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In the News (#974)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Tale That Grew in the Telling, Arizona, Backpage, bogus studies, Bottleneck, California, censorship, Colorado, cops, Dangerous Speech, Disaster, disease, drugs, fantasy, hysteria, internet, law, Law of the Instrument, male prostitutes, Minnesota, Negative Secondary Effects, neofeminism, Never Call the Cops, Not for Any Reason Whatsoever, politicians, propaganda, Pyrrhic Victory, rape, Senegal, sex rays, stripping, surveillance, teachers, United Kingdom on September 25, 2019| 2 Comments »

The investigator cannot just tread through the bloody crime scene in street shoes and pick up the murder weapon with an ungloved hand. – Tami Loehrs

A Tale That Grew in the Telling (#699)

Americans disapprove of teaching kids about sex, but they’re all for filling their heads with stupid anti-sex propaganda:

…Edina [Minnesota] Rotary member Renee Harberts [recited the “sex trafficking” Shahada]…and [then publicly described her disgusting sexual fantasies about]…kids as young as five…[prohibitionists fantasize]…one in seven kids are sexually abused and later in life they’re more likely to fall victim to sex trafficking. 93% of adult sex trafficking victims were sexually abused in their elementary years and never tell anyone about it….Harberts and a few members convinced the rest of the rotary to…raise…$10,000 to [indoctrinate] 3rd graders in Edina schools [in ’80s-era “Stranger Danger” propaganda, updated with a modern version of 19th century “white slavery” propaganda]…The group invited a panel of three experts to [publicly fantasize] about human trafficking…”We know that 0.02% of trafficking victims find freedom,” [moaned] Carla Marroquin of Protect Me Project [with her hand in her pants]…“The recidivism rate is between nine and eleven times that they will go back to the life of human trafficking”…

Bottleneck (#746)

Yet another example of why sex worker licensing is a terrible idea:

…in Senegal…sex workers must register with police, attend mandatory monthly sexual health screenings, test negative for STIs and carry a valid ID card confirming their health status…But…sex work is still criminalized…for those who are unregistered, which effectively creates a two-tiered system…sex workers face enormous social stigma and discrimination…the…[estimated] level of registration [is extremely high at] 20% [which is twice the highest fraction recorded anywhere else in the world, probably because of the high rate of HIV in Senegalese sex workers]…the registration law was first introduced in 1969 — inherited from French colonial legislation that stuck around even after Senegal declared independence…Women who are registered live in fear that family members will discover their identification cards, or…see their name on a registration database …”When you are registered, you are registered for life,” said [Professor Cheikh Tidiane] Ndour [of the Ministry of Health]…”Even if you stop pursuing this profession, your great-grandchildren can find your name somewhere, and that is a problem”…If registered sex workers miss their monthly appointments they can face up to six months in jail…[and of course] registered sex workers [are] more likely than unregistered…to experience [rape, robbery, extortion and other] violence at the hands of [cops]…

Not for Any Reason Whatsoever

Do I really have to add, “Not because you saw a picture of a Nerf gun”?

[Cops] in…Phoenix, Arizona, [interrogated] a teenager and his parents and searched their home and the kid’s school after the teen posted to a group chat a jokey message…[about] going to school the next day posted alongside a photo of a Nerf gun…one of the…chat participants narced on the exchange and set the wheels of officialdom in motion…As red flag laws and other reporting systems proliferate around the country, we’re likely to see even more incidents in which cops…are [summoned] into innocuous situations by people who refuse to ask simple questions or to believe that we’re living in a remarkably safe age…in the Phoenix incident, school officials proactively assured parents that the incident was “not a credible threat”…but…Justine and Nathan Myers were similar victims…after 16-year-old Nathan documented a shooting outing with his mother on Snapchat….somebody contacted Colorado’s Safe2Tell, a[n]…anonymous…[snitch line]…Nathan was banned from school until public outrage forced officials to reverse their decision…

Disaster (#931)

I’m sure you amateurs are happy to be censored “for THE CHILDREN™!”:

…Twitch suspended a streamer named Quqco for wearing a cosplay of Street Fighter heroine Chun-Li on stream, deeming her outfit “sexually suggestive”…[even though it] was not…streamer Bridgett Devoue was given a three-day suspension for [unexplained]… “sexually suggestive content or activities”…Overwatch streamer Fareeha got hit with a warning (and a 90-day probationary period) after wearing a sports bra and baggy shorts at the gym…Saruei [got]…a warning for drawing “nudes,” despite the fact that her characters…are clothed…

Pyrrhic Victory (#937)

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

San Francisco has already banned the use of facial recognition tech by local [cops]. Oakland did the same thing a couple of months later. Pretty soon, it’s not going to matter where you are in California. If you’re a law enforcement agency, facial recognition tech is off-limits…for three years…The bill…also targets other biometric surveillance methods…It forbids direct use by California law enforcement agencies, as well as prevents them from asking agencies outside the state (including federal agencies) from deploying this tech on their behalf. It also blocks state agencies from using cameras (body, dash, stationary) that utilize this tech. If this bill is signed into law, California will become the first state [with such a] ban…

You may have noticed that laws claiming to restrict government powers never carry a criminal penalty, despite the fact that every law intended to control subjects of the government always do. Also note that unlike laws intended to control the people, this has a conveniently-short sunset clause so the legislature needn’t do anything to quietly get rid of it once the frogs get used to the new temperature of their water.

Negative Secondary Effects (#937)

Politicians are gradually coming to realize that their constituency includes sex workers and clients:

A strip club will stay open despite [prohibitionist efforts to put scores of women out of work]…Sheffield council’s licensing committee met for eight hours to discuss whether Spearmint Rhino should have its sexual entertainment licence renewed. [Industrial spies] employed by [misogynistic censors] had [filmed] dancers [against their consent in an attempt to shame the committee into wrongfully revoking the license, but]…dancers from the club…campaigned to save [it]…

Law of the Instrument (#954)

If his victims hadn’t been sex workers, would “authorities” have let him rack up three before bothering to act?

Ed Buck, who has been subject to protests and calls for prosecution in the overdose deaths of two men at his West Hollywood home, was arrested [last week] in connection with a third overdose…the Los Angeles district attorney’s office [seems to have finally realized]…that Buck is “a violent, dangerous sexual predator”…[who] personally administered “dangerously large doses of narcotics to his victims”…Activists have been calling for Buck’s arrest…for the deaths of Gemmel Moore…and Timothy Dean…both black gay men were found in Buck’s West Hollywood apartment less than two years apart…[due to] methamphetamine overdoses…Buck…has now been charged with operating a drug house and providing meth to a…who overdosed last week…but survived…

Business As Usual (#956)

Even by nauseatingly-low local news standards, the sound of bootlicking in this is deafening:

Several months after Columbus police disbanded its vice [gang, badge-lickers] in a south Columbus neighborhood [whine] they feel it every day. “When you have the prostitutes, it just breeds the drugs, all kinds of stuff. There are children seeing that it’s ok and it’s not ok,” said [pompous busybody Ima Copsucker]…a block watch coordinator [who] spends hours every day [minding other people’s business]…She was hoping…[her beloved pigs] could help [root out] the human trafficking problem in the area…Columbus [pigs oink that what they absurdly call]…the human trafficking problem…has gotten worse since the vice [herd] has been disbanded…

What’s that you say, Ima? “There are all these black people out in public since they ended Jim Crow. Something needs to be done to keep them in their place, preferably with violence.” Yep, that’s what I thought you said.

Dangerous Speech (#968)

The government keeps trying to hide information in the Backpage case:

…prosecutors sought to continue stonewalling defense counsel on access to data on more than 100 servers that once kept…Backpage…in operation…But U.S. District Court Judge Susan Brnovich denied the government’s request that she reject a defense motion to examine the material on those servers in the same condition as when the government seized the website on April 6, 2018. Instead, Brnovich scheduled a day-long evidentiary hearing for October 3, during which [pigs] and expert witnesses are expected to testify…As explained in the defense’s motion to compel evidence, the 106 servers seized by the government contained historical data about Backpage’s ads that can refute the feds’ allegations, show that Backpage’s moderation efforts “blocked or removed approximately one million ads per month,” and reveal extensive cooperation with [cops] and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC)…In fact…Backpage referred so many ads to NCMEC that the government-backed non-profit complained about the number of referrals, since [most] of those ads were later found not to involve minors…

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In the News (#973)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged advertising, agency denial, All-Purpose Excuse, Backpage, bogus studies, California, cell phones, Doubling Down, escort review sites, fantasy, hysteria, language, Oregon, Paint By Numbers, propaganda, psychology, rescue industry, restaurants, Rotting Fruit, sex rays, So Close and Yet So Far, sporting events, stripping, surveillance, The Real World, The War Goes On, Think of the Children!, yellow journalism on September 21, 2019| 3 Comments »

Sex workers…have the most deeply honed knowledge and practice of ethical principles…of any profession. – Pamela Gawler-Wright

So Close and Yet So Far

“I support sex workers, just not those dirty whores“:

…Nikeisah Newton…started a food delivery service named Meals 4 Heels catering for [sic] strippers, bouncers and dominatrixes in need of a home-cooked supper late at night…in Portland [Oregon]…”I have so many friends who are bouncers and dominatrixes, sex workers and dancers. Sex work is stigmatised and looked down upon and demonised”…

Apparently, it’s OK to ignore escorts while pretending that bouncers are sex workers (which they obviously aren’t). And lest you feel inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt by assuming she only caters to strip clubs, I must point out that dommes don’t work in them.

