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drwilfredwaterson · 1 month

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Deranged, Destitute, and Dishonest Dementia Dummy donnie j. dump Doesn't Get To Be The Republican Presidential Nominee Anymore…Mwahahahahahahahahaa!!! A March 18, 2024 Update For All Political Debate Lovers! Part 11/17

Undeniable Proof That No Real American Should Be Paying ANY Attention to ANY Polling/Polls Showing LIDDLE Cognitively Crippled Crybaby Cuck connie j. chubb(y) Being Competitive or Leading President Joe Biden In ANY Way:

Flaccid Fired Sissy of 2020, connie j. chump's, Incompetent and Impotent Underperformance During the 2024 Republican Primary Season Thus Far as of March 10, 2024:

8,773,134 Total 2024 Republican Primary Votes x 3.2074 = 28,138,950 Projected 48.14% of 2024 Election Day Mobilized Republican and Independent Voter Turnout for Liddle Election Loser connie j. chump (based upon the 2020 election results).

28,138,950 x 2.0772 = 58,450,226 (pre-reputation destruction deductions) Projected Total connie j. chump 2024 Election Day Mobilized Republican and Independent Voter Turnout for Liddle Election Loser connie j. chump (based upon the 2020 election results).

As of Super Tuesday, 28.1% of Real American Patriot Republican voters are clearly "Never Trumpers"; and while that's not quite the 31% who said they'd never vote for Deranged and Destitute Dishonest donnie j. dump, it's still real data that's pretty close and fatally damaging.

2020 Presidential Election: President Joe Biden: 81,283,501 Deposed and Deflated 2020 Loser connie j. chump: 74,223,975

2020 Presidential Election Deposed and Deflated 2020 Loser connie j. chump Voter Support: Republican voters: 45.1 million Independent voters: 29.1 million

With 28.1% of Real American Patriot Republican voters promising they'll never vote for connie j. chump under any circumstances, that instantly reduces 2020's 45.1 million to 32.4 million.

With 66% of Real American Patriot Independent voters promising they'll never vote for connie j. chump under any circumstances, that instantly reduces 2020's 29.1 million to 9.9 million.

If those Real American Patriot Republican and Independent "Never trumper" voters simply refused to vote for Joe Biden, or to vote for anyone at all in the 2024 presidential election, and if Joe Biden simply retained the same voter turnout from the 2020 presidential election, the current tally for the 2024 presidential election is:

As of March 10th, 2024 (this is the best case scenario for connie j. chump): President Joe Biden: 81.3 million

Deposed and Deflated 2020 Loser connie j. chump: 42.3 million (connie j. chump could lose up to an additional 22 million more Republican votes due to him repeatedly condemning mail-in voting)

What if instead of refusing to vote for anyone at all, the 28.1% of "Never trump" Real American Patriot Republicans who keep showing up at every Republican primary and 66% of Real American Patriot Independent voters voted for President Biden and ALL Democrats running for office to purge MAGA from the United States of America?

That'd add 12.7 million Real American Patriot Republican votes and 19.2 million Real American Patriot Independent votes to President Biden's total PLUS likely guarantee unstoppable Democrat House and Senate majorities to purge MAGA from all branches of the U.S. government and most state governments. Here's what that looks like:

As of March 10th, 2024 (this is the nightmare scenario, but possible reality, for connie j. chump): President Joe Biden: 113.2 million (That's Some Absolutely Ginormous, Huge DJ/Divine Justice Energy!!! As Usual!!!)

Deposed and Deflated 2020 Loser connie j. chump: 42.3 million (That's some pathetic, tiny, microscopic, insignificant and irrelevant small donald energy. As usual.)

And that nightmare scenario could become far worse by a further loss of 22 million, or more, votes if connie j. chump and his chump cultists convince their Republican and Independent voters that all mail-in voting is fraudulent, and so they don't vote at all… The catastrophic connie j. chump Republican nomination will now guarantee the purge of the MAGA cult and its agenda(s) from the United States of America. Love it!!!

New Radicals - You Get What You Give

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Published: October 8, 2009 (281st day) Duration: 4:38 (278 seconds) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL7-CKirWZE DL7-CKirWZE (7) DLCKirWZE cdeiklrwz 3+4+5+9+10+20+80+900+500=1531. 1531+7=1538. 1538+278=1816. 1816+281=2097.

Strong's Concordance #2097 zo: For zeh; this or that Original Word: זוֹ

And the cherry on top of all of that is a potential 8 million MORE youth voters to obliterate the MAGA cult than obliterated the MAGA cult agendas in 2022…

41 Million American 18-27 year-olds will be eligible to vote in the 2024 elections.

8 million of those 41 million have become eligible to vote since the 2022 elections. (Statista)

As of March 10, 2024: If Real American Patriot Republicans, Independents, and Democrats turn out the vote to cleanse and disinfect America from the anti-American MAGA infestation, poison and disease, Deranged and Destitute Dishonest Dementia Dummy donnie j. dump and his anti-American MAGA Nazi cult will be obliterated by a minimum of between 39.2 and 70.9 Real American Patriot votes that stand united to defend and protect the United States of America from all threats foreign and domestic.

And those totals could be between 8 million to 30 million votes stronger depending on the 2024 youth vote and how badly the anti-American MAGA cult damages the credibility of mail-in/early voting with its potential voter base.

If the anti-American MAGA trash does exceedingly well in taking itself out between now and November 5, 2024, it could end up being obliterated by between 70 million to 100 million Real American Patriot votes. Wouldn't that be nice?

House of Pain - Jump Around

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May 5, 1992 (126th day) Duration: 3:37 (217 seconds) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3Z-kL1Ep_A r3Z-kL1Ep_A (3, 1) rZ-kLEp_A aeklprz 1+5+10+20+60+80+500=676. 676+3+1=680. 680+217=897. 897+126=1023.

Strong's Concordance #1023 beth hammerchaq: Beth-ham-Merchak; house of great distance; place that was/is very distant/far away Original Word: בֵּית המֶּרְחָק

Arnold Schwarzenegger: Why I don't think traitor trump will win a second presidential election

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Published: June 16, 2023 (167th day) Duration: 10:40 (640 seconds) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxIZtOfkneo oxIZtOfkneo efiknoootxz 5+6+9+10+40+50+50+50+100+300+500=1120. 1120+640=1760. 1760+167=1927.

Strong's Concordance #1927 hadarah: Feminine of hadar; decoration -- beauty, honor. Original Word: הֲדָרָה

Sleeping Beauty - "Now Sword of Truth, Fly Swift and Sure; That Evil Die and Good Endure!"

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January 29, 1959 (29th day) Duration: 1:49 (109 seconds) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTDb4G-v9zw DTDb4G-v9zw (4, 9) DTDbGvzw bddgtvwz 2+4+4+7+100+700+900+500=2217. 2217+4+9=2230. 2230+109=2339. 2339+29=2368.

Strong's Concordance #2368 chotham: a seal, signet ring Original Word: חוֹתָם

TANAKH (Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English) Pages 1796, 1797, and 1798: Esther 8:1 That very day King Ahasuerus gave the property of Haman, the enemy of the Jews, to Queen Esther. Mordecai presented himself to the king, for Esther had revealed how he was related to her. Esther 8:2 The king slipped off his ring, which he had taken back from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai; and Esther put Mordecai in charge of Haman's property. Esther 8:3 Esther spoke to the king again, falling at his feet and weeping, and beseeching him ot avert the evil plotted by Haman the Agagite against the Jews. Esther 8:4 The king extended the golden scepter to Esther, and Esther arose and stood before the king. Esther 8:5 "If it please Your Majesty," she said, "and if I have won your favor and the proposal seems right to Your Majesty, and if I am pleasing to you--let dispatches be written countermanding those which were written by Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, embodying his plot to annihilate the Jews throughout the king's provinces. Esther 8:6 For how can I bear to see the disaster wich will befall my people! And how can I bear to see the destruction of my kindred!" Esther 8:7 Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther and Mordecai the Jew, "I have given Haman's property to Esther, and he has been impaled on the stake for scheming against the Jews. Esther 8:8 And you may further write with regard to the Jews as you see fit. [Write it] in the king's name and seal it with the king's signet, for an edict that has been written in the king's name and sealed with the king's signet may not be revoked." Esther 8:9 So the king's scribes were summoned at that time, on the twenty-third day of the third month, that is, the month of Sivan; and letters were written, at Mordecai's dictation, to the Jews and to the satraps, the governors and the officials of the one hundred and twenty-seven provinces from India to Ethiopia: to every province in its own script and to every people in its own language, and to the Jews in their own script and language. Esther 8:10 He had them written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king's signet. Letters were dispatched by mounted couriers, riding steeds used in the king's service, bred of the royal stud, Esther 8:11 to this effect: The king has permitted the Jews of every city to assemble and fight for their lives; if any people or province attacks them, they may destroy, massacre, and exterminate its armed force together with women and hcildren, and plunder their possessions-- Esther 8:12 on a single day in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, namely, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, that is, the month of Adar. Esther 8:13 The text of the document was to be issued as a law in every single province: it was to be publicly displayed to all the peoples, so that the Jews should be ready for that day to avenge themselves on their enemies.

