#not even the murders themselves as much as the general public's reception to and opinions on the case 3 decades later like

[alexcabotgf]

not to be true crime posting on main but i think i'm falling down the wm3 rabbit hole again

[gstqaobc]

FROM THE MONARCHIST LEAGUE OF CANADA

As this Ecomm went to publication, we received word of the death, at the great age of 96, of Bill Silver, a significant benefactor of the League from its early days, and for many years a pillar of our Ottawa Branch.  We wished to remember him here: his ebullient spirit, fierce loyalty spoken gently, innate modesty and kindness.  Indeed Chaucer might have had forethought of Bill in describing one of his characters as a “very parfitt gentle knight.” May his ardent spirit rest in peace, and his memory be a blessing and example to us all.   LEAGUE ISSUES NEW FLYER: THE CASE FOR THE CROWN The League thought it timely and useful to issue, offer in its advertising and distribute as widely as possible - both via the website and in printed form - a new flyer which will give you, our members, ammunition to argue logically the case for the Crown in conversation with others, and, we hope, to distribute strategically. One never knows when such an item, left on a waiting room table at the doctor or dentist’s office, affixed to a supermarket or other community bulletin board, put through neighbours’ mail slots - the possibilities are many - will do good work for our cause. We hope you will both enjoy and profit from this item, and that many thousands will be distributed across the country. See item one in the WHAT CAN I DO FOR THE CANADIAN CROWN? section of this Ecomm, below, to read online and request printed copies.   And special thanks to our wonderful team of no less than seven translators, all francophones from La Belle Province, who so kindly volunteered to make the French version one that is accurate in expression and eloquent in its prose.                     WHAT CAN I DO FOR THE CANADIAN CROWN? Some suggestions for member activity during these times. We invite members to send additional ideas by return of email. 1.    How about asking the League to send you several print copies of our new flyer:  THE CASE FOR THE CROWN, or print them on your home computer:  https://www.monarchist.ca/index.php/publications and give them to others who may be unaware or sceptical of the importance of Canada’s constitutional monarchy, or even hostile to it. School teachers could be encouraged to read the League’s educational booklets, also available both online and in print at the same URL, or even to request a class set.   2.    When you read an editorial, opinion column or letter to the editor in a newspaper, or a tweet or Facebook post, critical of the Crown, don’t get mad - get even! In other words, use a temperate tone and logical argument to refute the writer’s attack.  Keep it brief: focus on the obvious flaws in reasoning, mis-statements of fact or name-calling substituting for logic.  Same goes for radio talk shows. In the long run, on all media, whatever the provocation, whatever the momentary satisfaction of ”giving them a piece of my mind” - an old adage remains true: “You catch more flies with honey.” 3.    Write your elected representative at the federal level to re-state briefly the reasons you support constitutional monarchy as our system of government,  and asking the MP whether not your view is shared. 4.    Once pandemic restrictions ease, try to make sure that Royal events - such as the upcoming 95th birthday of our Queen, 10th Wedding Anniversary of William and Catherine or 100th birthday of Prince Philip are celebrated both in your home but also among your wider family, your friends, your colleagues at the office,  your place of worship/faith community or service club. The League generally sends you some ideas to mark these celebrations. Remember, as they are incorporated into family life and public life, the     Crown becomes further embedded in the heart of the nation, and truly represents The Queen’s wish that it ”reflects all that is best and most admired in the Canadian ideal.” This is especially true when you go out of your way to include in your observance the newest members of our Canadian family, who generally are eager to participate in the traditions of their new homeland, and in turn to share their own traditions with the wider community. 5.    Always use a Queen stamp when you write a letter or pay a bill by mail. 6.     At events of ceremony, whether a Council meeting, a graduation, a civic celebration - whatever - make sure that the Royal Anthem is sung as well as the National Anthem. To the extent you can, discourage event organizers from having a soloist “perform” them. Far more pride and         learning develop from the untrained voices of loyal folk singing together. In that way, the Anthems are sung “with heart and voice” and not merely listened to.   A FINAL IDEA: AN ACT OF LOVING SUPPORT & THANKS Apart from the above, we think it would be enormously comforting and supportive for every one of us to  write a kind letter to The Queen, expressing your thoughts at a difficult time: her beloved husband ailing, a grand-child chiding other family members via sensational television, the drumbeat of the tabloids and the restrictions on her busy life caused by the pandemic.  