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The politics of an entitled fragile loser.

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After all the fascist and proto-fascist assaults on American democracy over the last few years, I feel obliged to remind y'all (especially the constant Debbie Downers who have been telling us This Doesn't Mean Anything and predicted Trump would get away with everything) that a jury of 12 ordinary citizens having the power to criminally convict a former (and aspiring future) head of state is still a fucking big deal.

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Brevity.

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Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #19

May 17-24 2024

President Biden wiped out the student loan debt of 160,000 more Americans. This debt cancellation of 7.7 billion dollars brings the total student loan debt relieved by the Biden Administration to $167 billion. The Administration has canceled student loan debt for 4.75 million Americans so far. The 160,000 borrowers forgiven this week owned an average of $35,000 each and are now debt free. The Administration announced plans last month to bring debt forgiveness to 30 million Americans with student loans coming this fall.

The Department of Justice announced it is suing Ticketmaster for being a monopoly. DoJ is suing Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation for monopolistic practices. Ticketmaster controls 70% of the live show ticket market leading to skyrocketing prices, hidden fees and last minute cancellation. The Justice Department is seeking to break up Live Nation and help bring competition back into the market. This is one of a number of monopoly law suits brought by the Biden administration against Apple in March and Amazon in September 2023.

The EPA announced $225 million in new funding to improve drinking and wastewater for tribal communities. The money will go to tribes in the mainland US as well as Alaska Native Villages. It'll help with testing for forever chemicals, and replacing of lead pipes as well as sustainability projects.

The EPA announced $300 million in grants to clean up former industrial sites. Known as "Brownfield" sites these former industrial sites are to be cleaned and redeveloped into community assets. The money will fund 200 projects across 178 communities. One such project will transform a former oil station in Philadelphia’s Kingsessing neighborhood, currently polluted with lead and other toxins into a waterfront bike trail.

The Department of Agriculture announced a historic expansion of its program to feed low income kids over the summer holidays. Since the 1960s the SUN Meals have served in person meals at schools and community centers during the summer holidays to low income children. This Year the Biden administration is rolling out SUN Bucks, a $120 per child grocery benefit. This benefit has been rejected by many Republican governors but in the states that will take part 21 million kids will benefit. Last year the Biden administration introduced SUN Meals To-Go, offering pick-up and delivery options expanding SUN's reach into rural communities. These expansions are part of the Biden administration's plan to end hunger and reduce diet-related disease by 2030.

Vice-President Harris builds on her work in Africa to announce a plan to give 80% of Africa internet access by 2030, up from just 40% today. This push builds off efforts Harris has spearheaded since her trip to Africa in 2023, including $7 billion in climate adaptation, resilience, and mitigation, and $1 billion to empower women. The public-private partnership between the African Development Bank Group and Mastercard plans to bring internet access to 3 million farmers in Kenya, Tanzania, and Nigeria, before expanding to Uganda, Ethiopia, and Ghana, and then the rest of the continent, bring internet to 100 million people and businesses over the next 10 years. This is together with the work of Partnership for Digital Access in Africa which is hoping to bring internet access to 80% of Africans by 2030, up from 40% now, and just 30% of women on the continent. The Vice-President also announced $1 billion for the Women in the Digital Economy Fund to assure women in Africa have meaningful access to the internet and its economic opportunities.

The Senate approved Seth Aframe to be a Judge on the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, it also approved Krissa Lanham, and Angela Martinez to district Judgeships in Arizona, as well as Dena Coggins to a district court seat in California. Bring the total number of judges appointed by President Biden to 201. Biden's Judges have been historically diverse. 64% of them are women and 62% of them are people of color. President Biden has appointed more black women to federal judgeships, more Hispanic judges and more Asian American judges and more LGBT judges than any other President, including Obama's full 8 years in office. President Biden has also focused on backgrounds appointing a record breaking number of former public defenders to judgeships, as well as labor and civil rights lawyers.

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T’was fully influenced by @thesefilespod to get this!

… I did not solve it! 😂

A really enjoyable crime/mystery book. Can't wait for the second book to come out next year!

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Can't believe the New Yorker is making cartoons about color theory.

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my latest cartoon for New Scientist.

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Holliday Grainger as Robin Ellacott Strike: The Cuckoo’s Calling

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now that you people are finally waking up to tom burke may i present you this behind the scenes picture from the bbc musketeers show where he’s in full athos costume watching a football match on a laptop with his horse

you’re welcome

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Source: spongecake_thescottishfold

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TOM BURKE Tatler (2018)

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It’s one of those things I’m sure some people are going to hate but it was very satisfying to me that Furiosa’s getup is the uniform for her specific job. Jack wears the exact same thing. They both wore jackets at first which she later ditched for her own reasons.

We all love an individual but sometimes it just makes more sense for a character to conform to a dress code especially in a place where everyone has clear roles not to mention she has a very important and respected job so she’d absolutely want to flaunt that.

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“The first draft I read…it was happening a lot earlier on and I felt that wasn’t great because they’ve made a deal,” he says. “Also it was, like, what are these people even feeling available to? Like, maybe they’re both a bit asexual at the beginning.”

Burke explains that he, Miller, and Taylor-Joy “wrestled the whole thing out,” talking through all the different possible permutations of the relationship. Miller was insistent that there was something of a romance between them. Taylor-Joy saw it as a kind of marriage, but in a “weird environment where one is having to be very careful.” Burke, meanwhile, fought for the notion that the two of them push romance to the side until they believe they are riding off to a safer place. “I thought it was the most romantic version,” - Tom Burke about Praetorian Jack and Furiosa's relationship

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Oh, "not all men", huh?

You're right. Praetorian Jack would never.

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Also feel like mentioning that jury pools are drawn from registered voters in the area of jurisdiction. So I would especially like to thank the 12 registered New York voters who did democracy a great service today, and remind you that registering to vote can in fact potentially allow you to tell an orange fascist to his face that he is guilty as shit, before using your vote to ensure he stays the fuck out of power. It's an all-around great invention.