#this is because this story won my poll last month but i was so busy with stuff and stress

[typewriting-robin]

Promises You Can Keep

Jude/Robin OC (M x F)

Rating: T

In which Jude meets his match with a kind, sweet, and clumsy Robin who is tasked with shadowing him for her reports. She can't figure him out to save her life.//Noncanon, pre-relationship

cw: Jude being a serious pain in the ass, blood mention, canon-typical violence

Word count: 6371

note~ it is recommended but not required to read the OC/MC master list and scroll to the secod-to-bottom for Christabelle, the Robin that corresponds to Jude.

“Once upon a time there lived a beautiful princess…” she began as she was surrounded by the children of the priory, who kept begging her to tell her a story. She momentarily wondered if this counted as a lie but it was supposed to be fiction anyway. “Okay maybe she wasn't quite beautiful nor was she a princess. A viscount's daughter, yes?” She said as the children giggled around her. “Well once upon a time there lived a viscount's daughter. Her mother passed when she was but a baby and her father soon grew ill. Now living in squalor, her eldest sister works as a Tailor's apprentice while attempting to become a lady in waiting for the princess and her brother, a soldier stationed in India. But still there were too many mouths to feed.”

The children were enraptured but she knew it was time to switch gears. The story was too autobiographical so now it was time to create some fiction, even though she has no idea where her story would go. “The viscount's youngest daughter, afraid there were too many mouths to feed, left home, knowing her family would never ascend back into nobility and joined a convent. One day, she went out to run an errand and that's when a rather errant knight spotted her as she made her way across the city.” She really had no idea where she was going as she paused for effect. “He had followed her home, telling her that he required a spot of tea and the company of her time.”

“I love a romance!’ said one of the children. While it was true that she fantasized about marrying a knight in shining armor one day, she had only picked a knight for this story because it was the first thing she thought of. 

“Ah, but alas this isn't a romance but a dreadful tale for you see, the knight never left. He had collected many, many tithes and decided he would support the family if he had the girl's hand in marriage. Three times he asked and three times she said no. Until one day, a magical…hmm…uh, toad! Yes, a toad, decided to make its appearance, offering her a chance to escape the rude and errant knight. ‘Kiss me!’ it said but she wasn't so sure. But when she was forcibly dragged away from her family by the knight, the frog appeared and she kissed him.”

The children made various noises, indicating their disgust. “Then the girl turned into a magical frog where she lived the rest of her days in a pond not worrying about family or marriage matters. Or money. Or politics. The end.”

The children clapped…slowly and out of step, confused by her story. 

But what else could she do now that her father said he needed to borrow money for his medicine? It was all she could ever think of ever since he put himself in debt.

She checked the time on the grandfather clock. “Oh no!I have to go to the post office! Sorry!” She was now five minutes late. Adding to the trip to the post office, if she were lucky, she would be fifteen minutes late, at best. She would have to do a lot of apologizing to the manager and the other Robins.

And it was because on that day, on that chaotic day, there were no Robins around to help do the very sudden last minute night time delivery that cropped up just when she was arriving over half an hour late to her shift. All because she wanted to help that poor little girl who was being hurt by the man who later called her a thief.

That was the beginning of it all. The day where she had been sent on a nighttime delivery and encountered a nightmare. “You're from the priory? How intriguing! What do you do there, my dear?” asked Victor, their leader during their celebration dinner as if she hadn't just experienced the most traumatic moment of her life. 

But she knew to keep going along with everything so that she could live. Her father needed her. Her sister needed her. “Well, they haven't made me a nun but I sometimes keep the children there company and tell them stories. They really like storytelling, especially if it’s something they’ve never heard before!”

“How wonderful! Our Fairytale keeper knows how to weave a story.”

“Tch,” a voice said as he watched her with narrowed amethyst eyes, his fingers steepled. “Hogwash,” he muttered.

“Thank you,” she said, ignoring the sinister man who watched her from the table with what she suspected was murderous intent. He was the one who had called her revolting and offered to be her savior but he was just like the errant knight from the story she had told the children earlier that day. She thought he had left the party but sometime later that night, he had rejoined, sitting off to the corner, smoking a cigarette.

His gaze was always on her for some indiscernible reason, amethyst eyes cruel, fierce. Sizing her up. As much as she wanted to avoid him, something told her deep down inside that would be more difficult than she could ever imagine.

********

“I have a job for you, my lovely Miss Christabelle,” Victor said only a few mornings after she had (reluctantly) joined Crown. She was expecting this. William was standing beside him, which made her believe that he was a part of his assignment. At least it would be with William, who seemed kind enough.

Christabelle knew it was critical for her to do everything Victor would ask her to do within the month. That was her best chance at survival and returning back to her family, her sister, the orphanage at the priory, and her job at the post office. “A job,” she said as Victor poured her some tea. She could tell by the familiar scent that it was chamomile tea.

“We’ve been observing you,” William said.  That didn’t come as a surprise to her. Not in the slightest. During these past few days, she had talked to everyone at least once. Some of the men in Crown were easier to converse with than others, like Liam or even Harrison. Others were harder to avoid but she still made polite conversation with them no matter how hard she tried. And by others, it was Jude.

“And our dear William has noticed a rather…interesting observation,” Victor said. His hands showed an urging motion as if asking her to down the drink. She only took sips. “Now I must tell you that William has a talent for understanding group dynamics and knowing which skills are needed for a particular mission.”

Christabelle set the tea down, meeting Victor’s gaze. Much to her frustration, a droplet of tea fell into the saucer. She had the urge to wipe it and clean it but instead put up with it. “And what are my skills?”

Victor and William exchanged a glance.

Christabelle knew that probably wasn’t good. She knew of her own shortcomings. Her disorganization, tendency to act before thinking, her--

“You have a very kind and courteous temperament,” Victor said. “As your supervisor and aide to the queen, your primary task is to focus and shadow one person in Crown.” She nodded, setting the half empty teacup to the side. The saucer cracked, which made Victor tut before he continued. “Now, before I tell you who we settled on,I initially disagreed with William’s proposition as to who you could shadow but ultimately we believe that if there is anyone who could provide us with information regarding him and his curse, it would likely be for someone like you to break through his barriers.”

Christabelle began to slowly understand where they were likely going with this. They weren’t going to pick an easy man for her to shadow and as she racked through her mind the possible option, only one of them made sense.

She thought about Bartleby, the scrivener, and how she would very much prefer not to do this task being asked of her.  But it was life or death.

Victor seemed to have immediately read her reluctant expression. “Please don’t frown, Miss Christabelle! We promise if it does not work within a certain time, we will reassign you.”

William gave her a knowing smile, as if he were confident of the man he had chosen. “But I am never wrong in my observations, Little Robin, and if there’s anyone who can write a report on the curse of the Thirteenth Fairy, it’s you.”

*************

The Thirteenth Fairy. Jude Jazza. The man with the white and black hair and sinister appearance was the errant knight she had accidentally divined. Here in the flesh. Or at least that was how she perceived things to be based on his personality and the way he dealt with people. He was like the debtors her father owed. And Victor had tasked her with shadowing him.

He was there every day at breakfast, his nose buried in a book this time. She stares at the spine of the book, trying to make out what he was reading. 

“If ya keep tryin’ to poke a hole through my book, I’m gonna get real mad,” he said without setting the book down.

Christabelle stumbled on her words. Everyone in Crown was so nice and welcoming and then there was Jude Jazza, who was constantly in a foul mood, using the most bitter words against her. “I wanted to know the book you were reading,” she admitted. “I like reading books a lot and I'd read them to the orphans at the priory.”

Jude finally set the book down and Christabelle wished he didn't do that, showing her his sinister violet glare. “Are ya sure ya really wanna know? Don't wanna pollute the little bird’s mind,” he said with a snicker. “Ain't ya a nun or somethin’?”

She shook her head. “I wanted to be but they said I failed the rigorous training so I'm afraid not. That, and they also said I don't have the right disposition to be one.” She was a little too honest with Jude but the words tumbled out of her before she could stop herself.

Jude only rolled his eyes, handing her the book. “It's some hogwash about revivin’ the dead. Prolly too scandalous for someone like ya.”

Her first reaction was to question him. “How do you know that it could be scandalous? I might even enjoy it! Look! The author’s a girl! I doubt a woman would write something scandalous.” She handed the book back to him, which he didn't take.

Jude shrugged, getting up out of his seat. “Talkin’ to ya is a waste of o’ my time and I gotta get to the docks.” He quickly left her all alone in the dining room and bolted out of the room before she could even tell him that Victor was considering having her shadow him for the day.

Christabelle saw he left the book in front of where he was sitting. She gasped. “Jude? Jude! Come back!” She followed after him but he had already left the grounds. “You left your book…” she stared deeply at the cover. It was plain but the title was interesting enough. “Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus,” she read out loud to herself. “Well if he's going to be out all day and won't be able to read this, then maybe it's okay if I can read this book until he comes back…”

Christabelle plopped on a sofa in the living room and read the story, now on the edge of her seat. This book was over fifty years old but she found it fascinating, turning the page even as the men of Crown greeted her throughout the day. 

Victor had shown up at one point looking disappointed but not surprised that Jude had left before she could even tell him about shadowing him. “Not the easiest of my boys to ask favors for. I'm so sorry, my kindly Robin. I will look into any tasks you might help us out with in the meantime and pause on telling Jude anything related to shadowing him. Right now focus on making friends with everyone in Crown, my sweet little Robin! Don't you worry!”

Jude came back during supper and when he did, he reeked of cigarette smoke and salt. “Good evening, Jude. You left your book at the table today so I came here to return it.”

Jude eyed her warily, not saying a word as she left the book in front of him. “Ya didn't happened to have read it, didja?”

“I did,” she admitted. “It was a really great book! The ending was rather depressing but I can see how it influenced so many other books I've read. I saw some stuff there that I've seen in other stories I've read and that was…amazing!”

Jude grabbed the book, not engaging with her conversation. “Of course ya read it. Lil bird with nothin’ to do would read it.” His eyes met hers, which caused her to lose eye contact. She couldn't bring herself to tell him that his words were untrue. That he was…difficult to say the least.

There was a pause between them and she looked back at him. His eyes weren't giving her his usual glare, but rather a softer look. Less intimidating. Approachable. “Tell ya what, birdie. Ya returned my book to me fair ‘n square upon seein’ me so I'll waive the fee.”

“The fee?” She asked, confused. 

“It's my copy, not the library's so if ya wanna take a book from me then ya gotta pay the renter's fee.”

“You left it by accident, though.”

Jude said nothing, before clicking his tongue and leaving. Christabelle now stood in the room, alone, wondering why Jude didn't wish to talk to her about the book. It would have helped her for her records. 

*************

Even though it wasn't quite important in her curse research, both Jude and Harrison liked mystery novels. But little did she know that a mystery of her own would show up on her doorstep soon enough. 

When she opened the door the next morning, she was met with a single purple rose on the floor. It was beautiful, light colored in full bloom. “What a lovely flower!” She asked the maids for a small vase to contain it and keep it alive. It put her in a good mood for breakfast that morning. 

“Ya look nauseatingly giddy today,” Jude said in his usual dour tone. But nothing he could say could bring her down. 

“Are you reading the paper today?”

“What's it to ya?”

“I'm curious!”

He sighed. “I'm reading the finances. Gotta know the state o’ things.” 

“Can I read the sections you aren't reading please?”

Jude groaned then took out a section of the paper that he didn't care for. It was specifically about a gossip column for women, which didn't tailor to her interest. “No stories?”

“I'll loan ya a book if it means yer stop yer yappin’.”

“I'd love to read it but how much is the fee?”

Jude grinned. “That's for me to decide.”

Christabelle hummed. “Hmm…no thanks. I need to save for my theater funds. They're going to start performing The Taming of the Shrew next month and I'd really love to save up for it.” Liam had been cast as Lucentio. She didn't mention she had mostly been saving up for her father's funds. It was hard for her to hold her tongue but she kept her family life quiet since she didn't want Crown thinking she would inadvertently sell them out to her family.

Jude set his paper down. “Then I'll give ya a book then.” His grin was sadistic before he pulled a book from his cape, handing it to her. Moby Dick. The same author as Bartleby, the Scrivener. 

“Is there a fee for this one?”

He cackled. “Nah, I'll just let ya suffer with this one.” Jude stood up, the chair squeaking below him as he left for another work day. She was relieved that Victor put shadowing him or having to do anything with him on pause because he was so…difficult.

And speaking of difficult, Christabelle did indeed struggle with the book, with the prose being incredibly dense and the plot unengaging to her, but if anything, she was persistent. 

The next day, and the day after that, she was greeted by more purple roses at her doorstep. On the fourth day, she asked for a bigger vase to hold all her flowers. The flowers gave off a nice fragrance which helped offset her already messy room, full of books and fairytales recorded throughout the centuries alongside her own scribbles and notes.

But now the mystery was deepening: where were these flowers coming from? Now she had felt compelled to solve it. The problem was how would she even find out?

Alfons happened to be walking past the halls as he saw her holding today's rose. He was more than quick on the uptake. “It seems you've got a secret admirer, hmm?” he said, his voice slinky. 

“I do?” she asked. She decided to choose her words carefully in case her gut feeling was wrong. “I thought everyone in the castle had flowers delivered to them.”

Alfons got closer to her. “If by everyone, they mean you, then sure. How would you react if I told you that I sent them?”

“You did?” The flowers didn't seem quite his style but Alfons was an elegant man and roses were quite elegant. 

“Sure I did. Pretty little thing like you.” His hand slipped to her shoulders, moving closer to her neck. Slithering slowly towards the back. Slithering slowly, softly…

“Oi! What do you think you're doing?” A tired sounding voice cut through the moment. It was Harrison. 

Alfons retracted his hand, giving Harrison a wide smile. “It appears our Miss Robin has a secret admirer.”

Harrison narrowed his gaze at Alfons. “Let me guess, you were about to lay claim over something you didn't do.”

Alfons gasped, looking mock offended. “I only said ‘if’ I had sent it!”

Christabelle interrupted. “I only wanted to know where these roses are coming from, that's all. It's a nice gesture and I'd like to thank them.”

“It wasn't Alfons,” Harrison said with a firmness to his voice, his teal eyes narrowing at him. “Or me for that matter.”

“Oh. I see. Thank you for confirming with me.”

“There is absolutely no chance someone as uncouth as Roger would hand you such a delicate rose either,” Alfons said. “And conversely, neither would Elbert, for the opposite reasons.”

“For once you're not lying,” Harrison said. “Maybe it was from one of us, or it could be from one of our servants.” What he said opened up new possibilities. “But if I were you, I'd just enjoy the gift and let it go.”

Christabelle nodded. “It is a really nice gesture. I've never received gifts like this before. That's why…” she thought of her father and how pained he looked each time he had given her a gift for her birthday or Christmas. He always expressed his affection for her but his eyes did not lie. Eventually when she turned fifteen, she stopped asking for presents altogether and began asking for prayers and non tangible gifts. “I'll let it go,” she said, meaning her words. 

At least at that time, she did really mean her words. Ellis was at breakfast this morning, debriefing Jude on what they'd do today. Jude's eyes were closed as he drummed his fingers on his forearms. “Bloody annoyin’ when my men break their promises,” he grumbled, his mood sour. She was hoping to see him today to tell him she finished Moby Dick but seeing his mood made her stay silent.

Christabelle had gotten used to taking breakfast at the same time as Jude but right now his entire aura meant she should remain as quiet as possible. 

“Good morning Christabelle,” Ellis said. “Did you sleep well?”

She nodded. “Yes,” she said as Jude’s eyes opened and he got up from his chair, his cape flapping behind him as he walked away, his mood still dark. 

“Jude isn't happy today,” Ellis said with a frown. 

“I can see that. I hope he'll be happy later.”

“Mm. Are you happy right now?”

“Kind of,” she admitted. “I have to admit, someone's been leaving roses in front of my door this week. It's a very kind thing to do since no one's ever given me gifts like this.”

“I didn't know you liked roses,” Ellis said. “Can I give you roses too? It would make you feel happy, wouldn't it?” He had confirmed that he wasn't the sender of her roses. 

“That would be sweet of you. I would have to get more vases, but I'd really like to kn--.”

“Whaddya waitin’ for?” Jude's voice bellowed out, cutting through her voice. 

“Sorry, I've got to go.” Ellis bowed to her and left. 

She didn't mean to lie to Harrison, she didn't mean it at all at the time but her curiosity was gnawing at her. She needed to know. 

“Did they leave a note?” William asked as she approached Victor's office. The two men were conversing over matters. Christabelle only went to confirm if this was a normal occurrence. If she went straight to the source, then she would know what was going on. 

“There wasn't a note. That's the odd thing.”

“Ah, I see, Robin,” William said. “If I had sent you a rose, I would at least bothered to have signed it in this particular instance. And you said they were purple. Red is more my color,” he said. 

“That is a rather curious matter. My Little Robin is very sweet to my boys so it could be any,” Victor said. “After all, sweet birds do deserve lovely flowers.”

“How do you know it's one of the men?” she asked. 

“I know my boys better than anyone.”

“So does that mean you know who exactly sent it?”

Victor lurched, his hand dramatically on his heart. “Alas, with such errant boys as these, I'm afraid I cannot say for certain who sent what. But know that it was not William, nor myself.”

Christabelle smiled at them. “Thank you for confirming with me though.”

Christabelle had created a list in her head. That meant the rose had to be sent by Liam. It was poetic, really. Her favorite actor who was always crowned in flowers, giving her flowers every day as well. 

“Huh?” He said as he was leaving the laboratory with a bandaged hand. “You've got me confused with the wrong guy. That's not me!” He laughed. “You'd know if it were me. I like modern roses.”

“But you're so kind and poetic!”

“Hehe thanks, but nope! But we're in the same club now!” He took her hands and began to swing them together. “We're the Flower Recipient Club for Admirers!”

Christabelle later came back to her room to type her latest report and do some light reading, mostly short stories. It wasn't until after sunset when she heard a thump! Thump! outside. 

Her curiosity had gotten the best of her and she opened the door. Jude was outside, covered in blood. He was muttering something as he paced the halls. She tried to close the door but he had caught her. 

“Um…are you alright?”

Jude grumbled. “What kinda…”

Their eyes locked, her light blue ones with his harsh amethyst ones. “Um…do you need a towel?” It was the best she could come up with. “Er…for that uh…knife?” She pointed at the giant sword that was entirely sheathed and still bloody.

“Sword,” he corrected, not answering her.

Christabelle quickly left then came back with a towel, “What are you doing here?” She asked as she handed the towel to him. 

“It's my home too. I can roam anywhere I want, yeah?”

“Even with blood covered everywhere?” She never thought she'd have a conversation with a sinning man like this. She would have to pray for him soon enough, and pray for all of them, even though since she started living in the castle, she was now praying less and less. 

“Yer sure asking lotsa questions, bird.”

“I want to help in whatever way I can.”

He rolled his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Listen…Yer too nosy, too innocent. That old codger, wantin’ me to babysit ya. Ridiculous.” He sheathed his sword, which dropped blood onto the tiled floors as he slumped forward. She wondered if it was his blood there for a moment but she dismissed the notion. He pointed the sword in her direction, his eyes shining with frenzied glee as she stiffened against the wall. “Nosy lil’ birds…when they flutter too close to the snake's nest…”

“They get eaten,” she finished, trying not to let her nerves get the best of her. His sword did not move. The scent of blood was overpowering her. “I did mean to help. Truly. And I wanted to talk to you about that book with the whale earlier today,” she stammered. And what was that about an “old codger”. Was that supposed to be Victor? Did Victor tell him that he wanted her to record him? She was trying to understand why in the world Jude had shown up here and what he was thinking.

Jude retracted the sword, still grinning. “Yer tryin to be a brave lil’ bird but I can see yer body reactin’ to my sword.” 

“I'm not going to pry, so don't worry.”

“All ya need to know is that this is what happens when ya make promises ya can't keep, yeah?”

Christabelle thought it was an odd conversation they were having but she could see where he was going with this. In a way, he appeared to be venting to her, as if asking to wash away his sins. “If you need to clean up in my room, you're welcome to.”

“Pfft. As if I'd go to a dainty saint's room,” he said, snorting. He wheezed as he began to laugh. Christabelle tried to hide her humiliation from him by giving him a smile. He was impossible to read. Much like Moby Dick.

“Well, um…goodnight then. Sleep well.”

Then as Jude began to make his way back, he took one step…two…then collapsed. 

Christabelle had to call for help to escort Jude to the laboratory, where Roger revealed Jude had gotten stabbed. Again. 

“What?” He wasn't acting like it. Or maybe he had been delirious. It was hard to pick up when one was delirious when they had a sword aimed right at you.

“This man gets stabbed every three business days so I'm used to it,” Roger said, patching him up. “But there's just something I don't understand. He was in your corridor and you two were talking before he collapsed?”

“Yes, that's about right.” She omitted the part where he drew his sword at her. Looking back, he did seem off with his movements. His posture was all sorts of wrong and his eyes…

“Did he appear delirious? He's a stubborn one. Especially when he's drunk or stabbed. He'll forget to come to me. But maybe it means he thought you could cure him, lil’ lady.” He laughed to himself.

