#feckless Speaker of the House
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Tim Campbell
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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
February 29, 2024
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
MAR 1, 2024
Today’s story is that in the negotiations to fund the government and pass the national supplemental security bill, MAGA Republicans appear to be losing ground. Biden appears to be trying to weaken them further by making it clear it is Republicans, not Democrats, who are preventing new, strict border security legislation.
The first of two continuing resolutions to fund the government for fiscal year 2024 will expire tomorrow. Fiscal year 2024 began on October 1, 2023, and Congress agreed to a topline budget, but it has been unable to fund the necessary appropriations because MAGA Republicans have insisted on having their extreme demands met in those measures. In this struggle, former president Trump has urged his loyalists not to give way, telling them in September 2023: “UNLESS YOU GET EVERYTHING, SHUT IT DOWN!”
But a poll from last September showed that 75% of Americans oppose using brinksmanship over a government shutdown to bargain for partisan gain.
After kicking the can down the road by passing three previous continuing resolutions, House Republicans a week ago expected a shutdown. But today they backed off. The House passed a short-term continuing resolution that pushes back the dates on which the two continuing resolutions expire, from March 1 and March 8 to March 8 and March 22. The vote was 320 to 99 in the House, with 113 Republicans joining 207 Democrats to pass the measure. Ninety-seven Republicans opposed the bill, as did two Democrats who were protesting the lack of aid to Ukraine.
Tonight, the Senate approved the continuing resolution by a vote of 77 to 13. President Joe Biden is expected to sign it tomorrow. “What we have done today has overcome the opposition of the MAGA hard right and gives us a formula for completing the appropriations process in a way that does not shut the government down and capitulate to extremists,” Senate majority leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) said.
Trump opposes helping Ukraine in its fight to resist Russia’s invasion, and under his orders, MAGA Republicans have also stalled the national security supplemental bill, which contains Ukrainian aid, as well as aid to Israel, the Indo-Pacific, and humanitarian aid to Gaza. The measure passed the Senate on February 13 by a strong bipartisan vote of 70 to 29, and is expected to pass the House if Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) takes it up, but so far, he has refused.
Today, Representative Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) told reporters that “several” House Republicans are willing to sign a discharge petition to force Speaker Johnson to bring a national security supplemental measure to the floor for a vote. A simple majority can force a vote on a bill through a discharge petition, but such a measure is rare because it undermines the House speaker. With Johnson refusing to take up the Senate measure, Fitzpatrick and his colleague Representative Jared Golden (D-ME) have prepared their own pared-down aid measure. Fitzpatrick told CNN’s Jake Tapper Tuesday that “[w]e are trying to add an additional pressure point on something that has to happen.”
Speakers from the parliaments of 23 nations wrote to Johnson yesterday and urged him to take up the Senate measure, saying that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has “challenged the entire democratic world, jeopardizing the security in the whole European and Euro-Atlantic area,” and that “the world is rapidly moving towards the destruction of the sustainable world order.”
On Tuesday, Johnson met with President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Senate majority leader Schumer, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) to discuss the importance of funding the government and passing the national security supplemental bill. There, he was the odd man out as the other five pressed upon him how crucial funding for Ukraine is for U.S. national security.
Yesterday, Johnson told Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity that the leaders told him he was “on an island by myself, and it was me versus everyone else in the room.” He went on: “What the liberal media doesn’t understand, Sean, is that if you’re here in Washington and you’re described as a leader that’s on an island by themselves, it probably means you’re standing with the American people.”
But an AP-NORC poll released today shows that it is not Johnson but the others at that meeting who are standing with the American people: 74% of Americans, including 62% of Republicans, support U.S. aid to Ukraine’s military.
The struggle between Biden and Trump for control over U.S. politics played out starkly today as both were in Texas to talk about immigration. Both say the influx of migrants at the southern border of the United States needs to be better managed. But Trump blames Biden for what he compares to a war in which an “invasion” of criminal “fighting-age men” are pouring over the border. (NBC News noted that “there is no evidence of a migrant-driven crime wave in the United States” and that, in fact, their review of crime data ”shows overall crime levels dropping in those cities that have received the most migrants.”)
Trump promises he would solve immigration issues instantly with executive orders, although his orders during his term faced legal challenges.
In contrast to Trump’s promise to dictate a solution, Biden emphasized that the government should work for the people. In Texas, he noted that the federal government has rushed emergency personnel and funds to the state to combat the deadly wildfires there that have burned more than a million acres, and he urged Congress to pass a law to address border issues, as he has asked it to since he took office.
Such a measure is popular, and earlier this month, Trump undermined a bill that was tilted so far to the right that it drew the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Wall Street Journal editorial board, and the U.S. Border Patrol union. Senators from both parties had spent four months hammering the bill out at the insistence of House Republicans, who then killed it when Trump, apparently hoping to keep the issue open for his campaign, told them to.
Today, Biden urged Congress to pass the $20.2 billion bipartisan border bill that would, he said, give border patrol officers the resources they need: 1,500 more border agents, 100 cutting-edge machines to detect and stop illegal fentanyl, 100 additional immigration judges to deal with the backlog of cases, 4,300 more asylum officers, more immigrant visas, and emergency authority for the president to shut the border when it becomes overwhelmed.
Biden spoke directly to Trump: “Instead of playing politics with the issue, instead of telling members of Congress to block this legislation, join me, or I'll join you, in telling the Congress to pass this bipartisan border security bill. We can do it together…. Instead of playing politics with the issue, why don't we just get together and get it done. Let’s remember who the heck we work for. We work for the American people, not the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. We work for the American people.”
Trump may not share that perspective. Last night, Maggie Haberman and Andrew Higgins of the New York Times reported that Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who has undermined democracy in Hungary, will visit Trump at Mar-a-Lago next week as Trump scrambles to find the more than half a billion dollars he needs to pay the fines and penalties courts have ordered. “We cannot interfere in other countries’ elections,” Orbán said last week, “but we would very much like to see President Donald Trump return to the White House.”
LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
#GOPutin#political cartoons#Tim Campbell#Letters From An American#Heather Cox Richardson#American Foreign Policy#war in Ukraine#Russia#dictators#Orban#government funding#feckless Speaker of the House#National Security
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RINIO should never have been installed ...get Jordan in there
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Blinken's Remarks About Fed Walkout Against Admin Over Israel Are Unbelievable
Members of the Biden administration from at least 22 agencies were supposed to walk out on Tuesday to protest the administration's position on Israel and the Israel-Hamas war.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said on X that anyone who walked out should be fired.
Any government worker who walks off the job to protest U.S. support for our ally Israel is ignoring their responsibility and abusing the trust of taxpayers. They deserve to be fired.Oversight Chairman Comer and I will be working together to ensure that each federal agency initiates appropriate disciplinary proceedings against any person who walks out on their job.
The workers who termed themselves "Feds United for Peace" were planning a "Day of Mourning."
But if you're looking for the video of them walking out, protesting, or saying something, you won't find it.
If you want to know what cowardly characters these folks are, their "walkout" was just supposed to involve them staying home anonymously on Tuesday.
To participate, the group Feds United for Peace asked workers to "stay home from work" to mark the day. They also asked participants to anonymously complete a pledge of participation.
What bravery. Who would even notice they're gone?
But it turns out there was a storm, and a lot of the federal workers were told to stay home because of that. So, again, who would notice? Feds United for Peace claimed, "Many employees eligible for telework still participated in the Day of Mourning." Yeah, I believe that — because you tell me so. Not. Is a protest still a protest if you can't hear it when it falls in the forest?
