Hysteria about SB1142 blew up quickly and in unexpected places. The Arizona Capitol Times, Reason Magazine, local Republican Facebook groups and even my email inbox buzzed with fears that Arizona was preparing to seize the property of peaceful protesters. Both the left and the right seemed to agree that this was a bad bill.
But, most of what I read was flat out wrong. The changes to Arizona law are minor and relatively uncontroversial. Property rights will be strengthened. So will laws against conspiracy and racketeering.
The real story here is the media advancing a prepackaged narrative in defiance of the facts. Arizona is Jon Stewart’s “Meth Lab of Democracy.” Coverage is focused on hyping unfounded fears that are consonant with that image of Arizona. Where others see a wacky, Wild West government, I see a vibrant political culture that other states should envy and emulate.
When I called Senator Sylvia Allen’s office, her representative sounded exasperated. The media had picked up a quotation by Senator Allen and presented her as a major supporter of the bill, but Allen did not sponsor the bill. “She was asked a question and she answered it.” Fair enough.
Still, her quotation was being circulated. Citizens were calling Allen and demanding answers. But she didn’t write the bill. She didn’t sponsor the bill. The logical people to speak with and quote would have been the sponsors, Senators Borrelli, Montenegro and Smith. When I contacted Senator Borrelli, he responded so quickly that I thought it was an auto-reply, but, a few minutes later, he sent a follow-up email to elaborate. Borrelli is eager to engage on SB1142.
The hysteria swirling around this bill centers on the claim that innocent protesters will have their property seized if anybody at the protest riots. False. A charge of conspiracy requires proof that the conspirators agreed to commit a crime.
The section on racketeering is a bit more difficult to parse, but SB1142 does not rewrite the definition of racketeering from scratch. Rioting is added to a list of offenses—terrorism, homicide, robbery, etc.—which racketeering may include. The same standards of evidence that apply to other forms of racketeering will now apply to racketeering that involves rioting.
But why does the law need to be changed. Isn’t rioting already against the law? And conspiracy? And racketeering? Yes. All of those offenses are crimes, but those offenses are narrowly defined in Arizona Law.
SB1142 broadens the definition of rioting to include property damage. Arizona’s conspiracy law only applies to violent felonies, burglary and arson of an occupied building. Now, you could be convicted of conspiring to riot.
Likewise, Arizona’s racketeering laws are narrowly tailored to only include certain offenses. Usually, said offense must be done for financial gain to be racketeering. Terrorism is one exception. Rioting would be the second exception to the financial gain requirement of the racketeering statute.
The definition of racketeering itself is not being rewritten. Rioting is being added to an existing list of offenses that can be prosecuted under racketeering laws. If protesters are put in jeopardy by this bill, then the law needs a more dramatic rewrite to protect others who are unwittingly implicated in other forms of racketeering.
I contacted Senator Sonny Borrelli for clarity on the bill.
Rioting is not protected in the First Amendment. Rioting is already a Criminal act. Damaging property is also a criminal act. However, if during the investigation it is discovered as fact that a person is being paid to commit these criminal acts, that fact constitutes a criminal conspiracy. This should be covered in RICO and the employer should also be held accountable.
The language of the bill seems to preclude the requirement that rioting be done for profit in order to be considered racketeering; however, simply being at a protest that “goes south,” as the Arizona Capitol Times put it, is not enough to be convicted for rioting, conspiracy or racketeering under the language of this bill.
Michael Gibbs of the Arizona Tenth Amendment cautioned that this new law creates more opportunities for Civil Asset Forfeiture. In Arizona, your property can be seized if you are suspected of a crime. The process for recovering said property can be expensive, which favors deep-pocketed defendants and harms others. Senator Borrelli disputes this characterization. “As for the property seizure issue, that is up to the Court if convicted.” Regardless of who is correct, SB1142 did not create Arizona’s problems with Civil Asset Forfeiture.
As it happens, the Arizona state legislature is taking on Civil Asset Forfeiture reform this year. Representatives Bob Thorpe of Yavapai County and Eddie Farnsworth of Gilbert in Maricopa County have proposed a number of Civil Asset Forfeiture reform bills.
The strongest proposed reforms have been killed, but the three bills that survive have broad, bipartisan support. In various committee votes, they have passed by 9-0, 8-0 and 7-2 margins. The nay votes have come from Democrats, who have little hope of stopping any legislation in Arizona. These reforms would force law enforcement to properly report and account for seized property; give the property owners receipts and make it easier for acquitted parties to retrieve their seized property.
