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Posts Tagged ‘racism’

In the News (#1419)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 9, 2024| 1 Comment »

You can’t censor what isn’t said in the first place.  –  Sarah McLaughlin

Surplus Women

A classic case of “NHI”:

The family of a murdered sex worker have said police “have blood on their hands” after a man was finally brought to justice despite earlier major investigation failings..Iain Packer…was found guilty of…the “execution” of Emma Caldwell…after…[Packer] lured [her] from Glasgow’s red-light district, dr[ove] to remote woods 40 miles away, strangled [her] and dumped [her body] naked in a ditch…Packer [frequently hired] sex workers…and admitted to police in the initial 2005 investigation that he had previously [hired] Emma…[but] he was not arrested or charged for 17 years as [cops preferred to persecute] a group of Turkish men [despite other sex workers telling cops that Packer was sexually violent years before Caldwell was killed].  Packer…was convicted of 11 charges of rape against nine women among dozens of other offences…the family solicitor said: “A toxic culture of misogyny and corruption meant the police failed so many women and girls who came forward to speak up against Packer – instead of receiving justice and compassion, they were humiliated, dismissed and in some instances arrested, while the police gifted freedom to an evil predator to rape and rape again”…

Censorship Ascendant

In our increasingly-connected world governments are increasingly able to cause trouble for people who say things they dislike far beyond their own borders:

On Nov. 16, 2023, Reuters published a deeply-reported investigation about an Indian company named Appin, which…act[s] as a “premier provider of cyberespionage services for private investigators working on behalf of big business, law firms and wealthy clients.” But…Reuters has removed their reporting, and some other outlets have followed suit…[due to] a court order against Reuters…secured in India by a group operating under the Appin name…Globally, even in the United States, people are unable to read reports about Appin because a court order from half a world away limits everyone’s access to online news and information.  This…may hint at what’s increasingly the future of censorship online…authors of stories about the reporting, or even about the removals of it, face pressure now, too…Readers…can find it at Distributed Denial of Secrets…and…on Archive.Today.  But…[even] Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine [chickened out]…

Virtual Imperialism (#1202)

Governments worldwide are emulating China’s evil:

…”transnational repression” [is] a form of authoritarianism that…has becoming disturbingly common in recent years…”More than 20 percent of the world’s national governments have reached beyond their borders since 2014 to forcibly silence exiled political activists, journalists, former regime insiders, and members of ethnic or religious minorities,” finds a Freedom House report released in February…”25 countries’ governments were responsible for 125 incidents of physical transnational repression in 2023 alone, including assassinations, abductions, assaults, detentions, and unlawful deportations.”  Last year enjoyed the dubious distinction…of featuring the first documented cases of transnational repression by Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador…Sierra Leone, and Yemen…[though] the year’s main culprits [were] Russia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Turkmenistan, and China…

If Men Were Angels (#1256)

Female “youth ministers” aren’t safe either, at least if they’re married:

[The husband of a Louisiana youth minister] has been arrested [for molesting]…children…Daniel Steven Parker [has been committing] …similar…crimes…at [least since]…2020…and [probably much longer]…

No Escape

Your “leaders” refer to this mindless brutality as “correction”:

A woman [locked in a cage by the state of] Georgia…has filed a federal lawsuit [because] she was [so brut]ally [rap]ed by a[n out-of-control screw she] had to undergo surgery…for partial uterus removal…

No Difference (#1359)

Another victory for US evangelical prohibitionists:

Ghana’s parliament has passed a [horrifying] new bill that imposes a prison sentence of up to three years for anyone convicted of [merely] identifying as LGBT…[and] a maximum five-year jail term for forming or funding LGBT…groups.  [Politicians] heckled down attempts to replace prison sentences with community service and counselling…The bill, which had the backing of Ghana’s two major political parties, will come into effect only if President Nana Akufo-Addo signs it into law…[but] he previously said…he would do so if the majority of Ghanaians want him to.  Gay sex is already against the law in Ghana – it carries a three-year prison sentence…[but] activists fear there will now be witch-hunts…

To Molest and Rape (ROTW #6)

Give sexually-aggressive thugs power over teens; what could possibly go wrong?

