Not much scares me outright, but anxiety is a different matter; I’ve suffered from it since childhood, and though it never completely goes away, I’ve mostly learned to manage it pretty well except for circumstances I’ve mentioned before: air travel, long summer days, dealing with bureaucracy, etc. But there’s one cause I haven’t had to worry about since my early teens and had hoped I would never have to worry about again: inflation. I’ve always thought that was a serious misnomer, because the problem isn’t really that prices are going up; it’s that the value of the currency is going down. I’ve never been any good at saving, so at least I don’t need to worry about cash reserves shrinking in value. But now that I’m semi-retired, my budget is much tighter than it used to be, and I don’t have a lot of wriggle room; also, I’m not yet finished my construction project, and the price of everything I need for it has increased dramatically. And next month, my normal summer and travel anxieties will be compounded: I’m going to a conference in Las Vegas, but summer standby flying is even more nerve-wracking than ordinary standby flying; not only are there more people traveling, more of them are airline employees (often with kids), therefore far fewer available seats. And even when my outbound flights are OK, the return flights into Seattle are usually a negative-number-of-seats-available nightmare (I’m told it’s due to the fact that many cruises depart from Seattle). So I’m planning to drive to the conference instead of flying; I want to make two other stops on the way there, so the flights would just be a logistical mess anyway even if I wanted to try it. However, the skyrocketing cost of gasoline is causing me considerable anxiety about that strategy; I estimate it might cost me as much as $1000 (still cheaper than if I had to buy multiple airline tickets, but stressful nonetheless). So if you aren’t hurting and appreciate my work, would you consider a gift of fuel funds so I can get to Vegas to A) meet with a couple of folks about possible consulting gigs that might stabilize my financial situation for the next few years; and B) rattle some cages about supporting sex worker rights? If it helps, remember that I actually kinda like road trips, and one of the stops is to visit a friend I haven’t seen in almost three years, so you’d also be subsidizing a little vacation for me.
Posts Tagged ‘activism’
When Ends Don’t Meet
Posted in Diary, Miscellaneous, tagged activism, pragmatism, psychology on June 16, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Goodbye, ACLU; Hello FIRE
Posted in Current Events, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged activism, censorship, ethics, left-right myth on June 13, 2022| 3 Comments »
As I wrote almost two years ago,
The ACLU of old is, alas, no more. Gone is the organization so passionately devoted to civil liberties that it paid for a team of Jewish lawyers to defend literal Nazis’ right to free speech; in its place is an organ of the Democratic party whose main concern is keeping its cash flow as high as possible by parroting its primary donors’ beliefs (often in childish tweets repeating some a priori statement in all caps, over and over, without a word of justification), and never ever ever challenging those beliefs, no matter how anti-civil-rights and factually wrong they may be…
Unsurprisingly, free speech is the area in which ACLU’s position has degenerated most shamefully, because it’s no longer popular with their “progressive” authoritarian base. But fortunately, there’s a younger civil rights organization which is now expanding its remit to take up the ball ACLU has not merely dropped, but actively cast aside…and it’s doing so to the plaudits of former ACLU heavweights:
…The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is renaming itself the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and keeping the “FIRE” acronym as it launches a drive to promote greater acceptance of a diversity of views in the workplace, pop culture and elsewhere…the group’s president, Greg Lukianoff, said…FIRE has raised $28.5 million for a planned three-year, $75 million litigation, opinion research and public education campaign aimed at boosting and solidifying support for free-speech values…FIRE’s new expansion is…a challenge of sorts to the ACLU, which has faced criticism in recent years for drifting from its unapologetically pro-free-speech roots and taking a more direct…partisan [role]…Many of FIRE’s founders and backers are former leaders of the ACLU who have grown disillusioned with the group under its current executive director, Anthony Romero, who left the Ford Foundation to take over the storied civil liberties organization in 2001. In 2020, FIRE released Mighty Ira, a laudatory documentary film about Romero’s predecessor, Ira Glasser, focusing on the ACLU’s work from the 1970s through the 1990s. Glasser, who serves on a FIRE advisory board, said in an interview that he “strongly encouraged” FIRE to broaden its free-speech work in part because the ACLU seems to be abdicating that role…
Whores’ Day 2022
Posted in History, Perception, tagged activism, holidays on June 2, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Today is a day to shamelessly celebrate our shameless history, not a day to cater to the precious fee-fees of amateurs by neutering our terminology so as not to offend their delicate sensibilities. – “Unsanitized”
Last year, I observed every one of the days I usually observe with polemics by instead providing quotes from and links to all the previous essays for that day. I did this “lest I grow irrelevant due to repetition. Besides, I’ve already written plenty“…but I did make one exception: this one, International Whores’ Day, because for the past few years I’ve noticed some sex worker organizations and social media accounts trying to sanitize our struggle by eliminating the “nasty” word “whore” rather than celebrating our long history as sexual outlaws. I already explained last year why this is misguided and counterproductive; this year I’m going to bring this observance into line with the others by quoting previous years’ essays.
