#it’s among the ​Top 10 What The Fuck Leon moments

[mooseonahunt]

Cringing every time Leon shoots Ada down and she folds like an omelette after making contact with the solid ground. Was there really no other way to GENTLY get her down god damn Leon

[ivebeenmade]

Elliot Alderson’s 5 year plan

“It’s...bigger than I expected.” Tyrell remarks, weighing the binder of loose leaf notes in both arms. Elliot had been telling him for the last few days that they needed to ‘talk’. This isn’t exactly what he expected but there’s really little explanation needed.

FIVE YEAR PLAN is written boldly on the cover page; it’s laminated and everything. Wellick gives a low whistle. Elliot tries to reach for the hefty plans (no pun intended) his boyfriend is holding.

They’d spent a few months away in Sweden. Call it regrouping. As Tyrell leafs through the first few pages, dodging Elliot’s attempts to save him from what he’s now convinced might scare the man away, he sees that the vacation is a small part of Alderson’s big plans.

“It’s too much,” Elliot begins. Tyrell is shaking his head, settling down. This is going to take a while. By the looks of the binder, the color coded tabs, he could simply reference this as they go. He’s come to learn that the fully integrated Elliot Alderson was a little bit of the other personalities he’d met, and then some; and also not a thing like any of them at all most of the time. The motivation, the joy he got from accomplishing his goals or helping the ones he loved do the same, it was infectious. 

“No. No it’ll just take some time.” An eyebrow raised here, a comment there. “I think I’m beginning to get a feeling for your system at least.” The blond laughs. Clearly, the color coding is broken down into “stuff Elliot needs to do”, “stuff Elliot hopes Tyrell will do”, and “other” (ie how he plans to get Darlene to get her shit together, how Leon might fit into a corporate world...oh yeah, redefining Ecorp was part of the plans but fell under another category...well, multiple categories).

Elliot’s easy grin and tilt of his head go along with an almost distractingly intense stare. He seems to get this way whenever Tyrell speaks these days. The latter has already come to realize that some of the accent he tried to squash while blending into corporate America has probably come back pretty thick in the months they’ve spent healing. He’s noticed he has more of a tendency to pepper in words and phrases of his first language. Elliot loves it, and explains without prompting one day that it shows how much more relaxed he is, how he’s not this big ball of fakery and nerves (who he very much hated himself) anymore. It’s progress. 

Great progress, he’d remarked wistfully. There’s a section in the giant binder for the both of them quitting the worst of their habits. Elliot’s drug problem had started before the others took over, and the effects were still very much felt. He’d handled that with counselors and the right prescriptions to help his body handle the chemical addiction. 

Hours in, debating little details as the author of these big plans had expected, Tyrell accepts that the brilliant mind he’d very much fallen for in the beginning was the core of Elliot. Finding joy in the little things, planning for the future, it was beautiful. He couldn’t describe how fucking grateful he was that that was the man he had been warned he’d have to get to know when they reconnected at the hospital.

Towards the end, making 5 years into their future, there’s a lot of information before his intent is revealed. Elliot’s medical files, studies on the likelihood of...something...and the pros and cons of working towards this step at the age they’d be.

“A...a family?”

“Yeah. I thought, deep down, that’s what you wanted with Joanna. Why you stayed.” They’d been over that again and again, not that it was difficult for Tyrell to admit that his first marriage was ‘toxic’ to put it mildly. He’d loved and wanted his son before he’d seen him with his own eyes. Only once. “Oh, babe, don’t-”

“I’m fine.” Tyrell says, rubbing his eyes, then sighing deeply. Honesty, that was at the top of the list for them. “Ok. I’m not. I’ll always regret that, but yes I can and definitely do want to have a family with you.”

“Good. We’re not getting any younger. And my body isn’t in the best shape but as you can see my doctors are optimistic. It may take a little work- hah, I can see you and I are thinking the same thing there.”

“Yes, absolutely. Now, before that actually happens what’s this about the company? It’s in ruins.”

“That’s not Ecorp, obviously, Tyrell.” Elliot is confident to the point of cocky when he easily flips back to the professional entries among his 5 year plan. There’s a colorful logo, the name changed by just one letter.”

