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bnhabadass · 5 years ago

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Pairing: Dabi x Reader Genre: Crackhumor, fluff Warnings: A little spicy and some course language Rating: 16+ for some spiciness A/N: This is a collaboration for the crackhead sanctuary discord server. You can find everyone else’s work here. So Please enjoy this super fluffy and fun quarantine collab!

“We’re out,” Shigaraki had said.

You looked up from the bar stool you were sitting at. You were scoping out the newspaper on the counter, trying to find any updates on the global pandemic, anything that would calm your nerves. “Out of what?”

“Everything.” You watched as he chucked the empty cereal box in his hands at Dabi, who was asleep with his arms folded over the bar counter.

Dabi grumbled and rubbed one of his eyes with his charred fingers. “It’s too early for this shit.” He nuzzled his head back into his folded arms on the counter.

“Ash tray,” Shigaraki said. “I need you and (Y/n) to run to the store and get us some food and I need you to do it without getting caught.”

“Why?�� Dabi’s muffled voice whined.

“Because Twice and Toga did it last time and because I’m the boss and I say so,” he demanded. “Now get up, put on a mask and a disguise and get out there.”

You didn’t like arguing with Shigaraki. It was never worth it to pick a fight that he always ended up winning. With you obliging easily and Dabi too tired to pick a fight, the both of you ended up at a crowded supermarket. People wearing safety masks scrambled around the store to try and get their items as soon as possible. So much for social distancing.

“Where should we start first?” you asked. You wore a black cloth mask over your mouth and chin. You figured it was disguise enough incase anyone regularly watched the news and might have seen your picture floating around. black gloves were fitted onto your hands and a larger than average pocket knife was hidden in your jacket pocket in case something went wrong.

“Well what’s for dinner, doll?”

Hit language hit different, and you weren’t sure whether or not you should be offended. “Excuse me?” A faint blush spread across your face. You hadn’t interacted with Dabi much since joining the league. It was usually Kurogiri you spoke to, being the only other member who could cook and had some responsible edge to him.

“It’s your turn to cook tonight, right?” Dabi’s bright blue eyes bore into you from under the shadow cast by the big hood he had up.

You faced away, refusing to look at him. Mumbling, you said “It isn’t much of a turn when it’s just between me and Kurogiri.”

Dabi chuckled. The deep and raspy sound of his voice sent shivers to your spine. “In any case, I haven’t had a hot meal in a while, so you better have something good planned, doll.”

Your face grew more flushed. “S-stop calling me that,” you said, irate with how he was acting. “Now grab a cart and get whatever non-perishable, healthy foods you can find.”

Dabi rolled his eyes but you could still feel his smirk under the cloth of his masking digging a hole right through you. “Whatever you say. I guess we’ll meet back here in, I dunno, half an hour?”

You nodded, keeping your composure and a straight face. “Half an hour.” You grabbed a cart and busted your way through the over-crowded store. It was a nightmare of people wrestling over the bare-bones of the produce section, boxes and cans of soups and non perishables, and of course the few rolls of single-ply toilet paper that no one wanted when the first wave of ransackers came through the store.

You were in awe of how undermanaged the store was. It was like the Hunger Games. You swore you saw an old woman stab someone for the last box of Cheerios. Mustering up the courage to wheel your way through the store, you found yourself dragging through aisle after aisle of nothing but a few torn up boxes littering the shelves.

You did find yourself chucking a few dented cans of tuna, dusty boxes of whole grain cereal and near expired medication into the cart. Who knows, it could be useful. It was slim pickings, but in all honesty it was better than you expected. Maybe there was a little mayo left at the hideout you could make some tuna salad with. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

You walked through the aisle of baking supplies, hoping to find a small bag of flour, when you felt a hand grasp your shoulder. Thinking fast, you grabbed the strange hand, pulled the knife out of your pocket and turned around, bringing the blade up to the stranger’s throat. But it wasn’t a stranger.

Dabi looked down at you with a deadpan expression. His mouth slowly turned upward to a smirk. “Someone’s a bit feisty today,” he said.

You looked down, hiding the blush you could feel coming through the mask over your mouth. “Don’t scare me like that,” you said, glaring back up at him. “I could have slit your throat just then.”

His eyebrows raised and his smirk grew upward. “You wouldn’t have.”

“And why not.”

He leaned in, brushing his mouth against your ear. “Because I would have stopped you.”

Your spine visibly contracted as you felt shivers move through you. “Have you found anything substantial?” you asked, trying to move the conversation along.

“Yeah,” he said, pointing to a cart behind him nearly filled to the top with snack food, cans of soups and vegetables, boxed foods and instant ramen. There were also two six packs balanced on the sides of the cart.

You were shocked. How could he find so much while you were stuck with the bare bones of dented cans and healthy cereal that no one wanted. “How? How could you find so much stuff?”

Dabi just shrugged. “Found some guy’s cart. Took it when he wasn’t looking.”

You looked back at your own pathetic cart and frowned. “This is nice and all but I don’t know how we would be able to afford all of that. We barely have ten dollars combined.”

You looked up at Dabi, waiting for him to come up with some genius way for the two of you to make it out with only paying the measly few cents you carry around.

“Who said anything about paying for this?”

Your eyes widened. “What do you mean? We can’t just walk out the door. Someone will stop us.”

He smiled under the black mask. “Take the cart and go to the front entrance. Wait for me there.”

You quirked an eyebrow up at him but followed his orders. You took the overflowing cart and made your way to the front of the store, shoving aside anyone who tried to take anything out of it. You eventually found yourself at the store’s entrance. With nothing else to do, you watched as the madness unfolded around you. The store had been ransacked entirely and the remaining people in the store were willing to fight one another for the smallest ounce of anything.

“Alright, let’s go,” you heard Dabi say as he approached you.

“What do you mean? What did you do?”

He yet again pointed behind him only to reveal the smoke and the tips of blue flames which were rapidly spreading across the aisles.

“Fire!” a bystander yelled. Everyone was quickly making their way towards the entrance.

“We better run,” Dabi said, grabbing your wrist with one hand and the cart with the other. He pulled you out of the store and the two of you ran outside to a nearby hill, far away enough to not be caught but close enough to see what was happening.

“I can believe you set the fucking building on fire,” you said through heaves as you tried to catch your breath.

“You gotta admit it’s a little funny.” Dabi cracked open a beer and you could hear the bubbles inside sizzling. He tossed you one, which you caught but did not open immediately.

“What else is in that cart?” you asked. The pile of snacks was much bigger than you first believed it to be.

“Let’s see.” Dabi thumbed through the different boxes and bags of snacks hiding the more substantial foods at the bottom. “We got some chips, a couple chocolate bars, some cereal, popcorn and crackers–”

“Ooh pass the popcorn.”

Dabi tossed you the bag of popcorn and you smiled at the satisfying sound of the bag bursting open. Pulling down your mask, you delicately tossed a piece in your mouth.

The two of you sat on the hill eating snacks and drinking beer, watching as the blue flames slowly rose further up the building. The smoke swirling along with the orange sunset looked pretty, and you didn’t even mind when Dabi put his arm around your shoulders, edging you closer to resting your head on his chest.

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #my hero academia x reader #dabi x reader #Dabi #mha dabi #bnha dabi #crackhead sanctuary #crackhead sanctuary server collab #quarantine collab

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spiritualgateway · 4 years ago

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The Next Wave

written by Steven Black:

We seem to be experiencing a boom of old conspiracy theories. Sometimes woven into a new coat, but at the core they are the same old black and white stories. Is it also true that all the conjecture, relativization, fake news and various conspiracy theories that are currently surfacing annoy the hell out of you? I have to be very careful about the sarcastic part of myself and therefore I keep myself from commenting. Not always, but mostly.

Whenever I open my FB Stream lately, I notice a real war being waged by the self-proclaimed awakened against the alleged sleeping sheep. One „have to know“ after the other is posted and „THE Truth About“ is announced – daily. I know this all too well.

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

Yes, I went through a phase myself where I believed a lot of bullshit or at least thought it was possible. It started in the late 90’s and ended in 2012, and during that time I probably inhaled every existing conspiracy theory and read all the authors who spread it with a fervor of conviction. Starting with David Icke, Jan van Helsing, Robin de Ruiter and countless others, up to Alex Jones. Hell, I myself have contributed to the spread of such stories. The subjects they dealt with back then were not really different from what they are today.

Me and many other people, we thought we were „awakened“ then, because we believed we could understand the world more and better, like everyone else. Critical comments were countered with „inform yourself properly“ and immediately some links of „alternative points of view“ were thrown behind, which confirmed our own statement. And one could be sure that other participants who took the same bubble would shout down the critic as „mainstream sleep sheep“. No matter what argument came up – it did not reach anyone. In this phase one is not accessible to criticism, one fends it off. But if the criticism is so valid that it cannot be negated, one still had the recourse to some whataboutism.

It was a time when it was all about „the rise“ and all the political or economic daily news was seen as „there is light coming into the darkness“. We knew that the „end of the matrix“ was near and that a worldwide recalibration of consciousness was coming. We thought of ourselves as light warriors, critics of the system, rebels for the good and enlighteners. Fervently inspired by the conviction that we had all taken the „red pill“ and would now be the only ones to see clearly, we wanted to wake up and enlighten „the sleeping sheep“. In doing so, we constantly reminded them that it was absolutely (!) necessary to do research, think for oneself and question everything! Only WE knew, all others were of course stupid, brainwashed or sleeping. We were the judges, jurors and executioners of the worldly realities – self-proclaimed world policemen and smartass activists. We alone knew how the rabbit had to hop and how it „should be right“.

Pffff. When I look back on it now, I can laugh about it heartily. God, what a wonderful mindfuck.

Yes, if we had done it like that.. If we had heeded this „winged advice“ that we had thrown at everyone, we would have taken it to heart ourselves. If we had questioned the sources we referred to and believed. Instead, our own thinking, research and questioning was limited to almost everything that came from alternative media and supported our views. Official facts, whether political, economic or otherwise, were „mainstream“ and thus fundamentally untrustworthy. It was all just propaganda … (yes no, that’s clear).

This made us susceptible to believe people and media that had either a political or other agenda. Starting with racist Jew haters, religiously dressed up ideologues, political muddle-heads, esoteric concepts without any grounding, up to „doomsday fanatics“.

But we had heard a call from the universe that the time had come for an expansion of consciousness. It felt like a kind of magical awakening. And I, as well as everyone else in that time who was like that, we were not the first. There have been recurring, rather small movements since the 1950s. But there was a really big, concentrated shift of consciousness in 1986, at the time of the so-called „Harmonic Convergence“. One can certainly call this the first great wave of lightworkers and truth seekers that the world has perceived.

They did not fare much better either. These people, too, had to rummage through various horror scenarios, actual and imagined injustices, as well as their own overflowing imagination. But the basic themes were the same as they still are today. They are power topics (power and powerlessness), money topics, resistance to living, dying and all kinds of heavy, undigested emotional burdens. At that time, all of this was going on a little more quietly, at least in the eyes of the public. These topics were only discussed in small forums on the early Internet.

And today?

Today, the „social media“ are full of them and various shit storms are spilling over into the media mainstream.

Today the exact same process is taking place, in a new wave of people who have come in the beginning of their own awakening process. Awakened can not be spoken of, it is a slow awakening and it usually takes years.

One „wakes up“ from years of unconscious dwelling within one’s own personality structure, which has usually become quite rigid. One gradually enters into a new process of self-discovery, where many things are simply thrown over, which were normal and acceptable until then. The sense behind this is a broadening of perspective and a restructuring of mental expression.

Yeah, right. They got a call from the universe.

And at first you are thrown into confusion and disorientation. You will also have the feeling of stumbling around in a seemingly endless labyrinth. Individually varying degrees of identity loss can occur, which additionally creates fear. Many things seem to make no sense anymore, you part with friends, views and previously held beliefs, while at the same time you have the feeling that you can no longer find a secure hold anywhere. A well known, often observable reaction to this is a devaluation of the human being, the body, the mind or the human identity itself. In the course of this process one stumbles from one conspiracy theory to the next, constantly stepping on a bullshit cookie and sometimes not knowing whether one is male or female.

Can you prevent this? No idea. Most probably not.

That doesn’t mean that everyone who gets into this process is clinging to conspiracy theories and thinking they are THE thing or the only and pure truth. But a lot of people do just that. In a time of great personal uncertainty, the one-dimensional black and white images of conspiracy theories seem to simulate an unpleasant but seemingly stable reality.

Basically, an essential scenario is happening here – your consciousness is being twisted through the wringer and a kind of battle is taking place inside you. A battle between your old consciousness and the new, unknown. The old consciousness knows only defense and projection, but the new one wants to reflect and express itself mainly through self-reflection.

This inner fight has nothing to do with any Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Bill Gates, vaccinations, cash bans, paedophile satanists, mind control or whatever. In reality, „the universe“ is fucking your old consciousness to break you open and dissolve old encrusted structures. And the first, basic reaction is mostly projection and defense.

Hiking through your own darkness

There is a spiritual metaphor that says: „The dark night of the soul. This term goes back to the Spanish Carmelite and mystic John of the Cross. It is a poem written in the 15th century – in prison. For John of the Cross it was about the mystical union of the soul with God. Nowadays this metaphor is used to describe the difficult period of a spiritual development process, where the human personality has to struggle with disorientation, depression and confusion. Its purpose is actually to achieve a continuous, increasing and lasting reconnection with one’s own soul consciousness. This is a time when many things that once seemed normal and safe for the human personality simply seem to break away. Where instead depressive states are experienced, where crises, insecurity and loss of orientation prevail.

I actually believe that we are all in some kind of global dark night – the entire human species, the entire human family. And, of course, that means a process that will last for several years and probably decades. We are going through personal and global, very individual crises and we are coming into contact with our own darkness. With many things that we have been carrying for a long time, but which we are very often simply not really aware of. And a whole lot of situations and emotions are being washed up inside of us, so that we have the opportunity to check if it still fits for us. Yes, in the end it is years of trials …

It takes a while to understand that expanding consciousness has little to do with any external enemies, but rather with what is going on inside and how to deal with it. Nevertheless, it is apparently unavoidable that you first shoot yourself on everything you find in the world of Scheixxe and what you judge to be „that shouldn’t be like that“. And so one wades for a while through all kinds of dirt, horror ideas, laments about injustice and deals with horror scenarios. Starting with worldwide mind control, up to some omnipotent enemies of mankind. As an antipole you read channelings or inform yourself about natural food.

Basically, projections are a defense mechanism of the psyche. The term projection describes the transfer and shifting of one or more inner psychological conflicts to other persons, groups of people, living beings or various objects of the outside world.

Relatively harmless projections are when we ascribe characteristics, deficiencies or problems to other people, which we ourselves carry openly or hidden within ourselves. A far more serious form of transference is when I believe that the whole world is conspiring against me (or humanity, the whole earth, health, freedom, morality, faith, etc.).

Whatever the case may be, when we project, we thus transfer our own issues, fears or worries, to other people, organizations or groups of people, so that we do not have to feel it with ourselves. And then link these fears to certain events or circumstances that we do not like, which is then considered „proof“. The point is – what we project and transfer to other people are either unrecognized, personal qualities or unprocessed, emotional problems from our past, which we transfer to the present. And often, both variants intermingle. Projection allows us to transfer self-experienced situations or predominant emotional states, in our own consciousness, that are perceived as unbearable, to ward off these emotions from ourselves by transferring them to x-any situation, people and organizations.

And this, whether we want it or not, is unavoidable in a real wake-up process.

We push away what is inside of us and project it onto politicians, Illuminati, cabal, deep state mind control or whatever. To explain to us why we have certain feelings or thoughts. In this way we can continue to fool ourselves that everything is okay with US – only with THOSE out there, there is something wrong with them.

Talmud: „We do not see the world as it is. We see the world as we are“.

You can of course now despise all this fear porn of various conspiracy theories and call it bullshit – which of course is a good 99% (in my opinion) of all conspiracy theories. But in the end, they seem to fulfill a need that is not quite visible on the surface.

When you get into such a wake-up process – process, mind you – your entire identity structure is „attacked“. All the things and experiences that we hid from ourselves and that we repressed will be flushed up from our inner self over time and our protective and defensive shields will become porous. Most of the time, we have buried them so deeply that we can no longer feel or perceive many things. Deep, formative experiences that reach far back into childhood. All our deep fears, the inner insecurity, the doubts or our real self-esteem will gradually creep to the surface and say hello. Everything that has been quietly there all along will suddenly start screaming very loudly inside us.

Conspiracy theories are theories, not facts. They are extremely simplified black-and-white images and, moreover, highly exaggerated descriptions of a seemingly alternative reality. Mixed and connected with actual, clearly criticizable, political, social or economic processes. Whereby, however, the really criticizable things are completely lost, because the context with which they are interpreted is completely far-fetched.

BUT …

Now, if a Xavier Naidoo in a video cries because allegedly thousands of children are being freed from an underground torture prison where they were abused as human lab rats to obtain an alleged super drug called Adrenochrome and you react emotionally to it, it is because this extremely shocking horror show is arguing with certain experiences of your own past. Maybe from a past life, maybe in this life – does not matter in the end.

But you can suddenly feel THAT. It breaks down your protective shields and your emotional numbness. You can feel this nameless horror inside you, what it must mean to be tortured, abused and trapped. Powerless, to be exposed innocently and helplessly to something. But at the moment you can’t realize that this might have something to do with yourself. And you do not want to feel all the unpleasant things that have to do with you personally. You do not want to feel your personal powerlessness, helplessness or fears. You want to get rid of that.

I’m not saying that conspiracy theories are good. But everyone has to go through his own processes, even if that means having to go through a nonsense of denial of reality. If you bought into it, then you have to go through it. Okay, whatever makes you descend into your own darkness is good.

Of course, there is no such underground bunker and no tortured children to produce adrenochromes. And of course, „St. Donald Trump“ has not freed anyone. This Q Anon story is completely free of meaning and serves nothing else but to secure Donald Trump’s re-election and keep his conservative voters happy. Apart from the fact that there is child trafficking, that there is organized sexual and also ritual abuse of children, there is no truth in the story itself.

These and other conspiracy theories, however, bring you in touch with your own feelings and emotions that are buried deep inside you. The stronger you react to it, the more outraged and angry your reaction is, the more emotional charge you have built up.

