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Posts Tagged ‘drivers’

You want next, dude?  –  cop, identity hidden by State, to teen

Although this video is two years old, I had never seen it before Radley Balko recently tweeted it, and it was much too clever, funny, and British to pass up.  The links above it were provided by The Onion, Cop Crisis (x4), C.J. Ciaramella, and Mistress Matisse, in that order.

From the Archives

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Expanding the definition of human trafficker means more convictions, which…means huge “increases” in…trafficking numbers that authorities can point to in order to further justify expanding the police state.  –  Elizabeth N. Brown

Buried Truth

I think we have enough evidence to start calling this “McNeill’s Law”:

Believers in the…QAnon [outgrowth of the popular “sex trafficking” moral panic] are always on the hunt for the powerful pedophiles they imagine run the world…but…court records reveal that QAnon leader Phil Godlewski has a criminal past of his own involving an inappropriate relationship with a minor that [apparently] turned sexual.  Thanks to an ill-conceived defamation lawsuit against a local newspaper, Godlewski has put his conspiracy-theory career at risk by inadvertently prompting the release of more details regarding his case, including lurid text messages and a video of his erect penis.  Perhaps worse…Godlewski has [apparently] been caught both committing perjury himself and attempting to convince his own victim to do the same to ensure a “financial windfall” for them both…

Innocence Never Had

Most states are trying to distance themselves from the most wackadoodle aspects of “sex trafficking”” mythology, but Florida prefers to take the facts about one of the few situations in which young girls really are in increased danger of sexual exploitation – the foster care system – and view it through the bizarrely-distorted lens of a dying moral panic.  If you’ve got a little time, read these concise comments I made about the topic a few years ago, and then try this outlandish fantasy of “neighborhood sex traffickers” “prowling the area” to abduct unwary 12-year-olds by the thousands without anyone at all noticing.  Though I hesitate to ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence, this reads like an attempt to exploit the plight of young people dramatically failed by the government into a narrative that can be used to advance a specific political agenda for that same government.

All-Purpose Excuse

Anything can be “trafficking” if you use your imagination:

…The U.K…[is] using its Modern Slavery Act to target anyone who employs a minor in the drug trade…[Glodi] Wabelua was the first drug dealer to be prosecuted under the U.K.’s Modern Slavery Act, but not the last…most of the defendants in drug-related [“modern] slavery[“] cases were Black men under 21.  Many, if not all, were only one rung removed from the streets themselves”…Laws targeting prostitution and low-level drug crimes may seem overly punitive to you and me, but for many authoritarians these punishments don’t go far enough.  By ratcheting up the charges to human trafficking or modern slavery, officials can subject sex workers and drug dealers to much longer periods of incarceration, larger fines, and more stringent restrictions on movement, employment, free association, free speech, and privacy…

To Molest and Rape

To cops, the most important factor is whether a rapist crony was wearing his magical clown costume at the time:

[A typical and representative] New York [cop named]…Kristofor O’Rourke [has finally been arrested for a sexual assault he committed]…on July 1…he…[accused] a woman [of]…driving while intoxicated and then…oral[ly raped her after]…threatening to take her to jail if she didn’t comply…[after the victim registered her] complaint…O’Rourke was immediately [rewarded with a paid vacation]…

Panopticon (#1203)

It’s only one step from “all commercial vehicles” to “all vehicles”:

The Department of Transportation is considering a disturbing new rule that could force every commercial motor vehicle to install an electronic device that would wirelessly transmit location data and other personal information to police on demand…[DoT] offers no reason to believe the warrantless collection of identifying information will make anyone safer.  It might make some inspectors’ jobs easier, but that is no reason to override the rights of truck owners and operators.  One might as well call for putting us all in ankle monitors, just because it might reduce crime if the cops know where everyone is all the time.  The Fourth Amendment requires the government to get a warrant before encroaching into private space to gather information…The Supreme Court has ruled that police must get a warrant—regardless of whether the subject of a search has a reasonable expectation of privacy—before they physically install a tracking device.  The rule is no different just because the government forces people to purchase and install the tracking device on their own property…

Opting Out (#1261) 

The UK’s decade-long campaign to censor the internet continues to be a comedy of errors:

Britain will not force tech giants to remove content that is “legal but harmful” from their platforms after campaigners [convinced a few influential politicians]…that the move could curtail free speech…Online safety laws would instead focus on the [nebulous goal of] protection of children and on ensuring companies removed content that was illegal or prohibited in their terms of service…[but spokesbureaucrats] would not specify what legal content should be censored…

The Cop Myth (#1281)

“Law enforcement worker” is a new low in trying to hide the fact that a violent criminal is a cop:

A Virginia [cop drove to California]…murdered the mother and grandparents of a teenage girl he catfished online, [then tried to burn down their house] before trying to [abduct]…the teen…[neighbors] called…the…[cops when they witn]essed…the [abduction and saw the]…fire…The Riverside Fire Department …discovered [the] three [murder] victims…[while] the [violently-deranged cop,] Austin Lee Edwards…[fled] through San Bernardino County…before being fatally shot by…[sheriff’s] deput[ies.  Luckily the girl was unharmed]…The slain family members were identified as 69-year-old Mark Winek, his wife 65-year-old Sharie Winek, and their daughter, 38-year-old Brooke Winek…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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You’re not even trying!  –  cop, to paralyzed man

Here’s another song from my youth that just popped into my head recently.  The band, Sweet, was very popular in the ’70s but for some reason seems to have largely faded from popular memory.  The links above the video were provided by Emma Camp, Jesse Walker (x2), Franklin Harris, Scott Hechinger, Justin Amash, and Clarissa, in that order.

