this is going to be an incredibly long post and i had to use GOOGLE SLIDES and GOOGLE SHEETS which i hate so so much so in the words of twitter kpop stans please don't let this flop

let's look at the numbers, claim by claim

claim #1: "the number of people held in ICE detention has increased by 70 percent since Biden took office"

if you click through 3 link layers from the slate you land at cbs as the source for this which tells you that mainstream media is certainly not immune to playing with stats to make the democrats look bad

fortunately ICE detention stats are easily publicly available thanks to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which does the lord's work of crawling through federal agency publications and submitting tedious FOIA requests to collate useful data

here is the data -- not only was cbs not wrong about the total number of detainees at the time of publication (25k in aug 2021), but the increase from when biden was inaugurated is actually 90%, not 70%. look:

well holy shit!!! that's terrible. biden is the worst and he hates immigration reform and the democrats are no different from trump, right?

but if you zoom out

actually, Jan/Feb 2021 was at the absolute low for detainees, after a full year of covid restrictions slowing down or minimizing gov't operations of all kinds AND reducing border volume

and if you actually want to compare the biden admin to the trump admin?

relative to Aug of 2019, after 18 months the biden admin has reached a 56% decrease in the number of detainees. even if you look at only the month before COVID lockdowns really hit, it's still nearly a 40% decrease

and to put the total numbers in perspective, at NO point before COVID did the trump admin have fewer than 30k people in ICE detention. most of the time it was well above 40k, or about 2x more than under biden

that's not to say that immigration reform isn't still needed, but it IS to say that myopically comparing current-state to january 2021, aka one of the WEIRDEST months statistically on record ever, is going to give you crap perspective

claim #2: "the federal prison population has grown for the first time in a decade"

by now we know that federal data is public so let's go look for it

and indeed the federal bureau of prisons has made 45 years of federal prison data available for download

so this should be straightforward! it looks like the inmate population did in fact peak in 2013, the start of obama's second term, before decreasing. obama made reducing the number of people in prison one of his key focuses and was in fact the first president since jimmy carter (term 1977-1981) to leave office with fewer inmates than when he started

this trend continued under trump. in fact, the rate of decrease at the end of trump's presidency was even bigger than obama's -- turns out the republicans were BETTER than the democrats at criminal justice reform?!

(it is worth noting at this moment of sarcasm that a bipartisan group of senators did actually manage to get the First Step Act bill through the senate gauntlet and onto trump's desk for signature, which lowered some sentences)

(note i've only included data from 2005 onward so it's easier to actually see what's going on in the last 10 years. for those who like math, these are CAGRs calculated over each presidential term)

but there it is -- decline in populations accelerated under trump. surely both parties same. surely democrats actually worse than republicans

but wait, what's that?

that can't be ...

SPIDERS GEORG????

WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE

ARE YOU SAYING THAT ... THERE IS AN OUTLIER?

THAT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN COUNTED?

so it turns out that under trump, the trend had decelerated to less than half the rate of change at the end of obama's last term

that precipitous drop we see is ... covid. it's pretty much just covid, during which federal prisons stopped accepting new prisoners, courts were closed and couldn't hand down sentences, and parole officers weren't sending people in for minor violations

here's what things might have looked like had there been no covid outlier:

now that assumes trump wasn't successful at slowing down the momentum from the obama years

this is what it might have looked like had we perhaps ended up with a second trump term:

again this isn't to say that biden is pure and perfect on criminal justice, even if there were some agreed-upon definition of what pure and perfect legislative or policy priorities would look like

it's to put the context back into place around the data

are the democrats and republicans actually the same or are we being fed a diet of pruned stats and catchphrases to make us simultaneously angry and disempowered

last claim: "federal covid relief funds are being used to pad local police budgets"

you know what, this one is relatively not decontextualized

for example, $10B of ARPA grants to state and local gov'ts has been committed to “public safety programs, including domestic violence prevention efforts, drug abuse and mental health services, and bonuses for hiring and retaining police officers”

it's hard to know how much went to cops, but knowing how much cops take up of local jurisdiction budgets it's unfortunately probably a significant share

biden doesn't help his case by going on record telling states and local jurisdictions to use ARPA funds to shore up before summer, when crime typically goes up (same source as link above)

that said in the grand scheme of even just ARPA funds, this is what $10B looks like, so like ... is this the hill to die on