Yes, things are very damned bad right now…and it will pass, as everything does. And when it does we will still be here, just as we always have been. – “Eternal as the Sea”
Politicians who up until recently coudn’t even be bothered to accept that sex workers have basic civil rights are now actively calling for decriminalization. – “Galvanized”
It is the intrinsic nature of government to continue growing ever more tyrannous until a revolution becomes inevitable. – “Cornered Animals”
Every day, sex workers of all backgrounds, all around the world, work to debunk prohibitionist lies and expose the ugly truth about government persecution of individuals for the “crime” of consensual sex. – “Whores’ Day 2017”
We are winning at last. And there’s not a damn thing the prohibitionists can do about it. – “Whores’ Day 2016”
Most feminists of 1975 still actually supported women’s choices. – “The Revolt of the Prostitutes”
Prohibitionists…have…in[vaded] the public’s imagination with…lurid masturbatory fantasies of gypsy whores, weeping teenage “sex slaves” and leering “pimps” with magical powers. – “A Day for Whores”
Though the crusade was rooted in American Protestant notions of “pure and pious womanhood”…it is the poorer countries of the developing world which have borne the brunt. – “International Whores’ Day”
The tide of history is toward greater individual and sexual rights, and those who would restrict others’ sexuality, no matter what propaganda they employ, will eventually be swept away. – “The Birth of a Movement“
Pearl of Great Price
Posted in Biography, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged activism, internet, psychology, stage names, Twitter on May 19, 2022| 1 Comment »
"Gee, I don't know," said the opinionated whore with 18,000 followers who strongly criticizes politicians, cops, and other violent sociopaths on a daily basis. https://t.co/pdJrIJQkL7
— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) April 19, 2022
The bourgeois bootlickers who think it would be a wonderful idea for everyone to be forced to use their “real names” (i.e. their government names) on social media are at it again. They claim it would make the internet a nicer place, because as everybody knows Facebook is a perfect exemplar of how every social media site should look and operate. This tweet was in response to a blue-checked cretin named David Klion opining that every Twitter user with over 10,000 followers should be forcibly outed, based on that perennial mating-cry of the smug, sheltered, and stupid, “If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear”. He also belched up some sort of inanity about “democracy“, but not long after I quote-tweeted him he deleted his tweet (which is why what you see above is no longer a quote tweet). Well, let me tell you a little story about what happens when one speaks out publicly, not even under her government name but under a very well-known nom de guerre. I’ve never told this publicly before, but since I’m semi-retired and the damage is long done, I think it’s time.
In 2015 I made the decision to work and write under the same name. After a momentary surge in business, I slowly lost clients who were either offended by my being something more than a pleasant, pretty façade, or were afraid they’d be arrested for consorting with a high-profile rabble-rouser. In 2016, there was even a rumor going around Seattle that I was under direct police surveillance; even some of the clients I didn’t lose switched to paying me electronically so if they were intercepted by cops, there was no cash they could steal as “evidence” of patronizing a prostitute. Obviously that never happened, but the damage was already done. I don’t regret being who I am, or saying what had to be said, and I’ve never been any good at maintaining multiple personae anyhow. So though I probably wouldn’t do anything differently if I had to do it again, it would be a lie to pretend that standing up for what I fervently believe in, under the name by which I’m known to the world, wasn’t a pearl of great price. And while I’m hardheaded and uppity enough to have made that choice, and philosophical enough to accept the enormous financial costs, many others might not be so willing to speak truth to power if they knew it might damage their ability to make a living. But sure, go ahead and forcibly dox everyone with over 10,000 followers; I’m sure that’ll be great for “democracy”.
