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#this is far more important that any election we've had
female-buckets · 1 year
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MOSCOW — This week, lawyers for jailed American basketball star Brittney Griner revealed she is currently on her way to a Russian penal colony to begin serving out her nine-year sentence on drug smuggling charges.
Which prison, exactly, is unknown. Neither is Griner's current location. Prisoner transfers often take several weeks, and only then are Russian authorities required to reveal a convict's whereabouts, Griner's legal team says.
Nearly half a million Russians are currently incarcerated— the highest number on the European continent, according to 2022 figures.
Yet those who have spent time in the system say Griner can expect an experience that is more aligned with the Soviet Union's past than most Americans' current ideas of criminal justice.
"If jail is possible to imagine, then a penal colony, you can only imagine reading dissidents' books," says Maria Alyokhina, who spent nearly two years in a colony following a protest performance in a Moscow church as a member of the renowned feminist punk collective Pussy Riot.
Alyokhina suggests reading Soviet writers like Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who indelibly captured the grim cruelty of the Soviet camps in his work The Gulag Archipelago.
There's also Alyokhina's own memoir Riot Days, which is also now a traveling live performance of her experiences in a prison colony in the Ural mountains.
"Of course it has a bit better conditions than [the] original gulag system from the 1950s," says Alyokhina, reached by NPR on tour in the United Kingdom. "But the sense is the same. It is a labor camp."
Alyokhina says while most Americans imagine prison cells with bars, Griner can expect to live in "the zone" — a set of barracks with 80 to 100 women sleeping to a room and few, if any, amenities.
"For 100 women, there are like three toilets and no hot water," says Alyokhina. Bathing is a once-a-week occurrence.
Most importantly, she says, in Russian prison colonies, all prisoners must perform forced labor.
"This is a really terrible institution which we received from [the] Soviet Union and it's totally inhuman. The cynical thing is, the work the state provides to the prisoners is sewing uniforms for Russian police and the Russian army," she says.
"This is a legal slavery system. There's nothing about correction or improvement of people's behavior," she adds.
Alyokhina's advice for Griner and her supporters is to keep the pressure on
Speaking at the White House on Wednesday, President Biden reaffirmed his desire to reengage the Kremlin in discussions over a potential prisoner exchange.
"My intention is to get her home, and we've had a number of discussions so far, and I'm hopeful that now that our election is over, there's a willingness to negotiate more specifically with us," said Biden. "I am determined to get her home and to get her home safely."
In the meantime, the president has tasked his administration to "prevail on her Russian captors to improve her treatment and the conditions she may be forced to endure in a penal colony," according to administration officials.
But Alyokhina suggests Griner is unlikely to receive special treatment once in the colony.
"It doesn't matter the citizenship of the prisoner," she says.
Asked what advice she would give to Griner, Alyokhina says, "It's important to not forget yourself and not lose your freedom. Because this is what the system teaches you. They teach you how to forget your right to choose."
For Alyokhina, that freedom would come from studying prisoner rights. She levied complaints that eventually led to the dismissal of eight guards for prisoner abuse, she tells NPR.
Together with her bandmate Nadia Tolokonnikova, Alyokhina later founded MediaZona, a news website that covers human rights and prison justice, among other topics.
Alyokhina also offers advice for Griner's family and supporters.
"Write letters. Connect with her lawyers. Ask questions about her inside the system. Do not leave her alone," she says.
"This is what the prisoner administration is telling political prisoners. That they will be forgotten and nobody cares about them," she says.
In Pussy Riot's case, Alyokhina says the constant public attention gave her and her jailed bandmates leverage and power over the prison authorities.
"When they see the person is not forgotten, they start to be much more polite," says Alyokhina.
"This gives hope and protection."
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vampirepunks · 1 year
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After reading your tags on the culture shock poll, I'm shook. I always thought southern states were basically 90% conservative and everyone else there should just leave. Feeling kinda stupid now after I looked some stuff up. I didn't realize Texas has one of the highest populations of trans people in the nation. I feel so bad for them :(
Ah, that was more or less a personal ramble but I'm always glad to hear my words had a positive effect on someone. Good on you for being willing to learn and use that information to evolve your views. Don't feel stupid, that required a lot of humility and I'm glad you cared enough to say something about it.
I hear a lot of people expressing sentiments that imply or outright say Southern red states are a lost cause. After coming of age as a queer person in Texas, I don't accept that. The South has a very complicated, often ugly history and a lot of the current culture is still influenced by the far-reaching effects of the Civil War, among other things. Texas in particular is a special case, due to its very messy origin story.
But ultimately, it's important to remember that the population of any red state is made up of real, diverse human beings. These places aren't monoliths of gun-toting, Trump-loving, alt-right Republicans. Hell, a surprising amount of Southern folks are liberal, and even more are "moderate" enough to be reasoned with and are capable of changing their views, when given the right opportunity. Just look at Texas' recent elections--Beto O'Rourke, a Democrat, won 43.8% of the latest vote for governor. Almost half the voting population voted for a pro-gun control, pro-choice, pro-LGBT+ candidate. Let that sink in.
These states are largely controlled by Republicans and their political maps are drawn by Republicans, which means the right can almost always manipulate things in their favor. Texas has an almost total abortion ban now and they're a huge participant of the current wave of anti-trans legislation. That doesn't mean the majority population wants that and a number of people are experiencing real pain, suffering, and even death as a consequence. When I talk about these things, I'm often asked why I didn't stay and fight. My answer usually comes back to a simple "I didn't like the weather." I moved for my health to a climate my body is better suited to handle. That just happened to come with the benefit of living in a state that protects my civil rights as a trans-spectrum individual capable of pregnancy. Meanwhile, my new state has taken multiple steps to become a refuge for reproductive freedom and gender-affirming care. We've not only protected those rights, we've also recently passed a bill that bars state officials from cooperating with other states' investigations when their residents come here to access those services. I couldn't be happier about it. Yet, I still miss so much of the culture I grew up with. I miss the food, the music, the wildflower meadows in the spring, the fireflies and dewberry vines in the summer, the autumn bonfire parties where we'd tack up the horses and watch the kiddos' faces light up when we put them in the saddle, the winter afternoons eating hot chili and listening to everyone complain about the forty-degree cold as if it were the end of days--without a speck of snow to be seen. "Y'ain't" is a common word in my vocabulary and I still wear cowboy boots built for riding. I grew up rural Southern and I loved a lot about it, it'll always be part of who I am.
Now, if I were still in Texas and my health wasn't a concern, would I move for political reasons now that things have gotten so bad? Absolutely. I don't need to justify that. Texas doesn't just have one of the highest populations of trans people in the USA, it also has one of the highest trans homicide and suicide rates. The things I love about my home state don't outweigh the danger of losing my life for expressing my genderfluidity or the risk of being forced to have a child I don't want. In fact, we're seeing the start of outreach efforts to railroad at-risk trans people and people needing abortions out of red states, to states where they can safely access the care they need and escape dangerous environments. That illustrates the crux of the issue: not everyone can "just" leave. My cross-country move cost almost $5k up front. Leaving requires money, finding suitable work and housing, traveling a long distance, and it often means leaving family and friends behind, sometimes pets too. Relationships will weaken or be lost under the strain of long-distance communication. Moving means uprooting your entire life to establish a new one somewhere else, and a positive result isn't guaranteed. Then there's the fact that not everyone wants to leave. Saying the only solution is "just leave," is not only inconsiderate and a cruel demand that people leave their entire support system behind so they stop complaining, it's also inherently classist. Poverty is a driving factor for the politics of Southern states. The minimum wage is $7.25, workers' rights are practically non-existent, food deserts are all over, the education system is underfunded, and the infrastructure is barely holding itself together. I grew up impoverished and I've even been homeless. I only got out of poverty because I married into the middle class. Remember: Republicans in power want to keep their constituents poor and under-educated so they're easy to control. That's how fascism operates.
Southern states need members of the left-wing to stay and work to change things. However, at-risk populations shouldn't bear that responsibility alone, and they shouldn't feel pressured to do so at the risk of their own lives. We've had enough martyrs for a lifetime. Don't slip into the mindset of blaming victims for the fascism they've suffered, as not one of them asked for this. Next time you hear about a horrible bill out of a red state, please respond with support and sympathy for the people who'd do anything to change it, but can't.
Anyway, this turned into a huge post. That tends to happen as a result of me being a sociology student who's very invested in politics. Additions to this post are quite welcome, if anyone else would like to contribute to the conversation.
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thessalian · 5 months
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Thess vs the Foreign Secretary
Okay, it's time for another round of "UK Politics: A Summary of Shittiness"!
Today, we're going to be talking about David Cameron. Now, David Cameron was once leader of the Conservative Party. He actually got the PM-ship in 2010 in a supposed coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. However, the LibDems let the Tories walk all over them, so we might as well have had just a Conservative government. Anyway, he wound up surviving an election and ending up in a majority Conservative government ... briefly. Then he called for the Brexit referendum. He was apparently honestly expecting it to be a resounding "no", and for people to shut up about it after that. So he didn't bother to set up anything but a simple majority vote about a situation with wide-ranging repercussions, most of which were opaque at best to the average voter. He also let Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage lie through their respective teeth about Brexit without trying to stamp on the misinformation or in fact trying to campaign for Remain in any reasonable way.
...And you all know what happened at that vote. Through the tiniest majority, the referendum was a YES to Brexit. So he kicked off Article 50 right away, because apparently Will of the People. And then, instead of staying to try to clean up the mess he caused, he fucking resigned, so that someone else could clean up his mess.
I mean, there's a whole lot more shit regarding him, but that's basically the most egregious at this point. He lit the fuse, watched the explosion, then walked away instead of helping clear the debris he created.
Fast-forward seven or so years, and we've been through more PMs than I really want to think about right now (Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak), and equal numbers of cabinet reshuffles. Which is where I pause a moment and explain about Suella Braverman.
See, Suella Braverman has been several things that are just ... damning, honestly. First she was integral to the current Brexit mess, as a standing member of the European Research Group (a massively Eurosceptic group which was probably pretty much behind the scenes of the Brexit movement to begin with). Braverman apparently believed in Brexit so much that she became an Under-Secretary of State for Brexit. And then, after a bit of leave, she spent a bit of time as Attorney General before being bumped up to Home Secretary.
She was the one whose "dream and obsession" was sending refugees to Rwanda under the auspices of "stopping illegal migration". She's been an absolute nightmare for human rights, to the point of trying to ban the Palestinian flag in general and claiming that the police are biased against far-right extremist groups because they apparently get arrested less often than peaceful protesters who aren't far-right extremists? I have no idea, but she has been the kind of boomerang bigot that boomeranged so hard she went right into fascism. There have been calls for weeks to get Sunak to sack her. I guess he finally had to listen.
Now, one one hand, this is good because Suella Braverman needs to be about a thousand miles away from the cabinet. So her being sacked is a good thing. However, the rest of the reshuffle ... well.
Okay, first of all, David Cameron is not being made Home Secretary. He's being made Foreign Secretary. No, the new Home Secretary is James Cleverly, who is very keen on Brexit and, when the World Cup was being hosted in Qatar and gay football fans were concerned for their safety, reportedly said that gay people should "show a bit of flex and compromise" when travelling to Qatar because "it's important when you're a visitor to the country to follow that country's customs". Sort of slipped some potentially Islamophobic remarks in there as well, and particularly given how there's been some noise very much against cultures that aren't white and/or Christian coming from those in Parliament lately, it's not ideal. We've honestly just lost one frothingly boomerang-bigoted Home Secretary and replaced her with another boomerang bigot who froths slightly less.
