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nakedmonkey · 8 months

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Alexxxx prompt 5 or 12 from the prose section of the big swiss list <3 shivlina ALWAYS !

12. Shame was something you passed like kidney stones, and it was leaving her body at last

Shiv never thought she’d make it to this point, but finally, it seemed, this was how she’d win the war. With her father buried underground along with her marriage, and whatever revenge plot she thought she could birth into the world medically evacuated from her body. All for the best, all for the best, she told herself. Not that she needed a mantra. She felt lighter already. Lighter than she had in months. Her future seemed so much more tangible now, within reach. She smiled in the elevator through the cramping her doctor warned her about, because it was a sign of it. It must be. Of the end of it all. Or the beginning. She’d learned by now that endings and beginnings looked pretty much the same up close.

The elevator stopped, and it occurred to Shiv that this would be her first night in her new apartment. It was still only half furnished and she dreaded what she’d need to catch up after her medical leave, but she couldn’t go back to the other place. Not as she was now, with her new skin. She didn’t feel particularly different in a deep, existential way, but she did feel unrestrained somehow. Untethered. She felt good.

So much of her adult life had been spent in a constant state of apprehension. So much of her life, the part that her father dictated, and it was a large part, was so often ruled by shame, that briefly, after his funeral, she considered she might be lost without him. She felt that about Tom, too. She let go of other things, other people, that didn’t ever contribute to the shame, out self preservation, she’d thought. They wounded her, those losses–self-inflicted wounds run deep, but that pain she was used to. It was the other pain, the loss of the shame she’d learned to trust as a constant, that she wasn’t sure she could survive without. She couldn't believe now how little it hurt to not have it anymore.

Shiv slowed her pace as she caught sight of something at her door. A huge floral arrangement, and she hesitated in reading the card at first before finally pulling it from the tiny envelope. It read: Happy Abortion!

She laughed softly. The first real laugh in a while. She knew who the sender was before she even got to reading the name at bottom.

Mondale greeted her at the door, and she petted him after setting the flowers down on the counter. She reached in her back pocket for her phone and dialed. Karolina answered on the second ring.

“Hey.”

“Thanks for the flowers.”

“Is it okay?” Karolina asked, and Shiv closed her eyes at the sound of her voice. It made the ache in her chest grow hotter, but she wanted it, needed it even. “Roman told me,” Karolina added. “I–are you okay? Was the doctor nice to you?”

Shiv smiled at that as she walked over to join Mondale on the couch.

“Yes. She was very nice.”

“Good.”

An unspoken thing hung in the silence that followed, and Shiv felt the imminent end of the conversation fast approaching, but something pushed her to not let it end. Some Eat Pray Love bullshit feeling inside her urged her to not let this moment end here.

“Hey, so, catch me up. What’d I miss?”

Karolina waited, and then sighed.

“Matsson and Ebba might be…involved again.”

Shiv laughed as she idly stroked behind Mondale’s ear.

“You’re joking. After the whole thing with the blood?”

“Yeah, well. I think they think they're being slick, but they’re very obvious, so I’m–preparing for whatever happens when it inevitably implodes.”

“Matsson and Ebba? Implode? No!”

Karolina laughed softly. Shiv bit her lip, considered not saying what she wanted to say. Anticipated the shame that would follow, but it was gone as soon as it appeared. Shame was something you passed like kidney stones, and it was leaving her body at last.

“Hey, Karolina?”

“Yeah?”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.”

#succession #shivlina #shiv x karolina #prompts #big swiss prompt list

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mariacallous · 1 year

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MONDALE SIGHTING MONDALE SIGHTING

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kijiboop · 2 years

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Rare Chars: Wes Mondale

Invisible

The thunderclap that blasted a stranger clean off his feet from the middle of a clear blue sky was barely noteworthy compared to the string of newspaper headlines that followed. The lottery forgery. The missing parents returned with severe sunburns and no explanation how they'd gotten to and from Bali without a passport. The final cessation of the bigfoot sightings and the alcohol and pornography thefts. The SUV tipped over in the middle of the street, leaving three ten-year-old boys traumatized and refusing to talk about their experience.

The one that really got me, though, was watching Hope Casey wander away from Lucky Chin's like she had just walked out of a dream. A few seconds later, Wes Mondale followed her, his head down and his expression quiet and closed. I watched them both as I'd watched the rest of this town for the last thirty years: passive but curious, on the outside always looking in. It was a side effect of being both a social outcast since middle school and a newspaper reporter.

I had gone to school with both Hope and Wes, though neither of them knew I existed. Wes had had tunnel vision about Hope since forever and Hope never saw anything outside her immediate social group. Neither of them had spotted me--chubby, studious and quiet--except for the time one of Hope's carousel of boyfriends had started picking on me. She'd been kind to me in that blasé way rich or beautiful people tend to be kind to the ugly and less fortunate. Her boyfriend had lost interest and I had melted back into the garish lime-green high school walls.

Wes had always fascinated me. He was smart, almost as quiet as I was, and had a mildly geeky manner that appealed to me. But I'd never really been able to get myself together enough to speak to him, except for the occasional "sorry" in the hallway if we bumped into each other. That had persisted past graduation and into adulthood. The geeky manner didn't fade as he grew up, but he did seem to grow into his nose and ears eventually. Maybe it was just that I'd quietly fallen in love with him when I wasn't paying attention, but he grew into easily the most attractive man in Concrete. Which didn't really help my shyness around him.

When Jenny Rappahannock reported in the lifestyles column that Wes and Hope had announced a surprise engagement nearly a month ago, I had a surprise of my own: I called in sick to work for a week and hid in the bottom of a cheap bottle of wine. Wes had gotten his dearest wish: Hope could finally see him.

But now... the engagement seemed to be off. Hope had returned to her usual blinkered bubble and Wes had gone back to being invisible. This time, I told myself, I wouldn't stay in my own shadows. I was going to make sure he knew that he was seen, had been seen and had always been seen.

I fell into step beside him when he made the turn toward the bus station. "Hey, Wes," I managed to blurt out.