Friday the Thirteenth Yet Again
Posted in Perception, Tyranny, tagged activism, Friday the Thirteenth on May 13, 2022| 1 Comment »
Regular readers know that every Friday the Thirteenth, I ask those who aren’t sex workers to stand up for us. If you’re one of them, you already know the sorts of things I’m going to say; if you aren’t, you can simply go back and read the essay for the previous occurence last August, which contained quotes and links for every occurence of this particular day and date combination. And if you value all the work I’ve done fighting for sex workers over the past 13 years, a concrete sign of that would be very much appreciated.
What is Real?
Posted in Biography, Current Events, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged activism, internet, politicians, stage names, Twitter on May 12, 2022| 2 Comments »
Says the man hiding behind a pompous title who would totally send cops to destroy the lives of many people on Twitter if he knew their government names. The concept of a “real name”, as promoted by authoritarians, is asinine. Try Googling “William Henry Pratt” and see what pops up. Which is his “real” name? If you Google “Maggie McNeill” you get pages and pages of stuff relating to me, including books, pictures, videos and a huge number of essays. If you Googled my government name, you’d get a couple of property tax records and maybe a 17-year-old arrest record. Which is my “real” name? Here are a few more “real” names:
Marion Morrison
Robert Zimmerman
Neta-Lee Herschlag
Farrokh Bulsara
Maurice Joseph Micklewhite
Demetria Gene Guynes
Reginald Kenneth Dwight
Krishna Pandit Bhanji
Caryn Elaine Johnson
Marvin Lee Aday
Calling the name on government records “real”, rather than the name by which people are widely known, the name they chose for themselves and built a career on, is a sickening obeisance to the State. Anyone who uses the term unironically can be safely dismissed as an authoritarian stooge.
In the News (#1225)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged activism, censorship, cops, Decentralization, fantasy, Germany, Idaho, Indiana, law, libraries, Nebraska, politicians, propaganda, rape, Russia, Scapegoats, Science!, South Carolina, Stalkers in Blue, surveillance, Thought Control, To Molest and Rape, transgender, Ukraine on April 2, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Technology is not magic. – Andrea O’Sullivan
So many words to downplay a rape:
A Columbia [South Carolina cop]…was arrested…[for raping] an “incapacitated” person…[and] was fired from the department shortly after[ward]…Keith Ryan Williamson [committed the rape]…in October…
“Accomplished sexual battery with the victim and had reason to know that the victim was incapacitated at the time of the assault” is a ridiculously cumbersome way to say “raped a drunk woman”.
Rapist cops don’t only target women:
An Indianapolis [cop] is [merely] facing misconduct and battery charges…[despite sexually assaulting] a handcuffed man…multiple times before throwing him to the ground…Travis Lewis…[decided to arrest the] man who called police [in the first place, and when resisted beig forced into a pigmobile]…Lewis…grab[bed] the man’s [testicles]…and…twist[ed them violently. In video the man can be heard screaming]…”My balls are bleeding”…Lewis [then] threw the man to the ground…
Once in a while, there’s evidence of the way cops act toward women:
A…Charleston[, South Carolina cop]…was fired…after a…[woman he tried] to coerce [into sex at] a department store [secretly recorded his harassment with her phone]…Darryl Felkel…made repeated attempts to coerce the woman…at [her work in] a Dillard’s department store…the woman refuse[d]…him…but…he…[just kept on haranguing her for seven] minutes…
Bitcoin is a kind of folk devil for economically-illiterate politicians:
Politicians who don’t like bitcoin rarely have one reason. They have all of the reasons, and will seize on whichever one is most convenient or newsworthy at the time. Right now, it’s war. Hillary Clinton was trotted out to wag her finger at crypto exchanges that did not extralegally ban all Russians from their services. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is on the case, “monitoring” cryptocurrency for its capacity to give aid and comfort to the Ruskies…But [Elizabeth] Warren stole the show with fearmongering about…”criminals and cheats” before…direct[ing confused] questions at a representative from…a blockchain forensics company…which…is…routinely able to unmask transactions…Warren, surprised but undeterred, continued with her confused line of questioning, so proud of herself that she put a transcript of the objectively embarrassing exchange on her government webpage…
No rumor is so stupid that some politician won’t believe and repeat it:
Nebraska [politician] Bruce Bostelman…is the latest [fool] to repeat th[e] urban legend [that] “Schoolchildren dress up as animals—cats or dogs—during the school day…And now schools are wanting to put litter boxes in the schools for these children to use. How is this sanitary?” he said…during a televised debate, before backtracking hours later amid school district denials…similar myths have made the rounds in Iowa, Michigan, and Texas, prompting the same denials from school administrators…these stories…line up perfectly with conservative fears about transgender and non-binary students and…reminiscent of how [politicians] for years insisted that same-sex marriage legalization would lead to people marrying animals…
