#fox-news/person/george-floyd

[brazenautomaton]

Dude, I have been waiting for someone ANYONE to finally say that blaming voters and being so absurdly out of touch is not a good look. I honestly have gotten so sick and tired of the Democrats and people who suck up to them trying to sink the ship just because they can’t be the captain when they lose and attack our moral character. Speaking from personal experience, these are people who are so self-centered and close-minded that they believe if something is bad for them, it’s bad for everyone else. And it’s not just in politics where this mindset is prevalent.

well, I've been saying it for a while, using the "blaming the voters for losing the election is like blaming the points for losing a football game" analogy

call it insularity or call it "epistemic closure," the refusal to listen to anyone and insistence on making things up about what other people believe to tell flattering stories to yourself is ruinous. since I don't like what republicans do most of the time and really don't like what Trump does, this is bad for me.

when Trump wins by gaining more of the minority vote than any Republican in living memory, saying he was the "candidate of white supremacy" and that white supremacy won the election for him is wrong. it's not correct. it's just flattering yourself -- "I didn't really lose, it's not that I failed, it's just that I'm too good and everyone else is too evil." any time you float the idea that democrats might be wrong about anything, they instantly default to "Oh, so we should just abandon all minorities and embrace white supremacy" or some similar horseshit, because they can't get the idea that they're doing a bad job of the things they claim to be doing.

honestly a major component of this is that the "elite" or "expert class" of Democratic-leaning institutions have absolutely incinerated their credibility, and don't seem to realize it. They say "Oh no, people are radicalized by the algorithm, they fall into these right-wing rabbit holes and get brainwashed by OneAmerica Network and Fox News and Alex Jones," as if the fact that people who agree with you create the overwhelming, crushing majority of all media content just can't account for anything. if people who agree with you create the majority of media content people see, and then seeing a few hours of videos by people who don't agree with you is enough to convince people to abandon you, you done fucked up. the demand for these right-wing media outlets arose because you had an absolute stranglehold on the media which you used to show everyone how completely untrustworthy and out of touch you are. They remember that shit! They remember all the lies you told about Covid and all the times you fucking flip-flopped on it! The "open letter" from the medical establishment about how people should join the George Floyd protests because Racism Is The Real Virus, when one week ago they were saying anyone who went outside for any reason was a murderer and probably a fascist succeeded only in annihilating the credibility of the medial establishment forever. It proved it didn't say things that were true, only things that benefited and flattered Democratic politics, so now anybody who isn't already in the tank for Democratic politics won't believe they're telling the truth.

Democrats think that the media must not be hard enough on Trump and the solution is they have to be harder on Trump and then, and THEN everyone will believe them and hate Trump too! Trump gets stronger every time the media attacks him because the media has proven itself to be so biased and untrustworthy that anyone they attack is probably doing something right! They keep expecting that people should just believe everything they say and do what they tell them, and no, it doesn't work like that, you've proven you can't be trusted.

Yet Democrats think they are entitled to people's support, trust, and votes. They seem surprised and aghast every time someone tries to oppose them, like they're totally unaware that's a thing they'd have to deal with. Because they don't fucking listen to anyone.

[patricide1885]

If you haven't already seen this

Credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/DeepThoughts/s/sUGObD1GlH A message from a Brit. You are Americans. : r/50501

The "Butterfly Revolution" is the plan of far right ideologist Curtis Yarvin, who openly advocates for a dictatorship in the US, to overthrow US democracy and turn it into an autocracy, in an alliance between tech billionaires and theocratic fascists.

The Butterfly Revolution: 7 steps

Step 1: Campaign on Autocracy, when Trump spoke of there being no more elections, being a dictator "on day one", threatening political opponents, speaking of using the national guard ... You know the drill.

Step 2: Purge the Bureaucracy. Yarvin called this "RAGE" - Retire All Government Employees. The Trump administration called it "The Fork in the Road". This is combined with the sweeping firings of agency heads and senior staff, such as in the FBI, the CIA, State Department, the DOJ, the illegal firings of Inspector Generals. Elon Musk and his staff have also been illegally infiltrating the administration's IT, in particular the federal payment system used to distribute trillions of dollars a year.

Yes, Musk under the guise of "DOGE" now has access to your social security number and much of your personal information. The Trump administration is actively seeking to root out all "enemies" to the cause and to recruit die-hard loyalists instead.

Step 3: Ignore the Courts. - Trump's executive order cancelling birthright citizenship is blatantly unconstitutional and is a direct challenge to the courts. A temporary restraining order was issued by a judge but the ruling is already being publicly contested by the Trump administration - Trump's executive order to freeze federal funding is another blatant violation of the Constitution and it is an attempt to override Congress' power of the purse. In spite of its suspension by a judge, a second judge has done the same thing after noting that the Trump administration and their PR said: "that the president's executive orders on federal funding "remain in full force and effect and will be rigorously implemented. "" (source)

Trump is already showing he doesn't give up a fuck about the law, the Constitution (which has been removed from the White House website) and the courts, and this is only the beginning.

Step 4: Co-Opt the Congress Owning Congress is a necessary step for the consolidation of power and the destruction of American democracy. This has been in the works for years and and GOP appears loyal and subservient to Trump and his administration. Trump has already threatened his own party with "consequences" if they don't obey and agree to his administrative nominations.

Step 5: Centralise Police and Powers The goal here is to consolidate as much power as possible in Trump and his administration. In particular, having direct control over the police and army and deploying it as necessary to curb opposition.

Remember when Trump used the national guard to end a peaceful protest after the death of George Floyd? He did so "legally" and he CAN and WILL do it again. Why do you think he has already declared three different national emergencies, which broaden the President's powers and have unclear legal bounds? Don't forget that the US Supreme Court has granted Trump absolute immunity. He is literally above the law.

Step 6: Shut Down Elite Media and Academic Institutions The Trump administration and its Tech billionnaire already owns X, Meta (who recently bribed Trump e.g. Facebook & Instagram and they are actively working on TikTok. The attack on traditional media had already begun before the inauguration. Trump ran his campaign on "fake news" and it worked: Republican voters don't trust the news anymore, except Fox and other propaganda outlets. The press has been openly threatened by Trump and his followers.

Recently the Pentagon removed 4 major media outlets, such as the New York Times, from its office spaces. The Trump administration is actively working to defund all public US media JD Vance has openly said that he believes "the universities are the enemy". Trump's federal funding freeze applies to colleges and the Trump administration is using it to intimidate universities and forcing them to comply, right now.

Universities are already starting to fall in line so they are not defunded, starting with research related to "DEI", following the executive order that directly threatens to defund colleges if they do not dismantle their DEI programs. Controlling information is key for all totalitarian states.

Step 7: Turn Out the People That part is easy. Trump has an army of far-right zealots ready to work for him, go out on the street and deal with "The enemy from within". This is so reminiscent to me of the formation of civil militias known in the early years of Nazi Germany and their consolidation into the Sturm Abeilung (SA), Hitler's paramilitary wing. Yes, that means "Storm Troopers". Yarvin even mentions the idea of using an "app" to help train and coordinate these militias.