The most frivolous criticism of the bill comes from Reason Magazine. Scott Shackford claims that the bill’s sponsors are short-sighted in attacking left-wing protesters when Tea Partiers will be prosecuted under this bill as well. That supposes that Tea Partiers are rioting, conspiring to riot or meeting the qualifications for racketeering by rioting. This bill does not attempt to exempt conservative groups and there is no reason to believe that Senators Borrelli, Montenegro or Smith would oppose prosecuting Tea Partiers who commit these crimes.
I asked Senator Borrelli if this bill was written in response to the recent Berkeley protests or the Fountain Hills protest that shut down traffic to a Donald Trump rally. He responded that this bill was incubating before those incidents.
Getting to the bottom of this story was not hard. Senators Kavanagh, Allen and Borrelli were all happy to address my concerns. The text of the bill, a fact sheet and a record of how everyone in the Arizona Senate voted are easily accessible on azleg.gov. The changes to the law are even highlighted in blue and red to show additions to and subtractions from current law.
Michael Gibbs ventured a theory as to why the coverage has been so shoddy. Twenty years ago, your local newspaper would be delivered to your door step the next morning. When a story broke, that is when you would find out. Now, newspapers are competing with 24 news networks and social media to be first. Accuracy suffers.
SB1142 shows what is best and worst about Arizona’s political culture. Our political culture values liberty and is skeptical of government. In this case, that skepticism was exploited to cause a digital stampede.1
Texts cited:
[1] http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2017/02/22/arizona-senate-crackdown-on-protests/
[2] http://reason.com/blog/2017/02/23/arizona-bill-to-crack-down-on-rioters-co
[4] https://apps.azleg.gov/BillStatus/GetDocumentPdf/446080
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When I finished my education at the wonderful North Bennet St. School in Boston, I was left to make a few choices on where to pick up my trade in locksmithing. Sixteen states, like New York and Texas, require a license to work in any shop. My home state of Vermont had none, and I moved back to start there. The problems of trying to move to a state, pass the certification, and then wait to receive the license proved too much for my wallet.
The calls for licensing were quickly heard as I entered my career. There was a perception that people were being had by fakes, they were being vastly overcharged in their worst moments. There are companies that use fake addresses and temporary numbers, hoping to make a week’s wages on an unfortunate soul. My coworkers and colleagues wanted to help, genuinely. I don’t think any of them thought their ideas could be used to hurt new entries to the field. Like all other licensing schemes though, that will be the result.
The goal may be noble; an attempt to sort the skilled workers from the non-skilled so the general public doesn’t make a bad choice. The immediate problem is that when this is done by a board of insiders, the door closes, the requirements deviate from that first goal, and no one is allowed in. New York City is probably the worst offender in this way, you need to have two friends in the club invite. Good luck, I’m sure no one would mind losing ‘territory’ to your new business venture. Looking through the requirements, I see nothing about knowing any building or fire codes, no test on practices or skills, but I do see a child support check. How that relates to a skilled technician, I am not sure. Probably for the best that person can’t start in a trade, he owes some money. There’s also a fee and expiration date, because FYTW. The idea that licensing locksmiths in New York has helped the consumer is nonsense, a quick google search says New Yorkers still have problems and accuse several businesses of scamming them.
A better solution would be registration and private certifications. Milton Friedman wrote 55 years ago:
By registration, I mean an arrangement under which individuals are required to list their names in some official register if they engage in certain kinds of activities. There is no provision for denying the right to engage in the activity to anyone who is willing to list his name. He may be charged a fee, either as a registration fee or as a scheme of taxation.
A much less intrusive way to go about the attempt to publicly identifying shady businesses without setting up serious barriers to entry. Registration and certification already exist in private associations.
The Associated Locksmiths Of America has been testing for certification. ALOA’s stated mission is to enhance the professionalism, education and ethics among locksmiths. They have levels of certification. As good as this organization is, ALOA thinks they are not enough and is actively pursuing licensing around the country. They say this is to protect consumers, but the PDF is mostly protectionist. Of course, admitting that this protects locksmiths is the giveaway. To pretend that unlicensed (by ALOA) people are automatically all part of this scamming scourge is ridiculous. To keep locksmith tools out of the hands of the public forces a cost on someone who wants to try their hand in the field. They want the power of the state to ensure that only their locksmiths are allowed to do any business. We may approve of a government register, but I will always oppose government certification and licensing.
