#paid political broadcast

[sohannabarberaesque]

Nothing could be finer--

--than to imagine certain obnoxiously pathetic "political messages" airing at time rates cut short when the message starts getting dreadfully pathetic and conspiratorial, Twilight Zone-like even, and quickly replaced with some choice Hanna-Barbera flicktoon called from abeyance with no warning to the viewer (mostly lower-class "poor white trash" living in economically-challenged areas) save for an unexplained increase in volume when the flicktoon comes on.

[askblueandviolet]

Can I ask Aigou something? If so then...

You finally meet "the needy lunch date". What do you think about Macaque? Do you approve? Do you think he's the one for mayor? Will Public Relations do anything about it?

MASTER POST

Asks Start 💙💜🩷

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[theworldgate]

I have to explain what is going on in the UK, because it is absurd.

So, this is Gary Lineker:

He's known for a fair few things over here. He was a very good (association) footballer, playing for England in the 1986 and 1990 World Cups, winning the Golden Boot in 1986, and managing to never get a single yellow card in his playing career. He played for Leicester City, Everton, Barcelona, and Tottenham, before finishing his career in Japan. But if you aren't in your mid 30s, you probably know actually know him him for a couple of other things. The first is the role of spokesman for another Leicester icon, Walkers Crisps (which are sort of equivalent to Lays, but hit different), as pictured above. Despite being a notably clean player, he used to play a cheeky serial crisp thief. I don't think he's done that for well over a decade, but his ads were on the telly a lot when I was a kid and it's a bit like learning that the hamburglar was an incredibly clean (American) football player or something.

The second thing Gary is widely known for is having presented Match of the Day, the big football program on the BBC, the sort-of state broadcaster, since 1999. He is, incidentally, very well paid for this (though with a consensus that he could get even more if he went to one of the non-free-to-view broadcasters because he is very good at the job). He also has a twitter account. And political opinions. So, the UK government has got itself dead set upon doing heinous stuff that will totally somehow work to prevent people who want to come to the UK making the perilous crossing of the Channel (between England and France). By heinous, I mean "openly advertise that they won't attempt to protect victims of modern slavery" stuff. It's very obviously using a legal hammer to victimise a marginalised group of people in order to win votes. And, uh, I should clarify that by "legal" I mean "using the passage of laws" - the policy is, in addition to all the other ways it's awful, probably incompatible with the Human Rights Act and the UK's international law obligations. Gary, top lad that he is, objected to this. On Tuesday 7th March, he made a quote Tweet of a video of the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, bigging up the policy, he wrote "Good heavens, this is beyond awful.". This got a bunch of backlash from extremely right-wingers, and then he made the tweet that really got him in trouble (with right-wingers): "There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?".

Now, I am not actually subjecting myself to watching a video of Suella Braverman bigging up a cruel policy to say whether the specific comparison of the language to 1930s Germany is accurate. But needless to say, Ms Braverman was amongst the many figures on the right of UK politics objecting to Gary's rhetoric. And here's the part where a fact about the BBC comes in: it is nominally neutral and impartial (and so, of course, is routinely accused of bias from all sides but particularly the right-wing), and has something of a code for its contributors to this effect. Now, that code has previously been applied to Gary Lineker, over a comment about whether governing Conservative Party would hand back donations from figures linked to the Russian regime. But it generally hasn't been applied too strongly to people like Gary, whose roles have nothing to do with politics (such as presenting a "here's what happened on the footie today" show), on the basis that, well, their roles have nothing to do with politics. However, when directly asked about whether the BBC should punish Gary Lineker for his tweets, government figures basically went "well, that's a them problem". But a couple of days passed, and it seemed like Gary's approach of "standing his ground because he did nothing wrong" was working and everything would die down. He was set to get 'a talking to' but not much more than that. The Conservative right, after all their fire and fury earlier, had gotten bored and moved onto something else. And then, on Friday 10th March, the BBC announced that he would be suspended from hosting Match of the Day this weekend. But it could still go ahead, because there are, like, other hosts! Except, well, funnily enough, when you take a beloved figure off air, for making a fairly anodyne tweet, no one wants to be the scab who actually takes up the role of replacing him. Gary's two co-hosts, Alan Shearer and Ian Wright, said that they would not appear without him. People who (co-)host Match of the Day on other days followed suit. The net result is that Match of the Day is currently set to air without hosts, BBC commentary, or global feed commentary. And the solidarity shown to Gary Lineker, over what is very flagrantly actual cancel culture and an attack on freedom of speech (the logic implied is that institutional impartiality requires that no one say anything too critical of the government ever), has continued to grow. The BBC has pretty much been unable to run pretty much any live sports content today, and has resorted to raiding the BBC Sounds archive to fill the sports radio channel. And, as of 17:30 on Saturday 11th March, the situation shows no signs of improvement, though some are calling for the Chairman Richard Sharp, who is separately facing corruption allegations, to resign (yes I linked to the BBC itself there, there is nothing, nothing, the BBC loves more than going into great detail about how much the BBC sucks).

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dan Rather at Steady:

The morning after the election, I was talking with a friend who said something that made me pause: “The American people aren’t buying what the Dems are selling.” At the time I acknowledged the notion but filed it away for closer inspection, once the shock wore off.  Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party were selling hope and freedom, upholding the rule of law, saving democracy. What’s not to buy? With the benefit of lots of discussion, reading, watching, and thinking over the past 17 days, it became apparent that that analysis is incomplete.  It isn’t that the American people didn’t buy what Harris was selling; they didn’t know what she was selling. The increasingly powerful right-wing media championed her opponent’s message while distorting hers. And millions of Americans bought it. 

As The New Republic editor Michael Tomasky wrote, “It wasn’t the economy. It wasn’t inflation, or anything else. It was how people perceive those things, which points to one overpowering answer.” The right-wing media now controls the agenda.   For those of us who grew up on a steady diet of truth-telling, it’s gut-wrenching to see this mega misinformation machine grow into a multi-headed monster.   Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a shock. Gallup says trust in the media is at an all-time low. The most trusted news source according to YouGov is … The Weather Channel. Couple that with exit polls showing people who consume a lot of news from traditional sources voted overwhelmingly for Harris. 

If you only read The New York Times or watch CNN or so-called legacy networks such as CBS News, you might be surprised to learn there is a vast right-wing media ecosystem that goes well beyond Fox News. Founded in 1996, Fox is the granddaddy of the far-right media but has since been joined by Newsmax and One America News Network. This media universe also includes Sinclair Broadcasting, which owns hundreds of radio and TV stations — reaching 40% of the viewing public — and newspapers, including the recently purchased Baltimore Sun; iHeartMedia, which dominates right-wing talk radio and podcasting; Trinity and Bott Radio, two massive Christian broadcasting networks; social media platforms like Trump’s own Truth Social and X, owned by Trump bestie Elon Musk; and a multitude of hugely popular far-right podcasts.  Collectively, these various and varied media outlets have been feeding growing audiences a constant diet of disinformation for years. They have been fighting and winning an information war Democrats didn’t seem to know existed. The 2024 election may have been the inflection point when the right-wing media’s influence finally eclipsed the mainstream media. That is a major reason a convicted felon won with just under 50% of the popular vote.

The landscape is changing at light speed. Today, traditional media is not where most people get their news. Not so long ago you had to pick up a morning newspaper or turn on a television at a specific time to get news. Now “news” is available 24-7, from hundreds of sources, in tiny bite-sized portions, often without the benefit of context or even fact-checking. Right-wing outlets peddling half truths have learned how to navigate and thus dominate this new landscape. It is important to note that this battle is being waged between right-leaning media and mainstream media. The combatants are not two ideologues. One group is pushing a hard-right agenda, and the other is striving to report and expose the truth. The social media landscape mirrors this reality. On the right, you have Truth Social and X. On the left, not much. In reaction to the misinformation rampant on its sites during the 2020 election, Meta-owned platforms like Facebook and Instagram removed most political content.