The dark and heavy energy, such formatted information, docks fundamentally to the inner parts of the person that are in pain, traumatized or disoriented. This inner pain is often so well hidden and suppressed, so great and unspeakable – because never processed or admitted by us that only a supermonstrous, absolutely malignant source can explain it, who must be behind it. This kind of milkmaid’s calculation, of an omnipotent conspiracy feeds and triggers the fragmented inner child within us, which then becomes angry and projects its hatred, its rage and despair onto the world.

What do you think it does to you when you wallow in assertions and views that the eternal sacrificial existence enshrines? What does it do to you when you think the world is in the iron grip of a global conspiracy, a supposed elite, with the aim of undermining moral principles and ultimately reducing humanity? If you believe that some malevolent aliens have allied themselves with various leaders or secret organizations to rule the earth? And you yourself are completely powerless in this?

Does it make life much more fun? Does it create meaning, love or harmony for yourself and more connection to the world? Does it produce improvements in your personal life? You will have to admit that this is not the case. On the contrary – you clearly feel worse. If you roll around in dirt, you don’t get cleaner, but naturally dirtier.

If you go through this phase, the day will come when you are „done with the world“. Where you feel so weakened, depressed and trapped in your own darkness that you will experience a kind of inner breakdown. You will approach a state where you give up. Which, as weird as this may sound, is a good thing. When your inner resistance and your defense strategies no longer work and collapse, there is only one way out – to work through your emotional burdens. In reality, this is not a breakdown, even if it feels that way – it is a breakthrough.

This is the moment when the real challenge begins and you are so „backed up“ that you are ready to face your own personal issues. And in the end it’s all about that and nothing else. It is about you, not about politics, economics, Illuminati, cabal, Donald Trump, Rothschilds, Soros, Bill Gates or Rockefeller. It is about you personally, in this process. How you feel with yourself, your body and your life.

The Rothschilds are not responsible for how you feel or whether you have too little money in your pocket. Donald Trump is not coming to save you, Germany or the world. God or the universe will not transport you to a light-filled 5 D world where you don’t have to feel all the pain anymore. George Soros is not to blame if you do not take responsibility for yourself. The pharmaceutical industry is not to blame if you are sick. The slaughterhouses are not to blame if you are meat. Reptilian shape-shifters have nothing to do with it if you don’t feel comfortable with yourself or your body. Illuminati or Kabale are not responsible if your relationship breaks down or you are no longer satisfied with it. No one is responsible for whether you can accept yourself, with all your apparent faults or inadequacies. No one, except ourselves …

All these are deeply personal issues and conflicts that should be looked at. No one will come to save you miraculously. You are the one you are waiting for. You are the one who can „save“ yourself.

It is about making new friends with yourself and life. It is about self-acceptance and self-acceptance, exactly as you are. And you will only achieve this if you really deal deeply with yourself. Everything else is just an attempt to avoid yourself. To avoid the pain, loneliness, loss, anger and many other conditions that have accumulated in you for years. And it takes a lot of courage to venture into a therapeutic reappraisal process and to face your personal stories mercilessly.

This is a very critical time when you are extremely vulnerable and unfortunately some people do not manage to take the necessary step and get stuck in the old stories. They get stuck in conspiracy theories and cling to them desperately. And bullet through one wave of outrage into the next. If you don’t do transformation work and don’t integrate all the unpleasant emotions into yourself, you can get stuck in it for a very long time.

I recommend to everyone who wants to hear it, an examination of the Inner Person Model. And I strongly recommend feeling work. Get professional help if you are in this process. You will find it very difficult to get through on your own and if so, you will have to spend much more time with it. So take care of yourself and your consciousness …

Man is basically not a prisoner of fate, Illuminati, Freemasons, aliens, etc., but of his own consciousness, which he does not care about. When you deal with your inner conflicts, your emotional nebulas and diffuse mental states, you regain clarity – above all clarity about yourself. If you are clear with yourself again, many strange convictions you had about x – any external processes will also be cleared. You will then realize that you don’t need conspiracy theories to criticize various processes or states in our society. There are enough factual, fact-based and also technically competent arguments for this.

For those of us who have been through it for a long time, for those who find it a bit annoying to see all this old stuff reappearing so massively in the social media. But we should remember that we once experienced a similar phase and had to go through it. No, of course these people are not stupid, even if a part of me has the perception that the concentrated stupidity seems to take over the power at the moment. They are merely in a process of transition and one can only wish them good luck and good luck with it. They are not the first and will not be the last. In fact, I believe that this will intensify.

I have a part of me that thinks it could save people from their own experience if they only had enough information. This part of me thinks he would abandon his tribe if he didn’t say anything about it. And so I sometimes make comments to some people when I feel it would make sense to correct the statement. Most of the time it doesn’t take 2 minutes of googling to find out the facts. Meanwhile I make such comments only once, sometimes even twice. But if I constantly get answers to them, which my 20 years younger self has known for a long time, because he himself answered criticism like this, then I stop.

Because the adult in me knows that it makes no further sense and the person has to go through this experience until the end. Once you are in it, there is no other way out than to go all the way through it. Then I just keep my mouth shut and sometimes I unfriend or put people on „sleep“. Especially those who share particularly annoying „alternative theories“. This is pure self-protection. I just try to keep some distance to the experiences of others that don’t fit (anymore) to mine.

It took me a lot of persuasion to make this part of me understand that it cannot protect or prevent anyone from their personal experience. And to feel all the sadness and regret, at the thought that in this process some will „fall under the table“ and may not be able to rise from there. This part of my personality has now understood that his tribe has to do its own personal, very individual work to come to terms with the situation and that this is entirely his responsibility. Or he will get stuck in his experience.

I am also aware that the term conspiracy theorist is considered offensive by many who are in it. Well, they should thank those people who, by mixing up thoroughly criticizable topics with phobias, paranoia, hysteria and pure fantasy, led to a huge accumulation of absurd theories that no clear-thinking person can take seriously. And no, the term conspiracist was not invented by the CIA to silence critics of the Kennedy assassination. It goes back to the Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper, who coined the term conspiracy theory as early as 1948.

From where I stand today, conspiracy theories make no sense at all. They are packed with emotional dramas and personal imbalances, cause doubt, create fear and feed the hysterical inner child. Never have conspiracy theories led to anything constructive. They simply invite you to let your hatred, resistance, lack of empathy and inner drama queen out and let the proverbial sow run free. To understand this, just look through the commentary columns under some VT Post.

And it is not at all about the fact that there have been or are actual conspiracies throughout human history. But all the things that are manufactured and suspected about it today, so bizarre and excessive, can’t be put on any cow skin anymore. Conspiracies are by definition top secret – they are so secret that any fool with computer access can find them neatly listed on the Internet. Michael from Recklinghausen knows them all, maybe the CIA should hire him …

Makes totally sense, right?

But okay, it’s just basic personal issues that are transported in this way. Apparently, for some of us it is necessary to exaggerate things so much that we are capable of an emotional reaction. Because no matter which horror story is given for the best – it is always MY personal fear that is then triggered. My anxiety, my paranoia, my hysteria – all kinds of emotional instability that exists within myself is reflected.

And when you are in there, you believe that it is all real. That some reptiles rule the world, that George Soros is using refugees to destroy Christianity, that Angela Merkel, Barack Obama and white-vultures are still reptiles in human form, that the Corona crisis is a hoax, that it’s the pretext for establishing a dictatorship, that all the famous Hollywood actors or politicians are pedophiles and that Donald Trump is liberating Germany. That the Corona crisis would be the final wake-up call for the rise to 5D or would be used by the elite to initiate a system crash and abolish cash or put all of humanity under mind control … etc., etc., etc.

It’s like a huge buffet where you can eat according to your personal taste. You can buy into any of these narratives – but a real danger is that they will swallow and eat you.

Ironically, it doesn’t really matter if things actually have any truth to them. The only criterion is whether or not we believe the narrated things. And what we believe is in turn related to a certain kind of identity. If there is already a deep conviction in our identity structure that we are victims, helplessly exposed to things and life, then it is not very difficult to convince ourselves of a world in which ALL people are victims of a huge conspiracy.

We all know, the world can sometimes be a terrible, unfeeling and cold place. But it can also be a beautiful, uplifting place, full of beautiful people and experiences. Everything this world holds in store is always an expression of people, of dynamics and personal, national and global processes and the consequences of these. If you look at the world in general with a sober view, you can see what a long way we as humanity still have to go.

It is a war that is raging inside us and that reflects its expression on the outside. The war between all the unredeemed and burdensome emotional content, the mental beliefs built around it and the painful attempts to control it and keep it away from us – but which we always lose because the elaborate stories we tell ourselves about it to rationalize and explain the pain away collapse sooner or later and the pain comes back to us with all its force. We can’t run away from it, because we can’t run away from ourselves.

None of us can „save“ the world, but we can „save“ ourselves and do our inner processing work. Imagine that everyone would do this? In no time we would see a completely different world. But since we refuse most of it and think that we ourselves do not need it – it will probably take some time. Nevertheless, this is the path we must take.

Until next time same station …

DISCLAIMER: Nothing you read here is THE truth. It is my truth, my perception and how I see things – now, in this moment.

THE INFORMATION SPACE

#consciousness #conspiracy theory

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newstfionline · 3 years ago

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Monday, August 16, 2021

U.S. Air Force veteran comforts children plagued by gun violence (Reuters) Like many cities across the United States, Washington has seen a spike in shooting-related deaths during the pandemic. Homicides were up 19% in 2020 compared to 2019, according to the Washington Metropolitan Police Department. This month’s data shows that the city has already clocked more cases than at the same time last year. “It’s like a war zone. It’s like being in the military,” Jawanna Hardy said. Frustrated by the senseless loss of life, Hardy, an Air Force veteran and now a 34-year-old high school English teacher, launched ‘Guns Down Friday,’ an outreach program to support neighborhoods plagued by gun violence—including the one she has lived in since childhood. She has raised money for shooting victims’ gravestones, advocated for more streetlights, and trained people how to treat bullet wounds themselves. She drives her van—adorned with photos of young gun violence victims—through the streets to greet youngsters. On a recent Friday, she arrived with water balloons. “Put your guns down and pick your water balloons up!” Hardy cried through a megaphone as children outside an apartment complex in southeast Washington laughed and scrambled to drench one another. She knows her Friday night street parties will not stop gun violence but hopes they can at least provide children a brief respite from the constant fear in which many live.

Haitians scramble to rescue survivors from ruins of major quake (Reuters) Haitians labored overnight to pick through shattered buildings in search of friends and relatives trapped in the rubble after a devastating earthquake struck the Caribbean country on Saturday, killing 1,297 people and injuring at least 5,700 more. The 7.2 magnitude quake flattened hundreds of homes in the impoverished country, which is still clawing its way back from another major temblor here 11 years ago, and has been without a head of state since the assassination of its president last month. Churches, hotels, hospitals and schools were badly damaged or destroyed, while the walls of a prison were rent open by the violent shudders that convulsed Haiti. Access to the worst-hit areas was complicated by a deterioration in law and order that has left key access roads in parts of Haiti in the hands of gangs, although unconfirmed reports on social media suggested they would let aid pass.

Want to stay long term in France? First come the classes on how to be French. (Washington Post) In France, la vie en rose comes wrapped in red tape. Foreigners hoping to stay here long term must sign an “integration contract” and agree to uphold French values. The contract requires four days of civic education, yet what’s taught is more akin to a government crash course in how to be French. There are discussions about Marianne—the symbolic embodiment of the French Republic—and about classical culinary dishes, such as duck confit and escargot. France 101 covers both the cultural (how to visit museums) as well as the practical (how to navigate the national health-care system). The classes, plus language lessons for anyone whose fluency doesn’t measure up, help determine whether an applicant gets a multiyear visa. Every year, an average of 100,000 people take the courses, in cities across the country. The contemporary agreement explicitly states that receiving an extended residency visa is conditional on abiding by its terms, a key one being deference to French values. After an applicant signs the document, the language test is administered and 24 hours of classes scheduled.

Taliban sweep into Afghan capital after government collapses (AP) The Taliban swept into Afghanistan’s capital Sunday after the government collapsed and the embattled president joined an exodus of his fellow citizens and foreigners, signaling the end of a costly two-decade U.S. campaign to remake the country. Heavily armed Taliban fighters fanned out across the capital, and several entered Kabul’s abandoned presidential palace. Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesman and negotiator, told The Associated Press that the militants would hold talks in the coming days aimed at forming an “open, inclusive Islamic government.” Kabul was gripped by panic. Helicopters raced overhead throughout the day to evacuate personnel from the U.S. Embassy. Smoke rose near the compound as staff destroyed important documents, and the American flag was lowered. Several other Western missions also prepared to pull their people out. Fearful that the Taliban could reimpose the kind of brutal rule that all but eliminated women’s rights, Afghans rushed to leave the country, lining up at cash machines to withdraw their life savings. The desperately poor—who had left homes in the countryside for the presumed safety of the capital—remained in parks and open spaces throughout the city. Many people watched in disbelief as helicopters landed in the U.S. Embassy compound to take diplomats to a new outpost at the airport. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rejected comparisons to the U.S. pullout from Vietnam.

From hubris to humiliation: America’s warrior class contends with the abject failure of its Afghanistan project (Washington Post) Twenty years ago, when the twin towers and the Pentagon were still smoldering, there was a sense among America’s warrior and diplomatic class that history was starting anew for the people of Afghanistan and much of the Muslim world. “For you and us, history starts today,” then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage told his Pakistani counterparts. Earlier this month, as the Taliban raced across Afghanistan, retired Lt. Col. Jason Dempsey, a two-time veteran of the war, stumbled across Armitage’s words. To Dempsey, the sentiment was “the most American thing I’ve ever heard” and emblematic of the hubris and ignorance that he and so many others brought to the losing war. “We assumed the rest of the world saw us as we saw ourselves,” he said. “And we believed that we could shape the world in our image using our guns and our money.” Both assumptions ignored Afghan culture, politics and history. Both, he said, were tragically wrong. Michèle Flournoy, one of the architects of President Barack Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan in 2010, said, “In retrospect, the United States and its allies got it really wrong from the very beginning. The bar was set based on our democratic ideals, not on what was sustainable or workable in an Afghan context.” Flournoy acknowledged in hindsight that the mistake was compounded across Republican and Democratic administrations, which continued with almost equal fervor to pursue goals that ran counter to decades—if not centuries—of the Afghan experience.

Afghanistan’s collapse leaves allies questioning U.S. resolve on other fronts (Washington Post) The Taliban's stunningly swift advances across Afghanistan have sparked global alarm, reviving doubts about the credibility of U.S. foreign policy promises and drawing harsh criticisms even from some of the United States' closest allies. And many around the world are wondering whether they could rely on the United States to fulfill long-standing security commitments stretching from Europe to East Asia. "Whatever happened to 'America is back'?" said Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the Defense Committee in the British Parliament. "People are bewildered that after two decades of this big, high-tech power intervening, they are withdrawing and effectively handing the country back to the people we went in to defeat," Ellwood said. "This is the irony. How can you say America is back when we're being defeated by an insurgency armed with no more than [rocket-propelled grenades], land mines and AK-47s?" As much as its military capabilities, the United States' decades-old role as a defender of democracies and freedoms is again in jeopardy, said Rory Stewart, who was Britain's minister for international development in the Conservative government of Theresa May. "The Western democracy that seemed to be the inspiration for the world, the beacon for the world, is turning its back," Stewart said. Rivals of the United States also have expressed dismay. Among them is China, which fears that the ascent of an extremist Islamist government on its western border will foster unrest in the adjoining province of Xinjiang, where Beijing has waged sweeping crackdowns on the Uyghur population that have been denounced by the West. The United States' Arab allies, which have long counted on the U.S. military to come to their aid in the event of an attack by Iran, also have faced questions over whether they will be able to rely on the United States.

Torrential rains lash wide areas of Japan, three feared dead after landslide (Reuters) Torrential rain lashed much of Japan on Sunday, flooding roads and buildings in the western part of the country, while three people were feared dead after a landslide in central Nagano prefecture. Large parts of Japan, particularly the southernmost main island of Kyushu, have seen record levels of rainfall, causing rivers to overflow and triggering landslides. While the rain had stopped in much of Kyushu as of Sunday morning, Tokyo and other parts of the country were pounded by the downpour. Japan “will continue to face conditions in which a large-scale disaster could occur at anytime, anywhere,” Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said at a ministerial meeting on Sunday. He called on local municipalities and relevant organisations to cooperate and act with speed on rescue missions and aid.

More military personnel deployed to enforce Sydney Covid restrictions as entire state locks down (CNN) Additional Australian military personnel will be deployed to enforce tighter Covid-19 restrictions in the greater Sydney area next week, authorities announced Saturday, as the entire state of New South Wales (NSW) prepares to go under lockdown. Stay at home orders will be applied across the country’s most populous state, with people only permitted to leave home to shop for essentials, receive medical care, outdoor exercise with one other person, and work if residents cannot work from home. Schooling will also be moved back online. Sydney, the capital of NSW, has been under lockdown measures for more than seven weeks now, and they will likely be extended further; they were set to end on August 28 but the state government has indicated restrictions will remain through September.

Fuel explosion in Lebanon kills 28, wounding dozens (AP) A warehouse where fuel was illegally stored exploded in northern Lebanon early Sunday, killing at least 28 people and injuring 79 more in the latest tragedy to hit the Mediterranean country in the throes of a devastating economic and political crisis. It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion near the border with Syria. Fuel smuggling operations have been ongoing for months. The Lebanese Red Cross said a fuel tanker exploded and its teams recovered 28 bodies from the site in the border village of Tleil. In a statement, it said it evacuated 79 people who were injured or suffered burns in the blast. Hours after the blast, Lebanese Red Cross members were still searching the area for more victims as Lebanese soldiers cordoned the area.

