AZDPS Bell 407 Air Rescue
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i just found out something insane.
Interior, northern, and most of western Alaska has no medevac capabilities. as in if you get fucked and need a helicopter ride to the hospital you are stuck hoping for some bullshit.
so in the civilized world, medevac companies can be dispatched out to remote or difficult-to-reach injuries and emergencies and it functions like a flying ambulance. the medics arrive on scene in the helicopter and that's the transport to the hospital. this is the case in anchorage and the outlying communities as well as the southwest.
if you are north of Talkeetna and you get hurt badly here are your options. First, you hope that first responders can reach you by land because they won't be coming by air. They won't even be coming by water because while there is a robust Coast Guard presence in this state the ocean freezes for half the year and AFAIK once the water is solid there's not much they can do.
so once the medic gets to you and decrees that yep you definitely need hospital now as in helicopter-now these are your options.
you can 1.) hope that the State Troopers are bored. Emergency transport is not the trooper's job and the helicopters are not set up for it but if they're not doing anything else you can get a pilot out to the middle of nowhere to come help you.
or 2.) and I am not making this up, you hope that it is summertime and that something near you is on fire but not so on fire that the wildland fire crews can't spare the resources to get you to town.
And then that gets you to Fairbanks Memorial which is ... like trying to go grocery shopping at a gas station. If it is anything more complex than a broken bone, you're moving on. probably to Seattle. not to mention the medics who kept you alive on the flight there now need to figure out how to get back to wherever they came from.
for reference, courtesy of NPS
Eastern Kansas, Missouri, the Panhandle and the Aleutians get to live in the 21st century. kinda.
but the part that really gets me is that THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE. there are no roads to these places. to get to the hospital in a non-emergency requires a plane anyway. or a couple weeks on a barge.
see the red? those are roads. see all the dots with no roads going to them? think that there are some roads this map managed to leave out and that this is an exaggeration of how poorly connected this place is? nope. sure there are some smaller roads that didn't make it on the map, but the cartographer didn't miss a road the length of Nebraska.
This is also why buying an Arizona green tea costs seven dollars in Galena.
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sorry if someone asked already but would you drop your modlist? your game looks awesome
I can give you a general basics list I'd recommend. I cannot drop a full list of recs like my (outdated) fo3 doc lol, because I use 179 atm (unsure if it counts ones I've disabled but...it's too much lmfao)
[faces and models]
New Vegas Redesigned 3 (install FCO 2.3.1 as instructed, and download all optional files also)
Qwinn's Refined NVR 3 (load after nvr3 obv)
Brave New World (ONLY install the voices however)
BNW NVR3 PATCH (so brave new world and nvr3 work together)
Faction Overhauls : NCR Trooper Overhaul, Arizona Slave Army, Nightmare Fiends
[world visuals]
NMC's texture pack + Pre-Gen LOD (only download the medium or small files, large is unnecessary ; also download the patch in optional files)
Redesigned Quarries (load after NMC) I'd also recommend picking any other mods that catch your eye by SpiffySkyTrooper, he does great work !
For lighting I personally use ILO. But there are plenty to choose from, so just experiment with what you like best.
For misc clutter retextures, I recommend the modder BaleBandr0
I also recommend checking out LimeMods, offers a lot of great stuff
Location Overhauls : Gomorrah, Ultra Luxe, Vault 22, TGMIO
completely forgot i also use URWLNV !!!!
outside of that it is really just searching through nexus and picking whatever catches your eye. retextures or added visuals are probably 65-70% of what my mods are it feels like. modding is just a curation after all.
Concerning gameplay and everything is a whole other beast. So I hope it's alright I just stuck to graphics.
