#government worker dean

[goldenraeofsun]

Day 9: Vintage

Dean sheepishly drags his feet into the costume room.

“What did you do this time?” Cas demands, rushing out from behind a rack of flapper dresses, his voice a growl of pure exasperation.

Dean plucks at his shirt with its arm half-torn off and lifts his other arm holding his bloody jacket. “Hello to you too, Cas. I’m fine, thanks for asking.”

Castiel ignores him and snatches the emerald jacket back, frowning as he fingers the bullethole in the arm and the trail of dried blood all the way down to the cuff. “This was hand sewn,” Cas moans, running his fingers down the embroidery along the lapel, splattered with smears of red.

“Sorry?” Dean smiles crookedly. “I really tried my best not to get shot, I swear.”

“Not hard enough,” Cas grumbles as he gestures at the dressing room. As Dean undoes the buttons of his breeches, Cas calls from beyond the curtain, “Sam and Jo escaped unscathed, then?”

“The brass needed the debrief as soon as possible.” Dean shoves the pants down and kicks them off. “Sam and Jo sent me in in the meantime so you could see the worst of it.”

“At least some people have respect for my work.”

“Jo complains more than I do!”

“She’s a woman,” Cas says dryly.

Dean grimaces at his reflection in the mirror. “Don’t tell Jo I said this, but that’s not cool, man. Don’t be sexist.”

“I meant, women, on average, have more unwieldy clothing than men,” Cas says, sounding more amused than offended at Dean’s callout. “Not to mention the constant emphasis on a woman’s silhouette – the corsets, the stays, the girdles.”

Dean shudders. He’s gotten an earful (or five) from Jo about boning – and not the fun kind.

“Have you ever worn a girdle, Dean?”

Dean coughs. “Can’t say I have,” he half-lies. The lingerie in question in the back of his closet was only modeled after a girdle. From what he’s learned from Jo, the real deal wasn’t nearly that flimsy or lacy.

“Exactly,” Cas says in a satisfied tone of voice.

Dean chuckles as he unbuttons his shirt. “Y’know, one of the dudes at the Continental Congress actually – shit.”

“Everything alright?”

His bicep throbbing, Dean mutters, “Yeah.” He winces as he tries to take off an 18th century shirt one-handed. The bullet, at least, was from the 21st century – Dean really didn’t need to find out how being shot with a fucking musket felt like – and it only grazed him, besides. “Arm’s a little out of commission, but I’m makin’ do.”

Cas yanks the curtain aside.

“Hey,” Dean protests.

Cas just rolls his eyes as he reaches for the shirt. “You’ll pop a seam at this rate.”

“I was being careful!”

“Your definition of ‘careful’ has been driving Colonel Singer to drink since you started at the Time Bureau,” Cas says in a clipped voice. But despite his words, his hands are gentle as they ease the fabric off Dean’s shoulder and down his arm.

“Bobby’s always been like that,” Dean dismisses.

Cas folds the shirt up to reuse the fabric and picks Dean’s breeches off the floor. “Socks too, please,” he says as he flips the curtain shut again.

With a sigh, Dean sits on the little bench in the changing room and wrestles off his socks. Through the gap in the curtain, he trades them for the bundle of clothing he left with Cas before his trip to the past. 

Dean sets his clothes on the bench with a frown. “Where’s my shirt?” 

“I burned it.”

“Cas!”

“Get dressed, Dean.”

Dean angrily pulls on his jeans and socks, tucking in the laces of inside his boots since he’s not about to attempt tying a bow one-handed. He wrenches the curtain aside to reveal Cas with a gray woolen robe draped over one arm. 

“Here,” he says, holding it open for Dean to step into. “This won’t aggravate your injury.”

Dean doesn’t move. “Is that…” he drifts off.

Cas smiles shyly. “Yes, this is the same one you stole from Tyrone Power in 1955. I finished making a replica a few days ago and thought this would be a good time to return it to you.”

Dean steps forward to slide his arms into the billowy sleeves. “Isn’t this technically Time Bureau property?”

Cas leans forward and gives the worst attempt at a wink that Dean has seen in years. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Dean has to laugh.

Pleased, Cas steps back. “You should go to medical, and let them decide if you need stitches.”

Dean gingerly touches the cut with his good hand. “Yeah, probably. See ya, Cas.”

“Goodbye, Dean.”

* * *

“What do you mean, you went to 1943?” Cas thunders.

“I mean,” Dean retorts heatedly, “we went to nineteen forty fucking three and got pegged as fucking Nazi spies within eight hours. All because of our goddamn clothes!”

“Well, of course you did,” Cas says, a cutting know-it-all edge to his voice. “Because you told me the mission was to 1941.”

“So what?” Dean hisses. “I was off by two damn years. Big whoop.”

“That’s two wartime years,” Cas corrects, his eyes narrowing. “That’s two years of rationing, of wartime production restrictions. Fashion, just like everything else, changes with history, sometimes very quickly.” He gestures to the racks and racks of historically accurate costumes around them. “Or else I wouldn’t have a job.”

Dean, unwilling to admit defeat, storms off into the changing room.

* * *

Cas comes through three days before Sam, Dean, and Jo’s mission to 1987.

“This is awesome.” Dean hugs the leather jacket to his chest. He looks up at Cas, who has a strange expression on his face. “You’re a goddamn miracle worker, you know that?”

Cas flushes. “I already had a similar one on hand. It was a simple matter of finding a matching lining, replacing the buttons, and adjusting a few of the seams.”

“Still,” Dean says, stroking the leather reverently, “this looks exactly like my dad’s.”

The corners of Cas’s mouth lift in a small smile. “As long as it’s period-appropriate, I am always happy to tailor for the Winchesters.”

Dean snorts. “You and I both know that’s a lie.” He tries it on, and the sleeves hit at the right length, below his wrist but stopping before the first knuckle of his thumb. The collar, relaxed with age, brushes up against the right spot on his neck.

“I’m glad you like it, Dean,” Cas says quietly.

“I love it.”

* * *

“You’ve got to be joking,” Dean says, horrified.

Cas’s stony expression doesn’t twitch. “I’m afraid not.”

“I’m not wearing that.”

Cas shakes the bellbottoms. “I need to see if they fit you.”

“They don’t,” Dean says, backing up. “I can tell you that right now.”

Cas cracks a smile. “If you thought the ’43 interrogation was bad, just imagine what it would be like with disco music in the background.”

Dean shudders. "I hate you so much," he says as he snatches the outfit out of Cas's hands and stalks over to the changing rooms.

“Once you’re done, I have a pair of roller skates for you to try on too, as I was told the exchange will take place at a roller rink.”

Dean pokes his head through the curtain. "No fucking way."

"Sam tried his on yesterday," Cas says with a knowing smile. "I took a video of his first practice skate."

Dean sighs loudly. "Give 'em here. And if you're lying about that video, so help me god, they'll be no stayin' alive in your future, buddy."

* * * 

Dean should've known the mission to save the Pony Express was too good to be true.

Whenever he pictured himself in a shootout, he always saw himself coolly walking away from the fight, his gun still smoking, maybe a dramatic sunrise in the background.

Not laying on the ground in the dirt, baking under the Wyoming sun, a blinding pain in his side from getting fucking shot – again.

What’s worse, as Dean chased the fake pony rider determined to kill a teenage Buffalo Bill on his route, he lost his goddamn hat. Cas is going to kill him.

At least he got the bad guy. Too bad they shot each other at the same time.

One shot was fatal.

The other’s still to be determined. Hurts like a bitch, though.

His horse took off when Dean fell, spooked by the shots and shouting. Even if Dean could stagger to his feet, there’s no way in the world he can walk back to 1861’s excuse for civilization in the Wild, Wild West.

Dean rolls over onto his back in a stupid effort to keep the blood inside his body by sheer gravity alone. He’s going to die out here in the middle of nowhere, a century before he’s even born.

“Dean?”

Dean groans. He’d been expecting his life to flash before his eyes. Not hallucinations. But as far as hallucinations go, Cas’s voice isn’t a bad last one to hear.

“Dean!”

Someone scrambles in the dirt next to him, and Dean turns his head to actually see Cas, wearing a dusty kerchief wrapped around his neck, an equally dusty tan shirt, and beat up wool pants. He swings his mailbag to his front and pulls out a first aid kit, straight from the 21st century.

“Cas?” Dean says weakly, “You’re in the field?”

Cas smiles humorlessly as he presses a pad of pristine white gauze down on Dean’s side. Over Dean’s groan of pain, he says, “Someone had to make sure you’re taking care of your clothes.”

“Son of a –!” Dean inhales a sharp breath.

“It’s good I came,” Cas says as his brow furrows with worry. With his free hand, he lifts the medical tape to his mouth and rips off a piece with his teeth. 

It’s a good thing all Dean's blood is gushing out of his side, or else it would’ve gone straight to dick at that sight. 

“You’re a little late to save the shirt,” Dean pants.

“But not to save you,” Cas says grimly. “We’re going to move in 15 seconds; prepare yourself.”

“Wait –”

“Move.” Cas yanks him up, and Dean nearly blacks out from the pain. “Ten minutes,” he promises in Dean’s ear. “We’re ten minutes from the Sandy Crossing relay station. Sam already confirmed Bill made it to Fort Laramie.”

“Good,” Dean grunts as Cas half carries, half drags him on his horse, a roan mare. He lets Dean catch his breath after mounting up and urges his horse into a canter.

Dean cries out at the jostling, and Cas wraps a hand around his middle to keep him still. It’s impossible on top of a horse going at full speed, but Dean can appreciate the gesture. Despite his appearance, Cas doesn’t smell like he spent a week camping out in a field of buffalo, taking dust baths in his free time. He smells crisp with the faintest scent of vanilla.

