#at MINIMUM i think biden would at LEAST give them some thought. at LEAST let his experts speak on it.

[bleuberrygliscor]

Alot of people are misunderstanding and misrepresenting the “vote for biden” pleas, so allow me to break it down really easily with one of my personal favorite pastimes, Splatoon.

If you’ve never played, Splatoon is a game where you basically want to cover an entire map with your ink color in 4 v 4 groups. For the sake of ease, I am using the most evenly square map i can think of, Kelp Dome. (all of the splatoon maps are super even and symmetrical,  Kelp Dome is just the first square and flat map i can think of.)

The way this works is, You and your team of 3 other people are assigned a color. and you want that color to hold the majority of the map, or else you lose. You dont want purple to win, they are the opposing team. Your objective is to make sure team purple does not win. So you pick up your splattershot and get to inking.

Assuming everyone is using the same weapon and are decently good at the game, you would come out with something like this.

In practice it wouldnt be this clear cut(and judd would arbitrarily assign a winner at random), but hear me out. That is what a map looks like when everyone on your team works together to accomplish the goal. Everyone is playing the objective here. Every member inked two squares! Fantastic. We all did our part.

Now, youve done your part but you really hated it, who can blame you. You dont like the color Lime Green. You were hoping green would be like a forest green or more a true deep green and not this lime monstrosity you were assigned. You find another teammate has the same feeling, they hate lime green. Absolutely detest it. Did you hear what lime green said the other day? fuck that guy am I right? “ Fuck it,” you say “I refuse to play lime green! We’re going to play Sky Blue instead!” You and your teammate swap colors and sneer at the other two who are sticking with lime green. You play the match.

Whops! You and your teammate played just as good as you did last game! You covered your two squares! What the hell happened?? Well, because you and your teammate decided to swap parties colors in the middle of the election season match, youve split the ink. It became a two vs two vs four. Team Purple was banded together, they had four people covering their turf. Meanwhile you had to fight with Lime Green AND Purple to keep your Sky Blue on the map.

“Well why didnt the rest of Team Lime Green also change their colors?!” your teammate asks.

“well, why did you change yours?” a player from Lime asks you, “We were all Lime Green before the match started, What happened?”

You dig your heels and rattle off the list, noting all the terrible things Lime Green has done, both in the past and the recent present. the Lime Green team members nod and ask “Have you seen what Purple is doing though? Like now, in office? Lime Green has done some seriously gross stuff, we dont deny that, but you would need to convince 60-75% of the country to suddenly change their outlook on life within a few months. Lime Green is the only actual option we have at this point. We can change colors after the match, but right now we need to focus on beating purple right?”

You dont find that answer satisfying. You dont want someone who has done all the terrible things Lime Green has running your country. You dont want Purple either. Both options are terrible! Both colors are horrible and ugly. They're right though, sky blue cant win, not with just the two of you painting your hardest. So If your color cant win, and you are forced to choose between Racist Rapist Lime Green or Racist Rapist Purple, how can you morally choose?

“You know what? fuck this!” you say, tossing your splattershot to the side, “Why do I have to vote play either way? One of these disgusting colors will win anyway, why do I care who wins? I just wont play, theres no point.”

you leave the arena with your Sky-blue teammate, watching from the sidelines...

...as team Purple Slaughters team Lime Green. (in splatoon, the map would look alot less like that, and alot more like this:

“serves them right for not picking Sky blue.”  you say and your blue teammate nods along. Team Lime green has lost. Team Sky blue has ALSO lost. Team purple has won. You chose not to play the objective.

#rem rants #politics #biden2020 #haha for real? fuck biden. but fuck people who cant be assed to play the objective more. #before you ask. yes i am black. yes i am voting for biden. yes i know he's racist as hell. they all are sweaty... #there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. that includes our politicians sweatyyyy #you will see hear touch smell a racist no matter what you do. its inevitable. now does that make it okay? no. #we had to argue with obama to have gay marriage legalized. we have and still have to fight. #you think trump will even HEAR socialist policies? you think he would even entertain them??? #at MINIMUM i think biden would at LEAST give them some thought. at LEAST let his experts speak on it. #i can survive biden. i feel comfortable surviving biden. #I have no doubts trump WILL try to make himself a president for life. there is no DOUBT in my mind. #i am personally coming to slit the throat of every person who either abstains or throws away their vote on a write in. #i wanted bernie so bad. so fucking bad. but we have biden. and thats the end of it. #please. please dont fuck us over. please dear lord PLAY THE OBJECTIVE

[d2kvirus]

Dickheads of the Month: January 2021

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of January 2021 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

Once again, we knew that Donald Trump wasn’t going to take losing well, but when a legion of his most boneheaded supporters storm the Capitol demanding the election result be overturned because a certain thin-skinned orange gobshite had spent several weeks screaming about electoral fraud and, by the way, also set the date of January 6th for some major event, even Mike Pence couldn’t sanction his buffoonery any longer - especially when said buffoonery involved him saying “I love you” to people who were guilty of sedition and, by the way, murder - all of which led to him finally, finally, getting the boot from various social media platforms

...all while Lauren Boebert appeared to be trying to help out the insurrectionists by livetweeting the location of Nancy Pelosi, presumably because Boebert forgot about that Glock she claims to take to work with her every day and was looking for a convenient meat shield, which naturally has nothing to do with her tweeting the day would be like 1776 earlier that morning

...but the real victim in all of this was Melania Trump as it interrupted a photo shoot she was doing, which she somehow thought it was a good idea to mention several days later in a statement riddled with two opinions: “both sides” and “me, me, me” which shows she didn’t realise the optics of rearranging the china as Washington burned around her

...but according to Laura Kuenssberg it was merely a “scuffle” at Congress, as opposed to an organised group attempting to stage an armed insurrection against the government complete with at least one member carrying zip ties

...and finally, we had Ian Austin reminded us that he’s still alive by saying the exact same thing would have happened in the UK with Jeremy Corbyn supporters storming parliament, as if that happened in the four years Corbyn was wishing Austin would go away, then did go away, but sadly didn’t go away

Once again the Tory government think they know better than virologists, epidemiologists and pharmacists with their one-two punch of thinking they can just mix and match the various vaccines available rather than give people two doses of the same vaccine, but they further weaken any chance of vaccination succeeding by ignoring Pfizer’s recommendation the second dose be given within three weeks of the first by adopting a policy of the second dose is given three months later, and it it’s just as likely to be the less effective but cheaper Oxford vaccine they get a dose of

...swiftly followed by the BBC did their bit to encourage people to get vaccinated by reporting a story of a nurse getting a dose of Covid six weeks after her first vaccination jab not by reporting how she was three weeks overdue for the second dose (or, if you prefer, six weeks before her second one) but simply saying that people vaccinated can get Covid, which goes beyond the BBC’s sociopathic inability to criticise Tory fuckups into being downright fucking dangerous - as does their putting sentient testicle Toby Young on Newsnight to say how we’re all overreacting as it's not as bad as all that

Of all the things proven liar Boris Johnson should have said when the UK’s Covid death toll officially passed 100,000 (as opposed to unofficially, which would have been last December), “We have done our best” was not it, because if their best includes not going into lockdown in order to protect landlords, having Dominic Cummings dictate herd immunity in spite the fact that you need vaccinated people for it to work, refusing to have quarantine at airports until July, thinking it would be a bright idea to tell people it’s their patriotic duty to go to the pub, giving them £10 vouchers to go to restaurants, putting children going back to school ahead of any concerns about every single school could become a petri dish and countless other horrifically mismanaged instances, then we should be kept up at night dreading what their worst would be

The fact that Chartwells were given a contract to provide free school dinners with a budget of £30, and the supposed lunches that arrived had £5 worth of food in them which begged the obvious question where the other £25 went, is appalling - but not surprising, as the Tory government gave them the contract and, equally unsurprising, Chartwells was founded by a Tory donor, and equally unsurprising their response to their grift being exposed was to tell all the public school clients they cater to a pack of lies while hoping nobody found out about them doing so...which worked about as well as you can guess

Something possessed the EU to ramp up the row over the AstraZenica vaccine not passing the rigorous tests for over-65s by threatening to trigger Article 16 and limit the number of vaccines that Northern Ireland received, and that something was it was hopelessly misguided as it allowed the Tories to get their hapless response to the pandemic off the front pages for a few days and let the Leave headbangers say this is why we left the EU...in spite this threat would have never been in play if we were still in the EU

There is no way to make jokes about Kellyanne Conway posting what was, in effect, revenge porn photos of her 16-year old daughter, because that sentence is so far out there that it is borderline incomprehensible

In the space of less than twenty seconds proven liar Boris Johnson claimed that there was no prior warning of the new strain of Covid, he had the SAGE paper stating it was coming which was handed to him last September held up in his face, and then said the government acted accordingly.  Yes, you read that right, he claimed the government acted accordingly to something they had no prior warning about, which is literally impossible, all in the space of ten seconds

In the latest hire by the BBC which is cause for both comment and concern, they announced their new chairman would be Tory donor Richard Sharp, whose credentials for the position are being Rishi Sunak’s ex-boss at Goldman Sachs, donating at least £400,000 to the Tory party, and having no background in journalism whatsoever

Smirking bully Priti Patel said that the UK should have closed its borders in March 2020 in order to prevent the spread of Covid.  Presumably she forgot that she was a.) Home Secretary in Marsh 2020 so could have done that, and b.) Home Secretary when she said that the borders should have been closed as that indicates she doesn’t know what’s going on

The terrifying world which Alison Pearson lives in has now started to cross over into our reality due to her responding to one of the four people she hasn’t blocked on Twitter calling her what she is - namely a liar - by siccing the Torygraph’s lawyers on them claiming libel, doing the usual cry bully tactic of learning the person she is harassing works for GlaxoSmithKline so promptly went to their CEO demanding he be fired, and howling about the hate campaign being waged against her - while telling the person, who was saying he was thinking suicidal thoughts after the pile-on that Pearson had instigated even after he had deleted the tweet and apologised , that “You’re finished”

Someday in the future, scholars will study Ted Cruz responding to Biden rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement within hours of getting his feet under the Oval Office desk by pontificating about how terrible it is that Biden is more interested in the citizens of Paris than the jobless of Pittsburgh and wonder just how somebody who doesn't know why the Paris Climate Agreement was named the Paris Climate Agreement ever got to be a senator

...and judging by how Lauren Boebert also latched onto this brainless rhetoric, not only can it be asked how she got to be a senator when she had the opportunity to actually realise Cruz’s mistake, she also begs the question how she can be a senator after her publicly trying to use Nancy Pelosi as a meat shield during the Capitol riots

Unifying force Keir Starmer stated that Labour should be devoting their time to fighting the Tory government rather than fighting court cases, somehow forgetting that by breaking the guidelines of the EHRC report (which he pledged to follow without question months before it was published) is the reason that they’re fighting court cases, and just so happens to be the reason why people are asking how a meeting attended by Starmer, Angela Rayner, Len McCluskey and others either didn't have a single person taking notes, which is David Evans’ entire defence, or they did take notes by quite conveniently lost them

Oh boy, did Wall Street cheerleaders not take it well when r/WallStreetbets exposed to the entire world that the stock market is little more than a game people play with other people’s money - because the teams the Wall Street cheerleaders support started losing, and all it took was a few Redditors investing in Gamestop and Bed Bath & Beyond 

Nice of Shaun Bailey to remind everyone that he’s a Tory by giving his suggestion for how the homeless could get on the property ladder, namely by saving a minimum of £5000

Clearly Marjorie Taylor Greene didn’t get the memo about the Streisand Effect, as the first thing she did after taking her seat in the House of Representatives was go on a mass deleting spree of Facebook posts - which only served to draw attention to her video saying that Nancy Pelosi be executed for treason, her track record of spreading conspiracy theories about the Parkland and Sandy Hook shootings, and her claims that a Jewish space laser is responsible for the 2018 California wildfires

Insufferable self-promoter Jess Phillips got her 2021 off to a good start by tweeting out that, as Britait has happened, we should shut up and accept it.  To the surprise of nobody other than insufferable self-promoter Jess Phillips, this led to a lot of people saying that, no, they will not accept an advisory referendum somehow being bolted onto the Ten Commandments, especially as numerous things that were promised wouldn’t happen such as a border in the Irish Sea, leaving Erasmus, losing freedom of movement, leaving the Common Market have all happened

It is wrong to say that smirking bully Priti Patel has lost 150,000 police files.  The actual figure is closer to 400,000 - which begs the obvious question as to what those files were, for example if those files also happened to fall under the same category as the ones that 55-year old ex-minister Mark Francois might want to have disappear for the sake of convenience

At last CD Projekt Red took some responsibility for Clusterpunk 2077 being such a cyberfuck...if by “taking responsibility” you mean “taking responsibility, dumping it all on the QA testers, and saying that everyone should blame them for everything” - and then with perfect comedic timing CD Projekt Red released an update for Clusterpunk 2077 that was so broken they had to release a hotfix for their broken patch

Expenses-fiddler Robert Jenrick decided that the most important thing to protect in the United Kingdom at this exact moment in time is...statues.  Not key workers, not the vulnerable, not any human life at all.  Statues.

