#outlaws and partisans

[fledermoved-too]

PiB AU Scourge and Fuego 🧊🔥

Some thoughts I had for a backstory concerning my request muse Scourge and @firestcr !! This is just an idea ofc, so if this doesn't work for you that's totally fine <33

it's okay to rb this btw!

info under the cut:

This is inspired by the Hawkstorm MAP, which is one of my favorites!

In this AU, Scourge and Fuego are siblings from the same litter, born in a small town just an hour or so out from Mexico City within a run-down, dilapidated hut. Their mother, a stray, does her best to care for the two with limited resources, and they have a fairly normal childhood at first, getting along well. Scourge (then Tiny) is raised as a girl, as that is his assigned gender at birth. He is often adorned with a flower, the anemone, which symbolizes the idea of being forsaken, which is pure coincidence to their reality, but foreshadows his fate.

One night, during a particularly devastating storm, lightning strikes a tree close by to their hut, and it catches fire. The fire spreads with extreme speed as their mother wakes to the roar of the flames and tries to get her children to safety, but can only carry one through the rapidly deconstructing building. Tiny does his best to keep up, but is barred from following as debris collapses, blocking the path to his only exit. Nutmeg flees with her remaining kit, devastated as she assumes Tiny has been crushed.

Fire has destroyed their home and Rusty's only sister, yet he is born from the ashes, and as Nutmeg eventually succumbs to her own burns and smoke inhalation in town, Rusty is taken in by townsfolk and named Fuego after his pelt and past. As he is raised, more and more of the incident falls from his immediate memory, but he never forgets the death of his littermate and mother, promising to carry them within his heart always as he becomes the hero that the town deserves, fighting evil as he travels place to place. As he outgrows the collar handed down to him by townsfolk, he no longer wears it, but keeps the item out of sentimental value. He gains a partisan to utilize as his favored weapon.

It's unknown how Tiny was able to escape that night and survive, but he did make an escape, bearing horrific burns that would result in hair loss, troubled breathing, as well as skin and nerve damage. Fortunately, some of his fur would grow back, but not the full amount, giving him a more mangy appearance and earning him the name El Chupacabra by locals. This treatment comes to the exact opposite of Fuego's, as Scourge decides to give himself a third name for shortness' sake and to keep his anger within his title. This is when he begins to realize he is a tomcat. To him, Tiny is dead as well, though more metaphorically.

He becomes an outlaw, bearing a hatchet ready to kill and a collar of bone and tooth to settle his new look. Though he is a bitter opponent, a few select strays admire the tenacity and fierceness of his work, occasionally grouping with him for resources in hopes of food and shelter, but they are not fully loyal. At a true sniff of danger, they flee, leaving Scourge alone in his mission to rustle livestock and commit vicious theft and killings.

Scourge remembers the night vividly in trauma, and knows who Fuego is. He harbors resentment for his brother, but will not openly acknowledge that he knows Fuego. Instead, he acts as the antagonist, and the opposing force to all that Fuego has built as a reputation. If Fuego is the hero, then El Chupacabra must be the villain.

[kemeticdevotee]

An Ancient Egyptian sunrise hymn

"The harpoon is deep in Apophis, the evil,

He falls by the sword;

And those who chose war are huddled for slaughter.

Death cuts the hearts of God’s demon enemies,

Who groan as outlaws, 

Apostate forever. 

He has ordered the remnant sacrificed,

To cripple the power of the dark adversary, 

That God’s own self be secure. 

Unharmed is He in his midship chapel!

The Holy Light shines still!

He has ridden the waves unscathed, 

And rebels are no more!

The Sun Ship of infinite journeys,

Still sails on course through the sky, 

Her Godly crew cheering,

Their hearts sweet with victory. 

Down is the great Antagonist!

Bane of the Lord of Creation!

No partisan of his is found, 

Either in heaven or Earth!

Sky, Thebes, Heliopolis, Underworld– 

Their peoples are proud of their conquering God,

For they see him strong in his sunrise epiphany,

Robed in beauty and power and victory, 

It is Day!

You have won, Amun-Ra!

Gone the dark children of Enmity, 

Dead by the sword."

-Leiden Hymn XXX, translated by John L. Foster (whose translations absolutely stun me with their mixture of accuracy and beauty.)

[deadpresidents]

2023's Best Books

I meant to do this a few days ago so there was more time before the holidays, but here's a quick list of the best books that I read that were released in 2023. Obviously, I didn't read every book that came out this year, and I'm only listing the best books I read that were actually released in the 2023 calendar year.

In my opinion, the two very best books released in 2023 were An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford by Richard Norton Smith (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO), and True West: Sam Shepard's Life, Work, and Times by Robert Greenfield (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO).

(The rest of this list is in no particular order)

President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier C.W. Goodyear (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

The World: A Family History of Humanity Simon Sebag Montefiore (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

France On Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain Julian Jackson (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

The Last Island: Discovery, Defiance, and the Most Elusive Tribe on Earth Adam Goodheart (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World Mary Beard (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

City of Echoes: A New History of Rome, Its Popes, and Its People Jessica Wärnberg (BOOK | KINDLE)

We Are Your Soldiers: How Gamal Abdel Nasser Remade the Arab World Alex Rowell (BOOK | KINDLE)

Edison's Ghosts: The Untold Weirdness of History's Greatest Geniuses Katie Spalding (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

Waco Rising: David Koresh, the FBI, and the Birth of America's Modern Militias Kevin Cook (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

The Summer of 1876: Outlaws, Lawmen, and Legends in the Season That Defined the American West Chris Wimmer (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

King: A Life Jonathan Eig (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

LBJ's America: The Life and Legacies of Lyndon Baines Johnson Edited by Mark Atwood Lawrence and Mark K. Updegrove (BOOK | KINDLE)

Who Believes Is Not Alone: My Life Beside Benedict XVI Georg Gänswein with Saverio Gaeta (BOOK | KINDLE)

Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How It Created the Modern Middle East Uri Kaufman (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

The Rough Rider and the Professor: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the Friendship That Changed American History Laurence Jurdem (BOOK | KINDLE)

White House Wild Child: How Alice Roosevelt Broke All the Rules and Won the Heart of America Shelley Fraser Mickle (BOOK | KINDLE)

Romney: A Reckoning McKay Coppins (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics H.W. Brands (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

The Earth Transformed: An Untold History Peter Frankopan (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

LeBron Jeff Benedict (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America Abraham Riesman (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden's White House Chris Whipple (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

