Containing the Catastrophe

lenyberry:

house-of-crows:

sashayed:

rebakitt3n:

ruinsplume:

greywash:

melmey-fanfics:

robertreich:

Anyone still unsure of how (or even whether) they’ll vote in the midterms should consider this: All three branches of government are now under the control of one party, and that party is under the control of Donald J. Trump.  

With the addition of Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court is as firmly Republican as are the House and Senate.

Kavanaugh was revealed as a fierce partisan – not only as a legal advisor who helped Kenneth Starr prosecute Bill Clinton and almost certainly guided George W. Bush’s use of torture, but also a nominee who believed “leftists” and Clinton sympathizers were out to get him.

He joins four other Republican-appointed jurists, equally partisan. Thomas, Alito, and Roberts have never wavered from Republican orthodoxy. Neil Gorsuch, although without much track record on the Supreme Court to date, was a predictable conservative Republican vote on the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit – which is why the Heritage Foundation pushed for him and Trump appointed him.  

Even under normal circumstances, when all three branches are under the control of the same party we get a lopsided government that doesn’t respond to the values of a large portion of the electorate.

But these are not normal circumstances. Donald Trump is President.

Need I remind you? Trump is a demagogue who doesn’t give a fig for democracy – who continuously and viciously attacks the free press, Democrats, immigrants, Muslims, black athletes exercising First Amendment rights, women claiming sexual harassment, anyone who criticizes or counters him; who treats the executive branch, including the Justice Department, like his own fiefdom, and brazenly profits off his office; who tells lies like other people breathe; and who might well have conspired with Vladimir Putin to swing the election his way.

Trump doesn’t even pretend to be the president of all the people. As he repeatedly makes clear in rallies and tweets, he is president of his “base.”

And his demagoguery is by now unconstrained in the White House. Having fired the few “adults” in his Cabinet, Trump is now on the loose (but for a few advisors who reportedly are trying to protect the nation from him).

All this would be bad enough even if the two other branches of government behaved as the framers of the Constitution expected, as checks and balances on a president. But they refuse to play this role when it comes to Trump.

House and Senate Republicans have morphed into Trump acolytes and toadies – intimidated, spineless, opportunistic. The few who have dared call him on his outrages aren’t running for reelection.

Some have distanced themselves from a few of his most incendiary tweets or racist rantings, but most are obedient lapdogs on everything else, including Trump’s reluctance to protect the integrity of our election system, his moves to prevent an investigation into Russian meddling, his trade wars, his attacks on NATO and the leaders of other democracies, his swooning over dictators, his cruelty toward asylum-seekers, and, in the Senate, his Supreme Court nominees.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has emerged as Trump’s most shameless lackey who puts party above nation and Trump above party. The House leadership is no better. House intelligence chair Devin Nunes is Trump’s chief flunky and apologist, but there are many others. 

Now that Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court, you can forget about the Court constraining Trump, either.

Kavanaugh’s views of presidential power and executive privilege are so expansive he’d likely allow Trump to fire Mueller, shield himself from criminal prosecution, and even pardon himself. Kavanaugh’s Republican brethren on the Court would probably go along.  

So how are the constitutional imperative of checks and balances to be salvaged, especially when they’re so urgently needed?  

The only remedy is for voters to flip the House or Senate, or ideally both, on November 6th.

The likelihood of this happening is higher now with Kavanaugh on the Court and Trump so manifestly unchecked. Unless, that is, voters have become so demoralized and disillusioned they just give up.

If cynicism wins the day, Trump and those who would delight in the demise of American democracy (including, not incidentally, Putin) will get everything they want. They will have broken America.

For the sake of the values we hold dear – and of the institutions of our democracy that our forbearers relied on and our descendants will need – this cannot be allowed.

It is now time to place a firm check on this most unbalanced of presidents, and vote accordingly.

This is so important. I am not American but as somebody who has studied politics and as a German growing up with the history of my country let me tell you – never take democracy for granted, you gave to fight for it. Democracies don’t always die with a big bang bloody revolution, more often they are slowly sabotaged by people in power and they die if the majority stays silent. Vote. Demonstrate. 

This means you vote the Democratic party ticket, for the record. The time to shift the party to the left is during the primaries. Right now? You vote the goddamned ticket. Even if that means voting for Manchin, or some equally despicable Democrat.