So either Rafael Behr wrote a column for The Guardian where he tried to blame Jeremy Corbyn for his heart attack which saw Guardian higher-ups remove that passage from their print edition but forgot to remove it from the online version of the article, or The Guardian deliberately left the passage in the online version of the column in order to get some form of engagement from rage clicks while allowing Behr to act as if he is suffering some great injustice

Of course it wouldn’t take long for Steve Baker to try and claim some spurious victory for Britait, namely him claiming that tampon tax he spent so long fighting against being abolished is proof of the sunlit uplands of our post-EU nation...which ignores the fact that a.) It had nothing to do with the EU in the first place, and b.) The fact that Baker voted to keep it in place in a 2015 Commons vote

Employer of the year WWE went for an interesting twofer, as one minute they were proudly stating that WrestleMania would go ahead with a prospective 30,000 in attendance without any concerns for social distancing or any other Covid preventative measures, and the next telling the wrestlers on their roster that they would not be supplying them with Covid vaccines at the exact same time the NBA were floating the idea of providing vaccines for all their players

Make no mistake, the criticism that Erik Lamela, Sergio Reguilon, Giovani Lo Celso and Manuel Lanzini have received due to the four of them flouting lockdown regulations to attend a New Year’s party is justified - however, the fact that Duncan Castles tried to chase a headline by claiming that Lo Celso and Lamela had tested positive for Covid in a swiftly-deleted tweet is a new low for the noted barrel scraping rumour monger

Self-awareness sceptic Laurence Fox was entirely predictable in his response to the news that talkRADIO had been booted from Youtube for repeated violations of their ToS, specifically the part about spreading Covid misinformation, screaming the usual things about being “cancelled” - and then, within hours, responded to the BBC announcing a plan of educational programming to help during Lockdown III by saying he will be shielding his children from being “indoctrinated” by the BBC’s “left-wing bias” - which not only means he’s cancelling the BBC, but also had people remember that Billie Piper has custody of his children so it's not like he can even enforce his rules on what his children can and cannot watch

...by the way, Fox said nothing about Lord Sumption appearing on the BBC’s Question Time (the same show where failed actor on the grift Laurence Fox announced his new career as a clueless right wing irritant) where he told a woman with bowel cancer that her life wasn’t valuable, it was merely less valuable as she has less life left.  Yes, that is eugenics getting free airtime on the BBC, thanks for noticing

Somehow the best choice of words the BBC could find when reporting the death of Phil Spector was “talented but flawed” as if murder is some character flaw instead of, oh I don’t know, a criminal activity?

You would have thought that Twitch would have simply retired the PogChamp emote permanently in the wake of Gootecks going all insurrectionist, but no, instead they thought of having a rotating cycle of emotes of various creators, in spite of those creators telling them this would be a bad idea - and those creators were proven right when Critical bard was inundated with racist and homophobic abuse in his chat that led him to close his social media profiles when he was selected for rotation, with Twitch doing fuck all about it

Fashion editor no matter what she claims she is Hadley Freeman had a really clever take about The Sopranos...actually, no she didn’t, she had an absurd belief that it’s the exact same show as Sex in the City but people overlook it Because Misogyny, and when she was lambasted for missing the point so badly she had noted dipshit David Baddiel rushing in to her rescue to mock those getting “triggered” by her insipid take while saying he never liked The Sopranos because, as he isn't an Italian-American mobster, the show did not speak to him - in other words, he made himself a subject of equal mockery

...but there was no sign of Baddiel when Hadley Freeman then jumped on the BidenErasedWomen bandwagon alongside the TERFs of Twitter as soon as Biden got his feet under the desk, which also happened to show hard centrist extremist Freeman say how she thought Trump did far more for women than Biden ever has, which as takes go is so bad that the best explanation is that she briefly forgot the difference between the words “for” and “to”, before she then deleted the tweet and tried to deny ever posting it with increasingly nonsensical explanations that rapidly looked uncannily like gaslighting

...although David Baddiel wasn’t quite done being a bellend, as he was soon yukking it up with professional victim Rachel Riley about his latest book which accuses the entire progressive left of antisemitism

The oppressed underclass known as Manchester United fans really showed their colours, first by responding to a loss to Sheffield United by sending racial abuse to Axel Tuanzebe and Anthony Martial on social media, and a couple of weeks later responded to a draw with Arsenal by sending racial abuse to Marcus Rashford, because apparently when your team drops points the most important thing is to look for which member of your team you can racially abuse

And finally, oh so finally, we have Donald Trump and his discovery of electoral fraud at last - electoral fraud that consisted of Donald Trump calling Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger demanding he change the result and all he needs is Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes while also saying that he had proof of vote-counting machines being removed early...and when told they were still in Georgia, changed his lie to say the inner workings had been removed without anyone noticing.  By the way, the only reason anyone knows about this is because Raffensperger told Trump that he wouldn’t release the call to the public if Trump didn't say anything about it - so, of course, the Orange Overlord took to twitter, ran his mouth, and the Washington Post had one hell of an exclusive as a result

#dickheads of the month

[arcticdementor]

Recently, a lot of you who told me I was insane when I said that Winnie the flu was all theater and though it existed and was a flu and would probably take “severe flu, no vaccine numbers” it was and is stupid to lock the sick and the healthy in, destroy the economy and make everyone wear a mask, have come back and ask how I knew. And apologized.

Well, attention in the isles, my friends on the right: you are falling for the same king of bullshit diversion. You are being spun like a top. And you’re falling for it and falling in line.

I blame you and I don’t. You didn’t grow up with the constant-pretend-reality of communist psi-ops, and you haven’t learned to smell it.

Over and over again, you condemn Trump and the “rioters.”

NO ONE RIOTED. Not compared to this summer. THERE WERE NO RIOTS. And the protesters were treated with an iron fist and live ammo, btw.

There are videos. I don’t know which ones are still live. They keep removing them. There was no riot. There was a protest. You know, those things that are vital for public health?

Did they go into the Capitol? Yes they did. You know what? It’s a public building. WE PAY FOR THE F*CKING CAPITOL’S UPKEEP.

But, but but…. the congress critters ran. They were scared!

Were they now? WHY? No, seriously, why were they scared, if the people they work for want to watch the deliberations. They’re in our presence all the time. You know the worst thing we do — or used to do — we called them traitors. That was it.

But they vandalized Nancy Pelosi’s office! Oh, my stars and garters? Evil people. Was that before or after she vandalized our constitution and sank a knife in the heart of the republic? Is the evil bitch dangling from a lamppost this morning? No? They were civilized beyond all hope.

But Sarah, you’ll say, this will give them the excuse to avenge themselves on us.

Dear idiots, you’re like the wife with her arm in a sling and both eyes blackened telling her husband “Please don’t say anything to Joe. He’ll be mad.”

In other words, are you out of your ever loving little minds? These people STOLE two elections — it’s now absolutely obvious the nominal right is fine with this. They hope for crumbs from their masters’ tables. The left is more likely to kill them, but never mind — in a row, in full view, and refused to let us have our day in court to show the evidence. Because the American people are now peons with NO STANDING and can be disenfranchised with no punishment. But you’re afraid that largely (truly) peaceful protesters “made them mad?”

Withdrawing the objection to the fraudulent votes due to the riot? That only makes sense in the mind of an abuser. “I stole your thing, and I was going to maybe give it back, but you cried, so now you don’t get it back.” Are you all actually out of your ever loving minds to blame the protesters and Trump for this?

These people are saying “You peasants dared to show up in our presence. We’re now going to take away even the illusion of franchise.” And…. you’re cool with this? It’s the protesters fault?

Get up off the floor. Wipe the blood from your lip. KNOW WHO YOUR ABUSER IS.

And BTW it’s not Trump. Trump thought maybe if congress saw how ad people were, they would play straight. I said before that’s all the protest was about, and that’s all it was. He told people to go home when it was obvious it had failed.

And I hope to G-d someone with access to him reads this and tells him it’s time. Take the family NOW and go to an undisclosed location. As much as it hurts me to say this, because I want him to continue harassing the left, he has to realize this is no longer the sweet land of liberty. This is now a tyrannical third world shithole. Or will be within months from the way our occupiers are behaving. They will find a way to kill him and his whole family, or kill him and turn his family against him. Go Mr. President. G-d bless. You’ve done all that you could. If the so called right in this country will pearl clutch and blame even people who engage in a very mild protest, they deserve what’s to come.

He now promises an orderly transition. I will tell all of you that DEAD is the most orderly of all states. And right now the Republic is effectively dead. There might be a hope for CPR, but I’m not sure there’s the will to apply it. Pence has joined the rats fleeing to the lefty rotten ship. because he hopes that will save his life. Spoiler, it won’t. The left will kill all the right who turns their coat. Because they can’t trust them. Good. They deserve it. I shall eat popcorn.

Do we ever get the republic back? I don’t know. I think the most likely thing is that we fall apart into separate states while around us the world falls into chaos, famine and misery. We’ve been feeding the world for a century. The world had better look to itself now.

What do those of us who’ve sworn an oath to the constitution do? I don’t know. Most are still busily doing a Peter in Pontius Pilates Yard “I was never with him.”

Oh, and there’s talks of rounding up Trump supporters. Of denying them flights and hotels and the ability to engage in commerce.

I suppose that’s the “protesters” fault too? Except that that, like the paper to withdraw objections because of the “protest” were already written. They would have found an excuse.

I don’t want war. But I liked having a homeland. To everyone who, like me, came here as the last place of refuge: I’m sorry. I don’t even know what to tell you. We need to fight this, but even if we do, unless the natural-born citizens see what they’re losing, it’s unlikely we’ll ever get our country back.

This morning, in DC, the police are beating down what remains of protesters. A young woman was murdered in cold blood yesterday.

And our side is pearl clutching and tut tuting, and hoping the abuser won’t get mad. Oh, and talking about 2022, because seeing two elections frauded RIGHT BEFORE THEIR EYES and courts refusing to let anyone see evidence of it is not enough. They need to be stomped on some more before they believe they’ve lost the franchise.

Me? I’ve seen what happens when your votes don’t matter. Elections will continue as a form, possibly for fifty years, if we let this bullshit go on that long. Your next president after Commie laWhorish is Michelle Obama, because the ignorant bitch hasn’t shit on us enough. She felt stupid and inferior at Harvard, and by gum, she’s going to make you grovel to pay for your sins.

But your real masters are now Winnie the Pooh and his merry band of fascists. And we know what they do and how.

I can’t get the order, but we’re about to see: social credit; the banning of conservatives from the internet; branding us as terrorists, just as they’re doing to innocent protesters; show trials; people disappearing; our money confiscated; our houses confiscated; more lock downs, to prevent revolt; more masks to promote alienation; more lies.

When people die in the famine to come, it will be Covid-19 and Trump’s fault and you’ll be required to repeat it publicly.

It wont’ last. These commies are industrial-level STUPID. It won’t last. I give them ten years, maybe, before most of the country is starving, and they have no clue what to do about it. And then it all falls apart, because unlike Venezuelans, we have no one to help and no place to run to.

Or, you know, we can stop pearl clutching and say “Hell no.” and “Molon labe” and stop repeating the lies the left wants written into history.

To lefty idiots: yes, the election was stolen. Because if it had NOT been, the left would have joined the right in demanding the courts take the case, and that it be shown to all as an honest election. Also, to lefty idiots, what the protesters — and all of us at home — want? ANOTHER ELECTION with minimum accountability. I mean, we can’t even clean the roles. There wouldn’t be enough time. We just wanted to make sure each person voted only once, and the votes were counted with full supervision.

Instead, you’re handing off the country to China, via their bought and paid for man, Biden. Yes, I know you heard good things about China. You’ll find out, along with the craven right that the leftist press makes Pravda seem honest. Enjoy the ride.

As for you and me, my friends. We’re going to eat the bread that the devil baked. Save what you can from the ruin. It won’t be much. And don’t let them into your head. NEVER let them into your head. They’re invaders. They’re oppressors. They’re thieves. Treat them as what they are. Do not comply unless you have to, and then engage in malicious compliance.

Keep the republic in your heart. Maybe there are enough of us left that it will rise again. But in the meantime, this is going to hurt and hurt badly. And the longer the restoration of law takes, the higher the butcher’s bill.

Most of you have no idea how bad it will get. Imagine your worst nightmares. Then double them. Prepare for that as best you can. You won’t be able to do much. If you’re lucky they’ll leave you your conscience.

Your country was invaded (even if the invaders were born here, their masters aren’t) and is about to be raped. The least you can do is not cooperate.

#sarah hoyt

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): On Sunday, The Washington Post published leaked audio of an hour-long conversation President Trump had with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, where he urged the Republican to “find” enough votes to overturn the result in Georgia and declare him the winner.

This story has captured headlines, as it is by far Trump’s most brazen attempt to overturn November’s results, although it is hardly his first time trying to do so. Trump has repeatedly tried to cast doubt on the election results since Biden was declared the winner on Nov. 7, citing false claims of voter fraud and launching countless futile lawsuits to try and overturn the election. And now as Congress prepares to vote on Jan. 6 to certify the election results in what should be a largely ceremonial, low-key affair, a faction of GOP senators plans to mount a protest vote, even though it is destined to fail.

There is no question that this is bad for democracy — polls have found a record number of Americans distrust the election results — but let’s talk through some of the biggest consequences of this push to delegitimize the results, in addition to whether this jeopardizes Trump’s role as the de facto party leader once he’s left the presidency.

To start, what do you view as the biggest consequence of all this?

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): I think the biggest potential danger is that in any election where the Republicans earn fewer votes, they will make unfounded and exaggerated claims of voting irregularities and fraud and try to toss out or overturn the results. No election is conducted perfectly, but using minor problems as a pretext for invalidating the outcome is a huge problem. You can’t have a democracy if one of the main parties can’t admit defeat.

I am really worried about this in the context of these Georgia Senate runoff races. If Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock both win their races, that would give Democrats total control of Congress. So will Republicans be able to accept losing these races if they do? Or will there be an endless stream of lawsuits trying to prevent Ossoff and Warnock from being seated?

julia_azari (Julia Azari, political science professor at Marquette University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): Biggest consequence: This splits the GOP and deepens the dilemma for Republicans (and possibly Democrats) about how to deal with the other party. Namely, can they continue to thread the needle in arguing that the other party’s constitutional and political views are illegitimate, but the processes are legitimate and thus they sometimes win? Or will the other party’s victories, as Perry suggests, not be tolerated?