 Eolo Perfido

* * * *

Who Are We? By: Alan Kaufman

Into the past I go like a stranger to discover why at night I lay alone as a child waiting for the front door to slam, my father gone to night-shift work, and my mother, Marie, to enter, unable to sleep, and tell me tales of childhood war, pursued by those who, as she spoke, seemed to enter the room, Gestapo men in leather coats who ordered me to pack and descend to a waiting truck, for I am still going to Auschwitz though a grown man in 1998 I am still boarding the freight, crushed against numbed, frightened Jews and Gypsies and Russian soldiers and homosexuals crossing frontiers to be gassed

I am her, in my heart, though I am six feet two and two hundred and ten pounds and have played college football and served as a soldier and have scars from fights with knives and jagged bottles smashed on bars

I am still her, little girl, hiding in chicken coops and forests, asleep on dynamite among partisans I am still her, brushing teeth with ashes from the ruins of nations gutted in war

I am still her brown eyes and black hair of persecution foraging scraps of thistle soup, a star-shaped patch sewn to my shirt

I am still my mother every day in the streets of New York or San Francisco, the chimney skies glow and swirl with soot like night above a crematorium, or the Bronx incinerator chute where I threw out trash in a brick darkness shooting sparks

I am still her in the streets of Berkeley, walking among sparechangers, dyed-hair punkers, gays in stud leather, Blacks, Mexicans and Asians

I am still her rounded up among poets and thieves and politically incorrect social deviants on sun-drenched sidewalks in the Mission and the Haight, Greenwich Village, the Lower East Side, or anywhere the weird congregate in tolerance

And every day in this age of intolerance, in a mental ghetto affirmed by the homeless, I pass the dying with the loud ring of my boots, ashamed to think that perhaps my heels are the last thing they heard Every day I am a survivor of AIDS and poverty

Every day I sit in cafes watching tattoos turn to numbers and I grow angry I want America back I want America to be the home I never had

And you, who are you if you hear my voice? Who are you, stranger if you read these words?

Who are we who stand threatened in these times of darkness? Who are we, condemned to die, who do not know ourselves at all?

[Poetic Outlaws]

[transmascrage]

There's something I'd like to say, about these recent events and how we, queer people and minorities as a whole, need to learn from history.

Have you ever wondered why there was such little opposition to Mussolini's rise?

It's not that everyone was on his side, not at all.

The PSI (the Italian Socialist Party) was against him. And for good reason, Mussolini's black jackets had been beating and killing left-wingers, burning down libraries, etc.

But when it was time to come together, they disagreed on some futile shit, and the PSI split into PSI and PCI (the Italian Communist Party) and they were too divided to fight.

Mussolini "marched" into Rome (he hid like a coward until it was confirmed he could come without danger) and got his power, without too much pushback.

I'm not saying he wouldn't have made it if the left-wing had fought back, but the thing is we can't know because they didn't.

You might think I'm being dramatic in comparing Mussolini's rise to what's happening in the US but I'm not. I've studied my country's history, what's happening in the Great US of A isn't that different.

Please learn from history. The PSI didn't fight back against a dictator because they were too busy having skirmishes about whether socialism should be achieved through reforming or revolution.

It doesn't fucking matter whether you think transandrophobia isn't real or not, whether you think bi lesbians are valid or not, whether the 'toothpaste flag' is valid or not, IT DOESN'T. FUCKING. MATTER.

The only thing we don't need right now is people saying "Weeeell, maybe that group shouldn't be allowed in..." or "Weeeeell, maybe that group shouldn't speak right now..."

Any queer person who I don't see eye-to-eye with is still more of an ally than a bootlicking white cis gay man who tries to be "one of the good ones." We don't need bootlicking right now.

But there's a silver lining. After communism was outlawed by the Fascist Party, eventually the PCI managed to strike an alliance with the PSI, and that's when the opposition began.

Communists and socialists, partisans together, were the biggest pieces of resistance against Mussolini. Many partisan songs we have today were written by communists.

What do you say we come together BEFORE THEY OUTLAW QUEER PEOPLE? HUH?

OR IS THAT NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU TWITTER BABIES WHO NEED TO HAVE THE FINAL WORD IN EVERYTHING? DO YOU STILL NEED TO FEEL SUPERIOR BY BEING "WOKERER" THAN EVERYONE ELSE?

LEARN. FROM. HISTORY.

[reddancer1]

The Heritage Foundation, one of the most powerful establishment influencers in Republican Party politics, has stooped to a new low with its creation of Project 2025 and their scheme to remake America in Trump's image.

Project 2025 seeks to purge the government of non-partisan experts, replacing them with radical ideologues loyal only to the MAGA movement. Key agencies would be staffed with Trump loyalists intent on implementing his destructive policies and demolishing any remaining checks on executive power.

It’s hard to say what’s the worst thing in the plan, because it’s all frighteningly dangerous, but it shouldn’t surprise you that it supports a national abortion ban. It also calls for using the Comstock Act to stop the mailing of drugs and equipment used in abortions, outlaw mifepristone and ban the use of contraceptives. It’s a forced-birth plan on steroids from the organization that led the fight to appoint Supreme Court Justices willing to overturn Roe.

It calls for separation of families, the end of birthright citizenship, and the creation of deportation camps to expel seven million people in the first four years. The plan attacks education and any attempt to fight the climate crisis, while also defunding the FBI and refocusing the Justice Department on prosecuting Trump’s political enemies.

The list goes on and on.

The involvement of corporate giants Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase in supporting Trump’s Project 2025 through the Heritage Foundation is deeply troubling. Their financial contributions to this organization have directly supported the propagation of Project 2025's inhumane policies.

By aligning themselves with Trump’s Project 2025, the powerful Wall Street banks are complicit in endorsing an agenda that stands in stark contrast to the principles of human rights and ethical business practices.

The path forward is clear. We must demand these Wall Street banks:

Publicly Denounce Project 2025: Clearly and unequivocally reject the inhumane policies proposed by Project 2025. Silence is complicity, and a public denouncement is necessary to distance themselves from this harmful agenda.

Permanently end funding of the Heritage Foundation: It is unacceptable for any American corporation to be associated with an organization that advocates for the end of American democracy and the implementation of hateful, bigoted and xenophobic policies.

Commit to Ethical Practices: Banks have a long history of rigging the system through discriminatory and exploitative practices that harm American consumers, especially people of color. Instead of doubling down on that history, make an affirmative commitment to ethical business practices and human rights including transparent dialogue with stakeholders ensuring that their actions reflect their stated values.

As customers and concerned citizens, we have the power to hold these companies accountable and demand they stand up for decency.

Click ‘START WRITING’ to sign and send your message demanding Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase permanently end all financial support for the Heritage Foundation and reject Trump’s Project 2025 now.

[agendermetalbender]

Begin article transcript:

[“First of Its Kind” Illinois Law Will Penalize Libraries That Ban Books

Illinois public libraries that restrict or ban materials because of “partisan or doctrinal” disapproval will be ineligible for state funding as of Jan. 1, 2024.

