#our board president is stopping into the office today

[rosewaterandivy]

stop making plans / start making sense

Summary: eddie finds himself smack dab in the middle of an ap english iv class, all because some do-gooders at Hawkins High happen to “believe in him” or whatever. the catch? it just so happens to be your ap english class.

A continuation of this blurb and the result of an ongoing eddie munson hc convo with @powderblueblood 💚

Warnings: eddie’s senior year 2.0, no Upside Down, scary smart debate team captain reader, NHS president and tutor nancy wheeler, ap music theory nerd and general nuisance robin buckley, pretentiousness alert - you have been warned!

W.C.: 1771

It’s his second time around as a senior, not even the first week of school under his belt when Mrs. Meloy calls him into her office. The counseling center, which he is unfortunately far too familiar with, is busy as it usually is at the beginning of the year— schedule changes, registration, students complaining about not getting late arrival or early dismissal. Before he can settle in one of the worn chairs by the door, a woman pops her outside of an office door. She glances around, blue eyes searching for someone or something, before landing on Eddie.

“Think the wall can hold itself up just fine Edward,” She calls as she opens the door to her office and waves him in.

He grouses at the use of his full name and rolls his eyes, languidly strolling into the smaller room that smells overwhelmingly of cinnamon.

“Go ahead and make yourself comfortable.”

She’s turned around, fingers flicking through thick manilla files in the cabinet in front of her. A cup of coffee sits on her cluttered desk, cold, from the looks of it. Mrs. Meloy mutters under her breath before turning from the filing cabinet in annoyance.

“It’s only the first week of school,” Eddie points out, “I haven’t done anything.”

The yet between them goes unspoken.

The older woman merely raises a knowing brow and takes her seat opposite him. She sorts through a few loose papers on her desk before letting out a surprised huff, “Gotcha!” Flipping through the file, his file, Eddie supposes, her eyes scan over what is undoubtedly his lack of academic achievement.

Satisfied with her perusal, she sets the papers down on her desk and addresses him.

“Round two.” Mrs. Meloy begins, resignedly. “Hopefully the NHS tutoring placement will be to your benefit Mr. Munson. Miss Wheeler is an exemplary student and I have high hopes for you under her tutelage.”

She then runs through his current schedule, emphasizing the classes he needs to perform well in (mostly all of them, save for English and a few others).

“Which brings me to the reason for our meeting today,” she says with a smile. “It has not escaped my notice, nor that of Mrs. Seguin, that you are quite adept in English class. At least,” she qualifies with a pull of her lips, “When properly motivated.”

And yeah, okay, he was decidedly not trying all that hard in Mrs. S.’s senior English class last year and he breezed through with a respectable A minus.

Wayne even got a little choked up when he read that particular report card.

“I guess so,” he says with a cross of his arms.

“Rather than having you repeat the same content and curriculum this year, Mrs. Seguin and I have petitioned the principal for permission to move you into a more challenging and appropriate English class.”

Well, that perks him right up.

“Principal Higgins has agreed to the change, with a few stipulations.”

Of fucking course.

The gist of it is, Eddie’s admittance to the AP English IV class will be probationary for the first quarter, given his past exploits and record. If he can keep his grades at a respectable B across the board, Eddie will be permanently placed in Mrs. Seguin’s advanced class. If he can’t, it’s back to regular Senior English with that crone, Mrs. Cotter.

Easy peasy.

And he’s almost out the door when Meloy stops him with a furitive, “Eddie,” and pauses to look him in the eye. “We believe in you and we went to the mat with Higgins on this.” She says emphatically, standing up to escort him through the office, “You can do this, Eddie, we know you can.”

She smiles and sends him off with his newly revised schedule, the summer reading assignment, and information for Wayne to peruse about Advanced Placement courses.

The rest of that day unfolded as expected despite his new schedule. Slight differences were made, such as: Eddie sitting in the middle of the class instead of the back, hopefully next to Buckley or Wheeler if he could swing it.

With Nancy’s help, he was able to narrow the summer reading options down to books that would hold his interest. The librarian, Ms. Berkowitz, was more than happy to oblige him with checking out a copy of Notes from the Underground by some Russian dude whose name Eddie couldn’t possibly pronounce.

The bell for the final class of the day rang just as he slipped through Mrs. Seguin’s door.

“Timely as ever,” she teased and kicked the door stop into the classroom.

Her room was the same as last year, but the mood within was markedly different— more relaxed and at ease. Students sat where they pleased and chatted amongst themselves while Mrs. S. checked off the roll and fielded a few questions from the group.

Eddie settled in the only open seat right in between Nancy and yourself. He tried not to be offended that you didn’t even glance up from your furious scribbling on the page, seemingly writing a mile a minute, as if you couldn’t get the words out fast enough.

Ink smeared on the college ruled paper underneath your hand.

Eddie found it endearing.

“Okay, okay, let’s get this show on the road.” Mrs. S. set her clipboard on the desk and leaned against it with a casual grace.

She was one of the newer teachers to Hawkins High, from some big name school out west with not one, but two degrees framed on the wall behind her desk. She was young and quick to laugh; the older teachers were a bit weary of her and those “new agey” teaching philosophies, but the results produced were proof enough for her to granted the AP English III and IV courses for this year. According to Nancy, she’d only had AP juniors and regular seniors last year.

Eddie, being one of those regular students, would know.

“Alright, hopefully we’ve brought in our summer reading novels today. The goal is to break you all into thematic groups based on your selected text. From there, you will collaborate with your peers to create a presentation on your findings.”

With this, she steps away from her desk and begins writing on the chalkboard.

“Consider such things as character archetype, thematic resonance, literary merit, of course. But more importantly,” she says, turning to the class with a smile, “How did the story affect you? What new perspective or insights were gained? What concepts were reinforced? Did you despise the protagonist, or did you identify too closely with them?”

The class has fallen to a hush, you’ve stopped writing and are rapt with attention. Eddie, used to overworked teachers and coaches who could care less, is shocked.

“I remind you, as always, that there are no right or wrong answers in here. As long as you can support your interpretation—” She begins.

“With evidence from the text,” The class choruses in reply.

“Good, exactly.”

At that, students break away into smaller groups and begin talking in hushed tones about the project.

“Whatcha got there?”

This, from Robin, who unceremoniously plucks Eddie’s book from his grasp. She flips through it, eyes lighting in interest, just as Mrs. Seguin makes her way over.

“Eddie, always good to see you.”

“Right back at ya, Mrs. S.”

She smirks, eyeing Robin scanning through Dostoevsky. “Had a feeling you’d gravitate toward the nihilists. Got a chance to start reading yet?”

He swipes the book back from Robin and ignores her petulant pout.

“Uh, kinda. Started it during lunch today.”

She nods knowingly, “Well, I’m sure you’ll be caught up in no time.” Surveying the classroom she nods to herself, “And now that I think of it,” She turns back to Eddie, “Looks like you’re in the right group over here.”

He almost says there is no group over here, but then he notices Nancy and Robin chatting with you. Feeling his stare, you turn back from where you’ve set up shop on Robin’s desk and jerk your head, an invitation by any other name.

“C’mon Munson, we don’t have all day.” You say this softly, chidingly, with no real heat behind it. Your eyes narrow as a group gets particularly loud across the way, “Because I’m certainly not about to let Phillips show us up.”

“Oh, bite me!” Phillips crows from his desk.

“You wish, you cretin!”

Eddie does his best to hide the curl of his lips and stifle a laugh while Phillips sulks at his desk.

Robin thumbs through a worn copy of Nausea while Nancy talks Eddie through the plan thus far. She’s read The Death of Ivan Ilyich and come to the conclusion that the novels in the group are both deeply depressing and deal with themes of existentialism, and in some cases, nihilism.

“I dunno. Philosophy is all well and good, but,” you pipe up, “Mine had elements of magical realism and a satirical critique of Soviet Russia.”

Eddie attempts to process what you and Wheeler have just said. Sensing a lull in the conversation, you slyly pass your novel over to Eddie and start to take notes over whatever it is Nancy is rambling on about.

The Master and Margartia.

Huh, weird title.

He reads the blurb on the back cover and kind of regrets not choosing this one to read. Maybe you’ll let him borrow it after the project is over. Setting it back on your desk, Eddie peruses the syllabus Mrs. S. must’ve slipped him.

“So, will that work for you Eddie?”

Lost in a daze of genres and titles, he looks up. “Sorry, what was that?”

Nancy sighs, “We’re going to meet at my house on Thursday for a study group. I know you and Mike have that thing on Fridays, so.”

“Oh, yeah. Thanks Wheeler; that’ll work.”

With a smile, she goes back to chatting with Robin.

“Psst.”

A neatly folded paper lands on his desk. Eddie glances at you, curious, taking in your arched brow and smirk.

Scary smart, he reminds himself as he unfurls the page.

I know Nance is your NHS tutor, but if you feel like you need to catch-up for this class, give me a call.

Your deft hand and neatly printed letters dance across the page, an errant smear of ink where the heel of your hand drug across the paper. The digits of your phone number underneath your missive make his heart race.

Annotating your copy of Dune without permission was one thing. And at that you didn’t even bat an eye, but this…

Well, this had potential.

He tries not to let the possibility of what if turn to ash in his mouth.

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things fanfic

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

Barack Obama is Scum

If they did all of this to stop DJT from seeking a 2nd term, you can't tell me they didn't steal the 2020 election. If Biden & Kamala had actually won the 2020 election fair and square Obama would have no reason to keep the American people from voting for DJT. Why are they so afraid to let us exercise our constitutional rights to pick our own representatives?

