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pronoun-fucker · 2 years

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(Open letter linked below)

“More than 130 people, including Gloria Steinem, and organizations in the field of women’s rights advocacy and domestic violence and sexual assault awareness have signed an open letter to support Amber Heard, who lost a defamation suit this year brought by her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, for an op-ed in which she said she was a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”

The letter, which was exclusively shared with NBC News ahead of its public release Wednesday, was signed by groups like the National Organization for Women, the National Women’s Law Center, Equality Now and the Women’s March Foundation. It was written by a group of people who identify as domestic violence survivors and supporters of Heard.

Heard filed a brief last month laying the groundwork to appeal a seven-person jury’s decision in Virginia’s Fairfax County Circuit Court to award Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages in June. Heard, who had countersued, was awarded $2 million in compensatory damages but nothing in punitive damages.

Although The Washington Post essay never mentioned Depp by name, Depp’s attorneys said it indirectly referred to allegations Heard made against him during their 2016 divorce. During the trial, she testified in graphic terms about a sexual assault she alleged, as well as allegations of incidents of physical abuse. Depp denied all allegations of abuse.

The letter, which denounces the “rising misuse” of defamation lawsuits to silence people who report domestic and sexual abuse, is one of the biggest public shows of support for Heard after months of silence from many groups after the verdict.

Representatives for both Depp and Heard declined to comment.

The jury’s decision was a legal vindication for Depp, who lost a libel case in the United Kingdom two years ago over claims that he had physically abused Heard. Justice Andrew Nicol ruled against Depp in 2020, saying a British tabloid had presented substantial evidence to show that Depp was violent against Heard on at least 12 of 14 occasions.

After the June verdict, activists called out other groups, like Time’s Up, asking why an organization that had championed victims at the height of the #MeToo movement was now silent. Many who did speak out in support of Heard, including the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, were met with ferocious backlash from Depp’s supporters online.

A spokesperson for the group behind the letter, who asked to remain anonymous because of the online harassment she has faced for posting in support of Heard, said she believes that after the trial “individuals were afraid to speak out because they saw what was happening to the few who had.”

The letter says the “ongoing online harassment” of Heard and her supporters was “fueled by disinformation, misogyny, biphobia, and a monetized social media environment where a woman’s allegations of domestic violence and sexual assault were mocked for entertainment.”

The vilification and harassment of Heard and her supporters were “unprecedented in both vitriol and scale,” the letter says.

Kathy Spillar, the executive director of the Feminist Majority Foundation, said her organization signed the letter after it observed what she called a “growing backlash” against women who speak out against perpetrators of sexual assault, domestic violence and intimate partner violence.

“If this can happen to Amber Heard, it will discourage other women from speaking up and even filing reports about domestic violence and sexual assault,” Spillar said.

The letter says the verdict and the online response to Heard “indicate a fundamental misunderstanding of intimate partner and sexual violence and how survivors respond to it.”

In addition to two dozen feminist organizations, more than 90 domestic violence experts and survivors’ advocates from around the world signed the letter to “condemn the public shaming of Amber Heard and join in support of her.” They include doctors, lawyers, professors, authors and activists.

Others who signed the letter echoed their concerns that reaction to the trial on social media was harmful to everyday victims of domestic violence.

“They see the environment that this has created, and they feel even less safe than before to come forward and speak out about the abuse they suffered,” said Elizabeth Tang, the senior counsel for education and workplace justice at the National Women’s Law Center.

Tang said abusers can use defamation suits to “silence their victims” or as retaliation against their victims for speaking out.

Tang said that among the “reasons we felt it was very important to join this letter” are that “when courts do not dismiss these defamation suits in early stages, it creates a lot of trauma for victims to have to go through a very long, drawn-out and invasive process just to prove that the things they said are true or that they did not defame the person they reported.”

Christian F. Nunes, the national president of the National Organization for Women, said she hopes the letter is a reminder that the court system should never be used to strong-arm victims to recant statements about their abuse.

“We cannot silence victims by using courts and lawsuits as a way to retraumatize them, because this is what’s happening,” Nunes said. She said she hopes the letter raises awareness of new tactics some abusers use against their victims, such as social media campaigns.

Since the trial, there has been more public support for Heard on social media, the spokesperson for the group behind the letter said. She and other anonymous Heard supporters had been “working to combat disinformation for months” when they joined for the open letter initiative.

Experts said they had a unanimous message they hoped to send to survivors who read the letter.

“It is also a way to speak to all survivors and tell them, ‘You are not alone,’” Tang said.”

Article Link | Archived Article Link

Open Letter Link | Archived Open Letter Link

#Amber heard #Johnny Depp #justice for amber heard #feminism #radical feminism #domestic abuse #domestic violence #i stand with amber heard #depp vs heard #radfem #gloria steinem

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 year

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Anti-government agitator Ammon Bundy must pay an Idaho hospital more than $50 million for defaming it and targeting it with protests while it cared for an associate’s grandson—who was taken into protective custody after child welfare officials determined he was malnourished.

In March of last year, Bundy was arrested for trespassing outside of St. Luke’s Meridian Medical Center, where 10-month-old “Baby Cyrus” was being treated. The then-gubernatorial candidate organized a week-long protest, claiming Cyrus was “medically kidnapped” over a “missed non-emergency doctor’s appointment.”

Two months later, St. Luke’s hospital filed a defamation suit against Bundy and Diego Rodriguez, the child��s grandpa and an activist in Bundy’s far-right People’s Rights Network (PRN). The complaint also named their companies, including Rodriguez’s Freedom Man Press, which posted Baby Cyrus “kidnapping videos.”

A jury delivered its verdict on Monday: Bundy, Rodriguez, and their companies would owe $26.5 million in compensatory damages and nearly $26 million in punitive damages.

Erik Stidham, an attorney for St. Luke’s, told jurors he thought the hospital deserved at least $16 million. “My hope is that you will look at this and you will deter (Bundy) in a way that he hasn’t been deterred yet,” Stidham said in closing arguments, according to the Idaho Statesman. He added that Bundy’s and Rodriguez’s entities were a “massive ugly machine built to make money and radicalize people.”

Known for armed standoffs with law enforcement, Bundy was a consistent no-show throughout the legal proceedings. In April, a judge issued a default judgment against Bundy and Rodriguez for failing to respond to the suit, leading Bundy to put out an emergency alert that falsely claimed cops surrounded his home and that beckoned his PRN disciples to show up to defend him.

As a result of the default, jurors in the two-week trial were tasked with deciding what damages Bundy and Rodriguez owed to the hospital system. They heard testimony from doctors and administrators about the men’s mob stoking fear among patients and families in the emergency room, and Life Flight pilots refusing to land at the facility, fearing shots from the armed crowd on the ground.

One pediatrician told the jury about the danger she believed Baby Cyrus was in: He allegedly couldn’t sit up, had a distended stomach and sunken eyes. “In my opinion, if he had been allowed to go home with his parents and continue on the trajectory he was on, he would have died,” Thomas testified, according to the Idaho Statesman.

Another doctor testified that Rodriguez’s website called her a “child trafficker,” and that she believed her family's safety was in jeopardy because of the online attacks.

“Today’s verdict is a moment of real accountability for Ammon Bundy and his reckless campaign against St. Luke’s,” said Lindsay Schubiner, Programs Director at the Western States Center, who was among the groups monitoring extremism to celebrate the outcome.

“His decision to target St. Luke’s and to use inflammatory, dishonest rhetoric about the hospital’s actions endangered both staff and patients. This verdict shows that the courts have the ability to treat this kind of threat with the seriousness it deserves.”

While Bundy and Rodriguez haven’t stepped foot in court, they’ve publicly commented on the controversy since the case was filed. “I’ve tried everything I could to make peace with St. Luke’s executives” and their attorneys, Bundy said in one February video, in which he shows off a pile of legal mail. “But they’ve rejected every offer of peace, every token of peace that I’ve offered to them. And they’ve actually come after Diego and I even harder.”

The lawsuit reveals St. Luke’s hospital sought punitive damages, and an award of at least $250,000 to each of the plaintiffs—which include a hospital executive, doctor, and nurse practitioner—from each of the defendants. If granted, Bundy, Rodriguez and their companies would have been on the hook for $7.5 million in damages.

“So what did these people do to earn this money, to deserve this money? Well, they participated in taking Baby Cyrus from his loving and caring parents,” Bundy said in his video. “And what did Diego and I do to deserve everything we own and more stripped from us? Well, we said bad things about them for taking Baby Cyrus away... things that were exposing them.”

Bundy then went on to conflate offerings of gender-affirming care for children at St. Luke’s to the hospital’s treatment of Cyrus, and noted St. Luke’s received millions from donations and COVID relief funds. “And what are they using it for?” he said. “They’re using it for things like child sex changes and to pay high-dollar attorneys to come after their political enemies.”

On July 10, the day the civil trial began, Bundy posted a letter to a new judge presiding over the trial. “Please, do not give rich and powerful people false justification to destroy my life,” Bundy wrote. “Please do not sanction a war that may end in innocent blood and require others to bring justice upon those who are responsible for shedding it.”

“May God bless you with the strength to do what is right and to let the consequences follow,” he concluded. “In the sacred name of Jesus Christ I write this letter.”