'Once the best in the Middle East,' Beirut hospital pleads for fuel as it faces shutdown (The Week) A once-famed Beirut hospital is now pleading for international aid to avoid running out of essential resources. The American University of Beirut Medical Center in Beirut, Lebanon, is making an urgent appeal to the United Nations and its specialized agencies, the World Health Organization and the U.N. Children's Fund, to supply the hospital with fuel before it's forced to shut down by Monday. Lebanon is mired in an economic and political crisis, and the nationwide fuel shortage is currently the most dire consequence. That's perhaps most clearly reflected in the plight of AUBMC, which said 40 adults and 15 children living on respirators would die immediately and many other patients will be at great risk if the shutdown is not avoided. The medical center said it's been rationing fuel and electricity for weeks, but is running out of both. Liz Sly, The Washington Post's Beirut bureau chief, notes that the American University hospital "was once the best" in the entire Middle East region; the announcement shows that the country is "truly heading to disaster," she writes.

#headlines #news

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harry-sussex · 5 years ago

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COVID-19 from the Perspective of a New Yorker

I am from New York, specifically the downstate area, and here, in my home, there is a crisis. My governor, Andrew Cuomo, gave a press conference earlier today (March 30th) listing the top 10 states in cases and deaths. New York State has 66,497 confirmed cases and 1,218 confirmed deaths. The state with the second most confirmed cases and deaths is New Jersey, which has 13,386 cases and 161 deaths. We in New York have 5x the cases and 12x the deaths as the next most affected state in the country. There are limitations to that data of course - population, population density, etc. - but just by looking at the raw figures as of earlier this afternoon, things are dire.

A lot of businesses - particularly small businesses - are not taking this seriously. As usual, the almighty dollar reigns supreme above anything and everything else. People are not staying home, or offices are not letting them. They are not choosing their boredom/safety over their entertainment/risk. They are not social distancing. They are choosing to work in offices over working from home because it’s more convenient. We have been under a government mandate requiring at least 50% reduced staffing for nonessential businesses since March 18th. Currently, 100% of nonessential business staff are required to stay home, and yet, many people continue to refuse to take this seriously. People are literally hosting coronavirus parties - I heard on the news yesterday of one person who had 47 people in a 550 s.f. apartment in New Jersey, complete with a DJ. Yes, the party was broken up and yes, the host was arrested. The governor of New Jersey did not hold back in his opinion - rightfully so. People think it is a joke, an extended spring break, a vacation, a much-needed respite from the chaos that is regular life. This quarantine, this virus - they are none of these things. This is a war. A war for which we are dramatically, dangerously ill-equipped.

The state infrastructure put in place to deal with illness, unemployment, etc. is failing - it was never equipped to deal with such demand. Doctors, nurses, and other providers cannot possibly keep up with the overflow of COVID-19 patients cramming into their hospitals. They’re ill-protected so even if they can start to keep up, the professionals are getting sick and becoming patients themselves - with nobody to work in their place. They are scared - rightfully so. They continue to go to work and expose themselves for the good of their greater community, at great personal risk. More medical professionals become patients, more strain on the area hospitals, with fewer staff to administer treatment. More patients with less staff attending to them equals more deaths.

Anyone who has been exposed is supposed to be self-isolating. Everyone else is under quarantine. This has led to a surge in lay-offs as New Yorkers rush to file for benefits to which they are entitled. The labor department website, designed to allow easier filing for unemployment claims, has been inundated for weeks, and is often unable to process requests due to high volume. The phone lines are clogged, and the state does not have a holding queue - when you call, you are told to try again later. What happens when the state implements a shelter-in-place order and businesses begin to close, but employees cannot file for unemployment? Chaos. Further crippling of an economy that is already damaged. Desperation on behalf of those who cannot afford to not work for an unspecified duration of time. When those people are offered the option to continue to work for their paycheck in violation of the state mandate, with rent/utility bills/car payments/etc. breathing down their necks? They will choose to work. Every. Single. Time. The more these poor, desperate people continue to go to work, forced to make an impossible choice, stuck between a rock and a hard place, the more this thing will spread. The more people who get sick. The more people who die - all because the state and the federal governments were vastly unprepared for what would happen in the event of a global pandemic.

Nobody could have anticipated this, of course. This is far beyond anything anyone could have imagined in their wildest dreams. Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio have done much to help their constituents in these strange and dangerous times. Nothing is enough, though. It’s happening too fast, it’s hitting too hard. It’s causing too much damage. We can’t keep up. The rates of incidence are growing exponentially every day. We can’t keep up.

I urge you all to read this chilling New York Times article, entitled Doctors are Writing Their Wills. New York City, arguably the liveliest and busiest city in the world, is a warzone. They are using refrigerated tractor trailers as makeshift morgues, set up sometimes in the middle of streets that usually are bustling with traffic day and night. Doctors are self-isolating from their families. Nurses are using garbage bags as smocks. One hospital staffer in a hospital forced to use garbage bags as protective equipment, an assistant nursing manager, has died due to the novel coronavirus.

The governor and the mayor of New York City asked the federal government for 30,000 ventilators. The government sent 4,000 and a message implying that we do not need the remaining 26,000, that we are being greedy for asking for these supplies. The peak is coming and when it hits, it will be ugly everywhere, but especially here. We need these supplies now, not when the peak hits. We need them to prepare for the peak now, before it has arrived.

No medical professional should be forced to choose which patient deserves treatment over another due to limited supply. No medical professional should be forced to sacrifice their safety, health, and life every day at work for the sake of their patients. Doctors, nurses, patient care technicians, hospital cleaning/disinfectant staff, hospital administrators, registration staff, pharmacists and their technicians... they are keeping this city and this state alive. They and they alone can make it stop. They are scared, sick, even dying - and they are fighting for the rest of us. The rest of us are forever indebted to them, and should be willing to do what we can to help. We are not only helping the sick and dying - we are helping medical professionals stay safe so they can continue to fight not only COVID-19, but also any other affliction or illness you or I may encounter in the years to come.

The federal government needs to step up and hand over the supplies they have to assist medical professionals in treating this monstrous virus. More companies need to step up and switch up their manufacturing processes to make more supplies to protect our medical professionals on the front lines. And people need to take this seriously. Stay home if you can. Only go out for necessities. Limit your trips. If you can’t stay home, stay away from other people. Wash your hands. Cover your coughs and sneezes. If you are feeling ill, self-isolate. Call your doctor if you are experiencing symptoms - do not head to this hospital without making them aware that you are coming.

Do not be selfish. Your urge for takeout is not more valuable than the life of the person behind the counter. I’ve heard time and time again - especially from fellow New Yorkers - that many would give anything to have two weeks off from work to finish house projects, read some books, catch up on television shows, do some gardening, bake from scratch, organize the garage, go through closets... unencumbered by the threat of work responsibilities looming overhead. You are being given this time now. You are being asked to take the time you have always wanted to sit back, relax, and do whatever you please from the comfortable confines of your own home. Take this time for yourself - not only for yourself, but for the benefit of the global community. Stay home. We can win this thing if everyone does their part.

The sooner we do this together, the sooner we can all go back to normal. The sooner we take a statewide and global united stance against the novel coronavirus, the sooner the medical community can get a grasp on its spread, and the sooner we can go back to work, and to restaurants, and on vacation. What a day it will be when that time finally comes. Until then - do your part.

We are all in this together. Globally and here in my home state of New York, the world’s newest epicenter of the novel coronavirus, we are all in this together. The only way out is through, and the only way through is together.

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ill-will-editions · 5 years ago

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PRESENTATION OF TO OUR FRIENDS IN CHIAPAS (2015)

Translated from Spanish by Ill Will Editions. A Finnish translation of this text can be found here.

The following is a transcript from a presentation of A nuestros amigos [To Our Friends] that took place on October 22, 2015 at the CIDECI-UniTierra (San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas). The event was organized by comrades from France, Catalonia and Mexico, who had helped with the Spanish translation and the publication of the book a year prior. The interest of the presentation lies in its succinct and situated remarks on how the strategies discussed by the Invisible Committee might resonate with the revolutionary processes underway in Mexico.

***

I’ll try to summarize a few aspects of To Our Friends, in order to draw out some content for the discussion that will follow. It’s worth noting that ten comrades from Mexico and ten comrades from France are also present, so, when the discussion begins, we should not be surprised if someone from the public intervenes. After all, the goal here is to meet one another.

The book responded to a question: what are the lessons of the insurrections of recent years? Why have they not led to a revolution? What are the invisible obstacles - linked to the revolutionary tradition - into which these movements have crashed? If we refuse to content ourselves with ideological platitudes, then it must be admitted that such failures compel us to completely rethink our idea of revolution.

The book consists of seven central chapters, each of which focuses on the conceptual knots that constitute a trap and a confusion hindering the possibility of a revolutionary process in the present. These knots must be confronted, and clarified. These seven chapters deal with the ‘crisis’, democracy and government, the location of power today, cybernetics, war, society and, finally, the commune. To Our Friends shows the difficulties of the obstacles that have been encountered in the revolutionary processes of recent years and tries to sketch out passages to go beyond these obstacles.

In many cases, the themes in question resemble the roads on which the Zapatistas have been advancing for over twenty years. Therefore, it would be absurd for us to try to convince them of what should or could be done, precisely given that the Zapatistas have been doing it for a long time. Nor will me make an apologia for insurrection in front of people who have really made an insurrection with guns in their hands. Instead, what we will try to do is share, with the help of the language and perceptions that are elaborated in To Our Friends, the difficulties that we have encountered, with an emphasis on those that seem to us to echo the Mexican situation.

1. Let us begin with the question of the struggle against infrastructure. As the insurrections of recent years have shown, the sites of institutional power function as a kind of magnet for revolutionary movements. As soon as revolt sets in, the people in these movements spontaneously place themselves in front of parliaments, they set up a camp there, or try to attack or burn down the government headquarters, as was seen for example in Bosnia. However, it happens that most of the time, after having arrive there and forcing open the doors, they find that these sites of power are empty, as happened for example in Ukraine. What they discover, in other words, is that there is absolutely nothing of power within them.

The point is that the contemporary form of power is not the institution: power no longer resides in institutions, governance is no longer in the government. The effective site of power, tendentially, resides in the organization of the world itself - an organization that is logistic, material, technological. It is very difficult to rebel against a power that does not give orders, but instead constitutes the very order of things. It is worth noting that in Europe, at least in recent years, so-called "social struggles" have been seriously weakened. In the case of Germany, France or Italy, those struggles that concentrate and polarize the revolutionary initiative are the struggles against infrastructure. This also echoes the current initiative of the Zapatistas to link together twenty-nine struggles against megaprojects in Mexico.

There are two aspects to these struggles: on the one hand, an aspect that consists of removing oneself from material dependency upon this technological order, a struggle to gain autonomy; and, on the other, a struggle to prevent the construction of these infrastructures themselves. The problem we face is that these struggles often have only a defensive orientation: in general, they do not succeed in destabilizing the enemy and, in fact, they generally leave its domination intact. The idea that the exemplary nature of what is built in these struggles could spread to the rest of the world is rarely realized.

2. The second problem belongs under the heading of what we can call ‘the local’. For the oldest of us here tonight, our politicization occurred during the anti-globalization movement, at a time when there was much talk of the Zapatistas. In those years we lived in squats, and, every three or six months, we would have riots in some city in Europe. At a certain moment we began to realize that there was not much relationship between what we did in these counter-summits and the life we led in our homes. At the same time, by the end of the anti-globalization struggles there were more journalists on hand to record the demonstrators than the demonstrators themselves.

We felt a strong need to break away from the attraction of the global. Many of the people who participated at that time moved to different places, set up communes, which assumed more or less reality in some neighborhoods or towns than others. As for ourselves, in France, Italy and Spain we are very much organized on a local basis. And this brings up the question of the commune, the return of which is not something that concerns only a handful of people. The question of the commune is a historical fact, one that is resurfacing everywhere. It returned in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, when the revolt gave itself the name “Taksim Commune.” Likewise, it returned during the U.S. Occupy movement, when the occupied plaza in Oakland took the name “Oakland Commune.” It returned to Kurdistan, where the first gesture in the face of a military attack was to respond with the declaration of 140 communes.

There are strong local realities; yet the power of our enemy, capital, lies precisely in its global mobility. So the question we face today - I think it's a question also announced in the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle - is this: since we are facing a globally organized enemy, how do we build a global force out of forces that are situated, local? And here I am talking about a force that is not an organization, but rather a plurality of worlds that, in any case, would be capable of developing conjoint strategies. On the other hand, there is a perennial question as to how to prevent or counteract the spontaneous inclination of the communes to close in upon themselves?

3. The third question concerns war. A bad habit of thinking has made us conflate war with militarization. At the same time, the military has spent the past fifty years refining a non-military concept of war, a civil concept. One of the most visible examples of this, in the context of the Zapatista communities, is the program "Vivienda Digna," white houses with a red stripe that exist to convey the message, “We are here.” At the moment when militaries are developing a non-military idea of war, a pacifism developed in movements that was defined by its rejection of war (understood as military war). At a time when war is everywhere, there were more pacifists than ever before. In fact, what took place is that counter-insurrectional theory - this is the form of war in question - became the very program of governance: media propaganda, the management of perceptions, a localized exercise of terror, chaos provoked to paralyze judgment and action —all of this has today become common practice. Whence the constant references to the Algerian War in contemporary marketing campaigns.

Given the war being waged upon us, the question is how we can avoid situating ourselves in a symmetrical relationship with the enemy? The counter-insurgency specialists seek to win the hearts and minds of the population - something that can have dramatic consequences, as in the case of David Petraeus who wanted to win one more heart. How can we avoid placing ourselves in the same position, which is often the position of militants and activists? How can we be the population, a problem to which the Zapatistas offer an admirable example. That is, how can we make a strategic perception of the course of things, a reading of adverse operations, and an awareness of governmental counter-operations commonplace, and not a fact visible only to a vanguard? This brings us back to the question of how to articulate a strategic verticality alongside a horizontality of life? Clearly, the EZLN and the Zapatista communities are one form of this articulation.

4. The fourth issue concerns the idea of destitution. At least since the French Revolution, the question of revolution has been posed in terms of a dialectic between a constituted power and a constituent power: revolution is thought of as a moment when constituent power overflows constituted power. Obviously, in reality, there is no constituent power, no matter how much Toni Negri claims otherwise. Constituent power is a fiction retrojected by constituted powers beginning from the moment they have succeeded in stabilizing the situation. What has happened in Egypt in recent years is an exemplary case for understanding this. In no time at all, the people are again being massacred in the name of the People.

It cannot be denied that contemporary insurrections are essentially destituent. The "Go away" that was shouted at Ben Ali's regime in Tunisia echoes the “¡Que se vayan todos; Y que no quede ni uno!" of Argentina. The only demand, the sole content, the unique power of contemporary insurrectionary movements, lies in demanding that the corrupt, obscene, criminal power in front of us go away. As far as I can tell, a similar energy emanates from the families of the 43 Normalistas of Ayotzinapa. Contemporary insurrections are characterized by the fact of not having a program, of not having a leader, and of not having the will to take power - as for example occurred during the time of the Bolsheviks.

Obviously, there are many local examples of destitution in Mexico, far more than anywhere else. We may think of what is happening in Cherán, or in the isthmus of Tehuantepec (the municipalities of San Dionisio del Mar, and Álvaro Obregón). And, evidently, also in Zapatista territories.

As such, the logic of destitution does not consist in throwing oneself onto the apparatus of power in order to lay claim to it, but, more broadly, in the fact of constituting oneself separately, elaborating a form-of-life, and transmitting it. What replaces the logic of the seizure of power is the logic of the increase of power. The question that arises for us is how to ensure that destitution is not a moment of insurrection that is then immediately swept away by the constituent return of a new power. For example, think of what took place in Argentina after 2001; or what happened in the Spanish state after the movement of the squares and 15M, where there certain people ran elections under the auspices of being representatives of the movement; or, what happened in Greece with Syriza.

How can we ensure that destitution is an indefinite process, and that concrete decisions are never fixed in an institution? We will only be able to respond to these problems, as we shall see, by advancing forward - along a path that we will not attempt to map out right now.

It is necessary that an international debate on the question of revolution take place. That is why, just as we have come here tonight and wish to thank you for your invitation, we plan to organize a world revolutionary forum next spring in Europe, to which you are invited.

#The Invisible Committee #chiapas #mexico #destitution #to our friends #insurrection

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bugaboowritings · 5 years ago

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Tikki Talks: ABOUT PAST LADYBUG IN PARIS!- Fic

Tikki spits at fine art

This could connect to my Past!Ladybugs AU, but it fits better in what I think could happen in canon if Tikki were to talk about the past ladybug holders and their hidden history. (It builds up slowly and it’s long so enjoy)

May write a second part ....

Marinette stacked the last of her books on her shelves. Knowing very well that they wouldn’t be touched until the start of the new school year. Being dust collectors until she needed a last-minute review on the past semester.

“Can’t believe that school ended. Too fast if you ask me.” Marinette reflected. Throwing her head back to look at her red and black spotted kwami while she tucked the last bit of her commissions in a cardboard box.

“All good things must come to an end. Whether we try to stop them or not.” Tikki nibbled on her cookie. Quickly stuffing her mouth with more baked goods before Marinette could question her tone.

With her room now cleaned, Marinette could finally breathe without her anxious ideas creeping on her neck. Her room decluttered from the mess (burden) of schoolwork and commissions deadlines. Her schedule that once hung with sticky notes and reminders now was wiped off and nearly empty.

Nearly.

Of course, it still had some events here and here scattered around. Like Adrien’s rumored trip out of the country and a party that was planned before the summer break was near.

Her classmates were relaxing with their family as Marinette took the silent in her home with a grain of salt. Knowing that it could easily be revoked with a blink of an eye.

On cue, she heard her father call her down to the bakery. Marinette swiftly threw her purse around her shoulders for Tikki to join her.

Tourists were already flooding in great numbers. Whether in groups or with translators, they all enjoyed the idea of having a fresh-baked pastry for breakfast. So orders enter the counter quicker and buns were already baking in the oven for the next dozen. The heat of the machines, which could beat the burn of global warming, made the small store sweat. Sabina hastily urged her daughter to open a window or two and get started on their iced teas for the lunch rush. Marinette, doing what she was told, couldn’t help but think to herself that this wasn’t what she had in mind on how she would spend her summer break.

Free from her responsibilities from school she was bombarded with the task of keeping a business open. One that didn’t stop till the people did. Don’t get it wrong, Marinette loved working in the bakery. It was an easy way to lose her worries in the recipes and glass bowls. It was like how people ran to clear their mind or draw to help them relax. It was just hard to take in the scent of fresh cinnamon and sweet, organic fruit-fillings when someone was breathing down her neck to get their order in. Luckily, her mother could handle the customers with ease.

