#... actually Legitimately forgot. what was my continuity tag i was using? not in standard continuity??

[piningpercussionist]

how many (distinctly different) asks can i put in before they get annoying?

One.

(ooc: just putting this in the body of the post to be sure you see it, but. This is very much just the Kim answer! I am still behind on asks because of Life Stuff and have a bunch left to get to sometime, but yall are always free to send me literally as many as you guys want. If I get repeats I'll bundle em or delete 'em- responses still just might be a while. And ty for the asks!)

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 325: Deku VS the Outside of U.A. ~Conclusion~

Previously on BnHA: Ochako was all “dear bloodthirsty mob, this kid you see standing before you has fought harder than anyone and put his life on the line to protect you all, so please chill the fuck out, jesus christ. like, putting aside that he’s humanity’s best hope and so it’s very much in your best interests to let him rest and recover someplace safe so that he can keep fighting for us, are y’all seriously going to turn away an injured and exhausted child in front of his sobbing mother?? seriously?? come on now.” I’m paraphrasing here but that’s basically how it went down. Anyway so then the mob was all, “...” and Deku collapsed to his knees in tears, and Gigantic Fox Lady and Kouta ran over to give him a hug but then the chapter ended.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “FINE, YOU CAN HUG HIM”, which, was that so hard?? The U.A. Clown Mob is all “come to think of it, we’ve kind of been taking the heroes for granted this entire time, maybe we should be less passive in the future. anyway so Deku if it’s not too much to ask, can you please save everyone and fix everything.” Deku is all “I sure can, and by the way I forgive you for swarming around all menacingly two minutes ago and trying to deny me basic shelter and stuff.” Ectoplasm is all, “hey Todogang get a load of this. [walks in a circle].” Hawks is all, “that’s literally the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.” Rat Principal is all, “anyway so that’s what your students did today, hope you’re enjoying your new *~*ROBOT LEG*~*, Aizawa.” Aizawa is all “[lots of exposition about Kurogiri and for some reason, Toga, while being all brooding and sexy].” All Might is all “[standing here right outside of U.A. doing absolutely nothing and being foreboding AF]” and that immediately sucked away all of the warm fuzzy feelings from the hugs, goddammit.

each new week has become a waiting game of “when will Deku finally get to take a bath so people will actually be willing to go near him and give him the hugs he deserves.” the stakes have never been so compelling. I’ve almost forgotten about AFO entirely

lmaoooooo

me: for the love of god will someone please give Deku a hug before I die of old age

Mineta: YOU GOT IT!! --

Iida: [SWIFTLY CUTS HIM OFF] NOT YOU

fucking losing it at Mineta’s crying face. he really wanted to hug him. I legit feel bad but this is also the funniest thing I have seen all week, omg

somehow Kouta, who last week was only a hand’s breadth away from touching Deku’s head, is now twenty miles away from him in this new chapter

can I make a Loki reference here. is this recap a good place to insert a joke about someone using a TVA time-rewinding device to fuck with my poor boy Kouta over here. well anyway there it is

AND NOW HE’S BACK ALL OF A SUDDEN OMG

(ETA: since when is he “niichan” omg?? can’t handle this cuteness.)

BUT THEY’RE STILL NOT HUGGING HIM FFFFKFFFFF. WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO. WHO DO I HAVE TO BRIBE AND/OR BLACKMAIL

OH NO KOUTA IS CRYING THAT’S IT I’M DONE FOR

“when I heard that lady I knew that I had to go, but then stop again within inches of actually touching you because you smell like week-old rotten onions.” listen Kouta, I’m not saying I don’t get it, but you all can’t keep doing this to me. it’s the way you guys keep teasing it. like, if you’re gonna hug him, hug him. don’t just stand there with your arms held rigidly out in front of you like a molded action figure