…[A Nebraska cop named] Juan Casado Moya [has been charged] for [repeatedly molesting]…a 16-year-old [girl]…at…the…school…[where]…he [was assigned to spy on, harass, and intimidate]…student[s.  He has been rewarded with a paid vacation]…

 

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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A Pseudoscience is Born

Posted in Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 8, 2024| 1 Comment »

We should be perfectly clear about the ultimate goal of Axon, its network, and the people behind The Fall of Minneapolis: They want to make it easier for police to kill people without consequence.  –  Radley Balko

Regular readers of this blog need no introduction to Radley Balko; in fact, many of my longest-term readers were introduced to me via a guest-blogging stint on his old blog, The Agitator, in July of 2012.  If you are unfamiliar with his work, let me simply say that he is quite possibly the greatest living criminal justice journalist, and that is neither hyperbole nor flattery.  His thoroughness and dedication are truly awe-inspiring, and I couldn’t be as fair and measured as he is when discussing horrifying injustices and nauseating atrocities if there were 10 million bucks riding on it.  His latest project is a massive three-part debunking of copsucking authoritarians’ ongoing “effort to retroactively justify Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd“, and the third part includes a section on “excited delirium”, a fictional syndrome used to exonerate cops from culpability when they asphyxiate black people with their shockingly-brutal and sadistically thuggish arrest tactics.  I’ve been paying attention to this peudoscientific claptrap for some time now, so given what I already know about “NHI” and sex workers being among the police state’s perenial guinea pigs for new evils, this probably shouldn’t have surprised me:

Excited delirium…posits that some people just spontaneously die during intense, high-stress interactions with police, through no fault of law enforcement.  It’s…highly dubious and not supported by any major medical organization.  Over the last several decades, there’s been a concerted effort to pressure medical examiners to diagnose excited delirium when the real cause of death was positional asphyxia.  This not only exonerates cops who kill, it encourages police practices that will lead to more deaths…The origin of excited delirium is shonky and steeped in bigotry…it…was first described in the mid-1980s by Miami medical examiner Charles Wetli after a wave of black sex workers were found dead under mysterious circumstances.  Because some of the women had cocaine in their system, Wetli theorized that there must be something about the physiology of black women that causes them to spontaneously die after mixing cocaine with sex.  Despite the absurdity of Wetli’s theory, it precluded homicide as a manner of death, which made it much more difficult for police to investigate the possible murders.  It wasn’t until a victim was found in a similar state as the other bodies, but had no cocaine in her system, that the city’s chief medical examiner reviewed the…other cases…[and] found evidence of asphyxiation that Wetli had overlooked.  Police eventually arrested a serial killer named Charles Henry Williams for the murders…

…The Miami debacle should have been an embarrassment that ended Wetli’s career.  It did not.  The controversy isn’t even mentioned in his fairly long New York Times obituary.  Instead, he failed upward, becoming the chief medical examiner in Suffolk, County, New York…[where he] continued to develop his theory in ways that proved convenient for law enforcement.  He expanded excited delirium to also include black men, particularly those who die in police custody.  “Seventy percent of people dying of coke-induced delirium are black males, even though most users are white,” he once said.  Instead of concluding that perhaps this was because police were more likely to use excessive force against black men, Wetli added, “It may be genetic”…Wetli’s work eventually landed him a lucrative side gig with Axon International, the company that makes the Taser (formerly known as Taser International), who began to pay Wetli to testify as an expert witness at the trials of police officers accused of brutality…

There’s a great deal more; this is just a small sample.  Jesse Walker suggested that the best way to read the piece is to start with part three, covering the big picture, following links back to the first two parts as you go; that seems wise to me, given the depth and density of the piece,  But however you read it, read it you should.  And if you aren’t already following Radley’s work, you really need to correct that.