“I doubt that.” She thought of how annoying she must have been towards him. She had become too accustomed to him and his blunt manner and had gotten complacent. “I'm just glad he's safe and healthy here with you.” She looked at his sleeping form, his breathing ragged but otherwise, fine. He looked younger than he acted which made her wonder even more about him, like his age and the things he had seen. And why he was near her room of all places after such an incident.

She thought about the book he loaned her for free, Moby Dick. It had been a tough read but she had made herself read it to the end through sheer willpower. If she could do that, then maybe she could eventually break through Jude's barriers.

Roger interrupted her swirling thoughts. “He'll be better by morning so don't worry your sweet little head,” he said with a wistfulness that she couldn't place. “But if something happens to him, you'd cry, wouldn't you?”

“Of course. I know him well.”

“Then make sure to cry when I am in the room, okay, lil lady?”

Christabelle didn't react to his extremely strange words. “Goodnight, Roger.”

She tried to sleep as best she could the next day but the sunlight felt harsh and unforgiving. She trudged out of bed and then got ready for her day. 

Upon opening the door, the purple rose laid on the floor, waiting for her, as if welcoming her day. She bent over to pick it up, wanting to take in its sweet fragrance but what she saw had almost made her drop her flower altogether as she gasped.

Immediately the phrase Harrison had quoted to her from Sherlock Holmes came to mind as everything flashed before her eyes: When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Because within the rose's beautiful, soft petals, small droplets of blood remained.

*******

Jude was at breakfast not that day, but the next. His movements were slower, more languid, from the way he held his spoon to the way he would let out a groan when he changed his posture on his seat.

Christabelle’s heart thrummed as this was the first time she was reunited with him after that episode but after discovering he was her apparent admirer. The main question she had was: why?

But this was Jude Jazza and she knew she would never get a straight answer out of him.

Jude’s gaze narrowed at her when he caught her gaze and she fought back the urge to look away. “Are you feeling better?” she asked, filling the unbearable void of silence. She couldn’t bring herself to ask him about the roses. Not right now.

“I’m here, ain’t I?” he said in a cruel, matter-of-fact tone. It must have been Jude’s rough way of saying yes, he was feeling better.

“That’s good.” She paused. The weighty silence began to fill its way up again.  “I finished Moby Dick,” she said, quelling it.

Jude smirked. “Ya did, didja? Good girl fer readin’ all that rubbish.”

She broke eye contact with him when he called her “good girl”. It made her squirm in her seat. Was he praising her or was he talking down to her? She couldn’t tell. “I didn’t like it much either,” she said. “The prose is too dense. But I understood Captain Ahab, to a degree.”

“So yer a bloody lunatic like ‘em, then?” Jude said.

“No!” she said. “I understood the part about wanting to meet your goals, even if you can never meet them. You still have to try. Of course, his way wasn’t, um…necessarily the best, but…” She thought of her goals. She had the wrong disposition to be a nun, but the right one in being assigned to shadow Jude.

“But what?” he barked, taking her out of her reverie. 

“It was what he wanted, I suppose,” she finished meekly. There was another pause. “I really didn’t enjoy this one, sorry,” She handed the book back to him from across the table. 

Jude laughed, taking the book from her. It was as if he couldn’t remember their last encounter. Which led her to theorize if he was leaving her those flowers was he injured? Drunk? She wanted to find out. 

Then Jude stood up. It was anticlimactic. She wasn’t even going to bother him anymore. Tell William and Victor that there was a zero chance that he--

“Oi! Bird. Are ya comin’ along or not?”

Christabelle turned around her chair at a faster pace than she expected. “Huh? Me?”

“Yeah, you.” He steepled his fingers. “Who else? The chair?”

“Where’s Ellis?”

“That boy hasn’t left the bloody office in days.” He turned his back to her, his cape swishing. She stumbled out of her seat before he could repeat himself.

This was it. He was giving her the opening she needed.

But instead, they were in a carriage, where space was cramped and she was practically smushed together with Jude. Christabelle disliked small spaces like this, reminding her of how much space she occupied, which led to thoughts about how she was one more mouth to feed.

She kept her knuckles over her knees, making herself small, looking out the window as the carriage moved. Her neck hurt from craning it, but she didn’t want to make eye contact with Jude, not when she was this close to him. She could hear him breathing, the sounds of his breath were punctuated with wheezing. He didn’t smell like blood, but rather carried his scent of sandalwood, but she knew he hadn’t fully recovered. She could see him staring at her, sizing her up out of the corner of her eye.

“Yer neck’s gonna hurt if ya keep going like that, stupid lil bird.”

She moved her face down, unable to meet his scrutinizing gaze. She had her chance to talk to him here but now that she was in close proximity to him, all of her thoughts disappeared.

Jude sighed, lifting his leg and crossing it before taking out a newspaper. She tilted her head up, now able to look across as he read. “I don’t get ya at all,” he muttered. “Weird lil bird.”

Christabelle was able to finally speak to Jude when he led her to his office after checking in on the various cargo boxes that were coming in and out of the port.

His office was small, narrow,  and cramped. If the carriage ride made her uncomfortable with its tight enclosed space, this was even worse with the numerous items strewn across the room. Jude took a seat in his plush chair, easily avoiding the stacks of items that were piled up to her waist.

Christabelle observed the space. Her hips were twice the size of Jude’s and she wasn’t known for her gracefulness. It would be extremely easy to knock down his belongings.

Jude’s voice interrupted her. “Ain’tcha going to sit down already?”

She moved forwards, trying to will her body to become narrow as she moved to her side, sliding so that she wouldn’t knock anything down. However,  just the brush of her hips made one of Jude’s piles wobble. She grabbed it, trying to keep it together before her other side made the other pile fall to the floor. “Oh crumbs.”

She peeked at Jude who was watching her with…some kind of amusement. 

That made her lower her guard causing her to bend down and pick up what she had dropped, making the stack she was just holding crumple on the floor. “Sorry!”

“Leave it,” Jude said as she struggled with the space. “Just sit down.” His tone was harsh but his eyes continued to show that same amusement, his elbows to his desk, his chin resting on his knuckles. 

Christabelle sat in the chair in front of Jude. It wobbled as she did. She couldn’t bring herself to do it. To bring up why he was giving her roses and lending her books or why he came to visit her the other night while covered in blood. Her nerves got the best of her.

“That kooky old man wants ya to observe me, eh?” he said.

“It was William,” she said, clarifying for him. “He made the suggestion.”

Jude’s hands dropped to the desk as he steepled his fingers. “That man and his absolute--” he paused, glaring at her. “Why would he send a clumsy, annoyin’ and ignorant lil princess at me?”

“I don’t know,” she said, trying to shrug off his insults. “But my goal is to survive the month and go back to my life. And if that means I have to watch over you and write reports about you and your curse then so be it. I will do anything to keep up my end of the bargain, even if it means being with you for the next four weeks.”

Jude’s eyebrow raised and he gave out an exasperated sigh. She could still hear his wheezing. “Alright…but I better not hear a single complaint outta ya like “No!” or “I wanna go home!””

She nodded. “Okay. I won’t get in your way.”

“Promise not to run till the end, got it princess?”

Christabelle was warned about making promises with Jude but this was one she knew she could keep. “I promise.”

Jude smiled and she felt something prickle at the back of her neck as he leaned forward. “I’ve always wanted a secretary.” 

“A secretary?”

“Think yer too good for it?”

“No! Of course not. I’ll help you if makes things easier.”

“It won’t. You’ll make it worse, I reckon. But as my secretary, ya better start cleaning up the piles of things ya dropped. And put it in the exact order I had them in.”

“Huh? But I--”

He leaned in further, his voice firm and commanding. “Ya better get to work, princess, or I’ll make sure ya never leave this room.”

Something stirred in her chest from his tone. “Right on it, Jude.”

“Call me Sir. Or Master will do just fine,” he said with a smirk.

“Yes, Sir!” she said, moving down to the floor where she had picked up and organized the papers and reorganized them until they inevitably fell again because she kept knocking them down with her body.

Which is why later that night, after a long day of being Jude’s beleaguered secretary that consisted of being on the floor,  she was baffled to see not just one purple rose at her doorstep, but three purple roses. 

“Jude Jazza is the most incorrigible man on earth.” She did the sign of the cross. These next four weeks were going to be long. “God help me.”

[themultifandomgal]

Shelby Sister- Teenage Years

13 Years Old

After Grace passed away YN watched her older brother struggle with juggling the business, Charles and her. She tries to keep out of Tommys way, which isn't to hard because he's always in his office. But one of her best memories is Charles 5th birthday. Tommy had invited all of the Shelby's over and for the first time in so long YN was surrounded by her family.

"Happy birthday Charlie boy" Arthur shouts ruffling the little boys hair. He makes his way over to his youngest sibling who is sat with Finn and Micheal playing cards

"Ha I've won" Finn shouts taking the cards from his sister

"Oi Finn your 17. Don't be a child" Arthur scolds making YN and Micheal laugh. Arthur sits next to YN and takes the cards from Finn "I'll help ya"

Tommy, for the first time in what feels like forever, smiles watching his family all together and for YN this is the happiest she's felt since before her brothers left for war.

14 Years Old

Although YN was getting older she was still a kid at heart, but since Finn turned 18 he no longer had time for his baby sister. He was at the pub with his friends more and more. Arthur had his wife and daughter, Ada had Karl, Tommy was busy with the business and now Micheal had married someone who everyone despised... even Linda didn't like her. Her brothers weren't as close as they once were and she noticed that. Thankfully she had her nephew and niece, Charles and Ruby. Yes the were younger than her, but she played with them and told them stories about when their dad would play with her when she was their age

"Why doesn't dad chase me around?" Ruby asks her aunt

"He never used to be so busy. It was just me Arthur, John, Ada, Finn and your dad living with Aunt Poll. We only had the betting shop to worry about back then" YN looks down at her hands sadly

"Do you miss it?"

"Sometimes. I don't miss it just being us because else I wouldn't be an auntie. But I miss us all living together in that small house in Small Heath. I miss being a kid and having my brothers playing with me. Promise me you two will stay close. Forever"

"We promise" Ruby smiles at her aunt. Little did YN know her big brother was listening.

16 Years Old

At 16 years old YN started getting interested in boys. She had been dating a boy she met at school named James. However she has been keeping this a secret from her family because they are so protective of her.

Things had been going well until she found out that James was courting not only YN but 2 other girls.

Arriving home from school YN tries to avoid Tommy and Lizzie who are sat on the sofa reading

"YN?" she hears Lizzie but runs up the stairs not wanting to face anyone. Shutting her bedroom door she gets into her and let's the tears roll. Her bedroom door swings open and there's Tommy walking in with a cigarette handing out his mouth

"What's happened?" Tommy grunts sitting one the chair beside her bed

"Nothing. It's fine"

"It's not fine because my little sister is lying in her bed crying. So what's happened?" Tommy asks again but this time irritation laced in his voice. Sitting up YN wipes the tears from her eyes then looks up at her brother

"Promise you won't go mad and blind someone"

"Can't promise anything. Spill" YN takes in a deep breath then tells her brother her secret. Instead of her brother leaving in a rage he pulls his youngest sibling into his arms and holds her close telling her everything will be ok.

18 Years Old

After her last attempt to have a boyfriend, Tommy instructed Isaiah to keep an eye on YN. Being 5 years older than his baby sister, who no longer is a baby, Tommy thought that neither would have eyes for one another. However after 6 months of Isiah following YN around they both developed feelings for one another. After a year of courting they decided it was about time they come clean with the Shelby family. A meeting was held at the Garrison where Isaiah would have to face the Shelby brothers, Ada and aunt Poll

"I told you to keep an eye on her not warm her fucking bed" Tommy shouts standing up from his seat

"Tom..." YN's little voice tries to speak

"Your 5 years older than her" Tommy points to Isaiah who looks sheepish "she's 18 for fucks sake"

"5 years isn't that bad Tommy" Ada tries to defend her sister. YN gives her a thankful smile "Freddie and I had a larger age gap"

"Yeah and look how that turned out" Arthur grunts

"Well YN could have done worse. At least she's seeing someone we already know" Finn shrugs his shoulders not really wanting to have this conversation

"Are you happy?" John asks

"Very" YN tells him

"And you" johns attention now moves to Isaiah "you'll look after her. Keep her safe?"

"Of course"

"Then I guess this is fine. But hands stay above hips"

"John" YN whines feeling a little embarrassed

"And no sex" Tommy adds earring an eye roll from Polly, YN and Ada. Tommy walks over to his sister and Isaiah. Giving her a kiss on the forehead before leaning down and threatening Isaiah "don't hurt her or I'll have to blind you"

[twdmusicboxmystery]

When a Grady Actor Confirmed TD and Other Reasons the Spoilers Don’t Spoil TD

Okay Everyone, I’m gonna cover a few of things today that I hope will help everyone to continue feeling at least somewhat better about the spoilers. 

***More spoilers below (same ones as yesterday, actually) but don’t read if you don’t want to know. You’ve been warned.***

1) Could the spoilers be fake?

I got plenty of messages and comments yesterday, too. Some of them claiming these spoilers aren’t even true and the person who spoiled them is a troll and unreliable. 

Now, before everyone starts messaging me and commenting about how you “know” these are true and the screeners are out, please note that I’m not making a claim either way. The account that spoiled this isn’t one who normally gets and reviews screeners, which means they could be false. That doesn’t mean that account didn’t get these from a reputable source, which means they could be true.

As I said yesterday, overall, I think they’re probably true. I think they were probably intentionally leaked to hype up the fandom and gauge our reactions. And I would rather you all make your peace with them being real rather than holding out hope that they’re totally false. But I think it’s worth reiterating that they haven’t been 100% confirmed, yet.

2) There’s a whole other person involved in this Leah arc that we don’t know about yet.

You know how yesterday I went on and on about how we don’t have anything near all the details of this arc? Well, someone pointed this out to me. Don’t feel bad if you totally missed it, because I did, too, and I haven’t seen anyone talking about it.

Look at the picture of Leah below carefully. Look at what’s behind her. If you look closely, there’s someone kneeling on the ground. They’ve got one knee resting on the floor, and the other one pointed toward the ceiling with their foot flat. You can see one shoulder to the left of Leah’s hip.

Spoilers make no mention of this person. We have no idea who they are or how they fit into the story.

This looks to me like it’s when she and Daryl first meet (hence, she doesn’t trust him and is holding him at gunpoint) and she seems to be protecting this person from him. Whoever it is, it probably has to do with why she’s out there to begin with, and will probably factor in how/why she disappears.

And I have no doubt that this shot is purposeful, guys. If they wanted us to know about this person directly, they would have given us a more obvious shot of them. And yet, they have put hints of the person in the shots they DID release. Isn’t that just like them?

But my point is, this is proof that there is a lot about this episode the spoilers are leaving out. So please keep that in mind.

3) When a Grady actor directly addressed TD.

So, for the past few days, as you can imagine I’ve been talking with and consoling people about these spoilers. I just keep going back to the stuff we KNOW. Like that there are missing scenes Emily was in from S5. Those have nothing to do with Leah and suggest Beth’s return. And if she’s returning, I promise you, Bethyl will be a thing.

The other thing I mentioned to people is when Jarod Thompson (guy that played one of the Grady cops) addressed TD directly. 

I quickly realized I needed to repost this because no one seemed to have any idea what I was talking about. Then it took me an hour to find it because I didn’t give it its own post when I first posted it. It was buried at the bottom of this Rick’s Fate post from S9 and not properly indexed. But I did finally locate it.

So, here’s the rundown. Right after the episode where Jadis took Rick away in the helicopter, Jarod Thompson tweeted this:

I’m pretty sure you can’t find this tweet anymore. It was taken down. But let me make a couple of points here. 

First, the obvious. TD has nothing to do with Leah. She wasn’t even on anyone’s radar back then. So what he’s telling us here has nothing to do with Leah. He’s basically telling us that Beth will return. 

Translation: Leah doesn’t matter. Beth is coming back. 

This is just one (of many) things that keeps me strong in TD. Because the actor actually confirmed this for us. And then it was quickly taken down, which is always suspicious to me. Why? Well, I’m sure some people will be quick to counter with the argument that maybe he was just trolling or making fun of us. But I don’t see that as a terribly logical argument. 

He’s never done it before or since. 

We have other evidence (HERE) of him working with Emily post-season 5, and possibly in the hospital setting. 

The timing is suspicious. This happened after Rick left. And I personally think that what he referred to here was the CRM. 9x05 was the first time they really came front and center, an active part of the story. So I think he was hinting that Beth is inside that organization as well and that now that the audience knows who they are, the stage is set and things are in motion for her return.

For the record, it was not long after this that we started getting the massing amount of Beth/Emily promotion on social media. 

Most importantly, his tweet was removed, probably by him at someone else’s request. Think about this really logically, guys. They don’t remove tweets about Caryl happening. They don’t remove teases about Daryl and Connie. They only remove suspicious posts that might tell us something about Beth’s return. There’s a reason for that. 

Furthermore, consider this. He’s kind of a small-time actor on the show. Of course I don’t mean that in a negative way. He’s fabulous. But I mean he’s not a main character on the show like Andy or Norman or Lauren. And HE knows all about TD, what we want, obviously what is going to happen, and which events in the show constitute room for us “to breathe.” 

So what does that tell you about other actors on the show, the writers, and any higher-ups connected to the show?

Yeah. Exactly.

Which leads me to my next order of business:

4) Kirkman’s Post/Poll

I think most people saw this last night, but if you didn’t , here it is. 

You can still vote HERE. I took the screenshot last night. I just checked again and the percentage has gone down a couple of points (still at 47%) with more than 9500 votes at this time. So the ‘bring Beth back’ option is still the runaway winner.

Here’s the thing. The timing on this is super-suspicious to me. When was the last time Kirkman tweeted something about Beth? I have no idea, and don’t care to go digging through his Twitter account to find out, but I promise you he hasn’t done it in a long time. He’s said things about her and Bethyl during interviews and such, of course, but he doesn’t just randomly tweet about her. Like...ever.

So you’re telling me that on day 2 after these spoilers leak, when the fandoms are loosing their collective minds, Kirkman just so happens to post this? No way. I don’t buy it.

Look, I know most of us don’t like Kirkman. And I’m not defending him. I don’t like him either. But after watching his interaction with tptb all these years, I have come to believe that they do use him. 

Gimple (and now Kang, I’m sure) are very careful about what they say. Guys, I’ve watched and analyzed this VERY closely over the years, which is why I always say that they never directly lie to us. Misdirection? Yes. Hyperbole? Of course. But they never look into the camera and tell us something blatantly untrue. 

I believe that’s because they don’t want the fans to be able to point at anything they say and accuse them of falsehood. That’s why they can’t ever say much, because it’s either give spoilers (which they won’t) or lie (which they also won’t). That’s why their answers are always so vague and general and very, very irritating. 

But Kirkman isn’t one of the showrunners. He’s connected to it, of course, and I think he knows a lot about what’s coming down the pipeline, but if he says something that’s untrue, tptb can simply shrug and say, “he’ doesn’t make executive story decisions.” Because of that, I believe they use him to sew discord and misdirection. 

And again, I’m not saying this isn’t troll-ish. I’m not saying I like this tactic or that it’s a good thing. I’m simply saying this is what they do. 

So when Kirkman says anything TD-related, I pay attention. Not because I think we should take it at face value, but because the timing, context, how he frames it, and what’s going on in the fandom at the time can tell us a lot about it and give us some clues. 

So, in this case, I think tptb are watching the fandom’s reactions to the spoilers and trying to do a little damage control. But here’s what really gets me: he only mentioned Beth, and specifically in the context of bringing her back. I mean, ALL the shipping fandoms are freaking out right now. All of them are hating these spoilers and losing their shit right now. But he ONLY mentions Beth.

I truly believe that this is tptb, through Kirkman, addressing TD specifically, and just kind of throwing us a bone. They’re not addressing the others because there isn’t any hope for those other ships. 

I know there will be people who disagree with him and think he’s just making fun of us. I understand why people think that. But guys, if that were the case, we’d see at least SOME comments about other characters or ships. There aren’t any. And hey, look through the comments on his tweet. There’s a ton of Beth support (which is why she won the poll) and a few haters, but there are also lots of people who are kind of mystified, saying things like, “How about bring back Glenn? Or Rick? Or Carl?”

See what I mean? 

5) The time Gimple Confirmed Something that was NOT Going to Happen on the Show

Okay, gonna end by reminding you of just one more thing. Just a couple of months ago, before the finale of The World Beyond, S1, one of the actors teased on TTD that we might see Rick in the finale. 

Now, that was totally false. The finale came and went with no Rick (obviously). The actor was just trolling and trying to get people riled up, which he succeeded at. A few days later, Gimple was giving an interview to a clickbait site and they asked him about it. Gimple started to give his run-of-the-mill, vague answer but stopped mid-sentence and said this:

ComicBook.com asked Gimple if World Beyond was working up to a Rick Grimes reveal. 

“You know what? I’m very happy to say… I’m not happy to say the answer,” he said, clearly aware he was about to disappoint people. “I’m happy to be definitive with people. It is not.”

That’s one, I don’t know if people are being cagey about that. But I feel that one’s important not to be cagey about…I think people could watch this show and learn a lot about the mythology that Rick Grimes is caught up in. And they might even see places where Rick Grimes has been. But yeah, he’s not swinging around the corner. And I don’t even know if I’m making people upset saying that, but I just don’t like people watching it, sort of expecting Rick.”