“Marinette, honey,” Sabine beckoned while she waved off to the last customer.

“Yeah, mom,” Marinette answered back. Cleaning up the flour she spilled on the floor.

“Why don’t you go off with your friends or get some fresh air? Last thing you need to do if worry about the bakery.” Her mother hummed. Marinette couldn't help but turn to her father. Who gave her a nod and a smile, telling her that it would be good for her to get some air.

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“See you in a bit then.” Marinette waved. Closing the backdoor before she overwhelmed the air-conditioning with the heat. Pulling out her phone to call up her best friend.

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Marinette walked the streets of Paris alone for the first time in not so long time ago. The one day she was free to make plans everyone else seemed to be busy. Alya had to take her little sisters to a summer event their school was hosting. Rose and Juleka were handling some details for Kitty Section for an upcoming gig. Mylene was on a date with Ivan. Alix was- actually she preparing to do a mural near the Louvre. Technically, Alix was working but told Marinette if she could come by to say hi. Maybe even go into the museum to check out the new exhibit her dad and older brother were working on.

Tikki peaked out her head from Marinette's bag. Taking in the warm, sunny day as she softly hummed, “It’s surprising to finally have some peace and quiet.”

“If the Effiel Tower isn't nearby then it’s not something that tourists tend to 'overflow' in this time of year,” Marinette recalled her past experiences.

"It really has changed so much," Tikki admitted. Marinette opened her mouth but quickly close it as she reached a crowded traffic light. Cars racing passed while she awkwardly stood by bystanders. Holding her tongue as the light finally turned red, allowing her to walk safely and quickly to the other side.

"Tikki, " Marinette hushed, away from curious ears. "This isn't your first time in Paris?" Holding her bag closer. "There been other ladybug holders in France, right?"

Marinette imagined the history behind her earrings. Tikki has been around since the beginning of the beginning so she could have seen when Paris was built or when France barely had its name and borders set. She could have seen the Renaissance flourished or observed both World Wars. Tikki could have been there in the French Revolution, there when Napoleon surrender or when he crowded his wife queen. Witnessed the construction of Versailles. Testified to the history books when The Hundreds' Year War took over Europe or suffered alongside Parisians as the Reign of Terror shook the streets. Tikki could have seen the things that Marinette can only read.

Tikki bit back her tongue. She mentioned the other miraculous holders that have passed to Marinette. However, never really went into detail about them. Her current holder knew a bit, but revealing the history of creation could be a bit shocking. At one point in time, finding out that a little creature like her is the god of it all have made people mad. Knowing that what they believe was wrong or had no real purpose. However, Tikki wasn't in the Middle Ages or surrounded by monks. She was at the hands of her Chosen. Someone that was picked to wear her miraculous for a reason.

Pushing out an old smile, Tikki replied: "It's better if you saw it yourself, Mari."

----- Alix was nice enough (or maybe didn't really care) to let Marinette use her admission pass. Offering it to her when Marinette explains that she needs inspiration for her upcoming designs when asked why she rushed to this part of town so quickly.

For the summer break, the museum was a bit lonely compared to its usual numbers. Better for Marinette in the end since now she doesn't have to pretend to be on her phone so she could openly speak to Tikki. Without anyone thinking she's crazy for holding a conversation with her bag.

Marinette acknowledged the obvious when she looked over the museum's map. "The only known Ladybug artifact in this building is the hieroglyphics in the Egyptian Exhibit. Which did gained some popularity thanks to the Ladyblog," She crossed her legs. "How could there be other artifacts here? Surely, they would be noticed by now. Especially with Alya investigating Ladybug."

"They're here." Tikki winked. "They just hide under the crevices of history and the impossible." Flying out of the bag and marking their destination on the map. "You just have to know where to look."

---

Marinette wrinkled the map in her hands as she walked by the paintings. All sporting diverse techniques that made pigments seem to jump out and touch her. Stepping slowly to the corner of the room to a portrait that Tikki wanted to see. Directing her to a large painting. Which didn't look that exceptional really. . .

"A Cavalier."

Marinette pulled out her phone again to type the name of the artist in the search bar. Only to meet a loading screen due to the Louvre's slow wifi. “I don’t get it, Tikki,” Marinette whispered, not helping herself as she impatiently tapped on the screen. “Why is this so personal to you?” Her mind bounced back to the hallways filled with grand and spectacular works of arts. How structures of marble were crafted to look like silk on a hot day or canvases had perfectly mirrored a queen’s flawless hair and jewels. Yet, she was here by a painting that didn’t really pique her interest. All as the internet lagged on her phone. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a peck of red flying out of her bag.

“Tikki!!” she hushed. Keeping her screams in her throat as she jumped. Throwing her hands up as her eyes widen in horror. Whipping her hair around, almost breaking her neck to see if anyone was around to witness a red bug-mouse floating up to a priceless painting.

“Tikki, there is a sign that explicitly says ‘DON’T TOUCH’! Tikki, wha-what are you doing?”

Tikki looked back at Marinette, "Showing you what hides under history.”

“Tikki, no-”

Then Tikki did it. She did the worst thing that she could ever do to a work of art. She spat on it. She spat on the painting worth more than her organs in the black market. Tikki, the god of creation, spat on a priceless, antique work of art.

Marinette felt her heart drop at that moment. As if someone dumped a weight on her poor, fragile soul making it hit the bottom of her stomach. Throwing her knees on the ground. She’s going to jail. She’s going to be charged for vandalism. Then she will be a wanted criminal. Then be imprisoned for life. Then not only be away from Adrien but never be able to ask him to the movies. With her in a small cell with no way out Hawkmoth will be able to akumatized Paris without her to stop him. Chat Noir will be forced to work harder and face the damage after an Akumas. Paris will fall in a dark reign of power. Then she will be dragged for leaving Paris when they needed her. Adrien would never want to date her. Who would blame him!? Who would want to date a criminal or a failed superhero? Then she will never have a house to call her own or three kids named Emma, Louis, and Hugo and she can forget about the pet hamster the moment she gets cuffed up and taken to-

Marinette’s anxious thought peeled the color from her face. Her anxiety could have turned her lips blue if Tikki didn’t speak up. Grabbing her holder’s attention and tongue as they awed at that Tikki has done. Yet, spitting (magic spit, of course) on the painting seemed rough and boorish but it changed the painting for the better. Or revealed a hidden layer.

What once stood a man with brown curly hair and a mustache now a woman with black wavy hair. The simple, light brown tabard turned a bright red with black ladybug-spots, ending above her knees. Underneath her tabard, was a long, white sleeved shirt with a lace collar. With trimming that Marinette wished she knew how to mimic. A black cloth corset replaced the blue that hugged her waist as the black scabbard stayed in place.

As the painting became a totally different one, Marinette only focused on her face and hands. Her pale face carried light, blue eyes that were covered with a red mask. Carrying no expression. In her gloved hands, the woman held onto something that Marinette was familiar with.

The yo-yo.

“She- she was a ladybug holder,” Marinette whispered. “She’s a Ladybug. . .”

“Marinette,” Tikki smiled. Standing proudly in front of this astonishing canvas. “I present you to La Coccinelle. A hero that once walked the streets of Paris and worn the same earrings as you.”

-----

Tikki might have lived through history when she was about to witness Marinette at the verge of making a new chapter.

-------

#ml #miraculous ladybug #my writing #tikki #tikki talks #writing #marinette dupain cheng #Mariette #ladybug #past!ladybug au #past ladybug holders #past miraculous holders #ml au #headcanon #ml headcanon #did yall see the insta accounts made for our sweet beannnnss #marinette is so cute

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covid19worldnews · 4 years ago

Text

U.S. Groups Linked to CCP Influence Effort with Ambition Beyond Election

The three women appeared to be just like millions of other Americans who take to social media every day to express their displeasure at the state of the U.S. Yet there were anomalies. The women’s messages were sometimes identical to others on Twitter and Facebook. Their handles were similar and they tended to make sweeping statements putting down America and its democratic system, rather than referencing specific events. Their use of language was off too, stilted or mixing up familiar expressions—”Black people are never slaves! Stand up your high head!” read one of Jessi’s more garbled tweets. And one more thing: Occasionally, a stray Chinese-language character would slip into one of their posts or hundreds of others just like them.

That last part was especially odd—until you consider that the women weren’t actually women at all but rather bots and trolls used in a systematic campaign by groups affiliated with China to sow division and unrest in the U.S. ahead of the 2020 election. An analysis this summer of thousands of such Twitter and Facebook posts by the International Cyber Policy Center of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute described them as part of a program of “cross-platform inauthentic activity, conducted by Chinese-speaking actors and broadly in alignment with the political goal of the People’s Republic of China to denigrate the standing of the U.S.”

The fake accounts are just one example of what appears to be stepped-up activity by groups associated with China as Election Day gets closer. Over the past six weeks, for example, both Google and Microsoft have reported attempted cyber attacks linked to Beijing that targeted individuals who worked with the Biden and Trump campaigns. However, unlike Russian interference in 2016, which worked to bolster Trump’s chances of election, most of the activity stemming from China does not clearly favor one candidate over the other. Instead, it seems designed, as William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, puts it, “to shape the policy environment in the United States, pressure political figures it views as opposed to China’s interest, and deflect and counter criticism.”

Both Google and Microsoft have reported attempted cyber attacks linked to Beijing that targeted individuals who worked with the Biden and Trump campaigns NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty

Experts say the election-related activity is just a small part of a much larger and deeper campaign of influence and interference by China that’s been taking place over many years—and is a far more worrisome threat long-term. Interviews with some two dozen analysts, government officials and other U.S.-China specialists, as part of a four-month investigation by Newsweek, suggest there are myriad other ways in which the Communist Party of China (CPC) and other government-linked entities have been working, through multiple channels in the U.S. at the federal, state and local level, to foster conditions and connections that will further Beijing’s political and economic interests and ambitions.

Those channels include businesses, universities and think tanks, social and cultural groups, Chinese diaspora organizations, Chinese-language media and WeChat, the Chinese social media and messaging app, says John Garnaut, an Australian political analyst and expert on global CPC interference. Separately, Newsweek has identified about 600 such groups in the U.S., all in regular touch with and guided by China’s Communist Party—a larger-scale version of a pattern found in other countries around the world.

The scope of alleged activities is enormous, involving social and business gatherings, extensive information campaigns and building political and economic ties that can be leveraged to Beijing’s gain—recent reports of Hunter Biden’s business dealings with a Chinese energy company eager to connect with his father and President Trump’s secret Chinese bank account are just the latest high-profile examples that some China watchers find worrisome. There are also accusations of large-scale economic espionage. In a speech this summer at the Hudson Institute, F.B.I. director Christopher Wray said the agency opens a China-connected investigation every 10 hours and that, of nearly 5,000 active counterintelligence cases in the U.S., almost half are related to China.

Chinese authorities claim the U.S. distorts its dealings with local community groups, and vehemently deny they are interfering in U.S. internal affairs. But U.S. authorities and U.S.-China experts stand their ground. “Justice, State, the F.B.I., they’re peeling back the layers that have been hiding some of these organizations and activities” says Dean Boyd, chief communications executive at the National Counterintelligence and Security Center. As he tells Newsweek, “The influencing has been going on non-stop, and it’s not happening in a vacuum. There is an election coming up.”

Sowing the Seeds of Division

If the tweets of “Jessi Young” and her friends were all you had to go on, China-linked efforts to manipulate U.S. public opinion in advance of the election might be easy to dismiss as amateurish and ineffective.

The Chinese actors involved, for instance, made no attempt to create realistic profiles for the owners of the 200 to 300 Twitter accounts involved, plus 60 or so more on Facebook. And while the messages, posted between February and July of this year, focused on important issues dividing the country, they were so crudely translated into English, without a feel for American tone or cadence, that the possibilities for engagement seemed limited.

A sampling: “‘Janky System’ is a stupid, failed system!” “Patricia Smith” tweeted, along with a photo of Americans voting. “The Trump Administration has gone so far as to sacrifice our lives to get back to work to make the Dow Jones look good that they now treat us like human beings?” “Sonia Mason” tweeted, complaining about federal response to the pandemic. “The overflow of freedom has created the situation today,” said “Laura Daniels” in response to a tweet about a report on religion by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“The Chinese are not really good at making fake social media accounts,” says Ho-fung Hung, a professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University and author of The China Boom: Why China Will Not Rule the World. “The language is not very convincing.” In fact, the Cyber Policy Centre found that, of the 2,240 tweets it analyzed, 99 percent got fewer than two likes, replies and retweets.

But while this particular campaign may not have hit the mark, some of the broad strategies it employed are ones that China uses quite effectively in other contexts—tactics very different from the techniques that Russia has used in its election interference efforts. The social posts from Chinese actors did not have a clear partisan lean—for instance, they promoted messages in support of both the Black Lives Matter and pro-police Blue Lives Matter movements. The point was not to take a side but rather to boost divisiveness by amplifying competing, emotionally-charged view points.

Nor did the Chinese campaign typically spread disinformation. Instead it commonly shared authentic content from legitimate news sources like The New York Times and MSNBC, along with tweets from civil rights groups, that highlighted racial divisions and inequality in the U.S.

“If people in the U.S. are looking [to China] for a repeat of Russia in 2016, they will be disappointed,” says Garnaut. “That’s not what China does. They repurpose, they don’t smash.” In other words, the CPC is not out to destroy the U.S., experts say, but rather to change or subvert it from within, and foster a positive view of China, in contrast to the apparent chaos in America.

“They are very determined and very organized,” says Anna Puglisi, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology and a former national counterintelligence officer for East Asia. “We [in America] don’t think in these ways. It flies in the face of how people in the U.S. see the world.”

While China’s influence efforts around the election have mostly centered on process vs. outcome, U.S. intelligence officials believe it’s clear the country’s leaders do have a favorite in the race. Lately Beijing has stepped up negative rhetoric about the Trump administration, harshly criticizing the White House on its statements and actions on Hong Kong and TikTok, among other things, and blasting its COVID-19 response. “We assess that China prefers that President Trump—whom China sees as unpredictable—does not win reelection,” said Evanina, the government counterintelligence director, in a statement this August. The Global Times, which is owned by the CPC’s People’s Daily newspaper, has also made it clear that China favors the Democratic candidate, saying in a recent article, “Tactically, the US approach would be more predictable, and Biden is much smoother to deal with than Trump.”

A year after his election, U.S. President Donald Trump, here with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a welcome ceremony, visited Beijing. Things have gone downhill between the two leaders ever since. Xinhua/Li Tao/Getty

Another reason China would prefer to deal with the Democrats: The Biden ranks include many people from the previous two Obama administrations, during which China made great strides on the world stage and experienced little opposition. Anti-China sentiment has heated up in the U.S. since then, as Trump very publicly addressed trade, influence and espionage problems, ensuring that China policy going forward will be more critical, no matter who occupies the White House—but it’s not clear if the Democrats are willing to challenge China quite as deeply, if they win.

Influence at the Local Level

Two particular members of the Trump entourage who have been thorns in the CPC’s side are Pompeo and his policy adviser Miles Yu, who together have led the administration’s broad pushback against China. Lately Pompeo has been sounding an alarm about a key focus of CPC activity in the U.S.— interference in politics, business and community at the state and local level.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lately has been sounding an alarm about Chinese efforts to exert influence in U.S. affairs at the state and local level. Alex Wong/Getty

In February, for example, Pompeo warned the National Governors Association at a meeting in Washington D.C. that the CPC was identifying and grooming state and local politicians who would support its interests. A Chinese think tank had already graded governors on their “friendliness,” Pompeo said. Newsweek obtained and translated a copy of the 2019 report, which labeled 17 governors as “friendly;” called 14 “ambiguous,” deemed six as “hardline” and the rest “unclear.” Pompeo told the governors, “Whether you are viewed by the CPC as friendly or hardline, know that it’s working you, know that it’s working the team around you.”

Six months later, at a meeting of economists and sociologists in Zhongnanhai, a secretive leaders’ compound in Beijing, Xi told more than a dozen top economists and sociologists that China would double down on seeking “cooperation” with U.S. politicians and business leaders at the states and local level, exactly what Pompeo had warned about. “We must actively develop cooperation with all countries, regions and enterprises willing to cooperate with us, including states, localities and enterprises in the United States,” Xi said, according to Xinhua, the state news agency.

In his talk, Pompeo gave several examples that he said reflected an uptick in CPC interference at the state level. In 2019, he said, diplomats at the Chinese consulate in Houston wrote to the Mississippi governor, Phil Bryant, threatening to cancel a Chinese investment in his state if he traveled to Taiwan, the de facto independent island nation that Beijing claims and says no one may have official ties with. Bryant went anyway.

In another example, Chinese diplomats at the consulate in Chicago wrote to a Wisconsin lawmaker, Republican Roger Roth, asking him to sponsor a bill they wrote praising China’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wisconsin Examiner reported. Roth initially ignored the request thinking it a joke. The Chinese diplomats sent it again. Roth replied with one word: “nuts.”

Those two attempts may have faltered in the face of pushback, but outreach often works, especially on the business level. Speaking on background, one official described the pattern: “Say you are governor of a state that has tremendous economic investments in China, or that has a good relationship with China exporting soybeans or grain. China can use that relationship,” say, by asking their political or business contacts to make calls to Washington to try and influence policy. It sounds like U.S. political lobbying, “but you have to know, it’s a foreign government playing this game,” the official says.

In other countries, this kind of interference can be even more intense—and has already led to major problems, including threats to national security. In Australia, Chinese intelligence operatives allegedly conspired to place a financially-troubled, ethnic Chinese person, Nick Zhao, in parliament as a spy, offering $1 million to fund his campaign, according to multiple reports in the Australian media last year. Zhao, in his 30s, was found dead of a drug overdose in a Melbourne hotel room in 2019. That same year, China’s Ministry of State Security was reportedly responsible for cyberattacks against Australia’s parliament and three major political parties that provided access to policy papers and emails, according to Reuters.