He blinked and looked at me, dark eyes still not quite focusing on anything outside his own mind. "Yeah?"

"You look sad," I said. I felt like an idiot but it was the only thing I could find to say. And it was true. "Are you okay?"

Wes flinched back from the words and turned away. "Not really." His tone said he didn't want to talk about it, either, his body language the equivalent of a door shutting in my face. I kept pace with him and it took him a moment or two to realize I wasn't evaporating this time. "Do I know you?"

"Shannon," I supplied. "Mr. Janacek's Algebra class."

His eyebrows arched high and he paused to actually consider me. "High school?" When I nodded, he blinked rapidly like he was trying to sort out his thoughts. "Sorry, it was a long time ago."

"Not that long," I said quietly, "but I don't blame you for not remembering me."

Something about my words seemed to register and his confusion seemed to ease slowly out of his face, replaced by something like empathy. "Yeah, most people don't remember me, either."

"More than you think, apparently." He looked puzzled and I smiled at him. "Me, Wes. I mean I remember you."

"Huh." Wes rocked back on his heels and rubbed one hand through is hair, looked embarrassed. "I guess I thought I knew all the people from school who were still around. There's only a handful of us. You've been here since graduation or did you go away to school?"

"Community college," I said. "My mother was sick and I needed to stay to help her." Butterflies hammered against the inside of my ribcage as I took a step I'd been daydreaming about for years. "Do you... wanna get a drink or something?"

Wes stared at me so long that I began to wonder if his brain had shorted out. He took a long breath in, then out again and smiled at me. "Yeah. Sure." It wasn't a bright smile, wasn't even a shadow of a happy smile. But he still smiled at me and said yes.

Ernie's Tavern wasn't far from Lucky Chin's, so we walked there. We made small talk as we walked, Wes shorting his stride just enough so I could keep up without having to jog. We settled at the bar, ordered some drinks. When Wes had half-finished his beer, he looked over at me and said, "Thanks for saying something."

"What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "I guess I needed to get my head out of my ass. I've been getting a lot of reminding of that in the last 24 hours." I tilted my head, curious. "My fiancé and I broke up," he supplied.

"I'm sorry," I murmured. I was sorry that he was hurting, though I wasn't sorry to see Hope going her own way. "What happened?"

Wes stared into his glass, slowly turning it so the beer washed around the inside. "Someone reminded me that we don't always get what we want." He took a drink, then smiled at me, that same sad smile from the sidewalk. "And that what I want wasn't really what Hope wanted."

"What do you want?" I found myself asking.

Wes chuckled and shook his head. "I'm not even sure anymore. I thought I wanted her to love me. I just wanted... her to love me because she wanted to. Not because I wanted her to." He glanced at the confusion in my face. "Sorry, I know that doesn't make sense. I guess it's like... if a genie gives you three wishes and you wish for someone to love you, it's not the same as them ACTUALLY loving you. They're just doing what they're told."

I sipped from my drink, wondering how to approach his rambling thoughts. "So, she decided she didn't want to love you?"

"She never wanted to love me," Wes said quietly. "It just took me a while to realize that. Even when she could see me, she still didn't know me." He looked up after a moment, his expression hurting.

"She agreed to marry you, didn't she?" I asked.

"Not because she wanted to."

I shook my head. "I don't think I understand."

Wes let out a long sigh. "It doesn't make sense and I can't explain it without sounding crazy."

"I write for the CND," I chuckled. "Nothing surprises me anymore. I covered a Big Foot sighting where he stole porn and Irish crème."

He was quiet for far longer than I thought the comment warranted, but after finishing his beer, he turned to face me on his bar stool, his jaw set and his expression serious. "Promise you won't laugh. Even if you don't believe me."

"I would never laugh." It came out more earnest than I had intended but Wes didn't seem to notice.

"The wishing well at Lucky Chin's," he said in a half-whispered rush, "works. Well, it used to work. A couple of guys came and fixed it so it doesn't anymore but it worked. I wished Hope would love me and she did and it was... not what I expected."

"Wishes usually aren't," I replied.

Wes blinked in surprise. "You believe me?"

I shrugged. "I'm willing to entertain the idea that the paranormal is real. Especially if there's evidence. If you say you dropped a coin in a wishing well, made a wish and your wish came true, I'm willing to say something outside the realm of normal life occurred to support that idea." At his baffled expression, I grinned and added, "I'm an agnostic, Wes. I think the same thing about God. Give me proof of the existence of anything and I'm willing to reconsider my world-view."

"So... if my proof is that I wished for it and she agreed to marry me, moved in with me and started to cry any time she thought I might not love her?"

"And two guys came to 'fix it' and she stopped doing that?"

"Right."

I nodded. "I believe you."

Wes stared at me. "Just like that?"

I grinned and nodded. "Just like that."

"Wow. I wish I was that flexible."

"Careful what you--"

"Wish for, I know." Wes smiled and this time, it was an actual smile. "Why have we never talked before?"

I answered his smile with a wry, half-smile of my own. "You never saw me before." He winced. "Not your fault. With someone like Hope walking around, there wasn't much reason to see someone like me."

Wes pondered this for a while. When the bartender came around, he ordered another beer and glanced at me. "Refill?"

"Please."

The bartender brought our drinks and vanished down the bar again, leaving us in thoughtful silence. "You were... what, class of '87?"

"88'."

"And you were in Janacek's Algebra?"

"Advance placement." Wes glanced at me, clearly impressed and I grinned. "I was bored in 8th grade math, so they moved me up."

Wes tilted his head to study me again and I could feel my cheeks flushing. "I would have remembered an 8th grader in Algebra."

"I was there," I retorted, "so clearly you don't." He looked like he wanted to say something, then paused to think again and shook his head, dismissing it. "I was quiet," I added. "Nobody much noticed me. At the time, it was a blessing. I was scared of everyone in that class, you included."

"Me?" Wes laughed. "Why would you be scared of me?"

