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#First Impeachment...you know...since there were TWO
neverchecking · 10 months
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I have a brain rot for sage, hes challenging the chain for their time with player/reader, he basically wants all His/Her/Them's attention, of course none of the chain and sage are going to "play" fair their going to cheat no matter what. the only ones he might not win against is time, FD and maybe twilight. wind, four, Hyrule, and sky would do sad puppy eyes to get cuddle time, twilight and legend turn into their animal form to get pettings, sage and wild would cook food to get points for being delicious. (etc.etc.) just some yandere shenanigans for attention. the challenges he did were sword fighting, bow and arrow targeting, sparing, arm wrestling, and so forth.
-Eevee
Okay, last one for the night! I figured since this isn't really a request, I could spitball some more of my headcanons for our beloved Sage.
Jk it delted itself so I gave up and went to bed bc last time I tried to push through I wasn't happy with the end product, so sorry for the delay!
For those of you who don't know, Sage is another name for the Tears of the Kingdom Link--dubbed Hero of the Zonai-- should we decide he is not in fact Wild.
For the Wild and Facesitting request, it's in progress I promise! I try to go in order with my requests, but like I said, this is more headcanons versus a scenario. It should be out tomorrow later today so look out for that ;)
ANYWAY-
Y'all. The amount of Sage requests in my inbox right now? You guys are feral for this man and I love it. So I'm here to feed you guys.
TotK spoilers below!
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・❥・Okay, so lemme start this off by saying. I have done you all wrong. And for that I apologize.
・❥・Because our wonderful @wayfayrr has opened my eyes to new possibilities that I would've never even thought of. So everyone say thank you rn >:(
・❥・So let's make some amendments!
・❥・First off, let's talk about nicknames. I love the idea that Reader, and only Reader, can call him anything other than Sage. And calling him other herb-related nicknames? Kills me. He is a flushing red mess the first time it happens. You had deemed him worthy of a nickname? You considered him person enough to have a moniker that wasn't also a title? If he was down bad before, it's so much worse now. Because you see him as a person. He's sure the others just see him as a means to the end. The second one of them, maybe save Wind, try it, he's shooting them daggers and snarling at them for even daring to try and impeach your privilege. (I also love the Calm, Wild and Feral thing, I thought that was so freaking clever.)
・❥・And you know how each of the hero's have their own 'sword' right? Well, what if Sage's was the Master Sword Remastered? Like Sky's (Like most of their Master Swords actually) but now it's been boosted by ten thousand years worth of direct light magic. (Does the Zonai time fall before Skyward Sword or after? I have no idea where they fall on the timeline tbh.). Just a thought. It could also be a gloom sword which probably wouldn't effect him as hard in other timelines because there's no demon king to power it, but it probably does hurt the others if they try to touch it.
・❥・Now, the juicy part. Let's retouch on Wild's and Sage's relationship. I originally said that Sage was okay with him? I lied. Wayfayrr has opened my eyes.
・❥・Sage probably can't fucking stand Wild. As they said, this is a version of him that didn't have this second adventure. Got to rest and distant himself from the Hero Title. And that just pisses him off. Why did he get the shittier hand? Why did he have to do it all over again? Why when this failure got to get off easy? Why couldn't he have the same grace, huh? What made them so different?
・❥・And if we're using the past oneshot (Here!) as they're 'canon' meeting, this filth let you get hurt. You were hurt before meeting him, which means that they can't be trusted with you. Especially Wild. So Sage cannot stand you being near Wild. At all. It eats at him and he doesn't last long before splitting the two of you up.
・❥・Calamity is even worse. There is probably an active hate towards Calamity (In this Yandere world, in a normal, not toxic world? They probably work out their differences a little better). This was a version of him who didn't even have to die to complete his quest. And this just shows that Fraud has favorites and it's not him.
・❥・You know who else he probably doesn't like? Twilight. Now, hear me out. This is purely me just spitting this out, but Sage has to be aware. He listens when they don't think he does, he's awake when they think he's not, he's watching when they don't even know he's there.
・❥・So he probably picks up on all of their little secrets. Meaning he knows Twilight is Wolfie. And (I think this is Canon is LU but I'm not sure) Wild had Wolfie as a guide. Which means Sage had Wolfie as a guide. The difference? When he needed him the second time, left stumbling around like a newborn fawn crawling out of the shrine all over again, he was left alone. He was fighting robots with a fucking Stick. He fused a mushroom to a shield just to buy himself more time. At one point, he was fusing a long stick to another long stick just to fight from a distance to save his battered body. Rauru did as much as he could, but there were some times he wished he was left for dead.
・❥・Not anymore as that means he would've never met you, but then? different story.
・❥・They also brought up that Sage probably doesn't stop at just cooking your food and I agree. When on the road, he for sure goes straight to the source. If he doesn't know exactly where it came from, it's not going anywhere near his Goddess. Nope. Not a chance in the gloomy depths from hell.
・❥・He's going to farmers themselves rather than merchants for produce, hunting any protein himself, climbing trees for eggs, he probably even makes his own butter. Now, because he's also cooking savy this for sure makes the rivalry between him and Wild widen. Wild is set in his cook for the chain, not you. Sage can't trust them to not hurt you again. Whose to say they don't over spice the food? Or undercook the fish? Or drop shells into the egg?
・❥・He can't trust them and may force you to pick one of the other. Depending on who you chose, he'll either hold his victory up high or work even harder to separate you from the chain. Can't you see, Reader? They aren't good for you.
・❥・When it comes to the Gloom, he for sure uses to his advantage. You know he's been infected, but you don't know how much light he's gathered to dispel it. At this point, he's probably gotten most, if not all of it, out, but you don't know that. And he preys on that fact.
・❥・Oh, the Traveler wants to down to the river with you? But, Reader, there's something rotten in his chest and he's stumbling against trees, exaggerating his steady steps just in case to really sell it. He needs you by his side, can't you see?
・❥・Oh, the captain is trying to get you to settle with him for the night? But, Reader, he's tossing and turning, feigning sleep and acting just enough to catch your attention. He's listening, ears pricked, just to hear you swiftly apologize before your gently hands are laying on his shoulders and he's won again.
・❥・And because his Hyrule is one of, if not the most dangerous Hyrules, he's given so much ammo to keep you tethered to him. You can't trust anyone, don't you know? The Yiga uptake has skyrocketed and they are everywhere, along with Ganon's new ability to make puppets? Can't you see how you can't trust any of them?
・❥・He even entertains you when you come up with the idea to have a secret saying between just the two of you as a fail safe. (It's probably something like 'Deforestation Enthusiast' because of how the two of you met.) Anything to have you pulling further away from the Chain and into his arms.
・❥・If it begins to take longer than expected, Sage is not above letting you wander just enough in his Hyrule. Maybe you set off a bit of Gloom hands (Or maybe he nudges them in your direction, hard to tell, really) and they go charging at you. The others don't know how to deal with them, but he does. He saves your life before the others even know what hit them. He's cooing into your ear, reassuring that where the others fail, he would never dream of it. He's whispering that he knows how scary the feeling of those hands are. He knows how freezing the feeling of sudden restriction, only accompanied by the burning sizzle of malice, is. He knows and he understands, but he's right here. He'd never let anything happen to you. Not like the other frauds.
・❥・Now, all that being said, Sage for sure does not play fair. Oh no. He does challenge them in his own ways, but does it in a way that can only reflect badly on them should they call him out on it.
・❥・He's fighting (Picking apart) with Wars and Calamity on their sparring routines, angling it in just a way that should they snap back he can turn on the innocent little look with a 'But I'm just trying to protect you. I don't know how any of you fight, I'm still learning.' Just in time for you to catch them barking at him to 'Learn faster' and it just falls perfectly into place.
・❥・He's calling out Twi and Four every time they try to wander off (Probably to bring out Wolfie or split to relieve a headache of sorts) because 'The woods are dangerous, what are they doing going off alone?' and now they can't leave because all eyes are on them and he's restricting their movement without even really trying. They wanna go foraging? But he and ...Wild were their best foragers and they were busy with dinner (That was something bitter to get out).
・❥・And wow, Time, Legend and Fierce have so many secrets, can you really trust them? Sage has laid down his entire adventure to you, and regardless if Reader is a LoZ player and knows of them regardless, Sage told you. Those two are trying to hide from you. He would never.
・❥・Wind, Hyrule and that filthy disgrace want to drag you along to go Shield surfing? Reader, do you know how dangerous that is? Especially with someone's track record. Here, you wanna go riding on this motorized wagon he just happens to have on hand? (Between the Zonite in his Purah pad, he can build any component necessary.)
・❥・Not even Sky and First are safe as he uses carefully laid words to sully their once golden image towards you. Afterall, they're so close to Hylia, whose to say they aren't behind all of this?
・❥・Now, you said that the only ones he may not win against are Time, Fierce and Twilight, but like I said, I can imagine him loathing Twilight, so instead, may I suggest First.
・❥・Time and Fierce are both pretty burly dudes that demand some semblance of respect and while Sage has muscles, he's not overly tall. So while he doesn't bow, he may just back off from their forefront for a while.
・❥・Now, First. He's probably the only one who can put Sage back in his place of the hierarchy. It's the first in the timeline, versus the last (As of right now). And it's not pretty. They probably go to blows a few times when you're out of ear shot.
・❥・The problem is that First can only push him back when you're out of ear shot and Sage makes it a point to keep you as close as humanly possible.
・❥・And while yes, some of them may use puppy eyes, Sage is not above using pity to get what he wants because he just hurts so badly don't you know?
・❥・He unfortunately can't do anything about wolves or rabbits. If they manage to disappear before he can call them out on it, he's left bitterly sulking as Wolfie laps at your cheeks or dumb rabbits nose at your hand. He may know who they are, but not even he's cruel enough to call them out (Yet) because that would just pit you against him. They weren't his secrets to tell, you would scold, and he just couldn't handle that possibility.
・❥・The biggest difference between Sage and Wild, one that the chain will fail to realize right away, is that Sage is much more experienced. He is on his second, THIRD if you count the pre-calamity, adventure. He knows everything Wild does, and more. Wild knows how to improvise and adapt, Sage can do it faster. Wild knows how to forage and concoct incredibly potent elixirs? Sage can do it tenfold with half the ingredients. He knows all the little tips and tricks and is not only backed up by the champion's gifts-- should they have remained-- but now he has the sages with him.