SO all of that to say

we don't stop pushing for immigration or criminal justice reform

or any other reform that is sorely needed

but using data in incredibly selective ways, out of context, to promote a narrative that somehow democrats are the same or even worse than republicans

ESPECIALLY the republicans of today

is literally propaganda

propaganda by definition uses kernels of truth and then presents it in a biased way to attempt to push a narrative

pretending that the democrats are exactly the same as the republicans is propaganda, and i'm like 80% sure it's right-wing propaganda designed to discourage left-wing turnout that has somehow been accepted by an online population that doesn't understand statistics

so like

understand statistics

do a bit of research

draw conclusions that you can back up

The left is not immune to propaganda. If you see something that enrages you... Maybe read the article? Do your own research? Don't just believe everything you read on Tumblr?

basically they all stem from a massive eruption of a volcano on the island of santorini off the coast of greece. the ash then floated over to egypt which kickstarted the plagues

1) blood: the ash carried the mineral cinnabar, which has the capability of turning water red

2) frogs: the ash also had many toxic and acidic substances so naturally, all the frogs are gonna flee the river

3) lice: given what was going on insects would have burrowed into dead animals/peoples skin and laid eggs, which then hatched

4) beasts: everything is getting poisoned from the ash and toxins, causing animals to freak the fuck out/die

5) pestilence: toxins again

6) boils: the ash would have caused storms that carried acid rain which when it fell, would irritate peoples skin causing boils

7) hail: the storm again

8) locusts: again with the insects and the amount of dead bodies and such which attract more insects. a lotta insects basically.

9) darkness: the ash covered the sky, blocking out the sun

10) slaying of the first born: given that children’s bodies were found in higher numbers than others, some archeologists think they may have been sacrificed to stop all the destruction, but they aren’t 100% sure about that. this is just me but I would say another possibility is that babies/kids are a lot more susceptible to toxins and shit, so while an adult may have been fine or gotten a bit sick, it might have been very dangerous/deadly for kids or babies

the volcano would also attest for the parting of the sea weirdly enough. the red sea was in fact the ‘reed’ sea, and was very shallow, probably waist deep or so. given the amount of shit dumped into the ocean from the volcano, this wouldve caused a tsunami to head towards egypt. the water would get sucked out from the reed sea right before the tsunami hit, letting people pass it easily, then the actual tsunami would hit, fuckin up anyone who tried to follow.

another theory is that the red water was caused by algae, which would cause the frogs and stuff to jump out as well. the algae also carried substances toxic to animals so if they ingested any they’d get sick and die, so more insects. in this theory there was a sand storm coincidentally that caused the rest

The tsunamis from the Theran eruption devastated Crete, weakening the then-powerful Minoan civilization, leaving them open to being invaded by the Mycenaeans.

The volcanic winter it created devastated crops in China leading to the fall of the Xia Dynasty. 

was treated like garbage his entire childhood and still has an inexhaustible capacity for love and forgiveness

u can talk shit abt him but if u talk shit abt his friends he’ll launch a brutal verbal tirade against u

god tier sense of humor. sarcasm level 100 never misses

bravest boy on earth??? this kid found out he had to DIE to get rid of some crazy ass evil dictator and literally walked stone cold to his own death to save everyone else??

let’s not forget he liked his lightning scar at first before he found out what it rly was :( he thought it was cool :(

unheard of emotional maturity for a teenager. instantly understood that ron was insecure abt being the youngest boy in his family and not having a lot of money and always tried to find ways to make him feel better abt it

had cute lil daydreams abt being the triwizard champion before he got forced into it for real

UNmatched bisexual energy, literally always sizing everyone up and declaring them attractive or monstrous, no in between

so so humble abt his talents and abilities yes but also SO arrogant abt his moral code. he said my moral compass is the correct one and i will follow that and ur rules and laws can truly eat my ass and honestly that’s so sexy of him

animals always like him 😔

literally BORN to wield power and not abuse it. boy destroyed the elder wand bc he liked his old one better

drinks his respect women juice every morning and every night before bed rmr when he got so righteously offended that hermione suggested he thought the prince couldn’t be a woman bc he didn’t think a woman could be that smart

also rmr when he choked out mundungus for stealing shit from grimmauld djebfjnwbfne

literally so stubborn that the imperius curse barely works on him lmaoooo

successfully used crucio to defend mcgonagall’s honor like?? ok king go off!!