In Canada, a special parliamentary committee set up in late 2019 is driving a rethink on China relations amid charges of “brazen” interference. Earlier this year, a report was published that detailed activities that China, along with Russia, had engaged in: “using deceptive means to ‘cultivate relationships with elected officials and others perceived to possess influence in the political process; seek to influence the reporting of Canadian media outlets; seek, in some cases, to affect the outcome of elections; and coerce or induce diaspora communities to advance foreign interests.'”

Europe too has begun to reexamine its relations with China amid the shock of COVID-19 when, earlier this year, Beijing sent very public medical aid to struggling nations, including Italy, accompanied by propaganda presenting China as a savior and appearing to try to weaken faith in the European Union. Then in October, Sweden, spooked by a newly-adopted combative style of diplomacy that the Chinese call “wolf warrior” and the kidnapping and detention of a citizen in China, among other problems, banned Huawei and ZTE, the Chinese telecom companies, from its future 5G networks, citing concerns over “Sweden’s security.” Earlier this year, Sweden also shut down all of the country’s Confucius Institutes, a Beijing-funded program with the stated goal of promoting Chinese language and culture that many viewed as a propaganda tool. In the U.S. they have been permitted to remain open but are designated as “foreign missions.”

Medical supplies sent by China to help Italy during the pandemic were part of a propaganda effort. Xinhua/Zheng Mengyu/Getty

In some ways, the U.S., at least until recently, has lagged in experiencing the more aggressive actions that other nations have documented and in exposing infractions, when discovered. That may have partly to do with Chinese tactics, which are more careful when aimed at the key “enemy,” says Ho-fung Hung, the Johns Hopkins professor. Hung quotes a revolutionary saying by Mao Zedong to illustrate his point: “Mao said, ‘gather your best forces, annihilate the enemy one by one.’ Don’t take on the core first, don’t take on the toughest opponent first,” Hung says. “Take on the smaller and weaker ones, like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK. They have done that. The U.S. is the toughest nut to crack.”

But there are signs that the U.S. is starting to take the threat more seriously. In July, the State Department shut China’s Houston consulate over what it said was multi-year, persistent technology theft and political interference across a broad swathe of states in the south, southeast and southwest, home of many energy and medical businesses and advanced research. The Chinese government denies these activities.

While the U.S. government has not released many details of what happened, several interviewees described a pattern of espionage by diplomats at the consulate aimed at major cities in the area. “Say, you are a city manager and you have a giant medical industry, and you also have giant collaborative relationships with China, well, then that manager is dependent on China,” said one official, who spoke on background. A Chinese diplomat might then feel free to place a phone call to the manager asking for a meeting with the state governor, or approval for a business project, or to oppose a motion criticizing China for human rights violations in Tibet, Xinjiang or Hong Kong. “It’s very effective influence,” the official said.

Protesters hold up signs and flags outside of the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas, on July 24, 2020, after the US State Department ordered China to close it. Photo by MARK FELIX/AFP /AFP via Getty Images

“Houston was not chosen at random out of the consulates out there,” said John C. Demers, an assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice, in an online event in August with the Center for Strategic & International Studies. The consulate had long been a center of nationwide activity to exert political pressure and extract technology for China, several persons interviewed for this story said. In a sign of the scale of activities, F.B.I. agents also conducted about “50 interviews in 30 different cities” across the U.S., with Chinese researchers suspected of working to extract technology—”just the tip of what was going on and what we were trying to disrupt,” Demers said.

China’s Magic Weapon

To help carry out its program of influence and interference in the U.S., China relies on what Xi calls the country’s “magic weapon:” the party’s “United Front” system led by a Communist Party division called the United Front Work Department.

This is “a network of party and state agencies responsible for influencing groups outside the party,” both inside and outside China, as Alex Joske, a researcher on Chinese politics at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, has written. Traditionally, outside China, the United Front has focused on overseas Chinese communities, appealing to their sense of ethnic loyalty to persuade them to “repay the motherland.” Personal benefit is often involved, with the system offering business opportunities in exchange for good will and cooperation.

Groups that are part of the system often have innocuous-sounding names, like the Chinese Overseas Exchange Association. Running parallel to the United Front is the Chinese government’s global network of “friendship associations,” under the foreign ministry. The U.S. organizations with which these groups cultivate ties may have no idea of their CPC affiliation. Pompeo, for instance, pointed out that the Governors Association had co-sponsored a U.S.-China “Collaboration Summit” with a group called the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship and Foreign Countries, which is, indirectly, tied to the United Front system. He asked the gathering, “How many of you made the link between that group and Chinese Communist Party officials?”

“The United Front is part of China’s foreign policy, part of China’s intelligence apparatus and runs interference,” says Anne-Marie Brady, a professor of Chinese politics at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Tasks that it may be charged with include everything from making “friends” to outright espionage.

A government reception last month to commemorate the founding of the People’s Republic of China was organized in part by the United Front Work Department, which is responsible for influencing groups to view China and its goals favorably. Gao Jie/Xinhua/Getty

The Chinese government has frequently denied the Front’s role in overseas influence and interference operations. Yet it allocates a large amount of money to its work, indicating it is a priority. The budget of the United Front system, both at home and abroad, was more than $2.6 billion in 2019, Ryan Fedasiuk of Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology says. Nearly $600 million of that was earmarked for work aimed at overseas Chinese communities and foreigners, Fedasiuk calculates. The total budget outstripped the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s, he found.

The United Front in Action

A three-day summit that took place in mid-October at the China Institute, a New York City non-profit, provides a classic example of how the United Front works. The event, titled “Finding Success in an Age of Crisis,” promised to help participants figure out how to “achieve success in the face of strained U.S.-China relations and a volatile world.”

The event featured an illustrious line-up of panelists from U.S. business, academia, technology, media, diplomacy and politics, including Rick Snyder, former governor of Michigan, and Stapleton J. Roy, a founder of the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute. Yet what participants likely didn’t know: Three of the four “knowledge partners” are directly or indirectly part of the United Front.

The Beijing-based Center for China & Globalization, a think tank, is one of them. The organization was co-founded by Wang Huiyao, who is also a deputy chairman of the Western Returned Students Association, a United Front Work Department group, according to Joske, who has documented Wang’s multiple connections to the United Front. The other were the China General Chamber of Commerce USA and the China General Chamber of Commerce USA Chicago, both among the 600 or so American groups Newsweek has linked to the CPC system.

Asked for comment, the China Institute replied that it “chose to engage with these organizations because of their large memberships and connection to the issues and topics that are a priority today. We wanted to ensure they were engaged in the conversation.” In an emailed statement, the China General Chamber of Commerce–USA denied it was linked to the United Front system, saying it was “a non-profit and non-governmental organization representing Chinese enterprises in the U.S.,” with a mission “to create value, generate economic growth, and enhance cooperation between the U.S. and Chinese business communities.”

Importantly, members of the various groups identified by Newsweek, most of them ethnic Chinese, may not be aware of the organization’s ties to the China party-state. Individuals may join for a sense of community or a business opportunity. Despite that, the groups may compete to be close to the Chinese embassy and its consulates hoping to gain status and favors, says Yaqiu Wang, an analyst for Human Rights Watch in New York City. China’s diplomatic system, in turn, connects through them to local Chinese-language communities.

Some groups assist in technology transfer—acquiring technology developed by U.S. companies for use by Chinese companies—a crucial goal of the party’s influencing and interfering. The system also permeates the Chinese-language media in the U.S, shaping the information environment.

Newsweek has identified the following types of organizations as affiliated with the United Front throughout the U.S.: at least 83 Chinese hometown associations for immigrants from the same place in China; 10 “Chinese Aid Centers;” 32 Chambers of Commerce; 13 Chinese-language media brands; about half of the 70 associations for Chinese professionals in the U.S.; 38 organizations promoting the “peaceful reunification” of China and Taiwan; five “friendship organizations” and 129 other groups engaged in a range of activities such as education and culture. In addition, there are 265 Chinese Student and Scholar Associations for the approximately 300,000 Chinese students in the U.S. These are connected to CPC politics, often via Chinese diplomats, usually the education secretary in a consulate.

The groups were identified by evaluating crossover membership, regular joint activities, events indicating ideological alignment, high-level meetings that can only be obtained by being part of a CPC-trusted system and by crosschecking names, positions and cooperative events described in hundreds of Chinese-language government and party documents and Chinese state media reports as well as reports by the groups themselves. The level of influence and interference activity ranges from simple efforts to promote a positive view of China to outright espionage.

The latter was the case in late September, when a New York City policeman of Tibetan origin from China, a naturalized American citizen and army reservist, was arrested and charged with acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government. His handler in the Chinese consulate in New York City worked for the China Association for Preservation and Development of Tibetan Culture, which is part of the United Front, according to charges laid out by the Department of Justice. Allegedly the policeman spied on Chinese citizens living in the New York area to help assess their potential as intelligence sources and provided Chinese officials with access to the NYPD through invitations to police events.

The Consulate General of The People’s Republic of China in New York City. Photo by Bill Tompkins/Getty Images

Start digging, and the number of groups in the U.S. with ties to the United Front seem endless. The Committee of 100 (C100), a New York-based advocacy group for Americans of Chinese origin that was founded nearly 30 years ago with the help of Henry Kissinger, is another, according to multiple reports in Chinese-language media and United Front organizations. The website of the United Front Work Department in the Chinese city of Nanjing identifies U.S. businessman and C100 chairman H. Roger Wang as an honorary chairman of the Nanjing Overseas Friendship Association, which is a city-level branch of the United Front’s global China Overseas Friendship Association.

Upon his election to the board in 2018, Wang talked enthusiastically about key CPC projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative, in which China committed to invest in infrastructure projects in nearly 70 countries. The U.S. did not join, seeing the initiative as an attempt by Beijing to project its power around the world. “There are so many areas that C100 can get actively involved in now, including the Belt and Road Initiative,” Wang said in an interview with China Daily. Xi Jinping has described C100 as a “friendly organization” and the group regularly meets with top Chinese leaders.

Asked for comment, Fulton Hou, a program associate at C100 emailed, “We firmly oppose any efforts by a foreign government or a political party—from China or elsewhere—to influence or undermine American society and democracy. Our dual mission is to promote the full participation of Chinese Americans in American life and to advance a constructive Sino-American dialogue.”

Is there anything wrong with that? Not on the surface, but what’s beneath the surface is harder to discern. “How to deal with China is a question everybody has to face,” says Alvin Y.H. Cheung, a research fellow at NYU’s U.S.-Asia Law Institute. “The relationship with the CPC is like any other relationship. You have to set boundaries.”

Didi Kirsten Tatlow is a senior fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin and at Projekt Sinopsis in Prague, and a journalist who began reporting from China in 1995. Cheryl Yu contributed research for this story in the U.S.

Photo Illustration by Newsweek; Source images Getty

Update, 10/27, 6:45 a.m. ET: This story has been updated to include a response from the China General Chamber of Commerce–USA.

https://www.covid19snews.com/2020/11/02/u-s-groups-linked-to-ccp-influence-effort-with-ambition-beyond-election/

#covid19

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junker-town · 4 years ago

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AAU is actually holding a 17,000 person youth volleyball tournament in Florida right now

Photo by Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images

The justification for holding the event in the middle of a pandemic hotspot is non-existent.

With the NBA and WNBA bubbles in full effect another sporting event is set to begin in Orlando starting Tuesday. The 2020 AAU Junior National Volleyball Tournament is expected to bring 17,000 people to the region from all over the country, and it’s still going ahead despite the state’s skyrocketing number of Covid-19 cases, which now sits at over 282,000 confirmed cases.

The tournament, starting at the Orange County convention center, had been delayed multiple times due to Coronavirus, but is now going ahead under what the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) calls “numerous safeguards,” which includes requiring non-athletes to wear masks, no fans being in attendance, temperature checks, and social distancing measures. However, justification for holding the event right now in one of the nation’s largest Covid hotspots is shaky at best.

AAU has a video posted from Orlando Health doctor Don Plumley explaining how the event will take place with health and safety measures in place; however, according to the Internet Archive this video was posted on June 8th, and has not been updated or adjusted since. This was prior to the dramatic spike in Florida Covid cases, which took place in mid-late June, when confirmed cases rose fourfold from 64,904 to its current number.

Additionally holding the tournament now breaks CDC recommended guidelines on Covid-19 safety, as well as seemingly running counter to Covid-skeptic Florida governor Ron DeSantis’ own recommendation about avoiding crowded places.

We must all continue to do our part to protect Florida’s most vulnerable and avoid the 3 Cs: closed spaces, crowded places and close-contact settings. Safeguarding the elderly and those with underlying health conditions will continue to be our top priority. pic.twitter.com/2GiAJHq6r1

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) July 14, 2020

Considering these factors how is a large-scale youth sporting event being allowed to take place in the middle of one of the highest risk areas during a pandemic? The Orlando Sentinel has been trying to gain information from Orange County about the financial dealings that led to the event taking place, but have been rebuffed. Local taxpayers are giving the AAU $150,000 for holding the event, without any information being offered on what the county is getting in return from the AAU. Resources are so stretched in the area that the Orange County Convention Center, where the volleyball tournament is taking place, has even been looked at as a potential field hospital to deal with hospital overflow, with the Army Corps of Engineers visiting the site as recently as this week to determine its viability.

To its credit, the convention center itself has received Global Biorisk Advisory Council STAR accreditation for its disinfecting and cleaning regimen, but this does not mean the event if “safe” by any stretch of the imagination. On Monday the NBA bubble was breached for the first time when Richaun Holmes went outside to accept a food delivery, without thinking of the ramifications. The AAU Junior National Volleyball Tournament will have nowhere near the same level of protection as the NBA, with additional risks of thousands of more competitors, eventually returning to their home states after spending significant time in Florida.

The impact of holding the event right now will not be known for weeks, but by all suggestions and indications it shouldn’t be happening at all right now.

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weshallneverrevolt · 7 years ago

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Porter Robinson - Worlds (2014)

I like EDM. There, I said it.

I think it’s a fun genre, music made for feeling alive and happy and young. Yes, it is a genre of clichés, rehashed ideas, and fans that tread the line between endearing and grating. But the sheer output of its artists results in a sort of centrifuge of ideas that, when it finally spits a new one out, is brilliance.

It’s also a very millennial genre. EDM is arguably the first genre of music we can claim as our own. Sure, electronic music has been around for years, but the especially melodic, loud, fist-pumping festival anthems of “EDM” are something new. They’re ours.

So much as records like Illmatic and The White Album pushed their genres and subgenres forward, there have been some definite trailblazers in EDM. My state’s very own Porter Robinson is one of those guys, and his album Worlds might do the same for our genre. Only time will tell if it holds up with those records above, but it’s still pretty damn good.

To explain why I think Worlds deserves more attention, I’m going to take a little detour into a very different genre of music.

I love Billy Joel. His album The Nylon Curtain (released 1982) has stirring songs about America reconciling itself with a world after Vietnam, a world where globalism was fast eclipsing the American dream. “Goodnight Saigon” tracks soldiers from training through the jungles of Asia; “Allentown” looks back home at blue collar workers.

But it stands out because the wounds were still fresh. Some had aged a bit – America left Vietnam in 1973 – and some were still ongoing, like the decline of Detroit and steel plant closures of the early 80s. It blended emotional immediacy with wisdom, expressing the fear of times still coming and gratitude for times long gone. Responsible nostalgia, if you will.

The Nylon Curtain’s songs are very authentic in that way, which is why they still resonate. Parts of “Allentown” sound like something Bernie Sanders would say:

“Every child has a pretty good shot To get at least as far as their old man got But something happened on the way to that place They threw an American flag in our place.”

As I mentioned in my entry about Kesha’s Rainbow, authenticity is extremely important for great music. Kanye put it best: when you try hard, that’s when you die hard. It’s why we cringe now at emo bands: the whole struggle feels a bit like a ruse.

I promised this would somehow connect to an EDM album from 2014. Worlds works because of who made it and the time he grew up in. Porter’s lyrics are escapist rather than introspective, and I doubt his synths will age as well as Billy Joel’s piano. But his album’s sound is one that evokes a very specific aesthetic, one that only someone from his time could represent accurately.

Above: Visuals from the “Worlds” tour by the Invisible Light Network.

Wordsworth said that poetry is a “spontaneous overflow of emotion, recollected in tranquility.” Worlds is a spontaneous overflow of 90s-00s geek nostalgia, reflected in tranquility. With bangers.

If you’re reading this, you likely had a similar childhood to Porter Robinson. He grew up in the 1990s, surrounded by video games, anime, and a world whose technology outpaced its maturity. It was an exciting and overwhelming time to be a kid.

Worlds is an album that owes a great debt to those influences, and that sensation of wonder.

The music is the most obvious part, marrying 16-bit video game synths with the brighter, clearer ones of modern dance music. Much of the album sounds like the soundtrack of a video game that never got made. ”Flicker” is a funky groove that would fit in a Final Fantasy item shop, complete with a cute Japanese counter girl. The thick textures of “Hear the Bells” would fit perfectly in a full-motion video ending, where a spiky haired hero watches an airship soar into the distance.

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Despite that, this is not a chiptune album, very much adopting the modern principles of EDM: chopped and screwed samples, sing-a-long choruses, and lyrics that evoke togetherness and the power of the moment. Though the driving melody of “Years of War” soars above a pixelated skyline, its lyrics evoke burning it down. That mix of rage and youthful energy is echoed in the festival-friendly chorus of “Lionhearted.” Even “Sad Machine” would work at a festival despite its sci-fi tropes, with its hymn-like chorus of “she depends on you.”

Porter’s nostalgic sounds do distance him from his contemporaries, as do his lyrics. Take “Polygon Dust” for instance. Many an EDM banger has mentioned the importance of “tonight,” but this song also seems to mourn something, maybe tonights that weren’t so carefully guarded. “Sad Machine” is also a very lonely song, where the only characters are a protagonist and a mysterious robot girl they’ve just awakened.

That balance places the nostalgia of this album in the same category as The Nylon Curtain. It’s not idealized: it’s wistful. It wishes nostalgia was more powerful than it actually was. There’s a longing in these scenes, from the adolescent male fantasy of “Sad Machine” to the long-distance friendship in “Fresh Static Snow.”

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A lot of period pieces feel fake because their creators never experienced their subjects. Worlds feels so authentic because, like Billy Joel, Porter lived through his influences. He escaped into those worlds just like we did.

