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peach-astrology · 3 years

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Mars in the houses

Mars in the first house:

1)A very strong and brave person.He can be quick-tempered,but due to his perseverance and strong character,he wins competitions and is a good opponent.

2)Depending on the position of Mars in the sign and its aspects,but in any case,a person(karmically)must work hard in life- both in the external world and in the internal,and especially devote a lot of effort to the formation of his personality.

3)People often fall in love with you.You are very inspiring to other people,please don't give up,you are really cool.

4)I noticed that people in this position have unusual facial features.For example,they have thick or unruly hair, freckles,or a sly and strong look.Most often they are high.

5)They value honesty and realism.They don't like to think much about philosophical things.

Mars in the second house:

1)Hardworking and very fond of money.They like to build a successful and long-term career.

2)This arrangement indicates people who are talkative,it is useless to argue with them.They are skilled in mathematics,earn money through real estate,are interested in politics and say frankly what they think.They sing or have the ability to work on the radio.

3)Bad aspects can indicate frequent financial and property crises.A person spends as quickly as he earns.He needs to learn to control his spending.

4)If a person has Mars in Capricorn/Scorpio/Aries,then he is guaranteed monetary success.He is enterprising,active,sees a large number of opportunities around him and uses them one hundred percent.

5)The good aspects point to the comfortable and favorite work of humans.It works not only for money,but also for pleasure.He is proud of himself and his position.

Mars in the third house:

1)Person is impatient.The last thing he likes to do is wait a long time for a response to his messages.Such a person can show pressure in business situations,and often achieves what he wants through courage and a natural gift of persuasion.

2)By the way,often Mars in the 3rd house has a great interest in technology,and therefore can fix a lot himself in the mechanism of a car,motorcycle or bicycle.

3)Good aspects indicate a strong and inquisitive mind,bad aspects indicate poor memory and learning problems.

4)You are witty and completely outspoken,and sometimes tactless.Active intellectual work is suitable for you.

5)If you have a brother or sister,they may have Scorpio/Aries placements.They can also be hot-tempered,get involved in boxing or make a permanent mess at home.

Mars in the fourth house:

1)He knows how to cool his ardor at the right time.They often want to be in charge of the family.They like to do the renovation and decoration of their home.

2)In 99% of cases,they have problems with their parents or family.Their characters are too different.

3)You may have been brought up in harsh or unpleasant conditions,so you have little trust in people and comfort is very important to you.You don't want to repeat the mistakes of your parents,so you can seriously get carried away with books about parenting and going to psychologists.There's nothing wrong with that!

4)With bad aspects,mental disorders and deep mental suffering are possible.Good aspects increase strength and energy,activity and enterprise and create an opportunity to acquire real estate and implement ideas,plans and goals.

5)I often noticed this position in people who worked hard and studied hard to support their families.They are very caring and loving,but they may not show it because of stress or fatigue.

Mars in the fifth house:

1)You love competitions,arguments and adventures.If you are the captain of the team,then you will definitely win.You are able to maintain team spirit and you are comfortable working in a friendly team.

2)The 5th house sometimes points to our children,so I just wish you patience.Your child may be too active or disobedient,try to teach from childhood to love to learn,otherwise there may be problems in the future.It can also be a Sun Aries or Scorpio.

3)In general,you are not boring.Positive aspects indicate that you are the soul of the company or you are often approached to get acquainted.Bad aspects indicate risky and dangerous actions.Think a thousand times before you do something.

4)I'm sorry to frighten you,but my book says that giving birth to such people is very difficult.Carefully monitor your health.

5)You are a sensual and passionate nature.You flirt well,which makes you even more attractive.

Mars in the sixth house:

1)Perfectionists,so they can be trusted with difficult and responsible work.They may be too lazy or too hardworking.They love to thoroughly understand complex mechanisms and processes,they like to process and analyze information,put everything on the shelves,optimize their activities.

2)Their main goal is not money and career growth.It is more important for them to get satisfaction from achievements and results in order to feel happy.

3)This is a born analyst who logically approaches the solution of problems and tasks.Relies on the brain,not the heart,to make decisions.He is a practitioner all the knowledge that he receives in the process of life,immediately applies.

4)He will try to create the most comfortable living conditions for his family.It is important for him to feel stability and be confident in the future.

5)With bad aspects,such people tend to be picky and grumpy.

Mars in the seventh house:

1)An unpleasant position,there is a possibility of a toxic or aggressive partner.Their partner can be a little brash,rude,or rebellious.On the other hand,it often indicates a partner with a lot of energy and plans.He is stubborn and always achieves his goals.

2)His opponents are strong and assertive,and fights with them often end in serious injuries physical or financial.He often gets into trouble and easily gets involved in quarrels.

3)The bad aspects point to divorce.

4)He was used to acting quickly and confidently towards others.Sometimes he shows excessive pressure and strong-willed influence,which is perceived negatively by others.With soft and sensitive people,such a person is not on the way.

5)You are a great competitor,so you can work in politics,sports or business.

Mars in the eighth house:

1)You are very sensitive to the topic of money and probably want to have more of it than you have now.You reach out to people who already have money or obviously want wealth.

2)For bad aspects,I sincerely recommend not taking out loans or spending property or huge amounts of money.There is a high probability of not paying back the debt and spending money on the wind.Read the contracts carefully.

3)Good aspects create a sense of benefit.Such a person knows who to make deals with,he has a profitable and active job.

4)Monitor the health of the genitals.Avoid fire and cutting objects and treat wounds carefully.

5)They like to explore theories and riddles.They are very curious and they like mysticism,they can like detectives.

Mars in the ninth house:

1)You may have been disliked by your teachers because you tend to express your opinions.You are the kings of discussion and know how to defend your point of view.

2)Such people love to learn.They have a broad outlook,but their brain doesn’t immediately understand the explanation,so they often learn in their own way.Sometimes this position indicates self-taught people.

3)Negative aspects indicate short temper and stubbornness.Such people argue for the sake of argument.Positive aspects indicate fairness.Such a person is interested in the opinions of other people and tries to expand their knowledge.

4)Often such people work according to their own regime.They can be freelancers or have a night job.

5)Very good position for businessmen.A person with such a position has good managerial abilities,purposefulness and great vital energy.

Mars in the tenth house:

1)He is very independent and responsible,knows how to make decisions and is not afraid to take the initiative.

2)He can quickly become successful,and then also quickly find himself at the bottom.His life is an endless series of ups and downs.

3)In the negative aspect,Mars makes a person conflicted,aggressive.In a positive aspect,it indicates success.His career is very important to him.But family and personal relationships often take a back seat.

4)Such a person may have a problematic relationship with his mother.

5)They know how to work in competition.In life(with bad aspects),almost all people are seen as enemies.Maybe there was some kind of psychological trauma.

Mars in the eleventh house:

1)You work well in collaboration with others who share your goals,ideals,and intentions.You can inspire people to work towards a common goal.

2)If he is passionate about something,he strives to bring it to the end and get a concrete result.

3)He's friends with all sorts of people.Nationality,level of education and status in society are not important here.The main thing is to have common hobbies,aspirations and desires.

4)Positive aspects indicate the qualities of an excellent organizer.It inspires and appeals to other people.Negative aspects create problems with people.He is often betrayed or deceived.

5)Such a person never adapts to someone.If you have different views on life or different characters,that such people will say goodbye to you.They don't fucking need to change you.

Mars in the twelfth house:

1)Watch your feet very carefully.Wear comfortable shoes,play football carefully and don’t overdo it with the stretch.

2)He doesn’t give the impression of an active and active person.Others often underestimate him.

3)He has a good imagination.He does a lot of his work intuitively.Such a person can’t always explain in words how he came to this result.

4)Very good position for astrologers,fortune tellers or psychics.Their work is often associated with something mystical or creative.They like detective stories and psychology.

5)You may have quite a lot of energy and energy,you lack confidence or just the desire to put yourself and your interests first.Love being alone at work.You like to help.

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leogichidaa · 2 years

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Oh god no no no! I’m so sorry 😅 I’m so used to thinking Y/N as an abbreviation for yes/no.

Lol, no worries xP It did take an absurdly long time for me to understand it meant "yes/no" though 😂

So, yes, but the perspective we see of the House of Black comes from Sirius. And from Sirius' perspective, it is of course glaringly obvious that Regulus is the favored child. Sirius is always getting yelled at and lectured and corrected, and Regulus is always getting pats on the head. There's the line:

“He was younger than me,” said Sirius, “and a much better son, as I was constantly reminded.”

That makes it clear how Sirius understands the dynamic. BUT. Honestly, I think that Sirius is Walburga's favorite. That is how I conceptualize the family--Sirius is the favorite and that is why they have such passionate arguments, that is why his betrayal of her stings so badly, and that is why her rejection of him is so painful. They argue because Walburga desperately wants her smart, talented, charming, beloved first born son to play the role he was born to play and Sirius is having none of it.

There were undoubtedly shouting matches between the two of them, but Regulus knows that in his family loud shouting matches are basically an advertisement of love and affection. Regulus isn't being shouted out, but that does not equate to him feeling favored or appreciated. He feels neglected. From an early Psych Sunday:

Regulus snorted. “Nothing. When they’re like that, there’s no room for anyone else. They suck up all the energy in the house and then there’s nothing left for the rest of us.”

Yes, Regulus gets the occasional pat on the head, the occasional favorable comparison to Sirius, but that is not going to feel like love to him. Not when he is raised in a family like the Blacks, where everything worth doing is worth doing with ridiculous intensity. It feels like a consolation prize.

Actually, the very first bit of dialogue in my very first Psych Sunday was:

“Do you often find yourself in competition for your mother’s affection?”

Regulus rolls his eyes. “It’s hardly a competition. Sirius barely even tries.”

“And yet, I gather, he is winning?” the analyst replies mildly.

Regulus gapes. “Well, yes, and honestly, what the fuck?”

Imagine what it must feel like to know that you are doing everything right, checking all the boxes, putting the effort in, and being told that, objectively, you are the better son--only to know that you are still not the favorite. No matter what he does, no matter what Sirius does, Sirius always comes in first in their mother's heart and mind. Big oof.

Ok, but the actual question you asked was how I picture Walburga: passionate, poised, snobby af, very direct, ambitious, and charming. As a mother, she is demanding and not very affectionate. She rations out praise for her sons, and always keeps them wanting. Can't let them get too sure of themselves, too complacent. That simply will not do. She loves her sons, but it is a source of never-ending frustration for her that they won't just do as they are told and follow her flawless example, the fools.

I have actually a million other random and sometimes contradictory Walburga hc's but I'll leave it at that for now.

#ask #anon ask #Regulus Black #Sirius Black #Walburga Black #regulus & sirius #House of Black

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dwellordream · 3 years

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“...In the efforts of girls to be good and repress self, diaries seem to have had a moderating effect. Certainly keeping a diary which recorded successes and failures along the road to virtue was an additional incentive to be good. A success could be recorded and celebrated. At the same time, an always-listening, never-judging diary was something of a tonic. Girls who talked enough about their efforts to be good availed themselves of a simplified version of the ‘‘talking cure’’ which would soon be used by Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer with middle-class Viennese girls. (The disproportionate number of adolescent or late-adolescent females in Freud and Breuer’s early work, and indeed the role of hysteria in their formulation of psychoanalysis, corroborates the special salience of language therapy for Victorian girls.)

…Within their diaries, girls assiduously recorded their efforts to be better— echoing, internalizing, and ultimately softening parental imperatives. Just as diaries moderated parental dictates, they mediated parental identifications. As the critic and analyst Katherine Dalsimer suggests, diaries proved to be revisited ‘‘transitional objects’’ useful in the processes of adolescent separation. No other metaphor quite captures the depth of attachment which girls sometimes demonstrated to their ‘‘darling’’ diaries than that analogy to the anthropomorphic blanket or teddy bear of early childhood.

Within vessels chartered and christened by parents, Victorian girls embarked on imaginative journeys which did not threaten to take them too far from home. Though often received from parents as gifts, diaries nonetheless granted more freedom than parents did. In diaries, girls could take on new attachments without abandoning old reliances. Thus when Margaret Tileston went away to boarding school and developed a crush on an older girl, she recorded it in her diary—as well as the news that she had just written a twelve-page letter to her mother, ‘‘the longest letter I ever wrote.’’

