#phone mining

[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)

[xamitras]

For many of years I had this tradition of drawing Wirt and the beast once a year to see how much I have improved, then depression hit in 2023 and couldn't continue, but it left so really amazing art in the process

[apatheticsunday]

Dead on Main Sugar Daddy

AKA "Ghost King Danny unintentionally becomes Jason "Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss" Todd's sugar daddy" prompt!

This is kind of a continuation of Graveyard Favors, but not really lmao.

I just love the idea of Jason coming back from the dead, wearing all Expensive Clothes and literally ancient cursed jewelry, and Bruce is just like, "Where did you get that? I didn't buy it for you. You haven't used your allowance either?" And Jason's obviously not going to admit he has the High King of Infinite Realms, Space, and the Dead as a sugar daddy. (Maybe he would, he's a dramatic theatre kid at heart, but it's funnier if he just straight up lies.)

He says, "I'm literally a crime lord, old man, keep up?? Jesus."

But the more he thinks about it, the more he actually likes the idea. Jason wants to help people, make sure they never experience the same fate he did, and where else to do it than the place he grew up? He knows there are tons of kids he can help, families who have a lack of resources. He's not afraid to get his hands dirty - he's already killed the Joker.

So, Jason calls up his Ghost King sugar daddy, points to Crime Alley, and is like, "I want that."

Danny, in Tucker's ratty Amity-U hoodie and ripped jeans, cheesepuff sticking halfway out of his mouth, "What???"

Danny declares Crime Alley as Jason's Haunt. It's officially Jason's territory in both the human realm and the Ghost Zome; conveniently, that also means that no supernatural (dead or alive) can enter the territory without Jason knowing. It also makes Crime Alley emit major Do Not vibes. Bad guys feel this Dread of being watched constantly, residents feel a bit safer knowing there's somebody who will help if they're in danger, and Jason patrols often enough that everybody starts to associate him as the local crime lord. He also uses Danny's money to invest in some social programs in Crime Alley, like open access food pantries, shelters, domestic violence & sexual assault support, a community garden, little libraries, funding for after school activities, etc.

Because the former Ghost King is absolutely loaded. Danny has eons of old stuff piled in his throne room in the Ghost Zone from Aztec Gold to alien technology. He's not using it and nobody's gonna miss it, so if Jason asks for it, Danny gives it to him. (Does he know Jason is selling it for an absolute shitton of money? Maybe, maybe not. He doesn't really care where it ends up as long as it won't cause the apocalypse.)

So, yeah, that's how Jason actually becomes the crime lord of Crime Alley.

[pinkfeathersart]

Part 1 - Part 3

Yea I think they took it well...

I imagine this all taking place either before season 1 or very early in season 1 before they discovered who Splinter was/where their human DNA came from btw

Bonus: Leo having a moment during Many Unhappy Returns

[ozzo-the-wozzo]

My friend recreated adrien’s messages to Marinette

[bisexualpercyjacksons]

pjo tv show episode 5 alignment:

[notrobinsomethingworse]

Headcanon Bruce never says I love you. However, he does end all texts with “love dad” to all his children.

Post resurrection Jason receives a text from Bruce inviting him to the manor for brunch.

He smashes his phone then cries for an hour.

[darinsa]

[allimili]

Selfie

extra

[lonelyzarquon]

[natahjikio]

-Tell me how to hate you. Tell me how to not love you.

[pnwander]

mail's here.

[shieldofiron]

What else are nephews for?

[imjusthella-gay]

you like to act so big and tough but if i sat you on my lap and kissed your neck you’d just sit there making pretty noises and being a good girl wouldn’t you?

[mysweetlapetitemort]

it's been eons since ive taken a good titty pic. sry!!

[miloway]

I feel faint...