#Democrats deliver

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Democrats deliver.

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

[republikkkanorcs]

Democrats deliver!

[rejectingrepublicans]

RepubliKKKlans are a numerical minority and can only win by suppressing minority votes, encouraging Dems not to vote, or encouraging Dems to vote 3rd party.

Republican cultists will always turn out in force and vote as a solid block no matter who their candidate is

We can only win if you turn out and vote blue from Biden/Harris down to every last Democrat on the ballot.

[geezerwench]

[calilili]

“ The 21st Century is A Time Of Useful Consciousness “ by Cali Lili ; published in Cranky Yank Magazine #civilization #humanity 📰 🎬🎼 https://crankyyank.com/2022/11/07/midterms-are-a-time-of-useful-consciousness-by-guest-blogger-calililiindies/

“ The 21st Century is A Time Of Useful Consciousness “ by Cali Lili ; published in Cranky Yank Magazine #civilization #humanity 📰 🎬🎼 https://crankyyank.com/2022/11/07/midterms-are-a-time-of-useful-consciousness-by-guest-blogger-calililiindies/

https://crankyyank.com/2022/11/07/midterms-are-a-time-of-useful-consciousness-by-guest-blogger-calililiindies/ by Cali Lili published in Will Pollock Cranky Yank Magazine By Cali Lili published in Cranky Yank Magazine https://crankyyank.com/2022/11/07/midterms-are-a-time-of-useful-consciousness-by-guest-blogger-calililiindies/ Movie Review : Times Square Chronicles Cali Lili ‘s debut : Eve…

[tennessoui]

democratic fic part 3

(democratic fic masterlist) (2.5k)

Anakin breathes in for a count of three and out for five. Obi-Wan Kenobi is the single most vexing creature in the entire galaxy.

Not a small part of him wants to grab the boy by his throat and shake him, make him look at him. How dare he look away. How dare he test Anakin’s control so casually. It is untenable, the way the boy smirks and flutters his eyelashes and begins to walk as if Anakin’s compliance is a matter already resolved. 

“No,” Anakin steps forward and reaches out to grab his arm. Before his fingers can curl  around the bone of his wrist, Kenobi has snatched his hand away, curling it to his chest protectively. The boy turns and glares at him, all hints of sweetness washed away from his face. “I said no, Obi-Wan.”

“Alright,” Obi-Wan says, tone as far from alright as it can get. “Then have a good rest of your night, Senator. I will, I am sure, see you again during my stay on Coruscant, though I will not inflict my company upon you any longer—”

The boy cannot be serious. “You are throwing a tantrum,” Anakin snaps. “I will not be beholden to the whims of a spoiled princeling—”

Obi-Wan throws an embittered, fierce look over his shoulder at him. “I am the grandson of a Count, Senator, I am not a prince—”

“Then stop acting like one!”

“And no one has asked that you accompany me—”

“You just did—”

“Yes, and I have taken your rejection with aplomb—”

“Sith’s hells you have,” Anakin mutters, working his jaw furiously as his thoughts fly rapidly through his head.

Everything he knows about Obi-Wan Kenobi points to the boy being made of soft stuffs; he is bratty and rude, no doubt about it, but he does not possess the spine that would be necessary for him to truly venture into the Lower Levels of Coruscant by himself. He is simply testing Anakin’s patience for the fun of it. Perhaps the thrill of it. But a failed Jedi turned spoiled servant of the Court would never have the guts to go alone somewhere so violent and dark.

“Fine,” Anakin says, turning away himself. “Do send me a comm tomorrow morning so that I know you are alive.” “I didn’t realize you would care,” the boy sniffs, his head held incredibly high when Anakin peeks back at him. For someone apparently not born into aristocracy, he has taken to it quite well. It sets Anakin’s teeth on edge, and his whole body twitches forward, filled with the urge to put his hands on the boy’s body, ruffle him up and tear the cold mask of indifference off his face. 

These are very, very dangerous thoughts as he is quite sure that the boy would welcome those sorts of advances and Anakin has already committed to not allowing the boy into his bed. If not for the scandal should they be found, the questions of propriety, the fact that Kenobi is a ward of a foreign Count, then simply for the reason that Obi-Wan Kenobi is a spoiled little brat of a princeling, and Anakin is old enough to know better than to give into his demands.

