#Presidential Advisers

[deadpresidents]

I was going through your Lady Bird tags because I watched a documentary on CNN about Lady Bird and one of the things that stood out to me was how badly LBJ mistreated Lady Bird! How come she never left him? Did he really cheat in front of her, to her face, and she pretended she didn’t see anything? And from what I gathered, Lady Bird was loyal and devoted to Lyndon despite how he treated her , why though? I tried seeing if she cheated and couldn’t find anything, but she must have really loved him.

It's clear that LBJ and Lady Bird had a complex relationship, but I'm convinced that they really did love one another. On the surface, it might seem that she was blind to who LBJ was at times, or that he was too dominant of a force for her to handle with his famous "Johnson Treatment", but she was the strong one in the relationship and, time and time again, she was the backbone that LBJ needed during his frequent bouts with depression and when his self-confidence disappeared. Along with a marriage, they had a powerful political partnership and Lady Bird was just as shrewd and gifted of a political operator as her husband ever was. Biographers and historians have revealed tons of research over the years about how important Lady Bird was to LBJ's career and he genuinely couldn't have accomplished what he did without her.

As I wrote in an essay about their relationship a few years ago (one of my favorite pieces I've ever written), Lady Bird was well aware of how capricious Lyndon B. Johnson could be and that he was by no means a perfect husband:

It was Lady Bird who could calm him in troubled times. While Lyndon Johnson is remembered as a political maestro, particularly in legislative politics, Lady Bird had great political intuition and knew how to handle Lyndon himself. LBJ could be cruel and coarse -- not just to his colleagues and staff, but to Lady Bird. In a 1994 interview with The Washington Post, Lady Bird admitted as much. "Ours was a compelling love," said said. "Lyndon bullied me, coaxed me, at times even ridiculed me, but he made me more than I would have been. I offered him some peace and quiet, maybe a little judgment." That humility was not false humility; it was Lady Bird's characteristically earnest belief. Yet, she arguably offered him more than he offered her. When he was sick, she helped care for him. When he was depressed, she helped make his life as easy as possible. She motivated him in a way that nothing else could -- not even his intense drive to prove himself or ceaseless ambition for the power to help change things. If Lyndon Johnson was a hurricane -- a force to be reckoned with, Lady Bird Johnson was the quiet breeze and warm sunshine which helped settle everything in the storm's wake. I'm not sure Lyndon Johnson made Lady Bird more than she could have been, but I'm positive that Lady Bird helped LBJ become who he was.

There is an absolutely remarkable taped phone call available from the LBJ Library which gives us a fascinating look behind the curtain at Lady Bird's influence on LBJ's political career. After he gave a televised press conference on March 7, 1964, Lady Bird calls the President and asks him if he wants to hear her critique on his performance then or wait until later and LBJ says, "Yes, ma'am. I'm willing now."

So, the First Lady launches into a detailed review of how LBJ looked, sounded, and seemed during his press conference -- a quick, brilliant, perceptive analysis that touched on everything that President's communications director or press secretary might have scrutinized. She's fair and honest, supportive but direct and constructive, comparing the press conference she just watched with a recent one that she had only heard, and LBJ listens carefully and respectfully, obviously accepting her opinions as helpful and much-needed:

"I thought that you looked strong, firm, and like a reliable guy. Your looks were splendid. The close-ups were much better than the distance ones...Well, I would say this: there were more close-ups than there were distance ones. During the statement you were a little breathless, and there was too much looking down, and I think it was a little too fast. Not enough change of pace, dropping voice at the end of sentence. There was a considerable pickup in drama and interest when the questioning began. Your voice was noticeably better, and your facial expressions noticeably better. The mechanics of the room were not too good, 'cause although I heard you well throughout every bit of it, I did not hear your questioners clearly."

What I find most interesting about the call is that it's a different side of both LBJ and Lady Bird than the public perception of the two, and it's arguably the earliest -- and possibly best overall or most direct --- example of a First Lady's political influence and/or impact on a President's job performance. There is a little bit of back-and-forth between them during the call, but it's mainly Lady Bird in action as a virtual White House communications director and LBJ hearing her review, with Lady Bird declaring, "In general, I'd say it was a good B-plus. How do you fell about it?", before ending the call after confirming their plans for dinner later that night. It's really a pretty incredible peek into Presidential history and the life of a fascinating Presidential marriage -- and the best part is that you can listen to the whole thing yourself via the LBJ Library.

#History #Lady Bird Johnson #Lyndon B. Johnson #LBJ #President Johnson #Presidential Marriages #Presidents #First Ladies #First Families #LBJ Library #LBJ and Lady Bird #Lady Bird #Lyndon Johnson #First Marriages #Presidential Families #Presidential Relationships #The Johnson Treatment #LBJ Tapes #Presidential Advisers #Influential First Ladies #Johnson Administration

[niveditaabaidya]

Russia Behind Military Coup In Niger. #niger #ukraine #wagner #nato #new...

#youtube #Russia Behind Military Coup In Niger. niger ukraine wagner nato news africa Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak has said that

[nothingunrealistic]

Babak Tafti has joined Season 7 of “Billions” in a recurring guest role, Variety has learned.

According to his official character description, Tafti will star as Bradford Luke, a high priced, high power political consultant.

He joins returning cast members Paul Giamatti, Corey Stoll and Maggie Siff. The seventh installment also marks the return of Damian Lewis as Bobby “Axe” Axelrod. David Costabile, Asia Kate Dillon, Dola Rashad, Jeffrey DeMunn, Sakina Jaffrey, Daniel Breaker and Toney Goins also star.

In its seventh season, “alliances are turned on their heads. Old wounds are weaponized. Loyalties are tested. Betrayal takes on epic proportions. Enemies become wary friends. And Bobby Axelrod returns, as the stakes grow from Wall Street to the world,” reads the season synopsis, per Showtime. The season is currently in production in New York City.

#not much surprising here but nice to get an official character description. sounds like he'll advise prince's presidential bid #billions #babak tafti #bradford luke

[wilwheaton]

An Arizona grand jury on Wednesday indicted seven attorneys and aides affiliated with Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign as well as 11 Arizona Republicans on felony charges related to their alleged efforts to subvert Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, according to an announcement by the state attorney general. Those indicted include former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman and Christina Bobb, top campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn and former campaign aide Mike Roman. They are accused of allegedly aiding an unsuccessful strategy to award the state’s electoral votes to Trump instead of Biden after the 2020 election. Also charged are the Republicans who signed paperwork on Dec. 14, 2020, that falsely purported Trump was the rightful winner, including former state party chair Kelli Ward, state Sens. Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern, and Tyler Bowyer, a GOP national committeeman and chief operating officer of Turning Point Action, the campaign arm of the pro-Trump conservative group Turning Point USA. Trump was not charged, but he is described in the indictment as an unindicted co-conspirator.

Meadows, Giuliani and other Trump allies charged in Arizona 2020 election probe

Put them all in prison for the rest of their lives, please.

[timesofocean]

Turkish, US address NATO bids of Sweden, Finland

New Post has been published on https://www.timesofocean.com/turkish-us-presidential-aides-address-nato-bids-of-sweden-finland/

Turkish, US address NATO bids of Sweden, Finland

Ankara (The Times Groupe)- Turkish presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin and US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Monday talked about the NATO bids of Sweden and Finland, among other topics, diplomatic sources said.

The sources, who requested anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to media, added that global food security, energy security, bilateral relations, and developments in Syria and Ukraine were also discussed.

During the call, it was stated that a prolonged Ukraine-Russian war threatens global food security, and therefore poses severe challenges for the global economy.

According to sources, the Turkish side also stressed that if Sweden and Finland are to consider membership in NATO, it is essential to embrace NATO’s principles, which include the joint fight against threats, including terrorism.

Ankara will continue its resolute war on terror against the PKK/YPG, which threatens the territorial integrity of Turkey and Syria, the Turkish side emphasized.

Ankara launched a series of successful anti-terror operations across its northern Syrian border since 2016 in order to prevent the formation of a terror corridor and enable the peaceful settlement of residents there: Euphrates Shield (2016), Olive Branch (2018), and Peace Spring (2019).

The Turkish government has also said that if more is not done to address the cross-border PKK/YPG threat, it will intervene.

During its more than 35-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK – a terrorist organization recognized by Turkey, the US, and the EU – has killed over 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants. The YPG is the Syrian offshoot of the PKK.

Turkey also emphasized that it remains adamant about protecting its own interests in the Eastern Mediterranean and Aegean, as well as pursuing a constructive approach based on peace and stability.

The importance of returning to the negotiating table for a peaceful solution to the war between Russia and Ukraine was also stressed.

Over 4,000 civilians have been killed and nearly 5,000 others injured in Ukraine since the war began on Feb. 24. The real toll is believed to be much higher.

Approximately 6.7 million people have fled to other countries, while more than 7.7 million have been internally displaced, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).

#developments in Syria #Eastern Mediterranean and Aegean #energy security #Finland #global food security #latest News #NATO #PKK/YPG #Sweden #terror corridor #The Times Groupe #Times #Times Of Ocean #Turkish presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin #Ukraine-Russian war #un #UN refugee agency (UNHCR) #US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan #Politics

[reality-detective]

Friedman served as an unofficial adviser to Ronald Reagan during his 1980 presidential campaign, and then served on the President's Economic Policy Advisory Board for the rest of the Reagan Administration. Some people claim that Friedman was "the 'guru' of the Reagan administration". 🤔

#pay attention #educate yourselves #educate yourself #knowledge is power #reeducate yourself #reeducate yourselves #think about it #think for yourselves #think for yourself #do your homework #do some research #do your own research #ask yourself questions #question everything #politics #quotes

[phoward89]

Summary: Coriolanus is bed ridden and healing from his dance with poison, but that doesn't stop him from his political scheming. When he finds out that his political rival lusts after you, he warns you and makes you promise to help poison the man once his District 12 contact comes through and sends him your apothecary book.

