#recall every republican

[lawlawlaws-blog]

🌊🌊💙

[antidrumpfs]

Alabama's IVF ruling puts Republicans in a political bind

“I don't think women want to live in a country where an embryo has more rights than she does” - Molly Jong-Fast

[randomizedvariable]

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[kp777]

By Jessica Corbett

Common Dreams

Sept. 26, 2023

Open internet advocates across the United States celebrated on Tuesday as Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel announced her highly anticipated proposal to reestablish FCC oversight of broadband and restore net neutrality rules.

"We thank the FCC for moving swiftly to begin the process of reinstating net neutrality regulations," said ACLU senior policy counsel Jenna Leventoff. "The internet is our nation's primary marketplace of ideas—and it's critical that access to that marketplace is not controlled by the profit-seeking whims of powerful telecommunications giants."

Rosenworcel—appointed to lead the commission by President Joe Biden—discussed the history of net neutrality and her new plan to treat broadband as a public utility in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., which came on the heels of the U.S. Senate's recent confirmation of Anna Gomez to a long-vacant FCC seat.

Back in 2005, "the agency made clear that when it came to net neutrality, consumers should expect that their broadband providers would not block, throttle, or engage in paid prioritization of lawful internet traffic," she recalled. "In other words, your broadband provider had no business cutting off access to websites, slowing down internet services, and censoring online speech."

"Giant corporations and their lobbyists... will try every trick to block or delay the agency from restoring net neutrality."

After a decade of policymaking and litigation, net neutrality rules were finalized in 2015. However, a few years later—under former FCC Chair Ajit Pai, an appointee of ex-President Donald Trump—the commission caved to industry pressure and repealed them.

"The public backlash was overwhelming. People lit up our phone lines, clogged our email inboxes, and jammed our online comment system to express their disapproval," noted Rosenworcel, who was a commissioner at the time and opposed the repeal. "So today we begin a process to make this right."

The chair is proposing to reclassify broadband under Title II of the Communications Act, which "is the part of the law that gives the FCC clear authority to serve as a watchdog over the communications marketplace and look out for the public interest," she explained. "Title II took on special importance in the net neutrality debate because the courts have ruled that the FCC has clear authority to enforce open internet policies if broadband internet is classified as a Title II service."

"On issue after issue, reclassifying broadband as a Title II service would help the FCC serve the public interest more efficiently and effectively," she pointed out, detailing how it relates to public safety, national security, cybersecurity, network resilience and reliability, privacy, broadband deployment, and robotexts.

Rosenworcel intends to release the full text of the proposal on Thursday and hold a vote regarding whether to kick off rulemaking on October 19. While Brendan Carr, one of the two Republican commissioners, signaled his opposition to the Title II approach on Tuesday, Gomez's confirmation earlier this month gives Democrats a 3-2 majority at the FCC.

"Giant corporations and their lobbyists blocked President Biden from filling the final FCC seat for more than two years, and they will try every trick to block or delay the agency from restoring net neutrality now," Demand Progress communications director Maria Langholz warned Tuesday. "The commission must remain resolute and fully restore free and open internet protections to ensure broadband service providers like Comcast and Verizon treat all content equally."

"Americans' internet experience should not be at the whims of corporate executives whose primary concerns are the pockets of their stakeholders and the corporations' bottom line," she added, also applauding the chair.

Free Press co-CEO Jessica J. González similarly praised Rosenworcel and stressed that "without Title II, broadband users are left vulnerable to discrimination, content throttling, dwindling competition, extortionate and monopolistic prices, billing fraud, and other shady behavior."

"As this proceeding gets under way, we will hear all manner of lies from the lobbyists and lawyers representing big phone and cable companies," she predicted. "They'll say anything and everything to avoid being held accountable. But broadband providers and their spin doctors are deeply out of touch with people across the political spectrum, who are fed up with high prices and unreliable services. These people demand a referee on the field to call fouls and issue penalties when broadband companies are being unfair."

Like Rosenworcel, in her Tuesday speech, González also highlighted that "one thing we learned from the Covid-19 pandemic is that broadband is essential infrastructure—it enables us to access education, employment, healthcare, and more."

That "more" includes civic engagement, as leaders at Common Cause noted Tuesday. Ishan Mehta, who directs the group's Media and Democracy Program, said that "the internet has fundamentally changed how people are civically engaged and is critical to participating in society today. It is the primary communications platform, a virtual public square, and has been a powerful organizing tool, allowing social justice movements to gain momentum and widespread support."

After the Trump-era repeal, Mehta explained, "we saw broadband providers throttle popular video streaming services, degrade video quality, forcing customers to pay higher prices for improved quality, offer service plans that favor their own services over competitors, and make hollow, voluntary, and unenforceable promises not to disconnect their customers during the pandemic."

Given how broadband providers have behaved, Michael Copps, a Common Cause special adviser and former FCC commissioner, said that "to allow a handful of monopoly-aspiring gatekeepers to control access to the internet is a direct threat to our democracy."

Rosenworcel's speech came a day after U.S. Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) led over two dozen of their colleagues in sending a letter calling for the restoration of net neutrality protections. The pair said in a statement Tuesday that "broadband is not a luxury. It is an essential utility and it is imperative that the FCC's authority reflects the necessary nature of the internet in Americans' lives today."

"We need net neutrality so that small businesses are not shoved into online slow lanes, so that powerful social media companies cannot stifle competition, and so that users can always freely speak their minds on social media and advocate for the issues that are most important to them," they said. "We applaud Chairwoman Rosenworcel for her leadership and look forward to working with the FCC to ensure a just broadband future for everyone."

[qqueenofhades]

I just saw an article that said like half of trump supporters would vote for someone else if given a good option, and now all I want is someone else to get the nomination but have Trump refuse to drop out so he splits the vote. I would love nothing more than for the republicans to get 0 electoral votes…well that’s not quite true, what I would really love more than anything is for republicans to get 0 votes in general, but unless all of them forget when the election is and forget to vote for themselves that seems unlikely 😂

Basically, there is about 30 to 35% of America that is just outrageously cruel, racist, stupid, evil, and anti-everything (science, medicine, progress, voting, reason, education, history, civic society, gay people, women, non-white non-Christians, immigrants, anything that is not a fascist white nationalist theocracy) and they are beyond help. They will go down with Trump and his awful cronies to the bitter end, because they think that the primary function of government is to punish their enemies and nothing else. There is no public, social, or economic policy you can offer that will ever appeal to them, because they don't care. Nothing matters as much to them as Hurting The Other. In other words, they suck, and they are loud, dangerous, and militant, but they are not by any means the majority, they consistently suffer when their views are exposed to the mainstream public, and candidates backed by them have been regularly defeated in general elections, because they are just too extreme.