OH MY GOSH BUT HE SAID THE THING

KOUTA SWOOPING IN AT THE LAST MINUTE TO TAKE ALL THE CREDIT FOR FIXING DEKU LIKE THAT ONE KID IN THE GROUP PROJECT WHO DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BUT STILL TAGS HIS NAME ONTO THE REPORT ANYWAY, WHAT A KNAVE

GASP

(  ´͈ ᗨ `͈ )

SHE PICKED HIM UP LIKE A LITTLE BABY OMG?? she just leaned right over and lifted this child like he was a small animal. like a lil baby futon that she was about to hang up to dry. oh my god

-- HEY WHAT

(: well that’s extremely fucked up. though sadly not too surprising given what we just saw these past couple chapters

incidentally, I hope that anyone who was legitimately defending the civilians’ perspective earlier takes note here of how quickly that line of thinking -- “we’re just trying to keep our families safe” and all that-- can lead to straight up bigotry. if you’re willing to deny a child shelter and protection simply because he’s not YOUR child, and because you’ve decided based on Internet rumors (no real-world parallels there, I’m sure) that he might present a threat, it’s really not that much further of a leap to discriminating against entire groups of people simply because you perceive those groups as being dangerous. I’m sure the people who turned Gigantic Fox Lady away also told themselves afterwards that they did it to protect their families. “better safe than sorry.” “she’ll be fine, someone will take her in, but as for us, we can’t afford to take that risk.” people can come up with all kinds of justifications for treating other people as less than human, and the really scary thing about it is how fucking easy it is

one last quick side note, which is that Horikoshi does a great job here of showing how scapegoating works, given that AFO is the one who’s really to blame and who presents the actual threat, and yet Deku is the one who ultimately winds up being the target of the mob’s fear and outrage despite him being as much of a victim as they are. gotta love that irony, which unfortunately plays out far too often in the real world as well.

anyway I’ll get off my soapbox now, sorry about that. let us continue

YES, FINALLY OH MY GOD!!!!

AND THAT’S THE STORY OF HOW GIGANTIC FOX LADY BECAME THE GREATEST HERO. PACK IT ALL UP, WE’RE DONE HERE KIDS

holy shit. the real MVP right there. thanks for getting it done champ

jesus christ I have had it up to here with these people

literally the bar is set so low at this point that I’ll go ahead and take it. helping him because it offers them a tactical advantage is at least one step up from not helping him at all

“WHY NOT SHIKETSU” MOTHERFUCKER I SWEAR TO GOD

-- thank you!!

okay this one guy with the antennae hair is having himself a character development speedrun here

-- okay, but this part?? fucking this part, right here??

can we repeat that again?? the part where this guy acknowledges that the problems of hero society were caused not just by said heroes, but also by said society?? the part where he acknowledges that they treated the heroes like celebrities who were putting on a show for them?? the part where he acknowledges that when push came to shove, the vast majority of those heroes, when faced with a situation that offered no reward, were nonetheless willing to put their lives on the line to protect the very same people who then turned around and blamed them rather than thanking them?? are the civilians of BnHA even allowed to have actual deep thoughts about this stuff. holy shit

bro!!

ANTENNAE HAIR GUY SHOVING KOUTA AND GIGANTIC FOX LADY OUT OF THE WAY TO SLAP HIS NAME ONTO THE END CREDITS AS EXECUTIVE PRODUCER. CONGRATULATIONS SON YOU FIGURED OUT THE CORE PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTION AT THE VERY HEART OF THE MANGA. WAY TO GO BUD

meanwhile, on today’s episode of “one more chapter to go till the big volume cliffhanger, how else can I drag things out let’s see”

it’s a panel. of people’s feet. just a bunch of normal feet. with sneakers and shit

this All Might shirt guy is getting more screentime in this arc than 90% of the class 1-A kids

I guess I’m supposed to feel sorry for this dude now that he’s all “if we let you stay here do you promise to somehow magically fix every single problem that we are now currently facing?” those are some ridiculously exacting standards my dude. come on now

