#one thing I hate more than racists is New York

[chrollohearttags]

y’all are so ‘pro black positivity’ until it includes African Americans lmao. Fucking jokes fr.

[thebadgerclan]

Through It All

Pairing: Alex Claremont-Diaz x Henry Fox

Summary: Alex will be there through it all...

A/N: So I've been obsessed with Red, White, & Royal Blue for a while, but now I'm doubly obsessed because of the movie coming out soon. So voila! I might write more for these boys, and I know my requests are closed, but if you have ideas of one shots for firstprince, I'd love to see them!

There were three things distinctly wrong with Alex’s current situation.  One: he was in London attempting to sleep off jet lag instead of snuggled in his boyfriend’s arms in their Brownstone.  Two: Henry was not with him; he was a few miles away at Buckingham Palace for a round of charity appearances and family events.  And three: Alex was categorically not invited.  Queen Mary’s invitation had explicitly instructed Henry not to bring his “American paramour” (nevermind the fact that there was currently a velvet ring box buried in Henry’s underwear drawer back home), and that the Crown was having a difficult enough time fending off bad press as it was (like he and Alex shared anything more than a kiss in public).

Henry, of course, hadn’t listened.  There was no way Alex would be able to attend any of the appearances, but Queen Mary couldn’t stop him from staying at Kensington, as much as she would probably like to.  So, Alex was here, in Henry’s apartments, with the gold and cream brocade that he hated, with no Henry.  He supposed he’d rather be bored and lonely here than bored and lonely in New York, at least he’d have his boyfriend in his arms at the end of the day.

Alex was pulled from his musings by his phone ringing.  The caller ID informed him it was Bea calling, which raised a red flag.  Bea rarely called him.  Alex hurried to answer, trying to calm his racing heart.  “Hello?”  “Alex, thank God,” Bea said.  She sounded out of breath, which did nothing to stem Alex’s growing panic.  “Bea, what’s wrong?  Is Henry okay?”  “...No, not really.”

With three words, Alex was imagining every possible worst-case scenario.  Henry was hurt, he was dead, there had been an assassination attempt.  “What happened?”  “We were supposed to have new portraits taken today,” Bea explained.  “And Henry commented that you should be here.  Gran…she just exploded.  She started screaming at him, saying terrible things about you and Hen.  I…can’t even repeat some of them.  Mum tried to talk her down, but she wouldn’t listen.

“She’s still going,” Bea said, concern for her brother plain in her voice.  “She kicked everyone else out of the room.  I think Hen was too stunned to move, to try to leave.  He’s still in there with her.”  Alex felt like the floor had been torn out from under him.  “Amy!” he shouted, and his Secret Service agent came bursting into the room, hand on her gun.  “Where’s the threat?”  “How soon can you get me to Buckingham?”  She consulted her phone, responding an instant later.

“15 minutes.”  “Get a car ready,” Alex said, and his tone left no room for questions.  “Bea, I’m on my way.  Listen, tell Henry I’m coming.”  “If I can get a word in edgewise, I will,” she replied, and Alex ended the call.  Alex found the first pair of shoes he came across, grabbing his well-worn NYU hoodie before running through the halls of Kensington Palace to the waiting car.  “I’m coming, baby,” he whispered to himself as he shut the car door.  “I’m coming.”

***

Either the guards at Buckingham had been told Alex was coming and to let him in, or they were smart enough not to get in the way of an angry Alex Claremont-Diaz.  Bea was waiting for him on the first floor.  “Is he okay?” Alex asked, not slowing his strides.  Bea kept pace with him, guiding him in the right direction.  “No,” she said.  “It’s bad, Alex.  Really bad.  Gran said some of the most racist, homophobic shit I’ve ever heard.”

Alex nodded, rounding the corner to find Catherine pacing outside a closed door.  “Alex,” she said, her voice shaky as she pulled him into an embrace.  “I’m so sorry, we-”  “Henry,” Alex said, cutting her off.  “I just need to see Henry.”  Catherine nodded, gesturing towards the closed door.  “He’s in there.  Mary’s gone, so you don’t have to worry about her.”  “Thanks,” was all Alex said before he was throwing open the heavy doors and entering the room.

He found Henry huddled on the ground, curled in on himself, body shaking as he sobbed.  “Baby,” Alex whispered, dropping to his knees before him.  “Henry, baby, I’m here.”  Henry looked up as if in disbelief that Alex was in front of him, his eyes red and swollen.  “A-Alex?”  “Yeah baby, it’s me.  I’m here.”  Henry dissolved into fresh sobs, and Alex couldn’t bear it; he sat and pulled his boyfriend into his lap, clutching him greedily to his chest.

Henry was shaking, heart wrenching cries leaving his lips, and Alex smoothed his hair back, kissing his forehead.  “Here, baby,” he said, taking the NYU hoodie in hand.  “I brought this for you.”  Henry reluctantly lifted his head, and once he saw what Alex had, let him pull it over his head.  Alex had worn it to sleep the night before, so it smelled exactly like him, something that brought Henry more comfort than he cared to admit.

The Prince buried his face in Alex’s neck once more, and Alex let him, rocking him gently back and forth, stroking a hand up and down his back, whispering sweet nothings into his ear.  “I’ve got you,” he cooed, arms tight around Henry.  “I’m not going anywhere, H.  I love you, baby.  I’m yours, I’ll always be yours.”  Henry’s sobs had quieted to soft cries, and he sniffled, wiping his face on the sleeve of Alex’s hoodie.

“I’m getting snot on your clothes,” he said, which made Alex laugh.  “We’ll wash it, baby.  Are you okay?”  Henry shook his head.  “No.  Gran, she…fuck she…”  “Hey, it’s alright,” Alex interjected.  “Take your time, sweetheart.”  Henry nodded, continuing after a moment.  “She called you horrible things, Alex, she told me that I’m a disgrace, that I’m a stain on the family.  And then she said…”

Henry had started to hyperventilate, and Alex gently took his face in his hands.  “Breathe with me baby, okay?  In….and out….  Good, again.”  Henry’s breaths were shaky, but after a few cycles of mimicking Alex’s breathing, they leveled out.  “She said ‘If you must carry on as you are, must it be with someone like him?’”  Alex didn’t need to ask what Mary had meant by that, he knew: why must Henry “carry on” with a Mexican-American, a man of color.  “Fuck, baby, I’m so sorry.  You shouldn’t have had to hear that.”

Alex kissed his forehead, and Henry let out a sob.  “I want to go home,” he cried.  “I don’t want to be here, standing with my family, pretending that I don’t want to be in your arms!  I don’t want to shove you aside whenever I’m here, act like you aren’t the world to me!”  Alex’s heart skipped a beat or two at that, and he nodded.  “Then we go home, baby.  Back to New York, yeah?  Snuggle up with David and watch Bake Off?”

Fuck, if that didn’t sound like heaven.  But Henry shook his head.  “I can’t.  I have appearances to make, charity visits to do, I–”  “Baby, hey, baby,” Alex said, cutting off his spiraling.  “Maybe….maybe you ate something off at the gala last night.  Maybe you can’t appear at functions because you’re puking your brains out.  Maybe your stupidly handsome boyfriend had to take you home.”

Henry managed another laugh.  “Maybe…  Or maybe…”  Alex stayed quiet, waiting for Henry to speak when he was ready.  “Or maybe I’m done.”  “What?”  “Maybe I’m done,” he repeated.  “I can’t keep doing this, Alex,  This isn’t healthy for me, to get myself so upset like this.  There’s clearly no changing Gran’s mind, so what if I’m just done?”  Alex took Henry’s hand, squeezing softly.

“H, are you suggesting abdication?”  “No, not yet.  Once Mum’s Queen, things will be better, but for now…I can’t do this to myself.  What if I cut contact?  Stopped coming to functions?”  Alex, tightened his hold on his boyfriend.  “Baby, that’s entirely up to you, and you know I’ll support you, but maybe this is a choice you should make on a clearer head.”  Henry thought for a moment before nodding.

“You’re right.  But I…fuck, I hate this!  I hate hearing people talk about you, about us, like I don’t hear!  I hate it, Alex!”  More tears built at the corners of Henry’s eyes, and when they fell, Alex held him tight, wishing more than anything that he could take his pain away.  For nearly a half hour, Henry sat curled in Alex’s lap, letting himself cry, letting every ounce of hurt and anger out, until he was limp with exhaustion.  

Alex gently tipped his chin back so he could look at him, smiling sweetly.  “There’s my pretty boy,” he said, and Henry blushed.  “What do you say we go back to Kensington, get our stuff, and go home?”  Henry nodded, letting Alex move him from his lap to stand. His legs were stiff and half-asleep from so long spent on the floor, but he didn’t care, only helped his boyfriend to stand, pulling him into a kiss once he was.

Catherine and Bea were waiting outside, worry painted on their faces.  Henry was exhausted from the emotional beating he’d taken, and he looked up at Alex, hoping he’d understand.  He did, as he somehow always did, and spoke.  “We’re going home,” Alex said.  “Today was a lot for Henry, and he just wants to go home.”  Catherine came to embrace her son, holding him tightly.  “I love you, my baby,” she whispered.  “And I will always love you, no matter what anyone else says.”  Bea pulled her brother into a hug, then Alex, before the pair were back in the car to Kensington.

Eight hours later, Alex and Henry were back in their Brownstone, a very happy David pawing at their ankles.  The events of the day combined with a trans-atlantic flight had Henry beyond exhausted, and he had barely gotten in the door before collapsing.  Alex half-carried him to the couch, tucking a blanket over him and kissing his forehead.  “I love you, baby,” he said.  “You gonna be alright if I run to the store?”

Henry nodded, already dozing off.  When Alex returned, he found Henry asleep, still wearing Alex’s NYU hoodie, the hood drawn up over his blond hair, David curled up on his chest also fast asleep.  Alex drew his phone from his pocket, snapping a picture of the heartbreakingly adorable scene before him (which he would later post on Instagram with the caption “My entire heart ❤”).

The sound of the camera shutter woke Henry, who smiled upon seeing Alex.  “You’re home.”  “I am.”  Alex leaned in for a kiss.  “What’d you buy?”  In response, Alex handed Henry the bag.  “Gatorade, ginger ale, soup, saltines?  Alex, what…?”  Alex pulled up the Royal Family’s Twitter page and handed his phone to his boyfriend.

Prince Henry stricken with stomach flu, forced to return to New York.  Henry smirked, nodding.  “I see.  And all this…?”  Alex took his phone back, pulling up another tweet.  It was a picture of Alex leaving the general store, the caption reading: Alex Claremont-Diaz buys soup for sick boyfriend.  Henry smiled.  “Good thinking, love,” he said, and Ales kissed his cheek.  “This ain’t my first rodeo, baby.”

He moved David from the couch and crawled behind Henry, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend’s middle.  “I’m sorry, baby,” he whispered.  “About today.  That never should have happened.”  Henry shifted closer to Alex, shrugging.  “But it did,” he said.  “And it keeps happening.  At least I have you.”  “Damn right you do, baby.  You’ll always have me.”

Alex found the remote wedged between the couch cushions and put an old episode of The Great British Bake Off on, smiling when David hopped back onto the couch, nestling into the divot between Alex and Henry’s bodies.  “I love you,” Henry said quietly, and Alex pressed a kiss to the back of his neck.  “I love you too, baby.”  Whatever came next, whatever challenges they faced, Henry knew that Alex would be steadfast by his side through it all.

[morlock-holmes]

Been thinking more about Tucker Carlson. The New York Times published a text he apparently sent to one of his producers:

A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington. A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living shit out of him. It was three against one, at least. Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight. Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it. Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn’t good for me. I’m becoming something I don’t want to be. The Antifa creep is a human being. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I’m sure I’d hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?

I have a few scattered thoughts. Umberto Eco wrote a book called "The Prague Cemetery" which is a fictional story about the anonymous antisemitic author of The Protocols of The Elders of Zion. Something that puzzled me about the book is that the author is simultaneously in two states: He is fully conscious of the fact that the Protocols are lies he is making up, but at the same time the things he writes in the Protocols make him angrier at the Jews.

I found that psychologically perplexing when I first read the book, but as I dip further into the world of the paranoid it makes more and more sense to me.

Second, can you imagine how hard you'd have to work at blinding yourself to say "It’s not how white men fight"?

White men fight like that all the time, as even the most glancing attempt to understand history will tell you. It's so common that, here in the country Tucker and I share, we have a whole special term for white men fighting like that; we call them a "lynch mob".

Third, I have found myself annoyed slightly at left-win coverage of this text, which I have occasionally seen with the tenor of "See, this proves Carlson wasn't just pretending to be a racist on air."

Here's the thing: Media matters has extensively documented Carlson's promotion of color-blind politics, ( see here, here and here). On air, Carlson takes the current mainstream Republican position: That our country's ideal should be racial equality, that Democrats have betrayed the hopes of the luminaries of the civil rights movement by demonizing whites and engaging in collectivist thinking, that in effect modern Democratic politics are abhorrent because the democrats focus on the color of your skin, while people like Tucker wish for a country that focuses on the content of your character.

One thing I've found vexing about the left over the past... oh, decade at least, is a complete incuriosity about why someone like Carlson would spout that kind of thing when he clearly doesn't actually believe it.

