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tacticianlyra · 6 years

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Those who Remain - original

I. May or may not have uploaded this here before? But I don’t remember if I had or not, so. Yes. (This is getting a rewrite.)

Meredith Wilde liked to think of herself as a pragmatic person, and like any pragmatic person, she counted all of her facts before making a decision regarding a problem. It came with being a lawyer, and she hadn’t lost many cases because of that mindset.

The problem she was faced with now wasn’t a case, but a personal problem. A very serious personal problem. The only facts she’d been given were that A) Jordan had been shipped off to god-knows-where to do god-knows-what, and B) that he’s dead. No how, no why. Her brother Alex wasn’t buying it, and neither were her nieces.

The Garrison isn’t telling them what exactly happened to their son/nephew/cousin, and that was sending up multiple red flags, because when the government is being vague about something, that meant something was very wrong and they didn’t want everyone to panic, and it reminds her too much of what happened to her father, who her son both admires and curses.

There is a distinct odeur-de-Kerberos to this entire thing, and that was enough to make her look through her case records to one of the few losses she had.

The Garrison—no, the Coalition—is trying to sweep this under the rug, too.

She needs to call up that client to discuss a few things.

Pragmatic as Meredith is…her gut’s telling her that whatever her son had been doing is somehow connected to the Kerberos cover-up.

Miguel is the most stubborn person in the town of Wolfbridge, and everyone knew it. It was for that exact reason that he’d refused to hire new mechanics.

No matter what that official-looking letter he’d found in the mailbox one morning said, because there is no way in hell that the two street-rats that had lived through the single most brutal winter the area had ever seen were gone.

Then he’d gotten a job that had been a mostly-technical one. It took far longer than the client was happy with, because Miguel just couldn’t make sense of computers as well as Koji could.

Can, he’d corrected himself immediately. He’d still managed to get it done adequately enough.

And then there was yesterday’s job—he’d miscalculated in how heavy that engine part was, and had gone and hurt his back.

It wouldn’t have happened if Stan had been here to help him with it, but he wasn’t.

So now Miguel was left with a major problem. He couldn’t do any heavy-lifting himself for at least two weeks, which means he couldn’t get any work done.

Stan and Koji weren’t here to help him out, nor would they ever be back, according to that letter.

He’s refusing to accept it, because damn it all his boys were not dead!

Katie Holt was forever going to curse the name of Kevin Chaucer for ratting Pidge Gunderson out when he’d walked in on her changing.

There’s nothing that can be done about it now, though—she supposed she was lucky that she’d had a contingency plan involving a very quick getaway, a meticulously-coded computer-worm, and some forged files.

The unfortunate bit was that now she wasn’t allowed within a certain distance of any sort of Garrison base, and neither was any part of her immediate family, all because of “suspected connections.”

Which meant they’d had to pick up and move.

At least she had Hunk, who’d bailed when Iverson decided to move him over to combat piloting. She had a feeling it’s because he wanted the “troublesome trio” separated.

Lance was understandably pissed about all of it; he’d cooled off after a week, and kept in touch. They coincidentally all live in the same town now.

It was at her mother’s quiet request that she went job-hunting, for something to keep herself busy, and she and Hunk both somehow managed to find one at the same place, in a garage that specialized in star-racers.

Their boss had a rotten attitude ninety-five percent of the time, and he was all melancholic for the other five percent.

It was on the fourth day that Katie notices a picture on a shelf; there was their boss with two younger boys in it. They all look just a bit too different to be related, more so with one of the boys; her boss and Kid #1 definitely were Hispanic/partially Hispanic, and Kid #2 was definitely Asian.

Unless, of course, the kids were both adopted…and suddenly, Miguel’s behavior seemed familiar.

“It’s not just the Garrison covering things up.” Colleen Holt sits up a bit straighter in her chair in response to Meredith’s words, attentive now. Meredith kept her hands laced together, waiting.