From the Archives

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You’re lucky I don’t get out of this car and beat your ass.  –  Ronald Serpico

Though to my adult ear this song is terribly silly, I quite liked it when it came out.  Of course I was just a child at the time, and it appealed to my dyed-in-the-wool lack of respect for authority and my growing rebelliousness.  And since C.W. McCall didn’t exactly have a string of hits, here we are.  The links above it were provided by ClarissaFranklin Harris, Cop Crisis, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Cop Crisis again (x2), and Tim Cushing, in that order.

From the Archives

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Eradicating harm—[as now] redefined—may only amount to performance art, in which the semblance of action is all that is needed.  –  Eric Smith

Crying Wolf

This tendency has only worsened over the past decade:

The standard definition of harm has undergone concept creep…Where once the potential for harm existed in contact sports, accidents, physical altercations, traumas and so on, one might now find it while reading a question on an examlistening to a recorded debate in a classroom or encountering an opinion on social media…the broadening meaning of harm…can cause activists to spend so much time on relatively innocuous actions that they have none left for the arduous task of dealing with real societal harms like housing and food insecurity, failed educational institutions, violence in inner cities and disproportionate mortality rates…Defining harm as shallowly as many modern activists do leads them to mistake symbolic gestures for concrete strategies for change…the redefinition of harm [also] infantilizes people of color…I don’t think a world in which people of color give their power away so easily is one any self-respecting person of color would want to see…

Checklist (#986)

Your periodic reminder that Uber encourages its drivers to spy on riders and rat sex workers out to the pigs:

Uber…hire[s former pigs and spooks]…to help police catch suspected [sex worker]s…[by turning over their] uploaded information…[and] account identifiers…to…the…[pigs, referring to sex work as] human trafficking [equal to] carjackings…Uber works with the [rescue industry giant] “Polaris”…[to indoctrinate] Uber drivers [with absurd and overbroad “signs of] human trafficking[“]…

A Moral Cancer (#991)

It’s unusual for prohibitionists to admit they’re openly targeting black people:

[Prohibitionist] groups are applying…pressure on the Biden administration to institute a nationwide ban…o[n] menthol cigarettes and other flavored tobacco products…precisely because of [their] popularity with African Americans…[even if] the law [is only] enforced against sellers…entrepreneurs would still have ready access to both cigarettes and menthol flavoring…[and] combin[ing] the two…[is a fairly simple] process…Unless the federal government attempts to turn menthol itself into a controlled substance, there will surely be many small-time sellers of menthol cigarettes meeting the demand of the millions of Americans who smoke them, including at least 77 percent of black smokers, but possibly as high as 88 percent (and around a quarter of white smokers)…Recall that Eric Garner’s [murderer used]…the petty crime of selling loose cigarettes a[s an excuse, and]…Garner’s mother, Gwendolyn Carr, became a vocal opponent of a proposal to ban menthol cigarettes in New York City [as a result]…in Massachusetts, which banned menthol cigarettes in 2020, at least one [black market]  seller is facing prosecution…the brunt of enforcement [will certainly] be borne by [black] people…

This is, unfortunately, par for the course; “progressive” campaigns to “improve” people against their will always ignore the fact that their moralistic crusades always disproportionately harm minorities, especially black people.

You Were Warned (#1108)

Prohibitionists, censors and profiteers will continue to harass businesses thus until FOSTA is overturned:

A woman has sued Reddit [because] ex-boyfriend…repeatedly post[ed nude] images of her as a 16-year-old.  The lawsuit applies controversial measures instituted in 2018 under FOSTA-SESTA…The resulting case will test the limits of platforms’ legal shields amid ongoing efforts to [destroy] the law behind them.  The woman…[claims] that “Reddit knowingly benefits from lax enforcement of its content polices, including for child pornography”…She’s accusing Reddit of distributing child pornography, failing to report child sexual abuse material, and violating the Trafficking Victims Protection Act…

The Widening Gyre (#1128)

It’s ironic that the newest target of “sex trafficking” scarelore is Target:

A…Reddit…user…who writes under the username Peeky-Lou…[and is so obsessed with] human trafficking…[fantasies that] she…[carries “]several legal self-defense items[” to go shopping at Target predictably imagined that]…three men…[in the store were] follow[ing her]…“It felt as if I was being surrounded like a wild animal —hunted, even,” she wrote…The…[nitwit spent] an hour…wandering around the store, [scaring herself silly with melodramatic fantasies of]…“darkness in his eyes…an eerie smirk [and]…sinister gaze”…[when] a male employee…walk[ed] her to her car…[she] saw [something that]… “solidif[ied] all of my suspicions…A white windowless van was parked in the lot“…

To Molest and Rape (#1129)

Rapist cops are sometimes treated like other rapists if their victims are prepubescent:

A [typical and representative] Louisiana [cop] has been sentenced to life in prison for raping and sexually assaulting three girls, all less than 11 years old…David Monceaux [was sentenced] to…two life terms and a 50-year sentence consecutively…without probation, parole, or suspension of sentence…his youngest victim was 4 years old…

Predictable Consequences (#1130)

Prohibitionism is an inherently violent belief system:

A mansion owned by Feras Antoon, a Pornhub executive, was torched in an apparent arson last [week].  Police…were initially called to [the Montreal] property…at 11:30 P.M when two people were spotted trespassing…when [they] arrived…shortly thereafter they found…a…fire…so massive that more than 80 firefighters were called in and the neighbours were forced to evacuate…