I noticed a pattern during Trump's White House years. Anytime the Deep State would implement an attack on DJT or the Trump Administration the Obama's were conveniently out of the country. Notice they traveled to Australia for Trump's indictment. Coincidence?

If you haven't seen Jesse Waters Tuesday 4-4-2023 show I highly recommend you watch it. He discloses the smoking gun connection bw Biden, Obama and their political prosecution of Donald Trump. Let me warn you that you will either be infuriated, depressed, ill or all three. This Deep State plot against the Trump family and the American people should have these people tried for treason. I'm so angry right now that I can hardly type.

This guy is the smoking gun: Matt Colangelo. When Bragg couldn't find a way to as Dershowitz wrote "Get Trump" Obama transferred his ACTIVIST Matt Colangelo from DC to Manhattan, NY where they created a job for him to Get Trump. Colangelo is responsible for shutting down the Trump Foundation because the board didn't have "official" meetings (Trump & his kids), sending the 70 + year old accountant to Riker's Island, and today the ultimate harassment: putting "handcuffs" on a former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

From the Manhattan DA site:

"Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., today announced the appointment of Matthew Colangelo as new Senior Counsel to the District Attorney. Colangelo, who most recently served as a senior official at the U.S. Department of Justice, will focus on the Office’s cases, policies, and strategies in housing and tenant protection and labor and worker protection, as well as the Office’s most sensitive and high-profile white-collar investigations."

These videos are incomplete.

Check out Jesse Watters Primetime on Fox Nation. https://nation.foxnews.com/jesse-watters-primetime

April 3rd A victimless crime

#obama is scum #Matt Colangelo #Jesse Waters #Deep State #Get Trump #General Flynn #Wire Tap #Treason #manhattan district attorney #alvin bragg is a dirty cop #alvin bragg #biden crime family #joe biden #barack obama #susan rice #clinton crime family #michelle obama #eric holder #Valerie Jarrett #Youtube

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

OPEDS

Is it time to go?

By Howard Sackstein

Today, the South African Jewish community numbers but one third of what it did at its peak. Though our numbers have shrunk, the vibrancy of our community has remained intact.

In the 1970s and 1980s they used to joke, “When the Jews go; it’s time to leave, when the Portuguese go; it’s too late.”

The clock ticked, and stopped on 7 October 2023.

The behaviour of the South African government was nothing short of betrayal. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s failure to condemn the 7 October massacre; his failure to reach out to the families of the two South Africans massacred in the Hamas genocide; his failure to act on the two South Africans kidnapped by Hamas; and his smirk blame of Israel for deserving the attack two weeks after the massacre, while wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh, will forever be a symbol of his Judas moment.

In American politics, they talk of a “tortoise on a lamppost”. Sometimes, the tortoise mistakenly believes that it got onto the lamppost by itself.

Ramaphosa’s spineless leadership has allowed his jihadist foreign minister, Dr Naledi Pandor, and her mujahidin director general, Zane Dangor, to direct foreign policy without intervention. Pandor mislead Parliament by claiming that there were no beheadings of babies and that Israel had attacked the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital. With no South African diplomats in Israel and Al Jazeera as her only source of information, Pandor meanders in the dark. Her ignorance, however, is self-inflicted. Her department was invited to view the 47-minute video of Hamas-captured atrocities, and declined to attend.

Hamas informs us that Pandor telephoned it to congratulate it on the success of its “Al-Aqsa Flood” attack on Israel. Pandor claimed that she was merely offering humanitarian assistance, but refused to release the “call-out” transcript of the conversation. As a convert to Islam, Pandor uses her own zealotry to pursue a pro-Hamas agenda to the detriment of South Africa.

In December, Hamas visited South Africa, was feted in our Parliament, and celebrated in the African National Congress’ (ANC’s) offices in Johannesburg. When Ramaphosa finally met the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, he sprinted to issue a statement and later, while meeting the Muslim community, stated that they had issued a statement as “we’re concerned there are distortions”. Given that the president’s statement was issued first, this both makes no logical sense and effectively paints the official representative body of Jews in South Africa as liars.

It’s a clash of civilizations. Jews have traditionally ascribed to the values of Western liberal democracy. In the ANC’s hard-left, revolutionary world view, Western interests must be opposed everywhere – in Ukraine, in Morocco, and in Israel. South Africa believes that it must be the vanguard liberation movement celebrating the imagined successes of Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and Russia. Pandor is currently attending the 7th Africa-Cuba Solidarity Conference in White River.

But actions have consequences. The West is becoming increasingly disenchanted by South Africa’s antics. Last year, South Africa’s invitation to the G7 Summit didn’t materialise, and the currency has lost 50% of its value under Ramaphosa. The renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act looks increasingly precarious together with the approximately 250 000 jobs it created. South Africa is increasingly isolated from those countries which could help it the most.

Ramaphosa had a choice to turn South Africa into a Singapore or a Sudan. He chose Sudan.

#south africa #jews #cyril ramaphosa #naledi pandor #zane dangor

[seepunkrun]

Notes from the Nov 12 OTW Public Board Meeting

Today's Agenda:

Decisions made since the last public board meeting

Welcome new Board members

Announce officer roles

Diversity update

Any other business

Decisions taken since last meeting:

Approved Finance requests

Approved new chairs for Fanlore, Support, and Strategic Planning

Granted preliminary approval for complaint management system

Created Twitter report for impersonation account

Approved new committee formation - Board Assistants Team

Approved new chairs for Board Assistants Team

Signed onto a letter opposing the Stop CSAM Act introduced in the US Senate

This meeting ran much more smoothly than the last due to the new rules and the way questions were handled. The first roll call showed 91 guests, and the last showed 88. Anh, as president, ran the meeting and got through the cut and paste business quickly, leaving 40 minutes for questions.

The diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) update was very brief but contained long awaited news:

We're delighted to announce that we've signed a contract with a consulting firm, who will be working with us on an organizational culture audit. (If you were wondering about the unlabeled $96,000 line item in the budget, this was it!) The consulting firm has already completed an initial survey and begun interviewing volunteers, and will continue this process over the next few weeks. DEI subject matter experts will be involved and consulted throughout the process. We are incredibly excited to work with them and make the OTW a better, more inclusive place!

Later, in response to my question asking for more details, Zixin said they would not be sharing information about the firm in order to protect them from possible harassment and that they don't have a sense of how many people at the firm will be working on this or for how long. They expect a preliminary report by the end of January 2024 and will give updates at the next public meeting.

Considering how long we've been waiting for progress on the DEI consultant, getting a report from them by January feels lightning fast, but history suggests the next Board meeting won't be until March, so it'll probably be a while before that information reaches us.

Also of note was the question of paid staff: Has the board been looking into hiring a volunteer to look into hiring paid staff? Is there a timeline for hiring paid staff?

Kathryn S responded:

We do have a timeline for Paid Staff Transition in our Strategic Planning 2023-2026: The Volunteers & Recruiting Committee has been working on finding an external HR firm for the organization for several months. There are two main goals behind for the OTW behind this initiative: • To help the OTW create a better environment for its volunteers by reviewing our current org-wide policies and procedures and creating new ones when needed; • To help the OTW transition from a fully volunteer-based organization to hiring our first employee. The committee has interviewed several firms, but the size and global scope of the OTW's volunteer and user bases make it a complicated project. They are still meeting with candidate firms and exploring potential alternatives.

I asked a follow up to this, a request for an update on the search for a Paid Staff Transition Officer, but it did not make it before the Board during the relevant conversation, or in the meeting at all. I used the double arm (o//) to indicate it was a follow up question, but it still depended on votes to get in front of them, which feels like a flaw in the system, but I'll get an answer eventually, see below.

People asked a lot of good questions, and we got answers for the promised ten, even though it made the meeting run about twenty minutes longer than its scheduled hour. Some of the topics covered: confidentiality policy for Board and the emergency procedures promised to volunteers; Finance investing OTW's money to avoid being solely dependent on donors; evaluation and improvement of the Constructive Corrective Action Procedure (CCAP procedure); progress on the ToS review; proposed subcommittee to handle complaints and conflicts within the OTW; complaint management system for volunteers.

If you'd like to learn more, I recommend joining the OTW Discord and reading back through the #public-board-meetings channel, which is pretty straightforward now that Board members are the only ones allowed to post there. If you've already joined, you can use this link to jump to the top of the Nov 12 meeting.

The meeting closed with the news that the Board is planning to release a high-level overview of their timeline that includes their goals for the 2023-2024 Board Year at the next public meeting.

The questions that didn't get answered during this meeting will be answered in the #questions-answers channel starting in two weeks. So expect those around November 26, when the Board will begin posting weekly Q&A threads.

#otw board meeting #organization for transformative works #otw #archive of our own #ao3 #end otw racism #what are they building in there #fandom

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Jack Ohman, Sacramento Bee

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 26, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAR 27, 2024

At about 1:30 this morning, local time, the Dali, a 985-foot (300 m) container ship operating under a Singapore flag, struck the steel Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, that spans the lower Patapsco River and outer Baltimore Harbor. The bridge immediately collapsed. 

Eight maintenance workers were on the bridge repairing potholes when the ship hit. Two were rescued from the water, but the other six remain missing. Search and rescue operations were complicated by twisted metal and debris from the collapsed bridge. This evening, the Coast Guard called off its search. Tomorrow morning, divers will begin recovery efforts.

