A Desparate Elon Musk is Now Attacking Critics With Frivolous Lawsuits

An anti-hate speech group is fighting back after Twitter threatened legal action over a study that found the company failed to remove hateful tweets from paid accounts.The legal threat from Twitter accused the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit organization, of publishing “inflammatory, outrageous, and false or misleading assertions” about the social media platform ― specifically, in the form of the group’s research into Twitter’s failure to take down hate speech since Elon Musk took over. 

In June, CCDH researchers used Twitter’s reporting mechanism to flag 100 tweets from paid “Twitter Blue” subscribers that CCDH saw as violating Twitter’s policies, including “racist, homophobic, neo-Nazi, antisemitic or conspiracy content.” Four days later, according to the group, Twitter had only taken down one post out of 100, and all of the offending accounts remained active.

Twitter claimed in its letter that it had “reason to believe” CCDH’s work had been funded by Twitter’s competitors and that it appeared “calculated to harm Twitter generally, and its digital advertising business specifically.” The company’s attorney, Alex Spiro, provided no evidence for the claims.

 CCDH responded quickly, saying Musk's claim was  “ridiculous” and said its threat of legal action was “bogus and you know it.”  The letter noted that CCDH has published work critical of Twitter’s competitors as well, and that “simply put, there is no bona fide legal grievance here,” but rather “a transparent attempt to silence honest criticism.”

CCDH research on Twitter, Google, TikTok, Substack and other websites is widely trusted by media outlets such as HuffPost, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian.  The group’s work on Twitter has made waves since Musk’s takeover of the social media site and his mass layoffs of content moderation staff, along with his decision to allow previously-banned accounts back on the site.

Imran Ahmed, the CEO of CCDH, said in a statement that Musk was targeting the organization because “we reveal the truth about the spread of hate and disinformation on Twitter under his ownership, and it’s impacting his bottom line. Elon Musk’s actions represent a brazen attempt to silence honest criticism and independent research, in the desperate hope that he can stem the tide of negative stories and rebuild his relationship with advertisers. . . Advertisers are fleeing his platform for one clear reason: Elon Musk has supported the proliferation of hate and racism on it, and he doesn’t care to stop it.”

Twitter’s advertising has tanked since Musk purchased the site in October.

 

Will.I.Am and Britney Spears - Mind Your Business

She Was A Tortured, But Brave Soul

In 1992, Sinéad O’Connor destroyed a photo of Pope John Paul II on U.S. national television. The pushback was swift, turning the late Irish singer-songwriter’s protest of sex abuse in the Catholic Church into a career-altering flashpoint.

That night O’Connor, head shaved and looking straight into the camera, stood alone singing Bob Marley’s song “War” a capella. She finished the final lines, “We know we will win/ We have confidence in the victory/of good over evil,” and then moved an off-screen photo of Pope John Paul II in front of the camera.  Then O’Connor ripped it to pieces. She called out, “Fight the real enemy,” before she threw the scraps to the ground. Clohessy remembers it well.

More than 30 years later, her “Saturday Night Live” performance and its stark collision of popular culture and religious statement is remembered by some as an offensive act of desecration. But for others (including survivors of clergy sex abuse) O’Connor’s protest was prophetic, forecasting the global denomination's public reckoning that was, at that point, yet to come.  The quarter-century legacy of Pope John Paul II has been badly tarnished by evidence he turned a blind eye to abuse even when the Vatican had copiously well-documented cases and even when bishops in the U.S., facing mounting legal liability, begged the Vatican for fast-track ways to defrock abusers in the 1980s.

56-year-old O'Connor was declared dead after being found unresponsive yesterday at her home in southeast London. Saddened by her passing, Brenna Moore, a theology professor at Fordham University in New York and a big fan of O'Connor, described her as “a kind of prophetic truth-teller.” Society, especially in the English-speaking world, is used to men taking on this role, Moore said, but when a woman does it, she’s accused of being crazy and angry. Moore, referencing O’Connor’s memoir, said the singer was more than a rebel with a shaved head.   “She sort of stands in a long line of artists and poets who have a kind of rebellious punk ability to speak truth to power in a very performative way,” Moore said. “She was a profoundly spiritual person, a profound seeker of transcendence and the truth."

