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Posts Tagged ‘Wisconsin’

They’re everywhere, literally everywhere.  –  “Madison”

As my memorial to Jimmy Buffett, I’m not going to share the ones everybody knows, but rather my own favorite of his songs.  The link above the video were provided by Mistress Matisse, Dan Savage, Carol Fenton, Lenore Skenazy, The Onion, Scott Greenfield, and Jesse Walker, in that order.

From the Archives

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

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There’s seemingly no policy turd that lawmakers are unwilling to polish in the name of “the children”.  –  J.D. Tuccille

Saint Death 

Apparently, popular and social media have played a large part in the global expansion of her worship:

…one Latin American New Religious Movement has reached Kyiv that perhaps few would expect: The cult of Santa Muerte – Holy Death…Dr. Andrew Chesnut of Virginia Commonwealth University, probably the foremost expert on Santa Muerte, says that the Mexican folk saint depicted as a female skeleton, from whom her devotees seek protection and favors, is the fastest-growing new religious movement in the world.  The skeleton saint went off the historical grid until the 1940s when American anthropologists “re-discovered her,” in Mexico. [The religion] became known to the larger American audience due to the television series Breaking Bad, as an object of devotion for Mexican drug cartels…the professor…[says] Santa Muerte “made her way to Europe via social media, especially Facebook and Instagram”…

If Men Were Angels

“Pastor and sex offender” is a large and ever-expanding group:

…Allan Kyle Jones…pastor at Lifeway Community Church in Loxley, [Alabama,] was [arrested and charged with possession of child pornography]…

Choke Point (#993) 

It always starts with a politically-unpopular group like sex workers or gun owners, but never stops there:

The House Judiciary Committee is investigating banks for sharing Americans’ financial information with the FBI without regard for privacy concerns…there’s no doubt about the threat to civil liberties posed by the government’s leverage over the financial industry; that’s long established.  At question in this investigation is whether…that cozy relationship is being wielded in political warfare between the country’s political factions…financial institutions have long operated as surveillance arms of the state, tracking transactions and movements, making assumptions about what they might mean, then turning that information over to government officials under regulatory pressure…based on idiosyncratic interpretations of vague laws and regulations…such power creates incentives to over-interpret activity as “suspicious” and to snitch on customers to stay on the good side of federal agencies…

Robocops

It’s rare that a court rules that some violent hooliganism is so stupid even a cop should’ve known better:

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Waylon Bailey…of Rapides Parish, Louisiana, made a joke on Facebook that alluded to the 2013 Brad Pitt zombie movie World War Z.  “RAPIDES PARISH SHERIFFS OFFICE HAVE ISSUED THE ORDER,” he wrote, that “IF DEPUTIES COME INTO CONTACT WITH ‘THE INFECTED,'” they should “SHOOT ON SIGHT.”  He added: “Lord have mercy on us all. #Covid9teen #weneedyoubradpitt.”  That post went up on March 20, 2020…that same day, about a dozen deputies wearing bulletproof vests descended upon Bailey’s home with their guns drawn…[screaming obscenities] and arrested him for violating a state law against “terrorizing,” a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison…the Rapides Parish District Attorney’s Office [wisely] declined to prosecute Bailey.  But when [he] sued…[a] judge…dismissed his claims with prejudice, concluding that his joke was not covered by the First Amendment, that the arrest was based on probable cause, and that [the pigs were] protected by qualified immunity…the 5th Circuit [has now] ruled that…was wrong on all three counts…

The Mob Rules (#1303)

Stupid people want you to believe that anti-sex authoritarians “do not agree on much”, because red and blue pap:

[Maine politician] Lois Reckitt…intends to submit a proposal for consideration in the 2024 legislative session modeled after a porn age-verification law in Louisiana …[joining six other] states — Arkansas, Mississippi, Montana, Texas, Virginia and Utah — [in the monkey see, monkey do parade]…with unanimous or near-unanimous support from…[censorious imbeciles with the social sense of lemmings.  Unsurprisingly, the puritanical] Reckitt…[was also behind the scheme which recently imposed the dangerous, misogynistic Swedish model on] Maine

You Were Warned (#1359)

Some politicians apparently believe that KOSA doesn’t destroy the internet thoroughly enough:

…the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act…borrows bad proposals from another federal bill and combines them with legislative idiocy enacted at the state level.  The resulting concoction could destroy internet privacy, subjecting all our online activity to government scrutiny in the name of shielding wee ones from harm…the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act generates the sort of cross-aisle consensus that generally only accompanies terrible ideas.  The bill “contains elements of the dangerous Kids Online Safety Act“…and…doubles down on bureaucratic control and surveillance of internet activity…its authors find substituting restrictive laws for parental responsibility…a convenient excuse for imposing controls that people would be unlikely to tolerate under any other circumstance…the digital ID pilot program is the real warhead in this particular legislative weapon, since…[politicians hate] online anonymity.  The bill provides a clear path towards linking internet activity to identities so that, for example, politicians could identify their critics…

Unsafe for Human Consumption (#1366)

The way local media parrots copaganda in the face of clear evidence of its foolishness is utterly pathetic:

…Milwaukee co[p]…Adriean Williams had an unexpected [panic attack after touching a scary]…blue sweater…”It’s terrifying” [he whimpered, remembering the scary, scary fuzziness.  Then another cop wasted]…Narcan, a nasal spray that counteracts the effects of opiates [and can act as a placebo for hysterical cops who imagine they’ve touched magic insta-fentanyl.  Actual doctors have explained time and again that]…incidental fentanyl exposure [has no such] immediate and profound reactions, but [cops are superstitious children who imagine they know better.  This mass hysteria affected another of]…Williams[‘ cronies]…the very next day…[when he] believe[d] cocaine….[was] fentanyl [and had a panic attack]…

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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We can lock him up, take his kid, put his dog in the impound.
–  Raiford Box

As my memorial for Robbie Robertson, I chose this example of kind of antiwar song I think most effective: one about the human costs of war.  The links above it were provided by Radley Balko; Scott Greenfield; Popehat; Jesse Walker and Radley Balko again; Phoenix Calida; and Elizabeth N. Brown, in that order.

From the Archives

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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Anytime there’s a bipartisan consensus and a preachy New York Times op-ed, you can assume something you enjoy is about to get regulated out of existence or made worse in quality.  –  Liz Wolfe

Broken Record (#687) 

Sparsely-populated states are still clinging desperately to “sex trafficking” myths that larger states have quietly backed away from:

The Sturgis Motorcycle rally officially begins on August 4th.  [Blah blah pearl-clutching, lies about criminal charges, infantilization of women, and cop swagger]…South Dakota’s pheasant hunting season also causes a spike in sex trafficking in South Dakota…

The Last Shall Be First (#924)

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

Christine Gallinaro [took] her [deeply autistic] 15-year-old son…[to a cinema] in…New Jersey…[and brought him] into the women’s toilets because there was no family one…her son, who…is non-verbal, “is not equipped to go into a men’s bathroom in a public setting alone”…However, the…theatre’s manager approached them in the…crowded lobby, shouting…“a grown man should not be in the women’s restroom” and “this is not a transgender bathroom”.  He then told an assistant manager to call the police [on them]…

Above the Law (#1142)

They usually make these cases sound like the rapist was doing his victims a favor:

A disgraced Wisconsin prosecutor secretly recorded himself having sex with three women, including one he was prosecuting.  Daniel Steffen…[of] Wisconsin…was sentenced to 18 months in prison after he was convicted in April…“While the defendant and Victim #1 are still engaged in sex, the defendant looks at the camera, sticks his tongue out, and winks several times,” and can be heard repeatedly telling the victim, “Who’s in charge?” the complaint said…In addition to his prison time, Steffen must serve two years of extended supervision, four years of probation, and placement for 10 years on Wisconsin’s sex offender registry.

You Were Warned (#1279)

The bipartisan war on the internet moves us another step closer to idiocracy:

“[The internet causes] sex…trafficking, drug[s and death”, bloviate perennial nuisances] Lindsey Graham…and Elizabeth Warren…in t[he] New York Times…What follows is a litany of untrue statements and gross exaggerations about the way Big Tech operates and the purported harm done by the cluster of websites that millions of Americans willingly use on a daily basis…Warren and Graham go on to announce they’re introducing [another terrible internet-breaking law] to create [yet] an[other government agency]…”charged with licensing and policing…tech companies” which will be “nimble” and “adaptable” (just like all those other government agencies).  The regulator will “prevent online harm” (by waving a magic wand and ensuring no bad actors ever go online); “promote free speech and competition”…by scrapping Section 230 and…”guard Americans’ privacy” (because government agencies do a great job at cybersecurity!…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#1293)