An excellent read from longtime CBS News journalist Dan Rather on how right-wing media propaganda being fed to millions of Americans without any real fact-checking of lies is what led to Donald Trump become a Presidential candidate in the first place, let alone win twice.

[calabria-mediterranea]

A high-profile Italian author has accused Rai of censorship after his antifascist monologue was abruptly stopped from being aired, in what he called the “definitive demonstration” of alleged attempts by Giorgia Meloni’s government to wield its power over the state broadcaster.

Antonio Scurati was due to read the monologue marking the 25 April national holiday, which celebrates Italy’s liberation from fascism, on the Rai 3 talkshow Chesarà on Saturday night.

But as he prepared to travel to Rome, he received a note from Rai telling him his appearance had been cancelled “for editorial reasons”.

Scurati is well known in Italy for his books about the dictator Benito Mussolini and the fascist period. The cancellation of his monologue provoked fierce reaction from Rai journalists, fellow authors and opposition leaders.

His speech referenced Giacomo Matteotti, a political opponent of Mussolini who was murdered by fascist hitmen in 1924, and other massacres of the regime. It also contained a paragraph criticising Italy’s “post-fascist” leaders for not “repudiating their neofascist past”.

“Undoubtedly, this is what infuriated them,” Scurati told the Guardian. “And also because of what I represent and maintain in my books … [that] there is a continuity between the fascism of Mussolini and the populist nationalists in Europe.”

The Rai director Paolo Corsini denied that the monologue had been censored, telling the Italian media that an investigation “of an economic and contractual nature” was under way, while implying that the speech was cancelled because of the “higher than expected” fee sought by Scurati.

Scurati said his fee had been agreed and the contract signed before the monologue was due to be broadcast. “The fee was perfectly in line with those paid to authors … It was the same as in the past, when there were no issues.”

In solidarity, Serena Bortone, who presents Chesarà, read out the monologue on the show. It has also been published in full by several Italian newspapers and websites.

Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party has neofascist origins, came to power in October 2022 with a coalition including the far-right League and the late Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.

During the election campaign, Meloni said the rightwing parties had “handed fascism over to history for decades now”. However, Scurati claimed in his monologue that when forced to address fascism at historical anniversaries, Meloni has “obstinately stuck to the ideological line of her neofascist culture of origin”, for example by blaming the Mussolini regime’s persecution of the Jews and other massacres on Nazi Germany alone.

Meloni responded by publishing the speech on her Facebook page, while attacking Scurati and accusing the left of “shouting at the regime”.

“Rai responded by simply refusing to pay €1,800 (the monthly salary of many employees) for a minute of monologue,” she said. “I don’t know what the truth is, but I will happily publish the text of the monologue (which I hope I don’t have to pay for) for two reasons: 1) Those who have always been ostracised and censored by the public service will never ask for anyone to be censored. Not even those who think their propaganda against the government should be paid for with citizens’ money. 2) Because Italians can freely judge its content.”

Since coming to power, the Meloni government has been accused of increasingly exerting its power over Rai while edging out managers or TV hosts with leftwing views. The European Commission was last week urged to investigate the government’s alleged attempts to turn the broadcaster into a “megaphone” for the ruling parties before the European elections.

Meloni’s administration has also been accused of trying to influence other areas of the press and targeting journalists with legal action who criticise the government. A Brothers of Italy politician recently proposed toughening penalties for defamation, including jail terms of two to three years.

Elly Schlein, the leader of the centre-left Democratic party, said: “The Scurati case is serious; Rai is the megaphone for the government.” Carlo Calenda, the leader of the centrist Azione party, said: “Silencing a writer for saying unpleasant things about the government is simply unacceptable.”

Scurati said he has received solidarity from many authors and journalists who were otherwise afraid to speak out against the government.

“This episode is the definitive demonstration, as it has finally aroused the revolt of other writers, intellectuals and journalists who until now kept quiet,” he said. “This government launches violent personal attacks against you for speaking out, in my case [that] I asked for too much money.”

Follow us on Instagram, @calabria_mediterranea

[kkoffin]

Im sorry I just have to rant for a sec.

Everytime I see a radfem talk about the palestine and isreal situation, they never actually talk about whats happening in palestine or the history behind it. Like they never have a discussion about palestine itself.

Unless to say, that hating on jews isn't right. Which I agree with 100%. But why is that the only time the situation, or the GENOCIDE gets talked about in radfem spaces.

Why isn't radfems actually advocting/discussing about it, with deep analysis and data, as they do with other important discussions (fgm, racism, gender ideology, misogyny in many types, ect ect)

Idk maybe I'm just full of hate.

I believe that if you aren’t thoroughly educated on a topic I don’t think you should broadcast your uneducated opinions to ur followers. I do not consider myself educated enough on the history and politics to speak on the topic, but I assure you, there’s aplenty of discussion about it not only in radfem spaces but in all leftist spaces if you want to engage with it. Or even better, just do your own research. Stop relying on fucking social media accounts and tumblr blogs for your global political views. I kinda have to ask, why is it that every time I talk about being jewish or about antisemitism, my ask inbox is flooded with interrogations regarding a conflict I never claimed to be educated on? As far as I’m aware, I speak very little on the I/P conflict outside of responding to said asks. Even then, I ignore half of them.

I recognise antisemitism when I see it. I am cautious of who I tell I’m jewish. I keep updated on who’s yelling “fuck the jews” and who’s burning and graffitiing synagogues, only for my own safety. I’ll say something when someone in my community says “antisemitism isn’t real” or “I wouldn’t shed a tear if there was an organised rape against jewish women”, but I never claimed to be an expert on some many many decade old political issue. I’m not a journalist, I don’t research every happening in Israel and Palestine and its entire history. It’s simply not my area of expertise, but for some fucking reason when yall hear I’m jewish, you insist it must be, and interrogate me with questions about it. My blog and my interests are with women’s issues, not wars. I am jewish, sometimes I will speak about antisemitism and the jewish experience. “they never talk about the history” okay and yall don’t talk about the history of the civil war in Syria. Or immigration, or global warming or animal abuse. It’s just not my field. I do not know enough of the history to make claims and start debates. You cannot expect everyone to know everything. I have a fucking law degree to fill my brain with on top of women’s issues. Do not expect every social media influencer and blogger to know everything about every issue enough to speak on them all. We are not the president. We are (mostly) teenagers and young adults who have laundry to fold.

“why aren’t radfems actually advocating…” probably the same mf reason. they have a focus on women’s issues. I have occasionally mentioned the rape involved in the conflict, but all that boils down to is men rape. no matter what their political alignment, no matter who they think owns what land. If men are so inclined and they are provided the opportunity, they rape women. That’s as far as it goes regarding my field.

I will not speak on an issue I do not feel confidently educated on. Just because I’m jewish doesn’t mean I know every working of the IDF, and I never claimed to. Please fuck off and stop interrogating jewish people on their opinions of the actions of a government/military they aren’t even governed by. And stop relying on and expecting fucking tumblr blogs to tell you about every issue in the world. Go ask someone who’s got it as their paid job.

[elisysd]

Epilogue

Masterlist - Previously

Monaco - May 2024

“Charles Leclerc is the Monaco Grand Prix winner!” 