David Cameron dealing with foreign affairs, though? Not liking that idea very much. Honestly, all of the Tories have made such an absolute fucking mess of things that no reshuffle would satisfy me. Then again, at least most of the other newbies are actually MPs; Cameron had to drag his peerage out of mothballs in the shed he's been hiding in to be able to stand in the cabinet.
The one reshuffle that's probably not going to get a lot of attention (because Big Names) but probably should (because Big Conflict of Interest) is that the new Health Secretary is Victoria Atkins. No, not that Atkins, but nearly as bad - her husband runs British Sugar. Now, on one hand, her husband's company does deal with medicinal marijuana and it's possible that said conflict of interest might get medicinal marijuana a little more available. However, I also imagine there'll be a push to get the sugar tax (otherwise known as the Sin Tax) off the table so they could adjust the prices and have the sugar cost the same for the consumer while they got more money.
Either way, Sunak's rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, and honestly Starmer isn't going to be any better, and I still hate living here. Buuuuuuut Suella Braverman got the sack so I'll just bask in that for a bit.
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wantonwhale · 1 year
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I thought I swore off being a regular pain in the ass, regarding all things Promises, but you did it again…piqued my ever loving curiosity.
Since I am on the road, I cannot consult my trusty whiteboard, so I need to reach out into spoiler territory for some help.
Full disclosure: I have not read the latest chapter of Promises due to this endless cycle of living out of a ruck. If there is something directly related to the new chapter, send me packing.
I HAVE read the latest of Pearls, however, and there are some red hot flags that while I was trying to comment on the chapter, demanded attention, now.
Let’s have a look:
It was not uncommon in this part of the galaxy for tattoos to commemorate a story, person, or event, Thrawn had learned. He had his suspicions as to what (and whom) the argus was for. He wondered if Kallus knew it as well, or if the significance of his new ISD’s name would be lost on him. It would not be lost on Dayja, however. Nor would the ISD Thrawn was planning on bequeathing to him: Cygno.
That swan was a mainstay of Alderaanian myth. Surely, Dayja was familiar with the Twi’lek version as well: the myth of the lover grieving eternally for her lost beloved, turned into a swan to sing her laments and cast into the stars by the gods to honor her devotion as lover and friend.
I distinctly recall a line from a chapter that dealt with a solo flashback/dream from *Promises*. It went something like Cygno is burning. Part of me wanted to say that it represented Alderaan, the other part -depending when the tatoo was created - said that it was to commemorate Mira.
On my Whiteboard at home, I have this line (IIR) highlighted, because it was a significant entity that needed to be translated/identified, as I deem it an important part of the whole Promises puzzle.
My second observation is the swan that is cast to the stars Thrawn refers to as part of the Twi’lek myth. I am connecting this to to the constellation tattoo that Dayja has on his thigh?
If there are any further explanations, chapter reviews, etc., that can jog my memory, point me! I seem to recall that part of this is discussed - the swan - in the chapter in which Dayja/Kallus make love in the speeder.
Eee gads! I’m back to my old rambling self. Sorry-not-sorry 😎
Thank you for hearing me out ❤️
Well my inbox is generally full of cobwebs so I hope your electing to not ask Promises questions was entirely for your own benefit. Also, apologies for the spiders in here. *shoo, shoo!*
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Fair warning.... I’m really into metaphors and symbolism. This could get, um, hairy. I also spend all my time analyzing everything, including when I’m writing, so... buckle up.
The line you’re remembering is:
Cygno was bleeding. Argus was burning.
I think of these metaphors as more constellational (😉) than a straight 1:1 allegory. So, both the argus and the swan are meant to illuminate and connect a number of different things, not just one. It’s part of why I used constellations (also, I love constellations)
We haven't seen as much of what the swan is meant to be illuminating as we have the argus. One big Swan thing won't be revealed until the Second Interlude (I know, I know...but it's better than waiting til the sequel, right? 😅).
But you're absolutely right that one of these...stars in the constellation (??? What is this. A meta-metaphor? 🤣) is Mira Yularen. And Dayja has an Alderaanian nightswan tattooed on his left arm. He has yet to receive it in the Interlude.
Anyway. Here's some of what we've seen of the swan so far...
Chapter 35
Kallus followed at a distance behind Colonel Yularen and Commander Thrawn as their odd party made their way through the Imperial Art Museum, stopping on occasion to discuss a particular piece (or, more likely, use the occasion as a cover to discuss something else). A great deal of time was spent before a large oil-painting of a black swan falling from the sky after being pierced by an arrow in the chest, which necessarily resulted in Kallus loitering in front of a portrait of a patron's most beloved "servant," who'd been painted in the motif of the ancient Nabooian god of beauty (or so the plaque said). Thrawn seemed particularly invested in the swan, while Kallus (upon catching up to it) found it a bit melodramatic for his tastes.
Chapter 41
Kallus tilted his head as he heard muffled music drifting through the ship, creeping through ducts and reverberating through durasteel. It was a Twi'lek Hyper-Core band that was verging on vintage when he was a teenager—Fek Sygni. Or, Swan Fang in Basic translation. ... Because, of course, that would be the music someone would choose to play right now.
Chapter 46
They spent the next hour staring up at the sky. Occasionally, Dayja would point out different Alderaanian constellations, and tell the stories behind them. ...There was Cygno, the swan honoring the devoted fisherman grieving his lost beloved in the stars for eternity. ....They’d spent a good fifteen minutes trying to replicate the formation in Alderaan’s night sky and managed to connect Cygno and Argus in the process.
Chapter 47
As the rhythm steadily became more involved, Kallus narrowed his eyes at the hand on his knee and asked, “Is that something in particular?”
“Zahn’s Nightswan Sonata,” Dayja said. “Mira started playing it on holo when you left to make everyone feel less awkward or whatever—cover up the sounds of whatever the kriff she thought you were doing in here.”
Chapter 57
He twisted his mouth as he searched his memory, then reached out to make the first arpeggio of Zahn’s Nightswan Sonata. A chill ran up his spine and he tried to turn but was stopped by firm hands on his shoulders.
“Don’t stop,” a man said. “You play so beautifully.” The man took one of his hands in his and remarked, “You have the fingers for it.” The hand tightened and he winced. “I said, ‘Don’t stop.’”
“Sir, I’m—”
Kallus barely had time to register that his voice was not his own before the words were choked out of him by strong hands at his throat—
Chapter 65
A Bothan woman was approaching them, giving Socks a chiding look. “How many breaks is that today, Socks?" she asked sternly. "I’m not paying you for customer service, I’m paying you to guard the swans from the arguses. Fine job of that you've been doing, eh?”
and...
“Ah, right...” Dayja said reluctantly. “Yeah, the butcher was telling me about that. It’s, um, it's not standard, but”—he cast Kallus another cautious look—“it was a nightswan. His mate was killed by an argus a few nights ago. She died keeping her mate and brood safe, she said. The surviving swan was gonna starve to death—swans’ll do that. Kindest to kill it quickly and painlessly.”
That cold feeling slid between Kallus’s shoulder blades like stray, melting snow. “Just seems horrible,” he said. “That swan died to protect its mate and babies and the mate just went and died anyway. What was the point?”
Chapter 66
[Discussing censorship of band Fek Sygni/Swan Fang]
“No," Kallus reminded him carefully, "I didn't read the order and I don’t know that was their reason. And if it was, and it was wrong, then there’s an appeals process in place to deal with those sorts of things.”
"Appeals," Dayja echoed flatly. He shook his head to himself and stared down at his folded arms as he muttered, “Lot of reasons and justice in your galaxy, huh?”
“Yes,” Kallus said, narrowing his eyes. “Mistakes happen but for the most part, the people in charge have reasons for doing things the way they do, and things work the way they’re meant to. And if they don’t, there are mechanisms in place to get them working better. Like I said.”
and,
[Discussing Cygno] Dayja said. “I don’t think it needs to mean one thing in particular, though. I just think it needs to mean something.”
“Sacrifice, in this instance? A friend sacrificing themselves in their grief?” Kallus mused. Dayja hummed absently and Kallus said, “Wonder if they knew they’d end up a constellation getting debated on a rooftop.”
Chapter 76 - Skip to the swan gif to avoid spoilers for the most recent chapter
Dayja stared at Kallus, silent. Then, his shoulders sagged and he waved a hand at him. “Fine,” he said through a surrendering sigh. “You come up with something, Code-guy.”
“Okay, well…” Kallus breathed out his frustration, suddenly finding it very, very difficult to think of much of anything beyond the feel of warm fabric against his right side and the chill air on his feet. “Argus the Swan,” he said. “One of us says that, and the other can say, er—fuck, I just can’t think—”
and,
A breeze caught the lantern and carried it further out over the lake. From the opposite shore, a bird cried out a low, lilting sound like a falling note on an old, wooden flute. Dayja answered Kallus’s silent question: “Nightswan.” The nightswan called again, and the lantern continued its steady climb. Kallus shivered as he watched and shoved his hands into his pockets the moment he remembered he was free to do so.
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This wasn’t everything. There’s swan-shaped dumplings, etc etc....*cough* I did warn you I’d get carried away. 😅 Point in fact:
A looooong time ago, I wrote up a couple tumblr posts detailing some of the symbolism in Promises but I figured it wouldn't be very interesting to anyone but me and I would've felt weird posting it (I know...Idk why I let sort of thing stop me but 🤷‍♂️). At the time, it also referenced chapters that had not been posted yet. I am pretty sure we have not reached the point where all quoted passages come from posted chapters. At this point I don't know if I ever will! 😅
But I can dig up the argus stuff if anyone is interested.
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💙🐋
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thinkatoryprocess · 11 months
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The mutual attraction and sexual tension is definitely there but I do wonder how much of that is intentional on the show’s part vs Kieran and Justin just having obvious chemistry. How do you plan on doing this in throuple au? And with any future fics with the show presenting him as way more sinister a presence. Also how does this episode effect the other throuple au pairings?
When it comes to the chemistry, I'm choosing to be Watsonian about it - what's on the screen has scorching chemistry, so I'm not focused on looking at the page dead without the actors' portrayal involved. I'm not mad, FYI, just being clear. Sure, they may not have meant it that way, but they sure didn't choose to back down on Roman's connection to Mencken when they saw how Kieran and Justin played it.
So in future fics, or going forward. I meant to address this tomorrow, but it seems prudent to do so now. I sincerely think that Mencken is definitely far right, and flirts with some nasty stuff, and probably the show won't dig into it further than that, and I respect that. Here's where I say "however":
However, I think there's room to play with nuance based on dialogue from What It Takes, which is entirely what I used for characterization in YKW and going forward. I think with Mencken, he's definitely an asshole, but he's an asshole who reads. He's an asshole who knows what his opposition and what his field has to say about anything. I also think we can't entirely draw our conclusions about him based on what he says on the conservative propaganda outlet on election night. So I think he's more complex than he appears if you watch the bathroom scene, and that's why I was originally drawn to him.