Project 2025 is nothing but the set of tools and guidelines to make this happen, and it is the playbook of the Trump administration. The leader of Project 2025 told us his plans very transparently: "we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be" Trump said it himself: "in four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote."

THIS IS REAL AND IT IS HAPPENING IN REAL TIME

So stop burying your head in the sand. Stop pretending this isn't happening. Stop pretending you just have to wait this out. America is being looted and destroyed before your eyes so it can be owned and rebuilt by insane tech billionnaires and theocrats and that is the PLAN. Don't count on mid-term elections. With the pace at which this is going, if we just sit idly and wait, in my humble opinion there will either be no elections by then or they will be rigged.

This is actual, Nazi Germany level shit happening right now in the US. We need to resist this in every way possible or America as we know it will be destroyed.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Hegseth and the triumph of the Trump ideocracy

Lucian K. Truscott IV

Jan 15, 2025

How do you deal with a nomination like the odious Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense? I’m not going to take the time and space to run through the many reasons he is the wrong person for the job. They are manifest and obvious every time he shows his face or opens his mouth.

That appears to be the point with Donald Trump’s decision to appoint him. It’s as if Trump is waving a red flag at the establishment, or somebody anyway, telling the D.C. old guard and everybody else that they’ve run things long enough, so now we’re going to try something really different: the raw, unfettered, incompetence of norm-busting ugliness. There is simply nothing right about Hegseth, not his lack of experience, not his criminal attitude about women, not the insta-Christian nationalism he has deployed as a kind of parachute to save himself by embracing the worst instincts and lies of the far Right.

Trump is known to be furious with the Pentagon for its recalcitrance at the end of his last term in office. Neither Milley nor Esper would countenance his insane plans to put active duty troops on the street to face down American citizens who, along with providing the troops’ paychecks, were exercising their Constitutional right to protest the killing of George Floyd. What Trump wanted from the military was to use it for his own purposes, and anyone who got in his way he saw as not loyal to him and his agenda of grievance, if it can be called that. Trump’s attitude about the military was a version of what good is an army if you can’t do something with it. Previous presidents – George W. Bush comes to mind – have put this attitude to work starting wars that should never have been for reasons that couldn’t stand even a glance of scrutiny.

With Trump, of course, it was personal. Why waste his soldiers and guns and tanks on some country halfway across the world when he could use them right here in the exercise of a coup-in-place? That’s the way other dictators have done it over the years, and we know how much Trump admires dictators.

So, angry at a military establishment he sees as insubordinate to his sense of self as Supreme Ruler Over All, Trump just decided to take a well-coiffed Fox News yapper and blow the whole thing up and see what happens.

It would be one thing if the only people watching were his MAGA base, who have been eating up Hegseth and his simple-minded posturing like a Family Bucket of KFC. Were you watching yesterday during the hearing when half the room erupted in applause for Hegseth and started shouting “USA! USA!”? It was like a scene from the movie “Idiocracy” when a crowd of morons starts cheering because that’s what they’re supposed to do, MAGAs gone wild with delight because they think they’re being treated to the downfall of everything they think they hate about Washington and the establishment. That the “establishment” is this country’s military, which in another day conservatives embraced as reflexively as this crowd opposes our soldiers who have stood fast for the Constitution, is one of the great ironies of my lifetime.

But it isn’t just the MAGA mob watching that abomination of a hearing. It is the whole world, a world that knows all too well what happens when you throw a stink-bomb like Hegseth into the midst of what can only be called the world order. Because that’s what is happening. Trump isn’t just blowing up the Pentagon. He wants to blow up NATO, he wants to blow up our trade alliances, he wants to blow up everything that came before him put in place by anyone not named “Trump.” Europeans and our other allies around the world know what will come to pass if you throw away 75 years of carefully crafted mutual defense: more countries than Ukraine may begin to fall to fascism and force; people and institutions and whole countries will die.

The satisfaction among the MAGA faithful in the hearing room of the Senate Armed Services Committee was right out in the open. Hegseth is a dreamboat to this strain of American ideocracy. He has the “look,” he has the attitude, he wears the ill-fitting suit of the requisite anti-woke, anti-DEI, anti-woman, anti-rational right-wing male as if he’s a contestant for Mr. America, or these days perhaps a “hero” inside the “cage” at one of these fake mixed martial arts macho battles.

It’s so obvious that the whole thing is fake, it’s hard to believe the MAGA faithful don’t see it too. But they don’t. Apparently, neither do the Republican senators whose charge it is to “advise and consent” so that disasters-in-the-open like Hegseth don’t happen.

But they cower in fear of Trump, because that’s what you do if you’re a Republican today, and they will put their stamp of approval on this manifestly unqualified, incompetent TV-ready hand puppet Trump wants over there across the river at the Pentagon so he can call him up and tell him to do things that no other Secretary of Defense in our history would ever do.

It is obvious there is nothing Democrats can do to stop this trainwreck. Standing athwart the tracks and yelling “NO!” will not work. Trump and the Republicans have the votes, and they are going to have their way with Washington D.C. come hell or high water, and unless I miss my guess, an actual flood of downtown Washington is probably among the disasters that will befall us before Trump’s four years are over.

What is next, you may wonder? Well, we have endured this sort of madness before: Vietnam was a truly horrible misuse of American military might, and that included, in Nixon’s attempts to fight the anti-war movement, huge abuses of civil rights, privacy, and real weaponization of the Department of Justice and FBI against those Nixon considered enemies. The misbegotten war on Iraq and the trip we took through the graveyard of empires that is Afghanistan were almost as bad. Young American men and women lost their lives once again in pursuit of policies that never had a chance of success and so should never have been pursued in the first place.

After the deluge comes the clean-up, I’m afraid. Trump’s abuse of our military with the likes of Hegseth leading the way will cause a huge correction to take place at some point in the future, and we will begin again. As happens in Washington, no one will pay for this madness. Look at Wolfowitz and Feith, the “architects” of the lies that begat the invasion of Iraq. Do you see them paying a price? They have sinecures at the evergreen think tanks that populate the banks of the Potomac. Even Dick Cheney has achieved a nearly inexplicable hero status simply because he opposed Trump and stood up for whatever passed for the “old values” of the Republican Party Trump has turned to ashes. But you need to remember that it was Cheney who oversaw the whole Iraq disaster and in the process went after Joe Wilson for telling the truth when he took the job of investigating Iraq’s so-called WMDs and ended his wife Valerie Plame’s CIA career in the process.

That it has always been difficult to find good guys in Washington does not excuse the fact that Trump is fully in mid-stride in placing actual bad guys everywhere he can in Washington, and he’s giving them the triggers to set off bombs every time he picks up the phone and demands “loyalty” from these fools who would not recognize real allegiance and dedication to duty if it came from one of their own children.

The one glimmer of hope I see is that these people always end up doing to themselves what they think they are doing to others. There is no place from which incompetence can rise. It just stays where it is as the consequences ripple out and do their damage. The MAGA functionaries Trump is planting like deadly nightshades all over Washington can’t save themselves by suddenly learning to do the right thing, because they don’t know what the right thing is. And Trump isn’t going to save them, because everything that happens from here on out will be somebody else’s fault, not his.