By The Associated Press

Published on 6/13/2023 at 5:48 PM

CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Monday signed into law a bill that he says will make Illinois the first state in the nation to outlaw book bans.

Illinois public libraries that restrict or ban materials because of “partisan or doctrinal” disapproval will be ineligible for state funding as of Jan. 1, 2024, when the new law goes into effect.

“We are not saying that every book should be in every single library,” said Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, who is also the state librarian and was the driving force behind the legislation. “What this law does is it says, let’s trust our experience and education of our librarians to decide what books should be in circulation.”

The new law comes into play as states across the U.S. push to remove certain books in schools and libraries, especially those about LGBTQ+ themes and by people of color. The American Library Association in March announced that attempts to censor books in schools and public libraries reached a 20-year high in 2022 — twice as many as 2021, the previous record.

“Illinois legislation responds to disturbing circumstances of censorship and an environment of suspicion,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom and executive director of the Freedom to Read Foundation.

Downers Grove Democrat Rep. Anne Stava-Murray sponsored the legislation in the Illinois House of Representatives after a school board in her district was subject to pressure to ban certain content from school libraries.

“While it’s true that kids need guidance, and that some ideas can be objectionable, trying to weaponize local government to force one-size-fits-all standards onto the entire community for reasons of bigotry, or as a substitute for active and involved parenting, is wrong," Stava-Murray said Monday at the bill's signing, which took place at a children’s library in downtown Chicago.

Despite Giannoulias' assertion that “this should not be a Democrat or Republican issue,” lawmakers' approval of the bill splintered across party lines, with Republicans in opposition.

“I support local control,” said House Minority Leader Tony McCombie, a Republican who voted against the measure, in an emailed statement. "Our caucus does not believe in banning books, but we do believe that the content of books should be considered in their placement on the shelves.”

___

By CLAIRE SAVAGE]

End transcript

[tamamita]

So, something that confuses me about the schism between Sunni and Shia is the fact that the issue of succession is still a common dividing point between the two branches (branches being the term that I’m familiar with when referring to “primary” divisions in religions, like Christianity being divided into Catholic, Protestant and Eastern Orthodox).

I understand that the phrasing of this question might sound rude, so I want to rephrase it so that you understand what I mean:

The successors of Muhammad that both groups held up are both long dead, so why does the conflict rage on?

Once again, I’m sorry if I come off as a little rude, I’m just having trouble understanding aspects of the schism.

Just a suggestion: an analogy might be helpful with explaining this to me.

Don't worry about it. This is very compressed, because it'd take time to explain everything thouroughly, but I hope you get the gist of it.

Islam is a vast and complex religion and doesn't end simply at the passing of the Prophet (pbuh&hf) to understand the religion, one must understand the history of Islam past the Prophet's life. Most Sunnis are unfortunately rather ignorant of most events that took place after the Prophet's life, because the scholars of Ahlul Sunnah never felt that the history of Islam was fundamental to the theological and practical aspects of Islam. To understand schisms of Islam and why there is still an on-going conflict one must understand Islam historically and contemporarily.

In terms of history, Shi'a Muslims were simply partisans, a political party affiliated with the cause of the Prophet's cousin, Ali (a). Most Sunni and Shi'a hadiths narrate that Ali (a) had been chosen to succeed the Prophet implicltly and explicitly, thus Shi'as and many among the Sunnis are on terms that Ali (a) was indeed chosen to lead the Muslims after the Prophet's demise. When the Prophet died, the Prophet's family readied his funeral prayer, while this took place, some of the companions of the Prophet held a meeting in secret with the Ansars to discuss the succession of the Prophet. The Ansars (helpers) and the Muhajiroon (the first generation Muslims) fell into a violence with Umar selecting Abu Bakr to be the successor, much to the shock of the Muslim nation. Ali (a) did not pledge his allegience and subsequent events, violent in nature, took place, which would further legitimize the cause of the Proto-Shi'as at the time. Most Shi'as believe that the first Extremist terrorist attack befell on Ali (a) and the Prophet's daughter, Fatimah (sa), thus most Shi'as believe that the root of every contemporary Islamic violence stems from the usurpation of the caliphate by Abu Bakr, Umar and the Umayyads. Furthermore, the aftermath of these events had a great tool on the Islamic nation as years of civil war and tyrannical rule would lead to the martyrdom of the Prophet's grandsons, Hassan (a) and Hussain (a). The Battle of Karbala is a testimony in history which shows just how split the Muslims were among each other and how power and money became the ultimate gods in a world full of injustice and tyranny.

The people who continued the cause of Ali (a) and Hussain (a) were referred to as Alids. At this point in history the schools of theology started to develop, such as the Atharis, Mutazilas, Asharis and etc. It was the sixth Imam, Ja'far as-Sadiq (a) that laid the foundation of the theological aspects of Shi'a Islam and its jurisprudence, forming the Shi'a Islamic school of thought. The fundamental belief of infalibility and Imamate was an idea supported by the Qur'an and the Hadiths. Although Shi'as were split upon who'd be the Imams, only the Seveners, Fivers and Twelvers exist today. For the dynasties that stretched among the MENA region, the Shi'as posed a threat, because of their revolutionary plight, which the rulers feared could cause an uprising, thus the Shi'as were either outlawed or repressed for over centuries. Much of this dedication came through many classical polemicists, such as Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn Qayyim, Ibn Kathir and etc, who'd write fatwas, condemning Shi'as for heresy. Many of these fatwas are exploited today to legitimize violence against the Shi'as. With the rise of classical scholars, many new Islamic schools started to appear in various areas, providing people the instructions needed to practice Islam and declaring Sunni Islam to be the state religion (in opposition to the growing influence of Alids), keeping the population under control. It was by then you could say that the term Sunni came into existence.

To put it shortly, The Shi'as aren't on a mission to convert Sunnis, since they consider them Muslims, but they still wish to enlighten them about the events that took place following the Prophet's death as it helps understanding the historical and contemporary context behind the sectarian conflicts between the Sunnis and Shi'as. The Shi'as are more interested in forming unity with the Sunnis, but this task remains difficult, because of many Arab nations aren't willing to welcome any form of Iranian influence in the MENA region, which is why they have an easier time shaking hands with Imperialists.

[aint-love-heavy]

The Dobbs ruling has already led to a nascent surveillance state designed to enforce laws against abortion. Being in a relationship with someone who thinks a woman should not be able to decide whether to end a pregnancy is, for women in some states, a newly risky proposition. Social conservatives have also set their sights on outlawing no-fault divorce, which would make ending marriages even more difficult, and potentially trap people in abusive and dangerous relationships.

