Re: The Post You Reblogged About Bush. I'm 21 And Tbh Feel Like I Can Only Vote For Bernie, Can You Explain

Trump is going to get re-elected.

Get comfortable saying it. Get comfortable hearing it and thinking it. Because if we don’t collectively get our fucking shit together, it’s gonna happen.

It’s gonna happen because his supporters still love him. It’s gonna happen because even people who don’t love him are thinking to themselves, “well this hasn’t been so bad, the economy is good, we didn’t actually go to war, that’s way better than taking a chance on some newfangled progressive.”

Nevermind the fact that the stock market takes a plunge almost every time Trump does something crazy and the economy is doing well due to Obama-era policies.

It’s gonna happen because I’m already seeing “I wanna take my toys and go home” rhetoric among Democrats who don’t want to vote for anyone who isn’t their fave.

I’m exasperated and tired and stressed and I should not have read the comments on a WaPo article, I know, I get it, but people — kids at the border. The Supreme Court. The stacking of the lower courts. The complete inaction on climate change. The uninformed “stick first, think later” approach to foreign policy. Even if you’re privileged or ignorant enough to sit there and think that none of this has touched your life, that doesn’t mean it won’t. Reading some of the things people are saying about the state of politics in the US has me feeling like I’ve taken crazy pills over here.

Do I have a favorite in the primary? Sure. Does it matter if she doesn’t win the nomination? No. I’ll go to the fucking bat for Joe Biden if I have to because people’s lives are more important than my ego or my principles. I don’t know how else to put that.

Other people’s lives are more important than your ego or your principles. That’s it. That’s the whole fucking thing and I don’t understand how no one has learned their goddamn lesson about this.

Having read Dracula all the way through now, every adaptation of the story that puts Mina and Dracula together and frames them as being in love makes me physically ill.

Dracula didn’t love Mina. He assaulted and violated her after doing the same thing to her best friend. She was an object to be coveted and nothing more. How anyone can read that and see a love story baffles and infuriates me.

Jonathan and Mina loved each other. They were willing to condemn themselves to hell just so that the other wouldn’t be alone there. Both of their characters get gutted in so many adaptions to make way for sexy vampire shit, it’s infuriating. Making Mina be in love with her assaulter is fucking rage-inducing.

Gimme an adaptation where Mina loathes this pestilential demon with every fiber of her being. Where she’s just as driven to stamp out this stain upon the world as her husband is. He murdered her friend. He violated her body and soul. He mentally tortured and traumatized her husband. Gimme a Mina with all the fury of Hell behind her.

