#Primary Care Conference

[vijaykumarpradhan]

Innovations in Mental Health Webinar Secure your spot for the upcoming mental health live webinar to uncover the advanced therapies and integrative approaches in mental health treatment

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HIV/AIDs Research and Treatment Breakthroughs

Explore the latest breakthroughs in HIV/AIDS research and treatment, that have the potential to reshape the landscape of HIV/AIDS management.

[coochiequeens]

What is the new speak word for ass? As in Dr Ilana Sherer should pull her head out of her ass? Because no self respecting woman is calling her clitoris a "dicklet"

Prominent doctor at the American Academy of Pediatrics proposes renaming penises 'outies', vaginas 'front holes' and clitorises 'd*cklets'

Dr Ilana Sherer is a pediatrician from California who providers transgender care

She gave a presentation at the AAP National Conference in Washington, DC

READ MORE: Academy of Pediatrics backs transgender care for minors

By ALEXA LARDIERI U.S. DEPUTY HEALTH EDITOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 14:46 EDT, 23 October 2023 | UPDATED: 05:03 EDT, 24 October 2023

A top pediatrician has called for child doctors to start calling the vagina a 'front hole' and the penis an 'outie.'

Dr Ilana Sherer, a pediatrician in Dublin, California,  gave a presentation Sunday at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition and called for more gender neutral terminology for body parts. 

Her proposals, given during a workshop entitled 'Discussing Gender and Sexuality in the Primary Care Office,' included referring to the vagina as an 'innie,' 'front hole,' or 'T-penis' and the clitoris as 'd*ck' or 'd*cklet.' 

She also proposed calling breasts 'chest' or 'chesticles.' For male anatomy, Dr Sherer recommended pediatricians call the penis 'outie,' 'junk,' 'strapless,' or 'bits.' 

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A top pediatrician has called for child doctors to start calling the vagina a 'front hole' and the penis an 'outie.'

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Dr Ilana Sherer, a pediatrician in Dublin, California,  gave a presentation Sunday at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition and called for more gender neutral terminology for body parts. 

Her proposals, given during a workshop entitled 'Discussing Gender and Sexuality in the Primary Care Office,' included referring to the vagina as an 'innie,' 'front hole,' or 'T-penis' and the clitoris as 'd*ck' or 'd*cklet.' 

She also proposed calling breasts 'chest' or 'chesticles.' For male anatomy, Dr Sherer recommended pediatricians call the penis 'outie,' 'junk,' 'strapless,' or 'bits.' 

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Pediatrician Dr Ilana Sherer gave a presentation at the American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference and Exhibition and called for more gender neutral terminology for body parts

Slides from Dr Ilana Sherer's presentation offer advice on how to talk to pediatric patients about gender and sexual identity, including new terms to use to address genitalia 

Dr Sherer is a general pediatrician at Palo Alto Medical Foundation/Sutter Health.

She is board certified by the AAP, an organization to advance child health and well-being, as well as the profession of pediatrics, and serves on the organization's Executive Committee for LGBTQ Health and Wellness.

Some in the medical community have been calling for gender-neutral body terminology for years, recommending 'upper body' for breasts, 'erectile tissue' for penis and 'internal gonads' for ovaries. 

They argue it creates a more inclusive space for people who may not identify as one gender or sex and are not comfortable using gender-specific terminology.

But doctors have previously warned against politicizing medical language because it could confuse public health messaging, especially for people for whom English is not their first language. 

Dr Leonora Regenstreif, a family physician in Canada, told DailyMail.com: 'Health providers don't need to be "cool." We can just politely and respectfully use clinical, anatomical language.

'Kids might giggle or snicker but they will likely be even more put off if we try to "match" their word choices, which may be based on pornographic or inappropriate online resources.'

The physician said a few questions, modified for the age of the patient, like 'are you sexually active?' and 'Have you had intercourse with someone with a penis?' are adequate.

She added: 'Any more detail than this - like suggesting novel words like "front-hole" or "dicklet" - are unnecessary and prurient.'

Furthermore, Dr Julia Mason, a pediatrician in California, told DailyMail.com: 'I am concerned that pediatricians are encouraging dissociation from young people's sexed bodies in the doctor's office, where terms need to be simple and clear.'

Dr Mason added that during Dr Sherer's presentation, she noted rates of unintended pregnancy are high among girls who identify as lesbians. 

'I worry about kids being provided with incomplete information, leading to uninformed behavior and unintended consequences,' Dr Mason said. 

Dr Ilana Sherer is a general pediatrician at Palo Alto Medical Foundation/Sutter Health in Dublin, California

During her presentation at the AAP Conference, Dr Sherer was not speaking on behalf of the organization and her recommendations have not been adopted or implemented by the medical organization. The AAP has not commented on Dr Sherer's presentation. 

When it comes to LGBTQ care, in 2021, the AAP advised doctors treating patients identifying as transgender to ask them what words they would like used when referring to various body parts.

Guidance from July 2022 instructs parents to use 'correct names for body parts' when talking to young children and discussing body development and sexuality. 

In August, the AAP voted to stand by its 2018 guidance that supports LGBTQ access to counseling, hormone therapy, puberty blockers and, occasionally, surgery for minors under 18 years old. 

Any guidance from the AAP is not binding for doctors, but advice announced by a prominent medical advisory body is often implemented by healthcare providers as best practices. 

In trans girls, options include tucking male genital with medical tape or specialized underwear and padding with breast forms of silicone gel, padded bras and padded underwear to accentuate the hips and butt. Additional options include vocal training, makeup tutorials and wigs. 

In trans boys, options include binders like compression garments, and 'packing,' which includes a penile prosthesis and a 'stand to pee device.'

A medical option includes prescribing birth control to patients who are menstruating, which will stop them from their getting periods. 

Other points of Dr Sherer's presentation outlined potential 'non pharmacologic treatment for body dysphoria' for trans girls and trans boys.

Dr Sherer's presentation also outlined how to ask patients about gender, including asking their preferred pronouns, gender identity and sexual orientation, and if they identify as male or female, or neither. 

To get more information on a child's sexual orientation, Dr Sherer said doctors should ask patients if they are in an intimate relationship and what 'parts of your body do you use/have you used for sexual pleasure?

Other questions relate to monogamous relationships, previous and 'side' partners, the genders of a patient's partners and what body parts they use for sexual pleasure. 

The California pediatrician's workshop also recommended doctors 'think about your office' and said they should display affirming signs and posters, ensure staff have adequate inclusivity training, hire a diverse staff that represents patient identities, have all-gender bathrooms, inclusive medical forms, include preferred pronouns on patient charts and display pronoun stickers on staff ID badges. 

Similar recommendations were released by the AAP in June 2021.  

The mission of the AAP is to 'attain optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents, and young adults.'

The mission continues: 'Children have optimal health and well-being and are valued by society. Academy members practice the highest quality health care and experience professional satisfaction and personal well-being.'

The medical care of trans patients has been politicized into a hot-button issue and is becoming a key political battleground heading into the 2024 Presidential Election.

Local and national politicians have been fighting and enacting legislation that limits and even outlaws gender-affirming care for trans children, which can include hormone therapy, puberty blockers and genital reconstruction. 

Up until the wave of state bans began in 2020 and 2021, there were no restrictions at the federal level for access to these treatments, which in some cases are irreversible. 

However, as of May 2023, 20 states have enacted legislation, executive actions, or other policies that restrict or ban healthcare for transgender youths, and more than 100 additional bills are under consideration.

All of the states are Republican or Republican-leaning, and all but one voted for former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. 

Much of the political debate in recent years has been amid concerns that minors who get gender-affirming care are too young to make such a life-changing decision and are not fully aware of the risks.

For example, studies suggest those who are transgender are six times more likely to suffer from autism, and up to 70 percent of trans youths are depressed.

Other studies, including one by the National Institutes of Health, suggest patients are happier after the surgery, further complicating the issue.

There are concerns among Republican lawmakers about the lack of long-term safety data on puberty blockers and hormone drugs, which have seen other countries like the UK and Scandinavia restrict access in minors.

The Food and Drug Administration approved puberty blockers 30 years ago to treat children with precocious puberty - a condition that causes sexual development to begin much earlier than usual.

Sex hormones - synthetic forms of estrogen and testosterone - were approved decades ago to treat hormone disorders or as birth control pills.

The FDA has not approved the medications specifically to treat gender-questioning youth, but they have been used for many years for that purpose 'off label.'

Doctors who treat transgender patients say those decades of use are proof the treatments are not experimental.

Dr Sherer and the AAP could not be reached for comment

[batboyblog]

On Top of the totally fictional story of black immigrants eating their neighbors cats and dogs here are some more totally fictional stories Trump made up in the last month, does he believe these are real things that happened? or does he just not care at all if he lies making things up at will?

1 Harris and the military draft

At a rally in Las Vegas last week, Trump claimed his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, is talking about forcing Americans to serve in the military: “She’s already talking about bringing back the draft. She wants to bring back the draft, and draft your child, and put them in a war that should never have happened.” That’s absolute bunk. Harris is not talking at all about bringing back the draft.

2 Harris’ CNN interview

Trump claimed during a Fox News event in Pennsylvania in early September that Harris “had notes” to assist her during the television interview she did with CNN in late August. He even performed an impression in which he portrayed Harris supposedly looking down at these notes. She didn’t actually have any notes.

3 Transgender children and schools

At an event held by a conservative group in late August, Trump claimed that schools are sending children for gender-affirming surgeries without their parents’ knowledge. He said, “The transgender thing is incredible. Think of it. Your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s going to happen with your child.” Trump’s campaign subsequently made clear to CNN that it could not find a single example of such a thing having happened anywhere in the United States. Parental consent is required for gender-affirming operations; schools have not performed or approved these surgeries for minors behind their parents’ backs. Even after Trump’s campaign demonstrated that it couldn’t substantiate the story, he repeated it days later at a Wisconsin rally in early September.