It is possible there were motorists on the bridge, too, but fewer than there might otherwise have been. Crew members issued a “Mayday” call—an internationally recognized word meaning distress—that Maryland police heard. At 1:27, police radio recorded an officer saying a ship had lost control of its steering as it approached the bridge, and to stop traffic and evacuate the area. There were cars submerged in the water, but they may have belonged to the construction workers.

The loss of the bridge will tangle traffic and disrupt supply chains. Named for the Maryland lawyer who in 1814 wrote the poem that became the national anthem, the Francis Scott Key bridge carries I-695, the Baltimore Beltway, and is used by about 30,000 people a day. 

The Port of Baltimore is one of the nation’s largest shipping hubs, especially for both imports and exports of cars and light trucks. About 850,000 vehicles go through that port every year. So does more than 20% of the nation’s coal exports. In 2023 the port moved a record-breaking $80 billion worth of foreign cargo. Now the shipping lane is closed and must be cleared of debris. 

“There is no question this will be a major and protracted impact on supply chains,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said from Baltimore today.

Perhaps learning from the 2023 East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment, when the government response was fast but quiet and thus opened a window for right-wing complaints they weren’t doing enough, the administration was out front today. Buttigieg rushed to the scene from a trip out West, and Maryland governor Wes Moore told reporters Buttigieg had called him at 3:30 am, just two hours after the crash.  

By around 6:00 am, the National Transportation Safety Board already had a team of 24 people on the scene to launch an investigation into the cause of the collision. 

Speaking today, President Joe Biden said: “I’ve directed my team to move heaven and earth to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge as soon as…humanly possible. And we’re going to work hand in hand…to support Maryland, whatever they ask for. And we’re going to work with our partners in Congress to make sure the state gets the support it needs. It’s my intention that federal government will pay for the entire cost of reconstructing that bridge, and I expect…the Congress to support my effort.”

Former member of President Obama’s 2012 campaign Jason Karsh noted Biden’s speech and said on social media: “[B]ecause Biden got infrastructure spending done for the first time in over a generation, and because [Pennsylvania] was able to rebuild that bridge that collapsed in record time, Dem[ocrat]s have the credibility to say things like this. Competence in government matters.”

It remains far too soon for any solid understanding of what caused the deadly crash.

Despite the impossibility of solid information in the hours immediately after the collision—or perhaps because of it—verified accounts on X (formerly Twitter) began spreading conspiracy theories. They posted that the accident was linked to terrorism, Jewish people, or diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. “Did anti-white business practices cause this disaster?” one posted. Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones wrote that the collision was “deliberate” and that “WW3 has already started.” 

Technology reporter Taylor Lorenz, who studies social media patterns, explained in the Washington Post that many of these accounts are “engagement farming.” This is the practice of posting extremist comments to generate attention, which can then be monetized by, for example, getting a cut of advertising that appears near those comments. Comments with heavy engagement can receive thousands of dollars. 

For a long time now, America’s political right has riled people up with wild political rhetoric to get them to buy stuff. Just today, Trump began to hawk Bibles for $59.99, plus shipping and handling, with a video message saying “Religion and Christianity are the biggest things missing from this country, and I truly believe we need to bring them back…. That’s why our country’s going haywire—we’ve lost religion in our country.” 

That system appeared to be in play as Trump supporters apparently flocked to today’s public offering of the Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind the Truth Social app, sending the stock upward 16%. That surge would value the company at more than $7 billion, although in the first nine months of last year it had only about $3 million in sales and lost nearly $50 million. Julian Klymochko, founder and CEO of Accelerate Financial Technologies, told NPR’s Rafael Nam that the $7 billion valuation “is completely detached from any sort of fundamentals.” 

Buying stock in the company is “more of a political movement or just a speculative meme stock [a stock driven by social media] that’s completely detached or unrelated to the underlying business fundamentals of Truth Social,” Klymochko said.

As well as convincing supporters to buy products, extremist rhetoric can push them toward violence. Yesterday, John Keller, the head of a Department of Justice task force set up to protect election workers, told reporters Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen has put the U.S. in a “new era” in which election workers are “scapegoated, targeted, and attacked.” 

Today, on his social media network, Trump attacked individuals related to his upcoming election interference case. He lashed out at one of the prosecutors on Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s staff who previously worked for the Justice Department; Judge Juan Merchan, the judge in his upcoming criminal case for election interference; and the judge’s daughter. Of the judge and his daughter, Trump told his angry followers: “These COUNTRY DESTROYING SCOUNDRELS & THUGS HAVE NO CASE AGAINST ME. WITCH HUNT!” 

Legal analyst Joyce White Vance of Civil Discourse called out Trump’s “rank effort at intimidating the judge by threatening his family,” which she said “merits a gag order but also serious pushback from [Republican] leadership—which we know won't come.” 

Republican leadership indeed stayed quiet, but the judge noted Trump’s pattern of using  “threatening, inflammatory, [and] denigrating” statements against individuals in his legal cases and placed a gag order on him. Merchan noted that in the past, Trump’s statements had intimidated the individual targeted and required them to hire protection. 

Trump can still talk about Merchan or Bragg, but he cannot comment on any attorney, court staff member, or family member of prosecutors or lawyers. He can’t make statements about any potential or actual juror. 

Other news today suggests that Americans outside the MAGA bubble are turning against the poisonous politics that appeals to fear and hatred so its perpetrators can gain money or power.

The outrage over NBC’s hiring of former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel was so strong that today the chair of NBC News, Cesar Conde, emailed staff to tell them he had “decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor.” McDaniel had trafficked in lies to support Trump and had worked with him to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. 

When the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine today, observers thought the justices seemed inclined to back away from the decision of extremist antiabortion judge Matthew Kacsmaryk taking the abortion drug mifepristone off the market. Antiabortion activists have long sought to ban abortion nationwide, but a strong majority of Americans support reproductive rights and have made their wishes known at the ballot box. 

Voters’ frustration with the extremists who have captured the Republican Party appeared to be behind the results in today’s special election for a seat in the Alabama legislature. There, voters in a swing district elected a Democrat, who ran on protecting abortion access, to replace a Republican. In 2022 that Democrat, Marilyn Lands, won about 45% of the vote. Today she won almost 65% of it.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#letters from an american #Heather Cox Richardson #infrastructure #the courts #corrupt SCOTUS #Ronna McDaniel #GOP extremism #Baltimore Bridge

[focsle]

Could we hear some of the food Mary was writing about?

Sure!

She entertained captains on board when gamming with other ships, and that’s when the food bounty tended to come out. Often the foods were a mix of what was available to them (i.e. if they recently caught fish or found shellfish, got tropical fruit from a provisioning stop, etc.), and things other captains gave her as gifts that she saved for such occasions.

Captain Chatfield went out this forenoon, so that we only had two captains to dine with us, Captains Jernegan and Lester. Had a fish chowder, a large stuffed and baked fish, coffee, bread and butter and preserves, and a roll pudding. Had some huckleberry pies made for supper, but they did not stop.

Holidays were also an occasion for fancier food than usual. Here’s Christmas:

Minnie hung up her stocking last night. She was fearful that she should get nothing in it, as we could not go to the store, but she succeeded as well for eatables as if she had been at home. We had quite a Christmas dinner: roast chickens, stuffed, potatoes, turnips, onions, stewed cranberries, pickled beets and cucumbers, and a plum duff. For tea I had a tin of preserved grape opened and cut a loaf of fruitcake.

Everyone seemed to love her daughter Minnie, who was 5-9 years old over the course of the voyage. Whaling wives and—more rarely seen—their children, were definitely a domestic novelty.

We all passed a very pleasant day, Captain Winegar enjoying it very much; it reminded him so strongly of home. Minnie attracted much notice as usual. She is generally the center of attention with company. She is not afraid to speak, and her replies are generally to the point and usually interspersed with some salt remarks. The captain gave me a couple pounds of green tea, a couple tins of preserved pineapple, and a few shells. I forgot to mention that we carried him a little pig and gave him a piece of fresh pork. The cook gave Minnie a little china cup and saucer, which pleased her very much. For dinner we had a roast duck, potatoes, onions, some very nice biscuit, coffee, mince pie, and for dessert preserved peaches, pineapples, and quinces. For supper we had oysters, cold duck, biscuit, preserved pears, mince pie, doughnuts, and cookies, Captain Winegar doing the honors very well. We arrived home delighted with our visit.

Here’s Minnie celebrating her 8th birthday by presiding over a tea party with a bunch of whaling officers, that her mom prepared.

We set the table and called the officers down about half-past 7 P.M. Minnie was so happy she hardly knew what to do with herself, and I think we all enjoyed it pretty well. The officers all united in saying that they had not sat down to such a table since they left home. The treat consisted of a plate of sister Celia’s fruitcake, two loaves of cupcake frosted, two plates of currant jelly tarts, and a dish of preserved pineapple, also hot coffee, good and strong, with plenty of milk and white sugar. After we had finished there was ample supply left, which was sent into the steerage for boatsteerers, etc.

In addition to tea party leftovers being sent to the boatsteerers, foods were also made for the foremast hands as a special occasion too.

Luxuriated today in roast chickens for the cabin, and a pork sea pie for the forecastle, with occasional lunches of pineapple, bananas, and coconuts.

There were some struggles with her cooking ventures too, however:

This afternoon we killed two hens; Cynthia and Coopie. It made Minnie feel very sad to have Cynthia killed. I must not allow her to name her chickens for her friends; it makes her feel so badly when they are killed. […] I made our chickens into a pie today. The officers said it seemed like home. It was not baked well; the crust was not done. I should have more courage to make knickknacks if I could attend to the baking of them, but of course it would not do for me to go into the galley.

