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speedyposts · 4 months

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Biden sweeps South Carolina Democratic primary with ‘loser’ taunt at Trump

United States President Joe Biden has comfortably won South Carolina’s Democratic primary, promising afterwards that he would make Republican rival Donald Trump a loser for a second time in November’s election.

Biden on Saturday defeated the other long-shot Democrats on South Carolina’s ballot, including Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips and self-help author Marianne Williamson, notching an overwhelming victory in the state that vaulted him to the White House in 2020.

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Kicking off his march to the party’s nomination, Biden secured a massive 96.4 percent of the votes in the first Democratic primary of the 2024 presidential race, US media reports said.

Democrats will now pore over the results to see how well the 81-year-old incumbent, battling low approval ratings, mobilised the Black voters who helped propel him to the White House against Trump, 77, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge Biden in the election.

As the results came in, Biden was at a campaign event in California, as he turned his attention to the next steps in his fight for re-election.

“Now in 2024, the people of South Carolina have spoken again and I have no doubt that you have set us on the path to winning the presidency again – and making Donald Trump a loser – again,” Biden said in a statement.

He urged people to get out and vote in November, saying the stakes “could not be higher” if Trump manages a sensational comeback to the Oval Office.

“There are extreme and dangerous voices at work in the country – led by Donald Trump,” he said.

Four years ago, it was South Carolina’s Black vote in the state’s primary that helped ignite Biden’s campaign and ultimately propel him to the White House.

Besides campaign fears that South Carolina’s heavily Black electorate might not be energised this time around, there were also doubts about his age and concerns about high consumer prices and security along the US-Mexican border.

South Carolina has not backed a Democrat for president in the general election since 1976. But because Black people make up the state’s more than half of the Democratic electorate, it presented an important test of Biden’s appeal with a voting base that typically supports Democrats nine-to-one in presidential races.

Carrie Sheffield, senior policy analyst at the advocacy group Independent Women’s Voice, said Biden’s victory in South Carolina does not guarantee him a lead in the presidential race.

“The reality is that this is just a primary and he is the incumbent president, so nobody ever thought he was actually going to lose. But the reality is that President Biden is the least popular president since World War II – that is truly shocking,” she told Al Jazeera.

“His approval ratings are only 33 percent. He is also losing in key battleground states that he won in 2020 against Donald Trump so he is losing overall across the seven battleground states by six points to Trump, and in North Carolina, it’s in double digits. No matter who wins the GOP primary, whether Donald Trump or Nikki Haley, both are beating Biden in the 2024 general election.”

Some South Carolina voters were also lukewarm about Biden’s re-election bid.

“Sometimes I wonder, is his presence enough because you don’t see him a lot, you don’t hear him a lot,” Martin Orr, a school administrator from McConnells, South Carolina, told The Associated Press news agency.

“Is it quiet because of his age or his physical condition, or what’s going on? I think that’s what a lot of people are concerned about right now,” Orr added.

Another issue that is dominating Biden’s re-election campaign is the domestic concerns over the war in Gaza.

For nearly four months now, Israel has been waging a “genocidal” campaign in Gaza, killing more than 27,200 people, displacing almost its entire population and triggering a widespread hunger and health crisis in the besieged enclave.

Israel’s latest campaign against Gaza started after Hamas fighters on October 7 stormed communities in southern Israel, killing more than 1,100 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 240 captives, nearly half of whom have since been released.

Michael Fauntroy, head of the Ronald Walters Leadership and Public Policy Center at Howard University, said Biden is walking “a fine line” as he tries to win Jewish votes while also trying to mediate for an end to the fighting inside Gaza.

“He seems to have been working very hard to get the Israelis to slow down and he has not publicly called for a ceasefire, but I think he understands that that is where the US policy will have to go,” Fauntroy told Al Jazeera.

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eustochium · 3 years

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funniest trump presidency moments

learning about RBG’s death while Tiny Dancer played in the background at an unnervingly loud volume

“very stable genius”

whatever happened with Omarosa

bowling green massacre

that one picture of kellyanne conway kneeling on the oval office couch while she plays on her phone

for that matter, the entire psychosexual drama of the Conway marriage in which the whole nation was held hostage

ballad of anthony scaramucci

when the CIA presented their findings on the Russiagate dog and pony show and Trump said “these are the same people who said there were WMDs in Iraq”

every time Trump admitted to hating the troops

“many people are saying this”

pronouncing the name of the national park as “Yo-Semite”

drawing the fake hurricane trajectory map with a sharpie

responding to a CNN analyst criticizing his handling of COVID by saying that he gets better ratings than The Bachelor

his stans storming the Capitol Building remains hilarious

obviously Four Seasons Landscaping was an instant classic

calling mike bloomberg a “5’4” mass of dead energy”

also when he performed his mike bloomberg impression that just consisted of crouching down behind the podium

the context wasn’t that good, but specifically just the clip of Trump saying “may Allah awaken the people and help him to see the evildoings of Israel”

revealing to a small child that Santa wasn’t real, on Christmas Eve

everything about Trump getting COVID, but especially when he was calling into Fox News from his sickbed and ranting about how California had a drought because they were giving all their water to “little tiny fish”

Melania’s terrifying slavic pagan Yule decor, every year

Melania then getting exposed complaining to a friend about this, saying “Who gives a fuck about Christmas? but I have to do it”

Melania, the first lady, randomly wearing that $30 “I don’t really care, do U?” jacket from Zara to go visit that children’s detention center at the border

Melania wearing that Dr. Livingstone colonizer fit during her tour of Africa

all the other times someone on Melania’s staff fucked with her because she clearly doesn’t know how to read

Jared Kushner doing Vampire Weekend cosplay at an Iraqi airfield

every time Trump went on twitter to insult SNL

Trump pardoning known associate of Apollo Nida, Phaedra Parks conspiracy theorist, and Real Housewives-franchise peripheral figure, Angela Stanton King, as one of his last acts in office

Garden of National Heroes, obviously

and last but not least, donald trump‘s finest hour:

#we didn’t start the fire

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route22ny · 4 years

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Sky

Perhaps this will be hard to read. Laments often are. It may bring you comfort, or it may make you angry. It may make you think more of me, or less. It may offend you. Rest assured, it offends me. So be it.

Once upon a time, there was a man who spoke of torture as a good in and of itself, to be pursued whether it was effective or not. Who promised to use the power of the state to enact violence upon scapegoated religious and ethnic minorities. Who insisted upon framing our struggle against Mideast terror groups in the same religious terms the terrorists themselves insist upon. Who praised himself for nursing petty grudges, for treating revenge as justice. Who threatened the free press with retaliation for reporting certain truths about him. Who bragged about sexual assault. Who mocked people more brave than himself and called their bravery weakness. Who lied seemingly without strategy, as if lies were good to tell only for the telling, who showed a shocking indifference to the very concept of truth. Who praised brutal dictators for their brutal methods. Who seemed (and seems) to be receiving shadowy support from a brutal dictator. Who claimed dictatorial power for himself.

This is fine.

He appeared entirely confused about the basic facts of geopolitical reality, or of how our government works, or even of the function within our government of the role he proposed to take on. He had a clear and obvious history of fraud and hucksterism, of enriching himself at the benefit of others with less leverage, and was even engaged throughout his campaign in a lawsuit for defrauding college students, since settled for $25 million dollars. He speculated with frightening casualness about destabilizing actions: proliferation and even use of nuclear weapons, defaulting on our debts and our treaties, backing out of our most long-standing alliances. He publicly called upon the intelligence apparatuses of foreign governments to intercede in our election on his behalf, and it seems increasingly likely they may have obliged. He whipped his crowds into frenzies, then directed their ire toward journalists reporting the event, many of whom he threatened to prosecute once in power. He offered to imprison his political adversary, to the delight of his chanting crowds, who wore t-shirts decorated with the flag celebrating the war to preserve American slavery, decorated with vulgar slogans of violence and rage. He promised to steer us directly into the deadly heart of the oncoming climate catastrophe; having claimed the work of men more intelligent and knowledgeable than he was nothing but a Chinese hoax, he sneered at the very idea of new energy sources.

This is fine.

That’s a short list. It’s a hell of a short list. But wait, listen: The people went for it.

Tens of millions of people voted to make him the most powerful man in the world. He will soon have the ability to blast the planet to an irradiated cinder, if he sees fit. He will continue to run his business, which appears to involve sitting in a golden throne and putting his names on things. He's given every indication, despite some laughably thin feints toward divestment, he will run that business from the Oval Office. Maybe he’ll even put his name on new things, like laws. Laws: a whole new product line for Trump International, and a potentially lucrative one. He owes the banks of foreign powers millions and millions of dollars. One wonders what laws they’ll want passed. Word is, his first foreign trip will be to visit Vladimir Putin. Heigh-ho.

His party is in control, too. They don't seem bothered by any of this. They're a bit more focused on providing checks and balances upon ethics watchdogs who have pointed out their party leader's multifarious and historically unprecedented infractions. They'd rather ignore those, so they can immediately—immediately—get down to the serious business of divesting millions and millions of the most vulnerable people in our society from the only chance they have at affordable health coverage. They plan to replace this program with something...someday. Their speculation so far indicates they will be replacing it with the opportunity to save up hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for medical bills if you need them someday, or, if you don't have hundreds of thousands of spare dollars, to maybe go screw yourself. So, a lot of people are going to die in coming years, that would otherwise have lived, and they're rushing to make it happen. My, look at them laugh.