“Talk to me. Distract me,” Dean orders, his voice tight with pain.

Cas glances down at him and nods. “With what?”

“How’d you learn to ride?”

“In prep school,” Cas says, his gaze once again focused on the horizon. “I found I much preferred horses to my peers.” 

Dean would laugh, but his chest hurts too much.

“But I haven’t ridden a horse in close to a decade,” Cas says.

“Just like riding a bike,” Dean huffs in between trying to breathe through the pain.

“Better than, since I don’t know how to ride a bike,” Cas says wryly.

Dean musters a grin. “Good thing I didn’t get shot at the Tour de France.”

“A very good thing,” Cas echoes.

“Is that why they sent you?” Dean asks, wincing as his wound flares. “Your killer horseback riding skills?”

Cas shakes his head, blushing under the thin coating of dirt on his cheeks. “They don’t know I’m here.”

“What?”

“I have a deal with one of the engineers. I outfit him for joy rides when the emergency ship isn’t in use, and he brings me back an outfit or two so I can learn more about fashion history first hand.” Cas’s arm tenses around his middle. “I forced him to pilot me here once I heard you didn’t get back with Sam and Jo.”

“Dude.”

Cas stares straight ahead. “They wouldn’t have been able to find you,” he says, his expression hard. “They kept going on and on about possible points along the Express you could’ve gotten waylaid, but I knew you were hellbent on exploring this shortcut, so.” His mouth tightens. “They wouldn’t listen to me since I’m just the tailor.”

“You were,” Dean licks his dry lips, “listening to me? When I was going on and on about cowboys and shit? Seriously?”

“Of course,” Cas says like it’s obvious, “I always listen when you talk, Dean.”

Dean sags against Cas. “When we get back,” he swears, “I’m gonna take you to the World’s Fair in 1893. Everyone who was anyone went to that thing; you’ll see outfits from all over.”

Cas shakes his head. “You don’t need to repay me for this. You deserve to be saved, no matter what your rivals at the Bureau think.”

“I get it, no repayment,” Dean twists around so he can see Cas properly and ignores how his side throbs in protest, “but how about a date?”

[ek-ranjhaan]

She has not just been raped and murdered, she was very much tortured and brutalized like Nirbhaya. It is all over the Bengali news. I don't understand why no one is talking about this.

A 2nd year Respiratory Medicine in a well known government medical college in Kolkata, West Bengal, India is found in a semi-naked state and the college/ hospital called it a suicide.

I'm a MBBS student in second year. After reading about her, what crossed my mind is the amount of times she would have felt this fear, before this worst fear of hers eventually materialized.

"A young resident doctor was found dead in the seminar room of her medical college in Kolkata. Initial autopsy report suggests possible rape and murder."

As all are saying,

She wasn't walking the street at odd hours. She wasn't wearing clothes that were provocative. She wasn't loitering in dangerous neighbourhoods.

She was a resident doctor, looking for a place to rest in her own hospital.

She had been on duty and had gone to rest in the early hours of Friday.

The one place which was supposed to guarantee her safety failed her, miserably.

Someone comes, rapes a female pg who is merely resting in a seminar hall because there is no proper place for her to rest, brutalized her and kills her. How did NO one know? The college and police initially call it a suicide. Excuse me? It is also being said that under pressure from local politicians, the Principal and Dean attempted to alter the post-mortem report. Autopsy confirms sexual assault.

What are the actions taken? One man arrested because his behavior seemed "shady". This is clearly not an act of one man. And this was a very well aware of and a well executed criminal act.

Also, all this happening in WB right when the situation of bangladesh is in turmoil and news of Bangladeshi Hindus being killed and tortured, seems wrong, VERY WRONG. Happening right before NEET-PG, as 24 lakh doctors prepare to write an exam on Sunday to be resident doctors, this news has wrapped us all in agony and rage,

What are they working so hard for? Why should they aspire to be in a system that ignores their basic needs? The minimum requirement of a workplace is safety. That should be non-negotiable.

This profession demands extereme hardwork, a lot of mental strength and Physical Assaults, harassment, low paying jobs with odd working hours with intense humiliation. Now its the worst of all seeing a bright mind losing her life in the most disrespectful state of all. This should never happen to any woman.

I'd also like to question why isn't any big media house covering this news, where are all the international news channels all this time.

What are the students in other medical colleges doing? This talks about their own safety and lives. What are the medical students across the world doing? It's time for us to stand for the most basic Human right, safety.

Yesterday when my roommate, an MBBS final year intern was heading for her night posting, I feared and prayed for her to come back safely. Thinking about it, in a few years I will also have night posting, I'll also return from my hospital duties late at night. I'll also have to go through the same fear, and I'll also have to keep praying that my worst fears don't turn into reality. So many female doctors, nursing staffs, other Healthcare workers, other working women, non-working women go through the same fear, probably multiple times a day.

It is a shame to be born in such a disgusting world and society, it is shame to witness such a brutal crime, and it is a shame to live in this fear daily.

Those RAPISTS need to be hunged infront of the whole natio...if needed burned alive. People should fear the idea of raping, more than getting raped.

[kickingitwithkirk]

Winchester's Folly

Summary: When Dean gets into trouble John decides to hide the truth for his family

Pairing: Alpha!Dean x Omega!Reader x Alpha!Sam

WC: 1828

Dark! Fic-don't continue if you are disturbed by the subject matter.

Warnings: A/B/O, dystopian au, canon elements, non/con, dub/con, incest, subjugation, pandemic, mentions of nudity, physical/mental abuse, mention of collaring/leashed, sexual/slavery, rut/heat, physical altercation, death/murder conviction, show level violence, parental dominance, trafficking, branding, panic attacks, bondage, forced mating, dated derogatory terms

*Additional warnings will be added

Square filled: @spnaubingo -Non-Traditional Alpha Traits @spnabobingo -Bed Sharing

A/N: This part has a couple of flashbacks in italics

A/N II: Still working on reigning myself in, keeping each part reader-friendly length, and have no clue how many parts this will end up being.

A/N III: a few notes about designations in A/O sub-genders for this story.

Alphas-Dominant (head of the pack/family) Subordinate (obey Dominant) Breeders (rare & highly coveted by the government. Can challenge Dominant for pack/family leadership)

Omegas -Domestic (mostly wiped out by plague, few natural born left) Feral (government-supplied breeders sold commonly called O's) House O’s (3rd generation+ Feral/Dominant breed. Used as servants/sex workers) Pack (rare & highly coveted by the government)

*Divider by @firefly-graphics

*No Beta-all mistakes are mine

PART IX

Partway down the drive, the car sputters and dies, rolling to a stop a few yards from the house. Bobby got up, mumbled idijits straightened his trucker cap, and heard the Impala’s squeaky doors simultaneously open; then Dean's voice was carrying on the night air, “If you’ve screwed up my car, I’m going to kick your ass!” 

Bobby marches towards the car and spits, “Stop giving your brother a hard time.” His rebuff dissipates when the elder brother's scarlet irises lock on him. Dean moves in front of a female sitting in the backseat like a predator protecting its kill and menacingly growls at him. 

****

Sam quickly rounds the car, blocking the Beta from his line of sight. “Dean, calm down, it’s Bobby. Remember when he'd play baseball with you instead of practicing with the shotguns?” Dean ignores Sam and tries to round-end his equally quick brother when a hand grabs his wrist. Dean halts and peers back at the O, who points to him, her ear, and Sam, who advises, “Listen to your Omega Dean."

Bobby’s jaw drops upon hearing the youngest Alphas' words. He sees the O wince as she holds her arms up and watches Dean quickly shift from aggression, something the younger man is prone to, to the gentleness he remembers from childhood. Once out, she scented the air before making the universal sign for Beta. “Yes, he is. Bobby, this is..," Dean strumbled over what to call her when she held up her hands and, with her fingers, indicated the number 4444968503.

“That’s a helluva lot of numbers for your name, little lady,” Bobby remarks, looking sternly at Dean. “Do I have to worry about you going for my throat while sleeping?” Thoroughly abashed by his reaction toward the man he considers a surrogate father, he responded No, Sir. “Good. We’ll discuss this," gesturing to Deans still scarlet-hued eyes, "later." Bobby peered around his darkened scrap yard. "Let's get inside. I feel like a crow waiting to be picked off here.”

Little did the seasoned hunter know how right he was as two celestial beings observed the group from the shadows.

"You know,” the one in a business suit said, “When they told me the apocalypse had gotten the green light and the job of watching over Michael and Lucifer's vessels to my department, I thought, this is it, this is what’s going to make me more than employee of the month for the fifth, no, sixth consecutive millennium. And I was this close," held two fingers centimeters apart, "To getting the key to the Axis Mundi and mano e mano with the big guy.” His features hardened, “Of course, that was before you. Care to explain why disregarded orders to get rid of that birth defect?”

The other looked across the yard at the parties retreating to the house while his unerring memory returned to the past. 

****

Castiel was assigned to watch over Dean from his conception. As his charge grew, he was in awe of the boy's perception of others' emotions and intuitive knowledge of how to comfort them.

Shortly before his fourth birthday, John and Mary told their son that he would be a big brother, showing him the ultrasound photograph and Dean got excited, saying he’d be the best big brother to his two siblings. His confused parents again explained there was only one pup but Dean skewed his little face into a fierce expression, continuing to insist there were two amused his father.

On the other hand, Mary felt apprehensive at her offspring's insistence, and the feeling grew throughout the pregnancy. A few months later, she was fixing lunch when Dean came running in and began talking to her middle, saying he would be the best brother in the world to them. He placed his tiny hands on opposite sides of her swollen belly, and Mary felt kicking directly under them.