And when Helen Hart fell in love with her cousin, she confessed to her diary the prolonged anguish. Such confessions to diaries replaced those to parents—but with parents’ informal acquiescence. The diary was thus a tool for legitimating the ongoing reorientation of girls from parents to peers. Often the diary’s role in this transition was not symbolic at all, but quite concrete. Like rolling hoops, diary keeping was a late-Victorian recreation which girls sometimes shared with friends. Mary Boit and her cousins hid secrets in each other’s diaries, sometimes simply for the fun of the surprise alone.

In fact, the playful fabrication of different personae in diaries was an engrossing amusement within Victorian friendships. Girls described writing diaries together in their rooms, on New Year’s Eve, at boarding school, and even in the park. Shared diary keeping, of course, carried more possibilities than rolling hoops for emotional experimentation, and diaries often became actors in the friendships themselves. Girls frequently wrote about each other, producing provocative documents that became the stuff of suspicion and intimacy. Writing diaries became a way of confessing, protecting, or creating secrets too private for speech.

…For the same reasons that parents might encourage their daughters to write to them—as a way of communicating without the embarrassment of face-to-face expression—girls might use their diaries among themselves. Writing channeled unseemly emotions. That seemed sometimes to be the point of girls’ diaries. Self-governance was expected in feeling no less than conduct, and the diary could prove both a convenient receptacle for—and an incitement to—emotional spillover. In addition to moderating harsh norms and mediating new allegiances, a girl’s diary could inspire and then compartmentalize confusing emotions.

Almost all diaries contained at least one moment of a confessional nature—sometimes crossed out, sometimes written down the spine in minute handwriting, sometimes just left dangerously on the page. For some the diary’s primary purpose seemed to be to provide a safe ground for documenting, exploring, and disciplining nascent sexuality. Victorians strictly limited open expressions of sexuality, but as Michel Foucault persuasively argues, diaries dramatically encouraged discourse about sexuality.

Precocious sexuality was both most censured and most discussed—an adult secret imperfectly kept from adolescents themselves. Harriet Burton’s diary, written between the ages of thirteen and seventeen, is a document ‘‘saturated’’ with desire. Initially, when she embarked on her diary at the age of thirteen in 1887, she was reticent: ‘‘I find it rather hard to confide all my ‘inmost soul’ to a journal for my ‘inmost soul’ is— very inmost!’’ But before long, she had discovered the purpose for which she came to rely on her diary—what she would later call her ‘‘de-praving—deep raving.’’

Although she felt that her passion could not be ‘‘natural’’ for anyone her age and imagined ‘‘how anyone would laugh, how greatly amused they would be at the mere idea of a ‘mere-child’ of fourteen—loving,’’ she found her feelings ‘‘sweet’’ and despaired at the difficulty of doing them justice— of keeping them from seeming ‘‘small and weak.’’ Such self-descriptions as this passage after her arrival for a summer visit in Oneonta, New York, are as of one crazed:

‘‘I am in a very hilarious frame of mind today, and can hardly curb my prancing spirits enough to ‘wright’ as this scrawl bears witness. My silvery voice has been heard at all hours of the day rolling forth in diabolical waves of laughter, and striking terror into the souls of the inhabitants of the house. My mind is so filled with plans which wont come true that I’m nearly crazy. My emotions for other people . . . become so conflicting that they brake from the narrow bounds of my inner man and find vent in a mad race around the house.’’

Despite her descriptions elsewhere of complete freedom for outdoor escapades of all kinds, Harriet Burton described herself here as a confined hysteric, very much within the mode of the ‘‘madwoman in the attic’’ of gothic romances. Her confinement was clearly metaphoric, a fictive imprisonment of impulse within fragile shell. As in much of women’s gothic literature, Burton saw herself as really two people—a passionate inner self and an outer mask, ‘‘a placid calm expression of contentment on my face.’’ And she lamented ‘‘how dreadful has [providence] been in giving no times of solitude times which the soul may assert itself and the face throw off the mask, and break out and away from conformity and be itself.’’

In this context, Burton equated her authentic self and her sexuality. For Harriet Burton, the only place where her passion could be confessed—with all its inadequacies—was in her diary. ‘‘It seems so ridiculous and sentimental to think of writing in a journal, and I would not for anything have anyone know that I keep one,’’ she wrote. ‘‘But I will confess it to myself it is a sort of comfort to sit and write, although it is only talking to myself, and it is often putting down in black and white the things I most despise myself for.’’

…After a many-paged reverie of unfocused fantasy, Harriet Burton checked herself with her own ‘‘will and good sense’’: ‘‘The wisest thing that I can do is to go and duck my head into cold water, eat something then go downtown where I can see plenty of faces, real ones, then come home study my latin—real latin, then go to bed, a real bed,—to real sleep, get up in the morning eat a real breakfast, go to school make some real recitations, by that time I may be in the realms of reality and common sense!’’”

- Jane H. Hunter, “Writing and Self-Culture: The Contest Over the Meaning of Literacy.” in How Young Ladies Became Girls: The Victorian Origins of American Girlhood

#history #victorian #sexuality #american #gender #jane h. hunter #how young ladies became girls

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lastsonlost · 4 years

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Oh my God Elon said something we don't agree with. God I hope Apple and Starbucks disagrees with you too.

Owning a Tesla, the luxurious electric car, is a major liberal status symbol. It signals nothing more than good taste — the perfect balance of wealth with care for fossil fuels. But the man behind the brand is crafting a very different persona online that may now prove to be a challenge for his fans.

Elon Musk, the bombastic head of Tesla and SpaceX, exhorted his 34 million Twitter followers on Sunday to “take the red pill.” The comment was quickly embraced by his followers, including Ivanka Trump, President Trump’s elder daughter, who announced that she had taken the pill already.

The exchange referred to a scene from “The Matrix,” the 1999 science fiction action film. But the meaning of “red pill,” and the idea of taking it, have since percolated in online forums and become a deeply political metaphor. And with Mr. Musk and Ms. Trump, the phrase is now lodged more fully into the mainstream.

So Tesla owners are having to grapple with a car that carries a few new connotations.

“Honestly, Musk is becoming a liability and the Tesla board needs to seriously consider ousting him,” wrote Markos Moulitsas, author of “The Resistance Handbook: 45 Ways to Fight Trump.” “And I say that as a proud owner of a Tesla and a SpaceX fanatic who truly appreciates what he’s built.”

So what is the red pill?

[ I hope your fuckings Tesla explodes. You don't have to be in its but you should be forced to walk everywhere.]

In “The Matrix,” the movie’s hero, Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, is given the option to take a pill that lets him see the truth.

The world he thinks is real turns out to be an entertaining lie; his body is actually trapped in a farm where people are being used as human batteries. Taking the blue pill would let him return to living in the ignorant but blissful lie, while taking the red pill would launch him into an arduous journey through a brutal but fulfilling reality.

The idea of taking the red pill later grew to mean waking up to society’s grand lies. It was embraced by the right, especially by members of its youngest cohort who organized and spent their time in online forums like Reddit and 4chan.

The truth to be woken up to varied, but it ended up usually being about gender. To be red-pilled meant you discovered that feminism was a scam that ruined the lives of boys and girls. In this view, for a male to refuse the red pill was to be weak.

Red Pill forums were often filled with deeply misogynistic and often racist diatribes. The more extreme elements splintered into groups like involuntary celibates (“incels”) or male separatists (Men Going Their Own Way, or MGTOWs). Conferences like the 21 Convention and its sister convention, Make Women Great Again, sprang up to gather red-pilled men. Being red-pilled became a sort of umbrella term for all of it.

As these conversations seeped into the mainstream, pulled along by a host of other internet language from message boards to establishment Republican conversations on sites like Breitbart, the meaning broadened and got watered down. To be red-pilled can now mean being broadly skeptical of experts, to be distrustful of the mainstream press or to see hypocrisy in social liberalism.

What’s going on with Elon Musk?

Mr. Musk has been pretty wild online for years now, which has made him a major internet celebrity with devoted fans who call themselves Musketeers. There are fan pages like Musk Memes with nearly 100,000 followers, and a Reddit page with 200,000 members in constant, extremely active conversation.

Most recently, Mr. Musk has been a prominent skeptic online of the coronavirus, calling the response to it a “panic” and “dumb” and wrongly predicting close to zero new cases by the end of April. As of Tuesday, there were more than 90,000 deaths from the virus and more than 1.5 million cases in the United States alone.

The night before Tesla’s earnings were released last month, Mr. Musk tweeted an anti-lockdown rallying cry: “FREE AMERICA NOW.” He had a showdown with local lawmakers, threatening to move Tesla headquarters out of California and deciding to reopen a Tesla factory in Fremont, Calif., despite the local county’s restrictions to prevent the virus from spreading.

When State Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez objected on May 9 with an obscene tweet, Mr. Musk responded, “Message received.”

Defending his reopening of the Tesla factory, Mr. Musk wrote on Twitter that he would be on the factory floor and offered himself up to authorities. “I will be on the line with everyone else,” he posted on May 11. “If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.”

This month, he and his girlfriend, Claire Boucher, the musician known as Grimes, had a child and named him X Æ A-12. And Mr. Musk announced that Tesla shares were too high and that he was selling almost all his possessions to the point of owning no house.

“We have a phrase, it’s E.M.M. — Elon Moves Markets,” said Bill Selesky, an analyst at Argus Research who tracks how Mr. Musk’s messages impact Tesla’s stock price. “People want to listen to him no matter what he says. He tends to be thought of as a great visionary.”

Mr. Selesky said even Mr. Musk’s detractors parsed every tweet and utterance. “Plus, if you have a Tesla, nobody can ever complain about you because you’re good for society,” he added.

This leads back to Mr. Musk’s message on Sunday, telling his followers to take the red pill.

Do ‘The Matrix’ creators like this?

No. Lilly Wachowski, a “Matrix” co-creator, told Mr. Musk and Ms. Trump in colorful language on Twitter that they could take a hike.

Is ‘red pill’ a Silicon Valley thing?

To some extent.

There has long been a strain of men’s rights activism in Silicon Valley, exemplified by James Damore, a former Google engineer who was fired after writing a memo arguing that the reason there are fewer female engineers is biological differences rather than discrimination.

Mr. Damore became a folk hero for a simmering movement in the technology industry of people who thought the efforts toward 50/50 representation at tech companies were absurd. Cassie Jaye, who calls herself a former feminist, made a 2016 documentary about the Red Pill community and said it had flourished in the tech world.

But the more common phrase in Silicon Valley to signal contrarian thinking is “narrative violation,” which is often used to describe an event that cuts against the mainstream media’s consensus on a topic. The idea is that there is a story being told about the world and how it works, but that the story is too simplistic to be entirely true and an event occasionally pops up to remind people of that.

Why does any of this matter?

Few products today are as deeply entwined with a person’s brand as Tesla is with Mr. Musk, and so his comments can feel personal for Tesla drivers.

“As a Tesla owner, a 47-year-old male recovering from Covid-19, and someone very concerned simultaneously about the environment, the economy, my kids’ and my parents’ future, this ain’t great,” said Jeff Guilfoyle, a product manager at FireEye in San Diego. “This disease is no joke, and the long-term health impacts are unknown for survivors.”

Many have implored Mr. Musk online to stop.

Raja Sohail Abbas, the chief executive of an outpatient psychiatric clinic in Allentown, Pa., wrote: “I am a Tesla owner and love the company. You have to stop being an idiot about this.”

“Tesla owner and Fan here, but this was a disappointing tweet despite the frustrations of and holdups,” added Alex Goodchild, a D.J. in Brooklyn. “Words are weapons especially when used during situations like the one we’re currently experiencing. You sound just like Trump in this tweet.”

The debate has riven the Tesla community.

“The last two months, there’s been this polarization in the Elon Musk fan club,” said Paula Timothy-Mellon, a technology consultant who moderates that LinkedIn-based fan club, which has 22,000 members. “There are those who are believers in these California guidelines and there are those in favor of his push to re-open Tesla.”

Many have implored Mr. Musk online to stop.

Raja Sohail Abbas, the chief executive of an outpatient psychiatric clinic in Allentown, Pa., wrote: “I am a Tesla owner and love the company. You have to stop being an idiot about this.”

The debate has riven the Tesla community.

Driving a Tesla often carries great symbolism for the owner (and observers).

“If you own a Tesla, you feel you are directly connected to Elon Musk and people think that Tesla owners are directly connected to the politics of the C.E.O.,” said Sam Kelly, a Tesla owner and investor based in Spain who posts under the name SamTalksTesla.