Full article HERE.

Guys, they’ve never done that with Beth and TD. EVER!!!

I’m just saying.

And I can already hear counter arguments about how they’ve never shut down other ships like C@ryl or Donnie either. You’re right, but those characters are still front and center on the show. If Beth is dead and not coming back, why wouldn’t they put her to rest for us the way he did with this Rick rumor? (And I’m also going to argue that they’ve given us very clear indications in the show about a few of these ships, and the shippers just don’t want to accept them. But that’s not entirely relevant here.)

Thoughts?

[lunarrwolf]

black butterflies [colby brock]

fandom: sam and colby/traphouse

pairing: colby x self

word count: 2,209

part(s): one two three

summary: after a prank gone wrong, colby and his friends meet another youtuber during her meet and greet in hopes it will cheer her up

A/N: this is a self-insert because it’s a fic that was started for my own personal pleasure. it was supposed to be shared last year on my fan account after a poll was done but never was bc i ended up not feeling ready to do so. i figured since i‘m ready to share it now, it would be best to do it here since it’s pretty detailed

THREE

By the time the pair reached their hotel on the west coast, the sky was significantly brighter than back home. While she loved the city that she frequently visited, she had to admit when the airplane reached its destination that Boston did not compare to the view that graced her. Palm trees, beaches and sunny skies greeted the two friends as they descended toward the runway of LAX that afternoon. Even the drive to the west coast Marriott location was a sight for sore eyes as the scenery blurred by with dozens of people walking the sidewalks and hundreds of restaurants and stores lining the street. Aiden won the competition of who could connect their music to the car’s stereo the fastest, playing indie music the whole ride. When they actually checked into the building, the walk and elevator ride consisted of a playful argument about who was going to get which bed. That was figured out quickly as Kirsy set her stuff on the floor of the shared room before throwing herself on the one next to the window.

After settling and calming themselves down, the close friends talked about what they could do first. However, she wasn’t feeling up to exploring right away. They’d only landed the night before and were now three hours behind their usual time. Jet lag wasn’t really at play since the difference didn’t mean much to someone who rarely slept anyway, but exhaustion was another thing entirely. The whole early morning was spent laying underneath the sheets

“You can’t lay here all day.”

“I beg to differ.” She rolled on her stomach from facing the ceiling, coming eye to eye with the rising musician. His hands were placed on his waist as he stared you down, to which she paid no mind because that was just how their relationship worked. “I just want to lay here in a room with an air conditioner and fantasize about people who don’t know I exist.”

Knowing exactly who she meant, Aiden raised an eyebrow, shifting his weight on one leg as he raised an eyebrow at her. “Please - that’s a cliche story that isn’t going to get you out of today’s plans.” The older of the two placed himself against the bed across from her, taking his hat off of his head to chuck it at the girl’s face. She let out a whine, sending him a glare that would send a fraction of shivers going on anyone else’s spine. The bemusement on the young man’s face was clear as day; they were in a busy city with long beaches and awe-striking sights and all she wanted to do was mope around on her phone.

He was going to have none of it.

It didn’t matter that one of their companions quit on them and the channel - this trip was about moving on, starting new chapters and showing everyone that she wasn’t as devastated as she made herself look on camera the other day. While he hadn’t known her as long, they were almost inseparable, and watching her delve into the nerves of walking around without the redhead was something he never thought he’d see. His friend needed someone to slap her out of this misery and drag her back into the world she lived in now; one of adventure and expanding the lack of social horizons. “Get your ass up, we’re going out.”

“What-” She glanced over at him, exasperation in her tone. “We landed in the state twelve hours ago. What exactly do you want to do at this hour?”

“It’s what I don’t want to do, and that’s be stuck in here until we have the meet and greet. Which is in a few hours,” he reminded her. He crossed the small room to fish the room key out of the side of his bag, glancing back to find her sitting up with a neutral expression on her face. He side swept her copy of the card onto the bed he gained in the race to the shared room, “Your body knows nothing about being put to rest for more than five hours. I’m sure it doesn’t register that you’ve changed time zones, so you have enough energy to be proactive.”

Kirsy stared at her friend blankly, shoving her hands in the pocket of her hoodie. She peeked down at the white and green piece of plastic sitting on the comforter, tempting her to join in on exploring the city. Which is what she should be doing, anyway.

For years, her mind had been plagued in the best way possible with dreams and manifestations of how her life would be if she was ever able to afford residency in California. The sandy beaches, clear skies, endless list of activities and shops, and modern beauty of such a popular location always drew her in. The plan was to save up and find a place with Casey, so ensuing on a trip that her eccentric friend insisted on doubling as an apartment search was tough for her. She got over situations very quickly - the events that unfolded about one week before were already shoved in the back of her mind as unnecessary but moral filled fog. People were harder to be rid of in the recesses. If someone was dear to her, she could live on as if they weren’t, though it wouldn’t be the case on the inside. Going out and enjoying herself didn’t sit right with the part of her that was stuck with the friendship that had a questionable ending.

The young adult kept an eye on the twenty-two year old as she seemed to be contemplating what she was going to do. He was going to drag her out to the elevator and out the doors either way. Still, it would be much more enjoyable of a break from reality if she was one hundred willing to partake in the adventure.

“How long are we staying again?” She looked up, meeting his gaze.

“I think four days. Unless we find a place, then we agreed to stay longer to sort everything out.”

“Okay.” With a defeated sigh she picked up the key and turned around to grab the small backpack she was able to carry on the flight over. Making her way to where Aiden patiently stood, she placed a small hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go find you a boyfriend, then.”

He shook his head, letting out an exasperated sigh that only received a grin in response before they opened the door.

-

“I’m pretty sure this counts as stalking.” The brunette looked over the shorter figure, giving him a look that the slightly older male dismissed with a gesture of surrender. “All I’m saying is that checking her story is a step above what a normal person would do.”

“You’re not normal.” He retorted, his previously blonde friend agreeing with no problem.

“I would hope not,” Sam exclaimed, putting his hands in the pockets of his denim jacket as he smiled at his exasperated friend, “it’s kind of my whole brand.”

Colby couldn’t come up with a clever comeback. Since seeing that the vlogger and streamer had landed, he’d been dragging his friends around the local spots of Downtown Los Angeles. The anxiety that riddled him was as much of a positive aspect as it could have been - it matched the feeling their subscribers and community members would react at their own chances of meeting the group of four boys and the girlfriends of three of them. He knew how much he was acting out of character, and yet he didn’t care. Both parties had been admiring the other for months at a time without notice. Well, he noticed hers because everything she had came from the makings of a fan account she created for him and his friends. The lack of responses and her comments and work being drowned out by the millions of other fans gave her the impression that he never saw her past being another face, even after her own social media standing took off.

Taking the past three years into consideration benefited both ends of this infatuation. After proving successful in her journey when able to attend a convention the year before, she hoped having the platform would bring more attention to her rising brand so she could get the chance to embarrass herself in person.

It was the opposite for Colby.

All he’d wanted since realizing he was starting to experience the way a lot of fans felt towards any member of the housemates was a chance to meet her face to face. Maybe the way she affected him was because her own emotions manifested onto him whenever he skimmed a caption on one of her editing account’s uploads or read some of the posts she would put up on social media about him. Surely that was the explanation for all of this.

Everyone knew he was tired of trying to find the person he was meant to be with in girls from the Bay Area. No one he’d ever been attracted to or tried to start a relationship with in his years of living here had shown potential. Los Angeles was a palace for people who did a lot of stunts and acted a certain way to get where they wanted to go in life, and that included who they would get involved with. It became too hard too quickly for him to figure out the intentions of the few he tried to get to know romantically, and so he gave up on dating in this part of the country. Part of him did anticipate that if it wasn’t going to be someone he would see on the internet or the feed of any social media accounts, it would be someone from the family they’d all built over time. It would be a girl that’s watched their videos and been with them for a while and knew the guys well enough just by observing and enjoying the content they were given. It was nerve racking to think that the person he should really be with was a fan, as they would all categorize themselves as. So since he started being the one to keep an eye out for announcements and new content when it came to Kirsy, it wasn’t that he didn’t want to believe it - he just couldn’t.

How would this girl who proclaimed herself a fangirl half the time - a girl who photoshopped images, created videos and made storylines for everyone to read - possibly be the one who took his heart and made it beat such a way? It just didn’t make sense.

Yet here he was, blindly following her updates along with any other local subscriber of hers to see if she would be going anywhere he could bump into her, his friends following along because they knew what was going on and wanted to be there for support. Having known him since they were in their early teenage years, Sam had every inch of how his best friend reacted to liking someone planted in his brain. He mapped out the stages in his head when Colby started talking about the ‘new YouTuber that looked familiar and he could have sworn she went to their tour or passed by them at an event’. When those stages started to ring true, he filled in their other roommates who started to notice the constant mention of her name as well. They’ve all been there for him, hoping that he would just admit he fell for someone he’d never personally met or spoken to before.

One of the taller members of the foursome looked between the more sane companions, wanting to help their friend keep the confidence they all knew he had. “We should invite her and her friend to the Love For Hire party this weekend. She’s going to be here around then, right?”

Colby brought his attention to Jake, his curiosity peaking at the mention of their new boyband. They all met their girlfriends at parties, didn’t they? At least - that’s the way it was perceived in his head when the moments began to blur together. It seemed the connections for all of them were made when they all met the nights of, and that’s what he wanted. Perhaps the fact that the trio of couples all met for the first time at one of the Traphouse’s parties made him much more superstitious than he wanted or expected to be. Going to a small event meant for local fans of another content creator and using it to meet her himself right before they all invited her to their house for a party? How much of an ideal was that?

The more he thought about it as they walked down the sidewalks beside the beach, the more ridiculous he sounded. So what if this wasn’t an ideal situation? If whatever it was he felt was genuinely reciprocated, then he would approach it head on and take the risk of wooing someone from his creator community. If not, then he would have to learn to deal with that.

Although, something told him that all of this overwhelming emotion would be worth it.

[patriotsnet]

How Many Log Cabin Republicans Are There

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-log-cabin-republicans-are-there/

How Many Log Cabin Republicans Are There

Nbc Outtrump Supporters In Battleground States Largely Favor Lgbtq Rights Poll Finds

Asked about Trump’s attitude toward the LGBTQ community, Kabel offered a series of well-rehearsed talking points: Trump is “the most gay-friendly president,” same-sex marriage is settled law, Trump-nominated Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the pro-LGBTQ decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, and the administration is doing great work on HIV/AIDS.

As an example of how “the press doesn’t give him a break,” Kabel cited the administration’s partnership with Gilead Sciences Inc. and pharmacies, including CVS and Walgreens, to provide and distribute HIV-prevention medication to targeted communities.

“He never got credit for it,” Kabel said. “The LGBT organizations thank Walgreens and CVS and, of course, intentionally forgot to mention Trump actually made this happen.”

In June, Trump declared that the same scientific know-how that produced an AIDS vaccine would deliver one soon for Covid-19, even though there is no AIDS vaccine.

Kabel said he wishes the Republican National Committee would have met this year to update the party’s official platform, which still states at least five times that marriage should exclusively be a union of “one man and one woman.” But he said he’s not worried about a backslide on LGBTQ rights.

“The social conservatives understand that we’ve won on marriage,” he said. “They’ve lost, we’ve won, and I think they really play it down now.”

Back Into The Wider World

After Bakers speech, the groups first female chairman, Sarah Longwell, announced the afterparty was at Nellies, a popular gay/sports bar with a weekend drag-queen brunch. You boys enjoy yourselves, she said, Ive got kids at home. Someone appeared in a skin-tight Make America Great Again dress and posed for photos in front of the Log Cabin logo with the dress designer; they were the most exotically outfitted attendees:

Online, Democratic critics unsheathed their knives. Your org has accomplished nothing in 40 fucking years as the GOP has gone from bad to worse to Trump on your watch, the activist and advice columnist Dan Savage wrote in response to a cheery tweet from Angelo celebrating the night. Go fuck yourselves Log Cabin Republicans, Savage wrote.

At the Mayflower, after a few minutes of post-speech networking chatter, much of the room cleared out.

Outside the grand ballroom two women in pantsuits walked down the wide marble hallway from the party. They casually held hands for a moment, then unclasped as they approached the crowded lobby.

Next to the front door stood a group of men in well-cut suits in shades of charcoal. It was impossible to tell if they were they from the Log Cabin event or part of the Mayflowers regular carousel of business guests.

And that, the Log Cabin Republicans would tell you, is exactly the point.

Sarah Longwell: Donald Trump Is Not A Republican Or A Conservative

Longwell insisted that she still holds traditional Republican beliefs, including “restraint from the executive branch fiscal responsibility and American leadership in the world where we treat our allies with respect.”

The problem with Trump isn’t a gay issue, she said; rather, it’s an American issue.

I think Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy and the country, because the rules dont apply to him, said Longwell, 40. He thinks hes above the law.

She blames the president for disregarding the Constitution, cozying up to dictators and putting his own interests first, and said she is frustrated that the GOP has stood by him.

“Republicans should be a party that cares about principles and ideas, not its loyalty to one man,” she said.

She said she’ll be voting for Biden, whom she calls a centrist. “He has a message of unity, not division.”

Other LGBTQ Republicans, like Williams, straddle the line. Asked whether she’ll be voting for Trump, she tactfully replied, “The jury is still out.”

“Since New Jersey is not in play, I’ve been trying to focus on more of our down-ballot candidates who’ve sought my support and my counsel on reaching voters,” she said.

Log Cabin Republicans And Goproud Struggle For Future Of Lgbt People In The Gop Party

The night before the Republican National Convention began in Tampa last month, a group of gay Republicans sipped wine and ate crab cakes at the Rusty Pelican, a white-tablecloth establishment with massive fireplaces and sweeping bay views. Defying the widespread perception that the Republican party is more actively opposed to gay rights than ever, R. Clarke Cooper, the 41-year-old director of the Log Cabin Republicans, told the gathering that gays are not just an insular group in the party, were an integral part of the party. Like other fetes around town that week, the reception was dominated by clean-cut white men who looked like consultants with practiced golf swings. Women and minorities were as rare a sight as unpleated pants.

Log Cabin, a Republican fixture since the late 70s, defines its mission as building a stronger, more inclusive Republican Party by lobbying for same-sex marriage, anti-discrimination laws, and other gay causes. With 44 chapters and more than 45,000 members, it has become the closest thing there is in the gay Republican scene to the establishment. Its nemesis and counterpart is the three-year-old GOProud, the only other national organization for gay Republicans. While Log Cabins white-wine affair at the Rusty Pelican was designed to appeal to the old-school Republican country-club set, GOProuds event, dubbed Homocon, featured male go-go dancers in skin-tight Freedom is Fabulous belly-tees.

REPUBLICANS FROM THE GET-GO

Jonathan Hoffman: Log Cabin Republicans A Model For Politics

Save

The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer.

It seems as if our political contests have become more like warfare than debates these days. The increase in identity politics has lead to some political parties becoming more like tribes defined by ethnicity, race or sexual orientation, rather than parties defined by philosophy or principles. As such, there is no place for cooperation or compromise, just a question of who will prevail.

The other day I was wondering if there was some group that, by example, demonstrates that it need not be that way. I then heard someone mention the Log Cabin Republicans, and I thought, Yeah, those guys.

Who are the LCR people?

Let us begin with a little history. In the late 1970s, gay Americans were becoming more accepted in the broader culture. This prompted a backlash. States began banning gay people from teaching in public schools. The California version of this was a ballot initiative championed by a state legislator named John Briggs. The Briggs Initiative, as it was called, had overwhelming support and looked like a done deal.

I spoke with my friend Bill Beard, a gay Republican who served as chairman of the Pima County Republican Party and is active in LCR. I asked him about endorsements. He told me that the local chapter endorsed all three Republicans for Tucson City Council, and made no formal endorsement for mayor.

Thats why I thought, Yeah, those guys.

Tags

Trans Rights: A Perplexing Issue

Like many other gay conservatives, however, he seems to disconnect gay rights and transgender rights. Kabel recalled a recent article with a quotation from the conservative activist Tony Perkins that contrasted the Democratic and Republican platforms in 2016.

“The only issue Perkins raised was the transgender bathroom issue,” Kabel said. “And I thought, ‘That means we won.'”

Kabel called transgender equality “one of the most perplexing issues going.”

“Transgender people deserve support and protection just like anybody else, but it’s a very complex issue,” he said. “It’s remarkable when you hear their stories, but it’s just a very perplexing issue about how to really address it and do it so that they’re protected but other people aren’t hurt, so that people’s religious views are actually taken into consideration.”

Transgender visibility is all but absent in the Log Cabin Republicans, from their leadership to their messaging.

An OUTSpoken Instagram post compares the LGBT left to the LGBT right by putting an image of a person who appears to be transgender or gender-nonconforming next to a shirtless picture of former U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock, while the campaigns store sells T-shirts bearing slogans like “gay for Tucker” “gay for Melania” and “gay not stupid.

OUTspoken sent Brokeback Patriot, who has stated trans women are not women, to New Orleans Southern Decadence party to ask passersby if they think Trump is pro-gay.

Burning During The War Of 1812

On August 2425, 1814, in a raid known as the , British forces invaded the capital during the . The , , and were burned and gutted during the attack. Most government buildings were repaired quickly; however, the Capitol was largely under construction at the time and was not completed in its current form until 1868.

Citing Resources In The Web Archive

Citations should indicate: Archived in the Library of Congress Web Archives at www.loc.gov. When citing a particular website include the archived website’s Citation ID . Researchers are advised to follow standard citation guidelines for websites, pages, and articles. Researchers are reminded that many of the materials in this web archive are copyrighted and that citations must credit the authors/creators and publishers of the works. For guidance about compiling full citations consult Citing Primary Sources.

Nbc Outcourt Orders Idaho To Provide Gender Surgery For Trans Inmate

Despite the backlash to the Trump endorsement, Charles Moran, the groups national spokesperson, told NBC News the group has no plans to rescind its support for the president as it was a universal decision determined by the board of directors and chapters.

When asked whether Henry was involved in the endorsement decision, Moran said he could not speak to that as he was not on the phone call during her resignation but that he and the board thank her for her service to the Log Cabin Republicans.

Henrys departure comes just weeks before the groups Sept. 17 Spirit of Lincoln reception in D.C. The annual event has typically included a dinner and reception featuring high-profile Republican attendees, but this year there will only be a reception.

Were seeing a lot of what I thought would happen: A lot of prominent leaders are leaving the group, Evans told NBC News. We need a Republican group that advocates for LGBTQ issues, but the Log Cabin Republicans have sent the message that this is not their priority.

Log Cabin Republicans Endorse Trump

The Log Cabin Republicans endorsed President Trump

The group said its national board of directors voted to endorse Trump after consulting with its chapters across the country. 

Log Cabin Republicans Chairman Robert Kabel and Vice Chairwoman Jill Homan argued in a Washington Post op-ed on Friday that Trump has helped remove LGBTQ rights as a wedge issue in the GOP, citing his administration’s policies on ending the spread of HIV/AIDS as well as his push to get other countries to conform to modern human rights standards.

The leaders also cited Trump’s appointment of Richard Grenell, who is openly gay, as U.S. ambassador to Germany. 

“While we do not agree with every policy or platform position presented by the White House or the Republican Party, we share a commitment to individual responsibility, personal freedom and a strong national defense,” Kabel and Homan wrote. 

The move marks a reversal after the group refused to endorse Trump in 2016, citing him surrounding himself with advisers “with a record of opposing LGBT equality,” as well as his support of the First Amendment Defense Act, which would block the federal government from taking adverse action against people based on their beliefs about marriage.

The group said in 2016 that they would welcome the opportunity to work with him on LGBTQ issues. 

The president has also come under fire for the views of Vice President Pence, who has opposed legalizing same-sex marriage, citing his Christian faith.

Log Cabin Republican Quits After The Group Endorses Trump’s Re

Prior to Henry’s resignation, Casey Pick, who served as the programs director for the Log Cabin Republicans from 2010 to 2013, wrote in a Facebook post that even though she began distancing herself from the group after the 2012 election, she decided to give it another chance after Henry was brought on board as executive director.

I was hopeful that despite watching the organizations slide toward Trump apologism under Gregory T. Angelo , their hiring a skilled and principled operative like Henry meant the organization would finally be able to again be a conscience this party needs, Pick wrote on Aug. 15, the same day the group endorsed Trump. I publicly celebrated her hiring, and encouraged my peers in the LGBT advocacy community to give LCR another shot, knowing that a vibrant and effective Log Cabin could be a godsend during a Trump/Pence administration.

Yet, Pick said, Henrys hands have been tied and instead of espousing a progressive mission, the group increasingly fulfills the stereotypes that used to be hurled at Log Cabin Republicans: overwhelmingly gay men who are indifferent to the experiences of women, transgender Americans or LGBT people who lack the financial or social resources to protect them from the discrimination that they so often deny even exists.

“Don’t call me a Log Cabin Republican,” she wrote at the conclusion of her post.

Civil Rights And Home Rule Era

1960s Washington DC, 4K from 35mm Kinolibrary

The was ratified in 1961, granting the district three votes in the for the election of president and vice president, but still no voting representation in Congress.