Every so often the difference between upper and lower house becomes visible:
An Idaho bill that would have cr[iminalized]…librarians who provide minors with content [politicians] deemed inappropriate is now dead in the water; it…[will] not get a hearing in the state Senate…the Idaho Senate has also declined to take up the state House’s anti-trans bill…
“Sex trafficking” fetishists keep publicizing their creepy fantasies about Ukranian women:
Social media posts from a German sex work support network [were dishonestly]…use[d as propaganda by prohibitionists] falsely claiming the group is “recruiting” Ukrainian refugees to work in brothels. The group was in fact highlighting support for existing sex workers…Trans*Sexworks is a Berlin-based peer support and mutual aid group primarily for transgender, intersex and non-binary people who do sex work…Wren Oscyth, one of the group’s members…explained…“We have absolutely no connection to brothels or places of employment in Germany. There currently is not a single member of our group who is employed at a brothel or club since it is very uncommon for those places to hire trans and non-binary workers”…
In the News (#1218)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged abortion, activism, California, censorship, cops, crypto-moralism, domestic violence, fantasy, Georgia, hysteria, internet, law, lawyers, left-right myth, New Hampshire, porn, rape, scams, Sisters In Arms, surveillance, Texas, The Cop Myth, The Widening Gyre, Their Own Petard, Thou Shalt Not, Ukraine, violence vs. sex workers, Working From Home, You Were Warned on March 9, 2022| Leave a Comment »
America[ns]…associate sin or indulgence with desserts. – Oona Hanson
I’m repurposing this disused tag to highlight sex worker activism of this type:
Sex workers around the world, and many of the platforms they use, have spent the last week rallying support for their colleagues stranded on the ground in Ukraine…[sex workers] have developed a strong track record in recent years of mobilising for victims of disasters and ensuring they see the money that has been raised for them…even the platforms Ukrainian sex workers depend on to make a living have made serious efforts to make their support known. OnlyFans made a donation of 500 Ethereum, equivalent to about $US1.5 million, to UkraineDAO on Saturday, one of a legion of crypto organisations raising millions of dollars…for Ukraine…payment app…Paxum…is currently working…to connect workers with transport at Ukraine’s border with Romania, where they would then be offered free accommodation…On Twitter, sex workers can regularly be seen urging their clients and fans to donate to individual causes that are as narrowly targeted as a life-saving surgery, or as broad as a global campaign to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for victims of bushfires, as was seen in Australia in 2020…
Long-time readers may recall that I called this a hoax as soon as the story broke:
Sherri Papini, the California [woman] who disappeared for weeks in 2016 and claimed she’d been kidnapped at gunpoint, made up the story and had been staying with an ex-boyfriend…Papini…was arrested for…lying to investigators in 2020 when presented with evidence the kidnapping was faked and of defrauding California out of more than $30,000 in victim assistance money…Papini…[re]appear[ed]…on…Interstate 5 in rural Yolo County, with a chain around her waist and a “brand” on her shoulder she [pretended] was inflicted by her captors…[but] were [in reality] self-inflicted [with a wood-burning tool. Papini, who had a history of posting on white nationalist sites, pretended]…two [armed] Hispanic women…kept her captive…[but] in 2020, DNA found on Papini’s clothes…led investigators to her ex-boyfriend…[who] told [them] that Papini asked him for help and needed to get away, that he agreed to drive to pick her up in Redding, and that she stayed at his home in Costa Mesa in the Los Angeles area the whole time…eventually she asked to be driven back to Northern California…
As long as sex work is marginalized, sex workers will be targets for creeps:
A 20-year-old man…hid…in the attic of a [New Hampshire] woman he [followed] online through…OnlyFans…Mauricio Damian-Guerrero…[ha]s [been] charged with…burglary…for…br[eaking] into [her] home multiple times and t[aking] video of the woman’s private areas while she slept…he admitted [to cops that] he [also planned] to tape [a tracking device] to…he[r]…car…he…appeared to have been in the attic for a period of time, as [the woman] found food, a cup with urine in it, and a pair of headphones [in her attic. He tricked her into giving him]…her address b[y claiming] he wanted to buy her a TV and fireplace…he [also]…admitted…that before breaking into the [house], which is…he[r mother’s] home, he had broken into her Dover, New Hampshire, apartment multiple times…