"Do you remember being in eighth grade?" I chuckled. "Anyone older than you is terrifying, especially if you're the only one there who's younger." Wes nodded acceptance and I continued, "I didn't answer questions in class unless directly called on, so I went under the radar. Well, except for you when you tried to cheat off my paper."

"What!?"

I grinned. "Quarterly exams, you were stuck and sitting next to me. Nobody was looking except me." I watched in satisfaction as his face turned red, right up to his ears. "Didn't get caught, no harm, no foul. But I kept my arm around my paper after that."

"I didn't know that was you."

"Obviously."

He paused, then whispered, "Thanks for not turning me in, then. I barely passed that class. I probably would have failed if I hadn't cheated on that test."

"You're welcome." I sipped my wine. "I would have helped more if you'd asked me, you know. It was the stealing that bothered me, not the sharing of answers."

He raised his eyebrows. "I guess I never thought of asking. I didn't think anyone would have said yes."

"Never know until you ask."

Wes stared into his beer for a second, drained it, then turned to me and said, "Can I get your number? Give you a call sometime?"

I had to bite my lip very hard to keep from laughing at his delivery: he was far drunker than he probably should have been on three beers but I wasn't going to knock him down at this point. "I would like that," I said with a smile. He handed me his phone and I typed in my number, then handed it back. "Just as long as I'm not just a rebound date."

"Rebound?" Wes seemed genuinely confused for a moment, then blinked and chuckled. "Oh, you mean after Hope. Honestly, it wasn't even a real thing. Not really."

"Might have been magic influencing her but it was still real for you."

His face sobered and he considered my words. "Maybe," he said softly. "But just talking to you feels different from anything I've done before. Magic or no magic." He paused to give me a squinty stare. "You didn't drop a coin in a wishing well or something, did you?"

I grinned. "Never even crossed my mind."

#supernatural spoilers #supernatural fanfic #supernatural rare characters #spn rare chars #fanfic #wesley mondale #wes mondale #ted raimi

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wulfhalls · 3 years

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hm.

#succession #tomshiv #shiv roy #tom wambsgans #wanted a mondale sighting but not like This

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dogboycolumbo · 3 years

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MONDALE SIGHTING

GREG SOCIAL CLIMBER COMFRY FAKE OUT

LOGAN IS FUCKING HORRIBLE AND WONT LET KENDALL OUT OF THE COMPANY

TOMSHIV DONT LOVE EACH OTHER

ROMAN SENT LOGAN A DICK PIC

GERRI MIGHT GET FIRED

KENDALL FUCKING DIED

#succession spoilers #succession

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pdfgirl · 3 years

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MONDALE SIGHTING

#hello my beloved #succession

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gayjoealwyn · 3 years

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at least we got a mondale sighting. scraping the bottom of the happiness barrel here

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somethingusefulfromflorida · 4 years

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13 Keys to the White House: UPDATE

The original post can be read here, I wrote it a day before George Floyd was murdered, and the political landscape has shifted SO MUCH since then.

There are 13 questions that define which party will win the presidential election based on how well the incumbent and challenging parties have fared over the last four years. The incumbent party needs 8 out of 13 to be true to win, while the challengers need 6 or more to be false. As of May 25, it stood, in order of severity

FALSE

Almost certainly false

Probably false

Maybe false

Unclear

Maybe

Maybe true

True as of right now

TRUE

Biden and Trump both has 3 solid keys in their field, with three more teetering on either side, and one tossup in the middle. It was anybody’s game, though Biden had a slight edge because he only needs 6 to Trump’s 8.

Not everything has changed in the last week, but just enough to solidify some of the less certain keys

Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections. FALSE (Democrats won more in 2018 than Republicans won in 2014)

Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination. TRUE (Donald Trump faces no real challengers)

Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president. TRUE (barring the coronavirus, or a heart attack brought on by all the fast food he eats, Donald Trump will be the nominee this November)

Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign. TRUE (Amash has dropped out, and the Libertarians have nominated a nobody who chose an even smaller nobody as her running mate. But then again, the election is 5 months away, which in 2020-months is approximately 9000 years away; a lot can change between now and then. I mean, just 5 months ago the coronavirus hadn’t spread outside of China yet. Maybe a conservative spoiler will gain traction. Maybe some disillusioned republicans will rally behind a write-in candidate. Maybe an asteroid hits and we all have to move underground and evolve into C.H.U.D.s to survive. Anything goes in 2020. Blow on them dice, LUCK BE A LADY)

Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign. FALSE (The Great Shutdown, the second once-in-a-lifetime economic collapse in less than 15 years. We’re only four months into it right now; things are going to get so much worse before they get better.)

Long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms. Almost Certainly False (Unemployment continues to rise at record breaking levels. Civil unrest is widespread in all 50 states, several territories, and even international cities in solidarity with the cause. The pandemic is far from over, and we are on the verge of a second wave.. There’s no chance in hell the economy will grow this year. 2020 is the Spiders Georg of years; it is a statistical outlier, it’s so low it’ll bring down the rest of the whole term, wiping out all growth since 2017. I mean, Republicans wanted trump to run the country like one of his businesses, and he’s giving them exactly what they wanted. This is his MO; run it into the ground, declare bankruptcy, don’t pay anyone, move onto your next failed project. Same shit as always)

Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.Unclear (He hasn’t kept many of his campaign promies, but he has enriched himself and his colleagues, abusing the power of the executive for personal gain, which is a pretty major change. This key will come down to the Supreme Court decisions on his tax returns; if they decide in favor of the president, they are saying that he doesn’t have to obey subpoenas anymore, expanding the powers of the president and getting rid of legislative oversight, checks and balances; this would be a HUGE policy change akin to declaring him a king, as it would mean he is no long capable of being held accountable for anything. If they decide against him though, a lot of skeletons will come bursting out of his closet, which may or may not damage him politically. Let’s be honest, they won’t. Nothing ever does. The tax returns could reveal that he has been paying a Russian company called “WE MEDDLE, YOU WIN, GUARANTEE” for thirty years, and he and his cronies will still spin it as a positive thing. Nothing ever hurts this guy, so I wonder why he even gives a shit about hiding his taxes anymore. All we know is that he has to be hiding something BIG if he’s going this far to try and cover it up, Could this take him down? Probably not, but fingers crossed.)

Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term. FALSE (I made this post before the George Floyd protests began, but there’s no ambiguity about it now. The cracks in the system have been expanding for years, and now the dam has finally burst. And rightfully so; riots are the language of the unheard. My only concerns are that if the protests continue into November, a bunch of republican lawmakers are gonna use it as an excuse to stop people from voting. ”Curfew begins at 8PM, anyone still in line at their polling places will be arrested and/or shot”)

Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal. FALSE (there’s only so much you an handle before you drop all pretenses and say “this is no longer subjective, this is objectively scandalous.” Everything they do is designed to get as big a reaction as possible, they pick the objectively worst people and take the objectively worst positions on everything because they’re trying to stoke controversy. Russia, Ukraine, carrots and potatoes. The real meat are all the domestic scandal. Turning off the White House lights and hunkering in a safe space underneath it like PUNK ASS BITCH? Mobilizing the National Guard around the country? Teargassing protestors so he can pose with a Bible he’s never read in front of a church he’s never attended, holding it up like it’s some annoying obligation of his, “see? See, I like the Bible. Look, I’m holding it up. Why would I be holding it up if I didn’t just LOOOOOVE it? Can everybody see? I’m holding it out at arms length and waving it back and forth just to make sure all the cameras know, I want then to get a good shot of it. I will shortly give it to an aide and be taken home in my limo, at which point I will forget the Bible exists because my brain is turning to jelly and I’ve lost the concept of object permanence.”)

Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs. Maybe (on the one hand, Iran didn’t retaliate when we killed their general, but on the other hand we retreated out of Syria, let thousands of ISIS fighters go, and aided the Turks in a Kurdish genocide. The tit-for-tat sanctions against China threatened to crash the global economy, but then the coronavirus came in and did that all by itself, so it’s unclear whether we’ve “failed” or simply “not succeeded.”)

Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs. Maybe false? (for the same reason as above, it is hard to judge what is or isn’t a success. USMCA is unpopular and small potatoes. The North Korean talks are all show with no substance; Kim will never get rid of his nukes. We’re still caught up in W’s endless wars, and I don’t see an end in sight, so I’d say this is definitely not a success. I have no doubt in my mind the October Surprise is gonna be another bombing in Iran to kill the ayatollah. The Iran War will start on November 3, same day as the election, there will be the first draft since Vietnam, a bunch of POCs will be forced into the military as cannon fodder; it’ll be a bloodbath for both sides)

Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero. FALSE (Trump is revered as the Second Coming of Christ by his base, but they make up less than 40% of the total country; other Republicans tolerate him at best, and all Democrats hate him. He has never had majority approval, he will never go down with the likes of the universally beloved Washington, Lincoln, and the Roosevelts. The most surprising thing of the last six months has got to be the emergence of the Lincoln Project, a coalition of Republicans who have finally grown spines, guts, and balls to stand up against trump and actively campaign against him. He doesn’t have total party control anymore, the Republicans are eroding, though to be fair the Democrats eroded a long time ago; the Republicans are a crumbling cairn, longstanding but now weakened and in danger of falling over, while the Democrats are a nice gravel walkway that everyone steps on and complains about even though the walkway is a nice addition to the park; it really ties the negative space together, linking the tennis courts with the pull-up bars. I’ve lost the thread of this analogy)

Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero. TRUE (Joe Biden is the Walter Mondale of Al Gores. Republicans hate him, even though he’s a moderate an would almost certainly try to reach across the aisle to compromise with them. Which is exactly why about half of Democrats don’t really like him; he’s too moderate and would work with Republicans. He’s old and senile, he keeps making gaffe after gaffe after gaffe, and doesn’t seem to know how the game is played anymore. Someone needs to find Grampa a nice home so he can retire and talk to his nurse about how he used to get into fist fights with ne’er-do-wells, “buncha malarkey, I tell ya”)

This gives us, from best to worst:

FALSE

Almost Certainly False

Maybe false

unclear

Maybe

TRUE

Incumbent Trumps needs 8 true to win. Challenger Biden needs 6 false to win.

Biden definitely has 5, he only needs 1 more to claim it, and there are two good keys that are leaning heavily in his favor; trump’s long-term economy is in the tank, and he hasn’t had any victories overseas. Biden has this one in the bag [don’t grow complacent, there’s still plenty of fuckery to be had from here to November]

Trumps would need to flip four keys to win, only one of which leans in his favor, one is unclear, and two are in Biden’s court. The economy is in ruins, he hasn’t set up any real domestic Trump Doctrine, and the military has neither succeeded nor failed in any meaningful way these last four years. He’s going into November with a major disadvantage, perhaps the only time in his life he has ever not had an advantage.

But then again, there’s always the possibility that it could be a 2000/2016 repeat, where Biden wins the popular vote but Trump ekes by with the electoral college victory yet again. This model doesn’t take that into account because the popular vote winner almost always wins the EC too.

Trump is not more popular today than he was 4 years ago. He’s never had majority approval. While his base loves him more now than ever, they represent a minority of voters, and pretty much everyone else hates him. Anyone who was on the fence in 2016 is definitively over the fence in 2020. If he “wins,” it’s not going to be a 1972/1984 blowout, that’s just not gonna happen, too many states hate him too much. It will be very close; I will not rule out the possibility of a 269-269 tie in the electoral college, triggering a contingent election where the House of Representatives has to pick the president. Democrats have a majority in the House right now, but in contingent elections they don’t vote as 435 individuals, they vote as 50 state blocs; even though there are more Democrats than Republicans, they’re packed together into as few states as possible, giving Republicans over 26 stateside majorities, enough to ensure they would pick Trump in a contingent election.

It’s a bullshit system, and I pray it doesn’t come to that.