A selection of letters, especially those from Commonwealth Realms, are indeed seen by The Queen - and their number and tone are summarized to Her Majesty. The address is - Her Majesty The Queen, Buckingham Palace, London SW1A 1AA, UK Theoretically you don’t need postage to write the Sovereign; in practice, it is safer to affix the international airmail stamp available from your local Canada Post outlet.   AN INTERESTING OPINION PIECE FROM TODAY’S DAILY TELEGRAPHWe thought you might be interested to see the following strongly-worded opinion piece, reflecting a good deal of the tone of recent British public opinion, rather different from much of the Canadian and US commentary. Meghan’s fake interview has real-world effects The Sussexes’ claims have undermined the monarchy and done lasting damage to the Commonwealth by Tim Stanley, March 15, 2021 Two headlines appeared on the BBC News website on the same day. At the top: “Harry and Meghan rattle monarchy’s gilded cage”. At the bottom: “The kidnapped woman who defied Boko Haram”. Well, that puts the Sussexes' problems in perspective, doesn’t it? Yet across Africa, one reads, the Duchess’s story has revived memories of colonial racism, tarnishing the UK’s reputation, and has even lent weight to the campaign in some countries to drop the Queen as head of state. The only nation that seems to think a lot of nonsense was spoken is Britain. In the wake of an interview that Joe Biden’s administration called courageous, British popular opinion of Harry and Meghan fell to an all-time low, and the American format had a lot to do with it. Oprah Winfrey is not our idea of an interviewer. She flattered, fawned and displayed utter credulity. Imagine if it had been her, not Emily Maitlis, who interviewed Prince Andrew over the Jeffrey Epstein allegations. “You were in a Pizza Express that day? Oh my God, you MUST be innocent! Tell me, in all honesty, though...did you have the dough balls?” This wasn’t an interview, it was a commercial for a brand called Sussex, a pair of eco-friendly aristo-dolls that, if you pull the string, tell their truth – which isn’t the truth, because no one can entirely know that, but truth as they perceive it. “Life is about storytelling,” explained Meghan, “about the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we’re told, what we buy into.” Meghan is a postmodernist. Just as Jean Baudrillard said the Gulf War never happened, but was choreographed by the US media, so the Royal narrative she was forced to live was fake, her public happiness was fake and, following that logic, this interview might involve an element of performance, too. People have challenged her claims, alleging contradictions and improbabilities, but one of the malign effects of wokeness is that you have got to be very careful about pointing this out. Why? Because wokery insists on treating a subjective view as objective truth, or even as superior, because it’s based upon “lived experience”. To contradict that personal perspective is perceived as cruel, elitist and, in Meghan’s case, potentially racist, so it’s best to wait a few weeks to a year before applying a fact check. In the meantime, affect sympathy. People would rather you lied to their face than tell them what they don’t want to hear. The result is profoundly dishonest, for I have never known an event over which there is such a gulf between the official reception, as endorsed by the media and politics, and the reaction of average citizens, who are wisely keeping it to themselves. Into that vacuum of silence steps not the voice of reason but bullies and showmen – like Piers Morgan, who said some brash stuff about Meghan’s honesty and, after an unseemly row on Good Morning Britain, felt obliged to resign from his job.  “If you’d like to show your support for me,” he wrote afterwards, “please order a copy of my book.” Dear Lord, was this row fake, too? I can no longer be sure, though I despised Good Morning Britain before and still do: it embodies the cynical confusion of emotion and fact, a show made for clicks, where even the weatherman has an opinion. So what is real in 2021? The Commonwealth, which does a lot of good in a divided world. The monarchy, which has been at its best during the pandemic, doing the boring stuff of cutting ribbons and thanking workers that, one suspects, Meghan never grew into (can you imagine her opening a supermarket in Beccles?). It contains flawed people, but that only adds to its realness, and they can adapt faster than you might think. Prince William got the ball rolling by telling reporters, who he is trained to ignore, that his family is not racist. His wife paid her respects to the murder victim Sarah Everard, demonstrating that she is neither cold nor silenced. I’d wager Kate does her duty, day after day, no complaint, not because she is “trapped”, as Harry uncharitably put it, but because she loves her family and believes in public service. Meghan and Harry have indeed prompted the Royal family to change: not in order to endorse their criticisms, however, but to answer them.

