I'm also getting sort of a Jenette Goldstein vibe aka the stepmom in Terminator 2 (and also Vasquez, but that doesn't apply here)
Funny events in anti-woke world
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I was also in mind to mention Veronica Cartwright.I'm also getting sort of a Jenette Goldstein vibe aka the stepmom in Terminator 2 (and also Vasquez, but that doesn't apply here)
IIRC, they already made some changes to support the US in the GWoT.
In whose opinion? Since we're presumably not talking about actively threatening others, but about cases where your presence is itself a threat (ala Rittenhouse at the start of the incident) that's an important consideration.
For example, if you're a tall, broad shouldered sort of guy a lot of women might consider you threatening if you walk down the street and don't take actions specifically to assuage their hypothetical fears so if it's up to them... Or if you're black and out at 2AM and it's up to Phoenix...
Hell, you could use the "you lose the right to self defense if it's a dumb idea for you to be there" logic to defend fucking sundown towns.
I mean, at that point it would have been simpler to just start shooting at people out of nowhere rather than apparently hoping someone would attack him, then running away, then stopping and turning when he hears someone else shoot and getting lucky enough that the person who originally attacked him was close enough to try to take his gun. That seems...awfully contrived when if he were merely looking to kill folks he could just aim and shoot.
I mean he technically did. Kenosha is right on the state line, and the town he lived in was just on the other side of the state line, with the events that night being in between where he lived and where he worked. It's why they so often invoke "crossing state lines" - it's technically true and it makes it sound like he traveled much farther than he did.
That's not what I say about such crimes, that's what other people say. And if you're gonna invoke "you shouldn't have been there" then you're gonna be on the side of a lot of racists.
His father lives in that city/town.
Nicola Peltz Beckham, a billionaire’s daughter, made a movie about abject poverty. It’s as bad as you think | Kady Ruth Ashcraft
Lola, whose protagonist careens from one traumatic experience to the next, doesn’t explore hardship – it exploits it
www.theguardian.com
Dude was looking to be a hero, not a spree shooter, just like every moron wishing their house would get invaded to they could shoot somebody. Only when he got there, he got spooked by actual reality and lost his nerve, just like most idiots who go around looking for a fight and finding one. The dumb bastard should've realized how lucky he got, but a major political party decided to try and make him a hero instead
Some people are going to think this is ridiculous hyperbole. It isn't. I've been to several firearms forums where someone has written some variant of "I can't wait to see the look in the perp's eyes before I put a bullet between them".
Don't have to go that far, youtube is full of those types, which comes up when you are looking for real information on firearms or military history.
It was self-defense. I don't know why you care so much about stuff that doesn't matter.
Fox News, Far-Right Podcasters Sued For Linking Wrong Man To Neo-Nazi Shooting
Podcasters Tim Pool and Steven Crowder and Infowars host Owen Shroyer are listed as defendants, among others.
Fox News, Far-Right Podcasters Sued For Linking Wrong Man To Neo-Nazi Shooting
Podcasters Tim Pool and Steven Crowder and Infowars host Owen Shroyer are listed as defendants, among others.
A group of media organizations and far-right podcasters were hit with a libel lawsuit last month after sharing an image of a man they wrongly identified as a neo-Nazi mass shooter.
Texas man Mauricio Garcia, 36, alleges several media organizations, including Fox News and Newsmax, used an image of him in their coverage of a mass shooting last year that falsely linked him to the real shooter.
The real gunman — a 33-year-old white supremacist who killed eight people and wounded seven others at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas before he was fatally shot by police — shares the same name as the plaintiff.
“In their haste to cash in on the eagerness of viewers and readers to learn the identity of the May 6, 2023 mass shooter at the outlet mall in Allen, Texas, several media organizations recklessly disregarded basic journalistic safeguards and published the photo of an innocent man, branding him as a neo-Nazi murderer to his local community and the nation at large,” the lawsuit, filed March 26 and obtained by HuffPost, alleges.