All in all the fare was quite fine compared to…food on whaleships in general.

#i need to make a tag for mary… #awhalin #mary lawrence

[vajracchedika]

After Hans Niemann defeated the World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen in the third round of the Sinquefield Cup 2022, Carlsen decided to withdraw from the tournament without detailed explanations. Rumors that Magnus Carlsen suspected Niemann was cheating started spreading over social media and the controversy over the Niemann – Carlsen case is not stopping. While Niemann spoke on the case on several occasions, the World Chess Champion gave his first interview on the case two days ago saying that cheaters should not be taken lightly either online or over the board.

Top grandmasters and chess journalists asked FIDE to react on the case. Hikaru Nakamura and Daniel Naroditsky concluded on the stream that it’s very tricky that online chess platforms for playing don’t have any agreements with FIDE, and that there should be clear communication between the main online servers and FIDE on the matter of cheating. English chess master Leonard Barden, The Guardian’s chess columnist, asked FIDE to step in, while GM Nigel Davies stated that the FIDE Ethics Commission should act if Carlsen does not give a public statement on the case. FIDE Director General Emil Sutovsky said that FIDE is concerned about recent developments of Carlsen – Niemann case and confirmed that FIDE will publish the official statement on the case.

FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich today published the official statement which can be seen below:

Last week, World Champion Magnus Carlsen resigned in a game played in an online competition against GM Hans Niemann before making his move two. The week before, he left an over-the-board tournament after losing the game to the same Mr. Niemann.  These were not FIDE events; however, as the world’s chess governing body, it is our duty to protect the integrity of the game and its image, and in view that the incident keeps escalating, we find it necessary to take a step forward.  First of all, we strongly believe that the World Champion has a moral responsibility attached to his status, since he is viewed as a global ambassador of the game. His actions impact the reputation of his colleagues, sportive results, and eventually can be damaging to our game. We strongly believe that there were better ways to handle this situation. At the same time, we share his deep concerns about the damage that cheating brings to chess. FIDE has led the fight against cheating for many years, and we reiterate our zero-tolerance policy toward cheating in any form. Whether it is online or “over the board”, cheating remains cheating. We are strongly committed to this fight, and we have invested in forming a group of specialists to devise sophisticated preventive measures that already apply at top FIDE events. As we have already done before, FIDE calls for reinforcing the cooperation between major online platforms, private events and top players – most of whom have already expressed their will to join efforts with FIDE. FIDE is prepared to task its Fair Play commission with a thorough investigation of the incident, when the adequate initial proof is provided, and all parties involved disclose the information at their disposal. We are fully aware that, in some cases, uncertainty can harm players’ performance. It also can be damaging to a player’s reputation – that’s why we insist on the anti-cheating protocols to be followed. It is our hope that this whole situation could have a long-term positive effect, if tackled properly. We propose to launch a dedicated Panel, that would include representatives of the leading chess platforms, Grandmasters, anti-cheating experts and FIDE officers, in order to fight this risk and prevent it becomes a real plague. Arkady Dvorkovich FIDE President

[yourreddancer]

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

May 17, 2022 (Tuesday)On this day in 1954, the Supreme Court handed down the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, decision, which declared the segregation of public schools unconstitutional. 

Today, President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden traveled to Buffalo, New York, where ten Americans were murdered and three wounded at a grocery store by a white supremacist on Saturday. 

Biden named and described the victims, ten of whom were Black: a baker, a public school teacher, an election worker, a church deacon, a retired police officer, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers. “Individual lives of love, service, and community that speaks to the bigger story of who we are as Americans,” Biden said. We’re a “great nation because we’re a good people.” Evil will not win in America, Biden promised. “Hate will not prevail. And white supremacy will not have the last word.”

“What happened here is simple and straightforward,” Biden said, “Domestic terrorism. Violence inflicted in the service of hate and a vicious thirst for power that defines one group of people being inherently inferior to any other group. A hate that through the media and politics, the Internet, has radicalized angry, alienated, lost, and isolated individuals into falsely believing that they will be replaced—that’s the word, “replaced”—by the “other”—by people who don’t look like them and who are therefore, in a perverse ideology that they possess and [are] being fed, lesser beings.”Biden called on “all Americans to reject [that] lie.”

He condemned “those who spread the lie for power, political gain, and for profit.” “[T]he ideology of white supremacy has no place in America,” he said. “Silence is complicity.” “We have to refuse to live in a country where fear and lies are packaged for power and for profit.“We must all enlist in this great cause of America.“

This is work that requires all of us—presidents and politicians, commentators, citizens. None of us can stay in the sidelines. We have to resolve here in Buffalo that from…this tragedy…will come hope and light and life. It has to. And on our watch, the sacred cause of America will never bow, never break, never bend. And the America we love—the one we love—will endure.”

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who represents Buffalo, today wrote a letter to Rupert Murdoch, chair of the Fox Corporation, along with another three of the corporation’s leaders, to urge them to stop “the reckless amplification of the so-called ‘Great Replacement’ theory on your network’s broadcasts.” He noted that people who watch the Fox News Channel are nearly three times more likely to believe in the replacement myth than those who watch other networks. He pointed out “the central role these themes have played in your network’s programming in recent years,” especially on Tucker Carlson’s show. He wrote: “I implore you to immediately cease all dissemination of false white nationalist, far-right conspiracy theories on your network.”

New York representative Elise Stefanik, the third-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, who paid for ads pushing the replacement myth, today said: “It is not the time to politicize this tragedy. We mourn together as a nation.” Other Republicans insisted they did not know what the Great Replacement Theory is, although a number of them are on video articulating it.

Interviewed by Silvia Foster-Frau of the Washington Post, Buffalo resident James Baldwin dismissed the notion that it was the devil who inspired the Buffalo shooter. “That’s not the devil,” he said. “That’s America. They made him, they brought him up, they put him there.”

There was other big news today. Glenn Thrush and Luke Broadwater of the New York Times reported that on April 20, attorneys in the Department of Justice (DOJ) wrote to the lead investigator for the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, Timothy J. Heaphy, to ask if the committee would share transcripts from some of their interviews. Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Kenneth A. Polite Jr. and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew M. Graves told Heaphy that some of the transcripts might “contain information relevant to a criminal investigation we are conducting.” 

The House committee is trying to figure out exactly what happened on January 6 and in the weeks around it. It is not conducting a criminal investigation. That ground is the turf of the Department of Justice, which has so far brought indictments against at least 828 people, more than 280 of whom have pleaded guilty. The four defendants who had a jury trial were each convicted on all counts. One defendant was acquitted by a Trump-appointed judge, who agreed with the defendant's statement that he had not seen a police line and had possibly been waved into the building. (Video shows the defendant was not screaming or attacking anyone inside the building).

The request indicates that the Department of Justice is looking broadly at the period around January 6. It also suggests that the committee has covered a lot of ground very quickly and that its information might be of use to the Justice Department.The committee will not simply hand over their material. Congress is part of the legislative branch of government, and the Department of Justice is part of the executive branch, so there is the issue of the separation of powers to deal with. 

A source told Thrush and Broadwater that the committee and the Justice Department are negotiating. The Justice Department wants the transcripts; the committee wants any relevant evidence the Justice Department has. Legal analyst Glenn Kirschner tweeted: “Whether this was always the DOJ plan (& whether the J6 committee knew it or not), important info has been developed by the J6 panel that would not have been developed had the witnesses been subpoenaed to the grand jury (as they would have pled the 5th).” He added: “If the J6 committee investigation HAD taken a back seat to a DOJ grand jury investigation, we would go years w/out knowing what any of the 1000+ witness[es] had said. But now, we’ll have a front row seat to it all beginning June 9 AND all of those transcripts can be used in the GJ!”

Hugo Lowell, who is a congressional reporter for The Guardian, tweeted tonight that Stephanie Grisham, a former Trump aide, will be back in front of the January 6th committee tomorrow. The committee is bringing former witnesses back in to confirm evidence and details. The committee will begin to hold its public hearings on June 9.

There are other legal cases in the news today, too, having to do with foreign influence during the Trump administration. The Department of Justice filed a civil enforcement action to force Stephen A. Wynn to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) as a foreign agent working for China. The Justice Department says that from at least June 2017 through at least August 2017, Wynn lobbied Trump and members of his administration to force out of the U.S. a Chinese national who was here for political asylum. Such a case is so exceedingly rare that the Department of Justice said it had not brought such a case in more than 30 years. Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen said, “Where a foreign government uses an American as its agent to influence policy decisions in the United States, FARA gives the American people a right to know.”  

During this period, Wynn was one of four Republican National Committee finance chairs; the other three were Elliott Broidy, Michael Cohen, and Louis DeJoy. In 2020, Broidy pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate foreign lobbying laws; he worked to win benefits for Chinese and Malaysian interests from the Trump administration. Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts of campaign finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud. Louis DeJoy was appointed in May 2020 to head the United States Postal Service, where he made changes that appeared to be attempts to influence the 2020 election. Broidy recruited Wynn to work for China, thinking that Wynn’s work with the RNC, his business experience in China, and his friendship with Trump “would be helpful in getting access to Trump Administration officials.” 

FARA scholar Carrie Levine tweeted: “So, to recap, DOJ is alleging that Wynn was contacting Trump administration officials to advocate for China while serving as RNC finance chair.” In another case, a superseding indictment filed today in New York federal court accuses Trump’s good friend Thomas Barrack of accepting a pledge of $374 million from the United Arab Emirates while he was also illegally lobbying the administration for the UAE. 