Then there are the rest of the Republican voters, who like low taxes, guns, and "small government" (aka that which doesn't run any risk of helping black people), but aren't quite the militant deranged TrumpCultists. They want a less openly criminal or at least slightly more palatable "moderate" old school GOP alternative, which has absolutely zero chance of getting past the primary-voting rancid shitgibbons mentioned above. We often get various thinkpieces wondering whether the indictments will strip these voters away from Trump, and yes, on the one hand, it is possible -- if, and only if, someone apart from him is the nominee, which for many reasons is deeply unlikely. If it is not, then anyone thinking that Republican voters will vote for anyone other than the Republican candidate, i.e. Trump, is kidding themselves. These people show up every election and vote for every R-name on the ballot. The fact that Democrats have to be wrangled and argued at so hard to do the same is one reason among many that we are in our present mess.

It is true that Trump is barely statistically viable as a candidate at this point, two-thirds of Americans think the charges (especially the J6 charges) against him are serious, and a plurality think he should suspend his presidential campaign (he won't, since it is his last chance to keep from going to jail for probably the rest of his life). It's also true that post-Dobbs, Democrats and Democratic-voting independents have been incredibly more motivated to turn out, and that Trump has never won the popular vote in any election (he only won in 2016, as we all painfully recall, because of the Electoral College). The Republicans have also consistently underperformed in every election since the Greasy Orange God King came along, and this trend is only accelerating.

None of that, again, means that we are safe or can relax or let our guard down about 2024, but it does mean that the only way these shitbags can win is by cheating up the wazoo, which they always try to do. There legitimately are not enough Americans who actually support their heinous crap to properly vote for them otherwise, and if nothing else, we can and should take comfort in that.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Aldous J Pennyfarthing at Daily Kos:

Following Donald Trump’s example is typically a very bad idea. This is the same guy who stared at an eclipse, thought it might be a good idea to inject disinfectant, and insists on flushing toilets 10 to 15 times, even though the government recommends stolen top secret nuclear documents be flushed no more than three times in order to conserve water. And while listening to Trump is equally as bad—Truth Social investors are discovering that now—it might, ironically, end up saving the country. You may recall when several starry-eyed Republicans ran for president based largely on the notion that a guy with a fraudulent business who’d literally attempted to end America and faced dozens of felony charges might have some vulnerabilities in the general election. Well, one of those candidates—former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley—stuck around a bit longer than Trump would have liked and it’s still having an impact.

[...] On Tuesday night in the GOP’s closed Pennsylvania primary, Haley got more than 155,000 votes, or roughly 16.6% of the total. This is a pretty significant number for someone who’s no longer campaigning, and whose opponent is a universally known figure running as a quasi-incumbent.

The Hill reports that Haley got close to 20% in several Pennsylvania counties. And this could be reason for concern with “polling average of the state from Decision Desk HQ/The Hill has Trump ahead of President Biden in the state by just 0.4 percent, meaning every vote may have added importance there compared to many other states.”  And it’s not just in Pennsylvania. According to The Hill Haley “received more than 77,000 votes in the Georgia primary in March in March a few days after she dropped out, more than 150,000 votes, or almost 20 percent, in the Washington primary and more than 110,000 votes in the Arizona primary.” Clearly, Trump remains a polarizing figure within the GOP. And since telling Haley supporters to go screw, they’ve pretty much obeyed. The good news for Trump is that, as a wannabe dictator, he demands slavish obedience to all his dictates—and people are falling in line. The bad news for Trump is that if people actually listen to him, it could cost him the election.

As Washington Post senior political reporter Aaron Blake notes, the results in closed GOP-only primaries since Haley dropped out appear to show her momentum has barely slowed. 

In closed primary states so far, Nikki Haley continues to nab around 15%-25% of the GOP primary vote despite dropping out in March. That would be a bad omen for Trump come fall.

[dwellordream]

“Sex and reproduction affected women’s lives much more powerfully than men’s. The mid-century decades were particularly treacherous ones because the codes of sexual conduct were changing so rapidly. On the one hand, traditional sexual mores and the “double standard” remained so strong that a woman’s reputation could be “ruined”--in the lingo of the day--if she behaved in ways that were outside the boundaries of acceptable sexual conduct for women. If she became pregnant as a result, the consequences were extremely dire. On the other hand, these were the years when sex became big business; sex was used to sell products from cars to toothpaste.

Magazines, movies, and every form of advice literature encouraged women to be attractive and sexy to catch a man--but to put on the brakes when it came to sex itself. Birth control devices were becoming more effective and available, but abortion remained illegal except under exceptional circumstances, and illegal abortions were extremely dangerous. If women were confused by all these mixed messages, it is no wonder. As one woman recalled, “Postwar America was a society with Stop-Go lights flashing everywhere we looked. Sex, its magic spell everywhere, was accompanied by the stern warning: Don’t do it.”

…It was now obvious that homosexuality, once considered a deviant fringe element of society, was pervasive. But in the hostile climate of the Cold War years, this knowledge did little to make life easier for gay men and lesbians. In fact, the postwar era was a time of heightened persecution of homosexuals. Anyone who did not display the appropriate sexual behavior of the era--heterosexual dating, young marriage, and childbearing--was suspected of being a “pervert.” This pejorative term was widely used during these years and implied not only sexual deviance, but danger. The Republican party national chairman, Guy Gabrielson, claimed that “sexual perverts… have infiltrated our Government in recent years,” and they were “perhaps as dangerous as the actual Communists.”

It was widely believed that only “manly” men could stand up against the threat of communism, and that “perverts” were security risks. The persecution of homosexual men and women became more intense than ever before. Homophobia became ferocious, destroying careers, encouraging harassment, and forcing homosexuals to name others with whom they associated. In 1950, the Senate issued a report on the Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government, which asserted that, “those who engage in overt acts of perversion lack the emotional stability of normal persons… Indulgence in acts of sex perversion weakens the moral fibre of the individual.”

Male homosexuals were considered the greatest menace. Lesbians were also condemned, but since displays of affection between women were not uncommon, lesbianism more easily went unnoticed. Nevertheless, lesbians established strong communities with distinctive styles of dress, behavior, and social institutions. Lesbians who were open about their identity faced extreme hostility and even violence.

…Dating began the path to marriage. Most young people dated during high school, and many, especially young working-class women who did not go on to college, married right after graduation. The dating system established a certain amount of physical intimacy between unmarried men and women. Although the proportion of young men and women having sexual intercourse did not increase substantially between the 1920s and the 1960s, there was a significant increase in physical intimacy that stopped short of intercourse. As Kinsey noted, “on doorsteps and on street corners, and on college campuses, [petting] may be observed in the daytime as well as in the evening hours.” He claimed that petting was “one of the most significant factors in the sexual lives of high school and college males and females.”

