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In the News (#1319)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged abortion, bogus studies, cell phones, censorship, cops, domestic violence, drugs, ethics, Florida, I Spy, illegal aliens, Mississippi, politicians, porn, propaganda, racism, rape, slavery, South Carolina, surveillance, Tennessee, The Cop Myth, The Last Shall Be First, The Pro-Rape Coalition, The Vultures Descend, To Molest and Rape, transgender, United Kingdom, Where Are the Protests? on March 8, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Encryption is either protecting everyone or it is broken for everyone. – Meredith Whittaker

To Molest and Rape

No female motorist is safe while the state continues to pay sexual predators to harass us:

A [typical and representative]…Tennessee [cop named]…Jonathan Kelly…was charged with…aggravated rape a[fter he raped]…a woman during a traffic stop…Kelly t[threatened to arrest] the woman [for a bogus]…crime if she [refused to submit to]…him…

Where Are the Protests? (#945)

I’m sure the “anti-trafficking” crusaders will be going after this any day now:

Migrant children, who have been coming into the United States without their parents in record numbers, are ending up in some of the most punishing jobs in the country…This shadow work force extends across industries in every state, flouting child labor laws that have been in place for nearly a century. Twelve-year-old roofers in Florida and Tennessee. Underage slaughterhouse workers in Delaware, Mississippi and North Carolina. Children sawing planks of wood on overnight shifts in South Dakota. Largely from Central America, the children are driven by economic desperation that was worsened by the pandemic. This labor force has been slowly growing for almost a decade, but it has exploded since 2021, while the systems meant to protect [them] have [been allowed to break] down [because money is instead going to grow the apparatus of surveillance, censorship, and carceral violence]…

The Pro-Rape Coalition (#1117)

Fanatics’ crusade to control all human thought is never-ending:

A…[pack of censorious politicians]…studying [ways to impose harsher censorship] in the United Kingdom [wants people to believe] that not only is porn a major contributor to real-world violence, it is violence…the group echoes old radical feminist tropes about pornography—that there is no such thing as ethical porn, that it’s all “exploitation,” and its mere existence is “a form of violence against women”…All-Party Parliamentary Groups “have no official status within Parliament…[but] can sometimes be influential“…So it’s worrying to see statements like these from Diana Johnson, a [politician with a long history of working to increase violence vs sex workers]…

I Spy (#1207)

Nothing infuriates violent, self-important busybodies more than private affairs that are none of their business:

The head of the messaging app Signal has warned that it will quit the UK if the forthcoming online safety bill [demands the intentional weakening of] end-to-end encryption…Meredith Whittaker said…“we would absolutely 100% walk rather than ever undermine the trust that people place in us to provide a truly private means of communication”…The bill has been criticised by privacy campaigners for a provision allowing Ofcom, [a surveillance agency], to order a platform to use certain technologies to [spy on users] and [censor anything the government demands as long as it belches out “THE CHILDREN!!!” first]…the bill could force encrypted messaging services such as Signal, WhatsApp and Apple’s iMessage to [spy on] users’ messages and create vulnerabilities in their platforms that could be exploited by rogue actors and governments. Whittaker told the BBC it was “magical thinking” to believe there can be privacy “but only for the good guys”…Whittaker also criticised a system called client-side scanning, where images are scanned before being encrypted…[because] such a system would turn everyone’s phone into a “mass surveillance device that phones home to tech corporations and governments”…

The Vultures Descend (Vulture Watching)

Medical confidentiality has gone the way of the dodo:

A Greenville [South Carolina] woman was arrested…and charged with performing or soliciting an abortion. In October 2021…[she] sought medical help at St. Francis Hospital after having labor pains…an[d naively believed she could trust] medical personnel [with the knowledge that] she had taken abortion pills to end a pregnancy…[of course one of them called the cops on her]…

The Cop Myth (#1303)

Cop deals with others exactly as he normally does, and the press is shocked:

An Opa-locka [Florida cop has been] arrested…on…domestic abuse charges [because he regularly beat] and threatened to kill [his wife and children] for almost a decade…The wife of Johane Hendrik Taylor [reported] that [many] times dating back to 2014 her husband hit her with closed fists, once even breaking a rib and trying to drag her outside while she was unconscious. Another time…he…hit one of h[is]…children over the head with a vacuum cleaner…he…has abused the children since the oldest…was three…she is currently 13…Taylor…is the youngest son of former Opa-locka Mayor Myra Taylor and the brother of the city’s current Mayor John Taylor…[which may partially explain] how he was hired as a…[cop] despite twice failing his police exam and having a criminal past involving domestic battery. He resigned in 2013 when [reporters] discovered th[is but]…was rehired…about two years later…[and soon] promoted…

The Last Shall Be First (#1309)

Trans people have become another canary in the civil rights coal mine:

Mississippi [has] bec[o]me the seventh state to enact a restriction on…transition-related health care for minors. Gov. Tate Reeves…[turned the signing into a political event, babbling culture-war nonsense centered around THE CHILDREN!!!]…the…bill also bans public funding from going to any institution or individual that provides such care to minors. Health care providers who infringe the law can have their licenses revoked. The law also allows minors who receive transition-related care to sue providers for 30 years after they receive care…In the last two years…Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and, now, Mississippi…have [enacted] such measures into law, though judges have blocked Arkansas’ and Alabama’s laws…pending the outcome of lawsuits…

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!

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Links #650

Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged Alabama, animals, Believe Them, cops, Europe, Florida, hotels, I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now, internet, law, Never Call the Cops, politicians, Rome, slavery, Texas, video on December 19, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Is anybody out there? – “Metaverse gala” attendee

Not an especially seasonal selection, but it seemed the appropriate one for the death of its composer. The links above the video were provided by Ed Krayewski; Amy Alkon; Radley Balko; Cop Crisis (x2); Jesse Walker, Mike Siegel, and Ally Fogg; and Clarissa, in that order.

