LInks - 19th August 2023 (2 - False Rape Claims)

Emmanuel Macron urged to sack disabled minister accused of rape - "Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has been urged to sack the newly appointed minister for solidarity and the disabled “as a precaution” after two women accused him of rape.  Opposition politicians from the Left have led the calls for the dismissal of Damien Abad...   Mr Abad said his disability, a disorder called arthrogryposis that affects all four of his limbs, made it physically impossible for him to commit the acts he was accused of."
Accused = guilty, regardless of facts

Hedley frontman Jacob Hoggard denies rape allegations at sex assault trial - "Canadian musician Jacob Hoggard emphatically denied raping two women, one of whom was a teenager at the time, testifying in court Tuesday that both encounters were consensual and "passionate."  Taking the stand in his own defence at his sex assault trial, Hoggard, 37, acknowledged that certain acts alleged to have taken place during the two 2016 encounters — including spitting, slapping and calling the complainants "slut" and "whore" — could have happened because they were among his sexual preferences.  But he denied touching either of the complainants without their consent, or that the complainants cried or said no during the encounters. He also denied touching the younger complainant, a longtime fan he first met when she was 12, in a sexual way before she turned 16... It's an agreed fact in the case that Hoggard arranged to have each of the complainants meet him at Toronto-area hotels on two separate occasions in the fall of 2016.  Prosecutors allege that once at the hotel, Hoggard repeatedly raped the complainants, leaving them bleeding and bruised.  Both women have testified they cried and said no during the encounters. The younger complainant also said she tried to resist physically but Hoggard pinned her down. In his testimony Tuesday, Hoggard recalled enjoying the attention he received after the band rose to fame in 2004, noting it became much easier for him to meet women. One-night stands became commonplace while touring, even when he was in a relationship, the singer said, adding he built up a significant roster of sexual partners in various cities. It was "difficult" to be faithful and easier to "just enjoy the attention," he said.  It would be fairly common for him to arrange transportation through a travel agent to bring women to his hotel while on tour"
Apparently the complainants just wanted to go to his hotel room for coffee

Former Hedley frontman Jacob Hoggard found guilty of sexually assaulting Ottawa woman - "Hoggard testified he was confident both complainants consented to their sexual encounters, but he couldn't say how they expressed that consent and had no detailed memories of what happened.  The Ottawa woman told the court she agreed to meet Hoggard in Toronto to have sex on Nov. 22, 2016. But instead of having consensual sex, she was raped anally, vaginally and orally, and at one point dragged by the legs into the bathroom, she told the court.  Both complainants testified Hoggard spit in their mouths, slapped them and called them derogatory names. The Ottawa woman testified Hoggard choked her so hard she feared for her life. In his testimony, the musician told the court that he had consensual, "passionate" sex with each of the complainants.  He acknowledged some of the acts the women described — including spitting, slapping and calling them profane names — may have happened because they were part of his sexual repertoire."
For rough sex and consensual non consent, it would be safe to have some form of documented consent (e.g. Jian Ghomeshi - but feminists were upset about that too)

How Concerning Are the Trump Administration’s New Title IX Regulations? | The New Yorker - "Betsy DeVos’s Department of Education issued its regulations on Title IX, which impose new legal requirements on how schools must conduct their discipline processes for sexual harassment and assault.  Immediately, prominent civil-rights attorneys expressed outrage... It was unclear, however, precisely what aspects of the regulations were so extreme and alarming. Uncharacteristically for the Trump Administration, the Education Department, in crafting the regulations, engaged with a large range of public comments and concerns—from schools, advocates for survivors, and advocates of due process—and the regulations reflect that engagement. They are not exactly as I would wish, but they clarify the rights of both victims and the accused in a way that is likely to lead to improvements in basic fairness. The suggestion that even the most controversial provisions of the regulations allow rape with impunity speaks to a disturbingly large gap between reality and rhetoric on the topic—one that is particularly important to address, so students do not get the false sense that they should not bother to report assaults... some advocates of fair process, among them law professors at Harvard (myself included), the University of Pennsylvania, and Cornell, raised concerns that the pressure to protect victims had led to an overcorrection: accused students were facing expulsion or suspension without fair procedures to defend against disciplinary charges. In many cases, accused students were not being given the complaint or identities of witnesses, and not being shown the evidence or the investigative report. Since 2011, hundreds of accused students have sued their schools for using unfair disciplinary procedures, and have won court judgments or received settlements. Courts have held that, just as it is sex discrimination under Title IX for schools to treat female victims of sexual assault unfairly, it can also be sex discrimination under Title IX to treat males accused of sexual misconduct unfairly... schools must employ a presumption of innocence, on which the Obama-era guidance was silent. Many schools have adopted the principle that they “start by believing” the alleged victim... In the years since DeVos’s rule-making process began, multiple federal and state courts have held that universities must allow cross-examination in disciplinary cases for sexual misconduct as a matter of either constitutional due process or contractual basic fairness, particularly because decisions often hinge on evaluations of credibility. The Obama-era guidance specifically discouraged allowing parties to personally cross-examine each other, out of concern that “allowing an alleged perpetrator to question an alleged victim directly may be traumatic or intimidating.”... Predictably, reactions to the Title IX rule-making have split across partisan lines"

Title IX and Campus Sexual Assault - "In an article published in the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, the University of Nevada’s Deborah Davis and University of California, Irvine’s Elizabeth F. Loftus write that Title IX investigators who conduct “trauma focused” or “trauma informed” interviews and investigations may inadvertently inflect a presumption of guilt into the complaint process. Davis and Loftus argue that the Obama Administration’s focus on trauma created “incorrect and unstated assumptions” about the reliability of complainants’ memories and the reality of their claims for investigations. These assumptions, they claim, “can mislead judgments” in grievance procedures and inappropriately favor the individual who filed a Title IX complaint."

Biden administration proposes overhaul to campus sexual assault rules, replacing Trump-era changes - "The Biden administration proposed a dramatic overhaul of campus sexual assault rules on Thursday, acting to expand protections for LGBTQ students, bolster the rights of victims and widen colleges' responsibilities in addressing sexual misconduct... For the first time, the rules would formally protect LGBTQ students under Title IX... DeVos' rules dramatically reshaped the way colleges handle allegations of sexual assault and harassment, with an emphasis on ensuring the constitutional due process rights of the accused."
Due process and constitutional rights are bad for the progressive agenda

Woman imported sausages to sell on Facebook and threatened to shout 'molest' during investigation, gets jail - "A woman illegally imported 36kg of sausages, meat and duck eggs from China, intending to sell them on Facebook.  When caught and asked to give a statement to a Singapore Food Agency (SFA) officer, she threatened to shout "molest", knowing it would injure his reputation"

Jail, caning for 2 assailants who attacked man over unproven rape allegation - "Two friends, who were out on bail, brutally attacked a man with a knife, a baton and a knuckleduster after the wife of one of the assailants accused the victim of raping her.  The attack was so vicious that the knuckleduster tore a chunk of flesh from the 29-year-old victim's head... District Judge Eddy Tham said that the rape allegation was unproven, adding: "(There is) no room for vigilante justice here."  The woman's husband, Andre Chen Si'En, 32, was sentenced to eight years' jail with nine strokes of the cane after he pleaded guilty to two assault charges and one count of drug consumption.  The other assailant, Gervan Wong Jun Heng, 27, pleaded guilty to 14 charges, including assault, drug abuse and traffic offences."
Two men charged with grievously injuring man with metal baton, knuckleduster at Chua Chu Kang Cemetery - "Douglas Wong Wei Hao... Court documents showed that they allegedly struck him on his head and body, leaving him with a fractured hand, puncture wounds and lacerations on his legs, multiple abrasions on his arms and legs, and lacerations on his forehead and head... Gervan Wong already faces 24 other charges, two of which are violence-related."

Perplexingly, in Singapore, Consent is Possible Even If You’re Drunk - "a former Grab driver, Mr Tan Yew Sin, was acquitted of all charges of attempted rape, sexual assault, and outrage of modesty against a female passenger in 2018.   In his ruling, High Court judge Pang Khang Chau found the sexual acts with the woman were consensual after finding that the prosecution could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the woman lacked the capacity to consent to the sexual acts.   Despite being acquitted in the eyes of the law, when combing through the events that night, one cannot help but feel dissatisfied with the outcome.   Beyond the issue of consent, perhaps a different question to ask would be if men can be counted on to make rational, moral decisions under the duress of carnal gratification.   After all, sexual encounters are an agreement between two consenting parties. The responsibility lies equally between the two parties to decide whether they would both like to engage in any kind of sexual activity...   Justice Pang notes that the victim repeatedly rejected a friend’s offer to drive her home from the bar where she had been drinking, reassuring her friend that she was okay. The woman testified that she did this to avoid worrying her friend.   To this, Justice Pang said it demonstrated her ability to look beyond her immediate needs and consider how her friend felt.   Later, after the car reached her condominium, the woman told Tan she was not ready to leave. She was searching for her wallet to pay the driver then, and this showed her awareness of the circumstances under which she would be ready to leave the car, said the judge.  After the woman failed to access her residence, Tan asked her if she was okay, and she said she was. She testified that she responded in this way because she did not know Tan and did not want to say much.   This also demonstrated awareness of her surroundings and the differences in sharing personal information with different people, said Justice Pang.  In the car, she was emotional, thumping herself on the chest with her fist and banging her head on the window, but would stop each time Tan urged her to stop.   This showed an awareness of what Tan was saying to her, and her decision to accept his suggestion, continued the judge.   At the end of the sexual acts, the girl started saying “no” and pushing Tan’s hands away. She later agreed that this demonstrated her ability to express that she did not want to be touched.   This showed her awareness of what was happening and her ability to give or refuse consent, said Justice Pang.  After the sexual acts, Tan asked the girl if she was okay, to which she replied yes and asked him to continue driving. According to the judge, this showed her ability to assess whether she wanted to leave or remain in the car with Tan even after the sexual encounter... he could have refused her advances at every turn. Yet, he did not...   His actions point to the intrinsic male privilege that paved the way for him to disregard the woman’s state of mind and allow the burden of consent to rest entirely on her.   That night, between the two, one party was sober and in complete control of his decisions and faculty of mind. Yet, it’s the inebriated individual that was made to take responsibility for her actions, what she said, and what she may have suggested while intoxicated."
The police better stake out all nightlife spots, since everyone is sexually assaulting and/or raping each other there
Apparently women can be counted on to make rational, moral decisions under the duress of carnal gratification. Because men are evil
Consent means that if men don't reject women's advances, they can be guilty of sexual assault. Women never have agency and are always victims

Auxiliary cop made plans to have sex with male colleague then falsely accused him of rape - "An auxiliary policewoman, who initiated an intimate chat with her male colleague and made plans to have sex with him, later made a police report to falsely accuse him of rape.  The truth emerged when the authorities found out about the chat and plans after they checked her mobile phone.  Court documents did not disclose if the pair had consensual sex. When confronted, she claimed that she made the police report after seeing a doctor for a urinary tract infection (UTI)"

Amaury Brelet on Twitter - "🔴 C'est énorme. Une jeune femme invente une histoire de viol en gare de Quimper et accuse un homme caucasien. Sauf que l’ADN retrouvé dans sa culotte est celui d’un homme d’origine africaine, un clandestin sous OQTF rencontré sur une application."
OQTF = Obligation de quitter le territoire français

Meme - "Next time you don't believe a rape victim think of your mother, sister, and your daughter
Next time you ask us to believe an accusation without evidence, think of your dad, your brother, and your son"