Dating and petting in high school often encouraged young coupling, and those who were steady dates were more likely to become sexually involved. One teenager explained that it had more to do with love than with sexual experimentation: “Something you go all the way in should only be with someone you really love, not just any date.” Although adults at the time were sometimes alarmed at what they saw as promiscuous behavior, dating and petting, and even intercourse between steadies, was part of a system of dating that was expected to lead, ultimately, to the rational choice of a marriage partner.

The dating and petting system, however, contained many dangers for women. It was very difficult for a young woman to know how to avoid being a “prude,” and at the same time to know how far was “too far” to go and still maintain her reputation and desirability. The “double standard” was fiercely enforced, which meant that boys could experiment sexually with little risk, but girls were condemned if they did so.”

- Elaine Tyler May, “Sex: Dating, Marriage, and the Double Standard.” in Pushing the Limits: American Women, 1940-1961

[todaysdocument]

"A Chicken in Every Pot" political ad and rebuttal article in New York Times

Collection HH-HOOVH: Herbert Hoover PapersSeries: Herbert Hoover Papers: Clippings File

This is the advertisement that caused Herbert Hoover's opponents to state that he had promised voters a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage during the campaign of 1928. During the campaign of 1932, Democrats sought to embarrass the President by recalling his alleged statement. According to an article in the New York Times (10/30/32), Hoover did not make such a statement. The report was based on this ad placed by a local committee -- which only mentions one car!

A Chicken for Every Pot [handwritten] World[?] 30 October 1928 [/handwritten] The Republican Party isn't a [italics] "Poor Man's Party:" [/italics] Republican prosperity has erased that degrading phrase from our political vocabulary. The Republican Party is [italics] equality's [/italics] party -- [italics] opportunity's [/italics] party -- [italics] democracy's [/italics] party, the party of [italics] national [/italics] development, not [italics] sectional [/italics] interests-- the [italics] impartial [/italics] servant of every State and condition in the Union. Under higher tariff and lower taxation, America has stabilized output, employment and dividend rates. Republican efficiency has filled the workingman's dinner pail -- and his gasoline tank [italics] besides [/italics] -- made telephone, radio and sanitary plumbing [italics] standard [/italics] household equipment. And placed the whole nation in the [italics] silk stocking class. [/italics] During eight years of Republican management, we have built more and better homes, erected more skyscrapers, passed more benefactory laws, and more laws to regulate and purify immigration, inaugurated more conservation measures, more measures to standardize and increase production, expand export markets, and reduce industrial and human junk piles, than in any previous quarter century. Republican prosperity is written on [italics] fuller [/italics] wage envelops, written in factory chimney smoke, written on the walls of new construction, written in savings bank books, written in mercantile balances, and written in the peak value of stocks and bonds. Republican prosperity has [italics] reduced [/italics] hours and [italics] increased [/italics] earning capacity, silenced [italics] discontent, [/italics] put the proverbial "chicken in every pot." And a car in every backyard, to boot. It has[italics] raised [/italics] living standards and [italics] lowered [/italics] living costs. It has restored financial confidence and enthusiasm, changed [italics] credit [/italics] from a [italics] rich [/italics] man's privilege to a [italics] common [/italics] utility, [italics] generalized[/italics] the use of time-saving devices and released women from the thrall of [italics] domestic drudgery. [/italics] It has provided every county in the country with its concrete road and knitted the highways of the nation into a [italics] unified [/italics] traffic system. Thanks to Republican administration, farmer, dairyman and merchant can make deliveries in [italics] less [/italics] time and at [italics] less [/italics] expense, can borrow [italics] cheap [/italics] money to refund exorbitant mortgages, and stock their pastures, ranges and shelves. Democratic management [italics] impoverished [/italics] and [italics] demoralized [/italics] the [italics] railroads,[/italics] led packing plants and tire factories into [italics] receivership, [/italics] squandered billions on [italics] impractical [/italics] programs. Democratic maladministration issued [italics] further [/italics] billions of mere "scraps of paper," then encouraged foreign debtors to believe that their loans would never be called, and bequeathed to the Republican Party the job of [italics] mopping up the mess. [/italics] Republican administration has [italics] restored [/italics] to the railroads solvency, efficiency and par securities. It has brought rubber trades through panic and chaos, brought down the prices of crude rubber by smashing [italics] monopolistic rings,[/italics] put the tanner's books in the [italics] black [/italics] and secured from the European powers formal acknowledgment of their obligations. The Republican Party rests its case on a record of stewardship and performance. [full transcription at link]

[deadpresidents]

In 1919, his work in Europe done, [Herbert] Hoover returned permanently to the United States. He had lived abroad for twenty years and was something of a stranger in his own land, yet he was so revered that he was courted as a potential Presidential candidate by both political parties. It has often been written that Hoover had been away so long that he didn't know whether he was a Republican or a Democrat. That is not actually true. He had joined the Republican Party in 1909. But it is true that he wasn't terrifically political and had never voted in a Presidential election. In March 1921, he joined Warren G. Harding's Cabinet as Secretary of Commerce. After Harding died suddenly in 1923, he continued in the same post under Calvin Coolidge.

Hoover was a diligent and industrious presence in both administrations, but he was dazzlingly short on endearing qualities. His manner was cold, vain, prickly, and snappish. He never thanked subordinates or inquired about their health or happiness. He had no visible capacity for friendliness or warmth. He did not even like shaking hands. Although Coolidge's sense of humor was that of a slightly backward schoolboy -- one of his favorite japes was to ring all the White House servant bells at once, then hide behind the drapes to savor the confusion that followed -- he did at least have one. Hoover had none. One of his closest associates remarked that in thirty years he had never heard Hoover laugh out loud.

Coolidge kept an exceedingly light hand on the tiller of state. He presided over an administration that was, in the words of one observer, "dedicated to inactivity."...By 1927, Coolidge worked no more than about four and a half hours a day -- "a far lighter schedule than most other Presidents, indeed most other people, have followed," as the political scientist Robert E. Gilbert once observed -- and napped much of the rest of the time. "No other President in my time," recalled the White House usher, "ever slept so much." When not napping, he often sat with his feet in an open desk drawer (a lifelong habit) and counted cars passing on Pennsylvania Avenue.

