#The Violation Part 1: Seized | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

howlingday · 2 years

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Frosted Knight, Part 2. After calling Ironwood for his combat medic, planning out everything Willow has one flaw...she doesnt know how she would ask him out, sure she had sex with him but that waa it she had no other experience so she asks Klien for some advice afterwords she walks up to mr arcs house this time in clothing to ask him out much to his surprise

Part 1 / Part 3

Willow took a deep breath as she looked over the number again and again. It took a considerable donation on her part to loosen the general's lips, but love never had too high a price. Though, looking back on it, the thought of using an excuse like "love" to hemorrhage her personal finances made her stomach turn. But she held firm. She had to be right in this.

"Madam Willow?" She looked to the side and saw Klein waiting expectantly. "Do you... require assistance?"

"No," Willow gulped, "I should be fine." She stared at the simple device in her hand. Buttons, speaker, and reciever. If only there were a device like this, but with a screen so you could speak face to face. She shook her head at the outrageous thought, and with the push of a button, she hurled herself into the unknown.

The phone rang once. It rang twice. Her fingers drummed along the handle, sweaty with ice blood inside. On the third ring, it ended with a click. Her heart seized in her chest.

"Chancellor Ozpin's office." A woman's voice answered. "This is Glynda Goodwitch speaking. How may I help you, sir or ma'am?"

"Y-yes," Willow gulped, "this is Willow Schnee of the Schnee Dust company. I was hoping to speak with Mr. Ozpin."

"May I ask the purpose of your call?" Glynda asked. It was getting more uncomfortable to breathe.

"I... I am looking for someone, and I was told Mr. Ozpin was the person to contact."

"And who is the reference from, Miss Schnee?" Willow's mouth felt dry. If only she had her flute. Six Swans always made her feel more confident.

"General James Ironwood." Willow answered. She heard a groan on the reciever, as well as a murmured curse. "Is there a problem?"

"No," Glynda said, "I'm reeling from the conversation I had with him prior." This relaxed Willow a little, knowing the woman on the other end felt relaxed enough to air her grievances. "The man called on your behalf earlier, and used it as an opportunity to attempt to woo me. Can you imagine that? Using a professional line to engage for personal reasons?" Suddenly, the ease Willow felt evaporated almost instantly.

"Er, no, I can't say I can."

"Ah, Mr. Ozpin just stepped in. Please hold." Willow gulped as the woman's voice disappeared.

She put the phone to her breast and let out a long, pained sigh. Klein approached, but stopped as she held out a hand. With a quick, but deep, inhale and exhale, she steeled her nerves. If she was a fool for attempting this, then she would fail as a fool who tried. She put the reciever to her ear, meeting the click of the other side in time.

"Chancellor Ozpin." The male voice on the other line spoke. It was a much older voice, spoken with decades of experience. It reminded her of her father. She shook her head at the wretched memories and pushed forward. "Am I correct to assume this is a business call from the Schnee Dust Company?"

"Er, yes, in a way." Willow replied. A lady replied quickly with her thoughts, as her mother taught her. Better a half-truth than a full lie as her father taught her. Reply, then explain her friend told her, though he was now silent across the room. "It was in regards to speaking with one of your soldiers."

"Oh?" Ozpin said, voice brimming with curiosity. "I was unaware a soldier had business with the Schnee Dust Company."

"Y-Yes, you see," Willow swallowed a dry lump, "I am searching for one Jaune Arc. He is a combat medic of yours."

"And what business does the head of the Schnee Dust Company have with this Jaune Arc?" He asked. "I can't very well give out his personal information without his consent. That would violate many ethical standards, as well as the Privacy Act of-"

"Uh, you see, sir..." Willow interrupted him. Her jaw clenched as she realized her foolish haste in this course of action. She flared her nostrils, breathing away from the reciever before powering through. "He has done me a great service, and I simply wish to repay the kindness he's shown me."

"I see." There was a long silence as she she heard the clacks and clicks of a typewriter on the other end. She assumed it was Glynda, typing up daily reports for her employer. With a ring, she heard Ozpin speak again. "I have the information, Miss Schnee. Shall I tell you, or would you rather I have it delivered?"

"To be honest, sir," Willow exhaled, feeling relief at the ease of this exchange, "if I could, I would rather hear it from Mr. Arc himself. But since that is not possible-"

"Hold, please." Willow was surprised by the interruption. She stood silently for a few seconds before a voice came again. A different, younger voice. His voice.

"H-Hello?" Her heart jumped into her throat. Jaune was talking to her. Jaune's voice was on the other end, speaking to her. "This is Jaune Arc speaking."

"Jaune." Willow breathed.

"Willow?" Jaune asked. "I heard him say Miss Schnee, but- Well, I thought he was talking to the head of the Schnee Dust Company."

"He was." Willow giggled, tears in her eyes. She sniffed loudly.

"Ah, Willow! Are you okay?"

She gave a breathy laugh. "Nothing a combat medic can't fix, right?"

Jaune chuckled. "Until there is combat, I'm simply a medic, Ms. Schnee."

---------------------------------------------------

It was a miracle if ever she heard one. He was visiting for his annual check-up with the Chancellor himself, a task his position and rank as a senior member of his squadron required to prove his worth to his nation, and he walked out both keeping his position, but also recieving a new one as the date of one Willow Schnee!

It was so crazy, it almost made her laugh. She spoke to Klein about her travel plans, and was surprised by his forfeiture on her behalf.

"A lady such as yourself needs love like a flower needs water, Willow." He said with a smile. "Or, at least, that's what my wife tells my little girl."

And that's what Willow was to Klein. True, he was only a few years older than her, but he saw her as if he were her father. He dried her tears, aided her in life's greatest troubles, and supported her in every decision she made. This time would be no different.

"And how do you intend to woo this gentleman?" Klein asked, before blinking and his irises became red. "Assuming he is one, that is."

"He is, Klein, I can assure you." She replied, brushing her hair. She set down the brush and sighed. "Sadly, I've been so wrapped up in this madness, I haven't taken a second to consider how I intend to court him."

Klein blinked again, his eyes becoming purple. "Oh, then allow me, Madam Schnee." He reached into his back pocket and removed a pocket notebook from behind him. He wrote down a few sentences, small conversation starters, then tore the page out to handed it to her. "I hope these are to your satisfaction, Madam Schnee."

"Thank you, Klein."

"Oh, and one final piece of advice, Madam?" Willow looked to him. "This young man found you at rock bottom. He has seen you at your very worst. Show him the rest of you. It would be prudent for you to be on your best behavior and have fun." His smile shined through his mustache. "Be yourself."

---------------------------------------------------

Willow stood outside the restaurant, the warm summer evening doing little to ease her tension. She agreed to meet with Jaune here for their reunion, but there was a small pit of doubt in her stomach.

Who could blame her? She was meeting with a man in another country she did not frequent to court him into a relationship that initially started after one drunken night of passion between the sheets. It sounded like something out of those magazines she was interviewed for last week. A wasted effort, as the magazine wasn't going to be well-known for her interview as Atlas' first high-priced female business owner. No matter what "Miss June" told her in the waiting room.

An olive green junkheap pulled up across the street from where she stood. When the door slammed, the man on the other side removed his hat to reveal himself as Jaune Arc. Her heart lept to her throat as she watched him stand there in his blue overcoat. He looked to her and smiled before walking across the street to her.

"Hello again, Miss Willow." Jaune greeted, dipping his head in a sort of bow, much like they do in Mistral. He must have picked it up from a friend over there. He placed his hat on his buzzed haircut. "It's nice to see you again."

"Y-Yes." She gulped. "I... I must apologize. I'm not usually one to be so forward on a first encounter."

"You've got nothing to worry about." He chuckled. "I'm usually not lucky enough to escort a beautiful woman at all, let alone one who finds me good enough for her."

"Oh, hush!" She tittered. "As I see it, you're the only man on Remnant worth my time."

"Oh, uh, w-well, thank you." He blushed. He held out his arm, which she grabbed and held as he guided them across the street.

"I thought we were eating at the restaurant?" Willow asked.

"We are." Jaune chuckled. He pointed his free hand forward, to where he parked. Just beyond the car was a diner, much smaller than the restaurant that loomed behind them. "How do you feel about burgers?"

"I... can't say I know about them." Once they were across the street, Jaune stopped to stare at the woman. Had she offended him? Was it customary to discuss burgers before romancing in Vale? Her heart began to beat double time. "Was... Was it something I said?"

"I'll say!" He said removing his hat, placing it over his heart. "What a horrible life you must have lived!"

"I... beg your pardon?"

"A life without a hamburger is like a date without dinner!" He shook his head. "Sure, you could live it, but is it really living?" He put his hat back on his head. "Come on, I'm about to change your life forever."

At these words, Willow couldn't help but believe him.

---------------------------------------------------

Willow had dined in many venues and supped upon many dishes. She was an elegant woman of high society, raised with a silver spoon in her mouth, and taught the many pitfalls and nuances of the art of social interaction. At age nine, she gave her first public speech. At age fifteen, she bartered a deal for a plot of land that became her first mining operation, one she would continue to oversee to this day. In high society, she was often compared to a mythical creature; elegant, charming, and powerful.

None of that prepared her for this date, and what had came of it.

Seated in a recently wiped down booth, she watched as Jaune explain the subtle details of the diner, it's meals, and the patrons who operated here. It was like watching her father explain how to speak and act in a boardroom. She smiled as her nostalgia and reality seemed to meld.

"Over there is a detective." Jaune pointed in the corner booth, where a trenchcoated man sipped from his mug. "And over there are the high school burn-outs. Probably out past curfew and causing trouble." He chuckled as he pointed to the lanky teens in shabby clothing stare at a menu together.

"Order up." Their waitress from earlier, a much older woman, called to them as she approached with two plates. "Two bacon cheeseburgers with fries, and I'll be right back with your milkshakes."

"Thanks, Laura." Jaune nodded. She turned away, leaving the two alone. "You ready for the best food ever?"

"I don't understand." Willow said, staring at the sandwich in front of her, dripping with fluid. "Where are the forks and knives?"

"We don't need them." Jaune smiled, picking his up with his bare hands. He demonstrated how it is held from every angle. "See?"

"And I just," Willow grimaced as her fingers sank into the hot mass of bread and meat, "bite into this?"

"Uh-huh!" Jaune nodded. "Try it for yourself!" He bit into his, crunching through with fluid dribbling from his fingers and chin. "Mm!"

Willow parted her lips, opening her mouth as wide as she could. She hovered the sandwich closer, before sinking her teeth into the breading. She cleaved through, bringing a sizeable chunk into mouth, both soft and solid.

The flavor was incredible! The tang of the ketchup paired with the intensity of the mustard, blended with the crisp and hearty crunch of the lettuce and bacon, which perfectly complimented the flavorful beef and cheese together. It was beyond words, but not beyond expression.

"Mm!" Willow set the burger down. "Thish ish sho good!" She swallowed, a blush coming to her lips as she realizing she spoke with her mouth full.

"I knew you'd like it!"

Jaune chuckled with a beaming smile. She had seen many men and women smile before. Most of the time, they were demure and barely visible, only creased just enough to show the minimal amount of approval. Jaune's smile blew them all out of proportion, going as wide as he could, and showing the world his teeth, unafraid of judgement!

"Erm, Jaune?" Willow pointed to him. "You have a bit in your teeth."

He slapped a hand over his mouth. Maybe not as unafraid as she thought.

---------------------------------------------------

"Thank you for a wonderful first date." Willow sighed as she rested her head on Jaune's shoulders. "I haven't had this much fun in years."

"Well, it was only dinner." Jaune admitted.

"True, but it was the best dinner I've ever had since..." Willow cut herself off as they reached her hotel room door. She looked away. "Since my father died."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Jaune said. "I'm sure he was a good man."

"There was no one better." She sighed. "That is, until I met you. You're so kind, and generous, and understanding, I... I think he would have like you."

"Wow, you're making it sound like you want to get hitched already." He chuckled. Willow was silent, but he continued as if he hadn't noticed. "But from what you've told me about yourself, I can tell he would be proud of you. Because, well, I am."

"You're proud of me?" Willow tittered.

"Yeah, of course!" Jaune stepped away, but held her hands. "You're smart, and resourceful, and respectful, and strong-willed enough to run your own company. If he wasn't proud of you, I'd say he should start being proud of you." His face flushed. "Uh, sorry if that was too much."

"Not at all." She leaned into him. "I appreciate your honesty, and I can't help but..." She bit her tongue back. "But to want to be closer to you."

"I wish you weren't gone in a week." He sighed, looking into her eyes.

