#young people HAVE to vote next november
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Ahead of the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, a liberal Gen-Z-led group has purchased a handful of domain names related to the top Republican primary candidates in an effort to extinguish support from young voters.
“Republicans are not investing in outreach to young people, and we know why,” Jessica Siles, deputy press secretary for Voters of Tomorrow, said in a statement to WIRED on Friday. “Their regressive, radical stances on abortion rights, guns, climate change, and other top issues are overwhelmingly unpopular with Gen Z. Since Trump and Haley won’t accurately inform young people of their views, we will.”
Voters for Tomorrow has bought up new domain names—GenZforTrump.org and GenZforHaley.org—in an effort to sway young voters in battleground states from backing Republicans in the 2024 election. The websites will redirect to another site, GenZvsFarRight.org, which the group says will outline how “out-of-touch” the GOP’s platform is with the needs of young voters. On the redirected site, the group outlines Trump and Haley’s records on the environment, LGBTQ+ rights, and gun safety, among other issues, without explicitly encouraging people to vote for Biden.
To reach them, the group is launching a digital ad campaign across Instagram and Snapchat, hoping to reach at least half a million users in battleground states where they say the youth vote could make a difference for Democrats. “Gen Z will determine our next president,” the ads say, as they ask users to visit the websites for more information on Trump and Haley. Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Arizona, and Florida are some of the states where these ads will run, and the group plans to spend as much as it takes to reach at least half a million voters, Jack Lobel, Voters of Tomorrow's 19-year-old national press secretary, told WIRED on Friday.
For nearly a decade, domain trolling, or the act of buying up URLs related to an opposing candidate and redirecting them to unfavorable information, has become a popular digital media tactic for campaigns. In 2015, Senator Ted Cruz and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina had domains related to their GOP presidential campaigns swiped up by trolls before they were able to grab them. CarlyFiorina.org, at one point, displayed 30,000 sad-faced emojis to represent the workers she laid off at HP. In 2020, the Biden campaign bought KeepAmericaGreat.com, the Trump campaign’s reelection slogan, attacking Trump’s handling of the pandemic.
“P.S., If the GOP candidates had invested in young voter outreach efforts like we are, maybe we wouldn’t have acquired these website domains in the first place,” stated Voters of Tomorrow’s press release.
It’s impossible to know whether these domain trolls have the power to sway voter sentiment. But Voters of Tomorrow thinks they do. “Trump is the greatest threat to our generation, and we’re going to continue to expand that belief in our generation throughout this project because the stakes of the 2024 election are unprecedented,” Lobel said.
In 2020, young people came out to vote in record numbers and arguably helped turn the election in Biden’s favor. But a recent poll from the Harvard Kennedy School has shown that the same demographic appears less likely to vote in 2024 than in the prior presidential election, declining from 57 percent to 49 percent. The poll reported that a plurality of these voters distrust Biden and Trump to act on critical issues like climate change, gun violence, and health care, which could dampen their desire to vote in this year’s election. Those same voters said Trump was the better choice to address the current crisis in Gaza over Biden by 5 percentage points.
These numbers could spell trouble for Biden and the Democrats come November. Around 41 million Gen-Z voters will be eligible to vote for the first time in 2024, according to Tufts University. Of those voters, more than 8 million of them will be first-time voters, and could play an outsize role in electing the next president.
“Young voters have historically been left out of the political process, and that changed with the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Young voters realized their power. And since then, we’ve been showing up in droves to shape elections,” Lobel told WIRED. “Going into 2024, we have to build on that power.”
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The Best News of Last Week - December 12, 2022
1. Big cats: US Senate unanimously passes bill to curb private ownership
A bill to restrict the private ownership of big cats like lions and tigers in the US has passed by unanimous consent in the Senate. The Big Cat Public Safety Act would stop people from keeping the animals as pets and from them being exposed to public petting and photo opportunities.
Efforts to curb private ownership have increased in the wake of the Netflix documentary series Tiger King.
The bill now needs to be signed into law by President Joe Biden.
2. New Mexico voted a child care guarantee into its constitution.
New Mexico in May became the first state to offer free child care to most of its residents. Now, after a November referendum, it’s also the first state to enshrine child care funding in its constitution, effectively making the service a universal right – and perhaps offering a model for how other states could serve their youngest residents and working parents.
3. Rare good news from the Amazon: Gigantic fish are thriving again
Thanks to sustainable fishing programs that combine education with strict rules and quotas, the pirarucu, one of the world's largest freshwater fish it's now making a comeback.
"The pirarucu population has recovered," says Ana Claudia Torres, who runs the sustainable fishing program for the Mamirauá Institute, which manages a vast nature reserve covering 4,300 square miles of jungle in northern Brazil.
4. Dog reunited with family 7 days after falling from cliff on Vancouver Island
A beloved pet that went missing in the Highlands area of Vancouver Island was found seven days later by an army of volunteers. Luna, was found desperately clinging to a narrow ledge on a cliff, and was reunited with her owner after a heroic rescue last month.
It's believed that Luna had chased an animal out of her yard and got lost, somehow falling off a cliff and landing on a two-foot wide ledge. She remained there, alone, as her owner and searchers frantically looked for her.
5. Iran Shutting Down Morality Police, Official Says, After Months of Protests
Iran has scrapped its morality police after more than two months of protests triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini following her arrest for allegedly violating the country's strict female dress code, local media said Sunday, citing a single Iranian official.
"Morality police have nothing to do with the judiciary and have been abolished," Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.
6. Condoms to be free for young people in France, Macron says
Young people in France will be able to get condoms free of charge from next year in an effort to reduce the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday.
"In pharmacies, condoms will be free for those aged 18 to 25 from January 1," Macron told reporters during an event about young people's health.
7. One-eared rescue dog Van Gogh paints his way into adoption
A former bait dog in a North Carolina dogfighting ring "paints" artwork for charity and is living his best life in Connecticut.
. . .
That’s it for this week. If you liked this post you can support this newsletter with a small kofi donation:
Buy me a coffee ❤️
Have a great week ahead :)
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Jayden Camarena, in Northern California, is contemplating blowing off the 2024 presidential election. Evan McKenzie, in battleground Wisconsin, is looking for any other candidate than the current front-runners. In Philadelphia, Pru Carmichael isn’t even convinced this race matters.
These young voters live in different cities, work different jobs and have varying political beliefs. But among the things they have in common: They voted for Joe Biden in 2020 — and now say the president can’t count on their support in 2024.
“I genuinely could not live with myself if I voted for someone who’s made the decisions that Biden has,” said McKenzie, a 23-year-old working at Starbucks and as a union organizer in Madison, Wisconsin. “I didn’t even feel great about" voting for Biden in 2020, he said.
The feeling helps illustrate why Biden’s ratings and support among young voters have dipped noticeably in recent polling. In November, NBC News’ latest national poll showed Biden locked in close competition with former President Donald Trump at the moment for voters ages 18-34, a sharp drop from the margins Biden enjoyed over Trump in the 2020 election, according to exit polling.
“We’ve been seeing this in our data and focus groups actually since May,” said Ashley Aylward, a senior researcher at the Democratic polling firm HIT Strategies. “And to me, it’s because the 2024 campaign season for Democrats hasn’t started yet.”
Polling a year out from an election is a snapshot in time, and Biden and his party have time to bring young voters back into the fold. But Aylward and others said it will take work.
“This is the alarm bell that we needed to make sure that not only the Biden campaign, but every other Democratic operative out there and all the campaigns down the ballot — state and local — actually invest in young people, because we know how much they can change the outcome,” Aylward said.
NBC News spoke with voters who responded to the poll, as well as other voters 18-34 who supported Biden in 2020, but who now say he hasn’t earned their vote for next year, to get a clearer picture of why they are unhappy with Biden and what they want to see him do to earn their support back.
