, mean that they are much more fluid in their evil, rather than being agents of death and destruction.

However, few know that the insinuator’s abilities all are derived from the infusion of an outsider’s will and power, much like the divine power associated with paladins and antipaladins, but they must make a new pact every day, rather than expect it to be there. While this regular renewal may leave them vulnerable if unable to complete it, it does mean that their power can vary a lot depending on what sort of entity they make contact with. Obviously entities sharing the same morality are the easiest, but others only marginally different in alignment can also be bargained with.

Rather than sense good or evil specifically, these warriors sense the strength of the morality in either direction, but not the direction, since both are dangerous to them, good for rejecting their evil ways, and evil for betraying them for their lack of conviction.

The smiting power of these antipaladins is particularly flexible, able to strike down any foe that does not align itself with their current patron, though they still gain additional power against spiritually-inclined beings that directly oppose them morality-wise.

Rather than cursing or corrupting with a touch, insinuators instead focus purely on healing themselves, never sharing their healing touch with others. They also learn how to heal various debilitating conditions, again, only for themselves.

The brazen fearlessness of these profane mercenaries bolsters their allies, while unnerving their foes.

Furthermore, they also are exceptionally resistant to disease and poison, or at least, the negative effects of each, and they are never fully incapacitated by such effects.

By expending the power of their healing energies, these antipaladins can turn it into a pulse of necromantic power. Or, if the being they are invoking is not evil, they can instead unleash a blast of healing.

Interestingly enough, they cannot cast spells, perhaps due to the temporary nature of their bonds. They do, however, learn to compensate by learning more combat techniques.

The bonds they forge with divine beings may vary, but the way they manifest is much the same, albeit with a twist. They can bond with their weapon, but enhancing it requires them to invest unholy, lawful, or chaotic energies, depending on what they are bonding with at the time. Similarly, if their bond allows them to call an outsider servant, said servant changes and is replaced whenever they change their invocation to an appropriate being.

Their raw ambition fuels their every act, and they find their own power and that of their allies become more likely to succeed, while their foes see their powers falter more often.

With a pulse of power, the allies of these individuals can find their weapons empowered by their smiting ability.

Depending on what they bond with, insinuators find their weapons charged with alignment of their invocation.

They also become resilient to harm, though weapons opposed to their invoked power can pierce this defense. If the invocation is neutral, they gain a lesser resilience that cannot be bypassed by ordinary means.

The most powerful insinuators can take and dish out punishment with greater effect. However, their greatest ability is being able to abandon and take up new pacts in mere minutes, rather than waiting a day.

Interested in a more cavalier antipaladin that can alter their abilities slightly, and might even show up in a non-evil party? This archetype might be for you. Since you don’t have to worry about spells, build for your favored method of combat, and pick your invocation each day based on what might be useful.

One can only guess at the consequences of opening one’s mind and body to so many different beings over the course of one’s lifetime. On the one hand, they might simply see no need to tie themselves down to any one dark power. Others, however, may have their own special reasons for this, and see whatever results they reap as a consequence of their ambitions.

With legions of clockwork soldiers and even might clockwork behemoth, the nation of Pozhand seems nigh-unstoppable, and the provinces of Eirbald are getting desperate. A group of mercenaries offers their aid, but their methods are… disturbing, allowing fiends and stranger outsiders to inhabit their body to gain dark power.

Having fallen on hard times after a devastating defeat, the cult of the Final Fang has had to bring in outside help in the form of a mercenary antipaladin. However, the cult’s leader suspects that their new ally has no allegiance to any specific dark power, and could turn on them at any time.

Vernas believes he is destined for evil. Being told that you are all your life will do that to a tiefling. However, clearly some lasting spark of good lies within, for he refuses to swear to any one dark power, instead bargaining to keep himself safe and to lash out at dark powers that seek to control him, or so he convinces himself.