#allan lichtman #13 keys to the white house #13 keys #white house #election #presidency #2020 election #joe biden #biden #donald trump #trump #biden 2020 #predictions #political

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newstfionline · 4 years

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Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Lockdown named word of the year by Collins Dictionary (Guardian) Lockdown, the noun that has come to define so many lives across the world in 2020, has been named word of the year by Collins Dictionary. Lockdown is defined by Collins as “the imposition of stringent restrictions on travel, social interaction, and access to public spaces”, and its usage has boomed over the last year. The 4.5bn-word Collins Corpus, which contains written material from websites, books and newspapers, as well as spoken material from radio, television and conversations, registered a 6,000% increase in its usage. In 2019, there were 4,000 recorded instances of lockdown being used. In 2020, this had soared to more than a quarter of a million. “Language is a reflection of the world around us and 2020 has been dominated by the global pandemic,” says Collins language content consultant Helen Newstead. “We have chosen lockdown as our word of the year because it encapsulates the shared experience of billions of people who have had to restrict their daily lives in order to contain the virus. Lockdown has affected the way we work, study, shop, and socialise. With many countries entering a second lockdown, it is not a word of the year to celebrate but it is, perhaps, one that sums up the year for most of the world.” Other pandemic-related words such as coronavirus, social distancing, self-isolate and furlough were on the dictionary’s list of the top 10 words.

Republicans Back Trump’s Refusal to Concede, Declining to Recognize Biden (NYT) Leading Republicans rallied on Monday around President Trump’s refusal to concede the election, declining to challenge the false narrative that it was stolen from him or to recognize President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the top Republican in Congress, threw his support behind Mr. Trump in a sharply worded speech on the Senate floor. He declared that Mr. Trump was “100 percent within his rights” to turn to the legal system to challenge the outcome and hammered Democrats for expecting the president to concede. And in Washington, Emily W. Murphy, a Trump political appointee and administrator of the General Services Administration, refused to formally recognize Mr. Biden as the president-elect with a letter of “ascertainment,” leaving the country’s transition of power in flux.

White House, escalating tensions, orders agencies to rebuff Biden transition team (Washington Post) The Trump White House on Monday instructed senior government leaders to block cooperation with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team, escalating a standoff that threatens to impede the transfer of power and prompting the Biden team to consider legal action. Officials at agencies across the government who had prepared briefing books and carved out office space for the incoming Biden team to use as soon as this week were told instead that the transition would not be recognized until the Democrat’s election was confirmed by the General Services Administration, the low-profile agency that officially starts the transition. While media outlets on Saturday projected Biden as the winner, President Trump has not conceded the election. “We have been told: Ignore the media, wait for it to be official from the government,” said a senior administration official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly. The GSA, the government’s real estate arm, remained for a third day the proxy in the battle. Administrator Emily Murphy, a Trump political appointee, is refusing to sign paperwork that releases Biden’s $6.3 million share of nearly $10 million in transition resources and gives his team access to agency officials and information. The Biden transition team is evaluating its legal options and growing increasingly alarmed that the stalemate could drag on and impede its work.

Candidate concessions have been colorful, funny—or absent (AP) Losing presidential candidates have conceded to their opponents in private chats, telegrams, phone calls and nationally televised speeches. Al Gore conceded twice in the same race. President Donald Trump isn’t expected to concede at all—not even with a tweet. Most concessions are gracious—less about the loser and more about closure for the country. Others have a little dry humor mixed in. After failing to win reelection in 1992, George H. W. Bush quoted Winston Churchill and said he had been given the “Order of the Boot,” according to presidential historian Michael Beschloss. The concession tradition had a hiccup in 2000 when Gore called George W. Bush to concede and then called him back to recant as the results from Florida went sideways. Their tight campaign ended with the Florida vote in limbo. “Let me make sure I understand,” Bush told Gore on the phone. “You’re calling me back to retract your concession?” When Bush was declared the winner after the Supreme Court halted further recount action, Gore delivered his second concession. “Just moments ago I spoke with George W. Bush and congratulated him on becoming the 43rd president of the United States. And I promised him that I wouldn’t call him back this time,” Gore said. After Gerald Ford and Bob Dole lost the 1976 presidential election to Carter and Walter Mondale, Dole, quipped: “Contrary to reports that I took the loss badly, I want to say that I went home last night and slept like a baby—every two hours I woke up and cried.”

Trump’s Fury Feeds Moscow and Beijing Accounts of U.S. Chaos (NYT) For years, state propaganda in both Russia and China has painted Western democracy as dangerously chaotic compared to what it described as the safety and stability of the countries’ authoritarian systems. With President Trump’s unfounded allegations that Democrats stole last week’s presidential election, Moscow and Beijing got a fresh chance to claim vindication. Russia seized that chance, while China was more restrained, perhaps reflecting cautious optimism that a President-elect Joseph R. Biden could stabilize relations with the United States. Neither country, however, congratulated Mr. Biden for winning the election. A spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia couched the delay as a technical matter of diplomatic protocol, and pledged that Mr. Putin would be ready to work with “any elected president of the United States.” On the flagship weekly news program on state TV Sunday night, host Dmitri Kiselyov said the election showed the United States to be “not a country but a huge, chaotic communal apartment, with a criminal flair.” For China, state media’s response to Mr. Biden’s win has been more measured. Mr. Biden would be “more moderate and mature” than Mr. Trump on foreign affairs, Global Times, a fiercely nationalistic tabloid, said. Other Chinese outlets emphasized the potential for political violence in the United States all last week as the vote counts trickled in. The Chinese state media shared photos of boarded-up businesses and police officers on watch at poll sites. A narrative of American decline has been a constant refrain in recent months, as an increasingly wealthy and confident China has tried to market itself to the rest of the world as a viable alternative for global leadership.

Florida cities mop up after deluge from Tropical Storm Eta (AP) Cities in South Florida mopped up after Tropical Storm Eta flooded some urban areas with a deluge that swamped entire neighborhoods and filled some homes with rising water that did not drain for hours. It was the 28th named storm in a busy hurricane season, and the first to make landfall in Florida. Broward County, which includes Fort Lauderdale, was among the harder hit areas. “It’s very bad. In the last 20 years, I’ve never seen anything like that,” said Tito Carvalho, who owns a car stereo business in Fort Lauderdale and estimated the water was 3 feet deep in some places.

