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Posts Tagged ‘Robocops’

In the News (#1370)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 6, 2023| 1 Comment »

There’s seemingly no policy turd that lawmakers are unwilling to polish in the name of “the children”.  –  J.D. Tuccille

Saint Death 

Apparently, popular and social media have played a large part in the global expansion of her worship:

…one Latin American New Religious Movement has reached Kyiv that perhaps few would expect: The cult of Santa Muerte – Holy Death…Dr. Andrew Chesnut of Virginia Commonwealth University, probably the foremost expert on Santa Muerte, says that the Mexican folk saint depicted as a female skeleton, from whom her devotees seek protection and favors, is the fastest-growing new religious movement in the world.  The skeleton saint went off the historical grid until the 1940s when American anthropologists “re-discovered her,” in Mexico. [The religion] became known to the larger American audience due to the television series Breaking Bad, as an object of devotion for Mexican drug cartels…the professor…[says] Santa Muerte “made her way to Europe via social media, especially Facebook and Instagram”…

If Men Were Angels

“Pastor and sex offender” is a large and ever-expanding group:

…Allan Kyle Jones…pastor at Lifeway Community Church in Loxley, [Alabama,] was [arrested and charged with possession of child pornography]…

Choke Point (#993) 

It always starts with a politically-unpopular group like sex workers or gun owners, but never stops there:

The House Judiciary Committee is investigating banks for sharing Americans’ financial information with the FBI without regard for privacy concerns…there’s no doubt about the threat to civil liberties posed by the government’s leverage over the financial industry; that’s long established.  At question in this investigation is whether…that cozy relationship is being wielded in political warfare between the country’s political factions…financial institutions have long operated as surveillance arms of the state, tracking transactions and movements, making assumptions about what they might mean, then turning that information over to government officials under regulatory pressure…based on idiosyncratic interpretations of vague laws and regulations…such power creates incentives to over-interpret activity as “suspicious” and to snitch on customers to stay on the good side of federal agencies…

Robocops

It’s rare that a court rules that some violent hooliganism is so stupid even a cop should’ve known better:

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Waylon Bailey…of Rapides Parish, Louisiana, made a joke on Facebook that alluded to the 2013 Brad Pitt zombie movie World War Z.  “RAPIDES PARISH SHERIFFS OFFICE HAVE ISSUED THE ORDER,” he wrote, that “IF DEPUTIES COME INTO CONTACT WITH ‘THE INFECTED,'” they should “SHOOT ON SIGHT.”  He added: “Lord have mercy on us all. #Covid9teen #weneedyoubradpitt.”  That post went up on March 20, 2020…that same day, about a dozen deputies wearing bulletproof vests descended upon Bailey’s home with their guns drawn…[screaming obscenities] and arrested him for violating a state law against “terrorizing,” a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison…the Rapides Parish District Attorney’s Office [wisely] declined to prosecute Bailey.  But when [he] sued…[a] judge…dismissed his claims with prejudice, concluding that his joke was not covered by the First Amendment, that the arrest was based on probable cause, and that [the pigs were] protected by qualified immunity…the 5th Circuit [has now] ruled that…was wrong on all three counts…

The Mob Rules (#1303)

Stupid people want you to believe that anti-sex authoritarians “do not agree on much”, because red and blue pap:

[Maine politician] Lois Reckitt…intends to submit a proposal for consideration in the 2024 legislative session modeled after a porn age-verification law in Louisiana …[joining six other] states — Arkansas, Mississippi, Montana, Texas, Virginia and Utah — [in the monkey see, monkey do parade]…with unanimous or near-unanimous support from…[censorious imbeciles with the social sense of lemmings.  Unsurprisingly, the puritanical] Reckitt…[was also behind the scheme which recently imposed the dangerous, misogynistic Swedish model on] Maine…

You Were Warned (#1359)

Some politicians apparently believe that KOSA doesn’t destroy the internet thoroughly enough:

…the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act…borrows bad proposals from another federal bill and combines them with legislative idiocy enacted at the state level.  The resulting concoction could destroy internet privacy, subjecting all our online activity to government scrutiny in the name of shielding wee ones from harm…the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act generates the sort of cross-aisle consensus that generally only accompanies terrible ideas.  The bill “contains elements of the dangerous Kids Online Safety Act“…and…doubles down on bureaucratic control and surveillance of internet activity…its authors find substituting restrictive laws for parental responsibility…a convenient excuse for imposing controls that people would be unlikely to tolerate under any other circumstance…the digital ID pilot program is the real warhead in this particular legislative weapon, since…[politicians hate] online anonymity.  The bill provides a clear path towards linking internet activity to identities so that, for example, politicians could identify their critics…

Unsafe for Human Consumption (#1366)

The way local media parrots copaganda in the face of clear evidence of its foolishness is utterly pathetic:

…Milwaukee co[p]…Adriean Williams had an unexpected [panic attack after touching a scary]…blue sweater…”It’s terrifying” [he whimpered, remembering the scary, scary fuzziness.  Then another cop wasted]…Narcan, a nasal spray that counteracts the effects of opiates [and can act as a placebo for hysterical cops who imagine they’ve touched magic insta-fentanyl.  Actual doctors have explained time and again that]…incidental fentanyl exposure [has no such] immediate and profound reactions, but [cops are superstitious children who imagine they know better.  This mass hysteria affected another of]…Williams[‘ cronies]…the very next day…[when he] believe[d] cocaine….[was] fentanyl [and had a panic attack]…

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 (#1308)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 28, 2023| Leave a Comment »

A right does not, as a practical matter, exist without any remedy for its enforcement.  –  Justice Elissa Cadish

The End of the Beginning (#1197) 

It’s horrifying that a court order was required to stop the government from trying to punish people for being unable to do the literally impossible:

A rule that Attorney General Merrick Garland issued in 2021…requires people to do things that are plainly impossible.  If they have been convicted of a sex offense, they must register with their state, even when the state neither requires nor allows them to do so.  They also must supply the state with all the information required by federal law, even when the state does not collect that information…someone [unable] to meet those requirements…who travels outside his state can be charged with a federal crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison.  At trial, the defendant has the burden of proving that he was unable to register “as required”…That Kafkaesque situation, a federal judge in California [has] ruled…violates the constitutional right to due process…The case, John Doe v. Department of Justice, illustrates the perverse consequences of the federal government’s attempt to identify and track sex offenders through detailed registration requirements that often conflict with state law…

Panopticon (#1212)

Useful idiots keep providing government with excuses for Orwellian levels of surveillance:

A bill…in the Mississippi Legislature would require public schools and postsecondary institutions to install video surveillance cameras all over their campuses.  The bill would require that the cameras also record audio and that they be installed in classrooms, auditoriums, cafeterias, gyms, hallways, recreational areas, and along each facility’s perimeter.  Further, it would permit [even adult] students’ parents to view live feeds of classroom instruction…the bill’s sponsor…Stacey Hobgood…[belched out the catchphrases] “critical race theory”…and…”accountable”…[to justify creating a stifling] atmosphere of suspicion and distrust [across every school in the state]…

Robocops (#1249)

Since SCOTUS refuses to slay this monster of its own creation, state courts will need to do the job for it:

…the Nevada Supreme Court [has] unanimously ruled that victims of wrongful searches and seizures have the right to sue the responsible government officials.  Just as critically, the court firmly rejected qualified immunity as a potential defense against those lawsuits.  The court’s twin holdings will better ensure that government officials can actually be held accountable for their misconduct…

Thought Control (#1268)

I never would’ve thought my first profession would become as much a target for authoritarians as my second:

Books containing [what politicians vaguely term] “sexually explicit” content…would be banned from North Dakota public libraries under [newly-proposed] legislation…the measure…proposes up to 30 days imprisonment for librarians who refuse to remove the [censored] books…In addition to banning depictions of “sexual identity” and “gender identity,” the measure specifies 10 other things that library books cannot visually depict, including “sexual intercourse,” “sexual preference” and “sexual perversion,” — though it does not define any of those terms.  The proposal does not apply to books that have “serious artistic significance” or “materials used in science courses,” among other exceptions…

Presumably, the “serious artistic significance” would be determined by politicians, which is a bit like asking a panel of tone-deaf 11-year-olds to discuss the relative merits of Bach cantatas.

The Vultures Descend (#1273)

Calling politicians on their hypocrisy is an interesting strategy:

A group of religious leaders who support abortion rights [has] filed a lawsuit…challenging Missouri’s abortion ban, saying [politicians] openly invoked their religious beliefs while drafting the measure and thereby imposed those beliefs on others who don’t share them.  The lawsuit…is…among nearly three dozen post-Roe lawsuits that have been filed against 19 states’ abortion bans…and…was…filed on behalf of the faith leaders by Americans United for Separation of Church & State and the National Women’s Law Center…Lawsuits in several other states take similar approaches.  In Indiana, lawyers for five anonymous women…and…Hoosier Jews for Choice have argued that state’s ban infringes on…Jewish teaching that a fetus becomes a living person at birth and…Jewish law prioritizes the mother’s life and health…In Kentucky, three Jewish women sued, claiming the state’s ban violates their religious rights under the state’s constitution and religious freedom law…

Presumption of Guilt (#1288)

Another step toward total financial surveillance:

…if you’ve sent money across American borders…Big Brother is likely watching.  In what began as an Arizona-led effort before going nationwide, a not-so-independent nonprofit organization has been indiscriminately compiling sensitive financial information and making it available to [cop shops and spook houses] across the country…ACLU…has published more than 200 documents revealing details of the program which fed a vast database of sensitive data…run by an organization called the Transaction Record Analysis Center…The surveillance dates to 2006, when Arizona’s attorney general sought details from Western Union about money transfers to and from the Mexican state of Sonora…[the ensuing] legal battle [was] settled in 2010…and…TRAC was established in 2014 as a nominally independent repository for intercepted financial records…in 2019…DHS took over funding TRAC and…[began] compel[ling] financial disclosures with…a type of subpoena…

Blunt Instrument (#1296)

This will continue for as long as the voters allow it to:

Attorney General Daniel Cameron has announced [a scheme]…to [use “]human trafficking[” as an excuse to carry out violent pogroms] in Kentucky by targeting “illicit massage businesses”…[Cameron plans to threaten] landlords and [spread racist propaganda] to [encourage useful idiots to snitch on migrant-owned] businesses that Cameron [wanks to pedophilic fantasies about]…Cameron is…running for governor this year…

 

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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Off Duty

Posted in Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , on August 22, 2022| Leave a Comment »

If cops only had cop powers and privileges when wearing their magical clown costumes and/or carrying their magic tin talismans while in disguise to deceive people, whether they were “on duty” or not would be important.  But that’s not the case, so it isn’t.  And yet in story after story, both spokespigs and journo-parrots obsess about whether or not a cop was “on duty” when he murdered someone, or “in uniform” when he raped someone, as though this somehow made the crimes better or worse.  But a corpse is no less dead if the hail of bullets in his back were fired “on duty”, and a woman or child no less traumatized if told that their rape was actually a “search” or “investigation”.  If the State wants people to care about this, it needs to severely punish cops who act like cops when “off duty”; require cops to wear proper uniforms when “on duty”; eliminate the poisonous doctrine of “qualified immunity”; and dramatically increase the penalties for those using their badges and titles as an excuse to commit crimes.  Because as it stands right now, “cop” isn’t a job, but rather a privileged ruling caste who are virtually immune to the laws they enforce on everyone else, whether they’re actually on the clock or not.