#pathfinder #archetype #antipaladin #insinuator #clockwork soldier #clockwork behemoth #tiefling #Agents of Evil

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bountyofbeads · 6 years ago

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Virginia’s Black Lawmakers to Boycott Trump at Jamestown Ceremony https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/us/politics/trump-jamestown-race.html

"The real story here isn’t that Trump is trashing an African American whose reputation is something less than admirable. It’s that the President of the United States—the President!—is purposefully stoking racial tensions and animosity for political gain. Trump has no interest in uniting Americans. He never did. He is the destroyer of comity, civility, compromise, common sense, and, if left unchecked, democracy."

JACKSON, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

"How Americans are letting that man get away with this increasingly, overtly racist nonsense is disturbing. What, exactly, does Mr Trump have to say before your politicians and citizens find a spine and (at the very least) remove that man from office, if not send him to jail? I never thought I’d see the day when America would surrender so meekly to its own worst, cowardly impulses, leaving someone doing his best to divide and inflame the nation sitting there, unchallenged."

JOE, DUBLIN IRELAND

" Nobody is pretending there's no problem in Baltimore. Taking revenge on a well-respected congressman by ranting and raving like a 6 year old is hardly a pathway to solutions. "Disgusting, rat and rodent infested" district where no human being would want to live?! In fact many live in District 7, which stretches north to a well-to-do suburban area on both sides - and the area Trump is specifically calling out as disgusting is home to my synagogue and many of our congregants. It's a big stretch to even contemplate that Trump had the best interests of our beloved city in mind when he let loose his impulsive and churish tweets. If he wants to be part of the solution, he needs to shut up and get to work. And yes, when someone has a pattern of behavior labeling people of color it's not hard to see that singling out as racism. I'm really very confident that when DT was spewing his hatred towards Cummings and the 'hellhole' he represents, he wasn't thinking about my synagogue, but about the residents of color we call our neighbors." JANE ADDAMS, BALTIMORE

"Trump has positioned himself right where he wants to be -- the center of media attention with a diversion from adverse publicity related to his impeachable offenses and involvement with Russians and other autocrats. His base won't desert him and everyone else already despises him, so he gains by the diversions and 24-hour news cycle coverage. The media writes and talks about little other than "racist" Trump. Maybe he is or isn't a racist, but he is the Master of Ceremonies of the greatest sham on earth. PT Barnum could have learned much from the circus master." NATE GRAY, PITTSBURGH

"He is an ineffective President. Trump uses these Twitter tactics to deflect from his own broken promises. He is not a great negotiator, he was clearly snookered by Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer earlier this year. No doubt the Chinese will do the same-- or worse. He has done nothing to improve healthcare or lower the cost. The economy got a small boost but at the cost of $2trillion in extra deficit. Worse he picks a fight with our Nato allies and then unilaterally withdraws from the Iranian nuclear agreement. He loves the North Korea and and they continue to shoot missiles towards Japan. Who feels safer with him in charge? I understand he was elected as a wild card to shake things up but what has he accomplished ? Has he brought the country together to solve global warming or the national debt ? He does not have the temperament to look past his own self image or his own wallet. He has little if any self control and that's why he does these childish tweets." GLEN D, LINCOLN PARK, NJ

"So he brings in a group of right wing evangelicals who just happen to be black to say that he is not a racist. Oh, really? And this was all staged by Kushner who just happens to be the biggest slum lord in Baltimore?" ACM, BALTIMORE

"This is neither about Baltimore nor Al Sharpton. so don't be misled. This is about Trump increasingly relying on outrage and racism to win over many Americans who are themselves racist." RX, NYC

"I wish I could publish photographs here because then I'd post one of the Confederate flaggers who now plague our downtown every Saturday, intimidating everyone, looking for conflicts and spreading their message of white supremacy. Before this President, their presence had become less. Now they are there every weekend and wherever they can find a place to demean, hurt, and spread their poison. Here in the South, every single day this hateful, ignorant man is President, the worst elements in our small towns become more emboldened—and more dangerous. I hope right-thinking people in Washington understand this and know that their failure to act swiftly against this man is causing havoc and real harm in real people's lives." ME, NC