If he really was so dedicated to color-blindness and so horribly against the kind of thinking that looks at skin tone and saddles you with the crimes of everybody else who has a similar skin tone, that utter bullshit about "It's not how white people fight" would never have even come into his head. It's not the same as what he says on air, for the most part

EDIT: Let me be more precise: I'm not an expert in Carlson, I'm just dipping my toe in. But Media Matters and other hostile critics have compiled lists of offensive things he's said on air, and those lists contain quotes that are, for the most part, not quite of a piece with his distress at white people not living up to their race in that post. If Carlson routinely talked on air about how white people fight, I feel Media Matters would alert me to it. So even though I haven't seen much of his stuff, I have looked into at least one extensive timeline of his "decline into white supremacy" and I feel like that suffices for this point.

The more I learn about him the more it stands out how incredibly little he cares about consistency or coherency of his ideas. The shit he spouts about how the democrats are going to let the immigrants outvote you and that's not how democracy ought to work is... in tension, let us say, with his "Actually DEI is exactly like Nazism" garbage. But I'd say even that is distinct from this white pride horseshit.

But I wonder if there are fans of his that are pissed that he gave so much fuel to left-wingers in that text. They like to say that people who rant about DEI and lament the way that it has introduced racial guilt into a world that should be free of such stains are actually just secret bigots, and, whoops! Tucker Carlson is totally a secret bigot.

[differentsublimephantom]

Ghostbusters Ghost headcannons!!

Muncher

- [ ] Was a black man sometime between the 20’s and 60’s and died getting beaten to death with a metal pole by racists (maybe the kkk? Idk).

- [ ] A year or so after frozen empire, he saw the ghostbusters (and slimer) on tv and wanted to meet slimer, so he left dorklahoma.

- [ ] Because the firehouse was already a tiny bit crowded, when he got to New York and befriended Slimer, he decided to “live” at the lab. (He’s allowed to leave though.)

- [ ] He/him or they/them

Slimer

- [ ] Got poisoned after the hotel he was staying at had some bad people in it (mafia or drug cartel or something) and the bad people tried to kill someone with food, but he ate it instead.

- [ ] “Lived” with the ghostbusters for 7 years (because the real ghostbusters has 7 seasons)

- [ ] Sometime after the events of Frozen Empire he comes in contact with the OG ghostbusters and they had all missed each other alot (they also all probably start crying because of Egon)

- [ ] He found out about Egon’s death because Muncher told him, he then spent around 2 hours with Slimer crying on Muncher’s “shoulder” (They are now best friends)

- [ ] He/him or it/its

- [ ] Is friends with Lewis

Gozer

- [ ] (I have a whole AU related to after Frozen Empire where Gozer comes back a peaceful ghost, but I won’t include that here because these are just headcannons)

- [ ] Uses they/ them

- [ ] Loves Vinz and Zuul as best friends/pets when they’re in demon dog form

- [ ] Gets to spend the rest of eternity with them in the traps in Summerville

- [ ] Once got proposed to by Vigo

- [ ] Gozer is a lesbian

Vinz and Zuul

- [ ] They have human forms that are kinda a combination of the last two people they possessed (Zuul has Vitiligo because she possessed Lucky and Callie and has curly hair but it’s blond, Vinz had a beard like Gary, and shaggy hair and is short like Lewis)

- [ ] Zuul is she/they/it Vinz is he/they/it

- [ ] They are married (kinda) ((don’t ask))

- [ ] Laughed for hours after Vigo proposed because Gozer turned him down

Vigo

- [ ] Hopeless romantic, has a crush on Gozer, Garracka, and Janosz (but he’d rather die than admit that last one)

- [ ] He/him only

- [ ] Hates Zuul and Vinz (jealous probs cause they’re around Gozer all the time)

- [ ] Still communicates with Janosz, Janosz hasn’t told anyone though (he’s still friends with the ghostbusters and Dana)

- [ ] Ivo Shandor also has a crush on Gozer, they turned him down too

The Possessor

- [ ] Is kinda smart (warned Lars about the Garracka ball thing)

- [ ] Gets treated like the class pet by the lab crew (doesn’t mind)

- [ ] They/them or it/its

- [ ] Once Muncher starts staying at the lab he becomes a sort of a father figure to them, and plays with them when Lars can’t

- [ ] Is benevolent but very mischievous

That one ghost behind the glass at the lab (someone help me name them!)

- [ ] An old demigod similar to Gozer, but where Gozer is a mainly malevolent god of the afterlife/destroyer/death this one is a mainly benevolent god of light chaos/change/the unknown

- [ ] Can talk, but only talks to the ghosts and Podcast (podcast is chaotic)

- [ ] Is friends with all the ghosts in the lab, kinda the mom friend (Muncher’s the dad friend)

- [ ] Uses it/its

- [ ] Doesn’t like bright light, because in the dark is unknown and spooky

- [ ] Hates Garracka

Eleanore (the librarian ghost)

- [ ] After the events of Frozen Empire Ray went back to the library one more time to try and talk with her, she hates noise so he figured out that she understands ASL and they talked that way

- [ ] Ray is now friends with her

- [ ] She/her or they/them

Pukey

- [ ] Kinda like Pigpen from peanuts comics, everyone likes him, but no one wants to be to close to him

- [ ] I don’t have much about him sorry

- [ ] @incorrectghostbustersquotes189 yeah I agree, Lucky naming him seems likely

That’s all I’ve got for now! Sorry I didn’t do melody, i think if I did I’d cry.

[oh-my-damn]

One thing about me is that I don't form opinions without looking into topics thoroughly

So when I didn't like Donald Trump as President of the United States

I went: Okay, why do I not like him? Is it because of how he's portrayed in the media where I'm from? Is it because of rumors I'd heard?

The answer was yes. Yes, that was why I initially didn't like Donald Trump.

I was okay with that. I didn't actually feel like I needed to defend that.

But then, the morons came.

They came like a tsunami. They surrounded the world, and the United States, and even my country.

And so that left me with two choices.

Argue with these people but get thrown off whenever they'd say something even remotely factual that you couldn't properly refute because you hadn't looked into it properly...

Or do proper research on the matter.

I chose the latter, because, as anyone who has ever met me in their entire life even for a brief, agonizing second would know, that is who I am.

So I did my research. I did a ton of research.

I read interviews. I watched The Apprentice (all seasons and spinoffs). I watched the debates. And eventually, I watched his documentary, too.

I sat back, having retained all of this information with a sour look on my face, my glass of red wine in hand, and thought....

Well. I was right.

Because I was. I was right. I was right from the moment I first heard him speak, that he was an entire fucking idiot. A cheetoh in an expensive suit. A racist. A misogynist. A liar. A cheat. A poor business man.

However.

One thing researching all of that taught me, was something that has benefitted me ever since. Every time I go out drinking. Every time I meet someone with different opinions than my own.

And that was the fact that I, the person who hates Donald Trump more than fucking anything in the world, knows Donald Trump better than his supporters do.

And that is the most amazing feeling.

Because you can argue until the end of time with someone less intelligent than you (Donald Trump supporters) but nothing shuts them up more than when you can throw out facts and moments that they do not know because they did not do the research but it's believable enough for them to realize it's true.

Even a simple question like "Oh, so did you watch his documentary?"

Most of them will say NO. They didn't.

And then you get to smile condescendingly, and say, "Well I did. And did you know he got off paying taxes for forty years in New York City to build the Trump Tower? Did you know he got money from his dad to build it? Did you know he's never even experienced an average way of living and so he cannot relate even for a second to what your life is like because he's never had a normal job because he was born rich? And did you know he used to sexually harrass women all around him and even said his own daughter was sexy? And did you know that he pretended to be someone else while talking about himself for an interview where he was quoted to be absolutely fantastic in every aspect of the word and that Madonna wanted to hook up with him? And did you know that back in the 90's he did an interview where he said if he was ever to run for President, he would run as a Republican, because they believe everything you'll tell them? Because I do. Because I cared enough to research him. Is this who you're rooting for?"

And so, the story is never ending.

Because every single privileged, power hungry man that I encounter, that I am absolutely disgusted with, I must research.

I need to know. I want the facts. I want the receipts. I want the words out of their god damn mouths so I can use them against anyone who thinks they know fucking shit all about the topic.

It goes for Jeffrey Epstein too. And Harvey Weinstein. And Woody Allen.

And it goes for others, less devastating but equally as disappointing men, too.

Because you should not speak on a topic you have not delved into, researched, and gotten a thorough understanding of.

Because if you do not do your research on a topic... Then you're just not smart enough to be included in the conversation.

[m0tel6mxzzy]

a rant on monet de haan and “but og gossip girl was old money”

not to bitch abt racist og gossip girl fans but im gonna bitch abt them. i REMEMBER yalls tone when the show first got promo before it even aired, and weren’t even willing to give it a chance, u just made assumptions bc the entire cast wasnt white. 

 ppl, specifically og gg tiktok fans, were saying the old show “gives old money” and the new show doesnt, conveniently forgetting chuck’s dad wasn’t born into wealth but became wealthy when chuck was young, making him new money. his dad is worth 22 billion dollars. 

monet’s parents are heirs to a new york pharmaceutical company and on her wiki its listed that her family descends from old money. johnson and johnson is one of the biggest and has a net worth 435 billion as the wealthiest pharma company in the us. bc im lazy and dont feel like counting means and stats for the top 10 pharma companies in the us relative to ny, im assuming the de haan company has a networth of 100-400+ billion. whatever her family’s networth is i will happily believe it is more than chuck bass.

and monet’s parent’s donation of the wing had to occur sometime after everyone in the og show including jenny’s grade had graduated constance bc it wasnt yet canon, but just before monet had gone there. if we’re talking as soon as jenny’s grade had graduated, thats between june 2010-aug 2018, and monet would be 5 to 13. i’m going to average that the time the wing was planned to be built was 2014 when she’d by 9 bc i love the idea of little monet dreaming of going to constance with absolute certainty, and bc 2014 is a prettier number. my theory is that greyson and camille were planning to have monet go to CB St Judes ever since she was a child, hence the early donation.

anyway her parents literally paid for wing in constance and it has their names on it w the money from an old new york pharma company they own. and yall are like,,, dying on the hill she, bc she’s part of the reboot, wasnt born into wealth??? and even if she wasnt i know yall didnt just forget the og gg had poc on the show who were also old money or otherwise so loaded rich they could afford constance, but usually they were background characters like the minions, nelly yuki, and raina. the minions who literally only served to do blair’s bidding, and nelly yuki who was opposed bc blair saw her as an academic rival and was willing to sabotage her.

 and then raina thorpe whos one of the only black girls in the show w a prominence in the og series, but idk. she’s moreso there bc she was w/ nate and chuck, but also her dad is basically a “villain” in the show and raina gets the short end of the stick and has to suffer for it, which is when she leaves the show. im just saying ofc someone the same race as monet or luna or aki would be happy to see themselves represented on screen and not as a background character or recurring character there only a short amnt of time if they loved the og gg. 

and if you personally aren’t? cool thats ok but let ppl who are be happy. you dont need to mount some moral high horse pretending u care abt poc to defend why u hate us being represented in media. yall complain whenever poc are shown in media even when it isnt a reboot but rather an extension of the franchise such as star wars, so i find it hard to believe ur crapping on new reboots in media for having poc bc u actually care abt us being properly represented. 

like, factually racism is the only thing convincing yall the old gg is “old money” and the new one isnt. also we need to have a talk abt what yall constitute as old money, bc hf twitter stayed hating on alexa demie for her early 00s fashion for being “cheap” as if paris hilton also wasn’t dressing kinda like alexa currently does in the early 00s while also happening to be an heiress to a hotel brand. and as if hf twt doesn’t constantly worship the air bella hadid breathes for wearing low rise jeans and baby tees which is just as much y2k inspired as what alexa wears. 

like,, yall think all rich people, w/in ur very narrow view of what rich old money ppl look like, only ever dress in ralph lauren polos,,,and it’s not even like yall read the gg books to know the og characters wear burberry and ralph lauren which any tiktok old money “connoisseur” would hate for being “flashy,’ but because its in the list of their weird arbitrary rules of crap all old money rich ppl apparently do. if the reboot characters wore burberry scarves and ralph lauren polos w giant logos on the front yall would complain they arent following ur made up rich ppl rules u think applies to everyone who’s an heir to fortune. 

yall just forget abt raina and hated gg2021 before it even aired all bc it starred poc, and bc its weird seeing a rich it girl in a position of power who doesnt look like blair or serena. for the de haans to have the money to donate a wing to the school and pay monet’s tuition on top of that and live in the excess monet does simultaneously kinda shows like,,how fucking rich monet is. therefore the attitudes of the students make a lot of sense. and if blair was treating a teacher the way monet does bc she had a wing dedicated to her parents, yall would eat that shit up whether blair was old money or not!!!

listen im a huge gg fan but i also pay attention!!! i am not letting monet de haan slander slide!!!! im all for her being as entitled due to her wealth and carefree as blair was!!! bc blair did some f’ed up shit yet monet being snide w a teacher gets yalls feathers ruffled...and we all know why yall wouldnt have the same reaction if it were audrey doing the same but thats none of my business 

[masterofd1saster]

CJ current events - May 2023

Amid a rise in anti-semitic hate crime, some Jewish women - including Orthodox, are learning self defense and packing heat. Good essay by Adam Popescu.

***

You think someone else is misogynist?

A New York Democrat blamed "institutional misogyny" as she resigned from her government leadership position in the wake of accusations a staffer tried to solicit someone he thought was an underaged girl. 

Westchester County Board of Legislators Chair Catherine Borgia stepped down on Friday under pressure from colleagues who said she failed to act when she was told in December that the staffer was caught on video by a vigilante group that tricked him into thinking he was meeting a 14-year-old. ***

Former legislative aide Anand Singh, 33, was fired on April 13 after video published by vigilante group OBL Global showed him allegedly trying to meet up with someone he thought was an underaged girl in New Jersey. 

