Lily Salter's Blog, page 962
November 3, 2015
The terrifying consequences of open carry: Neighbor’s pleas for help go unheeded before gunman kills three
When Naomi Bettis called 911 on Halloween morning to report a gunman going on a shooting rampage in the streets of Colorado Springs, Colorado, it was her second call for help. Bettis had earlier called 911 to report a suspicious man brandishing a rifle, only to be told by the emergency operator that no help was coming because Colorado is an open-carry state.
“I don’t remember what they call it— open arms,” Bettis recalled to the Washington Post, referring to the 911 operator’s explanation of Colorado’s law allowing residents to openly carry registered firearms in public.“She said, you know, we have that law here. And it just kind of blew me away, like she didn’t believe me or something,” Bettis explained incredulously. “I don’t think she probably thought it was an emergency until I made the second call, and that’s when I said, ‘That guy I just called you about, he just shot somebody.’”
33-year-old Noah Jacob Harpham calmly opened fire on his neighbors Saturday morning, first killing a passing bicyclist after he pleaded for his life before walking down the street with a rifle and a revolver and shooting dead two women sitting on their front porch.
Bettis told the Denver Post that the gunman, whom she recognized as her neighbor, "did have a distraught look on his face."
"It looked like he had a rough couple days or so." Harpham, a recovering alcoholic, later died in a gun battle with police. Police say it took seven minutes for them to respond after the initial phone calls, which they claim were made after the rampage began. Law enforcement officials have yet to comment on Bettis' account. President of the Colorado Association of Police Chiefs, Rick Brandt, told the Post that Colorado lacks a uniform policy on how to handle calls of residents openly brandishing guns. [image error]When Naomi Bettis called 911 on Halloween morning to report a gunman going on a shooting rampage in the streets of Colorado Springs, Colorado, it was her second call for help. Bettis had earlier called 911 to report a suspicious man brandishing a rifle, only to be told by the emergency operator that no help was coming because Colorado is an open-carry state.
“I don’t remember what they call it— open arms,” Bettis recalled to the Washington Post, referring to the 911 operator’s explanation of Colorado’s law allowing residents to openly carry registered firearms in public.“She said, you know, we have that law here. And it just kind of blew me away, like she didn’t believe me or something,” Bettis explained incredulously. “I don’t think she probably thought it was an emergency until I made the second call, and that’s when I said, ‘That guy I just called you about, he just shot somebody.’”
33-year-old Noah Jacob Harpham calmly opened fire on his neighbors Saturday morning, first killing a passing bicyclist after he pleaded for his life before walking down the street with a rifle and a revolver and shooting dead two women sitting on their front porch.
Bettis told the Denver Post that the gunman, whom she recognized as her neighbor, "did have a distraught look on his face."
"It looked like he had a rough couple days or so." Harpham, a recovering alcoholic, later died in a gun battle with police. Police say it took seven minutes for them to respond after the initial phone calls, which they claim were made after the rampage began. Law enforcement officials have yet to comment on Bettis' account. President of the Colorado Association of Police Chiefs, Rick Brandt, told the Post that Colorado lacks a uniform policy on how to handle calls of residents openly brandishing guns. [image error]
10 people who could also sue Taylor Swift for plagiarizing lyrics to “Shake It Off”
The haters keep coming for Taylor Swift. Last week, an R&B singer named Jesse Graham filed a lawsuit against Swift alleging that she swiped the “haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate / and the players gonna play, play, play, play, play” refrain that made her 2014 single “Shake It Off” such an instant earworm from his 2013 crooner “Haters Gone Hate,” which includes a version of the phrase as well. He’s seeking $42 million in damages — in Swift dollars, that’s about a week’s worth of work, or roughly 28,000 Scottish Fold kittens. "Her hook is the same hook as mine," Graham told the Daily News this weekend. "If I didn't write the song 'Haters Gone Hate,' there wouldn't be a song called 'Shake It Off.'" This is no “Blurred Lines” debacle, or even a friendly Sam Smith/Tom Petty oopsie. The two songs, frankly, sound nothing alike. And according to "Know Your Meme," the ubiquitous online catchphrase dates back at least six years, which is a lifetime in Internet years. Even so, its origins go deeper. So if Graham is alleging that the terms “haters gonna hate” and “players gonna play” are his intellectual property, that if someone else hadn't conjured them out of thin air then Swift never could have grabbed these incredibly trite clichés out of the modern parlance to anchor her sassy little pop juggernaut, he should go directly to the back of the line, because the following 10 people — by our very conservative estimate — have dibs on this juicy, frivolous lawsuit first: Ice T, who cautioned us "Don’t hate the player, hate the game" in his 1999 single "Don't Hate the Playa," which I can absolutely imagine motivating 10-year-old Taylor Swift to pursue future world domination The following year, 3LW released the excellent jam "Playas Gon' Play," which is way overdue for a retro comeback — and features, of course, the inverse to "playas gon' play," which is, and always will be, "haters gon' hate." Dave Chappelle, whose Comedy Central classic "Chappelle's Show" featured the sketch "Playa Hater's Ball" — featuring Ice T! — in 2003 Omar Noory, credited with the first animated gif of record featuring a proud avatar (in this case, a strutting chubby child nicknamed baller.gif) blithely shrugging off the haters, which he first shared online in 2009 This cat your college dormmate has probably claimed as her "spirit animal" The authors of these Urban Dictionary entries of "haters gonna hate," the first of which date back to 2010 Whomever first captured the very essence of this almost-nude Batman rollerblading like a boss and not giving a single fuck This very proud eagle your Republican uncle won't stop posting on every Trump-bashing post he sees on Facebook Every single creator of every single gif in this 2012 Buzzfeed list Tyga, who would like to remind you he dug into the thorny player/hater dichotomy all the way back in 2013, can't he get a little credit for that? No? [image error]The haters keep coming for Taylor Swift. Last week, an R&B singer named Jesse Graham filed a lawsuit against Swift alleging that she swiped the “haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate / and the players gonna play, play, play, play, play” refrain that made her 2014 single “Shake It Off” such an instant earworm from his 2013 crooner “Haters Gone Hate,” which includes a version of the phrase as well. He’s seeking $42 million in damages — in Swift dollars, that’s about a week’s worth of work, or roughly 28,000 Scottish Fold kittens. "Her hook is the same hook as mine," Graham told the Daily News this weekend. "If I didn't write the song 'Haters Gone Hate,' there wouldn't be a song called 'Shake It Off.'" This is no “Blurred Lines” debacle, or even a friendly Sam Smith/Tom Petty oopsie. The two songs, frankly, sound nothing alike. And according to "Know Your Meme," the ubiquitous online catchphrase dates back at least six years, which is a lifetime in Internet years. Even so, its origins go deeper. So if Graham is alleging that the terms “haters gonna hate” and “players gonna play” are his intellectual property, that if someone else hadn't conjured them out of thin air then Swift never could have grabbed these incredibly trite clichés out of the modern parlance to anchor her sassy little pop juggernaut, he should go directly to the back of the