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also hey don't ever drive cross-country from phoenix to chicago across i80 with arizona plates because state troopers in nebraska will ""randomly"" pull you over 6 times in 3 hours for marijuana suspicion because they know you're traveling east from colorado
and the thing that one particular trooper said to me was, "if you do have anything, it's only a fine if it's under a certain amount" which tells you all you need to know about it being a fucking grift under the guise of drug enforcement
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PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) -- A former Arizona Department of Public Safety trooper will spend several years in prison after he was accused of pulling several women over and asking them for sexual favors. Tremaine Jackson was sentenced to five years in prison and a lifetime supervised probation. The punishment was part of a plea deal.
Investigators say between January 2018 to June 2019, several women came forward saying Jackson stopped them and held them against their will, sometimes for over an hour, during traffic stops. He also repeatedly asked them, “What am I gonna do with you?” and “What are you willing to do with me?” In some cases, he asked for sexual favors in an effort to bribe them out of tickets. One woman said Jackson asked for a sexual favor and then followed her home, where she locked all the doors until he left. DPS says he also pulled over more women than men based on traffic data.
Jackson spoke at the sentencing and was remorseful of his actions. “Your honor, I am aware that my actions caused harm to a lot of people, to the community. I don’t even consider the damage it’s caused myself. That is not my character, that is not my nature,” he said. “I can never fix what has happened. What has happened has happened. What I’m asking for, your honor, is the opportunity to prove that I’m not the person that everybody thinks that I am. Even though my actions say different, I know I’m not.”
He pleaded guilty in December to attempted kidnapping with sexual intent, unlawful imprisonment with sexual intent, unlawful sexual conduct by a peace officer, two counts of bribery with sexual intent and one count of fraud with sexual intent.
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"Wilmington Delaware: A gun owner was surprised when 2 ATF agents and 1 State Trooper showed up to his house asking to see his guns.
According to a WaPo Report, President Biden, in an attempt to combat rising gun violence, is working with ATF to begin knocking on gun owners homes who have recently purchased multiple firearms at once, in an attempt to fight "straw purchases" or the act of buying more than one gun in an attempt to give/sell that gun to someone who typically can't legally own a gun, such as a minor or convicted felon.
The man said he felt embarrassed as many neighbors came out to see what was happening as ATF agents rolled up to his house. He said he also felt "coerced" by the agents into showing them all his guns, despite having done nothing wrong. The Biden Admin stated last year, that these at-random gun checks would begin happening not just in large cities but even suburban neighborhoods.
They said they are specifically focusing in areas around the 95 Corridor, and the states of Indiana, Nevada, and Arizona. When journalists reached out to DE state police and Wilmington ATF branch for comment, they declined 2A advocates say this goes against ATF previously saying they have "no database" on gun owners, but "clearly, they do" if they are going home to home checking off people from their list. It appears the name, address, and a full list of what guns was purchased by the owner is on the paper."
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Last one from @kingstooth!!! I commished them to make an all new fantasy based look for Arizona and ITS AMAZING I LOVE THE FIT THEY GAVE HER SO MUCH!!!!
So many little things I love, the braid is so cute for her, the cat ear details on her pouches n belt!! Open vest to show off the cleavage ofc v v important for Arizona, the plated gauntlets, the ruby inset gems on the boots and necklace, and the quilted look on her vest n pants looks so comfy 🥹 and shout out to the lil red buttons keepin it all together, real troopers hahahaha
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CHICAGO (AP) — Seventy-five immigrants bused from Texas by Gov. Greg Abbott have arrived in Chicago, the latest chapter of the bitter political battle over the immigration policy of President Joe Biden’s administration.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office confirmed that the group arrived on Wednesday night and said the city welcomes them. The immigrants are being bused from Texas as part of a strategy launched by Abbott this year to share the influx of people from outside the United States with liberal cities. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has also adopted this policy.
“Chicago is a welcoming city and as such has collaborated across various departments and agencies to ensure we greeted them with dignity and respect,” Ryan Johnson, a Lightfoot representative, said in a tweet after the migrants began arriving at Union Station.
Authorities did not specify the immigrants’ countries of origin or say when they arrived in the United States.
