#we're going to put questions with long answers in separate posts and group short ones together

[melliotwrites]

@aveasorae asked:

Q: set details- who did the blackboard drawings + were they all intentional?

The blackboard drawings were drawn by Elliot, Mel, and Tobias! Initially, the blackboards only had the eye painted on by our lovely set department, and our director Georgina Escobar and set designer Raul Abrego thought it would be fun to fill it in with chalkboard drawings by Vincent and Quincy (because it lived in their area of the stage.) Real chalkboard drawings also let Vincent really draw on the board during Student Body each night!

Elliot drew some diagrams of dissections and organs (the dissected rat, bird, and anatomical heart near the top – which I think has an arrow pointing to an area in it that says “love?”), Tobias drew a bat and a mutated rat with an ear on it near the bottom, which I imagine to be part of Vincent’s research. Mel drew the skulls, eyes, and chirologia (specific hand gestures of saints in icons and paintings) on the lower blackboard, labelled with their meanings. You can see some of them in this photo Mel took of the books next to the blackboard- I also remember the IXIC hand was on there somewhere. The Control one is one I made up- I imagine Quincy drew these for his project and then they were vandalized by Beatrix. And of course there’s a heart with “Quincy” written in it by Vincent, with the circle over the i… and then Quincy has added a flame over it, making it a Sacred Heart (like the one on their bowtie). Symbolism! 

[threeacttragedy]

Great blog but if all was not good with L and A why was he holding her in the water in Italy. Seemed off

Appreciate the question because it's one that's been on a lot of people's minds for months!

The relationship between Luke and Antonia will always be a mystery. We will never be privy to everything that happened between them. We will never know whether they were serious, casual, phony, simply part of the same friend group, whatever label you want to put on them.

Eventually I will write out my thoughts on Antonia -- because, trust me, I have some (and, no, they're not mean-spirited) -- but to make a long story short, some things to note that also "seem off" are:

Italy was roughly four months ago. We have not seen Luke and Antonia together since. The only interaction appears to be two likes per month from Luke on Antonia's grid.

Even if we're going to consider the Spanish resort pictures, we have to take into consideration that Antonia was removed from Luke's narrative. Luke seemingly filled that grid post with images that were Polin and/or Lukola coded (the two fingers -- that man will never be able to put up two fingers again without evoking a carriage scene; the chaise-style bench; the cake and its accompanying emojis). He also immediately came to the rescue by clarifying the cake picture (effectively squashing any accusations that he had removed Nicola from the cake). Regardless of whether Antonia was there, Luke removed her from his narrative. It was Antonia that tried to slip it back in with her October 25 post. The interesting thing there is that no one would understand her reference to being in Spain except...Lukolas. The general public wouldn't give that picture a second thought.

To my knowledge, Luke didn't like posts from third parties that included Antonia in them over the summer. For example, when Rory posted to his grid on July 6, 2024, he included pictures of Luke and Antonia (separate images). Luke did not like this post. Sienna posted the same day, with a picture that included Antonia. Luke didn't like that one either. I am not saying Luke has to like every post (in fact, I've blogged on this already), but it is something to consider.

After Papsmear, there was really no reason for Luke not to step up and "claim" (gross word, by the way) Antonia. The damage had been done. He could have protected her in some way from the fandom, but he chose to remain quiet. Wait, not quiet, he chose to post his I-Won't-Let-Cressida-Ruin-Our-Evening story.

To be honest, the entire Luke and Antonia situation has had me going back and forth for months. My advice to people is to look at things collectively. Do not look at a single event and decide, oh, yeah, that's the absolute final answer. Instead, use that single event (assuming you find it intriguing enough) as the starting point for your opinion on the matter. Remember to go backwards, forwards, and sideways in your analysis, and be willing to adjust your theory as you collect information.

[bountyofbeads]

We’ve been very weak’: House Democrats decry their oversight of Trump, push Pelosi on impeachment

By Rachael Bade and Josh Dawsey | Published September 22 at 3:14 PM ET |

Washington Post | Posted September 22, 2019 6:05 PM ET |

Democrats’ frustration with Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s unwillingness to impeach President Trump is reaching a fever pitch following reports that Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate a political rival — a step the California Democrat declined to endorse Sunday.

An increasingly vocal group of House Democrats are starting to dismiss their own oversight of Trump as feckless, even accusing their colleagues of emboldening the president by refusing to stand up to what they see as lawless behavior.

At the very least, these Democrats say, the House should be taking more aggressive action to break the unprecedented White House stonewalling, possibly even fining defiant Trump officials, an idea Pelosi dismissed this year.