・❥・Like imagine their mid-battle, they had forced you away from Sage just to create some distance (At long last) and mans comes rolling in a giant fucking robot. He's using Sidon's sage to shield you over and over again and decimating a battle field using nothing but Riju and an arrow. Hell, the bigger enemies are struck down by Yunobo crashing into them. Sage alone is enough to cut the enemy hordes in half through recall and sending their own attacks back at them or fusing together weapons they wouldn't have ever dreamed of with new abilities. Even his outfits give him benefits far beyond anything they could think.
・❥・You saw him as someone more than just Link. He wasn't just the Swordsman to you when that was who he was to everyone else. You dubbed him something far beyond what a damned sword made him.
・❥・And he would have to be four days dead before letting you go.
・❥・And as he's proven before, Not even death could truly kill him.
I am so glad I waited bc I like this one so much more than the one that was deleted.
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qqueenofhades · 2 years
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Don't act like this isn't the Democrats fault. They didn't codify Roe when they had the chance, and now they're paying the price.
Hooweeeee. Normally, I just block these kinds of asks out of hand and go on with my day, but you've caught me at the end of two solid days of Rage, and unfortunately for you, I'm not gonna do that. Instead, just to start, I would like to politely ask the following question:
Hello! Have you ever considered the possibility that you may be A Total Fucking Idiot?
Since there are many of us, present company regretfully included, who struggle with history, let's start out with a quick lesson. Roe was handed down in 1973. It took a while to really get evangelicals hot under the collar, but by 1987, in Ronald Reagan's second term, it had definitely happened. To further the Republicans' cherished goal of overturning it, Reagan nominated far-right whackjob Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. The Democrats, led by then-Senator Joe Biden, fought back on a massive scale and defeated the nomination, leading to Anthony Kennedy joining the SC instead of Bork.
In 1992, another abortion-related case reached the Supreme Court: Planned Parenthood v. Casey, wherein Roe was pretty much reaffirmed in its entirety. By 1992, George H.W. Bush had finished one term, generally underwhelmed the public, and was voted out, thus to be replaced by Bill Clinton. In 1994, in Clinton's first midterm election, the Newt Gingrich Republicans took the House and the Strom Thurmond and Bob Dole Republicans took the Senate. This GOP control of at least one branch of Congress remained the case until 2001, when George W. Bush became president. (Also, the GOP Clinton-era Republicans had other things to do, such as the Lewinsky scandal in 1998, back when they still pretended to have moral values and impeached Clinton accordingly). Considering the fact that any attempt to pass a national law to codify Roe was obviously doomed with Dubya in the White House, since he would have vetoed it, and that the Democrats didn't fully control the House, Senate, and Presidency again until 2009, one might feel that formalizing a twice-affirmed decision by the Supreme Court maybe wasn't the top priority. Abortion rights were and are popular (in fact, that's why the three Trumpists on the SC had to lie to the Judiciary Committee about their plans to repeal it), and Obama had other things on his plate. Like, you know, saving the national and global economy from total meltdown after the crisis of 2008, and trying to jam through the Affordable Care Act in the short time he had before 2010, and once more losing the House to the Tea Party. The loss of the Senate followed in 2014. Once again, we didn't get it back until 2021, when the three wingnut justices were already seated on the Court and Trump had run his reign of terror.
Considering those empirical circumstances, the fact that the Democrats have only had control of all three branches of the federal government for two-year periods at MOST and were busy fixing all the other most pressing messes, and that the Republicans have said for decades that this is exactly what they want to do, I am truly gobsmacked (if not surprised) at the sheer number of morons who want to make this, yet again, the Democrats' fault. Apparently the Republicans are just a force of nature who can't really be blamed or actually considered to have agency; it's only ever on the Democrats for Not Doing Enough To Stop Them. Instead, we now have hordes of told-you-so-ers swarming out of the woodwork and acting like this was a five-alarm fire that the Democrats willfully ignored and/or fanned on. That is incredibly moronic on multiple levels, but hey, that kind of seems to be your Brand. That is, when you're not labeling smug inactivity and self-professed moral superiority as the most pure and correct course of action, but again, we all have our talents.
There was no way for the Republicans to overturn Roe without the exact kind of judicial skulduggery, right-wing extremism, and scads of dark money that finally came together in the perfect storm. (Ever hear of Citizens United in 2010, and the way in which hard-right interest groups have been funding this planned takeover of the judiciary for years? Or does that conflict with your predetermined hypothesis?) Apparently Democrats should have Done More to stop Trump from choosing Supreme Court justices (a Very Smart White Man on twitter made the argument that it was actually Senate Democrats' fault for not stopping McConnell on procedural grounds, or.... something). This was after actual Democrats begged the Holier Than Thous to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016, explicitly because we pointed out that the Supreme Court was in a precarious position with elderly justices and open seats, and the next president would be poised to reshape it for the next generation. You all laughed at us, more or less openly called us a bunch of bootlicking neoliberal traitors, and told us that the Supreme Court didn't matter and we were all delusional. Then you didn't vote. Then Trump won the election by squeaking out wins in a handful of key states. Then.... well, we all know what happened next.
So tell me, Oh Wise Internet Sage. Where, in what Congress, and according to what actual rules of reality, procedure, and priority, should the Democrats have passed a law to codify a popular twice-affirmed Supreme Court decision that was not under serious threat precisely until this confluence of circumstances took place under the Trump presidency? Be specific, and point out exactly how it would have happened. Otherwise, your argument is bad and you should feel bad.
Biden, Harris, Pelosi, Schumer, Warren, Obama, and all the other prominent Democratic leadership and/or congresspeople have already made strong statements within hours of the draft opinion being leaked. Republicans are screaming in unison that whoever leaked it is the actual story, not the content or impact of the decision (literally what McConnell said today on CNN). The DEMOCRATS DO SOMETHING!!! crowd need to, uh, actually say what they're fucking supposed to do now. Instead you blame RBG, you blame HRC, you blame the Democrats, and absolutely everyone and anyone except the actual people responsible for doing this. You may think it's an enlightened and complex stance that reflects the Realities of the World, or whatever. You may think that Joe Manchin doesn't exist (believe me, I wish he fucking didn't) and that Biden can wave a magic wand and overturn SCOTUS. Do they need to do more? YES! MANY OF THEM HAVE EXPLICITLY SAID THEY WILL BE EXPLORING ALL OPTIONS! BUT WE STILL LIVE (FOR THE NEXT FEW MONTHS) IN A DEMOCRACY AND THAT REQUIRES US DOING OUR JOB AND VOTING IN NEW AND BETTER PEOPLE TO HELP THEM!
I'm sick and fucking tired of this pissbaby whining from the exact same people who make us beg and plead for their vote every single election, feel morally justified in withholding it, and have done literally nothing to advance any of the causes they claim to care about. "Hindsight is 20/20" some of you like to point out, but with the expected irony, you miss it completely when it comes to reviewing any of your own (non) actions and any hint of genuine acknowledgment that your apathy and nihilism helped this happen. So. Suck on that, then go step on a rake. If this should knock some sense into you, we can then talk again.
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deadpresidents · 9 months
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•This is an Historically Accurate Transcription starring President Ronald Reagan and Joe Biden in the Oval Office, November 12, 1987•
REAGAN: How is it possible that you are going to have significantly more hair in 35 years? BIDEN: How do you know what my hair is going to look like in the future? REAGAN: Star Wars. BIDEN: The movie or the proposed missile defense system? REAGAN: They are literally the same thing, Joe. BIDEN: I think you are confused, Mr. President. REAGAN: Are you making an Alzheimer's joke or poking fun at an elderly President? BIDEN: No, absolutely not. That would be super inappropriate and not cool at all and I would definitely not appreciate that. Let me be crystal clear, it is REALLY shitty to make fun of elderly Presidents. I would not like that if I were in your shoes. REAGAN: I haven't been able to find my shoes since 1984. BIDEN: See, you're the one making those jokes, not me. REAGAN: That's because in 35 years, you're going to miraculously have your hair again but good luck finding your shoes during your second term. BIDEN: I'll have a second term? Did you see that in Star Wars, too? REAGAN: Is there a Star Wars 2? I only saw the first one. BIDEN: No, I mean, did you also see that in Star Wars? REAGAN: Oh, no, I'm just an old man who happens to be President and old men who happen to be President say crazy shit. BIDEN: Goddammit... REAGAN: But come on! Your main opponent was impeached twice, incited an insurrection, and has at least two criminal indictments. How could you lose? BIDEN: Because your "Shining City on a Hill" has turned into a garbage fire that's also full of diarrhea and conspiracies. REAGAN: Patriotic. Alright, I'm gonna go watch Star Wars again, but one more thing... BIDEN: Yes, sir? REAGAN: MR. GORBACHEV, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL! (Nancy!? Where am I?) BIDEN: God save the Queen. (Jill?! I'm lost again!)
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cogitoergofun · 3 months
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The contrast between the wisps of smoke in the Biden investigation and the torrid flames of the Trump case is a reminder that although Trump has been a major driver of the impeachment inquiry into Biden, his own behavior on any given question is usually worse than his adversaries’. Not only is there always a tweet; there’s usually a scandal.
“Many reports get published in Congress every year and sink into oblivion, but this one is unlikely to disappear,” Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, wrote in a foreword. This is optimistic. The report made much less of a splash on its release than it should have, for predictable reasons: Trump-loving audiences simply ignore it or rationalize it, while Trump-skeptical ones have long assumed that he’s on the take.
The saga of the foreign payments is a good case study in how Trump has taught Americans to tolerate brazen corruption—so long as it’s his. To do this, Trump relies on two tactics. First, he does much of it out in the open, recognizing that voters tend to assume that only hidden deeds are nefarious. Second, he finds ways to slow-walk the release of the most damaging information, so that by the time the full picture is clear, the public has become almost inoculated—as though it had been out in the open all along.
[...]
It’s now been roughly seven years since the first accusations of an emoluments-clause violation emerged. In that time, voters got used to the idea of Trump bringing in millions of dollars from overseas sources, first by his doing it in the open, and second by his ensuring that the actual hard numbers would drip out slowly.
He’s used the same maneuver effectively elsewhere. In his first impeachment, for example, Trump was accused of trying to deploy the powers of the presidency to get foreign governments to intervene in American elections on his behalf. As Congress investigated, Trump kept at it, openly calling for foreign interference and obstructing Congress, so that the most damning details emerged gradually, blunting their impact and leaving time for patsies like Senator Lindsey Graham to invent justifications for erasing their own red lines on quid pro quos. And as I recently wrote as part of The Atlantic’s “If Trump Wins” package, he’s already normalizing the idea that he’d lock up generals or reporters or Biden if reelected.