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There’s no public safety value in prosecuting these low-level offenses.  –  Marilyn Mosby

Policing Womanhood

Scratch a SWERF, find a TERF:

In a t[oxic] essay for the [carceral] feminist website 4W, Donna M Hughes wrote that the “belief” that a person could change their gender was a “trans-sex fantasy”.  She went on to equate followers of QAnon, [the latest form of the “sex trafficking”] web of lies that [Hughes vigorously supports]…to people whose gender identity differs from the sex they were given at birth…Her inflammatory comments were called “beyond the pale” by Annie Russell, the director of the [University of Rhode Island]’s Gender and Sexuality Center…Russell said the diatribe had also angered students at the university, which [also employs Hughes as a tenured professor]…The University…put out a statement distancing itself from Hughes’s comments…In response Hughes said her right to free speech was being trampled [even though she was neither fired, nor censored, nor arrested as she wants others to be]…

For those who don’t recall: Hughes considers herself a political conservative and was the architect of recriminalizing sex work in Rhode Island in 2009.

A Tale That Grew in the Telling (#845) 

I haven’t seen this once-popular fantasy since 2018:

A recent 60 Minutes+ episode cites a dubious claim that “up to 100,000” children are sex-trafficked in the U.S. each year…the inimitable Maggie McNeill once wrote that there are “lies, damn lies and sex trafficking statistics.” Now 60 Minutes+, a streaming version of the venerable news program, is helping to make McNeill’s point by highlighting an oft-debunked sex trafficking factoid…in the show’s March 21 episode, “Taking Facebook to Court”…

Social Distancing (#1025)

When this was announced a year ago, prohibitionists claimed it would be a disaster:

…[When] the coronavirus pandemic hit…State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby announced that [Baltimore] would no longer prosecute drug possession, prostitution, trespassing and other minor charges, to keep people out of jail and limit the spread of the deadly virus.  And then crime went down in Baltimore.  A lot…This happened while 39 percent fewer people entered the city’s criminal justice system in the one-year period, and 20 percent fewer people landed in jail after Mosby’s office dismissed more than 1,400 pending cases and tossed out more than 1,400 warrants…So…Mosby is making her temporary steps permanent …Baltimore…will continue to decline prosecution of all drug possession, prostitution, minor traffic and misdemeanor cases, and will partner with a local behavioral health service to aggressively reach out to drug users, sex workers and people in psychiatric crisis to direct them into treatment rather than the back of a patrol car…

Let’s hope this “aggressively reaching out” doesn’t involve surveillance or “diversion”, which is just another form of state control.  But in any case, this is becoming a trend.

Welcome to the Future (#1107)

Everything I read about modern corporate work makes me happier I became a whore:

Amazon delivery drivers nationwide have to sign a “biometric consent” form…that grants the tech behemoth permission to [monitor]…drivers’ location, movement, and biometric data.  If the…drivers…refuse to sign these forms, they lose their jobs.  The…[surveillance includ]es…facial recognition…The company [claims the surveillance is] being used to improve “safety” and the “quality of the delivery experience.”  But…some drivers are quitting their jobs…because…the [surveillance device even records]…when a driver yawns, appears distracted, or isn’t wearing a seatbelt…and monitor[s] drivers’ body and facial movements…

Torture Chamber (#1122)

If only there were a concise word for “systematically forced to have sex”:

The [murder] of a 19-year-old woman [by] Venezuela[n] police [in a] holding cell has revealed that women in the jail were being systematically forced to have sex with [cops]…On March 13, Daniela Geraldine Figueredo Salazar died from [being]…shot [in] the face…by [a cop]…several of her fellow [prisoners] reported [to investigating officials] that they were being [systematically raped]…the…abuse was being coordinated by a [typical and representative cop] who is also currently jailed…This is not the first [time news] of sexual violence [has leaked out of] the country’s [filthy cage stacks]…In 2018, it was reported that women in Venezuelan prisons were being forced to [submit to rape] in order to be released for court hearings…in 2019, a report by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights pointed to…various forms of sexual violence [committed by cops, screws and spooks]…

You Were Warned (#1124)

Cathy Reisenwitz examines a power-hungry politician’s lies about the internet:

…The SAFE TECH Act would…hold companies liable for their users’ behavior…[an]d force small websites to spend $1 million or more…to prove to courts that users aren’t causing any one of nine new types of broad, ill-defined harm…Only the wealthiest, most powerful companies would be able to afford setting their own content moderation policies.  Everyone else would run the real risk of being sued into oblivion by wealthy people who don’t like what people are saying about them online…Like SESTA/FOSTA, the SAFE TECH Act would make it easier for those in power to stifle unpopular speech across the web.  It would strip away Section 230 protections for any web service that “has accepted payment to make the speech available.”  While many believe the law applies only to paid advertising, it’s written so broadly that it would apply to all content on any platform where money changes hands, including…all paid web hosting and even nonprofits or activist groups that sell merch or accept donations…

Predictable Consequences (#1124)

My friend Kate Zen, cofounder of Red Canary Song:

While it’s easy to repudiate th[e Atlanta shooter]’s actions as that of a monster, he isn’t alone in his views.  Many Americans feel only disdain toward these businesses, and have little respect for the women who work there…On Piedmont Road in Atlanta, where Long shot customers and workers at Gold Spa and Aroma Therapy Spa, church groups previously gathered to protest this so-called red-light district, demanding the shutdown of the sex shop across the street…many Asian street-based sex workers…in [Red Canary Song’s] outreach said some of the religious anti-trafficking groups…can be even more hurtful than the pedestrians who call them names…[besides] collaborat[ing] with police…[one said] they were “nagging her and wasting her time” when she needed to work…Long’s extreme actions are a consequence of the way we treat all sexuality in society…and…the people who are tasked with undoing the harms are often infected by the same dangerous ideas…