KACCHAN SIGHTING

thank fuck I’m not the only one who’s thoroughly unimpressed by absolutely all of this lol. I feel better now. meanwhile Iida and Kouda and Kiri are ready to run over there and hug them all. you guys are way too forgiving. damn you and your pure hearts

anyway so Deku’s like “yeah, definitely”

(ETA: almost forgot to comment on the “I’m no longer alone” part – he basically corrects the guy and says “sorry, but you’ll need to direct that question towards all of us, not just me, because moving forward we’re a team.” good stuff.)

you know what though, all joking aside... fuck yeah. because perfect victory, right. the strongest guys don’t settle for anything less. so I guess Deku has pretty exacting standards himself

also can you all just take a look at this fucking kid who’s got so much light in his eyes now that I’m gonna need eclipse goggles. hot damn. “you’re welcome” says All Might Shirt Guy as he is frantically interviewed by several local news networks asking him how he daringly managed to save Deku all by himself. “well I guess I’ve just never been the kind of guy who can sit back and let a bunch of rabble-rousers blame a little kid for all of humanity’s problems. someone had to step in and take action, you know?”

oH MY GOD THE SCENE IS FINALLY ENDING

don’t let the door hit you on your way out All Might Shirt Guy

but meanwhile, sudden Tododrama action??

oh shit

there are honestly so many ways in which Ochako’s very moving speech could have wildly backfired that I genuinely have no clue where this is headed lol. how exciting!!

so now Horikoshi is once again stalling for time with random filler panels, but this one is 10x better than the shoes lol omg

(1) was Ectoplasm’s jacket always this oversized. (2) did you guys know that if you go back to chapter 319 you can see that Horikoshi gave us a sneak peak at Enji’s Sad Detective disguise and I in fact made a joke about it in the 319 recap not realizing it was actually the stone cold truth. (3) did Shouto deliberately speed up out of impatience because Hawks was walking so fucking slow and he couldn’t take it any longer. (4) and what, I ask you, is up with these dramatic speedlines. so many mysteries here. what a masterpiece

everyone is acting all shocked about something ahh what’s going on

wait what

what the heck. did they just loop around behind everyone. what was the point of that lol. “anyway, so this is what they look like from the back” well okay, thanks for that Ectoplasm

(ETA: so it seems like they were actually hanging out someplace else away from the crowd this whole time, I guess? here I thought they had more faith in Enji’s disguise. I guess Shouto and Hawks don’t particularly want to attract this crowd’s attention themselves right now either, though.)

I am so fucking confused lmao

speaking of All Might WHERE THE FUCK IS HE lol. but yes, good, OFA brings everyone together, and Hawks is very deeply moved about this out of the blue all of a sudden. you know how it is

aw heck yeah now this is another filler panel I can get behind

Mineta really wants that hug, good lord. I genuinely love this actually. Mineta if you could just stay little and cute and keep crying about how much you love your classmates in a non-gross way for the rest of the series I would be so appreciative. you’re doing great

IIDA IS HOLDING DEKU’S HAND THIS IS NOT A DRILL. ONE TIME WASN’T ENOUGH FOR MY MAN HE’S ADDICTED NOW

what did I tell you. Kiri wants to get all of the mob’s autographs now. Kiri you’re a peach

Shouji having a conversation with another mutant type is a very nice touch! we really need to get to his backstory soon. I feel like that casual remark from GFL earlier was kind of hinting at more to come

is this the first time we’ve ever seen the Yaoyorictionary in action?? never forget that Viz tried to call it the “Yaoyorozu Reference Book” because they hate fun

last but not least, KAMIBAKU IS BACK ON THE MENU, FUCK YEAH. Kaminari trying to spice things up and introduce a little bit of controversy by smacking Kacchan on the back of the head for god knows what. I will be deeply disappointed after this if I can’t find at least one person unironically declaring that KamiBaku is now toxic and abusive

lfkdlWLWK TODODRAMA??

