#Tucker Prison Farm

[lovelyheart502]

The Tucker Telephone was a cruel torture device used in the 1960s at Tucker State Prison Farm in Arkansas. It was made from an old crank telephone and was used to punish prisoners in a painful and brutal way.

Guards would attach wires from the telephone to a prisoner’s fingers and genitals. Then, they would crank the phone to send an electric shock through the prisoner’s body, causing intense pain. The worst shocks were called "long-distance calls," a sick joke among the guards.

The Tucker Telephone was meant to control and punish prisoners, leaving many with serious physical and psychological damage. Eventually, word got out about the torture, leading to investigations and public outrage. The device was banned, but it remains a haunting example of the cruelty that existed in the prison system at the time.

[theweirdspacejellyfish]

weird af books

get in my swamp by g m fairy

summary: when liona stumbles upon beck, the ogres, trap and becomes his prisoner, shes determined to get away. but it doesnt take long for things to start heating up between the two. beck is trying to protect her, and liona cant help her bodys reaction to the buff green monster. the lines between captive and captor become blurry, and the passion becomes a raging fire neither of them put out

bad beehavior by g m fairy- bee movie romance

summary: a pollinator and a florist: a love that blooms across the galaxy. baryx embarks on a journey through the universe to repopulate his kind and save the planet earth. when he arrives, he takes on his smaller form, and a human male tries to swat him, almost killing him. jannessa, a sweet and gentle floriest, rescues him and nurtures him back to health. as baryx spends more time with her, he reveals his true identity, all while discovering new and forbidden emotions. torn between duty and desire, bee, as jannessa likes to call him, must choose: fulfill his mission or embrace a forbidden love with the woman who showed him the true meaning of passion beyond worlds

stuffed by sylvia morrow

summary: she thought she'd never be able to find a lover, but hes been in her bed for years. anime obsessed anne might be a fictophiliac, or she might just hate touch so much she'll never have sex. she doesnt really care about the difference as long as she has her favorite pillow to grind against when she needs physical relief. anne's favorite pillow is more than just a feather filled cotton sack -- hes alive but no one knows it. hot, pulsing magic weaves between his fibers each time she touchs him. all he wants is to be the man anne needs. soft. moldable. and ready to cater to her every desire. but when he has enough magic to become a man, will anne accept his eager touch? can flesh and fabric come together in erotic bliss? will more than one of them end up fully stuffed?

squeak by vera valentine

summary: a dedicated art student at her local community college, poppy practically lives inside her sketchbook. drawn to the distracted crowds of the local zoo, her planned day of anonymous figure-sketching is interrupted by the charming sebastian - and his brooding, borderline-rude friend keane. little does she know the two have a twisted secret that defies imagination - and the pressure on both of them is increasing by the day. as an intricate plan takes shape to secure their freedom, the twists and turns they face - and a pair of very intriguing knots- might just unwittingly tie poppy to both of them, forever

wet hot allosaurus by lola faust

morning glory milking farm by c m nascosta

frisky the snowman by lauren biel

the deviled egg made me do it by holly wilde

unhinged by vera valentine

bagged by the groceries! by fannie tucker

triceratops and bottoms by lola faust

how stego got his groove back by lola faust

don juan velociraptor by lola faust

all i want for christmas is utahraptor by lola faust

im in love with mothman by paige lavoie

im engaged to mothman by paige lavoie

railed by the easter bunny by dalia davies

railed by the krampus by dalia davies

[realtorjamier]

Making Your Military Move: Neighborhoods Near Military Stations!

The DMV area is home to several major military bases – Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines – with many on-base housing options. However, for those families who choose to live off-base, there are loads of alternatives. Here’s a brief overview of some of the areas that surround Andrews Airforce Base, Fort Belvoir, and Fort Meade. 

And when it is time to relocate, CENTURY 21 Redwood Realty has more than 150 military-certified relocation agents who can help you buy, sell or rent. Not only will these professionals guide you through the entire process, they know how to help you get the most financial gain from your move.

Joint Base Andrews spans over 4,000 acres in Prince George’s County, Md., and has an on-base residential property population of approximately 2,600 people. 

Greater Upper Marlboro

Located in Prince George’s County, Greater Upper Marlboro (the county seat) has a population of around 20,000 people, but the census divides the area into several smaller designated places. The median home value is $376,400.

This area is a mix of urban and rural. The town itself is small and quaint. Family entertainment includes:

Watkins Regional Park with an authentic, hand-carved and restored turn-of-the-century carousel, miniature train ride, putt-putt golf, a playground, and camping;

Six Flags America (nearby), a theme park with more than 100 rides, games, shows, and attractions;

Montpelier Farms, a working farm featuring activities, festivals, and a farm market.

Clinton

With a population of 38,760 at the time of the 2020 census, Clinton is home to the Surratt House Museum, a Maryland-National Capital Park, and Planning Commission facility. Built in 1852 as a middle-class farmhouse, its interesting ties to John Wilkes Booth make it doubly worth a tour.

Oxon Hill

Named for a colonial 18th-century manor home overlooking the Potomac River, Oxon Hill had a population of 18,791 at the time of the 2020 census. The original manor house burned down, but a large neo-Georgian-style home was built in its place in 1929 and is owned by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission and is used for special events.

Oxon Hill is also the location of the National Harbor development, a large mixed-use community with residential units, hotel rooms, retail space, upscale dining, and entertainment. The MGM National Harbor Resort Casino is located at the entrance of this development.

Oxon Hill’s family fun includes the Oxon Cove Farm educational facility and the Henson Creek hiker-biker trail.

Other attractions in nearby Fort Washington include:

Rosecroft Raceway (“the Raceway by the Beltway”) which offers harness horse racing;

The Henson Creek Golf Course;

The Tucker Road Athletic Complex with swimming and ice skating.

Fort Belvoir is located in Fairfax County, Va., halfway between Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Va., making it ideal for tourists who are interested in history as it is close to national parks, museums, monuments, and more. For those who work at Fort Belvoir but choose to live off base, Burke, Lorton, and Alexandria are popular choices.

Burke and Lorton, Va.

The 2020 census lists Lorton as having a population of 19,844. The median home value at that time was $463,767. 

Burke’s 2020 census shows a population of 42,806. The median home value in Burke is $537,032.

The Lorton VRE station is served by the VRE Fredericksburg Line which runs between the city of Fredericksburg to the south and Washington’s Union Station to the north.

The Lorton Amtrack station is the northern terminal for Amtrak’s Auto Train which runs between this station and the Sanford station in Sanford, Florida.

Special attractions include the 218-acre Burke Lake and Lorton’s Workhouse Arts Center (a former prison!) which provides 300 performances, 12 gallery spaces, hundreds of classes, and several large-scale community events. 

Alexandria

According to the 2020 census, Alexandria’s population was 160,146 — the sixth largest city in Virginia. The median home value at that time was $545,000.

Historic Alexandria is perfect for those who appreciate the arts, culture, outdoor activities, and entertainment. 

Nearby George Washington’s Mount Vernon is the most visited historic home in the U.S., but there are also so many other historic sites here, as well as an abundance of restaurants, wineries, breweries, entertainment, and cultural events.

Located between Washington and Baltimore, Fort Meade is located in Anne Arundel County, Md. Surrounding neighborhoods include the communities of Odenton, Laurel, and Columbia.

Odenton

According to the 2020 census, Odenton’s population was 42,947. The median home value at that time was $337,700. 

Odenton’s school system is ranked above average, and Bowie State University and Anne Arundel Community College are both nearby. Odenton offers natural entertainment in the form of parks. The Patuxent Research Refuge is nearby and offers fishing, wildlife observation, hiking, and biking.

Because Odenton is located just 19 miles from Baltimore and 15 miles from Annapolis, there’s also great proximity to historic sites, diverse dining venues and entertainment, but Odenton also has four main shopping centers as well as an ice rink, golf center, go-kart raceway, athletic club, and more. The Odenton MARC station makes this a great place for commuters to live. 