Also, as some pointed out, a strike of federal employees is against the law, so the Feds United for Peace were backing off the "walkout" terminology a bit.
But whether anything even happened with this protest, one thing was confirmed by this action (or lack of action): how feckless the Biden administration is in dealing with their own people. When Sec. of State Antony Blinken was asked about this walkout and whether they should be fired, he said he wanted people to be comfortable to say what they want.
But the State Department, perhaps more than some of the other agencies, is supposed to be the standard bearer of the policy of the United States, not personal policies or what most might benefit Hamas terrorists. If someone takes a position that is the antithesis of the U.S. position, how might they carry out their job, and would they be trustworthy? Not to mention that we, the taxpayers, shouldn't have to pay for the time they take off for their ineffective temper tantrum.
That doesn't seem to concern Blinken very much. He's cool with them expressing themselves. Notice he never answered the question of whether or not they should be fired. Which I guess is an answer of a sort.
But these are the ridiculous "adults in charge" now.
Related:
Big Trouble for Biden: Campaign Volunteers 'Quitting in Droves' According to Staffers
Message Discipline: Zero - Biden Admin Plagued by Anonymous Letters From Young Staffers
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Revenge could be costly
Revenge could be costly
Congressional Republicans’ vengeance agenda as the new Congress gets underway well could prove seriously damaging to any hope of the GOP maintaining control of the legislative branch of the U.S. government.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — who will be remembered forever as the man who needed 15 ballots to eke out a victory for the speakership — takes office as the weakest and most feckless speaker…
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Time to jettison the gerontocracy.
July 4, 2022
One of the most frustrating things about being a Democrat nowadays is seeing how unprepared and ineffective the Party has been in the face of the continuing Republican attacks on democracy and basic human rights. This fecklessness is largely due to the fact that its leadership is too old, too out of touch with rank-and-file Dems, and still believe they can "work across the aisle" with radically extreme GOPers who regard liberals as an existential threat to America.
In any other line of work, the Democratic kingpins would have retired long ago. For example, the three top Dems in Congress (pictured above demonstrating their forceful resolve to do nothing) are House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (age 82), House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (83) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (only 71). Plus, of course, the nominal head of the Democratic Party, President Joe Biden, is 79 years old.
Even the second-tier leadership is exceedingly long in the tooth. Senate President Pro Tem Pat Leahy is 82, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin is 77 and House Majority Whip James Clyburn 81. Not surprisingly, the oldest member of either house in Congress is a Democrat, 89-year-old Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is also the ranking member of the Judiciary, Intelligence, Rules and Appropriations Committees!
But the problem isn't simply that these Dem leaders are old, it's that they remain stuck in a bygone era when Republicans were reasonable, willing to adhere to norms and played by the rules. As The Guardian points out,
What Biden and Pelosi still cannot come to grips with is that the Republican party is...a political party that openly undermines the democratic system in word and deed. That is the only Republican party that exists.
The recent emergence of a fanatically reactionary movement throughout America — from state legislatures to the Supreme Court — that is ruthlessly assaulting the rights of women, racial minorities, LGBTQ people, educators and anyone else they can think of should rouse Democratic Party elders to swift and decisive action. But it hasn't. Because, as The National Review observed nearly two years ago, “This is a party that desperately needs to get younger, or else it will continue to bungle basic governance and alienate both its future leaders and the base.”
Clearly, what's needed is for the old guard to step aside and allow a new generation of leaders to take over. Linda Sanchez, the vice chair of the House Democratic caucus, has it right when she says, “There comes a time when you need to pass that torch.”
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21. Feckless
Confessions of a flame too guttering to burn:
Why do you put up with this? Huh?
Don’t pretend you don’t notice how they see you.
I said, fucking look.
Faces that say “what is this thing and why should I care,”
You’re a curiosity at best, really.
Who is this clown, they must be asking themselves. All done up in her red and gold greasepaint.
The way she looked down the nose of those shitty round glasses at you, the first time you met, and what were the first words out of her mouth?
Don’t pretend you didn’t notice, don’t pretend they didn’t rattle in your skull for the rest of the night, bounding around with every pulse of bass from the concert speakers.
You introduced yourself, and she mocked you. She took your friendly gesture and told you right where you could go stick it, and she shoved a drink tray in your new friend’s hand to obediently trail after her like a lapdog.
You should have gotten angry. You should have fed her her fucking teeth; you’ve done so for so much less before.
Remember? You were a fucking marauder, Rem. Someone spat in your eye like that and you blackened theirs.
You should know better than anyone that your reputation was the only thing you had worth defending.
Sure, your hands are coarse. But they’ve at least fucking worked and bled and scraped.
But you turn to her again for work. You spend days bouncing around notaries to get your paperwork in order. You even invite your best friend over to help you learn how to pronounce the name of her fucking winery and once the paperwork was signed and stamped, oh, what did she say to you?
“You’re sweet. We are not friends.”
And she’s not the only one you follow with your tail between your fucking legs.
You thought you’d be decent. Take the high road, Remeraux. Invite the fucking viscountess out for coffee. Maybe if you get to know her, you’ll stop wanting to throttle her every time she talked about her manor. Her estate.
(She’s twenty five turns old, Remeraux. She’s twenty five fucking turns old and don’t you forget she has two goddamn palaces. Burn that one into your fucking skull.)
And every day until the appointed day, she jerked you around. Stop playing off those barbs and jabs. Don’t let her get away with some sob story about ‘a noble has to be a stuck-up bitch because to do otherwise would lose her everything.’
She would never end up with less than what you started out with.
So what if her house is ruined. So what if all of their houses are ruined?!
Don’t forget how you felt when you heard that the Dragonsong War finally ended, and some fragment of common fucking sense down in your stupid fucking guts felt bad that the wrong side won!
Let her live in her stupid, godsdamned city and play her stupid, godsdamned games until their bones are as cold as the city they’ve set up shop in!
Why do you want their approval so fucking badly?
Why do you fucking care?!
Why do you keep making a fool of yourself in front of them over and over again as if their approval would finally fill the hole inside of you where inside a thousand thousand voices just like theirs told you were less than nothing?
When did those voices start mattering more than this one?
#ffxivwrite2021#ffxivwrite#Remeraux Writes#egrine#evilie#mentions#god I am super sorry for this one and I swear I love both of your characters sm#but there is a part of remeraux deep down in her gut that has never gotten over being treated like this#and while these are her most vindictive thoughts it's not like she gives them that much oxygen anymore to begin with
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And because Donald Trump declared by feckless fiat that he actually won the 2020 election in a landslide, Georgia decided they’d like to make it a lot easier for the next right-wing proto-tyrant to steal future elections. That could be Trump—or anyone else for that matter, including MyPillow guy Mike Lindell. Imagine being sent to a Jesus reeducation camp and being forced to sleep on that dude’s subpar bedding every night. I’m just warning you ahead of time, because if the last five years have taught us anything, it’s that nothing is too fucking weird for this timeline.
A few years ago I noted that it’s basically impossible to tell the difference between an April Fools’ joke and something Donald Trump has actually said, so I moved we table April Fools’ Day until we could Tide Pod the ocher butt imprint from our societal fabric.
That day is not now, as Republicans have bravely taken up the mantle of whatever the fuck Trump was doing over the past several years.