He listens to Kenobi’s footsteps move further away from him, towards the elevator at the ends of the gardens that would take him to the speeder lot. He’d probably get into a speeder and fly back to his grandfather, pouting the entire way.

Yes, Anakin can see it now: Kenobi in the front seat of the speeder, full and pink bottom lip pushed out—perhaps even wobbling slightly, spit-slick too—hair a bit tangled and mussed from the wind, eye makeup smeared slightly from rubbing his hand over his face, pointing his speeder back to his grandfather’s apartments because he would never in a million years venture into the Lower Levels without some sort of guardian.

But—

What if Anakin is wrong?

After all, he only met the boy a few days ago. He has impressions of Kenobi, but that doesn’t mean the boy can’t surprise him. He’d been unexpectedly catty in the presence of Padmé: what if he could be unexpectedly brave and direct his speeder down far below the safest levels of Coruscant?

Dressed as he was, he would be noticed immediately. He’d be a target before he even stepped out of his speeder, and if anything happened to Kenobi, the blame would fall on Anakin’s shoulders.

Stars and moons and blasted suns, Anakin thinks to himself. 

He turns around. He follows Kenobi’s disappearing figure with his eyes. It’s rather easy to do at least, with how the boy glimmers and glows in the light of the lanterns as he kriffing sashays along the garden path to the elevator bays.

Anakin gnashes his teeth; Anakin’s feet start moving.

—-------

The kriffing idiot goes to the Lower Levels.

Anakin barely has time to hijack a parked speeder and point it towards Kenobi’s when the boy flies his own over the edge of the lot and down at a steep angle.

Too steep of an angle to be going anywhere but to the Lower Levels—alone, looking as he does, dressed as he is.

Anakin curses once more and follows him over the edge.

—--------

He’s just going to make sure nothing bad happens to the boy, that’s all. It’s practically his duty. And as long as Kenobi doesn’t feel him in the Force or see him following him, it won’t be giving into the boy’s whims. As long as the boy doesn’t know he’s there, then he will not think he has won, which is of the utmost importance. 

He has not won. 

This is the thought on repeat in Anakin’s head as he jumps down from his stolen speeder and lands on the ground of Level -214 solidly. Kenobi has already dragged his bike, a lithe, slim model of a speeder, into the crook of an alleyway, as if that’ll be enough to keep it safe.

Anakin lets out an explosive sigh as he watches the glimmering blue and silver figure disappear into the crowd. “Hey,” he barks to a street vendor leaning against the wall next to the mouth of that same alley, lazily using a long stick to stir a pot of foul-smelling, iridescently blue liquid. He tosses him a roll of credits. “That’s, uh. Fifty-eight credits. I’ll give you a hundred more if that bike is still there when I get back. Alright?” 

He doesn’t actually have one hundred more credits, but he knows he certainly looks like a man who does. The vendor seems to believe him, if the eager way he nods is any indication. Good. He can’t let the kriffing princeling’s speeder-bike be stolen, else the idiot would probably ask someone to give him a ride back to his apartments and either end up stolen himself or dead in a gutter.

Speaking of the princeling, Anakin can hardly see him anymore in the crowd, which obviously cannot stand. He throws the hood of his cloak up to cover his face and stalks after the boy.

Kenobi is already turning heads, just as Anakin knew he would, and while he takes a sort of sick satisfaction in being right, the feeling is mostly swallowed by a darker emotion, one that’s much harder to name. His feet pick up their pace as he watches Kenobi round an upcoming bend in the main street, eyes turned upwards as if basking in the neon lights and flickering signs. 

Fucking tourist, Anakin thinks to himself uncharitably even as he follows doggedly, eyes glued on the shifting muscles of Obi-Wan’s back and shoulders as he walks instead of the sentients on the streets around them.

Where is he even going? What does he even want to get out of this little excursion save for a layer of muck and grime on the hems of his robes and the perfume of smoke and liquor and stars know what else clinging to his skin? 

When Anakin visits these levels, it’s for a specific reason, to complete a specific purpose. He does not wander through the levels, he does not need to stop at the vendors or skulk inside the cantinas—though he has been known to indulge in the Lower Level clubs, moreso a decade or two ago than nowadays. 