Paint By Numbers

Have you noticed we don’t see as many dumb “anti-trafficking” stunts as we used to?

The [Los Angeles] Angels [baseball]…team held their annual event to [disseminate harmful propaganda] about…sex [workers]…First baseman …Albert Pujols and his wife Deidre kicked off [sic] their third annual “Strike Out Slavery”…evening…to bring [cops and rescue industry promoters] together [with gullible] people…The Pujols’ [sic] are hoping to eventually expand the “Strike Out” program to all 30 Major League stadiums…

Maybe they’re trying to head off “sex trafficking” fetishists extending the “Super Bowl sex trafficking” idiocy to the World Series.

Rotting Fruit

When moral panic and yellow journalism intersect, the result is lurid fantasy without limit:

A woman who said she was repeatedly raped by Jeffrey Epstein desperately tried to swim through shark-infested waters to escape his clutches…Sarah Ransome said she was so determined to escape Little St. James…she was willing to gamble her life in the Caribbean waters…Ransome [said she] jump[ed] on a quad bike to flee…but…was spotted on surveillance cameras…and was quickly stopped by…staff…Ransome went on to become one of the key accusers who helped expose Epstein’s depravity…eventually settling [a lawsuit] with [him] in 2018 over her accusations that he kept her as a sex slave…

The way that thoughts about swimming became “desperately tried to swim through shark-infested waters to escape his clutches” is a good example of how actual events are inflated into torture porn.

Doubling Down

Another explosion of mathematically-imbecilic prohibitionist vomit from “One Hand” Kristof:

…the problem isn’t one tycoon but many tens of thousands of men [including Kristof] who pay for sex with underage girls across the country. And society as a whole reacts with the same indifference that the authorities showed in the Epstein scandal…If we want to channel our outrage at the Epstein case in a productive way, we could: A) ramp up prosecution of [sex workers’ friends, family and support networks]; B) p[er]secute [clients so as to throttle sex workers’ income]; C) [infantilize sex workers by defining them as “victims” no matter what they say about their own lives]; and D) [dump more money into violent policing and]…predator[y “rescue” organization]s…some 40 million people are effectively locked into modern forms of slavery, according to the Global Slavery Index…In the United States, no one knows exactly how many children are sold for sex, but estimates have run [up to]…100,000 in any given year…

I reckon Kristof feels it’s been long enough since his enabling of a massive “rescue” scam was exposed to safely begin profiting from “sex trafficking” hysteria again. If you’re unable to recognize just how absurd Kristof’s claims are, please click on the embedded links, especially that last one.

All-Purpose Excuse (#608)

If the government has its way, phone privacy will soon be gone completely:

…Israeli cybersecurity company Cellebrite is courting new scrutiny after signing on to a new agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to help the organization hack more phones…Cellebrite’s equipment…is able to bypass security settings and access data on locked smartphones…the agreement is worth between $30 and $35 million, a huge step from the previous $2.2 million contract between the two entities…border agents have, without warrants, been searching the phones of travelers — including U.S. citizens —through U.S. borders, something that …violates the constitution…U.S. Customs and Border Protection searched more than 30,000 devices in 2017…

The Real World

Anti-whore stigma also harms sex workers who want to become therapists:

Sex work and therapy, or transitioning from one to the other, appears to be a well-trodden path…It’s not hard to understand why. The professions have transferable skills – active listening, empathy – and since the cost of therapy training runs so high (around £20,000, often more) with very few funding options available, sex work is one option for those who would otherwise find themselves financially excluded. While barring sex workers from therapy training is not usually explicit in policy, social stigma and institutionalised discrimination are still felt hard by those attempting to break into the field…

The War Goes On (#867)

The government has announced its new post-Backpage bogeymen:

…U.S. [pigs and spooks from] the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice are looking into whether [they can use “sex trafficking” fantasies to loot and destroy] three websites that make money off of escort ads and user-generated prostitution reviews …Rubmaps.ch…EroticMonkey.ch…and…Eros.com…[have] ties to David Azzato, a Swiss businessman convicted in France in 2011 for running a network of escort sites…the three sites in question were among those that most benefited from Backpage’s removal…while Azzato has denied any current connection to the sites…the [government apparently plans to make him the fall guy]…

I’ve been saying that Rubmaps would be the next prohibitionist bogeyman for over a year and a half now, and Eros’ US call center was raided by the feds two years ago and they’ve been frantically trying to cover their collective arse ever since. As for Erotic Monkey, it appears to have started as a scraper site, stealing ads from other sites in order to trick escorts into paying for more ads; it also features reviews, mostly apparently falsified, and appears to be owned by the current owner of Eros (whether that’s Azzato or someone else). My advice? It’s time to move to Slixa, Tryst and Have We Met?

Business As Usual (#905)

Ohio moves to punish sex workers for outing rapist cops:

A three-day [pig deception scheme persecuted] 104 people [for desiring consensual sex with other adults]…“Here’s the message: [let cops rape you like good girls and we’ll leave you alone],” said Dave Yost, the attorney general. The [vengeance] effort focused on [the Columbus] Ohio area]…“In ten minutes, I can [rape] a victim, go on the internet, [download copies of her ad as “evidence”] and then [get away with it],” said [vice pig] Mark Rapp…43 women[‘s lives were ruined before forcing them into a state “re-education” scheme]…

Think of the Children! (#967)

Funny how the rescue industry isn’t afraid to take “sex ray”-contaminated money:

No university or charity or scientific society has been more closely associated in the public eye with Jeffrey Epstein than Harvard University, which received approximately $9 million from him over the years. And no organization has seemingly been more adamant that it had nothing to explain, nothing to review, nothing to refund — even after Epstein later became the nation’s most notorious sexual predator…After refusing to comment for months on its past associations with Epstein and the money it collected as a result, Harvard released a letter from its president…stating that the school had opened a review into the matter…two sets of Epstein funds, totaling $186,000, were still being put to use through the school’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and that it would be redirecting those funds “to organizations that support victims of human trafficking and sexual assault”…

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In the News (#970)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Bad Girls, Banishment, Buried Truth, dirty, diversion programs, Facebook, fantasy, Feminine Pragmatism, Florida, Forward and Backward, Guinea Pigs, homosexuality, hysteria, Illinois, King of the Hill, Maryland, Ohio, Panopticon, porn, pragmatism, prisons, prohibitionist myths, psychology, Pyrrhic Victory, Saving Them from Themselves, scams, sex offender registry, sex rays, sex work is work, sexting, South Carolina, surveillance, Torture Chamber, Under Every Bed on September 11, 2019| 1 Comment »

Court[s]…allow…prosecutors to punish teens for the terrible things [others] have done to them. – Tim Cushing

Bad Girls

Why is “attractive” in scare quotes?

Men arriving at a [house in] Plant City [Florida] with the expectation of meeting a woman were instead beaten, robbed and even tortured…Hispanic [victims] were lured…under the guise of “socializing with an attractive female.” The woman did indeed meet each victim in the driveway, but once they were inside…the men were “viciously tortured” while being beaten and robbed. Then, they were forced to drive their own cars to ATMs around Plant City to withdraw money for the [gang], all under the threat that their families would be harmed if they did not cooperate…[the gang then] released the victims but kept their cars…two men and two women [have] been arrested on charges related to kidnapping, robbery, and battery: Thomas Nolasco, Joshua Rodriguez, Carina Bailon, and Melissa Long; a warrant is out for the arrest of James T. Smith…

Feminine Pragmatism

It’s good to see that the media is beginning to grasp this:

When I saw an ad for topless waitresses at double the minimum wage plus tips, it seemed like a sign from the universe…The job was a vast improvement over motel housekeeping. On the first night, I earned an entire month’s rent money and, more importantly, bouncers made sure no one touched the staff…years later, I looked back and realized, “Oh, that was sex work.” Once I’d recognized that, I also understood what I’d been doing when I was earning groceries…The only difference between sex work and other work is that American culture continues to place a high moral value on amorphous concepts like…sexual purity. I was supposed to be ashamed of my topless waitressing, because my hypothetical future husband wouldn’t like the idea of a hundred half-drunk soldiers staring at my breasts on a Saturday night. My body was supposed to belong to a man I wouldn’t meet for another 10 years…sex work is not some great fall from respectability. It’s often the net that catches people before they fall into destitution…Sex work has the power to lift people out of poverty, because you don’t need a college degree, and it almost always pays more than minimum wage…

Buried Truth

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

The founder of one of the nation’s largest conversion therapy programs, who spent decades leading the organization, now says he is gay, apologizing for his role in the practice. McKrae Game, who founded and led Hope for Wholeness in South Carolina, publicly announced he was gay in early June, more than two years after the organization’s board of directors abruptly fired him…

Under Every Bed (#615)

Possibly the silliest “King of the Hill” claimant ever:

The FBI says human trafficking is the third largest criminal activity in the world. Rockford ranks tenth in the United States and second in the state when it comes to trafficking victims. According to advocates for Rockford’s Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, or RAASE, one reason why Rockford is high on those lists is because of its location in the Midwest, making it a central hub for human trafficking…

The idea that a declining industrial city could be a “sex tourism” destination is right up there with the claim that any serious adult calls Milwaukee “the Harvard of sex trafficking“.

