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thearrangment-phff · 6 years

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XIX. So Many Questions

December 2017

Telling her family that she was going to marry Harry had to be in most awkward position Isabella had been in since she had her first real encounter with an English boy at the Kent boarding school she was sent to. She was still learning English and it wasn't too good. Didn't help that at that moment she had a strong mixed accent of French and German that to took a while for others to understand.

When Harry had announced that they were marrying the area went quiet for a second, only to immediately break out in whispers and small talk. They spoke different languages, none English, so Harry was let out of the loop. He watched as her family argued and couldn't make out a single word they were saying. The mad expressions and rasied voices told him enough.

Jean spoke Luxembourgish to his son Henri and daughter Marie Astrid. The Liechtenstein family spoke German. Isabella's Nassau cousins spoke a mixture of French and German. Amedeo swore in Dutch only because no one else in Isabella's family knew Dutch. Isabella herself only knew because Amedeo's older siblings Joachim and Maria Laura had attempted to teach her when they were in Kent but failed. The Luxembourg cousins spoke a mixture of French and Luxembourgish which confused Harry even more.

Isabella was talking to the two Liechtenstein Princesses, Marie Astrid and Maria Annunciata, in German explaining what happened. Marie Astrid was more concerned with the ring than anything else. Josef had begun a conversation with their Nassau cousins, switching to French to better communicate with them.

Since there was no English, Harry was forced to remain in the background not knowing what people were saying. That was the hardest part. Not knowing what they were saying. It was then that he knew he had to follow through with his plans to learn another language. He would learn French. Maybe a little bit of German if he could master French fast enough. It would solve the language barrier between he and Isabella's family and maybe he wouldn't feel so unimportant amongst the large group of people.

Amongst the small chaos, Jean had walked up to Harry with an occasional limp because he left his cane near his chair. The distance was short but Harry didn't want the aging man to push himself so he closed the gap between them by walking to him.

"Don't let them scare you. A big family like this have more blessings than anything else," assured Jean.

"What about your thoughts?"

"My thoughts shouldn't matter in this union between my granddaughter and yourself. Though I wouldn't mind gaining another great-grandchild, I already have 10 and another on the way."

"Someone is pregnant?"

"Yes. Belle's brother Christoph and his wife Adelaide are expecting their second child. My hope is it's a girl, but a boy will bring blessings all the same. Perhaps you and Belle could give me number twelve by next Christmas," smiled Jean.

"I haven't even talked to her brothers. I'm marrying their sister and I haven't even sat down and talked to them," panicked Harry as his eyes went to Isabella's uncles Guillaume and Jean talking with Isabella's siblings.

"Those boys have a gentle soul. As long as you love their sister, they would never object to such a happy union," declared Jean.

Harry didn't have anything to say to that, but what could he say? Jean thought they were real. Harry's grandmother had only 5 great-grandchildren and Jean had double than her. He expected Harry and Isabella to marry and have children. All of Jean's children married and had children of their own with a minimum of four kids.

If his state of panic wasn't already high, the thought of children once again, made things worse. Those children would become so real one day. Isabella expressed her want for kids, and Harry had been saying for years that he would love to have children as well.

They had almost half a year to get to know each other, and though they had, the feelings between them were simply friendly. It was more likely going to stay that way for years to come.

"Should I have sat down with them?" Asked Harry.

"When I married my wife Josephine Charlotte, I sat down with her parents more than I intended. Same as you with Isabella's parents. I knew her brothers very well, but I never sat down with them and talked about marrying their sister," said Jean.

"How did you and your wife meet?"

Jean gave Harry a smile at the faint memories of his wife flashed in his mind, "We crossed paths for years as we were both children of monarchs. Our marriage was politically motivated. I won't lie about that, but it was a loving match. By marrying a Belgium princess, I elevated the standing of the Luxembourg Grand Ducal Court as my own father, Prince Felix of Bourbon-Parma, had when he married my mother," explained Jean.

"How did you father elevate Luxembourg?"

"Before my father, my mother was styled Her Grand Ducal Highness, which is below Her Royal Highness. My father had a stronger bloodline with that of Spain, Portugal, and Orleans, and though the Duchy of Parma no longer existed it was his wife Infanta Maria Antonia of Portugal who helped given her children dynastic marriages. My parents were first cousins."

"I didn't know that."

"Yes, well, first cousin marriages are now frowned upon. My grandmothers were sisters as the children of the brief King Miguel of Portugal. When my parents married it became complicated. My mother was going to be the monarch, and my father her consort. Though he wasn't angry that the House of Bourbon-Parma wouldn't rule the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg," smiled Jean.

"My grandparents went through a similar thing when they married. In the end, my grandfather gave up his titles, citizenship, and everything for love," added Harry.

"My parents' marriage was set us by their mothers. Not an arranged marriage, but not one completely of love before the wedding day. A marriage of convenience if you would call it that. My father neither relinquished his titles or adopted my mothers. They simply merged. Had your grandfather not had strong German ties perhaps that would have been a similar response," claimed Jean.

"Do you believe my marriage will be one of convenience?"

"So many questions," smiled Jean. "Of course, your marriage is one of convenience. Every marries because it suits them one way or the other. A marriage between you and Belle is more beneficial for you."

"Wait-" before Harry could continue Jean had begun to walk away from him.

Jean was probably one of the few who liked Harry in Isabella's family. When Jean had returned to his chair with the cane in his hands, Harry was once again left alone as Isabella's family continued talking. After several minutes of Isabella walking around, talking with her family, and showing around the ring Harry finally joined her.

There was little to say since no one bothered to speak English, even with Harry's obvious presence. He recognized some French when Isabella was talking to come of her younger cousins who were as tall as Harry. He knew that the girl's name was Charlotte and he could never forget that name because it was also his niece's name.

Harry stood next to Isabella as she continued her conversation. Once she was done talking her younger relatives left the two of them alone. Isabella grabbed onto his hand leading them into a part of the area that wasn't being occupied. She had grabbed onto his left hand and placed it on her hip while she grabbed the other and put it on her neck.

As Isabella looked up at Harry he noticed the know bright smile on her face which was a change from the panic mode just an hour or two earlier.

"Did they take things well?" Asked Harry.

"A lot! Not all but more than I was expecting. Even if they didn't want to show they were against our marriage, they all congratulated me."

"Please tell me your brothers don't hate me," begged Harry as Isabella let out a nervous laugh. "God your family hates me so much."

Isabella moved Harry's hand away from her neck and shoulder area to her hip as she, in turn, put her arms around Harry's waist, "They don't hate you. They just don't know you too well. They've never really gotten to know you or your family that’s all."

"On another topic for right now, why is Joachim still here?" Asked Harry as Isabella pinched his side. "What was that for?!"

"Don't be mean to Joachim. He's taking Wenceslas and Constantin back with him to Belgium and they're going to hang out with his brother Amedeo. He recently had a baby girl with his wife Elisabetta and I think they would love some adult company. I'm not sure if Christoph, Adelaide, and Josef are going but it would a big surprise if they're not," answered Isabella before getting a little off topic.

"When we marry is that going to be our life?"

"What do you mean?" Replied Isabella.

"Going from country to country to celebrate Christmas and birthdays," clarified Harry.

"Of course, it is. That's the whole point of marrying me, isn't it? My connections. We will attend weddings, birthday celebrations, and christenings. That's always been my life and now it will be yours too. They're my family so of course I would try and go to everything I can. I'm blessed with such an amazing, large family, and I would never take them for granted. I want to be able to be with them whenever I can," stated Isabella.

Though he also had a loving family it was then Harry confirmed that he and Isabella had grown up in different worlds despite being so similar. Her family was spread across several countries and spoke several languages. Harry's family really only spoke English and they all lived in England. All the comparisons of their two lives were more prominent than ever in Harry's mind.

Harry's parents divorced. Isabella's parents had been married for almost 40 years. Harry only had one brother. Isabella had two sisters and three brothers. He spent his life surrounded by press and shielded as best as his family could from the world. While he spent his formattable years partying then finally going into the Royal Army, Isabella spent hers going to a great university then working for the United Nations.

Even when his mother died, Harry maintained a close relationship with his mother's family though nothing could compare to the bond Isabella had with her maternal family. He only met a handful of her Archduke and Duchess family at her birthday celebrations and they seemed close as ever, he couldn't even imagine meeting the rest.

"I just want your family to like me," confessed Harry.

"What?"

"I want your family to like me," repeated Harry.

"They do like you. Even if they don't, we are still getting married, and they will have to deal with your tall ginger ass at every family event until death does us part. Though if I die first you might still be invited because of our kids," smiled Isabella.

"Our kids. I think about them more and more. What would you name them?"

"Charles after both are fathers. Albert for another boy. I like the names Felix and Robert though I don't know if they would be first names. Mary Astrid for a girl to honor my mother and great-grandmother. Josephine-Charlotte for a second born to honor my grandmother as well. Maybe an Eleanor or Elisabeth. What about you?"

"I haven't really thought about it since I met you. I think Charles to honor both of our fathers would be nice. I don't know how I feel about Albert. Felix and Robert may be too much of your family than mine. Mary Astrid would be a nice name for our daughter," smiled Harry.

"We may be happy," laughed Isabella as Harry nodded

#PHFF #Prince Harry Fanfiction #Prince Harry Fanfic #Royal Fanfic #Royal Fanfiction #Fanfiction

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enchantedzuyorker · 4 years

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Sam Gold - Looking Back On His Life, Tha Hundred Year War and the Gold Family History

The catalyst of the Hundred Year War began in 1871. Let's take it back to them days when the US Treasury went ass up and so it decided to seek help from global financiers and capitalists such as the Illuminati's Finest: Rothschilds and Rockefellers -- and the Global Bankers was giddy as hell, ready to buy off the USA. The Act Of 1871 was passed by the 41st Congress, and America was transformed into a business. A corporation. As a result, we was to deal with the fallout of this. Because of the incorporation of the United States, the state of Zuron was undergoing it's relegation to being the hoe-down bottom bianc to the newly-incorporated United States. Nearly a quarter of the Zuroni population was up in arms, and later began a series of raids, violent protesting, and angry confrontations with the US police that occupied Zuron. By the year 1872-1873, these raids would later escalate into a full scale war when one of the rioters who was a pyrokenetic, lit a boulder on fire and slung it at the US occupied Zuroni Royal Palace. By 1874, police began killin' women and children in their own homes, as part of Zuroni government policy, and planting bullets and arsenic in their dresser drawers.

My family history started in like, 1875 when my great grandfather was taken to task as a newfound revolutionary. The secret society, named the Zuronists, and the Order Of The Sacred Vibes, had planned and orchestrated the 100 year war, which was a series of wars. In 1876-1877, Zuroni Prime Minister Ariel Farrisau wanted to take this civil war to another level, by increaseing casualties within the civilian populace, considering dat 25% of the Zuroni population has been radicalized, they assume the same of the entire middle-class and poorer populations. He would later suggest raping the women and stomping on the heads of the infant kids, taking the Jesuit Oath way too srsly (and way too literally -- ain't surprising since he a Jesuit himself).

In 1881, my great-grandfather decided to become an anarchist and he fought in the War Of Zuron, which brewed into 1878-1879. The War Of Zuron made way for the Civil War of 1882, which went on from 1884. By 1885 to 1887, the Zuroni state decided to attack other countries such as Britain, France, Argentina, Russia (all of which are corporate charters themselves), etc so it can begin its hegemony. Alfred Perchenson started hanging with The Casanova family, who are a hidden Black Nobility that oversee Switzerland and are also members of Spanish Nobility, as well as with Illuminati financier and boss, Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg. By the 1890s decade (1890-1899), since the USA's transformation into a corporation, it was easily conquered from within by Zuron after the Illuminati had engineered psyops within Zuron: (around 1890-91, they dropped bombs on the Highland Parkside, there was war over that; in 1892-93, there was a mass musket ball assault on the Peppy Store here in Detronas; 1894-95 was the founding of Zuronism, and the subsequent bombings; 1896-97 was the Zuroni government trying to implement the earliest form of Martial Law on the Yupaku islanders; and 1898-99 was around the era where the islanders rebelled against the Illuminist-Zuronist mafia and won).

At this point around 1905, every time a new government was established in Yupaku Islands, it was straight burnt to the fucking ground. Zuron was the last province to abide by the UCC Maritime Admiralty Law like every other country. By 1925, my great grandfather had already rebelled against the Jesuits by this point in order to take his country back, but he, as well as the rebels fighting against this UCC Law was all killed. In 1926-27, Zuron was also affected by the coming economic depression after the elites pulled the plug on the economy, and we was already penniless by the time 1928 and 1929. The President of Zuron, afraid of being killed by his Zuronist masters, didn't even bother to get the economy back on track, so he decided to flee for Argentina, leaving us high and dry. We wound up rebelling and destroying cop cars and shit starting in '30 or '31. By the time the Illuminati puppet came back in 1932-33, he was shanked to death out on the street. Serves his ass right. In 1933, the remaining cabinet of Zuron decided to cut a deal with The Federal Reserve, and they began putting the fractional reserve principle into practice. Banks don’t create creating money by making new loans to spend on this whole Hundred Year War.