It’s strange cutting through the crowds of this platform, feeling the slight sway of it beneath his feet as his ears are overwhelmed by the clamor of the inhabitants, as his eyes begin to strain under the barrage of flickering neon lights.

When he’s down here, he is usually heading towards a podrace or coming off the high of one, and this—following Kenobi in his useless, aimless trek—does not feel similar to either scenario. It feels more like he has already lost just by being here, traipsing after Kenobi’s figure like a dog on a leash.

Anakin is so distracted by his thoughts that he almost misses the moment that Kenobi stops.

Or is stopped.

Between one moment and the next, a tall, hulking form melts from the shadows of the cramped alleyway Kenobi has chosen to wander down. It’s a Zephrian, long purple horns curling around their thick and proud forehead, shoulders wider than two Kenobis put together. Their hands fall onto Kenobi, bringing him to a halt at the same time that Anakin realizes that he’s not the only one who has been following Kenobi as a much smaller figure darts forward from just in front of Anakin to launch itself up to land on Kenobi’s exposed and unguarded back, claws sinking into pale flesh and pulling a pained noise from Kenobi’s lips, high-pitched and soft, filled to the brim with surprise.

Its voice begins to chatter loudly in the narrow alley, and the Zephrian’s voice joins in, but Anakin cannot hear any of it over that sound Kenobi had made.

His feet are moving of their own accord, his body pushing roughly through the thin remnants of the crowd to get to Kenobi. 

“I—I don’t carry any credits on me,” Kenobi is saying, voice wobbling from fear or pain, Anakin doesn’t know.

The smaller figure, a Kowakian monkey-lizard, lets out a sound akin to a cackle, and its claws leave Kenobi’s skin to dive into the waves of his hair, grasping at a hair ornament—sapphire and twinkling diamond—and pulling it out of the locks with enough force that it pulls another cry from Kenobi’s lips as his hands raise to defend himself.

A moment later, Anakin is there, hand clenching down onto the Kowakian’s neck and ripping it away from Obi-Wan, the sound of his pain deafening even as it fades from the air. The Kowakian goes flying—Anakin hasn’t used the Force consciously in years, but that has to be what rises up and responds to the push of his hand, that has to be the reason the monkey-lizard slams so hard into the wall of the alleyway that the plaster cracks in multiple places as its body snaps.

“Oh,” Obi-Wan says, a punched-out, instinctual noise that Anakin has no idea how to interpret. He cannot turn to look at him either, because the Zephrian’s hazy red eyes go wide as he focuses them with what looks like great difficulty on the monkey-lizard’s rather unmoving body.

“Go,” Anakin commands, voice low and quiet, his body carefully moving in front of Kenobi’s as the boy shifted towards him, curled up on himself with one hand pressed to his face as if terribly injured or frightened. The Zephrian steps backwards, mouth twisting, and then steps forward with his mouth stretches into an angry snarl, eyes hazy with drink. The Force reverberates around them with a warning, and the Zephrian takes another aborted step forward, chest heaving.

“Anakin—” Obi-Wan cries, and Anakin’s hand shoots out. The Force runs up and down his arm, like a loth-cat batting at him for affection. You’ve returned, it seems to murmur in the air around them, nuzzling against his mind, his soul. 

He pushes out, picturing the Zephrian going flying as far and as hard as the Kowakian had, and the Force obeys with glee. The would-be attacker’s feet lift off the ground as he’s thrown into the same cracked wall as the monkey. Anakin hears his body connect with the duraplast, but he doesn’t watch it, swinging around fully to glare down at Kenobi.

“What the fuck did I tell you?” he’s growling out before he can stop himself, vision turning red as he glowers down at stubborn, willful, beautiful Kenobi. He takes a step forward, and Kenobi does not move except to tilt his head further up.

His eyes are dilated. Fear?

He should be afraid. Anakin has just—Anakin does not know what he’s just done, but there’s no undoing it. The Force is swirling around him like a churning whirlpool, the sort that sucked souls in and spat them out on Kamino for thousands of years. There had been a reason the Jedi warned him against using the Force. A reason he hadn’t touched his connection with it in decades, had simply suffered through its warnings and nudges and prods.

Now all his reasons lay in tatters around him, and the Force is so fucking loud.

Obi-Wan isn’t so much as breathing as he looks up at him, pink lips wet and parted as he allows him to approach, to back him up against the other side of the alley wall.