He added that he did not think the red pill comment meant any big new political awakening from Mr. Musk.

Asked to explain his thinking, Mr. Musk pasted an image of the Urban Dictionary definition of red pill in an email. It read:

“‘Red pill’ has become a popular phrase among cyberculture and signifies a free-thinking attitude, and a waking up from a ‘normal’ life of sloth and ignorance. Red pills prefer the truth, no matter how gritty and painful it may be.”

Seriously get a refund, buy a prius and

GET THE FUCKS OVER IT!

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komoryriku · 4 years

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Is Kairi Capable of Mind Manipulation? : Kairi’s Letters and the Power they May Hold

So. I have some personal theories about Kairi that I need to get off my chest. There’s a lot. Above is a scene from the KH3 opening that I will be breaking down later but for now, please keep it in mind as we go… 

First of all, I’m so relieved that finally it’s been revealed that Kairi was a pawn in Xehanort’s schemes, now I don’t have to waste time arguing for that. All I will say is that evidence of this has been here since kh1:

Okay, moving on.

What does Kairi do exactly? Not too much on screen, but here’s what we know so far. -She holds the power of a princess of heart… maybe. -She is sent out to Destiny Islands to draw out the key blade bearer (Riku) -She writes letters to Sora. -She is closely connected to Namine, loosely connected to Xion, and figuratively comparable to Aqua. -She claims her memories of home are a little hazy for her. -She loves Sora as a friend. -She becomes Sora’s Chirithy.

If you want to know ahead of time what my ultimate theory is, here you go: Kairi has magic powers of memory or mind manipulation, and her letters, specifically, are manipulating Sora. If you wanna see me break down why I think this, here we go.

Pre-requisites to this theory:

I would very much prefer not to have to regurgitate certain things that are common knowledge to people in the soriku fandom and kh in general. This analyst is subscribed to the idea that Kingdom Hearts is written with queer coding and gay intent, that Riku is the Light, the Sleeping Realm theory is truth, that Sora and Riku will be romantically linked in the end. My reasoning is based on my own two eyes as well as the meta discourse surrounding these readings among like-minds, so if you have time, please read:

-Obligatory Sleeping Realm Theory Link -The Necklace Theory (Which is just canon but still not explicit in game) -Queer CoM Analysis

Okay, onward!

Parallels:

We do not know much about Kairi as of yet, but what the games do give us is a string of VERY major, obvious Parallels. We are asked over the course of several games to compare Kairi to 3 specific girls: Namine. Xion. Aqua.

Let me break these down. Again, I’m so glad they finally revealed she’s a pawn so this parallel breakdown isn’t even half as long as it would’ve been otherwise hahah.

Namine.

Namine is said to be Kairi’s nobody. There is so much I find suspicious about that but for the sake of staying on topic, I won’t get into it, that’s another theory for another day (though I will flirt with it the speculation section). More importantly, she is objectively, directly associated with Kairi and the plot begs us to draw very close parallels between her and Kairi.

Namine has special powers. She can manipulate Sora’s memories and the memories of those close to him. The characters believe she can do this because she was formed from Kairi’s heart and Sora’s body, and I don’t know if that’s true, but I do take for granted that she is a nobody formed from Sora’s sacrifice and that her powers exist because of her connection with Kairi. Either way, what does she actually do?

Namine spends her days surrounded by white walls, drawing pictures on paper that seemingly have the power to manipulate Sora’s memories. This is a pretty specific skill she has, and if you ask me her art style is pretty advanced for a nobody who wasn’t even formed that long ago. She has the artistic eye to include reflective lighting in her work, which is not only beautiful and colorful but in my experience, it’s something a lot of young artists don’t even think to consider as beginners. If nothing else though, its a very specific style. I will be bringing this back up later for some really fun speculation.

These drawings she does are beautiful but also specifically are tied to her powers to manipulate memories.

What we also know about Namine is that she is being used for her powers against her will. Better analysts have covered this already so I will simply say Namine is a good and caring person who has magical manipulative powers that people were abusing her for. She betrayed her captors by the end of COM by refusing to hurt Sora any longer. All the while being tied back to Kairi. What they were making her do though, was manipulate Sora’s memories to replace all images of Kairi with herself… but also certain memories of Riku. Specifically, the memory of Riku swearing an oath to protect Sora as he gave Sora his crown necklace during the meteor shower (seriously, please read those pre-req theories). And ever since her debut, the games have never allowed us to stray from connecting her back very directly to Kairi. Namine is the most literal of parallels. Please keep all of this in mind for later.

Xion.

Xion, conceptually, is an extremely complicated character. She is tied to Kairi in ways that are not as literal as Namine, but she is still very closely associated with her. Once again, far better analysts can explain her better than I can, but here are the most important notes I will make about her:

-Xion is a puppet containing Sora’s memories. -The memories creating Xion are a complex amalgam of memories related to Sora himself, Kairi, and Riku.

All we really need to note for this Kairi Theory Essay is that Xion is another Kairi parallel that is directly associated with missing/manipulated memories as well. She is inadvertently taking these memories from Roxas, the Sora parallel, whom she is copied from, and these memories specifically belong to Sora. Twice in a row, Nomura has told us Kairi parallels are related to Sora’s memories being affected.

That’s all we really need to know for now, but I will also speculate further on Xion in relation to this theory later.~

Aqua

Aqua is not a literal Kairi parallel the way that Namine and Xion are. Aqua has no direct ties to Kairi the way they do, and her character is entirely original and not related to Kairi. However, Aqua is still figuratively a Kairi parallel, due to the role she plays in her story. I’ve already broken down elsewhere what role she plays that is meant to mirror Kairi, but the tl;dr of that is Aqua was set up as a pawn to observe, draw out her friends, and create a division between them. Like Kairi as well, she is not to be defined by these acts, because she truly loves her friends and dedicated her heart’s power to protecting them and saving them. She protects Ven’s body the way Kairi protected Sora’s bodily form. She also works to keep Ven from breaking by telling him he has always lived here with them and Eraqus, the same way Kairi as a Chirithy works to help Sora by taking his memory of Riku’s sacrifice away. Once again, even with the loosest of Kairi parallels, we see memory manipulation at play with the Sora parallel.

Chirithy

I will keep this short because I hope that you read the Sleeping Realm Theory and I also trust that you have the critical thinking skills to understand this symbolic (and literal) concept easily lol. Kairi is Sora’s chirithy the way Riku is Sora’s dream eater. A Chirithy is a specific kind of dream eater, however. A chirithy is made to follow you as your companion, and they specifically lead you into new timelines, taking away the traumatic memories you gained that caused the timeline to shift. We see this play out in KHUX, and with controversy, as the chirithies themselves discuss whether or not it’s actually morally okay for them to take those memories. Although that is a question, Kairi’s instincts are, in my opinion, purely and sweetly to protect Sora. She promised to keep him safe, (I’ve been supposing at that point in the loop she knew she was a Chirithy, and she most certainly was his chirithy by then either way given the ears on her hood appearing after Sora’s dream drop occurred). She does take Sora’s traumatic memories away, it is her job to do so, and I believe she does this solely because she means well and wants to keep him safe and smiling, as her letter to Sora suggests.

Unfortunately, what this specifically does though, is removes Sora’s memory of Riku’s sacrifice. It is stolen from him in that sense. Not only that, but because Sora’s memory of Riku’s sacrifice was taken, in spite of the event being etched onto his heart, and the pain of it being scarred into it, Sora credits Kairi as the source of the light he is following in the darkness. We know for a fact that that light is Riku’s because we saw the sacrifice, we remember it, we saw Sora call to it as Riku and receive a response, we even see Kairi twirl in front of the light and back away from it to lead Sora into it because it is not her light. Kairi, in a very literal way, has replaced Riku in Sora’s mind regarding who his light is. Kairi herself does not do this, it is Sora who fools himself because his memory was taken, but nevertheless, Kairi has just replaced Riku in Sora’s thoughts regarding this light and erased his memory of Riku’s sacrifice.

I will suggest more Things in the speculation section~

Now that all of that is out of the way, Lets Talk About Kairi’s Letters.

What do they do? Well, objectively, we do not know. That’s why this is a theory lol. But regardless of any magic or manipulation, letters are a means of forging a connection with others. Letters to friends by nature are words from the heart intended for someone you care about.

But literally speaking in the series, Kairi’s letters do something a little more special. In kh2 they forge a literal connection to Sora from Kairi. Sora is “trapped” in the dark realm with Riku, but pretty content to be so. No door opened, and that was the ending they had happily resigned to. It is not until Sora reads Kairi’s letter, emphasized by the camera, that the door to light opens. At the very least, we know for sure that manipulation or not, Kairi’s letters are capable of doing that much…

Kairi also tells us she writes letters to Sora and doesn’t even send them. For whatever reason, however, she sent the letter in Kh2 as soon as she remembered who Sora was post his reconstruction. And this is pretty much all we know for sure.

If I say “Kairi’s letters are manipulating Sora” thats rather jumping to conclusions, cuz obviously there are missing pieces. All we have is: Kairi—>Letters—> ___ —>Sora.

That’s not enough to make the conclusion. But that’s where those handy dandy parallels come in.

Namine—> Drawings—> Manipulate—>Sora Xion—->Memories—-> Borrowed—> (Roxas—>) Sora Aqua—-> White Lies—> Distract—> Ven Chirithy----> Memories----> Taken----> Keyblade Wielder

So as you can see, the missing piece that fits the puzzle, isn’t so hard to theory-craft. Especially between Namine and Kairi. It is a jump to a conclusion, but it is far from a leap. True or not, this is my working theory.

So it’s time for speculation.  Things that I have been exploring on the other side of that “leap”.

Kairis letters

Let’s start with the first letter we get to read from Kairi.

Pretty sweet sentiments right? But here is the thing about some of those lines in particular… “Many worlds sharing the same sky” is something Sora has already heard… from Riku.

Not to mention, something about this dark realm scene in Kh2 always bothered me… Sora is seemingly in utter bliss with Riku in the dark realm.

He does wanna get Riku home but if they’re stuck here, they are not complaining. And then the camera lingers for a pretty long time on Riku handing Sora that letter. That usually means they want me to notice it and consider it… Okay, time to consider it.~

The letter pretty certainly opened the door to light by forging a connection to Sora from the light world with Kairi. Sora was so content that he wasn’t even connecting to home. Not until he read this nice letter from his friend Kairi. There is nothing manipulative about that on its own… but we have been asked by the games to parallel Kairi to Namine so I think it’s fair to suggest Kairi’s creative writing should really be considered thoughtfully the way Namine’s drawings are. The most basic logic is these letters are affecting Sora’s mind in some way. What further leads me to think this? The only thing Sora was even thinking about in this scene before reading that letter was Riku. Riku’s company, Riku’s injury, Riku’s happiness, Riku, Riku, Riku. And then as someone else pointed out here, Sora sees Kairi in the light world after reading this letter and leaves Riku to struggle to shore on his own.

This doesn’t have to mean anything but we know Riku is injured, We know the Sun is Riku’s symbol, and Sora is running from Riku, eclipsing the Sun, and rushing back to shore where Kairi is waiting to welcome him home. It is jarring when you think about it. How did Sora go from thinking about nothing else BUT Riku to leaving him with a probably-broken-hip to struggle to shore on his own? It is no wonder Riku is always left to think he is going to be alone in life and he has no choice but to struggle out of the darkness on his own.

This mirrors something in particular….

The scene of Sora losing Riku to the darkness in the KH1 opening…

Followed by shot for shot re-animation of Sora chasing Riku’s Light in the KH3 Dive to the Heart.

And something about the scene in Kh1 always really bothered me… Sora was worried sick about Riku when he lost him to the sea- only to suddenly be happy and appear blissfully ignorant of Riku disappearing the moment he sees Kairi. As if he just suddenly forgot about him upon seeing her.

And I think the parallels speak for themselves. (Don’t forget about that beach scene in the Kh3 op either... we are getting to that.)

I’m not saying Kairi and her letters make Sora forget about Riku, but…

I’m also not saying Kairi’s letters replace memories of Riku with herself, I actually don’t know that there’s enough here to make that statement likely… So I won’t… say that…

(I hope you read those pre-req’s because I’m going to assume you speak the KH language regarding Sora, Riku, and Kairi vs, water, land and air, vs Light/Dark, the Sun, the Moon, Dawn, Sunset, Night… all that good stuff.)