It is not irrational for women with socially liberal values to avoid dating people who think that they should be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, that they should forgo their career once a child is born, that women’s suffrage was a bad idea, or that they should not be allowed to get divorced if the relationship does not work out. These are not trivial concerns, or simply partisan disagreements. They are central to fundamental questions in marriage, such as where to live, whether to have children, how to divide responsibility within a home, and whose career is prioritized when. Women may reasonably choose not to date men whose ideal society does not grant them the same rights as their would-be spouse.

Obviously, conservatives are also entitled to reject partners who don’t share their values. But although a conservative woman dating a liberal man may disagree with him about whether abortion should be legal, his views are unlikely to align with a legal, state-enforced compulsion to adopt them or conduct her life according to those preferences. No laws in blue states compel women to have abortions, to work instead of staying home, to eschew regular attendance at religious institutions, or to divorce if a partner fails to keep up with household duties.

[...]

A discrete but related issue is the rise of what the Post calls “manfluencers,” who “promote outright misogyny.” To get more specific, these figures have grown popular by espousing a worldview in which woman are subservient and sexual assault and domestic violence are socially acceptable. It is—to put it mildly—unreasonable to expect women to bear the social responsibility of bringing men who have succumbed to this ideology back from the brink by dating them.

The leftward drift of single women has coincided with a conservative effort to demonize them—“single woke females” in one hilarious coinage—because they tend to vote for Democrats. As with Black voters or Latino voters, anytime a particular constituency becomes important to the Democratic Party, the conservative movement comes up with convenient explanations for why this group of people is responsible for all of the country’s problems. But as with those constituencies, the reason for this leftward shift is conservative policy—they are turning away from the party that wants to take their fundamental freedoms away from them. Calling single women “woke” for doing so is simply an attempt to pathologize a rational choice.

A much-needed answer to that deeply tone-deaf Washington Post op-ed lamenting that liberal women are less willing to date conservative men these days

[chrysalispen]

Prompt #14 - Attrition

AO3 LINK HERE

Fill under cut.

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

Aurelia hated balls. Yet here she was, the center of attention at one of her very own.

Or she would be if she weren't hiding.

She stared, disconsolate, down at her feet-- covered as they were by a shimmering drape of ivory satin. Over the gown lay the deep scarlet sash with its house crest. The dress itself felt scandalous with its strapless shoulders and plunging cut, not to mention bloody cold - honestly, how anyone could be so fond of skin-baring formals in a climate where the temperatures hovered at or below freezing for most of the year she'd never understand - but the sash was really too much.

"Aurelia, darling."

Her aunt lingered in the doorway, a glass of wine in one hand. Aurelia didn't even bother with a response. A month after the dinner which Uncle Janus had hosted to introduce her to her "intended" and his parents, she remained so furious with her guardians that she still had to exercise all the self-control at her disposal simply to exchange civil pleasantries with them.

It was such a strange and unpleasant thing, this rage inside her. Like a constant ache in her chest, or a cinder that could never quite cool to ash. It seemed to smoulder even when not in the presence of her would-be gaolers.

She had never before realized she was capable of being this angry.

In Gyr Abania, there were partisan fighters in the mountains (Father had called them "outlaws" or "brigands" when he wasn't calling them something worse): a motley collection of men and women fighting against the Empire's occupation, whose exploits often made the provincial papers. Without Ala Mhigo there seemed to always be fighting between the viceroy's legion and those pockets of resistance - especially out in the fringe communities near the wall to the south - without any clear victor in sight.

Of course, it was naught that anyone in the capital would have heard about - unless there was widespread and violent revolt, life in the provinces remained largely beneath their notice. Even in the city itself such matters were rarely discussed beyond the idle click of a disapproving tongue over one's eggs and toast and tea. Most of the wealthy who made their homes up in the old palace district saw the partisans only as criminals whose sole goal was to upset the 'natural order' of things and assumed Lord van Baelsar would sort them out himself.

But Aurelia had overheard enough of the conversations between her father and his peers to know the viceroy found their antics more worrisome than the papers let on. The Ala Mhigan people might keep their heads down and kowtow to their Garlean overlords when it was necessary, but it was as much an act as her own show of deference to her relatives. As she had grown older it had been easier and easier to sense the resentment and fury that roiled out of sight: a massive monster whose shadow was sometimes visible to the observant eye, lurking beneath the placid surface of the lochs.

She didn't presume to know how the aan felt, had no way of understanding what it must be like to share in such an unenviable lot. But, she thought to herself, surely this seething rancor she felt must be the most miniscule taste of it.

"You can't simply hide from your guests, you know," Marcella said when Aurelia didn’t acknowledge her presence. "You'll have to face everyone eventually."

"I wonder that you and Uncle can face me."

"What is that supposed to mean? What precisely do we have to apologize for?"

Aurelia tightened her grip about the snowy fur that served as her sole protection between her bared back and the chill emanating from the tempered glass window. "You both know what you did."

"And you, miss, should save these dramatics of yours for the playhouse. None of the rest of us care to see or hear them." Marcella's response was what she had expected: a long-suffering sigh, a snap of the wrist, a flutter of her fan as she took another sip from her glass. "We've done only what needs must to secure your future."

My future, Aurelia thought. 

In that moment the smoulder was no longer a smoulder. She rounded on her aunt, limbs shaking and face burning like a banked ember, unable to keep her temper leashed a moment longer.

"You have done naught for the past six years except to throw me like a leg of mutton at every spoiled prat with a family name and a fortune in the hopes I'll become someone else's problem, and you expect me to believe 'twas all done for my own good? Do I have no say in what becomes of me?"

"This marriage is for your own good. You can mislike it all you wish, but this is what is expected of you."

"Expected," her laugh was as cold and brittle as the icicles dangling from the eaves outside, twinkling with harsh crystalline purity in the outdoor lights. "It's what you expect of me, perhaps."

"Yes. It is. This is a windfall for you, and you would see that and cease this self-absorbed prattle if you had any onze of sense in you at all." Her aunt's face was now as livid as her own, she noticed with a petty sort of satisfaction. "I have given you countless chances to come to terms with this in your own time, but I don't think you understand just how incredibly fortunate you are."

"How am I fortunate?” Aurelia demanded. “Tell me. What about any of this is luck?"

"What about it isn't? You caught that young man's eye by sheer chance and even then it took your uncle loosening the purse strings on the family coffers to keep his parents' interest, girl. You've no money or status of your own save the family name and his largesse."

"Yes, the two of you have made quite certain that I am well aware of my precarious position in-"

"To wed into His Radiance's family, extended though that connection might be, is prestige well worth any personal inconvenience. As it is, you have no guarantee that any further offers will be forthcoming."

