#this is too easy: wv one shot

[jokerislandgirl32]

This Is Too Easy: A Wild Violet One Shot

Summary: Zach Varmitech wants to have an animal collection party for himself, but with his assistant Violet tagging along, this proves to be problematic. She will not shut up! She just keeps harping about how the Wild Ratts will foil his plan. Well, he can’t have that. He’ll have to find some way to silence her so he can enact his evil scheme: Even if it results in him using his lips for more than talking.

So last year, I decided to take a wack at the 2023 Year of the OTP Event here on Tumblr and A03.

The link to the event with the prompts can be found here: @yearoftheotpevent!

I only wrote/completed a couple works for the event, and this was for the month of February to fulfill the prompt: “If I kiss you, will you shut up?” I’ve previously posted it to A03 and Fanfiction.net, but now I am posting it to Wattpad and making the “master post” here. The links for the story can be found below as well as a list of potential warnings!

I hope you all enjoy this little story if you have not read it yet. Feel free to let me know what you think! I may post more stories with Zach and Violet or my other f/os and s/is (Arthur x Amelia or Merrill x Emmaline) that fill these prompts! If you have any suggestions or requests, I’d be happy to hear them!

Warnings: This is one of, if not the mildest, works I have completed. The only warnings which apply to this piece are bickering, plotting and scheming, manipulating, implied animal abuse (because Zach uses the animals as robots as we know), and kissing/a makeout session.

[homespork-review]

Homespork Act 4, Part 1: Blight of the Paradox Clones

BRIGHT: Act 4 opens on a loading sequence titled ‘GATE 1’, and then there’s a short pan down through firefly-dotted clouds to a dim blue landscape called the Land of Wind and Shade. John manifests at ground-level and it’s time for another walk-around game!

The icon in the upper right corner opens a conversation with Nannasprite, who’s still back in the house. Apparently she can’t accompany John around the Land, but she can certainly give him puzzling half-answers to any questions he might have. John asks her point-blank if she was always cryptic and evasive or if that’s a sprite thing, but she predictably avoids answering.

John wanders around the Land, getting into fights with (oddly non-aggressive) imps for grist. The Land is very atmospheric, with glowing blue mushrooms and odd pipes everywhere. It’s also inhabited by large, excitable, bipedal orange salamanders who blow bubbles and dispense information about the Land. One of them has acquired John’s bedsheets and is now calling itself a wizard.

A salamander standing by one of the pipes explains that it’s called a Parcel Pyxis. If you need something, you can chisel a picture of whatever it is into a stone tablet and drop it into a Parcel Pyxis. If you find a tablet, and you have what’s carved into it, it’s polite to drop it into the Pyxis and the Breeze will take it where it needs to go. (Just what the Breeze is isn’t explained yet, but given the name of the Land, it’s fair to assume an explanation will be forthcoming in due time, and it’s thematically consistent.)

While wandering, John finds a telescope. Looking through it, he sees his house, perched waaaaaay at the top of a very tall, very narrow rocky crag. He also finds a very large pipe sunk into the ground. He can hear something very, very big breathing at the bottom.

There are definite pros and cons to these games, but on the whole I like them. They’re more immersive than the usual comic panels, and it’s nice to do some self-directed wandering. On the other hand, it’s easy to miss something in a walk-around game, which hardly ever happens with comic panels…

FAILURE ARTIST: The Salamanders crack me up. Good parody of NPC chatter.

CHEL: Comic panels of the walkaround are included later on, so if you really hate the games you can read it straightforwardly.

John is confused by now being below his house when he went through a portal above it; Nanna cryptically claims that “To ascend, you must first descend!”

BRIGHT: With the game out of the way (it doesn’t really have a defined end point), we return to normal comic panels — and also to the future. AR is embroiled in a shootout with the snakes from PM’s ship, which are now firing laser beams. A stray blast decapitates the frog temple. AR returns fire with a rocket launcher. His first shot takes out the snake. The second knocks WV flying. WV lands behind a rock, and the carved pumpkin lands on his head. AR lines up his next shot...and pauses.

The carved image of Bec’s head seems to mean something to AR, because he immediately ceases fire and comes down to start yelling at WV. This turns out to be a poor move on his part: PM still has her sword, and she is not pleased.

I really, really like PM as a character. She has no dialogue whatsoever and still projects massive amounts of integrity.

The comic returns to Jade. She’s retrieved Dave’s Sburb discs from the time capsule, which is clearly going to move the plot along...

Looks like the TIME CAPSULE has reset itself. It is sprouting a new bud. Presumably something else will come out when it blooms again in about 400 years. Too bad you won't be around to find out what it is!

...aaaaaaand we go into sylladex shenanigans again.

I will say this for sylladex tomfoolery: It absolutely can break up tension and provide some lighter stretches in the plot. The problem is that these don’t always feel natural. I find them less annoying now and can appreciate the humour, but they really bugged me the first time around.

Still, Jade’s use of her sylladex does at least speak to her character.

Jade eventually settles on Pictionary modus, which means she has to draw a picture of whatever she wants to captchalogue. If she doesn’t have the drawn item to hand, her modus instead captures a “ghost image” of the item on a card, complete with alchemiter code. Handy! Unfortunately the modus has some trouble understanding Jade’s drawings, interpreting her picture of her eclectic bass as a regular electric bass.

Bec then catches up and teleports Jade back to her room. In a demonstration of unusual good sense, Jade promptly gets on with installing the Sburb Beta.

Back in the Land of Wind and Shade, John pesters Rose to ask if she’s here on the other side of the gate, in the “spooky glowy place with oily rivers and stuff”. She doesn’t respond. He does however get pestered by Jade, who is now awake and therefore fully aware of what Sburb is (much to John’s confusion). She tells him to go get his copy of the game so he can be her server player. John is convinced Jade is psychic, but she tells him that he has access to all the information she does, he just doesn’t know it yet.

Meanwhile, Dave is also trying to get in touch with Rose, also to no effect. Jade pesters him and they have a cute conversation in which Jade forgets how a reference goes, but Dave assures her she got it anyway. She tells him she’s setting up as his server player and shows him a picture of the meteor aimed at his house. There are no size comparison points available but Jade assures him that it’s really, really big.

TG: well as if like one the size of a bus wouldnt kill me anyway

FAILURE ARTIST: Dave describes his beating from his Guardian as “i got served like a dude on butler island” and Jade says it’s “(DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA)”. It’s hard to take the abuse seriously when none of the characters do.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 14

BRIGHT: In the Medium, John is getting pestered by carcinoGeneticist again. We now have a picture icon for CG. Look familiar? Yup, it’s the guy from the end of the Intermission.

So I guess this is the first time in the main comic that we get confirmed, visual proof that the trolls are aliens? It’s hard to point to, since the trolls get introduced gradually.

I’ve no idea how this was received in fandom when it first happened, but by the time I got to Homestuck, the fact that the trolls were grey folks with horns was probably the most famous feature of the canon, so...not so much of an impact. Still pretty cool though.

FAILURE ARTIST: I wish I could remember how the fandom took it.

The trolls in these early acts make a big deal all the time about how they are alien and the kids are human. It’s an amusing parody of the way aliens act in fiction but it is weird when the trolls become actual characters and we find out their psychology is surprisingly human most of the time.

CHEL: Hence the WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM count. That’ll spike later.

BRIGHT: CG is unexpectedly friendly this time. Apparently he’s been trolling John backwards through time, which is frustrating as each earlier John knows less and less, so CG keeps having to repeat himself. (Which...doesn’t make much sense? He’d have to explain more obvious stuff, sure, but John would remember things he was told in later-from-CG’s-perspective conversations, so...ugh, time travel!) Despite this frustration, however, John’s relentless friendliness apparently wore the trolls down and now they’re friends. Or at least CG thinks they are. John is less than convinced.

CHEL:

John asks if the trolls are in his land, but CG berates him for self-centredness:

CG: WE HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR DUMB LITTLE WINDY PLANET OR YOUR PETTY LITTLE QUESTS. CG: OR FOR THAT MATTER YOUR ENTIRE GAME SESSION. CG: YOU AREN'T THE ONLY ONES PLAYING THE GAME. CG: EVERY GROUP OF PLAYERS GETS THEIR OWN DISTINCT, BLANK SLATE SESSION. CG: AS WILL BE EXPLAINED TO YOU MANY TIMES.

He instructs John to relay an apology for the trolling to Jade and to tell her to GET HER GROSS AND TOTALLY UNATTRACTIVE HUMAN BUTT OFF HER UGLY HUMAN HIGH HORSE AND ANSWER MY MESSAGES. John says he’s a bit focused on his own quest right now, and sets off to find his father’s car.

TIER: While that's happening, we cut back to the gaggle of aliens having a grand old time around a campfire with some good food. A familiar pair of squiddles, now old, is visible as well.

FAILURE ARTIST: AR/PM/WV was a popular OT3 back in the day but you never see it anymore.

CHEL: Pity. It’s adorable.

FAILURE ARTIST: We cut to Dave’s place, where Jade is setting things up for the game. The air conditioning unit helps with the process, but the birds everywhere don’t. Dave drops the r-slur.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 16

Rose also talks with Dave as this is going on. She says this to him.

TT: I've done nothing but wait for boys to play this game with me all day. TT: First John lollygagging with the client, and then you with the server, downright filibustering my existence with unending fraternal melee. TT: And yet a girl, one who didn't even own the game, was able to connect with you minutes after you connected with me.

I’ve seen this quoted as Rose/Jade Lesbian Power but I wish we had more scenes where the two actually talked to each other.

CHEL: Being happy that one of your friends is competent means you’re in love with them now? And yet if someone used that as evidence for a het ship they’d be run out of the fandom. Anyway, Jade removes Dave’s bed to make room.

TT: And there she goes. TT: She HAS the karma.

FAILURE ARTIST: Rose has been talking to a troll, but she doesn’t know the gender so uses “he/she/it”. Funny to think there was a time when we didn’t know the trolls’ gender. Particularly the gender of Rose’s favorite troll...

Jade tries to tidy up the apartment using “a woman’s touch” a.k.a. a towel drenched in toilet water. Which begs the question of how her home is spotless.

CHEL: Because Hussie is again not thinking through the implications of the living situations as presented, and/or trying to present things as simultaneously a joke and serious. To be fair, considering the dreambot, she could have a super hi-tech cleaning system, or Bec could teleport the dirt away, but if so, we ought to see that.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 10 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 15

FAILURE ARTIST: In doing so, she accidentally rips the toilet out and drops an F-bomb.

CHEL: We now get a video of Rose’s location, the LAND OF LIGHT AND RAIN. Her house is now perched on a tiny island surrounded by glimmering pastel oil-slick-looking water, a waterfall pouring down out of nowhere beside it, with golden clouds scattered around pouring rain. It’s very pretty!

We again see the carapaces finding things in the ruins, and WV brings PM to see inside the bunker. The blast earlier formed an entry into the third room which had been locked, which contains further devices, this one with more spirographs and a frog picture on it; WV doesn’t know what this one does and the power’s too low to use it anyway. Back in the room with the monitors, PM is impressed by WV’s drawings and he offers her the pack of chalk. AR, meanwhile, cooks food.

PM recognises the monitor as similar to the one in her own station, though hers was watching a girl. Here, we get the static panels of the runaround game, from PM’s point of view.

