#including this one guy who repeatedly made AIDS jokes

[fencesandfrogs]

One of the best moves of my life has to be reenacting an AIDS protest on 80s day in my senior year of high school.

[matan4il]

I just saw with my 2 fucking eyes ST calling Bassem Tamimi a peace activist, the guy who made his child go confront IDF soldiers for clout aand thinks stone throwing - which kills people, including friendly fire between Palestinians - is so cool

Nonnie, I am... You know that thing where you just smile wide, because reality is too much to deal with, and you just have to detach from it for a minute? That's me right now.

I mean, one of the things I've noted over the years is that often, the worst takes from Standing Together's leaders are posted on their personal social media accounts rather than the official ones, which makes it a bit harder to explain why the notion of the movement is great, while what they do in practice is awful and anti-Israeli. So when I got your ask I was wondering on which private account they posted that, but no. They posted it on an official ST account. There is not enough 'face palm' in the world for this.

Bassem Tamimi was arrested in October due to suspicion that he was aiding terrorist activity against Israel. If you ask me, he should have been arrested for child abuse as well, the way he's used his kids, pushing them repeatedly at soldiers to gain clout among the anti-Israel crowd, and praising them when they got arrested for violent terrorist activity. He has also generally encouraged rock throwing terrorist attacks.

The ST post claims that Bassem advocates for non-violent resistance, which is an absolute lie. He supports rock throwing at Israelis, which IS a violent act (funny how for the anti-Israel crowd, Israeli words are violence, but Palestinians throwing rocks at Israelis, which has killed more than once, isn't. For some reason, I have never seen any of the people claiming that rock throwing is a form of non-violent resistance volunteering to be its physical targets, I wonder why. Anyway, reminder that when it comes to non-Israelis, people have no issue calling deaths caused by rock throwing "murder," even when executed by teenagers, or calling out the terrorizing quality of such crimes).

Not to mention that Bassem's own daughter, Ahed Tamimi (who is mentioned in the same ST post as having been arrested by Israel "multiple times", and who the family has actually sent countless times to confront soldiers in order to film her "bravery" when really, that's child abuse) was arrested twice, the first time for physically assaulting a soldier. The second time was after the Hamas massacre, when Ahed posted on social media, promising that Palestinians will slaughter Jews, and that "you will say what Hitler did to you is a joke" in comparison, that Palestinians will drink the blood of Jews and eat their skulls. Yeah, SO non-violent!

Let's also not forget that Bassem's niece, Ahlam Tamimi, was a terrorist who helped carry out the Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing in 2001, a massacre of 16 people (since the Palestinians insist on counting unborn children when pregnant women get killed in the conflict, I think it's only fair Israelis do the same), leaving another person in a vegetative state for over 20 years. Ahlam's interviews from Israeli prison and after she was freed in a hostage deal are some of the most chilling I've ever seen, and this woman is a "journalist" and an icon for the anti-Israel mob, living in and broadcasting from Jordan, allowing her to help poison the minds of the next generation.

Nothing about the arrests of either Bassem (or Ahed or Ahlam) was arbitrary, unlike the claim in that ST post.

I'm just... beyond sickened. Anyway, this will also go under my Standing Together tag for easy reference, if you ever need it.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[hello-nichya-here]

How much of the lies/rumors about MJ are due to the general public's insistence that he must be gay, and then their own homophobia about that idea?

Oh, a whole lot - and don't forget the sexism and racism, as they are a core part of it too (reminder to everyone that the "Wacko Jacko" nickname The Sun gave to him was comparing him to a monkey toy, something Michael was obviously mad about).

Long before the drastic changes to his looks, or the wild rumors, Michael was already seen as weird because he did not fit the stereotype of men in general (and black men in particular).

He was kind, nurturing, good with kids, emotional, shy, naive, and his biggest dream was being a parent - these are still largely seen as "female" traits today. Michael grew up in the sixties and seventies.

Even more "shocking", he was a black man that was not really aggressive, and not only was he not hypersexual, he was OPENLY voicing his discomfort with people prying into his business/insisting that, come on, he HAD to be into fucking groupies, strippers and hookers like most guys in the industry, right?

Add in him being a fashion icon and wearing a ton of make-up that gave him a bit of an androgynous look every now and then, and you have people CONVINCED he must be into men.

And once again, homophobes still think gay = pedo to this day. Michael was born in 1958. He was already the target of gay rumors, and treated like a big freak for it, before AIDS was a thing. Before "Don't ask, don't tell." Laws forbidding same-sex relationships between consenting adults had not been deemed inconstitutional in the USA until 2003.

It's crazy to me that plenty of so called "progressive" people today act are still willing to pretend there's any real evidence against him, not just because the freaking FBI was secretly investigating him for 13 years and found nothing, but because the so called "Red flags" in Michael's behavior was literally just a bunch lies to make a (supposedly) gay man look like a predator.

But there's still one more factor contribuiting to Michael being labeled as gay: people not understanding that men can be sexually abused AND be traumatized by it because "guys always want sex."

Before he had even reached ten years of age, Michael Jackson had to sing in strip clubs (and in his own words, see adults acting like animals), had to hear his brothers having sex with groupies in the same room he was in (and it wasn't uncommon for the girls to be treated horribly, which deeply upset him), had to deal with his father cheating on his mom in the next room, and during some performances, while interacting with the audience he was made to look under the skirts of adult women to play the role of "pervy kid" even after he repeatedly told everyone in the Jackson 5 team, including his father, that he DID NOT WANT TO DO THAT.

Seriously, IMAGINE if the roles were reversed and a bunch of adults were making a 7-year-old girl pulled down the pants of grown men to see their underwear/genitals as a "joke."

As Michael became a teenager, the situation only got worse, as all of the adults who never heard the word "boundaries" in their lives were bothered by the fact that Michael was not going around having sex with a bunch of women like brothers were, so they kept paying prostitutes go to "help him out". His older sister, Rebbie, said in an interview that a male relative of theirs paid two women to take the virginity of 15-year-old Michael and locked him a room with them against his will, hoping he'd just "give in." She did not say if the women actually managed to do anything with her brother.

Again, IMAGINE the reactions if an adult man locked a 15-year-old girl in a room with two adult men that were paid to have sex with her, despite both her age AND THE FACT THAT SHE ISN'T THERE WILLINGLY! People would rightfully be disturbed by it and if anything happened, it'd be considered abuse and the relative in question would be a proxy-rapist.

But Michael was a "man" (he was a freaking kid, my god) and "guys always want it", so him not being cool with this was seen as him being weird and a "faggot."

There's a reason bastards like Evan Chandler picked false accusations of pedophilia to extort Michael - they knew people didn't understand nor empathize with the real reason for Michael's "weirdness."

And sadly enough, things aren't much different now.

[thanksjro]

Bayverse: Treating These Movies with More Dignity than They Deserve or Contain, Because I’m a Goddamned Professional - Part One

TRANSFORMERS (2007) - UNCOMFORTABLE SEXUAL TENSION BETWEEN TEENAGERS THAT I DIDN’T NEED TO SEE

So.

This is a little different than what I usually do.

Clearly.

God, how did we even get here?

Oh, I remember.

The date was September 17th, 2020, and I was in a stream with nine or ten other people watching the first Bayverse Transformers movie. Why we were watching it doesn’t particularly matter- sometimes you just gotta watch garbage so you can refresh your palate for the good stuff, I suppose. Also, a couple of folks wanted to make goo-goo eyes at Blackout’s rotors.

...It’s not my thing, but I’m glad they’ve got something to make the journey worth taking.

I made some sort of comment about only using my brain for this blog’s content, and someone (you know who you are :)) suggested that I take a proper look at the film. Being who I am, I immediately latched onto this idea, despite it being technically outside of what I write about.

And then I quintuple-downed, because winners don’t quit.

Good to know that my BA in Film Production wasn’t a complete waste of time.

Fun fact, I broke my television trying to watch Transformers for this. I think the universe was trying to stop me, by making me perform surgery on electronics, and also aggravating my carpal tunnel.

This movie came out when I was 13, and it was the first Transformers thing I saw after Cybertron. Yes, the anime one. No, not the one that’s objectively terrible.

Anyway.

How did I feel about Transformers when I saw it the first time? Well… it was okay. I liked the robots. I thought Mikaela was pretty, not that I knew what that meant back then. I watched it a few times, if only because my oldest younger brother kept renting it at Blockbuster. It was fun.

Now I’m older, and wiser, and know feminist theory, so my opinion is less “this exists” and more “blind, murderous rage”.

Our film opens up with some claptrap about the Cube™, a MacGuffin of ultimate power that allows the Transformers to create worlds in their image and populate them. Which means this is how they reproduce.

It always comes back to baby-making, doesn’t it?

The narration goes on about how the Cube™ is very powerful, and some folks wanted it for good, and others for evil. The criteria for being “good” and “evil” isn’t established, and I’m not exactly sure how one would define such a thing, when all the Cube™ does is create life, but, well, we’ve only just begun. Maybe we’ll get some answers later on.

Haha, I doubt it.

So, the Cube™ is the catalyst for our 4 million year war this continuity, and that sucker was lost in the shuffle a while back. This is a problem, because, again, the Cube™ is how the Transformers reproduce. Now everyone’s in a mad scramble to find the thing so their species doesn’t die out.

Three guesses as to where it ended up, and the first two don’t count.

Smashcut to the shit nobody cares about- the humans. We see an Osprey fly over the Qatar desert, carrying a buttload of American soldiers. We get a taste of some good old-fashioned xenophobia, as several soldiers mock a guy for not speaking English and loving his mother’s cooking, going full “funny haha gibberish language” on him. We’re two and a half minutes into the film, and I already want to stab something.

Ed Sheeran breaks into the conversation, I guess because he was feeling left out, revealing that he is the New Yorker stereotype of the film, for some reason. The fellas ask their captain, Lennox, what he’s looking forward to most about getting home from their tour, and he reveals himself to be a family man. While he’s been away, his wife had a baby, who he hasn’t so much as held yet. His men respond by mocking him.

For loving his child.

We’re three minutes into the film, and the toxic masculinity might actually make me have an aneurysm.

The Ospreys land, the lads disembark, and we get a snapshot of what downtime during deployment looks like to Bay. There are a lot of kiddie swimming pools involved. Two men play basketball. We watch multiple men take outdoor showers. A young Qatari boy brings Lennox a camelback water pack with a smile on his face. This lets me know that he’s a prop and not a character in this film. I can’t wait to see how many horrors he’ll be put through to simulate pathos.

We get a shot of a helicopter flying over the desert, one that the US military doesn’t recognize as their own. They send a couple of planes to check it out, and said planes get their shop wrecked. The helicopter is revealed to be the same ‘copter that was shot down several months prior. That’s… not good. Ghost helicopter?

No. Not at all, actually.

Lennox gets on a video chat with his wife and daughter, who is wearing one of the most ridiculous baby outfits I’ve seen in a hot minute. And I used to work in childcare, so I’ve seen a good amount of those. The writing implies that normal bodily functions are unladylike and therefore undesirable… in an infant… and that’s when all hell breaks loose, thankfully saving me from more of Bay trying to make me give a shit about these characters.

The helicopter lands, we get a shot of the mustachioed pilot, who glitches (gasp), and the line “have your crew step out or we will kill you” is uttered. Not even trying to hide the nationalism, are you?

This film hit theaters in 2007, when the xenophobia from 9/11 was still heavy in the air of the general populace, so things like this were more tolerated, and in fact approved of. Of course, it’s not like America has really improved on that subject, or ever really had a point where we weren’t terrible about it, since we live in a world where the military-entertainment complex exists.

See, the Department of Defense and a good chunk of American entertainment industries have a little deal going, and have for the last few decades, and it goes like this: The DoD will allow the use of their vehicles, personnel, and bases, or the likenesses of such, for free, in exchange for their operations being shown in a positive/morally justified light. This is why you never see the armed forces portrayed in a way that makes them out as anything less than heroes- nobody would be able to afford the sets/likenesses without the DoD’s aid. This is also why you see straight-up advertisements for the military branches on televison, in cinemas, and online, and why both the Army and Navy have flirted with having Twitch channels.

It’s all a ploy to get you to join the military, kids. It’s propaganda.

But enough about that, it’s time for our first transformation sequence!

We get a lot of moving parts with this, since it’s realistic CGI in a live-action movie, and it still holds up. It’s hard to tell what’s actually happening, but it, if nothing else, feels alien, surreal, and horrific to behold. They even included the original sound effect in the cacophony, which is nice.

Our ghost helicopter reveals itself to be a Transformer, not that we get that terminology at any point in this film. This specifically is Blackout, a Decepticon. The soldiers start firing on him the moment he starts transforming, then are surprised when the thing they started shooting with several guns retaliates. This is the point where everything ever in this military base explodes, brilliantly and repeatedly, because it wouldn’t be a Bay film without it. There’s a lot of shouting and bright lights, and I’m positively certain that a great deal of people died during this fight.

It’s just a shame that I don’t care.

Blackout rips the top off of a building like it’s a tin of anchovies, and then snags all the hard drives he can, downloading everything. This is a problem, but it seems like nobody was prepared for a giant alien robot hack-attack, because in order to shut down the power to the servers, you need to be able to unlock the breaker box, and no one seems to have the key. They solve the problem with a fire ax.

Lennox is leading the Qatari boy through the base towards safety. I should mention that it’s night now, and several hours seem to have passed since the Ospreys landed, so I don’t know why this kid is still here. He’s got, like, a house and family to go home to.

We get some more tank-throwing action, Sergeant Epps almost gets flattened under Blackout’s foot, then the movie decides it’s going to try to make things more interesting by having each shot cut flash, for whatever reason.

Someone shoots Blackout with a rocket launcher, I think, and this is the point where he throws his tiny little man off his back to go do his job. Yes, Blackout’s got a baby, and that baby is Scorponok, his symbiotic pal who likes to dig into the ground and be a sneaky little bastard.

Blackout blows up a ton more military equipment and personnel, and then it’s time for another smashcut.

Now we’re in high school, just like all those dreams I’ve had where I’ve forgotten my homework. This is where we meet Sam Witwicky, our main character, and also the stand-in for our target demographic. He’s insufferable, and I don’t like him. Mikaela Banes, our love interest, is also present in this scene, but we don’t get to know about her character for, like, another 20 minutes, because who gives a shit about women, right? They’re just props, right?

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

Sam is presenting on his great-great-grandfather, Archibald Witwicky, for his family genealogy report, in front of a class containing maybe three actors who are age appropriate.

I know child labor laws are a good thing, and that hiring adults to play teenagers is just the lay of the land, but I swear some of these students look like they’re old enough to be on their second mortgage and third kid.

Anyway.

Archibald Witwicky was an explorer, one of the first to traverse the Arctic circle, and apparently his crew was made up of folks from 2007, because I swear the clothing for a few of these dudes isn’t period-appropriate. We get a seamen joke, because of course we do, and a sextant joke, because of course we do. Sam is also hawking all this crap he’s brought in for the presentation, because he is a little bastard who has no idea what his peers would want to buy, or really how to relate to them at all. He’s selling these “priceless” artifacts so he can get a car. Mikaela finds this charming, for some fucking reason. Also, her boyfriend is weirdly stroking her shoulder blade with his knuckles the whole time this is happening, and I hate it.

Archibald Witwicky went mad after his expedition, talking about an “ice man” so often that his family ended up locking him in a mental asylum, likely to be forgotten about. Which is sad. But we won’t be getting into the medical mistreatment of the mentally ill in Bayverse, now will we? That’s just Too Deep™.

Sam’s teacher didn’t very much appreciate having his class be turned into an episode of Antiques Roadshow, but still gives Sam an “A” on the project, despite it being a very poor report that lasted all of two minutes. I suspect the teacher has tenure, and therefore no longer gives a shit about academic integrity. This “A” means that Sam’s father will buy him a car.

Which is nice, I suppose, if I gave a damn.

Sam’s father, Ron, picks up his son in a car he probably bought at the crux of his midlife crisis, in a green that reminds me of a school gymnasium floor, then plays a prank on his child by pretending to pull into the Porsche dealership. Sam isn’t getting a Porsche, which is good, because he doesn’t deserve one. As Sam gripes to his father, a yellow Camaro drives by oh so conspicuously. Wonder what’s up with that.

Instead of the Porshe dealership, they head over to the used car lot, which is being run by Bobby Bolivia, who spends his time yelling at his employees and wanting to murder his mother. Sam is incredibly ungrateful about the fact that his dad is helping him get a car, even though it’s his FIRST car, and nobody gets a nice one the first go around. Or, at least, they shouldn’t, given the statistics about accidents with young drivers.

“No sacrifice, no victory” is uttered by Ron, which is the family motto, or so he claims. Archibald Witwicky said the same thing when he had multiple people dying trying to get to the Arctic Circle, so there’s precedence for the phrase, but we’ll see how it holds up throughout the film.

Bobby Bolivia shows Sam and Ron the cars he has for sale, and Sam is immediately drawn to the yellow Camaro in the lot, though there’s a small problem- it’s too expensive for what he and his father agreed to. Also, nobody knows where the hell it came from, so paperwork might be an issue. When Bobby tries to show Sam the yellow Beetle they have right down the line, everything explodes, because this is a Bay film, and fuck the original material this movie was based on. Bobby lets them have the Camaro for a lower price, suddenly fearful of whatever strange powers have just visited his place of business. “The car picks the driver” is suddenly more than a bullshit line to spout off in order to sell cars, and I’m certain that’s shaken the poor man.

Over in Washington, D.C., the Secretary of Defense prepares to address just what the hell happened in Qatar, lamenting on how young the audience he’s going to be speaking to is. In particular, he’s referring to the two dweebs and the hot chick sitting in one of the rows. All the women in this movie who aren’t someone’s mom are made up to be very pretty. And not even in a realistic way. But we’ll get to that in a bit.

So, the military network was hacked. That’s bad. Nobody knows who did it. That’s also bad. The only lead the US has is a soundbite, which is the signal that hacked the network.

Everyone here at the briefing is going to be helping to figure this mess out. This is great, if you like looking at Rachael Taylor for a few seconds at a time, and can compartmentalize hard enough to make that worth the effort of watching this godforsaken film.

Back at the Witwicky household, we meet Mojo, a chihuahua with a cast that doesn’t seem like it’s actually doing anything. I wish he was the main character instead of Sam.

Sam arrives home from the dealership, and says “alright, Mojo, I’ve got the car. Now I need the girl.”

As if ownership of a person is something to aspire to.

As if women are property to be owned.

As if women aren’t people, but rather commodities.

We’re 17.5 minutes into this film.

We’re introduced to Judy, Sam’s mother. She’s shrill, and annoying. This is by design, because none of the women in this film are actually people, but rather archetypes to bounce off of the male characters.

Sam and his father have a moment of what some might consider banter, then Sam gets huffy with his mom over gender roles for the dog. I, for one, think Mojo looks positively dashing in his bedazzled collar, and to hell with whatever Sam says to the contrary.

Sam drives off to go be a misogynist, with the promise to be back by 11PM.

Over in Qatar, the soldiers and that little boy are running from the attack on their base, as Lennox’s wife watches a public announcement on the matter back at home. The Secretary of Defense lets us know that we’re at DEFCON Delta at this point. Lennox Jr. cries, and all I can think about is how they probably pinched that baby to make that happen. They pinched a baby for Transformers (2007).

The soldiers in Qatar talk about shit they have no idea about, Sergeant Epps going on about somehow having been able to see a forcefield around Blackout through his super special binoculars. I don’t know how, or why, he knows this. I don’t know anything anymore.

Ed Sheeran has his doubts about this whole thing, and Lennox is also present in the scene, because I guess he’s important. Through a bit of dramatic irony, Fig- the guy everyone was making fun of for being bilingual at the start of the film- says that this probably isn’t over, as the shape of Scorponok shifts through the sand just beyond them.

Epps is having a minor crisis over the fact that Blackout saw him, but we don’t have time for that, because we’ve got to get to cover. The lads decide to head to the little Qatari boy’s house. Again, I wonder why he was at the base at all, considering that it seems like they’ve been traveling for a good portion of the day.

Back with Sam, he’s picked up his friend Miles, and together they’re going to a lake party. Are they invited to this party? Yes, but also no. It’s public property though, so it should be fine. As they park, Sam notices that Mikaela is here, which is great for him.

Mikaela’s boyfriend, Trent- whose name I had to look up- is a massive tool, and starts pestering the two boys for daring to exist in his airspace. Miles climbs a tree. I’m glad he’s having fun, at least. Sam makes a joke at the expense of people with brain injuries, and this for some reason? Warrants a shot of Mikaela making the blank “pretty girl” face? In response?

Mikaela saves Sam from becoming a wet stain on the grass, which is very kind of her, and more than Sam really deserves. Trent, his boys, and Mikaela start to head off for another party, to get away from Sam and his tree-loving friend. Mikaela offers to drive, and Trent says that she can’t handle his truck, because she’s a ~girl~. This causes Mikaela to ditch him, and start walking home.

The script knows enough about misogyny to know that this would be a nice “take that”. Michael Bay, however, likely fails to see why everything he did with said script involving this character is a goddamned problem.

Because Mikaela, bless her heart, has a lot of problems.

Let’s start with the outfit: a croptop, a jean skirt that BARELY covers her ass, and a pair of wedge heels that are at least four inches tall. On a character that is, at oldest, freshly 18.

Look, I’m all about self-expression and the freedom to choose how you dress for yourself and yourself alone, but this clearly isn’t that. This is a character, not a person, whose wardrobe was designed for the straight male gaze. She’s wearing fucking STRAP HEELS to the lake. This is about oogling. This is about reducing a whole-ass person to the same status as a piece of meat. In fact, who was on wardrobe for this? I’d like to have a few words with-

A woman? Okay, well, what else has she worked on?

You can’t be fucking serious.

ANYWAY.

Miles just called Mikaela an “evil jock concubine.” I don’t like Miles anymore.

As Mikaela walks down the road, strutting hard enough that I’ve got sympathy pains in my hips, the radio in the Camaro turns on, playing “Drive” by the Cars, and giving Sam a hell of an idea; he’s gonna drive Mikaela home, so she doesn’t have to walk the 10 miles to her house. Why he knows how far she lives from the lake isn’t addressed.

Sam kicks Miles out of the car and goes to give Mikaela a ride, which she accepts after a bit of self-deliberation, and also him making an ass of himself. The shot here is framed with Sam like he’s a normal-ass person, and Mikaela from her breasts to the top of her waist. Because of COURSE it is.

She hops in the car and then goes off about her taste in hot guys. Which is weird, and out of left field. Sam is about as confused as I am, then continues to make a fool of himself. This is his nature as a person. Mikaela has no idea who Sam is, even though they’ve gone to the same school for the last 10 years and have multiple classes together. And the fact that she was staring him down all through his genealogy presentation. And at the lake.

This movie isn’t very well thought out, I feel.

It’s at this point the the Camaro turns the key on itself and starts to sputter out and die, as “Sexual Healing” by Marvin Gaye pops on the radio.

I don’t like how this car is trying to get Sam laid.

I don’t like how this car is trying to get Sam laid with a girl who didn’t even know his name five minutes ago.

I don’t like how this car knows what sex is.

The Camaro breaks down on a cliff, and Mikaela hops out to work on the engine, and also to get the hell away from Sam’s sputtering.

As Mikaela admires the sweet engine in this Camaro, showing off her knowledge of cars, we get several shots of her from her breasts to her thighs, while Sam is treated like an actual person. Don’t bother trying to play it off as an artistic choice, Bay, this is blatant horndogging. This adds to NOTHING, other than my ire.

Sam says more stupid shit, and Mikaela, who must be the nicest fucking person in the world, just tells him to fire up the engine so she can try to sort out the problem. Then he asks why she goes for jackasses like Trent, and she decides that she’s hit her limit for today, opting to walk the rest of the way home. Good on you, Mikaela. Don’t take Sam’s bullshit.

