#also sacramento represent

[mostlysignssomeportents]

SoCal Gas spent millions on astroturf ops to fight climate rules

Today (19 Aug), I'm appearing at the San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books. I'm on a 2:30PM panel called "Return From Retirement," followed by a signing:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/festivalofbooks

It's a breathtaking fraud: SoCal Gas, the largest gas company in America, spent millions secretly paying people to oppose California environmental regulations, then illegally stuck its customers with the bill. We Californians were forced to pay to lobby against our own survival:

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article277266828.html

The criminal scheme is spelled out in eye-watering detail in a superb investigative report by Joe Rubin and Ari Plachta for the Sacramento Bee, which names the law firms and individual lawyers involved in the scam.

Here's the situation: SoCal Gas is California's private, regulated gas monopoly. They are allowed to lobby, but are legally required to charge their lobbying activities to their shareholders, and are prohibited from raising customer rates to pay for lobbying.

The company spent years secretly violating this rule, in the sleaziest way possible: working with corporate cartels like the California Restaurant Association and BizFed, the monopoly paid BigLaw white-shoe firms to procure people who posed as concerned citizens in order to oppose climate regulations that are essential to the state's very survival.

The bill topped $36 million – and it was illegally charged to its customers, the Californians whose immediate health and long-term survival these efforts opposed. SoCal Gas refuses to disclose the full extent of the spending, as do its lawyer-procurers, who cite legal confidentiality and a First Amendment right to secretly seek to influence policy in their refusal to disclose their profits from this illegal conduct.

The law firms involved are a who's-who of California's most prominent corporate fixers, including Reichman Jorgensen and Holland & Knight. The partners involved have a long rap sheet for anti-climate dirty tricking, most notably Jennifer Hernandez, notorious in climate justice history for an incident where activists claim she posed as one of them, infiltrating a campaign to force corporate despoilers to clean up their pollution in order to sabotage it, while secretly on a wealthy, prominent landowner's payroll.

Hernandez claims to care about the environment and says that her longstanding, corporate-funded, extensive campaigns and lawsuits against state environmental regulations are motivated by concern over their impact on working people. Her firm, Holland & Knight, denies serving SoCal Gas in opposing gas regulations, but it received $594k in ratepayer dollars, and submitted comments opposing the rules on its own behalf. Those comments were nearly identical to the comments submitted by SoCal Gas.

Hernandez also represents an obscure organization called The Two Hundred for Home Ownership in "a flurry of lawsuits" over California Air Resources Board rules on pollution, seeking to overturn the state's landmark climate change regulations.

Two Hundred for Home Ownership was founded by Robert Apodaca, who told the Bee that Hernandez's work for him is pro bono and not funded by SoCal Gas, but his entry into the fray occurred just as SoCalGas was founding an astroturf group called Californians for Fair and Balanced Energy (C4BES), which pretended to be an independent organization, disguising its relationship with SoCal Gas.

Apodaca is also founder of United Latinos Vote, an organization that had been largely dormant for seven years, not receiving any donations, until 2018, when the California Building Industry Association gave it $99k. The CBIA is a large-dollar recipient of donations from SoCal Gas, and its CEO insists that it was not acting on SoCal Gas's behalf when it made its unpredented donation to Apodaca.

The CBIA donation to United Latinos Vote was forerunner to a flood of corporate donations from the likes of Chevron, Marathon and Phillips 66. Shortly after receiving this cash, United Latinos Vote ran a full page ad in the LA Times, accusing the Sierra Club of pushing for anti-gas appliance rules that would harm working class Latino families.

This ad, in turn, featured prominently in advocacy by the SoCal Gas front group C4BES, funded with $29.1m in ratepayer money, which it then spent seeking to link clean appliance rules with anti-Latino racism. A quarter of California's carbon emissions come from home gas use.

SoCal Gas is regulated by the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC), which tolerated this mounting illegal conduct for many years, even as the company circulated internal memos as early as 2015 discussing its plans to oppose electrification in the state on the basis that it constituted "a significant risk to our business."

But last year, CPUC fined SoCal Gas $10m. Now, CPUC's Public Advocate office has filed a damning, extensive report on SoCal Gas's unlawful conduct, seeking $80m in rate cuts to compensate Californians for the funds misappropriated to protect the company's shareholder interests:

https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M517/K407/517407314.PDF

Additionally, the Public Advocate is demanding $233m in fines for the company's refusal to allow investigators to audit its books and discover the full extent of the fraud.

SoCal Gas is the nation's largest utility, but (incredibly), it's not the dirtiest. That prize goes to Ohio's FirstEnergy, which handed $60m in ratepayer dollars to state politicians in illegal bribes in exchange for coal and nuclear subsidies and cancellation of state climate rules. That scandal led to GOP speaker of the Ohio House Larry Householder being sentenced to 20 years in prison:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_nuclear_bribery_scandal

There is something extraordinarily sleazy about using ratepayers' own money to lobby against their interests. SoCal Gas and its Big Law enablers have funneled millions in Californian's money into campaigns to poison us and boil us alive, and they did it while using workers and racialized people as human shields.

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and make a new, good internet to succeed the old, good internet. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/19/cooking-the-books-with-gas/#reichman-jorgensen

Image: Maryland GovPics (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/mdgovpics/6635539089/

Jackie (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/79874304@N00/197532792

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[sacramentohistorymuseum]

On June 19, 1865, Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and Major General Gordon Granger announced the end of the Civil War and that the enslaved people in the town were free. This was the last area in the South to receive the orders that slavery was abolished, and this announcement came over 2.5 years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. What has become known as Juneteenth is now a federal holiday since 2021 and it is a symbolic date representing the African American struggle for freedom and equality in the United States and is also a celebration of family and community.

You might ask, what is important about Juneteenth to California history? Slavery was a major topic discussed at the California Constitutional Convention in September 1849. While California did enter the Union on September 9, 1850 as a “free state” as part of Congress’ Compromise of 1850, slavery did exist in California and there were certainly protections under the law that were not awarded to all people. Many enslaved people were brought to California during the Gold Rush.

Early Black civil rights leaders in Sacramento in the 1850s, such as Daniel Blue, Jeremiah B. Sanderson, William Yates, Charles Hackett, and Joseph Smallwood confronted political challenges and sought further representation in California in a time when a Person of Color could not testify against a white person in court. Early California newspapers were full of accounts of enslaved people paying for their freedom, testimonies by anti-slavery and civil rights activists, and stories covering plaintiffs suing for freedom. Elements of slavery continued in California through the Civil War.

The Emancipation Proclamation, General Granger’s announcement, and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution after the Civil War did not solve issues of freedom and equality. The struggle of civil rights continued through the 20th Century and the extension of those rights to all people continues to this day.

For today, Jared letterpress printed “JUNETEENTH” in 30 line pica wood type. The typeface is French Clarendon and the type was made by the Hamilton Wood Type Company in the late 1880s. This was printed with yellow, red, and green ink using our Washington hand press, which was made in 1852.

[babsisbakery]

The reunion (Ona Batlle x reader)

It has been 10 years since your graduation. Consequently, there will be a reunion and because you were the class representative you had to organise everything. Finding a date beforehand for everyone to have time to be present wasn’t easy. The next step was to send out invitations which did ask your former classmates if they’ll show up with a plus one or not. There were a few bets placed before you all parted ways, except for close friends of course, so you were eager to find out who for example had the first child or who was still single. You of course asked your remarkable girlfriend Ona if she’d be interested in joining you, anyone who bet on you to remain single on this day was so goddamn wrong that you couldn’t stop grinning. Since she held so much love for you, she agreed even though she only knew 3 people attending. Your two best friends, sadly one of them can’t bring their partner due to sickness. She wasn’t great with many new people but she’ll manage for one evening, her words not yours. You knew of her difficulty in large crowds but you promised to be by her side the whole event.

