#pandemic playbook

[tomorrowusa]

Another New Disease That Trump is Weakening US Response To

We remember how COVID-19 was allowed to run rampant in the United States for 51 days before Trump bothered to declare a state of emergency on Friday the 13th of March in 2020.

With newly installed incompetent MAGA administrators and deep cuts to public health, the US is now even less prepared for any new infectious disease to hit the country.

A deadly disease which doesn't even have a name yet has hit Équateur province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The World Health Organization mentioned it prominently in its 16 February 2025 Bulletin.

Unknown Disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: The Democratic Republic of the Congo is facing multiple public health and humanitarian crises. In its northwestern Équateur Province, two clusters of cases and deaths from an unknown disease have emerged, resulting in hundreds of cases and dozens of deaths. The outbreak, which has seen cases rise rapidly within days, poses a significant public health threat. The exact cause remains unknown, with Ebola and Marburg already ruled out, raising concerns about a severe infectious or toxic agent. Key challenges include the rapid progression of the disease, with nearly half of the deaths occurring within 48 hours of symptom onset in one of the affected health zones, and an exceptionally high case fatality rate in another. Urgent action is needed to accelerate laboratory investigations, improve case management and isolation capacities, and strengthen surveillance and risk communication. [ ... ] Specimens from thirteen cases, including 12 blood samples from active cases and one swab from a deceased individual, were collected and sent to the National Institute of Biomedical Research (INRB) in Kinshasa for analysis on 11 February 2025. Test results released on 13 February 2025, showed that all samples were negative for Ebola and Marburg viruses by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Differential diagnosis under investigation include malaria, viral haemorrhagic fever, food or water poisoning, typhoid fever, and meningitis.

So essentially, Ebola and Marburg virus have been ruled out. We do know that the fatality rate is way high.

The situation in Équateur Province presents significant public health risk, with two clusters of an unknown disease causing high morbidity and mortality. The overall case fatality ratio (12.2%), particularly high in Bolomba Health Zone (66.7%), and the rapid disease progression raise concerns about a severe infectious or toxic agent.

We should point out that this is in the northwest of the DRC – not the east where there is a de facto war going on.

The Obama administration had great success combating Ebola. There were just 11 fatalities in the US with just 2 being from infections contracted inside the country during the 2013-2014 outbreak.

Obama's national security team put together a pandemic playbook based on their success to be used by succeeding administrations. Of course Donald Trump ignored it and the result was hundreds of thousands of additional American deaths from COVID-19.

Obama team left pandemic playbook for Trump administration, officials confirm

If this new unnamed disease spreads to the US, don't expect Trump to respond competently to it.

[marvelsmostwanted]

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)

[contemplatingoutlander]

This right here.

This is also what Trump's supporters conveniently want to forget.

[robertreich]

10 Worst Things About The Trump Presidency

Donald Trump left office with the lowest approval rating of any president ever. But some people now seem to be suffering from amnesia.

Let me jog your memory. Here are 10 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency — in no particular order.

#1. Trump fueled division and sparked a record uptick in hate crimes.

#2. Murder went way up under Trump. He presided over the largest ever single-year increase in homicides in 2020. A number of factors might have contributed to that, but a big one is…

#3. Gun sales broke records under Trump, who has bragged about how he “did nothing” to restrict guns as president in spite of…

#4. Under Trump, America suffered more than 1,700 mass shootings.

#5. Trump said there were "very fine people" among the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.

I’m halfway to ten. If you think I’m missing something big, leave it in the comments.

#6. Trump allied himself with the Proud Boys, a violent hate group who helped orchestrate the Jan 6 Capitol attack.

#7. Trump’s not wrong when he says…

TRUMP: I got rid of Roe v. Wade.

It is entirely because of Trump’s judicial appointments that 1 in 3 American women of childbearing age now lives in states with abortion bans.

#8. One of Trump’s Supreme Court justices was Brett Kavanaugh, a man accused of sexual assault by multiple women.

#9. Trump’s White House interfered in the FBI’s investigation of Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assaults.

And now: #10. Trump has been convicted of committing 34 felonies while in office. The criminally false business filings he got convicted for in New York? All of them were committed while he was president.

I’m sorry, did I say the 10 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency? I meant 15.

#11. Trump’s failed pandemic response is estimated to have led to hundreds of thousands of needless deaths. By the time Trump left office, roughly 3,000 Americans were dying of covid every day. That’s a 9/11-scale mass casualty event every single day. How did Trump screw up so badly?

#12. Trump’s White House discarded the pandemic response playbook that had been assembled by the Obama administration.

#13. Trump disbanded the National Security Council’s pandemic response team.

#14. Trump repeatedly lied about the danger of covid, saying it was no worse than the flu or that it would go away on its own.

But behind closed doors, Trump admitted he knew covid was deadly.

#15. Trump promoted fake covid cures like hydroxychloroquine and even injecting people with disinfectants.

After Trump’s “disinfectant” remarks, poison control centers received a spike in emergency calls.

That’s fifteen things. Should I keep going? Ok, I’ll keep going. The 20 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency.

#16. Trump presided over a net loss of 2.9 million American jobs — the worst recorded jobs numbers of any U.S. president in history.

#17. Trump profited off the presidency, making an estimated $160 million from foreign countries while he was president.

#18. Trump also billed the Secret Service over $1 million for the privilege of staying at his golf clubs and other properties while they protected him. That’s your money!

#19. Trump caused the longest government shutdown in U.S. history when he didn’t get funding for his border wall, which he said Mexico was going to pay for.  

#20. Under Trump, the national debt increased by about 40% — more than in any other four-year presidential term — largely because of his tax cuts for the rich and big corporations.

You didn’t really think I was stopping at 20, did you? We’re going to 25 —

#21. Trump separated more than 5,000 children from their parents at the border, with no plan to ever reunite them, putting babies in cages.