After the , on April 4, 1968, , primarily in the U Street, 14th Street, 7th Street, and H Street corridors, centers of black residential and commercial areas. The riots raged for three days until more than 13,600 federal troops and D.C. Army National Guardsmen stopped the violence. Many stores and other buildings were burned; rebuilding was not completed until the late 1990s.

In 1973, Congress enacted the , providing for an elected mayor and thirteen-member council for the district. In 1975, became the first elected and first black mayor of the district.

How Groups Get Approved By Cpac Including Massresistance

MassResistance registered for a table at CPAC on January 8, six weeks before the conference. We were told that the approval process could take 5-7 working days, but to go ahead and make airline and hotel reservations, etc. anyway.

We waited two weeks with no answer. Then on Jan. 24 a conference call was set up to discuss your organization and your plans for CPAC. It was with CPACs events coordinator and Dan Schneider, the Executive Director. He said he had never heard of MassResistance.

We described the history of MassResistance and the kind of activism we do. We were very up-front about our plans for CPAC. We were going to promote our book, The Health Hazards of Homosexuality, and similar materials. We told Schneider we believe that CPACs large constituency of younger people had not been sufficiently exposed to the pro-family message, and he agreed. He said he would like pro-family groups to come to CPAC.

Schneider said that there are four criteria for a group to be approved:

The applicant organization must stand for at least one conservative/right-of-center proposition

The applicant organization must not exist primarily for a liberal purpose

The applicant organization must be legitimate

The applicant organization cannot be disrespectful of either ACU or CPAC

We told him that it was hard to believe that the Log Cabin Republicans would pass this since they clearly exist to homosexualize the Republican Party and push the LGBT agenda in government and society.

Working For Lgbt Americans

In 2019, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced that pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences Inc., would donate pre-exposure prophylaxis medication for uninsured, high-risk HIV individuals.

As part of the president’s Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America initiative, this medication, which could run up to as much as $20,000 per patient, per year, would be distributed to up to 200,000 individuals each year through at least Dec. 31, 2025. 

The Trump plan is focused on communities most in need and has received support from those who have been involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

In similar fashion, Trump announced during Pride Month in 2019 that his administration was launching a global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality. His leadership on this issue couldnt be more necessary  even in 2020, 72 countries still identify same-sexual orientation as criminal, including eight where it is punishable by death. 

This campaign was spearheaded by former U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, an openly gay member of the administration who subsequently served as acting director of U.S. national intelligence, becoming the first openly gay Cabinet member in our history. In coordination with the United Nations, the European Union and other human rights organizations, the campaigns goal is to pressure nations into ending homophobic laws, securing the safety and freedom of all LGBT individuals throughout the world.

Who Are The Log Cabin Republicans

The Log Cabin Republicans are a political organization founded in the 1970s that identifies themselves as staunchly Republican, with a twist. Members of the Log Cabin Republicans are strong activists for many Republican values, the idea of free markets, limited government and lower taxation, especially of high earners and corporations. They especially support privacy, and identify most with President Lincoln, one of the most identifiable presidents, who was born in a log cabin. They identify with Lincolns Republican party at that time, which could definitely be considered the more liberal of the two parties, especially in Lincolns signing of the emancipation proclamation and his promotion of civil rights for all.

This issue is extremely important to Log Cabin Republicans because most members identify themselves as gay or lesbian, or in support of equal rights for gays or lesbians. While a number of lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender folks identify more strongly with the Democratic party, many members of the Log Cabin Republicans find themselves out of step with the Democrats on many issues. Their political ideas are more aligned with those of the Republican party, and thus since the 1970s the LCRs have become an important part of the political process in avidly supporting non-discrimination of the LGBT community, promoting greater funds for AIDs research, and supporting measures like the right for individuals to marry others of their choosing.

Nbc Outover 500 Lgbtq Candidates To Appear On November Ballots Shattering Records

Williams, chair of the Republican Committee in Trenton, New Jersey, agrees that some LGBTQ Republicans choose to look past certain statements or policies especially cisgender members.

LGBTQ “people who are voting for the president are most likely not going to be transgender, because we’ve been the target and the butt of most of the administration’s actions,” she said.

According to the GLAAD poll, however, 19 percent of trans and nonbinary registered voters were supporting Trump more than either gay men or lesbians .

This Former Log Cabin Republican Is On A Mission To Stop Trump

Sarah Longwell says Trump threatens the GOP but, more importantly, democracy itself.

Back in the day , when I worked on Capitol Hill, I met my very first boyfriend. Kurt was from Paducah, Ky., and worked for a fairly moderate Republican at the time, a senator named Mitch McConnell. 

We were both in the closet, and I would pick Kurt up in my car at discrete locations. We never really spoke about politics, because it really didnt matter. The only thing I vaguely recall him telling me about McConnell was that they put lipstick on him for TV appearances since his mouth is like a knife slash.

And, one of my best drinking buddies during that period, worked um, lets say toiled for then-Rep. Rick Santorum. I only knew that Santorum was an absolute jerk because I sat next to him at a dinner on the Hill one night and witnessed his rude and obnoxious behavior. He was childishly upset about getting the right dinner rolls. But again, with Will, there was never any talk about politics. We just had a good time over lots and lots of beers.

Thats the way it was then in Congress. You had friends across party lines, and anyone who was virulently political was usually also friendless.

Sarah Longwell also worked for Rick Santorum back in the in mid 1990s, going on a tour with Senator Santorum to help promote his book, It Takes a Family. She was coming out as a lesbian at the time and eventually quit Santorum, who she considered the most visibly antigay politician in the country. 

Nbc Outtrump Applauds Poll Showing 45 Percent Support Among Gay Men

Kazmierczak called Trump a staunch supporter of gay people and their rights, but he said he makes a distinction when it comes to religious groups.

“He doesn’t want gay rights forced on religious institutions,” Kazmierczak said. “It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t support gay people. It means that to him, religious freedom is more important than social issues.”

Trump made a halfhearted effort to court the LGBTQ community in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. He called the massacre of 49 mostly LGBTQ people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that year an “assault on the ability of free people to live their lives, love who they want and express their identity.”

At the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Trump swore “to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.”

And two days before Election Day, he grabbed an upside-down Pride flag inscribed with “LGBT for Trump” at a rally in Colorado and waved it around.

Once in office, however, Trump has consistently opposed LGBTQ rights from rolling back Obama-era nondiscrimination protections to banning openly transgender service members in the military. The national LGBTQ rights group GLAAD has accused the Trump administration of 181 separate attacks on the community since his inauguration.

For Rogers, Trumps bona fides with the community arent so important.

Many gay Trump supporters say they’re tired of being told what political views are acceptable.

While Democrats Take The Lesbian And Gay Community For Granted Donald Trump’s Republican Party Is Delivering Real Results

Democrats are using their convention this week to tout their agenda for the next four years, including their promise to stand up for the lesbian and gay community. For years, Democratic Party leaders have taken for granted the lesbian and gay community along with other minority communities thinking they had no where else to turn. Those days are over. 

I’ve fought for civil rights for gay Americans for the past four decades. Today, the Republican Party is delivering real results and leadership for our community:

It hasnt always been this way. For years, the GOP generally stood against the inclusion of gay and lesbian conservatives. As one of the Republican National Committee’s first openly gay members, and a longtime leader of Log Cabin Republicans, I’ve worked tirelessly alongside many friends and colleagues to pull the party into the future. Today, thanks in large part to the leadership of President Donald Trump, the party has delivered meaningful policy victories for gays and lesbians. 

He didnt abandon these principles when he assumed his position behind the Resolute Desk. 

Nbc Outsan Francisco Police Chief Apologizes To Lgbtq Community

Evans announced her own departure from the Log Cabin Republicans last Monday in a scathing op-ed for LGBTQ magazine The Advocate. Jennifer Horn, a former board member, and Robert Turner, the former president of the group’s Washington, D.C., chapter, also denounced the Trump endorsement and left the group last week.

Notably, Henrys name did not appear alongside those of board members Robert Kabel and Jill Homan in a Washington Post Op-Ed this month announcing the group’s endorsement of Trump. The Log Cabin Republicans declined to endorse Trump in 2016.

In the endorsement, Kabel and Homan cited Trumps commitment to end HIV/AIDS in 10 years, which was met both with cautious optimism and flat-out skepticism, and his work with Richard Grenell, the openly gay U.S. ambassador to Germany, to encourage other nations to end the criminalization of homosexuality, as examples of his dedication to the LGBTQ community.

[gordonwilliamsweb]

Confronting Our ‘Frailties’: California’s Assembly Leader Reflects on a Year of Covid

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — When his 20-month-old daughter developed a rash earlier this month, Anthony Rendon did what many other parents do when their child is sick: The speaker of the California Assembly took Vienna to her pediatrician — but he did so via video from the comfort and safety of his home.

This story also ran on Chico Enterprise-Record. It can be republished for free.

Many Californians have relied on telehealth to connect with their health care providers during the covid-19 pandemic, but the option isn’t available to everyone. That imbalance is just one of the “frailties” in America’s health system that Rendon says lawmakers must address.

“So many folks, when they lose their job, they’re in trouble,” he said.

A Democrat from Los Angeles County and grandson of Mexican immigrants, Rendon led a nonprofit organization dedicated to early childhood education before his election to the Assembly in 2012. Although he hasn’t authored any sweeping bills on health care, as leader of the Assembly since 2016 he has influenced which measures get a vote — and which don’t.

For instance, though he says he’s a single-payer advocate, he angered many progressives four years ago when he blocked a bill that would have provided government-funded health care to all Californians. Rendon described the measure, approved by the state Senate, as “woefully incomplete.” While that decision drew the ire of the powerful California Nurses Association union — its leader tweeted an illustration of California’s iconic grizzly bear logo with a knife in its back inscribed with Rendon’s name — some Capitol insiders say Rendon made the strategic decision to take the hit for his members on a politically charged issue that didn’t have the votes to pass.

“It’s never leadership acting alone,” said David Panush, a health care policy consultant who worked in state government for 35 years. “They do it on behalf of their caucuses.”

Rendon won his post as California’s 70th Assembly speaker in part by pledging to allow his colleagues to set their own agendas in their policy committees. Under his leadership, the legislature has approved measures to expand Medicaid coverage to undocumented immigrants ages 19 to 26, protect patients from some surprise medical bills, ban the sale of flavored tobacco products, and require drug companies to report and explain drug price increases. But lawmakers rejected bills that would have taxed sugary drinks and given the state attorney general more authority over hospital consolidations.

After missing nine weeks of work last year when covid shuttered the Capitol, lawmakers returned to plastic barriers on their desks, mask requirements and other safety measures.

In December, Rendon’s colleagues elected him to a third term as speaker. He talked with KHN’s Samantha Young about his leadership role during the pandemic and his legislative priorities for the rest of this year.

Q: What did you learn leading this legislative body through a pandemic as a lawmaker, a husband and a dad?

First of all, we’re all very fragile and we’re all very resilient. It doesn’t take much for our various systems to be upset and to change course. At the same time, we adjust, whether it’s as a society, as a state, as an institution. In the Assembly, for example, we’ve almost learned how to do our business in a completely different manner, in the same way that Californians up and down the state have learned to navigate their lives in a different way.

Q: How have you juggled home and work life?

On the one hand, weekends are great. A lot of district events don’t happen, my wife can work on her dissertation full time, and I get to take care of the baby from sunup until around dinnertime. Having worked in early childhood education for 20 years, I realize how important the first couple years are. I’ve spent way more time with her than I thought I would. At the same time, there’s been challenges finding safe child care.

Q: What weaknesses did the pandemic expose in the health care system, and what can the legislature do about it?

Telehealth is great and can be very helpful but has its limitations. The pandemic really exposed the need for effective broadband throughout the state and broadband equity as well. We used to regard lack of broadband access as a rural issue.

Once we sent schoolkids home, we realized there were more pervasive broadband problems. So, there’s absolutely a need to do something big around broadband this year, and that’s because of education and also because of health care.

Q: You say you’re a single-payer advocate, but under your leadership, California’s coverage gains have been piecemeal. Why not just go for it and pass single-payer for everyone?

Mostly because of the challenges. First of all, we would need a federal waiver. The Biden administration has already hinted that they won’t do so. The president has said time and time again that he wants Obamacare to be expanded.

And there’s the huge price tag. There are very, very serious constitutional problems relating to the development and implementation of single-payer.

Q: So, who should get coverage next?

Senior undocumented immigrants are the next big group left. It’s a population that obviously has tremendous challenges with respect to access and language. They tend to have a lot of preexisting conditions, a lot of other health challenges as well. So, it’s important that we make sure that we cover those folks.

Q: Is there anything you would have done differently, looking back on the past year?

I wish we could have come up with some of the ideas for social distancing and bringing the legislature back more quickly. I think there was a sense early on in March and April [of last year] that the pandemic would run its course more quickly than it did. I remember people saying, “We’ll be back in two weeks, we’ll be back by midsummer, the pandemic will be gone.” So, in terms of developing a lot of those plans, they came to us a little later than I wish they had.

Q: How do you think vaccine distribution is going now that supply is exceeding demand?

I received a phone call from a neighboring district, the president of a community college, who called me up saying, “We have all these vaccines and people have stopped showing up.”

We’ve reached this sort of plateau that’s disappointing. We haven’t reached this plateau because 90% of people have been vaccinated. It links directly to public health, education and information campaigns. We have to talk about the safety of the vaccine and have validators also talk about the need to get to herd immunity.

Q: Along those lines, local public health departments feel that they have been underfunded for years and that they haven’t had the money to do the job in this pandemic. Do you support their request for additional state funding?

We need to make sure that they’re adequately funded. There was a problem with respect to the pandemic. We honestly weren’t ready for it. As far as these health efforts are concerned, they have to happen at the local level.

The conversation has to go hand in hand with accountability measures and accountability metrics. We’re not going to give folks a blank check. We know that there are vast differences in practices that a lot of the public health agencies throughout the state want to pursue, and we want to make sure that best practices are really implemented.

Q: How do you negotiate with influential industries, such as hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and big labor, to get meaningful legislation passed that goes against their interests?

When people boil it down to a simple question of who gives the most money, that’s overly simplistic. Look at the incredible amount of work we’ve done here in California with respect to oil. The enviros do not give as much money to politicians as the oil companies do.

But with respect to having these conversations, we take all of their input, and then the decisions, for me, are informed by what’s best for the state.

This story was produced by KHN, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

Confronting Our ‘Frailties’: California’s Assembly Leader Reflects on a Year of Covid published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[chainsawcorazon]

KO-D Blues: The Current DDT Main Event Scene

Anyone who first heard about Cyberagent acquiring DDT back in fall of 2017 knew that change was coming. It often does with acquisitions. Sure, the general understanding was that there would be more capital to float ideas and new projects, bigger paychecks for the personnel, but with great power comes great responsibility- more capital inevitably comes with more stakeholders.

Customers, as in the DDT audience, has been the longest and most consistent stakeholder at DDT pre-aquisition, simply because of the fact that up until fall 2017, DDT was a technically an independent whose business strategy tapped into the niche puroresu market that craved the absurdist, outlandish, and overall nontraditional approach at professional wrestling in a market that was flooded with similar content (don't @ me, but every Ace is the same kinda Ace across the big Five promotions, with a lil tailoring here and there). They have several sister promotions each doing their own thing, all part of the DDT umbrella, but running their own hijinks for their small, but loyal fanbases that buy the tickets and merch as loyally as any person consuming the mainstream content.

But after fall of 2017, they were no longer a successful indy, but now a cog in a larger machine aiming to make money. They were acquired, there's technically a new boss in the story, and even though at first it didn't seem like much would change, something has.

When Shuji Ishikawa won the D-King Grand Prix, I was livid for multiple reasons. I knew there was no way in hell he was gonna win the belt off Takeshita because by that point, it was common knowledge that Shuji would be over in AJPW the entirety of April for Champion Carnival. There was no way in hell a DDT could put their top belt on a man who had to disappear for a whole month, no matter how loyal he was to his mother promotion, bc that would have inevitably started a war between President Takagi and Uncle Jun. My pick was always Daisuke Sasaki, but some wanted Akito, some Yukio, the possibilities were endless because they're full-timers, and all of them amazing wrestlers, and we already knew Harashima was well on his way to lighter feuds and semi-main event status because his Ace days are coming to an end. We knew, but we didn't fret because other people were just are ready for an amazing push, but the victory went to the man who was already known to be a special attraction at Sumo Hall. There was a reason why HaraMarufuji had to drop those belts at Sumo Hall, and only half of it was to push Higuchi, because the other half had to salvage whatever dignity the men had left bc NOAH didn't book HaraMarufuji for shit and DDT could barely make do with Marufuji's sporadic appearances. Sometimes, it works out (like with Yuko), but a lot of times it just doesn't. So Shuji wasn't gonna win, we knew, but DDT management still played the game of thrones, and that led to the upset at Judgement 2k18.

The polls wanted Shuji. The fans wanted Shuji. Deep down, I feel like god wanted Shuji too, but no one can stop Management when it's high on one person regardless of how much the fans, the culture, the whole damn industry wants otherwise. Everyone else becomes an afterthought. People who have worked hard to keep the company alive are no longer in line to get a nice push. Suddenly, everyone becomes food for the top guy, no matter how good the build-up was for the other players, no matter how hot the crowd was for the opponent, no matter how willing the crowd was to forget that Shuji had AJPW dates to fulfill in two weeks, just because they loved the build-up to the Sumo Hall show and wanted Goliath of DAMNATION to come out as champion and give Ryogoku a concert to remember. But reality won in the end, and Shuji got pinned, and there went January through March, straight to the garbage because they fed Shuji Ishi-fucking-kawa to a 22 year old boy who can barely cut a promo and keep a crowd hot after winning a main event.

It's a tragedy from three ends because 1) Takeshita's literally a fucking novice who's only been wrestling for five or so years and is literally in the age group of the current trainees of the damn promotion, 2) he has no character or personality to speak of that people can get high on except the select few that enjoy his 'notice me Endo-san' yandere tirades, and 3) ... he lacks the spirit of DDT.

If DDT was all wrestling, everyday, I'd be watching NOAH's shitty booking and eating ice cream while trying not to let my soul slip outta my mortal coil, but that's not what DDT is. DDT is fully fleshed out characters and over-the-top storylines, DDT is gay-friendly and intergender-wrestling friendly, it's gimmick fuckery for everyone in the promotion, everyone gets to have more than one character, BOYZ shows run social critiques on heterolinis, YAROZ act out the hypermasculine thotheads, Ganbare lets Imanari have emotional meltdowns during ring takedown, TJP has zombies, BASARA has a deathmatch samurai for an Ace, and a wig is the crown for anyone who wants to be general manager of the promotion. It's content fuckery at its best, and it's fun. Takeshita Konosuke? He's not fun.

I'm not gonna try and dissect why he's not getting over, but the fact of the matter is- he's not getting over. And yet- and yet he's still being pushed like he's king of the world. Suddenly we're back in Sumo Hall, and the crowd's dead for Konosuke. A couple of weeks back, when Takeshita lost, he flipped. There was something there, a spark that came and went regularly since Takeshita and Endo began feuding, a rage that bubbled to the surface whenever Takeshita couldn't get his way. There was a character- a semblance of a character worth looking forward to because there was an unparalleled emotion there that was almost tangible.

But like a dying flame, the spark fizzled out, and we were left with an inconsistent character. Like is you mad? Is you happy? You never fuckin know with Take, man. The only consistent thing about him is his undying love/hate for Endo-san.

So Takeshita won, Shuji bowed out, and then Shigehiro Irie rolled up. Suddenly, there was some hope again, because Shige had his own storyline that made sense in the grander scheme of things. With Management so gung ho behind Takeshita, it was excellent storytelling to bring in the guy who has WORDS for the promotion who conned him out of a D-King Grand Prix spot, and had him consider quitting. But Shigs had his own story, his own reason for being, a freelancer like Shuji in his own right, but still tied to the Motherland, to DDT, at the end of the day. Still a heel, but a heel of the people- and if he wins at Max Bump 2018, a champion of the people.

Akito, on the other hand, is gonna be ten years in DDT next year, and he's one of the best wrestlers on the roster, but is still one of the most underpushed (understandable as his character is rather bland even if his skills are exceptional). Coming out with a bad Prix record, he then went on to question Shige's right to challenge. Like an older brother protecting the golden baby of the family, Akito stood up against a literal beast. And he lost. More than that, he was shamed. What's a person to do?

So what changed? Over the years, a number of champions have held the coveted KO-D. OK, maybe 'coveted' is pushing it. It's a hot title, aight? It's the top guy's title, whether that top guy for the moment is Harashima, Kudo, Ibushi, Ishikawa, Sakaguchi, Togo, Poison Sawada Julie, Dino or Mikami. But that didn't mean the title didn't change hands. For its eighteen year existence, its changed enough times for a title spanning forty years, but DDT went from zero to hero. Suddenly the belts weren't all jokes, the talent wasn't just here for the shenanigans, but for an actual chance to be the rightful King of DDT. So what changed?

Across Harashima's nine reigns over eleven years, he clocked in well over a thousand days. Takeshita is on his second reign, at 22, and clocked in almost five hundred days over eleven different defenses. The push is real, but the push isn't getting over. So I wonder again- what changed?