So I guess that's the start of my answer; he's definitely tilting towards some bad windmills, but I also don't think he can't be reasoned with. He doesn't seem like someone who has his mind made up, and he seems open to dialogue with people he respects (which is not everyone, as we've seen). There's room there for an actual character.
Roman isn't apparently all that put off by the icky stuff, though that's not really a huge surprise, but that's just because it's not real to him. Why would it be? I don't think Roman's actively antisemitic or racist either, I just think he hasn't had reason to think past a lot of the shitty stuff Logan said and actively tried to internalize a lot of Logan's stuff so he didn't get on his bad side/almost could get on his good side.
So do Mencken and Roman wind up discussing sociopolitical things only to find that they're dragging each other in different directions and wind up somewhere new entirely? That's interesting. I think the two of them could spend a lot of time talking, not only because they're both people who talk a lot, but because they're genuinely interested in one another and respect one another.
That works for me for throuple AU and otherwise. I'm adjusting my characterization ever so slightly in general, but that might not be noticeable. These are important notes, though, ones I think I need to get out there.
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futurebird · 8 months
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Which best describes you?
Do you generally feel like you can be open about your political views and your vision for what the future could be like? Or do you often feel social pressure not to go to far? Social pressure to NOT say something like "Capitalism isn't working." for example? For this poll let's define: (Colors do not mean anything. Just to make it easier to read.) far left - Leftist socialist, communist or anarchist politics. People should be able to govern themselves. All of the people. Anti-racist, anti-ableist, anti-sexist, anti-transphobic and anti-homophobic. Capitalism is failing and new systems of power are needed to survive climate change and to better take care of each other. Markets do not magically solve every problem.
left-leaning - Generally dislikes racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia. Capitalism generally works, but through electing the right people, peaceful protest, and regulations it should be possible to fix the problems we face such as climate change. right-leaning - Capitalism generally works, but regulations and corruption have given some of the wrong sorts of people too much power. If climate change is a problem a free enough market will take care of it. Our culture is the source of our values and this should inform political decisions. It's important that the right sort of people are in charge. far-right - Christian values are the foundation of a moral culture and when we have leadership informed by these values we can address any problems that might arise. Racism, sexism and homophobia are mostly things of the past and people talk about these topics too much, this is the real problem. Capitalism is the best system we've found, and those who work hard are rewarded by God. No one will fit perfectly into any of these categories and I'm certain that they are imperfect. I just wanted to be a little more explicit about what the terms meant so that someone who was, say, a huge HRC fan wouldn't think "I'm far left" -- I am interested in criticism to make the categories better for future polls and will read and ingest any such suggestions with seriousness. As for "feel like I can be open about it most of the time" vs. often feel like I can't be totally open about it" this isn't just about online conversations -- but in your life generally. Obviously, everyone has been in a situation where mentioning your political views was... not a good idea at least once or twice... and I hope everyone has had moments where they felt free to speak. This is about how you feel most of the time. Do you feel like you are holding back? Trying to not set other people off by being too radical? Do you worry you might not be taken as seriously or have trouble finding work if you were more open? etc.
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college-girl199328 · 1 year
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The City of Vancouver passed its latest budget Tuesday evening with a 10.7 percent increase in the average property tax — a record high this century.
The city's original draft budget laid out an increase of 9.7 percent, but Mayor Ken Sim announced an amendment to increase that number on Tuesday.
"I know increases like this are hard," the mayor said during a news conference hours before the budget passed. "Frankly, they suck."
Sim, who swore in last November, said the hike is necessary to improve core city services like policing, fire services, road work, sanitation and infrastructure maintenance.
Council also approved several budget requests from the Vancouver Police Department (VPD), bringing its operating budget in 2023 to $401.8 million.
The city said the new budget will cost the owner of an average single-family home approximately $470 more next year, while the owner of an average condo will pay an extra $150 average business will pay approximately $670 more.
The new budget was during the council's first budget meeting later Tuesday, a week earlier than expected and the same afternoon the province unveiled its latest budget.
"The fact is, as a council we've just decided that we're going to be more efficient with our time and with the time of the public," said ABC Vancouver Coun. Mike Klassen on The Early Edition, defending the tax hike.
He said the additional increases were necessary to fund the core promises of the successful ABC election campaign.
"The fact is, we weren't taking care of our gardens. We had so many potholes streets are not clean and our garbage is overflowing and our collection services were not what they should be," said Klassen.
He acknowledged that the ABC Vancouver pledges to find efficiencies in the city's budget have so far not come to pass.
"I can tell you right now, we're absolutely committed to making sure that we're going to find those efficiencies days in office was not enough time, but we're definitely going to make sure that over the next years, we're going to bring those levels down."
Ultimately, the major portion of the budget passed unanimously, with opposition councillors agreeing with Sim's premise that basic services needed more funding.
"It's important to realize this is a hard budget for taxpayers. It is a higher budget than we have seen certainly in my four terms on council and it's there for a reason," said Coun. Adriane Carr, who ultimately supported the budget, despite councillors voting against her amendment that would fund a previous motion asking staff to look at helping fund a lawsuit against big oil companies.
The only note of dissent came from Coun. Christine Boyle, who voted against the further increases to the VPD budget.
"This is a significant increase — far, far beyond increases we're seeing in any other department," said Boyle.
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daamnkam · 2 years
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DaamnTalk Mission Statement:
About #DaamnTalkDJO (DontJustObey): An episodic series of interviews featuring the unique viewpoints, established perspectives & unpopular opinions of (extra)ordinarily Americans such as You. Message us today! Found experimentally wherever social media is, experientially a community on 'Locals'.com , a blog on 'ThinkSpot' & centralized at daamntalk.com (where the following excerpt can be found in it's completion accompanied by the ' DT CommStan's ' and contact info to virtually feature on an episode! #DaamnKam "The year was 2021, fed up with the modern day book burnings within the book of faces & after having been shadow-banned more than Alex Jones had been, banned, seeing the 'free web's looming collapse into a privatization of information - a select group of TruthSeekers & LedgeWalkers decided enough was enough! From everywhere they flocked to contribute to DaamnTalk; free thinkers, quirky intellectuals, mild & wild revolutionaries, conspiracy theorists, philosophers, activists, occultists & everyone in between & outside the 'norm' – banning together as teachers & students alike all in attempt to lighten the load, share the pain, swap the surface, shed the light and chase the truth- #DaamnTalk :
Free Speech is under threat... In the US & here in Canada speech regulations have been steadily increasing as we’ve continued dividing up into more & more minorities. An era when a US  acting president can get completely de-platformed, a US congressman having his account suspended for equating, “shad oh ba ning” to ‘unconstitutional tyranny’ .... Here at 'DaamnTalk' - We believe it is in the creating of a discussion that one can find the unasked answers. (In order to not tolerate hate speech WE have to establish an understanding of what constitutes said hate speech. Canadians are now cautious with our pronouns due to speech having gone from, 'Offensive' to 'illegal'. Our point is this; to have these discussions is to allow the potential for ones viewpoints & values to be threatened... To not have the discussion is to allow the dismissal of an idea to proceed it's presentation, (& any inherent discussion) That amount of power is a far more threatening prospect! “You held this value back in ____, therefore why would we entertain any interpretation of yours on present day affairs?”. ‘Community Standards’, (CommStan’s),  have sufficiently served a specific purpose since the days of unfriendeding 'Tom', (MySpace). Ever since we've realized how social media's become so culturally & politically influential, take Facebook, newly rebranded as, ‘Meta’; not only as an independent corporation with a sole benefactor, (Mark Sukkerberg), as a platform widely utilized by many as a detailed list of contacts, emails, messages, personal information & even as a diary by some.
Facing a multifactual decision spanning three levels, *as private citizens, to agree to 'terms of service', *as a people, (*group or body of consumers), to negotiate what 'terms of service' are 'fair' and then finally, as a *’governing body’ those that set the CommStans &/or regulate any given portion of said media platform. I'd make the argument that the second decision was made despite a discussion never properly happening. Now, with its newly revamp in swing mode it looks like Facebook isn't going anywhere (despite a swarm of lawsuits & investigations into criminal activity dating back to when they unlawfully ran their competitors out of business), many claiming “we're all 'profiles' 'trapped' in a 'non-negotiable agreement'.” Consequences of this have already wrecked havoc on 'accounts' (people) of all types & as a collective we've handed over virtually unlimited access to all our personal information. The third and final decision is one that's still in the making; exactly what role does the federal government play(?) This is why it is of the upmost importance NOW that we get the discussion going before the decisions are made! RIGHT NOW the people we've elected to uphold the constitution are in the process of deliberating a response to what has undoubtedly become a controversial situation impacting as many Americans as the global pandemic has, though in quite different ways. Some of those same people we've chosen to represent us would rather dismiss us, grounds being something like, ‘your proposed 'converse session' is too 'controversial', or, ‘Demonstrations cannot be held on any given territory at any said time. This is a way of keeping us in the dark without having to openly address the margin for error & invitation to corruption that's definitively probable when any one private organization has as much power as the federal government, (pixel power of the past, it's influence fails in comparison to anything other than a reflection of another 'money making machine'.) If we begin to converse it threatens the potential for profit. Rather than transparency, a shortcut of sorts has been exploited in the shadows of current affairs. ***"As oppose to establishing regulations in an open exchange of opinions, We, the fully present able bodied free thinking citizenry, are allowing the isolation & digital deportation of anyone with a differing viewpoint." *** DaamnTalk has our own CommStan’s as well & violating those is grounds for immediate expulsion… from DaamnTalk. You promote violence & we reserve the right to essentially throw you out our front door onto your digital Daamn butts! We feel this is in opposition to the philosophy of deporting an individual, group or idea out of an entire country. We'll talk to all walks & offer the chance to have a voice, providing they speak their Truth)! History may be written by the victors but it won't be taught by an un-informed passive type. Like almost everything, the dialog will go on with or without contribution from the essential voices that Really matter in this 'new normal'.
That being said, IF you have an interesting take on any related subject matter OR you know someone essential to You that's got an informed, passionate, or unique voice that needs hearing. Keeping in mind a vow to place the truth above all else, "Facts before folks." " If it matters to you -it's matter we’ll share! " "they matter to you - They'll matter to us!" Spread the Daamn word! Anything #DaamnWorthy thats under-reported, misrepresented or downright untrue! *We promise to say whatever we daamn well believe. *We promise to defend your rights - to the same - or to disagree . " –
                     - DaamnKam (of) 'DaamnTalk',
                                 "Where People Proceed Information"
   (*Any & all matter expressed outside the realms of 'DaamnTalk' is not affiliated, endorsed or preapproved; *all content within ‘DT’s walls must be in accordance with said mission statement,‘ thatDaamnTalkspot on ‘Locals’ is a community where * individuals express opinions, beliefs & viewpoints that we in no way shape or form pre-authorize, *except basic rights to free speech & a place in which they'll be exercised to whatever extent *necessary in order to establish understanding in a respectable way I.E *abiding by 'DaamnTalk's CommStans' & the 'Community Standards' of the platform 'DT' is found on.)
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geeky-politics-46 · 3 years
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My Masterlist
All graphics on post made by me. If you use please just give credit.
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My Kinktober 2023 Masterlist!