Banishment (#802)

Few states are as sociopathic as Florida in maltreating people on a Sacred Government List:

…in Florida…people [condemned to] the [“sex offender”] registry were barred from shelters [during Hurricane Dorian]…if they attempted to stay with friends or relatives, they faced daunting residency and registration requirements…in Flagler [and Nassau] Count[ies, they]…were directed to…seek shelter in the county jail…Under Florida law, those who evacuate must register their temporary addresses, in person, at the sheriff’s office if they will be away from home for three or more days. They are also required to [pay to change] their driver’s license or identification card with the temporary address within 48 hours of their departure date [and then pay again to change it back when they return home]…failing to comply with [these] requirements [could result in]…five years in prison…

I guess Florida “officials” enjoy getting sued over this, because they keep doing it.

Guinea Pigs (#884)

Facebook policies prohibit the creation of fake accounts by law enforcement, but pigs make them anyway and Facebook does nothing about it:

Facebook said…that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security would be violating the company’s rules if agents create fake profiles to monitor the social media of foreigners seeking to enter the country…Facebook spokeswoman Sarah Pollack…said the company has communicated its concerns and its policies on the use of fake accounts to DHS. She said the company will shut down fake accounts, including those belonging to [duplicitous pigs and spooks], when they are reported…

But until they’re reported by others, you can bet Facebook won’t be looking very hard.

Saving Them From Themselves (#942)

Oink oink, she was on the wrong side of an imaginary line, so we have to destroy her life! SHAZAM!

In 2016, a 16-year-old Maryland student known as S.K….sent a brief cellphone video to two friends…A few months later, S.K. had a falling-out with one recipient of the video, a 17-year-old boy known as K.S…[who] reported the video to the school [pig], Eugene Caballero …Caballero took [SK’s] statement and passed it on to state prosecutors [who of course did what prosecutors do]…S.K…was found guilty…as a distributor of child pornography…S.K. challenged the sentence, pointing out that the law does not provide for charging the subject of alleged child porn with child pornography production…The court looks at the law and decides the legislative intent was to treat minors as their own pornographers…The dissent says this is [clearly insane]…

Forward and Backward (#947)

Moral panics make it so easy for pathetic twits to gain a sense of importance; all they need to do is be willing to make up a lot of ridiculous and evidence-free lies about how they were “almost snatched by a pimp”, about “signs of sex trafficking”, about small cities being “sex trafficking hubs”, about magic numbers and words that “end demand”, and naturally about how looking at pictures of naked people magically creates “slavery”. And the hoi-polloi just gobble it up, no matter how deeply stupid it is to anyone who lives in the real world.

Torture Chamber (#966)

The government calls this “correction”:

A brutal beating by four guards inside Florida’s largest women’s prison has left a woman…paralyzed for life, according to a federal civil rights lawsuit…four [screws]…slammed her to the ground and began beating her. At least one…elbowed the back of her neck…then [the four] dragged Weimar “like a rag doll” to an area not covered by surveillance cameras and continued beating her nearly to death…She is now a quadriplegic and…hospitalized with a breathing tube…the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) has blocked Weimar’s attorney and her husband from taking pictures of her injuries…

Pyrrhic Victory (#969)

Surely you didn’t think Amazon’s two nastiest privacy-violation schemes would stay separate for long?

…Amazon loooooves to play word-games…[it claims] cops only get access to Ring customers’ videos if the customers offer to share it; but what they never said is that if a customer turns down a police [demand], Amazon instructs the cops to make an “official request” to the company and then they grant warrantless access to the footage…a[n anonymous] Ring spokesperson…[said] “Ring is not Rekognition and does not work with Rekognition”…[yet] there’s a dude at Ring Ukraine named Oleksandr Obiednikov whose title is “head of face recognition research” and who has given conference talks on how facial recognition can integrate with products like Ring. The company’s filed multiple facial recognition patents, and its terms of service allow it to use the video from your doorbell to train facial recognition systems. Oh, and they’ve recently advertised job openings for engineers with experience in facial recognition…

And remember, Amazon is trying to add “emotion detection” to its facial recognition.

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In the News (#969)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged censorship, Choke Point, dirty, drugs, Elephant in the Parlor, fascism, Feminine Pragmatism, hysteria, India, Laos, lawheads, Massachusetts, Micromanagement, Panopticon, politicians, pragmatism, prisons, Pyrrhic Victory, racism, sex rays, surveillance, Thailand, The Clueless Leading the Hysterical, The Monsters Are Due, The New Victorianism, West Virginia on September 7, 2019| 1 Comment »

We’re not trying to argue the morality of this. We’re trying to argue the reality of this. – Nicole Emma

Feminine Pragmatism

One day, reporters will get that “People Work To Make Money” is not news:

Lao workers, many of them young and some still in their teens, have poured in growing numbers this year into neighboring Thailand, braving exploitation and unsafe work conditions in search of employment to help support families back home…nine Lao migrants [were] killed on Aug. 18 in a head-on collision while traveling to a border town to renew the tourist visas on which they had entered Thailand…an official…said…“They won’t [tell us their personal business [so]…we can’t stop them”…Many of those looking for work in Thailand voice concerns over family poverty as their reason for leaving home…Many young Laotians [are forced by arbitrary laws to] enter Thailand with the help of middle-men to work illegally…the…head of the anti-trafficking unit of the Thai-based Labor Rights Promotion Network…[said] “This is one of the loopholes in Thailand’s laws, and this is a problem [because we would rather force them to stay in Laos and die in poverty]”…

What kind of authoritarian mind thinks that “people killed in tragic accident while trying to comply with arbitrary government rules” is a less important point than where they were from or what they did for a living?

The New Victorianism

It’s about time Playboy started covering this topic more aggressively:

…Moral panic…and purity politics…interfere with our right to sexual safety, pleasure and free expression…civil policy-making has been supplanted by partisan uproar and triggered panic. Sex is at the center of every one of these…sex…has become the enemy…Panic rejects nuance, debate and disagreement in favor of party lines and swift action. Panic has resulted in the rise of cancel culture and the dismissal of due process…rational thinking has…been cast aside…In a sex panic, it becomes imprudent to question the extent to which sex-based discrimination exists. It becomes dangerous to suggest that all sexual violations, and all experiences of sexual violence, are not equivalent. As a consequence, we learn to shut up and sit down lest we face public condemnation and risk being attacked…moral panic is more about social control than ethical guidelines for how we should get along with one another…attempts to regulate morality only heighten panic by promoting, for example, sex-trafficking laws that ignore racist immigration policies and degrade sex workers as second-class citizens…Awkward sexual encounters continue to be conflated with the worst of accusations. And then: If he’s accused, he must have done it…

Elephant in the Parlor

Too bad more politicians don’t hire the marginalized women cops are most likely to persecute:

West Virginia [politician] Mike Maroney has been charged with soliciting a prostitute…Maroney exchanged text messages to discuss prices and set up meetings with a woman who [was arrested]…Police [then snooped in her phone and started charging people for texting her]…

Micromanagement

The modern Fuhrer wants serial numbers tattooed on every cell of every prisoner of his concentration camps:

The Trump administration wants [the border Gestapo]…to collect DNA samples from undocumented immigrants in its [cages]…according to a draft policy…CBP officials would spend more than 20,000 additional work hours on such a policy in its first year of implementation. Hundreds of thousands of individuals could have their DNA collected each year if the draft regulation, proposed by the Department of Justice, is fully implemented…

Choke Point (#593)

We fucking told you so:

While sex-related businesses…have long faced draconian restrictions from banks, we’re living in a time when their position is more precarious than ever…If this continues, it will disproportionately impact small sex-focused businesses…further marginalize sex workers, and decrease access to positive information about sexual health…“To see [this] spreading to educators and activists is alarming,” said Lorrae Jo Bradbury, founder of Slutty Girl Problems, a sex-positive blog…these incidents have ramped up dramatically since…FOSTA…passed in the Senate…[creating] a more repressive era of the internet, one in which websites such as Tumblr have banned adult content, Patreon is kicking off adult performers, and financial institutions are clamping down on businesses even remotely connected to sex…

Safe Position

When this is happenening in Utah, you know we’re past the watershed:

The best way of protecting sex workers is to decriminalize their industry and allow them to come out of the shadows, a Salt Lake City nonprofit told Utah [politicians]…Nicole Emma…of the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP)…told members of the state’s Criminal Code Evaluation Task Force…[that] if these penalties were removed, sex workers could communicate more openly about their industry, check client backgrounds more easily and blacklist bad actors…

The Monsters Are Due (#867)

The ugliest part of a peak moral panic: lynch mobs:

The recent spate of mob attacks in Uttar Pradesh has caught the state police on the back foot. Incidents of hapless people…being brutally beaten up on suspicion of being child lifters are surfacing with alarming frequency…UP director general of police…OP Singh said…“A total of 46 incidents were reported in which one person was killed and 29 injured”…In…Ghaziabad, a middle-aged woman was…thrashed by a mob…[when] she went with her grandson for shopping…people have been attacked simply for being seen with a child…two siblings — Ramautar and Raju — were thrashed mercilessly…when…taking their nephew Ravi to a hospital for treatment…Ramautar [died and]…Raju [is] still battling for his life in the hospital…

The Clueless Leading the Hysterical (#886)

The pigs are starting their annual fearmongering early this year:

[Cops] in Massachusetts want to [spread yet another stupid panic]…about…ecstasy [pills]…in the shape of “SpongeBob SquarePants” cartoon characters…The National Institute on Drug Abuse…warns that MDMA use can “promote trust and closeness,” potentially encouraging unsafe sexual behavior…“Parents, guardians, and caretakers should be on the lookout for these as school starts and Halloween is fast approaching,” [pigs oinked]…

Yeah, because people are going to hand free samples of a drug that costs $100 a gram to anonymous brats. And you’ve gotta love that the only “warning” these drug warriors can come up with is that stupid amateurs taking MDMA might do the same kind of stupid shit they do when sober.

Pyrrhic Victory (#960)

The more we discover about Amazon’s fascist collaboration with cops, the worse it sounds:

[Amazon’s] doorbell-camera company Ring has quietly forged [fascist] partnerships with more than 400 police forces across the United States, granting them access to homeowners’ camera footage…The number of police deals, which has not previously been reported, will likely fuel [belated] questions about privacy, surveillance and the expanding reach of [fascist surveillance]…The rapid growth of the program, which launched last spring, surprised [insufficiently-cynical] civil-liberties advocates…

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In the News (#967)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Across the Pond, agency denial, California, censorship, cops, crypto-moralism, ethics, Facebook, FBI, Florida, internet, law, Loose Cannons, Part of the Picture, porn, prisons, psychology, Pyrrhic Victory, Scrambled Eggs, sex rays, shame, Shazam!, stripping, surveillance, Think of the Children!, Torture Chamber, Twitter, United Kingdom, Welcome to the Future, You Were Warned on August 31, 2019| Leave a Comment »

We…help…people…learn to integrate their sexuality into their whole self, rather than separating it from the rest of their life. – David Ley

Part of the Picture (#23)

Dr. David Ley vs. the childish belief that pictures of sex are magic:

Max Bennet…[of] Stripchat…and Dr David Ley…teamed up to give the customers of the camming website help on sexual struggles and shame…Max [said]…“Nearly 40% of our users experience a deep connection with the models, or are able to access a fantasy that may not be available in reality. By bringing doctors like Dr David Ley on to speak with users, it alleviates some of that shame and conflict, and offers them a way to integrate this…with their relationships”…Dr David [has] discovered that…“many users worry…that it is infidelity and could negatively affect their relationships…Sexual shame is the real enemy to intimacy, and that’s what these sessions are trying to address”…

Scrambled Eggs (#311)

Oh look, another man says women shouldn’t be compensated for services men can’t perform because we’re too stupid to make decisions about our own bodies:

Proponents of a proposed law allowing women to be paid to donate their eggs for research [point out that]…research subjects in other fields can get paid…men can get paid for donating sperm….[and] it’s legal for women to be paid for eggs to assist couples undertaking fertility treatments. But it’s illegal for researchers to compensate women for their eggs…[politician] Autumn Burke…[revived] this idea…[after] Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a similar bill by former [politician] Susan Bonilla…in 2013, [bloviat]ing [misogynistically and self-righteously]…“Not everything in life is for sale, nor should it be“…Burke’s bill, Assembly Bill 922, passed the Assembly without a single “no” vote in May…so it’s likely to pass the Senate handily. Gov. Gavin Newsom thus may be the only person standing in the way of its becoming law…[Like sex work,] this…would [give] California women, especially low-income women who may [welcome]…the compensation, [a way to make money that isn’t dependent on subjugation to men, so] he should kill it…

Though he hastens to distance himself from them, this writer’s arguments were mostly formulated by an anti-abortion group which opposes the bill for predictable reasons.

Torture Chamber

Our government refers to this as “correction”:

A [prisoner of the state of] Florida…with a history of epilepsy says he was beaten and thrown in solitary confinement for seven months after he involuntarily bit a [screw]…while having a seizure…Dean Higgins…suffered a grand mal seizure last September…[and] while the guards tried to restrain Higgins—an improper way to handle someone having a seizure—he bit one of the[m] on the arm…he was then beaten and…[locked] in…a tiny cell….[where] raw sewage would seep in…at times a number of inches deep…in addition to having epilepsy, Higgins is also on the autism spectrum…

Pyrrhic Victory (#922)

The dystopian future of Minority Report has arrived:

…In early July, the FBI posted a solicitation notice for a “Social Media Alerting Subscription,” which would “acquire the services of a company to proactively identify and reactively monitor threats to the United States and its interests through a means of online sources.” The request singles out Twitter, Facebook, Instagram “and other social media platforms” for snooping. Essentially, the FBI is looking for companies to build a tool to comb through…social media posts and pinpoint possible threats ahead of time. Think of it like a meme-illiterate Facebook-stalking precog from Minority Report…this system could empower the Red Flag law ideas that have since gained prominence. This kind of “proactive identification” could allow [cops] to target and even disenfranchise social media users whose posts may have been [intentionally or not] misinterpreted…

You Were Warned

Yes, I’m going to say “I told you so”, because I’ve been telling you so for nine years now:

FOSTA [turned] the internet…into a more exclusionary place almost overnight. Internet companies became significantly more restrictive in their treatment of sexual speech…The law also threw important harm reduction activities into a legal gray area…Congress failed to listen to the people it was removing from the internet, and put them in more danger as a result…The entire history of censorship shows that it magnifies existing imbalances in society, sometimes intentionally…there are many, many stories of Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter taking down important work to document human rights violations under their anti-extremism policies. Politicians…routinely treat Section 230 as a handout to tech companies — or a “gift,” as Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) recently put it…Let’s not forget that Facebook and other big internet companies actively lobbied for FOSTA, a law that made it considerably more difficult for a startup ever to unseat Facebook…Section 230 isn’t a gift to big internet companies. It’s a gift to rural LGBTQ teenagers who depend every day on the safety of their online communities. It’s a gift to activists around the world using the internet to document human rights abuses. It’s a gift to women who rely on dating apps to meet people more safely…

Think of the Children! (#936)

Obviously this sex-ray contaminated money would have “sexualized” their patients!

Mount Sinai Health System said on Friday that it will make a charitable contribution equivalent to the money it received from…Jeffrey Epstein. The money will go to an organization focused on p[ersecu]ting [sex workers]…and toward the health system’s own program Sexual Assault and Violence intervention program, which provides immediate treatment and counseling to sexual assault survivors. The hospital did not say how much money was donated by the disgraced financier…

Loose Cannons (#949)

“If this is happening to this rich, prominent man, with access to the best lawyers…what happens to the rest of us?”

One of the women arrested in the [Robert Kraft massage parlor] case…pleaded no contest…to misdemeanor charges, leaving only one of the women arrested yet to take a plea in the case. Qing Hua Zhang…pleaded no contest to engaging in prostitution and use of a structure or conveyance for prostitution. The most serious charge — racketeering — was dropped…

Yellow Fever (#956)

Another hodgepodge of idiotic lies, myths, wild exaggerations, wanking fantasies and long-debunked propaganda was shoveled into a column by Business Insider and represented as “journalism”; apparently they’re tying to go in the clickbait direction taken by The Hill. This one uses the term “trafficking” no fewer than 21 times in a not-very-long article and presents a misogynistic weltanschauung in which women can be either passive “victims” or malevolent “perpetrators” but never anything else, making the Shazam-style leap without passing through any of the complex human behavior between due to “weaponization” and “normalization” by powerful, Svengali-like men. A by-no-means-exhaustive list of dysphemisms from this trash includes “offenders”, “ring”, “traffickers”, “cult”, “slaves”, “lifestyle”, “abusers”, “groomed”, and my favorite, “sexual pyramid scheme”. If you want an article on this topic written by an actual adult who understands concepts like “facts” and “agency”, here you go.