Blaming bad behavior on an imaginary “addiction” is the opposite of admitting responsibility:

[Actor] Terry Crews recently [attempt]ed [to avoid responsibility for abusive behavior toward his wofe and kids by blaming it on an imaginary “]porn addiction[” he melodramatically described as a]…”battle”…

It isn’t only celebrities who use this dodge to lessen their culpability:

[Indiana teacher] Christopher “Kit” Degenhart…[pled] guilty…to…seduc[ing a 17-year-old student in the theater department he headed]…Degenhart will spend one year behind bars while participating in a work release program.  After one year, he’s scheduled to move into home detention while working in the program for six more months…he…will [then] be on two and a half years of probation…[inclu]ding sex addiction meetings…[and] regist[ration] as a sex offender…

Thought Control (#1328)

Texas has figured out how to stop judges from overruling library censorship: simply eliminate libraries:

Houston…will be eliminating librarian positions at 28 schools this upcoming year and converting the libraries into “[punishment] centers” where kids [declared to have] behavioral issues will be [confined]…This…[is] part of the new superintendent Mike Miles[‘  “]reform[“] program…[with the Orwellian title] New Education System…a total of 85 schools…have joined Miles’ program, and of those, 28 campuses will lose their librarians.  The district said th[ose 28] will have the opportunity to transition to other roles within the district…[but] the [employment of the] remaining 57 NES schools’ librarians will be assessed on a case-by-case basis…

To Molest and Rape (#1358)

“Sexual offenses” sounds so much milder than “rape”:

The [typical and representative] chief constable of Devon and Cornwall Police is being investigated over serious allegations of sexual offences in Northern Ireland.  Will Kerr was a [cop] in Northern Ireland for 27 years before [being promoted] in 2018…he said [she wanted it]…

 

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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Anti-sex-work rhetoric…continues to dominate mainstream media.  –  Holly Randall

If Men Were Angels

One would think that by now, the title “youth pastor” would be a big red flag:

[A typical and representative] youth pastor [previously] charged with child sexual assault is now facing new charges…Jordan Huffman…jump[ed bail in Wisconsin]…and [fled to]…Florida [where he] was [caught and] extradited to Wisconsin…the [newly-reported] victim said the crimes began in 2017…[at] 12 years old…

The Puritan Recrudescence (#907)

Politicians don’t even try to make their new laws Constitutional any more:

The Texas legislature has passed a new age verification law that compels adult websites to post pseudoscientific anti-porn propaganda disclaimers declaring that “pornography is potentially biologically addictive, is proven to harm human brain development, desensitizes brain reward circuits, increases conditioned responses and weakens brain function.”  The measure, HB 1181, is a much-augmented version of Louisiana’s age verification law and its many copycats, and echoes the debunked “porn addiction” language of faith-based anti-porn groups…

Compelled speech is, of course, unconstitutional, but Southern politicians in particular seem determined to negate that inconvenient fact by wishing very hard.

Held Together With Lies (#938)

In case you ever doubted the danger of letting government dictate what constitutes “disinformation”:

YouTube [has] removed…an episode of the Holly Randall Unfiltered industry podcast, featuring an interview with…Elizabeth Nolan Brown debunking myths about sex trafficking spread by anti-sex-work activists, mainstream media and politicians.  YouTube [claims] the content was removed due to a supposed violation of its policies against “harmful conspiracy theories.”  Randall appealed the removal but YouTube [bots automatical]ly dismissed the appeal, [pretending actual humans] had reviewed the content…and [claiming that debunking harmful propaganda]…is [not] “safe”…YouTube consistently platforms…pseudoscientific and religious attacks against sex workers and the adult industry without flagging the frequent lack of factuality in those videos…

Winding Down (#1289)

Occasionally, cops’ lies are too outrageous even for politicians:

As of July 1…Maryland…law will allow adults 21 or older to publicly possess up to 1.5 ounces of marijuana.  In anticipation of that…Maryland [politicians] last month passed H.B. 1071, which will bar police, also effective July 1, from treating the [actual or pretended] smell of cannabis as sufficient grounds for stopping or searching pedestrians or cars.  Virginia enacted a similar law in 2020, and…Missouri and Illinois…have proposed the same basic reform…Any evidence obtained in violation of the new rules is “not admissible in a trial, a hearing, or any other proceeding.”  Notably, that includes “evidence discovered or obtained with consent,” which is little more than a legal fiction when people are waylaid by armed agents of the state with the power to informally punish uncooperative drivers…