Jamie Manson, president of Catholics for Choice, was a teen living on Long Island with her traditional Catholic Italian family in 1992; she recalled just how horrified they were by O’Connor’s protest.  Manson called O'Connor a visionary, especially given that neither the Irish or U.S. Catholic hierarchy had yet publicly reckoned with the pervasiveness of clergy sex abuse.  “Not many people that we would call prophetic are willing to risk everything, and she was. … And she lost almost everything as a result,” Manson said. “It is very, very scary to challenge the church in a very public way. And it takes enormous bravery and a willingness to be able to let go of everything.”

Attorney Jeff Anderson, who has represented victims of Catholic clergy sex abuse in numerous cases across the U.S., connected with O'Connor around the time of her SNL appearance. In a statement, Anderson called her wise and ahead of her time.  “Sinéad saw predator priests not as a ‘couple bad apples’ but as signs and proof of a deeply corrupt and almost untouchable clerical system,” Anderson said. “It took tremendous courage for her to be one of those early, lonely voices for the voiceless."

Michael McDonnell, interim executive director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said O’Connor "wore the anguish of victims of clergy abuse and it seems as though she knew in 1992 the horrors that hadn’t yet been revealed.   “Ultimately,” he said, “she relieved the pain for tens of thousands of victims with rebellion.”

Shunned by America after her SNL appearance, O'Connor continued to release music and tour. Her concerts were always packed. As a new generation discovered her artistry and power, something changed.   Among her 21st century crowds there was a new energy, a joyous appreciation. Her 2021 memoir, Rememberings, reclaimed her narrative. She had won, because she had pursued an authentic life beyond the artifice of the music industry structures, and she wanted everyone to know that.

Kathryn Ferguson's documentary that came the following year, Nothing Compares, extrapolated on this narrative, closing with scenes of Irish protest and progress on marriage equality and abortion rights, demonstrating how it was O'Connor's worldview that would ultimately be followed.  O'Connor had been right all along, and everyone knew it. Her resilience was a human manifestation of vindication. As Ireland became a more secular country, she was one of the leading voices for confronting the Catholic Church while maintaining a personal spirituality.

 

Benee and Mallrat - Do It Again

Student Newspaper Breaks Through Veil of Secrecy Over Coach's Suspension

A few weeks ago, when student journalists at the Daily Northwestern saw that revered coach Pat Fitzgerald had been suspended, they suspected there was more to the story. What they uncovered was years of hazing allegations. 

The university's initial press release announcing the coach’s two-week suspension was short and matter-of-fact.  It acknowledged that an investigation found evidence to support a complaint about hazing within the football program but provided few details — except that university officials strongly disapproved and changes would be made. Released on a late summer Friday, it drew minor media attention, and the story easily could have ended there. 

But reporters for Northwestern’s student newspaper wasted no time digging into what they saw as holes in the administration’s announcement.  Within a few days, systemic hazing within the Northwestern football program was a national news story-- with the university divulging shocking details from its investigation — and firing revered coach Pat Fitzgerald outright. 

“It seemed clear that there were things unsaid in the [university’s initial] statement,” Alyce Brown, a print managing editor of the Daily Northwestern said.  “We saw the announcement the same as everybody else,” added Nicole Markus, the paper’s summer editor in chief. “And then, through that, we just started trying to do our own independent reporting.” 

The result was a detailed report that filled in the gaps of the university’s announcement with specific new details about the hazing allegations. The students secured an interview with the anonymous former football player whose complaint to university officials had prompted the initial investigation. He revealed that the hazing allegations under investigation included coerced sexual acts forced on junior players by masked upperclassmen in a dark locker room. And a second unnamed player corroborated the whistleblower’s claim that Fitzgerald knew about and encouraged the hazing. 

Hours after the story was published in the student newspaper, Northwestern University President Michael Schill sent an apologetic email to the campus community, saying he failed to fully consider the situation before handing down Fitzgerald’s initial punishment. And as the Fitzgerald story gained traction over the weekend and was picked up by national news organizations, the Daily Northwestern reporters continued to follow leads. The next Monday, they published a story detailing what three former players described as a racist culture within the football program. They told the paper that members of the coaching staff, including Fitzgerald, made racist comments or racially coded remarks and had different standards for Black players, who were told to cut longer hairstyles to comply with what Fitzgerald called the “Wildcat Way.” 

In his statement announcing Fitzgerald’s firing, Schill acknowledged that new revelations in the media about the systemic nature of the hazing prompted him to reevaluate his original decision to simply suspend the coach.  “As much as Coach Fitzgerald has meant to our institution and our student-athletes,” he wrote, “we have an obligation — in fact a responsibility — to live by our values.” 