“As a city, we are doing everything we can to ensure these immigrants and their families can receive shelter, food, and most importantly protection.” Johnson said in his statement. “Unfortunately, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is without any shame or humanity. But ever since he put these racist practices of expulsion in place, we have been working with our community partners to ready the city to receive these individuals.”
Abbott, a Republican, has now bused immigrants to Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. — all three cities have Democratic mayors. He confirmed in a statement that the “first group” had been bused to Chicago, the Chicago Tribune reported.
And he suggested that more would be arriving, saying in his statement that Chicago is now a drop-off location as a solution to what he called Biden's "open border policies overwhelming border communities in Texas.”
Abbott has been waging this battle for months and the mayors of New York and Washington have asked the Biden administration to help with what they describe as a surge of asylum-seeking migrants arriving from border states.
Earlier in the year, Abbott announced that state troopers would stop and inspect commercial vehicles crossing the U.S. Mexico border, a move he acknowledged would “dramatically slow” vehicle traffic near the U.S. ports of entry. He later eased that plan after massive gridlock at the border started to take an economic toll.
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found this other LIFE article about the Short Creek raid that is a fascinating read!
The Lonely Men of Short Creek
They await trial as result of polygamy uproar
For men used to having as many as five women and 21 children around the house it was a lonely situation for the men of Short Creek, Ariz. Stolidly they ate a breakfast of oatmeal and fried eggs (above). They were still too stunned to comprehend what had happened. The Short Creekers are a "fundamentalist" heretical splinter of the Mormon Church, who live underneath vaulting red cliffs--the Towers of Tumurru,--in one of the most inaccessible parts of the US, 150 miles from the nearest railroad. They believe "in all the doctrines and covenants of Joseph Smith," including communal living and the famous 132nd section sanctioning polygamy, which the orthodox Mormon Church renounced in 1890. But last July the sovereign state of Arizona in the person of 200 state troopers--five troopers per Short Creek man--descended on the colony.
Without making a direct charge of polygamy, the troopers arrested the men on charges of conspiracy to violate a host of laws from statutory rape to misappropriation of school funds. Governor Howard Pyle accused the community of being "unalterably dedicated to the wicked theory that every maturing girl child (usually before she reached the age of 15) should be forced into multiple wifehood with men of all ages." While the Short Creek men were in jail, the state packed nearly all of the town's 85 women and 250 children 450 miles away to Phoenix. Then the 36 men were released on bail pending hearings on Sept. 28.
The men walked from behind bars into their lonely town. Heaviest of their burdens was the state's disclosure of its intention not merely to wipe out the community but to place the children as state welfare charges in suitable Mormon homes. The men's religion forbids them to show anger, but one finally burst out, "what we are worried about is that we are never going to see our children again."
Legal questions, an elder's grave, an empty schoolhouse
Eighty-four-year-old Joseph Smith Jessop, named for the founder of the Mormon Church, was in a way a symbol of the small cooperative colonies believing in polygamy which have cropped up persistently in the Southwest despite efforts to stamp them out. He had 22 children between the ages of 64 and 4, 112 grandchildren and 147 great-grandchildren. As an elder of Short Creek's "United Effort" community, Patriarch Jessop helped direct the pooling and division of all earnings from the communally owned sawmill, dairy herd, cannery, 2500 acres of crop land and $35,000 in farm equipment. The shock of the arrest was too much for the staunch old Mormon. A month after the raid, heartbroken, he died and his huge family gathered around to do him honor.
In proceeding against the rest of the men of Short Creek, Arizona faced a tricky legal problem. Since the Short Creekers avoided civil marriage ceremonies, it is difficult to convict them of polygamy. The state therefore devised the plan of charging the Short Creekers with numerous other violations, for which the prosecution will demand heavy fines with the design of bankrupting the colony. Its investigators are collecting evidence, they say, to prove many women were reluctant participants in plural unions--for example, that one girl of 17 was almost forced to marry a 70-year-old. But the Short Creekers deny these charges and are preparing to defend themselves on constitutional grounds. One of them, a University of Utah graduate, says "The Bill of Rights says we can worship God as we please. My religion is not abridging the rights of others. Whose is the next religion that is going to become unpopular?"