TANAKH (Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English): Page 1810: Daniel 3:12 There are certain Jews whom you appointed to administer the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego; those men pay no heed to you, O king: they do not serve your god or worship the statue of gold that you have set up." Daniel 3:13 The Nebuchadnezzar, in raging fury, ordered Shadrach, Mesach, and Abed-nego to be brought; so those men were brought before the king. Daniel 3:14 Nebuchadnezzar spoke to them and said, "is it true, Shadrach, Mesach, and Abed-nego, that you do not serve my god or worship the statue of gold that I have set up? Daniel 3:15 Now if you are ready to fall down and worship the statue that I have made when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, zither, lyre, psaltery, and bagpipe, and all other types of instruments, [well and good]; but if you will not worship, you shall at once be thrown into a burning fiery furnace, and what god is there that can save you from my power?" Daniel 3:16 Shadrach, Mesach, and Abed-nego said in reply to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter, Daniel 3:17 for if so it must be, our God whom we serve is able to save us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will save us from your power, O king. Daniel 3:18 But even if He does not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your god or worship the statue of gold that you have set up."

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giulolosblackmail · 2 years

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[ID: Two full colored official digital drawings of Peerless Beauty Theater Event partners from the Chinese mobile game Helix Waltz.

In the first image Juven Sakan stands with a book in hand. There is a large, brown and black long-haired cat with pointed ears curled around his shoulders. Both Juven and the cat have bright green eyes and are winking. Juven’s long golden hair is tied into a braid that goes down to his waist, while the dark red robe he wears goes down to his ankles. There is gold embroidery and beading on his robe and it is tied shut with a golden tasseled cord. He is wearing a pink, silk collared shirt with a deep V, dress pants, and matching black dress shoes.

The second image is of Magda Ellenstein dressed as Mata Hari. She is dancing, her full red and orange skirt flaring out as she moves, gold beads and chains and stitching catching the light. She spins shimmering silks, also covered in gold beading, through the air as she dances. She wears a revealing bralette made of gold chains and beads to match those jangling on her waist, skirts, arms, fingers, and neck. There is a feathered headpiece held in place in her short close curled hair by a golden circlet.

/End ID]

A little bit about the partners this time around. The set matching Juven is based on Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, stage name Mata Hari, an exotic dancer living in France during WWI. While traveling outside of France, she accepted 20,000 francs from a German diplomat to spy for Germany. She never sent any information back to Germany after leaving, and claimed she only accepted the money to make up for the expensive luggage that was lost due to harassment from German border guards. This unnamed German diplomat was rumored to have been one of her previous lovers and, while never named, has been given the name Mühlbach for the event and made into a German spymaster.

Though the "true" ending for this quest claims that Mata Hari was guilty in some way of spying, either for the French or the Germans, it is much more likely that she was set up by both German telegraphs and the French government as a punishment for taking money and then refusing them both, as well as being a public figure that traveled across borders during the war, and having many lovers inside and outside of Paris. She was convicted by a French kangaroo court that could present no evidence against her and summarily executed, after which the French government used her as a scapegoat for the deaths of over 50,000 french soldiers - all of which were due to corruption and incompetence within the government itself - creating the much more well known story of the legendary femme fatale; Mata Hari.

#helix waltz #hw juven sakan #hw magda ellenstein #apparently there is a popular korean musical based on her life too

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njenjemedia · 2 years

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The Court of Appeal in Abuja today, Thursday 13th of October 2022, declared as illegal and unlawful, the abduction of the Biafra nation agitator, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu from Kenya to Nigeria and quashed the entire terrorism charges brought against him by the Federal Government, NjenjeMediaNews reports. His Lawyer, Barrister Ifeanyi Ejiofor moments ago sent the following message to our editorial board, which reads, “Appeal allowed, MNK discharged and acquitted. We have won !Victory victory victory victory. We have won”. The Court held that the Federal Government breached all local and international laws in the forceful rendition of Kanu to Nigeria, thereby making the terrorism charges against him incompetent and unlawful. In a judgment in an appeal by Kanu, by Justice Oludotun Adefope-Okojie, the criminal charges by the Federal Government against Kanu were voided and set aside. The Appellate Court said that the Federal Government having flagrantly breached the fundamental rights of Kanu, lost the legal right to put him on trial. The Court held that laws are meant to be obeyed and that the Federal Government has no reason to have taken laws into her own hand in the illegal and unlawful way the matter of Kanu was handled. Justice Adebola held that failure of Nigeria to follow due process by way of extradition process as prescribed by law was fatal to the charges against Kanu. The Appeal Court further held that the failure of the Federal Government to disclose where and when the alleged offences brought against Kanu were committed was also fatal to the terrorism charges and made them liable to dismissal. “By engaging in utter unlawful and illegal acts and in breach of its own laws in the instant matter, the Federal Government did not come to equity in clean hands and must be called to order. “With appalling disregard to local and international laws, the Federal Government has lost the right to put the appellant trial for any offence. “Treaties and Protocols are meant to be obeyed. No government in the world is permitted to abduct anybody without following due process of extradition. Nigeria is not an exception or excused. Nigeria must obey her own law and that of international, so as to avoid anarchy”, the Court held.

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worldofwardcraft · 2 years

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A government suffering from ETTD.

August 4, 2022

Former GOP strategist turned never-Trumper Rick Wilson (pictured above after his escape from the dark side) is famous for coining the admonition "Everything Trump touches dies." A sentiment that couldn't be more on the nose because, throughout his pre-politics career, any endeavor connected with Donald Trump inevitably perished due to his incompetence, corruption and criminality.

Then, upon becoming chief executive of the federal government, Trump discovered an even wider scope for his lethal destructiveness. And for four years he utilized every government bureau within reach to serve his personal agenda of getting himself reelected, enriching himself at taxpayers' expense and wreaking vengeance on his perceived enemies.

One such federal agency is the Department of Homeland Security, whose officers were used during the Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, OR to kidnap people off the streets. As NPR reported,

Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation about why they are being arrested, and driving off.

You say you want more? How about the US Postal Service under Trump appointee Louis DeJoy failing to deliver mail-in ballots in several key states? Or Bureau of Prisons officers using pepper spray to clear protesters from DC's Lafayette Park so Trump could hold a campaign photo-op in front of a church? Or the Trump-selected administrator of the General Services Administration refusing to certify Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election in order to impede his official transition as the new president?

There's also the IRS. We now know they conducted tax audits of two Trump foes in 2017 and 2019, Former FBI director James Comey and deputy director Andrew McCabe, both fired and smeared by Trump for refusing to halt the investigation into his campaign's ties to Russia. According to The New York Times, out of a few thousand returns the IRS picked for audit (from more than 150 million), Comey's and McCabe's were among those chosen. The IRS says it was just a random coincidence. Sure, you betcha. Oh, and Trump lackey Charles Rettig still heads that agency.

Finally, we have the DHS inspector general, acting secretary and acting deputy secretary (all Trump stooges) reportedly covering up the deleting of text messages sent while Trump's mob was attempting the overthrow of American democracy. With the possible exception of the Bureau of Weights & Measures, just about every government organization has been fatally compromised and corrupted by Trump. Someone should come up with a succinct phrase for that. Oh, wait, someone did.

#ettd #Trump corruption #us government #Government Corruption

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disc80s · 2 years

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it rarely snows in athens but when it does, everything stops…

#due to fatal government incompetence #Athens #Greece

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damnesdelamer · 3 years

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So the rail company I may or may not have quit working for last year, due to extensive corruption concerns, is being seized by the government and investigated for pocketing 25 million pounds in public funds.

I will neither confirm nor deny whether this ABSOLUTELY IS the selfsame company during my time at which I saw constant disregard and suppression of government regulations (mostly, though not exclusively, surrounding covid and wider health and safety for both staff and passengers), and in which I experienced a toxic environment rife with casual misogyny, xenophobia, transphobia, ableism, and antisemitism.

Here's my favourite part from the Guardian article:

And here's my letter of resignation, since I'm kind of proud of it, and I doubt anyone with the company ever actually read beyond the first sentence:

Dear [managers],

Please see this as my 4 weeks notice of formal resignation from the role of [overqualified Jewish immigrant], effective [late last year], which will be my final day working with [an undisclosed southerly and easterly rail company]. I will not be returning to the Training Centre due to concern for the safety of myself and others. As such, please let me know how you will arrange for my company laptop and mobile to be collected.