Vizcarra impeached in Peru (Foreign Policy) Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra is to leave office after the country’s congress successfully impeached him on charges of corruption. Vizcarra was accused of accepting bribes for public works contracts during his time as a governor. Although he denies the allegations, he said on Monday that he would “leave the presidential palace today.” Manuel Merino, the head of the minority party Popular Action, will assume the presidency until a new one is chosen in April 2021.

Landmines cleared from Falkland Islands 38 years after conflict (Reuters) The final landmines on the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic have been cleared, Britain said on Tuesday, nearly 40 years after they were laid by Argentine forces when they seized the British territory. The removal of the mines meant the United Kingdom had met its obligations set by the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, Britain’s Foreign Office (FCDO) said, adding that there were now no anti-personnel mines on British soil anywhere in the world. Argentina invaded the archipelago, to which it lays claim, in 1982. Britain sent a task force to retake the islands in a brief war which saw more than 600 Argentine and 255 British servicemen killed. A British-funded programme, which started in 2009, to de-mine the islands completed its mission three years ahead of schedule.

As virus spikes, Europe runs low on ICU beds, hospital staff (AP) In Italy lines of ambulances park outside hospitals awaiting beds, and in France the government coronavirus tracking app prominently displays the intensive care capacity taken up by COVID-19 patients: 92.5% and rising. In the ICU in Barcelona, there is no end in sight for the doctors and nurses who endured this once already. Intensive care is the last line of defense for severely ill coronavirus patients and Europe is running out—of beds and the doctors and nurses to staff them. In country after country, the intensive care burden of COVID-19 patients is nearing and sometimes surpassing levels seen at last spring’s peak. Health officials, many advocating a return to stricter lockdowns, warn that adding beds will do no good because there aren’t enough doctors and nurses trained to staff them. In France, more than 7,000 health care workers have undergone training since last spring in intensive care techniques. Nursing students, interns, paramedics, all have been drafted, according to Health Minister Olivier Veran.

Greece: Floods sweep cars into sea, send people to rooftops (Washington Post) Heavy flooding on the Greek island of Crete damaged roads, flooded hundreds of homes and swept cars into the sea amid ongoing torrential rainfall. Authorities Tuesday said the most serious damage occurred east of the island’s capital, Iraklio, in small towns and villages where schools were closed and residents were advised to stay indoors. In the worst-affected areas, some residents sought refuge on the roofs of their homes as muddy water swept through towns, dragging cars and debris. A state of emergency was declared in flooded areas. It was the third time in less than a month that the area has been hit by flooding. Heavy rainfall is expected to continue through Thursday.

China gears up for world’s largest online shopping festival (AP) Chinese consumers are expected to spend tens of billions on everything from fresh food to luxury goods during this year’s Singles’ Day online shopping festival, as the country recovers from the pandemic. The shopping festival, which is the world’s largest and falls on Nov. 11 every year, is an annual extravaganza where China’s e-commerce companies, including Alibaba, JD.com and Pinduoduo, offer generous discounts on their platforms. Last year, shoppers spent $38.4 billion on Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms Tmall and Taobao.

Erekat, longtime spokesman for the Palestinians, dies at 65 (AP) Saeb Erekat, a veteran peace negotiator and prominent international spokesman for the Palestinians for more than three decades, died on Tuesday, weeks after being infected by the coronavirus. He was 65. The American-educated Erekat was involved in nearly every round of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians going back to the landmark Madrid conference in 1991. Over the years, he was a constant media presence. He tirelessly argued for a negotiated two-state solution to the decades-old conflict, defended the Palestinian leadership and blamed Israel—particularly hard-line leader Benjamin Netanyahu—for the failure to reach an agreement. As a loyal aide to Palestinian leaders—first Yasser Arafat and then Mahmoud Abbas—Erekat clung to this strategy until his death, even as hopes for Palestinian statehood sank to new lows. In the weeks leading up to his death in an Israeli hospital, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain had normalized ties with Israel, breaking with the long-held Arab position that a deal on Palestinian statehood must precede normalization. Abbas and members of his inner circle, including Erekat, found themselves internationally sidelined and deeply unpopular among Palestinians. And decades of unfettered Israeli settlement expansion had made a statehood deal based on the partition of territory increasingly unlikely.

Concern of outright war in Ethiopia grows as PM presses military offensive (Reuters) Ethiopia’s prime minister stepped up a military offensive in the northern region of Tigray on Sunday with air strikes as part of what he called a “law enforcement operation,” increasing fears of outright civil war in Africa’s second-most populous country. Abiy last week launched a military campaign in the province, saying forces loyal to leaders there had attacked a military base and attempted to steal equipment. Government fighter jets have since been bombing targets in the region, which borders Sudan and Eritrea. Aid workers on Sunday reported heavy fighting in several parts of the region.

#headlines #news

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berniesrevolution · 6 years

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JACOBIN MAGAZINE

Deficit hand-wringing is a venerable American political tradition, a staple of rhetoric on both sides of the aisle — especially for the party out of power. But here’s the rub: hardly anybody can say exactly how a high deficit leads to serious economic problems, and it’s not actually clear that it does. Increasingly, left-wing (and even not-so-left-wing) economists are urging us to rethink the accepted notion that government debt is a harbinger of a nation’s future insolvency. In fact, these economists point out, it’s far from clear that deficits have any macroeconomic effect at all. Meanwhile, more public social spending is correlated with a host of positive social outcomes for everyone except the wealthiest few.

The deficit-scolding script is familiar: Republicans attack every Democratic effort to increase spending on social programs by agonizing over the nation’s mounting debt, vowing that soaring numbers spell imminent ruin. Democrats claim that this or that military campaign or top-bracket tax cut is bad because it will break the bank — often at the expense of actual political arguments against war or inequality. Not even progressive Democrats — hell, not even Bernie Sanders — can resist the temptation to use this weapon, even though their own progressive policies rely on a diametrically different logic: namely that social investment is important in its own right, and that reducing inequality is more essential to building a healthy society than frugality in the abstract.