The room erupted in cheers and cries. Hugs were met in awkward embraces while tears were streaming down his loved ones faces. Years of hard work and sacrifices finally paid off. And it was so worth it. He could feel his own tears on his cheeks but he didn’t care. That win mattered more than any others. Frantically he searched for his team on the side and ran towards them. Arthur was crying, Lorenzo was not far from doing so, Joris was a happy mess, Andrea was beaming with pride but the only face that truly mattered to him was so far in the back that the only thing he could notice was the hair and the sunglasses perched above. He tried to tell everyone to move so you could make your way to him but no one was hearing him and far too soon he was dragged away from the red sea acclaiming him like the hometown hero he was. 

On the podium, he tried to engrave every sensation he was feeling. The sun on his face, the cool breeze making its way under the monegasque flag resting around his shoulders, the applause and chants from the crowd. When he opened his eyes, he met almost immediately yours. You were there, next to his mom who was keeping her hand in yours. You had cried and maybe you were still doing so. 

It hadn’t been a walk in the park for both of you since Abu Dhabi. You had moved back to Paris and had been swamped by work and opportunities. The podcast had taken off very well and you knew you partly had Charles to thank for that. It was going on so well that your old boss had come crawling back to you, trying to persuade you to sell the projects to the channel so it could have a broader audience. You politely declined the offer but not without asking Jean and Marion if they were interested in working with you. Your new goal was to expand the coverage to Formula 2 and Formula 3. Moto GP was also a target, but you couldn’t do it on your own, especially since Susie Wolff had offered you to partner with the F1 Academy. And besides the podcast, you also had a Youtube channel where you were broadcasting reports and soon a website. A lot of work that you couldn’t achieve all alone. Jean and Marion hadn’t given a lot of thought to the project, accepting almost immediately, eager and enthusiastic to work with you again. 

Needless to say that you had barely enough time for your personal life. But it didn’t matter, you were managing it. Whenever Charles had time, he was coming to Paris and you were trying your best to fit him in your schedule. Your relationship with Charles was going slowly but you both didn’t mind. You were taking your time, truly getting to know one another in every way possible to the point that now you could say you were knowing his soul by heart. And he could say the same about you. All was well. 

You were waiting near the hospitality where Charles was going to arrive any minute now. You couldn’t wait to see him, especially since you had good news to tell him. You had kept it for yourself for a while now, waiting for the right opportunity to tell him. If Monaco was working out, it would have been an added bonus and if it didn’t, it would have been nice comforting news. You were glad it was the first option. 

He finally came through the door, hair a mess and his trophy firmly pressed against his chest. 

“Congrats, champ!” you said as you put a hand on his cheek.

“I did it. I finally did it. Can you believe it?”

“I do. Because I always had faith in you and in your talent.”

“Not always,” he winked, giving you a slow kiss, shushing you as you were about to reply.

“I have something to tell you,” you slowly said, both hands laid flat against his chest as you closed your eyes, taking a deep breath in. 

Charles took your hands in his, guiding you towards the sofa as he gave you a worried look. 

“It’s not bad,” you quickly reassured him. “On the contrary, I think it will make you happy,” you paused before continuing. “With how much the podcast and everything revolving around it grows, I thought it was time to search for offices. That way, it will be easier to separate my professional life with the personal one. I need it. And maybe it will be the occasion to recruit some new people. And I found ones which I really loved. I signed the lease on Friday, so I guess it is official.”

Charles gulped, unsure of what to say. On one hand, he was happy for you, truly. He loved seeing you going for things you were passionate about. But at the same time, it was hard to see you building your life so far away from him.

“I’m glad, that’s nice,” he managed to say. 

“Yeah, and I’m sure you will love them.”

“I have no doubt. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to travel to Paris to see them, though.”

“That’s a good thing, they are in Monaco, then,” you winked as his mouth was opening and closing in disbelief. 

“Monaco? But… how? Why? When?”

“Because I wanna get closer to you. I want to see you more and have more time for us. I think that if I’m there, it will be easier to find the right balance. As much as I don’t like the idea of delegating, I know that I need to. And if it results from being by your side more than a few days a month, then I think it’s only right to take that step. And who doesn’t want to have a view of the sea from the office?” 

Charles was at a loss for words. He had so many questions to ask but didn’t know where to start. 

“So you’re leaving Paris?”

“I do. I found an apartment in Menton. And who knows, if everything goes to plan, maybe in a few months, we can move in together.”

It was not the first time the subject was dropping but you had quickly come to an agreement that you both needed to find the right pace in your relationship and as long as you were comfortable by being the way you were, there was no need to rush anything. And as you both had discussed it, the day you would move in together, it would be in a neutral place where no bad and bitter memories were living in the walls. 

“You’re amazing, you know that?” he asked, stars in his eyes, cradling your face. 

“I know, I am. But I can only be amazing if you are as well. And you, Charles Leclerc, you are the most perfectly imperfect man I’ve come across. I love you today, tomorrow and for as long as you will want me.”

“Then, I hope you are ready for forever,” he smiled. 

“Even forever doesn’t seem long enough.”

Author's note: What a ride it has been but the final word has been written down. Again, thank you for everything and your support. Genuinely, I think that if you hadn't been there motivating me, this story wouldn't have been finished and I would have given up a long time ago. So thanks you. This story is more yours than it ever been mine. Thank you for bearing with me and the messy schedule upload. Until next time and until then, I will take a few weeks of rest while preparing the next story. I'll post snippet soon.

Don't hesitate to leave a comment or an ask, as well as reblogging and leaving a like. Besides the fact that I absolutely love to read you, it helps a lot for the story to find its audience. I also have a taglist for this story, so if you want to be added so you never miss a chapter, let me know.

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[probablyasocialecologist]

Internet politics have been shaped by a cyberlibertarian framing best exemplified by the writings of Electronic Frontier Foundation cofounder John Perry Barlow, whose Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace became a key statement of principles for digital activists. His manifesto targeted its ire at governments, telling them, “You have no sovereignty where we gather.” He made no mention of the harmful influence corporations could have on online spaces, which was a reflection of Barlow’s personal politics. He was not only a speechwriter for Dick Cheney in the 1970s, but the Declaration itself was published at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in 1996. This cyberlibertarian framing of digital politics and its focus on speech over political economy has proved beneficial for tech companies for many years. As US tech firms went global, digital activists frequently opposed government efforts to regulate or restrict tech platforms as threats to their citizens’ digital rights and freedom of expression, largely ignoring the economic impacts of US economic imperialism in those countries. In the process, US companies were able to dominate international markets and few countries were able to establish the necessary economic protections to develop serious competitors to the American giants. In countries like China, where protections were effectively implemented, digital and human rights groups rarely paid any mind to the economic component of those policies; they were narrowly positioned as censorship measures. The Great Firewall is used to restrict what Chinese internet users can access and post online, but it is also an economic measure. China protected its tech sector in a similar way that Japan and South Korea protected their automotive and electronics industries in decades past, spawning globally competitive, export-oriented companies like Toyota and Samsung. China’s Great Firewall allowed it to do the same, creating serious competition for Silicon Valley that would have never happened without economic protectionism. Digital rights activism served the global ambitions of the tech monopolies forming in Silicon Valley and Greater Seattle by positioning attempts at restricting platforms and making companies abide by local rules and norms appear as overbearing government intrusions on people’s rights. In the cyberlibertarian framing, government — not corporations — are the enemy, and that was reflected in the way many activists long approached tech policy. It certainly doesn’t seem like a coincidence that it also served US commercial and geopolitical ambitions. Where countries previously placed ownership restrictions on its media and telecommunications sectors and invested in public broadcasters, that was all out the window with the internet. Foreign governments were expected to accept the dominance of US firms, or else be accused of breaching their citizens’ rights.

