#unidentified senator | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tldrthor · 26 days

Text

The Princess (and the chaos she brings with her) - steve rogers x fem!reader (1/?)

Summary: when Thor asked the avengers to guard a dear friend of his, they didn't think twice before saying yes. What they didn't know was that said friend is the princess of one of the nine realms, and a lost love of one Captain Rogers.

Part 1 // I thought you were dead // word count: 3.5k

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"(y/n), you have to eject, right now!" Steve screamed over the torrents of wind whistling through the ship. Schmidt was dead, gone. So was the tesseract. But it wasn't over yet. "I have to put her in the water!"

The girl behind him widened her eyes, battling against the elements to reach him. "There's no world in which I let you do that, Captain!"

"I'm not asking for permission!"

"Well then, I guess we go down together!" She painstakingly made her way to him, every step a feat of strength. Her previously neatly pinned curls no longer even resembled what they once were as her hair whipped around her face.

As Steve turned to face her, she somehow still looked angelic. He felt that right now, she was more heavenly than ever. He couldn't let her die with him.

"Buckle in." He commanded, as they began their quick descent. He looked at her, the first woman who had ever made him feel seen, the only person he had ever met who was as crazy as he was.

As the ice flew closer, he turned and placed a hand tenderly on her face. Tears welled in his eyes as his mind wandered to the future they could've had. God, they could have been amazing.

"I'm sorry, (y/n)." He whispered. She could only just hear it, even though they were right next to each other.

He pulled the yellow ejection lever on the seat she had just buckled herself into, watching as her eyes widened. "No! Steve, no!" She lifted her hands to stop him, to jam the lever, anything to stay with him. She wasn't quick enough.

Steve closed his eyes as her seat was ejected, hearing her scream his name. There was no world where he allowed her to go down with him, and he trusted that wherever she ended up, Stark and Peggy would find her. He hoped they would be able to find him, too.

He hadn't prayed in a long time, but as he went down, he bargained with God for her safety.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"It is my honour to introduce the new and improved Captain America and the Howling Commandos exhibit, in honour of the 100th birthday of Captain Steven Grant Rogers." The crowd clapped as the senator stepped off the podium, motioning for Steve to take the mic. Bucky and Sam laughed at how uncomfortable the Captain was as he stood thanking everyone for an exhibit he never wanted. All part of the job, he supposed.

After the handshakes, and the photo ops, and the autographs and the meet and greets, the boys finally got relative peace to wander around the new exhibition.

"I can't believe you used to wear these stupid suits." Sam laughed, standing in front of the main exhibit. Bucky sighed, budging Sam's shoulder. "Says the asshole who wears a bird suit to fight." He retorts.

Steve laughed at his friends antics, but walked away when he noticed an addition to the exhibit he hadn't seen before. He stared, wide eyed at the name in front of him.

(Y/N): THE MISSING HERO?

Steve found himself drinking in every inch of the gorgeous photo underneath the text, her bright smile and barely visible freckles. The lighting highlighted the different hues in her immaculately pinned hair. She looked just like an angel, as she always did in real life.

Steve looked down, forlorn eyes investigating very few artefacts in the glass exhibit. Her folded uniform, found in her room after the plane went down. The blush lipstick you wore every day. Finally, an object that Steve didn't recognise. A golden ring, encrusted in unidentified jewels and a family crest no one knew. He frowned.

He had known her only a short few months, but he regretted never asking about her family. And now, it would haunt him that he never did until his last breath.

"They never found her, huh?" Bucky placed his covered hand on Steve's shoulder, a sadness tinged in his voice. He had only met (y/n) briefly, but he knew even then that Steve's heart rested in the palm of that woman's hand.

He had asked about her, once, but the look on Steve's face when her name was mentioned told him everything he needed to know.

"No. Howard searched for years, found nothing. Turned out that she had lied on her intake forms for the SSR, too. We don't even know if (y/n) was really her name." He took a beat. "We have no idea if she survived or not."

Steve didn't have to make the subtext clear, Bucky knew he worried that he had killed her by ejecting her from that plane. Bucky also knew there was no sense in trying to tell him she would have died either way, that the ice would've killed her.

"You okay?" Bucky asked, after another few moments of silence.

Steve nodded, looking at the photo. "I'm glad she's remembered. I just wish I didn't have so many unanswered questions."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So," Tony started. "Thor is arriving with the guest of honour later today, who we have agreed to protect here for the meantime. We don't have a lot of background for this one. The dark elves are the ones we're protecting her against, but Thor said threat could come from many areas. Do we have any questions?"

The team looked nothing short of bored. Well, most of them. Cap always had the good grace to sit up and look interested. Scott was straight up asleep.

"Is she important? How long will she be staying with us?" Steve asked.

"No idea, and uh, no idea. Anything else?"

"Is she single?" Sam asked, earning a laugh from some of the others. Steve shook his head disapprovingly, but smiled at his friend's levity.

As Steve stood up to go back to training, FRIDAY sounded around the room. "Excuse me everyone, my satellites have detected a bifrost signal heading for the compound imminently."

"Speak of the devil!" Tony clapped his hands as everyone headed out to the bifrost landing site (something that had been instituted after Tony's lawn got scorched one too many times).

Bucky smacked Scott upside the head to wake him up with a jolt. "Oh, where are you guys going?" He called behind them, jogging to catch up. Steve waited behind from him, laughing at his groggy friend.

A bright light connected with the grass just beside the landing site. Tony's hands covered his eyes as he mouthed are you fucking kidding me. When the light cleared, Thor stood tall in his usual armour.

"My friends!" His voice boomed, "I present to you, my fellow avengers, the honourable princess of Alfheim, jewel of the Alfar and ambassador to Asgard." Thor's voice boomed through the halls of the compound. "This is my friend, (y/n)."

Beside Thor stood a girl. She was breathtakingly beautiful, with a heavenly stature. She looked like she could have been carved from marble by the hands of God himself.

