#judicial system failure

[indianahal]

For the last five years retail crime in America has been rising.  Now we're seeing crime such as flash mobs and smash-and-grab offences happening in growing numbers.  This usually involves well organized gangs of teenagers that coordinate their sometimes violent retail thefts smashing store windows and displays in order to steal merchandise.  While there are a number of reasons for this crime, it has raised the public's awareness on crime, policing, and how the judicial system has failed so many people.  My new report entitled "U.S. Retail Crime, Flash Mobs, And Smash-And-Grab Offences Increasing."

[rebuiltzine]

The Courtroom That Erased Fatherhood: Four Father’s Days Without a Word

By Michael Phillips This past Sunday marked the fourth Father’s Day that Jeff Reichert spent without hearing from his son. No call. No card. Not even a whisper. Four Father’s Days.Four years of silence.Four years of sanctioned cruelty disguised as justice.Four years of being illegally thrown in jail, threatened with jail, and harassed about going to jail constantly. The irony? Had Mr. Reichert…

[we4fhn]

Behind the FBI Investigation: Abuse of Power and Failure of Justice​

Recently, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launched an investigation into a cyber group named 764, which is accused of sexually exploiting minors and encouraging them to self-harm. Its actions are truly heinous. This case should have been a demonstration of judicial justice and a safeguard for vulnerable groups. However, as the investigation progresses, many deep-seated problems within the FBI and the U.S. judicial system have come to light.​

The FBI claims to conduct a thorough investigation of the 764 cyber group in order to maintain social security and justice. Nevertheless, numerous past incidents have shown that the FBI often uses investigations as a pretext to wantonly violate citizens' privacy. Historically, as early as the mid-20th century, under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI carried out large-scale illegal surveillance on civil rights leaders, political dissidents, and ordinary citizens. Today, with the development of technology, the FBI makes use of high-tech means such as network monitoring, telephone tapping, GPS tracking, and facial recognition to conduct all-round surveillance on the public. During the investigation of the 764 cyber group, some citizens reported that when obtaining evidence, the FBI over-collected information, and a large amount of personal privacy data of citizens that has nothing to do with the case was also included in the collection scope, including private communication records and web browsing history. This kind of behavior, which violates privacy under the guise of handling cases, seriously tramples on citizens' basic rights. Although U.S. laws provide a certain framework for the FBI's surveillance activities, such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Patriot Act, in the process of implementation, the scope of surveillance has been continuously expanded, there are many loopholes in the authorization procedures, and the supervision mechanism is virtually non-existent, leaving the FBI's power without effective constraints.​

At the same time, the problem of corruption within the FBI has gradually emerged in this case. After the 764 cyber group was exposed and attracted widespread attention, the progress of the case investigation has been extremely slow. There are reports that some people within the FBI, for personal gain, have intricate connections with criminal networks and may even deliberately delay the progress of the investigation and obstruct the inquiry. Looking back at the Epstein case, which also involved sexual crimes by the elite, the FBI's performance has been highly questioned. Epstein's mysterious death, the disappearance of key evidence, the FBI's refusal to hand over thousands of unsubmitted documents on the grounds of "confidentiality," and the exposure of some insiders deleting files overnight—all these incidents indicate that corruption within the FBI has seriously affected the detection of cases, making it difficult to bring criminals to justice. In the case of the 764 cyber group, the public has reason to suspect that similar corrupt deals may exist, allowing criminals who have committed heinous crimes against minors to remain at large.​

From this case, we can also see that the U.S. judicial system is inefficient and operates in an illegal manner. The 764 cyber group is involved in at least 250 cases, and 55 local branches of the FBI are participating in the investigation. Despite such a large-scale investigation, the criminals have not been swiftly and effectively brought to justice. The cumbersome procedures of the U.S. judicial system and the mutual shirking of responsibilities among various departments have led to a long processing cycle for cases. Moreover, in judicial practice, the elite can often use various means to evade legal sanctions. Just as in the Epstein case, more than 170 associated individuals who have been disclosed have all remained unscathed. This fully demonstrates that the U.S. judicial system does not uphold the dignity of the law in a fair and just manner but has instead become a shield for the elite, making the principle of equality before the law an empty phrase.​

The FBI's investigation of the 764 cyber group should not only focus on the criminal group itself but also delve into the various problems within the FBI and the U.S. judicial system. Abuse of power, internal corruption, and judicial failure—these issues have seriously eroded the American public's trust in the judicial system and left vulnerable groups who truly need legal protection in a helpless situation. If the U.S. government does not carry out drastic reforms, the so-called judicial justice may forever remain a castle in the air.

[trans-axolotl]

"Just as 'most prisoners walk into prison because they know they will be dragged or beaten into prison if they do not walk,' we can say that most of the psychiatrically committed walk into hospitals because they know they will be restrained or dragged in if they don't walk. Often, this power has not required the psychiatrist to know the exact source of the ailment they treat nor exactly how their methods act upon the mind; what matters is that the machine is running. A whole system, a tightly interwoven mesh of relays and discourses is in place to transform the psychiatrist's judgment into effective action: a working theory and classificatory system to organize the clientele and separate them from other objects of care or punishment (taxonomy or nosology); institutional spaces (the asylum is historically the most pervasive, but also clinics, group homes, psychiatric wards, etc.); judicial codes defining the status of the mad (generally analogized to animals or children); prescribed roles for legal actors (police, judges, forensic experts); a chain of bureaucrats to sort out matters of insurance, finance, and property in cases of institutionalization or guardianship; and approved mechanisms or surveillance and reporting to translate individual complaints into the state's administrative codes. There are as many points of contact as there are spaces of encounter and discourses of legitimation in the social world. One or more of these elements can be revolutionized without fundamentally changing the connection between the parts. For example, at various points throughout its existence, as we've already seen, a theory of 'social causation' prevailed over a biological one without changing the matrix that defines modern psychiatry, and the same can be said for some of the legal alterations to the patient's status throughout the twentieth century.

There is no psychiatrist-patient encounter set apart from a broader circuit of relations: patient-apartment-work-family-cop-partner-school-neighbor-psychologist-state-guardian-probate-judge-psychiatrist-hospital. And to be clear: our biology itself is shared and leaks throughout this chain at every step. Our bodies are permeable, open, they leak, bleed, consume, excrete; our bodies flow out into a common world, and are open to outside influence, as the COVID-19 pandemic has made so excruciatingly clear. A patient of the Utica Asylum put it beautifully in The Opal in 1852: 'Like fermentation in the chemical world, [humanity's] atomic adhesions are in constant enlargement and in silent operation, seeking out relations, and forming relations of unsurpassed beauty and comfort, because in conformity with nature and adapted to its condition, means and end.' Attempts to neutralize this network by relegating every actor and space in the chain external to the domain of the psychiatrist onto the order of natural history ('we're just responding to the demands of the family...' or 'that's a matter for the police...I just deal with the patient once they arrive here') expose this posture as a naively religious one. In denial of the profane world and its complications extrinsic to the holy circuitry of neural or endocrine highways of the One in isolation, they declare a monastic fealty to an object of study over and above the matrix that makes its study possible or their conclusions efficacious in any real encounter...