In 1935 to 39, and all throughout the forties decade, the military niggas was dropping napalm in the city, killing thousands of rebelling citizens in the process. In 1941, Pearl Schuster crashed into the Zuroni Municipal building (it took 'em 30 years to build that shit back up), and in 1942-43, one of the Zuronists, Hans K. Paris, stepped outside of the shadows of the secret societies, and decided to run for Prime Minister of Zuron. He was close associates with The House of Savoy which have strong ties with Genova Italy ruled in Geneva Switzerland beginning with Count Amadeus V of Savoy. That same time frame, the Gothel Family was put further into the mainstream with this TV show, Anything With A Penis Is A Rape Machine -- this was around 1944-45. The show's creator, Gorthos Gothel, is a member of the British Crown's East India Company which controls the opium trade. My grandfather was also associated with the East India Company, met Duchess Rainia. The first half of they marriage was rocky as fuck, bordering on abusive -- especially the honeymoon stages. Eventually she would be able to relinquish the Duchess title and just be Rainia, gramma, and so she calmed down for the latter half of the marriage.

Needless to say, he too was drafted back into the East India Company's poppy fields in 1946-47, and he was stationed back at the Farnese Villa Caprarola, where he and the remaining soldiers would be under the watchful eye of the Jesuit Order as well as the Bourbon-Parma branch. Almost all of our motion picture films was published by Universal Film Manufacturing Company around this time, mostly because our own film company, Motion Sounds, signed a deal with them. By 1948-49, Joe Gothel and my great uncle, Karland Gold, were British Knights of the Order of the Bath and served the Windsor family. My grandparents would later take their marriage to new heights in 1950-51, after their friends invited them to the house of Windsor and shit. They would get involved into the Ninth Circle Cult in 1952-53, and by 1954-55 they partied at the Skull and Bones secret society at Yale. My grandparents decided to make the stupid decision to procreate, and my pops was born in 1955 -- and Bonesmen attended the day of my pop's birth. Needless to say, my family sold their fucking souls to the Illuminati umbrella. Unlike my grandparents, my pops lived a relatively "normal" childhood. And I say RELATIVELY NORMAL -- and I say that because he's had to live in fear of Bonesmen knocking on his bed room door, which made sense -- did you see my grandfather's connect with the various secret societies and royal bloodlines? Especially around 1956-57, when my grandfather and them Shriner niggas would yap for 6 hours about stupid shit.

In the beginning of the '60's, mainly 1960-61, my pops wound up becoming interested in the Shriners (mainly because my gramps put him up to it), as well as the Freemasons -- however my gramma decided against him even joining them secret societies, especially with the intensity of the Hundred Year War ramping up the intensity. In 1962-63 was when the bombs began dropping again, which haven't happened since the 30's. In 1964-65 was where the Zuroni elite would start with creating man-made viruses and shit and weaponizing them, and the government would spread that shit around and killing niggas with it. By 1966-67 was when the Hundred Year War would reach peak intensity when niggas started firing bunker missiles at each other. Pops eventually got fucking tired of this shit and rebelled at the age of 11 and decided to leave for Yukapu Islands, where he would eventually meet my moms. By the time they returned to Zuron City (which was 1968-69), my parents would meet up with then-15 year old Stasia, who was a tramp in training.

Come time around the 1970-1971. Rolestasia Esmeralda Gothel, better known as Stasia, Natika's mother, got her political career in lieu of a blood sacrafice for the Illuminati, and was therefore accepted in the Illuminati fold. She looked beautiful with her very voluptous figure, and a face of a temptress. When the then 17-year-old Stasia met the happy but struggling couple, she seemed very polite and charasmatic, very happy about her political career, but the mask would come off as soon as she moved in.

As the years passed, Stasia would come stay over at the Gold residence for weeks on end. But rather than greet them with kindness and respect, this time she greets them with indifference, and it later devolves into temper tantrums... and finally it devolved into beatings and bullying.. it did not take long for her to develop her tyrannical rule over the Gold household. She would boss my pops to go buy her beers, take up the whole house, and force my moms to cook her meals. If either of them said no, they were BOTH ripe for a beating. Or even a raping. She would talk to her political constituents about my parents being unfit parents, calling them "stupid" and "worthless".

It would be revealed that it was Sinbad who would order Stasia to call the police on the Golds and orchestrate the monthly raiding of their house. Regardless of whether or not they paid the bills on time. It was also STASIA's momma, Gorthos that would KILL my grandmother personally, after failing to get Harold or the rookie Pole Eyes Off Eye Seer to kill the elderly woman. Gorthos unloaded a shotgun round that would kill my paternal grandmother. my grandfather, Marshall Gold, came out of his nap and rushed to find his wife with a shotgun round in her stomach, lying on the floor, dead.

The killer, then 49 year old Gorthos, and her mother Anghella (under orders from Sinbad) had long since fled the scene. Marshall would later try to investigate the murder of his wife. And so the detectives find a young black kid ordering a pack of Skittles. The detectives arrest him after finding a pistol in his bookbag (Stasia planted it there). The boy was acquitted of all charges after not only finding out the boy did not use the gun to kill the elderly woman, but found out the pistol wasn't the murder weapon.

The deputy that would reveal himself to be involved would take all the credit (and the fall), and that was his gun in the first place. As soon as they believed that was the deputy that shot SG's grandmother, that was it. They locked the case down. It had went cold. The deputy would be jumped in the streets. Meanwhile, my gram ma's REAL killer (Stasia) is in the throes of World Politics, goes to G20 Summits, and is even the Vice Prime Minister of Zuron City. Gorthos Gothel, Stasia's moms, orchestrated the raid that would kill my gramma. The motive? A spat over a purse that apparently Mrs. Gold forgot to give to the Gothels, as well as failure to show up to the Gothel sacrifice ritual.

My pops got a job as a schoolteacher in 1972, before Sam Gold was born, and my moms was a former high class prostitute until she quit in 1973. She left the family in 1974 when Gold was young as she was to regret having to bring a kid into the world. She would return to the family a year later. 1975 came along, as his grandfather still wouldn’t give up the investigation on who shot my gramma. even after having the investigation was shut down by authorities.

I was born on November 7, 1975. By the time the end of '76 and into '77 rollin' around, my pops did everything he could to care for me and my family. It was a full house. My grandfather lived in the same house, my aunts lived here. My uncles lived here, My moms lived here. I lived here. Right here. Apartment 7735, in 7th Street -- right here in Detronas Project Housing. Around this time, the Hundred Year War had long been over -- it ended around March 1975.

My pops was always working hard to support the whole family, wetehr it be hard work in jobs or dealing dope the streets. However most of the time he was being unappreciated by my family, because we won't getting pleased enough. We were unsatisfied... we didn't think of him as a hardworking daddy or a human being, we saw him as a bank account. We just wanted fat stacks and gifts, we didn't give a fuck if he was sick or not. I hated him for leaving at first, but then I sat back and reflected on how we treated him. I asked the question -- was it any wonder he left us? With my poppy gone, the rest of my family didn't have the cap space to take care of me, so they sent me over to boarding schools and summer camps, where I would get mercilessly tormented, sent in time-out for no real reason.

Hell, when I was 5 (around '80 or '81), I was repeatedly beaten to an inch of my life. Tortured even. He didn't trust these child care programs for a reason -- he knew the Illuminati controlled these child behavioral programs. He's seen my transition from child drug dealer, teenage truther, to twenty something revolutionary. He's seen my shit life, and how I chose to turn it around. He's been seen me go through the same treatment during my relationship with Natika, hell he knows her own fatherless background.

The main 5 care takers/supervisors (Cassandra Coleman, Deanne Rush, Felecia House, Juanita Cruz, and Vanessa Brianna Beasley), all told my family that I was a demon baby who was under satanic possession, and when I wanted to go outside and play, the "care takers" would say I was outta control, because of the demons inside me, and they would beat me to an inch out of my life.

The days of torture began in '83, by the time I was 7, I wasn't even allowed to play with the other kids, they locked me in a small attic closet. I couldn't stretch out my legs or stand, but I could sit in it -- it was cold in wintertime, hot in summertime, but it was always roach infested. I was not allowed no sugar, no protein, no potassium. NOTHIN'. The only food I would be able to eat was apple sauce that one of the kids would sneak through the crack in the door. When I was allowed to eat, the care takers, especially Juanita Cruz (that fucking bitch), would tell me that every bite I would eat would ruin my figure. It wasn't even worth eating afterwards. I was in the hospital a lot growing up and I got a lot of treatments. Almost all the kids would get beaten, and every breath was controlled, much like every thought. We would all wake up tied to cots and get sodomized.

Me and Natika would get taken to modification facilities when Juanita would grow bored of us. Both of us would get tied to beds for days. Me and Natika would get multiple electric shock treatments. Me and Natika both met when I was 7 and she was like, 4 or 5. She was the main kid who would stand up to the "care takers" or so-called. As a result, she would get locked inside of the small attic closet with me. She would help me sneak food into the cupboard when the rest of the kids would be asleep. When we was caught, Natti would step in and take all the blame, after a while she would be used to getting her ass whooped. Shit got worse every two years. By the year '83, them ass-beatings would continue. At this point the whole dwamned demographic getting whooped and kicked down stairs, whether for a complaint, or for simply asking questions on which activity we would partake in. After a while me and Natika would bond for our love of video games. It was her and J-Mack who had introduced me to my 6 part circle of life: emceeing, DJing, breakdancing, b-ball, gaming, and graffiti art. I took up all 5 of them and I excelled at all 5 of them. Cruz caught me reading and writing and she took me into the bathroom and beat me into a coma.

For a month, By the year 1983, around the time I was 7, I had finally awakened from my coma and had to relearn all of his basic movements and logical synopses. For this, video gaming turned from becoming a simple basic hobby into something I took seriously, wether it would be home console games, card games, or arcade games. My gramps and me would escape the Zuron City Care Centre and would later travel to Japan, where he would later train my brain into the art of Wing Chun and arcade gaming. He had since picked up on a lot of Asian culture, especially Japanese culture and how seriously they took gaming, and began to adopt said philosophies. I would later return home and re-study the subjects he had neglected around the time of my coma -- The Occult, Symbolism, Conspirituality, Secret Societies, and Astrotheology. At this point I would later get addicted to traveling, and would later be able to build a plane based on the knowledge he took in Japan.

I would later travel to Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Albania, Argentina, Australia, Botswana, Belarus, Barbados, Belize, Bhutan, Britain, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Canada, Congo, Cameroon, Chad, China, Dominica, Eswatin, Ethiopia, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Fiji, Guyana, Germany, Gabon, Guatemala, Greece, Guinea, Haiti, India, Iceland, Israel, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Libya, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Liberia, Latvia, Kenya, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Mali, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Mozambique, Malawi, Maldives, Madagascar, Morocco, Nigeria, Nauru, Netherlands, New Zealand, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Palestine, Peru, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Switzerland, Sweden, Samoa, Somalia, Suriname, Senegal, Serbia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Taiwan, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkmenistan, Tunisia, Tanzania, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Tuvalu, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Vatican City, Vanuatu, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zimbabwe, and later Zambia… and all so I can get familiar with the customs and the environments in said places. I would go back to Zuron for a remaining week to go see my moms and her fam in the hotel and stay with them.

By the time I was forced to return to the Care Centre, I would see Cruz sucking dick in the daycare kitchen, when they was watching. We would get our asses beaten the next day. The man she was with caught wind of this and left her ass. The breakup would only worsen Cruz's temper, and pretty much made it more unpredictable at this point. Her favorite punishment, for any kid who would cross her, or call her out on her bullshit -- or she sees some young nicca doing some she she just plain finds distasteful, she would mix into a trash bin some NaOCl + 2NH3 --> 2NaONH3 + Cl2, which is scientific formula code for ammonia and bleach concoction, and would throw a kid, whether it be me, Natika, Tayla, J-Mack, or anyone, in the janitor closet -- with the concoction, until we lose consciousness. Natika wound up warning the parents about the daycare center, but there wasn't shit they could do. As a result, me, J-Mack, Natika, Alex Hutch, Chris Dolmeth, Tony-D, Cita, and Tayla -- all made escape attempts, and all of them failed, and we would all get locked in the same room, sometimes resulting in me, Natika, and J-Mack getting sent to modification facilities.

By '85, I went to church -- as enforced to -- every Sunday. However I made the mistake of thinking I could trust a pastor named James Willis. He had me training immensely and wearing black belt by the time I was 9 to 10 years old. At this point he had me studying the Bible and shit, I dunno. There was a lot of shit that took place. Our friend, Tayla, who was there for our first escape attempt -- was bludgeoned to death by Cruz and the other care takers at the age of 9 (RIP, 1975.09.03 - 1985.03.03). Shortly after this I was visiting my Pastor/Communist Soldier. He started to notice I was growing into myself a little. He would take me to his king-size bedroom, lays me down on his bed. He started feeling on me and shit -- I instantly screamed like a bitch and he put his hands over my mouth, threatening to beat my ass should I make a sound. I never made a sound after that, not after he ripped my pants and underwear off and started thrusting his dick into my asshole.

Getting raped became an everyday thing. He would attempt to murder me around the times I have struggled and cried. So I just let it happen the next times he's done it. My mind became split in half. Getting raped in the bootyhole became an everyday thang afterwards. The worst part of this all is this is the closest I have came to being "loved" -- because getting bootyraped in church, despite how horrifying it was, but it beat being locked in the janitor closet with ammonia and bleach mixture and dealing with Cruz's temper at the Zuron City Care Centre. At least the 'passa wouldn't kill me, as for Cruz, I was never sure that she wouldn't kill me. So my childhood was like this: go to the daycare to get locked in a attic closet eating apple sauce on the weekdays, and at 3, go to the passa's house so he can do me up the booty -- and I have no say in it. That was my childhood. At this point, Natika was ordered to leave Zuron for Hollywood so her grand momma Gorthos was planning to mold her in 2 a promising child actress. Ambassadors of the Society Of Jesus, i.e The Jesuits, would visit Gorthos on a very frequent basis to encourage Gorthos to shame her daughter on her suicidal attempt, in which she complies… and she complied well.