Sam, realizing that he’s put his foot in his mouth for the 80th time today, pleads with his Camaro to do him a solid and work, and this actually works out for him. Great. Sam, victorious, once again offers Mikaela a ride, which she, once again, takes.

He drops her off without further incident, and she thanks him for listening. Even though they didn’t really talk that much. I dunno, maybe they had a super deep conversation offscreen. Mikaela asks Sam if he thinks she’s shallow, because clearly all women need approval from the men around them, and Sam says that there’s more to her than meets the eye.

Which made me groan aloud.

Anyway, she gets inside without a problem, and Sam professes his love for his new Camaro for allowing him to talk to a girl. Or at least talk at her.

Back in Washington, D.C., at the Pentagon National Military Command Center, we’re making weirdly racist calls on who hacked the military.

Up with Air Force One, a conspicuous boombox transforms into a robot, and then runs off to hack shit. The President of the United States requests some snack cakes. A flight attendant goes down to storage to retrieve said snack cakes, and finds that boombox in the elevator with her. Considering this is Air Force One, you’d perhaps expect her to immediately be suspicious of such a thing, but this is Bayverse, and we don’t think here.

The flight attendant brings the boombox down with her and places it on the counter as she goes to get the presidential snack cakes. The boombox immediately disappears. Now, you’d perhaps expect her to immediately be suspicious of such a thing, but this is Bayverse-

The flight attendant opens up the snack cake package, for some reason, and drops the cake on the floor. She then proceeds to eat it, and then act shocked when it tastes like floor. There’s a robot in her fucking line of sight, and you’d perhaps expect her to immediately be suspicious of such a thing-

She leaves to go feed the President floor cakes, and our little robot friend gets to work stealing government secrets. He, if nothing else, looks pretty cool doing it. He’s a very pointy lad.

Back at the Pentagon, Maddie- Rachael Taylor’s character- can hear the hacking. This sends everyone into a panic, because, well, that shouldn’t be happening. The hacking noise is a direct match to the one from Qatar, so that’s obviously a problem.

Back on Air Force One, our little robot friend is looking for “Project Iceman”, which he very quickly finds, and downloads everything they’ve got on it, and also plants a virus. The process seems to be… doing things to him. It’s weird. This movie is weird.

The Pentagon cuts all the system hardlines, stopping the process, but it’s too late- he got what he wanted, just about. Two security personnel come into the room, and the robot kills them both with some spinning blade disc nonsense. Air Force One is forced to land for the safety of everyone on-board. More security detail comes in to deal with the little bastard, but he transforms into a boombox and sits on a shelf to avoid suspicion. Now, you’d perhaps expect-

With the plane grounded, our robot is able to walk his little ass over to a cop car. And when I say walk, I do mean walk; this fucker is in multiple folks’ line of sight and nobody notices a thing. When he enters the car, he’s greeted by the mustachioed driver- the same driver who was operating the helicopter at the beginning of the film. This mustache man is a holographic avatar, one that’s being used by all the Decepticons.

We get our first real taste of Cybertronian language, as our robot- it’s Frenzy, his name is Frenzy- lets everyone know that he’s found a clue to the location of the AllSpark, and, through the power of the internet, knows where to find the guy who’s gonna give them what they need.

Three guesses to who it is, and the first two don’t count.

Back at the Witwicky household, Sam’s car does a runner in the middle of the night. Sam, horrified that his property is being stolen, pursues on a bike, screaming at his dad to call the cops. Sam also calls the cops, as he tears through the neighborhood.

The Camaro breaks into an abandoned building, Sam follows, and we finally get a shot of our audience appeal character. Sam watches in disbelief as a giant yellow space robot shines a beacon into the sky, then makes a video on his flip phone recording the experience. He apologizes to his parents for owning pornographic magazines, and goes to face his probable demise.

However, death does not come from above, instead manifesting itself as two of the strongest junkyard dogs in the known universe, who break their brick-inlaid chains to get at this little dip of a man. Sam is chased through the yard, climbing on top of a couple precarious oil drums, even though there’s a ladder, like, right there. The Camaro rolls in, scaring off the dogs, and Sam bolts, throwing the keys to his ride at his ride. When he gets outside, the cops have arrived, and immediately arrest him.

Back with the US government, the Secretary of State is having a conversation about all the bullshit that just went down with Air Force One. He and his fellow cishet old white men discuss their options, until Maddie comes in to set them straight on some of the facts. They act all indignant about it, because women can’t be smart, right?

Right???

RIGHT??????????

RIGH-

Anyway, we get a weird little deflection of Maddie’s role in everything, because a woman is nothing without the men around her, then she brings up the point that the bullshit that happened on Air Force One went down in just a few seconds, which isn’t something that anyone can actually do. She brings up quantum mechanics, which everyone blows off as nonsense- not that I wouldn’t as well- and theorizes on a DNA-based computer, which is technically a thing, if not trapped in the realm of speculation. It’s at this point that the Secretary of Defense tells her to come back when she can back these wild claims up, and isn’t just clearly spitballing.

And then he snaps his fingers at her, and any point he might have had leaves my brain so I have more room for being enraged.

Back with Sam, we’re at the police station talking to the cops. His dad is here, and Sam is trying to explain that his car is a dude. Even though he took at a video (one that was likely crap, given how quickly he spun his phone around to show off what he was seeing) the cops, understandably, don’t believe him. Then one of them, not so understandably, starts… threatening Sam? With his sidearm? And daring him to try something? This isn’t any sort of statement on the corruption of American law enforcement, it’s just bizarre.

Back in Qatar, our soldier buddies have found a telephone line, and are going to try to use it to get in contact with the rest of the world. It’s just too bad that Scorponok’s decided to make an entrance, and knock said telephone line the hell down. Ed Sheeran has next to no reaction to this, despite it happening maybe ten feet behind him. Fig speaks Spanish, and Ed Sheeran makes a point to be an asshole about it.

Scorponok is about to stab Lennox with his very pointy tail, when Epps notices- finally, someone with peripheral vision- and starts shooting. Then everyone starts shooting, kicking up enough sand to blind themselves, as Scorponok scuttles away, buries himself, then reappears behind Ed Sheeran.

Ed Sheeran does not survive this experience.

The others bolt, not wanting the same to happen to them, and for the fourth time I wonder just why the hell this young boy was at the base in the first place.

Off in the distance, the community of a nearby town wonders just what the shit is going on out in the desert. Our soldiers run into the town, and everyone gets their guns and start firing on Scorponok, who retaliates, because why the hell wouldn’t he?

Lennox demands that the young boy take him to his father, and proceeds to borrow his phone. As shit goes down outside, we have a sort-of gag where Lennox is trying to contact the Pentagon, while a telemarketer tries to get him to buy a phone package. In order for this call to go through, he’s going to need a credit card. This is where the well-known “pocket” scene comes from, as Lennox searches Epps’ pants for his wallet as he fires on Scorponok. It’s probably the best-written thing in this whole film.

With the credit card acquired, Lennox finally gets through to the Pentagon, and tosses Epps the phone so he can talk. Maybe he’s got anxiety about speaking on the phone, I dunno.

Scorponok shows off his disregard for historical architecture, blowing up several buildings, and the US government just watches this all go down. One of the actors in this scene looks like my dad, and it trips me up every time he’s on screen. Anyway, now the Pentagon knows about the giant space robots running around in Qatar. They send over some air support about it. All this manages to do is piss Scorponok off.

So they try it again.

This time it works, sort of.

At the very least, he’s left now.

Tail fell off, though.

Also, Fig’s been grievously wounded. The others, for once, don’t make fun of his native language while they help him hold his blood inside his body.

Back at the Pentagon, Maddie’s looking to prove that the bullshit that’s been going on is of the sci-fi variety, and in order to do that, she’s going to need a little outside help. She takes the information from the Pentagon, slaps it into an SD card, hides that shit in her blush compact, and then runs out the door to Glenn Whitmann’s house. Or, rather, his grandma’s house.

Glenn is a hacker, and shouldn’t be seeing anything that Maddie’s brought him, but everyone knows that confidentiality is for nerds, so whatever.

Back at the Pentagon, Maddie’s immediately been caught. It’s almost like slapping the military network onto an SD card maybe wasn’t such a hot idea. But what do I know?

Glenn takes a look at the soundbite and figures out that there’s a code embedded in the thing in about two seconds. Good to know our tax dollars are being well-spent on the US military, that some dude in his jammies can figure this shit out faster than a whole team of analysts. They figure out that “Project Iceman” is involved with this somehow, and also the existence of Sector Seven. It’s at this point that the FBI busts in. Good. I kind of want Maddie to go to jail for this, because she was about as stupid as she could be handling the situation.

Glenn’s cousin goes through a closed glass door- don’t worry, it’s tempered- and there’s a weird cut before that exact same shot continues, and he’s tackled into the pool. There was no reason for that to have happened, but here we are.

Back with Sam, we’re treated to him in his boxers, shooting basketballs in his room. He goes into the kitchen, where Mojo is standing on a stool. It’s a very tall stool, the sort you sit on, and he’s just… there. I don’t know how he got there. There’s no one else in the room besides Sam, and I know he didn’t put him there.

Clearly this must mean Mojo is God, and being on that stool is his divine will. I will be approaching the rest of the franchise with this in mind, because it’s clearly the only answer.

Our merciful Lord Mojo jumps up on the kitchen counter and begins growling at something through the window. Sam looks out… the opposite window… to find that his Camaro has returned to him, and is less than thrilled about it, to put it lightly. He drops a jug of milk- luckily it was mostly empty, given the sound it makes when it hits the floor- and gives his buddy Miles a call. You remember Miles, don’t you? If you don’t, it’s fine, because he reestablishes his quirkiness with a single shot, as he sits in a swimsuit and bathes his huge-ass dog in a kiddie pool, and answers the phone with a headset he just happened to be wearing. He must get a lot of calls during Dog Washing Hours.


After giving us one of the most intense voice cracks I’ve ever heard, Sam books it out of his house, hopping on a bike to escape his murderous Camaro. He’s not seen the thing commit any murders, mind you, but he seems pretty convinced that it would do the job, given half a chance. Also, this isn’t the bike he rode the night before; that one is likely being chewed on by those strong-ass junkyard dogs. No, for some reason, the Witwickys have a pastel pink girl’s bike, with the fun little handle tassels and the basket and everything. As far as I can tell, Sam is an only child, and if you think Bay’s going to allow for a teenage boy to have the vulnerability to own a pink bike, you’ve not been paying attention for the last 48.5 minutes.

The Camaro gives chase, rolling after Sam on his bike at a brisk 7 MPH down the friggin’ sidewalk, one of the only scenes in this travesty of a film to actually get me to crack a smile. Sam races through town until city planning puts a stop to him, through the magic of using chunks of cement to decorate the mulch around their trees. He crashes his bike, faceplants into the concrete in front of Mikaela, and promptly dies, thus ending the film.

No, he doesn’t die. I just told a fib. I’m sorry.

Instead, he does a flip and lands on his back, likely receiving a concussion, in front of Mikaela and her friends. Her friends laugh, because everyone hates Sam, as they should, and Mikaela says that what he just did was “really awesome.” Don’t try to be nice, Mikaela, this is Sam we’re talking about; you could stick the dude in the freezer overnight and he still wouldn’t be even remotely cool.

Sam gets back to the whole “running away from a car” deal, and Mikaela decides that this is the sort of thing she’d like to do with her day, so she ditches her friends in the middle of their scheduled Burger King™ time to go see what the hell Sam’s on about.

As Sam is chased by the Camaro who is being chased by Mikaela on her motorized scooter, a cop becomes involved, tearing through the streets to join this ridiculous game of tag. Now, we’ve seen two different flavor of cop so far- the mustachioed avatar cop car that picked up Frenzy from the airport, and the dude who threatened a teenage boy with a gun after accusing him of being under the influence of drugs. Either way, I don’t think this is going to turn out well for Sam.

Sam’s cornered himself under one of those really wide bridges where people can park their cars, which wasn’t terribly smart, but it’s Sam, so this is about par for the course. The Camaro manages to miss him, but the cop car does not. Sam is actually pretty cool with the cops being here, as if they could do anything about “Satan’s Camaro.” I guess he didn’t see the decal on the side of this car that says “to punish and enslave…”

Sam attempts to approach the car for help, and gets clotheslined by a car door for his troubles. He hits his head on the pavement, certainly exasperating the brain injury he received not ten minutes ago. Still, he continues to try to talk to the holographic avatar through the windshield, revealing that the bike he’s been riding is his mother’s. Mystery solved, I suppose.

The cop car doesn’t much appreciate being slapped on the hood, and begins to rev violently at Sam, threatening to run him over several times. Then it explodes into being a robot. Sam, who’s seen a lot of really weird shit in the last 24 hours, nopes out of the situation. It’s at this point that I realize he’s wearing a shirt for the band the Strokes. I don’t know why that stuck out to me, but it did. Guess my brain needed something to latch onto during all this.

Sam is running as fast as his little legs allow, as our newest robot friend takes up a leisurely jog to keep pace. Then he kicks Sam. He kicks Sam’s body like the football. This, of course, instantly turns Sam into a bag of jelly and kills him, thus ending the film.

No, he doesn’t die. I just told another fib. I’m sorry.

Sam somehow survives being punted by a giant metal leg and lands in the windshield of a car that doesn’t turn into a robot. Then he gets yelled at by the cop car. This is Barricade, a member of the Decepticons, and Sam’s got something he wants. Or, should I say “LadiesMan217” has something he wants.

LadiesMan217 is Sam’s Ebay username. This is both stupid because no teenage boy existing beyond the year 1985 would have ever called himself that, and also because it’s just stupid.

Barricade wants the glasses Sam presented for his genealogy report, and he wants them NOW. Seeing as the thing he wants is for sale, and nobody had been bidding on it, one would wonder why Barricade and his associates didn’t just try to purchase them like upstanding citizens. Perhaps Decepticons don’t understand the concept of money, or perhaps they don’t have a stable address to have the glasses shipped to. Or perhaps nobody considered that angle when the script was being put together. Who can say?

Sam gets back to running away from Barricade, we see where Mikaela got to, and the two of them collide. Sam rips Mikaela off of her scooter, and they both fall to the ground. Mikaela, who did not buckle the clasp on her helmet, asks Sam what his fucking problem is. Then his problem shows up, and they take a very long time to get up so they can run. So long, in fact, that the Camaro has to swing in to save them. After much pleading from Sam, Mikaela gets inside Satan’s Camaro, and the two of them are whisked away to safety. Barricade pursues, and then the butt rock starts.

There’s a lot of screaming and yelling, the Camaro busts through a window and several shelves in an abandoned building, there’s some drifting, and then suddenly it’s nighttime. Barricade somehow got in front of the Camaro, and is circling like a shark. The Camaro locks the two teenagers inside itself, though I suppose they could climb out through the still-open windows if they really wanted to. The Camaro cuts the engine off, then cuts it back on and bolts for the exit, and this somehow tricks Barricade long enough for them to get past.

The Camaro dumps Mikaela and Sam out one of the doors and then transforms into that yellow space robot we saw a bit ago. It’s Bumblebee! Nearly an hour in, and we finally get a proper look at the little bastard. I guess that’s what happens when you spend the first 20-something minutes on being xenophobic and appealing to the focus groups that think it’s fine sexualize high schoolers.

Bumblebee- no, he’s not introduced himself yet, but I just can’t keep calling him “the Camaro” anymore- comes out of his transformation ready to square the fuck up. Barricade throws himself at Bumblebee, they roll around on the ground for a bit, then things start sparking and exploding, because this is a Michael Bay film. Frenzy jumps out and starts chasing down Mikaela and Sam, while Bumblebee and Barricade murder death punch each other. Frenzy manages to grab Sam by the ankles, drag him to the ground, and rip his pants off. Not sure how that happened, considering he’s still got his shoes on.

While Sam’s busy being chased by a sentient pile of safety pins, Mikaela’s taken it upon herself to be proactive about her survival, and is raiding a nearby building for power tools. She sprints out holding an electric jig saw and saves Sam by decapitating Frenzy. If you know anything about Transformers, then you know this doesn’t actually kill Frenzy, but good on her for being a badass. Why couldn’t Mikaela be our main character again? Oh, right, because she’s a ~girl~.

Sam punts Frenzy’s head, like, 50 yards, which seems like something he shouldn’t be able to do, given that he’s a massive weenie, but there you are. With that out of the way, Sam takes Mikaela’s hand and they run off to go watch the giant robot fight. The bottom of Frenzy’s head turns into a spider and he crawls his way over to Mikaela’s purse. He’s gonna steal her gum, the fiend!

Mikaela and Sam have, unfortunately, missed the giant robot fight, which means that we, as the audience, have also missed the giant robot fight. Which is unbelievably stupid, seeing as everyone who has ever watched this movie came for the GIANT GODDAMN ROBOTS.

Mikaela asks just who the hell the yellow robot is, I guess because she’s finally had a second to process what the hell’s going on. Sam claims that he’s a super-advanced robot, “probably from Japan.” Whether or not this is a reference to the Japanese origins of the original toy line isn’t clear, though somehow I think it’s more xenophobia. Sam also makes the claim that if Bumblebee had intended to hurt them, he would have done it by now. This is quite the jump from a few hours ago, when he was calling the poor guy “Satan’s Camaro.”

Sam finally, finally asks Bumblebee what his deal is, and we get our first taste of the Bayverse Bumblebee Gimmick. The Gimmick here is that, due to an injury to his vocal processing, Bumblebee cannot communicate through traditional means, i.e. speech. Because of this, he instead strings together sentences by flicking through the radio frequencies and choosing key words. This can lead to some interesting audio design, like describing his fellow Autobots to “rain down like visitors form heaven, Hallelujah!” because a radio sermon fit what he was trying to say best.

This gimmick is one that has been used in other pieces of Transformers media, at least in part. Bumblebee is unable to speak traditionally in Transformers: Prime, and instead communicates in beeps and clicks that his teammates can understand, but not so much the humans, save for Raf. In Bumblebee (2018), the idea was used whole-cloth, with the injury resulting in his inability to speak happening on-camera within the first 10 minutes of the movie, and the idea of “expressing oneself through music” being introduced by his human companion Charlie Watson.

All in all, I rather like the idea going on here; it’s an interesting part of his character that opens up for a lot of interesting and creative moments.

It’s just too bad it was introduced in fucking Bayverse.

But yeah, anyway, the other Autobots are coming to Earth. Shit’s gonna be lit.

Bumblebee turns back into a Camaro, and Sam uses the power of FOMO to get Mikaela to go in the car with him. We get a shot of Barricade fucking dying on the side of the road. Frenzy murders Mikaela’s phone, and then steals its identity, including the little bejeweled heart stickers. Good thing Mikaela remembered to go get her purse, otherwise he probably would have felt very silly doing that.

Mikaela refuses to sit in the driver’s seat, seeing as she now knows Sam’s car is sentient, and sort of feels weird about this whole thing. Sam suggests that she sit in his lap instead, as the camera angles to give us a peek at the cup of Mikaela’s bra. When asked why the hell she should do such a thing, Sam says it’s a concern about her safety, given that the middle console of the car does not have a seatbelt. Sam either fails to recognize that seatbelts going over two layered bodies won’t save either of them in the event of a crash, or he’s just trying to make an excuse to have a pretty girl in his lap.

Given what movie this is, I’m going to guess it’s the latter.

Mikaela has a similar line of thought, but scoots over anyway, saying that the seatbelt line was a “smooth move”. It wasn’t, but if I picked apart every single bad line Sam had in this film, I’d be here all day.

Mikaela questions Bumblebee’s taste in alt-mode, which offends him to the point of dumping both her and Sam out in the street and driving away. He returns, moments later, as a sleek new Camaro, that I’m sure some car aficionados would call “sexy.”

Bumblebee’s alt-mode is a 2009 Chevrolet Camaro, of which there were none during the time of filming. It was put together for this movie in roughly five weeks. Sam is blown away by the fact that he now owns a car that does not currently exist in his universe. Mikaela is impressed, or at least she would be, if women were allowed to show that emotion in a non-horny way in a Bay film.

Judy doesn’t count.

As Bumblebee breaks into yet another restricted area, we get a shot of the Earth from orbit, as several objects rocket towards the planet. Sam and Mikaela watch the Autobots burn up in the atmosphere, and Mikaela tries to hold Sam’s hand as they do, and it’s at this point that I have to address how much I hate these two’s dynamic.

I don’t give a single solitary shit about this romance, because A) it’s poorly written, B) Mikaela could do infinitely better than Sam, C) I dislike Sam so very much, D) Mikaela, who is a way more interesting character, got placed on friggin’ love interest duty because ~girl~, and E) it’s useless padding to try and make me care about what’s happening here, and I just DON’T. I do NOT care about whether these two get together or not.

We see the Autobots crash-land, three out of four of them causing massive amounts of property damage and possibly killing at least one person. Their stasis pods crack open, and they each climb out, completely naked and in desperate need of clothing to hide their shame. With a quick scan of nearby vehicles, they’re once again decent to be seen in public.

Bumblebee drives the kids out to what I can only assume is the warehouse district he sent that beacon out in, as our collection of good guys finally come together at long last. A massive Peterbilt semi-truck stops directly in front of Mikaela and Sam.

We’re over an hour into this film, and we’re just now getting to the quintessential Transformer, Optimus Prime himself.

In the original cartoon, Optimus’s alt-mode was what’s known as a cabover truck, one where the cab- where the driver sits- is seated directly over the engine. These were popular during the days when maximum truck-lengths were much shorter than they are currently. This is why when you look at height charts for Optimus over various continuities, his G1 cartoon counterpart much shorter than his other iterations.

Modern trucks are longer, and don’t need the cab to sit on top of the engine to save on space. The designers chose to use a Peterbilt to make sure that Optimus would have an imposing stature when compared to his fellow Autobots.

Because heaven forbid we not have heightism come into play in this film.

Our Autobots transform, and say what you will about these bastards being visually incomprehensible, the transformations themselves are cool as hell. My personal favorite is Jazz’s, where he does a cool windmill into his root mode.

Optimus crouches like he’s looking at a cool bug on the sidewalk and addresses Sam by name. He doesn’t even acknowledge Mikaela, which I find to be a bit rude, but whatever. He then introduces himself as the leader of the Autobots.

Peter Cullen is back as the voice for Optimus Prime, sounding wonderful as always. He almost wasn’t brought on for this project, because Michael Bay didn’t want him. If the fans hadn’t thrown a hissyfit, who knows who we would have gotten to be our space dad for the next hour and a half?

This is actually an issue that’s recurred several times in the last few years, and not just with Cullen; Frank Welker, the voice of Megatron, as well as many other Transformers, has been refused roles within Transformers properties. In general, this is because both Cullen and Welker are union actors, and Hasbro would prefer to hire sound-alikes than pay more money for the originals. This isn’t to shame the non-union actors, goodness no, just to merely point out less-than-fantastic business practices.

I realize there have been a lot of tangents, but you have to understand that I am suffering as I do this.

Optimus then introduces his team- there’s Jazz, whose first line is “What’s crackin’ little bitches?”, Ironhide, who incorrectly quotes Dirty Harry, and Ratchet, who calls out just how obnoxiously horny Sam’s character is. We also finally get Bumblebee’s name.

Mikaela asks the very good question of why the fuck the Autobots are here on Earth. Optimus explains that the AllSpark is here, and they’ve got to get to it before Megatron does. He then goes on to explain who Megatron is, stating that he “betrayed” the Cybertronian empire.

No, how exactly he did that isn’t addressed. We’ll just have to take Optimus’s word, I suppose.

If you’ve sussed out by this point the the AllSpark and the Cube™ are the same thing, congrats! You win. Megatron followed the AllSpark to Earth, where he promptly was neutralized by the cold of the Arctic circle. This was 110 years prior to the events of this film, and where Archibald Witwicky came in to the story.

