#meanwhile the adults have entered all out warfare

[tennessoui]

I feel like this is a big ask, but 1. welcome back! 2. can you ever see KUWSK going angsty? Not permanently or anything, but what would a KUWSK obikin disagreement look like?

yes thank you for welcoming me back a month and a half ago i'm a bit trash to be so late on this but!! here is about 2k of a more serious fight between anakin and obi-wan.

(2k)

“You’re talking to your ex,” Anakin says. It’s the tone of voice he uses on work calls when he’s absolutely furious but trying to remain professional. Obi-Wan has never heard it directed at him before. He almost doesn’t recognize it. 

“Casually,” he stresses. “We’re…casually speaking.”

“Casually,” Anakin echoes in that same voice. Obi-Wan is starting to think he’s done something incredibly wrong. 

“She messaged me,” he stresses, feeling as if this is an important fact. “I didn’t reach out to her.”

“But you reached back!” Anakin says loudly, putting the spoon on its rest a touch too forcefully. “And then you didn’t even tell me!”

“I thought it was a non-issue!” Obi-Wan protests. “I don’t tell you when I talk to the woman at the supermarket checkout line!”

“Keep Francesca out of this,” Anakin cuts through the air with the side of his hand as he spins around to open their spice cabinet. “You know full well that’s different.”

“She flirts with me at the store, and you’re fine with it!” Obi-Wan quite completely feels like tearing out his hair. He can’t believe they’re having this conversation. He can’t believe his own fortune, that he’d pulled up a picture mid-playful argument with Anakin over what the twins had dressed as for Halloween when they were five, and he’d shown it to his partner at the exact moment that Satine ex-Kenobi had texted him, replying to something he'd sent a week ago.

That had pretty much ended the playful part of their argument.

“Yeah, and it’s not the fucking same, Obi-Wan,” Anakin responds, shaking a bit of salt aggressively into the stew. “You were never fucking married to fucking Francesca.”

“Anakin—”

“And by the way,” Anakin snaps, trading the salt for cayenne pepper and seasoning it liberally. “Implying that your ex-wife is also flirting with you over texts you did not tell me about is not the best strategy, Professor.”

The worst part is that he’s not even looking at him anymore, scowling instead into the contents of the heavy pot.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan tries, because he’s not listening, he’s just reacting. Of course Obi-Wan knows Francesca and Satine aren’t really the same thing, but they mean the same thing to him. One slips him free red bell peppers sometimes by ringing them up as green ones with a wink and a quirk of her lips. The other is his ex-wife.

But neither of them is Anakin, and so they mean the same thing to him. He doesn’t love them. He can’t even pay them the slightest modicum of his attention, because he’s too wrapped up in and around and going crazy over this man who’s petty enough to have absolutely just ruined Obi-Wan’s dinner on purpose by adding too much spice to the stew Obi-Wan had requested.

“Anakin, I think we need to take a step back from this,” he finally gets out when his partner is distracted by opening and closing the cabinet doors, ostensibly looking for the bowls even though he’d been the one to reorganize the dishes in the first place, years ago, and he’s never not known where something is.

“I think I’m going to sleep in my room tonight,” Anakin replies in an icy voice. “I think you might be right.”

“What? Darling, no—Anakin, love, it’s—casual cannot even come close to describing the texts, you can read them if you want, there’s nothing there—“

“Daddy? Obi?” Luke asks from the kitchen doorway. He’s peering around it, little face looking horrified. Obi-Wan freezes. How loud had they been? Luke and Leia are seven now, they remember these things, they have questions—“Is dinner ready? Obi?”

Leia’s face joins the same pale ghost of her brother’s, and Obi-Wan feels awful. Absolutely terrible, but the sort of terrible he doesn’t know what to do with. The twins heard them arguing, they were practically shouting at each other, Anakin is planning to sleep in a different room, Anakin didn’t even call it a guest room, he called it his room even though they’ve been together for—for a year and a bit now—and isn’t that devastating? My room, Anakin had said. Does he not understand everything Obi-Wan owns is his as well? Does he…does he not want it?

“Almost,” Anakin replies. He sounds so forcefully happy that it’s manic. It comes across much too fake, and Obi-Wan can feel the way Luke immediately distrusts the word, the expression. “I just realized I forgot something at the store though! We need bread! We can’t have the stew without bread.” 

Anakin nods once to himself as he says this, shooting Obi-Wan a very quick glance before his eyes snag on the phone on the counter between them and he looks away as if incredibly pained, hands ghosting down to the pockets of his jeans to check for his keys.

Obi-Wan thinks it would really actually kill a part of him to watch Anakin drive away on his bike right now. Not to mention the twins.

Oh, the twins. 

This had been why they were so hesitant in the first place, to bite the bullet, to kiss and mean it and remember it and lean in again. Their relationship affects the twins, and as much as Obi-Wan loves Anakin, he’d been so worried about even accidentally causing the kids distress. 

He thinks seeing their father leave when they can tell something is wrong would be devastating.

“I’ll go,” Obi-Wan says, putting a hand flat on the counter, pocketing the phone, and fighting the urge to glare at Anakin because the other man should know—should think—but this Anakin is almost a stranger to him, all clenched jaw and shaking hands and it’s just a text—it sort of makes him mad as well, angry that it hurts so much, that Anakin doesn’t trust him. They’ve known each other going on three years, their entire lives were intertwined almost immediately. “Give me the keys.”

“Yeah, right,” Anakin scoffs, shoulders tense and unyielding. “To the bike?”

“No, dumb—” he cuts himself off because he’s too old to be namecalling, especially around little ears. “The keys to the car are behind you. On their hook. Can you hand them to me?”  He doesn’t think he should get within a few feet of Anakin right now. Not for fear of violence–either from him or from his partner—but because it just—it doesn’t seem like a good idea. Not when they need bread.

“Should I leave my phone?” He can’t help but ask acidly. 

“I don’t know,” Anakin shoots back with deadly accuracy, slinging the keys across the countertop hard enough that they spin out of control and Obi-Wan has to stoop to catch them “Should you?”

Obi-Wan turns and gets to the mouth of the kitchen without another word. He debates his actions, his emotions, for a second’s pause before he puts his phone on the countertop and sweeps out into the entryway and then just as quickly out of the house all together.

He can’t go far. The Skywalkers have made him incapable of it. He’ll go to the store. He’ll get Anakin his fucking bread, which really means he’ll give Anakin space to think, and he’ll take his own space to think, and then he’ll come back because it’s Anakin, it’s Anakin and it’s his family, and he thinks this is the stupidest fight in the entire goddamn world because doesn’t Anakin know how much he can’t love anyone else? Doesn’t he know that if Satine were to turn up on his doorstep tomorrow and ask for him to unsign the divorce papers, he wouldn’t even consider it?

Doesn’t he know—

“Obi?” Leia’s voice says at the same time there’s a hesitant tug on the edge of his shirt. He turns around and looks down at the girl. “Where are you going, Obi?”

“Your father wants bread for dinner,” he tells her. “So I’m going out to get bread. For dinner.”

“Oh,” Leia bites her lip before looking back behind her at the open door of the house. “Luke wants to know if you’re gonna come back, Obi.”

Since she turned seven, Leia has had trouble admitting when she wants to know something. She finds it so much easier to pretend she’s her brother’s spokesperson. “Daddy, Luke wants to know if the dog dies in the movie.” “Obi, Luke wants to know if we have to go to the barbecue, only cause Johnny is going to be there, and Luke really doesn’t like him.”

“Leia love,” Obi-Wan crouches down to look at her completely. “Of course I’m coming back. We need bread, darling.”

“I don’t want bread,” she snaps, sounding suddenly so very much like her father. “I want you.”

“Leia,” Obi-Wan pauses, smoothing his hand over the top of her hair carefully. He needs to soothe her, because he and Anakin had been so out of line earlier, fighting where the children could hear and now look what it’s done to them.

“Obi,” Luke trots out of the house before he can figure out what to say to her. “Obi, you should take this,” he holds something up and presses it into unresisting hands. “If daddy needs to keep your phone, you can have mine. Just in case you wanna talk to us while you’re gone.”

It’s the plastic, bulky flip phone that’d come in a kit of kid’s toys a Christmas ago. Smiley faces instead of buttons, but it made sounds when you hit it. Luke had been obsessed with it from the beginning.

Obi-Wan looks down at the phone and feels the very absurd urge to cry. “Loves,” he whispers, pulling Leia into his side. “Oh—”

He remembers thinking once when he’d just been given the Skywalkers, that first time he’d been asked to sit beside Luke’s bed until he fell asleep, that for children, love was about staying.

How can he possibly leave them now? When he loves them so much as well? When his love never grew out of that child��s wish for someone to stroke his hair as he dozed?

“Oh, alright, Luke, Leia,” he says, standing with only a bit of a wince because he’s getting so very old and Leia has thrown her arms around his neck unexpectedly so he rises with the weight of a child attached to him. “If your daddy wants bread, then let’s get him bread.”

“Road trip?” Leia asks with excitement.

“Better,” Obi-Wan promises, letting Luke grab onto his hand. “Science experiment.”

[hasspartacusdoneanythingwrong]

The Century War of Wyverns, Part 2: Chase the French Soldier

[Previous] [Contents] [Next]

Kat: Our first encounters in a strange new land! It... doesn't go well tbh, but I'm sure the next one will!

Cris: Turns out Spartacus doesn't understand "the back of your blade" very well.

Jeanne: {CWs for violence against humans, death, first-person panic attack}

------

God dammit, how the hell can that mountain of muscle move so fast? We barely got a word in edgewise and he’s already left us in the dust! If we don’t get there in time those soldiers are gonna be a big red smear on the ground. One more hill, and… he’s just… standing there, having a conversation with them? He gestured towards the one in the gaudiest uniform before walking over.

Spartacus: Placet expectare.

Spartacus: Ah master, there you are! I have glorious news! These soldiers are themselves fighting against the oppression of a false king! Of course, a true king is also oppressive in its own way, but still! Their leader even speaks latin! Roughly.

French General: C'est ton géant ?

Kat: <Ooh, ooh! I got this! Time for all that duolingo to do its thing!>

April (Kat): Bonjour, garcon!

I internally rolled my eyes as the soldier blanched.

Cris: <Kat. Garcon means boy. Let’s try something else.>

April (Cris): (Hey, Mash, do you know French? Mine’s a little rusty.)

Mash: (Sorry master, I barely know enough to say hello.)

April (Jeanne): (Well, English is a common lingua franca, might as well try that, right?)

Cris: <Good idea!>

Mash: Wait, that’s-

April (Cris): Sorry about that, tried to be polite, don’t actually know that much French. The big guy’s with us, and we were hoping you… could… Ah, fuck.

The soldiers had already surrounded us. Cries of “L’Anglais!” erupted around us as they pointed their spears in our direction.

Mash: The French are at war with England in this time period!

April (Cris): I gathered, yeah.

Spartacus: So now they seek to oppress us as well?

Mash: What are your orders, master?

April (Cris): Take them down but try not to kill the idiots. Uh… hit them with the back of your blade, or something.

Mash lifted her shield up quizzically.

Mash: And what part of this, exactly, is the blade?

April (Cris): Dammit, just try not to kill them!

Even holding back, it was clear the soldiers were no match for Mash Kyrielight. She ran circles around them, their every attack parried as their weapons shattered against their shield. Even three on one, the soldiers didn’t stand a chance. Meanwhile, Spartacus ha- oh God.

I faltered, stumbled off the road and retched. If Mash had a spotless technique, Spartacus’ was nothing but spots. He simply walked from soldier to soldier and shattered their bodies with his fists. He hadn’t even bothered to draw his sword. The few soldiers Mash pacified were bruised, but relatively unharmed. The ones unlucky enough to face Spartacus weren’t going to get back up.

The forest span <Jeanne?> around me. I know someone was calling our name, but I couldn't <Jeanne!> hear anything beyond the blood rushing to my head. My chest hurt, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't- <JEANNE!>

A sharp sting as my hand slapped my cheek. Cris stopped me from spiraling again. I took a moment to breathe properly.

April (Jeanne): Okay… Okay, I’m good. I think.

I slowly stood up and made it back to the others. The surviving French soldiers had already made their escape. Mash’s spirit origin was shaking. I put my hand on her shoulder as I got closer.

April (Jeanne): Mash, are you alright?

Mash: I should be asking you that, Master. I’m… I can’t believe it, but I’m still not used to this.

April (Jeanne): It’s only been a day or two Mash, you don’t have to force yourself to be okay with this.

Mash: A day? Oh, right.