In the year '87, by the time I became an prepubescent, the Zuron City Day Care Centre was shuttin' its doors, so we wound up being thrown into the wild and we went to school full time. It was horrible and the teachers was totalitarian, almost like Nazi Germany, or Mao Tse Tung’s “Great Leap Forward” in China (widely recognized as the greatest disaster in an attempt to construct a centralized economy). Them mothafuckas would bully us, whether we did wrong or not, and when we did chew gum in class or disrupt, the punishments and retributions the Zuron City High School would dish out would be disproportionate. After the said disproportionate retribution was meted out, they would continuously harass and bully the student for said slight. The deans and principals fit it, causing more destruction than the teachers. Me and other students would question what we was reading in the school books and we would get our asses beat. It got to the point where I started drinking 40 oz at the school (I had been drinking alcohol since I was 9), and I was addicted to drugs, wether they had been narcotics or pharmaceuticals). I was sick almost all the time, and by the time me and Natika slept together -- Natika had night terrors from getting raped in Hollywood Town in Zuron City, in Disney, where she was getting her first gig back in '88, at the age of 9. Both of us was coughing up bl00d at the time. Our bodies was paralyzed because of the abuse, damaged ribs, muscle structure and nervous system getting caught between 'em, dead nerves in the abdomen (which is where my Anarchy tattoo is located) and a torn diaphragm.

At this point I'd had enough, I wound up getting into fights in school, fights with the teachers, fights with the dean, fights with the security officers. That shit was what got me expelled from that school. And finally, got into a fight with Cruz when she was informed of what I did and won. She wound up snitching on me to the po-pos and I wound up facing a year and 1/2 in men's prison -- in REAL man's jail, nigga. Once again I got into fights with the correctional officer faggot muhfuckas. I found out that J-Mack, Chris Dolmeth, Alex Hutch, Tony-D, Purrpy McVay, Iverson, Lil' Dak-Dak, Kapo, and Zarius Kid -- were all in the same prison, and later on in the second half of my prison sentence, we would all be shacked in the same cell. It turns out we was all facing assault charges and got into hella fights, sprayed murals on libraries and shit -- and this is where I REALLY started writing raps. We would be released from jail around January '89, and at this point I started taking the "Sam Gold Circle Of Life" seriously, especially the first 3 elements of hip-hop. However they wound up taking me into modification once more, and I suffered amnesia after the last electroshock treatment. I didn't even know who my abuser was, who the other kids was, who my family was, my pets neither. I didn't even know what this town was. I found out that Cruz fled Zuron to live in Cali and some other shit. By the time I showed my face in West Detronas again, a lot of shit had changed.

At this point I wound up joining the Church Of Zuronism, an ideology that espouses Satanism, Dark Luciferianism, the Black Sun Cult belief systems, Illuminism, Dark Atonism, and other forms of Dark Knowledge. However, I would also study philosophical anarchism, conspiracies, the occult, secret societies, symbolism, magick, mysticism, consciousness, mind control, natural law, demonology, forager societies, etc, around this time -- and I would rebel against their orders immediately, them niggas started not to like me. By the year 1991, I amassed a shit-ton of knowledge by the time at the age of 15, and around this point I would begin my career professionally.

At this point in '91, I wound up ripping up my birth certificate and become free. I was 15 at this time -- my rapist killed himself. He blew his head off, niggas had to scrape his brains off the wall. I went to the nigga's funeral and tell niggas how great he was, but I couldn't cry. I just fucking screamed into the rooftops and shouted curses for the neighborhood to her. Didn't know why I did it, I just did. I was numb, dawg, especially after that treatment. I found out this Passa/Marine was rapin' lil' boys, done it for 20 consecutive years, and I was his fuck toy for like 5 of them years. After a series of events, my niggas, especially J-Mack, got me out of that NWO infested environment and moved me to East Detronas, the hood of the hoods. I learned to hustle, sell crack, get involved in the drug game and make that dough. I got involved in the street life, the nightclub life, living the rapper's hood lifestyle -- all the while in the daytime, I was a rebel nigga tagging up walls and street tunnels, getting involved in riots, playing street basketball, and writing and recording rhymes. However inspire of the drug game granting success, none of that shit mattered. I would still experience night terrors, I would still remember the abuse within that fucking Day Care center, I would still remember getting ass raped by that pastor in church. I would still remember the teachers bullying and harassing me. However my homies invited me into the G40 circle, the Zuron City rap scene. I accepted the invitation.

That's what pretty much jumpstarted my career, that time in my life. spending my whole childhood dabblin’ in the shit. Almost all the songs I made, I made like damned near 100,000 songs over the course of teh decade, and around 50% of them went Gold. Only like, 0.78125% of my shit went Platinum (and only 3 of 'em became singles). Near the 4th quarter of '92 and into '93 I released “It’s A Gold Thang”, and that shit went #25 on the Billboard Charts, and it went Platinum. I then petered out after the realization that I was in the Illuminati – and finding out that this whole agricultural society, including the music industry, was run by Luciferians, Dark Occultists, and a Black Sun Priest Class. To find out that your world was a lie, and at 17 years old at that, it’s traumatizing. At that point it took me 2 years to get me out of that contract. I eventually did, but the beef between me and the Illuminati had begun. Because of this, and the fact that I couldn't smoke a fucking pound of w33d, I left the Church Of Zuronism -- that shit was wildin'. I don't fuck with them niggas, so you been t0ld. However, me and Natika would resume our relationship after I left the cult.

Near the end of '94 and into '95, I released “Mid-Coast Vibes”, when the rap group Midcoastsidaz was a thang. Me being 19 years old at that time, I found myself back into the street life, dealing all sorts of drugs and eventually gun-running. That and I found out Natika was a computer hacker and a tech freak, at that point we got closer. Meanwhile the Midcoastsidaz was poppin back in 1995. In the year 1995, at the age of 19, I decided to pass the time recording new tracks, performing in major hip hop clubs, and helping my homeboys (Jimmy Mack, Tony D, Alex Hutch, Chris Dolmeth, Dave Coast, Lynch Dawg, Tray Lu, Zarius, and Purrp McVay) on they hip hop projectz, as well as getting them out of their Illuminazione production deal. Chris Dolmeth also was attemping to promote his R&B boy band Ideation at this time too. On August 1995, Ialso released my second (or third) Gold single, "Gold World", and I became an underground sensational favorite at the age of 19. Even after that success, I was making jack shit off of this rap shit -- like, $312,500 -- and I split it with Natika -- who blew almost all her cash on gaming, techie shit, nail polish and dildo practice. It got so bad that I gave up my remaining $156,250 away and slept in the dumpster hunting for food. Aside from Jimmy Mack, Tony D, Chris Dolmeth, Alex Hutch and Dave Coast sleeping in the dumpster with me. I wound up finding my Natti Cake in the actual trash pile outta her mind. This nigga billionaire crime lord and rap mogul Mister Preme (born Derek Owen) wound up signing J-Mac, Tony, Hutch, Dave and Chris to a deal with Universal-owned Zuron based Detronillac Recording Corporation, and he took them outta the dumpster and primed them up for the big time. Preme was gonna sign me before Natti mouthed off to him. They all got on the bus and they left me and my girl in the dumpster.

By the 4th quarter of 1996, me, Tony D, Chris Dolmeth, Alex Hutch, XVI2, Zarius, Purrpy McVay, Dave Ivy, Jimmy Mack, and Big Kapo was recording the “Detronas City Anthem”, but we didn’t finish the song until the middle of '97, because around that time I was rollin’ with this street gang called Venom Lordz, all the while Kapo, Ivy, J-Mac and Tony was fightin each other over the single. I was 21 at this point in my life. Kapo would later ink a deal with Uptown Records, and would record his album there, but as soon as it was primed for release, MCA began crumbling and the unreleased album got lost in the shuffle. We decided to release the single in June of '97. The shit was my first Platinum single, like EVER. And it rose my profile significantly – and it put Detronas on a national mic, tbh. Not to mention, in 1997, Kapo would later establish his AMP label. AT this point my relationship with Natika took a dark turn for the worst, she and I faded each other all the time, and over stupid shit too. I was even further depressed after reading even further into the fact that the industry I was taking part in was Satanist infested, what with the 666's, the devil horns, and satanic imagery. That and I realized the dream I was chasing, the "American Dream" was all a fucking con job created by them same Luciferians I worked with back in my teen years. I went in my fucking room, shut the computer off, curled myself into a corner and cried for most of the night -- and at this point my music became more depressive and emotive. I spent the rest of '97 going through the motions and ignoring the gun in the r00m.

Nearing the end of '98 and going into '99, I recorded “Zu-Pimp”, put that single out, and that went Platinum in within a few weeks into 1999. Kapo would sign all of us to his AMP label, and then he would upstream his AMP label to the legendary Detronillac label, which was under the Universal Records and Universal Music & Video Distribution umbrella. However, my m00d darkened when my protege Daliib was shot dead when me and him was runnin' from snipers in April of'99 (he was 19) -- I grieved heavily after that, and believe me that was a LOOONNGGG ass grieving process trust me. My m00d darkened even further when Natika told me she was pregnant. The arguments between me and Natika got worse after whether or not we were to spare Tamberine the horrors of existence. I would drink myself into a depression, because considering my tortured past, I was remorseful, thinking I would put her through this bullshit later on in life -- and it'd fuck her up just as bad as it did me -- I turned to antinatalism, efilism and negative utilitarian thought around this time frame. Even though Natika did wound up understanding what I was trying to say -- she still decided to keep the baby. It was at this point where the relationship fizzled away, and I stayed at The Zelter House more, where Jimmy Mack, Tony-D, Chris Dolmeth, Alex Hutch, Lynch Dawg, Tray Lu, Zarius, Purrpy McVay, and Dave Coast resided. By September 9, 1999 -- my daughter Tamberine would be born in the midst of my massive success at that time.

At this point I went through all the emotions of learning about Big Brother, Natural Law, Mass Media Mind Control, Agenda 21, Georgia Guidestones, Codex Alimentarius, Chemtrails, Flouride and Aspartame, Cannibis Oil, Freemasons, NWO, Illuminati, Project Avalon, MK Ultra, Monarch Programming, Club Of Rome, Monsanto, Jesuit Order, Kaballah, Fake UFOs, The Saturnalian/Zoroastrian Bloodlines, Fake Jews, Vaccines, Transhumanism, Child Trafficking, Adrenochrome, Satanic Rituals, Pizzagate, False Flags, Gun Control, Esoteric Science, Sephirot Death Cult, Baal/Bull/Bill, The Occult, Secret Societies, Symbolism, Demonology, Black Magick, Mysticism, World War III, Armageddon, Martial Law, The White Dragon Society, Ancient Egyptian Trinity, The Pharoahs, DUMBS, RFID chips, AI, Journalism, Unlocking Theological Anomalies, Esoterica, EMPCOE, etc.

By 1999, I stopped giving a fuck about what niggas thought. At the age of 23, I would give up on labels and decide to push forward, performing in clubs and battle rapping just to get known. I would later dye my hair red and wear a black hoodie (or wear a black 4XL shirt) – and 5 tattoos (an Erisem tattoo on my right bicep, a Tamberine Emelyn tattoo on my right arm, a Sam Gold on my left bicep, a 78125 tattoo on my left arm, and an Anarchy symbol on my abdomenal area; I would wear a G-Shock sportswatch on my right wrist, and a diamond wristband on my left wrist, with a pair of baseball gloves), and a pair of black Lugz Boots, completing my Sick Touch look for the 9-9 and onwards. All three of my singles sold like 1,000,000,000 copies to date, and at this point, This was more than enough clout to just leave the major-label brand -- and then go to sign a distribution deal with Universal Music & Video Distribution around 1999. I would later work on my EP, named Thermilliation, around the 3rd quarter of '99.

In 2000, I then met numerous rap, punk rock, heavy metal/screamo, country, and R&B singers in the Zuroni mainstream. I held my tongue, for I was a puppet of the mainstream labels myself. In 2000, I decided to adjust my color scheme, and stayed in my ghetto neighborhood in the Detronas Projects, while Tamberine was at my pop's house at the moment. My crew lived in the same projects, and they even lived in the same apartment room.

Near the beginning of the 2K1, I entered the 2001 Epic Bowl Battle Rap Championship, where the grand prize was a replica of the Vince Lombardi Trophy, and $1,000,000,000 in prize money. I took on all of my opponents and finished them all ruthlessly. I str8 up ATE 'em. Wowed the crowd in the process. I got to the championship and faced Jim Beam, who won 3 consecutive championships -- and dethroned that nigga. Thanks to me becoming the new Epic Bowl Champion, relish wasn't hard to come by no more. That $1,000,000,000 prize money was MINES. To celebrate, I finished recording Thermilliation into 2001, and in 2001 was when I founded my Sick Touch label, while still on the Universal umbrella. After I won that Epic Bowl Battle Rap Championship, I toured in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Colombia, Cuba, Canada, Dominica, France, Fiji, Germany, Greece, India, Iceland, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Italia, Japan, Jamaica, Korea, Libya, Lebanon, Malaysia, Malawi, Mexico, Malta, Maldives, Netherlands, New York City, Palestine, Peru, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Syria, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, and Yemen in Q1 2001. After that tour, I released my debut EP, Thermilliation, in June 7th, 2001, and that shit sold like, 1,000,000 copies in it’s first week. Eventually, on September 7th, 2001, them sales multiplied by 128x that. I would sell 1 BILLION, baby. I would go Diamond off that EP alone. The shit had 25 tracks on it, it felt more like an album. However I had 75 more tracks made around that span -- and made that shit into a compilation. BOOM. Released that shit months later in September 7th 2001. DIAMOND CERTIFIED. I still make mills off this EP to this day.

