#Election Special 2018

[beau-rebloga-coisas]

I think the main difference I notice between the average USAmerica leftist and Brazilian leftist can be attributed to the fact that Brazil had a dictatorship, that was fought with tooth and nails to get rid of, and past that we got universal healthcare and voting rights again. I wish I could say all of Latin America is like this since so many of us had dictatorships but I don't know that many people from other countries (if you're latino please tell me), i think the average brazilian leftist understands there's no worth on peacefully resisting and if you want something, you need to fight or you'll be take and killed, or silenced, or "suicided". I note in a lot of (mainly white) USAmerican leftists that they wait for the change to be made for them instead of going like "wait, I can be a catalyst for changes" even if they're small.

#bernardo talks a lot #idk there's this difference specially on how they view the violence of the oppressed as equal to the violence of the oppressor which I want #to put under a microscope and stidy it in a lab setting #this sense that the world will change for the better alone #while on brazil we had baby steps constantly towards a better xountry #then that conservative ass came along and undid 30 years of work #with right propaganda imported straight from USA #most of the rightganda here is imported #even the queer infighting is imported #I've met the real actual queer community and they're a bunch of fags that couldn't care less about identity #and then i see Brazilian youth in the internet being fed this american right agenda thst there's a right way to be queer #and I BEG THEM TO PLEASE GO OUTSIDE #i think our conservatives were also way tamer before the imported rightganda #oh btw USA intervened here to make the dictatorship happen and then in 2016 (impeachment of an elected left president) #and then 2018 (election of a dictatoe wanabe that can't even talk coherently)

[reasonsforhope]

"In a 4-3 decision released on Friday afternoon December 22, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that Wisconsin’s voting maps as currently drawn violate the state constitution and must be redrawn in time for the 2024 election.

Under the Wisconsin Constitution, state legislative districts must consist of “contiguous territory.” [Meaning: continuous] Yet, the majority opinion states, “the number of state legislative districts containing territory completely disconnected from the rest of the district is striking.”

“At least fifty of ninety-nine assembly districts and at least twenty of thirty-three senate districts include separate, detached territory,” states the majority opinion, written by Justice Jill Karofsky.

Contiguous districts are a safeguard against gerrymandering and help keep together groups of voters who live in the same areas and have the same interests, explains the decision, which includes maps highlighting the islands of noncontiguous voting areas in the state’s current districts.

The voters who brought the lawsuit, Clarke v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, argued that the current districts violate the constitution and asked the court to  order the adoption of remedial maps. They also asked the court to declare the November 2022 state senate elections unlawful, and to order special elections for state senate seats that would otherwise not be on the ballot until November 2026.

The court’s ruling agrees with the petitioners that “Wisconsin’s state legislative districts must be composed of physically adjoining territory,” and enjoins the Wisconsin Elections Commission from using the current legislative maps in future elections. But it declined to invalidate the results of the 2022 state senate elections.

Acknowledging that it is the legislature’s role to draw voting maps, the majority opinion urges the legislature to draw new maps that comport with the constitution. However, it also states, since the legislature might not draw such maps or the governor might veto them, the court will plan to adopt remedial maps that can be used in time for the 2024 elections and unless and until new, constitutional maps are enacted through the legislative process...

Wisconsin’s voting maps are widely considered among the most politically gerrymandered in the country. This was reflected in 2018 when Democrats swept every statewide election and earned 53 percent of assembly votes cast statewide but only 36 percent of Assembly seats went to Democrats. Voters in Wisconsin are evenly split along partisan lines, and statewide races are often decided by slim margins. Currently, however, Republicans hold a 22-11 supermajority in the state senate and a 64-35 near-supermajority in the state assembly."

-via The Progressive Magazine

Note: Article is a bit wordy but this is a Big Deal. We're going to get fair election maps in an important swing state. The maps thrown out by this decision were deliberately designed to give Republicans a massive advantage in the election.

This WILL make a huge difference in who's elected in 2024.

#wisconsin #united states #us politics #gerrymandering #elections #election 2024 #fair elections #voting rights #voting #voter suppression #good news #hope

[lizardsfromspace]

Saw someone actually lay out how messed up the situation is in Wisconsin to relatively little notice on another site & I didn't know that situation was like. That unknown. But

Wisconsin is no longer democratic & is a test case for right-wing rule's endgame

Not democratic in a political party sense. Not democratic in a "it is no longer a democracy in most senses" sense

It went for Biden in 2020 (& blue every recent Presidential election bar 2016) and Democrats won every state office in 2018...

...but it's impossible for them to have a majority in the legislature. Even the 50/50 split implied by election results is impossible

After a Democrat won in 2018 they stripped the Governor of all his power. All he can do is veto bills & call special sessions...

...which end in seconds bc the right just immediately gavels them closed. Sessions on gun violence & abortion ended instantly, with no debate, and thus nothing but far-right laws can even go up for a vote

Not only do they not confirm his appointees but they won a court case saying anyone appointed by a past Governor can stay in after their term if no one new is confirmed

Since the right won't confirm anyone new, people appointed by Scott Walker effectively have their offices permanently, four years later

People going "just vote!" feels so weird bc, yeah, in this case voting is vital, we need a Democratic governor to veto bills, but also you can literally "just vote" & nothing else. Changing the system or even the smallest positive advance is impossible. The best result is upholding the status quo & delaying the right's full takeover of the few offices they don't control by another four years, something you can't count on being able to do bc they've spent the past two years testing the waters of letting the legislature just overrule election results completely

Anyway this is the future, today! and we live in hell

#uspol #long post

[kdramaladies]

#KDRAMAWOMENSWEEK 2024     —March 25th - 31st, 2024

In celebration of Women’s History Month, we invite you to join us for a week of chatting and getting creative about our favourite women of Korean drama and film. @kdramaladies is excited and honoured to host the event this year, and we’re thankful for the efforts of the folks at @undergroundkdrama, @dramaheroine (who also came up with the prompts), @songkangsbottomteethcirca2020, and @gudongmae for hosting and organizing this event since 2015.

Join us in celebrating by creating visual content (gifs, fanart, edits, etc.) or just talking about your favourite kdrama women inspired by the prompts below. Please tag your posts with #kdramawomensweek and/or #kww2024, so they are easier to find, admire, and reblog.

Monday (March 25th): city girls/country girls

This prompt is all about the women who live and breathe the city life, the women who just feel deeply at home in the countryside or those who have made their escape to either the countryside or the city.

Tuesday (March 26th): female president

Where are the women leaders in kdramas??? Choose your favourite female authority figure. If you cannot think of one, choose a female character who you think deserves to be a big mover and shaker or even perhaps elected President.

Wednesday (March 27th): style + her

This is a sequel to the great femininity and her prompt from 2017. This time round, this is all about characters’ fashion style. What does their clothes/make-up/accessories tell us about the character? How does the character use her style? OR female characters with an amazing fashion sense that you love

Thursday (March 28th): a room of one’s own

Women who live alone, female leads’ homes that you love, inspiring bedroom decor or special spaces that the women in your favourite dramas use often.