Back in LoLaR, a mysterious textbox in cursive addresses Rose as Seer, suggesting she explore. Recall that the book mentioned the Heir of Breath, the Seer of Light, the Witch of Space, and the Knight of Time. Since Jade is the one who’s been doing the Seer-ing so far, I’ve seen readers assume she was the Seer and Rose the Witch, but it seems not; further explanations of what those titles really mean are forthcoming.

Sudden cut back to John’s land, where the village is under attack! Huts are aflame, and much bigger and more powerful monsters have arrived.

In Dave’s apartment, Jade opens the cruxtruder by dropping the displaced toilet on it, splashing water everywhere, much to Dave’s aggravation since all that juice was going to come back to haunt me. He’s relieved to see the countdown gives him four hours, but Jade doesn’t know till what, and he realises she’s sleep-messaging him again. He orders her not to watch him pee, and dont put anything weird in the seizure kernel.

TG: the last thing i need is for your weird brain webcam to be snapping shots of my dong TG: your grandpa was a sick fuck why would he build a voyeurbot for a little girl CALL CPA PLEASE: 8

Well, he is kinda right. Anyway, Dave spends a couple of pages elaborately planning misuse of the apple juice bottle and tricking John into drinking from the alchemised bottle, but he dismisses it as too much trouble and goes in the shower, kicking out the puppet. Good thing it was only his bladder that was the problem, if you get my drift. Some fans have speculated that this puppet also had a camera in it, but I can’t see evidence of that; I guess if you squint the eyes might look like a camera lens? I feel if that was the case it would have been shown. Hussie didn’t shy away from the weird shit with Dave’s living situation earlier.

Jade is upset to find the bisected bird from earlier, and decides to help the bird by putting it in the Kernelsprite, angering Dave again. He figures she’ll be more helpful when she’s awake, so he instructs her to slap the air to her side; the dreambot mimics her movements and whacks the real Jade in the face, waking her up.

BRIGHT: I burst out laughing the first time I saw that panel. It’s pretty clever of Dave. (Though obviously not kind, but of a variety that’s in keeping with the story.)

CHEL: Cut to the carapace camp, where they’re burning empty crates for a campfire. AR decides to use the Squiddles to Win over that fine carapace in grey, which seems to distress WV and Serenity. PM takes a Squiddle, but rather than being won over is vaguely reminded of something.

TIER: We then jump back into the past, where we find a totalled car and what looks like AR?

CHEL: Yep, though here he’s going by Authority Regulator instead of Aimless Renegade.

TIER: Whatever the case, this dude is not happy with this traffic violation. Another thing he's not happy with? Unauthorized parcels. Which brings us to the Parcel Mistress, who's been looking for this particular package for a while apparently. Now how to get it?

With that we jump back to John! Who's doing decent enough in his clobbering of game enemies. Just when things ain't looking too hot though, a mysterious stranger shoots and kills them with extreme prejudice. He looks familiar ain't he?

And even if he's not, that gigantic book under his arm can only be the work of the ol’ Colonel Sassacre, which John helpfully points out.

CHEL: Meanwhile in some other time period, PM suddenly remembers she must deliver a message to John. Back in the present, Parcel Mistress, for it is she, finds a tablet carved (badly) by John, depicting the SBurb envelope. The prompt suggests PM ready her sword, but she has none, and claims she would never resort to violence. Instead, she tries asking politely. Despite their lands’ enmity, AR finds her attractive and doffs his hat so furiously you are in danger of starting a HAT FIRE. His civility does not extend to handing over contraband, though. The tablet is sufficient evidence for him to give her the envelope, but to get the green parcel she must ask his bosses. PM puts the envelope in a pyxis, trusting the Breeze to move it, and follows AR.

John plans to follow the man, who he does not yet recognise as Jade’s Grandpa, to get his book back, but first he must help put out the fire in the salamander village. He flings the BARBASOL BOMB he made earlier into the volcano.

The cooling lather should work its magic in no time…

OH GOD HOW CAN SHAVING CREAM BE SO FLAMMABLE

Yeah, that doesn’t work so well. Fortunately, just as all seems lost, A big gust of wind conveniently comes along and blows out all the fire. The salamanders declare John a hero, though he’s just confused.

FAILURE ARTIST: A prompt (PM) asks John if he still has the tablet and if he wants to carve something on it. So, in another time loop, he does that.

Back at LOLAR, a very elegant and mysterious prompt ask Rose to find Jaspersprite. Rose cannot find him, but she does find footprints leading to the mausoleum. The mausoleum isn’t there anymore, but the underground passage is still there. Rose takes it down to a pier where someone has recently taken a boat and left a martini. The mysterious prompt says “A mother will do whatever is best for her children.” Nobody ever said “a brother will do whatever is best for his siblings”.

In the future, WV becomes the Mayor of Exile Town. The peace is disturbed when a “huge eggy looking thing” appears in the sky.

Cut to Jade giving the punch card of an “eggy loking thign (sic)”. Guess someone on the forum had bad spelling?

CHEL: It’s a callback to Rose describing the other unfinished GameFAQs entries, which were typed in haste. One described their entry item that way.

FAILURE ARTIST: Dave creates a huge red bird with a huge red egg. When he tries to use the egg, the crow sprite takes it and puts it in a nest made of smuppets, swords, and Lil Cal.

Dave doesn’t have enough grist to do anything. He fusses around building what he can. That done, he goes inside and installs gristTorrent to steal grist from John. Who exactly made that software?

Meanwhile, in LOLAR, Rose has set up shop on the pier. The mysterious prompter tells her to consult with the Heir and in the pesterlog we see she’s chatting with John. They catch up on the trolls and various things. Unfortunately, Rose is harassed by a gallowsCalibrator who tells her in 133t speak that her mother hates her and left her forever. Amazing that GC eventually becomes a beloved character since they are such a little shit right now. GC has synesthesia and jokes about their species communicating through “CLOUDS OF FR4GR4NT G4S3S”. They want to be helpful, but they deny wanting to be friends, though later they say they are becoming something called “H4T3FR13NDS”.

CHEL: Rose asks if I'm being courted or trolled here, which with further reveals about the trolls will become somewhat ironic. Other trolls are jumping around in time but GC is ST4Y1NG L1N34R [...] C4US3 W31RD T1M3 STUFF G1V3S ME A H34D4CHE, though will jump forward in the timeline so they don’t have to wait too long between conversations.

BRIGHT: GC isn’t the only one...

FAILURE ARTIST: GC explains the voices in the players’ heads are from the Exiles on Earth. The ultimate goal is to create a new civilization with them. With that important information, GC bids adieu for now.

TT: So the exiles are on Earth? Does that mean our goal is to get back there too? To resurrect it somehow? GC: NO NO NO GC: S33 1RON1C4LLY TH3Y G3T TO DO TH4T GC: 4FT3R TH3YR3 DON3 H3LP1NG YOU TH4T 1S GC: YOUR JOB 1S OF GR34T3R CONS3QU3NC3 TO S4Y TH3 L34ST GC: BUT P4RT OF TH31R JOB 1S TO R3BU1LD L1F3 4ND C1V1L1Z4T1ON TH3R3 GC: 4ND 1F TH3YR3 SUCC3SSFUL 1N THOUS4NDS OR M1LL1ONS OF Y34RS TH3 T3CHNOLOGY 1S UN34RTH3D 4ND TH3 PL4N3T 1S R1P3 FOR S33D1NG 4LL OV3R 4G41N TT: You never answered the question. Where were they exiled from? GC: FROM TH3 TWO K1NGDOMS 1N TH3 1NC1P1SPH3R3 GC: 3XP4TR14T3D DUR1NG TH3 R3CKON1NG

CHEL: We now know who and what the Exiles are, so let’s lop off a point for that:

WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 8

FAILURE ARTIST: Back in the past, when John went by ghostyTrickster, he tries to have a conversation with Jade but it’s interrupted by CG warning her that her robot will explode. After CG leaves, Jade and John talk about the trolls. Seems blocking does no good. John drops the r-slur.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 17

We cut to CG being gray and angry in some mysterious grey room.

Then, back to Jade. Her package from her pen-pal appears again.

Cut to ghostyTrickster John. GC trolls him, outs herself as female and blind, and threatens to cut his throat “4ND L1ST3N TO YOU BL33D WH1L3 1 SM3LL YOU D13”. John is naturally unnerved by this, but he also takes inspiration from her taunt that he’s bad at ectobiology.

CHEL: He takes for his new username a term that the trolls introduced him to, and is surprised when they immediately find him? Maybe we DID need a Too Dumb To Live count.

FAILURE ARTIST: We cut to a troll like CG, but with red glasses and a Libra sign on her shirt. This is our first look at gallowsCallibrator.

CHEL: Okay, does the death threat qualify for SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER? It’s a bit extreme considering at this point in his timeline John has done nothing to offend her. Then again, maybe not; the narrative doesn’t present this as being the right and proper thing to do.

Back in the present, PM arrives in enemy territory, with the parking citation as a ready excuse for her presence. Imps and agents she passes now have features from Jaspersprite; cat faces, princess hats, and we see a DD-like figure wearing a cat-ear headband. PM follows a red carpet, only to be confronted at the end by this eldritch-looking majesty:

PM is naturally trembling, but is merely instructed to speak to the Archagent, who we’ve met before; Jack Noir. We see a ring with four pearl-like orbs on the monarch’s hand; this will become important later.

Rose’s Exile voice bids her farewell, telling her to Find your sprite. Realise your purpose. No longer guided, Rose decides to start making her own decisions, beginning with a sip of martini.

In the desert, A WINDSWEPT QUESTANT suddenly appears, this being a tall white carapace with a feminine figure and narrow eyes, from the eggy lokin thign, with the unsound effect EGG! WV and AR appear disconcerted, while PM is busy telling John to put the carved tablet in the pyxis.

Back in Jack Noir’s office, PM attempts to grab the green box and leave, but Jack appears suddenly behind her, making her jump, and tells her she’d better have the ticket payment or you are wasting valuable time he could otherwise spend shirking his clerical duties. PM nervously explains she’s actually here for the package, and Jack points out she doesn’t have the right courier forms.

In spite of how he's supposed to be dressed now but isn't, he ain't nobody's fool.

However, instead, she could always do an errand for him. Specifically, following his HIT LIST, which is two pictures of white crowns recognisable as the tops of the king and queen chess pieces. He also gives her the enormous black sword we saw her future self use. PM, terrified, departs, and Jack wonders if she’s actually stupid enough to try it.

You make a policy of handing out a REGISWORD and a HITLIST to just about everyone who enters your office.

Curious, he opens the package, and stares into it in surprise.

At Dave’s apartment, Jade has put the Punch Designix in the hallway, making it rather hard to navigate, but regardless Dave’s busy alchemising. He plays with a few add-ons which temporarily render the machines unusable, but eventually manages to use a jumper shunty thing to consolidate all the machines into one. Jade draws some components, gets the captcha codes of their ghost images, and sends the codes to Dave, who plugs them into the machine. Useful, but could probably be compressed into fewer pages, especially when he follows it up by playing with the new machinery. This is adding to my conviction that the machines should have been simplified severely in the first place.