 

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The Rites of Throwback Thursday

Posted in Miscellaneous, Philosophy, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Who but a government functionary would see nothing wrong with calling a two-week period a “day”?
–  “Vendetta (#512)”

Like Biblical literalists searching for the remains of Noah’s Ark [“sex trafficking” fetishists] continue their quixotic crusades to find victims and “pimps”, and they’re never daunted by the fact that the few who turn up aren’t actually very much like the characters in their scriptures.  –  “Phantasm”

Until mainstream feminism starts calling for decrim – not Swedish model or other BS falsely represented as decrim – they can fuck themselves.  –  “Beck and Call”

I think the naive and idealistic idea of sex as an actual good is just as harmful, and causes nearly as much societal ill, as the primitive and warped notion that it’s an active evil.  –  “Sex Neutral”

You cannot exorcise…thoughts which haunt you by repeating them endlessly in public as though they were real, demanding that others join you in these fantasies against their consent, and providing the police state with new excuses to oppress people based on your sexual fantasies.  –  “Can We Talk?”

One would have to contort one’s brain in a manner worthy of a Cirque du Soleil performance to ignore the facts that cops more heavily patrol poor and minority neighborhoods and actively look for people to arrest.  –  “As Always“

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In the News (#1411)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 7, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Cops face little recourse, even when…cases…were based on little more than writing some sort of Asian sex-slave fanfic.  –  Elizabeth N. Brown

The Course of a Disease (#909)

Prohibitionist scum know decriminalization is the only moral framework for sex work; that’s why they keep trying to trick people into thinking the Swedish model is decrim:

[Massachusetts politicians, one of them ironically from] Salem, are p[ushing]…a bill t[o infantilize sex workers and attempt to starve them into submission by persecuting clients]…The bill was created with support from…a Boston-based [prohibitionist] organization that [exploits marginalized]…sex [workers.  Meanwhile, a crony of those same politicians]…has…filed a bill…that would require…hotel workers in the state [to be indoctrinated in the asinine “]signs of sex trafficking[” which encourage businesses to harass unescorted women and engage in racial profiling]…

Blunt Instrument (#1064)

Everyone harmed by these evil “stings” and raids needs to keep suing the agencies which conduct them:

A Utah man is suing after being [falsely] implicated in a[n imaginary] human trafficking ring for driving his wife to and from her job at Asian massage businesses…Police raided the places in early 2021 and arrested Joseph Ferreri, his wife Juying Wang, and several other women associated with the businesses where Wang worked.  A police document justifying Ferreri’s arrest relies heavily on generalizations about Asian massage businesses and race-based stereotypes.  It’s also peppered with misrepresentations—like describing Wang as a “girl” even though she’s in her 50s and two years older than Ferreri…[cop] Shawn Lott…”embellished, omitted, and made up facts to paint Joe Ferreri as an international sex trafficker…the sole basis for targeting Joe was the race/ethnicity of his wife and her occupation”…all charges…were eventually dropped. But by then…his name and picture were published in news outlets that described him as part of a human trafficking ring.  He and his wife were temporarily barred from seeing each other.  He lost his job, and with it any chance of a pension he was more than halfway to qualifying for.   The only work Ferreri could find following the arrest was a temp gig in a coal mine…

Don’t Call It Trafficking (#1097) 

It’s never called “trafficking” when the government and crony corporations do it:

…Intricate, invisible webs…link some of the world’s largest food companies and most popular brands to jobs performed by U.S. prisoners nationwide…If they refuse to work, some can jeopardize their chances of parole or face punishment like being sent to solitary confinement.  They also are often excluded from protections guaranteed to almost all other full-time workers, even when they are seriously injured or killed on the job.  The goods these prisoners produce wind up in the supply chains of a dizzying array of products…from Frosted Flakes cereal and Ball Park hot dogs to Gold Medal flour, Coca-Cola and Riceland rice.  They are on the shelves of virtually every supermarket in the country, including Kroger, Target, Aldi and Whole Foods.  And some goods are exported, including to countries that have had products blocked from entering the U.S. for using forced or prison labor.  Many of the companies buying directly from prisons are violating their own policies against the use of such labor.  But it’s…enshrined in the Constitution by the 13th Amendment, [which states that] slavery and involuntary servitude are banned – except as punishment for a crime.  That clause is currently being challenged on the federal level, and efforts to remove similar language from state constitutions are expected to reach the ballot in about a dozen states this year…

Eternal Vigilance (#1264)

Why is it so difficult for amateurs to grasp the difference between a renter offering sex as payment and a landlord demanding it?

