Several different shitstorms // What's Good: Apr. 26, 2024
Propaganda, cops, and Isaac Chotiner.
Hello, good evening, happy Thursday. Listen I was out at a thing, we’re doing it snappy. Free Palestine and solidarity to the students protesting.
Skeptical consumption
CNN fucked up:
I have covered the U.S. media for a long time. I have watched more hours of cable news than is healthy for any human being. I am under no illusions about the standards by which our biggest networks operate.
So I hope you will believe me when I say that this CNN segment on Wednesday about the pro-Palestine student protest movement is one of the most jaw-dropping, poisonous pieces of propaganda I have ever seen on a U.S. news outlet.
Boys club
CPD fucked up:
None of the Chicago police officers probed for their ties to far-right extremist groups like the Proud Boys or Oath Keepers will be fired by city officials, a spokesperson for the Chicago Police Department told WTTW News Thursday.
None of the allegations examined by the Bureau of Internal Affairs were sustained, and the investigation announced by Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling has been closed, said CPD spokesperson Margaret Huynh in response to inquiries from WTTW News.
Unconstitutional
Congress is fucking up:
Since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas and the ensuing war in Gaza, America’s college campuses have been consumed by the question of antisemitism: How pervasive is it? What are its causes? And what can be done?
There is no question that the problem is real and growing in severity, evidenced by a series of high profile incidents on campuses across the country. According to a November 2023 survey from the ADL, 73% of Jewish students reported seeing or directly experiencing an antisemitic event since the start of the 2023/24 school year, and 37% of students overall said that they’ve heard somebody make an anti-Jewish (as distinct from anti-Israel) remark. About one in three Jewish students say they need to hide their Jewishness to “fit in.” That’s a serious problem.
Broken oaths
The Boy Scouts are fucked up:
STOUGHTON, Mass. — The last known person to see Sandra Birchmore alive was a police officer.
He stopped by her apartment days before the elementary school teacher’s aide, 23 years old and newly pregnant, was found dead in February 2021. The medical examiner later ruled her death a suicide.
The officer worked for the Stoughton Police Department, near Boston, where he first met Birchmore about a decade earlier through the agency’s Explorer post — part of a youth mentorship program run by local departments across the country.
He can’t keep getting away with it
Elliott Abrams got Chotiner’d:
For more than four decades, Elliott Abrams has been near the center of American foreign policy. Abrams was an Assistant Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration, a deputy national-security adviser under George W. Bush, and a special representative for both Iran and Venezuela during the Trump Administration. Currently, he is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
…
A lot of people still think of Iran-Contra when your name comes up. Do you think that’s fair?
Well, it’s fair because that’s what comes up when you Google my name.
Right. Do you feel reformed in some way?
Reformed from what?
Oh, just the crimes. People should always have a chance to reform.
I think that’s a really offensive and, frankly, quite despicable question.
People who don’t play by the rules PAC
Illinois Republicans fucked up:
'Lawyers for the executive director of the Democratic Party of Illinois argued Darren Bailey and Dan Proft colluded on the 2022 gubernatorial campaign during an Illinois State Board of Elections hearing today.
Proft used his super PAC, the People Who Play By the Rules PAC, to create ads that would boost Bailey or hurt incumbent Gov. J.B. Pritzker during the 2022 campaign. Super PACs, or independent expenditure-only committees, can make unlimited contributions, but are barred from coordinating messaging and other decisions with the campaign they support.
FedSoc all the way down
Conservatives are fucking our country up:
THE CONSULTING FIRM led by Leonard Leo, the architect of the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority, has worked for billionaire Charles Koch’s political advocacy network and a dark-money group that is currently arguing a Supreme Court case designed to preempt a wealth tax, according to documents obtained by Rolling Stone. The firm even worked to promote a book by Donald Trump cronies Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie.
You deserve some good animal content
https://twitter.com/contextdogs/status/1785932706506834097
https://twitter.com/GatorsDaily/status/1785013177765224876
https://twitter.com/twaniimals/status/1786234302948061252
https://twitter.com/raccoonhourly/status/1786221703590289833
https://twitter.com/DefectivePigg/status/1786026982272114744
https://twitter.com/twaniimals/status/1786181701305249908
https://twitter.com/RedPandaEveryHr/status/1786168419382902829
https://twitter.com/twaniimals/status/1786163053551370579
https://twitter.com/CATBRAINCELL/status/1786157329546952969
Have a good weekend.
Addendums
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