#22. The Muslim Ban. Yes, Trump really did try to ban Muslims from entering the country.

#23. Trump sparked international outrage by moving the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem while closing the U.S. mission to Palestine.

#24. Trump tasked his son-in-law Jared Kushner with drafting a potential Middle East “peace plan” with zero Palestinian input.

#25. And finally, Trump recognized Israel’s occupation of the Goh-lahn Heights, which is considered illegal under international law.

So there you have it, folks: The 25 Worst — Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Did I mention the impeachments? We’ve got to do the impeachments. Let’s go to 30.

#26. Trump broke the law by trying to withhold nearly $400 million of U.S. aid for Ukraine in an effort to extort a personal political favor from Ukraine’s Pres. Zelensky. Trump wanted Zelensky to interfere in the 2020 election by announcing an investigation into the Bidens. Delaying this aid to Ukraine weakened Ukraine and strengthened Russia.

#27. Trump personally attacked and ruined the careers of everyone who stood in the way of his illegal Ukraine scheme, including Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman.

#28. To cover up the scheme, Trump ordered the White House and State Department to defy congressional subpoenas.

#29. For these reasons, on December 18, 2019, Trump became the third U.S. president to be impeached. He was charged with Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress.

#30. Even while he was being investigated for trying to get Ukraine to interfere in the U.S. election, Trump publicly called for China to interfere in the election.

So those are the 30 Worst Things —

I’ll go to 35.

#31. Long before Election Day, Trump started making false claims that the election would be rigged.

#32. After losing, Trump falsely claimed the election was stolen, even though his own inner circle, including his campaign manager, White House lawyers, and his own Justice Department and attorney general told him it was not.

#33. Trump kept telling his Big Lie even after more than 60 legal challenges to the election were struck down in court, many by Trump-appointed judges.

#34. Trump ordered the Department of Justice to falsely claim that the election “was corrupt.”

#35. Trump and his allies used threats to pressure state leaders in Arizona and Georgia to falsify the election results.

We may go to 40.

#36. When none of the previous schemes worked, Trump and his allies produced fake electoral votes cast by fake electors in multiple swing states. His former White House chief of staff and Rudy Giuliani are among the many members of his inner circle who have been criminally indicted for this scheme.

#37. Trump tried to bully Vice President Pence into obstructing the certification of the election.

#38. Trump invited a mob to the Capitol on Jan 6 with his “be there, will be wild” tweet.

#39. Sworn testimony alleges that when Trump was warned that members of the crowd were carrying deadly weapons, he ordered security metal detectors to be taken down.

#40. Knowing the crowd had deadly weapons, he ordered them to go to the Capitol and…

TRUMP: …fight like hell.

#41 — Yes, yes, I know, bear with me.

Trump betrayed his oath to defend the nation by doing nothing to stop the Jan 6 violence. Instead, according to witness testimony, he sat and watched TV for hours.

#42. On January 13, 2021, Trump became the only president ever to be impeached twice. This time he was charged with incitement of insurrection. It was a bipartisan vote.

#43. The majority of senators — 57 out of 100 — voted to convict Trump, including 7 Republican senators.

So that’s the two impeachments and the Big Lie, but wait, we haven’t dealt with Russia, right? So we’re going to 50.

#44. In a likely obstruction of justice, Trump pressured then FBI Director James Comey to stop the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn. This was documented in the Mueller report.

#45. When Comey didn’t bend to Trump’s will, Trump fired him.

#46. Trump tried to shut down the Mueller investigation by ordering White House Counsel Don McGann to fire Mueller. McGann refused because that would be criminal obstruction of justice.

#47. When news got out that Trump tried to fire Mueller, Trump repeatedly told McGann to lie — to Mueller, to press, to public — and even create a false document to conceal Trump’s attempt to fire Mueller.

#48. Trump ordered his staff not to turn over emails showing Don Jr. had set up a meeting at Trump Tower before the 2016 election with representatives of the Russian government.

#49. Trump convinced Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about Trump’s plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, and Cohen served prison time for lying to Congress.

#50. Trump was not charged for criminal obstruction of justice because it’s the Justice Department’s policy not to indict a sitting president, but more than a thousand former federal prosecutors who served under both Republicans and Democrats, signed a letter declaring there was more than enough evidence to prosecute Trump.

So those are the 50 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency. Now I could go on…

And I will! The 75 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency.

#51. Trump said he’d hire only the best people, but…

His campaign chair was convicted of multiple crimes.

So was one of his closest associates.

His deputy campaign chair pleaded guilty to crimes.

So did his personal lawyer

His National Security Adviser

The Chief Financial Officer of his business

A campaign foreign policy adviser

And one of his campaign fundraisers.

They all committed crimes, and Trump pardoned most of them.

#52. Trump said he’d drain the Washington swamp. But he appointed more billionaires, CEOs, and Wall Street moguls to his administration than any administration in history

#53. Trump intervened to get his son-in-law, Jared Kushner top-secret clearance after he was denied over concerns about foreign influence.

#54. Trump hosted a Russian Foreign Minister to the Oval Office, where Trump revealed top-secret intelligence.

Oh, and Trump’s economic policies!

#55 Trump promised that the average American family would see a $4,000 pay raise because of his tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations. How’d that work out? Did you get a $4,000 raise? Of course not! Nobody did!

#56. Trump vowed to protect American jobs, but offshoring increased and manufacturing fell.

#57. Trump said he would fix America’s infrastructure, but it never happened. He announced so many failed “infrastructure weeks” they became a running joke.

#58. Trump said he would be “the voice” of American workers, but he filled the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union flacks who made it harder for workers to unionize.

#59. Trump’s Labor Department made it easier for bosses to get out of paying workers overtime, which cheated 8 million workers of extra pay.