From the Archives

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In the News (#1290)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged Bad Girls, cops, Do As I Say, domestic violence, drugs, Georgia, halfway whores, Idaho, Ireland, LGBT rights, License To Rape, Louisiana, Nevada, rape, Red Lamp, sex offender registry, slavery, The Cop Myth, The End of the Beginning, The Face of Trafficking, United Kingdom on November 19, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Venereal disease was primarily an excuse to police women and reduce sexual opportunities for soldiers. – Eric Rogers

Bad Girls

Did they really think they’d get away with this?

An ex-Playboy model…has reportedly reached a plea deal despite maintaining her innocence in the [bludgeoning death of her sugar daddy]…California psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Burchard…[was] paying numerous bills [for]…Kelsey Turner…[to the tune of] over…$300,000…[yet] Judy Earp – the [victim’s conventional] girlfriend…[is in deep denial about] that…In March 2019, Burchard drove to Turner’s Las Vegas apartment – for which he had been paying the rent…[with the] inten[t] to break off the relationship…[then] on March 7, 2019, Burchard’s bludgeoned body was found stuffed in the trunk of [Turner’s Mercedes] near Lake Mead…Turner and her…boyfriend Jon “Logan” Kennison…[lived in the apartment with] Diana Pena…who pleaded guilty to being an accessory to murder in 2019…[and] testified that she witnessed Kennison viciously beat Burchard to death with a baseball bat…In June, Kennison pleaded guilty to second-degree murder with a deadly weapon and conspiracy to commit murder. He was sentenced to between 18 and 45 years in prison…

License to Rape

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

Two Georgia women…were exposed to strangers…[during sexual molestation under the pretext of “]strip searches[“]…Dee Dee Estes [molested one]…woman…on the night of July 23, 2020…in plain view of the public after deputies [decid]ed [it would be fun to belch out the word]…drugs during a traffic stop. “And she’s putting her fingers like inside me in the front, and then like up the backside of me”[besides penetrating the victim]’s private areas [without her consent, the rapist cop also forced] her [to] expose her breasts in front of male [pig]s and onlookers at a truck stop…

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Extra-amusing given that Northern Ireland lives under the Swedish model:

A [cop was] arrested on suspicion of paying for sexual services [after his fellow cops ratted him out for] using his PSNI computer to contact escorts…His…identity is [being hidden by his superiors, unlike the identities of non-cops arrested for the same “crime”]…

The Face of Trafficking

Note that cases of actual coercion don’t look much like the myths:

Three [Louisiana] children were forced to bake and sell brownies by their stepfather[,] who…[also] sexually abus[ed] them and us[ed] violence, including waterboarding, to keep them working seven days a week…instead of going to school…for three years…Darnell Fulton…also…sexually abus[ed] the children and [apparently pimped] them to other[s]…Fulton…agreed to a 35-year prison term and to pay more than $700,000 to his victims…the…younge[st of whom]…was [under]…12…at…the…[time]…He…us[ed] “violence, sexual abuse, withholding of food, degradation and intimidation” to [forc]e the children…[to] keep up with his daily sales quotas…the [abuse]…included…[forcing] them “get on their hands and knees on rice and stay in a push up or plank position for hours”…and…[beating] them with a belt [when they could no longer hold the position]…

Red Lamp

Modern military leaders like to pretend soldiers can be ordered to be asexual; those of a century ago tried to exploit soldiers’ frustrated libido:

The United States Government sought to sexually stimulate then frustrate its soldiers to prepare them for an unpopular conflict in Europe [by]…recruiting attractive canteen staff; inviting female civilians to closely supervised dances; disseminating alluring propaganda; pressurising troops to write to women back home; and detaining allegedly promiscuous women to prevent soldiers [“]wasting[“] energy…At the heart of this experiment was the Commission on Training Camp Activities (CTCA), a War Department-directed umbrella agency…[which] sought to control soldiers’ and women’s sex lives to prevent venereal infection and protect social morality in the US. The CTCA has been portrayed as one of the last stands of an older generation of moral reformers against the onrush of a liberalizing sexual culture. But Cambridge historian Eric Wycoff Rogers shows that the agency was far more interested in sexuality as a weapon…

The Cop Myth (#1052)

Cop cultists continue to deny reality no matter how much police violence and corruption is revealed:

…in 2020, Ricky Jones, a [typical and representative cop], jumped to his death from the Prince of Wales Bridge spanning the River Severn…He spent 26 years as a [violent thug for hire, so it’s no surprise]…he subjected his family to decades of domestic abuse. After his death, Jones’s eldest daughter looked through his iPhone, hoping to get some insight into her father’s cruelty…WhatsApp and Facebook messages show Gwent police officers openly discussing the sexual harassment of junior female colleagues; racist, homophobic and misogynistic abuse; the leaking of sensitive police material; and corruption…Jones shared regular messages with his friend Clarke Joslyn, who [has a]…26 year…[history] of domineering, controlling and physically abusive behaviour…

The End of the Beginning (#1139)

Let’s hope many more challenges to these medieval laws succeed:

…the state of Idaho [has] settled Doe v. Wasden, an ACLU lawsuit challenging enforcement of the state’s “Crime Against Nature” law. The state required three men to register as sex offenders in Idaho for engaging in consensual oral and anal sex…The settlement…requires the state to remove the three men from the Idaho Sex Offender Registry and to create a policy for removing other individuals who may have similar claims…

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In the News (#1266)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, abortion, activism, asset seizure, California, censorship, drugs, fantasy, FBI, Having and Eating Cake, hysteria, internet, Louisiana, New Orleans, Pennsylvania, politicians, prisons, slavery, sporting events, stripping, teachers, The Last Shall Be First, The Missing Word, The Vultures Descend, The Widening Gyre, transgender, Twitter, Unsafe for Human Consumption, Utah, You Were Warned on August 27, 2022| 1 Comment »

Sex workers are collateral damage in th[e “progressive”] quest to build the perfect internet. – Evan Greer

The Missing Word (#570)

Notice what nobody calls this?