Republican lawmakers sign legislation to repeal ACA and defund women's health care access through Planned Parenthood, January 2016

Meanwhile, they're ignoring as peccadilloes the caricatured infractions of a man who intends to keep his own private security detail around him, who expounds upon provable lies, and then when exposed simply doubles down on the lie, who is considering throwing the press out of the White House, and other maneuvers straight out of the dictator handbook. It's really something to see. It's a new order, trumping the old. Isn't it great again?

Laura Ingraham, speaker at the Republican National Convention, 2016.

It’s hard to understand what people hoped for from him other than this. It’s hard not to assume they were responding to the shockingly frank bigotry, his promises to return to an earlier time, the knowing use of slogans used byracists and fascists of days past. These are certainly what seemed to generate all the most popular applause lines. But I don’t want to think that of my country or my fellow citizens. I really want it to be something else. Let us consider other possibilities. Many seem to think that a great thing about him was his frankness. They liked that he “tells it the way it is.” Then again, those same people seemed most likely to think that he didn’t really mean his more shocking proposals. It’s a bit confusing, then, parsing what is meant by ‘telling it like it is,' as it appears to rely on selective trust in insincerity. Many voters, excited by promises to “drain the swamp,” but now disappointed by the recent appointment of a Goldman Sachs foreclosure kingpin to Treasury, of a Putin-connected oil executive to State, and by other signals the new president has given about his eagerness to rob us all blind, have been admonished by a key advisor for taking his words so literally. The 'alt-right' Neo Nazis and the KKK are very excited, for what it’s worth, about the more shocking proposals, and they remain confident our new leader meant every word.

You're really going to want to go to video on this one.

Some people thought he would be less likely to make them pay more in taxes, I suppose. So perhaps at last now we know the answer to the old hypothetical about whether we’d be willing to travel through time and sacrifice our lives to prevent the rise of a self-professing tyrant. Answer: We wouldn’t even suffer a hypothetical increase in our income taxes. I'm told folks voted for Trump because they were tired of being called racist. I imagine that was hard for them—who wants to be considered racist? If this complaint is yours, I imagine reading this (if you're still reading) is also hard. I sympathize; it's not particularly easy to write. But then again, the response seems an odd retort to the complaint. If your persistent problem is people keep telling you there is spinach in your teeth, you might consider getting a mirror and taking a look, rather than voting for the Jolly Green Giant running on a platform of outlawing all floss. And, perhaps, if it is painful to be considered racist, consider this: it may be all the more painful to live under racist oppression.

KKK Newspaper, The Crusader, endorses Trump.

Many seem to have mainly enjoyed that he wasn’t Hillary Clinton, and it’s certainly true to say many concerns and criticisms could be levied against her. But the man they voted for as an alternative already stood actualized as the cartoon parody of any potential danger she may have hypothetically posed. Bad judgment? Corruption? Fraud? A proclivity to violent retaliation? A worry about temperament? Untrustworthiness? Lack of transparency? It’s hard to believe this all had much to do with Hillary Clinton and her faults. Hard to believe this list of concerns would yours, but your acceptable alternative would be Donald Trump.

Or maybe they believed the more lurid stories, the debunked, the ridiculous. Hillary’s murdered 80 people close to her. She invented cancer and put it in your cell phone battery. She is secretly seven tiny demons all stacked up in a pantsuit and glued together with the blood of aborted fetuses. She controls the Yosemite supervolcano, along with a cabal comprised of George Soros and 17 other Jewish industrialists. I don’t know what all. I know there are people like this, who have seceded from objective reality into a dystopian alternate dimension, where they can perhaps supplement the powerlessness they feel in their lives with the comfort of false control, of being one of the few with the secret knowledge unavailable to the masses. I don’t know what to do with them, because they live in an alternate dimension. And, it must be said, I don’t think there are 63 million of them.

So here we are. In grave moral and physical danger. All of us. And for what? I’ve heard the same line again and again since the election: “America isn’t a different country today than it was before the election.” Jon Stewart trotted it out. I think I heard it from President Obama.

I fear I agree with the statement. I’m puzzled, though, because I think it is meant to be reassuring, to think we’ve always been the country capable of such a choice.

The statement doesn’t imply that we’re still great. It implies that we were never good.

It has to be admitted, people responded to Trump for what he is. Which means we are left with the statements and proposals by which he distinguished himself. And millions of us—tens of millions—preferred him specifically for his points of difference. Excited by his promises to return us to a time when our system existed only for certain people, and the preferences and needs of all others were beneath consideration, or at least willing to overlook that, in favor of some material or policy advantage somewhere. And ultimately, the reason is immaterial. A man ran for president promising to use the power of the state to bring violence to scapegoated religious and ethnic minorities, to make America torture again, to make it easier for an already-militarized police force to employ violence, who praised dictators, who bragged about sexual assault, who praised vengeance as good, who promoted as fact debunked conspiracy, who stated his determination to ignore as conspiracy what the data overwhelmingly indicates is an oncoming extinction-level event. There was some other reason to vote for him, that allowed you to overlook these facts? Save it, please. It really doesn't matter. It was a bad reason. We have seen this movie before. Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed. That word is "Nazi." Nobody cares about their motives anymore. They joined what they joined. They lent their support and their moral approval. And, in so doing, they bound themselves to everything that came after. Who cares any more what particular knot they used in the binding? What am I saying here? Am I saying we are Nazis? The answer, I suppose, has to be 'no.' Only Nazis are Nazis. We are Americans. But what that will mean in decades to come—'American'—has been thrown into hazard. We used to be the sort of place that doesn't allow Donald Trumps to happen. That's gone now, along with that specific sort of trust the world once had in us. In any case, what we seem to now be trying to redefine 'American' to mean seems like a rough beast, and omnivorous. Democracy reveals us by our choices and our actions, not our intentions. We are what we are. And Donald Trump will be president.

As a result, I’m bereft. Bereft of the country I thought I was living in. Bereft of the people I thought I lived among. Bereft of what I believed was a shared direction despite divergent opinions. Bereft of a belief in the possibility of a common dialogue or even a common reality. Bereft in confidence in basic decency and intelligence. Bereft of the spiritual heritage I was born into, because of course Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters were white Christians. Christians voting for a new Herod with the power of a Caesar is a pretty good joke for the universe to tell, I suppose. He’s even promised to go after the (anchor) babies.

My translation of the Bible is full of all this toff about loving your enemy, about how love of money is the root of evil, about showing hospitality to the widow and orphan and the immigrant, and admonishments against drawing the sword lest you die on it. My reading of the Bible doesn't ask "but who's going to pay for that?" My reading of the Bible suggests to me that if you wish to pretend to care about babies unborn, maybe you shouldn’t be so hostile to the idea of making sure they’re cared for once they are born and inconveniently and expensively needy, and perhaps you shouldn’t make so many of their mothers into the welfare-queen boogie-men of your whole realpolitik, and perhaps you shouldn't make weaponry a right more important than health and food. Maybe healing and wholeness and liberty is something that should be available to even the pagan. Maybe the door is open for the tax collector and the prostitute and the Samaritan. Maybe, unencumbered by the overweening need to be perceived as correct in every moral posture, they've even entered that door ahead of us as we do our best to hold it shut against unworthy access.

Maybe I got a trash translation. Maybe the other ones are all about the joys of using political power for your own aggrandizement instead of the call to self-sacrifice for the benefit of others, about the dangers of anchor babies and welfare mothers, about how paying tax money toward a shared life is tyranny, about how with terrorists you have to kill the families, folks, believe me, kill the women and children, you’ve got to go after the families, and we’re gonna torture again, folks, we’re gonna torture, believe me…

You know what? I believe him.

WWJD Check: White Evangelicals are the group most likely favor use of torture by a military superpower.

* * * You wake up and the sky is gone. At times that’s how it seems. You wonder at it: how could there not be a sky? What will become of us now, in this world without a sky? Was it ever there, or did we just imagine it there, as an exercise of collective will?

And then you talk to other people who insist the sky is there. They say: It’s not gone, it’s just red now. Don’t be a sore loser, just because you didn’t want it red. Accept that we did want it red. It’ll be fine if it’s red. And anyway, the banks seem to like it red. Move on with your life. Suck it up. Hope that the red sky will be as good as the blue one. But the sky isn’t red. It’s not anything. It’s just … not. It is a not-ness. An un-sky. A nothing.

And then you start talking to people who laugh, not without compassion, that you ever fell for the idea there was a sky. They say: That big vast emptiness? Oh, yes. That’s always been there for us. Is it there for you now? How… interesting. We can tell you a thing or two about that emptiness, if you’d listen. We’ve been watching it an awful long time.

American Nazi Rally, Madison Square Garden, 1939

Future Georgia Representative and Civil Rights pioneer John Lewis, beaten by a state trooper on "Bloody Sunday" in 1965.

Oh. Will he. Will he do that.

The sky is the future. Or it was the future. That’s how it seems, at times. How odd, to speak of the future in the past tense.

But the past tense presents us with further troubles. It seems the past is gone, too.

In 1965, everybody thought King was great, and nobody tried to dismiss him by tying him to violence.

