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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Intuit: “Our fraud fights racism”

Tonight (September 27), I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine. On October 2, I'll be in Boise to host an event with VE Schwab.

Today's key concept is "predatory inclusion": "a process wherein lenders and financial actors offer needed services to Black households but on exploitative terms that limit or eliminate their long-term benefits":

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2329496516686620

Perhaps you recall predatory inclusion from the Great Financial Crisis, when predatory subprime mortgages with deceptive teaser rates were foisted on Black homeowners (who were eligible for better mortgages), resulting in a wave of Black home theft in the foreclosure crisis:

https://prospect.org/justice/staggering-loss-black-wealth-due-subprime-scandal-continues-unabated/

Before these loans blew up, they were styled as a means of creating Black intergenerational wealth through housing speculation. They turned out to be a way to suck up Black families' savings before rendering them homeless and forcing them into houses owned by the Wall Street slumlords who bought all the housing stock the Great Financial Crisis put on the market:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/08/wall-street-landlords/#the-new-slumlords

That was just an update on an old con: the "home sale contract," invented by loan-sharks who capitalized on redlining to rip off Black families. Back when banks and the US government colluded to deny mortgages to Black households, sleazy lenders created the "contract loan," which worked like a mortgage, but if you were late on a single payment, the lender could seize and sell your home and not pay you a dime – even if the house was 99% paid for:

https://socialequity.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Plunder-of-Black-Wealth-in-Chicago.pdf

Usurers and con-artists love to style themselves as anti-racists, seeking to "close the racial wealth gap." The payday lending industry – whose triple-digit interest rates trap poor people in revolving debt that they can never pay off – styles itself as a force for racial justice:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/29/planned-obsolescence/#academic-fraud

Payday lenders prey on poor people, and in America, "poor" is often a euphemism for "Black." Payday lenders disproportionately harm Black families:

https://ung.edu/student-money-management-center/money-minute/racial-wealth-gap-payday-loans.php

Payday lenders are just unlicensed banks, who deploy a layer of bullshit to claim that they don't have to play by the rules that bind the rest of the finance sector. This scam is so juicy that it spawned the fintech industry, in which a bunch of unregulated banks sprung up to claim that they were too "innovative" to be regulated:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/01/usury/#tech-exceptionalism

When you hear "Fintech," think "unlicensed bank." Fintech turned predatory inclusion into a booming business, recruiting Black spokespeople to claim that being the sucker at the table in the cryptocurrency casino was actually a form of racial justice:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/business/media/cryptocurrency-seeks-the-spotlight-with-spike-lees-help.html

But not all predatory inclusion is financial. Take Facebook Basics, Meta's "poor internet for poor people" program. Facebook partnered with telcos in the Global South to rig their internet access. These "zero rating" programs charged subscribers by the byte to reach any service except Facebook and its partners. Facebook claimed that this would "bridge the digital divide," by corralling "the next billion internet users" into using its services.

The fact that this would make "Facebook" synonymous with "the internet" was just an accidental, regrettable side-effect. Naturally, this was bullshit from top to bottom, and the countries where zero-rating was permitted ended up having more expensive wireless broadband than the countries that banned it:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/02/countries-zero-rating-have-more-expensive-wireless-broadband-countries-without-it

The predatory inclusion gambit is insultingly transparent, but that doesn't stop desperate scammers from trying it. The latest chancer is Intuit, who claim that the end of its decade-long, wildly profitable "free tax prep" scam is bad for Black people:

https://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-intuit-black-taxpayers-irs-free-file-marketing

Some background. In nearly every rich country on Earth, the tax authorities send every taxpayer a pre-filled tax return, based on the information submitted by employers, banks, financial planners, etc. If that looks good to you, you just sign it and send it back. Otherwise, you can amend it, or just toss it in the trash and pay a tax-prep specialist to produce your own return.

But in America, taxpayers spend billions every year to send forms to the IRS that tell it things it already knows. To make this ripoff seem fair, the hyper-concentrated tax-prep industry, led by the Intuit, creators of Turbotax, pretended to create a program to provide free tax-prep to working people.

This program was called Free File, and it was a scam. The tax-prep cartel each took a different segment of Americans who were eligible for Freefile and then created an online house of mirrors that would trick those people into spending hours working on their tax-returns until they were hit with an error message falsely claiming they were ineligible for the free service and demanding hundreds of dollars to file their returns.

Intuit were world champions at this scam. They blocked their Freefile offering from search-engine crawlers and then bought ads that showed up when searchers typed "freefile" into the query box that led them to deceptively named programs that had "free" in their names but cost a fortune to use – more than you'd pay for a local CPA to file on your behalf.

The Attorneys General of nearly every US state and territory eventually sued Intuit over this, settling for $141m:

https://www.agturbotaxsettlement.com/Home/portalid/0

The FTC is still suing them over it:

https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/192-3119-intuit-inc-matter-turbotax

We have to rely on state AGs and the FTC to bring Intuit to justice because every Intuit user clicks through an agreement in which we permanently surrender our right to sue the company, no matter how many laws it breaks. For corporate criminals, binding arbitration waivers are the gift that keeps on giving:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/24/uber-for-arbitration/#nibbled-to-death-by-ducks

Even as the scam was running out, Intuit spent millions lobby-blitzing Congress, desperate for action that would let it continue to privately tax the nation for filling in forms that – once again – told the IRS things it already knew. They really love the idea of paying taxes on paying your taxes:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/20/turbotaxed/#counter-intuit

But they failed. The IRS has taken Freefile in-house, will send you a pre-completed tax return if you want it. This should be the end of the line for Intuit and other tax-prep profiteers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/17/free-as-in-freefile/#tell-me-something-i-dont-know

Now we're at the end of the line for the scam, Intuit is playing the predatory inclusion card. They're conning Black newspapers like the Chicago Defender into running headlines like "IRS Free Tax Service Could Further Harm Blacks,"

https://defendernetwork.com/news/opinion/irs-free-tax-service-could-further-harm-blacks/

The only named source in that article? Intuit spokesperson Derrick Plummer. The article went out on the country's Black newswire Trice Edney, whose editor-in-chief did not respond to Propublica's Paul Kiel's questions.

Then Black Enterprise got in on the game, publishing "Critics Claim The IRS Free Tax Prep Service Could Hurt Black Americans." Once again, the only named source for the article was Plummer, who was "quoted at length." Black Enterprise declined to tell Kiel where that article came from:

https://www.blackenterprise.com/critics-claim-the-irs-free-tax-prep-service-could-hurt-black-americans/

For Intuit, placing op-eds is a tried-and-true tactic for laundering its ripoffs into respectability. Leaked internal Intuit memos detail the company's strategy of "pushing back through op-eds" to neutralize critics:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6483061-Intuit-TurboTax-2014-15-Encroachment-Strategy.html

Intuit spox Derrick Plummer did respond to Kiel's queries, denying that Intuit was paying for these op-eds, saying "with an idea as bad as the Direct File scheme we don’t have to pay anyone to talk about how terrible it is."

Meanwhile, ex-NAACP director (and No Labels co-chair) Benjamin Chavis has used his position atop the National Newspaper Publishers Association to publish op-eds against the IRS Direct File program, citing the Progressive Policy Institute, a pro-business thinktank that Intuit's internal documents describe as part of its "coalition":

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6483061-Intuit-TurboTax-2014-15-Encroachment-Strategy.html

Chavis's Chicago Tribune editorial claimed that Direct File could cause Black filers to miss out on tax-credits they are entitled to. This is a particularly ironic claim given Intuit's prominent role in sabotaging the Child Tax Credit, a program that lifted more Americans out of poverty than any other in history:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/29/three-times-is-enemy-action/#ctc

It's also an argument that can be found in Intuit's own anti-Direct File blog posts:

https://www.intuit.com/blog/innovative-thinking/taxpayer-empowerment/intuit-reinforces-its-commitment-to-fighting-for-taxpayers-rights/

The claim is that because the IRS disproportionately audits Black filers (this is true), they will screw them over in other ways. But Evelyn Smith, co-author of the study that documented the bias in auditing says this is bullshit:

https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/working-paper/measuring-and-mitigating-racial-disparities-tax-audits

That's because these audits of Black households are triggered by the IRS's focus on Earned Income Tax Credits, a needlessly complicated program available to low-income (and hence disproportionately Black) workers. The paperwork burden that the IRS heaps on EITC recipients means that their returns contain errors that trigger audits.

As Smith told Propublica, "With free, assisted filing, we might expect EITC claimants to make fewer mistakes and face less intense audit scrutiny, which could help reduce disparities in audit rates between Black and non-Black taxpayers."

Meanwhile, the predatory inclusion talking points continue to proliferate. Nevada accountants and the state's former controller somehow coincidentally managed to publish op-eds with nearly identical wording. Phillip Austin, vice-chair of Arizon's East Valley Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, claims that free IRS tax prep "would disproportionately hurt the Hispanic community." Austin declined to tell Propublica how he came to that conclusion.

Right-wing think-tanks are pumping out a torrent of anti-Direct File disinfo. This surely has nothing to do with the fact that, for example, Center Forward has HR Block's chief lobbyist on its board:

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4125481-direct-e-file-wont-make-filing-taxes-any-easier-but-it-could-make-things-worse/

The whole thing reeks of bullshit and desperation. That doesn't mean that it won't succeed in killing Direct File. If there's one thing America loves, it's letting businesses charge us a tax just for dealing with our own government, from paying our taxes to camping in our national parks:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/30/military-industrial-park-service/#booz-allen

Interestingly, there's a MAGA version of predatory inclusion, in which corporations convince low-information right-wingers that efforts to protect them from ripoffs are "woke." These campaigns are, incredibly, even stupider than the predatory inclusion tale.

For example, there's a well-coordianted campaign to block the junk fees that the credit card cartel extracts from merchants, who then pass those charges onto us. This campaign claims that killing junk fees is woke:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

How does that work? Here's the logic: Target sells Pride merch. That makes them woke. Target processes a lot of credit-card transactions, so anything that reduces card-processing fees will help Target. Therefore, paying junk fees is a way to own the libs.

No, seriously.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/27/predatory-inclusion/#equal-opportunity-scammers

#pluralistic

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smallbearart · 6 months

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Hiii! I am coming here to plug my print store!

I got scammed out of all of my savings that I need to pay off student loans. It was thousands of dollars I got refunded in 2020-2021 from housing and department fees that I did not use because I was doing school online. I am working with my bank to get it all back but this is a very stressful time so I am trying to be proactive about earning back the money I had lost.

Any print store purchases or kofi donations would be really helpful in this time.

(reblogs and boosts appreciated)

#art #illustration #comics #critical role fanart #critical role #hades game #bells hells #hades game art #critical role c3 #oc

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butchbyte · 2 years

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For anyone who missed this email that got sent out today about the loan stuff. Emphasis in blue for things I hadn't known about, or that clarify confusion I've seen.

I don't want anyone missing out on the little concession they've given us regarding this stuff because while we are owed more, this can still make a difference for someone. Talk to people offline about the details so they know it's not automatic and that they're probably eligible.

Who's eligible

You are eligible if you have most federal loans (including Direct Loans and other loans held by the U.S. Department of Education) and your income for 2020 or 2021 is either:

Less than $125,000 for individuals

Less than $250,000 for households

If you are a dependent student, your eligibility is based on your parental income.

What you might be eligible for

Up to $20,000 in debt relief if you received a Pell Grant in college

Up to $10,000 in debt relief if you didn’t receive a Pell Grant

How it’ll work

In October, the U.S. Department of Education will launch a short online application for student debt relief. You won’t need to upload any supporting documents or use your FSA ID to submit your application.

Once you submit your application, we’ll review it, determine your eligibility for debt relief, and work with your loan servicer(s) to process your relief. We’ll contact you if we need any additional information from you.

What’s next

Right now, you don’t need to do anything! We will contact you when the sign-up period for student debt relief opens.

We will send you regular updates with more details over the coming days, as we near the application period, which will begin in October 2022 and last through December 2023.

In the meantime, visit our Frequently Asked Questions page to find out more information on the student debt relief program.

Beware of Scams

You might be contacted by a company saying they will help you get loan discharge, forgiveness, cancellation, or debt relief for a fee. You never have to pay for help with your federal student aid. Make sure you work only with the U.S. Department of Education and our loan servicers, and never reveal your personal information or account password to anyone.

Our emails to borrowers come from [email protected], [email protected] or [email protected]. You can report scam attempts to the Federal Trade Commission by calling 1-877-382-4357 or visit reportfraud.ftc.gov.

They also linked to this website

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holdmecloser-gandydancer · 2 years

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I posted 1,865 times in 2022

That's 126 more posts than 2021!

259 posts created (14%)

1,606 posts reblogged (86%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@/barry-j-blupjeans

@/phantasmagoric-acquaintance

@/holdmecloser-gandydancer

@/anistarrose

@/herbgerblin

I tagged 1,771 of my posts in 2022

Only 5% of my posts had no tags

#rip (reeses in pieces) - 214 posts

#not taz - 157 posts

#srb - 92 posts

#reese writes - 54 posts

#taz balance - 53 posts

#taz - 51 posts

#taz amnesty - 50 posts

#asks - 37 posts

#the adventure zone - 34 posts

#lup - 27 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#[reese aren't you working on a long piece with hali in another window?] yeah and? sbtts has been simmering in our shared brains for a while

My Top Posts in 2022:

Barry takes his glasses off and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. He’s been staring at his computer for far too long today. The computer in question sits on the couch next to him, screen obscenely bright in his dim living room.

He’d been ignoring the emails that infiltrated his inbox with growing frequency and urgency, all of them riddled with subject lines like “Payment Plans for Upcoming Semester,” and “Payment Due Soon,” and “Seriously, You Owe Us Tens of Thousands of Dollars and We Aim to Collect.” You know, normal stuff.

He’d always figured that actually doing the coursework would be the hardest part of grad school, not figuring out how to fund it without owing his soul and first-born child to the federal government. But the fact of the matter is that he’s reached a dead end; most of everything his mom left him was used to pay off his undergrad loans some years back. His university has mentioned scholarships and work study but he’s convinced the scholarships are a myth and also his university declined to mention that the work study they offer doesn’t actually pay him in money, rather they just pay for three course credits. Don’t get him wrong, that’s better than nothing but that doesn’t help pay his rent or buy textbooks.

Once again he mourns the fact that the only applied arcane theory program that accepted him just had to be a private university many states away.

He returns his glasses to his face and pulls his laptop closer to him. He’s about three modules into his ten-module long loan counseling. It’s basically an online program that explains in excruciating detail just how deeply the federal government has his future in their pocket. “Oh, hey Barry! If you Ever fall behind on your loans, we can garnish your wages that already probably won’t be able to pay for a studio apartment in Neverwinter and also you’ll be paying these back for anywhere from ten to twenty five years! You also cannot declare bankruptcy because you live in hell!! Only way to get off the hook for these is if your school shuts down before you get your degree or you die! Now sign on the dotted line after you hyperventilate a little when you look at just how much money you’re going to be responsible for!”

The whole process makes his stomach hurt; there’s no good reason education should be this much. He’s going to be saddled with loans worth more than any yearly salary he could hope to have and now he’s gotta pay them back or die.

Wait.

He rereads the loan forgiveness terms. “If your loan servicer receives acceptable documentation of your death, your federal student loans will be discharged,” he reads to himself. He's got it.

He lets loose a laugh that borders on maniacal and roots around for his phone. It rings once before someone picks up on the other end.

“Lup!” He whoops.

“Bear? What’s up? You sound extremely excitable right now.”

“Okay, remember when you wanted to get married for tax benefits?”

“I do! I also remember you turned me down because you didn’t want to our marriage to be for convenience.”

Barry laughs to himself. “Yeah, I still stand by that.”