Spartacus: Mmh. It might be better for you two if you don’t become comfortable in these sorts of things. The two of you are unoppressed by the experience of warfare. Hold that close to you.

Mash: Right. Thank you, Spartacus. So, what’s our next move?

April (Cris): Right, I hate to do this, but… we need to follow the soldiers that ran off.

Spartacus: Ahah, we must finish the fight then?

April (Cris): NO! Nonono. I mean, they’re going to run to the nearest place with people. They’re our only lead right now. Did you see which way they went, Spartacus?

Spartacus: Of course! Follow me!

----

On our way, we got in contact with Dr. Roman again. Turns out our plugsuit comes equipped with a translator- would have come in handy earlier, but fuck it, at least we won’t have to fight literally everyone we come across.

The sky was turning red when we finally saw the smoke clouds over the horizon. We rushed over a hill and finally got a look at the fort. It was in bad shape. Walls crumbled in, with smoke and fire billowing out from several windows. Dark shapes moved through the smoke, obscured in a haze.

Another wall fell over as we descen-

Kat: <Hey, look! Isn’t that one of the soldiers?>

Sure enough, one of the survivors of Spartacus’ rampage was kneeling at the top of the hill.

April (Cris): Hey! Hey you! Don’t fucking run, I’m talking to you!

The soldier had started, but before he made it to his feet we were already surrounding him. He was speaking too fast to translate at first, so I just pressed on.

April (Cris): Look, I get it if you don’t believe us, but we’re not gonna kill you.

April (Jeanne): We have traveled a long way because we heard something very, very bad was happening here. Please, can you tell us what is going on?

French Soldier: Oh, and what are the English going to do about it?! Insult her and run away?

Cris: <Apparently we can do a lot fucking more than your soldiers can.>

April (Jeanne): We have fought worse. Now, who is this “her”?

French Soldier: You’ve fought worse than Jeanne d’Arc? Hah! Unlikely!

Mash: Jeanne d’Arc? She should be dead by this point!

French Soldier: That is the worst part, she is! She was dead for three days, when the Saint of Orleans appeared out of nowhere and started razing all of France to the ground. She’s been tearing around with an Army of monsters for days now! Even King Charles couldn’t stand up to her!

April (Jeanne): Thank you. We will figure out a way to stop this, I promise.

By the time we got closer to the ruined fort, whatever had caused so much damage had long since disappeared. However, I could still make out faint traces of enchantment on some of the bodies scattered around the field.

April (Jeanne): Roman, I'm noticing something off about this corpse. What do you make of it?

Mash: Senpai, we really should get out of the open while there’s still daylight.

April (Jeanne): Give Roman a second, Mash. I'm sure there's something off about it.

Roman: Huh. Good catch, April. This body had been treated for necromancy. Large-scale necromancy is certainly rare, but it’s still possible with or without a holy grail. Either way, it’s good to have an idea of what we’re up against.

We entered the keep. Walking around was a nightmare, it was as if every square inch of space was taken up by the injured. Their groans echoed through the fort. Suddenly, I felt something on the edge of my scanning area. It was faint, but unmistakable. A spirit origin.

April (Jeanne): Mash, do you feel that?

Mash: Barely. There must be a servant outside the castle.

April (Jeanne): No, about thirty feet in that direction. Does anyone catch your eye?

Mash: There’s no one there who could be a servant, Master.

Cris: <This is pointless, let me look.>

Kat: <No way! You got to yell at the guy, lemme look, lemme look!>

Yay, I won! I turned where Jeanne was pointing. The whole place was just beat up soldiers & less beat up soldiers taking care of them. Oh, there’s one! A little girl is going around comforting people as they fall asleep!

April (Kat): What about that little girl? The one dressed in all white? Can she be a servant?

Roman: That’s not likely. Servants are invariably summoned at the “peak” of their myth. It’s possible for child prodigies to be summoned young, but the vast majority will either be young adults when they are most powerful, or at old age when they are most skilled. You guys should get some rest while you can. I’ve detected a leyline a day’s travel from here, you should set out in the morning.

We found a spot near a wall and curled up to sleep. I don’t remember much of my dreams, but when I woke up it was still dark. That girl was still tiptoeing around the soldiers, and every now and then I caught her singing, at barely above a whisper.

That was weird enough, but then something amazing happened! The soldier she was standing next to, his wounds suddenly shrank, until it was like he never got hurt at all! He shifted in his sleep, and she moved on to the next one.

April (Kat): (I knew it!)

I pulled myself out of our pile as slow as possible, and inched closer to her.

April (Kat): Excuse me?

Little Girl: Hello miss. (Please keep your voice down, people are sleeping!)

April (Kat): (Oh, sorry! This might sound weird, but… are you a servant?)

Little Girl: (I am a faithful servant of God, yes. Is something wrong?)

April (Kat): (That’s not exactly what I meant. I mean are you human?)

A strange look crossed the girls face.

Little Girl: (I was. Let’s talk outside.)

She led me by the hand out of the castle. She had such a strong grip, it was kinda awkward! Once we were a bit away, she turned to face me. Suddenly, a spear covered in flags appeared out of nowhere and landed in her hands!

Little Girl: As you have guessed, I am indeed a Servant, Lancer class. My true name is Jeanne d’Arc.

[witchcraft-in-wonderland]

Two Sugars Please (Pt.3)

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

Business was slow in the cafe that day, Patton liked it that way, Hera didn't, she still had enough energy to handle fifteen customers at once and not get tired. Virgil liked it because it meant he had less to do.

Patton was startled out of his thoughts by the sound of the bell ringing, and what seemed like a cyclone entering the building.

"Remus! Adrestia! You can explore later!" now that was a voice Patton hadn't expected to hear until much later.

"Janus! Didnt expect to see you so soon," Patton said, smiling. Janus was joined seconds later by the boy with a drawn-on mustache, and the child with a black headband. On his other side was Roman, still sporting a red sash, and Aphrodite, now wearing a white crown instead of headband.

"I decided to check out the cafe, since I was on the street," Janus smirked slightly, Patton felt his face flush.

"Are you two gonna kiss or is this some weird staring contest," Hera said, tilting her head.

Janus laughed slightly, Patton plucked Hera off her perch on the counter and held her against his hip.

"Hera that's not the type of comment you make in public ok sweetie?" Patton said, poking her on the nose slightly. She let out a giggle and a sneeze.

"Well it's kinda hard not to huh?" Virgil said, Apate snickered behind a gloved hand. If Patton's face could have gotten and redder, it probably did.

"Very observant aren't they?" Janus said, there was a glint in his eye that sent shivers down Patton's spine.

"Daaaaaaaaaaddddddd- I want cookies," Adrestia's face had broken into a frown, their face pressed against the glass.

"Adrestia, we don't fog up display cases remember, pick out which one you want," Janus said. The three other children followed suit, and soon Patton was handing off four separate cookies for each child.

"I'm gonna be tall to one day!" Roman was standing on his tiptoes next to Virgil, as though trying to reach his height. This was in no way a difficult feat for the 12 year old boy, as Virgil's slouch made him rather small.

"Heh, yeah, maybe you will," Virgil said, ruffling Roman's hair.

"So can you teach us to make these to!" Adrestia and Aphrodite were following at Apate's heels as they worked.

They smiled, if only barely noticable "Of course, I'd love to," they said.

"So when you're older you can help me with world domination to!" Remus, meanwhile, was instilling chaos via teaching Hera the meaning of words such as "arson" "warfare" and "cannibalism" while the younger listened intently.

"Remus, you can teach her about world domination later, you still have chores to do when we get home dont you?" Janus said.

"They're quite a handful huh?" Patton said, laughing.

"That they are, its refreshing, keeps me on my toes," Janus said, still keeping a close eye on all four.

"You must need a lot of breaks though huh?" Patton said, turning back to his work.

"Oh of course, actually, I was wondering if you might accompany me to a dinner I have next week, of course I'll be hiring sitters, it's a three day vacation for my colleagues and I," Janus said, his eyes now less glinted and more curious. Patton could feel him watching his every move.

"Janus that sounds wonderful, but what about mine? I can hardly afford a sitter for 3 days on my paychecks-" he said, it was hard to conceal the guilt in his voice.

"I can handle that, I've seen how tired you look our past few meetings, you deserve a break every once and a while," Janus said, the smirk returning to his face.

"You really don't have to do that, it doesn't seem right," Patton said, laughing slightly.

"Please, don't mind at all," Janus responded. This argument went on for a few minutes, Patton finally caving in, albeit after a bit of pushing from his eldest children.

"And you're both sure this is ok, I can trust you not to make a mess?" Patton said, arms crossed over his chest.

"We promise," all three of his children said in unison.

"That goes for you four as well, just because there'll be seven of you doesnt mean you can establish another anarchist rebellion against your babysitter," Janus said, his eyes lingering on Remus and Adrestia for a few seconds longer.

"Fiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeee," the quartet groaned.

Patton still had several thoughts racing in his head as he drove home, the excited jabbering of his three children ringing in his ears.

"Dad, you're acting like me during finals week, it's only three days, we'll be with an adult, we'll be fine," Virgil was seated next to him on the couch, finishing up his homework and listening the the tv show Hera had put on while he worked.

"But what if something happens, what if Apate forgets to take off their binder? what if Hera gets hurt again? what if-" Virgil raised an eyebrow.

"Those all sound like things that phone reminders and text messages can handle pretty well yeah?" he said, Patton nodded.

"You're a really smart kid, Virgil, I hope I've told you that enough times," Patton said.

"Love you to dad," Virgil responded.

Patton had started his day feeling like he was missing a major part of his life, but now, he felt like maybe this new friend of his might be just what he needed to get himself back together.

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

Tag List:

@official-lucifers-child

@oceanart123

@spooky-scary-virgil

@misunderstoodshadowling

@devil-towne

@kawaiikat54

[entireconfection]

Can We Turn It Around?

Hard to believe it’s been four years, isn’t it?

           As I sit down to write this, 5 weeks out from the 2020 election, it’s hard to know where to start. For almost four years now, we’ve been living in an altered (and very shitty) state of reality. Donald Trump’s America. A never-ending dumpster fire. And, to be frank, one of the worst chapters in our country’s history. On top of that, we’ve just crossed the half-year mark of a global pandemic, an ongoing crisis by turns devastating and surreal, one that seems sadly befitting of our dystopian, is-this-really-happening times.

           After 4 agonizing years of hate and stupidity ruling the roost, of nonstop assaults on science and decency and civility, of the obliteration of democratic norms, destruction of the checks and balances that we naively assumed would always be there for us, we’ve almost arrived at another election. And with it, the possibility that we can start to turn this around. That we can rise up and say “NO. We DON’T want a dictatorship. We WON’T go along with this. We will FIGHT for love and decency and our democracy.”

           Personally, I am proceeding under the assumption that Trump will be reelected. I have to do so for my own wellbeing. I don’t want to get my hopes up. The bitter, blindsiding defeat of 2016 is still fresh in my mind. There are many ways that this election could turn into a shitshow. Not the least of which is we have a ruthless dictator as President who is doing everything he can to sabotage the vote. And he has a powerful ally in the Republican party, which has expertly suppressed the vote for decades and is doing so now with as much gusto as ever, determined to hold onto power at all costs. Throw in all of the logistical challenges and obstacles caused by COVID, along with all of the flaws of our antiquated, broken-by-design voting system (courtesy of the democracy-hating GOP), and no one really knows what the hell is going to happen on November 3.

           So I have to assume that Trump will win. Because, awful as that will be, life will go on if he wins. And I need to be able to carry on as well.

           Still, as accustomed as I’ve become to the insanity of the Trump era, it’s sometimes hard to grasp that it’s come to this. That we are perilously close to becoming an authoritarian country with a permanent conservative majority. That it pretty much all hangs on this election.

           It’s not just our country either. It’s our planet that’s on the line. Perhaps you’ve heard of climate change? You know, that little issue that Americans don’t give a shit about, but is an existential threat to human civilization? Well, it’s only getting worse. The Northern Hemisphere just had its hottest summer ever, 2 degrees above normal. You can expect a new record every year for your lifetime.

           Trump, as expected, has been a disaster for the climate – withdrawing from the Paris Accord, gutting environmental regulations left and right, and basically doing as much damage to the earth as possible. Given that experts say we have 10 years to make major cuts in emissions if we have any hope of avoiding irreversible and catastrophic climate disruption, it’s safe to say that a second Trump term would pretty much be game over for the climate, and for life as we know it. It’s the predictable outcome when you elect an idiot climate denier president of the most powerful country in the world.