Today, in the wake of the Buffalo shooting, Miles Taylor—a member of Trump’s administration who warned anonymously of how dangerous Trump was—announced he was leaving the Republican Party and called on others to do the same. “In the wake of the mass shooting in Buffalo on Saturday,” he wrote, “it’s become glaringly obvious that my party no longer represents conservative values but in fact poses a threat to them—and to America.”

[central-philippine-university]

Joan Cataluña Sabran Castor: A Board Passer’s story of success.

Centralian Joan Cataluña Sabran Castor: September 2021 LET Board Passer.

Due to some difficult circumstances, Joan Cataluña Sabran became a self-supporting student since her elementary up to college. She struggled and did her best to become successful. She eventually realized her dream and passed the September 2021 Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET).

The following, as told by Joan, is a true story of sacrifice, perseverance, and determination to succeed; a reality that many work students of today with the same situations and experiences may follow.

Joan came from a fragmented family and was not living with her biological parents when she was still a baby. She was adopted by her aunt and uncle that’s why her last name became Sabran. Later on, with her marriage, her family name became Castor. She grew up with her Lola (grandmother) who took care of her and helped her to study in a public elementary school.

“I worked in the farm to help Lola in harvesting rice. She recalled in Ilonggo, “Pang garab lang humay (rice stalks), amon pangitan-an ni Lola sang una, para makakaon.” (That was our only source of income so that we can eat). Joan started as a working student since grade 5. I served other people at their homes – working as a kabulig (helper) to be able to buy my needs in school projects and daily allowance.” “I graduated from the Mambiranan Elementary School in Calinog, Iloilo.”

“I pursued my secondary education, again, by being a working student at Leganes National High School. I graduated With Honors and was the Model Girl of the Year Awardee,” she recalled.

Joan is thankful to Central Philippine University for the opportunity to study in college through its Work-Study program. She was qualified and became a dedicated work student. She graduated from CPU in 2017 with a Bachelor of Science in Health Fitness and Lifestyle Management degree – under the College of Medicine. She was a recipient of the God’s Grace Program since her first year in college and was awarded as an OUTSTANDING WORK STUDENT during the college honors and awards in the same year.

During her time in college, she recalls, “I was a working student assigned to the Weston Hall Ladies Dormitory and Dining Hall under the Services Laboratory Assistance Group. I was reassigned to the Janitorial Student Assistance Office so that I can balance my work and the On-the-Job Training requirement during my 4th year.”

She added that “Since there was no financial support for me at that time, I volunteered my services to the tenants at the Weston Hall dormitory. I washed their clothes, do errands for them; I served coffee, and snacks during my vacant periods. Life was difficult or so I thought, but my optimism and belief in God encouraged me to work hard even more.”

“As a challenge, I ran for a position of a Board Member in the College of Medicine as part of the Reform Party in the CPUR elections, and I won!”, she said.

Joan was hired as a Secretary of the Office of the University President on a job order basis from July 1 to December 15, 2017, and on probation from December 16, 2017 until June 16, 2018. She later became a regular CPU employee after some time. “Thank you so much to University President Dr. Teodoro C. Robles for the job,” she said.

Joan was appointed Logistics Coordinator under the CPU Project ETC in June 2019 until this time. Joan also enrolled in the Diploma in Teaching program of the University (2018-2019).

“I was scheduled to take the Licensure Examination for Teachers in March 2020 but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Finally, I took the exam on September 26, 2021 as scheduled.” Joan passed the LET Board Exam.

“It was a roller coaster ride before that since I stopped reviewing for the LET last year March 2020 upon knowing the postponement. I was almost losing hope for the LET exam to finally push through.” She added, “I stopped my review and did not open my notes anymore until August this year. Last June 2021, I was hospitalized, and I thought I won’t survive.” Her blood pressure was at (50/0). “This is my second life now. I had to realize the purpose of this God-given life,” Joan reflected.

“I prayed hard as I was about to take the exam. I asked God to give me wisdom so I can make it to the list of the LET board passers. God sustained me. I passed the Exam! Praise the Lord! God is always there despite the challenges in my life. I was strengthened by those challenges.” “I would always remember our work student motto, “Labor is Honor”, Joan added. She shared a favorite verse from Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Joan was recently married to Mr. Rene Castor Jr.

cpu.edu.ph

#centralphilippineuniversity #centralian #iloiloschool #bestschooliloilo #panayschool #westernvisayasschool #ilonggopride

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Workers Rally to Loud Speakers Of Shop Stewards," Vancouver Sun. April 9, 1943. Page 1 & 13. --- Union Crowds Shout Endorsement for Sound-Truck Resolution Condemning Court-Appointed Board of Trustees ----- Using spectacular tactics to draw their cause to the fore, shop stewards of Boilermakers' and Iron Ship Builders', Local No. 1, broadcast their stand at four Vancouver shipyards today from sound trucks.

Hundreds of members of the embattled union gathered to hear the speakers and unanimously and enthusiastically backed up a resolution presented by the stewards that three court-appointed trustees be not recognized as having authority to carry on the functions of the executive committee.

With the resolution was presented a statement by shop stewards that a new boilermakers' executive is going to be elected and "kept - come hell or high water."

MASS RALLY APRIL 15 The trucks were permitted to enter the four yards and the men listened intently as the shop stewards outlined their stand, and answered a request for support with unanimous ayes.

Austin Delany, shop steward, in commenting on the coming new election declared that future injunction would not stop it.

"Our membership, 13,000 strong, should be able to see that our elected executive stands."

Speakers urged that all members attend a meeting of the union April 15 at Athletic Park at 8 p.m., where the above-mentioned resolution will be put to vote. Nominations will be called for at the meeting.

The three trustees have been invited to attend.

STEWARDS BACKED The Vancouver Sun took a sample of opinion among the men at the North Shore yards and found them staunch for the democratically-elected union executive.

Typical reaction were expressed by Bill Christie, a charge hand at North Van Ship Repairs, and F. O. Gibson, rivet tester at the same plant.

"The statement made here today by the shop stewards represents the feeling of the workers one hundred percent," stated Christie.

"We are one hundred percent behind the shop stewards" Gibson stated.

Thursday night a mass meeting of union members at Dominion Bridge also endorsed the stand of the February elected executive and also called for an immediate election at the Thursday meeting.

THE BACKGROUND The series of meetings was arranged by the Shop Stewards' Committee in their campaign to retain control of the organization left leaderless when President William Stewart and other officers were enjoined from acting in their official capacities on the grounds that their election was illegal. Stewart and all other officers were unseated in a court action brought by R. J. R. Stephen, former secretary treasurer; Thomas Bradley, 1942 executive member and David Thompson, Canadian Congress of Labor organizer, who were named trustees to take over the offices, records, equipment and funds of the union which have been handled by the shop stewards since the dispute between the stewards and the 1942 executive flared openly last January.

Thursday's meeting at Dominion Bridge condemned the action of the three dissident representatives of the 1942 executive and also that of the CCL which suspended Local No. 1.

THE RESOLUTION The resolution presented at the yards and at Dominion Bridge is in three parts. In summary it states:

The members of the Boilermakers' and Iron Shipbuilders' Union of Canada, Local No. 1, do not and will not recognize gone. Stephen, Bradley and Thompson as having authority to carry on the functions of an executive committee.

The union will not be responsible for any debts contracted in its name by or on behalf of the three trustees (Stephen, Bradley and Thompson) or the executive committee whose term of office expired in December, 1942, "and we hereby instruct R. J. R. Stephen, secretary-treasurer of the union in 1942, to attend the next regular business meeting of the union on April 15, at Athletic Park, 11 a.m. and 8 p.m., and turn over to the membership the funds of the union and give an accounting for same."

That whereas the Supreme Court of B.C. has appointed Stephen, Bradley and Thompson as trustees, that they shall act only in that capacity and in no way interfere with the ordinary functions of the union; that they shall not remove any furniture, goods or equipment from the office at 904 Holden Building or at North Vancouver, nor interfere in any way with the employees of the union in carrying out their rightful duties as such.

Preamble to the resolution recites that Stephen, Bradley and Thompson, recently appointed custodians of the goods and chattels of the union, "have not acted in a manner which was conducive to the welfare of the union and they have publicly announced their intention of acting as an executive committee" and asserts that "the membership has on numerous occasions affirmed their opposition to the position maintained by Stephen, Bradley and Thompson."

Answering a statement by Alex McAuslane, Canadian Congress of Labor vice-president, that the shop stewards' movement in the shipyards controlled the unions, E. E. Leary of the Dock and Shipyard Workers' Union, today agreed, adding "our unions work from the bottom, not from the top.

CONTROL FROM BELOW "Certainly the shop stewards control the unions," he said. "The lowest paid worker even it he cant' speak English, has as much right to express his opinions as we officers.

"As a matter of fact we are merely the Instruments to carry out the wishes of the members and when they get together in a mass and vote certain decisions, we simply put them into effect.

"We can't spend any money without approval of the membership. If we did we would be making ourselves liable personally for that disbursement if the membership later disapproved of it.

"Trade unionism is the bulwark of democracy and the shop steward movement is democratic. If trade unionism is knocked down, the bulwark between democracy and reactionary elements is gone."