Friday (March 29th): in defense of the Candy female lead

Here is a space to show love to your favourite candy female leads, also known as Cinderella female leads. If you have no idea what that means, here is a great definition: “A “Candy girl” is described as a woman who has unfortunate circumstances but is 1) hardworking, 2) cheerful, and 3) innocent. The definition also extends to being able to catch the eye of a wealthy man (or men, for that matter). She’s basically Cinderella without the fairy godmother and with a more complicated life.” (Taken from: K-Drama 101: What is a Candy Girl?)

Saturday (March 30th): ladies out on the town

Think of nightclub scenes, big parties, small parties, late night karaoke sessions, elaborate or not so elaborate dance sequences…

Sunday (March 31st): everything everywhere all at once

Actresses who have starred in more than 2 dramas in 2023/2024 OR women with multiple identities-think of past lives,fake identities or body swapping…

Please also feel free to be inspired by the prompts from previous years (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2020 Part Deux, 2021, 2022, 2023)

#kdramawomensweek #kww2024 #kdramaedit #kdramanetwork #kdramasource #asiandramanet #dailyworldcinema #femaledaily #dailywoc #dramasource #dailyasiandramas #girlslovenet #udeokmis #samblr #mostlyfate #userkimchi #useryd #syaring #usereda #userxlh

[racefortheironthrone]

Which federal laws and policies would you get rid of or modify in order to help the American labor movement.

I was looking through the labor law tag on my blog and your ask reminded me I haven't actually written a comprehensive post about this on Tumblr. (Indeed, you'd have to go back to my old, old policy blog from 2009...it's been a while.)

One silver lining of the Sisyphean struggle to restore American labor law that's been going on since the 1970s is that the labor movement and their allies in Congress, academia, think tanks, and progressive media have been thinking through this very issue of "what reforms would make a real difference" for a long time. I'm not going to say it's a solved question, but the research literature is pretty robust.

For the purposes of this post, I'm going to focus on the three most recent reform packages: the Employee Free Choice Act that was the main vehicle during the Obama years, Bernie Sanders' Workplace Democracy Act (which was introduced repeatedly between 1992 and 2018), and the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act) that is the current proposal of the Democratic legislative caucuses. There's going to be quite a bit of overlap between these proposals, because it's very much an iterative process where allies in the same movement are trading ideas with one another and trying to stay abreast of new developments, but I'll try to tease out some of the similarities and differences.

EFCA

While EFCA contained a number of provisions that sought to close various loopholes in U.S labor law, the three main provisions largely target the flaws that have made it extremely difficult to win a union through the National Labor Relations Act process devised in 1935 that has turned into a Saw-style gauntlet thanks to the professionalization of union-busting and the Federalist Society's strategy of death-by-a-thousand-cuts:

"Card check." Probably the most common pattern of union-busting in the workplace today is a war of attrition by management waged by an industry of specialized law firms. Generally what happens is that the union files for election with a super-majority of ~70% workers having signed union cards, then management delays the vote as long as possible to give their hired "union-avoidance" firm to systematically intimidate, surveil, propagandize, and divide workers, up to and including illegally firing pro-union workers pour encouragez les autres. Over several months, what happens is that the initial 70% of pro-union support starts to erode as workers decide it's just too dangerous to stick their necks out, until the vote happens and the union loses either by a squeaker or a landslide.

Card check short-circuits this process by just saying that if the union files with a majority of cards, you skip the election and the union is recognized. And for all the pearl-clutching by the right, this is actually how labor law works in many democratic countries, because the idea of a fair election that lets management participate is an oxymoron.

Arbitrated first contract. In the event that enough workers keep the faith and actually vote for a union, management's next move is to draw out collective bargaining for a year or more. After a year, the original vote is no longer considered binding and employers can push for a "decertification" vote, which they usually win because workers either give up hope or change jobs. So this provision says that if the two sides can't reach an agreement on a first contract within 120 days, a Federal arbitrator will just impose one, so that at least for two years there will be a union contract no matter what management wants.

Strengthening enforcement. As I said above, one of the problems with existing labor law is that there are basically no penalties for management knowingly breaking the law; companies literally just budget in a line-item and do it anyway. This provision would allow unions to file an injunction against employers for unfair labor practices or ULPs (at present, injunctions are only required for violations done by unions), and would add triple back pay for illegal firings and fines of $20,000 for each ULP. This would make union-busting much more expensive, because companies routinely rack up hundreds and hundreds of them during a campaign.

Workplace Democracy Act

Sanders' proposal includes the main proposals from EFCA, and adds a bunch of additional reforms, like mis-classifying workers as independent contractors, banning captive audience meetings, making "joint employers" liable for labor law violations by franchisees, legalizing secondary boycotts, and requiring employers to report to the NLRB on all anti-union expenditures during a campaign and barring anyone convicted of an unfair labor practice from being hired for anti-union campaigns and making "union-avoidance" consultants liable for fines for ULPs (which would kill the "union-avoidance" industry, because they commit ULPs for a living).

PRO Act

The PRO Act is very much an updating of the previous efforts we've talked about. It bans captive audience meetings, allows for secondary strikes and boycotts, massively increases fines and allows for compensatory damages, ends mis-classification, speeds up the election process, etc.

It also contains a couple new and ambitious proposals:

it allows unions to sue management in court instead of having to complain to the NLRB, which opens management up to a very expensive legal proceeding and discovery.

it bans "right-to-work" as established by the Taft-Hartley Act.

it requires that any worker who's fired for pro-union activity be immediately reinstated while their unfair labor practice process or civil lawsuit is going through the process. This would be enormous just on its own, because it changes the entire veto structure of illegal firing. As it stands, employers fire people and maybe maybe have to pay some back wages in a couple years when the worker has found another job and is unlikely to come back. This would reverse the balance of power, such that the worker is immediately back and other workers can see that they can speak up without getting fired, which makes illegal firings a giant waste of time and money for management.

In terms of stuff that's not on this list that I would add, I would say that an enormous difference could be made by simply making it illegal for management to lock-out their workers or hire scabs. You do that, and unions can win almost every strike.