‘I went downhill’: man falsely accused of rape on becoming a hate figure - "When 18-year-old Jordan Trengove agreed to go on a night out with Eleanor Williams in 2019 he had no idea that accepting her invitation would not just land him in jail but make him the enemy of a global anti-grooming movement with its own line of merchandise... Trengove spent his 19th birthday in prison, serving 10 weeks on remand before police realised the evidence against him didn’t stack up. The girl Trengove actually had sex with on 9 March gave police a selfie she had taken in the back of the police van, while suspicion grew that far from being a particularly unlucky victim of multiple rapes, Eleanor Williams was in fact a fantasist making one false allegation after the other with the help of social media. Not only did she create fake profiles to frame Trengove and some of her other victims, she started up explicit conversations with innocent men – on Tinder, Snapchat or the intimate photo sharing site OnlyFans, where she had an account – and renamed them in her phone so that it looked as though their penis photos and propositions were coming from those she falsely accused.  Out of jail, Trengove was a free man but an outcast in Barrow. “I was barred from everywhere. I was called a rapist, a nonce.” Within a few months he moved away. “I thought it would end but the first day we moved in I had someone shout rapist at me. It was clear then that no matter where I went, someone would always know.” Things calmed down and then on 20 May 2020 Williams posted the fatal Facebook page alleging that she had been trafficked and exploited by an Asian grooming gang.  She didn’t name Trengove, but his name soon became linked with the case, regardless of his skin colour, as more than 100,000 people joined the Justice For Ellie Facebook page and bought elephant-themed wristbands, keyrings and bumper stickers to express solidarity. A rally was organised where convoys of cars drove from Barrow to the town where Trengove now lives, flying Justice for Ellie banners. He tried to tell protesters the truth but no one would listen. “I went downhill,” he said. “I tried killing myself over it. I tried running away from it all. I tried ending my relationship, walking away from my family.  “The amount of problems put on my life just from one [Facebook] post is ridiculous. Because I’m autistic, it’s even harder. I got diagnosed with complex PTSD because of it all."
Rape culture means that men who rape are demonised. White straight cis men are the most privileged in society, which is why false rape claims made against them are never believed

109 women prosecuted for false rape claims in five years, say campaigners - "At least 109 women have been prosecuted in the last five years for making false rape allegations in the UK, according to campaigners who are calling for an end to what they claim is the aggressive pursuit of such cases.  On Tuesday, the charity Women Against Rape (War) is taking its campaign to the House of Commons, where some of those who have been jailed for lying about rape allegations will speak out against their treatment by the authorities... A US law professor, who will be speaking at the Commons, said the UK’s stance on false allegations is more aggressive than in countries such as the United States, Canada and Australia. Prof Lisa Avalos, of the University of Arkansas, said false allegations in the US were dealt with as a misdemeanour offence, not a felony – and most women were not jailed if found guilty.  “In the course of my research I have not found any country that pursues these cases against women rape complainants in the way the UK does. The UK has an unusual approach and I think their approach violates human rights”... But Prof Claire Ferguson, a forensic criminologist from the University of New England in New South Wales, Australia, said it was not the norm to prosecute women for false allegations and that only those in the most egregious cases were charged, often where the accused man had spent time in custody.  “There have been cases in Australia where people have been accused, then nothing ever happens to the accuser, even though the police believe the report is indeed false.  “This can be hugely problematic and has led to many personal and professional issues for the accused [including suicide], even when the police have proven that they did nothing wrong and are not a sex offender”... The director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, is scheduled to publish a statement on the case of Eleanor de Freitas, a rape complainant who killed herself on the eve of a prosecution for perverting the course of justice."
Clearly no women should be prosecuted for false rape accusations, since that is bad for women, who will be afraid to make false rape accusations. Human rights means that you can make false rape accusations and nothing should happen to you
If someone who makes a false rape accusation kills herself, that shows that we shouldn't prosecute false rape accusations. But if someone who is accused of rape kills himself, that shows that he was guilty and we need to prosecute rapists more strenuously

False memories of sexual abuse lead to terrible miscarriages of justice - "Many of those working in our legal system have such a poor understanding of the nature of human memory that miscarriages of justice are an almost inevitable consequence, according to a book published today by the British False Memory Society. Miscarriage of Memory, edited by William Burgoyne, Norman Brand, Madeline Greenhalgh and Donna Kelly, presents factual accounts of prosecutions in the UK that were based entirely upon memories of sexual abuse recovered during therapy in the absence of any supporting evidence. Typically such cases occur when a vulnerable individual seeks help from a psychotherapist for a commonly occurring psychological problem such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and so on. At this stage, the client has no conscious memories of ever being the victim of childhood sexual abuse and is likely to firmly reject any suggestion of such abuse. To a particular sort of well-meaning psychotherapist, however, such denial is itself evidence that the abuse really did occur.  Despite strong criticism from experimental psychologists, many psychotherapists still accept the Freudian notion of repression... On the evidence of a huge amount of well-controlled research, we can now be confident that these memory recovery techniques are highly likely to give rise to false memories – apparent memories for events that never took place.  The memories can be detailed and extremely bizarre, involving ritualised Satanic abuse, gross acts of sexual perversion, cannibalism, human and animal sacrifice, and so on. But they may be nothing more than fleeting images. Indeed, some patients never manage to recover explicit "memories" of abuse but are convinced that such abuse must have occurred because their therapist, who is perceived as an authority figure, tells them that it is the only explanation for their unhappiness.  Whether the patient "recovers" explicit memories or not, the end result will be a family torn apart, with all the heartache, confusion and lasting emotional damage that entails... many hundreds of people have been wrongfully convicted in the UK because juries and those involved in the legal system relied upon "common sense" in considering issues relating to memory. Several thousand case histories have been referred to the British False Memory Society and at least 672 of these are known to have involved the police or higher legal authorities.  It is imperative that those working in the legal system are familiar, at least in general terms, with the way that memory works. Experimental psychologists, following the initial controversy over the veracity of recovered memories back in the 1980s, have developed several reliable techniques to study factors that influence the formation and maintenance of false memories. The studies have proved beyond doubt that false memories can be produced quite readily in susceptible individuals.  Of course, false memories do not only arise in the context of sexual abuse allegations...        Another dramatic case further illustrates the way in which witnesses can sometimes confuse the source of their memories, with potentially catastrophic results. Donald Thomson, an Australian psychologist, was bewildered when the police informed him that he was a suspect in a rape case, his description matching almost exactly that provided by the victim. Fortunately for Thomson, he had a watertight alibi. At the time of the rape, he was taking part in a live TV interview – ironically, on the fallibility of eyewitness testimony. It turned out that the victim had been watching Thomson on TV just before the rape occurred and had confused her memory of him with that of the rapist.  Well-controlled experiments have also shown conclusively that memory can become contaminated when co-witnesses discuss their recall of events, a phenomenon known as "memory conformity""
Damn Lived Experience and Gaslighting!

NY agrees to pay $5.5M to man exonerated in Alice Sebold’s rape - "New York state has agreed to pay $5.5 million to a man who was exonerated after spending 16 years in prison for the rape of award-winning novelist Alice Sebold when she was a student at Syracuse University in 1981... Anthony Broadwater, 62, sued the state for damages after his conviction was overturned by a judge in November 2021 — nearly 22 years following his release from prison in 1999... Seabold – renowned for writing 2002 novel “The Lovely Bones,” which was made into a movie – wrote the 1999 memoir “Lucky” about her experience being raped. The memoir led a review of the murder case.  The judge overturned Broadwater’s conviction because of flaws in the prosecution case – and Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick apologized to Broadwater at the time of his exoneration... Broadwater was ultimately convicted when Sebold identified him in the courtroom during her testimony. And an expert testified that a microscopic hair linked him to the assault.  The type of hair analysis is now regarded as junk science by the US Department of Justice. “Lucky,” Sebold’s memoir describing the rape, was slated to be turned into a movie by Netflix but the project was canceled after the conviction was overturned... Tim Mucciante was one of the producers slated for the movie but backed out of the project and hired a private investigator to look into Broadwater’s case after he found discrepancies between the memoir and the movie script."
Believe Women! Trust Lived Experience! Don't Gaslight Women!

Renson Seow - "Hopefully the terror he felt at being the target of a false rape accusation has made him realise just how wrong he was in the past to support bare allegations of sexual misconduct without evidence. And yeah, I bet his accuser wasn't charged too even though video evidence showed that the allegation was completely false. Instead, Dee Kosh ended up being charged instead for the video that saved him. Maybe now he'll realise just how stacked the deck is against men who are falsely accused."

Veteran athletics coach acquitted of molesting athlete in 2013 after appeal - "A veteran athletics coach who was sentenced to 21 months’ jail in 2020 for molesting an athlete in 2013 has been acquitted of both charges after appealing to the High Court.  Mr Loh Siang Piow, 79, also known as Mr Loh Chan Pew, was acquitted of two charges of using criminal force on the then-18-year-old woman at Tampines Stadium to outrage her modesty... Justice Hoo Sheau Peng said the prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.  The alleged victim, named only as Ms C, was the sole witness in the case and her testimony had to be unusually convincing to secure a conviction.  Justice Hoo said there were “serious doubts as to the veracity of Ms C’s allegations”...   According to Ms C, Mr Loh molested her under the guise of giving her massages after their individual training sessions on Feb 24 and Mar 15 in 2013. Justice Hoo pointed out that at that time, there was a prevalent practice in the athletics community for coaches to give trainees massages after intensive training.  She said that Ms C’s messages contain inconsistencies with her version in court about the events. She had also “exaggerated” aspects of the events.  “Even in court, her account of where she was touched has been unclear, and her account that she allegedly experienced an involuntary orgasm from the violation of her body seemed to be an embellishment,” said Justice Hoo.  She also pointed to Ms C’s seemingly “jovial mood” hours after allegedly being molested.  Ms C had also shifted positions on the date of the second offence at trial and was unable to recall material details or even where she had been touched... Ms C lodged the police report in June 2016, after reading a newspaper report about a coach being accused of molest.  Thinking the offender could be Mr Loh, she decided to lodge the police report because she was worried that other new trainees might suffer her plight while training under Mr Loh.  However, the newspaper report concerned a different coach.  “What I find troubling is that Ms C’s communications with (another party) at that time revealed some strongly worded condemnation of sexual offenders in general”... She said that if Ms C had misunderstood Mr Loh’s conduct in 2013, there is the distinct possibility that over the three years, this misunderstanding might have deepened, especially after more conversations with other people.  “Unfortunately, I could not discount the possibility that there was a build-up of mistrust towards Mr Loh over the three years. Precipitated by the newspaper report, and coupled with her strong sentiments against sexual offenders, the complaint was eventually made in 2016,” said Justice Hoo."