“I almost forgot, your dream.”

“Our. Our dream. There has to be a reason why it was yours when I was there. Do the math, it’s easy. We’re supposed to do this together.”

“Then we will.” A knowing smile passes between them. When the other says anything is going to happen, it happens. “Now, we could start practicing for the last entry, since it will take some work.”

“Don’t worry, that’s covered.” The tone of Alderson’s voice teases, as if there’s more to this than even the gigantic binder of plans had revealed to him. And of course there was. They’d have practice.

The matter is delicate, and it would have been perfect for Leon to burst in with Irving (and anyone else he’d needed on the job) at that very moment. To close that unpleasantness for good, Elliot already had a name chosen for Tyrell’s stolen child. As reported to him recently, those people really had no business raising their daughter, let alone their grandson, and were dirtier than Tyrell Wellick had ever even wished he was. Elliot didn’t have to wish his boyfriend would appreciate this, or be on board with the name, he knew he would. He knew whatever became of the child’s grandparents wouldn’t matter to him. 

Soon they’d be one step closer to completing their goals. Elliot had never felt so good. He wonders if the other man had realized that the plans included some extra time ‘on vacation’ and just why they’d need it. They were going to start their family right, and do right by their kids. Their relationship and family were priority one. 

In a couple of days, if that old temper flared up at all (really a misdirection for Tyrell’s self-doubt; a facet of himself he had a hard time accepting before he began to improve on it) Elliot had a million ways to shut down his bullshit. Sometimes, that was exactly how he had to keep his other half moving; remind him his complaints were full of shit and came from a place where he’d sooner have pain than success. It was a little thing that should be obvious but you have to love a person to know the difference. 

In fairness, Wellick was damn good at covering that up, almost as good as Elliot but Elliot had the advantage of learning his own pitfalls through five different fractured voices that were for the most part trying to help. And they had, until he was really ready to be whole. 

So they’d work on eachother, and their friends and family, and then the world. Elliot had a fairly good idea how his partner would react to their family starting sooner than he’d laid out in the massive binder. 

“What am I missing, Elliot?” Knowing Tyrell knew him well enough to see these highly detailed plans for the next several years of their lives, and assume there could still be more, weirdly warmed his heart. Actually, fuck that. What was wrong with knowing each other? That was a good sign. Something to cheer about in his next therapy session. 

Sure, he’d had a moment of doubt himself. This was a huge ask for a pretty new relationship. Good thing he’d started out small. The remaining plans weren’t totally organized anyhow, and might need subtle edits after a few years. There was definitely an even larger binder (hopefully) ready to take on the 10 year version. “I got it covered.”

for @clairebearhq @nywythwndblws

[crackimagines]

How about Sonia and Chihiro finding a DMX song and being surprised by all the cussing but really liking it and next time their friends see them they're cursing a lot much to everyone's dismay.

Now THESE ARE THE KINDA ASKS I LIVE FOR ANON! LEAVE THIS TO ME!

Thanks for the ask anon, and I hope you enjoy!

Chihiro Fujisaki

Chihiro was looking on his laptop after class one day, extremely BORED. While browsing through the internet, he noticed a song on his recommended. He shrugged, and decided to click it. I mean, what’s the worst that could be on it-

X GON GIVE IT TO YA

FUCK WAIT FOR YOU TO GET IT ON YOUR OWN

KNOCK KNOCK OPEN UP THE DOOR, IT’S REAL

WITH NON-STOP, POP POP AND STAINLESS STEEL

GO HARD GETTING BUSY WIT IT

BUT I GOT SUCH A GOOD HEART

THEN I’LL MAKE A MOTHERFUCKER WONDER IF HE DID IT

Chihiro was…well concerned at the very least. Not the fact his laptop was blasting this at full volume, but the fact…it didn’t sound half bad actually. Chihiro decided to save it to his MP3 player, and give it a listen on his walk home…

The Next Day

Chihiro walked into his class’s room that next day, and sat down like normal.

(Mondo) “Ah, Chihiro! What’s up-”

(Chihiro) “WHAT’S UP MOTHERFUCKER?”

