#political relationship

[helenbagheera]

"If I'm Choosing Wrong" or What if?

"My little girl..." her grandmother's embrace seemed the warmest and most long-awaited thing in the world, something her soul longed for. It felt like a huge stone had cracked inside her. The same one that had been choking her since her parents' death. After all... After all, she wasn't alone... She wasn't alone!

[deadpresidents]

"It hurt to lose to Ronald Reagan. But after the election, I tried to make the transition as smooth as possible. Later, from my experience in trying to brief him on matters of supreme importance, I was very disturbed at his lack of interest. The issues were the 15 or 20 most important subjects that I as President could possibly pass on to him. His only reaction of substance was to express admiration for the political circumstances in South Korea that let President Park close all the colleges and draft all the demonstrators. That was the only issue on which he came alive."

-- Former President Jimmy Carter, on losing the 1980 election and the transition leading to the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, interview with TIME Magazine, October 11, 1982.

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #33

Sep 6-13 2024

President Biden marked the 30th anniversary of the passage of the Violence Against Women Act and highlighted efforts to stop gender based violence. the VAWA was written by then Senator Biden and he often talks about it as his proudest legislative victory. The act transformed how the federal government dealt with domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. In part because of the connection to Joe Biden, President Trump and the Republicans allowed the VAWA to expire in 2019. President Biden passed a new reauthorization, with new protections for women against cyber crime, in 2022. On the VAWA's 30th anniversary President Biden announced $690 million in grants to support survivors of gender-based violence.

President Biden and Vice-President Harris announced a new rule to force insurance companies to treat mental health care the same as medical care. The new rule takes on the use by insurance of restrictive practices like prior authorization, and out of network charges, it also closes a loophole in the law that allowed state and local government health insurance not to cover mental health.

The Biden-Harris administration announced that 50 million Americans, 1 in every 7, have gotten health insurance through Obamacare's marketplaces. Under Biden a record breaking 20.8 million enrolled this year. Since the ACA was passed by President Obama and then Vice-President Biden it has transformed American health care bring affordable coverage to millions and getting rid of "preexisting conditions". During the Presidential debate Vice-President Harris defended the ACA and the need to keep building on it. Trump after 9 years of calling for its repeal said he only had "concepts of a plan" on what to do about health care in America.

The IRS announced that it has recovered $1.3 billion in back taxes from wealthy tax dodgers. For years Republicans have tried to underfund the IRS hindering its ability to police high income tax payers. President Biden in his Inflation Reduction Act ensured that the IRS would have the money it needs to chase high income tax cheats. In February 2024 the IRS launched a program to go after over 100,000 people, making $400,000 or even over $1 million a year who have not filed taxes since 2017. The IRS also launched a program to collect from tax payers who make over $1 million a year who have uncontested debt of over $250,000. Between these two efforts the IRS has collected over a Billion Dollars in back taxes from the richest Americans, so far this year.

The Department of The Interior and White House Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi highlighted green energy efforts on public land. Highlighting two projects planned in Nevada officials talked about the 41 renewable energy projects approved on public land under the Biden-Harris Administration. These projects over 25 gigawatts of clean energy, a goal the Administration's climate plan set for the end of 2025 but met early this year. With the new projects in Nevada this is enough energy to power 12.5 million homes, and the Bureau of Land Management is another 55 utility-scale project proposals across the West.

The Department of The Interior announced $236 million to help fight forest fires and restore landscapes damaged by recent wildfires. Under President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Administration has spent nearly $1.1 billion dollars to combat deadly wildfires which have over the last 10 years grown in size and intensity thanks to climate change.

The Department of The Interior announced $157 million in wetland conservation. The money is focused on protecting bird habitats. It will protect and preserve thousands of acres of wetlands across 7 states.

The US Senate approved President Biden's nominations of Adam Abelson, Jeannette Vargas, Mary Kay Lanthier, and Laura Provinzino to federal judgeships in Maryland, New York, Vermont, and Minnesota respectively. This brings the total number of federal judges appointed by President Biden to 209. When Biden entered office 318 district judges were Republican appointees and 317 Democratic, today 368 are Democratic appointments and just 267 are Republican. President Biden is the first President in history to have the majority of his appointments not be white men and he has appointed more black women to the bench than any President ever.

[ignitesthestxrs]

there's something about the way people talk about john gaius (incl the way the author writes him) that is like. so absent of any connection to te ao māori that it's really discomforting. like even in posts that acknowledge him as not being white, they still talk about him like a white, american leftist guy in a way that makes it clear people just AREN'T perceiving him as a māori man from aotearoa.

and it's just really serves to hammer home how powerful and pervasive whiteness and american hegemony is. because TLT is probably the single most Kiwi series in years to explode on the global stage, and all the things i find fraught about it as a pākehā woman reading a series by a pākehā author are illegible to a greater fandom of americans discoursing about whether or not memes are a valid way of portraying queer love.

