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Posts Tagged ‘See No Evil’

[Prison officials] do not give a shit about…medical care. Not one shit.  –  Deborah Ujevich

Schadenfreude

It’s heartening to see so many rescue industry profiteers exposed as the sociopaths they are:

The founder of the International House of Prayer of Kansas City, a [rescue industry] organization, is facing serious allegations of [sexual] misconduct…Mike Bickle has led the organization since its founding in 1999…three former IHOPKC leaders said the allegations…[were] “credible and long-standing”…they tried to bring the allegations…to Bickle…[but] “were repeatedly rebuffed by Mike Bickle and we were refused any sort of meeting…Instead, Mike used manipulating and intimidating tactics towards the victims to isolate them and discredit them”…For years, [IHOPKC] has come under criticism by ex-staffers and former followers who accuse it of being cult-like…In 2012, a park ranger found follower Bethany Deaton, 27, dead in the backseat of a minivan…just weeks after her wedding…a group of young people [had lived] together under the strict control of Bethany’s husband, Tyler Deaton.  Most of the group, whose members…used sex as part of their religious experience, had come to Kansas City to be part of IHOPKC

Checklist (#1014)

The government scheme to cut sex workers off from the healthcare system isn’t dead yet:

St. Joseph’s Health [in New Jersey is subjecting its]…Emergency Department staff members…[to] in[doctrination]…designed to detect [sex workers] and…facilitate the[ir] prosecution…[blah blah] tools to engage with victims…increasing…27.6 million people worldwide…Homeland Security…[fascist] partnership…raise awareness…survivor once trapped in trafficking…psychological control…training the emergency team…to identify…victims [us]ing [scientific criteria like a “feeling of sadness“]…

The Lesser of Two Evils (#1176)

Maybe the Church should delineate acceptable ways for clergy to meet their sexual needs:

A Catholic bishop in southern Poland has resigned after a sex worker passed out at a clandestine orgy allegedly hosted by one of his clergy.  Grzegorz Kaszak, the bishop of Sosnowiec, had been under pressure…for several weeks after details of the all-male sex party were released to the press…[it] is alleged to have been held at the rectory of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Angels church in Dabrowa Gornicza…at the end of August…a…sex worker fell unconscious under the influence of “psychotropic substances”, a[nd]…another man…rang the local ambulance service for help…

Law of the Instrument (#1216)

Picture what you’d think of as “sex trafficking”, then compare it to this:

A [Nebraska] teen [has been charged with] sex trafficking two teen girls…Cody Holum, 17, is charged as an adult…[for] threaten[ing] to share nude photos of…[a] 16-year-old [girl]…if she did not allow him to sexually assault her….despite telling him no, Holum came to her work and sexually assaulted her…[when cops rooted throug his computer, they] found conversations between Holum and a second [girl]…where he allegedly threatened to harm her if she did [not]…send him sexually explicit photos and videos of herself…

This shitty behavior is usually referred to by the idiotic term “sextortion” rather than the even more idiotic term “sex trafficking”.

Torture Chamber (#1366)

Screws’ idea of prison health care is yelling “Stop faking!” at the sick and dying:

West Virginia…[politicians have] ban[ned]…any health care for incarcerated people that [screws and prison bureaucrats don’t] deem…“medically necessary”.  The policy leaves it to state [Torturing Caged Humans] Commissioner Billy Marshall—a [lifelong pig]…who has said incarcerated people are lying when they allege inhumane treatment by the state—to define “medically necessary” and makes clear that…his de[cisions]…supersede guidance from [actual] health professionals…

See No Evil (#1374)

Realistic cartoons are still cartoons, but that doesn’t matter to those who can’t tell fantasy from reality:

The Internet Watch Foundation…has found thousands of [computer]-generated images which are…criminal under UK law[, as are even the most cartoony porn cartoons if a cop decides they depict characters who are “children” within the fictive universe of the cartoon, regardless of what the creator says about these wholly-fictional characters.  Computers are]…being used to produce new images of real victims, de-age celebrities and unclothe children in ordinary photos to depict them in abuse scenarios…In a new study of a single dark web forum, the IWF found 2,978 [computer-]generated [porn cartoons]…

Stalkers in Blue (#1384)

Cops are sexual predators who often specifically target traumatized women:

A [Florida cop] has been arrested [for stalking, propositioning, and sending dick pics to]…a 17-year-old girl he met while responding to a domestic violence call…Jemiah Thomas…[talked the girl out of her] phone number…and [bombarded her with sexual messages]…In one message, Thomas told her he could be her “personal sheriff that handcuff you from time to time”…the girl…[told her] father[, who then reported]…Thomas…[and another cop caught him by fantasy role-play]ing as the [girl]…

 

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 modern porn-addiction treatment industry…seem[s] to be feeding and enabling narcissism.  –  David Ley

The Public Eye (#660)

We’ve seen sex workers win elections in Latin America, but can one win in the puritanical US?

A [nurse practitioner] running for [office] in Virginia…performed sex acts with her husband for a live online audience and encouraged viewers to pay them with “tips” for specific requests…Susanna Gibson…streamed [the performance] on Chaturbate…and…more than a dozen videos of the couple…were archived on [another] site…[called] Recurbate…a Republican operative [snitched to] The Washington Post about them…in…an [attempt to harm her campaign.  Gibson called the outing]…“a sex crime”…[alleging that sharing the] videos [without her permission] constitutes a violation of the state’s revenge porn law, which [criminalizes]…“maliciously” distribut[ing] nude or sexual images of another person with “intent to coerce, harass, or intimidate”…

Out of Control (#1116)

What is wrong with doctors who do this?

For decades, patients warned Columbia about the behavior of obstetrician Robert Hadden. One even called 911 and had him arrested. Columbia let him keep…practicing for another five weeks.  Eight patients say he assaulted them in that time…To date, more than 245 patients have alleged that Hadden abused them, which by itself could make him one of the most prolific sexual assailants in New York history.  But the total number…may be far higher.  On any given day during his two decades…at Columbia, Hadden saw 25 to 40 patients.  Tens of thousands came under his care.  A baby girl he delivered grew up to be a teenager he allegedly assaulted.  Hadden…was sentenced in July to 20 years in federal prison — the result of a long, arduous process that Columbia often undermined…In agreeing to pay $236.5 million to resolve lawsuits brought by 226 of Hadden’s victims, Columbia admitted no fault…But the university’s own records show that women repeatedly tried to warn Columbia doctors and staff about Hadden…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#1278) 

Anyone who’s ever been involved with a narcissist will see the truth of this:

In 2012, when I first began publishing challenges to the concepts of sex addiction and pornography addiction, one concern I raised was whether these diagnoses enabled persons with personality disorders to externalize responsibility for their often selfish behaviors…Now, new research justifies my early concerns, finding that personality features associated with narcissism contribute to viewing oneself as a porn addict.  Past research has found that persons high in narcissism report higher levels of pornography use in general, and…recent research has found that persons higher in narcissism…are more likely to identify themselves as victims…Externalizing responsibility and blaming others are common features of narcissism, as persons high in narcissism rarely see themselves as at fault for problems or misbehaviors…

See No Evil (#1316)

Australian cops, bravely protecting imaginary children from imaginary abuse:

A[n Australian] man has been charged over allegedly creating and operating an online child exploitation game used by…paid subscribers…The…game…[featured lolicon] images, which [are criminalized] in Australia…[cops swaggered around pretending they had saved the world from some] insidious [evil while vomiting out moral panic shibboleths such as] “in our own backyard” [and]…”hold them to account”…