Death of a patriarch added to Short Creek's sadness.
Joseph Smith Jessop, a founder of the colony, posed with youngest child Mabel Ann, 4, after release from jail. He said then, "This will probably be my last picture." A week later he died. Last week 101 members of his immediate family attended his funeral (center) and his sons dug his grave. At the funeral a son, Virgil Jessop, gave the eulogy: "this man has left nothing of his worldly worth, but he has left far more than most people of God's work. There isn't another man in the US that can boast this man's posterity…Grandpa has received a martyr's crown."
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Liz Perrachio, an AFSCME retiree from Mesa, told People’s World the troopers also made sure the participants got the full force of the gas. Her colleague, convention delegate Susan Kusar of Sedona, attended a later protest, on July 4, in Flagstaff in Arizona’s northwest.
That protest, Kusar added, drew everyone from teenagers chanting “Abort the court!” to participants in walkers and wheelchairs, including older men. “Why should our grandchildren have to go through what their grandmothers did?” she quoted the men as asking. The women discussed the protests in a July 12 interview during the union’s convention in Philadelphia.
The State Police not only fired tear gas projectiles at the Phoenix crowd but sent canisters far enough to block the one available street exit from Capitol Square, the demonstration site. The state Capitol itself and adjacent legislative offices flank that plaza.
“There was no police presence and no media” when Perrachio and a friend, Luisa Pedraza, arrived around 8 pm, she said. That made the police’s fusillade a surprise.
“All of a sudden, the Department of Public Safety” troopers “started shooting tear gas from the roof. There was no warning whatsoever. It landed behind us and we were inundated.”
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List of titles
To make the search on the blog easier, I've compiled a list of the movies, shows, etc that have at least one music here. I'll do my best to keep it updated as I add more.
Unfortunately tumblr won't let me publish a post with so many links, so I'm unable to add a link to each corresponding tag.
See the list under the cut :
List of movies / animated movies :
12 Monkeys
28 Days Later
2001: A Space Odyssey
A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
Alien
Aliens
American Beauty
A Nightmare On Elm Street
Arizona Dream
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Babe
Baby Driver
Basic Instinct
Batman Returns
Beetlejuice
Black Swan
Blade Runner
Blood Simple
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Brazil
Candyman
Carrie
Casper
Clockwork Orange
Conan The Barbarian
Coraline
Corpse Bride
Crash
Crimes Of The Future
Dancer In The Dark
Dark City
Darkman
Death Proof
Devdas
Die Hard
Dirty Dancing
Divine Intervention
Donnie Darko
Don't Worry I'm Fine
Dune (1984)
Dr. Strangelove
Dune (2021)
Edward Scissorhands
Escaflowne
Escape From New-York
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
Excalibur
Eyes Without A Face
Fargo
Firestarter
For A Few Dollars More
From Dusk Till Dawn
From Hell
Full Metal Jacket
Gattaca
Get Out
Ghost
Ghostbusters
Ghost In The Shell
Gremlins
Groundhog Day
Halloween
Hellraiser
Hereditary
Home Alone
Howl's Moving Castle
Interstellar
Interview With A Vampire
In The Mood For Love
Jane Eyre (1996)
Jane Eyre (2011)
Jurassic Park
La Belle et la Bête / Beauty And The Beast (1946)
Legend
Leon
Le Père Noël est une ordure / Santa Claus is a Stinker
Lisa Frankenstein
Little Miss Sunshine
Little Women (1994)
Mad Max Fury Road
Mandy
Melancholia
Microcosmos
Midnight Express
Midsommar
Moonrise Kingdom
Moulin Rouge!