line, because the following 10 people — by our very conservative estimate — have dibs on this juicy, frivolous lawsuit first: Ice T, who cautioned us "Don’t hate the player, hate the game" in his 1999 single "Don't Hate the Playa," which I can absolutely imagine motivating 10-year-old Taylor Swift to pursue future world domination The following year, 3LW released the excellent jam "Playas Gon' Play," which is way overdue for a retro comeback — and features, of course, the inverse to "playas gon' play," which is, and always will be, "haters gon' hate." Dave Chappelle, whose Comedy Central classic "Chappelle's Show" featured the sketch "Playa Hater's Ball" — featuring Ice T! — in 2003 Omar Noory, credited with the first animated gif of record featuring a proud avatar (in this case, a strutting chubby child nicknamed baller.gif) blithely shrugging off the haters, which he first shared online in 2009 This cat your college dormmate has probably claimed as her "spirit animal" The authors of these Urban Dictionary entries of "haters gonna hate," the first of which date back to 2010 Whomever first captured the very essence of this almost-nude Batman rollerblading like a boss and not giving a single fuck This very proud eagle your Republican uncle won't stop posting on every Trump-bashing post he sees on Facebook Every single creator of every single gif in this 2012 Buzzfeed list Tyga, who would like to remind you he dug into the thorny player/hater dichotomy all the way back in 2013, can't he get a little credit for that? No? [image error]
Chris Christie plays a desperate, shameful race card and will still never, ever be president
Chris Christie is languishing in the Republican presidential primary polls---even John Kasich is beating him in the latest polling data---so it's not surprising that he's throwing his Hail Mary pass. But boy, is it a distasteful one. Christie is now trying to win Republican voters over with the old Richard Nixon playbook of playing on white, suburban fears of "urban" crime. Barack Obama has been making moves to address the problem of over-incarceration and police violence in our society, by releasing non-violent drug offenders and pushing employers to be more open-minded about hiring people who have done time. He made this speech in New Jersey, and so naturally, Christie just had to respond. As Talking Points Memo reports, he's not being very subtle about it:
Christie used the president’s visit as an excuse to travel to Camden, a city where the county government’s sheriff’s department took over policing three years ago. There, he did something he has ridiculed in the past: he signed an executive order declaring a day of appreciation for a particular constituency. Because of Christie’s actions, Thursday November 5 will now be Law Enforcement Appreciation Day in the Garden State. Why did the governor’s office on Friday hastily schedule a Monday event to announce a ceremonial action? Counter-programming of course. Christie took the opportunity to press what is in many ways a lock-em-up, tough-on-crime agenda just as politicians across the ideological spectrum are deciding that mass incarceration has gone too far.Why Christie is doing this isn't a big surprise. Huge chunks of the Republican base live in constant fear of crime and mindlessly applaud police violence, the excesses of the war on drugs, and over-incarceration as a response to that fear. This fear has no real attachment to actual risk of being a victim of crime, but continues to be what it was when Richard Nixon's Southern strategy to capture the white vote banked heavily on the phrase "law and order": A socially acceptable way for racist white people to express fear that people of color are out to get them. The ridiculousness of Christie's gambit was exposed back in September, when Christie went on Morning Joe to claim that he would reinstate "stop and frisk" in New York and that the current mayor, Bill de Blasio, is somehow turning the city into a danger zone by not continuing the policy. "It’s the liberal policies in this city that have led to the lawless that’s been encouraged by the president of the United States," he warned. The problem is that the city Christie believes is devolving into a dystopic nightmare actually had one of the safest summers in years. But Christie pooh-poohed that, because conservative fear-mongering on crime isn't really about crime, but just about perpetuating fears of big cities, racial diversity, and liberalism generally. The detachment from reality has only grown more bizarre, as Christie went on Face the Nation last Sunday, once again saying that, "There's lawlessness in this country. The president encourages this lawlessness. He encourages it." Then there was this bizarre and unsettling exchange between Christie and host John Dickerson:
DICKERSON: Encourages it how? CHRISTIE: Oh, by his own rhetoric. He does not support the police. He doesn't back up the police. He justifies Black Lives Matter. I mean... DICKERSON: But Black Lives Matter shouldn't be justified at all? CHRISTIE: Listen, I don't believe that that movement should be justified when they're calling for the murder of police officers, no. DICKERSON: But they're not calling for the murder of police officers. CHRISTIE: Sure, they are. Sure, they are. They have been chanting in the streets for the murder of police officers.Obviously, we're in the email forward, conspiracy theory-mongering zone so beloved by the right. But Christie has his floundering poll numbers to consider, so pushing every unhinged right wing paranoid meme is what he's going with. While it seemed for a time that the fear-mongering about crime was in decline on the right, in the past few months, it's been coming back to life, which is why Christie is pouncing. A couple of things have been going on to bring it back, starting with the surge of liberal criticism of over-incarceration and the Black Lives Matter movement. There's been a lot of media attention to stories about unarmed black civilians dying at the hands of aggressive cops and other racially loaded violence, particularly against teenagers who haven't really done anything to merit being physically abused by police. These stories, and the protests that have emerged in response, are creating a defensive reaction in conservatives that support these abusive, racist practices, due to their inchoate fears of crime. There's no police violence against black people that conservative media figures won't excuse. Christie's comments about Black Lives Matter, in fact, stem from a growing narrative on the right that is trying to paint the movement as somehow pro-violence, when obviously their purpose is to stop violence and pointless death at the hands of police. In addition to all this, you have the issue of gun control. In response to a seemingly endless stream of mass shooting, liberals have been increasing pressure to enact some kind of gun safety regulation. But of course, conservatives need to blame anything but easy access to guns for gun violence. So instead, they raise fears about "lawlessness"---fears that just so happen to justify conservatives who want to buy more guns to protect themselves against this supposed tide of violence. All this fear-mongering probably won't help Christie's poll numbers---really, coming out for Social Security "reform" will never ingratiate you with the elderly white people that make up the backbone of the Republican Party, making his a lost cause---but that doesn't mean that his behavior isn't a big deal. Stoking baseless, racially loaded fear of crime will likely have ramifications that extend past this election cycle. Putting the face of a ostensibly mainstream figure like Christie on the racist fears that Black Lives Matter activists are out to get you will help justify those fears. It's beyond irresponsible of him to pander like this to gain some points in a race he's never going to win. For shame, Christie. [image error]Chris Christie is languishing in the Republican presidential primary polls---even John Kasich is beating him in the latest polling data---so it's not surprising that he's throwing his Hail Mary pass. But boy, is it a distasteful one. Christie is now trying to win Republican voters over with the old Richard Nixon playbook of playing on white, suburban fears of "urban" crime. Barack Obama has been making moves to address the problem of over-incarceration and police violence in our society, by releasing non-violent drug offenders and pushing employers to be more open-minded about hiring people who have done time. He made this speech in New Jersey, and so naturally, Christie just had to respond. As Talking Points Memo reports, he's not being very subtle about it:
Christie used the president’s visit as an excuse to travel to Camden, a city where the county government’s sheriff’s department took over policing three years ago. There, he did something he has ridiculed in the past: he signed an executive order declaring a day of appreciation for a particular constituency. Because of Christie’s actions, Thursday November 5 will now be Law Enforcement Appreciation Day in the Garden State. Why did the governor’s office on Friday hastily schedule a Monday event to announce a ceremonial action? Counter-programming of course. Christie took the opportunity to press what is in many ways a lock-em-up, tough-on-crime agenda just as politicians across the ideological spectrum are deciding that mass incarceration has gone too far.Why Christie is doing this isn't a big surprise. Huge chunks of the Republican base live in constant fear of crime and mindlessly applaud police violence, the excesses of the war on drugs, and over-incarceration as a response to that fear. This fear has no real attachment to actual risk of being a victim of crime, but continues to be what it was when Richard Nixon's Southern strategy to capture the white vote banked heavily on the phrase "law and order": A socially acceptable way for racist white people to express fear that people of color are out to get them. The ridiculousness of Christie's gambit was exposed back in September, when Christie went on Morning Joe to claim that he would reinstate "stop and frisk" in New York and that the current mayor, Bill de Blasio, is somehow turning the city into a danger zone by not continuing the policy. "It’s the liberal policies in this city that have led to the lawless that’s been encouraged by the president of the United States," he warned. The problem is that the city Christie believes is devolving into a dystopic nightmare actually had one of the safest summers in years. But Christie pooh-poohed that, because conservative fear-mongering on crime isn't really about crime, but just about perpetuating fears of big cities, racial diversity, and liberalism generally. The detachment from reality has only grown more bizarre, as Christie went on Face the Nation last Sunday, once again saying that, "There's lawlessness in this country. The president encourages this lawlessness. He encourages it." Then there was this bizarre and unsettling exchange between Christie and host John Dickerson:
DICKERSON: Encourages it how? CHRISTIE: Oh, by his own rhetoric. He does not support the police. He doesn't back up the police. He justifies Black Lives Matter. I mean... DICKERSON: But Black Lives Matter shouldn't be justified at all? CHRISTIE: Listen, I don't believe that that movement should be justified when they're calling for the murder of police officers, no. DICKERSON: But they're not calling for the murder of police officers. CHRISTIE: Sure, they are. Sure, they are. They have been chanting in the streets for the murder of police officers.Obviously, we're in the email forward, conspiracy theory-mongering zone so beloved by the right. But Christie has his floundering poll numbers to consider, so pushing every unhinged right wing paranoid meme is what he's going with. While it seemed for a time that the fear-mongering about crime was in decline on the right, in the past few months, it's been coming back to life, which is why Christie is pouncing. A couple of things have been going on to bring it back, starting with the surge of liberal criticism of over-incarceration and the Black Lives Matter movement. There's been a lot of media attention to stories about unarmed black civilians dying at the hands of aggressive cops and other racially loaded violence, particularly against teenagers who haven't really done anything to merit being physically abused by police. These stories, and the protests that have emerged in response, are creating a defensive reaction in conservatives that support these abusive, racist practices, due to their inchoate fears of crime. There's no police violence against black people that conservative media figures won't excuse. Christie's comments about Black Lives Matter, in fact, stem from a growing narrative on the right that is trying to paint the movement as somehow pro-violence, when obviously their purpose is to stop violence and pointless death at the hands of police. In addition to all this, you have the issue of gun control. In response to a seemingly endless stream of mass shooting, liberals have been increasing pressure to enact some kind of gun safety regulation. But of course, conservatives need to blame anything but easy access to guns for gun violence. So instead, they raise fears about "lawlessness"---fears that just so happen to justify conservatives who want to buy more guns to protect themselves against this supposed tide of violence. All this fear-mongering probably won't help Christie's poll numbers---really, coming out for Social Security "reform" will never ingratiate you with the elderly white people that make up the backbone of the Republican Party, making his a lost cause---but that doesn't mean that his behavior isn't a big deal. Stoking baseless, racially loaded fear of crime will likely have ramifications that extend past this election cycle. Putting the face of a ostensibly mainstream figure like Christie on the racist fears that Black Lives Matter activists are out to get you will help justify those fears. It's beyond irresponsible of him to pander like this to gain some points in a race he's never going to win. For shame, Christie. [image error]
The fate of San Francisco hangs in the balance: The pivotal Election Day contests that could change everything
I love many things about living in New York City, but one thing I hate is that I can no longer vote in my hometown, San Francisco. Elections in New York area boring. Elections in San Francisco really matter. Thanks to the city's small size and the unbelievable ease with which propositions can be put on the ballot, voters have a great deal of power in their hands.
Today's elections in San Francisco have come around at a particularly intense time. The civil war taking place there over the reach and influence of the tech industry has become an international story. From the soccer field face-off between some Dropbox bros and local kids, to Airbnb's recent cartoon-villain ads that got the company into so much trouble, to those Google bus protests, everyone has been given a front-row seat to what is happening to the City by the Bay—where, as the New York Times chillingly put it this week, there is so much money sloshing around that "the days when a regular family could raise children here are probably over."
This sort of change is hardly limited to San Francisco; cities everywhere are experiencing surges in inequality and an influx of mega-wealth. But San Francisco has been chosen as the epicenter of the tech industry, and so it has been subjected to a particularly rapacious transformation. If you are from there, you can sense it almost instantly.
This is actually the second time that tech has brought this sort of turmoil to San Francisco. The first dot-com boom at the turn of the 21st century was similarly contentious. (This is where I disclose that my family was evicted from our house during that period by owners who wanted desperately to raise the rent, which they duly did.) But that was nothing compared to what is happening now. There's a very good reason for that: The technology industry is now so integral to our lives that it's not going anywhere any time soon.