#vancouver #canadian congress of labour #shop stewards #boilermakers #iron workers #shipyard workers #union politics #union organization #labour bureaucrats #union democracy #left wing union #working class politics #canada during world war 2 #rank and file revolt

[extreme-investor-network]

White House Says It's 'Watching' The Market

Imagine this: you’re President Biden, you’ve been a career politician, your understanding of economics boils down to believing you can price fix oil prices, being on the political influencer dole, funded by China, through deals liaised by your ne'er-do-well son and clinging to the inane concept that over-taxation can solve all the nation’s problems because they can help fund the country’s most incompetent capital allocator: the government. You wake up on any given Monday to find that the stock market has just casually shaved off 5% from everybody in the nation’s retirement accounts. The culprit today? A cryptocurrency lending firm called Celsius has caused additional market volatility on top of the volatility that the Fed is causing as a result of its fight against inflation. “Damnit, Joe. It’s time to act,” you think to yourself, convinced there is some type of government solution to free markets taking 1 day to start to puke back 20 years of pornographic monetary policy. You pull up a chair in the Oval Office and grab a pen and a fresh legal pad, both bearing the seal of the President of the United States of America. Time to get some work done. You scribble down the word ‘Celsius’ on the pad. You stare at it for about 6 minutes. “Celsius,” you say to yourself. Then, you underline it. Starting to get exhausted, you repeat to yourself again, “Celsius”, while trying to remember metric/standard conversions from 7th-grade science class. “Celsius. What in the world do I do with Celsius. Think, Joe. Think.” It then occurs to you that you don’t actually know what Celsius is. You call in one of your younger interns who might know. They correct you for not using their zee/zir gender pronouns correctly and change the subject to climate change. They’re no help. Friggin kids. You’re on your own with this one. Back to the drawing board. In the background, CNBC is showing the stock market crash in real-time. “These people are financial experts,” you think to yourself. “They’ll know what’s going on.” You turn around to the TV and find this: You study this image. The guitar. The fire. What does it all mean? Unable to ascertain an answer from CNBC, you flip the channel to another financial news network. “There’s no bullshit on other networks, they’ll know what to do,” you think to yourself, feeling satisfied. You turn the channel and find this: Before you can try to digest this savvy analyst’s take on inflation or the markets, your press secretary bursts through the door, urging you to give her a statement so she can fend off the media, who has been asking about the market crash all day. “Tell them we’re keeping an eye on the market,” you tell her boldly, proudly content with your answer. But last month we told reporters "That's not something we keep an eye on every day, so I'm not gonna comment on that from here," she reminds you. You motion to her that it’s all OK now. We’ve got our heads wrapped around the problem: rate hikes are the only way to stop inflation but they’ll also crash the market. And after all, you’re writing things down on your legal pad - figuring shit out; Presidential shit - and you nod approvingly to her before pulling down your aviator shades. She leaves the room to inform “the wolves” of your major decision to make a statement. It hits the wires: WHITE HOUSE WATCHING STOCK MARKET CLOSELY: JEAN-PIERRE Ha. Success. That’ll hold those sons of bitches off for a while. Turning back to your legal pad, you think to yourself that we may need a congressional hearing to figure out what in the hell is really going on here. “This is what happens when Putin has influence and when billionaires don’t pay their fair share,” you think to yourself. You meekly manage to generate a subatomic particle worth of an idea: I wonder if Powell can print enough money to just buy stocks, you think to yourself. Would that help inflation? You glance at the clock. 5 hours have gone by. It’s closing time at the Oval Office and tomorrow is another day. Turning the lights off as you walk out of the room, you stop and glance back at an empty Oval Office and the desk where you’ve produced today’s Presidential achievements. You shake your head in disbelief that the nation could have such a low approval rating for you. You exhale. “Celsius,” you mutter to yourself as you walk out. Original Article Here: Read the full article

[laughsin19thcenturynews]

Brevities

Liquor is scarce!

Fly time is approaching!

No property sold last Tuesday!

Guano hauling has commenced!

Fine weather for sucker fishing!

The price of cotton is advancing!

A little cotton in the country yet!

We hear of an occasional case of measles.

See Judge Bell's notices of new bridges to build.

the mumps are playing out for the lack of material.

We are going to serve all alike - rich and poor - next week.

Tom Niblack takes to farming just as if he was used to it.

Judge Bell proposes to get after the road commissioners.

Jack Gilleland is moving right straight along on his new house.

Frank Pendergrass has turned out to be a first-class plasterer.

We will give our readers some cheering railroad news next week.

Judge Howard's residence on his farm near town is nearly completed.

Bud McElhannon has returned from his jaunt over into Walton county.

Our town have been pretty quiet since the barrooms stopped running.

Don't neglect to look after your subscription if you want the Herald.

A new set of wheat rocks have been ordered for the Long mills at this place.

A large number of horses and mules have been purchased in this county this season.

The station between Gainesville and Jefferson on the railroad will be called Conditional.

Mr. Macajer Williamson died on last Saturday night. He had been sick for sometime past.

A lot of cotton at the Northeastern depot in Athens got burnt up and damaged last week.

Remember that this is the last paper you will get if you are over a year behind on our books.

Judge Bell has bought a burglar proof safe for Jim Williamson to keep the county money in.

Bob Deavours has been appointed baliff pro tem for this District during the sickness of Bill Waddle.

O'Farrell Bros. & Co., of Athens, are the agents in that place for the celebrated Cumberland Guano.

Dr. Long and his charming daughter, Miss Georgia, were in our county last week, the guests of friends and relatives.

Mr. McGinty has had some hands up here putting some finishing touches on the Court House and Dr. Pendergrass' drug store.

We propose to drop every name from our books after this issue unless settlement of past indebteness is made between now and next issue.

The present Town Council is too stingy to advertise the fact that they are going to hold an election to fill a vacancy in the board of aldermen.

We tender our thanks to "Vande Linctum," for again breaking the silence of several months. We shall expect to hear from him again.

A crazy ... woman was put in jail at this place last week, but owing to her violent condition she had to be moved back this week to her friends.

If you get no paper next week you can guess the cause. So you had better come up and see how you stand. A note will make the easy until next fall.

John Brooks of Athens, and one of O'Farrell Bros. & Co's boss clerks, was in the city last Saturday and Sunday. John attended to business on both days, but of a different character.

When you go to Athens to buy your guano, don't forget that O'Farrell Bros. & Co. are the agents for the Cumberland Guano. It is a first-class article, and is sure to give satisfaction. Give them a call, and you will not regret it.

A communication, in regard to the stock law, with no name to it, is in this office, awaiting a signature before it is published. Our rule is imperative - we must have the names of all parties who write articles for publication, and we don't intend to break the rule.

Dr. Pendergrass and A. H. Brock will represent Jefferson at the inaugural of Garfield today. We wish the boys much pleasure on their trip, but warn them not to think they are better than other folks because they helped to put the new President in his seat.

The Herald office is located over a drug store and doctor shop, and the doctor underneath us loves to pull teeth, and you bet we have other kinds of music sometimes besides the clicking of type. When we move again we are going to locate over a livery stable, so that we can have a quiet time.

Married, on the 23d of last month in Athens, Ga. Rev. C. D. Campbell officiating, Mr. L. N. McMillan, of this county, and Miss Adeline Hayes, of Athens. Mr. McMillan is our mail carrier from this place to Lawrenceville, and has heretofore played shy of Hymen's bands, but, at last, after living over half of his life in single blessedness, he has consented to be yoked.

#old harolding #03.04.1881

[msclaritea]

“Strain every nerve, parents of Britain, to send your son to this educational establishment… Exercise your freedom of choice because in this way you will imbue your son with the most important thing, a sense of his own importance.”

Boris Johnson, writing for The Chronicle, Eton’s student magazine, aged 16.

Eton College in Windsor tries its best to avoid public controversy. Though barely a day goes by without its alumni in the news, the college itself makes few public pronouncements and remains coy with curious reporters.

So, it must have been deeply discomforting when, in September 2019, Eton hit the headlines.

With Boris Johnson recently having been installed in 10 Downing Street, various commentators found an Eton entrance exam paper from 2011, in which prospective students were asked to draft a speech from a theoretical prime minister, justifying the killing of protesters. It’s worth recounting the exam question in full, to give you a sense of what exactly the college was asking of 12 to 13-year-old boys:

“The year is 2040. There have been riots in the streets of London after Britain has run out of petrol because of an oil crisis in the Middle East. Protesters have attacked public buildings. Several policemen have died. Consequently, the government has deployed the army to curb the protests. After two days the protests have been stopped but 25 protesters have been killed by the army. You are the prime minister. Write the script for a speech to be broadcast to the nation in which you explain why employing the army against violent protesters was the only option available to you and one which was both necessary and moral.”

This is a pretty ghastly task to give to any child, but it is made even more disturbing by the fact that 20 of the UK’s 57 prime ministers to date (more than one in three) have been educated at the boarding school. This includes two of our last five leaders, governing for nine of the past 13 years.

If these are the ideals being instilled in Old Etonians during their formative years – that they should expect to reach high office and be ready to commit and justify atrocities against their own citizens – should we be shocked by Johnson’s blasé response to mass Covid-19 fatalities, or David Cameron’s willingness to push people into food banks through his austerity agenda?

Cameron and Johnson were not one-offs, however, but rather signify a renaissance of the British aristocracy in politics and business. The meritocratic ideals seemingly embodied by former prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major – the former the daughter of a grocery shop owner; the latter having left school at 16 with three O-levels (ie GCSEs) – have been wiped from the latest breed of Conservative leaders.

The march of the meritocracy has been halted, and in some respects has even been sent catapulting into reverse, with the Conservative Party once again in the thrall of a rejuvenated aristocracy.