#labor law #labor law reform #labor movement #trade unions #unions #union movement #public policy

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Prince Harry says 'I had to be here' as he and Meghan attend film premiere. by u/Quiet-Vanilla-7117

Prince Harry says 'I had to be here' as he and Meghan attend film premiere. "Harry said 'I had to be here' after arriving at a film premiere in Jamaica where he and Meghan Markle posed next to the country's anti-royal Prime Minister.The Sussexes also posed with Marlene Malahoo Forte, Jamaica's minister for legal and constitutional affairs who, last year, suggested the Caribbean country could become independent of the British monarch and have its own president in 2024. She said that Jamaica could soon 'sever ties' with the monarchy, and the nation's future should be 'in Jamaican hands'.It's not clear who invited the Sussexes to the premiere, but according to Caribbean National Weekly, Harry told the media on the red carpet: 'I had to be here.'Cozying up to Mr Holness has raised fresh questions of the Sussexes, given the Jamaican PM is pushing ahead for plans for the country to become a republic.A referendum is set to be held later this year, with Mr Holness previously admitting that the island wanted to cut ties with Britain after Queen Elizabeth II's death.Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams said that when Harry and Meghan were senior working members of the Royal Family, they had a 'very special appeal to the Commonwealth' and were president and vice-president of the Queen's Commonwealth Trust.Harry was also appointed Commonwealth youth ambassador in 2018.In order to become a republic Jamaica's Constitution requires a 2/3 majority in both the elected and nominated Houses of Parliament and a simple majority in a general referendum. However, if it obtains a 2/3 majority in the elected House but only a simple majority in the nominated House it will require a 2/3 majority of the electorate in a referendum." Archewell have been contacted for comment. https://archive.md/wip/qa6BM​ post link: https://ift.tt/GPWomIy author: Quiet-Vanilla-7117 submitted: January 25, 2024 at 02:24AM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

#SaintMeghanMarkle #harry and meghan #fucking grifters #Worldwide Privacy Tour #Backgrid #meghan markle #prince harry #voetsek meghan #sussexes #markled #archewell #archewell foundation #megxit #duke and duchess of sussex #soho house #yacht girl #markus anderson #duke of sussex #duchess of sussex #walmart wallis #clevrblends #clevr blends #meghan and harry #doria ragland #WAAAGH #high heels harry #rent a royal #Quiet-Vanilla-7117

[beardedmrbean]

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The longest-serving member of the Alabama House of Representatives has resigned from the Legislature after pleading guilty to federal conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges related to a grant program.

John Rogers, 83, submitted his resignation effective last Wednesday, Clay Redden, a spokesman for the House of Representatives confirmed Monday. Rogers also pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice. The charges are related to what federal prosecutors described as a kickback scheme that diverted money from a fund intended to pay for community projects in Jefferson County.

Rogers, a Democrat from Birmingham, was first elected to the Alabama Legislature in 1982. He agreed to resign as part of a plea deal with prosecutors. However, he would have been ineligible to continue serving with a felony conviction on his record.

He will be sentenced on July 26. Federal prosecutors are recommending that Rogers be sentenced to 14 months of home confinement. He agreed to pay $197, 950 in restitution as part of the plea deal..

The guilty plea comes after former state Rep. Fred L. Plump, Jr. and Varrie Johnson Kindall, Rogers’ former assistant, pleaded guilty to related charges. Federal prosecutors said that between 2018 and 2022 Rogers directed $400,000 to a youth sports organization run by Plump. Federal prosecutors said that Plump gave approximately $200,000 of that money back to Rogers and Kindall.

A special election will be held to fill Rogers' House seat.

#nunyas news

[seymour-butz-stuff]

During the 2016 elections, Russian government agents hacked into the Democratic National Committee and into Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, then dumped the stolen data in an effort to sabotage Donald Trump’s election opponent. The more we learn about the supposed “Hunter Biden laptop,” a scandal meant to roil the campaign of Donald Trump’s election opponent four years later, the more it looks like somebody was following the same hack-and-dump playbook. Marcy Wheeler has a new post that breaks down some of the many, many known oddities of the supposed "laptop." When you consider that the whole premise of the story to begin with is that a "Hunter Biden" allegedly wandered into a random Delaware computer repair shop, handed over a damaged laptop, completely forgot about it afterward, and then somehow the computer dude and/or allies decided that Donald Trump ratf--ker Rudy freaking Giuliani was the person he needed to deliver the laptop's data to, dozens of other oddities piled on top of that begin to turn what started out as farce into a full three-ring circus of weird. Marcy's post is, as usual, worth reading in full, but here’s the shortest version of it: Quite a lot of evidence suggests that in 2018 or 2019, Hunter Biden was the target of a successful phish or other hack that gave an outside party access to his iCloud account, his email accounts, and other data. Of special note is a window of time during which Hunter was receiving addiction treatment (from the disgraced ex-Fox News talking head Dr. Keith Ablow, no less, just to put a nearly cartoonish spin on all this yet again) and appears to have had "limited" online communications. Despite those limited communications, somebody was using this period of time to make a hell of a lot of technical changes to Hunter's iCloud and email accounts

[girlactionfigure]

🔅ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting the World to Israel in Realtime

🔻HEZBOLLAH SUICIDE DRONES x2 rounds at Sdeh Meron, Hurfeish, Zivon and surrounds, then Beit Jann, Har Chalutz, Harashim.

🔻HEZBOLLAH ANTI-TANK MISSILE fired at the Ramim Ridge IDF post.

▪️YET MORE HOSTAGE / CEASEFIRE LEAKS.. Senior Hamas official: "Biden's statements about the cessation of fighting in Gaza are premature and do not correspond to the situation on the ground. There are still big gaps that need to be addressed before a ceasefire."

Qatar - Spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: "There is no agreement between Hamas and Israel on any of the main issues related to the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. We are optimistic in light of the continuation of the dialogue between the parties, but there is no special development that can be announced.”

Reuters from a source in Hamas: “Biden's statements about the cessation of fighting in Gaza are too early. There are big gaps that need to be bridged before a ceasefire.”

▪️ELECTION NEWS.. So far: the lowest voter turnout in local elections in Israel, at 26% as of 15:00 vs. 33% in 2018.

Election bribery case in Beit Shemesh, 6 arrested for offering payment (NIS 100-500) for either the identity card with which to vote for them, or for them to vote for a particular candidate and party. Instructions for distraction and ballot stuffing were also found.

Election fight in Moshav Zrahia (near Kiryat Malachi), as two campaign managers of rival council candidates ran into each other at a polling station. Both arrested plus one more.

Election stabbing in Kabul (northern Arab Israeli town), ‘violent incident with stabbing’ a the polling station.

Election fight in Aror (north Negev Israeli Bedouin town), fight and gunshot near polling station between two sides of an extended family.

As of 15:30 p.m.: The police have dealt with a number of election incidents as a result of which 8 were arrested and 35 cases were opened for crimes of electoral integrity, threats and violence.

▪️LEBANON.. attack waves by the IDF Air Force throughout the day.

▪️GAZA.. The IDF says it struck a Hamas command center and a launcher used to carry out a rocket fire from the Gaza Strip on southern Israel yesterday morning, within several hours of the attack.

▪️NEW HEZBOLLAH WEAPON? A commander in Hezbollah's "Armored Corps" told (Arab news) Al-Mayadeen: The new” thermobaric" missile is capable of destroying houses and killing everyone inside.