           Then there’s the fate of democracy itself, which is in a perilous position around the world. Fascism masquerading as “right-wing parties” has been on the march across Europe for years. Trump has gleefully helped that effort, cozying up to ruthless dictators like Kim-Jong Il and giving his buddy Putin the green light to continue to ratfuck elections, sow chaos, and wage cyber warfare on any country he chooses.

Meanwhile, Trump has given the middle finger to our allies constantly since taking office. Again, completely to be expected from a jingoistic simpleton whose entire understanding of foreign policy boils down to “America First.” Remember his shit-eating smirk while refusing to shake Angela Merkel’s hand in the Oval Office? Trump exemplifies the right’s foaming-mouth hatred of Europe, foreigners, and diplomacy. Just one of their many flavors of bigotry, he and his base believe that the rest of the world basically consists of international elitists determined to destroy America. Not exactly a philosophy conducive to preventing trifling matters like, say, global pandemics or world wars.

The more I write, the more I remember when an absolute sleazebag our president is, and the more astonished I am that this man is our president. This is the guy who 60 million people voted for in 2016. This is the guy who is nothing less than a savior to millions and millions of white Americans. Donald fucking Trump? You would be hard-pressed to find a more loathsome person in all of America. And despite knowing full well how polarized and tribalized we have become, it’s still hard to fathom that so many Americans can look at this vile, morally bankrupt con man and see a great leader, a champion of their values, the greatest president of all time. It just doesn’t compute.

           And yes, many of his voters are well aware of his vices, and yes, white working-class voters have legitimate problems, and on and on. For four years, we’ve discussed and dissected these reasons for Trump’s victory. They are admitted and entered into the record. Now can we please get rid of this menace because he destroys our democracy, wiping out the great experiment that has endured for 244 years?

           Because that’s what’s really on the line on November 3. We’re all deciding if we want to go back to being a democracy – a flawed, messy, imperfect democracy to be sure, but still a democracy at heart – or a dictatorship.  That’s not hyperbole. That’s just the situation.

Trump, aided and abetted by the entire Republican apparatus and 40% of the population, has turned us into a dictatorship. He has put his cronies in positions of power. He has fired anyone who refuses to become his unquestioning flunky, smearing public servants who have spent decades working to help people – a concept completely alien to Trump. He has demonized the media (except for the propaganda outlets who run only pro-Trump news), relentlessly undermining one of the pillars of a liberal democracy, turning people against the very journalists who are trying to expose how Trump is screwing them over. He has conspired with our enemies to compromise our own elections. He came to power by colluding with Russia to his political opponent. He tear-gassed peaceful protestors in front of the White House and painted Black Lives Matter as radical terrorists and applauded right-wing vigilantes who pointed guns at BLM protestors. Hell, he gave them a plum speaking slot at the RNC. Because that’s who calls the shots in Donald Trump’s America – racists and white supremacists.

So, yeah…it’s a rubbish time. And as anyone who remembers the train wreck of Election Night 2016 can understand, I don’t want to get my hopes up. We’ve all been burned one too many times.

Still, it is nice – if only for a moment – to think about a President Biden.

A president who acts like a fucking adult, not a tantrum-throwing toddler or a schoolyard bully.

A president who condemns violence, not one who exploits and encourages it for political gain.

A president who speaks carefully and thoughtfully, knowing his words have real-life consequences. Not one who constantly spews venom and lies, not caring if people die as a result because they’re not his base so screw them.

A president who refuses to legitimize dangerous conspiracy theories. Not one who gleefully seizes on every twisted fairy-tale to emerge from alt-right trolls lurking on 4chan.

A president who accepts the simple fact that our world is interconnected and that diplomacy, respect, and civil discourse are our best tools for making life better for everyone. Not one who embraces the right’s phony-ass “patriotism” and thinks Americans – more specifically, his supporters – are the only people on Earth who matter.

A president who does his fucking job, not one who sits on his ass tweeting and watching Fox News to get his daily ass-kissing. When he’s not golfing or holding white supremacist rallies, that is.

Trump’s awfulness is simply unparalleled, probably in human history. It is an expansive mass so vast and blatant and unashamed that it’s almost a work of art, in a sick way. You could go on forever about the cringe, the iconic moments of incompetence, the garish displays of smirking idiocy and unabashed bigotry that have come to define our time. Sharpie-doctored hurricane maps, Kanye in the Oval Office, calling African countries “shitholes,” telling black and Latina Congresswomen to “go back where they came from,” toilet paper on the shoe, shoving a world leader on stage, soundproof phone booths at the EPA, white supremacists as “very fine people,” caravans, paper towels, upside-down Bibles, covfefe…it has just been a constant, dizzying tornado of hate and evil and stupid. It’s why I stopped watching the news. It’s too much. We weren’t wired to ingest this level of crazy and awful every day. Being a human being is hard enough as it is.

It’s hard to stomach the thought of one more day of this shit, let alone 4 years. Should Trump get reelected, it’s hard to see how anything good will survive. And should his victory come once again come via dirty tricks, be it foreign interference or voter suppression or both, it would appear to confirm that our system has been so hopelessly corrupted by the right that it’s impossible for a Democrat to win. It would suggest that it is now impossible to have a fair presidential election and we’re doomed to have permanent tyrannical rule by a racist, reactionary, science-hating, authoritarian minority. Where we go from there is anyone’s guess.

I hope we can turn it around. I hope there are enough decent people out there who are fed up with this asshole. I hope the myriad GOTV efforts we’ve seen in recent months will motivate people who sat out last time, and maybe some people who have never voted. I hope the collective determination of people who are against Trump is enough to overcome the GOP’s perennial cheating and voter-suppression campaigns. I hope, no matter the outcome, that the whole thing doesn’t devolve into an epic shitshow that makes Florida 2000 look like a calm and orderly affair.

So I have hope. Is it well-founded? Is it anything more than wishful thinking? Hard to say. But when all appears lost, that’s what we have. Hope.  

In closing, if you are dismayed by what America has become these past 4 years, if you want to save the democracy that so many people fought and died for throughout our history, please vote for Biden. Your kids, your grandkids, and the entire world will thank you.

[xtruss]

We’re Approaching a Level of Manufactured Mass Hysteria and Herd Mentality That Not Even Goebbels Could Have Imagined

"There comes a point in the introduction of every new official narrative when people no longer remember how it started"

— Covid-1984 | CJ Hopkins | Anti-Empire.Com | May 5, 2020

“It’s all right there in black and white. They aren’t hiding the totalitarianism … they don’t have to. Because people are begging for it. They are demanding to be “locked down” inside their homes, forced to wear masks, and stand two meters apart, for reasons that most of them no longer remember”

There comes a point in the introduction of every new official narrative when people no longer remember how it started. Or, rather, they remember how it started, but not the propaganda that started it. Or, rather, they remember all that (or are able to, if you press them on it), but it doesn’t make any difference anymore, because the official narrative has supplanted reality.

You’ll remember this point from the War on Terror, and specifically the occupation of Iraq. By the latter half of 2004, most Westerners had completely forgotten the propaganda that launched the invasion, and thus regarded the Iraqi resistance as “terrorists,” despite the fact that the United States had invaded and was occupying their country for no legitimate reason whatsoever. By that time, it was abundantly clear that there were no “weapons of mass destruction,” and that the U.S.A. had invaded a nation that had not attacked it, and posed no threat to it, and so was perpetrating a textbook war of aggression.

These facts did not matter, not in the slightest. By that time, Westerners were totally immersed in the official War on Terror narrative, which had superseded objective reality. Herd mentality had taken over. It’s difficult to describe how this works; it’s a state of functional dissociation. It wasn’t that people didn’t know the facts, or that they didn’t understand the facts. They knew the Iraqis weren’t “terrorists.” At the same time, they knew they were definitely “terrorists,” despite the fact that they knew that they weren’t. They knew there were no WMDs, that there had never been any WMDs, and still they were certain there were WMDs, which would be found, although they clearly did not exist.

The same thing happened in Nazi Germany. The majority of the German people were never fanatical anti-Semites like the hardcore N.S.D.A.P. members. If they had been, there would have been no need for Goebbels and his monstrous propaganda machine. No, the Germans during the Nazi period, like the Americans during the War on Terror, knew that their victims posed no threat to them, and at the same time they believed exactly the opposite, and thus did not protest as their neighbors were hauled out of their homes and sent off to death camps, camps which, in their dissociative state, simultaneously did and did not exist.

What I’m describing probably sounds like psychosis, but, technically speaking, it isn’t … not quite. It is not an absolute break from reality. People functioning in this state know that what they believe is not real. Nonetheless, they are forced to believe it (and do, actually, literally, believe it, as impossible as I know that sounds), because the consequences of not believing it are even more frightening than the cognitive dissonance of believing a narrative they know is a fiction. Disbelieving the official narrative means excommunication from “normality,” the loss of friends, income, status, and in many cases far worse punishments. Herd animals, in a state of panic, instinctively run towards the center of the herd. Separation from the herd makes them easy prey for pursuing predators. It is the same primal instinct operating here.

It is the goal of every official narrative to generate this type of herd mentality, not in order to deceive or dupe the public, but, rather, to confuse and terrorize them to the point where they revert to their primal instincts, and are being driven purely by existential fear, and facts and truth no longer matter. Once an official narrative reaches this point, it is unassailable by facts and reason. It no longer needs facts to justify it. It justifies itself with its own existence. Reason cannot penetrate it. Arguing with its adherents is pointless. They know it is irrational. They simply do not care.

We are reaching this point with the coronavirus narrative. It is possible that we have already reached it. Despite the fact that what we are dealing with is a virus that, yes, is clearly deadly to the old and those with medical conditions, but that is just as clearly not a deadly threat to the majority of the human species, people are cowering inside their homes as if the Zombie Apocalpyse had finally begun. Many appear to believe that this virus is some sort of Alien-Terrorist Death Flu (or weaponized Virus of Mass Destruction) that will kill you the second you breathe it in.

This is not surprising at all, because, according to the official narrative, its destructive powers are nearly unlimited. Not only will it obliterate your lungs, and liquidate all your other major organs, and kill you with blood clots, and intestinal damage, now it causes “sudden strokes in young adults,” and possibly spontaneous prostate cancer, and God knows what other medical horrors!

According to all the “scientists” and “medical experts” (i.e., those that conform to the official narrative, not all the other scientists and medical experts), it is unlike any other virus that has ever existed in the history of viruses. It certainly doesn’t follow the typical pattern of spreading extensively for a limited period, and then rapidly dying down on its own, regardless of what measures are taken to thwart it, as this Israeli study would seem to indicate.

Also, “we have no immunity against it,” which is why we all have to remain “locked down” like unruly inmates in a penitentiary until a vaccine can be concocted and forced onto every living person on earth. Apparently, this mandatory wonder vaccine will magically render us immune to this virus against which we have no immunity (and are totally unable to develop immunity), which immunity will be certified on our mandatory “immunity papers,” which we will need to travel, get a job, send our kids to school, and, you know, to show the police when they stop us on the street because we look like maybe we might be “infected.”

Germany (where I live) is way out in front of this. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the federal government plans to introduce a coronavirus “immunity card” as part of its “Infection Protection Law,” which will grant the authorities the power to round up anyone “suspected to be contagious” and force them into … uh … “quarantine,” and “forbid them from entering certain public places.” The Malaysian authorities have dispensed with such niceties, and are arresting migrant workers and refugees in so-called “Covid-19 red zones” and marching them off to God knows where.

Oh, yeah, and I almost forgot … the germ and chemical warfare researchers at DARPA (i.e., the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) have developed some new type of fancy blood test that will identify “asymptomatic carriers” (i.e., people who display no symptoms whatsoever). So that will probably come in handy … especially if the “white supremacists,” “Red-Brown extremists,” and “conspiracy theorists” keep protesting the lockdown with their wives and kids!

And these are just the latest additions to a list of rather dystopian examples of the “brave new normal” official narrative that GloboCap is rolling out, right before our very eyes (which the OffGuardian editors have streamlined here and here, and which continues on Twitter). It’s all right there in black and white. They aren’t hiding the totalitarianism … they don’t have to. Because people are begging for it. They are demanding to be “locked down” inside their homes, forced to wear masks, and stand two meters apart, for reasons that most of them no longer remember.