In other words, while I’d hoped Trump’s sound electoral defeat would have allowed them to escape their mind prison—a la the Wicked Witch of the West’s praetorian guard following her sudden meltdown—they’re behaving a lot more like the witch’s flying monkeys after finding the key to her liquor cabinet.
Anyway, you may have seen that Ed Bastian, the CEO of Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, came out Wednesday with a statement against Georgia’s new voter-suppression bill.
“After having time to now fully understand all that is in the bill, coupled with discussions with leaders and employees in the Black community, it’s evident that the bill includes provisions that will make it harder for many underrepresented voters, particularly Black voters, to exercise their constitutional right to elect their representatives,” the statement read, in part. “That is wrong. The entire rationale for this bill was based on a lie: that there was widespread voter fraud in Georgia in the 2020 elections. This is simply not true. Unfortunately, that excuse is being used in states across the nation that are attempting to pass similar legislation to restrict voting rights.”
Of course, instead of feeling chastened, the Georgia GOP decided to punch back, Trump-style.
CNN:
Georgia's Republican-controlled House on Wednesday voted to revoke a major tax break for Delta Air Lines as punishment for its CEO's public criticism of the state's controversial new law clamping down on ballot access.
The state Senate did not take up the measure before lawmakers adjourned for the year, rendering it dead for this year -- but the threat underscores the potential political backlash corporations could face for opposing efforts to restrict voting.
Okay, that’s not cool. Not sure that Delta should be getting a jet fuel tax break to begin with, but that’s neither here nor there. The sick part is that the Georgia legislature is apparently determined to undermine any company that doesn’t toe the voter suppression line.
And it’s not like Georgia Republicans are trying to hide what they’re doing.
"They like our public policy when we're doing things that benefit them," Georgia's Republican House Speaker David Ralston said, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "You don't feed a dog that bites your hand."
Is that what standing up for voting rights is tantamount to? Hand-biting?
Yeah, I say we keep this up. Keep pressuring Delta, Coca-Cola, and other big Georgia-based corporations, and if they don’t like it, they can always move. It wouldn’t be easy, but it would be better than taking this kind of nonsense from a nest of retrograde racists.
”This guy is a natural. Sometimes I laugh so hard I cry." — Bette Midler on author Aldous J. Pennyfarthing via Twitter. Need a thorough Trump cleanse? Thanks to Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, Dear F*cking Lunatic, Dear Pr*sident A**clown and Dear F*cking Moron, you can purge the Trump years from your soul sans the existential dread. Only laughs from here on out. Click those links, yo!
#georgia#georgia elections#georgia voter suppression#georgia voter#voter suppression#trumplicans#qop
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Mike Luckovich
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President Biden vs. the chaos candidate.
February 27, 2024
ROBERT B. HUBBELL
On Friday, March 1, about half the federal government will run out of authority to spend money; most of the rest will run out of spending authority on March 8. The House returns from a two-week recess on Wednesday, February 28—two days before the first partial government shutdown. During those two “working” days, the House will spend time in the Oversight Committee taking deposition testimony from Hunter Biden while the Senate prepares for a trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. See The Hill, Lawmakers race to avoid looming shutdown as blame game begins.
That is exactly the result that Trump orchestrated by ordering congressional Republicans to flip-flop-flip-flop on immigration reform and funding for Ukraine. Putin opposes funding for Ukraine, which means Trump opposes funding for Ukraine, which means congressional Republicans oppose funding for Ukraine. It’s a straight line from Putin to Mike Johnson, with Trump as the messenger boy.
The surest way to prevent funding for Ukraine—and maximize chaos--is to shut down the entire US government. Mike Johnson appears to be entertaining that option, even though some members of the GOP caucus have lost patience with Mike Johnson’s feckless leadership and are prepared to avoid a shutdown.
Trump is the chaos candidate. He causes chaos and blames others. The national drama and pain inflicted on all Americans distract from his increasing legal jeopardy.
Don’t fall for Trump's chaos-distraction strategy. Congressional Democrats and President Biden have been acting responsibly every step of the way. Indeed, President Biden will meet with congressional leaders on Tuesday, even though House Republicans have played whack-a-mole with funding bills involving immigration reform and funding for Ukraine.
It is possible that Speaker Mike Johnson will fold his cards at the last moment—as he did when two prior funding deadlines approached. But playing “chicken” with a government shutdown is no way to run the world’s largest economy. Americans deserve better from Congress. Let’s hope that Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries can again bring order and common sense to bear in the House.
[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]
#Mike Luckovich#political cartoons#Robert B. Hubbell#robert B. Hubbell Newsletter#the chaos candidate#government shutdown
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Previewing the 2024 Democrat Primary
Within a couple weeks of his being sworn in, just about every person on earth will wish Joe Biden was no longer president. Sure, the few surviving John B. Anderson voters will be thrilled to see 4 years of crushing austerity and half-assed attempts at Keynesian stimulus. But most people will begin dreaming about a brighter future.
Good news! The 2024 Democratic primary field is going to contain dozens of options. Bad news! They are all going to be disgusting piles of shit.
The “top tier”
While it’s too early to do any handicapping, these are the candidates the media will treat as having the most realistic chances of securing the nomination.
Kamala Harris
Kamala did not win a single primary delegate in 2020. This is because she dropped out before the first primary, and that was because no one likes her. She has no base beyond a few thousand of twitter’s most violent psychos. Her disingenuousness approaches John Edwards levels: any halfway incredulous person can see immediately beyond her bullshit. She has no principles whatsoever, and while that may be par for the course for Democrats, she lacks even the basic politician’s ability to intuit anything that might, hypothetically, constitute a principle.
Even better: she is an awful public speaker. She sounds like how a talking dog would speak if he were just caught stealing people food off the kitchen table. She communicates in weird grunts and faux sassy squeaks, which is how she imagines real black women sound like, but something about her is unable to sell the bit. She begins her sentences in halfhearted AAVE, stops and panics halfway through as she realizes that maybe this sounds fake and offensive, and then reminds herself oh wait, no, this is okay since I’m black. This doesn’t happen once or twice per speech. This is how every single sentence sounds.
Kamala is like Nancy Pelosi in that no sketch show will ever impersonate her correctly, because anything that came close to authenticity would be considered far too cruel. This might benefit her in the primaries, as she exists in the minds of Democrats as someone and something she absolutely is not in reality. Nominating her would be like allowing your child’s imaginary friend to attempt to drive you to the store.
Andrew Cuomo
Easily one of the 50 worst people alive, Cuomo has a solid chance because Democrats, same as Republicans, are unable to differentiate between electability and self-serving ruthlessness. Cuomo used the deadliest public health crisis in American history as a pretext for cutting Medicaid and firing 5,000 MTA workers, and his approval rating increased. New York Dems are little piggies who love eating shit. If we assume that the political media will continue their habit of refusing to discuss the legislative history of right wing Democrats, Cuomo might well cruise to the nomination and then lose to literally any human being the GOP nominates by an historic margin.
Joe Biden
The party loves him because he is a right wing racist. “Progressives” tolerate him because black primary voters over 40 supported him, and their opinion is supposedly a magic window into god’s truth. Everyone else can tell he is manifestly senile. I don’t put it above the DNC to pick a candidate who is in horrible health, dying, or even dead--whatever the financial sector wants, they’ll get. But I would be shocked if his approval rating is above 39% by mid-2023, and by that point deep fake technology will be advanced enough they’ll put out a very lifelike video in which the Max Headroom version of Joe explains he’s proud of his accomplishments--that budget’s almost balanced already--but, man, I gotta abd--I gotta abdica--, uhh, I gotta, I, uhh, I gotta move down, man.