This muddying between public certifications and government licensing of a trade is not unique to locksmithing. We all know how important it is to protect the consumer from Sweeny Todd, and dammit, the government is the only way. You can’t be trusted to do any work on your bathroom door lock, and you should be fined for letting your handyman take a crack at it. We should instead be able to find workers that have been trained and have a certification given by a reputable group if we want to.
In 2004-2005 I was part of the long and latest version of the wars in Afghanistan. I was the Civil Affairs Officer for one of the two Task Forces running around Parwan, Kapisa and part of Kabul province. My job – Go make nice with the locals, and keep your ears and eyes open.
At the time, the Taliban was trying to reconstitute itself and come back into the country from Pakistan. A few of them managed to straggle in, without being vaporized by A-10s or such. Where I was, the asshats were primarily the HIG. Our local friends were all former Northern Alliance members.
The fellow on the left is Haji Almos – he was a commander of one of the Northern Alliance “corps” and a man rumored to have gained his wealth through opium and other smuggling operations. He “went legit” by running for office in the Wolesi Jirga (Parliament). During a meeting, he informed those in attendance that an endorsement from a particular American military officer in the area would carry great weight, and if he got it…well, we would have a friend in the Wolesi Jirga. (I was only slightly startled, being from the Chicagoland area.) I did ask that officer if, when he was at West Point, he was ever told he would be asked to be a Kingmaker in a far off land? That got me a chuckle and a shake of the head. We politely demurred and wished him luck, nonetheless. He won office that Fall. Here was a man that had basically fought on our side, offered political support…but it was, I think, because the wind was blowing our way. His actions after taking office were not all that nice. For what it is worth, he is not in office anymore.
The man on the right is Abdul Rahman Sayedkhili. He is dead. While still alive, he was appointed provincial police chief of the province I lived in. He cleaned out the Taliban and HIG, and was asked to take an even more dangerous assignment. The Taliban killed him by suicide bomber attack. Before we got there in 2001, he had personally aided hundreds of people fleeing the Taliban, fought those same Taliban and welcomed us. He closely cooperated with NATO all the way up to his death.
The man on the left, front is Kabir Ahmad. He was the government head of the district (roughly equivalent to an American County) I lived in. He had also been part of the fight against the Taliban, but moreso keeping things on the administrative side. He found out I was a lawyer back in America, and we hit it off (he was an attorney as well as administrator). Whenever something broke bad, he would be rushing to the scene with the district police (his office was kind of a County Chairman, Sheriff and District Attorney all rolled into one). He received death threats on a regular basis from the HIG, Taliban and anyone else who resented his fairly honest and efficient work. He was a tireless advocate for help improving the area I was working – anyone or anything he could wrangle to dig a well, build an agriculture cooperative building or the like. He was a brave man, a good man.
So what, if anything did we owe them? By “we,” I mean the taxpayers and military members of the countries involved in Afghanistan (primarily the US, but the UK, Canada and others had expended a considerable effort). The US led forces had come in to bash the Taliban over the head and get the AQ folks who had set up the 9/11/2001 attacks on the US. The Northern Alliance used our air support to push the Taliban back
and some of our own forces helped finish the job. Once the head bashing was done, we stuck around, dumped in more forces, and started doing mostly occupation and rebuilding things. Did we owe anything to the Afghans that had been on our side? They fought our enemies, helped us as much as they could…some of it out of self-interest (survival, primarily), some of it out of a sense of honor, and some out of an opportunity to use us to their own ends (both good and selfishly bad).
As a soldier, I felt a debt to them. These were allies and fellow combatants – they had been killing Taliban before any of us had even heard the name. But as a budding libertarian, I felt that we were sort of hanging around when it was not so much our job any more. Why was I, a 20 year Soldier, digging wells, building schools and trying not to get blowed up real good while doing so? Was I supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign or domestic? This is what NATO was for?
So my question to all of you, is when is the debt paid? Was there a debt to begin with? Do we owe anything to the people that risk (and sometimes lose) their lives working on behalf of our government’s stated goals?
I struggle with it, partially because part of my heart is still in the Panjshir Valley, with Kabir Ahmad, and with the Sayedkhili family. But as a libertarian, I know that if you kick in the door and get the SOB inside the house– once you fix the door back up, or give the homeowner enough to fix it themselves…it is time to leave.
Update: Yes, I once did narrow my gaze at the entirety of Northeast Afghanistan
If you’re looking for substance, keep on walking, this is just a premature curmudgeon ranting.