I don't know what it feels like for people from other cities to experience the kind of dislocation that is roiling San Francisco, but I am very aware of the specific feeling that comes from seeing this particular place be so dramatically altered.
San Francisco is small. Even the lengthiest journeys take about a half hour in the car. This means that, if you grow up there, or if you live there for any extended period of time, essentially every part of the city leaves its mark on you. You experience every neighborhood in some form or another. People from San Francisco have a particularly intimate relationship with their city.
So when you see what is happening in San Francisco—when you gaze open-mouthed at the vast pockets of money that have colonized places you once adored and turned them virtually unrecognizable—it is deeply, almost startlingly unsettling. It only becomes more unsettling when you are then told that your hidebound anti-development ways are the cause of the problem. (This is not true, by the way.) People are freaked out about what is taking place in San Francisco because they feel like this city that nurtured them and understood them and loved them back has been ripped from them overnight and given to people with no understanding of what they've done.
To give just one example: Last week, my sister—who has lived in San Francisco virtually all her life and knows it better than anyone I can think of—went to a party in Golden Gate Park, only to find that it was a "cholo"-themed affair, where rich white bros were dressing up like stereotypical Latinos. When she told me about it, the sheer strangeness of something like that happening in San Francisco hung over our conversation even more than the racism.
Neither of us should have been so surprised. Latinos are being driven out of the city at breathtaking rates. A recent study projected that the Latino population of the Mission—San Francisco's most precious neighborhood, its sunniest jewel, and the epicenter of its Latino life—is set to fall to 31 percent by 2025. That's down from 60 percent in 2000. I have read a lot of depressing statistics this year, but none made me so sad as this one.
That's where Tuesday's elections come in. From top to bottom, they are referendum on where the city's relationship with the tech industry is going. The most bitterly contested struggles in the race are happening over two ballot initiatives. One, Prop. F, would tighten regulations on Airbnb, which has been aggressively exploiting loopholes in local laws and, because it takes rental units off the market, has become a symbol of San Francisco's housing crisis. Airbnb has spent $8 million to defeat Prop. F. Another initiative, Prop. I, would temporarily halt the construction of luxury housing in the Mission.
Ironically, the one race that's a sure thing is the one for mayor. Ed Lee—who was installed as interim mayor when the last one left, then went back on a pledge not to run for a full term—is guaranteed an easy victory. Perhaps this is because the tech industry that he has so enthusiastically handed the keys to the city in recent years is backing him with enough ferocity to scare off any serious challengers.
Instead, people are putting their energy into one race for the Board of Supervisors, San Francisco's legislative body. The city is divided into 11 districts, and currently, the so-called "moderates" (read: the allies of Lee and his friends) have a one-vote advantage over the progressive faction. The race in District 3, between a Lee appointee and former progressive supervisor Aaron Peskin, could tip the balance in favor of the left, which would be a very, very big deal.
Whatever winds up happening, this is not just a fight about local ordinances. It's symbolic of the wider discussion we need to have about the kind of society we want to live in. The tech industry brings many wonderful things to our lives, but it is also a driving force behind the attempt to privatize virtually every part of public life, mostly to benefit the rich. San Francisco has become a breeding ground for this kind of experimentation, at a deeply lamentable cost. Even though I can't vote there anymore, I am hoping that the people can use their power to turn the tide back in the right direction.
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Ted Cruz’s crazy dad has a dire warning for the GOP: Nominating Jeb Bush means electing Hillary Clinton & destroying America
Speaking to crowd in Lake Elmo, Minnesota last month, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz's father, Rafael, predicted that America will be destroyed if Hillary Clinton wins the 2016 election, reports Right Wing Watch. Declaring that "we are ready to take America back," without identifying from whom, Cruz said he was encouraged by what he called a "groundswell all across America of people saying 'I am sick and tired of this garbage, I'm not going to take it anymore,'" to cheers of "Amen" from the audience. Warning that "we don't have enough time," Cruz confidently predicted that "it will happen," ostensibly referring to the nomination of his son. He then explained that the only thing that could derail a surefire Republican takeover of the White House is if the mischievous forces of "the Republican establishment" are successful in manipulating Republicans to support a “mushy, middle-of-the-road, stand-for-nothing moderate like Jeb Bush.” “And if Jeb Bush gets the nomination, Hillary will be our next president and this country will be destroyed,” Cruz warned, wagging his finger at the crowd. The elder Cruz has made a similar comment in the past, remarking in April that if Clinton were to win the general election, “you might as well kiss this country goodbye.” Cruz encouraged Republicans to go around the liberal media to "get the message" out that his son is the only GOP candidate that has the guts to speak out against "the Washington cartel." Watch Rafael Cruz rail against the GOP establishment ad fearmonger about a possible Clinton presidency: [image error]Speaking to crowd in Lake Elmo, Minnesota last month, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz's father, Rafael, predicted that America will be destroyed if Hillary Clinton wins the 2016 election, reports Right Wing Watch. Declaring that "we are ready to take America back," without identifying from whom, Cruz said he was encouraged by what he called a "groundswell all across America of people saying 'I am sick and tired of this garbage, I'm not going to take it anymore,'" to cheers of "Amen" from the audience. Warning that "we don't have enough time," Cruz confidently predicted that "it will happen," ostensibly referring to the nomination of his son. He then explained that the only thing that could derail a surefire Republican takeover of the White House is if the mischievous forces of "the Republican establishment" are successful in manipulating Republicans to support a “mushy, middle-of-the-road, stand-for-nothing moderate like Jeb Bush.” “And if Jeb Bush gets the nomination, Hillary will be our next president and this country will be destroyed,” Cruz warned, wagging his finger at the crowd. The elder Cruz has made a similar comment in the past, remarking in April that if Clinton were to win the general election, “you might as well kiss this country goodbye.” Cruz encouraged Republicans to go around the liberal media to "get the message" out that his son is the only GOP candidate that has the guts to speak out against "the Washington cartel." Watch Rafael Cruz rail against the GOP establishment ad fearmonger about a possible Clinton presidency: [image error]
A social media star comes clean: “Everything I was doing was edited and contrived to get more value”