Get ready for finger-pointing and blame. There’s going to be a lot of it coming, and oh, how much fun it’s going to be to watch Trump and his MAGA faithful eat their own.

[Lucian Truscott]

[my-midlife-crisis]

"The KKK, white nationalists, and these other fringe movements are literally propped up by the dying corporate media."

I'm sorry, but, I disagree. The KKK still exists in the south and have seen it first hand. My ex-wife and I had some land in northern Florida. The part of Florida that is more Alabama then Florida. We rented a duplex to a fantastic family. However, certain people in our area didn't care for this new family and we got to experience the broken windows and flaming cross of legend. To add to all that there was an antique store in town where they had a KKK wall of memorabilia that included pictures of hangings, black face dolls, and black face statues. Plus, when I was in highschool our school was filled with skinheads and once in a while there would be a mass fight that were referred to as race wars where the skinheads would start the fight and then lock themselves in a classroom and let the chaos carry on with out them. Hell, there are plenty of White Nationalists on Tumblr

Yes the case took place 60 years ago but it doesn't change the fact the case actually happened and that certain words are still uttered by the Conservatives and republicans.

In the past 12 years I have seen some of the greatest people become the most hateful bastards, I have ever met. I have seen loving Christians turn on people because of their color and or sex/gender. I have been called a cuck and a weakling for standing up to bullies who are attacking people because they have different views of themselves and the world. I guess that’s the difference between Democrat and Republican. Democrats protect our own while Republicans only want people to be like them and if they aren’t they are crazy, deluded, and or messed up.

I once had a discussion with an individual that said they’d protect Americans from an external enemy and that we have been mislead about MAGA hating the rest of America. However, when I brought up Trans people the guy turned into a bigot and started saying all kinds of horrible things. And as you are an intelligent person can tell… they contradicted what they said before. America went from being protected to crazy in under a sentence.

I have seen deportation signs all over the place. I have been told that I hate America because I stand up for more than white people. There is your systemic racism. If I bring up George Floyd I’ll get attacked by White men who want to point the blame on Black on black crime… which is racist. If I bring up Dylan Mulvany I get called a groomer. I have seen FOX news talk shit about BLM but nor about the KKK member that drove his truck into a BLM protest group. Or the guy that had a bow and arrow set shooting arrows into a different BLM group.

Now, I understand individual thought. I really do. However, when these people attack my friends who have always been there for me… I will stand up for them. I do not want people to lose their rights. I want women to be able to get an abortion if they need to. I want people to view themselves as they please with out being attacked. I want people to be able to join the military if they please. I want people to get over this segregation bit. I want growth. I want progress. I just can’t sit here and let people get stepped on. You can have your rights. You can have your religion. But, stop pushing those onto people. For all that I will step out my comfort zone to make sure we innocent individuals keep their rights.

He even tucks the thumb

oh boy

Welcome to the Fourth Reich dickheads. This is what you wanted. This is what you get.

[sandibebop]

"

WASHINGTON — For those who may have crossed President Donald Trump, the message is sinking in: Payback is coming, and coming fast.

John Bolton, a former White House national security adviser who wrote a damning book about Trump's first term, lost the Secret Service detail assigned to protect him from assassination threats from Iran.

Also losing his detail was Anthony Fauci, the public health scientist whom Trump called a "disaster" over his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and who has been a target of far-right anger ever since. (Fauci has hired his own private security team in response.)

A portrait of Mark Milley, the former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman who broke with Trump over a photo-op at a church during the George Floyd racial justice protests, was abruptly removed from the walls of the Pentagon. Defense officials said they have no idea who ordered it taken down or why.

And Trump yanked the security clearances of dozens of former national security officials who'd signed a letter during the 2020 campaign opining that emails from a laptop belonging to Joe Biden's son Hunter had the "classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."

All that happened within days of Trump's inauguration — and in some cases, hours.

A question that loomed over Trump's 2024 campaign was whether he'd use presidential powers for retribution against his perceived political foes. For some, the answer has arrived.

"There are plenty of early warning signs that confirm the worst fears of people who were concerned about a second Trump administration and what it would mean for the rule of law," David Laufman, a former senior Justice Department official under Republican and Democratic administrations, said in an interview. "The real question remains what checks and balances will there be to prevent the creeping establishment of an authoritarian state in the United States."

The White House did not respond to a question about whether Trump personally ordered these actions to be taken, or whether the motive was reprisal. Talking to reporters in recent days, Trump defended canceling Secret Service details for Fauci, Bolton and others.

"I thought he was a very dumb person," Trump said of Bolton, adding that the government can't pay for people's Secret Service protection in perpetuity. (Ex-presidents receive lifetime security details.)

"When you work for government, at some point your security detail comes off," he told reporters. "And you know, you can't have them forever."

A White House spokesman, meanwhile, said the former national security officials deserved to lose their security clearances.

"By abusing their previous positions in government, these individuals helped sell a public relations fraud to the American people," said Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council. "They greatly damaged the credibility of the Intelligence Community by using their privileges to interfere in a presidential election. President Trump's action is restoring the credibility of our nation's institutions."

Trump's comments on whether he'd engage in retaliatory acts can give an observer whiplash. In an interview last month with NBC News' "Meet the Press" moderator Kristen Welker, Trump was asked if he would look to punish his predecessor, President Joe Biden.

"I'm not looking to go back into the past," he said. "I'm looking to make our country successful. Retribution will be through success."

He is plainly aggrieved, though, about the way he believes he's been treated by the courts, prosecutors and Democratic officials.

In an Oval Office interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity last week, Trump said: "I went through four years of hell by this scum that we had to deal with. I went through four years of hell. I spent millions of dollars in legal fees and I won, but I did it the hard way. It's really hard to say that they shouldn't have to go through it also. It is very hard to say that."

The Trump administration's moves thus far impose varying levels of hardship for those on the receiving end. Milley's portrait had been unveiled 10 days before Trump's swearing-in. Its abrupt disappearance from a wall dedicated to the Joint Chiefs of Staff may serve as a warning to future chiefs that they, too, can be erased from Pentagon history if they fall out of favor with the commander in chief.

Bolton said he's taking private safety measures now that he's lost his Secret Service detail. In 2022, the Justice Department charged a member of Iran's feared Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in a plot to murder Bolton, likely in retaliation for the Trump administration's killing of an Iranian general two years earlier.

Biden first provided Bolton with a security detail in December 2021, and it had been renewed every six months since then — most recently last month, Bolton told NBC News.

"This is part of the retribution campaign," Bolton said.

"It doesn't really matter to him [Trump] the level of seriousness," he added. "Each thing he can do makes him feel a little bit better."

Members of the U.S. intelligence community told him in the days before Trump's swearing-in that the threat of assassination remained unchanged and had not gone away, he said.

"They are playing with his life, not merely damaging his professional opportunities, but they're putting a man's life at risk in order to punish him for criticizing Donald Trump," said Rosa Brooks, a former senior Defense Department official in the Obama administration and a co-leader of the Democracy Futures Project hosted by the Brennan Center for Justice.

Should Iran harm Bolton in some way, that could compel the U.S. to respond militarily, escalating tensions and drawing the two nations closer to war.