Trump’s reflexive defenders are always eager to help. Republican James Comer, the House Oversight chair who has led the charge against Biden, dismissed the report. “Former President Trump has legitimate businesses, but the Bidens do not,” he said in a statement. But this not only begs the question; it is beside the point. Whether Trump’s business is legitimate doesn’t hold any bearing on whether he violated the emoluments clause. And whether he violated the emoluments clause doesn’t have much bearing on whether it’s ethically acceptable for the president to receive money from the Chinese government—a principle that Republicans have little trouble grasping as it pertains to Biden’s (hypothesized) earnings.
Less than a month ago, Sean Hannity dreamed about just this scenario. “I cannot, for the life of me, you know, imagine what the media and how the country and the left in this country would be reacting if Donald Trump and the Trump Organization or the Trump family were making tens of millions of dollars from our top geopolitical foes like China and Russia,” he said. “I can’t imagine the left in this country not going insane, but lo and behold, here we are.”
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klbmsw · 9 months
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JoJo From Jerz
I have a question for MAGA —
You say you want trump back in office.
You say you liked his “policies”.
That things were “better”.
That he “fought for you”.
And I want to know why you think that.
Because he told you he would lower the cost of your prescription drugs, and didn’t.
But Biden did.
He said he’d bring back manufacturing, but he didn’t.
Joe Biden passed the CHIPS Act - allocating tens of billions in incentives for companies to construct & expand manufacturing facilities in the US.
For four years straight, he said every week would be “infrastructure week”, only that week never came.
President Biden signed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill into law during his first year in office.
He said he would boost economic growth by 4 percent a year. Nope. The economy stalled, and unemployment soared to the highest levels since the Great Depression.
Joe Biden has created 13.2 million jobs and unemployment has been under 4% for 17 months in a row—the longest stretch in over 50 years.
He promised to eliminate the federal deficit. He increased it by more than 60 percent.
Joe Biden cut the deficit by more than $1.7 trillion in his first two years – the largest deficit reduction in American history.
He said he would hire “only the best people.” He’s since called his AG a “gutless pig”, his National Security Adviser “one of the dumbest people in Washington, his Sec. Of Defense “the world’s most overrated general” and he’s said that people were right to want to hang his VP.
Joe Biden has seen very little turnover in his cabinet and hasn’t so much as criticized anyone in his administration, let alone wanted to see them hanged.
He promised he’d build a wall and that Mexico would pay for it. He then took $15 billion from our Defense Department’s budget to pay for less than 500 miles of construction.
Joe Biden got Mexico to pay us $1.5 billion for border security.
He promised to lock up Hillary Clinton for using a private email server. He’s now been federally indicted with 37 charges related to his intentional mishandling of national security documents.
Joe Biden… hasn’t.
He said he would “unify America”, and then told his supporters to attack our Capitol.
He was impeached twice, lost re-election and has to date been indicted 71 times, with more charges likely to come.
Oh, and that money you’re sending him for the 2024 election… that’s being used to pay his personal legal bills.
So, given all of this… my question remains the same — what was “better” under trump? What “policies”? If it wasn’t healthcare, infrastructure, border security, American manufacturing or the economy, what was it?
And if he’s “fighting for you”, why is he using your campaign donations on his personal legal woes?
I would really love to know.
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Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday released security video from the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, using footage provided exclusively to him by Speaker Kevin McCarthy to portray the riot as a peaceful gathering.
Carlson acquired the tapes as part of a deal for McCarthy, R-Calif., to win the Speaker’s gavel. When McCarthy was struggling to gather the votes to lead the House, Carlson used his program to list two “concessions” he could make to win over far-right Republicans.
“First, release the January 6 files. Not some of the January 6 files and video — all of it,” Carlson, the most-watched host on cable news, said after McCarthy faced three failed votes. “So that the rest of us can finally know what actually happened on January 6, 2021.”
In the two months since McCarthy won the gavel, he has granted both. Carlson announced in late February that McCarthy had given him exclusive access to 44,000 hours of security video from the deadly riot before he unveiled some clips of the video on his show Monday night.
Carlson focused Monday’s segment on promoting former President Donald Trump’s narrative by showing video of his supporters walking calmly around the U.S. Capitol. He asserted that other media accounts lied about the attack, proclaiming that while there were some bad apples, most of the rioters were peaceful and calling them "sightseers," not "insurrectionists."
“The footage does not show an insurrection or a riot in progress,” Carlson told his audience Monday. “Instead it shows police escorting people through the building, including the now-infamous ‘QAnon Shaman.’”
He continued: "More than 44,000 hours of surveillance footage from in and around the Capitol have been withheld from the public, and once you see the video, you’ll understand why. Taken as a whole, the video does not support the claim that Jan. 6 was an insurrection. In fact, it demolishes that claim."
Video that Carlson didn’t air shows police and rioters engaged in hours of violent combat that resulted in injuries to hundreds of police officers. Two pipe bombs were also planted nearby but were not detonated.
Nearly 1,000 people have been charged in connection with the Capitol attack. About 140 officers were assaulted that day, and about 326 people have been charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding officers or employees, including 106 assaults that happened with deadly or dangerous weapons. About 60 people pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement.
Carlson also said on his show Monday that Democrats lied about the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. He played video that he said showed Sicknick walking around inside the Capitol after the mob attacked him. “They knew he was not murdered by the mob, but they claimed it anyway,” he said.
Sicknick died of natural causes on Jan. 7, the day after he engaged with rioters outside the Capitol. An autopsy report determined that he died of a stroke at the base of the brain stem caused by a blood clot. Capitol Police have said Sicknick returned to his office after the riot and collapsed. Two men have been sentenced to prison for spraying him with a chemical irritant during the melee, and Sicknick’s family has contended that the fighting with rioters contributed directly to his stroke.
McCarthy’s controversial decision to hand over Jan. 6 video to Carlson is a new twist for one of the most scrutinized events in American history, which has produced countless hours of social media video, a sweeping Justice Department criminal investigation, a House Select Committee probe and a bipartisan impeachment of then-President Donald Trump alleging “incitement of insurrection.”
The video’s release after two years, on Fox News in prime time, highlights the influence of Carlson, who has downplayed and promoted conspiracy theories about Jan. 6, and the far right over the slim new House majority.
Carlson also said at the top of his show Monday that Fox had checked with Capitol Police before it aired any of the video.
“Their reservations were minor,” he said, saying Fox blurred a door inside the Capitol in response to the agency's request.
U.S. Capitol Police is not commenting publicly on the security video released by Carlson, but a Capitol Hill source familiar with the matter told NBC News on Monday that “the police thought there was an agreement" with the Committee on House Administration, not with Carlson's show, that Capitol Police would be given the opportunity to review all the clips that Fox was planning to air Monday night.
But "the show only allowed the police to review one clip late this afternoon and then did not allow them to review any of the other clips.”
NBC News has reached out to the Committee on House Administration for comment.
Carlson said he plans to air additional video on his show Tuesday night.
The episode presents thorny politics for McCarthy who, in releasing the video to Carlson, is reigniting a national debate over the failed insurrection that cost his party seats in the midterm election — and looms over the 2024 presidential contest as Trump leads the GOP field in pursuit of a comeback.
“Electorally, it’s not to their advantage to be on the side of insurrectionists. But hasn’t stopped them before,” said Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii.
McCarthy’s actions have sparked criticism from members of both parties and demands from news outlets, including NBC News, for access to the video. Some lawmakers say the video could be taken out of context to create a false narrative of what happened that day. Others worry it could expose the identities of police officers who defended the Capitol and subject them to harassment. And numerous Republicans say that security information should be protected and that all media should have equal access.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, the former chairman of the Jan. 6 Committee, said in a statement after Monday's show that it was a “dereliction of duty for Kevin McCarthy to give Tucker Carlson carte blanche access to sensitive U.S. Capitol security surveillance footage from one of the darkest days in the history of our democracy.”
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said the video “should have been reviewed to make sure that they would not be used in a way that could harm law enforcement” before it was disclosed to anyone.
“I don’t quite know what Speaker McCarthy had in mind,” he said. “I think it’s appropriate to provide information to the public generally and not just to one network.”
McCarthy defended his decision, saying that he had accounted for security concerns and that his office had “worked with Capitol Police” to ensure that security concerns were “taken care of.”
“He’ll have an exclusive, then I’ll give it out to the entire country,” McCarthy said, adding that Carlson’s team is “not interested” in showing sensitive security video, such as images of exit routes. “We’re working through that. We worked with the Capitol Police, as well. So we’ll make sure security is taken care of.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a recent letter to colleagues that McCarthy’s decision “laid bare that this sham is simply about pandering to MAGA election deniers,” accusing Carlson of using “his platform to promote the Big Lie, distort reality, and espouse bogus conspiracy theories about January 6.”
Some Republicans believe it is a mistake to reopen the Jan. 6 discussion, particularly after Trump-backed election deniers faced midterm defeats up and down the ballot in swing states.
“The 2022 election was a categorical rejection of election denialism. It cost Republicans the Senate and nearly kept them from winning back the House,” said Republican strategist Ken Spain, a former aide on the GOP’s House campaign arm. “With a razor-thin majority, House Republicans can’t waste a minute looking backward.”
Trump’s allies are looking for one thing on the video: vindication.
“We heard for two years how incredibly important this Jan. 6 committee was, how important all the evidence they collected was,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who mounted the first Senate objection to 2020 results that forced a vote, turning a sleepy ritual into a rallying point for Trump and his ardent followers. “Let’s see it. Let’s see the whole video.”
Hawley said that among the people at the Capitol, “I think the overwhelming majority were peaceful.” He added: “My friends on the left are melting down about this. ‘We can’t have that!’ Well, why can’t we? I thought it was critical that it all be put out there.”
“What’s on the tapes? I don’t know, but I’m interested to see them,” he said.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said the Jan. 6 security video “should be made public” or at least made available for “congressional oversight” because “that’s a very dramatic thing that happened one day in our country’s history.”
“What’s been investigated would be such a small percentage of it that a lot could be learned,” he said.
The release of some of the Jan. 6 security video comes two years after the attack, in which Trump supporters violently breached the Capitol in an attempt to overturn his 2020 defeat. Trump, who on Monday night praised Carlson on Truth Social for airing the newly accessed footage, has persisted in his fabricated claims that the election was stolen from him, despite failing to produce evidence of substantial fraud. He has also persisted in defending many of the rioters as patriots.