The Cop Myth (#1343)

Sleeping with a cop is one of the most dangerous things a woman can do, even if she’s a cop herself:  “[An Alabama cop named] Kenneth Booth shot and killed…[his cop girlfriend] Lexi White, then took his own life during an argument…

A Moral Cancer (#1356)

Because obviously prohibition doesn’t ruin enough lives yet:

Disposable vapes will be banned [in the UK under the pretext that children [are] becoming addicted to the devices…health ministers …[have] decided [to borrow the American propaganda that no adults like]…bright colours and [sweet] flavours…

Torture Chamber (#1358)

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

A federal judge ordered Louisiana officials…to begin moving kids out of the former death row unit at Angola, one of the nation’s most notorious prisons…U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick accused state officials of breaking “virtually every promise” they had made when announcing the plan to move [legal minors] to the prison…[screws] had locked [minors] up in cells for days at a time as a form of punishment, punished detained youth with the use of handcuffs, mace, and denial of family visits, and failed to provide appropriate educational and social services and mental health treatment…The ruling gives the state one week to move youth out of Angola…

 

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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I would have been his next target.  –  Elesha Bates

Feminine Pragmatism (#514)

Most reporters are historical ignoramuses who don’t know that up until a century ago, the professions of actress and whore were indistinguishable:

Jane Fonda confessed she agreed to a date with 90-year-old Richard Lugner…[because] he…pa[id] her to accompany him to the Vienna Opera Ball…Fonda said…she needed the money to pay her bills and to support her grandchildren…The 85-year-old joins the list of female celebrities that have [accepted professional dates with]…Lugner…including Pamela Anderson, Kim Kardashian and Elle MacPherson…

Every sex worker needs money to pay her bills and many need it to support children, but the cops who hunt them and the press who demonize them don’t care, because they aren’t worth $200 million.

The Clueless Leading the Hysterical (#1185)

Unsupervised kid eats too much candy, gets sick; mom demands politicians DO SOMETHING!

An 11-year-old Staten Island boy was [taken to the emergency room] after [rudely] gobbling up THC gummies [at a family friend’s house]…and now his mom is urging the mayor to do something to pr[otect people from having to teach their kids basic manners]…Veronica Gill noticed her son, Ryan, “acting really strange” after returning home…Gill became concerned when the youngster…[got extremely high]…and [then sick]…After Ryan underwent a series of tests…a urine test revealed he had ingested a considerable amount of THC in the last few hours…Gill was…disturbed to find out that her son had taken the weed-infused gummies [without permission] from a candy drawer at the “straight-laced” party-throwers home…the …friend…[claimed to] “have no idea how the hell this got into my house”…

I’m sure it magically appeared on a grocer’s shelf, where she absent-mindedly purchased it without noting that it cost over $2 per individually-wrapped gummy, and threw it in a drawer for friends’ brats to find while rudely digging in drawers at houses where they don’t live.  Therefore a politician should issue an EDICT proclaiming “No edibles for you, New Yorkers!”

See No Evil (#1201)

Are the Japanese the only people left on Earth who can tell fantasy from reality?

A young man [in Ireland] who downloaded…[hentai] onto his phone has escaped going to jail…after Gardai [rooted through]…his phone after [stealing] it…Davies [is sane and grounded in reality, and] was [therefore]…genuinely shocked when he was told that the images were classed [in Ireland] as child pornography….[despite the fact that they] did not feature real children but were animated images involving [characters resembling] children [to Western eyes]…the…judge…sentenced Davies to 80 hours [slave labor] in lieu of four months in prison…

Panopticon (#1203)

When it comes to surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down:

From Pasadena, California to Lexington, Kentucky to Menasha, Wisconsin, to Newark, New Jersey, the surveillance company Flock Safety is blanketing American cities with dangerously powerful and unregulated automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras.  While license plate readers have been around for some time, Flock is the first to create a nationwide mass-surveillance system out of its customers’ cameras.  Working with [cop shop]s, [busybody club]s, and other private customers, Flock…runs all plates against state police watchlists and the FBI’s primary criminal database…[it]s goal is to expand to “every city in the United States,” and its cameras are already in use in over 2,000 cities in at least 42 states…Flock is building a giant camera network that records people’s comings and goings across the nation, and then makes that data available for search by any of its law enforcement customers…

I Saw My Brain (#1272)

Another pogrom from the dangerous clown who rules Polk County, Florida:

Over 200 people were arrested [in the latest pogrom against consensual sex from the deranged]…Grady Judd[, who always gives the entrapment schemes sophomoric titles, in this case] “Operation Traffic Stop”…[and then stands in front of reporters playing with himself while vomiting out lurid sexual fantasies about the people he and his costumed hooligans victimized]…

This will continue until the majority of those arrested fight back with lawsuits, or the voters of Polk County get tired of paying the many lawsuits that are already filed against this cretin every year.

To Molest and Rape (#1279)

Copaganda erodes the judgment of the naive:

A [typical and representative Oklahoma cop named Cody Even Cheyenne Kackley] faces charges after…he drove home a drunk woman from a casino and [rap]ed her in a bedroom before her brother walked in…the victim…was [heavily drinking] at [a]…Casino…and had called her brother for a ride home…[when cops decided to arrest her] and let her go…she then asked Kackley for a ride home, [foolishly] thinking it was safe “since he was a police officer”…

To Molest and Rape (#1315)

As usual, this monster’s handlers made a conscious choice to let him run wild, despite red flags:

Elesha Bates…submitted Ring camera video to the Gwinnett County Police Department and the Doraville Police Department in December as evidence after…[typical and representative cop] Miles Bryant was stalking her…Bryant…is now [suspected of raping and murdering]…16-year-old Susana Morales [during the time he was stalking Bates, who]…has known…Bryant since fifth grade…in March…shortly after she [met him again]…he showed up at her…apartment unannounced and uninvited…[she came home from work to find her] door…kicked in…her neighbor…“[told] me that there was like a guy coming and putting his ear to my door and…stuff like that…she said she saw him trying to break in”…Bryant showed up at her door again in October and two more times in December…the Ring video [she gave to cops] showed Bryant stopping by in December while she was hiding inside her apartment with her boyfriend…

 

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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There’s a continual commitment to using violence to control people and manage problems in this country.  –  Elizabeth Davies

The Truth About “The Truth About…”

Some psychopaths use moral panics to get attention at others’ expense:

A 22-year-old woman…[named] Eleanor Williams…[pretended] on Facebook…[that] she had been beaten and raped by [Muslim] men who took her to sex “parties” around the north-west of England.  The post, made…on 20 May 2020, prompted…more than 1,000 people [to] donate £22,000 to…her…and drove a sharp rise in racism…Curry house windows were smashed, beloved restaurants were boycotted and one Muslim takeaway owner was chased down the street by men who poured alcohol over his head…It also ruined the lives of those she falsely accused, who were spat at, ostracised and called “paedo” in the street…Wh[en] Williams…[made the] post…she had already been charged with making false rape allegations against four [other] men.  One of them, an 18-year-old man who had gone on a night out with her and friends, spent 10 weeks in prison…before police [bothered to] check…his alibi….[and] realised they had [arrested] him [for arguing] in [public] on the very night she first accused him of drugging and raping her…Williams had multiple phones she used to create a fictional web of abusers as well as fellow victims she created to corroborate her lies…[she concocted the fantasy] after watching [various “sex trafficking” propaganda movies and fakeumentaries, including]…the 2008 film Taken…Williams [even]…injur[ed herself]…with a claw hammer police found covered in Williams’s blood but absent of anyone else’s DNA…