All this left Herbert Hoover in an ideal position to exert himself outside his areas of formal responsibility, and nothing pleased Herbert Hoover more than conquering new administrative territories. He took a hand in everything -- labor disputes, the regulation of radio, the fixing of airline routes, the supervision of foreign loans, the relief of traffic congestion, the distribution of water rights along major rivers, the price of rubber, the implementation of child hygiene regulations, and much else that often seemed only tangentially related to matters of domestic commerce. He became known to his colleagues as the Secretary of Commerce and Undersecretary of Everything Else...

Coolidge didn't like most people, but he seemed especially not to like Hoover. "That man has offered me unsolicited advice for six years, all of it bad!" Coolidge once barked when the subject of Hoover came up. In April 1927, Coolidge puzzled the world by issuing a statement proclaiming that Hoover would never be appointed Secretary of State...Why Coolidge issued the statement at all, and why with such finality, was a matter that puzzled every political commentator in the country. As Hoover had indicated no desire for the role, and the incumbent, Frank B. Kellogg, no inclination to leave it, they were as bewildered as everyone else.

With withering disdain Coolidge referred to his tireless Commerce Secretary as Wonder Boy, but though he sneered, he was glad to have someone to do so much of his work for him....(W)hen the Mississippi flooded as it never had before, it was to Herbert Hoover that President Coolidge turned. One week after making his enigmatic promise not to promote Hoover to the role of Secretary of State, Coolidge appointed him to head the relief efforts to deal with the emergency. Apart from that one act, Coolidge did nothing. He declined to visit the flooded areas. He declined to make any federal funds available or to call a special session of Congress. He declined to make a national radio broadcast appealing for private donations. He declined to provide the humorist Will Rogers with a message of hope and goodwill that Rogers could read out as part of a national broadcast. He declined to supply twelve signed photographs to be auctioned off for the relief of flood victims.

-- The weird relationship between the equally weird Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, via One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO), courtesy Anchor Books (2014).

[antidrumpfs]

We'll Name Them

Some Republicans want to sunset Social Security and Medicare. We’ll name them.

Rick Scott Mike Lee Ron Johnson Lindsey Graham Mike Waltz

[mariacallous]

A Trump-appointed prosecutor dropped an unfalsifiable partisan bomb on President Joe Biden Thursday, playing into a years-long right-wing media campaign — and U.S. political journalists decided to treat it as a valid and impartial charge.

Biden, who has a 40-year record of public service in the U.S. Senate, as vice president, and in the Oval Office, is a self-described “gaffe machine” with a well-documented stutter. He is also, at 81, the oldest president in U.S. history.

The right has dedicated substantial time and resources since Biden launched his 2020 presidential campaign to attributing his verbal miscues to his age. Republican political operatives surface out-of-context snippets of Biden’s misstatements and try to blow them up into national stories, and it is rarely-disputed canon in the right-wing media that the president is a mentally failing dementia patient. 

This argument blew up in their faces when Biden performed so well in a debate against then-President Donald Trump that the GOP resorted to accusing him of taking performance-enhancing drugs, and again in 2023, when his canny dealings with then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy led McCarthy to describe him as “very smart” and Republicans to question how they’d been outmaneuvered by someone purportedly in mental decline. But undeterred by reality, the right has maintained the drumbeat over Biden’s mental status, driving up public concern over the president’s age.

Enter Robert Hur. Attorney General Merrick Garland presumably selected him as a special counsel to investigate Biden’s possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or other records because he thought he could quell potential complaints of political bias by putting in charge a former clerk to right-wing judges whom Trump appointed as a U.S. attorney with every incentive to do maximum political damage to the Democratic president. This is a regular pattern — Republican and Democratic administrations each appoint Republicans to investigate both Republicans and Democrats, though that never seems to halt the complaints from the right about the handling of those cases.

On Thursday, after a year-long investigation, Hur issued a 345-page report in which he concluded that “​​no criminal charges are warranted in this matter” and that “the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” But rather than stop there, he also levied an incendiary and gratuitous attack on Biden’s mental status, claiming that, “at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Hur cited specific mental lapses he’d observed during their five hours of interviews — conducted at a time when Biden was responding to the international crisis caused by the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel — including that his “memory appeared hazy” when discussing the intricacies of 15-year-old White House policy debates.

Hur’s argument that lawyers for the sitting president of the United States would argue in court that he shouldn’t be convicted of a crime because he is a senile old man is facially absurd. Indeed, Biden forcefully pushed back on the critique during a White House appearance Thursday night.

The special counsel’s actions drew sharp criticism from the legal community. Biden’s lawyers blasted claims about Biden’s memory in a draft report, saying, “We do not believe that the report's treatment of President Biden's memory is accurate or appropriate. The report uses highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses: a lack of recall of years-old events.” On MSNBC, former FBI counsel Andrew Weissmann called the claims “wholly inappropriate,” “gratuitous,” and “exactly what you’re not supposed to do, which is putting your thumb on the scale that could have political repercussions.” Neal Katyal, the former acting U.S. solicitor general, likewise said that based on his tours in the Justice Department, Hur’s statements were “totally gratuitous” and a “too-clever-move-by-half by the special counsel to try and take some swipes at a sitting president.” And Ty Cobb, a former Trump lawyer, said on CNN that he had served on an independent counsel probe that declined to prosecute someone due to “health issues, but we didn’t tell the world that,” suggesting that such statements by Hur were inappropriate.

But by including those inappropriate and gratuitous statements, Hur put an official seal on a partisan attack. 

The right jumped on Hur’s claims, with Republican politicians and right-wing commentators falsely claiming that the special counsel had found that Biden “is not competent to stand trial” and “has dementia.” Some called for the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and remove him from office.

The mainstream political press, meanwhile, turned Hur’s insinuations about Biden’s mental health — and not his declination to prosecute — into the report’s big takeaway. Here’s a sampling of top headlines from major newspapers, political tipsheets, and digital outlets on Thursday and Friday.

New York Times: “Eight Words and a Verbal Slip Put Biden’s Age Back at the Center of 2024” Axios: “1 big thing: Report questions Biden’s memory” Semafor Flagship: “DoJ report questions Biden’s memory” Washington Post: “Special counsel report paints scathing picture of Biden’s memory” Wall Street Journal: “Biden’s Age Back in Spotlight After Special Counsel Report, Verbal Flubs” CNN: “Biden tries to lay to rest age concerns, but may have exacerbated them” ABC News: “Special counsel blows open debate over Biden age and memory” CBS News: “Biden disputes special counsel findings, insists his memory is fine” Politico: “Age isn’t just a number. It’s a profound and growing problem for Biden.