Denying security clearances to those who co-signed the Hunter Biden letter can create financial distress for some who are now in the private sector and need them to fulfill government contracts.

One person whose security clearance was taken away said in an interview, "They are now being hurt financially — and also the country is being hurt — because these are people with decades of experience who continue to serve the government after they retire."

"There's no legitimate policy purpose that this serves," this person continued, speaking on condition of anonymity. "From the standpoint of freedom of speech and our rights as U.S. citizens, we have every right to warn the American people that the Russians continue to engage in these information operations to influence American politics and elections."

Still, it's not clear how much thought the new administration gave in announcing the punishment. Mark Zaid, an attorney who represents some who signed the letter, said in an interview that most of the people no longer possess a security clearance.

The executive order that pulled the the security clearances also covered Bolton, saying his was being taken away for publishing "sensitive information drawn from his time in government" in his memoir "The Room Where It Happened."

Bolton said he doesn't know if he even had a security clearance to lose.

"For me it has no effect at all," he said.

[mcgravin]

Just to offer some context: during the 2020 mass protests following the murder of George Floyd calling for police abolition, Fox News had a segment where a commentator for some reason brought up the 1970s radical left militant organization the Weather Underground Organization and cited their 1974 manifesto "Prairie Fire". This was the on-screen graphic:

To a certain degree, it rekindled awareness of the Weather Underground and consideration of their manifesto, and "Attack and Dethrone God" became a meme phrase among leftists.

Personally, I purchased this t-shirt designed by artist Erica Henderson (@ericafails): https://ericafails.threadless.com/designs/attack-and-dethrone-god

"Attack and dethrone God"

Elmo poster spotted in Sydney

[lokodomains]

George Floyd mural covered up in Phoenix; drew complaint it ‘celebrates White violence’

George Floyd mural covered up in Phoenix; drew complaint it ‘celebrates White violence’

Artist Jeremie “Bacpac” Franko painted a George Floyd mural in Phoenix last year to “start a conversation” about the Minneapolis man’s death in police custody. But after complaints from residents, and an act of vandalism earlier this year, Franko painted over her mural Friday, according to a report. The mural showed Floyd’s face on a $20 bill and included the title,…

[beardedmrbean]

FIRST ON FOX: Georgia's Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for private security through her campaign since December 2021 when she launched her second bid for governor, despite being a board member of a foundation that wants to abolish police and personally backing an anti-police initiative.

Between December 2021 and April 2022, Abrams' campaign doled out over $450,000 to Executive Protection Agencies (EPA Security), an Atlanta-based private security firm. The company’s website says the group provides executive protection that comes with a "keen eye with a thorough knowledge of the venue through threat assessment" for its clients.  

The nine payments from the Abrams campaign to EPA Security ranged from $39,335 to $56,760.

This is not the first time Abrams has paid for private security. The Fair Fight PAC, a committee that is part of a network launched by Abrams, spent more than $1.2 million on security services last year with the same firm as the Abrams campaign, according to filings. 

STACEY ABRAMS GROUP PAID OVER $1.2 MILLION TO PRIVATE SECURITY FIRM LAST YEAR

Abrams recently insisted to Axios that she supports increased police funding and officer pay as her role with the Seattle-based Marguerite Casey Foundation has become a political liability. 

Over 100 sheriffs in the Peach State condemned Abrams over her ties to the foundation and her "soft-on-crime policies," which followed Gov. Brian Kemp calling on her to resign from its board. The attention follows numerous Fox News Digital reports on her involvement with the group.

The Marguerite Casey Foundation has repeatedly voiced support for defunding and abolishing the police, Fox News Digital previously reported. 

They have also awarded millions to professors and scholars who advocate anti-capitalist and prison abolitionist views. 

"I do not, and have never said, and have never supported defunding the police," Abrams told Axios while emphasizing that she has no control over the group's grants as a board member. 

However, Abrams backed an expanded anti-police initiative from the foundation shortly after joining its board in early May 2021, Fox News Digital also reported.

The board, including Abrams, unanimously approved the 'Answer the Uprising' campaign in late May 2021, which involved increasing financial support to left-wing groups working on law enforcement issues. The initiative also established a coalition with other grant-making organizations that provide backing to defund the police groups.

The Marguerite Casey Foundation in 2020 directed grants to left-wing groups that want to defund police, including the Movement for Black Lives, Black Organizing Project and Louisville Community Bail Fund.

OVER 100 GEORGIA SHERIFFS CONDEMN STACEY ABRAMS OVER 'DEFUND THE POLICE' FOUNDATION TIES 

Abrams also previously signaled support for defunding police while attempting to redefine it. 

During the George Floyd unrest of 2020, Abrams repeatedly tried to rebrand the "defund" aspect of the movement as favoring the "reformation and transformation" of law enforcement instead of abolishing policing.

"We have to have a transformation of how we view the role of law enforcement, how we view the construct of public safety, and how we invest not only in the work that we need them to do to protect us but the work that we need to do to protect and build our communities," Abrams said in June 2020. "And that's the conversation we're having: We'll use different language to describe it, but fundamentally we must have reformation and transformation."

"We have to reallocate resources, so, yes," she said in another interview that same month when asked if police budgets should be reduced. "If there is a moment where resources are so tight that we have to choose between whether we murder Black people or serve Black people, then absolutely: Our choice must be service."

Shortly after, Abrams advocated for the "redistributive allocation of dollars" from police budgets so "we are not simply investing in public safety, but we're building a safer public through education, through health care, through food security, through affordable housing, and that we not see these things as being in conflict, but they have to be part of a holistic vision of what America should look like, what law enforcement and what society should look like in the 21st century."

The Abrams campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital's media inquiry.

[90363462]

Candace Owens Releases Scathing Documentary On Black Lives Matter ‘The Greatest Lie Ever Sold’

Shannon Dawson

Source: Jason Davis / Getty

On Oct. 12, Candace Owens finally released her scathing documentary that allegedly reveals some shocking details behind the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.

The controversial commentator’s new film,The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM, exposes how the organization allegedly misappropriated donation funds received following the death of George Floyd in 2020, a topic that has been a point of contention since earlier this year.

Following Wednesday’s premiere, the doc garnered a score of 97 from viewers on Rotten Tomatoes and social media users were buzzing about some of the claims “exposed” in the investigative piece.

Candace Owens dives into the claims made in her scathing doc

While chatting with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Wednesday, Owens went into detail about why she has been so passionate about bringing BLM’s alleged misuse of donation money to the surface.

“It was important to pause and to reflect and to consider what happened and ask a very big question, which for whatever reason, no journalist was interested in at the time,” the controversial conservative pundit said. “We were all basically required to the purple-black square donate to Black Lives Matter or to make some you know, statement online about how black people are suffering to make sure Black Lives Matter Would receive the $80 million that it received in one year. But nobody asked the question, where’s all the money going?”

Earlier this year, BLM founder Patrisse Cullors and her co-founder Alicia Garza, and co-founder of BLM LA Melina Abdullah, were accused of buying a $6 million dollar property for personal use in 2020.  But the trio later argued that the lavish 12-bedroom property was purchased to house the organization’s Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, a space where Black filmmakers, musicians and artists could come together and “foster creativity.”

