What's in the news?

[Sara Nilsson]

In this case Gov. Rick Scott made it clear that email and fax was not ok before the election.

Gov. Rick Scott issued an executive order filed Oct. 18 that allowed elections supervisors in eight hurricane-hit counties — Bay, Calhoun, Franklin, Gadsden, Gulf, Jackson, Liberty and Washington — to extend early voting days and designate more early voting locations, among other measures meant to lessen the storm’s impact on voting.

Even though a news release from the Florida Department of State that accompanied Gov. Scott’s executive order explicitly stated : “Voting by fax or email is not an option under the Executive Order,”

[Tolvo]

Oops well that is pretty damming, that's what I get for skimming an article about a story I had read a bunch.

[Beorning]

Major financial scandal exploded in Poland today:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-13/poland-premier-to-probe-bank-watchdog-over-getin-bribe-report

To summarize: in Poland, there's this institution called KNF - it acts as the state regulator of the banking sector. Apparently, a few months ago, an owner of one private bank was invited by the KNF head for a private, one-on-one meeting. During this meeting (which was supposed to be so secret that the KNF head openly admitted at the start of the meeting that he would be turning on electronic anti-surveillance scramblers...) the KNF head openly stated that the bank in question would get favourable treatment if the bank owner hired a lawyer recommended by the KNF head. With the salary equal to 1% of the bank's value... which would be a meager sum of $10 milllions. Sounds a lot like a request for a bribe... From the head of the freaking KNF, a major state institution. Niiiiice.

Even more scarily, the KNF head stated during the meeting that another KNF official wants to literally drive the bank in question into insolvency. Why? So that this bank could be cheaply acquired by another bank, one favoured by the current government... Wow. Just... wow.

And how do we know all of this? Because the owner of the bank managed to record the whole meeting, in spite of the scramblers. The recordings have been released to the media - so, it's all true. If you turned on the news today, you could actually listen how to KNF head asks for a bribe - and how he reveals a conspiracy by a KNF official to bankrupt a private bank.

BTW. The KNF head has been assigned by the PiS government - and the other official in question has ties to the Polish president...

[Lustful Bride]

Student protesters in China are going missing.   :-(

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/young-marxists-are-going-missing-in-china-after-protesting-for-workers/ar-BBPGa1R?ocid=spartandhp

[Tolvo]

https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2018/11/13/washington-dc-man-arrested-social-media-follower-suspected-synagogue-gunman/

Well we may have seen a mass shooting actually get prevented. Perhaps it was too early to tell but I hope any more possible people who could do such a thing at least get investigated.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/gaza-homes-tv-station-building-bombed-israel-181113073546758.html

Also oh god things are going really badly with conflict between Israel and Palestine. I've seen a lot of the images of the bombed Palestinian news station getting passed around.

[RedRose]

Student protesters in China are going missing.   :-(

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/young-marxists-are-going-missing-in-china-after-protesting-for-workers/ar-BBPGa1R?ocid=spartandhp

Not surprised with the way it is going 'round there…


Someone broke the cross on Pétain's grave and wrote "for my father". I'm imagining a child of Resistant ??
It's not the first time it gets attacked https://www.thelocal.fr/20170723/french-nazi-collaborator-petains-tomb-vandalised

[Mechelle]

Amid all our Brexit news in Britain today, I am impressed that the Daily Star newspaper leads with the news that the Queen eats bananas with a knife and fork, rather than with her hands "like a monkey".

[Tolvo]

Well it is trans awareness week. So in relation to that let's look at a little bit of news relating to Ray Blanchard, the creator of the term Autogynephile who was considered one of the world experts on trans people, along with his colleague and friend Kenneth Zucker(Noted child abuser and possible pedophile) both of whom have their research as the founding point of the Gender Critical movement and and upon which the story Silence of the Lambs and Buffalo Bill was created. So let's see what Blanchard is up to.

https://www.dailydot.com/irl/transphobic-doctor-twitter-anime-makes-people-trans/

Oh. I'm surprised that a man who used the t slur while studying trans people would make such a claim, also given that many cis people watch anime and Japan doesn't really have a massive trans community. I guess we also can't disprove the Demonic Possession parts.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ypp93m/heres-how-the-guy-who-wrote-the-manual-on-sex-talks-about-sex

Hmm this is an old interview but he has an interesting view of something he "proved" was a correct model to base all transgender people's psychology on by giving a survey to a little over 100 people that said to check off either being an Autogynephile Transexual or a Homosexual Transexual. And since anyone checked off either(Even though those surveyed said they didn't identify as either) that it proved his model right. And that's before getting into his views on Pedophilia.