Several weeks later, Deans bounced off the walls, saying his siblings would be here tomorrow. John and Mary reminded him it would be longer before his brother was ready for his debut, but in the wee hours of the following day, Mary’s water broke.

John found himself juggling a hospital bag, his son, and his mate to the car for the hospital. The angel sat in the backseat gazing at his excited charge and felt—regret, aware that fulfilling his orders to eliminate the extra pup would unduly distress the vessel.

But before Castiel could further analyze this sudden human emotion, he got distracted by the doctor saying there were complications with the pup. They needed John's permission for an emergency procedure. Not detecting any unnatural issue in the mother or pups, he quizzically followed to the delivery room where Mary, despite being drugged, had a quick delivery.

The angel watches the doctor evaluate the slightly sedated pups and deems them healthy before handing them to a nurse. But instead of taking them to the nursery, they detoured to the stairwell, and Castiel quickly realized they weren't a staff member but rather someone intent on stealing both pups. The angel intervenes and then finds him in a quandary. 

Saving Lucifer's vessel left him holding the baby—specifically, the unnecessary pup whose existence puzzled heaven. When the female gazes at him with disturbingly focused eyes, other emotions trigger in the angel, leaving him unable to complete his task. Momentarily searching, he transports her to another state and swaps her with another stillborn pup. 

****

"You disregard the plan that's been in place for eons because some reject made you feel?!" Zachariah barked out a laugh of disbelief and turned to his companion. “I’m going to ask and don’t lie. What made you grow a conscience this time? Strike that. I don't care. Now, who else knows about your screwup?"

"I told no one."

"Then we've got a mole within our midst." Zachariah is interrupted by the Winchester Alpha pulling into the yard. Pointing a finger at Castiel, the senior angel says, "This is your only chance to return to my good graces. Find out who is behind that thing's reappearance."

“Okay, thanks.” Bobby tossed the cordless on his desk. “Dr. Stevenson can get it, but it’ll take a day.”

“Good," John says, tossing back his third glass of whiskey. "The sooner that implants back in, the better.” Bobby sipped it on his glass, studying the other hunter he’d known for years. 

Bobby learned the day they meet that John Winchester was an obsessive bastard who’d do anything to get the demon that killed his mate, including dragging his two very young sons into the hunter life.

****

The first time the boys were left with him, Sam had just turned three and was curious about everything. Dean? Well, he found the seven-year-old rather odd. He would get out of sorts if his training schedule were changed but patient as Job with the toddler, answering every question, no matter how crazy they were, and caring for Sam as if he were his pup. 

One night, screaming woke him up. Rushing to the room the boys were sharing; Bobby stopped dead in his tracks. Dean was sitting on the edge of the bed, rocking a howling Sam, trying to comfort him with tears streaming down his face. When he saw Bobby, Dean panicked and began apologizing, babbling on that Sam didn't mean to do it and he’d clean up the mess, confusing the Beta before noticing Sam had wet himself and the bed.

Reassuring Dean it wasn’t a big deal, Bobby gathered some clean sleep clothes and rustled them into a warm bath. Leaving Dean to watch Sam, he stripped the soiled bedding and tossed it into the washer, making a mental note to get a bed protector, grabbed a lawn bag, split it open, and placed it under the spare bedding.

He had just finished remaking the bed when Dean, carrying his sleeping brother, entered with a weary expression that made Bobby sad and angry. 

Putting on his kindest smile, he helped them back into bed, left a small lamp he’d found on, and told Dean to wake him if they needed anything, no matter how trivial.

****

Bobby returns to the present when John drops the now-empty bottle on his desk. Reaching into a drawer, he pulls a fresh one. Topping off his glass he remarks, "You wanna tell me why you failed to mention Dean has a fresh claimed Omega, let alone one beat all to hell." He stares John straight in the eye while sliding the bottle toward him.

John suppressed snarling for such an impertinent question, knowing he needed to stay on good terms with the Beta until Dean finished his mandatory probation and told him about Helms's establishment, Sam witnessing the O fighting with his Alpha lugs—explaining why it looked like it went three rounds with a vengeful spirit—to purchasing it for a dollar.

However, John couldn't hide the flash of guilt in his eyes as he skimmed over what happened at the clinic before admitting the judge's enforcement of the claiming statute was his fault, but didn't sugarcoat the details of witnessing Dean's claiming horrified Bobby.

“If everything is like you say, what'd you need Frank's help for?"

John looked directly at him, saying he needed the state order to take Sam erased if Dean failed to fulfill his probation. Bobby knew the Alpha was lying through his teeth but didn't call him out. Instead, he threw his drink back and headed to bed.

Passing the room the boys still occupied when staying; Bobby could hear them talking before loudly closing his bedroom door, giving John time to finish that second bottle. When he reopened it later, he could hear the Alpha's loud snoring, and carefully snagged the keys from his jacket, slipped out the kitchen door, and took the scenic route to the Alpha’s truck.

Bobby knows whenever John is hiding won't be in the regular places, i.e., in the glove box, over the visor, ect; began examining the vehicle's exterior and, finding nothing, opens the weapons catch. Nothing stands out when he spots a curse box and recalls John inquiring about creating one some time ago.

Bobby fiddled around with the unfinished box when, bingo, it popped open, revealing a bunch of rolled papers inside. He crossed to the garage and fired up a printer, making copies of the documents then returned everything to its original position because John would notice if anything were misplaced. Heading back to his room, Bobby noticed light still coming from underneath the boy's door and lightly rapped it before opening it.

The elder brother was spooning his mate from behind, which made sense since Bobby knew from personal experience that lying on bruised ribs dulled the pain. However, it was difficult for the man to process why his brother was sleeping snugly against her front, his fingers twined with Dean's, resting on her hip.

PART X

SPN TAGS: @donnaintx  @lyarr24  @flamencodiva   @lassie-bird  @nancymcl   @spnbaby-67 @leigh70

Dean/Jensen: @thoughts-and-funnies @stoneyggirl2  @beabutterfly987 @smoothdogsgirl

WF: @slamminmine @ladysparkles78 @deans-spinster-witch @ilovetaquitosmmmm @strawblueberrys  @mishkatelwarriorgoddess @kazsrm67

Sam/Jared: @idreamofplaid

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Lincoln Project

* * * *

VP Harris challenges Trump on immigration

September 19, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

On Wednesday, VP Kamala Harris spoke at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s 47th Annual Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C. Harris took on Trump's nightmarish threat to deport millions of immigrants if he is elected.

Harris said,

While we fight to move our nation forward to a brighter future, Donald Trump and his extremist allies will keep trying to pull us backward. We all remember what they did to tear families apart, and now they have pledged to carry out the largest deportation, a mass deportation, in American history. Imagine what that would look like and what that would be? How’s that going to happen? Massive raids? Massive detention camps? What are they talking about?

Harris’s speech is here: Harris delivers remarks at Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute leadership event.

As VP Harris said, it is a dangerous fantasy to believe that Trump could deport ten million immigrants. An operation of that scale is beyond the resources of the federal and state governments combined. Although the effort would not succeed, it would lead to economic chaos as the labor pool is jolted by the sudden disappearance of workers who fill entry level service jobs, harvest America’s crops, provide home care for the elderly, and provide significant portions of the workforce in construction, hospitality, and manufacturing industries.

If you don’t have time to watch Harris’s entire speech, I recommend viewing the segment in which she frames reproductive rights as one of the freedoms guaranteed to Americans. She also notes that 40% of Latina women live in states with Trump abortion bans: Harris addresses impact of Trump abortion bans on Latina women.

VP Harris’s comments on abortion and reproductive freedom are powerful and moving. She continues to be an effective, focused campaigner who is sticking to the Democratic messaging of “freedom” and “an opportunity economy.”

As a reminder, Kamala Harris’s Opportunity Economy focuses on making the lives of middle-class Americans better. Her proposals include a $6,000 tax credit for families with newborns, expansion of the child tax credit, expansion of the earned income credit, a $50,000 deduction for new business owners, making rent affordable, incentivizing the construction of 3 million starter homes (as opposed to McMansions), subsidizing $25,000 of the down payment for first time homeowners, and reducing the cost of prescription drugs. See Issues - Kamala Harris for President: Official Campaign Website.

The Federal Reserve cuts interest rates by 0.5%

The Biden-Harris administration significantly reduced inflation levels while sustaining robust growth in the US GDP. As a result, the Federal Reserve announced today that it was cutting the prime interest rate by 0.5% and suggested that additional cuts would be forth coming. See Federal Reserve Board - Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement.

Even Trump admitted that “it was a big cut,” although he suggested the timing was political. In truth, the cut was overdue. The Fed waited too long to reduce rates. See Common Dreams, Fed 'Waited Too Long' But Finally Cut Interest Rates. As noted in the Common Dreams article,

Center for Economic and Policy Research senior economist Dean Baker also welcomed that the Fed is changing course, saying: "This is a belated recognition that the battle against inflation has been won. Contrary to the predictions of almost all economists, including those at the Fed, this victory was won without a major uptick in unemployment."

Kamala Harris and Joe Biden achieved the nearly impossible—avoiding a recession while taming inflation. They deserve great credit for doing so—and voters are starting to realize that fact. See Harris closes gap with Trump on the economy, new Pennsylvania poll shows | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Per the Post-Gazette,

Pennsylvania voters no longer prefer former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris on the economy in a poll that shows the Democratic presidential nominee all but erasing the deficit on which candidate can best handle the top issue for voters this fall. In a Quinnipiac University poll of likely Pennsylvania voters released Wednesday, Trump’s advantage over Ms. Harris was just 50% to 48%, a two-point advantage well within the survey’s margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.