"I know." She leaned close and planted a kiss on his lips. "Good night."

He planted a kiss on her lips, holding a second longer. He gulped. "Good night."

She turned away, walking to the door. With a turn of her key, she opened it, pushing the door wide. She turned again as she watched Jaune watching her. She stepped closer to him again. She held his cheek and kissed him again. "Good night."

"Good night." He breathed before kissing her again, this time prodding his tongue between her lips. They breathed deeply as their hands roamed each other. Jaune's mind clicked as he realized they were moving too fast a first date.

As he pulled away, Willow pushed herself onto him, tongue slapping against his as she held him in a tight embrace. Jaune threw his logic aside and walked with her into her hotel room, neither leaving each other's lips until the door was shut.

Inside, Willow let out a moan as she felt Jaune roughly paw through her dress. She felt like she was melting from his touch as he stripped himself and her bare. They fell into bed with a great hunger for each other.

For the rest of the week of her stay, Willow and Jaune fulfilled every desire they could before her departure. And only rarely did she ever leave the hotel until then.

#rwby #willow schnee #jaune arc #willow knight #frosted knight #klein sieben #glynda goodwitch #ozpin #willow's knight

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beardedmrbean · 2 years

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The streets of downtown Portland, Oregon, resemble an open-air drug market.

Heroin, meth and fentanyl use is rampant and often visible on city streets. Portland police officers drive by homeless addicts buying and using.

The signs of drug addiction are actually increasing throughout the state, according to law enforcement sources. Oregon ranks second-highest among U.S. states for substance abuse with nearly one in five adults addicted.

In November 2020, voters overwhelmingly passed Measure 110. The Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act secured 58% of the votes and decriminalized possession of small amounts of hard drugs such as heroin, meth, cocaine and fentanyl.

FEDS SEIZE 478,000 COUNTERFEIT FENTANYL-LACED PILLS, CHARGE 26 WITH DRUG TRAFFICKING AND OTHER CRIMES

The new law made possession of those substances no more than a Class E violation, the equivalent of a traffic ticket punishable by a maximum $100 fine. But the fine is dismissed when someone who is fined calls a help hotline, Lines for Life, and completes a health assessment. The idea is to connect drug abusers with services and treatment instead of putting them behind bars.

Sixteen months into this first-in-the-nation experiment, the numbers paint a bleak picture. Drug overdose deaths hit an all-time high in 2021 with 1069, a 41% increase from 2020. And very few people are getting into treatment. According to The Lund Report, after one year, just 136 people had entered treatment, less than 1% of those helped by Measure 110. But the actual number may be even lower.

David Murray is a senior fellow in the Hudson Institute who advised drug czars in two different presidential administrations.

"It is predictable, was predicted and now, unfortunately, is coming to pass in front of our eyes," said Murray, "It is a tragedy and a self-inflicted wound."

The Oregon Judicial Department reports that, through the end of May, police throughout the state had written 2,576 tickets for drug possession since Measure 110 was enacted. Seventy-five percent of the tickets resulted in convictions, the vast majority because the offender never showed up in court.

Dwight Holton, CEO of Lines for Life, tells Fox News only 116 people have called the help hotline. Sixty-six of those callers just wanted verification of the assessment, so they could void the ticket, Holton said. Twenty-six, he says, were already in services of some kind and didn’t want any more.

"About 20% — 24 people — were not previously involved in (addiction) services and wanted resources, so we connected them to relevant services," Holton says.

Mike Marshall, co-founder and director of Oregon Recovers, is not surprised by the dismal treatment numbers following implementation of Measure 110.

"It was never designed to reduce our addiction rates, so it was never designed to deal with our addiction crisis," Marshall says, "It was always meant to deal with the war on drugs."

Oregon’s war on drugs may be over, but other crimes are on the rise and keeping police busy.

"What we’re absolutely seeing is that as drug possession has been decriminalized, property crimes have increased and so has violent crime," said District Attorney Kevin Barton of Washington County, Oregon. Police in rural parts of Oregon also tell Fox News they are seeing more theft as people steal to feed their addiction.

TENNESSEE SHERIFF'S OFFICE WARNS PEOPLE NOT TO PICK UP FOLDED DOLLAR BILLS BECAUSE THEY MAY CONTAIN FENTANYL

Portland, the state’s largest city, set an all-time record with 90 murders in 2021. Police in Multnomah County link these to Measure 110, saying there's been a rise in homicides tied to drug turf wars between gangs.

Tera Hurst, executive director of the Health Justice Recovery Alliance, which is working to implement Measure 110, says the criticism is premature. Only 10% of $300 million in available Measure 110 funds has been allocated to date.

The money is coming from cannabis tax revenue, making it ineligible to be used for treatment, which is primarily covered by Medicaid. What Measure 110 is funding is recovery and harm reduction services.

The first $30 million in grants went to needle exchange programs, peer-to-peer counseling, support housing and even Narcan, which is used to revive people who overdose on heroin.

"I don’t think it’s just about getting folks into treatment," says Hurst. "It’s also about meeting people and getting people out into the streets doing outreach for folks and getting them life-saving drugs. You can’t save somebody if they overdose and die."

The Oregon Health Authority, which overseas Measure 110, also defends the lack of people in treatment.

"People enter treatment when they are ready to," said OHA spokesman Timothy Heider, "The support being built to help people will meet them where they are."

#nunyas news

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 1 year

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The “Alvin Bragg” in us all. :: April 12, 2023

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

APR 12, 2023

Alvin Bragg deserves an “A” for effort. The Manhattan District Attorney made the much-criticized decision to indict Trump for falsifying business records. The seemingly innocuous charges are directed at the cynical “catch-and-kill” scheme designed to protect Trump’s presidential prospects in 2016. Many legal commentators criticized the timing of the charges, which served as the first indictment of a former president. Others have questioned the strength or seriousness of the charges.

In typical Trump fashion, he has called on his minions to destroy the systems that threaten him. Trump demanded that Jim Jordan investigate the New York justice system that produced the indictment, vilifying Bragg in the process. Jim Jordan complied with Trump’s wish, issuing subpoenas to Bragg and two former prosecutors in his office. The subpoenas called for information that would reveal the strategy and communications at the heart of Bragg’s case against Trump. In short, Jim Jordan allowed a House committee to serve as a member of Trump’s defense team by seeking information beyond the reach of criminal defendants.

Jordan’s subpoena is an extra-constitutional power grab that violates state sovereignty. Bragg could have simply ignored the subpoena and resisted any effort by the DOJ to enforce it. (Congress has no power to enforce its own subpoenas; it must rely on the DOJ to bring contempt proceedings.) But rather than wait for Jordan to act, Bragg filed a fifty-page complaint and motion for a preliminary injunction that serves as a broadside on Jordan’s constitutional folly.

The complaint is here: Bragg v Jordan. It is a remarkable document worth reading in the original, at least in part. (I recommend pages 1-7.) Bragg asks a federal district court to issue an injunction to prevent Jordan from using the House Judiciary Committee to interfere in the state's sovereign duty in prosecuting Trump. He also seeks to prevent his two former prosecutors from testifying before the Judiciary Committee.

The complaint is audacious in its request for relief and stands little chance of success. Enjoining Congress is a heavy lift—especially before a judge appointed by Trump. But Bragg has seized the initiative in challenging an unprecedented attempt to transmogrify Congress into a “national District Attorney” with the power to supervise prosecutions at the state level. Jordan’s gambit will fail, though Bragg’s lawsuit may not be the vehicle that brings it down.

Still, Bragg has forced Jordan to respond within three weeks to searing allegations that Jordan is actively seeking to interfere in a state criminal prosecution. The complaint alleges, in part,

[Jordan] and his allies have stated they want the District Attorney to come to Capitol Hill to explain himself and to provide a “good argument” to Congress in support of his decision to investigate and prosecute Mr. Trump. And they have threatened that the House of Representatives will hold Alvin Bragg to account for indicting Mr.Trump.

[R]ather than allowing the criminal process to proceed in the ordinary course, Chairman Jordan and the Committee are participating in a campaign of intimidation, retaliation, and obstruction. Mr. Trump in particular, has threatened New York officials with violent and racist vitriol.

Chairman Jordan and the Committee have, in essence, appointed Congress as a super grand jury that can flex its subpoena power to second guess the judgment of New York citizens and interfere with the state criminal justice process.

Jordan will bellow and howl, pointing to Congress’s rightful power to conduct hearings regarding federal appropriations to states for law enforcement functions. But none of those appropriations include second-guessing Alvin Bragg’s prosecutorial decisions. No longer can Jordan engage in shifting and inconsistent explanations for his effort to rummage through the files of a state prosecution. He must declare his purpose and his goals. In doing so, Jordan and his lawyers will be made to look like the fools they are.

So, Bragg gets an “A” for effort. He had the courage to indict Trump despite delays in other prosecutions and has now shown the chutzpah to tangle with a powerful House committee. Good for him. We need more of what Bragg’s got, not less.

I cannot leave this topic without linking to an essay in The Bulwark by Philip Rotner, Sorry Doubters, But Bragg Was Right to Indict Trump. With apologies to several friends who have written on this topic, Rotner’s essay is the best there is. Read it, and you will be convinced not only that Bragg made the right decision but also that he has a strong case.

Moreover, Rotner makes an unassailable point about those who argue that Bragg should not have indicted Trump on charges that were not “serious enough” to bring against a former president. Rotner responds:

Really?

Anyone who believes that should be honest about it: Just come out and say that certain powerful people are indeed above the law, that the decision on whether or not to indict Trump should have been made based on politics rather than law, and that prosecutorial discretion, in this case, compels turning a blind eye to Trump’s elaborate scheme to cover up blatant violations of election laws by falsifying business records and committing tax fraud.

Count me out.

Well said. Count me out, too, if you believe Trump should be held to a different standard of justice, or that his case must be “airtight,” or that the prosecutor must “be certain he will not lose.” Those standards appear nowhere in the law and should not apply uniquely to private citizen Trump.

Another problem with Judge Kacsmaryk’s ruling is.

I have been chipping away at the various aspects of Judge Kacsmaryk’s ruling that make it so wrong. But it is difficult to know where to begin when an opinion is a judicial confection based on theology rather than law. Two authors have noted a serious (and potentially fatal) flaw in the ruling: the lack of “standing” of the plaintiffs. See Dennis Aftergut and Erwin Chemerinsky, The Hill, Abortion pill issue will show us what this Supreme Court is really made of.

“Standing” is a constitutional requirement that only injured persons can sue for relief in federal court. The requirement ensures that ideologues do not abuse the federal courts by seeking advisory opinions in cases where no litigant is actually injured. And yet, it appears that Judge Kacsmaryk granted relief to parties that do not have standing.

As explained by Chemerinsky and Aftergut, a conservative organization of doctors organized itself in Judge Kacsmaryk’s district in order to bring their lawsuit before him. The conservative organization members did not claim they suffered direct injury from the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. Instead, they invoked a generalized, speculative “stress” on doctors everywhere who must deal with complications from mifepristone:

The judge said that the conservative organization could sue on behalf of doctors because “adverse events from chemical abortion drugs can overwhelm the medical system and place’ enormous pressure and stress’ on doctors during emergencies and complications.”

The plaintiffs presented no evidence to support their fanciful argument of a medical system overwhelmed by a drug that is statistically safer than Tylenol. If the US Supreme Court applies the law to the facts, it should order Kacsmaryk to dismiss the lawsuit for lack of standing. More to come!

A thought experiment about gun deaths.

Charlie Sykes penned a powerful essay about the numbness that overwhelms us as we hear about a seemingly endless stream of mass shootings. See Charlies Sykes, Morning Shots Newsletter, Numbed America.

Sykes writes,

But we have gotten to the point where coverage of one slaughter is interrupted by breaking news of yet another. And our doom loop of thoughts, prayers, debate, and inertia has become numbingly familiar.

Legislators across the country have rushed to protect children from being exposed to books like “My Two Mommies,” and the story of Anne Frank, but not from being blown apart by killers with weapons of war and high-capacity magazines.

Sykes notes that the typical response of politicians like Senator Rick Scott and Ted Cruz is to offer “thoughts and prayers.” Sykes then invites us to engage in a thought experiment:

Instead of talking about the routine slaughter of children and our fellow citizens in schools, banks, nightclubs, and grocery stores, imagine we were talking about terrorist attacks.

Imagine that there had been 145 attacks from members of the Sinaloa Cartel, or that dozens of airplanes had been hijacked and hundreds of passengers killed.

Would Rick Scott merely offer thoughts and prayers? Would Ted Cruz suggest that we need more locked doors? Armored backpacks? More armed guards? More bans on drag queen story hours?