To Molest and Rape (#1215)

It’s kinda nauseating to read this monster’s prattle about Jesus:

Dennis Wallace Perkins was sentenced to 100 years in [Louisiana] state prison…after the [typical and representative cop]…pleaded guilty to [several charges of rape and related crimes stemming from molestation and other violations of children he gained access to via]…his wife…Cynthia…[who allowed him to spooge into] batter [for cupcakes]…she then served to students at Westside Junior High School, where [she was]…employed as an English teacher…Perkins filmed himself making the revolting concoction.  Cynthia Perkins…[also] aid[ed] her husband in [raping and otherwise violating kids]…Perkins addressed the court…[claiming without evidence that] “Jesus Christ has forgiven me”…and…that…certain facts [which] “came to light in pre-trial motions”…would [somehow] have helped his case…

The Last Shall Be First (#1235) 

Another attempt to extend legal minority to 25 based in pseudoscience:

[A new] Oklahoma bill…proposed…by [politician] David Bullard…aims to prevent healthcare professionals from providing “gender transition procedures” to those…under 26…professionals administering [or referring patients to such]…care [c]ould be convicted of a felony…

See No Evil (#1270)

Let’s hope these opportunists get the same treatment as the Nirvana baby:

Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting were…teenagers…in the 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet, directed by Franco Zeffirelli.  The film was a hit and was nominated for four Academy Awards, but it also stirred controversy [among bluenoses] over a bedroom scene which included images of Whiting’s buttocks and Hussey’s bare breasts.  Now in their 70s, Hussey and Whiting filed a lawsuit in Santa Monica Superior Court…[hoping to cash in by] accusing Paramount of sexually exploiting them and distributing nude images of [young people who are now infantilized as] children.  The suit alleges that Zeffirelli — who died in 2019 [and is therefore unable to contradict their claims] — assured both actors that there would be no nudity in the film…but [later]…implored them to perform in the nude…[yet] the suit [also] alleges that…[they] were…filmed nude without their knowledge….They are seeking [a payday] “believed to be in excess of $500 million”…The lawsuit relies in part on a California law that temporarily suspended the statute of limitations for [mummified] claims of child sexual abuse

To Molest and Rape (#1281)

Most rapist New Orleans cops don’t do it by proxy:

…sexual violence by New Orleans [cops is]…an everyday practice of policing…on average, there is a complaint of sexual violence filed against an NOPD officer every 10 days…[and rapists are usually] allowed to resign without any investigation: of the 254 NOPD officers who left their job between 2019-2021, 90 percent had been reported for misconduct in the previous year…Of the 944 [thugs] currently employed by the NOPD, around 190 have at least one complaint of sexual and/or intimate partner violence. Of those…26 have two or more complaints, and 5…have three or more complaints.  The highest number of complaints for one [cop] still employed by the NOPD is 64…

The Cop Myth (#1297)

The death toll will continue to rise until policing as we know it now is abolished:

US law enforcement killed at least 1,176 people in 2022, making it the deadliest year on record for police violence since experts first started tracking the killings…Police…killed an average of more than three people a day, or nearly 100 people every month last year…including people fatally shot, beaten, restrained and Tasered…Only 370 (31%) involved…an alleged violent crime…What’s more, in 32% of cases last year, the person was fleeing before they were killed, generally running or driving off…Black residents were three times more likely to be killed by US police than white people. The inequality is particularly severe in some cities, including Minneapolis where police have killed Black residents at a rate 28 times higher than white residents, and Chicago, where the rate was 25 times higher…

Unsafe for Human Consumption (#1299)

If you didn’t foresee where this was going, you haven’t been paying attention:

The New Hanover County [North Carolina] Sheriff’s Office has charged a man with assault with intent to kill or seriously injure after [cops fantasized that he “]expos[ed” them]…to a “dangerous opioid drug.”  Lewis Drayton…attempted to throw drugs out of his vehicle and [when three little pigs saw this they panicked]…causing [one of the brave heroes to faint]…the Sheriff’s Office is awaiting lab testing to determine what the substance was…The charges follow a string of incidents over the last few years in which law enforcement across the country have claimed exposure to fentanyl has caused symptoms which…don’t line up with the drug’s effects.

 

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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It doesn’t sound as though the case was going very well for the government so far.  –  Judge William Fletcher

If Men Were Angels 

It’s getting harder to tell the preachers from the cops:

A former [pastor and] teacher at a [Pennsylvania] evangelical school was convicted [on August 31st] of sexually assaulting a first grader there in 2007.  Randy Lee Boston…denied the allegations, [claim]ing…that he had barely any interaction with the alleged victim while he was enrolled at the school.  But in an interview with police, a recording of which was played in court, Boston admitted to having sexual desires “connected to young boys” and being attracted to their bodies…

Choke Point (#593) 

Wells Fargo has repeatedly shown itself to be among the worst perpetrators of this abuse:

Sex workers…are reporting that the bank Wells Fargo has sent them notices terminating their accounts effective immediately, in what they see as an extension of the crackdown measures banks and other large institutions have been implementing over the past few years.  In the letters, which are dated August 25…Wells Fargo offers zero explanation for the decision…Alana Evans, the president of the Adult Performance Artists’ Guild (APAG), says that she has been a client with Wells Fargo in good standing for nearly 30 years…Spike Irons and Sofie Marie, who run…a porn production company…primarily use[d] the[ir now-closed] account to pay out independent contractors…They have since applied to two other banks and been rejected…Former adult performer Raylene has been out of the industry for a decade, and says she’s had her Wells Fargo account for 22 years.  She, too, received the same notice…despite the only adult industry-related payment on her account being residuals from a lifetime contract with Streammate…In 2014, JP Morgan Chase closed down many adult performers’ accounts without providing any explanation…

See No Evil (#1167)

Legalese for “get out of my courtroom, you opportunist”:

A federal judge…dismissed a lawsuit filed by a man who, as a baby, had graced the cover of Nirvana’s seminal album, Nevermind, and argued 30 years later that the iconic photo of him drifting naked in a pool had been a form of sexual exploitation…Spencer Elden…[even] accused Nirvana…of engaging in child pornography…The judge, Fernando M. Olguin, wrote in his eight-page ruling that because Mr. Elden had learned about the album cover more than 10 years ago, he had waited too long to file his lawsuit, making his claims untimely…

Dangerous Speech (#1186)

The government’s evil clown show continues in a new ring:

Oral arguments in the Lacey/Larkin appeal took place Sept. 2 before a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit, where the defense presented a forceful case that the government didn’t deserve a retrial…[one] issue was the testimony of California cop Brian Fichtner during last year’s…mistrial due to prosecutorial misconduct…the government…repeatedly mentioned or elicited testimony related to sex trafficking or child sex trafficking, though Lacey, Larkin, et al. are not charged with such…[prosecution witness] Fichtner, who investigated Backpage previously for then-Cali AG Kamala Harris’ failed 2016 prosecution of Lacey and Larkin, was…eviscerated on cross-examination by the defense and forced to admit that the content of the ads on Backpage was legal and on its own did not give law enforcement probable cause to arrest anyone for prostitution…this point…is important because the appellate court must find that the government had a reason to sabotage its own case for the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on double jeopardy to kick in…the prosecution faced certain defeat, and so chose to throw the case, and retool its strategy for a retrial…

A Woman’s Point of View (#1201) 

Another Vermont city achieves de facto decriminalization:

Montpelier has become the second city in Vermont to repeal its antiquated prostitution ordinance in the past year…most municipalities in Vermont do not have ordinances banning prostitution [so]…repealing the language…bring[s] Montpelier in line with the rest of the state.  Though bills proposing to decriminalize prostitution were introduced during the past two legislative sessions, they did not advance and prostitution remains criminalized at the state level…

The Cop Myth (#1232)

How long will America ignore the costs of its sick worship of state-sanctioned violence?

