#Marist Problems

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Seth Mandel

But it’s also the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in microcosm. Compare Khan’s description of the role played by NGOs and sympathetic media with how Matti Friedman, a former Associated Press reporter who wrote about the media’s problems covering Israel after the 2014 Gaza war, describes the effects of this same alliance on coverage: “these groups are to be quoted, not covered. Journalists cross from places like the BBC to organizations like Oxfam and back. The current spokesman at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, for example, is a former BBC man. A Palestinian woman who participated in protests against Israel and tweeted furiously about Israel a few years ago served at the same time as a spokesperson for a UN office, and was close friends with a few reporters I know. And so forth.”

In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, these NGOs are extremely powerful, because their perceived authority magnifies their voices above those who may know much more about the issues but who don’t have the megaphone or the credibility lent to the European-funded activist groups masquerading as “humanitarians.” Throughout the current war, polls of American public opinion have never demonstrated that the progressive pro-Hamas rump on college campuses or among city protest groups should be catered to. In Israel vs Hamas, Americans don’t hesitate to side with Israel. Even the “ceasefire at any cost” crowd is smaller than it looks and sounds. A Marist poll last week put their share of the public at 25 percent. Yet they have nudged President Biden’s policies in their direction.

How? The protests on college campuses showed not just the organizing power of the left but the role of the media in amplifying their grievances and whitewashing their violence and lawbreaking. And it works in the other direction too: In many cases the media plays a key role in feeding the wildfire of misinformation that fuels the protests before turning around and reporting on them.

UN groups have been uncritically parroting the obviously inaccurate Hamas-produced death tolls. So have the media. In explaining why the Washington Post trusts Hamas propaganda enough to report it as fact, the paper quoted Omar Shakir in Hamas’s defense. Shakir is the Israel/Palestine director of Human Rights Watch and someone who was expelled from Israel over his support for BDS-affiliated groups that seek Israel’s destruction. In other words, if you switched the staffing of the Hamas Health Ministry and Human Rights Watch, the output of both organizations would likely be unchanged.

[cruger2984]

THE DESCRIPTION OF SAINT PETER CHANEL The Protomartyr of Oceania Feast Day: April 28

"It does not matter whether or not I am killed; the religion has taken root on the island; it will not be destroyed by my death, since it comes not from men, but from God."

Peter Chanel was born on July 12, 1803, in the hamlet of La Potière near Montrevel-en-Bresse, Ain département, France. He was the fifth of eight children, and is the son of Claude-François Chanel and Marie-Anne Sibellas. His intelligence and piety were noticed by the local parish priest, Trompier, who helped him enter the seminary.

He won the esteem of his bishop, who said of him: 'He has the faith of a child and leads the life of an angel.'

After ordained as a priest on July 15, 1827, he was appointed for three years to the rural parish of Crozet, where he brought about a great religious revival. However, his heart had long been set on missionary work, and in 1831 at the age of 28, he joined the Marist Fathers, who were involved in missions abroad.

In 1836, he landed on the island of Futuna in the southwest Pacific, where the name of Jesus Christ had never been preached before. After learning the local language and healing the sick, he gained the confidence of the people and converted many of them.

By his preaching, he destroyed the cult of the evil spirits, in which the chieftains encouraged in order to keep the tribe under their rule.

They sent a band of native warriors. The day before his martyrdom, he said: 'It does not matter if I die. Christ's faith is so deeply rooted on this island, that it cannot be destroyed by my death.'

King Niuliki believed Christianity would undermine his authority as high priest and king. When his son, Meitala, sought to be baptised, the king sent a favored warrior, his son-in-law, Musumusu, to 'do whatever was necessary' to resolve the problem. Musumusu went to Meitala and the two fought. Musumusu, injured in the fracas, went to Chanel feigning need of medical attention.

While Chanel tended him, a group of others ransacked his house. Musumusu took an ax and clubbed Chanel to death on April 28, 1841. A few years later, all of the natives were converted to the Christian faith.

Beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1889 and canonized by Pope Pius XII on June 12, 1954, his major shrine can be found in Futuna.

[arpov-blog-blog]

Yesterday I wrote about 18 polls taken in recent weeks which have Biden leading. A new one came out yesterday afternoon, TIPP, which has Biden up 43-40. So 19 polls with Biden leads now. If we look at just the polls released in the last 2 weeks, 10 have Biden ahead, 7 have Trump ahead, and 2 have the race tied. Here are the 10 with Biden ahead (all polls via 538):

43-40 TIPP

51-49 Emerson (likely voters)

48-45 McLaughlin (likely voters)

52-48 Marquette

47-46 Data For Progress

50-48 NPR/Marist

42-40 Big Village

44-42 Morning Consult

48-45 Quinnipiac

44-43 Noble Predictive

These clear gains for Biden have come at a time when my more upbeat take on the election is getting a lot of attention due to my recent interview with Adam Nagourney in the New York Times. I was able to share these polls and this movement we are seeing last week with Nicole Wallace and Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC.