Harris continues to do everything just right. While there is no guarantee of success, we should be gratified that we have a candidate who is running such a terrific campaign!

Trump's effort to cram voter suppression bill through Congress fails

Trump ordered Speaker Mike Johnson to make a futile attempt to pass a continuing resolution for the budget that included the GOP voter-suppression bill that would require proof of citizenship to register as a voter. (Note that our nation has survived for 235 years without requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.) The bill was doomed to fail—and Mike Johnson knew it. But Trump ordered him to jump and Johnson’s only question was, “How high, sir?”

See Roll Call, Johnson's stopgap funding package goes down to defeat.

To be clear, Trump wants to force the US into a financial crisis for political advantage. He said on Truth Social,

If Republicans don’t get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a Continuing Resolution in any way, shape, or form.

But extremists in the GOP caucus know that Mike Johnson will cave. Per Marjorie Taylor Greene, “Johnson is leading a fake fight that he has no intention of actually fighting.”

Americans deserve better than a House GOP caucus willing to hold the budget hostage for Donald Trump.

Trump's desperation is showing

Trump is promising tax cuts like a man who can smell defeat. On Wednesday, he promised New Yorkers that he would remove caps on federal deductions for state and local taxes (SALT). Trump's position is absurd because he proposed and obtained the SALT caps as a way of punishing taxpayers in New York, New Jersey, and California (among other states). Now that he senses that he might lose, he is telling voters in those states that he will remove the caps he instituted.

Members of Congress immediately trashed the idea. Although capping the SALT deduction was unfair to taxpayers in states that fund their operations and pay into the federal coffers, reversing the policy would add $1.2 trillion dollars to the deficit. See HuffPost, Donald Trump’s Latest Tax Pander Flops In Congress.

Trump's flip-flop is a sign of his willingness to promise anything to anyone to be re-elected. Trump's desperation is a more reliable sign of the state of the race than the polls!

Wall Street Journal debunks JD Vance immigrant / cat story

The Wall Street Journal published an article on Wednesday that reported (a) the city manager of Springfield told JD Vance that there was no evidence to support the cat-eating immigrant story before JD Vance doubled-down on the false claim on social media, and (b) the woman who filed a police report claiming her cat had been taken by Haitians later found her cat hiding in the basement of her house.

See Wall Street Journal, How the Trump Campaign Ran With Rumors About Pet-Eating Migrants—After Being Told They Weren’t True (This article is accessible to all.)

Per the WSJ,

[Vance] asked point-blank, ‘Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?’” recalled [Springfield City Manager] Heck. “I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.” By then, Vance had already posted about the rumors to his 1.9 million followers on X. Yet he kept the post up, and repeated an even more insistent version of the claim the next morning.

The WSJ article takes a deep dive into the situation in Springfield and is well worth your time to read the entire article. The WSJ reporters lay out in detail how Vance and Trump are exploiting an immigrant population that is helping Springfield to grow and prosper after decades of decline:

The local economy boomed. Business owners said they were grateful to have workers eager to work long shifts and do what it took to meet production goals. New subdivisions sprung up in the cornfields outside town. New restaurants opened. The Haitian flag flew at City Hall.

Growth came with growing pains. The number of non-native English speakers in the public schools quadrupled to more than 1,000 children. The local clinic and hospital were overwhelmed with people fleeing a country where healthcare had been scant. Traffic increased, as did frustration with drivers more accustomed with the chaotic streets of Port-au-Prince than the orderly grid of Springfield.

One thing is clear: Vance and Trump know the rumors have no basis in fact but continue to promote them—thereby hurting the people of Springfield. Trump claims he will visit Springfield—over the objections of the mayor and the Governor of Ohio (both Trump-supporting Republicans!). The fact that Republicans in Ohio understand the cynical dishonesty of Trump's propaganda is a good sign

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dean Obeidallah at The Dean's Report:

Donald Trump doesn’t care that his lie accusing Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio of eating people’s pets is causing a spike in anti-immigrant hate incidents in the area or was the reason for a bomb threats Thursday morning targeting the local government and local schools on Friday. It also doesn’t matter if you fact check Trump on this BS claim. This is not about the truth. Nobody—I mean nobody—understands what animates, radicalizes and incites his base to vote, make threats and commit violence more than Trump. That is why he is targeting both Black people and immigrants with his lies. This is racism for a purpose.  He gets that with one lie, he is targeting two communities that MAGA hates: Blacks and immigrants.  

As we all recall, Trump--as President--slammed the idea of accepting more immigrants from Haiti and Africa calling them “shithole countries.” Instead, Trump stated he wanted more people coming in from places like Norway aka white people. Trump’s base loved that. That is why during the debate Tuesday, Trump repeatedly fear-mongered about non-white people coming over the border, declaring, “What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country.” He then added the now infamous line, “In Springfield, they're eating the dogs…they're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there.”

ABC News co-moderator David Muir instantly fact checked Trump saying “ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there have been no credible reports” of any animals being treated that way by immigrants. But Trump remained defiant, saying, “But the people on television say their dog was eaten by the people that went there.” When Muir factchecked Trump again, he then offered this ominous line, “We'll find out.”  Trump’s lie at the debate about Haitian immigrants was something his base has been worked up about for days—as Trump knows. The first prominent right winger to amplify the lie was Trump’s close ally Charlie Kirk—who has a history of making racist comments about Blacks--posting just days before the debate on Twitter that “residents of Springfield, OH are reporting that Haitians are eating their family pets.” His post was viewed more than 4 million times.

Trump’s son, Donald Jr. then amplified the lie on social media that Black migrants were kidnapping and eating people’s cats and dogs. Next Elon Musk -the owner of Twitter and vocal Trump backer--did the same. That got the attention of the Trump campaign.  If the MAGA base believes/loves the claim Black immigrants are such savages that they are eating people’s pets, they were going to join.  That is why on Monday, Trump’s running mate JD Vance claimed in his post viewed more than 10 million times that “reports now show people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.” A short time later on Monday, as the NY Times reported, the Trump campaign did a massive email blast to their supporters quoting the lie about the Black immigrants.

[...] In reality, Springfield residents have overall been welcoming to the Haitian immigrants to their community over the past four years.  Jamie McGregor the head of McGregor Metal, a family-owned business in Springfield, told The New York Times how it was lacking workers after it had invested to increase production before "the Haitians were there to fill those positions." Joe Ruck, a co-owner of Champion City Cuts Barber Shop, told USA Today that Haitian immigrants are working the jobs no one else wanted. But Trump’s lies have embolden the haters in Springfield. As Newsweek documented, there has now been a surge in vile comments directed online and in person against Springfield’s Haitian community. A 19-year-old, who graduated from Springfield High School and now works at an Amazon warehouse said he has been called a "dirty Haitian" and an "illegal."   

[...] Despite many officials warning that Trump’s lie will lead to violence against the Haitian community or Blacks in general, he refuses to stop. On Thursday night in the midst of this backlash and after the bomb threats, Trump again repeated the lie to his supporters at a rally in Arizona, telling them “20,000 illegal Haitian immigrants have descended on a town of 58,000 people, destroying their way of life.” (The Haitians in Springfield are in the US legally.) The convicted felon added the lie that these migrants are “walking off with their pets.” And earlier on Thursday, Trump posted five digitally doctored photos on social media of himself saving pets from migrants—including the racist image at the top of this article where Trump is saving a white cat from angry Black people.

Dean Obeidallah’s column on the Springfield Cat-Eating Hoax is spot-on. Donald Trump, JD Vance, and the right-wing media’s racist and xenophobic scapegoating of Haitian migrants has led to bomb threats and a rise in anti-immigrant hatred in Springfield, Ohio.

[dwellordream]

“The Great Depression reached into every corner of the country, but it did not affect all people equally. For many middle-class women of all races, the depression required certain changes in spending patterns: buying cheaper cuts of meat, feeding the homeless men who stopped at the back door, and doing without new clothes. Some of these women continued to do community volunteer work, raising money for the unemployed. They saw the food lines, but they did not have to join them.

Among women workers, race played an important role. The fierce competition for jobs fueled racial resentments. Mexican-American and African-American women were the first to lose their jobs and the last to get relief from welfare agencies. Often, they were already living on the margin of survival. Before 1933, when the Prohibition amendment making the manufacture or sale of alcoholic beverages illegal was repealed, many of these women turned to bootlegging, making their own beer or liquor and selling it.

…Even relatively prosperous farm women--owners, not tenants--in general produced as much as 70 percent of what their families consumed in clothing, toys, and food. They not only gardened but raised poultry. During the depression, women increased the size of their gardens and the number of their hens. They made more butter from their dairy cows and sold it. They cut up the sacks that held large amounts of flour and sewed them into underwear. In the previous decade, they had proudly begun to participate in a culture of store-bought goods. Now they began to can food again. Government agents dragged huge canning kettles across the mountains of northern New Mexico and eastern Tennessee so that women in remote farming villages could preserve their food.

Even with all this work, rural children suffered from malnutrition, and rural women faced childbirth without a doctor or midwife because they could afford neither the medical fees nor the gasoline for transportation. The women resented their declining standards of living, particularly those from better-off farm families who owned their own farms and had, during the 1920s, aspired to participate in the new domestic technology of indoor bath-rooms, modern stoves and heating, and super cleanliness.