Warnings: Coriolanus Snow is his own warning! Possessive!Coriolanus, Obsessive!Coriolanus, DelusionalCoriolanus, Dark!Coriolanus, Soft Dark!Coriolanus?, Head Gamemaker!Coriolanus,mentions of blood, cussing, slapping, talks of sex work and mistresses, um that's pretty much it

Series Masterlist

Chapter 7:

You had placed Coryo on bed rest a couple of days ago so he'll be able to attend his late wife's funeral. He'll be weak, but at least he'd be able to go to the funeral looking a bit better than he was the night he came home, barely able to stand on his own two feet from the poison he drank.

A funeral that Ma and Strabo Plinth were arranging. They, surprisingly, live in the apartment underneath the penthouse on the 11th floor. You met them when they came over, wanting to check on Coryo; let him know that they'd take care of all of Livia's funeral arrangements.

Ma Plinth was a warm, frumpy woman that just had a motherly aura to her. She talked your ear off and kept stuffing her homemade cookies (she called the little brown scallop-edged things biscochitos) into your hand as you sat with her in the main room while her husband talked to Coryo in the master bedroom.

Apparently, they tried the townhouse he lived in with Livia first, but when they were only met with an Avox, they decided to try the Corso penthouse.

Ma Plinth was so sweet and friendly. She even offered to help you transition into life in the Capitol as a person coming from the districts.

“It can be so difficult adjusting to life here when all you know is the simple life of your district; your traditions. I'm only one floor away if you need anything, sweetheart.”

Did she know something you didn't? Because your stay in the Capitol with Coryo's only temporary, until Victor's Village in 12 is done being built.

Meanwhile, as Ma Plinth showered you with motherly affection, her husband had his own talk with Coryo. The talk about the funeral was brief, but that wasn't the only thing they were talking about.

No.

They were also talking about you.

“I take it that girl's the victor you had me sponsor during the games.” Strabo Plinth told Coriolanus, a knowing look on his old, wrinkle-weary tan face.

“You're correct, Sir.” The platinum blonde nodded. Adjusting himself against his pillows and headboard, he added in, “She's the one I had you sponsor, ensuring her Victory by being sent that pocket knife.”

“Is she staying with you now?”

“Yes, we're living together.” Coriolanus nodded.

“She won't be as valuable for you to sell if she's used, Coriolanus.” Strabo remarked in a business-like tone.

“I'm not selling her, Sir. I'm keeping her for myself.”

“So, she's your new mistress.” Strabo surmised. He could see the appeal the girl had to his adopted heir. She was from District 12 and the Head Gamemaker had spent some time there in his youth…

“No, she’ll never be my mistress.” Coriolanus shook his head, causing Strabo to frown. “I'm going to marry her; make her my First Lady.” The ailing platinum blonde told the older man, only to bluntly ask, “Have you heard anything about the president's condition? His age and health’s been declining; the council must be close to declaring him incompetent.”

“I received a call this morning from my contacts, the president’s cabinet along with the ministry plans on declaring him incompetent and naming the Senate temporary rulers for Panem until a campaign season and election is held.”

“Sir, how soon will I be able to declare my intentions to run as the youngest President of Panem?”

“Within the next 3 days, but I do advise you to rethink your rash decision to marry that victor. She has nothing to offer you and your presidential campaign.”

“With all due respect, Sir, I don't tell you what to do about your private affairs so I'd appreciate it if you showed me that same respect.” Coriolanus seethed, his voice ice cold and clipped, as he narrowed his eyes at Strabo Plinth.

The Plinths haven't been by since the day after Coryo poisoned himself while killing his wife, but they did slide a note under the door about the date and time of the funeral.

A note you just picked up after hearing the knock on the door while in the kitchen, making Coryo a glass of warm salt water to gargle with in order to help his mouth sore heal faster.

The sore was large, red, bloody, and inflamed. But, you knew that by gargling with warm salt water the sore wouldn't get infected; ooze puss, but would begin the healing process.

So, with a glass of salt water in one hand and a note in the other, you made your way to the master bedroom you share with Coryo. Your unofficial boyfriend.

“The Plinths just left a note under the front door.” You told him, announcing your presence; causing him to close his book and put it aside.

“Is that what's in your hand, darling?” Coryo asked, baby blues flittering towards the paper you're holding, as you made your way over to him.

‘Yea, it's the details for Livia's funeral. I thought you'd need to see it.” You explained, placing both the note and the glass of saltwater on the nightstand.

Before you could back away, the bedridden platinum blonde grabbed your wrist and sighed, “I know you're still upset with me for drinking that arsenic based poison, but please, just stay with me for a while. Keep me company, yea?”

“I've been keeping you company since you brought me here, Coryo. I'm just trying to let you get some rest so you can build up your strength.”

“I'm healing up just fine, Y/N; you're taking such good care of me, but I would like to spend more time with you then during meals and check-ins on my condition.”

“Coryo, you need your rest.” You told him, only to remind the light curly haired blonde what happened the last time you spent time with him. “Plus last time I was in bed with you, you tried to get me to mess around with you.” Before the head gamemaker could utter a word, you finished your thoughts with, “You're too weak for that right now. You’re on a broth diet and have a painful, bloody sore taking up your entire right cheek. Sexy times should be the least of your worries right now, horny goat.”

“Did you really just call me a horny goat, my darling rose?” Coriolanus incredulously asked, a brow raised in amusement. “I can't say I've ever been called that before.”

“Read your note and gargle with your salt water. I have to make your chicken broth.”

“Perhaps you could shred some of the poultry into my bowl when it's done?”

“No, Coriolanus. Your stomach's not ready for solids yet.”

“You're lucky I'm sick and in bed, otherwise I'd slap you for your bratty behavior.” Coriolanus darkly hissed, his icy eyes narrowed with promising madness.

You didn't say a word, just yanked your wrist out of his hold and left the bedroom.

You had a lot to deal with and a lot to learn when it came to loving (which you certainly weren't doing yet) and living with Coriolanus Snow.

The head gamemaker's bored to death in his sick bed. Coriolanus would much rather be in bed with you, stuffing you full of his cock until you cry from cumming multiple times. But, since you're so strict about his recovery, he’s stuck staring at the 4 walls of his bedroom, looking out the window, reading books, and mentally scheming up plans of presidential grandeur.

Tigris came over to check on him; to drop off your closing interview dress as well. Since you’re busy making broth, you told the stylist to just drop the dress bag in the master bedroom and to let Coriolanus know that you'd be bringing him something to eat soon.

Truth was you’re also busy avoiding having to deal with Coryo. Man’s worse than a baby while sick in bed.

And for some reason he's always-

ALWAYS

-horny.

Doesn't matter that he's still weak from poisoning himself. He wants you and isn't shy about letting you know it.

You know once he's healed you're in for it. The thought excites you, even tho you'd never admit it out loud. Hell, you won't even silently admit it to yourself. But maybe that's because Ashlie, your brother's girlfriend, told you that such things shouldn't be addressed or dwelled upon.

Oh boy, were you in for a rude awakening whenever Coryo gets better and has his way with you.

But you won't mind; in fact you'll welcome it.

You were finishing up brewing the broth for your man while his cousin, the famed stylist, visited with him in your shared bedroom.

“You can't have her sit with you at Livia's funeral, Coriolanus.” Tigris told her cousin, staring at him as he sipped some green tea (that you’re making him drink instead of his preferred Earl Grey due to the healing properties it had) while in bed, propped up against some pillows, against the headboard. Waiting for you to bring him some broth and a new book to read.

“Why not? She's mine.” Coryo asked, blood from his large and painful mouth sore had seeped into his tea. Staining the rim of the teacup crimson; making his cousin feel uneasy as she stuffed your interview dress, which Coriolanus deemed your funeral dress, back into the garment bag after showing it off.

“Your wife just died, Coriolanus. You can't be presenting her on your arm for your elite to bid on her while at a funeral.” Tigris told the atinum blonde, hoping that her words would knock some sense into him.

He just couldn't parade you around a funeral, tempting the rich for the biddings. It wasn't right. In fact it was disgusting. At least he could wait until the gala after the crowning ceremony to debut you for bidding.

Even the thought of him doing that disgusted the fashion designer.

“That is not what I'll be doing, Tigris!” Coriolanus angrily shouted, feeling his mouth sore burn and seep blood. Slamming his teacup on his bedside table, causing some of the rich, green liquid to slosh over the crimson stained rim, he barked, “I've told you, I'm making Y/N my wife. She will never ever be touched by anyone, but me.”

“Yes, well, at least with you laid up in bed from food poisoning she gets a break from you touching her.” Tigris said, feeling relief for your plight. She felt sorry for you on so many levels. She wished she could do more to help you, but all she could do was design your commissioned dresses and offer you a gentle soul for friendship during your tough time.

Coriolanus narrowed his baby blues at his cousin, the kind hearted woman who raised him to be good even though he decided to become evil. “What the hell is your problem, cousin? I've done so much for you and you treat me like shit.”

The stylist debated whether or not she should tell Coriolanus what her problem with him was. On one hand, she didn't want to upset him, but on the other hand she knew that she couldn't keep her feelings to herself for much longer. Deciding to just tell him the truth, Tigris tilted her black and blonde stripe-haired head at her cousin, only to say, “Your time as a peacekeeper in 12 changed you, Coriolanus. Something inside of you snapped and you became cold, cruel, and evil just like your father.”

Coriolanus’ eyes burned with a cold-blooded rage at Tigris’ words. He was insulted that she called his father, the great General Crassus Snow evil, let alone himself that.

Tigris’ shoulders shook with sorrowful anger while revealing her true feelings of, “I do appreciate you for giving me the opportunity to become a well known designer, but I despise you for making me a stylist for the games. For pimping out those Victor's all so you can gain money that you don't even need, Coriolanus.”

“Yes, well, you always were too sweet and tender-hearted for your own good.” Coriolanus scoffed, rolling his eyes in a dramatic show that he felt his cousin was too soft. Too weak. Too naive. Too ethical and moral for the dark world they lived in. “Now, if you're done trying to guilt trip me- which won't work because I'm completely fine with being the villain in your story- could you go back to your boutique and design Y/N a proper interview dress.”