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦🇬🇧🇦🇺🇳🇿

[eretzyisrael]

Social Media and the Cognitive War Against Israel

Time to take a break from giving and receiving abuse on Twitter and do some work.

Last night we watched the Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma.” It’s about the big tech companies and how their systems manipulate us into giving them what they want, which is our time and attention.

About 25 years ago I was stuck in the airport in Reno, Nevada, where there were slot machines available for waiting passengers to entertain themselves. I recall watching a woman play one, rhythmically swaying back and forth to the musical accompaniment from the machine as she pulled the lever over, and over, and over. I could see from her glazed eyes that she was in a trance, one with the machine. I wondered if she would succeed to pull herself away in time when her flight was announced, or if indeed she would even hear the announcement. Later, I recognized the same look in the eyes of someone scrolling through Facebook or Twitter on their phone.

These systems, which although they have been developed by humans, work autonomously and learn from experience how to control the behavior of their subjects. Their developers only care about getting us to sit still and eat the ads we are “served” (I love that locution), but of course it has destructive side effects. The creation of ideological bubbles, the dispersion of fake news, and the encouragement of extremism are some of them, but there are other, deeper changes that are not obvious, like the contraction of the subject’s attention span, the forced withdrawal from normal social activities, the decline in risk-taking, and the abysmal waste of time.

The abuses of political correctness, cancel culture, and the wide popularity of absurd, self-contradictory theories and ideologies are all epiphenomena of the ubiquity of social media. They would not be possible without the ability to disseminate emotion-loaded stimuli widely and instantaneously to groups of like-minded people, people who are often in the receptive trance-like state engendered by the medium.

How, for example, did the Israeli-Palestinian conflict come to take over the mind-space of the Western world? Almost none of my Twitter abuse comes from actual Arabs or Palestinians. Most of the folks accusing me of supporting “land theft,” apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide of Palestinians live in the US or Europe, places which have their own problems. And yet they care so much about the Palestinians!

The Palestinization of the Western mind is a long story. It started with the KGB, who wanted to find a lever to get support for its Arab clients in the Middle East. It continued via the massive inputs of Arab oil money into Western educational institutions and “human rights” groups. It got a big boost from 2001’s Durban Conference on Racism, where the popular theme of anti-racism was successfully applied to Israel – a remarkable feat of reality inversion, since the Arab rejectionism that underlies the conflict is at bottom a particular rejection of Jewish sovereignty, and a desire to ethnically cleanse the region of Jews.

But the advent of the Internet multiplied – exponentiated – everything. It first became available in universities in the 1980s with email and Usenet newsgroups (like mailing lists) facilitating the democratization of the distribution of information. The first rudimentary social networks like Compuserve and America Online arrived in the 1990s. The dam burst with the creation of Facebook and others in the early 2000s.

The universities have always been repositories of misoziony, extreme and irrational Israel-hatred. This is because of the general leftward tilt of university faculties, who were fertile soil for the Soviet anti-Israel propaganda that began in the late 1960s and continued through the dissolution of the USSR. There was also the effect of the aforementioned Arab oil money donated to create departments of Mideast studies that were little more than indoctrination units. Students and faculty, early adopters of new technology, used it to organize and propagandize for all of their causes, including the increasingly popular Palestinian one.

Some important characteristics of social media that particularly affect cognitive warfare in this conflict are the immediacy of transmission of information, its bias toward emotional content, its tendency to create opinion bubbles, its encouragement of extremism, and the effect of numerical superiority of one side or another in a dispute. Let’s see how this works.

One of the propaganda techniques used against Israel is the “spaghetti test,” in which false accusations are rapidly thrown against the public in the hope that they will stick. By the time the information to refute them has been collected, the damage has been done and new accusations have been launched. The ability of social media to plant an idea in numerous receptive minds instantaneously with no filtering (such as is at least supposed to occur in traditional media) greatly increases the effectiveness of this.