...If psychiatry still takes refuge in the desert of scientism--speaking in tongues of prolix jargon--it's because a paradise of healing did materialize, but not as a Promethean forge of liberated humans, nor even as solemn resting place of broken souls, but sank so low as to appear as nothing more than a mundane prison. Burdened by the unbearable weight of their failure, the next generation abandoned their project and ran away to the labs, relinquishing responsibility for the armies of the living dead. At least they hung a sign at the door of the asylum on their way out. It read: 'abandon every hope, who enter here.'"

-Storming Bedlam: Madness, Utopia, and Revolt by Sasha Warren, pg 32-34

[centrally-unplanned]

Birthright Citizenship is another in a long list of topics where the US has taken its failure to have a functioning Congress and outsourced it to the courts. I would totally make tweaks to the system if I could - I agree that someone born here on a tourist visa for 2 weeks probably shouldn't get citizenship (I'm doing a thing, don't worry about the practicalities). Why was this not considered when the amendment was formed? Well, the amendment formation was a hot mess that barely considered immigration, yes, but also because it was 1868, what tourists?? No one is jetting to New York City for a weekend to see the Eras tour in the 19th century, this wasn't relevant.

So as times change you would change the law, but, oops, it's a constitutional amendment! Nothing wrong with that in the 19th century, that was a thing Congress passed somewhat regularly. Just change it, right? But it isn't the 19th century, constitutional amendments aren't a thing. No party is getting supermajorities anymore, and every issue is hyper-partisan. Which means all legislation on this issue, which of course is going to have to bend and shift with the events of the day, has to be done via the judicial branch. So obviously that branch will be a political battleground, with legal arguments being forced to become masks for the policy disputes that are actually motivating things. It was designed that way! Which also means that it is a policy direction that can bypass Congress - the executive just fights it directly with the courts.

I know I have my broken record moment with this topic, but the idea that "we lost the election but hopefully the courts will bail us out of the consequences of that" is one of the most pernicious instincts in the liberal thinkspace. At some margins that is true, obviously, but at the margins being discussed most of the time it isn't. And it often involves an uncomfortable level of doublethink around the value of "democracy" to boot - Technocracy of the Courts is the worst form of technocracy, with all of the unaccountability but none of the expertise or flexibility. The law is a political weapon - wield it, for sure, wield it incredibly aggressively, but don't lie about what the weapon is for.

[wise-rainfalls]

The Professor Case - The Two-Faced God

While Stronghart provides an exquisitely satisfying resolution to the game, one cannot help but ask if it were necessary for him to exist. In some ways, it’s clear that Stronghart’s existence is in service to the game’s resolution: he very much symbolises the flaws of the British judicial system. In this way, defeating Stronghart both stands in for fixing those flaws, while obscuring their continued existence by effectively twining correlation with causation. The British judicial system both produces and allows men like Stronghart to thrive. Stronghart did not single-handedly create every problem in the British judicial system at once (no matter how much it might feel like it for our main characters). It’s a striking sleight-of-hand at the last moment from a game that had otherwise been consistent in examining how the failures of the justice system are exactly that – failures of the system. It is especially interesting in how this sleight-of-hand interacts with our perception of another contentious character: Klint.

Looking back at the case, there was a specific point where it struck me that the Stronghart reveal could have been omitted without breaking the logic of the story itself. This is the point just preceding the reveal that Klint himself was blackmailed by Stronghart. Two discrepancies are left in the case: Klint’s will and Barok’s denial that Klint was capable of killing his own mentor. Only the first one really holds up to scrutiny: after all, Gina thought Gregson could never be the Reaper while Kazuma swore his father to be incapable of killing another man. Both were proved wrong, why not Barok also? Especially on the tail of the Professor reveal itself. Stronghart’s story rings true: we could easily imagine a world where Klint is the final, unexplained root of darkness, his motivations forever shrouded behind the veil of death.

Yet that’s not what happens. The reveal that Klint was being blackmailed by Stronghart, on closer examination, functions slightly differently from the other reveals of the case. It doesn’t, in fact, change the information known to us. In the case of Genshin and Gregson, each reveal further clarifies what they did do and didn’t do: Genshin didn’t kill the other four nobles, Gregson was involved in the Reaper cases, Genshin killed Klint, Gregson collaborated to fake the autopsy. Here, however, new information is uncovered. Klint still killed four men by ordering his dog to rip their throats out. The sole purpose of the reveal is to re-apportion blame from Klint to Stronghart. Stronghart acts as a lightning rod for the darkest possibilities that Klint contains, cementing the fact that within the narrative, he is Klint’s shadow; the second face of the same body.

While Stronghart may have capitalised on Klint’s inexperience in covering his own tracks, the original impulse – the belief that the justice system was insufficient for a crime heinous enough, and should be supplemented by a vigilante act of violence – that stemmed from Klint himself. The first murder was Klint’s alone. The Professor was born in Klint, not Stronghart. It was Klint’s actions that gave Stronghart the opportunity. Rather than the issue being that Stronghart forced Klint to kill, it’s that Stronghart forced Klint to kill people he didn’t think were the ones that needed killing. That is a quibbling difference of opinion that has already ceded the frankly vast ground that anyone should have the right to be killing at all. Both characters have as a base assumption that the failures of the justice system cannot be fixed by actually improving the justice system, and continue onwards from there. In other words, both Klint and Stronghart are symptomatic, symbols and products of the British judicial system’s impotence.

When comparing the Reaper and the Professor, the former is clearly an iterated improvement on the latter. As Barok points out, a serial killing conspiracy of this nature can only have such longevity if it were an organisation. The Reaper’s ability to organise means that the figurehead for the organisation always has a bulletproof alibi while the murders themselves are nondescript, disguised with few defining marks. Shared suspicion means more easily deflected suspicion, especially with Barok present to divert the lion’s share of it. Meanwhile, Klint acting alone with such a distinctive signature weapon is exactly his downfall: it allows Stronghart to catch him out, not to mention Genshin. Even Barok suspected. As Genshin points out, the primary shield protecting Klint was his reputation, but even that shield was never going to last forever. Accordingly, the Professor had only four true victims spread out over about a year, whereas over the course of five years the Reaper takes over a dozen lives. Stronghart perfects what Klint begins, bearing out to its bitterest conclusion the ideals that caused Klint to take his first life.