4 Harris and the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Trump told a vivid story on Fox News in late August about how President Joe Biden supposedly sent Harris to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2022 in an effort to prevent an invasion of Ukraine. Trump claimed Harris was sent “to see Putin in Russia three days before the attack. She went. She said – she gave her case. He attacked three days later. He attacked three days later. He laughed at her. He thought she was a joke.” Trump also told a version of the story at the September debate. But this story, too, is wholly false. Biden never sent Harris to negotiate with Putin – in fact, the Kremlin said in July that Harris and Putin have never spoken – and Harris did not travel to Russia just prior to the invasion. Rather, Harris traveled to a conference in Germany to meet with US allies, including Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky.

5 Harris’ identity

Trump claimed at a convention of Black journalists in late July that Harris used to “only” promote her Indian heritage, then “all of a sudden” made a “turn” and “became a Black person.” Defending the claim, Trump reiterated at the September debate that Harris had “put out” at some point that “she was not Black.” None of that is true. Harris – who was raised in a Black community and graduated from a historically Black university – has embraced her Black identity since her youth. While she has also fondly discussed her South Asian heritage, she never “put out” that she wasn’t Black.

6 Harris’ 2020 primary performance

Trump has repeatedly claimed during the last month that Harris was so unpopular when she previously ran for the presidency, in 2019, that she was the very first candidate to drop out of the crowded Democratic primary. “She was one of 22 people that ran. She was the first one to quit,” he said at a Pennsylvania rally in late August. Not even close. In fact, 13 other Democratic candidates dropped out of the race before Harris did – including the sitting or former governors of Washington, Montana and Colorado; the sitting mayor of New York City; and sitting or former members of the House of Representatives and Senate.

7 Opinions of Roe v. Wade

Facing heavy criticism from Harris and others for appointing three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned the Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision in 2022, Trump concocted a tale that this unpopular decision fulfilled the wishes of “everybody” – including “every Democrat.” “Every Democrat, every Republican, everybody wanted Roe v. Wade terminated and brought back to the states,” Trump said on Fox News in late August. This is not even remotely accurate. Roe was consistently supported by a majority of the American public, and it was overwhelmingly popular among Democrats – with 80% support or better among Democrats in many polls.

8 Elections in California

At a September press conference in California, Trump claimed that “if I ran with an honest vote counter in California I would win California, but the votes are not counted honestly.” He had delivered an even more colorful version of the claim in an interview in late August, saying, “If Jesus came down and was the vote counter, I would win California, okay?” More rubbish. The votes are counted honestly in California, as they are in every other state; Trump loses California because it is an overwhelmingly Democratic state that has not chosen a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. He lost the state in 2020, fair and square, by more five million votes and more than 29 percentage points.

9 A ‘Man of the Year’ award in Michigan

Since 2016, Trump has told a lie that he was named “Man of the Year” in Michigan before he entered politics. Media outlets including CNN have repeatedly noted that Trump never got such an award and that the award doesn’t even appear to exist. But Trump claimed at a Michigan event on Tuesday that he has now been vindicated. “The press said, ‘Oh, it never happened.’ Well, then it did happen. They found out where it was,” Trump said. “But it was like 15 years ago, a beautiful area, but nobody remembered it; nobody remembered it all. All of a sudden, like through a miracle, they found out it did exist.” That’s a lie on top of a lie. The media has not discovered proof that Trump got a Michigan Man of the Year award. His campaign didn’t respond Wednesday to a request to explain what he was talking about.

10 Migrants, prisons and ‘the Congo’

For months, Trump has told a story about how “the Congo” has deliberately emptied prisons to somehow get its criminals to come to the United States as migrants. “Many prisoners let go from the Congo in Africa, rough prisoners,” he said at an August event in Arizona. At an August rally in Pennsylvania the week after, he said, “In the Congo, in Africa: 22 people deposited into our country. ‘Where do you come from?’ ‘The Congo.’ ‘Where in the Congo?’ ‘Jail.’” But Trump has presented zero evidence that “the Congo” has actually emptied any prisons for migration purposes. Representatives for the governments of both the Democratic Republic of Congo and the neighboring Republic of Congo have told CNN on the record that the claim is fiction, experts on the two countries say they have seen no evidence it is true, and Trump’s campaign has ignored requests to offer any substantiation.

11 The jobs revision

After the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics announced in August that its annual revision of jobs data found that the economy added about 818,000 fewer jobs than initially reported for the 12 months ending in March, Trump told a story about how the government had been planning to announce this downward revision “after November 5th,” Election Day, but was forced to do so before the election because of “a whistleblower” – “a patriot leaker.” Another fabrication. The Bureau of Labor Statistics regularly releases the preliminary revised data in August, and it had disclosed the precise date of this particular data release – August 21 – weeks in advance. William Beach, a conservative economist who was appointed by Trump to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, wrote on social media: “For those who think the big revision to the BLS jobs numbers ‘leaked’ and was meant to come out after the election, remember that BLS always announces its draft revisions in August and announced this year’s date, August 21, many months ago. It is important to check your facts.”

[cumplane-forever]

Half-Demon Child (SY) Anatgonizes Da-Shixiong For No Apparent Reason

part of the aeroplane as sqq extended au- might delete later

(Context if you don't want to read allat: sy has been reincarnated as the half-demon son of mobei-jun and og shang qinghua.

In this au shen yuan is a rare plant baby that is made from mixing blood and was an accidental baby acquisition, immediately handed over by og shang qinghua to shen qingqiu. in this specific verse, sqq is aeroplane transmigrated (and also indirectly responsible for sy's birth by directing moshang towards the plant) although it works perfectly with og sqq as well.

sy grew up on qing jing peak with ming fan and ning yingying as his primary caretakeers as he was born in the same year the immortal alliance conference takes place(and sqq is too busy with trying to prevent canon to directly take care of him) in the following he's kind of regaining his memories and realizing he's in pidw. consequently ming fan suffers. ((side note: in this one sy grows at normal rates rather than the renesmee accelerated growing i said he'd have in part 3))

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ming Fan had survived many things in his life. Grueling night hunts. Endless paperwork. Senior martial brothers who thought "delegating" meant shoving every task onto his shoulders.

But nothing- not even the worst administrative nightmare An Ding Peak could conjure- had prepared him for Shen Yuan. At first, things had been fine. Sure, babysitting Shen Yuan had never been part of his plans, but he’d taken to the duty like any responsible disciple would.

Years of wrangling junior disciples had- surprisingly- not translated well into taking care of a literal newborn. Even Ning Yingying with her sunny disposition had struggled at first, but a few hours had revealed her a natural with a knack for subduing cranky babies. When it was his turn, Ming Fan had somehow managed- how he didn't remember, because four years later it was a forgotten blur.

Shen Yuan at the moment, was a tolerable (if slightly spoiled) child. The kind of kid who'd demand to be carried and fed at the same time, but also the kind who would cling to his robes and fall asleep drooling on his shoulder. Annoying, but manageable.

Then, suddenly, something changed. One day, Shen Yuan was sweet and pliant; the next, he glared at Ming Fan like he’d burnt his favourite toy in front of him. Ming Fan had no idea what he’d done to offend the little demon, but the five-year-old was on a mission.

“Shidi,” he said cautiously, watching Shen Yuan kneel in the courtyard, tiny hands cupped together.

“What… are you doing?”

“Ice lotus,” Shen Yuan declared.

“What.”

“I’m making an ice lotus.”

Ming Fan stared. Shen Yuan had been impressed upon, repeatedly, to keep his ice demon heritage under wraps. Sure, all of Qing Jing Peak knew, but the rest of the sect remained oblivious, and it was ideal that it stayed that way. Which meant no using no powers, icy or otherwise outside of the bamboo house and its surrounding gardens.

And yet, here was Shen Yuan, with a crude, half-melted lump of frost that he had manged to conjure in his palms. He stared at it with deep concentration, brow furrowed, lips pursed in an expression that would make any of the shijiemei coo at him and forget the mischief he was partaking in.

Ming Fan pinched the bridge of his nose. “You- Shen Yuan, stop that.”

“No.”

“You can’t just-”

“I’m practicing.”

“You’re five!”

Shen Yuan sniffed imperiously. “I’m cultivating.”

Ming Fan was going to lose his mind. He stalked forward, prepared to confiscate whatever disastrous creation was forming, but before he could, Shen Yuan threw it at him.

Ming Fan yelped as freezing cold slush splattered across his robes.

“Shen Yuan!”

The half-demon grinned insincerely. He then tried to hide his expression behind his hand. “Oh no, my hands slipped,” came the muffled excuse.

Ming Fan clenched and unclenched his jaw. He had an entire day of paperwork to finish, an errand to run for Shang Qinghua, and now he was standing in the courtyard, covered in melting ice, glaring down at a smug little brat.

He inhaled sharply. Patience. Restraint. Think of Ning-shimei. Think of how much worse this could be.

As if sensing his thoughts, Shen Yuan went in for the kill. “Shijie should come back soon. You like her more than me, don’t you, Fan-ge?”

Ming Fan narrowed his eyes. “What? Don’t start.”

“You’re always extra nice to her.”

“That’s because she actually listens when I tell her not to do something!”

Shen Yuan pouted, clearly unconvinced. “You like her.”

Ming Fan, who had been completely over whatever childhood crush he once had, exhaled forcefully. “No.”

Shen Yuan gave him a contemplative expression.

“Oh, don’t even-”

“You like her.”

“A-Yuan, I swear-”

“I’ll tell her you want to marry her.”

“I will have you grounded.”

Before Shen Yuan could escalate further, the subject of their conversation arrived.

“Ming Fan, what are you two yelling about?” Ning Yingying asked, stepping into the courtyard with a basket of sweets.

She stopped short at the sight of Ming Fan, dripping wet and seething. “Eh? What happened to you?”

Shen Yuan, the traitor, turned his wide, innocent eyes on her. “Fan-ge was playing with me, but he got too excited and tripped.”

Ming Fan nearly ascended from frustration. Ning Yingying snickered, but abruptly stifled it.

“Poor Fan-ge.” She fished out a pastry and handed it to Shen Yuan. “Did you behave?”

“He threw ice at me,” Ming Fan snapped.