The conflict with St. Luke’s had become so antagonistic that Bundy was accused of threatening process servers and local deputies who delivered court papers, and one doctor expressed concern that witnesses would be too intimidated to participate in the case.

In his February video post, Bundy warned followers that St. Luke’s was trying to have him arrested. While a judge issued a warrant for Bundy in April over alleged witness intimidation, authorities never came for the 47-year-old provocateur. The Gem County sheriff, in a letter filed on the docket, said he didn’t want to risk deputies’ safety “over a civil issue.”

At one point, Bundy even appeared to threaten a standoff over the legal battle. “They’re probably going to try to get judgments of over a million dollars and take everything they have from me,” Bundy told one local news site in December. “And I’m not going to let that happen. I’m making moves to stop that from happening. And if I have to meet ’em on the front door with my, you know, friends and a shotgun, I’ll do that. They’re not going to take my property.”

For his part, Rodriguez challenged St. Luke’s lawyers on his Freedom Man website, writing that he was giving them “the chance to win in the court of public opinion.”

“You can win my public apology. You can win my retractions. You can get the pages on my website that you want taken down, REMOVED without a judgment or legal order. You can even get $50,000 for St. Luke’s right now. All you have to do is show the world where I have published any FACTUALLY inaccurate information, as I’ve already stated,” Rodriguez wrote.

But the hospital evidently wasn’t going to be cowed by far-right extremists.

In a fourth amended complaint, St. Luke’s argued that Bundy and Rodriguez were aiming to “benefit financially” and boost their political brands by launching a “knowingly dishonest and baseless smear campaign” against it. This campaign, the suit alleges, “claimed Idaho State employees, the judiciary, the police, primary care providers, and the St. Luke’s Parties engaged in widespread kidnapping, trafficking, sexual abuse, and killing of Idaho children.”

The lawsuit argued that Bundy and Rodriguez used Cyrus’ case “to spread their lies and further their agendas,” as they portrayed themselves as “crusaders” against their manufactured “state-sponsored child kidnapping and trafficking ring.” The men, according to the suit, directed their followers to dox and harass St. Luke’s employees.

Meanwhile, Rodriguez is accused of lying to followers about Cyrus’s care, claiming the baby had a “100% clean bill of health” when authorities took him into custody and that his parents had only missed one doctor’s visit. He also falsely claimed a St. Luke’s pediatrician had reported the parents to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.

The trouble began when Bundy and his flock entered the hospital’s ambulance bay at around 1:30 a.m. on a Saturday in March, the complaint says; they began cursing at staff and police, blocking patients’ access to the facility and filming the episode for social media.

“Recognizing that Bundy’s followers were growing more numerous and menacing, a hospital supervisor tried to reason with Bundy and deescalate the situation,” the complaint says. “For the benefit of those there to film him, Bundy responded by accusing the supervisor of kidnapping and then demanded that he give Bundy the Infant.”

“Bundy knew full well he had no legal authority to make that demand because he had no parental rights over the Infant.”

Cops arrested Bundy about a half hour later for refusing to move. After his release from custody, Bundy quickly began to publicize his confrontation and later beefed up a “false narrative” about St. Luke’s, the lawsuit states. (Bundy took a plea deal in the trespass criminal case, receiving a $1,000 fine and suspended 90-day jail sentence.)

The lawsuit lists a slew of defamatory statements from Bundy and Rodriguez, including that the hospital was “world famous” for “killing people” and “stealing babies from their parents” and that it forced Cyrus to ingest a “toxic poison.” Bundy also allegedly claimed that St. Luke’s had targeted the baby because of Bundy’s objection to COVID “corruption.”

The hospital argues the duo’s stunt disrupted its operations and harmed staff and patients. According to the suit, the men called on their devotees, many of whom were armed, to protest in front of the hospital for a week before Cyrus was released. Rodriguez “became a daily presence,” holding press conferences outside the building, the complaint says.

Rodriguez would go on to solicit $115,000 in donations by falsely claiming the hospital was “performing unnecessary medical tests and treatments” to prolong the baby’s time in the hospital and extort the uninsured parents, the lawsuit continues. (The hospital, however, claims that Medicaid covered Cyrus’s bills and his family “never paid anything for and owe nothing for the care” received at St. Luke’s.)

Bundy’s campaign allegedly caused St. Luke’s to go on lockdown for more than an hour and for patients to be routed to other facilities. The followers also flooded St. Luke’s phone lines and email accounts with menacing communications and death threats.

But the alleged smears didn’t stop after Cyrus went home. St. Luke’s argues that Bundy and Rodriguez continued to capitalize on the episode, creating a group called “People Against Child Trafficking” and holding a rally where they further defamed the hospital, comparing its employees to “feudal lords” practicing “primae noctis.”

The complaint highlights the men’s possible financial windfall in their war against the hospital, noting that Bundy generates funds “by marketing himself as an anti-government, quasi-religious leader” through his 60,000-member PRN and uses at least two corporate entities: Dono Custos, Inc. and Abish-husbondi. Inc.

“The potential revenue to Bundy is significant,” the lawsuit says. “If each member of PRN annually contributes just $50 to Bundy through Dono Custos, Bundy could pocket more than $3,000,0000 [sic] per year.” It adds that entities owned by Bundy and Rodriguez received money from Bundy’s gubernatorial campaign.

As for Rodriguez, the complaint adds, money streams in through his Freedom Tabernacle, “which purports to be a church but is used as an entity to receive contributions, dues, or payments from members of PRN.” According to the legal filing, the church requires “members ‘tithe’ 10% of their earnings.” Another of Rodriguez’s entities, Power Marketing, hawks “three-day ‘training’ courses” for $15,000 per student.

“In fact, even after the Infant was returned to the Infant’s parents,” the suit alleges, “Rodriguez and Bundy have continued to exploit the Infant by incessantly marketing the Infant and his likeness through social media and alternative media to promote PRN, Bundy in campaign advertising, and Rodriguez and his multiplicity of sales schemes.”

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idwsonicmegareview · 6 months

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Judge, Jury and... Mr. Tinker? – Volume 2: The Fate of Dr. Eggman (#5-8)

Typically there is little to no connective tissue between Sonic games and we almost never see any actual aftermath to the events of the games. IDW's Sonic comics opened with "Fallout!" which showed us exactly that: Sonic's world in a state of fallout from the Eggman War.

The comics are also establishing that the events of the games have happened on a continuum and are canon to each other. Continuing into issues 5 through 8, we have the rare opportunity of seeing how this world remains resilient in the face of so many challenges.

The big question at the end of issue 4 was "who is in charge of the badniks if Eggman is gone?" And maybe just as important: "where is Eggman?"

Story

The Chaotix Detective Agency contacts Sonic and brings him to Windmill Village, where they believe they have found the missing Dr. Eggman, but here’s the catch: he doesn’t remember who he is.

Dr. Eggman has been living in this sleepy little town ever since the end of the war as “Mr. Tinker,” a kindly handyman who’s been helping the townspeople. This presents an interesting conundrum for Sonic. Can he hold this man accountable for the evil things Eggman has done if he truly has lost his old personality?

But before Sonic can make a decision as to what to do with Mr. Tinker, Shadow the Hedgehog arrives on the scene to put the doctor down, once and for all. The two hedgehogs quickly come to blows with one another over their differences of opinion. Sonic appeals to Shadow’s better nature by reminding Shadow that he too once was an amnesiac who did evil things but was turned back to the side of good. Reluctantly, Shadow agrees to let Sonic decide what is to be done with Eggman.

Sonic decides to leave Mr. Tinker alone for now, but the Chaotix will be checking up on him regularly for any signs of his old personality resurfacing.

His next stop is to fly up to the Eggfleet with Tails on the Tornado. They hope to hack into Eggman’s computer network to see who’s calling the shots. Before Sonic can do any of that, however, he’s confronted by… Dr. Eggman?

Sonic calls the imposter’s bluff and the figure of Eggman morphs into the imposing figure of Neo Metal Sonic, the upgraded Metal Sonic from Sonic Heroes (2003). It turns out Dr. Eggman had upgraded Metal in anticipation of the final battle to come in Forces, but he came online too late. Sonic and Co. had already defeated Eggman and Infinite and the doctor was nowhere to be found. Neo resolved to take command of the badniks and conquer the world on the doctor’s behalf until he returned.

Sonic escapes from Metal Sonic’s clutches, leaving behind a crippled fleet unable to shoot after the escaping Tornado.

In a final effort to hack into the Eggnet, Sonic and Silver infiltrate an old Eggman base where they encounter the sniper, Whisper the Wolf. Whisper is armed with a transforming wispon, capable of using multiple color powers such as a sniper rifle, hammer, and parachute/parasol.

Sonic quickly picks up on Whisper’s timid nature and her reluctance to socialize. She talks in hushed tones, as her name implies. Silver, on the other hand, is completely oblivious to it and spooks Whisper repeatedly.

During the war, Whisper was an effective sniper, always covering the Resistance’s advances but never showing herself to take credit. Silver thought of her as “the guardian angel of the battlefield.” It’s also clear that she has some sort of trauma from that time and is bent on hitting Eggman back for it.

After infiltrating the computer core of the base, Sonic and Co. discover that Neo Metal Sonic has changed tactics — with Knuckles occupied as leader of the Resistance, Angel Island and the Master Emerald are unguarded!