My Kinktober 2022 Masterlist!
Smut - Explicit content - NSFW - 18+ only!
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Series Masterlist
Smut - Explicit content - NSFW - 18+ only!
Stephen Strange x Reader, Bucky Barnes x Reader
Why was he jealous you were dating Bucky? You were just friends. Granted you were friends who had woken up in each other’s beds, but you were just friends. So why does he feel sick thinking about you in Bucky's bed?
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Series Masterlist
Smut - Explicit content - NSFW - 18+ only!
Sinister Strange x Reader, Stephen Strange x Reader
Awoken from sleep by the teasing kisses of your sorcerer, but one look in his eyes tells you something is off. Is he really your Stephen Strange? Or is he something more sinister?
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Series Masterlist *Coming Soon*
President Jed Bartlet vs. Loki in the US Presidential election.
Chapter 1 - “Off To The Races”
Chapter 2 - “The Interview”
Chapter 3 - “The First Debate”
Chapter 4 - “We've Got A Problem”
Chapter 5 - “The Second Debate”
Chapter 6 - “A Stranger To The Rescue”
Chapter 7 - “The Third Debate”
Chapter 8 - “Election Night”
Chapter 9 - "What's Next?"
Loki's Magical Kingdom
Smut - Explicit content - NSFW - 18+ only!
Disney's newest prince is ready to corrupt his new kingdom's princesses & maybe some of the other princes.
1/Intro - "A New Prince In The Kingdom"
One Shots/Headcanons/Drabbles
❤️= fluff, 🔥= smut/NSFW, ⛈= angst
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Deserve Better ❤🔥- Another blow to your confidence tips you over the edge when a guy ditches you. Bucky is determined to show you that you derserve so much better.
Not The Boogeyman ❤⛈ - You're excited to share your favorite time of year with Bucky, but the Boogeyman isn't ever too far from his mind.
Party For Two ❤🔥- You & Bucky discuss what he wants to do for his birthday & what he wants as his present.
Headcanon - The Golden Girls ❤️
Short Drabbles - #1, ❤🔥⛈
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Coming Soon
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Coming Soon
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Sacrifices - Part 1 ❤🔥⛈ - Stephen gave up the time stone to save you & your son, but how can you possibly go on without him?
Sacrifices - Part 2 ❤⛈- The time heist has worked & brought Stephen back to you, but at what cost?
Sacrifices - Part 3 ❤🔥⛈ - You & Stephen finally get some alone time together until Steve has something important to tell you.
Headcanon - The Golden Girls ❤️
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Always The Easy Part ❤⛈ - Meeting your parents doesn't go as planned.
COVID Cuddles ❤️⛈ - You are sick with COVID-19 and missing Stephen's cuddles
Doctor's Orders 🔥- The Doctor will see you now. A fantasy request from your boyfriend leaves you with an ache only he can fix.
Four Of A Kind 🔥- They were driving you crazy in more ways than one. There does seem to be one thing they agree on though... they all want you.
Man On A Mission ❤🔥- Once Stephen Strange set his mind to something he was going to get it done. Why should getting you pregnant be any different?
Man On A Mission - Part 2 ❤🔥- Stephen is over the moon with your pregnancy and how your body has changed.
Not Very Good At Subtle 🔥- When another woman flirts with Stephen you give him a reason to remember exactly who he's going home with & you don't care who overhears it.
Sacrifices - Part 1 ❤🔥⛈ - Stephen gave up the time stone to save you & your son, but how can you possibly go on without him?
Sacrifices - Part 2 ❤⛈ - The time heist has worked & brought Stephen back to you, but at what cost?
Sacrifices - Part 3 ❤🔥⛈ - You & Stephen finally get some alone time together until Steve has something important to tell you.
So Close, Yet So Far 🔥- Facing another night alone thinking about you, Stephen decides to snoop in alternate relationships with you, only to find one that makes him want you even more.
So Close, Yet So Far - Part 2 ❤🔥- After seeing you two could live happily ever after, Stephen confesses his true feelings for you. Will you feel the same?
Worth The Wait ❤🔥⛈ - Defender Strange learns about your past and earns your virginity.
Yes Doctor 🔥- You play naughty nurse to the great Doctor Strange. Are you good enough at your job or does he have to find another use for you?
Fluffy Sinister Strange Masterlist ❤🔥⛈ - Can be read as series or one shots
Headcanon - Back rubs & massages ❤
Headcanon - Crush on a friend ❤
Headcanon - One bed trope ❤🔥
Headcanon - Response to accidently sending him a naughty photo ❤🔥
Headcanon - The date after the photo incident ❤🔥
Headcanon - With an artsy S/O ❤
Headcanon - Superhero Fantasy ❤
Short Drabbles - #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7 ❤🔥⛈
Strange Variants Headcanon - Morning or Evening Sex 🔥
Strange Variants Headcanon - Dom, Sub, or Switch 🔥
Strange Variants Headcanon - Pet Names ❤🔥
NSFW Alphabet - Defender Strange🔥
NSFW Alphabet - Sinister Strange🔥
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Coming Soon
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froodycartographer · 3 years
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A Small Complaint About Mapping Systems
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Sasha get your head out of the way, we need to talk about maps.
So there's something that's bugged me for a while about the toad rulership structure. We are initially presented with Toad Tower, overseeing the entirety of the valley. However, we find out in Season 2 that Toad Tower is actually the South Tower, one of four. Now, the name implies that this tower oversees the whole southern quadrant. So does that mean that the entire south of the continent is contained within Frog Valley? Should be a simple answer, look at any decent topographic map and we're done. But, no, of course its not this simple, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this.
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This might not be surprising to you Apple Maps users, but maps aren't truth. Especially pre-flight, maps had to make allowances for surveyor error, logistical issues, and the math problems that arise from describing a curved surface onto a flat plane. The further you go back, the more having an accurate map becomes a luxury reserved for the rich. And in the weird feudal-adjacent society that Amphibia seems to be in, we could accept that, sure. But that's an excuse, really. I mean, Hop Pop is just carrying a valley map around in Season 1, and despite how useless it is (seriously, you could have just pointed at some mountains on the horizon, you didn't need a picture that literally just shows a town surrounded by teeth to illustrate that point), we will still call it a map for the purposes of this rant.
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And what does it show? That we have a valley, and contained within the valley we have Wartwood, and a tower that we will eventually learn to be the South Tower. This matches up with what we seen in Hop-Popular, where the entire valley votes for Mayor Toadstool. (By the way, Amphibia has electoral districts apparently, I don't have that rant prepared yet but Someday)
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However, then we get to Reunion, where Sasha states, outright, that the toads rule over the valley. Not the valley and surrounding neighborhoods. The valley and only the valley. And this makes sense! Because otherwise how could you maintain control over regions when you are cut off from broader Amphibia for an entire winter? Even if the South Tower predates Amphibian unification, it still doesn't make sense to have an administrative base (and an incredibly important one, since we've seen that the towers process taxes) cut off from its own territory, it would be considered a necessary expense to keep a pass open all winter if taxes were on the line. So, okay, let's allow that the South Tower only controls the valley, for whatever reason. Going back to the map behind Sasha, we see that there are three other villages in the valley. Okay, sure it would be weird if Toad Tower only ruled over Wartwood, but wait! Didn't the entire valley vote for mayor? The map only says Wartwood, but it covers a pretty impressive slice of the continent. Why did these other towns get a say in the mayor of Wartwood. I considered that the position of mayor could be more akin to a governor, but let's be honest, Toadstool is a mayor of Wartwood and its surrounding farms, not of some far-off village too. It wouldn't make sense for his character. And the fact that he, an administrator, would be approached for "promotion" to Toad Tower shows that the Mayor of Wartwood is under, either directly or indirectly, the leader of Toad Tower. (Which also raises the question, would that have made Toadstool a captain? Or was Grime's military rank separate from his administrative position over the valley?) Alright, maybe it's some archaic voting system, weirder elected positions exist. But we know that the other towns have been chafing under the rule of the toads, and that they know Hop Pop stood up to tax collectors. Surely some of them would have voted for Hop Pop during the events of Hop Popular, even as a protest vote if they weren't on the revolution train yet. No, let's be honest, as far as the frogs are concerned there is one town in Frog Valley, and as far as the South Tower is concerned there are four. Something isn't adding up, and this should be a simple answer because most of what I said can make maps inaccurate are on a continental level, a single valley should be easy to have consistent maps of. But for some reason Frog Valley just can't make it happen.
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Okay, originally I had a further rant about the map on the f'wagon trip and how it also doesn't make sense, but let's be honest the entire timeline of the road trip is off. In Anne Hunter they state that the journey has gone longer than expected and they've run out of food, but in Truck Stop Polly (the next episode) we see Polly ruin a massive supply of dried foodstuffs, and then two episodes later in Quarreller's Pass they imply its been two weeks since they've departed, which matches up with Hop Pop quipping in S1 how they have 2 wacky adventures a week, making the Pass as the first part of Episode 4 the start of their third week of travel. So that's a loss and I'm going to accept that the map doesn't have any use. But go look at it, it's in the first 10 seconds of Truck Stop Polly, and it doesn't match at all what I expected, either from the previously established geography or from the macroview of Amphibia we get in the title sequence.
So where does that leave me? Well, I'm assuming this is intentional. Its pretty good to cover yourself from continuity errors by being abstract in how everything is positioned relative to each other. but this is a bit gratuitous imo. I started off trying to figure out how much territory Toad Tower rules over, and now we're in a question of what even is the valley, which is a problem because the existence of this valley, specifically the mountains that make it such, are what give us the plot of season one. I don't have much expectations for season 3 to resolve this, so this is more just rambling for catharsis than anything else. But I'm gonna keep my eyes peeled, hoping that we can answer at least one of these questions come series end.
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Chairman Graham, Ranking Member Feinstein, and Members of the Committee: I am honored and humbled to appear before you as a nominee for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. I thank the President for entrusting me with this profound responsibility, as well as for the graciousness that he and the First Lady have shown my family throughout this process. I thank Senator Young for introducing me, as he did at my hearing to serve on the Seventh Circuit. I thank Senator Braun for his generous support. And I am especially grateful to former Dean Patty O'Hara of Notre Dame Law School. She hired me as a professor nearly 20 years ago and has been a mentor, colleague, and friend ever since. I thank the Members of this Committee—and your other colleagues in the Senate—who have taken the time to meet with me since my nomination. It has been a privilege to meet you.