A light Asgardian pink dress was covered by a golden chest-plate which fit her body like it had been moulded just for her. It was covered in intricate etchings of suns and stars, which caught the light and shone brilliantly. She wore golden jewellery, which was nothing like the avengers had ever seen. Golden ear cuffs covered her pointed ears, with her long hair pulled into an up-do, emphasising the golden, bejewelled tiara on her head.

"Princess?" Sam squeaked. Wanda smacked him, with a look that screamed don't embarrass us.

Tony tilted his head in confusion at the guest, who he could almost swear he recognised from somewhere. "Thor, you did not inform us that we were looking after the ruler of a planet. We would have been more prepared."

"I am not ruler yet, Mr. Stark." The girl cast her eyes up at Tony, as she smiled sweetly. Her voice was honey smooth, and anyone who heard it felt themselves being charmed by it. "I have heard much about you all from Thor."

"Should we bow?" Bruce whispered to Tony, who shrugged his shoulders. Thankfully, (y/n) took the lead and shook each of their hands.

She looked around at each of the gathered avengers. Thor made his introductions to the rest of the group. "Where are the others?" Thor enquired.

"Here!" Steve smiled at the site of his old friend, his view of the princess obscured by the large man. Bucky and Scott tagged behind him, also happily greeting Thor.

"Captain, it is very good to see you. Please, let me introduce you to the Princess (y/n)." Thor stepped aside to introduce them, but his eyebrows knitted together in confusion when neither of them moved, almost frozen in place.

"Uh... hi." Scott side-stepped the Captain and caught the eye of their guest. "My name's Scott Lang."

The girl tore her eyes away from the captain, unsure really on what to do. But her training kicked in, knowing that being rude was one of the worst sins a princess could commit. "Hello, Mr. Lang. I am (y/n)."

"Holy shit." Bucky breathed out.

The rest of the avengers watched the rather silent exchange with confusion. It was very unlike Steve to get so tongue-tied, and he would never be so rude as to not introduce himself.

"Captain Rogers..." The girl spoke first, confusing them further. "I believed you dead." Tears had welled in her eyes, intriguing the observing crowd even more.

"I thought you were dead." He breathed. "What... what is going on?"

Bucky interjected. "Um, hi. I'm Bucky, we met briefly in '45."

She smiled softly at him, but her eyes betrayed her confusion. "Sergeant Barnes, of course! Didn't you... also die?"

"Yeah, we've all got a lot of explaining to do." Bucky laughed as the absurdity of the situation caught up to him.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thor's eyes darted between his friend and the captain. When Thor asked the avengers to guard her from the war on Alfheim, he knew some hijinks would ensue. This is not what he expected. He knew you had spent some time on Midgard before and when you returned you were emotionally distraught. He had simply figured the war you had fought with the Midgardians had taken it's toll.

He eyed both the Captain and you, suspiciously. You were his dear friend, but you had never talked to him about any mortal love.

"So, Princess. You've been here before." Tony enquired.

The Princess licked her lips nervously, glancing at Steve, who had barely moved a muscle, his eyebrows furrowed. "Yes, Mr. Stark. I spent some time here during the second world war. I left Midgard when Johann Schmidt was defeated, and haven't returned since."

"Tell us about your world, Princess. I've never heard of it before." Natasha, the red-head in the corner, asked the guest.

"You have heard of it before." The princess smiled, explaining. "I believe we are now known as a fantasy character here - you call us elves." She pointed to her pointed ears as each avenger clung to her words.

Thor smiled at his Midgardian friends' curiosity.

"The Alfar still live amongst you, they are simply unseen. I believe you may know Tolkien?" At the mention of the author's name, everyone's ears pricked. "He was one of my father's greatest friends and many of his book settings were inspired by Alfheim."

"What!" Scott exclaimed. "That's insane."

"Really, Ant Man?" Bucky responded, pointing out that they were all ridiculous, when you thought about it. The world was crazy now.

The princess chuckled, and rose from her seat at the conference table. "Thank you very much for your hospitality, Avengers. I would quite like to rest in my chambers, if you would be so gracious to allow me."

"Um, yeah... consider yourself allowed." Tony stumbled over his words. Very unusual for him, and it did not go unnoticed by the others. "Dinner is at seven."

"Thank you, Mr. Stark. Captain Rogers," She addressed the Captain, who looked up quickly. His face was pale, and he nervously twiddled his thumbs. "Would you be so kind as to show me my rooms?"

He popped up, almost comedically fast. "Yes. Yeah, sure. Um, this way." He walked out quickly, darting his eyes back to make sure the princess was following him.

She followed, gracefully. Her skirts fanned out behind her as she walked. The avengers in the room could scarcely take their eyes off her as she faded from sight.

As soon as the door closed behind them, the room devolved into chaos. People shouting theories and questions left, right and centre. Mostly, everyone was just bewildered. Bucky and Thor discussed how they had both known the couple separately, and whether each had talked about the other.

Natasha watched as Tony sat quietly on his tablet for a few seconds, searching for something she could only assume was relevant to the discussion at hand.

"Bucky, what's the deal there?" Clint asked.

He was interrupted by Tony. "Aha!" Stark called, silencing the room. "I knew I recognised her from somewhere."

He projected a photograph to the wall, and the avengers gasped.

The photograph consisted of Steve and Bucky front and centre. Bucky had his left arm wrapped lazily around Tony's dad, Howard. And Steve was looking directly at the girl next to him, holding her to him by the waist. It was the princess. The gaze he looked at her with... it was like nothing they had ever seen from him.

"They didn't just know each other, they were in love." Bucky replied to Clint's question, a hint of sadness underneath his words.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Y/n) followed Steve along the large corridors of the compound, her smaller legs working double time to match his long strides. They walked in silence, for the most part. It wasn't the comfortable kind.

"Captain." She spoke first, again. As she called for him, he stopped walking abruptly, turning slowly. He met her gaze and then cast his eye down.

"(y/n)... I mean, um, Princess." He responded.

"(y/n) is sufficient." She whispered, almost guiltily. "I can't believe you're alive..."

"I can't believe you're alive," He retorted. "I searched for you, when I woke up. They couldn't find any records of you other than your enlistment form, and they found you had lied. People think you're just a ghost story..."