Among the defendants accused of sharing the innocent man’s photo are far-right podcasters Tim Pool and Steven Crowder, along with Infowars host Owen Shroyer. Other media organizations named as defendants include the conservative cable channels Fox News and Newsmax; entertainment blog Hollywood Unlocked, TelevisaUnivision, the parent company of Spanish-language broadcaster Univision; and foreign policy news site Today News Africa.
The lawsuit says the news organizations misidentified the shooter between May 7 and May 9.
Fox News, for instance, is accused of publishing 36-year-old Garcia’s image on FoxNews.com in a story about the gunman.
“Fox News Network, LLC refused to publish a retraction within 30 days,” the lawsuit says. “Indeed, no retraction has ever been published. Fox completely ignored Plaintiff and never responded.”
You can read the full lawsuit here.
HuffPost reached out to the defendants in the case but did not receive a response back.
Garcia is being represented by Mark Bankston of the law firm Farrar & Ball, as well as attorney Greg Adler.
Bankston previously represented two Sandy Hook parents who won $45 million in damages against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, after Jones spent years falsely claiming the 2012 school shooting never happened on his Infowars show. Bankston is also currently representing a 22-year-old Jewish man who alleges he was falsely linked to a neo-Nazi brawl by billionaire Elon Musk.
Garcia’s lawsuit contains a letter his mom sent to a Univision journalist after she saw her son’s photo on the network. The letter, written in Spanish, said her son’s “only sin was to be called the same Mauricio Garcia,” according to the lawyers’ translation.
“They have made a very serious mistake, they have destroyed my life and that of my family, Mauricio’s grandfather, my son was scared to death!!!” she wrote. “I am going to send you the photo that is my son and I have received death threats and hatred!!!”
‘Here’s Where We Get Into The Psyop’
Following the shooting, details began to trickle in about the real gunman’s identity.
Mauricio Garcia, 33, wore a patch during the shooting with the letters “RWDS,” or “Right Wing Death Squad” on it — a common sight at extremist gatherings, including at the deadly neo-Nazi rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. And posts from the gunman on Russian social media revealed he had a large swastika tattoo.
“We do know that he had neo-Nazi ideation,” Hank Sibley, North Texas regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said at a press conference following the massacre. “He had patches. He had tattoos. Even his signature verified that.”
Robert Jackson, 35, consoles Cheryl Jackson at a makeshift memorial on Monday, May 8, 2023 outside the Allen Premium Outlets where a gunman killed 8 and wounded 7 before being killed by police Saturday evening in Allen, Texas.
THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES
Despite evidence of the gunman’s neo-Nazi beliefs, many on the right — including Musk — dismissed the idea that the shooting could’ve been motivated by right-wing extremism, instead suggesting it was a government conspiracy.
One of those people was Tim Pool, a beanie-wearing podcaster who has hosted white supremacist Nick Fuentes and right-wing troll Milo Yiannopoulos on his show.
When discussing the shooter’s social media profile on his program, “Timcast IRL,” Pool said: “You see, here’s where we get into the psyop,” according to the lawsuit.
“No one knows if this Russian social media profile is actually — actually belongs to this guy,” Pool said, the suit alleges. “Now the photos that are coming out, … they don’t show his face.”
Pool added that he didn’t want to show photos of the potential shooter “considering the sensitive nature of these things,” the lawsuit says. But Pool’s media group had already published a photo of a different man — the plaintiff Garcia — on its website, according to the suit.
Pool’s company, Timcast Media Group, is listed as a defendant.
“Despite Plaintiff’s demand, Timcast Media Group, Inc. refused to publish a retraction within 30 days,” the lawsuit says. “Indeed, despite acknowledging Plaintiff’s demand and deleting the articles, no retraction has ever been published.”