Why have I been writing about this so much? Because it really matters. It’s my view that once it becomes understood Trump is no longer ahead we will start to get a more honest assessment of the strength and weaknesses of the two candidates; that this perception Trump is ahead and strong have masked his historic awfulness, and the clear problems with his campaign and his party. For in my view Trump is weak, not strong. He’s struggling to raise money. He’s facing an unprecedented revolt inside his party, causing a potentially fatal splintering of his coalition. MAGA lost in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023, and lost the big early 2024 bellwether, NY-3, by 8 points!!!!!!!!! The RNC is in disarray and months behind Biden organizationally without enough time to make it up. Many prominent Republicans in Congress are retiring, quitting and abandoning ship. Trump may be in the process of ousting another Speaker. His agenda is much further away from the electorate than before. His performance on the stump is significantly degraded, far more impulsive, erratic and disturbing. He wears more make up than a drag queen. He keeps losing and getting humiliated in court. He’s an adjudicated rapist. He committed one of the largest financial frauds in American history. His new company is already failing. He stole America’s secrets, lied to the FBI it all, and shared those secrets with others. He tried to end American democracy for all time in 2021 and has promised to finish the job if he gets back into the White House. He and his family have corruptly taken more money from foreign governments than any family in US history. He is singularly responsible for ending Roe, stripping the rights and freedoms away from the women of America, and yesterday endorsed the most severe abortion restrictions in the states, which are without doubt, the most extreme policy enacted in America in many generations. He’s the ugliest political thing we’ve all ever seen, and all of this ugliness and structural weakness is being largely dismissed because the perception that he leads in polling makes him “strong.”

I think the media narrative about this election is slowly changing. Not only is my far more favorable take on the election getting significant consideration right now, but look at what Axios published on Sunday - Trump protest vote warnings -

“A month after Nikki Haley dropped out of the Republican race, former President Trump is still dealing with a contingent of voters showing up to cast primary ballots for candidates who aren't him.

"Why it matters: President Biden has more successfully unified his voters despite never facing a strong primary opponent and an organized protest vote over the war in Gaza.

In 10 recent primary contests, more than one-quarter of GOP primary voters cast a ballot for a non-Trump candidate.

"Joe Biden has a real golden opportunity to capture all those disaffected people who voted for Nikki Haley," said Arizona-based GOP strategist Barrett Marson.

Driving the news: In the key battleground state of Wisconsin on Tuesday, 20.8% of Republican primary voters cast a ballot for a candidate other than Trump.

Haley, the former UN ambassador who suspended her campaign a month ago, drew more than 12%, or 76,000 votes, in Wisconsin, which Biden won by just over 20,000 votes against Trump in 2020.

"Those are significant numbers," longtime Wisconsin Republican strategist Bill McCoshen told Axios.

"Will those voters come home in November? I think it's possible they will, history suggests that most of them will, but I think it's also a signal to the Trump campaign that his pick for a VP could be very critical to bringing these voters back."

Trump saw a larger share of protest votes in Wisconsin than Biden in the Democratic primary, where 8.3% of voters, or about 48,000, supported the "uninstructed" vote in protest of Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war.

[intothewildsstuff]

Most Americans in poll say Congress shouldn’t use government shutdown to bargain | The Hill

Really the Republicans. So don't vote for them! Problem solved.

[kp777]

Is Consciousness Part of the Fabric of the Universe? - Scientific American

Scholars recently gathered to debate the problem at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., during a two-day workshop focused on an idea known as panpsychism. The concept proposes that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality, like mass or electrical charge.

[melbournenewsvine]

Is this one of the hardest math questions so far?

“This is one of the most challenging papers we have seen in a long time. It was very challenging due to the massive amount of work required to answer all the questions with the allotted time. Many of the problems presented later in the paper were based in the mechanics unit, which has historically been difficult for students, Zonica said. “The consistent high level of questions made for a challenging exam, but we must remember that although they are the most able students to participate in the HSC exams, they are still only 17 or 18 years old. Zonica said that some teachers will argue that this test will discourage future students from performing higher-level math “while we want to encourage students to try Extension 2”. “Again, there is a tension between the need to challenge students and sort out the best students in the state with the need to make testing available to those in the bottom half of second-plus math students.” While most of the paper was fair, questions about projections that asked students to analyze the components of a particle’s motion could be read as “ambiguous,” said Catherine Law, a math teacher at Braywood High School. Anthony Boyes, director of Marist Catholic North Shore College, said the final questions asked students to analyze two components of movement and resist the force that “requires a heavy level of synthesis. Was it difficult? Absolutely.” 12th grade math student Yen Hoang, of Prairiewood High School, was one of 14 students in her second grade extension this year. attributed to him:James Brickwood “There was a good set of fair questions to challenge rich thinking in mathematics applications. There were two new topics, Prompts and Proofs, and they were very challenging,” Boyce said. “The final questions about resistance movement require high-level analysis. But these last problems in the Extension 2 exam are for really qualified mathematicians. We want our staff to be challenged but overall, that was balanced.” But Bhindi believes that the test should be better balanced to ensure that students are not deterred from taking higher levels of mathematics. “This paper was very difficult. We need to keep the students studying Annex 2 and not make it too difficult.” The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the most interesting daily stories, analysis and insights. Register here. Source link Originally published at Melbourne News Vine