Plastic barriers are going up everywhere. Arrows on the floor show you which way to walk. Boxes show you where to stand. Paranoid Blockwarts are putting up signs threatening anyone not wearing a mask. Hysterical little fascist creeps are reporting their neighbors to the police for letting their children play with other children. Millions of people are voluntarily downloading “contact tracing applications” so that governments and global corporations can monitor their every movement. In Spain, they bleached an entire beach, killing everything, down to the insects, in order to protect the public from “infection.” The Internet has become an Orwellian chorus of shrieking, sanctimonious voices bullying everyone into conformity with charts, graphs, and desperate guilt-trips, few of which have much connection to reality. Corporations and governments are censoring dissent. We’re approaching a level of manufactured mass hysteria and herd mentality that not even Goebbels could have imagined.

Meanwhile, they’re striking the mostly empty “field hospitals,” and the theatrical “hospital ship” is now gone, and despite their attempts to inflate the Covid-19 death count as much as humanly possible, the projected hundreds of millions of deaths have not materialized (not even close), and Sweden is fine, as is most of humanity, and … just like there were no WMDs, there is no Virus of Mass Destruction.

What there is, is a new official narrative, the brave new, paranoid, pathologized “normal.” Like the War on Terror, it’s a global narrative. A global, post-ideological narrative. It’s just getting started, so it isn’t yet clear how totalitarian this show will get, but, given the nature of the pilot episode, I am kind of dreading the rest of the series.

Source: Consent Factory | Russia Insider

[specsnsarcasm]

GoT - 705 “Eastwatch”

Omg. Omg omg omg. 

Q. What just happened? 

A. fucking EVERYTHING!!! 

:::SPOILERS:::

SO much to unpack in tonight’s Game of Thrones ep, which felt like a whole damn whole season’s worth of set-up crammed into one! I don’t even know where to begin! 

Ok, first of all, I’m glad the showrunners cut to the chase and didn’t draw shit out needlessly. (It’s a pet peeve. You know - cutesy little “misunderstandings” that could easily be cleared up if the characters behaved like human beings?). I’m glad they didn’t draw out the “did he drown/didn’t he?” scene with Jaime and Bronn, Jaime telling Cersei about Olenna’s last confession, Gendry telling Jon his name, etc. Fucking. Good. Now let’s get to it!

Speaking of Gendry, what’s good, fam!?!!! Good to see you! FINALLY, the internet can stop saying “where’s Gendry???” and making the same joke over and over, the same one that Ser Davos made tonight about him still rowing (Davos’ got jokes!). At this point, so many seasons on, it seems less consequential that he’s Robert Baratheon’s son. It’s like - hello? SO many other ppl vying for legitimacy. Take a number. 

Also, he’s been gone so for long that I forgot it was “Gendry” with a soft “g”, and not Jendry, hard “g”, as in “gender.” I sat there for a sec like “how the fuck did Davos “mr grammar” pronounce it?”

A hammer, Gendry? Really? Is that how we’re going to do this? A big ass fucking hammer. Really. *SIGH*. Okay. Let’s do this. Did he choose it BECAUSE it was his father’s weapon of choice or is this just a coincidence?

Glad to see Sansa and Arya are getting along. ?? Ah, sister rivalry as an adult. I know this very well, myself. You go from fighting about toys, treats, turns and shit, to passive aggressive digs and mental warfare that dig deep because they know you too well, and which characteristics have been there since childhood. Lol 

Speaking of Arya. GIRL! You in danger. I knew stalking Littlefinger was too good to be true (but seriously, how did he know she was there???). Man! I really wanted Arya to give him a taste of his own medicine, but a novice snake is no match for a veteran snake. Have a seat. 

What else? OOOOOooooOOOH! Danny’s got the hots for Jon (who wouldn’t fancy a guy who is good with the kids??? lololol) SUCH a turn on! Haha. Meanwhile, poor ole Jorah legit *just* got home, cured himself, travelled all the way from the Citadel, rested for a hot second, then volunteered his ass to go beyond the fucking wall. like WHY???? Danny didn’t even let him say he loves her this time around. She was like “yeah”. Seriously tho, is “Andal” Westerosi for “cat”, because dude has nine lives! But there are only so many times he can leave and come back before it starts to lose it’s effect. 

The whole dynamic between Tyrion and Danny has me *extremely* nervous. Hands to the king (queen) tend not to last very long on this show, and not only are their ideological differences creating a rift, he’s empathizing with the enemy (his former people). Though maybe it’s just generalized empathy for human suffering, and it’s not Lannister-army specific. 

Speaking of which, I’m really struggling with what Danny did to the Tarlys. So…is slavery better or worse than being dead, in her book? On one hand, my knee jerk reaction is to think it was harsh of her. On the other, she has to make an example of an unrepentant adversary. Would I think twice about it if she were a man? I think it’s initially shocking because you see the ppl burnt to a crisp, Tyrion in such anguish over it and in the back of your mind, you know this is Sam’s family. And despite his father being a massive asshole, Dickon seems pretty ok (if not a bit vacuous). But Tyrion has often been the unofficial moral barometer of the show. Also, in the past, Danny made such a fuss over not wanting the slaves to fight each other to the death, but has no trouble burning soldiers and ppl alive. On the surface, it seems as though Danny is becoming hard, is losing herself. But she’s burned people alive almost, if not every season since her dragons could do that, and we had no problem with it then, when it was badass, or when there was a more definitive villain. But I suppose war is about hard choices…

- Ser Davos had some of the best lines of the night (Davos for King!) 

- Ugh, Sam! Cutting Gilly off when she was getting to some good exposition?? *SIGH*. We’ll get there eventually. Dude was fed UP tho! Well, he tried. I’m kind of excited to see Sam re-enter the fray, but I’m also like - the MOST scared for him. Realistically, the Citadel was probably the safest place for him and the fam to be. He was a rubbish fighter to begin with, and now he’s out of practice! Also, how can he just leave? He has a very valuable trade: “curer of dragonscale”. Shouldn’t he teach the other maesters how to do that, and help all those crazy stone ppl in Old Valeria (I know, I know. The stone people are too far gone, new cases only!)? 

I can’t even deal with Jon going past the wall... to do what, exactly? Kidnap a White Walker (wight) and… bring him to the South, to show Cersei? Wtf! Sure!  

Anyway, here’s me, after tonight’s ep:

[the-master-cylinder]

SUMMARY When a flying saucer reportedly lands in rural Iowa, The Old Man (who runs a secret branch of the CIA), decides to investigate. He goes in person, accompanied by agents Sam (who is the son of The Old Man) and Jarvis, as well as Dr. Mary Sefton, a NASA specialist in alien biology. They find that aliens have indeed landed and are planning to use their mind-control powers to take over the Earth. The aliens are slug-like creatures, and they are attaching themselves to people’s backs, taking control of their victims’ nervous systems, and manipulating those people as puppets.

The slugs spread steadily, and soon attack one of the agents, Sam. Controlling Sam, aliens almost possess the president, too, but are defeated by the agents. Agents then learn they can remove a slug by an electric shock, and free Sam from the possession of a slug. It is soon found out all slugs share a common consciousness, a sort of a group mind.

The aliens quickly reproduce by division, soon controlling not only most of the population of the infested area, but also military personnel sent to the area to fight them.

As agents learn where the aliens’ “hive” is located, they attempt to sneak in, and release Mary, whom aliens captured earlier. Together, they find surviving people whom slugs couldn’t possess. They take one of them, a boy, with them, leaving the hive.

It is soon found out the boy suffered from encephalitis in the past, and that apparently was the reason a slug couldn’t possess him. Biological warfare is adopted, and seemingly all parasites die. During a later inspection of a hive, The Old Man is attacked by the last healthy slug. In a fight on a helicopter, Sam destroys the parasite attached to the body of his father.

DEVELOPMENT Hollywood Pictures, one of the three film divisions at Disney, was interested in making movies different from those made by Touchstone, the other adult aimed Disney branch, and that included more genre films (This has now changed.) executive producer Michael Engelberg, says Elliott always wanted to film The Puppet Masters, so we were set up with him as the executive producer and us as the writers. That’s how we got it: whether that was wise, I really can’t say at this point.

When Terry and I first went in. Elliot explains, we wanted to set the story contemporarily; we didn’t want them to go nude, but to dress down to tank tops and like that, retaining the idea of having to bare as much as you could, but still be able to get actors willing to do it. But because of the development process, there were certain limitations right at the start: we couldn’t do a straight adaptation of the book. The studio executive who said

Yeah! We should buy this book!’ also said. But there should be a spaceship in it Maybe the Puppet Masters could come down to Earth like spores.

Their first draft was close to the novel. but Ricardo Mestres. then-head of Hollywood Pictures, decided he didn’t really like the material. “He wanted a small town be didn’t want the entire country at war. Basically, he wanted the story before Heinlein’s story takes place: he wanted the story of the little town that gets taken first but the takeover is stopped there. I think.” Elliot sighs, we all knew exactly how big a cliche that is.” So their first, faithful-to-the-book draft was discarded.

The studio decided that the slugs would somehow come to Earth on the space shuttle. and wind up on an Air Force base. Terry and I were off the project at that point.” Elliot explains, Michael Engelberel was still a friend of ours, and he was stuck in this horrible situation. He’s a Heinlein fan; he wants The Puppet Masters up on screen. But in Hollywood movies are an act of compromise. The more power you have, the less you have to compromise and Michael was only a first-time executive producer.”

Hollywood Pictures liked the Air Force base idea, and paid Elliott and Rossio to write that script. “When we were halfway through with it.” Elliot goes on. “We heard about the new Warner Bros. Body Snatchers (1993) movie, which is set on an Army base. We turned in the script, and Engelberg went to Michael Eisner (the head of Disneyl and said that he thought a huge mistake was being made. If people go see The Puppet Masters, they don’t want to see a movie set on an Air Force base: they want to see the Midwest in a state of siege Eisner agreed.”

So Ted and I sat down and wrote what eventually became known as the ‘B-version’ of THE PUPPET MASTERS: a shuttle astronaut becomes slug-ridden on a satellite repair mission. The shuttle makes an emergency landing at White Sands, New Mexico. The slugs start spreading, eventually taking over the base. (We consoled ourselves that at least the monsters were the same, and we got to play out many of the same story beats that were in Heinlein’s novel.)

We turned the draft in and the reaction was positive. So now the project was back on track. And to be fair to Ricardo, the new screenplay did indeed read more ‘like a movie,’ i.e., something that could be filmed on a realistic budget. So everyone was happy — Except Engelberg.

So using political machinations worthy of the Old Man himself (favors were called, strings at high levels were pulled) Engelberg engineered this result: Hollywood Pictures would go back to the book (and our first script) and develop the original story concurrently with the B-version. Whichever next draft turned out the best would be the film that would be made.

Also, because the B-version was treated as a separate screenplay, we still owed them a re-write. So Ted and I were asked to revise the original story (which was the story we preferred anyway). Ricardo assigned new writers (James Bonny & Richard Finney) to the ‘B-version.’

They also got a director, Dan Petrie, Jr. which shows which version Ricardo was backing. (For our B-version research, Ted and I had to violate national security and sneak away from an air museum tour at March Air Force Base. In contrast, Petrie and his writers received special passes to Edwards Air Force base and got to watch the shuttle land.)

So now Elliott and Rossio were asked to write a third script, this time basing it much more closely on the novel. Meanwhile.” Ellion continues, “the Air Force base version was assigned a director and two new writers. This put us in a strange situation We were writing the adaptation of the novel. while they were adapting our own Air Force base storyline, so we were in competition with ourselves. The way Hollywood works, that movie could have been made. Welcome to the labyrinthine world of Hollywood screenwriting.

“Their version Rassic adds. “was supported by the studio and had a director while ours Wits just a rewrite under the direction of the executive producer a person who should get a lot of credit, Engelberg really fought a battle to stay as true to the original novel as the film could be. I think that for anybody who appreciates science fiction or movies, you should know that a lot of what’s good about the finished film is directly a result of lus efforts.” The Air Force base version was eventually dropped. largely due to Engelberg’s efforts, and the Elliott-Rossio draft, rewritten by Goyer, was chosen.

Director Stewart Orme brought in Neil Pervis & Rob Wade and, with principal photography weeks away, a new script was commissioned, to be written under Stewart’s direction. Writing screenplays under these rushed conditions goes a long way toward explaining the generally mediocre quality of films.

Enter Jeffrey Katzenberg. He read the shooting script and didn’t like it. It wasn’t the same movie he’d given a green light to. Katzenberg ordered principal photography moved back a month, and, in a rare move for a studio head, ordered the director to go back to a previous draft — the Goyer revision of our script. David Goyer was re-hired and he and Stewart worked to bring Heinlein’s original story to the screen. And that’s the draft that eventually got shot.