Everything just stopped. Makoto and Sayaka stopped talking, and looked at Chihiro with such wide eyes, and Kyoko actually flinched and almost choked on her coffee that she was drinking. Byakuya almost dropped his book, and fell over on his chair. Leon failed to catch the ball that he was tossing up and down, and let it land onto Hifumi’s face, who was too busy realizing what Chihiro had just said to pay attention to his surrounding. Celeste full on dropped her books, and didn’t bother to try and pick them up. Hagakure, Leon, Taka, and Toko quickly turned aorund with such horrified expressions on them, as if somebody had been murdered in front of them. Aoi spit out her donut that she was eating, while Sakura broke the clipboard she was holding with her bare hands on pure reflex hearing Chihiro shout such vulgar words. Junko and Mukuro turned around, and while Junko was refraining from laughing, Mukuro was also among those who had a terrified expression. 

Mondo…well, he just cracked his knuckles.

“ALRIGHT SHITLORD. YOU GOT 10 SECONDS TO TELL ME WHAT YOU DID WITH THE REAL CHIHIRO, BEFORE I DECIDE TO SEND YOU FLYING OUT THIS WINDOW.”

(Chihiro) “A-AH!”

(Makoto) “M-Mondo, I think that’s the real Chihiro!”

(Mondo) “Wha- Ah hell, Chihiro who taught you to say these things? Do I need to kick their ass?”

(Chihiro) “N-No! It’s…well, I uh…It’s from this song I listened to.”

(Mondo) “Song?”

Chihiro handed Mondo the flashdrive which included the song. Mondo held onto it for a moment before tossing it to Leon.

(Mondo) “Do it.”

(Leon) “Gotcha.”

Leon winded up his good ol throwing arm, and Mukuro ran to open the window, and he CHUCKED THAT SHIT OUT OF THERE. Chihiro was a little upset, but he just kept that to himself.

(Mondo) “Chihiro, I think me and you should have a talk, man to man.”

(Chihiro) “W-What for?”

(Mondo) “Well uh…J-Just come on.”

Mondo had Chihiro follow him outside the classroom to have a civil discussion about what to say, and what NOT to say when everyone thinks you’re a cinnamon roll.

Sonia Nevermind

Note- It’s going to be the same song she’s going to be listening to

 Sonia wanted to know more about the other countries since she had the chance to be just a normal girl. Her first stop for today, was going to be the music. 

She visited the store, picking out whatever caught her eye, and what did catch her eye, was the American section. There was music like rock and roll, hip hop, pop, and a brand new genre that she was not quite familiar with. Rap. She picked out an artist named…DMX? Such a strange name, but the more she widened her horizons, the better!

After she bought it, she went back to her room, and decided to give several songs a listen. After listening to several songs, like “Carry on Wayward Son” “Welcome to the Black Parade” “Nuclear”, she finally decided to give rap a listen. 

“X gon give it to ya”

(Sonia) “What could this possibly be-”

30 SECONDS LATER

“HOW DIVINE! I MUST SHARE IT WITH THE OTHERS, THEY WOULD ENJOY IT LIKE I HAVE!”

The next morning…

(Sonia) “Ah, Chiaki!”

(Chiaki) “Sonia? What do you need?”

(Sonia) “Would you like to listen to this song I found?”

(Chiaki) “Um…Sure why not?”

Sonia excitedly gave her earphones, and Sonia pressed play on her MP3 player.

(Chiaki) “….Oh dear.”

Chiaki was about to say something to Sonia, but then she saw how bright Sonia’s eyes were, and how full of excitement they were.

I mean, can you say NO to this face?

Chiaki then told Sonia that the song was good, but then Sonia said something that made Chiaki worry like none other.

(Sonia) “Should I try speaking like the man in the song for today?”

(Chiaki) “Um…-”

(Chiaki) “…Sure.”

(Sonia) “Ah! Thank you for your input, Chiaki!”

Sonia quickly hugged Chiaki, then ran inside. Later, Chiaki heard Sonia cursing from the top of her lungs, scaring everybody in the Academy.

(Chiaki) sigh “What have I allowed to happen…?”