Now let’s talk about her letter in 3.

Oh this is interesting. Repeating motifs. Almost as though the game is trying to tell us something crucial.

Full transcript of Kairi’s KH3 letter to Sora that she has no intention of sending:

I'm sorry I left without saying good-bye. Did Master Yen Sid tell you? I'm training to become a Keyblade wielder like you.  That's right. No more waiting for you to come back from your adventures.  I want to get out there and do my part to help.  Merlin has used his magic to bring us to a place where time doesn't matter. We can take as long as we need to complete our training. He's an amazing wizard.  Oh, and by "us," I mean me and lea.  He's really sorry for all the trouble he caused. I told him it's fine, but he won't stop apologizing.  I'll admit I was a little scared of him at first, but I've gotten to know him better. All he ever wanted was to help his friend.  Honestly, it's hard not to like him.  Every now and then, I catch him staring at me. When I ask what's wrong, he says, "I'm not sure. I think I'm forgetting something. Don't know what."  Sora, I think it may have something to do with you.  Your journey is all about helping people: some that you've never met before, and some like Lea that you have. They're all counting on you.  It won't be easy, but I hope you'll remain the happy and cheerful Sora I know.  There's no heart your smile can't reach.

In particular, this letter goes on and on about Lea and how he has turned over a new leaf and deserves forgiveness. Personally, I took this to mean Kairi is really hoping Sora will forgive her for the part she was forced to play in Xehanort’s plot, perhaps her writing even influencing his mind to do so via urging him to forgive Lea. You may notice that this would imply that Kairi is fully aware of her role in Norty Nort’s plot. And to that I say yes, it sure would. But not as much as her leading Sora around to her various “heart” pieces like a moth to the wrong flame in Re:Mind.

Anyway, this is not a letter she intends to send to Sora, and she makes a note of this to Lea, even when he tells her plainly that Merlin will deliver it for her. If we keep in mind that Namine’s art doesn’t even need to be seen by Sora for the mind tricks to work, then perhaps- Sora really doesn’t even need to receive this letter for its influence to work. This would rather make her frantic attempt to send the letter in Kh2 a little strange, but consider this: Her close connections to Sora are potentially based very heavily on these letters. Especially if some of her connections are based on making him forget Riku at various points. Having forgotten Sora in Kh2 until he was reconstructed, and considering that Sora barely reacts to her reunion hug with him, it rather makes a lot of sense that Kairi needed to forge a new connection with him, via one of her letters. In that case, Sora needed to actually read it.

KH3 OP

Beach Scene

Now, finally, I want to talk about that part of the Kh3 opening I mentioned at the very beginning. We are back. Once again, I trust you speak the language of Kh symbolism.

This section begins with Kairi suddenly appearing against a bright white background. Forgive me if I suggest hey, that reminds me of Namine’s white walls, or some blank pages... Next, Sora appears in the empty white environment, which remains white until, seemingly, their eyes meet. And THEN, after that delay, the world of Destiny Islands starts rendering in like a game slowly loading a world on a slow engine. Once again, the motif of Sora standing in the ocean, and running up to Kairi on the shore takes place. He is happy to see her. Perhaps he thinks he found the Light that Chirithy told him to search for. Hey this time Kairi is even running into the sea to meet him instead of waiting for him, just like she said! good for her~. Anyway. As they run out to meet each other, however, lightning strikes. Sora doesn’t see it, but he clearly senses it in some way and stops, (didn’t someone once tell Sora to mind what he hears and not what he sees?~). The camera then zooms out to reveal Sora and Kairi as pieces on a chess board in Nort and Eraqus’ game. Now, this essayist takes for granted that Riku is the Light cuz the text says so. Because of that, my first instinct is to say the purple lighting that we saw represents Riku. A forgotten, heartbroken, lonely Riku. Lightning being one of the most destructive forms of light after all, and Riku would be particularly hurt to know that Sora has forgotten him.

Where is Riku?

What is really interesting about this opening is the severe, odd, lack of Riku. He is missing throughout most of it but in particular when Sora is fighting Xemnas. In the opening for Dream Drop Distance, Riku is very much there, and the animations of him harmoniously fighting with Sora, as well as protecting Sora, self sacrificially are prominent, are there because they want you to remember exactly what happened in that scene and what Riku did.

Only for that to be absent from Sora’s boss battle review sequence in Kh3’s opening. At first, I found his absence annoying but now I’ve come to realize there is a reason for it. The popular theory is that it relates to Sora’s memories being taken away. Riku’s sacrifice most certainly was one of them, thanks to Kairi as his chirithy, but that’s not the memory missing from the opening sequence. It’s basically Riku in general outside of the fall of Destiny Islands, the cast shot, and the shot of him walking into the light from shadow. There isn’t a review of previous games in which Riku played the crucial role he did, and nothing from Dream Drop Distance. To that I personally say, this is most likely foreshadowing that Sora will lose ALL his memories of Riku- as his entry fee to play the Reaper’s Game in Shibuya… Oh yes, TWEWY is also a pre-requisite for this theory lol but you should also play it in general cuz it’s a great story and if nothing else is obviously crucial to what comes next in Kingdom Hearts. Highly speculative, but my assumption is that once Sora beats the game and Joshua returns all of his memories, he will give Sora EVERYTHING back, including anything Kairi has removed as his chirithy or anything she has manipulated as herself.

Further Parallel Speculation

Remember when I said I’d love to elaborate? Well here we are~ We’re gonna get super gay too.

Namine:

Namine is a figure that represents, to me, a brilliant use of queer coding about a queer struggle known as compulsory heterosexuality (or comp-het for short as I’ll be repeating this term a lot). If you made it this far and aren’t lgbt savvy then I’ll tell you that comp-het means compulsively feeling attraction to someone of the opposite sex based on heteronormative conditioning. As Sora roams through Castle Oblivion, he is constantly finding himself misplacing memories of Kairi onto Namine followed by eventually memories of Riku onto Namine. This is one of the most literal depictions of the comp-het phenomenon I’ve ever seen, and it is BOLDLY placed in a mainstream video game from the year 2003. It’s quite admirable in my opinion. Namine’s abilities grant us a convoluted plot so confusing that most people will not understand right away, but to the queer eye familiar with comp-het, it provides a strong implication that Sora may be even more confused than we think about who it is he is in love with. To illustrate, it means Sora thinks he likes Kairi romantically cuz society told him being straight is the default way we live. In actuality, he is projecting his feelings for Riku onto Kairi, (with Riku doing the same until COM and onward), and in COM, those Riku->Kairi feelings are projected onto Namine. She creates another layer of distance between them. But even without her presence, Kairi is still there between them, a question that begs to be answered, and yet another extremely common parallel.

Namine is extremely uncomfortable taking the necklace memory of Riku and imposing herself on it. But when you consider Kairi may have been manipulating Sora, it makes me also wonder how many of Sora’s Kairi memories are actually Riku memories, and whether or not Namine even CAN fix those memories… Just food for thought. Speaking of comp-het...

Xion Xion is an even more convoluted character creation, designed to confuse you even more than Namine does. In my eyes, Xion is very literally comp-het personified. Xion, as far as we’ve been told, is a puppet, a copy of Roxas but blank slate. A literal nobody. They are only what you project onto them. And what did Xion become?

Xion became a real confusing amalgam of so many things. -Roxas initially projects GirlTM onto her. Literally. This makes sense since he already has Axel, a male friend, and his instincts coming from Sora’s memories casually assume a female friend is needed to complete their trio. This is because Kairi was that female friend to Sora. -Over time, as Xion craves becoming whole, she inadvertently receives more memories from Roxas (Sora), of Kairi and obtains her face (albeit with black hair, and there are numerous theories about why that is but this essay is already really long lol). -The strange thing is though- despite having Kairi’s face, the hints we get are that Riku memories are zapping into her too. Not only that, but her death grants Roxas Oblivion as she enters his heart. -I don’t think I need to explain what that implies, but to keep it short, Oblivion is representative of Riku’s oath to Sora associated with the necklace memory. Namine was correct to tell Ansem the Wise that the missing memories are crucial to Sora. I have an analysis on Oblivion vs Promise Keeper that I keep meaning to post but the tl;dr of it is that Oblivion has nothing whatsoever to do with Kairi and EVERYTHING ENTIRELY to do with Riku and his oath to protect Sora. It should have no association with her whatsoever. She is also Roxas’ forgotten friend once the memories of her go away the way Sora’s memories of Riku will. -The manga also much more clearly shows us that the feelings Xion is thriving on from Sora are feelings associated with Riku: the empowerment he feels when fighting with friends.

So if I may, here is the returning theme of projection, of misplaced affection, of misplaced memories. This theme is SO CONSTANT with every Kairi scene and parallel we get, and I do not think it is a stretch to say they are not just here to discuss queer themes of compulsory heterosexuality, but are integral to the plot of KH in a very literal, physical way. In other words, it comes up with Kairi way too often to make mind manipulation a leap. It’s still a jump, but it is not a leap.

Aqua

Aqua is not a literal Kairi parallel the way Namine and Xion are, so she does not bring any major compulsory heterosexuality themes to the table, and her “mind manipulation”, if my theory on white lies between the BBS trio is correct, is pretty minuscule as far as we can tell. This does not mean there isn’t anything to speculate on regarding Kairi’s powers though.

Aqua is a gifted mage, and places a protective spell on Kairi when they meet. This is such a sweet and sentimental moment and I love it so much. She also literally gives her friends way finder charms based on paopu fruits the way Kairi does for Sora. So there are some literal parallels to be found there, but the ideas that concern me most are these-

Aqua is associated with magic. Given that Aqua, Namine, and Xion, are all associated with water, like Kairi, (again I assume you speak the KH language of symbolism and metaphor), and some form of magic (Namine with mind powers, and Xion wielding the key blade), is it possible that Kairi is also a mage of some kind? Or at least harbors the powers of a mage, the way she harnesses the power of a princess of heart?

Re:Mind menu screen art

This is an analysis I’ve been dying to post but only since Kairi has been outed as a pawn spy for Xehanort have I felt free enough to do so without going through the trouble of proving her association with the dark side. You are welcome to dismiss this analysis for reading too much into it but if you’re as deep into this as I am then here we go~

First of all, I want to call attention to how beautiful this art is, and how wonderfully symbolic I think it is, and what it actually reminds me of. Do you remember my comments earlier about Namine having a specific art style, which incorporates reflective light in her coloring? Look at the oceanic blue in Sora’s grey pants and jacket. Look at the yellow from sunlight in Sora’s hair. Look at the blue and yellow reflecting in Kairi’s pink dress and her red hair. Look at the tinge of blue from the sea reflecting on Sora’s paopu fruit. I am not saying this menu art is supposed to be literally drawn by Namine, I sincerely do not think it is lol, this is a symbolic image. But I do think it is meant to REMIND us of Namine’s art.

This menu screen, like the blank pages of a sketch book or notebook, like the beach scene in the KH3 opening, begins with a white screen. Slowly fading in, like the beach scene in the KH3 opening, or a game with a slow loading engine, we have a sketch of Sora. Sora’s feet appear already immersed in the water, as he is eating a paopu fruit, continuing his walk out to sea that we have been seeing him take since kh1 with these key arts. Sora is walking out into the ocean alone, and the coloring fades in bringing the scene to life. This is all the menu art is for KH3.

When Re:Mind was released, the menu screen for it evolved. Now, suddenly fading into this pre-existing scene is a drawing of Kairi, inserted into the moment. Kairi is depicted with a paopu fruit of her own, and she enters the scene with her feet standing on top of the water, not immersed like Sora’s the way they should be considering the depth of the water. This could be a mistake and nothing more… except the water has splash animations added around their feet, meaning this is something someone absolutely should have caught because animations are here drawing our attention to it. This would imply that it means something, so- what? Kairi is not immersed in the ocean, (darkness?), the way Sora is. She is walking /on/ water, not in it. I think this may very well be representative of her protecting Sora’s form as he navigates the new timeline in the dream scape, similar to when we see Riku and Sora walking on water in the dark realm. Or it may represent the way she is navigating darkness but is not immersed in darkness. She treads over it, not through it.