Wild Cards
These candidates would have all have a chance if they ran, but they could all much more easily retire to Little Saint James off of kickbacks they’ve gotten from Citibank and I.G. Farben.
Rahm Emanuel
Rahm is going to receive some hugely influential post in the Biden administration. Let’s say he becomes Secretary of Education. His signature achievement will be replacing all elementary school teachers with Amazon’s Alexa, which saved the taxpayers so much money we were able to quadruple the number of armed police officers we put into high schools. This will give him several thousand positive profiles on network news programs and the near-universal support of the Silicon Valley vampires who will own 99% of the country by the time Biden’s term ends. They will use their fancy mind control devices to convince geriatic primary voters that Rahm’s the one who will bring Decency back to the white house. His candidacy will be the paragon of wokeness, as expressing concern toward the fact that he covered up the police murder of a black guy will get you called a racist.
Rahm has a bonus in that Jewish men are now Schrodeniger’s PoC. When they are decent human beings, they are basic, cis white men who are stealing attention from disabled trans candidates of color. When they love austerity and apartheid, they become the most vulnerable people of color on earth and criticizing them in any way is genocide. No one will be able to mention a single thing Rahm has ever done or said without opening themselves to accusations of antisemitism, and that gives him a strong edge against the rest of the field. The good news is that an Emmanuel candidacy would result in over 50% of black voters choosing the GOP candidate--which, I guess that’s not really good but it would certainly be funny.
Gavin Newsom
Newsom is every bit as feckless as Cuomo, but he doesn’t put off the same “bad guy in an early Steven Segal movie” vibes. He will mention climate change 50 times per speech and no one will bother to mention how he keeps signing fracking contracts even though his state is now on fire 11 months of the year. If anything, this will be spun into an argument about how he’s actually the candidate best suited to handle all the water refugees gathering on the southern border. Look for his plan to curb emissions by 10% by the year 2150 to get high marks from Sierra Club nerds. He’s also a celebate librarian’s idea of what constitutes a handsome man, so he’ll have some support from the type of women who claim to hate all men.
Larry Summers
I mean, why not? Larry, like most members of the Obama administration, has politics that are eerily similar to those of Jordan Peterson. In normal circumstances, this makes a person a dangerous fascist who should not be platformed. But if that person has a D next to their name this makes them a realistic pragmatist who has what it takes to bring suburban bankers into our tent. If current trends in Woke Phrenology continue apace, Larry’s belief that women are inherently bad at STEM will be liberal orthodoxy by 2023, and his dedication to the Laffer Curve could see him rake in massive donations. Seriously, I’m not kidding: cultural liberalism is now fully dedicated to identity essentialism and balanced budgets. Larry is their ideal candidate. If he were black and/or a woman, I’d put him in the very top tier.
Jay Inslee
Unlike Newsom, Inslee’s attempt to crown himself the King of Global Warming won’t be immediately derailed, since his state is only on fire because of protestors. This, however, poses a different problem. He’s going to be a good test case for the Democrat’s uneasy peace with the ever increasing share of the electorate who become catatonic upon hearing a pronoun. On the one hand, you need to take their votes for granted. On the other hand, they’re not like black people or regular gays: most voters actively, consciously despise wokies, and associating yourself with them will ruin a campaign even in deep blue areas. There’s still gonna be riots in a year. Biden’s gonna announce the sale of all our nation’s potable water to the good folks at Nestle and some trans freak named Sasha-Malia DeBalzac is going to use that as an opportunity to sell their new pamphlet about how it’s fascist to not burn down small businesses. No matter what Inslee does in response, it’ll end his career.
AOC
I’m not one of those “AOC is a secret conservative” weirdos, but I am aware enough of basic reality to know she has zero chance of coming close to the nomination. The right and the center both regard her as a literal demon. The party is already blaming her for the fact that a handful of faceless Reagan acolytes failed to flip their suburban districts even though they ran on sensible pragmatic proposals like euthanizing the homeless. The recriminations will only get more unhinged when the Dems eat shit in the 2022 midterms. She will be a Russian, she will be white male, she will be a communist, she will be a homophobe: any insult or conspiracy theory you can name, MSNBC will spend hours discussing. Her house seat challenger will receive a record amount of support from the DNC in 2024 and it’ll be all she can do to remain in congress.
Larry Hogan
Don’t be dissuaded by the fact that he’s a Republican. Larry is the DNC’s ideal candidate: a physically repulsive conservative who owes his entire career to appealing to the most spiteful desires of suburban white people. He’s an open racist in a material sense--if you’re old-school enough to think racism is a matter of beliefs and actions, rather than the presence of cultural signifiers--but his is the beloved “never Trump” style of racism that Dems covet. He’s also a Proven Leader who thinks the role of government should be to finance the construction of investment property and give police the resources they need to run successful drug trafficking operations. Few people embody the Democrat worldview more than Larry.
The Losers Bracket
These people will have at least a small chance due solely to the fact that the Democrats love losing. They have lost in the past, and in the Democrat Mind that makes them especially qualified.
Joe Kennedy
The man looks like a mushroom-human hybrid from a JRPG. Trump proved that physical hideousness need not doom a presidential bid, but a candidate still needs some kind of charm or oratorical abilities or, god forbid, a decent platform. Joe aggressively lacks all of these things. A vanity campaign would be a good way to raise money and perhaps secure an MSNBC gig, so Joe might still run.
Mayor Pete
I am 100% convinced that Pete’s 2020 run was a CIA plot meant to prevent working class Americans from ever having a chance of living decent lives. I am also 100% aware that Democrats are dumb enough to enthusiastically support a CIA plot meant to prevent working class Americans from ever having a chance of living decent lives. If we have some sort of military or terror disaster between now and 2023 the Dems are sure to want a TROOP, and wait wait wait you’re telling me this one is a gay troop? Holy hell there’s no way that could lose!
Stacy Abrams
Never underestimate the power of white guilt. She lost the gubernatorial race to Gomer Pyle’s grandson, and her spiritual guidance of the Dems saw the party lose black voters in Georgia in 2020. Nonetheless, she is regarded as a magic font of fierceness within the DNC. She might stand a chance if she can establish herself as the most conservative non-white candidate in the field, but there’s going to be stiff competition for that honor.
Elizabeth Warren
Liz is probably angry that the party so shamelessly sold her out even after she was a good little girl and sabatoged Bernie’s campaign for them--yet another example of high ranking US government officials reneging on their promises to the Native American community. Smdh. The fact that this woman hasn’t been bankrupted a dozen times over by various Wallet Inspectors genuinely astounds me. So Liz is probably going to run again, and her campaign will be even sadder the second time around.
It might surprise you to hear this if you don’t work at a college or NGO, but Liz diehards actually do exist. She’ll get even less support this time because there will be no viable leftist in the field for her to spoil, but she’ll still hang in long enough to make sure the very worst possible candidate beats out the second worst possible candidate. Maybe she’ll fabricate a rape accusation against Sherrod Brown. Maybe she’ll spend her entire allotted debate time doing a land acknowledgment. With Liz, anything is possible--so long as it ends in failure.
Amy Klobuchar
Amy was the most bloodthirsty of the 2020 also rans. She will double down on the unpopular failures of the Biden administration, explaining that if you weren’t such a selfish idiot you’d love the higher social security retirement age and oh my god are so such a moron you think you shouldn’t go bankrupt to get a COVID vaccine? There’s a non-unsubstantial segment of the Democratic base that’s self-hating enough to find this appealing, but it won’t be enough to make her viable.