He took a breath. "I can't believe you're here and... an alien princess?"

"I know it's hard to believe, I hope you understand why I couldn't tell you back then." She laughed. "When I found that you and Sergeant Barnes were dead, I couldn't face being here anymore... I returned to Alfheim."

As she thought back on it, a tear sprung to her eye. On seeing her reaction, Steve couldn't help himself but place a friendly hand on her back, rubbing soothing circles. She briefly froze at the contact, but quickly, she moved her own hand down his arm until she was holding onto his hand with both of hers.

So much went unsaid, but the contact confirmed what they had both most desperately wanted to know. Would it be the same?

"If I had known that you and Sergeant Barnes were alive, Captain..." She admitted. "I would have returned in an instant, I give you my word."

He smiled, rubbing a thumb over the back of her hand. A red blush hugged her cheeks as he did so.

It was typical of him that he couldn't concentrate on the moment, "Why are you here?" He asked. "What are we protecting you from?"

She sighed. "The Svartalfar, or the dark elves. You may know them - they attacked Thor in the Midgardian city of London some years ago now." He nodded in recognition.

"They are determined to conquer Alfheim, and have set their sights on my family. They have already managed to get close to killing me."

She pushed the collar of her dress down, showing a large, angry, red scar just above her collarbone. His hands flew up to trace the scar. She gulped at the close contact, her eyes meeting his.

His expression gave away his concern, knowing that Thor had suggested she was in a lot of danger. "Don't worry, Princess. You're safe here." He smiled, softly. "We'll protect you with everything we've got."

"Thank you, Captain."

"It's just Steve." He unhooked their hands, and gave her his arm. She linked her arm in his, and he resumed wandering down the halls to her rooms. "Do you have any bags?"

"No, I fled to Asgard with nothing when I needed healing. The Asgardians were kind enough to offer many gorgeous clothes for me to bring, but I figured they were a bit conspicuous."

Steve laughed, "Yeah, they might be."

They walked for a little while longer, before Steve entered a room to the side. It was rather basic compared to what she was used to, but it would more than suffice for the meantime.

"This is your room." He stood by the door as she entered. "I'm just down the hall if you need anything. I'll get Tony to send you some less conspicuous clothes. See you at dinner."

"Thank you, Steven." He laughed at her inability to be too informal with him. He nodded at her, and turned to walk down the hall to his room.

As he entered, the photograph of her from the Smithsonian caught his eye from the nightstand. He picked it up, tracing her features with his finger - unable to stop the smile spreading across his face. Who would've thought? Not only was his girl alive, she was also alien royalty. Sometimes, just sometimes, he adored his strange, strange world.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Sir," The agent walked into the dark room with purpose in her every step. "The Princess has been spotted."

The man in the chair looked up at the mention of his target. "Show me" he ordered. He watched as agent transferred the images on her tablet to the big screen, showing grainy, far away surveillance of the avengers compound.

As low quality as the image was, the woman arriving with Thor in the distinctive Alfar dress and armour was certainly the princess.

"Oh, my dear..." The man's deep voice dragged out. "You have walked right into our sights."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

a/n: let me know what you think! if you can't tell, this is basically the set up for a longer series... i'm really excited to explore this character and get deeper into the relationships!

i've never really written in the third person POV before, so let me know if it's something you like or not, and i can switch for the next part.

please like/reblog if you enjoy! let me know if you would like to be tagged in the next part <3

273 notes · View notes

clonerightsagenda · 4 months

Text

Decided to watch one more episode tonight because it's a holiday:

Marcille looked so proud of herself for recognizing and using the dungeon cleaners. Was she glancing over at Laios for approval? Rare monster knowledge W for her.

I don't remember if the winged lion iconography was so prominent in the manga this early.

The length of the frame where Kabru silently smiles after introducing himself really increases his off-putting factor

Poor Toshiro looks so exhausted

"Can't have you adding strange things to the food." Considering Izutsumi is a picky eater, I wonder what Maizuru means by this. Of course, Izutsumi adds unidentified "white stuff" to the succubus milk because she knows so little about cooking she can't distinguish between flour/salt/sugar, so who knows what she was trying to do in whatever situation Maizuru objected to.

Kabru helping Toshiro limp along just so he can spy on them lol

"The orcs shouldn't be a problem." "… What'd they taste like?" I didn't remember that gag from the manga haha

"His training journey" I thought his dad sent him abroad to stop being boring

God I love Kabru being so into the drama. Handshake meme me wanting to join faculty senate just to know the dirt on everything

#kat watches dungeon meshi

31 notes · View notes

blueiscoool · 1 year

Photo

Very Rare Roman Gold Coin is Returned to Greece

A Very Rare Gold Coin, Minted by Brutus to Mark Caesar’s Death, Is Returned to Greece

The gold coin, which dates from 42 B.C. and is valued at $4.2 million, is thought to have been looted from a field near where an army loyal to Brutus camped during the struggle for control of Rome.

A rare and ancient gold coin that morbidly celebrates the stabbing death of Julius Caesar was returned this week to Greek officials by investigators in New York who had determined it was looted and fraudulently put up for sale at auction in 2020.

The coin, known as the “Eid Mar” and valued at $4.2 million, features the face of Marcus Junius Brutus, the onetime friend and ally of Caesar who, along with other Roman senators, murdered him on the Ides of March in 44 B.C. According to historians and experts, Brutus had the coins minted in gold and silver to applaud Caesar’s downfall and to pay his soldiers during the civil war that followed the killing.

The return Tuesday came at a ceremony attended by officials of the Manhattan district attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, who cooperated on the case.

The coin, one of 29 artifacts returned to Greek officials, was given up earlier this year by an unidentified American billionaire who, investigators said, had bought it in good faith in 2020. The British dealer who helped to arrange the sale was arrested in January, and the coin itself was recovered in February, officials said.

Experts said the coin, minted two years after Caesar’s death, is about the size of a nickel and weighs about 8 grams, and is one of only three known to be in circulation. A silver version of the coin was also minted and about 100 are known to exist. Those can sell for $200,000 to $400,000.