The 31-minute video shows a man, reportedly Singh, messaging with someone he thought was a 14-year-old female, but was actually an OBL Global "decoy." The messages become more sexual in nature, the video shows, with Singh allegedly saying he could "def teach" her "a thing or two," speculating that she weighs less than 100 pounds, and asking if she was on birth control.*** https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ny-democrat-resigns-aide-allegedly-caught-trying-solicit-underaged-girl

Nobody is more misogynist than a politician who shelters a pervert who preys on teen girls.

***

Why not send billions to billionaires?

A far-left nonprofit accused of siding with criminals for its work to deplete the justice system while working inside local prosecution offices is nearly entirely funded by federal government agencies, including Department of Justice. 

The Vera Institute of Justice – a Soros-linked nonprofit – has received $290 million from the federal government over the last 12 months alone for its work in immigration – to help illegal immigrants avoid deportation – and the criminal justice system. If its current contracts are extended for the next four years, disbursements could reach over $1 billion. 

"We work to transform the immigration system because many of the problems that we see in the criminal legal system are just the same in the immigration system. And by transform, what I mean is to shrink both of those systems," Vera Justice's president, Nick Turner, said.

Vera funds radical-left agendas in prosecution and law enforcement offices around the country. Fox News Digital found they advocate to defund the police, they partner with district attorney offices to artificially manipulate "racial disparities" in prosecution decisions for criminals and openly state their mission is to demolish what they deem to be a "racist" system. *** https://www.foxnews.com/media/doj-federal-agencies-pour-hundreds-millions-soros-linked-group-accused-trying-nullify-law

***

What would make Colorado perfect? I know: more adults exposing themselves to kids!

A majority of Colorado Democrats in the state House voted against a measure that would enhance criminal penalties for indecent exposure in view of a minor, and one state lawmaker claimed the bill could be used to "ban" drag shows and harm transgender people.

Outlining her frustrations with the measure from the House floor Saturday, state Rep. Leslie Herod, a Democrat who has represented a Denver-area district in the state House since 2017, said the proposed law uses language like other measures around the nation meant to "target" transgender people.

"These types of laws have been used to ban drag shows, to target individuals who use the restroom — the sex they identify with, a public restroom — to charge them with felony charges," Herod claimed. "I'm very concerned about the attacks against the transgender community that are happening across the country."

Introduced by Democrats, HB23-1135 would take criminal penalties for indecent exposure from a class 1 misdemeanor to a class 6 felony if committed in view of a person who is under 18. The measure passed with unanimous Republican support despite 27 of the 46 Democratic representatives voting against the bill.*** https://www.foxnews.com/politics/colorado-dems-vote-against-harsh-penalties-indecent-exposure-kids-because-could-ban-drag-shows

***

Cavalier attitude toward killing two people.

Former Bradley student Stephanie Melgoza was sentenced to 14 years in prison on Thursday as the result of striking and killing two pedestrians while driving drunk in East Peoria [Illinois] in April 2022.

Melgoza faced between six to 28 years in prison after pleading guilty without a plea deal to two charges of aggravated DUI and two charges of reckless driving. Three smaller charges were dropped during her plea. Each count of aggravated DUI carried a sentence range between three and 14 years.*** https://www.bradleyscout.com/news/melgoza-sentenced-to-14-years-after-fatal-dui

Just before 20:00 she starts playing dumb while the arresting officer's body cam is recording.

***

Conflict of interest? What's that?

Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan resigned Tuesday morning following reports that she had been consulting for a private cannabis company at the same time as her office was auditing the state's marijuana program.

Fagan, a Democrat, will leave office after May 8. She said that while she is "confident" that an ethics investigation will show that she followed the law, her work for the company has become a "distraction."

“While I am confident that the ethics investigation will show that I followed the state’s legal and ethical guidelines in trying to make ends meet for my family, it is clear that my actions have become a distraction from the important and critical work of the Secretary of State’s office,” Fagan said in a statement. “Protecting our state’s democracy and ensuring faith in our elected leaders — these are the reasons I ran for this office. They are also the reasons I will be submitting my resignation today.”

Fagan admitted last week to accepting a role at the cannabis firm Veriede Holding, an affiliate of La Mota, bringing in $10,000 a month in additional income. Her contract indicated that Fagan would receive a $30,000 bonus if the firm obtained a business license in a state other than Oregon or New Mexico, according to The Oregonian.

The private company also donated around $250,000 to her campaign, along with contributions to other top Democrats, including Gov. Tina Kotek.*** https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/democratic-secretary-of-state-resigns-after-admitting-to-secret-deal-with-marijuana-industry

***

Nice Institute for Justice win

IJ just put up two big wins for free speech and economic liberty—victories for both our clients and the U.S. Constitution. The case involves a group of kindly ladies from Northern California and their nonprofit, Full Circle of Living and Dying. Full Circle helps the dying and their loved ones through their final days. It also helps families plan home funerals without a licensed funeral director, just as people the world over have traditionally done for centuries. 

That, as you’ve likely already guessed, was a major no-no according to the state funeral board. Even though home funerals are legal in all 50 states and Full Circle’s services were limited to providing moral support, advice, and occasional assistance in conducting home funerals, the board argued Full Circle was an unlicensed “funeral establishment” and in late 2019 ordered the women who operate Full Circle to shut down.

IJ filed suit to challenge that order, and earlier this year we scored two major first-round victories. The court ruled both that the First Amendment forbids California from silencing Full Circle’s guides and that California could not require Full Circle, a nonprofit with an annual budget of $20,000, to build a traditional full-service funeral home to help people who have no interest in traditional funerals. And though Full Circle’s case isn’t over yet—the court will hold a trial later this year on whether California can require Full Circle’s guides to obtain funeral director licenses—the importance of these rulings cannot be overstated.*** https://ij.org/ll/ij-win-puts-two-more-nails-in-the-coffin-of-californias-funeral-monopoly/

***

Feds pick a fight with a Catholic hospital that serves the poor.

Saint Francis Hospital system is a Catholic hospital that serves everyone regardless of faith in Oklahoma. Surprise! St Francis has a chapel. Like every other Roman Catholic chapel or church, it keeps a candle burning next to the tabernacle. It's part of the Faith.

Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services demands that St Francis extinguish the candle for safety reasons.

The candle is in a double glass receptacle with a brass top. I haven't heard of such a candle starting a fire in a Roman Catholic church.

The CMS letter to St Francis is linked. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has requested CMS to grant a waiver.

If CMS de-accredits St Francis, the hospital will suffer such crippling financial losses that it will go bankrupt and close. It will no longer be able to serve the people of Oklahoma.

Saint Francis was a wonderfully humble holy man who lived in poverty. St. Thomas Becket defended freedom of religion against King Henry II and the elites of English society. Elites murdered him in a church and scattered his brains on the floor.

***

BabylonBee says

***

Too bad we don't have a law titled ‘‘Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012’’ Pub.L. 112–105, 126 Stat. 291. Oh, wait....

Multiple lawmakers sold their shares in First Republic Bank in the weeks before the firm collapsed and was sold to JPMorgan Chase by financial regulators.

First Republic Bank imploded on Monday, weeks after Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank similarly collapsed, as account holders with balances above the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation threshold rushed to withdraw their funds. Periodic transaction disclosure forms reveal that multiple lawmakers jettisoned their shares in First Republic Bank or acquired shares in JPMorgan Chase over the past two months, a phenomenon which follows accusations that some lawmakers routinely buy stocks at opportune times and cut losses by selling shares.

The lawmakers who sold shares of First Republic Bank indeed avoided heavy losses: the firm’s stock fell from $121.54 at the beginning of the year to $3.51 at the time of the collapse.

Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL) sold between $1,001 and $15,000 in First Republic Bank shares on March 16 and bought between $1,001 and $15,000 in JPMorgan Chase shares on March 22. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) purchased between $1,001 and $15,000 shares of First Republic Bank shares on March 9 but likewise sold the same indeterminate amount of the assets on March 15, as well as purchased between $1,001 and $15,000 in JPMorgan Chase stock on both March 3 and March 14. His disclosure form said the shares belonged to his wife and dependent child.

Rep. John Curtis (R-UT) meanwhile sold between $1,000 and $15,000 in First Republic Bank shares on March 16, and the wife of Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) sold between $1,001 and $15,000 in First Republic Bank stock on March 20. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) also sold between $1,001 and $15,000 in First Republic Bank shares on March 15.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) previously bought between $1,001 and $15,000 of stock in New York Community Bancorp, the company which would acquire Signature Bank, on March 17.*** https://www.dailywire.com/news/lawmakers-dumped-their-shares-in-first-republic-bank-before-the-company-collapsed

***

Nellie Bowels notes

*** → Et tu, Sotomayor? Meanwhile, Sonia Sotomayor has been paid more than $3 million by Penguin Random House—and didn’t recuse herself from several cases involving the publisher.***

→ Summer is coming: Something happened on a New York City subway car that caused three men to restrain a homeless man and subway dancer, Jordan Neely. One of those men was a Marine, and he held Neely in a chokehold until Neely passed out and later died. There’s a video of it all. It’s been ruled a homicide. Jordan Neely had 42 prior arrests, including four for assault, but we have to wait to learn what actually happened in that car. That’s not stopping AOC, who as usual was a model of restraint: “Jordan Neely was murdered. But bc Jordan was houseless and crying for food in a time when the city is raising rents and stripping services to militarize itself while many in power demonize the poor, the murderer gets protected w/ passive headlines + no charges. It’s disgusting.” (NYC Mayor Eric Adams called AOC’s comments not “very responsible.”) Protesters are already gathering in the subway. I’m too old for another 2020. ***

→ Oregon Democrats want to decriminalize homeless encampments: Oregon is filled with tent cities, and now the state’s Democrats want to make it officially legal. This one’s a little like California legalizing weed, in that it was already completely legal. But now, Oregon lawmakers want to fine you if you ask a homeless encampment to form elsewhere. Yes: you will pay a $1,000 fine if you so much as ask for someone to clear off the sidewalk. “Excuse me, but your pitbull is gnawing my son’s—” That’ll be ten Benjamins, NIMBY!

I used to walk whole blocks of San Francisco where sidewalks were taken over by encampments, not an inch of space free, which was fine because every morning I just hopped off the curb and into the street for a couple blocks. So, I hope no one plans on using a wheelchair in any Oregon city because that would be another grand every time they require a tent to move. The disabled really need to think about not being disabled! Kind of rude to want cities to have sidewalks.

Parks? Did someone mention public parks? Okay, now you’re basically a Nazi. We’re gonna need a bigger fine. 

→ AOC and Matt Gaetz collab: The two hotheaded congresspeople—one a Democratic Socialist from New York, the other a paleoconservative from Florida—have come together to try and ban members of Congress and their spouses from owning and trading individual stocks. It’s called the Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act. ***

→ I thought banning gas stoves was a conspiracy theory? Now, hold on. I was told just in January of this year that the gas stove ban was a fake right-wing culture war thing. 

NYT: “No One Is Coming for Your Gas Stove Anytime Soon” 

Time: “How Gas Stoves Became the Latest Right-Wing Cause in the Culture Wars”

Salon: “Rumors of a gas stove ban ignite a right-wing culture war”

MSNBC: “No, the woke mob is not coming for your gas stove.”

AP News: “FACT FOCUS: Biden administration isn’t banning gas stoves”

The Washington Post: ​​“GOP thrusts gas stoves, Biden’s green agenda into the culture wars”

Which is why it’s so weird because just this week, New York state lawmakers banned gas stoves from all new construction. So it definitely does seem like Dems are coming for gas stoves, in that they just banned them in one of America’s most populous states. 

There’s usually a slightly longer lag between when the mainstream press tells us something is a crazy lie and when the press says okay, fine, it’s not a lie, it’s actually true, and also it’s a good thing—so this is surprising. I’ll be over here huffing carbon oxides and vapors...

***

Why was he out of jail?

Court records show [Zion Teasley] was charged in 2020 with 13 felonies — including five kidnapping charges. 

They were dismissed in a plea deal a year later in which he admitted three felonies: armed robbery with a deadly weapon, robbery and disorderly conduct. He was released from prison in November 2022 and was on probation at the time of Heike’s slaying.

He is now "charged with the brutal murder of hiker Lauren Heike — as it emerged she’d been chased and then stabbed 15 times in the back and chest."

You still a firearm in someone's face and take his money, you've changed his life. You've come awfully close to ending it. You should be out killing people after only two years.

***

Now's the time to invest in platinum

COOK COUNTY, Ill. - A Cook County man was arrested after police discovered over 600 catalytic converters at his residence.

Cook County Sheriff's police responded to a burglary alarm Sunday at a home in the 6000 block of 128th Place in unincorporated Worth Township.

Officers knocked on the door but no one responded, so they walked around the property to make sure there wasn't a burglary in progress. That's when officers saw hundreds of catalytic converters in a metal crate with others stacked along the fence.