In his letter to colleagues last month, Schumer warned that Carlson would use any clips from the riot to advance his own narrative. “If the past is any indication, Tucker Carlson will select only clips that he can use to twist the facts to sow doubt of what happened on January 6 and feed into the propaganda he’s already put on Fox News’ air, which, based on recent reports, he may not even believe himself,” Schumer wrote.
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fwoopersongs · 1 year
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己酉元日 - First Day of Ji-You
by 陆游 (Lu You, 1125 to 1210)
夜雨解残雪 朝阳开积阴 yè yǔ jiě cán xuě zhāo yáng kāi jī yīn Night rain melts what was left of the snow, the morning sun parts accumulated cold.
桃符呵笔写 椒酒过花斟 táofú hē bǐ xiě jiāojiǔ guò huā zhēn Peachwood blessings, with brush breath-warmed, written; pepper-wine amongst the flowers, poured.
巷柳摇风早 街泥溅马深 xiàng liǔ yáo fēng zǎo jiē ní jiàn mǎ shēn Alley willows sway in the early wind, street mud splashing, deepen the horse's coat.
行宫放朝贺 共识慕尧心 xínggōng fàng cháo hè gòngshì mù yáo xīn The Travel-Palace opens for the Court's Greetings, so all may know admiration for our virtuous lord.
………………………………………………………………………………………….
NOTES
I've been procrastinating on my original intended New Year poem because I had a feeling the notes for that will be really long xD Oops. But THIS is another homework poem! And a cheerful one to make up for the last (sorry Li Yu lolol).
TITLE
I love this title because it immediately tells us exactly when this poem is set, if not when exactly it was written. Years in Lu You’s time were numbered by the sexagenary cycle, better known as 干支 (gān zhī) or stems & branch, in which a full cycle consisted of sixty combinations of the heavenly stems and earthly branches, representing sixty years. Here is a lovely explanation of how this works. 
The Stem-Branch year was usually paired with the Emperor’s era name to identify which year it was. In this case, we only know it was a 己酉 Ji-You year (46th in the cycle)... but we also have Lu You’s birth and death years 1125 to 1210. Comparing that with the list of Ji-You years, we see that there were two Ji-You years in his lifetime. One in 1129 when he was four, and the other in 1189 when he was sixty four. And though he could compose poetry and essays by the age of twelve, I doubt he could have written this at four years old xD
It turns out that despite my confusion, 元旦 is actually an alternate name of 元日, though what we now call the first day of the new agricultural calendar year is 元旦. A quick search of ctext's historical records and compilation sections returned 295 results from both pre and post Qin-Han periods for 元日, while 元旦 returned only 19 from Han and after. This made me SUPER curious because 元旦 is one of the names we know the first day of New Year by these days. Could it actually be newly adopted?
So a deeper dive into the results! 元日 was used as 'first day of the first month' in 《书·舜典》, a chapter of the Book of Documents which was a collection of rhetorical prose attributed to figures of ancient China. It was supposedly compiled by Kongzi (551- 479 BCE) in the 6th or 5th century BCE. Meanwhile, the earliest mention of 元旦 was in《太平御览》Readings of the Taiping Era, which was an encyclopedic document commissioned by the Song Imperial Court that took six years to complete, from 977 to 983 CE. The term 正旦, used in《列子·说符》to refer to the first day of the new year may have been an inspiration for the term. However, 元旦 as we know it in modern times, was in fact first used by Sun Yat Sen in 1912, on the 1st of January as he dated his signoff for the document《临时大总统宣言书》Inaugural Address of the Provisional President. However, this was not the official naming of this day yet. That came in 1949, on the 27th of September, as a result of the first Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (x).
BACKGROUND
Since we can infer that the title refers to new year’s day in 1189, let’s have a look at what was happening during this period. 
Do note that the source used is Baidu, though it seems fairly well researched from what I saw of it (checked only the relevant references for this section xD). I appreciate their dedication to putting together such a detailed timeline from a variety of records and documents!
Some ten years prior in 1179, Lu You had resigned from his post of Changping Supervisor (over granaries) when an official impeached him for insufficient restraint and crossing lines, referencing his actions of ordering for granaries in the commandery to be opened for disaster relief during the Jiangxi floods. He retired to Shanyin, where he had grown up, for five years. In 1186, he was given the post of Yan Prefecture’s Prefect, and was very popular with the people. During this time, he compiled his works in《剑南诗稿》Jiannan Poetry Manuscripts - so titled because he had lived there (Jiannan) for some time and loved it so. Two years later in 1188, his term of office was up. In the seventh month of that year, Lu You returned to the capital and was promoted to the position of Vice Director of Weapons and Military Equipment.
It was Emperor Xiaozong who was in power at that time. He had only just taken full power in 1187 after the death of Taishanghuang Emperor Gaozong (who had remained the de facto ruler despite abdication in 1162), and himself abdicated in the second month of 1189, in favour of his son who became Emperor Guangzong.
I don’t really have the energy to dig deeper than this HAHAAHA, but all in all, it doesn’t seem like a bad time? Things are even looking up, at least for Lu You.
POEM
This one is a five character (eight line) regulated verse known as a 五言律诗 (wǔ yán lǜshī). Here’s a great page on this poetry form.
The parallels in Chinese poems are so neat! I love night rain vs morning sun, remaining/leftover snow vs. accumulated cold/darkness, and especially 解 (jiě) - probably short for 溶解 (róngjiě), melt, but by itself also meaning ‘untie’ and 开 (kāi) which I translated as part, but can also be ‘open’. So simple but effective setting the scene for Winter bowing out for Spring to come in. The first day of the new year marks the beginning of a new sexagenary cycle, it is also known by 立春 (lì chūn) Spring Commences, the first solar term.
In the beginning, 桃符 (táofú), peach wood amulets, were the engraved door god carvings of Shen Tu 神荼 and Yu Lei 郁垒 who were sent by the Emperor of Heaven to guard people from evil spirits. At first it was just them and their names that were written or carved into the peachwood, but gradually it became the trend to also write blessings as well. Meng Chang, ruler of Later Shu of the Five Dynasties Ten Kingdoms period, later in 964, became the first person to write a couplet on the peachwood. This was the earliest form of what came to be known as 春联(chūn lián), Spring Festival Couplets. By the Song Dynasty, writing Spring Festival Couplets had become customary for new year festivities. It was one of two options, one was the door gods, the other were auspicious couplets.
Do you know the !!!! excitement I felt when I saw 呵笔 (hē bǐ) and immediately imagined 一气呵成 (yīqìhēchéng)? It was such a confident, calm and awesome mental image of someone writing their paired couplet soooooo smoothly, in a single breath, that I was almost disappointed to find 呵笔 was a real word for describing the action of warming the brush with one’s breath from the mouth. But actually, it brought such a down-to-earth and everyday picture to the table that I was charmed instead. 
How can there be festivities without wine? There is, of course, 椒酒 (jiāojiǔ) which is a type of alcohol infused with pepper and cypress leaves, drunk in the spirit of warding off illnesses and other nasty things. 
With the arrival of the season of Spring, people awaken and begin to busy themselves going about their usual practice and rituals. In the house of an educated and cultured man like Lu You, the couplets were likely written by himself. How fun!
Besides the home activities, there is also another important event for court officials. And that is… respect to be paid to the Emperor; to bow, greet and offer their congratulations for the New Year. And that is how we get the next line taking us to the streets, with willows swaying in the morning breeze and melted snow turned to so much mud in the streets. The horses, perhaps pulling carriages, are splashed with the mud, and hence their coats darken under that. Can I just say, 溅马深 (jiàn mǎ shēn) is such a lovely and interesting way to phrase it!
I could not for the life of me figure out why the officials are having to be let in (i.e. 放行) in a 行宫 (xíng gōng), travel-palace of all places for their annual 朝贺 (cháo hè), and I continue to be confused. After a bit of poking around, I found that later in 1189, after Emperor Xiaozong abdicated for Emperor Guangzong, he moved to live in Deshou Palace like his adoptive father Emperor Gaozong before him. Emperor Xiaozong renamed the main body of Deshou Palace as Chong Hua Palace. The remaining part had been renamed Cifu Palace before and was occupied by Empress Wu, wife of Emperor Gaozong. Perhaps he had moved in in advance and was testing out the area? 
Anyway, I think seeing the grand picture of officials all lined up in neat rows downstream, paying their respects to the emperor in one voice - that surely is the best way to establish publicly known facts 共识 (gòngshì), that the Emperor is respected by all. And for good measure, he throws in 尧心 (yáo xīn), which is what we call a sagacious ruler. One who is as wise and as virtuous as the Emperor Yao.
Add on because I was too sleepy last night to write the closing paragraph:
LOVE that we get to peek into new year activities this way in the capital of Southern Song. I like to think of this as the equivalent of a preserved instagram photo in that it is a snapshot of several memorable moments in a day, and probably was a trendy thing to do for many people (who could i.e. had that education, training and interest) in that time. Often wonder how these got shared. Do writers keep it at home for themselves, do they show it to their friends during parties, compile it in a collection and bind it for the year? I believe humans have always been humans, and whatever was done, it can't be that far from what we do now!
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mariacallous · 3 months
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It’s been 15 years since suicides overtook homicides as the second leading cause of death for children ages 10 to 14 years old. Two years since the first Meta whistleblower warned United States senators that America’s children are at risk from “disastrous” decisions being made in Silicon Valley. (And a little over a month since a second Meta whistleblower testified, “They knew and they were not acting on it.”) And it’s been roughly one year since a wave of new, younger lawmakers—many raising their own young children—were seated in the House of Representatives. “As a mom of two kids, you know, we want to make sure that their online experience is safe,” Representative Beth Van Duyne, a Texas Republican, tells WIRED.
All those changes—including an alarming doubling of the adolescent suicide rate—and yet, one constant remains: congressional inaction. Amid a flurry of blockbuster whistleblower hearings, soaring campaign promises, tear-soaked press conferences with the families of teens lost to cyberbullying, and dozens of competing bills that members have introduced aimed at protecting kids in cyberspace—nothing.
Congressional inaction has left the door open for the Biden administration to lead on the issue. On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission unveiled its proposal for a new set of guidelines to govern social media firms. The FTC wants to prohibit social media companies from identifying children—like targeting their cell numbers—when they’re online, while also limiting which data is collected on students, including having apps not target children under 13 with ads by default. With House Republicans now taking steps to impeach Joe Biden, why would they want to cede their oversight authority over American tech firms to the White House? Most don’t.