“You sap,” she sighs fondly.

“Well, I think I found a way to scam the federal government through a loophole.”

“Gods I love when you talk dirty to me!”

“We can talk more when you come home but I can almost promise you neither of us are paying off our student loans.”

“Barry, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about and I can’t wait to hear your devious plan. Love you!”

“Love you.�� He clicks end on the call and looks around for his theoretical necromancy notes from a few semesters ago.

264 notes - Posted August 12, 2022

Lucretia pulled the door of her room shut and scrubbed tears from her face. Magnus just needed to sleep it off. He’d be fine. They’d all be fine, Lucretia kept telling herself like some kind of chant to a long-forgotten god. She just had to find the others.

She happened upon Merle and Davenport first. They were at the dining room table. Merle watched Davenport carefully as the captain shook like a soaking wet dog. Lucretia plastered a tight smile on her face though she was certain it would fool nobody. At least, it wouldn’t have ten minutes prior.

“Are you both okay?” she asked, glancing between them.

“Uh. I’m a little confused myself. Who’re you? And where exactly are we?” Merle squinted his eyes at her.

Her stomach twisted. Her plan was working, it seemed. And she hated every moment. “I’m…I’m a friend, of sorts. And we are on a vessel that will dock very soon. And then I’m gonna take you home. Soon. I promise.” She spoke slowly, chose her words carefully, and hoped that Merle’s bad memory would give her some breathing room.

“Davenport.”

Lucretia turned and looked at Davenport, a slight furrow in her brow. “Yes, you’re Davenport.”

He looked up at her and she saw a look in his eyes she would never forget. She saw panic and fear on his face like she’d never seen before, not even during their closest encounters with the Hunger. “I-I’m Davenport,” he repeated, voice shaking.

No. Gods no there was no way. She nodded and forced her smile to widen. “Right. Davenport, do you know where you are?”

“Davenport.”

She looked back to Merle. “Has he said anything besides his name in the past ten or so minutes?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Just Davenport.” He thought for a second, tilting his head consideringly. “Well, I guess he said my name right before he started saying his. Kinda weird ‘cuz I never told him my name. But that’s what we’re working with.”

She already wanted to bring out cups of ichor and abort the plan. How could she do this? Her plan might work but at what cost? “Okay. How’s your head feel?”

“Davenport.” His voice was tight and pained.

“Shitty, now that you mention it. Kinda feels like I got hit over the head with a club or something,” Merle said, frowning deeply.

She nodded. “Right. Do you want to go lie down? A nap might help. I have a room for each of you.”

Davenport looked at her blankly. His gaze was haunted and filled Lucretia with sickening regret.

“I could use a nap,” Merle agreed before standing.

“If you’ll both follow me,” she said primly.

She led them wordlessly down to their rooms, surreptitiously grabbing obvious red flags that were present within them. She grabbed Merle’s jacket, a handful of trinkets from the beach cycle, a memento from the First Church of Fungston, and shut his door without another word. Davenport’s room was easier; his jacket was folded on the edge of his bed and few personal affects that would remind him of the mission were clearly visible.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, almost more to herself than to him.

She left before she had to hear him say his own name again.

Barry and Taako were nowhere to be found inside the ship. Should have known that they’d be on the deck; they’d both been spending days on end pouring over maps of the realm, touching down to search for Lup, before coming back and feeling defeated.

What she found on the deck stopped her dead in her tracks. Taako’s wand was at his feet, he was staring into space, eyes welling with tears. He had a white-knuckle grip on the railing. Barry wasn’t there. Barry was nowhere on the ship.

She approached Taako carefully. “Taako?”

He snapped his head up and looked in her direction though his gaze seemed to pass right through her. “H-he told me to blast him. He said he was forgetting someone’s face and he told me to blast him. He was panicked and he was scared and I wanted to help him and I don’t know why. I don’t know why. I blasted him. I killed him. I-I just killed him and he smiledwhile I did it,” Taako babbled. He looked like he was about to snap the whole railing with his bare hands.

“Taako, it’s okay,” she said, reaching to put a hand on his shoulder.

He flinched away from her and glared. “Don’t fucking touch me! This isn’t okay! I-I killed a guy. I killed a guy and he probably had a fucking family or something at home.”

“Taako, please. I need you to breathe, okay?” Lucretia did her best to be firm and kind. It usually worked.

“How do you know my name? Who are you? A-and where are we? And who was that guy?” Taako snapped. He was putting on a big front but Lucretia knew what this was. He had on the same feral cat façade that he did when she first met him.

See the full post

286 notes - Posted March 7, 2022

Lup can feel her soul vibrating in her body. This isn’t an uncommon occurrence, just the nature of a lich contained. The sweat prickling her scalp though? That’s all nerves, the kind of physiological vulnerability Lup hates. See, everyone’s getting together later for the largest event of the season; the garden party the twins are throwing for their birthday. It’s going to be obnoxious and extravagant and unbecoming, surely. That’s not the source of her anxiety, though.

Lup’s called Taako over early to give him his gift. (If she’s being honest, it’s as much for her as it is for him but who really wants to argue semantics?) She’s reminded him about it no less than four hundred times in the past week. The timing on this is vital, she thinks.

She glances at the clock that hangs over the kitchen sink and bites at her thumbnail; he’s not even late yet, she’s getting worked up over nothing. She murmurs a quick message to Barry through her Stone of Far Speech before filling a kettle and putting it on the stove to boil. She’s pawing through the pantry for honey and tea, fingertips just able to nudge the honey down without a casualty when she hears a key turn in the lock.

“In here!” she calls, retrieving three teacups from a cabinet near the stove. She methodically drops a large dollop of honey in the bottom of each. She pushes them back from the edge of the counter and moves to lean against the island in the middle of the kitchen.

“Lup, the fact that you made me get up early on my birthday is a crime, frankly,” Taako bemoans as he enters the kitchen, sliding onto a stool as he does.

“Our birthday,” she corrects with a dramatic eye roll. She darts a glance back at the clock again.

“Why’re you being weird?” Taako squints at her. Lup turns to look back at Taako and tries to play it as cool as she can. She’s certain she’s reapproaching normalcy already.

“I’m not being weird,” Lup says, giving a weird little smile. Too plasticine, she realizes too late. She doesn’t do this whole nerves bullshit well. It’s annoying and gross.

“You’re being certifiably weird, Lu. But go ahead, try to pull a fast one over on your dear brother,” Taako laments, putting his chin in his hands. The kettle whistles before Lup’s able to tease him about being a drama queen. At once she gets to work, adding a small splash of hot water to the bottom of each teacup, swirling them around to loosen the honey. She then dumps a healthy amount of tea leaves in each cup and covers them with water. She grabs three small plates from the cupboard and covers them. When she turns around, Taako’s staring at her, his eyes narrowed.

“What?” she asks innocently.

“Why are you making three cups? I thought Barold was out doing errands?”

“He is.”

Taako crosses his arms. “Lup, what’s going on? I don’t dig cagey and I do believe I was promised a gift that couldn’t be given in front of everyone else,” he says expectantly.

Lup takes a breath to steady herself. “Taako, I found her.”

His face folds in on itself in confusion. He glances back over at the three teacups and suddenly his face is opening back up in understanding and disbelief. “Bullshit. There’s no way. I-I’ve asked Kravitz about that a thousand times. He said that you can’t just go dipping in the Astral Plane of other planarverses. He said that not even the Raven Queen could clear something like that. Said it wasn’t possible. That’s the whole reason he wasn’t chasing our asses until we touched down in Faerun,” Taako babbles, trying to ignore that defiant, stomach flipping hope bubbling up inside of him.

Lup beams and ignores the clenching in her throat. “Well, you’re not supposed to be able to. But Kravitz, Barry, RQ, and I have been looking for a workaround. Not just for this, apparently RQ and some of the other gods have been looking for a way to connect with their cross-planar counterparts. I guess to like, aid in the smooth running of each planar system? To be honest when she was talking about it I couldn’t really follow but the point is that I found her, Taako. I haven’t talked to her yet. Wouldn’t do that without you. But we did some tests to make sure it’d all be okay and they went perfect. It’s not like it’s a forever open door or anything, though. Strictly speaking, us lowly non-gods still won’t be able to do this but it’s kinda hard to argue with a few saviors of the universe.” Lup cringes for a minute. “I hate playing that card sometimes but I feel like this is worth it.” Her voice catches at the last moment and she clears her throat. She’s determined not to cry.

Taako’s determination to not cry was shattered roughly ten seconds into Lup’s explanation. “How long?” he asks, voice wobbly. He’s not stupid, play too rough with the boundaries of the world and things can get a little fucky. But he wants to make the most of this.

“Few hours? That’s why I had you come over so early. I wanted us to have plenty of time. Didn’t wanna bring her to the party later, that’s just too much. But if you’re okay with it, I do want Barry to drop in for just a minute. He really wants to meet her.”

Taako scoffs and tries to sweep his emotion under a bravado coated façade. “I mean you’re outta your gourd if you think I’m not getting Krav or Angus in here for like ten minutes. I just…I need to know if she heard the Song. I want her to see it was worth it.”

And there goes Lup’s resolve. She nods and smiles a tremulous smile, paying no mind to the tears welling. She removes the plates from the teacups and brings them over to the counter. A sweep of her hand and a scythe materializes out of thin air. She steadies herself against it for a moment as Taako rises to stand beside her. They exchange a glance before Taako gives an encouraging nod. Lup swings the blade effortlessly like she has countless times before. A familiar riiiiip sounds through the kitchen and Lup extends her hand through the tear that formed, waving the scythe away as she does.

Out of the rip walks an older, plump elf woman, a purple shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Soft lines mark her face that indicate a lifetime of joy. She’s a little shorter than the twins but not by much. Her dark waves are pinned up in a bun, her stark white streak still hanging down free like an accessory. She looks incredible. She looks the same as she did when they first met her. She’s smiling wider than the whole world, it seems.

Taako and Lup are doing their best not to openly sob but it’s hard. How can they not? A moment of hesitation passes before they both sweep her up in the tightest hug any of them have ever experienced. The twins each rest their heads on one of her shoulders.

They don’t speak for a moment as they all take in the incredulity, the impossibility of what happened.

“Hi, Tía,” Taako manages to get out between sniffles.

“We have a lot to catch you up on,” Lup says with a wet laugh.

“Believe me, darlings, I’ve heard so much.”

426 notes - Posted April 4, 2022

at least one of thb should have died in wonderland. the place has been designed to get the max suffering out of everyone but it was love that kept them all alive.

Merle (and to a lesser extent, Magnus) gave precious hp to Taako to keep him from biting it

Taako and Merle literally pulled Magnus's soul away from the Astral Plane

Lup devoured and destroyed Edward which destroyed Lydia in the process

and Barry kept them safe in every possible way he could

all huge acts of love in a place full of despair

674 notes - Posted March 24, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I think being in such close contact with the Light for so many years did kinda do Something to the birds.

because Taako is not charismatic, that's canonical. but, even joke canonical, everyone adores him, desires him, wants to give him all their possessions. people cannot get enough of Taako, even after he dooms a town

Magnus, thanks to his rustic hospitality, is a likeable guy. but he was able to help lead the rebellion that gave him his folk hero status that gave him his rustic hospitality. people were willing to die by his side, this guy who was fairly new to their community

Lucretia managed to begin a whole secret organization and employ a large staff. These missions were deadly, dangerous, and promised the potential to have their very beings wiped from existence. yet people were willing to join the Bureau

these are the most striking instances of this but it's almost like a bit of that craveability brushed off on each of them through all their encounters with it

1,251 notes - Posted March 24, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #false #rip (reeses in pieces)#long post #god is it a long post #not taz

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holosuitekai · 2 years

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Update on the Biden-Harris Administration’s Student Debt Relief Plan

U.S. Department of Education sent this bulletin at 09/29/2022 11:31 AM EDT

Who's eligible

You are eligible if you have most federal loans (including Direct Loans and other loans held by the U.S. Department of Education) and your income for 2020 or 2021 is either:

Less than $125,000 for individuals

Less than $250,000 for households

If you are a dependent student, your eligibility is based on your parental income.

What you might be eligible for

Up to $20,000 in debt relief if you received a Pell Grant in college

Up to $10,000 in debt relief if you didn’t receive a Pell Grant

How it’ll work

What’s next

Right now, you don’t need to do anything! We will contact you when the sign-up period for student debt relief opens.

We will send you regular updates with more details over the coming days, as we near the application period, which will begin in October 2022 and last through December 2023.

In the meantime, visit our Frequently Asked Questions page to find out more information on the student debt relief program.

Beware of Scams

#student loans #student debt relief #loan forgiveness #email from doe #biden administration #Biden-Harris administration

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ejesgistnews · 1 month

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Three Nigerian Presidential Jets Seized Abroad Amid Ogun State, Chinese Firm Legal Dispute. A French court has authorized the seizure of three presidential jets linked to the Federal Government of Nigeria, following a legal dispute involving Ogun State and Chinese firm Zhongshan. Sources familiar with the matter revealed that the jets, part of the Nigerian presidential air fleet, were targeted due to a long-standing battle over a $74.5 million arbitration award in favor of Zhongshan. Read Also : Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, World Richest Woman, Loses $13 Billion The seized aircraft include a Dassault Falcon 7X stationed at Le Bourget airport in Paris, a Boeing 737 at Basel-Mulhouse airport in Switzerland, and an Airbus 330, which Nigeria had purchased but not yet received. The court's order prohibits the movement, sale, or purchase of these jets until the awarded amount is paid to Zhongshan. Read Also : EFCC Detains NAHCON Chairman, Secretary Over N90 Billion Hajj Subsidy Scam This legal action stems from a 2016 dispute when Ogun State revoked Zhongshan's contract to manage an export processing zone. The case was brought before an independent arbitral tribunal, chaired by the former President of the UK Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of Zhongshan. Despite this ruling, the Ogun State government has not honored the award, prompting Zhongshan to seek enforcement through the seizure of Nigerian assets abroad. Pay Attention To: EFCC Breaks Silence Amidst Reports of Donating N50 Billion to Support Student Loan Scheme The Nigerian government has not yet commented on the situation, which has escalated to include the recent confiscation of Nigerian-owned buildings in Liverpool, England, by a UK court related to the same dispute. These properties, located at 15 Aigburth Hall Road and Beech Lodge, are estimated to be worth between £1.3 and £1.7 million. The Ogun State government and Zhongshan have been embroiled in this legal battle since 2016, following the termination of Zhongshan's management of the Ogun Guangdong Free Trade Zone. Zhongshan initiated an investment treaty arbitration against Nigeria under the bilateral investment treaty between China and Nigeria. In March 2021, the arbitral tribunal awarded Zhongshan $55.7 million, plus $9.4 million in interest and additional costs. The court order from the Enforcement Judge at the Paris Judicial Court specifically empowers Zhongshan to seize the three Nigerian presidential jets. The order details the procedures for securing the aircraft, including positioning them to prevent takeoff and appointing a custodian for their safekeeping. This development adds to the growing list of legal challenges faced by the Nigerian government on the international stage, with significant implications for its diplomatic and economic relations. As the Ogun State government continues to resist the arbitration award, the pressure on the Nigerian federal government to resolve the dispute amicably and prevent further seizures of its assets abroad is mounting.