We do not know what this menu screen means. But here is my take on it. Because it is meant to remind us of Namine, we should consider mind manipulation is at play. Because Kairi appears here only after Re:Mind is released, in her Chirithy hood and eating a paopu with Sora, we are to recognize this as the second timeline, in which Kairi has been added to Sora’s journey like a figure in Namine’s art. We should also remember that as Sora’s chirithy, she has removed his traumatic memory of the timeline shift and very specifically removed his memory of Riku dying as he sacrificed himself for Sora. As the title implies, the game wants to remind us of what happened: the timeline being rewritten, as well as Sora’s Memories being rewritten, and in a sense, Sora’s MIND being REwritten. So much to do with mind and memory being affected...

A couple more theories as food for thought:

Kairi’s Grandmother:

You may have been wondering how Kairi could be so pure of heart, as far as we are aware, and yet capable of morally grey things like manipulation at best, and outright terrible things at worst? Well, here is my theory: Kairi’s grandmother has been held hostage and used as leverage against Kairi. For as often as Kairi has been used as a catalyst to bait Sora into acting for Xehanort’s schemes, we know Norty and the powers he works for, (Master of Masters), are no strangers to keeping hostages as motivation for their pawns. I’m just going to fill in the missing blanks between “Kairi’s missing grandmother” and “Kairi acting for the dark side”. Remember her letter to Sora that she didn’t send where she told Sora that Lea was just acting out evil to save his friend, and he’s actually a very good guy and a lovable friend you can’t help forgiving?

I think this is intending to draw a redemption arc parallel between Kairi and Lea that is even more literal than you think. Axel was acting out harshly because he would do anything to bring Roxas back, even willing to destroy Sora to make that happen. If Kairi’s only family was being kept prisoner and threatened with death unless Kairi did what she was told, how can you blame Kairi for her actions? Especially when she started playing the role of a pawn as a helpless child. We don’t know what she’s been through, but probably a lot of traumatic experiences. There is no reason to consider Kairi evil, and although you can explain her actions any number of ways, this one seems the most likely to me.

Her parallels likewise have had a reasonable motivation for their actions if they were even willful at all. 

-Namine herself was being held captive, with the organization forcing her to commit acts of violating mind manipulation. Seeing how genuinely kind Sora was, however, she eventually refused to be their pawn anymore -Xion did not even willfully take Sora’s memories, she was a complete victim of circumstance. Even when wanting to run away, however, Roxas simply was not going to live if she were around to continue absorbing his powers. Thus she chooses to return to Sora. -Aqua is not spying on Terra or trying to drag Ven home because she wants to. She is doing it because Eraqus burdened her with this task. She protects Ven with all she has in the end, and sacrifices herself to give Terra a chance at survival.

Do not assume that Kairi being capable of doing these things, or actually doing them makes her evil. KH has been pretty consistent about showing the ways in which women are often forced by the patriarchy to perform various deeds against their will and there is no reason to hate her for this or think the worst of her when she is more than likely just as much a victim of circumstance as anybody else in her position would be. I think it’s very fair to be mad at someone in her position if you were the one being manipulated by her, but never forget to be fair in your judgement of this fictional character being manipulated by the forces of evil in this fictional world which uses her as a pawn. Kairi can still a good person of good intent even if she had to do bad things.  

Time to reach: Ava

Since I’m already several layers deep in speculation I just thought I’d throw this out there as food for thought. It’s a popular theory that Ava, the missing foreteller, is dwelling within Kairi’s heart, which could possibly mean Namine is Ava’s nobody the way Roxas is likely Ven’s, as they were both dwelling in Kairi’s heart and Sora’s heart respectively when Sora sacrificed himself. Ava is particualrly skilled in the art of Illusions, which is pretty relevant to the idea that Kairi and Namine are directly manipulating Sora’s mind. Namine’s powers involve rearranging memories, and drawing new memories illustration what she is creating. She is literally creating illusions in the mind. If Ava is dwelling in Kairi’s heart, perhaps logically Kairi can use these powers but not directly. She cannot create illusions out of thin air, but can play tricks on the mind with them. Namine forming from Kairi’s heart having meshed with Ava’s heart might thus be able to create mind illusions, using drawn illusions. Is Ava the source of Kairi’s powers? Is Ava the princess of heart which Kairi is using to do her jobs? Well, I don’t know lol. It’s just out there as food for thought.

In Conclusion.... Nothing, really lol

All we have to go on are consistent parallels and strong guesses. Kairi may or may not be able to manipulate minds, and her letters may or may not influence Sora’s mind. I don’t know. It is worth considering though, I think. However, I ask that you judge Kairi fairly, open mindedly, and do not underestimate how powerful she may very well be. I cannot wait to see what will be revealed about her character in the future.

#kingdom hearts #soriku #kairi #kh theory #kh kairi #kingdom hearts 3 #kh3

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spacetimewithstuartgary · 4 years

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AAS NOVA Lack of Spacetime Squiggles Limit How Much a Pulsar Can Be Squashed By Astrobites Neutron stars represent one of matter’s weirdest manifestations. They have a mass of a little more than that of the Sun packed into a space the size of a big city — and getting to know their size, shape, and structure can unlock the most fundamental questions in atomic physics. What makes up a neutron star? Are they rigid or squishy? Are they perfectly spherical? If they have deformities, what is the tallest “mountain” they can support? The first direct detection of gravitational waves by LIGO in 2015 gave us one of the best tools for studying neutron stars. Gravitational waves are radiated whenever matter moves in an asymmetric manner, which changes its quadrupole moment with time. For us to be able to detect these waves, they need to emanate from the asymmetric motion of extremely massive and dense matter. The first detection of gravitational waves was radiation from a pair of black holes spiraling into one another. Since then, most of the gravitational wave events detected by LIGO–Virgo have similarly been black hole binaries. However, one might argue that neutron stars are much more diverse and interesting gravitational wave sources. The first confirmation of the existence of these waves was provided by the Hulse–Taylor binary: a system featuring a pulsar (a rapidly rotating neutron star giving off radio pulses) orbiting another neutron star. This week, we just passed the third anniversary of GW170817, an event where for the first time, LIGO and Virgo “heard” two neutron stars colliding. The collision resulted in a kilonova explosion that was observed using electromagnetic telescopes. Neutron stars can exist in pairs and do the tango like the binaries mentioned above, but the cool thing is that they can also radiate gravitational waves while being single! Any physical deformation, like a “mountain” on the neutron star crust, will give rise to a large quadrupole moment since neutron stars rotate extremely fast. The particular kind of neutron stars studied here are called millisecond pulsars: entire stars that complete one rotation within a few tens of milliseconds, much less than the blink of an eye. Even if the pulsar were perfectly spherical on the outside, it may have internal deformities in its core — a possibility that very little is known about. Or, it may be slightly elliptical in shape and wobble asymmetrically as it spins, which can also give rise to gravitational wave radiation. All of the above mechanisms of lone neutron star gravitational waves have a tantalizing characteristic: their frequency is almost entirely constant. This is because it is determined by the frequency of rotation of the neutron star. These gravitational waves are thus known as continuous waves, distinguishing them from the transient, chirping waves produced by colliding binaries. The search for continuous waves from pulsars is promising because data analysts know which frequencies to dig out from the data for the pulsars that astronomers have already seen through radio telescopes. This enables targeted searches for known millisecond pulsars in LIGO and Virgo data (lower image). LIGO–Virgo’s third observing run did not detect continuous waves from any pulsar directly. The downside of continuous wave searches is that the expected strength of these gravitational wave signals is far less than those from compact binary mergers. Assuming that continuous waves are constant in frequency, only long stretches of data spanning several years can build enough signal above the noise threshold. However, even a non-detection can tell us a lot about what the structure of the pulsar is (or more importantly, isn’t!) It isn’t quite true that rotation speeds of pulsars are absolutely constant. Indeed, if an elliptical, wobbly pulsar radiates gravitational waves, it would invariably lose energy and slow down (called spin-down). Other factors, like magnetic fields or internal dynamics, can dominate this slowing down process as well. Pulsar spin-down has already been measured, but it takes place over very long timescales, effectively ensuring that pulsar frequency is constant over the period of a LIGO–Virgo observing run. Knowing the spin-down rate helps us probe an interesting aspect of pulsars. Assuming that a pulsar slows down entirely due to radiation of gravitational waves and no other processes, conservation of energy equates the spin-down to the expected strength of gravitational waves detected. The energy of these gravitational waves is related to the degree of deformation or ellipticity of the pulsar. The observed spin-down limit thereby constrains the degree of asymmetry of the neutron star mass distribution as it rotates. For the very first time, LIGO and Virgo achieved a level of sensitivity that enabled them to detect possible signals from the pulsar J0711–6830 weaker than its known spin-down limit (bottom image). That means the authors could constrain its ellipticity or limit the size of its mountains to a greater extent than previous observations. As a result of not detecting any gravitational waves, we now know that this pulsar is less deformed from a perfect sphere than the width of a human hair! Before Galileo pointed his telescope towards it, most scientists believed that the Moon was a perfect sphere. It is fascinating today to be able to correctly identify perfect spheres over a hundred times smaller than the Moon, situated over 300 light years away from us. TOP IMAGE....Artist's illustration of a millisecond pulsar (white object with magnetic field lines on the right) in a binary system with a stellar companion. [ESA] CENTRE IMAGE....Artist’s impression of the collision and merger of two neutron stars. [NSF/LIGO/Sonoma State University/A. Simonnet] LOWER IMAGE....The gravitational wave frequencies (dashed vertical lines) of known pulsars used in this search, compared with the power spectral density (PSD), also known as the “noise bucket of sensitivity” of the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave observatories. The spikes in the PSD correspond to known continuous noise sources, such as the 60-Hz power line in the US. Can you see why it is such a nuisance for the Crab pulsar? [LIGO–Virgo Collaboration 2020] BOTTOM IMAGE....Constraints on the mass quadrupole moment Q22 and ellipticity for one of the pulsars in the study. The area under the curve between two values of quadrupole moment is the probability that the true value lies within that range; smaller values imply increasingly perfect spheres. The black vertical line represents the spin-down limit for the pulsar, and the colored vertical lines correspond to 95% confidence that the ellipticity is below a certain value. When the upper limit measurements (colored vertical lines) of the quadrupole moment (or ellipticity) lie to the left of the black lines, the spin-down limit has been surpassed. [Adapted from LIGO–Virgo Collaboration 2020 Title: Gravitational-wave constraints on the equatorial ellipticity of millisecond pulsars Authors: The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration First Author’s Institution: Northwestern University Status: Submitted to ApJ Editor’s note: Astrobites is a graduate-student-run organization that digests astrophysical literature for undergraduate students. As part of the partnership between the AAS and astrobites, we occasionally repost astrobites content here at AAS Nova. We hope you enjoy this post from astrobites; the original can be viewed at astrobites.org. About the author, Sumeet Kulkarni: I’m a third-year PhD candidate at the University of Mississippi. My research revolves around various aspects of gravitational wave astrophysics as well as noise characterization of the LIGO detectors. It involves a lot of coding, and I like to keep tapping my fingers on a keyboard even in my spare time, creating tunes instead of bugs. I run a science cafe featuring monthly public talks for the local community here in Oxford, MS, and I also love writing popular science articles. My other interests include reading, cooking, cats and coffee.

#space #science #Astronomy #physics #news

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all-pacas · 4 years

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41 43 and 50?

41. Who are all your favorite active Critters (artists, writers/meta analysts, cosplayers, gif makers, memers, livebloggers, community organizers, timestamp posters, stat trackers, etc.)?

oh man, this is going to be such a lame answer from me, because i don’t know anyone! i don’t follow the tags or tag my own shit; i can only name the people who i interact with who are amazing don’t get me wrong but it’s also just such a small sample! there’s my nott-fandom mentors @nonbinarywithaknife and @i-mean-nevermind; there’s some people whose meta and/or tags i love like @disasterjones and @kimabutch even if i rarely interact, there’s also my tl;dr post pal @theregoesmylurkerstatus and tons of people i just like lurking on from afar and/or debating with?? like @yfere or like... my ships passing in the night arguments with @luckthebard or petty pals @revvetha whose username makes me angry to type!! and @bravenot or my anti-swedish alliance with @fightingswedes or SO MANY OTHER PEOPLE, up to and including my random nott anons? but it’s such a small pool too, these are just people i interact with sometimes, i don’t know ANYONE, i like everyone who i can argue with, this is a bad question to ask me

43. What’s your favorite Sam ad?

THE BIRTH dramatic reenactment, for three important reasons!

1. it’s. really funny. “i bring you news from the womb!” never fails to crack me up, and neither does marisha’s 90s anime impression of laura and sam’s spot on travis impression.