Laurel

Located in northern Prince George’s County, Laurel’s population was reported as 42,947 in 2020 and the median home value was $337,700.   

The City of Laurel’s Department of Parks and Recreation maintains more than 200 acres of parkland (19 park sites) which includes playgrounds, pavilions, athletic fields, trails, tennis courts, pools, basketball courts, and more. 

A couple of unique highlights located in Laurel include:

The Maryland Jockey Club, known for world-class Thoroughbred horse racing.

Dinosaur Park, a fenced area where visitors can join paleontologists in searching for early Cretaceous (145 to 66 million years ago) fossils.

Columbia

At the time of the 2020 census, Columbia’s population was 104,681. The median home price was $385,900.

Located in Howard County, this planned community opened in 1967 and consists of 10 self-contained villages that were designed to enhance its residents’ quality of life in terms of human values (attempting to eliminate racial, religious and class segregation), rather than economics, and engineering. 

Lakes Kittamaqundi and Centennial offer boating and fishing. The Rocky Gorge Reservoir offers hiking, horseback riding, and fishing.

The public schools are rated highly, and Columbia consistently earns a spot in Money Magazine’s “Best Places to Live in the U.S.” list, ranking first place in 2016.

If you’re in the military and it’s time to move, it’s important to find an agent who not only knows the neighborhoods around each military station, but according to CENTURY 21 Redwood Realty’s Director of Relocation Services, Tina Bodolosky, it’s also advantageous to work with a real estate professional who is trained specifically to help members of the military.

The Military Relocation Professional (MRP) certification program educates REALTORS® about working with service members and their families as well as veterans to find housing solutions that best suit their needs. They can also help you take full advantage of available benefits and support.

One such benefit, says Tina: “We offer cash back programs of up to $8,000 when you buy or sell a home through our Navy Federal Realty Plus or Military Rewards programs and utilize one of our background checked and military relocation certified agents.”

[dirtysouthlore]

Atlas Greene Iredell, one of Nico's fifth-great-grandfathers and a captain in the confederate army. Atlas enlisted early into the war, and remained for most of it. He rose through the ranks quickly, achieving the title of captain in 1863 and carrying it for a year before tragically being captured in 1864. Atlas was married when he enlisted, having one son, confident he would return home to his family. He was placed in the 37th NC infantry, having come from Ashe NC. He was a devout father and christian, having joined the war in hopes of helping bring peace back to his town and to be able to quietly raise his family as he pleased. Before the war, he was a farmer, not of good financial status but hardworking and faithful to his land and his family. Perhaps it was that dedication that lead him to rise to status of captain in the army. Atlas was known for being unusually positive and high-spirited, even in hard times. During the war, Atlas would meet a man by the name of Elias Tucker, an eccentric fellow with a positive reputation in his company as well. The two would quickly become friends and their friendship would deepen quickly. Though everyone knew Atlas to be a married man, it seemed his wartime loneliness mixed with his friendship with Elias had swayed him to an...alternative persuasion, and the two were quick to move from casual conversation to sharing tents together. After only a short few months, the pair was inseparable, and seemed to motivate eachother in and out of combat. It was obvious to everyone from the outside that they were deeply in love, and that the relationship was far more tender than just relieving the urges of men. Elias would suffer a severe injury to his face somewhere in 1863, and during that time Atlas was noticeably off. His commanding suffered, and he was almost demoted in ranks from his visible difficulty handling not having his partner by his side. Eventually, Elias would return, and Atlas would regain his vigor. Their company would succeed in many battles, though, so with Atlas as one of their successful leaders few had a problem with his relationship with Elias. That was, until somewhere in late 1864, when a particularly nasty battle in northern Virginia would lead to Atlas being captured. He was taken prisoner and never to be seen again. No one at home ever heard from Atlas, neither did Elias, and it is presumed that he died of conditions related to his imprisonment. Elias would survive the war but would disappear after signing his oath of honor. He had no family or friends to remember him, and his lover was certainly dead. Meanwhile, Atlas' wife and son were left to continue the farm without him. His wife would grieve him for a long time, but would eventually re-marry, and her husband and son would help tend the farm. Eventually, her son would marry as well, having numerous children, and they were told stories of Atlas and his faith and bravery.

[coff33notforme]

Got any general hcs for yancy and Illinois

A/n: Sorry this took so long, work has kept me kinda busy this week, but thank you for the request anon!

Genre: Headcannons, Crack, Fluff

Yancy

Yancy has a soft spot for small animals, any sort of tiny creature no matter what kind

Possums, raccoons, bunnies, puppies, kitties, doesn't matter 

Loves to knit, during his time in prison he picked up a couple of new hobbies to pass the time

He’s also surprisingly good at cooking, he spent some time doing kitchen duty so he was able to pick up some tricks and tips from chef

Very touched starved hasn’t been held since he was a little kid and though he’ll never ask he really could just use a hug from someone 

Loves warm weather throughout his time in prison he’s grown used to the cold night in his cell so when it warms up he  finds himself sleeping easier 

Isn’t a big sports guy believe it or not

Very shy about any sort of physical affection he's worried he's going to hurt someone with his strength, and he doesn't want to hurt more people  

More of a cat person, likes the big fluffy cats especially

One thing he's always wanted to try, was roller skating the idea of skating on wheels just sounds so enchanting to him for some reason 

He definitely ate bugs as a kid, look me in the eyes and tell me he didn’t 

Crashed his bike when he was younger several times

Illinois

Mama’s boy all the way

His mother was the only one who raised him growing up so he learned quite a lot from her 

Very respectful he was taught to never judge people from the outside for any sort of reason, he really only judges based on character

Another man who can cook well, his Mom taught him how when he was younger and while growing up he would help his Mom prepare meals 

Had a cocker spaniel growing up named Tucker

He kinda just gives random like nicknames to anyone he meets, like sweet little nicknames 

Mostly ‘Darling, Sugar, Sweetheart, Pumpkin, Sweet-pea, etc.’ 

Hates cold weather with a passion, he’s used to it don’t get me wrong adventuring out with nothing but a sleeping bag he's definitely adjusted he’s just not a big fan

Probably grew up on a farm of some sort 

Has always really enjoyed farm animals, Cows, Sheep, Pigs etc. 

They remind him of home 

Hates bugs especially spiders 

Loves hiking though hes basically adventuring all the time any way he dose enjoy hiking, to him it’s like a adventure with less stress

[indiemcn]

Taking a short break tonight to focus on adding some muses to my roster + revamp my muse page because it’s kind of tough to navigate now. 

While I plug away at this, here’s a little intro on the muses I’m going to add if anyone wants to peruse them. Feel free to message me for some plots :)

Jackson Prescott - College Freshmen/Barista - 18 - Strict Bottom - FC: Michael Provost

Wrestling scholarship, always just wanted to be one of the boys but has a thing for older men. Can’t stop checking guys out in the shower, is worried that people will find out and his reputation will be ruined. 

Avery Montgomery - Senator’s Son - 28 - Vers - FC: Beau Mirchoff

Image obsessed perfect son of a Republican Senator, closeted and with a dark side. 

Allen Pritchert - Dancer - 24 - Bottom - FC: Jordan Fisher

Juilliard graduate with dreams of making it to Broadway, he’s auditioned several times but never gotten the lead. Is willing to do anything to get the role of his dreams.

Marlon Tucker - Former gangbanger - 35 - Vers - FC: Miguel Gomez

Drugs, women, money, he didn’t care how dirty his hands got. Short king who used to use violence and intimidation as a means of getting what he wants. He was in prison, got out and has tried to be clean ever since.

Danny Stuart - Rancher - 38 - Top - FC: Derek Theler

Farm has been in his family for generations, he has a wife and kids but something in his life is missing. 

Harlow Jayme - Bouncer - 41 - Vers ( bottoms for younger )  - FC: Joe Manganiello

Works at a nightclub, has a thing for younger guys. 

Levi Paul - College Sophomore - 19 - Vers - FC: Mason Gooding

Pretends to only care about college football but Levi is a secret nerd who thinks everyone will laugh at him if they find out he’s on a full academic scholarship.