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hardynwa · 9 months

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Students face uncertainty as Ogun polytechnic offers nursing, law, other degrees

“I stayed at home for three years owing to lack of money. My parents wanted education but they were helpless. “I managed to conclude my secondary school education because my dad couldn’t pay the fees. I won’t blame him because he was strong and agile until 2022 when he had an accident that left him completely in a wheelchair. “Despite many pleas, my dad wouldn’t allow my mum to do any job until the accident, no thanks to that drunk driver. “After the accident, my mum got some loans and started a petty business but it wasn’t enough to feed a large family. There was no hope of getting educated. But I had promised my dad that I would be a graduate of law. “So I started working hard, I did all kinds of jobs to raise funds. “Many times I went to construction sites to assist bricklayers, while sometimes, I pushed wheelbarrows in the popular Ojota market. “After over five years of hard labour, my friend, Saheed, told me about Havarde and my little enquiry was to establish if my savings will secure me admission to study law here (Harvarde). “Having confirmed that, I came here, only for me to start hearing from different persons that we have been scammed. “I am currently in my second year. If this turns out to be true, I will be the biggest loser in the world and it won’t be easy for mum to take.” This was Aina Jide’s narration when our reporter approached him earlier in the week where he was seated and lost in thought in Obada area of Abeokuta, the host community to the controversial – Havarde College of Science, Business and Management Studies, a polytechnic where law, pharmacy, nursing, among other professional courses are offered to students. From random interviews, DAILY POST gathered that locals could not explain if the institution is a polytechnic or a university. The students are equally as confused as the locals. But the residents were pleased with the facelift given to commercial activities in the popular Obada, all thanks to the number of students living in the area. In an advert by the school posted online, it advertised that it awards National Diploma (ND) and Higher National Diploma (HND) certificates. But the same polytechnic also claimed in the same advert that it runs B.Sc conversion programmes for HND holders, creating confusion as to whether or not the school now has the approval of the National Universities Commission (NUC) to award degrees or it was accredited by the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE). A student of the school, who refused to give his name over the fear of getting reprimanded, spoke from the ‘pool’ of his confusion when he told DAILY POST correspondent that “Bros, I really do not know what to believe anymore, honestly, I am frustrated.” He said, “We learnt that Havarde was an affiliate of Olabisi Onabanjo University.” When asked the range of their tuition fee, he said law students pay N195,000 yearly as school fees, while those in the nursing department pay N130,000 yearly. Findings But Investigation by DAILY POST showed that the proprietor of the institution, Dr Oluwatosin Adebayo, severed ties with OOU many years back. Thorough checks on both NUC and NBTE websites showed that the school was yet to be accredited as a university. In a 2021 directory of the NBTE, Harvarde college was seen among the list of specialised institutions offering accredited programmes. The college got permission of the NBTE to offer four courses which include: Accountancy, Business Administration, Mass Communication and Computer Science all for National Diploma (ND) only. According to the NBTE, the accreditation ought to expire in October, 2022. Although not confirmed, a staff of the institution who preferred to be anonymous, told DAILY POST that the school got approval to run a monotechnic with the earlier mentioned courses. This reporter, however, discovered that, against the four courses accredited by the NBTE, the school now runs about 30 courses, including criminology, law, nursing, among others. Management reacts Responding to DAILY POST enquiry, the proprietor of the school, Dr Oluwatosin Adebayo, debunked the allegation, insisting that the school was duly registered by the federal government. “We cannot come to Abeokuta and be doing something illegal. If anything is not clear to you, please come to us to get clarification and not spread something that is untrue. “We used to be under OOU before but today, we don’t have any affiliation with OOU again. We can’t continue to serve one person for life,” he stated. He further noted that what he described as a rumour against the school emanated from rusticated students of the institution. According to him, “I think what caused all these rumours is because we do send students away from here. If after a year your GP is less than 1.00 or you misbehave, we will send you away. “We can’t harbour such students around us but most of them will not go home and what they will now do is to embark on unnecessary rumour.” Although the proprietor claimed that university courses on their campuses are on affiliation, he refused to mention the name(s) of the mother institution they are affiliated to. When asked what the school awards to students, Adebayo said, “We have ND, we have HND but we don’t have the power to issue Bsc on our own, so we have to affiliate. But we have accreditation up to HND level.” Meanwhile, thousands of students, just like Jide, are currently in the school, paying huge sums, in pursuit of academic certificates. Read the full article

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ilikemesometaetaes · 4 years

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Feral

Part One (M)

•••> Author: @ilikemesometaetaes

•••> Summary: You’ve come to figure out that being the center of everyone’s attention is both a blessing and a terrible, supernatural curse.

•••> Pairing(s): Seokjin/Reader/Taehyung

•••> Word Count: 10.93k [Unedited]

•••> Rating: 18+

•••> Warnings: imagined smut, blood thirst, aggressive yearning, masturbation (seokjin), multiple orgasms (seokjin), fangs and venom, PubliclyNude!Tae, unidentified werewolf knot, brief thoughts of suicide/depression, seokjin is unhinged, so is Tae, things are about to get inTAEnse (heh sorry)

Taglist: @honeiibeehobi @kimmieloveswho @imluckybitches

PART TWO (M), PART THREE (M) -> MASTERLIST

The head of the Bangenov estate, Kim Seokjin, appeared seemingly out of no where.

You were a junior in university, just barely scraping by to avoid class cancellation, collecting debt after debt as you attempted to pursue the degree you loved. Needless to say, you were drowning in the prospect of owed money. The number was surely into the hundreds of thousands by then.

It was when you had finished working your twelve hour shift at the local diner- no one else wanted to hire you, afraid that a college student would be irresponsible and unable to work much- when you came home to a rather elegant-looking envelope with your name scrawled across the top. There was no address and no evidence as to where it came from.

Still dressed in your skirt and apron, you took a seat at your rickety and tiny kitchen table to carefully open the envelope with all of your attention.

Inside was a piece of parchment much too stained and thick to be new. Beautifully scrawled handwriting soaring across the page made it seem almost archaic in the sense that it looked as if you held a piece of ancient history in your hands. You checked to make sure it wasn’t printed and only felt the pressed lines of the feather pen to know that it was authentically written.

Ms. Y/N Y/L/N,

My name is Dr. Mikhail Bergenov. I occupy the Bangenov estate in the eastern reaches of Cordova, Alaska upon Middle Arm Bay.

I must apologize for the sudden intrusion upon your life, however, I have discovered that you possess multiple talents that could potentially serve the head of our estate, Lord Kim Seokjin. He has expressed an interest and eager curiosity to meet you.

Lord Kim is willing to offer a salary that is both capable of assisting with your student loans, as he has been made aware that you are in need of a better occupation to suit your education, and justly rewarding your line of work.

It would be a pleasure to email with you. I’ve only just dropped this letter off due to convenience- I was back in your town for some business.

[email protected]

Take your time in considering our offer and, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask them if you do decide to reach out.

It’s been my pleasure.

Dr. Bergenov

It took merely two days of pondering- and a sudden increase of rent- before you decided to do exactly what Dr. Bergenov requested.

Your emails with the man were short and curt, getting straight to the point. You deducted after about a week that the deal was, indeed, real. Your fear of the ordeal being a scam was quickly put to rest when Lord Kim ensured you were properly acquainted with his bank account by wiring the first installment of your salary to you. It was six months’ worth of rent.

Once you had the money and sat in front of your couch whilst eating a full dinner for the first time in months, watching countless Youtube videos on your brand new laptop- another gift from Lord Kim for ‘more efficient communication’- you settled that you had to go to at least meet the man who seemed to be your savior. It would act as your job interview, only it would last an entire week.

You didn’t think much about the ‘talents’ that Dr. Bergenov noticed in you. Frankly, you didn’t care. If this Kim Seokjin wanted to be your sugar daddy, then so be it. You weren’t doing well in the romance department anyway.

After saying his name aloud for the first time, you couldn’t get it out of your head. The three-syllable name just seemed sexy. Shivers racked your body as the sensation of a feather-light touch running up and down your spine accompanied the feeling of how sacred it sounded on your tongue. It was exotic to you and extremely careful to cater to your curiosity even more.

The flight wasn’t too long. You sat in your seat with a row entirely to yourself while the rest of the plane was packed with people. You smiled in delight and slung your legs over the unoccupied seat to your right, electing to sit in the chair next to the window.

On the most comfortable plane ride you had ever been on, it was easy to fall asleep.

You woke up when the plane began its descent into Anchorage, the only main airport close to Cordova, and watched as the mountain-rimmed city breathed with life below you. You hadn’t realized how much human life occupied Alaska, expecting a land full of bustling wildlife with almost no people, however, flying over the city filled with skyscrapers proved you wrong.

A woman stood at the gate once you picked up your luggage, holding a sign with your name on it, and you approached her with a smile on your face.

“Hey, that’s me.” You dragged your suitcase behind you, glad that you had enough belongings to fit inside it.

“Greetings, Ms. Y/N. Right this way!” The woman beamed a bright smile, taking your suitcase from your grip and walking away confidently. You followed her while looking around the airport, seeing all of the people in different states of their life.

Instead of leading you to the doors where a car waited to take you to Lord Kim’s estate, she took you to the other end of the airport where the smaller planes were held. Seeing that you’d be flying to your destination, you stoked up a conversation with the woman- Bolanle- to find out why.

Your furrowed your eyebrows accompanied your stare at the small aircrafts lined up. “I’m flying to Cordova?”

“Ah, yes. Cordova isn’t exactly a city, and the easiest- and fastest- way of getting there is by air. It’s a bit secluded from the rest of the world.” She turned her head to look at you while she walked.

“I see.”

Bolanle stopped walking to completely face you, concerned. “Is that an issue, ma’am? I can see if we can arrange to have ground travel to bring you to the estate instead.”

Ma’am? You shook your head and put your hand on her shoulder. “That’s alright. I was just curious is all.”

She smiled again and continued to walk towards the door that led to the outside.

“Is there any reason Lord Kim decided to settle in Cordova?” You had to ask after learning just how isolated the place was.

“The estate he stays in belonged to his family. He is one of two left, I’m afraid.” Bolanle let a somber expression overtake her face, communicating her pity for the man.

“Oh, that’s terrible.” You grimaced as you walked out into the rain. “Does he live with the other?”

Bolanle held the door for you as you stepped into the aircraft hanger. “No, although his brother does visit from time to time. His presence is always welcome at the estate.”

You let the fact that there were only two brothers left of an entire family line plague your thoughts, wondering why they never decided to marry or expand. If Lord Kim was a middle-aged man like you envisioned, the situation was about to become even more saddening. “If I may ask… how old is Lord Kim?”

“Ah,” Bolanle let a small smile tear through her pity. “Lord Kim has just become the ripe age of twenty-eight. He’s not that much older than you now that I think about it.”

You let this information sink in, pondering over what was stopping Lord Kim and his brother from keeping their family bloodline alive. With the thought of them being so young, assuming that his brother was similar in age, you also wondered what they did to warrant such a wealthy lifestyle that allowed them to afford giving you such a considerable salary.

The small plane was comfortable enough. Bolanle accompanied you on your two-hour flight to the small town of Cordova, smiling when you stared out of the cabin windows like a small child. You widened them in surprise at how gorgeous the scenery was.

The forestry that greeted you spanned for miles, gleaming at your eyes in various shades of green. The land screamed that it lived and breathed pure, untouched life around the waterway it surrounded. You watched as you flew over bays and rivers running through mountains, wondering how you even began to think that the United States was a crowded country.

Bolanle spoke into the headset while you stared out the window.

“While Dr. Bergenov and I were settling in, Lord Seokjin taught us about the history of the land. It’s quite intriguing if you ever have the chance to talk to him about it.” Bolanle paused and peaked through the glass, combing the land as if she were looking for something. After a few moments, she let out an ‘aha!’ as she found what she was seeking. Bolanle pointed whilst she smiled excitedly. “There! There’s the estate!”

You followed her finger in the direction of where she was gesturing, searching the greenery for any hint of a color that did not belong. It only took a few seconds before you noticed the tiny black form in the distance. The square-like shape was nestled into a mountain side that overlooked a bay, the bullseye of a small clearing.

The town of Cordova was extremely far from the estate.

“Why is it so far from town?” You asked worriedly, hoping that you would still be able to synchronously attend your classes.

Bolanle was quick to point over the pilot’s shoulder into the setting sun. With slight struggle, you could see the outlines of the marina that acted as a perimeter for the small plot of human life.

“Lord Kim does not particularly fancy being around people.” She replied sheepishly.

You sat back in your seat, slightly worried. “Oh…”

“Don’t worry about network connection or any of that. Lord Kim made sure that your needs were properly suited with you being a university student. He got WiFi and a small cell-phone tower installed to assist you.” Bolanle sat back and braced herself once the plane began to descend towards the small airport. “Speaking of, what are you majoring in?”

Once you got over the notion that Lord Kim got an entire cellphone tower installed just for your stay- without knowing if you would take the job or not- you replied to the woman without letting your gaze waver from the approaching town.

“Mathematics.”

Audibly, Bolanle made a noise similar to that of a gag, laughing immediately afterwards.

“I don’t understand how you could major in that, but I respect the decision.” She gave you a light pat on your shoulder as she said the statement you had heard thousands of times before. “We definitely need more mathematicians in the world.”

By the time the small plane landed at the desolate airport, you were sick of flying, hoping to just crash in a bed for the evening so that you could be well-rested and fully prepared to meet your unbelievably generous potential employer.

The small inn that Bolanle took you to was cozy, seemingly brand new and unused. It was safe to assume that there weren’t normally any tourists coming out this far from Anchorage.

Once she had you settled down, informing you that you would be picked up at seven a.m. sharp the following morning, you were left alone to completely decompress from the day of traveling. You only laid down for a moment before you picked up your discarded backpack to retrieve your laptop and do some homework.

You didn’t want to be distracted by anything during your stay with Lord Kim.

Lord Kim Seokjin was in the doorway of his manor in an instant, the darkness of the night that blanketed his estate doing nothing to prevent his eyes from finding his assistant, Bolanle, walking idly up the winding path. He raced down the walkway to meet her, his patience with the human’s speed thinning.

“How is she?” Seokjin cursed himself for sounding so adamant to know the whereabouts of the human, yet he couldn’t resist the pressing motive of hunger from controlling his actions.

Before Bolanle could come to fully stand in front of the large doors of her lord’s manor, she was swept into his rough embrace like a rag doll, yelping as he swiftly manhandled her arm into his grasp. She watched with a mild sense of terror after momentarily forgetting about her lord’s gifts.

Seokjin brought the woman’s palm to his face, eagerly pressing it against his nose and mouth as he captured the scent of the human into his lungs. The human- you- smelled absolutely exquisite.

Like a greedy man, Seokjin took in the delicious scent that was much fresher and more raw than the first time he had smelt it. The result of his resident secretary having just been exposed to you made his sense of smell go into overdrive. She must have touched you very recently.

Seokjin felt his fangs begin to push through his gums, shifting his human teeth back in the process. There wasn’t enough room in his mouth for the cuspids to always remain at the ready, so his vampire nature manifested in the form of retractable incisors.

While his gums throbbed, venom began pooling on the surface of his tongue- he was salivating. Your aroma definitely made Seokjin’s predator instincts kick in at full force, for it had been decades since he smelt a human as decadent as you.

Another one of his animal instincts was to fuck you into oblivion- regardless of who you were.

The desire of sex was only present when other vampiric senses were brought to the surface and, with Seokjin’s lack of an actual soul, the only two things that could elicit such a human emotion were the presence of his mate and complete, utter hunger. The flames of thirst tore their way past his stoic demeanor while his cock drew incredibly hard in his jeans. It seemed that both you and his hunger were causing his body to overflow with the need to bury his dick in you.

He recalled the moment Doctor Bergenov returned from his business trip.

“My Lord, here are the reports that you requested.” Doctor Bergenov returned to the estate with a great deal of exhaustion clouding his judgement, so when he took a step too close to his lord, he knew he made a mistake.

Kim Seokjin was upon him in an instant, hissing as he curled his fingers into the front of Dr. Bergenov’s suit to slightly lift him into the air.