“It’s so complicated, because it almost feels like if I were to give my vote for Biden, I will be showing the Democratic Party that what they are putting out is enough, which is the bare minimum in my opinion,” said Camarena, a 24-year-old living outside the Bay Area.
Voters cited a number of policy areas that disappointed them, including insufficient moves to address climate change and Biden’s inability to fully cancel student loan debt or codify Roe v. Wade, as the president deals with a closely divided Congress. However, Biden’s response to the Israel-Hamas war may be having the greatest effect on his relationship with this voter bloc.
The NBC News national poll, conducted more than a month after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, shows 70% of voters under 35 disapproving of Biden’s handling of the war.
McKenzie cast his first presidential ballot three years ago for Biden, when the Democratic candidate carried Wisconsin narrowly, in part thanks to young voters like McKenzie. He said he urged his friends to vote for Biden then, telling them, “You’ve got to do this.”
He now says he won’t be having those conversations this election cycle. He’s angry at the president for his handling of the Israel-Hamas war, and the threat of losing the White House to the Republican Party has done little to win over his vote.
“I want to show the Democratic Party as a young person that you still need to earn our vote and if you don’t, the consequences will be your career,” McKenzie said. “A Republican getting elected isn’t the end. It is the beginning of a much larger fight.”
Big promises unfulfilled
In 2020, Biden carried young voters by more than 20 points against Trump, but some of that support appears to have been tepid — and tied to enormous campaign promises from Biden that he has not been able to deliver as president of a closely divided nation.
“I mean, he made a lot of really big promises in his campaign and virtually none of them were followed through on,” said Austin Kapp, a 25-year-old living in Castle Rock, Colorado. “I mean, he could have codified Roe v. Wade, he could have stood up for the rights of people all over the country, he could have done a lot of things, but he didn’t.”
________________
While Biden and Democrats pushed to codify the protections of Roe at the federal level, congressional realities made legislative efforts impossible. A vote to codify Roe in May 2022 failed in the Senate, with Biden lashing out at Republicans afterward and urging voters to “elect more pro-choice senators this November, and return a pro-choice majority to the House.” Democrats kept the Senate but lost the House in November 2022.
Biden also backed a rules change to the Senate filibuster, which would have allowed legislation to pass by simple majority instead of a higher, 60-vote threshold, but the change was blocked in a bipartisan vote.
Biden wasn’t Kapp’s first choice as a candidate in the last election, and this year he plans to vote third party if the contest is a Biden-Trump rematch. He graduated from school just last spring carrying both private and federal student loans.
When asked how he felt about his loan repayments beginning soon, Kapp groaned: “Oh, yeah, that was another thing.”
“It’s kind of sad to see that the quote unquote lesser of two evils that we were all promised, is this,” Kapp said of Biden.
Camarena agrees. Though she is vehemently against Trump, she says she only supported Biden in 2020 reluctantly.
“It was more of a well, [Biden]’s better than Trump, you know?” she said.
Camarena’s feelings toward Biden now are worse. She works for CalFire and is passionate about addressing climate change. She says she was “turned off” when the Biden administration approved the controversial Willow oil drilling project in Alaska.
“It made me really angry,” she said. “He painted himself as, you know, trying to advance or improve climate change.”
When she talks to other voters her age about Biden, she says, the sentiment is similar and discouraging. “It feels like the best option that we have isn’t good enough,” Camarena said with a sigh, adding, “It can feel really powerless.”
Worried voters cite higher prices
Sentiments like these among a constituency Democrats rely on to win elections mean campaigning in 2024 will be critical, maybe even more so than in previous elections, said Daniel Cox, director of the Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute.
“I think on some level, you can say that the Biden-Harris team have not been as aggressively pitching their accomplishments to voters and maybe that they don’t feel like they’re in campaign mode yet,” he said. “You certainly see this with the economy, which the sort of macroeconomic indicators have been positive for quite a while and keep surprising analysts that things seem to be doing much better than folks thought they would.”
While the economy is performing stronger than when Biden first took office, Olivia Thompson, a 26-year-old mother in Elko, Nevada, says she doesn’t feel those improvements.
“Not even a little bit, and I’m living it firsthand,” Thompson said.
Her family of five lives paycheck to paycheck. She says Biden earned her vote last election based on promises for a more prosperous future.
“I was more excited about the fact that he was saying that he was gonna fix the economy and get everything back on track and then everything just skyrocketed,” she complained. “All of like our grocery bills and gas — it just never went back down.”
Thompson plans to vote for a third-party candidate in November.
Some of the economic anxiety voters have may be because they’re not hitting the same economic milestones that their parents did, said Aylward, the Democratic opinion researcher.
“I think it would do Biden wonders if he came out with a really, really clear plan for that to help these young people’s anxiety,” she said. Millennials and Generation Z voters "are seeing just how far out of reach buying a home is or saving money and, of course, student loans are really the first barrier and piece to that.”
Several voters said they supported Biden on the expectation he would tackle the student debt crisis. The administration successfully erased $127 billion in student debt — more than any president in history, but after the Supreme Court ruled against his original plans to cancel up to $400 billion in student debt, that failure became the lasting headline.
“Whether you like it or not, Biden has done a number of things, but young people are just far less likely to give him credit, good or bad, on anything that he’s done,” Cox said.
McKenzie, who graduated in the spring, said he remains unimpressed by the accomplishments of the administration.
“I’m glad it’s the most ever" canceled student debt, he said. "It’s still not even close to what was promised,” he added. “And I think that that’s sort of what I’m going into this campaign feeling, like broken promises all around.”
Combating that sentiment will be crucial to winning back support.
Cox said he thinks the Biden campaign "is in deep trouble at this stage.” He said, “There’s still plenty of time, but the trajectory is not good for him.”
Camarena is one voter leaving the door open for her mind to be changed.
“I think that there is a chance” of Biden winning back her support, she said, adding that she expects the president to call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.
“If he would do that, that would make me reconsider. Though, she said, she would "still be a bit skeptical.”
Another voter said it’s already too late.
Carmichael, of Philadelphia, hoped the Biden administration would remind her of the Obama days. She says she is disappointed by both Biden and Trump and wants to spend her time focusing on local community care and voting in local elections.
“I don’t think the presidency has too much of an effect on what happens in my day-to-day life,” she said.
Carmichael won’t be supporting Biden in November. If the choices next fall are Biden and Trump, she says, she will likely leave those boxes empty.
“I gave him one shot and it was not worth it,” she said.
#nunyas news#A lot of the complaints#in this article#are things the man has no control over#but I'm glad to see#voters saying this kind of thing#even if I don't think most have the spine#to not still vote for the same guy
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Taylor Swift managed to drive record-breaking numbers to voter registration website Vote.org after urging her 232 million followers on Instagram to take action.
On Tuesday (19 September), hours after the pop star, 32, called on her US fanbase to register to vote in honour of National Voter Registration Day, Vote.org’s communication director, Nick Morrow, announced that “our site was averaging 13,000 users every 30 minutes”.
“Fun fact: after @taylorswift13 posted on Instagram today directing her followers to register to vote on @votedotorg, our site was averaging 13,0000 users every 30 minutes,” Morrow wrote on X/Twitter.
“13! Let’s just say her reputation for being a mastermind is very well-earned.”
Earlier that day, the “Anti-Hero” singer had posted to her Story, asking followers: “Are you registered to vote yet?”
“I’ve been so lucky to see so many of you at my US shows recently,” she continued, referring to her ongoing Eras Tour, which wrapped up its first leg of North American dates in August.
“I’ve heard you raise your voices, and I know how powerful they are. Make sure you’re ready to use them in our elections this year!” Swift added, sharing a link to Vote.org.
“Today, on National Voter Registration Day, it’s vital that young voters, in particular, understand they have the power to shape their future,” said Andrea Hailey, CEO of Vote.org.