As I said when I was nominated to serve as a Justice, I am used to being in a group of nine—my family. Nothing is more important to me, and I am so proud to have them behind me. My husband Jesse and I have been married for 21 years. He has been a selfless and wonderful partner at every step along the way. I once asked my sister, "Why do people say marriage is hard? I think it's easy." She said, "Maybe you should ask Jesse if he agrees." I decided not to take her advice. I know that I am far luckier in love than I deserve. Jesse and I are parents to seven wonderful children. Emma is a sophomore in college who just might follow her parents into a career in the law. Vivian came to us from Haiti. When she arrived, she was so weak that we were told she might never walk or talk normally. She now deadlifts as much as the male athletes at our gym, and I assure you that she has no trouble talking. Tess is 16, and while she shares her parents' love for the liberal arts, she also has a math gene that seems to have skipped her parents' generation. John Peter joined us shortly after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, and Jesse, who brought him home, still describes the shock on JP's face when he got off the plane in wintertime Chicago. Once that shock wore off, JP assumed the happy-go-lucky attitude that is still his signature trait. Liam is smart, strong, and kind, and to our delight, he still loves watching movies with Mom and Dad. Ten-year-old Juliet is already pursuing her goal of becoming an author by writing multiple essays and short stories, including one she recently submitted for publication. And our youngest—Benjamin, who has Down Syndrome—is the unanimous favorite of the family. My own siblings are here, some in the hearing room and some nearby. Carrie, Megan, Eileen, Amanda, Vivian, and Michael are my oldest and dearest friends. We've seen each other through both the happy and hard parts of life, and I am so grateful that they are with me now. My parents, Mike and Linda Coney, are watching from their New Orleans home. My father was a lawyer and my mother was a teacher, which explains how I ended up as a law professor. More important, my parents modeled for me and my six siblings a life of service, principle, faith, and love. I remember preparing for a grade-school spelling bee against a boy in my class. To boost my confidence, Dad sang, "Anything boys can do, girls can do better." At least as I remember it, I spelled my way to victory.
I received similar encouragement from the devoted teachers at St. Mary's Dominican, my all-girls high school in New Orleans. When I went to college, it never occurred to me that anyone would consider girls to be less capable than boys. My freshman year, I took a literature class filled with upperclassmen English majors. When I did my first presentation—on Breakfast at Tiffany's—I feared I had failed. But my professor filled me with confidence, became a mentor, and—when I graduated with a degree in English—gave me Truman Capote's collected works. Although I considered graduate studies in English, I decided my passion for words was better suited to deciphering statutes than novels. I was fortunate to have wonderful legal mentors—in particular, the judges for whom I clerked. The legendary Judge Laurence Silberman of the D.C. Circuit gave me my first job in the law and continues to teach me today. He was by my side during my Seventh Circuit hearing and investiture, and he is cheering me on from his living room now.
I also clerked for Justice Scalia, and like many law students, I felt like I knew the justice before I ever met him, because I had read so many of his colorful, accessible opinions. More than the style of his writing, though, it was the content of Justice Scalia's reasoning that shaped me. His judicial philosophy was straightforward: A judge must apply the law as written, not as the judge wishes it were. Sometimes that approach meant reaching results that he did not like. But as he put it in one of his best known opinions, that is what it means to say we have a government of laws, not of men. Justice Scalia taught me more than just law. He was devoted to his family, resolute in his beliefs, and fearless of criticism. And as I embarked on my own legal career, I resolved to maintain that same perspective. There is a tendency in our profession to treat the practice of law as all-consuming, while losing sight of everything else. But that makes for a shallow and unfulfilling life. I worked hard as a lawyer and a professor; I owed that to my clients, my students, and myself. But I never let the law define my identity or crowd out the rest of my life.
A similar principle applies to the role of courts. Courts have a vital responsibility to enforce the rule of law, which is critical to a free society. But courts are not designed to solve every problem or right every wrong in our public life. The policy decisions and value judgments of government must be made by the political branches elected by and accountable to the People. The public should not expect courts to do so, and courts should not try. That is the approach I have strived to follow as a judge on the Seventh Circuit. In every case, I have carefully considered the arguments presented by the parties, discussed the issues with my colleagues on the court, and done my utmost to reach the result required by the law, whatever my own preferences might be. I try to remain mindful that, while my court decides thousands of cases a year, each case is the most important one to the parties involved. After all, cases are not like statutes, which are often named for their authors. Cases are named for the parties who stand to gain or lose in the real world, often through their liberty or livelihood. When I write an opinion resolving a case, I read every word from the perspective of the losing party. I ask myself how would I view the decision if one of my children was the party I was ruling against: Even though I would not like the result, would I understand that the decision was fairly reasoned and grounded in the law? That is the standard I set for myself in every case, and it is the standard I will follow as long as I am a judge on any court.
When the President offered this nomination, I was deeply honored. But it was not a position I had sought out, and I thought carefully before accepting. The confirmation process—and the work of serving on the Court if I am confirmed— requires sacrifices, particularly from my family. I chose to accept the nomination because I believe deeply in the rule of law and the place of the Supreme Court in our Nation. I believe Americans of all backgrounds deserve an independent Supreme Court that interprets our Constitution and laws as they are written. And I believe I can serve my country by playing that role. I come before this Committee with humility about the responsibility I have been asked to undertake, and with appreciation for those who came before me. I was nine years old when Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman to sit in this seat. She was a model of grace and dignity throughout her distinguished tenure on the Court. When I was 21 years old and just beginning my career, Ruth Bader Ginsburg sat in this seat. She told the Committee, "What has become of me could only happen in America." I have been nominated to fill Justice Ginsburg's seat, but no one will ever take her place. I will be forever grateful for the path she marked and the life she led. If confirmed, it would be the honor of a lifetime to serve alongside the Chief Justice and seven Associate Justices. I admire them all and would consider each a valued colleague. And I might bring a few new perspectives to the bench. As the President noted when he announced my nomination, I would be the first mother of school-age children to serve on the Court. I would be the first Justice to join the Court from the Seventh Circuit in 45 years. And I would be the only sitting Justice who didn't attend law school at Harvard or Yale. I am confident that Notre Dame will hold its own, and maybe I could even teach them a thing or two about football.
As a final note, Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the many Americans from all walks of life who have reached out with messages of support over the course of my nomination. I believe in the power of prayer, and it has been uplifting to hear that so many people are praying for me. I look forward to answering the Committee's questions over the coming days. And if I am fortunate enough to be confirmed, I pledge to faithfully and impartially discharge my duties to the American people as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Thank you.
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mirceakitsune · 3 years
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US 2020 election: What we've won and what we've lost
At long last, one source of tension is out of the way: The 2020 US presidential election. It was clear that one of two hideous figures was bound to win; Senile old fart Joe Biden, or Victorian age arrogant asshole Donald Trump. Just as it was clear months ago that I'd be both happy and disappointed whichever that would be. Despite the fact that no one has actually won the election as of the writing of this post, Joe Biden was announced the winner today. Apparently this is because not the people counting votes decide who the next president is, but CNN does. World leaders across the planet already congratulated Joey too, also oblivious of the fact that the news doesn't decide who the next president is. Of course, considering that television already picked a winner and no one's likely to dare flip the results now, I'm going with the idea that Biden is the next president regardless of what the voting process finds in the end. Soooo: How has today improved my life and how has it further screwed me over? Well there's definitely some good news: Religious conservatives with their pesky "conventional family values" and "war on sexuality" have lost the power to a great extent. I'd like to imagine they're rolling around in their churches licking Jesus's sculpted balls off a cross, crying about how they can't stop this pesky free internet and modern culture that mister Saten gave us. Hopefully stuff like artists being persecuted for what they draw will slowly begin to die down now, or at least the trend will start going in that direction... as a content creator that's definitely a thought to hang on to. Of course this hope won't affect crazed conservatives who falsely see themselves as liberals (such as the people who run Furaffinity), who will gladly continue to copy far-right ideology when it comes to showing characters under the age of 18 not being "protected" from having equal rights to their superior adult overlords. Despite some hope in one direction however, Biden's victory indicates that my and other millions of people's lives remain forfeit. Given that the hoax known as the deadly COVID pandemic, which was used to enslave the planet's entire population in less than one year, was created and is powered by the globalist elite and deep state. Today I saw a transmission from New York where folks were celebrating Biden's alleged victory: In a crowd of thousands, not a single individual could be seen without a facemask on. It was like looking at the trailer from a horror film: Armies of brainwashed figures that didn't even look human any more, just a clones with a distorted face and their lower jaw missing. Just what I needed after yesterday I went to the store with my mother and was literally afraid I could be attacked by brainwashed Covidists and their police, literally tensing up and preparing for a fight whenever I saw police... once we got back with the groceries it's like I returned from war. And for those of you afraid I magically murdered someone at a distance with esoteric viruses, relax, I wore (a replacement for) your stupid cult symbol INSIDE the store... which is obviously no longer enough now that your pretensions had greatly increased. In this respect I now have less hope that justice will be done for myself and others like me. In a normal world the state should give us moral damages, the people responsible for imposing lockdowns and forced mask wearing would be charged with terrorism and put in prison. This hope may have existed if Trump won, which is the main reason why I kinda wish he did. With the globalist elite owning the US presidency however, it's unlikely their acts of terrorism will be punished and any government who committed them held accountable, as well as the pandemic hoax ever being exposed so what truly happened is at least recorded in the history books. Those of us who have been persecuted and kept in constant fear must continue to seek our own justice, hoping for the day we'll finally see the Covidists pay for they did to us. Till then my thirst for the blood of the COVID sect continues to grow, but we'll wait for the world to wake up and give us the virus-scared tyrants who took away our lives... fear not, we'll have justice eventually. Alongside confiscating our right to breathe, Democrats have been wanting to confiscate another thing: The free and open internet. This is the one trait they have most in common with Republicans who wanted to do the exact same thing, only difference being the motives behind it; The Republicans want open communications gone because "think of the children" while the Democrats want it gone because "think of the manchildren" (which translates to "there's too much hate and mean words"). So while the internet will hopefully be safer from the right's conservative ideologies, it might not be as safe from the left's disgusting empathy and misguided care for people's feelings. On this matter it remains to be seen how things go. What about China? The Democrats pinkie-promise they're going to fight the CCP as hard as Trump did, but deep inside we all know they just want to get back to doing business with the Chinese Communist Party and get rich. I was hoping that within the next years we might at least see tyranny fall in China, if we can't stop dictatorship in America and the European Union. Trivia: Did you know that people in authoritarian China where the spooky virus outbreak started aren't forced to wear masks? Isn't planet Earth just a beautiful and fascinating place! I can end this on a little satisfaction still: Despite being Covidiot tyrants, lefties hate the police, as the BLM protests earlier this year have shown. As fascist as Antifa is, I'm hoping their hate for authority expands beyond just cops killing black people, and will translate into a continued fight against government and police in general. This would make them more useful to me and our army of freedom, compared the right who loves to talk about their freedoms (without degeneracy, very important) but when it comes to the organs of terror and repression they and Trump only showed support for strengthening the monsters. Unfortunately Antifa hasn't burnt any more cop cars and police stations so far... hopefully new motivation won't be too late to arrive.
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saraseo · 4 years
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The Coronavirus Has Not Halted Trump’s Power Grab
Both the president and his party are committed to a long-term project of impunity from both the law and the electorate
By Adam Serwer | Published April 08, 2020 6:30 AM ET | The Atlantic | Posted April 08, 2020 |
An hour or so into Monday’s daily presidential briefing on the coronavirus pandemic, Trump declared that his political opponents should “not be allowed” to win the 2020 presidential election.
Democrats “want to make Trump look as bad as they can, because they want to try and win an election that they shouldn't be allowed to win based on the fact that we have done a great job. We built the greatest economy in the world. I'll do it a second time,” Trump declared. “We got artificially stopped by a virus that nobody ever thought possible and we handled it and we've built a team and we built an apparatus that's been unbelievable.”