[feelingbluepolitics]

"[t]rump is making modest inroads with Latinos. Polls suggest he’s pulling slightly more Black support than in 2016.

"But [t]rump is tilting at the margins with those groups. His bigger problem is the demographic that sent him to the White House — white voters, whose embrace of [t]rump appears to be slipping in critical, predominantly white swing states.

"In Minnesota, where the contest between [t]rump and Joe Biden had seemed to tighten in recent weeks — and where both candidates stumped on Friday — a CBS News/YouGov survey last week had [t]rump running 2 percentage points behind Biden with white voters, after carrying them by 7 points in 2016. Even among white voters without college degrees — [t]rump’s base — [trump] was far short of the margin he put up against Hillary Clinton there.

"It’s the same story in Wisconsin, where [t]rump won non-college educated white women by 16 percentage points four years ago but is now losing them by 9 percentage points, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll. In Pennsylvania, Biden has now pulled even with [t]rump among white voters, according to an NBC News/Marist Poll.

..."It’s possible that the focus on Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s replacement will help [t]rump, reminding voters who have drifted away from him what they cared about in 2016. Four years ago, one in five voters — many of them white, social conservatives — said Supreme Court appointments were the most important factor in their vote.

"But [t]rump is working from a disadvantage this year. There are relatively few undecided voters left to persuade. Democrats are also highly energized about the Supreme Court. And Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the court one month before the midterm elections two year ago did nothing to stop Democrats from steamrolling [t]rump and the GOP."

[adrianodiprato]

+ “Each of us has a unique part to play in the healing of the world.” ― Marianne Williamson | Author The Law of Divine Compensation

This Is Your Moment | Calling

As you pursue the work you were born to do, you step into the profound space of your inner truth, your calling. Your calling is at the intersection of pursuing what you are good at, at feeling deep appreciation of your value, and at believing your work is making an impact in the lives of the other.

Your calling is the deep place of the courage to live your truth, born from your ‘why’, your self-actualisation. The problem is that most people would rather live within the helplessness of comfortable lies, than the courageousness of uncomfortable truths. Your true calling is ignited by hope and love, not fear and self-loathing.

Before you know it, you’ll be asking, “How did it get so late so soon?” You’ve had time to figure yourself out, this life calling. You’ve taken the time to realise what you want and need. You’ve taken time to even take risks. Taken time to love, laugh, cry, learn, and forgive. Therefore, have you realised that life is shorter than it often seems? This is your moment to honour your calling.

“I believe there's a calling for all of us. I know that every human being has value and purpose. The real work of our lives is to become aware. And awakened. To answer the call.” ― Oprah Winfrey

I believe what comes after identifying your calling is what really matters. So, here are ten things I suggest you need to know, before it’s too late ‘to answer your call’:

A lifetime isn’t very long. This is your life, and you’ve got to fight for it. Fight for what’s right. Fight for what you believe in. Fight for what’s important to you. Fight for the people you love, and never forget to tell them how much they mean to you. Realize that right now you’re fortunate because you still have a chance. So, stop for a moment and think, what am I really doing? There are only so many times you can say to yourself “I’ll start it tomorrow”.

Behind every beautiful life, there has been some kind of pain. You have fallen, you have made poor choices, you have lived, you have learnt. You’re human, not perfect. You’ve been hurt, you have hurt, but you’re alive. Think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive, to breathe, to think, to enjoy, and to chase the things you love. Sometimes there is sadness in our journey, but there is also lots of beauty. We must keep putting one foot in front of the other even when we’re hurt, for we will never know what is waiting for us just around the bend. Pain is real, suffering is optional.

Failures are only lessons. Good things come to those who still hope even though they’ve been disappointed, to those who still believe even though they’ve tasted failure, to those who still love even though they’ve been hurt. So never regret anything that has happened in your life; it cannot be changed, undone or forgotten. These are life lessons, move on.

The sacrifices you make today will pay dividends in the future. When it comes to working hard to achieve a dream, earning a qualification or any other personal achievement takes real commitment. One thing you have to ask yourself is, are you content just breathing?