I don’t want to “both sides” this — obviously, the Democrats are not the ones creating the current situation, but I think this creates potential dilemmas for them, too, regarding the way they treat the idea of legitimate opposition.

sarah: What are some of the dilemmas you think Democrats face as a result of this, Julia?

julia_azari: Well, take the debate happening over how Democrats should react to this news. There’s a question of whether the House should consider impeachment, which I’m guessing they probably won’t do. On the one hand, I’m not sure impeachment would have much public support, and there’s plenty of other issues that Congress needs to work on. But on the other hand, it does sort of leave the impression that these kinds of norm violations are sort of begrudgingly tolerated.

This will linger after Trump leaves office, too, I think. You’ll have Democrats who want to move on and not ratchet up the stakes of partisan disagreement. And you’ll have others who want to seek accountability for some of the laws that they think were broken by the last administration.

sarah: That’s a really good point, Julia. One thing we saw after the 2016 election was a big drop in the share of Democrats who thought the election was fair and accurate, but it’s nowhere near as big as the drop we’ve seen among Republicans here in 2020. That’s why what you and Perry are hitting on — how the parties handle loss and what that means for voters’ trust in democracy — is the biggest consequence of all this to me.

But maybe you all disagree? Should Democrats be digging into Trump’s behavior more for the reason Julia cited — that this behavior otherwise seems begrudgingly tolerated?

julia_azari: Well, the fact that COVID-19 continues to pose a very real challenge for the country, creates a bit of a problem for Democrats, because if they look like they’re focusing too much time on investigating the Trump administration, they look like they’re ignoring the pandemic and its consequences. But if Democrats try to take this on in a less high-profile way — subpoenaing lower-level officials, etc. — then maybe they’re accused of not being transparent enough.

The impact of this norm-breaking administration isn’t just that it violates these unwritten rules, but that it behaves in ways that make the whole system of usual practices not work. That makes things extra challenging for Democrats.

perry: Questions about what the Biden Department of Justice, congressional Democrats and state attorneys generals do about Trump’s conduct are all still very much up in the air. If there was some criminal activity, he should not be above the law. Perhaps there are some congressional hearings — and maybe even charges filed by the DOJ and/or attorneys generals — involving some Trump associates and maybe Trump himself. I don’t expect Biden to talk about Trump that much, but other actors might weigh in.

sarah: What is the end game here for Trump and Republicans? Trump admitted on the call to Raffensperger that, “I know this phone call is going nowhere.” I know we can’t speak to the president’s state of mind, but what can we point to for why refusing to concede the election has become Trump’s defining stance?

julia_azari: Well, it fits in well into this idea that “grievance politics” have turned into a somewhat successful brand — especially in a place like Georgia, where a history of racist voter suppression informs the context, and where Democratic victories are especially tied to the mobilization of Black voters.

However, I don’t see how having this kind of split within congressional Republicans is helpful to the GOP in the long term.

perry: Trump has lied and cheated in a lot of different venues in his life. That is just the truth. So him insisting that he won an election that he lost is nothing new. He likes to push and push people and see if they will uphold their ethics or bend to his will. For the Republican Party, part of this is just the trajectory they were on anyway, even without Trump at the helm. When you are writing voter laws targeting Black people with “surgical precision” (North Carolina Republicans), making it harder for felons who served their time to vote (Florida Republicans) and gerrymandering in a way that almost makes a mockery of majority rule (Wisconsin Republicans), then unfounded voter fraud charges that aim to disqualify the votes of Black people in particular are just a more aggressive step in an anti-democratic direction.

But part of this is directly tied to Trump. Elected and aspiring Republican officials know he is very connected to the party base, so aligning with Trump is aligning with the party base. So that is why you see Georgia Sen. David Perdue, in light of this phone call, attacking the secretary of state for leaking it, and not Trump for what he said.

2/ “To have a state-wide elected official, regardless of party, tape unknowing – to tape without disclosing a conversation – private conversation of the President of the United States and then leaking it to the press is disgusting,” Perdue told Fox.

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 4, 2021

julia_azari: I think the intersection of what Perry and I have said is this: “The future of the Republican Party is the division between those who say the quiet part out loud and those who don’t.”

One key difference is that Republicans used to win national majorities with the quiet part. That’s no longer the case. Per Rep. Thomas Massie, who along with six Republican colleagues authored a letter that pointed out the necessity of preserving ‘s comments on the Electoral College, the bullhorn can occasionally at least win a plurality. Matt Glassman, who studies Congress as a senior fellow at Georgetown University, on it:

The Senate vote on the objections will be lopsided—at a minimum 70-75 votes against, probably more like 80-85—and also starkly split the GOP caucus.

It may feel like the end, but this is really the beginning of the party fight over the meaning and future of Trumpism. https://t.co/8E9AW9GJul

— Matt Glassman (@MattGlassman312) January 4, 2021

sarah: If Glassman’s whip count is right, though, we’re still talking about a smallish wing of the GOP, right? In other words, it’s possible that the battle over Trumpism splinters the party, but that maybe the movement loses power?

Calling the integrity of the election results into question has clearly become a litmus test or demonstration of fealty for those in the GOP, but some senators like Ben Sasse and Mitt Romney are speaking out against it. Do you think it’s possible that Trump is ruining his ability to be the party’s leader post-presidency?

julia_azari: Well, our readers should stay tuned for my upcoming piece where I address that question!

But to give you a sneak peak: I think political scientists would frame this question as, “Can populism, on the right, be compatible with participation in a pluralistic, multi-ethnic democracy in which you sometimes lose even when you claim to truly represent the Constitution and the people?” The issue is that a wing of the Republican Party has skirted answering that question for decades now.

perry: Having covered the GOP in the era of Trump for the last six years, I will always bet on the more extreme wing of the party carrying the day. The fact that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would not acknowledge Biden’s win until mid-December was extraordinary. If I had told anyone that in 2015, they would have thought I was crazy.

The moderate voices in the Republican Party are not well organized, not connected to the party base and have no real compelling leaders, whereas the more extreme voices in the party have Fox News, Newsmax, One America News Network, Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson and Trump. I see very little chance that the Republican Party changes its general direction, even if Trump himself recedes.

Would you bet on Sasse winning a battle over the soul of the Republican Party against anyone whose last name is Trump?

julia_azari: I would probably bet a small amount that it is possible, Perry, especially since Sasse seems like a fairly skilled politician and the Trump kids do not.

That said, I generally do not disagree, but I wonder about the sustainability of it all. I think I have some questions on what counts as “moderate” — specifically, considering the GOP, as political scientist and Bloomberg View columnist Jonathan Bernstein has been saying for quite some time, is post-policy.

perry: When I say moderate, I mean people like Romney or Sasse, who are quite conservative on policy but generally avoid white identity politics-style moves (attacking Black Lives Matter or immigration reform) and are full-throated in favor of democratic norms and values. Republicans who are moderate on policy, like Susan Collins and Larry Hogan, are basically nonexistent among top Republicans now.

sarah: That’s largely what FiveThirtyEight contributor Lee Drutman outlined in his piece on why there are so few moderate Republicans left, Perry.

Given how favorable the down-ballot results were for Republicans, however, one of my takeaways from the 2020 election was that a lot of voters rejected Trump but not necessarily the Republican Party, making it a little harder for me to understand the extent to which the GOP has lost moderate voters.

At the same time, it’s hard for me to see a Romney, Hogan or Sasse winning the 2024 Republican nomination, given the current dynamics we’re seeing play out in the GOP — a largely ceremonial, non-headline grabbing vote on certifying the results of the Electoral College, for instance, has now become this big-stakes issue. That said, I’m not sure we can know at this point the success of Trumpism moving forward. I think, for instance, Democrats will face some real tests in the next four years on whether they can keep their big umbrella coalition of both moderates and very liberal voters happy, and that might create opportunities for more middle of the road or moderate Republicans.

perry: I am not confident who will win the 2024 nomination. I have no idea. I do think in the short term, though, that Trump will remain highly influential in the GOP, as will his style of politics.

I just don’t see an easy path for the Republicans to get off that ramp.

julia_azari: This is a bit of a cop-out but I’d need to think more about the costs and benefits for various Republicans. I’m gonna hold off on 2024 predictions until I get a feel for what politics in the Biden administration looks like. And per my earlier comment about how Trumpism has changed the unwritten rules for everyone, I feel a lot more uncertain about what this will look like now once Trump is gone than I have in previous administrations.

sarah: A lot probably hinges on how the Senate runoffs shake out tomorrow, and like you’ve both said, I really don’t have a sense of how “Trumpism” plays out now. It’s unclear to me, for instance, whether Trump is doing a lot of harm … or if he’s the future of conservatism in the U.S.

But at the very least, can we agree that the lasting consequence of this might be an escalation in how the parties oppose each other when an outcome is in dispute?

I’d argue we’ve seen a ramping up of this in the last decade, but it’s largely been over more procedural things, like the Senate changing rules around judicial appointments, and making it a more partisan affair. But now we have this extreme example — contesting a free and fair election. That ups the ante, no? And it seems as if partisan infighting could get much worse.

perry: I’m not sure I’d say we’ll see an escalation in how the parties oppose each other, at least not yet. I think it’s a change on the Republican side. I don’t expect Biden, for instance, to be fighting his defeat for two months if he clearly lost by a wide electoral margin (not one state by 500 votes) in 2024.

julia_azari: I agree with that, Perry. But I think it’s possible that Democrats will start to feel pressure to both uphold norms and be “reasonable” while also responding to norm violations more forcefully.

perry: I am wary of suggesting we are seeing escalation on both sides, though, as I think we are really only seeing big escalations on the GOP side. And I worry things could get worse. If Republicans controlled the House right now, I would be really worried about this election certification issue, for example.

julia_azari: For me, it comes down to a question of sustainability, and of possible splits among Democrats on this issue. But to be clear, I don’t see any of them supporting the scenario you described, Perry. But I could start to see them play a bit more “constitutional hardball.”

sarah: Yeah, I think Julia is getting at what I meant. I definitely don’t want to “both sides” this. But I do think what Julia touched on earlier, about the mechanisms for expressing legitimate opposition being brushed aside, leaves Democrats in an awkward position, as Trump’s brand of politics has challenged how the whole system works.

julia_azari: My main point here is that the parties are not self-contained, and I don’t think the Democrats have really figured out answers to some of the questions posed by Republicans’ norm-violating behavior (which again, is a situation Democrats did not create).

perry: Julia is getting at an important and complicated question here, and one we kind of saw play out around whether Democrats should add justices to the Supreme Court given Republicans’ rush to nominate Amy Coney Barrett before the election.

Biden was clearly uncomfortable with it, but the party activists really pushed him on the issue. So what does Biden/the Democrats do about what we have seen over the last two months?

Biden, in this pre-inauguration period, is basically ignoring Trump and suggesting Republicans will work with him. And I can’t tell if he is 1) pretending, 2) clueless, or 3) Republicans will actually work with him. But Biden’s theory of the case and how other Democrats approach this issue, not to mention how the two parties interact on this, will be interesting. I truly do not know the answer to this question.

sarah: Exactly. It will be interesting to see how Biden and the Democrats work to address this — or whether Trump’s brand of politics has upended everything.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #A FiveThirtyEight Chat

[relationshipsandpolitics]

Part 3

Since I last posted, we’ve gotten word that a certain rich asshole is going to enter the race.  Now, I could do 500 words on why this guy is awful, but it would sort of go against my belief that just because someone is really rich does not mean we need to pay extra attention to them and their thoughts.   This guy is not winning the nomination, won’t even poll about 3% in most states, and overall is not worth the amount ink that will surely be spilled on his campaign.  Next.

Joe Biden. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders

So we are down to the final 3.  One of those 3 objectively should have been culled much earlier.  If I was doing this purely based on the level of support for each candidate, this guy would have been cut about 8 candidates ago.  But Joe Biden is still the front runner, consistently leading national polls and absolutely killing it in several early primary states like South Carolina.  Biden remains popular among black voters, who serve as the lifeblood of the Democratic party. Even though his policies and personality suck, he is unique from all the other shitty centrist candidates.  So he gets his own takedown.

Joe Biden is a very old man hoping to blind the voters with his connection to President Obama.  And for the most part, it’s working like a charm. Forget the fact that he is a rambling, incoherent mess during campaign stops.  Forget his abysmal views on race, including his support for segregated busing and racist colleagues.  Forget the fact this guy railroaded Anita Hill and still can’t sufficiently apologize to her.  Forget all the bad parts of Joe Biden.  That’s what he is banking on.  Biden is trying to win not based on policy or his strategy for improving the lives of everyday Americans.  No, he is trying to win by painting a false image of who he is and how electable he would be.  Biden is basing his entire campaign on appealing to low-key racist white suburbanites who don’t want to pay more taxes.  That’s his base.  And it’s not an awful strategy.  But it highlights something terrible about the Democratic voter.

The average Democratic primary voter appears to support progressive causes.  They want to see Social Security expanded.  They support a $15 minimum wage and gun control.  They support paid family leave and some form of universal health care.  But the average Democratic voter of a certain age, race and class level doesn’t want to fight for those things.  Because while they agree with those policies in principle, they won’t be that affected by them, and more importantly, would have to pay more in taxes.  So they say they support these goals yet refuse to put any skin into the game to achieve them.   The other possibility is that they would support enacting these policies and paying a bit more, but they don’t think anyone else would and thus think we need to support the least-controversial candidate.  No one really likes Joe Biden, or if they do, no one can really identify what exactly he is running for.   Even though health care remains a joke in this country, Biden isn’t arguing to make it better.  He isn’t supporting a wealth tax.  What is this man running on except a vague idea about returning dignity to the American worker.  Yet voters still support him, either because they know he actually won’t change anything (except make it ok to be gay again) or because they think not changing anything is the only way for a Democrat to win.

The American voter (not just Democratic voters) collectively is a stupid person.  They personally want a politician to enact massive change to better their lives, yet believe the ideal candidate is a moderate who won’t do anything major, and still someone in doing nothing substantial, will improve their lives.  Then, just to double down on that stupidity, they will vote the opposition party into power in Congress to ensure nothing happens, all because they love compromise. Of course, the last thirty years of politics have shown that bipartisanship is a myth.