She went back to playing her PSP as she heard Sonia drop 50 F-bombs in the span of a minute behind her.

[midnightiscoming-kasabian]

*Noel [Gallagher Fielding]

DIY Magazine, August 2017

Kasabian: Forever having the last laugh

Much loved and misunderstood in equal measures, Kasabian are still the band your mother warned you about. 

Keep reading

Back in 1998, when Tom Meighan was 17 years old, he stepped out onto the stage of The Shed in Leicester in front of a group of friends and family and began Kasabian’s first ever gig as though he were headlining Glastonbury. “I remember hiding behind the stairs and then appearing like it was some fucking [arena]. That’s the level my head was at then,” he recalls. “It was all our mates in the crowd, so everyone’s gonna tell you you’re good. But we knew we were good anyway. We knew we had something special.” Fast forward 16 years and four Number One records later to 2014, and Kasabian were headlining Glastonbury for real. This month, now with yet another Number One (current LP ‘For Crying Out Loud’) to add to the tally, they’ll headline Reading & Leeds for the second time. Tonight, they’re headlining Glasgow’s TRNSMT to 50,000 people. Taking top billing alongside Radiohead and hometown heroes Biffy Clyro, theirs is the only day to sell out.

Undeniably, Kasabian are one of the biggest bands in the country, sitting in a top tier cohabited by the likes of Arctic Monkeys, Muse and very few else. It’s a mountain they’ve scaled while being hit with endless criticisms along the way – for their lyrics, their ethos, their entire ‘schtick’; surely no other band of their stature has received such a media mauling as Tom, co-conspirator Serge Pizzorno and bandmates Chris Edwards and Ian Matthews. But through it all, Kasabian have always had two indisputable weapons in their arsenal: a world class live show capable of silencing even the most po-faced of doubters, and a twinkle of the eye that suggests they’re forever having twenty times more fun than any grumbling muso slagging them off. “We’re a big band. We sell albums. People don’t like it, that’s the way it is,” intones Tom, plainly. “We’ve never been arse-licked; we’ve grafted, me and Serge, to where we’ve got. Everyone hated us when we came out and we’re still here. I don’t regret any of [our choices]. It’s all tongue in cheek, you know? That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

Our whirlwind 36 hours within the Kasabian machine begins the night before at Glasgow’s O2 Academy. The band have hired out the venue for a final rehearsal and, despite their flights from Estonia being cancelled the night before, meaning a time-consuming re-routing and a police escort to get them on a train to the city, they’re trucking on regardless. Flight cases emblazoned with the group’s logo fill up the venue and two delivery drivers bearing stacks of pizza boxes higher than their heads arrive to fuel the touring party; when the band appear just before 9pm, Serge recalls how he was bottled the last time they played here, requiring six stitches and leaving bloodied hand prints down the dressing room corridor walls. It’s fair to say that almost everything in Kasabian’s orbit is bigger and madder and more quote-worthy than normal life.

Their reasons for tonight’s additional run through, however, are impressively un-starry. Kasabian don’t like to go into a gig cold - “We’re trying to get this collective mass of people and take them somewhere, but if we have three or four days off, I feel like it takes half a set to get there,” explains Serge. “Whereas now I think, well, we were here last night so we just carry on” - and so for two hours, on the eve of one of their summer’s biggest shows, they play some of this decade’s most hedonistic hits to a handful of non-plussed roadies in an empty room. There’s possibly none more fitting a picture of Kasabian’s strange dichotomy – excessive and purposefully ridiculous yet grounded and down to earth – than watching them blast through a live karaoke version of ultimate sesh anthem ‘Fire’ (Tom’s ducked out by this point) to precisely no-one.“The thing is though, we really care,” enthuses Serge the next day, red roses stitched onto his tracksuit as he lounges with a cup of tea back in the band’s country house hotel. “There’s a responsibility when you’re at the top of the bill to end the night on a massive fucking high, and we’ve built a reputation for that. Anyone who’s indifferent to us and doesn’t get it, misses the jokes and misses the point, they see it live and at the end of the gig they understand. It’s really important to us that people go away thinking…” He pauses. “Well, we try and change your life.”While Tom bats away any mention of the band’s detractors with the dismissive attitude of a man who genuinely doesn’t give a shit (“Nah. Done it. Can’t do anything else. Headlined Glastonbury; got six albums; probably do another 10 more. That’s how it is”), Serge is more frustrated by people’s frequent misconceptions of his band. It’s indicative of the yin-yang personality types at the heart of the duo.