Veteran coach cleared of all molestation charges - "The prosecution applied to withdraw the remaining charges against him relating to a second accuser, who was 16 at the time of the alleged offences between 2011 and 2012...   Justice Hoo noted that Ms C’s account of the first incident lacked specific details on the training session and that she was not entirely clear where she was touched.  Ms C said her father accompanied her to a training session after she expressed discomfort with Mr Loh’s massages. But this account was not supported by either parent.  The judge said Ms C exaggerated aspects of the events and embellished her account to present a more persuasive case against Mr Loh.  However, Justice Hoo said she did not think Ms C had any malicious intention to frame Mr Loh."
RIP life savings. And another false accusation goes unpunished (and isn't counted as one, so feminists can continue to pretend they are rare)

Commentary: Time to reconsider if accused persons should be named before conviction - "An accused person may very well be innocent of whatever he has been accused of, yet the moment he is charged, he is subject to a barrage of speculation and censure. Even if his name is eventually cleared, the damage will already have been done.  This is inconsistent with a fundamental principle of our justice system, that one is presumed innocent until and unless that one is found guilty by a court of law.  Yet, accused persons commonly suffer negative consequences even before they have had a chance to mount their defence, let alone have judgment rendered. They may be ostracised, lose their jobs, and suffer from extreme anxiety.  The law should not turn a blind eye to these real and serious, though non-legal, consequences.  Our criminal justice system protects not just victims and society in general. The safeguarding of the rights of the accused person is also a key requirement of justice. The issue is not whether offenders should be publicly named — they should — the question is when they should be publicly named.  A better way to balance the rights of the accused person and the interests of open justice would be to prohibit the publication of the accused’s name, until he is convicted and has exhausted his avenues of appeal. This would prevent unwarranted censure of people who are eventually acquitted... In Switzerland, accused persons may be granted anonymity if the Court is satisfied that they could be exposed to serious danger or other serious prejudice.   In New Zealand and Australia, where there are jury trials, the Court may prohibit disclosure of an accused person’s identity if disclosure could create a serious risk of prejudice to a fair trial... there is a high risk of public bias towards accused persons. One of my students once wrote in an assignment that, prior to her law school experience, she had always assumed that an accused person would be guilty, since they would not have been charged without good reason.   Singapore is a victim of its own success in this regard. Trust in law enforcement and public institutions is very high: For example, in the 2022 World Justice Project report, Singapore was rated 0.83/1 in terms of the effectiveness of the criminal justice system and 0.77/1 in terms of impartiality.   One solution to this problem is obviously better public education about the presumption of innocence, but it is unrealistic to expect that this will get through to everyone.   The problem also needs to be mitigated by more pragmatic solutions, such as simply not disclosing the name of the accused. Second, there is a growing interest in criminal cases.   For example, the high-profile acquittals of Ms Parti Liyani and Dr Yeo Sow Nam generated a lot of public discussion. Ms Parti Liyani was acquitted of theft in 2020, and Dr Yeo was acquitted of outrage of modesty in 2021.   In both cases, the accused persons suffered several years of stigma and anxiety before their eventual acquittals. The effects are not just confined to the accused person: Dr Yeo’s family also suffered humiliation and hurt from seeing their father’s name dragged through the mud.  The growth of online news sources has made it such that members of the public need no longer attend trials in person or rely on reliable news sources... The principle of open justice is designed to facilitate just that, justice, not to provide fodder for the rumour mill... Third, there is a growing risk of online vigilantism. In the age of cancel culture, it is all too easy to get people riled up about alleged wrongs. In some cases, this can go beyond mere outrage and evolve into abusive behaviour.  For example, in 2016, freelance dog trainer Mark Lin You Cheng began a campaign of online harassment against Ms Soon Kim Choo after incorrectly alleging that she had been involved in a hit and run with a dog near an animal shelter.   Ms Soon received phone calls and messages harassing her over the incident even though she was not the driver involved.  Online vigilantism could be corrosive to respect for public institutions, including the courts and the Public Prosecutor... protecting the identity of the accused person prior to conviction does not offend against the principle of open justice."

MPs call for protection of those falsely accused of sexual crimes - "Nominated MP Raj Joshua Thomas called for a study on whether or not the identities of those accused of sexual crimes should be published before they are convicted and have exhausted all avenues of appeal. He cited the cases of Dr Yeo Sow Nam, who was given a discharge last month amounting to an acquittal for four counts of outraging a woman's modesty after his accuser admitted she had lied in court, as well as Mr Ong Mingwee, who was initially convicted of rape before being acquitted on appeal in 2012."

Home Owners Associations

"29% of the US population lives in a Community Association. And it's actually increasingly hard to find a home that doesn't come with one. Out of all the new single-family homes sold in 2021, 82 percent were in an HOA, that's up from around just 40% in 1990, which is pretty remarkable given that when one local station asked viewers how they felt about their HOA the results were nearly universally negative...

'Every HOA is just one vote away from hellish nightmares'...

You can find HOA rules like homes may display a maximum of two exterior decorative objects or all garage doors must be painted Benjamin Moore mayonnaise OC-85. And one Arizona HOA required that front yard landscaping must contain a minimum of one 36 inch box tree, one 24 inch box tree, 10 5 gallon shrubs and ten one gallon shrubs...

You might not know that you are dealing with a bad HOA until it is too late as in most places you aren't legally required to be granted access to all of its rules until after you are offered to buy a home is accepted"

John Oliver claims that for-profit companies are incentivised to fine residents to raise money, which creates perverse incentives. But that would suggest that governments shouldn't fine people either, because of the same.

Also:

Why do HOAs have so much power? How HOAs and condo boards took over housing.

"There are few things more delicious than a homeowners association horror story. All over the internet, you can find tales of people getting fined for parking their vehicles in their own driveways or having a potted tomato plant on their back porches or leaving a bottle of Gatorade out for one day. In Tennessee, a man returned from vacation to discover his car was missing; he thought it had been stolen, but in reality, his HOA had towed it because it had a flat tire. A Maryland HOA fined a homeowner $40,000 because the fence she built was 8 inches too long. A Missouri HOA threatened a family with jail time because they’d put up a play set that was — gasp! — purple.

It’s easy to laugh at the inanity of so much of it ... until you find yourself peeking through your curtains trying to catch your neighbor putting her trash can out five minutes early because last year she reported you to the HOA for leaving up your Christmas lights past the New Year...

“Real estate developers and cities see dollar signs with private governments. If you create a private subdivision or ideally a condominium, you can get much greater density, and the developers can get more houses on less land,” McKenzie said. “Cities love this because they get a whole bunch of new taxpayers paying a full property tax and they don’t have to provide the services to them they have to provide to everybody else.”

The deal is supposed to be good for homeowners, too. People get some rules of the road, like that their neighbors won’t be blasting music at 3 am, and get access to that private pool if there is one. HOA-governed properties can also be worth more — one 2019 study found that houses in such subdivisions are worth at least 4 percent more than similar houses outside of them.

“Being in an HOA actually makes your housing value go up,” said Wyatt Clarke, one of the authors of the paper. However, he acknowledged most of that value is captured by the developer, and that over time, that extra value diminishes as properties age and houses start to turn over. “The fact that you’re in this unit, over time, becomes less and less valuable,” he said...

Part of the philosophy here is that “the market” is supposed to address the problem on its own and will punish HOAs with bad rules or overzealous enforcement because people will not buy in those communities and will flee. But that’s not how it works in practice. A lot of the time, buyers don’t fully know the consequences of buying in a development ruled by an HOA or even see the rules and regulations ahead of time. Buyers trying to sell might not be so open about the association, nor will the broader community trying to keep property values up. And in many communities, HOAs are the only game in town. In New York City, for example, you’ve practically always got to buy an apartment in a condo or co-op building — and in a co-op, the board can turn prospective buyers down.

“Courts tend to take the view of, look, if you don’t like it, you can leave, or you can work within the community to change things, exercise your voice,” Pollack said. But it’s not so easy to pick up and go; it’s financially and emotionally costly to move. Being on an HOA isn’t a particularly rewarding or fun job, either. It’s unpaid, thankless, and can be a lot of work. Sometimes, the people on the boards are the ones who are most eager to impose rules on their neighbors. “That creates the sort of predictable consequences that we see, which are boards of similar compositions remaining in place with pretty unhappy communities,” he said...

HOAs can do a lot of things that government can’t do. They can tell you what signs you can and can’t put outside of your home, because the First Amendment protects your right to free speech from being infringed upon by the government but not by a private entity. They can tell you that your truck has to be parked in the garage or not parked at all because they don’t want the neighborhood to look too “working class.” They can’t overtly say they don’t want people of color in the subdivision, but they can make it very hard for people of color to get in...

To put it short, these unaccountable little governments could stand to be held a little more accountable. “The only way to make it work in the long term is a little bit more assertive role of government,” McKenzie said. “But this really just epitomizes the whole era we’ve been in for the last 40 years: privatize everything, the market solves all our problems. I’m sorry, no.”"

Related:

Neighbors rally for senior who just wants somewhere to sit - "There are more than 9,000 HOAs managing Arizona neighborhoods, and with every HOA comes a governing board and a set of rules. Among other things, they're supposed to help maintain a certain quality standard. But one group says their HOA, the Bethany Villa Association, isn't standing by one of its longest and oldest residents. Tanya let me know about her 92-year-old neighbor Ted and a bench he owns outside his front door... He received notices from his HOA saying simply, "remove your bench from the common area... or it will be removed by the Association." "I think that's rotten. What's he going to do, stand? Sit inside all day? It's taking his life away from him," says Steve, a former neighbor. Ted says while he was on the Bethany Villa Association board for 28 years, the HOA did not give him a reason for removal. They told us the bench "is in violation of the CC&Rs" regarding items placed "on any patio, balcony, common area." "I could always bring a chair out here," he says. But Tanya won't have it. "How is he going to carry a chair out? That alone can cause him to fall," she says."

Homeowner faces ‘artificial turf war’ with HOA - "A homeowner in Arizona installed artificial grass to her front and back yards in an effort to cut down on her water bill. “I’m trying to save water. We are in a drought situation in Arizona,” homeowner Sherry Lund told KTVK. “We are saving $1,100 a month in water bills, my house alone.” Lund has lived in her home for nearly 15 years. What she thought was a good idea has quickly turned into a turf war with her homeowners association. “He said we are an elite community, and we don’t want artificial turf,” Lund said... “One of the people that testified in our committee said if a home has grass, 90% of their water usage is for watering the grass, so it is a tremendous draw on a limited and decreasing water supply”"

HOA told Texas family it was too early to decorate yard for Christmas - "A Texas family who received a letter from their homeowners' association requesting they remove holiday decorations from their yard until closer to Christmas has responded by adding more decorations — including a Grinch. San Antonio couple Claudia and Nicolaas Simonis say they decorated early this year because Claudia is pregnant and due on Christmas, and she wouldn't be able to move as much as she approaches her due date. So they placed a snowman, a Christmas-themed helicopter and a reindeer on their front yard Nov. 1... "This week, our neighbors put up their stuff, they're putting their lights out," said Nicolaas. "They don't care, they support us. They're mad at the HOA." The Simonis family has also added more decorations, including an inflatable Grinch holding up a sign that says "I am your HOA.""

Green Valley Ranch homeowners targeted with 'bogus' HOA fines - "Residents in Green Valley Ranch said that they are being targeted and bullied with bogus fines by their HOA, which is resulting in some families being displaced from their homes... Leaving trash cans out, broken blinds, weeds in their yards are all things that residents in Green Valley Ranch said they've been fined for... "I don't know if they just enjoy preying on people," Nowak said. "When you receive a violation for a tree not being 'tree-shaped,' it boggles your mind." She said that she won the court case that involved her tree when a judge couldn't find anything in the bylaws that showed she was violating a rule. Then, she was summoned to court for another issue, a temporary fence she set up for her small dogs... She said she lives in fear each day. "When my doorbell rings, I'm afraid to answer it," she said. "I don't know if it's going to be another person trying to summon me again for violations I don't know about.""

HOA Fires Back at Fla. Man Who Said He Was Fined $5K Short Trees - "After a Florida man says he was fined $100 a day, or $5,000, for having two Magnolia trees that were too short, his homeowners association is defending itself, saying it's not just the height that's the problem, but the number of trees."