oh my god. Shouto’s face. Enji’s face. the back to “oyaji” again. the blunt, not-taking-no-for-an-answer, “I don’t know how much louder the universe can scream at you that doing things alone is not it, so hopefully you got the point” directness of it. fffdlkslj I’m so ready for this Horikoshi please don’t fuck it up my expectations are so high

HOLY FUCK

I SCROLLED DOWN AND HE WAS ALL “( ❛‿❛)” AND I JUST WASN’T FUCKING EXPECTING THAT OKAY. JESUS CHRIST. GIVE ME A SEC

lol okay moment over and now Enji’s pulling his hat down all dramatically like a world-weary Cowboy

OH MY GOD WERE YOU FACETIMING??

AHHHHHHHHH

(ETA: not to put Iida down or anything, but it’s kind of strange that Aizawa is all “the class rep sure did great” when Ochako is the one that was giving that whole big speech for like twenty minutes just now lol.)

(ETA 2: “thank god Iida stepped in just in the nick of time to keep Mineta from hugging Deku.” sorry Mineta I really do like you lately but it’s still low-hanging fruit lol.)

HE LOOKS SO SAD??! HE LOOKS LIKE HEARTBREAK ITSELF??! I AM BESOUGHT WITH THE URGE TO REACH INTO MY SCREEN AND PULL HIM INTO THE SAFETY OF MY ARMS??? MY GOD, AND I THOUGHT DEKU NEEDED HUGS

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH okay I was gonna just hold down the letter H for a full minute and count it out loud but within about ten seconds I realized I needed to chill lol

-- but then again NO, I DON’T NEED TO CHILL, I HAVE ZERO CHILL, ACTUALLY, BECAUSE IT’S AIZAWA WITH A ROBOT LEG AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

COMPLETE WITH ROBOT TOES FOR THAT EXTRA TOUCH OF AUTHENTICITY!! I LIKE HOW HORIKOSHI PUT ALL THIS EXTRA “!!!” EMPHASIS AROUND IT IN CASE WE COULD SOMEHOW POSSIBLY FAIL TO TAKE NOTICE. “REMEMBER, EVERYONE?” SAYS HORIKOSHI HELPFULLY. “REMEMBER THAT TIME AIZAWA CHOPPED OFF HIS OWN LEG?” oh wow now that you mention it we somehow forgot all about that. like who do you take us for

OH NO NOT THE SAD BOYFRIEND ANGST THAT I WAS SECRETLY LOOKING FORWARD TO WITH GLEE

well at least he’s not M.I.A. or back with the villains again like I thought he might be. still, that’s gotta be brutal to know your friend is in there somewhere, but to not be able to reach him again no matter how hard you try. that’s the kind of angst that pays off in final battles just when you most expect it. such is my hope, at any rate

what’s this now??

trying to decide if this is Horikoshi’s way of saying don’t worry about that, or his way of saying definitely worry about that lol

anyway so Aizawa is out here being all irresponsibly handsome once again. when is someone going to do something about him

here for Sexy Robot Leg Eyepatch Aizawa clenching his fists and making speeches about revenge. pretty sure we’re all here for that

WELL, WELL, WELL

IT’S ABOUT FUCKING TIME

I’M VERY GLAD YOU’RE ALIVE AND SEEMINGLY WELL, THOUGH!

BUT WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK THOUGH, ALL MIGHT

ffff. bracing myself for that cliffhanger next week. you’d better not touch one hair on this man’s head Horikoshi. I’m watching you 

[furynewsnetwork]

Quoting old movies is fun, particularly when they involve surreality.  Government functions are almost entirely surreal, but quoting them is rarely fun … unless Trump is somehow involved.  Love him or loathe him or something in between, he’s brought fun quotes back to self-governance.  And with them come the witch hunts.

There are ways to tell if someone is a witch.  What do you do with witches?

Burn them!