In conversation, Tom is gregarious and hyperactive, with the attention span of a six-year-old on Christmas Day. He says exactly what he thinks and is already distracted by the next thing before you’ve even processed the answer. Serge, meanwhile, is a generous conversationalist, ruminating in depth on any topic he’s given. On stage, Tom, says his bandmate, has been “exactly the same from day one. He was quite a powerful character [even] at school; he’d walk into the year area and you could tell his presence.” Serge, however, has only more recently come to embrace the thrill of the stage. “I didn’t feel the need to be Freddie Mercury - that compulsion some people have to perform,” he explains. “But there was a moment when I realised I can just fuck about. I think about what I can get away with to make the other lads laugh in front of all these people. It’s ridiculous standing on stage, so you should embrace it.” But while Tom and Serge might come from different angles, both have always been united in the pursuit of fun and playfulness, of keeping things just that little bit silly. During the campaign for 2014 LP ‘48:13’, they performed backed by a series of flashing slogans including ‘Free Deirdre’ and ‘Maggot Munch’. When they headlined Glastonbury, their only ‘special guest’ was pal Noel Fielding dressed as a cartoon vampire. Joyously irreverent, theirs is a humour entrenched as much in a Young Ones-esque tradition of eccentric British comedy as one of boisterous British bands. That’s the bit that so many people seem to struggle with. “One of the most frustrating things is when people miss the humour. There’s so much piss taking in everything we do,” begins Serge. “We’re in on the joke, that’s the thing that people don’t seem to understand.” The oft-quoted stereotype, we suggest, is of Kasabian as a kind of real life Spinal Tap, dialling up the rock’n’roll cliché to 11… “It’s that middle class, apologetic, broadsheet opinion,” he replies, getting slightly rattled by the thought. “Kings of Leon: that’s Spinal Tap. Kanye getting stuck on a fucking digger truck at Glastonbury: that’s Spinal Tap. I mean, hearing Kanye singing Freddie Mercury out of tune at Glastonbury is as Spinal Tap as anything anyone else has ever done, so… it’s rich, is what I’m saying. The parody and the ridiculousness of being in a band is all nonsense. It doesn’t matter what kind of band you’re in; it’s all nonsense.”

Back in the early days, around 2004’s self-titled debut, Serge admits that Kasabian embraced all the “nonsense” rather a lot more. “We didn’t think it was gonna last longer than one album, so we decided that we were gonna experience everything we could,” he grins, with the look of a man who’s seen a few detention slips in his time. “We’d turn up to festivals and just fucking go through people. Run in dressing rooms, off our fucking heads – honestly, we were so fucked. No-one liked us. We were just fucking horrible little shits, which was perfect. I love The Stooges and those kinds of bands… We wanted everyone to fucking hate us. It was great. It’s all part of the show.” If social media had existed back then, he notes, “it would have been disgusting”. Now, both Tom and Serge are fathers and in their mid-30s. Five albums after releasing the debut they thought would be their only record, they’ve settled into a space surprisingly far down the other end of the rockstar bullshit spectrum. Say what you want about the on-stage swagger and lairy bangers, but underneath it all Kasabian have kept remarkably grounded. “That’s the thing, we’re just not fucking like that. We live in Leicester with all our families and all our pals and that’s because we saw through the fakeness from day one,” Serge shrugs. “You could reel off the people who’ve turned into dicks and that’s fucked them, but that’s just not us. We saw through it. How can I write music for the people that I relate to if I’m not around them? 50,000 people aren’t gonna relate if I stand around with a load of supermodels opening envelopes. No one gives a fuck about that guy.”