It is well known that emotional content makes a story memorable, as well as serving as a motivation for action in a way that factual information cannot. Social media tends to be biased toward the transmission of emotionally affecting content, since that is what drives a person to share or retweet an item. Emotionally moving items (“IDF soldiers shoot Palestinian children for fun”) tend to dominate the timelines of its targets, arriving faster and more frequently than factual, but boring, corrections (“nobody was shot”).

The opinion bubbles prominent on social media, in which a person tends to collect “friends” and followers with similar political opinions means that propaganda will be repeated and amplified by the echo chambers formed by the bubbles. As it bounces around in an eagerly accepting environment, it creates anger and indignation, as well as accumulating greater authority (everyone is talking about the murder of Muhammad al-Dura, so the story must be true).

A participant in a social media opinion bubble is a player in a social game in which points are won by being first with the most shocking information. The “alphas” in the group are the ones whose opinions are the most exciting, which usually means that their positions are the most extreme. This forces the window of discourse in the direction of extremism, which is why it seems so shocking when it escapes from the bubble. The group “Canary Mission” often exposes social media posts in which students and academics express themselves against Jews or Israel in a way which is acceptable within their group but appears (and is) appallingly vicious to an outsider.

Jews and Israelis are a small minority compared to their enemies, and defenders of Israel are an equally small minority on social networks. The numerical advantage on one side makes it possible to “pile on” to a person and overwhelm them with verbal abuse. It seems that the Palestinians and their supporters are using social media much more effectively than those on the Israeli side. I am not sure if this is simply a consequence of their numerical advantage, or something else.

Technology of this kind has made everyday life much more convenient. Can you imagine life without Google? As the documentary points out, social media has reunited families and made it possible to become acquainted with people that one would otherwise never know. It can provide a lifeline for shut-ins, especially in this time of pandemic.

But – as its effects in facilitating cognitive warfare in our own sphere show – it has changed the world in ways we are just beginning to understand, and have made no effort to control. It has increased political polarization in general, fostered extremism, and seriously damaged traditional journalism.

No, I don’t want to be without Google (I think). But I wouldn’t cry if Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. disappeared.

Abu Yehuda

[laertesstudies]

Song of Achilles: Review

Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles received tons of critical acclaim when it was first released in 2012, even winning the Orange Prize for Fiction. I bought a copy of this book in 2017 when I was in high school and my tumblr dash was full of fan art, fanfiction, and discourse about the book. I'm afraid to say that it sat on my shelf untouched until January of this year (oops), but I finally got around to reading it. For those of you who don't know, Song of Achilles is a modern retelling of the Iliad from the point of view of Patroclus, who was a relatively minor character in the original epic. Miller's version focuses primarily on the love story between Patroclus and Achilles, aristos achaion, best of the Greeks, against the backdrop of exile and war.

For me, the love story was a bit of a disappointment. I came into this book expecting great representation for the LGBTQ+ community as this was one of the things the reviews seemed to praise the most, and even though the book does explicitly show a sexual relationship between two men, I felt that the execution could have been much better. For one, a lot of the story focuses on the feeling of gay angst in a heteronormative world. Sexuality was a contentious topic in Ancient Greece with understandings of it fluctuating over time, so this is understandable. Most of the information we have regarding the reception of the Iliad in the ancient world comes from the Classical Period (some 400+ years after the epic was written, and ~800 years after it takes place), and we have no way of really understanding how homosexuality would have been viewed when it was eventually written down, let alone how the characters themselves would have viewed it. Even Homer’s own take on the character’s sexuality would likely have been anachronistic to how people in the 13th century BC really thought. That being said, the evidence we have from the Classical Period - which would have formed a basis for Miller’s interpretation of ancient attitudes - shows very split opinions about whether Patroclus and Achilles were in a pederastic relationship, and the morality of this relationship if it existed was also highly debated. Most of the criticism regarding the morality of pederasty is rooted in the fact that these relationships were practiced mainly by the aristocracy, making it incompatible with democracy. The fact that these debates exist in classical literature means that even though Patroclus and Achilles would have faced likely faced some stigma, a decent amount of ancient readers would have accepted their relationship as well.