Growing up, we were taught that we were a kind and good and just nation. The story we were given was of a nation born of a righteous cause, not quite made perfect by the godlike men who forged it, but honed to apotheosis over the decades that followed. The destruction of the native nations and their people, ah, tsk, a shame, we’d change it if we could, but unfortunately in the past and unrecoverable. Slavery, a dark stain, but by now expunged entirely. Jim Crow, its shameful cousin, absorbed by a saint named King, who led a boycott (a pleasant and polite and non-disruptive one, it seems, in our memories), then stood on some stairs to give a universally-admired speech about his dream of inclusion, and then, his work seemingly accomplished, having seemingly changed minds forever, ascended harmlessly into the clouds.

Somehow we are never culpable. It was always a long time ago. Mistakes were made, but we’d never make them ourselves. It was always somebody else holding the gun, the whip. We arrived here after that, you see, born blameless, without any afterbirth or shock, into the Greatest Country in the World. Our holocausts we absolved ourselves of, because they served to illustrate not the evil we’d done, but how far we’d come from it. We stood on the prow of the ship, looking forward as we cut new water, not aft looking back at whatever may have been churned up in the wake. Not big on the rear-view mirror, us, not fans of the over-the-shoulder glance. We’d tell ourselves stories of what lay behind. We’d imagine ourselves into those stories of darker times, making ourselves the protagonists. We would have been the ones to build false walls in our home to hide slaves. We would have marched with King. We would have spoken out against the Japanese camps. We would have stood at Stonewall.

Our moral arc bends ever toward justice; an inevitable thing. That was the story.

America was great, because it was good. All the old hits.

People still alive can remember this sort of thing very well.

This kid is probably still alive. As are most of his classmates. As are the children with whom he refused to attend school.

This also happened within living memory.

It's amazing what people consider communism. I mean back then, of course.

Sometimes you’d hear stories about a random injustice or brutality. A policeman who had become a little too enthusiastic. A bad apple, and surely justice was served. If not, it’d have been in the papers You’d hear about it in the papers if it hadn’t been. A gay teen beaten to death in a cornfield. A car with the banner of the struggle to preserve human slavery on the bumper sticker. The KKK marching again, how quaint. Ah, you’d think, if you were like me. We still have some work to do. Cleanup on aisle seven.

Technology has changed that. We see with new eyes now, unless we choose not to. We see videos, dozens and dozens of them now, new ones each week it seems, of police shooting unarmed black people. Again and again and again and again. Can you remember all the names? I can't anymore. And I ask myself: why can't I?

We see the speed with which so many seem willing to seek and find the nearest handy reason the victim deserved his or her fate. We see the news organizations find a Sunday School photo for the shooter and a mugshot to represent the victim. We see acquittal and acquittal and acquittal. We see failure to prosecute.

And, perhaps, we begin to wonder.

We see the people protesting, unarmed, asking only that their lives be thought to matter as much as another’s, and we see the stormtroopers with their massive guns and their tanks, arrayed against a civilian population almost reflexively, like defenses in an organism’s bloodstream mustering against a disease. And we wondered, perhaps: why do they look so much—so exactly, if we’re honest—like an occupying force?

We saw the white ranchers seize government land, pointing their guns directly at law enforcement officials, speaking openly of armed insurrection against the government, of revolution, of war. We saw them, later, seizing a government building. They weren’t protesting after centuries seeing their children and brothers and sisters killed without consequence by authority. Rather, they didn’t want to have to pay a grazing fee. Was it with surprise that we saw it: law enforcement seemed less frightened of these white men and their guns than they had an unarmed black woman in a sundress, or a 12 year old boy playing in a park? Were we surprised to see they seemed so level-headed in this situation, so much less likely to respond with immediate lethal force?

Why, those fellows with their arsenal didn’t even get convicted. They were less threatening to the system, apparently, than a man, arms up, lying on the ground next to his autistic ward begging not to be shot. (He was shot.) We might contrast to the treatment of the protesters at Standing Rock, and wonder…is the Holocaust against native people relegated only to the past? Would we change it, if we could?

We wonder: Are we seeing the system breaking down, unable to cope with new challenges? Or are we seeing a system working exactly as it’s always intended? Do we as a collective of 'white' people secretly want the police to control brown people by force? Are we secretly hoping that force will prove lethal, only occasionally enough to soothe our consciences, but frequently enough to promote an order less immediately costly, than the pain of culpability, than the justice of restitution?

If not, why are prosecutions so rare, and convictions even less so?

If not, why aren’t we protesting these killings? Why aren’t we in the streets?

Do all lives matter? If so, why wouldn’t we act like it?

White Christian America reveres Dr. King, it should be noted. You remember him—the peaceful guy who gave the speech that ended racism. If Facebook and newspaper op eds are any measure, we white Christians can’t stop bringing him up, almost as a cudgel, an admonishment to those today who would dare ask for their own human dignity, for not doing it as antiseptically as we remember it being done by him. And perhaps people begin to wonder: Why was King enshrined as 'the peaceful one' only once he was peacefully dead? Is King’s being safely dead our favorite thing about him? These days, we white Christians can claim to have brought his dream to reality (the white guy is usually the hero of the story in the movie), and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will not protest—and we white Christians don’t like protest. Heavens, no—it’s so divisive. Dr. King, he wouldn’t approve of this protest, nor that one, and certainly not that one. His protests were so polite! Why, nobody had any problem with them at all! Dr. King agrees with all of us in white Christian America so much, these days. Oh my, he never stops agreeing with us. Just ask us; we’ll tell you. Yes, and what ever happened to Dr. King, anyway, after he gave that speech that ended all inequality forever?

But no matter, I told myself. That’s a dying strain, it's not who we are these days. That’s just a few bad apples. We’ve made so much progress. They’ll exhaust themselves in a final futile sputter. We’re just about to turn the corner. Sure there are racists, bigots, white supremacists, lost-causers, and they're loud, but they're dying out, and they know it. They'll eventually run somebody on an overtly racist platform, and they'll lose huge—I disagree with Republicans, but most of them won't stand for stark white supremacy, surely, and obviously Christians won't be able to align themselves with it — and we’ll show them it’s no use, and they’ll retreat, retrench to even positions even more compromised, less fortified, further back, smaller, diminished. We’re a better country than that.

But then Donald Trump, a half-rate and transparently obvious bullshit artist, a greasy reality TV star most skilled at demonstrating his manifest ignorance, promising mostly the goodness of violence and the strength of vengeance, offering to return America to an earlier time, railing against the inconvenience of practicing sensitivity toward the perspectives of others (he called it 'political correctness'), received 63 million geographically-convenient votes to become the most powerful person in the world. Perhaps, if you’re like me, you took a moment then to ponder that statement about bad apples and what they do to the whole barrel. The meaning of it. And, perhaps, another saying, about recognizing a tree by its fruit. And, it must be said, though we refuse to face it: In America, our trees have long borne a strange fruit.

Here’s what we’ve lost, or at least what I’ve lost: The assumption of goodness’s inevitability. The assumption of goodness of those around me. The assumption of good intent in their hearts. The assumption that the future is still there. The assumption that most of us will die of old age. Here's what I've lost, the one favor Donald Trump may ever do for me: The wool from my eyes. An illusion, particularly a pretty and a convincing one, can be a painful thing to lose.

I’ve gained a vision of tens of millions of people desperate to bend history’s arc back toward an injustice that favored them, and willing to fight for that regression, willing even to risk species-wide extinction rather than suffer the pain of facing the consequences of their own mountainous indifference.

The moral arc of the universe may bend toward justice, but the gears of history grind the weak. There are people now who are giddy, almost with the air of a teenager behind the wheel of a sweet-sixteen hot rod, to test out their perceived new warrant to deliver retributive and violent indifference to the people they deem unlovely. A headscarf yanked off here. A slur shouted in public there. A swastika scrawled on a wall here. A Neo Nazi propagandist advising the President of the United States in the corridors of power there. A crowd of seig heils in a government building, in praise of our new leader here. A few million children stripped of health insurance with no serious attempt at a replacement there.

They think this is allowed now. Sixty-three million people, complacently or enthusiastically or ignorantly aligned with white supremacy, gave them the idea it is. It’s going to be our job to show them otherwise. We must show them otherwise. And. Even if you voted for Trump—especially if you voted for Trump—the door is wide open for you to join in that struggle. You show them otherwise, too. All you have to do to join...is join. Your intentions were good? Excellent. I believe you. I've badly misunderstood you? Excellent. I believe you. Now, show it. Show your good intention by your good actions. You, like all of us, possess tremendous moral authority. Don't lend it any longer to those who have promised to squander it on atrocity. They seem intent on doing as they say. If you wait too long, they will leave you with none left to withdraw. Use it to protect those different than you. Use it against your own advantage, for the advantage of those who have none. And. If you, like me, did not vote for Trump, there is the great danger of complicity. You will be offered, if you, like me are white and straight and employed and well-off and cis-gendered and able-bodied and healthy and property-owning, the opportunity to be indifferent. Resist that current.

If the universe bends toward justice, the engine it has chosen for this good work is the hard and sacrificial struggle of good people willing to acknowledge the basic humanity of all other people. People who don’t think profitability is the foundational metric of goodness. People who don't think life holds a value that begins at conception but ends the moment it enters poverty. People bold and willing to become peaceful pebbles in the gears. To give time and money. To link arms with a married gay couple. To take sides in a cafeteria skirmish with a transgendered teen. To take a truncheon in the head for a Muslim. To paraphrase Jesus (another favorite who those of us in white Christian America appear by our words and deeds to consider as safely dead as Dr. King): to live, first you must die.