Officers returned to the home Tuesday and executed a search warrant at the residence belonging to 40-year-old Ramsy Sandoka.*** https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/over-600-catalytic-converters-recovered-in-cook-county-bust

***

Nellie Bowles writes

→ Speaking of ways I don’t want to die: The movement to actually enforce traffic laws is gaining steam. Here’s The Washington Post appearing to agree that terrible drivers with tons of tickets shouldn’t be on the road. Meanwhile, of course, Congress has been calling any traffic law enforcement racism.***

→ Wanting safe subways is “bourgeois”: We have an Englishman staying with us right now, and it’s funny talking to someone from a country where liberals want, fight for, and actually expect clean, safe subways and clean, safe parks. In England and much of Europe, these aren’t controversial goals. Public transit is a point of pride, a brilliant use of public funds. Here in the US of A, for some godforsaken reason, the good liberals who run cities have decided that wanting safe subways and clean, fentanyl-free parks is right-wing and lame. Which leads us to Emma Vigeland, an influential leftist media personality, co-host of The Majority Report, a perfect representative of the movement, so here’s her full quote this week:

“I was hit, at one point, sitting on the subway by a man who was having a mental health episode. . . hit me in the face and body and it was jarring, right?” Vigeland says. “Every one of us who’s taken public transit has had this kind of situation happen. . . . And I was scared, I was hit. But my fear is not the primary object of what we should be focusing on right now; it’s the fact that this person is in pain. The politics of dehumanization privileges the bourgeois concern of people’s immediate discomfort in this narrow, narrow instance.”

Like me, Emma went to fancy private schools before she became a socialist and I became. . .  whatever this is. Anyway, I love her private school-meets-American-socialism dig at the people who want safe subways: She calls it “bridge-and-tunneler anti-homeless hysteria.” Emma, I agree there are some bridge-and-tunnel vibes going on in the subway conversation. Like ugh, all these women who don’t want to be punched in the face, wandering around with ugly purses. It’s jarring! *** https://www.thefp.com/p/tgif-the-greatest-show-on-earth

***

I usually disapprove of priest killing, but I'm willing to consider exceptions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, May 12, 2023

Jury Convicts Priest of Sex Trafficking Three Victims in Northern Ohio

A federal jury in Northern District of Ohio convicted Michael J. Zacharias, a priest, of five counts of sex trafficking. The charges related to three victims, two of whom Zacharias trafficked when they were minors and as adults. The evidence presented to the jury detailed how Zacharias paid the victims to engage in sex acts with him using the victims’ fear of serious harm to compel their compliance.

Specifically, the jury heard evidence of how Zacharias first met the victims when they were young boys, and he was a Seminarian at St. Catherine’s Catholic Parish school in Toledo, Ohio, and how Zacharias began grooming the boys for commercial sex acts, using his position as a priest and teacher to ingratiate himself with the boys and their families as a trusted friend, mentor and spiritual counselor. The defendant overcame the victims’ resistance to his eventual commercial sex overtures by gradually sexualizing conversations and conduct with them. At the same time, the victims were developing serious opiate addictions, using pain medication and, later, heroin. Zacharias waited to propose commercial sex until he knew the victims were so heavily involved in drug abuse that it was impacting their daily lives, physical and mental well-being and ability to maintain a stable school or work life.   

The victims’ testimony explained how, in varying degrees, they submitted to Zacharias’ commercial sex solicitations because they feared the psychological harm of losing Zacharias as a father figure and friend, losing their connection to the Church and God, and suffering the painful symptoms of opioid withdrawal that could be alleviated with the money provided by Zacharias to purchase drugs. One victim in particular – the older brother of another victim – also explained how he feared Zacharias would sexually abuse his minor brother and others if he did not continue to comply with the defendant’s commercial sex solicitations.***

Sentencing has not yet been scheduled. Zacharias faces a fifteen-year mandatory minimum and lifetime maximum sentence. *** https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/jury-convicts-priest-sex-trafficking-three-victims-northern-ohio

***

Abe Fortas resigned from the Supreme Court this day, 15 May, in 1969.

Fortas had been a fixer for Lyndon Johnson and continued providing legal work to him while a member of the Court. The thing that brought him down was taking money from Millionaire industrialist Louis E. Wolfson and providing legal services to him while Fortas was a justice. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1977/01/23/fortas-tie-to-wolfson-is-detailed/0b15ab1b-ca34-4a99-be65-51967ea123a6/

***

Excellent column by Kat Rosenfield

During the 2017 peak of the #MeToo movement, the conversation about sexual harassment came down to two related but ultimately separate questions. On the one hand, there was the question of what men shouldn’t do; on the other, there was the question of what women could be expected to tolerate.

This was where some women, usually but not always older, rolled their eyes. Did an awkward joke, a bad date, or — as one memorable entry in the infamous Shitty Media Men list alleged — a “weird lunch” really constitute a form of harassment, let alone a cancellable offence? But other women, usually but not always younger, clucked their tongues: it was only because women kept putting up with such behaviour that men kept thinking they could get away with it.***

This question has been on my mind this week, for the most tragic of reasons. On 1st May, a 30-year-old man named Jordan Neely was choked to death on a crowded New York City subway train by a 24-year-old Marine named Daniel Penny. Neely, who was homeless and mentally ill, was reportedly screaming and confronting passengers; he was killed after Penny put him in a chokehold, while two other passengers held him down. Penny, in a statement released through his lawyers, said he did not intend to kill Neely.

This incident was preventable. Long before his death, Neely was known to New York City authorities as a person who could not manage independent living, and who had been spiralling in recent years, desperately in need of help. For him to die on the dirty floor of a subway car, screaming and defecating on himself while three strangers held him by the arms, legs, and neck, he had to be first failed at every turn by a system that was supposed to shelter and protect him — not just from doing harm, but from being harmed by others when his mental illness manifested in frightening ways.***

To what extent this campaign could succeed is not clear. There has always been a baseline level of criminality and antisocial behaviour on the subway; sexual harassment and assault is so ubiquitous that brushing up against it is all but inevitable. I was groped, flashed, or masturbated at probably two dozen times during the seven years I spent living in New York. When a friend moved to NYC last year, I told her that she couldn’t truly call herself a New Yorker until she exited a crowded subway car to discover that someone had ejaculated on her coat. (I was only partly kidding.) It’s not that anyone thinks these things are okay; it’s more that they’re expected, a sad fact of life in a city of 8.5 million people, one of those things you cannot change and hence have to find a way to put up with. You look away, you shrug it off, you don’t let it ruin your day because if you did, it would ruin all of your days.***

But if it was difficult to know exactly where a tolerance for breaches of decorum became apologia for criminal harassment, it was even harder to identify, after Jordan Neely’s death, where the tacit agreement to tolerate becomes a duty to intervene. How do we know when to stand by, when to step in, when to look away, when to be afraid?

Here, one might have expected that many of the same voices who argued so vehemently against the notion of resilience in the midst of MeToo — the ones who believed that the solution to harassment lay not in teaching women to be assertive, but in teaching men not to abuse — would now demand zero tolerance for male aggression on public transit. If you argue that a woman can be traumatised by bawdy humour in the office or awkward come-ons in a bar, surely you would agree that she’s entitled to be fearful when trapped underground on a metal tube with an erratically-behaving stranger twice her size.*** The truth is, eyewitnesses did report that Neely was behaving in a threatening way, and other people on the train were calling 911 well before his confrontation with Penny, suggesting that whatever was happening, it was a cut above the ordinary subway madness that New Yorkers are usually so good at ignoring. But it is also true that the tragic conclusion of this incident seems, at least in part, like the result of a cultivated fragility — the kind that results when you encourage people to view every uncomfortable situation as a trauma in the making, every unpleasant interaction as a precursor to a far worse harm, every upset as an offence for which there must be consequences. That mindset, so ubiquitous in the wake of MeToo, so popular among progressives in general, says that no breach of decorum or moment of discomfort is too insignificant to ignore. It must be registered. It must be punished. It’s nothing more or less than a call for constant vigilance. The thing about that: when you demand vigilance, you get vigilantes.

***

Weed study from Denmark.

Hjorthøj, C., Compton, W., Starzer, M., Nordholm, D., Einstein, E., Erlangsen, A., Nordentoft, M, Volkow, N.D., and Han, B. (2023). Association between cannabis use disorder and schizophrenia stronger in young males than in females. Psychological Medicine, 1-7. found

Young males might be particularly susceptible to the effects of cannabis on schizophrenia. At a population level, assuming causality, one-fifth of cases of schizophrenia among young males might be prevented by averting CUD. Results highlight the importance of early detection and treatment of CUD and policy decisions regarding cannabis use and access, particularly for 16–25-year-olds.*** https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/association-between-cannabis-use-disorder-and-schizophrenia-stronger-in-young-males-than-in-females/E1F8F0E09C6541CB8529A326C3641A68

***

Doctors have access to really cool drugs

Denver cardiologist Stephen Matthews was arrested outside a Denver courtroom Monday morning and prosecutors say he is being charged in nine new criminal cases, bringing the total number of his alleged victims to 10.

The 35-year-old had previously been charged in just one case. Police handcuffed Matthews and took him directly to the Denver Jail.***

Matthews said he had "consensual sex" with a woman he met on the Hinge dating app. But the woman said after drinking with Matthews, she had no recollection of having sex with him and did not consent to engaging in sex. She said she is convinced she was drugged and pressed charges with Denver police. In follow-up reporting, CBS News Colorado found several other women recounting similar encounters with Matthews.

Monday morning, he was scheduled for a preliminary hearing in that initial case from January. But before any proceedings began, as Matthews was outside the courtroom talking to his family Denver police showed up, handcuffed Matthews and led him away to the Denver City Jail.***

***

Philly capable of change?

*** And yesterday's election [in Philly] was a bit of a stunning upset as former City Councilwoman Cherelle Parker won. She will most likely become Philadelphia's first black female mayor.

In the era of identity politics, Parker's victory is unquestionably historic. It also, once again, debunks many of the left-wing claims about "white supremacy" and anti-black racism being systemic in the city. But perhaps even more shocking was the political platform of Parker's campaign. In a city plagued with violent crime, she ran as a candidate who would be tough on crime, hire more police officers to patrol the streets, and support stop and frisk.*** https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/philly-essentially-elected-its-first-black-female-mayor-last-night-and-she-supports-stop-and-frisk

I have no problem, and the Court has no problem, with stop & frisk when it's based on reasonable suspicion that the suspect is armed & dangerous & committing a crime.  I do have a problem when it's based on reasonable suspicion that the suspect is a minority.  

Indeed, the Terry majority noted

The wholesale harassment by certain elements of the police community, of which minority groups, particularly Negroes, frequently complain, will not be stopped by the exclusion of any evidence from any criminal trial.

***

***

Conflict of interest? What's that?

Earlier this month, Shemia Fagan resigned as Oregon's secretary of state following the public release of her ties to an embattled cannabis company she was auditing.

Gov. Tina Kotek (D-OR) reportedly knew of Fagan's activities eight days before the controversy hit the press.

Kotek and Fagan met on April 19 for a meeting to “discuss the legislative session and other topics unrelated to cannabis,” Kotek’s spokesperson told the Oregonian.

During that conversation, Fagan “briefly mentioned” she had bowed out from the audit that was still in process “due to a consulting contract,” spokeswoman Elisabeth Shepard said in an email to the Oregonian. Kotek claimed she was unaware of the details until the story broke in the news.

On March 29, the Willamette Week broke the story of Fagan’s connection to La Mota, the second-largest cannabis dispensary chain in Oregon. The investigation disclosed the company gave over more than $200,000 to the state’s top Democrats, including $45,000 to Fagan.

In the following days, the publication received another tip about Fagan, setting the controversy into full swing. In late April, it was revealed that Fagan signed a contract with Veriede Holding LLC, whose principals are Rosa Cazares and Aaron Mitchell, the owners of La Mota.

Records reported by the Oregonian in May show that shortly after Fagan took office, the secretary of state supposedly shared the audit proposal with La Mota cannabis chain co-owner Cazares prior to its publication.*** https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/crime/kotek-aware-fagan-cannabis-contract-before-audit-went-public

***

Spur trust? Give me a break.

Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill Thursday that puts guardrails on how law enforcement use deceptive tactics when questioning kids, the culmination of a two-year legislative push and ending fears that the governor may veto the proposal.

The new law does not prohibit law enforcement from lying to kids during interrogations. But it does generally mean that any information — like confessions — gained that way can’t be used by prosecutors during subsequent trials. Supporters said the bill was a step toward building trust between the criminal justice system and the communities it impacts, while cutting down on the potential for false convictions of children.

The law also requires law enforcement to record juveniles interrogations. Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat who co-sponsored the bill, said Thursday it represented an opportunity “to reset and build community-driven pathways to our collective safety.”*** https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/new-law-aims-to-spur-trust-between-colorado-police-and-kids/ar-AA1bp1qq

Maybe if politicians didn't vilify the police at every opportunity, the community might have more trust in police. [Not that police couldn't help themselves a little.]

What happen is, for example, Bob & Bill commit a crime. Bob is reluctant to talk until the police falsely tell him that Bill has spilled his guts, blaming Bob. Bob that spills his guts, incriminating both himself & Bill. Police then go to Bill and let him know that he can help himself out by confessing because Bob blamed him.

Too, video recording interrogations is not going to benefit the defendant in all cases. In many cases, juries will be able to see the police may have been blunt, but they didn't coerce any confession.

***

Connecticut says you can't discriminate against rapists.

Connecticut has amended its antidiscrimination statute.  The bill analysis says

§§ 2-6 — SEXUAL ORIENTATION Under current antidiscrimination law, “sexual orientation” generally means having a preference for heterosexuality, homosexuality or bisexuality or having a history of or being identified with this preference. However, its definition expressly excludes any behavior that is a sex offense crime. 