Essena O'Neill is Internet semi-famous. Over the past few years, the now 19 year-old Australian has racked up half a million followers on Instagram and over 270,000 subscribers on YouTube. She has parlayed her "vibrant visual diary of her healthy and happy life in the sun" into modeling offers and sponsorship deals. But she now says it was a carefully cultivated illusion, the kind that social media makes so tempting and so easy to maintain. And she says she wants to do something different. Last week, she began telling her followers she was making changes. She now says she's deleted her Tumblr and 2,000 photos from her Instagram account that were mere "self-promotion." Her Instagram now tells the stories behind some of those original photos -- like a bikini shot she says is "NOT REAL LIFE - took over 100 in similar poses trying to make my stomach look good. Would have hardly eaten that day. Would have yelled at my little sister to keep taking them until I was somewhat proud of this. Yep so totally #goals." In another, she says, "Only wore workout wear for the photo. What does this inspire? To have to be tiny to be healthy? To have to be born into a genetically small frame and win the genetic lottery?" In an emotional Monday video she claims is her "last ever" post to YouTube, O'Neill rails against "how fake it all is." Appearing barefaced and nervous, she says that "Taking myself off social media is a wakeup call to anyone and everyone who follows me. I had the dream life… To a lot of people, I'd made it… I was surrounded by all this wealth, all this fame, all this power, and I had never been more miserable. I'm the girl that had it all, and I'm here to tell you that having it all on social media means absolutely nothing to your real life…. Everything I was doing was edited and contrived to get more value, to get more views." O'Neill now warns her followers that "When you're following someone and they have a lot of followers and they're promoting a lot of products, they are paid.… Companies know the power of social media, and they are exploiting it." But she says that the reason she's doing her current about face isn't because of the corporate aspect; it's what living a life that increasingly revolved around the acquisition of likes and new followers was doing to her. O'Neill has now launched a new site called Let's Be Gamechangers, aimed at changing the relationship between users and social media. Her new goals, she says, include promoting her ideals of "real health," veganism, and love and connection. She also uses the site to look back on her own constructed image -- like examining a revealing photo she painstakingly created on her fifteenth birthday and noting, "Craving attention validated through social media I believe shows a gap in real life connections." She's now soliciting subscribers and, intriguingly, has a currently empty placeholder for "cool products." And naturally, as the Guardian reports, she's already receiving criticism for her very public — and instantly viral — move, as well as responses from other YouTubers disputing her account of her evolution. She wrote on a post added on Tuesday, "How ironic, the week I quit social media I receive 'my second fame'. All this backlash saying 'She's fake, hoax, attention seeker.'" Social media can be an amazing outlet for storytelling and social change, and it can be a trip to Troll Town with a side of empty validation seeking. There may not have been a truer sitcom moment this year than Billy Eichner on "Difficult People" admitting to checking his social media account "Like I’m f__king pressing for medication in a hospital." Plenty of people a lot older and far more obscure than O'Neill grapple regularly with how to manage our online lives without falling down the sludge hole of Internet toxicity. It's hard work. It's good when someone reminds us of that. What O'Neill does next appears to be a work in progress. But she seems to have already figured out a key component of a healthy online life when she says, "For those who seek light (real happiness), you'll never find it in social approval, for that in itself is an illusion based on artificial ideas and emotions." [image error]Essena O'Neill is Internet semi-famous. Over the past few years, the now 19 year-old Australian has racked up half a million followers on Instagram and over 270,000 subscribers on YouTube. She has parlayed her "vibrant visual diary of her healthy and happy life in the sun" into modeling offers and sponsorship deals. But she now says it was a carefully cultivated illusion, the kind that social media makes so tempting and so easy to maintain. And she says she wants to do something different. Last week, she began telling her followers she was making changes. She now says she's deleted her Tumblr and 2,000 photos from her Instagram account that were mere "self-promotion." Her Instagram now tells the stories behind some of those original photos -- like a bikini shot she says is "NOT REAL LIFE - took over 100 in similar poses trying to make my stomach look good. Would have hardly eaten that day. Would have yelled at my little sister to keep taking them until I was somewhat proud of this. Yep so totally #goals." In another, she says, "Only wore workout wear for the photo. What does this inspire? To have to be tiny to be healthy? To have to be born into a genetically small frame and win the genetic lottery?" In an emotional Monday video she claims is her "last ever" post to YouTube, O'Neill rails against "how fake it all is." Appearing barefaced and nervous, she says that "Taking myself off social media is a wakeup call to anyone and everyone who follows me. I had the dream life… To a lot of people, I'd made it… I was surrounded by all this wealth, all this fame, all this power, and I had never been more miserable. I'm the girl that had it all, and I'm here to tell you that having it all on social media means absolutely nothing to your real life…. Everything I was doing was edited and contrived to get more value, to get more views." O'Neill now warns her followers that "When you're following someone and they have a lot of followers and they're promoting a lot of products, they are paid.… Companies know the power of social media, and they are exploiting it." But she says that the reason she's doing her current about face isn't because of the corporate aspect; it's what living a life that increasingly revolved around the acquisition of likes and new followers was doing to her. O'Neill has now launched a new site called Let's Be Gamechangers, aimed at changing the relationship between users and social media. Her new goals, she says, include promoting her ideals of "real health," veganism, and love and connection. She also uses the site to look back on her own constructed image -- like examining a revealing photo she painstakingly created on her fifteenth birthday and noting, "Craving attention validated through social media I believe shows a gap in real life connections." She's now soliciting subscribers and, intriguingly, has a currently empty placeholder for "cool products." And naturally, as the Guardian reports, she's already receiving criticism for her very public — and instantly viral — move, as well as responses from other YouTubers disputing her account of her evolution. She wrote on a post added on Tuesday, "How ironic, the week I quit social media I receive 'my second fame'. All this backlash saying 'She's fake, hoax, attention seeker.'" Social media can be an amazing outlet for storytelling and social change, and it can be a trip to Troll Town with a side of empty validation seeking. There may not have been a truer sitcom moment this year than Billy Eichner on "Difficult People" admitting to checking his social media account "Like I’m f__king pressing for medication in a hospital." Plenty of people a lot older and far more obscure than O'Neill grapple regularly with how to manage our online lives without falling down the sludge hole of Internet toxicity. It's hard work. It's good when someone reminds us of that. What O'Neill does next appears to be a work in progress. But she seems to have already figured out a key component of a healthy online life when she says, "For those who seek light (real happiness), you'll never find it in social approval, for that in itself is an illusion based on artificial ideas and emotions." [image error]
I don’t want to “heart” your tweet: Twitter’s dumb new fix gets zero stars
You can say a lot with a heart. You can also anger and annoy an enormous number of people with one, too, which is what Twitter seems to have done by changing its symbols around. And it may be setting off the biggest backlash in online iconography since Apple’s San Francisco font. Here’s the social media platform’s announcement today:
We are changing our star icon for favorites to a heart and we’ll be calling them likes. We want to make Twitter easier and more rewarding to use, and we know that at times the star could be confusing, especially to newcomers. You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favorite. The heart, in contrast, is a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones. The heart is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people. And in our tests, we found that people loved it.Well, presumably some people really did love it. But the noise on social media today reveals that a lot of people don’t. “Twitterers expressed annoyance at noticing the change,“ CBS News reports, “with some even threatening to quit using Twitter all together.” Tweeters had various reasons for their frustration: https://twitter.com/laurenlaverne/sta... https://twitter.com/CarolynEd1/status... https://twitter.com/t_marshall25/stat... Part of the problem may be gender related: Unlike Facebook (which uses a thumb’s up for its “likes”) and Instagram (which also uses a heart), Twitter leans slightly male, according to research by Pew Research Center. Are the reasons women tend to be more comfortable than men with emotional expressions and symbolism cultural or biological? Who knows, but a lot of men are going to be uncomfortable “hearting” something, and users of all gender expressions seem freaked out by the change. So what was Twitter’s braintrust – and, presumably, new chief Jack Dorsey – thinking here? “Innovation” and “disruption” are the key words in Silicon Valley, so something like this was probably inevitable. It’s also the kind of cosmetic thing new bosses like to do to show people they are serious characters. And in Twitter’s defense, the use of “favorite” was pretty annoying: the world is better off with it gone. But the reason the heart is such a misfired idea has more to do with the nature of Twitter. The tech crowd has such a weirdly messianic sense of mission – the whole “change the world” rhetoric – that Twitter’s brass may not quite get what people use their site for. Mostly, it involves passing around witty comments, bitter complaints, silly videos, and outrage-stoking news stories. Everyone has his or her balance of these categories, but rarely do we share something because we love it. Sometimes we send it out because it looks interesting, or because the news it reports pisses us off. The level of emotional intensity that inspires love as a reaction, or to cause us to reach for a heart, rarely enters into it. The Atlantic's Elizabeth Bruenig dissents from the bad vibes around Twitter's heart:
Most people on Twitter probably don’t use the platform the way members of the media do, and it certainly makes more sense to slap a twinkling heart onto a family member’s daily status update than a tweet linking to a story of horrific human rights abuses. Twitter was probably thinking of its broader user base, rathern than its concentrated media constituency, when it made the change. Or maybe it is just screwing with us.But Twitter isn’t Facebook – which involves people mostly engaging with friends and relatives and posting pictures of kids and vacations and great looking meals, and which tends to be more lighthearted than Twitter. And Twitter isn't Instagram, a highly-curated image-sharing space where pretty pictures prompt the "heart" icon with ease. The people we follow on Twitter are often people we’ve never met or spoken to, but whose words and images we’re curious to see. Isn’t a heart a little, uh, intimate for this kind of thing? [image error]You can say a lot with a heart. You can also anger and annoy an enormous number of people with one, too, which is what Twitter seems to have done by changing its symbols around. And it may be setting off the biggest backlash in online iconography since Apple’s San Francisco font. Here’s the social media platform’s announcement today:
We are changing our star icon for favorites to a heart and we’ll be calling them likes. We want to make Twitter easier and more rewarding to use, and we know that at times the star could be confusing, especially to newcomers. You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favorite. The heart, in contrast, is a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones. The heart is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people. And in our tests, we found that people loved it.Well, presumably some people really did love it. But the noise on social media today reveals that a lot of people don’t. “Twitterers expressed annoyance at noticing the change,“ CBS News reports, “with some even threatening to quit using Twitter all together.” Tweeters had various reasons for their frustration: https://twitter.com/laurenlaverne/sta... https://twitter.com/CarolynEd1/status... https://twitter.com/t_marshall25/stat... Part of the problem may be gender related: Unlike Facebook (which uses a thumb’s up for its “likes”) and Instagram (which also uses a heart), Twitter leans slightly male, according to research by Pew Research Center. Are the reasons women tend to be more comfortable than men with emotional expressions and symbolism cultural or biological? Who knows, but a lot of men are going to be uncomfortable “hearting” something, and users of all gender expressions seem freaked out by the change. So what was Twitter’s braintrust – and, presumably, new chief Jack Dorsey – thinking here? “Innovation” and “disruption” are the key words in Silicon Valley, so something like this was probably inevitable. It’s also the kind of cosmetic thing new bosses like to do to show people they are serious characters. And in Twitter’s defense, the use of “favorite” was pretty annoying: the world is better off with it gone. But the reason the heart is such a misfired idea has more to do with the nature of Twitter. The tech crowd has such a weirdly messianic sense of mission – the whole “change the world” rhetoric – that Twitter’s brass may not quite get what people use their site for. Mostly, it involves passing around witty comments, bitter complaints, silly videos, and outrage-stoking news stories. Everyone has his or her balance of these categories, but rarely do we share something because we love it. Sometimes we send it out because it looks interesting, or because the news it reports pisses us off. The level of emotional intensity that inspires love as a reaction, or to cause us to reach for a heart, rarely enters into it. The Atlantic's Elizabeth Bruenig dissents from the bad vibes around Twitter's heart:
Most people on Twitter probably don’t use the platform the way members of the media do, and it certainly makes more sense to slap a twinkling heart onto a family member’s daily status update than a tweet linking to a story of horrific human rights abuses. Twitter was probably thinking of its broader user base, rathern than its concentrated media constituency, when it made the change. Or maybe it is just screwing with us.But Twitter isn’t Facebook – which involves people mostly engaging with friends and relatives and posting pictures of kids and vacations and great looking meals, and which tends to be more lighthearted than Twitter. And Twitter isn't Instagram, a highly-curated image-sharing space where pretty pictures prompt the "heart" icon with ease. The people we follow on Twitter are often people we’ve never met or spoken to, but whose words and images we’re curious to see. Isn’t a heart a little, uh, intimate for this kind of thing? [image error]You can say a lot with a heart. You can also anger and annoy an enormous number of people with one, too, which is what Twitter seems to have done by changing its symbols around. And it may be setting off the biggest backlash in online iconography since Apple’s San Francisco font. Here’s the social media platform’s announcement today:
We are changing our star icon for favorites to a heart and we’ll be calling them likes. We want to make Twitter easier and more rewarding to use, and we know that at times the star could be confusing, especially to newcomers. You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favorite. The heart, in contrast, is a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones. The heart is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people. And in our tests, we found that people loved it.Well, presumably some people really did love it. But the noise on social media today reveals that a lot of people don’t. “Twitterers expressed annoyance at noticing the change,“ CBS News reports, “with some even threatening to quit using Twitter all together.” Tweeters had various reasons for their frustration: https://twitter.com/laurenlaverne/sta... https://twitter.com/CarolynEd1/status... https://twitter.com/t_marshall25/stat... Part of the problem may be gender related: Unlike Facebook (which uses a thumb’s up for its “likes”) and Instagram (which also uses a heart), Twitter leans slightly male, according to research by Pew Research Center. Are the reasons women tend to be more comfortable than men with emotional expressions and symbolism cultural or biological? Who knows, but a lot of men are going to be uncomfortable “hearting” something, and users of all gender expressions seem freaked out by the change. So what was Twitter’s braintrust – and, presumably, new chief Jack Dorsey – thinking here? “Innovation” and “disruption” are the key words in Silicon Valley, so something like this was probably inevitable. It’s also the kind of cosmetic thing new bosses like to do to show people they are serious characters. And in Twitter’s defense, the use of “favorite” was pretty annoying: the world is better off with it gone. But the reason the heart is such a misfired idea has more to do with the nature of Twitter. The tech crowd has such a weirdly messianic sense of mission – the whole “change the world” rhetoric – that Twitter’s brass may not quite get what people use their site for. Mostly, it involves passing around witty comments, bitter complaints, silly videos, and outrage-stoking news stories. Everyone has his or her balance of these categories, but rarely do we share something because we love it. Sometimes we send it out because it looks interesting, or because the news it reports pisses us off. The level of emotional intensity that inspires love as a reaction, or to cause us to reach for a heart, rarely enters into it. The Atlantic's Elizabeth Bruenig dissents from the bad vibes around Twitter's heart:
Most people on Twitter probably don’t use the platform the way members of the media do, and it certainly makes more sense to slap a twinkling heart onto a family member’s daily status update than a tweet linking to a story of horrific human rights abuses. Twitter was probably thinking of its broader user base, rathern than its concentrated media constituency, when it made the change. Or maybe it is just screwing with us.But Twitter isn’t Facebook – which involves people mostly engaging with friends and relatives and posting pictures of kids and vacations and great looking meals, and which tends to be more lighthearted than Twitter. And Twitter isn't Instagram, a highly-curated image-sharing space where pretty pictures prompt the "heart" icon with ease. The people we follow on Twitter are often people we’ve never met or spoken to, but whose words and images we’re curious to see. Isn’t a heart a little, uh, intimate for this kind of thing? [image error]You can say a lot with a heart. You can also anger and annoy an enormous number of people with one, too, which is what Twitter seems to have done by changing its symbols around. And it may be setting off the biggest backlash in online iconography since Apple’s San Francisco font. Here’s the social media platform’s announcement today:
We are changing our star icon for favorites to a heart and we’ll be calling them likes. We want to make Twitter easier and more rewarding to use, and we know that at times the star could be confusing, especially to newcomers. You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favorite. The heart, in contrast, is a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones. The heart is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people. And in our tests, we found that people loved it.Well, presumably some people really did love it. But the noise on social media today reveals that a lot of people don’t. “Twitterers expressed annoyance at noticing the change,“ CBS News reports, “with some even threatening to quit using Twitter all together.” Tweeters had various reasons for their frustration: https://twitter.com/laurenlaverne/sta... https://twitter.com/CarolynEd1/status... https://twitter.com/t_marshall25/stat... Part of the problem may be gender related: Unlike Facebook (which uses a thumb’s up for its “likes”) and Instagram (which also uses a heart), Twitter leans slightly male, according to research by Pew Research Center. Are the reasons women tend to be more comfortable than men with emotional expressions and symbolism cultural or biological? Who knows, but a lot of men are going to be uncomfortable “hearting” something, and users of all gender expressions seem freaked out by the change. So what was Twitter’s braintrust – and, presumably, new chief Jack Dorsey – thinking here? “Innovation” and “disruption” are the key words in Silicon Valley, so something like this was probably inevitable. It’s also the kind of cosmetic thing new bosses like to do to show people they are serious characters. And in Twitter’s defense, the use of “favorite” was pretty annoying: the world is better off with it gone. But the reason the heart is such a misfired idea has more to do with the nature of Twitter. The tech crowd has such a weirdly messianic sense of mission – the whole “change the world” rhetoric – that Twitter’s brass may not quite get what people use their site for. Mostly, it involves passing around witty comments, bitter complaints, silly videos, and outrage-stoking news stories. Everyone has his or her balance of these categories, but rarely do we share something because we love it. Sometimes we send it out because it looks interesting, or because the news it reports pisses us off. The level of emotional intensity that inspires love as a reaction, or to cause us to reach for a heart, rarely enters into it. The Atlantic's Elizabeth Bruenig dissents from the bad vibes around Twitter's heart:
Most people on Twitter probably don’t use the platform the way members of the media do, and it certainly makes more sense to slap a twinkling heart onto a family member’s daily status update than a tweet linking to a story of horrific human rights abuses. Twitter was probably thinking of its broader user base, rathern than its concentrated media constituency, when it made the change. Or maybe it is just screwing with us.But Twitter isn’t Facebook – which involves people mostly engaging with friends and relatives and posting pictures of kids and vacations and great looking meals, and which tends to be more lighthearted than Twitter. And Twitter isn't Instagram, a highly-curated image-sharing space where pretty pictures prompt the "heart" icon with ease. The people we follow on Twitter are often people we’ve never met or spoken to, but whose words and images we’re curious to see. Isn’t a heart a little, uh, intimate for this kind of thing? [image error]
Inside the Uber apocalypse: Why the fast-growing tech giant could be in serious trouble
The New York Times performed a public service over the weekend with the first two installments of a three-part series on the shady clauses in consumer and employment contracts that enable corporations to divert legal disputes into secret, extra-judicial arbitration panels. The corporation pays the arbitrators hearing the case, and the rulings, from what we can tell about this opaque process, favor the corporation, if only because an arbitrator siding with the people who do the hiring ensures them more work in the future. It’s amazing that we’ve allowed corporations to build their own parallel legal system, rupturing the fundamental right of access to courts. “It’s in two amendments of the Bill of Rights,” said Sen. Al Franken, one of Congress’ leading critics of mandatory arbitration, on a conference call reacting to the Times series. “The Second Amendment is supposed to be important, but that’s one amendment. [Trial by jury] is really important, that’s in two amendments.” (It’s the Sixth and the Seventh, incidentally.) Two partisan Supreme Court rulings, 2011’s AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion and 2013’s American Express v. Italian Colors, entrenched arbitration in the law, preventing even criminal lawsuits from proceeding and significantly limiting class action cases. As the Times points out, Chief Justice John Roberts, who participated in the majority in both cases, unsuccessfully tried to limit class actions as a private lawyer for Discover Bank. When in a position to make the decision by himself, Roberts capitalized, and consumers and workers have suffered ever since. But a case out of California could upend this blockade