A portion of the documentary captures when Owens paid an unannounced visit to Cullors’ Laurel Canyon home in early May, to speak with her in person about the allegations. Cullors later accused the conservative star of being hostile.

A brief clip from their exchange aired during Owen’s chat with Carlson on Wednesday, which showed the 33-year-old journalist asking to speak to “someone” on Cullors’ property.

“I can’t see how this purchase helped Black Lives anywhere in America,” Owens says at one point, as she stands outside of the gigantic front gate bordering Cullors’ home. “I can’t even find a Black life on this property.”

Other claims explored in the documentary

In addition to the real estate rumor, Owens’ heated documentary also explores a few other claims about BLM’s alleged money mismanagement, one being that the organization donated millions of dollars to the “transgender movement.”

“That’s where a lot of this money went,” the Fox News correspondent alleged while speaking to Carlson. “Then there’s just a dead trail because the one thing that you’re afforded when you decide that you are transgender is you can change your name. So you don’t know who any of these people were originally but they received hundreds and thousands and millions of dollars of cash.”

The film also makes some eyebrow-raising claims about George Floyd.

“They turned me into public enemy number one, for accurately talking about George Floyd, not in the capacity of a hero but in the capacity of a person who was addicted to drugs and who had enough fentanyl in his system to kill a horse at the time that he died,” Owens said of BLM’s influence following the death of Floyd. “They robbed Americans’ emotions, they extracted emotions. They used black pain, to create confusion and to take millions of dollars from people.”

Kanye West & Ray J attend Candace Owens’ doc premiere

Owens is just falling deeper and deeper down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, and it looks like Kanye West and Ray J are joining in on the hysteria. The superstar hitmakers attended the official premiere of Owens’ doc on Wednesday night in Nashville, which was a big surprise given their previous rift over Kim Kardashian and that viral sex tape Ray J claimed he had more footage of.

According to Page Six, it looked like Ye and J put their differences aside to take a few pics with Owens during the event, “although the two kept their distance.” A close source told TMZ, that the staunch conservative intentionally invited both stars to the event “in an attempt to scorn Kim Kardashian.”

If you remember, earlier this week, Owens leaked an audio voicemail that Kim allegedly left Ray J years ago, in which she called thelate great Whitney Houston an “old hag.”

It just keeps getting weirder out here in Hollywood…

What do you think about Owens’ documentary? Will you be watching?

RELATED CONTENT: Candace Owens Reads Kris Jenner And Kim Kardashian Over Sextape Leak

[96thdayofrage]

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said he is launching a criminal investigation to find out who leaked security video of an incident in which a deputy knelt on the head of a handcuffed inmate for more than three minutes.

The Times published video last month of the March 2021 incident and detailed efforts by department officials to keep it under wraps.

Department officials had worried at the time about the negative publicity that could come from a deputy kneeling on a handcuffed man’s head, “given its nature and its similarities to widely publicized George Floyd use of force,” according to an internal report by a commander critical of the cover-up.

The commander's July 2021 report indicated that sheriff's officials decided not to pursue criminal charges against the inmate, who had punched the deputy in the face, to avoid drawing attention to the incident. Sheriff’s officials waited until January — almost a year after the incident — to take the case against the inmate to prosecutors.

In an interview with Fox 11 News, Villanueva said the disclosure of the video to The Times amounted to a theft of investigative material. He did not respond to questions from The Times.

"That is still an active case — it's not supposed to see light of day until it's concluded," he told the station. "And the fact that The Times had not only the investigation, they had the videotape — that was stolen from the department, and by department members."

First Amendment experts were troubled by the move to target people for releasing police misconduct records, saying the threat of prosecution sends a chilling message to whistleblowers.

"If the sheriff really did try to prosecute somebody for theft, under these circumstances, to me [it] would be: 'Dude, you're in L.A. County. Don't you have more serious crimes to worry about than somebody leaking a video? And aren't you really doing this because it's embarrassing you?'" said Karl Olson, a lawyer who specializes in 1st Amendment and public records cases.

Olson said the individual who leaked the video would have a strong claim under laws designed to protect whistleblowers.

"The laws exist to encourage people to come forth and report illegal or fraudulent activity on the part of government," Olson said.

David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, said the records would have likely become public anyway as evidence in the prosecution of the inmate, as well as in the potential case against the deputy.

"So why the withholding, and why the saber-rattling on pursuing criminal charges against the person who disclosed them, if they were going to be public anyway?" Snyder said.

He added: "That has a real chilling effect on potential sources within the department, who for public interest reasons, may want to see records relating to misconduct disclosed, and it constricts the flow of information that the public is entitled to see and that is necessary in order to hold public agencies to account."

The incident happened on the morning of March 10, 2021, two days after jury selection had begun 1,500 miles away in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who would be convicted of murdering Floyd by kneeling on his neck.

At the San Fernando Courthouse, deputies were conducting routine searches of inmates before their court appearances when deputies told two inmates to be quiet.

As the pair continued talking and laughing, Deputy Douglas Johnson ordered one of them, Enzo Escalante, to stop and face the wall. Escalante, 24, was awaiting trial on multiple charges, including murder.

Security video obtained by The Times shows Johnson walking closely behind Escalante through a hallway before ushering him toward a wall.

Escalante turned around and punched Johnson in the face multiple times. Johnson and other deputies then took Escalante to the ground, positioning him face down.

After he was handcuffed, Johnson kept his knee on Escalante’s head for three minutes.

The sheriff denied an allegation made by Eli Vera, a former top-ranking department official who is seeking to unseat him, that he had been involved in the cover-up and had viewed the video at an aide’s desk within days of the incident.

Internal records show that top executives above the level of division chief were aware of the incident early on. That could include only Villanueva, Undersheriff Tim Murakami or one of the three assistant sheriffs. Villanueva has refused to answer questions about who was made aware of the incident and what direction they gave.

After the Times report, Villanueva said he became aware of the incident in November and launched a criminal investigation into the deputy. He also announced that he had shaken up his “senior command,” but refused to provide specifics about whose jobs had changed and why.

He has announced a new administrative investigation into the cover-up and named an acting assistant sheriff, Holly Francisco, to oversee countywide operations, including the Court Services Division, where the incident occurred. Francisco is taking over for Robin Limon, who held the position at the time of the kneeling incident.

[nostalgebraist]

Stuff I was thinking already that came to the front of my mind when reading this Matt Taibbi article:

(i.)

There really has been an upsurge in bizarre “cancellation”-like phenomena lately.  Specifically, the rationales for cancellation have gotten weird, hyper-trivial, sometimes simply unintelligible (to me). 

David Shor’s offense was retweeing a study by a prominent black political scientist who was trying to understand what parts of the civil rights movement were most effective.  Lee Fang shared a clip of an interview he did with a black BLM supporter (not a public figure) who expressed a narrow critique of one aspect of the movement.  In neither case is anyone trying to cancel the people who actually said things, only people who related to others that they said those things.  Wild!  Some seriously 2013-tumblr-level “receipts” here.