But despite all that retro navel-gazing, Worlds is an album made today. And the world today sucks.

It’s easy to see why the predictable heroism of 90s RPGs, the bright futures of science fiction, the colors and whimsical stories of anime, the decisive victories of superheroes all comfort us as adults. They’re a tattered blanket, fragments of the world outside our windows before adulthood peeled back the curtains. They’re what we spend our nights at home doing when we’re tired of Facebook and the news and each other.

Nostalgia is the purest form of escapism because it involves a world we once knew. It’s one that requires no influence other than living, and one that lets us pretend more than any costume. Worlds, the EDM musicians it learned from and the culture that inspired it are all about pretending, about being somewhere else.

More than escapism in and of itself, Worlds is an ode to escapism. It’s a memorial for all the places that both never existed and have always existed inside of us. Perhaps that’s why Porter moved away from his first EP’s heavy dubstep influences: he missed those places.

Those places, more than any of Porter’s Worlds, are what he pines for in this lyric from “Fellow Feeling:”

“I cried, for I did not think it could be true; That you and I might have always known one another And that we could not only evoke, but conjure a place of our own That everywhere - that has ever existed Was all in service of our dream.”

Further Listening

“Sad Machine” Cover by Didrick and Ember Island – a beautiful rock version of Worlds’ most popular song with non-vocaloid vocals and real instruments.

“Shelter” – a collaboration with Madeon, another great EDM producer who shares Porter’s influences. The video is an anime short made with Japanese studio A-1 Pictures.

“Goodnight Saigon” – a hella dope EDM banger! Just kidding, it’s a piano rock ballad from The Nylon Curtain.

“Language” - a song from Porter Robinson’s pre-Worlds career that showcases the origins of some of the sounds on his debut album.

#porter robinson #shelter #sad machine #worlds #music #edm #electronic #2014 #criticism #nostalgia #90s #anime #weebs get out reeeeee #madeon #fellow feeling #dance music #billy joel

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mhsn033 · 4 years ago

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Health News24.com | CTICC Hospital of Hope to close as Covid-19 declines in Western Cape

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The Clinic of Hope at the Cape Town Global Conference Centre.

The Covid-19 subject effectively being facility at the CTICC will shut down because the pandemic eases within the Western Cape.

The final 57 patients will likely be transferred to the Brackengate facility from Friday.

The Thusong Centre in Khayeltisha, proceed along with Scientific doctors with out Borders, is also being decommissioned and would possibly possibly maybe well just gentle be moved to support out within the Eastern Cape.

The Covid-19 subject effectively being facility at the Cape Town Global Conference Centre (CTICC) will shut down because the pandemic eases within the Western Cape.

The head of the Division of Health, Keith Cloete, said the CTICC would be decommissioned on 18 August and the final patients would be transferred to the Brackengate facility beginning on Friday.

This after Premier Alan Winde appealed to President Cyril Ramaphosa to reopen the financial system by easing the lockdown to place jobs and counter the devastating impact on already susceptible folks.

A meeting between premiers and Ramaphosa is anticipated on Saturday, and Winde hopes for files of a conceivable easing within the days after that.

READ | Municipalities shedding billions of rands one day of Covid-19 pandemic

The CTICC facility treated 1 502 folks, discharged 1 440, with 57 final. Eighty-two folks died there.

The skill’s mortuary container will likely be moved to rural areas to support the put fundamental by mid-September as per the contract with the CTICC.

Cloete said the subject hospitals had been supposed for a particular window and had been never at capability.

However, he became as soon as ecstatic the department’s approach had been to “over-provide” as a substitute of “below-provide”, given the uncertainty over how the pandemic would beget an impact on the nation.

Even if having ample bed and instruments capability, in hindsight, it’ll also just beget appealing its team better for what became as soon as about to hit them, given the apprehension levels.

“We beget now learnt plenty about getting appealing human beings for the emotional route of that they’ll war by technique of within the face of apprehension and within the face of uncertainty,” he added.

Earlier this year, horrific experiences of hospitals overflowing with Covid-19 patients emerged from Italy, and there had been fears the linked would happen in South Africa.

A nationwide catastrophe became as soon as declared by Ramaphosa in March, adopted by a strict lockdown and obstacles on motion to present the nation’s hospitals time to put together for a conceivable linked scenario.

Alternate

Cloete said that continued behaviour exchange became as soon as crucial with regards to containment, adding Covid-19 would remain, and masks, hand-washing and floor hygiene can also just gentle continue.

The province’s planning will focal point carefully on detecting recent clusters, a nationwide zero-prevalence approach for antibodies to gauge the extent of how many contributors reduced in measurement the virus and continued monitoring of hotspots until a vaccine is within the market on the market between 12 months or two years, in particular for sentinel events such outbreaks linked to gatherings similar to weddings or church sermons.

The National Health Laboratory Providers has no backlog and the department can also now assessment cases to adjust its future approach.

Cloete said if the lockdown became as soon as eased additional with continued behaviour exchange, the province would be ready to address the gathering of most in model Covid-19 cases and folks returning for non-Covid-19-linked scientific medicine.

A focal point on diabetics, who had been stumbled on to be at a higher threat with a background mortality of 37%, resulted in a medication provide carrier for them one day of the pandemic, which will likely be continued.

The same programme for lower-threat diabetics started on 7 August with 60 already contacted and 13 escalated for a convention-up.

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maxihealth · 5 years ago

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In the US COVID-19 Pandemic, A Tension Between the Fiscal and the Physical

“Act fast and do whatever it takes,” insists the second half of the title of a new eBook with contributions from forty leading economists from around the world.

The first half of the title is, Mitigating the COVID Economic Crisis.

The book is discussed in a World Economic Forum essay discussing the economists’ consensus to “act fast.”

As the U.S. curve adds new American patients testing positive for the coronavirus, the book and essay illustrate the tension between health consumer versus the health citizen in the U.S.

For clinical context, as I write this post on 24th March 2020, today’s U.S. curve illustrating the trajectory of the number of days since the 100th COVID-19 case shows a steeper incline than any other nation’s. This graph was published today by the Financial Times, which is tracking the coronavirus each day and has generously dropped its paywall for this crucial content.

The first of two charts in the essay, taken from the economists’ book, illustrates the physical factor: that is, the #FlattenTheCurve scenarios related to medical containment, and potential for economic recession.

The title of the chart makes it clear that, “containment policies flatten the medical curve, but steepen the recession curve.” This is the issue of “act now:” #StayHome, mandate social distancing nationwide across all fifty states and all U.S. communities, and essentially bite the bullet in the short-term to lessen the curve’s slope and conserve scarce health system resources — hospital beds, ventilators, masks, and most importantly, the labor on the front-lines of the COVID-19 pandemic: doctors and nurses who put themselves in harm’s way 24×7 from Seattle to New York City.

The second chart illustrates the dynamics of the fiscal story of the COVID-19 pandemic: household economics, consumer demand for goods, supply chains, employers and business impacts.

Clearly, the healthcare story is embedded into the economic fabric of the country — this is true globally, but in the U.S. has the complication that so many Americans play the role of health consumer — the patient as the payor. At least one-third of people in the U.S. are concerned about their potential out-of-pocket costs which could run $1,300 or more, based on a Peterson Center/Kaiser Family Foundation study I discussed here in Health Populi.

Bottom-line for that health consumer: two in three Americans could not afford to pay their deductible if hospitalized for treatment of coronavirus.

The “Households” segment of the fiscal diagram identifies the financial impact to the consumer: household bankruptcies or financial distress. Beyond paying for food and housing, in the U.S., the individual is concerned about also covering medical costs. For COVID-19, this is a matter of what for oncology, analysts have termed “financial toxicity.”

Health Populi’s Hot Points: Eons ago, Virgil wrote, “The greatest wealth is health” We are now living through this interdependence globally, viscerally. Virgil lived between 70 BC and 19 BC, dying at the age of 51 years of age and living in poor health for much of his life.

2,000+ years later, we are wrestling with wealth and health, and the tension between short-to-midterm pain (physical distancing, financial stress, psychological needs) that can help conserve health system resources and save lives, and trade-offs with national and personal economies — shown in the fiscal graphic.

In a section called “Self-rationing due to cost: fiscal vs. physical,” I wrote in my book, HealthConsuming: From Health Consumer to Health Citizen,

“The costs of medical care have compelled people in America to take steps that self-ration, avoiding or postponing some aspect of medical care…[which also] happens among people with insurance who have trouble paying medical bills…While it’s more common for people with lower incomes to avoid healthcare due to cost, some 16% of consumers earning over $100,000 a year did so, too….”

This chart comes out of the book from the chapter, “The Patient is the Payor.”

The U.S. is the only country in the world facing the COVID-19 pandemic where the patient is that payor.

At this time of “war” against the pandemic, Americans should be, should feel like, Health Citizens. Throughout the country, we are seeing Americans doing noble things for each other, in their communities, for health care providers, for their families. These actions are those of Health Citizens who embrace both their rights (where health care should be as a civil right/universal health care) and responsibilities — like adopting the #StayHome & #AloneTogether life- and work-style, physical distancing, hygiene, and checking in with neighbors and friends using digital and social technologies.

The American reality remains that most people, health consumers/patient-payors, do not have the level of savings banked to cover health care costs in an emergency. And if ever there was a healthcare emergency, we’re in it Right Now.

Yesterday, President Trump stated at his daily broadcast conference that, “We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem.”

“Whose” cure? “Whose” problem?

Economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources. Today, several thousand Americans are dealing with the situation of a loved one in an ICU where hospitals may have just enough ventilators to cover inpatients gasping for breath. Fifteen days from today, there will be tens of thousands of beloved inpatients in beds, in hospitals and makeshift care settings to cover the overflow of those very sick from the coronavirus complications. The supply-side of COVID-19 “wartime” hardware — beds, ventilators, perhaps even disposable masks — is forecasted to be in shortfall.

Leaders in the Pentagon are planning for several months to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic: “I think we need to plan for this to be a few months long at least and we’re taking all precautionary measures to do that,” Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said during a virtual town hall. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley said, “You’re looking at eight to 10 to 12 weeks, call it three months, based on what we know from other countries like China, Hong Kong, South Korea, etc., that may or may not apply to the United States.”

President Trump wants to “open up” the economy by Easter, which will happen less than one month from today (25 days, by my count).

This would run counter to the advice of “acting fast” and “doing whatever it takes” to save patients and bolster the economy with sufficient resources to keep families financially whole.

The post In the US COVID-19 Pandemic, A Tension Between the Fiscal and the Physical appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.

In the US COVID-19 Pandemic, A Tension Between the Fiscal and the Physical posted first on https://carilloncitydental.blogspot.com

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delwray-blog · 5 years ago

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WHAT A PRICE HUMAN BEINGS WILL PAY FOR REJECTING JESUS CHRIST!

The World is Rushing toward Armageddon

The Battle of Armageddon

The Battle of the Great Day of God Almighty: This covers Rev. 19:7-21, which shows primarily Christ as the righteous Warrior, for we see Him coming to do battle with the host of Satan's armies in what is often called "the battle of Armageddon," but which in truth is a war, or campaign, of the great day of God Almighty. This war is necessitated by the fiendishly evil ambitions of humankind and their evil source of power, Satan.

Our Lord Himself tells when this battle will take place:

"Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:" "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" "And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other" Matt. 24:29-31

The Glorious Appearing will take place "Immediately after the tribulation of those days". That is, at the end of the Tribulation and before the Millennium. Our Lord will time His coming at the most dramatic point in all history. The Antichrist, the False Prophet, and Satan will inspire the armies of the world to invade Palestine in a gigantic effort to rid the world of the Jews and to fight against Christ.

This coming battle before Christ sets up His millennial kingdom is often called "the Battle of Armageddon." This is a misleading expression because Armageddon means "Mount of Slaughter" and refers to the beautiful valley to the east of Mount Megiddo. And the word "battle" here literally means "campaign" or "war". No war has ever been won by a single battle. In fact, it is possible to lose a battle and still win a war. The war of the great Day of God Almighty takes place in a single day, and the Battle of Armageddon will be just one of the battles of that war.

The Battle of Armageddon: This war will encompass more than just the Valley of Megiddo; as we will see, it covers practically all of the land of Palestine. This conflict, when Christ defeats the armies of Antichrist, will be a series of at least 4 campaigns"; therefore it is more properly called "the battle on the great day of God Almighty" Rev. 16:14. This last conflict between Satan and Christ until after the Millennium will find Satan making one more fiendish effort to destroy the promised seed. Satan will order his armies to destroy the entire city of Jerusalem, but Christ will come to deliver her at the last moment, as is clearly seen, Zech. 12:1-9.

This is the word of the Lord concerning Israel: "The Lord, who stretches out the heaven, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the spirit of man within him, declares:" "I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves. On that day I will strike every horse with panic and its rider with madness," declares the Lord. "I will keep a watchful eye over the house of Judah, but I will blind all the horses of the nations Zech. 12:1-4.

"Then the leaders of Judah will say in their hearts:" "The people of Jerusalem are strong because the Lord Almighty is their God." "On that day I will make the leaders of Judah like a firepot in a woodpile, like a flaming torch among sheaves. They will consume right and left all the surrounding peoples, but Jerusalem will remain intact in her place". "The Lord will save the dwelling of Judah first, so that the honor of the house of David and of Jerusalem's inhabitants may not be greater than that of Judah". "On that day the Lord will shield those who live in Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the Angel of the Lord going before them. On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attach Jerusalem" Zech. 12:5-9.

The Battle of Jehoshaphat: "For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem," "I will gather all nations, and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. Then I will enter into judgment with them there on behalf of my people and my inheritance, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations; and they have divided up my land" Joel 3:1-2.

God dates this battle specifically. It takes place when Israel has been restored to the land.

The principals in this battle Hal Lindsey believes is the Israelis and the Palestinians who have attempted to usurp control over a city that holds no genuine significance for them and land they never particularly wanted until the Jews occupied it again. God names the participants. "Moreover, what are you to Me, O Tyre, Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you rendering me recompense? But if you do recompense me, swiftly and speedily I will return your recompense on your head" Joel 3:4. Tyre, Sidon and the regions of Philistia are the ancestral areas of the modern-day Palestinians.

God also takes exception to the argument that they claim the city in the name of the god (Allah), and points out that they were never part of His sworn covenant that deeded it to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob forever.

The Lord asks pointedly, "Moreover, what are you to me"? The argument currently being put forth to justify Islam's claim to the city of Jerusalem is that it is a holy city and that Islam's aim in controlling the city is to ensure the "holy places" are respected. God hardly considers the claim. "Are you rendering me a recompense?" God is plainly saying that He is quite capable of administering His city thank you very much. He rejects the offer and hurls it back contemptuously.

God brings to mind the destruction of His Temple, and more specifically, the arrogance and hatred of those who usurped its grounds to build a monument to another deity. After the Temple was destroyed, the Romans scattered the Jews to the far corners of the earth. It was during this Diaspora that the city and the Temple Mount fell into the hands of Islam. "You have taken My silver and My gold brought My precious treasures to your temples, and sold the sons of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks in order to remove them far from their territory" Joel 5:6-7.

God confirms that His prophecy to restore the Jews to the land of Promise has been fulfilled and that it is from that place, the place He appointed them, that He would gather them to battle and that they would be the instruments of his recompense, or, in common vernacular, payback!

"Behold, I am going to arouse them from the place where you have sold them, and return your recompense on your head" Joel 3:7.

This is not the final battle of the War of Armageddon. The War of Armageddon involves the whole world in escalating waves of battles. But Joel sees those he can identify, the nations surrounding Israel. These were the same nations that were currently talking about peace and Oslo agreements while preparing for war.

War they want and war they are certainly going to get. "Hasten and come, all your surrounding nations, and gather yourselves there. Bring down, O Lord," "Thy mighty ones. Let the nations be aroused and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations." "Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, tread, for the winepress is full; the vats overflow, for their wickedness, is great."

"Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision, for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision" Joel 3:11-14.

Note again that the Battle of Jehoshaphat is not the final battle. The Lord gives a gracious promise to sustain the believing remnant that is caught in the middle of the worst conflict of history:

"The sun and moon grow dark, and the stars lose their brightness." "And the Lord roars from Zion and utters His voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth tremble. But the Lord is a refuge for His people and a stronghold to the sons of Israel" Joel 3:15-16.

Even in the midst of this horrible carnage, where all that is familiar is being destroyed, God assures the remnant that this will never happen again: "Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, Dwelling in Zion My holy mountain. So Jerusalem will be holy, and strangers will pass through it no more" Joel 3:17.

Each of the surviving powers in the final global conflict has land armies that have arrived in the area by this time. Most of the Russian and Muslim troops have been annihilated on the mountains of Israel Ezek. 39-2. Jerusalem was first besieged by an onslaught of the Russian led Muslim alliance, which included units from North and Black Africa. The Gog-Magog attack took the world leader by surprise, and it took him some time to muster the Western armies under his direct command for a counter attack.

"And at the end time the King of the south will collide with him, and the King of the North will storm against him with chariots, with horsemen, and its many ships; and he will enter countries, overflow them, and pass through" Dan. 11:40.

The scene is devastating. Nuclear and neutron weapons have done serious damage to command and control, supply lines, lines of communication, and entire divisions no longer exist anywhere but on maps. In the confusion, the Bible seems to indicate Jerusalem is captured, recaptured, and captured again, but no one unit is able to hold it. Evidently, either by treaty with the Jordanians or by God's providential protection of the Israelis who fled to the caves at Petra Matt. 24:16. Edom, Moab and the sons of Ammon (modern Jordan), are spared the wrath of the Antichrist's military forces.

The battles grow so fierce, so destructive, and so wanton is the carnage that God sends Michael the archangel in on Israel's side. Remember, here we are in the midst of the greatest war in history, and Israel is right in the middle. Nuclear weapons uncounted millions of invaders the full force of the wrath of Satan is directed against the Jewish people. "Now at that time Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise. And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued" Dan. 12:1.

Not every Jew will survive the war. God says that two-thirds of the Jews will perish.

"And it will come about in all the land," declares the Lord, "that two parts in it will be cut off and perish, but the third will be left in it. And I will bring the third part through the fire, refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, and I will answer them; I will say, "They are My people, and they will say, "The Lord is my God" Zech. 13:8-9.

