White supremacists and white nationalists are having a bad day.

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Spencer, Kessler, Cantwell and other white supremacists found liable in deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville

The jury did not reach a verdict on two federal conspiracy charges, but did find that every defendant was liable for civil conspiracy under Virginia law. The jury then awarded $500,000 in punitive damages against all 12 individual defendants, and $1 million against five white nationalist organizations on that conspiracy count. Other damages followed on further counts.

Read More (Washington Post)

Good.

Of course, due to some inexplicable random glitch The System™ did not work as intended, as it did in the Rittenhouse case. That’s why we have appeals courts, I suppose.

Still, I just wanted to spread a little sunshine. You all know me – I’m all Suzie Sunshine up in here!

dancing snoopy

 

Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance. If the Rittenhouse verdict was not a traumatic enough reminder for you that Murrikkka is The Greatest Country in the World™, today we mourn 46 trans or gender non-conforming people who were killed this year. That makes 2021 the deadliest year on record for anti-trans murder.

#SayTheirNames

Tyianna Alexander, Samuel Edmund Damián Valentín, Bianca “Muffin” Bankz, Dominique Jackson, Fifty Bandz, Alexus Braxton, Chyna Carrillo, siblings Jeffrey “JJ” Bright and Jasmine Cannady, Jenna Franks, Diamond Kyree Sanders, Rayanna Pardo, Jaida Peterson, Dominique Lucious, Remy Fennell, Tiara Banks, Natalia Smut, Iris Santos, Tiffany Thomas, Keri Washington, Jahaira DeAlto, Whispering Wind Bear Spirit, Sophie Vásquez, Danika “Danny” Henson, Serenity Hollis, Oliver “Ollie” Taylor, Thomas Hardin, Poe Black, EJ Boykin, Taya Ashton, Shai Vanderpump, Tierramarie Lewis, Miss CoCo, Pooh Johnson, Disaya Monaee, Briana Hamilton, Kiér Laprí Kartier, Mel Groves, Royal Poetical Starz, Zoella “Zoey” Rose Martinez, Jo Acker, Jessi Hart, Rikkey Outumuro, Marquiisha Lawrence, and Jenny De Leon.

I also think about Silvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, and their legacies. If you don’t know who they were, you can start at those links.

My heart breaks. Again.

Happy Halloween!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

Last year I contributed some photos I took around my neighborhood to Affinity‘s “Hallowe’en Photo Festival of Fun and Fundraising,” including this one reserved for their Grand Finale:

Pile of hay bales and large pumpkins, with a skeleton on top appearing to give the middle finger.

I called it “Happy fuckin’ Halloween from New York fuckin’ City,” and it was taken at Abingdon Square Park near my home. I may have enhanced it a little, by removing several fingers. (I mean from the image, not from the actual skeleton. I’m not a monster!)

This year, the same setting looks like this:

[Read more…]

Sunday funnies.

Three men seated at a table. Left: a dark-skinned man in a t-shirt, with no plate in front of him. Center: An older white man in a suit and tie, with a plate in front of him stacked with a mountain of cookies. Right: a white man in a hard hat and a safety vest, with a plate in front of him containing one cookie. The man in the center points at the dark-skinned man and tells the white working man, "Careful. That immigrant wants your cookie!"

If you like dark humor (is there any other kind?) there sure is much to snort about in this cartoon. Of course by “cookies,” I think it’s safe to assume the cartoonist is referring to special treats like nourishing food, a secure home, unpolluted water and air, access to education limited only by one’s abilities and aspirations, and no fear of police, of bullets, of medical bankruptcy, or of indentured servitude to predatory financial institutions, among many other “cookies.”

However, …the artist apparently “forgot” to draw women and people of minority identities other than Dark Immigrant Man kneeling and crouched on the floor all around the table, waiting and hoping for cookie crumbs to fall. You know, like dogs.

[Read more…]

FBI raids NYPD. LOL. UPDATED.

UPDATE: Ed Mullins has resigned his position, at the request of SBA’s board. The original Daily News article has also been updated with this paragraph:

[Mullins] is an outspoken backer of President Donald Trump and visited Trump at the White House in February 2020. He grabbed headlines in July 2020 for giving an interview on Fox News with a QAnon coffee mug in the background.

Quelle surprise.

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ORIGINAL POST:

Now here’s something you don’t see every day.

 

New York Daily News logo with "breaking news" banner

FBI raids suburban home of NYPD sergeants’ union head Ed Mullins and Manhattan headquarters

FBI agents are seen carrying boxes with evidence after raiding the Sergeants Benevolent Association headquarters in downtown Manhattan early Tuesday morning. (Luiz C. Ribeiro/for New York Daily News)

FBI agents are seen carrying boxes with evidence after raiding the Sergeants Benevolent Association headquarters in downtown Manhattan early Tuesday morning. (Luiz C. Ribeiro/for New York Daily News)

[Read more…]

Mexico! 🎉

(via e-mail breaking news alert):

Mexico decriminalizes abortion, a dramatic step in the world’s second-biggest Catholic country

The [Mexican] Supreme Court’s decision makes Mexico the most populous country in Latin America to permit the procedure. The ruling comes as Texas, just across the border, tightens restrictions. The decision reflects activism by a powerful feminist movement, as well as concern about women dying or suffering harm from illegal abortions.

Read more [@ WaPo]

While this Republicans (politicians and citizens alike) become more like the Taliban every day, a “powerful feminist movement” in Mexico has succeeded in moving the needle in the opposite direction. And they did so by centering those who are dying and being maimed by illegal abortions – a terrible price to pay for the living to obtain the basic human right to bodily autonomy.

But it’s just not “civil” to discuss such ugliness in polite society! We simply must keep the discourse around abortion rights calm, reasoned and as removed from reality as possible, as we sit around discussing abstract concepts like “choice” over tea. Because that’s really been working so well for us! [/snark]

Wasn’t I just ranting about this very thing on Sunday? Why, yes! Yes I was!

And I said:

The only thing “civil” attempts at persuasion accomplish is allowing sadistic misogynists to continue pretending that picture [of Geraldine Santoro taken in 1964 by police who found her dead after a botched attempt at self-aborting] does not capture exactly what they are doing.

I wonder how many (more) unnecessary deaths and senseless maimings it will take for U.S. Republicans to reverse course? It seems we will also need a powerful feminist movement. More powerful, even, than the Catholic Church in Mexico.

Anybody got one of those lying around?

Hey, can we get some of that up in here?

[CONTENT NOTE: sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape and rape culture.)

You know, I have not been able to write about Afghanistan, and this is mainly because I have not been able to think coherently about Afghanistan.* See, I get flooded with All the Feelz, and flashbacks to the war crimes of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice regime, CIA black sites, serious debates at the highest levels of government and across mainstream media platforms about the pros, cons, legality and morality of torture FFS, and every single evil spawned from U.S. conservative war lovers** since the events of 9/11, which were traumatic enough for me thankyouverymuch, and right up to and including the suicide bombing at a Kabul airport gate today.

Nevertheless, I was struck by a sentence in this morning’s New York Times email briefing:

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