#treat to democracy

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

enablers standing by

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 8, 2023

Heather Cox Richardson

Andrew Restuccia, Richard Rubin, and Stephanie Armour of the Wall Street Journal today published a preview of President Joe Biden’s budget, due to be released tomorrow. Their article’s beginning sent an important message. Biden’s budget plan, they wrote, will “save hundreds of billions of dollars by seeking to lower drug prices, raising some business taxes, cracking down on fraud and cutting spending he sees as wasteful, according to White House officials.” Those officials said that, over the next ten years, the plan would cut deficits by close to $3 trillion. Reflecting the needs of Ukraine to fight off the 2022 Russian invasion, as well as tensions with China, Biden will call for a larger defense budget. As he outlined yesterday, part of the budget plan will fund the Medicare trust fund for at least another 25 years, in part by increasing tax rates on people earning more than $400,000 a year. “That is not going to happen. Obviously he knows that,” Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) told the Wall Street Journal reporters. “Republicans are not going to sign up for raising taxes.” Without a budget plan of their own to offer, House Republicans appear to be trying to steal the president’s thunder. They told Tony Romm of the Washington Post that they are getting ready for the House Ways and Means Committee to begin consideration tomorrow of a bill to prioritize the national debt in preparation for a national default. House Republicans continue to insist they will not vote to raise the debt ceiling to pay for expenses already incurred—many of them under Trump—thus forcing the U.S. into default for the first time in our history. They are suggesting they could rank the debts in order of importance, but as Brian Riedl, an economist at the Manhattan Institute, told Romm, the computer systems were written with the assumption the country would, in fact, pay its debts, and they do not have programs that would let them prioritize payments to one group or another. In any case, the White House has refused to negotiate over paying the nation’s bills. It remains eager to discuss the budget with Republicans and to negotiate over it—which is how the process is supposed to proceed—but insists the Republicans cannot hold the nation hostage by threatening a default that would spark an international financial crisis and destroy the American economy. Indeed, the willingness of the Republican Party to default on the country’s debt shows how thoroughly radicalized it has become. Even the Republican leaders who do not embrace the racism, sexism, religiosity, nihilism, and authoritarianism of the hard-core MAGA Republicans appear to believe they cannot win an election without the votes of those people. And so the extremists now own the party. They continue to support former president Trump, who at the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend promised “those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.” The party is now one of grievance and revenge, feeding on their false conviction that Trump won the 2020 election. The Fox News Channel was key in feeding that Big Lie, of course, and filings from the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against the Fox News Network have revealed that Fox executives and hosts alike knew it was a lie. They continued to spread it because they didn’t want to lose their base. On Monday, Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson, who has found himself badly exposed by the Dominion filings, threw himself back into the Trump camp. He showed a false version of the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, suggesting it was a mostly peaceful tourist visit rather than the deadly riot it actually was. Carlson’s false narrative was possible because House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) gave Carlson exclusive access to more than 40,000 hours of video taken in the Capitol on that fateful January 6, illustrating that there is no daylight between the lies of the Fox News Channel and the House Republican leadership. Outrage over that transaction has sparked a backlash. Former officer of the Metropolitan Police Michael Fanone, who was badly injured defending the Capitol on January 6, published an op-ed at CNN saying he knew for certain that Carlson’s version of that day was a lie. “I was there. I saw it. I lived it,” Fanone wrote. “I fought alongside my brother and sister officers to defend the Capitol. We have the scars and injuries to prove it.” Former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) tweeted that if the House Republicans want new January 6th hearings, “bring it on. Let’s replay every witness & all the evidence from last year. But this time, those members who sought pardons and/or hid from subpoenas should sit on the dais so they can be confronted on live TV with the unassailable evidence.” Senate Republicans also spoke out against Carlson’s lies. Minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) aligned himself with Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger, who called Carlson’s piece “offensive.” McConnell said: “It was a mistake, in my view, for Fox News to depict this in a way that’s completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official here at the Capitol thinks.” Democrats, along with the White House, also condemned Carlson’s video. White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said the White House supported the Capitol Police and lawmakers from both parties who condemned “this false depiction of the unprecedented, violent attack on our Constitution and the rule of law—which cost police officers their lives.” Bates went on: “We also agree with what Fox News’s own attorneys and executives have now repeatedly stressed in multiple courts of law: That Tucker Carlson is not credible.” But McCarthy says he does not regret giving Carlson access to the tapes, and Carlson indicated that anyone who objected to the false narrative he put forward on Monday had revealed themselves as being allied against the Republican base. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) are organizing a visit for members of Congress to visit the jail where defendants charged with crimes relating to the January 6th riot are behind held. In the past, Greene called those defendants “political prisoners of war.” Today the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released the 2023 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community. It warned that transnational “Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists” (RMVEs) continue to pose a threat more lethal to U.S. persons and interests than do Islamist terrorists. RMVEs are “largely a decentralized movement of adherents to an ideology that espouses the use of violence to advance white supremacy, neo-Nazism, and other exclusionary cultural-nationalist beliefs. These actors increasingly seek to sow social divisions, support fascist-style governments, and attack government institutions,” the report said. They “capitalize on societal and political hyperpolarization to…mainstream their narratives and conspiracy theories into the public discourse.” They are recruiting “military members” to “help them organize cells for attacks against minorities or institutions that oppose their ideology.” Finally, John Bresnahan of Punchbowl News reported that 81-year-old Senator Mitch McConnell fell at an event at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington, D.C., tonight and has been hospitalized.