Panopticon (#1316)

Cops will continue to do this until there are criminal penalties for it:

[Three civil liberties groups demanded that] seventy-one California [cop shops]…immediately stop sharing automated license plate reader (ALPR) data with [cop shops] in other states because it violates California law and could enable prosecution of abortion seekers and providers elsewhere,  The letters from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU NorCal), and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California (ACLU SoCal) gave the agencies a deadline of June 15 to comply and respond…Since 2016, sharing any ALPR data with out-of-state or federal [cop shops or spook houses] is a violation of the California Civil Code…Nevertheless, many agencies continue to use services such as Vigilant Solutions or Flock Safety to make the ALPR data they capture available to out-of-state and federal agencies [because, as is typical of laws pretended to control cops, the law has no criminal penalties for violators].  California…also [passed]…a[nother toothless] law…prohibiting state and local [cop shops] from providing abortion-related information to out-of-state [cop shops]

You Were Warned (#1337)

The censors are growing bold enough to admit their real goals:

Democrats naively (and incorrectly) believ[e] that because [KOSA is] called the “Kids Online Safety Bill” it will magically protect children, even though tons of experts have made it clear it will actually put them at greater risk.  Meanwhile, Republicans are now freely admitting that they’re going to use KOSA to force websites to censor LGBTQ content.  They’re literally proud of it.  The Heritage Foundation, which at least used to have some principled stances before being taken over by culture warriors without any principles, is bragging about how it will use KOSA in this manner…the enforcement mechanism in the bill is that state Attorneys General get to bring lawsuits against websites for not removing such “harmful” content.  And if you don’t believe that there are GOP state AGs itching to bring exactly these lawsuits, you haven’t been paying attention…

Torture Chamber (#1343)

Denying medication to people locked in cages is just a silent version of yelling “Stop faking!” at them:

Dexter Barry waited 12 years to get a new heart…In 2020, his long wait paid off.  His new heart allowed him to imagine a healthy life…But in 2022, after…[the state unnecessarily locked] him in [a cage] for two days [for arguing with a neighbor, and refused to give him] his life-sustaining medication, his body rejected the heart [and he died]…Barry told [both the pigs and the judge] at least seven times that he needed to take his anti-rejection medications every day to survive…[but they didn’t give a shit]…

 

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

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There [is] a culture of impunity for…police officers.  –  Harriet Wistrich

Divided We Fall (#736)

Contrary to popular belief, “conversion therapy” has never been banned anywhere in the US; most states merely restrict its use to sex workers and clients:

[Politicians] in Wisconsin voted to strike down a ban on [using] conversion therapy [against LGBT people]…effectively making the practice legal.  Conversion therapy is a broad term that can describe many practices that generally involve trying to force…sexual…[minorities] to [stop whatever sexual practices those with power over the victims dislike].  The methods involved in these practices are highly discredited by medical professionals, and those who have been victims of conversion therapy have described it as torture

The Widening Gyre (#928)

People interpreting a domestic violence incident as “sex trafficking” is basically a microcosm of the whole moral panic:

Bangor [Maine] police sa[id a] kidnapping [from a Target parking lot] is not part of a larger human trafficking ring, despite claims to the contrary on Facebook…Colby Cooper…arrived at the store with the unnamed woman[, but when she broke up with him while there] he…forced [her]…into a U-Haul rental van…[and] fled…police spotted Cooper a short time later…and…arrested [him]…The department cautioned people to refrain from believing everything they read on Facebook…

To Molest and Rape (#1212)

Just a few isolated incidents:

A [London cop] who used his [job] to put fear into his victims has admitted [to] dozens of rape[s] and [highly abusive] sexual [relationships with] 12 women.  David Carrick…who met some victims through dating websites, pleaded guilty to 49 offences across two decades.  The [police bureaucracy] has apologised after it emerged he had [been reported for rape]…nine [times]…between 2000 and 2021.  A [boss cop attempted to downplay the pervasiveness of rape among cops by uttering the obvious lie that] his [behavior] was “unprecedented in policing”…His offences spanned 2003 to 2020 and most took place in Hertfordshire, where he lived.  [In his abusive relationships] Carrick…would control what the women wore, what they ate, where they slept and even stopped some of the women from speaking to their own children…