In addition, Miller lost a vital opportunity to provide representation for the LGBTQ+ community when she erased half of Patroclus' character. In the Iliad, Patroclus is told to be both a warrior AND a healer, but Miller completely erases his identity as a warrior, instead painting him as a meek, violent abhorring pacifist and placing him squarely as the damsel in need of protecting by the strong, masculine, protector Achilles. By doing this, it forces their relationship to immitate traditional understandings heterosexual relationships, which is hardly representation at all. All in all, however, I don’t feel that the book gains anything through its depiction of homophobia, and instead found it very triggering as a queer reader. I would rather have seen more exploration of Patroclus as he was in the Iliad, trying to balance his desire for peace and security against his honor as a warrior and worthy companion to the demi-god, or the feeling of violence and displacement forcing him to grow up too early.

In addition to its lack of proper representation of the gay community, Song of Achilles may also be a little disappointing for readers of color. Miller seems to describe most of the Achaeans as looking fairly similar, with dark skin and hair, and then defines Achilles’ beauty by his golden hair, light skin, and green eyes. This doesn’t reflect the diversity of Mediterranean peoples in real life, and centers traditionally white (as defined in the US) features as the pinnacle of beauty. I'd like to think that this was an innocent mistake as she does preserve attitudes present in the Iliad (there are incredible similarities between the way Achilles is described and the way Homer describes Helen), but in the end if still perpetuates harmful stereotypes that portray having more melanin as somehow being inferior. Reading this book in 2020, it feels wrong to celebrate this book as a win for diversity.

Still, in spite of these two major issues, Song of Achilles isn't a bad book. Miller's prose is modern and simple, unlike the soaring poetry of Homer. This book makes the classics accessible to the general public, and it's a great gateway into the topic for anyone who may want to dig deeper. In addition, the book is strongly anti-war, which is something I can appreciate. One of the central themes of Song of Achilles is the way in which war takes "boy after boy trained for music and medicine, and unleashes [them] for murder." War has a way of taking good, kind innocents and turning them into either monsters or corpses. In a time ravaged by war, this message is eerily relevant. There is nothing good that can come from the war the U.S. is currently waging. It cannot coexist with goodness, honor, and morality. It cannot coexist with art and innovation and improvement - the very things that make us human. It can only ever end with more dead children. And that is a tragedy.

Overall, Song of Achilles is certainly not the best book I've read, but it isn't the worst either. So long as you don't think too deeply about it, its a quick and fun read, touched with both love and tragedy, beauty and heartache. And while it isn't the best representation, it is a stepping stone in the right direction for LGBTQ youth and adults alike. If I had to give this book a grade, I'd give it a solid B.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.

Poll(s) of the week

This week, we have some of the first polls on how Americans feel about the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis, and the protests that have cropped up across the U.S. in response.

On the one hand, an overwhelming majority of Americans say Floyd’s death was wrong and the police officers involved should be held accountable. There is also some support for the frustration and anger that sparked the protests, and a majority of Americans now agree that there are vast racial inequities in policing. But public opinion on the protests themselves is more muddled and suggests that Americans have mixed views of the protesters and their right to demonstrate, much of which falls along familiar partisan lines.

First, the public pretty clearly thinks the police were in the wrong. A Yahoo News/YouGov survey, for instance, found that 84 percent of Americans strongly or somewhat approved of the firing of the officers involved in Floyd’s death, and 68 percent said they approved of charging former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd’s neck for nearly 9 minutes, with murder. Similarly, 65 percent of respondents in a Data for Progress poll said that Chauvin murdered Floyd; 25 percent of respondents said his death was partly a product of excessive force “but not murder,” and just 10 percent said it was a “tragic accident.”

Additionally, most Americans said that policing is biased against African Americans. In a new survey from Monmouth University, 57 percent said police were more likely to use excessive force in difficult situations if the suspect is black, while just 33 percent said police were equally likely to use excessive force against white people and black people. Similarly, 57 percent of respondents in a new CBS News/YouGov survey said police in most communities treat white people better than black people. Thirty-nine percent said police treat both races equally. On top of this, 61 percent of Americans said race was a “major factor” in Floyd’s death, according to the Yahoo News/YouGov survey. There was a big partisan gap in how respondents answered this question though: 87 percent of Democrats said race was a major factor compared with just 39 percent of Republicans.