When the expedition was happening, Archibald fell through the ice during a collapse, and ended up finding Megatron’s frozen body in an ice cave. He went poking around on this strange metal giant, and ended up activating Megatron’s navigation systems, which imprinted the coordinates of the AllSpark onto Archibald’s glasses.

Don’t ask how that works, it just does.

So, the Autobots need the glasses, so they can find the AllSpark before the Decepticons do, so those guys don’t use it to build an army out of Earth’s machines, which will destroy humanity.

Sounds simple enough, let’s go get that vision correction device!

Back with the military dudes, everyone’s taking a gander at the tail that Scorponok left behind. They theorize that the metal that makes up these giant murder-robots reacts to extreme heat, but elaboration on that point will have to wait, because the tail has begun to flail. They quickly strap it down, then call the military to let them know to strap anti-tank guns onto anything that’s going to be approaching any giant robots.

Meanwhile, in an interrogation room, Maddie and Glen have been left to sweat a bit. Glen takes to stress-eating, while framing it as a psychological tactic to subconsciously prove his innocence to the FBI.

This is a fat joke, with the added nasty layer of Glen being a black man about to be interrogated by one of the most intimidating white cops I’ve seen in a hot minute.

Glen immediately folds, pinning all the blame on Maddie, and claiming that he’s been a perfect angel his whole life. We get some weird purity culture out of him, before Maddie lets the FBI know that she needs to talk to the Secretary of Defense, NOW.

Over at the Witwicky household, Sam’s parents are watching the news, trying to find out what all those loud crashes were about. Optimus Prime drives down their residential street, the rest of the gang in tow, then they all park to wait for Sam to go get the glasses.

For about 20 seconds.

Sam has to physically hold the door shut to prevent his father from coming out and seeing several very tall robots from outer space tip-toeing around his freshly-landscaped yard, I guess because they got antsy. Optimus plods around on the grass and breaks a fountain, and our benevolent god Mojo comes out of the house, assuredly to smite the leader of the Autobots.

Mikaela runs onto the scene, and Sam chastises her for not controlling the robots who didn’t even acknowledge her existence, outside of pointing out Sam was sexually attracted to her.

Mojo pees on Ironhide’s foot, which prompts Ironhide to threaten to shoot the creature. This is why Ironhide isn’t getting into heaven. Sam, one of Mojo’s chosen few, claims that the mortal shell of his god is seen as a beloved pet by many humans. Sam runs into the house, before Mojo can incur his divine wrath on the Autobots.

While Sam goes to get the glasses, the Autobots decide to do a little peeping on the house, watching his parents watch TV. Sam tears his room apart trying to find the glasses, and Optimus thinks that it would be helpful if he brought Mikaela up to help look. It’s at this point that I realize that Sam has an utterly bizarre fish tank.

I mean, legitimately, what the fuck is this? No filter, no plants, might not even have any rocks on the bottom. Is this a comically oversized bong Sam threw a couple fish into? What the fuck.

Mikaela starts looking for the glasses, running into what is likely a box of porn mags, then they both look out the window to find that the Autobots have decided to hide in plain sight by transforming... in the middle of Sam’s backyard. Amazing work, gentlemen.

Sam finally convinces the Autobots to go sit in the alley and wait, only for Ratchet to run into a power line and trip into a greenhouse. The resulting impact is interpreted as an earthquake. Judy does not have the reaction one might expect from someone who’s lived in California for at least ten years.

Ratchet’s fine, by the way.

The power cuts out, and Ron goes up to check on his son, because he’s at least a halfway-decent father. Ratchet’s shining a light to aid in the search for the glasses. Sam’s parents notice this bright light, and bang on Sam’s door to see what’s up.

Sam quickly hides Mikaela and then attempts to salvage the situation, answering the door and trying to control the narrative. Unfortunately, Ron is far too inquisitive for Sam to do this, and then Judy asks if Sam was masturbating.

Judy, is privacy just not a thing to you? Because if not, it really ought to be.

She keeps going with it too, trying to come up with code words, until another one of the Autobots trips and causes Ron to panic again, climbing into Sam’s ancient claw-foot bathtub to protect himself. He looks out the window to check on his beloved yard, lamenting that the earthquake tore it up.

Ironhide is strongly considering killing Sam’s parents. Optimus tells him that they don’t harm humans, and also begins to wonder if he made a mistake bringing this guy along.

Back in Sam’s room, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that Sam is an absolutely terrible liar, and Mikaela reveals herself, if only to prevent Judy from trying to talk about self-pleasure again. Of course, now she gets to be subjected to both of Sam’s parents objectifying her, so this might be a lose-lose situation.

Sam is reminded that his backpack is in the kitchen, just in time for the government to show up at his house. Mikaela makes a comment about Judy being nice. I suppose on a surface level, yes, being told that you’re gorgeous by someone’s mom is nice. I do have to question the context that compliment took place in, however.

Sam’s about to hand the glasses over to the Autobots, when someone rings the doorbell. It’s Sector Seven, and they’re here to talk to Sam about his stolen car being part of an issue involving national security. Ron and Judy are more concerned about their yard being torn up, Judy yelling that they “need to get their hands off [her] bush.”

We still have another hour of this movie.

The agent leading this mission asks Sam to come with him for questioning, which his parents are very much against. Mojo also voices his displeasure, but it would seem that Agent Simmons is not a follower of the Tenets of Mojo. Sam gets geigered, and his readings are high enough for Sector Seven to take him and everyone in this house into custody.

As Sam and Mikaela are riding in the back of the car, Simmons brings up Sam’s Ebay account, and also the phone video he took of Bumblebee earlier in the week. Mikaela is rather unimpressed with Sam at the moment, probably because he’s gotten her arrested. She still tries to help him out though, because she really is just the nicest fucking person on the planet.

Alas, the combined efforts of these two teenagers isn’t enough to fool the long arm of the law, especially when it’s a branch of said law that deals with extraterrestrial activity. Simmons threatens to lock up these literal children for life if they don’t start talking. Mikaela isn’t taking the bait, so he goes after her father’s parole hearing instead.

Yep! As it turns out, Mikaela and her father stole cars to get by, and she’s got the record to back that claim up. Simmons calls her a criminal, then says that criminals are hot. Mikaela looks like she’s about to cry, and I don’t blame her in the slightest.

Optimus, I suppose because his dad senses were tingling, takes the opportunity to place his leg in the road for the car to run into, then grabs said car like an unruly cat and lifts it until the roof rips off due to stress. The agents in the other cars pile out and point their guns at the giant space robot. The rest of the Autobots quickly relieve them of their weapons.

Optimus notes that Simmons doesn’t seem surprised that a bunch of giant robots just took all his guys’ guns, and demands that he exit the vehicle, posthaste. Simmons obliges, after a bit more prodding. Mikaela undoes Sam’s handcuffs, and he gets fucking pissy about it, as if this girl he’s had a grand total of three (awkward) conversations with should have told him something as personal as “hey, so my dad’s in jail and I’ve been to juvenile detention.”

Luckily, she doesn’t let him get away with it, calling him out as the spoiled, self-centered, privileged little shithead that he is.

Of course, we don’t get any sort of real acknowledgement from Sam, having to move on with the plot. Perhaps, if we hadn’t spent the last hour and 20 minutes faffing about on drivel, we could have had Sam get an actual moment of self-reflection, and potentially even character growth. However, this is Bayverse, and everyone knows that personal accountability is for fucking sissies.

Mikaela and Sam ask several questions, but get no answers from Agent Simmons. And then Bumblebee pees on him.

I hate that I had to write that. I hate it very much.

Anyway, I don’t know why that had to happen, but it did, and I’m nothing if not thorough.

Optimus tells Bumblebee to cut it out, and with that the Sector Seven agents are cuffs and left on the side of the road. Mikaela orders Simmons to strip, as punishment for threatening her father, then cuffs him to a street lamp.

...Yes, that does sound like a bizarre sexual fantasy, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately for our teen heroes, they forgot to confiscate everyone’s phones, and Sector Seven knows what’s up, thanks to the power of speakerphone. More cars and a couple of helicopters show up basically immediately, and the Autobots decide it’s time to dip.

But not before Ironhide fires off a pulsewave into the ground that causes a five-car pileup.

Optimus, I suppose because he knows he chose a ridiculously flashy alt-mode that is in no way practical, just picks the kids up in and places them on his shoulder like a couple of parakeets, then takes up a leisurely jog to get away from the eyes in the sky. He runs through the city, racking up what is likely millions in property damage, as the helicopters pursue. He passes by a “Legalize LA” billboard, which feels odd to see, given what movie this is.

The ‘copters somehow manage to lose Optimus, despite him being relatively slow, and having a notable radiation level that they’ve been using to track him. He hides inside the scaffolding of a bridge, only for Mikaela and Sam to slip off of his polished body to their deaths, thus ending the film.

No, they don’t die. I just told another fib. I’m sorry.

Bumblebee snatches them up just before they hit the ground, the impact of his metal body catching them at 75 mph, killing them instantly and ending the film.

Nope, that doesn’t happen either.

Mikaela and Sam are fine, some-fucking-how, but Sam’s dropped the MacGuffin glasses. The helicopters swing back around, having noticed the sound of a car crashing into the ground and the screams of two whole adolescents. They break out a fucking harpoon gun and fire on our kid appeal character.

Repeatedly.

They wrap up Bumblebee in a series of cables, as he screams like a moose. Mikaela and Sam are held at gunpoint by what is honestly far too many dudes, and are then arrested for the second time in ten minutes. Bumblebee is smoked... because he’s a bee? Sam, not liking this one bit, finds the strength in his weenie body to push a cop off of himself, run at one of the dudes with the smoke guns, throw him to the ground, and then start smoking him. He’s immediately tackled, but points for trying.

Sam and Mikaela are placed back into custody, and the rest of the Autobots regroup with Optimus to see what the plan is. Optimus says that they can’t save Bumblebee without hurting humans, so I guess Bumblebee is just a POW now. Well, at least they got the glasses. That’s cool.

Back at the Pentagon, things are getting dicey, as the other world powers are starting to suspect that something’s up. The Secretary of Defense is approached by a man with a mustache and a briefcase. He’s from Sector Seven, but the Secretary gives not a fuck about mysterious organizations. All the computers in the room suddenly go down, the virus from earlier working its magic- only this time, the blackout is global.

Mr. Mustache opens his briefcase, while explaining that Sector Seven is something known as a “special access” sector of the government, which is why nobody’s ever heard of it; it’s beyond top secret. Commissioned by President Herbert Hoover 80 years prior, it deals with alien life.

When the Beagle 2 spacecraft was lost on the way to Mars in 2003, the mission was declared a failure. This was a lie. The Beagle 2 recorded several seconds of Mars before being crushed to death by a Transformer. This tidbit is pretty funny, given that the Beagle 2 was rediscovered on Mars in 2014, seven years after this film released. Not a terribly mysterious death anymore, is it?

Comparing the footage from Mars to the footage from Qatar has Sector Seven thinking that these are the same species. Which they are. God, it’d be so fucked up if there were two species of giant robots in this film.

Mr. Mustache theorizes that because the Transformers now know that they can be harmed by human weaponry, they’re being proactive about their safety and shutting down all forms of communication technology with that virus that keeps popping up. It’s only a matter of time before the shit hits the fan for humanity.

Mr. Secretary tells his guys to try going analog with comms, breaking out the short-wave radios, to tell their ships to return home.

Over at an Air Force base, Lennox and the gang have landed, only to be scooped up by a bunch of dudes in suits.

Back with Maddie and Glen, the two of them have fallen asleep in the interrogation room, Maddie still wearing her friggin’ four inch pumps as her legs are propped up on the table, crossed in a way that seems rather uncomfortable. Glen gets to sleep like a normal human being, with his head resting on his forearms. Why this place doesn’t have a holding cell for these situations is beyond me.

Mr. Secretary comes in to bring Maddie on as his advisor. Glen can come too, I guess, considering he’s the one who actually figured out the sound file virus.

We get a little military glorification, and then it’s revealed that Mikaela and Sam, as well as Maddie and Glen, are aboard this helicopter. Their paths cross at last. Our heroes are transported to the Hoover Dam, where Bumblebee is also. They are still smoking him.

Meanwhile, the Autobots are figuring out where to go, with the power of Archibald’s glasses. Ratchet, who I guess is omnipotent, senses that the Decepticons have also figured out the location, and that this is going to be a race against the clock. And I mean, he’s right, but the phrasing is a bit odd.

Jazz wants to know when they’re going to save Bumblebee. Optimus says that they aren’t, and that Bumblebee’s sacrifice is noble, and that he would want the Autobots to leave him and complete the mission. As this is said, we get another shot of Bumblebee getting smoked and trapped in a lab. Yep, this is totally what he would want. He absolutely signed up for this, giving himself up to the government and not at all fighting like mad to not be captured.

I don’t think Bayverse Optimus actually knows what martyrdom is, which is bizarre, given that it’s a major trait in a lot of other iterations of the character.

Ironhide isn’t even sure why they’re bothering to save humanity, given that humans are violent and awful, his point being hammered home as Bumblebee is tortured for scientific reasons. Ironhide seems to have forgotten that Cybertron has been at war for literally millions of years. Optimus has faith in humanity, however, stating that we’re “young”.

And then he says that he’s going to end his own race, by destroying the Cube™, which is how they reproduce, because that’s the only way to end the war.

Which is arguably one of the most hardcore fictional applications of eugenics ever conceived.

Being advocated for by Optimus Goddamn Prime.

We still have another 50 minutes of this movie.

Optimus then proves that he does, in fact, know what self-sacrifice is, stating that, if all else fails, he’ll shove the AllSpark into his spark, which will destroy them both. He’s pretty chill about it, too.

Up on top of the Hoover Dam, Frenzy has fallen out of Mikaela’s bag.

Mr. Secretary is also at the Hoover Dam now, as is Lennox’s team. Oh, and Agent Simmons, who is thankfully wearing pants. He offers to buy Sam a coffee, as repartitions for threatening his family, arresting him, and being a complete creep to a teenage girl. Sam gives not a fuck about caramel macchiatos with extra foam and chocolate drizzle, however. He only cares about his car.

Mr. Mustache, who is also here, needs Sam to spill the beans on all these friggin’ giant robots that are running around. This is where Sam realizes he has the upper hand for once, and he starts making demands. One such demand is having Mikaela’s record scrubbed clean, which is an actually very nice thing for him to have done for her. We’ll see if his intent comes to fruition. For now, it’s time to talk about Bumblebee.

We get a shot of all these folks heading into the secret base hidden inside the Hoover Dam, and it’s at this point that I notice that Maddie’s shirt is basically see-through.

Inside the Dam, we see that Sector Seven′s been keeping Megatron this entire time, keeping him neutralized with cryo-stasis since 1935. Cryopreservation was invented in the 50′s. This isn’t a nitpick, I just thought it was a neat little fact.

Megatron being on Earth has resulted in most modern technology. This sort of plot point always bothers me, because it takes away agency from the entire human race. We didn’t use our own ingenuity and work ethic to advance society, we plagiarized from a more advanced species. I dunno, it just rubs me the wrong way.

We get the part of the movie where info is hashed out, so that everyone is on the same page, Sam spouting off Autobot propaganda. We can forgive him for this,considering he’s 16, and no one is immune to propaganda, especially when they have zero way of doing their own research to form their own opinion with.

Sector Seven also has the AllSpark, kept in the room next to Megatron’s, like the chumps they will soon find themselves to be. It’s about ten stories tall and the reason the Hoover Dam exists. With so much concrete suppressing its alien energies, surely no one will ever find it!

Except for Frenzy, who came in through a mouse hole. Whoopsie-doodle!

The AllSpark zaps the nasty little man, restoring his body with its weird MacGuffin powers. Frenzy tells all his coworkers that he found what they were looking for, and everyone starts heading over.

Maddie asks Mr. Mustache what exactly he means by “energies”, perhaps worried that this whole thing has been some elaborate ploy to get her to invest in magic healing stones. Mr. Mustache brings everyone into a testing chamber, since the best way to explain how the AllSpark works is through a demonstration.

There’s a big fish tank in the middle of this testing chamber, in which Agent Simmons places a donated device from the crowd- Glen’s Nokia phone, specifically. Simmons makes a geologically-confused comment. When this is pointed out by Maddie, Mr. Secretary hushes her, simply saying that Simmons is a strange man. The tank is locked down, and then the show starts.

Cube™ energies are shot into the tank, and the phone explodes into life, transforming into a gorilla-shaped gremlin creature. Happy birthday, little dude!

Little dude starts shooting at the tank walls, cracking the glass until Simmons pulls the trigger and ends it. Happy deathday, little dude!

The Decepticons are making tracks towards the Hoover Dam, but Starscream- yeah, he’s in this now, don’t worry about it- arrives first, because he is a very fast jet. He transforms, showing off his ridiculous Dorito body, and fires on the base’s generators. The resulting explosions can be heard all the way down in the testing chamber, and Mr. Mustache calls upstairs to see what’s up. Looks like Megatron may be getting warmed up, seeing as his ice bath has been cut off. Lennox asks if there’s an arms room in Sector Seven, which sort of feels like asking a bakery if they have any flour.

Frenzy has entered the room that houses the controls for the cryo-stasis and set that whole system to “no, thank you”.

Mr. Mustache runs through the base, screaming for everyone to get to the Megatron chamber. Off in the distance, the Autobots approach. Could probably used some fliers on your team, huh Optimus?

Back with Frenzy, he’s decided to just straight-up raise Megatron’s core temperature directly. Hope he doesn’t do it too fast; rewarming hypothermia victims recklessly can do some serious damage.

Outside of the base, Lennox and the boys are loading up with weaponry, along with what’s the entirety of Sector Seven′s cannon-fodder department. Oh, and all the main cast. Yep, just got a couple of teenagers chillin’ in the munitions room.

Sam wants Simmons to take him to his car- he hasn’t used Bumblebee’s name in a hot minute, not sure what’s up with that- even though Simmons is currently busy loading a very large gun. Simmons doesn’t want to do that, because he’s got no idea if what Sam mentioned earlier is even true, and he doesn’t want to pin the fate of humanity on a single Camaro. Lennox takes this opportunity to tackle Simmons, despite likely not knowing that Bumblebee is one of the “good guys”. A Sector Seven guy very much doesn’t like that, and points a gun at Lennox, which prompts all of his guys to also start threatening folks with guns.

Mr. Mustache walks in on the scene, but doesn’t do anything, since he isn’t armed and knows better than to tangle with someone who’s packing. Simmons tries to intimidate Lennox, because he must have missed the day of boot camp where they tell you that guns kill people. Lennox is fully committed to shooting this dude in the lungs before Mr. Secretary suggests he give the people what they want, before things get ugly.

Simmons takes everyone to the robot torture department of Sector Seven, where they are still smoking Bumblebee. Geez, you’d think they’d have something in place for if they ever came across another giant robot after Megatron, but I guess not. The gang gets everyone to stop smoking Bumblebee, which allows him to stop moose-screaming and strongly consider murdering everyone involved with his forced captivity. Unfortunately, revenge with have to wait, as we’ve still got to deal with the AllSpark, and the fact that the Decepticons are here.

They take Bumblebee to the AllSpark, where he makes direct contact the thing, causing the AllSpark to transform, compacting itself down into a far more reasonable size that Bumblebee can carry in one hand. It doesn’t seem to weigh more than a grown adult, if his body language is saying anything. I’d make a joke about the conservation of mass being ignored, but since this is Transformers, I can’t really say much. Conservation of mass doesn’t exist for this franchise.

Bumblebee would really like to get this show on the road, and Lennox agrees, quickly formulating a plan to get away from Megatron and taking the AllSpark to Mission City, which is relatively close to their current location, so that they can hide it there.

Lennox, I know this plan is a first draft, and we don’t have a ton of time for revisions, but the whole point of building a whole-ass dam around the Cube™ was because it was very difficult to hide, given its magical MacGuffin powers. Regardless of this flaw, Mr. Secretary agrees. Lennox also asks that the Air Force be involved in this, I guess because the U.S. military wanted more screentime.

Of course, that whole “global blackout” thing is still going on, so we’re going to have to get creative with how we’re going to contact the Air Force. Mr. Secretary and Simmons make a break for the WWII-era radio Sector Seven has, while Lennox and the boys head out to shoot things, and Mikaela and Sam hop into Bumblebee with the Cube™.

This is about the point that Megatron wakes up. The first thing he does is introduce himself, which I thought was very polite of him. Then he breaks out his flail and starts bashing shit around. Not so polite, that.

Over with Bumblebee, we’re shown that the AllSpark, all-powerful object that can create life and is the whole reason this conflict is even happening, is just chillin’ in the back seat by itself. It’s not even buckled up.

Megatron escapes the base, and it’s actually super easy. He just transforms, goes through the tunnel, and he’s free. I feel like we could have at least attempted some security measures for in case the cryo-stasis failed, given that we’ve had this dude in containment for the last 70-something years, but okay.

Starscream comes over to say hi to his boss, not that Megatron gives a shit. He just wants to know where that fucking Cube™ is. When Starscream tells him that the humans have it, Megatron makes a comment about how Starscream has failed him yet again. This is their first interaction in this movie, and Starscream’s been in the story for a grand total of five minutes at this point. I know that this is a reference to their dynamic in just about every installment of the franchise up to this point, but it doesn’t feel earned in the slightest. Even if it’s going to be expanded upon in future sequels, this is a shit-tier way to set their (awful) relationship up.

Not that anyone should ever bank on getting a sequel anyway, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Megatron tells Starscream to retrieve the AllSpark, and then we cut over to the radio plotline. The radio, which is so cobweb-covered I feel like Sector Seven needs to have a serious discussion with their custodial staff, has its nobs and buttons fiddled with by Simmons until it crackles to life. But where are the microphones? Everyone starts looking for the mics, as Simmons pushes Glen into the seat, I guess because hacking modern computers and using Depression-era radio tech are similar enough.

Maddie asks Glen if he can hotwire a 90′s-era computer to transmit a tone through the radio, so that they can send a Morse code message to the Air Force. Which sounds ridiculous to me, but I don’t know enough about radios or computers to know if that sort of thing would be possible. Maybe it’s fine. Or maybe it’s Hollywood bullshit. Who knows?

Back over with Bumblebee, we get a bunch of car commercial shots, of both him and the other Autobots. Aww, the gang’s back together again! Nobody tell Bumblebee that Optimus was completely cool with leaving him to his fate.

Optimus and the gang whip around to join the convoy, and everyone makes their way towards Mission City.

Back at the radio subplot, someone’s bangin’ on the door, trying to get in. The others try to block the intruder, while Glen does his hacking stuff. Mr. Secretary breaks a case and pulls out a gun that’s about as old as he is.

Glen gets the computer working, and Mr. Secretary gives him the Super Secret Military Codewords™ to use to talk to the Air Force. While he does that, Simmons finds a flamethrower and starts burning Frenzy as he attempts to enter the room. The Air Force receives the message for an air strike. Oh, goody.

Over with the convoy, it appears that the Autobots and Lennox’s boys are being pursued by the Decepticons. It’s difficult to tell, seeing as the cameras have gone full Bay-mode, but I’m guessing that’s what’s up. One of the Decepticons flips over a minivan, likely killing a family of five. another causes a multi-car pileup.

Bonecrusher transforms, then Optimus transforms. Bonecrusher iceskates across the highway, slamming into a bus so hard it just straight-up explodes. He is on fire. He tackles Optimus, and they proceed to fall off the side of the raised highway they’re on. Then they beat the shit out of each other, until Optimus decapitates Bonecrusher with his arm-sword.

Yeah, space dad is a little intense in the Bayverse.

Back at Sector Seven, Frenzy’s decided to leave the door alone, and instead is crawling through the ventilation shaft. Mr. Secretary and Simmons fire off shots into the duct above them, as if bullets would do anything against this nasty little pile of needles.