“He's been having a bad day,” Ning Yingying reasoned, patting Shen Yuan’s head. "You should be glad he was playing at all." The little menace leaned into her hand smugly.

Ming Fan wiped a hand down his face. “I- you know what? You deal with him. I’m done for now.”

"Two shichen?"

"Three."

Ning-shimei looked as if she would argue, but then took a look at him and nodded "..By dinnertime then."

Demon-wrangling hours decided, he nodded and went to change his slush-stained uniform. As he stomped away, he heard Shen Yuan whisper to Ning Yingying, “Fan-ge is so clumsy.”

Vengence, Ming Fan decided, would be best served in the form of letting Ning-shimei cook dinner at the bamboo house that night.

[madridfangirl]

Star crossed lovers (Jude Bellingham fic)

Chapter 7

(Series Link)

Jude * female reader. Mature Language in parts.

Synopsis: A chance encounter in a tiny Madrid cafe with the newest superstar of her fav club. The two couldn't be more different, yet both feel the pull toward the other. Would this girl be the one he finally falls for? Would she make him change his ways? Even though she resists him every step of the way, would he fight all odds (& her) to have her in his life? Or would life come in the way of these star-crossed lovers?

.............................................................................................

Wednesday morning started off on a foul note for Jude. The team landed after a red eye flight & below is what he saw at 6:30 am. 

Ananya: Heyy. Listen, I am so sorry but I can’t make it tonight. NY office just got back and we have tons more to do. All hands on deck. Will be MIA most of today & tmrw. Hope you put something on your bruises. Take care & see ya soon! 

He groaned in frustration. Yesterday had been horrible & he was really looking forward to seeing her tonight. It was his primary motivation to get through the day. But the universe seemed to be conspiring against him.

He stayed in a pissy mood for a bit but sanity prevailed some time later. 

Jude: Heyy, it’s fine. Work is work. Go kick some ass. Lemme know if you get done soon ya?

His message remained unseen till 10:30 pm. She hadn’t come online. He knew, since he had checked more than a few times.

He was about to crash when his phone buzzed.

Ananya: Still in office. Will be a long night. How was your day?

He perked up immediately & grabbed his phone. 

Jude: Talk for a few mins?

Ananya: In conference room with folks, can’t step out.

Deflated, he fell back on the bed, trying to find a comfortable spot. All he needed was some attention from her tonight. For her to fuss over him like she had done yesterday. But alas. 

Jude: Day was ok I guess. Debriefed on the game, lads were being extra nice which was irritating but had a good chat with Boss. How was yours?

Ananya: Hectic, but this deal is so cool it’s blowing my mind.

Jude smiled for the first time today. Her ambition & drive was relatable. Admirable. And so so attractive. 

Ananya: Ok gotta go now. Ciao.

And just like that, his smile faded. 

Jude: Ciao. Eat something. C ya soon!

He twisted & turned in bed a few times. Finally, exhaustion took over and he drifted off to sleep.

Next day was worse, if that was even possible.

He again woke up irritated. The UK tabloids were going to run a trashy story about him & some girl. His team had been contacted for comments & the decision was to not entertain them at all. The story could drop any time now - that was the heads-up he had gotten.

Great, just what he needed.

The message that he wanted to see was not there. Not a single peep from Ananya. He scrolled through the previous messages, re-reading some. And then he froze.

She was going to see the article too. 

Such gossip pieces on him were not uncommon but he mostly ignored them earlier. As did his team. 

But this time, it was different. Because of her. 

He had to get ahead of the situation.

Jude: Morning dove. I know you are busy. Quick heads up - you may see a tabloid piece today about my ‘girlfriend’. It’s all bull ok? I will explain when we talk. 

Burying himself with work seemed like the best solution today. He went extra hard in the gym, pushing himself more, & then some. Letting his irritation be sucked out through sweat and sore muscles.

He was extra feisty in training, didn’t joke around & was super competitive in duels, earning all the applause of the coaching staff and some jeers from his teammates.

Cama and Vini teased him about his new girlfriend who he was apparently smitten by - the article was splashed all over social media by now. He evaded them after engaging in some superficial locker room banter.

Still no reply from her, even though she had seen the first message. 

Jude: (Link) - This is what I was referring to. Like I said, it’s bull. How’s your day going?

When the messages were still unread after 2 hours, he started getting jittery. And did something he wouldn’t have done had he been thinking with a clear head.

He called her, knowing fully well she was dying at work today.

The number was unreachable. He tried again. Same message.

The jitters got stronger. Of the zillion things he was capable of doing to mess this up, this shouldn’t have been it.

It was one of those moments when the house looked emptier. Felt lonelier. He missed his home in Birmingham. He wished his mom were here with him.

She had called him earlier today to check on him, & could tell something was off in his voice. She didn’t push, knowing that he wanted to be left to his own devices.

Boy, he could do with her hug right now.

It was 8:30 pm. He had done everything he could for the day. There was nothing else to busy himself with. His friends from the team were all otherwise occupied tonight. He had no other real, normal friends in the city - ones he trusted/liked enough to hang out with. 

He didn’t wanna talk to his Birmingham friends either - didn’t wanna bring up the article or the match. Wanted to block those out. Jobe was busy with his training too. 

So he gulped his dinner while watching some random episodes of The Great British Bake Off. Something that used to be a family ritual back home.

Still no word from her. It was 10 pm.

It wasn’t fair. He hated feeling this restless. That’s why he stayed away from the complications of attachments - too much fucking drama that he absolutely didn’t need in his life right now. As if the pressures on him weren’t enough already.

His treacherous messed up self didn’t comply with his brain though.

Jude: Don’t overthink this. Talk to me once.

10:30 pm. Still nothing. 

He was about to get up from his couch & drag himself to bed, when he saw the blue ticks started coming on her chat. She hadn’t blocked him then?

He grabbed his phone & dialled her number, shoving his pride aside. She picked up in two rings.

‘Heyyyy Judeyyy.’

She slurred on the line. Jude was stunned. Was this for real? 

He channelled all his inner calmness - wanting to get the facts first.

‘Ananya - are you drunk?’

‘Siiii. We just downed half a bottle of tequila in three sixty minutes. No thirty-six. I meant thirty-six mins.’

He took a few deep breaths, as she giggled on the line. 

‘Tell me where you are. I am picking you up.’

‘I am in a moving car - how will you pick me up from a moving car?’

‘What the fuck do you mean you are in a car? Who are you with? And why the fuck are you drinking in a car?’

He lost his patience despite his best efforts.

‘Yikes why the screaming? Hurting my ears Jude. So rude. Heyyy, that rhymed.’

He nearly pulled out a few of his flawlessly trimmed hair in frustration. When he spoke next, he broke up each word like he was talking to a child.

‘One step at a time yeah? Send me your live location.’

She managed to do that after a few failed attempts. Relief flooded over him when he saw she wasn’t too far from her home & on the right route.

‘Good girl. Now, are you alone, or is someone with you?’

‘I am in a limo. A black limo. Like in the movies. Can you believe it?’

‘That’s great. Not what I asked though. Is someone with you, Ananya?’

‘Roma. But she’s passed out. Wait let me see again? Yup - passed out.’

‘Was it such a smart thing to drink so much that you pass out in the back of a car? When you are alone?’

‘Hey, she passed out. Not me. Pls - my capacity is legendary. Ask me the square root of 1576 & I'll tell you.’

He was amused but had to remind himself that he was still mad. 

‘Where were you today?’

Somehow, from her broken sentences, he gathered that the MD of their team lived on the outskirts of Madrid and there was a presentation of the final work at his mansion today. It was his limos that were dropping the team home. And the girls found the tequila in the car & just went for it after the grueling last 48 hours of work.

He also understood that her phone was on airplane mode most of the day. So she hadn’t seen his messages. Hadn’t seen the article either. 

Suddenly, there was some commotion on the line.

‘Roma is hitting me to talk to you. Putting you on speaker.’

‘Heyyy lover boyyyy - finally.’

This time he couldn’t stop himself from smiling.

‘Well hello to you too.’

‘You should know that you owe me. I convinced Ananya to go to the match. And, most importantly, I convinced her to GO WITH YOU after the match.’

‘Oh, I thought she came because of me. How sad.’

‘A little coz of you. But mostly it was me.’

‘I see. Then I definitely owe you one, Roma.’

‘Remember that when I ask for signed jerseys of the WHOLE TEAM. And Zidane. And of course our one true love Ronaldo.’

‘Ahh you too.’

‘Of course, we share a common love. But Ananya loves him more.’

‘Believe me, I know.’

The car swerved to their street soon after, stopping outside their apartment building.

‘Girls, focus now, ya? - watch your step, go inside, lock the door. Ananya - call me after. I am waiting.’

‘Sir yes sir.’

‘Byeee lover boyyyyy.’

Jude groaned as they hung up - staring at the phone for it to ring again. Praying that they don’t trip & fall on their assess. 

The wait was excruciating. He got to his room, changed into his sleeping shorts, paced around, still nothing. How fuckin irresponsible. Finally, after 13 long mins, she called.

‘What took you so long?’

‘Code wasn’t working. Had to call neighbors to buzz us in.’

‘Wasn’t working or you forgot it?’

‘Pretty sure it wasn’t working.’

He shook his head & let it go, understanding how it was a lost cause. 

Then he started blurting out some instructions to her like ‘re-check the door’, ‘grab some water’, ‘tell me you ate something before drinking’ etc.

Ananya followed them diligently, and the slurring reduced as the liqueur settled down. Still quite out of it, but he could hear the girl he knew in there.

Knowing she was safe now, his mood improved, and her antics even started looking cute. 

‘Facetime?’

It felt like forever since he had seen her last. Held her last. 

When he finally laid eyes on her, all his frustration & anxiety of last two days started to evaporate.

‘Hey you.’

She waved back happily, snuggled into her pillow, still in her work clothes. All dopey from the alcohol. 

‘If I fall asleep on you tonight, don’t take it personally. Haven’t slept in 2 days.’

‘But you kicked ass though didn’t ya? 

