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Posts Tagged ‘Undead Powers’

In the News (#1559)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 30, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The taxpayer must render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but no more.  –  John Roberts

Buttons, Bags & Banknotes (#574) 

“Collective Shout” has a long history of campaigning against lucrative jobs for women, including such tame forms of sex work as bikini modeling:

…the…Australian [misogynist] group Collective Shout…has taken responsibility for changes to Steam’s payment processors that resulted in the removal of various adult games with taboo themes…the group has targeted nearly 500 games…[and succeeded] with 81…in…[conjunction with other pro-]censorship…organizations [including Morality in Media]…and Exodus Cry…In 2018, [Morality in Media]…targeted a series of visual novels…[but] Steam ultimately reversed its decision to ban these games, instead opening the door to adult content on the platform…Exodus Cry led a viral online crusade against PornHub in 2020…and…[has absurdly] argued…that online searches for…“Pokemon” lead children to graphic sexual content…

The Implosion Begins (#1456)

The latest in the case of the lunatic-infested Millersville cop shop:

A [typical and representative] Millersville [Tennessee cop named Todd B. Dorris] has been indicted by a…grand jury [for] aggravated perjury and official misconduct…[due to] lying under oath about his role in a botched child predator sting…The indictment…followed a lengthy criminal probe by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation [which two Trumpist politicians tried to derail]…The…sting…was carried out with the [illegal] help of a group of self-appointed pedophile hunters known as Veterans for Child Rescue[, who are associated with “Veterans on Patrol“, the group which has been sabotaging weather radar stations in Oklahoma]…

Pyrrhic Victory (#1465)

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

[UK] Officials are to start using [facial recognition algorithms] to…estimate the age of asylum seekers who say they are [under 18]…It is the latest example of [politicians pretending computer programs will]…solve problems…without spending significant amounts of money…John Lewis announced earlier this year it would become the first major UK retailer to use facial age estimation to help approve online knife sales.  The Home Office already uses [machine learning algorithms] in other areas, [where the]…tool [is already proving to be undependable and]…bias[ed.  Of course politicians, not being creatures known for intelligence and insight, have already made]…a deal with OpenAI, the company that runs ChatGPT, to explore [cramming its dangerous, error-prone LLM into every] area…[of government]…

A Broker in Pillage (#1503)

This will continue until there are federal criminal charges for “officials” who conspire to rob people this way:

The governor of Oregon [has] signed a bill gutting the government’s ability to seize homeowners’ surplus equity when it forecloses on a property to collect a tax debt…[a form of tyranny practiced by] governments across the U.S…Under Oregon’s [new] law, homeowners will receive clearer notice of overdue taxes.  If someone is still not able to make those payments and ultimately loses their home to foreclosure, they will receive the leftover equity—after their tax debt has been satisfied—via the state’s streamlined abandoned property process…the [new] law [also] requires government officials to enlist a real estate agent to sell foreclosed residential properties, helping ensure that [cronies don’t get to steal properties for under]…market value…a little over two years a[go SCOTUS unanimously ruled] in Tyler v. Hennepin County…[that the practice] was unconstitutional…But several states…have gotten creative with debt collection statutes, which may technically comply with the law of the land but still make it very difficult for owners to retrieve their surplus equity after satisfying their tax debt…

The Mob Rules (#1507)

Forced-birth fanatics are now actively empowering abusive men:

A[n abusive] Texas man filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against a California doctor, claiming the doctor mailed abortion medication to his girlfriend…Jerry Rodriguez seeks civil damages from a California doctor named Remy Coeytaux [because he wanted to force the woman to carry a pregnancy against her will, and the doctor foiled that]…Jonathan Mitchell, a key backer of the “Heartbeat Act” who previously served as…the lead counsel [on several similar pro-domestic violence suits, is behind this one as well]…In addition to the claimed violations of state law, Mitchell…[is trying to use the long-]dormant federal…Comstock Act [as well]…

Pyrrhic Victory (#1538)

Privacy as we once knew it is a thing of the past:

Researchers in Italy have developed a way to create a biometric identifier…based on the way the human body interferes with Wi-Fi signal propagation.  The[y]…claim this identifier…can re-identify a person in other locations most of the time when a Wi-Fi signal can be measured…even if they’re not carrying a phone…Wi-Fi signals offer superior surveillance potential compared to cameras because they’re not affected by light conditions, [and] can penetrate walls and other obstacles…

Torture Chamber (#1555)

This will continue until the evil US immigration policy is reformed:

Migrants at a Miami immigration jail were shackled with their hands tied behind their backs and made to kneel to eat food from styrofoam plates “like dogs”…The…abuses at [ICE dungeons]…since January [have been] chronicled by advocacy groups [such as] Human Rights Watch…At the Krome [dungeon]…female [prisoners] were made to use toilets in full view of men…and…denied access to…showers, or adequate food.  The jail was so far beyond capacity, some…were held for more than 24 hours in a bus in the parking lot.  Men and women were…unshackled only when they needed to use the single toilet, which quickly became clogged…“Because of this, the whole bus smelled strongly of feces”…At the…Broward [dungeon, prisoners]…were routinely denied adequate medical or psychological care…

 

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

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In the News (#1473)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 17, 2024| 2 Comments »

AHF…is just the…newest slumlord in a long line of slumlords.