"My education will afford me other opportunities, aunt."

"Will it? A field medic's salary will not keep you in the manner to which you are entitled. And what will you be doing with that expensive education of yours in the meantime? Crawling through the mud. Surrounded by the dead, dodging sword and spell. Risking capture. Placing yourself at the tender mercies of savages who will take your virtue as readily as your life! Have you the stomach for such things? We doubt it. Your own father doubted it."

"That is no great surprise, at least," she said bitterly. "Save my mother and L'haiya, none of you have ever shown the barest scrap of confidence in me."

Marcella snapped the fan shut and slammed it down upon the nearby lacquered table with a clatter. 

"Your common mother did you a disservice most grave indeed in allowing you to run wild, rather than preparing you for what lay in your future."

"Don't you dare speak of Mama so-"

"Perhaps in the southern provinces such unfettered freedom to do as you like is the order of the day. In a civilized society such as ours, that behavior is an unseemly display. One which carries untenable risk to our family."

To Aurelia's mortified horror she could feel tears welling in her eyes. They were angry tears, but she knew her aunt would take them as a sign of weakness, and try as she might she could not stop the tightness in her throat from closing in. "How it is any less a risk to wed me to a stranger?" "Do you think I knew your uncle? I met him the day before we were to wed. I was a girl, younger than you, and I too raged against my fate at first. But in time, I discovered that being a mother - fostering the next generation of Garlean leaders - is perhaps the most important duty one could have." A smile curved Marcella's painted lips, but it seemed to Aurelia's eyes strangely resigned. Certainly there was nothing of joy in the overbright shine of her eyes. "To the masses, their betters are their beacons. They look to us for guidance, to light the way through the cold and the dark. Just as we ourselves must look to His Radiance, to guide us in turn." "I never asked for any of this." The stern lines in her aunt's brow relaxed and beneath the steel a sudden, naked sympathy laid itself bare in her gaze. "Give it time. Once you’ve had a chance to settle in, I've no doubt you'll feel differently. There is a certain contentment in accepting your place in life. But make no mistake: it is your place. This is the role Garlemald has given you, my dear," Marcella said, in a much softer and conciliatory voice. "And you must serve."

Aurelia said nothing. She clutched the furs to her chest as if they were a lifeline and stared down at the wood grain of the table. It was all she could do to keep the scream that lay just behind her lips from bolting forth - let alone the wild impulse to do so just to see who might come running.

Mistaking her niece's silence for acquiescence, Marcella het Laskaris cleared her throat.  "You may take five minutes to compose yourself. I will inform Lord Sebastian that his radiant and grateful bride will be joining him shortly."

The door clicked shut at her aunt's back. She waited a brace of beats, then another, and another, until she could be certain that she was alone. With a soft click she unclasped the pearl-studded handbag she'd brought to hold small necessities and slipped the small card with its switchboard number out from the folds of her handkerchief, where it had remained hidden since her early afternoon appointment.

For a moment she paused, flipping it over and back to read the address and the string of numbers, then tucked it into the plastic case that held her student identification card and transit pass. It would be secure in there, and at a glance would appear no different from the other small cards she kept stashed in the same spot (punch cards for her favorite cafes, mostly).

"Thank you, aunt," Aurelia whispered into the still darkness, eyes dry and heart afire. "Your advice has been most helpful."

Gathering the furs about her shoulders and tucking the purse beneath her arm, she made sure to plaster a false smile on her face before reaching for the doorknob. She didn't want to be late.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Get ready for Dobbs 2.0, a decision that will far exceed the damage done by the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health.

              In Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health, the radical majority on the Supreme Court ruled that there is no constitutional right to privacy that protects reproductive liberty. As a result, the debate over regulation of abortion was returned to the states. Or so we thought.

         It is likely that a single federal judge in Texas will issue a nationwide ban on Mifepristone, a drug approved by the FDA for more than two decades to induce therapeutic abortions. The ruling, if made, will effectively outlaw or deny access to abortions across vast swaths of the nation—even in states where legislation or the state constitution protects the right of reproductive liberty.        

         We have reached this sorry state of affairs because ultra-conservative federal judges in Texas have rigged the system to ensure that all challenges to reproductive liberty and LGBTQ rights are funneled to a single judge with extreme religious views. The situation is explained by Dennis Aftergut and Laurence Tribe in Slate, The Texas-Sized Loophole That Brought the Abortion Pill to the Brink of Doom.

         Aftergut and Tribe write,

The problem here goes beyond a single hearing, or even this single case. The real issue is systemic. Far-right groups have created a judicial pipeline to predictable triumph in one culture war battle after another: from Kacsmaryk in the plains of the Texas panhandle, to the hyperconservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, to the radically stacked majority on the Trump-packed U.S. Supreme Court. One Amarillo-based judge with carte blanche, virtually certain his extreme views will prevail on appeal, is apparently planning to curtail abortion access across the country.

[Here, there is] a coordinated national strategy, enabled by a district court federal bench, to bring right-wing legal causes into a single courtroom where a favorable result is a sure thing and where fair-minded appellate review has also been hijacked.

         There is a simple—albeit difficult to achieve—solution. We need only elect a Congress and president willing to enact legislation to reform the federal judiciary. That will require (in my view) a carve-out of the filibuster, an expansion of the Supreme Court, curbs on the ability of a single federal judge to issue nationwide injunctions, restrictions on the ability of the Supreme Court to issue merits-based decisions on its “shadow docket,” and enactment of an enforceable code of ethics on the Supreme Court (among many other reforms).

         At some point, the imposition of an extreme religious ideology on all Americans by a new class of judicial aristocrats—or “juristocrats” as described by Aftergut and Tribe—should cause Americans to reclaim their constitutional birthright. We have been too complacent in the face of a concerted assault over the last decade. Perhaps Dobbs 2.0 will be the decision that finally causes Americans to understand that the reactionary judges aren’t going stop until they have effectively codified their religious beliefs in federal law. The coming decision will hurt. Let’s turn our outrage into action.

North Carolina Supreme Court to reconsider case underlying Moore v. Harper.

         On Tuesday, March 14, the North Carolina Supreme Court will hold a hearing to reconsider its ruling in the case underlying Moore v. Harper, currently on appeal before the US Supreme Court. You may recall that Moore v. Harper raises the question of whether the Independent State Legislature theory insulates the NC state legislature from judicial oversight.

         Last year, the North Carolina Supreme Court overturned congressional district boundaries drawn by the state legislature. When the partisan composition of the NC Supreme Court flipped from Democratic to Republican, the new Republican majority on the court agreed to reconsider its ruling—for no good reason other than that it could.