6 September 2024

[secular-jew]

A Dose of Clarity on the Palestinian Storyline

~~ By Valerie Sobel

Whenever Western media, Western governments, Israel, or anyone draws an intentional disconnect between the Palestinians and Hamas, a myriad of lies and warped presumptions are activated.

The political correctness machine, invented by liberals but operated by everyone today with respect to the current war in the Middle East guarantees 100% detachment of the poor Palestinian and his cause from terrorist Hamas. But the cost of this on-going theatre is egregious intellectual corruption; a complete reversal of truth and entire revision of Middle East history.

If Hamas is, indeed, a rogue terrorist regime under which the poor Palestinian is suffering, are we to erase all irrefutable knowledge and evidence of the following?

1. Palestinians elected Hamas as their ruling government in the year 2007 by an overwhelming majority. In their charter, Hamas boldly states aspirations to wipe Israel of the face of the earth in not one but 36 separate articles.

2. Before Hamas, Palestinians produced one Yasser Arafat who founded the art of terrorism and airplane highjacking. No amount of concessions and negotiation with this father of terrorism, for decades, convinced the Palestinians to adopt a two-state solution for peaceful co-existence.

3. Before Yasser Arafat, Palestinians produced another leader, Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem who actively worked against the UN’s two-state solution platform of 1948, led the 1920 Nebi Musa riots against the Jews in the very Jewish Palestine, and established himself as an ally in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. During World War II he collaborated with both Italy and Germany by making propagandistic radio broadcasts and by aiding the Nazis recruit 25,000 Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS. The more Jews killed the better for this Palestinian also. On meeting Adolf Hitler, he demanded Hitler opposes the establishment of a Jewish national home in Jewish Palestine.

4. Since the failed Oslo Accords of the 1990s, more 2400 Israelis have been killed or wounded in terror attacks by the Palestinians.

5. Beside popular Hamas membership, Islamic Jihad, The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Fatah, Tanzim and Muslim Brotherhood -all made up of “innocent” Palestinian citizenry.

6. Palestinian children, from nursery age are systematically taught to regard Jews as the infidel enemy who took their land. Schools employ maps where Israel doesn’t exist. Children are instructed to kill Jews, join ISIS and Hamas for the glory of Islam. This is proudly exhibited to the world as a moral duty for young Palestinians.

7. Palestinian children are also reared for martyrdom by their parents and families. Islam’s promise of eternal life with 72 virgins and the favour of Allah is the goal of life, not life itself. Highest honor is given to families of martyrs who execute Jews.

8. Palestinian families are paid a monthly stipend for life by the Palestinian Authority when a family member is martyred in the duty of slaughtering Jews. It is estimated out of 2000 Gazan terrorists who came into Israel on October 7th to behead, burn alive and kidnap - one half (1000!) were Palestinian citizens who were promised 17,000 shekels and up for broken limbs, rapes and savage killings. For every person kidnapped, they were promised an apartment.

9. Kibbutz Kfar Azza was entirely penetrated and terrorized by scores of Palestinians on foot, on bicycle and motorcycle for the job of massacring babies, children and anything that moved. This was documented in vivid color by a CNN reporter, Hassan Eslaiah.

10. Maps of Sderot police station (first venue of slaughter), homes, businesses and everything inside, including what the family dog looks like and where the safe rooms are….information all meticulously collected by 20,000 regular Palestinians entering Israel on permits to work daily. Without these details provided by everyday Palestinians allowed to enter Israel on goodwill, Hamas had no way to execute the massacres.

11. For as long as the Palestinians have invented themselves as Palestinians to illegitimately lay claim to Jewish ancestral land Romans called Philistine…they have publicly cheered and celebrated every Jewish death. Whether it’s candy distribution or singing and dancing or setting the Israeli flags on fire. The elation at Jewish suffering is generational and feverish and has nothing to do with Hamas origins.

12. Palestinians are first and foremost Sharia Law Muslims of the Quaran. They are no different than the 22 Arab states surrounding Israel that share no love loss for Israel simply because it exists. For Islamic law, the very existence of Israel is diametrically opposite to Quran’s instruction of slaying Jews “wherever you can find them”. Or Qurans’s 177 instructional statements that Jews are “descendants of apes and pigs” and must be slayed.

13. Every sign of millions of Palestinians on the streets of Europe and America today that reads “from the river to the sea” is from the Palestinian charter of driving Israel into annihilation. Every mouth that utters it is calling for the explicit desire for Jewish extermination.

What’s happening today is simple; this is a religious war. It is NOT terrorism. It is certainly no land dispute. It is Jihad in the name of Allah. And every government of the western world knows it.

So why the continued farce of separating and detaching the Palestinians and their “cause” from known history, from Hamas, from Islamic Jihad, from Fatah, from PLO, from Tanzim and PFLP, all Palestinian groups aiming at Israel’s annhialation?

Because an admission of truth will, perish the thought:

a) Delegitimize the UN at its core

b) Force European nations and the US to admit utter failure of decades of foreign policies

c) Force a myriad of civilized countries to quit financial aid to the Palestinians, hence admitting billions of dollars of taxpayer theft.

d) Elucidate the fallacy and fraud of that two-state solution, which was invented by the west (prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948) in order to appease the 22 Arab states. But more importantly…

e) Will immediately unite the Arab world, including nuclear Iran, in a war against the west. This very real and justified fear of Islam and its 2 billion followers who believe in the supremacy of the sword, in beheadings, rapes, massacres and annihilation of western civilization in the name of Allah is palpable. This very basic of human emotions, fear, is the catalyst for every lie, for all the theatre, for all the fraud around the fabricated Palestinian victimhood. It will continue to the end of time until Islam’s demographical strength reaches a critical mass for the destruction of an entire society of Judeo-Christian culture. And then, and only then, truth will be allowed, Islamophobia will be understood not as racial discrimination but as a rational fear rooted in evidence and posing an immediate threat to our existence. And finally, that survival-of-the-fittest meter will begin ticking.

As for Israel and the Jewish plight - the sacrificial lamb, the Jews will continue to repeat “Never Again!”through every atrocity, every raging antisemitic-crime statistic, every American campus pro-Hamas rally with “Kill The Jews” signs, every Jihad war, every Palestinian stabbing and every missile launched at Tel Aviv…until the end of time. Mindlessly parroting something that has never been true, because there is simply no other hope.

Until the west finds its balls against Islam, nothing changes. Western governments’ and media’s established theatre of lies and fraud narratives for the Palestinians and their cause …IS the very manifestation of real justified Islamophobia. Until the west feels an immediate threat to its survival, no matter how many times Israel screams “You’re next!”, nothing changes.

[notaluckypup]

Okie doke! Now that I know how things work here a bit better here’s a full update to my ✨intro✨ post😵‍💫

DNI-

Minors- this is a Nsfw blog, enough said. Ageless blogs will be blocked for safety unless I can 100% tell you are over 18.

Terfs, swerfs- I am both trans and a sex worker.

Bigots of all kinds- self explanatory.

Okokok Hey There‼️

I’m Lucky🍀

I’m 20

they/he pronouns

I’m a switch who’s been a cam model for about a year now and looking to have more connections and experience😵‍💫💕

This is a blog full of all the things I fantasize about, as well as my personal little hub for letting the world know when I have photo sets, am available for personal calls, or am broadcasting!

Dm me for my menu!!! I am happy to discuss and explain things in detail so please do not hesitate to ask💕

All of my scene and roleplay work is discussed before hand with safewords and limits pre-discussed and consented to. I do not work with no limits.