For almost seven years, two Pennsylvania judges sent hundreds of [teens and] children—some of them as young as 8 years old—to privately run juvenile detention centers in exchange for financial kickbacks…[now] former Judges Mark A. Ciavarella and Michael T. Conahan [have been ordered] to pay over $200 million in compensatory and punitive damages to their victims. Starting in 2000, the pair sent children into juvenile detention for offenses as innocuous as jaywalking, petty theft, or truancy. In what became known as the “kids for cash” scandal, the [victims] were sent to two privately run detention centers whose builder and co-owner paid the men $2.8 million…over the course of the scheme…following the plot’s discovery, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court…thr[ew] out 4,000 juvenile convictions…[but] many of the plaintiffs still suffer from mental health problems. Several…died by suicide or drug overdose in the years after their detention…Unfortunately, it is unlikely that any of the plaintiffs will [actually] receive [any] financial compensation…[because] Ciavarella and Conahan are now serving lengthy prison sentences. Ciavarella was sentenced to 28 years…and Conahan…17…though he was released to home confinement in 2020…[due to] COVID-19…

On the Simultaneous Having and Eating of Cake (#1009)

Another baby step toward recognizing sex work as work:

…a group of former Star Garden [exotic] dancers…filed a petition for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board, through the established actors union Actors’ Equity Assn…If the[y]…succeed, it would be the first time the century-old union that represents actors and stage managers on Broadway and venues such as the Hollywood Pantages Theatre would include strippers in its ranks. Star Garden would become the first unionized strip club in the U.S. since…the Lusty Lady…closed in 2013…But…most of the strippers seeking representation said they have not worked at Star Garden since mid-March, when they raised safety concerns and were subsequently [fired]…Union lawyers will need to convince the National Labor Relations Board the strippers are Star Garden employees who were unduly terminated in order to be eligible to participate in a union vote and secure a shot at winning…

The Widening Gyre (#1116)

The latest iteration of “sex traffickers are EVERYWHERE!!!” has it all: the roses from the item linked in the subtitle, themselves only one example of the “valuable bait” trope, are loaded with the magic instant-overdose fentanyl of cop fantasies instead of the unidentified magic contact poison of earlier iterations of this myth. Given that cops have recently started claiming that the magic fentanyl is being intentionally sprinkled onto $1 bills, the convergence is pretty clear; presumably the fentanyl-using “traffickers”, no doubt driving around in white vans, are also dropping the bait bills where cops can find them so as to stop their heroic anti-trafficking pogroms, or something.

A Broker in Pillage (#1147)

Absolutely nothing is “safe” if government actors know where it is:

The FBI [lied] to…a federal magistrate judge…[claiming] that it intended to open hundreds of safe deposit boxes s[tolen] during a March 2021 raid in order to inventory the items inside—but new evidence shows that federal agents were plotting all along to use the operation as an opportunity to [steal] cash and other valuables…the FBI also seems to have ignored limitations imposed by the warrant, including an explicit prohibition against using the…boxes as the basis for further criminal investigations…agents…were instructed to be on the lookout for cash…and to note…anything which [might give the government a pretext to steal it]…Agents [even] arranged to have drug-sniffing dogs present…which doesn’t do anything to help inventory items, of course, but makes more sense if the actual goal is to initiate forfeiture proceedings…

You Were Warned (#1218)

Looks like Reddit is covering its butt as a hedge against more FOSTA-enabled predatory lawsuits:

…adult content creator[s have]…recently found themselves abruptly removed or had their Reddit account limited without warning. Sex workers have long been subject to deplatforming on most social media platforms…yet even though Reddit has a reputation for being relatively sex-positive compared to other Big Tech sites, sex workers are increasingly finding themselves restricted or even outright permanently banned on the platform, often without notice or…explanation…“The fact that sex workers are reporting an uptick on Reddit is particularly concerning because it has been one of the last places where this type of content is allowed,” says Evan Greer, director of the digital rights organization Fight for the Future, citing Twitter as the only other example of a platform that still continues to allow NSFW content…

The Vultures Descend

You can always count on my native state to out-Herod Herod:

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry…successfully urged the Louisiana Bond Commission…to delay a $39 million future line of credit for the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board–which the city needs for [a dedicated power station for] its flood response–until city officials agree to enforce the state’s abortion ban. The move comes right at the start of hurricane season, on the same day New Orleans…issued a flood advisory…Even Republican state senator Bret Allain warned that because the sewerage and water board is a state-created agency, he finds it “problematic” to target New Orleans over their abortion stance…

The Last Shall Be First (#1244)

If you didn’t see this coming, you haven’t been paying attention:

After one competitor “outclassed” the rest of the field in a girls’ state-level competition last year, the parents of the competitors who placed second and third lodged a complaint with the Utah High School Activities Association calling into question the winner’s gender. David Spatafore, the UHSAA’s legislative representative…said the association…asked the student’s school to…examine…the students’ enrollment records [going]…“back to kindergarten and she’d always been a female”…Spatafore said the association has received other complaints, some that said “that female athlete doesn’t look feminine enough”…

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In the News (#1259)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged abortion, Above the Law, Against Their Will, California, cops, Creepy Coppers, Droit du Seigneur, Hawaii, India, Indiana, law, Legalization a Good Idea?, Maryland, No Escape, Ohio, Pennsylvania, porn, prisons, propaganda, Property of the State, rape, slavery, teachers, To Molest and Rape, Torture Chamber, violence vs. sex workers, Washington DC on August 3, 2022| 1 Comment »

There will be many more [scandals] because, for years & years, we have paid no attention, apart from giving them money. – Maneka Gandhi

Droit du Seigneur

What did this guy think he was, a cop?