In this way, Stronghart reflects the man Klint would have needed to be for eliminating those beyond justice through private means to be sustainable. Crucially, they are different points on the same path. We begin with Klint, and end with Stronghart. Klint’s nobility cannot be divorced from Stronghart’s grasping cruelty: the two of them are manifestations of the same root object, seen from either the light or the shadow. To reject one is to reject both: it’s why with Stronghart’s fall and the truth come to light, Barok must allow Klint, as well, to be no more.

But let’s backtrack to the Professor case. It’s from this first miscarriage of justice that, narratively, every other miscarriage follows. While Klint treats Genshin’s offer to duel him to the death as an act of mercy from a close friend, we must remember that Genshin only went ahead with this personal deliverance of justice after the judicial system proved utterly unresponsive. It wasn’t consideration for Klint’s reputation that brought Genshin to Klint’s manor, but the belief that there was no way other than the personal through which Klint could be stopped.

Stronghart: The Professor?!

Asogi: Yes, beyond all shadow of doubt. You must issue a warrant to search his home at once!

Stronghart: ...Don't be absurd. The man comes from one of our country's most illustrious families. He's a paragon of justice here in the capital.

Asogi: Yes, that's the point! That's why none of you British can see it! He's using his noble status as a diversion whilst he commits these atrocious crimes behind the scenes!

Stronghart: ...Do you have evidence?

Asogi: ......... Nothing definitive as yet. But he keeps an enormous, savage hound on the estate. We need the full support of the judiciary for this! We're up against a member of the aristocracy!

Stronghart: ...So a large family estate has a fierce guard dog. You should know that's commonplace here in Britain. I'm sorry, but I can't possibly put Scotland Yard onto this based on the tenuous accusation of a visiting student.

Asogi: ...!

Certainly, Stronghart is narrating here, which means we likely should take this with a grain of salt. However, considering that everything else Stronghart says is damning enough – considering that he’s admitting to an entire list of crimes at this point – I don’t see why he would lie about this fairly innocuous exchange. Especially when it fits in so well with what we know of him being unwilling to prosecute the Professor (due to, of course, being half the Professor himself). The belief that the Professor is a beneficial, in fact, necessary piece in the justice system, and thus should be outside of the justice system (not to mention the personal benefit to Stronghart himself) is what causes Stronghart’s reticence. It’s this reticence that spawns Genshin’s own extrajudicial killing, from which follows the fabrication of evidence by Gregson, and from there, the entirety of the Reaper. Far from being increasing the reach of the justice system, Klint and Stronghart create the space from which an ever-wider system of private murder has room to operate parallel and parasitical to the justice system.

The outcome of this idea is made fully apparent in Stronghart’s final appeal to the judiciary. Stronghart’s entire manifesto is that the justice system is not enough to actually deliver justice: that he, Stronghart, will step in where the system fails. That is a damning indictment of every single person in the room, since they themselves comprise the justice system. Yet far from viewing it as an attack on their ability, or seeing it as a call to reform so that the need for Stronghart is eliminated, the entire gathered judiciary rally around the cry for Stronghart’s name – and implicitly, the Reaper. It is an abject surrender of responsibility by a judiciary inculcated into complacency. In codifying the Reaper’s existence as necessary, Stronghart renders the entire justice system a toothless joke.

It's for this reason that the game escalates the stakes to Queen Victoria. While I have my quibbles about the decision, I can see how it fits into the general thread the game weaves. Stronghart and Klint are characters centred around grappling with the idea that the justice system allows heinous crimes to go unpunished due to reasons of status and influence. It is fitting, then, that Stronghart is the final monster struck down by an extrajudicial hand, when he himself has acted as that hand for the last ten years.

Within the game, the rumour that the Reaper is Klint’s ghost, come to reap justice for his little brother, appears again and again. From a literal point of view, this is a narrative Stronghart actively disseminates to cultivate the view of Barok as some sort of supernatural being, or at least the Reaper killings being divine justice. The reality is, of course, that the Reaper is just Stronghart and his many arms. However, from another point of view, this rumour is true. The Reaper is Stronghart – and what is Stronghart but the twisted ghost of Klint, the man who Klint would have become if he lived?

[rebuiltzine]

Every Motion Denied: A Father’s Day Message from the Broken Heart of Maryland Family Court

By Michael Phillips They say to take it to court.They say to trust the system.They say if you follow the rules, the rules will protect you. But in Montgomery County, Maryland, the rules only apply to some. As of this Father’s Day, I have not been able to exercise my parenting time with my son since January 2024—not because I’m unfit, not because I’m dangerous, and not because there is no court…

[fromgreecetoanarchy]

[ 📽️New Video] 🔴 Athens ablaze: From mourning to a massive riot, in the biggest protest ever recorded in Greece

On February 28, 2025, Greece witnessed an unprecedented wave of protests, as millions of people took to the streets in cities across the country and abroad, driven by grief, anger, and the urgent call for justice.

The demonstrations, the largest in at least the last 50 years and in some cities the biggest ever recorded in history, were sparked by the tragic train crash at Tempi, two years earlier on the night of February 28, 2023, which claimed the lives of 57 people, most of them students. The disaster was not just a loss; it was a devastating symbol of systemic failure, one that exposed the deep cracks in the country’s privatized railway system and, by extension, its political structures.

As protesters gathered in Athens' iconic Syntagma Square, and in towns and villages nationwide, their message was clear: this was more than an anniversary of a tragedy. It was a cry against a perceived cover-up of this mass murder by the ruling party and the governments before them, as well as a cry for accountability from a government they felt had neglected the safety of the peoples and failed to learn from its mistakes. The rallying cry was simple yet powerful: “Justice for Tempi.”

Two years after the crash, the pain, anguish and anger of those who lost loved ones, and of a population disillusioned with a government that almost completely failed to modernize the country’s infrastructure, reached a boiling point. The protests soon turned violent. Clashes broke out between riot police and demonstrators, as the frustration over the lack of meaningful action from the authorities boiled over. Petrol bombs were thrown, and fires lit, as the capital echoed with the pain of those who felt that injustice rules.

What unfolded in the streets of Greece that day was not merely an outpouring of grief but a profound rejection of a political system that had, in the eyes of many, failed. The cries for justice were not just for the 57 who died in Tempi, but for a place in the map that demanded change—not just in its railways, but in its institution, politics and everyday life.