The British-born Orme has made a name for himself directing music videos for the likes of Phil Collins. Whitney Houston and Genesis, but he’s also had the opportunity to dabble in darker fare. For British television, he’s helmed mysteries, psychological dramas and thrillers. As he dug into his feature film debut, Heinlein’s space slugs eventually had a strong pull on the director-but initially, he wasn’t sure that he and The Puppet Masters were right for each other.

“I was looking for a project, and I’ve always been a big fan of the classic sci-fi films, but I wasn’t sure about this one at first,” he admits. “What finally interested me was the way the characters related to the story. I wanted to try to do a film that wasn’t just about the monsters. It’s more about the people who are affected by the monsters. The Puppet Masters is essentially an action/ science fiction film, but at the same time there are some interesting psychological twists. I tried to bring a chiller edge in. My favorite material to work with is psychological thrillers-what’s going on in people’s heads. That’s what I tended to emphasize in this story.”

For those who’ve read the novel, they are several sequences left out. The first two made it into the film in some form, I think. The third got pared away by the development process, for no good reason that I can remember.

1.) Investigating the fake spaceship and the fake news broadcast.

2.) Sam gets taken by the slugs, goes over to their side.

3.) Sam sits down in Mary’s place for the slug interview.

4.) Sam goes into slug-infested Kansas City, takes place at night, and doesn’t have near the impact it should have had. In the book (and our script) Sam notices a swimming pool closed for the summer’ and other details that tell him Kansas City is overrun. People are going about their business, controlled by the slugs. It had that twisted normalcy of excellent horror. In the film, it’s just a war scene.

5.) The President takes off his clothes in front of Congress sequence was cut by Ricardo.

6.) The ape, Satan, gets slug-ridden sequence was pared down due to budget

7.) Sam and the Old Man go into the alien spaceship.

No spaceship meant no spaceship for Sam and the Old Man to go into. No throat-tightening claustrophobia, no slugs swimming in fluid, no victims hanging in suspended animation. And that’s a damn shame.

So of the seven great sequences of the book, maybe two and a half of them got up on screen in some form. Not a very impressive score, and it was a horrendous fight to get even that. I’ve come to believe that making a film is like a massive version of throwing a dinner party you invite a lot of people and hope that it turns out good, but you can’t really control it. And after everyone has left and you’ve got this big mess, you wonder if all the work was worth it, why you went to all the trouble.

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Orme admits that it was sometimes a daunting task to create a film from such a well-respected source. “It will be interesting to see what Heinlein’s biggest fans have to say about it all,” he says. “It’s the usual problem when you’re faced with adapting a book-what do you keep in and what do you leave out? Hopefully, what you try to do is retain the spirit of the original. Heinlein’s work always goes over and above the particular plot of his stories, and that’s what you have to get a sense of. I think we did get it, but I’m sure die-hard Heinlein fans will be disappointed that something or other got left out.”

The book is set in 2007, more or less, 50 years after it was written,” said Engelberg. “To do that in the movie would mean that we would have to create an entire society complete with physical appearance of clothing styles, which is really a distraction from what the story is about. It’s fine to do in a book. You know, Heinlein doesn’t describe what people are wearing, ever. We have to actually design that for a movie. Flying cars are expensive. And, I don’t really think that a flying car adds as much to a picture as its cost would penalize us. It’s not a significantly different story just because it takes place in present day.”

Also gone are the little elf-like creatures, the Androgynes, who were the slug’s hosts, arriving along with the ship they built that brought them all to Earth. They’ve been replaced with an almost womb-like creature that literally imbeds itself into a parking structure, where it starts breeding new slugs for the ensuing earth invasion. It’s just a biological thing that has come to earth,” said art director James Hegedus.

A number of other changes to the script took place as the result of the art department working with storyboards, the writers and the effects crews. The art director, James Hegedus,  felt that even though the script was very specific and visual, that there were a lot of things that the story suggested that weren’t written down. With the help of Joe Griffith, story boards were used to brainstorm ideas to help bring about more exciting scenes.

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“Scenes that began to be developed early on were how the creature might behave,” explained Hegedus. “By storyboarding those in advance it suggested ideas of what the creature might do. Also, the creature suggested things after it was built that weren’t visualized earlier.

The New York back lot of Paramount, built for the short lived but critically acclaimed BROOKLYN BRIDGE television series, served as Ambrose, Iowa. In order to get the feel of the rural farmlands, the production went on location to Fresno, California for two weeks. According to Winter, this was done largely to lessen the cost of moving the entire production to lowa and to take advantage of the small-town architecture and a very unique governmental building.

“They have a great city hall!” said Winter. “It looks like a spaceship, it’s wonderful!” Orme mirrored Winter’s enthusiasm for Fresno’s city hall. “It was a real find, because it looked as if it had been designed by aliens,” said Orme. “It really does look almost like a space ship. The man who runs or manages it was a Robert Heinlein fan. So, we were able to persuade him that we should take over the whole place and use the roof, the inside and the underneath.”

Orme was excited about working with an American film icon like Donald Sutherland, even though initially he had some apprehensions. “Most of the films I’ve made have been out of England, where casting is not as high a profile as here.” said Orme. “Working with somebody who’s done 40 or 50 movies, and obviously (Sutherland) brings that experience, it’s slightly nerve-wracking. You spend the first day or so, even if you’ve met beforehand and talked through the scenes, which we had, sort of testing.

“My apprehension was that sometimes he’s been fantastic and sometimes he’s been not quite so good.”

But, Orme found Sutherland to be very charming, an actor who knew and respected his craft. “He was incredibly professional,” said Orme, “no sense at all that this was one of a number of films. He was completely focused on what he was doing. He made the other actors more professional. He kept the crew on their toes. And, for me, he was more than I ever thought he would be. He’s very dignified on screen. He’s got great presence. He looks better than he ever did, I think. It was a joy. And, I think that he enjoyed it, which is the other thing I wouldn’t have thought he might have done. You know, he might have treated it like, ‘Here’s a genre film, I’ve done it before, I’ll just coast through it.’ But, not at all. I think, he had a really good time.”

Still undecided was whether Disney would use Heinlein’s original title on the film or change it to avoid confusion with Full Moon’s PUPPET MASTER series of direct-to video horrors. “Some of us feel more strongly about it than others and for different reasons. There is the obvious connection with the original material, which leads you toward saying it should be called the same as (Robert Heinlein’s book. Then, there’s the fact that it isn’t, like most films, the book transferred to the screen. There have been a number of changes. So, there’s the disadvantage that people will say, “You’re calling it Robert Heinlein’s THE PUPPET MASTERS and it’s not.’ But the reason for wanting to say his name with it, is to differentiate it from some of these other things.”

Unfortunately no one’s yet been able to think of a better title for the film. “I think one of the difficulties is that we haven’t come up with a really good alternative,” said Orme. “I think if there was a cracking title sort of sitting here waiting for us to battle with then we would have probably gotten further down the line.”

Orme noted there have been a few other titles tossed about but none that would really give you goose pimples on a warm day. “There were the obvious things like DOMINION and some were quite interested in calling it WONG—at least I was. Also, THE STRANGERS. A lot of these titles sound like other titles. For better or worse, we’re (stuck) with THE PUPPET MASTERS.”

Ultimately the discussion comes around to the issue of whether or not people are that familiar with Heinlein and his catalog of books. Orme was more than willing to admit that he wasn’t really aware of Heinlein until recently. “I have to confess I was never a great reader of science fiction, said Orme. “I think I was more interested in the films that have arisen in that era.” The Disney marketing executives felt that there were enough Heinlein fans out there that they should attach his name to the title treatment.

Stripped of much of its science fiction props, it is difficult to say how the fans of Heinlein will react to the contemporary feel of the movie. And although it can be said that the true essence of the book was always that the horror of slavery can only be defeated by those who possess, as Heinlein wrote, “the willingness to do sudden battle, anywhere, anytime, and with utter recklessness,” you just can’t help thinking, “No nudity in the OSCI offices?

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The Brain Eaters (1958) American International Pictures released the Corinthian Productions film The Brain Eaters. This low-budget en leave was directed by Bruno Ve Sota written by Gordon Urquhart and produced by Ed Nelson, who also starred. Roger Corman was involved, but his name is not in the credit. Small, furry parasites from the center of the Earth arrive in a metallic cone inhabited by a bearded Leonard Nimoy and begin a plan of world conquest by attaching themselves to the backs of people’s necks and controlling their actions.Readers of science fiction will probably have recognized the central idea…as that of Robert A. Heinlein’s scary The Puppet Masters (1951). That novel was set slightly in the future, and the creatures that possessed people were slug like aliens from Titan. The storyline differed, but the idea of parasites riding on human shoulders and controlling their actions is clearly from Heinlein’s novel.

This wasn’t lost an Heinlein, and he sued for plagiarism, asking for damages of $150,000, claiming that The Brain Eaters was based on his novel The Puppet Masters. Corman insisted that he was unfamiliar with Heinlein’s work, both while reading the script and during the film’s production. He did, however, see the obvious comparisons once he read the novel, so he settled out of court for $5,000 and agreed to Heinlein’s demand that he receive no screen credit, as he found the film “wanting”. This lawsuit halted actor John Payne’s intention of producing a film based on Heinlein’s novel.

THE SLUGS As Heinlein’s creatures were brought to life in the course of adapting the book, a scientific approach was taken. In working out the nature and appearance of the slugs, Engelberg put some of his medical background to use in working out a plausible biology for them.

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“Stuart asked me one day how the slugs travel when they’re not on a host,” he recalls. “I explained that they encyst themselves. They curl up in a little ball with a hard shell. and become like a spore. They could last forever that way. I was just making it up as I went along, but Stuart asked me to write it down. I wrote a short dissertation on the life cycle and habits of the slugs. In the picture, we do show the slugs in their encysted form, and you see them open up into their stingray form. It’s nice. I feel like I made a contribution to Heinlein’s story.”

Cannom’s shop built a variety of radio-controlled and cable-controlled slugs for the film. Molded from the same kind of soft silicone used in breast implants, the parasites have a shockingly lifelike appearance. “The creatures are amazing.” says Goyer. “They really look alive. I have a copy of some test shots that I’ve shown people, and the unanimous reaction is almost complete revulsion,” he laughs.

That revulsion was aided by Arbogast’s mechanical FX, which include the tangle of gigantic alien tentacles that hold victims in place within the mothership. Buena Vista Visual Effects, under the supervision of Peter Montgomery, completed the illusion by both subtracting from and adding to alien shots. Cables and puppetry rods that were visible on camera were covered up optically, and the slugs’ attack probes were added through computer animation.

“The difficult area was always how this thing was going to look,” says director Orme. “The main problem was that the creatures are small, and how do you make something small scary? I didn’t want to repeat spidery things running across the floor or bursting out of people’s chests. I wanted something frightening and elegant in its own way. because these are supposed to be very intelligent creatures that are good at what they do. Cannom’s outfit did a great job with what is essentially a piece of plastic. I thought we’d have to keep the cameras off them because they would look fake. but even on set, you could examine the slugs pretty closely and still get the creeps.”

The aliens ended up getting more screen time than originally planned, but Orme also wanted to make sure that the audience’s imagination remained engaged, and that he didn’t diminish the mystery of the sto giving too much away. “I thought about the Quatermass films,” he says. “The power of those films had much more to do with what you didn’t see.

CAST/CREW Directed Stuart Orme

Produced Ralph Winter

Screenplay Ted Elliott Terry Rossio David S. Goyer

Based on The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein

Donald Sutherland as Andrew Nivens (The Old Man) Eric Thal as Sam Nivens Julie Warner as Mary Sefton Keith David as Alex Holland Will Patton as Dr. Graves Richard Belzer as Jarvis Tom Mason as President Douglas Yaphet Kotto as Ressler Sam Anderson as Culbertson Patrick McCormack as Gidding Marshall Bell as General Morgan Nicholas Cascone as Greenberg Bruce Jarchow as Barnes

Special Effects Department Greg Cannom         special makeup effects Ann Masterson        makeup department head Keith VanderLaan  makeup effects supervisor: Cannom Creations

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Starlog#208 Fangoria#138 Cinefantastique v25n06-v26n01

The Puppet Masters (1994) Retrospective SUMMARY When a flying saucer reportedly lands in rural Iowa, The Old Man (who runs a secret branch of the CIA), decides to investigate.