GET ON WITH IT!: 15

John finds the wrecked car with no dad, package, or game, and gets trolled by GC again. She offers to help him, claiming she wants to H3LP YOU 4DV4NC3 MOR3 QU1CKLY because she’s bored watching his long adventure and wants to help him skip ahead. John points out she could just skip forward on the timeline as she has before, and she admits that she just wants to see if she can change the timeline, as her friends don’t believe they can. She offers him a map, which he accepts.

John complains, naturally, and she relents and offers to guide him directly to the pipe which will help him skip to the next Gate. Honestly, he has reason to complain; her smellovision allows her to read text on a screen, yet not to draw?

Rose, back in LOLAR, battles monsters, doing surprisingly well considering she only has knitting needles for a weapon, culminating in an epic sequence in which she stabs both needles into an ogre’s eyes, flips onto its back, and uses her knitting as reins to ride it down the waterfall. Dave informs her he’s out of grist, but she finds the idea of killing the ogre for supplies when it’s unconscious to be distasteful. He’s interrupted by grimAuxiliatrix, The Troll Who Talks Like This, asking about Rose. The conversation is awkward as GA seems unable to read Dave’s sarcasm.

GA: She Perhaps Even Regards You With Uh GA: Endearment TG: you have no idea dude she is so in my grill TG: like a stray hotdog that rolled down there TG: and now its too much trouble to fish out with the tongs TG: so you just watch it like crack and turn black GA: Um Is This GA: A Common Sort Of Practice In Human Courtship GA: Watching Oblong Meat Products Tumble Into Places They Dont Belong

adiosToreador, meanwhile, does the same to Rose about Dave, with a similar lack of comprehension of Rose’s loquaciousness. GA contacts Rose again, and a confusing conversation about temporal mechanics ensues. Afterwards, we see GA, who proves to be a short-haired troll girl with pronged horns, a Virgo shirt symbol (my troll!), and cute little vampire teeth.

FAILURE ARTIST: It’s been too long for me to remember the fandom reaction, but I feel like the reveal that GA is a girl was framed like a surprise. Surprise! This troll is a lesbian! But I might be mistaken. Still, this isn’t like Dave’s (mock?) offended reaction to AT. Hussie, like many straight men, is more comfortable with lesbians than gay men.

We’ll see more of Rose’s and GA’s relationship as the comic goes on. Some non-Homestucks here might already be spoiled due to the numerous fanart of the two.

CHEL: I wasn’t surprised by her being a girl; maybe I’m stereotyping, but the prissy nature of her dialogue and quirk sounded feminine to me from the start, not to mention the “trix” ending of her username is a feminine one - if she was male, it would be “auxiliator”. Not sure how many people paid attention to that though. I was surprised by the later information that (SPOILER) she actually was interested in Rose, because facetious declarations of romantic intention are kind of a thing for the human kids at this point and her flustered reaction could be taken either way here.

Dave, meanwhile, is trolled by AT, with the most cringe-inducing text-rap I’ve ever seen (and text-rapping is pretty cringy to begin with). I gotta praise Hussie, it takes skill to make something this awful.

AT: oK, lET ME, AT: oRGANIZE MY NOTES HERE, AT: oKAYYY, AT: (tURN ON SOME STRICT BEATS MAYBE, iT WILL HELP TO LISTEN TO THEM WHILE i DESTROY YOU,) AT: wHEN THE POLICE MAN BUSTS ME, aND POPS THE TRUNK, AT: hE'S ALL SUPRISED TO FIND I'M TOTING SICK BILLY, AT: wHOSE, AT: gOAT IS THAT, hE ASKS, wHILE HE STOPS TO THUNK AT: aBOUT IT, aND i'S JUST SAY IT'S DAVE'S, yOU SILLY AT: gOOSE,

Since we’ll later find out trolls don’t have the concept of police in the same way humans do, and nor do they call animals by the same names we do, I think this is worth some WSP points. Did he watch Dave’s life closely enough to pick up those concepts?

BRIGHT: I get the distinct impression none of the trolls watched anything like enough of the kids’ lives to pick up the concept of the police, particularly since as we’ll see later they missed a few things that are rather more obvious -- such as, say, parents.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 11

CHEL: He also namedrops Prospit and Derse, which I’m not really spoiling anything by saying are the names of the two warring chess kingdoms, though I don’t think those names have been applied to them yet. I don’t know why, it’s not like keeping them secret makes a big difference - did Hussie only just think of them? The quality of his rhymes aside, AT appears very proud of himself; he’s a troll with enormous bull-like horns, a mohawk, and a Taurus symbol. I thought he was really creepy-looking the first time I saw him, but he rather grew on me.

Back on LOWAS, John is squirted out of a pipe with a gush of oil. Ew. The Con Air bunny goes flying and lands in an oil river, and he catches it with the Ghost Gauntlets. An adult and child pair of salamanders happen to be standing nearby, prompting a movie re-enactment, much to the salamanders’ confusion.

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CG is unimpressed, though he agrees with John that Con Air sounds entertaining. CG claims to have been watching the whole of John’s life and Con Air is supposed to be one of John’s favourite movies; how come CG hasn’t seen any of it before, especially since he says he has seen a movie John hates?

CG: OK I DON'T SEE HOW WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE BECOMING FRIENDS IF YOU RECOIL FROM MY OLIVE BRANCH LIKE I'M WIGGLING A GNARLED TREE MONSTER'S DICK IN YOUR DIRECTION.

Lovely. Though I gotta say the dialogue and ridiculous extended metaphors are one of the best parts of Homestuck. Wish I could pull those off. However, one point here; if they’re aliens, it seems odd that they would use human idioms such as “olive branch” with the same meaning we do. There is a possible explanation later on, but since they only ever use American/Western phrases like this and it’s clear from other things they say that they didn’t pick up anything much about human culture from watching the kids, I’m upping the count anyway.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 12

BRIGHT: We also discover that troll movies are titled very differently to human movies, such as the classic

CG: WHEREIN NUMEROUS VIGILANTES CONFRONT PERIL; ONE OF THEM BETRAYS THE OTHERS;(BUT IT TURNS OUT TO BE PART OF THE PLAN ALL ALONG); CG: SEVERAL ATTRACTIVE FEMALE LEADS PROVOKE ROMANTIC TENSION; FOUR MAJOR CHARACTERS WEAR UNUSUAL HATS; ONE HOLDS PLOT-CRITICAL SECRET; CG: 47 ON-SCREEN EXPLOSIONS, ONE RESULTING IN DEMISE OF KEY-ADVERSARY;6 TO 20 LINES THAT COULD BE CONSTRUED AS HUMOROUS; EB: wait... EB: this is the title? CG: IT GOES ON.

Apparently after thousands of years of film history, you start running out of movie titles.

Also, note that despite their being aliens, quite possibly with different gender roles, the romantic tension is explicitly provided by attractive female leads.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 13

CG thinks that Earth civilisation’s lack of maturity might explain why the players are (apparently) doing so badly. John retorts that GC is helping him, so they can’t be doing THAT badly. Apparently this wasn’t in the plan; CG goes to talk to GC about it, and she punches him. Seems she’s talking to a future John at the moment, and he asked her to. CG gives John a message to pass on to GC in reply.

CG: TELL HER TO POLISH MY HEAVING BONE BULGE AND SET A TABLE FOR FUCKING TWO ON IT. CG: IT’S FOR OUR CANDLELIT HATE DATE.

John comments that it’s like they’re trolling each other through him now, and asks if CG has talked to Jade. CG is surprised that he’d want to talk to her. John offers to paste the chatlog; CG refuses, and John heads off to talk to GC.

CHEL: Precisely what a bone bulge is is never explained. Context makes it clear it’s an unsavoury body part, and it sounds like a term for one’s dick, even though the boner does not in fact contain bones in humans. The assumption early in the fandom was that the trolls had primarily human anatomy, which seems odd to me considering Kanaya’s complete obliviousness to her Oblong Meat Products comment - most teenagers familiar with human penises would be on that instantly. Anyway, there soon came a phase of experimentation, and by now we seem to have settled on the “functional-hermaphrodites with tentacle dicks” theory. Which is weird, because a tentacle doesn’t sound like something which would be referred to with the word “bone”, does it?

GC’s laughing mouth is reflected in John’s glasses as they speak in what I desperately hope is a shoutout to the Corinthian. She calls John STUP1DLY 4DOR4BLE (minor typo on the comic’s part as the E in her quirk should be a 3) and laughs at CG’s frustration. John relays an approximation of CG’s message:

EB: he wants you to touch his bone lump or something. GC: WH4T!!! EB: and that he's pretty much basically in love with you.

GC asks him to copy-paste the convo for proof but John refuses, saying it was a private conversation, and informs GC that she’s going to punch CG soon. In other news, referring to these characters with only their handle initials when I know their actual names is hard.

On GC’s instructions, John turns around, to discover this hard-to-miss landmark:

This, according to GC, is the D3N1Z3NS P4L4C3, in which the Denizen sleeps on a grist hoard so big their alchemising could never make a dent in it.

GC: USU4LLY HOW 1TS SUPPOS3D TO GO 1S GC: OV3R TH3 COURS3 OF YOUR QU3ST GC: YOU W1LL W4K3 TH3 D3N1Z3N GC: 4ND TH3N F1N4LLY YOU GO THROUGH TH3 S3V3NTH G4T3 GC: WH1CH 1S TH3 ONLY W4Y 1NTO TH3 P4L4C3 GC: TH3N YOU GO DOWN 4ND F1GHT TH3 D3N1Z3N GC: 4ND K1LL 1T GC: R3L3AS1NG TH3 HO4RD EB: so what's my advantage? GC: YOU WONT BOTH3R W4K1NG 1T GC: W3 W1LL SK1P R1GHT TO TH3 S3V3NTH G4T3 GC: F1ND 1TS L41R GC: 4ND K1LL 1T 1N 1TS SL33P

The grist hoard, GC claims, is for the ULT1M4T3 4LCH3MY, but she won’t explain what this is yet, and she leads John to a R3TURN NOD3 which takes him back to his home to prepare.

In the desert, AR and WV hammer some metal to make a gift for the Windswept Questant, which proves to be a crown. PM is shocked to see this, and emerges from the bunker, sword in hand.

Meanwhile, in a long-discarded memory… A PARCEL MISTRESS seeks audience with royalty.

It seems Windswept Questant is in fact, of course, the White Queen.

PM explains recent events and seeks her queen’s advice, showing her the hit list requesting the white monarchs’ crowns. WQ is wearing a ring similar to that of the monarch we met earlier, the Black Queen. Four orbs are attached to it, two light and two dark. On removing it, WQ loses all her elaborate prototyping accoutrements and becomes the normal-looking carapace we saw in her Windswept Questant identity. WQ seems to have a plan; instead of requiring PM to kill her to finish her fetch quest, she simply hands over her crown and ring, and instructs PM to find the White King on the battlefield. Flashing forward to the desert, WQ places her new crown on PM’s head, much to the astonishment of their companions.

On LOLAR, beneath waterfalls pouring from hovering pink turtle shells, Rose frustratedly consults with Jaspersprite, who will apparently only meow. However, when asked a direct question, Jaspersprite is able to respond. He is attempting to fish with his tentacles, but there are no fish, because her Denizen ate everything in the ocean and got so full that it took a long nap. Being as cryptic as Nannasprite, he won’t, however, explain what the message he gave to young Rose meant, saying she’ll understand when she wakes up.