Recently a proponent of his work was mentioned in with a concept of a place for researches to post things that may be controversial with anonymity, Lisa Littman.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/38297/new-academic-journal-allows-authors-use-pseudonyms-ashe-schow

Lisa Littman who proposed that being transgender is a social contagion based on interviewing the parents of alleged trans kids who allegedly said it was sudden and based on being infected by their social life and the media, she interviewed a couple of hundred of these parents on sites like Mumsnet(A anti-trans hate group) and a few other sites for people who hate trans people. Shockingly the community at large did not accept this and now she is seen as a censored speaker of truths that no one wants to hear.

So you know, keep this in mind the next time you see Nymag and The Guardian and big publications citing their work and such that these are the people they often like to elevate as "experts" on trans people.

[RedPhoenix]

Thank you Tolvo. :)

[Tolvo]

Oh yeah I forgot to mention those two men also worked on the DSM4 and 5 so ya know. The thing which we currently use as the Diagnostic Manual in the medical profession is heavily influenced by their work in regards to trans people and pedophiles and some other parts.

[Oniya]

I read the Daily Dot article. 

[Tolvo]

I'm not saying anyone didn't, just meant in like continuation of what I was talking about.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia-election-racism.html

Also man Facebook just kind of seems more and more worrying in everything they do relating to this whole issue.

[Oniya]

I read the Daily Dot article.

And apparently, it broke my brain so hard that I managed to hit post without making a complete statement.  O_o  *facepalm*  'Cause yeah, that was painful to read.  Guess his PhD stands for 'Piled Higher and Deeper'.

[Tolvo]

Ah that explains that lol. I know I've done that sometimes and felt like a goof.

And yeah people kind of like to comment on how Trans people need to trust the field of psychology completely and while I think it can be useful and help us and forms of therapy can help us, they really often ignore dudes like that were the masters over the field for most of the history of studying us. Today there are still a lot of arguments in the field of psychology between people using their research and ideas and people trying to bring in more progressive ideas and calling for more research and studies.

It is also weird because a lot of the Gender Critical movement who base their views on that old debunked research put forth like 10 people in total who are all friends and cite each others' work as the basis for their views even though like, the rest of the field largely disagrees with them. As well as them having their roots in Lesbian Separatism and Political Lesbianism, seen now as sort of Cis Lesbian Supremacy groups, some of which were militant and were terrorists like the Gorgons(Many of the more openly militant ones are now defunct).

[Icelandic]

https://abc7.com/michael-avenatti-arrested-for-domestic-violence-in-la/4689491/

"Michael Avenatti arrested in LA on domestic violence charge."

I can't say I'm too surprised. Although funny enough the alleged victim was not even his wife. Hmm...

[Tolvo]

Perhaps after seeing Trump become president he realized it could help his candidacy.

Though huh I wonder who it was then if not his wife.

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-november-13-2018-1.4902679/indigenous-women-kept-from-seeing-their-newborn-babies-until-agreeing-to-sterilization-says-lawyer-1.4902693

Also god this story is terrifying and heartbreaking. Coerced and forced sterilization still goes on in much of the world and is in recent memory of many groups living in countries people don't associate with it(Trans and Gay people still are for example in parts of Europe and Asia. There is a long history of doing this to Black and Indigenous people including some absolutely vile and disturbing medical procedures done by American scientists in the 1900's). Like remember it has only been a few

[Icelandic]

Perhaps after seeing Trump become president he realized it could help his candidacy.

Though huh I wonder who it was then if not his wife.

A mistress? A TMZ article had more detail on it but I did not want to post that one, considering it was TMZ and all.

Honestly I don't get how more people don't understand that Avenatti is just the left-leaning Trump. Self-important, feeds off of the success of others, grand-standing and a shady business man.

If these allegations are true, then he should be set for his 2020 run in the presidential elections~ (And yes, the dude is actually gunna try.)

[legomaster00156]

I would rather have a seasoned politician running the country than a real estate mogul or a self-promoting lawyer.