The American voter is both very ignorant and very naïve.  We accept that.  But it’s tougher to accept that from our politicians.  At a recent fundraiser for millionaires, Biden touted his sincere belief that when Trump goes, Republicans will have an epiphany and start working with him to make our country better.  Folks, this is disqualifying.  The sheer insanity of that belief needs to be a deal breaker.  Biden, in the very same speech to the very same contingent of rich assholes, said that he personally called dozens of Republicans to get Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court.  The Republicans said no and pulled a move so disgusting and unprecedented that we will never see something worse in our lifetimes.  And this was all before Trump was even nominated.

Joe Biden is an idiot. He also is in the bag of the rich. He regularly attends fundraisers hosted by lobbyists for some of the most nefarious industries.  His campaign is mostly funded by Wall Street and Health Insurance.  And how do you think he’ll govern once in office?  Will he go after these bad actors?  Or will he appoint them to his Cabinet?  Remember, this is the guy who worked in an administration that wanted Larry Summers as Fed Chief.  He appointed Timothy Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury.

Joe Biden would continue the worst aspects of Obama’s administration without all the good stuff. He’d be in his late 80’s by the time his second term ended, too.  For the love of all that we hold holy, we cannot nominate Biden.

It is now time for the top two candidates.  I would happily vote for either of these candidates, so my choice for one is not a slight on the other.  Each candidate has issues, but they are minor compared to what they bring to the table. So I urge you to vote early and often for either of them.

Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders

A presidential candidate should make you excited to vote for them.  It can’t just be “I can’t vote for the other guy so I guess you’ll do.”  It’s a recipe for disaster.  People need a reason to take a couple hours of their day, find parking, wait in a long line, deal with eighty-year old volunteers who yell at you to close the curtain more, and then go into work and deal with their daily amount of shit.  People need a reason to see the process of voting as exciting.  

I think Bernie and Elizabeth are the only two candidates one can reasonably get excited about.  I’m not saying everyone will be excited by them because a lot of people don’t support their policies.  I call these people assholes.  But can anyone honestly say they are excited to vote for Amy Klobuchar or Joe Biden? Even if you support their bland policy proposals which consist of “we need better jobs but fuck if I know how to do that.”

But which one to choose?

I’m going to start with Bernie.  The negatives against him are one of perception rather than reality, but in politics its not the truth that wins out but what you can convince people the truth is. And Bernie will definitely be portrayed as an out-of-touch Socialist.  While the youngins like the word “socialism” the majority of the electorate is still scared to death of the term because they equate social democratic government as the Soviet Union and bread lines.  In other words, most people are stupid.   Sanders best hope would be to hammer home how amazing European countries are, the benefits they enjoy without all the negatives that Republicans conjure up in places like Venezuela. Unfortunately, Republican messaging still rules the day.   Even if you could strap a person in a chair and explain point by point why Sweden and Denmark work as social democracies, they still wouldn’t get it.

Trump will absolutely attack Bernie for being a socialist, and the problem compared to the other candidates he would attack for being a socialist is that the suburban Democratic voters would actually believe him.  Bernie absolutely will upend the system, and a lot of people are still benefiting from that system.  People like my parents.  They have a good amount of money but are not rich.  Taxes going up on them will impact their daily lives, and most of the benefits Bernie is advocating for would not benefit them.  There is a lot of good research out there that suggests the key for Democrats to win across the board is to get the suburban moderate vote. And there is a legitimate argument that Bernie will not get that vote.  Now, one can say that those voters would never vote for Trump. But you must remember a very important thing about politics: white people can get pretty racist when they think you’ll take money away from them.

But here’s what I love about Bernie.  He is entirely genuine in his advocacy for the poor and working class. Most politicians say they care, of course.  They give a speech supporting raising the minimum wage or not cutting Medicaid. But they also tie themselves with rich donors and businesses whenever they can.  They support the poor until there is a good reason not to.  Not Bernie.  He’s been singing the same tune since the sixties.  He doesn’t care if it isn’t popular. He’ll make it become popular. Bernie almost single handedly shifted the conversation on universal health care.  We are talking about paid family leave and free college because of him. And the man deserves credit for that.

Bernie has been hit a lot from the Democratic establishment.  People are still sore that he had the audacity to challenge Hillary Clinton.  Even though he endorsed and campaigned heavily for her after dropping out in 2016, there is still a narrative that he sabotaged her campaign.  Let’s be clear, though.  The reason why the establishment Democratic contingency dislikes Bernie is because he thinks they are just as corrupt as the Republicans.  Which is true.  Democrats work out of the same bubble as Republicans.  They rub shoulders with the same Wall Street donors. Try calling up your Democratic Senator to get an in-person meeting.  Now look at who does get those meetings.  I support Bernie because he actually is trying to change our corrupt political system.  A politician can’t work within the given system without being corrupted by it. The system is a cancer that needs to be destroyed.  

Bernie has said some dumb things and has held some dumb positions.  This can’t be denied.  He’s been accused of being a racist, sexist and homophobe.  Some of this is absolute bullshit and some of it is based on dumb things he’s said.   But judging by the policies the man has supported, the votes he has taken, and what he has said during the 2016 and 2020 campaigns, does anyone honestly believe him to be a racist, sexist or homophobe?

If you are having a tough time getting behind Bernie, I’d ask yourself the following questions:

Do you honestly believe he would pursue anti-women and anti-reproductive rights policies?

Do you think a more robust paid family leave policy, along with a policy promoting affordable childcare, would significantly benefit women?

Do you think Bernie would restrict LGBTQ rights or would he expand protections for this group?

Do you genuinely believe Bernie would support or champion policies that would discriminate against black people?  

Do you think health care is a crisis in this country and everyone should have access to it? If so, do you think Bernie makes the situation better or worse?

Do you think a president should fill his administration with people from the financial and insurance industries?  Do you think Bernie would do this?

Do you think millionaires and billionaires should be taxed more and more money should go into programs that help the poor and middle class?

Should college be free or at least much more affordable?

Ask yourself these questions.  Don’t worry about whether he can get them passed.  Truth is it will be tough for any Democrat to get anything passed.  I’d be looking at which candidates are most willing to use executive orders (hint: it’s Bernie).

We can’t keep hedging our votes on what’s practical because the truth is everything is doable with enough willpower.   Think about how insane Social Security is as a legislative success.  We taxed everyone, rich and poor, to provide money to senior citizens for the rest of their lives.  That’s insane, and we did it.  Same with Medicare.  If you think are country needs massive changes to secure our future, vote for the candidate who is advocating for massive changes.  That candidate is Bernie Sanders and…..

Elizabeth Warren.  Everything good about Bernie can also be said about Elizabeth Warren.  This is a person who literally created an agency designed to help consumers go against corporations.  Warren has correctly diagnosed the problem for wealth and income inequality and a lot of the bad shit that’s been happening to the American worker. Corporations suck. Rich people suck. They both need to be taxed way more and we need to use those funds to give benefits to the poor and working class. Warren has a plan for pretty much everything, and that is a great thing.  She doesn’t talk in platitudes about restoring dignity to the working class. She identifies the problem and comes up with an actual solution.  

And for her efforts she gets skewered by her opponents and the media.  When Pete Buttigieg says we should invest more in affordable housing, no one pushes back on exactly what that means.  But when Warren releases a comprehensive plan to pay for Medicare for All, she is eviscerated.  Her plans should be critiqued, but they should also come with the acknowledgement that she has put in the work and is way more open with the American people than the other candidates.  The media and voters need to start making candidates pay a price for not articulating actual plans for their policy goals.  

Warren is fucking smart and driven.  She has the brain and energy to do the job.  She’s not a crackpot; she’s an advocate for the little guy.  Honestly, there isn’t much to criticize Warren on outside of how she will pay for her policy proposals.  But the media will attack what little they have while giving Trump and the more moderate Democrats a pass.  When Trump or Biden talk about strengthening the military, no one will ask what that means and how much it will cost.  But when Warren comes up with a tax plan to pay for free childcare, every single pundit will pounce the second some study comes out that her funding is off by a few million.

Of course, the dumbest part is the idea Warren needs to fully fund any proposal.  Right now, the economy has been doing great for about five years.  And in that whole time, we’ve been running huge deficits.  Maybe government spending without offsets isn’t such a big deal. Warren can’t say that because the media won’t allow her to.  It would be great if Warren could just say “things are going great now despite a trillion-dollar deficit, so why not get free healthcare for a $2 trillion-dollar deficit?”

That’s what I love most about Warren.  The lines of attack against her are so shitty.  Bernie has legitimate concerns that the Republicans will easily exploit. The best they can do with Warren is attack her policies, which are broadly popular.  And with Warren, you get a bunch of different contingencies that will come out for her.  You have women and those who want to see our first female president.  You get progressives excited about finally having a candidate who advocates for them with a fighting chance.  And because she is being so careful not to raise middle class taxes, I think you get a lot of the suburban vote.

I think Warren can win this thing.  She articulates the message well, she lacks genuine baggage and when compared to Trump, she comes off even better.  

So who is my final pick? I’m going with Elizabeth Warren. Not only does she hold most of the same policy positions as Sanders, but she also is fundamentally opposed to the corporate interests that got us to this point.  And I think she can better cajole moderate Democrats to support her agenda.  Finally, I think she comes with less baggage.

What I would love to see, based on the polling, is for Warren to either win or come in second by a close margin to Biden or Buttigieg.  Sanders would drastically underperform, at which point if New Hampshire was also going poorly, he could drop out and swing all his support to Warren.  That would make her the clear front runner. Let’s see what happens.

  Elizabeth Warren

#elizabeth warren #bernie sanders #joe biden

[jswdmb1]

Identical

I don't just know you, I've grown like that too...

If I don't dislike you, I'm withdrawn, unrighteous too...

I’m no prophet, I'm your friend

Take my advice, make your mistakes”

- Phoenix

Every four years, the PBS series “Frontline” presents an episode called “The Choice”.  It presents the two candidates running in that particular presidential election.  But, it is not a show about the current campaign, policy issues or even the politics behind the particular candidates.  It is instead a personal biography of each candidate up to the point of the current election told chronologically.  The show portrays each individual’s story back and forth as the years go on that allow the viewer to both understand the people behind the front their campaigns present, but also provides a unique opportunity to compare and contrast the two candidates.  I have watched this particular episode of Frontline in every presidential election dating back to 2000, and I find it to consistently be the single best source of information for me to decide (or confirm) which candidate I am to support in that year’s election.

I was going to pass on this year’s version as I didn’t think there was anything I could learn about either man, and my choice is already made, but I watched anyway.  I have to admit that I was surprised to pick up nuggets of information that were new to me such as that Joe Biden’s first wife and daughter were killed six weeks after his election to the Senate for the first time, or that Donald Trump’s mother fell ill when he was very small and was effectively absent for his nurturing years.  Those are facts that seemingly are unimportant when weighing which man to support in a presidential election, but I think we have all found out in the last four years that an individual’s personality, temperament, and morality are just as important as their stance on any issue or their knowledge of the inner workings of government.  In the example of this year’s election, it finally crystallized the stark difference between Joe Biden and Donald Trump that has made my decision for whom to vote so easy.

Let’s start with the challenger Biden.  If there are two things that are clear about Joe, it is 1) he makes a lot of mistakes, and 2) he has overcome quite a bit of adversity of the years whether they are of his own doing or not.  You can watch the show to see the examples of both, but Biden’s approach to problems in his life has been remarkably consistent.  First, he acknowledges the problem exists and that he has responsibility to address it.  Next, if it was a problem of his own doing, he owns up to it.  Often times, he does this quite clumsily and occasionally makes things worse, but he does, at a minimum, take responsibility.  Finally, once it is out there, he puts his head down and gets to work with an amazing ability to ignore the long odds that he may face or the chirping he hears in the background about how badly he messed up and/or how he will never make it right.  He simply has a fundamental belief that humans make mistakes and he is no exception to that rule.  At times, it would be refreshing if he demonstrated better that he learns from some of these mistakes so as not to repeat them, but there is at least a good faith effort even if the execution at times is mediocre.

There is no need to go into detail how Trump behaves whenever he is faced with a problem and it is well documented that he never admits to making a mistake (and likely doesn’t even believe he has ever made one).  There are daily examples of this behavior and running through the list at this point is massively unappealing.  What I do find interesting is why he is this way.  The show goes into great detail about the influence three men have had on his life. The first is his father Fred.  We all know his background and his ruthlessness in business and within his personal relationships and this was applied to each of his sons.  The first, Fred Jr., bristled at the notion of going into the family business, and became an airline pilot instead (a decision for which both father and brother Donald would mock him mercilessly and drove him to alcoholism and an early death).  Fred Sr. then set his sights on son #2 who was more than willing to take up the cause.  After a stint in military school that hardened his outlook on life and reduced what little emotional capacity he had, he moved into his father’s footsteps and practiced the approach that personal gain is everything and little else matters.

The second man was a lawyer named Roy Cohn.  Cohn rose to fame in the 1950s as Joseph McCarthy’s hatchet man in the blacklisting of innocent American citizens for unfounded (and mostly false) accusations of communism.  Despite the shame eventually brought upon him for that role, he rose to become one of the most powerful attorneys in New York.  A client of his was a young Donald Trump and Cohn taught him three things that helped him rise from the ashes: 1) deny anything that makes you look bad as even having happened 2) attack those that bring these things up and deflect the blame elsewhere, and 3) never take responsibility for your actions unless there is a transactional gain that serves you.  This has been Donald Trump’s blueprint his entire life and it can be found in his business, his marriages, and certainly his presidency.  He literally has never operated in a manner that is different in any aspect of his life, so the fact that this has come through during his time in the White House should be surprising to no one who witnessed him before his election.