“That smell.” Seokjin growled as he said the words, leaning in to better catch the edge of a hypnotizing aroma that happened to poison the material of the doctor’s clothing. It awoke a fire within his soul so hot that it burned into the cavern of his cold chest, igniting his body into a symphony of cries for more.

Dr. Bergenov stuttered as he replied to the sudden change in the ancient one’s demeanor, suddenly aware that Lord Kim hated when the doctor brought the scents of others into his home. “I-I apologize, my lord. It will not happen again. I will shower promptly.”

“No,” Kim Seokjin quickly released the doctor from his grip, deciding that he must have the scent for himself. “Give me your blazer.”

The doctor stiffened at the request, eyes widening. “M-my… my blazer?”

“Unlike you, Dr. Bergenov, I did not stutter- nor will I repeat myself.”

Before Lord Kim could rip his arms from his body like he feared, Dr. Bergenov shed himself of the article of clothing and gave it to his lord with confusion riddling his sense of mind.

Dr. Bergenov didn’t even get the chance to bid his lord goodnight.

Seokjin was rushing up the stairs at his inhuman speed with the jacket clutched close to his body, nothing other than relief of his frustration in mind. His one-track mind disregarded any more pleasantries exchanged with the doctor as he used his full speed to retreat to the much-needed privacy of his quarters. Seokjin was mindful enough to keep the article pressed to his chest to prevent too much of the scent from escaping the threads of the clothing.

The vampire was rid of his clothes and pressing his face into the jacket in an instant. He needed to have you. To hold you and crush himself against you as he took your body over and over again.

Without knowing what you looked like or what your name was, he blindly launched himself into his bed with a level of lust he hadn’t experienced in centuries. He compared the sensation to love at first sight- for better words, love at first smell. He couldn’t control his body as it reacted to the only prominent characteristic available to him.

Your scent incited the hunger and passionate want, but without the source to truly quench his need, he was left attempting to alleviate the frustration by taking his cock into his hand.

Facedown in his unused pillows, he used one arm to keep the blazer smothered upon his nose while he dug the other below his body to use as his sexual relief. It took mere moments of him relishing in lustful desire to climax, yet it was not enough to effectively lower his level of thirst and yearning for you.

With his essence spread onto the bed sheets below his stomach, the slide of his cock into his hand was much easier and much more pleasurable. Each grind of his hips to spread his fingers with his manhood caused the head to drag against the wet and sticky fluid, making for an increasingly satisfying sensation that forced his lips to part with a moan into the material of the offending jacket.

It took four more orgasms for him to fully gain his sense of control again.

Seokjin shook his head at the memory, wondering why he had acted so rashly and childishly with just the slightest amount of such a perfect scent- he was about to have it right in front of him come tomorrow.

You were human. You shouldn’t have had so much control over him. He didn’t even know who you were yet he actually touched himself like a human teenager to the thought of your faceless and nameless scent.

Bolanle stood as still as a statue so as to not trigger her lord’s animalistic nature, hoping that he would not come out of the ordeal angry and frustrated. She wanted to get as far from the manor as possible so that she didn’t obstruct the path of Seokjin’s hunger.

Unlike Dr. Bergenov’s jacket, Lord Kim had no desire to take Bolanle’s hand from her to hoard in his quarters. Even though the jacket had lost it’s scent days ago with only the rotten smell of chemicals in Dr. Bergenov’s cologne remaining, he could still be patient.

Kim Seokjin froze as he realized how he treated his assistant when the sound of her clearing her throat broke him out of his stupor. He pulled away from her with bated breath so that he could regain his composure.

“My apologies, Bolanle. I did not meant to startle you.” Seokjin completely released the woman and took a step back to increase the space and restore the professionalism.

Bolanle only readjusted her blouse and secured her jacket around her shoulders once more, smiling in understanding despite her trembling limbs. “That’s alright, my lord. I get it.”

Seokjin turned towards his manor after beckoning his assistant to follow him inside. She began informing him of the ordeal before they could get through the door, not wanting to drag out the situation any longer than absolutely necessary.

“She’s rather bright. Ms. Y/L/N is majoring in Mathematics and can hold a proper conversation. Frankly, I feel she will make a great addition to our household.”

Bolanle smiled as she said this, recalling what it was like to be around such a young and prosperous woman such as yourself. You were a fresh addition to the town of Cordova, bringing the light of new life. Bolanle couldn’t help but let a small sigh of relief slip past her lips.

Seokjin was pleased to hear the words, glad that he would have a woman such as you dancing along the halls of his manor. It had been quite a few decades since he brought in someone new to his small circle.

Listening to Bolanle speak fondly of you put him at ease, knowing that it would make it easier to resist your scent if you were kind-hearted and respectful in nature. Had you been rude and a downright awful human being, he would’ve had to kill you without a second thought.

He wasn’t sure why, but having you near him- with your delicious scent and all- was his way of controlling the thirst that burned at his throat.

The hunger ceased to disappear since his creation. However, when your scent somehow attached itself to his doctor, appeasing his ever-present thirst with the way it held potential notes of the smell of his Fated One, he could do nothing but require your presence with him in any way he could accomplish.

He would have to stand by and wait for you, aware that you were his last test. If he ended up slaughtering you, he knew that it would be the end of him. There was no reason for him to continue to live as a demon anymore.

Not even for his brother.

You awoke to the bright orange glow of the sun hitting the curtains of the inn’s windows. The blankets around you were warm against the cool air of the room, allowing for a perfect cocoon that begged you to remain inside them.

You dug your face into your pillow and nuzzled, loving the feel of such a soft bed and nice blankets against your skin.

A soft bed. Nice blankets. Cordova.

‘Seven a.m. sharp.’

Your moment spent bathing in comfort was quickly washed with the cold wave of shock as you flung yourself from your bed to check the time.

6:47 a.m. You had thirteen minutes to get ready.

Scrambling, you ripped your clothes off of your body and threw them, along with your belongings, back into your luggage. You’d force it closed after you brushed your teeth and hair. There was, unfortunately, no time to shower. Luckily, you showered right before your flight the day prior so it would have to do.

You couldn’t ignore the fact that you were impressed with how quickly you were able to dress in something presentable all the while making your face look presentable in the span of ten minutes. Luckily, you had laid your outfit- a black skirt that fell to mid-thigh and one of your favorite sweaters- out on the dresser the night before in preparation.

6:58 a.m.

You had your knees pressed on top of your suitcase so that you could close it around the monstrous pile of unfolded belongings sticking out. It was difficult enough when they were folded, yet it made it almost impossible to slide the zipper closed when the mountain of clothes took up more space.

A curt knock on the door had you panicking even more with the time crunch, giving a breathless ‘One minute!’ in response.

It took you three minutes to finally force the damned thing closed. Once you stood with red knees from finally resulting to using the entirety of your body weight to close the top, you rushed to the door and flung it open.

Bolanle stood with her hands behind her back in a posture similar to that of how you picture soldiers standing in formation.

“You ready to go?” She smiled at you. Your anxiety from being late dissipated instantly at her tone. Gripping your luggage in your hand, you puffed your chest out in preparation.

You grinned. “Yes.”

Bolanle turned and headed towards the car.

After about forty five minutes of boating through the Eyak Lake, you came upon the Middle Arm bay where Dr. Bergenov stated that the estate sat upon. Even though the trees covered the entire mountain, you could still spot the tops of Lord Kim’s mansion and the smoke rising out of one of the chimneys.

Suddenly, your heart kickstarted with excitement. This was basically your job interview except it lasted several days instead of an hour.

You turned to face Bolanle with a few questions about the estate in mind.

“How old is this place?”

She shifted in her seat, uncrossing her legs to place her ankle atop her knee. “From what I recall, Lord Kim informed me that it was built in the eighteenth century. His family migrated from eastern Asia and found a home here.”

You sat back in disbelief. “His family has been here for over two centuries?”

Briefly, Bolanle froze. Her fingers that were toying with a loose thread on her seat of the boat ceased movement and her eyes were cast to the floor.

“Ah, yes. The property has been passed down through many generations of the Kims.”

“And neither of the brothers have children?” You furrowed your eyebrows, both at the woman’s actions and the fact that such a lengthy family history had not been continued yet.

“Well,” Bolanle mirrored your confused expression. “I know that Lord Kim does not plan to have any children. Sir Kim, his brother, has not come to visit for a very long time. I’m unsure of his whereabouts these days.”

“Is there any reason Sir Kim may not want to visit his own home?” You asked.

Bolanle seemed flustered with your amount of questions as the boat approached a small dock on the beach. “I haven’t been aware of anything that could warrant such a long separation from Bangenov, but I do know the last time I saw the two brothers together, there was some sort of tension between them.”

Oh. Drama. You lightly smiled at the thought, loving how each part of the trip became more and more like a novel.

“I learned that Lord Kim’s name is Seokjin. What is Sir Kim’s name in case I happen to meet him?” You pretended to forget the way your insides stirred when you first learned the first name of the head of the Bangenov estate.

The woman answered this question almost automatically. “His name is Sir Kim Taehyung.”

Quietly, you tested the name in your mouth as a whisper. Even though you had never heard the name before, it curled from your tongue fluently. For reasons unknown, the way it came out felt almost natural, familiar.

You said it again, eliciting the same response within your body as before, and noticed that it hummed with an unfamiliar sensation. You couldn’t help but cock an eyebrow at your own confusion.

Without thinking much more about it, you turned to face the approaching dock.

The ride up to the manor was smooth and quick given that a small golf cart was placed conveniently at the mouth of the driveway for that purpose. You smiled at the luxury, glad that you didn’t have to walk the entire way up the mount.

The trip up the hill was covered in greenery. The driveway that you took cut through the forestry like a river, weaving between the massive trees without actually befalling any of them. You stared up the length of the trunks with a smile on your face, enjoying the vastly different environment that was no where close to the city back in Oregon.

The weather was freezing as you ascended further up the mountain, a certain whip of the high winds sending your ice-cold hands to clutch your coat tighter to your body. You definitely regretted your desire to look prettier for Lord Kim with a skirt, wishing that you hadn’t forgone your usual dress pants. Goosebumps littered your skin and you rubbed your hands against your calves affectionately in an attempt to retain some warmth.

Covered in shade, your skin was shielded from the sun by the natural tunnel of trees over the path. Almost greedily, you eyed the approaching end of the path where the trees stopped, obviously pouring out into a clearing. Almost giddily, you clutched the straps of your backpack in anticipation of what the estate looked like.

Once you actually got back into the beaming sun and adjusted your eyes to how bright it was so high up on the mountain, you gasped in awe and your excitement from before was completely overtaken by harshly cold anxiety.

The manor was solid black in color. With the sun shining on all of the greenery that surrounded the establishment, it made the contrast of the mansion’s black color that much stronger against the life around it. It almost seemed to communicate… death.

For some reason, the mansion was foreboding and intimidating. The shadows cast by the sun in its crevices seemed to dance and waver every time you looked away, giving the haunting appearance that it was breathing. A strange aura surrounded the estate, sending bolts of unwarranted electricity through your veins and turning your heart into a wildly beating live wire. It was as if the thing could come alive at any second and consume you before you had the chance to scream.

Your bones trembled under the invisible scrutiny of the place, sending shivers of fear instead of from the cold down your spine, yet the only thing that could potentially stop you from entering was the cancellation of your promised grant. It was just a house, for crying out loud.

A gate stood surrounding the main part of the estate, cutting off your direct path as it turned into a roundabout. Upon the cart stopping in front of the gate and Bolanle typing away at her cellphone, you only had to wait for a few moments before a man approached the gate from the other side. Where have you seen him before?

The familiar man stood at the gate with a somber look in his eyes despite the glaze covering them. You eyed him warily, unsure of why he looked so lost. It was also lost on you where you recognized him from.

“You may come in, Ms. Y/N. Lord Seokjin has been eagerly expecting you.”

He reached forward and undid the latch that kept the gates closed, pushing them open with a light grunt. Even though the gates were sleek and seemed to have been freshly painted, the resounding creak of the old joints as they opened made you wince slightly.

Bolanle pressed her foot down on the pedal of the cart again and entered through the threshold, smiling lightly as you kept your gaze locked on the brown-haired man who closed the gates behind you.

“Is that…” You weren’t sure. “Is that Dr. Bergenov?”

“Sure is!” Bolanle giggled. “He’s quite the character. What a crazy old man.”

“Where do I know him from?” You asked. The question was moreover said as a thought spoken aloud, yet prompted to potentially lure the answer from Bolanle. “He was the one who reached out to me in the first place.”

What was even more confusing was that he didn’t even attempt to strike up a conversation with you. Two weeks of emailing back and forth with the man and now he didn’t even try to speak with you.

The experience was getting more strange by the minute.

“I believe he met you while he was staying for a business meeting in Oregon. He told me that you work at a diner?”

You thought back to the man who had just let you into the gate and realized that he had been one of your customers. So that’s where he was from.

You served him coffee and a warm soup, the cold rainy weather of Oregon dampening the mood for everyone in the city.

Dr. Bergenov walked into your diner with a face that screamed stress and exhaustion. You just wanted to make his day better with a fresh meal on the house. The grateful smile he gave you in response was reward enough for the small amount of money you had to pay to get the food to him free.

You let the corner of your mouth turn up softly at the memory as you replied to Bolanle’s questioning statement. “Yeah, I do. I’m a waitress.”

“Oh, how nice! That must be why Dr. Bergenov recommended you to Lord Kim! Your customer service and ability to serve food must have really pleased him.”

The cart pulled up to the steps in front of the large doors to the manor as you arched your eyebrow at her words. Your ability to serve food? It was highly unlikely, given that any person could serve food with just a slight amount of basic home training.

Deciding not to worry too much about the exchange, you shook your head and stood from the cart once it stopped. You were all too excited to escape the cold weather of the mountain to worry about trivial things. You hoped the large mansion was properly heated despite its dated look.

“I’ll grab your luggage. You go on ahead inside and get out of this weather. I’ll meet you in the foyer.” Bolanle was already unloading your suitcase from the back of the cart and you thanked her for helping. Once you slung the strap of your backpack over your shoulders, you rushed up the stone steps to grab onto one of the brass knobs of the double doors.

You stepped inside and widened your eyes in the wonder that stood before you.

The head of the Bangenov estate watched you from the window of his quarters. The glass was old and warped for style, affecting his line of sight, but- from what he could see- you were bustling with curiosity as your featureless face remained upturned and fixated on his home.

Seokjin’s eyes remained on your form up until the moment that you entered his house. He was mentally preparing for your scent, slapping down on his instincts so that when he could smell your scent straight from the source, he wouldn’t jump you. Your aroma on Bolanle’s hand had definitely helped reel him in and keep him on the defensive.

Your heart beat strong and quick, your body’s natural reaction to keep itself warm in the cold weather. The moment he heard it, almost as if it was calling to him as a warning of the impending onslaught of your scent, he could only clench his fists in hopes of being prepared.

It took approximately four seconds for your scent to waft through the vents of Kim Seokjin’s manor upon your entry. He wasn’t ready for your scent in the slightest.

Seokjin’s body flew against the door in a split second of loss for control. He braced his forearms against the wood with barely enough time to reel back so that he didn’t break through.

You smelled perfect.

Seokjin took care to remind himself that you were most likely his mate. If he killed you, it would reintroduce the pain of a hundred lifetimes back into his head. The agony of such a death would take a toll on Seokjin’s psyche once again, re-exposing him to the raw emotion of sadness that plagued him as a human after the Battle of Sarhu- a battle four-hundred years prior.

Seokjin sat in a pile of ash, weeping as he held onto the sword of his commander. His shoulders trembled as he let his head fall. The harder he gripped the sword, the more it cut into his palms, yet he did not squeeze his eyes screwed shut to cry from the physical pain.