Stories about Biden’s mental state are clearly catnip for political journalists. They can demonstrate how “fair” they are by providing negative coverage of Biden to balance their treatment of his likely opponent Donald Trump, who is an unhinged authoritarian facing scores of federal and state criminal charges, including for attempting to subvert the 2020 presidential election. And they don’t need to bone up on policy nuances separating the candidates — “is the president addled” is an easy venue for hot takes.

The storyline is particularly toxic because no matter how many times it is repudiated by Biden’s public actions or the statements of people who have spoken to him privately, it cannot be falsified. The White House physician can release health summaries calling him “fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency.” Democrats who have recently spoken to the president, like Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), and reporters who have recently interviewed him, like John Harwood, can attest to his mental acuity at the time of his special counsel interview. But Biden is still Biden, so he’s going to keep making gaffes, as he did Thursday night when he referred to Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as “the president of Mexico,” leading journalists to downplay his newsmaking statements about the Israel-Hamas war and fixate instead on what the statement says about his mental health. 

The choice for reporters is how they respond to such misstatements. On NPR, Mara Liasson said that the White House is pushing back by pointing out that Biden’s foes, like Fox’s Sean Hannity and Trump, have had similar mix-ups.

“But the difference is that one of these missteps, one of these guys who forgets things, Biden, has become a viral meme, and it's become a big problem for him,” she said. “Trump's misstatements, for some reason, have not risen to that level.”

It’s true that Trump’s own verbal missteps have not coalesced into an overarching narrative about his mental fitness for office. But the reason why is obvious: Political journalists decided to treat Biden’s missteps as a big problem, and Trump’s as a small one. They’re setting the agenda, following the lead of the Republican Party, the right-wing media, and now, Hur.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

BPP sth you said caught me unawares.

Here

https://beautifulpersonpeach.tumblr.com/post/727760824022827009/theyre-not-only-trying-to-get-the-grammy-with

you said:

" I don’t even think of myself as OT7, my point of view just seems like the most obvious right choice to me."

You don't think of yourself as OT7? With the way you can see various points of view [except solos] you seem more OT7 than many people who loudly show off that label. Can I ask why you don't see yourself as OT7?

***

Hi Anon,

Your link.

I guess that’s a fair question.

I don’t call myself OT7 because it just feels like tautology to me. It feels redundant. I understand why the label exists, because there are people who call themselves ARMY but don’t actually like BTS. They’d tell you they’re fans of the group, meaning they at least like the group aka the members who comprise the group and like their music, but many people who say this aren’t being honest with themselves, as Chapter 2 has so clearly shown. They don’t actually care that much about the music. Rather, many so-called ARMYs only really care about the member they bias, and see the others as background characters or stepping-stones their bias has to surpass to reach greater heights. That’s a direct contradiction of being ARMY by definition. It’s fine for casual fans who don’t spend any time in fandom spaces to be this way, but within a fandom space behaviours only get reinforced and intensify, and so naturally that contradiction will be harder to ignore and will breed conflict if they remain within fan spaces supposed to be filled reasonably with fans of the group.

The fandom creates more and more sub-labels to identify and explain certain types of behaviours that develop among factions of people, behaviours that are repetitive enough to show a predictable pattern within the fandom. This is a natural progression and happens within group systems in general, as the group or community expands. Think of how religions break off into denominations with ever-expanding qualifiers (e.g. Eastern and Western Christianity which then is broken down into Catholic and Protestant which is then broken down into Baptist Christian, Southern Baptist Christian, etc.) Or how in the American political scene you have Democrats and Republicans, who are then broken down into Libertarians and Conservatives who are then broken down into Social Conservatives, Neoconservatives, Tea Party Republicans, Trump Loyalists, etc.

This reminds me. I promised @stardust-wanderlust I’d do a post on the various labels / players in fandom with definitions, as I understand it. After recent events (lol), I think this could be a good time to get into it.

*

Within k-pop, OTx labels are very common to identify people who claim to actually like the group, because as you might’ve guessed, the default inclination of most people is to solo stan, despite these people choosing to approach a group to support, rather than actual solo artists who are active at the same time. At some point in 2016 I recall seeing greater emphasis on the concept of being OT7 within the fandom. It doesn’t escape me how this was after BTS first put out solo songs in their Wings album. ARMYs created the sub-label of OT7 to identify the ARMYs who claim to respect the group aka every member, fans who choose not speak over the members as they recognize the boys are autonomous people who can decide for themselves how to advance their careers. But of course, this label only works if people are honest with themselves. And the reality is that a lot of people simply aren’t.

I’ll give a glossary of sorts of all the fandom labels I’ve created and/or used on my blog so far. I’ll list the common definition vs how I see it expressed in reality within the fandom.

ARMY

Common definition – A fan of BTS

How I see it used – Consistent with respecting BTS and the idea of BTS, this means understanding BTS are responsible for their actions, they decide their own fate within the company and industry, and the fan is choosing to engage in full support of the group. I also see it used as a catch-all label used by people within fandom spaces to show association with the idea of the ‘ARMY fandom’, whether or not those people actually like BTS as a group, the members, and the music they make more times than not.

*

OT7

Common definition – Someone who agrees with BTS’s own characterization that each member is equally responsible for the success of the group, as well as likes and supports the group. Meaning they like and trust all the members to decide their own destinies, they are prepared to support every member as is best within their means, and someone who generally likes the music output from the group. It also refers to people who don't have a bias in the group.

How I see it used in fandom – Another catch-all label to tap into ARMYs’ reputation and privilege, and/or to overcompensate for showing akgae sympathies.

*

Akgae – I've written about what I think about solo stans before (linked here).

Common definition – Someone who likes only one member of the group and actively dislikes and/or acts maliciously towards other members.

How I see it used in fandom – Akgaes typically make stricter mandates for groupthink adhesion within their sub-group, despite the widely held belief that akgaes have fewer requirements to remain within the sub-group. They maintain a series of beliefs but the most prevalent is: regardless of the wishes of their chosen member, they believe that member best exists as a solo artist and all their actions work towards achieving that singular goal. They occupy the same sub-space as other akgaes and so their behaviours only intensify due to constant reinforcement from other solos. Many people think of themselves as ‘solo stans’ rather than akgaes because they don’t think their dislike of other members harms them or the group, but of course that’s nonsense. I use those terms interchangeably, because in practice within fandom spaces, solo stans overwhelmingly actively work against other members. What akgaes tend to do is obsess over rival members, other akgaes, and they participate in creating narratives that are made explicitly to malign other members and other akgaes by proxy.

* Sasaeng

Common definition – Someone who shows extreme obsessive behaviours towards a group or members of a group, including stalking, heckling, and assault. Sasaengs usually devote most of their waking hours towards trying to meet and/or follow the objects of their obsession so they become known to him/her. They seek out and bribe their way into obtaining information to help them locate and follow their targets for long stretches of time, usually for malicious purposes.