The final man was the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale who was the pastor at the church Donald Trump attended for over 50 years.  Peale’s claim-to-fame was the publishing of a book The Power of Positive Thinking and the Trumps followed it like their bible.  Boiled down, the main tenant of the book was that one must think positively at all costs and negative thoughts must be barred from the mind or success cannot be achieved.  That seems okay on the surface, but it becomes a problem when situations require more effort than simply a good thought and a wish that it goes away.  This clearly explains Trump’s complete inability to handle the COVID-19 pandemic.  Even though he obviously intellectually understood the severity and danger of the virus from his recordings on the Woodward tapes, this brainwashing of Peale on the Trump family made it impossible for Donald to acknowledge that the problem existing in any way.  When combined with Cohn’s teachings on taking no responsibility and Fred Sr.’s example of bulldozing past anyone who disagrees with you (like a scientist or doctor), the end result of his response makes a lot of sense.  It’s why even when catching the disease himself, he views it as a positive event that only he could dream up.

I do find it curious that I spent three long paragraphs on Trump with only one brief paragraph on Biden, but that meshes with each approach they have on the basic issues of life as a human being which is confronting adversity and accepting that we do make mistakes.  Biden’s approach is simple and to the point, sometimes to a fault.  Trump has this complicated troika of mad men’s teachings running through his head when problems come up and it is no wonder he is paralyzed with inaction when it comes time to do something about it.  For me, this is the defining trait between the two men that seems to tower over everything else about them personally or this election in general.  The question then is what do we do with this information.

I’m certain it is obvious which way I am going to go, but it may surprise you why.  You see, I have struggled myself with some of these same issues that each man has faced.  Up until a few years ago, I actually would describe myself as really being more Trump-like in my approach to life than I really care to admit.  I rarely acknowledged I was wrong and often blamed others for problems that were within and could only be solved by the guy responsible for them in the first place – me.  This attitude prevented me from seeing what was the real root of my unhappiness and depression and did not allow for me to acknowledge that my drinking and moderate drug use had become a problem.  It wasn’t until everything broke down and I ended up in an intense six-week program of therapy and deep soul searching that I discovered that mistakes we make are what builds us up and not what tears us down.  Granted, we need to learn from those mistakes to become better people and achieve great things, but admitting responsibility is the only path to doing either of those things.  I know now after a few years that I will never get things totally right, but I can get up each day and at least try to improve on the one before.  At a minimum, I strive to not make things worse, and it all gives me strength to fight whatever demons I have head on.  It’s a trial-and-error approach for sure, but I don’t see how it can be done any other way.

And given where things are at now, I don’t see how any other approach can help us overcome the enormous problems we face at this time whether it be COVID-19, or the economy, or global warming, or any other massive threat we face right now.  There is no amount of positive thinking that will help us overcome any one of these things and clearly wishing the problems away (or denying they even exist) is not going to work.  We need someone who understands this and there is no doubt the current president has no ability to do so.  Joe Biden may not be perfect, and he is not going to get us all of the way there on likely any one thing, but we have to start somewhere.  And, if there is one thing that he is good at, it is looking at a big hill, putting his head down, and climbing up.  It’s not pretty, and it isn’t the easy thing to do, but it is what we need right now more than anything.  

That is a tough pill to swallow for many Americans who think their freedom is a birthright that requires no effort, but that fantasy has been squashed.  In three weeks, the choice is clear about what needs to be done and the decision is up to you: are you going to acknowledge fault and accept responsibility for our collective actions that have led us to this point and vote for Joe, or are you going to give Trump another four years by simply wishing that all our problems away (spoiler alert – they don’t)?  The politically correct thing to say at this point is that either way you decide please make sure you vote, but I cannot apply that here.  The stakes are too high and the path is too obvious – either vote for Joe or don’t vote at all.  That second option may be tough for some people to take, but consider it your first step on a long road to recovery and redemption not just for yourself but our nation.

Good luck, everyone, we are going to need it.

-        Jim

[alexsmitposts]

Blind Faith, Subterfuge and not “Real Issues” will decide US Presidential Elections Voter behaviour is not really so complicated. I once even took a course in it; about all that I can remember is that the “incumbent and name recognition is all that really matters” in getting re-elected, especially for a US President. Regardless of who is the pick for vice president, or whether or not Joe Biden is a Republican at heart with a bad case of both venality and dementia and Trump cannot make truthful statements, the November election is therefore kind of a “toss up”—at least at first impression. Trump is larger than life, whether or not that is a good thing. This worked in his favour last time round, as the outsider candidate against the tainted Hillary Clinton, pillar of the political establishment, the sort who gives representing a relatively left-leaning party a bad name. But this time the US is not electing a new president, it is holding what is effectively a referendum on the incumbent. In 2016 the primary motivation was voting either FOR Trump or FOR Hillary. This time a significant portion of the population will be voting AGAINST Trump, just because it’s him, and his main task will be get these people to stay at home, rather than vote for Biden, even if they have to hold their noses to do so. But with so many Republicans having a problem with Trump, and Democrats having a problem with Sloppy Joe Biden, there will be less interest in engaging WITH, rather than AGAINST, either candidate. If voters act on hate alone, Biden will walk it. But the long campaigning season will probably end with a weary populace ignoring the real issues and voting on the basis of blind faith – that regardless of things like issues and facts, someone, somehow, is going to make their lives better before the whole political system collapses around them. Schoolyard Bully I am dumbfounded at how Trump can blatantly and unapologetically pander to Christians and they eat it up!!! He is reported to have made a statement that if the states don’t open the churches this weekend there will be consequences!!! Trump has many supporters in the South, where they are keen on States´Rights. But Facebook and other social media sites are repeating his nonsense, and throwing their endorsement to Trump. Maybe the man is the genius he says he is after all. He is definitely playing them – what can Facebook do, censor Trump or claim that such statements go against community standards? He has been a genius at one thing for his entire life – getting his own way, and just for the hell of it, regardless of what is right or well-advised. Like the rich kid who learns how to twist his parents in knots, Trump is godlike in his ability to manipulate. He will use any trick in the book, and make up some new ones. This may end up being what the election is actually about. The more Trump lies and cheats and gets away with it, the more the disadvantaged and the crooked, who have fallen by the wayside when playing by the rules, will think he offers hope. The rest of America will then decide whether that is really the world they want to live in for the next four years, in the midst of a succession of crises they often have wilfully unreal ideas about to begin with. As one new American, before the new immigration rules set in, shared, “Trump is not that evil; I don’t think he is Godlike. He is just a compulsive dude with a character. He is simple but knows how to bargain for profits. Why everyone is after him, it’s funny; I have never seen Americans liking their president ever, as they like Trump.” Us against them Versus them against Us Of course this means Trump won’t campaign by the rules either. Other people made those rules, the same people many Americans blame for taking away their jobs and being soft on their enemies. Trump will do whatever he has to do, whatever the cost, ignoring little things like the Constitution, Rule of Law and facts.His latest stunt is to question whether Biden’s VP running mate is qualified to stand for the office, based on her parent’s origins. That is really catering to his base, as he knows only too well that she is in no way disqualified for the office, but many people wish she was. Barack Obama was subject to so much rumour about his own origins that he actually displayed his birth certificate (saying Honolulu, Hawaii, 4th August 1961, i.e. after it had become part of the US) at a press conference. These allegations were never based on fact, but allowed some voters to dress up prejudice as hoped-for fact. Trump joined these allegations, saw they worked, and has been finding new ways to make prejudice seem justified ever since. Constitutional law experts say Harris’ parents are beside the point. The 14th Amendment grants citizenship to all people born in the US, and Article II Section 1 of the Constitution says that to be eligible for the vice presidency and presidency a candidate must be natural-born US citizen, at least 35, and a resident of the United States for a minimum of 14 years. But the Constitution embodies the establishment, and Trump doesn’t consider himself part of it. Many of his supporters feel betrayed by it, their needs and values having been relegated to secondary status, or worse, because they and their friends were never asked to write the Constitution. Trump has lied to his base like he has lied to everyone else. He does it every day, shamelessly. Remember building a wall and making Mexico pay for it, incarcerating Hillary, paying off the debt and stopping wars, let alone the more recent ones about COVID-19 response. But what is escaping critical attention is that the current man in the White House represents the character and morals of the masses of people who make up the country. They won’t admit openly to being everything America pretends it isn’t, which is why Trump is being hammered in the polls, but they will be voting in mass for his re-election. Their core values are the same: family, Church, flag and job security, as if these are the answer to everything in themselves, no actual performance or policy is needed. The vast majority of these voters must feel that they are now being taken care of—for most that means less government, affordable education and healthcare. If Trump makes an about-turn, such as introducing Medicare for all at a price, he will be hoeing in high cotton as the presidential election nears. Blind faith in the system versus blind faith in anything other than the system may not be the best choice to have, as countries which have had revolutions understand. But both sides are gambling that this is how the voters will see it, and that they will choose their faith over the other, and then prosecute it for four years with the same religious fervour so that reality doesn’t come and bite too hard. Bubbling under the Radar Trump may support a small state, but he did a clever move extending Federal Unemployment benefits by executive order, albeit not to the previous level of 600 dollars per week on top of any State benefit. He realised that he had no time to waste, especially in the wake of the economic havoc of COVID-19. Congress went on recess so as not to deal with the COVID-19 crisis, as they knew there was going to be too much pork included in any legislation they would attempt to pass. This could be interpreted as meaning they were outsmarted by Donald Trump, and only one such victory will embolden his supporters to believe there will be many more, which they will interpret as victories for them. Trump’s base of support has closed ranks even more over his monument policy, which makes it a crime to tear down historic monuments. One cannot trash history just because times have changed. I may not like your monument, but let’s talk about it. When the first Democratic debates were held Joe Biden was not most people’s first choice, but I wondered if he had the best chance, since he was old and white and had been VP under Obama. This claim to fame would help him gain the black vote en masse, or so he thought. But this has become a moot issue since Biden scolded black leaders, claiming they would not be black if they voted for Trump. That did not go over well with a voter group which as a whole finds Trump a lowlife, but does not expect to be lectured by a senile “old honky”.Blacks also realised long ago that if they have an equally strong voice within both parties they are more likely to be heard, not taken for granted by the one they support and then ignored, because electorally not worth the effort, by the other. If Biden doesn’t get that, how many other voter groups will he risk alienating between now and November? Biden is the sort of Democrat blacks once deserted his party for being full of – a scion of white privilege, darling of War on Crime (meaning war on blacks, as is Harris), closet racist and blind servant of Wall Street and the Military-Industrial Complex. Maybe this is the real reason he is supposedly polling ahead of Trump in key Electoral College States, even Ohio. However, those with not-so-short memories will remember that the last round of polls before the 2016 election gave Hillary Clinton a commanding lead, and the DNC and mainstream media were so confident of her success they had already printed up the front pages of the newspapers announcing her victory. What makes the pollsters so confident that they will not be even more wrong this time? Trump bashing Biden’s policies and the Democratic National Committee’s platform may soon take all the wind out of Biden’s sails, precisely because it is so easy to bash Trump that it has less effect on the voters. Trump’s policy of America First is also proving consistent, and this is the one campaign promise few people expected him to keep. This does put Trump in the small category of politicians who actually keep their promises, however ironic that is. The return of no point As for the election, only God knows what will happen.It is perfectly possible that the Deep State controls the voting machines by now and the mail-in ballots too!Democrats in Florida are still protesting about the voting machines used there when George W. Bush beat Al Gore by a tiny margin. As James Baker pointed out at the time, they tested the machines before the election and had no complaints. So either there was nothing wrong with the machines, or the count was distorted by those machines. I know which one my money is on. What people are not willing to wake up and accept is that America needs another system, not the two party system, aswhich now supposedly exists. It is an illusion that Republican and Democrat are the only choices, when members of these two parties stay in Congress for decades and little if anything changes. In 1905 Mark Twain wrote his War Prayer, a short story or prose poem described as “a scathing indictment of war, particularly of blind patriotic and religious fervour as motivations for war.” In the days of the Vietnam War, when both war and politics had meaning, this was seen as sarcasm. Now it is a commentary on what the US political system has become, because people are incapable of engaging with real issues because they do not wish to know the truth about their country.

[maybeyoumissthisf-kingpost]

Different political mindsets between Vietnamese people and Western people

Economic and political thinking between Vietnamese and Westerners is indeed different. Not talking about right and wrong. But it's really different. Before reading the next lines, I want us to agree on one thing, which is to respect differences - which is common in a pluralistic society like the West.

Normally, Vietnamese people can gossip about East and West, but there is an unwritten rule that is not to discuss politics. Because it's sensitive. Like a shy teenage girl holding her lover's hand for the first time. This is different from the West, when politics is a hotly discussed topic in every street corner, school, office, newspaper, to every corner of cyberspace. Therefore, there are Western views that are common, but may sound strange to Vietnamese people; on the contrary, there are thoughts that are deeply rooted in Vietnamese people also make many Westerners find it difficult to understand.

1. Vietnamese: "Paying taxes is patriotic"

This statement was made by Mr. Vu Tien Loc, Chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), at the Ceremony to announce the 1,000 largest tax paying enterprises in Vietnam in 2017. The text is as follows:

If paying taxes is patriotic, then those who pay more taxes are patriotic.

Any. Let's admit, this is not just Mr. Loc's point of view, but most Vietnamese people have the same opinion. I used to be like that too. Most of us think of paying taxes as a way to contribute to the nation. Only if the government has money can the country develop. Therefore, when giving each of our tax dollars to the government, we feel like we have contributed to the development, invisibly that becomes a measure of each person's patriotism.

“Have you done anything for the country?” "I pay more taxes than you!" Sound familiar?

Western perspective

Taxes and fees are material categories. And patriotism is a natural attribute, belonging to the category of consciousness and spirit.

Taxes and fees are monetary, limited and implemented by government power – coercion. While patriotism is a sacred, noble, priceless, unlimited and completely voluntary gesture.