Review

Writing

Ian Flynn does start doing something kind of funny in this series where he has characters spout off song lyrics from the games’ most iconic themes but he weaves them in in a way that they usually don’t stand out or seem out of place. For example, when Neo Metal has Sonic by the throat he threatens to drop him off the edge if he doesn't tell him where Eggman is and Sonic says "I never fear the fall" referencing the lyric from "His World," the theme of the 2006 Sonic the Hedgehog game. It fits as something Sonic would say in this situation because he really doesn't have any regard for his own mortality and it sells that cocksure attitude.

Characters

So the elephant in the room is Shadow. Fans have been panning this version of Shadow's character for years now and with good reason! Shadow is a fan-favorite character largely because of the growth we saw in his character arc between Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), all of which are canon to the IDW continuity.

This Shadow acts rashly, doesn't listen to others, and seems hell-bent on killing Dr. Eggman as judge, jury and executioner. In the past we've seen Shadow as more than willing to work with Dr. Eggman if the situation called for it and beyond that his character has always been more inclined to over-thinking rather than rushing into a situation. We've also seen he has a deep respect for Sonic, even when he was "evil" he didn't disregard Sonic or what he had to say, so for him to show up and completely ignore Sonic is pretty weird!

Overall, the comics do what they've always done best: make good use of Sonic's extended cast of characters. The games have really fallen into a trap of only utilizing Sonic and Tails since Sonic Unleashed. In most games since then, the rest of the cast have been relegated to cameo appearances at best. Even when Sonic was "dead" in Forces, the other characters did practically nothing. The plot only progressed by bringing in another Sonic from another dimension and with the avatar character, which is pretty sad!

In these issues, we saw the Chaotix not only make an appearance but also getting their work done by actually tracking down Eggman. Rouge shows up not just as a cameo alongside Shadow, it's revealed that she specifically manipulated events so that the Chaotix would bring Sonic to the village at the same time Shadow arrived to stop him from attacking.

We even get some love for Silver by showing that he's still in the present timeline and working with Sonic to prevent the bad future.

Then the cherry on top is we get a brand new character with Whisper! So far I have much love for the original characters in IDW but Whisper is probably my favorite from her character design to the way she ties in to the previous game. One of the customization options for the avatar character was a kabuki mask and Whisper has a mask with the same shape but with an in-universe reason being that it's a snipe scope as well as tech to help her communicate with her Wisps. Plus I love that she's an anti-social character in a universe that's already practically bursting at the seams with extroverts.

World-Building

I really like that Ian Flynn goes out of the way here to plug another hole in Sonic Forces' plot, being the absence of the real Metal Sonic. Infinite used the Phantom Ruby to make "clones" of Metal, Shadow, Zavok and Chaos but the real Metal Sonic was nowhere to be seen. It seems odd that Eggman would employ virtual reality clones of the bot but leave the real one on the bench. Neo Metal Sonic explains that he was in the process of being upgraded to this form during the war and was therefore unavailable. Plus, it gives IDW an excuse to reuse one of the coolest designs of Metal Sonic!

And while we're on the subject of crafting some continuity between this and the games, I liked seeing the re-introduction of the Egg Fleet from Sonic Heroes, which we haven't seen since Shadow the Hedgehog. Good to know this fleet of airships is still floating around somewhere in between games.

My biggest question after this part, however, is what kind of legal system do they have in Sonic's world? Sonic makes it sound like each town has their own hierarchy and their law goes. The village elder gets the final say on what to do with Eggman just because he woke up in his town? Plus he says he defers to the judgement of a famous hero like Sonic, so what Sonic is sheriff of the world? I know I'm overthinking it but that's my job.

The Verdict

This second volume continued the forward momentum we had at the end of part one, but takes the time to establish a little bit more context for the world Sonic lives in and how our heroes fit into things. I especially liked seeing more fan favorite characters not only appear but also drive the story forward.

Bringing in Neo Metal Sonic as the first antagonist of the series is a smart move, in my opinion. We have seen dozens of Sonic vs. Eggman stories so it's always nice to see someone else get the chance to antagonize. Plus it's nostalgic for an older fan like me who has fond memories of Neo's first appearance in Sonic Heroes.

I'm excited to keep reading as we head into volume 3: "Battle for Angel Island" which collects issues 9 through 12. I'll see you guys next week!

#idw sonic #sonic the hedgehog #dr. eggman #ian flynn #tracy yardley #adam bryce thomas #evan stanley

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delusion-of-negation · 1 year

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Hi, would you mind clarifying on your “you have a cop living in your head” post? I’m not entirely sure what it’s referring to

this is the post, for anyone who hasn't seen it

I clarified a little in the second ask here (first one is for context)

and I've made literally countless posts about this, but I don't got every link to hand because most of them are quite old, since shit lately hasn't exactly been prime "make a big long essay" feelings

there's a post somewhere, from back when the kanye/alex jones started, and I criticised the "I'm bipolar and I don't do that, so it's clearly him being Transcendentally Bad and not symptoms", as if nobody has ever gone off the fucking rails in a manic episode, lol

there's also some rants about it specifically regarding the "call all youtuber out for everything all the time and harass them, keep it escalating and escalating, demand whatever you want and when that's done, demand more" attitude people have, how egotistical thinking you're judge, jury, and executioner is, how it hinders the actual act of growth, etc. and I've said the same about prison, or vigilante justice, or so forth. as I said recently in a reblog of this:

really "it doesn't help the victim in any tangible sense to balance imaginary moral scales by causing more harm, the victim needs mental/social help, as does the perpetrator", it only hurts more.

you are not their personal mental health expert. you are not their doctor. you are not their therapist. it's just not your job to involve yourself in their growth or demand they do it your way. some ass hurt your feelings online, grow up, block them, leave it alone. the simple fact is that harassing people helps nobody, it's just smug superiority complex bullshit. and while you can have standards if friends/family upset you for when you'll forgive them, that is not morally binding, they don't owe you those things, they owe you a fucking big fat nothing, there is no karma debt to be repaid, and wishing suffering upon them to repay it is a dick move. so that is generally my stance, oversimplified somewhat to make it easier.

then re that post specifically, I saw someone talking about being completely in the throws of a mental breakdown, for depression, upsetting people around you, getting help, and that not being an adequate "fix", in fact there's no "fix", and the guilt should just be eternal from the sounds of things. that's depression. ever-lasting guilt is actually a manifestation of depression. you are not doing literally anything to help depressed people if you tell them to feel things like that forever. they preach about accountability, all this flowery bullshit about owning up to things, about not using such illnesses as an excuse, about how they're ill but they don't do the things someone else did- it's a progressive way of saying the old bootstraps bullshit, with an added dose of catholic guilt, and the rozzers living inside your skull. you're policing yourself to absurd degrees. you're using it to justify the unhealthy and cruel things.

frankly, you will do bad things sometimes because you're human people, and you'll do them because of mental health issues, and there's no fucking way you should endure endless guilt, because some edgy alt chick pretending to be a goth wants a progressive excuse to be a bitchy bully, or some braindead guy wants to look smart on the youtubes and win twitter's favour. those sentences mean nothing, they're excuses to hold things over people- a way people put words in your mouth, pretending that daring to start explaining yourself without bending over to get fucked up first is actually you "refusing to take accountability", from the authority they've decided they have to dish it out. it's egotistical jargon. or simply a cop living in their head. just because you don't do those things, your symptoms don't manifest like that, you respond in a different way to those circumstances, etc, doesn't mean another person is Fundamentally Evil, bodies respond differently to stuff. there's no reason to believe your experiences are universal. but it especially isn't very fucking leftist to call people intrinsically evil.

accountability culture is just people, who understand the prison industrial complex is wrong, being unable to understand that it's given them propaganda brainworms that they need to unpack, a problem with their worldview, and instead they've clung onto all these warped perceptions and tried to stuff them into a new shit worldview, that hyperfocuses on overly-moralising, and whether somebody is a victim or a perpetrator, black and white, and it all comes packaged with a perfect excuse to be this sanctimonious bully, to boost your own ego, and to judge others. it's fucked up.

that's why it's a cop in your head, it's literally coming from them.

#this is very messily worded #and like this isn't anti-criticism #you can bitch about stuff you don't like I do it all the damn time #but once you start with this preachy harassing bullshit you suck

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vmures · 1 year

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Learning to live with uncertainty is important

I've been thinking about "discourse" lately. I use quotes because often what I see online isn't an actual conversation, which is what the word discourse implies, but people shouting at each other. Arguments on one side or another are often in bad faith and there is no openness to other points of view. And I've been thinking about why that is. I think the biggest part of the problem is the allure of bright-line rules.

Bright-line rules is a term used in the legal world and can be defined as follows: "A bright-line rule is an objective rule that resolves legal questions in a straightforward, predictable manner." These are rules where a thing is always right or a thing is always wrong. There is no room for interpretation or nuance. And they are alluring because they are easy and uncomplicated.

However, the world is very, very complicated, and using bright-line rules for everything means that sometimes the wrong party faces punishment. The example given in the link above is of a bright-line rule used in auto insurance. The car with the front damage is the one responsible for the accident. But using that rule and having no room for nuance means that if Driver A backs into Driver B, Driver B will be the one considered at fault despite not actually being at fault.