JASPERSPRITE: Rose im just a cat and i dont know much but i know that youre important and also you are what some people around here call the Seer of Light. JASPERSPRITE: And you dont know what that means but you will see its all tied together! JASPERSPRITE: All the life in the ocean and all the shiny rain and the songs in your head and the letters they make. JASPERSPRITE: A beam of light i think is like a drop of rain or a long piece of yarn that dances around when you play with it and make it look enticing! JASPERSPRITE: And the way that it shakes is the same as what makes notes in a song! JASPERSPRITE: And a song i think can be written down as letters. JASPERSPRITE: So if you play the right song and it makes all the right letters then those letters could be all the letters that make life possible. JASPERSPRITE: So all you have to do is wake up and learn to play the rain!

FAILURE ARTIST: Hussie is very good at writing the dialogue of a kitten turned into a game NPC, you’ve got to hand it to him.

CHEL: It’s also worth noting that his colours have stopped flashing pink and purple, and he’s settled on pink.

Rose asks Jade for further information, and learns that all four of the kids have a dream self which must awaken; Rose deduces Jade’s has been awake as long as they’ve known each other. Jade is in fact asleep now, and can only message at the moment because of her robot. Rose’s dream self is dreaming troubled dreams, causing the real Rose to suffer nightmares all her life, and to stop this she must discover how to wake her dream self.

GG: maybe the stuff you wrote on your walls can give you a clue? TT: What stuff? GG: the.... GG: er GG: didnt dave tell you?

Utterly heartwarming moment; we see in John’s dream tower, and Jade has drawn over the LAME KID messages and creepy clown faces on John’s walls with a big bright yellow heart and the message wake up john!!! you can do it!!!

Rose wants to know what’s going on, but Dave is unavailable. The meteor is about to land and he’s scrambling his way up the tower to his kernelsprite’s nest to retrieve the entry egg.

Back at John’s house, he finds the useless rocket-pack-combined-with-junk he experimentally alchemised earlier; GC tells him that the trolls’ resident hacker, who we haven’t met yet, can use its code to create a usable jetpack. Said hacker doesn’t want to talk to them but WONT B3 4BL3 TO R3S1ST TH3 CH4LL3NG3.

John sends the mishmash code…

GC: OK B3 B4CK IN L3SS TH4N ON3 S3COND GC: PCHOOOOO EB: hello? GC: WH4T EB: it thought you said you'd be back in less than a second? GC: 1 W4S GC: 1 G4V3 YOU TH3 COD3 GC: 1TS PCHOOOOO

Hee. The misunderstanding leads into a brief argument, GC claiming that 3V3N YOU 4ND YOUR UND3RD3V3LOP3D BON3 NOOK W1LL B3 4BL3 TO F1GUR3 OUT WH4T TO DO. Once again, we don’t know what a bone nook is. Context could imply either an obscene body part or a brain-related one. Common fanon holds that it’s the vagina, others have objected and said it surely must mean anus; neither of those sound like a “bone” anything to me, and in fact bone would be horribly counterproductive for organs which have to perform peristalsis. Someone did point out to me that it could mean a place to put the metaphorical bone, but that wasn’t what I immediately thought.

FAILURE ARTIST: I don’t think the phrase “bone nook” ever comes up again, though the word “nook” by itself does and it can be replaced with the word “ass” in those cases. Basically, trolls aren’t a fictional species crafted with any care. Hussie wanted some annoying alien characters with a visual callback to “Little Monsters” and it somehow got out of control.

CHEL: Actually, I believe it does come up in Hiveswap Act 1! But we’ll get to that.

John answers a message from Dave, who now claims to be in the Medium, saying it took him four hours. He asks for advice, saying his sprite wants him to prototype it again, and Rose is randomly asleep.

TG: ok fine but TG: it seems to be suggesting something here TG: and TG: i guess im kinda weirded out by its suggestion EB: i don't know, just do what it says! EB: it knows stuff about the game, so it probably knows better than i do...

Not a good sign. John decides to Take dear, sweet Casey (the baby salamander) into protective custody by captchaloguing her, and blasts off for the gate.

Cut to an animated sequence in The Land of Heat and Clockwork, a nightmarish lava-scape covered in machinery (convection schmonvection), where Dave is being extremely badass and surprisingly successful for someone with only half a sword. In fact, multiple Daves appear to be present. We also see, unfortunately, exactly what he prototyped:

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Calsprite is even less helpful than the other two, providing a constant soundtrack of creepy laughter while Dave begs him to shut up. According to Dave’s ensuing convo with Rose, this has been going on for four months. That’s… pretty terrifying even before we hear everything that went wrong. John was unsurprisingly instantly slain by his Denizen, and thus couldn’t save Jade from her meteor. Dave, however, has now mastered the art of time travel via the magical turntables he’s created, and intends to go back and prevent all that from happening, now that they’ve spent four months gathering information their past selves can use. Rose is afraid of ceasing to exist; Dave assures her that their dream selves exist outside the standard passage of time, and this will help her dream self wake sooner.

FAILURE ARTIST: The trolls also stopped “trolling” Dave and Rose after John died. This isn’t the end of the trolls, of course.

Dave uses his turntables to go to the past. We cut to a conversation we just saw, where Dave has just entered the Medium and John is about to go pchooooo, except this time from Dave’s roof.

GET ON WITH IT!: 16

Except at the end, Dave tells John not to go. See, Dave from the future just arrived on Dave from the present’s roof. John refuses to believe that this is happening, thinking it’s just a prank. Not even putting future!Dave on the line convinces John. So, future!Dave unloads everything he has in a stack and flips back into the Crowsprite to become a new characters: Davesprite.

CHEL: Note that, instead of Dave’s theme colour of red, Davesprite is orange. I did wonder if this was potentially supposed to show that Bro (whose theme colour is orange) is overwriting/overshadowing Dave’s real self, but since the sprites of the others aren’t the theme colours of their respective kids (Nannasprite is teal to John’s dark blue and Jaspersprite pink to Rose’s purple) I don’t think this is really a reliable sign. Pin in the colours, though, that’ll come up later.

FAILURE ARTIST: Meanwhile, John blasts off with the words “THIS IS STUPID”.

Present!Rose tries to pester Dave, and we get another repeated conversation.

GET ON WITH IT!: 17

Present!Rose decides to nap, and at that moment, Future Dream Rose ceases to exist and becomes absorbed by Present!Rose. I think.

WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 9

Davesprite pesters GC to tell her not to talk to John anymore. GC first reacts by saying “YOU SM3LL L1K3 OR4NG3 CR34MS1CL3S” but then finds out she killed John. She had assumed since she could talk to John in the future, he hadn’t died, but she guessed there was a chance he could die. She’s a little put-out and wants to apologize, but she’s not as sad as you’d expect someone who accidentally killed someone to be. Davesprite asks who is in charge of timeline management.

GC: SH3 DO3SNT W4NT TO T4LK TO 4NY OF YOU GC: 4ND H4S M1SG1V1NGS 4BOUT TH1S WHOL3 TH1NG GC: NOT 4LL OF US 4R3 TH4T 3NTHUS1AST1C 4BOUT TROLL1NG YOU GUYS GC: 4ND TH3 ON3S WHO 4R3 SORT OF SUCK 4T 1T >:|

We do get to meet her, but not until the next act when we meet all the trolls.

Davesprite gives GC permission to talk to John if she cuts out her “coy bullshit antics”. GC mocks his threatening tone and points out she’s higher on the echeladder, from the future, and blind. Davesprite says his self-prototyping gave him great powers and GC says that was a bad idea. They then engage in some banter over GC posting screencaps of Wheeler from Captain Planet (which she calls a “soap opera”). Davesprite and GC end the conversation with mutual respect. Which is honestly really weird after all future!Dave had to go through because of GC.

CHEL: Does this count for SLAMMER points? I think it does. Here’s the first of our new count, then!

SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER: 1

This will go up whenever a character does something awful and neither the narrative nor the other characters seem to care.

This also brings us into another point. We’ve seen only hints of it, but alternate timelines are a big theme of this comic. Davesprite in particular is a major focus of said theme, specifically the nature of his personhood separately from the focal or “alpha” Dave. However, as we see here, not even the Dave from the dead John’s timeline particularly seems to mind that John just died in an alternate timeline. At the moment, they appear to feel that because there is an alive John, everything is okay. Let’s see how that progresses.

FAILURE ARTIST: Davesprite and present!Dave (who I guess we can just call Dave at this point) talk. Davespite says as a sprite he has lots of knowledge but is obligated to put it in riddles. However, he says he doesn’t feel like it so he’ll answer Dave straight.

DAVE: alright DAVE: here goes DAVE: why are we so fucking awesome DAVESPRITE: thats the best fucking question anybody ever asked

After that best fucking question, Dave asks if John will be alright. Davesprite says that’s up to John, and if John doesn’t listen they’ll just bail him out again. Davesprite says the gear he piled up will help Dave get to the next gate. The two versions of Dave decide to collaborate on a SBaHJ comic and fist “bunp”.

Meanwhile, “hundreds of pages ago”, John gets his bunny from Dave. We see Dave’s note and it’s cool how each of the kids have their own style of handwriting. There’s a very prophetic sentence in this sweet note:

one day your gooberish ways are gonna land you in a jam and i know im going to have to get you off the hook but its cool i got your back bro.

We cut to the present, where John is blasting off. The human emotion of friendship causes him to reconsider his action. John pesters Dave and tells him he’s just flying around and not going to the gate. Crisis averted.

This might seem like a cul de sac, but it created a new character (Davesprite) and introduced many concepts, so it really isn’t.

CHEL: Primarily, it introduced the theme of jumping around in time in the literal sense as well as just hopping between apparently-disconnected scenes. The latter’s not a generally well-advised style of writing, but considering the time travel motif of the comic, I think it actually works fine here. Also, as a webcomic, if one spends too long on one group of characters then by the time you get back to the other ones the readers will probably not remember what happened, so shorter scenes for each group are probably more acceptable than in a novel or movie.

CG trolls John again, and after a discussion of their becoming reverse anti-mutual friends, John complains that CG hasn’t really answered his questions.

CG: SO GO AHEAD, ASK ME ANYTHING. EB: ok... EB: what's the point of the game. CG: ASK SOMETHING ELSE. CG: ALREADY TOLD YOU THAT.

John asks where they are now in their Medium, and CG explains they’re HIDING IN THE VEIL, a meteor belt between the two planets. To clarify the layout for our readers, Skaia the big ball of sky is in the centre, with Prospit the golden planet orbiting it closely enough for its moon to enter Skaia during the “eclipse” where Jade gets her visions. Then there are the players’ Lands, their little adventure planets where the consorts live, the consorts being the little NPC creatures (in John’s case, the salamanders). Every player has a Land of Something and Something. Beyond the Lands is the Veil, and beyond that is the Furthest Ring, the orbit of Derse, the dark planet.