The point of the thought experiment is that if the deaths of innocent school children and coworkers were from a different source than Americans wielding assault rifles, Congress would surely find the will to act. They would not throw their hands in the air and claim the problem cannot be fixed.

Remember that fact next time you hear a cowardly politician claim, “We can’t legislate against evil.” We can. It’s called banning assault rifles and taking guns away from people who are a threat to themselves or others.

To prove that point, Washington state has taken the first step by banning the manufacture or sale of assault rifles: The Hill, Washington state Senate passes assault-style weapons ban. And Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed an executive order permitting the removal of guns from people who present a danger to themselves or others. See Politico, Tennessee governor calls for law removing guns from dangerous people. (Lee, of course, suffered the loss of a close friend in the Tallahassee shooting last week.)

Let’s hope these steps portend the beginning of a national trend.

Concluding Thoughts.

I highlighted Alvin Bragg’s lawsuit because it shows a willingness to engage on the field of battle that seems missing from the Democratic Party’s usual response to outrageous behavior by MAGA extremists. Engaging our adversaries is important, even if we do not always win.

Dominion Voting Systems and E. Jean Carroll will commence trials against Fox News and Donald Trump for defamation this week. They may win, they may not. But Fox News and Trump will think twice the next time they utter false and defamatory statements. Trump and Rupert Murdoch will be forced to appear in court and endure public scrutiny in a forum where they are not in control.

There are lots of “Alvin Braggs” out there, fighting the good fight every day. Most days, they do so in relative obscurity until it turns out that their “behind-the-scenes” labor has saved us from catastrophe. So, tonight, a tip of the hat to all of you who work every day, in ways large and small, to fortify our democracy. The sum of your efforts is the vital force that sustains democracy on a daily basis! Thank you!

Talk to you tomorrow!

#commentary #Robert B. Hubbell #Robert B. Hubbel Newsletter #Alvin Bragg #Charlie Sykes #The Bulwark #Rule of Law #Andy Singer

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bloghrexach · 11 days

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🇵🇸 … why the hostages? Here … 👇🏽 … a bit of history!!

By: LaillaB, founder of Reclaim the Narrative’, from LinkedIn …

“Hostage taking has been employed in various forms and contexts across different cultures and civilisations.

In ancient times, it was a common practice among civilizations such as the Greeks and Romans. Hostages were often seized as a form of collateral in treaties and agreements to guarantee compliance.

In the Middle Ages, it became a prevalent practice in feudal societies between rival kingdoms.

As a form of persecution, one of the most infamous instances in modern history was in World War II, the Nazis took Jewish hostages as part of their brutal regime to control and dominate. The Nazis' systematic targeting of Jews was a part of their larger campaign of genocide during the Holocaust.

As a form of liberation, in 1979, in which a group of Iranian revolutionaries seized 52 American diplomats and citizens at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, holding them captives for 444 days.

The hostage-takers were motivated by anti-American sentiment and saw the U.S. as a symbol of imperialism and interference in Iranian affairs.

Iranians sought to gain political leverage and international attention. The hostages were released following the signing of the Algiers Accords.

Today, while many have rightly hailed the release of the 252 hostages taken by Hamas on Oct 7, there’s less attention on why exactly Israel detains nearly 10,000 Palestinians available to trade. And less still on how they got there.

In the occupied Palestinian territories, 1 in every 5 Palestinian has been arrested and charged at some point. 2 in every 5 men have been arrested and charged.

As of April 2024, approx 9,500 Palestinians were in Israeli captivity, according to estimates from Addameer, Human Rights Association.

3,660 Palestinians being held in Israel are under administrative detention. Over 200 children.

An administrative detainee is held in prison without charge or trial. These hostages have been detained by the occupation for renewable periods of time, meaning the arrest duration is indefinite.

From the viewpoint of international humanitarian law, the transfer of palestinains from occupied territories to the territory of the occupying power is considered a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Hamas has persistently said from the get go that they planned to use the hostages to “negotiate the release of thousands of Palestinians in Israeli prisons”.

Overall, the history of hostages reflects the enduring use of individuals as pawns in various contexts; struggles for liberation, in the lust for power and domination and in negotiations throughout human history.

✍🏻 “It’s my solemn duty to report that Israel’s actions have been driven by a genocidal logic integral to its settler colonial project in Palestine.” — Francesca Albanese, Mar 2024.

Analysing historical instances of hostage taking, critics argue that Hamas captured hostages to garner international attention for the struggle against the coloniser.

#Hostages — 🕊 — #FreePalestine …

#reclaimthenarrative — 🍉 — @hrexach

#dr rex equality news information education #graphic source #graphic #graphics #hortyrex ©#horty #quote #it is what it is #war crimes #war criminals #war #free gaza #gaza genocide #palestine #hostages #history #leverage

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queerunpleasantdanger · 1 year

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For all “bedtime is oppression” is a funny jaok that MLs and Socdems like to tell about anarchists, it really is the rights of children that made me a leftist, at least at first. It was watching the pigs engage in progressively more bizarre and illegal behavior when students engaged in nonviolent methods of resistance to legally questionable drug lock down searches at my school (It was drug dog searches, which are probably legal, but they went on to things like “seizing every student’s cellphone” (almost certainly illegal - your cellphone is not in the air, unlike what the drug dogs are theoretically searching) and “ordering students to ignore the fire alarm” (That’s definitely a violation of firecode)) in high school, while simultaneously being unable to get my basic rights as a disabled student respected that really first radicalized me. I think part of the reason my politics were transformed by what I saw during Occupy was that I was absolutely already willing to believe that the cops would do whatever it took to get what they wanted, and that the rest of the state would ignore your rights in favor of the convenience of administration, so the only question when the cops violently removed nonviolent protestors out of encampments was what the police wanted, and why the state felt that this kind of repression was convenient, and “In part, the state exists to uphold the interests of the 1%” is a pretty radicalizing early life lesson. This wasn’t what made me a socialist (that would require something I didn’t have, which is an understanding of what socialism meant), but it was enough to make me an anticapitalist, certainly. Anyway, bedtime isn’t oppression, but children are regularly subject to systems of oppression that are worsened because they are children and their agency is limited by the institutions to which they must answer, and I feel like that’s a thing we should acknowledge more.

#The rights of children #anarchism

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mariacallous · 6 months

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Journalists from 69 global media outlets working under the auspices of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and the German publication Paper Trail Media have published a new investigation titled Cyprus Confidential. The reporting relies on 3.6 million leaked documents from six Cypriot companies described as “financial enablers.” Among other findings, the journalists uncovered that Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who has long denied having any connections with Vladimir Putin, sold a quarter of the shares of one of Russia’s largest advertising holdings to entrepreneurs close to the Russian president in 2010. Additionally, the project’s investigators determined that Hubert Seipel, a German journalist who has written multiple books praising Putin, received hundreds of thousands of euros from offshore accounts linked to Russian billionaire Alexey Mordashov. Meduza outlines some of the investigation’s key findings.

Reporting based on records from the leak

The auditing firm PwC Cyprus may have violated sanctions by continuing to work on transferring Russian oligarch Alexey Mordashov’s shares in a German travel company to his partner in the days after the E.U. named him in new sanctions. Leaked documents suggest PwC Cyprus also rushed to restructure assets owned by Russian billionaires Alexander Abramov and Alexander Frolov as U.K. sanctions loomed.

A prominent German journalist, Hubert Seipel, received at least €600,000 ($653,000) in undisclosed offshore payments from companies linked to Russian oligarch Alexey Mordashov (see above) to support two books seen as favorable to Putin. According to The Guardian, the revelations about Seipel will likely fuel further debate “over the role parts of [Germany’s] political and business elite played in helping to keep Putin in power.”

With the help of a Cypriot corporate services firm called MeritServus, Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev was able to move debt worth millions of dollars between his shell companies (remaining in control of the shares while keeping it effectively “off the books”) despite Western sanctions against him for his support of Russian proxy forces in eastern Ukraine. MeritServus and Malofeev’s Cypriot company likely violated sanctions in these loan deals.

Just before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich transferred control of his $1-billion art collection to his ex-wife, Dasha Zhukova. The switcharoo was likely to prevent Western officials from freezing or seizing the collection in case of sanctions against Abramovich, which the U.K. and E.U. imposed in March 2022 for his alleged association with Vladimir Putin. (Zhukova, a U.S. citizen, has not been sanctioned.)

Abramovich was also part of a secret $40-million deal in 2010 that used offshore shell companies to conceal his involvement in the transfer of shares in the profitable advertising company Video International to two close associates of Vladimir Putin known as his personal “wallets,” Sergey Roldugin and Alexander Plekhov. “The secret deal with Mr. Roldugin and Mr. Plekhov,” writes The BBC, “suggests a close financial relationship between Mr. Abramovich and President Putin” (which Abramovich denies).

Roman Abramovich sold his stake in an advertising firm to Putin’s friends

In September 2003, two Cypriot companies called Finoto Holdings and Grosora Holdings purchased 25 percent of the shares in Video International, a major Russian advertising holding company. At the time, according to the BBC, Video International “enjoyed a dominant position” in Russia’s domestic TV advertising market and was “half a step away” from the Kremlin.

Each of the companies paid just $130,000 for 12.5-percent stakes in Video International. According to journalists who analyzed newly leaked records, an entity called the Sara Trust Settlement owned both companies through a series of intermediaries — and its ultimate beneficiary was Roman Abramovich.

The following year, Abramovich received $1.8 million in dividends from the company — seven times what he had paid for the shares.

In December 2010, Finoto Holdings sold its share of another Cypriot company called Med Media Network, which nominally belonged to cellist Sergey Roldugin, a close friend of the Russian president who E.U. investigators who studied the Panama Papers in 2016 referred to a “Putin’s wallet.”

On the same day, Grosora Holdings sold its own stake in the company to Namiral Trading Ltd, a company with ties to Alexander Plekhov, an entrepreneur close to Rossiya Bank founder Yury Kovalchuk. The total value of the two sales amounted to $40 million.

According to the independent Russian outlet iStories, which took part in the ICIJ investigation, Abramovich’s role in the Video International deals was not previously known publicly. For years, observers assumed 100 percent of the company’s shares had been sold to entities associated with Yury Kovalchuk.

After the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, Alexander Plekhov came under U.K. sanctions for his ties to Vladimir Putin, while Sergey Roldugin was sanctioned by the U.K., the E.U., and the U.S. Washington dubbed the musician “the custodian of President Putin’s offshore wealth.”

In the spring of 2023, the Swiss prosecutor’s office, which was investigating cases involving managers of Gazprombank’s Swiss affiliate, referred to Roldugin and Plekhov as “straw men” for Rossiya Bank, which the U.S. government has referred to as “Putin’s personal cashbox.”

Abramovich has long denied having any connections with Putin. In 2010, a representative of the billionaire stated that he had “no financial relationship” with Putin, who was prime minister at the time.

In 2021, Abramovich sued journalist and former Financial Times Moscow correspondent Catherine Belton over an excerpt from her book Putin’s People that said Abramovich had purchased Chelsea Football Club at Putin’s request. Abramovich won the case in a London court, and the book’s British publisher, HarperCollins, agreed to change the text and apologize to the businessman.

Abramovich did not respond to journalists’ questions regarding the Cyprus Confidential findings. Sergey Roldugin and Alexander Plekhov also declined to comment.

Generous payments to a top German ‘Russia expert’ for books about Putin

Another part of the investigation links Russian billionaire Alexey Mordashov to the German journalist Hubert Seipel, who has authored multiple complimentary books and films about Vladimir Putin.

In 2012, Seipel wrote and directed the film I, Putin: A Portrait, which was nominated for a German TV award for best documentary. In 2015 and 2021, he published the books Putin: The Logic of Power and Putin’s Power: Why Europe Needs Russia, both of which became bestsellers. Seipel has met with Putin multiple times and is considered one of Germany’s leading Russia experts. His public statements, meanwhile, often echo the Russian president’s own rhetoric.

The Cyprus leak reveals that in 2018, Seipel signed a “sponsorship agreement” for the creation and promotion of a book about the “political climate in Russia.” The deal ultimately led to the publication of Putin’s Power by the Hamburg-based publisher Hoffmann und Campe. According to the agreement, Seipel received at least 600,000 euros ($653,000). In addition, the document also contains a handwritten note that reads, “Similar to the 2013 agreement: biography of Putin.” This suggests the same sponsor paid Seipel for his earlier book on Putin.