“Do you really think they’re connected?” Colleen asks finally.

“That’s what my intuition’s saying.” The lawyer paused. “Do you believe me?”.

“…yes. I do.”

She found the file completely on accident, at four in the morning, but the fact that it had the same amount of classification as the Kerberos Mission piqued her interest.

The Great Race of Ōban.

Katie first saw the assortment of names, pictures, and paraphrased information to go with the names and pictures.

Don Wei. Manager of the team, and former CEO of Wei Racing. That same business had announced a new business leader without warning some time ago.

Rick Thunderbolt. Three-time winner of the Star-Racing Grand Prix, champion of the minor leagues afterwards. Primary pilot. Lance was a major fan of his.

Jordan Wilde. The son of the lawyer they’d had that her mom had since befriended, which she was relieved about. Designated gunner…which made no sense if it was a star-racing competition.

Stan and Koji Martinez. The boys from the picture—her boss’s adopted kids. The shared surname proved it. Team mechanics.

And then, Molly. No last name. Secondary pilot.

All privately reported as deceased, save for Molly, who didn’t have any contact information either.

Katie glared thoughtfully at the screen—way too much like Kerberos, this was.

And then she scrolled down further, and saw one of the final details tacked onto the file.

“Shiro’s alive?”

The two he ended up with were diamonds in a pig trough, Miguel grudgingly admitted. Both were Garrison dropouts, one because of being subject to a surprise class-switch, and the other for reasons she wouldn’t disclose. They must’ve been friends, since they had nicknames for each other—Hunk and Pidge.

They were Garrett and Holt to him until further notice.

Garrett picked up everything about as fast as Stan had, and Holt blazed through whatever she was told to do like a maniac, and business goes on smoothly for almost a week.

Then, one morning, out of nowhere, Holt asks about Stan and Koji.

He warily gives her a brief spiel about them (as much as he can say without his voice wavering).

It's when he found himself saying that they were hired for a job that they wouldn’t be coming (haven’t yet come) back from that she stood a bit straighter, looking a little more intent.

“I think I might know what happened to them,” she said.

…maybe he’ll start calling her Pidge.

“We can all meet at my place this Tuesday.”

A lawyer and a schoolteacher―Alex had left a friend in charge of Sasha and Amelia for the time being.

An engineer―Miguel had closed up early today for this reason; he was understandably perturbed to learn that his new technician hacks government databases in her free time.

An astronomer―they were all gathered in Colleen’s living-room right now.

And lastly, a teenager―Katie, or Pidge as she likes to be called, the reason for them being here.

None of them really had anything in common, save for having missing family members.

The curtains were shut, if only because Pidge had her findings displaying on the TV screen, so they could all see it at the same time.

“Twenty-five thousand light-years,” Colleen said slowly, shaking her head in amazement. Shewas the only one standing up. “What kind of competition even was that?”

“Something big enough for the Coalition to want to keep it under wraps,” Alex replied from the couch, sitting next to Meredith.

There was a few moments of erratic eye-twitching from Miguel, who’d claimed the recliner chair, before he swore profusely in Spanish. “I knew those star-racers would end up scrap!” he exclaimeds angrily, gesturing with one hand at one of the details; the Whizzing Arrow I had exploded before it could finish its first race, and was left in an irreparable condition.

The team’s initial pilot, Rick Thunderbolt, had been rendered unable to race competitively ever again due to damage sustained by his nervous system in that same crash.

The team found a spare pilot in “Molly,” who had originally been a stowaway.

“I had to do some digging to figure out who she really is,” Pidge was saying. “Turns out, she’s the manager’s daughter Eva. Ran away from the Stern Boarding School five times.”

“He didn’t recognize his own daughter?” Meredith asked, flabbergasted.

“She was there for ten years and he never visited,” was the curt response.

There was a few long moments of silence, as they regarded her with silent shock. “What the shit,” was Alex’s only comment. “What about―?” He cut himself off, face falling. “Maya Wei…of course.”