In addition to my practical concerns with how inefficiently the Training Centre is run, and all suggestions I have offered being effectively ignored, more importantly, my concerns around covid have not been taken seriously enough given the scale of threat. I have encountered more resistance to progress or simple practical improvement in this role than any position I have ever been in, and this is during a global pandemic when the risk of death threatens our inaction with extreme consequences. I have observed a marked lack of respect for my professional experience and expertise, but more troubling still is the disregard for human life, and the prioritising of our services getting ‘back to normal’ during an unprecedented global health crisis which is anything but normal. I have also frequently reiterated my ethical qualms with facilitating certain tasks or activities which I believe put others at risk, though again this has been largely disregarded.

It is readily apparent that [an undisclosed rail company which may or may not be under investigation for defrauding taxpayers of £25m] has got a vested interest in normalising commuting to office environments, in flagrant disregard for current Government Guidelines, as this is their source of profit, and I implore you to recognise that the claim of safety in either rail transport or office spaces, while the rate of covid infection is higher than during lockdown and still rising dramatically, is motivated by profit over safety. That is to say, I believe [an undisclosed rail company that even the fucking Tory government sees as requiring seizure due to abuse of public funding, potentially, but I can neither confirm nor deny] is prioritising their revenue stream over the safety of both their customers and their employees. Further, I believe the repetition of these company lines that things ‘are safe’ in black and white terms, ignoring or disregarding the nuances of how to improve relative safety, amounts to complicity in that harmful and irresponsible business model.

One example of this is that the Worksafe Procedure which I invoked has not been adequately carried out on the part of management. Following my invocation of the Worksafe Procedure, in keeping with company policy, my concerns were to be investigated. Rather than any investigation of my myriad concerns, I have been assured that my concerns are not concerns worth being concerned about. This is tautological nonsense; my valid concerns, based on empirical observation while working in the Training Centre, have been dismissed rather than followed up practically.

A related example is the Risk Assessment which has repeatedly been asserted as evidence that the Training Centre is ‘safe’; this was obviously forced through, as it lists several risks at level 5, which is impossible given that in all instances related to covid, the risk is of multiple fatalities rather than individual or isolated fatalities. According to the Risk Assessment framework, the absolute minimum threat level possible to achieve would therefore be 6, exposing the Risk Assessment as dangerously misrepresentative, artificially forced through in order to re-open, and effectively fraudulent. Additionally, I find it deeply troubling that said Risk Assessment was listed as due for review only in 2023, while covid and the need for adaptation is on the rise and ever changing. This Risk Assessment was carried out very poorly, with flagrant disregard for actual safety and the impact of the deadly virus.

The treatment of covid cases as occurring in a vacuum is dangerously irresponsible, and this is in relation to both the Training Centre, which has had a confirmed case of the deadly virus, and the reality of commuting thereto via trains, thus risking exposure to y/our passengers. This is in contrast with y/our professed values [stated Company values are frequently reiterated in training and correspondence: 'we care about people'; we do what's best for passengers'; 'we foster mutual trust' etc. and the following are all direct inversions thereof]: I do not see the Company as caring about people, doing what’s best for passengers, supporting colleagues to do or feel their best, moving with pace or learning from new situations, holding one another answerable to rising concerns, fostering an environment of mutual trust, or sharing responsibility. Rather, I see an expectation of accountability at an individual level, which amounts to scapegoating, and does nothing to confront systemic issues raised. I must say, given the sheer mass of unnecessary printing expected, I do not see the Company as very concerned with environmental impact either.

I believe it is also worth pointing out that, given the excessive disrespect toward my predecessor to which I have been privy, you have a responsibility to examine this, likewise, as not an isolated situation. The work environment into which I have been invited is more than a little toxic, non-inclusive, dysfunctional, uncommunicative, and unaccommodating to variability. I sincerely pity my predecessor, as I indeed pity my successor, and I believe it falls to you to address how to improve this situation.

That said, I have also become increasingly aware that I am pronouncedly overqualified for this role, and it leaves me to question why I was offered the position in the first place, as my resignation herefrom seems like precisely what to avoid when recruiting someone overqualified. I would also like to point out that this is the only position from which I have ever resigned, save when I relocated here from [my birth country]. This, and how poorly my predecessor was allegedly able to carry out the role, clearly presents all issues as belonging solely to [the undisclosed rail company which may or may not have been revealed in an article linked above as being rife with corruption] and the Training Centre. I urge you to reconsider how people therein are treated, handled, communicated with, and above all respected.

I also urge you to close all office spaces (including the Training Centres) in keeping with [then current] Government Guidelines, but I do not trust that this will be given due respect and even considered, let alone carried out. At the very least, I believe you are morally and professionally obliged to complete a new Risk Assessment for the Training Centre, as the one in place was either completed with incompetence, or knowingly falsified.

We are facing a life and death situation with covid. Every instance in which I have pointed this out has been literally laughed off. Please address this. Please take this seriously. Our highest priority as professionals and as humans must be to preserve human life.

Best wishes and stay safe.

[My professional signature]

#original

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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Eviction is over (if we want it)

Now that the illegitimate, undemocratic Supremes have voided the CDC eviction ban, and now that the cowardly Dems who control House, Senate and Oval Office have declined to pass an eviction ban bill, millions of Americans teeter on the brink of homelessness.

As we look at this looming crisis, which will increase the spread of covid, kill more Americans, and put a generations-long stamp of trauma on the people who lose their homes, we’re asked to side with either renters or landlords.

But that’s a false dichotomy. Americans owe $12–14b to their landlords, and Congress has authorized $46.5b in rental assistance that could make all of those landlords whole several times over. But the states have only distributed 11% of the money!

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/04/eighty-sixed/#helicopter-not-foundhttps://pluralistic.net/2021/08/04/eighty-sixed/#helicopter-not-found

Why are the states having so much trouble handing out money? Bureaucracy. You know, the thing whose supposed absence was cited as the source of America’s moral and economic superiority to the USSR.

What’s the source of this bureaucracy? Means-testing. The endless red-tape, so beloved of conservatives, that is meant to ensure that the “undeserving poor” don’t get any of the money earmarked for “hardworking poor people.”

(The irony, of course, is that conservatives are completely unconcerned with trillions in no-bid contracts for the beltway bandits who were supposed to be nation-building in Afghanistan)

https://defensesystems.com/articles/2021/08/19/afghanistan-sigar-contracts-pullout.aspx

(Nor do they care about Trump’s billions for crooks who were supposed to supply PPE at the start of the lockdown, but simply placed orders from China, got in line, and marked up the shipments to Uncle Sucker)

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/12/postal-petard/#prolongz

When it comes to delivering aid to the wealthy, conservatives hate red-tape. When it comes to preventing working people from starving or becoming homeless, conservatives put on a paperwork parade that outshine the pettiest Soviet commissar.

This contradiction arises from a cornerstone of conservative ideology — the idea of “learned helplessness.” Learned helplessness is a real thing that psychologists can induce in lab animals, discouraging them to the point of fatal listlessness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

But that’s not what conservatives mean by learned helplessness. For them, learned helplessness is the evidence-free conviction that if you give a person a “handout,” they will lose interest in “hard work.”

Think of all the fast-food “entrepreneurs” whose signage proclaims “no one wants to work anymore” because of “government handouts,” conspicuously failing to mention sub-starvation wages, irregular shifts, and abusive working conditions.

In conservativism, wealth is providential. Markets reward virtue, so the wealthy are inherently virtuous. They know the value of “hard work” and aren’t at risk of “learned helplessness” so they can get “bailouts” (not “handouts”) without risk of “perverse incentives.”

But conservativism contains a contradiction: because capital — by definition — earns its returns from someone else’s labor, any bailout is also a potential handout. If you save a locked down “heroic small business” with payroll support, you also “pay workers to stay home.”

And if you bail out landlords by making up their tenants’ missed rental payments, you also let the tenants “live for free” (ignoring for the moment that landlords whose mortgages and living expenses derive from tenant payments are literally “living for free”).

So here we are, about to endure a gaping, generations-long self-inflicted wound. We’re about to cost millions of renters their homes and potentially put their landlords in default because evicting a tenant doesn’t get you a nickel in back-rent.

You couldn’t ask for a neater demonstration of the extent to which “conservative business acumen” is a LARP — a set of culture-war performances rather than any kind of meaningful attention to profit and loss.

Because saving millions of your fellow Americans from destitution and homelessness isn’t merely the right (and, you know, Christian) thing to do — it’s also the smart business move. Homelessness is infinitely more expensive than rental assistance.

State conservatives are refusing to hand out $41.3b in order to create a decades-long cycle of public liabilities that will easily cost a hundred times that amount, and they’re not just hurting poor people — they’re euthanizing a whole shit-ton of rentiers!

