I think you’re right, but I don’t think holding blackmail is relevant to their goals anymore, so there’s no point in releasing it right now.

Even if Trump could be blackmailed into doing more to help Russia, does it matter? The republicans control the house and senate.
All the U.S. has to do to benefit Russia is allow republicans to enact their domestic and foreign policies.

was

is

She will live inside you forever. She won’t be gone. She will live on in memory.

Great!

Let’s see… Black Lives Matter is an obvious one they’d target. ACLU - less obvious, but definitely going to be in someone’s list. Planned Parenthood, for sure. EFF, because why not? Any international aid group that’s ever helped non-white, non-Christian countries. Definitely certain political action committees, as well as specific religious organizations. And almost assuredly the organizations of competing political parties.

Just fan-fucking-tastic.
Every part and every player of the U.S. government merrily skipping deeper into fascism by the hour.

About time!

The kind of funny thing is that if this happened for real, the next big plastic product would just be pesticide impregnated plastics. And then we’d have pesticide microplastics everywhere!

You’re one of the founding members of the greater Seattle area polycule, aren’t you?

I would move both of your pothos. I’d slide the one over the oven closer to the corner and find a way to allow the vines (limbs?) of it to ‘climb’ along the wall above your sink. I would also consider a way to have the other ‘side’ of it branch out between the rafters. (Maybe not screws for the rafters, but perhaps something fun like vintage clamps?) Same for the other pothos, move it over so more of the green is exposed on the wall above that bigger window.
Pick up a small bit of stained glass art and stick it in the window, too.
Mess up the design aesthetic some - Get an earth-tone placemat and a craft-y looking bowl and fill it with fruit or if you’re not a fruit person, something pretty and useful enough that it won’t get dust covered. (Grab and go snacks in bright packages?)
I’d reconsider the lights above the cooktop. Maybe find ones that are a bit more decorative, or certainly ones that aren’t just black.
Put a cork board or a chalk board over the cabinet to the left of the oven, and keep colored post-its or chalk handy.
Maybe replace the handles on your cabinets with something brightly colored or with a bit more character/individual craftsmanship.

I guess the idea behind most of what I’m suggesting is to make it look lived in, and to give it some warm tones/break up the stark whiteness of it. The individual suggestions probably aren’t as important as the overall idea.

What I’m seeing through your comments here is that your kid trusts you enough to get you into the weeds with them on this problem, has a good enough sense of judgement not to want to just fudge their name to follow the path of least resistance (don’t want to do election fraud in a technical, though not real, sense), and you all have thought through it all and realized it’s a battle not worth having, given your local and statewide political makeup as well as the stress it would cause your kid. It seems like your kid is comfortable with you, self-aware, and capable of making the sorts of pragmatic decisions that many adults cannot make.
Damn. Do you mind asking your kid what it feels like to have good parents that are preparing them to tackle life’s challenges?

Presented kind of as a joke, but good job. Seriously.

In retrospect I think my comment sounds like I’m just excusing being sort of crappy if you’re humble about it.
I wish I’d included the sentiment that we’re all trying the best we can — because being a good partner should be the goal for any relationship.

Even though I’m currently only with my wife, I’m right there with you. I don’t want to add anyone to the mix unless their addition is very carefully considered.
I speak better in metaphor sometimes: It’s kind of like physics, almost. Imagine that we’re touching everyone in our life. If we allow someone to connect to us, they are going to impart their own momentum and direction. That is going to ripple through every connection we have, even if we aren’t able to measure or observe it. So we better make sure they don’t hit us so hard that pieces break apart or get damaged in the process.

That sucks, man.

I’ve been some stripe or other of non-monogamous for most of my adult life, and those types of relationships are often the ones that people experience first when they dip their toes in.
It’s honestly kind of maddening, because beyond making it seem like everyone who is poly/nm/whatever are all horny sociopaths (because almost everyone has something like that as a first story), it’s harmful. It’s physically and emotionally unsafe for the person who gets shafted. It treats people like they’re disposable and frankly, it’s selfish, insecure, and sometimes malevolent bullshit dressed up as a hippy-dippy love-fest.