When you procrastinate, you become a slave to yesterday. So do something right now that your future self will thank you for. Trust me, tomorrow will thank you for starting something today.

You are your most important relationship. Happiness is when you feel good about yourself without feeling the need for anyone else’s approval. You must first have a healthy relationship with yourself before you can have a healthy relationship with others. You have to feel worthwhile and acceptable in your own eyes, so that you’ll be able to look confidently into the eyes of the people around you and be able to serve others in an authentic way.

A person’s actions speak the truth. You’re going to come across people in your life who will say all the right words at all the right times; but in the end, it’s always through their actions you’ll realise their intent and character. Pay attention to what people do. Their actions will tell you everything you need to know.

Small acts of kindness can make the world a better place. Never lose your tenderness and vulnerability. They are a real strength of yours. Utilise them to be kind to others. Kindness is the only investment that never fails. Learn to embrace the power of giving. And never underestimate the true gift that your smile brings.

Honour the time of experience. Never lose sight of those who are your greatest champions. The best kinds of people are the ones that come into your life, and make you see the sun where you once saw clouds. The people that believe in you so much, you start to believe in you too. The people that love you, simply for being you. They too have emotionally invested into your existence. People come and go, but one constant in life is a handful of individuals that these types of people should never be taken for granted. They are once in a lifetime kind of people.

This moment is your life. Your life is not between the moments of your birth and death. Your life is between now and your next breath. The present, the here and now, is all the life you ever get. So, live each moment in full, in kindness and peace, without fear and regret. Do the best you can with what you have in this moment; because that is all you can ever expect of anyone, including yourself.

“Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self-hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks–we will also find our path of authentic service in the world.” ― Parker Palmer

You didn’t come here to be perfect. You already are. You came here to be whole. You came here to be gorgeously human, flawed and fabulous. So, what voice are you listening to today? Turn off all the negative white noise and listen to all that is possible, that is your calling.

It is time to open your door to your possibility not your passivity. It is your time to find your ‘authentic self-hood’, your inner calling to be truly 'whole’, valued and in service of the other. Your moment in life is now. Fight for the right of your calling to have the oxygen to flourish.

You decide. Choose courage over comfort. Give yourself permission to triumph. This is your moment.  

Image: Marist Solidarity Immersion in Pailin, Cambodia | 2017

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 5, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

Last night, in a speech to honor Independence Day, President Joe Biden used his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic to defend democracy.

Biden urged people to remember where we were just a year ago, and to “think about how far we’ve come.” “From… silent streets to crowded parade routes lined with people waving American flags; from empty stadiums and arenas to fans back to their seats cheering together again; from families pressing hands against a window to grandparents hugging their grandchildren once again. We’re back traveling again. We’re back seeing one another again. Businesses are opening and hiring again. We’re seeing record job creation and record economic growth—the best in four decades and, I might add, the best in the world.”

The president was referring, in part, to the jobs report that came out on Friday, showing that the nation added a robust 850,000 non-farm jobs in June.

But he was also talking about how the United States of America took on the problem of the pandemic. Coming after two generations of lawmakers who refused to use federal power to help ordinary Americans, Biden used the pandemic to prove to Americans that the federal government could, indeed, work for everyone.

The former president downplayed the pandemic and flip-flopped on basic public health measures like masking and distancing. Unlike most European and Asian countries, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, the Trump Administration sidelined the country's public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, considered to be the top national public health agency in the world. Trump downplayed the seriousness of the coronavirus out of fear of hurting the stock market, and turned over to states the process of dealing with this unprecedented crisis. The U.S. led the world in COVID-19 deaths. More than 603,000 Americans have died so far.

When he took office, Biden had already begun to use the government response to coronavirus as a way to show that democracy could rise to the occasion of protecting its people. The day before his inauguration, President Biden held a memorial for the 400,000 who had, to that date, died of COVID-19. He put Dr. Rochelle Walensky, a renowned infectious disease expert, at the head of the CDC and reinstated the CDC at the head of the public health response to the pandemic. And he made vaccines accessible to all Americans. Fifty-eight percent of American adults have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus; 67% have had at least one shot. The U.S. has one of the highest vaccine rates in the world and is helping to vaccinate those in other countries, as well.

Biden recalled that the United States of America was based not on religion or hereditary monarchy, but on an idea: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights—among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

We have never lived up to that ideal, of course, but we have never abandoned it, either. Those principles, he said, “continue to animate us, and they remind us what, at our best, we as Americans believe: We, Americans—we believe in honesty and decency, in treating everyone with dignity and respect, giving everyone a fair shot, demonizing no one, giving hate no safe harbor, and leaving no one behind.”