[bountyofbeads]

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Americans sharply divided over whether to impeach and remove Trump from office, Post-ABC poll finds

By Dan Balz and Emily Guskin | Published November 01 at 6:00 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted November 1, 2019 |

As the House moves to a new, more public phase of its impeachment inquiry, the country is sharply divided along partisan lines over whether President Trump should be impeached and removed from office, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The poll finds that 49 percent of Americans say the president should be impeached and removed from office, while 47 percent say he should not. That finding is almost identical to support for impeachment in a poll by The Post and the Schar School taken earlier in October.

Among Democrats, support for removing the president from office is overwhelming, with 82 percent in favor and 13 percent opposed. Among Republicans, it is almost the reverse, with 82 percent opposed and 18 percent in favor, even as the president’s approval rating reached a new low among members of his party. Independents are closely divided, with 47 percent favoring removal and 49 percent opposed.

[Read the full Post-ABC poll results on website]

[See results by group on website]

On Thursday, the House approved a resolution setting out the terms for the next phase of the inquiry, which to this point has included weeks of closed-door testimony. The resolution laid out plans for televised hearings with witnesses and rules and procedures for the examination of those witnesses.

The vote on that measure split along partisan lines in a House that is bitterly divided. All Republicans and two Democrats opposed the measure, with all other Democrats supporting it. Those divisions reflected the broader public sentiment highlighted in the Post-ABC poll and underscored the partisan warfare that will surround the inquiry as it moves forward.

Although the public is sharply divided on the ultimate question of Trump’s fate in the impeachment process, support for the proceedings has risen over the past few months. In a July Post-ABC survey, 37 percent of Americans said Congress should open an impeachment inquiry that could lead to Trump’s removal, with 59 percent opposed.

The current level of support for impeachment, though revealing the sharp divisions within the country, contrasts notably with attitudes during the process that led to the impeachment, but not removal from office, of former president Bill Clinton. Throughout the fall of 1998, support for impeachment never rose above 41 percent in Post-ABC surveys and stood at 33 percent in December that year, shortly before the House voted to impeach Clinton.

The July poll was taken after the release of the report by former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether the president sought to obstruct the Mueller investigation. That probe found multiple contacts between Trump campaign associates and Russians, but no criminal conspiracy.

The July survey, however, came before recent revelations about the president’s alleged efforts to press Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to open investigations into the 2016 election and into former vice president Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Biden’s son served as a paid adviser on the board of a Ukrainian energy company while his father was in office.

Several witnesses who have testified before the House Intelligence Committee have described a quid pro quo asked by Trump, with military aid to Ukraine and a White House visit by the newly elected Zelensky withheld over the summer as the president pressed Ukrainian leaders for an affirmative statement about the opening of the investigations he was seeking involving his potential rival.

Most Americans judge what Trump did in that case as out of line. The latest survey finds 55 percent of Americans concluding that, regardless of their views on impeachment, Trump did something wrong in his dealings with Ukraine, including 47 percent saying that what he did was seriously wrong. Fewer, 35 percent, say he did nothing wrong, with the remaining 10 percent offering no opinion. Overall, about 1 in 10 say he did something wrong but oppose impeachment.

There are even stronger objections to the role played by Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer and former mayor of New York. Witnesses have characterized Giuliani as running a shadow foreign policy with regard to Ukraine that operated outside the bounds of the administration’s regular chain of command.

Asked whether that was appropriate or not, 60 percent of Americans say it was not, with 31 percent saying it was. On that question, nearly a third of Republicans (32 percent) say Trump involving Giuliani in Ukraine policy was not appropriate, to go along with 83 percent of Democrats and 61 percent of independents.

The president enters the next phase of the impeachment process with approval ratings that are low but unchanged overall. Less than 4 in 10, or 38 percent, of Americans say they approve of the way he is handling his job, the same level as a survey in September. The numbers are almost identical among registered voters. Meanwhile, 58 percent disapprove of Trump’s job performance and 48 percent strongly disapprove.

Trump’s disapproval among independents stands at 57 percent and rises to 91 percent among self-identified Democrats.

Trump’s base of Republicans is less united in support, however, with 74 percent approving of his job performance, a record low in Post-ABC polls. That is not far from his previous low of 78 percent, most recently reached in April, and eight points lower than September’s figure among Republicans. Still, a 64 percent majority of Republicans “strongly approve” of the president, which is similar to 66 percent who said the same in September and higher than at some points in 2017.

The stability of Trump’s overall job approval rating suggests that although Americans may have become more supportive of impeachment, the intensifying House investigation and revelations about his actions toward Ukraine have led few Americans to change their opinions about his presidential performance. Trump continues to be rewarded with particularly strong support among those who have most emphatically supported him throughout his political career, including white men without college education and white evangelical Christians.

About two-thirds of Americans say Trump has acted in a way that is “unpresidential,” including 58 percent who say this is “damaging to the presidency overall.” Yet both figures are little different than during his first year in office, an indication that widespread frustrations have not worsened.

Overall, 9 percent of Americans both disapprove of Trump and oppose impeachment and removing him from office. A smaller 2 percent approve of Trump and say he should be impeached and removed from office.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has led House Democrats to this point in the impeachment process, has an identical approval rating as Trump, at 38 percent positive. Her disapproval rating is 48 percent, 10 percentage points lower than Trump’s, and a sizable 14 percent offer no opinion.

Republicans have expressed strong objections to the decision by House Democrats to hold closed hearings during the initial phase of the impeachment inquiry and for weeks have demanded public hearings. But they voted against the measure Thursday, arguing that the rules proposed by Democrats do not give the president or Republicans adequate powers or protections in how the testimony will be conducted.

Democrats have said those hearings amount to the equivalent to grand jury proceedings, which are always behind closed doors. Asked about those initial hearings, 65 percent of Americans say the initial hearings should be held in public, with 33 percent saying closed-door testimony is acceptable.

Neither the president nor House Democrats draw majority support for the way they have handled things so far, although Democrats fare slightly better. Just over 4 in 10, or 43 percent, approve of the way House Democrats have proceeded to date, with 50 percent disapproving. An even smaller percentage (34 percent) say they approve of how the president has responded to the impeachment inquiry, with 58 percent disapproving.

Pelosi had long said that, to be successful, impeachment should be a bipartisan effort, but partisan perceptions have shaped all aspects of the proceedings so far and are likely to for the foreseeable future, as the poll indicates. Americans see both sides as more motivated by political considerations that by constitutional prerogatives.

Currently, 51 percent of Americans say the Democrats are investigating Trump because they are mainly interested in hurting him politically, while 43 percent say they are mainly interested in upholding the Constitution.

Slightly more Americans (55 percent) say Republicans are more motivated by their desire to help Trump politically, while 36 percent said GOP lawmakers are mainly interested in upholding the Constitution.

Support for impeachment splits along gender as well as partisan lines, with a 14-point gap between men and women. Among women, 56 percent support impeachment and removal of the president. Among men, support for that stands at 42 percent.

Among age groups, the lowest level of support (at 37 percent) is among those ages 40 to 49. Younger adults are most favorable toward impeachment and removal, with 58 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds saying they support that course.

The poll also highlights different attitudes based on race and education. A smaller 39 percent of whites support impeachment and removal, compared with 66 percent of nonwhites, including 76 percent of African Americans.

Among white college graduates, 39 percent of men support impeachment, while 59 percent of women favor it. Among whites without college degrees, less than a quarter, or 24 percent of men and 41 percent of women, say they support impeachment.

The Post-ABC poll was conducted by telephone from Oct. 27-30 among a random national sample of 1,003 adults, 65 percent of whom were reached on cellphones and 35 percent on landlines. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Scott Clement contributed to this report.

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In Ukraine, the quid pro quo may have started long before the phone call

By David Ignatius | Published October 31 at 8:01 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted November 1, 2019 |

A standard theme in detective thrillers is that the perpetrator feels compelled to return to the scene of the crime. It’s an irrational urge, and readers of such potboilers are often left wondering whether the protagonist secretly wants to get caught.

Perhaps we’re living a real-life version of this fictional plot in President Trump’s alleged solicitation of political help from Ukraine, which this week spawned a full-blown impeachment probe. Republicans question whether the Ukraine events have the weight of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” But when seen as part of a pattern of behavior, the gravity becomes clearer.

Trump survived his first effort to solicit foreign political help in his appeals to Russia for damaging information about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign. But soon after Trump was cleared of “collusion” by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, he seemingly went at it again — this time demanding political dirt from Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as a condition of delivering military assistance to Kyiv.

Trump evidently thought he’d been exonerated, too, of obstructing Mueller’s investigation (though Mueller’s report is ambiguous on that question). Perhaps emboldened, the president has since appeared to deepen his obstructive behavior, trying to block witnesses from testifying before Congress about Ukraine or any other questionable presidential and personal behavior.

If this were a thriller, we’d suspect that the central character has a compulsion that he doesn’t understand or control — and keeps repeating the actions that get him in trouble.

But this is reality, not bedtime reading. And now it’s an impeachment investigation, as of Thursday, that requires evidence of wrongdoing rather than psychological speculation about motives. House investigators have been conducting a rapid, well-focused inquiry. But here are two nagging questions that I hope investigators can answer.

What led to Trump’s first meeting on June 20, 2017, with Ukraine’s then-President Petro Poroshenko? Ukraine had hired the lobbying firm BGR Group in January 2017 to foster contact with Trump, but nothing had happened . . . and then the door opened. Why?

On June 7, less than two weeks before Poroshenko’s White House meeting, Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, had visited Kyiv to give a speech for the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, headed by a prominent Ukrainian oligarch. While Giuliani was there, he also met with Poroshenko and his prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, according a news release issued by the foundation.

Just after Giuliani’s visit, Ukraine’s investigation of the so-called black ledger that listed alleged illicit payments to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was transferred from an anti-corruption bureau, known as NABU , to Poroshenko’s prosecutor general, according to a June 15, 2017, report in the Kyiv Post. The paper quoted Viktor Trepak, former deputy head of the country’s security service, saying: “It is clear for me that somebody gave an order to bury the black ledger.”

The New York Times reported in May 2018 that Ukraine had “halted cooperation” with Mueller’s investigation. The paper quoted Volodymyr Ariev, a parliament ally of Poroshenko, explaining: “In every possible way, we will avoid irritating the top American officials.”

Was there any implicit understanding that Poroshenko’s government would curb its cooperation with the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation of Manafort, who would later be indicted by Mueller?

Why was Marie Yovanovitch , the U.S. ambassador to Kyiv, fired in May? Trump, Giuliani and their allies had been attacking her since early 2018, but for what reason? Lutsenko, the Ukrainian prosecutor, told the Hill in March that she had given him a “do not prosecute” order, an incendiary charge that Donald Trump Jr. promptly echoed on Twitter. But Lutsenko later recanted, and the State Department said the story was a fabrication.

So why were Trump and Giuliani so eager to dump the ambassador? Here’s what Yovanovitch said during her Oct. 11 testimony to House investigators: “Individuals who have been named in the press as contacts of Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”

The former ambassador may have been referring to Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas , two Giuliani clients who were indicted last month on suspicion of arranging secret contributions to help foreign governments. (Fruman and Parnas have pleaded not guilty.) Their biggest project, according to an Associated Press Oct. 7 story, was a plan to sell U.S. natural gas to Ukraine, aided by Giuliani and Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s lobbying of Naftogaz, the Ukrainian gas company.

Trump’s effort to play politics in Ukraine is described in an ever-widening stream of documents and testimony. The House must now assess whether Trump’s behavior makes him unfit to continue in office.

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Impeachment inquiry focuses on 2 White House lawyers

By DEB RIECHMANN | Published November 1, 2019 9:10 AM ET | AP | Posted November 1, 2019 |

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House impeachment inquiry is zeroing in on two White House lawyers privy to a discussion about moving a memo recounting President Donald Trump's phone call with the leader of Ukraine into a highly restricted computer system normally reserved for documents about covert action.

Deepening their reach into the West Wing, impeachment investigators have summoned former national security adviser John Bolton to testify next week. But they also are seeking testimony of two other political appointees — John Eisenberg, the lead lawyer for the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a senior associate counsel to the president.

The impeachment inquiry is investigating Trump's call in which he asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for "a favor" — one that alarmed at least two White House staffers who listened in on the July 25 call.

Trump asked Zelenskiy to investigate Democrats in the 2016 election and former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential 2020 rival, as the Trump administration held up millions of dollars in military aid for the Eastern European ally confronting Russian aggression.

The lawyers' role is critical because two witnesses have suggested the NSC legal counsel — when told that Trump asked a foreign leader for domestic political help — took the extraordinary step of shielding access to the transcript not because of its covert nature but rather its potential damage to the Republican president.