#60. Trump repeatedly suggested he might serve more than two terms in violation of the Constitution — and continues to do so.

#61. Trump called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries.

#62. Trump tried to terminate DACA, which protects immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. Luckily this was struck down by the courts.

#63. Trump called climate change a “hoax.”

#64. Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement.

#65. Trump rolled back more than 100 environmental protections.

#66. Every budget Trump proposed included cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

#67. Trump tried (and failed) to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would have resulted in 20 million Americans losing insurance. And striking down the ACA’s protections for the roughly 130 million people with pre-existing conditions could have driven up their insurance premiums or led to a loss of coverage.

#68. Trump made it easier for employers to remove birth control coverage from insurance plans.

#69. By the end of Trump’s term, the number of people lacking health insurance had risen by 3 million.

#70. Trump lied. Constantly. He made 30,573 false or misleading claims while president — an average of 21 a day, according to Washington Post fact-checkers.

#71. Trump allegedly took hundreds of classified documents on his way out of the White House, reportedly including nuclear secrets, which he then left unsecured in various parts of Mar-a-Lago, including a bathroom. He was even caught on tape showing them off to people.

#72. Trump seriously discussed the idea of nuking a hurricane.

#73. When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, Trump delayed $20 billion of aid and allowed Puerto Rico to be without power for 181 days.

#74. Trump suggested withholding federal aid for California wildfire recovery and said the solution was to “clean” the “floors” of the forest.

#75. Trump pulled out of the Iran deal, placing Iran on a path to developing nuclear weapons.

Honestly, there’s so much more, from exchanging “love letters” with North Korea’s brutal dictator to publicly denigrating a Gold Star military widow and making her cry, to the way he attacked journalists, to late night tweet binges.

Look, I can understand why a lot of people want to block all of this out of their memories. But we cannot afford to forget just how terrible Trump’s time in the White House was for this nation.

And we sure as hell can’t afford to put him back there.

[reasonsforhope]

The European Union’s greenhouse gas emissions fell 8.3% in 2023 as a surge in renewable energy installations helped displace coal.

This means the bloc’s emissions have declined 37% since 1990, while its economy has grown 68% over the same period.

The divergence indicates “the continued decoupling of emissions and economic growth,” the European Commission said in an update, adding that the region is on track to reach its target of reducing emissions by at least 55% by 2030.

According to an analysis by the European Environment Agency, based only on existing climate measures and planned actions, the EU will reduce its emissions by 49% by 2030.

Electricity and heating lead the way

Emissions from electricity production and heating under the region’s emissions trading system (ETS) dropped 24% in 2023, compared to the previous year, per the Commission.

Set up in 2005, the ETS is widely viewed as a key driver of the bloc’s decarbonisation. In 2023, it generated revenues of €43.6 billion in 2023 for climate action investments.

However, some sectors are still moving in the wrong direction. For instance, aviation emissions grew 9.5% last year as the sector continued to rebound in the wake of the pandemic.

More to be done

“The EU is leading the way in the clean transition, with another year of strong greenhouse gas emission reductions in 2023,” said Wopke Hoekstra, commissioner for climate action.

“As we head off soon to COP29, we once again demonstrate to our international partners that it is possible to take climate action and invest in growing our economy at the same time,” Hoekstra added. “Sadly, the report also shows that our work must continue, at home and abroad, as we are seeing the harm that climate change is causing our citizens.”

In a separate statement, Leena Ylä-Mononen, executive director of the European Environment Agency, said climate change impacts were “accelerating”, meaning the bloc needed to become more resilient to extreme weather while also slashing emissions.

In the second quarter of 2024, renewables accounted for 52% of all electricity generated in the EU, a 6 percentage point increase in a year. Nuclear generation was up slightly and comprised 24% of the mix, meaning clean sources made up 76% of the region’s total electrical output.

-via The Progress Playbook, November 1, 2024

[feminist-space]

"What we have done is take something that should never have established itself in human communities in the first place and have built a public health consensus around the concept of repeated mass infection.

So, yes, this is what failure looks like. And that sort of normalization of infectious disease is something that we are facing the consequences of now, societally, because those attitudes have crept into other aspects of our society as well. This idea that vaccines are bad, and infections are good. Conflating the idea of coexistence with nature with coexistence with pathogens is a dangerous mess—it will take years to undo this. Honestly, we haven’t had attitudes like this about infections since before biblical times.

There really is no historical precedent for this. No society in the world ever said, “Oh, you’re infected? Let’s let it spread.” This whole concept of pox parties being a thing is ludicrous. But that’s exactly where we are today. Quarantines used to happen in the 14th century with plague. This uncritical acceptance of infectious disease as a sort of lord and savior is brand new.

And it couldn’t happen at a worse time. We’re now extremely interconnected. There are more people on the planet than ever before, and diseases can spread rapidly. And the only people that you can really lay this at the door of is public health. Where public health should have been out there saying, “These are the risks of getting COVID. These are the repeated risks of COVID,” for which the science is extremely unambiguous. (There are tens of thousands of papers on these topics).

Instead, Public Health was saying, “Masks are the scarlet letter of the pandemic,” in the words of former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky. Or “If you have been vaccinated, the pandemic is over for you,” which is what Biden said. Trump and his people based their playbook on the phrase, “The cure cannot be worse than the disease.” I’m using the US as an example, but you can do the same thing with other countries like Britain, Canada or pretty much any other country in the world. And every single time both public health and politicians have served as cheerleaders for an infectious disease that has clear-cut long-term consequences. None of this was necessary."

[worstuspresidentbracket]

45th President Donald Trump (2017-2021, 2025 President-elect)

Donald Trump will be inaugurated roughly 10 hours after this post goes live, beginning his second term. Trump is one of only two Presidents to serve non-consecutive terms (the other being Grover Cleveland). He is the only president in US history to have neither political nor military experience prior to taking office (he received a medical exemption for the Vietnam War draft).