“What did I tell you?” Anakin snarls, hand falling to rest on Kenobi’s shoulder while the other makes a fist at his side. He’d fucking said—and now someone’s gone and made a mess of Kenobi’s hair; someone’s gone and clawed at his dimpled chin, leaving a long scrape up one cheek, leaving marks across the play of muscles on his back, leaving his eyes wide with fear which never would have happened if he’d just listened. His hand jumps up to smooth out the messy tangle of Kenobi’s hair, tenderness in the face of his fear warring with righteous anger.

“Is that what you wanted to see, princeling?” he murmurs, tightening his grip on Kenobi’s shoulder. “Was that enough of a Lower Levels experience for you?”

The boy shivers.

(Link to the corresponding poll for this fic)

[mostlikelyshutup]

... (absolutely useless rant in tags)

[socialjusticeinamerica]

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

[republikkkanorcs]

[tomorrowusa]

Those polls that proclaim “867% of Americans Favor Better Gun Regulation” say nothing about what percentage will actually vote for candidates who favor such regulation.

While there always will be a few odd exceptions, one thing is clear: Democratic lawmakers are more reliable at supporting common sense regulation of guns while Republicans are more likely to be on the take from the NRA.

If somebody you know claims to support gun regulation but wants to vote Republican, explain to them calmly and clearly that their Republican vote reduces the chances of gun legislation and increases the possibility of more mass shootings.

Even if you discover a rare Republican in favor of cracking down on gun abusers, he or she usually ends up being forced out of office by extremists in the party.

Chris Jacobs withdraws reelection bid amid GOP fire on his gun control stance

A Republican New York congressman who recently voiced support of gun control legislation announced on Friday that he will no longer seek reelection after receiving backlash over his stance.

Chris Jacobs’ support of such legislation – which came in the wake of deadly mass shootings at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store and Uvalde, Texas, elementary school – had prompted his conservative and GOP colleagues to withdraw their support.

Jacobs’s mild support for regulation was too much for the NRA-Trumpist hotheads in the GOP and so they drove him into involuntary retirement.

Like it or not, if you genuinely want gun reform in the USA then you have to vote Democratic and not miss a single election. There is no such thing as an unimportant election. Not voting only cements political support for the Trumpist-NRA fringe which acts as accomplices to mass shooters.

I Will Vote

[reasonsforhope]

Holy crap, I didn't think Biden would be able to get the Climate Corps established without Congress. This is SUCH fantastic news.

--

"After being thwarted by Congress, President Joe Biden will use his executive authority to create a New Deal-style American Climate Corps that will serve as a major green jobs training program.

In an announcement Wednesday, the White House said the program will employ more than 20,000 young adults who will build trails, plant trees, help install solar panels and do other work to boost conservation and help prevent catastrophic wildfires.

The climate corps had been proposed in early versions of the sweeping climate law approved last year but was jettisoned amid strong opposition from Republicans and concerns about cost.

Democrats and environmental advocacy groups never gave up on the plan and pushed Biden in recent weeks to issue an executive order authorizing what the White House now calls the American Climate Corps.

“After years of demonstrating and fighting for a Climate Corps, we turned a generational rallying cry into a real jobs program that will put a new generation to work stopping the climate crisis,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, an environmental group that has led the push for a climate corps.

With the new corps “and the historic climate investments won by our broader movement, the path towards a Green New Deal is beginning to become visible,” Prakash said...

...Environmental activists hailed the new jobs program, which is modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps, created in the 1930s by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, as part of the New Deal...

Lawmakers Weigh In

More than 50 Democratic lawmakers, including Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, had also encouraged Biden to create a climate corps, saying in a letter on Monday that “the climate crisis demands a whole-of-government response at an unprecedented scale.”

The lawmakers cited deadly heat waves in the Southwest and across the nation, as well as dangerous floods in New England and devastating wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui, among recent examples of climate-related disasters.

Democrats called creation of the climate corps “historic” and the first step toward fulfilling the vision of the Green New Deal.

“Today President Biden listened to the (environmental) movement, and he delivered with an American Climate Corps,” a beaming Markey said at a celebratory news conference outside the Capitol.

“We are starting to turn the green dream into a green reality,” added Ocasio-Cortez, who co-sponsored the Green New Deal legislation with Markey four years ago.