"Divide, divide, divide. That's all the President knows how to do. Will we ever get someone in the White House who can unite? And Mr. Trump knows full well that this is what gets him the Electoral College win We can only expect more of it. Also, this type of psychological projection fits his authoritarian personality to a tee. And among the leaders of other nations, he seems to be most comfortable with those of a similar inclination." T MORRIS FLORIDA

"This is exhausting. Trump's Twitter account is nothing but a toxic stew of hatred, resentment, and xenophobia designed to keep his base energized. He is clearly happiest when he is stirring the pot and able to keep the outrage boiling. But how much longer before all this rage leads to actual violence? The cost to America's soul will be immeasurable." MARTHA, PHILADELPHIA

"The politics of racism is the politics of separation and exclusivity. Mocking one area of the inner city and who lives there is a way of making those who do not live there feel superior. And that feeling of superiority is the root of racism. Trump has never walked down streets in a struggling neighborhood, taught in an inner city school or felt the struggles of the people living there. Criticizing from the outside is easy and a convenient way to divert once again attention from his own aberrant behavior which comes not from personal struggles, but a life of privilege and egotism."JUST ROBERT, NC

"So what is Trump as POTUS doing to revitalize urban policy? NOTHING. This isn't just the job of liberals. POTUS needs to set the agenda--if he's truly the president of the "united states" and not just his base. But who has Trump appointed to those cabinet posts to deal with the issues facing those "transitional" zones in cities? What are they doing? Ben Carson at HUD slashing housing programs and budgets? I don't even know who's in charge at Health and Human Welfare. Then again, since when has Trump ever cared about that--health and human welfare? Trump is not delivering a "hard truth" to us when he maligns Baltimore, Elijah Cummings, and now Al Sharpton. Trump has power as POTUS to do something about the conditions he mocks, but he chooses not to. Why is that? What it tells me: Trump is ginning up his base like the racist shock jock he is. He's unabashedly making racism an appeal in the 2020 campaign. Full stop. If you align yourself with Trump's hatreds and cynicism, that's on you." JACKIE, HAMDEN CT

"Baltimore, under the leadership of Elija Cummings?" Does Trump even know how government works?" ELLA, USA

" I have come to believe that Trump is driven by a combination of fear and survival. He did not intend to win the presidency but when he did, realized with horror that the murky history across all aspects of his life would eventually be revealed. He now has to stay in power and under the legal protection of the presidency for the survival of his family and brand. As such he will do and say anything to further that aim, without any regard for the consequences or collateral damage. He doesn’t care about the moral responsibilities of his position, the Republican Party, conservatism or any grounding principle - simply a strategy to consolidate his reliable base and to divide his enemies. It’s that simple - he has to stay in power to stay out of jail. That’s quite a motivator and it’s that simple." IAN, NORTH CAROLINA

Virginia's black lawmakers to boycott Trump's speech at Jamestown ceremony TODAY.

Virginia’s Black Lawmakers to Boycott Trump at Jamestown Ceremony

By Peter Baker | Published July 30, 2019 | New York Times | Posted July 30, 2019 9:57 AM ET |

WASHINGTON — African-American state lawmakers from Virginia will boycott President Trump’s scheduled speech in Jamestown on Tuesday at a ceremony to commemorate the 400th anniversary of representative democracy in the Western Hemisphere, citing the president’s inflammatory comments about critics of color.

The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, which represents members of the House of Delegates and State Senate, said in a statement that its members cannot “in good conscience sit silently” as a president who has promoted racial divisions is given such a prominent platform. Mr. Trump is due to fly to Virginia and speak at the Jamestown Settlement Museum at 11:15 a.m.

“It is impossible to ignore the emblem of hate and disdain that the president represents,” the caucus said in its statement. The statement added that Mr. Trump’s “repeated attacks on black legislators and comments about black communities” make him “ill-suited to honor and commemorate such a monumental period in history, especially if this nation is to move forward with the ideals of ‘democracy, inclusion, and opportunity.’”