Everything was totally NEW by the year 2002, and I decided to record my debut album. Inspired by me listening to the Slim Shady LP, I decided to add "LP" to my album title to give it some oomph. My skills attract Zuroni teen rap sensation Kamaal, who has since released his debut album around the same time as me, and became just as popular as his idol (he became a fan of Samethyst through his material from 1997, saying his favorite album was Welcome To Thundaground, so he was a fan before his massive fame. 2002 was also a great year for the Zuroni hip hop scene, for it began to gain a massive following since Thermilliation was released a year prior to it (2001). Rapper Rawn's Kassassination was released in February 2002, Massa Kaine's Life Unto Part was released in 2002, LCN's Confrontayshuns Of A Homeless Gangsta was re-released in the year 2002 (though it was originally released in 2000). In September 2002, I decided to have his own summit with the Thundaground crew, for he discussed a lot of music, red pill and activism related subjects. Soon after this, me and my crew released our second album, Epic Bowl Championz, on September 10, 2002 on Full Circle Music, which was bought out by my Sick Touch label.

At this point it was ALBUM TIME. In '03, I put out The Sam Gold LP, on February 6, 2003, to worldwide critical acclaim. I would become the first autistic hip hop recording artist to go Platinum. The album’s subject matter ranges in between conspiracies and occult related topics, suicida ideation, arson, mental illness, and antinatalism. My album would become a bestseller in Zuron, and would go Gold worldwide. Know what I'm sizzlin', "Detronas City Anthem (The Finale)" was on there! I made a song about my drink, niggaroni, it's called Dross Juice, that's on the album! "Lugz And Gasmask" is on there, nigga who wouldn't wanna go to a war with some baggy ass sweats, Lugz Chargerz and a fuckin' GASMASK! WILD as fuck. Tha SMASH HIT SINGLE, "I Don't Wanna Live", that's on the album . Sold like, 1,000,000 copies to date. The whole world went nutz. I got arrested not long after this album. Got tried at the World Court. Around the time I was in jail, I heard word that Natika wound up building orphanages and homeless shelters for struggling Middle Easterners, with my proceeds. She even fought alongside her Palestinian brothers and sisters against the Israeli occupiers that her moms supported. Two years have passed and she is respected amongst the Middle East. But she feels as though its time for her to leave. Shit was heartwarming as fuck, she finally found her purpose, it seemed.

Shit was gon change by the time 2004 rolled in. I would fade random people, or just flat out assault political and religious figures on a whim. Me and my homeboyz would raid other mainstream rapper's club parties. I would get into riots a lot more frequent basis. I would snort coke off the crotches of sexy female models if given the chance to go to these house parties. In many cases, I would fuck Cita in the VIP Room (and a couple of other video models). In April 6th of '04, I was arrested for disturbance of the peace, riot inciting, but it was also a ruse for an even more serious crime: a domestic violence case. Simbad had crafted up a made up story of how I beat Natika back in 1997 (even though those injuries were the result of a bad fight, and the injuries Natika sustained back in '01 are from Gorthos Gothel savagely beating her and throwing her around like a ragdoll). By ‘04, I got myself in some major beef with them Illuminati sellouts named Leadaz Of The Free Nation, but me and my crew wound up squashing it after Tony brought a gun into the situation. I would hold the record of getting arrested the most times in a year -- smoking weed in the back of a po-po car would piss off any po-po officer. That and call them servants of Luciferian Occultists. Which they is. Had to say it, yo! I even beefed hella with Gamian Ritter, Sean Gotti, and J. Willis. I stopped fucking with Don Bling, them niggaz backstabbed us in AMP. Me and Emerald Shields kept it cool, we still talk every once in a while. But me and Bling ain't got no words. December of '04 was when I was drinkin' hella Caribull Vodka (Red Bull, Vodka, Sprite, Orange Juice, Grenadine), OD'd on the shit too, as far as I can remember.

2 years later, I had an Anghellic moment, I was now 29 years of age, and I would follow this up with the more aggressive same-day dual release: Rebel/Revolt which were released 2 months later on May 03, 2005. I wanted to go back to my Midcoastsidaz roots, and it had been 10 years after that shit was released, with a pint of darkness -- and that shit sold like 1,000,000 copies apiece. We wound up releasing The Rogue Demonz Show by Hemdula, Criminal Tendencies by J.J. Moneybagz, The Shit List by Liquid Se7en, World Renowned by Gang Green Crew (their debut), DJ Spill's Destructiv death metal band Triumpf's Livin' Legends, Horrur's album Absolute Largess, Joey J's Rise Up, Chris' Dolmethland, Blak Bloc's Chaos VS Order: 1312, and Zuron City Clique's Zuron City All Stars. However, there was a lot of violence, even within them times -- some niggas within the Illuminati that started a shootout with Big Kapo because he refused to pay they ass. Me, being a real nigga, decided to pull my TEC-9 and fired at them. The Illluminati hit men shot and killed Platinum-selling artists Jabrielle McClain, Remy Byrd, Ori "Orion" Pierre, Da'kuan Muhammad, and Zohn Dorsey, all artists that got killed in the midst of the action. My homegirl Cita was shot and wounded in that crossfire as well -- and it would take a while until we started fully hanging out near the end of the year.

I also heard that Natika's altruism lead to her gettin' ostracized by her family. Her ring to the middle east and finding a purpose hurt her family's precious little fee-feez, and oh boy my nigga, riots were abound and lots of butthurt had come to the surface. When she would go to Gothel Family Reunions, she would get nasty looks from all of her family members. It was at this point that Natika would realize that she had become a pariah among her fam. One of them even threatened to kill her "COME PROVE YOUR A MUSLIM TERRORIST YOU TRAITOROUS SAND NIGGER SPIC, WE WILL KILL YOU", and she had to come defend herself and Tamberine. This ended in a battle against her family members. Not only that, the whole City of Gothelia wanted to off her -- and on April 4, 2006 (4.4.06), they got their wish. While Natika, me, Jimmy Mack and K-Vall was taking joyrides around Gothelia, one Gothelian was armed with a crossbow -- and he/she shot the laser crossbow thru the driver's seat of the car, the bow went square in her head, killing her instantly. She was 27 at the time. I couldn't even help but cry my ass off son. I heard the next day, everyone in Gothelia celebrated her death. On top of this, my moms gets diagnosed with panchreatitis on Natika's 28th birthday (August 4th, 2006).

Even worse, on March 7th, 2007, I become subject to an Illuminati Blood Sacrifice, just know that the Anarchist message will help these kids bring that spark to expose this New World Order. I got something on my pager and say "GET READY TO DIE", and I kinda complied. I wasn't afraid of my own coming death. I do worry however, is that kids all over the world won't get to see my message because it goes against the Illuminati. Wether it would be that the Illuminati that wipes out my message and preventing my message, whether it be the parents of these kids who prevent them from listening to my message and taking action upon learning what I learned. I don't know. That fast life during my early years of fame got me even more suicidal -- I wanted to die nigga -- so I decided to go kamikaze and crash my car into the Illuminati people's van - face first! I wound up in the hospital in a comatose state for about a month or two, before eventually surviving. I eventually survived that shit. In the midst of this, the damage done to Detronillac was already done, and so it closed it's doors in April of '07, and AMP Entertainment shut down after co-Gamian blew most of Kapo's masters and publishing on a casino, alongside our label earnings as a way to pay the Illuminati. I wound up leaving AMP, Detronillac and UMG and I took my albums, and my Sick Touch label -- with me.

2 years after AMPs dissolution, I signed a distribution deal with Tropicala Distribution, another distribution arm of Universal. It was at THAT point where I would later release this fourth album, Counterfeit Dreams, on September 3, 2009, which was my darkest album, YET. I let the darkness and destruction consume my ass throughout the entire album, I talked moreso about darkness, death, gore, the occult, went even further on the arson and shit, etc. However, this shit sold 1,000,000,000 copies to date -- it didn't reach Thermilliation numbers, but it was close. THIS album was the one that opened a LOT of doors. And I re-relelased The Sam Gold LP, and Rebel/Revolt on Sick Touch as well. Now you get the full package, and the rest, as they say, is history.

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reemtalha · 7 years

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Bad Mother in law!! the sunnah of forgiving truly for His sake. She frantically searched for the number and dialed. Her eyes were red and the inner veins were swelled up bearing the intense pressure she endured for days on end. “Assalamu ‘alaikum, please I want to talk to my teacher, it’s Maria here.” She almost broke into tears when she heard her teacher’s sympathetic tone. “What is the ruling for a mother in law who makes life unbearable and the husband gives no reaction to control his mother, to protect her wife’s dignity?” Her teacher asked in a polite tone, “What other complaints do you have for your husband?” “Nothing just this that he does not take a stand for me.” “Then ignore your mother in law, consider her as a radio which heedlessly emits, don’t focus on her.” “But … but, what about me? My right?” she murmured. “Sweetie, even if you are thinking to divorce then remember you will divorce your husband and not your mother in law, forgive and forget is the rule that will comfort you and ease your marriage.” Maria froze in her tracks. It echoed in her ears: “…forgive and forget…” She was giving up on her marriage because of the abuse she was facing from her mother in law. But she was married to her husband and not her mother in law. Is it easy to forgive the one who is constantly causing harm to our wellbeing? Indeed not, that is why it has great virtue and these trials are only given to the strongest warriors of Allah (SWT). In this era, we all have become hasty. We have low levels of endurance and we want to live the way we want, without any interference. The ratio of divorce is increasing because of various other factors, but our interpersonal state also has a hand. We are often stuck with people who are our blood relations, but we don’t give up on them as easily. Why do we start to think of divorcing our spouse over the third party people who are around? I do not favor such scenarios, nor do I overlook the responsibilities that a husband owes to his wife. The decision must be made analytically depending on the available resources. If the husband is financially strong then he can provide his wife a separate accommodation to ease the tension, by this means both relations can be maintained and served. On contrary, if he cannot provide separate housing, then together the couple can come up with solutions to minimize the intensity of problem, such as a separate kitchen, outings without parents/in-laws, and healthy “mental vacation” techniques. Immediately calling for divorce is a big no, but husbands need to be aware this is a possibility if they refuse to work towards compromises. Our history is full of such heroes who have preserved patience and forgave generously for the sake of Allah. When Abu Bakr (RA) decided to diminish his aid to Mistah bin Uthatha, who was part of those slandering Aisha (RA), Allah revealed Surah An-Noor: 22, “And let not those of virtue among you and wealth swear not to give [aid] to their relatives and the needy and the emigrants for the cause of Allah , and let them pardon and overlook. Would you not like that Allah should forgive you? And Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.” Abu Bakr then pardoned him for the sake of Allah, providing him again with same financial help. On another account, the Prophet (SAW) pardoned all pagans of Makkah and entered with his head bowed down as a sign of peace after victory. He forgave them for all the verbal, physical, social, and psychological abuse. His beloved wife died during the time of social boycott, his uncle was brutally murdered and other atrocities were committed against his family and companions. In our daily life, we often go through such situations which are not at the level of hurt our Prophet (SAW) and other Sahabiyyat had faced. We even boost our ego by becoming ‘hard’ when it comes to forgiving others. On the contrary, we expect others to give us the benefit of the doubt and moreover we demand favors of Allah (SAW) even when are wrongdoing. They don’t deserve forgiveness? By the way, forgiveness is given to those who do not deserve it and who do not ask for it. Instead supplicate for their hidaya and mercy. “If [instead] you show [some] good or conceal it or pardon an offense – indeed, Allah is ever Pardoning and Competent.” (An-Nisa: 149) The prophet Yusuf (RA) showed mercy to his undeserving brothers even when he was in a position to take revenge by depriving them of food. Instead he thanked Allah for saving him. Be like the people of ihsan (perfecting character) When someone attacks you, everyone expects you to retaliate and burst with anger, but what is required is to swallow your anger so that it is not apparent in any way. Al ‘Imran: 134 reminds us: “Who spend [in the cause of Allah ] during ease and hardship and who restrain anger and who pardon the people – and Allah loves the doers of good.” Refraining from expressing anger via facial expressions or body language is one of the traits of those who excel. When our focus is on Allah and his pleasure, it is easy to break the norm of demanding eye for an eye, rather you turn the other cheek and show gentleness. The other point is to pardon people and not to plot any revenge or aim to make things ‘even’ later on. Ihsan means to worship Allah as you can see him before you or are aware of the fact that he sees you. Having ihsan is to be a person who goes beyond what is expected of him to please Allah. Ihsan is to excel Forgiveness is for our own sake Forgiveness is not about saying “forgiven” verbally and then holding a grudge for a lifetime. When we hold on to past hurts, we allow the wrongdoer to live in our head rent free as a potent poison. Don’t think that you are giving undue rights by forgiving. You are trading for your hereafter. It also has medical benefits to reduce the stress anger brings with it. Be Allah’s beloved Allah loves those who show mercy to others and He is merciful Himself. Compassion always outweighs hostility. Al-Baqarah: 195 reminds, “And spend in the way of Allah and do not throw [yourselves] with your [own] hands into destruction [by refraining]. And do good; indeed, Allah loves the doers of good.” Benefits in the later abode Let our target be the palace of the highest level of paradise. “And hasten to forgiveness from your Lord and a garden as wide as the heavens and earth, prepared for the righteous…. Those – their reward is forgiveness from their Lord and gardens beneath which rivers flow [in Paradise], wherein they will abide eternally; and excellent is the reward of the [righteous] workers.” (Al ‘Imran: 132-134) A person will come to his friend on the day of judgment and will say “Hey, you used to call me bad names and I used to let it go but the offense was still taken. I am running short of some good deeds so let us make it even now.” Thus all his good deeds will be given to the offended. My mentor said when we will get our book of deeds and see the list of good deeds, we would wish that we had been hurt more and transgressed by people in the world for more years. Transgressed people will have their favours due given by Allah. When we all be on our knees, Allah will ask those who forgive and forget to stand up and take their favour. Subhan Allah. So from now, when we feel that things are going in vain and all of our personal self and peace is being questioned, let us connect to Allah through prayers and Qur’an. Enhance spirituality rather than to fall prey to the hands of despair and depression. Keep the motivators right in front of our eyes so they will serve as reminders and boost us whenever we think we have had enough. Since Maria’s phone call to her teacher, she has shifted her focus to hereafter. There are days when she feels fed up, but then she regains her faith in Allah and the hidden virtues she will get from her Lord. She listens to audio lectures of various scholars on such topics, she craves for her station in Jannah (paradise). She now lives by the notion that we are responsible for what we give and not what we get. Maria remains firm to the truth that this all will come to an end and what lies beyond this world is eternity, happiness, and peace. The love of her Lord has resides foremost in her heart.