Across the Pond (#964)

UK cops are increasingly using the jolly, kumbaya word “team” to mean “vice squad”:

Police are [raid]ing residential properties believed to be used for sex work…to [spy on] what is happening behind closed doors…potential [targets are determined by snitching]…from local residents…[chief swine] Paul Whitehouse [oinked that intimidating people and violating their privacy is a means of]…”gaining their trust and confidence…We [don’t find enough women to harass on the street anymore]…so now we can pick [on] the off-street work[ers]…We do not want to criminalise the females. We are looking at [pinning] criminality on a[ny available] third party”…

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In the News (#958)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Procrustean Bed, Across the Pond, agency denial, Alabama, Australia, Backpage, Buried Truth, censorship, cops, Counterfeit Comfort, Dangerous Speech, dehumanization, dirty, disability, diversion programs, drugs, fantasy, Follow Your Bliss, homosexuality, I Spy, If Men Were Angels, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, politicians, Pyrrhic Victory, rape, sex offender registry, sex rays, Skin To Skin, streetwalkers, surveillance, United Kingdom on July 31, 2019| Leave a Comment »

If registries are…about punishment…we need to admit it and deal with the unintended consequences. – Michael Seto

Counterfeit Comfort

Facts have absolutely nothing to do with US sex laws:

In 1994, when Congress passed the first sex offender registration law, the list was reserved for [cops] and only applied to the most serious offenders. Since then, American lawmakers at every level have relentlessly increased its scope and severity. The registry now includes more than 900,000 people, a population slightly greater than Vermont’s. At least 12 states require sex offender registration for public urination; five apply it to people charged with offenses related to sex work; 29 require it for consensual sex between teenagers…people [are] forced to spend decades on the registry for crimes they [were accused of at] as young as 10 years old…More than 30 states now require registrants to live at least 1,000 feet away from schools, churches and other places children congregate — a requirement that renders up to 99% of ho[uses] and apartment buildings off-limits. Some states require regist[rants] to submit to regular polygraph tests and random police inspections. Florida adds “sexual predator” to the front of registrants’ driver’s licenses. Louisiana doesn’t allow [registrants] to evacuate from their own homes before natural disasters…Despite child sexual abuse declining by 60% between 1992 and 2010, states continue to legislate as if lenient sex offender laws are a national emergency…registries are disproportionately black and overwhelmingly poor…registries continue to enjoy enthusiastic bipartisan support and meager media scrutiny despite any evidence that they achieve their stated goals…

Buried Truth

Why do straight vanillas have so much trouble recognizing sexual behavior when they see it?

Multiple victims have come forward to accuse a New Jersey [Presbyterian minister] of sexually assaulting them as part of exorcism rituals…Newsweek reported…[that Rev. Dr. William] Weaver…would…tell the men that he needed to “suck” out demons through their semen, citing Native American rituals and a verse from Ephesians telling Christians to “put on the full armor of God”…Weaver would order [men]…to strip naked and lie down. Then he would place an “angel coin” on their foreheads and have them balance stones on their hands and ankles…then…perform oral sex on them…An investigation by the Presbytery found credible evidence of “multiple acts of idolatry and sexual misconduct”…[including] gay porn on a church-owned computer in Weaver’s office…

Skin To Skin (#312)

A baby step forward for disabled Australians:

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal recently granted a woman with multiple sclerosis the right to have a sex therapist paid for under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)…This is a significant milestone in the advancement of sexual rights of people with disability…To further recognise this, [they] should also be able to access sex workers under the NDIS…While a sex therapist will offer verbal coaching, a sex worker has a specified role in providing a paid sexual service. Sexual expression is a fundamental part of being human, and disability does not dampen a person’s sexual desire, nor their need for intimacy…

If Men Were Angels

“Youth pastors” are as bad as cops:

[An] Alabama youth pastor has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexually abusing a young girl…Christopher Cody Stutts pleaded guilty…to abusing a child younger than 12 [in order to escape] four other charges, including rape and sodomy…

A Procrustean Bed (#655)

These programs to warp women’s minds and indoctrinate them in anti-sex dogma are very popular in Ohio:

Ohio…[politicians] are [now claiming that] victims [are forcibly and magically] hooked on drugs and then forced into a life of prostitution…Judge Renee DiSalvo is beginning [yet another “diversion” brainwashing] program through Youngstown Municipal Court…DiSalvo…[pretends] the women are not able to make clear decisions…the…program…can take up to two years to go through…[during which time] some women may be [locked] in secret [prisons under the pretense of] protect[ing] them from [imaginary ninja pimps]…

Follow Your Bliss (#745)

Prohibitionists supported at least one delusional cop who was deeply involved in this hoax:

A [man] who lied about being abused by a murderous VIP Westminster paedophile ring is facing a lengthy jail sentence after he was convicted of perverting the course of justice and fraud. Carl Beech’s malicious, repeated and determined deceit ruined the reputations of those he accused and led the Metropolitan Police to raid the homes of 91-year-old Normandy veteran Field Marshall Lord Bramall, the late Lord Brittan and former Tory MP Harvey Proctor…Their £2 million Operation Midland [probe] into the lurid allegations…ended without making a single arrest…Beech…[himself a paedophile with an interest in pre-teen boys, fantasized] to…detectives…how his late step-father, an Army Major, raped him, then passed him on to generals to be tortured at military bases and sadistically sexually abused by other Establishment figures in the 1970s and 1980s. He named former prime minister Sir Edward Heath…disgraced TV star Jimmy Savile and security chiefs Sir Michael Hanley, the head of MI5, and MI6 boss Sir Maurice Oldfield among the gang…Beech…was due to be tried on indecent images and voyeurism charges last summer but went on the run to Sweden, where he bought two remote properties and tried to evade [the cops] using false identities…

Sharp readers may recognize the resemblance of these accusations to those made by brainwashed children during the daycare prosecutions of the Satanic Panic.

Across the Pond (#862)

Redbridge has a history of harassing sex workers while belching up stupid “crime” rhetoric:

Police are encouraging [busybodies] to use a new real-time phone line to [snitch on women they imagine might be sex workers]…”There have been very few prostitutes on Ilford Lane for the past few weeks,” a…spokes[pig oinked]…”These ladies can sometimes be seen walking through seemingly on their way to work which we believe are in brothels…[disguised pigs] start at 7pm targeting…any person [they don’t like the look of, with no evidence whatsoever. A busybody group called]…Clean up Ilford Lane is also urging residents to use the line if they see…people [visiting each other or emitting sex rays]…

Remember, indoor sex work is legal in the UK, hence this branding of incalls as “brothels”, which aren’t.

Pyrrhic Victory (#880)

Everything cops and other “justice” officials tell you is a lie:

…an ongoing lawsuit against the…NYPD brought by the Bronx Defenders…[revealed] that the police department has for years illegally used databases of arrests that were supposed to have been dropped, declined by prosecutors, downgraded to citations or infractions, or otherwise thrown out in court…cops…have access—on their smartphones—to reservoirs of records they shouldn’t be able to see, allowing them to continue to stop, search and arrest people…based on “criminal histories” that shouldn’t even exist. The lawsuit, which in the coming weeks may be ruled a class-action on behalf of potentially tens of thousands of New Yorkers, comes just as a nonprofit research organization releases a 50-state report revealing that in 25 states, police are allowed to access sealed or expunged arrests—and then profile you based on these past allegations that no judge or jury ever found you guilty of…Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, the lead attorney on the Bronx lawsuit…[said] “They’re running their algorithms and their facial-recognition software on arrest records and mugshots that were supposed to have been destroyed”…

Dangerous Speech (#953)

The government keeps demonstrating that it doesn’t really care that its war on thought is wholly and incontrovertibly unconstitutional:

As proceedings against Backpage.com founders Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin continue unraveling in California courts, the sentencing of former associate Carl Ferrer, now cooperating with the government as a witness against them, has been delayed until July 2020. Ferrer, the former CEO of Backpage.com, was due to be sentenced this [month]…Lacey’s attorney, renowned criminal law and First Amendment expert Paul Cambria…[said the] delay is an expected ploy by the prosecution to exert pressure on Ferrer to testify against his client and Larkin…

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In the News (#954)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, Alaska, Arizona, asset seizure, Backpage, bad customers, California, censorship, cops, Dangerous Speech, dirty, drugs, genitalia, hysteria, illegal aliens, Kenya, law, Law of the Instrument, Lower Education, male prostitutes, Missouri, Negative Secondary Effects, No Escape, Out of Control, Pennsylvania, politicians, prisons, propaganda, Prudesville, psychology, rape, restaurants, Safe Position, semen, sex rays, surveillance, That Old Black Magic, The Cold Grey Light of Dawn, Torture Chamber, Unsafe for Human Consumption, Washington (state), witchcraft on July 17, 2019| Leave a Comment »

It’s a funny sort of justice that lets the government take your stuff and then say you have no recourse because you don’t have that stuff anymore. – Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Lower Education

Why, how could anyone have predicted this outcome?