In Germany, the Constitutional Court once ruled that "the people are not responsible for paying much tax to the state, but rather, they have the right to legally calculate the tax to pay the least". That saying has become a slogan in many judicial offices in this country.

Paying a lot of taxes is also not a way to help the country develop more. High corporate tax will cause many companies to go bankrupt, workers lose their jobs, hinder technology development. The more taxes, the more control agencies must be established, the easier it is to breed embezzlement and corruption. Therefore, it is best that everyone spends money, respects individual liberties, taxes should be just enough for essential public services.

For Westerners, taxing is also considered an act of theft [of the government] – “taxation is theft”. There is even a saying among parents: “Want to teach your children a lesson about paying taxes? Eat half of their ice cream.”

Say it again and again, West also has West this West that. Not everyone wants a tax cut. Some lazy people tend to be in favor of raising taxes. Because if there is no tax money, they will be cut off from the government subsidy, which means they have to carry their ass to find a job. There are also many politicians who support tax increases, they are Socialists like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.

2. Vietnamese: “Peace will develop”

For Vietnamese people: When people are at peace, they can do business in peace. Peace is the only way to promote tourism. Peace is the country's development. There is freedom but chaos.

As long as it is peaceful, the country is rich and strong. This is a unique formula for national development that cannot be found in any economic-political literature or theory. So when someone condemns negatively in Vietnam, they are often attacked and threatened because they dare to "disturb" social stability and inhibit development.

Western perspective

The development formula of the West is encapsulated in two words "freedom". In which, economic freedom, political freedom freedom and personal freedom are the core for other freedoms.

Economic freedom gives people absolute private property rights, fully realizes the freedom of movement of labor, capital, and goods, and is completely free from oppression or limitation of economic freedom. except to the minimum limits necessary for them to protect and maintain that freedom.

Political freedom is the right to do anything that is not prohibited by law. As a result, people can freely speak, share opinions and access information and multi-dimensional knowledge; or free thinking helps us distinguish right from wrong and be creative.

Personal freedom gives us the freedom to choose and take responsibility for our decisions. No one has the right to impose our will in the name of anything.

Which Western political and social system is as peaceful as ours? Yet they are extremely developed. It doesn't need to be said far, even like Thailand, their people protest and riot often, but their country's tourism is more developed than ours. But thought that the unstable society would not dare to travel?

3. Vietnamese people: “There is a state to take care of”

Officials who commit violations and corruption have been taken care of by the State; election, the party also elects the people; policy making, the State has thought for and took care of it; Whatever they wanted to say, the state press spoke for them. Therefore, now Vietnamese people are quite peaceful. For them, peace is enough, why should they have to protest and worry about politics like other countries. How many years of war is not enough? So let's just ignore it, live in peace, live a carefree life, pay taxes regularly, everything is taken care of by the State.

Western perspective

Westerners value political freedom. Unlike Vietnamese who "have the state to take care of", Westerners have long seen government as a threat, not a solution to their problems. People have rights, and must participate in the State apparatus.

Montesquieu once wrote in the book The Spirit of Laws: "Many historical experience shows that people in power are often inclined to abuse power, and the best way to combat abuse of power is to fight monopoly, is to divide them in such a way that these rights contain one another.”

So how to do it? In order to reduce the concentration of power in one group, they divided the state into different agencies. The most popular model is the trias politica model, in which the three powers of the state are legislative, executive and judicial.

Legislature (simply understood, is the body that makes laws) expresses the general will of the nation. It belongs to the entire people, given to the assembly of the people's deputies, the National Assembly.

The executive (law enforcement agency, or government) implements established laws.

The judiciary (law protection agency) aims to handle violations and resolve conflicts between individuals. Judges are chosen from the people and the judgments are made only according to the law.

Such branching aims to balance the power between the agencies, no one type of power is superior to the other. Vietnamese people often call the US President "the most powerful person in America". It is not correct to call that. The President has only 33.33% of the power, the rest is held by Congress (bicameral) and the US Department of Justice.

While the Vietnamese do not care about politics, they view those who criticize the leadership as traitors; Westerners monitor the government very closely, they protest regularly to raise their voice, they do not "absolutely trust" any leader. As writer Mark Twain once said, “Politicians and diapers must be changed often, for the same reason.”

While the Vietnamese entrust all decisions to take care of their lives in the hands of the State; In the West, they think that the smaller the government, the better. What is small? Is to limit its power to a minimum. I would like to quote a passage from the inaugural address on January 20, 1981, of the late US President Ronald Reagan:

“In the current crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. It is the government that is the problem.

We are often indoctrinated that society is too complex for self-control. That government run by an elite minority is better than a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. So if none of us can solve our own problems, how can anyone be qualified to solve other people's problems?"

All credit goes to trantuansang.com.

[jennielim]

[newsnigeria]

Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/the-ny-times-new-sidenote/

The NY Times new ‘Sidenote’ feature: What you missed by reading the paper copy

by Ramin Mazaheri for Ooduarere.com

There I was, back on the “Job Creators Red-Eye” from Silicon Valley to New York City, reading The New York Times.I was reading it the way God intended – in an actual newspaper.

But when I logged onto my computer, I noticed The Times has a new feature: they now are writing footnotes to articles, putting them on the right side of the screen in a red font.

This funny interview with the comedian Ricky Gervais featured 11 such “sidenotes”, as I guess they should be called. Here’s an example from that article about comedy: “4 – Trans-exclusionary radical feminist.”

These sidenotes are clearly intended as a way to give the reader extra but broadly important information. I am waiting for the introduction of “sub-sidenotes” – in order to find out what “trans-exclusionary” means.

But what about those of us who read actual, crinkling, wrinkling, staining newspapers? Think of all this great information we are being trans-excluded from?

So, as a service to old-fashioned readers I am including some of these sidenotes we have missed. These are all taken from the March 22, 2019, newspaper.

This was the leed paragraph on the top story, so that’s a good place to start.

President Trump declared on Thursday that the United States should recognize Israel’s authority over the long disputed Golan Heights, delivering a valuable election-eve gift to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but jettisoning decades of American policy in the Middle East.

Sidenote: The New York Times, like all good American journalists, follows the ‘inverted pyramid style’ of news writing, in which the most important fact comes first, with lesser facts following in order of importance. This is why the impact of this historic decision first deals with Israel and their elections, and strictly US concerns second.

Interesting to see how the sausage is made, no? I guess it’s really “Israel’s paper of record”, then? I’m all for giving Golan Heights to the Israelis – fundamentalist Christianity won’t be proven correct until the Jews retake Israel.

Here’s an interesting sidetone from a below-the-fold front page article. This article focused on the one man who controls many of the dams on the Missouri River. America runs on great-man capitalism, as America should, and so the article does not raise the idea of democratically broadening his unilateral decision-making power over millions. However it does include a single quote from Faith Spotted Eagle, a 70-year-old tribal elder and activist from the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, who even remembers being kicked off her land to make room for a dam many decades ago. To sum up both experiences, she said:

‘It’s all loss, loss, loss,’ she said.

Sidenote – The Times is aware that Americans are tired of hearing Native Americans complain, but The Times is just reporting the facts, and now in an inclusionary manner in keeping with diversity in order to overturn pernicious stereotypes.

They went all that way just to get that one, single quote from her, but that’s the PC liberal media for you. Because Indians in the US are best seen and not heard, The New York Times made sure to include two photos of the old Indian: in the first she is literally hugging a tree – typical pagan Indian behavior. Trees know loss, loss, loss, too – it’s called “autumn”! Move on!

I’m glad The Times quickly left yet another ever-wailing aboriginal behind in order to devote a full section to the plight of the endangered plover. Apparently that’s a bird. Imagine if “Sioux” was also the name of an endangered bird… we’d want more column inches to protect the “Sioux”, but not the “Sioux”? Environmentalism is complicated….

I thought this was in interesting factoid at the end of their Editorial Board’s daily column, which penned their thoughts on the New Zealand mosque massacre: America Deserves a Leader as Good as Jacinda Ardern.

Sidenote – We apologize to our readers who eagerly read this column expecting that it would quickly segue into Trump-bashing. After 854 consecutive columns of arduously reframing every news item into anti-Trump discourse, we decided to try something new. It will not happen again.

I should hope not!

Vote Biden! Like all old Democrats who fear change, young people and ever losing control.

That’s what all us 1%ers said at the most recent Bilderburg Meeting. You certainly can’t trust any of these new, young Democrats. Those whippersnappers need to realize that America has not changed, and that it will not change… not if Biden gets elected. From, Joe Biden Weighing Unique Steps to Reassure Voters Concerned About His Age.

Also under discussion is a possible pledge to serve only one term and framing Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign as a one-time rescue mission for a beleaguered country, according to multiple party officials.

Sidenote: The Times does not believe that a 4-year Biden presidency – which is totally unprecedented – would resemble Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s 4th term in Algeria, nor Ronald Reagan’s 2nd term. Instead, it would most resemble another president who is also not burdened by re-election concerns: Emmanuel Macron, whose ‘rescue mission’ is to save France from Frenchness. Biden is from Delaware, which is unfairly calledAmerica’s tax haven. The Times believes that Biden could legalize extreme tax evasion – even more than he already has – in just four years, rendering a second term unnecessary. The Times will be granting excessively positive coverage of the Biden campaign.

Being rich, I don’t have a problem with paying for drugs – I have problem doing too many drugs. My kids too, or so I have been told. Frankly, I think this editorial headline is clickbait-y and impertinent, and Americans should stop being so ungrateful because this is the greatest nation in the history of man. From: Why Should Americans Be Grateful for $137 Insulin? Germans Get It for $55.

Part of insulin’s price rise in the United States is because of the middlemen who buy the drugs on behalf of insurers and hospitals and negotiate discounts off the list price for their clients. So Lilly often doesn’t make the full $275 a vial (though, since rebates are secret, we don’t know how much less).

Sidenote: Middlemen – contrary to universal and historical belief – do not needlessly inflate prices. The fact that these “discounts” are absolutely not passed on the consumer, but are instead swallowed up by their huge markups and profiteering was not a fact our editors deemed worthy to relate. The larger point The Times wants to make is: pharmaceutical companies are not making as very, very, very much as you think, thanks to the precious middlemen who fight so hard for your economic rights – please stop pressuring either of them to lower pharmaceutical prices.

I like to see what the average person is thinking, so I always check the Letters to The Editor page.

Headline: Eating Eggs, Without Fear

A reader says they have been a part of her diet for more than 30 years.

Sidenote: Nobody fears eggs, but we’d like people to start. The Times believes that if Americans are not constantly fearing terrorism, urban violence and the economic catastrophe caused by a dip in the stock market, then they would demand more serious journalism. This would also reduce our profit margins. But, due to the journalism practice of fair balance, we have printed this letter from a reader who claims to have resented our egg-mongering campaign. This campaign will continue, and we are tracking this reader closely to broadcast her looming egg-related demise following three decades of societally irresponsible egg-abuse.

At this point in my paper I held my nose and went back to the coach section to talk to my colleague, Fazlollah. This guy is one of those new types of immigrants who won’t change his name and assimilate properly. Not only is he never going to get ahead in America with a scary name like that, but he deserves his lowly status for making people in First Class feel foolish about being unwilling to learn how to pronounce his name halfway properly.

“Have you seen these new side note-things Lefty?” I call him that because it’s easier that Foozlollillah.

“Yes, I have,” he said. “Makes the newspaper seem more academic. Like how new political books are seemingly 1/3rd footnotes nowadays. This seems like daily hack journalists trying to smarten up their appearance, and with information which wasn’t even considered useful enough to be in the actual article. This attempted smartening seems rather in keeping with the push towards ‘rule by technocrats’ in the West… but journalists aren’t supposed to be technocrats.”

I immediately regretted talking to Lefty, because I didn’t realize that my pills hadn’t kicked in yet.

“Lefty, they’re just sidenotes. Why don’t you take it easy for a change?”

I went back to my paper.

The Times doesn’t mind if celebrities get involved in certain causes – gay rights, the endangered plover, propping up the Democratic Party – but they quite correctly draw the line at any sort of economic cause. From a story which concerns applying New York’s minimum wage to tipped workers, which would make waitresses less vulnerable to sexual harassment, titled,Amy Schumer, Amy Poehler and Other Stars Stand Up for Waitresses. The Response: No, Thanks.

But it has also created an unexpected divide: Waitresses and other servers are resisting the proposal, saying they can make more money from tips and do not need celebrities to help protect them from harassment. Harassment is a real concern, they say, but so is the need to earn a living.

Sidenote: The Times found many waitresses whose need to make a living is so dire that they will let you goose their behind if it guarantees a tip increase of at least 5%, but that is as far as many were willing to go, stating that they were waitresses and not prostitutes. The Times believes this is yet another case of workers being too demanding of bosses. It is the considered opinion of the Editorial Board that unequal wages and sexual harassment is not a problem for women in the low-wage restaurant industry. However, we encourage the reader to keep following our relentless and progressive coverage of the fight against unequal wages and sexual harassment for women in Hollywood’s elite.

The last thing our 1% deserves, when we are relaxing from creating jobs with a fine meal, is to deal with waitresses who won’t kiss our behinds for tip money, nor let us goose their behinds. What is this, Iran?! Giving waitresses economic security would turn them into rude French waiters, who have greater economic security than their American counterparts, and this is why Macron needs to hurry up and finish turning France into the US, UK and Germany before he gets lynched by the Yellow Vests.

These new sidenotes seem like a good thing, but maybe The New York Times is revealing a bit too much? Who knew they were pro-goosing?

Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His work has appeared in various journals, magazines and websites, as well as on radio and television. He can be reached on Facebook.

#U.S.A

[rodrigohyde]

5 ways to be more organized

Think you're disorganized? For years I had no calendar, no to-do lists, no system for taking notes. Chaos reigned. Everything lived—or died—in my head. I’d flake on birthdays, flub errands, and wake up at night, panicked, remembering something I had due the next day. Plus, “keeping it all in my head” burned valuable mental energy, which could have been harnessed to actually get things done.