Donald Trump was born into a wealthy New York family which valued education. After graduating college, he was employed at his father's real estate company, which owned racial segregated housing. What followed was several decades of business which was marked by massive successes, lots of bankruptcies, and many lawsuits.

Trump began expressing an interest in politics in 1988 when he asked to be George H. W. Bush's running mate. His presidential and vice-presidential ambitions would continue but were not taken seriously until the 2016 presidential election. He beat Hillary Clinton (but lost the popular vote) after a meteoric rise to power in the Republican Party.

As President, Trump reversed numerous environmental regulations, strained relations with China, Mexico, Canada, and the European Union, and withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He significantly increased the federal deficit. He significantly restricted immigration from Mexico and Muslim-majority countries, caused the longest government shutdown in US history, sold arms to Saudi Arabia, and escalated tensions in the Persian Gulf. He abandoned the 'pandemic playbook' that had been in place and reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic slowly and with significant misinformation.

Trump was known for his incredibly high number of lies told during his campaign and presidency, his revolving door of staffers, and the Russian interference that led to his election. He was impeached twice. After losing in 2020, he urged his supporters to form an insurrection to attempt to keep power. There were many, many other scandals in both his personal and professional life.

Trump's promises for his second term include "the largest deportation operation in American history", roll back environmental protections and regulations, and cutting federal funding for schools "pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content onto the shoulders of our children".

[blessyouhawkeye]

this article is so fucking crazy. not only are they completely overhauling daredevil (which had already been half shot) but they're completely restructuring how they do television because 1. they had no showrunners 2. they had no pilots or showbibles 3. they had no tv specific executives and had execs doing tv and film simultaneously and 4.

this entire paragraph. they really were looking at seasons of tv like eight hour long movies with zero oversight zero direction just going oh well we'll fix it in post. actually fucking insane no WONDER these shows have been total garbage

[reality-detective]

Someone once said to me, “Do you always have to be so brutally honest?” to which I replied, “Would you rather I lied?” Which that kind of ended the conversation.

So I’ll be brutally honest with you now, I’m sick of it all!

I’m sick of Biden, Schwab, Gates, Fauci, Ursula, Trudeau, Macron, Hillary, Harari and all the psycho puppets that are being dangled on the world stage as some morbid entertainment, or rather psychological torture!

I’m sick of the LGBTQ narrative being shoved down our throats, of the transgender insanity, the ilegal immigrant invasion, the ongoing fearmongering with new pandemics, the constant threat of global war, the antisemitism narrative, the censorship, the ‘hate speech’ tyranny, the mRNA bioweapons and of the climate crisis bull shit!

I’m sick of humanity being stuck in this endless, nightmare of a loop without a resolution! Without justice! Without sense! I’m done with this shit show!

Always the same playbook, the same script, the same useful idiots, the same evil hands pulling the strings, the same narratives, the same psychological manipulation, the same false flags, the same lies from the media, the same ongoing madness! On and on and on and on…! Until when?!

When will people see? When will people realize that we are caught up in a matrix that exploits our ignorance and gullibility by capturing our perception as a means of control and enslavement? When will people recognise the patterns? The MO and the brainwashing techniques that they’ve been using for decades? When?

How many times must we endure the same narratives and events? The same divide and conquer strategies? The same color revolutions? The same infiltration techniques? The same provocations? The same ‘terrorist’ attacks?!

How many times before humanity finally realizes that we are psychological slaves with an almost fatal case of Stockholm syndrome? When will we acknowledge the problem? When will we start going to rehabilitation?

And no, you can’t say no! That response is not an option, unless we want to end up like that! So it’s about time we ALL try our best to wake up everyone! Speak up, share info, voice your real opinion, don’t be intimidated by the labels, be prepared to lose friends, stop caring what others may think and wage the flag of truth, of common sense, of righteousness and of kindness wherever you go.

Perhaps then we’ll get out of this sickening loop! It’s been going on long enough!

I'm just saying... 🤔

[egypt-ancient-and-modern]

In this election in the USA, our liberties, identities, and the very soul of the nation is at stake. One side, the Republican side, has inflicted countless pain and suffering. They rolled back Roe. Women have died, continue to die as you read this, from lack of access to basic care due to abortion bans. Yet there is not a law regulating when men can do with their own bodies. Democrats have not handled the crisis and genocide in Gaza adequately. But Republicans and Trump have said that they would help Israel “finish the job” of genocide rather than call for a ceasefire. When American Jews express concerns, Trump blames them for his possible election loss in a move reminiscent of H*tler, thus showing the only side he cares for is his criminal, raping self snd gaining presidential immunity. Rather than dealing with the epidemic of gun violence, they would rather scapegoat the most vulnerable among us from immigrants to trans people to the mentally ill. Republicans, who botched a pandemic, are set to botch the economy and pass a greater tax load on the most economically vulnerable citizens while fat cats like Elon Musk get more tax breaks to spew their hateful rhetoric without consequences. Healthcare will be scrapped because, despite 8 years of time, Trump still only has "concepts of a plan" and has no intentions of making a plan as he us covered regardless. social security would be cut, harming disabled people (who he has openly mocked and questioned their right to exist straight from the Nazi playbook) and the elderly who have no ways to survive without it in many cases. He sells Bibles, and people assume he is Christian and some call a prophet. Let us remember Matthew 7:15 regarding false prophets. We know them by the fruit of their actions. These are his actions. Will you vote for a con man who wants to rip kindness from the world and thinks Kamala expressing joy is a threat? Please join me in voting away the biggest threat to American democracy and indeed human decency.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Michelangelo Signorile at The Signorile Report:

I ordered four free Covid tests from the government last night after reading that the Trump administration was shutting down the program—in which tests are distributed to Americans—and was considering destroying 160 millions tests. Until the story blew up after the Washington Post began reporting on it, they were planning to stop taking orders at 8 p.m., “transitioning away from government-distributed at-home tests to the commercial market just as we have in the past,” said a Department of Health and Human Services spokesman. Even if “transitioning away” from the free distribution was a good idea, why would you destroy all the tests you have? We, the American people, paid for those tests! Trump and his lieutenants claim they’re about stopping waste and fraud, but here they were, about to destroy $500 million in tests that we may urgently need if there is a Covid surge. Sure, it costs money to stockpile them. But it actually costs more to destroy them—and even more to buy new ones if you need them. We all remember when, under Trump’s first term, they didn’t have enough tests. Now they were talking about destroying what they had. Sheer lunacy. Why? It seems pretty simple. Trump hates them. He hates the idea of them. He hates the mere presence of of them. He hates what they imply: That testing is important, and that the government should have enough tests—and that he completely bungled it himself, and did not make that a priority in his first administration. Trump’s dire mismanagement of Covid was highlighted by the shortage of tests early on (and their really haphazard plans to get them), which would have helped slow the transmission of the virus. And, in his mind, Trump lost the election in 2020 because of the pandemic. After the Washington Post revealed the plan to destroy the tests—having obtained documents and emails—the administration reversed course in a rare turnaround, and said it will continue to take orders and stockpile the tests. I’m sure the reversal was more about the optics of destroying hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer-funded medical tools while they’re claiming to cut waste than anything else.

And it exposes what a madman Trump truly is, someone in continued cognitive decline who, like other dictators, is obsessed with reconfiguring the world—carving it up with Vladimir Putin, and, perhaps, President Xi of China, his fellow authoritarians—while letting Elon Musk slash and burn everything domestically. The cruel, frightening action of removing transgender people and the “T” in LGBT from the National Stonewall Monument website was right out of the playbook of deranged, controlling, and compulsive fascists—as is the destroying of Covid tests simply because of what they represent. It’s similar to his drive in cutting off of foreign aid, causing millions of people in what Trump has called “shithole” countries to suffer and die of disease. Musk is behind many of the cuts in funding, and he surely is down with the transgender erasure—he’s a transphobic hatemonger who berated his own daughter who came out as trans—but Trump is the president, making the decisions. He clearly likes these ideas when they’re brought to him. And we know many of the most horrendous actions are driven by Trump and his own racist impulses, which have led his charge against diversity, equity and inclusion.

This is cruelty in action by the Trump Regime.

[tomorrowusa]

People need to be reminded of Trump's woeful incompetence which came to a head during the pandemic emergency and resulted in the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

The Obama administration successfully dealt with the threats from swine flu and Ebola. There was no swine flu disaster, there was no Ebola disaster, and there was even no Zika disaster because competent people were running the US. Near the end of Obama's term, his National Security Council staff put together a 69-page playbook on how to deal with pandemic emergencies. It's called "Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents". Of course Trump ignored the document and plunged the nation into COVID hell.

Trump team failed to follow NSC’s pandemic playbook

Michelle Obama, in one of her best speeches ever in Kalamazoo this weekend, excoriated Trump's incompetence.

Michelle Obama laced into Donald Trump in a searing speech in Michigan on Saturday, accusing the former president of “gross incompetence” and having an “amoral character” while challenging hesitant Americans to choose Kamala Harris for US president. “By every measure, she has demonstrated that she’s ready,” the former first lady told a rapt audience in Kalamazoo. “The real question is, as a country, are we ready for this moment?” [ ... ] In raw and strikingly personal terms, she asked why Harris was being held to a “higher standard” than her opponent. Trump’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and his failed attempt to cling to power after losing the 2020 election should alone be disqualifying, Obama argued. But now the people who worked closest with him when he was president – his former advisers and cabinet secretaries – had stepped forward with a warning that he should not be allowed to return to power.

ICYMI, here is Michelle Obama's speech in Michigan.

Too many people have been afflicted by Trumpnesia. They seem to have forgotten the catastrophe that happened starting on 22 January 2020 when the first COVID infection was discovered on US soil. On that day Trump told CNBC: "we have it totally under control" and "it's going to be just fine".

Instead of following Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents, Trump did the usual bullshit Trump things like criticize the Oscars and rage-tweet from the bathroom. He belatedly declared a state of emergency on Friday the 13th of March – the day after the stock market crashed.

Don't let anybody in real life get away with describing the Trump years as some sort of utopia.

Some people disingenuously claim they don't know enough about Kamala Harris despite her 20 years in public service. We all know more than enough about Trump's egregious ineptitude which turned a national emergency into a prolonged national nightmare.

[badbreed1111]

🚨🚨You will not fucking believe this 🚨🚨

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

🚨🚨Seriously, Seriously Read this🚨🚨

In my last post is said essentially that MAGA was basically a playbook written by the KGB on how they would undermine America. I understand that some may not agree with this, it’s an outlandish statement. And it’s understandable not all would agree.

🚨🚨🚨

I decided to go to ChatGPT, and enter the following question

🚨(which you can do yourself to check the response)🚨

“If the Russian KGB/SBS were to write a list of things they could do to undermine America if they got control of the President Of The United States. What would the list consist of?”

🚨Read the response below WTAF🚨

Hypothetical Actions to Undermine the U.S. from Within:

1.Erode Trust in Democratic Institutions

◦Undermine faith in elections (e.g., claim fraud without evidence).

◦Appoint loyalists to critical agencies (DOJ, FBI, NSA) to disrupt oversight.

2.Stoke Social Division

◦Amplify racial, political, and cultural tensions.

◦Use inflammatory rhetoric to polarize the public.