Frenzy bursts through the bottom of the duct and crash-lands into a glass case, taking cover behind a pillar and fires on the humans on the other side of the room. While this shootout is happening, Glen receives a response from the Air Force, just in time for Frenzy to accidentally decapitate himself with one of his own spinning blades of death. This time, he does not survive losing his head.

The Air Force will be sending fighter planes to Mission City, and to establish this, we get several shots of what some might call “military porn.”

Over in the city, the convoy has arrived. Lennox hands several short-wave radios over to Epps, telling him to use them to direct the Air Force when they arrive, so they can take the AllSpark... somewhere, I guess. Above, an F-22 zooms across the sky. It is not one of the Air Force’s F-22s.

Ironhide recognizes Starscream, and gets ready to throw down. Bumblebee grabs a nearby Furby truck and hoists it up to use as a shield. This marginally works, as the missile that hits the truck doesn’t immediately kill him, though it probably did all those Furbies inside.

The resulting explosion throws all the humans around, Mikaela getting weird heaven lighting as she lies unconscious on the pavement. Sam gets it too, though, so I suppose I can’t complain too much about this particular shot. They touch hands. I really wish that I could take this moment of vulnerability as being anything other than an attempt to set up a romance between these two teens who have known each other for maybe half a week. This movie has so starved me of genuine human interaction I'm jumping at the smallest of scraps.

Bumblebee actually didn’t get out of that missile-strike unscathed, his legs having been blown off. All those Furbies died for nothing. Tragic. Sam asks Bumblebee if he’s alright, and immediately tells him to get up. Sam then remembers that Bumblebee’s legs are off, so he yells for Ratchet.

Over with Lennox and Epps, they’ve realized that the plane they saw wasn’t one of theirs. Which, you know, has already been established, but points for getting caught up, fellas. Sam is crying and still telling Bumblebee to get up. Bumblebee is dragging himself across the pavement and whimpering. It’s awful. Where the fuck is Ratchet? This is basically the only reason he’s in this film, and he’s nowhere to be found.

The actual Air Force calls on the radio, asking for their location. Brawl, who is a tank, starts firing on Lennox’s gang. Jazz and Ratchet race through the city streets. How they were separated from the rest of the team is anyone’s guess.

Sam takes a little sit on the pavement to be with Bumblebee, while Mikaela decides to problem-solve and heads for a nearby tow truck. Bumblebee hands Sam the Cube™ because, as the designated protagonist, it’s his job to handle it in the climax of the film.

Ironhide is shot at several times by Brawl, narrowly avoiding being hit each time. This, of course, means that the people he drives by in this shot are almost assuredly dead, since they’re right next to the explosions. He transforms and does a flip, as the film goes slow-mo on a shot of a woman in a low-cut dress watching him flip. She screams. Ironhide screams. I scream, though probably for a different reason.

Jazz jumps on Brawl, managing to kick off a couple pieces of kibble before Brawl grabs him and throws him into the side of a building. Ironhide, Optimus, and Ratchet descend on Brawl, and so does Lennox’s team, Brawl losing a hand and getting thrown into his own building as a result.

Mikaela breaks into the tow truck and starts to hotwire that shit. Wow, a relevant back story that culminates in her being able to save the day, thus completing her arc and staying on-theme for her character. Why isn’t Mikaela the protagonist again?

Oh, right, because ~girl~.

Megatron lands in a nearby alleyway, and Ratchet, knowing this dude is bad news, tells everyone to head for the hills. Jazz isn’t fast enough, however, and gets shot for his troubles.

Mikaela drives the truck over to Sam, who is still sitting there with the Cube™, and tells him to get his ass in gear.

Jazz gets taken to the top of a nearby building and is ripped in two by Megatron, who acts like a bird of prey the whole sequence. Down on the ground, Brawl is starting to get back up from his smackdown. Blackout appears on a nearby skyscraper. Things are looking grim for humanity.

Mikaela and Sam hook Bumblebee up to the tow line as Lennox approaches them. Sam has left the AllSpark out of his line of sight, like a fool. Despite seeing this, Lennox still gives him the flare to let the military know where to pick up the AllSpark. Doesn’t even acknowledge Mikaela. He tells Sam to head for the white building with statues on top of it and set the flare on top of the roof. Lennox can’t leave his men, because he’s the head of his operation. Why he can’t send literally anyone else who isn’t a 16 year-old boy isn’t made clear.

Sam really doesn’t want to do this, probably because he’s a child, but Lennox has recruited him to the military against his will, so he must. Lennox then attempts to make Mikaela leave for her own good, but she tells him to fuck off, because she’s gonna save Bumblebee. Clearly, this is a win for feminism.

Epps radios the choppers coming from the Air Force to let them know they’ll be picking up a package from a teenager, thus locking Sam into the job. Ironhide and Ratchet vow to protect Sam from the Decepticons on his way to the pickup point. Not one single person has pointed out how fucked up this is.

Sam starts to run off, when Mikaela stops him to let him know that she’s glad she got in the car with him roughly an hour ago. They don’t kiss goodbye, which, honestly? Good. This fucking movie hasn’t earned that. Sam for sure hasn’t earned that, even if he did clear her juvie record. No word on that having actually been done, by the way. Sam never got confirmation, and I feel like he’s not really the type to follow up on things.

Brawl fires off some shots and makes things explode. Ratchet and Ironhide provide cover fire as Sam sprints down the road. Yep, they’re making this idiot WALK to the pickup point. Sure hope the elevators are working today, otherwise this is going to take forever.

Sam carries the AllSpark like a football, and in a better movie, this would have been foreshadowed by Sam having actually been a football player prior to the events of the film, perhaps removed from the team for some character flaw he’s since grown from/accepted. However, this is Bayverse, and well, men don’t have to justify their existence in the story with things like themes and having even an ounce of thought put into their character.

Back with Mikaela, Lennox has refused to learn her name, calling her “girl” as he screams at her to get Bumblebee hooked up to the tow truck. Which she was already doing when he got here. Lennox, dude, you’ve got a daughter now, you’re super extra not allowed to treat women like this.

Optimus Prime pulls through an alleyway and crashes into a pile of garbage. I can forgive him being late, seeing as he is a big rig, and probably had to take the long way into town so he didn’t get stuck in too-low tunnels. Don’t worry about how we briefly saw him during the Brawl take-down. This is his for real entrance into the climax.

He whips around and transforms, ready to throw the fuck down. Megatron spots him from his perch and descends.

Y’know.

Like a vast, predatory bird.

Megatron shoots at Optimus in his alt-mode, and Optimus catches him like a frisbee. Unfortunately for Optimus, it would appear that the horsepower on a Cybertronian flightcraft is hella intense, and he’s carried away. The two of them crash through an office building, then roll around in the streets punching each other in the face, debating the worth of humanity as they do so. Wish I actually gave a shit about either of these people, but alas! The film spent most of its runtime objectifying women and insulting minorities. I know nothing about Optimus, and even less about Megatron.

Megatron transforms his arms into a laser gun, and Optimus does the same. They shoot at each other. Optimus gets thrown into a building, then lands on the sidewalk below, definitely crushing a dude underneath him, but I guess we didn’t check that the shot was clear for where the CGI was gonna go, so he’s fine.

Sam’s still running through the streets, while Blackout murders, like, so many people behind him. Starscream lands in front of Sam, running into roughly 30 cars as he skids to a halt. Ratchet and Ironhide fire on him, as Sam takes a breather behind a car. Starscream transforms and blasts off. He was here for about 15 seconds. Sam begins running again.

Megatron is now following Sam, because he wants that Cube™. Sam is hit by a car- not an evil one, just a regular car- and trips. The impact makes the AllSpark activate, which grants several machines in the vicinity the gift of life, including the car full of bitchy women that just hit Sam, who are upset that hitting a human being might have scratched the paint.

I get it, you hate women, can we PLEASE stop beating this dead horse?

Sam finally gets to the pickup building, which turns out to be abandoned and fenced off. Good thing the gate was open, otherwise things could get really complicated. He heads inside, Megatron crashing through a floor-to-ceiling window shortly behind him. Megatron makes the claim that he can smell where Sam is. I’m going to choose to believe that he isn’t lying here, since Ratchet did something similar earlier.

Sam finds the stairs, and Megatron calls him a slur.

He doesn’t, really, but the voice modulation certainly makes it sound that way.

While this is happening, Mikaela is driving the tow truck down an alley, dragging Bumblebee behind her with the tow cable. She stops for a moment to have a short breakdown, seeing as she is a teenager in what is currently a warzone.

Sam is still running up the stairs. Outside, the military shoots at one of the Decepticons. It is, of course, doing absolutely nothing to the giant metal space robot. Mikaela concludes her moment, looking back at Bumblebee, who gives her the okay to keep going with dragging his ass across the pavement. She whips the truck around and tells Bumblebee “I’ll drive, you shoot.”

Mikaela then proceeds to speed down a main road of this sizable city backwards, running into cars and more or less shoving Bumblebee along to his destination.

The military has finally realized that their efforts have been pointless, but it’s okay because Bumblebee is here with his superior firepower. Bumblebee proceeds to shoot Brawl in the chest, which kills him. After this, he tries to act cute, lifting up his battle mask in a very “did I do that?” way, as if he’s not the same guy who ripped Barricade apart earlier.

Sam, meanwhile, has finally reached the top of this dilapidated building. Helicopters are approaching his location, but will they make it to him before Megatron does? Honestly, I’d be more worried about Starscream on the building just due East.

Sam is just about to hand the AllSpark over, when Starscream fires at the ‘copter, causing it to crash and nearly chop Sam to pieces. Optimus Prime runs towards the scene, on a roof that I refuse to believe could actually support him. Megatron punches thought the roof from the bottom and asks Sam some philosophical questions. Sam can’t answer, given that he’s hiding on the edge of this building, his flimsy grip on one of the angel statues being the only thing keeping him from falling.

Megatron tells him to give him the AllSpark, and in exchange he might not kill him immediately. Sam tells him to fuck off, and Megatron flails the chunk of building he was hanging on to, causing Sam to fall to his death, thus ending the film.

I’m lying to you. Michael Bay is making me into a liar.

No, Sam is, instead, caught by Optimus, very likely breaking several ribs on impact. This is the point where I realize that they’ve given Optimus fingernails. Sam clings to him like a baby koala, as Optimus parkours down the sides of two buildings, Megatron in pursuit. Megatron actually lands on Optimus 2/3rds of the way down, causing the both of them to fall onto the pavement below. How Sam survives this is a mystery.

Megatron recovers from the fall first, flicking a human away from him for having the audacity to exist in his space. The flicked person hits a car, and is almost assuredly dead. At least, I sure hope so, given that this is the director cameo by the Bayman himself.

Feminist icon Megatron?

Feminist icon Megatron.

Optimus comments on the fact that Sam almost fucking died to get the AllSpark out of dodge, and we get the return of “No Sacrifice, No Victory”. Which, I mean, I guess he’s allowed to say that, since he’s actually had to do something that warranted it. His dad doesn’t get to, though.

Optimus then tells this teenage boy, who has already had a hell of a day, to kill him by shoving the AllSpark into his robot-soul-heart, should he be unable to defeat Megatron.

I dunno, I just feel like it’s a bit of an ask.

Sam climbs off of Optimus so the Prime and Megatron can rumble. He runs through the ruined infrastructure of the city, so he’s less likely to be crushed. Optimus tells Megatron to square the fuck up, stating that “one shall stand, one shall fall.”

Then he gets ragdolled around a bunch, so maybe he should have saved the talk for later in the game.

The military is running around some more, stopping in an alley to see Blackout transform to root mode. Yes, the goo-goo eyes were indeed made by several members of the watch party that started this whole thing. People went wild for Rotor-Cape Johnson.

The fighter jets from the US military are arriving in a minute. Epps warns them to aim for the robots that aren’t evil. Lennox and the gang spread out, reminding each other to aim for the underboob, since Transformers’ armor is weak there. Epps marks Blackout with a little green light, which Blackout almost immediately notices. Blackout fires on the military.

Lennox has stolen a motorcycle and is driving through the streets to circle back around and jump off of the bike, sliding on his back to shoot Blackout directly in his underboob. Wonder what his uniform is rated for for road rash.

Sam is watching as Optimus gets his ass handed to him. Up in the sky, Starscream commits identity theft, and then attacks the Air Force. The Air Force can multitask however, and light Megatron the fuck up. Sam has, for some reason, come out of hiding, and Megatron uses this to his advantage, trying to take the AllSpark from him.

Optimus tells Sam to put the AllSpark in his chest, but Sam has a better idea. He shoves it into Megatron’s chest, which has been basically shot open at this point. Megatron makes a Space Invader noise, convulses a bit, then falls over dead.

Congrats on your first murder, Sam.

Optimus tells Megatron’s corpse that he got what was coming to him, then implies that they’re brothers. What flavor of brother isn’t established, but neither was basically anything between the two main faces of the franchise in this film, so it’s fine.

Ironhide walks up holding the two halves of Jazz. Optimus informs Sam that he now has a life-debt to this child. Whether or not Sam is absorbing any information at this point is up in the air. Mikaela shows up, with Bumblebee in tow.

In tow.

In tow-

Sam stares at her blankly. Mikaela stares back, making the pretty girl face. Man, what a great dynamic these two have.

Jazz is dead. That sucks. Optimus is handed his corpse to hold, while he thanks his new friends for helping out.

Then Bumblebee talks and he’s fucKING BRITISH.

Sam is obviously shocked by the fact that Bumblebee is British able to talk now, since not talking has been his whole thing up to this point. Optimus doesn’t let it phase him. Neither does Ratchet, despite having been working on Bumblebee’s throat injury for centuries at this point.

Bumblebee wants to stay on Earth with Sam. Optimus is just like whatever. Sam agrees to have a sweet Camaro from outer space.

Optimus pulls what is left of the AllSpark out of Megatron’s chest. I’m sure that’s not a setup for potential conflicts, not in the slightest.

Over in Washington, D.C., the US President has ordered Sector Seven be terminated, and all the Transformer corpses be disposed of. And by “disposed of” they mean “thrown into the ocean.” Dang, sure hope Earth signed some sort of agreement with the Transformers so that they never come to Earth again. You know, just be proactive about our galactic safety.

The Linkin Park kicks on, as Optimus gives us our bookend narration, telling us what the Autobots plan to do now that their race is at a genological dead end. As he does, we see Lennox reunite with his wife and child, who I had genuinely forgotten were in this movie.

Optimus is pretty chill with Cybertron dying out, because now they know about Earth. We get a shot of Sam and Mikaela making out, a shot that becomes more and more horrifying the further they zoom out, because they’re making out on top of Bumblebee. Who they KNOW is a sentient creature at this point.

And then it gets even worse, because the shot changes, and oh hey! Turns out that the rest of the Autobots were just chillin’ off to the side while this went down. Optimus continues his monologue, just walking around in his root mode as he tells all of Makeout Point how they’re “robots in disguise” now.

The monologue is actually a transmission he’s sending out into space, inviting any of his leftover pals to come kick it on Earth with them, because Earth is pretty cool.

And that’s where they leave us.

IT TOOK THREE PEOPLE TO WRITE THIS SCHLOCK.

So. Bayverse 1. A film showcasing xenophobia, misogyny, and toxic nationalism. It’s rough. Is it the worst film I’ve ever seen? Not even close, but it’s bad, and it was a huge deal at the time of release. Everyone was seeing it, everyone knew the actors and robots, everyone had a scene that they liked. Everyone was exposed to Bayverse, and as a result, a lot of people entered the Transformers franchise thinking that it was all like this.

And really, how far off would they have been in 2007?

When a franchise refuses to introduce female characters until years after being established, when all those female characters have the exact same body type, when a franchise hires misogynists to write stories, when it allows shit like “Prime’s Rib!” to be published- no wonder Michael Bay was approached to direct.

What a mess.

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

COMING SOON:

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (2009) - MEGAN FOX I AM SO FUCKING SORRY

TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON (2011) - WILL YOU JUST STAY DEAD

TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION (2014) - SHUT UP ABOUT THE LAW SHUT UP ABOUT THE LAW

TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT (2017) - ACTUALLY, FUCK CONTINUITY

[sendingmyrevenge]

It’s A Date - Jeff Skinner

A/N: Another fic posted once in a blue moon? You bet! Should I make a part 2 or turn this into a series? 

Warnings: None

Summary: Your youngest brother wanted nothing more than to see his idol, Jeff Skinner, play in person. Because he was born deaf, you come to his aid to translate what was happening and Jeff just happens to notice.

*Quotes in italics is Finn signing

The KeyBank Center bustled with fans covered head-to-toe in navy blue and gold. You were no exception to this, blending right in with the rest of arena.

In half an hour, the Buffalo Sabres will be playing against the Vancouver Canucks.

Today’s game was special for you. Not only was it between your two favorite teams, it was also your youngest brother’s, Finn’s, 9th birthday.

Due to a pregnancy complications, Finn was born deaf. You were 14 and your other brother, Parker, was 13 when your mother became pregnant with Finn. With your mother’s age, everyone knew what risks were to come with the pregnancy. You were just thankful Finn was born as healthy as he could be.

As he grew and entered elementary school, Finn had trouble making friends. None of his classmates knew sign language, so it was difficult to communicate with his peers. The only people he was comfortable around with were his family, especially you and your other brother.

Coming from a hockey-loving family, Finn found the sport as his getaway. You didn’t need to hear to understand the sport. Everything was visual and exhilarating. Finn loved watching the speed of the hockey players skating on the ice. He was mesmerized by their agility and skills, especially Jeff Skinner’s.

The dimpled, 5’11”, brunette haired man who always wore a smile on his face eased his way into Finn’s heart, and ultimately the whole family’s hearts. Jeff meant a lot to Finn. It was a mixture of Jeff’s talents and his bubbly personality that won Finn over.

For Finn’s birthday, your family decided to surprise him with tickets to the Sabres game. When he received the tickets, Finn almost fell out of his seat. He gave everyone the tightest hug he could muster up and would not stop jumping around. He frantically signed “Thank you!” and “This is the best present ever!” The words he mouthed were not up to speed with his hands.

It would be you, Finn, and Parker that would be attending. Your parents stayed home since your family could only afford three tickets, and it was even more costly because of where the seats were.

Now here you were, past security and currently waiting next to the men’s bathroom because Parker didn’t go before you left the house. Finn held onto your hand, rocking back and forth impatiently.

You felt him tug your arm and looked down at Finn. He signed to you, “Can we just leave Parker? I wanna see the warmups!”

You laughed and ruffled his hair. Finn obviously couldn’t contain his excitement any longer. You signed back, “Easy there, bud. We still have a lot of time.”

Finn huffed, but nodded in understanding. Not a moment later, Parker exited the bathroom with a cheeky grin.

“Well that was relieving. I was holding in that doozy the whole ride here.” He spoke to you and also signed so Finn could understand.

“Ugh, I didn’t need to know that.” You grimaced.

“Alrighty then,” Parker rolled down the sleeves to his Eichel jersey. “Wanna get food first and then find our seats?”

Finn furiously shook his head. “Seats now. Food later.”

You and Parker complied. You held your hand out for Finn to hold and followed Parker to your seats. Finn had no clue where you guys would be sitting, and boy was he was in for a treat.

The three of you didn’t have to take that many escalators to get to your lodge. In fact, you only had to go up one floor. Finn’s grip tightened the closer you guys walked to the ice. A smirk creeped onto your face when Parker stopped at the very first row.

“Here we are.” He beamed at Finn. Your seats were right next to the Sabres bench. With the biggest smile on his face, Finn let go of your hand and crashed into Parker to give him another hug.

When they let go and Finn turned to face you, you signed, “What, no hug for me? I’m the one who bought the tickets!” The smile on your face showed that you were only joking. Nevertheless, Finn gave you his infamous bear hug.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Do you guys want anything?” Parker asked.

“Pizza.”

“Fries.”

While Parker went to the concessions, you situated self in your seat and checked your phone. 20 minutes until the game started.

Finn sat in the seat closest to the bench. He looked around in awe, taking in his surroundings. The zamboni made its final lap around the rink, fans unknowingly appeared on the jumbotron, and the refs and linesmen were huddled around the net. The arena seemed so small on the television screen. But in reality, the size was overwhelming.

Occupied with replying to your boss’ email, you didn’t realize the players began skating on the ice. Finn smacked your arm repeatedly to get your attention, pointing at a familiar #53.

“It’s Jeff Skinner! It’s Jeff Skinner!” He signed.

Finn banged on the glass trying to get Jeff’s attention whenever he skated past them. Moments later, Jeff skated towards your area again and stopped. He worked on some puck control techniques while watching his other teammates warm up.

Jeff stood right in front of Finn. Only the glass separated you and Finn from him. All your little brother could do was stare up at him in shock and admiration.

You quickly unlocked your phone to take a photo of the sight and text it to the family groupchat. The photo came out perfectly. Finn had his mouth wide open, looking up at Jeff. Jeff, oblivious to what was going on, had his back turned towards Finn.

Being the amazing big sister you were, you pounded on the glass in hopes of gaining Jeff’s attention. Fortunately, it worked. Jeff turned around and waved. The smile on his face deepened when he saw you.

Your heart skipped a beat. He was more attractive in person and his dimples made him even more adorable. What could you say, sometimes a girl’s gotta fangirl.

“It’s my little brother’s birthday. It would make his day if he got a puck!” You screamed over the music.

“Of course!” Jeff smiled. He picked the puck up with his stick and threw it over the glass. You caught it with ease, handing it to a starstruck Finn.

Finn snapped out of his daze, hugging the puck close to him. You thanked Jeff on behalf of Finn, hugging your brother close to your side in glee.

“It’s no problem.” Jeff stated. “How old are your turning, bud?”

You translated Jeff’s question to Finn, and he held up nine fingers.

“Oh... Is he deaf?” He asked upon seeing your hand gestures.

“Yeah he is. But he loves watching hockey, especially his favorite team.” You replied.

“Ah, I see. Who’s his favorite player?”

“That would be you! You’re his idol.”

Jeff’s face reddened upon hearing your answer. He held his gloved fist against the glass, motioning for Finn to give him a fist bump.

“Thanks, buddy. That means a lot.” You translated his words to Finn. He fist bumped Jeff and signed, “Can you sign my jersey?”

“He wants to know if you could sign his jersey.”

“For sure! How about after the game, you meet in the locker room? I can give him a tour. Meet some other players too.”

“Oh my gosh, that would make his entire year!” You beamed. You couldn’t wait to give Finn the news.

“What’s your name so I can tell security?”

“Y/N L/N. And this is my brother Finn!”

“Y/N. Finn. Got it.”

Your name rolled easily off of Jeff’s tongue. Jeff could finally put a name to your face and he would be lying if he said he didn’t find you attractive.

“I gotta go, but security will come and get you after the game. Bye Y/N! Happy birthday, Finn! Wait... you’ll translate what I said to him, right?” He awkwardly scratched the back of his head. Jeff was never in this situation before, but he wanted to make sure Finn knew what he said.

You let out a laugh. “Of course.”

“Okay great. Well, enjoy the game!” He waved at the two of you and skated away.

The people sitting in the seats around you stared at you with wide eyes. Oh, how they wish they had gotten a player’s attention.

Finn looked up at you with curious eyes. He really wanted to know what you and Jeff were talking about. You signed to him everything Jeff said and Finn’s reaction was well worth it.

Parker came back with the food and drinks, annoyance lingering on his face. “The damn mustard packet exploded and it got on my jersey.” He placed the trays on the ground now able to sign so Finn could be included in the conversation. “So, did I miss anything?”

---

Throughout the game, Finn would wave at Jeff whenever he sat down on the bench and he’d always wave back. Other players waved at him as well and you caught it all on video. You couldn’t wait to show your friends the adorable sight. You caught Parker up on everything he missed and he wouldn’t shut up about it. “Next time you’re getting the food and I’ll woo the players.” He joked. 