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biofunmy · 4 years

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Troubles at an Aging Steel Mill Mirror Italy’s Own

TARANTO, Italy — In his corner store next to Europe’s largest steelworks, Giuseppe Musciacchio dragged his index finger across a shelf caked in gray dust.

Outside, a towering smoke stack loomed above a landscape of blast furnaces and stockpiles of dangerous minerals. Dark puffs of industrial exhaust drifted in the sky like rain clouds. On “wind days,” the mayor cancels school for fear of toxic dust blowing through the town.

“I’m constantly cleaning,” Mr. Musciacchio said, showing how the metallic soot stuck to a magnet. Photographs on the wall honored his mother and other relatives who he said had died of cancer. “They died from living here, breathing here.”

Even so, as Italy’s government and the factory’s foreign operator, the steel giant ArcelorMittal, engage in a high-stakes fight over the plant’s future, Mr. Musciacchio hopes it will not close. “It would be an economic disaster,” he said.

The plant’s closing could have ramifications for the stability of Italy’s government and the country’s entire economy. That has made the struggle over the steel works an emblem for what ails Italy — declining industry, haphazard regulation and volatile politics.

Italy does not want for symbols of political mismanagement and a stuck economy. There is the perennially hobbled Alitalia national airline, the stalled infrastructure projects, the banks that need bailing out.

But the closing of the steelworks — still known by its former name, ILVA — would be worth about 1.4 percent of Italy’s entire economic output, according to a recent study. A sprawling, 15 kilometer plant, it is the largest factory in the country’s economically depressed south.

If it closes, more than 10,500 workers could lose their jobs in a region that already suffers from dizzying unemployment, especially among the young. Businesspeople fear that foreign investors would steer clear of Italy. And the country could be saddled with a toxic ghost town, with pollutants seeping into the ground and surrounding sea.

At this point the steelworks appears to be too big to fail, and failing too much to keep running.

Its history mirrors the trouble of Italy’s broader economy, which over the last decade has, according to a leading Italian economist, experienced its lowest growth rates since the country formed in the 19th century.

Born as a state-controlled company, in the 1960s its steel-making furnaces drew workers from the surrounding countryside and became a reliable vote-getter for southern politicians.

In the boom years of the 1970s and 1980s, so many Italians had jobs connected to the business that Rinaldo Melucci, the mayor of Taranto, where the factory is located, called the town “the Milan of the South.”

In 1995, the Riva family, an Italian steel producer, bought the factory. But environmental groups and then Italian prosecutors brought to light environmental and health abuses — including toxic minerals blown into nearby neighborhoods, a factor that still prompts the mayor to close the town’s schools on windy days.

“They make us stay inside and close the windows,” said Aldo Masella, 13. “My parents want me to go to school. So do I.”

Those abuses ultimately contributed to Italy’s seizing billions of euros in assets from ILVA, and in 2014 the government took over the plant.

It put in place a legal shield to protect its new government operators from prosecution as they tried to clean up the plant.

Eventually the government decided to seek a private buyer that could turn the plant around. It found one in ArcelorMittal.

In November 2018, the company agreed to lease the plant for 45 million euros (about $50 million) a quarter. That was supposed to lead toward an eventual €1.8 billion purchase of the plant years down the road.

ArcelorMittal also said it would put €2.4 billion into the plant’s modernization and environmental cleanup. And it agreed to maintain 10,700 jobs for five years, or to pay a major chunk of those salaries and big fines for any worker laid off.

The government’s willingness to grant immunity over the environmental problems was at the center of the deal, the company says.

The legal protections “formed a critical part of the legal framework which governed the agreement,” said Paul Weigh, an ArcelorMittal spokesman. “They were an essential prerequisite” without which the company “would not have participated in the tender process, nor signed the agreement.”

But things have not gone well.

The global steel market tanked, the local authorities seized a pier critical for importing raw materials after strong winds blew over a crane and killed a worker, and the factory has produced only 4.5 million tons of steel this year, much less than the amount needed to turn a profit.

Then, in April, the government led by the populist Five Star movement, which has long attacked the factory, announced plans to end the immunity agreement — a move that ArcerlorMittal said would amount to a breach of agreement and prompt the company to leave the factory.

The standoff seemed to resolve itself over the summer, when the government collapsed and a new coalition between Five Star and the center-left Democratic Party issued a measure restoring the immunity. But hard-line Five Star members in Parliament refused to ratify it.

The protection expired on Nov. 3, and the company sent a notice the next day that it would withdraw from the factory.

The government sued the company to force it to stay. It also began negotiating a new deal, though with significantly less leverage — a situation that has thrust Rome into a fresh crisis, reviving concerns about the government’s ability to provide the stability required for foreign investment.

“It’s totally crazy,” said Carlo Calenda, who orchestrated the original deal in 2017 as minister for economic development. “You cannot better explain the Italian crisis than to explain what is happening in ILVA.”

In late December, the two sides agreed on the terms for further negotiations, including more investment from the state and a reassessment of employment and production levels.

But the plant’s fate remains in limbo, and despite a Christmas Eve visit to Taranto by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, optimism is not high.

In the wood-paneled offices of the local industry association, Antonio Marinaro, its president, said the government’s propensity for anti-business protests rather than constructive action had created “an air of uncertainty and instability.”

In the run-down neighborhoods around the factory, where the management’s windows sported new protective bars, residents talked of being forced to choose between their health and the jobs.

“Everybody is scared,” said Emanuele Palmisano, a local union official who worked at the plant for 21 years.

At the plant’s largest gate, a public bus brought in workers from the surrounding countryside and towns. They are resented by many Taranto residents, who say the workers get the benefit of a good job without their families having to suffer the health costs of the pollution.

Factory dust had left a red tint on the sidewalks, guardrails and a sign for the local cemetery, which had the word “ILVA” scrawled underneath it.

Mr. Calenda, who left the Democratic Party when it joined with Five Star, argued that the factory’s survival was key for Italy’s chances of attracting foreign investment.

He said steel production gave the country strategic independence from foreign competitors and supplied an Italian mechanics industry that is larger than the country’s fashion, food and furniture sectors combined.

He called the current government’s handling of the situation a self-inflicted wound indicative of Five Star’s incompetence and resistance to the free market that could cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars.

Despite having signed the original deal with ArcelorMittal, Five Star leaders now say that the company never had any intention of successfully operating the factory.

“We should be very attentive of this multinational, because it has a terrible reputation,” said Barbara Lezzi, a former minister for the South and now a powerful Five Star lawmaker who led the opposition to the immunity in the Senate.

She argued that the immunity was not part of the initial deal and that ArcelorMittal was using its removal as an alibi to leave. “They would have left anyway,” she said, arguing that its intention all along was to raid ILVA’s clients and eliminate future competition by destroying it.

She suggested that the state should temporarily nationalize the factory, modernize it and “sell it as a technological jewel.”

(The European Union has strong rules barring state aid to companies.)

Mr. Weigh, the ArcelorMittal spokesman, said the company had worked “in good faith” to modernize the factory and that it had “met every single environmental investment commitment agreed in the environmental plan approved by the Italian government.”

Some locals said they were sick of Five Star’s promises.

“They played us for the fools,” said Ignazio D’Andria, 58, who served beers to factory workers in his nearby coffee bar and recalled waking up as a child with sparkles of dust on his face and pillow.

“My mother would tell me, ‘The fairy came last night,’” he said. “We slept with the windows open. We didn’t know.”

Mr. D’Andria, with the help of an Italian television personality, has raised more than €500,000 for a pediatric cancer ward at a hospital in the town.

At the hospital, Dr. Valerio Cecinati, a specialist in pediatric oncology who recently moved to Taranto, showed the anesthesia and chemotherapy rooms, furnished with Disney puzzles, dinosaur books and new wallpaper of dolphins and turtles.

Dr. Cecinati checked in on a boy with a serious illness that he suspected was caused by exposure to the factory’s dioxins and other toxins, and said that national studies showed a small increase in children’s cancer cases in Taranto in recent years.

Judging by the fatigue and high fevers he saw in children who came in for visits, he said he believed there would continue to be more cases. “More than I expected,” he said.

Another group of pediatricians gather at pharmacies to warn people against eating locally grown and raised food, about the high level of dioxins in local women’s breast milk and about local reports suggesting a drop in local children’s IQ levels.

Mayor Melucci said that while there were negative health ramifications of the plant, “this is not Chernobyl.” He also said he was seeking to develop other industries in the town, but understood that the steel works mattered.

“If they fix ILVA, Italy comes back,” he said. “If they close, it’s the start of a great decline for the country.”

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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In September 2016, an anonymous conservative writer published an essay called “The Flight 93 Election.”

The title was a reference to the one hijacked flight on 9/11 that didn’t reach its destination because passengers overwhelmed the hijackers and brought the plane down.

The logic of the essay was simple enough: The prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency was so positively ruinous that conservatives had no choice but to support Donald Trump — no matter how awful or incompetent he appeared to be. The stakes were simply too high.

Until now, there was no left-wing equivalent to the “Flight 93” essay, no rallying cry that urged Democrats and liberals to do whatever is necessary to win. But David Faris’s new book, It’s Time to Fight Dirty, is the closest anyone has come so far.

Faris, a political scientist at Roosevelt University, argues that the Democratic Party must recognize that Republicans aren’t engaged in a policy fight; instead, they’re waging a “procedural war.”

What he means is that Republicans have spent the past two decades exploiting the vagueness of the Constitution to create structural advantages for their side — passing discriminatory voter ID laws, using the census to gerrymander districts, blocking Democratic Supreme Court nominees, and so on.

Faris writes Democrats have to recognize this reality and act accordingly, especially now that the Republicans are poised to conquer the Supreme Court for a generation. I reached out to him to find out what, exactly, he has in mind.

A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

Sean Illing

Your book feels like the left-wing equivalent of the “Flight 93” essay — an urgent Democratic call to arms. Is that how you see it?

David Faris

Yeah, I think so. We’re at a very dangerous moment in American history. There’s been a massive erosion of trust in public institutions and in the broader electoral process. The Trump administration has been disastrously disruptive to the norms of our political culture.

We’re also in a very dangerous moment for the planet, and I worry that we’re sleepwalking into a series of crises that we’ll have to deal with for a very long time, that our kids will have to deal with for a very long time. So yes, I am sort of sounding the alarm, and I think Democrats have to recognize the urgency of the moment and act accordingly.

Am I in “charge the cockpit or die” mode? I don’t know, but I do think our predicament justifies some serious procedural hardball from the Democrats.

Sean Illing

Well, let’s talk about the Democrats. There are roughly three competing visions within the party about how to move forward: 1) Go the way of Bernie Sanders and appeal to working-class voters with progressive policy ideas; 2) go the centrist route in a bid to grab moderate, suburban independents and Republicans who might have voted for Trump but can be persuaded to jump ship; or 3) double down on the 2008 and 2012 strategies and hope to recreate the Obama coalition of women, minorities, and young people.

You say all these are nonstarters — why?

David Faris

I think Democrats should have this debate, but my point is that no policy platform is going to win three or four consecutive national elections for Democrats because we know policy isn’t what decides elections; that’s not how most voters make decisions.

So there are no policy changes that are going to reverse the overall trajectory that this society is on right now. We have to address some of the structural barriers to progressive power in this country, and we need to take those things as seriously as we do the policy fights within the party.