Dr. Elena Shih also works with Red Canary Song:

…anti-trafficking organizations…have [repeatedly] called for the increased surveillance and policing of massage businesses, and the result has been hundreds of raids across the country which have terrorized and criminalized massage workers.  These systemic forms of violence cannot be divorced from the brutal killings of massage parlor workers in the Atlanta area on March 16…When my colleagues and I talk to Asian massage workers, they often share stories of [cops] entering their workplaces at random under the guise of stopping sex trafficking.  When they don’t find any evidence of wrongdoing, they demand to see massage licenses.  Workers tell us they are frequently arrested if they don’t produce a license, or are hit with building code or public health violations.  Those who are arrested are often funneled through special courts and programs where workers, seen as morally flawed and traumatized victims, are offered programming framed as rehabilitation…[including] everything from religious proselytization to “recovery-focused yoga” to unpaid labor, when what they really need is economic security…

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Ever wonder why so many men have bought into the “sex trafficking” fantasy?  Part of it, as I’ve discussed before, is that insecure men need to believe that men are the ones in control of the sexual sphere.  But if that were all of it, they’d content themselves with merely believing in it; why do so many of them feel it’s their sacred duty to keep women from earning an income?  I don’t just mean cops and politicians, either; one of the most vociferously-awful groups of busybodies is made up of men who drive vehicles for a living, especially large trucks.  Take this recent article from NBC Yellow about “Truckers Against Trafficking”, a circle-jerk of prudish teamsters whose “sex trafficking” propaganda is some of the most blatantly derived from sexual fantasy in the entire rescue industry.  The lede breathlessly informs us that “traffickers often exploit the transportation system to move their victims“; presumably before reading this, Americans believed sex workers got around by dirigible, log raft, howdah, broomstick and astral projection.  But I’ll save you the trouble of reading the rest:  it’s yet another restatement of the silly fantasy that marginalized sex workers who frequent truck stops are part of some huge international criminal cartel out of frustrated wannabes’ sexual fantasies.  Immature men who want to be “heroes” without putting in the work and brainpower necessary to become, say, defense lawyers or medical researchers, instead console their pathetic fee-fees by becoming cops or by calling the cops on women who dare to try to make a living outside of kitchens, sweatshops, elementary schools or secretarial pools.  All authoritarian societies must control women in order to control the future, and men in the middle or lower parts of the social pyramid are told they are “heroes” by helping to keep women In Our Place.  And so belonging to “Truckers Against Trafficking” is an all-around win for them:  they get to belong to something bigger than themselves; to enjoy the dual fantasy that they are “heroes” and women helpless, passive “victims” who are too stupid to even come up with a simple business plan like “hawk your wares where there are buyers”; and to turn those fucking bitches in to the pigs for daring to charge their heroic selves for something they think they’re entitled to for free.

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Coming after the client means they’re coming after…the person who pays my bills.  –  Kristen Cain

Rough Trade

Tara Burns on the, “But she’s a whore!” defense for rape:

In 2019, a Fairbanks District Attorney offered a generous plea – 5 years of actual time, amounting to little more than time served – to a man charged with kidnapping and [raping] a minor…[because] he claimed his underaged victim was a prostitute…Winfred Hipp…the victim and her father…were headed to a BBQ, but the father had a stop to make first. Mr. Hipp dropped the father off and…took [the girl] to his apartment…and [raped] her while she was saying no…Hipp [at first used] a condom, but then he took it off and continued [raping] her.  When the victim’s father arrived at the BBQ and realized his daughter wasn’t there, he went to Hipp’s apartment, where he could hear his daughter being raped through the door.  Hipp stopped when the father almost broke the door down…His semen was found inside her and in a condom found on his bedroom floor which also had the victim’s DNA on the outside of it.  At his sentencing, he [claimed] he’d been raped and robbed by the victim…The plea deal…came after the minor victim was labeled “difficult” and a prostitute by the prosecutor…

Surplus Women

Sex workers cannot cure violent misogyny:

Marylène Lévesque, a 22-year-old sex worker employed by a Quebec City massage parlour, was murdered by…Eustachio Gallese…[who was out on parole from a life sentence for the] 2006…[murder] of his girlfriend…Chantale Deschenes…[who was] savagely beaten to death with a hammer and repeatedly stabbed.  Gallese then took the time to scribble [“whore” multiple times]…on the bedroom wall before turning himself in to police…He already had a history of…violence with a previous partner in 1997.  Even though the Parole Board initially found that he posed “a high risk of violence,” they later inexplicably changed that to a “moderate risk” and…out on day parole since March of 2019.  While out, he was [officially given permission]…to see sex workers…[despite his] history of misogyny, rage and extreme physical violence against women…No one bothered to inform this young woman, or the massage parlour she worked at, that he was extremely dangerous and posed a risk to her life…

But please, clients, keep telling us about how you don’t need to be screened because you’re “taking a risk, too”.

If Men Were Angels

“The crime was sexually motivated”.  No shit, really?