Randy Hames, owner of…an…[Alabama] RV Park…was arrested in 2018…[and] charged with…human trafficking, soliciting prostitution, and attempted sexual extortion…Hames had been [previously] arrested twice on similar charges…after at least 10 female tenants reported Hames making unwanted advances in exchange for lowered rent…A federal trial [is now underway as] prosecutors…allege…Hames violated the Fair Housing Act by creating a hostile home environment for his tenants…he…also…evicted a few…after they refused his advances…

The Last Shall Be First (#1403) 

It’s never really about “protecting children”:

Several [politicians] from Michigan and Ohio were recorded in an online forum planning to try to ban trans health care for everyone, regardless of age…“In terms of endgame, why are we allowing these practices for anyone?” said [Michigan politician Josh] Schriver…“I think…we have to take sometimes small bites,” said [Ohio politician Gary] Click, who then lauded restrictions [recently] placed on…adult clinics by Ohio’s [governor]…

The Puritan Recrudescence (#1408)

This tells you everything you need to know about politicians’ motivations:

Rather than defend a clearly unconstitutional measure passed to “protect” kids from social media, the government of Utah [claims it] intends to repeal the law…[which] kicked off a [“monkey see, monkey do” parade] of similar measures…Now that it faces a pair of challenges in federal court, the state has a new stance: “Psych! We didn’t actually mean it!”…“They know it’s unconstitutional.  They know it’s pure grandstanding and culture warrioring,” writes Techdirt editor Mike Masnick. “And they don’t want to face the music for abusing the rights of the citizens who elected them to support the Constitution, not undermine it”…

Creepy Coppers (#1410)

One of the people the government empowers to police your sexuality:

[NYPD cop] Angad Beharry…[has been] arrested…[for paying a Venezuelan woman living in Indiana] to take sexually explicit photographs and videos of [her nine-year-old girl], and to transmit them over the Internet to [him]…Beharry…possessed [numerous other] sexually explicit video[s] and images of…prepubescent minors…[he was caught because he also paid a woman in] Colombia…[to take similar pictures of her] one-year-old [daughter, and when she was caught she snitched on him to the cops]…and…also [snitched on her “]friend[” from] Venezuela…

 

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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The Horror of Throwback Thursday

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , on February 1, 2024| Leave a Comment »

There is no moral difference between a sex worker taking out a loan to emigrate to a wealthier country and a student taking out tens of thousands of dollars in loans  – except that the former has a guaranteed job and the latter doesn’t.
–  “Happy Endings”

The moral authority of ANY politician…is exactly as legitimate as the moral authority of a tiger pissing on trees to mark its territory.
–  “Tiger, Tiger”

When I was young and living in a small town, most people had little respect for the kind of whiny tattletale who calls the cops on other people instead of trying to handle disagreements themselves; however, that kind of attitude has gone the way of party lines and black-and-white television sets.  –  “In the Street”

Except when the subject is sex, “You should probably hire a pro to do that” is usually considered good and wholly uncontroversial advice for any compex task that requires greater skill and experience than the average amateur is likely to have.  –  “Tripod“

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In the News (#1408)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 27, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[Jail medical services] provid[e] levels of medical care that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.  –  Ty Clarke

Pyrrhic Victory (#1251)

Clearview is so proud of its ability to identify the homeless, they even patented it:

Miami police used facial recognition technology to identify a homeless man who refused to give his name to a…[nosy pig].  That man was arrested, but prosecutors quickly dropped the case after determining the [cop] lacked probable cause…Lisa Femia…[of] EFF…[said] “facial recognition…[is] advertised as a way for law enforcement to solve…the worst crimes…instead we have [them]…using it to harass the homeless”…

Stalkers in Blue (#1252)

Anyone “shocked” by typical cop behavior has no business calling himself a journalist:

CNN anchor Jim Acosta was stunned when Uvalde parent Miguel Cerrillo revealed local cops are…harassing…families of children who were affected by the massacre…[the interview was conducted now because] the Justice Department [has just] released its report on the [criminally pathetic] police response to the May 2022 massacre…Cerrillo [said]…”these officers…[are] harassing us every day…They just pull us over for no reason telling us to leave Uvalde…because they know that the truth was going to come out, and they didn’t want us here”…

Panopticon (#1342)

Building a dystopian panopticon, one useful idiot at a time:

More than a hundred [cop shops]…have set up [computer-enhanced] camera system[s], with nearly 200,000 connected cameras belonging to residents and businesses around the country able to provide “direct access” to [rooting pigs]…the data provides the clearest picture yet of the growing popularity of Fusus, a company…that…turns [private] cameras into [police state] ones, with object recognition capabilities for items, people, and specific vehicles…404 Media is now publishing an interactive map based on the newly obtained data, letting readers see if their own local [cop shop]…has a Fusus system…Beryl Lipton, investigative researcher at…EFF…[said] “This dataset…makes clear that these systems are using hundreds of thousands of public and private cameras to blanket huge swaths of our cities, particularly those in the Southeast, with the capacity for constant surveillance”…

How long before these systems learn to invent imaginary weapons out of bulgy clothes and “furtive movements”, just like real cops?

The Last Shall Be First (#1342) 

Utah has the latest “monkey see, monkey do” bathroom bill:

Utah [politicians are]…targeting transgender people with a statewide, criminal law severely restricting the use of gender identity-appropriate restrooms and changing rooms in many public spaces…the ban…contains a disgustingly invasive “show me your papers and proof of surgery” scenario as the only exception for when a trans person would be allowed to use the appropriate restroom…and…admits that even cisgender people are inevitably going to be targeted for prosecution…Additionally, the bill would authorize the state’s attorney general to take action against any local government not enforcing the ban…

The Puritan Recrudescence (#1371)

Politicians don’t even try to make their new laws Constitutional any more:

Florida [politicians want to]…kick [US citizens] under 16 off social media no matter what their parents think.  The bill…[demands that] any [US citizens] under 16 who have an account…delete them…[and] require social media companies…use a third-party age verification system to…[exclude young] people [who are not] using [a VPN]…one of the bill’s sponsors…[pretends] “soaring rates of depression [and] mental disorders…[that are caused by pervasive infantilization and surveillance of young adults, including laws like this one, are instead somehow magically caused by] social media usage”…the…dangerous and unconstitutional…[bill is similar to one] Arkansas passed…last year [which] a federal judge [has blocked with] a temporary injunction. Meanwhile, [California politicians want a similar bill with a mob rule enforcement mechanism, and] Utah’s [is being challenged by a lawsuit from FIRE]…

Blunt Instrument (#1394)

“Sex trafficking” is no longer a magic brain-pause spell, but Florida politicians haven’t noticed yet:

Florida aims to crack down on massage parlors as a way to stop sex work and [harass Asian migrants, using the racist] human trafficking [paradigm]…and nail salons might be next…A [new] bill…would [further micromanage] massage parlor[s], including [the masseuses’ wardrobe and] how dark they are allowed to tint their windows…bill sponsor Vicki Lopez…[vomited out a lot of decade-old wanking fantasies, while shouting “King of the Hill!” and spouting violent propaganda about how she wants cops to] “beat” [Asian women and destroy their livelihoods, bragging that she is “coming after” them]…The bill would [also] allow state health officials to suspend the licenses of [any Asian-owned] establishment [on a mere bureaucratic say-so]…Furthermore, if a massage therapist isn’t able to produce valid government identification, they will be [handed over to ICE for deportation]…