The payment was made by a British Virgin Islands company called De Vere Worldwide Corporation, which is registered under the name of Igor Voskresensky, one of the directors of the Russian energy company Power Machines. The witness’s signature on the agreement belongs to Dmitry Fedotov, the head of the legal department of the steel company Severstal.

The funds for Seipel’s payments were issued to De Vere Worldwide from offshore accounts whose beneficiary was billionaire Alexey Mordashov, the owner of both Power Machines and Severstal. In 2018–2019, two of Mordashov’s offshore entities transferred a total of 610,000 euros ($664,000) to De Vere Worldwide.

In an interview with Paper Trail Media, Seipel admitted that Mordashov sponsored his books about Putin. However, he disputed that idea that this discredits the books themselves, saying the sponsorship agreements with De Vere Worldwide included a clause stating that he was under no obligation to his sponsor regarding the books’ contents. He also described Mordashov as an “entrepreneur who sponsors projects with private funds.”

Hoffmann und Campe said in a statement that it reserves the right to take legal action against Seipel for concealing the conflict of interest.

Alexey Mordashov, who Forbes lists as Russia’s fifth-richest billionaire, did not respond to journalists’ requests for comment.

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ukrainenews · 1 year

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Daily Wrap Up January 12-13, 2023

Under the cut:

Russia said on Friday that its forces had taken control of Soledar in eastern Ukraine, in what would be a rare success for Moscow after months of battlefield reverses, but Kyiv said its troops were still fighting in the town.

Ukrainian military spokesperson Serhii Cherevatyi reported on Jan. 13 that the Russian forces shelled the Bakhmut area in the eastern Donetsk Oblast 212 times over the past 24 hours, while 31 firefights were also recorded.

Belarusian artillery units that are part of a joint military grouping with Russia are being put on alert as part of combat coordination activities in Belarus, according to the country's ministry of defense.

Russia reportedly abducted as many as 2,000 children from Ukraine into Russia since Jan. 1, Michael Carpenter, the U.S. Ambassador to the OSCE, said on Jan. 13. Russian forces have unlawfully transferred or deported thousands of Ukrainian civilians to Russia, violating the Geneva Conventions, Carpenter said.

“Russia said on Friday that its forces had taken control of Soledar in eastern Ukraine, in what would be a rare success for Moscow after months of battlefield reverses, but Kyiv said its troops were still fighting in the town.

Reuters could not immediately verify the situation in Soledar, a small salt-mining town that has been the focus of relentless Russian assault for days.

Kyiv and the West have played down the town's significance, saying Moscow sacrificed wave upon wave of soldiers and mercenaries in a pointless fight for a bombed-out wasteland, unlikely to affect the wider war except insofar as the huge losses have sapped manpower on both sides.

But the capture of the town has taken on an outsized importance as it would, if confirmed, give Moscow a trophy for one of the bloodiest campaigns of the war following major battlefield setbacks throughout the second half of 2022.

"The capture of Soledar was made possible by the constant bombardment of the enemy by assault and army aviation, missile forces and artillery of a grouping of Russian forces," Moscow's defence ministry said.

Seizing the town would make it possible to cut off Ukrainian supply routes to the larger nearby city of Bakhmut and trap remaining Ukrainian forces there, it said. Moscow has been trying to seize Bakhmut for months.

But Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesperson for Ukraine's eastern military command, told Reuters by telephone Soledar had not been captured: "Our units are there, the town is not under Russian control."

CNN said on its website that a reporting team just outside the town could hear mortar and rocket fire on Friday afternoon and saw Ukrainian forces ferrying troops in what appeared to be an organised pullback.”-via Reuters (more at link)

“Ukrainian military spokesperson Serhii Cherevatyi reported on Jan. 13 that the Russian forces shelled the Bakhmut area in the eastern Donetsk Oblast 212 times over the past 24 hours, while 31 firefights were also recorded.

According to preliminary data, 183 Russian troops were killed, and 137 were wounded in the battles for the area, Cherevatyi said.

“The Russians cannot break through the Ukrainian defenses and continue to lose personnel in their assaults,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Cherevatyi reported that “ongoing battles” were continuing in the nearby salt-mining town of Soledar on Jan. 13, denying an earlier claim by the Russian Ministry of Defense that the city was fully under Russian control.

Ukrainian officials’ comments come amid contradicting reports about which side holds Soledar, a town with a pre-war population of 10,000 located 10 kilometers north of Bakhmut, which Russia has tried to capture for more than five months.

Moscow militants in eastern Ukraine and Kremlin-run mercenary Wagner Group have made claims that Russia had captured Soledar since Jan. 10, but Ukraine continues to deny the claims.

Russia looks to capture the area as part of its larger goal of taking control of the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, which it has partly occupied since 2014.”-via Kyiv Independent

“Belarusian artillery units that are part of a joint military grouping with Russia are being put on alert as part of combat coordination activities in Belarus, according to the country's ministry of defense.

"Today, within the framework of joint activities of combat coordination of the regional grouping of troops of Belarus and Russia, the artillery units of the 11th separate mechanized brigade are being prepared to carry out tasks as intended," reads a statement from the ministry. In October last year, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko announced the establishment of a joint grouping of troops with Russia due to "the aggravation of the situation on the borders of Belarus."

And the joint grouping continues to grow in size, the defense ministry said this week.

"As part of ensuring the military security of the Union State, the build-up of the regional grouping of troops (forces) of the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation continues," said the ministry in a statement.

The ministry also announced joint air force exercises between the two countries.

Last month, Ukraine warned it does "not rule out" a "deliberate provocation" from Russia after Belarus said that the wreckage of a Ukrainian missile landed on its territory.”-via CNN

“Russia reportedly abducted as many as 2,000 children from Ukraine into Russia since Jan. 1, Michael Carpenter, the U.S. Ambassador to the OSCE, said on Jan. 13.

Russian forces have unlawfully transferred or deported thousands of Ukrainian civilians to Russia, violating the Geneva Conventions, Carpenter said.

As of Dec. 22, 2022, Ukrainian authorities quoted by a Detektor Media investigation said that more than 13,000 thousand children were forcibly removed from Ukraine by Russia.

The Ukrainian military’s National Resistance Center said on Jan. 10 that the Russian military is compiling lists of those who can be mobilized into the army after graduation, starting with those who will come of age in 2023.

The center also said that children born in 2005-2006 in Russian-occupied territories in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts must already register for compulsory military service.

“This advance planning to use Ukraine’s children as cannon fodder for Russia’s war is – I have no other words – it’s just plain evil,” Carpenter said.“It would also be a violation of the laws of war for Russia to conscript citizens of Ukraine from the areas Russia occupies.””-via Kyiv Independent

#Daily Update #ukraine #russia #war in ukraine #Soledar #Belarus #Bakhmut #donetsk

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lesmislettersdaily · 1 year

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The Interior Of Despair

Volume 1: Fantine; Book 2: The Fall; Chapter 7: The Interior Of Despair

Let us try to say it.

It is necessary that society should look at these things, because it is itself which creates them.

He was, as we have said, an ignorant man, but he was not a fool. The light of nature was ignited in him. Unhappiness, which also possesses a clearness of vision of its own, augmented the small amount of daylight which existed in this mind. Beneath the cudgel, beneath the chain, in the cell, in hardship, beneath the burning sun of the galleys, upon the plank bed of the convict, he withdrew into his own consciousness and meditated.

He constituted himself the tribunal.

He began by putting himself on trial.

He recognized the fact that he was not an innocent man unjustly punished. He admitted that he had committed an extreme and blameworthy act; that that loaf of bread would probably not have been refused to him had he asked for it; that, in any case, it would have been better to wait until he could get it through compassion or through work; that it is not an unanswerable argument to say, “Can one wait when one is hungry?” That, in the first place, it is very rare for any one to die of hunger, literally; and next, that, fortunately or unfortunately, man is so constituted that he can suffer long and much, both morally and physically, without dying; that it is therefore necessary to have patience; that that would even have been better for those poor little children; that it had been an act of madness for him, a miserable, unfortunate wretch, to take society at large violently by the collar, and to imagine that one can escape from misery through theft; that that is in any case a poor door through which to escape from misery through which infamy enters; in short, that he was in the wrong.

Then he asked himself:—

Whether he had been the only one in fault in his fatal history. Whether it was not a serious thing, that he, a laborer, out of work, that he, an industrious man, should have lacked bread. And whether, the fault once committed and confessed, the chastisement had not been ferocious and disproportioned. Whether there had not been more abuse on the part of the law, in respect to the penalty, than there had been on the part of the culprit in respect to his fault. Whether there had not been an excess of weights in one balance of the scale, in the one which contains expiation. Whether the over-weight of the penalty was not equivalent to the annihilation of the crime, and did not result in reversing the situation, of replacing the fault of the delinquent by the fault of the repression, of converting the guilty man into the victim, and the debtor into the creditor, and of ranging the law definitely on the side of the man who had violated it.

Whether this penalty, complicated by successive aggravations for attempts at escape, had not ended in becoming a sort of outrage perpetrated by the stronger upon the feebler, a crime of society against the individual, a crime which was being committed afresh every day, a crime which had lasted nineteen years.

He asked himself whether human society could have the right to force its members to suffer equally in one case for its own unreasonable lack of foresight, and in the other case for its pitiless foresight; and to seize a poor man forever between a defect and an excess, a default of work and an excess of punishment.

Whether it was not outrageous for society to treat thus precisely those of its members who were the least well endowed in the division of goods made by chance, and consequently the most deserving of consideration.

These questions put and answered, he judged society and condemned it.

He condemned it to his hatred.

He made it responsible for the fate which he was suffering, and he said to himself that it might be that one day he should not hesitate to call it to account. He declared to himself that there was no equilibrium between the harm which he had caused and the harm which was being done to him; he finally arrived at the conclusion that his punishment was not, in truth, unjust, but that it most assuredly was iniquitous.

Anger may be both foolish and absurd; one can be irritated wrongfully; one is exasperated only when there is some show of right on one’s side at bottom. Jean Valjean felt himself exasperated.

And besides, human society had done him nothing but harm; he had never seen anything of it save that angry face which it calls Justice, and which it shows to those whom it strikes. Men had only touched him to bruise him. Every contact with them had been a blow. Never, since his infancy, since the days of his mother, of his sister, had he ever encountered a friendly word and a kindly glance. From suffering to suffering, he had gradually arrived at the conviction that life is a war; and that in this war he was the conquered. He had no other weapon than his hate. He resolved to whet it in the galleys and to bear it away with him when he departed.

There was at Toulon a school for the convicts, kept by the Ignorantin friars, where the most necessary branches were taught to those of the unfortunate men who had a mind for them. He was of the number who had a mind. He went to school at the age of forty, and learned to read, to write, to cipher. He felt that to fortify his intelligence was to fortify his hate. In certain cases, education and enlightenment can serve to eke out evil.

This is a sad thing to say; after having judged society, which had caused his unhappiness, he judged Providence, which had made society, and he condemned it also.

Thus during nineteen years of torture and slavery, this soul mounted and at the same time fell. Light entered it on one side, and darkness on the other.

Jean Valjean had not, as we have seen, an evil nature. He was still good when he arrived at the galleys. He there condemned society, and felt that he was becoming wicked; he there condemned Providence, and was conscious that he was becoming impious.

It is difficult not to indulge in meditation at this point.

Does human nature thus change utterly and from top to bottom? Can the man created good by God be rendered wicked by man? Can the soul be completely made over by fate, and become evil, fate being evil? Can the heart become misshapen and contract incurable deformities and infirmities under the oppression of a disproportionate unhappiness, as the vertebral column beneath too low a vault? Is there not in every human soul, was there not in the soul of Jean Valjean in particular, a first spark, a divine element, incorruptible in this world, immortal in the other, which good can develop, fan, ignite, and make to glow with splendor, and which evil can never wholly extinguish?

Grave and obscure questions, to the last of which every physiologist would probably have responded no, and that without hesitation, had he beheld at Toulon, during the hours of repose, which were for Jean Valjean hours of reverie, this gloomy galley-slave, seated with folded arms upon the bar of some capstan, with the end of his chain thrust into his pocket to prevent its dragging, serious, silent, and thoughtful, a pariah of the laws which regarded the man with wrath, condemned by civilization, and regarding heaven with severity.

Certainly,—and we make no attempt to dissimulate the fact,—the observing physiologist would have beheld an irremediable misery; he would, perchance, have pitied this sick man, of the law’s making; but he would not have even essayed any treatment; he would have turned aside his gaze from the caverns of which he would have caught a glimpse within this soul, and, like Dante at the portals of hell, he would have effaced from this existence the word which the finger of God has, nevertheless, inscribed upon the brow of every man,—hope.