💕Likes💕

🔥Names- lucky, puppy, sir, good boy, mutt

🔥Compliments- handsome, pretty, whatever you like really as long as it has good intentions^^

🔥Anatomy- cunt, boycunt, boypussy, tits, chest

🔥Getting asks/comments/dms- again as long as you’re polite

🔥Basic Kinks you’ll find here- puppy play, primal, dumbification, overstim, edging, cock warming, weed intox, cnc/ free use and breeding themes

Tag system:

#lucky rambles - my original posts! Is kinda scattered throughout everything.

#lucky jests - jokes, little diddies- sometimes reacting to my followers, sometimes just the random shit that flies into my head

#pup in charge - more dominant original posts!

#pup answers- responding to asks!

#puppy puffs - weed intox original posts!

#pups pics- irl pics and promos for photos sets! Feel free to block this tag if your not interested!

#going live - accompanied with a link to my cam, the length of my streams vary rn so the faster the better for free content!

#serious pup - my genuine takes, usually trying to educate due to bigotry or a shitty interaction.

If any of it isn’t for you, that’s ok! Just block or scroll!

💔Dislikes💔

😵‍💫Under negotiation- nervousness is not an excuse to not fully discuss what you want from an interaction. Be upfront and I am more likely to respond.

😵‍💫Misgendering- I am relatively masculine aligned and I have facial hair. I love dressing up in make up and cute clothes but that doesn’t mean I consent to any sort of detrans kink.

😵‍💫Beggars and choosers- I love chatting with people and making friends AND I will be posting pictures here, however I will not be giving out any paid content for free no matter how charming I might find you. This is my job and at the end of it I still need to eat

‼️‼️Pups playpen application down below- join my server for people who enjoy my content with a focus on community and kink safety. Join us for game nights, private content, and more!‼️‼️

My operating hours are 12pm to 10pm EST (with exceptions) Don’t be afraid to message or send asks! I love to chat💕💕💕💕

[kevin-ibw]

Omg I love your Vees but I’m kinda curious as to how they run the entertainment district. I feel like I understand how they run the church very well and how they promote constant indulgence in sin but I’m curious as to how the Vees themself run their original area of expertise.

Does anything change with how they run stuff. Does Velvette run her fashion industry like normal does she change the algorithm to boost anything related to religion? Does Val continue to run his industry like normal or is it different too. Is Angel Dust still owned by Val and what’s his relation to the Hotel and Val with this AU and how things are ran. Does Vox do his broadcast and do they run like those 24 hour church sermon tv channels?

How the Vees run the Entertainment District

Vox: He has the most popular streaming services, so It's not surprising he'd have an ad that plays once and while that preaches about how you should trust your safety with our savior, and yes he does indeed have a broadcast dedicated to a 24hr church sermon, it's the only you can get until you pay for other cables or the streaming services.

Velvette: You're right about the algorithm thing. She runs the fashion industry as she usually does. Occasionally, Velvette will add a line of various different nun outfits that look rather explicit and scandalous. She always reassures everyone that clothes should be a freedom of expression. Velvette had threatened everyone that questioning her words is equivalent to questioning Vox's words, and you don't want to question your savior, now do you?

Valentino: Funnily enough, Val's the only one that doesn't have a religious role between the three of them. Vox is the angel, Vel is the nun, but Val? He's a mafioso leader, something that has NO ties to Christianity. The other Vees have told him that he could always be a priest but Val would rather shoot himself with an angelic bullet than ever pick up those garments of clothing.

But he does have a way of implementing some religious innuendos in his porn films. Val selectively interpret biblical passages about sex to fit his narrative and justify certain behaviors depicted in his films. He emphasizes passages that highlight the beauty and pleasure of sexual intimacy while downplaying or ignoring passages that emphasize restraint or monogamy.

He manipulates the feelings of guilt and shame associated with people's sexual desire, offering his films as a form of relief or absolution. Eventually, his viewers would indulge in lustful sinning themselves.

Val is a lot more stricter in his terms on what is acceptable for his films, he has high standards for his scripts which kind of bite him in the ass the majority of the time. "The best kind of porn is the one that has an underlying plot point, no matter how small it is." As he would put it.

One thing that seems heavily ironic to his character is that the act of sex isn't actually something that Val indulges in often. Sure he fucks and sleeps around a few times, but this is his way of relaxing from all the mafioso business, a way to display his artistic creativity.

But despite the fact that the porn gig is supposed to be his way of relaxation, he reviews several manuscripts for his films overnight and doesn't get enough sleep for it.

Angel and his relationship to Valentino and the Hotel

Being done with his family business, Angel tries to find an excuse to get away from it all by working with a moth who runs hell's porn industry, only for him to realize that said moth also runs a mafioso. Perhaps he should've paid more attention to politics.

Angel tells himself that it's fine. The guy seems decent enough so far. He's allowed to do some porn gigs and occasionally snark back at the boss without much repercussion, so he's safe so far. But then things start getting a bit complicated, and Angel gets dragged into Val's more shady business. Debt collecting, drug trading, and even deal making, and suddenly he realizes he's now into some deeper shit.

"If you think I don't do background checks on my employees, then you're sorely mistaken, Angie."

"Your father's been a real thorn at my side for far too long."

Angel tries to compromise. He doesn't exactly hate his family, but he doesn't want them double dead either, so he offers his soul as a way of exchange to live them alone. They're the only thing left he has in this shithole of an afterlife, and having something is better than having nothing.

Val considers it, Angie has been his top earner for the time he spent being employed. He's fairly skilled with guns and has a natural charm that can be used for negotiation, so he agrees. The rest is history. Then we catch up to the events of season one.

Angel: "So what's this hotel all about?"

Charlie: "We are attempting to give sinners in hell salvation so they can be redeemed!"

Angel: "... so a cult?"

Vaggie irritated: "Not a cult."

Angel sounding really unconvinced: "A cult."

Part two of Angel getting dragged into situations where he doesn't want to, he couldn't say no a gaint 10ft moth overlord, he can't exactly say no to the princess of hell and her exorcist girlfriend, ESPECIALLY when he knows what happens to the people that even lightly insult Lucifer's daughter. I guess he's now involved in her little pet project now. Doesn't mean Val is happy about it.

Because great, if Vox beinf gone for 7 years didn't make Val unhappy, hearing that his now top earning employee is now a patron of CHARLIE MORNINGSTAR's little hotel, then more fuel is just being added to the fire that is Val's stress levels.

Val: "Angie why the fuck are you associated with LUCIFER'S DAUGHTER."

Angel: "Val, I'm telling ya, I literally got dragged into this unwillingly. You gotta believe me."

Val: "Por el amor de Lucifer- and WHY exactly?" He violently hisses out.

Angel shrugs all four of his arms.

[lady-rosceline-hurst]

--------------------------

>>Connecting to the Omninet..

…

>>Connection secured, details below.

>>Current Solar System - Erinyes

>>Location - [REMOVED]

>>Terminal - [REMOVED]

>>Broadcasting encrypted message..

>>Receiver - [REDACTED]

--------------------------

“..Well, this is a fucked situation you've gotten yourself in. Always with the damned nobles and fuck ass political shit."

[A sigh can be heard, alongside various mechanical clings, a few grunts, and a muttered curse.]

"..But you're better than your ass-cabbage of a mother. I'll cut you a deal. I'll help out with whatever fuck ass plan you have going on, in return for something; you get more aggressive with yer planned reforms, and follow through. More benefits to the people."