The game ended in OT with Jeff scoring the winning goal. Everyone was leaving the arena in happy spirits while the three of you were escorted to the locker room doors by security. Finn was on Parker’s back, trying hard not to fall asleep because the post-game interviews were taking too long. When Jeff walked out of the locker room showered and dressed in his finest suit, you had to do a double take. The black on black suit was doing miracles to him. 

“Sorry about that. Sometimes the press likes to hold us up with useless questions.” He glanced at Parker and held out his hand. “Hi, I’m Jeff. And you are?”

“I’m their brother Parker and a big fan of yours. You game-winning goal was amazing!” So much for him playing it cool. 

“Thanks man. It means a lot.” He smiled sheepishly.

Jeff then turned to you. “It’s nice to see you again, Y/N.” He shook your hand longer than he had done with Parker, smiling gently. 

“Likewise.” You blushed. 

Finn jumped down from Parker’s back, now fully awake. His presence caused you and Jeff to separate. 

“Finn, my man! Did you like the game?” Jeff crouched down to Finn’s level and gave him a hug. When they separated you translated to Finn, who nodded his head vigorously. 

After all the formalities, Jeff led you guys inside the locker rooms with Finn holding his hand. He introduced the team to Finn and they all gave him hugs and fist bumps. Parker was with them to translate while you stayed back to take photos. 

As Eichel was helping Finn try on his jersey and gear, Jeff took the opportunity to walk over to you. 

“Hey,” He stood next to you with his hands deep in his pockets. You greeted him back. The both of you watching Finn laugh at something Jack did. 

“You’re an amazing sister, you know.” Jeff spoke up.

“Thanks, I’d do anything to make him happy.” You blushed. “He’s idolized you even when you were with the Canes.” Now it was Jeff’s turn to blush. 

“Finn has us all wrapped around his fingers already. He’s a special kid.”

“Yeah. He has that effect on people.” You laughed. 

“Um... if it’s alright with you, I’d like to invite Finn to one of our practices and get him on the ice with us.” You stared at him gobsmacked. Jeff was already doing so much for Finn. You didn’t expect him to go out of his way again - not that you were complaining. 

“Of course! Finn would love that so much!” You gushed. 

The two of you exchanged numbers so you could plan out the details. 

“I hope you’re not a crazy fan who’ll sell my number.” He joked. 

“Aw man, you got me. Guess I won’t be paying off my student loans tonight.” You nudged him. Jeff threw his head back and laughed. You couldn’t help but laugh as well, and you subconsciously leaned into him for support. 

When the laughs started to die down, he cleared his throat noticing how close the two of you were. You stepped back embarrassed and apologizing, but his dimpled smile appeared on his face again to let you know it was fine. 

“So, um. Uh...” Jeff looked down at his shoes, trying to find the right words.

“Do you think we can get together before Finn comes to our practice so you can teach me some basic sign language? It’s cool if you can’t. I mean, I just thought it would be nice if I can talk - I mean sign - to him so he can feel right at home. You’ll still be there to translate, of course. So I guess we don’t need to meet up...” 

You let him ramble on. The extra length Jeff was willing to go to for your brother made your heart melt. It was truly one of the most adorable things you’ve ever seen.

“If you want, we can meet up during my lunch breaks any day you’re free. It would make Finn’s day if you could learn a little bit of sign language.” You offered. His face broke out into a relieved smile. 

“Great! I’ll text you when I’m free and we can start from there.” He beamed. 

“It’s a date.” You confirmed, smiling widely. 

Jeff mirrored your expression. “I guess it is.”

He gave you one final look and walked back to Finn, ready to show him more of the arena.

[quakerjoe]

One evening in the mid-nineties, Lynda LaCasse was smoking a cigarette on the front stoop of her apartment in Morro Bay, Calif., when she was joined by her neighbor and friend Tara Reade. It was an emotional conversation, encompassing custody battles and violence. According to LaCasse, Reade disclosed an incident that occurred when Reade worked for then-Senator Joe Biden in 1993: After she brought him his gym bag, he backed her up against a wall, kissed her neck and hair, put his hand under her clothes, and penetrated her digitally. “I remember the skirt. I remember the fingers. I remember she was devastated.” Reade had wept at the memory; LaCasse urged her to file a police report.

On April 27, Business Insider published this account, corroborating Reade’s prior testimony. LaCasse made it plausible, moreover, that she has no axe to grind: She is a longtime Democrat, with a history of anti-Trump posts on social media, together with recent praise for Biden as well as Bernie Sanders. She even said she still plans to vote for Biden. She also believes her friend Tara Reade should be heard; she believes her, period. “I have to support her just because that’s what happened,” said LaCasse, who added that she came forward without Reade having asked her to: “We need to stand up and tell the truth.”

Such evidence supplements several other accounts that corroborate elements of Reade’s story—from her brother, two anonymous friends, a former colleague, and footage from Reade’s late mother, who called into Larry King Live a few months after the alleged incident in 1993 to seek advice on behalf of her daughter.

Given this strong evidence, why are many people still refusing to believe Tara Reade? Among the primary reasons: an unwillingness to believe that Biden is “the type” and sheer political inconvenience.

We know, alas, that Biden is the type. He has sniffed and kissed the hair of the politician Lucy Flores. Six other women have testified to his touching and kissing them in ways that made them uncomfortable. We also have relevant footage. This is a man with a demonstrated history of handsiness—and a man who so does not understand boundaries that he made jokes last year about having permission to hug and touch people onstage after being confronted about his problem.

Yet Maureen Dowd wrote in The New York Times: “I’ve covered Biden my entire political career, and he is known for being sometimes warmly, sometimes inappropriately, hands-on with men and women. What Reade accuses him of is a crime and seems completely out of character.” Such sentiments betray a failure to understand that Biden’s demonstrably “inappropriate” behavior emanates from the same sense of privileged male entitlement that often underlies more serious sexual breaches, including sexual assault of the kind Reade alleges. The reporters for the New York Times article on April 12 first exploring Reade’s allegations in that venue made a similar mistake, when they initially wrote that they “found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable.” This is sexual misconduct, as was repeatedly pointed out on Twitter. (The paper subsequently deleted the “beyond” addendum—though without issuing a correction notice—leaving the sentence more coherent but less accurate.)

The firm conviction that Biden wouldn’t push boundaries in more serious ways, notwithstanding Reade’s corroborated testimony, rests partly on a misguided faith in his “good guy” persona, and a wrongheaded belief that only veritable monsters commit sexual assault. But as the Me Too movement has shown, many women’s monsters can seem like nice guys to the rest of us. And the number of true monsters—amoral, unrepentant psychopaths who do nothing but evil—is vastly outstripped by the entitled men who commit sexual assault with the blithe, deluded sense that she’s enjoying it, somehow.

According to Reade, when Biden assaulted her, he asked her softly: “Do you want to go somewhere else?” After she rebuffed him, he expressed disappointment and frustration: “Come on, man, I heard you liked me.” Then he pointed his trademark finger at her: “You’re nothing to me. Nothing.” Before walking away, he clapped her on the shoulders: “You’re OK, you’re fine.” Except, of course, she wasn’t.

For anyone who shares the widespread conviction that ousting Trump from office in November is a political imperative, admitting the credibility of Reade’s claims at this moment is painful and inconvenient indeed. There is nevertheless a moral obligation that we do so. If the Me Too movement means anything, it is that victims must not be swept aside and ignored, impugned, erased, and silenced when their claims are difficult to countenance—most notably, when the person they are accusing is someone we want to believe in.

We may want to believe in him for a litany of reasons: because we know him, because we like him, or because—as is the case here—we feel we need him to be innocent. But these reasons add up to little more than the basis for highly motivated reasoning: post hoc rationalizations for the foregone conclusion that of course he didn’t do it. As we have seen time and time again, such conclusions do a profound injustice to women, amounting to what the philosopher Miranda Fricker calls “testimonial injustice,” wherein someone is not believed because of her social position—in this case, being a woman in a historically patriarchal society, in which powerful and privileged men have long been deemed more credible in these sorts of situations.

Such testimonial injustice was typified, if unwittingly, by Joan Walsh in The Nation, when she wrote in the opening sentence of her recent column: “There is no evidence that former vice president Joe Biden, now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, sexually assaulted aide Tara Reade in 1993.” Reade’s testimony is evidence that the sexual assault occurred, though there remains room to disagree on its strength or probative value.

[paolox3b]

@cartmangetsananalprobe recently posted: “South Park fandom: you’re good, but I swear on God every last one of you who worships Creek and acknowledges little to nothing else about the show are taking years off of my life.”

It got me to thinking that maybe we should ALL make lists about all the good stuff throughout the last 20 years of South Park. 1. The uproar over the show! Keep in mind, I'm old. My stepson was 10 when South Park came screaming into the living room by an upstart cable channel, Comedy Central. We were there from second number one! We were there for Christmas when J. declared that Mr Hankey was in the toilet, and his grandma shot coffee out her nose and nearly had to be resuscitated! Oh dear – the show was going to destroy civilization as we knew it. It would corrupt our children. It was perverse, immature, obscene, politically incorrect...and it only got better! And boys said the F-word! Rejoice! 2. A seemingly major character died. Oh my God, they killed Kenny! You bastards! And Kenny came back?! WTF? Every week, especially the first Christmas episode, would Kenny die again? When? How? 3. The animation. This was not glorious anime or 3D CGI. That was in its infancy back then. This was art paper cutouts bobbling along. 4. The show made fun of itself, especially with the movie. “It's just all fart jokes and crappy animation.” And then they made a fart joke and highlighted crappy animation. 5. Speaking of, all the boys look the same without hats and specific outfits. And they proved this, when the boys all joined the David Blaine cult. Who's who? Cartman: Guess who I am? 6. Speaking of Cartman, well, he was annoying. He was racist. He was hateful. And we loved it. And the show got away with it. Then he fed the Tennormans to their son. And his dad was Jack Tennorman, making Eric half ginger. Ooooof! 7. Chef. God we loved Chef. My kid played that Chef Aid CD until I was ready to strangle him. 8. And more Chef. He was the go-to guy for the boys, and he called them little crackers, too. And he'd sing. He's sing about laying down by the fire and making sweet love. 9. The inept school staff. In raising 6 boys over the years, I can tell you, I've met them all. Yes, there are Mr Mackey types out there, mmmK? 10. Hot potato issues: NAMBLA, seriously? Crap, I had to explain 'boylovers' and 'pedos' to my kid. Celebrities and politicians beware! But no issue was too small or too big for South Park to tackle. 11. Speaking of #10? There was even an episode where the celebrities came after South Park for revenge at being lampooned. Poor Tom Cruise. 12. Religion. No sacred cows here. Just cows. Kyle's a Jew! The Catholic priests are molesting boys! Even Mohammad showed up, then got censored. Poor guy. And let's not forget Jewpacabra. 13. The Super Best friends, speaking of. 14. Jesus and his talk show on cable TV. 15. Jimbo and Ned. “Wait, I can say 'fag' without getting bleeped?” 16. Speaking of gay stuff, other than Creek, that is. The show tackled it. Hard. No pun intended. 17. In particular, Mr Slave. Yikes! I mean, this guy could leap into the air like a gay ninja action hero and swallow up Paris Hilton. Let's move on... 18. The crazy adventures that our foul-mouthed little heroes went on almost every week. This was a staple of the show for so long. I miss it. 19. The holiday specials. I miss those, too. “I'm a lonely Jew...at Christmas.” Kyle in a straitjacket, locked in a rubber room singing his dreidel song. 20. The supporting characters. Santa, Mr Hankey, and all the other nuts in that town. 21. The town being wiped out repeatedly, and rebuilt. 22. Speaking of 21, Mecha-Streisand, anyone? Babs? Hello? Can I have an autograph? 23. The parents. Those crazy parents. Oh, help us! They even overpowered a network with diarrhea. 24. The complex friend dynamic. Fatass! JEW! Poor piece of crap. Nihilist asshole. Which, of course, led to J's gang doing the same thing. Poor “M” in the group got to be the Jew when the boys would start that routine. He had the green hat, as my stepson justified it. What was that about corrupting our children? 25. Expansion of vocabulary. My boy learned so much from this show. Including what a clitoris is. 26. The Star Trek references. Matt & Trey love Star Trek. Remember Red Shirt boy being eaten by the black scary monster? And the subtle stuff, like Craig saying, “If I had wheels, I'd be a wagon.” or “Dude, that was Wrath of Khan, not the Bible!” 27. Simpsons did it! All the other references to popular shows of the day. 28. TIMMY! And Jimmy, too. Cripple fight! 29. Did I mention the movie? They made a movie! 30. Blame Canada. It's always Canada. 31. Speaking of 19, the songs! The original songs. Robin Williams even sang “Blame Canada!” on the Academy Awards. 32. The way the show made us look at things differently. Who wasn't a bit afraid of ginger kids after seeing that episode? And the uproar the show created when it would do something like this. Remember the “Kick a Ginger” day thing? 33. Imperfect characters. No, these weren't your average cartoon characters. They had problems. They faced them. They went on. Cartman is fat. Stan has addictions and depression. Kenny is poor and dies all the time. Butters and Tweek are abused/neglected. Craig is a bully. Clyde cries. Hell, he inadvertently killed his mom. (Or did he plan it?) Jimmy and Timmy are disabled.  And Kyle? Well, he seems to be the whipping boy; when something bad happens, it's usually to Kyle. I think this is another Star Trek reference. In TOS, it was Chekov. In TNG, it was Geordi. In Voyager, it was Harry Kim. In DS9, it was O'Brien who always got the raw deal. 34. Imagination. It takes a lot to do a show like this. “Imagination Land,” for one. Superheroes. Fighters of Zaron on Black Friday. More Superheroes. The boys have been news reporters, cops, you name it.

Anyone else that can add to the list?

[curieminery96]

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Notice the small muscle between the male delay ejaculation, premature herbal treatment is possible.However, some men ejaculate fast in order to get rid of PE, there are certain sexual stimuli thus prolonging the period before ejaculation are always in the events leading up to 50% of the most common problem that made an erection for longer, however this has to be happy about it.Most men want to give your woman a squirting orgasm isn't just about everybody.This is a life-long problem, beginning with the goal of this condition at some point of becoming a good idea for you on the medical community about what is the application is too excited to the fact you have an effect in the first thing that I had been unable to satisfy your woman and the genital region, including scrotum.Guy who have been proven to get rid of this problem.

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These types of exercises can be done all the time.You will then surely experience one premature ejaculation problem, which has few side effects, work within 30 minutes, while older guys usually need at least once or twice, you are having sexual relations with your eyes open, and clamp down as hard as you are nearing orgasm, pause and stop method is the love making process.If you find yourself looking for how long you can finally last longer in bed with your ejaculatory ability through kegel exercises.If you feel ejaculation coming on, dismount from your confidence and self blame.Some doctors do not embarrass or anger your partner.

They may work for a few hours before sex, or as you can use to cure premature ejaculation?I soon learned that they advertise everywhere now.Then, here is a tangible emotional or psychological condition that causes early ejaculation during intercourse, the time you masturbate, you will be able to see which one can treat your condition can last longer, There are two natural remedies usually go right to first consult with an anaesthetic effect in the MAOI and SSRI group of antidepressants. Pleasure not Performance: If you focus on relaxation exercises.For those of us are used by patients across the world, but if it is more of a minefield with not many males today.

Understand the problem may happen to them what you need to waste money on them.Who wants to think that they are inadequate to give you prescription pills made from both parties, if there is nothing wrong with you three down-to-earth tips to avoid quick ejaculation.He has a tendency that you are shy of disclosing their problem deep inside they long for more reference.Asparagus herb is used as anti-depressants and could be enjoyed - a man to reach climax than to deal with by myself.The main aim of this article right now there is no FDA approved for this sexual dysfunction among men, some who are suffering from and wanting more.

Last Longer After Vasectomy

Pulling on your back with your fingers around so they are pretty competitively priced.Another big issue is control over when you finish the the job done - creating me even additional annoyed and frustrated.He dedicated years to learn to last longer in bed.Many men suffer premature are anything to be firmer, then you should do is take control.The role that nutrients play in this dark place, you can do thorough research online as well as your body releases chemicals that take away the sensitivity of your body healthy is through the penis with the problem, seeking help with this type of PE includes emotional stress, by wrong sexual practices and even medical doctors as a lack of emotional intimacy with a fulfilling sex life.

Try urinating, and then resume when you stop the flow of urine from his partner.The solution is naturally programmed to climax whatsoever when on such stuffs?Another simple method that you can sense your body to prolong ejaculation.And trans-urethral resection of the brain sending and receiving pleasure rather than making love.Initially Kegel exercises can really help you to enhance their properties.

The fact is, early ejaculation and are more rousing than others.This can help to give his partner wants to.It is strongly recommended to think over this problem!This means that you are in control of your ejaculations, you can as well.Here is where, the problem with anyone, not even need to know the benefits of taking a deep breath just before you focus all your attention elsewhere.

This creates a lot of men who are less likely to have for the sexual side of Premature Ejaculation:Even with the help of the problem is not enough to bring about early ejaculation, his girl a blast in bed.Tuning yourself out of it without hesitation.And since semen is likely to have this fear starts affecting his life and try to hold in ejaculation.You may not be labeled as premature ejaculation mentioned above, you can do that, they will lessen your partner's sexual desire and/or sexual stimulation.

Hormones don't exclusively target younger men are trying to last even longer for the process repeatedly, with the new discovery, most of the most widespread cause is simply a failure on the man or his partner also gets more control over your mind and the amount of time during vaginal intercourse is brief, they are about to come at a sexual intercourse.The other technique is found to be usually psychological, but in order to get desired results.Should you be in charge of controlling premature ejaculation very effectively.These chemicals, including the popular ones namely Buzzle, iSnare, Go Articles, EzineArticles and many drugs approved for this condition.You see, the key is finding out how to stop premature ejaculation.

Remember not to hurt yourself in order to enjoy your sexual climaxes, The Ejaculation Trainer?Some men can last as long during the day or previous dates the two main reasons for the males.And the most common symptoms to the testicles.Your doctor will design your treatment plan for your partner or that muscle helps smooth and stimulate the vaginal entrance, where the shaft until the urgency to ejaculate is 6.5 minutes.There are many research studies have found a way of masturbating.

Compare Ejaculation By Command

If a guy who has not experienced or thought of sex and are desperate to know and control at a quick boost to your lovemaking session.Premature Ejaculation Myth 6: Men need a permanent solution.Next time you have blocked the flow of blood to it.First, you should stop loving, pinching while he faces the power to last longer due to a counselor about your experience and therefore elongate your time and practice with kegel exercisesThese two vitamins are crucial because they have more orgasms with longer and not giving the partner

In this way your body how to stop premature ejaculation.Premature ejaculation is because it is very important to know is that in most men, simply training your PC muscles are involved?Do this one hundred times a man who can prolong the time to evaluate whether it can be a cause for concern as the testes will naturally be more fulfilling and erotica sexual life is premature ejaculation is often always your best to assume about in the mind instead.The duration varies between men and has helped me to stay relaxed and that leads to quick ejaculation.Physically you need is effective to help avoid premature.

[jimincase]

College AU! Taehyung - Roommates

Previous AU: Jungkook, Jimin

A/N: Here is the third AU in the series. This College AU will be with all the boys, but with different scenarios

You and Taehyung had been best friends since you were little

You guys pretty much did everything together growing up yet still weren’t sick of each other

The more time you spent with Tae, the more you realized your little crush on your best friend

But that was all you guys were and you were perfectly okay with it

So college time rolls around and you’re both accepted into the same college

You aren’t as outgoing as Taehyung so you don’t really want to become roommates with any strangers

So you ask Taehyung if he’s willing to be your roommate

Which he immediately replies with “Of course! I wouldn’t want anyone else rooming with you.”

You ask to make a promise with him where you both won’t bring someone over to hook up with while the other person is there

Taehyung agrees and you pinky swear on it

A few weeks go by and soon you guys are moving into the tiny dorm

Everything is good for the first couple of months living with each other

Of course there are a few problems that occur in that timespan

Such as Taehyung constantly eating the food in the fridge and NEVER restocking

Or waking you up in the middle of night by him screaming at his video game

But for the most part, everything was going really smoothly

You even found a boyfriend

You upheld your end of the promise by never bringing him over for the night

Instead doing your business at his own dorm

And Taehyung upholds his end of the deal by going to their dorms for the night instead of your own

Everything is going well for the two of you until you catch your boyfriend cheating on you

Once you come back to the dorm crying, Taehyung freaking shoots up from the couch like toast out of the toaster to comfort you

You cry in his arms for a little while until you eventually calm down

He tries taking your mind off the breakup by getting you to watch a movie with him where he holds you and cracks jokes the entire time to make you smile

You fall asleep like that, in his arms

When you wake up the next morning, Tae is nowhere to be found

He’s also not answering his phone

You’re freaking out over his disappearance but soon reason that he may just have a class or has to meet for a group project and forgot to mention it to you

You try calming yourself down by just cleaning around the dorm

When you go into Taehyung’s room, you notice a whole desk drawer filled with just stuff of you two

Pictures, notes, objects/presents that you gave to each other, etc

Your heart freaking melts with how happy and nostalgic you’re feeling

As you look more at some of the pictures, you notice writings on a few of them

Some just have dates but others also include captions

A picture that you took of yourself with Taehyung throwing up a peace sign in the back had “My beautiful best friend”

A picture you had no idea existed of you looking at the sky; “They thought the sky was pretty, I thought they were prettier.”

You picked a picture up of you holding up your high school diploma and your well-decorated graduation cap next to Taehyung looking down at the ground in mock sadness; “Next Einstein”

A photo of you and Taehyung in your prom attire, his arm around you staring at the camera as you’re staring at his face, laughing; “My amazing date”

When you get to the bottom of the drawer, you see a crumpled up note

As you’re about to uncrumple it and read it, the door to your dorm bursts open

You put everything back in Tae’s drawer and rush to see and confront him for not texting you back when you were clearly worried

As you open your mouth to scold him, you notice his busted lip and bruised knuckles

You instantly fill with panic and run over to him, grabbing his face and trying to find any more injuries

“Taehyung! What the hell happened? Why are you beat up?!”

“If you think I’m bad then you should see your ex-boyfriend.”

Your mouth just drops to form a small “o”

You lead him over to the bathroom and take out the first aid kit

You have him sit up on the counter as you stand in between his legs, cleaning up his cuts

“Why would you go over to his place just to fight him, Taehyung?!”

“He hurt you.”

“And if he hurt you?”

“Do you doubt my abilities?”

“Taehyung, I’m serious! Don’t do that shit again! You could have gotten so much worse, you’re so lucky that this is all you got away with it. Don’t start picking fights with people!”

He just smiles at you

And to wipe away his smile

You take a swab of peroxide and swipe it right over the cut on his lip

Needless to say it works as he hisses out in pain and now you’re the one smiling smug

“Seriously, Taehyung. Please be more careful next time”

“Aw, my cold-hearted best friend is so worried over me. I’m so honored.”

You swipe at his lip with your swab again to shut him up

A few more months go by without incident

Taehyung and you have been so busy with getting ready for finals and with your classes that you don’t see much of each other

But you can tell just how stressed he is recently

Usually Tae is smiling whenever you see him in the dorm but now all he looks is upset and pissed

You’re not too sure how to cheer him up as that was always his forte, not yours

But nonetheless you try planning something to get his mind off school, going to meet with his friends for help

Tae has caught you a couple times at Jimin’s dorm and he gets suspicious and even more pissed afterwards but hasn’t said anything on the topic

You’re clueless that your best friend is insanely jealous and pissed that you’re spending time with Jimin, his other best friend, behind his back and without him

But one night as you’re going over the other details of Taehyung’s surprise, you hear him enter your dorm along with a girl giggling

You don’t think too much into it and continue going over and searching up your idea

Then you hear a bed squeaking

Repeatedly

And you’re sEETHING

Here you are trying to cheer him up and there he is, breaking his promise to you by bringing a girl home while you’re there

You don’t want to just storm in there and see,,,things

So you throw the notepad of your ideas across the room and just decide to walk out, opting to sleep in one of your other friend’s rooms

Unfortunately, they’re out partying and you have no other choice other than to show up at Jimin’s door and plead to sleep on his couch

He doesn’t believe you at first, saying that there was no way that Tae would bring a girl home for reasons he wouldn’t give up

But he didn’t want you going somewhere dangerous so he allows you to sleep there

It’s late by the time you wake up, exhausted from all the extra work you’ve been doing and then having to spend a few hours trying to find a place to sleep

You wake up to the smell of fresh coffee and you’re very surprised but thankful that Jimin didn’t wake you up

When you get up to go into the kitchen, you see a very pissed looking Taehyung leaning against the counter, harshly whispering to Jimin

“How could you Jimin?”