What's wrong with this house? Homeowner fined thousands by HOA in North Carolina - "Debra got a letter from her HOA letting her know she did not follow her HOA covenants when it came to the plum color she just painted her shutters. According to her HOA covenants, she was supposed to get prior approval of the color choice. "It was a complete shock to me, but I immediately apologized, and they asked me to go through the ARC approval process, and I did that within two days," Debra said. However, things didn't go so well for Debra. Her HOA's Architectural Committee denied the color change and asked her to pick another color. Debra went around to her neighbors and had each neighbor either approve or disapprove of the plum shutters. She had more than a dozen signatures of approval from her neighbors, but her request for plum shutters was still denied. "People are entitled to their opinions, but I haven't seen any facts. They've accused me of devaluing homes, they've accused me of destroying the aesthetic of the neighborhood and I think one good look at this house would rapidly convince people that that is indeed not the case, it is purely opinion," Debra said. If Debra didn't change the color of her shutters, she would face steep fines. The fines were $25 a day, which adds up to more than $9,000 a year, for keeping her plum shutters. Debra paid the fines, totaling more than $1,000. However, it didn't stop with the fines. "The threats had started coming about placing a lien against our house and forcing our home into foreclosure," Debra said. Debra eventually took down her plum shutters to try to work something out, but that only made things worse. Taking down her shutters was met with an immediate response. Debra showed us letters where the HOA was now going to fine her for being in violation of taking the shutters off her home. A frustrated Debra reached out to her neighbors to find she wasn't alone in her fight against the HOA and that other homeowners had experienced being fined and threatened with legal action... Following state laws, Debra and 14 people in her neighborhood signed a petition requesting a special meeting. Even though they were following state statute, Debra showed us a letter from the HOA attorney threatening to take action if they moved forward with their special meeting. "We got a letter from the HOA attorney threatening all fourteen of us with a personal lawsuit and restraining order for conducting a completely lawful meeting," Debra said. Debra refused to be intimidated, the group had their special meeting and got enough support from the neighborhood to make a change. The past board was removed from office, and new management is in place."

HOA buys home through foreclosure for $3.24

Arizona HOAs foreclosing on a record number of homeowners - "HOAs are foreclosing on a record number of homeowners for as little as $1,200 in missed maintenance payments, according to an Arizona Republic investigation. And homeowners who thought only their mortgage lender could seize property are losing their houses at sheriff’s auctions, sometimes for just $100 more than they owe... Some homeowners fighting desperately to keep their homes find HOA balances often don’t match amounts listed in court filings, making it difficult to learn how much they really owe — and impossible to catch up. Phoenix lawyer Jon Dessaules, who represents homeowners fighting foreclosure, called the process “a cash cow for lawyers... The nation’s 350,000 HOAs and community managers are largely unregulated. Some states, though not Arizona, require them to disclose financial statements and personnel information, but little else."

Homeowners share cautionary tales of HOA nightmares - "She said she contacted the HOA Board to see why she is getting fined, yet other homeowners in the neighborhood continue to park outside of their driveways and she says not get fined. She took some photos to document her concerns. HOAs can take it much further than just fining you for violations. HOAs can actually boot you from your home. Roger and Clara Dunlap learned that the hard way. After living in their home for 29 years, their HOA in their Raleigh neighborhood foreclosed on them... According to Roger, he and his wife are 100 percent disabled and his wife has dementia. When the HOA was taking action against him, Roger said his wife was in and out of the hospital after suffering a stroke and also battling throat cancer. He said he didn't realize how serious the problem was when it came to his HOA. He said he made several improvements that the HOA asked for, but he said it was never enough."

Home Owners Association Uses Google Map Satellites To Find Violat - "A home owner was threatened with fines and even a lien on his property from his neighborhood HOA (Home Owners Association) for having a shed in his backyard that wasn't approved by the association. They said they were performing random audits and that's when they became aware of the shed. He asked how they knew about it because you can't see it from the street or anywhere from the front of the house. The HOA used Goggle Maps to find it. The story gets worse. The owner bought the property three years ago and the shed was already there. That's right he purchased the home with the shed on the property, but the HOA didn't care"

John Carona's Steady Climb to $1 Billion - "Developers like creating the associations because it gives them more control over their projects and allows them to put in common facilities such as clubhouses, tennis courts, and swimming pools, Cheung says. It is cheaper than putting all the amenities in every home. Cash-strapped municipalities like them because developers build roads and parks and pass the costs along to the homeowners, Cheung says. Cities also like the fact that homes in HOA communities improved property values by 13 to 18 percent, one study notes... According to a 2018 CAI survey, 85 percent of residents rate their overall community association experience as positive, refuting “the unfounded and unsubstantiated myth that the community association model of governance is failing to serve the best interests” of its members."

Property Management, Association Management,Homeowners Management, HOA - "non-CAI sponsored surveys have a very different outcome. For example, a survey of 3000 found that 2/3 of the people living in homeowner associations found them "annoying" or worse. At least 19% have been in a "war" with their HOA. The survey also revealed that 54% of the respondents would rather live with a sloppy neighbor than deal with an HOA. Only 24% responded positively about an HOA. These results tend to paint a far less rosy picture than the CAI sponsored surveys. Advocates often maintain that people choose to live in HOAs, but some note that "choice" is misleading. In reality HOAs have been mandated by municipalities for decades either directly or indirectly. This is often accomplished by conditioning plat or other approval on the creation of amenities such as roads, open areas, greenbelts, retention basins, etc. and an obligation to maintain them. Certainly a large percentage of the population has no choice but to live in an HOA. Finding a non-HOA neighborhood of homes built in the last several decades is virtually impossible. The choice for most buyers seeking a newer home is not HOA or non-HOA but which HOA. The imposition of an HOA accomplishes several benefits for the municipality. First, these amenities may be burdened with property taxes which would not be the case if the amenities were owned by the municipality. Thus the mandated private amenities are cash generators for the municipalities. Second, the municipalities bear no obligation to maintain the amenities given that they are owned by the HOA."

The Public Role in Establishing Private Residential Communities: Towards a New Formulation of Local Government Land Use Policies That Eliminates the Legal Requirements to Privatize New Communities in the United States - "local governments on a broad scale and independent of market forces, effectively have required developers of new subdivisions to create community associations to operate and maintain the subdivision in lieu of the municipality providing traditionally municipal services to the subdivision, including such services as street maintenance, sewer service, water supply, drainage, curbside refuse collection, parks, and even traditional police patrols of public streets. Local governments have been able to achieve this purpose-with virtually unfettered discretion and in the absence of judicial review-through a robust application of their traditional land use powers: i.e., the power to zone and the power to approve the establishment of new subdivisions. Viewed from the narrow economic perspective of a local government experiencing rapid growth, a regime of privatization of new communities constitutes an extremely attractive policy option. The establish ment of community associations to operate and maintain traditionally public infrastructure represents a seemingly ideal response to countervailing pressures to accommodate development and to restrain the growth inmunicipal outlays. Stated differently, the establishment of a community association allows local government to reap the benefit of an increased tax base without the need to provide certain traditionally municipal services that are instead provided by the community association. The interest of municipal cost minimization, however, does not necessarily correspond to the public interest... substantial evidence suggests that subdivision developers are often being required to establish a community association as a condition of subdivision approval... Among the most important adverse effects of public service exactions are the following. First, public service exactions make the most affordable form of market-rate new housing development-i.e., cluster housing-more expensive by saddling home-owners with the cost of operating and maintaining traditionally municipal infrastructure. Second, public service exactions subject a large number of homeowners to a private land use regime thatmany neither desire nor understand and, related to this, deny homeowners the option of purchasing a home free of a complex private servitude regime and the obligations and conditions that are imposed by that regime. Inmany housing markets (particularly in the Sunbelt), housing consumers have no choice but to accept that regime because of the lack of alternatives. Third, public service exactions encourage the establish ment of gated communities, which have been identified with adverse social and political effects on the body politic and civil society. Fourth, public service exactions give rise to many larger territorial community associations that are the functional equivalent of municipalities, but courts generally do not recognize these community associations as "state actors," thereby depriving residents and nonresidents alike of a constitutional remedy for abridgment of fundamental rights by such associations... "[HOAs are] the most significant privatization of local government responsibilities in recent times.""

HOA uses residents' HOA fees to threaten them over negative posts - "we approached Director Todd McCoy. "I'd like to ask you a couple questions," said Polom. "I have no comments for you, get away from me, get away from me," shouted McCoy. After being shoved, Polom reiterated to McCoy that the community is very upset with the board’s actions to which he replied, "I don't care." The board president refused to leave the building and answer questions"

Ex-HOA board members at Val Vista Lakes in Gilbert sue fellow residents - "The HOA’s attorney in January threatened to fine residents as much as $250 per day over their social media comments. The board later walked back that threat, saying it would not pursue the fines but warned against negative online posts about the neighborhood or board... Steven Nielsen, another defendant, is a former board member who most recently served as president for 2018 and half of 2019. He had hoped the recall would start a "healing process" for the community he's called home since 2009, but instead division has continued. "We’ve gone through this very tumultuous and turbulent year filled with anger and frustration over the lack of transparency, fiscal accountability, excessive closed-door meetings and attempts to thwart public input or criticism of certain board member actions,” he told The Arizona Republic. “This lawsuit is frivolous. It is meant to harm and retaliate against those that wanted to see a better functioning board.”"

Texas bans HOAs from making anti-Section 8 rules - "Texas lawmakers this year outlawed a form of discrimination that allowed homeowners associations to ban some tenants from their neighborhoods... The Providence Homeowners Association enacted a rule last summer that barred landlords from renting to Section 8 tenants, which would have left the town of Providence Village — a town of about 7,700 people about an hour’s drive north of Dallas — mostly off-limits to those renters"

Joining an HOA? There Will Be Hell to Pay - WSJ - "There is a reason why many people who buy a condo vow never to do it again. That reason is the Homeowners Association... like any humans given power over others, HOA boards inevitably get drunk on the stuff, so HOA rules and fees proliferate like perfectly fertilized weeds."

Of course, car haters who promote dense living and hate on HOAs pretend that apartment living doesn't come with similar rules too.

Americans hate government and taxes, but you still need to work and pay for the common good. So they invent a new form of government and taxes, which is worse in some ways.

Links - 19th August 2023 (1 - General Wokeness [including Toronto Principal Suicide])

Meme - Soyjak: "I fucking love science!"
"Science says that nuclear power, GM crops, and Glyphosate are safe, stereotypes are usually accurate, IQ is the best predictor of success in life, sex differences are real and innate, populations grouped by ancestry have different average IQs, climate change is not an existential risk, fireplaces and wood stoves cause dangerous amounts of air pollution, unarmed black men are more likely to be struck by lightning than being killed by the police in the US"
Soyjak: *upset*

Meme - Cabot Phillips @cabot_phillips: "The blind community is going to be so touched when they see this"
"Tonight, the @Orioles became the first pro team to wear uniforms with Braille lettering. Awesome. #BiggerThanBasebal!"

Meme - Alexander Kruel: ""This one graph is more informative than most sociology degrees." -- @AporiaMagazine
Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-017-0005-6
Height, BMI, Years of Schooling, Cognitive Skills, Socioemotional Skills
Monozygotic, Dizygotic, Full Sibs Together, Full Sibs Apart, Half Sibs Together, Half Sibs Apart, Adoptees
*decreasing correlation as the children become decreasingly related*"
The power of socialisation!