Her face brightened, despite the exhaustion.

‘Kinda did.’

‘Knew it. Proud of ya.’

He really was. She could tell. She was starting to learn how to read his bright, expressive, goofy eyes. Tonight, they were deep & sincere. And a little anxious.

‘How’s your mood now?’

20 minutes ago he would have had a very different answer. 

‘Now? All fine, dove.’

She was about to tease him, call him cheesy & sickly sweet but he doubled down with his big brown doe eyes.

‘Missed you.’

Again, the sincerity hit her square in her heart. Throwing her off guard. He seemed different tonight. Vulnerable. The trademark blend of cocky flair & casual nonchalance not at the forefront. 

‘Missed you too.’

She sighed, as her eyes fluttered shut. Not that she had had much time for any active thought the last few days. But seeing him like this just reminded her how much she was looking forward to meeting him last night.

As she gathered herself, he took in her surroundings. The baby pink pillows amused him the most; somehow he hadn’t associated that with her. 

‘Can’t believe this is how I get to see your bedroom. On FaceTime.’

He didn't realize he had said it out loud. She giggled at his groans, batting her eyelashes at him. The vixen.

‘Yeah? What else did you have in mind?’

Jude shifted uncomfortably in the sheets. 

‘Don’t tease. Not tonight.’

‘When’s a good time, then?’

‘When I am in touching distance of you, tease away, by all means.’

‘I am not stupid, Jude.’

‘Never thought you were, dove.’

Challenging each other was kind of becoming their thing. Neither liked backing down & both loved the dynamic.

But she was tired. Ready to drop dead anytime.

‘Gimme 2. Need to change out of these.’

‘Cool, I’ll stay here.’

She placed the phone on the bed. Then, on second thoughts, she covered the phone with her blanket. Suddenly, his screen was filled with baby pandas.

‘Seriously? I was facing the ceiling, what was I gonna see?’

‘Don’t trust you & your peripheral vision.’

Jude groaned audibly, facing the disorienting pandas, starting to seriously dislike the otherwise adorable creatures.

He could hear her bouncing around her room, humming something in a foreign tongue, heels clicking on the floor. Still quite buzzed, clearly.

And then, a loud thump.

‘What happened? You ok?’

‘Zipper got stuck in heels. Knocked over a carton. Am fine.’

Jude turned & buried his face in the pillow, trying very hard to drown out the thoughts of what she was doing right now.

He couldn’t afford to let himself wander, since they hadn’t yet discussed the matter at hand.

But it was hard, he nearly bit the pillow to rein himself in. 

That’s how she found him when she returned in her tank top. The same one she had on that night, when he kissed her. Great.

‘What’s with you?’

She eyed him curiously, and he recovered quickly, game face back on.

‘Need to talk about something.’

‘Go on.’

Something had shifted in the environment. In him. Putting her on the edge.

Ripping off the band-aid quickly seemed like the best strategy to him.

‘A tabloid piece came out today about me & a girl, saying she is my girlfriend and we have been dating for 2 months. Which is not true. Never dated her. No idea how they came up with this. Wanted to give you a heads-up. Sent you the link in chat earlier today.’

He got it all out quickly. Then zeroed in on her face to gauge her reaction.

Her face had hardened like she was preparing for something unpleasant. Expressions too neutral, too blank for his liking. Almost cold. A more agitated reaction would have been less unsettling.

Ananya had a feeling it was something like this. The shield was up. Plus she was too spent to give any kind of outward reaction. 

She replayed his words in her head, and read through the article, while he waited patiently.

Her insta feed was also full of this now. This was everywhere. She found the ID of the woman and clicked on her profile.

‘She is pretty.’

This was not the first thing he had expected to hear. But he had the good sense to know that no response was the best response. Both confirmation and denial would have been scoffed at. 

‘You say you didn’t date her, but you do know her, right? Didn’t hear you deny that.’

Her tone was matter-of-fact, business-like. As if she was slicing & dicing a work project.

‘Yes. I do.’

‘Elaborate.’

‘Met her through insta. Liked some pics of each other. Chatted on DM. Then, met in person. Once.’

‘When?’

‘Two months ago.’

So the article had gotten at least something right.

‘Slept with her?’

Both were surprised by her cutting to the chase like this. The alcohol had lowered her inhibitions significantly plus she wasn't in the mood to entertain any nonsense.

‘Yes.’

‘Why only once?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Why not again? She is pretty.’

‘Umm…she is not from here.’

That wasn’t a good answer, he knew it the moment he said it. It wasn’t the complete truth either. But the damage was done.

‘Any exchanges after?’

‘Not from me.’

The unsaid hung heavily in the air. She chose to not address it. 

Mindlessly, she kept scrolling through the girl’s profile and the details in the article, not wanting to say anything more immediately. Not wanting to look at him, while his eyes were glued to her face throughout. 

Eventually, he couldn’t handle the silence & spoke softly.

‘Remember, this was in the past. Nothing has happened since we met. Nothing will happen.’

The deep baritone was back, trying to lull her into a sense of security. 

She smiled wryly. If only it were that simple to believe. If only her mind was not filled with images of him frolicking at his home with this woman, as was so definitively stated in the article. 

He felt the chasm widening between them, pulling her further away.

Some core truths, albeit crude, needed to be said out loud now. 

‘Ananya - I’ve never lied to you. Never not answered anything you threw my way. Never painted a false picture of my lifestyle. We’ve discussed these encounters before. Yes this put a face to it & I get it’s hard. But that doesn’t change the fact that I was single, and both consenting adults always knew it was just sex, nothing more.’

Her eyes shot up at him at the last line, which he was expecting. But he stood his ground.

‘I can see you are judging me hard, and them too. Look…’

She cut him off sharply.

‘THEM? Who are they to me? Why should I judge women I don’t know anything about?’

‘And me?’

‘YOU? I am TRYING to understand you. Your DECISIONS. It is NOT EASY. Not something I ever imagined dealing with.’

‘I get it.’

He really did. She didn’t hear what he said though, still stuck on his previous words.

‘And THEM? Seriously how many are there? How many such GIRLFRIENDS should I be prepared for?’

He blanked & panicked simultaneously. How was he supposed to answer that? Thankfully, she intervened.

‘You know what? Scratch that. Don’t answer that, I don’t ever wanna know. I don’t care.’

She jerked her face away, trying to compose herself.

But he couldn’t stop staring at her. The usually calm, jovial features a picture of irritation & exhaustion right now. The need to hold her close & comfort her paralyzed him.

‘Can we do this in person? I can be there in 20-25 mins.’

‘NO.’

It was a firm, decisive no. Leaving no scope for discussion. He figured it was also her showing him he wasn’t just gonna get his way with her, that she wasn’t like the others. 

But he knew that already. That’s what had fascinated him so about her. She was unlike anyone he had been with before. How he wished she could see that too.

For the first time, the silence between them was not comfortable. Or comforting. 

The silence was interrupted by constant pings on her phone - two calls followed by a few messages. He saw her eyes go wide as she focused on the screen.

It was 12 am. Jude had a sinking feeling who it could be from. Last two days, he had really behaved himself. Despite knowing she would have spent every waking minute at work around that insufferable colleague of hers. Sticking to her like a leech. Pinging her at odd times. 

But, in a grand display of restraint, Jude hadn't uttered a word to her. It was her work after all. 

‘Jude I’m gonna need two mins.’

She muttered urgently, getting up from the bed.

‘I will stay online if that’s ok.’

‘Fine.’

She was already out the door, leaving the phone, leaving him behind.

Jude found himself facing the ceiling of her room again. Seriously, what the fuck just happened? Could this day get any more rotten?

She returned in a minute. He could hear her but not see her yet. Bile rose in his throat when he realised who she was talking to.

‘Hey Arjun, yes I found it. It’s with me now. Thank you so much for letting me know, this could have gone anywhere. You are a lifesaver.’

A pause for a few seconds, in which Jude plotted getting that cockroach permanently banned from the Bernabeu (Ananya had mentioned how big a fan he was), and then her voice again. Filled with genuine gratitude. Jude wanted to puke. 

‘Yeah all good, thanks again. Good night, see you tmrw.’

If her intent was to hurt Jude, then someone should hand her the Balon d’or immediately.

Ananya hung up, came back to the bed, and realized her phone was not on mute. She couldn’t find it in herself to care though, not right now.

‘All ok?’

Jude would have put monks to shame at the evenness he was able to muster in his voice.

‘Roma was drunk-texting on our work group. Some questionable stuff. Hv deleted the texts, will keep her phone tonight. Glad Arjun alerted me.’

And just like that, evenness went out the window. Replaced with sarcasm, laced with disdain.

‘How sweet of him, what a gentleman.’

Ananya turned the full force of her glare at Jude, which he met head on. Fire dancing in both their eyes. 

‘Would you GROW UP? Not everything is about you. And yes, he IS a gentleman. Your petulance will not change that.’

‘A FUCKIN TWAT is what he is. Always interrupting us. Always trying to cozy up to you. Even when he doesn’t have a shot. Classic small-dick energy. Quite fuckin LITERALLY in his case.’

Ananya could punch him through the screen. The insufferable, entitled, derisive prick that he was being. So full of himself. He needed to be put in his place. 

‘Yeah? Maybe I should verify that.’

The bodyblow landed as intended. Making him double over with pain.

Jude felt like someone had kicked him in the gut and in the nuts at the same time. His throat went dry and his hands turned clammy.

The numbness hitting his brain, then his body. The rage dissipated & he realised he didn’t have a leg to stand on, given how they had gotten here tonight.

Plus she would never do the thing she hates the most. She would never cheat, he was convinced.

His tone went down several notches, as did his attitude.

‘I know you are angry. I know you didn’t mean it.’

‘Oh no - I really do want..’

‘ANANYA PLEASE. Please. Slap me if you want to, smack me all that you like but NOT THIS. Please.’

The distress in his choked voice made her stop. Knocking the fight out of her. 

Her voice lost its edge, coming out in a whisper.

‘A hypothetical scenario broke you. Whereas….you…..you have actually..’