The lawmakers’ protest came as Mr. Trump has employed racist tropes in a caustic war of words with critics. He told four Democratic congresswomen of color to “go back” to their home countries, even though three were born in the United States and the fourth was naturalized as a teenager. In recent days, he has repeatedly assailed Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, and his “rat and rodent infested” majority-black district and targeted other foes like the Rev. Al Sharpton, who he said “Hates Whites & Cops.”

The ceremony on Tuesday is meant to mark the first meeting of elected legislators in the new world. On July 30, 1619, a group of 22 representatives of plantations or settlements gathered in a church in Jamestown for the first time in what would be known as the House of Burgesses, the precursor to state legislatures and Congress in the centuries to come.

The Tuesday event already was fraught for African-American lawmakers because in those days only white male property holders were eligible to vote. Moreover, this year also represents the 400th anniversary of the first slaves brought to the colonies that would later become the United States.

The caucus is holding alternative events in Richmond and will focus “on those individuals who fought for a more just, equitable, and inclusive democracy,” said Senator Jennifer McClellan, the group’s vice chair.

But Lt. Gov. Justin E. Fairfax, Virginia’s only African-American statewide elected official, will attend Tuesday’s ceremony, saying the twin anniversaries “far supersede the petty and racist actions of the current occupant of the White House.”

In an essay posted on Medium, he said, “The bigoted words of the current president will thankfully soon be swept into the dustbin of history. Our democracy, born in Virginia, will live on.”

Virginia has been roiled by its own controversies this year. Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, has rebuffed widespread calls to resign after the discovery of a 1984 medical school yearbook that included a picture of a man in blackface and another in Ku Klux Klan robes on his personal page. Mr. Northam at first admitted being in the photograph, then denied that he was either man.

The state’s attorney general, Mark R. Herring, later admitted that he once wore blackface at a party as a college student. And Mr. Fairfax has been accused of sexual assault by two women.

#u.s. news #politics #donald trump #trump administration #politics and government #president donald trump #white house #republican politics #trump #republican party #us: news #international news #trump scandals #racism

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Are There Any Republicans Running Against Trump

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Are There Any Republicans Running Against Trump

Republican Party Presidential Primaries

Republican National Convention

First place by first-instance vote

Donald Trump

Presidential primaries and caucuses of the Republican Party took place in many U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories from February 3 to August 11, 2020, to elect most of the 2,550 delegates to send to the Republican National Convention. Delegates to the national convention in other states were elected by the respective state party organizations. The delegates to the national convention voted on the first ballot to select Donald Trump as the Republican Party’s presidential nominee for president of the United States in the 2020 election, and selected Mike Pence as the vice-presidential nominee.

President Donald Trump informally launched his bid for reelection on February 18, 2017. He launched his reelection campaign earlier in his presidency than any of his predecessors did. He was followed by former governor of MassachusettsBill Weld, who announced his on April 15, 2019, and former Illinois congressmanJoe Walsh, who declared his candidacy on August 25, 2019. Former governor of South Carolina and U.S. representativeMark Sanford launched a primary challenge on September 8, 2019. In addition, businessman Rocky De La Fuente entered the race on May 16, 2019, but was not widely recognized as a major candidate.

Why Donald Trump Is Republicans’ Worst Nightmare In 2024

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large

Earlier this week, amid a rambling attack on the validity of the 2020 election, former President Donald Trump said this: “Interesting that today a poll came out indicating I’m far in the lead for the Republican Presidential Primary and the General Election in 2024.”

this on Trump’s future political ambitions from Politico“Trump is confiding in allies that he intends to run again in 2024 with one contingency: that he still has a good bill of health, according to two sources close to the former president. That means Trump is going to hang over the Republican Party despite its attempts to rebrand during his exile and its blockade of a Trump-centric investigation into January’s insurrection.”new Quinnipiac University national pollhis growing legal and financial entanglementsAs CNN reported on Wednesday night“Manhattan prosecutors pursuing a criminal case against former President Donald Trump, his company and its executives have told at least one witness to prepare for grand jury testimony, according to a person familiar with the matter — a signal that the lengthy investigation is moving into an advanced stage.”