Considering Ona and your need to avoid last minute disasters, you bought matching outfits for the event. An extra fit was also purchased, if somehow the original fit got a stain or you changed your mind. Great to have oooptions. Therefore, the full-back picked out a black suit, whereas you chose a neat dress which exposed your left thigh to drive your girlfriend crazy. Plan B was similar, the only magnificent difference was the colour, it was Sacramento. If you don’t have to use plan b, it will be worn on the next award show your talented girlfriend has to attend, no doubt pleading you to accompany her.

Finally, the day of the reunion arrived. It was one of Ona’s free days. You spend it cuddling and watching Harry Potter, in Spanish. To make it easier for your girl, additionally to improve your Spanish. When it was time to get ready, which was a few hours before the actual event, you started to do your makeup. Ona and you preferred a more natural look which meant you didn’t spend much time doing it. “Mi amor you look so incredibly gorgeous, I can’t believe my eyes right now.” Ona’s jaw was hanging open. You were a blushing mess at seeing her reaction. “Th-th-Thank you, you don’t look too bad yourself cariño.” Deciding its time to get dressed, showing your outfit to the full-back for the first time. Prior to this Ona hasn’t seen it yet. She was lost for words. Her eyes roamed shamelessly your body. 

It was as if her hands had a mind of their own, as they found their place on your waist pulling you into her. Standing right in front of her, lips almost touching. Additionally, your girlfriend towered slightly over you. Her hand sliding along your exposed left thigh. Your breath hitched. Standing on your tippy toes you broke the tension and kissed her. What initially started as a soft and tender kiss turned into a passionate make-out session. Tongues fighting for dominance, she bit into your lower lip. Subsequently saving the win for your girl but you for sure weren’t going to give up this easily next time. Next, she went to nibble under your ear. Your legs turned to jelly, mind completely foggy. The only thoughts you had were about your girlfriend and yourself doing not innocent things. Her making you unable to walk afterwards. Ona found way her up to whisper seductively into your ear, “You’ll be the death of me amor. This dress fits you so well. I want to do so many things to you.” Then reality hit you, you remembered how you ended up in this position. Quickly removing yourself from Ona’s proximity. Ona was confused, why the hell did you pull away. “Cariño we can’t, we need to leave in a few minutes.” You saw your reflection in the wardrobe mirror and gasped, “my lipstick is smeared,” turning your head to check if hers was smeared as well, “oh god, yours too. Okay let’s fix the mess we made and head out. As much as I wished to continue what we were heading to, we sadly don’t have time for it. Maybe later though.” You shot her a suggestive wink. The midfielder had a flabbergasted look on her face, after getting her brain to function normally again she went to you. Fixing your lipstick with her fingers, “Done”. You did the same in return. Both of you smiling from ear to ear. Shoes put on as well as purses ready to go, you headed out. Ona was driving as you loved to be her passenger princess. Her hand was always on your thigh. Squeezing it from time to time to get a reaction out of it. Breath hitched.  

After a short drive to the location you were the first to arrive, just as you had planned. You were the “host” which meant your duty was to greet everyone. Ona was by your side the entire time, you introduced her to the people you knew. She seemed to relax with each introduction she got into the flow of small talk. Some were nicer than others, which you had expected but it was uncalled for. Giving them a dirty look, no one messes with your woman or they’ll have to deal with a fuming Y/n.

Most people were chatting and mingling around. Whereas your girlfriend was directing you towards the open bar. She had to calm her mind because this event would be draining a lot of her social battery. “Cariño do you want your usual order or try something else?” you asked. Ona weighted her options for a second before replying with a sheepish smile, “The usual please.” Waving the bartender over you ordered two vodka lemons neat. To show gratitude the full-back pecked your lips. Just as your drinks were done, three former classmates joined your company. It was good to catch up with them but you could sense Ona occasionally zoning out. By the time they went back to chat to others, your drinks were already finished. Since Ona was the driver she couldn’t drink anymore but she wouldn’t stand in the way of your consumption. She damn well knew you required another one to get through the whole night. Despite this you refused another alcoholic beverage, if Ona couldn’t drink then you wouldn’t too.

Eventually you went to the crowd. Joining a small group to mingle. Loud voices surrounded you, music on a medium volume to be able to converse. It was getting to overwhelming for your girlfriend. Yet again you noticed your girlfriend zoning out, something wasn’t right. Whispering in her ear you asked “Mi vida are you alright?” She played it cool and responded “No, don’t worry all good.” It was hard to believe her words, yet you trusted her to tell you when it would get in a critical stage. In the middle of your conversation, Ona excused herself to go to the bathroom.

A few minutes have gone by and the full-back still hasn’t returned. As a concerned girlfriend you left your group to find her. Firstly, you checked the bathroom but she must have finished her business here. Next you checked if she was somewhere in the location. No luck. Your final option was to go to the balcony and hope she’ll be there, which she was. Her breathing was irregular, she was squatting and shivering. This rung your alarm bells. You went into full blown protective mode. In her state you knew she wouldn’t be able to leave right now, you decided to run and get her your coat from the car. Luckily the keys were in your clutch. Taking the coat and getting a glass of water on the way you arrived at Ona’s side in record time. Without saying a word, you handed her the water and covered her with your jacket. She took a few sips. Squatting before her, you placed your hand on her cheek. “Bebe what’s wrong, are you overwhelmed?” Her only response was a nod. “Take deep breaths for me okay, repeat after me.” You took her hand and placed it over your heart. This gesture helps to calm her down usually. Hence why you had to try it out. Ona lifted her head to look in your eyes. Taking deep breaths for her to mimic you. After a few moments she matched your breathing, she seemed to calm down. Your presence always calmed her down. Leaning into you she sighted “Gracias mi cielo. I don’t know what would have happened if you weren’t here to help me.” You whispered “Shhh let’s not think about this okay. I am here, with you and I’ll be with you for eternity my dear.” Ona’s head was now on your shoulder, seeking the comfort she desperately needed this instant.

To see her in such a state was never pleasant, your heart crushed for your lover. You knew her limits for the evening were reached. Subsequently, you decided that enough is enough, time to go home. Even if Ona tried to argue with you to stay for a while longer you wouldn’t let her torture herself. Your mind was made up the moment you saw her helpless form on the balcony.

You went around as quickly as possible to say your goodbye’s, only out of politeness and maybe because your girlfriend insisted you to do so. You would’ve preferred to drive your girlfriend home but after receiving a harsh glare you didn’t dare to argue further.

Once this was finished, you were comfortably seated in the car. This time with you in the driver’s seat. Both of you buckled up, you started short drive. You decided to take Ona’s mind off by sharing something you had found out during the constant chatting, “Julia had the first child, the one who lives in Australia” “Ah you bet on her didn’t you amor.” Your girlfriend knew you too well by your shy smile she could tell she was right which made her smirk. “Which means I got from every participant 5 bucks. Take-out is on me.” A snort left Ona, “Most take-outs are on you, you won’t let me pay for anything amor.” “Well I love spoiling you darling.” The ride was filled with some light banter being exchanged.

Upon arriving at your destination, you both agreed, what to order and to simply enjoy the rest of the night cuddled up on your shared bed with lots of blankets, hot chocolate, the ordered food and many kisses.

[dougielombax]

Also leaving this here.

Feel free to reblog.

Also this too.

[mariacallous]

On Monday, United States prosecutors in Sacramento, California, unveiled a 15-count indictment accusing Dallas Erin Humber, 34, and Matthew Robert Allison, 37, of serving as core members of a virulent neo-Nazi propaganda network that solicited attacks on federal officials, power infrastructure, people of color, and material support for acts of terrorism both within the US and overseas.