“What's wrong with the one I just hung up for her?”

“Tigris, cousin, I already told you that dress is perfect for her to wear to Livia's funeral since it's black with pearl accents and a matching, large floppy hat.”

“You're going to make a fool out of yourself with her on your arm at your wife’s funeral, Coriolanus.” Tigris huffed warningly as the sound of the phone ringing echoed down the hall and into the master bedroom.

“No, I won't.” Coriolanus snapped. “Oh, Tigris, I'd like for my darling rose to have white rose accents on her interview dress.” Coriolanus said, reaching for his discarded teacup. “Do you think you can handle that, cousin?”

Before Tigris could say yes, you came rushing down the hall while calling out, “Coryo! Somebody from the presidential cabinet’s on the phone for you!”

“Well, as lovely as our little chat’s been cousin, we both have duties to attend to.” Coriolanus told Tigris, his tone very curt and formal, as he placed his teacup on the table and stood up.

Tigris nodded solemnly, only to turn around and go over to the door. Right as you entered the room, she exited. “Please, let me know if he hurts you. If you need any help.” She whispered softly in your ear, brushing her shoulder against yours in a show of running into you (to cover up her whispers from her eagle eyed cousin).

You didn't say a word, just gave her a polite smile before making your way over to Coryo, who was rummaging thru his dresser drawer.

“What're you looking for?” You curiously asked, stopping by the blonde man's side.

“My damn pajamas that I never wear.” He told you. Gesturing to the closet with a flick of his wrist, he ordered, “My blue dressing gown’s in there, please get it for me.”

“You have a housecoat?” You asked, holding back a giggle.

“It’s not a housecoat, it's a dressing gown, Y/N.” Coriolanus harshly snapped as he found the pair of navy blue silk pajamas he was looking for. Quickly, he tossed on the shirt, not even bothering to unbutton it, while berating you with, “You're not in the districts anymore, so please, refrain from talking like it.”

“You might take the girl out of the districts, but you can't take the districts out of the girl.” You scoffed, grabbing his precious baby blue dressing gown aka housecoat as he quickly pulled on his matching navy blue pajama pants.

Coryo might be recovering from his stint with the poison, but his backhand was still strong. You staggered, and would've fallen on your ass if it wasn't for him grabbing your arm to keep you upright. Snatching the dressing gown from you, he snapped out the order of, “Don't you ever sass back again to me, Y/N.” Letting his grip on you go, he hastily put on his dressing gown while remarking, “You know I don't tolerate brats; I'll beat you into submission if I have to, my darling rose.”

You just let out a huff and shook your head incredulously. If he thought that he was going to just smack you around every time he thought you were bratty then he had another thing coming. You'd tell him too, after he's done with his phone call.

“I'll tell them you'll be there in a minute, Coriolanus.” You told him, disdain dripping from your tongue as you spat out his name, before storming out of the room and down the hall.

Coriolanus looked like shit as he sat down at the mahogany desk in his study. He looked drained with dark purple bags under his eyes. His platinum blonde curls were messily sticking up every which way and he had blood staining the corner of his lip since his mouth sore was open and large.

He picked up the phone and pressed the button to transfer the video call from the living room to his study. When the caller appeared on his screen, he was met with the head of the War Council, General Prometheus Byzantine- who was also a member of President Ravinstill’s cabinet since he was the head of the War Council.

A position that Coriolanus felt that he deserved after killing Dr. Gaul a decade ago, since after all he was her assistant.

But no….

President Ravinstill felt that he was too young to be in charge of the War Council and named General Byzantine to the position while anointing Coriolanus Head Gamemaker and giving him a punny seat on the war council.

Oh, how he hated that general.

He thought about offing him, but decided against it since another military great would just replace him. Instead, Coriolanus decided to climb the political social ladder and make allies (allies was a loose term) with anyone that could boost his election potential.

And once he became a senator, well, he knew that he had the perfect political background to successfully run for president. Which is why he started to slowly poison President Ravinstill during meetings about the games. The man was old, so it'd just look like natural causes took him. An illness of sorts.

It was perfect, his plan.

And it worked, since he was getting a call about the president being made unfit to rule the country.

“Good day, General Byzantine, to what do I owe this pleasure?” Coriolanus politely asked the man who had stolen his rightful spot running the war council.

The man he assumes will be his biggest threat and political rival while running for President of Panem.

“Good Day, Head Gamemaker Snow.” The general responded. “I’ve called to inform you that the cabinet’s met with the ministry and we’ll be announcing later tonight that the president is unwell and unable to enact his duties to the country.”

“So, the Senate’s in charge for the time being.” Coriolanus concluded, subconsciously tonguing the sore in his cheek since it stinging and hurting.

“Yes.” General Byzantine nodded, only to go into a lengthy explanation of, “There has to be a preliminary between those intending to run in order to see who the top 2 contenders are; then there has to be a campaign season and an election. All of which must be scheduled with enough time for tours, campaign speeches, debates, and related functions.”

“So, it'll take at least a year?” The platinum blonde, who looked like the pale horse of death itself, asked the former war hero- who he despised.

“Typically elections are held in November, but only the preliminary can be held this November.” General Byzantine told Coriolanus, who had already figured out in his head what he just heard.

“So, over a year then.”

General Byzantine nodded, before changing the subject with the remark of, “I saw that the new victor answered your phone. She keeping your dick wet as you cry over dearly departed Livia?” A sinister smirk formed on the general’s tan face as he darkly remarked, “When you're done stretching open her tight holes, I’ll pay your high price for her. Hell, I'll pay double what you want to charge for that pretty little district whore.” Tipping his head back, General Prometheus Byzantine chuckled, “She’s too beautiful to be district scum; has the looks of a Capitol whore tho.”

Hearing General Byzantine insult you and confess that he wanted you as his personal Capitol whore had Coriolanus' blood boiling. He was seething, seeing red like a raging bull. How dare that bastard want you.

Wasn't it bad enough that he stole his rightfully inherited position as Head of the War Council from him? Now he wanted to make you his personal whore. And wanted Coriolanus to break you in for him too. Oh, how dare he.

HOW DARE HE!

HOW.

DARE.

HE.

Coriolanus stared the general down, his icy eyes hard as stone. His baritone dripped with a firm possessiveness as he said, “My darling rose isn't for sale, General Byzantine. She is mine and I don't share what's mine.”

“Oh, Coriolanus, I'm sure you'll get tired of your little victor turned mistress once the novelty’s worn off.” The general said in a know-it-all type chuckle. “Call me when that happens and we'll talk about pricing. I have to call up some other senators about President Ravinstill, but have a nice day.” General Byzantine told Coriolanus before hanging up on him.

You heard a loud crash coming from Coryo's study. Even tho you were mad at him for slapping you (again), you were worried about him. He was still weak, had at least another 4 days until he's healed up enough to put your mind at ease, and you were concerned that he fell down.

Without a second thought, you turned off the stove and rushed to his study. When you stepped (more like ran) inside you were met with Coryo hunched over his desk, that was cleared of everything that had been on it. All kinds of things including the small desk sized video phone were scattered on the floor.

You quickly realized the crashing you heard was the platinum blonde sweeping everything off his desk in a flash of anger. What got him so upset? His call couldn't have been that bad, could it?

“Coryo, you need to calm down and rest.” You told him, appearing at his side and helping him back into his large, leather desk chair.

“I can't just calm down, my darling rose.” Coriolanus snapped, his tone full of aggravation and cold hard hate. You arched a curious brow at his remark, only for him to grab you by the waist and pull you onto his lap. “General Byzantine wants to take you away from me and I can't have that, baby. I can't lose you, you're mine and belong to me.” He ranted as you placed your hands on his shoulders while straddling his lap.

Holy hell…seems like his call with a member of President Ravinstill’s cabinet wasn't all professional. Coryo's remark made you wonder what happened, so you asked him, “I thought we belonged to each other, Coryo. Why would some general want to take me away from you?”

“Because he's lusting after what's mine, Y/N.” Coryo told you, his large callused hands holding you close to him. Anchoring you, preventing you from moving away. “He stole the position of Head of the War Council from me when my predecessor, Dr. Gaul died. I was her assistant and should've been given both her Head Gamemaker position and her position as the Head of the War Council, but General Prometheus Byzantine convinced President Ravinstill that I wasn't experienced enough for the position; had himself placed in it instead and had me given a seat on the council as a junior member.”

You kept your face neutral and just nodded at him, urging him to continue with his rant. Maybe if he gets everything off his chest he'll be able to nap; leave you alone for a bit.

If you're left alone, maybe you'll be able to use the phone to make a quick call to the mines to speak with Rein. Or maybe to the Hob to see if Ashlie’s there. You missed your family- terribly, and didn't want them worrying too much about you since your timeline of post-game events was different then other victors. 

Usually, a victor already did their exit interview and had their crowning and victory ball at the presidential palace by now, but given how Coryo was suffering from adverse effects of an arsenic based poisoning, all of your events have been postponed. Coryo said that he'd arrange for your events once he was better

But you knew that your family must be worried sick about you. They expected to see you by now, if not in person then on tv. And after you collapsed out after winning your games, well, you know that Rein and Ashlie must be worried sick about you.

Coryo’s long fingers dug into your hips. His icy blue eyes were raging with a fiery anger as he spat out, “That bastard told me, very crudely, that he wants you once I'm done with you. That he'll pay for you; make you his whore.”

Your eyes widened in horror at his blunt words. He wouldn't do that to you, would he? Coriolanus claimed that you belonged to him; that he wanted you by his side.

“Coryo, you wouldn't whore me out to some old general to, I dunno, get on his good side? Would you?”

Horror crossed over the platinum blonde man’s features. How could you think that he'd do such a thing? You were his obsession, his possession, his Victor, his darling rose, his baby, his girl.

You're his girl.

And only his girl.

Coryo cupped your cheek, the one he kept slapping and bruising, only to lean his forehead against yours, “Y/N, my darling rose, you're my girl. You belong to me and I don't share what's mine with anybody.” His breath was hot against your skin; the smell of blood wafted into your nose- the metallic, tangy scent should've curdled your stomach, but it didn't.