2. the amazing mood whiplash from remembering this aired at the start of episode 26, the episode forever reduced to “and then molly died.”

3. it was, no lie, the very first critical role content i ever saw. for some reason youtube suggested it to me one day. i’d never seen it before, although i’d heard of it from tumblr. i had no idea what it was. i remember thinking that liam seemed like a try hard although i’m not sure??? why??? anyway, welcome to the fandom, me.

50. What CR backstory/arc/moment resonates with you the most?

the cheap answer is episode 48/49, which served as my entry into the fandom and so, obviously, that one, although i can’t think of a particular moment or arc that struck me as “relatable” as such. as for backstory… beau, lol. there is a reason i very rarely talk about beau, and it isn’t because i dislike her! it is very hard for me to look at her and her actions with any sort of objectivity, so i just… stay out of it lmao.

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densi-mber · 4 years

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Reflections

A/N: Although this page and event is dedicated to Densi, since the 250th episode airs tonight, we thought it was only appropriate to post a team fic for this momentous occasion. Happy first day of Densi-mber!

Based on today’s writing prompt.

***

“Don’t drop your left, Babe!” Kensi called out from the sidelines as Sam and Deeks sparred in the middle of the gym. It was mostly unnecessary at this point, but she couldn’t help herself. Encouraging Deeks was second nature by now and part of the game.

“C’mon partner, you can hit harder than that,” Callen said and Sam shot him a glare as he danced back from Deeks and then lunged forward. Deeks blocked him with his forearm, landing a punch to Sam’s upper chest. “It’s certainly different that the first time they fought each other. Back then Deeks didn’t stand a chance.”

She turned her attention back to Deeks, analyzing his movements. His form was definitely way better, his hits had more force behind them and after all these years he knew Sam’s style. It also didn’t hurt that Deeks had a more muscular physique than when he’d first joined the team. She spent a little more time than absolutely necessary to examine the flex and pull of said muscles as he attempted to pin Sam’s arm behind his back.

“Deeks wasn’t that bad,” she said eventually, partially out of loyalty, partially out of competitiveness. Callen snorted.

“Sam knocked him out cold.”

“That’s because it wasn’t an even match. If Deeks had as much muscle then as he–”

“Yeah, I think we all know how much you like Deeks’ muscles,” Callen interrupted dryly and Kensi made an outraged noise.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I saw you checking him out. Again.”

“I was not,” Kensi protested as Sam and Deeks wandered over, both breathing heavily. Wiping sweat of his face, Deeks nudged her shoulder and asked,

“What are you guys talking about?”

“Your muscles,” Callen answered which earned an unsurprised look from Sam.

“I should have known,” he said. Deek nudged Kensi’s shoulder again, grinning.

“The question is, who started the conversation?” he asked, winking at Callen. Before things could descend into complete chaos, Kensi got things back on track.

“Actually, we were remembering the first you guys fought each other.”

“Oh yeah, good times. Sam knocked my lights out and then you guys proceeded to steal my case,” Deeks recalled as he grabbed his water bottle and downed half of it at once.

“And who’d have thought that we’d still be have your scrawny butt around ten years later,” Sam added cheerfully, roughly patting Deeks on the back.

“I think Kensi would argue that it’s a well-muscled butt,” Callen felt the need to point out.

“Should I be concerned that you’ve been checking out my butt?” Eric chose that moment to walk in and asked,

“Is this a bad time to interrupt?” Based on his vaguely disturbed expression, he’d heard at least part of the conversation. Kensi grabbed Deeks’ arm and physically removed him from the area before he could make things more awkward for Eric.

“Nope, you have perfect timing,” she said firmly, pushing an unresisting Deeks out of the gym.

***

They were in the bullpen later that evening, while Callen and Deeks finished up some reports. The discussion of their early days as a team had continued throughout the day; both Sam and Callen had proved to be surprisingly sentimental about the whole thing. They’d taken turns recalling various incidents throughout their careers before and after the rest had joined. At some point Nell and Eric had wandered down too and joined the conversation.

“You know, since we’re being all nostalgic today, I was thinking about what things were like before Deeks and Nell were a part of the team,” Kensi said, looking over at Deeks with a fond smile.

“It was a lot more peaceful for one thing,” Sam commented dryly, glancing pointedly at Kensi and Deeks. “There was a less drama and the chances of walking in on someone kissing was almost negligible.”

“And you guys never let me drive,” Kensi added under her breath. Nell, sitting on the edge of Callen’s desk, was looking wistful.

“I remember my first day working here. I was terrified. I told myself that I was going to do everything perfectly and be the best tech analyst the Office of Special Projects had ever seen. And then I’m pretty sure I spent most of the day rambling and making Eric hate me.”

“I didn’t hate you,” Eric protested from beside her, apparently horrified by the thought. Nell rolled her eyes at his loyalty, although she also looked somewhat pleased.

“Oh you definitely did not like those first couple weeks,” she countered. When Eric started to protest again, she raised a small hand in a halting gesture. “Which I completely understand. I kept cutting you off and trying so hard to prove myself that even I am retroactively annoyed.”

“And none of that matters now because I love you more than anything,” Eric said sweetly and leaned over for a kiss.

“Before this gets any cheesier than it already is,” Callen said, looking vaguely amused by the display going on in front of him. “Didn’t you also throw Hetty a massive birthday party? When we specifically told you that you shouldn’t.”

“I don’t know that you ever said I shouldn’t throw her a party,” Nell hedged. “Besides, she loved it.”

“Yeah, I’m not so sure about that. I’m think Hetty was so sick of hiring new analysts she was determined to like you no matter what.”

“That is not true!” Kensi objected, looking outraged on Nell’s behalf.

“Even if it is true, like Eric said, it doesn’t matter now,” Deeks pointed out, sharing a friendly smile with Nell. “Because it was one of the best decisions Hetty ever made. This place wouldn’t be the same without you.”

“Oh Deeks, that is so sweet,” Nell murmured, placing a hand over her heart.

“He’s right,” Sam agreed. “Even though I might not have seen it at first, all of you have made this team better and I can’t imagine if I didn’t have you guys around me every day.” Nell made a sound remarkably like a sniff after Sam’s impromptu speech and Kensi reached over to squeeze his shoulder.

“We love you too.”

“Ditto,” Nell said.

“It’s your turn.” Sam nodded in Callen’s direction, arms crossed expectantly and a hint of a smirk pulling at his lips.

“My turn for what?”

“To say something nice. You’re the only one who hasn’t yet.” Callen looked like he might protest, but then shrugged.

“Fine.” He let out a weighty sigh and confided, “I actually liked Deeks’ oyster beer.” This was met with a chorus of groans and protests.

“And on that note, why don’t we take this conversation to the Squid and Dagger,” Deeks suggested. “This time, I promise there will not be any seafood involved.” There were several sighs of relief at this news.

As they packed up to go, Hetty appeared in the doorway, hesitating in a way that was most un-Hetty like.

“Is that an open invitation, Mr. Deeks?”

“Of course,” he answered with honest surprise. “You’re always welcome.”

“Wonderful,” she said, clapping her hands together and somehow taking instant control of the impromptu get together. “Since we’re reminiscing, did I ever tell you about the time Mr. Hanna crashed his first Challenger?” Sam laughed nervously and touched Hetty’s arm.

“C’mon Hetty, I don’t think anyone wants to hear that story.”

“I do,” Nell piped up immediately while Eric nodded eagerly. Sam ignored them and began futilely trying to usher Hetty out of the bullpen.

“You told me that accident wasn’t your fault,” Callen commented, his eyes narrowed at his partner. “You said the other car crashed into you.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Sam insisted as Hetty said,

“Well, yes, in a way I suppose that is true. A car did crash into Sam…but only after he smashed into a parked minivan.” Hetty continued the story as they left the mission, much to Sam’s dismay and everyone else’s amusement.

By the time they made it to the Squid and the Dagger, Callen was still ribbing Sam. Deeks disappeared into the storeroom to the grab the promised beer while the rest of the team found seats at the bar.

“Can we please talk about something else?” Sam begged after another round of jokes at his expense. “Like how nice it is to finally have this team all in one place again.”

“I will definitely drink to that,” Kensi said as Deeks reappeared with a crate of bottles.

“Hey, you guys better not have started toasting without me,” he said jokingly, starting to pass around the beer. Callen took one immediately while Sam and Nell hesitated. Deeks rolled his eyes as he bumped Kensi’s shoulder to get her attention and passed her a bottle. “I promise this beer is fresh, chilled and definitely not fishy. It comes from a local, award winning brewery.”

“It better be. I still have nightmares about that last one,” Sam said darkly with a disgusted shake of his head.

“It honestly wasn’t that bad,” Callen insisted.

“You have no taste buds,” Eric said with a horrified expression. Deeks had finished distributing the beers and went to stand beside Kensi, leaning against the bar.

Hetty cleared her throat and stood up, raising her hand in a way that demanded attention.

“Since we are all gathered her together, and thankfully in one piece for once, I would like to toast to this team. I am eternally grateful for the work you do each and every day. To the Office of Special Projects, may we be together for ten years more.” She ended by lifting her glass in the air and everyone followed suit and took a drink.

“And to the members of this team who are no longer with us,” Deeks added and they drank again. There was a moment of contemplative silence and then Callen said, frowning down at his bottle,

“You know, I kind of miss the oyster beer. It had an interesting muskiness.”

“You are ridiculous,” Sam said with a chuckle.

“I’ve got more in the back if you want it,” Deeks offered. Hetty set her half-empty bottle on the bar and declared,

“I believe that is my cue to leave.”

“Thank you for coming, Hetty,” Kensi said graciously as Hetty gathered her belongings.

“I wouldn’t have missed it. Oh, and Mr. Deeks, please do not let Mr. Callen have more than one of those beers,” she added over her shoulder with a delicate shudder.

“Yes, Mom!” Deeks called out as she left and the others spread around the bar, Callen in search of more musky beer. Kensi wrapped her arm around his waist, leaning into his side, and sighed contentedly.

“When you first told me you wanted to buy a bar, I thought you were crazy,” she started, and Deeks snorted.

“I know, I thought you were going to kill me when I took the team here the first time.”

“Mm, but now having the team here for drinks are some of my favorite nights.”

“Mine too,” he murmured. He cupped the back of her head and leaned down to kiss her. Who knew if they would last another ten years as a team, but he knew they would be their own weird version of a family forever.