Torture Chamber (#1403)

I’m sure they occasionally yelled “Stop faking!” at him as he wasted away:

A…[legally innocent] HIV-positive [man locked in a cage by the state of California for missing a court date] devolved into AIDS [and] died because…[screws] denied him lifesaving medication even though they had his prescription and were told he needed it to survive…Nicholas Overfield…could..[no longer] stand or speak and was [confined to] a wheelchair when his mother visited him…on April 22, 2022.  He died months later after being transferred out of the jail and then to two hospitals and a hospice.  The lawsuit…names El Dorado County and Wellpath Community Care, LLC, the jail’s health care contractor…“In California alone there are several other documented incidents of Wellpath failing to provide HIV positive individuals with their prescribed medication while in jail,” [Attorney Ty] Clarke said…the immediate cause of death [w]as encephalitis…

 

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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In the News (#1404)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 14, 2024| 1 Comment »

They just threw him out like trash.  –  Gretchen Hankins

If Men Were Angels

This will continue until fools stop teaching children unquestioning obedience to “authority”:

A [typical and representative] pastor of an independent Baptist church in…Warsaw [Virginia] is facing 30 felony charges [for molesting and even raping children]…at the church between 1981 and 1997.  Albert Benjamin Wharton…has [worked for]…seven churches in Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama and Florida over the past four decades[, so there may be many more victims]…

Don’t Call It Trafficking (#667)

It’s never called “trafficking” when the government or a crony corporation does it:

Universal Health Services…is the nation’s largest psychiatric hospital chain, with 185 inpatient…facilities and dozens of acute care hospitals…More than 21,000 inpatient psychiatric beds—or one in six across the country—are operated by UHS, which brought in $13.4 billion last year.  In recent years, the company has been the subject of several high-profile lawsuits and investigations…UHS facilities admitted patients who didn’t need to be there…failed to provide adequate treatment…billed insurance for unnecessary services…improperly used physical and chemical restraints and isolation….[and] used suicidal ideation to “justify almost any admission”…thousands of foster kids have been [condemn]ed in recent years to UHS’s psychiatric facilities, where they typically stay for weeks or months, sometimes leaving far worse off than when they arrived…a symbiotic relationship has developed between…[“]child welfare[“] agencies, which have too many kids in custody and not enough places to put them, and [fascist] companies like UHS…Kids often come back to facilities again and again, acting out more with each admission…To UHS and its competitors…foster kids are “a gold mine”…

Believe Them

Mississippi demonstrates exactly what it thinks of its subjects:

Some 215 bodies were found in a pauper’s cemetery… just outside of Jackson, [Mississippi]…intended for people who have no known family, but…relatives…were never contacted by officials.  Civil rights attorney Ben Crump is representing the families of Marrio Moore, Dexter Wade, and Jonathan Hankins, who were all buried in the cemetery without the knowledge of their families…the deceased are put in body bags and placed into…graves [so shallow that]..the stench [of decomposition is]…drawing buzzards…Wade was [not a prisoner; he was run over by a cop driving a pigmobile, then his]…identification [was ignored and his]…family was not notified…[so they] thought he was missing until…recently…

The Mob Rules (#1322)

Partisan fanatics want you to believe this is fundamentally different from very similar laws in Arkansas and Utah, because “red and blue”:

…the supposed “harm” of social media to teen mental health just isn’t supported by the data.  But it seems it’s never enough to stop savior-complex folk…[like] Jim Steyer, who has more money and ignorance than sense, trying to quietly push a California ballot initiative that would adjust the California constitution in an unconstitutional (by the US Constitution) manner to falsely claim that social media is deliberately harmful to kids, and that people should be able to sue social media for a million dollars any time any kid anywhere is “harmed” in a manner…that the…company should have magically stopped.  He submitted the proposal…right before the holidays when most people weren’t paying attention, and California Attorney General Rob Bonta has a comment period open that ends on January 17th…Bonta’s office has supported a variety of problematic “protect the children online!” laws, including the Age Appropriate Design Code that a district court has already noted was pretty clearly unconstitutional…