A…US Naval petty officer has been sentenced to…two consecutive 20-year prison terms for sex trafficking Native Hawaiian girls…Petty Officer Marquis Green, had no criminal history other than a minor traffic matter a decade ago. Then in December 2013, he was arrested for sex trafficking two girls under the age of 18…He was also charged and convicted for his involvement with a 15-year-old girl whom he sexually assaulted and whipped with a belt in 2013…he is the first person in Hawaii to be charged for first degree sex trafficking since 2015…

Despite the claims of perennial fabulist Khara Jabola-Carolus, quoted in the story, the case proves how rare actual “sex trafficking” (as opposed to the ordinary paid sex Carolus labels “trafficking”) is.

Above the Law (#899)

The son of a[n Indiana cop] running for Kosciusko County Sheriff [molested] a fourteen-year-old girl…Zachary Smith, 18 at the time, also gave [his victim and several other] girls…margaritas, moonshine and marijuana. Smith [got away with] charge[s of] battery and maintaining a public nuisance [instead of his actual crime, statutory rape]…The girls say…they [were] pressured to smoke weed and drink alcohol…And [were intimidated by the fact that] Zach’s dad [Jim Smith i]s a [cop]…running for sheriff…

Creepy Coppers

This attempt to blame others is odious even by abysmally-low cop standards:

A [typical and representative California cop was] sentenced to nearly six years in federal prison for distributing child pornography [after trying to blame the] public [for giving him sadfeelz by protesting rampant cop violence]…Anthony Mark Brown[‘s crimes were]…initially c[overed up by]…a colleague…but…he…was…[later indicted by] a federal grand jury…

Of course, they still managed to cover up for him somewhat by hiding his picture. Imagine that.

Torture Chamber (#1219)

Your “leaders” call this “correction”:

[Women locked in cages by the state] at an Indiana jail were subjected to a “night of terror” when male detainees [were sold the keys] to their cells…[by a screw named] David Lowe…in exchange for $1,000. That night, the two male [prisoners led a gang]…into restricted areas of the jail…[where] women [were caged]…and…raped, assaulted, harassed, threatened and intimidated the…women…for…hours…[while screws watched the whole thing] on surveillance video [and did nothing to help them]…

For Those Who Think Legalization is a Good Idea (#1242)

Prajwala’s idea of “rescue” results in “at least two” suicide attempts by its prisoners every day:

On 19 May…India’s Supreme Court ruled that [cops and rescue industry opportunists may not attack, abduct and cage] voluntary sex work[ers under the pretense of “rescue” and “rehabilitation”]…under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act (ITPA), [but the]…”protective homes” [have not released their prisoners in a timly manner. So]…weeks after the…ruling, 80 sex workers locked up near the city of Hyderabad rioted against their forced detention…the[y overpowered]…three…guards, broke down the facility’s gates, and walked for two kilometres before being [beaten] by police….[and] taken back to the [labor camp], which is run by the NGO Prajwala…

Follow the link for more on the deeply-evil Prajwala and its deranged leader, arch-fantasist Sunitha Krishnan.

To Molest and Rape (#1250)

Of course they’re prosecuting his wife for trying to stop him:

A [typical and representative] Baltimore [cop] who was shot by his wife [after she caught him] molesting [at least 3] kids at her daycare has been arrested on child abuse charges…James S. Weems Jr…was admitted [to hospital] with life-threatening injuries after his wife…Shanteari Weems…shot him…in Washington D.C…Shanteari was arrested after she admitted to shooting her [rapist] husband…[and] charge[d with] assault with intent to kill…Days after Shanyteari’s arrest, the police [finally got around to]…arrest[ing]…James…

Given that they’ve only been married five years, one must wonder whether part of the reason he married her was because she owned a daycare.

Property of the State (#1255)

“Hard cases” are more common than forced-birth proponents want you to believe:

The…10-year-old Columbus girl who was impregnated du[e to] rape and [had to] travel…out of state to get an abortion…is hardly alone…a similar case happened in Cleveland last year, before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and a federal judge unlocked Ohio’s [draconian] ban on abortions…Two sisters, ages 10 and 13, were impregnated du[e to] rapes by the same perpetrator…under Ohio’s old law, the younger girl was able to get an in-state abortion, but her sister, who was too far along…traveled to Pennsylvania for the procedure…Ohio law provides no exemptions for rape and incest…but [the old law]…allowed more time for women to discover they were pregnant, which…is especially crucial for younger victims of rape…

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In the News (#1235)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, agency denial, Alabama, cell phones, cops, Do As I Say, domestic violence, Florida, illegal aliens, language, Massachusetts, Missouri, prisons, Pyrrhic Victory, rape, slavery, Still a Child, streetwalkers, surveillance, The Cop Myth, The Face of Trafficking, The Last Shall Be First, To Molest and Rape, Torture Chamber, transgender on May 11, 2022| Leave a Comment »

The fact that a reporter has to call and tell me…is the issue. – Luis Correa

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Everyone involved in this story, excluding the sex worker but including the reporter and headline writer, is garbage:

A…Boston attorney who once [worked to destroy people’s lives for the State]…was caught literally with his pants down on [a stroll pigs think it’s funny to label] Methadone Mile with a prostitute…Bruce Singal…asked to speak to a police supervisor…but when he further asked for “lenience and consideration,” [cops vomited a lot of disgusting, misogynistic “sex trafficking” propaganda all over him]…The woman…was not arrested, but taken in to be connected with services…

“Not arrested, but taken in to be connected with services” is a euphemism for “arrested”.