California…[cops murder]ed nearly 1,000 people in six years…[despite] recent legislative attempts to curtail police violence by toughening the rules of engagement for officers, requiring deescalation training and bringing in outside investigators when unarmed civilians are killed [but not actually holding the murderers responsible as ifthey were non-cops]…For the sixth straight year, Los Angeles County was the setting for the largest number (172) and highest rate (27.4 incidents per 100,000 residents) of [police violence too serious to ignore] in the state last year…

I Spy (#1233)

Modern fascism has spun a terrifyingly-extensive surveillance net:

[Cop shop]s from suburban Southern California to rural North Carolina have been using an obscure cellphone tracking tool, [usually] without search warrants, that gives them the power to follow people’s movements months back in time…[cops] have used “Fog Reveal” to search hundreds of billions of records from 250 million mobile devices, and harnessed the data to create location analyses known among [pigs] as “patterns of life”…The tool is rarely, if ever, mentioned in court records, something that defense attorneys say makes it harder for them to properly defend their clients in cases in which the technology was used.  The company was developed by two former high-ranking Department of Homeland Security officials under former President George W. Bush.  It relies on advertising identification numbers…culled from popular cellphone apps such as Waze, Starbucks and hundreds of others that target ads based on a person’s movements and interests…that information is then sold to companies like Fog…

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[Morality in Media’s] entire existence doesn’t make much sense if they can’t convince more prudes that nekkid people are destroying society.  –  Mike Masnick

My Body, My Choice

An argument I’ve often made myself:

…feminists should embrace a definition of sexual freedom that goes beyond the right to prevent reproduction and which focuses on women’s sexual autonomy…Anti-abortion advocates have embraced paternalistic arguments that assert they know better than women about their best interests and the harms of abortion…in much the same way mainstream feminists have claimed to know better than sex workers about how they should use their bodies. However, decriminalized sex work and access to abortion allow women in economic precarity escape destitution…the decriminalization of sex work has been treated as niche or counterproductive to the goal of sexual freedom…this…has contributed to the political embrace of access to abortion as the priority issue for feminist organizing, while women’s groups have openly contested women’s right to be free from criminalization while engaging in commercialized sex…

Pretext

Conscription of unconsenting drivers into copaganda will continue until reporters stop parroting cop PR releases:

Tulsa [cops] were out [stalking people as usual], but instead of giving out tickets, the [cops used them without their consent in a PR stunt funded by]…an anonymous donor [who] gave them nine, $100 gift cards to give out to people.  [Cops said]…the [terrified or disgusted] look on their [victims’] faces made it [fun for them]…

See No Evil (#937)

Are the Japanese the only people left on Earth who can tell fantasy from reality?

…it isn’t just [actual child porn] that Silicon Valley’s biggest companies are trying to find and erase from their servers.  They’re also looking for cartoons depicting graphic acts involving [drawings of fictional characters that resemble] children, as revealed by a recent search warrant [demand]ing Google…provide information on a[n artist] who[m the Thought Police decided to accuse of] own[ing] such animations.  That kind of content is p[rosecutable]… under U.S. law and can be detected by Google’s anti-child…systems, a fact not…discussed [with Google’s customers]…in late 2020 in Kansas…Google detected “digital art or cartoons depicting [fictional characters which appeared to mindless algorithms to resemble] children engaged in sexually explicit conduct”…within a Drive account…Google [eagerly] handed information on what it found…to the [Feds]…This [should] concern…artists [and anyone else who understands the difference between fantasy and reality]…but [useful idiots in the media pretend] the [criteria]…prosecutor[s use when] trying to [destroy people’s lives for cartoons are not only objective, but judged by people with functional moral compasses]…

A Woman’s Point of View (#1003) 

Prohibitionists can always find bogus “studies” to support their fantasies:

Burlington [Vermont] city councilors…unanimous[ly] pass[ed]…a…measure [which] will…go before the voters…in March.  The measure would remove [anti-sex worker] language…from the city charter, e[stablishing de facto decriminalization] in the city…Councilor Perri Freeman…introduced the action…to [protect]…sex workers…Freeman…[correctly pointed out th]at [Morality in Media,] a [religious pro-censorship] group [which sent a number of shills]…to speak against [human rights, is led by]…Patrick Trueman…former director of…government affairs for the American Families Association…a Southern Poverty Law Center hate group”…

The Cop Myth (#1145)

Sleeping with a cop is one of the most dangerous things a woman can do:

A [typical and representative] Houston [cop named]…Ray Irvin…was arrested on Dec. 17 a[fter he]…broke into his ex-girlfriend’s apartment on Nov. 21[, then pistol-whipped] and beat [her because]…she had changed the locks because [she was afraid he’d do exactly what he did when] they broke up…

You Were Warned (#1175)

Are you beginning to see the whole picture now?

…the State Department released its United States Advisory Council on Human Trafficking Annual Report 2021…Anti-human trafficking policy…seems to attract some very, very bizarre people…[which] perhaps…explains the report’s incredibly bizarre, incorrect, and just weird thoughts on the internet and Section 230…[one] section…looks like it was directly written by…Morality in Media…One of the group’s big lobbying campaigns is to convince states to pass laws declaring pornography to be a “public health issue“…The claim that porn is “the marketing department for sex trafficking”…seems wholly irresponsible to put it into a State Dept. document…the report…ignores all th[e evidence of what a disaster FOSTA was] and says we just need to take an even bigger sledge hammer to Section 230…why is the State Department allowing its name and credibility to be used to launder this nonsense as if it’s legit?

The Cop Myth (#1194)

Another example of why cops are not reformable:

…two sex workers in Washington, D.C…called 911 reporting that a [drunk and] belligerent [cop] had [tried to rape]…one of them…a[t] gun[point], and then accused them of stealing his phone…the…plates…[of the assailant’s car]…show[ed]…it belonged to Ronald Faunteroy…who…after a…two-hour interview [with internal affairs]…confess[ed]…Yet a powerful tribunal of three high-ranking [cops], known as the Adverse Action Panel, overruled the department’s decision to fire Faunteroy…MPD’s Disciplinary Review Division sought to terminate at least 24 [cops] currently on the force for criminal misconduct from 2009 to 2019.  In all but three of those cases…the Adverse Action Panel blocked the termination and instead issued much lighter punishment…These [cops had been caught committing] domestic violence, DUIs, indecent exposure, sexual solicitation, stalking, and more.  In several instances, they fled the scenes of their crimes…

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The only way to guarantee that such a powerful tool isn’t abused…is to never create it.  –  Apple in 2016

See No Evil

Moral panics really spin out of control as they age:

Spencer Elden, the man whose unusual baby portrait was used for…the…cover…of…Nirvana’s Nevermind, filed a lawsuit…[pretend]ing that the nude image constituted child pornography…[despite the fact that] non-sexualized nude photos of infants are…not considered child pornography under law.  [To circumvent this plain fact in order to cash in on “child porn” hysteria], Robert Y. Lewis, Elden’s [shyster, fantasizes]…that the inclusion of currency in the shot makes the baby appear “like a sex worker”…[Lewis demands] at least $150,000 from each of the defendants, who include…the…original Nirvana drummer…even though he had been replaced…before the album was recorded or the cover photography shot.  Elden has repeatedly recreated the pose as a teenager and adult, diving into pools to pose (with swim trunks on) on the occasion of the album’s 10th, 17th, 20th and 25th anniversaries…

“A sex worker”.  Seriously.  I reckon he’s supposed to be one of those hundreds of thousands of infant hookers needed to bring the average debut age down to 13.