Thou Shalt Not (#1227)

Prohibitionism is a dangerous mental illness:

Bringing cake into the office should be seen as being as socially unacceptable as inflicting passive smoking on your colleagues, Britain’s top food [nanny]…said…[Nutrition cultist] Susan Jebb…said it was not enough to rely on…personal [responsibility and free choice]… “If nobody brought in cakes into the office, I would not eat cakes in the day, but because people do bring cakes in, I eat them.  Now, OK, I have made a choice, but people were making a choice to go into a smoky pub”…

The Punitive Mindset (#1243) 

If there’s anything narrower and meaner than the mind of a prison official, I’m not sure what it might be:

Florida’s prison system has banned more than 20,000 books — the most tracked in the U.S., according to a new study from The Marshall Project…[which] published a database…of about 54,000 titles banned by [human-caging bureaucrats] in 18 states with such records…Most prison systems ban…books containing content related to violence, [criticism of the carceral system], sex or nudity…But…other books banned in Florida prisons include: adult coloring books, French language textbooks, [and] How to Make Money in StocksIn Texas, The Color Purple is banned, while Dungeons and Dragons books are prohibited in Michigan

Guinea Pigs (#1260) 

Alabama discovers the secret to detecting “sex trafficking” in ordinary escort ads: label everything “sex trafficking” and arrest all the women:

Computer modeling developed by…University of Alabama…collects data from online sex ads…[in order to] help…[cops] locate…and arrest s[ex workers]…the modeling has…[led to] over 100 arrests since February 2021…

The article goes on to dredge up lots of moldy decade-old “sex trafficking” propaganda, including the claim that half of all sex workers are children; “Human trafficking is the second-largest criminal enterprisebring[ing] in as much as $150 billion…a year“; the claim that someone other than gibbering idiots calls I-20 the “sex trafficking superhighway“; and the utterly-absurd fantasy of “6,000 human trafficking victims per day in Alabama alone.

The Mob Rules (#1303)

Laws enabling nuisance lawsuits will keep multiplying until they’re ruled unconstitutional:

Utah may follow Louisiana’s lead by requiring residents who want to access pornographic websites to verify their age first….[pro-censorship politician] Todd Weiler…[bloviated a lot of nonsense and dismissed] privacy concerns…[which should come as no surprise given that he’s the jackass who sponsored the bill]…declar[ing] pornography a [“]public health crisis[“ and also tried to establish a state internet censor]

 

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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[KOSA] is the ultimate “let’s just blame the internet for anything bad” bill.  –  Mike Masnick

What the Hell Were You Thinking?

While prohibitionists get big bucks to harass sex workers, spread anti-whore propaganda and work with cops to target women for state violence, organizations which work to actually support sex workers get by on little more than volunteer hours and good wishes.  There’s nothing in this article about Street Safe New Mexico and the bad date list it maintains for street workers which will surprise sex workers or regular readers, but perhaps if articles like this keep appearing some big moneybag like Bezos or Gates, trying to make a name for himself as a philanthropist, will recognize this as an area where he really can make a difference for hundreds of thousands of women in the US alone.  And the fact that it appears in Cosmopolitan is another sign that feminism is slowly, falteringly, moving away from its misogynistic demands that the state violently police women’s sexual behavior.

No Friend of Ours

Those laboring under the delusion that Nevada is even remotely whore-friendly need look no further than this collection of dysphemisms, infantilization, racism, copaganda, bizarrely-stilted Copese, lurid fetishization of police victims, puritanism, distortion, and outright lies vomited out by “journalist” parrots after fellating their “law enforcement sources”.  The persecution of a very ordinary business is made to seem something like the adventure of a TV hero breaking up a terrorist plot to kill millions, rather than a simple-minded scheme for a gang of thugs to molest women and harass migrants in order to justify their pathologically-bloated budget while getting themselves off.