With so much interest—and increased pressure from agencies like the FTC—why hasn’t Congress protected kids yet? “I’ve never been able to figure that out either,” Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican who sits on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction on the issue, tells WIRED. Of course, there are theories floating around the marble halls of the US Capitol.
“M–O–N–E–Y”
Teams of tech lobbyists on Capitol Hill have dropped upward of $75 million (not including Q4 totals, which aren’t due until January 22) in 2023. Of the 637 “internet” lobbyists, as money and politics nonprofit Open Secrets dubs the sector, a whopping 73.31 percent are former government employees. Many of these lobbyists are from the same congressional offices and committees now tasked with regulating the internet. They’re not very subtle.
One social media firm or another seems to always be blanketing Washington with a feel-good, policy-focused ad campaign. At the start of the year, TikTok—which, at $3.7 million, spent more in Q3 lobbying this year than it did throughout all of 2019 and 2020 combined—plastered DC’s metro system, historic Union Station, and The Washington Post with ads. When its CEO was dragged in to testify to an angry Congress this spring, it even paid for travel, room, and board for dozens of sympathetic “influencers.” For the past month or so, Meta ads have blanketed the Beltway: “Instagram supports federal legislation that puts parents in charge of teen app downloads,” the ad reads, without saying which measures it’s actively trying to kill on Capitol Hill.
Lawmakers say the ad blitz shows what they’re up against from technology firms. “M–O–N–E–Y,” Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, spells out to WIRED. “They’re only in favor of stuff if they can write it.”
In the last Congress and again this summer, two key kid-focused digital measures both sailed through the Senate Commerce Committee. The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) outlaws targeting children with advertising while also banning data collection on teenage social media users, to name a few of its provisions. The controversial Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) mandates annual minor-focused risk assessments within social media giants while also giving parents and regulators new tools to protect children.
The two measures enjoy broad support, which is why they get out of committee with ease. But they’ve never been brought to the Senate floor for a vote by all 100 US senators. Critics say many members are supportive in the relatively obscure confines of their committees, but some of that support withers away under the intense lobbying scrutiny that comes once bills make the queue for Senate consideration. So far, members have been shielded, but those days seem to be over. “That’s because, in committee, they know they’re not going to have to vote on it on the floor. I know that for a fact,” Hawley, who’s up for reelection in 2024, says. “I can tell you, I’m going to get much more aggressive come the new year about forcing votes. I think it’s time to start putting people on record.”
The thing is, no one really knows what would happen if COPPA 2.0 or KOSA were voted on. “I don’t have any predictions or any insights,” Senator Roger Wicker, the Mississippi Republican who chaired the Commerce Committee until Democrats reclaimed senatorial power in 2021, tells WIRED. The resistance remains hard to nail down. Republicans blame Democrats. Democrats blame Republicans. Everyone blames the tech industry. “In the legislative process where you’re not bringing something to the floor for debate—which is where you could have a lot of input—then one person can hold something up,” Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, tells WIRED.
Because a broader data privacy bill remains gridlocked to death on Capitol Hill, Congress now has these offshoot measures aimed specifically at children, according to Cantwell. “We want to get a privacy bill, overall,” she says. “That’s what we focused on, because we think that framework gives the biggest protections, including for kids. But we’ve allowed these [children-focused measures] to see if they can make it through so that they wouldn’t have to be part of a larger discussion.”
While Hawley’s convinced Big Money keeps derailing the effort, others disagree. These issues just take time, nuance, and compromise, congressional leaders in both chambers argue. “We keep trying. We need a bipartisan, bicameral consensus, and that’s what we’re trying to do,” Representative Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, tells WIRED. “I don’t think it’s any special interest. I think it’s just the fact that it’s hard to get the Senate and the House and the Democrats and Republicans to agree, but we’re trying. I think we’re making progress.”
KOSA Complications
In the last Congress, KOSA—the Kids Online Safety Act—was formally endorsed by 13 Senate cosponsors. That number has more than tripled to 46 cosponsors in this Congress. KOSA cosponsors—Senators Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, and Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat—say their personal lobbying of their colleagues is paying off, even if the measure remains stalled. “We’re pushing forward,” Blumenthal tells WIRED. “I’m very hopeful we’ll see a vote early next year. I think we’re feeling it.” Still, while the measure is broadly bipartisan, there’s been a recent wave of opposition to it on the civil libertarian left.
In our post-Roe reality, digital rights and reproductive freedom are now intertwined, and highly suspect. KOSA is now in the crosshairs of groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) over free speech and expression concerns. This fall, upward of 100 parents of trans and gender-expansive children penned an open letter opposing KOSA, saying it would “make our kids less safe, not more safe.”
“It would grant extraordinary new power to right-wing state attorneys general to dictate what content younger users can see on social media, cutting our kids off from lifesaving online resources and community,” the letter, released by digital rights group Fight for The Future, reads. “These are the same attorneys general that are actively working to ban gender-affirming health care that saves kids’ lives, criminalize drag performances, and label families that accept our children as ‘groomers’ and ‘child abusers.’”
The outcry from the progressive end of the spectrum has given those groups new, powerful advocates in Congress. In the end of the year legislative-twister at the Capitol, some KOSA supporters were itching for the proposal to be “fast-tracked,” a unanimous consent agreement where all 100 senators surrender their right to filibuster. But opponents got word and put an end to those efforts. “Until the bill is amended to foreclose the ability of state attorneys general to wage war on important reproductive and LGBTQ content, I will object to any unanimous consent request in relation to this legislation,” Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, told his Senate colleagues in a speech on the Senate floor last month.
KOSA’s sponsors know they still haven’t secured the 60 votes needed for passage, so one alerted party leaders they would oppose their own measure if it were brought up before the New Year. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment on whether he had—or has—plans to bring it to the floor. But Schumer says that before Congress can effectively regulate generative AI—one of his top priorities—America needs a federal data privacy law. “There was pretty much consensus that we need some kind of privacy law,” Schumer told reporters last month. “There are lots of disagreements, but it’s important to try and get that done.”
One Thing After Another
Over in the House, most eyes are on whether freshman speaker Mike Johnson can avert a government shutdown in the New Year. With such a green leader at the helm, House committees are, seemingly, more powerful than before, as members report trying to be the first person to get Johnson’s ear on an array of issues. While there’s no companion measure to KOSA in the House, children’s data privacy remains a top priority for the GOP majority in that chamber. The issue came up as a top priority in the last weekly in-person meeting of the Republican majority on the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee.
“It’s not dead. It’s a priority for us,” Representative Richard Hudson, a North Carolina Republican, tells WIRED. He’s the current chair of the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee where he’s tasked with helping the GOP expand its House majority—or, at least, not lose its majority—in 2024. Hudson knows many of his newer members ran on protecting the nation’s children from online predators, legal and illegal ones alike. Now comes the hard work of threading the proverbial needle. “It’s a very difficult question,” Hudson says. “You’re trying to balance rights versus protecting kids, and that’s tough. But our chairwoman is very focused on getting it done.”
If these children’s data measures are ever debated and voted on, dozens of other more niche privacy protection measures will likely be offered by both party’s rank-and-file lawmakers. Some ideas focus on protecting reproductive and geolocation data from law enforcement, especially in states that have outlawed most abortions. Other measures would strip Section 230 liability protections from sites that, say, host child sexual abuse material or promote the sexual abuse of minors. Another proposal would incentivize, through drastically increased federal fines, tech firms to proactively report any child exploitation efforts they uncover.
There’s more. This year in the Senate, a new bipartisan measure was introduced to outright ban social media for children under 13, while also requiring parental consent until those minors turn 18. Its sponsors include some of the Senate’s most conservative lawmakers—Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, and Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican—and some of the chamber’s most progressive members—Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, and Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat. Just bringing a measure to protect minors to the floor without ensuring its passage isn’t good enough for Schatz.
“If we can enact it, that would be great, but there’s no sense bringing something to the floor just to make a point,” Schatz, a father of two, tells WIRED.
If party leaders don’t put one or all of these bills on the floor for votes, Hawley, the Republican senator, vows to use all the instruments in his senatorial toolkit to force the issue in 2024.
“I think it’s time to start putting people on record,” Hawley, who authored a measure prohibiting social media accounts for children under age 16, tells WIRED. “Clearly, the leadership’s not going to bring this to the floor. I think that’s pretty clear. So I think we’ve got to get much more aggressive about forcing votes. What I’d really love to do is start trying to attach this to bills where we have roll call votes, because members hate roll call votes. So expect me to get very aggressive about this.”
Hot Air
Congress knows how to grab headlines—making laws is another conversation. This 118th Congress, with a mere 22 bills signed into law, is currently the least productive session witnessed in decades.
While no data privacy votes are scheduled in the new year, a fireworks display is already on the books. Fresh into the start of 2024, senators on the judiciary committee are dragging in five tech CEOs for a made-for-campaign-fodder hearing on children’s privacy issues. Law enforcement was already called in. See, while TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg agreed to testify, subpoenas—some hand-delivered by US marshals after Discord and X “refused to cooperate”—were issued for the other three tech titans: X CEO Linda Yaccarino, Snap’s Evan Spiegel, and Discord’s Jason Citron.
“We’ve known from the beginning that our efforts to protect children online would be met with hesitation from Big Tech. They finally are being forced to acknowledge their failures when it comes to protecting kids. Now that all five companies are cooperating, we look forward to hearing from their CEOs,” Senators Dick Durbin, the committee’s Democratic chair, and Lindsey Graham, the committee’s top Republican, released in a joint statement the Monday before Thanksgiving. “Parents and kids demand action.”
Parents and kids are still wondering whether they can count on this Congress for that action. As of now, Congress has shown they can’t.
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madara-fate · 3 months
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https://www.tumblr.com/madara-fate/739246648339922944/httpswwwtumblrcommadara-fate7386161854506434?source=share I think you are getting a little confused.
This ask isn't malicious but rather to clarify a little what this comes to. I'm not doing it to make you angry or anything.
That Sakura isn't a main character doesn't mean that she's not needed or that she can't appear. Shikamaru or Sai aren't either main characters and are much more involved in the story, despite Sai being an anbu without an anbu scene (because he's more like a freelance policeman than an anbu). The focus is on the new Team 7 but Mitsuki has a fandom behind him that complains about the poor treatment he gets in favor with others, and you can't deny that he is the one who's ignored the most.