The bill redefines “sexual orientation” to means a person’s identity in relation to the gender or genders to which they are romantically, emotionally, or sexually attracted, including any identity that a person may have previously expressed or is perceived by another person to hold. This new definition specifically applies to antidiscrimination laws subject to enforcement by CHRO, as well as laws prohibiting nondiscrimination in awarding agency, municipal public works and quasi-public agency project contracts.

By removing the exclusion of sex offenses, Connecticut made it illegal to discriminate against flashers, child molesters, and rapists.  The bill passed 132 - 17.  

***

b/c catching criminals is hard and sometimes dangerous

A Shelby County, Tennessee man's surveillance camera alerted him to thieves in the driveway around 0200 on Sat.  He walked out the front door, and they started shooting at him.  He fired four or five times at them.  video

Police arrived after the shooting and arrested him for reckless endangerment because "the man told them that he couldn’t clearly see what he was targeting and admitted to firing shots with his eyes closed due to being scared and shooting at the suspects as they fled."

The video looks like his shots were aimed at the people shooting at him.  The video also shows the criminals shooting at him after he stopped shooting. https://www.foxnews.com/us/tennessee-man-charged-felony-reckless-endangerment-returning-fire-armed-auto-thieves

***

If there's no effective law enforcement, why not?

Maryland police said the guardian of four teens arrested for auto theft last week arrived to pick them up in a stolen vehicle.

The Charles County Police Department said officers patrolling in Waldorf, Maryland, at about 1 p.m. on May 16 saw two Hyundai vehicles in front of a business. A computer check revealed they were reported stolen.

When the officers attempted to conduct a traffic stop, the drivers of the two vehicles sped off.***

From the two vehicles, police arrested 18-year-old Deshaun Deamonte Whitaker and 21-year-old Vincent Lee Alston, both of Washington, D.C., who were both charged with theft, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and rogue and vagabond.

Whitaker was released on $2,000 bond and Alston was held without bond in the Charles County Detention Center.

Four juveniles were also arrested and charged with theft and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.***

Police said a female guardian was set to pick up the four juveniles, but the guardian and two other females arrived in what appeared to be another stolen vehicle, which left after the three women were dropped off at the police station.

Officers located the vehicle on a nearby street, which reportedly had a broken back window and steering column damage. When the officer ordered everyone out of the vehicle, the driver fled, nearly hitting one of the officers.***

Anthony Matthew Stewart, 19, of Washington, D.C., was driving the vehicle and arrested after a brief chase on foot. He was charged with first- and second-degree assault, unauthorized use of a vehicle and providing a false name to police. Stewart also reportedly had active warrants for his arrest.

Also in the vehicle were three juveniles who were apprehended. One of the juveniles, a 16-year-old boy, had active arrest warrants, and a 13-year-old girl was reported missing from another county. All three juveniles were charged with theft and unauthorized use of a vehicle.*** https://www.foxnews.com/us/maryland-guardian-arrives-stolen-vehicle-take-custody-teens-arrested-auto-theft-police-say

***

Rachel Rollins, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, says she will resign.

A DoJ Inspector General report was highly critical of her.

This report describes an investigation by the Department of Justice (Department or DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) that began with allegations concerning the presence of U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Rachael Rollins at a Democratic Party fundraiser featuring First Lady Dr. Jill Biden on July 14, 2022. Available information indicated that Rollins arrived at a private home in Andover, Massachusetts, where the fundraiser was being held, driven in a government vehicle by a subordinate employee of the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s Office (MA USAO). After news stories reported Rollins’s presence at the fundraiser and questioned whether Rollins violated the Hatch Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 7321–7326, a federal statute that limits the political activities of federal employees of the Executive Branch, Rollins posted a tweet suggesting that she had “approval” to be there.1

The OIG opened this investigation to determine whether Rollins complied with Department policies and procedures governing attendance or appearance at partisan political events. During the course of our investigation, the OIG received multiple additional allegations concerning Rollins, some relating to other alleged political activities and some relating to possible violations of the federal gift rules, the government’s travel regulations, misuse of position, noncompliance with recusal decisions, and noncompliance with other Department policies. The most concerning was an allegation that Rollins secretly disclosed sensitive, non-public DOJ information to the Boston Herald about a potential DOJ investigation she and her office were recused from and that she may have done so for political purposes in relation to an upcoming local election.*** https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/23-071.pdf

Ms Rollins is a leftist. Her appointed as a federal prosecutor was sharply contested.

***

Religious freedom case

A group of Jewish parents petitioned a federal court Monday to block a California law that prohibits education funding for children with disabilities from going to religious private schools, even though secular private schools are eligible.

The group of parents, which sought to use Individuals with Disabilities Education Act funding at an Orthodox Jewish school, filed a lawsuit against the state in March, arguing that a state law excluding religious schools from the program was discriminatory. On Monday, the group, which is represented by attorneys from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, petitioned a Los Angeles federal court to block the law while litigation continues.

“It’s already outrageous enough that California legislators are denying special education benefits to Jewish kids with disabilities,” Eric Rassbach, the vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund, said in a statement. “But even worse, they’re denying benefits specifically because these kids want to go to a Jewish school. We’re asking the court to put a stop to this discriminatory law and let these kids get the benefits and services they need.”

Rassbach said the California law was harming Jewish families, and urged the court to "block this discriminatory law, and ensure that access to essential benefits isn’t cut off from families and schools just because they are religious."*** https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/education/california-parents-disability-funding-jewish-school

The case is Loffman v. California Department of Education, 23-cv-1832 (C.D. Cal.). The judge is Josephine L. Staton. Defendants have not yet filed an answer.

Odd note: One of the plaintiffs is Fedora Nick. Never seen a name like that.

***

Family of Christian Glass to receive $19 million in settlement over son’s 2021 police shooting death

The state of Colorado and three local law enforcement agencies agreed to a record $19 million settlement in the death of Christian Glass, a 22-year-old who was shot and killed by police in June in Silver Plume after he crashed his car and called 911 for help.

The settlement is the largest involving police misconduct in Colorado history, surpassing the $15 million paid in 2021 to the family of Elijah McClain, who died at the hands of Aurora police officers and paramedics during a violent 2019 arrest.

Along with the financial agreement, the state of Colorado and the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office have agreed to non-financial concessions that include using Glass’s death in police training scenarios to teach the importance of de-escalation, the creation of a crisis response team in Clear Creek County and an agreement that Glass’s parents can participate in law enforcement training by speaking about the loss of their son, Noelle Phillips reports. https://www.denverpost.com/2023/05/23/christian-glass-shooting-lawsuit-settlement-police-misconduct

***

Where is this a problem?

Illinois just enacted a law the prohibits using license plate readers for

the purpose of investigating or enforcing a law that:

(1) denies or interferes with a person's right to choose or obtain reproductive health care services or any lawful health care services as defined by the Lawful Health Care Activity Act; or

(2) permits the detention or investigation of a person based on the person's immigration status.

(c) Any law enforcement agency, including an out-of-state law enforcement agency, that uses ALPR systems shall require other out-of-state law enforcement agencies to acknowledge that any shared ALPR images or data generated in this State will not be used in a manner that violates subsection

(b) by executing a written declaration before obtaining that data. If a written declaration is not executed before sharing or transfer of the data, the law enforcement agency shall not share the ALPR images or data with the out-of-state law enforcement agency.

(d) ALPR information shall be held confidentially to the fullest extent permitted by law.

It is now Illinois Vehicle Code Section 2-130. https://www.billtrack50.com/billdetail/1577114/

***

It's not like shot someone like Alec Baldwin. Oh, uh, well....

IONIA, Mich. (AP) — A western Michigan man who pleaded no contest to shooting an 84-year-old woman campaigning against abortion rights at his home was sentenced to community service Tuesday.

Richard Harvey, 75, was ordered to complete 100 hours of community service. Judge Suzanne Hoseth Kreeger also gave him a suspended jail sentence of two months and a delayed sentence of one year on probation.

Harvey pleaded no contest last month to felonious assault, careless discharge of a firearm causing injury and reckless discharge of a firearm.

Kreeger also must pay $347.19 in restitution and cannot have any contact with the woman he shot, 84-year-old Joan Jacobson.*** https://www.9and10news.com/2023/05/24/michigan-man-gets-community-service-for-shooting-anti-abortion-campaigner/

***

Philly paid him $1.3M per murder

Shaurn Thomas was a millionaire, but prosecutors say he killed a man over a $1,200 drug debt.

Thomas was paid more than $4 million three years ago after spending 24 years behind bars for a murder conviction that was later overturned.***

“He said it’s his third homicide and he said he can’t go back to jail,” she said.*** https://www.pennlive.com/crime/2023/05/philly-man-got-4m-after-his-murder-case-was-overturned-hes-now-accused-of-murder-over-1200.html

I love these cases in which a manifestly guilty defendant is removed from prison on an alleged procedural error. The media and The Innocence Project act like the murderer was somehow exonerated. No, these convictions are overturned on procedures that were fair and transparent and unrelated to factual guilt. Sometimes you have co-defendants who have reconsidered for a decade the wisdom of their confessing and decided to recant.

First, he argues that a Philadelphia Police Department Criminalistics Laboratory report dated December 16, 1994 was not discovered until after trial. * During Appellant's trial, the Commonwealth offered for identification a series of 14 photographs of a blue Chevrolet Caprice. N.T., 12/12/94, at 41–76. Counsel for the defense objected at which time the prosecutor stated that John and William Stallworth would testify that the photographs depicted the car used by Appellant during the robbery. Id. at 42. Later during trial, however, both Stallworths testified that a different car was used in the robbery. The prosecutor never asked John or William Stallworth to identify the blue Caprice depicted in the photographs and the trial court prevented these exhibits from going to the jury. N.T., 12/15/94, at 116–117. It is alleged that counsel for Appellant's co-defendant, Shaurn, discovered the Criminalistics Report in 2011. The report was apparently authored during the trial and it demonstrated that the Caprice was not used in the robbery and murder. Appellant asserts that this report is exculpatory and was wrongly withheld from the defense*

The second newly discovered fact upon which Appellant relies is the alleged recantation by William Stallworth. Specifically, in his PCRA petition, Appellant relies upon a declaration of Shaina A. Tyler, an investigator employed by the Pennsylvania Innocence Project. In this declaration, Ms. Tyler states that she visited William Stallworth on September 29, 2011 at which time “William Stallworth told [Ms. Tyler] that his testimony at the trial of Shaurn and Mustafa Thomas was a lie, and that he made up the entire story.” Declaration of Shaina A. Tyler, 22/23/11, at 1–2. On April 11, 2017, while this case was on appeal before this Court, William Stallworth apparently was interviewed again by a member of the Philadelphia District Attorney's CRU.4 During this second interview, William stated “[h]e was not present on 11/13/1990 for the robbery and murder of Domingo Martinez” and “[h]e does not believe, but has no first[-]hand knowledge, that Shaurn Thomas was there either.” Commonwealth v. Thomas, No. 2436 EDA 2014, 2017 WL 3159329, at *4, *5 (Pa. Super. Ct. July 25, 2017).

The nice thing is when Shaurn murders people it's probably no relative or friend of anyone at Innocence Project or the DA's office.

***

The problem of non-police contacting violent people

For as long as emergency medicine has existed, being physically assaulted has been part of the job. Talking about feelings that come after an assault, though? Not so much.

That’s something that paramedics and others working in emergency medicine are trying to change, said Crystal Eastman, a paramedic instructor and “peer responder” at Denver Health. The sheer amount of violence discourages paramedics from reporting each time they’re assaulted, and the culture pushes them to act like it doesn’t affect them, she said.

Lt. Will Hargreaves, who oversees a team of about 15 paramedics at Denver Health and goes out on some calls, said on most days, an ambulance crew will have to restrain or sedate someone who’s being combative. Often, it’s because the person they need to treat doesn’t want them there or is worried about getting in trouble for their drug use, he said. Other times, people are confused because of their medical condition, especially if they were just revived from an overdose, Meg Wingerter reports. https://www.denverpost.com/2023/05/29/paramedics-colorado-denver-health-violence-mental-health

Who signs up to be punched or stabbed by a junkie?

***

Trying a local solution

Vehicle thefts in Westminster alone have exploded from 859 in 2020 to 1,259 last year.

But the misery around auto-related crimes goes further than just theft and this city of 115,000 is determined to do something. Last week, Westminster passed on first reading four ordinances that would address street racing, joy-riding, car parts theft and quicker restitution for victims.

In the big picture, the measures would bring the prosecution for several auto-related crimes in-house — to municipal court — sparing victims a trip to Brighton in Adams County or Golden in Jefferson County, depending on what side of the county line the offense occurred, John Aguilar reports. https://www.denverpost.com/2023/05/29/westminster-auto-theft-catalytic-street-racing-joyride

Colorado's municipal courts can impose no more than 364 days of incarceration. C.R.S. § 13-10-113 (2023). If someone stole your car or its cats, you'd probably be happier if he served 90 days in jail than none at all due to a lazy or woke DA.

***

Breaks my freakin' heart

The suspect in the 2005 disappearance of American Natalee Holloway in Aruba, Joran van der Sloot, has been "severely beaten" in a prison in Peru, his lawyer Maximo Altez told CBS News.

"It was a fight between prisoners. I don't know who assaulted Joran," Altez said, without providing any further detail on his client's condition.***

Van der Sloot is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence in Peru for the 2010 murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores in Lima. He's awaiting temporary extradition to the United States to face American charges of extortion and wire fraud related to promises he allegedly made to Holloway's family about leading authorities to her body.***

***

Keep your violence off my, uh

BALTIMORE -- Anti-abortion rights demonstrators were attacked Friday, one brutally, after an ideological argument outside a Planned Parenthood in Baltimore, police said.