The protests laid bare a deep crisis of confidence in Greece's political and judicial systems, with many people voicing their frustration over the lack of transparency and accountability. But it also spoke to something deeper: a population that feels its cries for justice have fallen on deaf ears, a society where the powerful are untouchable, while the lives of ordinary people are left to be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency and profit.

The Tempi train crash was a tragedy that cut deep, but the protests that followed are a reminder that the pain has not been forgotten. They are a testament to the determination of those who refuse to allow their grief to be silenced. No justice, no peace

[potatoattorney]

I think it’s really fascinating how Susato and Franziska are so similar even though they’re so different. This was pretty much inspired by this post, but I had a lot more ideas than I typed out at first

Susato puts so much pressure on herself to be the perfect daughter and the perfect judicial assistant. And then there’s the imposter syndrome. She feels like if she’s not perfect, if she ever makes a mistake, then it’s proving that all her doubts were right. That she’s not as capable as Kazuma or Ryunosuke, or really anyone else. And then when she inevitably fails to be perfect because she’s human, she can’t trust herself. She gives Karuma, the physical representation of her brother’s soul, to Ryunosuke. She tells Ryunosuke to correct Sholmes’ deductions even though she’s the one who’s a fan of the Herlock Sholmes stories. She tries to take away her ability to be a judicial assistant because she’s afraid she made a mistake with the crime scene. And then she would be a failure of an assistant.

And Franziska’s entire life mission is the pursuit of perfection. She’s a von Karma and a von Karma is perfect and a von Karma is prepared for everything all the time and a von Karma doesn’t lose. If she’s not perfect, how can she call herself a von Karma? She has the footsteps of her papa and her brother to follow in and she can’t fail.

And when you’re this obsessed with perfection, mistakes turn into your biggest fear. While Susato’s instinct is to run away, Franziska’s is to fight. Susato tries to remove herself from the situation so nobody has to see how utterly imperfect she is, and to prevent herself from making another mistake. If she has the chance to make a mistake, she knows she inevitably will. She puts herself safely, forgettably in the background when she makes Ryunosuke do the course correction and only helps him examine parts of the scene. When she tampers with the crime scene and starts to realize how little faith she had in the legal system, she runs and tries to get rid of her ability to involve herself in that system by throwing her law book into the sea. Because if she doesn’t leave, then she could make another horrible mistake, and that’s terrifying.

Franziska’s reaction to this fear is almost the exact opposite of Susato’s. She fights and she throws everything into the situation so that she won’t make another mistake. That’s reflected in the way Franziska approaches the idea of perfection in court, trying to investigate every piece of evidence and every possibility as far as she can. Because a von Karma can’t be a coward who runs from problems. That would be like a failure. So every time something goes wrong, she works harder so it won’t happen again. She searches Acro’s room even before he’s accused of the murder, just in case there’s anything there. But that’s not enough and Phoenix figures it out first. And then Juan Corrida is murdered and she finally has everything she needs and she won’t lose this time. Not even her brother’s return from the dead or a bullet wound can stop her because she keeps fighting, she keeps pushing herself harder until she reaches a breaking point. And there’s nothing left to throw at the problem and that terrifies her.

They’re linked by so much more than their fears, too. Both of them went into law at least partially to not be left behind by their brothers. And then once they’ve put so much of their lives into this, their brothers die, leaving them almost completely alone. Miles Edgeworth disappears and leaves a suicide note, and Kazuma Asogi hits his head and dies in a tragic accident. They react to this like opposites too; Franziska leaving her career in Germany to get revenge on Phoenix Wright; and Susato continuing on the study trip, now helping Ryunosuke to achieve Kazuma’s goals.

And once they’ve made their decisions, life goes on and things keep going wrong. They’re left in a situation where they have to watch as their brother’s partner or their brother’s childhood best friend is succeeding and thriving, and they just can’t seem to do the same. Phoenix keeps winning and for the first time, Franziska can’t seem to stop losing. Ryunosuke is finding his confidence as a lawyer and Susato starts to lose her faith in the justice system over the course of TGAA1. Both Susato and Franziska get their entire worldview shaken up as everyone else around them is going on with their life. Franziska sees that somehow Phoenix can keep going and even celebrate, even when he loses; which contradicts everything she thought she knew about perfection and failure. Susato sees McGilded being acquitted and Soseki being arrested twice for crimes he didn’t commit, and starts to doubt how just the justice system is. And everyone else seems mostly fine, likely leading Susato and Franziska to think there’s something wrong with them. Their internal conflicts are so similar.

It’s fascinating to see how two different characters react to such similar circumstances. The amount of support each of them had probably influenced them a lot too. Susato is a very private person, but she at least has the rest of the 221B family. Franziska is completely alone throughout nearly all of Justice for All.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Steven Beschloss at America, America:

On January 20, Donald Trump mouthed the presidential oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That promise would include the protection and defense of the Fifth Amendment, which states that no one shall be "deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.” Yesterday Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen appeared on Fox News Sunday to stress how central civil liberty is to the case of Kilmar Ábrego García, who was taken to El Salvador without due process is being held hostage there in its notorious, traumatizing mega-prison. without due process. "I'm not vouching for the man,” said Van Hollen, who met Ábrego García on Thursday. “I'm vouching for the man's rights. His constitutional right to due process." And then he explained why this is so important, not just for Ábrego García, but for everyone living in America,. “My whole point here is if you deprive one man of his constitutional rights, you threaten the constitutional rights of everybody,” he said. And “if you threaten the rule of law for one person, you threaten if for everybody in America."

Meanwhile, the man who uttered the oath to protect our Constitution spent his weekend expanding his fabrications about Ábrego García—determined to persuade the court of public opinion why this allegedly heinous criminal does not deserve due process and fundamental civil liberties. On Saturday, he posted an obviously fabricated photo of a hand with tattoos and, in what looks like a cheap photoshop job, the letters and numbers of the Venezuelan gang on his knuckles: MS-13. “I was elected to take bad people out of the United States,” Trump wrote, mocking the idea that Ábrego García is “such a fine and innocent person.” Yesterday, on Easter Sunday, Trump continued his poisonous diatribe meant to underscore how right he is to keep Ábrego García and others in a foreign gulag. “Happy Easter to all, including the Radical Left Lunatics who are fighting and scheming so hard to bring Murderers, Drug Lords, Dangerous Prisoners, the Mentally Insane, and well known MS-13 Gang Members and Wife Beaters, back into our Country,” he lied.