"For the record, I still hate you damn nobles. House o' Stone especially, they can hang themselves with their own intestines. If they don't, I'll do it myself. I wouldn't mind havin' yer mother's skull in either, but that's beside the point."

--------------------------

>>Broadcast terminated.

>>Good hunting.

--------------------------

[ECHO.EXE RUNNING]

- Fuhu~

- I must admit, several weeks ago I would have found thine attitude repulsive and unacceptable. But as it doth stand now? I do find thine... enthusiasm... most refreshing, truth be told.

- A release of all indentures under the House of Hurst, fair pay, room and board, medical benefits (including trans-affirmative health-care), paid vacation days, sanctuary for those fleeing other houses...

- Fuhu... were it not for the ECHO I would surely be taken back to the dungeons for such speech. I sound damn near Republican. Be this sample of mine planned reforms for those under mine care sufficient to convince thee?

- If so, thou shalt find covert room and board not far in the city from mine estate, and thine part in mine plans shall be revealed to thee within due time. I would request as well that thou tryest to conceal thine identity, for reasons that should be obvious.

- Thou dost a service unto mine people, I hope thou knowest. I await thine response.

[transmutationisms]

i think it's easy to feel a sense of special moral urgency when people are spouting horseshit or lies on social media because it's like, we still have a tendency to conceptualise these platforms the same way we do legacy mass media like newspapers and tv: as a one-way broadcast that has power to sway 'public opinion' en masse and create material change as a result. in reality (and leaving aside the question of how well that model even applies to the old media forms—ie, to what extent they create material conditions vs reflect them), i don't think social media really functions the same way. it often feels like "everyone" is on there and "everyone" is hearing whatever potentially dangerous nonsense, but like. most people are not actually users of any given platform, and even if they are, most of them are not following any one specific creator lol. posts and videos get circulated, but in such a massive and fractured conversation, as opposed to a unilateral broadcast model, that i think stupid bullshit on social media is more akin to stupid bullshit people say to each other in line at the bakery or whatever than it is to some kind of mass-converting propaganda brainzap emanating from the tv. which is again not even really an accurate understanding of the state of information and mass politics even in the case of like, legacy media forms in the 20th century imho. none of this means it's, like, good when people are walking around saying lies or getting paid for doing so. but i don't think it's really helpful to keep playing this one-upping game of morally inflected fact-checking, and if it were it presumably would have yielded some result in between now and like y2k

[goldenempyrean]

“I think you caught my cold…” pairing Scarlet/reader

Let's Go Home

〚 Notes - This was super fun to write since I've had this req for a while :) Hopefully you enjoy :D 〛

〚 Summary - Scarlett's sick at a movie preimere meaning it's up to you to take care of her - even if it does mean going home early. 〛

〚 Wordcount - 1200 〛

〘 Check Out My Masterlist! 〙

╚════════ ⋇⋆✦⋆⋇⋆✦⋆⋇ ════════╝

“I think you caught my cold sweetie.” You whispered softly as Scarlett turned away from the crowd of cameras to muffle yet another sneeze. 

Now it wasn’t obvious yet, but her eyes were a little watery, and the skin beneath her reddish nose quivered a little as she sniffled and dabbed at it with a crumpled tissue, “There’s not exactly much that we can do about it though,” She whispered, clearing her throat a little, “We need to be here.” 

 Well, that was true. The pair of you were currently walking down the red carpet for the premiere of your latest movie which you’d both played in. Unfortunately, you’d had a cold yourself a few days ago and Scarlett had insisted on taking care of you the whole time, but her kindness seemed to have been paid back in a less than pleasant way. 

Her head, already congested with cold-related fluids felt like it was spinning and swooning at 100 mph, and you couldn’t help but rub her back as she rested her chin on your shoulder, whining quietly at a volume only you could hear. In response to her low whimper, you turned away from all the prying cameras and offered her a soft, sympathetic look whilst kissing her warm cheek gently. 

She wasn’t usually the type to suffer in silence, but right now, she had little choice especially with all the bright ever-watching cameras flashing in her eyes. The constant brightness only serving to make her dizzy. The light-headedness was making her feel like she was going to topple over. Like she had no energy left to face the onslaught of watching eyes. All you wanted to do was to whisk her away and tuck her up into bed where she could just relax without having to worry about a thing. 

Unfortunately relaxing definitely wasn’t in the list of the things she had to do tonight. Not only did you have to get through the screening, but she’d also been booked for an exclusive interview with a major broadcaster meaning she had no way of getting out of it without causing a hassle, not to mention the multiple afterparty invites that she needed to politely decline. 

The two of you were briefly parted as you both were drawn aside by different interviewers with their burning questions. You did try your best to answer yours in the best way possible, but it was especially hard when you could see Scarlett wearily rubbing her temples out of your peripheral vision as she talked to her interviewer. The poor thing looked exhausted, and your sympathy only increased when you heard Scarlett’s breath catch in her throat mid-answer, you turned just in time to see her raise a hand to the interviewer pausing him in place as she buried her nose into her thoroughly abused tissue, “Hh’tsxnt! Hhi’tschiew! Hhii’tshiew! Ugh, s’cuse me, this stupid cold won’t give me a break.” 

There was a loud mumble of ‘bless you’s’ from the crowd and interviewer himself which led Scarlett to a little blush from embarrassment, and you quickly wrapped up your own before making your way back to her, coming behind her to wrap your arms around her front – an action which she instantly melted into. You continued to hold her as she sniffled her way through the rest of her interview. Once she was finished you told her to stay put as you quickly ran behind the main panels to where members of the backstage crew were waiting. It didn’t take you long to track down a box of tissues and you quickly shoved multiple handfuls into one of your pockets before thanking the team and quickly making your way back out to your waiting wife. 

“Where did you go?” Scarlett asked once you’d retaken her hand back on the carpet, the rasp in her voice becoming a little more obvious now. 

“I went to get you some more tissues, they’re in my pocket if you need any.” The grateful look that flashed across her face was unmissable and you ran your hand down her back in response. 

A shiver crept down Scarlett's spine at your touch, her skin prickling as she felt you rub her back. It's an intimate moment, especially in front of all those people. You smiled and squeezed her hand a little as the pair of you continued down the carpet. 

“Hh…hih..Hh’iishoo!” But Scarlett had to quickly whip around to face away from the cameras as she sneezed down into her hands, her face blushing an even darker shade of red once again. 

“Bless you, my love.” You whispered, resting your hand on her shoulder and  she gingerly slid her hand down the side of your leg as she reached down into your pocket to retrieve one of the tissues, “You’re okay baby, take as many as you need, I can always go get you some more.” You assured her gently. 

You stood infront of her as she blew her nose, you knew she was shy about these things, and once she was done, she let her head fall on the front of your chest, wrapping her arms around your waist, “I really don't feel well baby, everything’s all fuzzy.” She mumbled down against you with a little pout. 

“Poor love,” You sighed before softly pressing your lips to her forehead, leaving them there for a second, “I think you're running a touch of a fever though sweetheart, you feel a little warm.” 

She groaned a little realising you were probably right; it would explain how crappy she felt. She pressed her cheek against yours, the heat behind it seemed obvious now and you gave her another small kiss. To be honest you weren’t entirely confident that Scarlett would even make it 30 minutes into the screening before falling asleep – she seemed so tired already - you placed a tender hand to her cheek prompting her to look over at you as you offered, “Do you want to go home my love? I know that tonight’s really important, but your health takes priority and sweetie you really don’t look well, being here is only making things worst and I doubt anyone here wants to catch this either.” 