“Eight million young people will be newly eligible voters by Election Day 2024. And, the time is now to get ready for the elections taking place this fall and next year. Several states have elections in November of this year and many other states will have primaries in the first few months of 2024. That’s why this National Voter Registration Day is so important: we’re at the starting line of the next presidential election.”
Swift first broke her political silence in 2018 to endorse Democratic candidates and urge fans to vote. Her political outspokenness came after she had previously faced criticism for not engaging in major political moments in the US, such as the Black Lives Matter movement and the 2016 presidential election.
In a 2021 interview with Vanity Fair, she credited the Trump presidency with pushing her to publicly endorse the Democrats.
“As a country musician, I was always told it’s better to stay out of [politics],” Swift explained. “The Trump presidency forced me to lean in and educate myself. I found myself talking about government and the presidency and policy with my boyfriend [then actor Joe Alwyn], who supported me in speaking out.”
She added: “I started talking to my family and friends about politics and learning as much as I could about where I stand. I’m proud to have moved past fear and self-doubt, and to endorse and support leadership that moves us beyond this divisive, heartbreaking moment in time.”
#us politics#news#the independent#national voter registration day#music#celebrities#celebs#taylor swift#instagram#vote.org#elections#2024 elections#Nick Morrow#Andrea Hailey
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Notes on working with Parti Sosialis Malaysia
For the 15th General Election, Sharon and I spent two days volunteering with Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM), the Malaysian Socialist Party.
Rembau is the Parliamentary constituency bordering ours, and PSM was running a candidate: Tinagaran Subramaniam, better known as Cikgu Tina, a teacher and community organiser.
We handed out leaflets; waved flags; talked to folks over their front gates; drove in a convoy behind a SUV blaring Cikgu Tina's theme song---a popular Indian tune reworded into an urgent exhortation:
Negara maju rakyat masih miskin
Harga barangan melambung tinggi
Jaminan makanan tiada sini
Tanah petani yang sudah milik kroni
Alam negara sudah semakin pupus
Adanya polisi pro-kapitalis
Sudah bangkit alam mula melawan
Hujan angin ribut banjir rakyat matang
+++
Over the years, between us, Sharon and I have watched many election campaigns unfold: from PRM to PKR to PAS to DAP, from urban Kuala Lumpur to rural Kelantan, to seats in interior Sabah and Sarawak.
We found PSM's campaign in Rembau refreshing.
We had long conversations in the car ride home. Here are some notes / thoughts we formulated together:
1.
PSM are often seen as hopelessly naive. But the party is pretty clear-eyed?
They know that their focus on local and specific working-class issues hamstrings them. Cikgu Tina wore his "I'm not a politician!" badge proudly.
Virtually every political party pays platitudes to this "vote the candidate, not the party" idea---but PSM is the only one I know who genuinely means it? To their detriment.
And they know it. Under current conditions--first-past-the-post; the absence of local council elections, a whole one-third of our democracy---they have little hope at winning. Voters aren't stupid. Without elections at the local level, everything is about Putrajaya, and voting over Putrajaya means voting big party flags over human candidates.
BUT: I think this grass-roots focus can make them pretty influential during state elections. (And they'd kill in local-council elections, obvs.)
2.
So why did PSM run a campaign? Got the sense that they were capacity building.
The local PSM chapter building muscle. Practicing machinery. Putting issues on national media---speaking up about climate change and land rights; flying the red-fist flag locally. People used the phrase "tak kenal maka tak cinta" often.
On election night, addressing his bilik gerakan, Cikgu Tina said:
"Menang atau kalah, jangan sesiapa di sini sedih. Kali ini first trial. Kalau kita buat banyak kerja, mungkin next election kita boleh."
The campaign's postmortem will be a general meeting open to everybody who volunteered. (A typical party's strategy meeting would be close-door, and party-leadership only.)
3.
PSM has a different relationship to time, compared to other political parties.
Felt like the Rembau campaign was part of their schedule. IE: "October, we have to organise some farmers; November, election campaign; December, got to pursue the hospital cleaners' union case; Jan, we have to ..." Etc.
In that sense, this general election is the continuation of a consistent long-term struggle, for the party? This felt pretty special.
Every other bilik gerakan I've volunteered for, in every other election campaign, you feel a palpable apocalyptic urgency---OMG how many friends can you call to come volunteer??? What are our strategies what are our strategies???
INI KALI LAH LAST CHANCE THINGS ARE ALL OR NOTHING OKAY!!!
PSM's Rembau campaign had a full schedule every day. They followed their schedule, worked steadily---and they rested during rest hours. Workers in for the long haul. Long-distance runners.
4.
Seeing how the General Election has panned out, with a hung Parliament; Perikatan Nasional's surge signalling mass support by young / new voters for religious and racialised conservatism?
I think PSM's core politics offer a lot that the progressive Pakatan Harapan coalition sorely lacks.
You are never gonna out-Islam the Islamic Party. (And you shouldn't want to???) But young people are struggling, and turning to religion and racial rights for a reason, and maybe if you address those reasons you can wrestle away some people PAS is currently hogging.
PSM does real work in economic justice areas: minimum wage, housing rights, workplace rights. Bread and butter stuff, done right.
Their focus on community organising is powerful for its social-cohesion potential, also? Folk need a sense of belonging, camaraderie. Unions offer a sense of community, much like mosques do?
(PH does economic issues in a way designed to appeal to the upwardly mobile / aspiring-towards-comfort brackets, and those people already vote PH.)
5.
More about radical, progressive community:
This was the only bilik gerakan I've been in where women were never pandered to, at any level. Just the vibe of dudes -- working class, older dudes -- listening to women team leaders in ways I've not seen anywhere else?
And I think queer folks would've been comfortable, too? (PSM has been vocal for its support of the LGBTIQ community; many younger members are openly queer.)
A lack of managerial class. There were party veterans present---old hands you've seen for decades in protests and in news reports; the closest PSM has to strongmen. In our days there, they functioned mainly as steady points of reference, reminding eager younger members that the Rembau folks where ultimately in charge:
"bincang dulu dgn lokal machinery pls"
It's a vibe---but it's strong.
A similar vibe thing: every general / working conversation was in BM by default, even if they spoke Tamil / English / Chinese to their own kakis on the side. Sharon felt like it was the only environment she's been in where she was comfortable speaking Bahasa, because the chances of being language-shamed was nil.
People were universally addressed as: "saudari" or "saudara".
And, more rarely, but very deliciously, as: "komrad".
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I posted 20,711 times in 2022
That's 4,708 more posts than 2021!
17,500 posts created (84%)
3,211 posts reblogged (16%)
Blogs I reblogged the most:
@corndogsonmainst
@crowbone
@misforgotten2
@bitter1stuff
I tagged 1,097 of my posts in 2022
#0 - 24 posts
#1 - 23 posts
#70s childhood - 312 posts
#youtube - 261 posts
#70s - 198 posts
#1970s - 197 posts
#idle chat - 114 posts
#vegas - 94 posts
#iconic - 29 posts
#spotify - 20 posts
Longest Tag: 135 characters
#my mom and i had frantic cooking fun in the kitchen at t-giving😺🍏🍎🍇🍅🥑🥦🥬🥒🫑🌽🫒🧄🧅🥔🍠🍞🥖🧀🥚🧈🍗🥗🥘🫕🥧☕️🍻🥂🍷🥃🍸🍾🍴🍽🧂
My Top Posts in 2022:
#5
Wow, Conservatives are really, really unhappy about the youth vote. Even seeing evidence over here on tumblr of them moaning about it. It is fascinating. They truly do not understand why young people don’t want their lives to be controlled by them. They cannot imagine any way of life other than theirs being acceptable. They refuse to look in the mirror and see what they have created and why Americans are rejecting Christo-Fascism/White American Folk Religion. They are stuck in their bubble of righteous anger and cannot see outside.