I first read The Hobbit in middle school. All I really remember was not understanding why the adults raved about it. I read Lord of the Rings in High School. I do recall skipping the songs, but otherwise not having any real issues with it at the time.
Fast forward to 2017 and I’ve developed the habit of listening to audiobooks on my commute. Having found a Lord of the Rings audiobook from the nineties, I decided “might as well”. It was awful, though not for lack of trying on the part of the performer. I rarely end up rage quitting an audiobook because I’m too busy driving at the time. In this case, however, the ponderous plodding pacing provoked perturbations in my personality and I ended up ejecting it shortly after the fourth or fifth pointless rhyme/melody shortly after the close encounter with the black rider on the way from Bag End to Brandywine. The constant, pointless repetition of Hobbit surnames irrelevant to the narrative and dithering about convincing me that the Shire was deeply inbred and pig ignorant made me wonder why this rendition was so different from my memory.
It was simple – when I read it the first time, it was easy to skim ahead to something relevant to the story. So with a reflexive mental editing, I was able to get a more streamlined story than what was actually on the page. The poor performer on the audiobook could not abridge the yarn and had to keep trudging through the text as written. Thus my memory of the work was more forgiving than what a more stringent examination of the work would produce. While someone with unlimited free time might get lost in the meandering examination of tangents, I only had the slices of time where I was commuting, and I’m rarely in the most lenient of moods then.
The whole incident did lead me to think – what else produces unwarranted fond memories? Was the news always so biased? Were people always so unhinged? Did the future always seem so foreboding and bleak?
In the end, my conclusion was that of a songwriter “The good old days weren’t always so good and tomorrow isn’t as bad as it seems.”
Friday Links. On time, bulleted, and with content. This Interwebz shit ain’t so hard.
Dean Obeidallah is an insufferable prick.
On Monday, CNN published a strident op-ed by the failed lawyer, turned failed stand-up comic, turned C-list media pundit condemning Bill Maher for having Milo Yiannopoulos as a guest on his HBO show. Now, I wholeheartedly agree with libertarian sex goddess Lucy Steigerwald that Milo Yiannopoulous merely is a stupid man’s version of Christopher Hitchens, but the mendaciousness on display when Obeidallah lists the litany of supposed sins committed by Yiannopoulos is breathtaking and warrants comment.
In Obeidallah’s spit-flecked and stentorian denunciation, he charges Maher with failing to “ask [Yiannopoulous] about his anti-Semitic comment that ‘Jews run the media,’ … [ask] why Yiannopoulos wore a Nazi Iron Cross when he was younger … [and inquire about] his demonization of transgender people as, in essence, sexual predators?” Never mind the fact that the first and third charge are merely Obeidallah presenting intentionally provocative statements intended as shock humor out of context, is he not cognizant of the fact that labeling every instance of a symbol that has represented Germany since 1813, (as well as having been appropriated as a fairly innocuous symbol in surfer culture) as “Neo-Nazi” is equivalent to labeling all people wearing fashion keffiyeh as radical Islamist Hamas sympathizers?
Ironically, only a day later, CNN would include the following graphic accompanying its latest attempt to foment a moral panic:
Context is key, indeed!
Obeidallah’s sanctimonious posturing is particularly galling considering the fact that in December of 2013, while a guest on Melissa Harris-Perry’s MSNBC show, he cracked a series of tasteless jokes mocking the fact that Mitt Romeny’s adoptive grandson, Kieran Romney, is ethnically African-American. When challenged over the racially-charged humor, while Harris-Perry delivered what appeared to be a sincere and heartfelt apology, all Obeidallah could muster up was a self-defensive non-apology, in which he managed to portray himself as the victim of false outrage by conservative “wing-nuts” who, in not having the super-secret decoder ring issued to all progressives, failed to realize that humor stemming from an observation that Kieran was essentially and forever different from the rest of his adoptive family due to his race was in fact a wry political statement as to the “lack of racial diversity we see at the Republican National Convention.” Which is why, of course, he referred the child as a “prop” in a mock apology to Kieran for comments made during the broadcast.
As I mentioned earlier, Dean Obeidallah is an insufferable prick.
In further evidence of his martyrdom at the feet of humorless conservative scolds, in his 2013 article for the Daily Beast, Obeidallah wrote:
Here’s the thing: As a comedian, I always try to be funny. It doesn’t always work and I have told jokes that offended people. And I can assure you that in the future I will offend even more people even though that was not my intention. Not only is comedy subjective, but so are sensibilities about when a comedian has “crossed the line.”