Perhaps your time in the games had changed your sense of smell when it came to blood, considering you smelt so much of it for nearly a week.

Coryo's baritone sounded out into the air with the promise of, “We belong to each other, Y/N. You're my girl and I'm going to marry you before fall comes. I promise, you'll be mine and only mine.”

“You're going to make me permanently yours by marrying me; making me your wife?” You asked for clarity, because if his answer was yes then you had one condition to the marriage he was forcing you into.

“Yes.” Coriolanus told you, his baby blues full of nothing, but honesty. Which, for him, was a rare feat in itself. “I’m going to marry you right away, after filing the K-1 Visa paperwork, and I'm going to make you my First Lady.”

Now it was your turn to look at him wide-eyed. “Make me your First Lady…” You let out in disbelief. “You're going to run for president, since President Ravinstill's old and frail; might be incompetent.” You told Coryo, even though it sounded more like a question than a statement.

“Yes, I'm going to become President Snow and you're going to be First Lady Snow.” Coryo told you with such strong conviction. He tucked a stray strand of hair behind your ear, only to tell you, “General Prometheus Byzantine is not only my political rival, but he's a danger to you, my darling.” Locking his eyes with yours, he revealed, “Smiley hasn't gotten back to me yet, so I don't know if your apothecary book's been sent out to us, but when we get that book I need you to make me a poison to give to the general.”

“Coryo…” You sighed, the weight of his words hitting you straight in the chest like a ton of bricks. Yes, you did tell him you'd make him plant based poisons with safe antidotes to take beforehand, but you weren't expecting him to cash in on that offer so soon. 

“I have to poison him, Y/N.” He told you, his voice firm, but velvety smooth. He pulled you in close to him, making you lean your head against his chest, as he declared, “It's the only way to ensure that you're safe; that I make it to the presidential palace, baby.” Carding his hands thru your hair, he sighed, “He's too dangerous to the both of us kept alive too long. He's got too much power; could very well beat me in a preliminary poll if I don't get rid of him now.” Coriolanus' voice shook with a deep rooted bitterness as he spat, “I won't give him the chance to overpower me; take you away. I promised to keep you safe and I'm going to do that by getting rid of him.”

“I knew I'd have to kill for my survival in the arena, during the Hunger Games, but I thought I'd be done with killing for my survival once the games were over.” You honestly admitted into his chest.

Coryo ran a hand up and down your back while telling you, “All of Panem's an arena and life's nothing, but one big Hunger Games. There's two types of people in this world, the weak who don't survive and the strong who’ll do anything to survive; who are the victors.” Looking down at you, he said, “You and I, my darling rose, are victors.” His head dipped low, so that his lips were ghosting over yours, as he told you, “Snow lands on top and you, my dear, are now considered a Snow.”

Your hand strokes his cheek, as you firmly tell him, “If I'm to be your wife; your First Lady Snow, then you'll stop smacking me in the face to teach me manners.” Before he could protest, you barrelled on with, “I refuse to end up like so many of the girls do in 12, beaten and broken by a man. I won't just sit around and let you slap me around every single day.” A dead serious look flashed in your eyes as you told him, “If you ever and I mean ever lay hands on me again then you better hire a taste tester because I will put something in your drink.”

Coriolanus smirked at your words. You truly were a victor. Only a victor would have the nerve to threaten him. Only a woman worthy of the Snow name could level with him. Give him an ultimatum.

Yes, your demand intrigued him because it meant that you agreed to marry him although you had one condition.

And that one condition he would grant you.

But only you, because if any other woman in Panem said those words you said to him, well, they'd be dead before dusk.

But you were different. You were his Victor, his survivor, his other half that he'd polish and shine up to be presentable on his arm in front of the Capitol citizens.

“I won't hit you out of anger again. You have my word, Y/N.” Coryo promised you. “But you must promise me to act more like a capitolite. We need to have a pure and pristine image while I'm running for president.”

“When do you plan on announcing your presidential campaign?” You curiously asked. You secretly hoped that it wouldn't be too soon. You just wanted to figure out how to navigate your new life in peace without the media chasing you down because you're with the game maker turned politician.

“The answer to that, my darling, will be revealed all in good time.” Coryo told you before nipping at your neck.

Trying to wiggle free from his grasp, you reminded him, “Coryo, you're still recovering.”

“You're such a strict nurse, not letting me have what I want even tho I'm feeling better.”

“Stop trying to fool me, Coryo. I know you've still got a few more days to go before you're in tip top shape.”

“The day you declare me with a clean bill of health’s the day I’m going to fuck you so hard into our mattress that you won't be walking right for a week.” Coriolanus told you, his tone blunt and full of the promise of things to come.

Things that you're not sure you're ready for. Things that you know will happen with him, since he's so determined. Things that you know you'll let happen because, deep down, you find him to be the most beautiful man you've seen in you're entire life and you want him too. You want him even tho you know you shouldn't.

You're the victor of the First Quarter Quell and he's the Head Gamemaker that has large aspirations of becoming the President of Panem. It's a match made in hell at best. 

But your man's a serpent and you’re losing yourself to him; will eat the forbidden fruit that he offers you.

You'll be his partner in crime; his other half in his poisonous schemes. 

But you don't know that yet. All you k ow right now is that he needs you to help him kill to keep both of you safe, he craved political power, is determined to make an honest woman out of you after murdering his first wife, and he wants to fuck you til hw blows out your back.

And whoever said that life would go back to normal after winning the games was full of shit. 

Because nothing about your life’s normal right now. 

But normalcy is overrated, isn't it?

Tags: @kuroosbby001, @purriteen @poppyflower-22 @meetmeatyourworst @whipwhoops @bxtchopolis @readingthingsonhere @savagenctzen @ryswritingrecord, @erikasurfer @tulips2715 @universal-s1ut @thesmutconnoisseur, @squidscottjeans @sudek4l @wearemadeofstardust0 @mashiromochi @gracieroxzy @belcalis9503 @shari-berri @aoi-targaryen @whiteoakoak @spear-bearing-bi-witch @gisellesprettylies @loverandqueenofdragons @qoopeeya @mfnqueen1 @permanentlyexhaustedpigeon88 @v-love @swiftieblyth

#coriolanus snow #tbosas #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #the hunger games #thg #coriolanus snow x reader #coryo snow #tbosas fanfiction #coriolanus fanfiction #coriolanus snow fanfiction #dark!coriolanus snow x reader #dark!coriolanus snow #coriolanus snow x you #coriolanus snow x female!reader #coriolanus x y/n #coriolanus x reader #coryo snow x reader #coryo x reader #coryo x you #coryo snow fanfiction #tbosas fic #thg fanfiction

[i-cant-sing]

‘Missing yandere President Kai x first lady asks, so send some’

Hear me out, yandere President kai goes missing.. We all know first lady’s exact location would be found in 10 minutes but no one really cares about kai that much so he’s in someone’s basement for a bit but what happens to the first lady? Does she become president, sent to an underground bunker to be kept safe because if the president can go missing she could too, Does AFO slide into her dm’s ‘hey ur husband went missing, need any comfort?’ or does someone snatch the country?

Of course!!! The moment news of Kai's kidnapping reaches the secret service, they are immediately dragging you and the teletubbies down to an underground safehouse, locking down the entire Presidential House and delay telling you about the kidnapping for as long as possible.

Oh and by the way, you're still very pregnant, and when you finally snap at them to tell you what the hell is going on, they sit you down on the big table with all the generals and higher officials and tell you-

"Madam, the President has been kidnapped." The head of Kai's security tells you.

"What? What do you mean kidnapped? Where is he?!" You ask all of them.

Kai's chief of Staff, Hari Kurono cleared his throat as he showed you the footage of his car. "The president had left in his car last night alone, without his security detail. He turned around this corner and that's where he found his car. The security footage around this corner has been erased and there are currently no leads on who has taken him or where."

"How could you have let him go alone? He's the president for fuck's sake, he has enemies!"

"He insisted, madam. We advised him strong ly against it, but he said that he ordered us not to follow him."

"Why did he leave? Did he say where he was going?"

Hari shook his head. "He didn't say much, just that he had some business to handle and that he needed to do it alone. He- he looked distressed and he left in a hurry."

You closed your eyes and covered your face with your hands before looking back at them. "Alright, okay. Okay, let's deal with this. What are our options right now? Has the kidnapper contacted us?"

"No, madam. We have been looking at all suspected individuals, our Intel is currently searching for potential enemies in neighbouring countries, but we have no leads. We are trying to keep this news from tye public for as long as possible but we don't have much time left until media breaks this news. So now we have to- we have to think of our next step in case..."

The room fell silent as they all hesitated to meet your eyes.

"What? What is it?"

Hari cleared his throat. "Madam, if President Kai is not found in the next 48 hours, we will have to appoint another president- temporarily until the situation is handled."

You narrowed your eyes. You couldn't believe what you were hearing. Are they going to give up on Kai that easily? After all he's done for his party? They're gonna betray him?

"And I suppose you already have a candidate in mind?" He nodded. "Well, go on. Who is it?"

"You, ma'am."

Wait what?

"What?" You whispered.

The attorney general decided to speak this time. "We think you're the best candidate for the job, ma'am. We are trying our best to locate Mr President, but we need to consider all our options if things do go south."

"The country cant run without a president, maam. You would be perfect for the job- the party agrees, the public already loves you, and whatever concerns you have about your job, well help you! All of us!" Miruko, your publicist offered.

"I see." You pursed your lips. "Is that all?"

You took their silence as an answer.

"So... you're telling me that the best plan you've come up so far is to replace my husband with me?" Your voice barely conceal your rage, and you slammed your hand on the mahogany table.

"HAVE YOU ALL LOST YOUR MINDS?!" You yelled.

"Ma'am-"

"No, shut up!" You barked. "It was your job to protect him! And now that you can't find him, you want me to just sit in his fucking chair and act like everything is normal because you guys fucked up?!"