#Densi-mber 3.0 #Densi-mber 2019 #Densi-mber Day 1 #ncis la #ncis la fanfiction

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alexsmitposts · 4 years

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Lies and Censorship, a Second Pandemic On April 6, 2020, the University of Manchester published a paper titled COVID-19 Disinformation: Two Short Reports on the Russian Dimension. That paper focused on highly funded disinformation programs, some funded by the EU and/or UK governments seemingly tasked with censoring or crushing media that strayed from the official “party line.” “The EU’s main task force for fighting Russian disinformation is in danger of becoming a source for disinformation itself, and so of skewing policy decisions in the EU and the UK, as well as distorting public discourse throughout Europe. Based on EU-sponsored counter-disinformation analysis in relation to COVID-19, our report explains what is happening and why. It does not dispute the need to track disinformation campaigns. However, it argues that this work has to be done carefully, and differently. Earlier experiences point to a more reliable approach, the consequences of not adopting which are highly counterproductive.” The report then cites how five stories were “cherry picked” from the Russian media and distorted though altering content and taking statements out of context. Thus, the highly funded “truth tellers” of “EU vs Disinfo” haven proven themselves to be a bastion of fake news. Behind them is an organization known as the East Stratcom Task Force, made up largely of Cold War leftovers, which is now directing efforts to silence free reporting on not just COVID-19 but the efforts by the ICC (International Criminal Court at The Hague) and varying UN groups to call the US, Israel, Britain and others to count for supporting terrorists in Syria and Iraq and in the false flag gas attacks that tie directly to the White Helmets. Let us remember that it was James Le Mesurier of MI-6 fame who founded the White Helmets. In April 2018 Russia brought 40 White Helmet “volunteers” to The Hague to testify about their role in faking gas attacks in Syria. The ICC allowed 15 chosen randomly to testify. Their testimony proved, beyond question, testimony confirmed by independent eyewitnesses, that Western intelligence agencies control not only the White Helmets but ISIS and al-Qaeda (banned in Russia) as well and closely coordinate their efforts with corporate media outlets as part of a massive program of disinformation and censorship. If the White Helmets, with 100% government funding, can be an NGO (non-governmental organization) what do we call ISIS or al Qaeda? (banned in Russia) The current issue is killing stories that tie NATO funded biological research facilities that study SARS COV related bat viruses to the 2020 Pandemic. As the US has repeatedly claimed and then denied that COVID 19 comes from a biolab, stories from covertly funded organizations cited for disinformation may well indicate something to hide. However, the “ground zero” for disinformation and censorship will, perhaps, always be the Syrian gas attacks and the coverup of the subsequent OPCW credibility issue. Other outlets claiming to be free or alternative press, such as The Intercept, fabulously funded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, join the effort as well. From a 2018 Intercept story by Jeff Mackey literally strewn with nonsense: “OVER THE OBJECTIONS of chemical weapons inspectors, who are still at work in Syria trying to determine if gas was used to kill dozens of civilians in the former rebel stronghold of Douma on April 7, Russia flew 17 Syrians from the war zone to The Hague, Netherlands, on Thursday, where they all testified that they had seen no sign of a chemical attack. The Syrians were chosen because they had been seen in video that was recorded by an opposition activist in the immediate aftermath of the attack. The activist’s footage showed what looked like frantic efforts in the town’s hospital to treat survivors for possible exposure to a chemical agent, by dousing them with water and helping them to breathe. Even though no one claimed that the hospital had been attacked with chemical weapons, Russia has made undermining the credibility of that video the centerpiece of its effort to prove that no chemicals were used in the Syrian government’s final bombardment of the town, which passed out of rebel hands the following day. The group it brought to the Netherlands included several medical workers seen in the footage and one patient, 11-year-old Hassan Diab, who has been described by Russian officials as the star witness in support of its case that the entire incident was a hoax, staged by volunteer rescue workers to provoke Western military intervention against Russia’s ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.” The Intercept failed, however, to report that OPCW whistleblowers debunked their version of the story which, as easily noted, includes a strange lie regarding a hospital attack that seems to only exist in the Mackay narrative. Yes, it was claimed a hospital was attacked, as the witnesses outlined, but it was attacked by heavily armed White Helmet “volunteers.” The testimony stated that fake rescue workers forced both hospital workers and civilian “victims” to act out a false flag terror attack on camera. There was also testimony that preparations went on for days in advance of the alleged Syrian gas attack, setting up props including smoke machines and bringing in media from carefully selected disinformation platforms. What the Intercept fails is this; without their disinformation story, there would be no report whatsoever of the ICC hearings as they had been totally censored from all US and European media by the all-powerful East Stratcom Task Force with the exception of the poorly contrived Intercept piece which inadvertently backfired and supports Russia’s assertions. The reason we choose The Intercept is that this has long been cited as a liberal platform highly critical of Trump policies, one positioned as a leader of alternative media, until, it seems, it is needed to launder disinformation on behalf of the Deep State. It will probably be called The Pandemic of 2020. Worse still, pandemics may be numbered like wars though, thus far, our count as stopped at 2, though it seems that one will smolder on for a century. History is to be our teacher but how can we learn if reality, fake history, fake news and disinformation, define how posterity will view our times? A massive effort by the EU is being made to silence any media source that doesn’t stick with the narratives released by Five Eyes intelligence agencies as part of their “cover and deception” efforts. Simply put, the wars which began on 9/11, perhaps even those which had the US bombing Serbia as well, were totally fabricated. Those of us who work in the defense and intelligence arena know quite well that millions from the US and, in particular, Germany, were spent organizing Islamic militias in Bosnia, whose coordinated efforts with Croatian separatists, also NATO trained and supplied, were ethnically cleansing the former Yugoslavia of Christians likely to be aligned, religiously at least, with Moscow. I had the opportunity to go over the NATO effort there a few years ago with the commander of the UN peacekeeping forces, General Sir Michael Rose and General Sir Jeremy Mackenzie, then Deputy chief of NATO, while on an outing of sorts. What can be said of those discussions is that efforts had far less to do with peacekeeping and far more with exploiting a power vacuum in Russia. The end result of NATO efforts has left the region overrun with Kosovan and Albanian criminal elements and has seeded al Qaeda into the heart of Europe, a story still being suppressed. To that we now add the MEK, the CIA controlled terrorist group now camping out in Albania. From Counterpunch: “MEK is a terrorist cult that resides in Albania, and which struggles to overthrow the government of a country that has done nothing wrong against Albania. As a result, the majority of the Albanians have no sympathy for this organization whose job is to wage war and terrorism against a foreign country. What MEK does is criminal and punishable according to the Albanian Penal Code and the Constitution of Albania. MEK was brought to Albania by deception. Albanian politicians like Pandeli Majko, Fatmir Mediu, Sali Berisha etc., asked the Americans to host them in Albania without asking the Albanian people first. This is like as if German politicians were to take into Germany the ISIS army and command, and host them in their country without asking their citizens first. The first members of MEK came to Albania in 2013. However, the bulk of them were brought in 2016, when the then US Secretary of State John Kerry announced their massive landing in Tirana. The coming of MEK created big fears in the country where many media, security analysts, journalists and the public opinion condemned the deception through which MEK was brought. From 2016 to 2018 the media in Albania has written and produced many debates against the MEK and ISIS fighters. Even the office responsible for fighting extremism classified them as an extremist organization in January 2018. The weird nature of MEK which operates as a messianic jihadi cult, whose members are mujahedeens, live isolated from the world, refuse civilian life and make continuous calls for jihad against Iran, and create fear among the peace-loving Albanians in the same way ISIS does for many people in the world. For this reason, in the past years many journalists and activists have criticized the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama by blaming it for turning Albania into a safe haven for terrorists.” The MEK issue is a hot one in that this CIA funded organization, once listed by the US as terrorist until they hired Trump insider Rudy Giuliani to represent them, is responsible for wide mischief both in Europe and across the Middle East. Their ties to Giuliani have inserted them into Ukrainian politics and efforts to organize terror attacks against Russian citizens in Crimea, as well as their continuing terror attacks inside Iran. Articles outlining this relationship have been removed from the website of the University of Maryland and even from The Intercept itself, all leaving behind “404 Page Not Found” traces only. This is the real job of the East Stratcom Task Force and its partnership with Google and Facebook, to make sure that any evidence of an unapproved reality is either delisted or scrubbed from servers. Conclusion In 1990, the Western media ran reports that Iraqi troops operating in Kuwait had murdered babies in incubators. From the Christian Science Monitor, September 6, 2002, nearly a year after 9/11, written while the US was in a frenzy of mass murder and carpet bombing across the Middle East in response to the 9/11 attacks that are still surrounded by so much censorship and controversy: “More than 10 years later, I can still recall my brother Sean’s face. It was bright red. Furious. Not one given to fits of temper, Sean was in an uproar. He was a father, and he had just heard that Iraqi soldiers had taken scores of babies out of incubators in Kuwait City and left them to die. The Iraqis had shipped the incubators back to Baghdad. A pacifist by nature, my brother was not in a peaceful mood that day. ‘We’ve got to go and get Saddam Hussein. Now,’ he said passionately. I completely understood his feelings. Although I had no family of my own then, who could countenance such brutality? The news of the slaughter had come at a key moment in the deliberations about whether the US would invade Iraq. Those who watched the non-stop debates on TV saw that many of those who had previously wavered on the issue had been turned into warriors by this shocking incident. Too bad it never happened. The babies in the incubator story is a classic example of how easy it is for the public and legislators to be mislead during moments of high tension. It’s also a vivid example of how the media can be manipulated if we do not keep our guards up. The invented story eventually broke apart and was exposed. (I first saw it reported in December of 1992 on CBC-TV’s Fifth Estate Canada’s “60 Minutes” in a program called “Selling the War.” The show later won an international Emmy.) But it’s been 10 years since it happened, and we again find ourselves facing dramatic decisions about war. It is instructive to look back at what happened, in order that we do not find ourselves deceived again, by either side in the issue.” Funny thing, you see, it’s always about selling a war, be it staging gas attacks or, as in Syria of May 2020, censoring reports of US troops burning Syria’s wheat harvest in order to engineer a famine. (Why else would someone burn crops?) How many examples could we come up with? Maidan Square and the sniper teams trained at NATO facilities in Poland? The issue here is war, a war on truth, a war fought though attacks on media, through control of media but mostly through disinformation. What is also clear is that efforts to portray, in this case, criticism of recognized terror organizations as “disinformation” is, in fact, material support of terrorism on behalf of governments whose public policy is opposition to those same groups.

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jamlally · 4 years

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Party Season

This was written for the 25 days of Christmas Challenge that is hosted by @panicfob . The Day 14 Challenge prompt was Company Holiday Party

Warnings: Fluff and suggestions of sex

Pairing: Tony Stark x OFC (Belle Porter),

Summary: It’s time for another Party and this time Tony is determined to show off his girl

Belle settled back into life at eh compound after her trip away with Tony. He had hinted that she might want to move her things up to his apartment. She was seriously thinking about it, but also wanted to give him time to change his mind if he wanted to.

The festive season was now in full swing and that meant another Christmas Party, this time for SHIELD employees. While Belle mostly worked with the Avengers she did report to Director Fury as well and as such she was expected to attend

Wanda had offered to help her shop and get ready, and Tony had insisted that he wanted to help her get the best dress for the event. When she had objected he explained that after the last interaction she had with the director he wanted her to be able to knock his socks off. Belle had liked the idea of that, and had agreed.

A stunning emerald green floor length dress was hung on her wardrobe ready to cover the matching colored underwear that she had bought to go with it.

“What are you going to do when other women are throwing themselves at Tony” Wanda asked as she curled the last bit of Belle’s hair and got it ready for pinning

“Well Tony is pretty good at dealing with that himself, but I don't really plan on leaving it as unclear as to who he is with” Belle met Wanda’s eyes in the mirror

“Well look at you, all ready to stake your claim. You go girl”. Wanda winked “Don’t let any of those SHIELD bitches step up on him”

Belle smiled at her friend., grateful for the heads up

The ballroom had be decorated in traditional Christmas colors with a large tree in the middle. Tony watched a Belle entered with Wanda and excused himself from the frankly dull conversation he had been trapped in.

“Snowflake” he flung his arms open delighted to see Belle all dressed up. He wrapped her in his arms and pressed his lips to hers, bending her back over his arm. Standing her upright he held her hands stretching her arms out and looking her up and down “You look amazing”

Belle smiled and blushed a little “Thank you.- you look amazing too. That was one heck of a greeting”

“Well I needed to make sure that all of these damn agents knew that this beautiful woman was here with me and to stay away”

“I am pretty sure that it will be me chasing off the women all of whom want a kiss from the billionaire, philanthropist, playboy” she teased back

“They don’t stand a chance. My eyes are only for you”. He leaned over her hand and kissed it

“Well this explains a lot”. A gruff voice from behind Belle made her jump and the scowl on Tony’s face didn’t make her feel any better. Tony spun her, pulling her under his arm and into his side

“Nicholas how lovely you make it”

“Stark, Porter. It seems like you forgot to keep me up to date on somethings. The way you went to war for hr over those deliveries makes so much more sense now” Belle’s heart dropped as she took in the scowl on the Directors face “Agent Porter I expect you to report to my office at 08:30 tomorrow. Stark I’ll send you a temporary mission analyst to cover the gap”

Belle felt tears coming to her eyes. There wasn’t any questions about what the Director was saying, she was out the compound and it was questionable whether she still had a job at all. Tony’s arm tightened around her

“No Thanks”

“Excuse me “

"I’m sorry I didn’t realize you’d started to loose hearing as well as your sight, I said No thanks”

“I was fairly sure we had agreed that Avengers benefited from a Mission Analyst”

“Mmmm you’re right we did, hence the reason I have a mission analyst right here. Now it seems to me that you want to take away my mission analyst simply because she gives exceptionally good kisses. Jealousy isn't a good look on you Nick - just saying. So here is what happens. You can order my analyst to come to headquarters where you can attempt tp reassign her, reprimand her or fire her. Either way at the end of your meeting she will come back here to her home. When she gets back here she will be instated as the mission analyst for the Avengers employed by Stark Enterprises and she will not be duty bound to share our data with you”

“Damn it Tony. Do you think this is appropriate? I thought you’d cleaned yourself up!”