Mulholland Drive
Near Dark
Nikita
Nope
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Oldboy
Once Upon A Time In The West
Only Lovers Left Alive
Oppenheimer
Out Of Rosenheim / Bagdad Café
Perfect Blue
Perfume : The Story Of A Murderer
Portrait Of A Lady On Fire
Ravenous
Re-Animator
Romeo + Juliet
Pan's Labyrinth
Phantom Of The Paradise
Phenomena
Philadelphia
Pi
Pink Floyd The Wall
Platoon
Poltergeist
Practical Magic
Predator
Pride And Prejudice
Princess Mononoke
Queen Of The Damned
Requiem For A Dream
Robocop
Rosemary’s Baby
Scanners
Scream
Sleepwalkers
Sleepy Hollow
Starship Troopers
Star Wars Episode IV
Star Wars Episode V
Star Wars Episode VI
Strictly Ballroom
Suspiria (1977)
Suspiria (2018)
Tacones Lejanos / High Heels
Terminator 2 : Judgement Day
The Abyss
The Addams Family
The City Of Lost Children
The Company Of Wolves
The Craft
The Crow
The Dark Crystal
The Elephant Man
The Exorcist
The Fifth Element
The Fly
The Frighteners
The Hobbit : An Unexpected Journey
The Hunger Games
The Hunger Games : Catching Fire
The Hunger Games : Mockingjay Part 1
The Hunger Games : Mockingjay Part 2
The Innocents
The King And The Mockingbird
The Land Before Time
The Lord Of The Rings : The Fellowship Of The Ring
The Lord Of The Rings : The Two Towers
The Lord Of The Rings : The Return Of The King
The Lost Boys
The Lovely Bones
The Matrix
The Mission
The Neverending Story
The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Omen
The Others
The Piano
The Prestige
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
The Shining
The Sixth Sense
The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya
The Terminator
The Thing
The Thin Red Line
The Virgin Suicides
The Witch
The Witches Of Eastwick
Time Of The Gypsy
Titane
Tommy
Total Recall
Tron Legacy
Under The Skin
Us
Whiplash
Willow
Wings Of Desire / Der Himmel über Berlin
List of series / miniseries / animated series :
Battlestar Galactica
Berserk
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Cowboy Bebop
Dark
Dragon Ball Z
Elfen Lied
Game Of Thrones
Lost
Lucifer
Misfits
Our Flag Means Death
Over The Garden Wall
Record Of Lodoss War : Chronicles Of The Heroic Knight
Serial Experiments Lain
Stephen King's IT
Stranger Things
Teen Wolf
The Dark Crystal : Age Of Resistance
The Haunting of Bly Manor
The Haunting of Hill House
The Vision Of Escaflowne
True Blood
Twin Peaks
Westworld
What We Do In The Shadows
Yellowjackets
List of games :
Bad Dream : Coma
Final Fantasy VII
Stardew Valley
List of podcasts :
The Magnus Archives
The Magnus Protocol
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Hello I would love to hear more about this Grey’s Anatomy Au because a year ago when I started watching Grey’s I had a Star Wars/Grey’s crossover dream and my roommate and I joke that Star Wars needs a space medical drama ALL THE TIME
OKAY OKAY OKAY SO
I know this sat in my inbox for EVER but I had to think of a way to tell you all about it while also not spoiling anything for the MASSIVE fic @writingbylee and I are writing
We each have an OC. Their OC is a Jedi Healer (Lyra) and mine is a field medic (Brynn). In the Grey’s Anatomy AU of our fic our OCs are working at Seattle Grace.
Brynn is a trauma resident (or maybe attending, i genuinely forget), previously a Navy Corpsman before being honorably discharged. She has a rivalry with Owen Hunt, because of the different service branches as wells as the fact that Owen thinks she is INSANE. Brynn will do anything she can to save a patient, including but not limited too: shoving her hands into a open wound to tamponade the bleeding, and Owen doesn’t particularly like that cause his ego sees Brynn as a threat.