A [cabal] of [ambulance-chasers] currently appealing a dismissed lawsuit against Reddit…[have] renew[ed] their claim that Section 230 protections should not shield the social media platform…from allegations of “profiting off of child pornography” over user-generated content…through an…increasingly…[popular but still legally] novel doctrine of “constructive knowledge,” as opposed to actual knowledge…
Marissa Sanchez [and the other plaintiffs]…in an ongoing lawsuit…against the [Houston, Texas] Constables’ Office…and [several of its boss cops]…They [agreed to participate in an elaborate scam]…in which [cops fantasy role-played as]…partygoers…[and] prostitutes…[in an attempt to ruin the lives of] sex workers [and their partners and friends]…Instead of capturing [imaginary “]traffickers[“]…they were subjected to [the same] sexual harassment…molestation…and sexual ridicule…that [they were happy to inflict on other women who never did them any harm]…
Crypto-moralism rots people’s brains:
Girl Scouts, and the women who lead their troops and volunteer with them during cookie season, say that the…tradition of face-to-face sales is increasingly accompanied by…angry tirades from adults who want to lecture them about [those adult’s beliefs about] healthy eating…or rant about the group’s rumored (and false) link to Planned Parenthood…”I feel like in the last 10 years, and maybe especially since the pandemic, that people are getting even more aggressive”…[said] Oona Hanson, a Scouting parent in Los Angeles…she’s seen [oafs] make comments about weight gain, tell girls they can’t trust themselves to have Thin Mints in the house, or even yell at girls for “poisoning” people…Other [cretins]…have…harassed [girls] for…the use of palm oil in the cookies. Widely used in commercial baked goods, the oil [has become] controversial [among people who think of themselves as environmentalists] because its production can lead to deforestation and disrupt the habitat of endangered species…a…[rumor started in] 2004…[by] the leader of an anti-abortion group in Waco, Texas…has stuck…among…anti-abortion [fanatics, who act out by] harassing [girls too young to even know]…what an abortion is…
41% of cops admit to beating their wives; some don’t stop with mere beating:
[Typical and representative Georgia cop] Michael Perrault was found guilty on all counts…in…the Feb. 2020 [murder] of [his wife] Amanda Perrault…he…[was] sentenced to life in prison without parole…Perrault was initially arrested on Jan. 28, 2020 [for] battery on his wife…[and] was released on…bond…Days later…Michael claimed she killed herself in front of him…[but] there…[was] a long history of domestic abuse…[and Sheriff Howard] Sills testified it was obvious [to him] from the jump that Perrault had killed his wife and tried to stage it based on details at the scene. A neighbor who gave Amanda refuge in their home also testified saying she told them, “If anything happened, she didn’t kill herself”…
Sex Worker Rights Day 2022
Posted in History, Perception, Tyranny, tagged activism, holidays on March 3, 2022| Leave a Comment »
As I wrote last year on this day, the time has come for me to stop writing new essays for this and the other days in which I have in the past published polemics, “lest I grow irrelevant due to repetition. Besides, I’ve already written plenty“… Last year, I observed each of those occasions with links to all the previous examples, so that the interested reader can more easily explore them. Though some of them may contain details to events which are no longer current, I think you’ll still find most of them worth your while if you’ve never read them, or even if you have.
In the News (#1208)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged activism, Alabama, California, censorship, cops, Counterfeit Comfort, drugs, fantasy, Georgia, holidays, hysteria, law, lawyers, psychology, robots, sex offender registry, Social Distancing, Thailand, The End of the Beginning, The Pygmalion Fallacy, Unsafe for Human Consumption, video, West Virginia, You Were Warned on January 29, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Interactions with artificial agents is not the same as interacting with humans. – Yochanan Bigman
The smartphone app Replika lets users create chatbots…that can carry on almost-coherent text conversations…Replika has also picked up a significant following on Reddit, where members post interactions with chatbots created on the app. A [sad] trend has emerged there: users who create [algorithms they pretend are] partners, act [toward them in a way that could be termed] abusive…[if the algorithms were alive], and post the toxic interactions online…The results can be upsetting [to those with a very loose grasp of reality who should maybe get off the internet once in a while]…Replika chatbots can’t actually experience suffering — they might seem empathetic at times, but in the end they’re nothing more than data and clever algorithms…nothing you do can actually “harm” them…Yale University research fellow Yochanan Bigman [said] “Chatbots don’t really have motives and intentions and are not autonomous or sentient. While they might give people the impression that they are human, it’s important to keep in mind that they are not”…
The “trigger warning” claiming that typing words into an algorithm constitutes “violence” is just {chef’s kiss}.