Clinton Farfield - Barber - 34 - Vers - FC: Jonathan Majors

Dropped out of school to take care of his old man, took over the barbershop after his pops passed on and has been working there ever since. Always wanted to be a family man but ex-husband cheated on him.

Xander Newman - Dirty Cop - 33 - Vers - FC: Boyd Holbrook

He used to be a good man, but one bribe led to another and now Xander has a reputation on for letting just about anything slide for the right price.

[tabloidtoc]

People, April 19

Cover: Brad Paisley and Kimberly Williams-Paisley -- love, family and giving back

Page 3: Chatter -- Thandiwe Newton on using her birth name years after it was misspelled in her first acting credit, Barack Obama on daughter Malia and Sasha being embarrassed by him, Martha Stewart on the reaction to her viral pool selfie, Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt on raising daughter Lyla with husband Chris Pratt, Jennifer Lopez teasing her favorite cookie recipe, Chris Hemsworth on bulking up for parts

Page 4: 5 Things We're Talking About -- Ariana Grande joins The Voice, Michael Strahan minds the gap, Brad Pitt is sharing the tea, Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively battle over beanies, Rege-Jean Page exits Bridgerton

Page 7: Contents

Page 8: StarTracks -- stars' best friends -- Prince Harry hit the beach to play fetch with his rescue dog Pula in Santa Barbara

Page 9: Rachel Brosnahan took a break from filming season 4 of The Marvelous Mrs. Masiel to pet a pup who passed by the set in NYC, Mariah Carey celebrated Easter with two of her dogs

Page 10: Famous Families -- Amy Schumer masked up to play with son Gene at the NY PopsUp festival at Astoria Park in NYC, Jessica Alba and her husband Cash Warren celebrated Easter with their three children Haven and Honor and Hayes, Beyonce posted a rare selfie with her and Jay-Z's oldest daughter Blue Ivy, Victoria and David Beckham got in the Easter spirit with children Brooklyn and Harper and Romeo and Cruz, Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes and fiancee Brittany Matthews celebrated their first Easter with daughter Sterling Skye

Page 11: LeBron James deemed his youngest child daughter Zhuri his workout partner when she joined him in the gym for some flexing, Kate Hudson relaxed in the tub with her daughter Rani Rose

* First Look -- inside Angelina Jolie's scorching return to the big screen -- in the upcoming thriller Those Who Wish Me Dead, Angelina returns to action as a smoke jumper who encounters a traumatized 12-year-old boy played by Finn Little who needs her help

Page 12: Inside Robert Downey Jr.'s modern mansion -- for the spring issue of Purist magazine, Robert and his producer wife, Susan, opened their doors to give a tour of their futuristic Malibu home -- their Binishell, a type of of energy-efficient, dome-shaped house, sits on seven acres and runs on wind turbines and a solar-generated water system that reduce energy consumption

Page 13: StyleTracks -- bold and bright at the Screen Actors Guild Awards -- Viola Davis, Mindy Kaling, Jamie Chung, Helen Mirren, Kaley Cuoco, Kerry Washington

Page 15: Tiger Woods' car crash -- new questions, tough recovery

Page 16: Aaron Rodgers and Shailene Woodley take their love on vacation

Page 18: Heart Monitor -- Vanessa Hudgens and Cole Tucker heating up, Lily James and Queens of the Stone Age bassist Michael Shuman new couple, Michael Buble and Luisana Lopilato happy anniversary, Brian Austin Green and Sharna Burgess getting serious

Page 19: Idris Elba and Caleb McLaughlin horsing around

Page 20: Brandi Carlile shares her struggles

* Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli had an emotional homecoming on Easter weekend after he was released from federal prison

Page 21: Blake Shelton looks back on 20 years of fame

Page 22: Jeannie Mai and Jeezy's backyard fairy tale wedding in Atlanta

Page 29: Passages, Why I Care -- Robert Irwin is helping the planet by being an advocate for Prince William's Earthshot Prize

Page 31: Stories to Make You Smile - Aimee Takaha of Aimee's Farm Animal Sanctuary in Arizona is offering cow-cuddling sessions for those who miss hugs during the pandemic, to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary Carolyn and Kelly Gay re-created their original wedding photos

Page 33: People Picks -- Law & Order: Organized Crime

Page 34: Them, Spy City, Rhiannon Giddens -- They're Calling Me Home, Q&A with David Alan Grier

Page 36: The Serpent, One to Watch -- Mortal Kombat's Lewis Tan

Page 37: The Nevers, Iyanla: Fix My Life

Page 39: Books

Page 40: Cover Story -- Brad Paisley and Kimberly Williams-Paisely -- you have to focus on the love and laughter -- after a pandemic year that sidelined their careers, the singer and actress found joy in family time and purpose in giving back to their community

Page 46: Inside the sparkling, rainbow-filled world of JoJo Siwa -- she began as a kid who loved dance, then found fame on reality TV and YouTube and built her brand to mogul status. That was all before she came out as LGBTQ. She's just getting started

Page 52: Double Talk -- Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer's 25-year friendship -- long before they were famous, the two stars forged a deep personal bond. After more than two decades, the finally got to work together

Page 56: The Lost Kitchen's Erin French turning a painful past into a delicious new life -- addiction and divorce nearly cost her everything, but now she's running one of the most loved and hardest-to-book restaurants in America

Page 60: Solving a 40-year-old murder mystery -- justice for Helene Pruszynski -- four decades after a young woman's brutal rape and murder, new DNA technology leads to her killer

Page 62: Emily VanCamp -- growing up on TV & finding love -- how the busy actress, now costarring on both The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and The Resident, still makes time for what matters most: her family

Page 64: My Mother, Eartha Kitt -- 12 years after the entertainer's death, her daughter Kitt Shapiro reveals a mother like no other: fierce, fabulous and a fighter at heart

Page 69: Why I'm Helping Others Get Vaccinated -- fighting for my patients -- Detroit nurse Monique Morris almost died from COVID-19, and now she's doing her part to help put an end to the pandemic

Page 70: Earth Day Special -- a room-by-room guide to saving the planet -- combating climate change is a daunting challenge, but these small fixes around the house can make a big difference. Plus, inspiring stories of four everyday environmental heroes

Page 73: Jerome Foster II, rallying youth against climate change

Page 74: Katharine Hayhoe, bringing moms together

Page 76: Laura Turner Seydel, carrying on a family tradition

Page 78: Carl Smith, fighting to save his home

Page 88: One Last Thing -- Catherine Zeta-Jones

[lopithecusfanfiction]

Dear Aaron Pt. 6

Robert writes letters to Aaron he’ll never send while he’s in prison (If you have any other ideas for letters, let me know and I might write it!) Now posted on AO3! [X]

Dear Aaron,

The daily grind is starting to get to me. I've honestly lasted longer than I thought but I'm starting to get bored. You know me, never one to stick to something for too long.

In prison, you have no choice. You get up, you eat, you do your job, get free time or outside (it's the guards' choice), eat some more, and then you go to sleep.

Well... you know the drill.

I've gone looking through some old books they have here, trying to find something that catches my fancy. I picked up two of them (I had to charm one of the guards to let me take a second book back to my cell.)

One is called Wait for Me by Caroline Leech (I picked it up because the title reminded me of you and me.) But as I read the book, it reminded me more of when I was a teenager on the farm. A forbidden love between a farmer and a farmhand that could potentially tear the family apart...

The second one is Say You Still Love Me by  K.A. Tucker (another one, I admit, I picked up because it reminded me of us.) As I am reading this one, it reminds me of us. This one is better. I like thinking about us.

It's like reliving the earlier days with you and me, the time when I was still part of the White family and you and I were just a secret. God, I can't believe how much I loved you even back then.

You'd probably find it funny that I am the main female character in the book. That would make you the love interest with a distant attitude who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. Sounds a bit like you, doesn't it.

Is it weird that these books make me happy and sad at the same time?