Or, as another poet says, love’s the only engine of survival.

So, what’s next?

First, we lament. We acknowledge the un-sky, the void. We listen to those who’ve been staring at it far longer than us. We name the challenge with clear eyes. That, I suppose, is what this has been.

And then we get to work. Let us hope our leaders will prove other than than they say they will. Let us not be so naive to think it likely. Let us oppose in a fierce and broken love. Let us meet with friends, we eat good meals with them. Let us consider people before money, and notice where our society fails to do so. Let us make art, and we try to make it well. Let us refuse to allow a comfortable silence to enfold a hateful or ignorant statement. Let us stand up against hate, bodily if necessary. Let us learn our system, and work within it. Let us call our leaders, and advocate for those who suffer. Let us practice generosity without care for the merit of the beneficiary, but only for their need. Let us investigate before we publish. Let us loudly proclaim the humanity others try to diminish. Let loudly proclaim the humanity of those who do not share our values, even as we oppose. Let us never celebrate the suffering of those who oppose us, for they suffer, too. Let us seek to divest ourselves of unearned cultural advantage. Let us enter spaces where our voices are not primary, and listen without thinking to speak. Let us create space to speak, in places where our voices are primary, for those who have had no voice. Let us reject optimism and blind belief. Let us embrace hope. Let us work. Let us work. Let us work. We are a people who have dreamed of the sky. I’d like to see if we can make it real.

source: http://www.armoxon.com/2017/01/sky.html (January 16, 2017)

VOTE

#a.r. moxon #racism in america #american dystopia #VOTE #RESIST #long reads

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omfgtrump · 3 years

Text

Ho! Ho! Ho!

The more things change the more they stay the same.

Let us start with the change that’s gonna come, as we need some hope in these dark days.

In 45 days, Joe Biden will be inaugurated as the 46th president.

Decency will make a comeback to the oval office.

Competency will return to Government.

Science will once again matter.

Empathy will return.

Reality will be, well, reality?

A few more things:

Anything orange will be whitewashed.

A deep-clean, the likes of nothing witnessed before, will attempt to remove the stench and poison that has saturated and permeating the White House.

Now let’s move on to what’s stayed the same.

The pandemic rages on and The Don and his cronies continue to pretend it doesn’t exist.

The election is over. The Don and his cronies continue to deny the results. (Is there a pattern here or am I just reading into things?)

The Don continues to rage against anyone who doesn’t embrace his alternate reality.

Under the tutelage of The Don, Republicans have finally been exposed as the immoral, anti-democratic party they have been for years.

The Don continues to grift his supporters, and has collected $270 million dollars for “legal fees,” when only a small percentage of the money is used for that. Rumor has it that he may use it to spruce up Mara-a-lago, which, in a nod to the Confederacy, he is considering naming the “Southern White House.”

But don’t despair. There is holiday cheer. Jingle Bells, Rudolph and Santa are taking center stage. In the middle of our dystopian nightmare, the White House has announced there will be at least 25 parties. Rumor has it, that to attend, you not only have to rsvp, but you need to check the box that claims The Don won the election.

The invitation makes it clear that there are two tiers of parties: one for people who wear masks and the others for the mask-less. Rudy G was supposed to be the master of ceremony at the “Dance Till You Drop Marathon,” but the super-sprayer is Covid-bound in the hospital. The ball isn’t your old fashioned marathon kind of thing; it’s more of a sharing a virus kind of thing. Featured music is Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love,” which may come sooner than many of the attendees think.

youtube

And the first lady has decked the halls of the White House and shared her vision of America.

“During this special time of the year, I am delighted to share America the Beautiful and pay tribute to the majesty of our great Nation. Together, we celebrate this land we are all proud of.”

Pass the champagne and canapes, please. You would like another glass of champagne? Of course, let me fill your glass.

I must say I am so disappointed in Melania’s conventional decorating choices this year. She really should have returned to the blood-red trees, of 2018, which, at the time, were referred to as “creepy” and “deeply haunted.” She could have had ornaments the shape of a coronavirus hanging from the trees. She really blew it.

Secret Santa is expected to be a blast. Each stocking will be filled with leftover Trump products. Trump steaks, Trump Water, Trump Wine. There will even be 50% off coupons for classes at Trump University. First class seats on Trump Airlines. But wait there is more!

The Don’s devotees will each receive a specially produced Pardon ticket that says: “No matter what you did, I’ve got your back because you had mine!

For Republicans who were disinvited for deciding they didn’t want to end democracy as we know it by changing the results of the election, there were different tickets. These were sent special delivery and dropped in front of houses like amazon packages. These stockings contain tickets that paraphrase Steve Bannon: “Welcome to your beheading.”

A happy holiday to all!

from WordPress https://ift.tt/33W1bbK via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress #trump #politics #potus #capital hill #washington dc #white house #america #usa

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theculturedmarxist · 3 years

Link

Chances are that by the time you get to the end of this article, there will be news of another information operation targeting Donald Trump. There’s one a day now—each trumpeting a new mortal threat to the republic or some dastardly revelation based on sources that are usually anonymous. Whatever it is, it will serve the same purpose as the hundreds of similar sallies launched over the last four years—namely, to preserve and protect the position and privileges of America’s ruling elite.

Trump stories are rarely about Trump. The same stories, or versions of them, would have targeted anyone who threatened to sever the American political, corporate, and cultural elite’s economic lifeline to the Chinese Communist Party. It is largely because Trump sought to decouple the United States from the CCP that America’s China Class, which owns the platforms on which Americans communicate, has waged a relentless campaign of information warfare against him through its social media and prestige media brands.

Consider the last two anti-Trump info ops: He gratuitously denigrated the historical suffering of African Americans, and he expressed contempt for America’s war dead. These are the sort of false allegations that political operatives are tasked to manufacture and disseminate during election season. Their purpose is to reinforce a negative impression of the opposing party among whatever cohort is being addressed, and make the target spend resources—time and money and sometimes blood—on defense. That’s politics 101, since the time of the Romans.

What’s new is that this is now journalism too. Since the internet defunded the press at the end of the 20th century and social media became the dominant player in America’s information space, journalism has abandoned the traditional standards and practices that once defined reporting. For instance, the smear holding that Trump is contemptuous of the military was supposedly based on four anonymous sources recalling exchanges from three years ago, which have been contradicted by dozens of named sources, some of whom were physically present when the comments were supposedly made—and some of whom have been public Trump opponents. In traditional journalistic terms, that’s not a news story—that’s a failed attack line.

The press that existed in America from the end of the 19th century until the turn of this one was designed to inform, influence, and sometimes inspire or inflame fellow citizens. But for people under 30, the only kind of “journalism” they’ve ever known is more like Pravda in the old Soviet Union or the kinds of party media found throughout the Third World. Journalism is an insider’s game, in which the stories are often outlandish, but rarely true; their actual news value is the hints they may offer about shadowy maneuverings that affect people’s lives but take place out of public view, like the rise or fall of a particular colonel who is pictured standing closer to or farther away from El Caudillo or Al Rais. Stories aren’t about the realities they purport to depict; the real stories are always the stories about the story.

American journalists, who now draw their paychecks directly and indirectly from the country’s largest economic interest—technopolies like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook—are now turning the public sphere into a phantasmagoria of conspiracy theories and hysteria to cement the politburo’s position and privilege.

Accordingly, the debate in Washington, D.C., over which great power is feeding more disinformation into the 2020 election cycle isn’t real—it’s not Russia, as collusion impresario and Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff claims, nor, as Attorney General William Barr says, is it China, though he’s closer to the truth. The source of the purposeful disinformation pouring into the American public sphere like untreated sewage is the American elite, led by its tech oligarchs, who own the platforms on which information campaigns are staged and laundered to protect their core interests—foremost among them being cheap Chinese labor and access to Chinese markets.

Let’s return to the two smears from above: Trump scoffs at Black suffering and Trump says military service is for suckers and losers. The former comes from the Washington Post’s famous Watergate reporter Bob Woodward’s new anti-Trump book, and the latter was posted on the website of the Atlantic. Strip away the decorative paraphernalia that dresses them up to look like news articles, and both of these pieces of “journalism” are actually just tweets. The stories they’re attached to are hollow vessels festooned with brand names to ensure their reach and reception as they circulate through the information ecosystem of social media and cable news platforms.

Of course, when Jeff Bezos bought the Post and Woodward brands in 2013, he had no more idea than Vladimir Putin did that the host of “Celebrity Apprentice” would one day sit in the Oval Office. Bezos acquired them for the same reason the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs picked up the Atlantic—to defend the industry, tech, and political arrangements with China’s manufacturing base that drive their profits from “political interference.”

A little historical background may help explain how America’s information supply has become so badly poisoned. The Atlantic magazine was founded in the mid-19th century in Boston, where it published some of the founding figures of the American nationalist movement in literature like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes. In 2005, its owner moved the Atlantic to Washington, D.C., where it accomplished the rare feat of turning a profit in the contemporary publishing industry—not by selling magazines or ad space, which had been turned into cheap commodities by the rise of the internet, but by billing Beltway lobbyists and tech and defense executives for the opportunity to influence well-known thought leaders at conferences, luncheons, and parties hosted under the Atlantic label in Washington, Aspen, and elsewhere. Laurene Powell Jobs bought a majority share in 2017.