Because let’s be very, very clear about this: if Manchin isn’t re-elected, it’ll be Patrick Morrisey in that seat: a Republican, who will vote the Republican party line on basically every fucking issue (because Republicans tend to have better party discipline than Democrats, at least at the Federal level), and a Republican who helps keep committee control in the hands of the Republicans and procedural control in the hands of the Republicans, instead of a Democrat who helps shift both those things into the hands of a group of people who actually want to block Trump’s agenda. By all means, vote Manchin out—but we cannot afford for you to do it right now. Do it in the primaries in 2024. Right now? You show up to vote, and you vote the goddamned ticket.

Here is a good breakdown on how Democratic voters failing to show up for Democratic candidates in the 2014 midterms is probably directly responsible for what’s happening right now. 2014!! You think 2024 seems like it’s a long time off, and you just can’t possibly wait that long to voice your personal opinion about how insufficiently pure your local Democrat is? Fuck you. We’re going to spend the next 30 years living with a rapist on the Supreme Court because people like you couldn’t suck it up and vote like fucking grown-ups who understand how things like “math” and “their government” work four years ago.

Yes, political parties suck. Yes, they force you, frequently, to gather with people who don’t believe 100% the same things as you. Suck it the fuck up. Sometimes compromise is necessary in adult life! That’s just how it works! This isn’t about one Democrat. It’s not about your Democrat at all. It’s about blocking the Republicans. And the only way to do that effectively at this point in time is to vote the Democratic ticket. Top. To. Bottom.

Reblogging for the @greywash comment especially. Vote like a grownup.

Thank you for saying this! Yes, it has to be democrats! Third party cannot win this one guys!

Dump Republicans is step 1.

VOTE LIKE A GROWNUP SORRY

not sure if I agree with everything here, but yeah… a third party CANNOT WIN THIS PARTICULAR RACE. 

Vote for the people who will turn the ship back in the right direction, even if it means we have to buckle down and deal with some shit later on. This is NOT an election for idealists. 

Seriously, when you’re in a sinking boat, maybe you really WANT someone who’s gonna actually plug the leak and make the ship shipshape again, but if your only options are the guy who wants to start bailing out the water or the guy who wants to throw all the buckets overboard and claims that losing the extra weight will keep you afloat… pick the guy who wants to try using the buckets to dump the water back OUT. 

“It feels kinda wrong to vote for the guy who’s going to bail out the water while simultaneously trampling the fuck out of certain members of the crew-”

obviously… but at least he’s bailing out the water and making other people get in on it too. instead of throwing the lifeboats overboard and all the buckets with it, yeah. 

the-real-seebs:

quietnighty:

anarfea:

People keep asking “How can anyone have a problem with AO3 doing fundraising!”

And I’m just like…. Have people not noticed all the virulent anti-AO3 hate on tumblr propagated by the anti shipping community? Antis have a problem with AO3 raising money because they hate the fact that AO3 won’t allow them to censor content they don’t like and doesn’t tolerate bullying. That’s who is putting out these posts like, “how can this nasty site raise so much money?” Read between the lines.

And for all the people who are just like, “If they don’t want AO3 to to raise money why don’t they just not donate?”

Because antis are incapable of saying “this isn’t for me so I won’t support it but I don’t care if other people support it. They have to actively discourage other people from supporting the thing. At the same time, they also won’t stop using AO3 because 1) they’re a bunch of fucking hypocrites who want readership and that’s where the readers are and 2) they’re too lazy to put together their own archive using AO3′s open source code because that would require doing coding and buying servers and doing all the moderating they want, which is hard, and they just want to engage in empty virtue signalling, which is easy

Anyway, my point is, people need to be aware that these people are out there and they hate AO3 and they want it to go away even though they’re actively using the platform. They’ve even said they want AO3 to fail so something “better” (re, something they control) can take its place. Some of them are blatant about it, calling AO3 a cesspit of pedophilia, and some of them are subtle about it, saying more innocuous things like ‘Does AO3 really need 130K a year?” “Shouldn’t you give your money to individual needy people doing gofundmes for stuff that’s more more important?”

But all of these people have the same end goal, which is the destruction of the archive, and the way they’re going about it right now is to try to discourage people from donating.

So instead of asking, “Why do people object to AO3 raising money?” start telling people “Hey there are people out there who hate AO3 and want to destroy it and we have to protect the archive from them.” And donate, if you can, and signal boost, if you can’t.