▪️AID.. Egypt with the UAE and Jordan, in cooperation with Israel, air dropped aid on Rafah today after yesterday’s air-drop miss by Jordan (landed in the sea).  Overnight 40 aid trucks entered through the Rafah crossing to be delivered to the residents of the northern Gaza Strip, if they were not looted by Hamas or Rafah refugees en route.

▪️THOUSANDS GATHERED IN NEW YORK’S TIME SQUARE FOR THE HOSTAGES.. https://youtube.com/shorts/4_irVQ-hiDo?si=p-Da0HI5yfXnliu5

#Israel #Realtime War Updates #October 7 #Operation Swords of Iron #Hamas Massacre #Israel/HamasWar

[odinsblog]

Back in 2001, Senate Bill 1 passed the Texas state legislature and banned Harris County - that's Houston - from keeping polls open late into the night, or overnight, so that shift workers could vote, while expanding early voting in rural counties. It lets the state throw away absentee ballots that don't come in with the voters drivers license number attached, without telling people that their vote hasn't been counted. It makes it a felony for any state employee to mail out an unsolicited absentee ballot. It requires election officials to do monthly purges of voting rolls, without notifying voters that they'll no longer be able to vote.

It provides new legal protections for so-called, non-partisan poll watchers.

They're actually recruiting Proud Boys down in Texas to be poll watchers, and it makes it a one year in prison offense if you try to stop them or confront them.

And it maintains the state's lack of convenient online voter registration, making it the most difficult state in the union to vote in. That was two years ago to set up Greg Abbott's election victory in the election of 2022.

Now they're coming back with a brand new piece of legislation that would allow the Republican Secretary of State to throw out all the votes in any county with over 2.7 million people, if the secretary of state believes there are any “irregularities” in the count. Now interestingly enough, the county that has Dallas has 2.6 million people and it votes Republican. The county that has Houston, which votes Democratic, has 2.7 million people. It has over 2.6 million, so in the law they made it only apply to any county with over 2.6 million people.

This is just one small piece of a much larger effort.

As the Texas Civil Rights Project noted, in just the first four years after five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, Texas Republicans closed 1173 polling places in mostly Black and Hispanic counties that had previously been protected by the Voting Rights Act, but none of that was enough for them.

As the Houston Chronicle noted two days ago, the effort is now to be able to throw out election results in Houston, and then say, “now the state has to have a new election that has to be paid for by the county,” or “now the county has to have a new election that has to be paid for by the county.”

And of course they want to do this because they know that special elections have very low turnout, and low turnout always favors Republicans, because the people who can most easily vote are the people who are salaried, upper middle class — white people mostly, and people who are retired. You know the aging Republicans in Texas, and you know it's pretty straightforward stuff.

Out of the 254 counties in Texas, only Harris County, only Houston was selected for this. And this is, you know, a county now that is led by people of color, as the Harris County attorney pointed out.

And Republican Secretaries of State across the nation were vigorously purging people from the polls. Over 17 million, more than 10% of America's active voters were purged off voting rolls in just the two years leading up to the 2018 elections, according to NBC News.

In North Carolina, now this again after the Voting Rights Act was gutted by five Republicans on the Supreme Court, in North Carolina 158 polling places were permanently closed in the 40 counties with the largest African-American populations leading up. This was just before the 2016 election, the Donald Trump election. This led to a 16% decline in African-American early voting in that state.

An MIT study found that nationwide, Hispanic voters wait 150% longer than white people do in line.

Black voters wait 200% longer in line.

In Indiana when then Governor Mike Pence passed a rigorous new Voter ID law, it produced an 11.5% drop in African-American voting in Indiana. This is why we didn't get President Al Gore or President Hillary Clinton. We would have gotten both of them if it wasn't for voter suppression.

Down in Florida, Jeb Bush knocked 90,000 African-Americans off the voting rolls so that his brother could win by 537 votes. Or we would have had President Al Gore, if it had been illegal for Jeb Bush to throw those people off the voting rolls.

And the same thing in 2016: an 11.5% drop in African-American voting just in Indiana, because of a law that Mike Pence passed.

Well, it was happening all over the country. By 2016, the Republican Party had really fine-tuned this voter suppression machine.

The New York Times reports in 2017 that just in Wisconsin, this is in the 2016 election, about 17,000 registered votes were turned away from the polls because of a new Voter ID law from Scott Walker.

In 2018, Greg Palace sued a number of Republican Secretaries of State and got his hands on purge lists that included 90,000 people in largely Democratic parts of Nevada, and 769,000 people in Colorado.

Keep in mind this is when Colorado was run by Republicans. 340,000 people in Georgia, and 469,000 people purged in Indiana.

In the dissent, in the Huston v. Randolph case, this was the case in 2018, where five Republicans on the Supreme Court said, “Yeah, it's fine. You can keep purging people from voting rolls.”

This was the Ohio Secretary of State, Stephen Breyer pointed out in his dissent, and I quote, “the record shows that in 2012, Ohio identified 1.5 million registered voters, nearly 20% of its 8 million registered voters as ineligible to remain on the voting rolls because they changed their residences,” and he points out that's 20% of the state's voters - who were kicked off for moving, when on any average year, about 4% of Americans move. How do these numbers come in while they just, you know, hey, Brown people, Black people, college towns, let's just purge them.

Calling the findings disturbing, the Brennan Center said, almost 4 million more names were purged in the rolls between 2014 and 2016. This led up to the Trump election.

Then between 2006 and 2008, this growth in the number of removed voters represented an increase of 33%, far outstripping growth of both total registered voters, 18%, and total population 6%.

This has been their strategy for years and years and years, to throw people off the voting rolls. Now on top of that, they're waging their culture wars, but the culture wars are not all that popular among most Americans.

—Republicans cry “Voter Fraud!” while enacting massive Voter Suppression laws

#politics #mike pence #republicans #voter suppression #greg abbott #republican dirty tricks #voter roll purges #white supremacy #gop shenanigans #jeb bush #voter intimidation

[shirokokuro]

The Curious Case of Megalobox and Translation as a Form of Metacommentary

Pardon me for I must speak about the boxing show.

***Vague spoilers for Megalobox Season 1***

Background

Megalobox is a 2018 sports anime set in a futuristic Japan that is characterized by wealth-disparity and illegal immigration. The story follows Joe “Junk Dog,” a boxer who partakes in underground, rigged fights orchestrated by the mafia tycoon Fujimaki. Despite his talent, Joe’s status as an illegal alien ensures that he is doomed to throwing matches for income.

Joe’s literary foil is the champion boxer Yuri. Possessing a much higher status than Joe, Yuri is the main fighter for the Shirato Group, a tech company specializing in assistive gear for megalo-boxing matches. His passion for boxing has ultimately been stifled by the economic aspirations of the Shirato Group’s CEO, Yukiko Shirato. In a bid to display their state-of-the-art boxing gear to military investors, the Shirato Group hosts a megalo-boxing tournament. This decision sets the course for Joe and Yuri’s inevitable collision.