…A student accused of sexual assault and subject to an unlawful, unconstitutional adjudication process filed a motion seeking class-action certification in his pre-existing lawsuit against Michigan State University. Rather than seeking to void the results only of his own flawed adjudication, he’s now seeking to void every adjudication where accused students were punished “without first being afforded a live hearing and opportunity for cross examination.” This new motion comes after a wave of cases across the country that have invalidated and reversed the results of campus kangaroo courts — and these rulings are coming from judges across the political/judicial spectrum. In California…judges issued rulings that effectively halted proceedings in 75 campus sexual-misconduct cases, while California universities reworked their processes…the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals joined dozens of other courts in ruling that university processes should face exacting legal scrutiny…

Torture Chamber

In case you thought screws restricted their petty sadism to the prisoners:

In May…the Jackson County Detention Center In Kansas City, Missouri, with no warning to local attorneys, instituted a new [humiliation] policy that requires all visitors, including inmates’ attorneys, to pass through a metal detector…underwire bras are setting it off…instead of simply using a wand to determine what is setting off the alarm…the [cage stack] is refusing to let visiting women pass through until…their bras…come off…An even more draconian policy was implemented in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 2018: Visitors were given only two chances to pass the metal detector — and women were required to wear a bra under prison rules…A Maryland jail was sued [for similar reasons] in 2011…[in the current case] when women (and, later, men) complained about a policy they found unnecessary, humiliating and sexist, they were met with gaslighting, false solutions, accusations of privilege, stonewalling and, finally, retaliation. And this was against attorneys, who by definition are well positioned to fight back…

That Old Black Magic (#501)

West African “penis stealing” hysteria has spread to East Africa:

A…man in Likoni, Mombasa, plans to travel to neighbouring Tanzania to seek the help of a famed witchdoctor…after an elderly sex worker allegedly cast a spell on him, which has seemingly rendered his sex organ useless, at least in the bedroom…Isaac Karisa…refused to pay an elderly prostitute he had spent a night with…[because] he was too drunk to accomplish the task and fell into a deep slumber after less than five minutes…Karisa refused to part with the thousand shillings he had promised and instead fished out a Sh200 note…A scuffle ensued, with the woman mumbling gibberish and hurling incantations, aimed at jinxing the man…

I can’t decide whether the phrase “night nurse” is clever or silly, but ladies in the global South, PLEASE start charging these bozos in advance!

Law of the Instrument (#774)

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

A new legal filing accuses prominent political activist and donor Ed Buck of violating federal human trafficking laws when he allegedly supplied an airline ticket to a man who flew to Los Angeles from Texas and died inside Buck’s West Hollywood apartment. The [filing bloviates that]…Buck…”knowingly utilized interstate commerce…for the purpose of engaging in commercial sex acts”…[in the real world] Moore’s death was…[the result of] an accidental methamphetamine overdose…

Cases are this are why even some not-completely-stupid people believe that “sex trafficking” is increasing; “sex trafficking” charges certainly are.

The Cold, Grey Light of Dawn (#824)

No one person can undo an entire system of fascist tyranny:

…Pennsylvania [politicians] have quietly muscled power away from reformist District Attorney Larry Krasner, passing new legislation giving authority to the state’s attorney general to prosecute certain firearms violations in Philadelphia — and nowhere else in the state. The provision will expire in two years, or just after Krasner’s first term ends…The bill was passed…with no public awareness. Even some of the [politicians] who voted for it say they [were more clueless than usual]…The maneuver…is the most significant legislative pushback to date against the new movement by criminal justice reformers to focus on seizing the power of the prosecutor…to decide when to bring charges and, critically, when not to. The new law means that even if Krasner decides to exercise the latter power and not bring charges, the police could go directly to the attorney general to pursue the case regardless…

Prudesville (#828)

A federal appeals court accepts Everett’s argument that “women who dress like sluts cause rape”:

…a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals…vacated U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman’s 2017 decision that placed an injunction on a city ordinance requiring “quick-service facility” workers to wear, at minimum, shorts and a tank top…The ordinances will now go into effect as the decision is sent back down to a lower court….Everett [politicians] praised the court’s ruling, claiming that…”[sluts in bikinis cause rape]”…

Safe Position (#859)

If Rantz read my blog he’d know this stopped being a “fringe position” over a year ago:

[Seattle city] council candidate Tammy Morales announced on Twitter that she would like to decriminalize sex work in Seattle. She’s not the only candidate…if Morales lands on the Council with activists incumbents Lisa Herbold and Kshama Sawant, we may very well have to waste our time debating this fringe position…Mark Solomon, Former crime prevention coordinator with the Seattle Police Department, [also supports decrim, as does]…Chris Peguero…

Sawant has somehow managed to convince a number of people that she is pro-sex worker, but she is a socialist (a group which has always opposed sex work) and flat-out refused to meet with sex workers when she ran the last time. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, with a pro-decrim member on the council, Sawant publicly espouses the Swedish model.

Unsafe for Human Consumption

Everybody knows cops are stupid, but this is a new level of idiocy:

…Given how difficult it is to absorb fentanyl through the skin (which is why the companies that make…fentanyl patches for pain treatment rely on patented technology that took years to develop), the likelihood that [histrionic pigs who accidentally touched some] were actually feeling the narcotic’s effects is approximately zero…[a local news station reporting on such a porcine fantasy] consulted a [soi-disant] drug treatment specialist…who proceeded to [bloviate]…”Someone…who enters a room with a person who’s having an issue with fentanyl could become addicted to it instantly [emphasis added]”…there is no such thing as instant addiction. Addiction is a gradual process through which people become strongly attached to an experience that provides pleasure or emotional relief…patients who take prescribed opioids, including fentanyl, for pain relief rarely become addicted to them. So even if [a pack of porkers]…somehow absorbed enough fentanyl to experience its psychoactive effects (say, by accidentally injecting themselves with a loaded syringe found at the scene), they would not become addicted to it unless they liked those effects enough to repeatedly seek them out…

After her accident, Jae was on IV fentanyl for two weeks and didn’t show the slightest signs of addiction afterward. But as we all know, cops are delicate little pansies who can be so terrified by the sight of a black teenager running away from them that they are uncontrollably compelled to empty an entire clip into his back. So I guess the idea that they could become “instantly addicted” by touching a person with the drug in his system isn’t so farfetched after all.

Dangerous Speech (#917)

The government keeps contradicting itself in its haste to crucify the former owners of Backpage:

…the 9th Circuit considered claims [last] week that federal prosecutors have improperly seized…money and property and used dirty tricks to prevent the courts from making things right…the feds have seized “26 real properties (some purchased before Backpage… ever existed), 89 bank accounts, and 268 domain names” from the defendants, their family members, and associated entities. Prosecutors also seized money held in trusts by the defendants’ lawyers, jeopardizing defendants’ ability to afford defense counsel…Under the twisted rules of civil asset forfeiture, the government can take money and property from those accused of wrongdoing before actually proving any wrongdoing, so long as there is “probable cause” to believe the assets were used in or derived from criminal activity. But for assets related to…First Amendment–protected activities…the government…must first show that the speech in question is not constitutionally protected. Prosecutors [pretend]…that all the assets it seized were derived from the operation of Backpage, that all ads on Backpage were illegal, and that this is self-evidently true…and…that there were no free speech issues…since Backpage had already been…sold by Lacey and Larkin in 2015…[yet] prosecutors [also] argue that defendants never really did let the company go…

Out of Control (#932)

Spooge-based sexual assaults are growing worse:

…Justin Schneider…admitted that he had [choked a woman until she passed out, then] masturbated onto her….[and] ejaculated on her face. But he was not charged with sexual assault. As a first-time offender, he accepted a deal to plead guilty to just a single count of second-degree assault, and he walked out of the courtroom a free man…prosecutors…never brought [a sexual assault charge]…because…In Alaska, sexual assault has a very narrow definition…because Schneider touched only his own genitals but didn’t touch Lauren’s or force her to touch his, his actions didn’t qualify as sexual assault…Alaska lawmakers last month voted to close what has been dubbed the “Schneider loophole.” But out of 54 US states and territories, 44 of these jurisdictions, including [Washington], do not have a legislated definition of sexual contact that explicitly mentions contact with semen…

Torture Chamber (#950)

And the incidents we hear about are only a fraction of the ones that happen:

…[screws] mistreated migrant children [caged] in Arizona…[one of them molested] a 15-year-old-girl from Honduras…[he] put his hands inside her bra, pulled down her underwear and groped her…in front of other [pigs]…a 16-year-old Guatemalan boy [reported screws] took the mats out of their cell in retaliation for complaints from him and others about the taste of the water and food…accounts…include reports of verbal threats, physical altercations…[and] sexual abuse…

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In the News (#947)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, Canada, cops, Cops and Robbers, dirty, end demand, Florida, Forward and Backward, If Men Were Angels, law, LGBT rights, Loose Cannons, Louisiana, New York, politicians, pregnancy, prisons, Property of the State, racism, rape, Rwanda, Safe Position, sex rays, Swedish model, Texas, The More the Better, To Molest and Rape, violence vs. sex workers, Welcome to Our Updates, welcome to our world, Whither Canada? on June 22, 2019| 1 Comment »

News editors run sex trafficking hoaxes as fact…and…suggest there is an epidemic of paid child rape in America. – Rory Fleming