“We’re in the midst of a slow-motion unraveling of democracy in this country”

Sean Illing

I definitely want to get into some of these structural barriers, but let’s be clear about this point you’re making. A lot of people still think there’s some meaningful connection between policy outcomes and voter decisions, but there’s a good bit of political science research to suggest that’s just a fantasy.

David Faris

Right. People just don’t seem to make the connection between policies and the party in power.

So, for example, the Democrats passed Obamacare and gave millions of people heath care, and yet tons of people who benefited from it have no idea what it is or how they benefited. And it’s like that with a lot of policies — voters simply don’t connect the dots, and so they reward or punish the wrong party.

I think the idea that we’re going to deliver these benefits to people and they’re going to be like, “Thank you Jesus, thank you for everything that you’ve done, let me return you with a larger majority next time,” is just nonsense. It’s the wrong way to think about politics.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do things for people, but we’ve got to be serious about how elections are won. And they’re not being won on the basis of policy proposals or policy wins.

Sean Illing

In the book, you say that Democrats are engaged in “policy fights” and Republicans are waging a “procedural war.” What does that mean?

David Faris

The Constitution is a shockingly short document, and it turns out that it’s extremely vague on some key procedures that we rely on to help government function at a basic level. For the government to work, cooperation between parties is needed. But when that cooperation is withdrawn, it creates chaos.

Since the ’90s, when Newt Gingrich took over Congress, we’ve seen a one-sided escalation in which Republicans exploit the vagueness or lack of clarity in the Constitution in order to press their advantage in a variety of arenas — from voter ID laws to gerrymandering to behavioral norms in the Congress and Senate.

Sean Illing

What the Republicans did to Merrick Garland was one of the most egregious examples I’ve ever seen.

David Faris

Right. They essentially stole a seat on the Supreme Court — a swing seat, no less. But they correctly argued that they had no clear constitutional obligation to consider the president’s nominee for the seat. They didn’t violate the Constitution. They violated the spirit of the Constitution. They violated the norms that have allowed these institutions to function normally for years and years.

This is the sort of maneuvering and procedural warfare I’m talking about, and the Republicans have been escalating it for two decades. And they’ve managed to entrench their power through these dubious procedures.

The result is that the structural environment is biased against Democrats and the Republicans have engineered it that way.

Sean Illing

Let’s dive into some of your proposed solutions. For starters, you think Democrats should break California up into seven states. Why?

David Faris

I don’t think the architects of the Constitution understood that population dynamics would create a state like California with 38 million people, and then a bunch of states like the Dakotas and Wyoming and Vermont and Delaware that have very small populations.

The end result is that voters in California and New York and Texas are systematically disadvantaged in national policy relative to their counterparts in smaller, rural states. It’s absurd that California and Delaware should have the same number of senators.

Given the current system, Democratic-leaning states, which contain far more people, are rarely going to be represented in the Senate. That’s not fair or democratic, and we shouldn’t accept it, especially with the current horror show in the White House.

Sean Illing

It’s extremely unlikely that this will ever happen, but tell me how it would play out if it did.

David Faris

Technically, from a constitutional standpoint, all it would require is an act of the California state legislature, signed by the governor of California, and then accepted by Congress.

So here’s what we need to happen: A referendum on breaking the state up into smaller states passes, and then it’s validated by the state legislature and then the governor, who would obviously need to be a Democrat, signs it, and finally, a Democrat-controlled Congress makes it official.

This is not as crazy an idea as people think. There have been several attempts to do it in California already, and you can make a pretty strong argument that the state is far too large to be ruled from Sacramento.

And if Californians managed to pull it off, we’d likely have another 12 Democratic senators in Washington, or at least more than we have now. More Electoral College votes too.

Sean Illing

Tell me about some other “dirty” tactics you recommend in the book.

David Faris

I think they should grant statehood to DC and Puerto Rico. Both states have held referenda that endorsed statehood. We have millions of Americans right now who have no representation in Congress.

To me, it’s just unquestionably the right thing to do. We should grant people the representation they want and deserve, and it just happens that doing so would almost certainly send four more Democrats into the Senate, and probably an all-Democratic congressional delegation from Puerto Rico too.

Sean Illing

You also think the Democrats should kill the filibuster, right?

David Faris

Yeah, I think they should eliminate the filibuster in the first month of the next Democratic administration, if it even survives that long. I think it’s another anti-democratic procedure in the Senate. We already have a constitutional framework that is deliberately difficult to work around to get policy change, and then you add a supermajority requirement in one of the two national legislatures? It’s just bananas. There’s no other country on the face of the earth that has a supermajority requirement to make routine legislation.

“Republicans are behaving like a party that believes it will never be held accountable for anything they’re doing, and so far they haven’t been”

Sean Illing

You write, as well, that Democrats should start packing the courts with as many left-leaning judges as possible.

David Faris

The Constitution doesn’t say how many Supreme Court justices we should have, and we have not always had nine. Up until the mid-19th century, it was routine for the number of justices to change based on the whims of Congress, so it’s not unprecedented.

The way I look at it, Democrats have won the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections. I went back and added up all the votes for the US Senate since 1992, and Democrats have won 30 million more votes over that time period. I think the American people have pretty clearly expressed their desire to have Democrats staff the federal judiciary, and yet, due to the Republicans’ procedural tactics, they’ve not been able to do that.

Sean Illing

This is another one of those areas where you think the Democrats really have no choice but to play hardball because Republicans are already doing it and, in any case, are going to continue doing it.

David Faris

The Republicans are already fighting court wars, and they’re winning. Obviously, the Merrick Garland story speaks for itself, but they also held up Obama’s judicial nominees throughout his entire term in office, including hardly allowing him to appoint anyone to the federal courts in his last few years, after they took the Senate.

So yeah, we’ve got to play hardball. And there are other things we could do that might be less inflammatory, like amending the Constitution to eliminate lifetime tenure on the courts.

That might actually lower the temperature around this issue and make the stakes for presidential elections a little less existential.

Sean Illing

I don’t really disagree with your logic, but doesn’t this spiral of norm-violating give you pause? I get that this is a war Republicans are already waging, and it’s near suicidal for Democrats to ignore that. But I wonder what the end game is here.

David Faris

We’re in the midst of a slow-motion unraveling of democracy in this country. If we don’t return the favor with some of this procedural war stuff, the only other option is to continue watching the other side do it. That’s not an acceptable option in my opinion.

I don’t think we can restore order by respecting rules that are not respected by Republicans. I do believe we’ll have to find a way to end this procedural war at some point, but now is not that time. Republicans need to know what it’s like to be on the other end of normative violations. The Republicans are behaving like a party that believes it will never be held accountable for anything they’re doing, and so far they haven’t been.

That has to change before we can fix this mess.

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democratsunited-blog · 6 years

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Will Democrats Fumble the 2018 Midterm Elections?

https://uniteddemocrats.net/?p=4189

Will Democrats Fumble the 2018 Midterm Elections?

Last Thursday, The Atlantic ran a story that was pretty darn embarrassing for the national Democratic leadership – or should have been. Five black women who’d won House primaries around the country told assistant editor Elaine Godfrey the party had completely blown them off: no support, no contact, not even a congratulatory call or email when they won. “I have yet to receive one red cent from the local, the state, or the national party,” said Jeannine Lee Lake, who beat five other Democrats in a House primary in Indiana on May 8th. Lake said she totally understands that the party can’t realistically throw money into every House race, especially in heavily Republican districts like hers. Even so, why the cold shoulder, especially at a time when Democratic officials are constantly yammering about black women being “the backbone” of the party? “It’s the height of hypocrisy,” Lake said. “We bring millions of votes into these campaigns, and we’re gettin’ no love.” At the very least, Lake said, “the optics look bad.”

The next morning, the optics looked worse. On Friday the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to the House, rolled out ten new additions to its “red-to-blue” program, aimed at flipping Republican seats in November. Ten new all-white candidates, that is. The DCCC had already come under fire earlier this year, when its program – which gives selected candidates funding, organizational, and field support that are essential to winning – had anointed a couple dozen contenders early on, with not a single black candidate among them. Now, with 53 candidates included, just three are black. (Check out the roster on the DCCC site.) But if Democrats are embarassed by this shameful lack of representation, you wouldn’t know it: The DCCC could not even wait out out the weekend, while a viral story about its exclusion of black women was making the rounds, before announcing they were getting behind a bunch more white people.

This sort of clumsy tone-deafness has been the defining characteristic of the Democratic Party’s midterm efforts thus far. The Democratic leadership appears determined to alienate, as often and thoroughly as possible, the very people who could lift it to victory in 2018 and beyond: not just black women (who famously put Senator Doug Jones over the top in Alabama last December), but pretty much everybody to the left of Chuck Schumer.

If that sounds hyperbolic, just look at the week the party had before its “red-to-blue” blunder. The previous Friday, June 8th, the DNC’s rules committee had infuriated progressives with a gratuitous slap at Bernie Sanders – a resolution that requires future presidential candidates to swear allegiance to the Democratic Party or be left off primary ballots. In practical terms, this was a nothingburger: Sanders can still run for the party’s nomination in 2020 if he takes the new blood oath. But the relative meaningless of the resolution made it even more mystifying: The only thing it would accomplish – besides giving a shot of schadenfreude to Democratic elites who blame Sanders and the left for the party’s wipeout in 2016 – was a raft of ugly headlines that would inflame the Bernie people (otherwise known as 43 percent of Democratic primary voters in 2016.)

The headlines screamed, of course, of a “Bid to Block Bernie Sanders.” (That was Fox, and Fox was gleeful—as was the conservative TownHall, whose headline exalted, “DNC Just Took Another Swipe At Bernie Sanders and His Supporters.”) The Twitterverse went predictably bonkers at this latest evidence of the party’s hostility to the left – including a well-documented pattern of strong-arming grassroots progressives out of this year’s congressional primaries in favor of well-heeled, center-left whites.

“I scratch my head and ask why they would want to make the party more narrow and more exclusive,” said Mark Longabaugh, a senior Sanders adviser in 2016. Sanders campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, asked, “Do they really want Bernie and his millions outside the party?”

If the Democratic Party has learned anything from 2016, it’s certainly not effective public relations. After passing a resolution that was bound to piss off a large chunk of the party, not to mention progressive-minded independents, the Democrats had no public explanation, much less convincing spin, for what they’d just done. Committee member Maria Cardona, a former Clinton staffer, told Yahoo News: “The entire committee backed this. It was unanimous.” Which, naturally, only made it sound worse to the Bernie crowd – see, the whole party leadership hates us! “It was done,” Cardona went on to non-explain, “to ensure that the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party is actually a Democrat.” (Actually, others admitted off-the-record, the slap at Sanders was designed to assuage the angry Clintonites who still want to punish the progressives for their sins of 2016.)

But wait—the elites weren’t done yet! While half of the party seethed over the Sanders ruling, a longtime DNC member (and Clinton superdelegate) from California named Bob Mulholland cc’d reporters on a memo he’d written to party chair Tom Perez and vice-chair Keith Ellison, claiming that a Sanders supporter who’d been attending DNC meetings since 2016, a West Virginia woman named Selina Vickers, was a Russian agent working to undermine the party from within. What tipped him off? Vickers, who’s been attending DNC meetings (on her own dime) to keep track of party reform efforts, had told Mulholland that she’d voted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein in the 2016 general election. And since Stein attended a 2015 Moscow dinner with Vladimir Putin — well, what more proof do you need? Mulholland had none. But Vickers, as a Stein voter, had to be a Russian plant, even if she did run as a Democrat for state House this spring. (She lost by less than 500 votes – but clearly this was just a ruse for her nefarious foreign operations.) “Someone is picking up her expenses,” Muholland wrote – clear evidence that “the Putin operation is still alive.”

And thus, as The Washington Post‘s David Weigel noted, the Democrats made their way into the headlines again, this time for a “special kind of absurdity.” Vickers told Weigel she’d voted for Stein because her state, West Virginia, was going for Trump overwhelmingly and she wanted to give a vote to keep the progressive Mountain Party, the state’s Green party affiliate, on the ballot in 2018. Instead of a Russian provocateur, Vickers was one of the many progressives across the country who’d been moved to act by the results in 2016 – the kind of Democrat the party should be encouraging and nurturing, rather than, you know, publicly accusing of treason without a shred of proof. “It would be laughable if it weren’t so embarrassing,” said DNC member Michael Kapp. Which is a pretty fair summation of the Democratic Party’s whole mid-term effort thus far. This thing would be downright hilarious if it didn’t matter so goddamn much.

Let’s be clear: There is no shortage of squalling babies on either side of the divide that’s killing the party’s ability to be an effective vehicle for the Resistance. The fightin’ Sandernistas can be every bit as petty and short-sighted as the clingin’ Clintonites. But it’s the latter group that still holds the power in the national party to veto reforms the progressives want, to funnel resources into centrist House campaigns (and away from more progressive candidates), or to slap down Sanders and his supporters for no discernible reason but settling imaginary scores from 2016. All of which they – the self-proclaimed adults of the party, who claim to have a corner on electoral wisdom and strategery that all Democrats should heed – have been doing with reckless abandon practically since the moment Trump was declared the new president.