NOTE: I am not implying Carter is a conservative. This image was next in my queue. It was election-related. I did not mean to start a whole thing.
1,660 notes - Posted November 10, 2022
#4
See the full post
2,467 notes - Posted June 28, 2022
#3
Excuse me, Women of America that are too apathetic to vote… Hello, Women of America that demand “the perfect left wing candidate and will vote for nothing less”, I have news for you…
They will not be satisfied until you are chained to a bed giving birth against your will.
OR
They can execute you for getting a back alley abortion.
You, American Woman, are not human to them. You are chattel. They believe that you are a farm animal. How far will YOU ALLOW them take it?
2,710 notes - Posted March 25, 2022
#2
I have no words today.
3,131 notes - Posted June 24, 2022
My #1 post of 2022
Hey 18 - 29 year olds,
THANK YOU! You made a difference. You may not see the overwhelming, immediate, desirable results. Please do not be discouraged. But you stopped more really horrible things from happening. Times are hard. So many people are struggling. But you showed up! Please keep showing up. Please become leaders. Please keep voting in EVERY ELECTION. You are a huge generation full of love, light, equality, and determination to see justice for marginalized people. Use your voices, lead, and VOTE😺💗🌸
38,474 notes - Posted November 9, 2022
Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →
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Miraculous AU - Chapter 29 - Poltics
Beginning || Previous || Next
Chloe stepped into Andre’s office. “You wanted to see me, Daddy?”
Andre nodded and motioned to a chair in front of his desk. “Yes. How was your day? I heard there was a dragon attacking the city.”
Chloe took a seat. Pollen flew down and rested on Chloe’s shoulder. “If you call it that. From what Alix said, it only destroyed the top of a building.”
“Alix… Kubdel? One of your classmates, right?”
“That’s the one. She was also the one that kept the boy from turning Paris into his own kingdom, whatever that would have been. Sparta kicked him from the top of Notre Dame Cathedral, twice.”
Andre grimaced. “Truly a… firebrand, that one. However, I’m glad you and the other heroes are keeping our city safe. Actually, I had an idea. One I’m rather proud of.”
“Let’s hear it, Daddy!”
“With the mayoral elections this year, I’ve been thinking of my campaign to secure the votes. With the recent attacks, I’ve been thinking about the benefits of being publicly aligned with the defenders of Paris. So, with the little gala we were planning, what if we used that opportunity to show our support of the heroes? I know we are already working alongside you guys, but something more of a public display.”
“I like it. We could have all the heroes attend and be the guests of honor. Wait. What if we turned it into a fundraising event? Not for your campaign, but for the city should the worse happen. Like, emergency funds to ensure the people’s security.”
“We could do that. What do we think about moving the gala to mid-November? It’s a little earlier than we initially planned, but the sooner the better, no?”
“Did something happen?”
Andre scratched the back of his hand. “Yes. One of my rivals, Veronique Sancoeur, is gaining traction faster than anticipated. According to my sources, she’s gained funding from a mysterious benefactor that is the backbone of her new campaign. The only thing that really keeps her from getting too far ahead is her reluctance to speak on the attacks and her own plans on the matter.”
“I see. Does her benefactor concern you?”
Andre nodded. “Something doesn’t feel right. So much is happening all at once.”
“What else happened?”
Andre sighed. “I’ll need to tell you anyway. Chloe, my dear, I apologize for this, but Audrey will be arriving in Paris in a few weeks.”
“What?” Chloe yelled.
“Yes. I had received word from Gabriel that he’s invited her and wants her staying in the hotel.”
“But why?”
“From what little he told me, he has an exclusive fashion line he plans to debut in January that he intends to have Audrey cover for her magazine.”
“I don’t understand. I thought his newest one was supposed to release in a few days?”
“A different one. I don’t know what he’s planning, but we need to proceed with caution. I fear that Gabriel may be linked to this someway, somehow.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Gabriel is a mysterious man, and a dangerous one. His pockets run deep as does his influence. He’s been quiet on the matter of the monsters and heroes, same as Veronique. I fear there is a connection.”
“I see. Is there anything else?”
“Yes. When Audrey comes, if you wish for different accommodations, or staying with a friend, I will arrange it. Especially with… Zoe.”
“Who’s Zoe?”
“Audrey’s second daughter.”
“What? Second daughter?” Chloe shrieked.
Andre nodded. “Gabriel made it clear that the young girl would be accompanying Audrey. I’m not sure why, but that’s where it stands.”
“What about you? Where will you be staying?”
“I’ll be at the house. It’s a ways away from everything, but I don’t trust staying at the hotel while Audrey and her child are staying. Especially with the everything going on. If you wish to stay out there with me, you’re more than welcome. I wasn’t sure if you wanted to stay closer to the city in case you’re needed to be Queen Bee.”
“I probably would stay in the city. I will see if I can stay with Sabrina during that time. I’ll actually be hanging out with her after this.”
Andre held out his hand. “Chloe, come here.”
Chloe stood and took his hand. “I’m sorry you have to endure this. It’s not fair to you, but I ask that if you need anything, please come to me. I know you’re not alone and that you’re becoming an adult, but I want to be there for you. Ok?”
Chloe nodded.
Andre turned to Pollen. “Continue to watch over her when I can’t. I’m counting on you to keep my little girl safe.”
Pollen placed a hand on Andre’s. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to our little girl.”
Chloe smiled. “Thank you. Both of you.”
“We are family. Family should always be there for each other,” Pollen said.
“Agreed.”
“Is there anything else you need, Daddy?”
Andre shook his head. “Go have fun, Chloe. I’ll handle the boring stuff. We can work on the new arrangements later.”
Chloe smiled. She moved around Andre’s desk and hugged him. “Be careful.”
Andre hugged Chloe back. “You too.”
~~
Veronique sat at her desk. She worked on her campaign when an email came through. She pulled up her tablet and looked. She smiled when she saw it was from her benefactor. She frowned when she read that Andre had changed the date to mid-November and the event into a charity event. In the bottom of the email was an attachment. She opened it and saw the official invitation that detailed that the heroes of Paris would be guests of honor.
Veronique smirked and got up. She left her office and went to an adjacent office. She knocked and entered. Her mother, Manette, looked up from her documents as she entered.
“What is it, Veronique?”
“Have you gotten the news, Mother?”
“Which news?”
“The current mayor is throwing a fundraising gala in about two months. He’s even going to have the little heroes attend it.”
Manette put her documents down. “The animal ones?”
“Oh yes. Would you like to see, Mother?”
“You have pictures?”
“Of course. My benefactor sent them to me.”
“If you must.”
“Come now, Mother. Surely you should see them. You’ll be going, won’t you?”
“Just show me the damn pictures.”
Veronique rolled her eyes. “Here. I’m going to check on dinner.”
Manette took the tablet. She watched as Veronique left, then looked at the tablet. She adjusted her glasses and examined the heroes.
The first was a girl with black hair that shone blue dressed in a ladybug patterned, Chinese inspired dress with a split up the middle. The girl was always smiling in every image. She carried a certain bubbly, kind demeanor with a certain light to her. Most of the images were of the girl were with a cat boy.
Manette moved to the second, the cat boy. A young man with messy blonde hair in a black and green catsuit. Each photo of the boy on his own, he struck a pose. Each one practiced and perfect, almost as if he was a model. None of them felt genuine, like it was an act. A perfect image to sell something. She reconsidered if he was a model, to he was a model. At least an aspiring one if anything.
Next was a dark-skinned girl in wolf-themed spandex with wild, white curly hair with black tips. This one included images of her civilian form, with the only different being the hair. Manette noted the scars on this girl’s face. There were a few small ones, but the most notable was a long one across her face. It would have slashed her eyes if not for the mask. This one seemed dangerous, ready to jump into any situation. Manette admired that.