Forward and Backward (#581)

Rebranding “prostitution-free zones” as “human trafficking-free zones” doesn’t make them more constitutional:

Temple Terrace became the most recent government in the Tampa Bay area to declare itself a human TraffickingFree Zone. It’s part of a [propaganda campaign] by an [“end demand”] organization…The cities of St. Petersburg, Clearwater, New Port Richey and Dade City have [jumped] on to the [bandwagon], as has Pasco County…After the [magical] proclamation…the organization [indoctrinated] all city employees in how to [snitch on]…sex [workers]…The U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking, headquartered in Tampa, was founded about three years ago as a Christian nonprofit…In addition to its TraffickingFree Zones campaign, the institute runs a [private prison] in Central Florida for…[underage male] sex [workers]…

The More the Better (#585)

Prudes like to pretend sex work isn’t part of the entertainment field:

When Stormy Daniels announced her first gig as a stand-up comic in March, [prudish, envious] comedians recoiled…but in fact she’s one of dozens of current and former such stand-ups, and they’re part of a long tradition…The plots of many ancient Greek and Roman comedies revolved around prostitution (like Menander’s Sikyonioi and Terence’s Hecyra), and American comics performed in burlesque and vaudeville shows in the early part of the 20th century. The comedians Margaret Cho and Roseanne Barr have been open about their sex-work pasts. Aaron Berg…a former stripper and current stand-up, pointed to “a very strong history between burlesque and comedic timing”…Both universal and taboo, inherently ridiculous and emotionally fraught, sex is a staple of stand-up routines…Wendi Starling…a sex worker and comic, starts one of her bits, “I’m a terrible girlfriend but a great employee.” Kaytlin Bailey…a former sex worker, current stand-up and communications director for Decriminalize Sex Work, said that sex workers and comedians occupy a similar role: “You’re allowed to do things that normal citizens cannot. You’re like a celebrated rule breaker.” Even so, many sex workers told me that like Daniels, when they first entered comedy clubs, they weren’t particularly welcome…

Beside Kaytlin, I personally know two other sex workers who do stand-up.

Cops and Robbers (#712)

Funny, I don’t remember where in the Gospels Jesus told people to attack harlots:

On 2^nd June…AGAP (LGBT Rwanda) was forcibly removed from its office which it has shared with a church in Gisenyi…since 2013…a [mob]…attacked the group in their office, throwing stones and shouting that LGBT sex workers must leave the neighbourhood “in the name of the gospel“. The [mob] destroyed equipment and other belongings in the office, including equipment for HIV testing. AGAP is now without premises in Gisenyi, and…LGBT people and sex workers no longer have access to local services…AGAP has called on the local legal authorities to take action…

Welcome To Our World (#789)

The state owns women’s bodies and controls what we can do with them. Feminism!

The proposal to legalize surrogacy in New York [h]as [predictably encountered opposition from rich, powerful white women] including Gloria Steinem…[as in sex work, prohibitionists don’t like]…poor women [to have the option of earning]…the sizable payments it can bring [without having to be rich women’s maids or labor in sweatshops to make their clothes]…The bill [thus]…remains stalled in the Assembly, where several prominent female [politicians] have expressed [their desire to control all other women]…

Whither Canada? (#871)

Liberals not only lied about repealing the law; they’re actively defending it:

The judge who will decide if [Canada’s] new prostitution laws violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms must weigh [prohibitionist fantasies]…with…individual rights…[a prosecutor bizarrely claimed]…Michael Carnegie…said…”children exposed to [sex rays are magically]…harmed [if]…sexual services [exist anywhere in the world]”…Tiffany Harvey and Hamad Anwar[‘s]…lawyers say the law puts sex workers at risk by forcing them to do their work underground, therefore violating the workers’ charter right to security of the person…[to satisfy] the [prohibitionist fantasy] that sex work is inherently exploitative and harmful…Carnegie said…”it’s necessary to deprive people of their rights to protect the [fantasies and sadfeelz of prudes and control freaks]”…

If Men Were Angels (#914)

“Pastors” are almost as bad as cops:

[The] pastor of a Southern Baptist church in…Harris County [Texas] faces charges of molesting a teenage relative, sometimes multiple times a day, over the course of two years…Stephen Bratton, who resigned from Grace Family Baptist Church [after he was accused, molested the relative]…from 2013 to 2015…Bratton’s…wife…[filed for] an emergency protection order…Bratton recently testified in support of failed House Bill 896 that would have abolished abortions in Texas and opened up the possibility that prosecutors could charge a woman who undergoes the procedure with criminal homicide…more than 700 people — mostly children — ha[ve] been victimized by hundreds of Southern Baptist church leaders since 1998…

To Molest and Rape (#926)

When a boss cop rapes, the victim is often underage:

Former St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain has been arrested on two counts of aggravated rape, two counts of aggravated incest, one count of indecent behavior with a juvenile and a count of sexual battery…if convicted, Strain would face a mandatory life sentence…there are…four victims…and the times of the crimes spanned from 1975 to 2004, when Strain was sheriff…one of the victims was under the age of 12 and at least one was related to the ex-Sheriff…It’s unclear if any of [the] charges are related to Mark Finn…[whom] Strain began sexually abusing…more than 40 years ago, when Strain was a teenager and Finn was just 6-years-old…

Safe Position (#928)

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

A…candidate for district attorney…plans to single-handedly make the borough of Queens the first major metropolitan area in the country where sex work would, effectively, not be a crime. If Tiffany Cabán wins…and actually puts her plan in place…it would mark one of the biggest successes for the [US] sex work decriminalization movement [so far]…Queens…[is] home to nearly 2.4 million people, roughly the population of Houston…[and is] one of the most heavily policed parts of New York…when it comes to sex work arrests. The [DA’s] office has the power to decline to prosecute people that the police arrest for specific crimes — similar to how former Brooklyn district attorney Ken Thompson declined to prosecute possession of small amounts of marijuana in 2014…Cabán said that if she’s elected, “on day one it comes from being part of a memo to our district attorneys saying you will not prosecute sex workers, customers, and you will not prosecute under the promoting prostitution charges”…

Loose Cannons (#946)

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

Bruce Colton, the chief elected prosecutor of Indian River, Martin, Okeechobee and St. Lucie Counties in Florida…aggressively pursued a…sex offender prosecution against Kaitlyn Hunt for dating a slightly younger girl while both attended high school together…earlier in his career…he…argued that…he should be able to prosecute kids as young as 15 as adults without any judicial hearing…Colton also personally decided that trafficking was central to the spas and massage parlors tied to the Kraft case, despite the lack of evidence for this. But he does not need the evidence—or even a false confession—when he has RICO…Lixia Zhu, one of the massage parlor owners, currently faces 30 years on a RICO plea deal…[she] was coerced into signing…

The article then goes on to attack “sex trafficking” hysteria in general. The times, they are a-changing.

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In the News (#944)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, Amnesty At Last, An Example to the West, Argentina, Buried Truth, California, Canada, Censor Chic, censorship, China, cops, dehumanization, Devil's Advocate, FBI, Florida, hysteria, Idaho, internet, King of the Hill, Louisiana, Michigan, neofeminism, Out of Control, politicians, pragmatism, prohibitionist myths, Pyrrhic Victory, rape, rescue industry, Safe Position, serial killers, sex rays, streetwalkers, stripping, Surplus Women, surveillance, tabula rasa, teachers, Texas, Top Cop, Twitter, United Kingdom, Washington DC, Welcome to the Future on June 12, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Those who engage in sex work are our constituents. – Brianne Nadeau

Surplus Women

The only way pigs want to “make sure you’re safe” is by locking you in a cell:

Detroit Police Chief James Craig said they are looking for a potential serial killer and rapist that is operating on the city’s east side…the investigation…started several months ago…on March 19…Nancy Harrison…was [found naked and cops tried to pass it off as]…a drug overdose…[even though] she [had] suffered blunt force trauma…The body of the second victim, Travesene Ellis, was found on May 24…[then on June 5th] a woman’s decomposed naked body was found inside a vacant [house. Cops]…believe…the suspect is targeting women in their early 50s and luring them to vacant dwellings…all three victims are believed to be sex workers…Police are asking sex workers to come forward with any information. “We’re not here to arrest you, we’re going to make sure you’re safe,” he [lied]…

King of the Hill

There is exactly one highway which runs from Halifax, Nova Scotia to the mainland:

[Cops and “rescue” profiteers fantasize that] human traffickers are moving…[passive, doll-like] young girls — from Nova Scotia…to Montreal and Toronto, but it’s difficult to analyze the pattern in those stories as there is no [actual] data…on [the imaginary phenomenon]…the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking (CCEHT)…is working on a study of the “high-incident” human trafficking corridor…between Halifax and Toronto…One stop on the road…is the town of Truro, N.S. (population 12,261), where the staff at the Colchester Sexual Assault Centre have started to [brainwash women into thinking they]…have been sexually trafficked…[prohibitionist] Margaret Mauger said…”Truro has become…a hub for human trafficking”…She said most [women] don’t think of [their jobs]…as sexual trafficking, so she tries to [convince them otherwise]…