Was this state of his soul, which we have attempted to analyze, as perfectly clear to Jean Valjean as we have tried to render it for those who read us? Did Jean Valjean distinctly perceive, after their formation, and had he seen distinctly during the process of their formation, all the elements of which his moral misery was composed? Had this rough and unlettered man gathered a perfectly clear perception of the succession of ideas through which he had, by degrees, mounted and descended to the lugubrious aspects which had, for so many years, formed the inner horizon of his spirit? Was he conscious of all that passed within him, and of all that was working there? That is something which we do not presume to state; it is something which we do not even believe. There was too much ignorance in Jean Valjean, even after his misfortune, to prevent much vagueness from still lingering there. At times he did not rightly know himself what he felt. Jean Valjean was in the shadows; he suffered in the shadows; he hated in the shadows; one might have said that he hated in advance of himself. He dwelt habitually in this shadow, feeling his way like a blind man and a dreamer. Only, at intervals, there suddenly came to him, from without and from within, an access of wrath, a surcharge of suffering, a livid and rapid flash which illuminated his whole soul, and caused to appear abruptly all around him, in front, behind, amid the gleams of a frightful light, the hideous precipices and the sombre perspective of his destiny.

The flash passed, the night closed in again; and where was he? He no longer knew. The peculiarity of pains of this nature, in which that which is pitiless—that is to say, that which is brutalizing—predominates, is to transform a man, little by little, by a sort of stupid transfiguration, into a wild beast; sometimes into a ferocious beast.

Jean Valjean’s successive and obstinate attempts at escape would alone suffice to prove this strange working of the law upon the human soul. Jean Valjean would have renewed these attempts, utterly useless and foolish as they were, as often as the opportunity had presented itself, without reflecting for an instant on the result, nor on the experiences which he had already gone through. He escaped impetuously, like the wolf who finds his cage open. Instinct said to him, “Flee!” Reason would have said, “Remain!” But in the presence of so violent a temptation, reason vanished; nothing remained but instinct. The beast alone acted. When he was recaptured, the fresh severities inflicted on him only served to render him still more wild.

One detail, which we must not omit, is that he possessed a physical strength which was not approached by a single one of the denizens of the galleys. At work, at paying out a cable or winding up a capstan, Jean Valjean was worth four men. He sometimes lifted and sustained enormous weights on his back; and when the occasion demanded it, he replaced that implement which is called a jack-screw, and was formerly called orgueil [pride], whence, we may remark in passing, is derived the name of the Rue Montorgueil, near the Halles [Fishmarket] in Paris. His comrades had nicknamed him Jean the Jack-screw. Once, when they were repairing the balcony of the town-hall at Toulon, one of those admirable caryatids of Puget, which support the balcony, became loosened, and was on the point of falling. Jean Valjean, who was present, supported the caryatid with his shoulder, and gave the workmen time to arrive.

His suppleness even exceeded his strength. Certain convicts who were forever dreaming of escape, ended by making a veritable science of force and skill combined. It is the science of muscles. An entire system of mysterious statics is daily practised by prisoners, men who are forever envious of the flies and birds. To climb a vertical surface, and to find points of support where hardly a projection was visible, was play to Jean Valjean. An angle of the wall being given, with the tension of his back and legs, with his elbows and his heels fitted into the unevenness of the stone, he raised himself as if by magic to the third story. He sometimes mounted thus even to the roof of the galley prison.

He spoke but little. He laughed not at all. An excessive emotion was required to wring from him, once or twice a year, that lugubrious laugh of the convict, which is like the echo of the laugh of a demon. To all appearance, he seemed to be occupied in the constant contemplation of something terrible.

He was absorbed, in fact.

Athwart the unhealthy perceptions of an incomplete nature and a crushed intelligence, he was confusedly conscious that some monstrous thing was resting on him. In that obscure and wan shadow within which he crawled, each time that he turned his neck and essayed to raise his glance, he perceived with terror, mingled with rage, a sort of frightful accumulation of things, collecting and mounting above him, beyond the range of his vision,—laws, prejudices, men, and deeds,—whose outlines escaped him, whose mass terrified him, and which was nothing else than that prodigious pyramid which we call civilization. He distinguished, here and there in that swarming and formless mass, now near him, now afar off and on inaccessible table-lands, some group, some detail, vividly illuminated; here the galley-sergeant and his cudgel; there the gendarme and his sword; yonder the mitred archbishop; away at the top, like a sort of sun, the Emperor, crowned and dazzling. It seemed to him that these distant splendors, far from dissipating his night, rendered it more funereal and more black. All this—laws, prejudices, deeds, men, things—went and came above him, over his head, in accordance with the complicated and mysterious movement which God imparts to civilization, walking over him and crushing him with I know not what peacefulness in its cruelty and inexorability in its indifference. Souls which have fallen to the bottom of all possible misfortune, unhappy men lost in the lowest of those limbos at which no one any longer looks, the reproved of the law, feel the whole weight of this human society, so formidable for him who is without, so frightful for him who is beneath, resting upon their heads.

In this situation Jean Valjean meditated; and what could be the nature of his meditation?

If the grain of millet beneath the millstone had thoughts, it would, doubtless, think that same thing which Jean Valjean thought.

All these things, realities full of spectres, phantasmagories full of realities, had eventually created for him a sort of interior state which is almost indescribable.

At times, amid his convict toil, he paused. He fell to thinking. His reason, at one and the same time riper and more troubled than of yore, rose in revolt. Everything which had happened to him seemed to him absurd; everything that surrounded him seemed to him impossible. He said to himself, “It is a dream.” He gazed at the galley-sergeant standing a few paces from him; the galley-sergeant seemed a phantom to him. All of a sudden the phantom dealt him a blow with his cudgel.

Visible nature hardly existed for him. It would almost be true to say that there existed for Jean Valjean neither sun, nor fine summer days, nor radiant sky, nor fresh April dawns. I know not what vent-hole daylight habitually illumined his soul.

To sum up, in conclusion, that which can be summed up and translated into positive results in all that we have just pointed out, we will confine ourselves to the statement that, in the course of nineteen years, Jean Valjean, the inoffensive tree-pruner of Faverolles, the formidable convict of Toulon, had become capable, thanks to the manner in which the galleys had moulded him, of two sorts of evil action: firstly, of evil action which was rapid, unpremeditated, dashing, entirely instinctive, in the nature of reprisals for the evil which he had undergone; secondly, of evil action which was serious, grave, consciously argued out and premeditated, with the false ideas which such a misfortune can furnish. His deliberate deeds passed through three successive phases, which natures of a certain stamp can alone traverse,—reasoning, will, perseverance. He had for moving causes his habitual wrath, bitterness of soul, a profound sense of indignities suffered, the reaction even against the good, the innocent, and the just, if there are any such. The point of departure, like the point of arrival, for all his thoughts, was hatred of human law; that hatred which, if it be not arrested in its development by some providential incident, becomes, within a given time, the hatred of society, then the hatred of the human race, then the hatred of creation, and which manifests itself by a vague, incessant, and brutal desire to do harm to some living being, no matter whom. It will be perceived that it was not without reason that Jean Valjean’s passport described him as a very dangerous man.

From year to year this soul had dried away slowly, but with fatal sureness. When the heart is dry, the eye is dry. On his departure from the galleys it had been nineteen years since he had shed a tear.

#les mis #les mis letters #volume 1: fantine #book 2: the fall #chapter 7

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marvinkey · 2 years

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The First 10 Amendments Of The Constitution Of The United States - Commonly Known As The Bill Of Rights - Ratified On December 15th, 1791:

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II

A well regulated [regulate, rĕg′yə-lāt″, transitive verb, 1 - to control or direct according to rule, principle, or law, 2 - to adjust to a particular specification or requirement, 3 - to adjust (a mechanism) for accurate and proper functioning (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition)] militia [militia, mə-lĭsh′ə, noun, 1 - an army composed of ordinary citizens rather than professional soldiers, 2 - a military force that is not part of a regular army and is subject to call for service in an emergency, 3 - the whole body of physically fit CIVILIANS eligible by law for military service (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition)], being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people [people, pē′pəl, noun, 1 - humans considered as a group or in indefinite numbers, often treated as a plural of person, especially in compounds, 2 - the mass of ORDINARY persons; the POPULACE. Used with the, 3 - body of persons living in the same country under one national government; a nationality (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition)] to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed [infringe, ĭn-frĭnj′, intransitive verb, 1 - to transgress or exceed the limits of; violate, 2 - to defeat; invalidate, 3 - to encroach on someone or something; engage in trespassing (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition)].

Amendment III

No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. [click on link to understand how this constitutional clause is knowingly violated on a daily basis, via the use of semantics (conducted in rem, or against the property itself, rather than in personam, or against the owner of the property), by the very government that is supposed to be protecting the God given right of the people stated in the afore mentioned clause)

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Amendment VII

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Unfortunately, this ship has sailed. Our founding & guiding document has been trampled upon and violated for many decades now. The time to stand and fight as a unified force has long since passed. Now, through brainwashing and the inducement of mass formation psychosis via the CIA Operation Mockingbird controlled media establishment, fluoride, geoengineering, GMO & processed foods and many other nefarious schemes & mechanisms, "The People" have, in the main, been reduced to overly compliant, chemically lobotomized, physically compromised shells of the images of God that they are. As I have illustrated above, a simple perusal of our Constitution with a dictionary in hand reveals the extent of its having been ignored and abused by the ones who were entrusted by "The People" to implement it. The last time (1861-65) a united group of "The People" attempted to stand against unconstitutional overreach it didn't end very well for them. In fact, the war that ensued only served to strengthen and embolden the Federal government in its trampling on the rights of the states and "The People". Also, in 1776 the "The People" and the state weren't too far apart in the weapons they could bring to bear against one another. Fast forward 200+ years and the pitiful few of the "The People", who would even dare defend the Constitution against its domestic enemies, will be wielding their AR-15s (that the Constitution violators vociferously try to take from them) against an enemy who wields predator drones, cruise missiles, A-10 attack aircraft and microwave weapons. 1861-65 will seem tame in comparison. Not to mention that the braindead masses will consider you the problem and not their government overlords.

I posted the above because I saw a Tumblr post with the Bill Of Rights listed along with a bunch of memes calling for people to take action. While I appreciate the sentiment, it isn't grounded in our current reality. Do what you need to do for you. Hard times are coming to America; deservedly so because we have forsaken our Maker who blessed us with America in the first place.

Repent, and believe the good news of Jesus the Messiah, for His kingdom is at hand!

#bill of rights #us constitution #constitutional #2nd amendment #2ndamendment #5th amendment #10th amendment #gospel of jesus christ #repent #faith in jesus #nwo new world order #agenda 21 #agenda 2030 #government corruption #government lies #government control

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bringerofdeathandtheapocolypse · 1 year

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Notes and comments from rewatching Oracion seiz Part 1 (Episodes 52 and 53

Mira just being so casual when saying "Oh welcome back master after he just announced they would need to fight the Seiz is great.

I didn't actually realize it was canon Cobra wore earrings. I thought that was fanon that I was making true in my head(That happens a lot). That's awesome

Also wasn't Gray on the list of hottest male mages after the time skip? What is so different now in this arc compared to then for both Natsu and Gray to not be on the list? Like Gray didn't change at all between the skip so I don't get why he isn't there.

I usually don't mind Ichiya but he is really bugging me with the fact he keeps violating Erza's personal space when she's very clearly showing through body language and words that she isn't interested and doesn't want him touching her.

The fact that this dark menacing music plays when Lyon shows up and he's having a stare off with Gray, meanwhile Natsu is just smiling all happy to find out Lyon actually joined a guild is so precious.

Almost everyone here is just having beef with each other. Like damn, you guys are supposed to be fighting the seiz not each other.

Jura being the voice of reason. Good work my guy.

Everyone just being like 'Wait a child?' when Wendy shows up meanwhile I'm here knowing that 1. She's a dragon slayer and healer so very strong and useful and 2. One of only 2 living members of cait shelter.

The fact this is the only time any of the slayers show any form of recognition for each other in the slightest. Like Gajeel doesn't have a similar reaction to Wendy later and none of them to Sting or Rogue.

I honestly like how Wendy's current outfit because not only does it have resemblance to Grandeeney but it just hints to her being a sky mage just enough, similar to Gajeel having the metal on his shirt, gloves and boots. A hint to their magic while still blending into their designs.

Can the tri men not simp over the 12 year old. Like come on guys, find something to say that isn't complementing on how pretty and cute she is.