According to the suit, Pool wasn’t alone in publishing the wrong photo while also claiming the shooting was a government conspiracy. Shroyer, who served prison time for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack, allegedly showed a photo of the wrong Garcia on his Infowars program, “The War Room With Owen Shroyer.”
More from the lawsuit:
Crowder, a right-wing podcaster who has gone on anti-LGBTQ+ rants and in 2019 was was accused of a years-long campaign of homophobic and racist harassment against a Vox Media reporter, was also named in the suit for his coverage of the Texas shooting.
On his show, “Louder With Crowder,” Crowder allegedly displayed a photo of the plaintiff and identified him as the shooter. The plaintiff’s image was also published in an article on Crowder’s website.
From the lawsuit:
The lawsuit adds that “despite acknowledging the Plaintiff’s demand, no retraction has ever been published” by Crowder.
Garcia is seeking more than $1 million in damages.
(Something uncopyable going on here)
Election Workers Are Already Burned Out—and on High Alert
Violent threats, rampant disinformation, budget shortfalls, and mass resignations: Election workers have a long road to November.
Your paywall is found wanting.
Political murders from ppl who love violence don't matter guis stop looking jeez stop talking bout it guis!Election Workers Are Already Burned Out—and on High Alert
Violent threats, rampant disinformation, budget shortfalls, and mass resignations: Election workers have a long road to November.
PHOTO-ILLUSTRATION: WIRED STAFF; GETTY IMAGES
SAVE
With less than seven months to go until November, election offices and the people who run them are facing unprecedented challenges as they try to prepare for the most consequential vote in a generation.
All the election workers WIRED spoke with said they were ready for November. “We’re ready,” says John Catalano, a spokesperson for the South Carolina Election Commission, adding, “The preparation for 2024 began immediately after the 2022 elections ended, and it hasn’t stopped.”
“I'm confident for the 2024 cycle from an administration standpoint, both of my office and generally speaking of elections,” says Stephen Richer, the recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona, who runs elections.
But for the last three years, these offices have been under attack. Since former president Donald Trump and his acolytes refused to accept the results of the 2020 US election, election officials and workers have faced a torrent of threats. According to data collected by the Brennan Center last year, one in three of the country’s estimated 10,000 election officials has received threats or harassment because of their job. Though US elections have never been more secure, US election officials say, this hasn’t really mattered for election deniers.
In addition to violent threats, workers have faced rampant election conspiracies spread by Trump and the GOP—now supercharged by AI, election denial groups, and even election deniers inside the government. As a result, election officials have resigned en masse. The loss of institutional knowledge, coupled with an unending wave of disinformation and misinformation, has made the job untenable.
“Our main facility is a fortress now,” Richer tells WIRED. “We have gates up around the clock. We have badge access around the clock, we have general security outside of our facility, and because we have an election going on right now, we have additional security, additional barriers, additional patrols.”
Richer and his office are being protected by the local sheriff's office, the Arizona Department of Homeland Security, and the Phoenix Police Department. “They are all committing a lot of resources [to protect us],” Richer said. “It’s a damn shame.”
This is the reality of elections in the US today for the workers and officials administering them. In St. Lucie County, Florida, a sheriff's deputy is now permanently stationed just inside the door to the Fort Pierce elections office. Nearby, in Martin and Indian River Counties, officials have added bollards, or safety posts, outside their buildings to prevent anyone from ramming a vehicle into their facilities. Richer said the level of security protecting his office has become normalized in Maricopa, and it has become a “poster child” for what elections in the US look like.
While multiple people have been charged with threatening election workers, only a tiny fraction of those accused have been prosecuted. According to the Department of Justice’s Election Threats Task Force, which was set up specifically to deal with this issue, just 20 people have been charged for threatening election officials, and only 13 have been convicted, even though the task force reviewed at least 2,000 cases.