Lyra is a fetal surgery fellow under Arizona Robbins. She had some trouble deciding which fellowship to take cause she had OFFERS: trauma, neonatal, general, and neuro. shes that FUCKING GOOD. I will let Lee explain more cause Lyra is their OC💕
Now on to the troopers. The ARC troopers, and other certain members of the 501st, are all either paramedics or fighters with Station 19, except for one (I don’t wanna name names for spoiler reasons) but: he was at one time a paramedic but had a case with a small child and it inspired him to work in Peds; specifically as a NICU RN.
Lee my beloved would you like to add on? Whether about Lyra or the Greys AU in general??
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What even is land?
After the disappointment of Ely we decided to just drive.
About half hour outside of Ely, just after a sign that said "prison area no hitchhiking" there was a state trooper with lights on in the middle of the road and cars pulled up alongside. Thankfully it was to pull us all over to allow a wide load to pass rather than an escaped convict. The wide load was some time coming so we got talking to people in front / behind us.
After the load passed we drove to Great Basin national park and looked around a little. There was a cave but the tours were fully booked.
Then we drove, and drove, and drove. The scenery would just change. The only constant was mind blowing beauty and signs to watch out for cows. Pictures below.
There were scary mountain passes, wide open spaces where time and space warped, forests and desert. We should have stopped earlier but Ely was so shit, we had to get as far as possible... The towns are so far between and by the time we realised we needed to call it there was nothing until Kanab where we stopped brain frazzled.
The first hotel had no rooms but were super sweet and searched for us and found a hotel with space. Apparently Kanab is the place to be. It was more expensive than our usual hotel budget but we are too tired to drive on.
After checking in we went to get food (they serve veggie burgers!) Then went to find a bar, where we found out that Utah laws only serve booze with food. Yikes. We need to abandon Utah. We ended up in a French restaurant having cheese and wine. In Utah. I was tempted by the Creme brulee but was too tired and full.
We stopped by the liquor store next to the police station on the way back to the hotel to have a drink before bed, and we booked the hotel for tomorrow in a random place I forget- towards Arizona.
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what mods do you use for your game ?
too much. if youre talking visually, for character models its New Vegas Redesigned 3, as far as i remember. since it requires FCO 2.31 some models are affected by that too im sure, but there’s plenty of fugly base game npcs around still.
for world textures i use NMC with some mods by spiffyskytrooper on top, and a bunch of other high res misc item retextures bc im picky and insane. And I use ReShade. I used an ENB for a bit, but idk im also really finicky about lighting in my game lol. and reshade is more predictable and easy for me to configure.
edit : duhhh i forgot i use mods that reskin the ncr and legion into looking more unique. NCR’s Trooper Overhaul and Arizona Slave Army. Oh. And Nightmare Fiends is a fun reskin mod to differentiate fiends too.
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Burnout is a Bitch...
I’ve been burned out exactly twice in my almost 32 years of life, which to me seems pretty lucky. Despite that though, I know that my feelings are valid and can acknowledge when I’m feeling tired all the time and completely burned out.
Without going into too much story time (like I tried to do in the post I ended up discarding before this one), my parents and I are in the process of possibly selling our house and possibly moving across the state of Arizona. It’s all still very much in the air, which is a rollercoaster of emotions in and of itself. Add to that, that I haven’t had 3 of my four depression and anxiety meds for three weeks (until yesterday) and you’ve basically got a perfect storm for stress and emotional problems, which isn’t exactly a thrilling combination of events.
Anyways, while I’m excited for the possibility of moving, it will mean that I’m 4 hours away from my friends and extended family, which might be a bit of a difficult transition for me. Add to that, that I’ll likely have to get new state sponsored health insurance because I’d be moving to a new county and may have to go without my meds for a bit until I can find a prescriber (or see if I can do phone call appointments with my current prescriber if my new insurance will cover the cost of it.). Add to that, that I have a tendency to isolate in situations like this and you’ve got a perfect trifecta of things for my mental health to go sour on me or at the very least a bit wonky for a while.