But, he said, democracy isn’t top down. “Each day, we’re reminded there’s nothing guaranteed about our democracy, nothing guaranteed about our way of life,” he said. “We have to fight for it, defend it, earn it…. It’s up to all of us to protect the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; the right to equal justice under the law; the right to vote and have that vote counted; the right.... to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and know that our children and grandchildren will be safe on this planet for generations to come… the right to rise in the world as far as your God-given [talent] can take you, unlimited by barriers of privilege or power.”

Biden’s speech recalled that of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on June 5, 1944, upon the fall of Rome during World War II. It was Italian leader Benito Mussolini who articulated the ideals of fascism after World War I, envisioning a hierarchical world in which economic and political leaders worked together to lead the masses forward by welding them into a nationalistic, militaristic force.

In his 1944 speech, FDR was careful to explain to Americans how they were different from the Italian fascists. He talked about “Nazi overlords” and “fascist puppets.” Then, in contrast to the fascists’ racial hierarchies, FDR made a point of calling Americans’ attention to the fact that the men who defeated the Italian fascists were Americans from every walk of life.

And then he turned to how fascism treated its people. “In Italy, the people have lived so long under the corrupt rule of Mussolini that in spite of the tinsel at the top—you have seen the pictures of it—their economic conditions have grown steadily worse. Our troops have found starvation, malnutrition, disease, a deteriorating education, a lower public health, all byproducts of the fascist misrule.”

To rebuild Italy, FDR said, the troops had to start from the bottom. “[W]e have had to give them bread to replace that which was stolen out of their mouths,” he said. “We have had to make it possible for the Italians to raise and use their local crops. We have had to help them cleanse their schools of fascist trappings….”

He outlined how Americans had anticipated the need to relieve the people starved by the fascists, and had made plans to ship food grown by the “magnificent ability and energy of the American people,” in ships they had constructed, over thousands of miles of water. Some of us may let our thoughts run to the financial cost of it,” he said, but “we hope that this relief will be an investment for the future, an investment that will pay dividends by eliminating fascism, by ending any Italian desires to start another war of aggression in the future….”

FDR was emphasizing the power of the people, of democracy, to combat fascism not only abroad but also at home, where it had attracted Americans frustrated by the seeming inability of democracy to counter the Depression. They longed for a single strong leader to fix everything. Other Americans, horrified by FDR’s use of the government to regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, and promote infrastructure, wanted to take the nation back to the 1920s and in so doing had begun to flirt with fascism as well.

As he celebrated the triumph over democracy in Italy, he was also urging Americans to value and protect it at home.

Biden, too, is focusing on how efficient his administration has been in combating the coronavirus to combat authoritarianism both abroad and at home. With its support for the Big Lie; congress members like Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who openly associates with white nationalists; and its attack on voting rights, the modern-day Republican Party is moving rapidly toward authoritarianism. But the former president botched the most fundamental task of government: protecting its people from death. In contrast, more than 60% of Americans approve of how Biden has managed the coronavirus pandemic, with 95% of Democrats approving but only 33% of Republicans in favor.

Biden’s approach appears to be helping to solidify support for democracy. A recent PBS Newshour/NPR/Marist poll showed that two thirds of Americans believe democracy is under threat, but 47%— the highest number in 12 years—believe the country is moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, that number, too, reflects a difference by party. While 87 percent of Democrats say the country is improving, 87 percent of Republicans say the opposite.

Biden conjured up our success over the coronavirus to celebrate democracy: “[H]istory tells us that when we stand together, when we unite in common cause, when we see ourselves not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans, then there’s simply no limit to what we can achieve.”

—-

Notes:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/07/05/remarks-by-president-biden-celebrating-independence-day-and-independence-from-covid-19/

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/07/02/june-jobs-unemployment-shortage/

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/561513-67-percent-of-adults-have-received-at-least-one-shot-of-covid-19-vaccine

https://docs.google.com/document/d/162VvK8TyM_3xNJbZtd0vLcNiLuK1bzpV0zqcD8o0TuM/edit

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/2-out-of-3-americans-believe-u-s-democracy-is-under-threat

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[christinaroseandrews]

Marist comes from money. Not MONEY MONEY like her neighbors and father’s co-workers... but she’s definitely in the 5%. At least that’s what she thought.

Turns out her parents have been living on borrowed dimes and the kindness of strangers... particularly her father’s boss, McAllister. But that generosity is about to end. In order to save the family’s home and fortune, her sister must marry Royce, McAllister’s oldest son. One teensy problem... her sister isn’t the trophy wife... She’s pregnant. And that won’t do. So Marist steps into her sister’s shoes. And learns that there’s a whole lot more to Royce and his family. And it even includes a secret initiation.

This book was running at a solid five star for most of the time reading this until I reach the cliffhanger ending. The writing was solid. The pacing spot on. There were women supporting women. The book passed both the Pizza night test and the Bechdel test. I liked it. I hated the ending.