Accused Toronto Mafia boss says he's a victim of anti-Italian ethnic profiling - "Accused Toronto Mafia boss Vincenzo DeMaria says ethnic profiling and anti-Italian stereotypes are behind efforts to deport him from Canada for organized criminal activity."

Structural racism may contribute to mass shootings, study says - "Researchers intended to find whether mass shootings are a consequence of structural racism, which they described as “the normalized and legitimized range of policies, practices, and attitudes that routinely produce cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for people of color.” They correlated the cities’ Black-White segregation index, demographic data, poverty rates, educational attainment and crime rates. Chicago had the greatest number of mass shootings during that period with 141, which led to 97 deaths and 583 injuries. According to the study, Milwaukee had the highest segregation index, which tracks racial disparities in schools and neighborhoods, while Baltimore had the highest unemployment rate. Cleveland had the greatest income inequality. Researchers said the study did not find a link between income and mass shooting events, but further research may be needed to define how income equality and poverty have an influence in mass shootings."
Association Between Markers of Structural Racism and Mass Shooting Events in Major US Cities - "On linear regression, structural racism, as measured by percentage of the MSA population comprising Black individuals, was associated with MSEs (β = 0.10; 95% CI, 0.05 to 0.14; P < .001). Segregation index (β = 0.02, 95% CI, −0.03 to 0.06; P = .53), children in a single-parent household (β = −0.04, 95% CI, −0.11 to 0.04; P = .28), and Gini income coefficient (β = −1.02; 95% CI, −11.97 to 9.93; P = .93) were not associated with MSEs on linear regression."
Clearly they need more soft-on-crime policies, lowered educational standards, welfare for single mothers
I like how "structural racism" is defined as an area having a higher black population. But really, they wouldn't have been able to put it any other way. If they'd said that areas with more black people had more mass shootings, the paper would either have not been published or it'd have been retracted
This reminds me of Nazi science - the methodology and data seem OK. But the conceptual framework and the conclusions are nonsense

Joey Mannarino on Twitter - "Video from Minneapolis Pride. Even if you vote for Joe Biden, you can't possibly think that having kids watch this man with more hair on his back than his head twerk is appropriate. What kind of man decides that he wants to twerk for children anyway? This is a total stain on the LGBTQ+ community and if they don't remove this stuff from their parades, they want it there."
Damn far right!

Toronto principal bullied over false charge of racism dies from suicide - "Bilkszto’s career as an educator spanned 24 years, in which time he was an advocate for anti-discrimination and public education. Last Thursday, he took his own life. He was 60 years old. His stellar career took on a sour note after he was bullied in a diversity, equity and inclusion training session for Toronto District School Board (TDSB) administrators in 2021, according to a lawsuit Bilkszto filed in court. His sin, in the eyes of facilitators at the KOJO Institute, was his questioning of their claim that Canada was a more racist place than the United States. Canada wasn’t perfect, he said, but it still offers a lot of good. For the rest of the training session, and throughout a follow-up training session the week after, facilitators repeatedly referred to Bilkszto’s comments as examples of white supremacy. The experience was humiliating — particularly because Bilkszto placed a great emphasis on equality and anti-discrimination during his career. Instead of offering support to Bilkszto and protection in these training sessions, the school board distanced itself from him. One colleague, who has since been made an education director in Hamilton, thanked the facilitator for “modelling the discomfort.”  A day after the second training session, Bilkszto fell into a mental health crisis so bad that he had to spend more than a month away from work — for which he won a successful workers’ compensation claim for lost earnings. Shortly after his leave began, his association of education administrators asked the board to investigate the bullying incident, but the board refused. When Bilkszto returned to work, the TDSB further refused to reinstate him to the role he was in prior to taking leave; it also revoked a work contract he had been awarded for the upcoming year. Finally, the board disinvited him from attending a graduation ceremony. As a last resort for accountability, Bilkszto launched a lawsuit against TDSB administrators... Bilkszto was anxious over an anticipated backlash over the legal proceedings. The events that unfolded in 2021 weighed on him... Aside from his work as an educator, Bilkszto was an advocate. He was a member of the Toronto chapter of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), an advocacy organization dedicated to civil rights and anti-discrimination, which he took the lead in establishing. In education specifically, he was a member of SOS TDSB, an organization working to preserve the district’s merit-based admissions system for specialty programs (the TDSB recently began using a lottery system to admit students, to the ire of many)... Michael Teper, a representative of SOS TDSB, described Bilkszto’s philosophy as a classical liberal approach — he believed in providing equal opportunities to all, and offering outreach to underserved communities. He opposed the use of “artificial means to produce an equal outcome” and the use of racial stereotyping in hiring and school admissions... There appears to exist a pattern at TDSB of failing to support their own when baseless accusations of racism fly. In 2019, a principal and vice-principal were put on leave after an allegedly racially-charged scuffle between two students evolved into a social media storm. The student responsible was punished with a five-day suspension, but that wasn’t enough — threats still made their way in and the board responded by punishing the principal. The incident was so bad that 14 staff members eventually ended up on leave. Sentence first, verdict afterwards.  This March, a parent group accused a TDSB school of locking a six-year-old Black boy in a small room near the principal’s office — resulting in an apology from TDSB and the principal, vice-principal and a teacher was placed on leave. The Ontario Principal’s Council pushed back against the move, challenging the racism narrative deployed by the parent group, which told CTV that it does not second-guess allegations of racism. The council was troubled by the TDSB’s apology, as the investigation was not complete. We can’t know what was on Bilkszto’s mind in the past few weeks. We do know, however, that he was awarded workplace compensation for workplace harassment and bullying. We do know that he was made to feel humiliated before his colleagues. We do know that there is a pattern in education of disciplining staff before a proper investigation into the facts has been completed... Bilkszto’s death is a harsh reminder to all of us that hasty, vitriolic accusations of racism can contribute to real trauma experienced by real people — including those who spent their careers promoting multiculturalism and fighting discrimination. The public sector needs to seriously reconsider its practice of using taxpayer dollars to fund the disruption and confrontation of staff."
Wokeness kills. The woke weaponise allegations of "bullying" when people disagree with them, but they are the true bullies
Naturally, on reddit liberals were sliming the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism as far right and promoting racism

Principal berated for 'white supremacy' sues TDSB over equity training - "While TDSB wasn’t helpful, Toronto School Administrators’ Association and the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) supported his claim...   “Based on the information on file, I am satisfied that the conduct of the speaker … was abusive, egregious and vexatious, and rises to the level of workplace harassment and bullying,” wrote the worker’s compensation decision... WSIB’s view was that the DEI trainer intended to “cause reputational damage and to ‘make an example’” of the principal. TDSB didn’t dispute Bilkszto’s recollection of events to the compensation board, nor did it appeal the compensation board’s award (the deadline for disputing the claim has passed). Despite the school board’s lack of support for its longtime principal, TDSB’s statement of claim against the KOJO Institute seems to take Bilkszto’s side. The school board alleges that the DEI consulting firm was negligent and in breach of contract by making Bilkszto feel harassed, humiliated and defamed... the court filings launching these lawsuits paint a picture of how workplace DEI training relies on coercion and ridicule to force employees to bend the knee to a certain set of racialist, sometimes ahistorical, beliefs. Those who don’t comply just might end up in a struggle session."

School principal's death is a stain on the conscience of this nation - "As if that wasn’t enough, Bilkszto was then harangued by superiors for his “white male privilege.”... Meanwhile, other actors in this appalling tragedy thrive. The KOJO Institute appears to have received at least $100,000 from the federal government for offering three courses. But its list of clients reveals its reach to be long and extensive in Canada: TD Bank, the National Ballet School, Loblaws, the Ontario government, the RCMP, the CBC, Rogers, school boards across Ontario, and many others. Corporate Canada and many civil institutions pay out millions to get someone to tell their employees how racist they are. And, unless you are Richard Bilkszto, employees sit there and take it.  Sheryl Robinson Petrazzini, the TDSB superintendent who thanked KOJO for “modelling discomfort,” has since gone on to join Ontario’s Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board as director of education.  The woke agitators might say that one man’s death means nothing when you are dismantling white supremacy and the patriarchy. But don’t listen to them.  Poet and cleric John Donne wrote in the 17th century that no man is an island.  “Any man’s death diminishes me/because I am involved in mankind./And therefore never send to know for whom/the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”  Richard Bilkszto stood alone. And in the end he couldn’t endure. But what might have happened if one person had stood with him? Just one?  It is to be hoped that Bilkszto’s sacrifice serves as an example to others. And if we find ourselves not brave enough like Richard Bilkszto to stand up to the woke zealots, then let us pray we at least find the courage to stand next to people like him.  Ask not for whom the bell tolls."

After principal's death, Lecce orders review of school board training | Toronto Sun - "“We are here to talk about anti-Black racism, but you in your whiteness think that you can tell me what’s really going on for Black people?” Ojo-Thompson is alleged to have said in reply.  According to the lawsuit, Bilkszto never denied racism is real, that it needs to be dealt with, but he disagreed with the facilitator, Ojo-Thompson, the owner of the KOJO Institute, on her cross-border comparison. The lawsuit alleges that as she and fellow facilitators berated him in front of colleagues, no one from the TDSB spoke up to defend Bilkszto, to keep the discussion respectful, they stayed silent... Bilkszto was never able to regain his position with the TDSB, his regular work reduced to a few days here and there...   In the wake of Bilkszto’s death by suicide, there are calls for the Ministry of Education to investigate how TDSB handled this case and the general issue of diversity, equity and inclusion training. The Toronto School Administrators’ Association, representing over 1,000 principals and vice-principals, which supported Bilkszto is leading the charge."

LILLEY: Ontario education system is a mess, needs full overhaul - "Remember, it wasn’t that long ago that the Ford government had to revise a curriculum that taught that math was inherently racist. “Mathematics has been used to normalize racism and marginalization of non-Eurocentric mathematical knowledges, and a decolonial, anti-racist approach to mathematics education makes visible its historical roots and social constructions,” the 2021 curriculum revision stated . When kids aren’t being taught that math is racist, or everyone in history is racist or that they are racist, there are legitimate concerns about gender ideology in the classroom. The idea that we should be teaching young children that gender is fluid, that you can change your gender, before they even fully understand the concept of gender. There are also policies in place at school boards across the province to tell teachers not to inform parents of children, as young as four, who tell a teacher they want to change their gender. The school policy, far too often, is to do what the child wants and exclude the parents. We’ve also had bans on schools allowing police officers into classrooms, especially in uniform, even for kids who wanted to bring their parent for career day. None of these issues are driven by what is best for the students, it’s driven by politics. Education Minister Stephen Lecce has played whack-a-mole in tamping down on some of this craziness but he needs to do more."