The group, known as the Terrorgram Collective, has produced four publications to date—a blend of ideological motivation, mass murder worship, neofascist indoctrination, and how-to manuals for chemical weapons attacks, infrastructure sabotage, and ethnic cleansing. The screeds have directly inspired a series of ideologically motivated attacks around the world, including a 2022 mass shooting at an LGBTQ bar in Bratislava, Slovakia; successful attacks on power infrastructure in North Carolina and similar failed plots in Baltimore and New Jersey; and a stabbing spree in the Turkish city of Eskisehir.

Federal prosecutors allege Humber, Allison, and other Terrorgram Collective members were in the process of compiling a fifth, yet-to-be-released publication devoted to a pantheon of “saints”—neofascist mass murderers like Timothy McVeigh and Anders Breivik. The point of this guide, prosecutors claim, was to “inspire Terrorgram users to commit acts of violence.”

Humber and Allison were both federal targets as early as early 2023, but authorities appear to have waited for a year and a half to compile evidence of potential attacks around the world, and for the British government’s decision this April to formally ban the Terrorgram Collective, before filing an indictment that could land the defendants in prison for more than two centuries. To date, American authorities have charged at least four individuals allegedly involved in the Terrorgram Collective with terrorism-related offenses.

While the arrests are not the first targeting the Terrorgram Collective—Slovakian Pavol “SlovakBro” Beňadik and former Atomwaffen Division founder Brandon Russell hold that honor—the charges against Humber and Allison represent a major change from how the FBI and US Department of Justice approach diffuse “accelerationist” terrorism—the nihilist brand of neofascism that seeks to speed up societal collapse and the ascent of a Fourth Reich through mass shootings, bombings, and other acts of terrorism by “lone wolf” actors. Relying on the UK government’s April order declaring the Terrorgram Collective a banned terrorist group and a little-employed section of the “material support for terrorism” section of the US criminal code, federal prosecutors are finally taking an aggressive, whole-of-law approach to violent neofascist extremism.

“What it shows is exactly what I’ve been arguing for years: All the tools they need to do this work, they have,” says Michael German, a former FBI special agent and a liberty and national security fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, an NYU School of Law nonprofit. German points to years of arguments by the FBI and Department of Justice that they are hamstrung by existing laws when it comes to tackling violent extremists within the United States. “It also reveals the false separation that the government makes about international and domestic terrorism—white supremacy has always been transnational.”

In 2018, German coauthored a study of federal domestic terrorism prosecutions that argued existing laws were sufficient to tackle domestic terrorism, pointing to a particular statute used to charge Humber and Allison with material support. “It’s the material support statute the DOJ forgot,” says German.

The UK’s order against the Terrorgram Collective provided American authorities a basis for labeling a diffusive, ostensibly domestic propaganda group as a “transnational terrorist organization” in a detention motion filed on Tuesday, potentially opening Humber and Allison up to deleterious additional charges and sentencing enhancements. In other words, the US is treating Terrorgram in ways similar to how it has treated Islamist terrorist organizations.

“I would think of this case more like an old-school terrorism investigation, where you have a leadership cell that pushed info to followers and radicalized them into action,” says Seamus Hughes, a terrorism researcher at the University of Nebraska Omaha, of the indictment’s allegations against Humber and Allison.

The role of undercover agents in at least two of the Terrorgram federal prosecutions, the DOJ’s repeated citation of the group’s outlawed status in Great Britain as basis for labeling it a transnational terrorism organization, and the alleged targeting of power infrastructure by participants in the propaganda network, Hughes says, all point to US law enforcement taking a new approach to tackling violent right-wing extremism.

“The vast majority of material support cases are jihadi, but right here, they [allegedly] inspired an individual to plot an attack against a power plant,” he adds. “That’s critical infrastructure and is the lynchpin for the material support of terrorism charge.”

The power infrastructure plot Hughes references is the case of Andrew Takhistov, an 18-year-old New Jersey man charged in July with soliciting another individual to attack energy facilities. Court documents describe Tahkistov as a virulently hateful young man who fantasized about attacking a synagogue and participated in a March 2024 demonstration by an Atlantic City–based “active club” in support of jailed neo-Nazi leader Robert Rundo, was ever-present in the Terrogram Collective’s Telegram channels.

Along with allegedly circulating propaganda from the Terrorgram Collective and urging lone-wolf attacks, the feds claim in court records that Tahkistov bragged about participating in the production of the group’s “Hard Reset” publication, describing it as “the perfect starting guide” for a lone-wolf terrorist. “It has ideology, it has how-to guides, it has ideas for funny things, it goes into how you should plan it, it goes into the thought process,” Takhistov allegedly told an undercover FBI agent with whom he plotted the erstwhile attack on power stations near North Brunswick and New Brunswick, New Jersey.

These details were included in Tahkistov’s indictment, which also outlined his alleged plans to travel to Russia and join the Russian Volunteer Corps, a neo-Nazi combat battalion fighting for the Ukrainian military, which was founded by Denis Kapustin, an Azov Movement–connected extremist who tried to help Rundo flee the US in 2018, in order to gain weapons expertise and military training that would allow him to carry out more effective acts of ideologically motivated terrorism once back in the United States.

Takhistov is in custody and will next appear in court on October 9. He has pleaded not guilty.

Humber and Allison are longtime radicals. Humber’s radicalization appeared to start decades ago, per a report by extremism researchers at Left Coast Right Watch. Research obtained by this reporter shows Humber ran more than two dozen extreme right-wing propaganda channels on Telegram, which circulated the Terrorgram Collective’s material as well as other accelerationist content.

In recent years, aside from narrating audio books of neofascist manifestos and propaganda tracts, Humber also corresponded with convicted domestic terrorist Dylann Roof and with Atomwaffen Division founder Brandon Russell, who ended up joining their collective. “There’s no quitting our worldview. It’s a lifelong commitment,” Humber allegedly told Russell in a recorded jailhouse call following the latter’s arrest in February 2023. Her participation in the network, according to a March 15, 2022, Telegram post included in court filings by prosecutors, was to mold potential terrorists for action. “No military is fighting for us. No govt is protecting our people and defending our interests. The ONLY people fighting for us are lone wolves,” Humber wrote, in reference to a teenager she was trying to indoctrinate. “He’s like 18 yo and seems very impressionable, I’m trying to radicalize him.”

When the FBI raided Humber’s Elk Grove home last week, they recovered reams of Nazi propaganda, 3D-printed firearms—including a homemade AR-15 pattern rifle—a short-barreled rifle, a 3D printer, unregistered handguns, and high-capacity magazines, which remain illegal in California. She remains held without bail.

Allison, who was born in Southern California, lives in a high-end apartment building in downtown Boise, Idaho, and, according to court documents, does not hold a steady job. He doesn’t appear to have a criminal record, aside from a June 2022 misdemeanor. There are very few traces of Allison online, but details cobbled together by researchers indicate he drifted steadily to the right from 2018 onward, starting with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s content and then moving steadily in the direction of Timothy McVeigh, The Order founder Robert Jay Mathews, and finally, the skull-masked, nihilistic neofascism popularized by the Atomwaffen Division at the end of the last decade.

Under the alias “BanThisChannel,” Allison was one of the most prolific disseminators of Terrorgram’s propaganda materials and was prolific in extreme-right-wing Telegram channels, commiserating with other SoCal skinheads about racial attacks in days gone by and connecting other individuals to militant groups like the Atomwaffen Division. Research obtained by this reporter indicates he worked part-time as a video producer and was the editor who compiled a number of “sizzle reels” for the Terrorgram Collective’s propaganda output online, including a set entitled “The BTC Movie Trilogy” that Takhistov sought out for inspiration.