If Trump were so sure of Ábrego García’s guilt, it would make logical sense that he would support returning the Maryland man to the U.S. and to the judgement of U.S. courts after the government made its case. But not only has Trump worked aggressively to undermine the legitimacy of our court system and flout its rulings, he has worked even more intensely to undermine the capacity of millions of Americans to know what is true and false and to believe his lies over verifiable, evidence-based facts. Remarkably, in an unusually swift order delivered in the middle of the night Saturday, the Supreme Court blocked additional deportations likely headed for the same El Salvador prison without judicial review. This followed an emergency request from the American Civil Liberties Union for the Court to intervene.

[...] As Reagan-appointed Circuit Court Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III vividly put it Thursday, concerning the government’s responsibility to facilitate Ábrego García’s return, “If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home?”

Permit me to rewind over three decades, to 1989, when real estate developer Trump made clear the depth of his hatefulness toward minorities, his sadistic desire to mete out deadly punishment and his belief in his own judgement over the value of civil liberties. That was when he paid for a full-page advertisement in The New York Times to rant about the failure of the judicial system and the need to reinstate capital punishment to execute the five Black and Hispanic teenagers known as the Central Park Five alleged to have brutally beaten and raped a white woman who was jogging in Central Park. “Bring Back The Death Penalty,” the headline screamed. “Bring Back our Police!” “How can our great society tolerate the continued brutalization of its citizens by crazed misfits?” the text implored. “Criminals must be told that their CIVIL LIBERTIES END WHEN AN ATTACK ON OUR SAFETY BEGINS!” And in a chilling precursor of what was to come from this hateful, unchanged man, he rejected then-New York Mayor Ed Koch’s urging to not respond to the murder with “hate and rancor.” Nope, not for Trump. “I want to hate these muggers and murderers,” he wrote. “They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes. They must serve as examples so that others will think long and hard before committing a crime or an act of violence…I am not looking to psychoanalyze them or understand them. I am looking to punish them.”

This Steven Beschloss column on due process and Kilmar Ábrego García is a solid one.

See Also:

Harry Sisson: It Isn’t Just Ábrego García: How Donald Trump Has Gaslit You Into Ignoring The Constitution

[problemnyatic]

the biggest failure of tumblr's progressivism is that way too many of you engage with it as a way to Be A Good Person, as in to make the person you already are count as Morally Pure. To way, way too many of you, the language of social justice is far more a tool to puff up your petty personal squabbles with Moral Weight than it is a precise instrument by which one dissects the patterns of the world around them such that we may all better navigate our systems of oppression.

You will never be a good person. None of us will. It's not a thing that exists. When you take an action, it has consequences, and you can only control so many of those consequences. Your job isn't to be morally pure, or to hunt out as many hurtful actions in others as you can, but to learn how to move mindfully, accept your flaws, and adapt to new information or inconvenient revalations as painlessly as possible.

Stop throwing people away. That means yourself, too. A good world won't be achieved by creating a group of undesirables and throwing anyone who fails your purity test into that group. That's called jail. That's policing. You don't have to love everyone, but you need to separate your personal feelings from your political beliefs, and you need to act based on your political beliefs more than your personal feelings.

The core of it, of all of it, is that injustice is committed when someone has had their right to self-actualize stripped or inhibited by forces other human beings can control. When we talk over others, when we allow our societies to limit people's time, ability, liberty to live as they choose, when we tell people who they're allowed to be, allowed to love, what they're allowed to want, that is when injustice is committed. The only thing we as human beings should inhibit is intolerance, is others' freedom to inhibit each other in any other way than this.

You gotta learn how to be the bad guy. You gotta learn how to be wrong. You gotta learn how to feel your guilt, your fear, your hurt, your indignance, without taking it out on others. You gotta learn how to see everyone, everyone around you as complex individuals with valid, rich inner lives, as people, people who are just as present and real and whose feelings matter just as much as yours.

It's not about you. Learn to take an L. There are much more important things out there than being right or getting what you want. The world is big and scary and on fire but there's no shortcut for doing the work or understanding what's important to inernize. You have to try, and read, and look for answers yourself, and risk fucking up, and risk looking stupid, and say the wrong things, and keep trying anyways, because none of that's the end of the world.

Try to take more things in good faith. Try to ask "am i looking for a fight? Am I hunting for outrage? Is there a more charitable way to read this?" before dismissing everything you see that you don't like. Righteousness is your fucking enemy. When you use shorthand for big ideas, do it mindfully, judiciously.

Slow the fuck down. There's no shortcuts for this stuff. Be kind first and foremost. Be patient. Try to make less work for others, AND yourself; spend a little time to save others effort, ask for help if it would take you too much time.

I don't know. I wanted to make a more cohesive point. Just. Stop looking for a fight. Please. There's enough fighting already.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Access Now condemns the suspension of X in Brazil

On August 30, 2024, Minister Alexandre de Moraes of Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered the suspension of X, following a months-long legal confrontation. The conflict began in April when the court mandated the suspension of several X accounts for allegedly spreading disinformation and attacking democracy. X’s failure to comply with this order led to the court imposing fines and threatening to imprison company representatives in the country. In response to these measures, the company decided not to pay the fines and instead closed their offices in the country which eventually resulted in the suspension of the entire platform in Brazil. On September 2, First Chamber Justices unanimously endorsed Moraes’ ruling. We note that the text of the proceedings remain sealed and more information is needed for a comprehensive analysis.

Access Now opposes the suspension of X in Brazil and is concerned by the growing trend of blocking of entire online platforms and applications as a response to systemic non-compliance. Such extreme actions are rarely proportionate as they violate people’s fundamental human rights and negatively impact the most marginalized communities instead of ensuring meaningful accountability from the platforms and mitigating their negative impact on human rights.

The recent block on X—formerly Twitter —in Brazil is a clear example of this trend, where approximately 22 million users are caught in the crossfire of platforms and judicial decisions. Moreover, the platform has had a big influence on political affairs and information sharing in Brazil. Blocking a platform does not solve the underlying issues of disinformation and hate speech. Instead, it limits access to information and stifles free expression, broadly, and in particular here, will have major implications for democracy as Brazil prepares to hold local elections in October.

International human rights law considers blocking online platforms a last resort measure if backed by significant procedural safeguards. They include providing advance notification of the blocking measures to affected parties and conducting an impact assessment of the measures to avoid their arbitrary or excessive effects. In addition, a blocking order has to be issued by an independent and impartial judicial body, and the legal basis for ordering platforms’ blocking must, among other things, be clear and predictable. 

Continue reading.