Winding Down (#1342)

Politicians are terrified that the state is losing ways to destroy peaceful citizens’ lives:

California’s…governor…Gavin Newsom…[vetoed] bills that would have decriminalized four naturally occurring psychedelics and authorized Amsterdam-style cannabis cafés.  Senate Bill 58…was similar to a groundbreaking ballot initiative that Colorado voters approved in 2022, [and] would have eliminated criminal penalties for adults 21 or older who use psilocybin, psilocyn, mescaline, or dimethyltryptamine…But [Newsom claims]…it would be [“]reckless[“] to stop threatening psychedelic users with arrest and jail…Assembly Bill 374…would have allowed dispensaries, with local approval, to serve marijuana along with noncannabis food and beverages, which is currently illegal.  It also would have explicitly allowed live music…[but] Newsom [is] “concerned this bill could undermine California’s long-standing” [war on]…smoking…

A Moral Cancer (#1388)

SCOTUS says it’s OK for politicians to specifically target black people with prohibitionist laws:

The Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a challenge to a California law that bans the sale of flavored cigarettes, leaving the state law in place…The ban’s challengers…told the justices that the law “has shut the doors to one of the Nation’s largest markets for flavored tobacco products and thereby banned a product (menthol cigarettes) that has been lawfully sold for nearly a century,” [and which are used by 77-88% of black American smokers]…

Vulture Watching (#1394)

SCOTUS also says it’s OK if deranged Idaho politicians let women die and ruin doctors’ careers if they try to prevent that:

The Supreme Court [has] allowed Idaho to enforce its strict abortion ban, even in medical emergencies, while a legal fight continues.  The justices said they would hear arguments in April and [if any women die before that it’s just tough luck]…the Biden administration has argued that hospitals that receive Medicare funds are required by federal law to provide emergency care, potentially including abortion, no matter if there’s a state law banning abortion…

 

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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Links #702

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 16, 2023| 1 Comment »

I should be taking you to jail!  –  “Officer” Benjamin Jacquot

I came upon this odd, charming little alternate-world fantasy a few weeks ago; I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.  The links above it were provided by Dan Savage, Mark Bennett, Emma Camp, Clarissa, and IncarcerNation (x2), 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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In the News (#1390)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 18, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Abortion trafficking is not a thing.  –  Judge Debora Grasham

An Avalanche of Bullshit (#976)

Another high-profile pogrom of an Asian-owned business has been announced in the media by parroting cops’ and prosecutors’ masturbatory fantasies, racist propaganda, and ludicrously-Victorian language.  The use of the word “service” as a verb in the headline is as telltale as the presence of the word “sophisticated”, used by cops for the last decade as an excuse to rape sex workers.  The primary trope of the coverage is the popular pretense that it’s somehow shocking that modern men of means and position are as likely to buy sex as such men have always been since the beginning of human civilization.  Fairly-ordinary fees and costs of doing business are represented as extravagant; extremely mundane practices like screening clients and making bank deposits are described with weird, convoluted language so as to make them seem somehow esoteric and criminal; and adult women are infantilized as passive victims by invoking the “submissive Asian woman” fantasy.  One day, our culture may grow up enough to recognize that pragmatic sexual arrangements are nobody else’s business, but that day is not today, so we can look forward to months of lurid fixation on the prurient details and none on the government’s crime of wasting massive amounts of money and manpower in order to destroy the lives of people who harmed nobody.