And what do you burn apart from witches?

Republican officiocrats who work for a loathably abrasive New York democrat twitter freak holding the White House as a republican that the Deep State Swamp is desperate to delegitimize because he’s declared war on it.  In other words: more witches.

Never mind that Medusa sold foreign policy futures to foreign government agents in the guise of contributions to her and Cuckold Bill’s charitable foundation.  The real issue is that members of the Trump campaign met with Russian government provocateurs who − wink wink nudge nudge, your wife’s a goer − had “information” on Medusa that would “bring down” her campaign.

Therefore, he’s made of wood.

And this contact wasn’t disclosed on the security questionnaire, which means he lied.  The only reason you lie about something this substantial is to hide the truth.

Therefore, he weighs as much as a duck.

The officiocrat’s security questionnaire was amended four times, and now contains hundreds more foreign contacts.

Therefore …?  A WITCH!! BURN HIM!!

Time the fuck out.  Has anyone ever completed one of those security clearance questionnaires?  I have.  Multiple times.  I’ve held a clearance for most of the time since 1980 when I joined the Air Force.  It is form SF86, in case anyone wants to follow along.  It can be found online.  Giving answers that can be construed as lies by those wishing to do so is trivially easy, for the form was devised by bureaucrats and their legion of loyyers.

The current version [as of 2014] is 157 pages long in its raw form on paper, including instructions and multiple release of liability and signature pages.  Paper applications are no longer accepted; it is now completed online requiring a government login ID and irrationally long gibberish password that cannot be remembered and must never be written down.  You will be calling the toll free help desk repeatedly to have your password reset.

You may not advance to the next section of the form until the current section is completely answered.  Unless you are fresh from the womb, you will have scores of addenda and explanation pages to add information.  These addenda are needed for families larger than you and two parents and one sibling, for any travel farther afield than the local Walmart, and for anything you’ve done more complex than buying a stick of gum.  God forbid you have a relative − to include in-laws − born in a foreign country.  I have such an in-law.

But still, I’m an incredibly boring individual with a relatively small family and no social or civic affiliations to speak of.  I’m a libertarian and thus have no meaningful political affiliation, either.  One investigator in the 90s looked at me and my paperwork and said, “Ah … N J.”  I quizzed, “N J?”  He replied, “Non-joiner.”

My most recent clearance application ended up being 380+ pages long.  …Not including instructions and signature pages.  It took me over five weeks to complete.

The online form has pull-down menus for standard fill-in-the-blanks.  But just try explaining where your father-in-law came from.  He’s been living in the US since the age of 9, but was born in a village in Yugoslavia to German parents.  He spent the first 7 years of his life in Nazi, and then Soviet, prison camps.  The online form no longer lists Yugoslavia as a legitimate nation [I used Angola, since it was listed first and I was not about to dignify their inept system], nor does it accept his home town.  The village itself was obliterated de facto by the Wehrmacht and de jure by the follow-on Tito government.  After the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the specific location may be in Serbia, or Bosnia, or Slovakia, no one is quite sure.  Not that it matters anyway; it’s gone.  His naturalization document lists a naturalization center in the US no longer in existence and therefore not in the pull down list.  His naturalization is identified by a certificate number using a layout no longer recognized as valid − not enough digits.  My father-in-law is just generally suspicious, I suppose.

Explaining this one fairly trivial matter that I covered in one paragraph took − I recall − 15 additional pages on the SF86.  Maybe more.  One’s eyes tend to glaze over after a certain amount of useless necessity.  In any event, it took 15 pages too many.

But then comes the sections of the questionnaire that has caused Trump teammates so much trouble, and which would cause me the same trouble were I a republican party officiocrat instead of a mere libertarian DoD data analyst: section 19, about halfway through form SF86, “foreign contacts”.