Martha Coakley
She lost Ted Kennedy’s senate seat to a retarded man who was pretending to be even more retarded than he actually was. Then she lost a gubernatorial race to a guy who openly promised Massachusetts voters that he would punish them for electing him. Her record of failure is unparalleled, making her perhaps the ideal Democrat standard bearer for the twenty twenties.
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Monument Woman
Pairing: Marcus Pike x OC (Rosemary Carter)
Warnings: Violence
A/N: I’m back on my Monument Woman bullshit, but thanks for the Smile love!
Reminder: I ain’t ever seen Pedro Pascal in FUCK ALL, I’m just coming up with this as I go along, using imdb.com, wiki, and 84,000 tabs I got open to plan out this shit. I also write soft versions of his characters so if you’re craving asshole vibes, I ain’t got any but my own to offer.
Tag List:
@zeldasayer , @beskars , @coolmaybelateruniverse , @the-feckless-wonder , @pascalisthepunkest , @mandoandyodito , @randomness501 , @fioccodineveautunnale , @ahopelessromanticwritersworld , @lilkermit14 , @tortles [please message me to be added or subtracted]
[PART 1] [PART 2] [PART 3] [PART 4]
Part 5 – You Can’t Catch a Break, Can You?
Rosemary sat at the kitchen table, reviewing the documents in front of her as Banana curled up awkwardly in her lap. His light snores were the only sounds that could be heard in the bright kitchen besides the shuffling of papers that Fern had brought to her earlier that afternoon.
Robert left everything to Rosemary and now she had a home and business to contend with, knowing that her hands were tied until the probate cleared. Thankfully, Robert had made Fern the executor of his estate, knowing that Rosemary wouldn’t be in the best of places to handle so much information. But there were still papers to initial and checks to sign for the store in the meantime.
Just a few days before, she had walked down Hoffman Street to visit Fern’s office and passed by Jak Spravy Books. She and Robert had closed the store in August as his health worsened. She felt her heart cheer up a little at all the flowers and mementos left by people in the community. Robert had been well loved.
“Ow, Baba!” Rosemary cried out as the dog suddenly shifted, stepping heavily in the crease of her thigh. The dog whined at her sudden movements before jumping down and padding into the living room, on the hunt for a bed that didn’t move. Shaking her head, she went back to the folder, initialing where Fern had marked in the paperwork.
Sighing as she closed the folder, she stretched her arms out and let out a groan when her shoulder popped. Rosemary stood up, letting her lower back crack as well. The late afternoon sun was starting to pour into the kitchen, illuminating a life well lived. She wandered towards the living room herself to watch the dog snooze before she felt the itch to get out of the house.
Robert’s house – no, her house now – was situated a couple blocks from the cemetery where he was buried, and she grabbed her keys off the hook before locking the door as she left. The early October air was brisk as she wrapped her jacket around herself, and it smelled deeply of autumn. She crunched through the leaves on the sidewalk and thought absent mindedly that she should hire the teenager across the street to rake the yard. The walk was a short one and soon she found herself standing in front of his gravestone.
“Hi.” Her voice sounded small. “You’re probably rolling your eyes at me now, not believing I’m back again.”
She chuckled as she sat down, getting comfortable against the stone. She’d been to the cemetery every day since they buried him the week before and she found herself spending at least an hour just talking out loud. Sometimes she cried, but mostly she poured out her heart, telling his stone her fears about the future, her loneliness, her gratitude that he had been so generous.
The sun was low in the sky and the cemetery was shrouded in the hazy purple of dusk when she finally made her way back to the house. She saw cars in the driveway as she came up the street and began to jog, realizing her friends had arrived. None of the women had left her alone since he passed, and Rosemary was grateful to have such loving people in her life.
The night Robert died, she said she was alone now. But now that the shock of death had passed, she realized that was wrong. She wasn’t alone so long as her girls were with her. She bounced up the stairs with a spring that had been missing since Robert told her he was dying and opened the door. The bright light of the kitchen and the warm smells of a hearty dinner enveloped her as tightly as the three pairs of arms did.
No, she thought, I am not alone at all.
-*-
Eventually Rosemary returned to work, warmly welcomed by the rest of the staff – even Bob. Walking into her workstation, she gave Marquetta a long hug, which was heartily returned. Their staff was a small one and Marquetta had become a treasured work friend and the curator worked hard to mentor the young woman.
“I have two tours today, but if you need me, come find me.” Marquetta leaned back and flashed her million-watt grin at Rosemary, who nodded. As she left the room, she squatted down to give Banana a pet on the head and in return she received a happy doggy grin.
“Good luck with the little beesters, M!” Rosemary called down the hall to a ‘yeah yeah.’ She shook her head as she looked around to figure out what was her next project. Noticing the large pile on her previously empty ‘To Be Accessioned’ shelf, she sighed heavily and rolled up her sleeves to get to work.
-*-
Music played quietly in the background as Rosemary continued to work into the late evening. Everyone else had left hours ago, but she had been on such a roll that she couldn’t stop. She hummed along with the song absent-mindedly as she carefully stuffed the sleeve of the fragile dress that had been donated while she was gone. The satin had already frayed at the seam and she held her breath as her arm entered the sleeve.
The breath she let out was tinged with glee as she realized no further damage had been done to the beautiful piece. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she reached over and grabbed another sheet of tissue paper to start the process all over again in the other sleeve. Just as she began to roll up the flimsy paper, Banana suddenly growled. Rosemary startled at the sound.
The dog never growled.
“Baba?” Her voice was cautious. “What is it?”
The dog suddenly barked and before she could react a sharp pain radiated through her skull. The force of the hit knocked her into the work bench before she bounced off the wooden surface to the floor. The ringing in her ears nearly muffled the voices talking above her. Why did everything feel like she was mired in molasses? Shaking her head, Rosemary tried to move to her hands and knees when a steel-toed boot connected with her ribs. The air rushed out of her lungs along with a shattered cry.
Banana barked again, baring his teeth at the intruders, but cowered under the table when another boot swung at him. He whimpered, looking from the two hulking shapes that had entered the room to Rosemary, who squirmed on the floor.
“Where is it?” The voice was distorted from the growing headache and all Rosemary could do was groan. A hand reached out and slapped her. “I asked you, where is it?”
Another voice wormed its way into her addled brain, but for some reason she couldn’t understand it, as if the speaker were talking in a foreign tongue. The nausea that she had been fighting was winning and she could feel the bile rise in her throat. She rolled to her side, hoping to stem the tide, but a hand reached out and yanked her head back. Her groan sounded wet and the voices argued again in that tongue she couldn’t identify.
She heard crashing and something breaking above her head and she tried to protest, to protect the artifacts she had been processing. She reached her hand out and felt a sharp pain as glass sliced her palm. Crying out, the attackers must have heard her and looked down. A heavy boot slammed down onto her arm, pinning her into place.
“It must be in here, she got it before she left. Find it, I want it!” A third voice floated into the mix and Rosemary raised her head slightly, feeling as if what she heard was familiar. The boot on her arm moved and a sharp pain radiated through her skull as she was kicked again. Rolling onto her back, she could feel something wet underneath her and as the darkness enveloped her, she wondered if she would wake up again.