3.Weaken Alliances

◦Withdraw from NATO or undermine European allies.

◦Alienate long-term partners like Canada, Germany, Japan.

4.Undermine Intelligence and Law Enforcement

◦Discredit agencies like the CIA, FBI, or DHS.

◦Defund or redirect them to focus inward on political opponents.

5.Disrupt the Economy

◦Spark trade wars with key allies.

◦Cause instability through erratic policy decisions or sanctions.

6.Spread Disinformation

◦Promote conspiracy theories and fake news.

◦Attack the free press as "enemy of the people."

7.Encourage Authoritarian Tendencies

◦Challenge the separation of powers.

◦Praise or emulate dictators and autocrats.

8.Disarm or Discredit the Military

◦Replace top generals with unqualified loyalists.

◦Cut key military alliances or readiness budgets.

9.Exploit Crises

◦Mismanage major events (e.g., pandemics, natural disasters) to damage public trust.

10.Manipulate Judicial Appointments

◦Install judges likely to rule in favor of weakening checks and balances.

🚨🚨🚨

How is that not everything Trump has been doing! WTAF.

If that’s not enough to make you realise that there is a serious; serious problem in the White House then I don’t know what anybody could say.

America is currently infested with these Russia assets. You need to drag these fucking rats out of that place. For real.

I’m fucking done! WTF

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive (Daily updates!)

By Laura Weiss

The Biden administration cut pandemic-era health benefits, and the Harris campaign failed to present any comprehensive health care reform policies. This was not an inspiring message for voters

In a week of hand-wringing and finger-pointing over what Democrats might have done differently in this year’s presidential election, one big topic has been absent from the conversation: Health care reform and public health. It’s a surprising omission given how 2020 was largely a referendum on pandemic response—a referendum Trump failed. The issue remains highly salient: At least eight in 10 voters said it was “very important” for the 2024 presidential candidates to talk about the affordability of health care.

But beyond Harris’s promise to maintain the Affordable Care Act and introduce some moderate reforms to drug pricing and medical debt, the issue felt like an afterthought. As of October, two-thirds of U.S. adults said they didn’t think the presidential campaigns were paying enough attention to health care.

The issues of health care and the Covid-19 pandemic are still front of mind to large swaths of voters and, in some ways, inextricable. President Biden owed his 2020 win in part due to his promise that he would do better than his predecessor in handling the pandemic; that unlike Trump, he would “follow the science.” And at first, he did. But once it became clear that new variants would arise and vaccines would not prevent all Covid cases—though they did limit hospitalizations and deaths—the Biden administration went way off course. Rather than following the science and ramping up rapid-test production, covering testing and new vaccines, and upholding commonsense safety measures like masking in health care, his Covid czar, a corporate executive, chose to pretend Covid was a thing of the past.

As new variants surged, Biden followed directives from consultants, corporations, and vibes. The Democrats’ current Covid-19 prevention playbook barely differs from that of Republicans, even though the World Health Organization has said this year that we are still in a pandemic.

But the Biden administration did not just stumble in following the science, it also lost its way in terms of capitalizing on its own successful policies, which taught broad lessons in the value of breaking from a broken health care status quo. Since Biden declared the end of the state of emergency in May 2023, tens of millions have lost benefits that they had gained in 2020—including Medicaid expansion, paid sick leave, increased unemployment benefits, and coverage for Covid testing and vaccines. Losing these benefits while inflation soared, income stagnated, and poverty increased certainly played a role at the ballot box.

“Pandemic social programs enjoyed broad support,” said Dr. Lucky Tran, a public health and science communicator based in New York. “However, when countries like the U.S. declared the end of the public health emergency, these programs were allowed to expire, despite Covid continuing to surge throughout the year and the long-term impacts on people’s health and economic well-being.”

Both campaigns seemed to view discussing Covid-19 itself as a “toxic” political issue, as Tran put it, but the Biden administration’s public health failings certainly didn’t help the cause of the Democrats, who had come into office promising a different approach. Disabled and immunocompromised people—who constitute a quarter of the population—feel betrayed by an administration unwilling to protect them.

The expansion of the social safety net that came with the pandemic—which included Medicaid expansion, unemployment benefits, child tax credits, rent freezes, and paid sick leave—was undoubtedly popular. As it happened, voters cut across partisan assumptions in three red states (Alaska, Missouri, and Nebraska) to vote to increase sick leave benefits. Trump has promised not to cut Medicaid, though it never pays to trust him. During his last administration, he cut funding to programs that helped users navigate the complicated ACA system as well as ad spending.

During the state of emergency, some 23 million Americans gained health care coverage through Medicaid, thanks to a provision that halted Medicaid disenrollments. Typically, Medicaid enrollees have to prove their eligibility every year or their coverage will be removed; that means going through an onerous process involving forms, income verification, and bureaucracy in order to prove their income is low enough to grant them Medicaid. Medicaid eligibility was also expanded in several states during that time and its coverage was broadened to include things that made health care more accessible, like telehealth. The end of the state of emergency meant the end of the Medicaid disenrollment provision, and since then those tens of millions who gained coverage have lost it.

As Bryce Covert put it in The New York Times last March, “The message received is that the government could have done these things all along but had chosen not to—and has chosen once again to withdraw that kind of security.”

Jeff Reese, a bartender in Colorado, was one of the millions of people who lost Medicaid under Biden: “The Covid measures to help get us through, such as expanded Medicaid, food stamps, and unemployment benefits, were critical in getting me through the early part of Covid,” he told me. “Having access to health care was really good since I’m now in my fifties. I did have some preexisting conditions diagnosed, and I started treating and monitoring them, adopted a plant-based diet, and generally was able to improve my health.”