I have been on eleven cruises, and I’ve met literally thousands of foreigners.  Most were wearing name tags, and many of those who weren’t told me their names.  I wrote down none of them.  With the exception of maybe a half dozen, I couldn’t tell you much more about them than their first name, sometimes not even that.  There is Pedro [last name unknown], the effusively friendly manager-slash-head waiter of a little cantina [forgot the name] on the second floor over a souvenir shop [forgot the name] on the main tourist drag [forgot the name] of San Miguel on the island of Cozumel.  We visit the place for lunch every time we’re there.  Pedro’s head is shaped like a bowling ball, if that helps the investigators any.

There is Major Tom [last name unknown], the unofficial greeter for the nation of Belize, and head of the Belize City Chamber of Commerce.  He runs several tourist excursion operations, including one we took our first time there.  He used to be in the Belizi army − hence his title of Major.  He looks like a young Ricardo Montalban, or did the last time I saw him.

There is Ngede [last name unknown], our Indonesian head waiter on not one but two cruises, on two different ships … and what are the odds?  Highly suspicious if I were a republican officiocrat.  He has his First Night patter down: the nearest any English-speaker can ever come to pronouncing his name is “g’day”, so just say G’day.  He has an advanced degree in engineering, but works as a waiter on US cruises because at $10 a day plus tips he makes more than an engineer in Indonesia. …where you have to be politically connected [i.e., the correct race, the correct tribe and the correct religion, none of which includes him] in order to get a job that pays more than twenty-five cents an hour.  He is now considered extremely wealthy among his countrymen … at least on his time off when he goes back home.  He showed us how to make a rat out of a linen napkin.

There’s the guy on Cayman who runs Moby Dick’s − the stingray encounter excursion.  His name is Richard something, and he’s from England.  He charges almost $100 American for a thirty minute boat ride and a bucket of squid to twenty folks at a time to feed the stingrays tamed by generations of hand-feeding on a sandbar in the sound.  Wouldn’t know him on sight.  He was thoroughly unremarkable, apart from being well-tanned.

On the ship, I try to find one of the bars with a particularly attractive bartender and get my glass of before-dinner wine or after-dinner drambuie from her.  The last two cruises these bartenders were in the form of a cutey from Ukraine, and a hotsy from Brazil.  I impressed the Ukrainian by knowing how to say please [pazhalsta], thank you [spaseeba], goodbye [da svedanya] and I’m bored [mnya skuchnya] in Russian.  I made my bartender from Ipanema laugh by butchering the words to Mas Que Nada.  I have long forgotten their names.

But by far, the most memorable foreign contact I had was a little boy, maybe four years old. He was paying close attention to the cracks in the sidewalk while walking with his mother, an attractive twenty-something, and older brother, maybe seven years old.  This was down one of the back streets of San Miguel on Cozumel.  I was searching for a cheap cantina serving actual Mexican tacos.  The older brother was in navy blue shorts, starched white shirt, and a solid black tie.  His shoes were polished black.  He was going to school, and mom was walking him there.  I was approaching them on the sidewalk, and as we neared I smiled and said, “Hola.”  Mom smiled back, and the older brother looked puzzled.  Both said “Hola.”  The four year old boy, though, looked up from the cracks under his feet, directly at me.  He pointed and announced, in surprise, “Mama!  Gringo!”

His mother was mortified, and stammered a Spanish apology interlaced with scolds directed to her child.  I laughed and told her “De nada.”  I still laugh when I replay it.  But that was it; that was the entire foreign contact.  I never quizzed them for their names.  Were I a republican officiocrat I’d be required to.

Section 19 of form SF86 requires full names, addresses, dates and places of birth, employer[s], all nicknames, not to mention affiliations, and purposes, and outcomes of all foreign contacts.  Per instructions, it limits the contacts required to be disclosed to those of “close and continuing” nature, but one’s definitions of “close” and “continuing” are extremely subjective, and might well rely on political partisanship.  Very few of the items under foreign contacts allow for the option of declaring “I don’t know”.  “I don’t remember” is not permitted at all.