“But- what about-” She tried to object but was stopped by a thick set of coughing which made her lungs feel like they were cracking so with a sigh she gave in, “Y/N, I want to go home,” Scarlett said through thick sniffles. It’s impossible for her to suppress another chilly shudder as your touch draws a whimper from her.  

“Let’s go home then, sweetheart,” You said, kissing her forehead again, “I’ll sort everything out once we get you back in the car, our managers will be able to handle things.” It was then that the two of you stopped caring about the press and walked straight down the rest of the carpet towards the exit, ignoring the calls of your names whilst the watching crowd followed your every move with hungry eyes. But neither of you cared anymore. The press could think what they liked, taking care of your wife took priority and nothing would ever change that. 

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[justinspoliticalcorner]

Radley Balko at The Watch:

Donald Trump has never had much tolerance for the free press. Throughout his first term he demanded we “open up the libel laws” to make it easier to sue journalists for unflattering coverage — which, more than anything else, reveals that he doesn’t really understand how any of this works. Even if he were able to persuade some red states to pass libel laws more hostile to the press, and even if he could get the Supreme Court to uphold such laws, few public figures would be hit harder by those laws than Donald Trump, who regularly defames his perceived enemies . During his first term Trump also threatened to withhold federal contracts and funding, and to revoke tax incentives from his critics. He repeatedly threatened such repercussions against Jeff Bezos and his various businesses because the Washington Post published investigations into Trump’s incompetence, corruption, and abuse of power. Those threats in and of themselves were likely unconstitutional, even if Trump had never followed up on them.

But the threats also had their intended effect. Bezos intervened to stop the paper from endorsing Trump’s opponent last month, and since the election the billionaire has been tripping over himself to heap praise on the incoming president. Trump has since only doubled down threatening the media. Over the course of his 2024 campaign he threatened to strip legacy broadcasters of their licenses (it’s not clear what that would mean, given that broadcast is all but obsolete), and his surrogates have pushed the absurd idea that unflattering coverage, “biased” debate questions and fact checking, and the edits 60 Minutes made in its interview with Kamala Harris amounted to “illegal in-kind campaign contributions” that could bring criminal liability. Trump now appears ready to make good on many of his campaign threats. Here’s a quick rundown of what to look for.

Civil actions against journalists

We can start with Brendan Carr, a Project 2025 contributor and Trump’s nominee to head the Federal Communications Commission. Carr has already suggested that the FCC should investigate CBS over the 60 Minutes interview, as well as NBC’s invitation to Harris for a cameo on Saturday Night Live. Carr also wants to impose a partisan, contradictory regulation regime on social media platforms that would basically make it impossible for those platforms to exclude Nazis and white supremacists, harassment, and other objectionable content. It would basically turn every social media site into the cesspool that is X. Carr’s censorious blueprint is based on the theory that the owners of social media platforms have no First Amendment right to run their operations in a way that reflects their own beliefs and values. Carr and his ilk argue that social media sites are the “new public square.” But public squares are, well, public. You’re free to stand on your soapbox and pontificate to your heart’s content. Social media sites are companies. They require servers, paid staff, and other expenses. By Carr’s logic, if a private bookstore or coffee shop also became known for hosting political speakers, they’d be required to host and provide a platform for anyone else who wanted to speak, whether or not the owners agreed with that person’s views.

Trump’s plan to make the Department of Justice his personal, publicly-funded law firm will also have First Amendment ramifications. We’ll likely see him use government personnel and public resources to pursue his personal vendettas against media outlets. Don’t be surprised to see the DOJ or White House legal counsel use taxpayer resources to pursue, for example, the accusations against CBS, Washington Post, and New York Times, in which Trump claims to have suffered Dr. Evil-like damages.

Trump will likely look to red states for other ideas. Florida Republicans have tried to follow Trump’s lead by “opening up” the state’s libel laws to make it easier to sue for defamation. Their aim is to provide a vehicle for the Supreme Court to overturn NYT v. Sullivan. So far, they haven’t been able to get those bills passed. But they’re trying. And at least three Supreme Court justices seem open to the idea. Both Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton have opened investigations into the advocacy group Media Matters over its report about paid ads from mainstream companies appearing next to Nazi content on X. To be clear, the Media Matters report is journalism, full stop, and these attempts to silence them to win favor with Elon Musk ought to be as embarrassing as they are illegal (they’re both). Even if none of the Trump administration’s retributive civil actions hold up in court, as we’ve seen with Musk’s own absurd lawsuit against Media Matters, Trump-friendly judges can make investigations and lawsuits as cumbersome and costly as possible. The mere threat of retaliation will likely intimidate some outlets from covering Trump critically. I would hope good journalists and editors would continue to pursue important stories regardless of these threats, but the capitulation we’ve already seen from Bezos, as well as from the corporate owners of Gannet, the L.A. Times, and other papers, bodes ill for the independence of news desks.

Criminalizing journalism

Trump and his allies have made clear that they also plan to target specific journalists. It was only about a year ago that then-Senator JD Vance sent a letter to the DOJ on official letterhead calling for a criminal investigation of journalist Robert Kagan because of a column Kagan wrote for the Washington Post. Ironically, that column was about Trump’s authoritarianism. It was arguably the single most censorious act any member of Congress has undertaken in years. The same JD Vance would later deflect Tim Walz’s debate question about January 6th by decrying . . . “censorship.” We know that the first Trump administration was already targeting journalists who cover immigration and the border. Officials kept lists of reporters who covered Trump’s immigration policy skeptically, and singled them out for “secondary screening” when they left and attempted to reenter the country. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials would later say they were considering opening a criminal investigation into some journalists for possible violations of the federal law that makes it illegal to “encourage or induce an alien to enter the United States.” This is the same law under which some immigration activists have been criminally prosecuted for leaving water out to migrants crossing the dessert.

[...]

Protest

Trump has made clear for decades that he has little tolerance for protest. We know from former aides that during his first term, Trump badly wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act and bring in the military to end the George Floyd demonstrations. We know that on more than one occasion he asked his aides why protesters couldn’t just be shot. We know that he has privately praised dictators in China, Venezuela, and Turkey specifically for their ruthless crackdowns on protest.

Trump was prevented from following through on his worst instincts the first time around by people like former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper. In response, Trump publicly suggested that Milley is a traitor who should be executed. If we see protests after the inauguration, Trump will quickly bring in the military. How the public reacts to the ensuing violence will probably determine how violent he’ll get going forward. But Trump and the people who will run his second administration have vowed to make sure there are no Milleys or Espers this time around. Trump has made that clear with his nomination of Pete Hegseth to run the Department of Defense. In one of his books, helpfully titled American Crusade, Hegseth warned that if Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Trump supporters would turn to violence, which he argued would be justified. He then wrote: “The military and police, both bastions of freedom-loving patriots, will be forced to make a choice. It will not be good. Yes, there will be some form of civil war.”

[...] Expect the Trump administration to defend or, with the help of a Republican Congress, even try to federalize some of the anti-protest legislation we’ve seen from red state lawmakers — policies like “buffer zones” in which members of the public are forbidden from recording law enforcement, limiting the criminal and civil liability of people who strike protesters with their cars, and criminalizing consumer boycotts (but only those that legislators find personally objectionable). I think we’re also likely to see more Republican state legislatures — and possibly Congress — take aim at charitable bail funds. Expect to see federal and state prosecutors go after the people who operate these funds under racketeering and money laundering laws, as we’ve already seen in Georgia. Republicans will claim that these funds are fronts for terrorist groups while also attempting to expand the definition of terrorism to include “antifa,” pro-Palestine organizations, and activist groups like Black Lives Matter.

[...]