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Political cartoon #budget #finance #Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #Director of National Intelligence #treat to democracy #House Oversight Committee #anti-democratic #coup plotters #disinformation #FAUX news

[rochenn]

Getting Obi-Wan anywhere near the Dark Side challenge impossible. Local fanfic writer and Count Dooku are seething

#writing #jk it's definitely possible and we're getting there slow n steady but GODD this fucking Guy #i rly get when authors say that characters get a mind of their own #i hate him #obi wan #count dooku #listen. with enough time. and the right motives. and the Circumstances TM #he can become a little bit bad. as a treat. just a teeny tiny bit #the entanglements of a rotting democracy and the influence of a terrible grandmaster will do that to a mf

[satans-knitwear]

Some more demon gf for you to chew on while we wait for the goth gf look you guys voted for.... 💕

Treat me ~ Tip me

#We love democracy here!!!! #And since domme vibes was such a close 2nd...i might cross it over a bit for you 😘🖤 #Satans knitwear #Any tips or treats would be massively appreciated right now!! And would help me gather a few last minute bits to help with my OF launch 👀 #Your support and enthusiasm keeps me going 🥰💕 #Demon gf #Latex-look bodysuit #Horns #Lingerie bodysuit #cheeky #wlw

[chamerionwrites]

I am in fact deeply alarmed by the possibility of a second Trump term (and/or other similar cult of personality arising from the fascism petri dish of a society which the United States has concocted). Which is why I would like Democrats to spend more time governing as if they too are deeply alarmed by this possibility, instead of fulminating against Trump whilst lovingly cultivating the fascism petri dish

#‘the us middle classes can have a little bit of fascism. as a treat. because it’s popular and we can’t have them electing trump’ #aside from being morally bankrupt you CAN see how this is not a viable longterm strategy for preventing the collapse of democracy yes? #imperial violence always comes home #my posts

[picturejasper20]

"Democracy is a nice system on paper but on itself can be pretty flawed because it allows people who may not have the best interests for the rest of the population to be in a position of power" isn't a lesson that i expected to be tackled in Monster High of all series.

#monster high g3 #like democracy is treated as the best option but is don't get questioned much #which yeah it is important to teach

[soryualeksi]

People honest to fuck keep telling me "But Hamas WANTS this war/as many Palestinians to be killed as possible!"

And like.

??????

So we are now doing EXACTLY what we convinced ourselves some Evil Enemy Force is secretly or not so secretly wanting us to do - commit absolute atrocities and human rights violations en masse - because at least we're doing it for. what. To bring Peace and Democracy? Enlightened Western Values? Freedom from the Evil Enemy Force that DEMANDS we do exactly the brutality we're getting away with?????

What kind of logic system is this supposed to be???

"Every Muslim should come out and publicly Condemn Hamas, else they're basically Terrorists - oh but don't you see, Hamas WANTED us to bomb this NICU, they DEMANDED we leave these babies on ventilators to starve, suffocate and ROT surrounded by the things their now-also-dead parents brought them, HAMAS wants us to do all of this and so we obliged! All hail the Western Democracies and their endless pursuit of human rights and liberty!!!"

You lie to me that "we" are the bastion of humanity's human rights, but your definition of "human" doesn't include even NICU babies if they are inconvenient (and don't fall under your definition of "Western").

Fuck all of this.

"Hamas wants this, so that's what we should do. Oh but anyone criticising this bombing campaign in any way is Hamas AND A TERRORIST!!! MORE BOMBS!!!"

#fuck the entire system #i feel so so so so so so fucking stupid #germany is on the forefront of course in hopes of magically making the crime of the holocaust go away #by trying to pass it onto whoever is convenient #the conspiracy theory that ACTUALLY 'The Arabs' MADE nazi germany carry out the holocaust is spreading #insane shit just insane just absolutely bloodthirsty monstrous #no our grandparents and great grandparents and people who are still alive very much thought the holocaust was a good idea #you can't wash this from your family history by murdering Palestinian preemies now #for western democracy of course #despicable #german guilt #palestine genocide #'hamas made me do it!' you are a joke #but a dark and murderous one #all bombing of civilians always is bad and you will never convince me that one atrocity against humans gets justified by another #in 10 years time when crocodile tears roll and this is rightfully treated as a murder campaign against millions of people based on culture #i hope you'll be haunted by their shadow telling you 'you knew and you were complicit' #we are all complicit #favoured in the world order again that we made up by might is right #western supremacy bullshit #genocide

[leohtttbriar]

real "smart" people tend to like stories about the inevitable failures of institutions and contracts when actually those stories are boring and the real meat is in stories about actively constructing institutions and contracts and the necessities of their success.