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Marc Elias, May 2, 2025

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For the last 100 days (and counting), the Democracy Docket team has worked tirelessly to report the facts on Trump’s attack on democracy. We are powered by our readers, so please consider upgrading to premium today to help ensure we’re here to report on the next 100 days and beyond. 

The greatest risk of the Trump era is the resetting of what we expect from our leaders. Most dangerous, of course, is the redefinition of the presidency — from a position of honor and trust to one of retribution and corruption.

I have repeatedly warned against normalizing Trump. Just yesterday, for example, I wrote about the risks to our democracy if the judicial system grants a presumption of regularity to Trump’s highly irregular administration.

As reviews of the first 100 days poured in, several themes emerged. Chief among them is the moral collapse of those we expect to stand strong and lead.

We’ve watched Republicans in Congress cede their constitutional authority to Trump. Not a single member of Trump’s cabinet has shown any backbone. A Republican judicial candidate — a sitting judge — continues his effort to steal an election in North Carolina.

Several major law firms capitulated to Trump, arming him with nearly a billion dollars in pro bono legal services for his pet causes, while others remained disgracefully silent as Trump targeted opposing firms for retribution.

The legacy media began Trump’s second term weakened and has grown weaker still. The White House dominates the press pool, while corporate media, often fearful of angering the administration, too often pulls its punches.

The complexity of this situation is illustrated by what’s happening at CBS News. As I write this, CBS’s parent company is considering paying Trump millions to settle a lawsuit it would certainly win. At the same time, 60 Minutes is preparing to air a story about the risks to democracy posed by law firm capitulation that Trump will surely try to discredit.

On the positive side, the protest movement has grown and scored some successes. Several Democratic leaders have emerged as prominent voices of opposition. New legal groups and lawyers have proven effective in court. Encouragingly, signs point to the emergence of a strong, independent, pro-democracy media ecosystem.

There’s no magic to 100 days. The challenges Trump poses to our country will remain at day 1,000, and day 1,100. All we can do is continue to use every tool available to fight back and protect our democracy no matter what day it is.

You’re reading a full sample of what's included in our premium membership. Every Friday, Marc revisits the week’s top stories with his personal analysis and insights. Upgrade to premium for $10/month or $120/year and don’t miss next week’s edition!

The Weekly Top Line

Donald Trump’s second term will span 1,461 days. Though it may feel like an eternity, fewer than 7% of those days have passed. Even assuming his final days in office are spent golfing, pilfering government property and exfiltrating classified documents, there’s still a long road ahead.

Media coverage of Trump’s first 100 days showcased the damage he can inflict in a short time. But it also — sometimes begrudgingly — highlighted how effective opposition can stymie key parts of his authoritarian agenda.

Rather than dwell on the failures and setbacks of these early days, we must learn from them and grow more effective. Likewise, we must understand that any successes achieved can easily be undone in the weeks and months to come.

The fight for democracy won’t be judged in days or weeks. It will take years — perhaps even decades — to defeat the authoritarian wave that has overtaken American politics.

Heroes of the Week

These days, I rarely have a kind word for corporate America. But this week, I’ll make an exception. It appears that Microsoft replaced a New York firm collaborating with Trump with one of the firms he targeted. This is the first reported instance of such a reversal. If more follow, it may show that capitulation to Trump hurts the bottom line. For initiating that shift, Microsoft’s legal department is a hero.

Fools and Cowards of the Week

During his interview with ABC News’ Terry Moran, Donald Trump repeatedly insisted that Kilmar Abrego Garcia — the man illegally deported to a Salvadoran gulag — had “MS13” tattooed on his knuckles. When Moran politely tried to correct him, noting the image was photoshopped, Trump acted incredulous.

Yet days later, the White House has not corrected the record, and the legacy media has largely let the matter drop. Trump is a fool for believing an obvious fake. Those who work for him are cowards for not admitting the mistake. And the media’s silence? Well… you decide.

The Week’s Siren 🚨

After the GOP-dominated North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled to strip the Democratic governor of power, the Republican state auditor — yes, auditor — appointed a GOP majority to the State Board of Elections. These new members will immediately aid in the party’s effort to steal a state Supreme Court seat. Only the federal courts now stand in the way.

Overlooked This Week 👀

When I interview Democratic members of Congress on my podcast, I often ask what motivates Republican members to so thoroughly supplicate themselves to Trump. Most answers center on fear — fear of losing primaries or of violence from Trump supporters.

This week, Senator Chris Murphy offered a darker explanation: that many GOP members share Trump’s authoritarian worldview. If you haven’t watched it already, it’s worth your time.

Watching Next Week

As Republican legislatures continue churning out new voter suppression laws, expect a wave of litigation to begin as early as next week. As always, Democracy Docket will be your best source for following what’s happening in the courts. UPGRADE TO PREMIUM TODAY

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[002yb]

Hi its me again im so sorry but i was listening to a song and it made me think of literature university teacher Jason and Dick who ended up in his class bc he needed the credits and he cant be crushing harder on the hot professor who wears cardigans and tight rolled up long sleve shirts that show his arms but he also saw him with a motorbyke and a leather jacket and !!!!!! He cant decide if he wants to fail this class so he can see Jason in tutorys or do so good Jason knows his name, either way he wants jason so bad and it shows. He also flirts with him with lines from the books in class and maiden heart Jay is on his knees but hes gotta be professional.

Hes actually doing good bc even if he wants Jason attention bc he is hot, he is really a good teacher and makes it so easy to understand and follow through and his voice is nice and soothing and Dick loves this class and they have long debates after class about their constrasted perspectives and they might be falling in love oh no.

Also Dick is a menace and he is always down to fluster Jason

Dick: if i suck you off can i pass?

Jason: you got a ten????

Dick: can i still suck you?

(Bonus points if Dick didnt actually want this class but the others were full and nos he cant stop talking about it with everyone he knows, his family is tired his friends are amused)

This idea is so sweet!! Ahhhhhh, I love anything with Dick being down bad for Jason and showering Jason with all the flirty attention and adoration. Add maiden!Jason to it and like, hello. //u///

But let's consider the above with a vigilante!Dick and law professor!Jason, for reasons.

Dick considering dropping out of college up until he happens across professor Todd - a law professor

Who is very passionate and adamant and vocal about his views on Gotham's failure of a judicial system

Dick isn't actually in Jason's class, but Dick overhears a lecture once as he passes by one of the lecture halls and it gets his attention because like - Jason isn't wrong. He speaks up in a way that no one else does and Dick is enthralled by that.