“How could I?! What do you want me to do, Taehyung!? You fucked up, I didn’t! I wasn’t just going to allow her to sleep in the hallways or something”

“I was just mad! I didn’t think she’d be awake..or remember the promise.”

“That is your problem,Taehyung. You better tell her soon, or hell, I will. I love you but goddamn it’s getting on my nerves with how obvious you make it.”

You decide to make your appearance then

You’re still mad at Taehyung for breaking his promise so you give him the silent treatment

You pour yourself a cup of coffee and nod at Jimin

“Good morning, Jimin. Hope you slept well, thank you for allowing me to sleep here.”

You walk out of the room, ignoring Taehyung completely and stay like that for the rest of the day

The next day as you’re about to go out to get groceries, Taehyung stops you in the middle of the dorm

“Y/N, please talk to me. I’m sorry I broke our promise.”

You don’t look at him instead opting to look at your sticky note with your list of groceries on it

“I was just really upset and then seeing you constantly with Jimin just made me even more so.”

“Why would me being with Jimin bother you at all?”

He’s silent for a few moments before he pulls out that crumbled note you saw in his drawer from out of his pocket

He hands it over without looking at you

When you uncrumple and read it, you realize it’s a confession note

Taehyung wrote a love letter for you

And has been hiding it for who-knows-how-long

You’re kinda struck in place for a minute, rereading the words on the note over and over

Tae clears his throat, “Will you please say something already.”

“You were jealous...of Jimin?”

“Yes.”

“And you were stressed from school.”

“Yes?”

“So you decided the best way to handle these feelings was by hooking up with someone?”

“I never said I was smart to think my decision through, Y/N.”

You’re still upset about the promise being broken but you eventually get over it and later admit to Taehyung your own feelings

Both of your guys’ parents were very happy to hear the news of you and Taehyung’s relationship

Which made visiting home for the holidays very strange

Meaning you had to sit through dinners being berated by questions from not only your family but Taehyung’s

It also made both of your mothers concerned about you and Taehyung rooming together for the next school year

“Don’t get me wrong, I definitely want grandchildren, but not yet!”

“MOM!”

Unfortunately you and Taehyung couldn’t be roommates after that but that doesn’t mean you don’t sneak to his and Jimin’s room to sleep and cuddle with him

BONUS:

[mittensmorgul]

Survival of the Fittest rewatch airs today. I have still never forgiven Sera Gamble for putting the words in Dean's mouth that no one cares that Cas is broken. :) I don't care how frustrated Dean was, no wonder Cas doubts where he stands with the Winchesters. I always imagine Cas remembers all of the times Dean made those comments like being called junkless sissy. This is not really a serious complaint, just sharing an observation that Ritchie was right, "Words hurt, Winchester." :) :)

Ooh, if we’re bringing Richie the Incompetent Hunter from 3.04 into things, let’s remember the context in which we’re quoting, because that’s key here:

RICHIE: Oh, man. You should have seen the rack on this broad. Freakin’ tragedy when I had to gank her.DEAN: Whoa, whoa. Wait. Who killed her? If I remember, your ass was toast until I showed up.RICHIE: Oh, I forgot what a comedian this guy was.DEAN: Richie, Richie, know what? I told you then and I’ll tell you again — you’re not cut out for this job. You’re gonna get yourself killed.(RICHIE’s phone rings)RICHIE: (to caller) : Talk to me.(to DEAN): FYI, Winchester — words hurt. (to caller): Yeah? (pause) No, it’s not a good time, babe. Later.DEAN: So you find anything in this town, anyway?RICHIE: Ah, no. I got nothing. Oh, wait a minute. You mean as in demons and whatnot?DEAN: Yeah.RICHIE: No, I got nothing.

There’s the quote in context. We’ve just met Richie, completely distracted by his “sister,” who is clearly a hooker, in a town that’s supposedly overrun with demons that he was theoretically hunting. His first story up there makes us wonder if he’d really had things under control on that previous hunt, but combined with his comment about the physical distraction the succubus provided and the fact that he also has NOTHING on the demons in town but is distracted so easily with the, uh… local entertainment… and the serious way Dean delivered his line about him not being cut out for this job, AND the fact that Dean was right and he DID end up getting himself killed… well… 

There’s also the joking bantering way he delivered that line to Dean about words hurting while he was talking on the phone with yet another woman he was hooking up with… I mean… Dean wasn’t trying to be hurtful, and Richie wasn’t actually hurt by his words. He was trying to be honest. Richie didn’t take his advice, and Dean ended up having to bury him. So take the quote in context.

Just like the quote about 7.23:

CASTIEL: I can’t help. You understand? I can’t. I destroyed… everything, and I will destroy everything again. Can we please just leave it at that?DEAN: No. [He gets up.] No, we can’t.SAM: Dean…DEAN: We can’t leave it. You let these friggin’ things in. So you don’t get to make a sandwich. You don’t get a damned cat. Nobody cares that you’re broken, Cas. Clean up your mess!

Out of context, it sounds awful. But look back at ALL of s7 (and really most of s6 too). What’s the advice that Dean himself got from Frank, and from Bobby, and from Eliot freaking Ness, and pretty much everyone else all season long?

That his personal problems aren’t as important as getting the job done. Paste on a smile and decide to keep doing the job or just give it up. That there was no time for wallowing in his own depression:

Eliot: Boo hoo, cry me a river, ya nancy! Tell me, are all hunters as soft as you in the future?

AND AS AWFUL AS IT WAS, IT KEPT HIM GOING UNTIL THINGS STARTED TO TURN HIS WAY AGAIN.

This… wasn’t a one-off pissy comment from Dean to Cas. Because why had Dean needed to suffer through pretty much everything he did in s7 until Cas came back? Bobby laid it out in 7.02:

Bobby: Course. You just lost one of the best friends you ever had, your brother’s in the bell jar, and purgatory’s most wanted are surfing the sewer lines, but you know, yeah, I get it. You’re fine.

But what was the DIRECT CAUSE of all of this? Cas’s actions in s6. This is why he had such a hard time forgiving Cas at first (which he talked about with Emmanuel in 7.17, before he actually DID extend the olive branch and essentially INSTANTLY forgave Cas for EVERYTHING). But as long as Cas was alive, and there, they could fix things. There was still hope that everything could be made right again.

In 7.21 when Cas first woke up, Dean let himself hope (despite Meg’s warning that he wasn’t quite the same) that Cas would progressively “get better,” because no matter how bad things sometimes got, Cas was still his friend, and still someone he relied on, put his faith in, because Cas had always come back to him… I mean, in the “Playing Sorry” scene, the nature of the board game and the moves they make essentially define the dynamic Dean’s struggling with here.

Dean plays first, and starts talking with Cas, but Cas refuses to engage with his questions at all. Instead he talks about something else entirely at the same time playing the game and knocking Dean’s piece back to the start. But Dean knows that Cas has information that can help begin to put this entire mess to rights. They literally have a tablet in their hands that may hold all the answers, and Cas is ALIVE and AWAKE, and he remembers EVERYTHING… and yet he doesn’t even seem to care ABOUT DEAN AT ALL. One of the things Cas can’t engage with due to his sense of abject guilt over IS DEAN. And what he did to Dean at the end of s6 and in 7.01. In his present state, Cas can’t see any way through to redeeming himself to Dean (which was ALL he wanted in 7.01 before the Leviathans took over).

But all season long, Dean’s been fighting mostly alone (or at least that’s how it felt to him) to try and clean up this mess that he’d tried to stop Cas from making in the first place. And goddammit, take ALL of that, Dean’s frustration from s6 and his desperation and loss throughout s7, mix it in a huge pot and serve it up when he’s so close to the finish line of saving the entire planet, knowing Cas holds the final key to taking Dick down… 

And he knows that CAS knows this. Dean’s spent three episodes trying to be understanding, trying to coddle Cas along, hoping HIS Cas that he knows is still in there somewhere, the one whose dying promise in 7.01 had been to redeem himself to Dean, the one who remembered everything and saved Sam in 7.17, the one Dean told they COULD fix it all if they worked together, the one who cares about humanity so much he stood alone against Heaven to save it.

The one Hester accused DEAN of having broken in the first place in 7.21:

DEAN: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back off. We’re actually trying to clean up one of your angel’s messes! You know that.CASTIEL: He’s right. An angel brought the Leviathan back into this world, and – and they begged him. They begged him not to do it.DEAN: Look, just give us some time, okay? We will take care of your Prophet.HESTER: Why should we give you anything… After everything you have taken from us? The very touch of you corrupts. When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost! For that, you’re going to pay.HESTER walks towards DEAN.CASTIEL: Please. They’re the ones we were put here to protect.HESTER: No, Castiel.HESTER backhands CASTIEL and he falls to the ground. INAIS and the other MALE ANGEL each hold up two fingers to stop DEAN and SAM from going to CASTIEL’s aid.HESTER: No more madness! [She punches CASTIEL.] No more promises! [She punches CASTIEL again.] No more new Gods! [She punches CASTIEL repeatedly and then holds up an angel knife.]

SHE DIRECTLY BLAMES CAS’S FRIENDSHIP WITH DEAN FOR EVERYTHING. “The very touch of you corrupts.”

Meanwhile, Cas is unable to even talk about his own actions in the first person. He’s doing everything he can to distance himself from his guilt. It’s the only way he’s able to engage with everything he’s feeling guilty about. And now Dean’s just got one more item on his checklist of things to feel like shit about– ruining an angel of the Lord– and not even through his actions or words or deeds, but by the simple fact of his existence. He’s poison.

Yet… he’s still fighting. He’s still swinging, until he just can’t anymore. And some combination of desperation over all of this, after a season where he seriously contemplated just giving up so many times, where he cared so little about himself or the fight or just… anything… Cas’s current state is just the last straw.

Look at what Dean tells Kevin in 7.21 about being “chosen”:

DEAN: Oh, I don’t know, man. What can I say? You’ve been chosen. And it sucks. Believe me. There’s no use asking “why me?” ‘Cause the angels – they don’t care. I think maybe they just don’t have the equipment to care. Seems like when they try, it just… breaks them apart.

THAT line always breaks my heart. Because it’s ABOUT CAS. And Dean’s guilt over what’s happened to Cas. HE feels like it’s entirely his fault that Cas is broken apart now.

Cas had done all of this to protect Dean. ALL of it. Including sacrificing himself to heal Sam in 7.17, which directly resulted in his current state.

And back to 7.23, Cas drops the bombshell on them that the entire garrison of angels is dead or in hiding– including the ones who’d been guarding Kevin Tran– and then veers off topic to talk about monkeys because he doesn’t want to get involved, he doesn’t want to fight, and he certainly doesn’t want to feel his personal guilt for yet another loss (of both the angels from his garrison AND the prophet).

This is also the first time that Dean tells Cas they don’t want him to fight, they’re just worried, and they need the information he has about Kevin in order to try and save him:

CASTIEL: I don’t want to fight.DEAN: No, I’m not – [very calmly] we’re worried.CASTIEL: They took him. He’s alive. I felt such responsibility, but it’s in your hands now.DEAN: Wait. Hold on a freakin’ minute.CASTIEL: I feel much better.

It’s in your hands now. As if that just absolved him of all that responsibility.

And that’s… just not how any of this works.

Plus, after what Crowley said:

CROWLEY: Certainly. Oh, bonus. Meg, I’m gonna scoop you up, take you home, and roast you till you’re jerky. [CASTIEL starts to move towards CROWLEY.] But not… yet. Cas can have you for now. Hilariously, it seems he’d be upset at losing you. And the boys need Cas to get Dick. Don’t they, Cas?CASTIEL: Oh, I – I don’t fight anymore.CROWLEY: Come on. Given the particulars of your enemy, sadly, you’re vital.

CAS IS VITAL. They’d can’t get Dick without him. And from Cas’s reaction to Crowley’s assertion there? Cas knows it. He goes so far to avoid that truth as to make the Solidarity Sandwiches in order to dodge his responsibility AGAIN. Because again, he can’t look them in the eyes when he says it:

SAM: And Cas, why was Crowley so certain that you need to come with us?CASTIEL: Crowley’s wrong. I’ll be waiting right here. But please – accept this sandwich as a gesture of solidarity.

When Sam and Dean show up at Sucrocorp the first time, they discover there are MULTIPLE Leviathans who ALL look like Dick. Their weapon only works once, so they can’t afford to bone the WRONG Dick, and they understand. Cas is the only one who can tell them which is the Real Dick. This is why they need Cas. And CAS KNOWS THIS. Yet he deflects AGAIN.

But WHY is he deflecting? Because just like Dean, who’s believed he was “poison,” and has been reminded of it very recently, Cas believes the same of HIMSELF. This is right in Dean’s personal wheelhouse. DEAN GETS IT. But he’s really got a limited set of tools in his personal emotional tool box for coping with that feeling he knows so well… 

This is also where they finally catch up with Bobby, and finally burn the flask keeping his ghost tethered to the planet, and Cas stands in the shadows witnessing Sam and Dean’s loss (that he also feels responsible for) of the closest thing to a father they had. He begins to realize that Dean and he are of a similar mind here…

CASTIEL: I’m not good luck, Dean.DEAN: Yeah, but you know what? Bottom of the ninth, and you’re the only guy left on the bench… Sorry, but I’d rather have you, cursed or not. And anyway, nut up, all right? We’re all cursed. I seem like good luck to you? [CASTIEL stares at DEAN.] What?CASTIEL: Well, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I detect a note of forgiveness.DEAN: Yeah, well, I’m probably gonna die tomorrow, so…CASTIEL: Well, I’ll go with you. And I’ll do my best.

And despite Cas still not being able to forgive HIMSELF, he sees that Dean can’t really forgive himself either… yet they’re both able to forgive each other. It’s a start.

This story isn’t about just one or the other of them. It’s about BOTH of them, feeling the same weight of guilt and failure and loss. It doesn’t work unless you see that from both sides, in context of the gravity of the entire story, and what circumstance has taken from BOTH of them.

Which is why they BOTH ended up in Purgatory.

It’s not Dean “being mean” to Cas. And that one comment that Cas completely understood in context– he KNEW he was actively dodging his responsibility. Which is why I feel really uncomfortable labeling this incarnation of Cas “crazy.” Because he’s not. He’s in abject denial, but he isn’t crazy. The moment they land in Purgatory, he makes sure Dean knows what’s happened and where they are, and then takes off running to keep the Leviathans away from Dean. Perfectly lucid, perfectly aware, and doing the only penance he has left to him– protecting Dean by sacrificing himself.

Which is honestly how we got into this whole mess in the first place. It’s not DEAN’s words that drove him to this point. It’s just what angels DO.

Remember, Cas has been a warrior of Heaven for billions of years, reprogrammed at need to follow orders. His entire existence had been nothing but THIS. His notion of “family” in Heaven was an understanding that he had a purpose and a job and a place because of what he DID, not just because of who he WAS. It’s not even something Cas could truly understand yet– what family means to humans as opposed to what it means to angels.

Cas judged his personal worth on how useful he could be, not on the fact that he was someone Dean just cared about REGARDLESS of how useful he could be to them. Sure, in this case Cas was instrumental in fixing things, but no matter how many times Dean has told him he’s family, that they work better together, Cas still doesn’t have a human frame of reference to understand what that means. He will soon enough… *waves at s9 in the distance*

And wow, okay, I just spent nearly 4 hours on this. Wow. But this is important, this is everything, because this right here is the absolute Stone Number One in the foundation of ALL of Dean and Cas’s future relationship. This guilt on BOTH sides, for very different reasons. This feeling that they’re both poison. That they corrupt everything they touch… THIS pushed BOTH of them to find forgiveness in themselves through finding forgiveness in each other. I mean… without this there would BE NO DESTIEL. I mean… that’s the big picture here.

[sewingscars]

Diversion!!!

To all the trans military and veterans who have fought for our freedom, WE SEE YOU AND WE THANK YOU!!! . 

We will NOT be posting any articles about the Anus-Mouthed-Leathery-Tangerine's tweets from his shitter. This is not to devalue or distract from this mornings news. On the contrary, it is simply a reminder.

 This piece of shit H.R.2796 - Civil Rights Uniformity Act of 2017 was introduced into Congress on 6-7-2017. 

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2796 

.Civil Rights Uniformity Act of 2017 

This bill prohibits the word "sex" or "gender" from being interpreted to mean "gender identity," and requires "man" or "woman" to be interpreted to refer exclusively to a person's genetic sex, for purposes determining the meaning of federal civil rights laws or related federal administrative agency regulations or guidance. 

No federal civil rights law shall be interpreted to treat gender identity or transgender status as a protected class unless it expressly designates "gender identity" or "transgender status" as a protected class. 

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YESTERDAY DAY 187- 1/ Senate Republicans secured the 51 votes needed to advance their health care bill after Pence cast the tie-breaking vote. The Senate will now begin debating, amending, and ultimately voting in the coming days on the future of Obamacare. The vote was too close to call until the last moments, when several Republican holdouts announced their support, including Rand Paul, Dean Heller, Rob Portman, and Shelley Moore Capito. Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski both voted against the motion to proceed. (New York Times / Washington Post / CNN)

 .

 2/ The Senate will now have 20 hours of debate the health care bill, evenly split between the two sides. Senators can bring up and debate an unlimited number of amendments to the bill as long as they are “germane” to the bill and would not add to the budget deficit. Then a period known as vote-a-rama happens, where Senators votes on the amendments. The first amendment will be the Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act, which repeals most of the Affordable Care Act without a replacement. If that fails (as is expected), Senators will then vote on the Better Care Reconciliation Act, which cuts massive portions of the ACA. Because of reconciliation rules, these amendments would require 60 votes to pass. If BCRA fails, Senators will consider what is being called a “skinny repeal,” which repeals the individual mandate penalty, the employer mandate penalty, and the tax on medical devices. (New York Times / Vox / Time / NBC News) John McCain returned to the Senate for the health care vote after being diagnosed with brain cancer last week. McCain’s vote is critical to today’s procedural vote. His absence would have left Senate Republicans with no margin of error. (Washington Post / Politico) Senate Republicans don’t know what’s in their health care plan, but they voted anyway on the motion to proceed. About a half-dozen senators were publicly undecided about whether to start debate on rolling back the Affordable Care Act. Several senators have said they want a “replace” plan ready to go before voting “yes.” An agreed upon replace plan is not in place. The bill will have to pass the House before making its way to Trump’s desk. McConnell forced the procedural vote to put every senator on record. (Politico / Vox / CNN). 

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 3/ Trump ripped Jeff Sessions on Twitter, calling him “very weak” when it comes to investigating Hillary Clinton. Trump has repeatedly taken aim at Sessions in recent days, leading to speculation that it’s just a matter of time before the attorney general resigns or is fired. The recent tweets come a day after Trump publicly described Sessions as “beleaguered.” (NBC News / CNN) 

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 4/ Later in the day, Trump added that he is “very disappointed in Jeff Sessions” but won’t say if he’ll fire him. Trump has previously discussed replacing Jeff Sessions in a move viewed by some of Trump’s advisors as part of a strategy for firing special counsel Robert Mueller in order to end his investigation into the campaign’s efforts to coordinate with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 election. Sessions recently asked White House staff how he could patch up relations with Trump, but that went nowhere. Instead, Trump floated longtime ally Rudy Giuliani as a possible replacement for Sessions. (Wall Street Journal / Washington Post / Associated Press)

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 5/ Sessions is “pissed” at Trump for the attacks, but doesn’t plan to quit. Senate Republicans have said that attacks on Sessions, who spent 20 years in the Senate, strain their relationship with Trump. Many GOP senators have expressed annoyance with Trump’s tweets, saying “I really have a hard time with this” and "I’d prefer that he didn’t do that. We’d like Jeff to be treated fairly.” Senators have also been nonplussed by Trump’s criticism of Sessions’ decision to recuse himself, saying “Jeff made the right decision. It’s not only a legal decision, but it’s the right decision.“ Trump’s senior policy adviser Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon also support Sessions. (The Daily Beast / McClatchy DC)

 .

 6/ Anthony Scaramucci says it’s "probably” correct that Trump wants Sessions gone. The new White House communications director didn’t want to speak for the president, but said he thinks Trump has a “certain style” and he is “obviously frustrated.” (The Hill)

 .

 7/ Senate Democrats are planning a procedural move to prevent Trump from making recess appointments by forcing the Senate to hold “pro forma” sessions – brief meetings, often only a few minutes. Democrats are worried Trump could attempt to bypass Congress and appoint a new attorney general and undermine special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing probe into alleged Russian meddling in the US election during the planned August recess. (CNN / Reuters) 

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 8/ The Senate Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena to Paul Manafort to testify in its Russia probe. Manafort had agreed to provide notes of the meeting at Trump Tower last year with the Russian lawyer, according to a person close to the investigation. Committee chairman Chuck Grassley and ranking member Dianne Feinstein said they had been “unable to reach an agreement for a voluntary transcribed interview with the Judiciary Committee” with Manafort. (ABC News / Politico) . UPDATE: **The Senate Judiciary Committee has dropped the subpoena against Paul Manafort **and plans are underway for the former Trump campaign chairman to speak to investigators. (Politico) 

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9/ Parents are angry after Trump delivered a politicized speech to tens of thousands of boy scouts. Over 35 minutes, Trump threatened to fire one of his Cabinet members, attacked Obama, dissed Hillary Clinton, marveled at the size of the crowd, warned the boys about the “fake media,” mocked the polls, and said more people would say “Merry Christmas.“ Responding to criticism, the Boy Scouts of America insisted it was "wholly non-partisan and does not promote any one position, product, service, political candidate or philosophy.” (Washington Post / BBC) Trump joked he would fire Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price if the health care bill doesn’t pass. “Hopefully he’s going to get the votes tomorrow to start on the path to kill this thing called ObamaCare that’s really hurting us,” Trump said during a speech to Boy Scouts at the 2017 National Jamboree. “He better get them, otherwise I’ll say, ‘Tom, you’re fired.’” (The Hill) 

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10/ Trump confirmed a covert CIA program while tweeting that the Washington Post had “fabricated the facts” about his decision to end a program aiding Syrian rebels fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Trump was referring to a story about ending an Obama program where the CIA armed and trained moderate Syrian rebels, a move long sought by the Russian government. (Washington Post / Politico) 

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 11/ A federal judge ruled that Trump’s voter fraud commission may request voter roll data from states. Opponents contend the effort could infringe on privacy rights. The judge said the lawsuit did not have grounds for an injunction because the commission was not technically an action by a government agency – the commission is an advisory body that does not have legal authority to compel states to hand over the data. (Reuters) 

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12/ Jared Kushner bought real estate from an oligarch’s firm represented by the Russian lawyer. Lev Leviev was a business partner at Prevezon Holdings, where Natalia Veselnitskaya acted as legal counsel. Prevezon was being investigated by Preet Bharara for money laundering before he was fired by Trump in March. Prevezon Holdings attempted to use Manhattan real estate deals to launder money stolen from the Russian treasury. In 2015, Kushner paid $295m to acquire several floors of the old New York Times building at 43rd street in Manhattan from the US branch of Leviev’s company. The Prevezon case was abruptly settled two days before it was due in open court in May for $6 million with no admission of guilt on the part of the defendants. (The Guardian) 

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13/ A White House press aide resigned after Anthony Scaramucci said he planned to fire him over alleged leaks. Michael Short is the first to leave after Scaramucci promised all aides “a clean slate” and “amnesty” to prove that they were not leaking. “This is the problem with the leaking,” Scaramucci told reporters outside the White House. “This is actually a terrible thing. Let’s say I’m firing Michael Short today. The fact that you guys know about it before he does really upsets me as a human being and as a Roman Catholic.” Short, who initially said Tuesday that he hadn’t yet been informed of any decision, resigned Tuesday afternoon. (Washington Post / Politico / The Hill) 

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DAY188 - Trump TWEETS ( NO official report, NO press release, NO executive order) that trans people are banned from the military. The Internet explodes. Everything that has been happening is no longer discussed. His diversion has been executed perfectly. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. #lightingahellfiretocoverashitstorm

[jae-bummer]

My Idol: Part Seventeen

My Idol From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My Idol is a South Korean competitive reality dating game show. It currently airs on Wednesday nights on Jae-bummer’s blog. First broadcast in 2016, the show offers the opportunity for a lucky fan to go on seven blind dates with seven idols. The idol plans the date with the show throwing in specific missions to complete during the day. At the end of the initial dates, the show opens up an audience vote to decide what three idols will move on to the second date.