The pile of bodies that was gathered by the few remaining soldiers of his battalion stood tall and imposing behind him. The surviving men of his state were worn and exhausted with their narrow victory doing nothing to raise their spirits.

The carnage of the battle brought on a terrible shadow in Seokjin’s heart, causing him to wonder why he even survived.

Seokjin was a nobody. He wasn’t a great warrior for the Later Jin, however, the gods had spared his life for purposes that Seokjin could not understand. Despite the Ming dynasty falling to the Jin after a long and grueling battle, Seokjin couldn’t find it in himself to feel anything but the loss of life.

He killed fathers, brothers, cousins, and countless family members in his mission to win. The task, deemed a crime in his head, didn’t catch up until there was no more blood to be spilt.

Seokjin remembered feeling the sadness as clear as day, yet he couldn’t distinctly remember what it felt like without a soul to suffer the emotional damage. He remembered that he felt physical pain in his chest and remembers the steel cutting into his flesh, but he doesn’t remember what the emotion felt like. Had he been younger in his years of vampirism, Seokjin would have had a better chance at recalling.

Min Yoongi, his creator, warned him of the effects of vampirism before he was turned.

The battle took too much of a toll on Seokjin’s mind and drove him to insanity. The post-traumatic stress removed the good parts from Seokjin’s fragile, human mind, leaving him with sorrow and resentment towards war and humanity. Fully aware that war was necessary for his dynasty to protect their families, he did the only thing he could think of doing.

At the lowest point of his life, Seokjin sniffled as he stood on the rope bridge with sand bags in his hands. He was in the process of tying them to his ankles when another presence startled him from his actions.

“What are you doing?”

A bag slipped from Seokjin’s grasp and he cursed under his breath as he watched it plummet to the water below. There goes ten coins.

Annoyed, he stood to find the man who had interrupted his final mission.

He was… beautiful.

The scar that crossed over the man’s right eye did not reach his actual eyeball- it only cut through his eyebrow and stamped slightly into the skin of his cheek. His black hair was shorter than what he was used to seeing on the men of the Jin.

Even with the offending mark, the man before him was more godly than any other person he had ever seen. If anything, it added to how attractive he was.

“Who are you?” He asked.

Instead of responding, the man turned his vibrantly brown eyes down to the river below. “Were you about to bring yourself to an end?”

Seokjin scoffed and shook his head. “No. I just wanted to drop some sand into the river.”

“I can help you.” The man spoke softly. As if he were speaking to a delicate dove. Seokjin did not like that one bit.

“Help me throw sand in the river? Why would I need your help? I don’t even know who you are.”

The man bowed his head. “Yoongi. My name is Yoongi.”

Seokjin wasn’t sure why this stranger was so intent on helping him, but he sure as hell wasn’t about to find out why.

“Well, Yoongi, I appreciate the offer for your help, however, I do not want your help.”

It was in Seokjin’s nature to be stubborn and dismissive of outside help. He couldn’t afford to let anyone else get close to him. War would occur again, taking away the loved ones of families- something he could not bare to think about doing once more.

With the stranger’s interruption in his personal moment, Seokjin stood from his spot on the rope bridge and proceeded to walk in the opposite direction, ashamed. He wanted to hide away from the world and be by himself.

“You may not want my help, child, but you need it.”

Seokjin wished he could have his creator near him, wishing for his words of wisdom in the way that he always did. All he knew about his mentor’s location was that he was not in the United States. He was probably somewhere in Europe, enjoying the life as a seemingly normal human without thirst plaguing his nature as a vampire.

Seokjin groaned softly in an attempt to tame the chaos in his mind, wanting nothing more than to go downstairs and sweep you into his grasp so that he could feed and bond.

He needed your blood. Felt the need in his body as he grew aroused once again.

The vampire thought of all of the ways he could take you.

He didn’t mind waiting to get you into a shower, knowing that the hot water would open your pores and allow your scent to be secreted more powerfully than through your goosebump-covered skin. Seokjin would take you from behind then, digging his fangs into your flesh as he trapped you with one arm around your waist and the other holding your jaw to angle your head in such a way that your neck was completely exposed. Your naked breasts would bounce with each of his powerful thrusts and the globes of your ass would ripple as his hips clapped against them so roughly that they turned red.

He could practically taste the water droplets that collected on your skin as he sealed his lips over your puncture wounds and drove his manhood into your folds.

You would moan and be unaware that you were in danger, ecstasy the only sensation you would experience as his shi- his venom- took control of your nerves. Seokjin had to lick his lips and then close them tightly to prevent his vampiric saliva from escaping them.

Seokjin could take you right in the foyer and not bother savoring you. He would rip your clothes from your body right in front of Bolanle. He was never one to care for public indecency, let alone public sex.

Bolanle would know not to interrupt his feed. She would turn and leave as he coaxed your body to accept his throbbing want with his fingers.

Seokjin wondered what your lips would feel like as they pressed against his own. He would be able to taste your breath, knowing that it would make him want to swallow all of your moans and whimpers into his body. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how it would feel to be with a woman again, knowing that his sexual desire had been suppressed for centuries and that you would be unable to handle him all at once. He hadn’t had sex since he was a twenty-eight year-old human.

He would take his time readying you; he would carry you to the table in the middle of the foyer and sprawl your body onto it before licking you open. Your juices, made from your DNA, would make it that much harder for him to resist digging his fangs into your thighs to drink you. If it wasn’t obvious that he liked to tease himself then, he wasn’t sure what would be.

Seokjin also thought of what he could do if he waited those few extra seconds to carry you to his quarters.

If you were his mate, like he assumed, you would willingly oblige to his movements as he laid you down in his sheets. Seokjin would take his time to worship your body, loving every inch of you until you could take no more. His fingers would dig into the skin of your hips whilst still being mindful of your frail, human body. He would keep his mouth attached to your skin even when he wasn’t drinking you, needing to feel the sensation of the blood pulsing beneath your skin against his lips.

He would not stop until his name was the only word you knew. He would plunge himself deep inside your depths and abuse your womb until his body was the only sensation you knew-

Oh, to fill your womb with his cum.

Seokjin knew that you were not capable of bearing his children as a human, yet his more human instinct to procreate insisted that he turn you so that he could consummate your bond in the form of life within your body.

The sound of your exhaled ‘wow’ finally disturbed Seokjin’s imagination of painting your walls white. His ears picked up the word as if it was whispered directly into his senses while the breathiness of it licked against the shell of his cartilage. His eyes rolled back into his skull as he pressed his body against the door to gain more pressure against his weeping cock.

Shivering, Seokjin came into his trousers from the first word he had ever heard from you.

He had no doubt that you were his mate at that point, a moment long-awaited since the fateful day he lost his emotions in the year of 1621. It was less than a month after his twenty-eighth mortal birthday.

Being turned into a vampire amidst suffering an existential crisis and blatant depression, Seokjin found that he lost the most human parts of himself as those feelings were wiped away, only to leave a gaping hole in his chest that solidified like stone into a permanently empty feeling.

As the youngest of his brothers despite his older human age, Kim Seokjin was still adjusting to life as a vampire. He blamed his dependence on finding his mate and need for companionship as the reason he was unable to help himself from obsessing over you- and the reason he had come nearly untouched.

While Yoongi and Namjoon were over a thousand years into their life, Seokjin and the rest of his brothers were younglings in comparison. He wasn’t even half of Yoongi’s age. Seokjin felt slightly justified in being unable to maintain his sanity with his mate, knowing that his Fated One was completely to blame in his hormonal teenager-like reactions.

“This place is beautiful.”

Seokjin was quick to change his clothing as he listened to you intently, sliding a pair of slacks onto his long legs so that he wasn’t wearing ruined trousers when he went to greet you for the first time.

Bolanle enter the threshold, her footsteps echoing loudly for his supernatural hearing. He straightened his white button-up as he took his first, practiced breath of calm, before he turned on human mode. Seokjin would need to break the news of his kind to you eventually, however, it couldn’t be then.

You needed to trust him first before he could even attempt to get you to accept what he was.

The foyer was enough to convince you that you needed the job. The thought of being a live-in assistant at such a beautiful place was a thought you never even considered when you thought of the job name.

When you thought of live-in assistants, you thought of those who tended to the elderly- those who tended to individuals who were physically challenged. Although you hadn’t seen Lord Kim yet, you doubted that he needed yet another live-in assistant when he already had two. Doctor Bergenov, however, served as reasoning for the potential that Lord Kim had an underlying condition that limited him.

Despite this, you knew that you couldn’t turn it down when the entire house was modeled after the gothic Victorian Era.

A large chandelier hung from the ceiling, crystals reflecting the light from the genuine candles in such a way that it lit the room like all of the window’s curtains were pulled open to let in the sunlight. The discovery of the beautiful ceiling piece had led you to find that, in fact, all of the curtains were closed. Why?

“Lord Kim usually sleeps during the day.”

Doctor Bergenov was walking in through the door and closing it behind him when he spoke his first words to you.

“He does?” You turned around to find him walking up to Bolanle, taking your large suitcase from her grasp. She smiled warmly at him in silent thanks. “Why?”

You couldn’t help but muse quietly at the thought of this twenty-eight year-old man working diligently in front of a computer screen in a dark room, snoring away while everyone else was up and about. What a night owl.

“That is actually what we must discuss before you meet him. He is currently resting in his quarters so we have ample time to discuss what need be discussed.” Dr. Bergenov moved his tired eyes away from you to rest on the mahogany table sitting in the middle of the room, dragging your attention to the papers sitting atop it. “There is some paperwork I’d like to go over with you. It’s unnecessary to wake the lord anyway. He does not like to be bothered.”

“On the contrary,”

Your body shivered and the heat of unexpected arousal instantly bloomed in your belly at the sound of a man at the top of the large staircase in the middle of the room. You weren’t sure how long he was standing there, but you were definitely taken aback when he finally revealed himself because-

By god. He’s beautiful.

His lips were the first characteristic you noticed about him. They were full, permanently pouted as the plumpness dragged your attention to the growing desire to kiss them.

His hair was raven black, giving you the impression that it was dyed, yet it looked so natural that you had to assume it was. The length was gelled and cut neat to fall above his trimmed eyebrows, parted in the middle to reveal the skin of his forehead.

A soft smile that lifted the corner of his mouth reached his eyes, sending a twinkling gaze at you that burned through your eyes and down into your chest like a blazing inferno. You had to stagger back slightly at the force his appearance incited onto you.

“I find waking up to meet our new member completely necessary.”

Your body reacted as if you were sticking a fork into a power socket, trembling while you were shocked into silence. You couldn’t ignore the way your pelvic floor clenched around the nothingness between your legs. His voice and looks, plus the way he basically showered you in money, had you one step away from falling to your knees in front of him.

You stared in silence, unable to speak, as he made his way down the crescent-shaped staircase. It was only when he finally descended all the way down and began walking towards you that you realized your lips were slightly agape in utter stupefaction.

He’s incredibly tall.

Lord Kim, in all his glory, approached you with a comfortable and relaxed smile on his face. His eyes rested on you easily, unwavering in their gaze. You had to resist the urge to jump his bones on the spot, wondering why it was so hard to control your body when it yearned to know what it would feel like to be underneath his. Although you closed your mouth, you couldn’t resist biting your bottom lip to falsely remedy the missing feeling of his teeth locked onto it.

The gorgeous man finally stood in front of you, carrying with him a slight breeze that wafted his scent in your direction. Almost greedily, you flared your nose to take in the aroma of his cologne. His fragrance seemed to contain hints of spicy citrus and the telltale signs of Egyptian geranium- a scent you were very familiar with. You loved it.

“Lord Kim,” You slightly bowed your head as you grew accustomed to being in his presence. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

“The same to you, Y/N.” He smiled warmly.

His voice was soft and easy on the ears, caressing your insides with a hold so soft yet stern that you felt as if it was cradling you into the next sentence. Your body purred at the sensation, wishing to hold his hands within your own as his voice held your soul.

There was a beat of silence as you regarded Lord Kim, seeing that he was doing the same with you.

He was young and one of the most handsome men you had ever seen; the plushness of his lips was gratifying, the pools of his copper-colored eyes were utterly gorgeous, and his stature proclaimed bodily perfection. Despite all of the good looks that made you want to make sweet love to the man, the universe worked against you.

You couldn’t touch him, kiss him, nor have him in the way you wanted, for he was to be your boss. Such a relationship was highly inappropriate- especially as his assistant.

“Lord Kim, I-“

You didn’t get a chance to continue your sentiment.

Instead, a loud crashing noise resounded throughout the room, causing all four of you to jump and swivel your heads towards where the sound came from- the door. Your eyebrows furrowed in both fear and confusion as you quickly turned your gaze to the other three in search of answers, only to jump when the sound boomed yet again.

The force on the door was incredible; it sounded as if a battering ram was beating against the ancient wood over and over again.

Faintly, you heard grunting coming from the other side as the integrity of the solid material broke and your heartbeat was sent into a race of fury against the fear flooding your veins. A few blows later and the doors were audibly splintering apart. What could be strong enough to break it down?

Bolanle and Dr. Bergenov seemed just as shocked as you yet made no move to get away from the area of danger. They stood their ground near Lord Kim- he remained unshaken, staring ahead with a determined expression. It was almost as if he was all-knowing of who was on the other side.

The door came crashing open and slamming to the wall as the person behind it finally broke through.

In all of his naked glory, a man stood in the empty doorway, panting.

A mop of curly, dark hair concealed his face from you, allowing your eyes to freely and shamelessly roam the contours of his body whilst the shocking situation seemed to be placed under a veil of instant enticement.

His nipples took a darker shade of pink, seemingly almost brown, and you found yourself salivating at how the curves of his muscular body became silhouetted by the sunny environment behind him. Even as Bolanle rushed off to presumably retrieve a pair of trousers for him, he stood rooted to his spot as raised his face to stare at you.

The man’s legs were thick, lined with muscle and tense sinew. They visibly tremored as he stood on bare feet. His massive arms sat poised at his sides, fists clenched after having just broken down a huge fucking door.

You let your eyes trail down and then back up, noticing the way veins in his v-line fed blood to the exotic yet delicious-looking manhood that he was endowed with. The head of his cock was pink and inviting as it oozed a bead of precum, weeping as it jerked in the direction of where you stood.

You knew that, had it been any other man breaking down doors whilst naked, you would scream, shield your eyes, and turn away- you would do the three things in any order, really- yet you found yourself drawn to the display like a moth to a lamp. Why was this man so alluring despite breaking down someone’s door whilst naked? And why was there a small bulb at the base of his dick?

He heaved for breath yet ceased all prior movement once he locked his mocha-brown eyes onto yours after you let your eyes linger away from his nudeness. Almost on instinct, you held your breath and trembled in anticipation. His pupils dilated to consume his irises.

His eyes were wild, outlined by a set of thick eyebrows and a small scar stamped onto the bridge of his nose. Sweat trickled down his temples and onto his neck, highlighting the large, crescent-shaped scar that contrasted starkly against his caramel skin at the junction of his neck and left shoulder. You really tried to avoid the scene of the man’s lack of clothes yet could not bring yourself to let your eyes stray from his toned body.

The man’s chest, supple and full of taut muscle, flexed occasionally. He brought one large arm to shield his large, obviously hard- quite frankly, odd-looking- erection and used the other to fold across his chest in a manner that allowed his bulging bicep to cover his chest. You still had a good look at him before you realized how disrespectful it was.

You didn’t know how you knew, but you could practically sense that he covered himself up due to anxiety under your scrutiny- not because he was publicly naked.

Lord Kim stuck his arm out and stepped in front of you to partially shield you from the man, snapping your attention away from the man in the doorway and back to him. Confused by the action, you furrowed your eyebrows and proceeded to struggle to peak over his shoulder to maintain your trance on the other beautiful man in the vicinity. Just one more look.