She didn’t finish the sentence. But the message was well understood.

‘I know it’s unfair. Even hypocritical of me. But I can’t help it. Can’t handle even the idea of you with anyone else. I want all of you. All for me. All the time. I’d go nuts otherwise I swear.’

This moment, she saw a young, sensitive, insecure boy in Jude, not the mature, articulate, sorted, in-control grown man known to the world. 

She found it strangely healing; a distinct warmth seeping into her skin and settling into the pit of her stomach. 

It was 12:30. Two emotionally charged hours they had spent on the phone. Dead tired from work. Yet, the idea of hanging up & calling it a night never occurred to either. 

Just then, her doorbell rang, making her jump.

‘Don’t be alarmed. Answer it.’

She eyed him curiously, checking his background again. He was still in his bed. 

‘What did you do now?’

‘Answer the door & you’ll see.’

Huffing, she got out of bed & walked out. Leaving him facing the ceiling again. Third time that night.

When she came back, he finally saw a ghost of a smile on her lips. And the light returned to her gorgeous soft eyes.

She was still gazing at the bouquet, stroking & smelling with contentment.

‘White Tulips for dove. Thought it’d be fitting.’

‘Jude.’

She sighed deeply, and buried her head in the flowers, letting the strong scent drown her senses.

This was never going to be easy, she knew that from the start. But every time she got wobbly, he steadied her. Every time doubts pulled her away, he clawed his way back to her. Lack of effort was definitely not something she could hold against him. 

Maybe he means what he says. Maybe it is different for him this time.

She turned to look at his smiling face, still leaning on the flowers.

‘How did you even find these in the middle of the night?’

‘To be fair I ordered them in the evening, when I thought you blocked me.’

‘Blocked you?’

He just shrugged in response. Slightly embarrassed but trying to not show it.

She laughed at the absurdity of it all, and he finally let go too, letting himself relax. The sound of his little giggles bounced on her ears, doing things to her.

‘You are such a loon.’

‘Wanna be your loon.’

She was starting to melt now and wanted to arrest the fall. So she switched gears.

‘Tell me - what was the plan if I had blocked you?’

There had to be a plan. He wasn’t the kind to take things lying down. 

‘Cheesecake & churros from our cafe tmrw morning. Along with a letter stating how a 20-year-old boy has the same psychological maturity as a 15-year-old girl. Therefore you should cut me some slack given women are far smarter biologically and also coz you are you. I’m not saying it, science is. Facts.’

‘Reallyyyyy? So a 20 yr old boy lacks psychological maturity, but somehow that’s not a problem when he fucks half the world with impunity? What does science say about that? No disadvantage there?’

Jude’s mouth opened and closed like a fish, still trying to process how his attempted humour had backfired in about 50,000 ways.

To his credit, he recovered fast.

‘See? A smart person would not have walked into that hole like I did. Exhibit A of how dumb I am. This just proves my point.’

‘How come the world fawns over your intelligence & maturity then?

‘They don’t know me. It’s a scam. Trent says I should still be in diapers. He said that to Jobe once & the little scoundrel agreed.'

He had done it again. Pacified her without her even realising. Yeah, she wasn’t buying the dumb act. This boy knew his power & used it unabashedly, to his full advantage.

It was 1 am. She yawned while checking the time & Jude suddenly got hit by pangs of guilt.

He would let her go soon, just needed to hear one thing.

‘We ok? 

He barely blinked till she responded.

‘I guess so.’

She shrugged, realising she wasn’t mad anymore.

He figured that’s the best he would get tonight. But soon, when they are together, he’ll make up for this mess.

It was time to let her get some well deserved rest.

Jude leaned in, eyes firmly locked into hers, and kissed his phone screen. He had never done that for another girl before. But this one, she made him do this twice in a span of 2 days.

She followed his movement closely, meeting his gaze. Somehow feeling his lips brush her skin. 

‘End my misery and meet me soon?’

She nodded, and he flashed her a trademark ear-to-ear Jude smile. Crinkling eyes n all. Making her heart leap in her chest. 

‘Now go, get some rest. And since you won’t let me come over, hug the flowers instead when you sleep tonight. You’ll feel me around.’

‘Bye Jude.’

‘Bye dove.’

Goes without saying, she did hug the flowers as she slept that night. 

...............................................................................................

This chapter was very different in my head when I posted the previous one. But then, stuff happened the last few days & I felt like writing about it.

As always, would love to hear your thoughts / comments / feedback. Hope you are liking the story & these two, lots more to come :)

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: What must be done

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps) (meeting screens fizzle on one by one)

High Commander: Thank you all for attending this alliance conference.

High Commander: I know many of you are scattered across the quadrant, so this conference will have to do for now.

Volgond: Is it not unwise to meet over a transmitted conference?

Vologond: Our enemies could hack into the signal and gain a tactical advantage from our discussions.

Primary C: (In robotic voice) This outcome is unlikely.

Primary C: My people are encrypting the signal with an ever morphing signal frequency that not even our enemies most advanced machines could detect.

Primary C: Only a Cythogen can detect and translate the signal for it to be understandable.

High Commander: To which we are grateful you have contributed your people’s talents to the war effort.

Vologond: (Grumbles) I would still insist our next meeting be in person.

High Commander: Noted.

High Commander: We shall begin with updates along the northern front with Sun Bearer Arthrix.

Sun Bearer Arthrix: We’ve made great strides in recent months in the Hepestus cluster. Three systems have fallen to our forces there but our supply lines now are dangerously spread thin. Our enemies have taken note of this and begun raiding our supply convoys with ever increasing ferocity stalling our campaign.

High Commander: I will dispatch the 4th and 5th reserve fleets to begin escort duties which should alleviate the pressure. In the meantime consolidate the new territories you have captured until you are ready for continued operations.

Sun Bearer Arthrix: It will be done.

High Commander:  Now (flips through some pages) for the ongoing battle for Merina, have you made any progress General Anthony?

General Anthony: The world now rests entirely within alliance hands.

(Several gasps and looks of surprise among the gathered alien commanders)

High Commander: You can confirm this?

General Anthony: Aside from the occasional squad or two of enemy forces that escaped the final battle all major installations and population centers are under terrain control. The previously mentioned scattered survivors are being hunted down now.

Taskmaster Folgar: I find this unbelievable.

General Anthony: Careful now, I may take that as an insult.

Taskmaster Folgar: It took me over a year to establish a beachhead on that planet and my forces were nearly wiped out by the automated defense systems employed. Yet you come along and relieve me of my command and suddenly the planet falls within a month?

(murmurs of commanders heard over the background)

High Commander: While it begrudges me to ask this, can you present proof of the conquest?

General Anthony: (says nothing as screen changes to live feed from Merina)

(The feed shows Terran soldiers patrolling through the shattered remnants of once proud cities that had been protected by advanced sky energy domes that blocked orbital fire and walls lined with powerful automated plasma cannons that annihilated enemies from several miles away

Walls of the fortress cities were cracked wide open and shattered in many places. Many of the fierce automated guns now lay broken and battered on the ground and the ones that still were atop the battlements were being dismantled by terrain engineers to send back to their R&D departments)

General Anthony: Our enemies became complacent while they hid behind their walls; so assured of their durability that once they were breached they lacked the ability to mount a suitable defense.

Primary C: How did you breach the walls?

Taskmaster Folgar: I wish to know this as well.

General Anthony: It was rather simple really.

General Anthony: While observing the enemy we noticed that the automated guns would not fire on an area if they detected one of their own within to projected blast radius.

Primary C: No doubt a safety feature built into the weapons targeting parameters to prevent friendly fire incidents.

General Anthony: (Nods) That is what we figured as well.

General Anthony: So over the course of a month we captured as many enemy soldiers as we could-

Taskmaster Folgar: (Scoffs) We tried interrogating them before and they gave up no useful information.

General Anthony: (Glares at the taskmaster before continuing)- and loaded them on to trucks packed with explosives.

High Commander: You did what?

General Anthony: We then remotely controlled those same trucks to drive directly into the base of the wall segments our engineers determined that if damaged would trigger a structural collapse of the entire-

High Commander: YOU DID WHAT?!

General Anthony: These interruptions are quite tiresome now.

Taskmaster Folgar: Do you have any idea the violations of war you have committed?

High Commander: You will be stripped of your rank for such actions!

General Anthony: And what of you then, High Commander?

High Commander: Me?

General Anthony: When you gave me the order to relieve the Taskmaster you told me that you wanted Merina captured by any means necessary.

General Anthony: (Emphasizing) “By any means necessary”.

General Anthony: I followed your orders to the letter and captured the world; so it is you yourself that has ordered any such violations.

High Commander: Do not think you can twist my words to get yourself out of-

General Anthony: (cuts in) Primary C, would you not state that my actions were the most efficient method to bring about the end of a costly conflict?

Primary C: (Silent as it calculates) 

Primary C: While removing the organic factor of “honor” and “morality”, I compute that your actions did resolve the matter of Merina without further losses to manpower and resources.

General Anthony: And taskmaster, dear taskmaster; when you spent over a year attempting to crack the planets defenses how many of your men did you lose?

Taskmaster Folgar: That is not the-

General Anthony: How. Many?

Taskmaster Folgar: (Remains silent)

General Anthony: That is what I thought.

General Anthony: (Turns to address High Commander) You cannot give me an order and ask it be completed by any means necessary and not expect me to follow your instructions to the letter.

High Commander: Do you not have a soul?

High Commander: Do you feel nothing for those you sent to their deaths?

General Anthony: Such is the nature of all those who hold positions of power.

General Anthony: But if you must know I was the one who escorted the prisoners to the trucks myself, and they were quite enthusiastic about it.

High Commander: What?

General Anthony: Yes. I told them that they were going home and they hopped right in.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Nick Anderson/Political Cartoonist :: @Nick_Anderson_

Spreading like...

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 13, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 14, 2025

The incoming Trump administration is working to put its agenda into place.