So, if I haven’t exactly been present lately in fandom and in fic writing, that’s why. It’s simply a stressful time in my life and a rollercoaster of emotions and it’s likely to get worse before it gets better in the coming months. I should *fingers crossed* be back to normal operating procedure by Fall/Autumn though, which is my favorite season.
Anyways, just wanted to come on to let y’all know that I’ll be taking a Tumblr break starting next week and it’ll likely last until we either move or get settled back in our current house (bc the market here is shit and anything can happen). So, you might notice my absence a bit for a while. I’ll try to load my queue up as much as I can this week/weekend, but after that, will be on here pretty sparsely if at all.
Anyways, if you’ve read all of this, you’re a trooper and I appreciate you!
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HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
April 20, 2022 (Wednesday)
Yesterday, Arizona governor Doug Ducey brought the Republican governors of 26 states together in the “American Governors’ Border Strike Force” to serve as a “force multiplier” in what he says is “criminal activity directly tied to our border.” For all of Ducey’s rhetoric about how the force is supposed to “accomplish what the federal government has failed at, protecting our communities from ruthless transnational criminal organizations,” the “strike force” is supposed to “share intelligence, strengthen analytical and cybersecurity efforts, and improve humanitarian efforts to protect children and families.” This measure is pretty clearly a political ploy before the midterms.
As the Texas Tribune reports, since 2005, Texas governors have launched widely publicized border initiatives during political campaigns, insisting that they would manage what the federal government was ignoring. Billions of dollars later, it is not clear they have accomplished anything.
Most recently, with Operation Lone Star in 2021, Texas governor Greg Abbott deployed more than 10,000 members of the Texas National Guard and state troopers to the border, at a cost of about $25 million a week for the troopers and $2 billion a year for the National Guard members. That’s almost five times what the legislature had budgeted. While the administration has claimed success, an investigation by ProPublica, the Texas Tribune, and the Marshall Project suggests that it is taking credit for arrests that had nothing to do with border issues and were often handled by law enforcement officers unconnected with Operation Lone Star. Most arrests are not of human traffickers or smugglers, but of people accused of trespassing on private property.And so, it appears, messaging for the midterms is in full swing.
In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis continues to threaten to dissolve Disney’s Reedy Creek Improvement District in his anger over Disney’s opposition to the recently passed “Don’t Say Gay” bill that restricts instruction in gender identity or sexual orientation in public schools in vague language that leaves the door open to silencing minority voices. Since 1967, the existence of the Reedy Creek Improvement District has given the company the right to govern the Disney park as if it were a town.
The Walt Disney Company delivers to the state more than $409 million in sales taxes for tickets alone, employs more than 80,000 Florida residents, and supports more than 400,000 more jobs. Today, the Miami Herald reported that repealing the company’s governing authority would raise taxes on families in the area by $2,200 each.
Florida state representative Michael Grieco (D) tweeted: “The FL Legislature cannot unilaterally dissolve Disney’s Reedy Creek Improvement District. It’s an exercise in futility… This whole thing is an effort to deflect attention away from the unconstitutional redistricting of Congressional districts and diluting of the black vote.” Grieco was referring to the governor’s redistricting map that heavily favors Republicans and that DeSantis drew himself after vetoing a more reasonable map—although still favoring Republicans—passed by the Florida legislature.
On Monday, federal judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle struck down the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s mask mandate on public transportation, saying the rule exceeded the CDC’s authority. The decision raised ire in part because it was transparently ideologically driven: former president Trump appointed the former clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas—she was then 33 years old—to a federal judgeship with just 8 years of experience practicing law, and the Senate confirmed her after Biden was elected. Her husband works at Jared Kushner’s new investment firm, the one bankrolled to the tune of $2 billion by the Saudi crown prince.