Manette opened the images of the one she knew: Queen Bee. The Mayor’s daughter had made no secret of who she was. She skipped over that to a ballerina bunny girl with a mouse-themed punk girl. There were no images of them alone, always together. A knife cut through Manette’s heart as she looked through the images of the young ladies. The joy they clearly displayed in each other’s company cut deep. They didn’t care who saw. All that mattered was their love.
Manette exited out of that collection and onto the next. The images were few and most blurred. The few that weren’t blurry were of the girl’s civilian form. Manette curled her lip at the ghastly, unkempt manor of the girl. The massive holes in her jeans, the exposed belly, and offensive language across her shirt. The very picture of trouble.
Manette shook her head and moved onto the last collection. It had fewer images than the delinquent, but they caught her eye all the more. A woman with blue skin and blue hair dressed in a dress with a long peacock tail. There weren’t any decent images of the woman’s face, except for one. Caught as the woman unfolded a peacock feather fan. Just enough of her face shown. Enough to know.
Manette covered her mouth and put the tablet down. She fought back tears as she opened her desk drawer. She opened the secret compartment to an old family photo. Her with her husband and two girls, Nathalie and Veronique. Guilt and regret tore her apart as she looked at Nathalie’s face. She gulped and held it up to the peacock woman. A tear fell from her eye when it all clicked.
“I don’t believe it. Nearly two decades and there you are.”
A knock at Manette’s door. She put the photo away and shut the drawer. She looked up as Veronique walked in.
“Dinner is almost ready.”
“Good. I’ll done down shortly.”
Veronique approached the desk and took the tablet. “So, what’d you think?”
“An interesting group, but that peacock one is a compelling one.”
Veronique rolled her eyes. “She looks like a little harlot.”
“Don’t be daft, girl. The kids are loose and free with their appearances, but not that one. She knows she’s being watched at all times and is keeping herself hidden. You can see it. If your benefactor is so interested in those people, he needs to be careful of the peacock woman.”
Veronique smiled. “I’ll make sure to let him know that. Thank you, Mother. I’ll see you downstairs.”
Manette watched Veronique leave. She hummed and took out a blank paper. She knew where Nathalie was. She could finally reach out after all these years. She just needed to find Nathalie personally. If not Nathalie, then one of the kids. She had waited two decades for this opportunity, and she wasn’t going to let it slip by.
#miraculous#miraculous ladybug#miraculoustalesofladybugandcatnoir#au#miraculous au#alternate universe#mlb fanfic#fanfiction writer#fanfiction#fanfic#mlb chloe#chloe bourgeois#miraculous chloe#nathalie sancoeur
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On Thursday, his opponents say, Mr. Sogavare validated their fears: He pushed through Parliament a constitutional amendment that delayed next year’s national elections until 2024. That means he will face voters at what could be a more advantageous time for him, after the Solomon Islands hosts the Pacific Games, an international sporting event to be held in a complex that China is building.
“The bill does not in any way inhibit or prohibit the right to vote,” Mr. Sogavare said as he opened debate in Parliament with a speech that portrayed the postponement as a minor issue. He added that his government continued to “uphold the principles of democracy and uphold national interests.”
Mr. Sogavare, whose coalition government has a clear majority in Parliament, had been [talking about] the delay for months, claiming that the country could not afford to hold both the vote and the Pacific Games in the same year.
Opposition leaders argued that the Solomon Islands could and should do both. Australia’s foreign minister said this week that her government had offered to pay for the elections to be held as scheduled, expanding on similar assistance that Australia had offered in the past.
“The government is saying it’s a one-off to accommodate the Games, but many of us look at that as an excuse,” Peter Kenilorea Jr., the deputy opposition leader, said in an interview. “It’s directly linked to China’s influence, and trying to keep certain people in power.”[...]
Mr. Sogavare has served as prime minister three times before, never [finished] a term.[...]
Delaying the election, his critics argue, is political opportunism: He hopes to win over the public with a sports spectacular, while also giving his coalition more time to line up deals with the Chinese government and Chinese companies, with all the infrastructure, resource extraction and influx of money that could entail.
“He thinks he’s saving the Solomon Islands,” said Archbishop Chris Cardone, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in the island nation, an American from Long Island who has spent 32 years in the country. But, he added, “the prime minister is really acting like a dictator in the model of Xi.”
Mr. Sogavare has begun to resemble Xi Jinping, China’s leader, in other ways. He has become noticeably less tolerant of questions, and quicker to see enemies all around.
In Parliament on Thursday, he said he was “extremely disappointed” by Australia’s disclosure about the offer of electoral aid, which he called “an attempt to directly interfere into our domestic affairs.”[...]
Since gaining independence from Britain in the wake of World War II, the Solomon Islands has been repeatedly shaken by violence, in ways that still shape the present.
Ethnic and regional tensions exploded in 1998, with rebels on the main island, Guadalcanal — where the capital, Honiara, is situated — fighting to overthrow the dominant minority from the province of Malaita. As the unrest continued, a prime minister from Malaita was deposed in 2000 — and succeeded by Mr. Sogavare.
Many Malaitans have never forgiven him for playing an instrumental role in toppling a prime minister they respected. And, after seeing him cozy up to Chinese Communists — who have always been eyed warily in a country that is deeply Christian, without a separation of church and state — their anger has intensified. Malaitans were among the leaders of antigovernment protests in November that led to the torching of 65 buildings, including most of Honiara’s Chinatown.
Many islanders now worry that the postponement of the election, to no later than April 2024, will exacerbate the unresolved tensions.
“Some people want change, they want new leaders,” said Phillip Subu, president of the Malaita Youth Council, a group that works with young people in the island province. “They don’t want to wait.”
In Parliament on Thursday, these issues played out in tones both high-minded and accusatory, especially among Malaitan ministers on opposite sides of the debate.
Matthew Wale, the opposition leader, whose mother is Malaitan, called the bill “a hijacking of the people’s right to exercise their vote.” John Dean Kuku, the leader of the independent group in Parliament, said it would “bring us injury with no cure.”
Mr. Sogavare’s allies focused on the benefits they said the Pacific Games would bring, including dormitories that would later be used by local schools. Some of them attacked the news media and, echoing authoritarian governments elsewhere, accused the opposition of catering to nefarious “foreign elements,” like Australia and the United States.
“Shame on you,” said Bradley Tovosia, the mining minister, who often works closely with Chinese officials, shouting at the opposition. “You talk to people you’re not representing.”[...]
“It’s very much dictatorial,” Mr. Kenilorea said. “A vote delayed is a vote denied.”
8 Sep 22
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I really hope that Democrats in Congress realize that they are losing votes right now. A huge number of young people are not buying the pro Israel propaganda. The tactics they are using would have worked 10-20 years ago but now it’s not working. Biden also needs to open his eyes to the fact that this might be what costs him the election, before this he was going to have a much easier time being re-elected. It’s going to be close regardless but this is not helping at all. There are many groups that will either skip the election next year or not check off a box in the president category. I don’t think anyone in the dem party was prepared for this type of response and what their response will mean come November next year.
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Second Govan native today, the songwriter Bill Martin was born on November 9th 1938 in Glasgow.
Bill Martin really should be more well known, he penned some cracking songs, along with his songwriting partner Phil Coulter including Shang-a-lang, Puppet on a String and Congratulations, he also co-penned Egland’s World Cup Song for 1970, Back Home, but we’ll forgive him for that!
Born William Macpherson, the son of Letty (nee Wylie) and Ian Macpherson, in the dockside district of Glasgow, where his father worked in the shipyard. Like most folk back then his parents liked to socialise, and his father would entertain on accordion or piano, but at Govan high school their son was more interested in history and geography than music, Bill’s school mate became quite famous in his own right, a guy call Alex Ferguson.