 HERE THAT CHA-CHING SOUND THAT’S MORE OF MY MONEY GOING INTO THE MONSTROUS COFFERS OF THE OTW EVERYTIME ONE OF YOU IGNORANT SHITS SENDS AO3 NEGATIVITY ACROSS MY DASH

Exactly this. The anti rhetoric creates an environment in which failure to bully is a moral failing.

Containing the Catastrophe

sashayed:

rebakitt3n:

ruinsplume:

greywash:

melmey-fanfics:

robertreich:

Anyone still unsure of how (or even whether) they’ll vote in the midterms should consider this: All three branches of government are now under the control of one party, and that party is under the control of Donald J. Trump.  

With the addition of Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court is as firmly Republican as are the House and Senate.

Kavanaugh was revealed as a fierce partisan – not only as a legal advisor who helped Kenneth Starr prosecute Bill Clinton and almost certainly guided George W. Bush’s use of torture, but also a nominee who believed “leftists” and Clinton sympathizers were out to get him.

He joins four other Republican-appointed jurists, equally partisan. Thomas, Alito, and Roberts have never wavered from Republican orthodoxy. Neil Gorsuch, although without much track record on the Supreme Court to date, was a predictable conservative Republican vote on the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit – which is why the Heritage Foundation pushed for him and Trump appointed him.  

Even under normal circumstances, when all three branches are under the control of the same party we get a lopsided government that doesn’t respond to the values of a large portion of the electorate.

But these are not normal circumstances. Donald Trump is President.

Need I remind you? Trump is a demagogue who doesn’t give a fig for democracy – who continuously and viciously attacks the free press, Democrats, immigrants, Muslims, black athletes exercising First Amendment rights, women claiming sexual harassment, anyone who criticizes or counters him; who treats the executive branch, including the Justice Department, like his own fiefdom, and brazenly profits off his office; who tells lies like other people breathe; and who might well have conspired with Vladimir Putin to swing the election his way.

Trump doesn’t even pretend to be the president of all the people. As he repeatedly makes clear in rallies and tweets, he is president of his “base.”

And his demagoguery is by now unconstrained in the White House. Having fired the few “adults” in his Cabinet, Trump is now on the loose (but for a few advisors who reportedly are trying to protect the nation from him).

All this would be bad enough even if the two other branches of government behaved as the framers of the Constitution expected, as checks and balances on a president. But they refuse to play this role when it comes to Trump.

House and Senate Republicans have morphed into Trump acolytes and toadies – intimidated, spineless, opportunistic. The few who have dared call him on his outrages aren’t running for reelection.

Some have distanced themselves from a few of his most incendiary tweets or racist rantings, but most are obedient lapdogs on everything else, including Trump’s reluctance to protect the integrity of our election system, his moves to prevent an investigation into Russian meddling, his trade wars, his attacks on NATO and the leaders of other democracies, his swooning over dictators, his cruelty toward asylum-seekers, and, in the Senate, his Supreme Court nominees.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has emerged as Trump’s most shameless lackey who puts party above nation and Trump above party. The House leadership is no better. House intelligence chair Devin Nunes is Trump’s chief flunky and apologist, but there are many others. 

Now that Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court, you can forget about the Court constraining Trump, either.

Kavanaugh’s views of presidential power and executive privilege are so expansive he’d likely allow Trump to fire Mueller, shield himself from criminal prosecution, and even pardon himself. Kavanaugh’s Republican brethren on the Court would probably go along.  

So how are the constitutional imperative of checks and balances to be salvaged, especially when they’re so urgently needed?  

The only remedy is for voters to flip the House or Senate, or ideally both, on November 6th.

The likelihood of this happening is higher now with Kavanaugh on the Court and Trump so manifestly unchecked. Unless, that is, voters have become so demoralized and disillusioned they just give up.

If cynicism wins the day, Trump and those who would delight in the demise of American democracy (including, not incidentally, Putin) will get everything they want. They will have broken America.

For the sake of the values we hold dear – and of the institutions of our democracy that our forbearers relied on and our descendants will need – this cannot be allowed.

It is now time to place a firm check on this most unbalanced of presidents, and vote accordingly.

This is so important. I am not American but as somebody who has studied politics and as a German growing up with the history of my country let me tell you – never take democracy for granted, you gave to fight for it. Democracies don’t always die with a big bang bloody revolution, more often they are slowly sabotaged by people in power and they die if the majority stays silent. Vote. Demonstrate. 

This means you vote the Democratic party ticket, for the record. The time to shift the party to the left is during the primaries. Right now? You vote the goddamned ticket. Even if that means voting for Manchin, or some equally despicable Democrat.