For Those Who Think Legalization is a Good Idea (#648)

What “legal but heavily regulated” looks like in action:

On August 11, the Nagpur police put [up] a large number of barricades completely sealing the Ganga-Jamuna area….without any prior notice or reason [thu]s drastically affect[ing] the livelihood…of over a thousand sex workers who have been living and working for decades in the area…over 100 [cops] have been [sent to swagger around] the area at all times…Sex workers in India are one of the groups that are consistently at the receiving end of…state-sponsored police brutality…[even though] the profession is not illegal…brothel areas are repeatedly raided and their workers are harassed by the police…A petition by the National Network of Sex Workers, India (NNSW) demanding “Unseal Ganga Jamuna” has been put online and signed by more than 2700 people and organisations…

License to Rape (#720)

“Search” is the most common government euphemism for “molest”:

A Raleigh mother has filed a federal lawsuit against the TSA…a[fter] the[y]…violated her transgender teenager’s rights by [demanding] a strip-search at the airport.  Jamii Erway, 15 at the time, had a valid boarding pass [but] when [t]he [equipment regist]ered a “false positive”…a TSA [goon demanded]…to [leer at] her genitals…[and lied] “that she was not free to leave until she submitted to [the humiliation], in violation of TSA policy, the Fourth Amendment, and…the boundaries of civil and decent society”…the [goon further called the cops on the teenager]…and the[ir threatening] presence…[unsurprisingly] triggered…a…panic…[attack].  Rather than submit to the [molestation]…her mother, Kimberly Erway, rented a car and [they] drove 600 miles.  The Erways seek unspecified damages and an injunction preventing such a scenario from happening again…

Panopticon (#986)

Cops even get their equipment to lie for them:

Michael Williams…was [locked in a cage for almost a year], accused [by cops] of killing a young man from [his] neighborhood who asked him for a ride during a night of unrest over police brutality in May…the [supposed] evidence against Williams didn’t come from an eyewitness or [snitch, but rather]…from a clip of [silent] security video showing a car driving through an intersection, and a loud bang [separately] picked up by a network of surveillance microphones.  Prosecutors [pretende]d…a secret algorithm that analyzed noises detected by the sensors indicated Williams shot and killed the man…ShotSpotter [claims have] increasingly been admitted in court cases…[as evidence despite the fact that] it…can miss live gunfire right under its microphones, or misclassify the sounds of fireworks or cars backfiring as gunshots.  F[antasy stories written]…by ShotSpotter’s employees have been used in court to [lie] that a defendant shot at police, or provide [lies about] the number of shots allegedly fired by defendants…the…system…[i]s a…black box largely inscrutable to the public, jurors and police oversight boards…[but] the company…fully admits that]…employees can and do modify the location or number of shots fired [on their own whims or] at the request of police…in the past, city dispatchers or police themselves could also make some of these changes

Stalkers in Blue (#987)

Once in a while, there are witnesses to the way cops act toward women:

Florida [cop]…Naci Tuzcuoglu…approached a woman singing karaoke at…[a] sports bar…[and] put his hands on her hips.  The woman…t[old] him she was married and not interested [but he kep harassing her, so she]…went outside and spoke to her husband…Tuzcuoglu [followed her]…and punched the man in the face…multiple times…[while] taunt[ing him]…“I’m a cop…What are you gonna do about it?”…

Choke Point (#1150)

“Progressives” are finally deigning to notice financial discrimination vs some sex workers:

OnlyFans…has faced widespread backlash from sex workers after it announced…that it will ban sexually explicit content starting Oct. 1.  Some LGBTQ OnlyFans creators say the changes could jeopardize one of their primary sources of income during the Covid-19 pandemic…

OnlyFans reversed its position the day after this article appeared, but I still featured it because it illustrates a disturbing trend I’ve seen lately: some “progressives” only seem to think sex workers deserve rights if they’re queer (especially trans).  Now, since the majority of sex workers are some flavor of LGBT, fighting for their rights will still help straight, cisgender sex workers as well.  But I think it’s pretty sad that some people don’t think human rights are worth supporting unless they’re the “correct” people’s rights.

I Spy (#1161)

Straight from the horse’s mouth:

Apple’s own employees have been expressing alarm [about its plans to snoop in customers’ phones].  The company [pretend]s reservations about the system are rooted in “misunderstandings.”  We disagree.  We wrote the only peer-reviewed publication on how to build a system like Apple’s — and…we’re not concerned because we misunderstand how Apple’s system works.  The problem is, we understand exactly how it works…Our system could be easily repurposed for surveillance and censorship.  The design wasn’t restricted to a specific category of content; a service could simply swap in any content-matching database, and the person using that service would be none the wiser.  A…government could, for example, compel a service to out people sharing disfavored political speech…WeChat, the popular Chinese messaging app, already uses content matching to identify dissident material.  India enacted rules this year that could require pre-screening content critical of government policy.  Russia recently fined GoogleFacebook and Twitter for not removing pro-democracy protest materials[, and US politicians are pressuring social media companies to censor anything they declare “misinformation”]…We warned against our own system design…[an]d planned to discuss paths forward at an academic conference this month…[but] the week before our presentation, Apple announced it would deploy its nearly identical system…

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Smart people…[a]re better than dumber people at coming up with reasons to justify their false beliefs.  –  Cathy Reisenwitz

See No Evil (#424)

Censors have learned to use “progressive” rhetoric to cloak prudery:

A 26-foot-tall sculpture of Marilyn Monroe playfully patting down her upblown skirt is the source of a [moronic] debate in Palm Springs, California.  The town’s city council has approved the…recreation of the act[ress]’s iconic scene atop a blustery subway grate from…The Seven Year Itch—to be installed near the Palm Springs Art Museum for a three-year period.  But…[prudes, busybodies and censors are dis]pleased with the decision…the museum’s executive director…Louis Grachos [made furtive movements in his pants while bloviating weird fantasies about underwear]…“school-age children”…and [how the]…statue [magically] objectifies women…[thereby] “hurt[ing] our whole community”…Steven H. Maloney, chair of the museum’s board of trustees, [opined that women are so stupid that a painted hunk of metal constitutes]…“an unhealthy encouragement of risqué behavior of women”…

I have a hard time imagining what a lower opinion of women than that displayed by these pompous weeds would look like.