As David Dayen writes in The American Prospect, it’s the kind of thing you’d expect from a party with “two primary core talents: selling quack supplements and lowering taxes.”

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/americas-acute-governance-problem/

After all, if you campaign on eliminating government due to its incompetence, then governing incompetently is a feature, not a bug. But for the nation (and the world) which needs its government to manage climate, pandemic, etc, this is a serious bug.

Meanwhile, Dayen has a great suggestion for how to dispense with all the red tape and save landlords and tenants.

Just station a federal official with a “big bag of money” in every eviction court. Every time a judge hears evidence that a tenant is behind in the rent, the official makes them whole out of the big bag of money, and the eviction is cancelled.

This is literally the worst way of doing it, a monumental waste of court resources and an inhumane way to treat tenants (and landlords, too). The only thing worse would be to allow that wave of looming evictions to wash millions of our neighbors onto the streets.

Oh, and note the Repubs aren’t the only ones who have a problem with learned helplessness. The Dems have the House, Senate and Oval Office and they can’t even pass the For the People Act, which will force all those red states to stop thumbing the scales for GOP candidates.

Because the Dems can’t figure out how to whip Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema, they can’t nuke the filibuster and pass a wildly popular law that will stop the GOP from rigging every election to come with voter suppression and gerrymandering.

When the party with the triple-lock on power watches as Texas passes a law that disenfranchises Black and brown people as well as people in major cities, guaranteeing the midterms, the 2024 Congress and eternal rule, what is it but learned helplessness?

Image: Emojione (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emojione_BW_1F4B0.svg

CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

Pbjamesphoto (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Inyo_County_Courthouse,_California_by_dusk.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic

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oak23 · 3 years

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Ya know its fucked when Australia's vaccine options are "wait until next year to get access to Pfzier due to sheer government incompetence and cheapskateness or risk getting the vaccine that's known to give fatal blood clots to under 60 year olds and that the medical body advice actively warns against under 60s to take that option unless a severe uncontrollable outbreak happens and was only pushed as an option for under 60s when it became politically inconvenient for the leader of Australia to admit he fucked up the vaccine rollout rather than having the limitation changed due to actual weighted advice from medical professionals"

If it gets really bad like Sydney I'll risk getting the vaccine with higher risk side effects but the fucking way Australia botched this vaccine rollout absolutely pisses me off.

#like the fact Moderna isnt even a fucking option here or any other vaccine at all is insanity #and the absolute fuck up that is Sydney's god damn shit house control #and like call me selfish but risking a fatal bloodclot is actively terrifying to me especially when there's other options

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crimson-dxwn · 3 years

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At Odds - Chapter 4

Summary: The Empire uses dirty tactics to bring Mandalore to its knees. Orla gets in a fight(s).

Warnings: Realistic medical scenarios (including a minor character death), violence, blood, c*ddling

Words: 4200

Mij Gilamar is the kind of physician every young doctor or medic looked up to - kind, brilliant, a patient teacher. He’d been a mentor to her back in medical school and so much of her success was due to his encouragement and kind words. So seeing the look of anxious terror on his face is not putting Ori at ease.

She looks down at the datapad sitting on her lap. Her stylus hovers over the question on the form. Is there any chance you could be...

He'd been sent from Sundari, to try and prepare Keldabe for the onslaught of the illness that had now overwhelmed the old capital. The man looks tired, his brown hair streaked with silver hanging limp, armor loose on his gaunt frame. The room was full of nurses, doctors, medics and therapists, mostly specialists who didn’t work in the field that often.

“It’s become clear this is an engineered agent. I expect you to keep this in the utmost confidence moving forward. We have the best bioengineers on Mandalore working on a vaccine and we need to do what we can for our patients until they develop one.”

The situation really must be dire if they were bringing the obstetricians to the party. Dr. Gilamar explains the proposed mechanism of the virus, how its symptoms mimic Candorian Plague, how the agent’s genetic sequence has been altered. With a grim expression, he continues to detail the therapies that had been attempted in Sundari without success, that the fatality rate was nearing thirty percent, how it was spreading like wildfire in the ruins of the city. The mood in the room is grim.

He goes on about containment strategies they’d tried in Sundari, how they believed the virus spread, how it killed. Who it killed.

“I understand if any of you want to opt out. We won’t think less of you, nor will we ask for reasons.”

Ori doesn’t want to opt out. She has a sense of duty to her people. But watching them die without tools to help isn’t what she has in mind. No matter the risk of transmission, which according to Mij was still out of control. What nobody was addressing in the room was who exactly had set the virus upon Mandalore, if it really was an engineered organism. Mandalorians always had enemies, but it was easy to guess the most likely culprit. Either the Empire was clumsily stupid or so incredibly bold that being stealthy didn’t matter to them. Unfortunately Orla suspects it was the latter. Mij finishes up his speech and tittering erupts throughout the room.

“Please let me know if you have any questions, otherwise you can return back to your work. I expect to hear from you soon regarding your decision.”

They all file out of the room, turning in pads as they go. Looking around her, Ori doesn’t see a single person decline to work with the pandemic patients. A ping comes from her datapad from the nurses upstairs; one of her patients is getting ready to push and she needs to be there soon. Gathering her things, she moves to head back up to the delivery ward before Gilamar stops her.

“Doctor Beviin, it’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you, Mij. I wish it was under different circumstances.”

“Agreed.” He sighs, pursing his lips. “We’ll need you here. I know you’ve been a specialist for a long time - and I don’t want to pressure you - but we don’t have enough boots on the ground here and we haven’t even hit the peak yet.” Orla wishes she could see the bottom half of his face through the mask.

“Of course, Mij,” she tells him as her datapad pings again, “I’m so sorry, I have a patient upstairs I need to take care of.”

He nods his head, body relaxing minutely as she signs her form and hands him the datapad.

---

Three Weeks Later

Summer, Keldabe, Northern Mandalore

In Keldabe it starts as a cough, benign enough at first that people don’t stay home from work or travel. Mandalorians fight through illnesses and this is no exception, though that is the exact reason it spreads so well.

The spread of the illness concides perfectly with an Imperial garrison being erected just outside Keldabe, complete with a bland-looking Administrator to oversee it. Plus hundreds of transport ships packed with shiny new stormtroopers to man the helm.

Unfortunately the populace is too preoccupied by the sickness spreading to the city to put up much of a fight. Even Mandalorians couldn’t hope to bring down the might of a government consolidated from both the gutted Grand Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems. It wasn’t a secret the population wasn’t replenishing itself; many had died in the Clone Wars, as mercenaries on both sides and many battles in between. Death by a thousand cuts. Ori couldn’t decide which was a more frightening prospect, immediate and painful death from this virus or slow and strangling subjugation by the Empire.

The new Imperial administrator laments the incompetence of the Mand’alor in controlling the pandemic. The screen in the doctor’s lounge is perfectly positioned in front of her chosen couch so Ori can watch the woman drone on about the might of the Emperor, how peace and security has been restored to the galaxy... all while supplying no aid, staff or medicine to the planets that need it. Kriffing useless Empire. If only she could be a fly on the wall in the Mand’alor’s meetings.

It’s her twelfth day in a row at the med center and the exhaustion has officially permeated every cell in her body. She sinks into the worn cushions with a deep sigh. If she could just close her eyes for a minute, just to catch up on a little rest, it will take the edge off her exhaustion. The med center has physician sleep rooms, but the beds are never as comfortable as she needs and the sound of doors slamming in the halls wakes her every few hours. Overhead code pages are happening almost every hour now, with patients actively dying in the emergency ward, on the floors, in the intensive care unit. The code team is being run ragged, even with rotating staff.

She tries to get comfortable on the threadbare couch. Clearing her mind has been….difficult....the past few weeks. Despite her exhaustion, her mind races. Her last day off was almost two weeks ago, when Mij had sent her home, refusing to hear any sort of counter-argument, even though she knew he was sleeping at the hospital too. By now there is an almost endless stream of patients coming through the center.

Not to mention her cycle is late. Very late. Really, she thinks, she should know better. But denial is a powerful thing, no matter how much knowledge you have. She needs to confront the facts. Just not right now, she thinks, as her eyes close.

She has been chalking her distraction up to the sudden appearance of the planetwide plague without a cure had occupied most of her free thoughts for the past few weeks. There seems to be no real rhyme or reason to who succumbed. By now the med center itself is so full that all hands were now taking care of pandemic victims - surgeries are canceled, and whole wards are blocked off for coughing, dying patients that even bacta can’t help. Plus she had all her house calls and deliveries. Babies waited for no pandemic.

Finally, her exhaustion wins out over her rushing thoughts and she drifts off to sleep.