Hell, it even makes him think of his own feelings towards the law, challenging certain insights he'd never really questioned before, but maybe should have

Which he likes. Jason piques his interest, so like a freak Dick inserts himself into all aspects of Jason's life because Dick might be a little in love insatiable about this man's mind

OH. Dick not even knowing what this professor looks like for a while. Because at least at the start, Dick contents himself to sitting just outside the lecture, chilling on the floor and listening in with his head tilted towards the cracked door

But more and more he wants to talk things through and debate and challenge Jason's own views the same way Jason unknowingly has challenged him

So Dick stages a meet-cute chance encounter

Or rather, he was working on fabricating one, but then they actually do have a meet cute chance encounter. Where in true cliche romantic trope fashion, they bump into one another in the halls and all of Jason's papers get dropped and they both rush to pick everything up.

And it's when Jason apologizes that Dick recognizes him because he listens to that voice so much. A quick glance at the course papers confirms it, too so Dick capitalizes so fast

Just pulling out all the charm so that he can start a conversation with this guy

Dick commenting like, 'You're a law professor?'

And Jason immediately jumping on that because, 'are you interested in law?'

Just Jason being really encouraging to get more young people interested in law and being the public defenders their community needs

Dick literally not getting a word in as Jason all but solicits him into the law department before Jason curbs the conversation by telling Dick to sign up for his class next semester. There's a waitlist, but good luck.

And Dick is swept up in the storm because oh, yeah. He needs in on this class. Immediately. That passion? Dick is a goner.

So of course Dick hacks his way into the university's systems to force his way into this class because ain't no way he's waiting around literal months to talk with this man again

It was Dick's plan to stalk Jason and pick him up while Jason was out and about running errands, outside of a scholastic setting

Or by encroaching on some office hours if it came down to it

He's genuinely not interested in higher education, but hell. Hours long lectures multiple days a week with this beautiful mind? Cool.

Anyway, so Dick weasels his way into this law class. Scholastic fraud because he's got a profound curiosity about some local uni professor? Dick is a vigilante; he's done worse. Technically. Legally.

But it's fine. Dick plans to drop out after the course, anyway.

The surprise on Jason's face when he catches Dick sitting towards the front of the class at the start of the following semester. And Dick being so endeared to the way Jason hides a small, hopeful smile. Because Jason thinks he's gotten through to a student ;U;

But yeah, the class being either flummoxed or bored out of their minds because the whole hours long lectures are just two people talking/debating

Which evolves into more talking over office hours - not even necessarily over course work and rather law, their judicial system, crime in Gotham, etc.

Which again evolves into Dick bringing Jason coffee but then becomes them going out for coffee together until their meetings become an expected and anticipated thing //u///

And their talks are generally casual, but it also develops into something personal if only because their stance on certain laws/crimes/punishments speaks a lot about them.

What's more? Personal information comes out organically throughout the course of their conversations

Which is why Jason is hopeful Dick will go into law. Because he comes to understand that Dick is good. Firm, but fair and with nerves of steel. He isn't someone that will be corrupted like so many others. Gotham needs more people like that looking out for it.

Basically Jason already has a letter of recommendation written, meanwhile Dick is in a predicament because he might've fallen in love with his professor between challenged worldviews and bouts of banter?

At which point, of course Dick's vigilante life needs to come into play. Because that's an ongoing thing. Oh, an ongoing thing that has been impacted in various ways by Jason's perspective on matters. ;U; Perspectives that Dick challenges Bruce with, too. And that shuts Bruce up on many wonderful occasions because even if they don't agree, Jason isn't necessarily wrong.

But I digress, Nightwing exists. While Jason and Dick have spoken of vigilantism at a high level, it's not something they've gotten into. Dick makes sure to steer clear of Batman/Robin/Nightwing talk no matter how intrinsically they're tied to Gotham and crime.

Anyway. Nightwing saving Jason in some way one night. And Jason falls in love instantly. Meanwhile Dick is peeved because what? Really? Do their intellectual conversations mean nothing??

Jason is attracted to doers so seeing Nightwing doing something about the crime despite it being technically illegal is like, hot damn

At which point, Dick becomes a lawyer. Just kidding, but the thought probably crosses his mind just because wtf, Jason. Dick being jealous of himself is so funny.

I've strayed so far from the original ask, oh my.

Truth be told, Dick could just...not approach Jason as Nightwing, but it's an opportunity to spend time with Jason so of course Dick seeks him out. Just hanging on the roof of Jason's apartment together. First under the guise of making sure Jason was okay/safe/etc, then to listen to Jason in a different way - somehow more raw while airing his grievances about Gotham and its failings to so many hurting people

Just more vulnerable conversations in the dark of night, y'know?

And more sweet reactions (smiles and flusters and ornery playfulness and--). And god, when Nightwing flirts and Jason blushes -- Dick needs to see it all the time.

But then it's class time and Dick is jealous of himself because he wants the same reactions. So Dick pulls out all the stops and what happens in your ask happens, lol. With Dick flirting using lines in a textbook or the letter of the law.

That he's successful in the matter is something no one understands. Even other students blush some, enthralled by a handsomely charismatic guy with questionable puns and a quick wit and biting humor.

And Jason is just up in front of the class gaping because omg that was so clever but also SOS his heart shouldn't be racing like this?

Hmm. Something something with Jason being smitten over Nightwing to Dick, but confessing to a developing problem with his student to Nightwing. At which point Dick realizes that he's in his own situation because the longer things drag out, the more it feels like he's playing with Jason's feelings and ahhhhhhh!!

Extras, because this ask is ridiculously long and scattered. Kudos to anyone who gets this far??

Jason noticing bruises from Dick's vigilante endeavors, but of course Jason doesn't know the background for it. Just that they're there often and sometimes really bad. So Jason worries about Dick's home life, or his life with a partner.

And Dick uses it as an opportunity to flirt/drop hints about being single as can be, only to get all soft when he realizes Jason is honest to god so worried for him. ;U;

The last lines of dialogue you wrote are so funny. Just Dick stopping at nothing to fuck his teacher. Sexual favors for extra credit? Oh, perfect score? How about a reward then? ;) Ahhhahaha Jason would be flabbergasted. Just //A///

[wise-rainfalls]

The Professor Case - Machines and Magic

It’s from 2-3 onwards that the Professor case really begins to pick up steam, carrying out the bulk of the themes of the entire game. Little wonder, when it has three separate cases to pull the frankly huge cast of involved characters together, leading into some of the most complex character work of the two games put together.

It seems funny, then, that such a heavy case gets off the ground with Professor Harebrayne and his impossible machine. Why are we spending so much time on sham scientists and nonsense hypotheses?