…In 1936, a federal appeals court overruled an earlier law that had classified birth control information as obscene and thus illegal to dispense. That decision still left state laws intact, however. The number of birth control clinics nationwide rose from 55 in 1930 to 300 by 1938, but in some states and in many rural areas women still had no access to birth control. In 1937, North Carolina became the first state to provide contraceptives with tax dollar, and six others soon followed. Ironically, North Carolina’s reasoning was not that birth control was a human right but that birth control would reduce the black population.

Despite statistics showing that black women had fewer babies than white women with similar incomes and living situations, many white southern officials in states with large black populations feared a black population explosion. In 1939, the Birth Control Federation of American responded to eager southern state governments by developing “The Negro Project,” a program to disseminate birth control information, which they carefully staffed with local black community leaders. Whatever the logic, one quarter of all women in the United States in their 20s during the depression never bore children. This was the highest rate of childlessness for any decade. Many people simply decided not to get married, and marriage rates fell.

…In the mass media women seemed to be receiving mixed messages. On the one hand, in 1930, the Ladies’ Home Journal featured a former career woman confessing, “I know now without any hesitation… that [my husband’s job] must come first.” In 1931, the popular magazine Outlook and Independent quoted the dean of Barnard College, a women’s college in New York City, telling her students that “perhaps the greatest service that you can render to the community… is to have the courage to refuse to work for gain.” And on its front page in 1935, the New York Times reported that women “suffering from masculine psychological states” and an “aversion to marriage” were being “cured” by the removal of their adrenal gland. In this atmosphere, not only were women workers under fire, but women who centered their lives on women rather than on men came under attack. Lesbianism was no longer chic. Lesbian bars almost disappeared. Homosexuality was now seen by many people as just one more threat to the family.

On the other hand, movie houses showed zany screwball comedies with more complicated lessons. Often deliciously ditsy, incompetent women were rescued by sensible, capable men. Yet, the men in these movies were frequently portrayed as bumbling or slower-witted than the women. Sometimes the men were people who needed joy and whimsy restored to their lives, not an unexpected theme for a nation in the throes of an economic depression. In other movies, however, women were by no means incompetent. The women portrayed by Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, and Joan Crawford in the 1930s were often intelligent but needed men alternately to tame and to soften them.”

- Sarah Jane Deutsch, “Making Do with Disaster.” in From Ballots to Breadlines: American Women, 1920-1940

[starfleetshrimps]

I love the X-files because it's like supernatural if they cared about different things. on supernatural, nobody has an ounce of respect for anyone else, least of all Dean and Sam, and every case has a clear solution. Even if they're absolutely fucking stupid about it, they answer the resounding question; 'what the fuck is going on' with a neat little answer before cutting family ties for the umpteenth time and making a deal with the duke of hell to get their shoes back and then making up because family always comes first always stick together etc. etc. or whatever the fuck it was that week.

X-files? none of that. Somehow these government-employee co-workers have a better working friendship than any of the motherfuckers on the shotgun-shuts his pie-hole show from hell, unfortunately they just never fucking tell us whats going on. was it a ghost, or just a silly little AC machine? you'll never know, it's a new episode and we don't care anymore. Sometimes Mulder is like 'hey lets make our entire lives about this' and Scully just goes 'absolutely not I'm going home.' I love them.

[feminismisstillahatemovement]

The Federal Aviation Administration is actively recruiting workers who suffer “severe intellectual” disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency’s website. 

“Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring,” the FAA’s website states. “They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism.”

The initiative is part of the FAA’s “Diversity and Inclusion” hiring plan, which claims “diversity is integral to achieving FAA’s mission of ensuring safe and efficient travel across our nation and beyond.”

The FAA’s website shows the agency’s guidelines on diversity hiring were last updated on March 23, 2022. 

The FAA, which is overseen by Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s Department of Transportation, is a government agency charged with regulating civil aviation and employs roughly 45,000 people. 

All eyes have been on the FAA and airline industry in recent days, after a plug door on a Boeing 737 Max 9 blew out during an Alaska Airlines flight on Jan. 5.

Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, chairman of Do No Harm – a group of health care professionals, medical students and policymakers working to “protect health care from a radical, divisive, and discriminatory ideology” – told Fox News Digital that similar to the medical field, the aviation industry has an obligation to protect its travelers.

“The aviation industry has a responsibility for traveler safety just as the health care industry has a responsibility for patient safety. These responsibilities outweigh other factors when considering applicants to work in those fields. People with disabilities who can successfully complete the task should never face discrimination,” said Goldfarb, a retired professor and the former associate dean for curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

“Unfortunately,” Goldfarb said, identity politics is “creating opportunities for so-called oppressed groups by lowering standards for entry into those fields and thereby endangering the safety of those which it’s designed to serve. Some endeavors simply do not lend themselves to identity politics,” he added.

[eretzyisrael]

by Dion J. Pierre

Supporters of the Palestine Solidarity Committee at Harvard University. Photo: Harvard PSC

The Wexner Foundation, a prominent philanthropic organization, announced on Monday that it is terminating a longstanding partnership with Harvard University because of the school’s belated condemnation of Hamas’ terrorist onslaught against Israel and refusal to censure students who expressed support for it.

“The Wexner Foundation is formally ending its financial and programmatic relationships with Harvard and the Harvard Kennedy School,” the group said in a letter to the university’s board of overseers. “We make this decision with an unwavering commitment to our Israel alumni, to Israel’s civil service, and to the State of Israel.”

Founded in 1983, the Wexner Foundation fosters Jewish leadership and community in both North America and Israel. Since 1989, its highly competitive Wexner Israel Fellowship Program has sent 10 Israeli public sector workers each year to the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government for a fellowship in which they earn credits toward a master’s degree in public administration. Hundreds of fellows have gone on to enjoy distinguished careers in Israel as lawmakers, military leaders, and government officials. This year’s class will seemingly be the last, according to the Wexner Foundation.

In Monday’s letter, the foundation noted that its fellows have felt increasingly alienated and vilified at the school in recent years — a period of time during which, as The Algemeiner has previously reported, anti-Zionist attitudes and antisemitic activity on campus has increased significantly.

“We believed that at its core, [Harvard] was a school with moral purpose, matching the core values we embrace in our own work,” the missive said. “We have observed that this cherished tolerance for diverse perspectives has slowly but perceptibly narrowed.”

Last week, while scenes of Hamas terrorists abducting Israeli children and desecrating dead bodies circulated worldwide, 31 Harvard student groups, led by the school’s Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC), issued a statement blaming Israel for the attack and accusing the Jewish state of operating an “open air prison” in Gaza, despite the Israeli military having withdrawn from the territory in 2005.

Harvard University President Claudine Gay said on Thursday that the members of the student groups should not be punished, citing the school’s commitment to “free expression.” However, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), Harvard has an “abysmal” track record of protecting free speech, having fired three professors for uttering statements or publishing work containing controversial stances.

“We are stunned and sickened by the dismal failure of Harvard’s leadership to take a clear and unequivocal stand against the barbaric murders of innocent Israeli civilians,” the Wexner Foundation said.

Over 1,400 Israelis were killed in Hamas’ surprise invasion last weekend.

The Wexner Foundation’s announcement comes amid reports, first disclosed by eJewishPhilanthropy, that Harvard alumni and other major donors, shocked by the university’s response to Hamas atrocities, are considering ceasing their financial support for the university.

Anti-Zionism is not new to Harvard. At the start of this academic year, a student and anti-Israel activist interrupted a convocation ceremony held by the school, shouting at Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana, “Here’s the real truth — Harvard supports, upholds, and invests in Israeli apartheid, and the oppression of Palestinians!”

[mybeingthere]

Renny Pritikin on the groundbreaking career of Carlos Villa (1936-2013).

"If you think American racial assumptions and rigid social structures are unacknowledged and toxic, half a century ago they were much worse.  For example, when my parents visited me in San Francisco from their home in New York for the first time in the late 1970s, my father was dumbfounded to learn that our mailman was Asian.  In his experience—which encompassed most of the 20th century — he’d never encountered an Asian worker in any sphere of government or commerce apart from restaurants and laundries.  Carlos Villa, the subject of a two-venue retrospective in San Francisco, dared to embark on a career in that milieu.  His decades-long success as an artist and cultural catalyst is documented in the eye-opening exhibition, Worlds in Collision, at the Asian Art Museum and the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery.

  Independent curators Mark Dean Johnson and Trisha Lagaso Goldberg, supported by Sherwin Rio, organized this enormous project, which includes a formidable catalog.Carlos Villa (pronounced vee-ya) was born in 1936 in San Francisco of Filipino heritage.  He grew up in the Tenderloin district, an economically impoverished yet richly multicultural environment.  (Lucy Lippard, writing in the catalog, quotes Villa saying that many Filipinos of his generation embraced Black cultural codes growing up.)  Leo Valledor, a slightly older cousin with whom Villa was close his entire life, gave him early art lessons.  Villa first exhibited his work in 1958 and graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) in 1961, later earning an MFA from Mills College in 1963.  

He spent the next five years striving to break into the New York art world with minimalist sculptures and abstract drawings.  The latter, made with felt pens on paper, feature arcs of color in rapid sequence that form overlapping, worm-like shapes suggestive of viscera.  He achieved attention for this work and the beginnings of a career, but returned to San Francisco in 1969, where he embarked on a long stint as a professor at SFAI.  From that point forward, his work veered away from commercially sanctioned modes of expression toward the less fashionable exploration of identity.  At the Art Institute, Villa grew to be a beloved figure and a leader in bringing diversity issues to the fore through classes, symposia and exhibitions he organized there under the omnibus title Worlds in Collision, which Johnson and Lagaso Goldberg borrowed for this exhibition.   