Mcconnell Helps Gop On A Trump Tightrope

McConnell, known for bringing home the political bacon to Kentucky, looked to give GOP colleagues a way out when he announced the Senate’s schedule was shifting.

Lawmakers, he said, are returning to Washington next week to take up a $500 billion relief bill that seems to be a guaranteed dead on arrival proposal for House Democrats, who have held fast to their $2.2 trillion proposal.

The timing of the GOP bill came a day after McConnell was criticized by McGrath, his Democratic challenger, about the results of his influence amid the coronavirus pandemic during Monday’s debate.

“His one job is to help America through this crisis right now in passing legislation to keep our economy afloat so that people can make ends meet,” McGrath, a retired Marine fighter pilot, said. “Instead of doing that, he is trying to ram through a Supreme Court nominee right now.”

More:McConnell says Senate will vote on a $500 billion stimulus plan before Election Day as Trump tells GOP to ‘go big or go home’

McConnell blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the lack of a deal during the debate, but McGrath pounced on the comment.

“You’re hearing it all night long: More excuses,” she responded. “He’s the Senate majority leader, and he still can’t get it done.”

Where do Americans stand on election issues? Let them tell you how they feel about this policy

The president went further when he indicated on FOX Business Network that he would be willing to raise the price if necessary to get a deal done.

Republicans Who Could Run Against Trump

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Like many people, James Comey, the former F.B.I. director, has been thinking about the best way for the Presidency of Donald Trump to end. Interviewed in New York last week, Comey said that his own, possibly “weird” thought is that impeachment is not the ideal course; for one thing, it would let voters “off the hook” in 2020. “We need a clear jump upward, and it will come from tens of millions of Americans,” he told his interviewer, Nicolle Wallace. But Comey put the burden on the Democrats, saying, “They have to win.”

In response, Trump tweeted that Comey had “just totally exposed his partisan stance by urging his fellow Democrats to take back the White House in 2020.” He added, “Comey had no right heading the FBI at any time, but especially after his mind exploded!” The date and the circumstances of the alleged detonation were not clear, but the message was: to speak about confronting Trump at the polls is to speak as a Democrat.

Trump knows that, which is why his campaign is already working to engineer a preëmptive endorsement in the New Hampshire primary, the first in the nation, from the state Party, which traditionally remains neutral. He could be much more vulnerable by August of 2020, when the Republican National Convention meets in Charlotte, North Carolina, depending on, among other things, how the Mueller investigation develops.

December 24 & 31, 2018Amy Davidson Sorkin

Roque Rocky De La Fuente

An entrepreneur and businessman who’s had a career in car sales, banking, and real estate development, Roque De La Fuente, known as “Rocky,” is accustomed to running for public office. in 2016, he sought the Democratic party nomination, then ran as Reform Party and self-funded American Delta Party candidate in the same election, coming in eight in the popular vote. In 2018, he sought the nomination in nine senate races—winning none. In May 2019, De La Fuente announced his candidacy to challenge Trump in the 2020 election.

De La Fuente’s name is on the ballot in a dozen states, and he owns businesses and property in several of them. His program reflects the candidate bipartisan inclination. De La Fuente talks about gun control, immigration reform that “unites families, not divides them,” promises to match immigrants with job shortage, and supports environmental protection and investment in renewable energy.

Age: 65 Years in political office: 0

Who gives him money: Himself.

Biggest idea for the economy: Match immigrants with job shortages, invest in renewable energy to create new jobs.

Social media following: 65,400, : 241,000.

Who will like this candidate: Moderate Republicans, conservative independents.

Who will hate this candidate: Trump supporters.

Florida Gov Ron Desantis

DeSantis, 42, has quickly emerged as a Republican rising star. He finished second in the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll in February behind Trump, and some see him as the best positioned heir to the Trump mantle.

If Trump doesn’t run again, “I think he’s the odds-on favorite to be the next president,” Florida Republican Party chair and state Sen. Joe Gruters told NBC News of DeSantis.