“The Eid Mar is an undisputed masterpiece of ancient coinage,” Mark Salzberg, the chairman of Numismatic Guaranty Corp., which verified the coin but does not research provenances, said in a statement in 2020.

Experts said they believe the coin was likely discovered more than a decade ago in an area of current-day Greece where Brutus and his civil war ally, Gaius Cassius Longinus, were encamped with their army.

The front, or obverse, of the coin features an engraved side view of Brutus and the Latin letters “BRVT IMP” and “L PLAET CEST.” Experts say the former stands for “Brutus, Imperator,” with imperator referring not to emperor but to commander. The latter stands for Lucius Plaetorius Cestianus, who was a treasurer of sorts for Brutus and oversaw the minting and assaying of his coins.

The reverse features two daggers on either side of a cap known as a pileus. The daggers stand for Brutus and Cassius and reflect the manner of Caesar’s death, experts say, while the cap is a symbol of liberty that was worn by freed slaves. Overall, the image is meant to celebrate the murder as an act by which Rome was liberated from Caesar’s tyranny. Beneath the symbols is the Latin inscription “EID MAR,” designating the Ides of March — March 15, 44 B.C. — the fateful day on which the conspirators left Caesar dead on the floor of the Roman Senate.

Historians see irony in the fact that Brutus, who had admonished Caesar before the murder for the self-aggrandizing act of putting his face on Roman coinage, wound up doing the same with his own coins.

Ultimately, the forces who favored the dead Caesar, led by Mark Antony and others, defeated Brutus and his men in October of 42 B.C. at the Second Battle of Philippi, and Brutus and Cassius committed suicide.

According to investigators, the coin is first thought to have come to market between 2013 and 2014. Richard Beale, 38, director of the London-based auction house Roma Numismatics, put it up for sale on his company’s website and over several years shopped it at coin shows in the United States and Europe before it was sold in October 2020. The $4.2 million was the most ever paid for an ancient coin, according to the Numismatic Guaranty Corp.

Mr. Beale is charged with grand larceny in the first degree and several other felonies and was released on his own recognizance. His lawyer, Henry E. Mazurek, declined to comment on the case.

Among the other Greek antiquities repatriated on Tuesday were figurines of people and animals; marble, silver, bronze and clay vessels; and gold and bronze jewelry. Their total value was put at $20 million.

In remarks at the ceremony, Konstantinos Konstantinou, Greece’s consul general in New York, said his country has been hit hard by the illicit trading of antiquities and is seeking their return “in every possible way.”

He praised investigators for “striking down the illegal international criminal networks whose activity distorts the identity of peoples, as it cuts off archaeological finds from their context and transforms them from evidence of people’s history into mere works of art.”

By Tom Mashberg.

#Very Rare Roman Gold Coin is Returned to Greece #Julius Caesar #Marcus Junius Brutus #Eid Mar #gold #gold coin #collectable coin #ancient artifacts #history #history news #ancient history #ancient culture #ancient civilizations #roman history #roman empire #Mark Antony #Second Battle of Philippi #long reads

211 notes · View notes

todaysdocument · 1 year

Text

Signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

Collection JFK-WHP: White House Photographs Series: Robert Knudsen White House Photographs

Signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. (center) President Kennedy. (first row) Senator John Pastore, Senator J.W. Fulbright, Senator George Aiken, Senator Everett Dirksen, Senator Leverett Saltonstall, Senator Thomas H. Kutchel, Vice President Johnson. (second row) unidentified man, Senator Mike Mansfield, John J. McCloy, unidentified man, W. Averell Harriman, Senator George Smathers, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Senator Hubert Humphrey, William C. Foster, Senator Howard W. Cannon. White House, Treaty Room.

Photograph of President John F. Kennedy seated at a desk signing a document. He is surrounded by about one dozen men in suits.

#archivesgov #1960s #October 7 #1963 #nuclear test ban #jfk #john f. kennedy #treaties

99 notes · View notes

vintagepipemen · 10 months

Text

Unidentified reporter (background) firing up a large pipe before a press conference by US Senator Lloyd Bentsen, 1975.

#video

36 notes · View notes

tomoleary · 2 months

Text

Jack Kirby (pencils) unidentified Ruby-Spears artist(s) ink and color

Skanner, noted as a private eye, yet he’s more like Doc Savage and in places looks like Tom Selleck. He seems able to handle most scenarios but has a wide variety of helpers.

His crew (those with names) include:

GOODY GUMDROPS

MARY WORTHLESS

SENATOR PHINEAS GRUNDOON

MISTER GONE

BELLA THE BUTLER

FOLLOWER

MINI-KING WATSON

MOJ

It’s unclear how much of this he created. He could be sketching someone else’s ideas. Some of the names Goody Gumdrop? Mary Worthless? I like Moj, as in Module. Handy robot with a handle built in.

#jack kirby #Ruby-Spears #Skanner #GOODY GUMDROPS #MARY WORTHLESS #SENATOR PHINEAS GRUNDOON #MISTER GONE #BELLA THE BUTLER #FOLLOWER #MINI-KING WATSON #MOJ

11 notes · View notes

twinsunstars · 6 months

Text

Thoughts on The Bad Batch Episode 6 - Infiltration - A Discussion Post

This week's two episodes really took us through another rollercoaster. Let's look back on all the details that got us excited!

(SPOILERS IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE EPISODES YET! all screencaps from cap-that.com! https://www.cap-that.com/starwars/the-bad-batch/306/)

Rex makes his return by delivering Senator Avi Singh and his droid GS-8 to Senator Riyo Chuchi on Pantora, who continues to recruit people for fighting against the Empire. I was surprised to see Senator Singh again; every episode that's happened in the series really had a good purpose for the story.

Howzer also appeared, and I'm so happy he's back!

One of the Clone X troopers had appeared, sneaking around and attempting to attack the senators. Rex and the others try to attack the trooper, and Howzer manages to stun him. The trooper ends up being another unidentified clone, and the boys take him into custody.