A priest…admitted to holding a teen captive in a church janitor’s closet…Brian Stanley was sentenced to 60 days in jail with credit for two days served.  He will also serve five years probation and must register as a sex offender for 15 years.  Stanley was charged in August for the 2013 incident that happened at St. Margaret’s Church in Otsego [Michigan]…he bound the teen boy in plastic wrap and masking tape, also covering his eyes and mouth with tape…then left [him] alone in the closet for over an hour before freeing him.  The state Attorney General’s Office…said the crime was sexually motivated…

Count the Idiocies

The verbal equivalent of vomiting up gallons of toxic diarrhea:

A forum on human trafficking…featur[ed]…keynote speaker Ohio [politician] Teresa Fedor…“Poverty drives and fuels trafficking1.  When…you want to control the victims, you drug them2…the estimated U.S. share of the $99 billion worldwide industry is between $10 to $15 billion3…Research she has found shows that runaways are “harvested” by traffickers within 24 hours4…she is working to change the laws to prosecute those doing the “selling of the bodies”5…“Those buying rape can no longer hide their actions”6…modern slavery…needs to be tackled like it was in 18657”…”I knew I had to build a movement, because I’m a Democrat8,” Fedor said…

1It’s hard to imagine a clearer indicator that by “sex trafficking” she actually means “sex work”.
2It’s been a while since we’ve seen the magical pimp mind-control philter.
3The US share of this made-up number is a smaller made-up number, both of which disagree with other made-up numbers from other prohibitionists“.
4Down from the usual claim of 48 hours, but up from Seattle’s claim of 45 minutes.
5Usually, they at least pretend to recognize we have minds.
6The “paid rape” trope is one of the ugliest elements of prohibitionist dogma.
7The fact that prohibitionists can’t see how loathsome it is to invoke historical black slavery to promote a system which gives more power to cops is a sign of their dyed-in-th-wool racism.
8WTF?

Welcome to the Future (#916)

Don’t be fooled by this “shutdown”; it’ll soon be back in an even-worse form:

In 2012, Chicago PD collaborated with the RAND Corporation and the Illinois Institute of Technology to automatically generate “risk scores” for people they arrested, which were supposed to predict the likelihood that the person would be a “party to violence” in the future (this program was called “TRAP” — Targeted Repeat-Offender Apprehension Program” — seemingly without a shred of irony).  Now, that program has been shut down, and the City of Chicago’s Office of the Inspector General has published a damning report on…ways in which the program discriminated against the people ensnared in it, without reducing violent crime…people…assigned high risk scores…were subjected to “enhanced prosecutions”…and…your TRAP score went up even if were acquitted or had your case dismissed…

Loose Cannons (#947)

“Sex trafficking” hysteria’s impending collapse has been helped along by the excesses of Florida “authorities”:

On January 23, the Hillsborough County sheriff’s office announced the completion of “two undercover human trafficking operations”…[Sheriff Chad] Chronister, who was elected in 2018, has pledged to make policing [consensual adult sex] a priority, and said that the stings are going to continue…”until human [sexuality] is stopped”…An anti-trafficking operation in early 2019 by a slew of Florida law enforcement agencies…yielded similar results: busts of massage parlors, arrests for solicitation…but no trafficking charges…That hasn’t stopped prosecutors, however, from claiming [without evidence]…that “[state prying into people’s private sex lives] often yield evidence of more serious crimes”…Chronister has also [vomited out fascist poison that “citizens]…must always be held accountable [to the state]”…

Checklist (#986)

They’re trying to cut off sex worker access to travel worldwide:

Thousands of tuk-tuk drivers in Cambodia are to [be indoctrinated]…in [anti-sex worker propaganda]…under a [scheme] by the ride-hailing app Grab to tr[ick] drivers [in]to [becoming police informants]…Grab [will indoctrinate]…10,000 drivers in…Phnom Penh this month, as it launches a [scheme] it plans eventually to extend to millions of its drivers in Asia…Cambodia’s…a…[favorite venue for racist “saviors” like] the Walk Free Foundation [to claim as a “hotbed”] of…[“slavery”, which is invariably described]…as rising despite [a number of studies showing exactly the opposite]…Sean Sok Phay…[of] Child Helpline [said]…”We want to remove any barriers that stop [us] from [profiting from hysteria]”…

Business As Usual (#988)

What kind of sick mind thinks the way to “build trust” with women is to hunt, rape and cage them?

Jennifer Knight…[is a sow charged with inventing propaganda to infantilize sex workers as a cover-up for the horrendous abuses committed by the Columbus, Ohio vice gang]…“I want them to associate the [rapist]’s uniform with someone who cares [enough to rape and humiliate them]” Knight says…It’s been a few months since…Columbus…[rebrand]ed their [vice gang with the Orwellian name]…Police and Community Together team, or PACT…[which] looks to…use “sex trafficking” and “end demand” propaganda when inflict]ing [violence on sex workers through]…increasing arrests…“One of the things we do in the secure staging area, after we [molest] them and [put them permanently into a criminal database]…is…give the [cops’ victims] a sack lunch provided by the Salvation Army…Knight [brags that] they expect to [deceive, rape and abduct] even more women as their [pogroms] ramp up…“we remove them from [freedom] and remove them from their [income]” Knight says. “At least giving ourselves a window of opportunity to [brainwash them in]”…CATCH Court…The months-long suspension of the [rape squad]…had a ripple effect on [those who profit from women being forced into their “re-education” scheme]…

Torture Chamber (#999)

“Give me your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, so I can lock them in dungeons”:

…ICE…released a new version of its National Detention Standards…which…has removed even basic, minimal safeguards necessary for adequate medical care…and…further weakens protections for [caged] immigrant[s] against the use of force and solitary confinement by [screws]…ICE no longer requires that…toilets [have] modesty panels, and removes [any minimum] ratios for the number of toilets per detainee.  ICE has removed language requiring…outdoor recreation facilities, meaning…detainees could be [locked in cages] for months or even years without time outdoors as they wait for their cases to be heard…

Panopticon (#1001)

The “security” system that isn’t:

…An investigation by EFF of the Ring doorbell app for Android found it to be packed with third-party trackers sending out a plethora of customers’ personally identifiable information…analytics and tracking companies are able to combine these bits together to form…a fingerprint that follows the user…providing trackers the ability to spy on what a user is doing in their digital lives and when they are doing it…without…user…consent…Ring has exhibited a pattern of behavior that attempts to mitigate exposure to criticism and scrutiny…by leveraging an image of the secure home, while profiting from a surveillance network which facilitates police departments’…access into the private lives of citizens…not only does Ring mismanage consumer data, but it also intentionally hands over that data to trackers and data miners…

I Spy (#1002) 

The US is following in the footsteps of China:

New students at the University of Missouri will be [forced] to participate in a tracking program designed to measure and enforce class attendance…officials [absurdly] defended the [privacy violation] as one to…benefit…students…Individual professors have to opt-in to using the app, but once they do, students in those professors’ classes will not be able to opt-out.  SpotterEDU, developed by a former basketball coach, is designed to monitor a user’s attendance by “pinpoint[ing] students within a classroom until they leave”…[sales propaganda] claims it does not track students’ locations anywhere else…[but] the app is [fully]…capable of tracking students’ locations outside the classroom…

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The harmful idea that women are naturally sexually ignorant…has been the basis for repressive laws throughout history.  –  Hallie Lieberman

The Notorious Badge

It’s good to see more writers criticizing insulting hooker tropes in movies:

Working Girls, which has the more connotative and ironic title Filles de joie in French…is…an honest, if sometimes strident, three-way portrait which gains much from its deft juggling of character arcs…Axelle (Sara Forestier), Conso (Annabelle Lengronne) and Dominique (Noémie Lvovsky)…live in France…but…travel…each day across the border to Belgium to work in a legal brothel…Wisely, Working Girls is markedly more interested in which goes on in the living room than in the bedrooms.  However…it’s a pity that a screenplay which deals with the everyday life of prostitutes struggles to find anything for them to talk about together other than sex…

Skewed By Taboo

The majority of self-reports about sexual accidents are lies:

An Arizona woman [claims]…she was…only using [her ultra-slim Vesper vibrator] on the outside of her body…[when suddenly] “out of nowhere I just felt a really sharp pain”…[and] the vibrator was nowhere to be found…But…she could still feel it…“emergency room staff wasn’t able to find it in the vagina,” said OBGYN Dr. Greg Marchand…he found on the x-ray [that the]…“device [wa]s actually in the bladder”…They had to surgically remove it.  The woman plans on filing a lawsuit against the company for lack of warning on the label that [you might lose it if you shove it up your urethra]…

There are many people who enjoy shoving things into their urethras, but because our puritanical culture would judge it “perverted” and “bad”, she can’t admit what happened, even to the doctor; instead she told this silly story about how the vibrator just leapt out of her hand and went all the way up into her bladder like some kinky guided missile.  If you know any emergency room doctor or nurse, ask them sometime about how many people “accidentally” sit on things while naked and can’t retrieve them from the rectum.

Nothing New

Five years ago I wrote that the ridiculous myth that Victorian doctors invented female masturbation and didn’t know what a female orgasm looked like “is so incredibly recent I never heard of it during any of my extensive sexological reading in my teens and twenties; it seems to date to the nineties at the earliest.”  Well, if sexologist Hallie Lieberman is correct, we’ve now got a date for the birth of this idiocy:  “…The myth can be traced to Rachel Maines’s 1999 book Technology of Orgasm…[which] seemed like a well-researched scholarly book, with 465 citations and a plethora of primary sources, some in Greek and Latin; the problem is that none of them actually supported this story…

Traffic in Nonsense (#917)

The “sex trafficking” propaganda from these fetishists is some of the most blatantly derived from sexual fantasy in the entire rescue industry:

Workers at the UPS Atlanta Regional Hub…[were indoctrinated in how to fantasize that all women they see are] potential cases of sex trafficking…UPS had already [indoctrinated] its freight drivers on how to [imagine everything as] signs of sex trafficking.  Now they’re [indoctrinating] the drivers who actually go into neighborhoods…[with propaganda provided by] the organization Truckers Against Trafficking. [Head propagandist]  Helen Van Dam…[is] counting on the ignorance of the general public [about sex work to infantilize all]…prostitute[s as]…victim[s of]…sex slavery.  Van Dam [shared silly, juvenile sexual fantasies about]…“branding” tattoos on victims

On the Simultaneous Having and Eating of Cake (#919)

In the current anti-whore climate, this was a wholly predictable development:

Soldiers of Pole, a Los Angeles-based group of dancers who are working to unionize their colleagues statewide, [feels]…the reclassification of dancers as employees marks a positive shift in the industry.  As employees, strippers will have the ability to bargain collectively, which they didn’t have as independent contractors.  But it’s also led to pushback from strip club owners.  AM Davies, a board member of the group, said club owners have been “making dancers sign very illegal contracts under duress” and charging exorbitant house fees, which “in and of itself is a union busting tactic.”  Davies cited a strip club in Orange County, the Library Gentleman’s Club, that tripled the amount they charge dancers to work, increasing the fee from $65 to $200 practically overnight…“So…it makes it look like, to the dancers, that being an employee is worse — because the clubs are implementing even more illegal practices”…she said…