Trump has repeatedly stressed that he knew people were listening in on the call, holding that out as proof that he never would have said anything inappropriate. But the subsequent effort to lock down the rough transcript suggests some people in the White House viewed the president's conversation as problematic.

Tim Morrison, outgoing deputy assistant to the president who handled European and Russian affairs at the NSC, told impeachment investigators on Thursday that military aid to Ukraine was held up by Trump's demand for the ally to investigate Democrats and Joe Biden.

Morrison testified that he was "not concerned that anything illegal was discussed" on the July 25 call, but he said that after listening to what Trump said he "promptly asked the NSC legal adviser to review it."

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a Ukraine expert at the NSC, had the same reaction. He and Morrison were both in the Situation Room in the basement of the West Wing listening in on Trump's conversation with Zelenskiy. Vindman told impeachment investigators that he was alarmed by what he heard, grabbed his notes from the call and went to see Eisenberg.

"I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the U.S. government's support of Ukraine," Vindman said.

Vindman said Eisenberg, who's known inside and outside the White House as a meticulous, deliberate lawyer, suggested moving the document that recounted the call to a restricted computer server for highly classified materials, according to a person who familiar with Vindman's testimony. The person was not authorized to publicly discuss it and spoke only on the condition of anonymity.

Ellis, the other White House lawyer being asked to testify, was with Eisenberg when he made the suggestion to move the document into the more secure server. Ellis is no stranger to White House controversies. The New York Times reported in March 2017 that he allowed his former boss Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., then the chairman of the House intelligence committee, to review classified material at the White House.

The material was to bolster Trump's claim that he was wiretapped during the 2016 campaign on the orders of President Barack Obama's administration. The intelligence reports consisted primarily of ambassadors and other foreign officials talking about trying to develop contacts in the inner circle of then President-elect Trump. The report was not confirmed by The Associated Press.

Eisenberg and Ellis, both part of the White House legal staff, declined to comment through an NSC spokesman.

"Consistent with the practices of past administrations from both parties, we will not discuss the internal deliberations of the White House Counsel's Office," deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said.

Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, has declined to discuss how the White House handles classified materials, but he denies that moving the memo about the call into the highly restricted NICE server — which stands for NSC Intelligence Collaboration Environment — amounted to a cover-up.

"There's only one reason people care about that, right? And it's because they think there's a cover-up," he told reporters at a recent White House briefing, adding, "There must have been something really, really duplicitous, something really under-handed about how they handled this document, because there must be a cover-up."

Mulvaney said if the administration had wanted to cover anything up, it wouldn't have called the Justice Department after the call to have them look at the transcript and wouldn't have publicly released the memorandum of the conversation.

The so-called "memcon" is close to a verbatim transcript, although no audio recordings are made.

Individuals familiar with Trump White House procedure say one Situation Room staffer, using voice-to-text software, repeats each word the president says and another listens and repeats what a foreign leader says. The spoken words are rendered as text and a rough draft is produced.

The draft, which in this case included a few ellipses, is circulated to several people, including NSC subject matter specialists who listened in on the call. They edit the draft for accuracy. Each version is separately preserved on the T-Net system, forming an archive that documents various edits.

Vindman told investigators that the call included a discussion of Biden and Burisma — a reference to the gas company where Joe Biden's son, Hunter, served on the board. Vindman said Trump also mentioned that there were audio recordings of Joe Biden discussing corruption in Ukraine, according to individuals familiar with Tuesday's closed-door testimony.

Vindman said he tried to suggest changes to the five-page "memcon," but was unsuccessful, according to the individuals, who were not authorized to discuss the testimony and spoke only on condition of anonymity.

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham pushed back on Thursday, saying Vindman "never suggested filling in any words at any points where ellipses appear in the transcript." She added that because Vindman testified behind closed doors, the White House "cannot confirm whether or not Lt. Col. Vindman himself made any such false claim."

Like most presidential calls with foreign leaders, the Trump-Zelenskiy call was put into the T-Net system where certain individuals are granted permission to read it based on their need to know, according to two individuals with direct knowledge of the system. NSC officials working on African issues, for example, would not routinely have been given access to the Ukraine call.

Taking it off T-Net would involve systems specialists, according to the individuals, who were not authorized to discuss the systems publicly and spoke only on condition of anonymity. They would have to identify every person who accessed the document and then wipe any trace of the memcon off the T-Net server. After that, other NSC workers would have had to place the material onto the N.I.C.E. system, which is physically housed in the NSC intelligence directorate.

According to one of the individuals familiar with the White House classified computer systems, Eisenberg couldn't have actually moved it to N.I.C.E. by himself. That raises a question, the individual said, as to what reasons were given for needing it to be moved.

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Trump abandons proposing ideas to curb gun violence after saying he would following mass shootings

By Josh Dawsey | Published November 01 at 6:00 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted November 1, 2019 |

President Trump has abandoned the idea of releasing proposals to combat gun violence that his White House debated for months following mass shootings in August, according to White House officials and lawmakers, a reversal from the summer when the president insisted he would offer policies to curb firearm deaths.

Trump has been counseled by political advisers, including campaign manager Brad Parscale and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, that gun legislation could splinter his political coalition, which he needs to stick together for his reelection bid, particularly amid an impeachment battle.

The president no longer asks about the issue, and aides from the Domestic Policy Council, once working on a plan with eight to 12 tenets, have moved on to other topics, according to aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private deliberations.

Four White House officials said there haven’t been substantive discussions in weeks. And a person close to the National Rifle Association said discussions between the White House and the group have gone silent in a sign that the powerful gun lobby is no longer concerned the White House will act. Trump was pressed repeatedly by NRA President Wayne LaPierre this summer and early fall to not propose any gun-control measures.

“President Trump quietly moved gun control to the side and let it be replaced by breaking news,” said Dan Eberhart, a major GOP donor who said Trump is better off not advancing proposals at this time. “I suspect that was the plan all along.”

The White House’s position is a marked, if not wholly unexpected, change from when the president vowed he would make a push to pass more restrictive laws after two gunmen killed scores of people in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso in early August, creating national outrage.

Trump repeatedly said he was a supporter of more aggressive background checks, would consider “red flag” laws that allow authorities to temporarily take weapons away from someone deemed a danger, and frequently mentioned the need to focus on mental health as it relates to gun violence.

He made a flurry of calls to lawmakers while crossing the country to visit victims and said he would be willing to go against the desires of the NRA.

In the face of skepticism that he would not push hard for gun restrictions his party has long opposed, Trump insisted he was serious about the issue and would release proposals.

“We’re going to take a look at a lot of different things. And we’ll be reporting back in a fairly short period of time,” he told reporters on Sept. 11. “There are a lot of things under discussion. Some things will never happen, and some things can, really, very much — some very meaningful things can happen.”

Trump could always reverse course and embrace changes to gun laws, particularly if there is another shooting, but the president and his top aides are intensely focused on the impeachment inquiry and moving to aggressively shore up Republican support in the face of new revelations about his dealings with Ukraine that are central to House Democrats’ efforts to remove him from office. Administration officials are also weighing a new proposal about legal immigration to be released around the holidays, as well as a new round of tax cuts and pushing forward on a U.S., Canada and Mexico trade deal that administration officials have touted — issues they believe will appeal to GOP lawmakers and the president’s base of supporters.

On Thursday, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham accused House Democrats of pursuing an “illegitimate impeachment proceeding” against Trump at the expense of policy priorities, including “reducing gun violence.”

House Democrats argue that they have already passed gun-control legislation and that it is up to Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate to act.

Several senators working with Trump on gun proposals said they have not been involved in any recent talks. 

“I’ve even forgotten my own bill. One minute you’re working on red flag, the next you’re working on Syria, then you’re doing an impeachment resolution, then you’re going to get an award in Columbia. It’s like being a tornado. I hope we get back to it,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who was working on the issue with Trump.

A White House spokesman did not provide a comment for this story.

Democrats in the 2020 campaign have universally favored background checks and to ban assault weapons. Some have called for a gun buyback program. 

Former congressman Beto O’Rourke of Texas has made gun control the central focus of his presidential campaign following the El Paso shooting, but he has floundered in the polls. 

When asked in August about criticism that he would take people’s guns away, former vice president Joe Biden said, “Bingo! You’re right, if you have an assault weapon.” 

But it has not proved to be the dominant topic on the trail.

Trump’s waning interest in gun legislation began before the impeachment inquiry, as a fierce battle played out inside the West Wing.

In August, Domestic Policy Council staffers began to craft a plan that was set to be released in early September. There were meetings on a communications strategy for releasing the plan, according to a person who attended the sessions. 

Several Oval Office meetings occurred with Trump, who was repeatedly pushed by his daughter Ivanka Trump, according to her supporters and critics in the building.

She was joined in lobbying the president to do something, such as expanding background checks, by Attorney General William P. Barr. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, has largely stayed out of the issue, officials say.

Trump faced pressure from Mulvaney, the vice president’s office and conservative lawmakers to abandon making any proposals or to at least tread carefully in doing so.

Trump grew disenchanted with red-flag laws after hearing from Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and other conservatives that they could be used to take away guns from law-abiding citizens, according to White House officials. 

And Trump believed background checks — at the very minimum — needed another name, according to people who spoke with him. “He was worried about branding,” said a person who spoke with Trump on the phone about the matter. 

Trump was also shown polling that gun-control measures could depress turnout among his supporters in the 2020 election, according to a campaign official. 

Officials from the NRA made dozens of calls to White House aides, and Trump spoke with LaPierre at least six times, according to two senior White House officials.

Tensions among some in the White House and the moderate Democrats and Republicans who Trump was discussing gun legislation with began to rise as talks stalled.

Michael Williams, a former gun lobbyist who now works for Mulvaney, had a loud argument with Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Graham in one call, according to a person with knowledge of the conversation. Manchin and Graham believed Williams was seeking to tank any bill.

At one point, Graham complained about Mulvaney’s handling of the issue, according to people who heard the comment. 

Later, White House officials said they felt they could not take on gun control during impeachment. Asked if the president was ever serious about the issue, one senior administration official said: “He could have been if the circumstances all played out just right.” 

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) received a call from Ivanka Trump early last month, according to officials familiar with the matter, who promised the administration would continue to work on gun control.

But Murphy has mostly lost hope, he said in a recent interview.

“I haven’t heard anything directly from the White House in weeks and would be surprised if something happens at this point,” he said. “They’ve got to be willing to break from the NRA if we are going to do anything real.” 

A person close to Manchin said he had not heard from the administration in more than a month. A Murphy aide said the senator had not had any discussions with the administration since Sept. 24. 

On Sept. 24, Trump told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) how much progress they had made on a gun-control proposal and that he was talking to Democrats, according to a person familiar with the call. Later that day, she announced an impeachment inquiry, and no conversations have occurred since, the official said. 

“He’s not going to take on things related to his base in the middle of all this,” said Chris Ruddy, a longtime ally, echoing the view that Trump will not do anything to antagonize his supporters while impeachment hangs over his head. 

🍂🦃🍁🍎🍂🦃🍁🍎🍂🦃🍁

[mofodopoulis]

OMG . . . Judge Ellis took ArtMofo's advice . . .