The big message her property sent with its anti-Trump blog post was that Trump is contemptuous of a significant part of his base. What many Trump supporters saw was something else, though: Another proof of the elite’s determination to replay the 2016 election cycle.

Four years ago, few normal Americans imagined that their political class was capable of manufacturing a conspiracy theory out of whole cloth and laundering it through the nation’s spy agencies and the press in the hope of overturning the result of a democratic election. But after four years of Russiagate, and subsequent operations (the Mueller investigation, Ukrainegate, the razing and looting of American cities disguised as “peaceful protests,” etc.), no one is unaware that such coordinated campaigns are possible. In fact, they have become normal.

This time around, the role played by spies in the 2016 election is being filled by former senior Pentagon officials, including James Mattis, Trump’s one-time defense secretary. In June, Mattis wrote an article—in the Atlantic—likening Trump to the Nazis for wanting to dispatch the military to protect the lives, homes, and businesses of American voters.

Gen. Mattis is no stranger to Silicon Valley or its scandals. As head of U.S. Central Command, the four-star Marine general pushed for the products of one Silicon Valley startup to be used on wounded Americans in uniform, and after retiring he won a lucrative seat on the board of the same company, Theranos, which turned out to be the biggest fraud in the history of biotech.

Then there’s Stanley McChrystal, a retired four-star Army general who is reportedly advising a Democratic PAC called “Defeat Disinfo” on how to use Pentagon software to wage information warfare operations against the Trump campaign. McChrystal resigned his post in 2010 after a magazine reporter documented how he and his aides savagely mocked then-Vice President Biden, the man his information warfare campaign is now supposed to install in the White House.

McChrystal’s beef with Trump is something more than just greed or ego. He has been openly critical of Trump for wanting to get American forces out of the Middle East. He ripped the president when Mattis left his Pentagon post because the Marine wanted to keep more troops in Syria. McChrystal was head of operations in Afghanistan and thinks Trump should stay there, too. The problem is, he’s not sure why. As he told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, he thinks the best option is to stay in Afghanistan and “muddle along.” And now he’s getting paid by Silicon Valley, too.

Trump is right that top military brass has it out for him and probably for the reasons he states—because pointless engagements like Afghanistan advance them personally and land them lucrative seats on the boards of defense and technology companies. But the personal ambitions of Pentagon officials are finally no more relevant here than those of the FBI, DOJ, CIA, and State Department bureaucrats who played a role in the first installment of the Russiagate franchise. They’re walk-on parts, as are the various media operatives and outlets like Bob Woodward and the Atlantic, in a much larger corruption of our politics.

The central pillar of the corrupt new order is the American elite’s relationship with China. To be clear, the issue is not that former media organizations like the Post and the Atlantic are pro-China. Both publish articles about the Chinese military, intelligence services, propaganda campaigns, human rights abuses, etc.—at the same time as the Post runs a regular insert produced by the Chinese Communist Party called China Daily. The point is that terms like pro- or anti-Red China are from a different era, when publications like Henry Luce’s Time Magazine were partisan and had points of view.

What matters now are platforms. And for the purposes of information warfare, what’s important is not the content but rather the availability and reach of the platforms, whose job is to protect the American ruling elite’s wealth and preferences by spreading whatever propaganda the elite sees as beneficial. By threatening to split the United States from China, Trump earned the enmity of America’s China Class, which is working hard to remove him from office, and replace him with someone more pliant.

Trump was not the first presidential candidate who noticed there was a tremendous political opportunity in picking up the support of a middle class undone by the ruling class’s foreign trade practices. Democratic Congressman Richard Gephardt made the same case during the 1988 election cycle. Gephardt lost. He lost again in 1992.

By the time the Clinton White House granted China most favored nation trade status in 2000, all of Washington knew that America was running a vast trade deficit that was destined to increase with accession to the World Trade Organization. The price for lifting tens of millions of rural Chinese peasants out of poverty through favorable trade arrangements would be tens of millions of American lives ruined, even as large American companies like Apple and Nike and bankers like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs got richer. The elite reasoned that they had no choice: The rise of China was inevitable. Why fight it?

American political and corporate elites didn’t choose decline. They chose to get rich. By shipping America’s manufacturing base off to China, they seized a business opportunity the likes of which had never been seen before—an enormous captive labor force controlled by an authoritarian regime that guaranteed the steady production of goods at a fraction of what it would cost at home. American cultural elites (Hollywood, sports, art, etc.) who exploited the increasingly large Chinese market for their products provided cover for the China Class cohort with messaging that dovetailed with CCP propaganda.

Who were Americans to judge a great and ancient civilization like China’s for jailing dissidents and enslaving the Uighur minority? Doesn’t America have its own history of slavery and political prisoners? It’s racist to protect American jobs. Those jobs aren’t coming back and there is nothing to be done about it, as Barack Obama famously said—unless you have a magic wand …

Calling out the American elite for betraying American interests in the service of their own personal and corporate bottom lines helped Donald Trump win the presidency. But it’s not clear that he truly understood how deeply entwined Beijing’s interests were with America’s China Class—and that trying to decouple the two would lead to an attempt at a permanent coup by the new techno-elite, targeting not just him and his supporters but the foundations of the republic, from our military to the media, and from our justice system to the institution of the presidency itself.

The American elite’s financial relationship with China is the key to understanding what’s been happening in America the past four years. Any president, Democrat or Republican, who took on China would have been targeted by the China Class. Because it was Trump flying the Republican banner who sided with America’s working men and women, the Democrats resorted to alliances with powers that now threaten the stability and security of the country.

#china #trump #media #journalism #conspiracy stuff #conspiracy #bourgeoisie #class warfare #class war #information warfare #psychological warfare

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skippyv20 · 5 years

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Lovely! Thank you😁❤️❤️❤️❤️

The Trumps gift the Queen a Tiffany brooch and an Air Force One jacket

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump gifted Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip a Tiffany brooch and an Air Force One jacket during their state visit to the UK.

As part of the long-held tradition of heads of state swapping official presents, the Trumps showered the royal couple with gifts on Monday, the first day of their three-day trip across the pond.

The Queen was given a silver and silk poppy brooch from Tiffany & Co. in a custom red leather White House jewelry box, according to the White House.

Presents: President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump gifted Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip a Tiffany brooch and an Air Force One jacket during their state visit to the UK

Gifts: The brooch that was given to the Queen is likely the Elsa Peretti sterling silver and red silk brooch that is retailing for $650 on the Tiffany & Co. website (left). Meanwhile, the Duke of Edinburgh received a personalized Air Force One jacket. Former President John F. Kennedy’s Air Force One bomber jacket is pictured (right)

Melania’s spokesperson Stephanie Grisham told CNN that the first lady was ‘very involved with the gift selection.'

'Working with the State Department, Mrs. Trump takes great care in selecting meaningful gifts,’ she said. The piece of jewelry is likely the Elsa Peretti sterling silver and red silk brooch — called Amapola after the Spanish word for poppy — that is retailing for $650 on the Tiffany & Co. website. Meanwhile, the Duke of Edinburgh received a personalized Air Force One jacket, which has been worn by many US presidents over the years.

It is usually navy and features the presidential seal with the embroidered words Air Force One in white on one side of the chest and the wearer’s name in italics on the other.

History: Air Force One jackets are usually navy and features the presidential seal with the embroidered words Air Force One in white on one side of the chest and the wearer’s name in italics on the other. Former President Gerald R. Ford’s Air Force One jacket is pictured in 2006

History: The Duke was also given a signed first edition of World War II air commander James Doolittle’s autobiography titled, 'I Could Never Be So Lucky Again’ (right). General Doolittle is pictured (left)

Air Force One — which can be any Air Force aircraft carrying the American leader — usually refers to specific planes equipped to transport the president.

Prince Philip, now 97, was an accomplished pilot in his day and gained his RAF wings in 1953, his helicopter wings in 1956, and his private pilot’s license in 1959.

The Duke of Edinburgh was also given a signed first edition of World War II air commander James Doolittle’s autobiography titled, 'I Could Never Be So Lucky Again.'

General Doolittle was an aviation pioneer who led the daylight air raid on Tokyo and other Japanese cities four months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

The Duke, who has retired from public duties and spends much of his time at Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate, is not taking part in the official engagements as part of the US state visit and did not meet the Trumps at the palace behind the scenes.

Queen Elizabeth II presented the commander-in-chief with a first edition copy of Winston Churchill’s 'The Second World War.’ A newer copy of the book is pictured

The Queen also gave Trump a three-piece Duofold pen set — a fountain pen, rollerball pen, and ballpoint pen with EIIR cipher — using the obsidian design exclusively made for her.

Presented after a private lunch at Buckingham Palace on Monday, the crimson book features gold tooled decoration on the cover, spine, and inner cover, an EIIR cipher in gold on the front, silk endpapers, and hand-sewn headbands in colors of the US flag with all pages edged in gilt.

Donald Trump is a known fan of Churchill’s and he restored the bust of the former prime minister to the Oval Office immediately after he assumed the presidency.

Melania, meanwhile, was given a specially-commissioned silver box with a handcrafted enamel lid from the monarch.