It’s a cliffhanger. Like knock you in your gut and leave you screaming WHAT THE FUCK!!! Because that’s what happened. At first I was shocked, then I was pissed. Because nowhere in the blurb or anywhere did it state that this story was incomplete.

You know, I get it. You want to hook readers. But warn them. Let them make an informed choice. Some people will read it anyway... I know I have... IF I KNOW WHAT I AM GETTING INTO!!!

That being said for the most part I liked this book. I liked Marist and Royce as characters. I didn’t doubt their attraction. And I liked Royce’s honesty toward Marist... at least until the end happened. McAllister is a very good villain. Like he’s the kind of villain you love to hate.

I even liked the dubious consent which for those people who need the warnings this book has a crap ton of dubious consent. The consent was never so dubious that it stepped over the line. And for much of the story the agency was always put back into the heroine’s hands. And there were a lot of check-ins more in this book them in several BDSM books that I have read. The heroine always had a choice, it wasn’t always a good choice. But she did have choices and she did have agency.

I just really wish the author had given the READERS a choice. She didn’t. If the story had ended on a happy for now as opposed to an out and out cliffhanger, then I would have recommended the book and gone on to buy the next book in the series. As it stands now I only see this as a cash grab. And for the gut punch and the author’s lack of consent toward her readers I can only give this... Three Stars

If this is your jam, you can get it here.

If you like these kind of honest reviews, please consider supporting us here!

[96thdayofrage]

The Cult of Trump

Over the last four years various commentators have flagged Trumpism as a cult. Former White House director of communications Anthony Scaramucci, of all people, called attention to the idea that his supporters were part of a cult. In June 2018, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN) suggested that Republicans were in a "cult-like situation" with Trump because most refused to even consider disagreeing with him.

To make matters even more disturbing, when Donald Trump Jr. was asked on Fox & Friends about Corker's claims, he replied "You know what? If it's a cult, it's because they like what my father's doing."

The reason why it matters to think about Trumpism as a cult is because it allows us to consider that the problem is not simply a consequence of falsehoods consumed via right-wing media. Yes, the culture of disinformation was severe, but those listening to the falsehoods did much more than fall for a bunch of BS. They blindly adored their leader, refusing to question any of his actions, and then they were prepared to use violence to protect him, even if, in the case of the Capitol marauders, it meant risking their own lives.

Yet, as Benjamin E. Zeller points out, describing Trumpism as a cult misses a few critical distinctions and may not be an effective strategy to counteract the negative effects of Trumpian ideology. There are a few reasons for this, he argues, including the fact that Trump supporters are not a fringe minority as most cult members tend to be. In fact, they come close to representing half of the voting electorate. But, perhaps, most importantly, Zeller argues that focusing too much on brainwashing absolves those holding false beliefs from being responsible for themselves. Brainwashing conjures up victimhood and turns the brainwashed into innocents.

Will a cult pushed to the extreme fracture?

That's what leads to the silver lining of the terrifying and disturbing attacks of January 6 on the Capitol. The good news is that they were so bad.  

Certain rioters planned and schemed and deliberately and coldly sought to overthrow the government. They were not just caught up in a frenzied swoon caused by Trump's incendiary speech that day. They were not innocent victims of brainwashing, though they were clearly delusional.  They were openly and unabashedly attempting to perpetrate an insurrection. The images of them attacking a Capitol police office with a U.S. flag, for example, are too disturbing for most Trump supporters to justify. The awful truth of it, it turns out, could prompt an encouraging step forward.    

Sure, the rioter who was shot and killed by Capitol Police is now being martyred as an innocent victim. Sure, there are rumors circulating that the attackers were actually Antifa. Sure, there are those who try to insist that Trump wasn't to blame. But as the truth comes out, thanks to the fact that most of the rioters had a compulsive need to document their every move on social media, it becomes harder and harder for those Trump supporters who are not part of the fringe extreme to ignore the horror of the attacks.

The chilling reports that the rioters may have been given tours of the building in advance by Republican representatives, that they had guns and bombs, that they intended to abduct and harm Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress, and that they spent weeks preparing to storm the Capitol combine to offer such a grotesque picture of the insurrection that few can stomach it. The promising news is that the type of "patriotism" on display in the attack was so obscene that it is serving as a wake-up call for many of those aligned with Trump ideology.

Consider it this way: Trump's call for carnage was so grotesque that it may well have broken his spell.

In fact, a recent PBS New Hour/Marist poll shows that 80 percent of Republicans oppose or strongly oppose the actions of the Trump supporters who broke into the U.S. Capitol to disrupt the process of certifying the presidential election. While a disturbing 18 percent of Trump supporters still back the rioters, it is the 80 percent in opposition that offers a glimmer of hope, because it shows a stark division among the mass of Trump supporters, a crack in the cult, that offers the possibility that Trump's ideological grasp on his "base" may no longer be complete.