When the Covid emergency was declared over, he lost his coverage. This February, Reese suffered a serious e-bike accident that put him in the hospital for weeks, and he had to turn to GoFundMe to pay for intensive physical therapy. He says now that he owes $100,000 in medical bills, which he negotiated down from almost half a million with the hospital. He hasn’t been able to find an ACA plan that works for him yet, so he remains uninsured.

Though he begrudgingly voted for Harris in the election, many of his peers did not. “I haven’t been too keen on [the Democrats’] ability to see to my interests for a while,” he said. Reese said that he would have felt more enthusiastic in his vote had the Democrats presented a more comprehensive plan on health care. He said it was Barack Obama mentioning single-payer health care during his campaign that led him to vote Democrat for the first time after voting third party since 1992. According to a Gallup poll, a majority of Americans think the government should ensure that everyone has health care coverage.

To the extent that Harris addressed health care, it was largely to voice support for abortion rights or highlight Trump’s threats to unravel the ACA. In October, Harris ran some ads on health care and talked up her efforts to lower prescription drug costs. In a town hall on Univision, Harris faced criticism when answering a question from a Latina voter, Martha, about her problems qualifying for disability despite her debilitating long-Covid symptoms. Harris responded by talking about her support for medical debt relief, sidestepping the crux of the question.

Meanwhile, disability claims jumped by over a million between 2020 and 2023, largely attributable to long Covid, according to the Center for American Progress. Martha, who was left homeless and uninsured due to her struggles with long Covid, and who referenced “Make America great again” in her question, did not seem satisfied by Harris’s response.

At the last minute, Harris added expanding Medicare to cover some home care and addressing the high costs of ambulance rides, into her platform. But it was too little, too late. (Notably, Harris backed Medicare for All during her 2020 campaign.)

“I think the result of elections around the world have shown that ‘back to normal’ messaging was ineffective, with many incumbent governments losing office in large part due to a failure in acknowledging people’s pain and providing real plans to help people in the long term,” said Tran.

Trump’s brand of economic populism appealed to voters who are hoping for something different. But if things were already bad when it comes to health care, public health agencies, and health research, they are bound to get worse over the next four years.

“A second Trump presidency will erode essential public health and health care infrastructure, increase distrust in science and public health, and will put many people at greater risk of death and serious illness,” Tran warned.

Though Trump is no longer saying he necessarily wants to repeal the ACA—and is in fact now taking credit for “saving” it (um, OK), he can still do a ton of damage to this important health insurance program. For example, Democrats are worried about a looming expiration to ACA deductible subsidies, which make coverage possible for many, and fewer protections for people with preexisting conditions (that is to say: most people) who could not get health care before Obamacare outside of employer-sponsored plans.

Beyond that, Trump says he’ll let Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “go wild on health” and plans to give him a high-level Cabinet role, perhaps leading the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy, who has zero health experience (and who once suffered from a literal brain worm) is a notorious anti-vaxxer—so much so that his views got him kicked off Facebook. An HHS under his watch would surely limit access to vaccines, leading to outbreaks of diseases we thought we left behind in the twentieth century. Even if he is unable to outright ban vaccines, his efforts would surely stigmatize and discourage them. In a time when we still need a durable, variant-proof Covid vaccine and bird flu threatens to become a new pandemic, the outcome will be devastating.

“All of the policies which make the U.S. more vulnerable to Covid will also make the U.S. less prepared for future pandemic threats like bird flu because to prevent them we need health agencies that are competent, objective, and transparent; wide access to prevention and treatment tools; and strong trust in science and public health information, all of which will be under attack by the new administration,” said Tran.

Kennedy has also pledged to cut funding to the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, and National Institutes of Health, which means more public health disruptions such as listeria outbreaks, as well as inaccurate or absent public messaging about current and future diseases, and less funding for biomedical research to help us understand and treat diseases affecting millions of Americans.

Some of the NIH’s biomedical research is going into things like long Covid, which affects some 20 million Americans and counting, as people are repeatedly reinfected. After a wobbly start, this research was finally showing promising signs under new NIH leadership and a $515 million grant, as I wrote a few weeks ago. We can probably wave goodbye to any further funding at the federal level.

Meighan Stone, who leads the Long Covid Campaign, says it’s critical to allocate NIH funding for Covid research as quickly as possible, before Trump takes office. “[Long Covid] is impacting force-readiness for the military, it is impacting the number of Americans who are having to apply for disability, it is affecting the economic strength of the United States,” she told me last month. “This is a significant public health issue, and it’s growing. We’re getting to the level of disease burden of other concerns like strokes, heart attacks, cancer,” she continued. “This is not a red state or blue state problem, this is a problem that’s impacting all Americans.”

It is clear that health care reform is urgently needed in this country, as numerous attempts in previous campaigns have attested. Democrats and Republicans alike take the blame for empowering insurance companies to call the shots and set the prices for this basic human right. As millions lost the pandemic-era health care benefits that provided much-needed immediate assistance, as well as pointing to the potential of a better future, the two parties—having staked out meaningful differences with one another—ended up reconverging on their approach to public health. We may never know how many decided to stay home this election because they felt disaffected at the sight of their presidential candidates abandoning following science and sensible policy. Now we will all witness what it looks like to go from bad to far, far worse.

[jackied0minguez]

Remote Work Redefined: TopDevz CEO Ashkan Rajaee on the Future of Flexible Business

In a world where remote work has rapidly shifted from a temporary solution to a long-term strategy, TopDevz CEO Ashkan Rajaee is leading by example. Speaking ahead of the Ft. Lauderdale International Boat Show, Rajaee shared insights on how his company has seamlessly integrated remote operations into its DNA—and why he believes this model isn’t just a passing trend.