Custom: The monarch gave Melania a specially-commissioned silver box with an enamel lid featuring roses, thistles, and shamrocks to represent the ceiling of the palace music room

Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip (pictured on Tuesday) have also presented the Trumps with gifts

Some thought it was 'sexist that May gave Melania a bespoke tea set made by designer Emma Bridgewater, while Trump was presented a copy of Churchill’s personal draft of the 1941 Atlantic Charter…

Estimate: It’s unclear how much Melania’s custom design cost, but a large 'Purple Pansy’ teacup and saucer retail for $61.95 on the Emma Bridgewater website

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tomorrowusa · 4 months

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youtube

Nepo baby Donald Trump is a draft dodger who got his rich daddy to pay a doctor in the 1960s to write a note saying that little Donny had a "bone spur" which made him ineligible for military service during the Vietnam War. His "bone spur" hasn't prevented him from spending hours on golf courses or haranguing followers in lengthy speeches while hopping around on a stage.

And he's a notorious adulterer, not to mention adjudicated sex offender, who considers marital fidelity an optional thing the way he views laws.

But Trump is hypocritically castigating Nikki Haley's husband Michael for serving his country in a way Trump never could conceive of.

Trump attacks Haley for absence of her husband, who is deployed

Trump is also famous for calling veterans and Americans killed in action "suckers" and "losers".

John Kelly confirms Trump privately disparaged U.S. service members and veterans Trump called fallen soldiers "suckers" and "losers" during his presidency, according to a 2020 report in The Atlantic.

During his term, Trump tried to camouflage his cowardly past by surrounding himself with generals (who ended up loathing him), decorating the Oval Office with military paraphernalia, and holding a half-baked military parade in Washington.

This is somebody who pals around with America's enemies like Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin while disparaging our long time friends and allies.

Trump is unfit to be a crossing guard – let alone the commander-in-chief of the United States.

This incident is yet another reminder of what a despicable and disgusting individual Donald Trump is.

#donald trump #nikki haley #south carolina #michael haley #trump disparages our military #trump hates people who serve their country #nepo baby #trump is a draft dodger #trump's fake bone spur #vote blue no matter who #election 2024

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lethal-liability · 4 years

Note

5, 26 and 44 from the ask thing 😁😊

Yay!

5: what are you looking forward to?

Oddly enough I'm excited for next semester because I'm starting German 1002 and I'm taking my first production class which means I get to start working on sets!

26: what's the last dream you can remember?

Last night actually, I dreamed I was decorating a gingerbread house on the White House lawn. A secret service man approached me and was really impressed by my icing skills and took me to show it to the president. I was really nervous because I was gonna have to be fake nice to Donald Trump but I walked into the oval office and the president was Daniel Dae Kim.

44: what do you do for fun?

Recently I like to play the wikipedia game just to find interesting new articles. I also like playing video games, dancing, and walking by dog in the Bayou

#asks #thanks!#ari screams into the void

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prettypeary · 5 years

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Noteworthy stuff from 4x12

That's right bitches we back!!!!!

Well. That's why I dont trust worms.

Give alex a kid 2k19

"I sense sarcasm which I find confusing" god I missed brainy

Nia confirming Lena's compartmentalization probs isnt healthy

I feel, in my bones, that ben lockwood was a privilaged frat boy

Superdad helping his kids work together

I too would love a picture of katie mcgrath for Valentine's day

Alex saying she hates Valentine's day when she loved it before Maggie breaks my heart

*casually and shockingly finds hidden safe*

Lockwood asking his goddamned teenage son to become a criminal

THEY BROKE UP

Big sister danvers mode has been activated

Nia looks FANTASTIC

Lena just made a real rash decision whilst drinking

The show didnt have to make the oval office decor the same as trump's...but they did

#welp #anyway i tried to not write a novel this time #kara danvers #alex danvers #lena luthor #james olsen #brainiac 5 #nia nal #ben lockwood #agent of liberty #children of liberty #dreamer #supergirl #season 4 #episode 12 #4x12 #supergirl spoilers

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iihih · 7 years

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Oval Office Trump Style: My Inauguration Gift

I decided to save soon-to-be President Trump and the First Lady some time. I’ve redecorating the oval office for them, leaving them more time to build the wall, make more cutbacks to diverse art programs, public broadcasting and the like. (more…)

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#baroque interior #cheetah print drapery #Crystal Penis Chandelier #Emperor Trump painting #french antiques #leopard print carpeting #marble and gilded coffee table #Oval Office decorated for the Trumps #oval office interior design #Oval Office Trump Style #Ralph Wolfe Cowan #rococo furnishings #steve payne #white house oval office

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klobsquad · 6 years

Text

The Nitty Gritty

warning(s): will cause you to lose a few brain cells

word count: 2716

summary: tom wilson has an eventful visit to the white house

note: thank you all for 100 followers! here’s a gift from us here at klob squad

ao3: link

“Who’s ready to see the orange troll?” Oshie yells. The whole bus cheers, and everybody claps. Tom joins in, getting up from his seat to bump his chest against Kuznetsov’s. He’s excited, of course. It’s a momentous occasion; it’s not every day that one gets to meet the President of the United States. The guys are messing around, Vrana and Burakovsky screaming something about his tiny hands. Tom feels something stirring underneath, something primal. It’s a feeling he hasn’t felt in a long time, not since the playoffs, not since - well. He can only hope that he’s wrong, that the time isn’t now. Not in front of the orange man. Not Gritty - Donald Trump, Tom’s hero.

Tom leaned his head against the cool bus window and inhaled deeply. He was having trouble controlling his anxiety over meeting the President, but tried to come across as calm and collected to his teammates. He reached up to the collar of his shirt and tugged at his tie to loosen it a bit, feeling his heart rate quicken as they neared the White House. Tom remembered watching all the presidential debates and really resonating with his policies. His absolute disregard for his opponents and citizens of his country meshed perfectly with Tom’s disregard for his opponents on the ice.

The bus barreled through the crowded streets of Washington D.C., past the giant crowds gathered on street-corners, decked out in shirts and jerseys of their favorite players. There were countless signs and flags, and of course phones being raised to record the momentous occasion. The visit to the White House garnered almost as many people as the Stanley Cup parade had, and as Tom looked out to the sea of red, he felt the butterflies in his stomach rise once again. It felt deeper this time, stronger than it ever had before. Only when the bus pulled into the White House parking lot did this mysterious anxiety subside, replaced with the nervous and exciting energy of getting to meet Trump.

Tom could hear the excited cheering of the crowd as he and the rest of the team stepped off the bus. Even with all the noise, he could still hear what sounded like someone screaming for hemorrhoid cream through the earpiece of the secret service agent next to him. The man, dressed impeccably in a well fitted suit and black sunglasses, not a hair out of place, remained as stoic as ever as he led the team through the back entrance.

He walks down the red carpet, laid down under Ovi’s request and under pressure by Putin, with the rest of his team. Tom isn’t sure why Ovi and Putin are so close; he asked once if Ovi was a Russian spy, but his captain just winked at him and told him to focus on what’s important, which Tom assumes means physical violence. He smiles and waves to the fans, high-fiving some of them as he walks past, until finally he reaches the doors. He enters the White House, feeling a sense of awe come over him; he’s finally here, in the second most important building in America (Capital One Arena being number one, of course). There’s a strange smell in the air, something that he thinks smells vaguely of spray tan, but he’s never gotten one before, so he isn’t quite sure. It’s a smell that most would describe as putrid, but to him, it’s comforting.

Tom, along with the rest of his teammates, gathered in the foyer. He took a moment to take in his surroundings; expensively decorated with white marble floors, white walls, and paintings depicting previous White House residents adorned the historic building. The flash of a camera pulled him out of his trance and suddenly he was hyper aware of the media personnel scattered around them. An ethereal voice garbled in his ear “Hello, Tom.” Tom quickly scanned the room of people around him, nerves bubbling under his skin, searching for the source of the voice. He shrugged it off, thinking it was a figment of his imagination. A man called over the hum of the crowd, and motioned for everyone to follow him to where the congratulatory speech by Trump himself would take place. As Tom took his first steps forward, he felt his headshot gene involuntarily flex and send a tingle up his spine.

Stepping carefully into the famed oval office, and making sure not to trip over any of the camera men’s abundant wires, Tom was overwhelmed by what he saw. Just a few feet away, across the glossy marble floor and persian rugs, stood Donald Trump. The orange skinned man was standing gracelessly, slumped over and in a tie too short and too tight for his turkey-like neck. His flow - marvelously yellow and fluffy, combed over to perfection. His arm is slung over Melania, who by comparison was elegant and beautiful, her skin pulled taut and her facelift looking masterfully crafted. A million thoughts are racing through Tom’s mind, his breathing getting faster than his rate of suspension. Backstrom comes over to check on him, worry visible in the Swede’s face, but Tom can only wave him away. He has to deal with this on his own.

“I want to thank you all for coming,” Trump begins, in his usual nasally tone. “This was a yuge win for me, and I’m sure you are all honored to be in my presence.” The group murmured in confirmation as Trump began to ramble on, taking out various charts that depicted his chances of winning the Stanley Cup. As Trump spoke, Tom was transfixed on Trump’s gloriously plump head. It bobbed and shook as the aging man struggled to deliver his narcissism riddled speech. As the speech wore on, Tom began to feel that same stirring feeling he felt when he was on the bus. He began to tune out what Trump was saying, as sweat trailed down his back. And that’s when he heard it; the voice from the hallway, a voice he was hoping he would never hear again. “Tom,” it called from the distance, “It is time. Time to repay your debts.”