Tasha Kheiriddin: Principal's death shows that schools are focusing on the wrong things - "Bilkszto’s story resonates so deeply because it is an incitement of the failure of DEI training to achieve one of its stated goals: inclusion. Instead of making space for all voices, Bilkszto was shut down because of his race. Worse yet, in our schools, this type of “training” is now competing for scarce resources with priorities such as safety and academic performance. Recently in Winnipeg, a school administrator defended his district’s annual spending of nearly $850,000 on DEI programs , saying, “We want our children to be anti-racist because you’re either a racist, or you’re an anti-racist.” In British Columbia, a government official stated that the province’s anti-racism plan for K-12 “is an important part of our work to decolonize our institutions and build a better B.C. for everyone.” But is this “decolonization” and anti-racism education improving interpersonal relations between teachers and students? In B.C., nine in 10 teachers report experiencing violence or bullying on the job. The aforementioned school district in Manitoba, Louis Riel, saw a 263 per cent increase in unsafe behaviour by students last year. In Nova Scotia, 87 per cent of teachers say that school violence has increased since 2018 and over half have been victims of violence or threats. And in Toronto, the TDSB is projected to have its most violent year since it started collecting data in 2000. Meanwhile, student performance is declining. While Canada continues to perform well compared to other OECD countries, between 2000 and 2018, Canada recorded a 14-point decline in standardized reading scores, as well as declines in math and science scores classified as “steadily negative.”"
Clearly, proof that even more anti-racist policies are needed

DEI teacher mocked principal Richard Bilkszto who later killed himself: audio - "An anti-racism instructor was recorded mocking and laughing at a beloved Toronto principal who challenged her teachings — holding him up as an example of white supremacy “resistance”...   “One of the ways that white supremacy is upheld, protected, reproduced, upkept, defended is through resistance and, like I said … I’m so lucky,” she said before laughing.   “Who would’ve thought my luck would show up so well last week that we got perfect evidence, a wonderful example of resistance that you all got to bear witness to, so we’re going to talk about it, because, I mean, it doesn’t get better than this,” she continued as others chimed in to back her up."

Inside a DEI Training Led by Consultants Who Humiliated School Principal before His Suicide | National Review - "While the recordings of Bilkszto’s encounter have yet to be fully released, National Review obtained more than ten hours of footage from four identical training seminars led by Ojo-Thompson in the neighboring York Region school district just two weeks before her interaction with Bilkszto...  a principal in attendance encourages her colleagues to have “the courage to go rogue” and potentially disregard district policy in an effort to dismantle racism...   When Ojo-Thompson led that seminar with York Region administrators, she challenged them to consider whether democracy is insufficient to redress racial wrongs... a local principal said Ojo-Thompson’s comments had “illuminated” that “consensus . . . is really problematic.”  “What is she saying about democracy? How dare she? Doesn’t she understand what democracy is? How good it’s been to the planet?” Ojo-Thompson says, playing the role of her critics.  “Sure, but two things can be true at the same time: Democracy has been helpful in some contexts and, in this context with regards to anti-racist change, organizational change, it is harmful as long as we are continuously working within spaces where the numerical majority does not represent those who are impacted by the experience.”... “People in Canada have a posture of ‘we are better and we’re different.’ The U.S. had slavery and we freed slaves. Well, we didn’t free slaves. We had the underground railroad,” she says before contradicting herself in the next sentence. “But, first and foremost, we had 206 years of slavery.” Ojo-Thompson also falsely claims that Canadian slaveholders were compensated following abolition.  Marcel Trudel, a notable Canadian historian, found that barely over 4,000 slaves lived across the vast Canadian expanse between 1671 and 1834 when the practice ended, two-thirds of whom were indigenous. In 1960, just two-tenths of one percent of Canadians were black. By 2021, only 3.5 percent of Canadians identified as black, the vast majority of whom are immigrants or the descendants of immigrants... Ojo-Thompson then explains her carrot-and-stick approach to anti-racism, arguing that those who resist her worldview should be punished while those who embrace it should be rewarded with professional advancement... Ojo-Thompson runs through a cursory overview of slavery before introducing a radically new definition of lynching and accusing the York school district as well as the provincial public education system, more broadly, of “state-sanctioned violence.”  “We do lynchings in many, many, ways. Most of you were thinking of a lynching as the noose around neck and hanging from a tree,” she says. “Lynching is anytime you’re coming for a group targeting a group to their demise. And we see that happening in school boards across Ontario. Multiple school boards are lynching African descent people on a regular basis. Slowly little drips and drops of lynchings here and there. That is state-sanctioned violence.” In KOJO’s third seminar, “Whiteness, White Supremacy and Organizational Culture,” the following week, Ojo-Thompson argues that those who question her philosophy or pushback in any way are themselves “bullies.”  After one principal in attendance explains how she’s had a hard time convincing her colleagues to embrace anti-racism, Ojo-Thompson suggests that such people are engaged in “anti-intellectualism.”... “Nobody’s holding white people accountable. White people don’t hold white people accountable. Racialized people don’t hold white people accountable,” she says as the session draws to a close. “When it comes to white supremacy and our boards, I mean, our boards are rampant with white supremacy.”"

‘Solidarity with Kike Ojo-Thompson,’ NDP MP defends controversial diversity consultancy - "Hamilton Centre NDP MP Matthew Green defended the controversial “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) consultancy KOJO Institute and its founder Kike Ojo-Thompson, claiming they are being targeted by “right wing media pundits” and “the violence of white supremacy.”...   At a pro-DEI press conference held in Hamilton last Friday, Green, who describes himself on X (formerly Twitter) as an “antiracist” and “antifascist,” claimed that “right wing media pundits” are seeking to “weaponize this moment of tragedy against Kike and the KOJO Institute.” Green went on to say that “every single speaker” at the DEI press conference “could have been Kike, could have been the KOJO Institute, could have been targeted by the violence of white supremacy, online and in our communities.”  The NDP MP thanked Ojo-Thompson for her DEI work, as well as everyone who has stood in solidarity with her amid the backlash she has received.   “Thank you… Kike and the KOJO Institute, and all those who stood in solidarity with her in that moment.”   Green also said that Bilkszto’s death will not be allowed to be used as an opportunity “to roll back the decades of hard fought work in our communities,” and that DEI activists “are not going anywhere.”  “We will continue to stand firm in the face of the ignorance and the violence that is out there.”... Green is not the only NDP politician to defend DEI amid the ideology and its training being under intense scrutiny.  Ontario NDP leader Marit Stiles also urged Ford not to “roll back anti-racism work in schools”... “Anti-racism training directly corresponds to safer learning environments for Black and racialized students. We share in advocates’ concerns that the review of this unfortunate death will lead to a rollback of important equity work underway in school boards across the province. This work includes equity training and having courageous conversations about race”...   She added that her party has “long called for a comprehensive anti-racism strategy for schools that addresses and fights anti-Black racism, anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Asian racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism.”"
When you just hate white people
Apparently white people commiting suicide makes the learning environment safer for black students and bullying white people is courageous

Meme - Blue Dog: "Kill pink dogs!"
Pink Dog: "He is not talking about actual pink dogs, its about destroying harnful pink-dog systens of oppression. I am open minded to ideas, i am not a fragile pink dog"
Crescent Moon: "Kill blue dogs!"
Blue Dog: "OH MY GOD! HE WANTS TO KILL ME AND ALL THE OTHER BLUE DOGS"
The left's violent language is always a joke, satire or parody. The right's violent language is always dangerous and proof they need to be arrested

Meme - "THEN
Child sex trafficking rife in Colombia's picturesque Cartagena
The historic city is cracking down on an industry that targets children and young women from poor neighbourhoods
NOW
Sound of Freedom: the QAnon-adjacent thriller seducing America
Jim Caviezel stars as a hero trying to stop child traffickers in a paranoid new movie turning into a surprise box-office"

Wokeness as Saddam Statues: The Case of the Tesla Elevator Operator - "the US military captured a lot of documents from Saddam’s regime, along with recordings of his meetings. And from what I’ve seen of them, Saddam was a lot more interested in the day-to-day working of government than building a personality cult. Stephen Kotkin says something similar in the second volume of his Stalin biography... I would guess many personality cults are created like this. They are emergent phenomena, not the result of a conscious plan coming from the top. Similarly, few regulators and lawmakers responsible for the state of civil rights law intended to create a world where schools are teaching that punctuality and hard work are racist. But by getting government into the field of social engineering and making hurt feelings a matter of law, they set us on the path to modern wokeness... civil rights law is a form of class warfare, in which elites take their preoccupations and hangups about race and enlist powerful institutions to force these standards on everyone else. A black father and son named Owen Diaz and Demetric Di-az (not sure what happened with the last names) worked at a Tesla plant in Fremont, California in 2015 and 2016. They sued the company for racial discrimination, though in the end only the father’s claims made it to trial. Diaz in particular seems to have been a malcontent who couldn’t get along with anyone... Throughout their time at the factory, Hispanic and black co-workers would occasionally use the n-word, though there are no allegations of whites doing so in the record... The entire debate over “cancel culture” revolves around what it is or isn’t reasonable to be offended about. For corporations and non-profits, this is a legal question. But although being too aggressive in rooting out “racism” will never cost you $137 million, being not anti-racist enough might.  In addition, notice that that the law depends on what a typical member of the protected class thinks, not any kind of universal standard. If one race or sex is particularly sensitive – or more importantly, if judges and bureaucrats think they are – then this has legal significance. As polling on the word “Latinx” shows, educated liberals often have wrong ideas about the preferences and beliefs of groups they claim to speak for and represent. Corporations therefore aren’t required to be inoffensive to minorities or women, but to the versions of women and minorities that exist in the heads of educated liberals.  Given the triumph of wokeness, what made working class Mexicans in California believe that they could use anti-black slurs? Some people reading this might be surprised to learn that the lower classes aren’t as sensitive as they are when it comes to race... I look back at that time, how cool everyone was, and compare it to how contemptibly weak most people I see talking about race in the press or academia are. I sometimes wonder whether the late 1990s was a completely different world, or this is just a class thing, and out there in Real America there are still Mexican and black guys who call each other racial slurs and nobody’s feelings get hurt, that is at least until the lawyers get called in?... racial and cultural differences are such an obvious source of potential tension that you really have two choices. You can either have a culture where everyone is chill about it, or one of hyper paranoia.  One poll result I always found fascinating was just how many Americans believe discrimination against whites is as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities. In 2016, 57% of whites, 29% of blacks, and 38% of Hispanics said that it was. This is a view that no one would have dared to express in any college classroom I was ever in. It has absolutely no representation on CNN or MSNBC, and I doubt many writers at National Review would openly say it. Yet 5 years ago it was believed by about half of all Americans!...  a feminized and neurotic elite is using the power of government to push its rules and norms onto a lower class with a different cognitive profile... One of the main limiting factors preventing the complete triumph of wokeness seems to be that there aren’t enough lawyers and journalists to make sure the paranoid style of race relations dominates in every workplace and profession in the country. The fact that they tend to focus on the deepest pockets helps explain why the biggest corporations are usually the most woke. Tesla rested its defense on the idea that there could be an environment in which racial slurs were used in a friendly way... Despite Elon Musk being a pioneer in developing green technology, I have a feeling that this is why the elite hate him so much. They sense that he’s too autistic or high testosterone to internalize their rules of conduct, and the kind of guy who would build a mega corporation that might put out a statement implying that the working class has generally gotten race relations right, where elites have failed... They could at least make those rules clear enough to give businesses some certainty going forward, but that would take away the power of judges, bureaucrats and HR professionals to continue to make it up as they go along and instead force them to spell out much of what they would rather leave implicit (i.e., the criminalization of jokes and different standards based on whether one is white, black, or other). If you told businesses all they had to do to be non-discriminatory was to do X, they would all do X and the entire civil rights industry would collapse... The First Amendment won’t let you arrest people for racist cartoons. So civil rights law found a workaround. It doesn’t go after who was most responsible, but instead after those with the deepest pockets, and forces them to be constantly proving that they are not only not racist, but taking whatever steps are necessary to make sure those who are under their control behave themselves. Corporations have the resources and power to civilize the lower classes by forcing them to sit in diversity seminars and adopt the cultural hangups and pathologies of American elites. They can declare certain types of relationships forbidden, and create financial incentives for them to take their racial identities seriously, and assume everyone else does too... If they had fired black people for using the n-word too, would that have helped or hurt them in trying to avoid a lawsuit? It’s difficult to say, and that’s sort of the point."