Buried Truth

Accurate headline: “Man Loses Job After Refusing to Pay His Tab While Drunk”:

A Catholic school principal from Louisiana has resigned from his job after he was arrested at a Washington D.C. strip club…Michael Comeau…principal at Holy Family School near Baton Rouge, refused to pay his bill at Archibald’s Gentlemen’s Club…[while] blocking a roadway outside and refusing to move. He was…arrested…[for] public intoxication and possession of an open container…

Pyrrhic Victory (#683)

When they smash down your door in the middle of the night, murder your dogs, terrorize your family and embroil you in a decade-long court battle which will utterly bankrupt you because some computer decided you look like somebody who supposedly broke some law, don’t say I didn’t warn you:

The FBI cops to the fact that its database of mugshots…has about 36 million entries…But that’s the tip of the iceberg. Gretta Goodwin…[of] the Government Accountability Office (GAO), told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee…that the FBI can scan about 640 million pictures, including not just mugshots but driver’s licenses and passport photos…the FBI has “strict policies” governing the use of such technology, [claimed] a spokesman for an agency that is exceedingly well-known for what the American Civil Liberties Union calls an “unchecked abuse of authority“…Kimberly Del Greco, a [boss spook]…at the FBI, said…facial recognition…is used only when there is an active FBI investigation or an assessment, which can [basically mean whatever they want it to mean]…

Remember, the FBI classes all sex workers as “criminals” and defines our ads as “probable cause for sex trafficking investigation”.

Out of Control (#767)

When the sexual need to control others is frustrated, some really weird behavior can result:

Boise Police…arrested Jonathan Parker — a lobbyist and former Idaho Republican Party chairman…on a felony first-degree stalking charge…on or between May 16 and May 30, Parker “did knowingly and maliciously engage” in conduct that “seriously alarmed, annoyed or harassed (his [estranged] wife) Kelly Parker”…[his] conduct included “repeatedly hiding in bushes, masturbating, disguising himself with a wig” at or near her apartment complex…

An Example to the West (#776)

The areas Americans dismiss as the “third world” are far ahead of the US in sex worker rights:

Casa Roja…is…the new centre for Ammar – the Argentina’s Women’s Sex Workers’ Union…Dramatic inflation (which reached nearly 50% last year), combined with a reduction in subsidies…have sent the cost of basic foodstuffs, electricity and water spiralling. A third of the population are living in poverty…almost 50% of women are either unemployed or working informally without labour protection or a security net, and cuts to public sector jobs have been most pernicious in feminised occupations…To try to improve conditions for sex workers, Ammar opened the doors of the Casa Roja on 2 June, International [Whores’] Day. The centre will offer health and mental health services and a place to drink coffee as winter draws in…“There will also be legal assistance…in the face of increasingly punitive policing in the area…Ammar has been one of the most successful sex workers’ organisations in the world. Across Argentina it has integrated itself into the mainstream labour movement, decriminalised sex work in some provinces, and provided peer-to-peer support for more than 20 years…[by contrast] feminists in the UK have been slow to embrace sex workers as sisters in the struggle against gender and economic injustice. A small number of groups have stood shoulder to shoulder with sex workers, but the story has largely been one of violence and exclusion…

Amnesty At Last (#831)

Grosso has consistently pursued this course for four years now:

A bill that would decriminalize sex work in Washington D.C. will be reintroduced at the D.C. Council…this time with four councilmembers in support…Councilmembers David Grosso and Robert White…are now joined by…Anita Bonds and…Brianne Nadeau…last term, the original bill was sent to the Judiciary Committee, where it never got a hearing…Grosso modeled the bill after efforts in New Zealand…The legislation comes at a time when sex work-related charges have more than doubled…[from] 228 [in 2017]…to…551 [in 2018]…

Devil’s Advocate (#832)

Your periodic reminder that a child-shaped toaster is still a toaster:

Florida has banned childlike sex dolls…[anti-sex politician] Lauren Book, who introduced the bill, [also created a bill to put sex workers and clients on a public registry. She fantasized that]…“Just as viewing child pornography [magically] lowers the inhibitions of child predators [via invisible sex rays emitted from the images], so do these childlike sex dolls”…opponents of the measure [correctly] argued that the dolls deter pedophilia by preventing child predators from acting out on their impulses with real children…

The worst part of these laws isn’t the ban itself, but rather the institutionalization of the dangerous and unscientific dogma that human beings are tabulae rasae who can be “perverted” by external stimuli and thereby “re-educated” via such brainwashing schemes as “john schools” and “gay conversion therapy”.

Pyrrhic Victory (#857)

{Insert Ben Franklin quote about liberty and safety}:

The…Brazosport [Texas] Independent School District…hired a company called Social Sentinel to monitor public posts from all users, including adults, on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. The company’s algorithms flagged [a woman’s comical] tweet [about her cats] as a potential threat…Among the other “threats” flagged by Social Sentinel [were]…tweets about the movie “Shooter,” the “shooting clinic” put on by…a…university…basketball team, and someone apparently pleased their credit score was “shooting up”…America’s schools…are hastily erecting a massive digital surveillance infrastructure…with [total and intentional dis]regard for either its effectiveness or its impact on civil liberties…Florida offers a glimpse of where it all may head: [politicians] there are pushing for a state database that would [make the childhood nightmare of a “permanent record” reality by] combin[ing] individuals’ educational, criminal justice, and social-service records with their social media data, then [handing] it all [to the pigs]…Gary Margolis, the CEO of Social Sentinel…claims “thousands” of K-12 schools in 30 states are using its [police-state boosting] service…[another company name] Securly…offer[s] “sentiment analysis” of students’ social media posts…[via] an “emotionally intelligent” app [like Facebook censorship algorithms] that sends parents weekly reports and automated push notifications detailing their children’s internet searches and browsing histories…

Censor Chic (#904)

Corporations are becoming the favored tool of censors around the world:

Three days before the most sensitive political anniversary on the Chinese calendar, Twitter suspended the accounts of Chinese political commentators in what it [pretended] was an accident…it…affected more than 100 users…[including] human rights lawyers, activists, college students and nationalists, who use workarounds to get access to Twitter, which is banned in China…The accounts began rapidly disappearing just days before the 30th anniversary of the crackdown on a student-led pro-democracy demonstration in Tiananmen Square…In a statement, Twitter [claimed] that as a part of its routine efforts to stop spam and inauthentic behavior, it had [conveniently] gone after a number of legitimate Chinese-language accounts [at exactly the best time to demonstrate to the Chinese government that it could be counted on to censor as ordered if it were allowed to operate in the country]…

Safe Position (#928)

Ordinarily, I don’t even bother to call attention to prohibitionist screeds unless there’s something interesting about them; what’s interesting about this one is the absolute reek of desperation wafting from it. Prohibitionists are terrified at the speed with which decriminalization has become a safe position for politicians to take, especially in New York, but because they’re disgusting authoritarians the best way they can think of to make a lame attempt at forcing back the tide is to get two fucking prosecutors (notice how much prohibitionists love them?) to vomit out all the usual prohibitionist lies. Blah blah “pimps”, blah blah “violence and exploitation”, blah blah “male power”, blah blah “PTSD”, blah blah “Swedish model” dicksuckery, and of course “we must remember that money cannot buy consent“. Their stupid lies and bullshit claims about women’s helplessness aren’t working any more, and they know it. Hey, prohibitionists: we’re winning. And if the best you can do is to pull out two police-state operatives, some professional “survivors” and a clutch of old hags mouthing weird fantasies about “orifices”, you’d better get used to the idea.

Top Cop (#938)

Even if you already despise this power-hungry sociopath, Liz Brown’s deep dive will give you more to hate:

Kamala Harris is a cop. The phrase, which the candidate’s critics use frequently, is meant to conjure more than just Harris’ history as a hard-nosed San Francisco prosecutor. It’s colloquial. To label someone a cop in this way…implies the person is a bully, a bootlicker, a professional tattler—the sort of person who shuts down un-authorized lemonade stands run by kids. A cop, in this context, is someone who will always defer to authority and the status quo, someone who is unaccountable and not to be trusted. Calling someone a cop invokes the worst sorts of police overreach, a legalistic authoritarianism that exists for its own sake…

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In the News (#937)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, agency denial, asset seizure, Backpage, California, Cambodia, censorship, child "protective" services, Colorado, comics, cops, cult of the child, Dangerous Speech, dehumanization, drugs, Election Day, fascism, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Negative Secondary Effects, Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs, politicians, pregnancy, Property of the State, Pyrrhic Victory, rape, See No Evil, sex offender registry, sex rays, Shame Shame, slavery, Spain, streetwalkers, stripping, Surplus Women, surveillance, The Caribbean, To Molest and Rape, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Virginia, Welcome to Our Updates, welcome to our world, Yellow Fever, yellow journalism on May 18, 2019| 3 Comments »

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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