Although experts on the National Security Council usually carry over from one administration to the next, Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller of the Associated Press today reported that incoming officials for the Trump administration are interviewing career senior officials on the National Security Council about their political contributions, how they voted in 2024, and whether they are loyal to Trump. Most of them are on loan from the State Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Central Intelligence Agency and, understanding that they are about to be fired, have packed up their desks to head back to their home agencies.

The National Security Council is the main forum for the president to hash out decisions in national security and foreign policy, and the people on it are picked for their expertise. But Trump’s expected pick to become his national security advisor—his primary advisor on all national security issues—Representative Mike Waltz (R-FL) told right-wing Breitbart News that he wants to staff the NSC with people who are “100 percent aligned with the president’s agenda.”

Ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA) warned that the loyalty purge “threatens our national security and our ability to respond quickly and effectively to the ongoing and very real global threats in a dangerous world.”

But during Trump’s first term, it was Alexander Vindman, who was detailed to the NSC, and his twin Eugene Vindman, who was serving the NSC as an ethics lawyer, who reported concerns about Trump’s July 2019 call to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to their superiors. This launched the investigation that became Trump’s first impeachment, and Trump appears anxious to make sure future NSC members will be fiercely loyal to him.

With extraordinarily slim majorities in the House and Senate, Republicans are talking about pushing through their entire agenda through Congress as a single bill in the process known as budget reconciliation. Budget reconciliation, which deals with matters related to spending, revenue, and the debt limit, is one of the few things that cannot be filibustered, meaning that Republicans could get a reconciliation bill through the Senate with just 50 votes. If they can hold their conference together, they could get the package through despite Democratic opposition.

House speaker Mike Johnson and Republican leaders have said that the House intends to pass a reconciliation bill that covers border security, defense spending, the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, spending cuts to social welfare programs, energy deregulation, and an increase in the national debt limit.

But Li Zhou of Vox points out that it’s not quite as simple as it sounds to get everything at once, because budget reconciliation measures are not supposed to include anything that doesn’t relate to the budget, and the Senate parliamentarian will advise stripping those things out. In addition, the budget cuts Republicans are circulating include cuts to popular programs like Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act (more commonly known as Obamacare), the Inflation Reduction Act’s investment in combating climate change, and the supplemental nutrition programs formerly known as food stamps.

Still, a lot can be done under budget reconciliation. Democrats under Biden passed the 2021 American Rescue Plan and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act under reconciliation, and Republicans under Trump passed the 2017 Trump tax cuts the same way.

A wrinkle in those plans is the Republicans’ hope to raise the national debt limit. As soon as they take control of Congress and the White House, Republicans will have to deal immediately with the treasury running up against the debt limit, a holdover from World War I that sets a limit on how much the country can borrow. Although he has complained bitterly about spending under Biden, Trump has demanded that Congress either raise or abandon the debt ceiling because the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the tax cuts he wants to extend will add $4.6 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years, and cost estimates for his deportation plans range from $88 billion to $315 billion a year.

Republicans are backing away from adding a debt increase to the budget reconciliation package out of concern that members of the far-right Freedom Caucus will kill the entire bill if they do. Those members want no part of raising the national debt and have demanded $2 trillion in budget cuts before they will consider it. Tonight, Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SD) told Jordain Carney of Politico that Senate Republicans expect the debt limit to be stripped out of the budget reconciliation measure.

So Republicans are currently exploring the idea of leveraging aid to California for the deadly fires in order to get Democrats to sign on to raising the debt ceiling. Meredith Lee Hill of Politico reported that Trump met with a group of influential House Republicans over dinner Sunday night at Mar-a-Lago to discuss tying aid for the wildfires to raising the debt ceiling. Today, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) confirmed to reporter Hill that this plan is under discussion.

Indeed, Republicans have been in the media suggesting that disaster aid to Democratic states should be tied to their adopting Republican policies. The Los Angeles fires have now claimed at least 24 lives. More than 15,000 firefighters are working to extinguish the wildfires, which have been driven by Santa Ana winds of up to 98 miles (158 km) an hour over ground scorched by high temperatures and low rainfall since last May, conditions caused by climate change.

On the Fox News Channel today, Representative Zach Nunn (R-IA) said: "We will certainly help those thousands of homes and families who have been devastated, but we also expect you to change bad behavior. We should look at the same for these blue states who have run away with a broken tax policy.... Those governors need to change their tune now.” Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) blamed Democrats for the fires and said of federal disaster relief: “I certainly wouldn't vote for anything unless we see a dramatic change in how they're gonna be handling these things in the future.”

Aside from the morality of demanding concessions for disaster aid after President Joe Biden responded with full and unconditional support for regions hit by Hurricane Helene (although Tennessee governor Bill Lee is still lying that Biden delayed aid to his state, when in fact he delayed in asking for it, as required by law), there is a financial problem with this argument. As economist Paul Krugman noted today in his Krugman Wonks Out, California “is literally subsidizing the rest of the United States, red states in particular, through the federal budget.”

In 2022, the most recent year for which information is available, California paid $83 billion more to the federal government than it got back. Washington state also subsidized the rest of the country, as did most of the Northeast. That money flowed to Republican-dominated states, which contributed far less to the federal government than they received in return.

Krugman noted that “if West Virginia were a country, it would in effect be receiving foreign aid equal to more than 20 percent of its G[ross] D[omestic] P[roduct].” Krugman refers to the federal government as “an insurance company with an army,” and he notes that there is “nothing either the city or the state could have done to prevent” the wildfires. “If the United States of America doesn’t take care of its own citizens, wherever they live and whatever their politics, we should drop “United” from our name,” he writes. “As it happens, however, California—a major driver of U.S. prosperity and power—definitely has earned the right to receive help during a crisis.”

Today, Biden announced student loan forgiveness for another 150,000 borrowers, bringing the total number of people relieved of student debt to more than 5 million borrowers, who have received $183.6 billion in relief. This has been achieved through making sure existing debt relief programs were followed, as they had not been in the past.

Establishment Republicans continue to fight MAGA Republicans, and MAGA fights among itself: former Trump ally Steve Bannon yesterday called Trump’s sidekick Elon Musk “truly evil” and vowed to “take this guy down.” But even as their enablers in the legacy media are normalizing Republican behavior, a reality-based media is stepping up to counter the disinformation.

Aside from the many independent outlets that have held MAGA Republicans to account, MSNBC today announced that progressive journalist Rachel Maddow will return to hosting a nightly one-hour show for the first 100 days of the Trump presidency.

And today journalist Jennifer Rubin joined her colleagues who have abandoned the Washington Post as it swung toward Trump. She resigned from the Washington Post with the announcement that she and former White House ethics lawyer Norm Eisen have started a new media outlet called The Contrarian. Joining them is a gold-star list of journalists and commentators who have stood against the rise of Trump and the MAGA Republicans, many of whom have left publications as those outlets moved rightward.

“Corporate and billionaire owners of major media outlets have betrayed their audiences’ loyalty and sabotaged journalism’s sacred mission—defending, protecting and advancing democracy,” Rubin wrote in her resignation announcement. In contrast, the new publication “will be a central hub for unvarnished, unbowed, and uncompromising reported opinion and analysis that exists in opposition to the authoritarian threat.”

“The urgency of the task before us cannot be overstated,” The Contrarian’s mission statement read. “We have already entered the era of oligarchy—rule by a narrow clique of powerful men (almost exclusively men). We have little doubt that billionaires will dominate the Trump regime, shape policy, engage in massive self-dealing, and seek to quash dissent and competition in government and the private sector. As believers in free markets subject to reasonable regulation and economic opportunity for all, we recognize this is a threat not only to our democracy but to our dynamic, vibrant economy that remains the envy of the world.”

In what appears to be a rebuke to media outlets that are cozying up to Trump, The Contrarian’s credo is “Not Owned by Anybody.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[tomorrowusa]

The media double standard which overlooks Trump's deteriorating mental state. (from PBS Washington Week - 8/30/24)

JEFFREY GOLDBERG (host and editor of The Atlantic): Here's the thing. I'll make this observation. I'll own it. If Kamala Harris went from bacon to wind in her interview with Dana Bash, she would, this morning, not be -- the next morning, she would not be the nominee of the Democratic Party. That would have been a very, very strange -- people would have been like, what is going on? Do we just have an absurdly low standard now for the things that Donald Trump says and does? DOMENICO MONTANARO (panelist and senior political correspondent at NPR): I think that there is definitely a double standard, and I think part of it is how each side's voters interpret their candidate. And someone like Donald Trump, Republicans have had the opportunity for years to say this is not the guy we want. Instead, they've continued to get behind him. In every primary that Donald Trump weighs in on, he wins, and then the general election a lot of those candidates tend to lose. I think that from reporter's standpoint, we do have to be careful about how we -- what level we hold both of them to. When I fact-checked Donald Trump's hour press conference, he told 162 lies and distortions within that time period, 2.5 a minute, compared to Kamala Harris' DNC acceptance speech, where she had 12 statements that I found were contextually misleading or needed more.

Here's the entire episode.

The media has mostly shrugged off Weird Donald's unhinged rantings as Trump being Trump while holding Democrats to a higher standard.

We need to be more vocal about the double standard. When Trump has another crazed rant about sharks, windmills, electric batteries, and bacon which gets brushed off by a media provider, ask that provider: What would you be saying if a prominent Democrat conducted a similar unhinged rant?

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Sarah Jones and Jason Easley at PoliticusUSA:

Before the Senate voted, House Democratic Leadership held a press conference where Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries explained why House Democrats almost unanimously opposed the CR. Jeffries said, “The House Democratic position is very clear. We strongly oppose any efforts to cut the health care of the American people, veterans benefits, and nutritional assistance, all of which are in the partisan Republican bill. We're going to continue to support Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Benefits, and public schools. At the same time, Donald Trump and House Republicans try to take a chainsaw to these important priorities of the American people.” The final vote was 62-38 to break the filibuster. Here is a list of the Senate Democrats who betrayed their party and country: 1) Durbin 2) King 3) Schatz 4) Schumer 5) Cortez Masto 6) Fetterman 7) Peters 8) Hassan 9) Gillibrand 10) Shaheen. These are the Democrats who voted to allow the passage of a bill in the Senate that cuts healthcare, veterans benefits, and nutritional assistance to hungry Americans. Two of the senators who voted to break the filibuster are retiring. Both Shaheen and Peters will not be running for reelection. Cortez Mastro and Fetterman are trying to fend off tough reelection fights in swing states in the next few years. Durbin, Schumer, Gillibrand, King, Hassan, and Schatz all come from safe blue states. Those Democrats in safe blue state seats are the ones who betrayed their country and constituents the most. [...] Ten Senate Democrats sold out their House colleagues, their party, and their country by giving a president who clearly wants to be an authoritarian even more power.