*BEEEEEP BEEEEEP BEEEEEEEP* *BEEEEEP BEEEEEP BEEEEEEEP*

She wakes to the anxiety-inducing page tone coming from her commlink, ripping it off the waistband of her trousers and pressing the silence button.

Kriff

And then she hears the code page overhead.

KRIFF.

She’s up from the couch in a second and jogging through the med center, stiff achy limbs protesting every movement, though her exhaustion is temporarily forgotten.

Room 1379 is Maari. She is older, but not elderly. The past few days, Orla had been cautiously hopeful that she was on the mend. She’d stopped coughing up blood and even taken a few turns around the ward with the nurses.

She and Maari had talked the day before about how excited she was to go back home.

Ori reaches the room to find nurses and techs already working to resuscitate her. The woman is flat on the bed, back arching as she tries to drag a breath in through ravaged lungs. They’re scarred down and filling with blood - it’s what happens sometimes when patients relapse. Her team has seen it countless times by now.

Maari thrashes back and forth, desperate for air. The oxygen mask over her nose and mouth is coated with red, and her eyes roll around frantically. The rush of people is deceptive. To an outsider, this looks like chaos. In truth, it’s a well oiled machine. Each member has their role, and in the last few weeks they were all experts. Everyone in the room knows how this is going to go, but they try anyway. Even bacta nebulized through the mask can’t heal such damaged tissue. Mij turns up in the middle of the code with purple smudges under his eyes, looking even more ashen than usual.

There’s not much they can do at this point. She has no pulse, no electrical activity keeping her heart beating in art sort of organized rhythm. The medic compressing her chest drips beads of sweat onto the plasteel bed frame as Ori orders another push of medication with no response. Her team has been doing resuscitation for over an hour without a response and the looks on their faces tell her it’s time to stop.

Orla calls out time of death and the team debriefs. Maari is covered with a sheet and paperwork is started. Her family hasn’t been allowed to visit, and Ori prepares herself to make the call to her daughter. Propping herself against the wall outside the room to take a breath, she sees the transparisteel doors that lead to the outside, where two stormtroopers are laughing and jostling each other at their post.

Stormtroopers ‘guard’ every business and government building now. The Empire taxes Mandalore’s imports and exports and blockades their space. Weeks of begging hadn’t convinced them to send aid.

Something snaps in her when the aides wheel the body out of the room. Her exhaustion and frustration mixes into something ugly, curling in her belly and filling her with searing rage. If the Empire has decided to wipe her people out, she isn’t going to go down without a fight.

“Hey!” she yells at the men by the door. The troopers straighten and tighten their grip on their blasters. The other staff around her must think she’s officially lost her wits. She must look horrifying because both white-armored men take a hesitant step back.

“What the kriff are you laughing at? People are dying and you think this is funny?” She’s screaming now, her throat is straining with it. The two troopers aren’t shocked anymore. Now they’re angry, defensive, she can tell by their body language. She desperately wants to knock some sense into them, wants them to see her people’s suffering. But she’s still in her scrubs, and they’re in armor.

The trooper to her right grasps her upper arm. Ori is still so angry she barely feels the grip bite into the flesh.

“You think you’re so fucking tough guarding a hospital full of sick people?” she snarls. Her twisted expression reflects back at her in the trooper’s visor.

“Stand down, citizen.”

The trooper on her right aims his blaster. The movement rips her out of her focus and she realizes that multiple people are watching on the ward. Mij has a hand behind his back, presumably on the blaster she knows he keeps hidden beneath his uniform. The stormtrooper’s helmet is still inches from her face and cool durasteel digs into her ribs.

“I said stand. down.” His blaster shoves further into her side, pushing her back into his companion with his hand crushing her arm. How had she lost control like this. How kriffing stupid was she? Her breathing comes hard and harsh, and her stomach roils unexpectedly.

The seconds go by slowly as she lifts her hands up in surrender. Saliva pools in her mouth and she swallows it back down, which she finds out is a giant mistake as everything she’s eaten today - a grand total of four crackers and some water - splatters onto the trooper’s feet. He jumps back, blaster forgotten.

“What the-“

The other trooper shoves her aside, disgusted, and she takes the opportunity to scurry through the med center doors, wiping her mouth on a sleeve. Somehow Mij Gilamar looks even more concerned then he did when a blaster was in her ribs. His brows knot together as she walks towards him, needing to brush of what just happened and get back to work.

She’s almost to Mij as the room spins sideways and her vision goes black.

------

Kal watches Ori sleep. Somehow she looks so much smaller than the last time he’d seen her like this. Though the last time he’d seen her like this, she’d been naked in his bed where he could run his hands over her bare skin. Where she could make him forget every horrible thing he’s seen and done from Kuat to Kyrimorut.

Her chest rises and falls slowly and he finds himself watching it to calm himself. She’d made quite the scene in front of two stormtroopers and Kal was sure they were going to haul her away to god knows where in retribution. Fortunately the one had been too preoccupied cleaning vomit off his plastoid to care.

The situation in the hospital in Keldabe was as close to any war zone that he’d ever been in and it was no wonder she’d worked herself to the bone. She was mandokarla.

He’d been at the med center to talk strategy with Mij, who wasn’t able to leave the wards. Only he, Mij and his sons knew about the vaccine the Empire was keeping in secret. About the plans to cow the Mandalorians into giving them what they wanted. He hadn’t been trained to fight fair, it wasn’t their way. But this, this pandemic, was a whole new brand of dirty fighting. He’d spent a few hours in the medcenter so far and seen the absolute carnage.

He has an enduring sort of affection for her that he can’t seem to shake. Mij tasked him with looking after her and he wasn’t about to tear himself away.

------

“You’re working yourself too hard, doc.”

Her vision swims in and out, but there’s Kal, clear as day, sitting in a chair next to her bed and tapping at his commlink. Ori starts, not fully sure of where she is.

“You’re still in the hospital,” he says gruffly, leaning towards her, “Tried to get you a bed but they’re all full. Wouldn’t let me take you back to Kyrimorut with me. So here we are.”

She gains her bearings while he talks. Here is one of the unoccupied physician call rooms.

“Not working too hard,” she rebuffs.

“Mij tells me you’ve been overdoing it.” Ori rolls her eyes at him. They’re falling into their usual routine. “You puked on a stormtrooper.”

He raises his eyebrows expectantly, demanding an explanation like she owes him one. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have one that she wants to offer to him.

Next to her bed is the worn datapad that she charts on and she picks it up to check her chart. Ori feels herself blanch with him in front of her as she reads her diagnosis. Mij must have had them draw blood after she passed out, and it’s a little unnerving that she doesn’t remember it, though when she looks at her right arm she can see the red mark where the needle had been. In her other arm is an IV line.

“Mij put me in charge of you until he gets back.” Kal looks incredibly pleased with himself, like they were playing a game and he had just won. He leans back in the wooden chair in the corner which creaks in protest. As usual, he wears his golden armor, which shines dully in the low light of the call room. Ori can’t remember a time when she’s seen him out of it, except when they’ve been in bed together. The blood rushes back into her face at that thought.

“So what did they do?”

The memory reasserts itself painfully. Ori doesn’t even know how much time has passed since Maari died. Behind her eyes she sees it all again.

At least she knows where she is. At least she didn’t wake up alone.

“I had a patient die...and I saw them out there laughing. I don’t know...I just lost it.”

It isn’t a good reason, she knows that. She wonders if Kal can even make sense of her babbling, she wonders if the troopers will report her, if she’ll even have a job to return to tomorrow. Some of her hopes she doesn’t, just to get a bit of relief from the exhaustion. Part of her hopes she’s infected, is jealous of the people lying in their sickbeds being taken care of instead of run into the ground.

But she’s not infected, she’s not even sick.

“Who died?”

“Maari Rook”

He nods, keeping eye contact. Men like him don’t flinch away from death; she wonders how many have died at the point of his knife or blaster. It’s surprising how composed she is, barely a few hours after the fact. Kal must think she’s losing her wits. She’s sure he doesn’t miss the way her voice wobbles and she sniffs.

“What can I do to make it better?”

It’s hard for her to get the request out and she feels weak for even asking. After all, they don’t know each other that well and she had no right asking.

“Can you just…” she says softly, still a little embarrassed from her outburst earlier, “lie down with me?”

He freezes, obviously not expecting this type of request. The ice in his blue eyes softens and a smile tugs at a corner of his lips. He looks almost boyish - she wasn’t expecting him to look so pleased. The armor comes off, chest piece first, then arms and gauntlets, thigh pieces next...and she must have dozed off because her face is pressed up against a warm chest and his arm is wrapped around her, the other stretching over his head to snake under the pillow.