Nineteen-year-old Slovakian teenager Juraj Krajčík, the perpetrator of the 2022 Bratislava massacre, was in extensive contact with Humber and Allison for at least a year prior to the attack, and sent his manifesto to Allison after he carried out his mass murder, which explicitly cited Terrorgram Collective publications and thanked the group for inspiring him to act. Allison then circulated the manifesto through the group’s Telegram channels. The group proceeded to claim Krajčík as “their first saint.”

Allison’s commitment to neofascism and white supremacy appears to have run deep—“I won’t quit til I’m dead. my only goal in life is to fucking destroy the enemy,” Allison declared in a Telegram post cited by federal prosecutors. Both he and Humber, according to a government detention motion, sought to identify the informant in Brandon Russell’s criminal case. Allison advocated adding the suspected snitch to “The List” (a collection of federal officials, journalists, businessmen, and other perceived enemies circulated by the Terrorgram Collective as potential assassination targets), while Humber allegedly told Russell in a recorded jailhouse call in August 2023 that she had photographs of the suspected informant and was running them through facial recognition software.

When Allison was arrested last week, authorities say, he had a backpack loaded with what appeared to be a “bug-out kit” comprised of zip ties, a gun, duct tape, ammunition, a knife, lockpicking tools, two phones, and a thumb drive. When law enforcement searched his apartment, they turned up an assault rifle, two laptops, an external hard drive, and another “go bag” containing $1,500 in cash, clothes, a passport, ziplock bags full of pills, ammunition, a skull mask balaclava, sim cards, and a birth certificate.

In a videotaped interview following his arrest, Allison allegedly confessed to his participation in the Terrorgram Collective and “engaging in acts alleged in the General Allegations of the Indictment.”

Law enforcement consider Humber and Allison threats to their community, and to authorities as well: Humber allegedly worked with Russell to try to identify a suspected government witness in the Atomwaffen Division founder’s current criminal case in Baltimore, according to recorded jailhouse phone calls. Witnesses in Russell’s upcoming trial this November will testify in a closed courtroom to avoid being identified, a highly unusual precaution. In a sealing motion, prosecutors state that not only are additional arrests of Terrogram Collective members likely, but the group’s membership poses a severe danger to law enforcement and cooperating witnesses alike: “Defendants' many associates, both in the United States and internationally, may seek to harm perceived law enforcement or law enforcement cooperators in retribution for their role in this investigation.”

Allison is currently detained without bail and is set to appear in federal court in Boise on September 18 for a detention hearing.

The volume of evidence laid out against Humber and Allison in both the indictment and detention motion, says Hughes, shows the feds have significantly altered their approach to both far-right terrorism and particularly "lone wolf" accelerationists who have perpetrated massacres ranging from Christchurch in 2019 to Buffalo in 2022.

“When they go further than they have in the past to lay out the transnational connections and overlay a material support charge, it shows that either the feds are trying to make a point, or they were very concerned about these particular actors,” Hughes says.

Senior attorneys from the DOJ’s Civil Rights and National Security divisions are listed on the court filings in this matter, another indication that the top ranks of the Biden administration’s Justice Department called the shots on the Terrorgram Collective investigation.

“To build a case in this fashion is a decision that gets made at Main Justice,” Hughes says. “Someone high up decided to sign off on this.”

[beardedmrbean]

September 12, 2024, Elk Grove, Ca.—California teacher Isaac Newman has won a judgment just three months after he alleged in a federal civil rights lawsuit that his teachers’ union discriminated against him on the basis of race. Newman, who is white, was unable to run for a union executive board position because the union required candidates to “self-identify” as a racial minority.

Following Newman’s lawsuit, the union quickly folded by ending the segregated board seat and committing to non-discriminatory practices in other union positions. A judge also entered an order requiring the union, the Elk Grove Education Association (EGEA), to pay Newman $12,000 and to pay his attorneys’ fees.

“I’m delighted that my lawsuit forced union officials to admit something every high school student knows: Racial segregation is wrong,” said Newman, who teaches history at Elk Grove Unified School District in suburban Sacramento. “I hope this victory returns union officials’ focus to representing all teachers, rather than dividing us based on race. I plan to donate every penny I receive from the union to a local scholarship fund for Elk Grove students.”

Newman’s lawsuit cited Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act, both of which prohibit unions from racial discrimination.

“Based on union officials’ immediate capitulation to Isaac’s demands, it’s clear that they thought they didn’t have a legal leg to stand on to defend their segregated board seat,” said Nathan McGrath, president and general counsel for the Fairness Center. “Isaac’s win affirms that unions don’t get a pass on anti-discrimination law.”

The EGEA has created a new board seat open to all members to replace the one for which only non-whites were eligible.

“After this major victory, I will continue my fight to hold the union accountable to the letter and the spirit of the law by running for the union’s new board seat on a platform of true fairness and equal representation for all members, regardless of race,” responded Newman.

Background

In 2023, EGEA officials created a “BIPOC At-Large” seat on its executive board with the approval of its statewide affiliate union, the California Teachers Association. Newman, a decade-long union member, resolved to run for the board seat, but the union’s nomination form required him to check a box confirming that he identified as a member of one of several racial minority groups. Newman could not in good conscience check the box and was, therefore, unable to run for the board position.

[kp777]

By Oliver Milman

The Guardian

July 5, 2023

Allstate, too, has pulled out of climate disaster-prone areas while hiring lobbyists who are also aligned to fossil fuel interests

The largest home insurer in the US, State Farm, which is halting new homeowner policies in California due to the “rapidly growing catastrophe exposure” posed by wildfires, has hired lobbyists who also work to advance fossil fuel industry interests across 18 states, a new database shows.

While State Farm in May refused to take new home insurance applications in California, it retains a lobbying firm in the state – the Sacramento-based KP Public Affairs – which also represents Tenaska, a gas developer. Across the US, State Farm shares lobbyists with a raft of oil and gas companies, including ExxonMobil, Calpine and Occidental Energy.

Allstate, another insurer that followed State Farm in pulling out from new policies in California due to the state’s worsening wildfire risk, has also contracted lobbyists who have fossil fuel clients, such as Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Kinder Morgan.

State Farm and Allstate are just two of more than 150 insurance companies and associations – part of an industry facing steepening losses from fires, floods and other disasters spurred by the climate crisis – that use state-based lobbyists also aligned to fossil fuel interests, according to F Minus, a new database of public disclosure records.

James Browning, executive director of F Minus, said that State Farm’s linkage to fossil fuels stretches to Florida, where its lobbying firm Dean Mead also represents the Williams Companies, a gas pipeline operator in the state. “This allegiance with gas interests clearly pits State Farm against the interests of its customers as they face increasingly severe hurricanes, floods, and soaring insurance costs,” said Browning.

The lobbying overlap between insurers like State Farm and the fossil fuel companies stoking the climate crisis is “problematic and potentially counterproductive”, according to Tom Corringham, a research economist with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.

Insurers and fossil fuel companies could be working at cross-purposes around issues such as climate risk disclosures, he said, which the insurance industry requires to accurately price risk for homes facing a rising threat of flooding or fire.

Read more.

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

Rachel & Kamala Separated at Birth: Like Rachel, Harris is a 'soul-destroying bully whose 'Ex-staff exposed exposed her behavior

'With Kamala you have to put up with a constant amount of soul-destroying criticism and also her own lack of confidence. So you're constantly sort of propping up a bully and it's not really clear why.'

EXCLUSIVEKamala Harris the 'soul-destroying bully': Former staff expose shock details of degrading tirades, decades-long 'toxic' behavior that left people in TEARS - and saw them quit at unprecedented levels

15:41 EDT 26 Jul 2024, updated 18:35 EDT 26 Jul 2024By Charlie Spiering, Senior Political Reporter

Kamala Harris was all smiles when she arrived at Joe Biden's former Delaware campaign headquarters on Monday.