We have seen defections from the Republican elite in the form of Mitch McConnell's condemnation of Trump and the fact that ten Republican members of the House voted to impeach. But if we look at the general public, we see that the percentage of the population that voted for Trump, yet condemns the attacks, is far higher than what we are witnessing in Congress.

This offers a unique opportunity to dismantle Trumpism and its cognitive hold on his supporters. The more that the violent rioters can be separated out from other Trump supporters, and the more that Trump supporters can be separated from the Republican party, the better our chances of fragmenting the right and unraveling Trump's psychic hold on the party.  

On one of the few lawns that has a Trump sign in my neighborhood, the name "Pence" has been cut out. When I first saw it, I wondered why someone would deface the sign that way only to quickly realize that the Trump household itself had cut out "Pence" from their very own sign. It struck me to see an act that was so openly childish and silly and also so deeply anti-democratic and aggressive. The worse it is, the better it gets.

And it made me hopeful to think that it may well be exactly through these sorts of absurd, cult-like actions that others might start to question their allegiance to Trumpism. What if the excessively delusional dogma of Trumpism might actually be its own undoing?

[arpov-blog-blog]

..."Trump blinked this morning, taking a cowardly path on a disastrous issue for him and the Rs. “Leaving it to the states” is absurd place, for he is still responsible for ending Roe, for stripping the rights and freedoms away from the women of America, for unleashing the escalating assault on reproductive freedom across the country, for sanctioning and green lighting the most extreme abortion bans in the country; and now his allies on the right are going to feel betrayed by him. It is a squirming, “I got no place else to go” position, one that confirms how much trouble MAGA is in right now.

Let’s be very clear that “leaving it to the states” is a more extreme position than a 15 week ban for it sanctions and accepts the most extreme state bans as legitimate without providing an alternative. As Trump is about to find out there is no safe place for Rs on abortion other than a full retreat and a restoration of a woman’s right to choose.

All this reinforces what a political disaster MAGA has become, how the extremism that Trump has unleashed has made his party unmanagable, unpopular, and a stone cold electoral loser. It remains today, as I like to say, the ugliest political thing we’ve ever seen, and despite his tortured efforts there isn’t any way to put lipstick on this MAGA pig. Today what we saw from Trump wasn’t leadership but cowardice and weakness, for even he has begun to realize how hard it is going to be for him to win with what he has wrought. He’s the captain of a sinking ship.

I also want to give a big shout out to the Hopium community this morning. For while we have worked hard in many elections together over the past year, our biggest and most consequential investment of time and money was in Virginia last fall. Youngkin had put the 15 week abortion ban on the ballot there, and this community understood the stakes and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and logged incredible amounts of volunteer time. On Election Day we did not just kept the state senate there, but we also flipped the Virginia Assembly - something few thought was possible. In the days that followed the Assembly Rs who lost blamed Youngkin and his 15 week ban for their defeat, and a decisive blow was delivered to that fantasy of an escape hatch for the Rs on abortion. There is little question that our big win there helped lead to Trump’s cowardly retreat today, and this ridiculous place of “leaving it to the states” which throws tens of millions of women and their families overboard and green lights the most extreme laws America has seen in generations.

18 Polls Have Biden Up/Other 2024 Election Notes - As I wrote on Saturday, what the polls show right now is Biden and the Dems gaining a bit in what is a close, competitive election. 18 recent national polls have Biden leading: (via 538):

51-49 Emerson (likely voters, new)

48-45 McLaughlin (likely voters, new)

52-48 Marquette

47-46 Data For Progress

50-48 NPR/Marist

42-40 Big Village

44-42 Morning Consult

48-45 Quinnipiac

44-43 Noble Predictive

44-43 Economist/YouGov (March 19)

47-45 FAU/Mainstreet

44-43 Morning Consult (March 11)

46-45 Public Policy Research

50-48 Ipsos/Reuters

45-44 Civiqs

47-44 Kaiser Family Foundation

51-49 Emerson

43-42 TIPP

Note that we are starting to see Biden do better and Trump do worse in polls which survey likely voters - people who are paying closer attention. This is consistent with Trump’s underperformance in the GOP primary polls, for when people had to make up their mind earlier this year and actually vote he performed worse than public polling - a more informed electorate is a worse electorate for Trump. This is a big problem for him as the entire electorate is about to become far more informed about him, his extremism, his criminality, his historical awfulness; and it suggests, as we’ve believed would happen, that as we get deeper into the general election things will get better for us (something that appears to be already happening).