There are times where as a culture we decide that such bright-line rules are worth it, even if occasionally someone will be punished who might not deserve to be. But a huge problem arises when we decide that all things should be treated as bright-line rules. Because we stop thinking--we don't consider all the facts in a situation or all the consequences of the rule/law. One example of not considering the consequences of a broadly written bright-line anti-abortion rule is that many doctors in states that have enacted such rules are worried that providing IVF treatment because the unused fertilized eggs are often destroyed and that would be considered abortion under the law.

And when you apply this sort of thinking to cultural discourse, you get situations where someone hears "rainbow capitalism is evil" and decides that they should then inform a queer person selling their own art/merch during Pride that they shouldn't do that. That person isn't a horrible person, but they are misunderstanding "rainbow capitalism" as a concept. It isn't a bright-line rule that all sales of Pride merchandise are evil. But if you don't know the history of how corporations have generally treated the LGBTQUIA+ community, and how frustrating it is to see them add surface-level support of us now that they know they can make money off of us, then you might interpret the concept as a bright-line rule. It is even more likely you will interpret it as such if you already have a habit of thinking in very black-and-white terms.

It's so very tempting to want easy answers and clear "this is always right" and "this is always wrong" ideologies. But it's dangerous. You can end up harming the communities you want to support. One of the hardest parts of law school is learning to live with a certain level of uncertainty. If you ask any lawyer, or even former law student, if something is legal chances are high that the response you get will be "it depends." Because ultimately whether something is legal or not depends on the facts of the case. A litigator's job is to show that the facts of the case support their stance and not the other side's stance. But they also have to understand what facts support the other side's arguments. You then leave it to the judge and/or jury to decide who has the stronger case. It's rarely cut and dry.

Uncertainty isn't comfortable. Struggling with complex issues isn't comfortable. But you connect far better with your fellow humans and are more likely to be a fair and kind person if you are open to uncertainty. If you are willing to listen to all the facts and opinions and actually consider them.

When it comes to discourse online...well, that openness only helps if it goes both ways. If one side is engaging in good faith and open to considering the other's point of view and the other side is just looking to call them names and tell them they should die...well, that's not true discourse or helpful discussion. It's bullying hidden behind ideology. And ultimately, that is where insisting on nothing but bright-line rules leads.

#culture #discourse #we seem to be loosing the ability to see nuance #didn't intend to write an essay today #but that's what happened

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juliiwrites · 1 year

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Currently Watching

911 | season 4 episode 12

Abbott Elementary | season 1 episode 6

Beef | episode 3

Daisy Jones and the Six | episode 5

Girls5Eva | season 1 episode 4

Grace and Frankie | season 6 episode 11

Platonic | season 1 episode 7

Strange Planet | season 1 episode 5

The Magicians | season 3 episode 8

The White Lotus | season 2 episode 4

Wedding Season | episode 4

Currently Re-watching

Friends | season 10 episode 6

Hacks | season 1 episode 7

Modern Family | season 5 episode 12

Sherlock | season 1 episode 2

The Office | season 9 episode 9

Watchlist and Finished Series are underneath the cut 🤗

Watchlist

911 | seasons 2-5

Abbott Elementary

After Life

Agent Carter

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D

Always a Witch

American Gods

Anxious People

Arcane

Atlanta Medical

Babylon Berlin

Bones | seasons 11-12

Breaking Bad | seasons 2-5

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina | seasons 3-4

Crashing

Damaged Goods

Der Tatortreinger | seasons 2-7

Desperate Housewives | seasons 5-8

Dexter | seasons 6-8

Downtown Abbey | season 3-6

Dr Who

Dynasty | seasons 3-5

Elite

ER | seasons 2-15

Extraordinary

Fakes

Fleabag

Flora and Son

Girls

Girls 5 Eva

Glow

Grey’s Anatomy | seasons 12-19

Heartstopper | season 2

House of Cards | seasons 3-6

House of the Dragon

How I Met Your Father | season 2

How To Sell Drugs Online (Fast) | seasons 2-3

It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia

Jack Ryan | season 3

Jerks. | seasons 3-5

Kaulitz & Kaulitz

Little Fires Everywhere

Loki | season 2

Love

Love & Anarchy

Marvellous Mrs Masel

Money Heist | parts 3-5

Mythic Quest

Narcos

Never Have I Ever

Not Dead Yet

Once Upon A Time

Outlander | seasons 3-5

Ozark

Parks and Recreation

Parlament

Partner Track

Peaky Blinders

Platonic

Queen Charlotte

Ragnarok | seasons 2-3

Roar

Rick und Morty

Riverdale | seasons 6-7

Scandal

Scream Queen

Selling Sunset | seasons 6-7

Selling the OC

Seven vs Wild | seasons 2-3

Sex Education

Shadow & Bone | season 2

Space Force

Special | season 2

Stranger Things | I’ll only watch once the series is wrapped

Succession | seasons 3-4

Superstore

Sweet Magnolias

Ted Lasso | season 3

The Bear | season 3

The Bold Type

The Brothers Sun

The Diplomat

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

The Flight Attendant

The Gentlemen

The Gilded Age | season 2

The Good Fight

The Great

The Handmaid‘s Tale

The Last of Us

The Morning Show

The Mandalorian

The Resident

The Rings of Power

The Witcher | season 4

This Is Us

Tiny Beautiful Things

Valeria

Wedding Season

Workin’ Moms

Finished

Arrested Development

Baymax!

Below Deck

Below Deck Mediterranean

Bluey

Bridgerton

Brooklyn 99

Champion

Community

Criminal

Cunk on Earth

Daredevil

Dash & Lily

Dead to Me

Derry Girls

Die Schwarzwaldklinik

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

Doctor’s Diary

Don’t Fuck With Cats

Emily in Paris

Fate: The Winx Sags

First Kill

Friends

Game of Thrones

Get Even

Gilmore Girls

Golden Girls

Good Omens

Good Witch

Gossip Girl

Grey’s Anatomy | season 1-12

Hacks

Half Bad: The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself

Heart of Dixie

Heartstoppers

How I Met Your Mother

IKEA Heights

Iron Fist

Jane the Virgin

Jessica Jones

Jury Duty

Killing Eve

Luke Cage

Lupin

Loki | season 1

Modern Family

New Girl

Obliterated

Only Murders In The Building

Please Like Me

Pretty Little Liars

Rebel Cheer Squad

Santa Clarita Diet

Schitt’s Creek

Sherlock

Shrinking

Soundtrack

Supernatural

Superstore

Teen Wolf | season 1-4

The 7 Lives of Lea

The Actress

The Afterparty

The Bear

The Big Bang Theory

The Buccaneers

The Circle

The Defenders

The Mole

The Night Agent

The Office

The Queen’s Gambit

The Recruit

The Sandman

The Umbrella Academy

The Vampire Diaries

The Witcher

Tiger King

Too Hot To Handle

Treason

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Unnatural Selection

Wednesday

Westside

You

I will not watch

American Horror Story | … horror isn’t my genre, but I have heard only great things about this series!

The Boys | I know, I know, the hook is great and the series is supposed to be amazing, but I’ve seen the very first scene and did not expect it 🙈 it really shocked me so I might need a while to get over it.

Law and Order SVU | I have tried watching it but I cannot stomach it

#masterlist #Watchlist #currently watching #currently re-watching #juliiwrites #Finished #this list will be edited continuously :)

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unicanberraonline · 7 months

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University of Canberra - Postgraduate Online

The University of Canberra, a premier institution in Australia’s vibrant capital, is dedicated to providing an unparalleled online educational experience. Our array of online courses, including the Juris Doctor and Master of Counselling, are crafted to empower you through a learning journey that is both independent and supported, ensuring your needs are always at the forefront.

Our Graduate Diplomas and Certificates in Counselling, Legal Studies, Public Policy, and Education, along with our Master of Social Work (Qualifying) and specialised STEM Education programs, are designed to be in sync with the latest work trends. This ensures that your education is not just contemporary but also predictive of future professional landscapes.

Being part of a network of professionals, experts, industry peak bodies, and government, we provide you with a learning experience that is rich in real-world context and opportunities. Our commitment to your success is reflected in our ranking as the #1 university in Canberra for overall experience and our position among the top two universities in Australia.

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Choose the University of Canberra for your online Postgraduate studies, and join a community where education is more than just a degree—it’s a catalyst for personal and professional transformation.