She was there to lift the spirits of blindsided staffers, who after 15 months of toiling to re-elect the president, suddenly found themselves working for her.

'It is my great honor to have Joe's endorsement in this race,' she boasted to cheers from a crowd who were now on her payroll.

But as the assembled readily applauded, some must have harbored private concerns.

For, behind the recent public self-branding of Harris as a kindly, jovial 'Momala', she has earned a nasty reputation as an alleged 'soul-destroying' workplace 'bully'.

Only four of the initial 71 staffers hired by Harris during her first year in office still remain in a job. The rest either quit or were fired, according to analysis by non-partisan watchdog Open The Books.

Behind the recent public self-branding of Harris as a kindly, jovial 'Momala', she has earned a nasty behind-closed-doors reputation as an alleged 'soul-destroying' workplace 'bully'.

Kamala Harris was all smiles when she arrived at Joe Biden 's former Delaware campaign headquarters on Monday.

That translates to a 92 percent staff turnover rate – and, say critics, is a likely sign that the issues on Team Harris have more to do with her than anyone else.

During research for my recent Harris biography ('Amateur Hour', published in January), the horror stories I heard from many of her former employees and read about in numerous reports – shocked me.

As far back as the 2010s, when Harris served as California's Attorney General, she was allegedly known for running a 'toxic' workplace.

Barbara O'Connor, a professor at California State University, Sacramento claimed that students who worked for Harris as interns frequently came back to her crying and saying that they 'felt they weren't valued.'

After Harris was elected in 2017 to represent California in the US Senate, working conditions reportedly did not improve.

Analysis showed her office had the ninth-highest staff turnover rate out of the 114 senators who served between 2017 and 2020.

Congressional sources told the Mail that she would berate subordinates in expletive-laden tirades.

Even those working for Republican lawmakers allegedly got caught in the crossfire.

In one instance, reported in my book, sources described how Harris lashed out at a room full of Senate staffers during the highly contentious 2018 Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh.

On September 28 of that year, as Kavanaugh's nomination moved forward despite liberal outrage over allegations he'd sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford three decades earlier, Harris and her colleagues staged a walkout from the hearings.

Harris lashed out at a room full of Senate staffers during the highly contentious 2018 Supreme Court confirmation hearings of U.S. Appeals Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

Barbara O'Connor (above), a professor at California State University, Sacramento claimed that students who worked for Harris as interns frequently came back to her crying and saying that they 'felt they weren't valued.'

Later, Harris was said to explode in anger outside the main Judiciary Committee room.

Witnesses recalled Harris cursing and ordering around staffers who did not even work for her.

'Anyone who's staff, get the f*** out of here!' she allegedly yelled.

Harris's campaign did not respond to requests for comment on these allegations.

Years later, amid the dramatic and rapid collapse of Harris's 2020 presidential bid, this allegedly troubling behavior began to be leaked to the public.

In a sensational resignation letter shared with the New York Times in November 2019, Harris's then State Operations Director Kelly Mehlenbacher slammed her boss, saying: 'I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly.'

She continued: 'It is not acceptable to me that we encouraged people to move from Washington, DC to Baltimore only to lay them off with no notice.'

'Morale has never been lower,' she added, saying there was no 'real plan' for how Harris might win, but that she hoped her departure 'might result in some serious consideration of […] our internal communications'.

In a sensational resignation letter shared with the New York Times in November 2019, Harris's then State Operations Director Kelly Mehlenbacher slammed her boss, saying: 'I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly.'

Will Kamala's alleged toxicity cost her the White House?

But as Harris's failed campaign then descended into nasty blame-shifting and finger-pointing, Biden threw her a political lifeline, tapping her to be his running mate and effectively saving her skin.

Just a few months into Biden's administration, troubling stories about her management style surfaced once again.

In June 2021, Politico spoke to 22 individuals familiar with Harris's VP office who all claimed that her team was experiencing 'low morale, porous lines of communication and diminished trust among aides and senior officials.'

'It's not a place where people feel supported but a place where people feel treated like s***,' one source said.

A Biden administration official claimed Harris was responsible: 'It all starts at the top.'

That sentiment was shared by Gil Duran, an ex-aide to Harris who worked in her Attorney General's office and quit after five months.

'What is the common denominator through all this?' he said, 'It's her.'

Harris's then-press secretary, Symone Sanders, tried to defend her boss, accusing complaining staffers of being soft.

'We are not making rainbows and bunnies all day,' Sanders told Politico. 'What I hear is that people have hard jobs and I'm like "welcome to the club".'

Just five months later, Sanders, a political veteran who had once worked for infamously cantankerous Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (no relation), left Harris's office as well.

But then the dam broke.

Multiple staffers who worked for Harris before she was Vice President told the Washington Post in December 2021 how she'd reportedly refuse to prepare for public appearances and blame her aides when she then underperformed.

'It's clear [with Harris] that you're not working with somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work,' one ex-aide said. 'With Kamala you have to put up with a constant amount of soul-destroying criticism and also her own lack of confidence. So you're constantly sort of propping up a bully and it's not really clear why.'

In the summer of 2021 – and reported by CNN – Harris was said to have been 'prepped extensively by her team' on how she could respond to questions about why she'd not yet visited the southern border, despite her role as White House 'border czar'.

But when the time came to deliver her answer, Harris botched her interview with NBC's Lester Holt.

'We've been to the border,' she told Holt in June of that year.

'You haven't been to the border,' he replied.

'I haven't been to Europe,' Harris clapped back with an awkward laugh. 'I don't understand the point that you're making.'

The flippant response resulted in one of the most damaging public appearances of her entire White House tenure. She didn't do another one-on-one interview for nearly a year.

'I haven't been to Europe,' Harris clapped back with an awkward laugh. 'I don't understand the point that you're making.' (Above) Harris's interview with NBC News in June 2021

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Jack Ohman, Sacramento Bee

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 18, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 19, 2024

Paul Manafort walking onto the floor of the Republican National Convention yesterday illustrated that the Republican Party under Trump has become thoroughly corrupted into an authoritarian party aligned with foreign dictators. 

Manafort first advised and then managed Trump’s 2016 campaign. A long-time Republican political operative, he came to the job after the Ukrainian people threw his client,Viktor Yanukovych out of Ukraine’s presidency in 2014. Yanukovych was backed by Russian president Vladimir Putin, who was determined to prevent Ukraine from turning toward Europe and to install a puppet government that would extend his power over the neighboring country. Beginning in 2004, Manafort had worked to install and then keep Yanukovych and his party in power. His efforts won him a fortune thanks to his new friends, especially Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. Then in 2014, after months of popular protests, Ukrainians ousted Yanukovych from power in what is known as the Revolution of Dignity. 

Yanukovych fled to Russia, and Putin invaded Ukraine’s Crimea and annexed it, prompting the United States and the European Union to impose economic sanctions on Russia itself and also on specific Russian businesses and oligarchs, prohibiting them from doing business in United States territories. These sanctions crippled Russia and froze the assets of key Russian oligarchs.

Now without his main source of income, Manafort owed about $17 million to Deripaska. By 2016, his longtime friend and business partner Roger Stone was advising Trump’s floundering presidential campaign, and Manafort stepped in to remake it. He did not take a salary but reached out to Deripaska through one of his Ukrainian business partners, Russian operative Konstantin Kilimnik, immediately after landing the job, asking Kilimnik how “we” could use the appointment “to get whole,” and he made sure that the Russian oligarch to whom he owed the most money knew about his close connection with the Trump campaign.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election explained at least one answer: Manafort and Kilimnick “discussed a plan to resolve the ongoing political problems in Ukraine by creating an autonomous republic in its more industrialized eastern region of Donbas, and having Yanukovych…elected to head that republic.” The report continued: “That plan, Manafort later acknowledged, constituted a ‘backdoor’ means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine.”