Deficit-scolding became a fixture of modern politics in the Reagan years, when government borrowing ballooned thanks to tax cuts and a historic military buildup. At the time, many in the Democratic Party, especially those who earned the nickname “Atari Democrats,” were beginning to set their electoral sights on upscale professional voters, as the power of the organized working class eroded. Though Reagan’s 1984 opponent, Walter Mondale, had a background as a union-friendly New Dealer, he heeded the party’s new political winds by focusing his attack on Reagan’s red ink. “I’m going to raise your taxes,” Mondale famously pledged, prompting the New York Times to applaud his fiscal prudence:

That’s a tough promise to make, and it will be tougher to keep. But it’s necessary for the Democrats, who’ve been tagged as a party with a propensity to spend more, not less. Only a firm commitment of this type is likely to make their conversion to budget balancing credible.

Mondale lost, and as the Atari Democrats took over, the Democratic Party’s commitment to ambitious public programs dwindled. But the deficit fixation stuck. By the early nineties the Atari Democrats had given way to the New Democrats, whose primary organ was the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and whose political orientation was Third Way centrism. Their poster boy was Bill Clinton, who made deficit reduction a cornerstone of his economic policy. When a strong economy ended up shifting the budget into surplus in the late 1990s, Clinton touted it as his presidency’s crowning achievement.

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#politics #the left #jacobin #jacobin magazine #democrats #democratic party #progressive #progressive movement #deficit #economics

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xtruss · 2 years

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American Dirty Politics

Trump’s Legacy—The Shame and The Opportunity! The Invasion of The Capitol and The Democrats’ Victory in Georgia Will Change The Course of The Biden Presidency

— January 7th 2021 Edition | The Economist

Four years ago Donald Trump stood in front of the Capitol building to be sworn into office and promised to end “American carnage”. His term is concluding with a sitting president urging a mob to march on Congress—and then praising it after it had resorted to violence. Be in no doubt that Mr Trump is the author of this lethal attack on the heart of American democracy. His lies fed the grievance, his disregard for the constitution focused it on Congress and his demagoguery lit the fuse. Pictures of the mob storming the Capitol, gleefully broadcast in Moscow and Beijing just as they were lamented in Berlin and Paris, are the defining images of Mr Trump’s unAmerican presidency.

The Capitol violence pretended to be a show of power. In fact it masked two defeats. While Mr Trump’s supporters were breaking and entering, Congress was certifying the results of the president’s incontrovertible loss in November. While the mob was smashing windows, Democrats were celebrating a pair of unlikely victories in Georgia that will give them control of the Senate (see article). The mob’s grievances will reverberate through the Republican Party as it finds itself in opposition. And that will have consequences for the presidency of Joe Biden, which begins on January 20th.

Stand back from the nonsense about stolen elections, and the scale of Republicans’ failure under Mr Trump becomes clear. Having won the White House and retained majorities in Congress in 2016, defeat in Georgia means that the party has lost it all just four years later. The last time that happened to Republicans was in 1892, when news of Benjamin Harrison’s humiliation travelled by telegraph.

Normally, when a political party suffers a reverse on such a scale it learns some lessons and comes back stronger. That is what the Republicans did after Barry Goldwater’s defeat in 1964, and the Democrats after Walter Mondale lost in 1984.

Reinvention will be harder this time. Even in defeat, Mr Trump’s approval rating among Republicans has hovered around 90%—far better than George W. Bush’s 65% in the last month of his presidency. Mr Trump has exploited this popularity to create the myth that he won the presidential election. YouGov’s polling for The Economist finds that 64% of Republican voters think Mr Biden’s victory should be blocked by Congress.

Perhaps 70% of Republicans in the House and a quarter in the Senate connived in his conspiracy by vowing to attempt just that—to their shame, many of them persisted even after the storming of Congress. As an anti-democratic stunt, it had no precedent in the modern era (nor any chance of success). And yet it is also a sign of Mr Trump’s malign grip. After seeing how he ended the careers of loyalists like Jeff Sessions and almost single-handedly elected others, like Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, those facing primaries remain terrified of provoking him.

The election myth that Mr Trump has spun may thus have broken the feedback loop needed for the party to change. Ditching a failed leader and broken strategy is one thing. Abandoning someone whom you and most of your friends think is the rightful president, and whose power was taken away in a gigantic fraud by your political enemies, is something else entirely.

If something good is to come from this week’s insurrection, it will be that this way of thinking loses some of its purchase. The sight of a Trump supporter lounging in the Speaker’s chair should horrify Republican voters who like to think theirs is the party of order and of the constitution. To hear Mr Trump inciting riots on Capitol Hill may persuade parts of middle America to turn their back on him for good.

For Mr Biden, much depends on whether Trump-sceptic Republicans in the Senate share those conclusions. That is because the victories for Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, the first African-American to be elected as a Democrat to the Senate from the South, have suddenly opened up the possibility that government in Washington, dc, will be less plagued by Republican obstruction and Trumpian stunts.

A week ago, when the conventional view was that the Senate would remain in Republican control, it looked as if the ambitions of Mr Biden’s administration would be limited to what he could accomplish through executive orders and appointments to regulatory agencies. A 50-50 split in the Senate, with the vice-president, Kamala Harris, casting the tiebreaking vote, is as narrow a majority as it is possible to get. It will not miraculously let Mr Biden bring about the sweeping reforms many Democrats would like, but it will make a difference.

For example, Mr Biden will be able to get confirmation of his choices for the judiciary and for his cabinet. Control of the legislative agenda in the Senate will pass from the Republicans to the Democrats. Mitch McConnell, the outgoing Senate majority leader who spoke powerfully this week against Mr Trump’s institutional vandalism, was a master of blocking votes that might divide his caucus. That created the gridlock in Washington that voters usually blame on the president’s party.