(People allude to some long history of Fang being racist, which maybe he was, but then talk about how.  It’s like tumblr in 2013 in that people offer you concrete evidence at the level of “once reblogged a ship I hate,” paired with the allegation of some larger pattern of unspecified badness, as though any concrete evidence paired with any bigger allegation are enough to convince, no matter how unrelated or disproportionate the two.)

What confuses me most about this is its supposed connection with the George Floyd protests, which were/are very pointedly material.  In the pejorative sense that right-wing culture warriors use the word “woke,” the protests aren’t actually “woke” in any meaningful sense.  Police brutality is not a symbolic offense; “defund the police” is not a demand to replace one symbol with another.  The protests have not focused on elevating or deposing specific individuals, modifying language norms, asking white people to more openly proclaim their anti-racist bona fides, or anything like that.  They’ve taken aim at a specific, dysfunctional part of American city governance (the police).  They have pursued those aims effectively, from what I can tell, without diffusing their focus, getting hijacked by personal agendas framed in related-sounding terms, or devolving into infighting.

The right-wing culture warriors would say leftists are never not “getting hijacked by personal agendas framed in related-sounding terms” and “devolving into infighting,” and TBH, on that one they have a point (echoed by no shortage of leftists since forever).  To them, it is simply another prediction confirmed to see a BLM protest one day and a bout of nonsensical left-of-center infighting the next.  But these aren’t actually the same people, or the same movement, are they?  So what’s going on?

From “stop killing us!” to “cancel culture” there is a missing step that needs some explaining.

(ii.)

The Taibbi piece helped convince me that something strange is happening inside major news outlets right now.

The Scott Alexander / NYT thing feels more intelligible (although perhaps this is a coincidence) in the context of a concurrent industry-wide upheaval which, justified or not, certainly can be expected to throw usually well-oiled machines into disarray.  Taibbi:

Beginning on Friday, June 5th, a series of controversies rocked the media. By my count, at least eight news organizations dealt with internal uprisings (it was likely more). Most involved groups of reporters and staffers demanding the firing or reprimand of colleagues who’d made politically “problematic” editorial or social media decisions.

The New York Times, the Intercept, Vox, the Philadelphia Inquirier, Variety, and others saw challenges to management.

At the Washington Post, there was that baffling choice to “cover” the “story” of a random person coming in blackface to the Washington Post’s own Halloween party two years ago, in an ill-advised reference to a then-current Fox News gaffe about blackface.  One of the most prestigious papers in the US ran this story, and somehow no one could figure out how this even occurred:

In the hours after publication, the story started to receive widespread criticism from journalists on social media on the grounds that it got its subject fired while lacking news value. (Readers had to get 85 percent of the way through the story to even learn that Schafer had lost her job when she told her employer the story would be running.) The article now has drawn over 2,000 web comments, which are overwhelmingly negative in nature. Yet aside from PR statements to outlets covering the Post’s coverage, the Post’s response to the criticism of this story has been silence.  If this is a story with “nuance and sensitivity” that the Post felt “impelled” to run, why is a spirited defense of the Post’s journalism coming only from a non-journalist spokesperson for the paper?

The answer we reached, after interviewing ten current Post journalists for this story, is that the paper’s staff generally does not consider the story to be defensible.“My reaction, like everybody, was, What the hell? Why is this a story?” a feature writer at the Post told New York. “My second reaction was, Why is this a 3,000-word feature?” The feature writer added, “This was not drawn up by the ‘Style’ section.”

Employees at “Style” — the paper’s premiere location for long-form storytelling — were confused and displeased to see the piece running on their turf, two Post employees with knowledge of the situation said. Neither Fisher nor Trent works for the “Style” desk, though as newspapers have gotten increasingly focused on digital distribution, the walls between newspaper sections have become more porous.

When things like this are happening, when one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing, when upper management is rotating out above you . . . things like the Scott Alexander episode don’t really feel surprising.

Journalism is always on a special kind of thin ice, because it has no function other than being a trustworthy source.  We understand that businessmen will lie to you to make a buck, and we may decry this, but we understand it’s not a paradox: that there is (or at least could be) some value in business itself, that must be traded off against truth-telling.

But a journalist is just a better version of your gossipy-but-trustworthy friend who hears a lot of things on the street.  That’s their purpose.  If they lose your trust, there’s nothing more there.  If they behave mysteriously, and do not explain themselves, and lean only on their august reputation (built by others, not the present speaker) for support . . . there’s nothing more left, to elevate them above your friend.  (Your friend wouldn’t do that!  Your friend would tell you what the hell is up, that’s making them all weird!)

Discussions about the prudence of “making war on the media” need to take this into account, I think.  People’s trust in the media has a certain lack of inertia.  Its role is clearly scoped, failure to serve that role is easy to document and publicize, and there is not enough built-up stock of trust, at the institution level (I’m sure you’ve seen the relevant public opinion polls), to prevent people from asking the question: “if you can’t do that, then what the hell do I need you for?”

(iii.)

Among the things that irked me about that Scott Alexander article in the New Yorker, there was this:

Additionally, it seems difficult to fathom that a professional journalist of Metz’s experience and standing would assure a subject, especially at the beginning of a process, that he planned to write a “mostly positive” story; although there often seems to be some confusion about this matter in Silicon Valley, journalism and public relations are distinct enterprises.

What does this mean?  It appears to be bald distrust of what Alexander relates about his own experience, on the basis that an experienced journalist like me wouldn’t do that.  It presents itself as something somewhere between opinion and fact.  Alexander is a character, the tone says, and I am an author.  He says his piece, and then I tell you the “real” story, with my imprimatur.

I felt the same allergy reading another, unrelated New Yorker article the same day.  Discussing Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist:

As a boy in Queens, Kendi found his life shaped by a fear of victimization. “I avoided making eye contact, as if my classmates were wolves,” he writes. “I avoided stepping on new sneakers like they were land mines.” In South Jamaica, his neighborhood, there was a local bully named Smurf, who pulled a gun on Kendi, and once, with Kendi watching, beat a boy unconscious on a city bus in order to steal his Walkman. This sounds terrifying, but Kendi now claims that his fears were delusional. [ . . . ] By the end of the section, the bully named Smurf seems less like a real person and more like a spectre: the personification of old racist ideas, come to life in the imagination of a fretful future scholar in Queens.

As it happens, there actually is a notorious tough guy named Smurf who grew up in Kendi’s neighborhood around the same time. He came to be known as Bang ’Em Smurf, a sometime rapper [ . . . ]

Is Kendi worthy of some basic modicum of trust and charity, or isn’t he?  He says he was bullied by a guy named Smurf.  The writer expresses ambiguously couched doubt (“seems less like a real person...”), but what he takes away, he then gives back -- with his special imprimatur.  “As it happens, there actually is” a Smurf.   You cannot know this from Kendi, a mere unreliable narrator, a subject of my narrative.  But you can know it by my word, for I am a priest of truth.

It might be a tasteless comparison, but there is some basic affinity between the way I feel reading these things -- right now -- and the way I feel watching the police mace civilians for no discernible reason, and then watching some functionary relate a sanctimonious yet incomprehensible “explanation” at a press conference later, saying the police department has done excellent work, we’re very proud of them.  Among the best in the country.