---***---
“Mrs. Morgan, I need for you to please take a deep breath. I need your help.” The young officer had kind eyes as she held onto Helen’s hand. The director was shaking like a leaf, face streaked with tears as she watched them carry Rosemary out of the building.
Nothing was out of place when she entered the museum that morning, noting that Rosemary’s car was in the lot. She shook her head, hoping the curator wasn’t overworking herself to get through the grief of losing Robert. Helen went up the stairs as she usually did, responding to a text message from her son. When she got to the top floor, she smiled as she heard the music and took a left turn towards Rosemary’s workroom.
She isn’t sure how she found the ability to call the police, her shock at the devastating scene in front of her rendering her as still as a statue. At the sight of her, Banana stood up from his spot next to Rosemary and sprinted towards the familiar face. The room looked as if a tornado hit it – items torn or broken, supplies tossed everywhere, an entire shelf knocked over, and one of the cabinets was wrenched open. And in the center of it all was Rosemary, lying on the floor - unconscious or dead, Helen wasn’t sure.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Let me try again.” Helen took a deep breath as requested and recounted everything she had witness before the police arrived. Marquetta and Bob had shown up shortly before the police did and they stood off to the side in silence, a mournful looking dog in the young woman’s arms. They watched as the paramedics left the building and Marquetta buried her face into Banana’s warm neck. Bob laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and squeezed, tears prickling his eyes at the scene before him.
After promising the police not to touch upstairs until they were done, the three museum employees quietly decided to keep the place close for the day. Not wanting to be alone, they walked down the street to a small diner, one they knew would let Banana in. They weren’t hungry, but they didn’t want to be alone.
Who could have done this and why?
---***---
“Fuck.” The word sounded scratchy and raw as it tumbled from Rosemary’s mouth. Fern and Amy sat up immediately, relieved that she was finally awake. The bright lights seemed to burn her eyes as she slowly opened them but attempts to move her hand seemed difficult as if it weighed a ton. “What the fuck?”
“That would be your first word after being knocked out.” Tina let out a chuckle as she entered the room with three cups of coffee. Amy reached out to touch Rosemary’s forehead while Fern left the room to find a nurse. “How you feeling, Muhammad Ali?”
“You’re not funny, bitch.” Rosemary mumbled and Tina let out a louder laugh.
“I’d say you’re no worse for the wear with that response.” Amy looked over at Tina, who raised her hands. The sound of heavy footsteps came closer and the doctor entered the room with Fern in tow. The two other women raised their eyebrows at the man standing before them, his slight stature not what they were expecting from all the noise they had just heard.
“Ms. Park here says Rosemary’s awake and by the sounds of Ms. Steinberger, already on her way to the Cracker Jack Club.” Dr. Westen smiled broadly, his eyes crinkling in the corner as he watched Rosemary attempt to give a withering glare in his direction.
“You’re not funny, either.”
“I know, but my husband would argue otherwise. Now, on a scale from ‘eh its fine’ to ‘I want to die,’ how bad is your pain right now?” He pulled at her eyelid, shining a light into her eyes. She groaned loudly and tried to swat away his hands.
“Stop, the light makes my head hurt.” He stood up, nodding
“Well that may be, but your eyes are reacting normally, and I’d say your concussion won’t leave much lasting damage. But you’re going to have a gnarly headache for a few days. Can you wiggle your fingers and toes?” She complied and he grinned again. “I want you to stay one more night just for observation, but I say you can go home tomorrow with no problems. I’ll write a script for you for the pain.”
After chatting further with the three other women, the kind doctor took his leave and Rosemary’s friends turned to look directly at her, their eyebrows drawn in frustration. She knew that look and weakly held her hands up.
“I’m just waking up, don’t jump on my ass yet.” She sighed. “What do I have to do to get some water around here?”
-*-
Three days later, Rosemary rode the elevator at work, ever grateful for its existence. The idea of walking up three flights of stairs made her headache seem worse. She closed her eyes and sighed, leaning her head against the wall of the car, trying to ignore Officer Garcia, who was riding up with her to the third floor. She knew they were waiting on her to give her statement, but she feared what she was going to find. The sounds of breaking glass and metal on metal still echoed in her head.
She slowly walked down the hall, a steady hand at her elbow from her new companion and she smiled as she saw Baba waiting for her outside her workshop. The dog ambled up to her, having stayed with Marquetta while Rosemary was in the hospital. She swayed a bit as she bent down to pet him and when she stood up, she felt nauseous at the dizzy sensation swirling in her head.
“I promise we’ll make this quick,” Officer Garcia sighed in concern as he felt Rosemary’s hand grip his hard. “I know that this will be difficult, but the sooner we know what happened and what’s missing, the faster we can solve this crime.”
She nodded and they continued down the hall. She gasped when she saw the room, realizing it looked worse than she feared. Shuffling into the space, she started to tear up at the box of Austrian crystal that had been donated by Mrs. Heard, a beautiful set that was planned for one of their exhibits. With the help of the officer, she bent down, shifting the box to see if anything was salvageable. It was hard to focus and she righted the box, hoping to come back to it later.
When her eyes landed on the workbench and saw the dress she had been processing was still there, she heaved a sigh of relief. She could see small spatters of blood, but she brushed it off, knowing they could remove it carefully. She made a mental note to sit down with Marquetta before she left to list what needed to be done. Until the headaches went away, Rosemary was useless in this space.
Officer Garcia dutifully took notes as the curator slowly walked through the space, noting that nothing seemed to be gone. She’d have to check the records though, she pointed out to him and he nodded in return. As she turned around, her eyes landed on her cabinet and she stood still, ears ringing for a completely different reason.
Someone had ripped open the cabinet, the metal doors hanging off their hinges and rendered into hunks of nothing. Rosemary stumbled forward with a cry, noticing it was completely empty. She began to say ‘no’ over and over until Officer Garcia placed his hand on her shoulder. She turned around; her face twisted in panic.
“It’s gone!”
“What?”
“The Cornucopia!”
#marcus pike#Agent Marcus Pike#marcus pike x reader#Pedro Pascal#pedro pascal x reader#fanfic#the mentalist
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Trouble In QANON Paradise As GOP Leaders Finally Break With Green Over Halocaust Remarks
"The fresh round of condemnation for a member of their own party came after she compared companies mandating vaccinations to Nazis forcing Jews to wear a gold star during the Holocaust.
And last week, she compared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) enforcing House masking rules to the Holocaust."
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Speaker of the House and she claims she was “set up”?
You don’t hear Mitch McConnell making excuses for being stupid. Dems are feckless and should be screaming every single day that Donald Trump is a crook and a useful idiot for the Republican agenda.
It’s working for the Republicans. That bastard stands a good chance to be re-elected because of all the interference.
Dems don’t have the slightest idea how to beat Trump OR the Republicans.
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We cannot have a world where everyone is a victim. "I'm this way because my father made me this way. I'm this way because my husband made me this way." Yes, we are indeed formed by traumas that happen to us. But you must take charge, you must take over, you are responsible.
My thinking tends to be libertarian. That is, I oppose intrusions of the state into the private realm -- as in abortion, sodomy, prostitution, pornography, drug use, or suicide, all of which I would strongly defend as matters of free choice in a representative democracy.
A serious problem in America is the gap between academe and the mass media, which is our culture. Professors of humanities, with all their leftist fantasies, have little direct knowledge of American life and no impact whatever on public policy.
The prostitute is not, as feminists claim, the victim of men, but rather their conqueror, an outlaw, who controls the sexual channels between nature and culture
Education has become a prisoner of contemporaneity. It is the past, not the dizzy present, that is the best door to the future.