CG: OK, THERE COMES A TIME WHEN BLACK INEVITABLY BEATS WHITE CG: ON THE BATTLEFIELD IN THE CENTER OF SKAIA CG: THE WHITE KING IS CAPTURED OR KILLED OR SOMETHING CG: THAT'S WHEN THE RECKONING STARTS. EB: ok... CG: THE RULERS OF DERSE CG: THE BLACK KING AND QUEEN CG: GET THE POWER TO SEND THE VEIL TOWARD SKAIA CG: TO DESTROY IT CG: THAT KIND OF STARTS YOUR BIG "COUNTDOWN" CG: WHEN SHIT GETS SERIOUS. EB: so then it's up to us to save it? CG: YEAH, YOU HAVE THAT LONG TO KILL THE BLACK QUEEN AND KING CG: AND SKAIA ITSELF SORT OF BUYS YOU SOME TIME CG: BY ACTIVATING ITS DEFENSE PORTALS CG: TO CATCH SOME OF THE METEORS

Ordinarily, the players would have plenty of time before this happens, but something done by the human players has caused things to go wrong, and now they’ve not only ruined their own chance of winning, but somehow affected the trolls’ game too. CG refuses to explain how, because he’s already told him again.

John asks if they’re hiding in a crater or something, but no, CG explains there are buildings in the Veil. It’s considered neutral ground, and both sides have laboratories there where they genetically engineer new soldiers and agents. John asks CG to tell GC “nice try”, but he refuses.

Now comes the mid-point animation of the act, “[S] Jack: Ascend”. I thought it was an ending animation, but no, there’s still more. If you don’t want to or can’t watch video I’ll explain the content, but I do recommend it.

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Pan over the Skaian system, from LOWAS to the Veil to the purple towers of Derse. Four towers are close together, topped by orbs. On three of them, we see the silhouettes of the sprites, while the fourth is dark. Jack Noir sits at his desk, doing paperwork, a pink princess dress on a stand next to it. He doodles on a parking ticket, declaring the Black Queen to be a HUGE BITCH. Closeup on BQ’s hips as she approaches, because we totally needed gratuitous sex appeal. She’s remarkably curvy for a probably-non-mammal. Still, we’ll forgive the standard scifi tropes. Jack watches on the Fenestrated Wall, until BQ appears and hacks it in half. She waves the dress and a pink pointed hat at him; apparently, now that the princess doll has been prototyped, the carapaces must represent it in their clothing as well as the jester. Jack is understandably displeased, and after a quick-fire montage of various outfits representing the sprites’ themes, he tears the final colourful tunic up.

Meanwhile, Rose’s dreamself has awoken, and discovers what she wrote on her walls; the word MEOW and other arrangements of the letters M, E, O, and W, over and over again, over every inch of the walls except the part covered by her bed. She finally remembers what Jaspers said to her, which was, of course, MEOW. This seems like nonsense, but as she looks, the letters switch to G, C, A, and T, the letters used to denote DNA nucleotides. It’s a genetic code.

The guardians, meanwhile, are battling enormous monsters; Mom and Dad respectively punch out a three-eyed spider-like giant and a rock cyclops, Dad pausing afterwards to carve a hat on a pyxis tablet, and Bro swordfights against a lava-dwelling tentacle beast.

Back to Jack, matters have got worse; not only are the carapaces required to dress like the sprites, but Davesprite still has the sword sticking through his torso, so now so must Jack. Considering what else we’ve seen carapaces survive, he’d probably be fine, but he’s still understandably hesitant. BQ offers him a sword, but he slices off her ring-bearing finger, which… causes her to explode? Jack puts on the ring, which causes Derse to glow white and him to sprout the features of the sprites; a sword grows from him without him having to fall on it, and wings and tentacles emerge. End scene.

So, approximately, human children have possibly caused the destruction of an alien civilisation’s last hope by putting a cat in a princess dress. Whatever else you think of Homestuck, you can’t say it’s not inventive.

BRIGHT: It is that, among other things.

COUNTS ALL THE LUCK: 0 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 15 CALL CPA PLEASE: 8 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 17 GET ON WITH IT!: 17 GORE GALORE: 9 HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 15 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 6 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 0 RELATIONSHIP GOALS?: 1 SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER: 1 SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS: 0 WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 9 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 13 TOTAL: 111

[wilmermilligan-blog]

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[anexplanationofunfortunateevents]

2018 Midterm Guide

It is absolutely imperative that the Democrats take back one or both houses of Congress next fall. Two main reasons:

We need to be able to stop the dangerous Republican agenda without Republican help, because they are not dependable. It is not right that people have to mobilize en masse every few weeks so that premature babies aren’t thrown out of critical care.

Democrats need to take back at least one house of Congress to put any meaningful brakes on Trump. Remember, whichever party is in the majority of a house of Congress controls all the committees in that house of Congress, which means they control what bills make it to the floor and what gets publicly investigated. Right now, the Republicans get to decide what there are hearings about and if those hearings are open, which witnesses are called to testify, who and what gets subpoenaed.  If Democrats get one house of Congress, they might not be able to get rid of the Trump regime, but they would be able to bring it to a screeching halt.

This is not going to be easy. Thanks to Republican gerrymandering (drawing district boundaries to their advantage), Democrats could win 54% of the total votes cast for members of Congress and Republicans would still win 47% of the seats. The Senate is similarly imbalanced, mostly because it overrepresents rural states. Voter suppression, which is already a small-d democratic crisis, is likely to be made worse by Pence’s “voter fraud” commission. And all shadiness aside, there are more Republican incumbents and most incumbents win re-election. This is an uphill climb.

After last year it’s tempting to gloss over those obstacles by saying that “anything” can happen – but the bizarre surprises of 2016 broke in the Republicans’ direction for specific reasons that won’t happen for us. Foreign oil barons aren’t going to intervene to help Democrats. The FBI isn’t going to break the rules to stage 11th-hour interventions in favor of the party that wants to curb police abuses of power, especially since they’re no longer led by a weak-willed narcissist who lets himself be led around by the nose by Russian kleptocrats who aren’t going to intervene again anyway. Republicans didn’t just get lucky and draw a good hand last year. Bad people chose to do bad things and were rewarded for it. We have to be aware of those things and commit to fighting them, and part of that is acknowledging that it might not be enough.

Another part of that is understanding how these elections work procedurally, as well as the baseline politics. 

The House of Representatives is pretty straightforward: there’s one member of Congress for every congressional district, and every congressional district has an election every two years. There are 435 seats in the House, which means that you need 218 for a majority. Right now, there are 240 Republicans, 194 Democrats, and 1 vacancy in a red district.*  

The Senate calendar is a little more complicated. There are two senators for every state, resulting in an even 100 senators. Every two years there are elections for 1/3 of Senate seats. Senators then serve a six year term. If a senator leaves before their term is up, then there has to be a special election for the person who will fill the seat for the rest of that term.** 

National parties take the lead on Senate elections. Generally speaking, it’s better for both parties and individual candidates to be the challengers, and that’s kind of good news/bad news. Good news: in midterm elections (elections that, like 2018, happen between presidential elections), the president’s party has historically lost seats. Bad news: it’s harder in years that your party has more seats up for re-election. Twenty-three Democratic senators, plus both of the Independents who caucus with the Democrats, are up for re-election in 2018. Republicans only have to defend eight seats. Several of those Democrats are running in states which went for Trump last year, while only one Republican is running in a Clinton state. 

The Democratic senators whose seats seem safe: Dianne Feinstein (CA), Chris Murphy (CT), Tom Carper (DE), Mazie Hirono (HI), Ben Cardin (MD), Elizabeth Warren (MA), Amy Klobuchar (MN), Martin Heinrich (NM), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Tim Kaine (VA), and Maria Cantwell (WA).

Independents Angus King (Maine) and Bernie Sanders (VT) also seem safe.

Democrats who seem at risk are: Ben Nelson (FL), Joe Donnelly (IN), Debbie Stabenow (MI), Claire McCaskill (MO), Jon Tester (MT), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Sherrod Brown (OH), Bob Casey (PA), Joe Manchin (WV), and Tammy Baldwin (WI).

I’m not sure what to say about the New Jersey race. New Jersey is a safe Democratic state. Its current senator, Bob Menendez (D-NJ), is currently on trial for corruption, because New Jersey. That may or may not matter, because, New Jersey. 

Of the Republicans, Roger Wicker (MS), Deb Fischer (NE), Orrin Hatch (UT), and John Barrasso (WY) are almost certainly safe.

Republicans Dean Heller (NV) and Jeff Flake (AZ) are the biggest targets for Democrats to pick up.

There are also two long-shots. Tennessee is a deep red state and Senator Bob Corker would almost certainly win if he were running for re-election, but he has announced he’s retiring. Last but hardly least, Ted Cruz’s term is up. Now. Texas is Texas, and while Democrats narrowed the gap to single digits last year, it’s still a red state. But! Texas Democrats have been making a long, sustained push to mobilize the non-voters that can turn the state blue, and if you’re in Texas you can be a part of it. Also, and I cannot emphasize this enough, people fucking hate Ted Cruz. 

A word about primaries: They should only be happening when there is not a Democratic incumbent. In 2018, it is unforgivably irresponsible to primary an incumbent Democrat in federal office. There is no outcome which makes it more likely that we will get into a position to put the brakes on Trump and the dangerous Republican agenda. The biggest thing a candidate running for re-election has going for them is incumbency advantage. In the unusual event that a primary challenger pulls it out, they’re less likely to win the general because they’re not incumbents. Even if the incumbent seems really safe now, every cent that they spend dealing with a primary challenge is money that they don’t have for the general election. So either they just run a general election with fewer resources, which makes their safe seat less safe, or they have to raise that much more money to make up for it. They get that money either by spending even more time schmoozing with donors, or from the state or national funds, which means there’s that much less to go around for races that could go either way.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Electoral politics aren’t the only important way to contribute your time or money, but they are an important way, so here are some places to start:

No matter where you are in the US, you can contribute financially. Swing Left collects donations for the races they think are most winnable. They’re starting with the 24 Republican members of Congress who serve districts that voted for Hillary Clinton. Coincidentally, 24 more votes would be just enough to get Democrats a majority.

If you’re represented by a Democrat who’s up for re-election in 2018, in the House or in the Senate, they can probably use your help now, whether in time or donations. If you’re in a state or district that’s represented by a Republican, contact your state or local Democratic party. You probably won’t have a candidate yet but you can help lay the groundwork so that when you do have a candidate they can hit the ground running.

This post is specifically about congressional midterms, but state offices are really important too. Flippable is an organization working to make state governments more Democratic.

If you’re a progressive millennial who doesn’t feel represented in your local government, Run For Something. 

*There’s a special election in Salt Lake City, Utah coming up this fall.

** There will be one of these special elections in December of 2017, to replace former Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, who vacated that seat to become Trump’s Attorney General. This is a longshot pickup for Democrats, but it’s really important that we try, not least because the Republican nominee is like the worst of Trump plus the worst of Pence. If you are in Alabama or know people there, please register to vote and encourage your friends to do the same. If you can, please consider contributing to Democratic nominee Doug Jones. 

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via FiveThirtyEight

President Trump has declared a national emergency in order to pay for physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, but will Congress block it? That’s a long shot — but we can’t rule it out either.

Here’s the basic process, as the New York Times explained in an article after Trump’s declaration. Congress can take up a resolution to end a presidential national emergency declaration. If such a resolution passes in one chamber, the other must bring it up for a vote within 18 days. If the resolution passes both chambers and the president vetoes it, a two-thirds majority in Congress can override that veto.