idk the part of my brain that lights up every time i see a capital Z printed somewhere because of the New Zealand Mentioned??? instinct will always be proud of these books and muir. but i find myself caught in this midpoint of excitement and validation over my culture finding a place on the global stage, frustration at how kiwi humour and means of conveying emotion is misinterpreted or declared facile by an international audience, frustrated also by how that international audience runs the characters in this book through a filter of american whiteness before it bothers to interpret them, and ESPECIALLY frustrated by how muir has done a pretty middling job of portraying te ao māori and the māoriness of her characters, but tht conversation doesn't circulate in the same way* because a big part of the audience doesn't even realise the conversation is there to be had.

which is not to say that muir has done a huge glaring racism that non-kiwis haven't noticed or anything, but rather that there are very definitely things that she has done well, things that she has done poorly, things that she didn't think about in the first book that she has tacked on or expanded upon in the later books, that are all worthy of discussion and critique that can't happen when the popular posts that float past my dash are about how this indigenous man is 'guy who won't shut up about having gone to oxford'

*to be clear here, i'm not saying these conversations have never happened, just that in terms of like, ambient posts that float round my very dykey dash, the discussions and meta that circulate on this the lesbian social media, are overwhelmingly stripped of any connection to aotearoa in general, let alone te ao māori in specific. and because of the nature of american internet hegemony this just,,,isn't noticed, because how does a fish know it's in the ocean u know? i have seen discussions along these lines come up, and it's there if i specifically go looking for it, but it's not present in the bulk of tlt content that has its own circulatory life and i jut find that grim and a part of why the fandom is difficult to engage with.

[manglam-marfach]

I have a CRYSTAL CLEAR vision of postcanon chillaios political marriage fic where dozens of suitors are vying for Laios's slightly sticky hand & he is. oblivious. Which almost causes a major diplomatic incident. Someone (Kabru) tries to delicately explain that he should probably take a spouse already and Laios is like. Oh cool. Chilchuck? Wanna get married? And Chilchuck who had resigned to let the weird Thing he had for his old coworker die quietly has to fucking deal with THIS now.

[ghostvibesonly]

the siren confusing penelope’s instrument with polites’s is NOT helping the odysseus/polites brainrot

[curiositysavesthecat]

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[lordofthemushrooms]

Need to write a fic about Solas drawing Lavellan like obsessively. We’ve all been talking about the paintings of her that are totally in the lighthouse but I mean even while they were together. Him waking up earlier than she does and sketching her while she sleeps. Drawing her hands on the margins of papers. Messing up his other paintings because he keeps drawing her nose instead of what he’s trying to do.

[avonne-writes]

Bucky loves it when Gale asks him to do something for him, because Gale asks so rarely and because Bucky loves being able to make Gale happy.

In the bedroom though, Bucky not only loves it but he gets insanely turned on if Gale ever tells him out loud what he wants. Just a simple "can you please use your mouth" and Bucky is on fire.

[lovesickeros]

popping in randomly after almost an entire month just to talk non stop about the tsaritsa again everyone sit down.

specifically just thinking about the implications of tsaritsa's ideals originally being about love + the abandonment of those ideals to complete her goal of, presumably, destroying Celestia or whatever she's cooking up. to the point even her people don't love her and I probably don't even remember a time her ideals were of love. now it's all just ice and snow and cold.

which makes romantic fics w her even funnier because she's purposely removed this part of herself and suddenly reader walks into teyvat like they own the place (they do) and I can only imagine her reaction. angry, probably. because why you? what are you doing to her that's caused her hundreds of years of strict adherence to rejecting "love" both from others and to others to just. collapse. absolute shattering of her world and you probably don't even know it bc if nothing else she's good at hiding it. a lot of denial. tries to pick you apart and see what's makes you so different.

and oh she just hates it. she loathes it.

basically one sided enemies to lover trope because she can't stand you for a while but if you stick around she starts warming up to you and it makes it WORSE. so much worse. tries to distance herself but your just everywhere and it gets on her nerves because why does she love you? she isn't capable of love, not anymore. she thought she was.

g-d forbid one of the harbingers or PIERRO notices she'd never live it down. might even consider the implications of just killing you (she doesnt). worse if you know about it and act like a brat she will lose her damn mind

just the tsaritsa being an absolutely horrible mess internally.

[gomacave]

5p yuuram bloood twww

[queerism1969]

[rumpled]

Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell as Kate & Hal Wyler in Season 1 of The Diplomat

[impossible-rat-babies]

vierapril day 26--weapon

"and failing that, i'll have my trusty warrior of light box the ears of all concerned."

[marisatomay]

Been listening to books about the Salem witch trials and it’s so weird to me that there’s this prevailing narrative where people think of Salem as “oh they were deluded primitive folk who believed in witchcraft lol” when there are contemporary documents where prominent people said the accusers and the court (which hadn’t followed standard legal procedures even for that time) were committing crimes so grievous it would forever be a stain on New England

[modwyr]

i love when game companions don't have a positive relationship and they aren't 'found family' (whatever that term means nowadays). to me it feels like it really emphasises the idea of this being a group of characters gathered together by the protagonist for a common goal, and therefore have clashing ideologies, and it makes everything more natural, from big game moments to companion banter, to have them argue or act awkward and stilted with each other because that's how people are