         Chances are good that the NC Supreme Court will reverse its prior ruling, thereby mooting the appeal to the US Supreme Court. The complicated procedural background and possible outcomes are explained by Democracy Docket, North Carolina Supreme Court To Rehear State-Level Redistricting Case Underlying Moore v. Harper - Democracy Docket.

         Like the rogue federal judges in the Fifth Circuit, the Republican judges on the NC Supreme Court are making nakedly partisan rulings because they can. Like the solution for the federal judiciary, the solution in North Carolina is through the ballot box.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[meadowlarkx]

I love you all @sparklingdali @imakemywings

1.) finrod dwarf bf

My first silm fic!!! This has been lingering for months at the border of "nearly done" since I wrote most of it in a surge of desperate inspiration. Basically, Finrod romance oneshot-ish with a semi-OC dwarven craftsman who made the Nauglamír. This is actually my saddest finrod fic tbh despite being the one WITHOUT torture and dubcon, because it's canon compliant (imo) and Finrod is hopeful and brilliant and a little vain. :')

Those lit-up eyes softened. "Truly, your craftsmanship impresses me. I have never before been the warden of a thing so fine, nor so beautiful. I will treasure it, wonder-smith, as I have treasured your abode within these walls."

He always found the right words. It was for that open appreciation that the Khazâd so readily labored for him.

dwarf bf really has it bad for this guy

most dubious thing in this fic--i chose a Petty-dwarves narrative before learning about alternate (to me) versions Tolkien had (where Finrod is worse or has direct interaction with Mîm) but this is what I'm probably going to stick to because I like:

It was oddly fitting, Nargothrond, the seat of Felakgundu's power. The caverns' first inhabitants were criminals and outlaws, those Khazâd who had left or been driven forth in the early years. Zirak was a scholar as well as a craftsman, and he knew how those dwarves had met their end—on Elvish arrows in the days before the newcomers had made their way from the Sea. In the months they'd spent in the workshop, the Elf lord had spoken glimmers of the shadow that lay in his own past.

It has a hold on me still, Felakgundu said, after the first and only time Zirak had witnessed a waking dream. If he hadn't known Elves better, he would have thought Felakgundu a little abashed. A moment before, those light eyes had stared at nothing, unseeing and stricken. But I am stronger. And I will build strength in goodness here, no matter how evil the foundation it lies on.

Also they hook up <3

2.) westworld

Well.... having written a fucked up Bohun & Bohun/Helena Westworld AU fic for Ogniem i mieczem... I keep wanting to write a Jan (/OT3) one to keep it company. You know I have plenty of wretched ideas for that boy in this verse. Another villainous Jeremi (I wish I could say I was sorrier). Most of this one is actually in a notebook rn instead of the "westworld"-titled doc:

"What happens with the guests doesn't matter." Jan cocks his head, uncomprehending. The words are blank. Jeremi smiles. "What you do is in my service." Jan glows. "Thank you, my prince." Were there ever sweeter words?

3.) potop ot3 drama

My fav Sienkiewicz WIP at the moment tbh and HOPEFULLY one day I go back to it. This is my attempt at a Kmicic/Wołodyjowski fic because by God, we deserve one. Eventual OT3 with Oleńka I think thus the title. The premise (my beloved silly premise) is this: It's the Kmicic-as-wild-partisan-leader era. Michał is sent a bit earlier to give him his commission. Michał and Kmicic hook up before Michał learns who Kmicic is and that his hot one night stand is the famous, kind of mad partisan leader he's supposed to consider for the officer's commission. Then dramatic shenanigans ensue with Hovansky (the Russian commander who has a price on Kmicic's head) and eventually Oleńka.

“So,” Kmicic echoed, tugging at his collar. Michał had barely met him, and yet the uneasy expression still seemed uncomfortable on that bold, brash face; Kmicic remedied it with a grin that didn’t touch his wild eyes for all its bravery. “The first sabre of the Commonwealth—” “Don’t, God,” Michał mumbled, and Kmicic didn’t. “So you remember. It was a mistake unworthy of either of us. You must know that.”

Kmicic’s eyes flashed and he jumped to his feet, casting the empty glass down so it shattered. “Unworthy—”

Radziwiłł’s commission felt like fire against Michał’s breast, investing him with the strength he needed to respond—to stand in a flash and to grab Kmicic’s forearm over the table as he reached for his sabre, holding hard enough to bruise. He spoke lowly, the words hissed in the sudden closeness. “You must know that.”

Kmicic’s lip curled. His Polish was slightly accented now, as if touched by scorn. Michał could smell the sweet mead on his breath. “Say it again. I’d kill any other man who said that to me. I’d challenge you here and now.” He’d moved to ty.

Well, again.

“You would lose,” Michał said, with as little inflection as a stone. He released him, and Kmicic staggered.

Michał returned to his seat at the bench and picked up a leg of fowl. The tavern girls, flocked to the far corner of the room, visibly exhaled and began to file out towards the kitchen.

Kmicic stood before him, slim chest heaving, eyes the color of steel. He looked as if he were about to strike something.

“Sit down,” Michał said. He’d moved to ty too.

Kmicic sat.

Michał swore softly. “Don’t misunderstand me, sir. But put it out of your mind.”

“You needn’t have any fear on that account!” Kmicic downed another glass and took up the pitcher. Michał looked on with something like concern.

it's not my fault this is MAYBE the most fun Kmicic era

Michał’s mustache twitched. “If there were requisitions, signed orders—”

“May I ask you a question, your grace?” Soroka interrupted, voice low and hard. “What kind of men did your grace expect to find? In Smolensk, there’s none left like you describe. They died, your grace. Thanks be to God, Pan Kmicic hasn’t, and so they flock to him for the blood. For the fires and food, and the hope of jewels off boyars’ caps. Because this ragged part of God’s earth is the only place the courts won’t hound them—for murder and rape and Devil knows what else.”

Michał was silent. Soroka looked away, as if ashamed to speak so freely. Wołodyjowski had never heard the older man say so many words together at once.

“Besides his great boldness, there is no other reason, so if it please your grace, don’t tell my lord how to manage his men until you’ve tried it.”

“I will try it, Soroka,” Michał responded evenly, the leather of his sabre’s hilt warm under his hand. “And I’ll manage your lord too.”

one day. One day. i will finish enough of this to at least post what i've got and contribute my fandom taxes to the Potop tag because god we need more fic with this extremely canon ship

[trans-stew]

maybe this is a little conspiratorial but I feel like the recent florida trans youth ban isn't just about hurting progressive families but is purposely aimed at driving those families out of florida.

we used to be a swing state until recently and are still kinda a swing state in ways. however with the trans youth ban, the attack on public schooling, and the attacks on liberal colleges it's seems obvious the goal is to drive democrats and left leaning people out of the state to secure all the electoral votes for Republicans for the foreseeable future.