In the House, Democrats say they are strongly considering a resolution to override Trump’s emergency declaration. If they take it up for a vote, the resolution is almost certain to pass — Democrats have a 235-197 majority in the House.

That would move the legislation to the Senate, where Republican Leader Mitch McConnell — although initially wary of Trump declaring a national emergency — has now expressed his support for the move. But there does not appear to be a way for him to avoid a Senate vote on this measure. And such a vote will force Senate Republicans, many of whom have said they are wary of presidents overextending their power at the expense of Congress, to choose between that principle of limiting executive power and backing a president with strong support among party activists on one of his signature initiatives, the border wall.

Republicans have a 53-47 advantage in the Senate, so only four defections and this resolution would pass. (The resolution is not subject to rules that would require 60 votes for it to move forward.) By FiveThirtyEight’s count, at least eight GOP senators — Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander, Maine’s Susan Collins, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Kentucky’s Rand Paul, Florida’s Marco Rubio, Nebraska’s Ben Sasse, North Carolina’s Thom Tillis and Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey — have said they oppose the national emergency declaration. Opposing the declaration and voting for a resolution to end it are not the same thing, but more than a dozen other Republican senators have also expressed reservations about Trump’s move.1

Every Republican senator’s statement (or silence) on Trump’s declaration of a national emergency

As of Feb. 18, 2019 at 12 a.m.

Statement on National emergency Senator▲▼ State▲▼ Date▲▼ Source▲▼ Stance▲▼ Alexander TN 2/16 “Unnecessary, unwi … Opposes Barrasso WY 2/11 “I would prefer we … Concerns/doubts Blackburn TN Blunt MO 2/15 “No president has … Concerns/doubts Boozman AR 2/14 Boozman spokesman … Undecided Braun IN 2/14 “This legislation … Supports Burr NC Capito WV 2/15 “Our agreement mak … Supports Cassidy LA 2/15 Liberal judges wi … Supports Collins ME 2/14 “Declaring a natio … Opposes Cornyn TX 2/14 “My concerns about … Concerns/doubts Cotton AR 2/15 The offices of Cot … Undecided Cramer ND 2/16 “As he’s said from … Supports Crapo ID 2/14 “The President has … Supports Cruz TX 2/15 “Senator Ted Cruz, … Undecided Daines MT 2/15 “We need more forc … Supports Enzi WY Ernst IA Fischer NE 2/15 “I appreciate the … Supports Gardner CO 2/14 “Congress is most … Concerns/doubts Graham SC 2/14 “I think this is a … Supports Grassley IA 2/14 “I wish he wouldn’ … Concerns/doubts Hawley MO 2/15 “The president is … Supports Hoeven ND 2/16 “U.S. presidents f … Supports Hyde-Smith MS Inhofe OK 2/15 “U.S. Sen. Jim Inh … Supports Isakson GA 1/11 “I have a lot of t … Concerns/doubts Johnson WI 2/14 “It would be a pre … Concerns/doubts Kennedy LA 2/14 Said he supports T … Supports Lankford OK 2/13 “The best thing t … Concerns/doubts Lee UT 2/15 “The president’s n … Concerns/doubts McConnell KY 2/14 “I indicated I’m g … Supports McSally AZ 2/15 “Earlier this week … Undecided Moran KS 2/15 “Throughout my tim … Concerns/doubts Murkowski AK 2/14 “I don’t think thi … Opposes Paul KY 2/14 “I’m not in favor … Opposes Perdue GA 1/29 He continued to de … Supports Portman OH 2/14 “I would prefer we … Concerns/doubts Risch ID 2/14 “But other Senate … Supports Roberts KS 2/14 If he had his drut … Undecided Romney UT 2/14 “I will reserve ju … Concerns/doubts Rounds SD 2/14 “If you get anothe … Concerns/doubts Rubio FL 2/14 “We have a crisis … Opposes Sasse NE 2/15 “We absolutely hav … Opposes Scott FL 2/15 “I applaud the pre … Supports Scott SC 2/14 “I would not oppos … Supports Shelby AL 2/14 “I’m not concerned … Supports Sullivan AK 2/15 A spokesman for Se … Undecided Thune SD 2/14 “We don’t think th … Concerns/doubts Tillis NC 2/15 “I don’t believe a … Opposes Toomey PA 2/14 “I never thought t … Opposes Wicker MS 2/14 “As a practical ma … Concerns/doubts Young IN 2/15 “I need to learn m … Undecided

Blank rows indicate that senator has not made a statement (or we could not confirm one).

Yes, we know that in the past GOP senators have hinted that they will break with Trump on key legislation and then not followed through. That said, we are talking about only four senators needing to break with the president on this resolution. And three of the Republicans to come out against the declaration — Collins, Murkowski and Paul — were key figures in stopping the GOP from repealing Obamacare in 2017, so they have in at least one major instance actually followed through on their concerns with a Trump initiative.

In other words, there’s a real chance that both houses of Congress pass this legislation. A bill adopted by the GOP-controlled Senate rejecting Trump’s emergency declaration would be important symbolically. And it would force Trump to issue the first veto of his presidency, which will bring even more attention to his already unpopular move to declare a national emergency.

What happens if Trump vetoes the resolution?

In the Senate, 67 votes would be needed to override his veto, meaning 20 Republicans would need to break with the president. As noted above, there are more than 20 Senate Republicans wary of this move. So it’s at least theoretically possible that the dam could break; the fissures run deeper than the typical issues on which only a handful of Republicans like Collins and Murkowski are considering a vote against the president. But not liking the emergency declaration and voting for a resolution that will stop it — and stoking Trump’s anger as many Republicans are gearing up for primaries in 2020 — are totally different things. It’s also not clear if McConnell is required to even hold a vote on the veto override.

The bill would also have to achieve a two-thirds majority in the House, which wouldn’t be easy. FiveThirtyEight has not done a formal whip count in the lower chamber. A two-thirds majority would require 288 votes — so 53 Republicans would have to join all the Democrats. Most Republicans in competitive districts lost in 2018, which means there are relatively few GOP representatives left who have to worry about electoral pressure. Earlier this year, amid the government shutdown, for instance, a bloc of about a dozen Republicans broke with Trump to back some Democratic measures to fund the government without wall money. So it’s not like all 197 House Republicans are Trump loyalists. But a dozen is a long way from the 53 GOP votes in the House to override his veto.

It’s still more likely the courts, not Congress, are the place where this national emergency declaration faces its most serious challenge. But the congressional process is worth watching too. Much of Trump’s agenda (such as confirming conservative judges to federal courts) is broadly supported by GOP legislators. In fact, you could argue that much of what has happened in Washington over the last couple years represents Trump embracing the congressional Republicans’ agenda, not the other way around. But the border wall is not really a major priority for McConnell or many key congressional Republicans. Trump cares deeply about it. So the president, by issuing this declaration, has forced his party into what amounts to a loyalty test — will they stand with him, even if it means abandoning some of their long-held concerns about executive overreach?

[cleopatrarps]

Varner surges into share of lead with Kraft at Greenbrier

(Reuters) – Big-hitting American Harold Varner III shot a bogey-free third round 66 to jump into a shared lead with overnight leader Kelly Kraft at 14-under par at Greenbrier on Saturday with several players lurking in the wings.

Jul 7, 2018; White Sulphur Springs, WV, USA; Harold Varner III on the 17th tee during the third round of A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier golf tournament at The Old White TPC. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

Varner sank all four of his birdies on the back nine to take advantage of late stumbles by Kraft, whose bogeys on 16 and 18 caused his outright lead to evaporate under the sunny skies at the Old White TPC in White Sulphur Springs.

Both men are seeking their first career wins on the PGA Tour but neither are likely to rest easy ahead of Sunday’s final round with defending champion Xander Schauffele and the hot-putting Kevin Na trailing them by just one stroke.

Sam Saunders, the grandson of Arnold Palmer, sits two strokes back in fifth place while world number 12 Bubba Watson fired a 65 to climb the leaderboard and into a three-way tie for sixth with Joel Dahmen and India’s Anirban Lahiri.

Five-time major champion Phil Mickelson shot an even par round of 70 to claim a share of 38th place at five-under par.

A relaxed Varner, who won the Australian PGA Championship in 2016, said he was just trying to enjoy himself and not worry too much about the stakes.

Jul 7, 2018; White Sulphur Springs, WV, USA; Kelly Kraft on the 13th green during the third round of A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier golf tournament at The Old White TPC. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

“Mentally I think I’m just excited to play golf,” he told the Golf Channel.

“A lot of people would die to be in our position. I’m not trying to play prefect golf, I’m just trying to see targets and have fun with it.”

Despite his laid back attitude, he said winning his first PGA Tour event was still very much his focus.

“That would be awesome. It’s what we play for,” he said.

Kraft was rolling early, shooting even par through the first nine holes before bagging birdies on 10, 11 and 12 to stretch his lead.

His spectacular third shot from the rough on the par-four 11th, which he pitched in from 40 feet out, drew the biggest response of the day from the West Virginia crowd.

But the pressure seemed to get to the 29-year-old at the end of his round and he found bunkers on 16, 17 and 18 and appeared to tense up.

A misread short putt on 18 led to a bogey and dropped him into a tie for the lead with Varner heading into Sunday’s round.

Reporting by Rory Carrolll; Editing by Greg Stutchbury

The post Varner surges into share of lead with Kraft at Greenbrier appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2uaW0lq via News of World

[party-hard-or-die]

Varner surges into share of lead with Kraft at Greenbrier

(Reuters) – Big-hitting American Harold Varner III shot a bogey-free third round 66 to jump into a shared lead with overnight leader Kelly Kraft at 14-under par at Greenbrier on Saturday with several players lurking in the wings.

Jul 7, 2018; White Sulphur Springs, WV, USA; Harold Varner III on the 17th tee during the third round of A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier golf tournament at The Old White TPC. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

Varner sank all four of his birdies on the back nine to take advantage of late stumbles by Kraft, whose bogeys on 16 and 18 caused his outright lead to evaporate under the sunny skies at the Old White TPC in White Sulphur Springs.

Both men are seeking their first career wins on the PGA Tour but neither are likely to rest easy ahead of Sunday’s final round with defending champion Xander Schauffele and the hot-putting Kevin Na trailing them by just one stroke.

Sam Saunders, the grandson of Arnold Palmer, sits two strokes back in fifth place while world number 12 Bubba Watson fired a 65 to climb the leaderboard and into a three-way tie for sixth with Joel Dahmen and India’s Anirban Lahiri.

Five-time major champion Phil Mickelson shot an even par round of 70 to claim a share of 38th place at five-under par.

A relaxed Varner, who won the Australian PGA Championship in 2016, said he was just trying to enjoy himself and not worry too much about the stakes.

Jul 7, 2018; White Sulphur Springs, WV, USA; Kelly Kraft on the 13th green during the third round of A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier golf tournament at The Old White TPC. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

“Mentally I think I’m just excited to play golf,” he told the Golf Channel.

“A lot of people would die to be in our position. I’m not trying to play prefect golf, I’m just trying to see targets and have fun with it.”

Despite his laid back attitude, he said winning his first PGA Tour event was still very much his focus.

“That would be awesome. It’s what we play for,” he said.

Kraft was rolling early, shooting even par through the first nine holes before bagging birdies on 10, 11 and 12 to stretch his lead.