But in fact, according to a poll by the Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, a majority of Americans want a mask mandate on public transportation. Fifty-six percent of those polled wanted people to wear masks, while 24% were opposed and 20% didn’t care. A YouGov poll put the number of those in favor at 63% and those opposed at 29%.The rule was set to expire on May 3 in any case, but today, the Department of Justice appealed the ruling, largely to protect the authority of the CDC to impose similar requirements in the future. But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which will hear the case, is right leaning, and if it decides against the administration, it could weaken the CDC going forward.
Over all hangs the Big Lie that Biden stole the 2020 election from former president Trump. Supporters of the former president continue to hammer on that lie, trying to destabilize belief in our elections. Notably, John Eastman, author of the Eastman memo offering a scheme by which former vice president Mike Pence could overturn the election, is now pushing states to “decertify” Biden���s election. There is no mechanism for such a thing, but it hardly matters; the point is to continue to rile up Trump’s base with the lie that he was cheated.
But news from the January 6 committee is starting to get traction.
Yesterday, the editorial board of the Salt Lake City Tribune noted that “[i]t is past time for Mike Lee [R-UT, whose texts trying to overturn the election have just come to light] to start fessing up to all he knows about the plot to set aside the results of an honest and fair election to keep Donald Trump in power.”And right-wing media personality Alex Jones claims to have offered to talk with the Department of Justice about what he knows of the January 6 insurrection in exchange for immunity, suggesting that he is concerned about his actions surrounding January 6. We learned that the department quietly hired a well-known prosecutor of high-profile cases, Thomas Windom, to work on potential criminal prosecutions.
Democrats, too, are finding their voices for the midterms.
The administration continues to try to call attention to the booming economy, noting that the real GDP in the U.S. exceeds that of the other G-7 countries. Today, news broke that household cash exceeds debt for the first time in 30 years and that new housing starts, a key economic indicator, are rising fast: they are up 9.7% from a year ago. The Education Department announced it is taking advantage of existing but underused programs to cancel student loan debt for 40,000 people and to offer credits to more than 3.6 million federal student loan borrowers to help them repay their loans.
And the administration noted today that the Republican tax plan will increase taxes on 75 million middle-class families by an average of almost $1,500 a year while Biden’s plan will not raise taxes on anyone who makes less than $400,000 a year.
Money is shaping up to be a key issue. In Texas, Beto O’Rourke, who is running to unseat Abbott, is hammering hard on the cost of the governor’s shenanigans, including his recent stunt shutting down trade across the U.S.-Mexico border on the pretext of checking for drugs or undocumented immigrants. The shutdown cost the U.S. nearly $9 billion overall and Texas alone about $477 million a day. "What Abbott has done is literally create chaos on the US-MX border," O'Rourke said, "whether it's the National Guard deployment, where 4 guard members have taken their lives, this latest stoppage at international ports of entry... or just the rhetoric that has inflamed tensions." O’Rourke is also running an ad suggesting that Texas property taxes have gone up $20,000,000,000 under Abbott.
But the most inspiring approach to the midterms came this week from Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow. In response to a colleague who had called her a “groomer” in a fundraising email after McMorrow stood up against marginalizing the state’s LGBTQ population, McMorrow made a stand against the hatred and bigotry coming from Republican colleagues. Defining herself as “a straight, white, Christian, married suburban mom,” she called out the “performative nonsense” of her so-called Christian colleagues. “People who are different are not the reason that our roads are in bad shape… or that healthcare costs are too high, or that teachers are leaving the profession,” she said. “We cannot let hateful people tell you otherwise to scapegoat and deflect from the fact that they are not doing anything to fix the real issues that impact people’s lives.”
Recalling historical heroes who tried “to right wrongs and fix the injustice in the world,” she reminded her colleagues that “each and every single one of us bears responsibility for writing the next chapter of history. [We decide] what happens next, and how WE respond to history and the world around us.” “We will not let hate win.”
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