Creepy Coppers

Seems like a significant fraction of child porn is spread by cops:

A [cop from] Tennessee was arrested…[for] requesting [nude photos]…from a mother in Virginia who sent him [nude] photos and videos of her juvenile daughter.  Dan Roark…was…charged with…production of child pornography…an anonymous [snitch first reported the daughter]…

I had to aggressively edit this one because it was so larded with obfuscatory language:

A [typical and representative Missouri cop] has been indicted by a federal grand jury…August Price Gildehaus…was charged…with one count of enticing a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity…producing child pornography…and…attempting to distribute child pornography…

Feudalism Redux (#1327)

Politicians don’t even try to make their new laws constitutional any more:

…a federal judge [has] granted a temporary restraining order against…[Idaho’s unconstitutional law inventing a new crime called] “abortion trafficking”…[which] criminaliz[es] any adult who assists a minor in obtaining abortion medication or a lawful abortion out of state without parental consent. [The law essentially allows a] parent…or guardian…to f[orce a]…minor…[to carry an unwanted or even dangerous pregnancy under the rhetoric of]…“parental rights”…the law is [both] unconstitutionally vague [and infringes] on the…right…to interstate and intrastate travel…

Cops and Robbers (#1328)

Of course they’ll never charge the cops who use similar tactics with no more concern for ethics:

Jason Nassr, the man behind…Creeper Hunter TV, [was] sentenced…to…18 months of house arrest…from 2015 to 2020, Nassr posted videos he claimed showed men contacting him for sex when…he was [ageplaying]…he would communicate with men on dating sites and social media platforms, typically portraying himself as an 18-year-old female.  Once the correspondence turned sexual…Nassr would [start ageplaying while yet including hints that] he was [actually ov]er 18 — as young as age 10…Those who continued to communicate with him would end up featured on Creeper Hunter TV.  Nassr recorded in-person confrontations, showed screen captures of text conversations, and included full names and phone numbers…Around 100 episodes were posted…at least two of [Nassr’s victims] have died by suicide…[but] Justice Alissa Mitchell…[let him off with] house arrest, six months of a 10 p.m. curfew and two years of probation…

I Spy (#1376)

Nothing infuriates violent busybodies more than privacy:

On October 26, the UK Parliament passed the Online Safety Act…the government has…admitted there…is no…way to scan E2EE messages or services without breaking their encryption…[so] Ofcom…now…propos[es] to use hash matching…a mass surveillance [technique] that could easily be abused by law enforcement.  Hash matching…compares…videos, pictures or text…to a database of illegal content…by turning the content into “hashes”, a sample of the content a bit like a fingerprint…similar systems already in place have returned numerous false positives that can ruin people’s lives…and bog the system down, forcing companies…to investigate perfectly innocent media…every app you download to share files or access social media could contain spyware to [root through] the media on your device and [snitch to the cops]…the database of illegal material will [certainly expand and]…could very easily become a tool of censorship, similar to how the Chinese government scans for images of the Tiananmen Square protests…

The Cop Myth (#1378)

41% of cops admit to beating their wives; some don’t stop with mere beating:

A [typical and representative Alabama screw named]…David Tolbert was arrested after…he [murdered]…his wife on Nov. 15, 2022…[by shooting her] in [public] outside of a business…

Torture Chamber (#1387)

It does not help young victims of governmental brutality to infantilize them as “children”:

…[young people locked up]…in more than a dozen [prisons] in Illinois…[are routinely] “tased, pepper sprayed…roughed up by [screws]…forced into isolation for days at a time…[and] denied access to…medications…mental health treatment…and…schooling, [in defiance of] state and federal laws”…[at one cage stack] in Benton…Solitary confinement is the rule…[prisoners] spend between 20 and 23 hours per day confined in their cells…[where] fluorescent lights [are left on]…24 hours a day…the cells themselves are f[ilthy] and infested with [toxic] black mold…

 

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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Links #695

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 29, 2023| Leave a Comment »

The official nutrition scolds want your food to taste bad.  –  Ronald Bailey

This year, I managed to find a few Lovecraftian videos for the season; this one is a French film from 2003.  The links above it were provided by The Onion; Phoenix Calida; Mark Draughn; Gustavo Turner and Mike Siegel; Nun Ya (x2); and Ronald Bailey, 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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