We arrive at the monastery on Teth, which had first appeared in the Clone Wars movie. Rex and the other clones have built themselves a base here, where they are safe and far away from the Empire.

Rex and Howzer go to see the CX trooper they took into custody, as they had the shocker removed from their teeth, learning from the scenario that happened last season. Rex tries to reason with the trooper, who refuses to talk.

Fireball had looked through the device that they found with the CX trooper, and Omega was shown on that device. Rex decides to contact Echo and Hunter, calling them here to talk to them about the situation. Everyone's after the poor girl, and none of the clones are able to catch a break.

The CX trooper that we've all got our eyes glued to appears once again on-screen, asking "Why have I been activated?" We finally get to hear this trooper talk, and his voice is very hidden by the helmet. He is given a mission to track down the CX trooper that went missing, and we go on to pay close attention to him throughout the episodes. When I tell you my heart was racing every time he appeared on screen, I was really trying to think hard and connect the dots. I'm a Tech believer, but with the new theories emerging on this trooper potentially being other clones as well, every theory is so intriguing.

While on the way to Rex's base, Omega copying Crosshair was the cutest thing ever. She went from copying Hunter in Season 1, copying Phee in Season 2, and now this in Season 3. (Hunter's definitely having flashbacks.) Girl's growing up too fast for me 😭

Can we just take a second and look at Wrecker's smile here? It was so heartwarming to see him smile like this while he was petting Batcher. He's so cute.

The crew arrives, and Howzer keeps his eyes locked on Crosshair. The little nod Rex and Omega shared was so adorable. Howzer speaks up to talk to Crosshair, who stays silent. He reminds him of Ryloth and what happened, and he has good reason to be upset.

Not gonna lie, I was expecting Rex to look at Batcher and be like when did y'all get a dog 🤨

Before leaving to go pick up Gregor (wherever he is), Echo gives Omega a new crossbow, replacing the Zygerrian crossbow she used to have before being taken to Tantiss. I still wonder what happened to that weapon, it was just completely lost. Omega loves her new gift and thanks Echo, and I can't wait to see her use it.

Rex and Howzer show Hunter and Crosshair the information they got so far from the device they obtained from the CX trooper they have, and Crosshair starts to open up about what he went through on Tantiss, talking about Hemlock's conditioning. Howzer continues to suspect anything Crosshair says, and Hunter gets protective for his brother. The boys decide to ask Omega about why they wanted her on Tantiss, and she says that it was so Nala Se could work for them.

I feel like I could tell that Omega does not want to talk about anything she went through on Tantiss and whatever she experienced. She looks so hurt at times ever since she became reunited with her family, and she wasn't even eating in this episode. She always keeps giving Batcher her food. Omega mentions "M-count", which Rex has heard of before, but doesn't know what it means. I wonder when they'll learn what it means and how they'll try to figure out why Omega is needed for this.

Meanwhile, the CX trooper sent from Tantiss had arrived on Teth and located the clones' base, and had snuck in without ANYONE noticing. Batcher's senses felt something was around, but she shrugged it off and continued eating. Not even Hunter's enhanced senses had felt something was around. I felt like maybe these troopers were designed to avoid those kinds of things, and maybe Hemlock learned about Hunter's abilities and attempted to avoid them.

Anyway, he looks around and spots Omega, immediately running out and contacting someone.

When Crosshair found out they have one of the CX troopers in custody, he goes with Rex, Howzer, and Hunter to see him. The second he lays eyes on the trooper, there is genuine fear in his eyes. What did he go through on Tantiss?

The CX trooper recognizes Crosshair and begins to talk, and knows the Empire is coming for them. Crosshair insists they leave, while the others keep wanting information, and Howzer gets more suspicious.

Right outside, the bombs CX-2 planted around the base are set off, triggering multiple explosions. He re-enters the base, firing shots, as everyone hurries to protect the base. The trooper manages to shoot the CX trooper they have in custody, making them unable to get further information. The fight continues until the base is wrecked, causing the CX trooper to be crushed under rubble, and the others get locked in the place they kept the trooper in custody after the rubble blocks their way out.

RIP to Fireball 😭

Wolffe finally makes his appearance! He continues to be a soldier of the Empire, but he definitely is no longer under the influence of the chip. The episode ends here, and I was screaming the entire time Wolffe appeared. Someone go summon the force ghost of Plo Koon so he can knock some sense into his son.

This episode was full of context, but there's still so much mystery behind everything. The next episode was full of even more action, and I had my eyes glued to the screen.

Episode 7 Discussion

#star wars #the bad batch #tbb #the bad batch crosshair #the bad batch omega #captain rex #captain howzer #the bad batch echo #the bad batch wrecker #the bad batch tech #commander wolffe #sw tbb #tbb s3 #the bad batch season 3 #the bad batch spoilers #avi singh #riyo chuchi

20 notes · View notes

sataniccapitalist · 2 months

Text

They know we're so distracted and divided, that they can start to normalize this subject without the public caring. Tere is so much hidden information and technology and hidden built infrastructure that the US government has created as a result of UAP. So many breakthroughs that could benefit everyone that will never see the light of day. They want to monetize some this, turn it over to entrepreneurs. That's why you have seen this in mainstream media. They are gradually trying to open this up for profit. It's not going to go away, the left will sleep on it, the right-wingers will be open to it and capitalize on it.

#UAP #capitalism

5 notes · View notes

sw5w · 9 months

Text

Vote Now! Vote Now!

STAR WARS EPISODE I: The Phantom Menace 01:29:11

And here is the most noticeable E.T. cameo. The Senator is named Grebleips (Spielberg backwards) and the name of their planet, Brodo Asogi, comes from the sequel novel to E.T. The Book of the Green Planet. It was based on a story by Steven Spielberg. They were only called "Children of the Green Planet" in the book though, the name Asogian was added into Legends later by Abel G. Peña in his novella SkyeWalkers: A Clone Wars Story.

Other names for E.T.'s planet named in the book were: - Vomestra - Od-Di-Pa 5 - Tum Lux O-ty - Alata Zerka Which all translated to "Green Planet". Personally, I think Brodo Asogi sounds the best, so I'm glad James Luceno chose to go with that when he included them in Cloak of Deception!