After leaving school at 15, he worked in the shipyard himself, and then trained as a marine engineer. It was on a night shift doing that job, while listening to Bobby Darin’s Dream Lover playing on the radio, that he first seriously considered the idea of composing music. “The lyrics were tight and modern,” he said. “This was my kind of rock music and I felt then that I could make it as a songwriter.”
Martin did not take an immediate change in direction, however. Having married Margaret (Mag) Howe in 1960, he accepted a post as an engineer in South Africa, where, shortly after his arrival, he witnessed the Sharpsville Massacre watching from the safety of a tree as police fired on a crowd of anti-apartheid protestors, killing 69 people.
When he and Mag returned to the UK in 1962, Martin tried to interest Denmark Street publishers in songs that he had written while he was away. The music publisher Cyril Gee told him to change his name, suggesting that that any combination of 10 letters was lucky for songwriters – and so in early 1963 he became known as Bill Martin.
While writing songs for Dublin pop group the Bachelors, he befriended Northern Irishman Phil Coulter, their young arranger. Martin suggested the two of them write together, and their first success was Hi! Hi! Hazel, for Geno Washington & The Ram Jam Band in 1966.
When Sandie Shaw was chosen to represent the UK in Vienna in 1967, Martin and Coulter were determined to write the winning song, and write it they did, Puppet on a String was a massive hit for her, but Shaw was not keen on entering the contest, there were five songs written for her, Puppet on a String was her least favourite, just shows you eh! Martin and Coulter had number one’s in every country in the world
Next year the duo were back with another great tune and they felt confident of repeating their success with a new composition, Congratulations. Although their composition lost out to Spain by one vote, Martin said later: “While it was embarrassing to come second to such a poor song as La,la,la really we won, because nobody plays La La La today and Congratulations is everywhere.” The Spanish entry disappeared without trace, but the runner-up got to No 1 in the UK singles chart, was a hit throughout the rest of Europe and remains played at weddings and the like today!
Martin and Coulter went on to write some of the biggest hits of the 70’s for the likes of The Bay City Rollers, Kenny and one of my fave songs by Slik, Forever and Ever, with Midge Ure on lead vocals.
There were three No. 1 hits in the US for the songwriters My Boy, by Elvis probably the most well known, although the pair adapted it from a French song.
Eventually, in 1983, he broke up his partnership with Coulter. The same year he also fell out with the entrepreneur Eddie Healey over the financing of a West End musical, Jukebox. His ambition to write his own hit musical was never realised; he came close with a proposed stage version of the 1979 film The Water Babies, which he had scored with Coulter, but the logistics of having a large water tank on stage were too great.
He and Mag divorced in 1970, after which he bought John Lennon’s former home, Kenwood, in Weybridge, Surrey, and moved in with Jan Olley, whom he married in 1972.
Sadly, just like my last post about Johnny Beattie, we also lost Bill Martin on March 26th 2020.
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(JTA) — The Dutch elections in November sent shockwaves through Europe, as voters delivered victory to Geert Wilders, a hard-right populist known for crusading against Islam, immigrants and the European Union — along with professing support for Israel.
But for some Dutch Jews, who have watched an atmosphere of fear and antisemitism grow since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, the results were less surprising.
Wilders’s Party for Freedom (PVV) beat all predictions on Nov. 22, winning 37 of the 150 seats in parliament (or 23.6% of the vote) and far outstripping the second place Labor-Green alliance. After decades on the political fringe, Wilders has begun negotiating to form a government with himself as the next prime minister of the Netherlands.
The firebrand politician, whose “Netherlands first” rhetoric and blond-dyed bouffant hair earned him comparisons to Donald Trump, has long made anti-Islam policies a centerpiece of his agenda. Along with demanding a halt to the country’s “asylum tsunami,” he has called for a ban on Islamic schools, Qurans and mosques. A court found him guilty on insult charges after he led supporters in a chant for “fewer” Moroccans in the Netherlands at a 2016 campaign rally. In 2009, he was refused entry to the United Kingdom on the way to screen his film “Fitna,” which associated the Quran with terrorism and sparked international protests.
Following 13 years of a center-right government under former Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Wilders’ victory was broadly called one of the country’s “biggest political upsets” since World War II. His party’s surge came very late in the campaign, and Wilders himself didn’t seem to expect the result, reportedly renting a room as party headquarters for election night only three days beforehand.
That timing corresponds with weeks of public outcry over Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which has sometimes morphed into aggression against Dutch Jews, according to Esther Voet, editor-in-chief of the Nieuw Israelietisch Weekblad (known in English as the Dutch Jewish Weekly).
“A few weeks ago, he only had between 13 and 17 seats,” Voet told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “This started a few weeks ago — since we’ve seen all the aggression in the streets — that he rose so much in the polls.”
Voet believes that Wilders benefited from a swell of open prejudice against Jews in the Netherlands. One watchdog documented an 818% increase in antisemitic incidents in October, ranging from assaults in schools to the tearing down of mezuzahs to swastikas painted on Jewish homes. Voet said some Jewish voters believed they would be protected by Wilders, who has touted his support for Israel as the Netherlands’ “close friend” and condemned antisemitism since Oct. 7.
Dutch Jews have historically opposed right-wing populist parties, but some shifted their views on Wilders sharply in recent weeks, said Voet. A Dutch Jewish Weekly poll in 2017 found that Jews were less open to voting for Wilders than the broader Dutch public was, with 10% of respondents expressing support for PVV compared with 15% of the public in general opinion polls. The most popular party among Jews was Rutte’s then-ruling People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, followed by the center-left Labor Party.
“I have a lot of Jewish friends who are on the left side of the political spectrum, who voted for PVV because of what they saw in the last weeks,” said Voet.
Although he is not Jewish, Wilders volunteered on an Israeli kibbutz as a young man and is married to a Hungarian-Jewish former diplomat. He has also advocated for Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and suggested that all Palestinians should be relocated to Jordan.
Some Jewish organizations, including the Jewish news website Joods.nl, celebrated Wilders’ win as a victory for both Israel and Dutch Jews. On election day, the outlet posted a “Mazel tov” to Wilders alongside an Instagram post that read, “Hamas lost the elections.”
Lievnath Faber is the founder of Oy Vey, a progressive Jewish group that hosts events and discussions in Amsterdam. As antisemitic attacks surged in recent weeks, her colleague set up a WhatsApp “buddy system” for Jews across Amsterdam to check on each other and provide support.
“People are really needing to be together,” she told JTA. “For a lot of people, it’s very lonely to be Jewish now.”
However, Faber believes that Jews who voted for Wilders’ party were naively missguided by their “legitimate fears.”
“No matter what a politician might say — he might say he loves Jews and wants to protect Jews — we all know from our history, from our DNA that we are at risk when there is an extreme-right, anti-constitutional leader,” Faber said.
Jews constitute a small minority of about 30,000 people in the Dutch population of 17.7 million. Other voters who won Wilders the election say they were attracted by his promises to bring down taxes, healthcare and the cost of living. Some felt neglected by their government and resentful of migrants being granted homes amid the country’s housing crisis, according to Voet. Wilders also toned down his anti-Islam rhetoric during the campaign, although his manifesto still contains proposals to ban Qurans, mosques and Muslim headscarves.
Faber believes that Wilders’ victory has granted permission to a current of racism and xenophobia that abides in Dutch society — one that targets Muslims now, but might turn against Jews.
“If somebody in a public office voices things that are very racist, of course it also motivates other people to feel more comfortable doing that,” she said. “That’s one of the things that is scary about this win — what does it allow in the society?”
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Who is the worst?
Round 1: James McHenry vs Benedict Arnold
James McHenry (November 16, 1753 – May 3, 1816) was a Scotch-Irish American military surgeon, statesman, and a Founding Father of the United States. McHenry was a signer of the United States Constitution from Maryland, initiated the recommendation for Congress to form the Navy, and was the eponym of Fort McHenry. He represented Maryland in the Continental Congress. He was a delegate to the Maryland State Convention of 1788, to vote whether Maryland should ratify the proposed Constitution of the United States. He served as United States Secretary of War from 1796 to 1800, bridging the administrations of George Washington and John Adams.