As someone who’s had a clearance for over thirty years and a Top Secret clearance for all but my four years in the Air Force, I know exactly what they’re trying to get at here.  They want to know if a clearance candidate has ever encountered any foreigner who went out of his way to indicate that he was trying to dig for information about things he shouldn’t be digging for.  “Has any foreigner you’ve ever encountered asked you nosy questions about what you do, who you do it for, or otherwise acted like a spy?  If yes, list as many details as possible.”

That’s what they’re trying to ask, but they don’t.  Instead, they require that anyone wanting a security clearance from the US government act like a spy themselves every time they encounter a foreigner, by getting full names, addresses, dates of birth, employers, the foreigners’ affiliations and purposes for existing … none of which anyone ever does.  You don’t go on a cruise with a notebook and stubby pencil demanding the names of every vendor hawking his souvenirs upon every passer-by.

“Come in! Come in! We have condition air.  Feel all cool and cold while buy your pretty wife a necklace, eh?”

Not until I know your full name, date of birth, nationality, who you work for, and what civic groups you participate in.

… yeah, not gonna happen.  As a result, almost everyone filling out this form leaves these things out.  And no one cares that you leave these things out.  …unless you’re a republican officiocrat working for an outsider president that everyone loathes because he’s harsh, abrasive and an outsider who’s declared war on the Deep State Swamp which creates − among other things − obscenely obstreperous national security clearance questionnaires.

Section 20 of form SF86 inquires after “foreign activities”; subsection A deals with foreign holdings, of which I have zippo.  Oh, drat.  I have a self-directed IRA which has mutual funds which hold foreign stocks and bonds.  Subsection A is trying to find out if I have meaningful holdings.  Never mind that “meaningful” is arbitrarily and subjectively determinable itself.  Ah, the hell with it; “No”.

“Do I own, or plan to own, property in a foreign country.”  Yes, I plan to retire to Mexico.  I like Mexico.

“Give the date of purchase, or planned purchase.  Where do you plan to purchase property, and what price are you paying for it?”  What? The hell?  I veered off onto one of the “explanation” pages with the following:  Listen, guys, if you think I can give you the speculative date and speculative location and speculative price of a speculative purchase of a retirement home for a speculative retirement and have this information mean a single god damn, then you must think I have a crystal ball.  If I had a crystal ball I’d be using it for personal enrichment and wouldn’t need a job which requires a clearance.  I plan to retire in Mexico, at some point, don’t know where, when, or how, but a guy can dream.  That’s all I’m saying about it.

I’m not going to describe the other 5 pages of this subsection.  Needless to say, it’s more of the same useless necessity.  Each item must be answered; “I don’t know” is not usually accepted.

Subsection B: foreign business, professional or government contacts.  Uh oh.  I’ve had literally hundreds of contacts with foreign government agents. … that I know about.  Knowing the nature of government, I’ve probably had dozens more government contacts that I don’t know about.  Eleven cruises, multiple port calls each cruise, encountering customs agents, port security wonks, police − in Limon Costa Rica, we were trying to find an outlet for the local coffee so I could bring home a few pounds of whole beans.  Had a conversation with dos policia who knew bupkus English.  With my formal Spanish lessons ending in 7th grade forty years prior, and my informal Spanish picked up in bits and pieces [Dos cervezas, por favor.  Muy Frijo.  Donde es el baño?] … my wife reports it was an amusing conversation to watch, and it would undoubtedly have been fun to participate in had I not been hung over.

Do I have to list these government contacts, to include full name, nationality, government agency and rank or title, date[s] and purpose of contact and all “offers” made?  I do if I’m a republican offiocrat working for the aforementioned outsider president loathed by the Deep State Swamp.  Does el policia pointing me at a bodega which sells coffee beans constitute an “offer”?  If I’m a republican officiocrat, yes.