Florida's points count for a lot and if you're the less popular party and losing middle road voters over the lack of policy and increasingly open authoritarianism the only way to win elections is force your political enemies out of any big electoral state you can.

you force a whole family out by banning trans medicine that's 2 or more less blue votes times every family that leaves.

you make colleges hostile and unappealing to anyone but conservatives that's less blue votes if those students stay in the future.

it's a calculated plan to create hard conservative states where they rule with absolute power while also have guaranteed sizable chunks of the electoral votes every 4 years, guaranteed senators, guaranteed congressmen.

the culture War issues are a big problem, as is indoctrination of the next generation with partisan schooling and banning of opposing view points from elementary to college, but this isn't just a surface less own the libs. this has to also be part of their plans for eternal minority rule or even forcing a constitutional convention to enshrine even more power.

idk just..... not really looking good for the future of the country unless the democrats grow a spine and outlaw a lot of this shit.

[ausetkmt]

ATLANTA — Tuesday’s showdown between Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) and Republican challenger Herschel Walker is the product of an unusual general election runoff system that was pushed by a powerful Georgia segregationist who sought to blunt the power of Black voters in the 1960s.

While 10 states use runoffs in primary elections, Georgia and Louisiana are the only two that do so in general elections. Georgia’s system was created in 1964 after the urging of Denmark Groover, who blamed Black voters for a reelection loss and proposed runoffs. Groover later acknowledged the runoff system was intended to suppress Black political representation.

While runoff elections had existed for decades in Southern primaries, Georgia’s enthusiastic adoption of two-round voting came as a way of “ensuring a conservative White candidate won an election,” said Ashton Ellett, a political historian and archivist at the University of Georgia.

“A runoff makes it harder for folks who have less resources to vote. This was before advanced in-person voting or [voting was offered] by mail and when we had many other unfair, iniquitous, undemocratic policies. It wasn’t for a partisan advantage so much as an ideological and cultural one,” Ellett said.

Runoffs are common in Georgia’s local and down-ballot races, like contests for the General Assembly, but the race between Warnock and Walker is only the 12th statewide runoff since the system was enacted.

Voting rights groups have been pushing to get rid of the system. State officials estimate that administering another election will cost taxpayers at least $10 million, and campaigns and political groups are expected to spend even more than that.

Georgia’s Senate race is heading to a runoff. Here’s how it will work.

“Off-cycle elections, that is, elections not held in November of midterm or presidential years, historically see lower turnout overall and especially low turnout for racial and ethnic minority groups,” said Bernard Fraga, a professor of political science at Emory University who studies voter turnout and demographics.

The system added intentional friction to the democratic process and provides “a second chance for the majority group to consolidate support and stymies efforts by numerical minorities to build a winning coalition,” Fraga said.

The flurry of election changes that delivered Georgia a runoff system came amid a fierce national fight over voting rights and discrimination in the 1960s. The years-long work of activists as part of the civil rights movement had brought national attention to the struggle of Black Americans in the South and greater scrutiny of the region’s discriminatory policies and entrenched White segregationist elite. Past techniques used to politically disenfranchise Black Americans, including primaries only open to White voters, selectively applied poll taxes, literacy tests and acts of terrorism, were now outlawed or less effective. The proportion of Black Georgians registered to vote in 1960 was 29 percent, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, an educational website written and reviewed by scholars; by 1964, that number had risen to 44 percent.

“The creativity of White, Southern politicians, for over 100 years, in figuring out ways to, first, keep Black people from voting and then trying to make it as difficult and burdensome as they can without it appearing racist, and a violation of the Constitution, is breathtaking,” said Steven Lawson, a professor emeritus of history at Rutgers University, who served as an expert witness in a Justice Department suit challenging Georgia’s runoff system in 1990.

Most pressing, major civil rights legislation was being hotly debated in Congress while the Supreme Court had just scrapped Georgia’s county unit electoral system, akin to a county-based electoral college that gave disproportionate weight to voters in the state’s many rural, predominantly White counties. The court ruled in 1963 that the system disproportionately empowered rural White voters over Black voters and those in urban areas like Fulton County, home to Atlanta. It was the first of the high court’s “one person, one vote” rulings that mandated state voting systems and congressional districts weigh each vote roughly equally.

Georgia needed a new electoral system. In stepped Groover, one of the state’s most influential legislators and a hard-line segregationist.

“He had been a leading segregationist. He was the single leading proponent of the county unit system. He sponsored school segregation bills, and he was a sponsor of the bill that changed the [Georgia state] flag” to add the Confederate battle emblem in 1958, said J. Morgan Kousser, a historian and social scientist at the California Institute of Technology who has served as an expert witness in cases challenging the runoff system and many other civil rights cases across the South.

Groover “may have been the smartest or the hardest-working legislator in the chamber,” according to Charles Bullock, a professor of political science at the University of Georgia, who has researched and written multiple books on Georgia politics, including a book on the runoff system.

“He read all the legislation and would ask pointed, often challenging questions of legislators, so much so his name became a verb: ‘To Grooverize,’” said Bullock.

Yet his influence in the legislature was interrupted in 1958, when Groover lost his reelection bid to another White candidate, which Groover blamed on “bloc voting,” a euphemism he later admitted in court meant Black voters supporting his more moderate rival by enough votes to defeat him in a tight plurality election.

Even with little access to the ballot, a marginal number of Black voters could help elect a less hard-line segregationist in parts of the South, Kousser said. Headlines in the Macon Telegraph chronicled the “bloc voting controversy” in which Groover and his supporters effectively argued that Black votes were tantamount to fraud.

After a later reelection, Groover proposed a bill enacting runoff elections to stop “bloc voting” in any new system. A 1964 election law study committee adopted a version of Groover’s proposal weeks before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed.

“When the county system went, people like Groover were looking for ways to make sure that Black voting power was diluted,” said Lawson.

The system was codified in the state constitution through a 1968 referendum after Georgia’s political machine was shocked by the chaotic 1966 election of Lester Maddox, a populist arch-segregationist, as governor. Much of the state’s political establishment believed Maddox would have lost in a runoff to a less outspoken segregationist, Bullock said, but the governorship was the only office the 1964 changes hadn’t applied to because of a 19th-century legal quirk.

Groover was so committed to the state’s defunct electoral laws that as the 1964 legislative session ended, signaling the end of the county unit system and amid a tense congressional redistricting fight, Groover crawled across the chamber’s balcony to remove its official clock in a symbolic show of stopping time in its place.