#Master of Education (STEM)#University of Canberra - Postgraduate Online #Juris Doctor Online #Master of Counselling Online #Graduate Diploma in Counselling Online #Master of Public Policy Online #Master of Education Online course #online Master of Counselling #online Master of Social Work #Youtube

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i-need-some-advice-on · 10 months

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does anyone know how to request an excuse from jury duty if your first request was denied? or how to get on the phone with like a real person and explain the situation? i live in Los Angeles County but i go to college about an eight hour drive away and i got a jury summons for a few months from now, while i will be at school, in the mail. my mom opened it for me (with my permission of course) and i went online to request an excuse. i don't know if i filled out the form wrong or something but apparently my excuse of "i go to school several hundred miles away and i cannot simply drop by to do jury duty that i probably won't even be selected for" wasn't good enough because i got another summons in the mail saying my request was denied.

i called the phone number they gave but it's not a real person and when i try to go through the menu options it says something like "you have recently submitted an excuse request. please wait 30 days for your request to be processed. if your request is denied you will receive a new summons in the mail. you do not need to call in the meantime. goodbye." and i can't figure out how to get through to a real person. i went to the website again to try to submit a new excuse request and make sure i filled the form out correctly but the website just gives me a banner saying i can't submit another excuse request. what the fuck.

another note: i don't want to tell them that i don't LIVE in LA county anymore because 1. i do for part of the year and i have two jobs there and 2. i am worried they'll make me change my medi-cal insurance if i say i moved which would be really bad because i have some health issues and it's really important that i keep LA Care so my doctors in LA will be covered, i have school insurance so i don't need my doctors here covered, they already are. there's also a whole other health insurance mess i'm dealing with right now and i don't want this to get tangled up in that. this is probably a long shot, i doubt anyone here will know how to help, but google isn't being helpful and i don't know what to do. neither my grades or my wallet can afford for me to just skip school and go home for an indeterminate amount of time for jury duty. please help

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huhnkie-lee-wiki · 2 years

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Who is Huhnkie Lee?

Huhnkie Lee is a state senate candidate from Wasilla, Alaska, United States. His Korean name is 이헌기 (Romanized as i heon gi; which Mr. Lee has romanized to lee huhnkie). He gained notoriety for his eccentric behavior in-person and online.

His current social medias are: @huhnkie (instagram), @huhnkie (twitter), Huhnkie Lee @huhnkie (YouTube), Huhnkie Lee (Facebook), @huhnkieleeforussenate (tiktok) (currently banned), @huhnkie (medium), @huhnkie (tumblr)

Job and Education

In YouTuber djelf7’s video from March 10, 2022, Huhnkie Lee states that he is currently working as a lawyer, and that he was trained as a computer programmer. As for being a lawyer, it is confirmed by the Alaska Bar Association website that as of January 29, 2023, Huhnkie Lee is an active attorney (link to website). Also according to the website, Lee received education from the University of Michigan Law School, which is further proved by ballotpedia.org; According to ballotpedia, “Huhnkie Lee was born in Ithaca, New York. Lee served in the U.S. Army from 2009 to 2013. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 2004 and a juris doctor from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 2015. Lee's career experience includes working as a computer programmer and an attorney.”

Life

Huhnkie Lee was born to South Korean parents in Ithaca, New York, United States on June 21, 1978, and as of now is 44 years old. Although born in the U.S., Huhnkie grew up in Seoul, South Korea until 1997 (ballotpedia).

“Born in Ithaca NY, 1978. Grew up in south Korea till high school. Computer science major in computer science in Madison WI. Two years in Cornell, computational biology PhD. Dropped out, went to LA, CA, to become a movie star. Acting gigs in spare time while working ad a full time computer programmer. Didn't work out. But made a movie and uploaded to YouTube. ... Joined the US Army. After 4 years, got out with GI Bill. Went to a law school in MI. Watched TV. Alaskan TV shows. Graduated law in two years. Flew to Alaska in a Hawaiian T-shirts. ... Fell in love with Alaska ever since. ... Got a computer programmer job. Read law. Took Alaska bar exam. Missed by one point. Got help from friends. Passed the second time. Got a lawyer job. 2018. ... Running for Alaska state senate. Why? ... To get attention? Money, power, fame? Or.... What else? ... Love.” (ballotpedia) Lee joined the Army as “a ‘94R MOS’ specialist working on avionics and helicopter equipment systems.” While in the U.S. Army, Lee was deployed to Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012, and Lee described the deployment as “uneventful” (alaskalandmine.com)

Achievements

Winning the Best Avant Garde Film award for his self-shot movie “A Therapy for Metrophobia” (Released to his official YouTube channel Feb 22, 2014) at the International Film Festival Ireland 2011.

Being a goofy guy

Passing the Alaska Bar Exam! Wooo!

Not being fired from his job as a lawyer

Notable Works

Humanology (YouTube series)

Lee hosts a YouTube series called “Humanology” that is currently on its 1,938th episode uploaded April 1, 2022. The first video is titled “Humanology 0” and was released to YouTube on June 20, 2018. In the comment section under this first video Huhnkie says the series is about the “discovery of new knowledge.”

A Therapy for Metrophobia (Amateur Movie)

The true release date of Lee’s A Therapy for Metrophobia remains unconfirmed as there is another video uploaded to YouTube 4 years before the current official movie upload date that details Huhnkie winning an above mentioned award for A Therapy for Metrophobia, which can be found here.

#huhnkie lee #alaska #alaska life #wikipédia #wikia #fandom wiki #wiki page #wikipedia #internet history #internet historian #internet culture #internet archive #web archive #digital archives

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butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway · 2 years

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So, thoughts about smooth sharking from someone who doesn't like it either

First off, the guy who started it I don't mind so much, because a lot of what he was doing was doing was stuff that while he never backed down made it pretty clear it was a joke. Things like holding a book with a piece of notebook paper in front saying like "Sharks are Hella Smooth by A Doctor", or saying that the Santana song was written about sharks

I don't know that I fully like him doing it, but at least it was a joke

The people watching though... yeah. I'm not sure I really know the right words to say how I feel about it, but they were really really bad. The whole thing got totally out of hand where almost no one in on it is willing to break from it

Actually just going to start this ask by saying sharks have sandpaper like skin so you know you're not dealing with someone who'll be lying for a joke, and so you know what this ask is about so you can avoid it if you need to

Have a good day regardless of if you read the rest

I never had to deal with it in person or any online situation I couldn't just leave, so I'm really sorry to hear you had to deal with that. That's exactly why smooth sharking is such a shitty thing

At some point you just have to be able to say "yeah, sharks have rough skin, and everything about them being smooth is a meme", but there are people who refuse to do that. So I don't like it

Also though... I really don't like the people who are like "well it's bad when used against neurodivergent people, but good when used against mansplainers" cause it's just like... are you you can tell the difference?

Call me out of touch, but I feel like when you start making yourself the judge jury and executioner of social situations you run a real risk of hitting innocent people, and that on top of that a blow hard you might kind of annoy, but you get someone vulnerable by accident you might really put them in distress

...I don't know... it's not like I have all the answers to how to fix human behavior or... I'd just do that, but I kind of think but I kind of think that saying "hey, you need to stop talking over people right now" (or similar, choose your own wording) is more direct and also leaves the chance for someone to say "I'm really sorry, I didn't realize I was"

...but I don't know, I really don't. Don't like anything about smooth sharking and really don't trust people wanting to do social correction type stuff to people

I mean, I knew a real know it all, one time told me Irish and Klingon are both equally made up... I actually said to someone jokingly that they were such a redditor and after a pause I was told they never shut up about reddit... shouldn't be able to stereotype that

Anyway, they were a pain, but they weren't a bad person. So I just... avoided talking to them cause they annoyed me. Still tried to do what I could to be polite when we did talk, just like... they weren't someone fun for me personally to talk to, and that was that

Kind of don't know why we gotta try and "fix" everyone by... well often by just straight up bullying them... I don't know... think this is starting to get to be too broad to really discuss

Anyway, really sorry you had to deal with that. Always hated it online for that exact reason, cause it's like... no one knows how to drop the meme and be honest

(Also hate people who are like "no one explain the joke" for similar reasons, just... just stop it folks, you know?)

Yeah, having (retroactively) been shown some of the original stuff the meme comes from, it was really obviously "trolling" and like. I don't really have a problem with that as long as the person being trolled is in complete control of when it ends (i.e. the trolling is reactive to someone who refuses to stop arguing, not proactive seeking out a target) but part of the definition of trolling as I understand it is that it does not cause undue harm or distress and I think smooth sharking as a meme really struggled with that due to its comedic context and how it was being used.

I'm also, admittedly, a bit sensitive to jokes that rely on "unreality" to be funny as someone who struggles to keep my body-mind planted firmly in the shared reality of society. I work really hard to be able to function in my life despite my experiences of alternative reality, and comedy like smooth sharking really throws a monkey wrench right into those gears for me if I'm not able to adequately structure my engagement with them. I recognize this as a problem that impacts a fairly limited number of people. But, the sanism around how unreality gets treated can be.....unpleasant when you are one of the ones impacted (I did not love the memes that tended to come out of that Leonardo DiCaprio movie either, and it doesn't escape me that basically no one ever tags "unreality" as a trigger warning). Smooth shark is hardly my first round of this particular sort of experience, but it WAS the first time that me saying "I am not having fun with this meme the way you are" was taken as proof that the meme was in fact comedy gold when wielded against me. So that was less than great.

I genuinely don't think smooth shark is a bad or ablist meme! But I do think that specific people (including me) had a really bad time with it and the posts I saw today are GENUINELY the very first time I have seen anyone else acknowledge that. For a long time I never talked about how I felt about it because it seemed like absolutely everyone was on the same page. I now wonder how many were like me: unable to reject the meme and stuck choosing between untenable feelings of isolation and acceptance of the meme as part of their new reality.

For what it's worth: all of the people involved in smooth sharking me to the brink of instability were ALSO neurodivergent, often even in the same ways I was. This is very self evidently not something we can have a one size fits all conversation about. All the more reason, in my opinion, for people who like the bit to be a little more careful how they use and who they use it on.