“At this point, the bigger national scandal isn’t the president’s lawbreaking behavior — it is the Democratic Party’s refusal to impeach him for it,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a longtime impeachment backer, tweeted late Saturday night. “It is one thing for a sitting president to break the law. It’s another to let him. . . . The GOP’s silence & refusal to act shouldn’t be a surprise. Ours is.”

Even House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), an impeachment skeptic and Pelosi ally, suggested impeachment might be inevitable and called reports of Trump requesting that a Ukrainian leader investigate a business connected to former vice president Joe Biden’s son “the most profound violation of the presidential oath of office.”

Trump suggested Sunday that he mentioned Biden and his son Hunter in a phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump has denied that he did anything wrong amid questions about whether he used his power to seek help from a foreign country for his reelection bid.

“I have been very reluctant to go down the path of impeachment . . . this would be an extraordinary remedy of last resort, not first resort,” Schiff said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But if the president is essentially withholding military aid at the same time that he is trying to browbeat a foreign leader into doing something illicit that is providing dirt on his opponent during a presidential campaign, then that may be the only remedy that is coequal to the evil that that conduct represents.”

Pelosi clearly is feeling the pressure. In a rare Sunday afternoon “Dear Colleague” letter — sent to Republicans and Democrats — the speaker called for the director of national intelligence to turn over the whistleblower complaint detailing Trump’s interactions with Ukraine. Pelosi threatened an unspecified escalation in House action if they refuse — but notably stopped short of impeachment.

“If the administration persists in blocking this whistleblower from disclosing to Congress a serious possible breach of constitutional duties by the president, they will be entering a grave new chapter of lawlessness which will take us into a whole new stage of investigation,” she wrote.

The growing calls to impeach Trump — or do something bold to confront the White House — follows an embarrassing week for House Democrats. Many feel increasingly helpless in fighting the White House’s obstruction as Pelosi looks to the courts to uphold congressional subpoenas, a process that has taken months and could drag out for years.

On Tuesday, Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager, infuriated Democrats with his behavior at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, mocking lawmakers on the panel, talking over them and promoting his own potential Senate campaign. 

Several Democrats on the panel privately pressed House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) to hold Lewandowski in contempt on the spot, an idea Pelosi later endorsed — spurring their sense of urgency. But Nadler’s staff, which wanted to keep the focus on Trump, said the logistics of doing so immediately were too complicated, if not impossible — a decision that upset members so much that the committee held an “emergency meeting” to allow members to vent on Friday, according to multiple lawmakers.

“To clear up a technical point: House rules do not permit us to hold anyone in contempt on the spot,” wrote one Judiciary staffer in an email to placate committee aides. “Which is not to say we do not understand the strong impulse to punch this guy in the mouth.”

The Washington Post obtained a copy of the email.

The sense of powerlessness only compounded later in the week following reports that an intelligence community inspector general determined that a whistleblower complaint against Trump constituted an “urgent concern,” which would typically be provided to Congress under law. But The Post reported White House counsel Pat Cipollone was involved in helping block the complaint from Congress — as he has blocked numerous former White House aides from complying with congressional subpoenas in their investigations of Trump. 

“The total disregard that this administration has for the separation of powers, the failure to recognize Congress as a coequal branch of government, and the inability for them to follow the law is stunning,” said Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.). 

By the end of the week, lawmakers involved in the investigations of Trump were for the first time openly saying they looked ineffective and worried that their inquiries — and unwillingness to impeach or push back in a timely manner — were undermining Congress’s role as a third branch of government. 

Since voters put Democrats in power in 2018 — a move many interpreted as the public’s desire for a check on the president — a special counsel identified possible instances of obstruction of justice by Trump; federal prosecutors have all but named him as being involved in a campaign finance violation that sent his former lawyer Michael Cohen to prison; his business has openly accepted money from foreign officials staying at his hotels; and he has allegedly pushed Ukraine to go after the 2020 Democratic candidate leading in national polls. 

“We have said the president must be held accountable, and ‘no one is above the law,’ including the president of the United States,” said Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-R.I.). “We have to not only say that; our actions have to reflect that.”

White House lawyers have sought ways at every turn to block documents or witnesses from congressional investigators under the direction from the president, who decries the probe as unfair and mocks Nadler, according to current and former administration officials. The calculation, according to White House officials, is that there will not be much of a price to pay for obstinance from the general public. Democrats, after all, have been unable to move public sentiment in favor of impeaching Trump.