In fact, being attacked by right-wing publications for my jokes is nothing new to me. I even wrote an article about that just a few months ago for The Daily Beast titled “The Tea Party’s War on Comedy” about right-wing media outlets lashing out a joke I tweeted. But here’s the reality: We can expect to see even more of this outrage by both the left and the right going forward. Our collective self-righteous anger keeps escalating. Perhaps it’s because of the hyper-partisan times we live in. Or maybe it’s due to social media or the media’s desperate need for content. Perhaps it’s just payback by each side for the last time one of their own was attacked. Regardless of the reason, in time, it will only get worse.
Despite Obeidallah’s 2013 attempt at ‘a pox on both your houses’ appeal to ethos, in 2017, we see no such attempt at nuance, no such reminders of the inherent subjectivity of comedy when Yiannopolous appeared, along with another comedian (Larry Wilmore), on an intentionally comedic political talk-show hosted by a comedian (Maher). Instead, Obeidallah waxed stentorian when he proclaimed:
[S]tunningly, at the end of the interview, Maher seemed to be doing his best to make Yiannopoulos’ hateful views more acceptable. Maher concluded the interview by reading “provocative” jokes the late comedian Joan Rivers had made and saying she was still considered a “national treasure.”
His point appeared to be that if some people gave another comedian a pass, then why shouldn’t we do the same with Yiannopoulos? Well, the reasons are obvious: Rivers was actually a comedian, while Yiannopoulos is a political pundit who writes for Bretitbart.com
Did you get that? Obeidallah and Rivers have permission to be provocative, as they are card-carrying comedians, but humorist and raconteur Yiannopoulos doesn’t as he is a mere “political pundit” for Badthink.com.
Are you fucking kidding me, you insufferable prick?
The amount of cognitive dissonance possessed by Obeidallah to claim that only comedians who meet certain unnamed criteria can make jokes about sensitive topics but Yiannopoulus cannot as he writes op-eds for Brietbart surpasses Graham’s Number in magnitude. One has to marvel that the fact that Obeidallah’s sneer as he wrote the term “political pundit” is so evident that, like the the Greenhouses of Almería, it can be seen from space. When typing out those sentences, did Obeidallah forget that his day job is working the cable TV news circuit as a token progressive Muslim talking-head? Did Obeidallah forget that he was writing an op-ed for CNN? Did Obeidallah forget that he has his own political talk radio show on SiriusXM? The hypocrisy astounds. Yet, there is a simple explanation for it. It is the same reason that Yiannopoulus is currently being castigated for saying the same things that Allen Ginsberg said decades ago:
GINSBERG: Well, then you must excuse me if I don’t adopt the submissive attitude you wish. I got on the air and said that when I was young I was approached by an older man and I don’t think it did me any harm. And that I like younger boys and I think that probably almost everybody has an inclination that is erotic toward younger people, including younger boys.
LOFTON: How young were the boys?
GINSBERG: In my case, I’d say fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.
LOFTON: That you had sex with?
GINSBERG: No, unfortunately I haven’t had the chance. [laughs] No, I’m talking about my desires. I’m being frank and candid. And I’m also saying that if anyone was frank and candid, you’d probably find that in anybody’s breast. (Harpers, “When Worlds Collide” Jan, 1990)
Four years after this interview, Ginsberg wrote an essay explaining that he became a card-carrying member of the pedophile advocacy group NAMBLA, “in defense of free speech.” An agitator acting and speaking outrageously “in defense of free speech” sounds familiar, doesn’t it? But the simple fact remains that Yiannopoulus was recently forced to fall upon his own sword whereas Ginsberg remains in the American imagination as a Puckish merry trickster whose poems (“I saw the best minds of my generation … who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication”) are treated with reverence by the academy is because Ginsberg was a communist sympathizer cum progressive leftist and Yiannopoulus isn’t. In the minds of individuals like Obeidallah, it’s a very simple calculus: his progressive compatriots are to be forgiven all failings as their intentions are righteous and pure, whereas, conservatives, libertarians, etc. are always assumed to be acting and speaking in bad faith as their intentions are evil and corrupt. One wonders how Obeidallah rationalizes Joan Rivers’ interview of Reza Farahan, full of frank humor about race, religion, and homosexuality, where Melissa Rivers described her mother as a “fiscally conservative, socially liberal Republican.” In what way does Rivers’ status as a comedian allow Obeidallah to forgive her jokes like “[I’m a Republican] because I work very hard for my money and I don’t care if you’ve got 19 children – use condoms! I’ll pay for your first four children, that’s it!”? In Obeidallah’s Manichean worldview, didn’t Rivers play for the same “team” that Yiannopoulus represents? At the end of his 2013 article, despite spilling some token digital ink bemoaning the negative effect these “hyper-partisan times we live in” have upon humor, Obeidallah ended with this utterly obnoxious cri de coeur:
And let me also be clear to the self-appointed right-wing pundits: I will never stop calling out the wrongs and hypocrisy of the right. Be it citing Jesus’ name to justify slashing programs that help the less fortunate, demonizing Muslims or gays for political gain, or trying to disenfranchise minority voters with voter ID laws. And for those jokes and comments, I can assure you, I will never apologize.