here’s a story about changelings

reposted from my old blog, which got deleted:   Mary was a beautiful baby, sweet and affectionate, but by the time she’s three she’s turned difficult and strange, with fey moods and a stubborn mouth that screams and bites but never says mama. But her mother’s well-used to hard work with little thanks, and when the village gossips wag their tongues she just shrugs, and pulls her difficult child away from their precious, perfect blossoms, before the bites draw blood. Mary’s mother doesn’t drown her in a bucket of saltwater, and she doesn’t take up the silver knife the wife of the village priest leaves out for her one Sunday brunch. She gives her daughter yarn, instead, and instead of a rowan stake through her inhuman heart she gives her a child’s first loom, oak and ash. She lets her vicious, uncooperative fairy daughter entertain herself with games of her own devising, in as much peace and comfort as either of them can manage. Mary grows up strangely, as a strange child would, learning everything in all the wrong order, and biting a great deal more than she should. But she also learns to weave, and takes to it with a grand passion. Soon enough she knows more than her mother–which isn’t all that much–and is striking out into unknown territory, turning out odd new knots and weaves, patterns as complex as spiderwebs and spellrings. “Aren’t you clever,” her mother says, of her work, and leaves her to her wool and flax and whatnot. Mary’s not biting anymore, and she smiles more than she frowns, and that’s about as much, her mother figures, as anyone should hope for from their child. Mary still cries sometimes, when the other girls reject her for her strange graces, her odd slow way of talking, her restless reaching fluttering hands that have learned to spin but never to settle. The other girls call her freak, witchblood, hobgoblin. “I don’t remember girls being quite so stupid when I was that age,” her mother says, brushing Mary’s hair smooth and steady like they’ve both learned to enjoy, smooth as a skein of silk. “Time was, you knew not to insult anyone you might need to flatter later. ‘Specially when you don’t know if they’re going to grow wings or horns or whatnot. Serve ‘em all right if you ever figure out curses.” “I want to go back,” Mary says. “I want to go home, to where I came from, where there’s people like me. If I’m a fairy’s child I should be in fairyland, and no one would call me a freak.” “Aye, well, I’d miss you though,” her mother says. “And I expect there’s stupid folk everywhere, even in fairyland. Cruel folk, too. You just have to make the best of things where you are, being my child instead.” Mary learns to read well enough, in between the weaving, especially when her mother tracks down the traveling booktraders and comes home with slim, precious manuals on dyes and stains and mordants, on pigments and patterns, diagrams too arcane for her own eyes but which make her daughter’s eyes shine. “We need an herb garden,” her daughter says, hands busy, flipping from page to page, pulling on her hair, twisting in her skirt, itching for a project. “Yarrow, and madder, and woad and weld…” “Well, start digging,” her mother says. “Won’t do you a harm to get out of the house now’n then.” Mary doesn’t like dirt but she’s learned determination well enough from her mother. She digs and digs, and plants what she’s given, and the first year doesn’t turn out so well but the second’s better, and by the third a cauldron’s always simmering something over the fire, and Mary’s taking in orders from girls five years older or more, turning out vivid bolts and spools and skeins of red and gold and blue, restless fingers dancing like they’ve summoned down the rainbow. Her mother figures she probably has. “Just as well you never got the hang of curses,” she says, admiring her bright new skirts. “I like this sort of trick a lot better.” Mary smiles, rocking back and forth on her heels, fingers already fluttering to find the next project. She finally grows up tall and fair, if a bit stooped and squinty, and time and age seem to calm her unhappy mouth about as well as it does for human children. Word gets around she never lies or breaks a bargain, and if the first seems odd for a fairy’s child then the second one seems fit enough. The undyed stacks of taken orders grow taller, the dyed lots of filled orders grow brighter, the loom in the corner for Mary’s own creations grows stranger and more complex. Mary’s hands callus just like her mother’s, become as strong and tough and smooth as the oak and ash of her needles and frames, though they never fall still. “Do you ever wonder what your real daughter would be like?” the priest’s wife asks, once. Mary’s mother snorts. “She wouldn’t be worth a damn at weaving,” she says. “Lord knows I never was. No, I’ll keep what I’ve been given and thank the givers kindly. It was a fair enough trade for me. Good day, ma’am.” Mary brings her mother sweet chamomile tea, that night, and a warm shawl in all the colors of a garden, and a hairbrush. In the morning, the priest’s son comes round, with payment for his mother’s pretty new dress and a shy smile just for Mary. He thinks her hair is nice, and her hands are even nicer, vibrant in their strength and skill and endless motion.   