The attack involved the suspect tackling an 80-year-old man and pummeling a 73-year-old man before kicking him "with extreme force" in the face, police said.

Officers responded around 10:30 a.m. to the healthcare center on North Howard Street for the alleged assault, where witnesses said two men were attacked.

The responding officer found the more severely injured victim, a 73-year-old man, at a local business. According to police, the man had "a large lump forming on his right eyebrow and blood and swelling around the right eye and right side of his face."

The victim told police he was demonstrating outside Planned Parenthood when an unidentified man attacked a fellow demonstrator, identified as an 80-year-old man.

The victim said he immediately tried to help but was hit by the suspect and fell to the ground, where he was struck in the face. He allegedly told police he didn't remember anything after that. *** https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/anti-abortion-rights-demonstrators-assaulted-outside-baltimore-planned-parenthood-police-say/ - why won't tumblr save posts with working links????? Try pasting into your browser.

Schafer reportedly has been recovering at home while Crosby is currently receiving treatment for his injuries in the shock trauma facility at the University of Maryland. According to a police report, doctors diagnosed Crosby with a large hematoma, hyphemia, and head and neck pain.

Crosby’s “plate bone in his upper right cheek is completely fractured” and “is bleeding from some unidentified area behind his eye, and the bone eye orbit is completely shattered and will have to be replaced with metal,” Roswell said.

The attack left Crosby’s right eye swollen shut with blood dripping from his eye socket, forehead, and nose.*** https://www.dailywire.com/news/pro-choice-activist-brutally-attacks-two-elderly-pro-life-advocates-outside-baltimore-planned-parenthood-report - why won't tumblr save posts with working links????? Try pasting into your browser.

***

When she's sentenced to straight probation, tell me again about the sexism of the legal system

A female employee in a Pennsylvania school allegedly groped a teenage student during an in-school suspension, which continued throughout the day and with "sexual activity" in her car that evening, police said. 

Megan Carlisle, 37, also allegedly sent explicit pictures and videos of herself to the 15-year-old student and his 16-year-old friend, Northwest Regional Police said in a press release. 

Her alleged sexual escapades with an underage student happened while she was employed as a paraprofessional and in-school-suspension monitor in the Elizabethtown Area School District in Lancaster County, which has since fired her.

After Carlisle allegedly "engaged in sexual activity" with the victim in her car on April 28, she sent him $20 via Cash App for food, the student reportedly told police, according to FOX 43. He also reportedly asked her for vape pods, which she allegedly bought for him the next day.*** https://www.foxnews.com/us/female-middle-school-monitor-sex-teen-who-hit-her-up-vapes-cash-police why does tumblr hate links?

***

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

Is the Republican Party Soft on Fascism?

Is the Republican Party Soft

on Fascism?

Stephen Jay Morris

6/5/2022

©Scientific Morality

Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? It was the year of our Lord, 1854. There was a coalition of various groups like the defunct “Whig Party,” the “Free Soil Party,” and the racist group, the “Native America Party,” aka: “The Know Nothing Party.” Note: The reason they were called, “The Know Nothings” was because whenever there was a terrorist attack, like a fire-bombed, Catholic church, they would answer police investigators’ questions with, “I know nothing about the firebombing.” That nickname could be applied to today's Republicans. Most of the rank and file members have low I.Q.s and know nothing about anything!

Let’s get something straight: Abraham Lincoln was not a true Republican. He joined the party to run against a Democratic candidate. It was for political strategy. Matter of fact, like George Washington, he despised political parties. Lincoln, in today’s Right wing slang, was pretty “woke.” Oh, one more thing...Lincoln had pen pals. Guess who his favorite was? Karl Marx. I told you he was woke.

Okay—we are now up to date. And today’s Republican Party? Very unstable. The upper echelon of the party are like fugitives hiding in safe houses known as Country Clubs. Initially, they were willing to let the White, working class, protestants in. Now, they regret it, as the patients are starting to take over the asylum. The rich Republicans erroneously figured that superstitious Christians would be perfect for class engineering; i.e.: as they got richer and richer, the poor would be told to pray to Jesus if they wanted their next meal. This is exactly the type of shit done in the Dark Ages.

The loud mouths of the party, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, do not even know what the fuck Fascism is, and yet, they advocate it. Recently, while spewing some garbage on Social Media about how the government is monitoring people and the type of meat they are eating, MTG totally missed the term “petri dish” by claiming that Bill Gates is growing meat in a “peach tree dish,” instead. More recently, a clip of her January 6th testimony revealed her substitution of the word “flagrantly” with “fragrantly” to describe the way in which defendants’ rights had been allegedly violated. For decades now, Conservatives have been advocating “Anti-Intellectualism;” well, she is a glaring and blatant example of it! Unsurprisingly, most Right wing sexists don’t mind her; she mirrors the “Stupid Blonde” persona; albeit, a much more dangerous one. 1950’s actresses Judy Holiday and Marilyn Monroe often played such a role. A “stupid blonde” would fire up the Conservative libido. “Teach me how to make love, daddy!” “Oh yeah, daddy will show you!” Baarrrff!!!!!!

So why do paleo-conservatives hate intellectuals, anyway? Certainly, not because they are advocating Left wing propaganda! It’s because objective truth discredits them. The biggest threat to the Right is not so-called “Leftism;” it is Objectivity. Conservatism goes against common sense or basic logic. So when they say, “The New York Times is Left wing,” they mean the material is too objective. The newspaper gives them negative press, but not because they are trying to destroy the Republican Party; they just fuck up way more than the Democrats do! Last year, The New York Times reported relentlessly about New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the Democrat. They took him down because of his alleged sexual misdeeds. So, is the New York Times Leftist? Well—is the pope Jewish?

Starting in the late 40’s, the Republican Party, along with other conservative scum bags called Democrats, went soft on Communism. This prevailed all through the Cold War. Now, high ranking Republicans are calling the Democratic Party “Communists” and “Socialists.” Yeah, sure they are. A lot of progressive Leftists are calling the Republican Party, “Fascists.” Well, they’re not, really—although, the real Fascists have gotten their foot in the door. The Democrats kept the real Communists out of their party starting way back in the 1930’s. Do you think rich Liberals would let Commies into their party? Do you think Rich Conservatives are going to let Nazis into their’s?

The only legislation the GOP is actuating is legalizing guns for blind people. Otherwise, except for WASPs who own oil wells, the GOP hasn’t done shit for the American people! This latest incarnation of the Republican Party has not exactly put the party in a state of catalepsy. The leadership has to change its membership from illimitable to exclusionary with a happy face. The central committee must exercise discretion and entropy to fix their party. The biggest mistake the party did was not giving the war against Fascism—otherwise known as World War 11—their vigorous support. Nowadays, the MAGA crowd is comprised of anti-Fascist, Fascist groups. So, are anti-Communists really Communists? That’s anti-intellectualism for you. Here is quote for all of you:

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” ―Benito Mussolini 1932

I used to know this woman who was a Chud. She did this officious thing, which was so fucking condescending! It was solicitous advice that made me crawl up the wall! It went like this: “If I was on the Left, I would do this and I would do that.” Well, with this, I turn the tables on her and say: “If I was on the Republican National Committee (RNC), I would put out a press release denouncing Fascism, white supremacy, and Christian Nationalism. If you don’t do that soon, the Libertarian Party, or maybe the American Christian Party will replace you. Who knows?”

Don’t be soft on fascism!

[mz-elysium]

San Francisco by Night... kinda sucks imo

[ID: dreamy enhanced photograph of the Golden Gate Bridge from the wharf, with foamy waters and a pink sunset over the hills]

“SF” or “the City”. “Frisco” is unacceptable. this is literally the first thing anyone here will say. i got made so much fun of when i moved, pls save yourself.

The racist overtones of the Middle Kingdom are well documented (but, if you wanna hear me rant, it’s under the read-more), so I’ll mainly complain about the obvious one to me.

Between the “Kindred of the East” city-book and the “Changling” book on SF, they still failed to get something right.

Sense of Scale

SF is a city of less than a million. It’s cramped. Shoved up against the water on all sides, there is literally no more room to build out (and don’t even think about trying to build up! i swear, there are some gnarly vampire politicians messing with building and zoning laws here). I came from a midwest city that’s larger than SF -- it’s not hard.

BUT

Bridge toll is reasonable-ish. Trains cross the Bay. There is no real hard line between San Francisco and South San Francisco (yes, different cities). In the East Bay, divides are even slimmer. Like, a couple of blocks-ish between Oakland and Berkeley. Maybe the county has the lines, but it really doesn’t matter.

It’s all just the Bay Area.

SF By Night doesn’t even think about this. As if, being on the peninsula, the City is entirely locked in. Gary is further from Chicago than Oakland is from SF. For gods sake, ppl live in Fairfield and commute into Palo Alto.

This is the Bay Area. 9 counties. 9 million people.

[ID: a detailed and colour-coded map of the Bay Area, including many cities, highways, bridges, and honestly it’s a crayon scribble of a mess]

Fairfield to San Jose is 1.5hrs, tops. It’s very crowded, densely urban with swathes of protected hills and redwoods, and yet compact?

It’s also very neatly divided into five : North Bay, East Bay, South Bay, SF, and the Peninsula. It’s almost as neatly squared off as New York City boroughs, in terms of splitting domain.

North Bay : rich. touristy. wine, fine dining, resorts. classy in a way your mom likes and your aging hipster friend thinks is innovative. (unless you’re in Solano County, which is very East Bay)

East Bay : poster child of the area. homelessness. violence. some gangs. faltering blue collar industry. broken hippies. chic hipster food. underground music (ppl who love or hate Green Day). craft beer. gentrification. also, “UC Berkeley” (University of California: Berkeley). (unless you’re east of the hills from concord south, in which case it’s WASP city)

South Bay : baby white collar tech grads. new developments. silicon valley. new wealth that thinks it “won’t be like THOSE rich people”. punished communities of chinese, vietnamese, and latino immigrants.

Peninsula : very much like the east bay -- grubby, industrial commercial areas spliced with Stanford and incredibly stupidly priced houses.

SF : new rich that thinks it’s old money. crime and locals fighting gentrification from “liberals”. hipsters and social vultures pretending to be rebels. everything is kinda dated, not cool, and clinging to relevance.

From politics and the upper crust, there’s a vibe of “we’re in a liberal paradise, we don’t need any more progress!” People crutch onto the identity of California Democrat, while being anti-Black, anti-Asian, against improvements for homelessness or public transit or the housing crisis.

It is violently hypocritical. People don’t live their values. Class divides started sharp and have only gotten sharper, and harder. There’s a feeling of desperation, of remembering when days were easier. At the same time, a lot of the “wealthy” are only “comfortable” and living tight.

Isn’t that a great setting for the World of Darkness?

god do I have to do everything myself?

[read more for middle kingdom complaining]

The Middle Kingdom / Keui-jin

does. not. work.

It doesn’t work to such a degree that V5 scrapped the “eastern vampires” entirely. The Camarilla now has footholds in Singapore and Tokyo.

Once, there was a pan-Asian race of vampire-like creatures. They’re similar enough that it kinda flies in the face of the Caine myth, but reading their mechanics and history is a bit of a Scrabble box of cultural words from... various Asian countries. Hun and po. Chi. Dharma. Karmic cycle. Ying and yang. A lot about tigers and dragons.

The name is a mash-up of Mandarin and Japanese, which is pretty on-point since the only two countries mentioned seem to be China and Japan.

The main mechanical improvement is the dharmas, which work (not as Hindu dharma) as paths to enlightenment. Like Humanity, a dharma functions a little like a morality scale, but is mainly a concept of spirituality in an attempt to break out of the undead state and earn the universe’s favour to escape reincarnation.

Like, a Buddhist or Hindu take on vampires would be very cool. Cursed to be ripped from the natural cycle of reincarnation? Trapped to wander the earth as an echo of your mortal self? Great. Make that a standard kindred and you got a very interesting character concept.

also this horrible theme...

All City books start out with some themes for the city. All cities in WOD become characters, so that’s always cool.

Uh.

[ID: title, “Colonialism”, text, “The Middle Kingdom suffered under more than a century of European colonialism, which forced alien laws, values and conditions on nations and cultures thousands of years old. Although many of Asia’s nations have reasserted their own cultural identities, the legacy born of European influence and rule remain like a bitter aftertaste. Now the Kuei-jin of the August Courts have turned the tables on the West, invading and occupying two of their cities and imposing their own rules and requirements.”]

Now, if any of the Kuei-Jin came from countries that suffered under western colonialism, that would be cool. But, as often in white media, the only countries that exist are China and Japan -- both with their own colonizing history.

I appreciate the emphasis on Asian (particularly east Asian) immigrants in the Bay Area, which has substantial Chinese, Filipino, and Vietnamese populations. But. This? This isn’t good. The racist “Uno reverse no you” horror plot is trying to sound progressive : “oh no, we invaded and colonized them, so now they treat us the way we treated them!”

[bllsbailey]

Not Sure Democrats Could Be Any More Evil

There is no bottom for Democrats to hit, so if you’ve been waiting for one of them to stand up and express outrage about anything related to any of the damaging policies they push, don’t hold your breath. Murdered Americans at the hands of illegal aliens? Yawn. Random women being punched in the face by thugs and goons on the streets of New York? Whatever. Are Americans unable to fill their gas tanks or afford groceries? Who cares? You morons don’t know how good you’ve got it anyway, ingrates. 