This policy was the exact opposite of official U.S. policy for a free and united Ukraine. Russia worked to help Trump win the White House, and immediately after his election, according to the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee, Kilimnick wrote that "[a]ll that is required to start the process is a very minor ‘wink’ (or slight push) from D[onald] T[rump] saying ‘he wants peace in Ukraine and Donbass back in Ukraine’ and a decision to be a ‘special representative’ and manage this process. The email went on to say that once then–Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko understood this “message” from the United States, the process “will go very fast and DT could have peace in Ukraine basically within a few months after inauguration.”

The investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia slowed the consummation of this plan, and strong bipartisan support for Ukraine threw a monkey wrench into the works, prompting Trump’s cronies to try to smear Ukraine as the country that interfered in the 2016 U.S. election, a story that began to come out during Trump’s first impeachment hearing. Biden’s election meant an abrupt end to Russia’s quiet absorption of Ukraine’s eastern region, and in February 2022, Putin simply invaded the country and then claimed that the people there had voted to join Russia. 

Trump seemed to bring this back up at a CNN event in June in which, referring to Putin’s invasion of eastern Ukraine in February 2022, he said: “Putin saw that, he said, you know what, I think we’re going to go in and maybe take my—this was his dream. I talked to him about it, his dream.” Trump has said he has a plan for “peace” in Ukraine that will stop the war in a day. 

Republican vice presidential pick J.D. Vance is wildly inexperienced for such a position, but he has been staunchly in favor of ending U.S. assistance to Ukraine and was the pick of that party faction. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov cheered Vance’s nomination, saying: “He’s in favor of peace, he’s in favor of ending the assistance that’s being provided and we can only welcome that because that’s what we need—to stop pumping Ukraine full of weapons and then the war will end” Russia needs this sort of help, for just this week Ukraine forced it to remove its last remaining patrol ship from occupied Crimea (when the 2022 invasion began, it held most of its 74 Black Sea Fleet warships at ports there). 

Manafort was convicted of a slew of criminal charges for his work with Ukraine and obstruction of the investigation into the connections between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, and was serving a seven-year sentence when Trump pardoned him in December 2020. Now he is back at the center of Trump’s MAGA Party. 

Before 2016 the Republican Party stood staunchly against Russia, and getting Republican voters to forget that history required adopting the argument of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who is aligned with Putin and Trump, that democracy has ruined the United States. In this argument, the central principle of democracy—that all people must be equal before the law, and have a right to a say in their government—destroys a country by making women, people of color, immigrants, members of religious minorities, and LGBTQ+ individuals equal to heteronormative white men and permitting them to influence government. In place of democracy, they want to impose their version of Christianity on the nation, banning abortion, rejecting immigrants, and curtailing the rights of gender, religious, and ethnic minorities.

Josh Kovensky and John Light of Talking Points Memo picked up that in his speech at the Republican convention last night, Vance pushed back against President Joe Biden’s traditional idea that America is an idea, tying it instead to a place and a people. As Kovensky and Light note, this is “a somewhat-quiet, somewhat-obvious dog whistle, gesturing toward the idea there are, as some on the far-right contend, ‘heritage Americans,’” native-born Americans who have a deeper understanding than newcomers of what this country means. That view of nationhood is commonplace elsewhere, Kovensky and Light note, but its absence in the U.S. “has long made our country exceptional.” 

This nationalist concept is at the heart of MAGA attacks on immigrants, which were in full display at the convention yesterday. From the podium yesterday, Thomas Homan, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for Trump’s first two years in office, told undocumented immigrants: “You better start packing to go home.” Trump has promised to round up 11 million migrants (although he claims there are 18 million) currently living in the U.S., put them in camps, and deport them. There were actually preprinted signs at the convention for attendees to wave, which they did with apparent enthusiasm. The signs said: “MASS DEPORTATION NOW!” 

The convention has also emphasized its opposition to women’s rights. Trump, who has proudly claimed responsibility for the Supreme Court’s overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing abortion as a constitutional right, walked out last night to the song “It’s a Man’s World.” By focusing on the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to enforce it, as the protector of “Life,” the Republican platform covertly endorses a national abortion ban. 

Their rejection of democracy requires a strongman at the head of the government, and in Milwaukee that man is Trump, who will be the first convicted criminal nominated for president by a major party. He was convicted for trying to tip the 2016 election by hiding payments to an adult-film actress after they had sex, in order to keep the story from voters. 

Conference attendees are honoring Trump with large bandages on their right ear as a tribute to an injury he sustained in a shooting attempt on Saturday, although—and this is very weird—there has been no information about that injury aside from his own comments and those of his inner circle, a lack the press seems willing to ignore despite their deep interest in every piece of medical information from President Biden. As he did at his criminal trial in Manhattan, Trump keeps nodding off to sleep at the convention. 

The theme of the party has been unity, but that unity depends on everyone lauding Trump. Gone are the establishment Republicans that ran the party before 2016; even longer gone are the traditional Republicans who were chased out of the party in the 1990s as “Republicans in Name Only” because they believed government had a role to play in the economy and did not see tax cuts as the solution to everything. In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Will Bunch wrote: “Here in Milwaukee, the political pundits finally saw the thing they’ve been pleading for—unity—and what that really looks like. It looks a lot like Jonestown,” where a cult leader took the lives of his followers in 1978.

In 1959, veteran Robert Biggs wrote to Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had led the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, asking the president to make “direct statements” that would give people the confidence to “back him completely.” Americans needed “more of the attitude of a commanding officer who knows the goal and the mission and states, without evasion, the way it is to be done.” 

Eisenhower answered that “in a democracy debate is the breath of life. This is to me what Lincoln meant by government ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people.’” 

“[D]ictatorial systems make one contribution to their people which leads them to tend to support such systems—freedom from the necessity of informing themselves and making up their own minds concerning…tremendous complex and difficult questions,” Eisenhower wrote. “But while this responsibility is a taxing one to a free people it is their great strength as well—from millions of individual free minds come new ideas, new adjustments to emerging problems, and tremendous vigor, vitality and progress…. While complete success will always elude us, still it is a quest which is vital to self-government and to our way of life as free men.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[lsdunesarchive]

Post-Hardcore Supergroup L.S. Dunes Debut New Single “Old Wounds”

Words by wookubus Photo by Kevin Estrada August 24, 2023

Post-hardcore supergroup L.S. Dunes have dropped their second stand-alone single of the summer, “Old Wounds“. As with this past June’s “Benadryl Subreddit“, this song was produced by Alex Newport (The Mars Volta, Fudge Tunnel) during a recording session at Ranch De La Luna in Joshua Tree, CA.

Guitarist Frank Iero (also of My Chemical Romance, commented:

“‘Old Wounds‘ was a song that Travis brought to the band a while back. In getting ready for the upcoming desert session, Anthony came back around to it and ended up singing an incredible melody over it. After hearing Anthony‘s voice on that song, it was pretty obvious what needed to be played over those existing melodies. ‘Old Wounds‘ definitely feels like it represents the cold nights out in the desert for me and it might be one of my favorite songs we have done as a band.”

Vocalist Anthony Green (Circa Survive, etc.) added, “‘Old Wounds‘ was inspired by something I thought that I had lost that I actually needed to let go of.”

Guitarist Travis Stever (Coheed And Cambria) shared:

“The way everyone drifted into this song and brought their own energy was one of the most organic and natural approaches to songwriting I have ever been a part of. From the initial instrumental ideas to the vocals Anthony added, all the way to the production, it just flowed. Like we had a road map for where the song would go already. The feelings it derives from me, and the continued layers make it possibly my favorite song I have ever been a part of writing.”

The group will remain active on the road throughout the fall, having been booked for the below run of shows.