Maybe I should try mystery instead...

Love, Robert

[venicepearl]

Emma Moss Booth-Tucker (8 January 1860 – 28 October 1903) known as 'The Consul', was the fourth child and second daughter of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army.

Converted at a young age, Emma Booth spoke in public for the first time during a stay at St Leonards. Aged just 19, Emma Booth became the Principal of the Officers' Training Home, The Salvation Army's first training school for women. On 10 April 1888 she married Major Frederick Tucker, the son of an affluent British family living in India, whose first wife had died of cholera in India in the previous year. Emma Booth and Frederick Tucker married at Clapton Congress Hall. As was the usual practice in the Booth family at that time, Tucker added his wife's maiden name to his own, becoming Booth-Tucker. The couple had a total of nine children; Frederick, Catherine Motee, Lucy, Herbert, John and Muriel and three others, William, Evangeline and Bramwell Tancred who died in infancy.

They remained for some time in India, but later moved back to London due to Emma Booth-Tucker's poor health. They worked for the Salvation Army International Headquarters in London before being posted to the United States in 1896, where they replaced Emma's brother Ballington and his wife Maud who had left the Salvation Army. They successfully managed to regain many of the converts lost by Ballington Booth's leaving, and Emma Booth-Tucker was given the title 'The Consul' by her father. The Booth-Tuckers' primary work was prison visitation and carrying out the farm colony experiment for urban poor envisaged in William Booth's book In Darkest England and the Way Out.

In 1903, at the age of 43, Emma Booth-Tucker died of a fractured skull and internal injuries in a train accident on her way from Amity Colony, Colorado to Chicago, where she was going to meet her husband. Her funeral service was held at the Carnegie Music Hall in New York City on 1 November 1903, and she was buried at the Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.

Emma Booth-Tucker died leaving a husband and six children. She was succeeded in her work in the United States by her younger sister Evangeline Booth.

[sweetsmellosuccess]

TIFF 2018: Day 3

Films: 4 Best Film of the Day: The Old Man & the Gun (pictured)

Gwen: This is no white-knuckle affair; it’s a red one. As in knuckles chapped and scraped until nearly bleeding. Wind plays a large atmospheric role in William McGregor’s unsettling drama, both as a constant background noise, and as a bleak visual metaphor for the pitiless sparseness of the land. Wales is shown to be both staggeringly beautiful, with its craggy mountains and rolling green hills, but also unwaveringly uninviting: You will not see a more overcast film this year. The story concerns a young woman (Eleanor Worthington-Cox), her kid sister; and her struggling mother (Maxine Peake), as they try to survive on their hardscrabble farm while Gwen’s father is out fighting in an unnamed war. As their farm gets more and more stricken by what seems like a curse — their sheep are slaughtered, their potatoes are fallow, and their horse breaks his leg — it slowly becomes clear that these are not supernatural forces at work, but rather the acts of a supremely callous and hateful capitalist, who’s after their land for his mind operation. The obvious comparison would be to Robert Egger’s deeply unnerving The Witch, but McGregor isn’t playing with devils and demonic curses, here, just the horror perpetrated by callous greed and disregard for humanity. The film’s unrelenting grimness could certainly be a deterrent for some audiences, but it does capture something both about the land, and the attitude of those who can survive it.

Donnybrook: As a longtime admirer of Jamie Bell (and not only because he was the voice of Tintin), I’m happy to see he’s branching out his roles and expanding his reach, as it were, I just wish he’d picked a better project than this grungy, exploitive action drama from Tim Sutton. Bell plays a dude named “Jarhead Earl,” a former Marine, and a dutiful fellow on the economic downswing, looking to make a pile of cash at the big midwestern, bare-knuckle brawl known as the “Brook.” With a wife (Dara Tiller), teetering on the edge of meth addiction, and two young kids, Earl stakes all his hope on the prospect of winning the Brook, and claiming the $100K prize. Meanwhile, many other unsavory characters flit about, including another vet-turned meth dealer, Angus (Frank Grillo), and his seriously deranged sister (Margaret Qualley), whose had to put up with years of her brother’s intense abuse and has had enough; and the local sheriff (James Badge Dale), who’s knee-deep in his own business with Angus, and is dirty as they come. The film is filed with flags, guns, fists, and blood, as well as a jacked sensibility that suggests a faint homage to Lynch, without any of his wit, creativity, or artistic merit. It is not intended as irony, to be sure, or if it is, no one informed the serious-as-death actors, who play this to the last drop of blood. It’s the kind of film where a tied and tortured middleman gets to have sex with a seriously beautiful woman, while still bound to a chair, and immediately after he reaches the highs of ecstasy, she tips him over and shoots him in the head.

The Old Man & the Gun: How would you follow up a film as utterly stunning as A Ghost Story, a powerhouse of a philosophical treatise on love, time, and human artistic legacy? Perhaps by approaching a similar topic from a vastly different direction. Based on a true story, David Lowery’s film follows the exploits of a man named Forest Tucker (Robert Redford), an elderly bank thief who simply cannot stop plying his trade. His approach, gentlemanly and smooth, matches the tone of the film’s opening two acts, as Forest hooks up with his two compadres (Danny Glover and Tom Waits), meets and woos a feisty widow (Sissy Spacek), and matches wits with the detective (Casey Affleck), whom he inadvertently humiliated during an earlier heist. By the film’s third act, however, as he gets closer to being caught, the film begins to take on a more melancholy air, as if sensing his mortality. He made a career out of springing himself from prisons (a series that gets lovingly highlighted near the end), but there is the sense he can’t escape his mortal prison, nor can he change spots and just settle down on a nice horse farm. A shot near the end, as the cops are sweeping in posits him as a kind of Don Quixote figure, sitting forlornly on his horse, looking down and defeated. Reportedly, this is Redford’s acting swansong, and if so, like Forest, he’s certainly going out on his own terms.

Halloween: Unofficially, there have been 700 bazillion sequels and remakes of John Carpenter’s 1978 slasher film classic, most of which have been derivative drivel, but with director David Gordon Green, working with longtime collaborator Danny McBride, you finally have a new vision for the venerable horror series. It’s been four decades – to the day – since Michael Myers terrorized a teenaged girl and murdered her friends. Since then, he has been locked up in an asylum, never uttering a word (the film smartly disavows all previous sequels). To the still-disturbed Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), however, the nightmare has never ended. Since surviving his original attack, she has dedicated her life to preparing for his eventual return, learning fighting/survival skills, fortifying her house, and arming herself to the teeth. This devotion to self-protection she imbued to her daughter (Judy Greer), and attempts to do so with her granddaughter (Andi Matichak), now the same age as Laurie was when she first met the Bogeyman. Things move along in typical Halloween fashion, with Michael escaping, donning the mask, and returning to Haddonfield to kill indiscriminately once again, only this time, he finds Laurie well-prepared and waiting for him. What ensues follows a similar pattern but with a major twist. In the film’s most exhilarating moments, the film gleefully twists and turns the tropes we have come to know so well – one such moment, setting up the film’s fiery climax, left the midnight TIFF audience laughing and cheering wildly – and morphs into, of all things, a feminist slasher flick. Naturally, the ending leaves things just ambiguous enough for another sequel (or six), but as a re-imagining of one of the seminal horror movies of the last 40 years, it’s got a lot of moxie. It might not have the actual scares of the original, but the film’s forward-thinking politics twist the butcher knife in very satisfying ways.  

Tomorrow: A mix-and-match sort of day: In-between interviews, I’ll be checking out the militia-group thriller Standoff at Sparrow Creek; the harrowing sounding The Most Beautiful Couple; another Witch-like film in the horror/western The Wind, and, if I can stay awake, the brutal retelling of the Mumbai terrorist attack from 2008 in Hotel Mumbai.