Adams gradually found that three members of the cabinet repeatedly opposed him: [Secretary of War] McHenry, Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, and Treasury Secretary Oliver Wolcott Jr. They appeared to listen more to Alexander Hamilton than to the president and publicly disagreed with Adams about his foreign policy, particularly with regard to France. Instead of resigning, they stayed in office to work against his official policy.
Although many liked McHenry personally, Washington, Hamilton, and Wolcott were said to have complained of his incompetence as an administrator.
During the election of 1800, McHenry goaded Hamilton into releasing his indictment against the president, which questioned Adams's loyalty and patriotism, sparking public quarrels over the major candidates and eventually paving the way for Thomas Jefferson to be elected as the next president. The pamphlet leaked past its intended audience, giving the people reason to oppose the Federalists, since that group seemed to be dividing into bitter factions.
Benedict Arnold (14 January 1741 [O.S. 3 January 1740] – June 14, 1801) was an American-born military officer who served during the Revolutionary War. He fought with distinction for the American Continental Army and rose to the rank of major general before defecting to the British side of the conflict in 1780. General George Washington had given him his fullest trust and had placed him in command of West Point in New York. Arnold was planning to surrender the fort there to British forces, but the plot was discovered in September 1780, whereupon he fled to the British lines. In the later part of the conflict, Arnold was commissioned as a brigadier general in the British Army, and placed in command of the American Legion. He led the British army in battle against the soldiers whom he had once commanded, after which his name became, and has remained, synonymous with treason and betrayal in the United States.
Historians have identified many possible factors contributing to Arnold's treason, while some debate their relative importance. According to W. D. Wetherell, he was:
[A]mong the hardest human beings to understand in American history. Did he become a traitor because of all the injustice he suffered, real and imagined, at the hands of the Continental Congress and his jealous fellow generals? Because of the constant agony of two battlefield wounds in an already gout-ridden leg? From psychological wounds received in his Connecticut childhood when his alcoholic father squandered the family's fortunes? Or was it a kind of extreme midlife crisis, swerving from radical political beliefs to reactionary ones, a change accelerated by his marriage to the very young, very pretty, very Tory Peggy Shippen?
#worst founding father#founding fathers bracket#founding fathers#amrev#brackets#james mchenry#benedict arnold
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HEY
Okay, I am shouting into the void again, probably, but if I just reach ONE of you I will consider my job done.
USians: Please vote this November. We NEED the kind of people who are on Tumblr to be informed, engaged citizens. Please don't check out. I won't rehash my arguments for voting. But things aren't looking great, people are checking out, TikTok is misinforming young people, people are exhausted and miserable from crisis after crisis.
My therapist said her clients who are tuned into politics and are informed are all very worried about people checking out in general, not trying to educate themselves, the little flame of educated democracy NEEDS PROTECTING. Things WILL NOT GET BETTER if you check out. The Biden administration is achieving some real harm reduction on climate change. We can have more, better things if we stay engaged and keep fighting. I KNOW IT IS HARD! But we can do hard things. I believe in you.
Make a plan to vote. NOW! For those of you who have trouble doing things without a deadline staring you in the face, please like, make a deal with a friend to nag you about it, make a bet of $5 that you won't have a voting plan by next Friday, I don't know, whatever you've gotta do. Get your necessary ID NOW. Find your polling place NOW. Figure out what needs to happen with your work schedule, child care, feeding yourself, meds, whatever on the day you choose to vote. Find the early voting dates near you. Make a Plan A to vote, and then a Plan B, and your LAST RESORT should be showing up to the polls ON Election Day after work. I'm serious, if that is your Plan A you will be like FUCK THIS because there will be a line, you will be hungry, work will ask you to stay late, your kid will get sick.
I'm BEGGING YOU. Down on my knees with my hands folded, begging you. Youth turnout is always GARBAGE in this country. We can have a better future if we show up. No one else is coming to save us. We are the ones we've been waiting for, etc. PLEASE VOTE!
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not to kepp going on about this but the sun is not reliable in the wikipedia page for it and well its very long. The scun supported Thatcher (well done guy who vandalised the statue of her hers that was made of- I remember when she died there was celebrations and many a "ding dong the wicked witch is dead"); said this about the AIDS epedemic "US Blood Plague Kills Three in Britain". and "On 17 November 1989, The Sun headlined a page 2 news story titled "STRAIGHT SEX CANNOT GIVE YOU AIDS – OFFICIAL." they did apologise for their stance after being reprimanded so like ehh; the Hillsborough football stadium disaster, in which 97 people died as a result of their injuries, proved to be, as the paper later admitted, the "most terrible" blunder in its history. days after the accident, editor Kelvin MacKenzie published an editorial which accused people of "scapegoating" the police, saying that the disaster occurred "because thousands of fans, many without tickets tried to get into the ground just before kick-off – either by forcing their way in or by blackmailing the police into opening the gates". The next day, under a front-page headline "The Truth", the paper falsely accused Liverpool fans of theft and of urinating on and attacking police officers and emergency services. Conservative (republican) Member of Parliament Irvine Patnick was quoted as claiming that a group of Liverpool supporters told a police officer that they would have sex with a dead female victim. MacKenzie maintained for years that his "only mistake was to believe a Tory MP".In 1993, he told a House of Commons committee, "I regret Hillsborough. It was a fundamental mistake. The mistake was I believed what an MP said", but privately said at a 2006 dinner that he had only apologised under the instruction of Rupert Murdoch, believing: "all I did wrong was tell the truth ... I was not sorry then and I'm not sorry now".
because it is a lot and my eyes glazed over a bit and itchy hayfever eyes took precedent
1.3 Thatcher years
1.3.1 Changes
1.3.2 Falklands War
1.3.3 The Sun and the Labour Party
1.3.4 Murdoch's response
1.3.5 "Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster"
1.3.6 Elton John and other celebrities
1.3.7 Birmingham Six
1.3.8 AIDS
1.3.9 Hillsborough disaster and its aftermath
1.3.9.1 Later repercussions and apologies
1.4 1990s Support for New Labour
1.5 Editorial and production issues in the 2000s 2009: The Sun returns to the Conservatives
1.6 Since 2010
1.6.1 Fallout from the News of the World scandal
1.6.2 World Cup 2014 free issue
1.6.3 Collapse of Tulisa's trial for drug offences
1.6.4 Trial of staff for misconduct in a public office
1.6.5 End of the Page 3 feature (January 2015)
1.6.6 Accusations of xenophobia
1.6.7 Brexit
1.6.8 Website redesign
1.6.9 Sexualising young actress
1.6.10 Ben Stokes and Gareth Thomas
1.6.11 2019 Conservative leadership election
1.6.12 Deprecation by Wikipedia (voted by Wikipedia users as unreliable in 2019)
1.6.13 Far-right conspiracy incident
1.6.14 Caroline Flack
1.6.15 J. K. Rowling i remember the JK one it was so trash they interviewed her abusive ex husband and the headline was something like "I slapped her and I'm not sorry" and I know we don't like her Terfiness but still
1.6.16 Christmas Party during pandemic
and I am sure there will be more to follow
so like AH supporters do a bit of research use your minds and any sense of common decency you have left and stop using the scum as touchstone in your defence of AH (and if you have the means and opportunity vandalise Maggie Thatchers statue)
Wow! I really don't know a lot about UK politics or their news system, other than the tabloids are shit and the Royal Family works with them to keep their good press. But for anyone who wants to read more, here you go!
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📓 <3
Thank you for the ask - you get one of the AUs I’ve had in my head for a very long time because it’s probably the weirdest thing I’ve come up with. Let me try to convince you!