Pyrrhic Victory (#939)

All Londoners are now part of a perpetual police lineup:

The Metropolitan Police…announced [that] on Friday, 24 January…it…beg[a]n the operational use of Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology…This will help [cops harass many more people than before, especially minorities]…The technology…provides [cops] with an additional tool to assist them in doing what [cops] have always done – to try to [root like pigs in things that don’t actually concern them and lock as many human beings as possible in filthy cages]…

To Molest and Rape (#966)

Not much of a sentence for attempted kidnapping & rape:

A[n attempted abduction for the purpose of rape netted a mere] 4 1/2-year prison sentence [for] a [typical and representative] Cleveland [cop] who admitted to urinating on a 12-year-old girl [while filming it with his cell phone] after she refused to [submit to abduction from] a school bus stop.  Solomon Nhiwatiwa [vomited out the usual prescribed platitudes containing the words]…”apologize” [and]…”responsibility”…Nhiwatiwa…[was] disciplined four times in his five years [as a cop and had murdered someone]…in 2012 before he joined the force…

Disaster (#975)

Good news about the FOSTA challenge:

…the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals revived Woodhull‘s challenge to FOSTA.  The court ordered that the constitutional challenge be sent back to the district court for a ruling on the merits…The decision can be found here

In plain English, the district judge dismissed the case under the pretense that FOSTA’s chilling effect was imaginary and the litigants had nothing to fear from malicious prosecution; the circuit court said “bullshit” and ordered the district judge to do his fucking job and actually consider the case.

Fair-Weather Friends (#977)

Imagine keeping your job for 18 months between a blatant offense and actually being fired for it:

Two vice [pigs] were fired on [January 23rd] by the city of Columbus, Ohio, for their role in the wrongful arrest of…Stormy Daniels…in [July] 2018…that a lawyer for Ms. Daniels said was the result of a “conspiracy of dunces”…Steven Rosser and Whitney Lancaster, were found to have…[cost the city] $450,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by Ms. Daniels.  It also [reb[r]anded the [corrupt] vice [gang] [to allow cops to continue raping sex workers]…Two other [pigs]…Ronald Kemmerling and…Scott Soha, were [rewarded with paid vacations]…

To Molest and Rape (#978)

Prince George’s County, Maryland is well-known for rapist cops:

A [typical and representative Prince George’s County], Maryland, [cop]…rap[ed] a woman [during] a traffic stop last year…knowing he had HIV…Martique Vanderpool was indicted by a grand jury on 11 counts, including first- and second-degree rape …“These are [very typical cop behaviors]”…Prince George’s County police Chief Hank Stawinski [would have said if he were honest]…

If It Were Legal (#988)

While stigma and criminalization exist, this will keep happening:

More than 11,000 identifying documents of…sex workers for the adult website SextPanther were reportedly exposed in a security lapse.  Passports, driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers used to verify models’ ages [to comply with US government requirements] were stored on an Amazon Web Services storage bucket that wasn’t protected by a password…a representative for the company [tweeted]…”at this time there is no evidence of [SextPanther] data being accessed with the exception of the security firm that found the exploit and informed the media.  The vulnerability was fixed within one hour of being notified”…A similar security lapse of sex worker information on adult webcam…site PussyCash was discovered on Jan. 3…In August, adult site Luscious exposed the data of over 1 million users…

Websites ask for all this sensitive information to cover their arses if raided by the pigs; they wouldn’t bother with it if not for increased criminalization and persecution of sex workers.

Dark Corners (#997)

More “truth” from the rag that claimed there were more Vietnamese “trafficking victims” in the UK than there are Vietnamese people of all kinds:

…lack of [fluency in] English…is one of the [so-called] warning flags that…put[s nail salons]…on a list…for possible [immigration raids excused by bogus]…human trafficking charges…[reasonably] price[d] nail bars have become a cornerstone of the high street, flourishing as [overpriced] shops [run by white people] close. In the past 20 years, manicures have gone from being an extravagant luxury mostly enjoyed by a moneyed elite to an affordable treat, easily accessible to everyone [so naturally something must be done to teach the peasants that nice-looking hands are only for the ruling class]…it is very hard to link such an innocuous service with such serious crimes [but UK cops and yellow journalists aren’t going to let that little detail get in the way]…

Keep in mind that despite many huge and expensive raids, the UK has never found more than a single-digit number of cases of genuine exploitation; these are actually just immigration raids cloaked under the pretense of “rescue”.  Also note that despite a failed attempt by the arch-prohibitionist New York Times to establish the racist “nail salon slaves” myth here in the US, it remains a distinctly English classist fantasy, like “pop-up brothels“.