The Daily Northwestern operates independently from the university. It is published by a nonprofit organization called the Students Publishing Company, which is overseen by a board of directors composed of alumni, faculty, staff and student volunteers.  “Our philosophy is the newsroom is independent, and the board is just there to support,” Chairman John Byrne, a lawyer and former editor in chief, said.

The firewall between the university and the newspaper is doing its job; the student journalists told The Post that Northwestern did not try to interfere with their reporting on these stories. And they emphasized that the story about Northwestern’s football program is ongoing.   “The story doesn’t just go away just because Coach Fitzgerald has been fired,” Markus said. “There’s a lot more going on, and so we’re looking now to next steps.”

 

Please Speak Out Against Book Bans

 

Israel Trying to Recover Antiquities From Hoarder-in-Chief

The Israeli government has been trying to reclaim historical artifacts from Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida for years after he was lent them for a Hanukkah party.  Among the antiquities are ancient ceramic oil lamps, which are part of Israel’s "national treasures" collection. The Hanukkah lamps were sent to the US in 2019 for a festive event attended by Donald Trump and millionaire Saul Fox, who is a major donor to the Israeli Antiquities Authority.

The lamps were sent with approval from the Authority on the provision that they were returned within weeks. They were intended to be displayed briefly at the White House. The antiquities were neither displayed nor returned.

Israel Hasson, the director of the government body at the time, told Haaretz: “We wanted our man to go and bring [them] back, but then COVID broke out, and everything got stuck”.  Saul Fox, who, according to Hasson, was meant to keep the candles in his possession, is a long-time donor to the Israeli Antiquities authority. He helped establish a national center for antique coins, as well as an archaeological garden at the Knesset.

Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida estate and private club had once illegally housed a large volume of presidential records, which Trump stole from the White House after his departure. In 2022, FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago as part of an investigation into his alleged mishandling of classified documents.  A source told Haaretz they wouldn’t be surprised if “the items Israel seeks are also eventually found in some bathroom there”.

 

Clarence Thomas' Nazi-Loving Benefactor May Be Guilty of Tax Fraud

For months, Nazi-loving Harlan Crow and members of Congress have been engaged in a fight over whether the billionaire needs to divulge details about his gifts to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, including globe-trotting trips aboard his 162-foot yacht, the Michaela Rose.  Crow’s lawyer argues that Congress has no authority to probe the GOP donor’s generosity and that doing so violates a constitutional separation of powers between Congress and the Supreme Court.

But as it turns out, there are federal tax laws underlying their interest and a known propensity by the ultrarich to use their yachts to skirt those laws. Tax data obtained by ProPublica provides a glimpse of what congressional investigators would find if Crow were to open his books to them. Crow’s voyages with Thomas, the data shows, contributed to a nice side benefit: They helped reduce Crow’s tax bill.

The rich, as we’ve reported, often deduct millions of dollars from their taxes related to buying and operating their jets and yachts. Crow followed that formula through a company that purported to charter his superyacht. But a closer examination of how Crow used the yacht raises questions about his compliance with the tax code, experts said. Despite Crow's representations to the IRS, ProPublica reporters could find no evidence that his yacht company was actually a profit-seeking business, as the law requires.

“Based on what information is available, this has the look of a textbook billionaire tax scam,” said Senate Finance Committee chair Ron Wyden. “These new details only raise more questions about Mr. Crow’s tax practices, which could begin to explain why he’s been stonewalling the Finance Committee’s investigation for months.”

 

Now That's One Hot Dog!

RFK Jr. Is Really Going Off the Deep End

Vaccine denier and general nutjob Robert F. Kennedy Jr. kept dishing out wild COVID-19 conspiracy theories this week-- this time during a press event at an Upper East Side restaurant, claiming the bug was a genetically engineered bio-weapon that may have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. Kennedy floated the idea during a question-and-answer session after dinner at Tony’s Di Napoli on East 63d Street.

“COVID-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Kennedy said. “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

“We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not, but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact,” Kennedy hedged.  Kennedy then warned of more dire biological weapons in the pipeline with a “50% infection fatality rate” that would make COVID-19 “look like a walk in the park.”

“We do know that the Chinese are spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing ethnic bio-weapons and we are developing ethnic bio-weapons,” he claimed. “They’re collecting Russian DNA. They’re collecting Chinese DNA so we can target people by race.”

Kennedy’s remark echoes well-worn anti-Semitic literature blaming Jews for the emergence and spread of coronavirus which began circulating online shortly after the pandemic broke out, according to The Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at the University of Tel Aviv’s 2021 Antisemitism Worldwide Report.  A 2020 Oxford University study found nearly 1 in 5 British people believed Jews created the coronavirus pandemic for financial gain.