More broadly, the public appears receptive to why people are protesting. Fifty-seven percent of respondents in the Monmouth poll felt that, regardless of their actions, protesters’ anger was “fully justified,” while 21 percent said it was “partially justified” and 18 percent said it was “not at all justified.” And 64 percent told Reuters/Ipsos that they were sympathetic to those participating in the protests, while a Morning Consult poll found that 54 percent of adults supported “the protest in general” while 22 percent opposed it.

However, Americans had mixed views on what has happened during the protests, and many have expressed disapproval of protests that have been violent or destructive. Forty-five percent of respondents told Morning Consult that, on the whole, most of the protesters are peaceful and desire meaningful social reform, while 42 percent said most protesters are trying to incite violence or destroy property. In Monmouth’s poll, only 17 percent felt the actions of the protesters were fully justified, 37 percent said they were partially justified and 38 percent said they weren’t justified at all. And the Reuters/Ipsos survey found that most Americans (72 percent) didn’t think violent protests were an appropriate response to Floyd’s killing, and that property damage caused by protesters undermined their goals (79 percent). Morning Consult’s survey also found that Americans were less supportive of the protests when they were specifically asked about black people protesting.

Americans across the political spectrum said they approved of some of the more forceful responses from local and state authorities. In Morning Consult’s poll, 70 percent said they supported curfews and 66 percent backed calling in the national guard to aid city police, with large majorities of both Democrats and Republicans approving these measures. Fifty-five percent of respondents even supported calling in the U.S. military, although there was a substantial partisan split on this question, with 74 percent of Republicans approving compared with 48 percent of Democrats.

As for President Trump’s handling of the protests, Americans largely gave him a thumbs down. The CBS News/YouGov poll found that 32 percent approved of Trump’s response while 49 percent disapproved, and Reuters/Ipsos found that 33 percent approved while 56 percent disapproved. Although Trump usually has overwhelming backing from Republicans on most job approval questions, there were some signs that at least a few GOP voters were breaking with him on this issue. The CBS News/YouGov survey found that 65 percent approved of how he’s handling the situation — far lower than the 84 percent who approve of how he’s handling the coronavirus pandemic, for example — while 14 percent disapproved. Similarly, in the Reuters/Ipsos poll, 20 percent disapproved while 67 percent approved.

There could be electoral repercussions to the protests and the president’s response to them. Monmouth’s survey found that 74 percent of Americans felt the country was on the wrong track, the largest share since Monmouth first asked the question nationally in 2013. And as a result of Floyd’s death and the protests, 45 percent of registered voters told Morning Consult they were more likely to now vote for former Vice President Joe Biden. However, another 31 percent said they’d be more likely to vote for Trump. And at this point, it’s hard to imagine that George Floyd’s death won’t be an important factor in the election.

Other polling bites

This month marks the fifth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that made same-sex marriage legal across the country, and Gallup’s latest data finds that 67 percent of Americans believe gay marriage should be legal, tying record-high support in 2018. Overall, this reflects a remarkable shift in public opinion. In 1996, 68 percent of Americans opposed same-sex marriage, while just 27 percent supported it.

A new report from the Pew Research Center says that religion is increasingly becoming a dividing line between Democrats and Republicans. Only 52 percent of Democrats identified as Christian in 2019, down from 73 percent in 2008, while 79 percent of Republicans identified as Christian last year, down 8 percentage points from 87 percent more than a decade ago.

As many states and municipalities start to reopen after closing up shop to slow the spread of the coronavirus, a new ABC News/Washington Post survey reveals that many Americans are still hesitant to resume their pre-pandemic activities. Fifty-eight percent said it was still “too early” to visit stores, restaurants and other public places, and 57 percent said it was more important to control the spread of the coronavirus than to restart the economy, compared with 37 percent who said that restarting the economy was more important.

However, Gallup finds that Americans aren’t quite as worried about being exposed to the coronavirus when they visit medical providers now compared with how they felt in late March and early April. Back then, 84 percent said they were “very” or “moderately” concerned about exposure at a doctor’s office or hospital, whereas now just 64 percent said they were concerned.

In the wake of Trump’s executive order targeting social media fact-checking policies, fewer Americans said they wanted Trump banned from a social media platform if he spread offensive content compared with last year, according to a new poll from Morning Consult. Just 24 percent said they wanted him banned, which is down from 38 percent in August 2019. (But the share who approved of a temporary suspension of his account remained relatively the same, 35 percent versus 36 percent.) The weaker support for a ban was driven primarily by Americans who voted for Trump in 2016. In 2019, 26 percent of Trump voters supported a ban compared with just 13 percent in 2020.