Back to topic.
In Naruto, when a doctor or a medical pov was needed, Tsunade, who wasn't a main character, was used; until Sakura took over from her, but Tsunade always appeared like in the Pain arc doing autopsies, even Shizune, etc. Get the point.
Now we only have pov of Katasuke and Sumire with Amado. There's Boruto being wounded in the chest and no doctors, there's Boro's virus and no doctors (Sakura a master of medicine crafting and poison, the virus was never studied for plot), there are pills for Boruto's Jogan and no doctors, just Naruto trusting the guy that put a bomb on Shikadai's neck. I don't know if you understand what I am talking about.
Sakura is not only a simple doctor, because the only thing she does is to heal, with over simplified medical ninjutsu, two or three characters, preferably those that are nerfed and never a relevant character. Even worse.
She is an emotional support for Naruto, his best friend, a person with a mind and an ability to make decisions. We forgot that Sakura was for Naruto at all times, why is she treated as an unimportant doctor? She is supposed to be close to Boruto and the rest. Isn't it weird she's not involved as a friend and doctor and what happens to Boruto with Karma? Which is precisely the same as the Byakugou? Even haters are asking what is wrong with the writer that she's been sidelined in favor for other characters. Haters! Japanese people on twitter are asking the same thing.
With Kakashi, it's not like Hiruzen didn't have a figure like Shikamaru. Jiraiya and Tsunade could have been elected Hokage just like they did when Hiruzen died. Or did Hiruzen not have an advisor?
Regarding Ino, she has been sidelined and rightfully so. First of all, there is no Yamanaka clan. Inoichi's assistants in the Analysis Team and in the war weren't from his family, they were random shinobi, therefore the clan is 4 people and all dead already. Just her, Sai and the kid, like the Uchiha and Uzumaki.
And all this comes because the Barrier Team was never traditionally led by any Yamanaka, in the Pain arc it was a priest named Kakoi who was the leader, and his team. Kodachi made it all up because he made so many things up in the manga.
Let's see, the team is said in the manga and anime to have been redesigned to automatically detect any chakra signal. It's a machine. So what is Ino for? Every time she detects something so has the team at the very same time. So? Neither she nor the team detects things with one foot outside the village, since Delta and Kashin Koji were on a tree branch at the gates, so she's connected to the sensor barrier and detects what it detects? And what's the point of that?
Because when asked to detect something beyond the barrier, she said she can't, Boruto said that at least he could be detected when pursuing Kawaki but she couldn't either. It had to be Naruto. So if there's a team with random shinobi to blame, what's Ino for?
Because the team have special chakra helmets been used in the War by Inoichi and Ino in the movie for distant communication for great distances. So her telepathy is for what?
This is why she's been impeached. There's nothing to downplay. She was never meant to be there. Her abilities can be performed by a machine so why do we have to blame her on her awful performance when we can blame an npc? Because so far into the story and cohabitation mission, she's pretty replaceable.
Neither she nor her father have sensing feats in Naruto. They're sensor-type because they use their senses to invade another's senses and control them, mind-reading and telepathy. The sensing abilities are superficial, if she saya Sasuke's chakra is different or Kakuzu has dark chakra. I remember Sakura did the same thing in the Iron Bridge with Sasuke. And she's not sensor type. Orochimaru and Suigetsu did it. Kakashi did it. Basic sensory abilities are known to be had by every shinobi (minus Tenten and Rock Lee). So what feats are you talking about?
The fact that he has to use a bird to search for the Akatsuki who weren't far away (ch.332) confirms this, not just the databook. She doesn't have sensory abilities to search for Akatsuki's dark chakra but suddenly she has the ability to search a village symbiotically connected to a machine?
In the war, the Inoshikacho formation that makes her use a sensory relay, the enemies are right under their noses. You can see them in the manga, it's the clones in front of them. Do you understand what I am saying? There was never a single sensory feat.
In the Last? That helmet she wears, which is the same as the one her father wore in the war, is to increase the range of telepathy to wider areas. That helmet is worn by anyone and does the same thing. The reason she wears it is because Inoichi and his family share their chakra in one direction to talk to people, whereas in the war Ino transmitted her chakra continuously to the same one area. In fact, it didn't reach the other Kage until they got close. Inoichi was talking to many groups scattered in many areas around the map located by the sensory division. In the Last? Transmit the chakra in the direction of Kumogakure while Kakashi was having facetime meeting with the Kage, so her role is dubious and rather useless if Kakashi can get a Kage summit looking at the tv screen.
Writers finally read fans comments and removed her, but they also have been removing Sakura from many scenes where she IS needed. And now? Husband and bestfriend isolated but her pov is interesting to see and they don't want to? Suspicious.
Honestly, I don't really care enough about this topic to give a long response to all of that, so if you want to believe that the author hates Sakura and that Ino has no sensing feats in the manga, by all means. It's something you seem quite adamant or passionate about, so I doubt I'd be able to convince you anyway.
What I will say though, is that no Hiruzen had no Shikamaru figure. Jiraiya and Tsunade weren't residents of the village, at least not during his second reign, so they weren't available for selection since their whereabouts were unknown. Hiruzen had the Council, but they didn't serve as his right hand like Shikamaru did to Naruto. Once Minato died, there was no one new who could have easily taken over within the village, like Shikamaru was able to do for Naruto.
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scotlandsladies · 2 years
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The proof in this trial [of Janet Douglas, Lady Glamis on 17 July 1537] is also awanting on record; but a version of the address which the lady is said to have delivered in her own defence is given by some writers as follows:-
“Those who hate the merit of my brother are enraged because he is not in their power, that he might fall a sacrifice to their malice, and they now discharge their spite upon me because of my near relation to him; and, to gratify their revenge with my blood, they accused me of crimes, which, if true, deserved the severest death. But, seeing it is the only prerogative of God to punish men or women for the faults of others, which belongs to no Judge on earth, who are obliged to punish ever one according in their personal crimes, you ought not to punish in me the actions of my brother, how blameable soever. Above all, you ought to consider if those things I am accused of have the least appearance of truth imaginable; for what gives the greatest evidence either of guilt or innocence of an impeached person is their former life. What fault could any hitherto lay to my charge? Did any ever reproach me with anything that is scandalous? Examine, I entreat you, my former conversation; vice hath its degree as well as virtue, and none can attain to a perfection in either, except by long use and practice; and if you can find nothing reprovable in my conduct, how can ye believe that I am arrived all of a sudden to contrive this murder, which is the very height and perfection of impiety? I protest I would not deliberately injure the most despicable wretch alive. Could I then make the murder of my Sovereign, whom I always reverenced, and who never did me any wrong, the first essay of my wickedness? None are capable of such damnable unnatural actions, except two sorts of persons �� those of desperate fortunes who are weary of their lives, or those who are hurried into them by revenge. My birth and manner of life put me beyond suspicion of the first kind; and for the latter, seeing I was never injured by the King, how can I be suspected to thirst for any revenge? I am here accused for purposing to kill the King, and to make my pretended crime appear more frightful, it is given out that the way was to be by poison. With what impudence can any accuse me of such wickedness, who never saw any poison, nor know I anything about the preparation of it? Can any say they ever saw me have any of it? Let them tell me where I bought it, or who procured it me. And though I had it, how could I use it, seeing I never came near the King’s person, his table, nor palace? It is well known that since my last marriage with this unfortunate gentleman I had lived in the country at a great distance from the Court. What opportunity could I have, then, to poison the King? “You may see by those circumstances, which give great light in such matters, that I am entirely innocent of those crimes I am charged with. It is the office of you, Judges, to protect injured innocence. But if the malice and power of my enemies be such that, whether innocent or guilty I must needs be condemned, I shall die cheerfully, having the testimony of a good conscience. And assure yourselves that you shall certainly find it more easy to take away my life than to blast my reputation, or to fix any real blot upon my memory. “This is my last desire of you, that I may be the sole object of your severity, and that those other innocent persons may not share in my misfortunes. Seeing that my chief crime is that I am descended of the family of Douglas, there is no reason that they should be involved in my ruin; for my husband, son, and cousin were neither of that name nor family. I shall end my life with more comfort if you absolve them; for the more of us that suffer by your unjust sentence, the greater will be your guilt, and the more terrible your condemnation when you shall be tried at the great day by God, who is the impartial Judge of all flesh, who shall then make you suffer for those torments to which we are unjustly condemned.”
This speech is probably apocryphal, though Lady Glamis may have spoken somewhat in this strain. All defence, however, proved unavailing. Drummond of Hawthornden says that, before a verdict was given, “some of the Judges would have referred her to the King’s clemency till a farther trial of the witnesses might be had, upon whose testimony the process did depend, it being a safer way in judgment to absolve the guilty than condemn the innocent. But the most part gave her over to the Assizers, the better part of which being in voices fewer, the greater, who neither respecting conscience within them, nor shamed with the present age and posterity, nor the supreme justice of Heaven, find this poor lady guilty.” The French authority states that now two of the Judges repaired to the King’s presence and entreated for delay, but he, counselled by the accuser, William Lyon, gave an absolute refusal, telling them that the law must take its course, And so it did. The lady being found guilty of the “treasonable crimes” in the two points of her dittay, sentence was pronounced that she “has forfaulted to our Sovereign Lord her life, her lands, goods moveable and unmoveable; and that she shall be had to the Castlehill of Edinburgh, and there burned in a fire to death as a traitor.” And this the Doomster (the common executioner), as was the custom of the Court, laying his hands on her head, “gave for doom.” We may note that there was no exceptional barbarity in this sentence of burning alive, it being the legal practice in Scotland that women convicted of the higher crimes were burned at the stake, and for lesser offences drowned.
The sentence was carried out on the same day, and the lady was conducted from the bar to the pyre of faggots on the hill without much pause. “A little time after the sentence,” says the French writer, “she was delivered into the hands of the executioner, to be led out to suffer. The constancy and courage of this heroine are almost incredible, which astonished all the spectators. She heard the sentence pronounced against her without the least sign of concern, neither did she cry, groan, or shed a tear, though that kind of death is most frightful to human nature. When she was brought out to suffer, the people who looked on could not conceal their grief and compassion. Some of them who were acquainted with her, and knew her innocence, designed to rescue her; but the presence of the King and his Ministers” – it should be, the presence of the King’s Guards – “restrained them. She seemed to be the only unconcerned person there, and her beauty and charms never appeared with greater advantage than when she was led to the flames; and her soul being fortified with support from Heaven, and the sense of her own innocence, she outbraved death, and her courage was equal in the fire to what it was before her judges. She suffered those torments without the least noise: only she prayed devoutly for Divine assistance to support her under her sufferings. Thus died this famous lady, with a courage not inferior to that of any of the heroes of antiquity.”