The son of former Attorney General Robert Kennedy and nephew of former President Kennedy has in the past palled around with Nation of Islam leader and notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan.  He also met with NOI leadership in Los Angeles in 2020 and told them the COVID vaccine had been “genetically modified to attack black and Latino boys.”

The Anti-Defamation League went further saying in a statement saying: “The claim that COVID-19 was a bio-weapon created by the Chinese or Jews to attack Caucasians and black people is deeply offensive and feeds into sinophobic and antisemitic conspiracy theories about COVID-19 that we have seen evolve over the last three years.” 

 

Noel Gallagher - Open The Door, See What You Find

Keeping It Real

 

Called Out For Supporting a Criminal

Musician Jack White sounded off with a list of high-profile Donald Trump supporters who glad-handed the former president over the weekend.

The White Stripes frontman lambasted Trump-friendly celebrities like Mel Gibson and Guy Fieri in an Instagram post that featured photographs of the stars interacting with the 45th president during a UFC event Saturday in Las Vegas.

“Anybody who ‘normalizes’ or treats this disgusting fascist, racist, con man, disgusting piece of shit Trump with any level of respect is ALSO disgusting in my book,” White wrote.

“That’s you Joe Rogan, you Mel Gibson, you Mark Wahlberg, you Guy Fieri,” White went on. Though he did not name UFC President  Dana White, the MMA mogul was featured in several of the photos.

The “Seven Nation Army” singer finished by saying, “This is a statement from me, not a discussion/debate” and then deactivated the comment section.

White has been vocal in his distaste for Trump for some time. Last fall, he savaged then-Twitter CEO Elon Musk over his decision to let the twice-impeached former president back onto the social media platform.

 

BBC Presenter Accused of Soliciting Minor for Nude Pictures

The BBC suspended one of its male presenters yesterday after he was accused of spending £35,000 ($44k) buying explicit images from a young boy who spent the money on crack cocaine.  Their interactions allegedly began when the boy was 17 years old, meaning the BBC star may have been commissioning child sexual abuse images, a serious criminal offense.

 The boy's mother told the Sun newspaper her child, now 20, had shown her an online bank statement that had multiple deposits from the BBC presenter: “There were huge sums, hundreds, or thousands of pounds at a time. One time he had sent £5,000 in one lump. The money had been in exchange for sexually explicit photographs of my child.”

The mother said the BBC star requested “performances” from her child, who would “get their bits out” for him before spending the money on drugs. “I blame this BBC man for destroying my child’s life,” she said. “Taking my child’s innocence and handing over the money for crack cocaine that could kill my child.”

The BBC has confirmed the mother’s claim that an initial complaint was made in mid-May and it began investigating. However, the presenter remained on air until this week.  The boy's mother  told the Sun newspaper she saw the BBC presenter “stripped to his underpants for a video call” with her child. She said she went to the press as she felt the BBC was not acting on her allegations: “My child said they had run out of money and then suddenly had this cash. It’s obvious to me the BBC hadn’t spoken to this man between our complaint on May 19 and in June, as they thought he was too important.  We never wanted an investigation. We just wanted the BBC to tell him to stop."

Due to the BBC's lack of timely action, social media has been flooded with false allegations against other prominent highly-paid male BBC presenters. Gary Lineker, Jeremy Vine and Nicky Campbell are among the BBC presenters who have issued statements distancing themselves from the allegations.

In the past year alone there have been allegations of a failure to deal with allegations of sexual assault against the former presenter Tim Westwood, and the resignation of the BBC chair Richard Sharp over his failure to disclose his links to the former prime minister Boris Johnson.  Questions are also being asked why the BBC waited to suspend the presenter until the Sun broke the story, whether he received any special treatment, and whether the BBC’s internal investigation was up to scratch.

 

Time to End Legacy College Admissions

The right-wing majority of the U.S Supreme Court has struck down affirmative action in college admissions, ending decades of expanded access to higher education for students of color. But elite universities legally can and will continue to offer preferential treatment in their admissions to the children of alumni and donors. In 1998, for example, real estate developer Charles Kushner pledged $2.5 million to Harvard University. The following year, his son Jared was admitted.

Legacy preferences effectively exacerbate discriminatory admissions practices by giving wealthy white students and families even more leverage. One study revealed that legacy status was comparable in value to a 160-point gain on the SATs. At Harvard, 43% of white students from 2009 to 2014 were legacy admits—the children of donors, faculty, or athletes. 