Cut to later that evening and 50,000 people are most certainly giving all the fucks. Having spent the hour before stage time blasting out Beatles songs and milling among a small and unanimously entertaining group of pals including Trainspotting legend Robert Carlyle and a perma-sunglasses wearing old friend only known as The Turtle, Kasabian take to the TRNSMT stage to a deafening roar. “It’s about anticipation, it’s like a boxing match,” notes Tom about the build up to stage time. “We’re like monkeys in a cage, and it’s my job to rattle the cage. I go from Clark Kent to Superman. BANG - like that.” The set, as always, is huge and cathartic and powerful; a 90-minute, all-consuming escape from reality that has the entire field uniformly losing their minds in unison. To paraphrase Serge’s own words previously, even if you don’t get it before, by the end of the gig you’ll understand.Off stage, enjoying a post-show beverage or two, we notice that Serge is wearing not one, but three identical gold Casio watches up his arm. The theory, he explains with that twinkle in his eye, is that casually observed on stage, they’ll look like a standard bit of bling. “But then when you look closer…” he chuckles, with a wink. It’s exactly the kind of weird and wonderful thought process that characterises the songwriter and his band of childhood pals. Some people will scoff and chalk it up as another example of the band’s rockstar buffoonery, but Kasabian have always known it’s far more fun, having a laugh down here with the people. “I genuinely just think life’s too short,” smiles Serge. “The odds of any of this happening. I mean, just to be born in this country alone, you’re already dreaming - then to have the life I’ve had. So I figure, I’ve been given this, and I can’t explain why, but man, I’m going out in a blaze of glory. And I figure if I worry and hide, then what a waste. I’m gonna have the fucking time of my life on that stage. I’m gonna have it so big. And maybe that’s what people see in us? Like, you know what? They’re living it.” 

[thisdaynews]

Corporate America freaks out over Elizabeth Warren

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/corporate-america-freaks-out-over-elizabeth-warren/

Corporate America freaks out over Elizabeth Warren

When CNBC host Jim Cramer did a piece on money managers freaking out about Warren, the candidate grabbed the clip and tweeted above it: “I’m Elizabeth Warren and I approve this message.”

It’s led to fairly widespread frustration that Warren’s rise seems unstoppable.

“There’s really not a damn thing you can do about Warren. There is nothing,” said one prominent Wall Street hedge fund manager and Democratic bundler who is raising money for a Warren rival. “It’s the same thing Republicans went through with Trump. You look at her and think what she is going to do is going to be horrible for the country. But if you say anything about it you just make her stronger.”

This fund manager, like a half-dozen other executives interviewed for this story, declined to be identified by name for fear of being directly attacked by Warren. Some, however, are happy to ring the alarm, no matter how Warren might use their words.

“What is wrong with billionaires? You can become a billionaire by developing products and services that people will pay for,” said Leon Cooperman, a billionaire former Goldman Sachs executive who is now CEO of investment firm Omega Advisors and who predicts a 25 percent market drop should Warren become president. “I believe in a progressive income tax and the rich paying more. But this is the fucking American dream she is shitting on.”

Earlier in the campaign, executives suggested they found Warren at least a more palatable alternative to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), an avowed democratic socialist. Warren, a former Republican, has said she’s a capitalist “to my bones.” Even now, some billionaires are urging calm.

“‘Ninety-seven percent of the people I know in my world are really, really fearful of her,” billionaire Michael Novogratz told Bloomberg over the weekend. “It’s a little carried away.”

But more broadly the mood has shifted as Warren now leads Biden in some national and early state polls. And she has intensified her rhetoric toward Wall Street and the tech industry in particular.

At last week’s debate she stressed that she would no longer take any money at all from tech or Wall Street executives, after having success with tech donors earlier in the campaign.

“If we are going to talk about Wall Street and having some serious regulation over Wall Street, we should ask if people are funding their campaigns by taking money from those executives,” Warren said, an indirect dig at former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, both of whom have held high-dollar Wall Street fundraisers.

“You can’t go behind closed doors and take the money of these executives and then turn around and expect that these are the people who are actually finally going to enforce the laws. We need campaign finance rules and practices.”

The current strategy among centrist, corporate-friendly Democrats is mostly to hope and pray that Biden — or perhaps Buttigieg or even Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) — can still take her out and prevent a possible Warren presidency that could upend business models and reshape entire industries.