While Thatcher, Major and Tony Blair tried to squeeze out this old money elite, it has morphed and returned in a new guise. As Iain Overton wrote for Byline Times in August 2021: “Eton College appears to have become almost pestilent in British public life. Today, almost every single pillar of British society boasts, at its head, an old Etonian… “These include the [now former] Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council, Jacob Rees-Mogg; the [former] Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith; the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby; the [former] editor of Britain’s most influential paper – the Daily Mail, Geordie Greig; and a Justice of the Supreme Court, Lord Leggatt – while in 2020 another old Etonian Justice, Lord Robert Carnwath, retired… not to mention our king-in-waiting, Prince William and his brother, Prince Harry, who both attended the school.”

As Mark Carnegie, the Australian scion and Johnson’s main opponent for his second run at the Oxford Union presidency, remarked to Sonia Purnell for her book Just Boris: “It became clear to me how powerful Eton is as a manufacturer of cultural capital. It’s disproportionately powerful, devastatingly so.”

the Oxford Union presidency, remarked to Sonia Purnell for her book Just Boris: “It became clear to me how powerful Eton is as a manufacturer of cultural capital. It’s disproportionately powerful, devastatingly so.” 

The cultural power of Old Etonians can be traced in no small part to our innate national deference towards our alleged social superiors. Britain still fawns over monarchy, the aristocracy, and the trappings of privilege. We take a weekend stroll around their properties and watch TV dramas about their gilded lives. 

Despite the language of “meritocracy” that has pervaded modern politics, there has been the enduring sycophancy towards the likes of Johnson and his brand of idle genius. A working-class politician, for example, would not get away with the tangled hair, baggy suit and slurred speech that has come to form Johnson’s wildly successful political brand. It could even be argued that a sense of entitled self-assurance is essential to the modern politician.

Aside from delivering good grades, private schools are valuable because they educate students about systems – the ways to navigate the modern world to enhance your power and wealth. Graduates are also endowed with the social manners of the elite – allowing them to assimilate easily into high society (if they were not otherwise born into it). British institutions of this nature are different to many of those in the rest of their world because of their histories; their sense of superiority spans back generations, with that weight of history loaded on to the egos of the most self-regarding students. Nick Clegg, Nigel Farage, Blair, Cameron and Johnson were all privately educated, all (aside from Farage) attended Oxbridge, and all were (and still are) absolutely certain of their own convictions. 

Former prime minister Theresa May was also privately schooled, but she corresponds more with former prime minister Gordon Brown and Labour leader Keir Starmer – all of whom are politicians less comfortable in the limelight. There’s an awkwardness to them, an uncertainty – if only in public – created by the absence of pestilent privilege. 

Johnson shares an alma mater with former prime minister Harold Macmillan, the Old Etonian who served as prime minister from 1957 to 1963, but there is a key difference between the pair. Macmillan fought in the first world war and was badly injured as an infantry officer, something that you can’t imagine of Johnson, who combines the blithe incompetence of Blackadder’s Melchett with the vanity of Lord Flashheart. 

Part of the reason that Johnson was able to persuasively express his “make Britain great again” philosophy was because he embodied the past: he was and still is the Bertie Wooster of Westminster – Bertie being the affable English gentleman created by early 20th-century author PG Wodehouse – merely stripped of Bertie’s bashful naivety. Johnson and his political acolytes embody old aristocratic privilege, yet alongside an abandonment of old aristocratic ideals of public service. Infamously, however, even aristocrats of Macmillan’s era didn’t always enact the most publicly spirited policies, despite their public services virtues – a contradiction that can be traced back to the private-school system. The oldest and most socially exclusive private schools in particular bred individuals for imperial management – a form of national service that involved the exploitation of vast numbers of people. 

The nature of British capitalism, and the private school system, was historically designed to “extract wealth from the countries within the British Empire, which has now been enshrined in corporate law and how the neo-liberal economic system functions,” Labour MP Clive Lewis has suggested. However, now that Britain has lost its empire, “these same laws and principles have been used to extract wealth domestically”.

This imperial mindset is sustained at the University of Oxford, writes Simon Kuper in his book Chums, which says that the history and architecture of the university produces an obsession with the past, and a misplaced assumption that the British state (and state of mind) is more powerful than it actually is. 

This is why the likes of Johnson were obsessed with entering high politics; they wanted to reinvigorate the age of empire, with them ruling the world. This is epitomised by Britannia Unchained – the libertarian manifesto for Britain, authored in 2012 by Liz Truss, Kwasi Kwarteng, former home secretary Priti Patel, ex-foreign secretary Dominic Raab, and the Conservative MP Chris Skidmore. 

It states that: “Britain has lost confidence in itself, and what it stands for. Britain once ruled the Empire on which the sun never set. Now it can barely keep England and Scotland together… To avoid decline, Britain needs to look out to [sic] rest of the world and learn once again what it seems to have forgotten.”

The industrial-imperial era was the nation’s high point, this reading of history contends, when Britain led the international rat race. However, in modern Britain, hard work and innovation are being stifled by the warm embrace of the welfare state and regulation, the authors suggest. As the book’s most infamous quote states: “Once they enter the workplace, the British are among the worst idlers in the world. We work among the lowest hours, we retire early and our productivity is poor.” 

They consequently suggest that insecurity is a necessary bedfellow of economic dynamism. At one juncture – pushing this ethos to its most extreme – Britannia Unchained suggests that Brazil’s favelas are an example of an environment in which entrepreneurship can thrive. “As a sheer experiment in what the poorest entrepreneur can achieve, when nearly all society’s strictures are relaxed, the informal economy is pretty hard to beat,” it says. In this perverse cosmology, our “beating” of other countries in the era of empire is more important than the material gains experienced by the majority of people during the post-imperial evolution of the welfare state and the institution of workers’ rights. Or, to put it another way, things were better in Britain before the creation of the modern welfare state. Britannia Unchained is therefore a reflection of the country that its authors would like to govern – a neo-imperial power. 

"In a scathing letter to the Times, John Claughton, who was a master at Eton from 1984 to 2001, said that the school, which has educated 20 Prime Ministers, now had a mission to ‘ensure that its pupils are saved from the sense of privilege, entitlement and omniscience that can produce alumni such as Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Kwasi Kwarteng and Ben Elliot and thereby damage a country’s very fabric.’

Claughton goes on to add: “Sadly, I failed in that purpose.”

I should have known that Libertarianism came from Britain, the Land of Bad Ideas.

Translation: the year 1880.

[jon-purizhansky]

Joblio Inc. Appoints Mark E. Reimann as Vice President of Government Affairs and US Operations

Brings expertise in the field of immigration based upon decades of experience fighting human trafficking as a Senior Special Agent with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Buffalo, NY — Joblio Inc., the transparent and tech-enabled ethical recruitment platform for foreign talent, today announced the appointment of Mark E. Reimann as Vice President of Government Affairs and US Operations. Reimann, a nearly 30-year veteran with the United States Department of Homeland Security is a highly decorated former Senior Special Agent, who brings to Joblio extensive experience in the field of immigration, human smuggling detection , human trafficking and predatory labor fraud. 

A leading investigator in cases involving terrorism, narcotics, money-laundering, and other transnational criminal activities, Reimann has earned top awards from non-governmental organizations as well as from multiple federal agencies including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Drug Enforcement Administration, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. His work dismantling a smuggling ring between the U.S. and Canada was recognized by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, and his most recent case before joining Joblio involved stopping a complex network of human traffickers that was smuggling Indian nationals into the United States through illegal brokers and corrupt officials.   

Reimann brings Joblio a wealth of firsthand knowledge that will benefit refugees and labor migrants globally as they seek to establish better lives and themselves and their families. His deep base of national and international contacts will benefit Joblio as it expands to new countries and business sectors, while his background in all matters of immigration will enable governments, NGOs and employers globally to understand the importance of ethical recruitment.    

“I have spent my entire career in the service of others, and I look forward to continuing that through the important work that Joblio is doing in the ethical recruitment of international workers,” Reimann said. “I am truly honored to join the team at Joblio and to put my experience as a Special Agent to use helping our employer and employee clients.”  

Joblio, a preeminent leader in international recruiting, is on a mission to redefine the global labor market with a transparent, systematized, and humanized platform that is accessible to workers and employers around the world. As global labor shortages continue to put a strain on supply chains, more employers are looking internationally to add skilled and talented workers to their organizations. Through its proprietary Applicant Concierge Experience (ACE) program, Joblio not only helps workers find foreign employment, it also prepares them to acclimate to their new homes before they even leave their country.

“Mark recognizes the existential threat that human smuggling and trafficking continues to have across the globe,” added Joblio CEO Jon Purizhansky. “He is passionate about leveraging his unique expertise, both domestically and internationally, to ensure that foreign nationals are empowered to achieve the careers and lives they want, unfettered by the corruption and crimes of others.” 

Besides his career in law enforcement, Reimann is actively involved in the Taste of Buffalo, the largest two-day food festival in the United States. He serves on the non-profit event’s volunteer Board of Directors and chairs its Security Committee. 

For more information, visit joblio.co.  

###

ABOUT JOBLIO INC.

Founded by N.Y. attorney Jon Purizhansky and chaired by David Arkless, the former president of the Manpower Group, Joblio is a technology-powered social impact enterprise that allows for  more efficient recruitment, training, and retraining for cross-border employment. The company’s proprietary Applicant Concierge Experience (ACE) program is focused on pre-departure and post-arrival community management, helping international job seekers to begin acclimating to their new homes even before they leave their countries of origin. Differentiated from the non-transparent and inefficient practices of the current global migrant labor market, Joblio’s accessible global platform removes unethical intermediaries from the process, freeing up more economic value for employers and laborers. Its streamlined and transparent hiring process results in faster applicant processing, higher employee satisfaction, and lower employee attrition. To learn more, visit joblio.co.