Themes

Megalobox explores a variety of concepts such as poverty, addiction, classism, and family. At its crux, the first season emphasizes that greed is the antithesis of passion and that personal autonomy is necessary to achieve a life well-lived.

Audience

I was unable to find any demographic information for Megalobox’s audience. The creative team elected to use line art reminiscent of 90s hand-drawn animation, and the rating is 14 and up. From this, it is clear the intended audience was meant to be young adults and older. Additionally, I think it’s safe to say given the contents of the show that it is intended to appeal to male viewers.

Thesis

Translational variances between the Japanese dub of Megalobox and the English sub and dub versions present different interpretations of the show’s core messages. In the English translation, gender is injected into the show’s text in ways absent in the original Japanese.  

Discussion

By and large, the translation team for Megalobox did a stellar job keeping true to the original intention of the Japanese dialogue. The English dub mirrors the English subtitles very closely, and I think the voice acting team did a very good job at delivering these lines. In fact, Megalobox is one of the few anime that I chose to watch in English dub instead of with subtitles, which has culminated in my current epiphany.

When watching, I couldn’t help noting some of the moments when characters would discuss “men” as a state of being. In these scenes, the word “men” was used in lieu of “human” to discuss philosophical concepts. This tendency tinted my understanding of Megalobox. I was curious if this gendered interpretation was inherent to the original Japanese as well or if this machismo patina was a result of translational bias. After performing brief comparisons of some English and Japanese scenes, I discovered it was the latter.

There are a few moments in the show where non-gendered phrases are translated as male. For instance, in episode 12, Yuri and Yukiko are discussing the irrationality of Yuri’s desire to fight Joe. In the English subtitles, Yuri explains his reasoning with the following:

“The man who taught me Megalo-boxing told me something. ‘If you’re lucky enough to run into a fighter in your generation who you want to win against from the bottom of your heart, consider yourself blessed. If you ever find someone like that, never let him out of your sight.'"

The tricky thing with translating sentences like the ones above is that Japanese often doesn’t use pronouns. There’s no need to use them because grammatical subjects aren’t required to form a complete sentence. As such, when translating Japanese to English, a pronoun often must be inferred for the translation to be effective. Translators are thus left to fill in the blanks of what the English translation should be. This freedom leads to some interesting results, like in Megalobox. For example, the above quote doesn’t actually use any gendered language at all in the original Japanese.

“The person [人 hito] who taught me Megalo-boxing told me something. ‘If, in your generation, you meet a fighter who you want to win against from the bottom of your heart, that is a blessing. If you ever meet a person like that, never take your eyes off of [them].'”

The “man” and “him” in the translation are absent from the actual Japanese. This isn’t a huge deal, especially because we see that Yuri’s trainer was a man and, Yuri being a male Megaloboxer, his opponent being male is sort of implied. In the dub, there is the additional challenge of matching the mouth movements to the VA’s lines. Again, I don’t take issue with the above English translation since the gender is implied through context. Some other translations, however, altered the text in ways that fit the original message of Megalobox into a gendered frame.

Such alterations appear in two conversations, once in episode 6 between Aragaki and Nanbu and once in episode 13 between Yuri and Joe.

(1) In the conversation between Aragaki and Nanbu, the two are discussing the finale of Aragaki’s career and his feelings surrounding it. Aragaki discloses a conversation he had with Joe:

However, the closer translation is something like, “Joe said something to me: ‘You can blame whoever, but the decision to make the call is up to you.’” The Japanese word used here isn’t “man” or even “human.” The original Japanese uses the word 手前 (temei), which is a derogatory way to say “you.” Aragaki is literally relaying the words that Joe said verbatim. In the English, the translation is generalized to humanity in general, encapsulated by the gendered term “man.” As such, the moral of Joe’s Japanese statement splits from its insular roots (“You have to make your own call”) to instead reflect a broader worldview (“A man makes his own calls”).

(2) The second time this alteration appears is during a brief internal monologue of Yuri during his fight with Joe. The main statement of interest is this one:

The closer translation, however, is, “I can’t dance on my own.” The Japanese word used here is 俺 (ore), a gruff, masculine way to say “I” instead of the “a man” used in the English dub and subtitles. Given this, what the spoken Japanese accomplishes is completely different in tone and message from the English subtitles and dub. In the Japanese, Yuri is expressing a thought that pertains only to himself and Joe; in contrast, the English translation poses this moment as if Yuri is pontificating about the nature of man and man’s dependence upon competition to achieve new heights. While both the original and translation are not entirely divorced from the core concept of Megalobox (i.e., passion makes life worthwhile), the English translation provides a societal commentary on the nature of man that is not present in the original Japanese.

Closing Thoughts

I hesitate to describe this type of translation as “dangerous." It is completely fine to have media that explores what it means to be a man in the same ways it is fine to have media that explores what it means to be a woman or to be someone of any other gender.

That being said, at its core, Megalobox discusses the human condition and the necessity of dreams—fueled through personal autonomy—to sustain meaning in life. This moral is by no means intended to be gendered in the original Japanese. In the conversation between Aragaki and Nanbu, for example, the Japanese assertion that people have to make their own choices can just as easily apply to anyone of any gender, not just men. The English takes this message and, perhaps unintentionally, restricts it to one gender. I would therefore assert that the worst outcome of gendering the theme of Megalobox is that it is disingenuous to the original material.

Fascinatingly, I think my own months-long obsession with this element of Megalobox stemmed from the fact the English highlighted that I was not the intended audience. I kept thinking while watching the dub that I understood what the text was trying to communicate to me, that the philosophical conflict was something inspiring and applicable to my own life, only to run into the brick wall of, “This media is not meant for you.”

If anything, it is very much interesting how translational decisions can have such a profound effect on a show’s delivery.

#megalo box #essay #I do enjoy the boxing show #megalobox

[mariacallous]

(JTA) — Dianne Feinstein, the long-serving Jewish senator from California who rose to national prominence when she appeared before cameras with her hands stained with the blood of a murdered colleague, has died.

Feinstein, who had recently faced criticism for remaining in the Senate despite clearly failing health, was 90 years old. She died Thursday night, major news organizations are reporting.

Feinstein had served in the Senate for more than three decades as its longest-serving woman.

Feinstein became a national figure in 1978 when she was the president of the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco and found the body of fellow supervisor Harvey Milk. 

Milk, who was Jewish, was the first openly gay elected official in the city’s history and was assassinated by a former colleague, Dan White. White also killed San Francisco Mayor George Moscone.

Feinstein announced the murders while her hands were still stained with Milk’s blood. She soon stepped in to replace Moscone, serving two terms as mayor.

“I remember it, actually, as if it was yesterday,” she recalled in 2008. “And it was one of the hardest moments, if not the hardest moment, of my life. It was a devastating moment. For San Francisco, it was a day of infamy.”