They all live happily ever after. * Here’s another story: Gregor grew fast, even for a boy, grew tall and big and healthy and began shoving his older siblings around early. He was blunt and strange and flew into rages over odd things, over the taste of his porridge or the scratch of his shirt, over the sound of rain hammering on the roof, over being touched when he didn’t expect it and sometimes even when he did. He never wore shoes if he could help it and he could tell you the number of nails in the floorboards without looking, and his favorite thing was to sit in the pantry and run his hands through the bags of dry barley and corn and oat. Considering as how he had fists like a young ox by the time he was five, his family left him to it. “He’s a changeling,” his father said to his wife, expecting an argument, but men are often the last to know anything about their children, and his wife only shrugged and nodded, like the matter was already settled, and that was that. They didn’t bind Gregor in iron and leave him in the woods for his own kind to take back. They didn’t dig him a grave and load him into it early. They worked out what made Gregor angry, in much the same way they figured out the personal constellations of emotion for each of their other sons, and when spring came, Gregor’s father taught him about sprouts, and when autumn came, Gregor’s father taught him about sheaves. Meanwhile his mother didn’t mind his quiet company around the house, the way he always knew where she’d left the kettle, or the mending, because she was forgetful and he never missed a detail. “Pity you’re not a girl, you’d never drop a stitch of knitting,” she tells Gregor, in the winter, watching him shell peas. His brothers wrestle and yell before the hearth fire, but her fairy child just works quietly, turning peas by their threes and fours into the bowl. “You know exactly how many you’ve got there, don’t you?” she says. “Six hundred and thirteen,” he says, in his quiet, precise way. His mother says “Very good,” and never says Pity you’re not human. He smiles just like one, if not for quite the same reasons. The next autumn he’s seven, a lucky number that pleases him immensely, and his father takes him along to the mill with the grain. “What you got there?” The miller asks them. “Sixty measures of Prince barley, thirty two measures of Hare’s Ear corn, and eighteen of Abernathy Blue Slate oats,” Gregor says. “Total weight is three hundred fifty pounds, or near enough. Our horse is named Madam. The wagon doesn’t have a name. I’m Gregor.” “My son,” his father says. “The changeling one.” “Bit sharper’n your others, ain’t he?” the miller says, and his father laughs. Gregor feels proud and excited and shy, and it dries up all his words, sticks them in his throat. The mill is overwhelming, but the miller is kind, and tells him the name of each and every part when he points at it, and the names of all the grain in all the bags waiting for him to get to them. “Didn’t know the fair folk were much for machinery,” the miller says. Gregor shrugs. “I like seeds,” he says, each word shelled out with careful concentration. “And names. And numbers.” “Aye, well. Suppose that’d do it. Want t’help me load up the grist?” They leave the grain with the miller, who tells Gregor’s father to bring him back ‘round when he comes to pick up the cornflour and cracked barley and rolled oats. Gregor falls asleep in the nameless wagon on the way back, and when he wakes up he goes right back to the pantry, where the rest of the seeds are left, and he runs his hands through the shifting, soothing textures and thinks about turning wheels, about windspeed and counterweights. When he’s twelve–another lucky number–he goes to live in the mill with the miller, and he never leaves, and he lives happily ever after. * Here’s another: James is a small boy who likes animals much more than people, which doesn’t bother his parents overmuch, as someone needs to watch the sheep and make the sheepdogs mind. James learns the whistles and calls along with the lambs and puppies, and by the time he’s six he’s out all day, tending to the flock. His dad gives him a knife and his mom gives him a knapsack, and the sheepdogs give him doggy kisses and the sheep don’t give him too much trouble, considering. “It’s not right for a boy to have so few complaints,” his mother says, once, when he’s about eight. “Probably ain’t right for his parents to have so few complaints about their boy, neither,” his dad says. That’s about the end of it. James’ parents aren’t very talkative, either. They live the routines of a farm, up at dawn and down by dusk, clucking softly to the chickens and calling harshly to the goats, and James grows up slow but happy. When James is eleven, he’s sent to school, because he’s going to be a man and a man should know his numbers. He gets in fights for the first time in his life, unused to peers with two legs and loud mouths and quick fists. He doesn’t like the feel of slate and chalk against his fingers, or the harsh bite of a wooden bench against his legs. He doesn’t like the rules: rules for math, rules for meals, rules for sitting down and speaking when you’re spoken to and wearing shoes all day and sitting under a low ceiling in a crowded room with no sheep or sheepdogs. Not even a puppy. But his teacher is a good woman, patient and experienced, and James isn’t the first miserable, rocking, kicking, crying lost lamb ever handed into her care. She herds the other boys away from him, when she can, and lets him sit in the corner by the door, and have a soft rag to hold his slate and chalk with, so they don’t gnaw so dryly at his fingers. James learns his numbers well enough, eventually, but he also learns with the abruptness of any lamb taking their first few steps–tottering straight into a gallop–to read. Familiar with the sort of things a strange boy needs to know, his teacher gives him myths and legends and fairytales, and steps back. James reads about Arthur and Morgana, about Hercules and Odysseus, about djinni and banshee and brownies and bargains and quests and how sometimes, something that looks human is left to try and stumble along in the humans’ world, step by uncertain step, as best they can. James never comes to enjoy writing. He learns to talk, instead, full tilt, a leaping joyous gambol, and after a time no one wants to hit him anymore. The other boys sit next to him, instead, with their mouths closed, and their hands quiet on their knees.   “Let’s hear from James,” the men at the alehouse say, years later, when he’s become a man who still spends more time with sheep than anyone else, but who always comes back into town with something grand waiting for his friends on his tongue. “What’ve you got for us tonight, eh?” James finishes his pint, and stands up, and says, “Here’s a story about changelings.”