#Star Wars #Episode I #The Phantom Menace #Coruscant #Galactic City #Galactic Senate Building #Grand Convocation Chamber #Senate Rotunda #unidentified senator #unidentified Ishi Tib #unidentified Swokes Swokes #unidentified Asogian #Senator Yeb Yeb Adem'thorn #Senator Grebleips #repulsorlift unit #Makem Te Delegation #Brodo Asogi Delegation #entry/exit gate #taxation of trade routes

1 note · View note

posttexasstressdisorder · 5 months

Text

Subscriptions

PLAY GAMES. RAW WORD DAILY

SUBSCRIBE FOR $1

About usGamesUS NEWSInvestigationsOpinionvideoHELPget the newsletter

RawStory+ Login

PLAY RAW WORD DAILY.

SUBSCRIBE FOR $1

Home

Shop to Support Independent Journalism

Trump

U.S. News

World

Science

Video

Investigations

Ethics Policy

RawStory+ Login

Why has America tolerated 6 illegitimate Republican presidents?

Thom Hartmann

April 15, 2024 9:11AM ET

"Ronald and Nancy Reagan, 1964” image showing The Reagans aboard an unidentified boat in this 1964 photo released on June 1, 2016. Courtesy The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation/Handout via REUTERS

As we watch the Trump campaign prepare to replace 50,000 civil servants with fascist toadies if he wins the White House, it’s important to remember that Dwight Eisenhower was the last Republican president who believed in democracy, the rule of law, and that government should prioritize what the people want.

From 1960 to today a series of leaders within the Republican Party have abandoned the democracy that American soldiers fought the Revolutionary War to secure, the Civil War to defend here at home, and World War II in Europe and the Pacific to defend around the world.

This has brought us a series of criminal Republican presidents and corrupt Republican Supreme Court justices, who’ve legalized political bribery while devastating voting and civil rights.

None of this was a mistake or an accident, because none of these people truly believed in democracy.

This rejection of democracy and turn toward criminality and it’s logical end-point, fascism, started in the modern GOP with Richard Nixon.

He took millions in now-well-documented bribes both while Vice President to Eisenhower and as President (his VP, Spiro Agnew, resigned rather than go to prison for taking bribes). Nixon saw public service as a way to bathe himself in money, power, and adulation.

He didn’t care a bit about democracy.

As Lamar Waldron and I point out in detail in Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination, then-President Eisenhower’s then-Vice President, Richard Nixon, was getting beat up badly in the 1960 election by his opponent, Senator John F. Kennedy.

Most of it had to do with Cuba, where mobsters affiliated with Nixon for decades had just lost fortunes, millions and millions of dollars in annual revenue.

After the Cuban revolution of 1959, Castro came to the US to seek military and economic aid for his island nation; Eisenhower left town, forcing Castro to meet instead with VP Nixon.

Given that Castro had just overthrown the dictator Batista, a friend of both Nixon and Nixon’s mafia patrons, the Vice President essentially blew off Castro, sending him into the welcoming arms of Nikita Khrushchev’s Soviet Union.

Thus, throughout the 1960 presidential race, Senator Kennedy pounded on Vice President Nixon for having “let Cuba go communist” on his watch. In response, Vice President Nixon put together a series of CIA and Mafia plots to assassinate Castro, timed to happen before the November 1960 election.

His hope was that if the Eisenhower/Nixon administration could be seen as having successfully overthrown Castro in 1960 it would de-fang JFK’s attacks and make Nixon — who Eisenhower had put in charge of Cuba policy — a national hero just in time for the election.

Nixon figured that would be enough to help him beat JFK at the polls. It was going to be his “October Surprise.” (The remnant of this scheme was the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.)

For Nixon democracy was just an inconvenience, an obstacle to be conquered. He never really believed in it.

You can imagine Nixon’s frustration when plot after plot was bungled or foiled and, by election day, Castro was still happily ensconced in the Havana presidential palace. This appears to be the moment Nixon decided that, if he had a chance to run for president again, he’d not just consider a CIA-Mafia plot but would embrace far more extreme measures.

Thus began the first Republican plot to commit full-out treason to win a presidential election.

It started in the summer of 1968, when President Lyndon Johnson was desperately trying to end the Vietnam war. It had turned into both a personal and political nightmare for him, and his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, was running for President in the election that year against a “reinvented” Richard Nixon.

Johnson spent most of late 1967 and early 1968 working back-channels to North and South Vietnam, and by the summer of 1968 had a tentative agreement from both for what promised to be a lasting peace deal they’d both sign that fall.

But Richard Nixon knew that if he could block that peace deal, it would kill VP Hubert Humphrey’s chances of winning the 1968 election. So, Nixon sent envoys from his campaign to talk to South Vietnamese leaders to encourage them not to attend upcoming peace talks in Paris.

The bribe was straightforward: Nixon promised South Vietnam’s corrupt politicians that he’d give them a richer deal when he was President than LBJ could give them then.

The FBI had been wiretapping these international communications and told LBJ about Nixon’s effort to prolong the Vietnam War. Thus, just three days before the 1968 election, President Johnson phoned the Republican Senate leader, Everett Dirksen, (you can listen to the entire conversation here):

President Johnson: “Some of our folks, including some of the old China lobby, are going to the Vietnamese embassy and saying please notify the [South Vietnamese] president that if he’ll hold out ’til November 2nd they could get a better deal. Now, I’m reading their hand. I don’t want to get this in the campaign. And they oughtn’t to be doin’ this, Everett. This is treason.” Sen. Dirksen: “I know.”

Those tapes were only released by the LBJ library in the past decade, and that’s Richard Nixon who Lyndon Johnson was accusing of treason.

At that point, for President Johnson, it was no longer about getting Humphrey elected. By then Nixon’s plan had already worked and Humphrey was way down in the polls because the war was ongoing.

Instead, Johnson was desperately trying to salvage the peace talks to stop the death and carnage as soon as possible. He literally couldn’t sleep.