Villa died in 2013 at age 76."

https://www.squarecylinder.com/.../renny-pritikin-on.../

https://exhibitions.asianart.org/.../carlos-villa-worlds.../

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

I'm in TARTU, ESTONIA! AI, copyright and creative workers' labor rights (TODAY, May 10, 8AM: Science Fiction Research Association talk, Institute of Foreign Languages and Cultures building, Lossi 3, lobby). A talk for hackers on seizing the means of computation (TODAY, May 10, 3PM, University of Tartu Delta Centre, Narva 18, room 1037).

#20yrsago Sony’s entertainment business is killing its electronics business https://memex.craphound.com/2004/05/10/sonys-entertainment-business-is-killing-its-electronics-business/

#20yrsago Pixel-counting can un-redact government docs https://cryptome.org/cia-decrypt.htm

#20yrsago MPAA’s Bizarro-world logic https://web.archive.org/web/20060508195757/http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,119414,00.html

#20yrsago Stanislaw Lem is cranky! https://web.archive.org/web/20040513235656/http://www.mosnews.com/interview/2004/04/06/lem.shtml

#15yrsago Antifascist collages that made Hitler crazy https://web.archive.org/web/20090513034540/http://www.quazen.com/Arts/Visual-Arts/The-Extraordinary-Anti-Nazi-Photomontages-of-John-Heartfield.702053

#10yrsago Amazon patents taking pictures of stuff on a white background https://www.diyphotography.net/can-close-studio-amazon-patents-photographing-seamless-white/

#5yrsago Delta targets its workers with anti-union apps that push deceptive memes https://memex.craphound.com/2019/05/10/delta-targets-its-workers-with-anti-union-apps-that-push-deceptive-memes/

#5yrsago Ever, an “unlimited photo storage app,” secretly fed its users’ photos to a face-recognition system pitched to military customers https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/millions-people-uploaded-photos-ever-app-then-company-used-them-n1003371

#5yrsago A former college admissions dean explains the mundane reverse affirmative action that lets the rich send their kids to the front of the line https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/1/18311548/college-admissions-secrets-myths

#5yrsago Sanders and AOC team up for an anti-loansharking bill that will replace payday lenders with post-office banking https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/05/why-you-should-back-the-sanders-aoc-plan-to-cap-credit-card-interest-rates-at-15-re-launch-the-postal-savings-bank.html

#5yrsago Frontier receives $283.4m/year in taxpayer money, neglects network, rips off customers — and Trump’s FCC won’t investigate https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/05/ajit-pai-refuses-to-investigate-frontiers-horrible-telecom-service/

#5yrsago Google mistakenly handed out a reporter’s cellphone number to people searching for Facebook tech support https://www.vice.com/en/article/zmpm43/google-thought-my-phone-number-was-facebooks-and-it-ruined-my-life

#5yrsago After elderly tenant was locked in his apartment by his landlord’s stupid “smart lock,” tenants win right to use actual keys to enter their homes https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/tenants-win-rights-to-physical-keys-over-smart-locks-from-landlords/

#5yrsago Co-founder of Facebook calls for breakup of Facebook https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/opinion/sunday/chris-hughes-facebook-zuckerberg.html

#1yrago Two principles to protect internet users from decaying platforms https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/10/soft-landings/#e2e-r2e

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A group of 14 conservative lawmakers in both chambers of Congress last week reintroduced legislation that would make the federal government an at-will employer and abolish the Merit Systems Protection Board, effectively eviscerating federal workers’ civil service protections and chilling whistleblowing.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., are the lead sponsors of the Public Service Reform Act (H.R. 3115), which would make career federal workers at-will employees and get rid of most of the avenues currently available to appeal adverse personnel decisions. It also would abolish the MSPB and send most appeals directly to federal appellate courts, although it preserves a 14-day window for whistleblowers to allege retaliation before the Office of Special Counsel.

“It is far past time to reinstate accountability to the people for the federal bureaucracy by requiring that like any private sector employee, federal workers can be removed from their positions,” Roy said in a statement. “Notwithstanding the majority of federal workers who faithfully serve, especially our law enforcement personnel, we should not allow a wall of red tape to shield those engaged in noncompliance with the law and brazen political partisanship. Federal employees should keep their jobs based on merit, just like the people they serve.”

The bill also allows for federal workers to appeal adverse personnel actions they believe were discriminatory to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, although the legislation requires EEOC to scrap its policies relating to the federal workforce and apply private sector rules to the proceedings.

And it creates a disincentive to federal workers filing appeals of their firings through a provision that says that if a court finds a complaint to be “frivolous” or otherwise “brought in bad faith,” the employee’s defined benefit annuity is automatically reduced by 25%.

“It’s clear that the bureaucracy of the federal government is both a waste of taxpayer dollars and inefficient,” Scott said in a statement. “Red tape and bloated federal agencies constantly slow down progress and hamper American innovation. It’s time to change Washington so it actually works for the American people. The Public Service Reform Act will boost accountability and responsiveness across the federal government by making all executive branch employees at-will.”

Roy previously introduced his bill last July, but with Democrats in control of the House, it languished. With a divided Congress, its chance of passage now remains low. But the bill has gained support, with the number of initial cosponsors growing from 5 to 14.

Between this legislation and other initiatives gaining steam within the Republican party, including a proposed revival of Schedule F, which has already been endorsed by The Heritage Foundation, former President Trump and other likely GOP presidential candidates, it is clear that efforts to upend the federal civil service have become a central plank of the party’s platform. These plans, along with early signs of a push to declare federal employee unions unconstitutional, suggest “truly epic storm clouds” are on the horizon, according to Don Kettl, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland and former dean of its School of Public Policy.

“It’s inconceivable that a major Republican candidate would stake out a position any more favorable to federal employees,” Kettl wrote. “[Conservatives] are offering two tracks for remedies: executive action, especially through a revival of Schedule F; and judicial cases, especially through challenges to the role of public employee unions and, even more fundamentally, to the role of the merit system itself.”

[dhr-ao3]

A Terrible Thing

A Terrible Thing https://ift.tt/Tax09SJ by pixydustworld “I know I said sorry during the trial,” Malfoy said, “But let me apologize again.” His voice was quiet. Almost tender. “Truly. I’m sorry for everything.” She looked up then, meeting his gaze. So soft and open, she’d revisit this moment in her mind later, live in the warmth in his eyes. For now, she offered him a tight lipped smile. A single nod. “Thank you for apologizing.” Then, it was awkward, and she hated him a bit. For reopening a wound she’d long thought healed, for having the audacity to grow. or: One year before the announcement of the Marriage Law, Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy learn to appreciate the importance of a well-maintained working relationship. Words: 6999, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: F/M Characters: Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Padma Patil, Dean Thomas, Theodore Nott, Ginny Weasley, Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson, Neville Longbottom, Cormac McLaggen Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy Additional Tags: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, mentions of fred weasley (rip, mentions of hermione's parents who don't remember her (rip pt2), Lawyer Hermione Granger, Lawyer Draco Malfoy, Eventual Smut, romcom, Co-workers, Arranged Marriage, Golden Trio | Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley Friendship, marriage law, the government is bad in every universe we know this, slow burn i'm talking a YEAR long campaign (ran by hermione) to deny her feelings, Denial of Feelings, draco malofy is very much doing the opposite of denying his feelings btw, enemies to co-workers to friends to lovers, author blatantly prioritizes passing the bechtel test, dean thomas has one goal: spend the summer at a vineyard (he does not care who owns it), This is like the Opposite of Ron Bashing, harry saved the entire world he now is allowed to be a little bit of an asshole (just a lil), draco malfoy does the unthinkable: he grows up, Other Additional Tags to Be Added via AO3 works tagged 'Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy' https://ift.tt/G8fFDuV March 01, 2024 at 01:47AM

[kickingitwithkirk]

Winchester's Folly

Summary: When Dean gets into trouble John decides to hide the truth for his family

Pairing: Alpha Dean x Omega!Reader x Alpha Sam

Word Count: 1417

*Dark! Fic-don't continue if you are disturbed by the subject matter

Warnings: A/B/O, non/con elements, dub/con elements, enslavement, pandemic, non/con drug use, collaring/leashing, forced mating, forced breeding, branding, BDSM elements, show-level violence

*Additional warnings to be added

Square filled: @spnabobingo non traditional alpha traits @spnkinkevents free space @j3bingo jewelry/piercing

A/N: * UPDATED 3/24 first three pasts of series

A/N II: Still working on reigning myself in, keeping each part reader-friendly length, and have no clue how many parts this will end up being.

A/N III: a few notes about designations in A/O sub-genders for this story.

Alphas-Dominant (head of the pack/family) Subordinate (obey Dominant) Breeders (rare & highly coveted by the government. Can challenge Dominant for pack/family leadership)

Omegas -Domestic (mostly wiped out by plague, few natural born left) Feral (government-supplied breeders sold commonly called O's) House O’s (3rd generation+ Feral/Dominant breed. Used as servants/sex workers) Pack (rare & highly coveted by the government)

*Divider by @firefly-graphics

*No Beta-all mistakes are mine

PART IV

John read through the contract and had to admit that the Dealer was a stickler for details, continuing to the addendum that the original purchaser sold the O as-is to him for one dollar. 

Ignoring the still-fuming Dealer, John signed all three copies before handing them and the payment to an on-site notary who stamped the copies before handing one back to John, one to the suit with their monetary compensation, then disappeared with the last to finish registering the sale.

“Pleasure doing business with you, Winchester,” the suit says as they untether the twin and lead her out of the room. John placed his copy in his canvas jacket pocket and said, “I need the O cleaned up and dressed.” One of the Alphas reached into the cage, attached a cheap dog chain to the D ring on her collar, and used it to drag the O across the floor, dropping it at John's feet as Helms smirked. “Sorry, we would normally comply with your request if it were our merchandise you purchased. You have a nice day, Winchester.” 