Because let’s be very, very clear about this: if Manchin isn’t re-elected, it’ll be Patrick Morrisey in that seat: a Republican, who will vote the Republican party line on basically every fucking issue (because Republicans tend to have better party discipline than Democrats, at least at the Federal level), and a Republican who helps keep committee control in the hands of the Republicans and procedural control in the hands of the Republicans, instead of a Democrat who helps shift both those things into the hands of a group of people who actually want to block Trump’s agenda. By all means, vote Manchin out—but we cannot afford for you to do it right now. Do it in the primaries in 2024. Right now? You show up to vote, and you vote the goddamned ticket.

Here is a good breakdown on how Democratic voters failing to show up for Democratic candidates in the 2014 midterms is probably directly responsible for what’s happening right now. 2014!! You think 2024 seems like it’s a long time off, and you just can’t possibly wait that long to voice your personal opinion about how insufficiently pure your local Democrat is? Fuck you. We’re going to spend the next 30 years living with a rapist on the Supreme Court because people like you couldn’t suck it up and vote like fucking grown-ups who understand how things like “math” and “their government” work four years ago.

Yes, political parties suck. Yes, they force you, frequently, to gather with people who don’t believe 100% the same things as you. Suck it the fuck up. Sometimes compromise is necessary in adult life! That’s just how it works! This isn’t about one Democrat. It’s not about your Democrat at all. It’s about blocking the Republicans. And the only way to do that effectively at this point in time is to vote the Democratic ticket. Top. To. Bottom.

Reblogging for the @greywash comment especially. Vote like a grownup.

Thank you for saying this! Yes, it has to be democrats! Third party cannot win this one guys!

Dump Republicans is step 1.

VOTE LIKE A GROWNUP SORRY

not sure if I agree with everything here, but yeah… a third party CANNOT WIN THIS PARTICULAR RACE. 

Vote for the people who will turn the ship back in the right direction, even if it means we have to buckle down and deal with some shit later on. This is NOT an election for idealists. 

petermorwood:

doyoulikevintage:

1937 Delage D8-120S Aero Coupe

Beautiful. Bodywork by Pourtout (the company owner’s name, which translates as “for all”, but I doubt that…)

This one has bodywork by Chapron.

image

This has bodywork by
Letourneur et Marchand.

image

Writer Note: It’s probably just me, but “body by…” coachbuilder names add something to a stylish period car.

Name-dropping in fiction isn’t actual product placement unless you’re getting paid to do it. It’s more a sort of brand-name-dropping so as to sound knowledgeable, show your work and ground the more fantastic aspects of your story in reality.

It was first noticeably used by Ian Fleming in the James Bond
novels, what Kingsley Amis called “the Fleming Effect”, though Amis noted he rather overdid it; Bond identifies products
on occasions

– for instance while being dragged to bed by a hot and eager Bond Girl – when most male minds would be 100% on other things than the name of her perfume (it was Guerlain’s “Ode”)…

So… In that last photo the woman’s dress and perfume could be by
Chanel (No. 5 and No. 22 are both correct for period*), but that’s a bit default. A bit more research would make them a little less familiar or more exotic: dress by Schiaparelli, for instance, and perfume “Arpège” by Lanvin (also correct for period*).

* Mentioned twice because I was surprised to find how many names apparently suitable for dropping only came to fame post-war, and wouldn’t work for this 1935 scene at all.

Going to note that Arpège smells DELICIOUS, especially if your body chemistry suits it. 

Also going to note that Morgan Motor Company makes modern reproductions of these vehicles for not-unconscionable amounts of money and perhaps better support than a restored antique. Granted, used you can expect to drop near 150K for a brand new, to your specifications, car. But if it comes without all the hand-wringing and effort of a restoration and none of the headache of searching for replacement parts, well~

Still quite expensive, and most definitely out of my current reach… but not on par with many other sport car price lists. Like, say…. Ferrari. Or perhaps a Rolls Royce.

questionablemotivations:

house-of-crows:

i… can

can we please. tag guilt trips. oh my god fucking please-

Sure – what’s an appropriate tag?
Would ‘guilt trip’ work is is ‘emotional manipulation’ more accurate?

Just so if we can use the same tag to make it easier for you to blacklist.

honestly either

i dont hold it against anyone for not, i really don’t, but i was NOT expecting to get blindsided by it tonight.