In a phone call to Nixon himself just before the election, LBJ begged him to stop sabotaging the peace process, noting that he was almost certainly going to win the election and inherit the war anyway. Instead, Nixon publicly announced that LBJ’s efforts were “in shambles.”

But South Vietnam had taken Nixon’s deal and boycotted the peace talks, the war continued, and Nixon won the White House thanks to it.

An additional twenty-two thousand American soldiers, and an additional million-plus Vietnamese died because of Nixon’s 1968 treason, and he left it to Jerry Ford to end the war and evacuate the American soldiers.

Nixon appointed Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell, and William Rehnquist to the Supreme Court, pushing it hard to the right and setting up the predecessors of Citizens United.

Rehnquist, we later learned, didn’t believe any more in democracy than did Nixon. He’d made his chops in the GOP with Operation Eagle Eye, standing outside polling places in Hispanic and Native American precincts in Arizona challenging every voter who showed up there’s right to cast a ballot.

Nixon was never held to account for that treason, and when the LBJ library released the tapes and documentation long after his and LBJ’s deaths it was barely noticed by the American press.

Gerald Ford, who succeeded Nixon, was never elected to the White House (he was appointed to replace VP Spiro Agnew, after Agnew was indicted for decades of taking bribes), and thus would never have been President had it not been for Richard Nixon’s treason.

Ford pardoned Nixon and appointed John Paul Stevens to the Supreme Court.

Next up was Ronald Reagan. He not only didn’t believe in democracy, he didn’t even believe in the American government.

Like Trump, he ridiculed public service like joining the military or getting a job with a government agency; he joked that there were no smart or competent people in government because if there had been, private industry would have already hired them away.

So, if you don’t believe in democracy and you think the US government is a joke, it’s not a big deal to betray your country to get the wealth, power, and fame that goes with the presidency.

During the Carter/Reagan election battle of 1980, then-President Carter had reached a deal with newly-elected Iranian President Abdolhassan Bani-Sadr to release the fifty-two hostages held by students at the American Embassy in Tehran.

Bani-Sadr was a moderate and, as he explained in an editorial for The Christian Science Monitor, successfully ran for President that summer on the popular position of releasing the hostages:

“I openly opposed the hostage-taking throughout the election campaign…. I won the election with over 76 percent of the vote…. Other candidates also were openly against hostage-taking, and overall, 96 percent of votes in that election were given to candidates who were against it [hostage-taking].”

Carter was confident that with Bani-Sadr’s help, he could end the embarrassing hostage crisis that had been a thorn in his political side ever since it began in November of 1979.

But, like Nixon, behind Carter’s back the Reagan campaign worked out a deal with the head of Iran’s radical faction — Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini — to keep the hostages in captivity until after the 1980 Presidential election. Khomeini needed spare parts for American weapons systems the Shah had purchased for Iran, and the Reagan campaign was happy to promise them.

This was the second act of treason by a Republican wanting to become president.

The Reagan campaign’s secret negotiations with Khomeini — the so-called 1980 “Iran/Contra Scandal” — sabotaged President Carter’s and Iranian President Bani-Sadr’s attempts to free the hostages. As President Bani-Sadr told The Christian Science Monitor in March of 2013:

“After arriving in France [in 1981], I told a BBC reporter that I had left Iran to expose the symbiotic relationship between Khomeinism and Reaganism.

“Ayatollah Khomeini and Ronald Reagan had organized a clandestine negotiation, later known as the ‘October Surprise,’ which prevented the attempts by myself and then-US President Jimmy Carter to free the hostages before the 1980 US presidential election took place. The fact that they were not released tipped the results of the election in favor of Reagan.”

And Reagan’s treason — just like Nixon’s treason — worked perfectly, putting a third Republican president in office after Nixon and Ford. Neither Nixon nor Reagan believed in or held up democracy and the rule of law that underpins it as a value.

The Iran hostage crisis continued and torpedoed Jimmy Carter’s re-election hopes. And the same day Reagan took the oath of office — to the minute, as Reagan put his hand on the bible, by way of Iran’s acknowledging the deal — the American hostages in Iran were released.

Keeping his side of the deal, Reagan began selling the Iranians weapons and spare parts in 1981 (and using the money to illegally fund rightwing neofascist death squad “Contras” in Nicaragua) and continued until he was busted for it in 1986, producing the so-called “Iran Contra” scandal.

Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy to the Supreme Court, solidifying its rightwing tilt. We’d learn, in the Bush v Gore case in 2000 when they awarded the White House to the son of Reagan’s VP, that none of the three of them valued democracy.

And, like Nixon, Reagan was never held to account for the criminal and treasonous actions that brought him to office.

After Reagan, Bush senior was elected but, like Jerry Ford, Bush was only President because he’d served as Vice President under Reagan. And, of course, the naked racism of his Willie Horton ads helped keep him in office.

The criminal investigation into Iran/Contra came to a head with independent prosecutor Lawrence Walsh subpoenaing President George HW Bush after having already obtained convictions for Weinberger, Ollie North and others.

For the first time in history, the President of the United States could go to jail for criminal conspiracy. Bush was sweating.

George HW Bush’s attorney general, Bill Barr (yes, the same guy Trump hired), suggested he pardon all six co-conspirators — who could point a finger at Bush — to kill the investigation. Bush did it on Christmas Eve, hoping to avoid the news cycle because of the holiday.

Nonetheless, the screaming headline across the New York Times front page on December 25, 1992, said it all: “THE PARDONS: BUSH PARDONS 6 IN IRAN AFFAIR, ABORTING A WEINBERGER TRIAL; PROSECUTOR ASSAILS 'COVER-UP’”

If the October Surprise hadn’t hoodwinked voters in 1980, you can bet Bush senior would never have been elected in 1988.

That’s four illegitimate Republican presidents.

President GHW Bush appointed Clarence Thomas and David Souter to the Supreme Court. We learned quickly that Thomas doesn’t value democracy. We now know his wife actively worked to subvert it, in fact.

Which brings us to George W. Bush, the man who was given the White House by five Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court.

