Nearly 70 years ago, civil rights leader Bayard Rustin was arrested, served 50 days in Los Angeles County jail, and had to register as a sex offender with the state due to a charge of “vagrancy” after he was seen being intimate with two men in a parked car. In 2020, Rustin was posthumously pardoned by Governor Gavin Newsom.

Rustin was close to Martin Luther King Jr., was an organizer of the 1963 march on Washington, and assisted with other nonviolent protests and boycotts for civil rights.

From the official pardon: “California, like much of the nation, has a disgraceful legacy of systematically discriminating against the LGBTQ community. This discrimination has taken many forms including social isolation and shaming, surveillance, intimidation, physical violence, and unjust arrest and prosecution. Mr. Rustin was sentenced pursuant to a charge commonly used to punish gay men for engaging in consensual adult sexual conduct. His conviction is part of a long and reprehensible history of criminal prohibitions on the very existence of LGBTQ people and their intimate associations and relationships. … Mr. Rustin was criminalized because of stigma, bias, and ignorance. With this act of executive clemency, I acknowledge the inherent injustice of this conviction, an injustice that was compounded by his political opponents’ use of the record of this case to try to undermine him, his associates, and the civil rights movement.”

(link)

MIKA WESTWOLF GOFUNDME

Only $24k/$100,000 raised

it is pretty bonkers that the older generations have completely fucked up the economy but that they are also coincidentally the ones that made up the rules in the first place and could very easily make up new rules to unfuck it

Nobody should be using GPT detectors for anything important.

This is from a recent study that found that GPT detectors were misclassifying writing by non-native English speakers as AI-generated 48-76% of the time (!!!), compared to 0%-12% for native speakers.

It is irresponsible to use AI-generated text detectors as evidence of academic misconduct, and that's putting it mildly.

Elon Musk: the most dangerous Antisemite

Hey non-Jewish leftists and progressives who consider yourselves allies to Jews or, at a minimum, not antisemitic: now is an exceptionally great time to step up

This is shockingly similar to Henry Ford — i.e. an automotive mogul seen as an innovator in the general public uses his fortune and outsized influence to establish a large media presence and spread antisemitism.

There are some important distinctions, but nothing that makes me feel better about the situation.

1. At its height, Henry Ford’s publication, “The Dearborn Independent,” had a circulation of 900,000. The largest circulation in America at the time was 950,000.

2. Ford marketed explicit antisemitism, which eventually led to the downfall of his publication — you’ve probably heard of “The international Jew” and “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

3. Ford was eventually forced to publicly apologize after he made the mistake of attacking Jewish attorney Aaron Sapiro for more than a year, until Sapiro eventually sued Ford for libel (i.e. he fucked around and found out lol). Ford eventually lost the case and was forced to publicly apologize (his apology was written by associates and his signature on it was reportedly forged). The magazine was shut down soon afterwards.

Despite everything, Ford was able to secure his position in history, albeit with some, um, unfortunate footnotes and the occasional caveat being mentioned.*

All in all, this feels very similar to Trump copying David Duke’s run for the Louisiana legislature, but that’s a story for a different day.

* some additional footnotes and caveats:

- Hitler quoted Ford in his infamous book

- Ford was a notorious union buster

- Ford received the Grand Cross of the German Eagle in 1938, the highest honor a foreigner could receive from Nazi Germany, with personal congratulations from Hitler

- After issuing the aforementioned “public apology” in 1927, Ford said that he would like restart the publication of “The International Jew.” In 1940. 13 years later.

- It’s just my personal opinion, but we probably shouldn’t honor literal nazis, but whatever

- To this day, no one at my synagogue will buy a ford car. I don’t know if this is the norm in other places, but I imagine that it’s not uncommon.

- Yes, I’m aware that nobody explicitly praises Henry Ford anymore, and everybody knows what a shithole he was. While “Henry Ford hated the Jews” is a common refrain, specific knowledge of his hatred is lacking, and I think it’s important to point to explicit hatred in the past, because hatred is normally hidden nowadays and needs to be identified outside of the group receiving the hatred.

This is an incredibly important addition

the summer is like well what if it was unbearable outside and you can't wear any cool jackets. and everyone's going to tell you that this is the best time of the year. and you're the crazy one

Is anyone else just... exhausted?

Everyone living in the USA needs to inform themselves about "crisis pregnancy centers." They're not legitimate medical facilities and typically only have a nurse on staff, if even that.

"Crisis pregnancy centers" are UNREGULATED organizations that present themselves like medical facilities and often offer medical advice and information, but they are staffed by volunteers many of whom are not medical professionals, typically funded by churches and pro-life orgs, and exist to convince people not to have abortions. They often give "patients" misinformation and lies about abortion, contraception, and pregnancy.

These organizations often take the place of legitimate medical facilities particularly in impoverished areas despite being essentially fake medical clinics that offer few services and that are not bound to ethical or sanitary guidelines of real clinics.

A "crisis pregnancy center" in Kentucky was recently in the news because a nurse who volunteered there found that trans-vaginal ultrasound probes were being sanitized using disinfectant that was both expired and totally ineffective against HPV, a common sexually transmitted infection, meaning the clinic could have given their clients STIs with their shitty unregulated sanitation practices.

My MOM visited one of these "centers" when she was pregnant with me (a planned and wanted pregnancy) because she didn't know it was fake and unregulated!

People deserve real healthcare, not lies, randos dressed up in white coats, and disease-spreading, unsterilized equipment like it's the 1700s.

Fun fact, a lot of these places receive government funding 🙃

They should receive molotov cocktails.

i'd rather see 1000 graffiti penises than 1 product billboard. i'd live in dick city if it meant i could avoid advertisements in my daily life.

"60,000 vacant units, 4000 unhoused people. Shame on you San Francisco"

Seen in San Francisco, California

DRAG IS NO LONGER BANNED IN TENNESSEE ✨✨