From the start of the process through the 1980s, civil rights groups argued it was intentionally burdensome on counties, campaigns and Black political activists. Coupled with policies like harsh gerrymandering and countywide elections, many Black candidates outside Atlanta found it difficult to succeed alongside the state’s still byzantine election rules.

The system came under federal scrutiny in 1990, when the Justice Department and American Civil Liberties Union jointly sued Georgia over its runoff policy, describing the practice writ large as a means of exhausting and diluting Black votes. A key part of that litigation: admissions from Groover who late in life openly acknowledged the racial motivations behind his policies.

According to a court deposition, Groover told federal investigators that “I was a segregationist. I was a county unit man. But if you want to establish if I was racially prejudiced, I was. If you want to establish that some of my political activity was racially motivated, it was.”

The department lost in federal trial and appeals court. Judges accepted the state’s defense that the system was created to combat corruption in the county unit system.

“The judge was willing to believe that while Groover was a racist, he wasn’t responsible for this system,” Lawson said.

In 1994, the state legislature changed the threshold for a runoff, requiring a candidate to earn at least 45 percent of votes instead of 50 percent. But Republicans changed it back in 2008 after narrowly losing a Senate race in 1996. The effort was led by then-Gov. Sonny Perdue (R), whose cousin, David Perdue, narrowly lost a 2021 runoff election for U.S. Senate to Democrat Jon Ossoff.

In 2021, Georgia Republicans passed a sweeping and controversial voter law that shortened the time between an election and a runoff from nine weeks to four, leading to confusion and stress for election administrators.

Georgia’s governing Republicans have largely avoided the issue during legislative sessions and skirted answering whether they support the runoff system, though they keep the door open about whether the process can be reformed. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) and his staff “will be looking at the entire process for possible improvements once this one is successfully complete,” said Mike Hassinger, a spokesman.

Voting rights groups in Georgia overwhelmingly support abolishing runoffs. While many activists would like Georgia to name winners based on whoever gets the most votes, as happens in most states, others see this as an opportunity to implement ranked-choice voting or another system.

“It needs to go. It needs to change,” said Hillary Holley, executive director of Care In Action, a voting rights and labor group. “It is a relic of Jim Crow, it is suppressive, inefficient and is also fiscally irresponsible. It needs to just go away.”

[emptymanuscript]

Did a Republican Senator actually have a moment of Sanity? 0_0

Turtle opposing it makes it sound like it isn’t a Trojan Horse, which would be awesome.

I’m cool with giving Republicans the credit for overturning Citizens United if they want to do it. Go GOP. I’ve got an American Flag in here somewheres to raise and wave for anyone to kill Citizens United. I will happily de-partisan for the murder of that evil atrocity that is ruining our country.

I actually was officially registered as an Independent for me entire adulthood until Trump became the Republican nominee for President and I realized that I would never be able to vote Republican in good conscience. I literally didn’t register as a Democrat until 2015-16. I always had this fantasy - since turning 17 and falling in love hate addiction with politics and wanting Ross Perot to be President - of I’ll just vote for the best candidate and not care about party. And then proceeded to prove out every legitimate study that’s ever been done which says whatever way you lean is what you really are and you’re just lying to yourself. But, you know, I COULD have supported and voted for a Republican. In principle. Which was important to me. Never mind that I could, technically, still do that even being registered as a Democrat. Registering Democrat was really nothing but the final acknowledgment that I never would because the Republicans are psychotically evil as a group and, so far as I have been able to tell, pretty much psychotically evil as individuals as well.

No group that would support Trump for President, just on the evidence of what he was like before ascending to political office, can be trusted so long as they allow anyone in their leadership who ever espoused or allowed that support. A group that will support him again after January 6th… honestly, that group should be outlawed.

I would love to be wrong.

The thing I hate most about Republicans (as opposed to what disgusts or morally outrages me, I am talking about personalized hate) is that they turned me into a Democrat.

The Democratic party is far more Conservative and Right Wing than I am. It’s a poor fit for my ideology. What it is for me is pragmatic and practical. Promoting the Democratic party and its goals is the best way for me to accomplish mine. There’s not much glamour or love. I haven’t voted for the Democratic President in their first primary… ever. Even President Obama, who I admit I felt a lot of joy and excitement around his presidency, I actually voted for Biden to be the nominee back then XD. Clinton, like I said, I was in love with Ross Perot. Biden, this last time around, was my third choice in the primaries. My “dream ticket” would be Warren - Sanders at this point. But nothing doing. That’s not happening. There’s the world you want and the world that is. Biden is doing fine. I’ll vote for him again with minimal ennui and be a good little Democrat because the Republican Party is pure evil instead of just a poor fit for what I actually want.

When your choices are: 70% - 90% of what you want with 0% chance of winning, 50% ish of what you want with 50% chance of winning, or 15% - 0% chance of what you want with 50% (or less as the percentage of what I want goes up) chance of winning, the best choice is obvious. It’s just doesn’t feel great.

Again, I would love to be wrong. I would love to be convinced that there’s a practical and reasonable way to get more of what I want and less of what I don’t.

If the Republicans want to sanity up and power down their toxic evil. I’m really cool to reconsider all my stances. Hell, if any Republicans want to be sane and decent human beings, I am happy to cheer them on.

If the American people decide that they want some group to the left of the Democratic Party to be a viable potential that could make the current Democratic Party positions the far right positions in this country, I would be ecstatic and eagerly reregister.

:/

I just don’t trust any of that to happen.

I HOPE that Hawley succeeds in this. I doubt that he will.

Which makes me sad. And Hate Republicans again. Because this SHOULD be a no brainer. Turtle’s position should be obviously evil to anyone looking. But of course it’s not. For exactly the reason I registered Democrat. There’s not even really a way to pretend that the Republican Party has a decent bone left in its body.

Again, I would love to be wrong. Please, Senator Hawley, prove me wrong. I’m honestly happy just that this much has happened. It’s like finding one tiny little ember left in a dead bonfire pit. Just a bit of unexpected warmth in my bitter, cold heart.

[thejoyofviolentmovement]

New Audio: Partisan Records to Release Idris Elba-Curated Sixth Box Set Reissue Compilation of Fela Kuti and Shares Funky "Stalemate"

New Audio: Partisan Records to Release Idris Elba-Curated Sixth Box Set Reissue Compilation of Fela Kuti and Shares Funky "Stalemate" @felakuti @partisanrecords @idriselba @brykitch

Fela Kuti (1938-1997) was a pioneering Nigerian multi-instrumentalist, arranger, producer and an eccentric, political radical, outlaw and originator of Afrobeat, whose musical and sociopolitical legacy spans decades and genres — with his work drawing from jazz, pop, rock, funk, soul, traditional Yoruba and Igbo music and Nigerian highlife among others. While Kuti is a beloved icon in his native…