As universities continue to seek more diverse student bodies, legacy preferences do more to hurt students of color and low-income students. Legacy preferences are, and have always been, rooted in racism and work to exclude Black students and other students of color from educational opportunities, thereby amplifying racial bias in education. In fact, they were first created in the 1920s to prevent Ivy League schools from admitting too many Jews.

Some schools have made progress in recent years—Amherst College and John Hopkins University, for example—by eliminating legacy preferences in their admissions. And even the student newspaper at Harvard recently wrote an editorial calling for an end to legacy admissions.   

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling, three Boston-area civil rights groups have sued Harvard University, saying the college's admissions policies discriminate against Black, Latino, and Asian applicants in favor of less qualified white candidates with alumni and donor connections.

Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York will reintroduce the Fair College Admissions for Students Act to stop universities from giving preferential treatment to children of alumni and donors and help ensure equity in the admissions process. The bill was first introduced in 2022, but now has an added level of urgency with the Supreme Court ruling.

 

Olivia Rodrigo - Vampire

Trump Mocked on Hollywood Walk of Fame

A street artist who goes by the name "Plastic Jesus" has taken credit for mocking former President Donald Trump's Hollywood Walk of Fame star.

The L.A. based artist took to Twitter to share a photo of passersby taking photos of his work. The artist had added a toilet and bathtub filled with 'top secret' boxes near the star, which was squared off with 'crime scene do not cross' tape. 

The art installation is a recreation of the scene found at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence, which led to Trump's indictment on federal charges.  The artist wrote on Twitter: "'Top Secret' Street Artist 'Plastic Jesus' hits out at Trump's document scandal."

Many on Twitter praised the artist's work calling it "awesome" and saying they "love it".  Described by some as the "Banksy of L.A." Plastic Jesus last gave a public interview to Sungenre back in 2017.   Retired NSCUniversal executive Mike Sington called the artist "brilliant" and a "genius" after tweeting a picture of the work.  Even Star Wars actor Mark Hamill tweeted about Plastic Jesus' work, quipping, "There goes the neighborhood!"  

Happy July 4th!

 

Hope You're Enjoying a Long Holiday Weekend

Five White Police Officers Lose Their Jobs After Abuse of Two Black Mississippi Men

Five Mississippi deputy sheriffs involved in the assault of two men have been fired or have resigned, officials have said. 32-year-old Michael Corey Jenkins and 35-year-old Eddie Terrell Parker say those  Rankin County Sheriff Department officers entered a home without a warrant in January. They say they then tased them, assaulted them and shot one of them in the mouth.

Jenkins and Parker say that the deputies entered the home without a warrant and after turning off their body cameras. During a 90-minute encounter, the deputies brutally abused them, used stun guns on them, hurled racist slurs, and waterboarded them. Jenkins said one of the deputies also put a gun in his mouth and fired it, leaving him with serious facial injuries.  He was taken to the hospital only later, after deputies refused to assist him, their lawsuit alleges.

 Attorneys for the men have called for charges against the officers. Speaking at a news conference, their attorneys and relatives said the fact the five officers were no longer with the department was a sign of progress, but that more needs to be done.  "They treated our children as if they weren't even human," said Mary Jenkins, the mother of Jenkins, who was shot in the incident.  "It's not enough to fire those deputies because all they will do is go on to another police department and do the same thing."

Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey announced on last week that deputies involved in the encounter were terminated following findings from an internal investigation. He said the deputies - whose names he declined to provide - had previously been placed on administrative leave. "We understand that the alleged actions of these deputies have eroded the trust of the public in our department. Rest assured that we will work diligently to restore that trust," Mr Bailey said.

Earlier this year, the DOJ announced it was conducting an investigation into the sheriff's department over civil rights violations, including the incident with Parker and Jenkins and other violent encounters with black men.  Attorneys for the two men, who are both black, have said six white deputies were involved in the incident. They say a sixth officer from another agency may have been involved.  They have called on the sheriff department to release the names.  Jenkins and Parker have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit seeking $400 million in damages.

Deputies claim that on the night of the incident, they carried out a raid in response to a report of drug activity at the home in Braxton, Mississippi.  Although Parker was detained at the Rankin County Jail for possessing drug paraphernalia, prosecutors declined to move forward with charges.  Jenkins has suffered permanent nerve damage as a result of being shot in the mouth. 

 

Salad Magic