Additionally, I’ve undoubtedly run across government agents burrowed into excursion outfits watching for illicit activities − you know what those Americans are like when they get closer to the source of their recreational drugs.  Many Americans attempt to score their own while visiting drug exporting nations, and their arrogant self-absorption is a direct contributor to the unsolved murders of dozens of us a year.  But do I know they are undercover government agents?  No I do not.  Does it matter?  Do I have to list them as well, even though I don’t know who they are?  Only if I’m that republican officiocrat.

There are another 7 pages of this subsection that I won’t go into.  All items must be answered; almost none apply.  “I don’t know” is only acceptable for a small portion of the items.

Subsection C: foreign travel.  Once again: eleven cruises.

Specific dates [which I no longer know] for each nation visited.  And for each nation describe once again the information previously inquired after in section 19.  This was the section that was trying to, but did not, ask, “did any foreigner get too nosy about things that are none of his business?”

It had taken me three weeks to get to this part of form SF86.  I’d long ago exceeded my tolerance for bureaucratic impertinence, and used one of the many “explanation” pages to freeform the following paraphrased blowback: Lookit, my wife and I have taken one cruise a year between 2004 and 2012, and one year we took two when we had both our parents along.  You have much more access to the dates of our cruises than we do at this point; all I can tell you is that they were usually in May.  We’ve met thousands of foreigners, and over a hundred foreign government weenies, and not one of them was any more forward than to pester us about emptying our wallets in their particular store.  No one asked what I do, or who I do it for, and no one especially asked if I had any government secrets to give out.  The only thing any of them wanted was my business.

I bawled out the apparatchik in the Deep State Swamp with irreverent, impetuous scold.  And once again, does this matter?  The answer is, once again: only if I am a republican officiocrat working for the well-loathed outsider New York democrat holding the White House as a republican and who declared war on the Deep State Swamp.

The nature of government bureaucracy is to evolve into an endless stream of gotchas.  It is these gotchas that are levied against anyone chosen to be the witch du jour.  You would have to be blind or a partisan shill to fail or refuse to see who is being gotchaed at the moment.  The republican officiocrat was doing opposition research during the presidential campaign, and was contacted about gaining opposition candidate spice.  He showed up to get the spice and met two Russians, neither of whom said, “Hey!  I’m with Moscow and work for Putin!” thus cluing him into it being a government contact.  The meeting was short, and the subject was not juicy gossip about Medusa; it was about US sanctions that resulted in Moscow curtailing Russian adoptions to the US.  The meeting was abandoned and none of the players ever met again.

Section 19 of SF86 requires − per instructions − “close and continuing” contact with foreign nationals to be disclosed.  A single meeting with a female Russian loyyer and her [from all accounts] silent partner is neither “close” nor “continuing”.  Unless, of course, you have it in for the republican officiocrat and the well-loathed guy he works for.  Therefore … a witch.

In contrast, the encounters with my bartender from Ipanema, occurring each day of the cruise before dinner for a glass of wine, and after dinner for a glass of drambuie was, in comparison, intimate and perpetual.  Even though I no longer remember her name − it was five years ago now − I learned much more about her than any republican officiocrat ever knew about the two Russians.

But it doesn’t matter because I’m not a republican officiocrat working for a New York democrat playing a republican president on twitter, and who declared war on all the jealously self-important bureaucrats who spend their days constructing 157 page long gotchas with which they can play king for a day.

King?  Pffft.  We didn’t vote for them.

You don’t vote for kings.

How’d they get to be kings then?

The Deep State of the Swamp, arm clad in the purest shimmering samite held aloft Regulation, signifying by authoritarian providence that they, the bureaucrats, should rule this land.

Listen, mysterious functionaries lying in ambush distributing arbitrary rules is no basis for a system of government.  Supreme executive power derives from broad support of the masses, not from some farcical procedural ceremony.

I fart in your general direction.

Ni.

You’ll be dead in a minute.

BU-U-U-URN him!!

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