#still thinking about ds9's inability to treat democracy with enough depth #and the whole 'these religious figures are REAL actually' of ds9's main made-up planet

[hauntedmoors]

person who reblogs posts mocking people who actually haven’t had sex or done drugs or firebombed a walmart also reblogging posts about how calls for palestinian freedom and the return of their land is naive:

#like. what’s going on is very transparent. #you find delight in making fun of people and pretending that people know nothing about Adulthood unless they’ve actually done the above #mentioned or whatever other thing tumblr acts weird about (re: going to clubs). why do you get cold feet when people say palestinians #deserve the right to self determination and the return of their land. what version of history do you live in where the colonised peoples #have ever been treated fairly. this is not the case even in most if not all democracies.

[hotmalewife]

Bro i hate how biden is just full mask off now like.im just like trump but im nice about it and wont call you a slur to ur face and ppl are still hopping on his dick like at least hes not trump people are sincerely delusional if you think he needs to be defended

#any critiscism of him is stil treated like um actual this is a psy op by x foreign government to undermine american democracy🤓 #like dude americans are undermining our own democracy fine by ourselves we dont need any help w that lol

[vaniloqu3nce]

Im sorry about my last ask 😓 it was wrong of me. Cotton candy is barely edible and its not good at all. You’re totally right. Here take this

I’m never wrong, except all the times that I am. You are forgiven for your terrible actions. Wanna start a cult with me around Other Mother? I got my wife in on it and now I’m going to propose her as an icon to the wlw council

ALSO omg i love these I BUY THEM LIKE EVERY OTHER WEEK NO JOKE HAHA

The kids love them, lolol. Especially the toddler. Actually he got some melted into my sheets last week that asshole what do i even do LAUNDRY FOR ☠️

#my asks #asks #me realizing i got 16+ years of this mom shit at least #meaning i have an excuse to go trick or treating for the next 16 years 😇 #thats right this is what moming is all about #THE TRICK OR TREAT HAUL BABY #MANDATORY TAX #THE CHILDREN DO NOT HAVE A DEMOCRACY!

[mangoisms]

soooooo i am wondering something. as we all know i was writing Another tim/reader fic and i finished it like. last week but i won’t be posting it until i finish posting i’ll be the dangerous ledge (you be the parachute) and the final chapter of that goes up july 14. i asked the folks on ao3 in todays end note if they’d like to see the summary and i’ve gotten like two yeses so far which i’m taking and running for next week’s chapter (whose end notes will include the summary) BUT

would you all like to see the summary for this new fic as well? except i would be posting the Actual masterlist and marking it as coming soon, since, as i said, i won’t be posting until july 14th, it’ll just be the summary and some links for the tags

so it’ll be like the masterlist for i’ll be the dangerous ledge (you be the parachute) except without links to read it. idk… thoughts????

(i hope this makes sense LMAO if it doesn’t feel free to ask questions here or my inbox </3)

(ALSO; any thoughts about tag lists??????)

#i… guess i’d also put it into the tag?????? idk abt that part 🤥 #if anyone wants to tell me no/yes regarding that please do #also if i do post it. there won’t be any links for the chapters BUT i will link the playlist. As a treat #moss does democracy

[sharkbait-huhaha]

waking up and remembering that the liberals r no longer in charge of nsw fills me with so much relief. like even tho idk all the ins and outs of politics, it feels like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. its insane

#auspol #fuck dom perrottet #im so excited for things to change #at my polling place yesterday there was a democracy snag and bake sale #i was so happy #i got a little treat #i also love elections #even tho im not super into politics i try to stay somewhat informed #catch me doing stim hands at my local public school cuz im so excited to vote

[albonium]

I've seen a lot of confusion regarding what's happening in France rn and thankfully he put it all together to explain it to people who aren't aware.

#ALSO THEY RE SAYING FUCK DEMOCRACY BY USING 49.3 #yes parliament members can still vote for the ''censorship'' of the government but it might not even do anything #seriously we're so done with being treated like this by macron and his buffoons #over so so SO MANY THINGS

[babylonbirdmeat]

When Tumblr gives me polls it's over for all of you

#hare.pdf #I don't know what I mean by that #Please give me the power of democracy #Maybe I'll actually give y'all a treat and let you vote on whether I keep making really bad posts

[anotherday-anothergay]

excited to share i finally had the villanelle is alive and well dream.

Season 5 was out and it was dark and she was in the same clothes as in the finale (a little dirty probably bc of the faking it thing) and talking to someone (maybe whoever puller her out of the water).

She's fine confirmed 🙂👍

#my brain said it was a bad week for democracy lets have a little support dream as a treat #killing eve #villanelle #killing eve spoilers #episode 9 #season 5 #villaneve #jodie comer #but have you guys read #an absolutely remarkable thing #👀 #finally joined the club #exciting

[newjenns]

should i go back to draculaura and the black/pink layout

#it would probably be a different icon but it would be hashtag Her again #i might allow some democracy as a treat