Gritty. No - it couldn’t be. They’d had an agreement, yes; the Stanley Cup ring on his finger means he can’t forget about that, but why here? No, he thinks as loud as he can, hoping Gritty can somehow hear him. He ignores the voice, following his teammates into the handshake line. Ovi is at the front, the alternates behind him, and Tom is near the back of the line. As he stands there, waiting, he feels his nerves begin to rise again. It’s almost time for him to meet his idol, to meet Trump, and shake his hand, and -

“Take out Air Force One. You have five minutes,” Gritty says, cutting into his thoughts. Tom feels a sort of tension brewing inside of him, the same kind he feels when he’s on the ice and someone’s head is nearby, and - no, no, not here!

Ovechkin grabs Trump’s hand firmly, the pair whispering joyously between each other. Tom can only wonder what they’re discussing, but if there comes news of NHL-related collusion in the White House, well… After him is Nicke, of course, who is never far behind his captain. He moves away quickly after the handshake, making sure to subtly wipe his hand on his suit jacket. The line moves far more quickly than Tom can anticipate, and he finds himself shaking - whether in fear or excitement he can’t tell, but when he looks down he can see his entire body trembling almost as intensely as one of his headshot victims. He watches as the line shrinks; Holtby, Kuzy, Eller, Orlov, Carlson all pass through, and only a few more people are before him. There’s a buzzing in Tom’s ears, a frequency that can’t be turned down, and as he clutches his head in his hands he gets another message from the other orange being.

“Don’t fuck it up.” Gritty whispers to him maliciously, the voice reverberating around Tom’s mostly hollow noggin.

As the distance between Tom and the President shrinks, the murmurs and clicks of the cameras fade away as his focus zeroes in on his target. The ringing in his ears grows louder, and he’s on high alert. Andre Burakovsky is the last teammate in line before him, and as he steps up to Trump, Andre turns around and throws Tom a wide grin. Hurry the fuck up you dumb Swede, Tom thinks, blood rising to his already spinning head. He had to admit he always thought Andre was a couple fries short of a happy meal, and right now he was pissing him off. Andre stepped to the side after shaking Trump’s hand, and time seemed to slow down.

The only thing Tom could hear as he steps up to the President is the blood rushing to his head. Trump reached his tiny hand forward, and Tom did everything in his power to resist the power of Gritty. As he grasped the President’s hand, he froze, his eyes dilating, and before he could stop himself, he felt his head lurch forward the way it has so many times before. His head slammed against Trump’s with a loud THWACK that resonated around the Oval Office. Trump’s body went flying like a puck through the cold air, crashing through the picturesque windows and out on to the front lawn. That was the last thing Tom remembered seeing before everything went black.

Tom feels a powerful force hit him from behind, and his body drops to the ground. He tries to look up and see what had happened, but all he can see is black. A large, shadowed figure appears, and as it draws closer, Tom can see the unmistakable rotund shape and messy orange fur - Gritty. Gritty comes closer, until all Tom can see is its face. Gritty’s googly eyes spin around, stopping for a moment as they peer right into Tom’s soul. “You did well, Tom,” it says. Suddenly, Gritty fades away, and with it goes the blackness. Tom can see again, and he’s still in the Oval Office. Several large, burly men are on top of him, almost as though he’s in a scrum on the ice, but he’s not wearing skates, and these aren’t hockey players; they’re Secret Service members. The room is loud and chaotic, his teammates being ushered away by the suited men while others yell at each other to contain him - contain Tom. He thinks back to a few minutes ago, how he couldn’t help himself, and knows that he must check on Trump. He fears that Gritty’s message meant the worst, and soon enough, he’ll be in a high-security federal prison with no way of knowing what happened to his idol. Tom starts to thrash, trying to escape their grip so he can check on his president, and they only press harder. He isn’t strong enough. He feels like he’s being treated like an animal, not deserving of compassion or sympathy. This isn’t how people should be treated, well, unless you’re that rat Brad Marchand.

Tom could feel hands envelop his body, dragging him out of the Oval Office. The handcuffs cut uncomfortably into his wrists as two straight faced Secret Service agents gripped his arms tightly and shoved him towards the police car that awaited his arrival outside the doors that the team had walked through not an hour earlier. He was roughly shoved into the back of the car, and the door slammed behind him soon after. He craned his neck around to catch a glimpse of the now ex President’s lifeless body splayed across the White House front lawn and sighed. Tom turned back around to face forward, and hung his head in despair. The police car’s siren sounded as the car sped off to take Tom to where he’d be locked up for his foreseeable future.

With news spreading around the league of Tom Wilson’s assassination of President Donald Trump and the subsequent overthrow of the U.S. government by Communist leader Gritty, The Athletic sat down with some of the players at the 2019 NHL Media Day to see how they felt about the national incident.

When asked, Washington Capitals captain and former teammate of the suspect Alexander Ovechkin responded with one quick remark, before refusing to answer any more questions on the topic.

“When team went to White House, I remind him not to be stupid. But what he do? Be stupid.”

When interviewing Pittsburgh Penguins team captain Sidney Crosby, he proceeded to dance around the subject, saying, “You know, uuhhhh we just gotta keep gettin’ pucks to the net.”

He then fastened a butterfly jibbit onto one of his crocs, seemingly to calm his nerves.

The NHL’s up and coming superstar, Edmonton Oilers’ Connor McDavid was also interviewed about the tragedy. He seemed to ponder for a moment, in his usually quiet disposition, before sneezing loudly.

“No comment.” was all McDavid had to offer before he had to leave for practice. Sources say, however, there was no practice being held, and that McDavid felt uncomfortable and wanted to leave.

Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin had a more personal take on the matter. “I think that for an NHL player to actually go out and kill someone, in cold blood, especially knowing that there are children watching live - it’s just beyond wrong,” he told Hurricanes reporters. “I have no words. Think about what Jesus would say. He would absolutely not stand for this. No one, not even Trump, deserves to be so violently slaughtered by that - well, I’m a good Christian man, so I’m not going to say it. Wilson can be forgiven, of course, but it’s not our place to do so. He’s in Jesus’ hands now. Amen.”

Last, but certainly not least, the Boston Bruins’ feisty left winger Brad Marchand was stopped and asked about the incident. Marchand has a history of playing a dirty game, and so it seems his response was not particularly surprising.

“Eh,” he said, breathing closely into the mic, “I thought it was a clean hit.”

Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere, when asked about his thoughts on the matter involving his team’s former mascot and current Temporary Dictator of the U.S., Gritty, said “I mean, honestly, anything’s better than Trump, I guess. I thought Communism was bad, but so far Gritty’s already done a lot of good for this country, and it’s only been a few days. Maybe we should be thanking Wilson. Wait, forget I said that. Murder is wrong, kids, even if it does make the world a better place. Wait.”

Tom was lying in his cold cot in his cell, with a single threadbare sheet as the only luxury that he was allotted. He had used more brain power to think about his actions of the previous day than he had ever used before. His head ached from the mental exertion. Tom closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to calm his thoughts.

He opened his eyes and scanned his surroundings - dark gray walls, scarce lighting that emitted a foreboding touch to his already depressing surroundings, and iron bars that kept him trapped there. He thought his mind was playing tricks on him when he saw a mass of matted orange fluff descend from the ceiling. Gritty completed his acrobatic routine (that was reminiscent of Pink’s “Glitter In The Air” 2010 Grammy performance, if he said so himself) and appeared directly in front of him.

“Was it worth it, Tom?” Gritty asked, his eyes looking in two different directions, neither of which was anywhere close to where Tom actually was. “You were so desperate to win the Stanley Cup that you would do anything, even if it meant sacrificing the rest of your life. You couldn’t just let time take its course. Instead, I made sure the Flyers wouldn’t win this year, and ensured that the Capitals would. ”

“But why this? I would have done anything else,” Tom cried, “Giving up my life as a Cap wasn’t supposed to be part of the deal!”

“You may not be a Capital anymore,” Gritty said, booping Tom’s nose, “But you’ll be a capital murderer forever.”

#100 followers celly #hockey rpf #tom wilson #gritty #donald trump #washington capitals #🌚#🤡#💍#😔

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loveandcigarillos · 6 years

Text

FDT

T’Challa x Black!Reader (ft. Shuri, Agent Ross, and Okoye)

A/N: Inspired by @brianabreeze and @wakanda-4evr with their T’Challa imagines and cannons.

Warnings: Like 6 curse words.

“I like white folks but I don’t like you…”

Shuri and Y/N silently bopped their heads to YG’s lyrics as they busied themselves with their separate projects.

A visitor was on the way to Wakanda and each of them had presentations to make to the latest world leader to enter the once isolated nation. Usually they’d be excited to discuss their respective departments but today was different.

“Fuck Donald Trump! Yeah, nigga, fuck Donald Trump!”

“This song is so profound. Such poignant lyrics.” Shuri remarked with a smile causing Y/N to let a out a few chuckles. Before she could respond with equal amounts of praise for the Californian’s diss track to the leader of the United States, her husband walked into the lab.

Instead of being dressed in his normal traditional attire, he held two ties in his hand, studying the options to decide which one he would pair against his deep blue suit and white button down.

“My love, which of these would you-. What is this?”

“This is poetry!” Shuri answered increasing the volume as Nipsey Hussle's verse began. “Don’t you like it, brother?”

“Shuri,” he started with a smile. While his sister’s antics were funny, the song was inappropriate for the occasion. “while your friend YG’s music is rather poetic, this is not the time for this particular song.”