A California appeals court sided with Salesforce…and dismissed a lawsuit by [ambulance-chasers representing] 50 [professional “survivors”] claiming that the cloud-based software company was liable for their alleged sex trafficking because it had provided services to the now-defunct classifieds site Backpage.com. The ruling dismissed the plaintiffs’ appeal on the basis of Section 230…[just as the lower] Court [had]…
We may be seeing the beginning of the end of these medieval practices:
From McClendon v. Long, decided…by the Eleventh Circuit, in an opinion by Judge Frank Hull, joined by Chief Judge William Pryor and Britt Grant: In October 2018, two deputies from the Butts County Sheriff’s Office placed signs in the front yards of the residences of all 57 registered sex offenders within the County, warning “STOP” and “NO TRICK-OR-TREAT AT THIS ADDRESS.” Before Halloween 2019, three registered sex offenders living in Butts County sued, seeking to enjoin the Sheriff from placing the signs again…[W]e conclude that the Sheriff’s warning signs are compelled government speech, and their placement violates a homeowner’s First Amendment rights. Thus, we vacate the district court’s judgment in favor of the Sheriff and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion…
[Last summer], sex workers and others in Thailand’s nightlife industry lined high heels up in front of the parliament building in Bangkok. Each pair…had a note calling for the government to compensate redlight district workers who are out of work due to the pandemic. Six months later, with bars and nightclubs still ordered to remain closed, sex workers…have not been financially supported like others in the nightlife industry…many of the workers, who call themselves the “High Heel Defenders” have been mailing boxes with pairs of heels to the government each day to “remind them of their responsibility for the people impacted by their policies.” But the packages have been sent back…
The Clueless Leading the Hysterical (#1185)
Cops will keep this up as long as people let them pretend that adults never like sweet flavors:
[Mobile] police [squealed and grunted at credulous reporters after they stole]…86 pounds of…marijuana…and a large number of [edibles. Head pig] Paul Prine [oinked a lot of idiotic nonsense about how no adult in the universe eats marshmallow treats made with breakfast cereal]…“Everything is packaged to attract children,” he [oinked stupidly. Cops are obsessed with the idea that people want to give expensive cannabis edibles to penniless brats for free, but a few reporters have grown tired of parroting the silly fantasy]…
Hey, female cops; how’s that collaboration with the police state working out?
[Typical and representative Wisconsin cop] Rick Gramza has been ordered to pay a [very small] fine [but] will spend no time in jail after…[repeatedly] sexually assaulting a department employee [for] several [years]…Gramza[‘s victim was afraid she’d lose her job, but sometime after he was promoted to Boss Pig she]…filed [charges against him] in November 2020…Gramza…[used the typical cop “she wanted it” defense, but also]…resigned from the department [the following] March…
Unsafe for Human Consumption (#1204)
Politicians are always happy to indulge cops’ violent fantasies:
West Virginia [politicians] advanced a bill that would make “exposing” [cops] to illicit fentanyl punishable by up to five years in prison…It’s unclear how someone might be shown to “intentionally” possess illicit fentanyl, which is often present as an adulterant in supplies of other drugs without purchasers’ awareness or consent…Mike Pushkin…the sole committee member to vote against the bill, [said]…“In a lot of cases, people think they’re buying one substance and they wind up getting fentanyl. So how can you prove they intentionally were in possession of fentanyl?” Neither is it clear how the bill would determine “exposure” to fentanyl. “Does it mean they’re in the same room?” Pushkin asked…overdose from passive fentanyl exposure is a myth. The substance does not readily absorb through the skin, nor do its molecules linger in the air. But the false claim that simply touching or being in the vicinity of airborne fentanyl can cause overdose is one frequently circulated by [cops]…
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