If Men Were Angels

I’m honestly unsure why this doesn’t happen more often:

…a [Tennessee] pastor [named David Baker]…molest[ed a] relative… under the age of 12…He was…charged with aggravated sexual battery…and [after he bailed himself out] went into [a] restroom [at a nearby hospital] and shot himself twice in the chest…

Tyranny By Consensus (#690)

Longtime readers may remember that AHF has a history of financial shenanigans:

…The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development…says its $10 million Tenant Education and Outreach…grant…will be jointly awarded to the AIDS Healthcare Foundation…and the Massachusetts Alliance of HUD Tenants.  Over the next two years, these two groups will distribute this money to 30 tenant advocacy organizations to help them in their own efforts to…”hold management accountable for property conditions”…Beginning in 2017, [AHF] started buying up residential hotels in Los Angeles’ Skid Row, with the goal of [fix]ing them and renting them out at low, unsubsidized rates.  [AHF head] Michael Weinstein…argued this was a cheaper, faster way of housing people than building new…units.  But…AHF has been the subject of numerous lawsuits from tenants, and…A detailed Los Angeles Times investigation published in November 2023 reported…apartments infested with cockroaches, exploding radiators, water shut-offs so regular that tenants had to defecate in wastebaskets…and months-long elevator shut-offs that left disabled tenants stuck on upper floors or forced to sleep in the lobby…A former AHF employee described the living conditions at foundation properties as “inhumane”…

Undead Powers

I’ve long held that all laws should sunset after 10 years unless specific action is taken to renew them:

A coalition of advocacy organizations sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer…urging him to hold a vote on a proposal aimed at guarding against a future Trump administration from reviving [the] long-dormant…Comstock Act…The Stop Comstock Act, which was introduced by Sen. Tina Smith…seeks to repeal the…provisions of the 1873 federal law that ban…abortion-related materials from being sent through the mail…Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas…have signaled a willingness to revive the statute…

Eavesdropping (#1399)

Is a shiny new status symbol really worth being spied on and harassed?

Ford Motor Company is seeking a patent for technology that would allow it to tailor in-car advertising by [eavesdropping on] conversations among vehicle occupants, as well as by analyzing a car’s historical location and other data…“in-vehicle advertisement presentation”…will determine where a car is located, how fast it is traveling, what type of road it is driving on and whether it is in traffic.  It also will predict routes, speeds and destinations to customize ads…the ad controller system can determine when to [butt in with] audio versus visual ads, [subject]ing…drivers [to intrusive, unwanted commercials]…“through a human-machine interface”…

The Puritan Recrudescence (#1411)

Never forget that “filter” used thus is merely a euphemism for “censor”:

A federal judge in Utah has blocked the state’s…[latest attempt] to enact sweeping online censorship…under the justification of “protecting minors”…[b]y granting a preliminary injunction sought by…NetChoice…the…law…targets social media platforms…by…[demanding they] “enable the maximum default privacy settings on Utah [legal minors’] accounts…[which] would have [required intrusive]…age…[verification”.  Laws like]…this…driv[e] platforms to overmoderate to the point of effectively becoming corporate censors…The law was previously challenged in court [so politicians]…redrafted it…to avoid [public scrutiny]…

When Ambulance-Chasers Run the Hospitals (#1450)

They’ll blame anybody but the real culprit: invasive surveillance and onerous infantilization of teenagers:

A [gang] of 42 state and territory attorneys general is calling on Congress to pass regulation [absurdly] requiring warning labels on social media platforms…US [Charlatan] General Dr. Vivek Murthy first proposed the warning labels in June as part of a plan to [di]vert [blame for] the “mental health crisis” affecting young people [from its actual cause, young adults being constantly spied on and treated like children]…The letter [ignores] research linking [infantilization] of [young adults] to anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation in [favor of blaming] social platforms…in…[order]…to [use this narrative as an excuse to subject them to government control, in defiance of the First Amendment]…these labels would [be unconstitutional compelled speech, similar to court-overturned]…state-level rules demanding adult sites add [specious] health notices about pornography…Over the past year or so, [politicians] across the US have ramped up efforts to [censor the internet via the timeworn pretext of “]protect[ing] children[“, such as]…the Senate[‘s horrific]…KOSA…

Remember what happened the last time a gang of state attorneys general went on a fact-free crusade against websites.