Once you got close enough to the lord to actually see over his impressively wide shoulder width, you were close enough to realize the he trembled slightly in his spot and let his breaths out with a slight hiss.

Muddled by his state, you looked at him worriedly.

“Taehyung.”

Lord Kim addressed the man with the fact that he was on the defensive terribly obvious. The name, all too familiar to your ears, jittered your insides with excitement yet twisted them at the sound of the venom that dripped from it. For the first time in your life, a name caused you to cease breathing in an array of emotions.

“I’m afraid your visit is quite early.”

“Lord Kim,”

The man- Sir Kim Taehyung- moved the arm away from his chest to brush his curly hair away from his face and wipe the sweat away from his forehead. You drank in every inch of his revealed skin as he did so, grappling with yourself over why you shouldn’t fling your body at him with full force. “I apologize, but I have been called here.”

Lord Kim barked out a noxious scoff which caused you to jump in the tense encounter. “Impossible. There is no one to call you here.”

“She did.” Sir Kim looked at you again, causing an involuntary clench of your thighs to rub against each other. As if he sensed your body’s reaction, his eyes flickered down and narrowed on your legs whilst his nostrils flared- as if he could smell the burst of wetness that had just escaped into your panties. The past thirty minutes of meeting the Kim brothers had finally broken through the dam, ruining your underwear.

The thought that he could possibly smell you made it suddenly seem as if he was… hunting you like a predator.

Lord Kim turned to look at you as you let the thought of being hunted by Sir Kim consume you. You let your mind run rampant, imagining just what Sir Kim was hunting.

Sir Kim’s hair would tickle your thighs and stomach as he buried his face between your folds. Lapping. Stroking. Snarling. You would hold onto his hair and be mindless, powerless to the need to yank his hair from his scalp as you lost all sense of logic. His hands would grip your flesh with a bruising force to spread your legs. His moans of pleasure as he slurped you up would vibrate on your clit so much that you would cum onto his tongue in a frenzy.

The raw and hard core movements of Sir Kim Taehyung would be far from soft. Far from the delicate and potentially loving vibe that Lord Kim radiated just as you met him.

What threw you off was the same glint of hunger and want in Lord Kim’s eyes as he revealed his seemingly sunburnt and terribly red face to you. What happened in the last few moments to make him look this way?

Reflected at you was a look of untamed desire. The desire to conquer and destroy. To completely own and dominate. As Lord Kim let his gaze flicker down the scale of your body and back up so quickly that you might’ve missed it if you blinked, you gulped audibly. He let his tongue peak out to wet his lips.

The pressure of resisting the impulse to shed yourself of your clothes and let them have you weighed much too heavily on your chest, prompting you to step back and bump into Dr. Bergenov- who brought you behind him instantly. You were thankful for the protection as he seemed to be the only one of the three men who didn’t want to eat you for dinner.

Not that you minded.

“Lord Kim,” Dr. Bergenov spoke as Bolanle returned to the room with clothing slung over her arm. She approached Sir Kim cautiously with the arm outstretched. “I believe it is best we continue with welcoming Ms. Y/L/N.”

The trance was broken with the doctor’s words, snapping you out of your sexual fantasies so quickly that you felt yourself get mental whiplash from the way your emotions came returning to silence like a rubber band snapping back into shape. Sir Kim, sliding on a pair of jeans to cover the main distraction to the situation, furthered your peace of mind.

Within the first thirty minutes of meeting him, it seemed that Lord Kim was at a loss for words.

“I…”

“I’d like to meet the new guest.” Sir Kim stepped in and interrupted Lord Kim’s hesitation. It was much easier for you to process words spoken when he was not as naked as the day he was born.

A small smile of excitement spurred your movement away from Doctor Bergenov and towards the gorgeous and still-sweating man in the doorway. There was no chance you could pass up the opportunity to shake his hand and touch him with the excuse of a first greeting. Any other time and it would be even more painfully obvious that your hands were basically magnetized to his body.

A hand caught your arm, stopping you in your path. It was stern and almost painful, tight like a vice around your bicep, however, the touch sent a new wave of pure lust within you. It begged you to drag your attention back to the head of the Bangenov estate. To fall into his embrace and please him in every way he could possibly want. You immediately connected your eyes to his lips when he pulled you close against him.

With all of the sensations tearing your mind in two directions- to Lord Kim Seokjin, whose aura pleaded you to let yourself fall into a cool and loving cradle of safety, and to Sir Kim Taehyung, whose vibe demanded that you submit and succumb to the fire of passion- you quietly sucked in air between clenched teeth and looked up into the eyes of your potential employer.

“No.”

He breathed in your direction as he said the word, the cool exhale just lightly tickling your chin. You let your lips part in a last ditch effort to taste him on your palette while you still could, completely ignoring the fact that he had just denied Sir Kim from meeting you.

The taste that hit your tongue contained hints of syrup and iron, a mix that came together surprisingly well, causing your eyelids to flutter in absolute bliss. You wanted to inch closer. To wrap your hand around the back of his neck and bring his face down to meet your own so that you could drink him in as much as you wished. His tongue would fall victim to the dominance of your own because you knew that you would be unable to hold back from exploring him.

A loud growl startled you from the lustful moment.

It was inhuman, animalistic, and raw- a terrifying noise to hear in the confines of a home. Almost immediately, you were reminded of the research you had done prior to taking your trip to the mountainous and lively regions of Alaska. There were wolves here. You jumped in your spot and let your eyes flick in the direction of the sound, wondering how you hadn’t noticed that a wolf entered the room.

What you found, instead, was not a dog, but Sir Kim crouched in a position that conveyed he was ready to lunge. Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion at the sudden hostility, wondering why he had gotten so angry. You trembled and let your body slink closer to Lord Kim. Was it Sir Kim that made the sound?

Another growl, formed into a short word and clearly from Sir Kim as you watched his upper lip pulled up in a snarl to say it, had you trembling and clutching Lord Kim’s shirt in fists. Sir Kim was adamant that you had his attention.

“She is mine.”

And his irises were glowing bright gold.

I apologize for taking so long to post. I am my most harsh critic. This first part definitely underwent some heavy reconstruction on several different occasions.

I look forward to giving you Part Two soon! If you’d like to be added to the taglist, say so in a comment on this part- or send me an ask. In the meantime, feel free to check out my Masterlist!

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underestimated-heroine · 3 years

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2nd Post with links to fave posts/relevant posts/personal Posts!!

(sorry if I reblog, it's only to keep from losing this to the sands of time! Also anyone's free to reblog or save this as is the mode on Tumblr Dot Com. Links go to my blog because it's the best, easy way I have to make sure I don't lose posts to deletion.)

faves/reference posts

But My Friend You Forgot some candles

Sacred Geometry Club w/ Audio

Morality and Guilt

Pun Dicks Trying to Get their GFs back

Mt. Fuji Fireworks video

Moving on My Castle

TLDR: Make Your Shitty Pots

John Lennon Stole Yoko Ono's Ass Part 2

For Girl

CDC says Delta Post

Narussy

Assembling a PC

African Carbon Emissions

Being as I Am An Idiot

Jerma Geode

Values of Culture Hard Decisions

Indie Movie About Woman Directed by Man

Pasta Strainer Brains Vaccines

Shot for my beliefs bled like a dog

Where do u think ur breasts went

Jesse what are you talking about

iPhone @ the laundromat

Calling you an idiot plot

Write something stupid

"sTOlE mY tagS!"

Down with cis original post

Supernatural et tu brute tweet history

Benedict Cumberbatch "daddy" post DOO 2021

"Things Characters Can't Do While Talking" Worst Post in the World

Boneghazi pt 1. / Boneghazi pt. 2

A finger would stop a bullet post

Tumblr CEO Halloween

Supernatural Final Episode (I think?) Funny Synopsis by heritageposts

Fake Boyfriend Car Crash Story

Sonic for Real Justice History Lesson

The HP Centrist Problem

Doctor Vs. Furry Artist

Panera Bread Sluts

Villain intro Casey Frey

Jerma regains his hearing <3

Activist guilt

Ghost Baby

Writing Advice: Character Traits to Suit Your Story

Orangutan AP art

Gravy Mashed Potatoes Girl Is Wrong Vid

Coyote Short Story/The Wife's Story

Casual Cruelty Tweets by Doctor

1870 girl diary

Cultural Appropriation Conversation Nuance

TikTok army recruiter

Student Loan Scam (SLABS)

No respect for the Queen 😤

Sneaky Ableist Writing (FMA example)

AITA Jack's Exes Get Together

Nazis on Twitter

White Yoda

Roommate Interfered with my Video

Bring me to life with no rhythm

Cryptobro I have become vid

Steak-umm vs. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Airplane Wheelchair Closet Law

"Inspiration Porn" Karate Kid TED talk

Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy Fan Comic <3

He fucked that old man (Part 1)

Fake Tumblr Bully Victim Story

Lies Parents Told for No Reason

Orasyon Protective Tattoos

Light Up Pen Pleased a Mad Fae Trickster

Tumblr History of Asks & Porn

Worldbuilding Plothole Writing Tip

Baby Owls Lie Down to Sleep Sometimes

Jerma the Neanderthal

McGyver Sunglasses

The Chipmunks Auditioned like Whores

I Need This on A T-Shirt

Stupidest person you know w/stories

Retractable Peen

Personal Posts

*smokes an uncooked fettuccine noodle* (video)

Why I use Adjectives while writing

when you watch anime...

Dragonforce-esque Power Metal

Me when Farkas became a werewolf

Garlic

Barbie movies aging spectrum

God’s NFTs

Black cauldron 2 AM

Users who advertise on this site???

Facebook Bigger Busts on Paw Patrol

AoT Nazi Ideology

Facebook Banned Me for that Guillotine Joke

Black Clover Leaves

Erza finds fault with everything Jellal says

#you've underestimated the heroine

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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Wells Fargo can't stop criming

Wells Fargo is America’s third-largest bank. It used to be the largest, but it committed a string of terrible frauds that it was never truly punished for (it made more from crime than it paid in fines).

Its crime spree did result in one meaningful punishment: Wells was forced to downsize to #3, with a mere $1.77 trillion in assets.

Have no fear: Wells Fargo is down but not out, and despite its reduced stature, it is still engaged in egregious acts of fraud.

The latest scam? “Forex transposition.” Say you have an account with Wells where you get income in euros but need to spend dollars. Historically, Wells would have defrauded you with “Range of Day” pricing.

That’s where Wells converts your euros to dollars using the best rate (for Wells, AKA the worst rate for you), on the day you ordered the currency conversion. Currency prices move around a lot during the day, and this scam could easily double Wells’ commission.

But the Range of Day scam is a grift for the little people, not suited to kings of con like Wells Fargo.

Wells just paid $76m to settle a federal investigation into a much more ambitious and brazen scam.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-09-28/wells-fargo-swapped-some-digits

As Matt Levine writes for Bloomberg, the new scam involved simply “making up prices,” while maintaining plausible deniability.

Here’s how that worked: say the W Range of Day exchange rate (an already crooked number) was 1.0241. Wells Fargo’s forex trader would exchange your funds at 1.0421. On big trades, that could cost you hundreds of thousands — even millions of dollars.

But you were unlikely to catch the error, and if you did, Wells’s trader would just apologize and say that they transposed the digits accidentally.

As crimes go, this is pretty unambiguous. It’s fraud. It made them a lot of money, and they only had to give some of it back.

That means they’ll do it again.

Of course they will! This is Wells fuckin’ Fargo, we’re talking about. They cannot stop criming.

In case you’ve forgotten about Wells’s crime-spree (it’s been a minute), here’s some highlights:

During foreclosure bonanza of the Great Financial Crisis, Wells led the pack. They literally broke into peoples’ homes, stole all their worldly goods and changed the locks, all without bothering to check whether they had the right house.

https://theintercept.com/2015/08/28/wells-fargo-contractors-stole-family-heirlooms/

Around then, Wells began to pressure its low-waged, young, precarious tellers to meet quotas on new accounts opened by existing customers. Its managers taught tellers how to fraudulently open these accounts. 2,000,000 customers were affected.

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/what-you-need-know-if-you-were-harmed-wells-fargo/

These new accounts racked up millions in fees and penalties. Victims’ credit scores were tanked, costing them mortgages, access to student loans, and jobs. The executive who ran the program was given a $125m bonus.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/09/wells-fargo-ceos-teflon-don-act-backfires-at-senate-hearing-i-take-full-responsibility-means-anything-but.html

The CEO — who took a $200m bonus himself — blamed low-level employees for the crimes. What he didn’t say was that low-level employees who blew the whistle on the scam were illegally fired.

https://money.cnn.com/2016/09/21/investing/wells-fargo-fired-workers-retaliation-fake-accounts/index.html

They fired a lot of whistleblowers.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2016-09-22/whistle-blowers-and-good-activists

They didn’t just fire kids for blowing the whistle — they ruined them. After Wells fired a whistleblower, they’d add them to an industry database of bankers who’d been fired for doing crimes — people on that list can never work in the industry again.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/26/495454165/ex-wells-fargo-employees-sue-allege-they-were-punished-for-not-breaking-law

Eventually, John Stumpf, the CEO who oversaw the crimes, resigned. The Wells board appointed a successor who insisted that the bank had no problems with its culture.

https://consumerist.com/2016/10/13/new-wells-fargo-ceo-recently-denied-overbearing-sales-culture-that-created-fake-account-fiasco/

Naturally, some customers who’d been stolen from sued. Wells asked a judge to throw out the case, because those customers signed away their right to sue when a Wells Fargo employee forged their signature on the paperwork to open a fraudulent account.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wellsfargo-accounts-lawsuit-idUSKBN13J1WX

The judge agreed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/business/dealbook/wells-fargo-killing-sham-account-suits-by-using-arbitration.html

Trump also liked Wells Fargo (he owed them a lot of money). Shortly after he took office, the Department of Labor’s site for Wells whistleblowers vanished.

https://nypost.com/2017/01/27/whistleblower-site-for-wells-fargo-workers-vanishes/

Wells Fargo’s got great timing. During the Trump years, so many of its scandals came to light — and were never seriously punished by Trump’s DOJ or regulators.

They stole millions with fraudulent “home warranties”:

https://theintercept.com/2017/08/12/theres-a-new-wells-fargo-scandal-this-time-its-the-trucoat/

They stole millions by ripping off small businesses with fake credit-card fees:

https://consumerist.com/2017/08/11/wells-fargo-accused-of-overcharging-small-businesses/

They defrauded 800,000 car insurance customers and stole (“improperly repossessed”) 25,000 cars:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/business/wells-fargo-unwanted-auto-insurance.html

They tricked people who sought mortgage refinancing into scam packages that looked good at first, but led to waves of defaults and foreclosures:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/business/wells-fargo-loan-mortgage.html

When Wells finally admitted it ripped off 2m customers with fake accounts and offered to pay them back, it created an opt-in repayment system, ensuring that most of its victims would never be made whole:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/02/wells-fargo-screws-customers-yet-now-failing-make-right-abuses-elizabeth-warren-demands-answers.html

The Trump tax cuts only emboldened the company: after having its taxes slashed, Wells cut 26,500 jobs, shuttered branches across the country, and firehosed money over its shareholders with a $40.6 billion buyback.

https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2018/11/07/what-wells-fargos-40-6-billion-in-stock-buybacks-could-have-meant-for-its-employees-and-customers/

Not all the shareholders were satisfied. Some of them sued because the company had not delivered on its promises to “restore trust” in the bank. The company’s defense? “Everyone knows we’re liars, so they shouldn’t have relied on our statements.”

https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-wells-puffery-20181109-story.html

I mean, they have a point. It was only months later when the company blamed a “computer glitch” for its theft of 525 homes from people who should not have faced foreclosure.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wells-fargo-loan-modification-error-homeowners-who-went-into-foreclosure-seek-answers/

There’s no such thing as a non-sociopathic giant bank, but even in the crowded field of crime-addicted financial firms, Wells Fargo stands out. The fact that they’ve paid $76m — instead of having their execs go to prison — means they’ll do it again.