Jura is great. He has literally no reaction to Wendy at all. One of the only few not surprised that Wendy was both a child and a girl(something that irks me when both Mira and Erza exist)

Sherry having beef with Carla because she called Gaudy is great.

God dammit, the trimen are flirting with Carla too. Good gravy

Poor Wendy talking down on herself when its literally canon that all slayers are just op as fuck. Like even if she doesn't have combat experience, when paired with other slayers, she does a damn good job with fighting. Like pair her with Natsu or Gajeel on a team and you've got a powerful team going. Putting all four fairy tail slayers on a team would be even better because you've got both Gajeel and Laxus who can do both melee and ranged, Natsu who has mostly melee attacks and Wendy who both has melee, a couple ranged and support magic to boost the others with, you've got a powerhouse going.

Carla does have a point in saying Wendy needs to have more confidence and I love that she actually does get more confidence as she builds up her techniques and magic. She has the most confidence when fighting alongside someone like Edolus where she fights with Natsu and Gajeel, she is extremly confident there and by GMG she has the confidence in herself to hold her own in the fight against Shellia. That was the arc Wendy deserved, not her constantly comparing herself to other girls who are a lot older.

Carla just saying Wendy will drive her to catnip like its some drug or alcohol. I can't

Jura and Ichiya noticing that Wendy doesn't use just any old magic because of her signature leads me to question why they didn't notice that it bares resemblance to Natsu's. But it does further prove that slayer magic is a very powerful subclass of magic.

I honestly don't blame Natsu for forgetting who Wendy is because he literally had his memories altered by the magic of the eclipse gate. No wonder he's pressing on it so hard, its been hidden away by magic.

Ok further confusion with map things being, they literally refer to it as Worth Woodsea in its first official appearance. It is never refered to by the name on the official map once. I don't know if it was perhaps changed later on or something but its so weird.

Cobra is literally fucking smiling at the camera in the picture that Hibiki uses of him. Its like 'oh I'm getting my photo taken? Better look extra sinister or they'll think bad of me'

Also he's just called the snake wizard because he has a snake or his name right? Is it that unbelievable that he could just really like snakes and not have any magic that involves them? Like criminals can like animals and have pets too ya know. They don't always have to be horrible pet owners. Cobra clearly isn't.

Is Midnight really an odd name? Its not common but I don't think its odd either. Its one of the more name like names of the seiz. Especially when you have Hoteye and Racer which no one in their right mind would (hopefully) name a child that.

I actually like the pair system they went with because it is a good idea. Strategy is something that was heavily relied on for Racer, Midnight and Cobra's fights because attacking them head on isn't a valid option because of their magic.

The way Gemini speaks of Makarov makes it sound like they know a lot about him. Its kinda interesting to be honest

Trying to decide if Natsu wanting a Christina is a good or bad thing tbh.

If there's one good thing about the seiz its that they're exceedingly dramatic.

I have never heard someone use the word frosty when telling people to stay alert and now I can't get over the idea that Gray makes ice and cold related puns.

I love how there is something that Midnight holds that just makes wind chime noises. Its great.

Ok so how physically strong is Cobra. Because in some scenes it looks like Cubelious has her full weight on him and he's carrying her but in others it looks almost like she's floating. And Cobra is one of the only dragon slayers in the main series who doesn't have prominent muscles aside from Wendy. And we never see him shirtless so we can't say whether he is secretly ripped or not like with Rogue. So I'm genuinely curious behind this. Is he just secretly strong from always carrying Cubelious or does she use magic to help with that since she is cursed and would be able to use magic since Kinana does learn magic during the 1 year time skip.

I love how Cobra always says "I can hear it" or a variation of it with his sentences like its some kind of scare tactic to get people to fear him.

The fact both Cobra and Racer don't want to listen to Hoteye talk about money makes me believe that they have to listen to that on a regular basis. Especially Cobra if its one of the only things Hoteye thinks about.

To be fair on Lucy, I'd probably be terrified of a guy that's supposed to be super powerful and he didn't even bother to get up from bed too.

Fuck yeah the Oracion seiz ost. I love it. Its such a bop not gonna lie.

Cobra asking if Gray and Natsu need an invitation to fight just satisfies my "he's a sassy bitch" headcanon and I love it.

I love how they up the smoothness of the animation for the fights Like it looks so good. That one scene where Lyon takes a step and his foot melts down into mud is so satisfying to watch.

The trimen getting taken out just seems like their fault since they were too busy fighting over Angel.

Some of these angles are cool. Like the one on Cobra when he comments on Erza's requip where Cubelious' head looks a lot bigger because its closer to the camera. Also I am just filling my phone with pictures of Cobra for refs and such at this point.

The way Cobra just moves ever so slightly and avoids the swords looks great. Like they give it a slight blur when he's moving.

I am honestly unsure if Racer saying "I like fast women" is supposed to be a sex joke or not. Cause on one hand, it obviously fits with him being able to slow others down but the way its phrased and said makes me think its supposed to be a sex joke. I don't know.

I love the art for when Cobra gets behind Erza and how she's highlighted blue while Cobra is shrouded in black with a glowing red eye. Gives very sinister intentions.

This fight reminded me how Cobra can actually hold his own in a fight without Cubelious attacking or using his dragon slayer magic. He gives Erza a good kick to the stomach that is clearly shown to be a strong hit. He's one of the few slayers who has been shown to not relay constantly on their dragon magic (Laxus is the other but he still uses magic a lot to cover his hits, Cobra only uses his ears to give him an advantage) its probably done this way because they wanted Cobra being a slayer to be a surprise for when he fights Natsu but it leans into my theory that 2nd gens are technically stronger than 1st or at least Natsu. (He never beat Laxus or Cobra. Gajeel's hard to judge since we never see him fight Cobra and he had a disadvantage against Laxus by types although canon Gajeel is on par with Natsu so I'd say he'd be outmatched)

I just found an example of where it looks like Cubelious is floating around Cobra not wrapped around him. Also I'm pretty sure she got longer. Like here's actual visual examples I took.

Ignore the quality, my playstation won't let me screenshot my own dvd so I had to use my phone for the photos.

So from what I can gather, Midnight's magic is kind of like Cobra's in where unless its blocked or sealed then its constantly active even when he's asleep. At least he knows he can't be stabbed in the middle of the night.

Brain just standing to the side like "Ah yes. The screams of teenagers. What a lovely sound" (Because everyone in this fight aren't even 21. Only Ichiya and Jura were above that age and they aren't participating and since we know the seiz members are around Erza's age, literally no one here aside from Brain are above 21. (And possibly Hoteye since he's the older one) Only Ren and Hibiki are 20 while everyone else is between 19 to 16 (Wendy, Happy and Carla being even lower)

Ok so Brain seems quite impressed by Erza so I'm curious if would have tried to recruit her like he did Natsu. Cause clearly he's looking for strong mages and I could believe that he'd know Erza was from the tower if Jellal or someone else he'd scouted out had ever mentioned her. (Erik might have heard about Erza or something similar)

I love how Cobra describes everything he hears as a symphony. Its an interesting way to look at someone being able to hear everything about a person.

Ok so Cobra wasn't aware Erza was from the tower before which could be that he just doesn't recognise her now that she's older or because he never physically saw her but I love the detail of him jumping back and looking shocked because that place was just as bad for him as it was for her and he's now seeing someone who came from the same background but didn't fall to evil. Perfect to use for a redemption arc with Cobra where he starts to rethink his choices now that he knows someone else who went through the same torture and pain didn't turn to killing people.

Continuing on that point with how he drops his guard and says "You were there" which is the first foreshadowing to where the seiz really come from because of the wording alone. He doesn't say "You were tortured" or "You were enslaved" he says there, showing a sense of recognition and familiarity towards a place the audience have learned was a horrible part of Erza's past and its put in naturally. Its not just Erza word vomiting her past. Its her trying to use her bad memories to get an opening in the fight. Cobra was already listening to her thoughts to predict her moves so of course he would pick up on it. This is the kind of character work I love, hinting to things in ways that make sense. This entire situation was a tactic to strike Cobra not some sappy moment. And of course Cobra would let his guard down, he hasn't come to terms with that part of his life yet. He still holds anger and resentment towards the people who did that to him (And possibly Zeref because there has to be a reason why the seiz are the only balam alliance that never do any evil schemes that have any relation to Zeref what so ever) so seeing someone else's experience probably brought up his own memories of how he was treated and perhaps even how he ended up there in the first place (Its never stated but I doubt Cobra was also an orphan before being taken. I personally like to believe he had to watch his parents be slaughtered right in front of him before being taken away but that's just my headcanon)

Also the fact that Cobra isn't the one to defend himself against Erza, its Hoteye. Cobra has clearly had his guard dropped. He's stunned and lost his confident mask. If he hadn't been protected then I wouldn't be surprised if Erza actually hit a strike on him unless Cubelious protected her friend.

Also also, Racer says "Pick up the pace" to Cobra. They clearly don't know what just happened. They just know that he suddenly jumped back and let his guard drop. To them, they probably thing he's slacking or something similar, not baring witness to someone else's traumatic events that mirror his own. And I wouldn't be surprised if frustration from Racer's ridicule and anger about what he just witnessed is why he orders Cubelious to attack. Because he was doing fine on his own against Erza, he even caught her swords. But instead he sends his snake to poison her instead.

Okay at this point I'm just going to agree with Pencilofawesomeness' concept from their papalogia story that Cubelious can just change her size because now she's 3x taller than Cobra after biting Erza.

What is it with dragon slayer villians doing crazy facial expressions. Cobra keeps having one eye widened while the other narrowed (Which I doubt this is actually the case but it is kinda like foreshadowing since the narrowed eye is the one he gives up later in the KOTSH arc. He also does wide smirks which are great fun to watch. This man is a sassy bitch if I ever do see one.

I don't think they ever established how Brain knew about Wendy. Because he says her name and seems shocked to see her but I don't recall ever having a moment where he admits to how he knows who she is (At least I unintentionally gave a reason for how he'd know in the au with the whole pack stuff and such) If I'm proven wrong later after a proper refresher than I will definitely make a note of that

#fairy tail #the bringer of death and the apocolypse #oracion seis #oracion seiz arc #Fairy tail anime #Fairy tail rewatch

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drwilfredwaterson · 10 months

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Analysis - Part 1/2: Conservative Questions for Evangelical Republicans Seeking Election in 2024, 2026, 2028, and Beyond...

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is the 32nd film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Filming Dates: November 2021 to May 2022 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 premiered at Disneyland Paris on April 22, 2023, and was released on May 5, 2023, in the United States, as part of Phase Five of the MCU.

"There is no god! That's why I stepped in!" - High Evolutionary

The High Evolutionary presented himself at first look as a harbinger of the perfect society and species, seemingly appeared to be a noble and knowledgeable being who wants to create a perfect world with the perfect species. However, this was only a façade to hide the true person underneath, a selfish, cruel, and heartless egomaniac, who wants to control everything under his name and a psychopathic man who in essence wanted to be seen and treated as a god. (Fandom.com)

Scientific racism misapplies, misconstrues, or distorts anthropology (notably physical anthropology), anthropometry, craniometry, evolutionary biology, and other disciplines or pseudo-disciplines, in proposing anthropological typologies supporting the classification of human populations into physically discrete human races, some of which might be asserted to be superior or inferior to others. Scientific racism was common during the period from the 1600s to the end of World War II, and was particularly prominent in European and American academic writings from the mid 19th century through the early 20th century. Since the second half of the 20th century, scientific racism has been criticized as obsolete and discredited, yet has persistently been used to support or validate racist world-views, based upon belief in the existence and significance of racial categories and a hierarchy of superior and inferior races.

The Nazi Party and its sympathizers published many books on scientific racism, seizing on the eugenicist and antisemitic ideas with which they were widely associated, although these ideas had been in circulation since the 19th century. Books such as Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes ("Racial Science of the German People") by Hans Günther (first published in 1922) and Rasse und Seele ("Race and Soul") by Ludwig Ferdinand Clauß [de] (published under different titles between 1926 and 1934) attempted to scientifically identify differences between the German, Nordic, or Aryan people and other, supposedly inferior, groups. German schools used these books as texts during the Nazi era. In the early 1930s, the Nazis used racialized scientific rhetoric based on social Darwinism[citation needed] to push its restrictive and discriminatory social policies.