Remember, this came only 2 paragraphs after he wrote “We can expect to see even more of this outrage by both the left and the right going forward. Our collective self-righteous anger keeps escalating. Perhaps it’s because of the hyper-partisan times we live in.” How dull one must be to not grasp the conflict between these two sentiments! Indeed, taking into account all of Obeidallah’s self-contradictory statements, one is forced to conclude that either he suffers from early dementia or that he is utterly without any sort of intellectual honesty or moral scruples.
So we are left with the spectacle of Yiannopoulus being pilloried for the same sins of both Ginsburg and Obeidallah. It’s not even the blatant double-standard of how Yiannopoulus has been treated so poorly due to his perceived political views that rankles so much; it’s the complete and all-consuming self-righteousness of progressives like Obeidallah and his ilk as they bemoan their treatment at the hands of “humorless” conservatives, yet still deign to deliver angry philipics when someone who is not a progressive leftist attempts to do as they did. You see, in Obeidallah’s worldview, only people with the proper views can be certified comedians, and thus, given license to poke at sacred cows. Thus, Yiannopoulus is a filthy pedophile, whereas, George Takei merely has wickedly mischevious sense of humor. In Obediallah’s worldview, Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg is a vicious anti-Semite, but Trevor Noah merely makes wry observations on “Zionism.” In Obediallah’s worldview, taking style tips from an anti-Semitic mass murderer and pedophile is merely fashion, but wearing a surfer’s necklace is irrefutable evidence that Yiannopoulus hold allegiance to an ideology that would see him placed in a death camp with both a pink and yellow triangle sewn to his blue and white striped prisoner’s pyjamas.
Dean, if you do perchance come across this article, I recommend that after reading it you enter your bathroom. I would ask that you take the time to look at yourself in the mirror. Really look at yourself. After marveling over your close resemblance to Casey Kasem, I want you to look yourself in the eyes and come to the acceptance that you are the reason Donald J. Trump is President of the United States. I want you to know, deep down in your bones, that it is an incontrovertible truth that it was the sublime hypocrisy displayed by you and your fellow progressive hatchet-men in the media that drove this nation to elect an amoral demagogue. I want you to see your face as the realization creeps across it that the current political situation is a result of the utter contempt that you have expressed towards those whom you’ve deemed as evil merely because they do not subscribe to your economic and societal views. I want you to see your eyes mist and your brow furrow in anguish as it dawns upon you that the zealous self-righteousness of you and your fellow progressives, in which you believe it acceptable to slander a perceived ideological enemy through hyperbolic sound-bites disseminated through a compliant, yet mercurial, media, has produced an equal and opposite reaction to which you now find your most beloved shibboleths tossed on the trash-heap. And, finally, when you accept that the state of affairs is over in which one could be excused of even the most vile behavior if they were your ideological kinsmen, while even the most milquetoast of peccadilloes of others were excoriated with a fury that rivaled anything found in Johnathan Edward’s Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, if you have even a modicum of self-dignity, you will reach for your medicine cabinet, take your DOVO, pause for a moment as the cold steel is pressed against the flesh of your neck, and slide the blade from left to right.
And you’ll have no one to blame but yourself, you insufferable prick.
Instagram model Jessica Tsai’s booty is thicc.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQei0aIgoT1/?taken-by=jessicababyfat
Alicia Silverstone posed for a risque ad for PETA. Something about not wanting to wear wool? …Honestly, I wasn’t really listening. If she doesn’t want to wear anything, that’s fine with me.
Absolutely fascinating piece on taxation and productivity from the liberty-loving folks over at FEE.
Interested in making your own Cronenberg-style horrors creations? Now you can! Feel free to post your lovelies in the comments. (H/T SugarFree, because of course)
It’s apparently “International Day of the Girl Child.” So… celebrate your girl children appropriately.