Meredith remembered having seen that horrific incident on TV; she’d been watching the race when it had happened. The authorities hadn’t been able to determine the cause of the Cloud II’s explosion.

But she had to agree with her brother’s thoughts. To abandon his daughter like that after her mother’s death? How could someone be so callous? No wonder Eva had gone under a false name.

“Then what happened?” she asked, and Pidge scrolled down.

Colleen made a choked sound, and the others, Meredith included, all leaned forward a bit subconsciously.

An unidentifiable ship had crashed on Alwas (which was the planet they’d gone to), and inside it had been Takashi Shirogane.

Whom the Garrison had publicly written off as dead, along with Colleen’s husband and son―and Pidge’s father and brother, who’d she’d infiltrated the Garrison under a false identity in an attempt to uncover the truth for.

Not even three hours later, the island that the competition was being held on found itself under siege by an unknown assailant, labeled with a name Shiro had provided.

Galra.

Meredith has been in Garrison buildings enough times to know the names of most other alien races that the Earth Coalition has been in contact with, and that isn’t one of them.

The word “Voltron” stood out to her. Something that the Galra seemed to think was on Alwas, as they’d presumably assaulted the planet for, if the multitude of SOS calls picked up was anything to go on.

“I think I caught some of those distress signals on my deep-space radio,” Pidge was saying. “I mean, I couldn’t understand them, but they sounded frantic.” She paused. “Then there’s this last bit here.”

The message provided by the one who had supplied the Coalition with the information was one of the few non-natives to Alwas (the “Scrubs” were able to remain underwater for a length of time, apparently) who hadn’t been taken away by the Galra.

Of ninety-six different racing teams, all from different planets, none of them―save for some minor members of some delegations―were on the planet any longer.

The Earth Team’s backup star-racer, the Whizzing Arrow II, had not been identified as any of the destroyed/taken star-racers, nor had any sign of it been found anywhere on the island.

The team manager and the ex-pilot were among those taken by the Galra.

Shiro, Eva, Jordan, Stan, and Koji must have all been in the star-racer, as they weren’t among those taken…but they hadn’t yet been found, either.

The final detail was that of a second unidentified craft having left Alwas, going at speeds that no other ship had ever reached, aside from the one that had brought them there to begin with, and what was assumed to be the main Galra ship.

It had simply vanished, prior to the Galra leaving the galaxy altogether.

Alex was silent, face pale. Coleen’s eyes were watering, shining with hope once abandoned. Pidge iwas pulling off a first-class pokerface, but she’d already had time to process everything.

“They’re alive,” Miguel said gruffly, voice tinged with relief.

“They’re just…” Meredith stopped, taking a shaky breath. The truth wasn’t much better.

“They’re just lost in space,” Pidge finished, adjusting her lens-less glasses.

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/22/us/politics/trump-ice-raids.html#click=https://t.co/mxkw6omSWV

DHS officials were reluctant to undertake Trump's mass arrests, because they feared the "optics" of child separations would be brutal, the NYT reports.

One top official says Trump's tweet about the raids put ICE agents' safety at risk.

Trump Says He’ll Delay Deportation Operation Aimed at Undocumented Families

By Michael D. Shear and Zolan Kanno-Youngs | Published June 22, 2019 | New York Times | Posted June 23, 2019

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Saturday delayed plans for nationwide raids to deport undocumented families, but he threatened to unleash Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in two weeks if Democrats do not submit to changes in asylum law they have long opposed.

The announcement, made on Twitter as Mr. Trump was meeting with aides at Camp David, was the president’s latest attempt to pressure his adversaries into making immigration changes. Last month, he threatened to levy tariffs on Mexico unless it did more to stop the flow of migrants into the United States.

Immigration agents had been planning to sweep into several immigrant communities in 10 major cities — including Miami, Los Angeles, Baltimore and Chicago — beginning on Sunday. Officials said on Friday that they had targeted about 2,000 families in a show of force intended to demonstrate their strict enforcement of immigration laws. Children of immigrants — some of whom were born in the United States — had faced the prospect of being forcibly separated from their undocumented parents.