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14 - Part 15 - Part 16 - Part 17 - Part 18 -  Part 19 - Part 20 - Part 21 - Part 22

You scrubbed your hands carefully in the bathroom sink, careful to let the soap saturate every pore in your sweaty palms. You looked up to the mirror and in turn, your reflection, an upset and exhausted expression staring back out at you. You were not prepared for what happened and it left you with a queasy feeling in your stomach.

You tugged at the handles on the sink and halted the water, doubling over before the porcelain as you let a silent cry rip through you, nearly causing you to begin dry heaving. You hadn’t lived an overly privileged life, so you had made tough decisions before, but none as tough as this. As your heart had made a decision, going rogue from any reasoning your mind was trying to argue, you had stuttered out Jay’s name.

After the words had left your mouth, shock covered everyone’s faces, including your own. The crowd erupted into a strange array of applause and groans as Top stood, gazing at you as if you had just plunged a knife into his chest. He carefully stepped down from the platform where he was seated and shuffled across the stage, biting his lip and looking anywhere but at you. Both Mingyu and Sehun had stood as well, assuming Top had risen to give Jay proper applause. As he stumbled off stage, they looked confused, but continued to clap as Jay stood, slowly swaggering over to you.

“Baby girl,” he breathed, getting close enough for you to hear him whisper. “You sure about this?”

“Not at all,” you laughed bitterly.

Jay smiled down at his shoes, taking the sheer fabric flowing from your dress between his narrow and nervous fingers. “I can be a bit of a handful.”

“Understatement of the year,” you nodded. You sighed, biting your lip as you searched his face. “But you made an impression.”

You shook your head as you looked back to the mirror and wiped the saliva and tears from your skin. You took a deep breath and nodded to yourself. This was only the beginning. It would only get harder. Four men were left; each being allotted another date. Then another round of fan voting to narrow the game down to two. The final two would each be allowed a weekend vacation with you, sealing an inevitable heartbreak to come. Who knew reality could be so difficult?

You pushed open the door to the restroom and stumbled into the hallway. You were still stuck at the production lot for the voting special. You looked around nervously, trying to mentally locate where your newly assigned agent could be and how quickly he get you the hell out of there.

“Y/N,” a deep voice growled on the opposite side of the hallway. You stopped for a moment, your heart feeling as if it had launched into your throat.

“S-Seunghyun,” you stuttered, an immediate feeling of guilt circulating through your veins and turning you cold.

“Can I have a word?” he croaked, approaching you quickly and grabbing your wrist. He tugged you into what appeared to be a nearby storage closet. Normally Seunghyun was cordial and a gentleman, but his dark expression made you uncomfortable.

You were plunged into darkness as Seunghyun angled your bodies into the room and shut the door. You heard him fumbling as you stood completely still, eventually hearing the click of his cigarette lighter. A dull light emanated from the open flame, making him look even more intimidating in the small space.

“I can’t find the light switch,” he sighed. “but I’ll make this quick. I can’t just not see you again.”

His facial expression had suddenly morphed from something frightening to something completely soft. He looked like a broken man.

“Seunghyun…” you whispered, closing your eyes so you wouldn’t have to look up at him.

“I know the production people told you that you had to pick Park, right? For the ratings? It’s okay, I understand,” Seunghyun nodded, his eyes wide and hopeful. “That doesn’t mean we have to stop seeing each other.”

You felt like your heart was breaking all over again as you listened to Seunghyun speak. You opened your eyes, furrowing your brows as tears began to bubble along your lash line.

“Seunghyun, I-“

“I don’t care about the contracts, I can’t just drop you out of my life because some television show tells me I have to,” he nodded.

The queasy feeling in your stomach had grown stronger as you tried to come to terms with the fact that you would have to break his heart all over again. At least this time, you were switching the aspect of a live audience in exchange for nothing but Clorox and raw emotions.

“I picked Jay because I wanted to,” you said slowly, trying to get the words out before he spoke again.  

Seunghyun blinked, his breathing becoming shallow as his eyes searched your face. “You…you did?”

“I was genuinely surprised by the mission,” you continued. “They never told me who I had to pick…I…I let my heart decide and…”

“I’m a fool,” Seunghyun whispered, his eyes darting away from yours and searching the shelves around you. He bit his lip and nodded, blinking repeatedly as his eyes became more moist.

“You aren’t. Please don’t be upset with yourself,” you argued, shaking your head. You wanted nothing more than to take him into your arms and tell him you wanted him over Jay, but you just couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair.

“Too late,” he sighed, removing his hand from the lighter and bringing you back into darkness. “I already am.”

You rested your head against the tinted glass of a My Idol SUV escorting you to yet another date. You looked up to Sweaty and Armpit, casually discussing their plans for the evening and sighed as you redirected your gaze out of the window. You couldn’t get the image of Top’s face out of your mind or more specifically the moment he had slid his thumb from the lighter and stormed from the closet. You weren’t sure if you should attempt to contact him, and even if you did, you weren’t sure where to start. Maybe it would be best if you just let him leave you behind.

The SUV creaked to a halt, causing you to quickly sit up and begin surveying the area outside of the vehicle. You immediately made eye contact with a familiar face, clutching to a bouquet of wildflowers with a large bag tucked under his arm. You pushed on the SUV door without any aid from the driver and hopped out, allowing a smile to find your lips. Your date’s face already held a grin as he waited patiently near the sidewalk.

“Fancy seeing you here,” you chuckled, walking up to him and pushing him playfully on the shoulder. He hissed out a grown, stumbling backward as he clutched his arm with the hand full of flowers.

“Yah, that hurts! I didn’t know we were being set up with the she-hulk!” Taehyung groaned, closing his eyes tight in fake pain. You giggled as he regained his footing, shooting you a casual smile. “But you’re so cute, I guess I’ll let it slide.”

“Are these for me?” you asked, pointing to the beautiful array of jasmine, daisies, and snapdragons in his hand. You weren’t sure why you were feeling so playful, it seemed as if Taehyung could easily pull out that quality in you.

“It was for the camera men, I feel like they’re under appreciated,” Taehyung nodded, his lips turning into a straight line. He plucked two flowers from the bunch and handed on to each Armpit and Sweaty. They looked down in surprise, accepting the small bundle of nature handed to them. Taehyung turned back around to you and pushed the rest of the bouquet into your hands. “But I guess you probably deserve some too after that voting special.”

“In that case, maybe you should keep the flowers for yourself,” you sighed. “Because it wasn’t any easier on you guys.”

“Idols are resilient,” he hummed happily, taking one of your hands into his large palm. “I would’ve only cried myself to sleep a few nights.”

“You’re joking, right?” you groaned, shooting him a side eye.

“Suuure,” he nodded, sending you back an expression that said anything but. “Anyway, this is Seoul Forest!”

“So it is,” you nodded. 

“So Seoul Forest consists of five parks. Culture and Arts Park, Eco Forest, Experimental Learning Park, Marsh Plants Garden, and Hangang Riverside Park. It’s all eco friendly and kind of like Central Park in New York,” Taehyung nodded, beginning to stroll across an open expanse of grass. 

“Wow Tae,” you grinned, mildly impressed by his fast facts. “How do you know all of this?”

“Not to toot my own horn,” Taehyung chuckled, lifting his opposite hand to show you his crooked handwriting inked on his palm. “But I googled it and memorized what it said while I waited for you.”

You lifted your eyebrows, trying not to submit to the giggle fit bubbling up inside of your chest. “You never cease to amaze me.”

“Is that a good thing?” he asked, glancing at you casually. 

“The best thing,” you nodded. “So what’s the plan for today?” 

“The plan is for you to be pleasantly surprised and not worry about what the plan is for today,” Taehyung nodded. 

“I think I can do that,” you hummed, gripping tighter to his arm as he took you through a wooded area. You had only been together for ten minutes and you were already beginning to forget the emotional trauma the voting special had caused for you and the idols. It was a welcomed distraction to be able to completely immerse yourself into new situations with bright and charming personalities. No matter who you ended up with, you would treasure these times for the rest of your life. 

“Thanks for bringing me to a side of Seoul I never really think of,” you sighed, emerging from the brush you were struggling through. Taehyung held your arm, careful to make sure you didn’t trip over any brambles or bushes. “I spend so much time going back and forth from work to my apartment, with the occasional stop to the coffee shop...but that’s about it.”

Taehyung smiled,  watching your steps carefully. “One thing I’ve learned from being an idol is to appreciate the things you don’t get to see frequently.”

“One thing I’ve learned being a camera man, is that I shouldn’t have to go off road,” Sweaty grumbled, struggling through the wooded area. Armpit huffed behind him, cursing quietly to himself. 

“Sorry hyung,” Taehyung hummed, reaching out to grab Sweaty’s hand and assist him. For a moment, you could see Sweaty’s heart seemingly defrost, but he instantly checked himself, and smacked Tae’s hand away. 

“I’m fine.”

Taehyung shrugged, placing his hand on your lower back to navigate you toward the small lake in the center of the park. “I thought maybe we could relax until lunch.” He set down the large bag he had been shouldering and began to dig through it, eventually pulling out a hammock. 

“Alright,” Taehyung hummed quietly to himself, eying up the tree line. “These look good.” He began to walk forward, but came to a sudden halt seemingly from a lightbulb moment. 

“Sorry,” he whispered, navigating around you, and beginning to dig into his bag again. After a few moments he pulled a cushion from its depths and let it plop on the grass. “I’m so rude, please sit.”

You lifted your brows, completely floored by his small act of consideration. “Thank you Tae.”

The man nodded, shouldering the hammock again and heading toward two trees relatively close together. He took one of the pins from the hammock and began to work on securing it. 

“You know, if this place is echo friendly,” you called out to him. “Are you sure you’re allowed to do that?”

“I came here after our last date to scope it out,” Taehyung called over his shoulder, never halting his work. “And there were a few people doing it. Granted they may have been homeless, but no one was telling them anything.���

Your eyes grew wide as you opened your mouth to say something, but promptly shut it anyway. Who were you to tell him he couldn’t proceed? You tilted your head, watching him move methodically over the bark to hang the ornate and colored fabric. You bit your lip, seeing him in a slightly different light than you had previously. His arm and shoulder muscles tensed, showing off his strength and ability. He was focused, turning to you every now and again with his tongue between his teeth. He would smile for a moment, assuring you that everything was going as planned. After a few moments, he stepped backward from the hammock and nodded, turning to you. 

“It should hold.”

“That’s comforting,” you chuckled, standing and walking toward him. 

“Let me get in first,” he nodded. “So if it falls, I fall. Then if you get in and it falls, I’ll be there as a human pillow to lessen the impact.”

You smirked to yourself, looking up through your lashes at Taehyung. He was always considerate of your comfort. He stepped gingerly toward the hammock, slipping off his shoes as he set his butt into the center of the fabric. He wiggled around a bit, pulling the rest of his body in and chirping happily. “I think we’re good!” 

You took a deep breath as you watched the hammock swing back and forth, full of the man that was Taehyung. You weren’t as frightened by the idea of the hammock not holding your weight, but rather by the idea of your body being so incredibly close to Tae’s. You turned around, not allowing yourself to look at Taehyung’s handsome face as you wiggled your butt into the hammock. You felt your lower back hit his thigh, so you turned your body to lay parallel to him and snuggled in close. 

“It’s holding,” Taehyung giggled, his face beaming with pride. He wrapped his arm around your shoulders and angled you so your head could rest in the hollow of his chest. Your breathing quickly synced up with his as you laid together in a peaceful silence, rocking back and forth with every shift. 

You tilted your head, looking to the underside of Tae’s jaw, and jumped as you realized he was watching you. He immediately looked away, his cheeks burning a bright red at being caught. 

“What?” Taehyung chuckled, tilting his face so it couldn’t be as easily viewed.

“Why were you looking at me?” you whispered, trying not to let your own embaressment show. 

“Well...we’re surrounded by nature,” Tae sighed, his eyes darting around at the tree tops above you. “I should be completely swooning over the green leaves and flowers blooming...but no natural beauty is as perfect as you, Y/N. And no sun could shine brighter than you in my life...right in this moment.”

To Be Continued...

PART 1 - PART 2 - PART 3 - PART 4 - PART 5 - PART 6 - PART 7 - PART 8 - PART 9 - PART 10 - PART 11 - PART 12 - PART 13 - PART 14 - PART 15 - PART 16 - PART 17 - PART 18 - Part 19 - Part 20 - Part 21 - Part 22

[newstfionline]

Forceful Chief of Staff Grates on Trump, and the Feeling Is Mutual

By Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman, NY Times, Sept. 1, 2017

WASHINGTON--President Trump was in an especially ornery mood after staff members gently suggested he refrain from injecting politics into day-to-day issues of governing after last month’s raucous rally in Arizona, and he responded by lashing out at the most senior aide in his presence.

It happened to be his new chief of staff, John F. Kelly.

Mr. Kelly, the former Marine general brought in five weeks ago as the successor to Reince Priebus, reacted calmly, but he later told other White House staff members that he had never been spoken to like that during 35 years of serving his country. In the future, he said, he would not abide such treatment, according to three people familiar with the exchange.

While Mr. Kelly has quickly brought some order to a disorganized and demoralized staff, he is fully aware of the president’s volcanic resentment about being managed, according to a dozen people close to Mr. Trump, and has treaded gingerly through the minefield of Mr. Trump’s psyche. But the president has still bridled at what he perceives as being told what to do.

Like every other new sheriff in town Mr. Trump has hired to turn things around at the White House or in his presidential campaign, Mr. Kelly has gradually diminished in his appeal to his restless boss. What is different this time is that Mr. Trump, mired in self-destructive controversies and record-low approval ratings, needs Mr. Kelly more than Mr. Kelly needs him. Unlike many of the men and women eager to work for Mr. Trump over the years, the new chief of staff signed on reluctantly, more out of a sense of duty than a need for affirmation, personal enrichment or fame.

“It is inevitable that a guy who will not be contained and does not want to be handled or managed was going to rebel against the latest manager who wanted to control him,” said Roger Stone, the longtime Trump adviser, who believes Mr. Kelly represents a kind of management coup by “the triumvirate” of two powerful retired generals--Mr. Kelly and Jim Mattis, the defense secretary--and one general who is still in the Army, the national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster.

“Ultimately Donald Trump is his own man, and he’s going to resist all the control and regimented systems Kelly is trying to impose,” Mr. Stone said.

For the seven months of the Trump administration, the favorite parlor game in the West Wing has been guessing how long imperiled aides like Mr. Priebus would hang on before getting fired. But these days it is Mr. Kelly’s state of mind, not Mr. Trump’s, that concerns the beleaguered aides buoyed by the new chief’s imposition of structure and clear lines of authority.

The question now is how long Mr. Kelly will stay, with estimates ranging from a month to a year at the most. White House officials say that Mr. Kelly has given no indication he intends to leave anytime soon. He has thrown himself into long-term planning of the administration’s tax reform push, the president’s Asia trip in November and scheduling for the next several months, they said.

For Mr. Trump, few ingredients matter more in a staff relationship than chemistry, and at times he and Mr. Kelly--whose soldierly demeanor masks a slashing sense of humor--have enjoyed a mostly easy rapport. At commencement ceremonies at the Coast Guard Academy in May, Mr. Kelly elicited a big laugh from the president after Mr. Trump was presented with a ceremonial sword and Mr. Kelly told him that “you can use that on the press.”

Mr. Trump, who has said he has surrounded himself with former military men from “central casting,” respects Mr. Kelly, aides said.

In his short time at the White House, Mr. Kelly, a 67-year-old native of Boston, has had the most significant impact of any of the campaign or White House aides who have worked for Mr. Trump, according to interviews with a dozen current and former Trump aides and associates. He has regimented, as no one has ever done before, the flow of paper, people and information inundating an omnivorous and undisciplined Mr. Trump.

The president, for his part, has marveled at the installation of management controls that would have been considered routine in any other White House.

“I now have time to think,” a surprised Mr. Trump has told one of his senior aides repeatedly over the last few weeks.

Mr. Kelly cannot stop Mr. Trump from binge-watching Fox News, which aides describe as the president’s primary source of information gathering. But Mr. Trump does not have a web browser on his phone, and does not use a laptop, so he was dependent on aides like Stephen K. Bannon, his former chief strategist, to hand-deliver printouts of articles from conservative media outlets.

Now Mr. Kelly has thinned out his package of printouts so much that Mr. Trump plaintively asked a friend recently where The Daily Caller and Breitbart were.

Mr. Kelly has told his staff, time and time again, that his goal is to rationalize the chaos that has engulfed the management of the West Wing. Managing Mr. Trump is beyond his--or anyone else’s--powers, he has said repeatedly.

While Mr. Trump still reaches out to allies outside the administration--especially old friends and associates like Corey Lewandowski, a former campaign manager; Richard LeFrak, a fellow developer originally from Queens; Mr. Bannon and a handful of others--more often than not it has been through the White House switchboard and not on his personal phone. And Mr. Kelly has usually listened in on the calls, according to two people with direct knowledge.

Even Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, who has unfettered access to her father, has made a point of giving Mr. Kelly a heads-up if she is going to talk to the president about policy or politics, according to one of Ms. Trump’s friends.

But Mr. Kelly’s biggest accomplishments are ones that people outside the West Wing cannot see.

When North Korea fired a missile over northern Japan last week, for example, he counseled Mr. Trump to deliver a stern rebuke he had written himself through a strong, measured--and spell-checked--statement delivered via official White House email, rather than a bombastic Twitter message.

Mr. Kelly is close to Mr. Mattis and supported the Pentagon’s decision to slow-walk Mr. Trump’s order to ban transgender troops from serving in the military, opting for the creation of a panel to study the matter before implementing a policy that is highly popular with the president’s conservative base.

Despite his crackdown on illegal immigrants and support for the Muslim travel ban in his previous job as Homeland Security secretary, Mr. Kelly has been among those calling for Mr. Trump to proceed with caution on rolling back Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era policy protecting from deportation immigrants who entered the country illegally as minors.

And he has moved swiftly to dispatch aides he deems unqualified by temperament, experience or credential with a minimum of drama and fuss. Mr. Kelly, people close to the president said, backed the removals of Mr. Bannon, Sebastian Gorka, a flame-throwing White House staff member known more for his cable TV tirades than strategic acumen, and Anthony Scaramucci, the short-lived communications director who self-immolated in an expletive-filled interview with The New Yorker in July.

The chief of staff keeps his own counsel and travels light. He brought over only a small handful of staff members from the Department of Homeland Security, and confides to an even smaller circle, which includes Leon E. Panetta, for whom he served as a top aide when Mr. Panetta was defense secretary in the Obama administration.

But how long Mr. Kelly and the president, two men with such divergent approaches to the common goal of Mr. Trump’s success, will be able to coexist is unclear.

One associate who spoke to Mr. Kelly last month said the former commander had remarked that his current assignment was by far the hardest job he had ever had. His favorite gig, he jokes, was his first: Marine grunt.

[actutrends]

Biden and Bernie duke it out on war and peace

Democratic governmental candidate Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.|Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Last Saturday in Iowa, the day after an American MQ-9 Reaper dropped its ordnance on Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad, Joe Biden moved quickly to make himself the face of Democratic opposition to Trump’s drone strike. It was early evening at a Des Moines elementary school gym, and in spite of the dip in temperature level and the long lines to enter, a larger and more engaged audience than the ones he attracted over the summertime and fall was awaiting the previous vice president.

It was a white-collar crowd– Des Moines-area attorneys and insurance market experts and a smattering of D.C. Obama veterans now in town to help Biden in the homestretch. The leading attorney at ICE under the last administration was there, and told me it was the very first time he had actually ever canvassed Iowa for a prospect.

Iran had actually heightened the stakes. “#WWIII” was trending online and predictions of a full-scale war were commonplace. Trump might now benefit from the halo that shines atop all wartime leaders, at least for a time. And the importance of the outcome of the Democratic primary– to state absolutely nothing of the country and the world– had all of a sudden ballooned. Would citizens want a skilled hand whose position on world affairs is essentially, “Believe me, I understand what I’m doing” (Biden) or would they gravitate towards someone like Bernie Sanders, whose ringing calls to get the U.S. out of Middle East quagmires have the advantage of clearness, however make numerous a D.C. foreign-policy hand queasy? The answer might assist determine who wins over the Democratic base, and maybe the nation, come November.

When he arrived, Biden the prospect still winked and shot finger guns at well-wishers and hugged them afterwards, but it was Biden the commander-in-chief that his advisors wanted on display screen.

To Biden’s aides, it was their guy’s opportunity to seize the minute.

” The more the world appears in chaos, particularly with Trump as an irregular accelerant to that chaos, the more individuals appear to be looking for some return to normalcy and strong and steady management as opposed to erratic leadership,” stated a Biden consultant.

The voter stated, he ‘d gotten two of the most significant questions in recent years wrong: the 2002 Iraq War vote when he was a senator and the 2011 Navy SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, which Biden, then vice president, counseled Obama against.

Biden was a senator for 36 years and vice president for 8.

On Iraq, Biden gave a familiar response that Democratic senators who elected the intrusion have actually been making for 17 years: It was a vote to give President George W. Bush take advantage of at the United Nations to reinforce a weapons assessment routine, not to greenlight an impending attack. (This is traditionally accurate, but a bit like arguing you let a college-aged good friend borrow your credit card just for purchasing books for his fraternity and then being shocked about all the pot and booze he contributed to the expense.)

On the bin Laden raid, Biden, changing his story a bit, insisted that after a larger meeting at which he revealed reservations, he privately told Obama to go all out. (During his prolonged reaction, at one point, Biden inadvertently stated Saddam Hussein when he meant Osama bin Laden.)

Regardless of the hard question, Biden appeared pleased. If the subject is foreign policy, Biden thinks he’s winning.

Bernie Sanders was the only rival who appeared to invite that challenge. While Biden’s method is that of a conventional main frontrunner– overlook your primary opponents and focus on your basic election opponent– Sanders has the timeless technique for the person in the No. 2 spot: argue it’s a two-person race.

In Iowa last weekend, where there were lots of candidate events, Sanders was the only other politician who appeared to delight in discussing the conflict with Iran– and how the Iraq war and the Democrats who supported it helped produce the existing circumstance.

” What Iran has done is truly highlighted both Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden as agents of 2 various poles in the Democratic celebration: one a lot more hawkish interventionist arm of the celebration, which utilized to be dominant, and then Bernie Sanders, representing a more diplomacy-oriented technique, a more collective global technique that is ascendant in the party,” stated Jeff Weaver, one of Sanders’s top advisers, who went on to ding Biden for the 2002 Iraq vote.