— ‘Heroines of Scotland’ by R. S. Fittis (1889)
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theodorebasmanov · 2 years
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I’ve rewatched “Kingsman: The Golden Circle”. (I guess Spoilers! Well, they are going to start at some point.) Swedish Princess drinking with English hooligans is a raver funny scene. The “first dinner with parents” scene, however, was so embarrassing! Empathic embarrassment was so bad. Since I’m rewatching and not surprised and devastated anymore, I have a few questions: What’s the sense of detecting incoming missiles if, firstly, you do it only when it’s a few seconds away, secondly, you anyway can’t do anything with it? Can’t think of anything aside from dramatic effect. Eggsy and Merlin (I have just found out that his name is Hamish) getting drunk, was a very lovely scene – “Another shot for Scotland?” Some more questions, this time about Harry and his “death” in the previous movie: Why didn’t you go to get his body? Why didn’t you become nervous, when you didn’t find it? I understand you had other problems, but after that, weren’t you planning to hold a proper funeral for Harry? The scene in the bar was pretty sad in the beginning - I’m so sorry Harry, I’m so sorry. By the way, with all my love to British gentlemen – a whip was cool as hell, especially counting that it’s almost the “Lasso of Truth” (you won’t want to lie when you can be electrified at any moment). Was that a reference for “The Bucket List” in the mountains? (There were two very old man – a white and a black, both seem to be sick.) A lovely one then. Oh my god, the assault of Poppy’s base… I don’t know if they’ve ruined John Danvers for me or gave him additional deep meaning. Anyway, I’m very dead, because I love Merlin, so much. Sir Elton is so cool and so is the action scene with “Saturday Night’s Alright”. The ending seemed pretty inspirational too. Don’t even get me started on actual politics, the only thing I can say – they got the President so right, that I can barely see the bloody difference. Oh no, I can, the impeachment was too fast.  P.S. Fan fact, in the translated version she’s agent Cola, not Ginger Ale.
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messengerhermes · 2 years
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The US Supreme Court Shit is Real Bad Y'all
Okay
Okay look
I know I keep harping on this with like every US Supreme Court update post I reblog but please. Please.
I need y'all to understand this shit's real fucking bad.
Right now our tally in terms of SC rulings is at:
-Dismantles the precedent that protects indigenous sovereignty (which paves the way to destroy the protections of the Indian Child Welfare Act) (Done on June 29, 2022) Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta
Repealing of Roe v Wade (which has led to 13 states enacting trigger bans on abortion, two of which--Louisiana and Kentucky, are being held back by the courts) (Done June 24, 2022) Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
Severely limiting the Miranda rights by saying that a police officer cannot be sued if they fail to read someone their Miranda rights (ie "you have the right to remain silent") and then uses information that person shares against them in court (Done on June 23, 2022)
Overturned the precedent of separation of church and state in Kennedy v Bremerton School District by ruling in favor of a coach who led a Christian prayer on the football field (Done on June 27, 2022)
Restricted the EPA's power to limit carbon emissions from power plants. (Done on June 30, 2022) West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency
Ruled that people can carry handguns outside the home, without special reason. (Done June 23, 2022) New York State Rifle & Pistol Assoc. v. Bruen.
Ruled that private religious schools cannot be barred from accessing public funding, further damaging separation of Church and State (Done June 23, 2022) Carson v. Makin
Ruled that those who were detained and tortured in Guantanamo Bay do not have the right to ask details about their torture from the agents that committed the acts, or from the US Government (Done March 3, 2022) United States v. Zubaydah
The Conservative Bloc on the Supreme Court currently holds an egregious amount of power, and is using that power to rapidly dismantle a lot of "settled law" AKA shit that has longstanding precedents from prior court decisions. This behavior is generally considered a dick move in terms of legal shit, but is also a massive red flag. I'm particularly wigged out because 7 of these 8 decisions have happened this month. While it isn't unheard of for the court to pass a lot of rulings in a short time, the extreme nature of these rulings and the hard line most of them have between conservative and liberal justices indicates a rapid grab for power here. Congress can do a number of things around this:
Suck the power out of these upturnings by codifying shit like Roe v Wade into law.
Expanding the Supreme Court (which has been done before) to balance the current lopsidedness of the court.
Impeach the four Supreme Court justices who've lied during their consideration hearings.
Pull an Abraham Lincoln and refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the court rulings
This isn't a complete list, but one meant to point out that while a branch of federal government is off the fucking rails, that does not mean there is nothing to be done--or that we should accept apathy from our representatives. Shit to do:
Call/email your representatives demanding they do all or one of the above and stop asking your ass for money
Write a letter to the editor of a local paper publicly calling your representative to do shit since that's what their job is
Plug into mutual aid networks, around abortion, bail funds, and legal aid among the basic needs. The government's not going to save us, but community safety nets are in place.
Get a VPN and use it. Check out digital security and what it means when apps track your data.
Figure out where you might fit into activism. Movement work isn't just protests. It's child care, it's hotline networks and food programs, and clothing drives. It's support groups.
Get your oxygen mask on first. If your basic needs are not being met, if you aren't getting time for rest and pleasure and care then you're not going to be able to show up for long haul sustained work. Do what you need to stabilize and give yourself time before jumping into shit.
This is in no way a complete list, instead it's meant to be something you can grab onto if like me you're reeling with the barrage of frightening rulings and rapid escalation from the US government. All is not lost. The US has been a fascist mess invested in the exploitation of vulnerable people for far longer than this (you know, since it's founding, really). But there is power in community and grassroots movements have been working for decades to catch people who fall through the cracks of government support systems. Find them. Be each other's hope in the storm.
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qqueenofhades · 1 year
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Glad he's going, but why do you think so many Brazilians would vote for Bolsonaro in the first place?
As I said in a recent answer, too many people who spend a lot of time in liberal online spaces tend to think that authoritarianism, fascism, nationalism, etc are just an aberration or the result of a few stupid people, instead of troubling and deeply rooted patterns of behavior in human history that have repeated over and over in critical moments and continue to do untold damage. It's like how liberal commentators in America and the UK assumed that Trump could never get elected, Brexit could never happen, etc etc, because clearly people wouldn't act against their own best interest just for crass nationalism, racism, etc. Except that has happened over and over, it happened again, and if we don't understand why that is, we're still not going to be successful at changing that continuous and damaging pattern.
Likewise, the Brazilian left has been in disarray since President Dilma Rousseff, Lula's former chief of staff from his two previous presidential terms, was impeached and removed from office in 2016 after being convicted of budgetary misconduct and financial crimes. (Lula himself also spent time in jail on somewhat murky corruption and money laundering charges that were eventually annulled and ruled to have been conducted by a corrupt and biased judge, so the Brazilian Supreme Court removed his convictions and allowed him to stand for election again.) Brazil only became a democracy again in 1985, after 20+ years of military dictatorship, and as we have all noted, democracy doesn't maintain itself. Bolsonaro came to power in 2018, in the wake of many other victories by authoritarian and right-wing political movements around the world, and promised the same strongman remedy of blaming everyone who didn't fit the fascist mold and imposing order with an iron fist. He blamed Brazil's military for not being as industrious in killing indigenous people as the Americans, wantonly wrecked the Amazon and its tribes, oversaw one of the most disastrous and lethal Covid non-responses in the world, and otherwise tried to emulate Trump as his neo-fascist idol. Which is still the case, and he's hinted that he will make claims of fraud just as Trump did after losing the 2020 election, so this is by no means over. And yet, 49% of the electorate still voted for him, because as noted, right-wing populism is a helluva drug.
I'm not qualified to comment on Lula in detail, but he's one of Brazil's most admired politicians and was extremely popular while he was in office, including worldwide. So while we don't know what he will do in this new term, he has at least had the job before and done it relatively successfully in that time. He has promised to found a new ministry of indigenous people run by an indigenous person, restore respect for Brazil's multiracial democracy and LGBTQ rights, stop illegal Amazon deforestation, and restore Brazilian regional and international cooperation in a way Bolsonaro, a la his hero Trump, deliberately shunned. So that seems all much preferable to an open and avowed violent fascist, and as I said, the importance of the Amazon alone is huge. So yes.
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90363462 · 1 year
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Nancy Pelosi Reflects On the Not-Quite-End of An Era
Pelosi Announces She Is Stepping Down From Leadership But Keeping Her House Seat
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Nancy Pelosi Reflects On the Not-Quite-End of An Era
Ever since the election, Nancy Pelosi says, congressional Democrats have been begging her to remain as their leader. Of course, she knew what they were really doing: currying favor, just in case.
“Our members were just exploding my phone to stay,” she says, “which is a nice thing, because if I don’t stay, then they’ve gotten the points for saying ’stay,’ and if I do—“ she trailed off, laughing. No matter what she decided, they knew it would be in their interest to be on her good side going forward.
For two decades, it has been in every congressional Democrat’s interest to stay in Pelosi’s good graces. Since winning her first leadership position in 2001, she has ruled the House Democratic caucus with an iron fist and a velvet glove, keeping her fractious party in near-lockstep during historically tumultuous times. From the Iraq War to the financial crisis, through health-care reform and government shutdowns, through two presidential impeachments, a pandemic and an insurrection attempt, she has been a constant force and consummate operator. No national politician of her era can match her combination of legislative prowess, vote-counting savvy, negotiating skill, and fundraising ability.
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Nancy Pelosi waves to colleagues while being nominated as the next Speaker of the House during a swearing in ceremony for the 110th Congress in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC., on Jan. 4, 2007.
Chip Somodevilla—Getty Images
Just after her speech, the 82-year-old House Speaker sat at a white-clothed table in a small, ornate room off the House floor known as the Board of Education, a hidden chamber where former Democratic Speaker Sam Rayburn used to hole up and relax. Then-vice president Harry Truman was playing cards with Rayburn here in 1945 when he learned that FDR had died and he would become President. One wall Rayburn had painted with a Texas seal; on two others, Pelosi recently added her own touches: a painting of the Golden Gate Bridge, and a tribute to women’s suffrage.
Pelosi was contemplating the not-quite-end of the era and struggling to unwrap a package of chocolate-chip cookies. “What was important to me was how we did in the election, because we were on a bad path,” she told a small group of reporters. “Storming the Capitol, really? And the reaction of Republicans, not taking a stand? And I knew we could win.”