Everyone knows the worst civil war a promotion can get into is the war with its own customer base. The crowd died at Sumo Hall after Takeshita retained, and they were barely waking up again when Irie popped up. The story's there- the Old Guard of DDT having to deal with the new Management that came with the acquisition, Irie's need to show Takeshita that DDT is still what it used to be, even if Shigs is bitter and jaded that things have changed so quickly, the constant, nagging feeling in the back of every DDT fan's mind that 'jfc, we gotta deal with Takeshita again?” There's only so much a promotion can do until the push fails. We still have to fill up seats for Peter Pan. The hottest stable on the indies for the last two years was DAMNATION, but now that their push and hype was used on Shuji and Goliath's been slayed, what's next for them? Shige is almost certain to lost at Max Bump because anyone who slays Takeshita, will be slaying the Future and taking back DDT for whatever reason. That's not happening at Korakuen with a guy who's been MIA since December. Harashima's time is over. The generation of DDT wrestlers that came after 2005 are still lagging in the midcard, and times are... intense. We have a Sumo Hall double show coming up in 2019, and it looks like we really will be hosting Tokyo Dome if 2020 if we continue at this pace.

So what changed?

I don't want to give up hope yet because I trust that crowd sentiment matters to DDT, but with Takeshita's victory at Judgment, his lukewarm hype, and now the setup to feed heel!Shige to Takeshita in order to fluff him up as a face... it's not looking too great. Shige losing now means the Old Guard loses a warhound. One of the few things that can salvage his loss is Akito having a heel turn, but the turn hasn't been triggered in years, and seems unlikely even now when the moment is most opportune. There are... no challengers left for Takeshita with a proper build. The one man who was capable of running with his push had to lose to Mike Bailey. We're at a standstill right now- halfway to the dawn of a new era, but moments away from severe backlash because of the near omnipotent reign of a boy king who can barely keep his emotions in check around his ex-bff/love of his unfortunate life. Given, DDT didn't die even when Ibushi quit, so I doubt Takeshita's lackluster reign is gonna kill the promotion dead... but it doesn’t spell out a good future if there's meant to be a cycle of this lackluster character work.

Especially if they intend for him to be the Ace for good.

Alas, the main event scene at DDT right now is rife with mixed feelings while we prepare to work the five hundred other side-projects DDT has going, while preparing for a fall Peter Pan, with no clear picture of who will be the two men standing face-to-face at the last marquee event of the year. We'll see at Max Bump if Shige can win one for the Old Guard and take the belt off Takeshita long enough to build up other characters that can have formidable reigns, but until then, it's a rocky road. At least Smile Squash held it down for the crowd :/

[billyagogo]

A survivor. A funeral director. A marriage divided. How Americans' COVID experiences shape their votes

New Post has been published on https://newsprofixpro.com/moxie/2020/11/03/a-survivor-a-funeral-director-a-marriage-divided-how-americans-covid-experiences-shape-their-votes/

A survivor. A funeral director. A marriage divided. How Americans' COVID experiences shape their votes

In Wisconsin, a funeral home director who has watched the COVID-19 pandemic rip through her community can only blame President Trump.

In Texas, little can change one woman’s loyalty to the president — not even her own struggle for breath as she lay in a hospital bed.

In New Mexico, an underemployed firearms instructor plans to cast his vote as a rebuke to Democrats he says were overzealous in closing businesses.

In Arizona, a Joe Biden voter found political detente with his Republican wife as the lingering effects of infection continue to cause them pain.

In Michigan, a school bus driver won over by the president before the pandemic deepened her devotion and took up arms to protest shutdowns.

Even before the coronavirus sunk in its teeth, the United States was deeply polarized. Facts mattered less than feelings and political parties acted like tribes.

The virus — a shared, microscopic enemy that demanded a unified response — offered the nation a chance to come together. But from face masks to shutdowns, the pandemic quickly became the main thing Americans were fighting over.

As the death toll grew so did anxieties about who would win the presidency.

Election day arrives as the virus surges like never before, with an average of more than 80,000 new cases reported each day last week — well over previous spikes and up more than 44% from two weeks earlier.

Once concentrated in urban centers like New York and later in Sun Belt states, the virus is now ravaging the rural Midwest and Rocky Mountain states.

Field hospitals have been pitched in parking lots from Texas to Wisconsin. In the past week, hospitalizations reached new highs in 18 different states.

Treatment is improving and infections are increasingly concentrated in younger people with high odds of survival, but experts predict a significant rise in the U.S. death toll, which now tops 230,000.

The surge poses a dilemma for officials trying to balance health concerns with economic ones as the public grows wary of more forced shutdowns.

Polls suggest that most voters have made up their minds — and record numbers have already cast their ballots.

All of the issues that divided America before coronavirus have been eclipsed.

This is the pandemic election. And these are the stories of five voters.

The funeral home director The first call came in late March.

A 70-year-old had died shortly after being taken off a ventilator. Michelle Pitts sent a hearse to pick up his body from the hospital.

Michelle Pitts, owner of New Pitts Mortuary, stands outside her Milwaukee funeral home.

(Kurtis Lee / Los Angeles Times)

There would be no funeral, just a burial at the cemetery attended by three relatives. The family was too worried about contagion.

Pitts was left with the feeling that “this virus was going to be bad.”

The calls kept coming, at all hours. Pitts could only watch as the coronavirus spread through the neighborhood. As owner of the New Pitts Mortuary, she has been serving the predominantly Black northside of Milwaukee since the 1990s.

The disproportionate toll the virus was taking on Black people was obvious to her. The two dozen victims her funeral home has handled included bus drivers, nurses and grocery clerks — essential workers who didn’t have the luxury of sheltering in place.

“If you live in this community, you know someone who has either contracted the virus, or died,” she said. “It’s an American tragedy plain and simple.”

As the months wore on, Pitts couldn’t stop thinking about the ages of the deceased. Early 50s. Mid-40s. Late 30s.

She herself was 60.

Pitts remembered the expression of the parent standing over the oak casket of a beloved son, who days earlier was taken off a ventilator. She recalled the woman whose husband died before he could line up a life insurance policy to help take care of the couple’s two young children should something happen to him.

How are they doing now, she wondered?

To sustain herself, she often recited her favorite scripture, a section of Psalm 23: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”

In late October, she filled out her ballot.

There was never any doubt that she would vote for Biden. In her view Trump had only responded to the pandemic with callousness.

She deposited the ballot in a nearby drop box.

“I felt like a weight was kind of lifted off my shoulders,” she said. “As if it was my time to be heard.”

— Kurtis Lee

The survivor It had become her evening ritual: Order dinner from Doordash, mix a cocktail, draw a bath and pretend she was swimming in her complex’s off-limits pool.

“It just became very lonely,” said Jaime Vollmar, 35.

Meanwhile, her hours as an operating room technician at two plastic surgery clinics were severely cut.

It all seemed overblown to Vollmar. She knew friends who had contracted the coronavirus, but nobody who died from it.

Then, in early October, Vollmar and her boyfriend decided to take a risk and get together for dinner with another couple. The woman hosting began to feel ill that night, and within days called to tell Vollmar she and her husband had tested positive for the virus.

Vollmar also tested positive.

After two weeks of feeling “like death” at home, Vollmar was admitted to United Memorial Medical Center in Houston. During sleepless nights, she struggled to breathe as she watched a monitor showing her blood oxygen level drop.

She began to wonder: “Am I actually going to survive this?”

Her second priority was making it to the polls to vote in person.

She had supported Trump in 2016 and appreciated all he had done on immigration, the economy, even the pandemic.

“He did a great job. He’s human,” she said, adding that her bout with the virus “gives me more appreciation for him.”

Jamie Vollmar was admitted to United Memorial Medical Center in Houston after contracting COVID-19.

(Molly Hennessy-Fiske / Los Angeles Times)

Vollmar was released from the hospital Friday. At the polls, she plans to “be a dork” about safety and wear a mask, keep a distance of six feet and encourage others to take more precautions.

Looking back, Vollmar believes that she might have contracted the virus when she tasted the dinner host’s new vaping flavor — watermelon strawberry bubblegum.

“It was a heavenly flavor,” she said from her hospital bed. “But not worth all this.”

— Molly Hennessy-Fiske

The expectant father Marcos Sanchez was irked.

Driving by the local hardware store in the early days of the pandemic, he’d see lines of hundreds of people waiting to get in.

Yet Sanchez, a 35-year-old firearms instructor in Española, a small city tucked in the mountains of northern New Mexico, wasn’t allowed to work after an order from the state’s Democratic governor closed all businesses except those deemed essential.

Sanchez, who had been steadily growing his business for two years, had no income for three months straight.

“It’s frustrating because they’re raking in money and I’m struggling,” he said.

The way Sanchez sees it, the pandemic was an act of God. The shutdowns were an act of man.

Under current restrictions, he can work again, but must limit his shooting and self-defense classes to a quarter of normal capacity. With a second child on the way, he’s now contemplating whether his business can continue.

“I’m not blind or ignorant to the damage that the virus has done, but I see the damage it’s done economically and that leads to a whole lot of other problems,” he said.

Rio Arriba County, where Sanchez lives, went for Hillary Clinton in 2016 — 64% versus 24% for Trump. But Sanchez plans to vote for Trump, like he did four years ago.

His decision is largely based on his opposition to firearm restrictions and his religious beliefs, particularly his objection to abortion. But the pandemic has also played a role.

Trump is not a perfect candidate, he said. He thinks no candidate ever is. But most important for him are the kinds of policies a person will enact once they are in office, and Trump has opposed widespread economic shutdowns in the face of the virus.

“You have to ask what’s worse,” he said. “The virus or the constant anxiety we’ve been putting ourselves in?”

— Kate Linthicum

The activist Bill Whitmire had to leave for a doctor’s appointment, but his keys were nowhere to be found.

It’d been months since he felt clear-headed. Lapses in memory and reasoning — so uncharacteristic for a 56-year-old who prided himself on being organized — had become the norm.

He chalked it up to the coronavirus, which he believes he contracted back in January, before testing was available in the United States.

His wife, Ann, came down with the virus in June. She still faces bouts of nausea, body aches and feeling like she has no energy.

The pandemic brought the couple closer together — and not just in their shared suffering.

She is Republican and he is a Democrat, which seemed like less of an issue when they got married back in the 1980s than it did in 2016, when she voted for Trump and he went for Clinton.

“Sometimes we have to agree to disagree,” he said.

Whitmire kept an open mind about Trump in the beginning but grew increasingly disenchanted with him — especially after the pandemic struck.

As a former high school biology teacher, Whitmire was appalled by White House news conferences, in which Trump repeatedly contradicted his own health experts.

“He acts like he’s cured the virus: ‘We’ve rounded the corner, it’ll be over soon, live your life,’” Whitmire said. “Yeah, right.”

For the most part, Whitmire and his wife avoided conversations about Trump and kept focus on their common values of compassion and helping the less fortunate. But it was clear that Ann was losing faith in the president too.

Whenever her husband would turn on a presidential news conference, she would leave the room in disgust.

Anger and grief turned Whitmire into an activist. He joined Marked by COVID, a support group for people who have lost relatives or suffered other effects of the virus. On Friday at the Arizona state Capitol in Phoenix, he lit candles honoring victims and listened as a woman who survived — but lost her sister — sang a haunting rendition of “Amazing Grace.”

“I will never forget it,” he said.

Ann, still ailing, did not attend.

When they they both filled out their ballots in mid-October, he enthusiastically marked his for Biden.

She made him promise not to tell anyone who got her vote, only that it was not Trump.

— Richard Read

The militia member Michelle Gregoire stood guard outside Karl Manke’s Barber & Beauty Shop with a 9mm semiautomatic pistol and a flag emblazoned “Don’t tread on me.”

Manke had no intention of following state orders to close this past May as coronavirus infections were climbing. Gregoire and dozens of other members of a militia known as the Michigan Home Guard were there to keep out the authorities.

She had long been disillusioned with both major parties. But Trump’s outsider status and unusual political style had appeal.

She reluctantly voted from him in 2016, the same year she made a failed bid for a seat in the Michigan state house as a libertarian.

“I was scared when he took office,” said Gregoire, now 29.

That changed when she got a $16-per-hour job as a school bus driver, plus a bigger tax refund. She and her husband were saving to ditch their rental in Battle Creek to buy a house big enough for them and their three children.

Gregoire was growing more political. She decided to run for a state house seat again — this time as a Republican.

Last November, she joined the militia, which claims to have at least 1,000 members and says on its website that it is preparing “for tyranny, social discord, natural disasters or anything else that may arise.”

The pandemic only fortified her faith in Trump, whose downplaying of the virus reflected her own experience.

“I don’t social distance, I don’t wear a mask,” she explained. “If anybody has COVID, I should have COVID… Nobody around me has tested positive.”

Gregoire lost badly in the August primary for the house seat. She is still jobless, saying that she has not been allowed to return to driving school buses because she is facing charges of trespassing and resisting arrest stemming from her militia’s occupation of the state Capitol in Lansing for a week in May.

But she paid off mounting credit card bills using the $2,400 her family received in checks as part of the federal stimulus package, each accompanied by a letter signed by Trump.

She was planning to vote in-person because it feels more “patriotic.”

— Jaweed Kaleem

Read More

[cutsliceddiced]

New top story from Time: Chileans Are About to Vote on Rewriting Their Whole Constitution. Will It Turn a ‘Social Explosion’ Into a New Plan for the Country?

Natalia Aravena rushed down a small side street to escape, she recalls. Chile’s police force, the carabineros, were dispersing a protest near Santiago’s presidential palace on Oct. 28 2019, one of hundreds that broke out over inequality and the cost of living in the South American country late last year. As Aravena, a 25 year-old nurse, turned to check she wasn’t being followed, a tear gas canister hit her in the face. Hours later, she lost her right eye.

Chile’s protests have brought the country to a historic crossroads: an Oct. 25 referendum on rewriting the country’s constitution. “I was thinking the other day that in Spanish, when something is really expensive, we say ‘it costs an eye from your face’,” Aravena tells TIME. “It literally cost me that for us to get here.”

The referendum was the main concession politicians made last November as they tried to pacify protesters with an “agreement for peace.” The left argue that the 1980 constitution, written under rightwing dictator Augusto Pinochet, is implicitly designed to protect Chile’s model: minimizing the role of the state, limiting voters’ political choices and making it harder for Chilean governments to expand social welfare or interfere with businesses. It became a major target of protests, which began with teenagers jumping subway turnstiles to protest a small subway fare hike but quickly morphed into a so-called “social explosion”—an all-out rejection of the neoliberal economic model that has made Chile one of the region’s richest countries, but also created spiralling inequality. Aravena was one of more than 400 people who suffered eye injuries as the carabineros violently repressed the protests.

Read More: I Was Shot and Lost My Sight for Protesting Inequality in Chile. We Need to Keep Demanding Justice

Rewriting the constituion won’t solve all of the country’s problems, Aravena says, but it’s the best chance of turning the energy of the protests into lasting change. Roughly 80% of Chileans plan to vote “Approve”—in favour of a rewrite—according to polls. Even a few prominent figures from the right, such as likely presidential candidate Joaquín Lavín—a former Pinochet ally—have backed “Approve,” rather than “Reject.” But political analysts say that’s where the consensus ends. Some see the referendum as a symbolic opportunity to move on from the dictatorship or tinker with the existing model. Others want a total transformation.

“Chilean neoliberalism isn’t just an economic policy. It’s become a way of conceiving life itself: social relations, cities, democracy, society, and the economy,” says young politician Jorge Sharp. He won a shock victory in 2016 to become mayor of Valparaiso, a coastal city two hours from Santiago, on a leftist platform. The 35-year-old is now one of the most prominent progressive voices in Chile. “Rewriting the constitution is our chance to lay the foundations of a new society, a new state and a new country.”

Tomas Munita—The New York Times/ReduxProtesters take to the streets in Santiago, Chile, on Oct. 25, 2019.

After Pinochet took over Chile in 1973, ousting socialist president Salvador Allende in a military coup, the dictator began to overhaul Chile’s economy. Following a set of principles devised by a group of U.S.-educated economists —contained in a policy book known as “The Brick”—Pinochet’s administration sharply reduced the role of the state, slashing budgets for public housing, education and social security, and selling off state-owned companies. The dictatorship ended in 1990, after 56% of Chileans voted to transition to democracy in a referendum.

But the constitution the regime left behind limited the ability of future governments to deviate from the course set by Pinochet. Jaime Guzmán, the architect of the constitution, made that goal explicit in a 1979 interview in which he summarized the government’s political strategy: “It’s preferable to create a reality that restrains whoever is governing to its demands. That’s to say if our adversaries get into power, they’ll be forced to take actions that are not so different to the ones we’d want.”

Claudia Heiss, head of political science at the University of Chile’s Institute of Public Affairs says that though “the constitution did not lay out an economic program, or explicitly say that the idea that the state should [take a small role],” it was written with that worldview in mind and was designed to protect it. “The constitution created a political system that was incapable of producing change.”

Read More: Chile’s Protest Reflect Our Unequal Times

The constitution established 18 areas of legislation—including those that cover the electoral system, the carabineros, the central bank, some parts of the education system and mining concessions—which can only be changed with a 57% majority vote of senators and lower house representatives. These “organic laws” are subject to checks from the constitutional court, which can block legislative changes if they rule them incompatible with the constitution itself. The electoral organic law created an unusual system in which each district elected two representatives, regardless of the district’s size. That meant there was almost always a tie between the two political blocs in congress, and smaller parties could rarely break through at elections. This “binomial” system was finally scrapped in 2015, after years of political pressure, and replaced with a system of proportional representation. The first elections under the new system took place in 2017, and parties outside of the main electoral coalitions won far more seats in congress than in the past.

Office of Jorge SharpJorge Sharp, Mayor of Valparaíso, Chile.

But Chile’s rigid political system, Heiss says, had already led to the deterioration of the party system, with the main center-left and center-right parties becoming “very distanced from the citizens.” It also contributed to a massive drop in political participation in Chile. ”People vote because they want to change the health system or the pensions system. If you can’t change those things because of the political system, why would you vote?” A 2017 U.N. Development Program report found that Chile’s voter turnout in parliamentary elections had fallen more than any other country’s over the last three decades. Turnout fell from 87% in 1989 to 51% in 2013, and a record low of 46% in 2017.

Over that period, the market-driven model implemented under Pinochet boomed. Chile’s per capita GDP in 2019 was the second highest in South America, almost 50% higher than neighboring Argentina’s and more than twice as the size of Colombia’s. Chile’s economic growth, powered by a glut of foreign investment in its business-friendly model and strong prices for its exports, has also allowed it to cut poverty rates. The proportion of Chileans living on $5.50 a day fell from 30% in 2000 to 6.4% in 2017.

But as Chile’s wealth has grown, so has the cost of living, and the gap between who can and cannot afford it. Chile is one of the most unequal in the OECD group of developed countries. According to the National Statistics Institute, half of Chileans earn less than $500 a month and for 60% of households, wages aren’t enough to cover monthly costs, according to BBC Mundo. The pension, health and education systems are all partially or fully privatized. In education, for example, 6 in 10 students pay extra for their secondary schooling. Chile performs better in international testing metrics than the rest of the region, but a 2016 OECD report on educational inequality found that socioeconomic status had a greater impact on students’ attainment in science in Chile than in any other of the developed countries studied.

Not everyone agrees that the constitution is to blame for Chile’s ills, though. Kenneth Bunker, a political analyst and editor of polling site tresquintos.cl, says that while there may be good reasons to change the constitution, including its roots in the dictatorship, ”it’s not the mother of all evils that some on the left say it is.” He argues that the constitution’s political system forced Chile to reform slowly, with consensus, creating a stability that few Latin American countries enjoy. “That stability was until just recently considered something positive, as you can read in all these economic indicators.”

Around half of Chile’s rightwing politicians have backed “Approve” in the referendum, Bunker says. But he notes that this is likely a political calculation “to avoid being on the wrong side of history.” According to the electoral service, 89% of total campaign donations have gone to “Reject,” suggesting there are strong forces pushing to retain the 1980 constitution.

Economists in the Western world have watched Chile’s recent challenges to its model—and its constitution—with alarm. In July, congress voted to allow citizens to withdraw funds from their private pension system to help families deal with the economic crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pension system, one of Pinochet’s major reforms and the first in the world to be privatized, is seen as a major driver of Chile’s economic growth over the last four decades, and, despite anger over its failures to protect low-income and informal workers, has been shielded from reforms by Chile’s rigid political system. The Financial Times reported that congress’s move could “send a disturbing signal to investors who worry that populism may be taking root” ahead of the referendum.

Some politicians on the “Reject” side in the referendum argue a rewrite will lead the country down the path of its neighbors in Argentina, where populist economic policy has played a major role in a string of economic crises. Opponents of the rewrite also raise the specter of Venezuela, where a socialist government has overseen an unprecedented economic collapse–though analysts say corruption, an overreliance on oil revenues and economic mismanagement are to blame for the crisis there.

“This is essentially the problem Chile is discussing,” Bunker says. “Do you move forward gradually, as Chile has been moving for the last 30 years—and has found relative success I would argue? Or do you jump into something that’s unknown, which could also be good, but the risk is much higher?”

Tomas Munita—The New York Times/ReduxPeople look through the remains of a looted supermarket in Santiago, Chile, on Oct. 23, 2019.