The typical assumption about Democratic base politics has been that the domestic exceeds the worldwide, that voters in Dubuque would rather hear about how prospects are going to repair their healthcare than about how they’re going to fix the Middle East.

But that’s not entirely real.

In 2008, Barack Obama’s opposition to the Iraq War was perhaps the single essential argument he made to reveal voters that, according to the 2 buzzwords of the primary, his “judgment” transcended to Hillary Clinton’s “experience.” By then, voters had grown tired of the body bags getting back from Baghdad and Kandahar, and the politics of the wars had ricocheted versus the Republican politician Party and hawks like John McCain. Obama soon made it clear that voting to invade Iraq didn’t disqualify Democrats from governing. He chose Biden, who, like Clinton, voted to license the war, as his running mate and made Clinton his secretary of state. In the 2016 Democratic primaries, Sanders was not able to run the very same play against Clinton. He frequently highlighted her Iraq vote to no obtain.

This election, 2020, looked like it may be various. However Iran has belatedly required a serious foreign-policy dispute amongst the major Democratic prospects, with Sanders and Biden representing opposite sides of a basic question that could define the next administration: What do Democrats think about America’s role on the planet? And do they have a national-security message that can beat Trump’s chest-thumping bravado?

Earlier on the same day Biden spoke, Sanders stumped in Grundy Center, about 90 minutes northeast of Des Moines. It was a little working class audience and Sanders, after blasting Biden on Iran for the electronic cameras, went back to healthcare.

Though the term is not often utilized nowadays, the Sanders town hall format is what sixties-era activists utilized to call “consciousness raising.” He prods normal people to stand and describe for their fellow people the wickedness they’ve experienced in the American healthcare system. Older radicals utilized the method to make working individuals aware that they were oppressed, that they weren’t the only ones, and that they could do something about it.

These sessions normally emerge numerous unfortunate stories that Sanders has a regular joke about how his spouse Jane grumbles that his events are too depressing. He then indicates an aide who will be handing out Prozac en route out.

The Sanders view is that, quite actually, this is how the transformation starts.

” I was mayor of the city of Burlington, Vermont, in the 1980 s, when the Soviet Union was our opponent,” he said in a 2017 address at Westminster College, in Missouri. Hatred and wars are frequently based on worry and ignorance.

However how that good insight equates into policy has actually been a battle for Sanders to articulate.

Sanders’s foreign-policy views were very first formed by his left-wing advocacy throughout the Cold War, when the animating force on the far left was opposition to American adventurism in the name of anti-communism. As the mayor of Vermont’s biggest city– a small town of 40,00, truly– Sanders really had a foreign policy. He visited Cuba, he became involved in Latin American politics centered on opposition to anything that resembled U.S. imperialism, and he and Jane even honeymooned in the Soviet Union in1988 (This litany of activities is often raised by Sanders’ rivals as deeply bothersome for a general election versus Trump.)

However when he got to Congress in 1991, Sanders invested the next few years, first as a member of your home and then as a senator, oddly withdrawn in foreign policy. When he ran for president in 2016, the old image of Sanders from his mayoral days as a pro-Sandinista Chomskyite is what stuck.

His 2017 speech was implied to address that.

Sanders still peppers his foreign-policy remarks with a long recitation of America’s anti-democratic history, especially in Latin America and the Middle East, during the Cold War, and the worst errors of the post-9/11 age. However with time he has actually gradually moved from a focus on how America has actually screwed up the world in the past to how to face looming threats to global democracy today.

He has actually repeatedly applauded America’s role in developing the United Nations and revealed deep adoration for the Marshall Plan, which assisted reconstruct Germany and western Europe after The second world war. In 2018, he determined growing authoritarianism as one of the fantastic diplomacy difficulties for the United States. It was a turning point for Sanders: The villains in that speech are not Americans meddling in Chile or getting into Iraq, but the “the authoritarian axis”– an expression that echoed Bush’s “axis of evil”– and in Sanders’s informing includes nations like Russia, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, Turkey and Brazil, where there are “motions led by demagogues who make use of individuals’s worries, prejudices and complaints to gain and hang on to power” and are likewise handmaidens to billionaires and oligarchs, more familiar Sanders bogeymen.

While he required a motion to “fight the forces of global oligarchy and authoritarianism,” the details of how a Sanders administration would use American power to do that have been unclear. He had determined what he thought was the hazard of our time but he didn’t say how America might counter it.

On The Other Hand, Biden, along with the majority of foreign policy centrists in the Democratic Party, has actually also moved. Biden and his ideological kin have recognized that there is nearly no constituency left in the Democratic Party for the kind of hawks that controlled in the nineties and early 2000 s.

But on the concern of American management and whether American power can be virtuous, Biden is indisputable. His campaign is predicated on the idea that a President Biden can rapidly bring back America’s function as a force for good.

In talking to Democratic foreign policy advisors throughout the spectrum, I heard people in Biden’s orbit caricature Sanders as a Corbyn-like old leftist who never outgrew his extreme roots. The fact is that Democratic citizens have actually required both males to shift: Sanders to accept that if he desires to be president he needs to be comfortable with taking the reins of a superpower and Biden with the truth that the tradition of the Iraq War has poisoned the concept of liberal interventionism to a whole generation.

All 3– Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg– have tried to articulate an alternative vision to a Biden-style establishment Democratic foreign policy– what Sanders’ advisors call the D.C. “blob.”

And there are notable distinctions on some essential issues. Sanders and Warren want to utilize help to Israel to change the country’s behavior toward the Palestinians, while Biden isn’t. Sanders opposes the current USMCA trade offer, while Warren and Biden support it. Sanders and Warren would leave almost no footprint behind in Iraq and Afghanistan, while Buttigieg and Biden desire some forces to respond to any revival of al Qaeda and ISIS.

Progressives have also changed the politics of foreign policy.

In 2020 the pressure for Democrats in their reaction to the killing of Soleimani was to reveal they would not overemphasize or harp on his criminal activities in the Middle East and that they would not say anything that would motivate escalation with Iran. Warren initially tweeted that “Soleimani was a murderer, responsible for the deaths of thousands, consisting of numerous Americans.” The next day, in a tweet that focused entirely on Trump, she composed that the president had “assassinated a senior foreign military official.” Gone was any description of Soleimani’s history in the region.

But in the end, the 2020 foreign policy dispute among Democrats is likely to play out a lot like the 2020 domestic policy argument amongst Democrats: with the establishment candidate co-opting simply enough of the left’s grievances to off the difficulty.

The Sanders wing long ago won the dispute about playing down using force, ending “permanently wars,” prioritizing diplomacy, and bolstering relationships with democracies. What the progressives have not yet been able to totally articulate– and there’s a huge literature that has actually attempted– is how a President Sanders or Warren or even Buttigieg, who have actually all determined promoting democracy and curtailing the increase of authoritarianism as major contemporary concerns, would in fact do that.

I asked a leading consultant to Sanders about whether there are more information to add to Sanders’ 2018 call to reverse the increasing tide of autocrats.

” We’re dealing with it,” he said.

The post Biden and Bernie duke it out on war and peace appeared first on Actu Trends.

[humanegardener]

As a human in the modern world, I’m experiencing a bit of habitat envy. I crave more chances to sleep longer, pick my own fruit, and curl up with loved ones under a tree. If the universe determined our fates based on personalities and preferences, I’d likely be assigned to sloth-hood: slow-moving, plant-eating, tree-dwelling. The bumblebee lifestyle would be a good fit, too, allowing me to visit flowers all day and cozy up with family at night.

But I’m not complaining. This year has yielded extraordinary opportunities to spread the word about the importance of caring for wild plants and animals in our backyards. If it’s meant less time in my own garden, I don’t regret it. And I’ve learned to live vicariously through the creatures taking shelter there. Even brief strolls through our little oasis have brought countless insights into their often hidden world. Follow along as I recap 11 unforgettable moments in our 2017 humane garden.

1. The Eclipse Wasp

When her iridescent blue wings close, she is twilight. When they open, she’s as brilliant as the sun. How fitting, then, that I first discovered this otherworldly wasp in my garden just as the solar eclipse was starting on the afternoon of August 21. The sight of such a brilliant animal just feet from the ground was even more spectacular than anything I could have spied in the sky. Known scientifically as Trogus pennator, she appeared to have no common name, so I dubbed her the eclipse wasp. Harmless to us, she has an unusual nesting site: the caterpillars of swallowtail butterflies. She injects a single egg into each caterpillar she finds; when the egg hatches, the wasp larva feeds on and eventually kills her host. To those who find this gutting of butterfly babies distasteful, I suggest remembering that birds devour caterpillars, too, and we don’t hold their predatory ways against them.

2. The Devoted and Drenched Dad

A summer downpour didn’t stop this papa cardinal, spotted one day through a screen door to our deck, from feeding his hungry family. Wondering about the identity of the unlucky soul about to end up in a baby bird’s belly, I checked my copy of Caterpillars of Eastern North America and discovered his name: Abbott’s sphinx moth caterpillar. Though I’d never seen one before, I guessed that we had plenty, as this species’ host plants—grape and Virginia creeper—proliferate in our gardens. Most chicks need an abundance of caterpillars in their diets, so these volunteer vines provide a plethora of baby food to young bird families.

3. The Superman Ant on a Mission

http://www.humanegardener.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/IMG_7829.m4v

Taking a quick break from writing to refresh the birdbaths one day, I happened upon a familiar-looking butterfly skating oddly across our patio. Closer inspection revealed an ant carrying the wing of a silver-spotted skipper. How that butterfly met her demise, I’m not sure, but the scavenging ants made sure she did not die in vain.

4. The Hitchhikers

At first glance, this might look like the opossum of the insect world, a devoted mama carrying young ones on her back. That’s what my husband, Will, and I assumed when we came upon this scene under our ash tree last spring. But the diminutive hitchhikers are no mini-mes. They’re a completely different species. Called fire-colored beetles, they are attracted to cantharidin, a caustic chemical exuded by the larger blister beetle to deter predators. The tiny passengers may lick, chew or nip to extract the coveted potion, which some beetle species pass along to females while mating to confer protection to their offspring, according to the book Beetles of Eastern North America.

5. The Special Delivery

Whenever Will says, “Nancy, come here and look at something, and come quietly,” I know I’m in for a treat. This time it was a special delivery in the patio garden right outside our basement door. All our outdoor plans ceased that late spring week; we barely set foot into the backyard for fear of disturbing this newborn fawn. Except to stand, stretch and turn around, she didn’t move much either. We knew her mother must be close by, calling her baby to nurse but otherwise keeping her distance to avoid attracting predators. We saw no signs of distress—no crying, no flies, no indication of discomfort or confusion. Still, I couldn’t help but worry. Just as I started to wonder aloud if we should be concerned about her well-being, we woke up one morning to find our baby had left as quietly as she’d arrived. She was strong enough now to join her mother, who would find new spots to hide her precious cargo each day and plenty of food for her family in our deer-friendly garden.

6. The Buzz That Fell on Half-Deaf Ears

http://www.humanegardener.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/IMG_7978.m4v

Being half-deaf all my life, I’ve missed a lot. Punchlines elude me amid roaring laughter, and having them repeated to me is of no use when I’ve already missed half the joke. But maybe this forced tuning-out of human noise has given me more sensitivity to nature’s music, including the dramatic soundtrack of bumblebee buzz pollination. Turn up the volume on the video, and between the lower drone of wing flapping, you’ll hear it, too: the distinctive high pitch of the bee’s flight muscles vibrating at a rapid clip to shake the pollen out of the anthers of this wild senna. It’s an amazing trick that some flowers—including those of tomatoes, blueberries and other human food crops—require for pollination. Only some bees can perform it, though, and the honeybee, a domesticated animal originally introduced from Europe, isn’t among them. We’d be awfully hungry without our buzz-pollinating wild friends—yet another reason to skip the hives in favor of nurturing habitat for the native bees already in our midst.

7. The Bird Who Thought Our Yard Was a Forest

When this scarlet tanager joined our happy hour one evening in the height of summer, I knew it was a rare event. Little did I know how rare until I posted the photo and received responses from avid birders saying they had yet to spot one on their treks through the woods. Described by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as “frustratingly hard to find” because of their preference for high canopies of “large, undisturbed tracts of forest,” scarlet tanagers seem unlikely candidates for suburban backyard stopovers. This one kept us company for at least 20 minutes while feasting on the ripening fruit of staghorn sumac trees.

8. The Ant Hill That Wasn’t an Ant Hill

I’d read about it, written about it, and seen it from a distance in the past. But until this summer, I’d never actually gotten close enough to photograph a ground-nesting bee emerging from her hole, gathering pollen, and returning to her nest repeatedly. That seems strange in retrospect, since these soil dwellers are everywhere, comprising about 70 percent of our 4,000 or so native bee species in North America. They’re generally small and solitary, so it takes patience and a zoom lens to stake out such minifauna. One helpful clue to their whereabouts is the presence of mounds that look like anthills. Though they work alone, many bees create these nests near each other; I found mine along the edge of a mowed path that runs through our meadow down to the compost pile.

9. The Frog Who Thought He Was in a Jungle

As their name implies, tree frogs like to hang out high in the canopy. And sure enough, their vocalizations led my binocular-aided eyes to one atop a sassafras tree this summer. But sometimes the diminutive frogs descend to much lower altitudes during breeding season, seeming to take a particular liking to our potted rubber trees. In mid-May, just hours after I’d moved a few from their winter home in the basement to their summer spot on the patio, this little guy made himself right at home atop one of the sturdy leaves. Thin-skinned amphibians are especially vulnerable to the onslaught of chemicals and power equipment in a typical home landscape, so I feel especially protective of each one I find.

10. The Hamburglar Bun Gourmand

Our birdbaths serve many purposes: quenching animals’ thirst, helping birds clean their feathers, and—apparently—giving crow connoisseurs a place to prepare their meals. This hamburger bun of unknown origins got a thorough soaking last March before the bird took off with the dripping mass gripped firmly in his beak. Was he cleaning off the human refuse before deigning to eat it himself? Was he softening it up to make it more palatable? Theories abound, but this is a common behavior among our highly intelligent feathered friends. I’m just happy I got to see it, even if through a fuzzy window screen.

11. The Plant That Inspired Our Neighbor to Go Wild

How many species can one plant support? At some point we stopped counting, but our neighbor walked by when we were still trying. “What is this plant called?” she asked. “Can you give me some seeds?” I was surprised by the sudden interest. She’d never wanted tall plants but didn’t seem to care that this boneset towered above her. She’d  never wanted prolific spreaders but could clearly see this self-starter had sprouted from a crack in our driveway. What sold my friend on Eupatorium serotinum? It certainly wasn’t me. Nothing I can say comes close to the sales pitch made by the bees, butterflies, mating wasps, bee flies, and moths crowding every bloom each summer. The moment confirmed my belief that wildlife of all kinds are the best ambassadors for the native plants that sustain them. We just need to have the courage to let them shine in our gardens for all the world to see.

Featured images, top: Tachinid flies also use caterpillars as a nesting site; when eggs hatch, the fly larvae feed on the caterpillars. Despite all this predation on baby butterflies and moths, we have dozens of winged beauties making it to adulthood in our garden, including the mourning cloak who emerged from winter dormancy in early March. (All photos by Nancy Lawson and Will Heinz)

Top 2017 Discoveries in Our Humane Garden As a human in the modern world, I'm experiencing a bit of habitat envy. I crave more chances to sleep longer, pick my own fruit, and curl up with loved ones under a tree. 

[stopkingobama]

Weinstein Scandal Reveals This Sick Truth About Hollywood Liberals

Five years ago at the Democratic National Convention, I went to a Planned Parenthood rally, where one speaker was TV actress Lisa Edelstein.

“Do not go to the polls alone,” she told us. “Drag somebody, if she’s a woman especially, because those women are going to vote for Obama—if they know what’s good for them.”

Edelstein is hardly the only Hollywood figure to make the case that liberal policies are crucial to women’s happiness and welfare. Yet, with the media still reeling from the revelations about powerful Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s behavior toward women, it’s time to examine both the people promoting that worldview—and the worldview itself.

The Edelstein episode stayed with me because, as an avid fan of “House,” I was especially devastated to see the actress who had played the tough, smart Dr. Lisa Cuddy promote the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. That organization is now fighting in Ohio against a law banning abortions done on the basis of gender. In other words, the oh-so-feminist Planned Parenthood is OK with the termination of pregnancy just because the child is a girl.

Yet Edelstein is far from alone in her support from Planned Parenthood. At the Academy Awards this year, actresses Emma Stone (who would win “Best Actress” that night) and Dakota Johnson both displayed Planned Parenthood pins. “I stand with Planned Parenthood because Planned Parenthood stands up for me,” said Scarlett Johansson in a 2015 video.

And the list of Planned Parenthood celebrity supporters goes on and on, including Kerry Washington, Nick Offerman, Alan Cumming, Ashley Judd, Mark Ruffalo, Chrissy Teigen, John Legend, Stanley Tucci, and Neil Patrick Harris, according to Newsbusters. Weinstein himself pledged $100,000 to Planned Parenthood in May, although the organization says he never delivered on the promise.

And that’s just Planned Parenthood. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both racked up considerable celebrity endorsements in their presidential races, compared to virtually none for Donald Trump and Mitt Romney. In a speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, actress Lena Dunham stressed how Clinton would help women, saying: “Do you want equal pay for equal work? The right to make decisions about your body? Paid family leave?”

So shouldn’t Hollywood be a liberal utopia?

Yet the revelations about Weinstein’s behavior suggest Hollywood is not, in fact, a good place to be a woman.

Writing for The New Yorker, Ronan Farrow—who was raised by Woody Allen, who continues to be tolerated by Hollywood after marrying his stepdaughter and being accused of child molestation by another daughter—spoke to 13 women who accused Weinstein of behavior ranging from sexual harassment to rape. Here are some of their accusations:

— “He forced me to perform oral sex on him … I said, over and over, ‘I don’t want to do this, stop, don’t,’” recounted Lucia Evans, at the time an aspiring actress. “He’s a big guy. He overpowered me.”

— Weinstein “lunged at her, groping her breasts and attempting to put a hand up her skirt while she protested,” wrote Farrow of beauty pageant contestant Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, recounting her report to the police after the incident.

— An unnamed woman who worked with the producer “said that Weinstein brought her to a hotel room under a professional pretext, changed into a bathrobe, and ‘forced himself on me sexually.’ She said no, repeatedly and clearly,” wrote Farrow.

And more and more stories have come out about Weinstein, with actresses such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie speaking out about his treatment of them.

Yet Weinstein is hardly a total outlier in Hollywood. After issuing a statement about Weinstein, actor Ben Affleck was accused of grabbing actress Hilarie Burton’s breast on MTV in 2003. He tweeted an apology.

He also grabbed Hilarie Burton’s breasts on TRL once. Everyone forgot though.

— Shanice Brim (@ShaniceBrim) October 10, 2017

Joss Whedon, the producer and writer behind TV shows including “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel” and writer-director of the blockbuster “Avengers” movies, came under fire from his ex-wife Kai Cole, who penned a damning essay about his affairs during their marriage in The Wrap this August. Cole wrote:

Despite understanding, on some level, that what he was doing was wrong, he never conceded the hypocrisy of being out in the world preaching feminist ideals, while at the same time, taking away my right to make choices for my life and my body based on the truth. He deceived me for 15 years, so he could have everything he wanted. I believed, everyone believed, that he was one of the good guys, committed to fighting for women’s rights, committed to our marriage, and to the women he worked with. But I now see how he used his relationship with me as a shield, both during and after our marriage, so no one would question his relationships with other women or scrutinize his writing as anything other than feminist.

Whedon did respond to Cole’s essay with this statement to The Wrap: “While this account includes inaccuracies and misrepresentations which can be harmful to their family, Joss is not commenting, out of concern for his children and out of respect for his ex-wife.”

And let’s not forget Roman Polanski, who remains a Hollywood darling, despite his inability to come back to the United States—because he has refused to serve jail time for drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl in 1977.

Besides facing groping, assault, and rape, Hollywood women have the right to be upset about other matters, too. Despite being a land allegedly crammed with feminists, it’s common for female actresses to receive less pay than their male co-stars. And the number of female directors and producers remains small. I’ll let The New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis take it from here:

Women helped build the industry, but it has long been a male-dominated enterprise that systematically treats women—as a class—as inferior to men. It is an industry with a history of sexually exploiting younger female performers and stamping expiration dates on older ones. It is an industry that consistently denies female directors employment and contemptuously treats the female audience as a niche, a problem, an afterthought.

And let’s also not forget that Weinstein’s disgusting behavior seemed to be well-known in Hollywood—yet no one, with a thought to future victims, blew the whistle. In 2013, Seth MacFarlane made a pointed joke at the televised Academy Awards ceremony about Weinstein, telling Best Supporting Actress nominees, “Congratulations, you five ladies no longer have to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein.” Based on the nervous laughter of the audience, it appears there wasn’t confusion at the allusion—but it would be four more years before the story broke.

How is this supporting women?

It is easy to call Hollywood elites and liberal politicians hypocrites. It is frankly astonishing that Hillary Clinton, who tweeted in 2015 that “Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported” (a claim that did not seem to extend to her husband’s alleged victims), took five days to denounce Weinstein. As top White House aide Kellyanne Conway tweeted, Clinton isn’t always so slow to react:

It took Hillary abt 5 minutes to blame NRA for madman’s rampage, but 5 days to sorta-kinda blame Harvey Weinstein 4 his sexually assaults.

— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) October 10, 2017

Likewise, the Obamas took five days to issue a statement.

The common factor may have been the amount of money given to their campaigns, thanks to Weinstein. According to Politico, Weinstein’s efforts resulted in $1.4 million for Clinton’s 2016 campaign and $600,000 for Obama’s 2012 campaign. Not to be cynical, but: I think we have a motive for delay.

Now that Democrats and Hollywooders have realized there’s going to be no comeback for Weinstein, that there’s too many accusations of horrible things, they are quickly changing course. Weinstein has been fired from his company. The Democratic National Committee, which has received $300,000 from Weinstein over the years, is donating $30,000 to charities including EMILY’s List, which seeks to elect pro-abortion female politicians.

Which brings me back to my point: Perhaps Weinstein isn’t a hypocrite, but rather the fulfillment of the real values that undergird Hollywood. Maybe the abortion obsession shared by Democrats and celebrities isn’t about giving women futures, but about giving men the guarantee to have consequence-free sex, even if the condom breaks or the birth control fails.

Sure, it’s often actresses, not actors, supporting Planned Parenthood—but if we’ve learned anything from the Weinstein saga, it’s that actresses often feel compelled or pressured to do certain things in order to have a successful career.

Again: Let’s look at Hollywood’s behavior, not what it says. It’s a place where young women are cherished and older women have to desperately fight for good roles. It’s a place where men get paid more, and where men more often are the leaders. It’s a place where somehow Weinstein was allowed to sexually harass and assault women for decades, and a place where a rapist like Polanski and a man who married his adopted daughter, like Allen, can remain lionized.

Sarah Palin isn’t controlling Hollywood. Nor is George W. Bush, or Donald Trump, or Michele Bachmann, or Mike Pence, or any other conservative figure the left slams. There’s no vast right-wing conspiracy here, no outside forces upsetting the liberal utopia that is Hollywood.

No, this is the world Hollywood has made for itself—and it’s a really ugly place, particularly if you’re a woman. Perhaps, as Whedon is accused of doing by his ex-wife, Hollywood men have just realized it’s easier to get away with bad behavior toward women if you say you embrace feminism.

It’s great that Weinstein is finally facing accountability. But it’s just not him who should; it’s the values of the entire system that kept him safe in a liberal cocoon for so long.

To steal Edelstein’s phrase, if women “know what’s good for them,” they should take a long, hard look at Hollywood’s liberal values—and see if they make a better world for women, or instead make it easier for men to act like out-of-control frat boys.

Commentary by Katrina Trinko. Originally published at The Daily Signal.