Had children run away from him and refuse to touch him because they thought his Black skin color would rub off on them. This happened IN THE THIRD GRADE! And he never told his parents about it!

Calmed his anxiety about being the only Black kid in his homeroom class by coming to the realization that since there was no other Black kids that meant he most likely wouldn’t be bombed

Had to install a camera in his locker because his property got defaced by a glitter bomb

Lost his first and only black friend/mentor who supported him thanks to an ACTUAL MAKESHIFT BOMB being installed in his locker that caused a janitor to go to the hospital for 1st/2nd degree burns (and the white boy who did it barely got punished)

Got teased that the only reason he got on the basketball team was because he was Black

Comes to the realization that he might’ve actually only gotten in the team because the coach has a history of recruiting Black boys for the team regardless of their skill level

Gets called an Oreo (for uneducated: white on the inside, black on the outside) by racist bullies. Erica (who apparently has also been called this) sticks up for him and is the only one who understands what the insult means which means Mike and Dustin don’t know/understand the lengths of how deep the racism Lucas experiences in Hawkins on a daily bases

And these aren’t even all of them! These are just examples I had from the top of my head!

And despite all this happening in the book, “fans” have STILL FOUND A WAY to turn this book about Lucas and his struggles as a Black boy in a mostly white suburban town and his deteriorating relationship with Max and make it about Byler!

The fact that Lucas, one of the only characters of color on this show, can’t have ANYTHING to himself without people using him to push their ships is so aggravating!

He and Erica constantly get shit talked and miss characterized by fans, get excluded/cut out of group shots, and barely get any fanart/fics about them and their struggles compared to the white characters (I could make a whole new post about the terrible way this fandom treats Erica but I won’t do that here). Hell don’t forget that the fandom constantly tries to dispute the racism Lucas received in S2 from Billy was either not really racism, just a moment that Duffer Bros. put in to “ruin” Billy’s character and ultimately can be tossed out and ignored.

The only time I ever see Lucas get any large amount of attention is either due to 1) Lumax (but let’s be honest: 90% of the lumax tag on here isn’t even about them and has now become Elumax 2.0 and most post are people praising ElMax and then being like “oh Lucas/lumax is cute too” in the tags and that’s it). 2) people creating “parallels” of Lumax to their ship of choice (mostly Byler and Mileven) as a way to say that their ship is gonna be canon or 3) to say that he’s bisexual.

And all that is fine and whatever, ship and headcanon things to your hearts content, but if you only care about Lucas if he’s helping push you ship narrative or because you think he’s gay (to the point where some people actually read snippets of the book that talked about Lucas coming to the realization that Black boys like him can be considered attractive and only acknowledge the “queer” reading of the text and completely ignored the big race element that was the main focus), I’m sorry but, that’s not cool. The fact that 95% of the Lucas Sinclair tag isn’t about Lucas himself but white characters like Steve, Eddie, Byler says everything about how the fandom treats him.

I’m just so tired.

Lucas Sinclair deserves the same respect that the white characters get!

I leave you one of my favorite sections of the entire book: Lucas learning to become unabashedly himself:

Rant over.

AN EPISODE A DAY UNTIL SEASON 3 → 1x01 – The Auditions

And there is grounds for impeachment for several of them. Lying to the Senate during your confirmation hearing is Federal Perjury. They have comitted public crimes.

Call your congresspeople. Let them know you want these criminals removed from their authority. They are not untouchable.