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In the News (#1249)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 29, 2022| Leave a Comment »

People applauding this policy should also specify what prison term they favor for people who sell full-strength cigarettes.  –  Jacob Grier

Not for Any Reason Whatsoever

No, your reason is not an exception:

A new investigation by The [Washington] Post reveals at least 178 cases from 2019 to 2021 in which calls for help resulted in [cops murdering]…the very people they were [foolishly] called on to assist.  We used The Post’s nationwide database of fatal police shootings along with public reporting to identify cases in which the callers were concerned primarily for the individuals’ well-being and no imminent harm to others was reported.  Many of the calls [referr]ed…to people in mental health crises, [ignorantly] requested wellness checks or reported suicide threats.  The calls came from the distressed individuals themselves or were made by worried [but foolish] family members, friends or neighbors…

License to Rape (#957)

The police state’s insulting idea of compensation for a mass public gang rape:

In July 2020, when I had been out of prison for about 18 months, IDOC offered us money and asked us to sign an agreement absolving them of any wrongdoing.  I asked my attorney what would happen if I didn’t sign the papers, and he told me that the judge might throw the lawsuit out…I was still not going to sign.  But my attorney…convinced me.  “You know there are women inside that need that money,” he said.  I knew…it was a manipulative statement.  But…I [also] knew…that this money could mean the difference between deprivation and a pair of shoes, a pack of T-shirts or the chance to shop for food…The shame of those days stayed with me for years.  But…there is not enough space in one piece to detail the atrocities.  For the Halloween strip search, IDOC mailed me a check for $325.  Although the agency continues to assert that their staff did nothing wrong, this check that I may never cash is proof that they are guilty…in the eyes of IDOC, my pain — and that of my sisters — is only worth $325…

Robocops (#1044)

SCOTUS expands one of the greatest legal abominations ever conceived:

…anyone who has their rights violated by federal government agents…ha[s] no recourse against those rogue actors.  A federal badge will now serve as an impenetrable shield against civil liability…The justices announced…that they would decline to consider two major petitions. In the first, St. Paul [sow] Heather Weyker, who was serving on a federal task force, conjured a fake sex-trafficking ring and [cag]ed a teenage girl for two years on trumped-up charges.  In the second, [spook]…Ray Lamb a[ttempted]…to [murder] a man…though [the voctim was spared when his gun] jammed…[neither] Weyker [nor] Lamb…are…protected by qualified immunity…but because they were working for the federal government, they are protected by absolute immunity…and their victims—Hamdi Mohamud and Kevin Byrd, respectively—[are shit out of luck]…

Lack of Evidence (#1203) 

Contrast the speed with which legislatures manage to pass laws increasing cops’ powers:

California [politician]s are finally sending to Gov. Gavin Newsom a hot potato of a bill that would bar police from…arrest[ing women for standing in a public place after a cop points at them and belches out the magic word “]prostitution[“, a delay of] nine months after the measure passed the Legislature…[copsuckers] see it as a further erosion of criminal penalties that tie the hands of police on [consensual] issues…Greg Burt, a spokesman for the California Family Council, and other opponents fear it’s part of an eventual effort to decriminalize [thoughtcrime.  In support of his authoritarian agenda, he vomited out the words]…”sex trafficking”…[all over open-mouthed reporters]…

Welcome to the Future (#1227)

Conditioning kids to accept constant, intrusive surveillance:

Spyware apps were foisted on students at the height of the Covid-19 lockdowns…long after most students have returned to in-person learning, those apps are still proliferating, and enabling an ever-expanding range of human rights abuses…Americans face an unprecedented, record-breaking wave of legislation targeting transgender youth…and…[the overturn of] Roe v. Wade…That means that students who use their devices to research trans healthcare or abortion related material could find those devices weaponized against them, potentially resulting in criminal charges…

The Vultures Descend

22 vultures coming in for the kill:

[Jacob Sullum of Reason has published] a state-by-state rundown of what we can expect now that the Supreme Court has decided the Constitution does not guarantee a right to abortion after all.  Red indicates the 22 states that are certain or likely to soon impose or start enforcing new restrictions on abortion, ranging from moderate to severe.  Green indicates the 23 states where abortion will remain broadly legal.  Blue indicates the five states where new restrictions are unlikely in the short term but are possible in the longer term, depending on electoral outcomes or judicial decisions…

A Moral Cancer (#1227)

Because obviously prohibition doesn’t ruin enough lives yet:

…the…FDA…[has arbitrarily banned] Juul’s…tobacco- and menthol-flavored vaping products…[despite the fact that Juul’s] application…was…detailed and data-heavy, showing just how effective it was at transitioning smokers away from cigarettes, toward a safer alternative …The company…became a victim of an intensely ideological war on nicotine…[when prohibitionists decided to blame] Juul…for the rise of youth vaping…[using the venerable puritan lie] that flavors like mango and cucumber [only]…appeal…to the younger demographic…The claim that Juul’s flavors were the underlying cause for the rise in youth vaping is highly dubious, considering there were thousands of different flavors for other e-cigarettes on the market years before Juul took off…

And just in case you think the government isn’t intentionally trying to create a black market so as to start a horrific new front in the drug war:

The Biden administration continues its misguided war on nicotine….[with] plans to require cigarette makers to severely cut the amount of nicotine in their products…nicotine itself isn’t what makes cigarettes so dangerous…it’s the other ingredients…and the byproducts of combustion, that make smoking cigarettes so bad for you.  This is one reason why the war on vaping is so stupid, and also speaks to the half-baked premises of the Biden administration’s latest anti-smoking plan…people already addicted to nicotine will still be addicted—they’ll just have to smoke more cigarettes to get their nicotine fix…low-nicotine cigarettes could actually make smoking riskier by requiring smokers to smoke more and consume more of the other substances in cigarettes in order to get the same level of nicotine they’re used to…[also,] other countries will still be producing full-nicotine cigarettes.  And this opens up a great opportunity for smuggling and black market sales of higher nicotine cigarettes…

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In the News (#1164)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 21, 2021| 4 Comments »

The myth of sex addiction is a pathological view of male sexuality, sexual diversity, non-monogamy, and non-normative sexual desire.  –  David Ley

Here We Go Again 

Prohibitionism never, ever changes:

…in the early 20th century…prostitution became seen [by busybodies] as a social evil that concerned a wide range of [people who were completely univolved in it]…evangelical Christians, feminists, business leaders and medical experts demanded immediate and unrelenting repression of [sex work]…self-styled “abolitionists” in both the United States and the United Kingdom gained public support for their efforts by [spreading propaganda about a fantasized epidemic] of “white slavery”…the legislation they produced was antithetical to prostitutes’ interests…policies that sanctioned state control and punishment of prostitutes flourished…[but] rather than eliminating prostitution, the anti-prostitution movement simply changed the nature of the sex trade…and…subjected [all women] to increased state control.  During World War I, the “American Plan” authorized the arrest, inspection and detention of women suspected of carrying venereal disease…surveillance of women in the name of public health increasingly committed the U.S. to a “neo-regulationist” prostitution policy that controlled women’s bodies…

The article has some interesting information, but if you notice the faint reek of Swedish thinking (as if some cretin had stuffed used toilet paper down between the sofa cushions), it’s not your imagination.

Traffic Jam (#619)

You may remember that I called this as bullshit ten years ago:

St. Paul [Minnesota sow] Heather Weyker…[fabricated] an interstate sex trafficking ring run by Somali refugees…result[ing] in 30 indictments, 9 trials, and 0 convictions.  Hamdi Mohamud, then a 16-year-old refugee from Somalia, found herself caught up in that scheme in 2011, when one of Weyker’s witnesses, Muna Abdulkadir, tried to attack her and her friends at knifepoint.  Mohamud called the police…Weyker…arrested Mohamud and her friends for allegedly tampering with a federal witness, and Mohamud subsequently spent two years in jail before the trumped-up charges were dismissed…but…since [Weyker framed all those victims]…as part of a federal task force, she is entitled to absolute immunity and cannot be sued…Mohamud hopes to change that…by asking the Supreme Court to hear her case, which she made official last week…

No Difference (#888) 

American puritanism is a pox on the entire world:

One of the world’s most restrictive “anti-pornography” laws, the indecency statute passed by Uganda in 2014, has been struck by the nation’s Constitutional Court as unconstitutional…the law was “quashed” following pressure from women’s rights groups, with a panel of five judges unanimously ruling “that sections of the law that defined pornographic offenses, including a ban on ‘indecent’ clothing, were unconstitutional”…the…law…was [typically]…used for morality policing and led to…song lyrics and music videos…be[ing] labeled pornographic…[with] the…artists criminally liable…the [censorship law and an anti-LGBT law were passed due to lobbying by]…American evangelicals…[especially] the…International House of Prayer…the parent ministry of Exodus Cry…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#1033) 

It’s always a pleasure to watch experts trash harmful sex myths:

…it’s important to recognize that the concept of sex addiction was introduced…in the 1980’s during the HIV/AIDS crisis.  As…a society, we were terrified of sexual excess, of non-monogamy, of casual sex, of sex outside relationships, and of gay male sex…It is not by accident…that gay men get diagnosed as sex addicts…around three times more than anybody else.  The second very large group…are people struggling with a moral conflict over their sexual desires…[due to growing] up in religious household or communities where they were taught that any sex other than hetero sex within marriage is a sin…the third group…[consists of] men who get in trouble for sexual behavior…who self-identify as sex addicts to avoid responsibility for those behaviors…going to sex workers is…literally a diagnostic criterion in the sex addiction screening test that many therapists use…sex workers are [therefore] framed as analogous to either a drug or a drug dealer…self-destructive things that help people destroy their lives…

Welcome to the Future (#1052)

Prohibition by human idiots is bad enough:

Over the past two decades, the US…has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into developing and maintaining state-level prescription drug databases…In the past few years…a single [fascist collusion] called Appriss has…merg[ed] the[se] into…a…national prescription drug registry…[managed by] algorithms to generate “data insights” and…[accessing] huge reservoirs of data outside state drug registries to arrive at them.  NarxCare…is Appriss’…“analytics tool”…that purports to instantly and automatically identify a patient’s risk of misusing opioids…the software mines state registries for [so-called] red flags indicating that she has engaged in “drug shopping” behavior…the[n]…assigns each patient a unique, comprehensive Overdose Risk Score…Appriss is adamant that a NarxCare score is not meant to supplant a doctor’s diagnosis.  But physicians ignore these numbers at their peril.  Nearly every state now uses Appriss software…and most legally require physicians and pharmacists to consult them…on penalty of losing their license.  In some states, p[igs]…can also [root in this database]…without a warrant…to prosecute both doctors and patients…

The Pro-Rape Coalition (#1096)

Sex workers and allies speak out about Nick Kristof’s latest anti-sex crusade:

Kristof’s “The Children of Pornhub” — a…[propaganda screed] dropped as 2020 was winding to a close…triggered the removal of millions of videos from Pornhub and led to both Mastercard and Visa cutting ties with the adult industry giant…protecting…l[egal minor]s [ca]n’t  [be accomplished with] sweeping legislation and widespread content moderation, which endanger the safety and income of sex workers [and the civil liberties of everyone]…“Treating child sexual abuse as a moral failing is the wrong approach and is harmful to sex workers,” [says] Jeremy Malcolm, director of the child protection organization Prostasia Foundation…“dealing with [child sexual abuse] through a harm reduction lens is far more effective and less likely to [be used to cloak]…intended [attacks] on marginalized communities”…

Legal Is as Legal Does (#1151) 

It looks like Victoria is about to become the world’s fourth jurisdiction to achieve decriminalization:

Victoria will join a growing number of states by decriminalising sex work…the…government announced it would begin a two-year legislative overhaul, starting with the removal of offences and criminal penalties for consensual sex work, with the aim of having it passed by Parliament by the end of the year…sex work will be regulated through existing government agencies and…laws will be updated to support a decriminalised system…Victoria will join New Zealand, the Northern Territory and NSW…

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In the News (#1115)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 24, 2021| 2 Comments »

Give this man his money.  –  Judge Christine Underwood

Profit from Panic 

A pandemic can’t stop opportunists from wringing every penny they can from this hysteria before it implodes completely:

The B.E. A S.H.E.R.O. Foundation…hosted its 6th annual Awareness Gala, themed “Rising from the Ashes.” The event centered on raising…funds for [the organizers by exploiting the moral panic around]…sex trafficking…Because of pandemic health guidelines, guests were invited to host in-home parties with only their close circles, family or solo.  SHERO Founder Kimberly Miles hosted the online event from the Stirling Club, with special appearances from Terry Fator, Clint Holmes, Bucky Heard of the Righteous Brothers and more…

Disaster (#949)

Australia is joining the US in trying to destroy the internet:

If Australia genuinely wants to minimise online harm, we need to have more nuanced narratives than “won’t somebody please think of the children”.  The federal government’s Online Safety Bill…[will] impede upon our digital rights, harm vulnerable groups, and c[onstrict] the way the majority of Australians experience the internet…part [of the scheme] gives the eSafety Commissioner expanded “take-down powers”…[to] order the removal of…any sexual content…or content that is “unsuitable for a minor to see”…Sex workers, pornography creators…sex-positive educators and activists are just some who will struggle to work online due to the scheme.  As experience of the controversial SESTA/FOSTA laws in the US…has shown, crackdowns such as these incentivise online platforms to remove or censor sexual content altogether to avoid penalty…this forces sex workers offline and often into unsafe working environments…

A Moral Cancer (#1013)

Crypto-moralists won’t hesitate to add nationalism to “health” rhetoric to advance their anti-pleasure agenda:

British stores could be flooded with “dangerous” bacon and ham from the US, marketed under misleading labels, as the result of a transatlantic trade deal, says the author of a new book based on [statistical illiteracy and militant veganism]…The meat has been cured with nitrites extracted from vegetables, a practice not permitted by the European Commission because of evidence that it [marginally] increases the [very small] risk of bowel cancer.  But it is allowed in the US, where the product is often labelled as “all natural”…

Robocops

Court declares that cops are too stupid and evil to understand that intentionally burning an innocent person alive is wrong:

…On July 10, 2017, [Gabriel Eduardo] Olivas’ son called 911 to report that his father was threatening to kill himself…[responding cops] found Olivas “leaning against a wall and holding a red gas can”…[one cop] shouted…”If we tase him, he is going to light on fire!”…Olivas [had] poured gasoline over himself…[but pig Jeremias] Guadarrama “fired his taser at the gasoline-soaked man, causing him to burst into flames…The fire spread from Olivas to the walls of the bedroom, and the house eventually burned to the ground”…Olivas…died…the [family]…sued…and…the…court [ruled]…it…”reasonable”…[to set off high-voltage electrical] sparks that could easily ignite gasoline…after a[nother cop] had [already] emphasized it…the 5th Circuit has forthrightly declared that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit police from firing Tasers at a suicidal, gasoline-drenched man…

The Last Shall Be First (#1078)

Anti-trans hysteria has shifted from toilets to high-school sports:

A proposed bill introduced in…Georgia…called for banning transgender girls from participating in [organized] sports…a similarly-written law in Idaho…is currently blocked by injunction from a federal court.  So another proposal was introduced…that went even further.  House Bill 372 would redefine gender as “a person’s biological sex at birth” in state law, require state-funded schools and associations to ban participants they deem not “biologically” male or female from sports, and calls for a panel to examine information about the genitalia or chromosomes of any [prospective] participant who petitions otherwise…

I must point out that contrary to some online statements about this buffoonery, it does not call for the panel to inspect students’ genitalia, only “information about” them (presumably derived from a medical exam).  But it’s still akin to the creepy pretense that for students to voluntarily allow other people to examine their genitalia for the purpose of pleasure is a “crime”, but for the same students to be forced by law to allow strangers to examine their genitalia for the purpose of bigotry is “protection”.

The Next Target (#1099)

One day, “professional ‘survivor'” will no longer be a lucrative job:

…[Morality in Media] filed a…[law]suit in Birmingham, Alabama against Pornhub’s parent company MindGeek, [exploiting the claims] of two women who alleged illegal videos of themselves were uploaded to the platform by third-party users…The lawsuit alleges that MindGeek “conspired, facilitated and financially benefited, from sex trafficking ventures between [themselves] and others”…

A Broker in Pillage (#1101)

Nobody will be safe until this odious, contemptible practice is recognized as unconstitutional:

A district court judge in North Carolina is threatening to jail one town’s officials if they don’t return nearly $17,000 in cash they s[tole from] a man’s rental car…Jermaine Sanders was staying at a hotel in…November when he left his room and found police [ransack]ing his car.  Police [claimed] they found half an ounce of marijuana and $16,761 in cash.  They s[tole] both…[and] sent the cash to…CBP [in order to circumvent state restrictions on such robbery].  When Sanders lawyered up…Mooresville [bureaucrats] responded that [they were] no longer in possession of the cash…[Judge Christine] Underwood…found the city in contempt of her order [to refund the money] and…[gave] them seven business days to comply.  She told the city’s attorney…that she was not afraid to jail town commissioners, the police chief, or anybody else responsible for keeping Sanders from getting his money back…

Yet most courts still refuse to admit that this is about nothing other than profit:

Civil asset forfeiture…allows police to s[teal] property they [pretend] is connected to crime without arresting…the owner…the practice demolishes due process and undermines property rights, giving cops a license to steal from innocent people who often lack the resources to resist…[pushers] of [the scheme pretend] it deters and incapacitates drug traffickers…[but] in a new study published by the Institute for Justice, Seattle University economist Brian Kelly…analyzed data from five states that use forfeiture extensively:  Arizona, Hawaii, Iowa, Michigan, and Minnesota.  He reports no statistically significant relationship between increased forfeiture revenue and lower drug use rates or higher crime clearance rates.  To the contrary, Kelly found that clearance rates for violent crimes tend to fall as forfeiture revenue rises…[because] the lure of…money diverts law enforcement resources from predatory crimes to drug offenses…

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In the News (#1110)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 6, 2021| 3 Comments »

Hairdressers…would hardly consider their work to be “decriminalized” if it were legal to sell a haircut but not to buy one.  –  Michael Ellsberg

Under Duress 

Are most cops even capable of telling the truth?

Most Americans don’t know this, but [cops]…are permitted by law to outright lie…to suspects…in pursuit of a confession.  Of all forms of subterfuge they deploy — like feigning sympathy and suggesting that a suspect’s confession might bring leniency — this one is particularly dangerous.  In Frazier v. Cupp (1969), the Supreme Court made it lawful for the police to [lie about] evidence.  “The victim’s blood was found on your pillow,” “You failed the polygraph,” “Your fingerprints were on the knife” and “Your friend said she wasn’t with you like you said” are some common but brazen lies told.  There is…no limit to the type or magnitude of deception permitted — one lie or many; small lies and whoppers; lies aimed at adults or anxious and unwary teenagers…the history of wrongful convictions points to countless innocent people induced to confess to crimes they did not commit.  A bill…in New York…would finally put a stop to [permission for] this in the state.  [Cops would of course still lie constantly, but they would no longer have actual permission to do so]…and…courts [would be required] to evaluate the reliability of confession evidence before allowing it to be used…

The Leading Players in the Field, Not (#752) 

This histrionic has-been has made a rotting moral panic her whole career:

Mira Sorvino is developing a [TV] series to…[profit from the dying hysteria over] human trafficking…The series will [exploit] a group of people…using…abused and neglected rescue animals [that Sorvino and her fellow prohibitionists pretend sex workers resemble]…on a…200-acre ranch outside of Los Angeles [being used as a gingerbread house.  Mira’s]…sister Amanda Sorvino is a highly respected animal rescuer and [it seems that Mira believes humans can be “rescued” using the same methods intended for animals]…

Safe Position (#947)

Even my jaded self is impressed with the speed this is happening in New York:

…Manhattan District Attorney candidate Eliza Orlins is unveiling a comprehensive policy platform calling for the full decriminalization of sex work…Formulated in consultation with many sex workers and…advocacy organizations, it is one of the most detailed policy positions on…decriminalization…ever put forward by a major candidate at any level of U.S. politics…Orlins’ policy platform opens, “As District Attorney I will advocate for the full decriminalization of consensual sex work.  This will begin with declining to prosecute all cases of consensual sex work.  Sex work is work.  Criminalizing sex work stigmatizes and disproportionately targets people of color and trans women, who are already marginalized members of our community… Decriminalizing is the most effective way to protect sex workers from police violence…It is necessary…to reduce mass incarceration”…recent national polling…shows that 52 percent of American voters support the full decriminalization of sex work either strongly or somewhat…The candidate…emphasized that she will aggressively prosecute sex traffickers…In contrast to [prohibitionist politician Liz] Krueger, Orlins [states that]…“Prohibitionist models (such as the ‘Nordic Model’) continue to criminalize and stigmatize sex workers.  Partial legalization schemes give prosecutors too much discretion”…

Orlins’ clear denunciation of Swedish criminalization (even more explicit in the interview which forms the second half of this article) makes me far more optimistic about her plans than those of either Michigan Prosecutor Eli Savit or presidential wannabe Andrew Yang.

Torture Chamber (#1001)

Virginia screws sexually assault women like this on a regular basis:

In July of 2016, Angela Calloway arrived at the Augusta C[age Stack] in…Virginia, to visit with a…[prisoner]…She left soon after, having been [force]d to remove her clothes and tampon so [screws] could [violate] her vaginal[ly] and anal[ly using the pretext of a “search”]…Calloway has not returned to the prison since.  A federal court ruled…that the guards involved in that [sexual assault] did not violate the Fourth Amendment…upholding a lower court ruling that awarded qualified immunity to the government employees.  Calloway will thus not be permitted to sue over the [attack]…

The judges’ ruling can be paraphrased as, “cops are so barbaric and stupid they can’t possibly know that rape is wrong.”  Presumably, that applies even when the victim is only eight years old.