Even for Trump, who spits falsehoods at a breathtaking pace, that paragraph is remarkable; as a retired moisture farmer from Tatooine once put it, every word of what he just said was wrong. Job growth under Trump has been slower than during his predecessor’s last three years in office. The president was warned about the danger posed by the novel coronavirus in early January, and chose to ignore his advisers, believing it was another public-relations problem he could bluster his way through. The economy had to be “artificially stopped” because the federal government dithered until early March, as Trump insisted the Chinese government had the outbreak contained and falsely told the public  that cases would “soon be down to zero.” The Democratic Party, despite its criticisms of the president, is prepared to hand him another $1 trillion in stimulus funds to prop up the economy, which is $3 trillion more than the zero dollars Republicans were willing to give his predecessor to prevent a severe economic downturn from becoming a depression.
Although the pestilence that has killed more than 10,000 Americans and shut down the U.S. economy is understandably dominating the headlines, the Trump administration’s efforts to erode democracy and the rule of law have not subsided. The authoritarianization of the federal government has hampered its response to the pandemic, squandering scarce resources on shoring up the president’s lies and pursuing his political interests at the public’s expense. This is the predictable result of an authoritarian logic in which the preservation of the regime takes precedence over the safety of its own citizens, because the leader is the incontestable expression of popular will.
Some of the damage of the president’s authoritarian instincts is easy to catalog. Trump demands that public-health officials shower him with obsequious praise during any public appearance. He has allowed his hapless son-in-law, whose only qualifications are being born rich and marrying the president’s daughter, to interfere with federal officials trying to contain the outbreak, because he prizes loyalty over expertise. He has reportedly allowed his political interests and personal pique to dictate which states received requested aid and which do not.
In the midst of all this, Trump’s efforts to reshape the federal government from an entity meant to serve the public interest into a mere subsidiary of the Trump Organization meant to serve Donald Trump have continued uninterrupted.
On Friday evening, Trump fired the intelligence-community inspector general, Michael Atkinson, in a blatant act of retaliation for forwarding the whistleblower complaint to Congress that led to Trump’s impeachment. The complaint accurately described how Trump tried to extort Ukraine into publicly implicating his prospective Democratic rival Joe Biden in a crime that never took place, in an attempt to rig the 2020 election in his favor.
Shortly after the passage of the $2 trillion stimulus package in late March, Trump declared his intention to not comply with its oversight provisions. Then, on Friday, he appointed a White House attorney, Brian Miller, to oversee the $500 billion fund set aside for stabilizing large corporations. Although Miller has previously worked as a government watchdog, his most recent job was as part of the legal team defending Trump from impeachment. On Tuesday, Trump also fired Glenn Fine, the lead watchdog overseeing a panel of inspectors general who are in turn overseeing the overall stimulus package.
The president’s personal income largely derives from the hospitality industry, which has been hit hard by the pandemic. The public deserves to know whether he will be directing taxpayer funds to prop up his own businesses, an outcome the president has refused to rule out. But Trump has done his best to ensure that if he uses his authority to enrich himself with taxpayer dollars, the public will be the last to hear of it.
Trump lashed out at another inspector general on Monday, over a report that described in vivid terms the equipment shortages that U.S. hospitals are facing. Medical workers, it said, were “trying to make their own disinfectant from in-house chemicals, running low on toilet paper and food, and trying to source face masks from nail salons.” Trump declared that the report’s conclusions, which were drawn from direct interviews with health-care professionals at “323 hospitals across 46 States” and territories currently attempting to contain the outbreak, were “just wrong” and called the report “another fake dossier.”
The target of the president’s purge of independent watchdogs is clear: those officials who put the public interest above their loyalty to Donald Trump. Officials who uphold their duty to the American people, or even give the slightest impression of doing so, will find their careers in danger. They exist not, as their jobs have previously been understood, to provide the public with vital information about the functioning of the government, but to conceal inconvenient facts and exalt the divine foresight of the president. If the truth does not glorify the leader, it must be changed or suppressed. Even more important, where the law conflicts with his will, the law must be disregarded—and those who are unwilling to do so are not fit to serve.
The president and the institutional GOP are executing parallel, complementary campaigns: Trump is attempting to undermine the rule of law for personal and political gain; keeping him in office is crucial to the Republican Party’s larger goal of locking its opponents out of power by narrowing, restricting, or altering the franchise to insulate the party from a changing electorate.
The president’s goals are venal and petty; the GOP’s long-term objectives are far more ambitious. Trump is simply a convenient vehicle for the latter, a figure whose prejudice channels the Republican base’s moral instinct that those unlike them have a lesser claim on American citizenship, and that democracy would be more genuine  without their influence. Americans hoping to change the direction of the country will have to battle a plague and fight for the freedom to choose their own leaders at the same time.
Senate Republicans, who might conceivably restrain Trump’s undemocratic impulses, have been muted. As long as Trump maintains his support among the GOP rank and file, the president may defy the rule of law as he likes, without meaningful protest. Checking Trump could interfere with the conservative capture of the federal judiciary, which is vitally important to the Republican Party’s plans for long-term domination.
The disgraceful episode in Wisconsin illustrates the convergence of these parallel efforts. The state held its primary yesterday, after Democratic efforts to delay the election until June because of the pandemic were unsuccessful. At stake is a seat on the conservative-dominated state supreme court; the winner will cast the deciding vote in a case that could disenfranchise up to 200,000 voters in the state. Although the state had already extended the deadline for receiving absentee ballots to April 13, Democrats sought to extend the deadline for postmarking those ballots as well, arguing that because of the large volume of requests for absentee ballots, some voters would not receive theirs in time.  
On Monday night, the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, in an unsigned per curiam opinion, shut down an effort to allow voters in the state to send in absentee ballots up to a week late, arguing that states should not alter election rules at the last minute.
That position is often correct—many such last-minute changes may reflect disenfranchisement efforts—but as Mark Joseph Stern points out, Wisconsin has been inundated with requests for absentee ballots because of the pandemic, a situation that the majority disingenuously asserts is not a “substantially different position from late-requesting voters in other Wisconsin elections with respect to the timing of their receipt of absentee ballots.” Although this may seem like a minor technical issue, the Court’s decision means that voters who requested absentee ballots and did not receive them on time had to decide yesterday between risking a lonely death on a ventilator and being disenfranchised.
The coronavirus outbreak has dramatically reduced the number of open polling places in the state’s urban areas—Milwaukee, for example, with its large black population, has gone from 180 polling places to five. In densely populated areas that tend to vote Democratic, voters who sought to fulfill their civic obligation spent hours in line, risking exposure to the coronavirus. In Milwaukee, “the state’s most populous city and the Democratic power base of the state, voting logistics were a categorical nightmare,” The New York Times reported, while “residents of non-Milwaukee areas” where “more drive-through voting options were available, and the elimination of some polling places was likely to have less of an effect,” reported “fewer interruptions in the early hours of Election Day.”  
As Leah Litman writes, the justices clearly understand the risks posed by the virus. The Supreme Court has itself postponed oral arguments for the first time since the 1918 flu pandemic, and has been conducting business remotely for weeks. The conservative justices chose not to risk their own lives by continuing with business as usual, but voters, it seems, are not so special.
The Wisconsin Republican Party, which is as committed as the president is to the notion that its political opponents are inherently illegitimate, has sought to exploit the political advantage conferred by the pandemic and its disproportionate effect on urban areas. But this is not an isolated circumstance. The absentee-ballot clash in Wisconsin is just the latest episode in what has been a long-term battle to cement one-party rule in the state.
In the past decade, Wisconsin Republicans have passed voter restrictions that have disproportionately disenfranchised poor and black voters. They so successfully gerrymandered the state’s legislative districts that they managed a two-thirds majority in 2018, a Democratic wave year in which Democrats actually won more than 100,000 more votes in the state. Shortly after that election, they moved to strip the Democratic governor-elect, Tony Evers, of major powers before he even took office.    
This all sounds drastic unless you understand that Republicans in Wisconsin, like Trump, view their opposition as illegitimate political actors whose claim to power is inherently invalid. “If you took Madison and Milwaukee out of the state election formula, we would have a clear majority,” Robin Vos, the Republican speaker of the state assembly in Wisconsin, said shortly after the 2018 midterms, in which the share of state seats Republicans won were vastly disproportionate to the ballots cast in their favor.
The logic here is easy to follow: Republican votes should count more than Democratic ones. There is nothing sinister in altering the rules to effect an outcome that should have occurred anyway, because the Republican Party represents Real America, and the Democratic Party represents nothing more than illegitimate usurpers.
If the late absentee ballots were counted, there is no guarantee that the state could “suppress disclosure of the election results for six days after election day,” the conservative justices wrote in their opinion siding with the Republican National Committee, and if “any information were released during that time, that would gravely affect the integrity of the election process.”
This is a textbook Orwellian paradox: The integrity of the election process is affected not by the disproportionate disenfranchisement of voters in Democratic areas, but by counting their votes. In ordering the state of Wisconsin to disenfranchise thousands, the Roberts Court is merely protecting democracy from those who threaten its only legitimate outcome, which is the victory of the Republican Party. The self-serving, pompous vagueries of right-wing originalism are never more transparent than when the results of an election hang in the balance.
Although they insist that their ruling “should not be viewed as expressing an opinion on the broader question of whether to hold the election, or whether other reforms or modifications in election procedures in light of COVID–19 are appropriate,” Trump and other Republicans have already weighed in on the matter. Trump has declared that voting by mail would result in “levels of voting that if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”After  calling voting by mail “corrupt,” Trump was asked why he voted by mail last month in Florida, which lead him to clarify, helpfully, “I can vote by mail” because “I’m allowed to.” Indeed!
The trend of the Roberts Court finding a legal pretext to side with Republicans on virtually every  voting-rights case that comes before the Court will not reverse itself when more conflicts over how to hold elections during a pandemic arrive on its doorstep. A Court that gave Wisconsin voters the choice between facing a plague and being disenfranchised, when the most that was at stake was a seat on the state supreme court, will not fail to rescue the Republican president should victory depend on its verdict, just as its predecessor did not.
The election-law expert Rick Hasen has argued that although “Republican legislative leaders in Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin have made it clear that they fear increased voter turnout or that vote-by-mail will reduce Republican electoral chances,” there is “no solid evidence that mail-in balloting would hurt Republicans in November.” The mere risk that it might is sufficient reason to allow a plague to disenfranchise as many Americans as possible.
Trump’s declaration from the podium, that his opponents “should not be allowed to win” is not just the crude bluster of a showman. Rather, it is a statement of ideological conviction shared throughout the party, from the halls of Congress to the Supreme Court, from Washington, D.C., to Madison, Wisconsin. This will not be the last time we hear it.
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THIS IS TRUMP’S FAULT
The president is failing, and Americans are paying for his failures.
By David Frum | Published April 7, 2020|
The Atlantic | Posted April 08, 2020 |
“I don’t take responsibility at all,” said President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden on March 13. Those words will probably end up as the epitaph of his presidency, the single sentence that sums it all up.
Trump now fancies himself a “wartime president.” How is his war going? By the end of March, the coronavirus had killed more Americans than the 9/11 attacks. By the first weekend in April, the virus had killed more Americans than any single battle of the Civil War. By Easter, it may have killed more Americans than the Korean War. On the present trajectory, it will kill, by late April, more Americans than Vietnam. Having earlier promised that casualties could be held near zero, Trump now claims he will have done a “very good job” if the toll is held below 200,000 dead.