Policing Womanhood

Cathy Reisenwitz has further thoughts on the origin of whore-hatred in women:

As my friend and fellow sex worker Maggie McNeill points out, public polling suggests men are more likely to support sex work decrim than women…Maggie thinks that the main reason women oppose sex work decrim is that women tend to think of women’s individual behavior as reflecting on women as a whole and think sex work is a bad look…I think there’s truth to that, but it lacks an important class angle…middle-class white women began campaigning for laws against prostitution and defining any type of promiscuity as prostitution in the Progressive Era at the turn of the 20th century…Middle-class white women feared female economic independence threatened dominant middle-class values.  By making prostitution dangerous and illegal, middle-class white women sought to force working-class women, women of color, and immigrant women into marriage, chastity, monogamy, hard work, and propriety lest they live independently of men and destroy the social order…

To Molest and Rape (#825)

Rapist cops don’t only target women:

A man who [was raped by] a [typical and representative] South Carolina [cop]…is suing the city of Travelers Rest…The [cop], Shawn Jenkins, was fired from the [cop shop] last year after…[the] Sheriff’s Office…[only] charged [him] with second-degree sexual misconduct…The plaintiff, who filed the suit anonymously, told investigators Jenkins pointed a department-issued stun gun at him while he was visiting Jenkins’ residence on Aug. 5, 2019, and told him to “strip or be tased”…The [then-underage victm] tried to run away, but [Jenkins] locked [him] inside a room [and raped him]…

Pyrrhic Victory (#974) 

As long as cops suffer no consequences for disobedience, laws like this are mere political grandstanding:

In Maine, voters in the state’s largest city recently enacted one of the toughest facial recognition bans in the country in the Nov. 3 elections, outlawing both use of the technology by local police and the city government…the measure codifies – [but adds only weak] enforcement teeth – to a ban…passed in August by the Portland City Council…The new law allows citizens to sue the city for illegal facial recognition surveillance by the city police or government.  Citizens could get [a mere] $1,000 per violation plus legal fees, if they prevail in court.  Municipal employees [but not cops] can be fired [but not criminally prosecuted] for violating the [law]…

Welcome to the Future (#1073)

Pasco County, Florida’s “predictive policing” scheme doesn’t spare minors:

The Pasco Sheriff’s Office keeps a secret list of kids it [pretend]s could “fall into a life of crime” based on factors like whether they’ve been abused or gotten a D or an F in school…the list [is created] by combining the rosters for most middle and high schools in the county with records so sensitive, they’re protected by state and federal law…Four hundred and twenty kids are [currently] on the list…[cops do]n’t tell the kids or their parents about the designation…an[d]…school…[administrators claim to have been] unaware…of [it as well]…The Department of Children and Families [refused to] answer…the Sheriff’s Office…use[s the list] to [target]…middle and high school…[students for surveillance and harassment euphemized as] “mentorship” and “resources”…Ten experts in law enforcement and student privacy…called the program…a clear misuse of children’s confidential information that stretched the limits of the law…

Legislators Gone Wild (#1086)

Why are Nevada brothel whores unable to open their mouths without vomiting out toxic whorearchy?

…[brothel whores unemployed] because of COVID-19…say they are being forced to make money in what they call dangerous, scary and illegal ways…the long shutdown is depleting their savings and they’re going broke waiting to work again.  That is forcing some of them to turn to things they didn’t want to to make money, like illegal prostitution.  One…says…”it’s so degrading and so scary”…Another…admits to illegally meeting with a Mustang Ranch regular…she trusted him but…he beat and choked her…two [say they] decided to turn a trick in Arizona…but…the…man…ended up holding them hostage in the bathroom at gun point…The madams also say they’re seeing some of their workers walking the streets now with…pimps…”If you walk into a casino, the floor is filled with illegal prostitutes and pimps”…

Apparently these whores are both incompetent and cursed, so that in a few months they’ve experienced more violence than every escort I know put together has experienced in years.

Dangerous Speech (#1087)

It’s symptomatic of the government’s deep moral rot that she wasn’t automatically disqualified:

On Nov. 18, veteran newspapermen Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin took the extraordinary step of filing a petition for a writ of mandamus with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, asking it to intervene in their ongoing criminal case and order Judge Susan Brnovich to recuse herself from all future proceedings…her husband, Arizona Attorney General Mark…Brnovich, others on his behalf and organizations with which he is associated…have vilified Backpage, assumed its complicity in sex trafficking, and drawn conclusions about facts that will be at issue in the trial of Lacey, Larkin and their four co-defendants…[although] the AG’s inaccurate assumptions about Backpage go to the heart of the case and raise the specter of potential bias on behalf of the judge[, she has stubbornly refused to recuse herself]…

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Women…are being undermined by a system that should be supporting them.  –  Joan Phillips

Surplus Women

Two women were murdered, but this reporter thinks the real story is the neighbors’ sadfeelz about how they made their living:

Over the past [two] years, two women were murdered in [DeKalb County, Georgia]…one…in 2017…[and] the…second…a few months ago…[but sociopathic] neighbors…[are more concerned with] solicitation [on a local stroll than the deaths of two human beings]…They said they see it in early mornings when school kids are waiting for the bus…A [WSB-TV] photographer also rode along with DeKalb County police to…listen…to [copaganda about] human trafficking…

Note that this is the same copsucking TV station which we saw demonizing people’s religion a few days ago.

Yellow Fever

Modern media companies like The Guardian are willing to discard whatever credibility they once enjoyed:

…[the] vastly profitable and largely unregulated [sex industry] has…become infested with criminality, turning Spain into a global hub for human trafficking and sexual slavery…the scale of the problem…is staggering…the [new prohibitionist] Spanish government [claims] that up to 90% of women working in prostitution could be victims of trafficking…[Spanish cops claim to have] rescued 5,695 people from slavery but acknowledge that thousands more remain under the control of…gangs operating with impunity…

Shame, Shame

Most journalists abandoned most of their ethics long ago:

Last June, Florida Today decided to…scrap its traditional gallery of mug shots…an increasing number of editors…have recognized that the American style of crime reporting— picking sensational cases with the most odious details, printing mug shots and full names, and not providing contextual information on crime and statistics in stories —needs a long-overdue overhaul.  Still, on the internet, the salacious news story and the quest for “hits” too often subsumes  conscientious reporting.  Despite the fact that most prisoners will be released, permanent digital punishment in the form of salacious reporting or mug shots hinders reentry…

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (#627)

It’s so good to see more widespread recognition of this:

…Dr Joan Phillips said while there was a lot of [hoohah about “sex trafficking”] in the Caribbean…it seem[s] to be [simply] a matter of people moving for…work…She argued that too often, Caribbean countries were made to feel that “something needs to be done” about [what the US calls] human trafficking and that it needs to be done now…“we in the Caribbean…are being pushed to look at something that we are not sure…is happening but because of the political and economic influence of US foreign policy we need to do something or we will lose funding”… she argued…that…[US bureaucrats and politicians do] not take into consideration the willing movement of people to work in various settings including nightclubs…“The…issue with the sex [trafficking] paradigm is that poor women are becoming poorer and…the systems that have been put in place [to supposedly help them] are lip service…we need to look at…the ideology about trafficking in a totally different way…Caribbean governments have to…deci[de]…whether they accept the foreign policy of the US and talk about this sexual trafficking and put all this law in place and not focus on…the bigger issues…poverty, vulnerability, lack of education, the need for support for children, unemployment and so on”…

To Molest and Rape

Anything to avoid the word “rape”:

A Richmond [Virginia cop] has been indicted by a…grand jury…Michael Bryson…has been charged with a misdemeanor count of…sexually abusing the victim against their will by force, threat, intimidation, or ruse…

Election Day (#840) 

This is beginning to look like the beginning of the end of the War on Drugs:

A referendum in Denver to decriminalize psilocybin, or “magic mushrooms”, appears to have passed by a narrow margin…But the activists who worked to get the issue on the ballot say their fight was the beginning of a larger movement…Cindy Sovine, a political consultant who worked on the initiative [said]…”Whether you’re using this plant for a medical reason, or a spiritual reason, or a recreational reason, you should not be going to jail or losing your children for it”…

Dangerous Speech

The government’s entire case against Backpage is based on lies and wanking fantasies:

The Arizona Republic recently…claim[ed]  prosecutors had revealed “new evidence”, which demonstrated that Michael Lacey, a former owner of the now defunct classified ad website Backpage.com, was aware of and complicit in sex trafficking taking place on the site.  This so-called evidence consisted of internal Backpage emails from 2012…where Lacey and others discuss how to respond to an inquiry from…Nicholas Kristof, a notorious prig, who, in preparation for an opinion piece, had asked Backpage to comment on the case of a 13 year-old girl alleged…[by disgraced racist prosecutor Lauren Hersh to have been] advertised on Backpage…The…quote from [Lacey’s] email…reads…”We do how many million ads, and he picks out one, tells us by the end of the day and wants our total response by a.m.?  Of course there are kids who get through the system.  As there are in bars.  This makes pursuit of solution…more critical rather than scoring political points”.  Given…that Backpage regularly cooperated with law enforcement in order to catch perpetrators who were misusing the site, only a latter-day Inspector Javert would look at such an email and assume that it established guilt.  It would be far easier to draw the opposite conclusion, that the email’s author does not want underage individuals accessing Backpage…

Welcome To Our World (#888)

Do you really need more evidence of the link between anti-sex work and anti-abortion campaigns?

Phalla was a surrogate paid to carry [a] baby for a couple in China.  Now, due to [totalitarian] measures enacted by Cambodian authorities late last year…Phalla is among dozens of women forced to raise [someone else’s] child…If she doesn’t, she faces up to 20 years in prison for human trafficking…Phalla had a caesarean birth in August [while pigs lurked and watched]…Three months later, she and her newborn were released on bail, on the strict condition that she did not give the child away and [was forced] to raise the child until she turned 18…Phalla must present herself — baby in hand — to a local police office once a month.  She cannot change her address without the investigating judge’s permission, and failing to meet these bail conditions could result in her arrest…

Forced parenthood.  Registered “sex offender” type treatment.  “Human trafficking” as a catch-all.  Get it yet?

See No Evil (#889)

Another prosecution for drawings of fictional characters:

The former commander of the 49th Medical Support Squadron at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico will face a civilian trial later…over accusations of possessing [what prosecutors call] virtual child pornography, and will also be court-martialed in August.  Lt. Col. Keith Vollenweider…[is said to have] knowingly possessed “visual depictions, such as drawings, cartoons and virtual images, that depict minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct”…

Note that people have been similarly charged for possessing Japanese manga books because the characters appear “child-like” by Western aesthetic standards.

Property of the State (#895) 

Critics of governmental abuses need to stop using neutral words like “taken” and call these crimes what they are:

Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services…has a practice of obtaining blank [child abduction] orders pre-signed by judges.  Social workers then fill out the documents with the necessary information after they’ve been signed by a judge and then use them to [abduct] children from parents who[m somebody decided to accuse of something]…no judge actually reviews these orders, or the evidence used to justify separating a family, before signing them.  This…galling abuse of…basic civil liberties…only came to an end after an investigative report by WDRB…spotlighted the practice…

Pyrrhic Victory (#912) 

As long as cops suffer no consequences for disobedience, laws like this are mere political grandstanding:

San Francisco…is…on track to be the first municipality in the United States to [officially] ban use of facial recognition technology by the city government…the bill also requires all other types of surveillance technologies—like automatic license plate readers, predictive policing software, and cell phone surveillance towers—to only be adopted by city agencies following a public notice and vote by the Board of Supervisors.  The bill also requires [bureaucratic] policies for how surveillance technologies will [supposedly] be used by the city government…A similar proposal to ban the use of facial recognition across the bay in Oakland…will be debated later this month…There was [already] some pushback from [copsuckers and badge-lickers, especially those who]…give [cops access to] their private surveillance camera[s]

A Broker in Pillage (#918)

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

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed three bills into law…that significantly limit police’s ability to [steal] property…11 other states…have passed laws requiring convictions before forfeitures in some or all cases…Three states have abolished civil forfeiture altogether.  In Hawaii, a bill banning civil forfeiture is currently awaiting the governor’s signature…the new Michigan laws…still…[allow people to] be pressured by [cops] to sign away their property [under threat]…

Negative Secondary Effects (#933)

A lot of people are growing sick of the oppression of sex workers:

Hundreds of people have signed a petition backing workers at a strip club weeks after calls were made for its licence to be revoked.  [Prohibitionists who paid men to secretly film dancers without their consent claim their snitches] saw dancers performing sex acts at Spearmint Rhino in Sheffield…An open letter with the petition backing the workers at the club said: “We believe sex work should not be stigmatised as uniquely or especially oppressive to women in the context of widespread misogyny and male violence against women.  Sex work is legal, and advocating to take away women’s choice to do safe, legal work is anti-feminist and anti-worker”…

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Harris’s contempt for sex workers lies at the heart of her hypocrisy.  –  Stephen Lemons

Feminine Pragmatism 

Wherever there are men making money, there will be enterprising women working to get some of it:

Mongolia’s mining boom started in the early 2000s and mining now accounts for around 20 per cent of Mongolia’s gross domestic product.  The growth…has created a spike in internal migration to mining areas – most notably Ömnögovi…The coal route from the Tavan Tolgoi coal deposit to the Chinese border is synonymous with sex work fuelled by the mining industry…In contrast to the stigma…in the city…the border area [i]s accepting and open…four or five women travel to the border area with a driver and rent a ger (a traditional round felted tent) to stay…If [truck] drivers don’t have cash, they pay in fuel: 40 or 50 litres of diesel for one act, 100 litres for one hour.  The women then resell the fuel when they can…Ulaanbaatar…is [by contrast] a harsh environment for women working in the trade…sex [workers] in…sauna[s] in the capital…[are beaten by] police and customers…ultra-nationalists target sex workers on the street and shave their heads to disgrace them…

Despite the obligatory “sex trafficking” disinformation and nonsense sprinkled throughout, the article is not a bad look at sex work in a part of the world few Westerners know anything about.

See No Evil (#25)

Are the Japanese the only people left on Earth who can tell fantasy from reality?

The United Nations has proposed an international initiative…to tighten…restrictions and prohibition of…child pornography…However…child pornography…”is defined…as ‘any representation of a child engaged in real or simulated explicit sexual activities…includ[ing]…visual material such as photographs, movies, drawings and cartoons…including when…such material represents…non-existing children”…

Blunt Instrument

Massage parlors are popular targets of “anti-trafficking” pogroms because they’re low-hanging fruit:

One South Carolina [politician] is working to shut down massage parlors…Mandy Powers Norrell proposed legislation that could close those places for good.  “It will give labor, licensing, and regulation the authority to close them down and prosecute any [women] found there,” [she bloviated]…

Policing for Profit

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

…In case after case, [motorists were robbed by cops claiming]…the cash was found near drugs.  Yet few…ever were arrested.   They were caught in one of the most aggressive [robbery] operations in [South Carolina, where the]…police…[stole] nearly $50,000 from…motorists over a two-year period…$135 for every person living in Nichols.  That’s six times more per resident than any other police department in the state…

An Example To the West (#636)

Ugandan sex workers demand their rights:

Human and women rights activists have appealed to Members of Parliament not to criminalise prostitution as they debate and pass the pending Sexual Offences Bill of 2015…”These arrests are mostly carried out to solicit bribes from sex workers and harass them.  Few of them get to trial.  The provision, is therefore, unnecessary since it is unenforceable,” [said] Macklean Mary Kyomya…of Alliance of Women Advocating for Change…activists brandished placards reading…”outlaw poverty not prostitution…rights not rescue…my body, my business”…

Secret Squirrel (#686)

Conditioning squares to accept intrusive monitoring of every aspect of their lives:

Devices worn on employees’ bodies are an increasingly valuable source of workforce health intelligence for employers and insurance companies.  It’s fueling a boom in the use of wrist-borne health and fitness monitors such as those made by Fitbit, Garmin and Apple…the information is not covered by federal rules that protect health records from disclosure.  And when it’s combined with data such as credit scores, employees are giving up more insights about themselves than they realize…In general, employees in such programs [“voluntarily”] sign up for digital health monitoring.  They are lured by cash, reduced premiums, or reimbursements for co-payments and deductibles…Fitbit is moving aggressively to sign up companies.  It added a call service that [nag]…workers…via text messages and phone calls…whose data shows they are falling short of their [assigned “fitness goals”]…

You amateurs really think being spied on like this is OK?  No wonder fantasies of whores “enslaved” by exploitative bosses who spy on their every move are so popular; it’s just amateurs projecting their work conditions onto us.