“Mij is giving you a few days off,” he murmurs, warm breath tickling her ear. She hums in reply, inhaling deeply, trying to memorize the hint of cedar she can smell from the mountains around Kyrimorut that has percolated into his clothes. His body heat seeps into her bones as she snuggles closer; her hands twine in the fabric of his tunic. A large hand strokes through her tangled hair. Right now she wants to forget about the world outside and just sink into the warmth and safety surrounding her.

“One of my boys thinks the Imperials has a vaccine here on-planet,” he continues as his chin rests atop her head, “this’ll be over soon. Just be patient.”

But she can’t be patient.

Kal leaves her an hour or so later, assuming she’s fast asleep. Ori keeps her breathing deep and slow until she’s sure he’s gone. All she can think about is the possibility of a vaccine. Certainly, she’s had the thought before, since they weren’t seeing any troopers come down with the illness. The audacity of keeping vaccine on-world wasn’t something she’d considered the Empire bold enough to do.

The guards in front of the gleaming new garrison let her through without a fight. She tells the front desk her name and her complaint. Ori hopes they’ll let her talk to someone with any sort of importance or rank, if she can make somehow them see reason.

The bored-looking secretary beside the durasteel door looks her up and down, obviously unimipressed by her simple work uniform and disheveled hair. Strands are falling out of her bun and tickling her neck and she reaches her hands up to nervously smooth them back. She can’t remember the last day she washed it.

The secretary buzzes them into the room with nary a word and Ori follows the troopers’ lead into the office. The two stormtroopers who had escorted her into the office are silent by her side when the officer finally enters the room. The shining surface of the pure white plastoid keeps them separate, impersonal.

Behind a severe durasteel desk sits a man in a grey officer’s uniform. She wonders if it looks much different from the Republic officer uniforms - Mandalore had been removed enough from the conflict of the Clone Wars that she’d never even seen a Republic officer. Before the events of the last few months, there was hardly anything that made two regimes distinct. He’s certainly not a clone. From the few officers she’s noticed around Keldabe, this Empire seems to favor humans more than any other species, and at least from the groups of troopers she’s seen occupying Keldabe most are men. He rises, extending a hand for her to shake.

“Dr. Beviin,” he says smoothly, “it’s a pleasure.” The polished Core accent fits his persona, with his slick shiny hair and boots to match. His face is clean-shaven, with the plump look of a young man, unscarred. This was some politician’s favored son, no doubt, tasked with bringing Mandalore to its knees. Anger threatens to rise again, but she tempers it before it can best her again. She has a goal here.

“Likewise,” she replies. He gestures to the seat in front of his desk and she takes it. Her stormtrooper escort settles at the back of the room.

“I’m Corporal Hadley. How can I help you?”

“Corporal, as you know there’s a virus tearing its way across the planet.”

“Ah yes, I’m aware.”

“If you’re going to occupy a planet, you have a duty to its citizens.” She keeps her voice and manner neutral, trying to be as diplomatic as possible, though her anger and frustration are slowly rising. She hasn’t slept, and it always makes her testier than usual.

“The Empire takes care of its own first. Once your people prove their loyalty, then we will provide a vaccine. I don’t understand why you think your people will get anything for free.”

She decides to pull out the trump card.

“I know you have it here. I demand you distribute it as soon as possible.”

“Or what, Doctor Beviin?”

She is silent at this, for she has no reply. There’s nothing she can threaten them with except knowledge and they know it. It dawns on her then how stupid she is, how she hadn’t told anyone where she was going. Not even Kal.

“The Mand’alor will -”

“The Mand’alor won’t do anything. There’s nothing he’s willing to barter with that the Empire needs that badly.”

The unnamed officer jerks his head at one of the troopers, so quickly she almost misses it, until she hears the crack of a rifle butt against her own face and pain lances through her cheekbone. The strength and shock of the blow is enough that she falls to her knees, watching her own blood patter onto the duracrete floor. Her cheekbone is broken, she’s almost sure of it as she reaches a shaky hand up to her face and feels it crushed inwards. Her fingers come away covered in blood.

“You hutuune,” Ori hisses, “Cowards.”

“Shut up,” one of the troopers mutters, pushing her to the floor for good measure, grabbing her comm out of her pocket and crushes it under his foot. The other pipes up as the officer watches.

“You know they say you’re supposed to rub their nose in it.”

A boot presses between her shoulder blades and grinds her harder into the floor, forcing the air out of her lungs, duracrete scratching painfully against her broken cheekbone. Tears spring to her eyes and she can’t hold them in, ashamed at how stupid she’d been to believe she could negotiate with Imperials. Desperation had blinded her.

“I thought Mandos were supposed to fight back? That’s what the briefing said.”

Ori doesn’t dignify his comment with a response. Not everyone fights with fists. It was something she had struggled with her whole life, though now was a rare exception where she wished she could take on three men and win.

The boot nudges at her again and she tries to flatten herself against the ground instead of instinctively curling inwards or using her hands to give away what she is desperately trying to protect. She prays they don’t take the beating further.

“Doctor Beviin, you’re under arrest for treason and assault of an Imperial officer,” says the grey-suited captain, with a tone so bored that he could have been ordering tea instead of standing over a woman his soldiers had just brutalized.

Bruising fingers attach themselves to her upper arms and haul her to her feet. The troopers march her out of the room as she tries to keep up, blood still trickling down her face and onto the collar of her work uniform. She can’t reach up and wipe it off.

Taglist:

@leias-left-hair-bun @nelba @cherry-cokes-world @clonewarslover55 @passionofthesith @808tsuika @wolfangelwings @the-arctic-violet

#Kal Skirata x OC #Kal Skirata Hate Sex #Republic Commando #Once again I hate this chapter and wish I could get it longer but alas #here you are #my writing

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lillyangelis · 4 years

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COVID-19 and the UK Government

In times of bullshit, spout bullshit. As of today most of Europe is on lockdown, with closed borders and travel bans, whilst the UK government is advising that we wash our hands and sing happy birthday.

It has gotten to the point where the inaction of the British government scares me. It feels as if Boris Johnson is valuing the UK economy over the health of the population. If I had the chance, I would murder the chief scientific advisor, Sir Patrick Vallance where he stands. No only does he not understand herd immunity (90% is required with vaccinations), he is also willing to potentially sacrifice over 2 million people with the current global 7% death rate.

The government's adamant refusal to close schools due to the belief that it will do more economy, and will cause a 3% drop in GDP is (in my opinion) ridiculous. Obviously this virus is not fatal to young people, and the youngest UK victim has been a 59 year old man, however schools are hot beds of disease. What Boris Johnson doesn't seem to comprehend is that over the last 10 years, with the Conservatives austere spending policy, the education system has been just as underfunded as the NHS. This can most clearly be seen in school facilities that are not 'vital' in learning, e.g. toilet facilities. Where doors do not lock, toilets do not flush, taps do not work, and there is no FUCKING soap!

And whilst I love the government's suggestion of social distancing, and remaining 1.5m from each other at all times, this is impossible in lessons, between lessons, and in the canteen, where students are crushed together like sardines in a tin of corona sauce. Also; notice the 1800 students, not including teachers and other members of staff, this definitely goes over the governments recommendation to cancel/limit any events of more than 500 people.

I have long been disappointed by the government's incompetency, but this pandemic how far the UK government is willing to let down and sacrifice the most vulnerable members of our society (elderly, immunocompromised, chronically ill).

All I'm saying is that I want their heads on a spike by the end of the year.

#uk #coronavirus #corona #government #political #politics #school #conservative #labour #schoolclosures #british #britain #england #scotland #wales #covid19 #covid2020

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tomorrowusa · 3 years

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President Jair Bolsonaro, who enjoys calling himself the “Trump of the Tropics”, has brought disaster to Brazil. With 224,505 deaths due to COVID-19, Brazil ranks second in the world with pandemic fatalities – surpassed only by the US which was mismanaged and undermined by Donald Trump until 12 days ago.

The healthcare system in Manaus, capital of the state of Amazonas, has effectively collapsed. This is after officials embraced the sketchy concept of “herd immunity” for economic reasons. The results were quite predictable.

The coronavirus first tore through Manaus like wildfire in April 2020, creating such a vast surge of cases that scientists speculated it might result in herd immunity. Politicians seized on the idea, hopeful they would be able to avoid economically damaging lockdowns in the future.

But in September 2020, the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), a highly regarded Brazilian research institute for public health, recommended that the city impose movement and business restrictions. Manaus was beginning to experience a second wave of the disease, it said. But the city did not impose one.

"We gave 13 alerts, and a very alarming one in mid-December, saying that the situation was getting very serious. Everyone was making fun of the studies and warnings, especially the President Jair Bolsonaro," says Jesem Orellana, researcher at Fiocruz.

Orellana adds that both the state and federal government used the theory of herd immunity to back up their relaxed measures.

Things are so bad now in Manaus that people have to wait in line to get oxygen for sick relatives.