Democrats have everything going for them in 2018. Here is a party that gets to run against an historically unpopular and palpably dangerous Republican president – Donald F-ing Trump, everybody! – with an equally historic explosion of progressive energy and organizing behind it. At the very least, the Democrats should be able to secure a House majority in November that would give the party a small purchase on power – and a serious way to throw tacks in Trump’s road to tyranny. On an average mid-term year since the Civil War, the party out of power has won 32 new seats—and the Democrats, with every conceivable political wind at their back, need only 24. Still, no matter what new daily atrocities belch up from the White House, the party’s chances grow more remote all the time – since almost every day also seems to bring a fresh new insult to grassroots Democrats and left-leaning independents.

It started with electing Perez, the choice of the Clintonites, as party chair in the wake of 2016. The former labor secretary began with talk of unity, then immediately axed senior party officials who’d backed Sanders in what progressives called a “purge.” Then the DCCC began “shaping” its field of candidates for 2018, following a centrist “Blue Dog” model that Rahm Emanuel, then DNC chair, used to great controversy in 2006—the midterm election that sent a bunch of gun-toting, budget-slashing, Jesus-talking conservative Democrats to Washington. Twelve years later, and a political world removed, the party’s idea of a “winning” candidate would be the same: Someone who’s well-off enough to “self-fund” in the millions, or well-connected enough to raise big money from others, and who’s also willing to follow the Washington consultants’ advice about strategy and “messaging.”

Among other messaging “tips,” the DCCC advised candidates to steer clear of talking about gun control in the wake of the Las Vegas massacre. It’s also tried to banish the term “single payer” from the Democratic vocabulary, despite the fact that most Americans support it – and despite the fact that 78 percent of Democratic voters say they want to hear their party talk about universal healthcare “a lot” in 2018.

The party is sending a clear message, all right: We haven’t changed a bit. “Democrats are well known for their chronic inability to seem like they stand for anything,” wrote Rafi Schwartz at Splinter. “Instead, they come off as wishy-washy centrists who compromise on everything, and get nothing in return. Trying to shut down or rhetorically camouflage all talk of single payer is pretty excellent evidence of that.”

It’s all in the name of winning, of course! The kind of winning the Democrats have been doing, presumably, over the last four election cycles – when the party and its strategic wizards presided over a massive loss of power at local, state, and federal levels. Nevertheless, the strategy used over that catastrophic stretch is by and large the same one the party is following this year by, among other things, meddling in local elections (which the Republican Party, as a matter of policy, does not do). “I hope for a wave” in 2018, Nancy Pelosi told the Austin American-Statesman in February, “but I believe you make your wave.” Which is exactly what the grown-ups in the Democratic leadership were doing, she said, despite all those annoying catcalls and complaints from the left. “This is a cold-blooded, strategic, focused campaign to win the Congress for the American people,” Pelosi said. “We don’t waste time. We don’t waste energy. We don’t waste resources.”

They also don’t win elections – even with a fast-rising demographic advantage and an electorate that leans more and more leftward in its views. The one thing the Democratic leadership has done undoubtedly well in recent years is divide its own members into warring factions. Which is a kind of achievement, when you consider that the Democrats in 2018 are arguably more ideologically unified than ever before. For all the ballyhooed “divisions” between the progressive and centrist wings of the party, they have little to do with where the party actually stands on policy issues. In the ’00s, the Democrats had bitter disagreements over such consequential matters as the Iraq War and abortion rights. The left and center-left still differ on trade policy, and on whether to push for single payer or opt for an Obamacare revamp. But that’s about it, as the New America Foundation recently found in a survey of Democrats: The rest of the disagreements are largely matters of tone and strategy – and long-smoldering factional resentments that party leaders can’t seem to stop fanning.

If only it didn’t matter so much. But in a moment of rising authoritarianism, with democracy itself at stake, the Democrats are the only hope our political system offers for peacefully turning back the Trumpian tide. If the party blows its chance at a House majority, there will be even less of a check on Trump for the last two years of his first term. And so we can only hope against hope – the great “we,” that is, that constitutes 60 percent of anti-Trump Americans – that the favorable political currents this year are too strong for even the Democratic Party to drown itself. At this point, it’s a thin, wistful hope: Please, Democrats, don’t blow this one completely. And it’s all we’ve got.

Read full story here

#Democrats

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newstfionline · 7 years

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With a blockade deadline looming, families in Qatar face a tough choice: Stay or go?

Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times, June 20, 2017

Wafa Yazeedi, a doctor and single mother who runs a hospital in this tiny Persian Gulf nation, has found herself in the middle of a sudden political crisis that has engulfed parts of the Arab world--and threatened to break up her family.

A blockade of Qatar that took full effect this weekend technically requires all three of Yazeedi’s children to leave the country immediately for nearby Bahrain, the country whose citizenship they hold--though Yazeedi has been divorced from her Bahraini husband since 1999, and her children grew up with her in Qatar.

“How will they get an education? And will I be able to visit them?” Yazeedi said between meetings at her office Monday. “My children, they are all at risk now.”

In the wake of the blockade announced by several neighboring Arab countries this month--ostensibly to force Qatar to break its connections with Iran and extremist Muslim organizations--thousands of families with mixed citizenship are having to make similar dire decisions: stay or go?

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have ordered their citizens to return home. Egypt recalled its diplomats. Qatari citizens were blocked from traveling to participating countries, and those already there were directed to return home.

Already, there is widespread alarm over just how devastating the consequences of the political standoff could be in this tight-knit cluster of desert emirates whose connections have always been deep.

More than 13,000 people are affected by the blockade, including at least 6,500 mixed-status families, according to Qatar’s National Human Rights Committee.

A Saudi man said he was unable to claim the body of his father who died in Qatar two days after the blockade began--but that was only one of hundreds of complaints.

“This arbitrary deadline has caused widespread uncertainty and dread among thousands of people who fear they will be separated from their loved ones,” James Lynch, deputy director of Amnesty International’s global issues program, said in a statement Monday.

Crucial family decisions were being made days before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan concludes with the Eid holiday June 25, a time when families traditionally reunite.

Arabs from the blockade countries who stay in Qatar risk losing their passports, citizenship and ability to visit family again. Qataris who stay in the four countries abroad risk losing their freedom if convicted of sympathizing with Qatar, which has now become a crime in those countries.

The four countries implementing the blockade say it is aimed at halting Qatar’s aid and funding for “terrorist” organizations such as the radical Palestinian group Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. The countries severed diplomatic ties, plus land, air and sea connections.

Qatari officials have insisted the country has been working to combat terrorism through its connections and condemned the blockade as a violation of its sovereignty. The ruling emir remains popular, and a black-and-white stencil of his face has become a symbol of resistance pinned to shirt fronts and plastered across SUVs and towers in the capital.

“The humanitarian impact of the blockade is real. Saudi, Emirati, and Bahraini families are being forcibly recalled by their governments today, despite being invited to stay by the Government of Qatar,” government spokesman Sheikh Saif Bin Ahmed Thani said Monday.

“The social fabric of [the region] is being torn apart for political reasons and we will not allow ourselves to be a party to this injustice,” he said.

Qatar has strong military ties to the U.S. Al Udeid Air Base in the capital city of Doha. The base is home to 10,000 U.S. troops. Last week, Naval forces from both countries conducted joint exercises, and the U.S. recently approved a $12-billion sale of fighter jets to Qatar.

Qatar’s foreign minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Thani, is scheduled to travel to Washington next week to try to end the blockade. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has met with Saudi and United Arab Emirates leaders since imposition of the blockade, launched shortly after President Trump traveled to the Saudi capital and made an appeal for a united Arab front against Iran, which is an ally and trade partner of Qatar.

The foreign minister said Trump called Qatar’s emir days after the blockade commenced to invite all parties to the White House.

“The U.S. is helping us in pressuring the parties to solve this,” the foreign minister said. Still, he said, Qatar is not yet ready to talk with the Arab states involved. “They have to lift the blockade to start negotiations.”

Many of Qatar’s 2.6 million residents initially panicked after the blockade was declared, emptying store shelves of Saudi milk and other goods they worried would soon be in short supply. New foodstuffs were flown in to fill the gap from Algeria, Iran, Morocco, Turkey and other allies, but most of those goods went to large markets in the capital.

Smaller stores in low-income areas are beginning to have bare shelves, and migrant workers from Bangladesh, India and Nepal are having to scavenge.

A man who came looking for yogurt at one such market Sunday found the refrigerator case nearly empty, as were the vegetable bins. Manager Ashraf Thazhekizhakkayil Peedikayil said business is down 30 to 40% since the blockade.

At branches of Al Meera market, a national chain selling state-subsidized goods, shelves were well stocked with what signs said were Turkish eggs “flown in by air,” Iranian sweet melons and Algerian potatoes. Managers posted signs identifying local goods that urged, “Let’s support Qatari products.”

Store manager Saad Tamim said he already had been importing some fruits weekly from the U.S. Now he has added a truck for daily shipments, including berries and grapes from California.

Though the store is surviving, Tamim, 35, is suffering. His family lives in the United Arab Emirates. He used to commute to Dubai weekly, but since the blockade he has stayed in Doha. He checks the news daily hoping for an improvement, but doesn’t expect to celebrate Eid with his mother.

“Every day I pray for it to finish,” he said.

One couple from Egypt, residents of Qatar for 11 years, said they lost their tickets to Cairo on Qatar Airways to visit relatives for Eid after the blockade closed airspace.

“People from other countries don’t want to leave. We love it. This is our business, this is our life,” said the man, Abu Mohamed, who was using a nickname because he feared repercussions due to the blockade.

A 23-year-old Qatari medical student who asked to be identified by her first name, Haya, left classes in the United Arab Emirates shortly after the blockade was declared, before taking her final exams and graduating after five years of study.

“My exams started today and I’m still here,” she said this weekend.

Haya said she would not feel safe returning to Abu Dhabi now. “How are you going to assure me I’m going to be fine there?” she said. “My future is pretty much gone.”

A Qatari businessman said he was faced with a requirement to send his wife, who is seven months pregnant, back to her home in Saudi Arabia--leaving their 6-year-old son behind with him.

“The target is the families,” Naif, 38, who declined to give his last name, said of the blockade. He said he ultimately left the decision to stay or leave up to his wife, and she decided to stay, for her job and her family.

Their second son would be born in Qatar.

Even if Arab leaders mend the diplomatic rift, Naif and others said they take the attack on their families personally. Once travel resumes, many said they won’t go back to visiting, shopping or doing business with the blockade countries any time soon.

“What’s broken does not come back like before,” he said. “We don’t trust.”

#Qatar

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enchantedzuyorker · 4 years

Text

Sam Gold - Looking Back On His Life, Tha Hundred Year War and the Gold Family History

2 years later, I had an Anghellic moment, I was now 29 years of age, and I would follow this up with the more aggressive second album, Erisem, which was released 2 months later on May 03, 2005. I wanted to go back to my Midcoastsidaz roots, and it had been 10 years after that shit was released, with a pint of darkness -- and that shit sold like 4,687,500 copies. We wound up releasing The Rogue Demonz Show by Hemdula, Criminal Tendencies by J.J. Moneybagz, The Shit List by Liquid Se7en, World Renowned by Gang Green Crew (their debut), DJ Spill's Destructiv death metal band Triumpf's Livin' Legends, Horrur's album Absolute Largess, Joey J's Rise Up, Chris' Dolmethland, Blak Bloc's Chaos VS Order: 1312, and Zuron City Clique's Zuron City All Stars. However, there was a lot of violence, even within them times -- some niggas within the Illuminati that started a shootout with Big Kapo because he refused to pay they ass. Me, being a real nigga, decided to pull my TEC-9 and fired at them. The Illluminati hit men shot and killed Platinum-selling artists Jabrielle McClain, Remy Byrd, Ori "Orion" Pierre, Da'kuan Muhammad, and Zohn Dorsey, all artists that got killed in the midst of the action. My homegirl Cita was shot and wounded in that crossfire as well -- and it would take a while until we started fully hanging out near the end of the year.

Months after AMPs dissolution, I signed a distribution deal with Tropicala Distribution, another distribution arm of Universal. It was at THAT point where I would later release this third album, 175, on September 3, 2007, which was my darkest album, YET. I let the darkness and destruction consume my ass throughout the entire album, I talked moreso about darkness, death, gore, the occult, went even further on the arson and shit, etc. However, this shit sold 1,000,000,000 copies to date -- it didn't reach Thermilliation numbers, but it was close. THIS album was the one that opened a LOT of doors. And I re-relelased The Sam Gold LP and Erisem on Sick Touch as well. Now you get the full package, and the rest, as they say, is history.

…or was it? It wasn't even close to finished with my journey as a rapper, know what I'm sizzlin'? I started writing new shit, and recording for album #4! The name? Absolute Platinum… and it all started around October 2007, while I was on tour promoting the 175 album… my dwellin' in my darkness came to a head, and as a result it was a lot of fuck you music, it's the year 2009 now -- and I just finished recording it. ABSOLUTE PLATINUM IS ON THE WAY.

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theliberaltony · 5 years

Link

via FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to a weekly collaboration between FiveThirtyEight and ABC News. With 5,000 people seemingly thinking about challenging President Trump in 2020 — Democrats and even some Republicans — we’re keeping tabs on the field as it develops. Each week, we’ll run through what the potential candidates are up to — who’s getting closer to officially jumping in the ring and who’s getting further away.

Sen. Bernie Sanders’s announcement of a presidential run came this week alongside an air of vindication as he described the ways in which the Democratic Party has embraced several of the policies around which he based his 2016 run, including “Medicare for all,” free college tuition and an increase of the highest marginal tax rates to address income inequality.