The United States is on trajectory to suffer more sickness, more dying, and more economic harm from this virus than any other comparably developed country.
[ Read: How the pandemic will end]
That the pandemic occurred is not Trump’s fault. The utter unpreparedness of the United States for a pandemic is Trump’s fault. The loss of stockpiled respirators to breakage because the federal government let maintenance contracts lapse in 2018 is Trump’s fault. The failure to store sufficient protective medical gear in the national arsenal is Trump’s fault. That states are bidding against other states for equipment, paying many multiples of the precrisis price for ventilators, is Trump’s fault. Air travelers summoned home and forced to stand for hours in dense airport crowds alongside infected people? That was Trump’s fault too. Ten weeks of insisting that the coronavirus is a harmless flu that would miraculously go away on its own? Trump’s fault again. The refusal of red-state governors to act promptly, the failure to close Florida and Gulf Coast beaches until late March? That fault is more widely shared, but again, responsibility rests with Trump: He could have stopped it, and he did not.
The lying about the coronavirus by hosts on Fox News and conservative talk radio is Trump’s fault: They did it to protect him. The false hope of instant cures and nonexistent vaccines is Trump’s fault, because he told those lies to cover up his failure to act in time. The severity of the economic crisis is Trump’s fault; things would have been less bad if he had acted faster instead of sending out his chief economic adviser and his son Eric to assure Americans that the first stock-market dips were buying opportunities. The firing of a Navy captain for speaking truthfully about the virus’s threat to his crew? Trump’s fault. The fact that so many key government jobs were either empty or filled by mediocrities? Trump’s fault. The insertion of Trump’s arrogant and incompetent son-in-law as commander in chief of the national medical supply chain? Trump’s fault.
For three years, Trump has blathered and bluffed and bullied his way through an office for which he is utterly inadequate. But sooner or later, every president must face a supreme test, a test that cannot be evaded by blather and bluff and bullying. That test has overwhelmed Trump.
Trump failed. He is failing. He will continue to fail. And Americans are paying for his failures.
The coronavirus emerged in China in late December. The Trump administration received its first formal notification of the outbreak on January 3. The first confirmed case in the United States was diagnosed in mid-January. Financial markets in the United States suffered the first of a sequence of crashes on February 24. The first person known to have succumbed to COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, in the United States died on February 29. The 100th died on March 17. By March 20, New York City alone had confirmed 5,600 cases. Not until March 21—the day the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services placed its first large-scale order for N95 masks—did the White House begin marshaling a national supply chain to meet the threat in earnest. “What they’ve done over the last 13 days has been really extraordinary,” Jared Kushner said on April 3, implicitly acknowledging the waste of weeks between January 3 and March 21.
Those were the weeks when testing hardly happened, because there were no kits. Those were the weeks when tracing hardly happened, because there was little testing. Those were the weeks when isolation did not happen, because the president and his administration insisted that the virus was under control. Those were the weeks when supplies were not ordered, because nobody in the White House was home to order them. Those lost weeks placed the United States on the path to the worst outbreak of the coronavirus in the developed world: one-fourth of all confirmed cases anywhere on Earth.
Those lost weeks also put the United States—and thus the world—on the path to an economic collapse steeper than any in recent memory. Statisticians cannot count fast enough to keep pace with the accelerating economic depression. It’s a good guess that the unemployment rate had reached 13 percent by April 3. It may peak at 20 percent, perhaps even higher, and threatens to stay at Great Depression–like levels at least into 2021, maybe longer.
This country—buffered by oceans from the epicenter of the global outbreak, in East Asia; blessed with the most advanced medical technology on Earth; endowed with agencies and personnel devoted to responding to pandemics—could have and should have suffered less than nations nearer to China. Instead, the United States will suffer more than any peer country.
It didn’t have to be this way. If somebody else had been president of the United States in December 2019—Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Mike Pence, really almost anybody else—the United States would still have been afflicted by the coronavirus. But it would have been better prepared, and better able to respond.Through the early weeks of the pandemic, when so much death and suffering could still have been prevented or mitigated, Trump joined passivity to fantasy. In those crucial early days, Trump made two big wagers. He bet that the virus could somehow be prevented from entering the United States by travel restrictions. And he bet that, to the extent that the virus had already entered the United States, it would burn off as the weather warmed.
At a session with state governors on February 10, Trump predicted that the virus would quickly disappear on its own. “Now, the virus that we’re talking about having to do—you know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat—as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April. We’re in great shape though. We have 12 cases—11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now.” On February 14, Trump repeated his assurance that the virus would disappear by itself. He tweeted again on February 24 that he had the virus “very much under control in the USA.” On February 27, he said that the virus would disappear “like a miracle.”
Those two assumptions led him to conclude that not much else needed to be done. Senator Chris Murphy left a White House briefing on February 5, and tweeted:
Just left the Administration briefing on Coronavirus. Bottom line: they aren’t taking this seriously enough. Notably, no request for ANY emergency funding, which is a big mistake. Local health systems need supplies, training, screening staff etc. And they need it now.
Trump and his supporters now say that he was distracted from responding to the crisis by his impeachment. Even if it were true, pleading that the defense of your past egregious misconduct led to your present gross failures is not much of an excuse.
But if Trump and his senior national-security aides were distracted, impeachment was not the only reason, or even the principal reason. The period when the virus gathered momentum in Hubei province was also the period during which the United States seemed on the brink of war with Iran. Through the fall of 2019, tensions escalated between the two countries. The United States blamed an Iranian-linked militia for a December 27 rocket attack on a U.S. base in Iraq, triggering tit-for-tat retaliation that would lead to the U.S. killing General Qassem Soleimani on January 3, open threats of war by the United States on January 6, and the destruction of a civilian airliner over Tehran on January 8.
The preoccupation with Iran may account for why Trump paid so little attention to the virus, despite the many warnings. On January 18, Trump—on a golf excursion in Palm Beach, Florida—cut off his health secretary’s telephoned warning of gathering danger to launch into a lecture about vaping, The Washington Post reported.
Two days later, the first documented U.S. case was confirmed in Washington State.
Yet even at that late hour, Trump continued to think of the coronavirus as something external to the United States. He tweeted on January 22: “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!”
[ Adam Serwer: Trump is inciting a coronavirus culture war to save himself]
Impeachment somehow failed to distract Trump from traveling to Davos, where in a January 22 interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box, he promised: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
Trump would later complain that he had been deceived by the Chinese. “I wish they could have told us earlier about what was going on inside,” he said on March 21. “We didn’t know about it until it started coming out publicly.”
If Trump truly was so trustingly ignorant as late as January 22, the fault was again his own. The Trump administration had cut U.S. public-health staff operating inside China by two-thirds, from 47 in January 2017 to 14 by 2019, an important reason it found itself dependent on less-accurate information from the World Health Organization. In July 2019, the Trump administration defunded the position that embedded an epidemiologist inside China’s own disease-control administration, again obstructing the flow of information to the United States.
Yet even if Trump did not know what was happening, other Americans did. On January 27, former Vice President Joe Biden sounded the alarm about a global pandemic in an op-ed in USA Today. By the end of January, eight cases of the virus had been confirmed  in the United States. Hundreds more must have been incubating undetected.
[ Read: How the coronavirus became an American catastrophe]
On January 31, the Trump administration at last did something: It announced restrictions on air travel to and from China by non-U.S. persons. This January 31 decision to restrict air travel has become Trump’s most commonly proffered defense of his actions. “We’ve done an incredible job because we closed early,” Trump said on February 27. “We closed those borders very early, against the advice of a lot of professionals, and we turned out to be right. I took a lot of heat for that,” he repeated on March 4. Trump praised himself some more at a Fox News town hall in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the next day. “As soon as I heard that China had a problem, I said, ‘What’s going on with China? How many people are coming in?’ Nobody but me asked that question. And you know better than—again, you know …  that I closed the borders very early.”
Because Trump puts so much emphasis on this point, it’s important to stress that none of this is true. Trump did not close the borders early—in fact, he did not truly close them at all.
The World Health Organization declared a global health emergency on January 30, but recommended against travel restrictions. On January 31, the same day the United States announced its restrictions, Italy suspended all flights to and from China. But unlike the American restrictions, which did not take effect until February 2, the Italian ban applied immediately. Australia  acted on February 1, halting entries from China by foreign nationals, again ahead of Trump.
And Trump’s actions did little to stop the spread of the virus. The ban applied only to foreign nationals who had been in China during the previous 14 days, and included 11 categories of exceptions. Since the restrictions took effect, nearly 40,000 passengers have entered the United States from China, subjected to inconsistent screenings, The New York Times reported.
At a House hearing on February 5, a few days after the restrictions went into effect, Ron Klain—who led the Obama administration’s efforts against the Ebola outbreak—condemned the Trump policy as a “travel Band-Aid, not a travel ban.”
That same afternoon, Trump’s impeachment trial ended with his acquittal in the Senate. The president, though, turned his energy not to combatting the virus, but to the demands of his own ego.
The president’s top priority through February 2020 was to exact retribution from truth-tellers in the impeachment fight. On February 7, Trump removed Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman from the National Security Council. On February 12, Trump withdrew his nomination of Jessie Liu as undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial crimes, apparently to punish her for her role in the prosecution and conviction of the Trump ally Roger Stone. On March 2, Trump withdrew the nomination of Elaine McCusker to the post of Pentagon comptroller; McCusker’s sin was having raised concerns that suspension of aid to Ukraine had been improper. Late on the evening of April 3, Trump fired Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, the official who had forwarded the Ukraine whistleblower complaint to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, as the law required. As the epigrammist Windsor Mann tweeted that same night: “Trump’s impeachment distracted him from preparing for a pandemic, but the pandemic did not distract him from firing the man he holds responsible for his impeachment.”
[Peter Wehner: The Trump presidency is over]
Intentionally or not, Trump’s campaign of payback against his perceived enemies in the impeachment battle sent a warning to public-health officials: Keep your mouth shut. If anybody missed the message, the firing of Captain Brett Crozier from the command of an aircraft carrier for speaking honestly about the danger facing his sailors was a reminder. There’s a reason that the surgeon general of the United States seems terrified to answer even the most basic factual questions or that Rear Admiral John Polowczyk sounds like a malfunctioning artificial-intelligence program at press briefings. The president’s lies must not be contradicted. And because the president’s lies change constantly, it’s impossible to predict what might contradict him.
“Best usa economy IN HISTORY!” Trump tweeted on February 11. On February 15, Trump shared a video from a Senate GOP account, tweeting: “Our booming economy is drawing Americans off the sidelines and BACK TO WORK at the highest rate in 30 hears!”
Denial became the unofficial policy of the administration through the month of February, and as a result, that of the administration’s surrogates and propagandists. “It looks like the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump,” Rush Limbaugh said on his radio program February 24. “Now, I want to tell you the truth about the coronavirus … Yeah, I’m dead right on this. The coronavirus is the common cold, folks.”
“We have contained this,” Trump’s economic adviser Larry Kudlow told  CNBC on February 24. “I won’t say airtight, but pretty close to airtight. We have done a good job in the United States.” Kudlow conceded that there might be “some stumbles” in financial markets, but insisted there would be no “economic tragedy.”