“They're exhausted,” Tammy Patrick, CEO of the National Association of Election Officials, which has a membership of 1,800 officials across the US, tells WIRED. “People are tired, and we haven't even started the election cycle this year. They are still under attack, they're still getting death threats from 2020.”
They’re also trying to just do their jobs, and make sure eligible voters are able to vote and the politicians on the ballot accept the results no matter what. “As a nation, we're holding our breath to see if that happens,” Patrick says.
According to a new report published this week by the Bipartisan Policy Center, the level of election worker turnover has spiked dramatically since 2020, with the researchers observing an almost 40 percent jump in resignations between 2004 and 2022.
“It is difficult to recruit people who are able to withstand the intense pressure that has become inherent in election administration,” Stuart Holmes, director of elections in Washington state, tells WIRED. “We often find that people either love election administration and are in for life, or leave within six months.”
In some cases, like in Buckingham County, Virginia, entire election offices have quit due to threats.
“We do have examples across the country where the entire office resigned because they were just mentally unable to go to work every day and be inundated with death threats,” Patrick said. “It is not the sort of situation one would think about for the United States of America. It's the sort of thing we would think about in struggling new democracies where they don't have the traditions that many of us now realize we were taking for granted, like concessions when one loses.”
Leslie Hoffman, who ran the elections office in Yavapai County in Arizona, where vigilantes monitored drop boxes, quit in 2022. At the time, she cited the “nastiness” of the threats she received. She later told WIRED that she actually quit because her dog was poisoned just before she left her post. No one was ever arrested or charged, but she believes it was related to her election work.
For the election officials and workers who have remained in their roles, they are now facing 2024 already having to cover for colleagues who have departed and whose positions remain unfilled—including at least one election director role.
According to the Brennan Center survey, one in five of the officials who will be working on the 2024 vote will be doing so for the first time.
“Institutional knowledge is so important. Employee turnover in an election administration can look like not knowing how to set up, or opening your poll site late, or directing people to the wrong place,” Christina Baal-Owens, the executive director of voting rights organizations Public Wise, tells WIRED. “There's also the cost of training and recruitment. Hiring costs money, and recruiting costs money. It's a drain on resources.”
Baal-Owens also points out that the loss of experienced employees can have less obvious impacts: “Voting is incredibly local, and in a lot of communities, elderly folks are the ones that vote and they have relationships with the people that have been administering their elections. So losing those relationships is also really important. Losing that institutional knowledge is an issue.”
Another issue is the funding. Election work isn’t lucrative, which makes it even harder to recruit for open positions. In Pima County, Arizona, a number of critical roles remain unfilled, including a training and education coordinator, elections operation manager, and election compliance officer. All of these critical roles come with a starting salary just slightly above the average salary in Arizona, making it difficult to recruit qualified applicants.
Election workers “can make more money at Chick-fil-A,” Howard Knapp, director of the state election commission in South Carolina, told a House budget panel in January. “They say, ‘Why the hell am I putting up with this?’ and they leave.”
During the panel, Knapp added that some large counties in the state were paying their election directors as little as $30,000 this year.
But beyond the budget or open positions, election officials told WIRED that election disinformation is their number one concern. And this time around, they are dealing with the added threat posed by the widespread availability of generative AI tools. “There's quite a bit of trepidation around how AI might be used in this environment and in this moment, to either dissuade voters from voting or confuse voters on what the voting options are, or further taint the civic discourse around what our elections really are,” says Patrick.
Some of the specific threats that election officials are concerned about include whether they could be the focus of a deepfake video that goes viral telling voters wrong information, or if their own voice goes out as a robocall giving voters incorrect details about voting times and locations.
Patrick, who regularly hears from hundreds of officials in states across the country in her position as head of the biggest election official union, also tells WIRED that the disinformation and threats her members are now hearing feature a Christian nationalist flavor.
“All of the awful, violent threats in the past were made on behalf of a candidate or a party,” Patrick said. “What I've heard from some of my members is that now they have these very strange religious overtones, that God is telling them it's incumbent upon these individuals to keep the election official in line, and they're gonna hang them as they need to, or they're gonna shoot them.”