During World War II, Nazi racialist beliefs became anathema in the United States, and Boasians such as Ruth Benedict consolidated their institutional power. After the war, discovery of the Holocaust and Nazi abuses of scientific research (such as Josef Mengele's ethical violations and other war crimes revealed at the Nuremberg Trials) led most of the scientific community to repudiate scientific support for racism. Although the child was "the most important treasure of the people", this did not apply to all children, even German ones, only to those with no hereditary weaknesses. Nazi Germany's racially based social policies placed the improvement of the Aryan race through eugenics at the center of Nazis ideology. Those humans were targeted who were identified as "life unworthy of life" (German: Lebensunwertes Leben), including but not limited to Jewish people, criminals, degenerate, dissident, feeble-minded, homosexual, idle, insane, and the weak, for elimination from the chain of heredity. Although they were still regarded as "Aryan", Nazi ideology deemed Slavs (i.e., Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, etc.) to be racially inferior to the Germanic master race, suitable for expulsion, enslavement, or even extermination.

Adolf Hitler banned intelligence quotient (IQ) testing for being "Jewish".

For its policies toward Native Americans and attempts to keep the races apart, Hitler considered the United States an admirable -- but incomplete -- example of a 'folk' nation By Matt Lebovic 13 August 2017, 11:29 am The Times of Israel

Hitler had an “admiring engagement” with America’s handling of Native Americans, said Whitman. In a 1928 speech, the future dictator said the US had “gunned down the millions of Redskins to a few hundred thousand, and now keeps the modest remnant under observation in a cage.” For its policies toward Native Americans and attempts to keep the races apart, Hitler considered the US an admirable — but incomplete — example of a “volkisch” nation. A notable success, in Nazi eyes, was the “dead letter” citizenship afforded to blacks.

“It was not outlandish for [the Nazis] to think of their program of the early 1930s as a more thoroughgoing and rigorous realization of American approaches toward blacks, Asians, Native Americans, Filipinos, Puerto Ricans, and others — even if the regime had shifted its sights to a new target in the form of the Jews, even if it would later take the racist exercise of modern state power in an unimaginably horrifying new direction,” wrote Whitman.

The aspect of America’s “common law racism” that most appealed to the Nazis was called “anti-mongrelization law,” or measures aimed at preventing “mixed” marriages. In 30 states, “anti-miscegenation” laws existed to prevent these unions from taking place. There were even fines and jail sentences issued to offenders, something Whitman called “rare” in legal history.

Another aspect of American race law that appealed to Nazi legal minds was the ability of state and local judges to use common law to — for instance — discriminate against blacks. A Constitutional amendment might have freed the slaves, but many southern leaders, including governors, mayors and judges, were bent on denying blacks the voting rights afforded by citizenship.

Also of appeal to Nazi planners, US politics was “comparatively unencumbered by law,” and a plan like FDR’s “New Deal” could thrive in tandem with the country’s systemic racism, according to Whitman. This combination inspired the Nazis during the 1930s, when the “Four Year Plan” created new jobs and built a covert war machine, all while the persecution of Jews and other minorities steadily increased.

“What the American example showed was that German judges could persecute Jews even without legislation founded in clear and scientifically satisfactory definitions,” wrote Whitman. In a regime that was to become obsessed with “who is a Jew,” this flexibility — such as deployed by judges in the US south —would become important, including when the Nuremberg Laws were crafted.

A code talker was a person employed by the military during wartime to use a little-known language as a means of secret communication. The term is most often used for United States service members during the World Wars who used their knowledge of Native American languages as a basis to transmit coded messages. In particular, there were approximately 400 to 500 Native Americans in the United States Marine Corps whose primary job was to transmit secret tactical messages. Code talkers transmitted messages over military telephone or radio communications nets using formally or informally developed codes built upon their Indigenous languages. The code talkers improved the speed of encryption and decryption of communications in front line operations during World War II and are credited with a number of decisive victories. Their code was never broken. (Wikipedia)

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - Mahatma Gandhi

coon noun 1: raccoon 2: offensive—used as an insulting and contemptuous term for a Black person The first known use of coon was in 1742 (Merriam-Webster)

coon (short/slang for barracoon) A barracoon (a corruption of Portuguese barracão, an augmentative form of the Catalan loanword barraca ('hut') through Spanish barracón) is a type of barracks used historically for the internment of enslaved or criminal human beings. In the Atlantic slave trade, captured individuals were temporarily transported to and held at barracoons along the coast of West Africa, where they awaited transportation across the Atlantic Ocean. A barracoon simplified the slave trader's job of keeping the prospective slaves alive and in captivity, with the barracks being closely guarded and the captives being fed and allowed exercise. The barracoons varied in size and design, from small enclosures adjacent to the businesses of European traders to larger protected buildings. The amount of time enslaved persons spent inside a barracoon depended their health and the availability of slave ships. Many captive enslaved individuals died in barracoons, some as a consequence of the hardships they experienced on their journeys and some as a result of their exposure to lethal European diseases. (Wikipedia)

What is a "Christian" and how can someone claiming to be "Christian" prove they're a "Christian"? A "Christian" is a follower of Jesus Christ. Who is Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ is an Indigenous/Native Israeli Jewish prophet and the Savior, Redeemer, and Messiah of all "Christians" (followers of the Middle Eastern Israeli Jew/Hebrew named Jesus Christ).

Was/is Jesus Christ's mother, the Virgin Mary, the European Vestal Virgin of Rome from pagan Roman mythology? Of course she wasn't/isn't.

Did Jesus Christ, an Indigenous/Native Israeli Middle Eastern Jew, have pasty white European skin from never stepping out into or working under the intense Middle Eastern sun? Of course not.

Did Jesus Christ appear to be Roman/European? No. There are no scriptures in the "Christian" "Holy Bible" where anyone who encountered Jesus Christ immediately recognized him and his followers as Romans/Europeans. Saul/Paul was actually a Roman who wasn't immediately recognized as a Roman and was subjected to the punishments reserved for Jews/Hebrews/Indigenous/Native Israelis/Middle Easterners.

Legally speaking, if Jesus Christ was/is the pasty white-skinned Roman/European person the enemies of Jesus Christ claim he was/is, the Romans/Europeans couldn't have, and wouldn't have, tortured Him to death after proclaiming him innocent and "Christianity" wouldn't exist as it does today (which means there wouldn't be a bunch of people walking around wearing crosses reminding them of Good Friday, Sabbath Saturday, and Resurrection Saturday night while profaning Jesus Christ's Sabbath 52 Sundays per year, every year, of their "Christian" life of "closely following in the footsteps of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ").

All of the proof is in the King James Version of the "Christian" "Holy Bible" that biblically-illiterate "Christians" have ignored for as long as they've ignored the Jewish/Hebrew TANAKH that Jesus Christ came to validate and redeem every word and letter of. What is the TANAKH? The TANAKH is what "Christians" call the "Old Testament," except that it's in the original Hebrew and arranged and studied in the same order that Jesus Christ studied it at the Roman-infested/corrupted Second Temple before he was tortured to death by the Romans/Europeans for being a Native/Indigenous Israeli Jew/Hebrew prophet and miracle worker. Jesus Christ wasn't tortured/murdered/killed by the Jews/Hebrews. Why wouldn't a true follower of Jesus Christ want to study a copy of the original scriptures as Jesus Christ encountered them, in the same language He encountered them, that've been translated into modern English by Hebrews/Jews that are of the same religion and culture as Jesus Christ?

There are specific detailed accounts in the "Christian" "Holy Bible" describing who actually tortured Jesus Christ to death. Nowhere in any of the specific detailed accounts of Jesus Christ's torture and murder are any Jews/Hebrews/Rabbis named. The enemies of Jesus Christ can't tell anyone the names of the Jewish/Hebrew Rabbis who wielded the torture instruments, nailed Jesus Christ to the cross, cast dice for His garments, speared His side, gave orders to break his legs, or granted permission for Him to be taken down from the cross and placed into the tomb because all those people are named as being 100% Roman/European in the "Christian" "Holy Bible." So, no, the Native/Indigenous Israeli Jews/Hebrews most certainly didn't "kill Jesus Christ," but the enemies of Jesus Christ, the Romans/Europeans, most certainly and undeniably did.

Who is an enemy of Jesus Christ? An enemy of Jesus Christ is any antisemitic non-Jew/Hebrew who claims Jesus Christ isn't the Lord of the Sabbath (kept holy from Friday night to Saturday night every week), who profanes Jesus Christ's Sabbath every Sunday while proclaiming "Thim Thar Juws Dun Kilt OWR Jeezus Krist!!!," who lives their lives to attempt to invalidate the TANAKH/Jewish/Hebrew scriptures and the Jewish/Hebrew culture that Jesus Christ lived, died, and resurrected by in every way possible, who intentionally and maliciously violates and misinterprets the commandments and laws given to the Jews/Hebrews in the books of Genesis and Deuteronomy, anyone who prioritizes money over people and attempting to be of service to humanity and the Abrahamic God of the Jews/Hebrews, all Nazis and White Supremacists/White Nationalists (Jesus Christ wasn't/isn't European), anyone who doesn't actively love and redeem others as Jesus Christ did, anyone who engages in self-deification, anyone who doesn't serve, care, and live for others first and then themselves last, anyone who is obviously and unashamedly lying and engaging in falsehoods in any and all forms of communication with others, and anyone who considers themselves to be "cowboys" or "cowgirls" who believes in destroying and manipulating the free will of others for the sake of exploiting and harvesting human beings as if they're livestock.

A lot of people could be accused of being an "Enemy of Jesus Christ" by those who are undeniably "Enemies of Jesus Christ," and I doubt that'll ever stop until Evangelicals are forced to face their malignant abomination of hypocrisy, antisemitism, and antichrist existence in the mirror and in the Abrahamic scriptures on a regular basis.

The "Discovery Doctrine": Dum Diversas (English: "Until different") is a papal bull issued on 18 June 1452 by Pope Nicholas V addressed to Afonso V and conceded Portugal's right to attack, conquer and subjugate enemies of Jesus Christ.

"We grant you by these present documents, with our Apostolic Authority, full and free permission to invade, search out, capture, and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ wherever they may be, as well as their kingdoms, duchies, counties, principalities, and other property […] and to reduce their persons into perpetual servitude."

The Virginia Slave Codes of 1705 (formally entitled An act concerning Servants and Slaves), were a series of laws enacted by the English/British Colony of Virginia's House of Burgesses in 1705 regulating the interactions between slaves and citizens of the English/British crown colony of Virginia.

All servants brought into the country, who were not "Christians" in their home country with a few exceptions will be considered and treated as slaves. Even if they convert to "Christianity" later, they will still be bought and sold as slaves.

States that no individuals, such as Negroes, mulattos, Indians, Jews, Moors, Muslims, or other non-Christians, will be allowed to purchase "Christian" servants. If any person from the aforementioned groups purchases a Christian white servant, that servant will automatically become free.

According to the "Discovery Doctrine" and the British/English Virgina Slave Codes of 1705, all "Christian" "churches" of all Evangelicals who proclaim and prove themselves to be enemies of Jesus Christ every Sunday should now be considered and treated as barracoons/prisons for permanently enslaved Evangelicals, all Evangelicals should be considered and referred to as "coons" (Until Different), all bank accounts, assets, and property of all Evangelicals who profane the Sabbath every Sunday are immediately forfeited to anyone and everyone who keeps the Sabbath holy every Friday night to Saturday night as Jesus Christ and His apostles did, all permanently enslaved Evangelicals are immediately banned from voting and/or engaging in any form of self-determination, and all permanently enslaved Evangelicals can be treated exactly as slaves were treated in English/British colonies and by supporters of the anti-American Confederacy until such time that they can learn and understand the TANAKH/Jewish/Hebrew scriptures, confess the truths about the real life and teachings of Jesus Christ and His apostles, and keep the Sabbath holy as Jesus Christ did during His life, death, and resurrection.

It really isn't too much to ask that Evangelicals learn to speak and read English, learn and understand the TANAKH/Jewish/Hebrew scriptures, learn and understand that the TANAKH/Jewish/Hebrew scriptures are the only scriptures Jesus Christ came to validate every word and letter of, learn and understand that the Father of the Holy Trinity (Jesus Christ's Father) is the Abrahamic God of the Jews/Hebrews, learn and understand how and why Jesus Christ isn't "God", learn and understand that Jesus Christ never once invalidated any word or letter of the TANAKH/Jewish/Hebrew scriptures at any point during His life, death, and resurrection, and learn and understand that anyone who curses the Jews/Hebrews and the Abrahamic God of the Jews/Hebrews is cursed, anyone who blesses the Jews/Hebrews will be/is blessed, and that antisemitic bigots aren't, never will be, and never can be the "True Chosen People" of the Abrahamic God of the Jews/Hebrews (aka the Father of the "Christian" "Holy Trinity") because of their perpetual and malicious antisemitism and antichrist lifestyles.