How I see it used in fandom – I also see some people erroneously think sasaeng is a synonym of ‘fansite’. Fansites overlap in many ways with sasaengs in their actions, and sometimes fansites are sasaengs, but fansites primarily approach their targets for monetary aims and limit their stalking to instances where the pictures can be widely sold. And many times, fansites genuinely like their targets. But many fansites are also agnostic towards their targets and will choose to sell a picture of their target if caught doing something scandalous, if they’re certain the payout from the sale of that one photo will eclipse the revenue from pictures of the idol taken over the course of his/her career. A lot of them are frankly that pragmatic, a business case is all it will take for them to anti a member they have private information about (travel schedules/movements for example), and this is one reason they’re looked at with suspicion within ARMY fandom. Since by patronizing fansites, one could technically be paying someone accountable to no one who will profit off their bias with no input from the member, and turn against them if given the smallest opportunity.

*

Manti

Common definition – An amalgam of manager + anti. Someone who believes they know better than their bias member and/or his team on how to manage the member’s career, and actively works as an interloper to gain more influence on their target’s career. Oftentimes their actions run counterproductive to that member's stated goals.

How I see it used in fandom – Anybody who has a dissenting opinion on how a song, album, concept, speech, content, etc could’ve gone is labeled a manti, but I think that’s wrong.

*

Multi

Common definition – Someone who stans more than one group.

How I see it used in fandom – ARMY-multis have unfortunately earned the reputation of not actually stanning BTS. By this I mean, there’s the group these people actually stan that’s not BTS, the only reason they engage with BTS is to use them as a comparison to the group they stan, and to use the fandom as the scapegoat of all that they think is wrong within k-pop, of which they’re guaranteed to find more extreme examples of within their home groups/fandoms, especially if it’s for a group/agency older than BTS/HYBE. Their primary attachment to BTS is usually through one or two members they’re functional akgaes of, alongside being casual fans of the group in theory.

*

Shipper

Common definition – Someone who ships members in a group or between groups.

How I see it used in fandom – Someone who believes two or more members are in an active sexual/romantic relationship. It’s also used in the fandom to colloquially refer to taekookers in particular, out of fear of triggering harassment from taekookers by naming them explicitly as they make up the largest group of shippers within ARMY. You’d often see ARMYs explicitly namedrop jikookers when found in the wrong, but refer to taekookers as ‘shippers’. Many ARMYs actively resist namedropping taekookers out of fear but also out of indifference to the damage done by taekookers. They’re right to believe that all shippers eventually think the same way, but erroneously believe all shippers operate exactly the same way. Shippers tend to be very heavily biased and some function more like diet solos than OT7 ARMY.

*

Shooter

Common definition – Someone who acts in defense of their bias by abusing a rival.

How I see it used in fandom – These are people who stan BTS for the rush of dunking on other groups, and actively seek to antagonize and abuse other groups/fandoms. They’re often in the same sub-space as multis, akgaes and mantis, and so are also very abusive. Most of the silliest beliefs about BTS and the fandom are created by shooters in their fights against other shooters. Beliefs such as that the use of any radio spins + platform ads (youtube, spotify, etc) + ads in time square/billboards + any playlist placements = payola, was started by shooters when that’s never really been the case. As it is usually, the devil is in the details but that doesn’t matter online and these narratives have bled into mainstream ARMY spaces as shooters have become more prevalent in the fandom since 2020. If you ever see a fanwar, chances are the main instigators are shooters who otherwise camp out in various GCs that incubate drama. Most shooters eventually become akgaes or antis of the group they previously shot for.

*

Exile

Common definition – Far as I know, I created this term on my blog and one of the earliest uses of exile with the army tag on tumblr is this post (linked here, bottom section labeled).

How I see it used in fandom – Will just paraphrase what I said then:

I describe the Exiles as those within the fandom who think they’re not in the fandom. They’re people who don’t want to be associated with its label. Many of them are sympathetic to solo stan arguments and function very similarly to solo stans in spaces that overlap with solos, though they wouldn’t call themselves solo stans and could even despise solos for the same reasons they hate ARMYs. But at the end of the day, the Exiles still play a role.

*

Diet Solo

Common definition – Someone who claims to be ARMY, not a solo, and spends time in ARMY spaces but is more closely aligned with solos, spends more time in solo spaces, is very sympathetic to solo ideas, and heavily biases their bias.

How I see it used in fandom – Someone who claims to be OT7 publicly but privately acts maliciously towards other members and is sympathetic to solo ideas. Many shippers and fanbases operate like diet solos.

*

I guess that’s enough. Lol.

Anon, as I’ve said before, I’ve been actively following BTS since 2014 but only started calling myself ARMY in 2018, after Jimin’s scandal and the resulting witch-hunt in November 2018. I’d been watching BTS and the fandom for years, watching how BTS, the fandom, and the company evolved before deciding whether I meaningfully liked them and what they’re about, and if I wouldn’t mind if they evolve in a way I don’t like or expect. Also, by that time I was fairly confident in their music styles and capabilities, and realized I wanted to fund this in perpetuity if I could. I’m a fan of BTS, therefore I’m ARMY; and by virtue of being ARMY I’m already OT7. I have my opinions that don’t align perfectly in every way with mainstream ARMY thought, but that’s normal.

[evilbonehag]

My Sort of Polished Timeline for Norman Osborn’s Descent Into Madness, Mischief and other general Goblinness- All My Bullshit Beneath the Cut

GOBLIN: “WHO IS LIVING IN MY HOUSE?”

• “if you give them your everything, they will hate you for it” NORMAN OSBORN WHO GAVE EVERY PIECE OF HIMSELF- who tried to be everything, who tried to be a good son, a good husband, and in turn a good father but could not. Norman who gives too little too late- “please come sit with me, I know it’s late-“ “dad I have homework” Norman who tried and tried to love through distance (it was his father’s love) HOW ELSE CAN A FATHER LOVE (CAN A FATHER LOVE AT ALL?!)

• Repression. Try being severely mentally ill and a homosexual in the 70’s (HA! MONEY WON’T SAVE YOU!) You go out in drag in college and hope no one knows its Norman Fucking Osborn, son of that Connecticut Republican Senator who wants to increase military spending. You fuck your roommate in secret, you can’t tell him you love him because “Norman I never liked that Octavius boy, his parents are immigrants aren’t they-?” You’re just not that kind of guy. You’re experimenting, you’ll probably settle with a nice Catholic girl someday. You have a project to finish.