On February 28, then–White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference, near Washington, D.C.:
The reason you’re ... seeing so much attention to [the virus] today is that [the media] think this is gonna be what brings down this president. This is what this is all about. I got a note from a reporter saying, “What are you gonna do today to calm the markets.” I’m like: Really, what I might do today to calm the markets is tell people to turn their televisions off for 24 hours ... This is not Ebola, okay? It’s not SARS, it’s not MERS.
That same day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo scolded a House committee for daring to ask him about the coronavirus. “We agreed that I’d come today to talk about Iran, and the first question today is not about Iran.”
Throughout the crisis, the top priority of the president, and of everyone who works for the president, has been the protection of his ego. Americans have become sadly used to Trump’s blustery self-praise and his insatiable appetite for flattery. During the pandemic, this psychological deformity has mutated into a deadly strategic vulnerability for the United States.
“If we were doing a bad job, we should also be criticized. But we have done an incredible job,” Trump said on February 27. “We’re doing a great job with it,” he told Republican senators on March 10. “I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning,” he tweeted on March 18.
For three-quarters of his presidency, Trump has taken credit for the economic expansion that began under President Barack Obama in 2010. That expansion accelerated in 2014, just in time to deliver real prosperity over the past three years. The harm done by Trump’s own initiatives, and especially his trade wars, was masked by that continued growth. The economy Trump inherited became his all-purpose answer to his critics. Did he break laws, corrupt the Treasury, appoint cronies, and tell lies? So what? Unemployment was down, the stock market up.
Suddenly, in 2020, the rooster that had taken credit for the sunrise faced the reality of sunset. He could not bear it.
Underneath all the denial and self-congratulation, Trump seems to have glimpsed the truth. The clearest statement of that knowledge was expressed on February 28. That day, Trump spoke at a rally in South Carolina—his penultimate rally before the pandemic forced him to stop. This was the rally at which Trump accused the Democrats of politicizing the coronavirus as “their new hoax.” That line was so shocking, it has crowded out awareness of everything else Trump said that day. Yet those other statements are, if possible, even more relevant to understanding the trouble he brought upon the country.
Trump does not speak clearly. His patterns of speech betray a man with guilty secrets to hide, and a beclouded mind. Yet we can discern, through the mental fog, that Trump had absorbed some crucial facts. By February 28, somebody in his orbit seemed to already be projecting 35,000 to 40,000 deaths from the coronavirus. Trump remembered the number, but refused to believe it. His remarks are worth revisiting at length:
Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus, you know that, right? Coronavirus, they’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, “How’s President Trump doing?” They go, “Oh, not good, not good.” They have no clue. They don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa. They can’t even count. No, they can’t. They can’t count their votes.
One of my people came up to me and said, “Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia.” That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything. They tried it over and over. They’d been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning. They lost. It’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax.
But we did something that’s been pretty amazing. We have 15 people [sick] in this massive country, and because of the fact that we went early. We went early; we could have had a lot more than that. We’re doing great. Our country is doing so great. We are so unified. We are so unified. The Republican Party has never ever been unified like it is now. There has never been a movement in the history of our country like we have now. Never been a movement.
So a statistic that we want to talk about—Go ahead: Say USA. It’s okay; USA. So a number that nobody heard of, that I heard of recently and I was shocked to hear it: 35,000 people on average die each year from the flu. Did anyone know that? Thirty-five thousand, that’s a lot of people. It could go to 100,000; it could be 27,000. They say usually a minimum of 27, goes up to 100,000 people a year die.
And so far, we have lost nobody to coronavirus in the United States. Nobody. And it doesn’t mean we won’t and we are totally prepared. It doesn’t mean we won’t, but think of it. You hear 35 and 40,000 people and we’ve lost nobody and you wonder, the press is in hysteria mode.
On February 28, very few Americans had heard of an estimated death toll of 35,000 to 40,000, but Trump had heard it. And his answer to that estimate was: “So far, we have lost nobody.” He conceded, “It doesn’t mean we won’t.” But he returned to his happy talk. “We are totally prepared.” And as always, it was the media's fault. “You hear 35 and 40,000 people and we’ve lost nobody and you wonder, the press is in hysteria mode.”
By February 28, it was too late to exclude the coronavirus from the United States. It was too late to test and trace, to isolate the first cases and halt their further spread—that opportunity had already been lost. It was too late to refill the stockpiles that the Republican Congresses of the Tea Party years had refused to replenish, despite frantic pleas from the Obama administration. It was too late to produce sufficient ventilators in sufficient time.
But on February 28, it was still not too late to arrange an orderly distribution of medical supplies to the states, not too late to coordinate with U.S. allies, not too late to close the Florida beaches before spring break, not too late to bring passengers home from cruise lines, not too late to ensure that state unemployment-insurance offices were staffed and ready, not too late for local governments to get funds to food banks, not too late to begin social distancing fast and early. Stay-at-home orders could have been put into effect on March 1, not in late March and early April.
So much time had been wasted by the end of February. So many opportunities had been squandered. But even then, the shock could have been limited. Instead, Trump and his inner circle plunged deeper into two weeks of lies and denial, both about the disease and about the economy.
On February 28, Eric Trump urged  Americans to go “all in” on the weakening stock market.
Kudlow repeated his advice that it was a good time to buy stocks on CNBC on March 6 after another bad week for the financial markets. As late as March 9, Trump was still arguing that the coronavirus would be no worse than the seasonal flu.
So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!
But the facade of denial was already cracking.
Through early march, financial markets declined and then crashed. Schools closed, then whole cities, and then whole states. The overwhelmed president responded by doing what comes most naturally to him at moments of trouble: He shifted the blame to others.
The lack of testing equipment? On March 13, Trump passed that buck to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Obama administration.
[ Read: Be very careful about taking medical advice from President Trump]
The White House had dissolved the directorate of the National Security Council responsible for planning for and responding to pandemics? Not me, Trump said on March 13. Maybe somebody else in the administration did it, but “I didn’t do it ... I don’t know anything about it. You say we did that. I don’t know anything about it.”
Were ventilators desperately scarce? Obtaining medical equipment was the governors’ job, Trump said on a March 16 conference call.
Did Trump delay action until it was far too late? That was the fault of the Chinese government for withholding information, he complained on March 21.
On March 27, Trump attributed his own broken promises about ventilator production to General Motors, now headed by a woman unworthy of even a last name: “Always a mess with Mary B.”
Masks, gowns, and gloves were running short only because hospital staff were stealing them, Trump suggested on March 29.
Was the national emergency medical stockpile catastrophically depleted? Trump’s campaign creatively tried to pin that on mistakes Joe Biden made back in 2009.
At his press conference on April 2, Trump blamed the shortage of lifesaving equipment, and the ensuing panic-buying, on states’ failure to build their own separate stockpile. “They have to work that out. What they should do is they should’ve—long before this pandemic arrived—they should’ve been on the open market just buying. There was no competition; you could have made a great price. The states have to stock up. It’s like one of those things. They waited. They didn’t want to spend the money, because they thought this would never happen.”
Were New Yorkers dying? On April 2, Trump fired off a peevish letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer: “If you spent less time on your ridiculous impeachment hoax, which went haplessly on forever and ended up going nowhere (except increasing my poll numbers), and instead focused on helping the people of New York, then New York would not have been so completely unprepared for the ‘invisible enemy.’”
Trump’s instinct to dodge and blame had devastating consequences for Americans. Every governor and mayor who needed the federal government to take action, every science and medical adviser who hoped to prevent Trump from doing something stupid or crazy, had to reckon with Trump’s psychic needs as their single biggest problem.
As his medical advisers sought to dissuade Trump from proceeding with his musing about reopening the country by Easter, April 12, Deborah Birx—the White House’s coronavirus-response coordinator—appeared on the evangelical CBN network to deliver this abject flattery: “[Trump is] so attentive to the scientific literature & the details & the data. I think his ability to analyze & integrate data that comes out of his long history in business has really been a real benefit.”
Governors got the message too. “If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call,” Trump explained at a White House press briefing on March 27. The federal response has been dogged by suspicions of favoritism for political and personal allies of Trump. The District of Columbia has seen its requests denied, while Florida gets everything it asks for.
The weeks of Trump-administration denial and delay have triggered a desperate scramble among states. The Trump administration is allocating some supplies through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but has made the deliberate choice to allow large volumes of crucial supplies to continue to be distributed by commercial firms to their clients. That has left state governments bidding against one another, as if the 1787 Constitution had never been signed, and we have no national government.
In his panic, Trump is sacrificing U.S. alliances abroad, attempting to recoup his own failure by turning predator. German and French officials accuse the Trump administration of diverting supplies they had purchased to the United States. On April 3, the North American company 3M publicly  rebuked the Trump administration for its attempt to embargo medical exports to Canada, where 3M has operated seven facilities for 70 years.
Around the world, allies are registering that in an emergency, when it matters most, the United States has utterly failed to lead. Perhaps the only political leader in Canada ever to say a good word about Donald Trump, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, expressed disgust at an April 3 press conference. “I just can’t stress how disappointed I am at President Trump ... I’m not going to rely on President Trump,” he said. “I’m not going to rely on any prime minister or president from any country ever again.” Ford argued for a future of Canadian self-sufficiency. Trump’s nationalist selfishness is proving almost as contagious as the virus itself—and could ultimately prove as dangerous, too.
As the pandemic kills, as the economic depression tightens its grip, Donald Trump has consistently put his own needs first. Right now, when his only care should be to beat the pandemic, Trump is renegotiating his debts with his bankers and lease payments with Palm Beach County.
He has never tried to be president of the whole United States, but at most 46 percent of it, to the extent that serving even the 46 percent has been consistent with his supreme concerns: stealing, loafing, and whining. Now he is not even serving the 46 percent. The people most victimized by his lies and fantasies are the people who trusted him, the more conservative Americans who harmed themselves to prove their loyalty to Trump. An Arkansas pastor told The Washington Post of congregants “ready to lick the floor” to support the president’s claim that there is nothing to worry about. On March 15, the Trump-loyal governor of Oklahoma tweeted a since-deleted photo of himself and his children at a crowded restaurant buffet. “Eating with my kids and all my fellow Oklahomans at the @CollectiveOKC. It’s packed tonight!” Those who took their cues from Trump and the media who propagandized for him, and all Americans, will suffer for it.
Governments often fail. From Pearl Harbor to the financial crisis of 2008, you can itemize a long list of missed warnings and overlooked dangers that cost lives and inflicted hardship. But in the past, Americans could at least expect public spirit and civic concern from their presidents.
Trump has mouthed the slogan “America first,” but he has never acted on it. It has always been “Trump first.” His business first. His excuses first. His pathetic vanity first.
Trump has taken millions in payments from the Treasury. He has taken millions in payments from U.S. businesses and foreign governments. He has taken millions in payments from the Republican Party and his own inaugural committee. He has taken so much that does not belong to him, that was unethical and even illegal for him to take. But responsibility? No, he will not take that.
Yet responsibility falls upon Trump, whether he takes it or not. No matter how much he deflects and insults and snivels and whines, this American catastrophe is on his hands and on his head.
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DAVID FRUM is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Trumpocalypse: Restoring American Democracy (2020). In 2001 and 2002, he was a speechwriter for President George W. Bush.
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