You stood up, groaning as you suppoted your belly from under. "Here's what's gonna happen. There will be no talk of a new president until you find my husband, dead or alive, but you will find him. I don't care what you have to do, what rules you have to break, you will find him. Look under the sewers, check every suspicious building, search every corner of this country, but FIND. MY. HUSBAND!" You shrieked, hunching over as you felt your baby kick.

Miruko and Hari came close to you but you held up a hand. "Ma'am, let us help-"

"If you really want to help me, find Kai. Do I make myself clear?" You questioned.

-

You were sitting on the couch, rubbing your belly as you tried to calm down your baby... and yourself.

You were still livid at the proposal of the team. How could they just- how could they give up on Kai like that? And then expect you to take his place?

If it were you who was kidnapped, would they have offered Kai to get a new wife because their is now a vacancy for First Lady?

You closed your eyes and sighed. Kai would've never allowed them to give up on you like that. In fact, that one time that you were kidnapped by a deranged fan, Kai worked day and night, turned the whole country upside down until you were found. He didn't care about his image, he didn't care that he would look "weak" for caring about you, he didn't care when he advised against making threats to all his enemies to find you, and he did not listen to anyone when he went down to meet your kidnapper himself and beat the shit out of him to find you.

Kai found you within 18 hours.

"Mom?" You opened your eyes and saw your triplets standing by the door looking worried.

"Hey, my babies. Come here." You beckoned them. They ran upto you, hugging your lap. "What's wrong?"

"Are you okay?" Dabi asked. You nodded. "Mmhmm, your sibling is just excited to meet you guys. They're jumping up and down inside me."

"Where's dad?" Himiko asked. "He's... out, baby. But he's gonna be back soon." You patted their heads. "Its time for bed. Do you guys wanna sleep with mama tonight?" They all cheered.

-

"What's the update, Hari?" And you already knew the answer from the grim look on his face.

"We haven't been able to locate Mr President. I'm sorry, ma'am."

You pinched the nose of your bride. It's been 3 days. 3 fucking days since Kai has been kidnapped.

"Did the kidnappers contact us?" He shook his head.

"What if I talked to the kidnappers?" You offered.

Hari gave you a quizzical look. "Um- what do you mean?"

"What if we broadcast me talking to the kidnappers directly? I ask them what their demands are, tell them to return my husband?"

He shook his head. "Ma'am, I would highly advise you against that. You can't be talking to the kidnappers, we can't negotiate with them. It's not sensible to do that-"

"They could kill him, Hari. Nothing about this situation is sensible."

Hari sighed. "Okay, how about this? We can do a broadcast from the Presidential office on your behalf, instead of you-"

"No" You cut him off. "It has to be from me. Don't you get it? They won't respond unless it's from me directly. And who knows, maybe someone else has seen these kidnappers, maybe they can give us some leads to their whereabouts. Someone must've seen them, Hari. It's just not- it's not possible for a man to to vanish into thin air!"

"Ma'am I-"

"Ma'am?" Rumi walked in. "There's a phone call for you."

-

You picked up your cell. "Hello?"

"Hello, darling." You immeadiately recognised the voice.

AFO. Or Shigaraki.

"What do you want?"

"Aww, is someone having a bad day? Well, you could always come to my place for a good ti-" He stopped when he heard you sob. "Y/n? What's wrong? Come on, tell me."

You sobbed again. "Kai... he's been kidnapped." You whispered into the phone. "He's been missing for 3 days. They can't find him anywhere, they don't even know who took him. It's like- he dropped off the face of the Earth."

"Oh darling, it's- everything will be okay. I'm sure Kai is alright. He'll turn up-"

"He's the president, AFO! He can't just go missing and turn up like this! He's in trouble and I can't- they want me to replace him as the president but im still pregnant and the kids keep on asking me about him and I keep lying to them but- I can't do it- I can't! Not without him!"You broke down and it broke his heart to see you cry like this, especially over that piece of shit you call your husband.

"Okay, Y/n. Calm down, come on. Its not good for your baby. Take deep breaths- just like that." He guided you with your breathing so that you dont have a panic attack, which is totally not safe in your condition.

"Shigaraki?" You sniffled.

"Yes, darling?"

"I know its a big favour to ask..." "Go on." "... can you... can you find Kai? Please, I just- I need to see him. I need him here!"

"Y/n-" "Please, Shigaraki. I'll do anything you ask, just find Kai!"

There was silence on the other end for a few seconds.

"Okay. I'll find him."

-

AFO already knew where Kai was. In fact, he was indirectly helping the kidnapper, who was actually another deranged fan of yours, by covering up his tracks. AFO made sure that someone wiped the camera tapes clean. The fan kidnapped Kai because apparently he had some information on how Kai was a threat to you. And anyone who wants to hurt you... well, AFO would like to take care of it before anything ever happens.

He didnt plan on interferring with the hostage situation this early on, actually he didnt even plan on saving Kai at all, but you asked him to... and AFO would always give you whatever you ask.

Besides saving Kai himself would actually be killing two birds with one stone- he would be on your good side and Kai will owe him one too.

So within 3 hours, AFO had sent his men to take out your kidnapper and return Kai to you in one piece, minus the few minor injuries. And concussion.

But the universe must've felt extra benevolent that day because his men brought him a document that made AFO feel like he just hit the jackpot.

Its the document containing the legal paperwork with the "added" clause about how every penny gives you, spends on you and your kids, you will have to return him back with a huge amount of interest in order for you to divorce him at the end of his term. And since you're not even aware of this clause, you would be in his debt and thus, unable to divorce him.

The kidnapper was someone who worked for you, and he must've found these documents, and felt betrayed on your behalf. He must've been concerned for your safety, so he used them to blackmail Kai and get rid of him for good.

AFO chuckled as he made a copy of the document. Should he show them to you when you come to visit, or should he first use them to toy with Kai a little?

Nevertheless, AFO has a feeling he will have you back in his arms sooner than he expected.

#yandere president overhaul #yandere president kai #yandere kai chisaki #yandere kai #yandere overhaul #yandere overhaul x reader #yandere bnha #bnha headcanons #yandere mha #bnha imagines #yandere afo #yandere all for one

[decolonize-the-left]

I hate democrats with all my very heart but I can't in good faith advise to vote 3rd party in these hell years when they would see every trans person hang and be off hormones. When the transphobia is not at its height (Eg, like. a few years ago) I would 100% agree with you, but the stakes are too high. If the states falls to transphobia, even more countries will follow it. I think it's harmful to consider not voting D this upcoming election. Once they got off tihs current bend, I could get behind where you are coming from.

"this is helpful and not lacking critical analysis at all"

"if the states fall to transphobia"

Where have you been?

GA & VA are blue states this year btw. It's gotten worse since May and and April, too. The mid terms didn't save anyone.

Also if you, the person reading this, have considered voting 3rd party pls know it's not nearly as unpopular or as unlikely of a win as Democrats want you to think it is.

People would vote for a good 3rd party candidate, actually.

Dems convincing you its a long shot is absolutely a self-preserving psyop hoping to convince you otherwise. Its a half-assed theory that blatantly denies what we learned from 2016 and can still see in polls.

And that's 3rd party candidates stand a shot of they can get in the primaries for the general election. People want progressives. People were pissed and turned to voting for Trump when Sanders fell out- not Clinton.

They need and want another option and it's not a long shot or unlikely. They just need to make it to the primaries.

Enter Cornel West

Cornel West is not running as a Democrat and thus does not need to battle Biden for a spot on the general ballot in November of 2024....

✨ Which gives you and all your friends plenty of time to learn about him ✨

So here are some of his policies and also his campaign site

I'm a decolonial anarchist that hates the state and sees voting as nothing as upholding the state. I make no room for Democrats because Democrats lack the ambition to challenge anything about it.

But unless Cornel West drops out or ends up being some awful closeted abused... Im going to vote for him.

A lot of his politics and campaign goals align with my politics. I wouldn't feel like I was settling if I voted for him.

And a lot of this stuff isn't unreasonable or unrealistic either. Like I just made a post about how the NDAA budget proposal for 2024 is being increased with enough money to solve clean water, homelessness, and implement free college tuition for the whole USA. And Republicans are fighting for more.

And that's just the budget for two years, it'll probably be increased by another hundred billion in a couple years. Nobody blinks when the military budget is swelling like that.

But we should when we can be using that kind of money to solve real problems that real people are having and face and would change lives literally overnight. They just throw that money at the military where most of us never see it again.

But this stuff can be real.

#asked #answered #electoral politics #cornel west #2024 election #usa election #us voters #democrats #liberals #leftist #anarchist #socialist #libertarian #communist #workers rights #trans rights #queer rights #disability rights #direct action #mutual aid #lgbt #indigenous #ndn #biden #usa polls #politics #capitalism #human rights #climate change #ndaa

[zvaigzdelasas]

On october 16, 1962, John F. Kennedy and his advisers were stunned to learn that the Soviet Union was, without provocation, installing nuclear-armed medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. With these offensive weapons, which represented a new and existential threat to America, Moscow significantly raised the ante in the nuclear rivalry between the superpowers—a gambit that forced the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear Armageddon. On October 22, the president, with no other recourse, proclaimed in a televised address that his administration knew of the illegal missiles, and delivered an ultimatum insisting on their removal, announcing an American “quarantine” of Cuba to force compliance with his demands. While carefully avoiding provocative action and coolly calibrating each Soviet countermeasure, Kennedy and his lieutenants brooked no compromise; they held firm, despite Moscow’s efforts to link a resolution to extrinsic issues and despite predictable Soviet blustering about American aggression and violation of international law. In the tense 13‑day crisis, the Americans and Soviets went eyeball-to-eyeball. Thanks to the Kennedy administration’s placid resolve and prudent crisis management—thanks to what Kennedy’s special assistant Arthur Schlesinger Jr. characterized as the president’s “combination of toughness and restraint, of will, nerve, and wisdom, so brilliantly controlled, so matchlessly calibrated, that [it] dazzled the world”—the Soviet leadership blinked: Moscow dismantled the missiles, and a cataclysm was averted.