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cyarskj1899 · 2 years

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The fact that it was Black male rappers led the way is unforgivable and it’s shameful! The girl was SHOT and the way she has been treated is truly sad. I’ll never forgive anyone who mocked her trauma and called her a liar and for what? Just to ride some c -list level artists and abuser peen ? Only by the grace of God was her life and career not ended that night, nor was she permanently disabled. I pray she rises on fire like a Phoenix and just takes the dayum crown - leaving haters in ashes!

She never should've been treated this way in the first place. It is absolutely ridiculous how they treated her. What was even moreso disappointing was the amount of women who disrespected her alongside the men.

The loudest 🖕 you and everyone who has ever dickriding that little degenerative bastard

Before, during and after the trial of Tory Lanez, Megan Thee Stallion was treated as more of a villain than he was. Let’s talk about it.

OPINION: The Houston rapper has been the focus of gossip, rumors and flat-out lies about what really happened in July 2020.

Monique Judge

Dec 28, 2022

Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.

On Friday, Canadian rapper Tory Lanez was convicted of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, having a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle and discharging a firearm with gross negligence — charges related to the July 12, 2020, shooting of fellow rapper Megan Thee Stallion. Because the jury agreed that there were “aggravating factors” in the shooting, Lanez, whose real name is Daystar Peterson, faces up to 22 years in prison and deportation after he serves his sentence. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 25.

In the two-and-a-half years since the shooting, Megan Thee Stallion, whose real name is Megan Pete, has faced online harassment and abuse from fans of Lanez, others in the hip-hop community and people in the general public who did not believe her story. Friday’s conviction of Lanez did not change that at all; people are still positing that she lied about the entire situation.

The entire situation stinks of misogynoir, and it serves as a reminder of how much Black women go unprotected in this world, even as many claim to love us and want to protect us.

Pete was subjected to a targeted campaign of weaponized misinformation and had her name dragged through the mud day after day. In her testimony during the trial, she tearfully related how this entire situation has impacted her life and made things harder for her, saying at one point, “Because I was shot, I’ve been turned into some kind of villain, and he’s the victim. This has messed up my whole life.

“I wish he would have just shot and killed me (rather than) have to go through this torture,” she said.

Victim blaming and shaming is nothing new; we see it all the time.

What makes it especially egregious in this instance is that Pete did not initially tell police that Lanez had shot her, possibly saving Lanez from being yet another hashtag.

We will never know, because Pete kept it to herself and didn’t speak publicly about it until rumors began spreading about what occurred that night after they left Kylie Jenner’s party, forcing her to have to defend herself publicly.

Megan Thee Stallion was shot in the feet after an altercation occurred in the car she was riding in with her former friend Kelsey and Lanez. This is a fact.There is medical documentation as well as the testimony of the medical doctor to corroborate this.

Lanez went on trial for two weeks to face charges in the shooting incident, and he was ultimately found guilty on all charges related to the shooting. This is also a fact.

It is confusing to me why there are people out there who still want to claim a) he didn’t do itand b) she was never shot.

A Black woman was harmed by a Black man, yet the Black woman is the one who suffered the most umbrage from the general public, and that is telling about us both as a society and as a people and culture.

Black women are repeatedly disregarded in situations like this, and Pete is just the latest example — except for her, it went even deeper than that.

Pete was the victim of a targeted campaign of weaponized misinformation throughout her entire ordeal. As reported by NBC News, “popular hip-hop bloggers, podcasters and social media accounts” — who don’t follow the same journalistic standards of ethics as the rest of us — have put forth unsubstantiated theories about what really happened that evening, and those theories have been read and spread by their millions of followers, whether they were true, based in fact, or not.

From NBC:

These online personalities draw thousands to millions of viewers for celebrity-related news, and often share provocative, unverified rumors to their throngs of followers. The result is online fervor fueled by misogyny and misinformation that pits a high-profile woman, such as Megan Thee Stallion or Amber Heard, against a man accused of destructive behavior, such as Tory Lanez or Johnny Depp.

As Catherine Knight Steele, a communications professor at the University of Maryland and the author of “Digital Black Feminism,” told NBC in the same report, “This points to the way that mis- and disinformation, and misogynoir, is trafficked because of its profitability, even in the Black community. It’s profitable for these sites to traffic in the most-vile stereotypes about Black women.”

Milagro Gramz, a hip-hop news commentator, admitted to NBC that not everything she posts is meant to be factual and that at times she just posts things for “comedic effect.”

Too bad Milagro Gramz is too goofy and drunk off internet clout to realize the damage she and others like her are doing when Black women are actually harmed.

Or, as Steele put it, “Whatever can garner the most controversy can go the most viral. It’s profitable because being anti-Black woman, using Black women as scapegoats or villains, works for a variety of audiences, white audiences, Black men audiences and, most, unfortunately, in spaces where Black women use misogynoir to distance themselves from the negative implications of being associated with other Black women.”

A lot of people want to argue that the things they have said about Pete are just their “opinion,” but here’s the thing: Opinions need to be rooted in fact.

If your opinion is not based on facts or rooted in fact, then you have just made something up and are putting it out there as if it were facts, and that is harmful to us all.

Improved and increased media literacy could have gone a long way to prevent a lot of these rumors about Pete from spreading, but I’ll save the media literacy lecture for another day.

Suffice it to say that Pete is the victim in this situation, not Lanez.

Dragging her through the mud, weaponizing her sexuality against her, and making her truth seem like a lie in favor of defending the man who shot her is the lowest form of “journalism” out there.

Everyone should be ashamed.

Tory Lanez was convicted on all three charges Friday, and while it may seem like Pete has gotten the justice she deserves, she really hasn’t.

Monique Judge is a storyteller, content creator and writer living in Los Angeles. She is a word nerd who is a fan of the Oxford comma, spends way too much time on Twitter, and has more graphic t-shirts than you. Follow her on Twitter @thejournalista or check her out at moniquejudge.com.

TheGrio is FREE on your TV via Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku, and Android TV. Please download theGrio mobile apps today!

Sent from my iPhone

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beardedmrbean · 2 years

Text

A judge told the transgender rapist Isla Bryson that they were not “the victim in this situation”, as the 31-year-old was jailed for eight years.

Bryson, who committed the attacks while still known as Adam Graham, was sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh on Tuesday morning.

Lord Scott said that while he had access to medical reports which suggested Bryson was “vulnerable”, in part due to traumatic childhood events, this was “no excuse” for raping two women who had been “systematically” targeted.

Bryson claimed during the trial that they had known they were transgender at age four, although this was later questioned by their wife and mother who both said they had shown no interest in transitioning. Bryson only began living as a woman after being charged with rape.

The case was seen as contributing to the end of Nicola Sturgeon’s political career after the double rapist was initially sent to a female prison under a Scottish Prison Service (SPS) policy that followed the same principle as her gender self-ID laws.

The legislation has been blocked by the UK Government while the SPS has scrapped its own rules following an outcry. Bryson was moved to a male jail following an outcry although Ms Sturgeon has repeatedly refused to say whether she believes the rapist to be male or female.

‘Alternative account of events’

Sentencing Bryson, Lord Scott said it was clear that Bryson would pose a “particularly significant risk to any woman with whom you form a relationship”.

He said they had constructed “an alternative account of events” in which the two victims colluded together, and continued to deny the crimes.

The claims of a conspiracy were “without any foundation” and had been rejected by the jury, he said.

“You see yourself as the victim in this situation,” Lord Scott said. “You are not. Regardless of your own vulnerability, in a period of just under three years, you raped two women who can both be regarded as vulnerable.”

Edward Targowski KC, for the defence, told the High Court in Edinburgh that Bryson had been subjected to “ill-judged, ill-informed and ignorant” comments about their decision to undergo gender reassignment. He said this included references to Bryson’s “dead name” of Adam Graham.

The lawyer also told the court that Bryson had decided to change their gender many years ago and had been given “maximum” amounts of medication to help achieve this by doctors at the Sandyford Clinic, a specialist clinic in Glasgow.

Bryson was on an NHS waiting list which was several years long for a gender reassignment operation, Mr Targowski said.

However, Bryson’s estranged wife, Shonna Graham, has described claims to identify as a woman as “a sham”. The rapist’s mother, Janet Bryson, said her son never showed any interest in living as a girl while growing up.

Bryson attacked two women in Clydebank and Glasgow in 2016 and 2019. They were both raped in their own homes, after Bryson met them online, a setting in which Lord Scott said they “were entitled to feel entirely safe”.

Russell Findlay, the Scottish Tory shadow community safety minister, said that Bryson may serve as little as four years, a prospect that “will likely be of little comfort to victims”.

‘Full scrutiny’

He added: “They’ve already suffered from the perverse decision to address this rapist as ‘she’ and by Nicola Sturgeon and her justice secretary refusing to say what everyone in Scotland can see with their own eyes - that Bryson is a man.

“Even following Nicola Sturgeon’s sudden resignation, the SNP government continues to attempt to dupe the public by saying this case has nothing to do with its gender self-ID bill.

“But if this SNP law is enacted, it will be wide open to exploitation by giving the legal right to sex offenders to declare they are female, no matter the risks to women and girls.

“Going forward, the prison service must publish its delayed new policy on transgender prisoners, allowing for full scrutiny, feedback and, if necessary, amendment.”