While the introduction of Professor Harebrayne’s character as a tipping point for the humanisation of Barok van Zieks’ has been talked about at length elsewhere, I want to focus on the larger contours of the case for a moment. We’re at the summit of an exhibition, greatest and first of its kind in London, and our strapping forward-thinker has something to present that they think will change their field forever. However, right at the moment when they’re about to present their results to the public, something goes so catastrophically wrong that it disgraces the entire concept altogether.

Am I talking about Albert Harebrayne with his teleportation machine at the Great Exhibition, or Mael Stronghart with his Forensic Science Department at the Forensic Science Symposium?

Obviously, this isn’t to suggest that Albert Harebrayne is some sort of hidden mastermind with a criminal agenda of his own, or that Mael Stronghart is a purely misguided idealist. It is, however, to point out the broader parallel between the two situations. We also see the concept of machinery, cogs and gears and the like, appear in the giant ticking clock which is the inside of the Lord Chief Justice’s office. These traits are explicitly linked to Stronghart’s standards for his justice system.

Stronghart: I like my organisation to run smoothly, in the exact manner that I prescribe. As with the giant clock in here, I won't tolerate a single cog being out of step with the others!

In this sense, the Forensic Science Department is only the latest product of Stronghart’s treasured hypothesis and impossible machine. This cutting-edge justice system, built on the latest of technology and the best of methods, with everything working exactly as Stronghart intends, is the castle in the sky. It’s as noble and lofty a goal as instant teleportation. There’s just one problem: it doesn’t work.

Let’s go back to Professor Harebrayne’s machine. Ostensibly built to his exact requirements, a mighty feat of engineering meant to produce a wonder of scientific achievement, we learn throughout the course of the trial that none of this is true. The machine is an empty shell, a sleight of hand to cover for a murder. The teleportation never happened, nor was it ever meant to happen. It was all a conjuring trick, performed by someone with the scientific knowledge to know the hypothesis was impossible, and the conjuring knowledge to fool the eye. The machine worked exactly as intended: it was merely that Professor Harebrayne had no idea about the intent.

Stronghart is under no such illusions. What then, can we say, is the intent of Stronghart’s machine? How much worth is a justice system built around the concealment of an extra-judicial killing organisation? Here we get to the crux of Ryuunosuke’s argument – that such a system amounts to no more than a murderous magic trick. And if that’s the case, then such a system is a fraud – is fake – is a sham. It is a failure.

To go even further, the clock motif comes up in one more significant way throughout this specific case: Enoch Drebber’s time bombs. The ticking-down of the clock recontextualises Stronghart’s medley of ticking hands, his constant pocket-watching checking and equally constant lateness. Instead of a motion machine of orderly continuation, the clock takes on the meaning of time running out – the past catching up to Stronghart – the countdown to the truth coming out. The bomb that will blow the machine to smithereens, and reveal the murderous contraption beneath it has been ticking for the past ten years, and is finally coming to the end of its fuse. It’s especially fitting that Enoch Drebber is the one to introduce this concept into the game, as the first link to the truth of the Professor case.

However, does that mean there isn’t something to salvage? The clock appears once more in Gregson’s pocket-watch. Shattered into pieces in his untimely death, it’s ultimately entrusted to Gina both to give her the fortitude to continue as a detective and as a symbol of regeneration. Similarly, we look once more to Professor Harebrayne after the destruction of his precious hypothesis: the courage to start again, having learnt from your mistakes. To find, if you like, a new hypothesis: one that can bear out under the trial of the real world.

[coochiequeens]

That poor girl saw a guy that gave off creepy vibes and walked away just to be proven that she was right to avoid him. It had nothing to do with transphobia it was about a teen girl encountering a fully grown man who later smashed her car and soiled the inside with human waste

ByReduxx Team

September 9, 2023

A trans-identified male in Portland, Oregon was placed under arrest after reportedly defecating in a teen girl’s vehicle in retaliation for “transphobia.” Vivian Ginger-Rain Shemansky, 44, is facing four counts including criminal mischief in the first degree.

The incident, which occurred on August 27, began after the 17-year-old victim parked near Shemansky’s tent while on a shopping trip. From his tent, Shemansky threw a stick at the girl and called her “transphobic.”

According to a now-deleted GoFundMe campaign for the victim set up by her mother, the teen “was a little confused on what just happened, so she picked up her pace” and continued walking to her destination, a nearby pizza shop she had been to before.

Upon leaving the restaurant 10-15 minutes later, the girl could see from a distance that her front windshield had been shattered. She didn’t approach her car at first, immediately calling 911 from the top of the street before ringing her mother.

“By the time I got there, the full picture of the incident had been exposed,” the girl’s mother wrote in the GoFundMe campaign. “Her car was smashed at all four sides. Every piece of glass was shattered. There was human waste through out the entire car. The police were there and the suspect was cuffed and being arrested.”

According to The Post Millennial, the interior of the 2005 Ford Escape was “smeared all over with feces and urine,” and the vehicle had to be towed as it was deemed a “biohazard.”

Upon being questioned by Police, Shemansky reportedly told officers that the girl had been “transphobic.”

Shemansky was booked as a “female” at the Multnomah County Jail on four counts including criminal mischief in the first degree, unauthorized use of a vehicle, criminal mischief in the second degree, and disorderly conduct in the second degree.

But despite also having existing outstanding warrants, Shemansky was released the same day he was booked. A hearing scheduled for the next day resulted in a failure to appear, and the case is still logged as open in the Oregon Judicial Department’s system.

On his social media, Shemansky’s speaks extensively of “transphobia” and “misgendering,” and appears to take particular exception to being labeled a homosexual.

In one Instagram post from July of 2020, Shemansky wrote that “gender and sex are two different things.” In January of that year, he also uploaded a photo of a Multnomah County name and sex change form he had filled out, as well as a photo of his stash of estrogen hormones.

This is not the first time a trans-identified male vagrant in Portland has been charged after running amok in the city, seemingly with no meaningful intervention from police.

As previously reported by Reduxx, Matthew Clayton Stark, 42, was arrested in May after violating the conditions of his zero-bail release ahead of standing trial on charges of kidnapping, coercion, and interfering with public transportation. The charges stem from a terrifying incident in January of 2022 when Stark reportedly kidnapped a vulnerable minor from a MAX Train. Stark is male, but identifies as a transgender woman named “Tru.”

Despite Stark being well-known to police and having an extensive criminal record, no bail was set after he kidnapped the child and he was released from custody in April of 2022 under the condition he attend outpatient treatment for substance abuse.