The U.S. Senate race in Kansas is heating up, and a new survey from Democratic pollster Civiqs suggests it could be competitive in November despite the state’s Republican lean. Presumptive Democratic nominee Barbara Bollier was in a dead heat against three Republican contenders, holding just a 1-point lead over two of them — former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and businessman Bob Hamilton — while trailing Rep. Roger Marshall by 1 point. In the GOP primary, the poll gave Kobach an edge over Marshall (35 percent to 26 percent), with Hamilton in third at 15 percent.

A new survey from Republican pollster Cygnal suggests that there may not be a runoff for the Democratic nomination in Georgia’s regularly scheduled U.S. Senate election. The poll found journalist and former congressional candidate Jon Ossoff at nearly 49 percent in the June 9 primary race, just shy of the majority he needs to avoid an Aug. 11 runoff. Meanwhile, former Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson had about 16 percent, and 2018 Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor Sarah Riggs Amico had around 8 percent.

Trump approval

According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 41.9 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 53.1 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -11.2 points). At this time last week, 42.6 percent approved and 53.6 percent disapproved (a net approval rating of -11.0 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 43.3 percent and a disapproval rating of 51.1 percent, for a net approval rating of -7.8 points.

Generic ballot

In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot, Democrats currently lead by 7.8 percentage points (48.7 percent to 40.9 percent). A week ago, Democrats led Republicans by 7.7 points (48.2 percent to 40.5 percent). At this time last month, voters preferred Democrats by 7.7 points (48.0 percent to 40.3 percent).

[ask-hunterxhunter]

Hcs of Chrollo, Uvogin, and Phinks with an s/o who have children from a past relationship?

Chrollo

Some of the detailsmight rely on how you decide to handleintroducing Chrollo to your children, since he is… Well, a wanted criminal andnot only a thief, but a murderer. Most parents already take care when startinga new relationship and some won’t even bring the person in question home until quitea while, especially if their children are young. There is also the detail as towhether or not Chrollo would tell you right from the start who he is, if youdidn’t know already.

 We do knowthat Chrollo doesn’t care for people outside of his intimate circle, and while somecare is extended to your child (because they are yours), he may feel somewhat unsure about spending time with them nevertheless(if he ever gets to meet them). This has nothing to do with the “doesn’t want to raise another person’s child”that some people feel (he may not even be sure of how serious things can bebetween you two for starters), but more because he is a cautious man when itcomes down to forming relationships, even the innocent ones and honestly? Heisn’t that used to deal withchildren.

 You can atleast be certain that Chrollo is not aplayer. He will not lie about his intentions and he will take the fact that youhave a child seriously, including the matter of when (or even if) he should meet them.

 If he meets themhappens before being certain about your relationship, Chrollo will just bepolite while not going out of his way to get to know them. However, as the timepasses and if your relationship starts to become serious (the “considering marriage”serious), Chrollo will end up spending more time with your child and not only becausethey are part of your life, but also because he slowly comes to actually likethem. Once he decides he wants to bewith you, this includes your child as well.  

 Chrollo is quitepatient when dealing with kids and he will pay attention as to how he should treatyours in order to make this work. Some children don’t like it much when theirparent is dating and are unsure about a new adult in their lives, so trying toomuch in an effort to approach them can actually push them away while others aremore receptive. Being observant, Chrollo will learn about them and show that hepays attention to the details and what they like, seeking to build trust while theyspend time together. And again, this is helped since he actually wants to bepart of their lives. At first, he may feel somewhat uncertain and out of hiselement, but it will be hard to notice. In the end, Chrollo will get along surprisinglywell with your children: They want to play or read stories after dinner? Ofcourse. There is a movie they want to go? He suggests you go together as afamily.

 He is no moreinto affectionate gestures (in public) than normal, but he will make sure yourchildren know he cares for them. If you both end up deciding to stay together,Chrollo will soon come to see them as his own.