of the justice system, and it’s perhaps fitting that the company involved routinely breaks the law as part of its business strategy. Uber, the ride-sharing app, not only may have gone too far in the way it treats its drivers; it could bring down the arbitration house of cards in the process. Uber treats its 300,000 drivers as independent contractors, allowing it to avoid granting worker’s compensation, overtime pay and other relevant labor benefits. Low labor costs enable the company to undercut competitors and win business. If forced to actually follow the law, Uber is just another car service. A non-trivial number of drivers are not happy with being the low-paid cog in the Uber business model, and have sued the company over misclassifying their employment status. The California Labor Commission awarded $4,152.20 in business expenses and back wages to driver Barbara Berwick in June. But Uber can handle one driver at a time; a class action incorporating all its drivers would be a fatal blow. And this September, U.S. District Court Judge Edward Chen ruled that drivers could form a class to litigate employee misclassification. The critical question is how big that class will be. Like so many other companies, Uber included a clause in its standard employment contract, binding driver disputes to an arbitration process. However, its initial language was faulty. One part of the contract says a private arbitrator gets to rule on whether a particular case goes to arbitration, but another part gives that choice to a judge. Also, an opt-out clause allowed drivers to retain their right to sue, but it was hidden on the second-to-last page of the contract, and required drivers to hand-deliver a letter to Uber’s headquarters in San Francisco, or mail it overnight through a “nationally recognized overnight delivery service.” Judge Chen ruled in June in a separate case that the arbitration language was contradictory, and the opt-out was “illusory” and “additionally meaningless.” A state judge in San Francisco backed up Chen’s contention in September. Uber updated its arbitration language in June 2014, and Chen removed drivers who signed after that from the class action. But all contracts under the old language are suspect. And in the June ruling, Judge Chen expressed problems with the new language as well, throwing the entire effectiveness of the arbitration clauses into disarray. Lawyers for the class action are separately trying to nullify the new arbitration language. They have appealed to the National Labor Relations Board, asking them to invalidate the arbitration agreement entirely as incompatible with state and federal labor laws. The Wall Street Journal amusingly calls this a “technicality.” But the consequences are enormous. If Uber’s position holds, only 15,000 drivers would be eligible for the California class action. But if the plaintiffs win, all 160,000 of Uber’s California employees would be eligible. A successful, globally enforceable case would set a key precedent for other states and probably spell the end of Uber, at least as it’s currently structured. A successful NLRB decision would still have to survive judicial review, and appeals to both of Judge Chen’s cases will be heard by the Ninth Circuit. That means that the cases could eventually filter up to the same Supreme Court judges who have repeatedly ruled for arbitration and against individuals seeking justice. But a couple factors could make things different this time. First, Judge Chen’s argument that Uber’s arbitration contracts aren’t enforceable because of shoddy language and the inability to opt out makes this less a standard arbitration case ruled by precedent, and more a case about contract law, which could prove less effective for the companies. Second, there’s the issue of whether arbitration laws pre-empt labor laws; you can easily see the Roberts court argue that, but that’s a far more invasive argument than its prior rulings. Third, the Times series puts a much bigger spotlight on the Court’s actions in this area, and that matters; just ask John Roberts in the Obamacare cases. It’s one thing to take away access to courts under cover of darkness, but it’s harder when people are watching. And Uber arguing so strenuously for arbitration, which corporations all characterize as a simpler and more effective process for individuals seeking relief, gives the game away. Uber would rather retreat to a secret system where decisions are almost never made public, to keep their scam of misclassifying their employees going. Arbitrations were originally enacted to settle disputes between corporations, not to shield corporations from their customers or employees. The Uber cases could finally reverse this dispiriting trend of corporate immunity from prosecution. [image error]
Kris Kobach just got busted: Leader of GOP’s voter suppression crusade spoke before white nationalist group
Kansas Secretary of State and the right-wing's most prominent anti-immigration activist Kris Kobach was recently outed for speaking at the annual Writers’ Workshop of the The Social Contract Press (TSCP), a group classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a white nationalist publishing house. According to SPLC, The Social Contract Press' publisher John Tanton is also the founder of the modern nativist movement. Kobach was spotted by the Center for New Community at the October 25 gathering in Washington, D.C. U.S. Rep. Brian Babin, a Republican freshman from Texas who recently proposed legislation to suspend refugee resettlement programs as the Syrian crisis finally made U.S. headlines, was also a featured speaker. From SPLC:
Given TSCP’s publisher, it’s not surprising that articles from their eponymous journal The Social Contract have propagated the myth that Latino activists want to occupy and "reclaim" the American Southwest, argued that no Muslim immigrants should be allowed into the United States and claimed that multiculturalists are trying to replace “successful Euro-American culture” with “dysfunctional Third World cultures.”https://twitter.com/Hunter7Taylor/sta... Kobach has helped several states, including Arizona with its notorious SB1070, craft their own anti-immigrant laws laws. He has also been a leader in the GOP's national crusade to enact voter suppression measures. After pushing the Kansas legislature to give him prosecutorial powers over election fraud cases, duplicating and complicating the existing jurisdiction of local prosecutors, he has so far failed to bring any evidence in the more than 100 cases of fraud he promised to prosecute back in June, only filing charges in three cases. [image error]Kansas Secretary of State and the right-wing's most prominent anti-immigration activist Kris Kobach was recently outed for speaking at the annual Writers’ Workshop of the The Social Contract Press (TSCP), a group classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a white nationalist publishing house. According to SPLC, The Social Contract Press' publisher John Tanton is also the founder of the modern nativist movement. Kobach was spotted by the Center for New Community at the October 25 gathering in Washington, D.C. U.S. Rep. Brian Babin, a Republican freshman from Texas who recently proposed legislation to suspend refugee resettlement programs as the Syrian crisis finally made U.S. headlines, was also a featured speaker. From SPLC:
Given TSCP’s publisher, it’s not surprising that articles from their eponymous journal The Social Contract have propagated the myth that Latino activists want to occupy and "reclaim" the American Southwest, argued that no Muslim immigrants should be allowed into the United States and claimed that multiculturalists are trying to replace “successful Euro-American culture” with “dysfunctional Third World cultures.”https://twitter.com/Hunter7Taylor/sta... Kobach has helped several states, including Arizona with its notorious SB1070, craft their own anti-immigrant laws laws. He has also been a leader in the GOP's national crusade to enact voter suppression measures. After pushing the Kansas legislature to give him prosecutorial powers over election fraud cases, duplicating and complicating the existing jurisdiction of local prosecutors, he has so far failed to bring any evidence in the more than 100 cases of fraud he promised to prosecute back in June, only filing charges in three cases. [image error]