They left John alone with his newly acquired property. He scooped up the unconscious O and was surprised at how light she felt, made his way through the open dock door of the building and spotted the Impala. When his sons climbed out, John issued orders.

 “Dean, get your ass over here and take your property. Sam, front seat with me.”

“There’s a clinic two blocks on the left, sir,” Sam says, climbing back into the Impala, cracking a disposable ice pack, and handing it over the seat to Dean, who places it over the O’s swollen eye. John's thankful it’s a short drive cause the mouth-breathing sounds filling the car were disturbingly similar to that Shtriga he’d hunted. 

Sam bolts out the door before John has the car in park, taking several deep breaths before opening the back door and helping Dean maneuver out with the unconscious O. 

The quartet enters the clinic, and a bored-looking receptionist slides a clipboard over without looking up, telling them to fill out both sides. They cross to the waiting area where John and Dean sit, automatically leaving the chair between them unoccupied. Sam mentally sighs and pulls his hoodie lower to keep his painfully hard cock hidden, sits, and starts mouth breathing again, making John growl and scribble faster before marching back to the receptionist.

Dean shifts the unresponsive girl, and Sam says in a strained voice, “Dude, she’s flashing everyone!” Dean sees his darting eyes peer down, noting the old army blanket gaped open, exposing the O’s breasts. He can’t help himself. “Look at you, Sammy, blushing like a virgin on her wedding night. So adorable.”

“Jerk.”

“Bitch.”

“Boys,” John interrupted, “Let's go.” Dean closed the blanket, followed him down the hall to an exam room, and placed the O on the table. “Wait outside the door, Dean. You too, Sam.”  A while later, smallish, fifty-something Beta with their nose in a file came towards them and finally noticed the two tall Alphas slouching by the doorway. Smelling his unsureness, Dean reassured them, “We don’t bite..usually.”

Clearing their throat, the Beta walked between them when Dean slapped his hand against the wall, creating a loud thwack that made them hurry into the room. “Not funny, man,” Sam chastised but couldn’t help grinning.

John insisted on remaining in the room during the examination, knew how these clinics worked, and wanted to be sure the O had no severe injuries or undisclosed maladies. 

“I don’t see your DNA ID on the intake paperwork.”

“DNA? What are you talking about?”

“There have been many fraudulent ownership claims in this state,” the doctor said as he did the exam. “For new registrations, all Alphas in the purchaser's immediate pack must submit their DNA ID number and to STD testing. I assume you were in service?” John affirmed he was. “Good, and your offspring? No? Okay, what state did your Omega whelp them in?” John frowned. “My mate was an Alpha.” 

“It’s almost unheard of for a female Alpha to have more than one pregnancy.” The doctor resumed the physical, noting a mild concussion, but her swollen eye was undamaged, and considering the extensive skin trauma, mainly on her back, she likely had bruised ribs, too. “As a precaution, I will administer fluids and a broad-spectrum antibiotic. I need your help with this part. Please move the O to the scale so I can see if its stats match the paperwork.”

The doctor and John, who’d guesstimated her height earlier, were shocked. Most O’s rarely hit five-four, and she was nearly six feet tall but was thirty pounds underweight. John laid the O back on the table, covered her with a warming blanket as the doctor hooked her to the IV, then collected the other samples from Winchesters except for the STD on Sam, who had to admit he was still a virgin. A tech arrived for the samples and handed the doctor some paperwork. “I see you purchased the O for your elder son, who’s not of age yet. Do you require any additional stipulations for registration?” 

“I want Sam to have proprietary rights in the event of my untimely death.” 

Dean peeks through the register office's doorway and sees a slightly chubby Beta in her late twenties sitting at the desk. She looks up, giving him an apprentice once-over, and chirpily inquires, “You with the O just brought in?" He responds snarkily. “You got a bunch of other O’s that just arrived?"  Dean pinches the bridge of his nose. “I'm sorry, that was uncalled for.” 

She hummed sympathetically and clicked the mouse, searching for something on the computer. "It’s alright. Things like this can be stressful, so I’ll try to get you through quickly. Help yourself to the coffee. It’s hot." Pouring a cup, Dean sipped it and grimaced. "Okay, here we are. Name?"

"Uh, Dean." He sat down, positioning himself to see out into the hallway, and heard the Betas' long nails tacketing-tacketing over the keys. "And will you be changing the name?" "Huh? Why the hell would I want to do that?” The Beta flinches at his tone. "It's a routine question. Some people don’t like the name of the O they’ve purchased, so they shorten or change it entirely.” It took him a second to catch up. “Oh, sorry. I'm Dean, and ahh, I don’t know what her name is." The tacketa-tacketa resumes. “Hmm, the O only has numerical identification. You could pick something neutral or a favorite nickname. How about leaving it for now? If or when you decide to change it, you can do it through any state registration center."

"Uhh, okay, let’s do that." 

"No problem. Now, has the O been branded yet?" Dean's hand firmly gripped the edge of the desktop. "What the fuck? That's a regular thing you do here!” Dean's loudness makes the Beta frown; she leans over, opens a side drawer, rifles around, and pulls out a pamphlet, pushing it toward him. Dean frowned at the title: Your New Omega and You: An Alpha's Guide to Handling and Training.

 "O branding is the traditional form of marking to deter theft and help with identification. North Dakota is one of a few states that mandate it but all others accept it. A sanctioned clinic, such as ours, uses a local anesthetic, so it’s quick and relatively painless. The unique symbol chosen for the individual owner will be on the lower back to not spoil their aesthetics.”  More tacketa-tack-tacketa. ‘We do piercing for free. Are you interested in having the O’s nipples, clitoral hood, or labia done?” Dean shakes his head negatively. “For low-income families, public assistance will generally cover breast augmentation or genital modification since it doesn't interfere with fertility.”

“Now, state law requires that if testing confirms that the O's are a non-viable carrier, we spay them. I am obligated to inform you this procedure can lead to malaise, but it reduces the chances of other diseases as they age. Since you’re not a resident, if you choose not to, we can provide a doctor's exemption certificate.”

“What kind of fucked-up Deliverance-style place is this? I am not authorizing any fucking modifications of any kind, you hear me!” The courteous attitude disappears. "I don’t appreciate your tone, sir,” as she resumed tacketa-tack-tacks on the keyboard. Dean wasn’t sure how much more he could take before he hit something.

Part V

SPN TAGS: @donnaintx  @lyarr24  @flamencodiva   @lassie-bird   @nancymcl   @spnbaby-67   @leigh70

Sam/Jared: @idreamofplaid

Dean/Jensen: @thoughts-and-funnies  @stoneyggirl2  @beabutterfly987 @smoothdogsgirl

WF: @slamminmine @ladysparkles78  @deans-spinster-witch  @ilovetaquitosmmmm   @strawblueberrys

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dean Obeidallah at The Dean's Report:

We are faced with a radically partisan GOP controlled Supreme “Court” that has been working for the past few years to reshape America to match their right-wing vision of what the nation should look like. It’s literally jaw dropping when you review the numerous legal precedents overturned by these Republican justices in an effort to force their far-right agenda upon us. The most obvious example is the GOP court overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, thus, stripping women of a fundamental constitutional right.  This decision was not about the law, it was solely about the anti-choice activists in black robes on the court finally having the requisite votes needed—thanks to Donald Trump—to end the right to reproductive freedom. Since Roe was overturned, 14 GOP controlled states have in fact fulfilled the goals of the GOP justices by implementing total abortion bans—many even in the case of rape.

In 2022, the religious zealots of the court overturned the 1971 decision of Lemon v. Kurtzman that was created to preserve the wall between church and state. But the GOP theocrats on the bench in the case of Kennedy v. Bremerton ended what was known as “the Lemon test” in an effort to make it easier for lower courts to usher in “Christian nationalism.” (Overturning the Lemon decision is why the Louisiana GOP enacted the recent law to mandate the Ten Commandments in public schools--as I wrote about.)

Just last week, the GOP court again overturned long standing legal precedent by ending what was known for 40 years as “Chevron deference” which had required lower courts to give wide leeway to decisions made by the federal agencies charged with implementing federal laws. But conservatives have long been gunning for Chevron since this legal principle empowered federal agencies to implement regulations that protected people but cost GOP donors money—such as regulations dealing with protecting the environment, addressing climate change, worker protections, food and drug safety, the financial sector and more. Then there are their decisions that have weakened rights on the way to ultimately ending. These include this GOP Supreme Court further undermining the Voting Rights Act, striking down a century old gun law designed to save lives from gun violence and in 2023, the GOP justices rolled back anti-discrimination protections for the LGBTQ community in the name of “religious freedom.” 

Beyond that, there is the conservative justices continued efforts to legalize political corruption apparently because it helps their wealthy GOP benefactors-like Clarence Thomas’s Harlan Crow--as we saw last week in the outrageous decision of Snyder v United States. In this case, the six GOP justices ruled that people can give government officials lavish gifts, send them on vacations, or simply pay them thousands but it won’t be considered an illegal bribe as long as the gifts/money is paid after—not before—the official action. Instead that will be viewed as a “gratuity.”  I’m not kidding. As Justice Kavanaugh wrote, “bribes are payments made or agreed to before an official act in order to influence the official with respect to that future official act.” Gratuities, by contrast, “are typically payments made to an official after an official act as a token of appreciation.”  Finally, this week we saw the six GOP justices in essence rewrite the US Constitution to provide absolute immunity to the president for a range of actions not contemplated by the Framers of the Constitution. That is why Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her powerful dissent about the decision, “The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”

[...]