Her party had just lost the House, weeks after a crazed intruder broke into her California home and bludgeoned her husband with a hammer. But it hardly felt as if Pelosi was giving up in defeat. In an election that history and many forecasters predicted would deliver a Republican wave, Democrats surprisingly held their own. The resulting GOP majority will be a narrow one, with the Senate remaining in Democrats’ hands.
The Oct. 28 attack on Paul Pelosi, the Speaker’s husband of 59 years, influenced her decision to remain in Congress, but not in the way many people thought. “It was not, ‘Oh, well, since they did that, I can’t even think of something else,’” she says. “No, it had the opposite effect. I couldn’t give them that satisfaction.”
Read More: Nancy Pelosi Doesn’t Care What You Think Of Her.
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Nancy Pelosi at election headquarters on primary election night, on April 7, 1987.
Deanne Fitzmaurice—San Francisco Chronicle/Getty Images
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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stands behind President Barack Obama as he signs the Affordable Health Care for America Act during a ceremony with fellow Democrats in the East Room of the White House on March 23, 2010.
Win McNamee—Getty Images
She did it knowing there might be a political cost, and indeed there was. Republicans gained 63 seats in the House in the 2010 midterm elections, an election in which Pelosi was a central figure. Republicans made her the subject of millions of dollars’ worth of attack ads across the country, capitalizing on their base’s visceral loathing of her and giving Peosi unusual prominence for a congressional leader.
But Pelosi believed in gaining power not for its own sake but in order to do something with it. Obamacare is part of a legacy that includes two decades of liberal policy victories, from allowing gay people to serve openly in the military to the historic climate investments of this year’s Inflation Reduction Act. “This is a very difficult job,” she told us. “You have to really know how to be a legislator.”
These legislative successes were all the more remarkable for the era in which they came. Faced with unrelenting Republican opposition, she held together the diverse Democratic caucus and drove a hard bargain in negotiations across the aisle. After Donald Trump became president, she led her party back to power, becoming Speaker for the second time in 2019 in the middle of a government shutdown over border-wall funding. Pelosi refused to budge, and Trump soon capitulated. She would go on to impeach him twice while simultaneously negotiating with his Administration to secure trillions in COVID-19 relief funding.
Read More: Why Nancy Pelosi Is Going All In Against Trump.
Pelosi rejects the notion that she bears any blame for the toxic state of politics. “I don’t take any responsibility for what the Republicans have done to the Congress. This is not about gridlock,” she says. “This isn’t about some sort of equivalence between Democrats and Republicans. They are anti-science, anti-government, and that’s where they are.”
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Mark Wilson—Getty Images (2); Chip Somodevilla—Getty Images; Jim Watson—Pool/AFP/Getty Images
Pelosi never groomed a successor, something for which she was often criticized. Ambitious Democrats languished for decades waiting for an opening in House leadership. She has often expressed the view that power is never given but must be taken by those who seek it. “I didn’t think that was the right approach, to anoint somebody,” she told us Thursday. “It’s really important for people to have the legitimacy that they were chosen by the members.”
A free-for-all appears unlikely. Pelosi’s longtime deputy Steny Hoyer, a fellow Marylander who has known her since they worked for the same Senator in 1963, announced Thursday that he would also stay in Congress but not in leadership. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the 52-year-old chair of the Democratic caucus, appears almost certain to win the minority leader position in the Democratic leadership elections scheduled for Nov. 30, becoming the first Black man to lead a party in Congress. The first woman Speaker, in passing the torch, will make history once again.
Pelosi intends to spend the next two years in valedictory mode. “My life ahead is full of thank-yous,” she says, to her constituents and all the others who have supported her over the years. She does not plan to serve on any committees and she does not want to serve as a sort of shadow speaker from the sidelines. “Thanksgiving is coming,” she says. “I have no intention of being the mother-in-law in the kitchen saying, ‘My son doesn’t like the stuffing that way, this is the way we make it in our family.’ They will have their vision. They will have their plan. It’s up to the caucus to decide which way they want to go.”
More Must-Reads From TIME
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Columns: Voters Understand the Truth About Pregnancy Decisions.What Happened in Montana Proves It
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Write to Molly Ball at [email protected].
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theendnews · 8 days
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New York Times Declares ‘Deep State Is Actually Awesome’
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The New York Times is now openly bragging that it fully supports the ‘Deep State’ and hopes the shadowy group of unelected bureaucrats are successful at preventing another Trump presidency.
In a cringeworthy video report titled, “It Turns Out, The Deep State Is Actually Kind of Awesome,” the New York Times claimed that the shadowy unelected bureaucracy running various government agencies are the “unsung heroes who make our country great.”
Infowars.com reports: You can’t make this up — but apparently the Times can.
The NYT begins by saying, “Donald Trump is obsessed with the Deep State.”
In a classic straw man fallacy, it goes on to portray the “Deep State” as a group of nerdy, innocent and well-to-do government workers performing important functions for humanity, like working at NASA sending satellites into space, decontaminating water for the Environmental Protection Agency or ensuring safe workplaces for the Department of Labor.
“You want to replace your own water pipes? You got the skills to launch an asteroid-deflecting spacecraft? No,” says the NYT’s Adam Westbrook.
“Important work like this is happening all over America, from helping two million victims of the opioid crisis, to engineering major breakthroughs in nuclear fusion and helping make hearing aids affordable for 30 million people,” he continues.
“The Deep State is hard at work making America great,” he adds. “Just because we don’t know about it, doesn’t make it suspicious.”
The report concludes by accusing Trump of wanting to abolish these aspects of the federal government if elected in November.
Of course, this is not the Deep State Trump is referring to — he’s not calling for the abolishment or defunding of NASA or the Department of Labor.
What the NYT report conveniently ignores are the intelligence agencies that have weaponized their vast powers to manipulate domestic news coverage and target political opponents in recent years, namely Donald Trump and his allies.
It was the intelligence and law enforcement agencies that were behind the Russia collusion hoax, the Mueller probe, the first and second impeachments against Trump, the raid of Mar-a-Lago and subsequent lawfare campaigns, and the dissemination of misinformation about COVID’s origins, the experimental vaccines, and mitigation strategies.
It was those agencies that have steered U.S. foreign policy into two new wars since Biden took office.
It was former top officials of these agencies who conspired to make Joe Biden win the 2020 election by lying to the American people about Hunter Biden’s laptop being Russian disinformation.
And recall that in 2021, Time magazine published a story called “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election.”
In it, the outlet explained that the 2020 election was determined, not by the democratic process, but by “a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.”
“They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it. And they believe the public needs to understand the system’s fragility in order to ensure that democracy in America endures,” the outlet added.
This is the Deep State Trump wants to take on.
Trump made his intention to eviscerate the Deep State perfectly clear in a speech last June.
“With you at my side, we will demolish the Deep State; we will expel the warmongers from our government; we will drive out the globalists; we will cast out the communists, marxists, and fascists; and we will throw off the sick political class that hates our country,” Trump stated. “We will rout the fake news media and we will defeat Crooked Joe Biden. We will liberate America from these villains once and for all!”
The Times previously even denied the existence of a Deep State.
But in its signature deceptive fashion, the Times wants you to believe Trump is going after innocent non-political government workers just trying to do their jobs and not the nefarious intelligence agencies that dictate domestic and foreign policy behind the scenes.
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vanoffline · 1 year
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House of cards season 4 plot
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Frank is all pouty at the prospect of being “stuck in the Rose Garden” and I think: Frank, you already have the thing you want. A medical team tells Frank to reduce air travel to once a week. Conway, on the other hand, can jet all over the place, both because he is not busy being POTUS and because he did not recently get a liver transplant. Unfortunately for Frank Underwood, my brilliant, flawless vision for campaign reform is but a pipe dream, and even in his fake America, campaigning is hell. We would replace one of the 10,000 debates with an event in which Justin and all the wannabe presidents could pass a baby back and forth for three hours. So maybe, I don’t know, we could just limit the length of all campaigns to the six months before an election? Also, every candidate would get some normal amount of money - I have no idea what that would be, like, $500? Or a million dollars? What’s the amount of money you start with in Monopoly? That oughta do the trick - and also there would be a day when we invite Canada’s finest Justin to our shores to see which presidential hopeful has the best chemistry with him. The West Wing, Designated Survivor (for Netflix UK users), The Good Wife, Ignorable, and Marseille are all great alternatives.Īre you looking forward to season 5 come to Netflix? Let us know in the comments below.No one has ever asked me how I would reform our country’s presidential elections, but if someone were to ask, I would suggest that campaigning is probably not the best use of a sitting president’s time. Here are some suggestions for other great political dramas on Netflix.
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Netflix has added some great political dramas over the past few years. It’s likely the show may make a few nods to Trump this season. He’s had a big year on Twitter being against Trump. Beau Willimon is continuing his role as head-writer for the show.Roxann Dawson and Alik Sakharov are listed as directing two episodes each in Season 5.This season will be the first season Netflix releases without.This year, Kevin Spacey treated the locals to pizza. Filming began eight months ago in Baltimore, a permanent fixture in the filming location of the show.Rumors have said that with the showrunner leaving that could open up more issues going further and we also have to consider the fact that Francis may end up losing the upcoming election or further more be impeached with the damning evidence that the Herald has on him. In the British series, the protagonist was eventually outed for his deception which is where Francis is now. We can’t even compare to its British counterpart as it’s wildly taken a different direction ever since (spoilers) Francis pushed Zoe into a train. Jeffrey Mowrey as a Herald PhotographerĪt the moment, it’s not clear as to whether or not this season will be its last.We’ll update this list closer to the time with any changes. There are some obvious names of people who have yet to confirm whether or not they’re in season 5 but will almost certainly be. Here are the currently confirmed returning cast members for season 5 are: That breaks Netflix’s tradition of releasing its originals on a Friday which is odd but may hold some significance later on? As always, new shows get added to Netflix at 12:01 am PST. House of Cards Season 5 Release DateĪs announced in the trailer, the full season of House of Cards will be arriving on the 30th May 2017. The dark clouds covering the background along with the Pledge of Allegiance being spoken by kids over the top. The flag being upside down, in case you didn’t know, is often used to signal distress. The flag being once again upside down (although flipped from the main logo) show’s that it’s business as usual for the Underwoods. With the exception of the date, one of the main draws from this trailer is that season 5 will likely be a lot darker than the previous seasons.
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