You are so used to my trust.  Your rhetoric, your reputation, live on that trust. I feel so oddly powerful, when I think about what it would mean to just provisionally retract it, and ask yourself to prove your worth, for once.

If you can’t do this, what are you for?

[dayanaaa2021]

Blog post: Weel 2 due 9/2

Is social media for the people or their people?

Social media is a complex network. Social media is derived from various outlets. Items that are considered social media are News channels, social networks, TV, and the Internet. Different people manage every outlet. The people that work on social media have control of everything.

Furthermore, individuals have bias opinions on every subject, Race/Ethnicity, age, and belief. In other words, social media will never be clean or truthful. In the readings, minorities dealt with racial bias, so social media struggled to maintain a professional resume. On the other hand, social media improved but is not qualified for society. For example, during the George Floyds riots, many outlets showcased what they wanted so they could protect the people they favored.

Furthermore, social media is for their people. Social media will never be for the people. In other words, social media gravitates to bias opinions and beliefs despite the facts. An example of social media projecting their ideas is when Fox News lies to the world, and no one can do anything about it. It’s a problem when Fox News’ stories begin to be more than stories, and it causes people to panic, which chaos develops. I think social media will never be for the people. It’s impossible to remove bias opinions or bribery. Social media follow the money, favors individuals/political parties, power and ratings. As long as any social media outlets have control of the things listed, they don’t care about the information distributed.

How do I overcome social media adversity?

I think I’m in a complicated relationship with social media. Sometimes I like social media because it allows me to get away from any tasks or problems I’m dealing with; however, social media is terrible for my mental health. I tend to get distracted by checking my phone 24/7 quickly. On the other hand, social media helped me become more knowledgeable about specific topics. For example, I read articles about how to detect gaslighting, help someone with an eating disorder, or apologize. The reports helped me a lot because I was oblivious to some phrases. For example, I learned to stop using the words “I don’t know what to tell you” and started using a term like “Do you mind if I take a few minutes to reflect on this.”

Furthermore, social networks are part of social media. The other social media that I struggle with is News channels. I try to watch various News channels because reporters are deceitful with malicious intentions. Every News channel has a motive behind the information presented. I compare every source possible because I can’t trust the reporter’s credibility. Living in fear or distrusting news channels made me realize that the world is evil and selfish; therefore, social media shows things they benefit from. Social media made me question everything and that every story/news is not what is display because there are more layers to that story/news. The real question is how to use social media to advantage and a friend rather than seeing it as an enemy.

Why hasn’t racial bias changed in social media/television over the years?

Social media is made up of white influencers, reporters, journalists, and actors etc. Gonzalez and Torres explained how minorities were hidden and kept away from any journalist career in the reading. To this day, minorities are isolated. For example, Tik-Tok(ers) steals dances from minorities and doesn’t give them credit. Specifically, the Renegade dance was created by Jalaiah Harmon. Jalaiah didn’t go viral for her dance but Charlie D’melio and Addison Rae. A controversy arose because it wasn’t the first time the influencer stole dances from minorities. The real question is why the white girls are getting famous and not Jalaiah.

Is it that Jaliah is not white or pretty enough? Does pretty privilege play a role in this? The answer is unknown; however, the example shows that minorities are being kept away.

Furthermore, if individuals change the News channel, they’ll see that almost every anchorman/woman is white. Why is this the case? I think the News station gravitates towards white people. I believe News station follows the “norm” to keep up with ratings and competitors. The News station is no longer about information the people but rather making money and protecting the person in charge. The BLM brought light to every situation by calling out social media. Diversity improved, but there’s plenty of progress left. I think people should be pushing these situations, so change is possible.

How does social media and capitalism interact?

Karl Marx thinks that social media and capitalism are similar. He believes that human beings are a never-ending spectrum for their interests, emotions, and activities. He realized that one’s desires drive the foundation of social media and capitalism. In other words, the only social part about the two is that human beings have the power to create change. For example, influencers and celebrities can make something trendy on social media. While capitalism’s primary focus is to make a profit, but they need help from society. Individuals have some power but not all of it since influential people control the News stations and other outlets. The only interest shared is the desire for human interaction and the motives.

 Fuchs, C. (2014).  Social Media: A Critical Introduction. SAGE Publications Ltd, https://www.doi.org/10.4135/9781446270066

 Gonzalez, J., & Torres, J. (2013). News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media. European Journal of Communication. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323113476985c

[tabloidtoc]

People, November 23

Cover: President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris -- it’s time for America to unite hallelujah! 

Page 3: Chatter -- Katie Holmes on what she’s valued during the pandemic, Jenny McCarthy on Wendy Williams accusing her of using lip fillers, Sam Smith on dreaming of living in Scotland, Nicki Minaj on her newborn son, Dave Chapelle on the country coming together, Emma Stone hinting at expanding her family on Entertainment Tonight 

Page 4: 5 Things We’re Talking About This Week -- Bruce Springsteen sets a record for the ages, Friends makeup is there for you, Wedding Crashers may get a sequel, Victoria Beckham disses David Beckham’s style, Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello adopt a dog 

Page 7: Contents 

Page 8: Star Tracks -- Jason Momoa who is in Toronto filming the second season of his series See bundled up for a ride on his Harley Davidson bike before grabbing lunch with friends 

Page 9: Royals Mark Remembrance Day -- Prince William and Prince Charles wore their military uniforms to lay wreaths of poppies during the annual Remembrance Day service, Princess Kate stood on a balcony overlooking the Cenotaph in London for the ceremony, across the pond Prince Harry and Meghan Markle visited the Los Angeles National Cemetery in honor of Remembrance Day laying flowers that Meghan picked from their garden at the gravesites of two Commonwealth soldiers 

Page 10: Chris Hemsworth showed off his chiseled physique after hitting the beach in Byron Bay in Australia, Ariel Winter who was reportedly house-hunting this fall lugged around a humongous roll of bubble wrap

Page 11: Orlando Bloom stepped out in Montecito with a new puppy, Mario Lopez and kids Dominic and Gia got their fight on at a jujitsu class, Rita Ora on the red carpet at MTV’s European Music Awards in London 

Page 12: Cute Couples -- Chrissy Teigen and John Legend celebrated President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in a drive-by caravan in Los Angeles, Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox held hands during a stroll in L.A., Wells Adams and fiancee Sarah Hyland 

Page 13: Hugh Jackman and wife Deborra-Lee Furness masked up for a walk with their dogs in NYC, Saweetie and Quavo stepped out for a date night in L.A., also at the Biden victory parade Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Falchuk in a classic Mercedes-Benz convertible 

Page 15: Scoop -- Clare Crawley and Dale Moss blow up The Bachelorette

Page 16: Tayshia Adams takes over The Bachelorette 

Page 19: Priyanka Chopra Jonas -- my happy life at home with Nick Jonas, Dancing with the Stars pro Gleb Savchenko’s divorce from Elena Samodanova is getting acrimonious over rumors he had an affair with his DWTS partner Chrishell Stause 