[96thdayofrage]

While incarcerated at the Stewart Detention Center, Wilhen Barrientos—an immigrant from Guatemala—was forced to labor for CoreCivic, the infamous for-profit prison company. During his incarceration, he worked in the facility’s kitchen, making between $1 and $4 per day as part of the ironically named “Voluntary Work Program.” Barrientos explained that in prison, he faced an “impossible choice”: he could either work for pennies, or attempt to live without necessities such as soap and toilet paper, which were not provided to detainees and had to be purchased. (Once, when Barrientos requested more toilet paper, a CoreCivic guard denied his request and told Barrientos to “use his fingers” instead.) And when Barrientos refused to work double shifts, or tried to organize his coworkers, guards would threaten him with solitary confinement. In 2017, CoreCivic punished Barrientos by placing him in medical segregation for two months, using the excuse of a non-existent chicken pox infection as justification for their retaliation.

Barrientos is not alone. On any given day, there are about 50,000 immigrants being held in detention, most of them in private prisons. Just to be clear, these immigrants are not incarcerated as punishment for a crime; rather, they are being held in what’s called “civil” detention until their deportation cases can be heard by an immigration judge or an appeals court. Under the law, “civil” detention is supposedly non-punitive; it’s simply an administrative measure to ensure that people don’t flee and disappear before their cases are decided. But for those on the inside, immigration detention is functionally indistinguishable from being in any other prison. Approximately half of those 50,000 detainees work in the “Voluntary Work Program,” earning a pittance for their labor, and many more are forced to do entirely uncompensated janitorial work. All across the country, detained immigrants are forced to labor to increase the profits of the corporations which keep them incarcerated.

The public debate over the use of for-profit prisons has largely focused on the privatization of prisons that incarcerate people convicted of crimes. Although most people—libertarians excepted—agree that profiting from incarceration is morally abhorrent, some critics have pointed out that private prisons are not major drivers of mass incarceration. Historian David Stein has accurately described them as “a camera, not an engine” of mass incarceration. In 2017, about 8 percent of state and federal inmates (121,420 people) were housed in private prisons. In the federal system, for-profit prisons play a somewhat bigger role: about 27,500 people, or 15 percent of federal inmates, were held in private facilities. The state with the highest proportion of prisoners in for-profit facilities is New Mexico, which holds about 42 percent of its incarcerated population in private prisons.

121,420 people is a huge number, but it’s a relatively insignificant percentage of the huge numbers of people currently imprisoned as a result of the world historical crime that is American mass incarceration. Thus, while ending the use of private prisons in the criminal punishment system is still a worthy goal, it’s not one that will likely lead to systemic change. On the other hand, private prisons are absolutely central to the “civil” system of immigration detention. The vast majority of detained immigrants—more than 70 percent—are held in for-profit facilities. The radical expansion of immigration detention over the last thirty years would not have been possible without the for-profit incarceration industry.

The story of the companies that have made this lucrative imprisonment of immigrants possible began in the 1980s. Privatized, profitable punishment had a long history in the United States prior to that point, but after the horrific abuses of convict leasing led to its abolition in the first decades of the twentieth century, profitable prisoner exploitation enterprises like chain gangs and prison farms were managed directly by state authorities, not by private individuals and companies. This began to change in 1983, when two entrepreneurs named Robert Crants and Thomas Beasley saw a business opportunity at the intersection of the rapid growth of incarceration and the Reagan Administration’s push for privatization. They decided to start a private prison company called the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Neither Crants nor Beasley had any experience with managing prisons, so they reached out to T. Don Hutto, a warden with a long track record of running public prisons at a profit in Texas and Arkansas. It so happens that people incarcerated at these public prisons had previously sued Hutto because of conditions that were described by the district court as being “a dark and evil world completely alien to the free world;” conditions which included prisoners being whipped with a five-foot long leather strap, receiving electrical shocks to their genitals with the “Tucker Telephone,” and being fed a starvation diet while held in punitive isolation. Hutto’s sinister track record, however, did not stop Crants and Beasley from partnering with him; they believed Hutto could help them turn a profit. CCA received its first contract to run an Immigration and Naturalization Service detention facility in 1984 and went public in 1986. (Today, CoreCivic manages an immigration detention center named for T. Don Hutto near Austin, Texas!)

The founding of CCA marked the beginning of a new era of American incarceration. Just one year later, in 1984, the Wackenhut Corrections Corporation was formed. Both companies have since changed their names, as public awareness of private prison companies (and negative publicity around them) has increased. CCA rebranded itself under the blandly inscrutable name “CoreCivic” after journalist Shane Bauer went undercover as a guard at a CCA prison in Louisiana and released a blockbuster investigation highlighting the abuses there. Wackenhut, meanwhile, is now known as GEO Group. (GEO is not an acronym for anything, it’s just meant to obscure what their actual business is.) Through acquisitions, these two corporations have become by far the largest private prison corporations. GEO Group manages 124 detention facilities of various types in the United States while CoreCivic manages 108. Business is very good: in 2019, GEO Group had $2.48 billion in revenue, while CoreCivic had $1.98 billion. (Two other companies—LaSalle Corrections and the creepily-titled Management and Training Corporation—also incarcerate a significant number of people.)

Both CoreCivic and GEO Group have long had ties to Republican politicians. Thomas Beasley was once the head of the Tennessee Republican Party, and most of CCA’s initial investors—which included then-Governor Lamar Alexander’s wife, Honey—came from his party connections. GEO Group has been particularly active in courting Republican politicians, both nationally and in its home state of Florida. For example, before his election to the Senate, Rick Scott headlined a fundraiser held at the home of GEO Group’s CEO. In addition, GEO recently hired the outgoing president of the Florida Senate as head counsel and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi as a lobbyist.

Both GEO Group and CoreCivic donated heavily to pro-Trump political action committees. GEO Group also donated $50,000 to the conservative activist group Turning Point USA, which has strong connections to the Trump White House. In 2017, GEO Group relocated its annual conference from its own headquarters to the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort. In addition, both companies, whose stocks soared immediately after President Trump’s election, donated $250,000 apiece to Trump’s notably corrupt inauguration festivities.

It is no surprise that both corporations would enthusiastically support the Trump administration: immigration detention is central to their business model (and to Trump’s as well). In 2019, almost 30 percent of GEO Group and CoreCivic’s revenue came from detaining immigrants, and ICE contracts are both companies’ single largest revenue source. What’s more, much of these profits are essentially guaranteed by government policy. In 2010, Congress passed a law requiring ICE to maintain at least 33,400 detention “beds”: what this means, essentially, is that ICE is heavily incentivized to keep at least 33,400 human beings imprisoned at all times in order to continue justifying their receipt of this funding. (This provision has come to be known as “the bed quota” because ICE leadership has, in practice, interpreted it as a legal directive that they must keep the pre-funded beds continuously filled.) The majority of those “beds” are managed by GEO Group and CoreCivic. In the government shutdown and border wall fight of early 2019, Democrats beat back the Trump Administration’s attempt to require ICE to maintain 52,000 beds, but the average daily population of detained immigrants nevertheless remained above 50,000 for fiscal year 2019. In its 2019 budget, the Trump Administration asked for an even bigger 54,000-bed requirement.

It’s worth noting that the abuses of immigration detention pre-date the Trump administration. Conditions during the Trump administration have been awful of course: besides the COVID outbreaks and the forced hysterectomies, a USA Today investigation in 2019 found more than four hundred allegations of sexual assault or abuse, as well as numerous instances of inadequate medical care, frequent use of solitary confinement, and more than eight hundred instances of physical force against detainees. These abuses led detained immigrants to file nearly 20,000 grievances between 2017 and 2019. During the Obama administration, hundreds of detained immigrants reported being sexually abused by guards. Despite the administration’s promises, the mass detention of immigrants continued until the end of Obama’s presidency, and detainees were never provided with protection from abuse. The abuse of detained immigrants is caused by the fact of their detention, no matter who is President.

Private prisons, like all privatized services, make money by cutting costs. But once prisons are constructed, the two largest costs are labor and medical care, which are impossible to cut without making conditions worse inside the prisons. For example, labor and benefits costs make up 59 percent of CoreCivic’s operating expenses (even though its non-unionized correctional officers are paid as little as nine dollars per hour, much less than most unionized state prisoner guards). In addition to underpaying their own guards, a key way that CoreCivic and GEO Group further reduce labor costs is by forcing detainees to work for very little or no pay.