Every sentence in the above paragraph describing the Cuban missile crisis is misleading or erroneous. But this was the rendition of events that the Kennedy administration fed to a credulous press; this was the history that the participants in Washington promulgated in their memoirs; and this is the story that has insinuated itself into the national memory—as the pundits’ commentaries and media coverage marking the 50th anniversary of the crisis attested.

Scholars, however, have long known a very different story: since 1997, they have had access to recordings that Kennedy secretly made of meetings with his top advisers, the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (the “ExComm”). Sheldon M. Stern—who was the historian at the John F. Kennedy Library for 23 years and the first scholar to evaluate the ExComm tapes—is among the numerous historians who have tried to set the record straight. His new book marshals irrefutable evidence to succinctly demolish the mythic version of the crisis. Although there’s little reason to believe his effort will be to any avail, it should nevertheless be applauded.

Reached through sober analysis, Stern’s conclusion that “John F. Kennedy and his administration, without question, bore a substantial share of the responsibility for the onset of the Cuban missile crisis” would have shocked the American people in 1962, for the simple reason that Kennedy’s administration had misled them about the military imbalance between the superpowers and had concealed its campaign of threats, assassination plots, and sabotage designed to overthrow the government in Cuba—an effort well known to Soviet and Cuban officials.

In the 1960 presidential election, Kennedy had cynically attacked Richard Nixon from the right, claiming that the Eisenhower-Nixon administration had allowed a dangerous “missile gap” to grow in the U.S.S.R.’s favor. But in fact, just as Eisenhower and Nixon had suggested—and just as the classified briefings that Kennedy received as a presidential candidate indicated—the missile gap, and the nuclear balance generally, was overwhelmingly to America’s advantage. At the time of the missile crisis, the Soviets had 36 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), 138 long-range bombers with 392 nuclear warheads, and 72 submarine-launched ballistic-missile warheads (SLBMs). These forces were arrayed against a vastly more powerful U.S. nuclear arsenal of 203 ICBMs, 1,306 long-range bombers with 3,104 nuclear warheads, and 144 SLBMs—all told, about nine times as many nuclear weapons as the U.S.S.R. Nikita Khrushchev was acutely aware of America’s huge advantage not just in the number of weapons but in their quality and deployment as well.

Kennedy and his civilian advisers understood that the missiles in Cuba did not alter the strategic nuclear balance.

Moreover, despite America’s overwhelming nuclear preponderance, JFK, in keeping with his avowed aim to pursue a foreign policy characterized by “vigor,” had ordered the largest peacetime expansion of America’s military power, and specifically the colossal growth of its strategic nuclear forces. This included deploying, beginning in 1961, intermediate-range “Jupiter” nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey—adjacent to the Soviet Union. From there, the missiles could reach all of the western U.S.S.R., including Moscow and Leningrad (and that doesn’t count the nuclear-armed “Thor” missiles that the U.S. already had aimed at the Soviet Union from bases in Britain).

The Jupiter missiles were an exceptionally vexing component of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Because they sat aboveground, were immobile, and required a long time to prepare for launch, they were extremely vulnerable. Of no value as a deterrent, they appeared to be weapons meant for a disarming first strike—and thus greatly undermined deterrence, because they encouraged a preemptive Soviet strike against them. The Jupiters’ destabilizing effect was widely recognized among defense experts within and outside the U.S. government and even by congressional leaders. For instance, Senator Albert Gore Sr., an ally of the administration, told Secretary of State Dean Rusk that they were a “provocation” in a closed session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February 1961 (more than a year and a half before the missile crisis), adding, “I wonder what our attitude would be” if the Soviets deployed nuclear-armed missiles to Cuba. Senator Claiborne Pell raised an identical argument in a memo passed on to Kennedy in May 1961.

Given America’s powerful nuclear superiority, as well as the deployment of the Jupiter missiles, Moscow suspected that Washington viewed a nuclear first strike as an attractive option. They were right to be suspicious. The archives reveal that in fact the Kennedy administration had strongly considered this option during the Berlin crisis in 1961.

It’s little wonder, then, that, as Stern asserts—drawing on a plethora of scholarship including, most convincingly, the historian Philip Nash’s elegant 1997 study, The Other Missiles of October—Kennedy’s deployment of the Jupiter missiles “was a key reason for Khrushchev’s decision to send nuclear missiles to Cuba.” Khrushchev reportedly made that decision in May 1962, declaring to a confidant that the Americans “have surrounded us with bases on all sides” and that missiles in Cuba would help to counter an “intolerable provocation.” Keeping the deployment secret in order to present the U.S. with a fait accompli, Khrushchev may very well have assumed America’s response would be similar to his reaction to the Jupiter missiles—rhetorical denouncement but no threat or action to thwart the deployment with a military attack, nuclear or otherwise. (In retirement, Khrushchev explained his reasoning to the American journalist Strobe Talbott: Americans “would learn just what it feels like to have enemy missiles pointing at you; we’d be doing nothing more than giving them a little of their own medicine.”)

Khrushchev was also motivated by his entirely justifiable belief that the Kennedy administration wanted to destroy the Castro regime. After all, the administration had launched an invasion of Cuba; had followed that with sabotage, paramilitary assaults, and assassination attempts—the largest clandestine operation in the history of the CIA—and had organized large-scale military exercises in the Caribbean clearly meant to rattle the Soviets and their Cuban client. Those actions, as Stern and other scholars have demonstrated, helped compel the Soviets to install the missiles so as to deter “covert or overt US attacks”—in much the same way that the United States had shielded its allies under a nuclear umbrella to deter Soviet subversion or aggression against them.

Khrushchev was also motivated by his entirely justifiable belief that the Kennedy administration wanted to destroy the Castro regime. After all, the administration had launched an invasion of Cuba; had followed that with sabotage, paramilitary assaults, and assassination attempts—the largest clandestine operation in the history of the CIA—and had organized large-scale military exercises in the Caribbean clearly meant to rattle the Soviets and their Cuban client. Those actions, as Stern and other scholars have demonstrated, helped compel the Soviets to install the missiles so as to deter “covert or overt US attacks”—in much the same way that the United States had shielded its allies under a nuclear umbrella to deter Soviet subversion or aggression against them. [...]

The Soviets were entirely justified in their belief that Kennedy wanted to destroy the Castro regime.

Kennedy and his civilian advisers understood that the missiles in Cuba did not alter the strategic nuclear balance. Although Kennedy asserted in his October 22 televised address that the missiles were “an explicit threat to the peace and security of all the Americas,” he in fact appreciated, as he told the ExComm on the first day of the crisis, that “it doesn’t make any difference if you get blown up by an ICBM flying from the Soviet Union or one that was 90 miles away. Geography doesn’t mean that much.” America’s European allies, Kennedy continued, “will argue that taken at its worst the presence of these missiles really doesn’t change” the nuclear balance. [...]

Moreover, unlike Soviet ICBMs, the missiles in Cuba required several hours to be prepared for launch. Given the effectiveness of America’s aerial and satellite reconnaissance (amply demonstrated by the images of missiles in the U.S.S.R. and Cuba that they yielded), the U.S. almost certainly would have had far more time to detect and respond to an imminent Soviet missile strike from Cuba than to attacks from Soviet bombers, ICBMs, or SLBMs. [...]

On that first day of the ExComm meetings, Bundy asked directly, “What is the strategic impact on the position of the United States of MRBMs in Cuba? How gravely does this change the strategic balance?” McNamara answered, “Not at all”—a verdict that Bundy then said he fully supported. The following day, Special Counsel Theodore Sorensen summarized the views of the ExComm in a memorandum to Kennedy. “It is generally agreed,” he noted, “that these missiles, even when fully operational, do not significantly alter the balance of power—i.e., they do not significantly increase the potential megatonnage capable of being unleashed on American soil, even after a surprise American nuclear strike.”

Sorensen’s comment about a surprise attack reminds us that while the missiles in Cuba did not add appreciably to the nuclear menace, they could have somewhat complicated America’s planning for a successful first strike—which may well have been part of Khrushchev’s rationale for deploying them. If so, the missiles paradoxically could have enhanced deterrence between the superpowers, and thereby reduced the risk of nuclear war.

Yet, although the missiles’ military significance was negligible, the Kennedy administration advanced on a perilous course to force their removal. The president issued an ultimatum to a nuclear power—an astonishingly provocative move, which immediately created a crisis that could have led to catastrophe. He ordered a blockade on Cuba, an act of war that we now know brought the superpowers within a hair’s breadth of nuclear confrontation. The beleaguered Cubans willingly accepted their ally’s weapons, so the Soviet’s deployment of the missiles was fully in accord with international law. But the blockade, even if the administration euphemistically called it a “quarantine,” was, the ExComm members acknowledged, illegal. As the State Department’s legal adviser recalled, “Our legal problem was that their action wasn’t illegal.” Kennedy and his lieutenants intently contemplated an invasion of Cuba and an aerial assault on the Soviet missiles there—acts extremely likely to have provoked a nuclear war. In light of the extreme measures they executed or earnestly entertained to resolve a crisis they had largely created, the American reaction to the missiles requires, in retrospect, as much explanation as the Soviet decision to deploy them—or more.

The Soviets suspected that the U.S. viewed a nuclear first strike as an attractive option. They were right to be suspicious. [...]

What largely made the missiles politically unacceptable was Kennedy’s conspicuous and fervent hostility toward the Castro regime—a stance, Kennedy admitted at an ExComm meeting, that America’s European allies thought was “a fixation” and “slightly demented.”

In his presidential bid, Kennedy had red-baited the Eisenhower-Nixon administration, charging that its policies had “helped make Communism’s first Caribbean base.” Given that he had defined a tough stance toward Cuba as an important election issue, and given the humiliation he had suffered with the Bay of Pigs debacle, the missiles posed a great [electoral] hazard to Kennedy. [...]