For all the feminist jabber about women being victimized by fashion, it is men who most suffer from conventions of dress. Every day, a woman can choose from an army of personae, femme to butch, and can cut or curl her hair or adorn herself with a staggering variety of artistic aids. But despite the Sixties experiments in peacock dress, no man can rise in the corporate world today, outside the entertainment industry, with long hair or makeup or purple velvet suits.
Cats are autocrats of naked self-interest. They are both amoral and immoral, consciously breaking rules. Their ''evil'' look at such times is no human projection: the cat may be the only animal who savors the perverse or reflects upon it.
Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?
I believe that history has shape, order, and meaning; that exceptional men, as much as economic forces, produce change; and that passe abstractions like beauty, nobility, and greatness have a shifting but continuing validity.
If Obama fails to win reelection, let the blame be first laid at the door of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who at a pivotal point threw gasoline on the flames by comparing angry American citizens to Nazis.
My generation of the Sixties, with all our great ideals, destroyed liberalism, because of our excesses.
The airheads of Congress will keep their own plush healthcare plan - it's the rest of us guinea pigs who will be thrown to the wolves.
Why has the Democratic Party become so arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans? Though they claim to speak for the poor and dispossessed, Democrats have increasingly become the party of an upper-middle-class professional elite, top-heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers.
Within the U.S., the Obama presidency will be mainly measured by the success or failure of his economic policies. And here, I fear, the monstrous stimulus package with which this administration stumbled out of the gate will prove to be Obama's Waterloo.
The damage done to U.S. prestige by the feckless, buffoonish George W. Bush will take years to repair.
The trauma of the Sixties persuaded me that my generation's egalitarianism was a sentimental error. I now see the hierarchical as both beautiful and necessary. Efficiency liberates; egalitarianism tangles, delays, blocks, deadens.
We need a new kind of feminism, one that stresses personal responsibility and is open to art and sex in all their dark, unconsoling mysteries.
Something went very wrong in feminism ... Every revolution eventually needs a new revolution. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm not trying to get rid of feminism. I'm trying to reform it, to save it, to bring it into the twenty-first century, in a way that allows the sexes to come together instead of being alienated from each other, that allows sex to be HOT and not have, like wet blankets of sermonizing thrown over it.
An enlightened feminism of the twenty-first century will embrace all sexuality and will turn away from the delusionalism, sanctimony, prudery, and male-bashing of the MacKinnon-Dworkin brigade. Women will never know who they are until they let men be men.
[Catherine] MacKinnon is a totalitarian. She wants a risk-free, state-controlled world... Literature, art, music, film, television - nothing intrudes on MacKinnon's consciousness unless it has been filtered through feminism. ... She is a Stalinist who believes that art must serve a political agenda and that all opposing voices are enemies of humanity who must be silenced. MacKinnon and [Andrea] Dworkin are victim-mongers, ambulance chasers, atrocity addicts... [they] are fanatics, zealots, fundamentalists of the new feminist religion. Their alliance with the reactionary, antiporn far right is no coincidence.
All fear of "offensive" speech is bourgeois and reactionary. Historically, profane or bawdy language was common in both the upper and the lower classes, who lived together in rural areas amid the untidy facts of nature. Notions of propriety and decorum come to the fore in urbanized periods ruled by an expanding middle class, which is obsessed with cleanliness, respectability, and conformism.
I think that this new global technology is not risk-free. This is why we must resist anyone who tries to take over or oversee the Internet. Once you get a consolidation of power, then you are one step away from fascism. The minute you have a power vacuum, you have the military step in.
Capitalism is an art form, an Apollonian fabrication to rival nature. It is hypocritical for feminists and intellectuals to enjoy the pleasures and conveniences of capitalism while sneering at it.... Everyone born into capitalism has incurred a debt to it. Give Caesar his due.
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snipers in iraq are accused of killing the bulk of protestors and police alike. video 1 2 3 4 5 massive trigger warning for all vids
Govt Violence Reducing Number Of Protests In Iraq
Baghdad continued to have the largest and most violent demonstrations. The curfew in the city was lifted early in the morning, and things started off calmly, but people eventually gathered in the center of the city to march on Tahrir Square. The police immediately fired on the crowd killing 4. People regrouped but were met by more bullets leading to 3 more deaths. There were clashes in other neighborhoods such as Zafaraniya in the south where one person was killed. The police closed down all the major intersections leading to Sadr City in the east to try to block people from there travelling to downtown. That led to violent confrontations, and even a report by the end of the day that mortars were fired into the neighborhood leaving 20 casualties. There were also 2 killed in Shula in the north. Reports had a total of 55 people have lost their lives in the province so far, but that did not include the reported mortar attack.
Yesterday there were reports of snipers firing into crowds across the city. Reuters reported that these were police in East Baghdad. By the end of the day the police had re-imposed the curfew. Like the rest of the country, there were fewer neighborhoods taking part in the demonstrations on October 5. The police are also not hesitating in using force as soon as they see people gathering. Snipers and mortars also show that the authorities are taking this tactic to a new level hoping that the mounting dead and wounding will deter people. It showed how vacuous the government is that it is not even attempting to offer any concessions to the people this year. It has turned to the boot almost right off the bat.
The police and possibly the Hashd have also begun targeting the media for covering the disturbances. Five TV stations had their offices ransacked during the day including NRT, Dijla, Al-Arabiya, Al-Hadath and Al-Ghad. Al-Hurra reported that the security forces were behind two of these raids. In all five instances, equipment was smashed and the staff were beaten. Last year, the government forces went after reporters arresting them, beating them, issuing arrest warrants, etc. As another sign that the authorities want to clamp down on things they have attacked the media more directly.
Overall on October 5 there were protests in five provinces, down from ten the first day of unrest in the country. In Basra, the police have used pre-emptive tactics arresting people as soon as they gather in the city. In Najaf, protesters signed a statement calling for Abdul Mahdi to resign. Nasiriya and Diwaniya in Dhi Qar and Qadisiya provinces respectively have mimicked the capital in their hostilities. The day started in Nasiriya with the Counter-Terror forces surrounding the government building where people have met each day. From there, the crowds moved onto the offices of Saraya Khorasani, Badr, Asaib Ahl Al-Haq, Dawa, the Communist Party, Fadhila, the Supreme Council, Hikma, and a former parliamentarian and burned them. Badr and Asaib Ahl Al-Haq guards used gunfire to try to turn people back killing one and wounding more. Four reportedly died during the day along with one policeman according to the Human Rights Commission. The provincial health directorate said that 21 people had lost their lives since October 1. Like the other governorates people went to the council building in Diwaniya where the police shot at them leaving 6 dead. A bodyguard for a councilman was arrested for killing a protester the day before during the demonstrations. Finally, in Wasit, people tried to burn down the deputy governor’s house in Kut, and there was one more fatality. By the end of the day the Human Rights Commission said 94 had died since the start of the protests including 8 police.
When the protests originally began on October 1 they occurred across every southern province. That is shrinking in the face of the all the lie fire, dead, and wounded. That showed that the government’s violent tactics were working somewhat. Still, places like Nasiriya and Diwaniya appear to be out of control once people gather. Basra on the other hand, appears to be relatively subdued with the security forces having learned their lessons from last year. It also shows that all the gunfire is unnecessary if the police had been more pro-active and arrested crowds before they could even march on places like Tahrir Square or the government buildings. This is a lesson being missed by Baghdad.