Feinstein’s father was a Jewish physician and her mother was a model who was born to an ethnically Jewish family but raised in the Russian Orthodox church. Feinstein was born on June 22, 1933, in San Francisco, attended a Roman Catholic school and said, when she was running for governor in 1990, that her parents left it up to her to decide which faith suited her. 

When she was 20, she picked Judaism, she said, “because I liked its simplicity and directness.” She was twice widowed and once divorced; all three of her husbands were Jewish.

The trauma of the double murder propelled her to become an outspoken advocate for gun control, a cause she took with her into the Senate, when she won a special election in 1992 to replace Sen. Pete Wilson, a Republican who had defeated Feinstein in the 1990 election for governor. 

That election cycle became known as the Year of the Woman. Feinstein and three other newly elected women senators tripled the number of women in the Senate from two to six. One was Barbara Boxer, who, like Feinstein, was a Jewish Democrat from California. 

Record numbers of women ran for office, spurred in part by the humiliating treatment Anita Hill got in the Senate the year previous when she testified about the sexual harassment she allegedly endured while employed with Clarence Thomas, a Supreme Court nominee. 

Hill’s treatment helped galvanize Feinstein’s decision to run for the Senate. During the 2018 hearings for another Supreme Court nominee accused of sexual wrongdoing, Brett Kavanaugh, Feinstein recalled coming across a crowd of people watching the Thomas hearings at a TV in an airport in 1991, a year before her election. 

Not a lot had changed, she lamented. “How women are treated in the United States, with this kind of concern, is really wanting a lot of reform,” she said during the Kavanaugh hearings.

With Boxer and Feinstein, California had a two-Jewish women representation in the body until 2017, and the effects of the Year of the Women were long lasting. 

“I would be proud to carry on just a portion of their legacy,” Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who has signaled his intention to run for Feinstein’s seat, said in February when Feinstein announced she would not run for another term, regarding Feinstein and Boxer. Referring to a traditional Jewish imperative to repair the world, he added, “I would love to bring that passion for tikkun olam with me to the U.S. Senate.”

Laws long on the liberal wish list were suddenly ripe for passage, among them an assault weapons ban that Feinstein took the lead in passing in 1994. It lapsed after 10 years, and Feinstein since 2004 persistently, and unsuccessfully, sought to reinstate the ban.

Also in 1994, Feinstein joined then-Sen. Joe Biden in passing the Violence Against Women Act. When it lapsed in 2019, Feinstein led the charge to reauthorize it, but faced conservative resistance because the reauthorization bill added protections for LGBTQ partners and sought to close the  “boyfriend loophole,” extending restrictions on gun ownership to people who had abused partners to whom they were not married.

It took until 2022 for Feinstein to overcome resistance and reauthorize the Act. It was a compromise: The LGBTQ protections remained in, but the boyfriend loophole was out; Feinstein was unable to overcome gun lobby resistance.

“This is a major advancement for protecting women from domestic violence and sexual assault – a tragedy faced by one in three women in this country,” Feinstein said then in a statement. President Biden, its original author, signed the reauthorization into law.

Feinstein stood apart from her liberal cohort in some respects. Her best known split with liberals was her championing the death penalty until 2018, when she said during her campaign for reelection that its unfair application had finally changed her mind.  

Her enthusiasm for law and order was triggered when a far left group, the New World Liberation Front, detonated a bomb planted in a flower box outside her home in 1976, when she was a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, part of a terrorist campaign targeting city leaders.

As outraged as she was at the easy access to guns that brought about the murder of Milk and Moscone, she was also furious that White got away with a manslaughter conviction by claiming he had been depressed. The tactic became known as the “Twinkie defense,” as a defense psychiatrist testified that junk food had contributed to White’s depression.

“Yes, I support the death penalty,” she said in 1990 when she was running for California governor, earning boos at a Democratic convention. “It is an issue that cannot be fudged or hedged.” She won the primary but lost to Wilson. 

The episode displayed her political chops: She used footage of the boos in political ads in the general election for governor, reinforcing her image as a moderate and helping to propel her to the Senate in 1992. She managed to preserve the seat in 1994, her first full term election, a year that was otherwise disastrous for Democrats.

In 2004, she feuded with Kamala Harris, then the San Francisco District Attorney and now the vice president, when she learned at the funeral of a slain police officer that Harris opposed the death penalty for his killer. Feinstein said then she would not have endorsed Harris for the district attorney job had she known of her opposition to the death penalty. (The feud didn’t last; Feinstein and Boxer endorsed Harris in her 2016 Senate run to replace Boxer, key nods that helped propel Harris to victory.)

Feinstein was for years a centrist on Israel, allied with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, although she was a sharp critic of the country’s treatment of non-Orthodox Jews. In 1986, as mayor, she expanded commercial ties with San Francisco’s sister city, Haifa. It was  her revulsion with deadly weapons that nudged her toward questioning Israel: She was appalled at Israel’s use of cluster bombs in its 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“What gives rise, in part, to my bill are recent developments in Lebanon over alleged use of cluster bombs by Israel,” she said in 2007, introducing legislation to restrict the sale of the weapons. 

Remarkably, Feinstein chose to promote her proposed cluster bomb ban that year at the Arab American Institute, an organization frequently at odds with the mainstream pro-Israel community. “We will get this job done,” she said at the time to applause.

Within a few years she was departing from pro-Israel orthodoxy in other areas: She opposed proposed Iran sanctions in 2014 because she feared the underlying legislation would draw the United States into a war on Israel’s behalf.

“Let me acknowledge Israel’s real, well-founded concerns that a nuclear-armed Iran would threaten its very existence,” she said then on the Senate floor. “While I recognize and share Israel’s concern, we cannot let Israel determine when and where the U.S. goes to war.”

More recently, she championed renewed aid to the Palestinians, slashed to almost nothing by Trump and Republicans in Congress hostile to a Palestinian leadership they depict as bloodthirsty.

“Denying funding for clean water, health care and schools in the West Bank and Gaza won’t make us safer,” she said in 2019. “Instead it only emboldens extremist groups like Hamas and pushes peace further out of reach.”

Feinstein, who was the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee from 2009 to 2017, also differed from her colleagues — particularly Ron Wyden, the Jewish Democrat from Oregon — in defending the intelligence community even after a welter of leaks toward the end of the 2000s revealed its abuses. 

She defended the intelligence agencies’ collection of American citizens’ metadata, the wealth of information that can track where a person is with whom they communicate and for how long, among other details. “It’s called protecting America,” Feinstein said in 2013, claiming the practice was routine.

As her party moved left, however, so did she; In 2014, as committee chairwoman, Feinstein declassified a report on the CIA’s use of torture after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, over the objections of President Barack Obama. In 2017, she said her decision in 2002 to be one of just five Senate Democrats to authorize the Iraq War would haunt her, in part because she bought into the false claims the intelligence community was peddling.