But while Sanders might consider it a partial success that components of his platform have been embraced by several presidential candidates, it may also make it more difficult for Sanders to differentiate himself this cycle. While there is a clear divide with the Democratic Party’s moderates, a crowded field means that the primary is no longer a binary choice and Sanders may have to more clearly define himself in a political world in which the labels “progressive” and “socialist” are no longer a novelty.

Here’s the weekly candidate roundup:

Feb. 15-21, 2019

Stacey Abrams (D) In a speech to the Democratic National Committee’s Winter Meeting, Abrams joked about her political future, saying that she is “going to run for something” but that it might be president of her homeowners association.

Michael Bennet (D) The Colorado senator traveled to Iowa for a house party in Dubuque and will remain in the Hawkeye State through Saturday for two more house parties, a meeting with the Polk County Democrats and a roundtable with farmers. A press release earlier this week announcing the visit said that the senator is considering “whether to enter the race for president.”

Joe Biden (D) People close to the former vice president told ABC News this week that they believe Biden will enter the 2020 race. Biden avoided specifically commenting on the 2020 election during an event at the University of Pennsylvania on Tuesday but was highly critical of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, describing “hysteria at the Southern border” and arguing that the president’s beliefs were rooted in xenophobia. On Tuesday, Biden will participate in a discussion at the University of Delaware.

Michael Bloomberg (D) On Tuesday, Politico reported that Bloomberg’s advisers were beginning to reach out to the recipients of support from Bloomberg’s philanthropy to gauge their willingness to back a potential presidential run.

Cory Booker (D) In New Hampshire last weekend, the New Jersey senator pushed back against criticisms of his nice-guy approach and described himself as “someone who’s strong, who’s tough, who will fight for a cause and fight for people but also finds common ground.”

On Thursday, Booker announced endorsements from a score of New Jersey politicians, including Gov. Phil Murphy and all 11 Democratic members of the state’s U.S. House delegation. He’ll travel to Nevada on Sunday.

Sherrod Brown (D) In an interview on CNN on Sunday, Brown said the odds of him joining the 2020 field have increased to “51-49.” The Ohio senator told Politico on Wednesday that if he does enter the race, he will decline corporate PAC money, a decision in line with nearly all of the Democratic candidates thus far but a departure from his Senate campaigns.

Julian Castro (D) Castro spoke to WBUR’s “Here and Now” about his support for a Medicare-for-all-style health care plan, describing how Medicare helped his grandmother, who had diabetes. He said the first piece of legislation that his administration would advocate for if he were elected would be “on universal health insurance.”

The former Housing and Urban Development secretary made his first visit to Iowa since announcing his presidential candidacy; his road trip will take him to Des Moines, Exira, Sioux City and Ames.

John Delaney (D) Shortly after Sanders’s entrance into the 2020 race, Delaney issued a statement in which he said voters would have to choose “between socialism and a more just form of capitalism.”

“I don’t believe top-down, government-only approaches are the right answer,” the former Maryland congressman continued. “But I do believe in a clear role for government in creating institutions and policies that ensure equality of opportunity and basic human dignity.”

Delaney elaborated in an interview with CNN, arguing that if Democrats “want to win and we want to beat Trump, we should not put up a candidate who embraces socialism.” He said, “That’s not what the American people want.”

Tulsi Gabbard (D) In a mostly foreign policy-focused interview on “The View”, Gabbard defended her non-interventionist platform, saying that her experience serving in Iraq influenced her belief that “the cost on the people in the countries where we intervene, as well as the trillions of dollars, our taxpayer dollars,” were not worth foreign entanglements.

The Hawaii congresswoman went on to express her support for “Medicare-for-all” and a free college tuition plan, but she balked at endorsing the “Green New Deal,” saying that she felt the legislation was too vague.

Gabbard visited Iowa on Thursday for two events in Iowa City and will remain in the state Friday for a stop in Council Bluffs.

Kirsten Gillibrand (D) Gillibrand found herself in the middle of one of the 2020 cycle’s first viral moments this week when a woman at an Iowa restaurant, where the New York senator was speaking, interrupted her to squeeze past as she sought out ranch dressing.

Video of the “ranch girl” moment topped 1 million views on Twitter. The woman who sought the dressing described herself as “left-leaning” and has embraced her newfound fame. But she said that there was no political reason prompting her encounter with Gillibrand.

Before her stop Monday in Iowa, Gillibrand spent the weekend in New Hampshire and then continued on to Texas on Wednesday and Thursday. In Dallas on Thursday, she referred to her family as one of the reasons she is running, saying that she “will fight for other people’s children and their families and their communities as hard as I would fight for my own.”

Patch in Beverly Hills, California, reported Thursday that Gillibrand is headed to the city next month for two fundraisers, including one that will be co-hosted by Will Ferrell.

Kamala Harris (D) During a visit to New Hampshire, Harris pushed back against the suggestion that she would not focus her attention on the New England state’s first-in-the-nation primary to instead concentrate on South Carolina or her home state of California. She said that she intends to “spend time here” and “shake every hand that I possibly can.”

“I want to talk with you, I want to listen to you, I want to be challenged by you,” she said.

Harris’s campaign declined to comment on a critical statement made by her father to Jamaica Global Online referencing the senator’s past comments about marijuana and her Jamaican heritage. Donald Harris labeled the linking of the drug to her ancestry a “travesty,” adding that their deceased relatives “must be turning in their graves” over being connected to a “fraudulent stereotype” “in the pursuit of identity politics.”

The California senator stops in Iowa for six different events this weekend and then travels to Nevada.

Amy Klobuchar (D) During a CNN town hall, the Minnesota senator staked out her position in the middle of the political spectrum, refusing to endorse some of the progressive proposals that her presidential rivals have made tentpoles of their campaigns (such as “Medicare for all” and the “Green New Deal”).

Asked whether she supports free college tuition, Klobuchar said: “If I was a magic genie and could give that to everyone and we could afford it, I would.”

“I’ve got to tell the truth,” she said. “We have this mounting debt that the Trump administration keeps getting worse and worse. I also don’t want to leave that on the shoulders of all these kids, so we’ve got to do a balance.”

Of the Green New Deal, she said that “big ideas” were “important” but predicted that compromises would have to be made to advance the legislation.

Klobuchar stopped in Iowa Thursday to headline the Ankeny area Democrats’ winter banquet.

Terry McAuliffe (D) The former Virginia governor said he is “close to making a decision” about a presidential run during an interview on CBS’s”Face the Nation,” explaining that he has “made hundreds and hundreds of calls across the country” and “talked to potential staff.”

After saying that he was not waiting on Biden’s decision, McAuliffe described his desire for a “progressive governor who was very jobs-oriented, very successful in economic development” in the race. “They’re not mutually exclusive,” he said.

Beto O’Rourke (D) As he accepted an “El Pasoan of the Year” award from a local newspaper Tuesday, O’Rourke said that he is still “trying to figure out how I can best serve this country” and “where I can do the greatest good for the United States of America.”

Although the former Texas congressman described a desire to reach a decision on his future by the end of February, he gave himself leeway to continue his deliberations about a potential White House run or challenge to Republican Sen. John Cornyn.

Responding to a question from a reporter, O’Rourke did not rule out serving as the eventual Democratic presidential nominee’s running mate. “I’m going to consider every way to serve this country,” O’Rourke responded in Spanish. “And, yes, that will include anything.”

Tim Ryan (D) During a trip to New Hampshire, the Ohio congressman warned his fellow Democrats of appearing “hostile to business” as they campaigned for president. “We’ve got to come together. And that includes being engaged with the business community,” said Ryan, who also said he is “getting close” to a decision about a campaign of his own. “You can be hostile to greed, you can be hostile to income inequality, you can be for raising raises … but you can’t be hostile to businesses because 98 percent of businesses are small-business people.”

Bernie Sanders (D) Sanders launched his presidential campaign Tuesday with an online video and interviews with Vermont Public Radio and CBS News. In the CBS interview, the Vermont senator predicted victory on the back of a “grassroots movement” that will be “unprecedented in modern American history.” He took aim at Trump in an email to supporters, writing that “we are living in a pivotal and dangerous moment in American history.”

“We are running against a president who is a pathological liar, a fraud, a racist, a sexist, a xenophobe and someone who is undermining American democracy as he leads us in an authoritarian direction,” Sanders said.

In a tweet, Trump wished Sanders well, while also referring to him as “Crazy Bernie.”

On Monday, Sanders is scheduled to participate in a CNN town hall.

Howard Schultz (I) As he continues to consider an independent campaign for president, Schultz posted an open letter to Medium titled “Our Path.”

“Thousands of Americans have reached out — people who want common-sense solutions to the problems we face, people who are frustrated with our broken two-party system, people who want to hear the truth from their leaders, and people among the exhausted majority of Americans who want genuine leadership and cooperation in Washington,” Schultz wrote, while acknowledging the backlash that he’s received from Democrats who are fearful that he could play spoiler in the 2020 race.

Schultz’s book tour continued this week with an event in Los Angeles moderated by Maria Shriver. He will stop in Cleveland next Wednesday.

Eric Swalwell (D) During a trip to Iowa last weekend, Swalwell said that he would make a presidential decision “fairly soon” and noted that he has staff in the state and was establishing a team in South Carolina.

Elizabeth Warren (D) The Massachusetts senator announced a plan Tuesday to make child care and early childhood education from birth through school age more affordable, with prices capped at 7 percent of a family’s income. “Today, more than half of all Americans live in child care ‘deserts’ — communities without an adequate number of licensed child care options,” Warren wrote in a Medium post outlining her plan. “We shouldn’t be denying our kids the kind of care and early learning they need to fulfill their potential.”

This weekend, Warren once again visits New Hampshire, where she will headline the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s 60th McIntyre-Shaheen 100 Club Dinner and attend a house party, an organizing event and a meet-and-greet in Laconia, Plymouth and Nashua, her campaign announced.

Bill Weld (R) Last week, Weld announced the formation of a presidential exploratory committee, becoming the first notable Republican to take public steps toward a primary challenge of Trump.

“I think our country is in grave peril, and I can no longer sit silently on the sidelines,” Weld said at a New Hampshire Institute of Politics “politics and eggs” breakfast where he outlined a decidedly moderate platform, just over two years after he ran as the Libertarian Party’s vice presidential candidate. “To compound matters, our president is simply too unstable to carry out the duties of the highest executive office — which include the specific duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed — in a competent and professional matter,” he said.

In an interview on “This Week” Sunday, the former Massachusetts governor explained that his potential bid was not simply about weakening the president ahead of the general election but was intended to avoid “six more years of the antics frankly, for want of a better word, that we’ve seen the last two years.”

#IFTTT #FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Adam Kelsey

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

Link

In September 2016, an anonymous conservative writer published an essay called “The Flight 93 Election.”

The title was a reference to the one hijacked flight on 9/11 that didn’t reach its destination because passengers overwhelmed the hijackers and brought the plane down.

Faris writes Democrats have to recognize this reality and act accordingly. I reached out to him to find out what, exactly, he has in mind.

A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

Sean Illing

Your book feels like the left-wing equivalent of the “Flight 93” essay — an urgent Democratic call to arms. Is that how you see it?

David Faris

Am I in “charge the cockpit or die” mode? I don’t know, but I do think our predicament justifies some serious procedural hardball from the Democrats.

Sean Illing

You say all these are nonstarters — why?

David Faris

“We’re in the midst of a slow-motion unraveling of democracy in this country”

Sean Illing

David Faris

Right. People just don’t seem to make the connection between policies and the party in power.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do things for people, but we’ve got to be serious about how elections are won. And they’re not being won on the basis of policy proposals or policy wins.

Sean Illing

In the book, you say that Democrats are engaged in “policy fights” and Republicans are waging a “procedural war.” What does that mean?

David Faris

Sean Illing

What the Republicans did to Merrick Garland was one of the most egregious examples I’ve ever seen.

David Faris

The result is that the structural environment is biased against Democrats and the Republicans have engineered it that way.

Sean Illing

Let’s dive into some of your proposed solutions. For starters, you think Democrats should break California up into seven states. Why?

David Faris

Sean Illing

It’s extremely unlikely that this will ever happen, but tell me how it would play out if it did.

David Faris

Technically, from a constitutional standpoint, all it would require is an act of the California state legislature, signed by the governor of California, and then accepted by Congress.

And if Californians managed to pull it off, we’d likely have another 12 Democratic senators in Washington, or at least more than we have now. More Electoral College votes too.

Sean Illing

Tell me about some other “dirty” tactics you recommend in the book.

David Faris

I think they should grant statehood to DC and Puerto Rico. Both states have held referenda that endorsed statehood. We have millions of Americans right now who have no representation in Congress.

Sean Illing

You also think the Democrats should kill the filibuster, right?

David Faris

“Republicans are behaving like a party that believes it will never be held accountable for anything they’re doing, and so far they haven’t been”

Sean Illing

You write, as well, that Democrats should start packing the courts with as many left-leaning judges as possible.

David Faris

Sean Illing

This is another one of those areas where you think the Democrats really have no choice but to play hardball because Republicans are already doing it and, in any case, are going to continue doing it.

David Faris

So yeah, we’ve got to play hardball. And there are other things we could do that might be less inflammatory, like amending the Constitution to eliminate lifetime tenure on the courts.

That might actually lower the temperature around this issue and make the stakes for presidential elections a little less existential.

Sean Illing

David Faris

That has to change before we can fix this mess.

Original Source -> Why this political scientist thinks the Democrats have to fight dirty

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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