A note on the battleground states. We have far less polling in the battlegrounds than nationally, and many of the polls we have are low sample, low quality polls. So let’s take it a little easy on jumping to big conclusions about the states. Yes some have Trump ahead, but there is polling from the last month with Biden ahead too:

MI - 42%-39% Bullfinch Group (new)

PA - 50%-45% Susquehanna

WI - 46%-45% Morning Consult/Bloomberg

And remember Trump was just +1 in GA in the WSJ poll, and only +3 in NC in Marist.

We should be encouraged by what we are seeing right now. We’ve gained a few points in recent weeks, Senate polling remains very solid, we have a cash/organization advantage, the economy is booming, Joe Biden is a good President and they have Trump. We have a long way to go folks but 7 months out I would much rather be us than them."

[poughkeepsieobserver]

Nine days of mounting pressure from an exponential increase in COVID-19 cases on campus reached a breaking point for the Marist College student population on Sunday, March 21.

Coming after an outpour of responses flooded in from students, alumni, and parents alike, reacting to the 180 active cases at the school and a recent iLearn waiver implemented yesterday.

Every type of story can be heard in the online responses including: students’ results coming up positive AFTER they returned home to their family; the college demanding positive off-campus students buy into their quarantine housing or return to and expose their families; commuters working remotely now being asked to come in person; immunocompromised students forced to be confined to their room; the list goes on.

This afternoon student newspaper Marist Circle published a testimony of female students housed together in Lower New (a campus dorm) expressing the prolonged distress from second-hand exposures, enduring repetitive rapid-test cycles, and an overall feeling of powerlessness as Marist administrator’s tiptoed around moving to remote learning and enacting a hard “campus pause”.

March 18th’s “voluntary pause” made it difficult for any one group or individual to actually violate loose campus guidelines, regressing into the stricter “temporary pause” within less than 3 days.

Today finally marks a 7-case decrease to 173 active cases on Marist’s COVID Dashboard, as older cases are typically cycled out of coronavirus databases every two weeks.

A short-term, retroactive solution for a longer-term problem if students’ predictions of newer cases’ symptoms begin to show, stemming from St. Patrick’s Day Weekend parties involving unmasked and symptomatic attendees.

All this has come after in-person classes for this spring semester only began on March 1, following a two week period of online only classes.

Marist Circle Piece:

https://bit.ly/391Dh0X

After our initial piece on the Marist College COVID-19 issue garnered explosive interest from students we’ve partnered with journalist & Marist ‘18 grad Luke Carberry Mogan (IG: @luke_long_name) to continue working on the story alongside our core team.

[phroyd]

politico 

Donald Trump is making modest inroads with Latinos. Polls suggest he’s pulling slightly more Black support than in 2016.⁣ ⁣ But Trump is tilting at the margins with those groups. His bigger problem is the demographic that sent him to the White House — white voters, whose embrace of Trump appears to be slipping in critical, predominantly white swing states.⁣ ⁣ In Minnesota, where the contest between Trump and Joe Biden had seemed to tighten in recent weeks — and where both candidates stumped on Friday — a CBS News/YouGov survey last week had Trump running 2 percentage points behind Biden with white voters, after carrying them by 7 points in 2016. Even among white voters without college degrees — Trump’s base — the president was far short of the margin he put up against Hillary Clinton there.⁣ ⁣ It’s the same story in Wisconsin, where Trump won non-college educated white women by 16 percentage points four years ago but is now losing them by 9 percentage points, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll. In Pennsylvania, Biden has now pulled even with Trump among white voters, according to an NBC News/Marist Poll.⁣ ⁣ In 2016, white voters cast over 80 percent of the vote in each of the three states, according to exit polls.⁣ ⁣ “It’s a big, big swing,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. “What [Biden’s] doing among whites is more than offsetting the slippage among non-whites … The recipe is very different this time, right now anyway, in terms of white voters.”⁣ ⁣ It’s possible that the focus on Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s replacement will help Trump, reminding voters who have drifted away from him what they cared about in 2016. Four years ago, one in five voters — many of them white, social conservatives — said Supreme Court appointments were the most important factor in their vote.⁣ ⁣ But Trump is working from a disadvantage this year. There are relatively few undecided voters left to persuade. Democrats are also highly energized about the Supreme Court.

Phroyd

[yournewapartment]

It’s the corona virus person, and my temperature has gone down. I think it was just a symptom of stress combined with air travel and lack of sleep, although I’m obviously not out of the woods yet. I don’t have any other symptoms either. Sometimes I feel like my breathing is different, but I’m able to exercise and talk to people without a problem, so I’m pretty sure it’s just in my head. I’m mainly just tired, and a bit sad. And no, I don’t attend Marist, but a lot of my friends there did. :)

Glad to hear that you’re feeling better! Keep taking care of yourself and resting.

Lol, I heard that the Marist students are returning from Italy tomorrow and I am so paranoid!!! I work with the elderly so I am trying my best not to get sick.