There is growing support in Brazil for the impeachment of Bolsonaro for his incompetent Trump-style handling of the pandemic response.

New Brazil protests seek Bolsonaro's removal over Covid response

To make matters even worse, Bolsonaro blew a chance to obtain 70 million doses of vaccine produced by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE. And like Trump, Bolsonaro touted the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a cure for COVID-19. Hydroxychloroquine, of course, has proven to be worthless against the virus.

Raging virus, few shots: How Brazil missed its chance to secure COVID-19 vaccines

Just as Trump surrounded himself with sycophantic clowns who would constantly flatter him, Bolsonaro’s cabinet and inner circle are packed with cronies – largely former officers from the period of military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985.

The national pandemic responses in Brazil under Bolsonaro and in the US under Trump were driven more by economics than by science. It was more wishful thinking than the realities of epidemiology.

In the end, a strict science-based response to the pandemic would have better for the economy. The governments of New Zealand, Taiwan, and South Korea did not kowtow to ignorant populists and billionaires who wanted business as usual at all costs. Thanks to science and reality-based politicians, the people in those countries (and several others) are now enjoying largely normal lives with comparatively minimal disruptions.

#brazil #covid-19 #coronavirus #pandemic #manaus #amazonas #jair bolsonaro #trump of the tropics #herd immunity #incompetence #donald trump #brasil #trump dos trópicos #cretino

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njenjemedia · 2 years

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obsessivelollipoplalala · 4 years

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I understand trump is evil and incompetent (which he is) but he isn’t entirely to blame for what’s happening. The government and the idiots not wearing masks are partially to blame as well i hate how people are acting all silly

“the government” uh buddy, Tr*mp is in charge of one of the three branches of the federal government.

No one is forcing people to go out without masks (unless businesses ban their workers from wearing them!), but there is no national plan in place. Still none. He could have shut down the country nationally and put in place a national testing strategy, but he didn’t. He still hasn’t. He’s left it up to governors to try to handle their states with little guidance, and he knows damn well that governors in red states have been downplaying the virus and opening shit up too early to appease him. He knows if he says “jump” his followers will ask “how high?”, so he absolutely could have gotten them to take this more seriously. Instead, he’s encouraged them on twitter to go out with guns and protest. His cult has still chosen to listen to him, yeah, but that’s the thing about being a leader: you have an impact on people! He was told about this virus pretty much when China found out about it--we’re the freaking U.S., we have good intel--but he did absolutely nothing to inform anyone or make any preparations. Instead, he was calling the entire thing a hoax in February back when the virus started to make the news here.

There was no way anyone could have avoided this virus hitting the U.S., but the fact that we have the most cases and fatalities in the world is absolutely largely his fault. We were left completely unprepared for the wave of sickness that hit us, and to this day, he’s left states to fend for themselves. It didn’t have to be this way.

So, no, he’s not entirely to blame, but he absolutely has the blood of tens of thousands on his hands.

Edit: just fyi, I’ve seen some people say that we have such a huge amount of deaths due to our large population, but that ignores that this virus originated in fucking China with over a billion people, and although U.S. has ~ 4% of the world’s population, it has 30% of the world’s COVID-19 cases.

A reporter told Tr*mp this and asked what he would have done differently, and he said “nothing.”

So.

#replies #Anonymous

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mikeo56 · 4 years

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SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes the disease we call COVID-19

COVID-19 is very contagious from person to person by air to lungs or by touch to eyes and nose and it can be fatal.

The COVID-19 virus is very new; it likely recently jumped from another species to humans and most every person can (and in the US, likely will) be infected by this new virus.

Of all the people infected, most people will have mild or even no symptoms and may never know that they were infected, but they are still highly contagious to others.

To understand the incredible present rapid and overwhelming COVID-19 infection rate compare the behavior of the past MERS infection to the COVID-19 infection. COVID-19 can be transmitted by infected people before they even show symptoms. People infected with MERS weren’t contagious until they were obviously sick and showing symptoms. Victims who show symptoms of disease before they have the ability to pass it to others gave health care workers a heads up and allowed a small but definite window of time for effective quarantine measures. COVID-19 does not offer us that luxury. COVID-19 victims can show NO symptoms while being highly contagious to others.

Of the latest preventative measures, masks are now considered a barrier to infection when worn by both uninfected and infected people. Washing your hands frequently and keeping your hands away from your face can protect you. Maintaining a distance from other people, avoiding groups especially in tight rooms, and keeping your hands off of public used surfaces are protective means.

Exercise is important to maintaining your health. Walking alone in the hot Florida sun is a healthy activity and the Florida sun with its intense UV radiation leaves little chance that a viral particle would survive more than a second. Most of what I write here is in line with what health authorities will tell you, but I disagree strongly on one point and that is the designation “stay at home”; it is simply an easy-to-say directive, but a monumentally stupid slogan. They should say, “Don’t Associate”.

Why antibody testing is important. The ability to determine if a person has antibodies for COVID-19 allows us to use this survivor’s plasma to save lives. We have used convalescent plasma for a hundred years; it has been used for many diseases and the Chinese have already done a small study with COVID-19 showing that is safe and works and no offense, but if you can’t do anything, then why wait on the Trump-Moron defunded CDC or the Big Pharma fellatiating FDA to weigh in, when again, convalescent plasma has been used for a century, safely!

Information and Understanding: Primarily, I would say that it is paramount that you educate yourself, and this cannot be stressed enough, considering the seriousness of this disease and the climate of disinformation, confusion, conflicting information, encouragement to ignorance promoted by our government and our media and horribly the depravity and indifference of our politicians who offer little more than superstition as opposed to guidance and to the extent even some of our politicians exhibiting the depravity to use American’s plight as a means to profit. Where does one turn? Our politicians are proving to be abject failures at best and indifferent and profiteering criminals at worst.

Authorities: In Florida where I live, Governor DeSantis has as of April 2d issued at “Stay at Home” directive. Again, most of what I write here is in line with what health authorities will tell you, but I disagree strongly on one point and that is the designation “stay at home”; it is simply an easy to say directive but a monumentally stupid slogan. They should say, Don’t Associate”.

The obvious multi-generational political incompetence, entrenched party ignorance and greed of our government authorities has certainly been starkly and painfully illuminated by the COVID-19 pandemic. To add to this sickening insult to injury we now have the disgusting “privilege” of a law enforcement presence associated with our “Stay at Home and Fester” directive from Governor DeSantis. In light of Florida County Deputies past and continued practice of robbing at gunpoint good Americans of their cash (euphemism - civil forfeiture), murdering people of color and watching children drink out of toilets, a forced association with these uniformed thugs is as comforting as catching the disease itself. But, remember many of those in uniform are sincerely trying to help even though they have no clue.

Offended? If you are law enforcement and you pull people over and steal cash from them after you have sworn and oath to the US Constitution (due process, junior), fuck you! You deserve NO respect. You are an armed robber; you know you are an armed robber; and you just don’t get to pretend “daddy” can give your lame ass “permission” to steal from those folks you have sworn to protect and serve.

We lie so fucking much in this country, encouraged by US Media and US Government, it is no wonder we stagger and stumble so mightily when as a fucking after-thought we make a rare and pathetic attempt at honest and urgent communication. Ours is a culture steeped in willful ignorance and obedience to assholes.

Websites Coronavirus Updates

Coronaviruses 101: Focus on Molecular Virology

#florida #covid-19 #antibodies #law enforcement

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quakerjoe · 5 years

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This is a long read, but it’s the best damned thing I’ve read in a long time... ~Joe