Pyrrhic Victory (#697)

The dystopian future of Minority Report has arrived:

The use of PredPol—a predictive policing software…is far more widespread than previously reported…PredPol claims to use an algorithm to predict crime in specific 500-foot by 500-foot sections of a city, so that police can…surveil specific areas more heavily…PredPol [has] contract[s or] negotiation[s]…with…South Jordan, UT; Mountain View, CA; Atlanta, GA; Haverhill, GA; Palo Alto, CA; Modesto, CA; Merced, CA; Livermore, CA; Tacoma, WA; and the University of California, Berkeley…Los Angeles, Elgin [CA], Oakland [CA], Richmond [CA]…Milpitas [CA]…Santa Cruz, CA; Morgan Hill, CA, Fairfield, CA, Los Gatos/Monte Sereno, CA; Campbell, CA; Salinas, CA; Alhambra, CA; Lansing, MI; Seattle, WA; San Francisco, CA; Columbia, SC…Manhattan, KS…Little Rock, AK; Kent, England; Reading, PA; “and many more”…Predpol explicitly encourage[s] police departments to dedicate their resources towards petty crime…Shahid Buttar, the Director of Grassroots Advocacy for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)…[explains] it’s impossible to expect unbiased results from predictive policing technology, because the data it analyzes is structurally biased.  Predictive policing is “driven by…data that itself reflects longstanding and pervasive bias…If you overpolice certain communities, and only detect crime within those communities, and then try to provide a heat map of predictions, any AI will predict that crimes will occur in the places that they’ve happened before”…

The Spiral of Absurdity (#743) 

“Sex trafficking” fetishists are still masturbating to the fantasy that emojis are part of some mysterious pimp “code”:

Bay Area prosecutors were trying to prove that a man arrested during a prostitution sting was guilty of pimping charges, and among the [supposed] evidence was a series of Instagram DMs he’d allegedly sent to a woman…with high heels and money bag emoji placed at the end…[a hired gun claiming to be] an expert…in sex trafficking…[fantasized under oath that] the high heels and bags of money supported the interpretation that the defendant was accused of sex trafficking, essentially translating to “wear your high heels to come make some money.”  Another message from the defendant included the crown emoji, which was said to signify that the “pimp is the king”.  Ultimately, the ruling didn’t hinge on the interpretation of emoji, but [that didn’t stop prosecutors from trying to destroy lives based on the masturbatory fantasies of people who’ve never done sex work in their lives]…

Uncommon Sense (#745)

Yet another registration regime fails miserably, as we keep telling y’all:

Only 76 of the reportedly 200,000 women (0.038%) who work as prostitutes in Germany have registered for state services [and of course politicians can’t understand why]…sex workers [can] register for state-run health insurance, pensions and unemployment benefits…[but the price after a new and paternalistic] law was enacted…in 2017 [is] regist[ration with pigs, mandatory “counseling”, prying into their private lives by social workers and compulsory] regular health [inspections]…most prostitutes…register under some different professional category in order to continue working anonymously…

The Pygmalion Fallacy (#848)

Never underestimate the human capacity to obsess about things that don’t exist:

…sex robots are rapidly becoming a part of…national [fantasies] about the future of sex and relationships….a number of companies are currently developing [human-shaped sex toys]…with a few already on the market…A 2017 survey suggested almost half of Americans think that having sex with robots will become a common practice within 50 years [the same fraction who think Donald Trump is intelligent and genetically-modified foods are dangerous].  As a [pompous windbag]…I’m interested in the legal and policy questions that sex robots pose…How will [masturbating] with a sex [doll] affect the human [soul]?  Would sex with a child[-shaped toaster] be ethical?…

These articles are so deeply stupid, I just can’t take them at all seriously any more.  Despite the claims in the title, “sex robots” are not here, and never will be in the form envisioned by both fetishists and prohibitionists.  And the dolls (that’s all they are, silicone dolls) which people insist on incorrectly calling “robots” are inanimate objects which raise no more “ethical issues” than a Baby Alive or a tablet computer.

Held Together With Lies (#858)

We haven’t seen this concentration of ludicrous claims in a couple of years now:

[The rescue industry] is the business of stealing freedom for profit.  [Sex workers labeled against their will as] victims of trafficking are deprived of their basic human rights, dehumanized, brutalized and objectified [by police]…Human trafficking business is [fantasized] to generate $100 billion annually, more than Apple, Starbucks, Microsoft, and Nike combined…there are 40.3 million victims of human trafficking globally…we [masturbate furiously while fantasizing] that there are countless victims, some only young teens…in our own communities…Sex trafficking data is scarce and has many gaps, due to [our making it up as we go]…

As usual, ridiculous numbers are slung about in self-contradictory fashion, mis-citing sources (the 40.3 million fantasy is from the NGO “Walk Free Foundation”, not the ILO as claimed) and claiming knowledge while admitting there is none.  So naturally I had to correct the wording a bit.

Top Cop

Another example of the odiousness of the police-state operative Hillary fans have anointed as their savior:

It’s the hypocrisy, stupid.  That’s what pundits from The Nation to the Washington Post fail to grasp about the onetime romance between former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and California Senator and Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris.  Harris’s apologists would have people believe that discussion of the relationship, which occurred two decades ago when Brown held the powerful post of Speaker of the California Assembly and Harris was a lowly deputy district attorney in California’s Alameda County, is sexist, racist, or both.  Viewed in light of Harris’s ongoing war on sex workers, however, her advantageous liaison with Brown indicates that she has no problem applying different rules to herself than she does to others…Maggie McNeill [said]…“I have absolutely nothing against the fact that she used her sexuality to get by in the world…What I do have a problem with, is that having gained that power, she used it to attack other women for doing the same thing”…

Disaster (#909)

The successors of Tumblr:

…with Tumblr’s strict adult-content ban…kinky bloggers fled the site–searching for, and trying to build, new communities.  One of the fastest growing of these sites is relative newcomer newTumbl, which has gained about 40,000 blogs since it launched on December 31.  True to its name, the site closely resembles Tumblr–at least the NSFW parts that are now banned…MojoFire, a site created by members of the BDSM community but aspiring to host all types of content, has not yet launched.  Yet others were already in the works before the Tumblr porn ban and have seen a large influx of refugee bloggers.  For instance, Pillowfort–another site meant for a broad community–has been straining with the arrival of former Tumblr users, forcing it to limit new sign-ups…MakeLoveNotPorn…[has] provided a hub for user-generated “social sex” videos since 2009…

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