09/17 Chicago, IL – Riot Fest

With Pierce The Veil, Dayseeker & Destroy Boys:

11/04 Sacramento, CA – Hard Rock Live 11/05 Fresno, CA – Fresno Convention Center 11/07 Phoenix, AZ – Arizona Financial Theatre 11/08 El Paso, TX – UTEP Don Haskins Center 11/10 San Antonio, TX – The Espee 11/11 Edinburg, TX – Bert Ogden Arena 11/12 Houston, TX – 713 Music Hall 11/14 Orlando, FL – House of Blues 11/15 Orlando, FL – House of Blues 11/17 Myrtle Beach, SC – House of Blues 11/18 Corbin, KY – The Corbin Arena 11/19 Macon, GA – Macon City Auditorium 11/21 Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall at Fenway 11/25 Reading, PA – Santander Arena 11/26 Columbus, OH – KEMBA Live! 11/28 Chesterfield, MO – The Factory 11/30 Chicago, IL – Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom 12/02 Des Moines, IA – Vibrant Music Hall 12/03 Minneapolis, MN – The Armory 12/05 Oklahoma City, OK – The Criterion 12/07 Las Vegas, NV – Brooklyn Bowl 12/08 San Diego, CA – Viejas Arena

[sparrowofthedawnsworld]

Hear me out:

I have a pretty elaborate idea on what I think they should do for the very last show of Dreams In Gold. Who knows… they’re probably way ahead of me here. They probably have some sort of variant of this plan already in the works. They’re smart and clever as hell.

In History, when you look at ANY wars and battles that have taken place, there are always groups of people CRYING and PLEADING for the war to end. The hatred, the harm, the destruction of ourselves and each other. A cry for salvation, if you will. And what song on TBAGG is literally the cry for help? Tears Of Rain. It would make so much sense for them to sing it at one of these last few shows (as we “near the end of the battle”) to symbolize and acknowledge the peoples plea for help. Also to note: Singing Age Of Man and Age Of Machine back to back would be SO powerful. I know Age Of Man isn’t on TBAGG, but i feel like Age Of Machine is sort of the extension of Age of Man. That would be powerful af.

We’re nearing the very end of “the battle.” The end of a battle is dark and dreary. It’s pain and suffering. It’s grieving. But It’s also, “going home” for the people that made it out safely. I think it would be super fuckin’ sick if at the Sacramento show, they took out the brighter/happier songs like Light My Love and Heat Above (I know don’t hate me, just listen) - to keep the setlist dark and heavy, signifying the END of “the battle.”

BUT! We can’t forget where we go from the end of the battle. Home. I think as the encore, it would be amazing if they brought back Light My Love or Heat Above (hah you thought I was really gonna leave them out like that. no). I think it would be a great way to kind of symbolize, in a way, “winning the battle.” Maybe even bringing back My Way Soon to represent freedom. Then of course, we get the new song to end the night 👀

This is such a stretch, because I know Josh doesn’t like to sing Tears Of Rain, but my god… it would really bring it all so full circle and complete this Dreams In Gold circus, if they did sing it. I’m SO EXCITED to see what they do at the last show. 5… more… days… 😵‍💫😭

[lboogie1906]

Edward Park Duplex (May 13, 1831 - January 5, 1900) was elected mayor of Wheatland, California in 1888 to become one of the first African American mayors in the US and the first in the West. Born in New Haven, Connecticut to Prince Jr. and Adaline Duplex, his father passed away in 1832 leaving Adaline, a dressmaker, to support the three Duplex children. He and his brother learned the barber trade in New Haven but moved to California in 1854 during the Gold Rush. Their mother followed them in 1860.

He settled in Marysville, California where he married Sophie Elizabeth. The couple had several children. Soon after his arrival on the West Coast, he became involved in local politics and became over time a prominent business and civic leader in Northern California. In 1855, he represented Yuba County at the first California Colored Citizens State Convention in Sacramento. The following year, he served as a member of the convention’s Executive Committee. He was active at the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in Marysville.

He and his family moved to Wheatland, California in 1875. The family soon established a successful hair care business in Wheatland called Duplex’s Hairdressing and Shaving Saloon located at 415 Main Street near the Central Hotel in the central business district. The Saloon not only offered community hair care services and products, but it also became a center of political and social information. Leaders discussed civic matters while receiving hair care services.

On April 11, 1888, the Wheatland Board of Trustees elected him Mayor of Wheatland. His election marked the first time a predominantly white city elected an African American as mayor. His original barbershop, the Hairdressing and Shaving Saloon, still stands in Wheatland today. The building’s exterior has remained intact as it was in 1875. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[lunearobservatory]

Cali- 1, 6, 11

Clearly in the mood for some angst.

Oh we're dunkin on my boy tonight let's go!!

1. A song that represents their childhood

This one was tough actually. I think as far as statehood goes, as a child he was very prized, only two years after the gold rush started he became a state. He was precious and useful and a chance at new life and wealth.

However, I am firmly in the camp of him having existed as a personification at lllleast as early as Alta—same as La Florida remembering being a Spanish territory—though it's very fuzzy memories. In that case, he was used mostly for resources as well lol

I'm gonna go with Cavatina, California Guitar Trio

It has no words but feels a little melancholy. He definitely holed up with books more than he did other people, still does. There's a bit of a wondrous spark in there that definitely comes around during his peak involvement in the Wild West and such. He had his fair share of rowdy moments growing up

6. A song that represents a struggle in their life

I will not say Rät by Penelope Scott, I refuse to on principle, though he does smell of Silicon Valley trauma doesn't he?

I'll go with Avenues by Drive45, because. Uh.

Heard you moved into the avenues

But you still can't learn to see things through

Maybe you should give your ears to me

None of your friends even like you

Born in San Francisco

Maybe somewhere in the middle

Of that other busy city

What's it called, uh, Sacramento

Doesn't really matter since it didn't last forever

Eeeeyyyaaahhh. Yeah! It's the self loathing! And the "everybody hates me"!

The song feels very scattered and panicked, almost. Definitely a downwards spiral

11. A song that represents their saddest moment

Oof, Something Is Wrong by Phantom Planet

It feels very?? I think resigned is the right word. Less directly sad and more hopeless

Something is wrong

With the light of the sun

With the color of the sky

With you and everyone

It may be me projecting (it definitely is) but I think one of his biggest faults is not being conscious he's a part of the problem. Saying "something is wrong—with you and everyone" is both the frequent feeling of betrayal, yes, but also more a self actualization of him being a part of that "you and everyone", basically tripping over his own feet

I think the saddest moment, or thing I guess, is I don't think he has it in him to see that clearly

[ranger-truth]

Hey, so, this is my book, available in most places online or by order. If you're in Sacramento they may have it stocked at Barnes and Noble!

I realized too late that the "everything is explained at the end, changing the entire meaning of the story" isn't an easy writing style to sell in a first book because I have to convince people to reach the end! It features neurodiverse and queer characters (by an autistic queer author).

When refugees from the war-torn country of Ahl face extreme discrimination, Jane is nominated to represent her people in Listuan's hero program, which trains a handful of idolized saviors for each generation. However, instead of bringing peace to the refugees, Jane is possessed by a demon of forgotten origins and targeted by a powerful abuser. Pulled into conflicts both ancient and young, Jane must fight for control and search for her purpose, all without understanding her past.

If you're looking for something fantasy with autistic and queer rep and actual adult characters, please give "One for Ahl" a chance! The eBook is just $4. I have full royalties and the money helps me support my kid. The sequel (which is actually an allegory for unmasking, and an end to Jane and Astrid's story) is also fully written, but I was hoping to be able to afford a professional proofreader again like I did for this one. Otherwise I may publish it directly soon.