Page 20: Heart Monitor -- Kate Moss and Nikolai von Bismarck getting serious, Erika Girardi and Tom Girardi divorcing, Susan Kelechi Watson and Jaime Lincoln Smith engagement off, Julia Michaels and JP Saxe going strong 

Page 21: Vanessa Lachey on motherhood and movies and staying sane, Al Roker reveals aggressive prostate cancer diagnosis 

Page 23: Passages, Why I Care -- inspired by her grandfather former President George H.W. Bush activist Barbara Pierce Bush is encouraging others to volunteer 

Page 25: Stories to make you smile! This lovable pup Hina brings her own special charm to the family photos

Page 27: People Picks -- The Crown 

Page 28: The Life Ahead, Big Sky, Chris Stapleton -- Starting Over, Q&A Lily Rabe 

Page 29: Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey, Ammonite, I Am Greta, One to Watch -- Dash & Lily’s Austin Abrams 

Page 31: Books, Star Picks: What We’re Reading -- Alex Winter, Jane Lynch, Tamron Hall 

Page 32: Cover Story -- Decision 2020 -- it’s time to come together -- a divided nation in the grips of a pandemic turned out in historic numbers to elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris

Page 40: Alex Trebek -- a life well-lived -- inside the extraordinary career and final days of the beloved Jeopardy! host -- a romantic and an optimist who believed kindness should always prevail 

Page 46: Kylie Minogue -- a pop queen’s private world -- the Australian pop star talks about her three decades of fame and her new love and finding joy in a time of darkness 

Page 51: COVID-19 survivor story -- I’m the luckiest person alive -- one of the first coronavirus cases in the U.S. Gregg Garfield spent 64 days fighting for his life 

Page 54: Debbie Allen -- what I know now -- after 50 years in showbiz the award-winning actor and director is still dancing her way through life 

Page 59: Author and former NFL player Emmanuel Acho -- I felt called to help people understand racism -- devastated by the death of George Floyd the sportscaster launched Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man to help heal America’s racial divide 

Page 62: Murdered mom-to-be -- fatal affair? -- pregnant Kassanndra Cantrell was having a secret relationship with an ex and now police have charged him with killing her 

Page 64: The Mandalorian’s Pedro Pascal -- the man behind the mask -- you can’t see his face in the hit Star Wars series but protecting Baby Yoda is a dream role for the actor who is the son of refugees from Chile 

Page 66: Country star Carly Pearce -- surviving heartbreak and finding strength -- this summer she filed for divorce from fellow country singer Michael Ray after just 8 months of marriage and now the hitmaker is opening up about the decision she never wanted to make 

Page 71: Laverne Cox -- right now the world needs empathy and love -- the actress and activist has spent years leading the fight for transgender rights and inspiring the next generation 

Page 73: The 50 best beauty products of all time 

Page 87: Second Look -- David Koechner and Jessica St. Clair on The Goldbergs 

Page 88: One Last Thing -- Stevie Nicks

[lokodomains]

George Floyd death: Prosecutors seek higher sentence for Derek Chauvin

George Floyd death: Prosecutors seek higher sentence for Derek Chauvin

Prosecutors are asking a judge to give Derek Chauvin a more severe penalty than state guidelines call for when he is sentenced in June for George Floyd’s death, arguing in court documents filed Friday that Floyd was particularly vulnerable and that Chauvin abused his authority as a police officer. Defense attorney Eric Nelson is opposing a tougher sentence, saying the state has failed to prove…

[taramaclaywasaterf]

Just walked out to grab iced tea from the fridge and saw my dad sitting slackjawed on the couch watching Fox like he does every night, and was just in time to hear fucking Tucker Carlson literally compare wearing MASKS to A MAN FLASHING HIS PENIS IN PUBLIC. I wish I was joking. Like. I’m actually fucking nauseous.

I usually bite my tongue nowadays when it comes to the shit I overhear from Fox, but even my dad knew this shit was so bad that he paused the TV, knowing I wouldn’t be able to let that comment slide without saying anything.

So I just flat out said “how the hell do you watch him?”

And he said “because nearly everything he says is spot on.”

So I said “are you joking? Did you just hear him? He literally just compared wearing a mask that prevents the spread of an airborne virus to a man flashing his dick in public.”

My dad just fucking rolled his eyes and did that awful grunt/huff thing that men do when they’re angry, and he said “I don’t want to talk about him.”

I was just like “seriously?”

And this man- this grown ass fucking 60 year old man- PLUGS HIS FINGERS IN HIS FUCKING EARS LIKE A GODDAMN CHILD THROWING A TEMPER TANTRUM and screams “I just told you I don’t want to talk about him!”

I was just like “Jesus fucking christ” and walked away, because I’m just so fucking tired of this shit.

Like...I can’t fucking deal with it anymore. I don’t understand how anyone can watch Fox in general, but especially Tucker, and especially after his full blown mask-off racist segment where he quite literally openly spewed nazi shit, and the way he acted after the Chauvin trial. Like, my dad literally records this piece of shit’s “news” show every single night so he never misses it, even though he KNOWS it’s not even fucking news, and that Tucker literally went into court and flat out admitted no one with a brain would ever agree with or believe a word out of his mouth.

I’m so fucking tired and it’s infuriating and depressing and exhausting watching my own father spiral downward more and more into this evil black hole. I thought he was beginning to see how awful all this stuff was after the capital insurrection, but he had like a day of hope then just dug his heels in even deeper. He never used to be like this before Trump. Yeah, he was conservative, and yeah, we’d get into some pretty brutal fights over politics before all this, some that even lead to him kicking me out of the house even when I was a teenager...but now, it’s like he’s a completely different person. He’s just angry all the time. All he does is watch Fox and scroll on his stupid fucking racist Facebook groups and post memes about how dumb AOC is and talk about how wonderful and special and super duper talented Trump is and how Biden is the devil.

I can’t fucking deal with this shit anymore. And I don’t know what to do. I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried talking to him. I’ve begged him. I’ve showed him practically every piece of evidence proving that Fox is nothing but a propaganda machine that he’s willingly letting control him, that Trump was a horrific president and an embarrassment to the country and destroyed countless lives. I’ve shown him that the capital wasn’t raided by ~antifa~ and that BLM protests are overwhelmingly peaceful until police brutality turn them violent. I’ve shown him proof time and time again that the election wasn’t fucking stolen, that Trump lost because the country fucking hates him. I’ve showed him interviews by experts, articles by historians, firsthand witness accounts, everything you can possibly imagine from every unbiased, trustworthy source you can think of, all disproving every single one of his stupid fucking right ring lies. But it doesn’t change his mind. None of it. Nothing fucking matters. He doesn’t care. Trump still won. George Floyd still died of an overdose. Covid is still “not that bad.” Hilary and Obama are still apart of some ~cabal.~ Climate change is still a hoax. Biden is still a Chinese puppet, and he’s ready to step down any day now so that Harris can take over to fulfill some sort of super evil master plan.... It’s like he would believe the ocean is made of the blood of murdered children and that the existence of Canada is a hoax if fucking Tucker Carlson told him so. And I can’t fucking deal with it anymore, because it’s infuriating trying to talk to someone who exists in an entirely separate reality that they’ve concocted where everything is some grand conspiracy. I’m just so fucking tired.