But even weightier than the domestic political catastrophe likely to befall the administration if it appeared to be soft on Cuba was what Assistant Secretary of State Edwin Martin called “the psychological factor” that we “sat back and let ’em do it to us.” He asserted that this was “more important than the direct threat,” and Kennedy and his other advisers energetically concurred. Even as Sorensen, in his memorandum to the president, noted the ExComm’s consensus that the Cuban missiles didn’t alter the nuclear balance, he also observed that the ExComm nevertheless believed that “the United States cannot tolerate the known presence” of missiles in Cuba “if our courage and commitments are ever to be believed by either allies or adversaries” (emphasis added). [...]

The risks of such a cave-in, Kennedy and his advisers held, were distinct but related. The first was that America’s foes would see Washington as pusillanimous; the known presence of the missiles, Kennedy said, “makes them look like they’re coequal with us and that”—here Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon interrupted: “We’re scared of the Cubans.” The second risk was that America’s friends would suddenly doubt that a country given to appeasement could be relied on to fulfill its obligations.

In fact, America’s allies, as Bundy acknowledged, were aghast that the U.S. was threatening nuclear war over a strategically insignificant condition—the presence of intermediate-range missiles in a neighboring country—that those allies (and, for that matter, the Soviets) had been living with for years. In the tense days of October 1962, being allied with the United States potentially amounted to, as Charles de Gaulle had warned, “annihilation without representation.” It seems never to have occurred to Kennedy and the ExComm that whatever Washington gained by demonstrating the steadfastness of its commitments, it lost in an erosion of confidence in its judgment.

This approach to foreign policy was guided—and remains guided—by an elaborate theorizing rooted in a school-playground view of world politics rather than the cool appraisal of strategic realities. It put—and still puts—America in the curious position of having to go to war to uphold the very credibility that is supposed to obviate war in the first place.

If the administration’s domestic political priorities alone dictated the removal of the Cuban missiles, a solution to Kennedy’s problem would have seemed pretty obvious: instead of a public ultimatum demanding that the Soviets withdraw their missiles from Cuba, a private agreement between the superpowers to remove both Moscow’s missiles in Cuba and Washington’s missiles in Turkey. (Recall that the Kennedy administration discovered the missiles on October 16, but only announced its discovery to the American public and the Soviets and issued its ultimatum on the 22nd.)

The administration, however, did not make such an overture to the Soviets. Instead, by publicly demanding a unilateral Soviet withdrawal and imposing a blockade on Cuba, it precipitated what remains to this day the most dangerous nuclear crisis in history. In the midst of that crisis, the sanest and most sensible observers—among them diplomats at the United Nations and in Europe, the editorial writers for the Manchester Guardian, Walter Lippmann, and Adlai Stevenson—saw a missile trade as a fairly simple solution. In an effort to resolve the impasse, Khrushchev himself openly made this proposal on October 27. According to the version of events propagated by the Kennedy administration (and long accepted as historical fact), Washington unequivocally rebuffed Moscow’s offer and instead, thanks to Kennedy’s resolve, forced a unilateral Soviet withdrawal.

Beginning in the late 1980s, however, the opening of previously classified archives and the decision by a number of participants to finally tell the truth revealed that the crisis was indeed resolved by an explicit but concealed deal to remove both the Jupiter and the Cuban missiles. Kennedy in fact threatened to abrogate if the Soviets disclosed it. He did so for the same reasons that had largely engendered the crisis in the first place—domestic politics and the maintenance of America’s image as the indispensable nation. A declassified Soviet cable reveals that Robert Kennedy—whom the president assigned to work out the secret swap with the U.S.S.R.’s ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin—insisted on returning to Dobrynin the formal Soviet letter affirming the agreement, explaining that the letter “could cause irreparable harm to my political career in the future.”

Only a handful of administration officials knew about the trade; most members of the ExComm, including Vice President Lyndon Johnson, did not. And in their effort to maintain the cover-up, a number of those who did, including McNamara and Rusk, lied to Congress. JFK and others tacitly encouraged the character assassination of Stevenson, allowing him to be portrayed as an appeaser who “wanted a Munich” for suggesting the trade—a deal that they vociferously maintained the administration would never have permitted.

Arthur Schlesinger Jr. “repeatedly manipulated and obscured the facts.”

The patient spadework of Stern and other scholars has since led to further revelations. Stern demonstrates that Robert Kennedy hardly inhabited the conciliatory and statesmanlike role during the crisis that his allies described in their hagiographic chronicles and memoirs and that he himself advanced in his posthumously published book, Thirteen Days. In fact, he was among the most consistently and recklessly hawkish of the president’s advisers, pushing not for a blockade or even air strikes against Cuba but for a full-scale invasion as “the last chance we will have to destroy Castro.” Stern authoritatively concludes that “if RFK had been president, and the views he expressed during the ExComm meetings had prevailed, nuclear war would have been the nearly certain outcome.” He justifiably excoriates the sycophantic courtier Schlesinger, whose histories “repeatedly manipulated and obscured the facts” and whose accounts—“profoundly misleading if not out-and-out deceptive”—were written to serve not scholarship but the Kennedys.

Although Stern and other scholars have upended the panegyrical version of events advanced by Schlesinger and other Kennedy acolytes, the revised chronicle shows that JFK’s actions in resolving the crisis—again, a crisis he had largely created—were reasonable, responsible, and courageous. Plainly shaken by the apocalyptic potentialities of the situation, Kennedy advocated, in the face of the bellicose and near-unanimous opposition of his pseudo-tough-guy advisers, accepting the missile swap that Khrushchev had proposed. “To any man at the United Nations, or any other rational man, it will look like a very fair trade,” he levelheadedly told the ExComm. “Most people think that if you’re allowed an even trade you ought to take advantage of it.” He clearly understood that history and world opinion would condemn him and his country for going to war—a war almost certain to escalate to a nuclear exchange—after the U.S.S.R. had publicly offered such a reasonable quid pro quo. Khrushchev’s proposal, the historian Ronald Steel has noted, “filled the White House advisors with consternation—not least of all because it appeared perfectly fair.” [...]

By successfully hiding the deal from the vice president, from a generation of foreign-policy makers and strategists, and from the American public, Kennedy and his team reinforced the dangerous notion that firmness in the face of what the United States construes as aggression, and the graduated escalation of military threats and action in countering that aggression, makes for a successful national-security strategy—really, all but defines it.

The president and his advisers also reinforced the concomitant view that America should define a threat not merely as circumstances and forces that directly jeopardize the safety of the country, but as circumstances and forces that might indirectly compel potential allies or enemies to question America’s resolve.[...]

This notion that standing up to aggression (however loosely and broadly defined) will deter future aggression (however loosely and broadly defined) fails to weather historical scrutiny. [...]

Moreover, the idea that a foreign power’s effort to counter the overwhelming strategic supremacy of the United States—a country that spends nearly as much on defense as does the rest of the world combined—ipso facto imperils America’s security is profoundly misguided. Just as Kennedy and his advisers perceived a threat in Soviet efforts to offset what was in fact a destabilizing U.S. nuclear hegemony, so today, both liberals and conservatives oxymoronically assert that the safety of the United States demands that the country must “balance” China by maintaining its strategically dominant position in East Asia and the western Pacific—that is, in China’s backyard. This means that Washington views as a hazard Beijing’s attempts to remedy the weakness of its own position, even though policy makers acknowledge that the U.S. has a crushing superiority right up to the edge of the Asian mainland. America’s posture, however, reveals more about its own ambitions than it does about China’s. Imagine that the situation were reversed, and China’s air and naval forces were a dominant and potentially menacing presence on the coastal shelf of North America. Surely the U.S. would want to counteract that preponderance. In a vast part of the globe, stretching from the Canadian Arctic to Tierra del Fuego and from Greenland to Guam, the U.S. will not tolerate another great power’s interference. Certainly America’s security wouldn’t be jeopardized if other great powers enjoy their own (and for that matter, smaller) spheres of influence.

This esoteric strategizing—this misplaced obsession with credibility, this dangerously expansive concept of what constitutes security—which has afflicted both Democratic and Republican administrations, and both liberals and conservatives, is the antithesis of statecraft, which requires discernment based on power, interest, and circumstance. It is a stance toward the world that can easily doom the United States to military commitments and interventions in strategically insignificant places over intrinsically trivial issues. It is a stance that can engender a foreign policy approximating paranoia in an obdurately chaotic world abounding in states, personalities, and ideologies that are unsavory and uncongenial—but not necessarily mortally hazardous.

2013

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Vivek Ramaswamy wants to end birthright citizenship—a longstanding American policy codified in the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution—and take away young people’s right to vote, all in one fell swoop.

The presidential candidate made the call Thursday night on CNN, after being asked about his opponents, Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump, vowing to end birthright citizenship. “For a period of time, I think it’s going to be necessary,” Ramaswamy said.

But the young gun was not satisfied just being in agreement with the leading duo in the Republican race-to-the-repressive-bottom.

“I’ll actually go one step further on this, Abby, is that I don’t think someone just because they’re born in this country, even if they’re a sixth generation American should automatically enjoy all the privileges of citizenship until they’ve actually earned it,” Ramaswamy told CNN’s Abby Phillip. “So one of the things I’ve said is that every high school student who graduates from high school should have to pass the same civics test that every immigrant has to pass in order to become a citizen of this country.”

Surveys in the past have shown that most people would likely fail a basic multiple choice citizenship test; one survey found just 36% of respondents actually passing such a test. And given Republicans’ all-out assault on public school education, it’s unclear what their plan would be to up those numbers.

After publishing, Ramaswamy senior adviser Tricia McLaughlin said the proposal refers “to civic duty voting via constitutional amendment.”

According to Ramaswamy’s website, this would mean raising the voting age to 25, while still generously “allowing all Americans to vote at age 18” only if they serve at least six months in the military or as a first responder, or pass the citizenship test.

Yet another successful pair of Republican talking points: seizing the right to vote from young people, and forcing people to join a military that has used trillions of American dollars to wreak carnage across the world, and leave its foot soldiers out to dry upon their return.