In the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision in 2000 that stopped the Florida recount and thus handed George W. Bush the presidency, Justice Antonin Scalia (appointed by Bush’s father’s boss) wrote in his opinion:

“The counting of votes … does in my view threaten irreparable harm to petitioner [George W. Bush], and to the country, by casting a cloud upon what he [Bush] claims to be the legitimacy of his election.”

Apparently, denying the presidency to Al Gore, the guy who actually won the most votes in Florida and won the popular vote nationwide by over a half-million, did not constitute “irreparable harm” to Scalia or the media.

And apparently it wasn’t important that Scalia’s son worked for a law firm that was defending George W. Bush before the high court (with no Scalia recusal).

Just like it wasn’t important that Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife worked on the Bush transition team — before the Supreme Court shut down the recount in Florida — and was busy accepting resumes from people who would serve in the Bush White House if her husband stopped the recount in Florida…which he did. There was no Thomas recusal, either.

None of them believed in democracy.

More than a year after the election a consortium of newspapers including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and USA Today did their own recount of the vote in Florida — manually counting every vote in a process that took almost a year — and concluded that Al Gore did indeed win the presidency in 2000.

As the November 12th, 2001 article in The New York Times read:

“If all the ballots had been reviewed under any of seven single standards and combined with the results of an examination of overvotes, Mr. Gore would have won.”

That little bit of info was slipped into the seventeenth paragraph of the Times story so that it would attract as little attention as possible, because the 9/11 attacks had happened just weeks earlier and the publishers of the big newspapers feared that burdening Americans with the plain truth that George W. Bush lost the election would further hurt a nation already in crisis.

To compound the crime, Bush could only have gotten as close to Gore in the election as he did because his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, had ordered his Secretary of State, Kathrine Harris, to purge at least 57,000 mostly-Black voters from the state’s voter rolls just before the election.

Tens of thousands of African Americans showed up to vote and were turned away from the polls in that election in Florida. BBC covered it extensively, although the American media didn’t seem interested.

So, for the third time in 4 decades, Republicans took the White House under illegitimate electoral circumstances. Even President Carter was shocked by the brazenness of that one. And Jeb Bush and the GOP were never held to account for that crime against democracy.*

President George W. Bush appointed Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Alito not only doesn’t believe in democracy, he also doesn’t believe in a woman’s right to get an abortion. He’d put a judge like himself between a woman and her doctor, with a police officer and a prison to enforce his decree.

Most recently, in 2016, Trump ally Kris Kobach and Republican Secretaries of State across the nation used Interstate Crosscheck to purge millions of legitimate voters — most people of color — from the voting rolls just in time for the Clinton/Trump election.

Meanwhile, Russian oligarchs and the Russian state, and possibly pro-Trump groups or nations in the Middle East, funded a widespread program to flood social media with pro-Trump, anti-Clinton messages from accounts posing as Americans, as documented by Robert Mueller’s investigation.

And on top of that, we learned in 2020 that Republican campaign data on the 2016 election, including which states needed a little help via phony influencers on Facebook and other social media, was not only given to Russian spy and oligarch Konstantin Kilimnik by Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort, but Kilimnik transferred it to Russian intelligence.

Even with all that treasonous help from Russia, Donald Trump still lost the national vote by nearly 3 million votes but came to power in 2016 through the electoral college, an artifact of the Founding era designed to keep slavery safe in colonial America.**

And then, in 2021, after losing to Joe Biden by 7 million votes, Trump mounted a seditious effort to overturn the election he’d just lost.

Trump didn’t believe in democracy in the least; he openly fawned over autocratic and fascistic states and their leaders.

After Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans blocked President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, President Donald Trump filled Garland’s spot with Neil Gorsuch, the son of Reagan’s disgraced former EPA administrator, Anne Gorsuch.

For reasons that are still unclear, shortly after Trump mentioned Kennedy’s son to him publicly at the Gorsuch ceremony, Justice Kennedy decided to resign. Whether it had anything to do with young Justin Kennedy — then working at Deutsche Bank and having signed off on over a billion dollars in corrupt loans to Trump — is still unknown, and Kennedy, still in good health, isn’t talking.

Kennedy was replaced by “Blackout” Brett Kavanaugh, who had previously worked in the Bush White House. Republicans refused to turn over 95 percent of Kavanaugh’s papers to the Senate Judiciary Committee and jammed through his nomination after an epic meltdown on live television.

When Ruth Bader Ginsberg died just before the 2020 election, McConnell decided his “Garland Rule” was irrelevant and jammed through Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett in about six weeks; she was sworn in on October 27, 2020. When Democrats raised questions about Barrett’s role as a “Handmaid” (what she called herself) in a bizarre Catholic cult they were brushed aside.

Trump appointed Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanuagh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. We now know none of the three of them believe in democracy, either.

Fifty-four years of Republican presidents using treason to achieve the White House (or inheriting it from one who did) has transformed America and dramatically weakened our democracy.

Those presidents have contributed their own damages to the rule of law and democracy in America, but their cynical Supreme Court appointments have arguably done the most lasting damage.

Republican appointees on the Court during this time have gutted the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, union rights, the Affordable Care Act, and legalized Republican voter purges. They legalized the bribery of politicians by billionaires and corporations.

In short, they’ve done everything they can to weaken democracy and enforce minority rule in America.

One of their wives appears to have been involved in the January 6th attempted overthrow of our electoral process and thus our republic. Republican justices and judges openly flaunt the judicial code of ethics and routinely hand decisions to the GOP’s largest donors.

Today’s fascistic behavior by elected Republicans and their appointees on the courts has a long history, deeply rooted in multiple acts of treachery and treason. “Power at any cost” has been their slogan ever since Nixon’s attempts to assassinate Castro in 1960 to beat JFK in that year’s election.

Democracy? They laugh.

Which is why it’s time to call the Republican Party what it is: a criminal enterprise embracing fascism to hang onto power, a threat to our republic, and a danger to all life on Earth.

*For more detail, this is extensively documented and footnoted in my book The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America.

**This is covered in depth in my book The Hidden History of the War On Voting.

7 notes · View notes