That’s the attitude of Democrats, at least, and they mean it. They hate you. Seriously. Hate them back.

Not like you need more evidence or reason, but there was something that happened this week on MSNBC that was particularly illustrative of what’s wrong with Democrats. No, it wasn’t the firing of Ronna McDaniel, though that was bad enough. It was about the border.

We know Democrats don’t give a damn about the border, at least insofar as securing it goes. They love the border so much that they will do nothing to secure it at all, kind of like how they treat voting – the sanctity of it is so important that anything is done to ensure its integrity, no matter how commonsensical or obvious, must be banned. Their policy toward voting and the border makes zero sense, which means they’re not simply “wrong” by accident, they’re wrong by choice – because pushing the wrong thing helps them. 

While not giving a damn about the border, MSNBC can’t ignore it. Even the most dedicated Rachel Maddow zombie knows people are flooding across it. So, the left needs to find a way to talk about something that outrages their base about something other than the dead bodies from illegal alien murders or drug overdoses. What did these sociopaths come up with? Abortion.

You might wonder how abortion fits into the border, but that’s only because you’re a sane person. If you really thought about it, you could probably conclude that the issue relates to all the sexual assaults and rapes illegal aliens suffer on the long march north, and you’d be right. But not in the way you think.

In a truly amazing segment, MSNBC expressed outrage not over the cartels and their kidnapping of women they are smuggling and holding them to be repeatedly raped by their fellow “migrants,” nope. It wasn’t about that. Nor was the segment about the horrors women face in third-world cultures like those Democrats are playing international red rover with on our border – no one on the left wants to talk about that, they’d rather whine about a lie like the “wage gap” than cultural rot they’re inviting to overwhelm our neighborhoods and schools. 

Nope, MSNBC brought on nepo baby Paola Ramos, daughter of racist Univision “anchor” Jorge Ramos, to lament how illegal alien rape victims have difficulty getting abortion pills once they enter Texas illegally like Border Patrol agents should give it out like gum at an onion-eating contest. Swear to God.

The employment by network of Ramos, someone who couldn’t be more of a prototype of an MSNBC employee if the network had access to all the parts to build their own human – Hispanic, uses “LantinX,” lesbian, worked for Obama and Biden, hardcore left-wing activist – has never stirred controversy the way someone genuinely dangerous like a person who holds opinions different than those of the Democratic Party. No on-air rage-fueled monologues about how casually she and host Jose Diaz-Balart gloss over the sex slavery of women encouraged to run that cartel gauntlet by Joe Biden and his open border, only the outrageous concept of a state being able to decide on its own laws.

Ramos opens her segment on illegal alien women being unable to find abortion pills with, “Well, Jose, as you can imagine, they are horrified. They're traumatized. I spoke to women that had been held by the cartels, some for a week, some for over a month, as they were being sexually abused, but I think, Jose, this is a reflection of a larger problem that we're seeing, right? Where there are migrant women who are stepping into the United States with rape-related pregnancies and as they’re then trying to navigate this complicated legal anti-abortion landscape and so the question that we have is: what does that look like, right? What does post-Roe look like through the eyes of one of those migrants and here's what we found.”

It's unbelievable, but true.

The repeated rape isn’t the problem, the third-world mentality flooding into the country resulting in sexual assaults here in our country isn’t the outrage, it’s the difficulty in finding abortion pills. It’s not the problem itself – hell, Democrats don’t see the rape as a problem, they’re still in a refractory period from a fundraiser celebrating Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, it’s only an inconvenience – the problem is a lack of free abortions. 

They’re sick people. They’re evil.

Democrats have their priorities, not a single one of which is American citizens. They want illegals, they need more people dependent on the government, and the current crop is getting restless and flirting with straying. They’re terrified. They’re also worried about their Ponzi scheme of Social Security crashing down around them, lest they import more suckers to force into it. 

Have I mentioned how they’re evil? Can you imagine a way in which they could be even more evil? Let’s not allow them to try. 

Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.

[bibliophileiz]

I just finished a book called The Queens of Animation by Nathalia Holt, about women animators at the Walt Disney Studio. I cannot believe the shit I found out.

(Hopefully I got this all correct, I was listening to an audiobook instead of reading a hard copy, so I can't consult it for name spellings and the like. I'm relying on Google, and well, we know how that goes sometimes.)

Some things I learned from this book. -Walt Disney became a personal champion of women in the animation department, arguing not just that they were as talented as men but that they could bring something to storytelling that men could not. After his death, the number of women in the animation and story departments plummeted, along with the animation department itself. -But he also paid women way less. (Except Mary Blair.)

Not just women, but many animators had a hard time getting on-screen credit for their work. This was one of the issues that led to a massive strike in 1941 that tore the department in two, temporarily shut down the studio, and resulted in a lot of people, both union and non-union, losing their jobs when it finally reopened.

On the rare occasion women did get credit, they were sometimes ignored by reviewers.

The second woman to be hired to the animation department, Grace Huntington, was a pilot who held multiple speed and altitude records. She eventually quit the studio with the hopes of getting a full time aviation job, but died young of TB before her career could take off.

Traditional animation is apparently a terrible way to make money. Only a handful of the early animated feature-length films made more at the box office than it took to make them.

Women animators were drawing things for The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast as early as the 1930s.

Men thought drawing fairies was unmanly, so the fairy sequence set to Nutcracker music in Fantasia was drawn and directed entirely by women.

While the women animators were doing that, the men drew super gross racist and sexist centaurs to Beethoven music, and the reviewers all hated it. (Essentially they were like HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO BEETHOVEN.) - Generally, male animators tended to like slapstick comedy in their cartoons, while women tended to be more about storytelling and character development.

Obviously there were exceptions to that rule, like Walt Disney and Mark Davis.

Disney hired an LSU professor to write Song of the South. When everyone pointed out to him this was a terrible idea, he hired a Communist Jew from New York as co-writer for "balance."

This went about as well as you'd expect.

When the LSU professor demanded his co-writer get taken off the script, Disney replaced him with another "progressive" white guy.

Apparently he never considered hiring an African-American writer.

Literally everyone, including the studio's legal team, told him not to make this movie, much less hire a white guy from Baton Rouge to write it.

The lead actor James Baskett, who won an Honorary Academy Award for the role, couldn't go to the premiere because it was held in Atlanta.

Meanwhile, the Communist got put on Cinderella. He interpreted the story as a worker rising up against her oppressors.

This is also known as the correct way to interpret Cinderella.

Apparently the writer (so sorry, I'm forgetting his name) included a "violent" scene in which Cinderella goes after her stepmother and stepsisters.

I have no more details than that, but apparently the other animators made him take it out.

I'm now just picturing Cinderella stalking around her house with a raised butcher knife in her hand like in "Psycho."

Artist Mary Blair was art director for many of the classic Disney movies, including Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland. Disney loved her work so much that when she had to move to Long Island for her husband's job, Disney let her work remotely and fly back and forth from New York to Los Angeles.

She was responsible for the rich colors and design choices in the princess movies. She resigned part way through "Sleeping Beauty" but the art director after her used her designs for Maleficent.

Her husband, Lee Blair, was also an animator for the studio before he left to fight in World War II. He was apparently extremely jealous of Mary's artistic talent, and when he returned from Europe, he moved the family to Long Island, became an alcoholic, and started abusing her and later their children. Mary didn't feel she could go to Walt, or any of her other friends at the studio like Retta Scott and Mark and Alice Davis, because domestic violence and divorce were so taboo back then.

Even after the move, Disney let her work remotely, and she spent a lot of time flying between New York and Los Angeles. She eventually resigned hoping to work on her marriage (this didn't really work, though her husband did eventually start going to AA meetings after spending a year in jail for drunk driving) but was later rehired to help design the It's A Small World ride.

Everyone who worked on that ride hated the song btw.

The men apparently got over the idea of drawing fairies making their balls fall off or something by the time they were making Peter Pan, but one of them still asked why Tinker Bell "had to be so naughty".

101 Dalmations was the first animated film to be made using Xerox technology, which decimated the studio's female-dominated ink and paint department (their job was to trace over the animators' work). The Xerox machines could only make black and white at first, which is why so much of that movie is so colorless compared to the earlier Disney films Mary Blair worked on.

The silver lining was everyone got to play with puppies while they were making it because Disney ordered a whole bunch of them to just be there in the studio for the animators to draw.

Speaking of cute animals, the Burbank lot was home to a bunch of stray cats. Disney liked them being there because they hunted mice, so he didn't like when employees fed them.

Disney hated 101 Dalmations, because of the Xerox machines, but it made more of a profit than any of his previous films, because of the Xerox machines.

Julie Andrews originally turned down the role of Mary Poppins because she was pregnant, and Disney promised to wait on her. (Joss Whedon, take notes.)

After Walt died of lung cancer, the animation department was nearly killed and pretty much stopped hiring women. Mary Blair, who had been almost as influential to Disney's art as Walt, was edged out and by the time new animators started working on the Disney Renaissance films, they didn't even know who she was.

Many of the women who left the studio went on to work for Little Golden Books and other children's book publishing companies.

One of the few women animators at the company at this time, Heidi Guedel, who drew Tigger, left with Don Bluth when he departed to form his own company in 1979.

When The Little Mermaid was in production, there was only one woman animator--she may have been the only woman in the entire story department, I don't remember.

Disney then began hiring more women animators at the directive of then-Disney CEO Mike Eisner and head of animation Jeffrey Katzenberg.

One of the women screenwriters working on Beauty and the Beast (I think Linda Woolverton, but it may have been Brenda Chapman) wrote a scene in which Belle puts pins on a map showing where all she hopes to travel.

The animators changed the scene in the storyboards so that Belle is in the kitchen making a cake instead. When the screenwriter saw it, she apparently raged BELLE DOES NOT MAKE CAKES!

Pixar at this time had no women in its animation department.

Brenda Chapman became the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film for Brave. During her acceptance speech, she talked about her daughter Emma.

When making Frozen, Disney held a "sister summit" of women discussing their relationships with their sisters and other women. Men at the summit were not allowed to speak.

btw Brenda Chapman also worked on The Prince of Egypt. (I did not learn this from the book, I learned it just now while looking her up on imdb.)

If I have had a very bad day, and am very tired, then the mere mention of Howard Ashman's name will make me break down in tears.

[theskyexists]

the giggle

WOW!!! risky!!! so risky rusty!!! he really did this!!!

ok so. fun villain. the terrible german accent lol. Donna in the labyrinth winning with brute force ahahahaha. the babies backing away oh my god. lovely little historical one two three four mystery. making the toymaker racist - brilliant. the human faced puppets genuinely a bit urgh oof yikes. Donna getting a job at Unit!!!!!!!!! loved the negotiation hahaha

Melanie and Donna both super competent. The message ...people always thinking they're right... always 'winning' and therefore losing. i like the message, but did get a smidge of 'thomas edison is witch' stuff from the problem of the internet. idk.... children on their computers too much and ghosting and cancelling bad. i mean... well fundamentally i guess i agree im just a bit sensitive. brilliant scene with kate - some really good stuff... i agree so fundamentally with RTD about this, that all that conflict derives from the conviction that you're 100% right and paranoia and damn the lil jab at american conspiracy theorist 'news' and just the whole spiral (or 'peak') that Kate goes through instantly.

VERY HAPPY that RTD made Kate explicitly care for her employees again. Hated that Chibs didnt do that.

THE NEW DOCTOR IS SO GOOD?????????????? WHAT???? I INSTANTLY LOVED HIM HE DID SO WELL????

and somehow he's emotionally competent??? very sweet to see him comforting himself????

DT DOES look too thin and ragged in this...the bi generation... i.... was like whaat.?? this happening?? wh....ok...? this is very cool but what?? and then they DOUBLE THE TARDIS AS WELL?????

i loved loved loved the family dinner (though i do think that people always forget that ten celebrated christmas with Rose and her family). I loved how RTD brought everything thats happened in - just grabbed it all and brought it into the episode he MAKES continuity. unlike the other two his narratives are ALWAYS looking back, even as the Doctor DOESN'T. this inherent contrast gives his writing always such energy. i also really like how he tries to make things make sense, to set up explanations (like for the Master) beforehand or after the fact? we dont know (though sometimes he goes too far in this).

thought the part where DT was upset about humanity blah blah blah hatred violent crreatures blah was a bit uncalled for or went on too long.but it was a good call back alright

ill say the following, i didnt think the pacing was as good that is to say i didnt think all the puzzlepieces fitted entirely perfectly into the flow - command centre went on too long a lil bit. Loved the aside with melanie though. LOVED the dancing toymaker oh my god I LOVED IT. but all the puzzle pieces were really really good.

one thing is though. why the heck didnt the doctor say: i challenge you to a game. from the very beginning??? the moment he showed up in 2023? his preparation of an 'exit' for the Toymaker never became relevant again?

I love ncuti in this??? wow. damn! and dare i say it....he looked super hot. wow lol.