Anyhow, Ramaswamy’s brilliant proposal to seemingly strip citizenship from so many Americans came after Phillip noted that both of Ramaswamy’s parents are immigrants, and so birthright citizenship “was in play” for him when he became a citizen.

Yet, instead of making the citizenship process easier to navigate, Ramaswamy instead wants to make it harder for anyone to be a citizen. More than that, the presidential candidate’s formulation lays out tiers of citizenship—a matrix in which, until one passes this test, they would be a second-class citizen. While this country already treats scores of people—immigrants, LGBTQ people, laborers, the homeless, and young people—as such, Ramaswamy thinks that unfair treatment should be legally bound.

#us politics #news #the new republic #republicans #conservatives #2023 #2024 presidential race #2024 presidential election #2024 elections #vivek ramaswamy #right to vote #voting age #raising the voting age #Citizenship #Birthright Citizenship #civics test #Citizenship test #tiers of citizenship #second class citizens

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

From Tex-ass, what a f—king surprise. The state laws there are set up to protect political “business” associations from being sued. That’s why the NRA moved there when New York opened a fraud and corruption case against them.

#Republican dirty tricks #republican assholes #Tex-ass Republicans #fake Biden robocalls #republican values #traitor #traitor trump #crooked donald #fuck republicans #fuck the gop #fuck the right-wing political machine

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Made by Trump and broken by Trump.

When Trump won in 2016 I said more competent fascists would say to themselves if this clown can do it imagine what I can do. Had DeSatan waited until 2024 the little Hitler could have been president. Now a slew of would be Hitlers are lining up with Cruz and Abbott at the top of the list.

#ron desatan #traitor trump #crooked donald #republican assholes

[wilwheaton]

In terms of format, this was classic Republican propaganda — literally. As historian Rick Perlstein noted, the town hall setup with a favorable audience was the same one that Richard Nixon’s campaign pioneered under Roger Ailes, who died in 2017. The key for Ailes was to produce a show where Nixon could be a gladiator fighting the moderator for a rapturous audience. When Ailes resigned from Fox News after female employees accused him of sexual harassment, Ailes went on to serve as a debate adviser for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. And wouldn’t you know it, Fox News gave Trump his own town hall with a rapturous audience in 2020. Last night, CNN too handed Trump a rapturous audience on a platter. The crowd was stocked with Trump supporters: Trump himself was reportedly allowed 15 people of his own (though none asked questions), and reporting indicates that party loyalists were asked to attend as well. It’s unclear what vetting, if any, CNN did.

The CNN Trump town hall was nothing more than GOP propaganda

CNN knew *exactly* what they were doing. Collins knew *exactly* what would happen.

How do I know this? I am not a professional journalist or news person, and even I knew exactly what would happen, all the way down to Trump calling her nasty. If I knew this would happen, there is no way the experienced professionals at CNN didn’t know.

CNN got exactly what it wanted. It would appear, on the surface, that maybe it won’t work out for CNN the way the network thought it would. I hope that’s true. I hope there are meaningful consequences for a so-called news network gleefully and enthusiastically betraying their audience’s trust to run right wing propaganda for ratings.

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

It's Not Meghan Markle 😂

Laphonza Butler is expected to be sworn-in to the U.S. Senate on Wednesday by Vice President Kamala Harris. Butler is the first openly LGBTQ person to represent California in the Senate.

Butler is registered to vote in Maryland but will switch her registration to California.

Butler is a veteran organizer and well-known in Newsom’s orbit. He contemplated hiring the Southern Mississippi native to be his first chief of staff, and she was a one-time partner in the San Francisco-based consulting firm, now known as Bearstar Strategies, with his top political advisers.

She has remained a confidant of Vice President Kamala Harris, after serving as a senior strategist on her 2020 presidential campaign.

#diane feinstein #megxit #california politics #gavin newsom #black woman #identity politics

[ausetkmt]

Black women have made important contributions to the United States throughout its history. However, they are not always recognized for their efforts, with some remaining anonymous and others becoming famous for their achievements. In the face of gender and racial bias, Black women have broken barriers, challenged the status quo, and fought for equal rights for all. The accomplishments of Black female historical figures in politics, science, the arts, and more continue to impact society.

Marian Anderson (Feb. 27, 1897–April 8, 1993)

Underwood Archives / Getty Images

Contralto Marian Anderson is considered one of the most important singers of the 20th century. Known for her impressive three-octave vocal range, she performed widely in the U.S. and Europe, beginning in the 1920s. She was invited to perform at the White House for President Franklin Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 1936, the first African American so honored. Three years later, after the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow Anderson to sing at a Washington, D.C. gathering, the Roosevelts invited her to perform on the steps of the Lincon Memorial.

Anderson continued to sing professionally until the 1960s when she became involved in politics and civil rights issues. Among her many honors, Anderson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991.

Mary McLeod Bethune (July 10, 1875–May 18, 1955)

PhotoQuest / Getty Images

Mary McLeod Bethune was an African American educator and civil rights leader best known for her work co-founding the Bethune-Cookman University in Florida. Born into a sharecropping family in South Carolina, the young Bethune had a zest for learning from her earliest days. After stints teaching in Georgia, she and her husband moved to Florida and eventually settled in Jacksonville. There, she founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute in 1904 to provide education for Black girls. It merged with the Cookman Institute for Men in 1923, and Bethune served as president for the next two decades.

A passionate philanthropist, Bethune also led civil rights organizations and advised Presidents Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Franklin Roosevelt on African American issues. In addition, President Harry Truman invited her to attend the founding convention of the United Nations; she was the only African American delegate to attend.

Shirley Chisholm (Nov. 30, 1924–Jan. 1, 2005)

Don Hogan Charles / Getty Images

Shirley Chisholm is best known for her 1972 bid to win the Democratic presidential nomination; she was the first Black woman to make this attempt in a major political party. However, she had been active in state and national politics for more than a decade and had represented parts of Brooklyn in the New York State Assembly from 1965 to 1968. She became the first Black woman to serve in Congress in 1968. During her tenure, she co-founded the Congressional Black Caucus. Chisholm left Washington in 1983 and devoted the rest of her life to civil rights and women's issues.

Althea Gibson (Aug. 25, 1927–Sept. 28, 2003)

Reg Speller / Getty Images

Althea Gibson started playing tennis as a child in New York City, winning her first tennis tournament at age 15. She dominated the American Tennis Association circuit, reserved for Black players, for more than a decade. In 1950, Gibson broke the tennis color barrier at Forest Hills Country Club (site of the U.S. Open); the following year, she became the first African American to play at Wimbledon in Great Britain. Gibson continued to excel at the sport, winning both amateur and professional titles through the early 1960s.

Dorothy Height (March 24, 1912–April 20, 2010)

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Dorothy Height has been described as the godmother of the women's movement because of her work for gender equality. For four decades, she led the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW )and was a leading figure in the 1963 March on Washington. Height began her career as an educator in New York City, where her work caught the attention of Eleanor Roosevelt. Beginning in 1957, she led the NCNW and also advised the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA). She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994.

Rosa Parks (Feb. 4, 1913–Oct. 24, 2005)

Underwood Archives / Getty Images

Rosa Parks became active in the Alabama civil rights movement after marrying activist Raymond Parks in 1932. She joined the Montgomery, Alabama, chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1943 and was involved in much of the planning that went into the famous bus boycott that began the following decade. Parks is best known for her December 1, 1955, arrest for refusing to give up her bus seat to a White rider. That incident sparked the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott, which eventually desegregated that city's public transit. Parks and her family moved to Detroit in 1957, and she remained active in civil rights until her death.

Augusta Savage (Feb. 29, 1892–March 26, 1962)

Archive Photos / Sherman Oaks Antique Mall / Getty Images

Augusta Savage displayed an artistic aptitude from her youngest days. Encouraged to develop her talent, she enrolled in New York City's Cooper Union to study art. She earned her first commission, a sculpture of civil rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois, from the New York library system in 1921, and several other commissions followed. Despite meager resources, she continued working through the Great Depression, making sculptures of several notable Black people, including Frederick Douglass and W. C. Handy. Her best-known work, "The Harp," was featured at the 1939 World's Fair in New York, but it was destroyed after the fair ended.

Harriet Tubman (1822–March 20, 1913)

Library of Congress

Enslaved from birth in Maryland, Harriet Tubman escaped to freedom in 1849. The year after she arrived in Philadelphia, Tubman returned to Maryland to free her family members. Over the next 12 years, she returned nearly 20 times, helping more than 300 enslaved Black people escape bondage by ushering them along the Underground Railroad. The "railroad" was the nickname for a secret route that enslaved Black people used to flee the South for anti-slavery states in the North and to Canada. During the Civil War, Tubman worked as a nurse, a scout, and a spy for Union forces. After the war, she worked to establish schools for formerly enslaved people in South Carolina. In her later years, Tubman also became involved in women's rights causes.

Phillis Wheatley (May 8, 1753–Dec. 5, 1784)

Culture Club/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Born in Africa, Phillis Wheatley came to the U.S. at age 8, when she was captured and sold into enslavement. John Wheatley, the Boston man who enslaved her, was impressed by Phillis' intellect and interest in learning, and he and his wife taught her to read and write. The Wheatleys allowed Phillis time to pursue her studies, which led her to develop an interest in poetry writing. A poem she published in 1767 earned her much acclaim. Six years later, her first volume of poems was published in London, and she became known in both the U.S. and the United Kingdom. The Revolutionary War disrupted Wheatley's writing, however, and she was not widely published after it ended.

Charlotte Ray (Jan. 13, 1850–Jan. 4, 1911)

Charlotte Ray has the distinction of being the first African American woman lawyer in the United States and the first woman admitted to the bar in the District of Columbia. Her father, active in New York City's Black community, made sure his young daughter was well educated; she received her law degree from Howard University in 1872 and was admitted to the Washington, D.C., bar shortly afterward. Both her race and gender proved to be obstacles in her professional career, and she eventually became a teacher in New York City instead. 

#10 of the Most Important Black Women in U.S. History #Black Women #Black Women Matter #Black Lives Matter #us history