Most are not ready to jump over to Trump, but some at least ponder the idea.

“I don’t assume all these people would go to Trump. Plenty of them think there is much more at stake than just narrow industry interests or tax rates,” a second hedge fund executive said. “There are a bunch of financial people that at the end of the day, if she’s the candidate, they will still support her. They won’t raise money for her because they can’t. But they will still support her because of what the alternative is.”

Among other things scaring corporate America and rich people, Warren has pledged to institute wealth taxes and break up tech giants and Wall Street banks. She has taken sharpest aim at the private equity industry, introducing the “Stop Wall Street Looting Act of 2019” that would essentially wipe out some of the industry’s most lucrative practices.

Much of this would be hard to enact without large majorities in both houses of Congress. But Warren could do a great deal in the regulatory world to appoint strict overseers and push much more stringent rules while rolling back the Trump administration’s deregulation efforts.

As of now, there is no organized Stop Warren strategy.

The closest thing that has emerged lately is a vague whisper campaign that former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg could ride into the Democratic primary at the last minute if it appears Biden is really failing. But even Bloomberg’s closest confidants admit there is little chance he could succeed.

“Mike’s calculation, rightly or wrongly, is that the same people who back Biden would back him,” said a person close to the former mayor. “But it’s by no means clear to him or to anyone that it’s even possible.”

Political observers view a late Bloomberg run as even less likely to succeed.

“First of all Bloomberg is older than Biden, even though he doesn’t look it,” said Greg Valliere, chief U.S. strategist at AGF Investments, the Toronto financial firm. “And the big impediment is he’s out of step with his own party. The activist base would be appalled by someone so pro-Wall Street.”

Biden’s dip in the polls — coupled with his troubling report of just $9 million in cash on hand at the end of the third quarter — has anti-Warren Wall Street types looking hard at other Democrats, led for the moment by Buttigieg, who has built a strong core of well-heeled fundraisers led by hedge fund manager Orin Kramer.

According to recently released figures, Buttigieg raised around $25,000 from executives at finance firms including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and hedge fund giants like Bridgewater, Renaissance Technologies and Elliott Management in the third quarter. And he raised around $150,000 from donors who described their occupation as “investor.”

Overall, Buttigieg is now in much stronger financial shape than Biden with around $23 million in the bank at the end of the third quarter to around $9 million for the former vice president. Klobuchar has just $3.7 million, which leads many big donors to think she doesn’t have a shot to last long after early voting in Iowa and New Hampshire next year.

Buttigieg raising significant cash from Wall Street executives may make him a target of both Warren and Sanders. But a Buttigieg campaign official said it would not have an influence on his policies toward the industry. “People are coming to us because of Pete’s message and they are seeing and hearing real excitement and enthusiasm around him,” the official said. “We have over 600,000 individual donors to this campaign and our grassroots energy is very, very strong. We have events where people give more money and events where people give $10 or $15 and people who give $1 or $2 online.”

Perhaps the biggest hope among centrist Democrats is not that Biden finally catches fire again or that Buttigieg bursts to the top. It’s that Warren’s time as the front-runner takes a toll. Signs of that emerged in the Democratic debate last week as Klobuchar and others went after Warren for not being clear how she would pay for “Medicare for All” and refusing to say that she would raise taxes. Warren is now pledging to come up with a plan to pay for her plan.

Some executives also say they hope that moderate Democrats in swing Senate and House seats up in 2020 will begin to get scared of running with Warren at the top of the ticket and start to agitate harder for Biden or someone else.

“What it’s going to take is moderate Democrats in swing states and swing districts who are terrified of running with her at the top of the ticket coming out and doing something,” said a senior executive at one of Wall Street’s largest banks. “But nobody wants to piss her off. Nobody wants to be on her bad list.”

This executive said if Warren gets to the general election that Trump — whose campaign had $83 million in the bank at the end of the third quarter — would paint her as a threat to the American economy. “No one has really run opposition research on her yet. She’s skated pretty clean up till now. If you get her in the general, Trump and the RNC will paint her to the left of Mao. You look at the history of John Kerry and Michael Dukakis and Massachusetts liberals and it’s not very good.”

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