Mark Morgan, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, had announced this month that his agency would begin the raids at some point in the future. But on Monday, Mr. Trump revealed on Twitter that they would start the following week, claiming that officials would deport millions of people and sending panic through cities across the country.

The president’s abrupt reversal on Saturday came as lawmakers were considering a measure to send $4.5 billion in humanitarian aid to the border, money the Trump administration has said is desperately needed to handle a huge influx of migrants.

Some Democrats, including members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, had threatened to withhold their support for the funding package when it comes to a vote in the House this upcoming week, in protest of Mr. Trump’s immigration policies. The specter of high-profile immigration raids had risked imperiling its chances of passage.

The Senate has reached a bipartisan deal on a similar measure, though Democrats have conditioned their support on assurances that none of the money would go toward Mr. Trump’s threatened raids.

Democratic lawmakers and immigration activists had demanded in recent days that the raids be prevented, calling them a cruel attack on minority communities whose only crime was illegally entering the country.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Mr. Trump on Friday evening to persuade him to cancel the raids, according to a person familiar with the conversation who was not authorized to speak about it. During the 12-minute call, the president said he would consider doing so but made no commitments, the person said.

On Saturday, Ms. Pelosi put out a strongly worded statement, calling the raids “heartless” and saying they would rip families apart and terrorize communities. She publicly urged Mr. Trump to “stop this brutal action.”

The president did that a few hours later, announcing that “at the request of Democrats, I have delayed the Illegal Immigration Removal Process (Deportation) for two weeks.”

But Mr. Trump made clear he planned to use the threat of family deportations to extract concessions from Democratic lawmakers. He said he had delayed the raids “to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border.”

“If not, Deportations start!” he tweeted.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, has said he wants to work with Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, on a possible solution to asylum and other immigration issues. Mr. Graham introduced a bill that would radically revamp immigration policy, blocking many migrants from seeking asylum and loosening rules around detention. But the odds that a negotiation between the two senators will bear fruit are exceedingly slim.

Shortly after Mr. Trump’s tweet, Ms. Pelosi responded on Twitter, saying: “Mr. President, delay is welcome. Time is needed for comprehensive immigration reform. Families belong together.”

The president was not specific in his tweet about what changes he was demanding, but Mr. Trump has angrily denounced the country’s asylum laws as “stupid” and the “worst in the world.” He has claimed that releasing migrants and their families into the United States while they wait for their asylum cases to proceed amounts to the “catch and release” of dangerous criminals.

The coordinated deportation operation, scheduled to begin in the predawn hours of Sunday, would have targeted immigrants who crossed the border in recent years and either received deportation orders from a judge or failed to appear for a court appearance. They were among thousands of migrants who had their immigration cases expedited by the Trump administration last fall.

Deportation raids are not uncommon. ICE will often approach undocumented immigrants in their home, workplace or even in court to detain and deport them. But the scale of the raids that were expected to begin on Sunday was much greater, spanning several states over multiple days.

The raids also drew condemnation because ICE agents planned to specifically target adults with children, raising again the possibility that families would be separated. The Trump administration abandoned its policy of separating migrant families at the border after it incited global outrage.

On Friday night, the Guatemalan-Maya Center in Lake Worth, Fla., held an information session about immigration. Lake Worth, part of Palm Beach County, has for decades attracted Guatemalans who work in construction and agriculture as well as at resorts nearby. By Saturday, some undocumented immigrants had already gone underground to avoid arrest, having left their homes to stay with relatives or friends in other places. Others said they had prepared to hunker down and hope for the best.

“My family was shopping for the whole week today. We didn’t plan to go out all week,” said Jessi Zavala, 23, the American child of an undocumented Nicaraguan mother, who was working the cash register at World Thrift Store.