• Oscorp. You know nothing about money, about business- (You don’t need to honey, it’s Daddy’s dollar anyway!) You just want to show them- show them what visions of flight and fear filled your head as a child, scribbles on a notebook page brought to life in steel and chrome. The glider, the suit, the mask. (They’ll take your dreams if they can pay you for them- PEOPLE ARE DYING FOR IT NORMAN, THAT IS WHO PAYS FOR YOUR DREAMS OF FLIGHT)

Icarus falls.

• Octavius doesn’t believe in you anymore. Harry is three and you’re newly divorced. Dad won’t keep backing your company if you don’t have something to show for it. You work harder than you ever have in your life to get this shit to take off. (you don’t want this- Norman, NORMAN, you wanted to fly remember?)

• Harry is 16. Dad is long dead. Oscorp has become more than you ever hoped (more than you wanted). The military is applying pressure- you just want to succeed. You will get this to work if it kills y-

• CANON EVENT: GOBLIN SURFACES

• Spots in your memory. Harry seems fine. You don’t see him often. Who is that in the mirror?

• You have a wall of masks in your apartment. A very private joke- you always loved Halloween. Masks are important to you (You always loved to hide from the world, Norman) (FRIGHTENED CHILD) Someone is speaking to you again (a friend) Stromm? Emily? Otto? (No. Your oldest friend) You don’t see Harry anymore.

• When you were a child you saved all your money to buy the most terrifying Halloween mask you could find at the drugstore- green and evil looking, with yellow eyes. Your mother recalls that you wouldn’t take it off, “You scared me so badly, you cried and screamed if I tried to take it from you- I thought I’d get a call from the neighbors, you made it sound like I was hurting you, Norman” Kids in your class picked on you and you wanted to scare them for Halloween. Something about your mask made your feel safe. Your father took it and hid it from you after the holiday.

• You get kicked from Oscorp by your own fucking board of directors. Final nail in the coffin. (Give them everything and they will hate you anyway) WHERE IS HARRY?

• There’s a boy in a mask swinging around outside- saving New York, they say.

• You’re fine. Harry has a girlfriend now (She looks like her- she’ll hurt him she’ll hurt our boy) you like his friend Peter, his aunt is lovely. You almost all look like a family. (Harry is gone from you, you’re ruining everything, he knows you favor his friend, you FUCKED UP, your son is LEAVING) No. Wrong. Not gone-

• Spider-Man, hero of New York City We know exactly where Harry went.

(A FATHER’S LOVE IS A HARD LESSON LEARNED)

• Harry’s playing around- Harry’s run away, out past sundown- (then who’s the ghost of a boy walking around the apartment?) (NO, WHO IS THE BOY IN THE MASK WHO WILL NOT LISTEN?! A BOY WHO WEARS A MASK JUST LIKE HIS FATHER) He has to learn, we have to teach him what it means to GIVE AWAY EVERYTHING and for what? For a city, for a girl who will both break his heart?

• Break his heart and bring him home

We wear our masks to hide them from us and to hide us from them

• Harry is home. Harry is home and we did not see it. Who is Spider-Man?

• You find out you were wrong- maybe this friend, older than all the others is wrong- dangerous- We neglected our son- You neglected your son for a week chasing a delusional fantasy. Harry does not wear a mask like you do. (HARRY IS NOT A COWARD LIKE HIS FATHER) Harry cannot be Spider-Man. Harry lost his girl to Peter Parker and cried for his father alone, HIS FATHER WHO WAS NOT THERE

“I have to rectify certain inequities.”

• make it up to him now. Find Peter Parker.

FIND SPIDER-MAN

[bigassbowlingballhead]

2, 12, 25. I tried to find ones that hadn’t been asked.👀☺️

2. a headcanon you weren't sure about at first but have come to like!

can i say firstmarine? because at first i thought alex wouldn't go anywhere near luke. A republican? no way.

but then. angel happened. and you know, i appreciate firstmarine now.

12. compliment someone else in your fandom

I'm going to compliment you ash. The local librarian. need a fic rec? Ash has got one for you. read a fic one time and only remember certain things, I bet you Ash will be able to locate it again for you. Your ability to recall all this you've read or encountered is amazing. it blows me away every time. you play such a crucial role within fandom.

25. a piece of advice for taking care of yourself in fandom spaces

CURATE YOUR EXPERIENCE. Don't like something, don't engage. someone bugs? block. don't like a take? scroll by. Find a group of fellow weirdos you can share the joy with. just, make it fun for you.

love your fandom asks | Ask

[soon-palestine]

this is in 2016.

Jewish activists have been kicked out of an Illinois synagogue for supporting Palestinian rights.

On Sunday, a conference on how to combat the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions movement was held at Temple Beth-El, in Northbrook, a suburb of Chicago.

During a panel discussion, Michael Deheeger, a 32-year-old member of Jewish Voice for Peace-Chicago, interrupted the speakers, expressing his support for Palestinian rights.

The mostly older audience responded with a staggering degree of hostility. Deheeger compared the audience to racist whites in the Jim Crow South.

“It was a throwback to pictures I’ve seen of white protesters in the South trying to uphold segregation,” he told The Electronic Intifada.

Three other activists had disrupted the conference before Deheeger – video of their action is below. “If there had been one person after me, I don’t know what would have happened,” he said.

“Unhinged”

In the video at the top of this post, Deheeger, who is filming, can be heard repeatedly declaring, “I am Jewish, I support Palestinian human rights.”

As Deheeger is carted out by police, camera in hand, one enraged person after another jumps out of their seat to taunt and curse at him.

“You support killing Jews!” says one man. “Get the fuck out of here!” says another.

Near the end, a woman shouts, “Hitler! Hitler!”

“They were so unhinged,” Deheeger said. “One guy even came up and punched me in the arm.”

The rage is striking given that Deheeger’s statement was hardly controversial. He was simply stating that Palestinians are people worthy of human rights.

“I’m not even sure if they see us as people any more when we stand up and do this stuff,” he added, referring to the hatred for anti-Zionist Jews espoused by Zionists who remain deeply invested in Israel’s colonial project. “They see us as race traitors.”

“It really just highlighted the amount of racism and violence that’s intertwined with the issue of Israel and Palestine in the Jewish community. And it’s passed down to kids,” said Deheeger, recalling his own support for Zionism when he was still in high school.

JVP-Chicago disrupted the event, said Deheeger, to show that “all these organizations claiming to represent American Jews and conflating anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism – they don’t speak for us.”

Wrong side of history

Chaired by the Republican congressman Bob Dold and Democratic state lawmaker Scott Drury, the panel at the conference included representatives from nearly every major Jewish communal organization across the political spectrum.