There are two main forms of coerced labor in immigration detention centers. First is the so-called “Voluntary Work Program” that Barrientos worked in. The program rests on a thin legal basis, and the going rate—$1 per day—was set in 1979 and then never renewed by Congress, leading some courts to determine that state minimum wage laws might apply to labor in detention centers. Although the application of state minimum wage laws to detained workers is complex, it is clear that absolutely nothing forbids GEO Group or CoreCivic from voluntarily paying the state or federal minimum wage—or more—for detainees’ labor.

Today, all detained immigrants are eligible to work in the Program. They perform a wide variety of jobs, from washing dishes to cutting hair to performing clerical work for the private facility manager. Any job performed by a prisoner for an extremely sub-minimum wage makes it unnecessary to hire an employee to perform the same task, thereby boosting the profits of the for-profit prison corporations. ICE regulations require detained immigrants to “maintain their immediate living areas in a neat and orderly manner,” and GEO Group and CoreCivic have frequently stretched this provision to force detainees to clean the bathrooms, hallways, and common areas of their prisons without any compensation.

ICE’s own guidelines for the Voluntary Work Program make it appear that the program is truly voluntary—so far as any incarcerated labor is voluntary. Officially, detainees cannot be required to work, and cannot be punished for quitting their jobs or refusing to work. These regulations, however, do not reflect the reality of labor in detention. An American Civil Liberties Union report found, “[e]ven though the program is supposed to be voluntary, detainees’ experiences are illustrative of its coercive nature.” The Justice Department has acknowledged that it is possible for facility operators to “illegally” force detained immigrants to work (although they maintain that the program, if run “correctly,” would be voluntary).

Detained immigrants have alleged that the program is coercive for two main reasons. First, participating in the program is the only way to buy necessities such as toothpaste, soap, and feminine hygiene products, which are not otherwise provided to detained immigrants and are sold at highly inflated prices. Second, GEO Group and CoreCivic retaliate against detainees by putting them in solitary confinement or changing their housing assignment if they refuse to work double shifts, refuse to work while sick, or protest unsafe conditions. In at least one GEO Group prison, the official policy was to place detained immigrants in solitary confinement if they refused to perform uncompensated janitorial work or encouraged others to do so. During the pandemic, protests against unsafe working conditions have understandably risen significantly, while at the same time facility managers have retaliated against protestors and placed immigrants who tested positive for COVID-19 in solitary confinement.

Current and formerly-detained immigrants have filed several lawsuits over the last six years, arguing that the work policies in GEO Group and CoreCivic detention centers violate the forced labor provision of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). The TVPA, first passed in 2000, is best known as an anti-sex trafficking law, but it also contains the most important federal prohibition of forced labor. If a person or company obtains labor through threats of or actual force, “serious harm,” or abuse of legal process, they can be charged or sued under the law. The TVPA is most commonly used to protect immigrant workers, but it applies to everyone in the United States. For example, if you threaten to pull a gun on the guests at a party and force them to clean your apartment, you have violated the TVPA (and several other laws. Please don’t do that).

The forced labor statute of the TVPA was passed in response to a 1988 Supreme Court decision ruling that a farm owner named Ike Kozminski had not committed the distinct crime of “involuntary servitude” when he coerced two mentally disabled men into working on his farm. The Court, always happy to disadvantage workers, held that “involuntary servitude” required physical or legal coercion, not psychological coercion, regardless of how vulnerable or powerless the coerced person might be. The TVPA was explicitly intended to circumvent the Supreme Court’s decision in Kozminski and protect workers from all forms of coerced labor.

So far, the immigrants and their attorneys have won a string of victories. Courts across the country have rejected GEO Group and CoreCivic’s arguments that the TVPA does not apply to for-profit detention centers and that they should therefore be allowed to force detainees to labor. In addition, three courts have certified classes of thousands of immigrants who were allegedly forced to labor while detained. As the lawsuits wend their way through the court system, it appears more and more likely that the plaintiffs could win a judgment which forces the corporations to pay massive damages and stop their illegal practices. The private prison corporations have already begged ICE to pay their legal bills, and one scholar has estimated that paying minimum wage for work in detention centers could reduce their profits by as much as 25 percent.

Other recent activist challenges have further threatened GEO Group and CoreCivic’s profits, compounding the importance of these forced labor lawsuits. Both companies’ stock prices cratered when it appeared the Obama administration would phase out federal contracts with private prisons, but rebounded after Trump was elected. In the last few years, however, activists have successfully forced institutions such as universities to divest their holdings, and, most importantly, forced major banks to stop lending to GEO Group and CoreCivic. Both corporations have acknowledged in SEC filings that “[i]ncreasing activist resistance” poses a significant threat to their profits. Consequently, their stock prices have fallen by more than two-thirds since peaking in mid-2017. Forcing private prison companies to pay up for stolen labor, while simultaneously choking off their access to investors, is a two-pronged strategy that has the potential to cripple their operations.  

So what will happen to immigration detention if these lawsuits succeed, or if Joe Biden decides to reinstate the late Obama-era plan to phase out private prisons? Although we should never underestimate the ability of the carceral state to adjust to keep people locked up, without private prison facilities it would be extremely difficult to detain immigrants at the same volume. The roughly 30 percent of detained immigrants who are currently not held in private facilities are held in local jails. In theory, ICE could radically expand its use of jails to detain immigrants. But this may prove difficult: in addition to the logistical difficulties of shifting their detention practices, many localities have recently refused to allow ICE to detain immigrants in county jails. In the past, ICE has responded to these refusals by utilizing more space at private prisons: for example, in 2018 ICE moved detained immigrants to a nearby GEO Group facility when the city of Atlanta canceled its contract to lease jail space to ICE. Without private prison facilities as an option, ICE will have nowhere to put its intended prisoners if local jails decline to lease them space.

Obviously, the clearest moral, economic, and logistical solution to the problems faced by for-profit ICE detention centers is to stop detaining immigrants. The radical expansion of immigration detention is a recent phenomenon and could easily be reversed. But additionally, everyone should be able to agree that it is imperative to stop corporations from profiting from forced labor. The lawsuits against GEO Group and CoreCivic are being argued by dedicated advocates and organizations, but there are plenty of other ways to weaken immigration detention and the for-profit prisons that enable it.

For those who want to see an end to for-profit prisons, forced labor, and the mass jailing of immigrants generally, two useful sites for organizing are divestment campaigns and local elections. Although banks have distanced themselves from private prison corporations, institutional investors still own large chunks of them and can be pressured to sell them off. Vanguard, which likely manages your retirement fund if you’re lucky enough to have one, owns more than 15 percent of both CoreCivic and GEO Group’s stock. Vanguard also manages a number of unions’ pension funds, but so far has resisted divesting from its private prison holdings. Meanwhile, local elections for sheriffs and District Attorneys have a major impact on ICE’s ability to arrest and detain immigrants. ICE relies on the cooperation of local authorities to help arrest and detain immigrants, but local officials are free to withdraw that cooperation, as many have in recent years.  

As dark as the last decade of deportation policy and mass incarceration has been, a world without immigrant prisons—and without for-profit prisons—may be much closer than it seems.