[Icelandic]

I would rather have a seasoned politician running the country than a real estate mogul or a self-promoting lawyer.

Saaaaaaaaaame.

Although The Rock said that it would be cool to run once.

That would be cool. The Rock as president?

[Sara Nilsson]

Perhaps after seeing Trump become president he realized it could help his candidacy.

Though huh I wonder who it was then if not his wife.

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-november-13-2018-1.4902679/indigenous-women-kept-from-seeing-their-newborn-babies-until-agreeing-to-sterilization-says-lawyer-1.4902693

Also god this story is terrifying and heartbreaking. Coerced and forced sterilization still goes on in much of the world and is in recent memory of many groups living in countries people don't associate with it(Trans and Gay people still are for example in parts of Europe and Asia. There is a long history of doing this to Black and Indigenous people including some absolutely vile and disturbing medical procedures done by American scientists in the 1900's). Like remember it has only been a few

Was only a few years ago that Sweden dropped the sterilization law on us trans people. I never understood that. before we cut your bits off, we have to cut parts of your bits off. oO

[Tolvo]

I dunno that I'd call him the Left's Trump, I dunno who would really be fitting of such a term since almost everything Trump is, is against left wing ideas. And is he even on the Left or the Center? His business sense though does remind me a lot of Trump in that regard. And Trump is definitely a way shittier person. But yeah his defense sounds a bit weird cause I don't really remember him being like super big into feminism? Maybe he is but I just don't remember, and we've seen feminists with power before use that to abuse women despite fighting publicly for their rights anyway.

I dunno if I'd be entirely against a lawyer, that could be helpful in regards to understanding legislation. It's sort of the problem of the President being involved in so many things its hard to find someone who has all the skills that you'd desire in a president. Like some day I'd like maybe Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez though she'd probably not win, and she is too young for the role to be in the next election anyway. We have to compromise so much on what we want in a president because no one is every really fully good enough for the role.

[Icelandic]

My bad, I probably meant 'left-leaning' as in the left likes Avenatti far more then the right does.

That is an interesting point about him being a feminist (or not rather). It does seem that the 'feminist turning out to be abusive or predatory' is kinda the 2010's 'traditional family values' politician turning out to be gay in terms or predictable scandals.

I dunno if I would be behind Alexndra Ocasio-Cortez. She's rather obscurantist in how she reacts to potential bad press... I'm not interested in any politician who outright bans media from their events.

[Tolvo]

It's because as feminism has become more mainstream abusive people have seen it as a way to gain power and have a smokescreen to protect them. It is a pretty common thing now to understand to be wary of very performative feminism men who may be getting in the space just for sex.

I can't say I blame her given how she wanted to hear lots of stories from immigrant families about ICE targeting them and putting out photos and videos of those people puts them in incredible danger and makes them less likely to come forward.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/14/trump-mississippi-visit-hyde-smith-hanging-remark-990602

Also man this story is um, something.

https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/google-donation-lynching/

Plus Google donating to her after the remark was public, but maybe they didn't see it yet. It is weird though that they're donating to her in the first place.

[Icelandic]

I can't say I blame her given how she wanted to hear lots of stories from immigrant families about ICE targeting them and putting out photos and videos of those people puts them in incredible danger and makes them less likely to come forward.

Honestly I can't even trust her claim when it comes to that. She denied a 10,000$ offer to debate Ben Shapiro and equated the offer with sexual harassment. Like the point you made about feminist men using feminism as a smokescreen to protect them, Ocasio-Cortez seems to use a lot of popular emotionally-charged issues to deflect criticism.

People bothering you about banning reporters at an event? Say it's to protect 'immigrant families.'

Being offered a debate with one of the best debtors alive? Equate the offer to sexual harassment. (Also consider this: https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/400/676/623.jpg

Honestly the more I type this out, the more dishonest she looks. :/

[Tolvo]

I mean, a politician asking for a debate from an opponent is a bit different from a dipshit conspiracy theorist like Ben Shapiro who knows almost nothing about anything offering to pay to be debated. Now technically yeah a politician still doesn't have the entitlement to be debated by an opponent but it always depends on the circumstances and whether or not it is good for their optics or makes them look bad. We saw some similar situations regarding Bernie Sanders when Hilary Clinton refused a public debate.