Torture Chamber (#1198)

Authoritarians want you to pay for more such hell-holes to torture even more people in:

…A new…report from the the [Fulton County Georgia] jail’s medical provider reveals that…the jail’s most vulnerable…[prisoners a]re wasting away in squalid conditions…more than 90 percent…were so malnourished that they had developed cachexia, a wasting syndrome that typically affects people with advanced-stage cancer…the men were detained in filthy cells and…over 90 percent…had not been “receiving essential medications” or completing their…activities of daily living…such as showering, dressing, using the toilet, and eating…every person in the unit had lice or scabies—in some cases both—a[bout which nothing was done until one prisoner died from the neglect]…on…Sept. 13…

Virtual Imperialism (#1202)

Beijing’s campaign to silence Chinese people outside China is becoming more aggressive:

…Criticism of the CCP has been rising in the ranks of censored topics on American campuses.  Whether it’s among professors adapting their classrooms to skirt Hong Kong’s oppressive national security law, administrators fearful of alienating lucrative funding or partnership opportunities, or international students worried that basic academic discussions will cause legal trouble at home, there is a growing problem in higher education….[which] comes with global implications: It’s getting a lot harder to talk critically about Xi Jinping, the CCP, and the human rights violations taking place in China.  This shift was on full display at GWU in February when [Chinese] students launched [an] anonymous protest…[by] post[ing] artwork from Australia-based Chinese artist Badiucao satirizing China’s human rights record and the ethical issues raised by its hosting of the Olympics…it took less than 24 hours before the…[Beijing-backed] Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) [demanded the protest be censored], calling for the responsible students to be “punished severely”…

You Were Warned (#1228)

These attempts to destroy the internet are just going to keep getting worse:

…a [gang of censorious politician]s is attempting to include the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) in a year-end “must pass” omnibus bill, ramping up the bill’s chance of passage.  While KOSA has been touted as a bill that would provide [so-called] accountability for tech companies by regulating their interactions with [legal minors], the bill would…instead…enact confusing, vague regulations upon tech companies that would encourage even more surveillance of users, and it would [allow]…parents [to file nuisance lawsuits] upon tech companies [on the same kinds of flimsy pretexts allowed by laws like FOSTA]…

Do As I Say, Not As I Do (#1264)

It’s always lovely to see them feeding on each other:

A…[typical and representative cop] has been jailed after he…arrang[ed] to meet a[nother cop fantasy role-playing online as a] 15-year-old girl…Alex John Foster…was [arrested by the fantasy role-player and his cronies] in a [KFC parking lot] with condoms and lube [the other cop had asked him to bring.  Foster is clearly not very bright even by cop standards, because]…he…told the [fantasy role-playing cop]…“she could be an undercover police officer” [yet went anyway]…

The Cop Myth (#1285)

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

Madison [Wisconsin cop] Cary House was arrested and charged with…strangulation…of [his girlfriend.  The victim]…said House had been drinking all day when he entered her room where she was lying in bed with her young daughter; House started yelling at her and choking her…This isn’t the first time…House has…[been arrested for violent drunkenness]. In 2013…he was suspended without pay after…[firing] a gun while under the influence during a social gathering at his home…three [other Madison cops]…have been arrested within the last two weeks in separate, unrelated incidents…

 

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

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I’ve always been dedicated to the idea of this as the time of year for spooky fun.  So every year I collect all the spooky, creepy or scary content from the previous year into one place just before Halloween.  If you’ve come to my blog in the past year, or don’t remember previous editions, they are “Trick or Treat”, “More Trick or Treat“, “Tricks and Treats“, “This Trick’s a Treat”, “Tricky Treats“, “A Trickle of Treats”, “Tricking and Treating“, and “Tricks for the Treat“.  Oddly, though there were enough spooky or Halloweeny links to justify collecting them, the only horror, death or Halloween-themed column of the past year was “Books of the Dead“, and the only creepy or spooky-fun video appeared in Links #591.  Here’s hoping for a better collection next year!

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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If you don’t [sell people’s data to cops], someone else probably will.  –  anonymous data broker

To Molest and Rape

The media are becoming slightly more willing to call cops’ criminal behavior what it is:

A [typical and representative] Kenosha [Wisconsin cop named…Joshua Sylvester…was fired for…sexually assault[ing]…a…woman [who wrecked into] a tree…[while] driving [drunk]…Sylvester sexually assaulted her…while [lurking]…in [her] hospital [room for over two hours.  He]…also went through her phone, found nude photos of her and sent them to himself…

I Spy (The Vultures Descend)

As was predicted when news of abortion recriminalization first broke:

A Gizmodo investigation into some of the nation’s biggest data brokers found more than two dozen promoting access to datasets containing digital information on millions of pregnant and potentially pregnant [women]…at least one of those companies also offered a large catalogue of…[women] using the same sorts of birth control that’s being targeted by more restrictive states right now…Also on the market: data on 478 million customer profiles labeled “interested in pregnancy” or “intending to become pregnant.”  You can see the full list of companies for yourself