Contacting Congress

Contact Congress U.S. House of Representatives: * Telephone:  202-225-3121 * Website:  http://www.house.gov/  U.S. Senate: * Telephone:  202

Please have a moment of silence for the people who were killed instead of freed when news of emancipation finally reached the furthest corners of the american south.

have another moment for the ledgers, catalogs, and records that were burned and the homes that were destroyed to hide the presence of very much alive and still enslaved people on dozens of plantations and homesteads across the south for decades after emancipation.

and have a third moment for those who were hunted and killed while fleeing the south to find safety across the border, overseas, in the north and to the west.

black people. light a candle, write a note to those who have passed telling them what you have achieved in spite of the racist and intolerant conditions of this world, feel the warmth of the flame under your hand, say a prayer of rememberance if you are religious, place the note under the candle, and then blow it out.

if you have children, sit them down and tell them anything you know about the life of oldest black person you've ever met. it doesn't have to be your own family. tell them what you know about what life was like for us in the days, years, decades after emancipation. if you don't know much, look it up and learn about it together.

This is Juneteenth.

the last time I reblogged this post right before I got a great job, in a permanent work-from-home position, with benefits, retirement, and a salary literally 3x what I was making before, doing something I really like. 

So you know. 

the last time I reblogged this post right before I got a great job, in a permanent work-from-home position, with benefits, retirement, and a salary literally 3x what I was making before, doing something I really like. 

So you know. 

Your soap does not need to connect to the internet. Your fridge does not need to be able to track the temperature in other countries. Your stove shouldn’t talk to you

This is not “technology bad” this is “these corporations are tracking you and your movements at ALL TIMES OF THE DAY.” They know your every move down to when you wash your hands after you take a shit. Alexa and Siri were the first introduction to this, and once people got used to them on their phones, they put them in their own little gadgets for your house.

And then they connected those gadgets to the lights. To the doors. To the window locks. To the thermostat.

You should be TERRIFIED at how many things are becoming “smart” these days. It’s yet another way for companies to sell to you, and, in a worst case scenario, it can be the thing that puts you in harms way.

Imagine you’re running a little late on your electric bill, and your fridge is a “smart” fridge. And because you’re running late on your payment they just….lock your fridge. Not shut the electricity off. Lock your fridge. Because fridges can now be locked remotely. You can no longer access your food until you pay them.

Cops want to know if you’ve been to any protests recently? They can track that handy dandy smart watch you decided to wear, even though you left your phone in the car. They can tell if you were home all day or lying.

Abusive partner or family member? They can shut off your support systems everywhere. Decide when you get to eat, if you do. Decide how hot or cold the house should be to make you suffer. Turn off the oven in the middle of you cooking dinner bc you upset them. Lock you in. Lock you out.

Your appliances, your LIFE, should not be surrounded by smart tech. Buy normal clocks. Get normal soap dispensers. Keep a pen and paper on the fridge to write down your grocery list. Set a manual timer for the oven. Wear a normal watch that only tells time. Get a step counter that clips to your belt.

Phone, laptop, TV. Those are the only things that make sense being “smart.” Everything else is one step closer to a dystopian novel that you don’t want to be in.

Let’s say, hypothetically, you do literally nothing. Well, turns out there’s a bug in the fridge software that sets the temperature to 60 degrees when it receives some unexpected input from your fridge app. Or the manufacturer pushes out an involuntary fridge update and now, while the update is downloading, sorry! your the fridge doesn’t open until the update is done.

And these are only the issues that affect you. Generally, Smart Device manufacturers do not think for even one second about the security of their devices. So, this means that hackers will see well known and publicized security holes that have been easily available for literal years but the manufacturer is simply too lazy to fix, use those holes to get into devices, and use those devices as bots to attack whoever they please (and, as a bonus, it look like it’s coming from your home!)

You’d think that this sounds like something out of a horror movie but this is the reality we live in RIGHT NOW. Many of the largest botnets (e.g. the Mirai botnet) in the world consist largely of compromised smart/IoT (internet of things) devices.

In Narnia, four ordinary children can become mighty kings and queens. Traitors can mend. Dragons are made human again. Flat paintings turn into vibrant real life. Narnia is alchemy, taking lead and transforming it into pure gold.