Bryson was placed on the sex offenders’ register and will be supervised for three years after release.

#nunyas news

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your-krazy-uncle-bob · 2 years

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In an appearance this week on CNN, The Nation’s “senior justice correspondent,” Elie Mystal, said he believed that Republican policies generally appeal to the most detestable elements in American society – an assertion reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s famous “basket of deplorables” reference in 2016. “This has been their party for a long time,” Mystal explained. “At some point Republicans need to look to themselves, look at the kinds of policies they’re promoting, look at the way they want the country to be and ask why do our policies attract the worst people possible? Like they have to ask that question at some point to move forward from what has happened to their party.”

Mystal’s remarks, however, betray his utterly pathetic inability to understand that his own policies and his own worldview – as promoted and popularized by the Democratic Party — constitute the real political magnets for “the worst people possible.” That is, people who are perpetually angry, aggrieved, resentful, jealous, contemptuous, self-absorbed, and ungrateful.

Mystal’s Background

Born in Haiti in 1978, Mystal earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Government from Harvard University in 2000, and a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School three years later. After working briefly as an Associate for the New York-based international law firm of Debevoise and Plimpton, Mystal quit the legal profession in 2008 to become an editor and “online provocateur” for the left-wing website Above the Law. Ten years later he joined The Nation, where he continues to write.

Mystal’s Contempt for Black Conservatives

On May 6, 2013, Mystal said of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas: “What’s really happening is that Thomas continues to think that people hate him because he’s a black conservative, when really people hate him because he’s a black a**hole.”

Claiming a Correlation Between the Second Amendment & Racism

In a November 2013 column titled “Is The Second Amendment Racist?,” Mystal stated that “it’s clear that widespread gun ownership helped white plantation owners keep control of their slaves”; that “the right to bear arms was certainly useful when it came time to ‘settle’ additional territory away from the people who were already living there”; and that “[g]un rights, who has them, and who does not, are inextricably tied to our history of racial oppression.” “It’s unsurprising, but still interesting,” he added, “that having a gun in your home is highly correlative with thinking that black people don’t share your values and are violent. People don’t buy guns to protect themselves from their neighbors and friends, they buy guns to protect themselves from somebody else.”

Arguing in Favor of Jury Nullification

On December 7, 2016, Mystal published an opinion piece arguing in favor of jury nullification – i.e., a jury’s refusal to follow the law and convict even an obviously guilty defendant – as a means of undermining America’s allegedly racist criminal-justice system. Some excerpts:

“African-Americans live in a world where the police can murder us and get away with it…. There is no justice for black people. And yet violently revolting against the system will get us nowhere…. Maybe it’s time for black people to use the same tool white people have been using to defy a system they do not consent to: jury nullification…. Black people lucky enough to get on a jury could use that power to acquit any person charged with a crime against white men and white male institutions. It’s not about the race of the defendant, but if the alleged victim is a white guy, or his bank, or his position, or his authority: we could acquit. Assault? Acquit. Burglary? Acquit. Insider trading? Acquit.”

“I WANT CHAOS IN THE PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE. And you can’t accomplish that with a bomb or a gun. But you can with an acquittal. Lots of acquittals. All the acquittals. There are counties in this country where the justice system would grind to a halt if prosecutors couldn’t find black and brown people willing to convict or indict.… The stench of it will choke the system until it is willing to change.”

“Imagine if black people weren’t willing to indict a citizen for punching a white guy in the mouth? White people would lose their s**t, that’s what would happen.… It’s time for us to push back. Civil disobedience, when used in a targeted fashion, is a powerful force.”

Accusing White People of Supporting Racist Police Officers

In late May 2020 – shortly after the infamous death of George Floyd in Minneapolis – Mystal wrote:

“The police are never going to voluntarily stop killing black and brown people. The killings will continue until the majority of white people in this country make the killings stop.

“The police work for white people, and they know it. White people know it too. Deep down, white people know exactly whom the police are supposed to protect and serve, and they damn well know it’s not black and brown people. … A majority of [whites] clearly want the cops to behave this way. They want the viciousness. They want the horror. … They know that having racist police officers around gives them incredible power, and power makes people feel good, even if they never use it.”

Opposing Abortion Restrictions in Mississippi

In a December 1, 2021 appearance on MSNBC’s The ReidOut,” hosted by Joy Reid, Mystal reacted to the Supreme Court’s oral arguments vis-à-vis a Mississippi law that banned abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Said Mystal:

“I can prove that a fetus is not deserving of full personhood rights because if it were, [conservatives] would be arguing that the fetus should be given citizenship. They would be arguing that the fetus should have other rights like a right to education, a right to health care. They would be arguing that I should be able to claim fetuses as dependents on my taxes, which you’ll note, they’re not. They’re only concerned about the right of a fetus when that right can be used to diminish the rights of women.”

Mystal’s Book Deprecating the Constitution

On March 1, 2022, Mystal released a New York Times bestseller titled Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution. In the first lines of the introduction to his book, he writes: “Our Constitution is not good. It is a document designed to create a society of enduring white male dominancy, hastily edited in the margins to allow for what basic political rights white men could be convinced to share.” Several times in his book, he writes that the Constitution is a “violent piece of shit.”

Mystal also attacks liberals who have some measure of respect for the Constitution:

“[You] rarely see liberals make the point that the Constitution is actually trash. Conservatives are out here acting like the Constitution was etched by divine flame upon stone tablets, when in reality it was scrawled out over a sweaty summer by people making deals with actual monsters who were trying to protect their rights to rape the humans they held in bondage. Why would I give a fuck about the original public meaning of the words written by those men?”

“Redeeming our failed Constitution from its bigoted and sexist sins does not require new amendments. It does not require a few new ornaments upon its crooked boughs. It requires the emerging majority in this country to reject the conservative interpretation of what the Constitution says and adopt a morally defensible view of what our country means. I’m here to tell you that the Constitution is trash.”

Mystal again derided the Constitution during a March 25, 2022 interview on the We’ve Got Issues podcast hosted by Joshua Holland. Among Mystal’s remarks were the following:

“We are talking about a document that was written by slavers just straight up. The largest slave owner at the time of the Revolution was George Washington. So not your average everyday neighborhood slavers. We are talking about the captains of the slaving industry, you are talking about colonists, and you are talking about some rich white men who were abolitionists but were willing to make deals with slavers and colonists. No people of color had a say in how the Constitution was written. No women had a say in how the Constitution was written. So the idea that this literal 18th Century slave document represents the best we can do as a society is laughable to me.”

Mystal Advocates Packing the Supreme Court with Democrat Leftists

In a March 2022 interview with Salon magazine, Mystal called for the Supreme Court to be dramatically expanded with the addition of numerous Democrat leftists, so that American jurisprudence would not shift away from the Left, which had dominated it for so long:

“It’s court expansion or bust…. As long as you have six conservative justices, you get nothing on voting rights, you get nothing on gun rights, you get nothing on climate change, you get nothing on police brutality, you get nothing on health care, you get nothing. So you expand the court and take your chances there, or you resign yourself to getting nothing. And people will say, ‘Oh, well, if we expand the court, Republicans will just expand it right back.’ So what? How is that worse than where we are now? I would argue that if we expand the court, it makes it harder for Republicans to expand it back because it makes it harder for Republicans to control all of government, because when everybody votes, Republicans lose.”

In the same vein, Mystal in June 2022 exhorted Democrats to “flood the court” (the Supreme Court) with 20 additional justices.

Depicting America’s Founding Fathers As “Racist, Misogynist Jerkfaces”

On May 2, 2022, Politico reported that an unidentified individual had leaked an initial draft majority opinion, written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, in which the Court had decided to strike down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The following night on MSNBC, Mystal told Joy Reid: “Alito’s fundamental reasoning is that abortion is not a fundamental right because it doesn’t go back to the Founding, because the Founding Fathers didn’t recognize abortion as a fundamental right. He’s right about that. The Founding Fathers didn’t recognize abortion as a fundamental right because the Founding Fathers were racist, misogynist jerkfaces who didn’t believe that women had any rights at all. So, of course, they didn’t believe that women had rights to their own bodies.”

Elie Mystal: A “Jerkface” Personified

The bottom line is this: Elie Mystal detests pretty much everything about the United States – its founders, its history, its Constitution, its people, its laws, and its cultural traditions. And he clearly loves to articulate that hatred to anyone who will listen. Indeed, Mystal’s countenance beams unmistakably with smug satisfaction whenever he appears on television to remind white Americans that they are nothing more than a pack of racist bastards utterly unworthy of even the barest shred of his respect. And yet, this self-identified embodiment of permanent victimhood has somehow managed, at age 44, to compile a net worth of approximately $20 million – placing him, in terms of his wealth, in the top one-one millionth of 1 percent of all the human beings who have ever lived on Earth. Poor Elie Mystal. It must pain him terribly, to be constantly surrounded by so many privileged racists who cannot possibly understand the hell he is forced to endure day after day.

Wrath, Greed, Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Sloth. Probably Lust as well but I have no real evidence for that. It certainly fits the pattern.

Not Bad........six out of seven......but he IS a democrat.......so.

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futuristicmakerpeanut · 13 days

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David Sacks Net Worth: How Did PayPal Co-Founder and ‘All-In’ Podcast Host Make His Fortune?