DeSantis’ appeal is due in part to his combative relationship with the news media — he regularly spars with journalists, interrupting or pushing back against their questions in a way Trump fans would appreciate — and also because of his handling of the pandemic.

In a recent Wall Street Journal , DeSantis wrote that Florida’s less-restrictive response to COVID-19 bucked faulty intel from “the elites” and the state still ended up with “comparatively low unemployment, and per capita COVID mortality below the national average.” Florida’s COVID-19 death rate per 100,000 people is similar to California and Ohio, and so far, about 33,500 Floridians have died from the virus. New research in the American Journal of Public Health suggests the state is undercounting COVID-19 deaths.

Escaping The President’s Shadow

With Election Day less than three weeks away, McConnell and other Senate Republicans have taken more deliberate steps to distance themselves from Trump.

The majority leader said recently he hadn’t been to the White House for weeks because of lax coronavirus protocols, a revelation that seemed to undercut the president’s message that he deserves “an A-plus” for his handling of the pandemic.

It’s a balancing act for Republican Senate candidates running for reelection in battleground states who need the GOP base to win as well as a significant share of independents who may be turned off by Trump’s rhetoric, behavior and policies.

More:Trump, Biden dueling town halls gave voters a different view of the candidates Lately, they’ve been trying to escape the president’s shadow.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., is trying to win a second term in a state Trump won in 2016 by nearly 4 percentage points but where polls showed the president now trailing Biden by a similar margin.

So it was not unusual to see Tillis recently try to appeal to both groups recently, said Taylor who analyzes Senate races for the Cook Political Report.

He was quick out of the gate to back Trump’s move to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death last month of Ruth Bader Ginsburg seat, giving his support even before Barrett was chosen as the nominee. Then, last week, the Tar Heel state Republican threw shade on the president by telling Politico he’s running to be “a check on a Biden presidency.”

The 2024 Republican Presidential Candidate Wild Cards

The first Democratic debate back in 2019 had 20 — TWENTY! — candidates, so don’t be surprised if the Republican field is just as large or larger. We could have some more governors or representatives run, or even other nontraditional candidates, like a Trump family member, a Fox News host or a celebrity, like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who’s said he’s “seriously considering” a run. Stranger things have happened.

Republican Presidential Nomination 2020

Presidential election changes in response to the coronavirus pandemic

The Republican Party selected President Donald Trump as its presidential nominee at the 2020 Republican National Convention, which was held from August 24-27, 2020.

Prior to the national convention, individual state caucuses and primaries were held to allocate convention delegates. These delegates vote at the convention to select the nominee. Trump crossed the delegate threshold necessary to win the nomination—1,276 delegates—on March 17, 2020.

George H.W. Bush was the last incumbent to face a serious primary challenge, defeating political commentator Pat Buchanan in 1992. He was also the last president to lose his re-election campaign. Franklin Pierce was the first and only elected president to lose his party’s nomination in 1856.

Sixteen U.S. presidents—approximately one-third—have won two consecutive elections.

In Gop Poll From Hell Republicans Say They Want Donald Trump Jr To Be President In 2024

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A recurring nightmare among millions of Americans is that come 2024, Donald Trump will forget the fact that he actually being president, decide to run again, and win. Seriously, can you think of a more horrifying scenario, except perhaps falling through a sidewalk into a rat-filled chasm, which some people might still prefer? We maintain that you cannot. But an equally terrifying, skin-crawling situation would definitely be to turn on the TV on January 20, 2025, and see Donald Trump Jr. being sworn in as president of the United States, which a number of Republican voters apparently actually want to happen.

The poll, which was conducted between July 6 and 8, did not include Donald Trump Senior, who maintains an inexplicable grip on voters despite the mass-death stuff, an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and a mental state that suggests he should be in a home or studied by a team of Swiss doctors.

And the fact that Don Jr. came out on top is not where the scary news ends. Because apparently if Republicans can’t have Sheep Killer over here, their second-favorite choice is Florida governor Ron DeSantis, the man currently responsible for :

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