It was great to see President Biden address the nation Monday night to slam the immunity ruling saying the court had done a "terrible disservice to the people of this nation." Biden rightfully added, "No one is above the law, not even the President of the United States."

But Biden did not call for Supreme Court reform. That is something the President and all Democrats running for federal office in 2024 must do. Bluntly, there’s simply no way that any Democrat running in 2024 for federal office can credibly tell us they will fight for reproductive freedom, equality for the LGBTQ community, preventing discrimination against people of color, saving lives from gun violence, protecting voting rights and our democracy, addressing climate, etc. if they do not make reforming the Supreme Court a top priority. After all, it is this GOP Supreme Court—not Congress—that is the one changing policies on these vitally important issues.

The issue of SCOTUS reform is not only grounded in valid policy concerns, but also politically a winner as well. Recent polls find approval levels for the US Supreme Court at all-time lows.  The reason is apparent. Seven in ten registered voters believe the Supreme Court is “mainly motivated by politics,” as a 2023 Quinnipiac poll found. Backing that up is an AP poll from last month where 70% say the justices are less about impartiality and more motivated by ideology. This explains why nearly 70% or more of Americans support a range of reforms to the Court. For starters, a recent AP poll found 67% of Americans support a proposal to set a specific number of years that justices serve instead of life terms, including 82% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans. A same number support an age limit for serving on the Court.

Interestingly, 60 percent of Americans in that same poll think there should be an equal number of Democrats, Republicans and independents on the high court. That is something I can see appealing to people like President Biden to champion given it’s focused not on “packing” the court but balancing the court. SCOTUS reform must also include ethics laws--which is supported by 75% of Americans.  

Dean Obeidallah is correct: Every Democrat, from President Joe Biden on down to your Congressperson, should make SCOTUS reform a critical priority.

Decades of right-wing control of the court has damaged its credibility, especially with the heinous rulings made in recent years by right-wing black-robed judicial activist tyrants on SCOTUS, in particular the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, and Trump v. United States rulings.

[chloeworships]

Quick Updates:

1. Someone's mom is going to discover she has cervical cancer. I saw her cervix dripping with pus and discharge. This is as a result of her wickedness.

2. The Lord said "Rabbi" to me. Not sure in what context. Something may occur with a Rabbi. Rabbi means teacher in Hebrew.

3. I was shown "Safe(r) House in Berlin" 👀 #iykyk

4. I saw a woman in an all black Burka being impaled as per Esther 7:10 "So they impaled Haman on the pole he had set up for Mordecai. Then the king’s fury subsided". She fell from a tall building right onto the wooden pole. It was a gruesome scene to witness. Israel FYI 🇮🇱 You babes know this story more than anyone. Someone (a Muslim woman) will try to come against you to set you up to lose, God will stop it somehow but you need to know who. Lives will be saved.

5. I was shown the word "Council". Some council somewhere is planning something. The other day, in addition to this, I heard "Reggae Council". I tried to find if a GOVERNMENT department/entity in Jamaica existed by that name and could not find one. Perhaps someone else knows what that means. Sometimes the LORD speaks to me in parables so he could be using the word REGGAE instead of JAMAICA to let me know this involves both Jamaica AND music. Regardless of what, I get the feeling this "council" is up to no good.

6. I received MAJOR warnings for journalists: Visegard, Anderson Cooper, News Canada (CP 24), and I was shown Ultra-A (not sure what the A is for) and Rachel in scuba gear in a speed boat starting an engine to leave STAT. That made me so happy because the warning I received was to leave NOW. PS. Rachel Maddow has a new docu-movie called "From Russia with Lev" airing soon (I am shamelessly pluggin' 🔌😁) -- Babes be careful though -- cause you're onto something(s). I am concerned for your well-being 😣

7. Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling are two names I have been seeing along with Kendrick, recently. I do hope all these men are doing well. Sometimes I receive names to pray and intercede for them 🙏🏾 sometimes the reason is unknown to me until it's revealed to the world. I was also shown IIhan Omar 👀

8. I heard "the state is monitoring you" .... STATE as in an actual state or Country.

9. I had a vision of what I thought was three separate men coming towards me in a beautiful garden with a uniform on. I stood at the top of cement stairs outside a building while they approached me -- God did his face swap thingy. The men looked like 1. Ron Rivera, NFL Coach of the Commanders, 2. Prince Harry, and 3. An unknown Asian man who the LORD said was "a general". They were getting "closer" to me. Someone could be getting close to you. Not sure if that is good or bad but please pray about it. I didn't feel anything negative and I am fond of both Ron and Prince Harry so I pray it is excellent news for you, however the presence of a general could mean something else. UPDATE: after this I was shown Prince William in a separate message.

10. I heard "Anna Barra is sick or hurting". I thought I had seen hurting but I wrote down sick.

11. I saw Cuban construction workers or airport workers, trying to get my attention. Then I saw them walk in the middle of a road in Florida with a black woman. I heard something about "Dean". You may want to look into this or they may come to you. Hear them out. They need help 🇨🇺 Guns are involved.

12. I received another STI warning ⚠️ It was written in someone's discharge and was dripping. It was gross! 🤢

13. I had a vision of a mighty King who looked like a serpent/alligator. He was doing the most despicable thing... rubbing the butt of a baby girl in his arms. She was dressed like an adult which was also sickening, wearing a pink bra-like crop top and short pink shorts. I am sorry but this was too revealing for a child. Now I know sometimes we say "soft as a baby's butt" but the imagery was very disturbing. Why would you rub the booty of a baby? ugh I am abhorred. Either way, this is about lust. Also, someone could be trying to rub a child or relationship in your face. Some people are weird like that. It reminds me of poor Hannah and Peninnah:

'Year after year it was the same—Peninnah would taunt Hannah as they went to the Tabernacle. Each time, Hannah would be reduced to tears and would not even eat. So Peninnah would taunt Hannah and make fun of her because the Lord had kept her from having children.

1 Samuel 1:6-7 https://www.bible.com/bible/116/1SA.1.6-7

They might be laughing now but BAY-BEE when the LORD is ready to open thy WOMB, the baby is going to be revered like the prophet Samuel. Recall, the LORD has been showing us people giving BIRTH to new ideas also. They laughed at Noah too until BAM, the LORD wiped them the hell out...Carry ON, babes, carry ON. Ignore the HATEFUL (I was shown a vision of the movie the Hateful 8). Stay laser focused on you and the LORD's plan. God always humbles the proud.

14. I was shown some of your enemies have been"snooping" around. mmhhmmmmmmmmm... they wanna know how you do ittttttt. They wanna know how come the witchcraft attacks aint working NO MO, they wanna understand why God keeps on blessing ya when they keep cursing ya, they wanna know, why you keep WINNING cause they in secret competition with you....well to put it simply.... it's THEE ANOINTING, the DIVINE FAVOUR God has on your life. What they should be doing is studying the good book...THE BIBLE and not you. The LORD is telling you this because he is (for the umpteenth time) telling us to HUSH UP about our plans. Speaking of that I heard "tell Kenneth Cruz to be quiet"... I heard this DIRECTLY from God verbatim 👀 As we Jamaican's would say "unno chat too much!!" LOL 😂 ssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh 🤐

15. I also heard the LORD say "Warn Taye of Delilah" 👀 Who's Taye and who is THIS Delilah chick coming for what's yours TAYE???? Now ... I am leaning towards an actual Delilah aka the woman who finds out a mans weakness and uses it to betray him, aka another spirit of deception BY a woman OR// a warning against going to club Delilah to avoid a confrontation. Please pray about it and MY GOD may the LORD protect him against *HER*. A woman that has this spirit will take everything from you for $$$. This spirit is the ancient gold digger spirit with a TWIST lol 😅 but fo real tho... ion like it.

16. I was told someone is going to be suspended and they will be losing bank $

17. I was shown something about Jonathan and revenge. It could be that someone is going or has exacted revenge against someone named Jonathan or he will seek revenge. HOWEVER as children of the Most High God, we ask the LORD to avenge us so we can keep our hands, minds and conscience squeaky clean. Let God handle it. Revenge is a lose-lose situation. The temporary happiness from seeking to destroy someone and watch them lose it all, always backfires in your life some way EVEN if you were justified in seeking that revenge. Why? Because the eye for an eye commandment has been updated and revised by Jesus Christ. We do not extract a persons eye for taking ours anymore (no matter how much we might enjoy it haha), God does the surgery for us. Amen 👓

18. I saw RiRi in a wedding dress and her underboob tattoo. However this was far later in life. She was older. I believe the LORD was trying to say that a marriage delay curse (tied up) could be on her life. I rebuke the DEVIL in Jesus name. God is removing that.

19. I overheard myself telling someone by the name "Antonia"..."Thank me later"... why? Something MAJOR is going to transpire in her life and it is going to surprise her. She didn't believe it would but it did.

20. I was shown a red dot 🔴 following me around. Then the LORD said "targeted" 👀

21. I was shown the word "JOY". The word was written as if someone was tracing the letters or they were stitched. Someone could receive some good news about their health. YYaaayyyyy. One thing I have come to learn that true wealth is having good health.

22. I had a black and white image of the laughing fat Buddha. I often see him in relation to anyone who is from an Asian country. Whenever I see it, something financial happens. This time he was shown with other Black figures on either side of him.

23. A scandal is coming.

pphheeewwwwwwwwwwww chileeee 🥵 I am done ✅...

The LORD woke me up at 2:28 am the other day to share most of these messages with me. He was like my man trying to talk on the phone all night while I need to sleep and go to work the next day haha! Awww. I love him ✝️

Stay blessed and never forget God loves YOU! 🫵🏾