“It is the decision I regret most and I have to live with it,” she told author Gail Sheehy.

One factor nudging her to the left was the election in 2016 of Donald Trump as president. Her deep experience in matters of intelligence helped spur her outrage with the new president as she uncovered evidence ahead of the election that Russia was interfering.

“Based on briefings we have received, we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election,” she and Adam Schiff, a House California Jewish Democrat who is now running to replace her in the Senate, said in a headline-making statement just weeks before election day.

“At the least, this effort is intended to sow doubt about the security of our election and may well be intended to influence the outcomes of the election,” the statement said. “We can see no other rationale for the behavior of the Russians.”

Republican obfuscation about Russia’s interference helped push her over the edge, a close friend, Orville Schell, told Sheehy in 2017. “Trump injects an entirely new level of outrage,” he said. “Dianne is like the canary in the mine shaft. The last bastion of bridge building in the Senate may be giving up.”

On one issue LGBTQ rights, Feinstein always tracked to the left of her party; in the 1990s she was one of just 14 Democrats to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as being between a man and a woman. She became a leader of a years-long effort to repeal the Act, which was successful in 2022.

In 2020, as the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Feinstein drew outrage from fellow Democrats for her friendly questioning of Amy Coney Barrett, the Supreme Court nominee Republicans rushed through to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal Jewish icon who had died just before an election that returned Democrats to the Senate majority. It didn’t help that she hugged the committee chairman, South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, after the hearing.

That along with signs that Feinstein’s mental acuity was diminishing led her to step down as the top Democrat on the key committee. Reporting described her as engaged during meetings and telephone calls, and then, hours and even minutes later, not remembering the exchanges. In early 2023, she announced that she would not run again for election in 2024.

Feinstein is survived by her daughter, Katherine Anne Feinstein, a former judge, and a granddaughter.

[azspot]

In 2017 the Arizona Legislature pass a law that expanded and lossened school vouchers, moving them from a postition of helping parents and special needs students to permiting a free for all of funding for any school and homeschooling. In 2018 a grass roots referendum was placed on the ballot as Proposition 305, this referendum placed before the public for popular vote rolled back school vouchers to their previous scope and increased accountability for how the public funds were used, also insuring accountability for good stewardship of public tax dollars. This measur passed by a margin of 65% to 35%. Inspite of such overwhleming opposition, the Arizona Legislature with strong pressure from special inerests groups went against the proclaimed will of Arizona voters and negated Proposition 305 and expanded school vouchers as well as removing accountabiity for how the funds are used or applied. Think for a moment; Arizonans are taxed by schoold district but the funds are arbitrarily taken from the districts and local schools to fund for profit schools or buy a computer or pay for a 'educational' trip for a home schooler. There is no recourse, no accounting, no elected voice to oversee the use of your tax dollars. This is taxation without representation. This removes $10,000 - 15,000 from the local school for each student. Yet the local school still has the same costs and standards to uphold. In roughly 2 years, this action by the Arizona Legislature has moved the state budget from a surplus to a debt of $ 1,000,000,000. In its first 6 months it added over $400,000,000 in debt.

David Hopper

#arizona #education

[mlpcomics]

(Mostly Chronological) IDW My Little Pony Reading Order

The small “arcs” of the main comic are listed together (like #1-#4, #5-#8, etc). Side comics with an ongoing story are listed with priority rather than chronological release order for smoother reading. Year of release is rounded to be with other issues of their arc.

It is not necessary to read this way, you can pretty much jump in wherever as most stories are self-contained. You should, however, watch whatever season of Friendship is Magic was out that year first. The G4 comics are supplementary material to it.

Get the 10th anniversary edition of issue #1 instead of the regular one. Definitely DO NOT use this site nor this site either if you can’t afford the comics.

List below.

2013

Friendship is Magic #1-#4 (The Return of Queen Chrysalis)

Micro-series #1

Micro-series #2

Friendship is Magic #5-#8 (Nightmare Rarity)

Micro-series #3

Micro-series #4

Micro-series #5

Micro-series #6

Friendship is Magic #9-#10 (Zen and the Art of Gazebo Repair)

Micro-series #7

Micro-series #8

Friendship is Magic #11-#12 (Neigh Anything)

Micro-series #9

Friendship is Magic #13-#14 (Friendship Ahoy!)

Micro-series #10

2014

Friendship is Magic #15-#16 (Unnamed)

Friends Forever #1

Friends Forever #2

Friends Forever #3

Friendship is Magic #17-#20 (Reflections)

Friends Forever #4

Friends Forever #5

Friends Forever #6

Friendship is Magic #21-#22 (Manehatten Mysteries)

Friends Forever #7

Friends Forever #8

Friendship is Magic #23

Friends Forever #9

Annual 2014

Friendship is Magic #24

Friends Forever #10

Friends Forever #11

Friendship is Magic #25-26 (The Good, the Bad and the Ponies)

Friends Forever #12

2015

Friends Forever #13

Friendship is Magic #27-28 (The Root of the Problem)

Friends Forever #14

Friendship is Magic #29

Friends Forever #15

Friends Forever #16

FIENDship is Magic #1

FIENDship is Magic #2

FIENDship is Magic #4

FIENDship is Magic #5

Friendship is Magic #30-31 (Ponyville Days)

Friends Forever #17

Friends Forever #18

Friendship is Magic #32-#33 (Night of the Living Apples)

Friends Forever #19

Friends Forever #20

Friendship is Magic #34-#37 (Siege of the Crystal Empire)

Friends Forever #21

Friends Forever #22

Friends Forever #23

Holiday Special 2015

2016

Friends Forever #24

Friendship is Magic #38-#39 (Don’t You Forget About Us)

Friends Forever #25

Friendship is Magic #40

Friends Forever #26

Friends Forever #27

Friendship is Magic #41

Friends Forever #28

Friendship is Magic #42

Friends Forever #29

Friendship is Magic #43-#45 (Ponies of Dark Water)

Friends Forever #30

Friends Forever #31

Friends Forever #32

Friendship is Magic #46-#47 (Election)

Friends Forever #33

Friendship is Magic #48-#50 (Chaos Theory)

Friends Forever #34

Friends Forever #35

2017

Friends Forever #36

Friends Forever #37

Friendship is Magic #51-#53 (From the Shadows)

Guardians of Harmony Annual 2017

Deviations

Legends of Magic #1

Friends Forever #38

Legends of Magic #2

Friendship is Magic #54

Legends of Magic #3

Friendship is Magic #55-#56 (Wings Over Yakyakistan)

Legends of Magic #4

Friendship is Magic #57

Legends of Magic #5

Friendship is Magic #58

Legends of Magic #6

Friendship is Magic #59

Legends of Magic #7

Friendship is Magic #60

Legends of Magic #8

Friendship is Magic #61-62 (Convocation of the Creatures!)