Two White House officials said they are also not worried about defying or mocking Nadler because Pelosi has made it clear she is not interested in impeachment and the House Democratic Caucus is split about what to do to counter Trump.

In the 235-member Democratic caucus, a majority of 138 favor impeachment, according to a Post analysis.

“Why would we help them try to embarrass the president?” one person familiar with the effort said.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly.

With Pelosi unwilling to impeach Trump, Democratic rank-and-file members are frantically looking for something to fortify their investigations. On Friday, Judiciary members pressed Nadler to invoke Congress’s long-dormant inherent contempt authority that would allow Congress to jail or fine people for defying subpoenas. 

The power hasn’t been used in more than 100 years. Pelosi, leadership and other House lawyers were dismissive of the idea when investigators first floated it last spring. But Judiciary members are once again trying to force the issue. 

“Our side says it's ‘legally questionable,’ ‘it hasn't been used in forever,’ and ‘blah, blah, blah,’ ” said Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), a member of the panel, who argues Trump’s legal team frequently has used last-ditch efforts and bogus explanations to block testimony — and the House should do the same.

“I say do it,” he continued. “Let them argue in court that they take the position that it's legally questionable. We back off of everything! We’ve been very weak.”

The frustration with the Democratic approach extends to members of Pelosi’s leadership team.

“We need to develop other tools because our tools are not working,” said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), a Judiciary panel member who is co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee. “We cannot allow the administration to simply continuously stonewall Congress with no consequences.”

Lieu is pushing for the use of inherent contempt.

Even Schiff, who came to Congress in part by defeating a Republican who voted for President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, said on Sunday that relying on the courts may not work for Trump, Ukraine and the undisclosed whistleblower complaint.

“We cannot afford to play rope-a-dope in the court for weeks or months on end,” Schiff said. “We need an answer if there’s a fire burning it needs to be put out, and that's why we're going to have to look at every remedy . . . we're going to have to consider impeachment, as well, as a remedy here.”

The whistleblower complaint has Congress and Trump at an impasse. Here’s what the law says.

By Deanna Paul | Published September 22 at 2:10 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted September 22, 2019 6:10 PM ET|

The Trump administration, Congress and the media are consumed by a whistleblower complaint lodged last month with the inspector general of the intelligence community.

Although the whistleblower’s identity and substantive details of the complaint remain unknown, some specifics have begun taking shape. As The Washington Post reported last week, the report centered on several conversations involving President Trump and Ukraine, and a promise to a foreign leader so concerning that it drove a U.S. intelligence official to file the complaint.

In an unprecedented move, acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire refused to share the complaint with congressional intelligence committees, even after receiving a subpoena, claiming that the law did not require him to do so. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) accused Maguire of violating the law.

As tensions between Congress and the Trump administration mount, intelligence whistleblower laws are under a national spotlight.

Are intelligence whistleblowers protected by law?

A whistleblower is a person who exposes information or activities that are unlawful, unethical or in violation of a company’s policy. Federal whistleblower protection laws and most states’ laws make it illegal to retaliate against an employee who reports employer violations or misconduct.

Intelligence whistleblowers face additional hurdles and more severe consequences — not only termination of employment but also the threat of criminal prosecution — because of the confidential nature of information that their concerns could include.

The Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, passed by Congress in 1998 and incorporated at the creation of the Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General in 2010, fashioned a special set of procedures for employees to report misconduct that guarantee classified information remains classified.

Under the statute, an intelligence whistleblower is protected from retaliation so long as he or she follows the protocol when filing a complaint.

How does an intelligence whistleblower file a complaint?

The employee submits the complaint to the inspector general of the intelligence community. The inspector general is required to review it within 14 days and then determines whether the complaint is of “urgent concern,” which is defined as involving conduct “relating to” the “administration or operation of an intelligence activity within the authority of the Director of National Intelligence involving classified information.”

If the complaint appears credible, the inspector general is required to forward it to the director of national intelligence, who then has seven days to send the complaint and any accompanying information to congressional intelligence oversight committees. If the inspector general decides it’s not credible, or if he or she does not act on the complaint, the whistleblower can contact the congressional intelligence committees directly but must tell the inspector general and seek guidance from the director of national intelligence to contact the committees securely.

What happened here?

On Aug. 12, an intelligence community employee submitted a complaint to acting inspector general Michael Atkinson, who concluded the report was urgent and credible and forwarded it to Maguire.