Hey peeps, We're officially living in the alternate universe, where: Cold is hot, Wet is dry, Good is evil, and . . . Federal judges pay homage to the thoughts and feelings of Arthur Mofodopoulis, while sentencing a $30 million tax cheat and bank fraudster who built a career representing -- and rehabilitating the images of -- some of the most cruel and inhumane motherfuckers on Earth. "Blameless life" my ass! There's no need any longer for strong drink, or mind-bending drugs such as LSD, psilocybin or DMT. It cannot get any weirder. God help us all. --Art ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Arthur Mofodopoulis Sent: Friday, March 1, 2019, 9:06:51 PM EST Subject: ArtMofo's sentencing memo in the Manafort case (Eastern District of Virginia) By snail mail ------------------------- The Honorable T.S. Ellis III U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia Albert V. Bryan Federal Courthouse 401 Courthouse Square Alexandria, VA 22314 February 19, 2019 Dear Judge Ellis, I'm writing about the upcoming sentencing of Paul Manafort, the former chairman of President Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. As a patriotic American with a keen interest in justice and fairness, I urge you to hand down the lightest sentence possible. That's because Mr. Manafort has worked his entire adult life to make the United States of America and planet Earth a better place. I do not personally know the defendant, although I've learned a few things about his upbringing over the years, and I've followed his career with a mixture of admiration and amazement. He's a devout Roman Catholic who was raised in Connecticut and attended a Catholic high school and Georgetown University. There, he also earned a law degree. He's a faithful husband who's been married to the same woman for 41 years and together they raised two daughters who are sturdy citizens and productive members of society. Until last year, Mr. Manafort had never been convicted of any criminal offense. During his career, Mr. Manafort remained far out of the limelight as he selflessly assisted many respected world leaders. Among them are President Ronald Reagan (who appointed you); U.S. Senator Robert Dole, a World War II hero and Republican presidential candidate; Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, a beloved humanitarian; and two of Africa's greatest modern-day statesmen: Angolan freedom fighter Jonas Savimbi, and President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. Mr. Manafort also worked closely with Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine. Unfortunately, the popularly elected President Yanukovych was undemocratically overthrown in a coup orchestrated by a European-Union cabal composed of socialists, globalists and rootless cosmopolitans like George Soros. Against that enviable record, Judge Ellis, let us consider the crimes for which Mr. Manafort was convicted in your court: Tax fraud, bank fraud and failing to disclose a foreign bank account. On any broad scale of evildoing, such violations are laughably harmless. It's not difficult to wonder if they should even be crimes at all. Who hasn't occasionally made one or more simple bookkeeping errors while filling out tax forms, or misplaced some faith in an accountant whom they trusted? And who hasn't fudged a fact here or there on a loan application for the purpose of bettering chances of a bank's approval? The third charge is the most outrageous of all, because it's tantamount to a "memory" crime. In no way is it illegal for an American citizen to hold a bank account in a foreign country, and Mr. Manafort had many of those. During a globe-trotting career that was full of distractions, he apparently forgot to disclose a single account. Big deal! When failing to remember something becomes a federal crime, Judge Ellis, we're all in a heap of trouble. The jury verdicts in Mr. Manafort's trial obviously reflected notions outlined above. As you know, jurors found him innocent of more than half the offenses the government charged. There's a decent argument the guilty verdicts they did return resulted from some sort of untoward backroom "compromise." It's quite possible jurors felt they had to find Mr. Manafort guilty of something, lest they incur the government's wrath and wind up under investigation themselves. Or perhaps jurors' baser emotions got the better of them as they listened to irrelevant and highly prejudicial testimony about Mr. Manafort's purchase of a $15,000 ostrich-skin jacket, and his other spending on clothes, landscaping and real estate. With that evidence, the prosecutors repulsively waged class warfare against Mr. Manafort right there in your courtroom. In America, it shouldn't be a crime to get rich! Whatever the reason for those misguided convictions, the government's request that you impose a prison sentence of between 19 and 24 years is both unfathomable  and unconscionable. Judge Ellis, you yourself correctly called the government's bluff during Mr. Manafort's trial. From the bench, you basically noted the entire indictment against Mr. Manafort was tendered in bad faith. You said prosecutors brought those charges for no reason other than to pressure Mr. Manafort into "flipping" against President Trump, and becoming a government witness in the ongoing witch hunt led by Robert Mueller and his 13 Hillary Clinton-supporting assistants. In that respect, the Manafort trial was purely an act of political retribution. We both know Mr. Manafort was tried only because of the successful work he did leading President Trump's election campaign. In addition to all his other accomplishments (cited above), that was Mr. Manafort's greatest career triumph. President Trump's amazing victory has fundamentally improved America. Among other things, it eviscerated a collective shame that darkened our country during the Obama Administration's eight years. Obama rigged the American justice system in a stealthy campaign that allowed him to escape responsibility for any number of criminal scandals. One was Solyndra, through which friends of Obama sucked billions of Energy Department subsides out of the U.S. Treasury and into their pockets. Another was Uranium One, under which Obama and Hillary Clinton gave away the United States' complete stores of that strategic metal to Russia in exchange for a contribution to the Clinton Foundation. Yet a third was Fast and Furious -- in that one, Obama literally armed Mexican drug cartels with military-grade weapons from the United States, which created the southern border crisis President Trump is now trying to fix. Surely you haven't forgotten the Obama Internal Revenue Service's campaign against grassroots conservative organizations, and how Obama shut down legitimate inquiry as to whether he's a natural-born citizen (which could have disqualified him from the White House). And what about the four American heroes who lost their lives in Benghazi? To date, nobody has paid any price for that because of an obscene cover-up engineered by Hillary Clinton that thwarted the best efforts of Congressional investigators. Any other president would have been impeached and later prosecuted for such crimes. Instead, Obama is walking around happy, free and a lot wealthier than he was when he entered the White House. Meanwhile, President Trump is suffering through a politically motivated investigation, precisely because he's worked tirelessly to drain the Obama swamp and eliminate the disgraceful "Deep State." That dishonest investigation, along a treasonous coup plotted by some Obama leftovers in the Justice Department, are President Trump's "reward" for his great efforts. I have learned all of the above by carefully watching and analyzing the Sean Hannity show on Fox News for the past two years. I didn't take that stuff at face value, though. I thoroughly researched it -- and all of Hannity's information totally checks out. Top-notch investigative journalists such as John Solomon, Sara Carter and Gregg Jarrett have validated every bit of it. Which brings us to the bottom line: Mr. Manafort's prosecution -- for Fake Crimes -- is little more than an extension of corrupt and traitorous attempts to get rid of President Trump and halt his valiant efforts to Make America Great Again. Judge Ellis, my simple request is that you take all of the above into account for Mr. Manafort's upcoming sentencing hearing. If you cannot find it in your head and heart to throw out every one of those unfair and malicious convictions, the least you could do is sentence Mr. Manafort to "time served" and release him. Then, after the November 2020 election, President Trump can pardon Mr. Manafort and finally give him the justice he richly deserves. Obama, Hillary and Mueller are the people who truly ought to be before you at that sentencing hearing, rather than an upstanding citizen like Mr. Manafort, who at the worst may have cut a few inconsequential corners while trying to bring justice to America and peace to the world. Thank you for reading this heartfelt letter. Sincerely, Arthur Mofodopoulis 4807 Penn Wyne Dr. Greensboro, NC 27401

[mofodopoulis]

ArtMofo's sentencing memo in the Manafort case (Eastern District of Virginia)

By snail mail ------------------------- The Honorable T.S. Ellis III U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia Albert V. Bryan Federal Courthouse 401 Courthouse Square Alexandria, VA 22314 February 19, 2019 Dear Judge Ellis, I'm writing about the upcoming sentencing of Paul Manafort, the former chairman of President Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. As a patriotic American with a keen interest in justice and fairness, I urge you to hand down the lightest sentence possible. That's because Mr. Manafort has worked his entire adult life to make the United States of America and planet Earth a better place. I do not personally know the defendant, although I've learned a few things about his upbringing over the years, and I've followed his career with a mixture of admiration and amazement. He's a devout Roman Catholic who was raised in Connecticut and attended a Catholic high school and Georgetown University. There, he also earned a law degree. He's a faithful husband who's been married to the same woman for 41 years and together they raised two daughters who are sturdy citizens and productive members of society. Until last year, Mr. Manafort had never been convicted of any criminal offense. During his career, Mr. Manafort remained far out of the limelight as he selflessly assisted many respected world leaders. Among them are President Ronald Reagan (who appointed you); U.S. Senator Robert Dole, a World War II hero and Republican presidential candidate; Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, a beloved humanitarian; and two of Africa's greatest modern-day statesmen: Angolan freedom fighter Jonas Savimbi, and President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. Mr. Manafort also worked closely with Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine. Unfortunately, the popularly elected President Yanukovych was undemocratically overthrown in a coup orchestrated by a European-Union cabal composed of socialists, globalists and rootless cosmopolitans like George Soros. Against that enviable record, Judge Ellis, let us consider the crimes for which Mr. Manafort was convicted in your court: Tax fraud, bank fraud and failing to disclose a foreign bank account. On any broad scale of evildoing, such violations are laughably harmless. It's not difficult to wonder if they should even be crimes at all. Who hasn't occasionally made one or more simple bookkeeping errors while filling out tax forms, or misplaced some faith in an accountant whom they trusted? And who hasn't fudged a fact here or there on a loan application for the purpose of bettering chances of a bank's approval? The third charge is the most outrageous of all, because it's tantamount to a "memory" crime. In no way is it illegal for an American citizen to hold a bank account in a foreign country, and Mr. Manafort had many of those. During a globe-trotting career that was full of distractions, he apparently forgot to disclose a single account. Big deal! When failing to remember something becomes a federal crime, Judge Ellis, we're all in a heap of trouble. The jury verdicts in Mr. Manafort's trial obviously reflected notions outlined above. As you know, jurors found him innocent of more than half the offenses the government charged. There's a decent argument the guilty verdicts they did return resulted from some sort of untoward backroom "compromise." It's quite possible jurors felt they had to find Mr. Manafort guilty of something, lest they incur the government's wrath and wind up under investigation themselves. Or perhaps jurors' baser emotions got the better of them as they listened to irrelevant and highly prejudicial testimony about Mr. Manafort's purchase of a $15,000 ostrich-skin jacket, and his other spending on clothes, landscaping and real estate. With that evidence, the prosecutors repulsively waged class warfare against Mr. Manafort right there in your courtroom. In America, it shouldn't be a crime to get rich! Whatever the reason for those misguided convictions, the government's request that you impose a prison sentence of between 19 and 24 years is both unfathomable  and unconscionable. Judge Ellis, you yourself correctly called the government's bluff during Mr. Manafort's trial. From the bench, you basically noted the entire indictment against Mr. Manafort was tendered in bad faith. You said prosecutors brought those charges for no reason other than to pressure Mr. Manafort into "flipping" against President Trump, and becoming a government witness in the ongoing witch hunt led by Robert Mueller and his 13 Hillary Clinton-supporting assistants. In that respect, the Manafort trial was purely an act of political retribution. We both know Mr. Manafort was tried only because of the successful work he did leading President Trump's election campaign. In addition to all his other accomplishments (cited above), that was Mr. Manafort's greatest career triumph. President Trump's amazing victory has fundamentally improved America. Among other things, it eviscerated a collective shame that darkened our country during the Obama Administration's eight years. Obama rigged the American justice system in a stealthy campaign that allowed him to escape responsibility for any number of criminal scandals. One was Solyndra, through which friends of Obama sucked billions of Energy Department subsides out of the U.S. Treasury and into their pockets. Another was Uranium One, under which Obama and Hillary Clinton gave away the United States' complete stores of that strategic metal to Russia in exchange for a contribution to the Clinton Foundation. Yet a third was Fast and Furious -- in that one, Obama literally armed Mexican drug cartels with military-grade weapons from the United States, which created the southern border crisis President Trump is now trying to fix. Surely you haven't forgotten the Obama Internal Revenue Service's campaign against grassroots conservative organizations, and how Obama shut down legitimate inquiry as to whether he's a natural-born citizen (which could have disqualified him from the White House). And what about the four American heroes who lost their lives in Benghazi? To date, nobody has paid any price for that because of an obscene cover-up engineered by Hillary Clinton that thwarted the best efforts of Congressional investigators. Any other president would have been impeached and later prosecuted for such crimes. Instead, Obama is walking around happy, free and a lot wealthier than he was when he entered the White House. Meanwhile, President Trump is suffering through a politically motivated investigation, precisely because he's worked tirelessly to drain the Obama swamp and eliminate the disgraceful "Deep State." That dishonest investigation, along a treasonous coup plotted by some Obama leftovers in the Justice Department, are President Trump's "reward" for his great efforts. I have learned all of the above by carefully watching and analyzing the Sean Hannity show on Fox News for the past two years. I didn't take that stuff at face value, though. I thoroughly researched it -- and all of Hannity's information totally checks out. Top-notch investigative journalists such as John Solomon, Sara Carter and Gregg Jarrett have validated every bit of it. Which brings us to the bottom line: Mr. Manafort's prosecution -- for Fake Crimes -- is little more than an extension of corrupt and traitorous attempts to get rid of President Trump and halt his valiant efforts to Make America Great Again. Judge Ellis, my simple request is that you take all of the above into account for Mr. Manafort's upcoming sentencing hearing. If you cannot find it in your head and heart to throw out every one of those unfair and malicious convictions, the least you could do is sentence Mr. Manafort to "time served" and release him. Then, after the November 2020 election, President Trump can pardon Mr. Manafort and finally give him the justice he richly deserves. Obama, Hillary and Mueller are the people who truly ought to be before you at that sentencing hearing, rather than an upstanding citizen like Mr. Manafort, who at the worst may have cut a few inconsequential corners while trying to bring justice to America and peace to the world. Thank you for reading this heartfelt letter. Sincerely, Arthur Mofodopoulis 4807 Penn Wyne Dr. Greensboro, NC 27401