Links - 18th August 2023 (2 - General Wokeness [including Jason Aldean])

Meme - *Kristen Bell's Celebrity Dinner*
Jay "Affirmative Action Hack" Perkins @JohnathanPerk: "Serious question for well-meaning white people. When you show up at get-together like this, do you notice there are zero Black people, or nah? If so, do you say or do anything about it? To who? Please be honest. This is a safe space (unless you say something dumb or racist)."
"Since I never post publicly, I'll respond privately. I personally call it out whenever I'm at a function with no Black folks. It makes me feel uncomfortable. I'm white, however almost if not all other white folks I know do not do this. I do comfortably now. I don't know if I always did and if not when I changed, but I know I have for years now. It just signals to me that something is wrong and unsafe there. If there are no Black folks at a function, I can't help but wonder why, and the why regardless of how "reasonable" it may sound is always unnerving, It's not a kind or natural way to live. You must go out of your way often to not make Black friends. If you've avoided making them or made them and don't value them enough to be in invited, it's scary, be it says a whole hell of alot about your broader values."
Of course, if black people go to an event with only black people, that is "diverse"
Liberals just hate white people

Meme - "THE CELEBRITIES WHO TALK ABOUT BLACK PRIDE BUT DO EVERYTHING THEY CAN TO LOOK WHITER
Young Rhianna, Rhianna today
Young Beyonce, Beyonce today
Young Meghan Markle, Meghan Markle today"

DC: “Muslims Against ISIS” rally attracts only “small crowd” - "This is not the first time that attendance at a Muslim rally against terrorism has been decidedly underwhelming. There are thousands of Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan, but only 100 showed up for a rally against ISIS and “Islamophobia” in November 2015. And earlier that month, only 30 Muslims protested against the jihad massacres in Paris. In July 2015, a Muslim rally in Ireland against the Islamic State drew fifty people. In October 2014 in Houston, a rally against the Islamic State organized by the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) drew the grand total of ten people. In August 2013 in Boston, about 25 Muslims rallied against “misperceptions” that Islam was violent. About the same number showed up in June 2013 at a progressive Muslim rally in Toronto to claim that their religion had been “hijacked.”  And back in 2005, a group called the Free Muslims Coalition held what it dubbed a “Free Muslims March Against Terror,” intending to “send a message to the terrorists and extremists that their days are numbered … and to send a message to the people of the Middle East, the Muslim world and all people who seek freedom, democracy and peaceful coexistence that we support them.” In the run-up to the event it got enthusiastic national and international publicity, but it ended up drawing about twenty-five people.  Contrast those paltry showings to the thousands of Muslims who have turned out for rallies against cartoons of Muhammad or against Israel."
Related: Two thirds of British Muslims would not give police terror tip-offs

Half of British Muslims would not go to cops if they knew someone with ISIS links - "ALMOST half of British Muslims wouldn't go to the police if someone they knew was involved with supporters of terrorism in Syria.  A staggering new survey also found that just 26 per cent of Britain’s Muslims do not believe in “extremist views exist”. The survey – dubbed the biggest ever of its kind – has revealed that only one in 25 British Muslims believe Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were responsible for the 9-11 attacks.   A Policy Exchange poll last night claimed 31 per cent believe the US Government was behind the atrocity than the terrorists – 4 per cent.  And seven per cent said the attack, which killed almost 3,000 people, was a plot by the Jewish community. Two in five would support the introduction of sharia law, the legal system derived from the Koran.  The poll also found that 40 per cent were in favour of gender-segregated classrooms, while a further 44 per cent thought schools should force girls to wear traditional Islamic dress.   But the survey claimed that in nearly every walk of life the British Muslim community was no different in their views and priorities to their non-Muslim neighbours...  the Muslim Council of Britain enjoys little support in the community, with just nine per cent of respondents backing it."

Andrew Potter: Why cancelling Canada Day until further notice would backfire - "Back in the late 90s, the American philosopher Richard Rorty wrote a little book called Achieving our Country that was a series of essays exploring the promise of America, a promise that he said remained substantially unfulfilled. But he also warned that American life had become dangerously polarized as a self-hating and self-mocking cultural left ceded the domain of patriotism to a chauvinistic and militaristic right. And so while Rorty conceded that the cultural left offered well-founded criticisms of America, he worried that it had become merely destructive, or what he called “spectatorial”: it had no positive patriotism to offer, no programme for a national narrative that accepts the failures of the past and present but points the way towards a hopeful future. In a passage from the book that was widely circulated during the Trump years, Rorty warned that the inevitable outcome of this culture war would be the rise of a vulgar authoritarian strongman supported by blue collar workers grown sick of having their tastes and habits and manners mocked and condemned by university graduates. As Rorty saw it, the left needed to drop the mocking spectatorial pose and adopt a more constructive approach. He said this progressive path must be based on a sense of national pride that gives people the emotional drive and motivation to make their country better... The thing about patriotism in a place like Canada is that it is a habit that is easily broken. You stop celebrating your national holiday for a couple of years and eventually you wonder why you ever bothered in the first place. But the emotions and feelings of pride that drive patriotism don’t go away, they just get poured into new vessels, focused on new symbols. If you “Cancel Canada Day” until such time as you think the country has finally become worthy, that’s never going to happen. And if you’re on the left, you had better have a firm plan for what you hope is going to take its place."
We're still told that liberals don't hate their countries. But even Rorty thought they did

Does Maltreatment in Childhood Affect Sexual Orientation in Adulthood? - "Epidemiological studies find a positive association between physical and sexual abuse, neglect, and witnessing violence in childhood and same-sex sexuality in adulthood, but studies directly assessing the association between these diverse types of maltreatment and sexuality cannot disentangle the causal direction because the sequencing of maltreatment and emerging sexuality is difficult to ascertain. Nascent same-sex orientation may increase risk of maltreatment; alternatively, maltreatment may shape sexual orientation. Our study used instrumental variable models based on family characteristics that predict maltreatment but are not plausibly influenced by sexual orientation (e.g., having a stepparent) as natural experiments to investigate whether maltreatment might increase the likelihood of same-sex sexuality in a nationally representative sample (n = 34,653). In instrumental variable models, history of sexual abuse predicted increased prevalence of same-sex attraction by 2.0 percentage points [95 % confidence interval (CI) = 1.4–2.5], any same-sex partners by 1.4 percentage points (95 % CI = 1.0–1.9), and same-sex identity by 0.7 percentage points (95 % CI = 0.4–0.9). Effects of sexual abuse on men’s sexual orientation were substantially larger than on women’s. Effects of non-sexual maltreatment were significant only for men and women’s sexual identity and women’s same-sex partners. While point estimates suggest much of the association between maltreatment and sexual orientation may be due to the effects of maltreatment on sexual orientation, confidence intervals were wide. Our results suggest that causal relationships driving the association between sexual orientation and childhood abuse may be bidirectional, may differ by type of abuse, and may differ by sex. Better understanding of this potentially complex causal structure is critical to developing targeted strategies to reduce sexual orientation disparities in exposure to abuse."
From 2012. It probably couldn't be published today - you're not allowed to say CSA might lead to queerness/homosexuality/being gay. Previously quoted, but I didn't quote the abstract

Meme - Liberals: "NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE! BURN THE CITY DOWN!"
NPCNN: "PEACEFUL PROTESTS ARE VITAL TO DEMOCRACY AND THE DEFEAT OF SYSTEMIC RACISM"
Jason Aldean: "TRY THAT IN A SMALL TOWN!"
NPCNN: "RACIST! CANCEL JASON ALDEAN!"

Meme - "Reading libs online ranting about how Jason Aldean's new song is anti-black bc the lyrics say you shouldn't commit crimes or behave like an animal
"Interesting""

Joe Rogan mocks outrage over Jason Aldean's 'Small Town' hit: 'Hundreds of rap songs out there that are infinitely worse' - "“The racial aspect of it was crazy, because the real Antifa problems that were happening during the BLM, I think there was a lot of white people doing that wasn’t it? It was a lot of lost liberal whites who are very angry, who decided to take up this movement and smash things,” he said.  “So the racial aspect of it, there’s nothing racial about the lyrics,” he added."

Meme - "Jason Alaean "we dont sucker punch old ladies or rob liquor stores in my town"
Democrats - *ballistic*"

Meme - "Try That In A Small Town / Lyrics
Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk
Carjack an old lady at a red light
Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store
Ya think it's cool, well, act a fool if ya like
Cuss out a cop, spit in his face
Stomp on the flag and light it up
Yeah, ya think you're tough
Soyjak: I'M STANDING UP FOR YOU BY BASHING THIS SONG!
Black person: ... THE SONG MAKES YOU THINK OF ME?"
If you keep hearing dog whistles, you must be the dog
Liberals think black people are criminals, then claim non-liberals are racist

Meme - "All the "it's just a beer can" people sure are throwing a temper tantrum over a country song"

Meme - The lowa Citizen: "In a world full of Jason Aldeans, be like Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson
All those Jason Aldean, FLAG loving, aid drinking racists can get bent."
We're still told that liberals don't hate their countries

Meme - "JASON ALDEAN'S COUNTRY SONG 'TRY that in a SMALL TOWN' is RACIST and SHOULD BE BANNED...
NOW BACK to GANGSTA RAP that GLORIFIES CRIMINAL ACTIVITY and DEGRADES WOMEN."
The woke are pro-crime anyway

Meme - "Rappers talk all the time about what'll happen if you come in their hood, what's wrong with Jason Aldean and country music doing the same?"

Meme - "Jason Aldean Sang: "Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk"
Machine Gun Kelly Sang: "Then I'll F..... stomp him in the face."
Jason Aldean Sang: "Carjack an old lady at a red light"
Snoop Dog Sang: "Cause I'm a pistol strapping car jacking h.."
Jason Aldean Sang: Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store
Sublime Sang: "The first spot we hit it was the liquor store I finally got all that alcohol I can't afford"
Jason Aldean Sang: "Ya think it's cool, well, act a fool if ya like Cuss out a cop, spit in his face"
Body Count Sang: "I'm 'bout to bust some shots off I'm 'bout to dust some cops off"
So, I need someone to explain why y'all are all upset with Jason Aldean, but I don't remember a mention of MGK, Snoop Dog, Sublime or Body Count ... His whole point of the song is we don't stand for that. It's ALWAYS been the double standards for me."
Some people were claiming that Snoop Dogg went to court for his lyrics, but that was because he was tried for murder, not because of the lyrics themselves.