“You all are changing the world,” she told young activists.

Program Details and Grant Deadlines

The initiative will provide job training and service opportunities to work on a wide range of projects, including restoring coastal wetlands to protect communities from storm surges and flooding; clean energy projects such as wind and solar power; managing forests to prevent catastrophic wildfires; and energy efficient solutions to cut energy bills for consumers, the White House said.

Creation of the climate corps comes as the Environmental Protection Agency launches a $4.6 billion grant competition for states, municipalities and tribes to cut climate pollution and advance environmental justice. The Climate Pollution Reduction Grants are funded by the 2022 climate law and are intended to drive community-driven solutions to slow climate change.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the grants will help “communities so they can chart their own paths toward the clean energy future.”

The deadline for states and municipalities to apply is April 1, with grants expected in late 2024. Tribes and territories must apply by May 1, with grants expected by early 2025."

-via Boston.com, September 21, 2023

[qqueenofhades]

“U.S. President Joe Biden issued a memorandum on Thursday requiring allies who receive military aid from the U.S. to provide ‘credible and reliable written assurances’ of their adherence to international law including international human rights law,” the Times of Israel reported. Israel will need to supply written assurances within 45 days or risk loss of aid. The report added, “The memo did not mention specific countries who would be held up to the new standard, but came amid increasing calls in the U.S. to condition aid to Israel due to concerns over its military operations in Gaza which were triggered by the Oct. 7 attacks, in which Hamas terrorists murdered some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 253.” No one should underestimate the impact of the decision. The Associated Press explained, “Democratic senators on Friday called Biden’s directive — meant to bring breadth, oversight, deadlines and teeth to efforts to ensure foreign governments don’t use U.S. military aid against civilians — historic.”

[.......]

Biden also pressed on with intense one-on-one diplomacy. After his comment on Thursday evening that Israel had been “over the top” in Gaza, Biden engaged with Netanyahu on Sunday in a 45-minute conversation — unusually long by most diplomatic standards (and even more so given that no time had to be spent on translation with English-fluent Netanyahu). According to the White House readout, Biden insisted Israel make “credible” arrangements to protect civilians before launching a widely criticized military plan for Rafah, where civilian casualties could mount. He also pressed Netanyahu again to increase humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. Biden’s patient approach with Netanyahu over months has gradually transformed into a private and public pressure campaign. A Biden official told The Post that the leaders had “a pretty detailed back and forth on that.”

-- Biden delivers tough love, takes historic step: Conditioning aid to Israel

Meanwhile Trump?

Trump has said he would implement travel bans on people from certain countries or with certain ideologies, expanding on a policy upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018. Trump previewed some parts of the world that could be subjected to a renewed travel ban in a mid-October speech, pledging to restrict people from the Gaza Strip, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and "anywhere else that threatens our security." During the speech, Trump focused on the conflict in Gaza, saying he would bar the entry of immigrants who support the Islamist militant group Hamas and send deportation officers to pro-Hamas protests.

Also: Trump vows to expand Muslim ban and bar Gaza refugees if he wins presidency

Really, really not sure how much clearer I can make it here for y'all, but sure. Something something Trump's actually a better choice on this issue/overall (sarcasm).

[calilili]

“ The 21st Century is A Time Of Useful Consciousness “ by Cali Lili ; published in Cranky Yank Magazine #civilization #humanity 📰 🎬🎼 https://crankyyank.com/2022/11/07/midterms-are-a-time-of-useful-consciousness-by-guest-blogger-calililiindies/

“ The 21st Century is A Time Of Useful Consciousness “ by Cali Lili ; published in Cranky Yank Magazine #civilization #humanity 📰 🎬🎼 https://crankyyank.com/2022/11/07/midterms-are-a-time-of-useful-consciousness-by-guest-blogger-calililiindies/

https://crankyyank.com/2022/11/07/midterms-are-a-time-of-useful-consciousness-by-guest-blogger-calililiindies/ by Cali Lili published in Will Pollock Cranky Yank Magazine By Cali Lili published in Cranky Yank Magazine https://crankyyank.com/2022/11/07/midterms-are-a-time-of-useful-consciousness-by-guest-blogger-calililiindies/ Movie Review : Times Square Chronicles Cali Lili ‘s debut : Eve…