[don-lichterman]

On The Rampage, Cotton Pickin, Parchman Farm, Parchman Prison, Woman's Week, 9/11, Looking Old, Crack Cocaine, Opioids, Tucker Carlson & God

On The Rampage, Don Lichterman, Cotton Pickin, Parchman Farm, Parchman Prison, Woman's Week, 9/11, Looking Old, Crack Cocaine, Opioids, Tucker Carlson & God

[tabloidtoc]

Globe, May 6

Cover: Prince William and Princess Kate trial separation over cheating scandal 

Page 2: Up Front & Personal -- Kendra Wilkinson, Brittney “Freakabritt” Guzman, Josh Brolin 

Page 3: James Remar, Robert Downey Jr.,Kathy Bates 

Page 4: Johnny Depp and Amber Heard in new domestic abuse showdown 

Page 6: Sharon Osbourne’s nightmare: crippled Ozzy Osbourne is dying 

Page 7: Hoda Kotb adopts another baby girl 

Page 8: Cover Story -- Kate Middleton and Prince William split -- heartbroken Kate takes the kids and moves in with her mother after William’s cheating scandal with Rose Hanbury 

Page 10: True Crime 

Page 12: Celebrity Buzz -- Miranda Lambert’s marriage to Brendan McLoughlin is on the rocks because she spends more time online stalking her ex Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani, Katie Holmes believes she’s finally corralled Jamie Foxx in marriage after he gave her a key to his California home, Max Von Sydow, Sherri Shepherd, Beyonce is driving pals off in droves with her hot-tempered demanding diva antics 

Page 13: Kim Kardashian battling for mom Kris Jenner’s attention after billionaire Kylie Jenner becomes mom’s favorite, Iggy Pop, Farrah Abraham

Page 14: Dwayne Wade crashed into Chrissy Teigen and John Legend during his final home game, Mel B paid out $2.4 million to settle a defamation suit against ex-nanny Lorraine Gilles, Fashion Verdict -- Michelle Obama, Brie Larson, Drew Barrymore, Busy Philipps, Mandy Moore 

Page 15: RHONJ alum Caroline Manzo has a new look, Lori Loughlin terrified the college scam will send her to prison 

Page 16: Funny Photo Quiz -- Charlize Theron 

Page 17: Dennis Quaid and Tanya Tucker are making beautiful music together in and out of the recording studio 

Page 19: 10 Things You Don’t Know About Whoopi Goldberg, Ariel Winter says her recent surprising slim down came from switching antidepressants, Eartha Kitt’s claws came out when she suspected Jackee Harry was bedding her boyfriend 

Page 21: Joan Collins survived a frightening brush with death when her London apartment burst into a roaring inferno and she was nearly knocked unconscious by the smoke 

Page 23: Doctor warns 403-lb Chrissy Metz that she must diet or die 

Page 24: Wendy Williams files for divorce, prods producer hubby to quit and bans him from the house 

Page 25: Luke Perry was buried on his beloved Tennessee farm in an organic mushroom suit so his decomposing body will nourish the soil 

Page 26: Health Report 

Page 29: Sobbing Brandi Glanville says she’s sad and ashamed after cameras caught her soused and stumbling outside a Beverly Hills eatery last month 

Page 32: Real Life 

Page 44: Straight Talk -- Kardashians are fab fakes 

Page 46: Dying Ryan O’Neal is secretly trying to sell Andy Warhol’s portrait of his late former love Farrah Fawcett for $18 million, devastated daddy’s girl Paula Abdul is heartbroken over the death of her father nearly a year after she lost her mom, blabbermouth Carly Simon is going to sing like a canary about her famously private pal Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Deborah Norville is recovering at home following successful thyroid cancer surgery after a sharp-eyed viewer reached out to the Inside Edition host about a weird-looking lump on her neck 

[silverblogxyz]

First pictures of 'Essex Boys' killer Jack Whomes after release from prison 22 years into sentence

First pictures of ‘Essex Boys’ killer Jack Whomes after release from prison 22 years into sentence

‘Essex Boys’ killer Jack Whomes has been pictured for the first time since he was released from prison 22 years into his life sentence.    Jack Whomes, 59, and his accomplice Michael Steele, 76, were jailed in 1998 over the gangland shooting of three men who were found dead in a Range Rover near a farm in Rettendon, Essex, in 1995.  Patrick Tate, 37, Anthony Tucker, 38, and Craig Rolfe, 26 – who…

[feelingbluepolitics]

One of the aspects that has made conservative politics such a force for decades, although undeserving, is the extensive network systems they have set up, to influence yet also split off from "generalized" America. The Conservative Partnership Institute isn't a fall-back, it's yet another of the hundreds of conservative politics "church-like" enclaves forming a shadow America built on conservative apparatus.

There's no missing the right-wing "news" media, starting with Fox but now further expanding and radicalizing, as well as now metastasized to the local news monopoly of the Sinclair Broadcasting Group. Right-wing talk radio launched many conservative luminary careers and still serves as a seed farm. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_talk_radio#The_rise_of_conservative_talk_radio)

The Federalist Society is the single source assembly line for the trump/McConnell mass installation of young, white, hyper-conservative partisan judges. The single source format here works better to corral the extreme money funding the judicial coup intended first to monopolize "fiscal Republicon" pro-corporate rulings, but with trump, enabled to branch out to "social conservative" goals with deep judicial benches of bigots and racists. Donors to the Federalist Society have included Google, Chevron, Charles G. and David H. Koch; the family foundation of Richard Mellon Scaife; and the Mercer family.

Sheldon Whitehouse followed the money and found the vast network of the conservative shadow America.

See: https://www.pittsburghcurrent.com/the-federalist-society-dark-money-and-trumps-court/

and:

Many have heard of the Heritage Foundation and the CATO Institute. The then-novel phenomenon of conservative think tanks exploded into proliferation in the '70's and 80's and they continue as a dominating influence, transforming ugly ideas and greed into more superficially palatable packaging while incessantly attacking public interests.

https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/politics/polibig/eastidea.htm

Meanwhile, trump got focused attention for his lies, but the Heritage Foundation, which spawned Tucker Carlson, is responsible -- along with more religious evangelicalism -- for much of the fact-free basis of today's Republicons, churning out propaganda, false statements, and fake "studies."

See:

Then there's the empire-building ALEC.

"ALEC’s agenda extends into almost all areas of law. Its bills undermine environmental regulations and deny climate change; support school privatization; undercut health care reform; defund unions and limit their political influence; restrain legislatures’ abilities to raise revenue through taxes; mandate strict election laws that disenfranchise voters; increase incarceration to benefit the private prison industry, among many other issues. 

ALEC is an "associate" member of the State Policy Network, a web of right-wing “think tanks” in every state across the country."

Furthermore, "ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve 'model' bills."

QAnon serves as a ridiculous but effective Republicon-red herring in terms of an arch-evil world-controlling political cabal with Democrats as the stand-ins. That's a useful conspiracy theory, given all the conspiracy interest in "deep state" and "global control."

The shadow infrastructure of the Republicons isn't compartmentalized, either, although it is often specialized. Dan McGahn, for example, "White House counsel", came out from a high-powered conservative law firm he has since faded back into, with a laser-focus agenda of cherry-pick populating the Supreme Court from the Federalist Society's list. It's not quite fair that McConnell gets all the credit for the current composition of our ersatz Supreme Court.

The point is that Meadow's new gig is not a fall-back he had to settle for because he couldn't manage to hook up with the trump Organization. He's no doubt an eager cog in the Republicon machine. Jobs like this are the earthly reward for Republicons whose turn in the spotlight is in between cycles, as well as the entrenched infrastructure of conservative politics.

He also finished his exposure to the trump clan on good terms, unusually, and is no doubt acting as a liason straddling the new and awkward chasm, between this Republicon domination infrastructure, and trump's sledgehammer style of openly violent fascist takeover.

We have a lot more to worry about than Republicon gerrymandering, or what trump's next move might be.

The former Republican lawmaker is joining the Conservative Partnership Institute, a “networking hub” for conservatives run by former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, according to sources who spoke to Axios.

Meadows has been advising Trump on his upcoming impeachment trial, but will serve behind the scenes in his new role to cultivate new firebrand lawmakers like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and Jim Jordan.

[miax1119]

Land Girls fanfiction

Rewriting episode 3 series 3.

 The new partnership between the farms organized by Lady Hoxley was a strain on the cooperation between land girls and Vernon Storey. His son Walter in particular.  Rumors were going around town that Mrs. Reeves was pregnant with Frederick Finch´s child. But Walter knew otherwise. He had seen Esther visit his father at more than one occasion and he knew of his father’s attraction towards this woman and knew the child she was carrying was his fathers and because of that he hated her. She could give his father a new son – a new family - a new beginning. 