Dold is a chief sponsor of the Combating BDS Act of 2016, a piece of federal legislation that would authorize local and state governments to punish authorities that take measures against Israel or firms that abet its abuses of Palestinian rights.

A similar bill, which passed in Illinois last year, has been proposed in several state legislatures across the country.

Before being kicked out, Deheeger filmed this video of part of the panel discussion.

Assaf Grumberg, a former communications officer in the Israeli military now working for the Israel-funded pressure group StandWithUs, can be heard advising Jewish students to “build relationships with other groups on campus besides what you feel comfortable with.”

“If you have a friend who’s African American, who’s a member of Black Lives Matter and you’re genuinely interested in their movement then you need to go to your friend and have a conversation” about Israel, Grumberg says.

Grumberg echoes concerns raised by Zionist organizations in recent years about Palestine solidarity activists forging ties with other progressive organizations, particularly Black Lives Matter and immigrant rights groups.

Among the topics addressed in the panel were the growing efforts to push universities to divest from Israel or firms profiting from Israeli apartheid.

Bemoaning the “emotional strain” BDS campaigns have exacted on pro-Israel students, one panelist concludes that the best way to break campus divestment coalitions between Palestinians and other non-white student groups is to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

The panelist was a student at Northwestern University, where the student government voted in favor of an Israel divestment resolution last year.

“The debate in our student government became not about Israel, it became about race privilege,” the speaker says.

“Senators in our student government will say, ‘we’re not anti-Jewish’ … but they’ll be convinced that they shouldn’t be Zionist because Zionism is a form of colonialism,” the speaker states. But “if it’s a new form of anti-Semitism then I think many student governments will not be so swayed by the tactics of BDS.”

As the audience applauds, the panelists are interrupted by Jews who strongly disagree.

Towards the end of the video, three young JVP-Chicago activists pop up from their seats to declare their support for Palestinian rights and BDS. Before they can get a word in, the crowd starts booing. A few seconds later a police officer shows up to escort the protesters out.

“As young Jewish progressives we support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement in bringing about human rights and equality for Palestinians,” said 22-year-old JVP-Chicago activist Eli Massey in a statement following the protest.

“We are here to say that organizations like the Jewish United Fund and StandWithUs do not speak for all Jews, and on this issue are on the wrong side of history,” Massey added.

[cuprohastes]

Things to Come

It is the year 2024: Amazon wants to have wholly owned company towns to persuade poor people to enter into indentured servitude. There is an election between an old guy who's quietly doing a generally good job, and a very loud serial rapist conman who's being taken to court for his many crimes including treason. Somehow there is still a debate as to who will win.

It is the year 2030: There are now four Amazon towns powered off grid by Tesla batteries. There is no news in or out. People are starting to notice this. Jeff Bezos and Elon musk are having a public fight over who owns Mars. Bezos brought up Twitter and Elon's announced X-Mart a direct competitor to Amazon. The Cybertruck's been recalled again, this time after the 50th person was cooked alive by the burning battery pack, which also locked all the doors.

It is 2040: Elon's died on Mars ina. 8ft cabin from every cancer known to man and three that are getting named after him. Apparently he declared that radiation shielding wasn't needed because Mars is too far from the sun for radiation to reach it. Jeff Bezos freeze dried corpse is still circling hte earth as of two years ago. The world watches with glee as Amazon is torn to shreds by ten thousand parties all of whom are laying claim to the 3 trillion dollars held by the company. Nobody is trying to take over Space-X or Teslas due to the historic 1.4 trillion dollars in fines and debt they collectively owe. Mark Zuckerberg is replacing all his organic parts with life support machines to keep his brain alive until a perfect way to upload himself to the metaverse is available. The metaverse is still shit and has only 1008 concurrent users.

Is tis 2042: Donald Trump has choked to death in his cell. The rumour is it was corpophilia: This will persist even after a FOIA reveals it was a cold two day old Big Mac smuggled in to him. The world rejoices. There is still a 24/7 video feed of Elon musk slowly mummifying in the remains of X-Mars. Questions regarding the rest of the colonists are answered when a Marsbot finally accesses the dome and finds that Elon turned off the oxygen after the twenty three women in the first wave of colonists refused to breed with him. There were twenty eight colonists and four of them had received vasectomies two months before liftoff. They had to take an axe to the thing Zuckerberg because it wouldn't stop screaming. In the UK, all politicians from the last 30 years have been placed in Wadsworth prison and are tried and guillotined daily. The Scottish won't stop laughing. The Irish have been drunk of their tits for the last six months. The Welsh have banned speaking English. This is not going well but they get much respect for taking a stand.

2050: Republicans are now legal to be hunted for food if you have a bow hunting license. Guns are finally restricted. Republicans state that this will result in a civil war. Gun crime and school shootings are down 1000%. The most popular book in the US is "Eating the Rich" a combination how-to on bow hunting, butchering and serving human flesh. The rest of the world is watching this with interest. The Russian federation is taking special notes. This year 80 clones of Vladimir Putin are euthanised in their tubes and eaten.

2055: There is no civil war and surprisingly few instances of Kuru. Texas has built a wall around the entire state to keep "the left" out. All jokes about marrying your cousin are now attributed to Texas, now known as the Lone Surname State. They have still managed not to secede.

2060: Gender is abolished, not through decree but by common agreement of the third generation brought up by Millenials, Gen Z and Gen Blue: The Green Generation. Cities are walkable. It is considered weird if you cannot walk to the shops in bare feet safely for at least half a year. Air quality has improved, winters are returning. Urban deer keep grasses down and provide local meat. Men and women wear dresses, biological sex can now be changed trivially with around 60 months of treatment. Marriage is now merely a fun tradition and churches all pay tax after the 2056 ruling that if they cannot provide evidence for their god that they have no more claim to universal truth than a social club. World hunger is solved by levying back taxes on jsut three megachurches. Summers are brutal but can be managed by passive cooling, and thermal gradient power generators for cooling.

2070: Everyone has UBI. Work is 4 hours a day, 4 days a week for most people. Many people have two or three jobs, not for money, but because they have diverse interests. Most companies are profit sharing or Co-operatives. The biggest global trauma is the English wearing socks with sandals. Global temperatures have dropped. The kids are kind and bemused by their aging relatives. Texas is still Republican and angrily making memes about "This is the future the left want" that are still really cool and fun looking suggestions. The southen US has replaced it's statues with Dolly Parton, who's revered as a saint. 40% of men have great tits. The President of the USA is catgirl. Things are going to be OK. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day the last Boomer died and everyone's going to get their grill out. Life's good: We're going to to be OK.