“My family was shopping for the whole week today. We didn’t plan to go out all week,” said Jessi Zavala, the American child of an undocumented Nicaraguan mother.CreditEve Edelheit for The New York Times

Candi Vasquez, 13, who was born in Florida to undocumented parents, said that she and her brother, Rudolfo, 8, were still frightened after hearing about the postponement.

“I am kind of happy,” Candi said. “But if it happens in two weeks I am still scared. I don’t want to lose my mom.”

The surge of Central American families crossing the border has infuriated Mr. Trump. Last month, more than 144,200 migrants were taken into custody at the border, the highest monthly total in 13 years. Border patrol facilities, built to house adults who would quickly be deported, are now packed with migrants, including children, who would usually be housed in shelters managed by the Health and Human Services Department. Those shelters have also been pushed beyond capacity.

Mr. Morgan, who won his job at ICE in part by pushing for aggressive deportations in appearances on Fox News, has said the new family raids were needed as a deterrent.

But in recent days officials within the Department of Homeland Security have fiercely debated whether to begin the operation, according to government authorities. Officials within the agency have been hesitant about the effort because of limited space in family detention facilities and the bad optics of separating undocumented parents from their children.

Mr. Trump’s tweet of the operation frustrated high-ranking ICE officials, including the deputy director, Matthew Albence, who expressed concern that the disclosure put agents’ safety at risk, a government official said.

One homeland security official said the operation could lead to “collateral deportations,” in which agents looking for certain individuals detain other undocumented immigrants who happened to be present nearby.

In a meeting with White House officials on Friday, Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary of homeland security, pushed back against the planned raids, arguing that they would lead to family separations. He said he could achieve similar numbers over a measured deportation plan spanning four weeks.

Mayors of several cities, including Denver, Baltimore and San Francisco, vowed not to cooperate with immigration authorities.

On Saturday morning, Thomas Homan, the former acting director of ICE, went on Fox News to advocate the operations and criticize officials who were arguing against Sunday’s raid, including Mr. McAleenan.

“These mayors aren’t the only ones resisting ICE,” said Mr. Homan, whom Mr. Trump has chosen as border czar. (Mr. Homan has not yet accepted the position.) “You’ve got the acting secretary of homeland security resisting what ICE is trying to do.”

News of the delay spread quickly in immigrant communities on Saturday, as acute dread turned to confusion. In Lake Worth, the Rev. Frank O’Loughlin, who runs the Guatemalan-Maya Center, had tried to soothe anxieties that morning. “A lot of people are scared today,” Father O’Loughlin told immigrants who had gathered for an event. “Let everything else go. You and your children are here.”

Hours later, the priest heard that the raids had been postponed. “Wow. We are at the end of a yo-yo string,” he said. “It’s incomprehensible.”

Julie Hirschfeld Davis contributed reporting from Washington, Miriam Jordan from Lake Worth, Fla., and Maggie Haberman from New York.

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globalfilesystem · 5 years

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This Charlotte politician is accused of helping ‘Wall Street slumlords’

When Mel Watt became the nation’s most powerful housing regulator, his supporters predicted that he would advocate for the working class and help homeowners still reeling from the mortgage crisis.

But now, as his five-year term at the Federal Housing Finance Agency nears an end, some say the former congressman from Charlotte is partly to blame for higher rents and fewer opportunities for first-time homebuyers. A Charlotte Observer investigation found that rents and home prices soared in Charlotte over the past six years as corporate ownership of the housing stock grew — a trend Watt resisted taking action to stop.

Some former allies now say Watt enabled Wall Street firms to capitalize on the nation’s mortgage crisis by refusing to use his authority to help average homeowners avoid foreclosure at the height of the financial recession.

It worked like this: Investor-backed rental companies bought thousands of foreclosed properties and “distressed mortgages” at steep discounts during the Great Recession and converted them to rental properties. Investors made more money as rents went up and the firms expanded into more cities.