He saw her enter the barn looking for anyone but him and he followed her in. “Fred! – Frank! – you in here?” She shouted She turned fast around when she heard a loud bang – the door to the barn shut close and in the last ray of sunlight she saw a male figure approaching her. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the dimed light. “Frank. That you?” She asked anxiously. She had a bad feeling about this. “No – None of your lovers are anywhere close – so you can shout all you like” Walter approached Esther and she walked backwards towards the hay. She felt trapped. She recognized the voice: “What do you want Walter?” “I want many things but I’ll settle with that unborn child of yours” “I don’t know what you mean” She had a shaky voice and she actually feared what Walter might do to her. Why was he so angry? She put her arms protectively around herself. “I´ve always been a disappointment to my father. I made one big mistake – I was born – and I killed my mother in that process - my father never forgave me for that… He calls me his big disappointment – a failure”   “I´m sure he means no such thing” “Oh he means it alright… and this new child – your child – is his last chance to prove his worth as a father. This child will be his trophy” Esther was really scared now. She had no idea Vernon was like that. “Look Walter I don’t know what it is you think you might have heard, but your father and I… we´re not having a child” He was getting closer to her and she could see the fury in his eyes. It was hard to lie him in his face. He clearly had had a talk to Vernon. How could she explain to Walter that she didn’t want anything to do with his father?   She was 4 months pregnant and starting to show. But she had an arrangement with Hettie Foster at the end of the week to have the child removed. Of cause she couldn’t tell him that- abortion was a felony – she could risk prison if anyone found out what she was about to do. Esther stumbled up against a wooden pole, her back felt the rough surface and Walter was only inches from her standing a head taller looking down with disgust. “So you´re not pregnant?” He placed his large rough hand forcefully on her abdomen and pushed her hard against the pole. She groaned while she tried to pull his hand away but failed. It hurt her stomach. Walter was strong. “That´s not what my father told me. Bragging about the new son you´ll give him. But I won’t have you destroy my future. You have twisted my father’s head” “I´ve done no such thing” “Shut up woman!” he yelled into her face. “I want THIS to disappear” He pressed her harder into the pole. “And I want you to disappear” “But I live here – my son lives here – this is our home” “I´ll give you one more chance – disappear or else…” He hurled her on the ground into the hay. “Please Walter – I never meant for this to happen. Please I beg you – I have a son to…” she tried to back away further into the hay but the word SON seemed to add to his rage. “Have it your way!” He lurched towards her - hit her across her face and punched her in the belly. Esther tried to protect herself, covering her head with her arms. “I´ll make sure you´ll never want to set foot on this ground again you filthy whore” Esther fought him with all her might, but he was too strong for her. He ripped her blouse and groped her between her legs – his held her arms above her head. His strength surprised her and his roughness scared her. His free hand went inside her dungarees – she screamed and called for help but it only agitated Walter. His hand came up to grope her beasts. “Well, I see what my father found so… tempting”. His hand was all over her. Blinding daylight made its way into the barn and a loud voice followed by a knock to the head stopped the turmoil. Esther heard the familiar voice of Frank Tucker: “Are you alright Esther?” She opened her eyes to see Frank reaching out for her and Walter laying on top on her. She was in shock. Her hair, blouse and dungarees a big mess - Frank kneeled beside her – rolled Walter off her - pulled off his jacket and placed it around her shoulders. She wanted to fight with all her might not quite aware the danger had passed. Frank caught her fighting arms avoiding her punches. “Shyy it´s alright” Frank pulled her into his embrace but when she tried to sit up a sharp pain went to her abdomen and she clutched her stomach with a load groan. “ahh, oh God” She felt something hot between her legs “What, what´s wrong Esther?” Esther looked down “The baby …” “The baby?” Frank looked confused at her still holding on to her. “I think I’m losing the baby”. “Are you pregnant?” She nodded while crying and clutching her stomach as the pain grew worse. “Right – I´ll get help – you just stay still” Frank got up but Esther held onto him: “Don’t leave me here” Frank understood her anxiety. “Right – I’ll carry you.. but first you need to cover yourself” he fastened his jacket around her and scooped her into his arms. He carried her to the house and on their way they met Connie and Joyce. At the sight of Frank carrying Esther and her bewildered hair and attire they ran towards them: “What have happened?” Connie asked franticly. “Walter attacked her in the barn. We need to get her inside and call for the doctor… She thinks she´s miscarrying the baby.” “A baby?” Connie exclaimed. Both Connie and Joyce stood doubtfully rooted to their spot while Frank got inside and carried her upstairs. At the same time Fred rounded the corner of the house “Don´t you have work to do ladies?” he asked Joyce had gone inside to assist Frank and Connie was going to get Dr. Channing but decided best to inform Fred first: “Walter has assaulted Esther in the barn. I´m about to get the doctor… She thinks she´s miscarrying the baby. Would you know anything about that?” Fred didn’t know what to say. A thousand thoughts went through his head: Esther assaulted by Walter -  was she okay? – miscarrying the baby – what baby? He knew of the arrangement between Esther and Vernon. Was Esther pregnant with Vernon’s child?. She couldn’t be! “Well go get the doctor then Connie – what are you standing here for?” Fred’s confused expression didn’t go unnoticed by Connie. So Fred didn’t know Esther was pregnant? Interesting she thought. Fred hurried inside and upstairs. “How is she? What have happened?” Fred asked “I´m not sure. I heard Esther shouting from the barn and I went inside to find Walter on top of her. So I gave him a big knock to the head” Frank looked down at Esther and back up at Fred: “She´s afraid she might be losing the baby” “Yeah – we didn’t want anyone to know yet” Fred lied. Frank looked curiously at Fred. It didn’t come as a surprise If they were a pair. Frank had his doubts though. Esther seemed so faithful to her husband. A strong woman with strong beliefs. “Well, she´s in a lot of pain so you better be with her. I´ll go take care of Walter” Frank hurried out of the house and Fred went upstairs. Esther was laying on her side on the bed clutching her stomach with Joyce at her side. “Why don’t you go downstairs and wait for the Doctor – I´ll sit with her” Fred pulled up a chair and Joyce looked at Esther with great concern. Esther nodded towards Joyce and Fred took Esther’s hand in his. Joyce left the room wondering if there was more to the relationship between Fred and Esther than they let on. Fred waited until they were alone “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?” She couldn’t look him in the eye “The shame Fred – this could be for the best” She pressed his hand and winced in pain. Fred looked at her with great compassion. “You could have told me – I´d be the last to judge… I´d take care of you… You´ll always have a home here” She looked at him and saw nothing but kindness. “I´m losing it Fred” She cried a bit. “Let´s hear what the doctor has to say” but he knew she was right. There was blood on the back of her dungarees and a bit on the bed. Esther’s silent cries were too much to bear and Fred got down on his knees and took her into his arms. “I´ll be here for you… we´ll make this – together” Steps were heard on the stairs and Doctor Channing entered the room. Fred got up “I´ll be right outside the door if you need me”.

Doctor Channing, assisted by Joyce, helped Esther but couldn’t stop the bleeding and Esther lost the baby. Esther was weak for a whole week. Fred was at her side the whole time – this shouldn’t have happened – he should have been there for her. He blamed himself. His help came too late but never again. He would make sure of that.

Vernon had dreamed and actually assumed Esther and him to be a family with the little one on the way. His heart was torn apart when he heard of the mess his son had caused and he lost his temper. Even though Walter was wounded from his encounter with Frank, Vernon was furious and simply let out his rage. With his half empty bottle of whiskey he broke it in a violent attack on Walters head. Walter fell to the floor and didn’t get up again. Dead.

Vernon realized his action and terrified of the consequences he managed to get Walter back into the barn and accused Frank of manslaughter.  

But Iris had seen Walter leave the barn and tipped the police. Vernon was arrested that afternoon for killing his own son.