A New Kind of Software Solutions

TopDevz isn’t your typical tech firm. Comprising an elite team of software developers, designers, project managers, and quality assurance specialists based in the United States and Canada, the company tackles the unique challenges that conventional off-the-shelf software can’t resolve. Rajaee explains that while standard solutions can cover 80–90% of business needs, the remaining nuances often cause significant inefficiencies. TopDevz fills this gap by offering custom solutions designed to address those critical details, ensuring that their clients achieve peak operational efficiency. With an impressive 96% workforce retention rate and 63% of their business coming through referrals, the company’s model speaks volumes about its effectiveness and employee satisfaction.

Mastering Remote Operations

Long before the global pivot to remote work, TopDevz was already thriving in a fully virtual environment. Rajaee emphasizes that the success of remote operations lies in having the right infrastructure and clear communication channels. “Working remotely isn’t as simple as logging in from home,” he notes. “It demands disciplined processes and a commitment to best practices—elements we’ve honed over the years.” His team��s seamless transition during the pandemic only reinforced the idea that a well-organized remote workforce can outperform traditional office setups.

The Indefinite Future of Remote Work

For TopDevz, remote work isn’t a temporary workaround—it’s the future. Rajaee envisions a business landscape where companies can lower overhead costs while empowering employees to work from anywhere. This flexible model not only drives client satisfaction by reducing expenses but also enriches employees’ lives by allowing them to choose environments that inspire creativity and well-being.

Rajaee even shares a personal touch: his passion for working from a yacht. Equipped with reliable Wi-Fi and satellite services, his unconventional workspace symbolizes the freedom that remote work offers. “If your current job doesn’t support the lifestyle you aspire to, it’s time to consider other opportunities,” he advises. His own journey from renting a yacht to eventually making it part of his regular work life underscores the importance of aligning one’s career with personal values and ambitions.

Empowering the Next Generation of Remote Entrepreneurs

Beyond leading TopDevz, Rajaee is passionate about sharing his remote work philosophy. Through his “RemotePreneur” initiative, he provides aspiring entrepreneurs and professionals with a playbook for building successful remote companies. This resource addresses the nuanced challenges of remote business management—from overcoming financial stagnation in traditional roles to confronting the inevitable criticisms that come with venturing off the beaten path. Rajaee’s message is clear: true freedom in work comes from rethinking established norms and embracing the possibilities that remote operations can offer.

Embracing a New Era

As businesses around the globe continue to navigate the evolving work landscape, Ashkan Rajaee’s vision serves as a powerful reminder that remote work, when executed with precision and passion, can unlock unprecedented opportunities. His leadership at TopDevz demonstrates that with the right approach, remote operations can not only sustain but also drive innovation, employee satisfaction, and overall business growth.

In a time when flexibility and adaptability are more important than ever, Rajaee’s insights offer a compelling roadmap for companies eager to thrive in a remote-first world.

[isagrimorie]

Disney+ Putting 'Showrunner' as Jac Schaeffer's title is a win for the WGA.

I remember in 2021 everyone was miffed when Disney+ had Jac Schaeffer credited as a Headwriter.

Effectively, the studio is making its TV shows as if they were roughly six-hour movies, applying the same production methodology it’s used for the 23 unprecedentedly successful interconnected feature films that comprise the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That means empowering directors to lead a lot of creative decision-making, in collaboration with a small cadre of hands-on Marvel creative executives who are with the project from the beginning and report up to Feige.

---

For writers outside the company, however, Marvel’s decision to diminish the wide creative autonomy showrunners have traditionally wielded in TV — with directors and executives not just calling more shots within the production but also sitting in the writers’ room and requesting rewrites — touches a particularly raw nerve.

Fast forward to 2023 after the flop that was Secret Invasion and the mess of the first Disney+ Daredevil series, and after the WGA strike, Disney will now use Showrunners.

Daredevil is far from the first Marvel series to undergo drastic behind-the-scenes changes. Those who work with Marvel on the TV side have complained of a lack of central vision that has, according to sources, begun to afflict the studio’s shows with creative differences and tension. “TV is a writer-driven medium,” says one insider familiar with the Marvel process. “Marvel is a Marvel-driven medium.”  On the Oscar Isaac starrer Moon Knight, show creator and writer Jeremy Slater quit and director Mohamed Diab took the reins. Jessica Gao developed and wrote She-Hulk: Attorney at Law but was sidelined once director Kat Coiro came on board. Production was challenging, with COVID hitting cast and crew, and Gao was brought back to oversee post-production, a typical showrunner duty, but it’s the rare Marvel head writer who has such oversight.

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Marvel is making concrete changes in how it makes TV. It now has plans to hire showrunners. Gao’s postproduction work on She-Hulk helped Marvel see that it would be helpful for its shows to have a creative throughline from start to finish. “It’s a term we’ve not only grown comfortable with but also learned to embrace,” says Winderbaum of showrunners and Marvel TV’s intention to hire them. The studio also plans on having full-time TV execs, rather than having executives straddle both television and film. “We need executives that are dedicated to this medium, that are going to focus on streaming, focus on television,” says Winderbaum, “because they are two different forms.”  It also is revamping its development process. Showrunners will write pilots and show bibles. The days of Marvel shooting an entire series, from She-Hulk to Secret Invasion, then looking at what’s working and what’s not, are done. And just as Loki, which returned Oct. 5, marked Marvel’s first season two of a series (out of nine TV shows to date), the studio plans on leaning into the idea of multi season serialized TV, stepping away from the limited-series format that has defined it. Marvel wants to create shows that run several seasons, where characters can take time to develop relationships with the audience rather than feeling as if they are there as a setup for a big crossover event. 

Marvel tried to reinvent the wheel but found out the hard way why TV is made the way it's made. But also, it's hilarious how Disney Marvel tried to sell this whole strategic move as solely their idea and not because WGA strike kicked them in the teeth.

So, Jac Schaeffer getting the Showrunner credit on a Disney-Marvel 'Making Of' episode is a really big win.