“Pick the kente one, baby.” Y/N answered in between laughing at her younger sister. She gently pulled the piece of cloth from T’Challa’s hands and positioned it around his neck to begin the process of tying it for him.

He gave her a thank you in the form a forehead kiss and turned his attention to his sister.

“You don’t like Mr. Trump, eh?”

“No, and neither should you! He shouldn’t even be here. Do you see the things that he says on Twitter?”

“I am not familiar with the platform. You run my account, remember?”

Shuri declined to verbally answer his question, instead showing him a series of tweets that were fired off at ungodly hours of the morning about matters that a world leader normally would not entertain.

T’Challa gave the tweets a curious look, not sure what he should do with the information. “Maybe he is just passionate?”

“Or maybe he is an idiot.” Y/N spoke up after doing the final adjustments on his tie and slightly lifting her body on her toes to kiss his nose.

“Do not tell me you have objections as well, uthando. I can not have you upset during this. You are set to entertain his wife.”

“And I will do just that. I will do everything in my power to support you. Still, he’s an asshole.”

“Listen to the outsider.” Shuri sneered.

Y/N playfully rolled her eyes and turned to meet T’Challa’s confused expression. “This man is not good. Do you know how he feels about nations like the one we are standing in right now?”

“I think the expression is ‘shithole country’?” Agent Ross answered strolling into the lab. T’Challa had requested Everett’s attendance to act as an advisor for the day. T’Challa claimed that it was because Agent Ross is an American but Y/N knew better. The King needed a bridge between himself and the white man he’d be greeting in mere moments.

Ross greeted everyone in the room with the customary bow before handing T’Challa the tablet with the afternoon’s pertinent information.

“Shithole?”

“That’s not even the worse part. He says he grabs women by the pus-“

“What Shuri was going to say,” Y/N said loudly enough to stop Shuri’s sentence. “,is that Mr. Trump frequently says inappropriate things. Be careful.”

T’Challa’s eyes shifted between the three of his advisors,wondering how they had allowed him to put his beloved country in such a volatile situation. If he had been privy to this information even a day ago, he would not have allowed this man within Wakanda’s borders.

Before he could inquire further, Okoye cleared her throat to get the King’s attention.

“My King, your guest and his wife are here. He is touching things and my desire to impale him to the wall is growing more and more by the second. Please, join us.”

Y/N placed one more kiss against his lips though he was too distracted to return it. She firmly grasped his shoulder to turn and push him towards the laboratory’s exit, giving Agent Ross a non-verbal cue to make sure that her husband would be okay. Everett gave her a reassuring look before following T’Challa to the main foyer.

“Are you ready, little sister?” Y/N asked while collecting the materials that she would need to make her presentation on Wakanda’s innovative education system.

“As ready as I’ll be. But, if he gets out of hand…” Shuri said trailing off and lowering her voice. “I’ve created a remote catapulting system that will send him flying all the way back to the Oval Office.”

The day was relatively mild once the group split off into their own jobs. Y/N spent much of her time explaining how Wakandan pupils matriculate at the nation’s post secondary institution though Melania did not seem to be paying attention. In fact, the dead look in her eyes translated to more of a lack of understanding than lack of interest. Her only responses were her unrelated questions about the Queen’s jewelry or about the decor in one of the palace’s sitting areas.

“You are American, no?” Melania asked abruptly, cutting Y/N off in the middle of her sentence. Though she was internally ticked off by the interruption, the Queen remembered her promise to her husband.

“Yes. I’m originally from Georgia but spent the latter half of my adulthood as the head of the education department at Teachers College, Columbia University.”

“We are very similar!” The First Lady answered reaching to grab Y/N’s hand. A swift movement allowed the Queen to escape the unwanted contact causing Melania to awkwardly clasp her hands in front of her.

“You were the head of an education department?”

“No...but we both married very rich men to get to get to where we are.”

“I…,” Y/N trailed off deciding whether or not she wanted to gather the woman walking beside her. “...sure. Of course.”

Her answer was given through gritted teeth presenting themselves as a forced smile. Before she could go on, T’Challa rounded the corner ahead of President Trump and Agent Ross clenching his eyes shut and rubbing his temples in tight circles.

When he finally opened his eyes, he was met by a sympathetic yet amused look from his wife. She new exactly how he felt.

“Back so soon, handsome?”

“Ay, beautiful, the two hours, 37 minutes and 14 seconds I spent away from you were far too long.”

T’Challa placed an innocent kiss on Y/N’s lips, simultaneously whispering ‘help me’ against her mouth sending her into a fit of giggles.

From the outsider's perspective, it looked like the newlyweds were harmlessly flirting. President Trump, not wanting to be outdone, made an attempt to grab his own wife. Mimicking Y/N’s maneuver earlier, she quickly dodged his advance, preferring to examine her nails for the 100th time that day.

“Uh, hi lovebirds,” Agent Ross said gaining the attention of everyone in the vicinity. “Yeah, Shuri says that lunch is ready. Shall we?”

“Ah, yes, lunch. I had my staff prepare a fusion of Wakandan and American dishes. I hope that they are up to par, Mr. Trump.”

“President.”

“Yes...President.”

The group proceeded to walk idly down the long corridor to the formal dining room, making small talk as they inched closer to the large doors at the end of the hallway.

“Shuri has the system prepared whenever you’re ready, T. I have the remote. Just say when.”

“That won’t be necessary, Y/N.” He laughed, slyly removing the small remote from his wife’s hand and intertwining his fingers with hers. “Only lunch is left and this day will be done.”

“More than enough time for you to make it up to me, hm?”

The two of them wiggled their eyebrows at each other, sharing a loud laugh while rounding the corner to enter the spacious dining room.

T’Challa pulled his wife’s chair out before making his move to the head of the table. Noticing that the president had already sat down before doing the same for his own wife, T’Challa graciously pulled out her chair earning another amused look from Y/N. She would tease him about that later.

“So little girl,” Donald said directing his statement towards Shuri. “What’s your name?”

He spoke to her in slow measured sentences as if she were a child that had not yet grasped how to properly communicate.

“I am Princess Shuri. You may address me as such from this moment on. Thank you.”

Muffled coughs and amused laughs were scattered across the dining room. Trump opened his mouth to speak again but closed it, instead preferring to address Y/N for the first time that day.

“Y/N -“

“Queen Y/N” She corrected, stealing a glance at a smiling Shuri.

“Right, Queen. Are you planning to produce a son for the King? I’m not sure how you people do it here but, in my country, a son takes over for his old man when the time comes. You want that for your husband don’t you?”

She opened her mouth to speak but felt a hand grip her thigh, advising her to let her husband handle this one. T’Challa could handle the microaggressions but would not allow his wife to be disrespected.

“When the time is right, an heir will be born. It does not matter the gender of the child. They will inherit the throne barring some unforeseen circumstance.”

“I see.” Trump answered. It was evident that he had more to say but decided to turn his attention Agent Ross instead. “What department do you oversee here? Must be big considering you left the greatest country in the world to come here.”

“Well, actually, I don’t -“

“He runs nothing in this country. Why do you assume that?” Y/N piped up. The entree had not even been brought out and the meal was already spiraling out of control.

“He’s an American. He came over here to help you people. That’s what we do.”

“You people, eh?” Shuri inquired. “Tell me, Donald, what kind of people are we?”

“This is adult business, princess.” He said, laughing. “Kids, I tell ya.”

Everyone one in the room watched in shock as the outsider took the back of his hand and lightly tapped T’Challa’s chest. All eyes followed T’Challa’s as he looked to the spot that had just been touched and back to the offender.

“Yep. I’ve made that mistake before.” Agent Ross said while shaking his head and sipping his water. “The nice bald lady won’t like that.”

“Kumkani wam, ndimele ndibeke isandla sakhe ngomkhonto okanye ngamazinyo?” Okoye had asked the King about the proper method to dispose of the target hand while staring at the now pale man.

T’Challa only raised his hand as a signal to stand down. He calmly removed the napkin from his lap and stood, causing everyone to stand along with him in anticipation.

“Mr. Trump, I believe it is time for you to go. Perhaps we can continue our conversation through an email? Allow my wife and I to escort you all to the loading hangar.”

Though his tone was pleasant, there was no mistaking the firmness in his statement.

The dignitary quickly stood up, making a move to shake his peer’s hand but receiving a blank stare in its place.

Y/N latched on to her husband’s left arm, discreetly turning to Shuri to give her the thumbs up.

The couples quickly made their way to the aircraft responsible for returning the unwanted guest and his wife back to the U.S.

Hasty goodbyes were offered before the older man and considerably younger woman were completely out of sight.

“You know, I feel bad for her. It must be hell having to wake up to that every morning.”

T’Challa let out a belly laugh while pulling his wife close to place a kiss on the top of her head. Once he had settled, he used his Kimoyo beads to reach his teenage sister.

“Shuri, play it over the palace speaker system.”

“Play what, brother? There are no announcements in the queue.” She replied confused at her older brother’s request.

“Play the song.”

A devious smile played at the princess’s lips before she emphatically pressed play on the board in front of her.

“Fuck, Donald Trump. Yeah, nigga, fuck Donald Trump!”

#t'challa #t'challa x reader #t'challa imagine #black panther imagine #black panther fics #Chadwick Boseman #chadwick boseman imagine

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