Torture Chamber

Your “leaders” refer to wanton murder as “correction”:

Three Florida [screws] were arrested on murder charges for [brutal]ly beating an inmate to death, while a fourth [fled the consequences of his actions]…Christopher Rolon…Kirk Walton…and Ronald Connor…were arrested…following a monthslong [attempt to cover up the murder] at the Dade [Torture] Institution…The [murder] occurred on the morning of Feb. 14, before the [victim] was scheduled to be transferred to a [different cage stack] in Lake County…the [attackers claimed that the murder was justified by their]…mental[ly-ill victim supposedly throwing urine]…at…the[m]…”The[y]…beat…[him] so badly he had to be carried to the transport van…During a stop in Ocala…over 300…[miles away, the murderers discovered their victim had died from their brutality. An autopsy later revealed]…the [victim]’s death was caused by a punctured lung leading to internal bleeding…The incident initially led the Florida Department of C[ages to reward]…10 [screws with paid vacations]…

The Face of Trafficking

Note that cases of actual coercion don’t look much like the myths:

Gawain Baxter was 6 years old when he signed a contract agreeing to work for the Church of Scientology for 1 billion years…he spent his childhood doing manual labor at Scientology’s Flag Land Base in Clearwater, [Florida] and getting no education beyond basic reading, writing and math. At 15, Baxter attempted to leave by writing a letter to a superior about constant abuse and intolerable living conditions. Instead…church officials sent him to Scientology’s Freewinds ship in the Caribbean, where he worked for little or no wages for 14 years. Through its highly regimented Sea Org workforce, Scientology officials systematically trafficked Baxter, 39, and others by indoctrinating them as children and making it financially, physically and psychologically impossible for them to leave as adults, according to a lawsuit filed…in Tampa federal court against Scientology leader David Miscavige and five church entities…on behalf of Baxter, his wife…Laura…and Valeska Paris, who all were raised in Scientology and worked on the Freewinds, where…the church [stole] their passports and identification documents…

To Molest and Rape

An armed robber is also a rapist. Gee, what a surprise:

A [typical and representative cop from] the [violently-corrupt Alabama] town of Brookside has been arrested on a rape charge in Jefferson County. Deshawn Mark Cook…[forcibly] rape[d his]…victim…on May 22, 2021…Cook was [previously] indicted in 2019 on a charge of strangling his girlfriend…[but a] judge dismissed that case when the woman failed to show up for court…

Pyrrhic Victory (#1212)

Undermining of civil liberties only starts with “undesirables”; it never stops there:

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement will be paying surveillance…company Trust Stamp $7.2 million annually to develop tech to track migrants [who enter the US] at the southern border…Trust Stamp…provid[ed] ICE with 10,000 smartphones that include the company’s app with facial recognition and GPS tracking…ICE then gives these…to migrants in order to surveil their whereabouts and behavior daily…migrants…are expected to complete “biometric check-in” once a day, meaning they scan their faces…An ICE [spook] looks at the result of each check-in, as well as the migrant’s location…[and] the…[phone] also…track[s its holder via] geolocation…

The Cop Myth (#1223)

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

A [typical and representative]…Massachusetts [cop]…threaten[ed] to kill his estranged wife in a brutal attack…Tomas Morales…showed up at his family’s home and said he wanted to talk to his [victim] about Christmas presents…after trying to kiss her, Morales threw her to the ground…forced her into a bedroom…said, “You’ll always be mine”…threatened to kill her, then strangled her and punched her in the face…Woburn police Chief Robert Rufo [thought the most important thing to tell reporters was that Morales wasn’t wearing his magical clown costume at the time]…

The Last Shall Be First (#1229)

Politicians are competing to see how many rights they can violate with one law:

Missouri [politicians are]…seeking to restrict access to gender-affirming care [not just to] minors…[but also] young adults under the age of 25…[in support of the scheme, they trotted out a quack] psychologist…[named Laurie] Haynes [who] also…support[s the discredited form of conditioning called] conversion therapy. [This is merely the latest attempt to undermine the civil rights of young adults using the excuse]…that the prefrontal cortex – the part of the brain responsible for executive functions like decision making – is not fully developed until roughly the age of 25…[a claim which is notably absent when politicians discuss voting, marriage, criminal responsibility, and enlisting in the military]…

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In the News (#1116)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A False Dichotomy, Australia, Bangladesh, brothels, California, Censor Chic, censorship, cops, Facebook, fantasy, fascism, Follow Your Bliss, Google, hysteria, illegal aliens, internet, language, Louisiana, marriage, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, Ohio, Out of Control, politicians, prisons, psychology, racism, slavery, Texas, The Widening Gyre, Torture Chamber, Twitter, You Were Warned on February 27, 2021| 1 Comment »

The Constitution…also prohibits the government from using its immense authority to coerce private actors into censoring on its behalf.
– Ben Wizner

A False Dichotomy

Despite the authors’ use of prohibitionist terms like “trafficked into” (meaning “sold to”), insistence on pretending that Western cultural norms apply as clearly in impoverished Bangladesh as they do in middle-class London, and offensive presentation of cops and politicians as “rescuers”, the truth in this article still comes through: that for girls in a brutally poor, overpopulated, patriarchal culture, sex work is often (as the authors themselves express it) “the least bad option”, even when those options include the monogamous marriage so beloved of the majority of white savior types.

Out of Control (#946)

What is wrong with doctors who do this?