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[We’re] stuck with one narrative that hasn’t changed since Jack the Ripper’s victims were found.  –  Phoenix Calida

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Funny how many cops who are willing to pay prefer underage girls:

…a [typical and representative] New Market [Tennessee cop]…is back in jail…Joseph Ray Miller…tried to solicit an underage girl for sex on more than one occasion….[he] was…initially arrested…on May 3…[for talking to a disguised cop he apparently thought could arrange for him] to engage in sexual activity with a female under the age of 13…

Watershed

CosmopolitanGlamourTeen Vogue and now Allure…it’s so heartening to see so many women’s fashion & beauty magazines recognizing that they owe their very existence to whores, and speaking up:

…The physical demands of being a [sex] worker also mean taking care of yourself in new ways that may not be intuitive.  From icing bruised knees to carrying pepper spray, sex workers’ meticulous methods of self-care [are] further evidence that sex work is, in fact, work…For many researchers, it’s difficult to ethically study criminalized groups, a phenomenon that only serves to further marginalize sex workers…According to Phoenix Calida…patronizing assumptions…are harmful to folks in the industry who want their health concerns taken seriously.  Oftentimes, that means lying about their occupation during doctor’s visits.  “I did make the mistake of telling one of my doctors about [sex work],” she tells Allure. “I almost had child services called on me.”  The challenge of finding quality healthcare can also take a mental toll on sex workers…“It might be difficult to find a therapist, a counselor, or a medical professional who’s going to treat you seriously and respectfully”…

Policing for Profit

Cops will never stop doing this as long as the state keeps giving them pretexts:

…people traveling to California who[m cops pretend] smell like weed and are carrying large sums of cash…[are] regularly [being robbed by cops] at Fort Lauderdale International Airport…the Sheriff’s Office has [robbed]…19 individuals since 2016, all under [similar] circumstances…only three [of their victims]…were arrested for drug possession the same day they were stopped.  None have been charged with a drug-trafficking crime…the Broward County Sheriff’s Office has [stolen] $189,678 in this fashion…

Business As Usual

That this dude is being prosecuted now for the officially-sanctioned rape of a sex worker six years ago means he pissed off somebody well above his pay grade:

A…Fort Myers [Florida cop]…was arrested…on charges of soliciting prostitution, official misconduct and perjury related to a massage parlor sting that happened more than six years ago…Jay Rodriguez…[raped] a sex…[worker after deceiving her with official permission to do so] on March 14, 2013…[As he had been trained to do,] Rodriguez [then] “authored a falsified account of his actions during the operation…to affect [sic] the arrests of two women at the massage parlor”…Additionally, Rodriguez is accused of committing perjury when he was interviewed during an internal affairs investigation in January and said he had never [raped any women] while on duty…

Given that Florida is one of three states (along with Pennsylvania and Indiana) which routinely and aggressively defend cops’ “right” to rape women in order to destroy their lives, Rodriguez must’ve somehow crossed someone very important.

A Moral Cancer (#618) 

Authoritarian idiots respond to deaths from a black market product by dramatically expanding the black market:

The Trump administration said…it plans to ban the sale of non-tobacco-flavored electronic cigarettes [in response to several deaths from] vaping [black-market THC cartridges]…“The Trump Administration is making it clear that we intend to clear the market of flavored e-cigarettes [due to deaths from existing federal prohibition tof cannabis,” bloviated bureaucrat]…Alex Azar…The American Vaping Association said it was disappointed in the president’s decision to take direction from “anti-vaping activists,” such as [totalitarian fascist]…Michael Bloomberg…

Where Are the Protests? (#693) 

Another church running a fake “shelter” scam to exploit marginalized people:

A dozen leaders of a California-based [church] have been indicted by a federal grand jury, accused of forced labor of mostly homeless people…Imperial Valley Ministries leaders recruited [victims] by promising food and shelter, and instead forced them to beg for money for nine hours a day, six days a week and to give up their welfare benefits “for the financial benefit of the church leaders”…The ministry operates nondenominational churches and group homes in the United States and Mexico…church leaders kept victims inside [buildings] with deadbolt locks only they had keys to and confiscated IDs such as driver’s licenses, immigration papers and passports to prevent victims from escaping…Victims said they were isolated and closely watched…They were threatened with punishment for violating…rules, and…were told their children would be taken away from them if they left…Victims were refused basic and necessary medical attention…[such as] a diabetic who was refused insulin and even the food needed to control blood sugar levels…

End Demand (#962)

Mar Brettmann is a sleazy opportunist who will say anything to sell her anti-whore snake oil:

The King County Council is considering requiring [indoctrination] for Uber and Lyft drivers on [anti-sex worker propaganda]…“Because [sex workers] often [prefer not to deal with Seattle’s horrendous downtown parking situation]…they…[prefer to use] rideshare and taxi services in order to get around,” said Mar Brettmann, executive director of BEST – Businesses Ending Slavery and Trafficking.  Brettmann has [profited handsomely from mandated indoctrination]…for…hotel [employees]…and…saw a dramatic jump in the number of people who were [ratting sex workers out to the pigs rather than minding their own business like decent citizens]…

Unsafe for Human Consumption (#968)

Clownish cops pratfall over fentanyl hysteria, despite debunking by doctors:

On August 9, 2017, [a gang of Pittsburgh cops raided Anthony]…Lozito’s residence…[Because they rushed in like a pack of mindless animals, they overturned] a table…[hurling what cops called] large amounts of [fentanyl into the]…air…[18 pigs panicked like little girls so they] were sent to Mercy [Hospital] for [doctors to tell them that fentanyl is not an aerosol so their “symptoms” were those of a panic attack, not opioid exposure]…

Checklist (#971) 

Airlines:  are you sure you want to keep accepting liability for your employees racially profiling passengers due to the government propaganda you keep feeding them?

A white North Carolina man says Frontier Airlines staff falsely accused him of sex trafficking his 12-year-old adopted son, who is black…Peter DelVecchia is suing the airline and several workers…DelVecchia and his son were flying to Las Vegas in March when he was hit [on the head] by a crew member who accused him of trafficking the boy, who was [forcibly] moved to another seat…workers denied the boy’s requests to return to his seat, refusing to believe they were family…one worker also [molested the boy]…DelVecchia’s suing for discrimination and false imprisonment…

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