Opting Out (#1241)

This will grow worse until politicians stop giving fanatics a heckler’s veto:

French [pro-censorship] groups claiming to represent “the children”…formally request[ed]…that online government regulator Arcom suspend Twitter in France unless the platform finds, within two weeks, a way to block minors from what the groups [declare] “pornographic” content…The coalition calling for censorship of the international platform is a patchwork of obscure organizations pursuing a self-appointed mission of “child protection” and sex work abolitionism.  Among them…[is] noted…[prohib]itionist lobby Fondation Scelles

Vulture Watching

The fact that SCOTUS didn’t foresee this is a clear indicator that their overturn of Roe was not based in legal reasoning:

…The Department of Justice…sued to stop [the abortion] ban in Idaho, wh[ich]…goes against provisions of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act…requir[ing] hospitals receiving Medicare funds (i.e., most U.S. hospitals) to provide stabilizing treatment…”Federal law is clear: patients have the right to stabilizing hospital emergency room care no matter where they live,” said…DHS…Secretary Xavier Becerra.  “Women should not have to be near death to get care”…No existing abortion ban lacks an exception for a mother’s life, but some do omit exceptions for women’s health.  And…many pregnancy complications could become life-threatening while not being necessarily or immediately so.  The HHS guidance…stat[es] that regardless of what a state law says, physicians must provide an abortion if one is necessary to address an emergency medical condition…Texas sued over th[is]…and…the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas…granted a preliminary injunction against enforcing the mandate against Texas…A court in Idaho came to [the opposite conclusion]…The discordant rulings could force the issue back before the Supreme Court, if appeals courts in each district concur with the lower courts…

Thought Control (#1264)

I never would’ve thought my first profession would become as much a target for authoritarians as my second:

A new Missouri law [criminalizes stocking] books with [what politicians define as] sexually explicit images from school libraries…it [is now] a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail or a $2,000 fine for librarians…to [allow] students access to such material.  The law does not apply to written descriptions of sex or sexual acts; only photos, drawings, videos, and other visual depictions…“showing human masturbation, deviate [sic] sexual intercourse,…physical stimulation of genitals, sadomasochistic abuse,” or showing human genitals.  There are exceptions for anatomy, biology, sex education, art [politicians decide to tolerate], and other images [declared] educational [by censorious politicians].  Melissa Corey…of the Missouri Association of School Librarians, [believes] the law likely will only [be enforced against art politicians dislike]…Corey said the association advised librarians to work with local school boards to best follow the law, particularly the [incredibly vague and arbitrary] exceptions for art and biology…

Winding Down (#1265)

Alas, the drug war isn’t ending; the government is simply shifting it to nicotine:

For the first time in Gallup polling, more Americans (16%) said they smoke marijuana than had smoked a tobacco cigarette (11%) in the past week…Marjiuana and tobacco usage trends have been going in opposite directions for a few decades now.  By 1985, nearly as many Americans said they had tried marijuana (33%) as had smoked a cigarette in the past week (35%).  Cigarette smoking has been declining ever since. By 2013, just 19% of Americans were smoking cigarettes at least once a week…while…38%…told Gallup they had tried marijuana…

To Molest and Rape (#1267)

Those who consort with cops are often just as awful:

…a [typical and representative] Delcambre [Louisiana cop named]…Christopher Moorehart…[has been arrested for] rap[ing his girlfriend’s five-year-old daughter on multiple occasions]…The mother…Kimberly Healy…was arrested and [charged for letting him do it and]…never report[ing him even]…after [they] broke up…Moorehart [then started fucking an Iberia Parish screw named Shelly Lynn] Friou…[who also kept the child rapes] secret…[until] the two broke up [after which she reported him to their fellow pigs as an act of vengeance]…

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After the government does something especially awful, there is usually an avalanche of horror stories illustrating exactly what reasonable people warned would happen after the awful government act.  The overturn of Roe v Wade is no exception; if I had included these stories in my normal news columns, they would’ve completely dominated most of the late July installments.  So instead, I opted to collect them all together here; future updates to these stories will appear in regular news columns under the appropriate tags.