That remnant who is "refined as silver is refined" and "tested as gold is tested" will indeed call on the Lord. There is nothing more powerful than prayer.

"But I will watch over the house of Judah, while I strike every horse of the peoples with blindness." "Then the clans of Judah will say in their hearts," A strong support for us are the inhabitants of Jerusalem through the Lord of hosts, their God." "In that day I will make the clans of Judah like a firepot among pieces of wood and a flaming torch among sheaves, so they will consume on the right hand and on the left all the surrounding peoples, while the inhabitants of Jerusalem again dwell on their own sites in Jerusalem" Zech. 12: 4b-6.

So, that is the military situation as it stands, as the entire Middle East becomes the most heavily contested battlefield in human history.

The Battle of Jerusalem: Once begun, the battles are fast and furious. As the Battle of Jehoshaphat draws to an end the Battle of Jerusalem begins. Why should such a little city command such attention? Especially when you consider the fact that only a couple of generations ago, most people in the developed world thought Jerusalem was a mythical city or a lost city from the Bible. Today it's the centerpiece of the world.

"Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the peoples around; and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah" Zech. 12:2.

According to the ancient prophets, the battle for the city of Jerusalem will involve forces from every nation on the face of the earth.

"And it will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it" Zech. 12:3.

It is during the battle for Jerusalem that the national redemption of Israel is accomplished. Every promise of God is true, and the covenant God made with Abraham is redeemed. The absolute Biblical proof that destroys the argument of the Dominionists and the Kingdom Now Movement is declared in no uncertain terms.

"And it will come about in that day," declares the Lord of hosts, "that I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer be remembered, and I will also remove the prophets and the unclean spirit from the land" Zech. 13:2.

There will be no atheists left among the children of Abraham in that day. The Antichrist's claims to Messiahship will be forever and unconditionally discredited, and Israel will see, recognize and mourn the Son that their fathers in their blindness "cut off from the earth"Dan. 9:26.

"And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him, like the bitter weeping over a firstborn" Zech. 12:10.

The Battle of the Jordan Valley: As the battles rage in Jerusalem and the Valley of Jehoshaphat, what is left of the divisions of the northern army defeated on the mountains of Israel withdraw to regroup. They head down the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea.

"But I will remove the northern army far from you, and I will drive it into a parched and desolate land, and its vanguard into the eastern sea Joel 2:20.

The Jordan Valley runs some 200 miles from the North Sea of Galilee to Eilat. Into this valley streams the remaining hordes from the East, to meet in battle with what remains of both the Russian/Muslim alliance and the armies of the Antichrist.

The Battle of Armageddon: This is the valley of decision spoken of by the prophet Joel. All the nations of the world will be represented at this battle. The Jordan Valley will one day contain an army numbering in the hundreds of millions of men. Plus equipment, weapons, artillery pieces, vehicles, the works! All of these last battles happen almost simultaneously. There are elements in each battle scene like the Russian/Muslim alliance that play key roles throughout. The overall end of the Gog and Magog alliance is annihilation but yet they can be found in each scenario.

The Russians will launch their attack on Israel at the same time as the Kings of the South (the pan-Arab confederation), make their push. The Russians will capture key ports, like the one at Haifa that will lead directly into the valley of decision, arriving from the west. Meanwhile, the Kings of the East, (the red Chinese alliance), are arriving from the east into this same valley. The Kings of the South are already there. And the Antichrist and his forces, including the whole of the Western world (sadly, that will include America), will be on the march to repel the invaders.

This happens on the heels of multiple nuclear attacks, chemical and biological warfare, and the almost certain loss of sophisticated communications technology like satellites, global positioning systems, television, and telephones, etc. Nobody really knows what they're up against until they square off.

Undoubtedly, each believes that he is leading an overwhelming force against an enemy in disarray. The Antichrist's forces are simply repelling an Arab invasion and retaliating against a nuclear attack. The Kings of the East are planning to take the Middle East and its oil for themselves. With 200 million men, they certainly believe they have the advantage. Russia thinks it has the advantage of surprise.

And suddenly, there they are! The whole world in a single, massive confrontation, Awesome! Picture the scene as Prophet Joel saw it.

"A day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness. As the dawn is spread over the mountains, so there is a great and mighty people; there has never been anything like it, nor will there be again after it to the years of many generations" Joel 2:2.

Joel captures, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the madness, the hopelessness, and the insanity of the moment. Ordinary soldiers they are, led by demoniacs who have assured them of victory, looking back toward home and country, now under the shadow of the mushroom cloud. And in front, more war, more devastation. "A fire consumes before them and behind them, a flame burns" Joel 2:3a.

The common perception of the soldiers of the armies assembled at Armageddon is somehow inhuman. Nuclear war has robbed them of everything. Their only hope for continued existence is to find someplace untouched by the devastation. Like Israel.

"The land is like the Garden of Eden before them, but a desolate wilderness behind them, and nothing at all escapes them" Joel 2:3b.

The Return of Christ: This is the most dramatic moment in world history! After winning four successive battles, Christ will set His feet on the Mount of Olives.

"A day of the Lord is coming when your plunder will be divided among you." "I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city." "Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle." "On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south" Zech. 14:1-4.

"And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal; yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee" Zech. 14:5.

When Christ consumes all before Him through the earthquakes, lightning’s, and the sword that proceeds out of His mouth, not only will the Holy Land be destroyed but the entire country will be literally bathed in the blood of unregenerate, God-hating, Christ opposing people. It is hard to envision the hordes of troops from all over the world that will oppose Christ. Who can conceive of a time when the blood of Slain men will flow as high as the horses' bridles by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs? That is just about the length of the entire land of Palestine!

Naturally many skeptics and those who do not take the book of Revelation literally find it difficult to believe that so much blood could be shed. A point to be kept in mind is that part of the destruction of the troops around Jerusalem will include a hailstorm.

"From the sky, huge hailstones of about a hundred pounds each fell upon men. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail because the plague was so terrible"Rev. 16:21.

Millions of pieces of ice will fall to the earth weighing a hundred plus pounds each, melting in the torrid heat of Palestine, and mingling with the blood of those slain until the land of Palestine will be literally bathed in a bloody liquid that is almost too horrible to describe. What a price human beings will pay for rejecting Christ!

When Jesus returns to our planet, His feet will touch down on the Mount of Olives, and it will split in two. Geological reports indicate there is a fault under the Mount; the touch of our Lord's feet upon the ground will cause that fault to split the mountain wide open, yet another powerful announcement of His coming. But what of His "fight against those nations"? The apostle John gives dramatic details of this one of a kind future event in Revelation 19.

"And I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair, "Come, gather together for the great supper of God," "so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and mighty men, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, small and great." "Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against the rider on the horse and his army." "Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf. With these signs, he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur." "The rest of them were killed with the sword that came out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh" Rev. 19:17-21.

Several Bible passages indicate that the "battle of that great day of God Almighty" Rev. 16:14, actually consists of at least four "campaigns" and spreads over almost all the land of Palestine:

1. The Lord first goes to Edom to rescue Israel from the hand of the Antichrist; here He soils His clothing in the blood of His enemies Isaiah 63:1-6.

2. The Lord then goes to the Valley of Megiddo, where He defeats many of the armies of the world Rev. 16:12-16.

3. Next, the Lord defeats most of the remainder of the world's evil forces in the Valley of Jehoshaphat Joel 3:1-2, 9-17; Rev. 14:14-20.

4. Last, the Lord will come to Jerusalem to defeat the advance guard of the Antichrist, who will attempt to wipe out the Holy City Zech. 12:1-9; Rev. 16:17-21.

On the great day of His return, Christ will defeat all His enemies, capture alive the Antichrist and the false prophet, and cast them into the lake of fire, where they will be tormented day and night forever and ever Rev. 20:1-3.

So take courage Believers!

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wetrumpfeed · 6 years ago

Text

Afternoon MAGAthread: YOUR WEEKLY PRESIDENTIAL RECAP!

HAPPY SUNDAY GUNDAY FOLKS!

This is u/ivaginaryfriend here and I'm back with everything spicy and dank from the past week! For those that missed any past recaps you can check those out here!

Sunday, February 10th:

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

Senator Richard Burr, The Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, just announced that after almost two years, more than two hundred interviews, and thousands of documents, they have found NO COLLUSION BETWEEN TRUMP AND RUSSIA! Is anybody really surprised by this?

African Americans are very angry at the double standard on full display in Virginia!

Gallup Poll: “Open Borders will potentially attract 42 million Latin Americans.” This would be a disaster for the U.S. We need the Wall now!

I don’t think the Dems on the Border Committee are being allowed by their leaders to make a deal. They are offering very little money for the desperately needed Border Wall & now, out of the blue, want a cap on convicted violent felons to be held in detention!

It was a very bad week for the Democrats, with the GREAT economic numbers, The Virginia disaster and the State of the Union address. Now, with the terrible offers being made by them to the Border Committee, I actually believe they want a Shutdown. They want a new subject!

The media was able to get my work schedule, something very easy to do, but it should have been reported as a positive, not negative. When the term Executive Time is used, I am generally working, not relaxing. In fact, I probably work more hours than almost any past President..... ... ....The fact is, when I took over as President, our Country was a mess. Depleted Military, Endless Wars, a potential War with North Korea, V.A., High Taxes & too many Regulations, Border, Immigration & HealthCare problems, & much more. I had no choice but to work very long hours!

“President is on sound legal ground to declare a National Emergency. There have been 58 National Emergencies declared since the law was enacted in 1976, and 31 right now that are currently active, so this is hardly unprecedented.” Congressman @tommcclintock

The Border Committee Democrats are behaving, all of a sudden, irrationally. Not only are they unwilling to give dollars for the obviously needed Wall (they overrode recommendations of Border Patrol experts), but they don’t even want to take muderers into custody! What’s going on?

Well, it happened again. Amy Klobuchar announced that she is running for President, talking proudly of fighting global warming while standing in a virtual blizzard of snow, ice and freezing temperatures. Bad timing. By the end of her speech she looked like a Snowman(woman)!

(Retweeting Club for Growth) Agreed! Senate needs to confirm @realDonaldTrump Admin appointees. #SOTU

The U.S. will soon control 100% of ISIS territory in Syria. @CNN (do you believe this?).

Working hard, thank you!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

(D)ouble Standards

god emperor trump

Obama built that...

Donald Trump Jr.: “Are we getting to the PC tipping point yet?”

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

Pewdiepie knows what’s up!

The rise of Generation Z, the most conservative generation since "The Greatest Generation" in the 1950's, is scaring the bejeezus out of the Democrats

I never owned any slaves. You never picked any cotton. GET OVER IT.

They came so close to being self aware

Monday, February 11th:

TODAY'S ACTION:

Executive Order on Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence

President Trump Meets with Sheriffs from Across the Country

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

“Fact checkers have become Fake News.” @JesseBWatters So True!

No president ever worked harder than me (cleaning up the mess I inherited)!

The Democrats do not want us to detain, or send back, criminal aliens! This is a brand new demand. Crazy!

The Democrats are so self righteous and ANGRY! Loosen up and have some fun. The Country is doing well!

Will be heading to El Paso very soon. Big speech on Border Security and much else tonight. Tremendous crowd! See you later!

(Screenshot)

40 years of corruption. 40 years of repression. 40 years of terror. The regime in Iran has produced only #40YearsofFailure. The long-suffering Iranian people deserve a much brighter future.

۴۰ سال فساد. ۴۰ سال سرکوب. ۴۰ سال ترور. رژیم ایران فقط موجب #چهل_سال_شکست شده است. مردم ایران که مدتهاست در رنجند شایسته آینده روشن تری هستند

Coal is an important part of our electricity generation mix and @TVAnews should give serious consideration to all factors before voting to close viable power plants, like Paradise #3 in Kentucky!

(Retweeting Don Jr.) Beto trying to counter-program @realdonaldtrump in his hometown and only drawing a few hundred people to Trump’s 35,000 is a really bad look. Partial pic of the Trump overflow crowd below! #AnyQuestions

We are fighting for all Americans, from all backgrounds, of every age, race, religion, birthplace, color & creed. Our agenda is NOT a partisan agenda – it is the mainstream, common sense agenda of the American People. Thank you El Paso, Texas - I love you!

(Retweeting Dan Scavino) 🚨Happening Now: @realDonaldTrump overflow crowd in El Paso, Texas....

(Retweeting Laura Ingraham) It was 45 degrees outside and this was the overflow crowd. #ElPaso @realDonaldTrump

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

Paramedic makes a valid point about the entitled $15/hr living wage. Red pills are flying.

High energy in El Paso today!

The case for Russia collusion … against the Democrats

Rasmussen: Presidential Approval At 52%

Donald Trump Jr. reacts to Nancy Pelosi and Democrats pressuring Ilhan Omar to apologize for her anti-Semitic remarks on Twitter: "The forthcoming non apology is going to be awesome."

"TIRED OF BEING A WAGE CUCK? WANT TO SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT BY NO LONGER DRIVING TO WORK? DECLARE YOURSELF UNWILLING TO WORK TODAY!"

PRESS BRIEFINGS, INTERVIEWS, RALLIES:

WATCH PARTY: PRESIDENT TRUMP EL PASO, TEXAS 2/11/2019

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

Democrats Continue To Be Shocked By Obvious Things They Vote For

When I realize 75% of the anti-Trump outrage on Reddit is from people who aren't even in the US

Overflow crowd outside Trump's El Paso rally is ABSOLUTELY HUGE

The Emperor Protects

Thank you, Kanye. Very cool!

Tuesday, February 12th:

TODAY'S ACTION:

Five Nominations and One Withdrawal Sent to the Senate

President Trump Hosts a Cabinet Meeting

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

Beautiful evening in El Paso, Texas last night. God Bless the USA!

Was just presented the concept and parameters of the Border Security Deal by hard working Senator Richard Shelby. Looking over all aspects knowing that this will be hooked up with lots of money from other sources.... ... ....Will be getting almost $23 BILLION for Border Security. Regardless of Wall money, it is being built as we speak!

Thank you to @MSNBC!

(Retweeting Life On Earth) They are soooo beautiful and magnificent! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

(Retweeting The White House) Americans pay 180 percent of what Europeans, Canadians, and Japanese pay for the exact same drugs! Our seniors aren't going to foot the bill for free-riders abroad any longer, HHS Secretary Alex Azar says.

(Retweeting The White House) President Trump's commitment to improving the quality of life for all Americans has led to the largest single decline in drug prices in 46 YEARS.

I want to thank all Republicans for the work you have done in dealing with the Radical Left on Border Security. Not an easy task, but the Wall is being built and will be a great achievement and contributor toward life and safety within our Country!

(Retweeting Dan Bongino) I don’t feel an ounce of empathy for all of the imbeciles who bought into the Russian collusion hoax now that it’s been entirely debunked. You were warned for over a year about this scam & you fell for it anyway. You did this to yourself.

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

President Trump on the congressional deal: "I'm not happy about it. It's not doing the trick."

Ted Cruz wants to confiscate recently-convicted El Chapo’s property to pay for the wall, which means Mexico would pay for the wall.

Still No Collusion.

HAHAHAHAA AHAHAHAHAAAAA HAAAAAA HAHAHAAHAHAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

Dowd Nails It – Former Trump Attorney Outlines Insufferable Behavior of Mueller and Rosenstein in Perpetrating Political Russia Hoax…This is a must Read.

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

Trump fence bad...my fence good

The Party of Life vs. Death

MFW 52% approval after 2 years of literal Nazi rule, "Russia collusion", peepee dossier, PEACH 45, Creepy Porn Lawyer, muh drumph's tax returns

Kamala Harris claims to have smoked pot in college while listening to Tupac and Snoop. She graduated college in 1986. Tupac's first album came out in 1991. Snoop's first album came out in 1993. Lying sac of shit.

MAGA

Wednesday, February 13th:

TODAY'S ACTION:

President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate and Appoint Individuals to Key Administration Posts

President Trump Meets with the President of the Republic of Colombia and Mrs. Ruiz Sandoval

President Trump Speaks at the Major County Sheriffs and Cities Chiefs Association Joint Conference

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

The Senate Intelligence Committee: THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION BETWEEN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA!

The Gallup Poll just announced that 69% of our great citizens expect their finances to improve next year, a 16 year high. Nice!

Today, it was my great honor to address the @MjrCitiesChiefs Association and @MCSheriffs Conference in Washington, D.C. We will never forget your service, and we will never, ever let you down! We love you, and we thank God for you each and every day.

"Every American in every community and from every walk of life has a right to live in security and to live in peace. That is my highest priority as President."

(Screenshot)

(Article)

(Retweeting Ted Cruz) Report: Texas crude oil production breaks 1970s record

California has been forced to cancel the massive bullet train project after having spent and wasted many billions of dollars. They owe the Federal Government three and a half billion dollars. We want that money back now. Whole project is a “green” disaster!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

BREAKING: Roger Stone Files Motion - Alleges Special Counsel Released Unsealed Indictment to CNN

Ilhan Omar calls for investigation into Trans discrimination by U.S.A. Powerlifting... quickly gets her A$$ handed to her.

California: $33 billion is ok for a train with two stops, but $6 billion is too much to defend our nation.

The Silver Fox, Mike Pence Calls For “Jihad Ilhan” To Be Removed From The Foreign Affairs Committee

Breaking: Convington high school students cleared of all wrongdoing by neutral third-party investigators

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

When you're a leftist and someone disagrees with you about literally anything.

“Signs of Life”

Thanks Guardian Pepe

Kek

"BORDER SECURITY IS SCARY!" [Crosspost from r/funny]

Thursday, February 14th:

TODAY'S ACTION:

President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Individuals to Key Administration Posts

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

Disgraced FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe pretends to be a “poor little Angel” when in fact he was a big part of the Crooked Hillary Scandal & the Russia Hoax - a puppet for Leakin’ James Comey. I.G. report on McCabe was devastating. Part of “insurance policy” in case I won.... ... ....Many of the top FBI brass were fired, forced to leave, or left. McCabe’s wife received BIG DOLLARS from Clinton people for her campaign - he gave Hillary a pass. McCabe is a disgrace to the FBI and a disgrace to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

Reviewing the funding bill with my team at the @WhiteHouse!