Ricky Davila on Twitter - "In a world full of trashy racist MAGA lunatics like Jason Aldean, Kid Rock and Ted Nugent, strive to always be decent loving human beings like Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Garth Brooks."
Toby Keith, Willie Nelson, Jason Aldean & Country ‘Lynching’ Songs - "the seething contempt and hyperbole associated with the backlash to this song based on patently incorrect assertions is dangerous in the way it attempts to impinge on the creative expressions of an artist (albeit, bad ones), as well as setting up a “boy that cried wolf” scenario if a song that actually does what the press is accusing this one of doing ever materializes.  The idea that the song is actively condoning or encouraging the lynching of Black people is beyond ludicrous and based in absolutely no factual information. It is the frothing, reactionary opinion of a groupthink lynch mob who will continue to ratchet up the rhetoric against Aldean until he’s forevermore extricated from popular society, which is never going to happen.  Furthermore, these excessive and distorted characterizations are only fueling a counter backlash that will take a mild, late career pseudo radio hit for Aldean to a Song of the Summer-level smash. That’s already happening as the song has rocketed to #1 on iTunes, and will surely show new significant traction on the next update to the charts due to the controversy. The Streisand Effect is in full force as we speak.  But while the prudish pearl clutchers of the politically correct class writhe and seethe over this song, there is actually another country music song that without having to make any leaps of faith or draw any conclusions from inferences in the lyrics can objectively be concluded to be about lynching and vigilante justice.  Unlike Jason Aldean’s “Try That In A Small Town” though, there was no cancellation attempt against this song. In fact, it was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 2003. Unlike “Try That In A Small Town,” it wasn’t banned by CMT. Instead, the cable television station actually stepped up to release an entire movie around it in 2008. And unlike “Try That In A Small Town,” nobody asserted the song was racist, nobody said it was an attempt to portray a white supremacist/white nationalist view of the United States, or anything similar.  “Beer For My Horses” was written by Toby Keith and Scotty Emerick, and released as a duet with Willie Nelson in 2003. The song went straight to #1, marking Willie’s first #1 in 14 years at that time. It was also Willie’s last #1 in country, and it also made him the oldest artist to ever have a #1 country song (he was 70 at the time)... But “Beer For My Horses” faced no significant backlash. There was nobody drawing conclusions that it was actively attempting to condone the lynching of Black people, even though the act of lynching appeared directly in its lyrics. Willie Nelson still regularly sings the song in concert today. It’s part of his common repertoire. So what’s the difference 20 years later?  The difference is in 2003, people understood that it was just a song, and art. It was a work of fiction and personal expression. Granted, “Try That In A Small Town” strikes a slightly more angry tone, and undoubtedly some may pick up on America’s troubled history with race when they hear the lyrics. But if we can’t separate personal expression from the personal responsibility everyone has for their own actions, the indictment of songs will spread much farther into music, and if anything, affect Black creators and hip-hop disproportionately.  We have entered a new phase of uptight cultural prudeness indicative of Tipper Gore’s PMRC and the “Explicit Lyrics” sticker era. As terrible as “Try That In A Small Town” might be, it is in no way so out of bounds to be receiving the kind of ubiquitous and irresponsible backlash that will only fuel its ascent. But as we’ve seen with similar incidents, the press and supposed activists just can’t help themselves...   Similar to the lack of controversy around “Beer For My Horses,” the fact that “Try That In A Small Town” was out there in the wild for two months without any criticism, and then CMT—which is known for taking very left-leaning stances on their coverage and promotion of country music—vetted the video and agreed to premier it across their platforms really speaks to the uneven and flimsy premise of why this song should be removed from public consumption.  The whole linchpin of the controversy is the revelation of the The Maury County Courthouse where the video was shot being the site of a lynching. But all evidence points to this being an oversight as opposed to an active effort to underpin Aldean’s song and video with a more surreptitious message. It’s a media “gotcha” as opposed to a substantive criticism. The Maury County Courthouse is just a courthouse located conveniently to Nashville.  As the production company TackleBox has pointed out, the location has been used to film scores of films and videos without controversy, including 2009’s Hannah Montana: The Movie with Miley Cyrus, a 2022 holiday film, A Nashville Country Christmas with Tanya Tucker, and another 2022 holiday film, Steppin’ into the Holiday with Mario Lopez and Jana Kramer.  Opportunistic and bad faith attacks on “Try That In A Small Town” are only strengthening Jason Aldean’s position, and allowing right-wing media to exploit the poor reporting and portray Aldean as a victim. "
Ironic.

Ben Shapiro on Twitter - "As I also discussed on the show, my only real concern is that the women involved -- who apparently require a "bucket and a mop" -- get the medical care they require. My doctor wife's differential diagnosis: bacterial vaginosis, yeast infection, or trichomonis."
It's amazing how poor liberals' comprehension skills are. They keep insisting Shapiro admitted that he cannot make his wife wet. But at the very most, you could just say that he's never made his wife squirt. Someone criticising him with the misinformation claimed that "I literally watched him say what he said", but this was a tweet - on-air he just read out the lyrics and called them vulgar

Am I Leaking Urine or Discharge? Identification and Treatment - ""Releasing more than 1 teaspoon (roughly the size of a penny) of discharge in a 24-hour period is considered excessive, according to Swarup. An unexpected change in volume, consistency, odor, or color may occur from:
atrophic vaginitis
BV
cervicitis
chlamydia
douching
genital hygiene products that contain alcohol, fragrance, or other irritants
gonorrhea
pelvic inflammatory disease
trichomoniasis
UTI
yeast infection"
So Monte Swarup, MD, OB-GYN, founder of the leading health information site Vaginal Health Hub, can't make his wife wet either. Also, Gabrielle Kassel, who wrote the article, and Stacy A. Henigsman, a physician specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, who reviewed it, need to have better sex, since they are dry during sex.
Interestingly, Gabrielle Kassel is queer, so we can't blame men for the bad sex she's having.

Why the neurodiversity movement has become harmful - "about 40 per cent of children with autism do not talk at all, and at least a quarter acquire basic language at 12-18 months of age, but then lose it... Autism often presents with co-morbidities. More than half of children with ASD also have an intellectual disability (defined as having an IQ below 70), and up to half exhibit symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Autistic children are psychiatrically hospitalised much more frequently than others, with 13 per cent of their hospital visits being due to a psychiatric problem, compared with 2 per cent for children without ASD. In autistic adults, the lifetime prevalence of anxiety and depression is 42 per cent and 37 per cent respectively. Autism also commonly co-occurs with epilepsy, with the highest rate in those whose IQ is below 40.   Autism is arguably one of the most controversial subjects of our time. Due partly to a lack of understanding of its causes, current discourse on this subject is a narrative jungle strewn with young, overgrown and ill-conceived ideas jostling for a spot in the sun, including uncompassionate ‘refrigerator mothers’, microbial infections, vaccinations, and environmental pollutants and toxicants, to name but a few.  Into this maelstrom came the neurodiversity movement, whose advocates celebrate autism as a gift that is an integral part of identity... there has been a backlash against this – growing numbers of people are now speaking out against the neurodiversity movement, claiming that it does not represent them and, more importantly, that it ignores the plight of those with severe autism. The term ‘neurodiversity’ was coined in the late 1990s by the sociologist Judy Singer, who argued that autistic people had been oppressed in much the same way as women and gay people, and suggested that their brains are merely wired differently from those of ‘neurotypical’, or nonautistic, people. The movement is an extension of the civil rights movement and the deaf pride movement that emerged after the introduction of cochlear implants. Writing in The Atlantic magazine in 1998, the investigative journalist Harvey Blume said: ‘Neurodiversity may be every bit as crucial for the human race as biodiversity is for life in general.’...   On the face of it, this sounds admirable – the neurodiversity movement has indeed empowered many with autism, most recently, the young climate campaigner Greta Thunberg who described it as her ‘superpower’. But the movement is proving to be harmful in a number of ways.  Firstly, neurodiversity advocates can romanticise autism. While many with mild forms of autism might lead relatively ‘normal’ daily lives with little or no assistance, many who are more severely affected cannot function properly without round-the-clock care. Yet John Marble, the self-advocate and founder of Pivot Diversity – an organisation in San Francisco that aims to ‘pivot autism towards solutions which empower autistic people, their families and employers’ – posted on Twitter in 2017: ‘THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SEVERE AUTISM, just as there is no such thing as “severe homosexuality” or “severe blackness”.’  Worryingly, this trend of romanticising autism has extended to other conditions that can be severe, debilitating, and life-threatening. There are now groups of self-advocates who celebrate depression and schizophrenia. This could also be related to the growth of pro-anorexia websites, as well as the more recent emergence of ‘addiction pride’.  The idea that autism is ‘a variation of normal’ is at odds with scientific understanding of the condition... Neurodiversity advocates still label those who express a desire for treatment or cure as Nazis and eugenicists... some advocates have become authoritarian and militant, harassing and bullying anyone who dares to portray autism negatively, or expresses a desire for a treatment or cure. This extends to autism researchers in academia and the pharmaceutical industry... One widely used treatment is Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA), which involves intensive one-on-one therapy sessions aimed to develop social skills. However, neurodiversity advocates consider ABA to be cruel and unethical, and campaign for withdrawal of government funding for the treatment.   Furthermore, they are trying to legitimise self-diagnosis of autism... The neurodiversity movement is dividing both the autism community and autism researchers. Advocates make the distinction between autistics and ‘neurotypicals’, or nonautistics. This fosters an ‘us versus them’ mentality, wherein nonautistic people are regarded as an oppressive enemy. It also fosters intolerance towards different ways of thinking about autism, as well as a deep and unhealthy mistrust of the scientific and medical communities.  Ironically, a social-justice movement that aims to highlight the ways in which autistic people have been mistreated by society is now directly responsible for the mistreatment of the most vulnerable of all autistics – many of whom are too severely affected by their condition to speak up for themselves. In standing up for their rights, a group of marginalised people are effectively hyper-marginalising the very people they claim to be advocating for...   It also poses a major problem for autism research... individuals considered to be ‘low-functioning’ are being overlooked by the research community."

The Creeping Orthodoxy of the Neurodiversity Movement - "parents of autistic children were bullied by neurodiversity advocates online for expressing their views... Spectrum News reported a story in 2019 about a puppet show that had to be canceled following the circulation of a petition that gathered 12,000 signatures, even though the author of the show was the carer of an autistic child who wrote the script seeking input from people on the spectrum.  The neurodiversity movement's central claim is that autism is a difference, not a disorder. Autistic people struggle because society is not sufficiently accommodating, not because there is anything inherently wrong with autistic people... Neurotypicals outnumber autistic people by a ratio of around 54:1, so expecting billions of people to educate themselves on autistic modes of communication is unrealistic... since every autistic person is different, no single advocate can realistically hope to represent the group as the whole... Neurodiversity in its current form is simply unsustainable. Already there are movements such as Mad Pride which celebrate mental illness as a reaction to the historically deplorable asylums and institutionalization conditions of the past. This idea makes a sort of poetic sense in a book like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but from a practical standpoint, it is not of much use. Try telling someone experiencing a psychotic episode that they should be “proud” of what they are going through. (Yes, some Shamanistic cultures see schizophrenia as a sign of spirituality, but most people would still say it is profoundly disabling.) Try telling someone with crippling anxiety or depression that their condition has its redeeming qualities. Neurodiversity advocacy seems to assume that one must have redeeming qualities in order to be valuable. While it is true that advocates try to educate on behalf of all people regardless of their level of “functionality,” and are staunch supporters of the non-speaking, they usually put the most articulate, best-educated, and most socialized individuals forward as leaders. The problem is that even though autism can inhibit communication and comfort in social settings, advocates need to be good communicators. So, only a small proportion of the autistic population are being represented by neurodiversity... an alarming dogma has arisen. Neurodiversity advocates don’t like to be told their own personal story is “inspiring.” They call this “inspiration pornography”—unintentional ableism that actually tells disabled people they are a burden and reinforces stereotypes. So if you offer a neurodiversity advocate a compliment of that kind, they are likely to take offense, even if it is well-intended. The suspicion is that you are simply trying to make yourself feel better about who you are as a person. (I try to accept any compliment I am given. Call me naive.)"
Ableist discrimination is why society doesn't approve of autistic individuals who start screaming in public

Most black adults say race is central to their identity, feel connected to black community
Blacks are the most racially conscious, followed by Hispanics, Asians and Whites. Since liberals tell us that race-blindness is racist, this proves that white people are the most racist of all, followed by Asians, and blacks are not racist.