Enough, I thought recently. I’m a grown-ass man—I need to get my life in order. So I researched the best tools, tried them out, and, believe it or not, I’m now shockingly organized.

If you, too, would like to get your proverbial ducks in a row, try the five-step method I used.

[RELATED1]

Step 1: Find the right organizational system

Recommendation: Getting Things Done

When it comes to productivity, first you need to find an overall “guiding” system—then add the specific tools and apps to put it into effect.

There are lots to choose from, such as the “Pomodoro Technique,” where you work in 25-minute bursts, take a break, then work again for 25 minutes, and so on. There’s also the famed “Eisenhower Matrix” (popularized by the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People), which has you deposit tasks into quadrants labeled Urgent, Important, Not Urgent, Not Important—but as smart as it seems, I found I spent more time trying to choose the right quadrant for a task than I spent actually doing it.

The system I came to rely on is spelled out in David Allen’s classic book Getting Things Done, popularly known as GTD. Its philosophy is simple but sneakily powerful: Clear your head and execute a “brain dump” of everything you need to do; break down big projects into manageable chunks; focus only on the tasks at hand; and, finally, review.

So instead of feeling overwhelmed by the 137 things you have on your plate, with GTD you focus only on the one thing you can do in that moment—then do it.

[RELATED2]

Step 2: Pick the right app to implement the system

Recommendations: Things (iOS), Todoist (Android/Windows)

Now that you have a system, you need the right tools to put it into motion.

For those in the iOS ecosystem, it’s Things, a silky-smooth app that’s a pleasure to use. This matters, as enjoying it means you’re more likely to use it. Even the tutorial is a delight. It’s easy to see how projects break down into subprojects, then tasks, then mini checklists. It all syncs across all your devices—computer, iPad, smartphone—merges with your calendar, then serves up your to-dos exactly when you need them.

Using Things, I did my “brain dump” and dashed off all the various to-dos that stressed me out about a book I was writing (“Revise Ch. 3,” “Find 2nd source,” “Restock beer”) and chunked those into projects (“Research”) and subprojects (“Conduct interviews,” “Review transcript”).

And just like that I had clarity. It felt better than a cold beer after great sex.

Note: At a one-time cost of $49 for a Mac, $20 for an iPad, and $10 for an iPhone, it’s pricey—but worth it.

For Android/Windows users, you’ve got a freebie option: Todoist. The interface may not be as sleek as Things, but you get most of the same functionality, including bells and whistles like collaboration tools, syncing across all devices, and even a GPS reminder to, say, buy milk when you pass a grocery—no more getting home empty-handed.

[RELATED3]

Step 3: Consolidate your notes

Recommendations: Bear (iOS) Evernote (Android/Windows)

In the old days, if I had to jot down a reminder—flight details, work notes, a recipe—I might email it to myself, scribble it on a scrap of paper I’d soon lose, or ink it on my hand, where it would end up sweaty and illegible.

That was before I discovered Bear. Light, quick, and easy on the eyes, Bear syncs from iOS phone to laptop to tablet and lets you easily input random text, photos, Web clippings—anything you need—for just $1.50 a month.

Organization is a snap. You can sprinkle in some hashtags in your notes (like #receipts, #travel, #gym, #charity), then use those to fetch them later. Bonus: You can pin notes to the top—super useful if, for instance, you’re traveling and need directions or a confirmation number quickly.

For Android/Windows users, opt for Evernote, the granddaddy of notekeeping apps. It’s so powerful it can feel overwhelming at times, but it will hoover up all your documents and scraps, giving you easy access to everything in one convenient place.

For romantics who still love scribbling notes, Evernote partners with Moleskine to let you write your thoughts in a journal, then digitally zap them into Evernote’s vault. Slick.

Evernote’s basic plan, with 60MB of uploads per month and syncing across two devices (for more, just use the Web browser), is free; but if you’ll be uploading lots of Web clips—one of Evernote’s nicest features—you may want to opt for the $35/year “Plus” level.

Step 4: Promote the apps

Of course, tools are useless if they’re ignored, so you need to make them part of your routine.

I added both Things and Bear to my phone’s dock and now use them more than any other app. Every morning I crack open Things to get the day’s hit list, and when I realize, “Oh, damn, I need to do such-and-such,” I quickly toss the item into my Things inbox.

If my sister mentions something that sparks an idea for a birthday gift, I’d normally forget it ASAP—now I pop it into Bear labeling it #gifts.

[RELATED4]

Step 5: Do a weekly review

A key component of GTD: At least once a week, take a deep dive into your goals, priorities, and how you spend your time. Skip this step and you end up scurrying from task to task, rarely assessing what’s important. There is an upside to doing this: When you re-evaluate and reassess projects, you start thinking about all the things you could be accomplishing, not just the bare minimum. There’s a halo effect.

Example: While tinkering with Things, I added a group called “Family/Friends” and thought about what I could be doing more of—maybe stay in better touch? Recurring task: Call someone on that list once a week. I even added a project for “Growth” and tossed in tasks like “Explore a goddamn museum”. (Pro tip: Injecting profanity makes you more likely to do the goddamn task.)

Will I do them all? Probably not. But that’s OK. It’s not a panacea, but it is progress.

Jeff Wilser is the author of The Book of Joe: The Life, Wit, and (Sometimes Accidental) Wisdom of Joe Biden, in stores October 24.

Technology

from Men's Fitness http://www.mensfitness.com/life/gearandtech/5-ways-be-more-organized

#Men's Fitness

[egooksconnolly]

5 ways to be more organized

Think you're disorganized? For years I had no calendar, no to-do lists, no system for taking notes. Chaos reigned. Everything lived—or died—in my head. I’d flake on birthdays, flub errands, and wake up at night, panicked, remembering something I had due the next day. Plus, “keeping it all in my head” burned valuable mental energy, which could have been harnessed to actually get things done.

Enough, I thought recently. I’m a grown-ass man—I need to get my life in order. So I researched the best tools, tried them out, and, believe it or not, I’m now shockingly organized.

If you, too, would like to get your proverbial ducks in a row, try the five-step method I used.

[RELATED1]

Step 1: Find the right organizational system

Recommendation: Getting Things Done

When it comes to productivity, first you need to find an overall “guiding” system—then add the specific tools and apps to put it into effect.

There are lots to choose from, such as the “Pomodoro Technique,” where you work in 25-minute bursts, take a break, then work again for 25 minutes, and so on. There’s also the famed “Eisenhower Matrix” (popularized by the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People), which has you deposit tasks into quadrants labeled Urgent, Important, Not Urgent, Not Important—but as smart as it seems, I found I spent more time trying to choose the right quadrant for a task than I spent actually doing it.

The system I came to rely on is spelled out in David Allen’s classic book Getting Things Done, popularly known as GTD. Its philosophy is simple but sneakily powerful: Clear your head and execute a “brain dump” of everything you need to do; break down big projects into manageable chunks; focus only on the tasks at hand; and, finally, review.

So instead of feeling overwhelmed by the 137 things you have on your plate, with GTD you focus only on the one thing you can do in that moment—then do it.

[RELATED2]

Step 2: Pick the right app to implement the system

Recommendations: Things (iOS), Todoist (Android/Windows)

Now that you have a system, you need the right tools to put it into motion.

For those in the iOS ecosystem, it’s Things, a silky-smooth app that’s a pleasure to use. This matters, as enjoying it means you’re more likely to use it. Even the tutorial is a delight. It’s easy to see how projects break down into subprojects, then tasks, then mini checklists. It all syncs across all your devices—computer, iPad, smartphone—merges with your calendar, then serves up your to-dos exactly when you need them.

Using Things, I did my “brain dump” and dashed off all the various to-dos that stressed me out about a book I was writing (“Revise Ch. 3,” “Find 2nd source,” “Restock beer”) and chunked those into projects (“Research”) and subprojects (“Conduct interviews,” “Review transcript”).

And just like that I had clarity. It felt better than a cold beer after great sex.

Note: At a one-time cost of $49 for a Mac, $20 for an iPad, and $10 for an iPhone, it’s pricey—but worth it.

For Android/Windows users, you’ve got a freebie option: Todoist. The interface may not be as sleek as Things, but you get most of the same functionality, including bells and whistles like collaboration tools, syncing across all devices, and even a GPS reminder to, say, buy milk when you pass a grocery—no more getting home empty-handed.

[RELATED3]

Step 3: Consolidate your notes

Recommendations: Bear (iOS) Evernote (Android/Windows)

In the old days, if I had to jot down a reminder—flight details, work notes, a recipe—I might email it to myself, scribble it on a scrap of paper I’d soon lose, or ink it on my hand, where it would end up sweaty and illegible.

That was before I discovered Bear. Light, quick, and easy on the eyes, Bear syncs from iOS phone to laptop to tablet and lets you easily input random text, photos, Web clippings—anything you need—for just $1.50 a month.

Organization is a snap. You can sprinkle in some hashtags in your notes (like #receipts, #travel, #gym, #charity), then use those to fetch them later. Bonus: You can pin notes to the top—super useful if, for instance, you’re traveling and need directions or a confirmation number quickly.

For Android/Windows users, opt for Evernote, the granddaddy of notekeeping apps. It’s so powerful it can feel overwhelming at times, but it will hoover up all your documents and scraps, giving you easy access to everything in one convenient place.

For romantics who still love scribbling notes, Evernote partners with Moleskine to let you write your thoughts in a journal, then digitally zap them into Evernote’s vault. Slick.

Evernote’s basic plan, with 60MB of uploads per month and syncing across two devices (for more, just use the Web browser), is free; but if you’ll be uploading lots of Web clips—one of Evernote’s nicest features—you may want to opt for the $35/year “Plus” level.

Step 4: Promote the apps

Of course, tools are useless if they’re ignored, so you need to make them part of your routine.

I added both Things and Bear to my phone’s dock and now use them more than any other app. Every morning I crack open Things to get the day’s hit list, and when I realize, “Oh, damn, I need to do such-and-such,” I quickly toss the item into my Things inbox.

If my sister mentions something that sparks an idea for a birthday gift, I’d normally forget it ASAP—now I pop it into Bear labeling it #gifts.

[RELATED4]

Step 5: Do a weekly review

A key component of GTD: At least once a week, take a deep dive into your goals, priorities, and how you spend your time. Skip this step and you end up scurrying from task to task, rarely assessing what’s important. There is an upside to doing this: When you re-evaluate and reassess projects, you start thinking about all the things you could be accomplishing, not just the bare minimum. There’s a halo effect.

Example: While tinkering with Things, I added a group called “Family/Friends” and thought about what I could be doing more of—maybe stay in better touch? Recurring task: Call someone on that list once a week. I even added a project for “Growth” and tossed in tasks like “Explore a goddamn museum”. (Pro tip: Injecting profanity makes you more likely to do the goddamn task.)

Will I do them all? Probably not. But that’s OK. It’s not a panacea, but it is progress.

Jeff Wilser is the author of The Book of Joe: The Life, Wit, and (Sometimes Accidental) Wisdom of Joe Biden, in stores October 24.

Technology

Article source here:Men’s Fitness

[stellacarrierimaginationbuilders]

Present and Future Unite Freestyle Story by Stella Carrier

Songs for Today (Also added on my Storytelling Playlist through my Amazon.com music account)

Gooey by Glass Animals

Love Lockdown by Kanye West

Cherry Blossom Girl by Air

Crush by Jennifer Paige

Lydia by Highly Suspect

Most Girls by Pink

Womanizer by Britney Spears

Bodywork by Morgan Page feat. Tegan and Sara

Heaven (Radio Edit)by Jes

Heaven (Myron Remix) by Jes

Say You’ll Haunt Me by Stone Sour

Love Rollercoaster by Red Hot Chili Peppers

Affirmations For Today

I get the most out of my day.

I stay grounded and on task.

I can get things done in a memorable way while staying focused with little concern as to how others react.

I think outside the box when coming up with creative solutions andor uncovering fruitful mysteries.

My psychic abilities and intuition expand each day.

I am creating heaven on earth

I’m aware of when to create opportunities for myself and that when one door closes many more doors open.

I contribute to the best of my ability regardless of the reception I receive for doing so.

I Call Upon What I Imagine To Be The Influence of Benevolent Spirits From the Heavenly Realms, my higher self, and my celestial spirit ally team for creativity in both my writings and all other areas of my life both present and future

https://www.orindaben.com/pages/rooms/affirmations_room/#null

I release anything that is not for my higher good and ask it to release itself from me.

I strengthen people by sending them loving thoughts.

I ask for and receive answers through my dreams.

My psychic abilities expand everyday.

My channeling empowers me and others to find our own inner wisdom.

I know what I came to earth to do, and I am now doing it.

At every moment I am becoming a more perfect light.

All my money is working for me to increase my abundance, joy, and aliveness.

I am on the perfect path for me right now.

Will 3: I listen within. I know the answers to my questions are within me.

I support the success and happiness of everyone I know.

Other people support my success.

I find time everyday to exercise.

     Present and Future Unite Freestyle Story by Stella Carrier

 Jane Foster is a 25 year old female with waist length platinum blond hair and a five year old girl named Alison who lives in Pasadena California. Friends of Jane Foster have joked with her about her physical appearance to the charismatic twin sisters Tegan and Sara in the Body Work song with Morgan Page (which Jane happens to like). Her husband Randolph Foster works in the Yellow Shoes program at Walt Disneyland. Today, Randolph Foster is going on a three day business trip to Tokyo Disneyland. He also has work dealing with a business deal that his advertising agency made with the music group Air known for such songs as Cherry Blossom Girl.  