It’s really fucking hard to be ethically nonmonogamous, and I wish people would stop pretending they knew what they were doing. No one knows, and it’s the faked confidence that gets so many people in trouble. People just trust someone to take care of them, and then the other person fails because they’re human, and humans fail. And yet… I can’t imagine not being this way, for some dumb fucking reason.

Toxic polyamory situation. A partner I lived with and was once very in love with fell away when she got interested in someone new. It was messy and shitty. I wound up dating someone new, who I had a great relationship with, and it was very physical. But I still lived in a 2 bedroom apartment with my ex.

My ex was a bit weird. She sort of viewed relationships as whatever things with no boundaries. Folks just do whatever they want in the moment and there’s no fidelity according to her. (Things I learned after I fell in love with her. Woof.) She also had intoned a few times that my new partner was a slut, which was sort of funny, given that my new partner had a pretty strong moral code.

My ex got a little less interested in her new guy, and tried to seduce me one night. And I rejected her. We had officially ended things, and I did not want to revisit that.
My ex sneered at me. “Fine. I hope you’re happy with [New Partner], and I hope [NP] is happy with you and your… magical penis!”

She practically spat that out at me, and… yeah. It was as funny then as it is now.

And for the record, it’s not magical. I just like to put top hats and little capes on it sometimes.

Heh. Asstronomers.

A base plate that’s got a spring under it, except for a little nub that pokes the power button.
Terrible if you live in earthquake-prone areas.

Wait. Are we describing a bump stock for your computer?

“I don’t really want to look at my body any more,” he said, noting it was too painful to see photos from the hospital. “Every time I see myself, I have flashbacks. And every time I see cops, I think, is he after me? And I know in my head it’s not true, but it just comes up.” He said he questions whether he could’ve done something differently. “I have to keep telling myself … I didn’t deserve this.”
He added: “I just want the Department of Justice to take care of them and fix what they say they’re going to fix … I’m not trying to get attention, I just want my story to be heard because I hurt.”

Oof.

(I have another response.)
Lean away, give her a long look, and gaze deep into her eyes. Tilt your head slightly to the side.

“…. dad?”

In the stunned silence, because she never expected you to be right, tell her that you didn’t think you would see her again after she disappeared on her way to get cigarettes all those years ago.

And then put your hand on her thigh and say “I’ve missed you daddy” with wide eyes.

Gets ‘em every time.

“Oooh, I don’t know. Maaaaybeee your lips, because I can’t stop looking at them. But if you did, then your doctor is really good.”

Deliver it light and kind of flirty and she’s not thinking about whatever trap that question is, she’s thinking about how you just told her you want to kiss her.

If it’s for any other reason - making sure an insecurity is unknown, wanting to springboard into a conversation, wanting to see how you react if she baits you into saying something dumb, or even having her own flirty line to deliver about it - she’ll probably get to it. Assuming you haven’t wooed her into a voracious make out session.

I used to play 1v1 Ticket to Ride matches against my wife using the app.

As background: I’m not a very competitive gamer, but I’m decent at problem solving. When I first learned TtR, I played with fairly … great players. One of my friends was (is?) nationally ranked. They routinely beat the ever-loving crap out of me. I think of the dozens of games we’ve played, I have won maybe 10-20% of the time?

My wife isn’t bad at TtR, but she doesn’t see things the same way in terms of strategy.

We had this one game where I drew a bunch of short routes all over the map, which blocked her early in the game, and a series of lucky route draws lead me to connect them, inadvertently blocking her at least twice, including on the last play, where I was just dumping cars to end the game.

She was always a little upset when I beat her, but this time the discrepancy was so bad and she was so upset. I just stopped playing Ticket to Ride - like, at all.

I’m sure once the paper gets ahold of the terrorists PR team for a quote, they’ll say they killed 5 infidels and had 2 martyrs.

But for now, it’s the government giving the quote, and they’re saying they killed 2 terrorists, and had 5 martyrs.

Editing to add: I don’t see martyr as a loaded term. It’s an honorific about someone’s death, when other words fail. It’s just a colloquial use of the word.

Hell yeah girl, take your top off!

They’re just holding him upside down and shaking him like a 1930s comic strip about bullies.

Genuinely chuckling at this and imagining his hair dye dripping off while it happens.

Wait. No. It is a demolition. We’re just looking at it from behind.