This month Javiera Lopez has spent hours in the streets of Lo Espejo, the suburb of Santiago where her family has lived for 60 years, helping to coordinate the “Approve” side of the referendum campaign. “This is the ‘other Chile’, as they call it” she says, speaking over the phone on a break from campaigning. One in five of Lo Espejo’s residents live in poverty and the area suffers high rates of child malnutrition and housing overcrowding.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread through the country in March, forcing strict lockdowns, those inequalities became even more apparent. Santiago’s poorer districts suffered disproportionately high rates of COVID-19, and stronger economic shocks. In some neighborhoods, protests broke out over hunger. But the lessons of the “social explosion” that grew out of last year’s protests led to unprecedented cooperation between neighbors, Lopez says. She and a group of 25 mostly young people found each other through social media to form Lo Espejo Solidario. They solicited donations of food and money and used them to supply families and soup kitchens, often communicating through networks they’d first set up during the protests. “I’ve never felt like I was part of a community before,” Lopez say. “But now we’re remaking a social fabric that was destroyed both by the dictatorship and 30 years of neoliberalism.”

The most important function of the constitution rewrite process, Lopez says, will be to make ordinary Chileans feel they can change something by participating in politics. Lo Espejo has one of the lowest rates of electoral participation in Chile, with only around two in 10 residents voting. “Before [the explosion], people here thought they had to delegate changes in our country to the experts, to the technocracy,” Lopez says. “And those are the people who raised the price of the metro tickets last year, because they don’t know how we live, how much a pack of rice costs or a packet of noodles.”

Over the past year, hundreds of town hall sessions known as “cabildos” sprang up across Chile. Organized by social movements, universities, local communities and others, they tackled everything from the cost of living to Indigenous rights to Chile’s democratic systems, and offered a chance for citizens to discuss solutions.

Tomas Munita—The New York Times/ReduxA gathering in Peñalolén, a neighborhood of Santiago, focuses on issues like education, economy and the Constitution, in Chile, on Oct. 27, 2019.

For Sharp, the Valparaiso mayor, this year has been a vindication of the political movement he belongs to. The “new left” grew out of a series of student protests during the mid-2000s and early 2010s challenging inequality in education access, and expanded to tackle the breadth of Chile’s model. Sharp says he ran for office in 2016 to change Chile’s “ossified politics” and during his term he’s championed “bottom-up” decision-making. “When the protests started, it was like a volcano under many politicians’ feet. It’s a calling out of that politics, which for years only represented itself. It’s a demand for participation and for the people to be at the center.”

Read More: Why Chile’s SATs Have Become the New Frontline of Inequality Protests

The first question on the ballot asks voters if Chile should rewrite the constitution. The second question asks them to choose what kind of body should do it: a “pure” constitutional assembly, made up of 155 specifically-elected citizen representatives, to be selected by another national vote in April, or a “mixed” assembly with a 50/50 split between newly elected candidates and existing members of congress. According to Bunker, the political analyst, the “pure” assembly would likely try to create a constitution more radically different to the 1980 constitution, while a “mixed” one might uphold more of its principles. “Pure” is leading on 65%.

Sharp says the structure of the process may prevent any new constitution from having a transformative effect on Chile. In order to adopt articles, according to the rules, the assembly will need a quorum of two thirds. Depending on who is elected in April, he says, Chile’s new constitution may not do much to challenge its model. “The elite, which is really scared of change, is going to participate in the constitutional assembly to defend what already exists,” he says. “For social peace to exist, the elite has to give up its privileges. That’s always a very, very, very difficult process. The constitutional process is an opportunity for that. So that democratically, all together, we can build a different country. But it’s not easy.”

Javier Torres—AFP/Getty ImagesDemonstrators during a protest against the government’s economic policies in Santiago on Nov. 6, 2019.

The difficulties of the constitutional process are already playing out in the conversation around Indigenous inclusion. Relations between the state and Chile’s Indigenous peoples—the largest of which are the Mapuche, with some 2 million people—are tense. In recent months and years, hunger strikes and violent conflicts, including arson attacks on truck drivers, have taken place as some Mapuche groups opposed businesses they accuse of exploiting their ancestral land. Salvador Millaleo, a Mapuche lawyer and adviser to Chile’s human rights institute, says the constitution is a major opportunity to improve the situation. “There’s not a single line in the constitution that recognizes Indigenous people’s existence and that’s a big obstacle to getting political rights,” he says. “Conflicts arise because there’s no possibility for Indigenous communities to oppose activities like mining on their land through a strong framework of rights.”

But, while Indigenous groups have for months been calling for the reservation of seats in the constitutional assembly for Indigenous representatives, reflecting their demographic weight, no decision has been made, a week from the referendum. “If there are no mechanisms to ensure indigenous representation, we’ll be losing a very unique opportunity to make sure they are included in the future of this country,” Millaleo says.

For Aravena, the nurse, the optimism of the constitutional process is marred by the government’s failure to address the police violence that occurred during the protests. The carabineros have received over 8,500 allegations of human rights violations over the last year. In early October 2020, video showed carabineros throwing a 16 year-old protester from a bridge into a river as they dispersed a protest in Santiago. And in July, Chile’s public prosecutors office said 466 officers were under investigation of abuses committed since the protests began. But when the carabineros announced sanctions for officers involved in the violence in July 2020, only 16 officers were removed from their jobs, according to Amnesty International. President Sebastian Piñera has repeatedly asserted his support for the carabineros.

As with other issues, a new constitution, and its law governing the security forces, offers a chance for change. “But we have to be vigilant,” Aravena says. “That’s why you still see people in the streets in Chile, even after the referendum was announced, even after the pandemic began and we had a lot of deaths. Many people understand that nothing has been won yet.”

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

[megacircuit9universe]

Relative Charisma & the Incel

WED SEP 30 2020

So the first of three debates between Trump and Biden happened yesterday, and it was... as CNN’s Jake Tapper so aptly put it, “A hot mess, inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck.”

I didn’t see it, because I was at work, but I’ve heard enough sound bytes, and seen enough post debate coverage to know that... history will remember this one and play back those clips for centuries to come... of Trump, behaving like an angry, wounded animal.

For some context, despite my last entry, in which the indy left media (TYT mostly) was crying that Biden was losing the election, based on two stand alone polls that had Trump up a tick in two states... Biden’s lead in those and all other states is actually holding, or slightly growing.

I should disclose that my information is coming from an independent YouTube polls analyst whom I’ve come to trust over the past few years.  There are many such channels on YouTube, but this guy eventually won me over, because he’s thorough, transparent, always has receipts, and pretty good at calling trends, while keeping expectations grounded in reality.

In my experience, news outlets... be they mainstream media, or indy news sources, only present polling data that they can sensationalize.  

Right wing media just deny reality and convince their viewers all news of Trump being behind is fake.  But Mainstream media always wants you to think it’s a dead heat... because that gets ratings.  Meanwhile, the indy left news wants you to think Biden is losing, to fuel more activism and more participation.

And none of this is the subject of the entry at hand, but... it’s important to get this out of the way as we move into October, when the polling data is really going to be indicative of what happens on Election Day. 

I vetted a lot of different YouTube analyst channels and settled on the one I have, because... I trust this guy.

So... when I sit here an say that Biden has a significant lead in all critical states, has several paths to 270, is ahead in national polls, etc... I’m getting that from a trusted source.  It’s not just me being blindly optomistic based on some things I happened to pick up here and there.

Okay...

Back to context for Trump behaving like a wounded animal in yesterday’s debate...

On the one hand, yes, Biden is still way ahead, and looking like he’ll be the clear winner... which I’m sure Trump doesn’t like.  But on the other hand, Trump was also deeply humiliated this past Sunday when The New York Times published a bunch of his tax returns... going up to 2017 and 2018, when he was, of course, President.

And the story reveals that he’s drowning in debt, and has been for quite a long time... with most of it being owed to mysterious unknown parties... which is a security concern.  It also exposed how little taxes he’s paid... which may or may not be tax evasion, technically, but is not a great look for a populist President.

Quick sidebar here... Presidential tax returns are never normally news, because all Presidential candidates since Nixon have willingly published theirs upon declaring their candidacy... until Trump.  

So it’s not like he’s being singled out by the New York Times for exposure of his private business. 

On the other hand, the tax returns weren’t exactly a bomb shell.  More like a fizzling sparkler.  No personal check from Putin, with, destroy democracy, written on the memo line.

Yeah, he pays almost no taxes, but... we already knew that’s par for the course for all billionaires.  It’s kinda the reason the progressive left exists.

But in terms of context for Trump being a wounded animal... it’s the drowning in debt thing he never wanted to go public.  For Trump... it’s an unspeakable humiliation, like getting pantsed in public, only to reveal that you like to wear Wonder Woman Underoos or something.

It’s a massive blow to the image he’s created for himself, and defended so dearly... of being a legitimate billionaire, who used his shrewd instincts, and financial brilliance to amass deep pockets of untouchable wealth... self proliferating, tax free, multi-generational wealth.

Instead, he’s just an idiot, billions of dollars in debt, forcing the US government to pay millions to his Mara Lago resort, for hundreds of golf outings (around 200 to date) and he’s still in the red... at Mara Lago!  Forget his other debts and failing ventures!

A quote from Iron Man 2 is very apt, here...  

Ivan Vanko : [laughs] If you could make God bleed, people would cease to believe in Him. There will be blood in the water, the sharks will come. All I have to do is sit back and watch as the world consumes you.

That was Ivan’s rationale for attacking Tony Stark at the racetrack.  It’s also been interpreted as a foreshadowing of the scene in Infinity War, several years later, where Tony Manages to punch Thanos hard enough to scratch his cheek and get a single drop of blood out of the mad titan.

Here in 2020 reality, the New York Times did get that single drop of blood... on Sunday.

And going into his first debate with Biden... who has been stubbornly leading in the polls all summer long... Trump was so furious, he could not keep his composure.

And this, at long last, brings us to the matter of relative charisma.

I’ve talked about it several times in the past, saying that, if you want one simple rule of thumb for predicting the next president... it’s that, whoever has the most relative charisma will win the election.

Relative, in this model, meaning... relative to the opponent. 

A great example of this would be George HW Bush (Bush1) who had way more charisma, relative to stodgy, stuffy, Michael Dukakis, in 1988.  But four years later, the same George HW Bush, looked himself, quite lacking in charisma compared to his new opponent, Bill Clinton.

It’s happened in every election of modern times.  Carter had more relative Charisma than Ford, but far far less relative charisma than Reagan... and on and on back to FDR.

It was also, obviously true that in the match up between Trump and Hillary Clinton... Trump had all the relative charisma. PT Barnum levels of charisma!.. as the happy, quippy, rude, outsider... to her... boring gramma persona saying, “Pokemon Go to the polls!”

And early this year, during the primaries, when Bernie Sanders was still in the running, I said several times that Trump would, “mop the floor,” with Biden in a debate.

But... that was before Covid19... and 200,000 dead.  Before record unemployment and record evictions.  Before the Black Lives Matter movement caught fire in the streets, facing off with fascist police with tear gas and batons all summer.  Before Biden sailed through all the insanity, staying ahead of Trump in the polls, to get the nomination.

And it was before Trump, in recent months, sent thugs to kidnap protesters in Portland, threatening all other democratic cities with the same, began knee-capping the post office, was exposed for calling our soldiers suckers and losers, refused to accept the election results if he wasn’t the winner, refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power unless we, get rid of the ballots, and... was exosed as swimming in debt.

So in Tuesday night’s debate... while he did try his level best to mop the floor with Biden... Trump came off as... well, an incel*.

We all, sadly know how incel’s debate, having suffered them like a bed bug infestation in every comment section on the internet for the past ten years, and in last night’s debate... Trump was, incel personified!

Moderator Chris Wallace, of Fox News, even gave Trump the chance to back away from the event horizon of the black hole that is at the heart of incel culture, by asking him to simply denounce white supremacy.

And not only could Trump not denounce white supremacy... after dancing around the quesion, he wound up saying that a group of white supremecist incels known as the Proud Boys, should, “stand back, but stand by!”

In other words... he’s not only banking everything on the incel vote... he’s calling on the incels to join Beta Force, and be ready... to intimidate voters in person on election night... and to create mayhem when he loses.  

Please stand by, incels... but you understand, this is not a paid gig, right?  I’m kinda tight on money right now, so you’ll need to be fighting for me out of the prematurely ejaculating spite in your sexually inadequate hearts!

The point here, is that the question of relative charisma between Joe Biden and Donald Trump has finally been answered.

Incel vibe, is not charisma.  It’s the opposite of charisma.  It’s a combination of wounded spite, bitter frothing at the mouth, and indefensible stupidity... all the things that make normal people want to puke.

So, while Biden may not have much in the charisma department... he does have a few charming attributes above the base line for a decent human being capable of empathy and logic.  

And in a match up with the Trump of October 2020... that means, Biden has all the relative charisma... and he now has it on lock down.

We can talk soon about Trump’s incel chances of stealing the election by incel force, and the true threat that his army of incels present to our democracy, but for tonight... Trump is an incel... and incels have zero charisma.

I’m going to bed.

*Incel is a portmanteau for, Involuntarily Celibate.

It refers to straight, cis boys or men, most often white, from 15 to 35 who, despite deeply craving to engage in sexual activity with counterparts of the opposite sex, fail to attain it.  Such males believe they are entitled to sex with the partner of their choice, and are thus baffled and aggrivated by their inability to obtain it consentually.

Incels are characterized by their extremely toxic interactions, which go beyond the mysogyny one might expect, to encompass all of society.  For, in their mindset, it is not simply women who are to blame for their lack of sex, it is the entire framework of society... and that framework is also to blame for every other wish they perceive as being unfairly denied to them.

Incels resort to harassment, often thinly veiled as debate or argument, in order to torment those (most) who will not recognize their entitlement, and dream of reforming the societal order, such that their bullying rules the day... often waxing nostalgic for imagined times in the past when men such as themselves ruled without question.

They are thus, quite attracted to all forms of fascism, including, but not limited to white supremacy.

In the modern day, incels are widely regarded as a scourge, and considered by nobody outside their circle to have anything resembling charisma.

[brajeshupadhyay]

Obama implores Americans to feel “a sense of urgency” about defeating Trump

But for the past year and a half there has often been a critical piece missing: Obama.

That began to change in April, when Obama endorsed Biden. On Tuesday it went a step further, as Obama and Biden made their first joint appearance in years, the former partners allied as they attempt to defeat President Trump.

Obama was the main draw at a virtual fundraiser for Biden, raising more than $7.6 million from 175,000 individual donors, according to Biden’s campaign.

“You’re all feeling a sense of urgency, the same kind of urgency I’m feeling right now,” Obama said near the start of the fundraiser. “I’m here to say: Help is on the way.”

Obama launched into an in-depth criticism of Trump, without mentioning him by name, and said that while his own administration inherited problems, “the foundation stones, the institutions we had in place were still more or less intact.”

“My predecessor, who I disagreed with on a whole host of issues, still had a basic regard for the rule of law and the importance of our institutions and democracy,” he said.

“What we have seen over the last couple of years is a White House enabled by Republicans in Congress and a media structure that supports them . . . that suggests facts don’t matter, science doesn’t matter,” Obama said. “That suggests that a deadly disease is fake news. That sees the Justice Department as simply an extension and an arm of the personal concerns of the president. That actively promotes division. And considers some people in this country more real as Americans than others.”

He urged those watching to do more and to take the election seriously.

“Man, this is serious business. Whatever you’ve done so far is not enough . . . We have to do more,” Obama said. He warned Biden supporters of Trump’s strength, and not to underestimate his ability to harness his supporters.

“We can’t be complacent or smug, or say it’s so obvious this president hasn’t done a good job,” Obama said. “Look. He won once.”

Obama also turned toward Biden, touting his work with “our presidency” and saying that the tragedies in the former vice president’s life allow him to better understand the lives of average Americans.

“This is somebody who has been touched by tragedy in a direct, profound way, and as a consequence has enlarged his heart to embrace other people who are undergoing tragedy,” he said.

The event marked a new phase for Obama, who is expected to increase his campaigning not only for Biden but also a full slate of Democrats aiming to preserve the House majority and win back the Senate.

Obama is seen as vital to energizing elements of his coalition with whom Biden has struggled, including young black voters as well as liberal voters who have distrusted the former vice president, who built his career as a moderate who could work with Republicans. He appeared to target one of their disconnects with Biden when he directly addressed his age.

“I’ll be honest, and hope Joe doesn’t take offense,” he said. “Joe’s been around a while. Sometimes what happens is we take that for granted.

“There’s a tendency to always look for the new and shiny object. But for my money one of the things that counts the most is to have somebody, whatever mistakes they’ve made or hardships they’ve gone through, have they shown the kind of character that stands up,” he said. “And my experience with Joe Biden is that’s who he is.”

It was largely based on their eight-year partnership that Biden was able to make deeper inroads with the older black voters who helped turn around Biden’s campaign and make him the presumptive Democratic nominee. While Biden has talked broadly about the eight years he was vice president, Obama is expected to offer more fulsome testimonials.

“As well known as Biden is, he’s not that well known,” said David Axelrod, a longtime Obama adviser. “People know he was the vice president, they know he lost his son. But there’s a lot about him they don’t know. And a lot about what he did as vice president they don’t know. There isn’t a better testimonial than Obama’s.”

Throughout the Democratic primary, Obama was careful to remain neutral — although Biden at times tested the limits, at one point running an ad showing Obama bestowing the Medal of Freedom on Biden. The former president met with many of the two dozen candidates running, and was a frequent behind-the-scenes confidant of several, including his former vice president.

After Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) suspended his campaign in April, Obama released a lengthy video endorsing Biden. In the video, he reflected on the shifts within the party he once led and called for more assertive action.

“To meet the moment, the Democratic Party will have to be bold,” Obama said. “I could not be prouder of the incredible progress that we made together during my presidency. But if I were running today, I wouldn’t run the same race or have the same platform as I did in 2008. The world is different. There’s too much unfinished business for us to just look backwards. We have to look to the future.”

Obama has also been at the forefront for Trump, who has had a years-long obsession with his predecessor, first stoking racist theories about Obama’s citizenship and demanding his birth certificate. As president, Trump has attempted to dismantle as much of Obama’s agenda as possible. For weeks he has touted an ill-defined conspiracy theory he called “Obamagate,” and this week he accused the former president of “treason.”

“It’s treason,” Trump told CBN News, claiming without evidence that Obama was spying on his campaign. “Look, when I came out a long time ago, I said they’ve been spying on our campaign. . . . It turns out I was right. Let’s see what happens to them now.”

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said last year he found no evidence that the FBI under Obama had wiretapped the phones at Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign.

Trump can use opposition to Obama to mobilize his supporters — on Tuesday his campaign sent out a fundraising email with sirens and the subject line “BARACK OBAMA” — but Obama is generally viewed favorably by most Americans. A recent Fox News poll had Obama with a net favorability of 28 points, compared with minus-12 points for Trump.

Obama has recently shed some of his reluctance to engage in national politics, sharply criticizing Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic last month by calling it “an absolute chaotic disaster” during a call with a network of former staffers and supporters. On the call, he also criticized the Justice Department’s decision to drop charges against Michael Flynn, who served as Trump’s first national security adviser, saying that it was “the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that . . . our basic understanding of the rule of law is at risk.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the move was “a little bit classless” and suggested Obama should have “kept his mouth shut.”

Obama later delivered a virtual commencement address as part of a prime-time special that some pointed to as a potential test run for a Democratic National Convention, in part because it had the slick and innovative production that Biden’s campaign has often lacked.

Obama seemed to allude to Trump then by telling graduates that “this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing.”

Obama is expected to ramp up his campaign activities over the coming months, with those close to him pointing to his 2018 involvement as a template: He spent the summer raising money before doing two rounds of endorsements and stumping in 11 states as Election Day neared.

Those close to him are closely monitoring the novel coronavirus and still trying to determine what types of in-person events may be able to be safely conducted.

As Biden undertakes his own search for a running mate, he has spoken with Obama about how the process led him to be picked nearly 12 years ago. Biden often talks about wanting someone who is “simpatico” with him but seems to forget that he and Obama had a rocky start to their partnership before their mutual respect formed.

“I’ve always said that vice-presidential picks are shotgun weddings, and they often don’t turn out well,” Axelrod said. “But this one turned out to be a love story. They became not only good partners but really good friends.”

He added: “Biden was, in my view, almost the ideal vice president. He was impeccably loyal in public and very honest in private with his advice and his counsel. And he took on a lot of tough assignments for Obama.”

Last week, Obama tagged Biden in a tweet as he responded to the Supreme Court ruling that Trump could not halt the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows some immigrants brought to the United States as children to remain in the country legally.

The tweet was liked 195,000 times, and it served as a recognition by both men’s teams that the former president, who has 120 million Twitter followers, can help his former vice president, who has fewer than 6.4 million followers.

“The more creative ways we can drive people to Biden — that’s something we’re interested in doing,” said a person close to Obama, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter frankly.

Still, Obama’s appeal has not always transferred to other candidates. Under him, Democrats lost control of the House in 2010 and of the Senate in 2014. He also campaigned frequently for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

While Biden has often spoken fondly of Obama, he has generally avoided taking ownership of the more controversial aspects of Obama’s decisions. During the primary campaign, he sidestepped some of the criticism over the former president’s deportation policies.