Holiday Special 2017

Legends of Magic #9

2018

Legends of Magic #10

Friendship is Magic #63

Legends of Magic #11

Friendship is Magic #64

Legends of Magic #12

Friendship is Magic #65

Legends of Magic Annual 2018

Friendship is Magic #66

Ponyville Mysteries #1

Ponyville Mysteries #2

Friendship is Magic #67-#68 (Tempest’s Tale)

Ponyville Mysteries #3

Friendship is Magic #69

Ponyville Mysteries #4

Friendship is Magic #70

Ponyville Mysteries #5

Friendship is Magic #71

Nightmare Knights #1

Nightmare Knights #2

Nightmare Knights #3

Nightmare Knights #4

Nightmare Knights #5

Friendship is Magic #72

Friendship is Magic #73

2019

Friendship is Magic #74

IDW 20/20

Friendship is Magic #75-78 (Cosmos)

Spirit of the Forest #1

Spirit of the Forest #2

Spirit of the Forest #3

Friendship is Magic #79

Friendship is Magic #80

Feats of Friendship #1

Feats of Friendship #2

Feats of Friendship #3

Friendship is Magic #81

Friendship is Magic #82

Friendship is Magic #83

Friendship is Magic #84

Holiday Special 2019

2020

Friendship is Magic #85

Friendship is Magic #86

Friendship is Magic #87-88 (The Fast and the Furriest)

Season 10 Arc

These issues were kind of marketed as an "epilogue" to season 9 of Friendship is Magic once it ended. You should probably finish the show here.

Free Comic Book Day 2020

Friendship is Magic #89

Friendship is Magic #90

Friendship is Magic #91

Friendship is Magic #92

Friendship is Magic #93

Friendship is Magic #94

Friendship is Magic #95

Annual 2021

Friendship is Magic #96

Friendship is Magic #97

Friendship is Magic #98

Friendship is Magic #99

Friendship is Magic #100

Friendship is Magic #101

Friendship is Magic #102

(Read Generations and then Classics Reimagined: Little Fillies here. They released long after the G4 comics ended.)

Equestria Girls Comics

Annual 2013

Equestria Girls Holiday Special

FIENDship is Magic #3

Canterlot High: March Radness

I’ll update with the generation 5 My Little Pony comics once they have more mini-series/one-shots/side comics of any kind.

#my little pony #my litte pony friendship is magic #friendship is magic #idw #idw comics #idw mlp #mlp #equestria girls

[texasobserver]

From “Catastrophe 88,” the Texas Observer guide to the new session of the state legislature, opening tomorrow:

Elections have consequences. This political bromide is overused for a reason—it’s reliably true. And this year, the fallout for vulnerable Texans could be particularly destructive.

After something approaching a blue wave swept across Texas in November 2018, a chastened Republican majority in the Legislature kept its focus in the 2019 session on serious policymaking—school finance and property tax reform—while largely forgoing their typical red-meat fare.

Republicans thwarted expectations of another Democratic surge in November 2020, and the next year the GOP ignored the problems laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing economic crisis, instead focusing on passing as much right-wing legislation as possible over the course of a regular session, plus three painful specials. 

The final outcome was ugly: Abortions were effectively banned by threat of bounty, handgun permits were done away with, voting laws were made more restrictive, transgender kids were targeted with statutory bigotry, and school curricula on race and history were whitewashed. Profound policy problems, meanwhile, were left to fester. 

Critically, the state’s electoral districts were redrawn for the next decade to ensure incumbent Republican majorities will be insulated from electoral backlash while the state’s growing numbers of people of color and Democratic-aligned voters are kept at bay. 

This fresh gerrymander set the table for another Republican rout last November as the GOP maintained strong majorities in the state House and Senate and easily swept the state’s high-powered executive offices—led by Governor Greg Abbott’s 11-point defeat of Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke. 

Firmly in control, Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, and GOP lawmakers are now free to do as they please—to pick up where their vengeful 87th legislative session mercifully left off just over a year ago. 

Some top Republicans hinted during campaign season that they might want to soften the sharpest edges of their draconian and unpopular ban on abortion or pull back on the most extreme parts of their so-called “election integrity” laws. But there’s little reason to think this legislative session will yield moderation. The party’s activist base is eager to continue the march toward one-party authoritarianism, punishing political enemies and catering to political patrons as they go. 

Read the full guide on the Texas Observer.

#texas politics #texas power grid #lgbtq #txlege #energy #education #labor #gun control

[friendly-neighborhood-furry]

I really wanna be friends with you but i'm scared to take the first step, specially because, what if you don't want to? what if I scree it up?

you're just so cool, sorry..

oh yeah I have to ask something

Do you have pets? (genuine I wanna know because of the cat in your pfp lol)

its okay, don't be afraid to reach out! i'm always excited to make new friends, especially through places like tumblr! :) and don't worry about messing up either, if it makes you feel any better i have flubbed plenty of social interactions myself lol - -''

please feel free to reach out though! i'd be delighted to hang out and chat with you anon :)

to answer your second question, yes i do have pets! three cats and a nasty (affectionate) little dog.

funny enough, none of my cats are the one in my pfp! i just found that picture somewhere and have been using as a pfp ever since. but since we're talking about them already, i'll share some actual pictures of my critters!

this is wilson! we adopted him in 2018 (i think?) and we love him so dearly. since hes orange he has his weird little quirks, but he’s a very affectionate cat and an excellent napping companion :3

here are biscuits and cosmo! both were rescued in summer of ‘22. cosmo (right) was rescued first as a very young, malnourished, yet surprisingly fierce kitten, whom we nurtured and cared for diligently until she blossomed into the spry young cat she is today :) oh and biscuits kind of just showed up in our backyard one day

hes also VERY sweet and probably the most vocal cat i've ever known! you cant see it in this picture, but hes actually got a broken tail. the vet said it must have been broken a long time ago, and since it isn't causing him any pain, we've elected not to mess with it.

it is pretty interesting to look at though! i've thought about doing photoshoots with him so that myself and other warrior cats fans artists can use them as references. if anyone would be interested in seeing that, please let me know! :D

and here is the aforementioned dog. his names walter and he’s a terrier-dachshund mix (we suspect the terrier half to be a carin terrier) and he will be turning 14 this year!

truly one of the most vile, stubborn and ornery creatures i have ever lived with, but to be fair those words could also be used to describe everyone else in my family (myself included). its good that we're the people he ended up with because i truly don't think anyone else would put up with him LMAO-

all jokes aside though i really do love the lil guy. he’s incredibly loyal to us and he gets nervous when one of us isnt home (so quarantine was basically a dream come true for him). he's very cute and his age hasnt stopped him from being playful and excitable :)

anyway yeah i love my pets i love our animals couldn't imagine my life without animal companions in it

#tomothy rambles #my photos #ask box #long post