I stopped watching Chernobyl after the first episode because a lifetime ago, I was a serious physics nerd and everything they were saying was absurd about the levels of radiation. Last night we watched the other 4 episodes and I thought maybe I might try and push the rock up the hill again and maybe open some eyes about where we are right now in this truly dystopic Orwellian nightmare. J. Robert Oppenheimer was a particular hero to me as a teen because he was so brilliant and accomplished the impossible in just 18 months. If you have not read American Prometheus, I highly recommend it because it details a time when we had a government of imbeciles running around with their hair on fire about communists who threw people in jail who wouldn't admit to that old drunk McCarthy that they were communists. Like all demagogues, McCarthy thought he was the lone arbiter of who was and who wasn't a patriot and he rose to such prominence because he was willing to lie about anything to make his baseless allegations. But Joe McCarthy was no patriot nor was his principle henchman Roy Cohn. They used the collective paranoias of stupid people to manufacture a crisis that did not exist. They destroyed lives and relished doing it to what would be referred now as the 'elitist liberals' like Dalton Trumbo and Oppy. Oppy was an extremely educated liberal who spoke to other people like him. Some of whom were communists. This made him a threat in the minds of the men who put Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death. Ethel was entirely innocent but that didn't matter to a public brought to full froth by the hysteria of the day. Those men beating the drums of patriotism could not conceive of a man like Oppy talking to a communist and not be a communist himself, the same was said of Trumbo. Guilt by association was just enough for the likes of Cohn and McCarthy. "For each lie, a debt to the truth is incurred." Chernobyl Historians have written heroic books about the great generals of WWII, MacArthur and Patton being the most famous and they do deserve their notoriety but they ignored to a large extent who actually won the war for the allies and that comes down to two men: Alan Turing and J. Robert Oppenheimer. By any measure, Alan was the greatest man of the 20th century. Oppy is a bit harder to fit into that calculus and he said so himself because he knew atomic weapons would change the world and not in a good way. It's true the Japanese were whipped and that Doolittle could have continued to firebomb Japanese cities until the Japanese came to heel but that is still speculation. After Nagasaki, the war was over right or wrong, Oppy did that and saved hundreds of thousands of American troops. After the war, McCarthy went after Oppy. He wasn't treated like the hero he was and didn't want to be. He was treated like a Soviet agent and stripped of all of his security clearances because he would not name names. He was threatened with prison, his jobs were taken from him and he was exiled from the community of scientists that *he* built because of the lies of scum like McCarthy and Cohn. Alan Turing didn't fair much better from his government either. The McCarthys of that time didn't really believe in America at all, he wasn't a patriot no matter how loudly his supporters screamed it. McCarthy didn't think the idea of America could survive 'communist infiltration'. He had no grasp of why communism spread in Russia like wildfire because to his primitive and ignorant mind, he didn't know what it was like to live under a Tsar. 'If it spread there then it can spread here' was the thinking because McCarthy didn't understand or believe in the ideals that founded America. To him, they were so weak and feeble that communism would be preferable than what we had in America. That lie destroyed lives, destroyed families and stands as a black stain on our nation's history. The thing about liars is that they have to tell bigger and bigger lies to cover for all the small ones and then that debt to the truth comes due. It came to McCarthy when Joseph Welch lanced the festering boil that was McCarthyism with the truth. Before Welch delivered his fatal blow, he reacted to McCarthy's slander with this: "And so, Senator, I asked him to go back to Boston. Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad. It is true he is still with Hale & Dorr. It is true that he will continue to be with Hale & Dorr. It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty, I would do so. I like to think I'm a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me." Then a moment later, he drew the blade that ended the national nightmare when he murdered McCarthy with the indelible truth: Mr. Welch: You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency? McCarthy and Cohn of course had no decency. Cohn delighted in going after homosexuals and destroying their lives while being a homosexual himself. They were the most vile hypocrites the world had ever known. McCarthy incapable of feeling shame, drank himself to death after he was humiliated as the coward he was. I sat there thinking about this as the full horror of what happened at Chernobyl unfolded. The entirety of the Russian government played out exactly like Trump having all of his cabinet praising his greatness, it was vulgar, it was disgusting. Then I remembered all the other dictators I've read about in history who surrounded themselves with sycophants. Martin Bormann being the reference example who served Hitler so faithfully. Bormann was a slack-jowled imbecile who was barely qualified to lick stamps but nobody in the Reich dare cross the thug because he was Hitler's favorite yes man. I remember that day Trump's cabinet took turns telling Trump how honored they were to serve under his super terrifically awesomeness and that they were but boot-licking sycophants. Pence really had to lather up Trump's ass before he could muster a vulgar enough kiss to satisfy that insidious git. I sat thinking that this was the lowest moment in the history of the Republic. What separated them from the Soviet Central Committee under Gorbechev? Not a damn thing. They *all* lie for a living and kiss the dear leader's ass. It was the most unAmerican thing ever done in the White House. It was sheer cowardice by each and every single one of them. Any man who had a lick of honor would have walked out in disgust to save what's left of their honor. The *only* one who got out of this administration with any was General Mattis. And you can see this cult in all of its terrible glory if you just glance at any of the stories coming in from visitors to the concentration camps now open on United States' soil. There are zero testimonials from any objective visitor who says conditions are fine. Last Thursday a government Lawyer argued to 3 appellate judges that giving toothbrushes and toothpaste were luxury items not to be afforded for the $700-$800 a day American tax payers are paying private prison companies to house these thousands of misdemeanor offenders. Republicans have strenuously objected to calling these 'detention centers' 'concentration camps' because nothing offends cult members like the truth about what they are really do. Ask any Scientologist if you're not positive of this undeniable fact. Children are living outside, locked up and fully exposed to the elements without food and running water because the man who concocted this policy is a 32-year-old psychopath named Stephen Miller who has devised schemes to strip parents of their children as a 'deterrent' from coming to the US. I remember wondering as I read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich how so many people were duped into voting Hitler into office and here I am now witnessing it. I see right wing lunatics actually calling people 'Antifa' as if it is some slur. "Antifa'' meaning 'anti-fascist.' They seem wholly unaware that Americans won a war against fascism because we were all against what the Axis was doing. What the nazis knew was that they needed to control the press. What modern fascists like Rupert Murdoch have learned is that it is easier to control the masses with propaganda and to do that is to obey Goebbels' edict to 'accuse the other side for what you are guilty of.' This is where Republicans are now. There is no Republican party anymore. It is a cult of personality except it isn't Hitler being exalted by the hoards of half-literate morons, it's Trump. Trump lies to them and they breath in his lies and they repeat them with a religious fervor because none of them are aware that for each lie they tell, they incur a debt to the truth. In Germany and in Chernobyl, those lies always caused death on a mass scale either through incompetence or outright evildoing. Here we are at a crossroads in American history with an ignorant electorate chanting 'lock her up' as if that's something that's going to happen. The Secretary of the Treasury is openly breaking federal law in full few of all these miscreants and the cult doesn't care. The Attorney General of the United States, the highest law enforcement official in the land openly committed perjury before the US Congress. The President has committed election fraud, violated the emoluments clause and committed more acts of obstruction of justice than can be counted in full view of the American people and the sad fact of the matter is nothing is being done about it. The Republican cult doesn't even want to pretend like they don't want the Russians involved in the next election. They've done exactly nothing to safeguard our elections from Russian interference because they are so easily bought by Putin that they aren't going to do a damn thing to stop someone who is trying to help them win elections. I don't know what it takes before the people take to the streets but if opening up concentration camps isn't appalling enough to put the spurs in then nothing will. This is how it was done, the chipping away of normalcy with outrage after outrage until insanity became the new normal because as Voltaire so presciently said, 'anyone who can make you believe absurdity can make you commit atrocities.' Little children are locked up outside in the elements without so much as a blanket to protect them. They have no rights to anything because the courts are so overwhelmed with cases now that it will take many years before any of these refugees get a hearing. They're standing children up in front of a judge without a lawyer to defend themselves against imaginary crimes of crossing a line on a rock turning 35,000 mph in a small solar system. Republicans stole a supreme court seat and they will continue to lie, cheat and steal to remain in power. That's why Mitch has delivered over 100 carefully selected members of the Heritage Society to fill vacant judicial posts because he does not care about our democracy, he cares about power. As many Republicans have said, they only need someone to sign stuff, they don't care who. Trump is perfect for their agenda and democracy has never been on their agenda, usurping it is. 20 years of Murdoch's brainwashing has gotten us to this point and if anyone really believed in justice in this country, the heads of everyone at Fox would be rolling down main street as a lesson to future ambitious propagandists who mean to undermine our nation as that rogue Australian has done more than any other. To rid ourselves of this seditious scourge is going to take all of us who agree to speak with one voice at the ballot box. It's going to take protests on a scale not seen in the US. Blood is already being spilled in these concentration camps. Edmund Burke's warning that all it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing is coming to pass *yet again* and here we are at tyranny's doorstep. How much is enough? What atrocity must be committed on American soil before we get off our sorry asses and start doing something about it? If you don't think we aren't at war with a very determined enemy bent on destroying our country then you need to wake up to reality before we wake up that one morning like Martin Niemöller did when he said, "First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me." Every single Republican in office right now is an enemy of the United States who are conspiring with our foreign enemies to keep themselves in power. So are the people who vote for them because they are no different than the people who voted Hitler into office. I sincerely hope if you agree with what I have said here that you spread this message with any like-minded people because as of yet, I haven't seen any presidential candidates calling these concentration camps what they are. If we don't start preparing for next November today, we could wake up to another 4 years of Trump. Our nation cannot survive such a reckless criminal administration the likes of this one for another four years. The nation will be bankrupt and in its death rattle. We can start speaking in unison this Independence Day by squelching this Trump celebration in DC by turning the real patriots out on a scale he can't imagine. It's time to start fighting and dirty at that while there's still something worth fighting for. #Resist Your very life depends on it as does our future.

- Thomas Clay

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