Uvogin

Uvogin’s generalopinion of children is that, while someof them might be okay in small doses (hisfirst opinion about Gon would be that he was… Alright, maybe, at least for a kid),the vast majority are snotty brats and the farther away from him, the better (even if he can hide thatwhen meeting one for whatever reason, unless he is a bad mood or the kid reallygets in his nerves). And if Uvogin wasn’t aware of the child’s existence, he willpay attention to your behaviorbecause if you’re thinking in wrapping him into being “New Dad” around here,you can forget it! There is no way he is going to be tied down, especially likethat, no way! The first sign of you trying to actively pull him into becoming “partof the family”, he’s out.

 If it doesn’tseem to be the case (meaning you let things run its own course and pays attentionto Uvogin’s rhythm), or if he already knew about the child, Uvogin will just tryavoiding contact with them as he can while taking things lightly with you. If thingsdon’t get serious with you, he will eventually part ways. And at least yourchild won’t be hurt, since they didn’t have any bond between them, anyway. Nothingmajor.

 But oh, if itdoes get serious…

 With Uvoginfinding himself more and more involved with you, the more he finds himselfsomehow spending time with your little kids. He tries to keep his distance, hetries to ignore them as politely ashe can… But you, being a good parent, raised a good child and… Well, thingsactually start to work somehow. Maybe they find Uvogin’s muscles and scars justthe coolest thing ever, maybe theyare curious, but in the end, they are just the sort of kids that have a specialway of finding their way into someone’s affections.

 And damn if Uvogindoesn’t start to find himself… Kinda of liking them. Of course, it doesn’t meananything, just that they are the sort he can stand for more than five minutes,no more. So, he ended up rattling telling one’s hideout to the otherduring a game of hide-and-seek, maybe he indulged them when they asked to belifted up (Heavens know he can do sowith only one arm), so what? It doesn’t mean anything… And if he’s thinkingabout stealing that game for their birthday it is just because… Well, he can’tjust show up with nothing, can he? That’s just basic stuff, that’s all.

 It doesn’tmean that he cares. It doesn’t mean he likes them. It doesn’t mean he wouldcrush the skull of anyone who ever tried to harm his kids and… Oh, crap.

 Uvogin’saffections at times are almost brother-like, such as messing with their hairand teasing them during games as a challenge (or teaching them cool fightingmoves), but you can see him at times holding them in his lap while he tells astory (something many who met Uvogin wouldn’t consider possible).

Phinks

Phinks had noissues dealing with Gon and Killua due to the circumstances (such as how theywere aware of the Spiders and what they do, etc) and the same applies even moreto Kalluto, who is part of the group. While they can be younger, Phinks seesthem in a more equal ground than he would with regular children, which made thewhole thing far easier than it would be when it comes down to dating a singleparent. He not only rarely has contact with children for starters, but doesn’tcare much for them either and if it’s necessary to kill some, it’s not going tokeep him awake at night.

 As such,Phinks can be somewhat awkward with your children at first, since he doesn’t havemuch experience (if asked about it, he will confess he isn’t even sure he likeskids, having never thought much about it before), so perhaps you shouldn’t leavethem alone for more than two minutes at first. Phinks will also need time todecide about how he feels about this, where he is willing to go with therelationship. Yes, he likes you, maybe even lovesyou, but… He isn’t sure he is fit to be anyone’s dad. Being in a relationship is already complicated with him beinga Spider (don’t ever fool yourself thinking he would leave them for you), butadding a child to the equation? How can you even make this work?

 His opinionon your child may take a while to be formed, and it will rely more on what heobserves from them rather than interactions, but if he decides to invest on you,Phinks will be determined to form a good relationship with your kids even if heis unsure if this is for life or not. In a way or another, it won’t go quite assmoothly as it could be for some of the others, since he is the sort that gets frustratedin a situation where he is unsure about how to act, the problem not even beingthe children themselves. He wouldn’tlash out or anything, but wouldn’t come off as the most approachable person (andthe harsh vibe he can give off sometimes can also make him intimidating to asmall child), even if he would still try. Again, it would be a bit of awkward.

 The best solution is to tell him to just chill and be himself, while planning occasionalactivities that you can all do together and that provide subject for conversation,such as movies. Also, once Phinks comes into terms about how serious he feelsabout you and also relaxes a little with your child, things tend to improvebetween them.