Jane Foster’s mother Myra Mills works as a baker at a college less than 20 miles from where Jane Foster and her husband reside. Myra Mills is taking Alison to a live musical based on the song Most Girls by Pink. Myra Mills and her daughter Jane Foster are extremely close but Myra wants to start indoctrinating Alison early to be a woman later in life always having her own job, car, and enough money from her own after tax income to pay rent.  Jane and Randolph Foster first met at a Glass Animals concert and connected during the Gooey song.  Eventually, Myra is going to have to decide whether she wants to admit to her daughter Alison (When Alison is at least 12 years old or older)that she was conceived the night of a Kanye West concert that closed the concert with the song Love Lockdown. Myra sees that Jane Foster and her husband Randolph Foster are going to stay married for the rest of her current lifetime yet is concerned that Jane still has to recoup the income she made before leaving the world of plus-sized modeling to give birth to Alison.  Myra is concerned as to how Jane will make it if she and Randolph predecease her (Jane is both a blacksheep and social pariah in the rest of her family partially due to her harm-free but eccentric personality so it is not an option for her to live with other family members as most mainstream media articles strive to push on the millennial generation). Additionally, even if Jane became the golden sheep of her family tomorrow, most of her family members live in economically disadvantaged areas where even finding a fast food job/minimum wage job andor decent paying job paying comparable to a U.S. government job is like winning the lottery. Jane intuitively and logically knows that it is actually her destiny to stay independent and live on her own with her husband and daughter Alison regardless of how others judge her for choosing to do so. However, yesterday, Jane Foster got a lucky break when a modeling photographer approached her about doing a plus size modeling shoot when she was just having fun singing the lyrics to Say You’ll Haunt Me by Stone Sour during one of their concerts less than 20 minutes from where she lived. This modeling assignment gave her an extra 1000 dollars after tax income for just 8 hours on a San Diego beach, so naturally Jane is hopeful that she can maybe garner more plus size modeling assignments.

Myra also works as a psychic part-time and has various clients across the U.S. and abroad. Myra even sees trips for Jane and Randolph to such places as New Zealand (and going on a Middle Earth themed trip), Australia, Iceland, and England. Myra even intuitively sees that Jane and Randolph are going to be able to go on a sightseeing trip that has to do with photography and the life of Jackie and John Kennedy. Myra, even as a psychic, wants Jackie to get public relations work assisting doctors who perform weight loss surgeries for various celebrities (such as the headline case involving Gadbourey Sidibe). This is because Myra sees that Jane Foster’s job as a public relations assistant is going to indirectly lead into work freelancing for companies such as Business Insider who would pay her daughter to travel to various countries for research (such as the case of a recent Business Insider article listing various places for women to live).

Jane, for her part has been successfully working as a human resources assistant that helps temp agencies place laid off andor fired employees into food service jobs at various hospitals and universities. Many of the people that Jane Foster has helped place have succeeded in eventually being selected in permanent positions as cooks at various hospitals, colleges, high schools,and grade schools across the United States and some places in Canada. The only people that were not permanently placed in permanent positions were people that worked at the temp food service jobs until they relocated abroad (various places across Europe, New Zealand, Asia, Australia, Canada, U.S. government agencies in Africa etc.)andor joined/rejoined the various active duty branches of the U.S. military (Airforce, Navy, Coastguard, Marines, Army etc.). Jane does the best job that she can as a human resources employee with little concern as to if her actions would garner her credit, promotion, andor advancement. However, Jane does concern herself with job security because one of her hardworking coworkers named Bridgett Scott who was forced out of her job after clashing with another female coworker Adrienne Owen. One of  Adrienne Owen’s past boyfriends/lovers named Freddie Richards who she still had a crush on sexually propositioned Bridgett in front of Adrienne. Bridgett Scott found his attempts funny but gently rebuffed his advances as Freddie is just not her romantic type, maybe more as a friend. However, Adrienne still felt threatened because Bridgett Scott was starting to attract more attention from other people that she would use to mainly get. As a result, Adrienne made up some gossip about Bridget Scott and convinced a coworker friend named Louis Hall to convince his friend who made the decisions on who to cut people Lester Mason to drum up a bogus reason to force out Bridgett.

     Fortunately, Bridgett Scott found another human resources manager job through Irene Price in Virginia Beach Virginia. Irene Price  was also forced out in a similar manner as Bridget Scott except at a popular business chain in California. Much to the surprise of many, Irene rebounded with another job that was much better than the one she was forced out of due to another female letting her professional and romantic insecurities overrule her. However, circumstances forced Irene Price to take a gamble on Virginia Beach Virginia as a cook at a hospital in the Virginia Beach area. Fortunately, Irene got help in getting this job after meeting Jane at a business trip/job fair that the company was holding at a hotel.  Jane connected Irene to a human resource employee at the hospital named Adrian Matthews. Adrian Matthews  was a retired Navy Officer who had remembered first meeting Jane at a rock concert in Virginia Beach by the Highly Suspect music group known for their song Lydia.Due to Jane’s past help, Irene Price used her insider status as a now supervisor cook at a hospital to help Bridget Scott get a human resources job at the hospital she was at.

     After work, Jane Foster called Irene Price for another favor. Jane and Irene were discussing the stories about some of the Marine troops deploying to Syria and what that meant for the military side of the economy across the U.S. (as both women use to be in the military). They also joked about one of the recent People magazine stories involving Hunter Biden’s love life. Jane Foster admitted that she missed her time in the Airforce and wondered to Irene about if this yearning means that it would be a good idea to try to rejoin the Airforce. Irene Price admitted that she understood how Jane felt but she would need time to get back to her on looking about job leads for her in the Virginia Beach/Norfolk/Chesapeake Virginia area. Less than five minutes after their phone conversation ends, Irene Price heads rest because she is scheduled to work from 7am to 2pm the next day in addition to being selected to speak for a half hour at a community college less than a 15 minute drive away. Irene Price follows her intuition to meditate and follow into a peaceful sleep by first playing the radio edit of Heaven by Jes and then the Myon Remix of Heaven by Jes which she ends up falling asleep to.

     Right away, Irene finds herself in one of the libraries that is a conglomerate of two Business Insider articles that she had recently seen in regards to various top libraries around the world and futuristic libraries. Irene reaches for the golden and orange door in the room, but she is stopped by a benevolent yet playfully mischievous female spirit who resembles the singer Jennifer Paige of the Crush song. Please let me pass, Irene gently says to this female spirit. However, before anything else  is said by this spirit who tells Irene to call her Susan, a pink, blue, and yellow book lands at Irene’s feet that says open me please. Irene opens the book and first the image of the music video of Womanizer by Britney Spears pops up with the following words in gold; Less than a week from today, you are to use these images for fun to write in your past blog entries different roles that you would have loved to play in your life but for karmic reasons title Fiction Truth is Stranger Than Fiction Scripting for reasons you are to understand three months from now but date some of those entries from your past of at least over 8 months or more ago for karmic reasons. Before, Irene could ask Susan more, the song Rollercoaster by Red Hot Chili Peppers plays in the background and naturally Irene looks around. Susan then tells Irene eyes on your book for at least a little while longer please as the words in the next page read; This symbolizes both a clue for your California friend and the work you are to do when it comes to scripting one of your future lifetimes about 1475 years from now dealing with you working as an intellectually gifted and highly intuitive urban planner and part-time college Professor who combines theme parks, colleges, grade schools, and shopping centers within a five mile radius. Susan then tells Irene to write about her future lifetimes in past blog entries as well predating 9 months before or longer while bringing forth the older entries for supporters to compare and analyze. Irene also intuitively instantly realizes that she must ask Jane Foster if she has applied to human resource assistant positions at Busch Gardens Williamsburg or the Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, Virginia (even in the dream she remembers a coworker talking about these opportunities that were advertised online but Irene was fine with her head cook job at the hospital and she was trying to figure out why she was hearing about them.). Before Irene asks Susan how to handle andor deal with any public judgment that comes as a result of her doing this blogging, she is giving the advice to pray, trust in her intuition, and make time to exercise walking at least 6 miles a day before she instantly wakes up.

  Resources

From One of My Husbands most recent dreams less than 8 days ago

https://www.yahoo.com/celebrity/jfk-jackie-kennedy-life-newlyweds-192840240.html

JFK and Jackie Kennedy’s Life as Newlyweds Captured in New Auction Photos

http://www.businessinsider.com/best-home-libraries-2016-8

10 of the most incredible home libraries around the world

http://www.businessinsider.com/libraries-of-the-future-2016-8

Libraries of the future are going to change in some unexpected ways

  I am giving myself until the year November 2020 before resorting to getting the type of surgery that Gabourey Sidibe did. This is partially because I intend and am determined to do what I can to achieve my weight loss goals by November 2018 or sooner (and I have practical reasons why I must save the surgery as a last resort that have little to do with money). However, I think it is a brave thing for Gabourey Sidibe to go public and admit what is helping her lose the weight. Fortunately, my weight loss efforts are starting to pay off, but I am glad that I came across this article because it helps remind me to avoid comparing yourself to how fast you lose weight in relation to how long it takes other people to reach their weight loss objectives.  Even if my opinion is in the minority, I feel that it is ok to want to get skinnier to enhance your appearance even though it is popular for other people to be shamed for doing so when admitting. I feel that many other people (with some obvious exceptions) who shame others for admitting to losing weight to enhance their looks do not know how it feels to have been prejudged as a female when it comes to physical appearance. In other words, a male can get away with being overweight in the workplace and not be held back in their future job opportunities andor income based on weight. However, it is far from the same as a female who works outside of Hollywood andor the U.S. government jobs regardless of what other people try to say. I admit that losing weight to enhance my appearance is not the only reason why I am successfully losing weight. I am in great physical health but I have a major important reason that is tied into my income that I am intuitively aware ties into both my physical appearance and being a female that I feel that I do not have to go into discussing right now.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/celebrity/gabourey-sidibe-opens-up-about-weight-loss-surgery-for-the-first-time-%E2%80%98i-love-my-body-now%E2%80%99/ar-AAo1T7C?li=BBnb2gh

Gabourey Sidibe Opens Up About Weight-Loss Surgery for the First Time: ‘I Love My Body Now’

http://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/thor-gets-a-makeover-in-ragnarok-first-look/ar-AAo1UPF?li=BBnb2gh

Eva Mendes Eats This Same Meal for Lunch and Dinner: ‘I’m a Creature of Habit’

http://pilotonline.com/business/consumer/why-are-so-many-grocery-stores-coming-to-virginia-beach/article_511e1b1b-ca02-546e-b152-6c5d1eece911.html

Why are so many grocery stores coming to Virginia Beach? What the influx could mean for you

 http://finance.yahoo.com/news/world-first-iceland-require-firms-prove-equal-pay-111724789--finance.html

In world first, Iceland to require firms to prove equal pay

https://disneyland.disney.go.com/tickets/

https://www.britishairways.com/en-us/information/travel-classes?source=MNVINF2travel_classes

http://www.businessinsider.com/internations-best-countries-for-women-working-abroad-2017-3/#9-norway-female-expats-in-this-country-can-expect-to-earn-a-lot-more-than-they-would-at-home-however-the-country-is-not-at-the-top-of-the-list-due-to-the-lower-levels-of-overall-happiness-1

 The 9 best countries in the world for working women, as voted by expats by Lianna Brinded

 http://oldnavy.gap.com/browse/category.do?cid=10018&sop=true

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-led-coalition-confirms-marines-deploy-to-syria/ar-AAo3ayq?li=BBnbcA1

U.S.-led coalition confirms Marines deploy to Syria

Regardless of the judgment I may face for saying an opinion that runs contrary to popular mainstream opinion, family friend Rob Buccini can say all the he wants about how Hunter Biden and Hallie Biden are meant to be together. However, it is still scandalous and controversial how Hunter and Hallie Biden got romantically involved because he (Hunter Biden)is her late husband’s brother who happens to have still been married at the time of them getting together. I can understand if Hunter Biden was legally separated andor divorced from this wife Kathleen Biden at the time of getting romantically involved with Hallie Biden. I can even understand more if Hallie Biden got involved with one of her late husband’s friends in the aftermath. However, this controversial pairing of Hallie Biden getting involved with her late husband’s brother (again I can even understand if it was a friend of her late husband yet she (Hallie Biden) is definitely getting herself into deep soap opera drama by getting romantically attached to a man (Hunter Biden) that may mean well with good intentions, but has left unresolved/unfinished business with his wife Kathleen Biden. Last, but not least, of course Hunter Biden’s friends Rob Buccini and Lea Carpenter are going to defend this new and soap opera/tabloid magazine fodder relationship (because that is what true friends do that stand by their friends through positive and challenging times).

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/msn/love-after-pain-how-hunter-biden-and-his-sister-in-law-hallie-%E2%80%98were-really-a-team%E2%80%99-during-beau%E2%80%99s-cancer-battle/ar-AAnZHrV

Love After Pain: How Hunter Biden and His Sister-in-Law Hallie ‘Were Really a Team’ During Beau’s Cancer Battle by Char Adams, Michelle Tauber, and Rose Minutaglio

http://www.newzealand.com/us/things-to-do/

http://www.zicasso.com/luxury-vacation-new-zealand-tours/15-year-anniversary-new-zealand-middle-earth-tour

15 Year Anniversary of New Zealand as Middle-earth Tour

 http://writingexercises.co.uk/random-name-generator.php

Take a walk in Disney’s Yellow Shoes

Disney’s in-house creative shop creates ads that includes things like Darth Vader as a cupcake to promote Walt Disney World

·        BY VANNYDA THACH

·        IN DISNEY CORPORATE · WALT DISNEY PARKS AND RESORTS

·        — 3 FEB, 2015

 http://disneyexaminer.com/2015/02/03/take-a-walk-in-disneys-yellow-shoes-creative-group-advertising-agency/

Disney wins big at this year’s Annie Awards

Disney takes home 10 Annies for their achievements in "Gravity Falls", "Big Hero 6" and more

·        BY DISNEYEXAMINER STAFF

·        IN DISNEY SPECIAL EVENTS

·        — 3 FEB, 2015

 http://disneyexaminer.com/2015/02/03/disney-wins-big-at-42nd-annie-awards/

http://www.tokyodisneyresort.jp/en/tdl/