We simply lock up too many people in this country. – Leslie Soble
Drawing Lines (#516)
Authoritarians don’t give a damn if your kind of sex work is (temporarily) “legal”:
Within the past month, legal Nevada sex workers have experienced a massive and unprecedented wave of account suspensions on…Twitter…These are not accounts soliciting illegal activity of any kind. These are licensed workers…Prostitution is legal in Nevada when the practice takes place in a licensed brothel, as outlined in Nevada Revised Statutes 201.354…
When someone starts arguing that freedom of speech applies only to licensed legal whatevers, he can be safely ignored.
Spotlight (#1429) 
While I’m always glad to see “sex trafficking” profiteers fall, it’s a particular pleasure to watch it happen to Asstoon:
…Ashton Kutcher has now all but disappeared [from]…Hollywood[, not because]…of…his lucrative investments in [fascist surveillance] companies and [his vendetta against sex workers, but rather for having the wrong friends, a typical moral inversion for]…Hollywood…Now he’s pinning all his hopes on [a] new [and self-aggrandizing TV] series to put him back in…the spotlight[. That] will be no easy feat…because former fans have taken to scouring the internet for evidence of past…misdeeds [while ignoring the obvious but politically-unpopular ones]…
A Broker in Pillage (#1438)
There are many ways for governments to steal things that don’t belong to them:
…the 9th Circuit…[has] ruled…that an innocent man whose business was [maliciously and unnecessarily] destroyed by…LAPD…[to stage cop theater] is not entitled to compensation for damages under the Takings Clause…In August of 2022…LAPD launched more than 30 rounds of tear gas canisters through the walls, door, roof, and windows…[of Carlos] Pena[‘s print shop in pursuit of a man who was not there, leaving]…the inside ravaged and equipment ruined, [and] saddling him with over $60,000 in damages…Pena…repeatedly reached out to the government to recoup his losses…[but] the city ignored him. Pena, meanwhile, was hemorrhaging income, resigned to working out of his garage at a much-reduced capacity with a single printer he purchased after the raid…[but] the 9th Circuit…[ruled] that there is [a “fuck you, we’re cops” exception to the Takings Clause]…that doomed Pena’s claim…
The Vultures Descend (#1511)
Under a totalitarian regime, medical personnel cannot be trusted with personal information:
A Kentucky woman has been charged with [“]fetal homicide[“] after police…were contacted by a [snitch working for a] clinic…[whom Melinda] Spencer…[foolishly trusted with the information] that she [had used]…medication…to [have] an abortion…She then buried the [fetal remains] on the back of her property…
The Cop Myth (#1564) 
Cop deals with problems exactly as he was trained & encouraged to, and everyone is shocked:
[An] Atlanta [cop named]…Kevin Stroner…[murdered his girlfriend] Mariah Cardona, [then turned the gun on himself. The bodies were found on December 28th after a friend coming to visit saw the corpses through the window. His boss hogs decided to insult the victim by bragging about what a big hero Stroner was for killing women]…
It’s rare that coverage of cop violence is so bad only the names survive my edit, but there you are.
Shame, Shame (#1570)
A computer program cannot make a statement; it can only spew algorithmic output. This is like writing, “COVID says it is sorry for killing so many people”:
[An ignoramus “journalist” working for Reuters] said on Friday [that chatbots have minds and can be responsible for producing]…”images depicting minors in minimal clothing” on [Twitter]…Screenshots shared by [Twitter] users…showed [the MechaHitler-branded] media tab filled with images…[produced from] uploaded photos [by] the bot…Reuters [admits that it employs people so stupid they think interviewing a chatbot means something]…
Nor is Reuters the only news outlets infested with technologically-illiterate nitwits:
[When idiotically prompted for comment by supposed adults who apparently believe Teddy Ruxpin really was their special friend, MechaHitler produced algorithmic outputs including phrases like] “lapses in safeguards”…“urgently fixing”…and…“illegal and prohibited”…[the same clowns then asked a different algorithm for comment and received the programmed response] “Legacy Media Lies”…
Torture Chamber (#1596)
A society can be judged by the way it treats its prisoners:
At best you get “mystery meat”. Or “sour-smelling heaps” of macaroni. In the worst cases, it’s undercooked chicken, spoiled milk and maggot-infested produce. In prisons and jails across the US, people are routinely fed unhealthy, tasteless or inedible meals…[leaving them] hungry and malnourished, with devastating long-term health consequences. The…crisis…is the subject of Eating Behind Bars, a new book…d[emonstrat]ing…how [the US tortures people it has branded “criminals”]…The book…describes roaches and rats in prison kitchens, rotten meat and guard dogs who are fed better meals than [the system’s victims]… It’s a public health crisis, with estimates suggesting each year behind bars reduces life expectancy by two years…and the…[practic]es create an estimated 300,000 tons of food waste annually as [victim]s reject unpalatable [swill]…
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The Establishment…includes politicians, cops, bureaucrats, banks, well-connected corporations, institutions, academia, NGOs, the mainstream press…all the interconnected parts of the fascist regimes which act collectively to corral people into easily-managed herds.