And again.

#pluralistic

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azspot · 3 years

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It is the federal government that is lending the vast majority of loans used to pay for graduate school. Anyone who reads about how we have $1.7 trillion in outstanding student loan debt should always keep in mind that almost half of all new student loans in particular are for graduate school, not for undergraduate. You hear somebody that’s got $200,000 or $300,000 in debt, they almost surely went to graduate school. They didn’t borrow that much money from the Department of Education to get a bachelor’s degree. How it’s going to play out in terms of who’s actually going to pay their loans back is complicated both because it takes a long time to pay loans back, also because so many graduate students are now enrolled in income-based loan repayment programs that in theory offer the promise of loan forgiveness.

Master’s Degrees Are the Second Biggest Scam in Higher Education

#education

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financialsmatter · 2 years

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Saturday Morning Rant…Energy Poverty

The story that seems to have captured most people’s attention this week has to do with the alleged forgiveness of student loans. But that’s not the topic of today’s Saturday morning rant. We’ll cover the student loan scam in the Sunday Funnies. But what’s flying under the radar is how energy poverty is dooming millions. And it’s estimated that 20 Million US homes are behind on their power/utility bills. If you think it’s bad now, wait until winter. With that in mind we’ll defer this rant to “Nosey Parker” who points out that 70% of British pubs * may not survive winter as power costs skyrocket. (* Note) There are more than 46,000 pubs across the UK in 2021, according to British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA). About half of them being independents. And one pub owner told The Guardian the utility company had quoted them a 600% increase in power costs versus their current contract. Energy Poverty is Here So, with that background in mind, take it away, Nosey. It’s all by design.... How many strikes, uprisings, protests, rebellions were planned in an English pub?...... All of them. They don't want people socialising and talking freely. It’s really heart breaking to see pubs close as our culture is replaced. This power business may be the death blow. I know of about 20 pubs in my local area that have closed already since the 90s. The ones still open are the only place some of the old folk have to go… 100% of the corporate pubs are salivating at the thought of the independents closing and prime locations being sold in bankruptcy auctions. It’s not really about beer, it’s about a way of life. Just wait until they realize that the only thing worse than a drunk Brit is a sober Brit. And if the Brits can’t drink…then God save the queen! Thank you, Nosey for that refreshing rant. So, with the pubs closed and booze too expensive, maybe the Brits will sober up and realize Ukraine isn't worth crashing their economy. As of next month, a warm house with Wi-Fi will be luxury. Ironically (or NOT) if the increasing energy poverty does destroy the British pub industry, then it's going to be hard for pub goers to find warm beer in the UK. To that we might add, a cold pub could be better. Why? It makes you drink more and you can handle it better. As always, if you – our Dear Readers – have a rant you’d like to share then send it to us. You never know whose life will be affected by it. And if you want to see some NSFW rants then go (HERE). Remember: We’re Not Just About Finance. FYI ************************************** Invest with confidence. Sincerely, James Vincent The Reverend of Finance Copyright © 2022 It's Not Just About Finance, LLC, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website. Read the full article

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masterofd1saster · 3 years

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CJ current events 16dec21

Surprised?

CHICAGO — Jussie Smollett was convicted Thursday of staging a hate crime nearly three years after he claimed two Trump-loving bigots beat him up, tied a noose around his neck and doused him in bleach in a misbegotten bid to raise his public profile.

Twelve jurors in Chicago criminal court found the disgraced actor guilty of five of six counts of felony disorderly conduct for filing a false police report following testimony from 13 witnesses and more than nine hours of deliberation.

As the jurors read out the verdict, Smollett, 39, stood huddled with his attorneys and kept his eyes trained on the panelists, remaining stoic as a phalanx of family members, who watched the eight-day trial from the front row of the gallery, sat frozen.*** https://nypost.com/2021/12/09/jussie-smollett-convicted-of-staging-hate-crime/

+++

Dave Chappelle's take. NSFW language, of course.

***

Bro, you thought she was 22?

A Missouri mama is facing jail time after she admitted to stealing her estranged daughter’s identity in order to secure student loans, enroll in college — and pursue her sexy co-ed fantasies.

Laura Oglesby, 48, posed as her daughter, Lauren Hays, for more than two years in an elaborate scam that fooled both the federal government and locals in the small town of Mountain View.

In 2016, Oglesby applied for a Social Security card in Hays’ name, which she promptly received in the mail.

From that point on, Oglesby — who originally hailed from Arkansas and was then age 43 — assumed her daughter’s identity, saying her name was Lauren Hays and that she was only 22 years old.*** https://nypost.com/2021/12/09/mom-48-stole-daughters-identity-to-date-younger-guys/

***

At least 12 major US cities have already set historical murder records in 2021, even as three weeks remain in the year.

Philadelphia, the nation’s sixth largest city, recorded 523 murders as of Dec. 7, surpassing its formal grim milestone of 500 murders, which was set in 1990, police data showed.

The City of Brotherly Love had recorded significantly more murders in 2021 than New York City’s 443, despite having approximately six times fewer residents.

“It’s terrible to every morning get up and have to go look at the numbers and then look at the news and see the stories. It’s just crazy. It’s just crazy and this needs to stop,” Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, reportedly said after his city broke its own infamous benchmark.

Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis, Indiana; Louisville, Kentucky; St Paul, Minnesota; Portland, Oregon; Tucson, Arizona; Toledo, Ohio; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Austin, Texas; Rochester, New York and Albuquerque, New Mexico also had their deadliest years on record, according to ABC News.*** https://nypost.com/2021/12/08/a-dozen-us-cities-set-annual-murder-records/

***

*** Joshua James Duggar, 33, of Springdale, repeatedly downloaded and viewed images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children, including images of prepubescent children and depictions of sadistic abuse. Duggar, a former reality television personality who appeared with his family on the TLC series “19 Kids and Counting,” installed a password-protected partition on the hard drive of his desktop computer at his used car lot in Springdale to avoid pornography-detecting software on the device. He then accessed the partition to download child sexual abuse material from the internet multiple times over the course of three days in May 2019. The password for the partition was the same one he used for other personal and family accounts. Duggar downloaded the material using the dark web and online file-sharing software, viewed it, and then removed it from his computer. ***

Law enforcement in Arkansas detected Duggar’s activity during an undercover investigation involving the online file-sharing program, subsequently searched his car lot in November 2019, and seized Duggar’s desktop computer as well as other evidence. Significant evidence was found that pointed to Duggar’s presence at the times of the offenses, including pictures that Duggar took on his phone that geolocated at or near the car lot. Duggar also sent multiple timestamped text messages to various individuals that indicated he was at the car lot at the relevant times; the messages were sent, and the iPhone pictures were created, at times within minutes of when the child sexual abuse material was downloaded or displayed on the desktop computer. Additionally, he was the only paid employee on the lot at those times.*** https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-jury-convicts-former-reality-television-personality-downloading-and-possessing-child

***

Twitter includes video of the melt down.

***

AUSTIN, Texas — A Texas border sheriff who had resisted working with the state to refer illegal immigrants on state trespassing charges said rising crime in his community has forced him to take action and partner with Austin.

Despite neighboring counties signing agreements to work with the state earlier this year, Maverick County Sheriff Tom Schmerber had held out on partnering with the governor’s office to refer noncitizens on state charges.

“The state’s been after me for a few months,” said Schmerber. "I hesitated for about two months. What kind of pushed me to really was because there were more things that were happening. I didn't see migrants coming in and just moving on. I saw immigrants get into houses, breaking in, damaging, taking things. I started getting calls from ranchers about all the damage they were doing — calls from neighborhoods close to the city about breaking in, taking things.”*** https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/crime-spike-prompted-deal-with-state-on-prosecuting-migrants-texas-sheriff-says

***

Put that in your pipe and smoke it?

San Francisco supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved an ordinance to suspend The City’s Cannabis Business Tax through the end of next year, in an attempt to curb illegal marijuana sales.

According to Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, the legislation’s author, suspending the business tax through Dec. 31, 2022, would help support legal cannabis retailers as they struggle to compete with illegally sold cannabis.

San Francisco voters approved the tax in Nov. 2018, which imposes a 1% to 5% citywide tax on gross receipts from cannabis businesses. The tax is set to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2022.***

In addition to the illegal sales, increased theft is also creating problems for cannabis retailers.

In a recent case, on Nov. 16, an armed group stole thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise from cannabis retailer BASA, located on Grove Street. The burglary was the fifth at the location, according to Mandelman’s office.

“Cannabis businesses, along with many other retailers in San Francisco, are struggling under the weight of out-of-control retail theft,” Mandelman said. “San Francisco needs to do more to protect these businesses, their employees, and their customers before we hit them with a new tax.”*** https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/supes-unanimously-approve-suspending-citywide-cannabis-tax-to-help-businesses-curb-illegal-sales/

***

A CNN staffer was arrested on three charges related to sexual abuse Friday after allegedly enticing women over the internet to allow him to teach their daughters sexual acts.

John Griffin, a CNN producer who has since been suspended, was indicted by a grand jury in Vermont of "using a facility of interstate commerce to attempt to entice minors to engage in unlawful sexual activity." The Department of Justice said Griffin used the texting app Kik and Google Hangouts to coerce women into letting him teach their underage daughters how to be "sexually subservient" to men, claiming "women are women, regardless of age."

"The charges against Mr. Griffin are deeply disturbing," a spokesperson for CNN told the Washington Examiner Saturday. "We only learned of his arrest yesterday afternoon and have suspended him pending investigation."

Griffin paid $3,000 to a mother of a 13-year-old and a 9-year-old so the mother and younger child could fly to meet him in Boston from Nevada, officials said. The mother and daughter met him at the airport in July 2020 and were taken to his house in Ludlow, Vermont, where the daughter was "directed to engage in, and did engage in, unlawful sexual activity," according to the DOJ. He also attempted to entice two girls, ages 14 and 16, over the internet to engage in sexual behavior with their mothers, the indictment alleges.

Prior to his arrest, Griffin had worked for CNN since 2013 and was most recently a producer for CNN's Senior Political Analyst John Avlon.*** https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/cnn-staffer-indicted-on-charges-of-enticing-minors-into-unlawful-sexual-activity

***

Weapons retention: it's important

A man allegedly confronted at gunpoint by three robbers near USC fought back, shooting and killing one of them early Saturday, police said.

The three armed men, all in their 20s, got out of a vehicle in the 1300 block of West 35th Street, west of USC, and approached the other man and attempted to rob him, said Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson Norma Eisenman.

But the man resisted and an altercation ensued. When one of the would-be robbers dropped his handgun, the man picked it up and shot him, police said.

The other two alleged robbers fled in their car. The man who was shot was pronounced dead at the scene, Eisenman said. He was not identified.*** https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-12-11/victim-fights-back-fatally-shoots-man-trying-to-rob-him-police-say

***

No more arguing was heard after that

CHICAGO -- Bail was denied Saturday for a Chicago police officer charged in the fatal shooting of his child's mother during an off-duty encounter earlier this week inside a Galewood neighborhood apartment on the Northwest Side. Pierre Tyler, 29, who faces one count of first-degree murder, was relieved of police powers soon after Andris Wofford was found dead Thursday, authorities said.

Tyler and Wofford, also 29, were dating and had a 9-month-old child together, Cook County prosecutors said during a bond hearing. The couple had one prior documented domestic dispute, but charges were never filed in that case, according to prosecutors. During their relationship, Tyler had a second child with another woman, which led to an argument Dec. 5 when Wofford learned he had a pending child support hearing, prosecutors said. The next day, Wofford, thinking Tyler had secretly married the mother of his other child, decided to confront Tyler, telling several family members she was going to do so, prosecutors said. About 4 p.m. Wednesday, Tyler went to Wofford's apartment building in the 2100 block of North Nashville, with surveillance video showing him walking in the front door of her unit, prosecutors said.***

Neighbors allegedly heard Tyler and Wofford arguing around 7 p.m., with one neighbor reporting a loud, muffled bang sometime between 8:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. No more arguing was heard after that, prosecutors said.*** https://abc7chicago.com/andris-wofford-pierre-tyler-chicago-police-officer-arrested-shooting/11324853/

***

San Diego may be a neighbor to Los Angeles, but that’s where the similarities end between their two district attorneys, Summer Stephan and George Gascon.

Both are in their first elected terms, with the constitutionalist Stephan of San Diego constantly finding herself dragged into the liberal policies of Gascon, who seeks reduced prison terms for offenders.

“I can no longer trust that this DA’s policies will abide by the law,” Stephan said in January when seeking to undo a deal allowing Gascon to prosecute a case with joint jurisdiction. “I need to return my cases to San Diego.”***

The year started off with a court battle to reclaim a robbery case that began in San Diego and ended with two murders in LA. Because California is such a large state, crimes can cross county lines and usually the jurisdiction, with the most severe event bringing the case to trial. That was the situation in the 2019 crime spree allegedly committed by 31-year-old Rhett Nelson.

Gascon’s predecessor, Jackie Lacey, was scheduled to prosecute the murders and robberies that occurred during the spree. But after Gascon swept into office, Stephan discovered his policy of not charging stiff gun violations and other enhancements that lock up criminals for life.

Because one of the murder victims was a sheriff's deputy, state law allowed for prosecutors to seek the death penalty. Instead, Gascon brought a case that would have Nelson eligible for parole after 20 years .***

Gascon responded to a court motion by Stephan claiming that Nelson would get 70 years in prison and would be unlikely to be released on parole. A judge sided with Stephan.

Next, Stephan slammed his policy of refusing to attend parole hearings as a victim advocate to keep offenders in prison. She blamed this stance on the favorable outcome of Sirhan Sirhan’s hearing Aug. 28. Sirhan was imprisoned in San Diego County, and Stephan was deluged with requests from constituents to attend the hearing, but it wasn’t her case.

In the end, no prosecutor was there to represent most of Robert F. Kennedy’s children, who wanted Sirhan to stay in prison.*** https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/fairness-justice/san-diego-prosecutor-battles-liberal-policies-of-los-angeles-da-gascon

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"falsehood is in itself mean and culpable, and truth noble and worthy of praise" - Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

Looks more and more as if the FBI actually sought to cause Rep. Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska to lie so it could prosecute him. There is apparently no dispute that Fortenberry is innocent of knowingly accepting contributions from "Gilbert Chagoury, a billionaire businessman with French, Lebanese and Nigerian roots who was legally forbidden from donating to U.S. political campaigns."

Isn't there something terribly wrong about the FBI encouraging people to lie? Leave aside the issue of prosecuting people later. The FBI seal includes the words Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/12/fortenberry-indictment-524107

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A New York man pleaded guilty today in the Eastern District of New York to sexually assaulting a five-year-old child abroad.

According to court documents, during a trip to Grenada in October 2019, Treverson Roberts, 27, of Brooklyn, a dual United States and Grenadian citizen, forced a five-year-old boy to perform oral sex on him while the boy was temporarily left in Roberts’ care.

Roberts previously pleaded guilty to Grenadian charges related to the abuse but did not receive a sentence of imprisonment. Rather, the Grenadian court fined him $1,500 and required him to pay $600 compensation to the victim.

Roberts pleaded guilty to engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor in a foreign place and faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.*** https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/man-pleads-guilty-sexual-assault-child-grenada

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A grandma?