A Stanford pediatrician has pleaded not guilty to…[trying to molest] an underage girl he met on social media…Dr. Dylan O’Connor…[sent] her [dick pics and]…requested [nudes] from…he[r, after which she apparently told her mother, who called the cops to set]…O’Connor [up]. He allegedly…brought a blanket and condoms with him, and [told cops he had]…a sex addiction [despite knowing as a doctor that there is no such thing]…

The Widening Gyre (#1005)

The “things on cars” branch of “sex trafficking” scarelore is driven by a kind of inversion of Occam’s razor:

Brittaney Strupe [of Ohio]…got engaged [on Valentine’s Day] and had plenty of leftover red roses…So [she]…her sister and daughter…[decided to] go to Walmart…[and put them on] vehicles [as a gift to others. But when] customers and Walmart employees began to discover them [everybody succumbed to collective hysteria and]…called the Coshocton County Sheriff’s Office…[which started spouting ridiculous fantasies about] human traffickers…on Facebook [where]…Strupe…[saw it and]…call[ed] to [explain, after which the cops vomited out “if you see something, say something”]…

“The mentally disturbed do not employ the Principle of Scientific Parsimony: the most simple theory to explain a given set of facts. They shoot for the baroque.” – Philip K. Dick, Valis

Torture Chamber (#1040)

When government is in charge, things can always get worse:

…As a once-in-a-generation snowstorm walloped the Lone Star State…already-dire conditions inside Texas prisons…got even worse…33 prisons lost power and 20 had water shortages after the state’s electrical grid failed…prisoners ha[d]…no options to stay warm…there…[were] ne[ither enough]…extra blankets and jackets to…go around…no[r sufficient staff] to [distribute them because]…fewer [screws] showed up to work…staff [didn’t bother] to pass out medication…and…the food…bec[a]me [even more] inedible and…unidentifiable [than before]…prisoners with [secret] phones sent pictures of their increasingly pitiful meals…more than a dozen prisons lost some or all of their access to water…so…the toilets are overflowing with waste…Advocates for prisoners say these problems have been years in the making…

In the News (#1099)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, brothels, censorship, consensual crime, cops, Down Under, hysteria, internet, law, Montana, New York, New Zealand, Permanent Record, politicians, porn, prisons, propaganda, racism, scams, sex rays, sex work is work, slavery, Swedish model, The Course of a Disease, The Next Target, United Kingdom, Washington (state), yellow journalism, You Were Warned on December 23, 2020| Leave a Comment »

This is a question about what level of censorship power we want to give to payment processors. – Danny O’Brien & Rainey Reitman

Down Under (#410)

This is what prohibitionists call the “failure” of decriminalization:

A New Zealand sex worker has won a six-figure payout as part of a settlement after filing a sexual harassment complaint against a b[rothel] owner…The settlement was an important reminder that all workers, regardless of the type of work they did, have the right to freedom from sexual harassment in the workplace, said Michael Timmins, director of the office of human rights proceedings…the woman[‘s]…identity, and all other details in the case, remain…confidential…

The Gun in the Room

All laws, even “progressive” ones, are more heavily enforced vs minorities:

…of the [tickets Seattle] police have i[nflicted using the bike helmet law] since 2017, at least 43% were given to people struggling with homelessness…Since 2019, that number was 60%. The total is almost certainly an undercount…In total, Seattle police have issued only 117 helmet citations since 2017, at least 50 of which were given to [homeless] people…Last summer’s protests served to amplify a growing [but long-overdue] skepticism of the criminal justice system’s reach, particularly when it comes to nonviolent [behavior arbitrarily defined by the state as] crime. The wide-scale rejection of the so-called war on drugs typifies the shift most dramatically, but…all…citations — for drug use, traffic stops or bike laws — tend to reveal most clearly the disparities of the criminal justice system…In Seattle, for example, one in four jaywalking tickets issued between 2010 and 2016 went to a Black pedestrian…

A Procrustean Bed (#965)

Authoritarians pretend this is more humane than prison:

Passages [is] one of eight privately-owned pre-release facilities in Montana…To [be sent to] Passages means to submit a 24-hour schedule for each day, subject to approval, accounting for every single minute, around the clock. There’s little privacy; the women sleep four to a small hotel-sized bedroom…Their possessions are rigorously inventoried…inmates…of[ten]…wind up back in prison…because…of…infractions [that] are not crimes on the outside…The…program effectively requires women to be inmates and low-wage workers at the same time. Either role is difficult, but trying to do both at once is mentally and physically crushing…“Honestly, most people would rather just stay in prison because once you’re done with prison then you’re done,” said…former [inmate Tara Norman…Room and board is $15 a day, so if you start your stay with 90 days of drug treatment, you could be starting your pre-release over $1,200 in debt. You can’t complete the program until your drug treatment fees are paid off…There are endless fees for room and board, counseling, instructional materials, laundry, and other necessities. Months can pass where the inmate is working but has no money left from her check because it’s all going to pay for fees and expenses…

Permanent Record (#1036)

If prohibitionists really want to “rescue” sex workers, why do they keep trying to shut us out of other jobs?

A medic was outed by the New York Post…for posting…pictures on OnlyFans for extra income…The article…attempted to make something scandalous out of the fact that the 23-year-old had posted nude photos to the popular subscription site. It…quoted an anonymous FDNY paramedic turned morality cop who snarked that other first responders “make more money by pulling extra shifts, instead of pulling off their clothes”…The [hit post] was quickly decried by critics on Twitter, including [politician] Alexandria Ocasio Cortez…who tweeted at the publication, “Leave her alone. The actual scandalous headline here is ‘Medics in the United States need two jobs to survive.’” The tweet received over 300,000 more likes than the Post’s tweet of its story….one of Kwei’s friends started a GoFundMe page in her name, writing that [Lauren] Kwei had turned to sex work in order to support herself and her family and was now at risk of losing her job…A representative for SeniorCare EMS [said]…Kwei is still employed and it does not intend to let her go over this issue…[but] the GoFundMe…attracted more than 1,500 donors and raised $33,000—far above the stated goal of $5,000…

As I wrote last week, “many more people than ever before are watching, and increasing numbers of them do not at all like what they see“.