One of the strongest reasons to oppose authoritarian laws of any kind is that they inevitably harm people the politicians insist they weren’t trying to target:

A sexual assault survivor chooses sterilization so that if she is ever attacked again, she won’t be forced to give birth to a rapist’s baby.  An obstetrician delays inducing a miscarriage until a woman with severe pregnancy complications seems “sick enough.”  A lupus patient must stop taking medication that controls her illness because it can also cause miscarriages.  Abortion restrictions in a number of states and the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade are having profound repercussions in reproductive medicine as well as in other areas of medical care…Even in medical emergencies, doctors are sometimes declining immediate treatment. In the past week, an Ohio abortion clinic received calls from two women with ectopic pregnancies…who[se] doctors wouldn’t treat them…

More about the aforementioned lupus drug many women are now being denied:

Methotrexate is a cheap, common drug prescribed to millions of Americans…[for] rheumatic illnesses…inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis or cancer…[but because] it is used off-label to end ectopic pregnancies…it could be restricted by doctors or pharmacists even in states…that do not ban abortion…in low doses, it has proved to be one of the safest, least expensive and most effective treatments for roughly a dozen autoimmune conditions, from juvenile idiopathic arthritis to Crohn’s disease…“I have gotten some reports where children have been denied methotrexate for their juvenile arthritis until they’ve proven they’re not pregnant,” said Dr. Cuoghi Edens…a rheumatology expert…“The majority of rheumatic diseases affect females at substantially higher rates than males…The prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis in women to men is 3 to 1.  For lupus it’s 10 to 1.  And so rheumatology is a very female-predominant patient population”…some doctors have already stopped prescribing methotrexate rather than risk [persecution]…Many pharmacists have likewise refused to fill methotrexate prescriptions, or have demanded additional proof before dispensing the medication to patients they believe could get pregnant…

And it’s not just a few fundamentalist asshat pharmacists, either:

…the largest pharmacy chain in the country sent explicit instructions to its pharmacists informing them that new checks would be implemented to confirm the reason a doctor prescribes a drug before filling routine medications for patients…CVS headquarters sent a memo to pharmacies in [Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, Oklahoma, and Texas]…review[ing] diagnosis codes that are deemed acceptable for dispensation, which include miscarriage…If they find abortion is the intended use, they “must refuse to fill the prescription”…

Some of the tyrannies forced-birth fetishists are trying to impose are blatantly unconstitutional:

South Carolina [politician]s introduced legislation that would make it illegal to “aid, abet or conspire with someone” to obtain an abortion…Provisions would outlaw providing information over the internet or phone about how to obtain an abortion.  It would also make it illegal to host a website or “[provide] an internet service” with information that is “reasonably likely to be used for an abortion”…the proposal is…modeled off a blueprint created by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), an antiabortion group, and designed to be replicated by [politician]s across the country…

Other FOSTA-inspired laws which encourage nuisance lawsuits have unfortunately not yet been declared unconstitutional:

Nearly four years after a woman ended an unwanted pregnancy with abortion pills obtained at a Phoenix clinic, she finds herself mired in an ongoing lawsuit [after]…A judge allowed the woman’s ex-husband to establish an estate for the embryo, which had been aborted in its seventh week of development.  The ex-husband filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the clinic and its doctors in 2020, alleging that…[he has the right to make decisions for his ex-wife]…

Naturally, this new extension of the police state will be enabled by the same fascist surveillance tactics as the War on Whores:

Many of the states rushing to ban abortion are also the biggest users of a surveillance tool that [cops] could use to track women ending their pregnancies — the location data from people’s phones…states across the country are already using this kind of data for other [surveillance and harassment].  And a POLITICO analysis found that many of the states that have criminalized abortion have relied increasingly on location data in recent years…Figures from Google…show that the company received 5,764 “geofence” warrants between 2018 and 2020 from police in the 10 states that have banned abortion as of July 5…

Of course, sex workers know all about most of these oppressions, because they’re tested on us first before being extended to amateurs:

Madolline Gourley, a Brisbane resident…was treated like a criminal during her transit through Los Angeles on 30 June, where she was detained at the border due to suspicions about her intention to house- and cat-sit in exchange for accommodation while holidaying in Canada.  Gourley was held in a detention room, interrogated twice, patted down, fingerprinted and photographed…At one point a US b[ureaucrat] asked Gourley, who was wearing a loose-fitting dress, whether she was pregnant.  The same question was repeated as she was moved between rooms.  When she again [replied that]…she was not pregnant, Gourley was asked whether she had had an abortion…

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