[An FBI] suggestion…is not a suggestion. It is in fact effectively an order. – Darrell Issa
Cops love awkward, overcomplicated language:
Three women [have been] found dead near the Trinity River in [Dallas, and]…Oscar Sanchez Garcia…is being charged with th[e]…murder[s]. The body of 60-year-old Limberly Robinson was found in late April. 25-year-old Cherish Gibson was found dead in the same area two months later. The third woman was found [July 15th and] has not yet been identified. Police believe at least two of the victims have possible ties to prostitution…
Would it have been too difficult to say, “at least two of the victims may have been sex workers”?
Will this be another victory for US evangelical prohibitionists?
Kenya is…introducing legislation that would criminalise openly identifying with, or supporting, the LGBTQ+ community…including openly identifying as LGBTQ+ or wearing Pride emblems. Those found in breach of the law would face a minimum of 10 years in jail while those found guilty of performing same-sex acts would face a minimum of 14 years…anyone found guilty under a clause for “aggravated homosexuality,” defined as engaging in “homosexual acts with a minor or disabled person and transmitting a terminal disease through sexual means”, could be executed. The bill heavily mirrors Uganda’s…which was signed into law earlier this year. Similar bills are also being proposed in Tanzania…South Sudan…[and] Ghana…
“This bill is not about kids’ safety, because it will put their safety at risk”:
With…KOSA…be[ing] debated in…Congress…Joe Biden [has] come out [to] give a full throated endorsement of the horrible, dangerous, bill that will damage privacy and harm children…the Republicans have been quite vocal about how they support KOSA because they know they can use it to suppress LGBTQ voices. They flat out said that they believe that “keeping trans content away from children is protecting kids”…KOSA….[is] not about “protecting” kids privacy at all. It’s about giving the government more control over kids. The nature of the bill will require more data collection…[and] create serious 1st Amendment concerns by holding companies potentially liable if kids face harm that…an [ambulance-chaser can pretend was somehow related]…to anything they found online…
Now would be the time to call your congresscritter to scare it away from being associated with this police-state garbage.
I’m sure they occasionally yelled “Stop faking!” at him as he wasted away:
By the time he died alone in his Miami-Dade jail cell in the summer of 2021, (5’10”) Randy Heath weighed just 113 pounds…[because] guards…allowed [him]…to languish [for 9 months] in the jail’s mental health unit…[and] did not properly feed, monitor, or administer…medication…the…Medical Examiner’s Office…[claims] Heath…died from “food asphyxia” after a large piece of orange blocked his airway, with the contributory cause being pica, an eating disorder in which people compulsively eat things that aren’t food…Heath…had been in and out of…jail since 2002 on various charges…[but the most recent arrest] in April 2020 [was on the pretext that he touched] his ankle monitor [in a manner disallowed by The State]…He would remain on the floor of his cell unattended for hours…in his own urine and feces…Although he was regularly prescribed medication for his mental illnesses, his toxicology report detected no medicine in his system at the time of death…
Partisans deny this when it’s their side making “suggestions”:
…based on current evidence, the FBI has not explicitly demanded that social media companies censor any specific posts or news stories. But…[as] the Supreme Court [said] nearly 60 years ago: Americans “do not lightly disregard public officers’ thinly veiled threats to institute criminal proceedings against them if they do not come around.” Much is said in our current discourse about…power imbalances…When your boss asks if you can stay late or come in on the weekend, you can say no. But in the back of your mind, you know there may be consequences…It’s…a similar dynamic when the government sends “suggestions” to private individuals or companies over which it exercises…authority…When the FBI floods social media platforms with “alerts” about content it obviously wants taken down, it doesn’t deserve a pass just because it didn’t say out loud: “or else”…The FBI uses the weight and authority of its office to lean on platforms in an attempt to do what the First Amendment forbids it from doing directly: suppress protected speech. This tactic is called “jawboning,” and is not something we should blithely accept in a society committed to free expression as a fundamental value…
Ballard’s increasingly-bizarre antics have apparently upset his partners in profiteering:
Tim Ballard, the celebrity [“sex] trafficking[” profiteer] whose heavily fictionalized exploits served as the inspiration for the [fak]e box-office hit Sound of Freedom, is no longer CEO of the Nazarene Fund, the Glenn Beck-backed [rescue industry] organization…a letter is circulating in Utah’s philanthropic community, which claims that Ballard left OUR following an internal investigation…[after] an employee filed an HR complaint after returning from a mission with Ballard…
Elsewhere, Kaytlin Bailey uses Ballard’s fanciful story as a springboard for discussion of why “rescue” narratives are not only nonsense, but distracting from measures that really help sex workers.
It does not help young victims of governmental brutality to infantilize them as “children”:
…inside…the…largest juvenile [prison]…in…New Mexico…[young people] between the ages of 12 and 17 are routinely subjected to strip searches, held for weeks in cells without toilets, and left with only a thin plastic sheet to block out the glare of hallway lights that never turn off. Girls face particularly harsh conditions, often placed in…solitary confinement…chronic understaffing…[is used to excuse holding prisoners] for weeks, in temporary booking cells with no toilets or sinks…[yet somehow there are enough staff for weekly sexual assaults euphemized as “]strip searches[“. Girls who]…refuse…to [submit are]…locked in…cell[s] until [they “]consent[“]…
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