Democrats may also be able to get some measures through the Senate via reconciliation, a procedural quirk that allows budget bills to pass with a majority of one or more, rather than the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster, which will remain, however much the leftist wing of the party would like to drop it.

Where Republicans come in is in the scope for cross-party votes. The more they feel that Middle America was horrified by the riot, the more likely that some of them will reject the nihilism of blocking everything for the sake of it. The more their caucus is at war with itself, the freer they will be to do their part to restore faith in the republic by accomplishing something.

For Republicans, the cost of the cursed deal their party did with Mr Trump has never been clearer. The results in November provided signs that a reformed party could win national elections again. American voters remain wary of big government and have not handed one party more than two consecutive terms in the White House since 1992. But to become successful and, more important, to strengthen America’s democracy once more rather than pose a threat to it, they need to cast off Mr Trump. For, in addition to being a loser of historic proportions, he has proved himself willing to incite carnage in the Capitol.■

— This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "Trump’s legacy"

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hermanwatts · 3 years

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Fantasy New Releases: 2 October 2021

This week’s new releases are fill with vengeful spirits, apprentice alchemists, Israeli soldiers stranded in new worlds, and more.

Alchemist Adept (The Alchemist #4) – D. K. Holmberg and Dan Michaelson

Sam must master his connection to the source—and understand alchemy—if he wants to save the Academy.

Sam had come to the Academy powerless and used his wits to keep his place until learning that he can command a different magic. With the Nighlan attacking along the border of the city in the hopes of freeing Rasan Tel, Academy students are called upon to fight.

Having used his power to protect the Academy, Sam finds himself in a new struggle. Somehow, he has to balance his classes, lessons with a new alchemy instructor, all while working on a secret assignment in the war against the Nighlan.

As he begins to learn the truths of alchemy and his unique connection to power, Sam knows that he holds a key to stopping the fighting, but only if he can master his power.

The lessons he needs can’t be found in books, and the only person with the knowledge he needs is the same person he must defeat.

Dark Mountain (Dragon Wars #20) – Craig Halloran

As one well-planned attempt to destroy Black Frost fails after the other, he only grows in power.

Grey Cloak and Dyphestive have tried everything to bring their greatest enemy to a dead halt. With one final valiant effort, against impossible odds, they lead Talon and the Children of Cinder into the greatest battle of their lives that can only end in their inevitable massacre.

Will the Blood Brothers think of something in time, or will the fate of the world and all mankind be crushed in Black Frost’s talons and scorched to death in the fires of dragons all consuming breath?

Light Unto Another World #2 – Yakov Merkin

Sometimes, the right choice is not an easy one to make. But even when it is, the right choice is often not the easy one. But when one knows right from wrong, the choice is clear.

Uriel Makkis didn’t know what to expect when he finally met the king of Fulnar, apart from learning exactly why he had been pulled to this new world.

He did not expect to become an immediate enemy of the state.

The twin revelations that he was summoned to be used as a weapon of conquest, and that his fellow Swords were evil people from back on Earth, however, made that inevitable.

Without intending to do so, Uriel finds himself embroiled in a far larger conflict, one that has the potential to alter the balance of power on this alien world. Knowing that his new friends stand on one side, with their enemies, and his own enemies from Earth on the other, Uriel doesn’t need to think long about what he will do. However, as he throws himself into the fight alongside his rebel friends, it also becomes clear how outmatched they are.

But for a Jewish soldier, fighting in the face of bad odds is nothing new. The only way to move is forward.

Ruin of Kings (King’s League #3) – Jason Anspach and J. N. Chaney

Party at Dawnshire.

Graydon’s Armor is bestowing its power on players throughout King’s League, and not all of them think like Dirk.

When a vicious player-killer begins to wreak havoc in his own corner of King’s League, Dirk decides that the only way he can put a stop to it is by gathering up his friends and creating a balanced party capable of standing up against some of the game’s toughest challenges.

As Dirk helps Stoneburner and others level up to survive the coming encounter, he discovers that finding Graydon’s Sight wasn’t just good luck…it was the start of a game-changing development that will impact every player in King’s League!

Spirits of Vengeance – Rob J. Hayes

He’ll die as many times as it takes.

The Ipian Empire was once a land that welcomed dragons and spirits alike, but a century of war and bloodshed saw them all but vanish. Now, the lost things are returning and the Onryo have gathered. Five legendary spirits with mysterious powers, bent on freeing an ancient evil that would wreak havoc on humanity.

Haruto swore his soul to the God of Death for the chance to hunt down the vengeful ghost of his wife. Now an onmyoji, he’s tasked by the Imperial Throne to hunt down monsters and malicious spirits. But he knows not all spirits are evil and not all deserve the peace of the sword.

Kira is a student at Heiwa, an academy for children with dangerous techniques. But she has a secret, she’s not like the other students. When the school is attacked, she flees with one of the tutors, determined to hide both from those who would kill her, and those who would use her.

As a plague of spirits sweeps across the land, the Onryo leave a bloody trail for Haruto to follow. But who’s hunting who?

The Wasting Desert – David V. Stewart

For Millenia, the Wasting Desert has stood as an impassable barrier between the kingdoms of the Divine Strand and the ancient Draesenith Empire. Those who enter never return to say why it cannot be crossed.

Alastan, a disgraced soldier and merchant, believes he can cross to the empire and return, bringing with him a valuable secret that will allow him to settle his debts and repair his tattered life. Guiding him is the enigmatic dark elf Mondal and the warrior-mage Thokar, himself a descendant of the empire’s strange race of giants. They alone know the secret of the blasted miles of sand.

Once they enter, they soon find that the ever-shifting paths of the desert are but one hazard. Phantoms and forgotten spirits wander, lost and hungry for the human soul. But, within the shifting sands and ruins, too, lives an ancient terror far more dangerous than lost souls—a horror that frightens even the mighty Thokar and the ageless killer Mondal.

And the only escape is through to the other side.

Fantasy New Releases: 2 October 2021 published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

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