The Monsters Are Due (#1018)

We haven’t seen a case of white van hysteria in almost a year:

University of Oregon students are [behaving like hysterical idiots about]…sex trafficking…[because] a [delusional busybody posted a] TikTok video…show[ing] a white van and accus[ing its owner] of having girls in the back of it…Brandon Smith…[was simply] driving his van…[when] two girls acting intoxicated [started] screaming down to their friends o[ut of a window]…Police showed up to Smith’s door as he was doing laundry and [harassed and threatened him for hours over the moronic accusation.  Luckily they did not murder or assault him, but]…he…is dealing with people harassing him when they see his van, and it’s taking a toll on his mental health…

Robocops

We need more attention to one of the greatest legal abominations ever conceived:

Ben & Jerry’s two co-founders want to make it easier for Americans to sue [violent, corrupt cops]…Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield…The Campaign to End Qualified Immunity is being championed by Cohen and Greenfield…activist Shaun King…rapper Michael “Killer Mike” Render…[politicians] Tom McClintock…Mike Braun…Ayanna Pressley and…Cory Booker…NFL stars Tom Brady and Drew Brees a[nd]…more than 1,500 [other] athletes and artists…[plus] 671 business leaders, according to its website.  “We are…resolved to end this get-out-of-jail free card for bad cops,” Cohen told reporters…

Dutch Threat (#1059)

The Dutch scheme to Disnify De Wallen is no longer merely a scheme:

The brothel windows of Amsterdam’s red light district will be closed and an “erotic centre” will be set up away from the city centre, councillors have agreed.  A proposal from the city’s mayor, Femke Halsema…was backed by a broad group of p[uritans]…The sex workers in the De Wallen red light district will be [forc]ed to move to a purpose-built centre elsewhere in Amsterdam…[or else choose to work illegally.  Politicians pretend]ed that the brothel windows should be closed [to “protect”] women working in the area [by dramatically cutting into their income]…When the idea was first proposed, a…[survey show]ed that 90% of…female sex workers…wanted to work in the windows…of…De Wallen.  [A sex worker called]…Foxxy…told [reporters]: “Relocating…is not an option because then the customers will not know where to find the sex workers. Will [politicians] also…organise bus trips for them to the Westelijk Havengebied?”…A second proposal to ban tourists from buying cannabis from the city’s cafes is struggling to win support owing to [the reality] that it will hand over trade to dealers on the streets…

Stupor Bowl (#1106)

Pathetic public promotions of misogynistic masturbatory material like this appear to be all that’s left of the once-popular “gypsy whores” myth.  Whereas national media used to prominently feature fetishists stroking themselves in public to the general adoration of gullible nitwits, the coverage is now mostly limited to local papers and TV news stations who consider obedient regurgitation of copaganda, no matter how ludicrous, to be part of their business model, plus fringe sites run by copsuckers and ex-military wingnuts with delusions of expertise unshared by anyone with even a cursory familiarity with the subject.  While the tales used to start appearing late in the preceding summer or even a year or more in advance, they now seem largely limited to a few foul eruptions in the week or two before, like a sudden discharge from a cluster of turgid pustules previously hidden by clothing.  And despite claims of “recent reports” and “new studies” of the fantasy, all of the claims are a decade or more old and still derive from the same grotesque prohibitionist profiteering we’ve seen over and over again (this one, as one might expect from fascist authoritarians, relies heavily on “Cuckoo Clock” McCain’s fevered fantasies from ’14 which imploded in a spectacular fashion last autumn).  In short, there’s nothing to see here that we haven’t seen innumerable times before, and these creeps’ pathetic devotion to their ugly fantasies would inspire pity if it weren’t being used to support calls for mass surveillance, aggressive censorship and state-sanctioned rape.

To Molest and Rape (#1109)

Notice how often predatory cops’ victims are underage?

A [typical and representative NYPD cop]…was arrested on child pornography charges…after he repeatedly posed as a teenager online to request and obtain sexually explicit photos and videos from at least 46 minors…Carmine Simpson…is the latest in a string of [cops]…to be [caught committing] sexual crimes involving minors…Simpson told his targets that he was 17…and…some[times]…sent them pictures of himself to which he had applied a filter, making him look younger…In November, [cop] Shaun Frazier…[was caught molesting kids for]…the…third [time]…In July, a [pig known for skulking around] school[s]…Jeanisidor Jean Baptiste, was…charged with…rape and assault against a child.  In March…Yavier Julio, was indicted on child pornography charges…In February…Timothy Martinez was charged with possession of child pornography…In September 2019…Juan Jimenez, was…charged with [molesting]…a child.  And the month before that, John Telesca…was…charged with…child pornography.  Dara E. Purvis, an associate dean at Penn State Law who has studied sexual violence by the police, said this kind of misconduct is vastly underreported…

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In the News (#1044)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 3, 2020| 3 Comments »

To tell you the truth, erotic services could have resumed earlier.
–  Alain Berset

Secret Squirrel (#715)

For every weapon, there is a defense:

YouTube has plenty of videos on how to fake your GPS location, and teens are doing it…[spokespig] Grady Thigpen [oinked a lot of ridiculous nonsense about how privacy from intrusive surveillance]…can actually be really dangerous for teens.  [He infantilized]…young adult[s as]…child[ren and pretended that total violation of their privacy and trust is]…about their safety…

Choke Point (#723)

…[sex worker] Sophie Ladder noticed that different…platforms had different notions of what they considered “restricted content.”  So [she]…decided to compile the variations in the form of a shareable spreadsheet…“It was interesting to see how different types of sites are, as a whole, more or less restrictive.  The free tube sites overall are the most open, banning few things.  The clip stores are somewhat restrictive.  And the live camming sites are the most strict”…One challenge…was determining exactly what a particular site’s rules actually are….“many of these sites’ rules are vague to avoid the crackdown from their payment processors that would come with explicitly allowing X, Y, Z content, so instead their rules just don’t really mention X, Y, Z”…

Social Distancing (#1037)

Scotland out-Herods Herod, not only refusing relief money to sex workers but giving it to prohibitionists:

A sex worker charity [w]as…excluded from a Scottish Government pledge of £60,000 to support women affected during the Covid-19 pandemic…the government [instead gave the money]…to…nine [prohibitionist] organisations…[activist] Molly Smith…said…”That the Scottish Government sees organisations which campaign to harm us as appropriate vehicles for our ‘support’ during this crisis shows just how screwed up policy-making on sex work is in Scotland”…

Robocops

One of the greatest legal abominations ever conceived:

The Supreme Court created qualified immunity in 1982.  With that novel invention, the court granted all government officials immunity for violating constitutional and civil rights unless the victims of those violations can show that the rights were “clearly established”…th[is]…is a legal obstacle that’s nearly impossible to overcome.  It requires a victim to identify an earlier decision by the Supreme Court or a federal appeals court in the same jurisdiction holding that precisely the same conduct under the same circumstances is illegal or unconstitutional.  If none exists, the official is immune…in February, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held that a Texas prison guard who pepper-sprayed an inmate in his locked cell “for no reason” did not violate clearly established law because similar cited cases involved guards who had hit and tased inmates for no reason, rather than pepper-spraying them for no reason…In the last year alone…courts have granted qualified immunity to [cops] who stole $225,000;  a cop who shot a 10 year old while trying to shoot a nonthreatening family dog; prison officials who locked an inmate in a sewage-flooded cell for days; SWAT team members who fired gas grenades into an innocent woman’s empty home; medical board officials who rifled through a doctor’s client files without a warrant; county officials who held a 14 year old in pretrial solitary confinement for over a month; a cop who body-slammed a 5-foot-tall woman for walking away from him; and police who picked up a mentally infirmed man, drove him to the county line, and dropped him off at dusk along the highway, where he was later struck and killed by a motorist…

Social Distancing (#1042)

Compare to the contrived prohibition in Australia & the Netherlands:

Swiss politicians have decided that sex workers can soon get back to business while activities and sports involving close physical contact such as judo, boxing and wrestling will remain prohibited.  Prostitution …can resume from June 6, along with cinemas, nightclubs and public pools…Swiss Health Minister Alain Berset [said]…“To tell you the truth, erotic services could have resumed earlier.”  Switzerland has dramatically slowed its Covid-19 infection rate while avoiding the strict confinement imposed in neighboring countries…It was among the first countries in Europe to reopen shops, restaurants and schools earlier this month…The [good sense of the] Swiss…contrasts with [the official whore stigma of]…the Netherlands…

The Course of a Disease (#1043)

German sex workers answer the ugly lies of prohibitionist politicians:

The coronavirus ban on sex work, including the closure of brothels must be lifted, said Germany’s Federal Association of Sex Services (BSD) in an open letter…to 16 [prohibitionist] members of Germany’s parliament who recently [demanded imposition of the Swedish model]…The sex work industry must also be able “to generate income again and to offer customers a good service that is human and grounding for them,” states the letter [which] presents a “hygiene concept” that outlines how sex work could continue while minimizing infection…German states [have begun] to ease restrictions such as reopening restaurants, swimming pools and non-sexual massage parlours.  Yet the blanket ban on all types of sex work remains in place…

Like Houses (#1043)

It’s just to keep people SAFE!

Despite the mayor’s claim that police have enforced social distancing equally across Chicago…almost all arrests and citations for congregating have been issued on the city’s South and West sides.  All 13 arrests and 11 of 13 citations have been issued in majority-Black and Latino neighborhoods…Between March 20 and May 21, 13 people were arrested for violating the stay at home orders.  Ten were Black, one was white and two were juveniles whose race and arrest reports were withheld…

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Robocops

Posted in Current Events, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , on May 21, 2020| 2 Comments »

In Hollywood movies, robots are characters; they are often funny, charming, resourceful or even heroic.  So naturally, in the movie Robocop, the title character was heroic, resourceful, and, to a degree, even funny and charming.  Of course, in real life, robots have no personality; they are (as Isaac Asimov once observed) “high-speed morons” which will do anything they are instructed to do, no matter how stupid, destructive or violent, without the slightest delay due to judgment, instinct, empathy, ethical considerations, or other human factors.  From the standpoint of rulers, then, real “robocops” would be ideal; they would inflict whatever violence they were instructed to inflict, using whatever criteria they were programmed to use, without an iota of conscience or personal ethics.  They would “only follow orders” and faithfully “do their jobs” by carrying out the whims of the rulers, no matter how idiotic, abominable or mutually-contradictory, without a moment’s hesitation.  So perhaps it’s a matter of judicial wishful thinking that in this century, US courts have increasingly ruled that cops are so robotically stupid that they are absolutely devoid of human moral judgment, and therefore cannot be held responsible for even the most flagrant violations of law, ethics or even basic common decency unless they are specifically instructed that the exact act, described in the most precise detail, is wrongful:

Two businessmen who [were robbed by] Fresno police [of] more than $225,000…are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to close a legal loophole that shields [cops] from liability.  Under “qualified immunity” victims can only sue government officials for damages if they prove that their rights were violated and that those rights were “clearly established.”  So when the two men, Micah Jessop and Brittan Ashjian, filed a civil rights lawsuit against the [robbers], their case was dismissed.  “There was no clearly established law holding that officers violate the Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment when they steal property seized pursuant to a warrant,” the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled in September…Ashjian told the Fresno Bee last year…“if the police have a search warrant that’s valid, they could steal your things and you don’t have the ability to pursue it…I am about as pro cop as anybody, but what happened doesn’t make any sense”…
It’s really too bad that we can’t, through some super-scientific reprogramming of the brains of these supposed “heroes”, force them to limit their depradations to judges, politicians, and other “pro cop” douchebags.  Alas, some things exist only in science fiction.

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