Loved the little callback to the Doctor no longer being a time lord, and so what is he now.....?

i do think: HOW is ncuti gawa supposed to be any more well-adjusted than dt when they both have the same stuff in their heads???because of regeneration???? that didnt work before??? and isnt the doctor's problem ALSO that

Russel T DAVIES,, the man of trageedy, really said, i am going back and im going to give them a happy ending. im even doing the TARDIS doubling this time like i planned. IN THE SAME UNIVERSE NO ONE CAN STOP ME. this actually might be a great set-up for hm...fugitive doctor's tardis?

love love love love that fourteen got to come home to Donna, and that Rose is his niece and he takes her to Mars and New York and that Sylia is hilarious and that Shaun is too and that Melanie is there and...but the thing is... Fourteen is immortal right? isnt that the fundamental problem??? he'll outlive them??? he couldnt stand that - before. couldnt even stand the thought.

and...they beat the toymaker by.....playing catch good. ahahaha. i think thats silly that an allpowerful entity simply couldnt catch a ball as well....(made me think of john smith episode). oh damn the cain story...hah. silly solution to all that but i think thats strength really. just say fuck it: they play catch and teh Doctor wins. just cos

i am a bit sad Fifteen didn't get more changes to his TARDIS. but i mean it's a great TARDIS. with a chair i hope. I LOVE HOW RTDHAS MADE EVEN MORE EXPLICIT how the new regeneration echoes the companions!!!

[fahrni]

The Musk Files - Definitely not a Genius

This guy is just like every other bully in the world. And to top it off he has money so he’s allowed to get away with behavior most people find abhorrent.

He ignores rules and laws and generally does whatever he wants free of consequence.

He’s a terrible human being.

Some of these links are fairly old since I haven’t posted one of these in a long time.

Yoel Roth • The New York Times

Backed by fans on social media, Mr. Trump publicly attacked me. Two years later, following his acquisition of Twitter and after I resigned my role as the company’s head of trust and safety, Elon Musk added fuel to the fire. I’ve lived with armed guards outside my home and have had to upend my family, go into hiding for months and repeatedly move.

Chris Taylor • Mashable

“This X shit’s got to go,” author Stephen King tweeted Thursday. That post received 71,000 likes by the end of the day. Elon Musk, creator of “this X shit,” responded to King with a “XX” and a winking-kiss emoji. Musk’s reply had a relatively tiny 7,300 likes at time of writing, despite the fact that Musk has 150 million more followers than King.

Jacob Kastrenakes • The Verge

Elon Musk wants X to be the center of your financial world, handling anything in your life that deals with money. He expects those features to launch by the end of 2024, he told X employees during an all hands call on Thursday, saying that people will be surprised with “just how powerful it is.”

Dan Sinker

A year ago Elon Musk took over Twitter. Too much has happened in the 365 days that followed to even begin to chronicle it all here, but the short version is that he quickly fired 80% of the staff, broke a bunch of things, paid racists, misogynists, and homophobes to set up shop, picked (sometimes literal) fights with anyone who struck his fancy, lost billions of dollars, and changed the iconic name and logo to the letter X just because.

Zoe Schiffer • platformer.news

On Friday, the National Labor Relations Board issued its first complaint against Elon Musk’s X Corp. The board accused X of illegally firing Yao Yue, a widely respected principal engineer at the company, for pushing back on Musk’s return-to-office policy, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by Platformer.

Eric Hananoki • mediamatters.org

X’s internal reporting system repeatedly responded that posts claiming “Hitler was right” and that there needs to be a “final solution” regarding Jewish people don’t violate the platform’s “safety policies.” This isn’t an isolated example: The Center for Countering Digital Hate similarly released a report today finding that X has failed to remove neo-Nazi content on its platform in numerous cases.

Techdirt

CNBC is running an excerpt from the new Walter Isaacson book about Elon that details what happened with the closing of the data center, and it is way, way, way crazier than even I expected. When Musk talked about how he “disconnected one of the more sensitive server racks,” he meant that entirely literally, in that he literally unplugged it, involving a series of improbable (and ridiculously dangerous and stupid) decisions that resulted with him under the floorboards in the data center pulling the plug, after multiple people warned him not to.

Unprecedented

In July 2023, Mohammed al-Ghamdi, a Saudi Arabian Twitter user who had criticized the Kingdom’s corruption and human rights violations via an anonymous account with only 9 followers was sentenced to death.

Kylie Robison • Fortune

Elon Musk plans to remove headlines from news articles shared on X

Anne Applebaum • The Atlantic

But the drones ran into a problem: Starlink, the satellite-communications system that Ukraine had been using since Russia invaded early last year, unexpectedly wasn’t working. This was a surprise to the engineers. Several people, in Ukraine and elsewhere, frantically called and texted Elon Musk, the owner of Starlink, to persuade him to enable the system.

Sheldon Cooper • Forbes

Twitter, the social media platform officially known as X, appears to have deleted all images from the website that were posted between 2011 and 2014. Links that used Twitter’s native shortening service are also broken.

Pete Syme • Business Insider

An NYU professor with 560,000 followers says he’s been locked out of his X account for over 2 weeks after declining to meet with Elon Musk

Casey Newton • platformer.news

Today let’s talk about a wild weekend of backtracking at the company formerly known as Twitter — and how it should inform the way we cover Elon Musk and his frequent promises in the future.

Nitish Pahwa and Nitish Pahwa • Slate

An Interview With the Guy Who Was @Music on Twitter Until Elon Musk’s X Took the Username Away

[realhankmccoy]

Q: Hank, how you really gonna tell everyone Kansas City is tied with Chicago for the crown of 'best major Midwestern city) when only Saint Louis and Detroit are more homicidal? Srslys?

A: Murder isn't the only factor under consideration. it's safe in a zoo or at your dad's house or in an office in New York City. Murder, certainly, is points against Kansas City, so it is a factor... but the pros do a lot to outbalance that con.

Q: Hank you really think you can just decide that fast, you only been here two days?

A: Well i drove through it twice before in my life heh -- of course i can decide such things in two days, i've been travelling a lot, it's like how Paul McCartney wrote Yesterday in 5 minutes prob, you do it a lot you build up a skill and it's not rocket science to rank cities

i haven't been to Grand Rapids tho, that's the only major midwestern city i'm missing, but it looks damn uptight to me... my guess is it's prob the most uptight major midwestern city, which certainly has an intrigue to it but not one i've been willing to pay Grand Rapids prices for yet.

KC prices tho... hot damn... and the men... holy fuqq is ths ever the midwestern city to get some action in. this city is a dive and a dive bar is my kinda scene for some sexy fun usually

sure Detroit and Saint Louis are bigger dives, in a way, but those have gone past the point of sexy and into haunted house territory. maybe you get your rocks off to that, i dunno, i had a hookup in Detroit once that was alright, and another hookup with Stubby Fingers that i really really wanted to have but chickened out on. actually slept on a floor in Saint Louis -- it belonged to that guy from that dumb band, Short & Sweet that played with local H and he was in another better band called Sullen, I think it was... lemme check ... anyhow i woke up with him staring at me and kinda hating me... who knows why, probably i didn't kiss his ass enough... typical Americans are displeased unless you act like their art was the greatest thing since sliced Wonderbread, and that short & sweet band deffo was not. anyhow Saint Louis scares me too much for me to have rented in it, tho i almost did... the other factor is i'm just not big on the name. Saint Louis? Louisville? I'm a francophile but meh.... those are named after different Louises btw

wonder what ever became of this Justin D-bag from Sullen... hmm... my guess it it was an unhappy ending but i should see if i can find out, i just don't want to exert any effort at searching or to ask certain people about it and embarrass myself by asking. this was before some even more insufferable band started calling itself Sullen and sold a fuckton more records than Saint Louis kiddo ever did

as you kids know, this is a place where i only trash people who i think are stupid, selfish and unapologetically Trumpian and degrading of black people's, gays and womens' hopes and prospects for the most part (mostly a bunch of white racists who only ever post whitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhite content) and have no respect for anymore after witnessing so many hypocrisies, lies and cucked brain cells on their part

the people who's opinions of me i do tend to fret about ... um...

yeah i don't mention those people's names. there's a lot of them. this is a weird zone where i compile and compact my trash like it's the bermuda triangle. even to apprehend how much i worry about real people and good people -- and how i come across to them would be a monumental task.

tumblr is a great place to vent about the 'Great' American Toy Story. MAGA GATS

[xtruss]

FOLKS READ FRONTLINE’S BULLSHIT! No Matter What “FRONTLINE” SAYS, ONE THING IS VERY CLEAR THAT THEY BECAME “PAID PROPAGANDISTS.”

A Reflection on 40 Years of FRONTLINE!

Dear FRONTLINE Community,

Forty years ago tonight, on Jan. 17, 1983, FRONTLINE aired its very first investigation, The Unauthorized History of the NFL.

So much about our country, our world, and our media ecosystem has changed in the four decades since.

But one thing has not: FRONTLINE’s core mission.

We remain dedicated to producing fair, independent journalism that holds powerful people, companies, institutions and systems to account.

That mission’s importance has only grown. We are marking this milestone in an era of tumult and threats to democracy both in the U.S. and worldwide. In these troubled times, the need for thoughtful and trustworthy accountability journalism is immense. And we are rising to this challenge, empowered by FRONTLINE’s 40-year record.

A trip through our archives is literally a journey through the highs and lows of global history. In the 32 years during which our founder, David Fanning, led and executive produced FRONTLINE, the series fearlessly probed everything from the genocide in Rwanda, to the U.S. government’s war on drugs, to our changing climate, to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. FRONTLINE's documentaries freed innocent people from prison, sparked a U.N. resolution on toxic waste dumping, spurred indictments, and prompted legislation to protect female farmworkers from sexual abuse.

Since I succeeded David as FRONTLINE’s executive producer in 2015, our journalism, often produced with carefully selected editorial partners, has shed new light on the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, helped lead to federal charges and prison sentences for members of a violent white supremacist group, revealed the presence of hate groups at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, sparked the creation of a federal task force to look into child sexual abuse in the Indian Health Service, exposed the government’s failure to prevent a fatal disease outbreak among coal miners, and prompted calls for reform of New York’s troubled supported housing system. And much, much more.

Four decades, six U.S. presidencies, and almost 800 documentaries after our series began, our reporting is still guided by a commitment to fairness, toughness and transparency — a commitment that has helped us earn every major broadcast journalism award. In addition to our long history of impact and quality, FRONTLINE has also been an innovator. For example, the series first began making full documentaries available to stream online in 1995. Netflix didn’t start streaming until 2007 and YouTube didn’t even exist until 2005.

Many years later, I am proud to say that we are still breaking new ground and achieving “firsts,” with our journalism being experienced across more platforms and in more places than ever before. Our YouTube channel now has nearly two million subscribers and around 450 million views. Our original podcast, The FRONTLINE Dispatch, has been downloaded seven million times. We earned our first Oscar nomination in 2018 and our second in 2020. Un(re)solved, our multiplatform, interactive investigation of an effort to grapple with America’s history of racist killings, won the “Outstanding Interactive Media: Innovation” Emmy Award in 2022. We have launched new initiatives to increase diversity and equity in investigative documentary filmmaking and to bolster investigative journalism at the local level. And this week, a new documentary from FRONTLINE and The Associated Press that goes inside the early days of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, 20 Days in Mariupol, will have its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. It is the first FRONTLINE original documentary to debut at the world-renowned film festival.

FRONTLINE wouldn’t have been able to thrive and evolve over the past four decades without the enduring support of our dedicated public media community. All of us at FRONTLINE are grateful to PBS, to our home, GBH, and to our funders, including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, for standing by us and continuing to believe in the vital importance of investigative journalism.

And we are so thankful to you for being part of this community, supporting our work day in and day out, year in and year out — and decade after decade after decade.

That work goes on.

Later this month, we’ll bring you Putin and the Presidents, an investigation of Vladimir Putin’s clashes with five American presidential administrations as he’s tried to rebuild the Russian empire. It will be available to stream starting Tues., Jan. 24 — one week ahead of its Tues., Jan. 31, premiere on PBS stations, and one month before Russia's war on Ukraine reaches the one-year mark. And there is much more to share with you this winter and spring, including a two-part series that draws on decades of on-the-ground reporting to examine how America’s 20 years in Afghanistan culminated in a Taliban victory.

No matter what the years ahead may hold, we will continue to investigate stories in the public interest and bring you journalism that is worthy of your trust.

It was our promise to you 40 years ago. It remains our promise to you now.

Thank you.

— Raney Aronson-Rath, FRONTLINE Editor-in-Chief and Executive Producer

[tielt]

Been trying to discern what exactly about calling the Nazi symbol “crooked cross” instead of the name of an Indian holy symbol is too big of an ask.

1 . It acknowledges the truth that it was Christians killing Jews.

2. It defiles the word cross.

3. It’s not the lie of an exotic external force.

One thing is for sure every appropriation comment that is used by Yankees is absolutely contrived compared at any decent contrast to this hateful association. Yes it is hateful. Indians are Caucasian, that doesn’t make it not racism. It is racist.

The Bible belongs in the toilet.

At first it feels it’s like trying to balance a drop of blood on a sphere and you need to maneuver it to stay, but that congeals quick. However you feel about my insensitivity I don’t believe that the violence I just did is anything near as bad as what you do every day calling it a Swastika.

​the point that it is not a Swastika had not occurred to me until I heard an Indian say this, the tweet is embedded below. They said it’s a crooked cross I think that name fits as it’s a perversion subtype rather than Iron Cross which is also a more accurate name as the adjective allows separation from the holy type Christian one. I will be calling it a crooked cross now, you can also. Lowercase I believe is also accurate but I’m not a language formalist in general.

It’s not a Swastika.

I used to call it Swasti which is I think another name. The tweet was a request on a New York Times crossword that had the Swasti in it and was causing a long thread. It bugged me too, and two types of people are good at this kind of thought, designers and comedians. I used to call it texture skating because it’s a different way of looking at something, they are kind of like STEM artists which I really like.

Like wait, not sure what but not that; joke/or/reshape. Thank you Dr. Shukla 👌🤖🤗