Officials continued to be ineffective in their responses. Speaker of Parliament Mohammed Halbusi yesterday invited activists to meet with him and go over their demands. That happened October 5, but then people in the streets said whoever met with the speaker did not represent them. Parliament was also supposed to have an emergency session, but there was no quorum due to the boycott of the Sairoon bloc led by Moqtada al-Sadr. The weakness of the Abdul Mahdi administration from the start was that he had no party behind him, but rather was elected due to a deal between two rival factions Sadr on one side, and Badr’s Haid Amiri on the other. Parliament would do nothing if it met as a result. The prime minister has been feckless during his entire time in office as well, and his weak speech saying he couldn’t do anything and that it was the people’s fault for getting killed just showed that he will do nothing substantive about the protests politically and rely upon the police instead in the hopes to put them down. This is a very dangerous move as it is pushing many people towards revolution and wanting the entire elite to be brushed aside.
The US-Iran silent war is transformed into an “Iraq uprising”
Iraq has special status due to its position, since the 2003 US occupation of the country, as both an Iranian and as a US ally. Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi up to now has armed himself with article 8 of the constitution, seeking to keep Iraq as a balancing point between all allies and neighbouring countries, and to prevent Mesopotamia from becoming a battlefield for conflicts between the US and Iran or Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Notwithstanding the efforts of Baghdadi officials, the deterioration of the domestic economic situation in Iraq has pushed the country into a situation comparable to that of those Middle Eastern countries who were hit by the so-called “Arab Spring”.
Fuelled by real grievances including lack of job opportunities and severe corruption, domestic uprisings were manipulated by hostile foreign manipulation for purposes of regime change; these efforts have been ongoing in Syria since 2011. Baghdad believes that foreign and regional countries took advantage of the justified demands of the population to implement their own agenda, with disastrous consequences for the countries in question.
Sources within the office of the Iraqi Prime Minister said “the recent demonstrations were already planned a couple of months ago. Baghdad was working to try and ease the situation in the country, particularly since the demands of the population are legitimate. The Prime Minister has inherited the corrupt system that has developed since 2003; hundreds of billions of dollars have been diverted into the pockets of corrupt politicians. Moreover, the war on terror used not only all the country’s resources but forced Iraq to borrow billions of dollars for the reconstruction of the security forces and other basic needs.”
“The latest demonstrations were supposed to be peaceful and legitimate because people have the right to express their discontent, concerns and frustration. However, the course of events showed a different objective: 8 members of the security forces were killed (1241 wounded) along with 96 of civilians (5000 wounded) and many government and party buildings were set on fire and completely destroyed. This sort of behaviour has misdirected the real grievances of the population onto a disastrous course: creating chaos in the country. Who benefits from the disarray in Iraq?”
The unrest in Iraqi cities coincides with an assassination attempt against Iran’s Soleimani. Sources believe that the “assassination attempt against the commander of the Iranian IRGC-Quds Brigade Qassem Soleimani is not a pure coincidence but related to events in Iraq”.
“Soleimani was in Iraq during the selection of the key leaders of the country. He has a lot of influence, like the Americans who have their own people. If Soleimani is removed, those who may have been behind the recent unrest may think it will create enough confusion in Iraq and Iran, allowing room for a possible coup d’état carried out by military or encouraged by foreign forces, Saudi Arabia and the US in this case. Killing Soleimani, in the minds of foreign actors, could lead to chaos, leading to a reduction of Iranian influence in Iraq”, said the sources.
The recent decisions of Abdel Mahdi made him extremely unpopular with the US. He has declared Israel responsible for the destruction of the five warehouses of the Iraqi security forces, Hashd al-Shaabi, and the killing of one commander on the Iraqi-Syrian borders. He opened the crossing at al-Qaem between Iraq and Syria to the displeasure of the US embassy in Baghdad, whose officers expressed their discomfort to Iraqi officials. He expressed his willingness to buy the S-400 and other military hardware from Russia. Abdel Mahdi agreed with China to reconstruct essential infrastructure in exchange for oil, and gave a $284 million electricity deal to a German rather than an American company. The Iraqi Prime Minister refused to abide by US sanctions and is still buying electricity from Iran and allowing the exchange of commerce that is bringing large amounts of foreign currency and boosting the Iranian economy. And lastly, Abdel Mahdi rejected the “Deal of the Century” proposed by the US: he is trying to mediate between Iran and Saudi Arabia and therefore is showing his intention to keep away from the US objectives and policies in the Middle East.
US officials expressed their complete dissatisfaction with Abdel Mahdi’s policy to many Iraqi officials. The Americans consider that their failure to capture Iraq as an avant-garde country against Iran is a victory for Tehran. However, this is not what the Iraqi Prime Minister is aiming at. He is genuinely trying to keep away from the US-Iran war, but is confronted with increasing difficulties.
Abdel Mahdi took over governance in Iraq when the economy was at a catastrophic level. He is struggling in his first year of governance even though Iraq is considered to have the fourth largest of the world’s oil reserves. A quarter of Iraq’s over 40 million people live at poverty level.
The Marjaiya in Najaf intervened to calm down the situation, showing its capacity to control the mob. Its representative in Karbalaa Sayyed Ahmad al-Safi emphasises the importance of fighting corruption and creating an independent committee to put the country back on track. Al-Safi said it was necessary to start serious reforms and asked the Parliament, in particular “the biggest coalition”, to assume its responsibility.
The biggest group belongs to Sayyed Moqtada al-Sadr, with 53 MPs. Moqtada declared – contrary to what the Marjaiya hoped – the suspension of his group from the parliament rather than assuming his responsibilities. Moqtada is calling for early elections, an election where he is not expected to gather more than 12-15 MPs. Al-Sadr, who visits Saudi Arabia and Iran for no strategic objective, is trying to ride the horse of grievance so he can take advantage of the just requests of the demonstrators. Moqtada and the other Shia groups who rule the country today, in alliance with Kurds and Sunni minorities, are the ones to respond to the people’s requests, and not hide behind those in the street asking for the end of corruption, for more job opportunities, and improvement of their conditions of life.
Prime Minister Abdel Mahdi doesn’t have a magic wand; the people can’t wait for very long. Notwithstanding their justified demands, the people were “not alone in the streets. The majority of social media hashtags were Saudi: indicating that Abdel Mahdi’s visits to Saudi Arabia and his mediation between Riyadh and Tehran have not rendered him immune to regime change efforts supported by Saudi,” said the source. Indeed, Iraq’s neighbours gave strong indications to the Prime Minister that Iraq’s relation Iran is the healthiest and the most stable of relations with neighbouring countries. Tehran didn’t conspire against him even if it was the only country whose flag was burned by some demonstrators and reviled in the streets of Baghdad during the last days of unrest.
The critical economic situation is making the Middle East vulnerable to unrest. Most countries are suffering due to the US sanctions on Iran and the monstrous financial expenditure on US weapons. US President Donald Trump is trying hard to empty Arab leaders’ pockets and keep Iran as the main scarecrow to drain Gulf finances. The Saudi war on Yemen is also another destabilising factor in the Middle East, allowing plenty of room for tension and confrontation.
gulf papers are pointing to the anti-iranian stance of the protestors as evidence that the snipers are irgc. other media are reporting on the similarities between the snipers during the maidan protests in ukraine and the current protests. a popular analysis has pointed to the fact that many of the pro-protestor posts on twitter have been from saudi arabian accounts.
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