An accomplished entrepreneur and angel investor, David Sacks doesn’t disclose the exact figures of his wealth. Despite him being a member of the “PayPal Mafia” and one of the most affluent Silicon Valley tech moguls, Sacks’ net worth feels like it’s a closely guarded secret, as none of the known billionaire trackers seem to list his name. Various sources estimate his net worth in quite a broad range, suggesting that it could be anywhere from hundreds of millions to potentially a couple billion dollars.

That being said, the secrecy of Sacks’ wealth won't preclude us from scrutinizing closely his entrepreneurial journey, possible income streams, political affiliation, and controversies. So if you’re curious to learn more about the member of the “All-In” crew, one of the richest podcast groups out there, read on!

Early life and Education

David Oliver Sacks was born on May 25, 1972, in Cape Town, South Africa, to a Jewish family. He emigrated to Tennessee, United States, with his parents when he was five years old and attended an all-boy Memphis University School. After high school, he went to get his BA in Economics at Stanford University, graduating in 1994. Four years later, he scored another academic achievement, obtaining a Juris Doctorate degree from the University of Chicago Law School.

Sacks’ family has always been reasonably affluent thanks to his father’s career as an endocrinologist, but the future entrepreneur didn’t want to follow in his footsteps. Instead, David Sacks took inspiration from his grandfather’s entrepreneurial journey as a candy factory owner in the 1920s, envisioning a similar path for himself. The solid groundwork for such pursuits has already been laid by his prestigious degrees, opening to the young entrepreneur-hopeful the doors to the most lucrative networking opportunities and business deals.

Co-founding PayPal

Fresh out of law school, David Sacks took an offer as a management consultant from McKinsey & Company but quit after just one year to join a newly founded e-commerce startup Confinity as the product leader, working alongside Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek, and Max Levchin. The company was initially conceived as a security software provider for hand-held devices such as Palm Pilots, the predecessors of modern smartphones. However, this business model failed to take off, so Confinity instead went to create an email money framework, which later became known internationally as PayPal.

As a product leader, Sacks was the driving force behind the pivot, persuading reluctant Levchin to give “email money” a try. After being promoted to the role of COO, Sacks oversaw the company's product management and design, business development, sales and marketing, customer service, and human resources, as PayPal bulldozered its way through competition, positioning itself as a major player in the online payments industry. In 2002, after a successful merger with Elon Musk’s online payments company X.com, PayPal went public through an IPO under the ticker PYPL at $13 per share.

The group of PayPal’s founders and early employees has remained connected as a tight-knit social and business community, earning them the title of “PayPal Mafia.” The moniker gained traction as many members readily embraced it (David Sacks currently has “PayPal Mafia” listed as a job description on LinkedIn under his years at the company). The bonds fostered between young entrepreneurs during their formative years at PayPal later led to numerous business collaborations and joint ventures, setting for life virtually all members and probably their descendants for several generations ahead.

Other notable ventures

As mentioned, most PayPal alumni later went on to found other successful companies, and David Sacks is no exception from the rule. In 2008, Sacks launched enterprise collaboration startup Yammer together with Adam Pisoni, a fellow co-founder from another successful venture, a genealogy website Geni.com. Having started as an internal feature for Geni.com, Yammer soon became one of the fastest-growing SaaS startups in history, hitting 8 million users in the first four years and seeing its rapid success acknowledged with the grand prize at the TechCrunch50 conference. In 2012, the company was acquired by Microsoft for $1.2 billion, making it one of the fastest unicorn exits in SaaS.

In 2017, Sacks co-founded Craft Ventures, a VC firm that makes investments in early-stage SaaS and marketplace startups. The company raised $1.32 billion in fresh capital across its two funds, bringing its total assets under management to $3.3 billion. According to Sacks, the rise of generative AI opens new horizons for SaaS companies, which are actively using cutting-edge tech to build new products and enhance user experience.

Besides being a co-founder at the above companies, Sacks had a brief stint as an interim CEO of Zenefits, the human resources SaaS platform, where the tech mogul has previously served as a COO. Under his leadership, the startup has successfully handled the internal compliance crisis. In May 2024, Sacks officially launched his other venture, Glue, an AI-powered competitor to Slack.

Since David Sacks’ name almost exclusively pops up in the context of Silicon Valley’s bubbling world of tech and entrepreneurship, it may be quite a surprise to learn that the PayPal Mafia’s Don is also a moderately successful film producer. After Paypal’s acquisition by eBay in 2002, he financed and produced a satirical comedy Thank You for Smoking that got nominated for the two Golden Globes and was subsequently bought by Twentieth Century Fox. Sacks also produced a biopic Daliland about surrealist artist Salvador Dali, acquired by Magnolia Pictures in 2023.

Finally, David Sacks is also known as a prolific angel investor, having poured his funds into more than 20 tech unicorns, which include Affirm, AirBnB, ClickUp, Eventbrite, Facebook, Gusto, Houzz, Lyft, OpenDoor, Palantir, Postmates, ResearchGate, Reddit, Rumble, Slack, SpaceX, Twitter, Uber, and Wish.

All In Podcast

To the non-SV circles orbiters, David Sacks is primarily known as one of the four co-hosts, aka ‘Besties,’ of the tech and politics-focused podcast ‘All-In.’ Alongside fellow venture capitalists Jason Calacanis, Chamath Palihapitiya, and David Friedberg, Sacks shares his takes on pressing issues in tech and business with around 100,000 monthly listeners (as per Muck Rack data).

Since the launch episode that discussed the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on businesses in March 2020, the All-In podcast has built a dedicated fanbase among tech professionals and amateur investors. So far, the quartet of entrepreneurs has worked up over 175 episodes of the podcast, each lasting one to two hours.

Controversies and Political Affiliations

As a close associate of Peter Thiel, whose money gave rise to the new brand of radical techno libertarianism that postulates freedom's incompatibility with democracy, David Sacks appears to hold similar views, which started to gain him more critical mainstream coverage after he ramped up his backing of Donald Trump for president in 2024.

Sacks' crusade against the “woke” started as early as 1995, when he co-authored with Thiel the book titled The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford, which argued that the “multiculturalist ideology” was destroying the Western heritage, pointing to Stanford’s efforts to add more works by women and minorities to the philosophy curriculum as evidence for a sinister plot against the West.

Another controversy Sacks found himself marred in was him seemingly losing the plot over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Initially standing by the contrarian albeit still rational position that the US has no interests in Ukraine, over time Sacks evolved to express what seemed to many as an open support for Russia’s actions, going as far as to accuse Ukraine of perpetrating the ISIS-claimed terrorist attack in the Moscow shopping mall that took the lives of 145 civilians.

After the bank run that caused the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, Sacks urged the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to step in and bail out SVB depositors, drawing criticism for the apparent mismatch between his calls for government intervention and his libertarian penchant for minimal regulation. A significant part of SVB customers were Bay Area startups that had put in more than the $250,000 covered by federal insurance.

Personal life

On July 7, 2007, David Sacks married Jacqueline Tortorice, with whom he fathered two daughters and one son. For the combined celebration of his 40th birthday and their fifth anniversary, Sacks threw a lavish 18th-century-themed party at the $125 million Fleur de Lys mansion in Los Angeles, with Snoop Dogg as entertainment. This extravaganza, which gathered the A-listers of the Silicon Valley tech scene, also marked the end of Yammer’s acquisition talks with Microsoft, boosting Sacks’ net worth to a new high at the time.

As a billionaire’s wife and Silicon Valley socialite, Jacqueline Tortorice is a largely unfamiliar name to the broader public. From her LinkedIn profile, however, it becomes evident that she played a big part in preserving and expanding her family’s wealth: for more than 10 years, she has been the CEO of Sacks Family Office, managing her family’s assets and philanthropic endeavors.

Besides her role at the family office, Jacqueline is also listed as a founder and CEO of San Francisco-based skin-safe homewear brand Saint Heaven and a host of the Blindspot podcast.

What is David Sacks’ net worth in 2024?

At the time of writing, David Sacks’ net worth is estimated to be somewhere between $250 million to $2 billion. Such a broad range can be attributed to Sacks keeping the exact figure of his wealth private, so any educated guess about the actual state of his finances can diverge pretty widely from reality depending on the timing of his equity exits.

Sacks’ wealth accumulation began with his early role at PayPal, so it’s almost certain he got a handsome equity deal as an insider. His next successful venture was Yammer, which sold to Microsoft for $1.2 billion, but how much Sacks got from it again remains unknown to the public. His other companies such as Craft Ventures and Glue most likely contributed a non-negligible amount to his net worth as well.

As an angel investor in many successful businesses, Sacks must have profited from the sale of his equity stake after the companies went public. His involvement in the cryptocurrency space can be thought of as another contributing factor to his wealth, as Sacks is known to have invested in digital asset manager BitGo and Bitcoin’s Lightning Labs. It’s unclear whether the venture capitalist holds crypto himself, but given his favorable outlook on it suggests that he may have some direct or indirect exposure.

Overall, David Sacks’ net worth seems to be an eclectic mix of cash, equity, digital assets, and other financial instruments, reflecting his versatility and business savvy in the tough world of venture capital.

This article was originally posted on Coinpaper.

#David Sacks

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