10 Senate Democrats betrayed the country and the party by caving into the Trump/Musk agenda by voting YES on cloture to the CR that broke cloture 62-38 (Rand Paul was the lone GOP no). The final vote still needs to occur.

The shameful 10 who should be primaried and/or retired:

Cortez Masto (NV) [2028]

Durbin (IL) [2026]

Fetterman (PA) [2028]

Gillibrand (NY) [2030]

King (I, ME) [2030]

Hassan (NE) [2028]

Peters (MI) [2026]

Schatz (HI) [2028]

Schumer (NY) [2028]

Shaheen (NH) [2026]

Two of those ten have announced their retirements (Peters, Shaheen), and at least one more could be exiting (likely Durbin [2026] and/or King [2030]).

[emed123]

Exploring the Links Between GERD and Mouth Cancer GERD Cancer Risk,

Dive into the intricate relationship between GERD and Mouth Cancer in the comprehensive exploration. Uncover the potential links, risk factors, and preventive measures.

[margridarnauds]

Something I'm tossing around in my head re: Chat GPT and academia is that...in some ways, I think it's a symptom, rather than the root problem. Not just of the structural ways that mainstream pedagogy + the general structure of academia (particularly in the States) sets some students up to fail, but in the way that a lot of work, even at the graduate and above level, is in itself treated as a product to be cranked out in the least amount of time possible as opposed to a work of dedication and love that requires thought and care and intricate research.

You want to get an undergrad degree? Crank out ~2-3 essays a year. These can be varying degrees of research, because the point is you need to get them in NOW and you need to get them in QUICKLY and you can't take any more time to do them than necessary.

(And for students who are later along in their academic careers, writing 8-10 page papers is nothing, but to that undergrad who's stepped into class for the first time? It might be the most complicated thing they've written.)

You want a PhD? Crank out that dissertation, and don't you DARE take longer than you should. How can you do it? We don't know, our obligation to you is over at five years. Also, you have a semester to come up with a ~25 page prospectus that gives a detailed plan for your dissertation before you can even begin WRITING it, which you'll have to get approved by your committee, so good luck!

Also, don't forget, while you're doing that, you need to keep submitting articles for publication, which you will, of course, have to format individually according to the style guideline of the journal you're publishing to! Publish or perish, so keep your head above the tide or you'll end up drowning!

And, on top of that, expect to write ~ten page presentations for conferences! Don't worry, you don't need to cite your sources TOO rigorously for this one, but you are going to need to make sure you know what you're talking about, otherwise you might be humiliated in front of the scholars you want to impress! Write, write, write! Create that Powerpoint!

You want academic tenure? Crank out that monograph! And don't forget to do it sooner rather than later while ALSO publishing articles and coming up with teaching plans!

Also, don't forget, with everything that you write, that it should be on something popular! Something in keeping with the latest trends, so you can be on the cutting edge! Wanted to do something else? Why did you enter academia if you wanted to follow your own research ideas?

And the point isn't that I think that Chat GPT is GOOD or that it SHOULD be used to write an entire paper. Frankly, I dummied a dissertation outline on it (note: my uni account...which I still hate that they provided for us...doesn't use it to train data, meaning that the environmental impact is minimal) and it was bland as fuck, factually inaccurate, and dated. I DON'T use it because, beyond the morality or ethics of the situation (which I think are more complicated than a black and white "It's harmless" or "It is an actual technological death cult aiming for world domination"), on a purely pragmatic level, my field is TERRIBLE for it.

RATHER my point is that it's hard to take arguments about the sanctity of human creativity seriously SPECIFICALLY with regards to academia when it's an industry that has systematically pried human creativity out of itself and encouraged creating an unsustainably massive amount of work at once if you want to survive and even though I am going to do everything possible to make sure my students DON'T use it for their assignments as a primary tool...I can kind of get why they would be drawn to it beyond just "they're lazy."

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Chuck Ross

One of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s (D.) guests on an official state trip to the Middle East this week is an anti-Israel activist who hailed the leader of Hezbollah as a "hero" and recently called for Jews to be sent "back to Poland."

It’s a controversial choice for Whitmer, considered a top contender for the Democratic presidential primary in 2028. Siblani is a vocal critic of Israel and was a leader in the "uncommitted" movement that opposed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris over U.S. support for Israel in its war with the terrorist group Hamas. And Siblani has gone far beyond simple criticism of the Jewish state.

Siblani has for years defended and praised Hamas and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist groups. At a rally in Dearborn he organized on Sept. 25, Siblani hailed then-Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah as a "hero."

"They want us to be afraid of praising our leaders and martyrs, but today we say to them that our martyrs are heroes and our leaders are great, especially the great Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah," Siblani said of the Hezbollah leader who was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike days later.

After chants of "death to Israel" broke out during Siblani’s speech, Siblani responded, "Believe me, they will take care of the job," an apparent reference to Hezbollah, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute.

And he issued a message to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Jews: "We will take you back to Poland."

In 2022, Siblani urged Arabs to "fight within [their] means" against Israel, whether with "stones," "guns," or "their hands." He has bragged that he refused to condemn Hamas during a conference call with Biden White House officials in 2021.

Siblani’s rhetoric should be no secret to Whitmer, who will leave office next year. The Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish groups have condemned Siblani’s remarks over the years and blasted the White House and Biden campaign last year for sending officials to meet with Siblani in Dearborn in hopes of gaining his political support.

Whitmer may like to stay in Siblani’s good graces, given his influence within Michigan’s large Arab and Muslim community and her apparent presidential ambitions. Siblani has published Arab American News, the largest Arab-language newspaper in the country, since 1984 and frequently hosts rallies and other events in Dearborn, one of the nation’s largest Muslim-majority cities.

Democrats consider Michigan part of their "Blue Wall" path to winning the Electoral College, making the state’s Arab and Muslim vote key to victory. But Whitmer’s coziness with a terrorist sympathizer may not play well in other battleground states.

Whitmer has catered to Siblani throughout her tenure. In 2022, she met with Siblani at his newspaper’s office after he publicly criticized her for visiting Israel. "Governor Whitmer will hear from us soon on her wrong and offensive trip to Israel as its army brutally killing [sic] innocent Palestinians including children while carpet bombing Gaza," Siblani said.

[misfitwashere]

January 13, 2025 

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JAN 14

The incoming Trump administration is working to put its agenda into place.

Although experts on the National Security Council usually carry over from one administration to the next, Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller of the Associated Press today reported that incoming officials for the Trump administration are interviewing career senior officials on the National Security Council about their political contributions, how they voted in 2024, and whether they are loyal to Trump. Most of them are on loan from the State Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Central Intelligence Agency and, understanding that they are about to be fired, have packed up their desks to head back to their home agencies.

The National Security Council is the main forum for the president to hash out decisions in national security and foreign policy, and the people on it are picked for their expertise. But Trump’s expected pick to become his national security advisor—his primary advisor on all national security issues—Representative Mike Waltz (R-FL) told right-wing Breitbart News that he wants to staff the NSC with people who are “100 percent aligned with the president’s agenda.”

Ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA) warned that the loyalty purge “threatens our national security and our ability to respond quickly and effectively to the ongoing and very real global threats in a dangerous world.”

But during Trump’s first term, it was Alexander Vindman, who was detailed to the NSC, and his twin Eugene Vindman, who was serving the NSC as an ethics lawyer, who reported concerns about Trump’s July 2019 call to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to their superiors. This launched the investigation that became Trump’s first impeachment, and Trump appears anxious to make sure future NSC members will be fiercely loyal to him.

With extraordinarily slim majorities in the House and Senate, Republicans are talking about pushing through their entire agenda through Congress as a single bill in the process known as budget reconciliation. Budget reconciliation, which deals with matters related to spending, revenue, and the debt limit, is one of the few things that cannot be filibustered, meaning that Republicans could get a reconciliation bill through the Senate with just 50 votes. If they can hold their conference together, they could get the package through despite Democratic opposition.

House speaker Mike Johnson and Republican leaders have said that the House intends to pass a reconciliation bill that covers border security, defense spending, the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, spending cuts to social welfare programs, energy deregulation, and an increase in the national debt limit.

But Li Zhou of Vox points out that it’s not quite as simple as it sounds to get everything at once, because budget reconciliation measures are not supposed to include anything that doesn’t relate to the budget, and the Senate parliamentarian will advise stripping those things out. In addition, the budget cuts Republicans are circulating include cuts to popular programs like Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act (more commonly known as Obamacare), the Inflation Reduction Act’s investment in combating climate change, and the supplemental nutrition programs formerly known as food stamps.

Still, a lot can be done under budget reconciliation. Democrats under Biden passed the 2021 American Rescue Plan and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act under reconciliation, and Republicans under Trump passed the 2017 Trump tax cuts the same way.

A wrinkle in those plans is the Republicans’ hope to raise the national debt limit. As soon as they take control of Congress and the White House, Republicans will have to deal immediately with the treasury running up against the debt limit, a holdover from World War I that sets a limit on how much the country can borrow. Although he has complained bitterly about spending under Biden, Trump has demanded that Congress either raise or abandon the debt ceiling because the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the tax cuts he wants to extend will add $4.6 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years, and cost estimates for his deportation plans range from $88 billion to $315 billion a year.

Republicans are backing away from adding a debt increase to the budget reconciliation package out of concern that members of the far-right Freedom Caucus will kill the entire bill if they do. Those members want no part of raising the national debt and have demanded $2 trillion in budget cuts before they will consider it. Tonight, Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SD) told Jordain Carney of Politico that Senate Republicans expect the debt limit to be stripped out of the budget reconciliation measure.