The Course of a Disease (#1088)

Swedish model fanatics just won’t stop trying to impose their filth on the UK:

Parliament has passed a controversial bill proposing the UK adopts the “Nordic model”…[which] is opposed by sex workers and [human rights] groups including Amnesty International…who [explain] that the legal model it proposes is driven by ideology, not evidence and puts workers’ lives at risk…In [prohibitionist propaganda], the Nordic model criminalises clients and third parties in the sex trade, leaving workers unharmed, whilst supporting them to leave the industry. However, evidence from countries where it is [impos]ed shows that it has created more dangerous working conditions, whilst still criminalising workers and not supporting exit for those who want to leave the industry…

You Were Warned (#1095)

Congress won’t stop until it controls the internet:

[Politician] Lindsey Graham…[has] introduced legislation that would…implement a sunset for Section 230, the 1996 law that grants legal protects to tech platforms for third party content posted on their sites. The law has come under fire from [pro-censorship politicians including]…President Trump[, who] has said he will veto the National Defense Authorization Act…the annual defense policy bill, because it does not include a Section 230 repeal…[politicians] have long [made absurd claims]…against [the law that]…they have failed to back…up with evidence. [Politicians pretend]…repealing the law could serve as a check on increasingly powerful companies such as Facebook…

The Next Target (#1097)

Prohibitionists care only about “messages”, not facts:

…the campaign against Pornhub appears to be more about moral grandstanding and leveraging generalized shame around pornography than addressing the real problem of child abuse and exploitation…Morality in Media…and Exodus Cry have been teaming up to portray Pornhub as a uniquely prolific and unrepentant purveyor of smut featuring minors and abuse. But [because facts]…do not support this contention…crusaders…resort to using statistics in weaselly ways…for instance…Shared Hope International peppers its calls to shut down Pornhub with general stats about child sex abuse material…they [all] suggest that the only feasible solution is to take drastic aim at porn or digital privacy more broadly—sometimes both…Conflating role-playing with actual abuse is also a common feature of anti-Pornhub advocacy …In the past few days, Pornhub announced new policies surrounding content and removed all videos from non-verified accounts…these changes have long been on the list of porn performer and producer demands…[but] little coverage has acknowledged this…nor the broader labor and intellectual property issues behind it…

The EFF and Vice also published strong criticisms of this latest front in the War on Whores.

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In the News (#1097)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged activism, advertising, An Example to the West, Backpage, censorship, cops, Dangerous Speech, Don't Call It Trafficking, drugs, evidence, India, internet, left-right myth, New York, pimps, politicians, porn, pragmatism, propaganda, racism, Rotting Fruit, sex work is work, slavery, Social Autoimmune Disorder, Texas, The Next Target, underage, You Were Warned on December 16, 2020| 1 Comment »

I think the ideal philosophy is to only care about the fact that you do your job with integrity. – Kiran Deshmukh

Social Autoimmune Disorder

Cops think they can never have enough pretexts to harass people:

Dallas [cops]…arrested 88 people in [just the first half of this year for]…driv[ing through a particular neighborhood, claiming they committed the thoughtcrime of]…looking for sex…All but one of those arrested were people of color. [And now] Dallas [politicians want to make it easier for them to dramatically increase the score by]…allow[ing them] to [arrest people for the “crime” of] passing through [that neighborhood three times]…in…two hours…[using the all-purpose excuse of] trafficking women for sex. The penalty is a fine of up to $500…[if pigs claim they] suspect[ed their victims]…of being pimps…

An Example to the West (#329)

An interview with Kiran Deshmukh, president of the National Network of Sex Workers in India:

I still remember Meena Seshu…telling us that we had to band together…to fight back. I still remember that exact day this realization sunk in: A gangster was on the streets making a scene and threatening us with knives. All the women who’d usually shut their doors and sit tight poured out into the streets. One woman undid her saree on the road, and the others used it to tie the gangster to a nearby pole. The women beat him up so much and so badly that not a single gangster has created a scene in our area since then. Once women band together, they become formidable opponents…Sex workers…work put food on the table and feed their children. Society, on the other hand, views the world in a moral–immoral binary…Society will point out how our work is related to our bodies and how many men we “sleep” with…two people having consensual sex is justified but if you attach sex to money, it’s completely immoral. Why? You’re all saying it’s totally fine to have sex for free?…As for tragedy, if a woman enters sex work due to a tragic situation, but eventually decides to continue in the same profession, why would you bother her with the circumstances that influenced her choice 30-40 years ago?…

Don’t Call It Trafficking (#934)

Remember, this is not slavery, but lucrative, flexible, voluntary work is:

Most [drug] rehab programs that require work act essentially as temp agencies, farming the [pati]ents out to…third parties, such as tree trimming services, dairies, poultry processing plants or oil refineries. The wages are remitted not to the workers but to the rehab centers…the…workers…receiv[e]…no pay, no Social Security credits, [and] no unemployment insurance payment…Other rehab-affiliated programs, notably the Salvation Army, have their patients perform grossly underpaid work for their commercial enterprises — if they did not have this captive workforce, they would have to seek [fairly-paid] labor from the open market…

You Were Warned (#1007)

But please, tell me more about the “wings”:

It is now broadly recognized that Joe Biden doesn’t like Section 230 and has repeatedly shown he doesn’t understand what it does…[now] his…top tech policy advisor, Bruce Reed, along with Common Sense Media’s Jim Steyer, have published a bizarre and misleading “but think of the children!” attack on Section 230 that misunderstands the law, misunderstands how it impacts kids, and…suggests incredibly dangerous changes to Section 230..[among] its myriad problems…is…citing FOSTA as a “good example” of how to amend Section 230…

Rotting Fruit (#1015)

Why are men with so much to lose so goddamned stupid about sex?