Obama and Biden have not shared a stage together in quite some time, and the last time they met together in public may have been in July 2018 when they dropped in for lunch at the Dog Tag Bakery in Georgetown.

They both attended graduation last June at Sidwell Friends School, where Obama’s daughter Sasha and Biden’s granddaughter Maisy were among the graduates. They sat separately during the ceremony, but their families later gathered together privately. They also both attended the funeral of Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) in October.

The post Obama implores Americans to feel “a sense of urgency” about defeating Trump appeared first on Sansaar Times.

via Blogger https://ift.tt/2Yr2e0M

[kerahlekung]

Anniversary terkubur UMNO di Putrajaya...

Anniversary terkubur UMNO di Putrajaya....

Semalam, 09 Mei 2020 rakyat merayakan hari ulangtahun kedua "kematian" Umno sebagai parti tunjang pemerintah di Putrajaya. Sehingga kini Umno masih tidak bangkit kecuali rohnya yang tergantung di awangan meresap masuk merasuk ke dalam kerajaan pintu belakang pengkhianat. Rekod dan sejarah diukir sepanjang zaman bahawa satu-satunya parti yang berjaya mencabut nyawa Umno dan Bn di Putrajaya adalah gabungan PH. Sejarah turut mengukir nama Umno sebagai sebuah parti yang menjadi sebahagian dari kerajaan di Pusat tanpa mandat rakyat. Di situ bermulalah sejarah Umno yang dilihat hilang maruah dan jati dirinya. Umno yang dulu dilaungkan sebagai parti keramat kini hanya dikenali sebagai parti khianat.

Selama ini mereka menuduh Dap komunis atau kapir harbi, paling tidak Dap lebih bermaruah kerana tidak pernah mencuri mandat rakyat. Kerajaan Dap di P.Pinang tidak pernah menjadi kerajaan tanpa mandat rakyat. Dap kuburkan Gerakan dan Bn di P.Pinang bermula tahun 2008 adalah hasil dari mandat rakyat. Maruah Dap lebih terserlah berbanding Umno dan Pas di dalam aspek menjunjung demokrasi. PM sekarang adalah Wakil Rakyat yang menang pada PRU14 dengan menggunakan logo Keadilan. Saya tidak tahu bagaimana beliau boleh hidup tanpa maruah? Jika dahulu beliau sanggup dipecat dari Umno kononnya atas dasar prinsip dan maruah, tetapi kini maruahnya telah berjaya direntap oleh Umno apabila beliau sanggup bersekongkol dengan parti keris telanjang tidak bersarung itu demi kepentingan serta nafsunya sendiri. - Wfauzdin Ns

Masalah besar Muhyiddin hari ini bagaimana menghadapi desakan2 sekutunya dalam PN khususnya UMNO? Semua tahu gomen Muhyiddin ni survive kerana UMNO/PAS dan geng si kitol yang memberi nafas tanpa mereka ini dah lama Muhyiddin terhuban ke Sungai Gombak. Sekarang kita boleh nampak permainan geng kleptokrat ini satu demi satu depa demand hinggakan hampir 90% CEO GLC dah diambil alih oleh puaka2 politik UMNO/PAS etc... Lepas ini apa pula demand depa? Yes...depa mahu ketua2 dan kaki2 penyamun yang terpalit dengan kes mahkamah dibebaskan. - t/s

Kiranya Muhyidin bebaskan Najib dan Zahid, rakyat akan marah. PH akan untung besar dari sudut politik. Membebaskan kleptokrat yang dituduh menyamun duit rakyat dengan bukti yang menggunung adalah lebih jahat dari kleptokrat itu sendiri. Kalau itu berlaku, isu 1MDB akan mendominasikan kempen dalam PRU15. Kiranya Muhyidin biarkan Najib dan Zahid masuk penjara, beliau mungkin tidak punya kerusi untuk bertanding dalam PRU15 akan datang. Umno akan membenci dan menghukum beliau lebih teruk dari mereka membenci Tun M dan DSAI. Kiranya Najib dan Zahid masih belum dihukum menjelang PRU15, slogan kempen PH ialah: Undi BN Najib bebas, undi PH rakyat bebas. Tak perlu lagi fikir pasal Bersatu dan Kartel. PRU15 akan menjadi kubur politik mereka. Ingat Al Sisi rampas kuasa dengan bawa tubuh Morsi masuk penjara. Muhyidin rampas kuasa dengan bawa parti Bersatu bergabung dengan BN/UMNO/PAS. - Jamzuri Ardani

The road to reform...

May 9 is the 2nd anniversary of that magical day when the rakyat brought down the proud and mighty BN at the ballot box. Sure, the "Empire Strikes Back", if you’ll permit me a Star Wars analogy, but let’s never forget that we, the people, did manage to do the impossible. In the run up to the elections, the mood had been electric. Huge crowds had come for Pakatan Harapan ceramahs all over the country, even those held near Umno’s so-called “Felda fortresses”. Ceramah audiences were asked to display their handphone lights, and “seas” of lights glimmered, promising a wave of change. I managed to join one of these huge rallies in the Keramat area of Kuala Lumpur. The padang (field) at the venue was soggy and muddy, yet heaps of humanity -- of all races -- were huddled there, under an intermittent drizzle, heaving for hope, for “harapan”, of a better country. Hawkers were doing brisk business too - food, drinks and lots of T-shirts, especially of former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad, as if he was some Che Guevara hero or something. I bought a generic Pakatan T-shirt, but refused to spend RM20 on a Mahathir one. Yes, he was needed to swing the tide, but I could not forget how his rule had led to the rot dragging down the country now. Remember the tensions of election day? The huge and eager turnout even before polling stations opened, the long queues, the whispers of conspiracies to prevent certain people from voting and the fear of sudden blackouts when counting ballots. Recall how the results stopped coming out after a certain time when BN was losing? And the rumours flying around. Would the election authorities be fair? Would an emergency be declared? When victory was finally declared in the wee hours of May 10, I could hardly believe it… against all odds, the "Death Star" had been destroyed.

We all know how the story has turned out since. Leaders in Harapan may have been on the same bed, but they had different dreams, as the Chinese proverb goes. The "Dark Side" was found not just on the BN side, but among the so-called “good guys” too. In fact, even after the departure of the Muhyiddin Yassin-Azmin Ali gang, let’s not fool ourselves that all is well. As long as power and greed can easily corrupt people (politicians and ourselves too), as long as we lack a strong system to check these baser instincts, the journey towards reform is not finished. Now there’s talk that the game is still on, that Perikatan National are fighting among themselves for the spoils of their coup, that trouble is brewing between Bersatu and Umno in Johor, that a vote of confidence in Parliament on May 18 could lead to a dramatic plot twist. My take is, even if Harapan somehow manages to regain power, that is merely the first step of a long journey of repairing a damaged Malaysia.  For starters, how will they deal with the weaponisation of the 3R’s - race, religion and royalty? Will any new Harapan communications minister and home minister sit by, seemingly powerless, as before, when political poisons are constantly dripped from the other side? Or will swift action be taken the moment somebody insults another race online (especially using fake news)? But can this be done when Harapan won only 25 to 30 percent of the Malay vote in the last elections? I am especially concerned with the reform of political financing, because if rich tycoons can influence leaders with “party donations”, then we will end up merely shifting one form of elite rule for another, just as Americans alternate between the Democrats and Republicans who both favour corporate interests over that of common folks.

As pointed out by Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj, the chairperson of PSM, certain Harapan decisions seemed to be influenced by the mindset of pure market efficiency and this cost it valuable support, especially from the Malays. These included the stopping of subsidy payments of RM300 per month to more than 70,000 traditional fishermen and the price support system for 200,000 rubber smallholders. He noted that Harapan should have kept the allocations for the rural and urban poor, but with full transparency. For example, all funds for, say repairing kampung homes or urban low cost flats, should be published on the internet so that people can monitor how, where and when the money is spent, and to prevent “pihak-pihak tertentu” (certain quarters) from abusing it. If all this is done, will it make the poor, the majority of whom are Malays, realise how much those who claim to be their racial “saviours” have siphoned off into their own pockets? Will it make them believe less in the propaganda peddled by certain politicians day in, day out? The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and probably the most important area for Harapan will be to raise income while lowering living costs. This will be a challenge given that our economy has been hit by the double whammy of the Covid-19 pandemic and low oil prices. But again, as Jeyakumar points out, helping the poor will not cost that much. For example, a Universal Pension Scheme of RM300 per month for all the poor above 70 will only cost about RM3 billion per year. This money will help not only people, but also stimulate the economy, as the elderly will spend it on food and other necessities. And remember the many Harapan manifesto promises? Will they finally be fulfilled?

- Will the police force be cleaned up with an IPCMC? - Will one million affordable homes be built? - Will GLCs be run professionally, free from political influence? - Will draconian laws like the Sedition Act finally be repealed? Now that former PKR members Azmin and Zuraida Kamaruddin along with Bersatu's Rina Harun, Muhyiddin and Redzuan Yusof have joined PN, is there any more excuse not to execute the manifesto pledges? Oh wait, there’s Mahathir. At his grand old age, has he woken up to the need for genuine reform? But let’s stop depending so much on politicians. Ultimately, change occurs when enough people want it. Politicians merely reflect popular pressure and it's up to us to push for what we need and want. In history, that's the only way real change has ever happened. Politicians are not that powerful. If you need proof, just look at how the back door government did several u-turns on their movement control order policies after some online outcries. They also fear the rakyat's anger. See what the French have achieved in reversing unpopular policies, with mass demonstrations while wearing yellow vests. And what we have achieved with our own yellow T-shirt protests. So please don’t surrender, don’t give up in despair. Keep speaking up for a better Malaysia, even if it's just on Facebook or WhatsApp. If you can organise people to do things, even small things at the local level, all the better. At a bare minimum, please vote. We will get the politicians that we deserve, or at least those that we push for. Yes, May 9 is the second anniversary of the people's power. Let’s not forget that.- Andrew Sia,mk

cheers.

Sumber asal: Anniversary terkubur UMNO di Putrajaya... Baca selebihnya di Anniversary terkubur UMNO di Putrajaya...

[polss]

Political Swizzlestick: The ethical problem the Bloomberg candidacy presents for Dems.

I wanted to blow off the prospect of Micheal Bloomberg being the democratic nominee when he announced his candidacy. “Feh!” I arrogantly scoffed, “You think America’s going to rush to vote for another New Yorker?! Ha!  Typical New York Media overrating their local candidate’s chances.  You still have to connect with the rust belt voter.”

But time has smacked sense into me.

Bloomberg was at 19% nationally with Dems, sight unseen.

Nobody outside of New York knew a damn thing about him, but 19% of America had seen enough commercials to say, “That guy I’ve never seen before....he’s my guy!”

That is crazy.

But that’s kind of where we are in America.  Do the majority of Trump Supporters know all of the things he has done?  Can they tell you his position on any number of issues?  No... But they know he drives Democrats crazy. The moderate segment of their support had been somewhat underwhelmed by the Obama-Biden management of the economy, so if it drives Dems crazy, he must be taking the country in the right direction that businesses want to go...right?

“He’s a businessman and the unemployment rate is at record lows.”  is what they’d say if pressed. We have always measured the health of the economy by the unemployment rate so we have to do so now.

They are just as ignorant to the vast majority of their guy’s views as we are of our candidates.

In a world where no one cares about details, why couldn’t Bloomberg win?

If the race is two shady New York businessmen against each other and one is worth maybe a billion by now and the other is worth $64 Billion, is Donald trump going to be able to lord his economic knowledge over Bloomberg?  No. Bloomberg will treat him like a peon.  If Bloomberg says, “You aren’t a businessman, you are a con man. I am surprised you haven’t throttled the economy yet.  Step aside an let someone who actually understands how to succeed in business run this country.” it resonates with moderates everywhere.

You could legitimately see Trump supporters jump ship.  Every trump fan I know likes Bloomberg and thinks “that’s the guy the Dems should run.”  He fits their idea of what they want as a president.  Is it difficult to see 1-4% of them jumping ship to escape the Trump sideshow? Not at all.

Donald  trump lost more money than any other American over a 20 year period.  Bloomberg is without a doubt a successful businessman.  Donald Trump looks very much like a failure in business compared to him over a 3 month or so lead up to the election.

I am late to the game. A lot of people on the Democratic side have pointed at this very thing and proclaimed Bloomberg the Dems best hope.  I am inclined to agree now after looking at the financial picture and how easily voters can be swayed by a simple advertising campaign.

Bloomberg takes away all of trump’s best arguments. Business expertise?  Not even close.

Trump uses his lack of morality to dig at the political correctness that Dems foolishly cling too.  There is every reason to believe that Bloomberg is so rich that morality largely no longer applies to him.  Any mistake or lack in judgement can be erased with a check.  Donald Trump is not going to be able to use his lack of morality as a weapon against Bloomberg. And frankly since Dems would have voted for this guy, that is a tacit acknowledgement that morality doesn’t matter to the Dems either.

Want to smear Bloomberg with an ad campaign?  Bloomberg can run 10 commercials with Trump’s voice talking about grabbing women by the pussy and showing all the women who tried to sue Trump in the 2016 election for every one trump can run.  Literally every 15 minutes you could hear Donald trump talking on TV about grabbing women by the pussy. You think that wouldn’t have a cumulative effect?

Really all you have to do is move 1-2% from the trump column to the anti-trump column in say 6 states and that is the election.

“But the Bernie Bros will revolt!”  What if Bloomberg make Bernie VP?  Does Bloomberg care who is his VP? At all? Bernie is an old warhorse who has been selling his rhetoric to no one in particular for 40+ years. You think he would turn down being a heartbeat from the presidency?  Bloomberg is an old dude too. If Bernie has a legitimate seat with power like the VP job, you won’t lose any Bernie fans.  They have seen Bernie get screwed out entirely by the DNC.  This would be an acceptable loss for them.  “We may have lost the battle, but we won the war”.

Bernie Bros aren’t running against Trump....not yet anyway.... they are running against the DNC.

Bloomberg is worth $64 Billion.  He spent $200 Million LAST MONTH. That is 1/320th of his wealth. That spending is almost double what Bernie (the Democratic front runner) has had in his entire account this election.

Let’s say you were fairly well to do and between 40 and 80.  How much of your money would you be willing to spend to cross “get elected president” off your bucket list? How much would you spend if you were in your late 70′s?   30% of your wealth? 40% of your wealth? More?

If Bloomberg spent 30% of his wealth that would be $19.2 Billion dollars.

Hillary spent $585 Million in 2016. Donald Trump spent $350M and has roughly $240 Million donated so far for 2020.

Let’s say Trump end up with $600M.  Bloomberg would in his $19.2 Billion have 32 times the amount of money.

So lets say Donald Trump runs a TV ad of Bloomberg not wanting to release former employees from non-disclosure agreements. Bloomberg could run 32 TV ads with the clip of Donald trump weirdly fondling his daughter as she sits on his lap and Trump talking about how if he wasn’t her dad he’d be all over that.

Think we couldn’t get there?

Don’t count on it.

If you watched the last debate you saw the democrat’s Donald Trump on stage.  A win at all cost guy.

Now I have long bemoaned that the democratic party is run by a lot of folks who proudly display their participation ribbons.

The GOP tells the Dems, “You can’t do that!  It is a betrayal of our country!” then the next time there is a GOP president he does exactly that and the Dems say, “Gorsh, you got us again, lol!”

It drives me nuts and is even worse by the fact that the GOP has a guy in Trump who could give a shit about any of the social norms and is playing a win at all costs game, damn the constitution!

But do we truly want to run a “win at all cost” guy? Are we willing to turn a blind eye to the obvious disdain Bloomberg has for the common man’s opinion to get trump out?

Are Dems and left leaning voters willing to embrace a guy who doesn’t even want to say how many non-disclosure agreements he has had to payoff to buy ex-employee’s silence?  And let me assure you, if they were all off color jokes as he claimed, Bloomberg would have just released them all and taken the momentary polling hit. You could argue that a business has non-disclosure agreements to protect business information but Bloomberg himself admitted his non-disclosure agreements were to protect his bad behavior. 

For him to insist no one would be released suggests there is what would be a career ending story for someone whose budget for this election wasn’t potentially larger than the combined budgets of the last 30 presidential elections.

This guy is so out of touch he doesn’t even understand what people want him to apologize for about his policy of targeting the African American community in New York City for shake downs of their kids.

If you watched the debate you saw a guy who was not all that dissimilar to trump who wants to be president. That is clearly goal 1. I think there is a lot of evidence that unlike trump, Bloomberg isn’t running to profit off the presidency and legitimately wants to do right by America. I think he legitimately does want to put an end to all of the Trump nonsense, but he still seems like a guy we would deem morally unfit in any election prior to the slimeball derby of 2016.

I am not advocate for purity tests, but this isn’t a purity test.  If we were looking for angels we wouldn’t have let him in the door.  Frankly we wouldn't have let any of these people in. Which is why I'm glad that we don't have purity tests. 

My question is are we truly at a point where we can accept running a lesser demon against another lesser demon just because we think he would likely be favored to win and willing to do whatever it took to win?

Are we willing to elect a guy who we really have no idea what he is going to do in office just to get rid of Trump?  He could easily be just as disdainful of the constitution.....We don’t know and the early returns are we don’t care.

Are we willing to turn a total blind eye and be just as hypocritical as the Republican voters we have vilified for the last 3 years?

Are we willing to potentially forever destroy any argument by either side that ethics matter in a president? Are we willing to say that no American voters at all care about fair play and moral behavior?

Or are we willing to stand on principles and risk defeat with a more morally acceptable candidate like Bernie, Tom, Elizabeth, or Joe who might be at best 50/50 propositions against Trump?

I'll make it personal.  Am I willing to betray all the women out there who have ever been shit on by, feilded unwelcome propositions from , or been ridiculed by their bosses at work for better odds that we'll get Trump out of office?  I am half Jamaican.  Am I willing to betray solidarity with the greater african American community which finds this man unacceptable, for better odds?

Am I willing to sell my soul for 4 years for better odds?  Am I willing to look in the mirror and loathe the face looking back for 4 years just for better odds?

Melania says "Be Better". I want to be but after 3 years of this shit, the apple that snake is holding looks so...so... good.

I don’t have the answer.  All I’ve got are the questions.

[go-redgirl]

With the news that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has been hospitalized with serious heart problems, what had already been a bad week for former Vice President Joe Biden has just gotten even worse.

I’ll get to the why of that in a bit, but let’s first take a look at all the other bad news.

The Polls

As I have said since the beginning, the only polls I’m going to take seriously are post-Labor Day, after summer is over and people are actually paying attention to the race. It was and still is my belief that while enjoying the summer months, Democrat voters parked their votes on tried-and-true Uncle Joe but that this could change after people started to tune in.

Well, tuning in, they are, and Biden’s slide is very real and may not have yet reached bottom.

According to the Real Clear Politics poll of polls, Biden went from a double-digit national lead ten days ago to just a two-point lead today.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is climbing, is attracting the crowds, while Slow Joe falls and can hardly attract flies.

In the all-important early primary states, Biden is losing in Iowa, is only three points up in New Hampshire (Warren leads in the two most recent polls), and only two points up in Nevada. (Warren and Biden are tied in the latest poll.)

Biden’s firewall in South Carolina remains strong — he’s up by 22 points, but if he loses New Hampshire and Iowa, he will have to make history to win the Democrat nomination.

The Picture

Last month, Joe Biden told us, “I’ve never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.”

That is a flat-out lie.

This entire scandal revolves around Biden’s son Hunter, who made more than $50,000 a month — a month! — for sitting on the board of a Ukrainian oil company. The problem, of course, is that Hunter has no experience whatsoever in that field and that when Hunter scored that sweet gig, then-President Obama had put Joe Biden in charge of dealing with Ukraine.

What’s more, once a Ukrainian prosecutor began to look into Hunter’s company, Joe threatened to withhold crucial U.S. aid unless the prosecutor was fired — which he was.

Now, liars in the media, serial liars like Jake Tapper, are lying about this — saying the prosecutor was not looking into Hunter Biden’s company when Daddy Joe forced him out, but this very same prosecutor has signed an affidavit under penalty of perjury saying that he was.

Anyway, back to the lie…

To begin with, we know Daddy Joe spoke to Hunter about his shady, overseas business dealings because in an interview with the New Yorker, Hunter said they spoke about his shady, overseas business dealings.

But now, we have nothing less than photographic proof…

Look at this, y’all… An actual photograph of then-Vice President Joe Biden and his ne’er-do-well son out golfing with a board member of the company that hired No-Experience-Hunter.

That’s whatchoo call a clean bust.

The Pulmonary

While we all hope and pray Bernie Sanders makes a full and speedy recovery, the political reality of the matter is still the political reality of the matter.

While on the campaign trail, Bernie felt chest pains, was rushed to the hospital, and surgery was performed to implant two heart stents. Bernie is still in the hospital, his presidential campaign is suspended, as is his political advertising.

This is a serious and significant development, but not just for Bernie.

Bernie Sanders is 78-years-old.

Joe Biden will be 77 next month.

And let’s not forget that until today’s news, Bernie was by far the most robust and energetic of the two.