Banishment (#1470)

Politicians will never let go of prohibitionism until they’re forced to:

[Starting] in 1990…Seattle [politicians repeatedly defined and redefined]…banishment zones…across the city, [pretending they could magically]…reduce…drug use…[and] prostitution…[by threatening] drug users and sex workers [with arrest for merely existing]…Research has shown that the orders did not reduce drug use or sex work, but they did make the lives of drug users and sex workers harder, by physically banning them from areas…they used to access services and by turning them into hunted people who could be, and were, jailed when they were caught simply being inside the areas from which they were banished…some 25 years [lat]er the…city largely abandoned the experiment, concluding on the basis of decades of evidence that it hadn’t worked…[now] the Seattle City Council [has] voted to start the cycle over again, by…creating six new banishment zones for drug offenders and one for…sex workers…The new…legislation that will also reinstate a repealed “prostitution loitering” law that will…make it significantly easier for police to arrest [people they decide to accuse of being] sex workers [or clients without any evidence at all]…

 

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

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In the News (#1409)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 31, 2024| 1 Comment »

Unless the courts stop them, [federal prosecutors] are incapable of stopping themselves.  –   Michael Piccarreta

To Molest and Rape

If only there were a concise term for “having sex without consent”:

A [typical and representative Texas cop named Hector Aaron Ruiz has] pleaded guilty…to kidnapping a…woman he pulled over in 2019 and…[raped after forc]ing her [under color of law to] follow him…to a [remote area]…eight months a[go]…Ruiz [was found] guilty of obstructing, destroying and altering records…[when he] raped [a different woman] in her home…[even though the] jury [let him skate on the actual crime]…

To Molest and Rape (#1007)

Rapist cops are rarely caught after only one victim:

Brian Helfert, a…[typical and representative cop paid to spy on, untimidate, and harass high school students in Michigan, regularly moles]ted teen boys between 2003 and 2019.  In December, he was convicted of [a lesser charge, and has previously been slapped on the wrist for molesting boys]…He…[now] faces two more c[harges]…for…sexually assault[ing yet another 13-year-old boy]…

Panopticon (#1321)

A small and soon-to-be-circumvented obstacle to Amazon’s fascist collaboration with cops:

Amazon’s Ring has announced that it will no longer facilitate police’s warrantless requests for footage from Ring users.  This…will…not stop police from trying to [intimidate] Ring…owners [into handing over recordings] without a warrant….[Several] years ago, after public outcry and a lot of criticism from EFF and other organizations, Ring ended its practice of allowing police to automatically send requests for footage to a user’s email inbox, opting instead for a system where police had to publicly post requests onto Ring’s Neighbors app.  Now, Ring hopefully will altogether be out of the business of platforming casual and warrantless police requests for footage…This is a step in the right direction, but has come after years of cozy relationships with police and irresponsible handling of data…We also remain deeply skeptical about law enforcement’s and Ring’s ability to determine what is, or is not, an emergency…and…the mass existence of doorbell cameras, whether subsidized and organized into registries by cities or connected and centralized through technologies like Fusus, will continue to threaten civil liberties…

Undead Powers

I’ve long held that all laws should sunset after 10 years unless specific action is taken to renew them:

The most significant national threat to reproductive rights is…a…long dormant law from 1873 that could ban abortion nationwide: the Comstock Act…named after Anthony Comstock, a…[deeply-deranged, self-loathing pervert] who used his power as a special agent of the US Postal Service to enforce his beliefs about sex…He was able to persuade Congress to pass laws against “indecent or immoral” materials, including broad definitions of contraception, pornography and abortion.  Some [forced-birth] advocates are interpreting this law, which remained on the books during the half century that Roe v. Wade was in force, to ban mailing anything that induces an abortion.  Because virtually everything used for an abortion — from abortion pills, to the instruments for abortion procedures, to clinic supplies — gets mailed to providers in some form, this interpretation…could mean a nationwide ban on all abortions, even in states where it remains legal.  The Comstock Act must be repealed, and in our view, that process needs to begin this year…

Pyrrhic Victory (#1364)

Cops really don’t care how many false positives these systems shit out, nor how dire the consequences to their victims:

A 61-year-old man is suing Macy’s and the parent company of Sunglass Hut over the stores’…use of a facial recognition system that misidentified him as the culprit behind an armed robbery and led to his wrongful arrest.  While in jail, he was beaten and raped, according to his suit.  Harvey Eugene Murphy Jr was accused…of robbing a Houston-area Sunglass Hut of thousands of dollars of merchandise in January 2022, though…he was living in California at the time…He was arrested on 20 October 2023…when…he [tried]…to renew his [Texas driver’s] license.  Within minutes of identifying himself to a DMV clerk…he was arrested and…brutally beaten and gang-raped by three other men in the jail…

Dangerous Speech (#1391)

Remember that old legal protection we used to have against double jeopardy?