[killed-by-choice]

Yvonne Tanner, 22 (USA 1984)

On July 10, 1984, Yvonne Tanner underwent a “safe and legal” abortion at the Inglewood facility in California. The abortionist was Stephen Pine and/or Morton Barke. She immediately went into a coma and died on August 14, 1984. Her death certificate notes that she suffered coma, hypertension, and urinary tract infection.

Inglewood had a horrifying record of dead clients and malpractice. Yvonne was one of 6 dead clients. The others were 17-year-old Kathy Murphy, Lynette Wallace, Cora Mae Lewis, Elizabeth Tsuji and Belinda Byrd. (Out of all of the dead clients, all were Black except for Kathy and Elizabeth. This has led some to suspect that racism played a role in the consistently horrific malpractice that Inglewood clients suffered.) Inglewood was shut down by the state of California multiple times, but they just repeatedly reopened under a slightly different name. Inglewood General Hospital, Inglewood Hospital, Inglewood Women’s Hospital, Inglewood Women’s Clinic and more were all rebranding attempts by Inglewood after being shut down for malpractice.

In May and June of 1984, inspectors found the following violations at Inglewood (Statement of Deficiencies and Plan of Correction 5/18/84 and 6/21/84):

• clients had complications, but “none” was written in complication section of surgical log

•two surgical logs had no entries, just a blank under complications

• cervical dilators inserted by unlicensed staff

• consent for cervical dilator insertions not checked

• multiple clients’ physical exam forms and history forms contained different information

• unlicensed/unqualified staff giving tentative gestational diagnosis

• no documentation of physician being notified of ruptured membranes

• one aide inserted laminaria, another was documented as doing it

• clients having seizures that went entirely undocumented

• patient charted as in acute distress and unable to get blood pressure, but distress not described and no reason given for inability to get blood pressure

• entries in charts written over and/or not dated

• no EKG stripchart in post-anesthesia recovery room

• written policy for flash autoclave not followed

• the facility was not licensed to provide outpatient and emergency services but was advertising them anyway

• surgical suite shelving was laden with dust and lint, surgical suite ceiling ventilation grid encrusted with grayish material

• inspectors noted that Inglewood “does not have enough surgical equipment, nor does it appear that staff is properly sterilizing their equipment as evidenced by comparing the hospital’s surgical log with the number of surgical sets available.” They also noted that nurses, practitioner, and physician assistant lacked clinical privileges.

In the same year that Yvonne was killed, no fewer than 5 other clients sued for severe abortion injuries that almost killed them and at least three of those clients suffered permanent injuries and disabilities. (LA County Superior Court Case No SCC12219, LA County Superior Court Case No. SCC11519, LA County Superior Court Case No. C577956, LA County Superior Court Case No. WEC092527, LA County Superior Court Case No. WEC86705)

Had Inglewood been shut down and the staff truly held accountable for the deplorable inspection reports in May and June, Yvonne and her baby could have been spared. Yvonne’s surviving daughter Yonell Marie would have been spared the trauma of losing her mother and baby sibling.

LA Superior Court Case No. C555261

Times-Picayune newspaper

California Death Index, 1940-1997 database, Yvonne Tanner, 14 Aug 1984; Department of Public Health Services, Sacramento.

United States Social Security Death Index database, Yvonne Tanner, Aug 1984; citing U.S. Social Security Administration, Death Master File, database (Alexandria, Virginia: National Technical Information Service, ongoing).

[rgr-pop]

I have surveyed and analyzed every DSA chapter logo in order to develop political education to ensure that my chapter does not develop a bad logo. I'm here to present to you the best DSA logos

First up, a nod to every bridge chapter in DSA. A bridge is socialism at its most vulgar but also, most correct. It's lovely how so many chapters developed the prompt "a bridge we have" and came up with something unique. Really, the worst among these may be Pittsburgh, and even it is a totally serviceable, perfectly good logo, with a great bridge

Sacramento's, nice. Maybe not very conceptual, but great looking

Grand Rapids is, in full execution, I think the best logo of any Michigan DSA chapter. Got them rapids on there and everything, great job.

Only one chapter that I can recall uses the handshake as, the bridge. Wilmington, NC:

The lines leave something to be desired, for me, but really, a great showing Now I want to talk about the logo I was so sure was my absolute favorite logo in the DSA. But I realize now that I was just projecting a lot onto it, because I have my heart set on convincing my chapter to go with an art deco infrastructure concept. What I learned doing this research is that there are several chapters with art deco logos! So I remain attached to this, even as I realize it is simply homely. The Cleveland Guardian

Closing out bridges, San Francisco. Extended version (cloud cut). Fucking nailed it. This could make me cry under the right circumstances

Very few chapters have the guts to put clouds in their logo! Another one that really gets me, and is going to inspire my own pitch, is Wichita Falls. The earthly abundance, the art deco lines... I think the incorporation of the rose is lacking in execution, otherwise I would rank this very high. I think Lansing Michigan can develop this concept better, even though we arguably don't have any waterfalls

Since reading about communist flag symbolism I have warmed up to the natural world and landscape motif logos a lot. In particular, the chapters where their thing is a confluence:

River Valley

Portland (simple, but one of DSA's very best logos, I think):

Is that supposed to be a contributing symbol in the East Bay tree? If so, I would probably argue that this is DSA's overall best logo. Not my favorite thing, but they just did a good job. I just need to have the depth of it explained to me.

Before I get into my very favorites, I want to briefly address Salem and Seattle, who both do excellent visual interpretations of architecture, and are overall quite pretty, but which don't have the the conceptual range or the depth of meaning in my opinion. If you stan these and disagree with me, get in my inbox to make your pitch

3. Champaign-Urbana

I've meditated on this one a lot. If you are thinking, this is on the edge of being boosterism about the eds-meds research industrial geography, I think I agree with you. But it's also soviet, and it's gorgeous, and somehow almost nobody else just put fucking wheat in their logo. Green New Deal brain... grow up and put wheat in your logo!

2. Silicon Valley

I think that there are some kinds of places that struggle to represent themselves because of the way they are already mediated and represented in the world. Las Vegas, in my opinion, in its kitschy deference to gaming, failed reclaim ownership over its own representation. I don't like the Vegas DSA logo, it makes me depressed and paranoid. Who, after Vegas, has that much working against them? Only maybe... Salt Lake City, Silicon Valley. Practically nobody else. And look at what they did. Seems simple enough: we are going to grow something alive out of this evil thing. But the more I look at it--and it's just perfectly executed, no notes--the more emerges. It speaks to the "tech industry"'s history as, originally, one of natural resource extraction, folding the minerals onto the orchards.. sure you could accuse this of "technofetishism" and worry that a "signal guy with a cia contract made this logo to convince you that you can recuperate his work." I would disagree. I think they're making the best out of living in the worst place in America. It's optimistic, symbolic, it's nice

ORLANDO FLORIDA

You may say to yourself, I can recognize that I am looking at some kind of monumental civic architecture or infrastructure, but I don't know what it is, because I don't know a single thing about Orlando Florida that I didn't see in a commercial. Or maybe I know something about a fountain, because I saw it in a commercial. And then you begin to think about Orlando as a place that has art deco public spaces built and abandoned by evil industrialists... this is not the only park in a DSA logo, and it certainly isn't the only source of water, but it is the only fountain, I think. What is a fountain? Does it belong in communism? These questions are what Florida socialism is all about, in a way. This logo looks PERFECT ! It's perfect

Appendix on Salt Lake City:

I really really, really admire the work they must have put into thinking through how to represent one of the evilest places on planet earth (no offense if you live there, I would love to visit). And I sat with this one for a while. It seemed a perfect, interesting, optimistic solution. But like... aren't the bees still mormon? Am I wrong that the bee thing came from the mormons. SLC mormon friends can you confirm or deny