Other threats

After decades of complaining (with some merit!) about leftist hegemony on college campuses, conservative activists and Republican governors have fought back with the brute force of state coercion. Republican legislatures in dozens of states have passed bills restricting academic freedom, from banning entire fields of study at state colleges and universities to prohibiting speakers from discussing certain topics, to even barring certain words and phrases from appearing on school websites. As with every other threat to speech we’ve discussed so far, we’re already seeing too many schools preemptively surrender. Just last month, the University of Alabama threatened a professor with termination for organizing a protest against a particularly censorious bill in the state legislature.

Many of these state laws banning DEI and CRT on campus were modeled after an executive order Trump signed in 2020. There’s ample reason to think the new Trump administration will federalize this right-wing holy war on academic freedom. MAGA figures like JD Vance have cited Hungarian President Victor Orbán’s hollowing out of and taking over academia as inspiration. Project 2025 calls for withholding student loan and federal research funding from colleges and universities unless they adopt policies like eradicating DEI programs and prohibiting gender studies, critical race theory, LGTBQ studies, and other subjects that give polemicists like Chris Rufo the vapors. Same for federal contractors, recipients of federal research grants, and anyone else who gets any sort of federal subsidy.

MAGA also seems ready to embrace the idea of compelled speech. Carr, along with several state governors and AGs want to force social media sites to host content they and their users find objectionable. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently announced he’s opening a separate investigation into companies that don’t want to advertise on racist and far-right social media sites, either. Apparently, it’s a crime to not give Elon Musk your advertising dollars. Republican attorneys general are also using antitrust laws to silence corporate activism on issues like climate change.

Paxton and two dozen other Republican AGs also filed yet another anti-speech lawsuit, this one against against Yelp, for publishing information (that happened to also be true) that he believes to be critical of crisis pregnancy centers. As with the attack on Media Matters, the AGs are trying to silence the site under consumer protection laws. As the Reporters Committee for a Free Press warns, “The application of consumer protection laws in the context of editorial decisions — by any private speaker — is dangerous. And Texas has articulated no limiting principle that would preclude the application of the state’s consumer protection law against members of the press on a similar theory.”

Project 2025 also calls for prohibiting a list of terms and phrases from being published in any federal document. Incredibly, it also calls for retroactively removing those terms from existing documents. In the introduction to the blueprint, former Heritage head Kevin Roberts calls for the elimination of the terms “diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights,” and, in a particularly Orwellian twist, “any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights.” It’s striking just how quickly the right shifted from complaining about soft censorship and content moderation on social media sites to sheer joy over the prospect of using state power shutting down dissent and silence critics. After Musk purchased Twitter, he converted the enormously influential platform into a bustling Nazi bar and far-right arm of the Trump campaign. The site is all but unusable now. For all the right’s complaints about throttling and “shadow bans,” Musk’s prioritization of accounts that pay him has effectively shunted anyone who isn’t echoing Musk’s own politics to the margins. It also means the top replies to every post tend to be racist, bigoted, trollish, or grievance-fueled garbage.

More recently, Musk has been joking/not joking about purchasing MSNBC and converting it into yet another right-wing outlet. This — along with the editorial interference of newspapers owners who are worried about government sanctions of their other businesses, is also classic authoritarian maneuvering. In Russia, Putin quickly realized that he could control newspapers and media outlets two ways — by pressuring their owners’ other business interests, and just by having his oligarch cronies simply buy them up and convert them into government mouthpieces. (He soon found it was easier to just arrange for critical journalists to fall out of windows — a habit Trump has had difficulty criticizing.) The same thing is happening in Hungary under Orbán. Setting aside whether or not Musk could actually buy MSNBC, his mere mention of the idea had right-wing personalities salivating at the idea of subverting a leading left-of-center outlet into the right-wing echo chamber.

That glee stems from a belief that conservative voices have been silenced by left-wing control of the media. This is self-evidently false. It is true that those newsrooms that still attempt to be accurate and fair — to deliver “straight news” — are disproportionately left-leaning. But it’s also true that the right has successfully created its own media ecosystem that’s wholly independent of those newsrooms, and can now bypass them entirely to get information to its audience. The sheer giddiness on display from the people about to take over the government at the prospect of snuffing these newsrooms out is alarming. Adding to the problem, Project 2025 also calls for targeting public broadcasting. That’s a longtime conservative hobbyhorse, but it would do the most harm to local public radio — not the national NPR programs that irk conservatives — and it will hit hardest in areas that lack daily newspapers.

[...]

Finally, there’s the threat to nonprofits. Here, too, the Democrats have utterly failed to prepare for the gravity of the threat. Last month, 15 House Democrats joined Republicans to pass a bill called the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act. That’s far fewer than originally supported the law, which was introduced to target groups who advocate for Palestine. It was still 15 too many. The sweeping law would give the Treasury Secretary the power to unilaterally declare any nonprofit a “supporter of terrorism.” Trump could effectively shut down nonprofits for the flimsiest of reasons, from the ACLU to Planned Parenthood to ProPublica. Beyond the screaming unconstitutionality and general un-Americanness of it all, it’s just a breathtakingly stupid policy for any Democrat to support, especially just months before a man hellbent on vengeance and retribution takes over the White House.

The upcoming Trump Administration will be disaster for the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, and the right to dissent without fear or intimidation.

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

Markled Tyler Perry RESCUES boys (& girls) that cry wolf.

Illinois Appeals Court Affirms Actor Jussie Smollett's Convictions and Jail Sentence | Newsmax.com

https://www.newsmax.com/us/jussie-smollett-illinois-appeal/2023/12/01/id/1144444/

An appeals court upheld the disorderly conduct convictions Friday of actor Jussie Smollett, who was accused of staging a racist, homophobic attack against himself in 2019 and lying about it to Chicago police.

Smollett, who appeared in the TV show "Empire," challenged the role of a special prosecutor, jury selection, evidence and many other aspects of the case. But all were turned aside in a 2-1 opinion from the Illinois Appellate Court.

Smollett had reported to police that he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack by two men wearing ski masks. The search for the attackers soon turned into an investigation of Smollett himself, leading to his arrest on charges he had orchestrated the whole thing.

Authorities said he paid two men whom he knew from work on "Empire," which filmed in Chicago. Prosecutors said Smollett told the men what slurs to shout, and to yell that he was in "MAGA country," a reference to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign slogan.

A jury convicted Smollett in 2021 on five felony counts of disorderly conduct, a charge that can be filed in Illinois when a person lies to police.

He now will have to finish a 150-day stint in jail that was part of his sentence. Smollett spent just six days in jail while his appeal was pending.

A message seeking comment from his attorney, Nenye Uche, was not immediately returned. Lawyers for Smollett, who is Black and gay, have publicly claimed that he was the target of a racist justice system and people playing politics.

Appellate Justice Freddrenna Lyle would have thrown out the convictions. She said it was "fundamentally unfair" to appoint a special prosecutor and charge Smollett when he had already performed community service as part of a 2019 deal with Cook County prosecutors to close the case.

"It was common sense that Smollett was bargaining for a complete resolution of the matter, not simply a temporary one," Lyle said.

Special prosecutor Dan Webb was appointed to look into why the case was dropped. A grand jury subsequently restored charges against Smollett in 2020, and Webb concluded there were "substantial abuses of discretion" in the state's attorney office during the earlier round.

Smollett was not immune to a fresh round of charges, appellate Justices David Navarro and Mary Ellen Coghlan said in the majority opinion.

"The record does not contain any evidence that (prosecutors) agreed Smollett would not be further prosecuted in exchange for forfeiting his bond and performing community service," they said.

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