On Tues., Jan. 23, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix informed federal Judge Diane Humetewa of its intention to retry veteran journalist Michael Lacey on 84 counts, for which a  [hung] jury did not return verdicts during a 2023 trial.  Th[is]…means the Backpage case, which began in April 2018 with the FBI’s destruction of the website and the arrests of six people…will drag on into its seventh year and likely longer…

The Puritan Recrudescence (#1391)

Censorious politicians aren’t just copying each other; they’re vying to see who can make their new laws the most unconstitutional:

An anti-porn bill in Oklahoma is so extreme that it [w]ould even make sexting outside of a marriage a crime.  The…bill would make merely viewing “obscene materials” a felony…It’s part of a wave of conservative plans targeting a very broad definition of “porn”—First Amendment be damned—that threatens not just “hardcore pornography” but all sorts of erotic expression…[b]y attempt[ing] to drastically expand what is considered illegal obscenity or pornography…Oklahoma Senate Bill 1976—comes from state Sen. Dusty Deevers…who also put forth legislation to repeal no-fault divorce…the…bill attempts to carve out a new category of largely prohibited content called “unlawful pornography”…which…is broad enough to include all partnered or solo porn photos and videos (even the more tame stuff), and possibly even erotic drawings, strip clubs, burlesque, drag, depictions of domination, and more…and…would be partially enforced by private 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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Undead Powers

Posted in Current Events, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2023| 1 Comment »

Though modern people see vampires, ghouls, ghosts, zombies, and other such beings as mere characters in horror fiction or fantasy games, to our ancestors they were very real indeed.  The belief that the dead could return to harm the living was nearly universal prior to the Age of Reason, and in many parts of the world it persisted until the recent past or even the present day.  Evil people, or those believed to have practiced sorcery, were generally buried with a stake through the heart, or decapitated, or turned face-down, or buried at crossroads, or otherwise subjected to whatever measures were believed to prevent their returning from the grave.  And just to be on the safe side, measures were usually taken to ensure that the earthly forms of even the kindest, gentlest souls stayed put: it’s why funeral corteges traditionally took a circuitous route to the cemetery (to confuse the dead in case they tried to come home), and why such places have fences of wrought iron (a metal believed to be inimical to the dead) to keep their denizens safely contained.

Though they lacked the knowledge modern science has made available to us, our ancestors were no fools; they were not entirely wrong in their belief that things thought dead which are not properly laid to rest can return to haunt the living:

…lawyers seeking to move abortion medication off the market focused less on the existential question of when life begins — and more on the procedural question of when a law dies.  The lawsuit focuses on the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, an abortion-inducing drug.  But lawyers for [forced-birth proponents are asking]…U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk — to resurrect a long-dormant law that would upend abortion access in the United States.  The Comstock Act of 1873 banned the mailing of anything related to contraception or abortion.  The contraception clauses were removed in 1971, and the law was entirely unenforced during the five-decade reign of Roe v. Wade…[but] now, with Roe off the table, anti-abortion groups want Kacsmaryk to [declare] that Comstock is good law and can be applied broadly, not just to…abortions…It’s unclear whether [the openly anti-abortion] Kacsmaryk…will take steps to revive this “zombie law”.  If he did, his ruling would apply only to the parties — the FDA and a manufacturer of mifepristone that has joined the suit — but it would open the floodgates for future litigation.  “Comstock is part of this sort of stealth strategy to ban abortion nationwide,” said David Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University. “If it’s illegal nationally to mail … anything that is related to abortion, that would make it very difficult to operate an abortion clinic or to be an abortion provider”…

And this isn’t the only such case; authoritarian “conservatives” apparently want to go from their traditional concept of the US as the Land Where Nothing Ever Changes, to one where it’s the Land Where No Governmental Construct Ever Dies:

When Gov. Ron DeSantis first proposed reviving the long-dormant Florida State Guard, he wanted 200 volunteers and a modest $5 million budget.  Then it grew to 400 members and $10 million.  Now it’s 1,500 members and a nearly $100 million budget — with police powers, helicopters, boats and, under one [politician]’s request, cellphone-hacking technology.  The proposed budget for the Florida State Guard…offers the most detailed realization of DeSantis’ vision for th[is]…WWII-era force brought back last year to s[trengthen DeSantis’ police] state…[especially troubling is the allocation of] $750,000 to contract with the Israeli company Cellebrite to…help the State Guard target [sex workers] and drug [users]…including on farms.  Cellebrite is often hired by [cop shops] because of its ability to break into iPhones…

I’m not the only person who has proposed that all laws should automatically sunset after ten years unless specific action is taken to renew them, but I think it’s unlikely that will ever happen; the Overlords would never allow possibly-useful undead laws and agencies to be disposed of by peasants with stakes and torches.

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