Originally Posted: https://joblio.co/en/blog/joblio-inc-appoints-mark-e-reimann-as-vice-president-of-government-affairs/

#attorney #technology

[crazynewsindia]

Shiv Pratap Shukla sworn in as Governor of Himachal Pradesh

SHIMLA 18th February, 2023 Shiv Pratap Shukla sworn in as the 29th Governor of Himachal Pradesh in a simple but impressive ceremony held at Raj Bhawan here today. Acting Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court Justice Sabina administered the oath of office and secrecy to him. Shiv Pratap Shukla took the oath in Sanskrit. Chief Minister Thakur Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and Lady Governor Smt. Janki Shukla were also present on the occasion. The Governor was also given an impressive Guard of Honour on the occasion. Chief Secretary Prabodh Saxena read out the warrant of appointment. Secretary to the Governor Shri Rajesh Sharma obtained the signature of the Governor on the charge certificate. Mukesh Agnihotri, Deputy Chief Minister, Kuldeep Pathania, Speaker, Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha, Jai Ram Thakur, Leader of Opposition, Dr. (Col) Dhani Ram Shandil, Health and Family Welfare Minister, Harshwardhan Chauhan, Industries Minister, Jagat Singh Negi, Horticulture Minister, Rohit Thakur, Education Minister, Anirudh Singh, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Minister, Vikramaditya Singh, PWD Minister, Judges of Himachal Pradesh High Court, Chief Parliamentary Secretaries, Rajeev Shukla, MP and Incharge State Congress, Tajinder Singh Bittu Co-incharge of State Congress, Pratibha Singh, MP and State Congress President, Political Advisor to Chief Minister Sunil Sharma, Principal Advisor, IT and Innovation to Chief Minister, Gokul Butail, MLAs, Justice P.S. Rana, Chairmen, Human Right Commission, R.D. Dhiman, State Information Commissioner, Rameshwar Singh Thakur, Chairmen, Himachal Pradesh Public Service Commission, DGP Sanjay Kundu, Lt General S.S. Mehal, GoC-in-C, ARTARE, Chairmen, Vice-Chairmen and Members of various commissions, boards and corporations, Vice-Chancellors of Universities, senior officers of the police and civil and other prominent people were also present on the occasion. Later, while interacting with the representatives of the media, the Governor said that it was a higher post of the constitution and he would work in coordination with the State Government. Expressing gratitude toward the President of India for his appointment as Governor of Himachal Pradesh, the Governor said that he would work in accordance with the Constitution. He said that he would complete the works started by the previous governors and would also urge the Chief Minister to cooperate in completing those works on priority. He said that Himachal Pradesh is a leading state in the field of education and now he would contribute towards quality education. He said that he would travel most of the time by road only in H.P. so that he could know the problems of the people and understand Himachal more closely. He said that Sanskrit is the mother of all languages and has taken this ritual forward by taking oath in 'Devbhasha' in Devbhoomi. He said that he would also work for the skill development in the state so that the younger generation could be benefitted. He expressed his concern over the growing illegal trade of drugs in Himachal Pradesh and said that this evil was rapidly taking our young generation, the future of the country, in its grip. “The saddest situation is that today drugs have reached even in remote areas, which needs to be stopped”, said Shukla. He said that Law and Police Administration work at their own level but there was a need to make the society aware. He added that it would be his endeavor to ensure the participation of every person by making the campaign of de-addiction more widespread through educational institutions and social organizations. “Himachal is the land of gods and there should be no place for drugs here. I would also appeal for the cooperation of the media so that they become partners in my efforts in this direction. Shri Shukla said that he was impressed by the hospitality of the people of the state. In the early morning, the Governor before taking the Oath performed Yajana along with family members. Shiv Pratap Shukla was born on 01.04.1952 in village Rudrapur Post-Khajni of Gorakhpur district, did his primary education in Rudrapur Khajni village and completed his graduation in law from Gorakhpur. He worked as Sangathan Mantri of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. Politically, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in 1983. He was elected as a Janata Party candidate from Gorakhpur Nagar assembly constituency for the first time in the year 1989. After that he was re-elected in the year 1991 and took the charge of Minister of State independent charge of Basic Education, Adult Education and Language Department in the government of Kalyan Singh, the Chief Minister of the first BJP government of Uttar Pradesh. He also took over the responsibility of the Horticulture Department, Sports, Youth Welfare and Food Processing Department. He was re-elected to the Vidhan Sabha in the year 1993. After being elected to the Vidhan Sabha for the fourth time in 1996, successfully discharged his duties as Cabinet Minister of Prison, Law and Justice and Rural Development Department in the government of Kalyan Singh, Ram Prakash Gupta and Rajnath Singh. After this, on 10th June, 2016, he was elected as a member of the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh. On 3rd September, 2017, took over the responsibility of the Minister of State for Finance, Government of India in the Narendra Modi Government. He successfully discharged his duties as a Rajya Sabha member till 4th July, 2022.   Read the full article

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Baltimore Bridge collapse

* * * *

At about 1:30 this morning, local time, the Dali, a 985-foot (300 m) container ship operating under a Singapore flag, struck the steel Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, that spans the lower Patapsco River and outer Baltimore Harbor. The bridge immediately collapsed. 

Eight maintenance workers were on the bridge repairing potholes when the ship hit. Two were rescued from the water, but the other six remain missing. Search and rescue operations were complicated by twisted metal and debris from the collapsed bridge. This evening, the Coast Guard called off its search. Tomorrow morning, divers will begin recovery efforts.

It is possible there were motorists on the bridge, too, but fewer than there might otherwise have been. Crew members issued a “Mayday” call—an internationally recognized word meaning distress—that Maryland police heard. At 1:27, police radio recorded an officer saying a ship had lost control of its steering as it approached the bridge, and to stop traffic and evacuate the area. There were cars submerged in the water, but they may have belonged to the construction workers.

The loss of the bridge will tangle traffic and disrupt supply chains. Named for the Maryland lawyer who in 1814 wrote the poem that became the national anthem, the Francis Scott Key bridge carries I-695, the Baltimore Beltway, and is used by about 30,000 people a day. 

The Port of Baltimore is one of the nation’s largest shipping hubs, especially for both imports and exports of cars and light trucks. About 850,000 vehicles go through that port every year. So does more than 20% of the nation’s coal exports. In 2023 the port moved a record-breaking $80 billion worth of foreign cargo. Now the shipping lane is closed and must be cleared of debris. 

“There is no question this will be a major and protracted impact on supply chains,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said from Baltimore today.

Perhaps learning from the 2023 East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment, when the government response was fast but quiet and thus opened a window for right-wing complaints they weren’t doing enough, the administration was out front today. Buttigieg rushed to the scene from a trip out West, and Maryland governor Wes Moore told reporters Buttigieg had called him at 3:30 am, just two hours after the crash.  

By around 6:00 am, the National Transportation Safety Board already had a team of 24 people on the scene to launch an investigation into the cause of the collision. 

Speaking today, President Joe Biden said: “I’ve directed my team to move heaven and earth to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge as soon as…humanly possible. And we’re going to work hand in hand…to support Maryland, whatever they ask for. And we’re going to work with our partners in Congress to make sure the state gets the support it needs. It’s my intention that federal government will pay for the entire cost of reconstructing that bridge, and I expect…the Congress to support my effort.”

Former member of President Obama’s 2012 campaign Jason Karsh noted Biden’s speech and said on social media: “[B]ecause Biden got infrastructure spending done for the first time in over a generation, and because [Pennsylvania] was able to rebuild that bridge that collapsed in record time, Dem[ocrat]s have the credibility to say things like this. Competence in government matters.”

It remains far too soon for any solid understanding of what caused the deadly crash.

Despite the impossibility of solid information in the hours immediately after the collision—or perhaps because of it—verified accounts on X (formerly Twitter) began spreading conspiracy theories. They posted that the accident was linked to terrorism, Jewish people, or diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. “Did anti-white business practices cause this disaster?” one posted. Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones wrote that the collision was “deliberate” and that “WW3 has already started.” 

Technology reporter Taylor Lorenz, who studies social media patterns, explained in the Washington Post that many of these accounts are “engagement farming.” This is the practice of posting extremist comments to generate attention, which can then be monetized by, for example, getting a cut of advertising that appears near those comments. Comments with heavy engagement can receive thousands of dollars. 

For a long time now, America’s political right has riled people up with wild political rhetoric to get them to buy stuff. Just today, Trump began to hawk Bibles for $59.99, plus shipping and handling, with a video message saying “Religion and Christianity are the biggest things missing from this country, and I truly believe we need to bring them back…. That’s why our country’s going haywire—we’ve lost religion in our country.” 

That system appeared to be in play as Trump supporters apparently flocked to today’s public offering of the Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind the Truth Social app, sending the stock upward 16%. That surge would value the company at more than $7 billion, although in the first nine months of last year it had only about $3 million in sales and lost nearly $50 million. Julian Klymochko, founder and CEO of Accelerate Financial Technologies, told NPR’s Rafael Nam that the $7 billion valuation “is completely detached from any sort of fundamentals.” 

Buying stock in the company is “more of a political movement or just a speculative meme stock [a stock driven by social media] that’s completely detached or unrelated to the underlying business fundamentals of Truth Social,” Klymochko said.

[LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN: Heather Cox Richardson]

#Bridge collapse #Heather Cox Richardson #letters From an American #Engagement farming #grifting