Maguire, however, did not send it to the intelligence committees within seven days, as the statute requires, and failed to give the whistleblower guidance on how to securely contact the committees directly. Since then, Maguire has also refused to comply with a subpoena issued by the House Intelligence Committee, compelling him to produce an unredacted copy of the whistleblower complaint.

In a Sept. 17 letter to Schiff, Maguire’s general counsel, Jason Klitenic, said the whistleblower complaint was determined not to be an “urgent concern.”

The law did not require the director of national intelligence to forward it to Congress because it involved “conduct by someone outside the Intelligence Community and did not relate to any ‘intelligence activity within the responsibility and authority of the DNI,’ ” he claimed.

Klitenic also said the complaint involved “confidential and potentially privileged communications.” Disclosure would violate the president’s authority to control classified information and the whistleblower and inspector general were barred from sending the information directly to Congress, he said.

Can he do that?

The Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act has no provision for what should happen if the inspector general determines something is of urgent concern but the director of national intelligence refuses to forward it to Congress. The scenario has never come up before.

But some legal experts say that, because the law doesn’t directly address this issue, it means the inspector general has the final say.

“The DNI cannot countermand the inspector general’s determination,” Jesselyn Radack, a national security lawyer known for her defense of whistleblowers, told The Post.

Here, though, there’s an additional wrinkle: The director of national intelligence also consulted the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel

Robert Litt, former general counsel to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, explained in a piece published by Lawfare: “[Office of Legal Counsel] opinions are considered to be binding and authoritative interpretations of law within the executive branch. So if OLC in fact formally opined that this complaint was not an ‘urgent concern’ as defined in the statute, the DNI could take the position that the IG must follow that interpretation.”

What about the Trump administration?

Thus far, The Post reports, the White House has stopped short of asserting privilege over the complaint, though Klitenic suggested in his letter that it would try to prevent Maguire from complying with committee subpoenas.

A hallmark of past administrations has been vast presidential power to control disclosure of classified information; Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both championed whistleblower protections yet reiterated that the Whistleblower Protection Act did not undercut the president’s authority.

“The executive branch has always asserted the right to withhold deliberative material or presidential communications from Congress,” Litt wrote, concluding that it’s possible the privilege could protect the president’s communications with foreign leaders.

“The extent of such a privilege — and in particular whether it would protect communications that might constitute bribery — is untested,” he said. “But if the White House asserted such a privilege, the ODNI would be bound to honor it.”

In a Twitter thread Thursday, Jack Goldsmith, a former assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, similarly said that this was the “standard executive branch position” of many administrations and “should control here.”

“The president’s power to act in confidence is at its absolute height when he has a classified conversation with a foreign leader,” Goldsmith wrote. “This isn’t a defense of Trump; it’s a defense of the presidency.”

Can the whistleblower or inspector general disclose the complaint to Congress anyway?

Employees of the executive branch aren’t required to follow the White House’s guidance.

Still, legal experts are divided on whether the whistleblower and/or the inspector general could be prosecuted for sharing the complaint with congressional oversight committees, which are qualified to receive classified information.

Goldsmith said criminality depended on what was in the complaint, calling the decision to disclose “political and personally risky.”

“If the IG or the [U.S. government] employee believes the president has engaged in an act of national treachery, they can leak the information, which is a crime, and suffer the consequences,” he wrote, adding that unless Trump’s conduct rose to the level of objective betrayal — where leaking information would be warranted, justifiable and forgivable — then it should remain within the executive branch.

Susan Hennessey, a Brookings Institution fellow in national security law and general counsel of the Lawfare Institute, wrote Thursday that it would “almost certainly not be a crime” if it was done in a secured space.

“They wouldn’t be prosecuted; they’d just be fired,” she added.

Marty Lederman, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, agreed, saying“it probably wouldn’t be criminal for the whistleblower or IG to leak.”

The real risk, he said, is being fired for breaching terms of employment.

The disagreement between respected members of the legal community highlights the unprecedented challenges posed by this complaint. What’s clear, though, is that the whistleblower would assume some risk. When facing possible retaliation or criminal prosecution, “almost certainly not” and “probably wouldn’t be” are less-than-adequate reassurances.

What happens now?

In his letter, Klitenic said the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was willing to work with Congress in the accommodation process. Still, it’s unclear whether he and Schiff will be able to reach an acceptable resolution.

Many have surmised that Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch an investigation into the Bidens by threatening to withhold U.S. military and financial aid.

If the complaint contained that information, a former intelligence official told The Post, “it’s hard to imagine this White House agreeing to its release in any form.”