Every autumn as the days get shorter, Strictly Come Dancing appears on TV and I get nostalgic for the Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel Strictly Come Dancing AU that I am never going to write for a million reasons, the first of which is that I don’t even know why I like it so much. It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?
But what if Strictly isn’t just Strictly? What if it’s being run by an enigmatic gentleman with a penchant for velvet jackets, making bargains and hair like… thistledown? What if the ballroom where you sign up to dance all day and all night is this AU’s Lost Hope? Where you can never leave because of your contract with the Gentleman? And who knows what bargains he struck to get you to agree….
The gentleman wants his favourite pro dancer Stephen to win at any cost and he means ANY.
Sir Walter Pole wants a good PR hit before the next election so signs up his young and beautiful wife to aid his popularity (He couldn’t take part himself of course, because he might not do well and can’t risk looking foolish. He can, however, show up to support his wife). So the Gentleman makes a bargain, pairs Emma with Stephen and he’ll do anything to get them to the final so they can dance for him forever. And if there was a tragic accident to Emma’s finger during early rehearsals well that’s just a chance for sympathetic reporting in the popular press.
Thistles can’t always plan for everything though - Arabella Strange is an unexpected star with a husband who does the best supportive videos and is arranging a social media campaign by accident because he just loves his wife so much and wants to tell everyone how proud of her he is.
John Childermass was supposed to be a joke act who left before Halloween but despite looking out of place in every costume the man can dance (sort of, when Hannah takes him in hand) and his blunt Yorkshire take on things has a definite fan following. His salsa goes viral. His rumba causes riots.
Flora Greysteel is popular with the younger generation and doing too well for Thistles to be comfortable. She might once have run off to have an affair with a poet but when ‘someone’ leaks it to the press she turns out to have a formidable protector in her father and her new friends the Stranges.
John Segundus and Mr Honeyfoot were a pair of nobodies that should both have gone out in the early weeks but Segundus just keeps coming back. Nobody can doubt his persistence or his commitment to the training. Dancing is my life, he says, and he can’t think what he’d do if it was taken from him. That earnest comment earned him a solid block of devoted viewers. It also gained him devotion of another kind. Under the cover of the general Strictly mayhem, Childermass has been making tentative overtures to ‘John S’ as he battles with recurrent dizzy spells - is it just the Viennese waltz or is it the magic of Strictly? Childermass is always there to look after him if he needs it.
While the stakes were low to start with as the no hopers were voted off, as the final looms The Gentleman has to make a choice about who he really wants to win now and what he’ll do to get it. If that means releasing some photos to the press suggesting that the Stranges are really rather fond of Bell’s dance partner Colley Grant, well he has the footage waiting and if some people need to encounter some strategic accidents so be it. By the end of November the Gentleman is using any kind of tactic to make sure the public vote the right way - social media influence and press scandals and dubious judge’s marking (one could almost swear that Craig has been bewitched). So the series runs with even more than the usual strictly scandals - Maria Bullworth’s husband cites her dance partner Art Wellesley in divorce proceedings but was it really him or was it fellow contestant Henry Lascelles? Art has a reputation for flings but backstage rumour says he’s far more interested in Flora’s partner Will and there are uglier rumours about Henry and who really caused Chris Drawlight to be injured by falling props in movie week (conveniently removing him from the show before any nasty rumours about his business dealings could break).
But it’s Strictly and the voting public is as fickle as ever. As scandals break, the tabloids go wild, and the stars get closer to the glitter ball, the stresses and stains begin to take their toll and the press start to ask ‘how is lady Pole?’
“Unless you’ve done it before”, she says in an interview, “nobody can really understand what it’s like to be part of the magic of ballroom and when you’re on Strictly it feels like you’ve been dancing forever. And ever. And ever.”
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Bessie Coleman!
From The Collection : The African American Experience 1892 -1926
Bessie Coleman
Bessie Coleman was the first African-American woman, and also the first woman of Native-American descent, to hold a pilot’s license. Coleman grew up in a cruel world of poverty and discrimination. She was born in Atlanta, Texas, one county over from Paris, Texas, where whites lynched at least nine Black men between 1890 and 1920. African Americans were barred from voting through literacy tests, poll taxes, economic reprisals and terrorism. They couldn't ride in railway cars with white people, nor use a wide range of public facilities set aside for whites. When young Bessie first went to school at the age of six, it was to a one-room wooden shack, a four-mile walk from her home. Often there wasn't paper to write on nor pencils to write with.
When Coleman turned 23 she headed to Chicago to live with two of her older brothers, hoping to make something of herself. But the Windy City offered little more to an African American woman than did Texas. When Coleman decided she wanted to learn to fly, the discrimination she faced based on race and gender meant that she would have to travel to France to realize her dreams.
It was soldiers returning from World War I with wild tales of flying exploits who first interested Coleman in aviation. She was also spurred on by her brother, who taunted her with claims that French women were superior to African American women because they could fly. In fact, very few American women of any race had pilot's licenses in 1918. Those who did were predominantly white and wealthy. Every flying school that Coleman approached refused to admit her because she was both black and a woman. On the advice of Robert Abbott, the owner of the Chicago Defender and one of the first African American millionaires, Coleman decided to learn to fly in France.
Coleman learned French at a Berlitz school in the Chicago loop, withdrew the savings she had accumulated from her work as a manicurist and the manager of a chili parlor and, with the additional financial support of Abbott and another African American entrepreneur, she set off for Paris from New York on November 20, 1920.
Coleman was the only student of color in her class, but within seven months she achieved her goal. She was taught in a 27-foot biplane that was known to fail frequently, sometimes in the air. During her training Coleman witnessed a fellow student die in a plane crash, which she described as a "terrible shock" to her nerves. But the accident didn't deter her: In June 1921, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale awarded her an international pilot's license.
When Coleman returned to the U.S. in September 1921, scores of reporters turned out to meet her. The "Air Service News" noted that Coleman had become "a full-fledged aviatrix, the first of her race." She was invited as a guest of honor to attend the all-Black musical Shuffle Along. The entire audience, including the several hundred whites in the orchestra seats, rose to give the first African American female pilot a standing ovation.
Over the next five years Coleman performed at countless air shows. The first took place on September 3, 1922, in Garden City, Long Island. The Chicago Defender publicized the event saying the "wonderful little woman" Bessie Coleman would do "heart thrilling stunts." According to a reporter from Kansas, as many as 3,000 people, including local dignitaries, attended the event. Over the following years, Coleman used her position of prominence to encourage other African Americans to fly. She also made a point of refusing to perform at locations that wouldn't admit Blacks.
Coleman took her tragic last flight on April 30, 1926, in Jacksonville, Florida. Together with a young Texan mechanic called William Wills, Coleman was preparing for an air show that was to have taken place the following day. At 3,500 feet with Wills at the controls, an unsecured wrench somehow got caught in the control gears and the plane unexpectedly plummeted toward earth. Coleman, who wasn't wearing a seat-belt, fell to her death.
About 10,000 mourners paid their last respects to the first African American woman aviator, filing past her coffin in Chicago South's Side. Her funeral was attended by several prominent African Americans, and it was presided over by Ida B. Wells, an outspoken advocate of equal rights. In an editorial in the Dallas Express, the South’s oldest and, at the time, most widely distributed Black newspaper, remarked, "There is reason to believe that the general public did not completely sense the size of her contribution to the achievements of the race as such."
Coleman has not been forgotten in the decades since her death. For a number of years starting in 1931, black pilots from Chicago instituted an annual fly over of her grave. In 1977 a group of African American women pilots established the Bessie Coleman Aviators Club. And in 1992 a Chicago City Council resolution requested that the U.S. Postal Service issue a Bessie Coleman stamp. The resolution noted that "Bessie Coleman continues to inspire untold thousands, even millions of young persons with her sense of adventure, her positive attitude and her determination to succeed."
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