I think you’re probably right that of Harris as the nominee it might be difficult to hold more Senate seats, but I also don’t think she is likely to be the nominee in 2024 unless Biden dies between now and then. The old guy has wanted this his entire life and I don’t think he’s giving it up for anything other than his death.

Dysentery Florida guy is probably a better candidate to run against Biden (because of the age thing)  I’m not actually too sure how he’d hold up against Harris, although my instinctive reactions is that he get the benefit of the sexism assumption.

Do you think it’s better if the Democrats don’t manage to scrape together a ultrafine minority and instead let the Republicans hold the house without trying to break off any of the Republicans into switching sides?

How bad 2024 Senate is probably comes down to Georgia, and whether the Dems have some wiggle room to let their most vulnerable incumbents take some unpopular votes.

And of course Joe Mansion probably use this as an excuse to vote against all of Joe’s agenda and then somehow managed to get re-elected in a R +40 state because he sold his soul to Satan.

Looking ahead to 2024 (never too early, haha), do you think Dems controlling the Senate and having a 50-50ish House could actually hurt them? My fear is that Dems will pretty much have to own whatever happens over the next two years, whereas if the GOP had won both chambers, Dems in 2024 could have more easily campaigned against them.

Also, to the extent that the midterm fallout hurts Trump and boosts DeSantis, I worry that Dems will be facing a decent GOP nominee in 2024 who they're going to underestimate. Anyway, sorry to rain on what was a shockingly good week for us!

ladyofpembroke asked: I know this might be too soon, but for the senate elections in 2024, where do you think dems should focus their attention on flipping a seat considering they have very competitive elections for incumbents in WV and MT? All republicans incumbents seem to be in extremely republican states. to me, the mostly likely would be trying to unseat Hawley in MO but that’s still a long shot. What’s your take?

I agree with you both in that the 2024 Senate map is a bloodbath for Democrats since we hold Ohio/Montana/West Virginia Senate seats, which are likely to flip red since people don't ticket split anymore. So, I agree with @ladyofpembroke the DSCC should focus on protecting Brown/Tester/Manchin as well as Baldwin/Casey/Stabenow/Sinema in Wisconsin/Pennsylvania/Michigan/Arizona as well since especially is Harris is the nominee, there's no guarantee she wins those states either although I think Biden wins the latter 4 and carries those Dem Senators over as well.

But here's the key thing: voters don't really know the difference between a 219 Republican House majority and a 290 seat Republican House majority, they just know Rs hold the House, so when Republicans overreach and repeatedly say and do insane shit, voters will punish them. Also, if Democrats hold a trifecta, they'll be held accountable for things that aren't even their fault like government gridlock due to the filibuster but if Rs hold the House, Dems can just blame them for the gridlock.

And, I'll worry about DeSantis once he's polling above Trump in primary polls when weighted by education lol.

Just finished listening to Guards! Guards! again and the scene with the Watch asking for compensation really hit me this time around. Vetinari does his big speech about the absolute evil and darkness in humanity and then Fred Colon and Nobby Nobbs, who we know are not heroes, are not particularly nice people, are not, in short, “good” and they ask for barely any money and a new kettle and a dartboard and they worry that they’re asking for too much.

And Vimes just laughs and laughs at all the upper crust diplomats and Vetinari who can’t understand it. Can’t understand ten dollars a month raise. Can’t understand a kettle. Can’t understand a dart board.

I forgot how much I loved these books.

I feel like 99% of the “don’t vote for Biden because he’s a horrible person” (followed by a list) posts are not actually meant to promote Bernie Sanders. They are meant to keep you from voting in this year’s election, so Trump has a better chance at winning again.

The Russians have made it clear that their online campaigns this time around support Bernie Sanders - not because they want him to win, but because they want his supporters to feel as if it would be morally wrong to participate in the election, in case Bernie is not chosen as the Democratic candidate. They also know that the Bernie supporters are vulnerable to this kind of emotional manipulation.

Joe Biden may have many flaws - I’d prefer Bernie myself - but if it comes down to a Biden candidacy, please make sure to give him your vote. No ideology is important enough to risk another four years of Trump. And none of the flaws Biden doubtlessly has comes anywhere close to the ticking time bomb that Trump is in the White House.

Please consider this, especially if you’re privileged enough to make your choice with purely ideological considerations in mind.

from Jubilate Agno

BY CHRISTOPHER SMART

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.

For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.

For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.

For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.

For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.

For he rolls upon prank to work it in.

For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.

For this he performs in ten degrees.

For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.

For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.

For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.

For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.

For fifthly he washes himself.

For sixthly he rolls upon wash.

For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.

For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.

For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.

For tenthly he goes in quest of food.

For having consider’d God and himself he will consider his neighbour.

For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.

For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.

For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.

For when his day’s work is done his business more properly begins.

For he keeps the Lord’s watch in the night against the adversary.

For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.

For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.

For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.

For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.

For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.

For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.

For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he’s a good Cat.

For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.

For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.

For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.

For every family had one cat at least in the bag.

For the English Cats are the best in Europe.

For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.

For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.

For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.

For he is tenacious of his point.

For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.

For he knows that God is his Saviour.

For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.

For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.

For he is of the Lord’s poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually—Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.

For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.

For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.

For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.

For he is docile and can learn certain things.

For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.

For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.

For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.

For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.

For he can jump from an eminence into his master’s bosom.

For he can catch the cork and toss it again.

For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.

For the former is afraid of detection.

For the latter refuses the charge.

For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.

For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.

For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.

For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.

For his ears are so acute that they sting again.

For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.

For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.

For I perceived God’s light about him both wax and fire.

For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.

For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.

For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.

For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.

For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.

For he can swim for life.

For he can creep.

this whole situation is very funny

credit to @cryptvokeeper for the idea!

This is the Baby Money Yoda, reblog in the next 60 seconds of seeing this to receive a blessing from our green bean prince.

Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.