[Paul Alexander,] the owner of a charter-jet company…has been charged with sex trafficking after [NYPD cops claim he]…offer[ed them] sex with a 12-year-old girl and 14-year-old girl for $300…In March, an underage girl went to the police and told them Alexander…had been…pimping her out…An undercover cop posing as a customer met with Alexander—who showed him nude photos of the girls, charged him $300 for sex with them, and suggested he ply them with drugs and pot so they would be more cooperative…Alexander…has…a 1996 sexual assault conviction…and in 2003 he was convicted of possession of…child [porn]…

Dangerous Speech (#1092)

Backpage case judge claims it’s OK her husband has publicly attacked Backpage because the Backpage case “isn’t about Backpage”. Seriously.

…the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals…[has] ordered federal prosecutors to respond to the defense’s request for a “writ of mandamus,” which would order U.S. District Court Judge Susan Brnovich to remove herself from the case. The order…[comes only days after] a hearing in…[which] Judge Susan Brnovich claimed that inflammatory comments made by her husband, Attorney General Mark Brnovich, about Backpage.com’s alleged guilt in facilitating illegal sex work, were unimportant and did not warrant her recusal. “This case is not about Backpage,” she contended at one point…an assertion that might come as a surprise for anyone familiar with the federal government’s superseding indictment in the case, which mentions Backpage more than 600 times…[it also] seem[s] a startling statement given that the prosecution’s theory of the case from jump has been one of vicarious liability, in which the government seeks to hold Lacey and Larkin responsible for alleged illicit acts supposedly connected to 50 ads cited in the indictment — ads never seen by Lacey and Larkin and posted by persons unknown to them, among the millions that once existed on the site…

The Next Target

Prohibitionists care only about “messages”, not facts:

Pornhub has released…statements about…Visa and Mastercard [announcing] their cards would no longer be accepted on the platform, following…Nicholas Kristof[‘s spurious]…allegations against the company…”These actions…come just two days after Pornhub…[banned] unverified users…from uploading content — a policy no other platform has put in place, including Facebook…Any assertion that we allow CSAM is irresponsible and flagrantly untrue…Pornhub’s safeguards and technologies have proven effective: while…Facebook reported that it removed 84,100,000 incidents of CSAM over two and a half years, Instagram reported that it removed 4,452,000 incidents…over one and a half years, and Twitter reported that it suspended 1,466,398 unique accounts for CSAM over two years, the Internet Watch Foundation…reported [only] 118 incidents of CSAM on Pornhub in a three year period”…

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Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night (Review)

Posted in Fiction, Perception, Philosophy, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged ethics, imaginative fiction, pragmatism, slavery on November 16, 2020| 8 Comments »

Though I’ve been a Trekkie since childhood, I had never seen all of Deep Space Nine until recently. The reason is simple: the series premiered in January 1993 and was midway through its third season when my first husband left me without warning. My life was thrown into turmoil and it took two years for me to get it straight again, during which time money was much too tight for the relative extravagance of cable TV. So though I saw all of the first two seasons, half of the third, and occasional episodes (at friends’ houses or via borrowed videocassettes) of the fourth and fifth seasons, I got rather lost due to the complex story arcs and decided not to see any more individual episodes until I could rewatch the whole show from the beginning. I gave Grace the complete series on DVD for Christmas about a decade ago, but still never got around to viewing it until this year, after I moved to Sunset as my primary residence. As I watched, I soon found that I agree with many reviewers’ opinion that the series is the best of all the Star Trek sequel series; though it was a direct spinoff of The Next Generation I find it very much superior to its parent, not only because of its greater consistency, better writing, and relief from the pressure of being THE Star Trek show of its decade, but also because it discarded the moral oversimplification which (unfortunately) permeates most of The Next Generation in favor of a universe full of greys in which few characters were either moral paragons or cardboard villains.

This realistic portrayal of the ethical tangle that is real life was on full display in a 6^th-season episode we watched a couple of weeks ago, “Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night“. In it, Major Kira Nerys discovers that her mother, whom she believed to have died in a concentration camp during her planet’s half-century-long occupation by the militaristic Cardassians, actually survived for seven years after the very young Nerys had last seen her…as a “comfort woman” claimed by the Cardassian governor, Gul Dukat. At first, Kira (who started the series as a morally rigid, almost puritanical character, and only slowly grew to accept that real life rarely resembles such abstractions) refuses to believe that her sainted mother could have been guilty of collaboration horizontale, then as she explores the truth (with the help of a mysterious alien device which grants her visions of the past), she instead becomes terribly angry with her mother for literally sleeping with the enemy. But as the vision goes on, she realizes that her mother’s position as the governor’s mistress not only resulted in better living conditions for herself, but also for her husband and children, who might otherwise have died in a labor camp. By the end of the episode she has not forgiven her mother, but has come to accept that she did what she thought best for her family, just as Nerys herself had to make hard choices (including becoming a terrorist) in her own struggle to survive the occupation.

The episode is not a highly rated one; perhaps the topic is too uncomfortable for many viewers, especially in these neo-Victorian times. But as a sex worker and hard-nosed pragmatist, I deeply appreciated the show’s willingness to recognize that sex work, even under duress, can almost never be fit into a pat narrative of villain and victim, and its repeated depiction (in this episode and many others) of war as a filthy business from which nobody emerges entirely clean.

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