One year ago today, a horrific act of violence took the lives of 14 students and 3 educators in Parkland, Florida. On this somber anniversary, we honor their memory and recommit to ensuring the safety of all Americans, especially our Nation’s children... https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/presidential-message-school-safety-remembering-parkland-tragedy/ …

“After The Flight 93 Election, The Vote That Saved America - And What We Still Have To Lose,” by very talented Michael Anton, is a terrific read. Check it out!

(Retweeting The White House) .@PressSec: President Trump will sign the government funding bill, and as he has stated before, he will also take other executive action—including a national emergency—to ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border.

“Trying to use the 25th Amendment to try and circumvent the Election is a despicable act of unconstitutional power grabbing...which happens in third world countries. You have to obey the law. This is an attack on our system & Constitution.” Alan Dershowitz. @TuckerCarlson

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

Trump Frees Up $8 Billion To Build The Wall

White House Statement on Government Funding Bill

Jussie Smollett has SCRUBBED his Twitter & Instagram accounts of ANY references of the hoax attack. Sorry buddy you can't make this go away that easily.

McCabe, Rosenstein must testify to explain claim that DOJ discussed removing Trump, GOP leaders say

EATING THEIR OWN! Gov Cuomo blames Donkey Face for Amazon leaving NY 😂

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

Got caught and now calling each other liars.

When you believe in a conspiracy with no proof for more than two years, are you a conspiracy theorist then?

HOLY HOAX ALERT. Two suspects arrested in Jussie Smollett case. African American FRIENDS of Smollett. Worked w. him on Empire. Sussie deleted their #s out of his log.

Just pointing out the obvious

Trump signs the Farm Bill making dog and cat meat illegal in the United States

Friday, February 15th:

TODAY'S ACTION:

Presidential Proclamation on Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States

President Donald J. Trump Signed H.J.Res. 31 into Law

President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Individuals to Key Administration Posts

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

(Retweeting The White House) President Trump Speaks on the National Security & Humanitarian Crisis on Our Southern Border

Great job by law enforcement in Aurora, Illinois. Heartfelt condolences to all of the victims and their families. America is with you!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

China's REALLY mad now...

He did it! Trump declares emergency on border, eyes $8B for wall as he signs spending package

Thanks Everyone!! I am but a humble memesmith, without all of you enjoying and sharing my work I am nothing

AHAHAHHA TRUMP RETWEETED @CARTPEDONKTUM.. IM DYING... TROLL LEVEL 9999

Twitter took down u/carpedonktum's meme

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

I was the victim of a hate crime today and I don’t know where else to talk about it. I need support

Let's go Ted, We're building a Wall!

The Lying Left

Early morning shitpost by Jr:

Hello, Chicago PD? I'd like to report an ACTUAL murder this time.

Saturday, February 16th:

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

(Video)

BUILDING THE WALL!

Trade negotiators have just returned from China where the meetings on Trade were very productive. Now at meetings with me at Mar-a-Lago giving the details. In the meantime, Billions of Dollars are being paid to the United States by China in the form of Trade Tariffs!

The United States is asking Britain, France, Germany and other European allies to take back over 800 ISIS fighters that we captured in Syria and put them on trial. The Caliphate is ready to fall. The alternative is not a good one in that we will be forced to release them........ ... ....The U.S. does not want to watch as these ISIS fighters permeate Europe, which is where they are expected to go. We do so much, and spend so much - Time for others to step up and do the job that they are so capable of doing. We are pulling back after 100% Caliphate victory!

(Retweeting Real_Defender) Protecting America and putting Americans first. Thank you Mr. President!

THE GREATEST MEME EVER

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

THE MADMAN TWEETED MY NEW VERSION!

Twitter has censored POTUS.

Don Jr is shocked

How come Congress never introduces Hate Crime Hoax Legislation?

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

That's me in the corner

Aaaaand it’s gone...

R.E.M Meme War: It's the end of the World (TDS remake)

YOU CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH!

WEW LAD!

Without further ado, some tunes to help you get through all this WINNING:

Raingurl

Tadow

Gold

Doin' it Right

Crazy

Talk Is Cheap

MAGA ON PATRIOTS!

submitted by /u/Ivaginaryfriend [link] [comments]

0 notes

robgrayofficial · 6 years ago

Link

HAPPY SUNDAY GUNDAY FOLKS!This is u/ivaginaryfriend here and I'm back with everything spicy and dank from the past week! For those that missed any past recaps you can check those out here!Sunday, February 10th:🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Senator Richard Burr, The Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, just announced that after almost two years, more than two hundred interviews, and thousands of documents, they have found NO COLLUSION BETWEEN TRUMP AND RUSSIA! Is anybody really surprised by this?African Americans are very angry at the double standard on full display in Virginia!Gallup Poll: “Open Borders will potentially attract 42 million Latin Americans.” This would be a disaster for the U.S. We need the Wall now!I don’t think the Dems on the Border Committee are being allowed by their leaders to make a deal. They are offering very little money for the desperately needed Border Wall & now, out of the blue, want a cap on convicted violent felons to be held in detention!It was a very bad week for the Democrats, with the GREAT economic numbers, The Virginia disaster and the State of the Union address. Now, with the terrible offers being made by them to the Border Committee, I actually believe they want a Shutdown. They want a new subject!The media was able to get my work schedule, something very easy to do, but it should have been reported as a positive, not negative. When the term Executive Time is used, I am generally working, not relaxing. In fact, I probably work more hours than almost any past President..... ... ....The fact is, when I took over as President, our Country was a mess. Depleted Military, Endless Wars, a potential War with North Korea, V.A., High Taxes & too many Regulations, Border, Immigration & HealthCare problems, & much more. I had no choice but to work very long hours!“President is on sound legal ground to declare a National Emergency. There have been 58 National Emergencies declared since the law was enacted in 1976, and 31 right now that are currently active, so this is hardly unprecedented.” Congressman @tommcclintockThe Border Committee Democrats are behaving, all of a sudden, irrationally. Not only are they unwilling to give dollars for the obviously needed Wall (they overrode recommendations of Border Patrol experts), but they don’t even want to take muderers into custody! What’s going on?Well, it happened again. Amy Klobuchar announced that she is running for President, talking proudly of fighting global warming while standing in a virtual blizzard of snow, ice and freezing temperatures. Bad timing. By the end of her speech she looked like a Snowman(woman)!(Retweeting Club for Growth) Agreed! Senate needs to confirm @realDonaldTrump Admin appointees. #SOTUThe U.S. will soon control 100% of ISIS territory in Syria. @CNN (do you believe this?).Working hard, thank you!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:(D)ouble Standardsgod emperor trumpObama built that...Donald Trump Jr.: “Are we getting to the PC tipping point yet?”🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Pewdiepie knows what’s up!The rise of Generation Z, the most conservative generation since "The Greatest Generation" in the 1950's, is scaring the bejeezus out of the DemocratsI never owned any slaves. You never picked any cotton. GET OVER IT.They came so close to being self awareMonday, February 11th:TODAY'S ACTION:Executive Order on Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial IntelligencePresident Trump Meets with Sheriffs from Across the Country🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:“Fact checkers have become Fake News.” @JesseBWatters So True!No president ever worked harder than me (cleaning up the mess I inherited)!The Democrats do not want us to detain, or send back, criminal aliens! This is a brand new demand. Crazy!The Democrats are so self righteous and ANGRY! Loosen up and have some fun. The Country is doing well!Will be heading to El Paso very soon. Big speech on Border Security and much else tonight. Tremendous crowd! See you later!(Screenshot)40 years of corruption. 40 years of repression. 40 years of terror. The regime in Iran has produced only #40YearsofFailure. The long-suffering Iranian people deserve a much brighter future.۴۰ سال فساد. ۴۰ سال سرکوب. ۴۰ سال ترور. رژیم ایران فقط موجب #چهل_سال_شکست شده است. مردم ایران که مدتهاست در رنجند شایسته آینده روشن تری هستندCoal is an important part of our electricity generation mix and @TVAnews should give serious consideration to all factors before voting to close viable power plants, like Paradise #3 in Kentucky!(Retweeting Don Jr.) Beto trying to counter-program @realdonaldtrump in his hometown and only drawing a few hundred people to Trump’s 35,000 is a really bad look. Partial pic of the Trump overflow crowd below! #AnyQuestionsWe are fighting for all Americans, from all backgrounds, of every age, race, religion, birthplace, color & creed. Our agenda is NOT a partisan agenda – it is the mainstream, common sense agenda of the American People. Thank you El Paso, Texas - I love you!(Retweeting Dan Scavino) 🚨Happening Now: @realDonaldTrump overflow crowd in El Paso, Texas....(Retweeting Laura Ingraham) It was 45 degrees outside and this was the overflow crowd. #ElPaso @realDonaldTrumpSIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Paramedic makes a valid point about the entitled $15/hr living wage. Red pills are flying.High energy in El Paso today!The case for Russia collusion … against the DemocratsRasmussen: Presidential Approval At 52%Donald Trump Jr. reacts to Nancy Pelosi and Democrats pressuring Ilhan Omar to apologize for her anti-Semitic remarks on Twitter: "The forthcoming non apology is going to be awesome.""TIRED OF BEING A WAGE CUCK? WANT TO SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT BY NO LONGER DRIVING TO WORK? DECLARE YOURSELF UNWILLING TO WORK TODAY!"PRESS BRIEFINGS, INTERVIEWS, RALLIES:WATCH PARTY: PRESIDENT TRUMP EL PASO, TEXAS 2/11/2019🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Democrats Continue To Be Shocked By Obvious Things They Vote ForWhen I realize 75% of the anti-Trump outrage on Reddit is from people who aren't even in the USOverflow crowd outside Trump's El Paso rally is ABSOLUTELY HUGEThe Emperor ProtectsThank you, Kanye. Very cool!Tuesday, February 12th:TODAY'S ACTION:Five Nominations and One Withdrawal Sent to the SenatePresident Trump Hosts a Cabinet Meeting🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Beautiful evening in El Paso, Texas last night. God Bless the USA!Was just presented the concept and parameters of the Border Security Deal by hard working Senator Richard Shelby. Looking over all aspects knowing that this will be hooked up with lots of money from other sources.... ... ....Will be getting almost $23 BILLION for Border Security. Regardless of Wall money, it is being built as we speak!Thank you to @MSNBC!(Retweeting Life On Earth) They are soooo beautiful and magnificent! ❤️❤️❤️❤️(Retweeting The White House) Americans pay 180 percent of what Europeans, Canadians, and Japanese pay for the exact same drugs! Our seniors aren't going to foot the bill for free-riders abroad any longer, HHS Secretary Alex Azar says.(Retweeting The White House) President Trump's commitment to improving the quality of life for all Americans has led to the largest single decline in drug prices in 46 YEARS.I want to thank all Republicans for the work you have done in dealing with the Radical Left on Border Security. Not an easy task, but the Wall is being built and will be a great achievement and contributor toward life and safety within our Country!(Retweeting Dan Bongino) I don’t feel an ounce of empathy for all of the imbeciles who bought into the Russian collusion hoax now that it’s been entirely debunked. You were warned for over a year about this scam & you fell for it anyway. You did this to yourself.SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:President Trump on the congressional deal: "I'm not happy about it. It's not doing the trick."Ted Cruz wants to confiscate recently-convicted El Chapo’s property to pay for the wall, which means Mexico would pay for the wall.Still No Collusion.HAHAHAHAA AHAHAHAHAAAAA HAAAAAA HAHAHAAHAHAAAAA!!!!!!!!!Dowd Nails It – Former Trump Attorney Outlines Insufferable Behavior of Mueller and Rosenstein in Perpetrating Political Russia Hoax…This is a must Read.🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Trump fence bad...my fence goodThe Party of Life vs. DeathMFW 52% approval after 2 years of literal Nazi rule, "Russia collusion", peepee dossier, PEACH 45, Creepy Porn Lawyer, muh drumph's tax returnsKamala Harris claims to have smoked pot in college while listening to Tupac and Snoop. She graduated college in 1986. Tupac's first album came out in 1991. Snoop's first album came out in 1993. Lying sac of shit.MAGAWednesday, February 13th:TODAY'S ACTION:President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate and Appoint Individuals to Key Administration PostsPresident Trump Meets with the President of the Republic of Colombia and Mrs. Ruiz SandovalPresident Trump Speaks at the Major County Sheriffs and Cities Chiefs Association Joint Conference🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:The Senate Intelligence Committee: THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION BETWEEN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA!The Gallup Poll just announced that 69% of our great citizens expect their finances to improve next year, a 16 year high. Nice!Today, it was my great honor to address the @MjrCitiesChiefs Association and @MCSheriffs Conference in Washington, D.C. We will never forget your service, and we will never, ever let you down! We love you, and we thank God for you each and every day."Every American in every community and from every walk of life has a right to live in security and to live in peace. That is my highest priority as President."(Screenshot)(Article)(Retweeting Ted Cruz) Report: Texas crude oil production breaks 1970s recordCalifornia has been forced to cancel the massive bullet train project after having spent and wasted many billions of dollars. They owe the Federal Government three and a half billion dollars. We want that money back now. Whole project is a “green” disaster!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:BREAKING: Roger Stone Files Motion - Alleges Special Counsel Released Unsealed Indictment to CNNIlhan Omar calls for investigation into Trans discrimination by U.S.A. Powerlifting... quickly gets her A$$ handed to her.California: $33 billion is ok for a train with two stops, but $6 billion is too much to defend our nation.The Silver Fox, Mike Pence Calls For “Jihad Ilhan” To Be Removed From The Foreign Affairs CommitteeBreaking: Convington high school students cleared of all wrongdoing by neutral third-party investigators🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:When you're a leftist and someone disagrees with you about literally anything.“Signs of Life”Thanks Guardian PepeKek"BORDER SECURITY IS SCARY!" [Crosspost from r/funny]Thursday, February 14th:TODAY'S ACTION:President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Individuals to Key Administration Posts🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Disgraced FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe pretends to be a “poor little Angel” when in fact he was a big part of the Crooked Hillary Scandal & the Russia Hoax - a puppet for Leakin’ James Comey. I.G. report on McCabe was devastating. Part of “insurance policy” in case I won.... ... ....Many of the top FBI brass were fired, forced to leave, or left. McCabe’s wife received BIG DOLLARS from Clinton people for her campaign - he gave Hillary a pass. McCabe is a disgrace to the FBI and a disgrace to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!Reviewing the funding bill with my team at the @WhiteHouse!One year ago today, a horrific act of violence took the lives of 14 students and 3 educators in Parkland, Florida. On this somber anniversary, we honor their memory and recommit to ensuring the safety of all Americans, especially our Nation’s children... http://bit.ly/2DSnqBA …“After The Flight 93 Election, The Vote That Saved America - And What We Still Have To Lose,” by very talented Michael Anton, is a terrific read. Check it out!(Retweeting The White House) .@PressSec: President Trump will sign the government funding bill, and as he has stated before, he will also take other executive action—including a national emergency—to ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border.“Trying to use the 25th Amendment to try and circumvent the Election is a despicable act of unconstitutional power grabbing...which happens in third world countries. You have to obey the law. This is an attack on our system & Constitution.” Alan Dershowitz. @TuckerCarlsonSIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Trump Frees Up $8 Billion To Build The WallWhite House Statement on Government Funding BillJussie Smollett has SCRUBBED his Twitter & Instagram accounts of ANY references of the hoax attack. Sorry buddy you can't make this go away that easily.McCabe, Rosenstein must testify to explain claim that DOJ discussed removing Trump, GOP leaders sayEATING THEIR OWN! Gov Cuomo blames Donkey Face for Amazon leaving NY 😂🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Got caught and now calling each other liars.When you believe in a conspiracy with no proof for more than two years, are you a conspiracy theorist then?HOLY HOAX ALERT. Two suspects arrested in Jussie Smollett case. African American FRIENDS of Smollett. Worked w. him on Empire. Sussie deleted their #s out of his log.Just pointing out the obviousTrump signs the Farm Bill making dog and cat meat illegal in the United StatesFriday, February 15th:TODAY'S ACTION:Presidential Proclamation on Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United StatesPresident Donald J. Trump Signed H.J.Res. 31 into LawPresident Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Individuals to Key Administration Posts🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:(Retweeting The White House) President Trump Speaks on the National Security & Humanitarian Crisis on Our Southern BorderGreat job by law enforcement in Aurora, Illinois. Heartfelt condolences to all of the victims and their families. America is with you!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:China's REALLY mad now...He did it! Trump declares emergency on border, eyes $8B for wall as he signs spending packageThanks Everyone!! I am but a humble memesmith, without all of you enjoying and sharing my work I am nothingAHAHAHHA TRUMP RETWEETED @CARTPEDONKTUM.. IM DYING... TROLL LEVEL 9999Twitter took down u/carpedonktum's meme🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:I was the victim of a hate crime today and I don’t know where else to talk about it. I need supportLet's go Ted, We're building a Wall!The Lying LeftEarly morning shitpost by Jr:Hello, Chicago PD? I'd like to report an ACTUAL murder this time.Saturday, February 16th:🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:(Video)BUILDING THE WALL!Trade negotiators have just returned from China where the meetings on Trade were very productive. Now at meetings with me at Mar-a-Lago giving the details. In the meantime, Billions of Dollars are being paid to the United States by China in the form of Trade Tariffs!The United States is asking Britain, France, Germany and other European allies to take back over 800 ISIS fighters that we captured in Syria and put them on trial. The Caliphate is ready to fall. The alternative is not a good one in that we will be forced to release them........ ... ....The U.S. does not want to watch as these ISIS fighters permeate Europe, which is where they are expected to go. We do so much, and spend so much - Time for others to step up and do the job that they are so capable of doing. We are pulling back after 100% Caliphate victory!(Retweeting Real_Defender) Protecting America and putting Americans first. Thank you Mr. President!THE GREATEST MEME EVERSIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:THE MADMAN TWEETED MY NEW VERSION!Twitter has censored POTUS.Don Jr is shockedHow come Congress never introduces Hate Crime Hoax Legislation?🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:That's me in the cornerAaaaand it’s gone...R.E.M Meme War: It's the end of the World (TDS remake)YOU CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH!WEW LAD!Without further ado, some tunes to help you get through all this WINNING:RaingurlTadowGoldDoin' it RightCrazyTalk Is CheapMAGA ON PATRIOTS! #robgray

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