And yet, there are some elected officials involved with overseeing elections who have spread fraud conspiracies.
In Richer’s home state of Arizona, 46 elected officials have credibly participated in election denial activities—at least one of them holding a critical position overseeing the electoral system, while others are now running for Congress. Research conducted by the nonpartisan election integrity group States United Action found 201 election deniers currently serving as state legislators in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, the seven states that pushed fake electors following the 2020 vote. Forty-nine of these legislators, States United Action tells WIRED, “sit on committees that deal most directly with election-related bills and/or hold legislative leadership positions that allow them to influence those committees and bills.”
Richer still believes the election systems are robust enough to prevent the insider threat from disrupting the elections: “I think the ability to corrupt that system is very limited, especially corrupt it in a manner that can't be easily discovered if reversed.” But he admits that preventing these same officials and legislators from spreading election denial disinformation is more difficult.
Richer is running for reelection in November, despite all the attacks and threats.
The threats have also inspired others to join the fight: In Fulton County, Georgia, NPR reported in January that new election workers were signing up for 2024 because of two women who faced intensive online harassment and abuse from Trump supporters falsely accusing them of election fraud.
It is stories like these which give Patrick some reassurance that, despite everything, the 2024 elections will be run efficiently and safely.
“What gives me hope at this moment is that we cannot underestimate the tenacity of either the voters or our election professionals, because they know what's at stake,” Patrick said. “And they're not going to let any partisan, any political figure take away from the voter what is their right in a free and fair election.”
Yeah, the presence of a gun is entirely different from all of those and makes it not at all equivalent with your silly examples. Walking around a riot armed is reasonably threatening, unlike your examples. And again, unlike your examples, he was in the process of committing illegal actions even before he started shooting.
I never cared much for her games. I didn't hate the character personally, but the story was lacking and I just didn't care.
They brought her back 10 years ago on xbla with that game done by Way Forward. Then they got to remaster a few years ago and put on current gen consoles. The one that plays like a cross between Castlevania and Devil May Cry. Not bad actually.
A pathetic biatch fraud he is indeed. Nobody wants him. Even after becoming "friends" with him. How's that lawsuit by the way? Still running away from it like a punk ass biatch Ritts?
www.newsweek.com
www.thecollegefix.com
www.nj.com
Kyle Rittenhouse shooting survivor wants revenge: "He's a fraud"
"What does Kyle Rittenhouse even know about gun laws?" Paul Prediger, formerly known as Gaige Grosskreutz, told Newsweek.
www.newsweek.com
Nearly 5,000 want Kyle Rittenhouse event at Kent State canceled; university backs free speech | The College Fix
Petitions: Rittenhouse ‘controversial figure’ who evokes university’s ‘history of acts of gun violence.’…
www.thecollegefix.com
Kyle Rittenhouse’s ex-buddy: He’s in ‘extremely dangerous territory’ in shooting lawsuit
Rittenhouse was charged with homicide, attempted homicide and reckless endangering for killing Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum and wounding a third person.
www.nj.com
The womens just be throwing themselves in front of my car. It. just. Keeps. Happening.
utahnewsdispatch.com
3 more attempted murder charges for man accused of ‘choosing females at random to hit’ with car • Utah News Dispatch
A man accused of deliberately hitting female pedestrians in Salt Lake County, Utah, with his car is charged with attempted murder.
utahnewsdispatch.com
3 more attempted murder charges for man accused of ‘choosing females at random to hit’ with car
The Salt Lake County District Attorney building in Salt Lake City is pictured on Wednesday, January 3, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
Prosecutors filed new charges on Thursday against a man accused of intentionally hitting random female pedestrians with his car over the course of seven months.
The Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office announced three additional attempted murder charges against 26-year-old Anh Dut Pham stemming from two incidents in March. Pham now faces nine attempted murder charges, all first-degree felonies.