His spectacular third shot from the rough on the par-four 11th, which he pitched in from 40 feet out, drew the biggest response of the day from the West Virginia crowd.

But the pressure seemed to get to the 29-year-old at the end of his round and he found bunkers on 16, 17 and 18 and appeared to tense up.

A misread short putt on 18 led to a bogey and dropped him into a tie for the lead with Varner heading into Sunday’s round.

Reporting by Rory Carrolll; Editing by Greg Stutchbury

The post Varner surges into share of lead with Kraft at Greenbrier appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2uaW0lq via Breaking News

[newestbalance]

Varner surges into share of lead with Kraft at Greenbrier

(Reuters) – Big-hitting American Harold Varner III shot a bogey-free third round 66 to jump into a shared lead with overnight leader Kelly Kraft at 14-under par at Greenbrier on Saturday with several players lurking in the wings.

Jul 7, 2018; White Sulphur Springs, WV, USA; Harold Varner III on the 17th tee during the third round of A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier golf tournament at The Old White TPC. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

Varner sank all four of his birdies on the back nine to take advantage of late stumbles by Kraft, whose bogeys on 16 and 18 caused his outright lead to evaporate under the sunny skies at the Old White TPC in White Sulphur Springs.

Both men are seeking their first career wins on the PGA Tour but neither are likely to rest easy ahead of Sunday’s final round with defending champion Xander Schauffele and the hot-putting Kevin Na trailing them by just one stroke.

Sam Saunders, the grandson of Arnold Palmer, sits two strokes back in fifth place while world number 12 Bubba Watson fired a 65 to climb the leaderboard and into a three-way tie for sixth with Joel Dahmen and India’s Anirban Lahiri.

Five-time major champion Phil Mickelson shot an even par round of 70 to claim a share of 38th place at five-under par.

A relaxed Varner, who won the Australian PGA Championship in 2016, said he was just trying to enjoy himself and not worry too much about the stakes.

Jul 7, 2018; White Sulphur Springs, WV, USA; Kelly Kraft on the 13th green during the third round of A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier golf tournament at The Old White TPC. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

“Mentally I think I’m just excited to play golf,” he told the Golf Channel.

“A lot of people would die to be in our position. I’m not trying to play prefect golf, I’m just trying to see targets and have fun with it.”

Despite his laid back attitude, he said winning his first PGA Tour event was still very much his focus.

“That would be awesome. It’s what we play for,” he said.

Kraft was rolling early, shooting even par through the first nine holes before bagging birdies on 10, 11 and 12 to stretch his lead.

His spectacular third shot from the rough on the par-four 11th, which he pitched in from 40 feet out, drew the biggest response of the day from the West Virginia crowd.

But the pressure seemed to get to the 29-year-old at the end of his round and he found bunkers on 16, 17 and 18 and appeared to tense up.

A misread short putt on 18 led to a bogey and dropped him into a tie for the lead with Varner heading into Sunday’s round.

Reporting by Rory Carrolll; Editing by Greg Stutchbury

The post Varner surges into share of lead with Kraft at Greenbrier appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2uaW0lq via Everyday News

[dani-qrt]

Varner surges into share of lead with Kraft at Greenbrier

(Reuters) – Big-hitting American Harold Varner III shot a bogey-free third round 66 to jump into a shared lead with overnight leader Kelly Kraft at 14-under par at Greenbrier on Saturday with several players lurking in the wings.

Jul 7, 2018; White Sulphur Springs, WV, USA; Harold Varner III on the 17th tee during the third round of A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier golf tournament at The Old White TPC. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

Varner sank all four of his birdies on the back nine to take advantage of late stumbles by Kraft, whose bogeys on 16 and 18 caused his outright lead to evaporate under the sunny skies at the Old White TPC in White Sulphur Springs.

Both men are seeking their first career wins on the PGA Tour but neither are likely to rest easy ahead of Sunday’s final round with defending champion Xander Schauffele and the hot-putting Kevin Na trailing them by just one stroke.

Sam Saunders, the grandson of Arnold Palmer, sits two strokes back in fifth place while world number 12 Bubba Watson fired a 65 to climb the leaderboard and into a three-way tie for sixth with Joel Dahmen and India’s Anirban Lahiri.

Five-time major champion Phil Mickelson shot an even par round of 70 to claim a share of 38th place at five-under par.

A relaxed Varner, who won the Australian PGA Championship in 2016, said he was just trying to enjoy himself and not worry too much about the stakes.

Jul 7, 2018; White Sulphur Springs, WV, USA; Kelly Kraft on the 13th green during the third round of A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier golf tournament at The Old White TPC. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

“Mentally I think I’m just excited to play golf,” he told the Golf Channel.

“A lot of people would die to be in our position. I’m not trying to play prefect golf, I’m just trying to see targets and have fun with it.”

Despite his laid back attitude, he said winning his first PGA Tour event was still very much his focus.

“That would be awesome. It’s what we play for,” he said.

Kraft was rolling early, shooting even par through the first nine holes before bagging birdies on 10, 11 and 12 to stretch his lead.

His spectacular third shot from the rough on the par-four 11th, which he pitched in from 40 feet out, drew the biggest response of the day from the West Virginia crowd.

But the pressure seemed to get to the 29-year-old at the end of his round and he found bunkers on 16, 17 and 18 and appeared to tense up.

A misread short putt on 18 led to a bogey and dropped him into a tie for the lead with Varner heading into Sunday’s round.

Reporting by Rory Carrolll; Editing by Greg Stutchbury

The post Varner surges into share of lead with Kraft at Greenbrier appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2uaW0lq via Online News

[everettwilkinson]

Ryan faces diciest stretch of his speakership

The following newsletter is an abridged version of Campaign Pro’s Morning Score. For an earlier morning read on exponentially more races — and for a more comprehensive aggregation of the day’s most important campaign news — sign up for Campaign Pro today. (http://www.politicopro.com/proinfo)

UP ON THE HILL — “Ryan faces diciest stretch of his speakership,” by POLITICO’s Rachael Bade in Racine, Wis.: “For all its power and prestige, the speaker of the House is one of the most thankless jobs in Washington — just ask John Boehner. Now, with Congress barreling toward major fiscal fights this fall, Paul Ryan is about to get a taste of the Boehner treatment — and then some. Consider what’s on the immediate horizon for the GOP wunderkind: President Donald Trump is ready to shut down the government over his border wall with Mexico. Breitbart has all but declared a renewed, Steve Bannon-led war on GOP leaders, with Ryan in its crosshairs. And conservative lawmakers are exhorting the speaker to play hardball on raising the debt ceiling — even as the White House demands a no-strings-attached increase to calm nervous creditors. ‘Conservatives aren’t going to roll over when it comes to the debt ceiling,’ said Republican Study Committee Chairman Mark Walker (R-N.C.) in a Tuesday interview. ‘I can tell you: It’s going to be a battle.’” Full story.

Story Continued Below

FEC VIOLATIONS — “Major GOP donor admits to campaign finance law violations,” by Campaign Pro’s Kevin Robillard: “A chain of for-profit hospitals owned by a major GOP donor admitted to illegally reimbursing executives for hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to political candidates over a decade-long period, according to FEC documents obtained by POLITICO. In the documents, made public Thursday, Cancer Treatment Centers of America admits to paying out $700,000 over a 12-year period ending in 2014 to reimburse donations to 31 different political candidates. The company’s founder, Richard Stephenson, has donated hundreds of thousands to Republican politicians and committees and once served as a top board member of the conservative group FreedomWorks. A spokesman for Stephenson pointed out the FEC found the company’s misbehavior was not ‘knowing and willful.’” Full story.

WILL SHE, WON’T SHE — “Collins weighing decision: stay in Senate or run for governor?” via WLBZ: “Senator Susan Collins says she will decide sometime in September whether to run for Governor. A number of Republicans have been urging Collins to enter the race for the Blaine House, though she says it is a very difficult decision.” Full story.

MEANWHILE — “LePage: Collins ‘highly unlikely’ to win GOP gubernatorial primary,” by Campaign Pro’s Daniel Strauss: “Maine Gov. Paul LePage predicted Thursday that Sen. Susan Collins would probably lose a Republican primary in the state if she decides to run for governor. LePage was asked about the possibility that Collins would try to succeed him during an interview with Maine’s WGAN, and he offered his latest round of criticism of his fellow Republican.” Full story.

2020 WATCH — “Donald Trump’s Team Is In 2020 Mode At The RNC’s Summer Meeting,” by Buzzfeed’s Henry J. Gomez: “President Donald Trump is staging extraordinarily early re-election rallies, and his former pollster already is testing his strength against speculative primary challengers. But the most tangible signs that Trump and his allies are dashing into 2020 mode are happening in a much quieter place: the Republican National Committee’s summer meetings here in Nashville. Brad Parscale, a trusted adviser, served as the Trump family’s eyes and ears at a Wednesday budget session. He and Michael Glassner, the head of Trump’s campaign committee, were among the key aides seen chatting up RNC members in the halls and at the bars and restaurants inside the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center.” Full story.

Days until the 2017 election: 74.

Days until the 2018 election: 438.

Thanks for joining us! You can email tips to the Campaign Pro team at sbland@politico.com, eschneider@politico.com, krobillard@politico.com, dstrauss@politico.com and mseverns@politico.com.

You can also follow us on Twitter: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin, @danielstrauss4 and @maggieseverns.

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Morning Score will not publish from Aug. 28-Sept. 4. Our next Morning Score newsletter will publish on Sept. 5.

EASY LISTENING — “Nerdcast: No retreat, no surrender,” with POLITICO’s Nancy Cook, Michael Crowley and Josh Dawsey. Listen to the full episode here.

POLLING DATA — “Roy Moore, Luther Strange in statistical dead heat in Senate race,” via AL.com’s Howard Koplowitz: “Incumbent Sen. Luther Strange is gaining ground on former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, with the race in the Republican Senate runoff being a statistical dead heat, according to a survey released Thursday. The poll, commissioned by the Senate Leadership Fund a Mitch McConnell-connected super PAC backing Strange, shows Moore ahead by 4 percentage points — 45 percent to 41 percent with a 4 percent margin of error. The survey shows a much closer race than another poll released earlier this week that had Moore with a 19-point advantage over Strange. Moore led all candidates with 39 percent in last week’s Republican primary; Strange qualified for the September runoff with 33 percent of the vote.” Full story.

— “The Alabama Senate race is a mirror image of the presidential election,” via The Washington Post’s Amber Phillips: “An establishment candidate is running for his political life against a controversial, say-anything figure who the elites despise. And against all political logic, the establishment may very well lose.” Full story.

LOAN GONE BAD — “Are Manchin and Puccio still investors in tanking hotel deal? That’s clear as mud,” via WV Metro News: “Senator Joe Manchin and longtime aide Larry Puccio are listed among the borrowers in the original $15,470,000 loan for Hilton Garden Inn Morgantown at Sun Crest Town Center that is now going bad. A lawsuit filed August 8 on behalf of the original lender continues to list Manchin and Puccio as if they remain investors. But Manchin’s staff and Puccio have said repeatedly that they are not investors in the hotel. So what happened? Was there a mistake on the front end? Did they pull their investments along the way? So far, no one is clearing up that mystery.” Full story.