After all, it was Joe Biden’s eye that filled with blood on TV just a few weeks ago, and it was Joe Biden’s teeth that came loose during a national debate last month, and it has been Joe Biden taking it easy on the campaign trail, going on vacation, disappearing for days at a time, etc.

If Democrats are smart, they will remember the lesson of 2016 when an obviously frail, sickly, and weak Hillary Clinton collapsed into a van at that September 11 memorial event.

While I have always made fun of Bernie’s age, I have also always used him as an example of what a robust 78-year-old looks like, how it is possible to be virile and vibrant into your late seventies. In fact, I have used Bernie as an example to explain just how frail and old Joe Biden looks by comparison.

Nothing terrifies Democrats more than the idea of Trump’s second term, and Bernie’s health scare will probably serve as a reality check that will have them rethinking their support for these pushing-80 candidates. What they are imagining right now is what a catastrophe this would have been had Bernie won the general election.

Naturally, then, these thoughts are going to turn to Slow Joe and the fact that if this happened to Bernie, there is an even bigger chance it will happen to Joe, who was never as energetic or full of fire as Bernie.

This reality check could also hurt Warren, who is 70. If she wins the nomination, she will be 71 and the oldest presidential nominee (from either party) in history.

Sure, Warren seems spry and energetic but … so did Bernie.

Regardless, this has been a very bad week for Quid Pro Joe … and it is only Wednesday.

READ MORE STORIES ABOUT:

2020 Election Politics 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary Bernie Sanders Elizabeth Warren Joe Biden John Nolte polls

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC.

[turkiyeecom]

Matt Hancock backs 'One Nation Tory' Johnson for leader

Boris Johnson's allies dismissed talk of a Brexit pact with Nigel Farage today - as he won the backing of former rival Matt Hancock. Supporters of the Tory front runner insisted he did not 'need' to do a deal with Mr Farage, despite the rising threat from his new party. The rebuke came amid claims Conservative donors are plotting a tie-up with Mr Farage that could prevent the Eurosceptic vote from splitting at an election.The arrangement could mean the Brexit Party does not field candidates against Tories they see as sound on making a clean break from the EU. Mr Johnson's procession towards Downing Street gathered pace today as the Health Secretary backed him - amid claims he has already started promising Cabinet jobs.  Mr Hancock dropped out on Friday after a disappointing result in the first round ballot, but has now put himself in the running to be the next Chancellor by endorsing the favourite.Michael Gove also appeared to be trying to smooth relations this morning, rejecting the idea that Mr Johnson should be ruled out on grounds of 'moral probity' and saying he 'has what it takes' to be PM.However, Mr Johnson is facing more criticism over his 'submarine' campaign strategy of minimising scrutiny.Having snubbed the first Tory leadership TV debate last night, Mr Johnson is stay awaying from hustings with political journalists today. Mr Johnson (pictured leaving his London home today) is looking unstoppable for next PM Mr Stewart has been installed as second favourite in the Tory leadership race - albeit a long way behind Mr Johnson  Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt (pictured out running today) is Mr Johnson's closest challenger - but came a distant second in the first round of voting last week  Justice Secretary David Gauke laid into Mr Johnson on Twitter today as tensions rose Brexit minister James Cleverly said if Mr Johnson became PM he would not need to do a deal with Mr Farage.He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I can't see that is something he would want to do and it is not anything he would need to do.'He is able to win elections with Conservatives and Conservative support. He didn't broach electoral pacts in London and I can't imagine he would need to broach electoral pacts at this point.' Channel 4 faces backlash over 'dodgy' Tory leader debate  An empty podium was left by Channel 4 to embarrass Boris Johnson after he snubbed the Tory leadership debate last nightChannel 4 was today accused of holding a 'dodgy' Tory leadership debate where candidates were encouraged to 'knock chunks out of each other' - while hard Brexiteer Dominic Raab was 'sidelined'. Viewers who attacked the broadcaster after last night's TV battle also declared that Boris Johnson had 'won' because he had refused to take part, calling it a pro-EU 'kangaroo court' and a 'trap'.Host Krishnan Guru-Murthy, who attended Oxford University, was also blasted as 'snide' for introducing each candidate by the school and university they went to.Channel 4 today insisted that the audience was made up of 'floating voters' who were 'open' to voting Tory and picked by an independent polling company.But those watching at home said those in the studio appeared 'biased' towards the EU because there was so little clapping for anyone advocating Brexit, calling it a 'remainer fest'.Channel 4 tried to shame Mr Johnson during the showdown last night by leaving an empty podium where he should have been - while Guru-Murthy taunted that there was still time for him to 'get a taxi' to the studios.The other hopefuls slammed Mr Johnson - who was holed up in his London flat - for his 'submarine' campaign strategy, with Jeremy Hunt demanding to know: 'Where is Boris?'But the would-be PMs then took a series of brutal potshots at one another, with Rory Stewart raging about 'macho posturing', Sajid Javid saying Dominic Raab was 'trashing democracy', and Mr Raab retorting that his colleagues would 'buckle' to the EU.   During the Tory leadership TV debate last night, Rory Stewart was the only one of the five candidates present who said they would be willing to talk to Mr Farage about how to secure Brexit. The International Development Secretary insisted Mr Farage was the 'man that led the Leave campaign' in the 2016 referendum.But a clearly infuriated Michael Gove retorted: 'Nigel Farage is not the face of Brexit.'Jeremy Hunt said Mr Farage's 'first choice' was Brexit on basic World Trade organisation terms, and that should not be the Tory position.  Sajid Javid said: 'You don't beat the Brexit Party by becoming the Brexit Party.'  Chancellor Philip Hammond will not survive the changeover to a Johnson regime, meaning the prized spot at No11 is up for grabs.Treasury chief secretary Liz Truss has been pushing hard for the job, having backed Mr Johnson from the start.  However, allies of Mr Johnson said he had been 'inspired' by Mr Hancock's campaign and it is understood the pair spoke several times over the weekend. Mr Hancock said he 'wholeheartedly endorsed' Mr Johnson who he said can 'bring the party and country together' by 'dominating the centre ground'.He praised Mr Johnson's 'disciplined campaign' and argued he is 'almost certain' to be the next PM. 'We need to unite behind him with a strong team that can bring the party together and then bring the country together,' he told The Times. 'I have repeatedly argued for a strategy of defeating the danger of Farage by delivering Brexit and defeating the danger of Corbyn by dominating the centre ground thereafter. That is Boris's plan and I wholeheartedly endorse it.'Mr Gove admitted he was disappointed by Mr Hancock's decision.'He is a friend of mine and I know that over the course of the weekend he had a very tough decision to make,' he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.'Without going into private conversations, I know that he was alternating between supporting Boris and supporting me.'He felt that we were the two strongest candidates in the race.' During his interview, Mr Gove was repeatedly pressed on whether Mr Johnson's 'morality' should rule him out of the battle for No10.  'I would dismiss that altogether,' he said. 'Moral probity does matter. But I think that all of the candidates who are standing to be leader, in my view, are capable of being prime minister.'I personally think that Boris and all the other candidates are people who on every ground have what it takes to be a potentially good prime minister.'Supporters of the Tory front runner insisted he did not 'need' to do a deal with Nigel Farage (pictured outside No10 earlier this month) despite the rising threat from his new partyMatt Hancock pictured at Parliament after quitting the Tory leader race on Friday, having securing just 20 votes in the first round - and has now endorsed Boris Johnson Rory Stewart told GMB today (pictured) that if he worked for Boris Johnson he would have to 'advocate for a no deal Brexit that I think can’t be delivered' An empty podium was left by Channel 4 to embarrass Boris Johnson after he snubbed the Tory leadership debate last nightHe added: 'There have been various attempts to to mount personal attacks against him and against some other candidates. 'I think that is wrong. Look, in the past, I have had my criticisms and differences with Boris. 'But I believe he is somebody who is capable of being prime minister.' Mr Hancock quit the race after securing just 20 votes in the first round with an admission that the party was not looking for the 'candidate of the future' but 'a candidate for the unique circumstances we face right now'.Mr Johnson's team insisted no offers of a job in a future cabinet had been discussed. Mr Hancock is seen as a potential chancellor or business secretary in a Johnson administration. Boris vows fast broadband in every home by 2025 - but doesn't say how much it will cost   Boris Johnson vowed to put fast broadband in every home by 2025 today - but faced a backlash about how he will pay for the pledge. The Government is currently aiming to have completed the rollout of full-fibre broadband to 100 per cent of homes by 2033, a target Mr Johnson described as 'laughably unambitious'.But the Tory leadership frontrunner said the pledge would be delivered within 'five years at the outside' if he becomes the next prime minister.Justice Secretary David Gauke, who is on the Remain wing of the party, said every intervention by Mr Johnson was increasing borrowing by billions. In a swipe at ministers such as Matt Hancock who are angling for a top job under Mr Johnson, he tweeted: 'If Boris wins, good luck to whoever becomes his Chancellor. 'It would be a noble act of self-sacrifice to accept the job. Who’d do it?'  It came as Mr Johnson's campaign was buoyed by a poll showing voters believe he is the only leadership candidate who can win the next election. The YouGov poll for the Sunday Times showed the Brexit Party was now ahead of both the Tories and Labour.It put Nigel Farage's party on 24 per cent, three points ahead of Labour and the Tories on 21 per cent with the Lib Dems close behind on 19 per cent. A total of 47 per cent think Mr Johnson can see off Jeremy Corbyn and Nigel Farage and only 22 per cent disagree. Just 15 per cent say his nearest rival, Jeremy Hunt, can win the Tories another term in power. It also suggested Mr Johnson was the only candidate who would persuade voters to turn to the Tories. Some 22 per cent said they were more likely to vote Tory if he was leader.None of his rivals scored more than 8 per cent. But 59 per cent of voters said they wouldn't buy a used car from Mr Johnson.The endorsement comes despite Mr Hancock having turned his fire on Mr Johnson in the early stages of the contest over his attacks on business. Mr Johnson reportedly said 'f*** business' in fury at the CBI and other business groups trying to spread scaremongering stories about No Deal.Mr Hancock argued Mr Johnson had the 'wrong attitude' and told the BBC's Today programme that it was vital for the Tories to 'back business and not bash business'.'We need to support businesses because they're the ones who create the jobs.'Yesterday Mr Johnson fuelled rumours of an early general election after footage emerged of him saying he would 'get Brexit done and get ready for an election'.The comments came at hustings with party members on Saturday, but Mr Johnson's team furiously denied the claim. They said he had repeatedly ruled out an early election and argued he was referring to the election in 2022. Rory Stewart surges to SECOND favourite in Tory leader race  Rory Stewart lashed out at Boris Johnson for not having a 'plan' on Brexit today after making a shock surge into second place in the Tory leadership betting.The International Development Secretary launched a withering attack on the front runner after bookmakers had him leapfrogging Jeremy Hunt as the closest challenger.The criticism came at a hustings event with journalists in Westminster - which Mr Johnson has opted to snub as his 'submarine' strategy continues.Mr Hunt also taunted the favourite this morning, saying he needed to find some 'Churchillian courage'. Mr Stewart has won more backers overnight after putting in a strong performance in the Channel 4 TV debate, with minister Margot James and Scottish Tory Paul Masterson declaring their support. But he again flip-flopped today over whether he would serve in a Mr Johnson Cabinet, telling Good Morning Britain he '100 per cent' would not. Mr Johnson also won the endorsement of former work and pensions secretary Esther McVey and former Scotland Yard boss Bernard Hogan-Howe – now a cross-bench peer – who described him as a 'really great mayor' of London.Meanwhile, a new poll gave Mr Johnson a major boost and dashed the hopes of Mr Stewart.It found more than three quarters of Tory members believe the former foreign secretary would make a good leader but fewer than one in three thought the same about the International Development Secretary.The YouGov survey reinforces the view that if Mr Johnson makes it onto the final ballot paper when two candidates are put to grassroots activists to choose from he will be almost impossible to stop.Some 77 per cent of Conservative Party members believe Mr Johnson would make a good Tory leader while just 19 per cent believe he would do a poor job.Mr Johnson is also viewed by the general public as the candidate most likely to make a good leader as he was backed by 31 per cent of voters.Mr Stewart was the only remaining Tory leadership contender who failed to be viewed positively by a majority of Tory members.Just 31 per cent said Mr Stewart would be a good leader compared to 50 per cent who said he would be a poor choice.The poll will be welcomed by Dominic Raab who had the second highest rating among the Tory grassroots.Some 68 per cent said the former Brexit secretary would make a good leader and 21 per cent said he would be a bad choice. What happens next? 'Stop Boris' Tory leadership hopefuls now locked in a battle for second place to make it onto the final ballot paper The field of Tory leadership challengers has been whittled down to six after three candidates were ousted at the first ballot of MPs on Thursday and Matt Hancock opted to withdraw on Friday.Those still standing now have one day in which to persuade more of their Conservative colleagues to back their bids before the second round of voting takes place tomorrow.At this point the race is entirely about momentum. Boris Johnson has cemented his status as the favourite after he secured 114 votes - enough to effectively guarantee he is one of the final two candidates.But for the remaining five candidates, it is all still to play for. Four Tory leadership challengers are now out of the race for Number 10. Esther McVey, Andrea Leadsom and Mark Harper were eliminated in the first round of voting while Matt Hancock has chosen to withdraw from the raceWhat is happening today?Five of the six remaining leadership candidates will face a grilling by political journalists at an event in Parliament. The candidates will take it in turns to face 20 minutes of questions but Mr Johnson is not taking part. There will also be another hustings event, this one in front of Tory MPs, featuring all of the candidates as they seek to win further support. What happens on Tuesday?Tory MPs will vote for the second time in what is likely to be a make or break moment in the race to succeed Theresa May.There will be six candidates to choose from but only Mr Johnson will have any certainty about making it to the next stage.Anyone not named Mr Johnson will now have the same goal: To finish in second place and make it onto the final ballot paper alongside Mr Johnson.Jeremy Hunt came second in Thursday's vote with the support of 43 of his colleagues.But none of the other remaining candidates are too far behind and all of them will be hopeful of hoovering up at least some of the MPs who backed the four candidates who are no longer in the race.They will need at least 33 votes to progress to the third vote but if all of the six candidates manage to get past that threshold, whoever has the fewest votes will be eliminated.  The Foreign Secretary came second in the first round of voting and will now be hoping to persuade Tory MPs that he is the candidate capable of challenging Boris JohnsonRory Stewart faces the biggest challenge after he only secured the support of 19 MPs in the first round. Mr Johnson's grip on the contest is expected to grow still further after he picked up the support of former rivals Mr Hancock and Esther McVey.Once the second ballot has finished and at least one candidate has been eliminated there will then be a televised leadership debate on BBC One at 8pm hosted by Emily Maitlis. Mr Johnson has said he will take part after snubbing one held by Channel 4 on Sunday.What happens after the second round of voting on Tuesday? It is the job of Tory MPs to cut the list of candidates to two and after Tuesday's vote there will then follow further ballots on Wednesday and, if necessary, on Thursday, until the chosen pair remain.The number of further ballots needed will be determined by whether trailing candidates opt to withdraw from the contest but the third ballot is scheduled for Wednesday while the fourth and fifth would take place on Thursday.What happens once there are two candidates left? The Conservative Party's estimated 160,000 members will be asked to choose who they want to be their next leader. The final two will have to face 16 leadership hustings events across the nation with the first due to be held in Birmingham on June 22 and the last one taking place in London in the week starting July 15.Ballot papers are expected to sent out to members between July 6-8. The overall winner of the contest is due to be announced in the week of July 22. Mrs May will then go to see the Queen to formally resign and the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party will be invited to Buckingham Palace to form a new government. Who could the MPs who supported the four eliminated candidates now back?Mr Johnson has racked up endorsements from both Esther McVey and Matt Hancock over the weekend - increasing his already impressive tally.The support will be hugely disappointing to Mr Raab - who needs votes from Brexiteers like Ms McVey - and Mr Gove, who had been hoping to woo Mr Hancock's centrist acolytes.The 10 MPs who backed Mark Harper, a candidate with a softer approach to Brexit, have been targeted by the likes of Mr Hunt and Sajid Javid.   Boris Johnson is now the prohibitive favourite to succeed Theresa May after securing the support of 114 Tory MPs in the first round of votingSo does Boris have it sewn up?Previous Tory leadership contests have shown that the person who leads the race at the start of the process does not always finish in first.Leadership campaigns are also volatile and it is distinctly possible that an unforeseen event in the coming weeks could radically shake up the battle for Number 10.Mr Johnson is in pole position but there is still plenty of time for that to change.  Read More Read the full article

[movietvtechgeeks]

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/2017-comic-con-timeless-panel-miracle-return-plus-twisty-season-2/

2017 Comic-Con: 'Timeless' panel on miracle return plus twisty Season 2

NBC's Timeless has been that show that proved fans can help bring back television shows from the brink. "Together, we changed history," was how things started out at the Timeless 2017 Comic-Con panel on Thursday. It might sound like a cheesy line pulled from an episode of Timeless, NBC's time-traveling drama, but it took on a whole new meaning at the show's Comic-Con panel Thursday. The panel came two months after the show was canceled and then, shockingly, un-canceled by NBC. Despite spending much of its first season on the bubble, the time travel drama amassed a fiercely loyal fan base that was up in arms over the show's demise. (The series also ranked as the fourth-highest scripted series when all delayed viewing is factored in.) Despite the show's high price tag -- Timeless hails from Sony Pictures Television and is one of NBC's few dramas not produced in-house by Universal TV -- Sony and NBC were able to come to an agreement for a 10-episode second season that will launch sometime in 2018, either spring or summer. Ryan and Kripke reportedly pitched a more family friendly second season, will also helped incentivize the decision for NBC. Fittingly, creators and showrunners Shawn Ryan and Eric Kripke were joined by stars Abigail Spencer, Matt Lanter, Malcolm Barrett, and Goran Visnjic to discuss the miraculous turn of events with a video that showed just how Timeless' die-hard fans and the fervent #RenewTimeless social media campaign helped resurrect the series and, as the video said, "changed history." "The point of the panel is to celebrate you for saving the show so I think you deserve a round of applause," Kripke told the crowd, which drew enthusiastic applause from the ballroom. Barrett also celebrated the fans by bringing #Clockblockers t-shirts that he threw out to the crowd towards the beginning of the panel. (Fans in attendance were also treated to a sneak peek of the blooper reel from the season one DVD, which comes out on Sept. 19.) When Kripke and Ryan polled the crowd about which fandom name they preferred, not surprisingly #Clockblockers easily won over #TimeFandits. After the opening video – set to the opening music of time-traveling blockbuster Back to the Future nonetheless – the cast and creators discussed their reversal of fortunes. "We had been canceled that Wednesday so… we started to make peace, you're starting to go through your grieving process," Kripke said. (Or "drinking process," as Spencer jokingly called it.) "There was no hint. It was Sony, to their credit, and NBC busting their ass behind the scenes," Kripke continued of the surprise Saturday phone call from the higher-ups at NBC. "It was truly out of the blue." While Kripke was busy driving his kid to soccer, others (i.e. Spencer) were fast asleep when the good news broke. "I was totally asleep. My phone was off and I woke up, I'm not kidding, to hundreds of texts," she said. It was only when she got an e-mail from Ryan that she truly believed the good news. "It's truly magical," she said about the fan campaign to save the series. Despite the show's perennial bubble status during season one, Kripke said that didn't make the writers think twice about how to end season one, specifically the reveal that Lucy's mom is Rittenhouse. "You come in hard, like, 'No man, we're coming back,' and you write that way," he said. "To me that's the only way you write a show." Spencer recalled shooting that final scene, which was also the last scene they shot of season one. "What was difficult about that scene was… we're basically wrapping up all of season one and dropping this huge bomb all in the same breath," she said. "I felt very close to Lucy. I felt very overwhelmed, I felt saddened. ... It was a lot of emotions and feelings going on and a lot of words to say. Lucy is, unlike me, very verbose," she added with a laugh. (However, Spencer also embraced the twist because "I love the way that we portray women on the show.") Looking ahead to season two, Kripke said that reveal will have a big influence going forward. "Lucy's mom is really going to be one of the major big bads in season two," he said. "Rittenhouse does have their hands on the time machine so that is way worse than Garcia having his hands on the time machine and Garcia and the team are kind of, sort of now facing a common enemy so there's going to be some sort of complicated, really fraught, messy team-up with that." Among the changes for season two is the shooting location, which will move from Vancouver to Los Angeles when production on the second season begins in November. "I think that will allow us to tell a few stories that we were unable to tell" in season one, Ryan said. "We definitely have some ideas nothing sort of set in stone." However, one of Ryan's hopes is to "dip deeper into character" in season two. "We'll still have spectacle and bigness," he said. But, "I think we'll just have episodes where we dive deep into the Lucy and Wyatt of it all." Kripke also said season two, like much of scripted TV, might be influenced by the current political state of the country, even if Kripke himself was hesitant about making a political statement. "The thing that we really found this year, that we really love about the show is we really like, are very proud that we were able to tell this very positive, really inclusive stories about history, stories about women and stories about minorities and stories about gay people; that everyone contributes to the history of this country," he said, which was met with applause by the crowd. "I will be the opposite of political in this, but I would say that's a very good message these days. I would say there's a lot of doubling down on that in season two." "History is for everybody and America is for everybody," he added. Timeless returns in season two in 2018.

Movie TV Tech Geeks News