The office is also charging Pham with six counts of failing to stop at a serious injury accident, a third-degree felony, and three counts of failing to stop at an injury accident, a class A misdemeanor.
According to court documents, Pham “does not know the female victims and has been choosing females at random to hit.”
That includes a woman and man walking with a dog on March 2 at 900 South and 1300 East in Salt Lake City, according to the charges filed Thursday. At about 11:18 p.m. as they crossed the street, prosecutors say Pham rounded the corner in his white Toyota sedan and purposely turned into oncoming lanes to strike the woman.
The woman was “struck, thrown over the Toyota and thrown to the side of the road,” resulting in a broken hip and concussion, according to court documents, while the man was hit by the car’s mirror.
Then on March 12, prosecutors say a woman was walking on 166 North T Street in Salt Lake City when she “heard vehicle tires squeal and observed a white vehicle accelerate around the corner and start to drive towards her.” The woman jumped behind garbage cans to avoid the car, but Pham was still able to strike her, knocking her unconscious and resulting in a concussion and subdural hematoma, according to court documents.
Pham was arrested the next day on March 13 after police located his car at a park. He told officers he “may have lent the vehicle to one of his friends,” but later admitted he “doesn’t let anyone drive” the white Toyota, according to court documents. His family later confirmed that he is the only person who drives the car, prosecutors say.
“We thank Salt Lake City Police Department detectives and our prosecutors for their continual work on this case to help ensure justice for our community. All persons accused of wrongdoing are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law,” Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said in a statement.
Prior to Thursday’s charges, Pham was accused of hitting several women walking in Salt Lake County. The victims include:
- A 36-year-old woman hit at 1000 West and 500 South in Salt Lake City on Aug. 22, 2023, after Pham allegedly asked her to get in his car. Witnesses told investigators “the white vehicle sped up and hit (the woman) causing her to fly over the vehicle and land on the ground hard before speeding away.” The woman suffered minor injuries and refused medical attention.
- A 50-year-old woman and her daughter hit at 1700 East and 11490 South in Sandy on Feb. 24 after Pham allegedly circled the street three times. The woman suffered an epidural hematoma, temporal bone fracture and blunt force trauma, and her daughter suffered a scalp laceration and back injuries, court documents state.
- Two women, ages 44 and 50, struck at the intersection of Douglas and Laird streets in Salt Lake City on Feb. 28. One of the women told police “she heard a vehicle accelerating before being struck from behind.” One suffered a concussion, head lacerations and fractured front teeth; the other suffered a brain bleed, concussion, hand fracture, and head and scalp lacerations, according to charging documents.
- A 20-year-old woman hit at 600 West and North Temple in Salt Lake City on March 11. As she crossed the street with a friend, Pham’s “Toyota is observed quickly picking up speed and the sound of the collision is heard,” according to court documents. The woman suffered a fractured skull, pelvis, femur and tibia/fibula, and a brain bleed. She is still in intensive care after initially being placed on a ventilator.
WTF what's wrong with some people? Any exact reason why he chose to do this or are the police still investigating that?The womens just be throwing themselves in front of my car. It. just. Keeps. Happening.
3 more attempted murder charges for man accused of ‘choosing females at random to hit’ with car • Utah News Dispatch
A man accused of deliberately hitting female pedestrians in Salt Lake County, Utah, with his car is charged with attempted murder.
She also portrayed Katara in the The Last Airbender movie. A role she got thanks to her father.Beat the richNicola Peltz Beckham, a billionaire’s daughter, made a movie about abject poverty. It’s as bad as you think | Kady Ruth Ashcraft
Lola, whose protagonist careens from one traumatic experience to the next, doesn’t explore hardship – it exploits it
What the shit is this? You all realize you're going to hell for being in favor of priest that molests children? If these assholes started getting assassinated, I won't shed any tears.