*** Shirley Bryant, 63, died on Dec. 6 after fighting for her life, her family told Fox2 Detroit.***

Suspect Elvin Shepard, 44, and another man chatted up the grandmother Nov. 14 before the brutal assault. A stranger heard Shirley calling for help and found her naked, the news outlet reported.*** https://www.foxnews.com/us/detroit-grandmother-raped-beaten-outside-church-dies

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good

The Colorado truck driver involved in a pileup that killed four and injured six on an interstate in 2019 got emotional when he addressed the court before receiving a sentence of 110 years in prison.

Rogel Aguilera-Medros, 26, who was convicted of vehicular homicide and other charges, testified that he tried to slam on the brakes to stop his semitrailer hauling lumber on April 25, 2019, but said they failed. Prosecutors focused on his decision not to take any runaway truck ramps while traveling about 85 mph on Interstate 70 west of Denver.

The chain-reaction wreck ruptured gas tanks, causing flames that consumed several vehicles and melted parts of the highway. Those killed were Miguel Angel Lamas Arellano, 24; William Bailey, 67; Doyle Harrison, 61; and Stanley Politano, 69. *** https://www.foxnews.com/us/colorado-trucker-in-deadly-pileup-gets-110-years-gets-emotional-at-sentencing

***

A man from Brick, New Jersey, admitted to defrauding Amtrak of $76,000 by stealing and reselling 114 chainsaws, 122 chainsaw replacement bars, and 222 replacement chains from Amtrak, the Justice Department announced Monday.

Jose Rodriguez, a 49-year-old Amtrak employee, pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud via video conference in federal court,***

Rodriguez, who has worked with Amtrak since 2007, ordered the supplies through Amtrak, claiming the equipment was necessary for differing company projects. But he ended up selling them through an online auction site or directly to customers, the court documents said. Rodriguez mailed the chainsaw and chainsaw parts through the U.S. Postal Service to customers all over the country, including in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.*** https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/new-jersey-man-admits-to-stealing-114-chainsaws-from-amtrak

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From Coffee County, Tennessee DA

***

BJS has released two reports on people behind bars:

Prisoners in 2020 - https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/p20st.pdf

Jail Inmates in 2020 - https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/ji20st.pdf

***

Weeks after Erik Maund had an affair with a woman in Nashville, he received a text message threatening to expose his adulterous acts, investigators say. The man on the other end was the woman’s boyfriend — he knew everything, and he wanted Maund to pay for his silence, according to a federal indictment.

But Maund decided to do something else instead: He paid to have the pair killed, prosecutors say.

The woman, Holly Williams, and her boyfriend, William Lanway, were shot dead on March 12, 2020, according to police.

On Friday, Maund and the three men he is accused of paying $750,000 to kill the Nashville couple were arrested on kidnapping, murder and gun charges.*** https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/12/14/erik-maund-hitman-nashville-extortion/

***

LA District Attorney Gascon tells murder victims' families: You're on your own

When Shaun McCarthy became a detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, he never envisioned doing the job of a prosecutor, fighting to keep his best friend’s shooter behind bars at a parole hearing.

But that’s exactly what happened when McCarthy recently fended off the release of an inmate who shot off-duty Deputy Carlos Ponce in the head at a flower shop in 1998. McCarthy worked with Ponce in the gang unit when the shooting happened and was intimately aware of the facts.

Now a homicide detective in the cold case unit, McCarthy’s days are filled with researching decades-old crimes — not for his regular job, but to fill the void left by District Attorney George Gascon, who prohibits prosecutors from staffing parole hearings.

The Sheriff’s Department has 4,500 unsolved cases, and calls with new tips come in every day. Thirty-five of those murders are solvable and assigned to McCarthy, but they will have to wait because his days are spent on parole hearings.

“In the past, the DA would always go to these hearings. Now it’s up to us to help out the family. If we don’t help them, there is no one,” McCarthy said. “They are on an island, ignorant of the process. They don’t know what to do. We stepped in to help.”

A 2008 California constitutional amendment states that prosecutors shall assist and represent victims at parole hearings, which has been a very solid and effective policy in Los Angeles since the early 1970s, former Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley told the Washington Examiner.*** https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/fairness-justice/la-district-attorney-gascon-tells-murder-victims-families-youre-on-your-own

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Economic liberty is liberty

Across the country, there are tens of thousands of laws that ban people from working because of their criminal histories. Sometimes precise, narrow laws are justified. But, more often, these laws amount to permanent punishments that block people from supporting themselves because of old, irrelevant convictions. IJ’s defense of economic liberty has led us to challenge egregious examples of these laws in Pennsylvania and California. Our latest case on behalf of a client seeking a fresh start takes us to Virginia.

Rudy Carey is everything you could want in a substance abuse counselor. He did the job for five years. His patients loved him. He even won a counselor of the year award. The reason he’s so good? He’s been there himself.***

But in 2018, Rudy’s dream job—and all the good it did in his Fredericksburg, Virginia, community—ended after five years because of something called a “barrier crime” law. In Virginia, there are 176 separate barrier crimes for substance abuse counselors, and conviction for any one of them generally means a lifetime ban. In Rudy’s case, 14 years earlier, in his old life, he’d struck a police officer while trying to run away during a traffic stop. Rudy’s employer knew about his conviction and, misunderstanding the law, hired him to work anyway. But then a decree came down from the state: Because of that single 2004 conviction, Rudy had to go.

Today, rather than use his hard-won expertise to help others as a counselor, Rudy spends long weeks away from his family as a trucker. And he’s not the only person affected by the barrier crime law. In just the past three years, it has stopped more than 1,000 Virginians from working as substance abuse counselors or in other professions. The state itself admits this doesn’t make sense. Drug abuse in Virginia is a serious health problem. Blocking people with “invaluable” experience—that’s the state’s word—worsens the shortage of qualified counselors.*** https://ij.org/ll/december-2021-volume-30-issue-6/good-counsel-ij-challenges-virginias-barrier-crime-law/

***

The Justice Department announced today that Derek Chauvin, 45, pleaded guilty in federal court to two violations of a federal civil rights statute.

First, defendant Chauvin pleaded guilty to willfully depriving, while acting under color of law, George Floyd of his constitutional rights, resulting in Mr. Floyd’s bodily injury and death. Defendant Chauvin also agreed that the appropriate sentencing base offense level for this crime is second-degree murder because he used unreasonable and excessive force that resulted in Mr. Floyd’s death, and he acted willfully and in callous and wanton disregard of the consequences to Mr. Floyd’s life.

Second, defendant Chauvin pleaded guilty to willfully depriving, while acting under color of law, a then 14-year-old juvenile of his constitutional rights, resulting in the juvenile’s bodily injury.***

In the plea agreement, defendant Chauvin admitted that on May 25, 2020, he willfully violated Mr. Floyd’s constitutional right to be free from an officer’s use of unreasonable force. Specifically, defendant Chauvin admitted that he held his left knee across Mr. Floyd’s neck, back and shoulder and his right knee on Mr. Floyd’s back and arm. ***

Additionally, according to the plea agreement, defendant Chauvin admitted that on Sept. 4, 2017, he willfully violated a then 14-year-old juvenile’s constitutional right to be free from an officer’s use of unreasonable force. Specifically, defendant Chauvin admitted that he held the juvenile by the throat and struck the juvenile multiple times in the head with a flashlight, resulting in the juvenile’s bodily injury. In the plea agreement, defendant Chauvin also admitted that he held his knee on the juvenile’s neck, shoulders and upper back for between 15 and 16 minutes, even though the juvenile was face-down on the floor, handcuffed and not resisting. Defendant Chauvin admitted that these actions resulted in the juvenile’s bodily injury.*** https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-minneapolis-police-officer-derek-chauvin-pleads-guilty-federal-court-depriving-george

***

Stay classy, Judge Odinet

A video has surfaced capturing racist remarks dropped casually in a Lafayette City Court judge’s home, as her family gathered to watch home security footage of a foiled car burglary in their driveway.

In the clip, which Lafayette City Court Judge Michelle Odinet confirmed to be in her Bendel Gardens home, witnesses jokingly toss around racial slurs while narrating home security footage of their efforts to stop a man from breaking into a car on their driveway.

In a phone interview, Odinet confirmed the “armed burglary” at her home very early Saturday morning, saying the incident “was horrific” and “shook” her “to the core.” No faces are evident in the cell phone video, and it is unclear who is using the racist language. It’s unknown who recorded the video, which was circulated to multiple members of the local media today, and how and why it was initially disseminated.***

“When the suspect observed the victim arrive, the suspect attempted to flee on foot but was quickly caught by the victim. Victim held the suspect down until officers arrived,” the police report notes. Footage in the security video captures the events, as two people tackle what appears to be the suspect.

The investigation revealed that two vehicles had been burglarized, and the suspect, a 59-year-old Black man, Robert Handy, was charged with simple burglary of an auto and booked into the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center. The police report makes no mention of him having a weapon. He is due in court Tuesday.*** https://thecurrentla.com/2021/racist-remarks-captured-in-video-of-lafayette-judges-family-cheering-footage-of-foiled-burglary/

J. Odinet is taking leave without pay. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/courts/louisiana-judge-goes-on-unpaid-leave-over-home-video-with-racist-slurs

***

STOCK Act

Nancy Pelosi owns more than $500,000 in Apple stock, according to her financial disclosure reports. Pelosi is also the speaker of the House. Congressional Democrats and Republicans alike have introduced multiple antitrust bills that would affect Big Tech companies.

The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, called Pelosi personally in June and told her not to move ahead on these bills. The House Judiciary Committee passed six of these bills in June. Not one of them has seen movement on the House floor in six months, with some reports pinning the inaction on the speaker.

Back in January, Pelosi’s husband, Paul, bought at least a quarter million in “call” options for Apple, which is a more sophisticated way of betting on a stock going up in value.

Paul Pelosi also bought at least half a million in call options for Tesla, which stood to get subsidized by the Build Back Better bill his wife shepherded through the House.*** https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/nancy-pelosi-wants-to-get-even-richer-by-investing-in-the-companies-she-subsidizes-and-regulates

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Cold, cold heart is actually more annoying

North Korea publicly executed several of its citizens after they watched K-pop, or Korean pop, music videos, according to a report.

At least seven individuals who were found to have watched K-pop music videos were executed under North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the Transitional Justice Working Group said.*** https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/north-korea-holds-public-executions-for-k-pop-listeners-report

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People are leaving car trunks and windows open in San Francisco so that thieves won't shatter the glass.

***

[19 y/o Eddie] Miller was arrested Sunday and faces charges of capital murder of a police officer, attempted capital murder of a police officer, and aggravated assault against a public servant.

Miller is believed to have killed 30-year-old Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Deputy Kareem Atkins and wounded 26-year-old Juqaim Barthen and 28-year-old Darrell Garrett, investigators said.

The three men were alerted of a possible robbery, and when they arrived on the scene, they were shot with an AR-15 rifle from behind, according to the report.*** https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/handcuffs-of-fallen-officer-used-to-arrest-accused-cop-killing-teenager

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New top cop in NYC

With his historic pick of Keechant Sewell, Mayor-elect Eric Adams made good on his vow to select a woman as the city’s 45th police commissioner. While she faces a steep challenge running so large a department, all signs are promising.

The Queens-born, 20-year police veteran is saying all the right things, and Adams’ other top choices have impressed: He’s so far earned the benefit of any doubt.

Most important, she’ll have the mayor’s full backing in moving to crack down on crime and disorder, without the crippling appease-the-most-radical-critics approach of the de Blasio era.*** https://nypost.com/2021/12/15/keechant-sewell-fits-the-bill-for-leading-the-nypd-back-to-sending-crime-down/

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A former California deputy was sentenced on Wednesday for throwing away a urine test that proved a detained driver wasn’t on drugs – before trying to have her jailed anyway on suspicion she was high on methamphetamine.

Richard Charles Barrios III, 29, an ex-deputy with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office, will spend a year behind bars for the stunt at his police station in November 2019, according to prosecutors.

He pleaded guilty in November to destroying physical matter.

The bizarre chain of events unfolded after Barrios pulled over the driver for a traffic violation and suspected she was on meth, the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office said in a press release.

Another deputy who arrived at the scene also believed the driver was high and she was arrested for being under the influence of a controlled substance.

Throughout the ordeal, the woman vehemently denied she was intoxicated and Barrios promised to free her if her drug test came back negative, prosecutors said.

The woman supplied the deputy with a urine sample.

Barrios was caught on surveillance footage at the police station testing the sample and viewing the results before tossing the urine in the trash.*** https://nypost.com/2021/12/15/ex-cop-sentenced-for-disposing-urine-test-that-exonerated-detainee/

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After Black Lives Matter protesters last year demanded that cities “Defund the Police,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed held a press conference to announce that her city would be one of the first to do exactly that. Breed cut $120 million from the budgets of both San Francisco’s police and sheriff’s departments. A spokesperson for the police officers’ union warned the cuts “could impact our ability to respond to emergencies.”

This week, Breed reversed herself in dramatic fashion, announcing that she was making an emergency request to the city’s Board of Supervisors for more money for the police to support a crackdown on crime, including open-air drug dealing, car break-ins and retail theft.

“I’m proud this city believes in giving people second chances,” said Breed. “Nevertheless, we also need there to be accountability when someone does break the law . . . Our compassion cannot be mistaken for weakness or indifference . . . I was raised by my grandmother to believe in ‘tough love,’ in keeping your house in order, and we need that, now more than ever.”*** https://nypost.com/2021/12/15/behind-london-breeds-defund-the-police-turnaround-in-san-francisco/

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Growing up in Thailand, Bew Jirajariyawetch always idealized New York City and dreamed of moving there.

Then last month, the 23-year-old aspiring model and recent immigrant, saw “the other side” of the Big Apple when she was brutalized and robbed on a subway platform, she told The Post on Wednesday.

“I’m just glad that I’m still alive,” Jirajariyawetch said about the horrifying Nov. 22 mugging at the 34th Street-Herald Square station that left her bloodied and bruised.

The young woman, who moved to New York over the summer, was waiting for the train home to Queens at around 4 a.m. after seeing Thai-American singer Daboyway in concert with friends.

She was standing on the edge of the B, D, F, M platform when a stranger suddenly came up behind her and put her in a headlock — covering her nose, mouth and eyes, “to make sure I couldn’t make any noise.”

“He dragged me where nobody could see … Beat me … Took my purse,” Jirajariyawetch said, her voice trembling.*** https://nypost.com/2021/12/15/thai-model-recalls-horrifying-manhattan-subway-attack/

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Ghislaine Maxwell trial update.

https://nypost.com/2021/12/16/ghislaine-maxwell-trial-live-updates-from-the-courtroom-2/ Defense case started today.

***

A Staten Island native turned Hollywood hanger-on and actor was one of three men arrested in connection with the mysterious deaths of two women whose bodies were dumped outside of Los Angeles hospitals, The Post has learned.

Brandt Osborn, 42, was arrested on the set of “NCIS: Los Angeles” in connection with the November deaths of Christy Giles and Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola, Giles’ husband, Jan Cilliers, said.

Cilliers told The Post that LAPD arrested Osborn and two other men — David Pearce, 37, and Michael Ansbach, 47 — on Wednesday afternoon and charged Pearce with manslaughter and the other two men with accessory to manslaughter.

According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Pearce is being held on $1 million bail. Osborn and Ansbach, a Poughkeepsie, NY native, are being held on $100,000 bail.*** https://nypost.com/2021/12/16/christy-giles-death-brandt-osborn-arrested-in-connection-to-deaths-of-model-hilda-marcela-cabrales-arzola/

***

BJS has released

Profile of Prison Inmates, 2016 About 60% of inmates have two or more prior incarcerations; about the same have not completed high school. About 3% of men are incarcerated for drug possession, >90% of inmates are male. Average # of arrests: 9.

Probation and Parole in the United States, 2020. Probation ## dropped in 2020. Parole ## increased slightly.

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