“Appropriate? To kiss the woman I love. I’m pretty sure that’s the most appropriate of the things that I want to do with her now I’ve seen her in this dress. Let me be clear Nick, you come into my home and threaten my partner again and you won’t like the consequences”

“Tony you can’t just threaten SHIELD” Fury signed rubbing a hand over his head

“Oh it’s not a threat Director. It’s a guarantee”

“Really!”

“Yep and I have a few friends who I’m pretty sure will back me up”. Belle watched as each member of the team stepped forward showing their support, and this time as the tears flowed it was because she was so touched that they would stand for her

“Please enjoy the rest of the party Director. If you would excuse us Belle and I have hosts duties to perform.”

Tony hurried Belle away taking her to the dance floor and pulling her in close to slow dance to the soft music

“It’s ok Snowflake, they won’t touch you”

“Tony, you can’t just argue with SHIELD, You need them for back up and …”

“They need us more. I can and I will go battle for you. I meant what I said Belle - I love you. You have come to mean more to me than anyone else and I will move heaven and earth to keep you safe and happy and with me”

“I love you too Tony. More than anything.” Belle rose on her toes and gently pressed her lips to his.

“You know there are other activities that happen at Christmas parties, and I have an in with the boss so we won’t get in trouble if we use his office.

Belle rested her head against his chest laughing a little “That sounds a lot of fun, but I was hoping that if the boss was here he might buy me a drink, and then I could show off this beautiful dress”

“I’m sure that could be arranged” Tony’s voice was soft in her ear

“Oh that’s good because then when we’re done I could show you what I have on under here, maybe in the bosses office?”

Tony let out a low groan his hand squeezing her ass “That’s not fair, to tease me like that”

Belle gave a soft giggle before stepping backhand taking Tony’s hand to lead him towards the bar. Steve caught her eye and raised his glass in acknowledgement which Belle returned with a wave

“So what can tempt you with…perhaps”

A shout of alarm pulled their attention from the bar to the other side of the room Steve and Natasha already in motion to intercept someone Belle had never seen before

“Stark,I’m looking for my brother” The stranger didn’t seem at all perturbed that two of the Avengers were closing in looking non to friendly and started to side across the room

Tony moved Belle so she was slightly behind him “Last I checked your name wasn’t on the invite list Reindeer games”

#panic's 25 days of christmas #christmas #oneshot #fluff

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missmagicandlight · 5 years

Text

Happy 198th Birthday to Missouri!

doesn’t speak normally in a southern accent but when he speaks French he has a southern accent

switches between saying soda and saying pop. (Addison says pop, btw)

has a probably unhealthy amount of love for deep-fried ravioli

likes dragging cornhole boards out into the front yard when it’s sunny and getting Addison to play with him.

they’re Caleb’s boards, but one of them has sunflowers and the other has bluebirds so yeah one of them is basically Addison’s.

has a whole thing about exploring caves. Caden can usually be convinced into going with him because Addison doesn’t like it

has a set of first edition Mark Twain novels he spent years collecting

barbecue snob

budweiser is still his favorite beer even if they sold out

no-nonsense person

hates when Addison does the ‘frilly lawyer talk’ thing when they argue

he’s pretty smart (he’s a tech analyst, guys, he has to be) but hates having to use big words to sound smart and write corporate emails because he feels like it wastes time

watched the movie Gone Girl before reading the book and was in shock the entire time. Addison, who had read the wikipedia plot summary, ate all of his popcorn

he dragged Addison to Barnes and Nobles afterward and bought a bunch of Gillian Flynn books and him and Addy both read them

when sharp objects came out they had a movie night and binge watched it

didn’t know what Netflix and Chill actually meant for like three years straight and when Caden told him his reaction was basically ‘as if either of us would want to have sex and possibly miss what was happening in the Flash’ which says so much about both of them

he’s been kicked out of theaters for talking

Caleb just makes sarcastic comments and jokes during movies and he makes Addison laugh and joke around too and it’s adorable but also infuriating to people who like watching movies in silence

#10th #August #2019 #August 10th 2019 #aph missouri #birthdays

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phroyd · 5 years

Link

Trump Moves To Create and Sustain an Imperial Presidency. There are no longer three Branches of Government. - Phroyd

William Barr, the attorney general, came face to face this week with Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, at the Capitol in Washington. Shaking her hand, Barr was said to have joked:“Madam Speaker, did you bring your handcuffs?”

The remark, at a ceremony honouring fallen law enforcement officers, was a riposte to Pelosi’s quip a week earlier that if all members of the Trump administration were arrested, the jail in the Capitol basement would be overcrowded. (There is in fact no such jail.)

But it was also indicative of how Barr, and his paymaster in the White House, are perceived to be laughing in the face of congressional oversight and the rule of law. Indeed, following the sporting maxim that attack is the best form of defence, Trump had adopted the language of a tinpot dictator, denouncing the Russia investigation as a failed “coup”, branding his pursuers as traitors and threatening to lock them up.

“My Campaign for President was conclusively spied on,” he tweeted at 7.11am on Friday. “Nothing like this has ever happened in American Politics. A really bad situation. TREASON means long jail sentences, and this was TREASON!”

He’s attempting to create a counter-narrative based on conspiracy theories in which the FBI is cast as the villain

The intention, critics argue, is to turn the tables and delegitimise the case laid out against him in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian election interference, or at least crank up a giant fog machine that leaves the electorate weary and confused. But one side-effect could be a slide into an imperial presidency.

“Investigate the investigators!” has been the battle cry of Trump, Republicans and media allies ever since Barr produced a four-page summary of Mueller’s report that misleadingly implied Trump had been completely cleared of collusion and obstruction of justice. In fact the report documented numerous contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russian officials and identified 11 instances in which Trump or his campaign attempted to illegally impede the investigation.

On 25 March, the day after Barr’s letter was released, the Fox News host Sean Hannity bristled with self-righteous indignation and thirsted for vengeance.

“This must be a day of reckoning for the media, for the deep state, for people who abuse power, and they did it so blatantly in this country,” he told viewers in a furious 25-minute monologue. “If we do not get this right, if we do not hold these people accountable, I promise you, with all the love I can muster for this country and our future for our kids and grandkids, we will lose the greatest country God has ever given man. We will lose it.”

That set the template for Trump, a regular viewer. Having spent two years trying to discredit Mueller’s work as a witch-hunt and hoax, he stepped up demands for an investigation into its origins and pushed the claim that the FBI spied on his 2016 campaign.

Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, said: “He’s attempting to create a counter-narrative based on conspiracy theories in which the FBI chiefly is cast as the villain of the deep state. It’s what is known as chaff. It’s to throw people off of the actual object itself and distract them from his well-documented crimes of obstruction of justice in the Mueller report.”

Trump is backed by Republicans, eager to grab ammunition that comes to hand. They have falsely claimed the investigation was triggered by a dossierfrom the former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, which included reference to a so-called “pee tape” in Moscow, and cited anti-Trump text messages between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page to allege inherent bias.

But it is Barr who has emerged as the president’s most indispensable ally, his improbable Darth Vader. Testifying on Capitol Hill earlier this month, the attorney general used the incendiary word “spying” to describe FBI surveillance of the Trump campaign, a term later rejected by the FBI director, Christopher Wray.

Barr has asked John Durham, the US attorney in Connecticut, to examine whether the FBI erred in seeking a special federal court warrant to conduct surveillance on the former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. An investigation into the legality of the warrant is already under way, led by the justice department inspector general, Michael Horowitz, who is due to release his findings in coming weeks.

Barr is also working with Wray, the CIA director, Gina Haspel, and the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, to review intelligence-gathering techniques used to investigate the Trump campaign. In the meantime, ever loyal to Trump, Barr continues to defy Congress’s demands for the release of the unredacted Mueller report and underlying materials.

Democrats sense a crude ploy by Trump to deflect and distract, parry and prevaricate. Congressman Jared Huffman of California said: “It’s a smokescreen, obviously an attempt to change the subject like everything else he does. I almost don’t want to dignify it because it’s so preposterous that any time someone investigates Donald Trump or disagrees with Donald Trump they are being treasonous or they need to be locked up.

“This is a slippery slope to a banana republic if this is where we’re heading. And I think most Americans get that. You just don’t call for your political enemies to be investigated and jailed in the United States.”

Huffman called for an impeachment process and hearings.

“If [Richard] Nixon was the imperial presidency, this is the imperial presidency on steroids without any sideboards or adult supervision of any kind,” he said. “It’s a real crisis. I still believe we’re going to get through it because I think the institutions and the fabric of this country are still rooted in the rule of law and democracy and checks and balances, but we’re being tested like never before and I would be lying if I said I didn’t worry about it.”

‘Trumpification of the DoJ’

One of the rich ironies of Republican claims of bias in the FBI is that during the election the agency kept its Trump investigation secret but talked openly about its scrutiny of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. The then director, James Comey, held an extraordinary press conference in which he branded Clinton’s handling of emails as secretary of state as “extremely careless”. Eleven days before the election, Comey announced the FBI was reviewing more Clinton messages. Many Democrats have still not forgiven him.

Barr says Trump’s campaign was ‘spied’ upon. Trump claims treason. Both are incendiary. Neither is true

Adam Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee, tweeted on Friday: “Barr says Trump’s campaign was ‘spied’ upon. Trump claims treason. Both are incendiary. Neither is true. Barr suggests a finger was put on the scale to affect the election. But the Trump probe was kept secret; the Clinton one wasn’t. It’s the Trumpification of the DoJ.”

Matthew Miller, former director of the office of public affairs for the justice department, said: “There are a few galling things. First, it would have been crazy for the FBI not to investigate [Trump’s] campaign given what Mueller found. Second, it would have been very easy for the FBI to stop Trump becoming president if that was their intention by leaking what they found. Third, the FBI publicly criticised his opponent: the FBI did have an impact but it was to hurt Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump!”

Miller, now a partner at Vianovo and justice and security analyst for MSNBC, added: “It’s a brazenly cynical strategy by the president and his allies. He hasn’t had a great explanation for what he did so what he’s done for two years is attack the investigation.

“The notion has existed since Watergate that there should be a separation between the White House and Department of Justice. It’s been erased. It’s just gone. It will probably come back when there’s a Democratic president, because they tend to be more sensitive to elite opinion, but the next Republican president will [not] see any reason to restore it.”

Just as the justice department is succumbing to Trump, so Congress is also struggling to maintain its status as a co-equal branch of government. The White House continues to stonewall House subpoenas for documents and hearings, not only regarding the Mueller report but Trump’s tax returns and other matters. The Democratic-led House judiciary committee has voted to hold Barr in contempt of Congress but the party is divided over whether to impeach his boss.

Max Bergmann, a former state department official, said: “We’re seeing an effort by the president to neutralise this as an issue for the 2020 election. He sees a gap because the Democrats have shown reticence in their willingness to prosecute the case against him. We have a situation where there is a vacuum and Trump sees an opportunity to attack the investigation, partly because Democrats aren’t using the results of it to attack him.

“The problem with not using the levers of congressional power is that it lends credence to the arguments Trump has been making. In the public’s mind, it might seem that because Trump is not being impeached, maybe he was exonerated. What is amazing about the Republican side is the ability to manufacture outrage over nothing; they eat, sleep and breathe scandal politics. Democrats are terrified of it and and run from it, even when it’s the biggest political scandal in American history. The inaction over the last four weeks has been unconscionable.”

‘We’ve crossed a Rubicon’

It was perhaps no coincidence that Trump hosted Viktor Orbán, strongman leader of Hungary, at the White House this week.

Bergmann, now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress think-tank in Washington, and director of the Moscow Project, charting Trump’s involvement in Russian attacks on US democracy, said: “We’ve crossed a Rubicon. For the past two years, Trump has not been able to use the justice department to seek revenge against his opponents and as a political tool.

“Now he and his team have learned, and Trump has appointed someone in Barr who is a Washington insider, knows the justice department and is able to operate as the president’s hatchet man. For the past two years, we’ve said the institutions have held. Now we’re at a critical pivot where Trump has learned how to use the institutions to his advantage.

“It’s a dark turn. With the decline of our institutions, the decline of our moral authority, Trump is trying to turn the the moniker of an ‘imperial presidency’ into an autocratic presidency along the lines of Viktor Orbán or Vladimir Putin.

“The stakes couldn’t be higher for the future of American democracy in 2020.”

Phroyd

#donald trump #trump administration #us politics #us news #trump-russia investigation

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