So Republicans are currently exploring the idea of leveraging aid to California for the deadly fires in order to get Democrats to sign on to raising the debt ceiling. Meredith Lee Hill of Politico reported that Trump met with a group of influential House Republicans over dinner Sunday night at Mar-a-Lago to discuss tying aid for the wildfires to raising the debt ceiling. Today, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) confirmed to reporter Hill that this plan is under discussion.

Indeed, Republicans have been in the media suggesting that disaster aid to Democratic states should be tied to their adopting Republican policies. The Los Angeles fires have now claimed at least 24 lives. More than 15,000 firefighters are working to extinguish the wildfires, which have been driven by Santa Ana winds of up to 98 miles (158 km) an hour over ground scorched by high temperatures and low rainfall since last May, conditions caused by climate change.

On the Fox News Channel today, Representative Zach Nunn (R-IA) said: "We will certainly help those thousands of homes and families who have been devastated, but we also expect you to change bad behavior. We should look at the same for these blue states who have run away with a broken tax policy.... Those governors need to change their tune now.” Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) blamed Democrats for the fires and said of federal disaster relief: “I certainly wouldn't vote for anything unless we see a dramatic change in how they're gonna be handling these things in the future.”

Aside from the morality of demanding concessions for disaster aid after President Joe Biden responded with full and unconditional support for regions hit by Hurricane Helene (although Tennessee governor Bill Lee is still lying that Biden delayed aid to his state, when in fact he delayed in asking for it, as required by law), there is a financial problem with this argument. As economist Paul Krugman noted today in his Krugman Wonks Out, California “is literally subsidizing the rest of the United States, red states in particular, through the federal budget.”

In 2022, the most recent year for which information is available, California paid $83 billion more to the federal government than it got back. Washington state also subsidized the rest of the country, as did most of the Northeast. That money flowed to Republican-dominated states, which contributed far less to the federal government than they received in return.

Krugman noted that “if West Virginia were a country, it would in effect be receiving foreign aid equal to more than 20 percent of its G[ross] D[omestic] P[roduct].” Krugman refers to the federal government as “an insurance company with an army,” and he notes that there is “nothing either the city or the state could have done to prevent” the wildfires. “If the United States of America doesn’t take care of its own citizens, wherever they live and whatever their politics, we should drop “United” from our name,” he writes. “As it happens, however, California—a major driver of U.S. prosperity and power—definitely has earned the right to receive help during a crisis.”

Today, Biden announced student loan forgiveness for another 150,000 borrowers, bringing the total number of people relieved of student debt to more than 5 million borrowers, who have received $183.6 billion in relief. This has been achieved through making sure existing debt relief programs were followed, as they had not been in the past.

Establishment Republicans continue to fight MAGA Republicans, and MAGA fights among itself: former Trump ally Steve Bannon yesterday called Trump’s sidekick Elon Musk “truly evil” and vowed to “take this guy down.” But even as their enablers in the legacy media are normalizing Republican behavior, a reality-based media is stepping up to counter the disinformation.

Aside from the many independent outlets that have held MAGA Republicans to account, MSNBC today announced that progressive journalist Rachel Maddow will return to hosting a nightly one-hour show for the first 100 days of the Trump presidency.

And today journalist Jennifer Rubin joined her colleagues who have abandoned the Washington Post as it swung toward Trump. She resigned from the Washington Post with the announcement that she and former White House ethics lawyer Norm Eisen have started a new media outlet called The Contrarian. Joining them is a gold-star list of journalists and commentators who have stood against the rise of Trump and the MAGA Republicans, many of whom have left publications as those outlets moved rightward.

“Corporate and billionaire owners of major media outlets have betrayed their audiences’ loyalty and sabotaged journalism’s sacred mission—defending, protecting and advancing democracy,” Rubin wrote in her resignation announcement. In contrast, the new publication “will be a central hub for unvarnished, unbowed, and uncompromising reported opinion and analysis that exists in opposition to the authoritarian threat.”

“The urgency of the task before us cannot be overstated,” The Contrarian’s mission statement read. “We have already entered the era of oligarchy—rule by a narrow clique of powerful men (almost exclusively men). We have little doubt that billionaires will dominate the Trump regime, shape policy, engage in massive self-dealing, and seek to quash dissent and competition in government and the private sector. As believers in free markets subject to reasonable regulation and economic opportunity for all, we recognize this is a threat not only to our democracy but to our dynamic, vibrant economy that remains the envy of the world.”

In what appears to be a rebuke to media outlets that are cozying up to Trump, The Contrarian’s credo is “Not Owned by Anybody.”

—

[meret118]

ETA: "But it makes sense when you realize his goal is to create something like Russia where the economy is run by a few oligarchs loyal to him," Chakrabarti added. "Creating that state is hard in a large, dynamic, powerful economy with too many actors who can oppose him. So he's accelerating concentrating money and power into the hands of his loyalists while he crashes the rest out."

Responding to this, Ball asserted that "at this point, until proven otherwise, the primary actor in the government and the economy is actually Elon, so I think it makes sense to think of Elon's incentives here and what he may actually want to accomplish."

"If you think back at the last economic crashes—both in Covid and in the 2008 financial crash—while initially everyone suffered, including the rich, out of both, the rich were able to buy up assets on the cheap and emerged even wealthier and more powerful than before," she noted.

"So in 2008, not only did they get their own custom bailout, but they were able to buy housing stock at absurdly low prices," Ball recalled. "The rich got richer than ever, inequality skyrocketed, and the big banks got bigger than ever."

"Same deal with the Covid-era recession," she continued. "So, while again, everyone suffered initially, there was a huge bailout package which, yes, did benefit ordinary people, but if you look at who came out really on top... you could see people like Elon Musk, people like Jeff Bezos, people like Mark Zuckerberg getting far wealthier. Their net worths, which were already very high, skyrocketed beyond anyone's wildest dreams."

“To understand the federal government, it is like a corporate takeover at scale, but one where the company is actually in much worse shape than any commercial company could ever be,” Musk said at the conference, reported CNN’s Hadas Gold.

Musk then went on to say that “logically we should prioritize anything that can reasonably be privatized,” including public services such as the postal service and Amtrak.

Last month, officials with the United States Postal Service flagged that the Trump administration was looking to dissolve the organization’s governing board and place it under the control of the Commerce Department and Secretary Howard Lutnick. Experts believe doing so would likely violate federal law.

-------

It's vulture capitalism of an entire country. I don't know why I'm surprised. It's the same thing big oil is doing to the entire planet. And none of them care how many people they kill.

Do the republicans in congress realize when the stock market crashes like it's 1929 they'll lose their money too?

[transformationsproject]

Today’s Legislative Updates February 27, 2025

Trans rights are still under attack in the United States. Please visit our website linked below to learn about your state and contact your reps. Here's a thread of today's updates:

Bathroom bills deny access to public restrooms by gender or trans identity. 

They increase danger without making anyone any safer and have even prompted attacks on cis and trans people alike. Many national health and anti-sexual assault organizations oppose these bills.

Old Bills:

Wyoming set up a conference committee between chambers for bill HB0072 yesterday when the House and Senate versions of the bill did not concur.

West Virginia passed bill HB2006 through its committee today and gave it its first House reading.

West Virginia passed bill SB456 through its committee today and gave it its first Senate reading.

Healthcare bills go against professional and scientific consensus that gender-affirming care saves lives. Denying access will cause harm.

Providers are faced with criminal charges, parents are threatened with child abuse charges, and intersex children are typically exempted.

New Bills:

Texas filed bill HB3431 yesterday. This bill is a felony ban on mental health care that supports minors’ transition.

Texas filed adult healthcare ban HB3399 yesterday.

Old Bills:

Georgia passed bill SB185 through its committee yesterday and sent it to the Senate floor.

Educational Censorship and Student Suppression bills force schools to misgender or deadname students, ban instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, and make schools alert parents if they suspect a child is trans.

They remove life-saving affirmation and support for trans youth. 

New Bills:

Ohio introduced school DEI ban SB113 yesterday and sent it to the Senate Education Committee.

Texas filed bill HB3411 yesterday. This bill bans teachers from supporting social transition - aka forces misgendering and deadnaming of students in schools.

Old Bills:

Montana passed bill SB299 through its committee yesterday and sent it to the Senate floor.

Arizona gave bill SB1694 its third Senate reading yesterday.

Ohio sent bill SB1 to the House Workforce and Higher Education Committee yesterday.

Digital Censorship Bills describe any legislation that potentially targets Queer and Trans media/material for removal. 

They typically do this by using vague and broad definitions of "Obscene" or "Harmful to Minors" and then banning such content from being accessible to minors, which often either removes the material entirely or requires age verification methods in order to view. 

This includes online censorship bills, library book bans, and other such legislation.

New Bills:

Missouri introduced school book ban SB765 last Tuesday.

Iowa edited and renumbered online censorship bill SF443 before passing it through its committee and sending it to the Senate floor.

Old Bills:

Georgia sent bill SB248 to the Senate Education and Youth Committee yesterday.

Kentucky sent bill HB653 to the House Primary and Secondary Education Committee yesterday.

Most sports bills force schools to designate teams by sex assigned at birth. 

They are often one-sided and ban trans girls from playing on teams consistent with their gender identity.

Some egregious bills even force invasive genital examinations on student athletes.

New Bills:

Minnesota introduced sports bill SF1883 today and sent it to the Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee.

In other bills that either fit multiple categories or stand on their own, we have:

New Bills:

Texas introduced DEI ban HB3427 yesterday.

Old Bills:

Montana bill HB734 has a hearing tomorrow, February 28 at 3:00 p.m. Mountain Time in Room 137 in the House Education Committee.

Kansas sent bill HB2311 to the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee yesterday.

Oklahoma passed bill SB658 through the Senate yesterday and sent it to the House.

It's not too late to stop these and other hateful anti-trans bills from passing into law. YOU can go to http://transformationsproject.org/ to learn more and contact your representatives!