James Henry Hammond argued that slavery of intentionally biblically-illiterate Evangelicals would be a "positive good" stating: "Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement."

The "other class" is obviously those who are evolved, intelligent, creative, sophisticated, wise, and educated enough to be able to read and understand the Abrahamic scriptures at a level that guides and leads them to learning about and following the actual life and teachings of Jesus Christ should they choose to be Christians, or Jews/Hebrews and Muslims that faithfully adhere to the Abrahamic scriptures where self-deifying, antisemitic, antichrist Evangelicals have consistently imploded for thousands of years due to stumbling on the cornerstone they perpetually reject (Jesus Christ) and then being repeatedly crushed by it for the thousands of years since the Romans/Europeans tortured and killed Jesus Christ in much the same ways antisemitic antichrist Evangelicals raped, tortured, and killed their own slaves in the name of Jesus Christ (yikes!).

It would be an act against public policy and a stifling of Conservative values and ideology to continue to allow Evangelicals to mislead, indoctrinate, and force God-fearing, Jesus Christ-loving Christian Conservatives into the antichrist paths of self-deification and antisemitism by profaning Jesus Christ's Sabbath, redemption, and salvation every Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Easter season and by endlessly disrespecting, misrepresenting, violating and invalidating the Abrahamic scriptures and faiths with their English and biblical illiteracy. Conservative children need to be educated, not indoctrinated!

As of 2019, non-white children are majority minority nationwide in the United States. Per the 2020 United States Census, the percentage of white residents is below 60% in seventeen states: Hawaii, New Mexico, California, Texas, Nevada, Maryland, Georgia, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Arizona, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alaska, Illinois, Delaware, and Virginia.

In the United States, the vast majority of African Americans and Hispanic and Latino Americans attend schools where white Americans are in the minority. 2006 research from The Civil Rights Project found that, on average, white students attend schools that are 78% white, while black and Hispanic students attend schools which are 29% white.

A study on this suggested that; "This data is important because "majority minority" schools have the worst facilities (buildings, labs, libraries, athletic facilities), the least qualified teachers, the worst overcrowding, and the least financial support." In regards to racial classification at a national level, public schools in the US obtained majority minority status in 2014. At the university level, Harvard University's first case of a majority-minority freshman class was reported in 2017. (Wikipedia)

Some Faith-Based Considerations and Questions for Anyone Claiming to be Christian Who Intends to Vote for Any Republican Candidate in 2024, 2026, 2028, and Beyond: Can the Republican Candidate Demanding/Asking For American Votes Actually Prove They're Christian? Do They Profane Jesus Christ's Good Friday, Sabbath Saturday, and Resurrection Saturday Night Every Sunday? Can They Accurately Describe Jesus Christ, Mary, and Joseph as Suntanned Native/Indigenous Israeli Middle Easterners? Can They Accurately Recount What the Romans/Europeans Did to Israel, the Second Temple, and to Jews/Hebrews For Centuries After Proclaiming Jesus Christ Innocent and then Torturing Him to Death? Can They Detail Their Lifelong Christian Evangelical Efforts to Help Build the Third Temple in Israel? Conservative Voters and Children Deserve to Know!

In 2013, 456,000 women younger than 20 became pregnant. Some 448,000 of those pregnancies were among 15–19-year-olds, and 7,400 were among those aged 14 and younger. https://www.guttmacher.org/report/us-adolescent-pregnancy-trends-2013.

The "Christian" Evangelical response to those 7400 age 14 and under abortions was to force those age 14 and under children to become mothers and give them no financial and food support once the babies are born and all in the name of Jesus Christ, the Abrahamic God of the Jews/Hebrews, and the Holy Spirit that allegedly is supposed to guide Evangelicals in righteous living.

How can anyone claim to be a true follower of Jesus Christ when they can't identify which "Christian" scripture(s) describe Jesus Christ and/or His apostles raping and impregnating family members and children as young as 10 to 14 years old, raping and impregnating unrelated young girls and women of any age whenever and wherever they felt like it, and then providing absolutely no support to those mothers and offspring in the forms of financial and food assistance?

How can anyone claim to be a true follower of Jesus Christ when they can't identify which "Christian" scripture(s) describe Jesus Christ and His apostles utilizing their "Apostlic Authority" to grant full and free permission to invade, search out, capture, and subjugate any unbelievers and enemies of Jesus Christ wherever they may be, as well as their kingdoms, duchies, counties, principalities, and other property and to reduce their persons into perpetual servitude?

How can anyone claim to be a true follower of Jesus Christ when they can't identify which "Christian" scripture(s) describe Jesus Christ and His apostles utilizing their "Apostlic Authority" to grant full and free permission to punish any unbelievers and enemies of Jesus Christ by whipping, shackling, hanging, beating, burning, mutilation, branding, imprisonment, and murder in response to disobedience, perceived infractions, or to re-assert the dominance of the master or overseer of the perpetually enslaved unbelievers and enemies of Jesus Christ?

How can anyone who celebrates the entire Easter season every year claim to be a true follower of Jesus Christ when they maliciously profane the Friday night to Saturday night Sabbath and deny that crucial part of their salvation every single week for their entire "Christian" life? How can anyone claim to be a true follower of Jesus Christ when they proclaim themselves the true "Lord of the Sabbath" with equal authority to Jesus Christ? How can anyone claim to be a true follower of Jesus Christ when they have so much unquestionable divine power and authority they have no need for Jesus Christ? How can anyone claim to be a true follower of Jesus Christ when they can't point out which Jewish/Hebrew or "Christian" scripture(s) give human beings equal or superior authority to Jesus Christ's Father, the Abrahamic God of the Jews/Hebrews to change Jesus Christ's Sabbath from Friday to Saturday night to the first day of the week, Sunday, instead? How can anyone claim to be a true follower of Jesus Christ when they live and act as if the first day of the week is Monday? How can anyone who claims to be a true follower of Jesus Christ while calling the first day of the week Monday also claim to honor and celebrate Good Friday (it'd have to be changed to Good Saturday) for their personal and eternal salvation? How can anyone claim to be a true follower of Jesus Christ and to be "saved" by Jesus Christ when they don't/can't/refuse to understand that the special Sabbath Jesus Christ was tortured to death on by the Romans/Europeans was the Passover Sabbath celebrating the Jews/Hebrews being liberated from the Egyptians where the Roman/European invaders were/are the equivalent of the Egyptians?

How can anyone claim to be a true follower of Jesus Christ when they've never read the scriptures that Jesus Christ came to validate that would forbid a Native/Indigenous Israeli Jewish/Hebrew Joseph from marrying a foreign Roman/European pagan white-skinned Mary? How can anyone claim to be a true follower of Jesus Christ when they've never read the scriptures that demand Jews/Hebrews rid themselves of foreign wives and the children of foreign wives? How can anyone claim to be a true follower of Jesus Christ when they claim that Jesus Christ came to invalidate the Jewish/Hebrew scriptures and Jewish/Hebrew culture?

How can anyone claim to be a true follower of Jesus Christ when a Roman/European white-skinned Jesus Christ isn't mentioned or validated anywhere in the "Christian" "Holy Bible" and biblical scholars and researchers have been refuting that narrative for decades? How can anyone claim to be a true follower of Jesus Christ when they don't even know what He looks like and couldn't find Him in a crowd? How can anyone claim to be a true follower of Jesus Christ when their search for Jesus Christ involves finding the whitest-skinned, most European looking guy in the entire Middle East? If Jesus Christ really was the whitest-skinned, most European looking guy in the entire Middle East, then why did Judas need to identify him? Was Jesus Christ difficult to identify in a crowd because the entire Middle East was/is composed of the whitest-skinned, most European looking people in the world? If Jesus Christ and His untanned white-skinned apostles had some sort of divine protection against sun exposure, then how did the remaining population of the entire Middle East manage to maintain their untanned white skin without that same divine protection so that Jesus Christ and His apostles could easily blend into a typical untanned white-skinned, European-faced Middle Eastern crowd?

TANAKH (Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English): Page 1855: Ezra 10:1 While Ezra was praying and making confession, weeping and prostrating himself before the House of God, a very great crowd of Israelites gathered about him, men, women, and children; the people were weeping bitterly. Ezra 10:2 Then Shecaniah son of Jehiel of the family of Elam and said to Ezra, "We have trespassed against our God by bringing into our homes foreign women from the peoples of the land; but there is still hope for Israel despite this. Ezra 10:3 Now then, let us make a covenant with our God to expel all these women and those who have been born to them, in accordance with the bidding of the Lord and of all who are concerned over the commandment of our God, and let the Teaching be obeyed.

"There is no god! That's why I stepped in!" - High Evolutionary

The High Evolutionary presented himself at first look as a harbinger of the perfect society and species, seemingly appeared to be a noble and knowledgeable being who wants to create a perfect world with the perfect species. However, this was only a facade to hide the true person underneath, a selfish, cruel, and heartless egomaniac, who wants to control everything under his name and a psychopathic man who in essence wanted to be seen and treated as a god. (Fandom.com)

April 22, 1945 (Sunday) Hitler held a conference on the afternoon of April 22, 1945 in the Führerbunker to discuss the military situation. Upon being informed that the Steiner attack had not happened, and that the Soviets were now entering the northern suburbs of Berlin, he flew into a rage. He denounced the Army, complained that his generals and anyone who had deserted him were cowards and had failed him, then he finally conceded that the war was indeed lost. Over the protests of all those present, Hitler stated that he would stay in Berlin to the absolute end and then shoot himself, rather than try to escape to the south. Heinrich Himmler secretly met with Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden and asked him to act as an intermediary to offer the surrender of all German forces in the west. The message took 48 hours to reach the Allies and they did not take it seriously. (Wikipedia)

Isaiah 32:5 No longer will the fool be called noble nor the scoundrel be highly respected. Isaiah 32:6 For fools speak folly, their hearts are bent on evil: They practice ungodliness and spread error concerning the LORD; the hungry they leave empty and from the thirsty they withhold water. Isaiah 32:7 Scoundrels use wicked methods, they make up evil schemes to destroy the poor with lies, even when the plea of the needy is just. Isaiah 32:8 But the noble make noble plans, and by noble deeds they stand.

Deuteronomy 5:5 I stood as an intermediary between you and the LORD, for you were afraid of the fire and did not want to approach the mountain. He spoke to me, and I passed his words on to you. This is what he said: Deuteronomy 5:6 “I am the LORD your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. Deuteronomy 5:7 “You shall have no other gods before me. Deuteronomy 5:8 “You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind, or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. Deuteronomy 5:9 You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. Deuteronomy 5:10 But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands. Deuteronomy 5:11 “You must not misuse the name of the LORD your God. The LORD will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name. Deuteronomy 5:12 “Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you. Deuteronomy 5:13 You have six days each week for your ordinary work, Deuteronomy 5:14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the LORD your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your oxen and donkeys and other livestock, and any foreigners living among you. All your male and female servants must rest as you do. Deuteronomy 5:15 Remember that you were once slaves in Egypt, but the LORD your God brought you out with his strong hand and powerful arm. That is why the LORD your God has commanded you to rest on the Sabbath day. Deuteronomy 5:16 “Honor your father and mother, as the LORD your God commanded you. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the LORD your God is giving you. Deuteronomy 5:17 “You must not murder. Deuteronomy 5:18 “You shall not commit adultery. Deuteronomy 5:19 “You shall not steal. Deuteronomy 5:20 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. Deuteronomy 5:21 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor’s house or land, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Deuteronomy 5:22 “The LORD spoke these words to all of you assembled there at the foot of the mountain. He spoke with a loud voice from the heart of the fire, surrounded by clouds and deep darkness. This was all he said at that time, and he wrote his words on two stone tablets and gave them to me. Deuteronomy 5:23 “But when you heard the voice from the heart of the darkness, while the mountain was blazing with fire, all your tribal leaders and elders came to me. Deuteronomy 5:24 They said, ‘Look, the LORD our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice from the heart of the fire. Today we have seen that God can speak to us humans, and yet we live! Deuteronomy 5:25 But now, why should we risk death again? If the LORD our God speaks to us again, we will certainly die and be consumed by this awesome fire. Deuteronomy 5:26 Can any living thing hear the voice of the living God from the heart of the fire as we did and yet survive? Deuteronomy 5:27 Go yourself and listen to what the LORD our God says. Then come and tell us everything he tells you, and we will listen and obey.’ Deuteronomy 5:28 “The LORD heard the request you made to me. And he said, ‘I have heard what the people said to you, and they are right. Deuteronomy 5:29 Oh, that they would always have hearts like this, that they might fear me and obey all my commands! If they did, they and their descendants would prosper forever.

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