CHARLOTTESVILLE FALLOUT — “Schumer: After Charlottesville, end Trump’s voter fraud commission,” by POLITICO’s Elana Schor: “Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday pressed President Donald Trump to shutter the commission investigating Trump’s unfounded theories of massive voter fraud in the 2016 election, linking voter disenfranchisement to the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. If Trump does not dismantle the Election Integrity Commission — which has sparked controversy as state officials in both parties refuse to hand over voter information to the administration — Schumer urged Congress to ‘prohibit its operation through one of the must-pass legislative vehicles’ that are set to get considered next month.” Full story.

TECH WATCH — “NGP VAN unveils new iteration of software ahead of midterm cycle,” via Campaigns & Elections: “Call time is about to change for the Democratic fundraisers and candidates using their party’s most popular engagement platform. NGP VAN unveiled the eighth edition of its namesake NGP software this week, and paperless call time is one of its headline features. The update is meant to help streamline one of the most hated parts of campaigning — dialing for dollars — and could help stave off competition from potential rivals.” Full story.

ON THE ROAD — Jolly, Murphy to tour Florida to talk Washington gridlock: Former Republican Rep. David Jolly and former Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy will hit the road in Florida this fall to host town halls to talk about the dysfunction in Washington. Four stops are already scheduled, with the first on Sept. 12 in Tampa at the University of South Florida, per a statement from the group.

BLAST FROM THE PAST — “Tom Tancredo, upset about canceled white nationalist event, weighs another run for Colorado governor,” via The Denver Post’s John Frank: “Former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo is considering a run for Colorado governor in 2018 in a move that he hopes is a shot across the bow at the Republican Party. The conservative firebrand told The Denver Post on Wednesday that he is thinking about another run after two losing bids in 2010 and 2014. ‘I certainly have concerns about the party and the people running,’ he said in an interview.” Full story.

ADMINISTRATION SPEED READ — “Oil and gas allies to Trump: Slow down,” by POLITICO’s Ben Lefebvre: “President Donald Trump’s aggressive drive to roll back environmental regulations is moving too fast even for some in the oil and gas industry. Publicly, petroleum companies and their trade groups are cheering Trump’s efforts to undo former President Barack Obama’s environmental regulations, including restrictions on fracking-related pollution, pipeline permits and offshore drilling. But quietly, people in the industry are growing worried that deregulation could backfire on them, according to interviews with a dozen executives, lobbyists, lawyers and analysts. Among their fears: Laxer rules could set the stage for an environmental disaster like 2010’s BP oil spill in the Gulf, which blackened the industry’s reputation and spurred a regulatory clampdown.” Full story.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “2020 is a really long ways away.” — GOP Rep. Will Hurd, declining to confirm to MSNBC if he will support President Trump in his reelection bid, The Washington Examiner reported.

Original Source link

from CapitalistHQ.com https://capitalisthq.com/ryan-faces-diciest-stretch-of-his-speakership/

[melindarowens]

Ryan faces diciest stretch of his speakership

The following newsletter is an abridged version of Campaign Pro’s Morning Score. For an earlier morning read on exponentially more races — and for a more comprehensive aggregation of the day’s most important campaign news — sign up for Campaign Pro today. (http://www.politicopro.com/proinfo)

UP ON THE HILL — “Ryan faces diciest stretch of his speakership,” by POLITICO’s Rachael Bade in Racine, Wis.: “For all its power and prestige, the speaker of the House is one of the most thankless jobs in Washington — just ask John Boehner. Now, with Congress barreling toward major fiscal fights this fall, Paul Ryan is about to get a taste of the Boehner treatment — and then some. Consider what’s on the immediate horizon for the GOP wunderkind: President Donald Trump is ready to shut down the government over his border wall with Mexico. Breitbart has all but declared a renewed, Steve Bannon-led war on GOP leaders, with Ryan in its crosshairs. And conservative lawmakers are exhorting the speaker to play hardball on raising the debt ceiling — even as the White House demands a no-strings-attached increase to calm nervous creditors. ‘Conservatives aren’t going to roll over when it comes to the debt ceiling,’ said Republican Study Committee Chairman Mark Walker (R-N.C.) in a Tuesday interview. ‘I can tell you: It’s going to be a battle.’” Full story.

Story Continued Below

FEC VIOLATIONS — “Major GOP donor admits to campaign finance law violations,” by Campaign Pro’s Kevin Robillard: “A chain of for-profit hospitals owned by a major GOP donor admitted to illegally reimbursing executives for hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to political candidates over a decade-long period, according to FEC documents obtained by POLITICO. In the documents, made public Thursday, Cancer Treatment Centers of America admits to paying out $700,000 over a 12-year period ending in 2014 to reimburse donations to 31 different political candidates. The company’s founder, Richard Stephenson, has donated hundreds of thousands to Republican politicians and committees and once served as a top board member of the conservative group FreedomWorks. A spokesman for Stephenson pointed out the FEC found the company’s misbehavior was not ‘knowing and willful.’” Full story.

WILL SHE, WON’T SHE — “Collins weighing decision: stay in Senate or run for governor?” via WLBZ: “Senator Susan Collins says she will decide sometime in September whether to run for Governor. A number of Republicans have been urging Collins to enter the race for the Blaine House, though she says it is a very difficult decision.” Full story.

MEANWHILE — “LePage: Collins ‘highly unlikely’ to win GOP gubernatorial primary,” by Campaign Pro’s Daniel Strauss: “Maine Gov. Paul LePage predicted Thursday that Sen. Susan Collins would probably lose a Republican primary in the state if she decides to run for governor. LePage was asked about the possibility that Collins would try to succeed him during an interview with Maine’s WGAN, and he offered his latest round of criticism of his fellow Republican.” Full story.

2020 WATCH — “Donald Trump’s Team Is In 2020 Mode At The RNC’s Summer Meeting,” by Buzzfeed’s Henry J. Gomez: “President Donald Trump is staging extraordinarily early re-election rallies, and his former pollster already is testing his strength against speculative primary challengers. But the most tangible signs that Trump and his allies are dashing into 2020 mode are happening in a much quieter place: the Republican National Committee’s summer meetings here in Nashville. Brad Parscale, a trusted adviser, served as the Trump family’s eyes and ears at a Wednesday budget session. He and Michael Glassner, the head of Trump’s campaign committee, were among the key aides seen chatting up RNC members in the halls and at the bars and restaurants inside the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center.” Full story.

Days until the 2017 election: 74.

Days until the 2018 election: 438.

Thanks for joining us! You can email tips to the Campaign Pro team at sbland@politico.com, eschneider@politico.com, krobillard@politico.com, dstrauss@politico.com and mseverns@politico.com.

You can also follow us on Twitter: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin, @danielstrauss4 and @maggieseverns.

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Morning Score will not publish from Aug. 28-Sept. 4. Our next Morning Score newsletter will publish on Sept. 5.

EASY LISTENING — “Nerdcast: No retreat, no surrender,” with POLITICO’s Nancy Cook, Michael Crowley and Josh Dawsey. Listen to the full episode here.

POLLING DATA — “Roy Moore, Luther Strange in statistical dead heat in Senate race,” via AL.com’s Howard Koplowitz: “Incumbent Sen. Luther Strange is gaining ground on former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, with the race in the Republican Senate runoff being a statistical dead heat, according to a survey released Thursday. The poll, commissioned by the Senate Leadership Fund a Mitch McConnell-connected super PAC backing Strange, shows Moore ahead by 4 percentage points — 45 percent to 41 percent with a 4 percent margin of error. The survey shows a much closer race than another poll released earlier this week that had Moore with a 19-point advantage over Strange. Moore led all candidates with 39 percent in last week’s Republican primary; Strange qualified for the September runoff with 33 percent of the vote.” Full story.

— “The Alabama Senate race is a mirror image of the presidential election,” via The Washington Post’s Amber Phillips: “An establishment candidate is running for his political life against a controversial, say-anything figure who the elites despise. And against all political logic, the establishment may very well lose.” Full story.

LOAN GONE BAD — “Are Manchin and Puccio still investors in tanking hotel deal? That’s clear as mud,” via WV Metro News: “Senator Joe Manchin and longtime aide Larry Puccio are listed among the borrowers in the original $15,470,000 loan for Hilton Garden Inn Morgantown at Sun Crest Town Center that is now going bad. A lawsuit filed August 8 on behalf of the original lender continues to list Manchin and Puccio as if they remain investors. But Manchin’s staff and Puccio have said repeatedly that they are not investors in the hotel. So what happened? Was there a mistake on the front end? Did they pull their investments along the way? So far, no one is clearing up that mystery.” Full story.

CHARLOTTESVILLE FALLOUT — “Schumer: After Charlottesville, end Trump’s voter fraud commission,” by POLITICO’s Elana Schor: “Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday pressed President Donald Trump to shutter the commission investigating Trump’s unfounded theories of massive voter fraud in the 2016 election, linking voter disenfranchisement to the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. If Trump does not dismantle the Election Integrity Commission — which has sparked controversy as state officials in both parties refuse to hand over voter information to the administration — Schumer urged Congress to ‘prohibit its operation through one of the must-pass legislative vehicles’ that are set to get considered next month.” Full story.

TECH WATCH — “NGP VAN unveils new iteration of software ahead of midterm cycle,” via Campaigns & Elections: “Call time is about to change for the Democratic fundraisers and candidates using their party’s most popular engagement platform. NGP VAN unveiled the eighth edition of its namesake NGP software this week, and paperless call time is one of its headline features. The update is meant to help streamline one of the most hated parts of campaigning — dialing for dollars — and could help stave off competition from potential rivals.” Full story.

ON THE ROAD — Jolly, Murphy to tour Florida to talk Washington gridlock: Former Republican Rep. David Jolly and former Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy will hit the road in Florida this fall to host town halls to talk about the dysfunction in Washington. Four stops are already scheduled, with the first on Sept. 12 in Tampa at the University of South Florida, per a statement from the group.

BLAST FROM THE PAST — “Tom Tancredo, upset about canceled white nationalist event, weighs another run for Colorado governor,” via The Denver Post’s John Frank: “Former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo is considering a run for Colorado governor in 2018 in a move that he hopes is a shot across the bow at the Republican Party. The conservative firebrand told The Denver Post on Wednesday that he is thinking about another run after two losing bids in 2010 and 2014. ‘I certainly have concerns about the party and the people running,’ he said in an interview.” Full story.

ADMINISTRATION SPEED READ — “Oil and gas allies to Trump: Slow down,” by POLITICO’s Ben Lefebvre: “President Donald Trump’s aggressive drive to roll back environmental regulations is moving too fast even for some in the oil and gas industry. Publicly, petroleum companies and their trade groups are cheering Trump’s efforts to undo former President Barack Obama’s environmental regulations, including restrictions on fracking-related pollution, pipeline permits and offshore drilling. But quietly, people in the industry are growing worried that deregulation could backfire on them, according to interviews with a dozen executives, lobbyists, lawyers and analysts. Among their fears: Laxer rules could set the stage for an environmental disaster like 2010’s BP oil spill in the Gulf, which blackened the industry’s reputation and spurred a regulatory clampdown.” Full story.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “2020 is a really long ways away.” — GOP Rep. Will Hurd, declining to confirm to MSNBC if he will support President Trump in his reelection bid, The Washington Examiner reported.

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