Daily Links #105: Pennsylvania governor rejects Republicans’ gerrymandered new district map

Gov. Tom Wolf (D-PA)

Sadness is when the Netflix show you’re binging ends on a bad note. Joy is when you learn there’s a whole new season out that isn’t on Netflix yet. #BrooklynNineNine

• As expected, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) ^[pictured] has rejected state Republicans’ gerrymandered new district map that was meant to replace their old gerrymandered district map. The State Supreme Court will now bring in an independent expert to draw a non-partisan map, which Republicans will likely challenge.
  (via Dispatches From the Culture Wars)

• Undocumented immigrant living in the US for 14 years calls 911 to report a possible crime, gets arrested and taken to ICE for deportation.
  (via retweet by @radleybalko)

• Two Wyoming Republicans present a (doomed) bill that would ban all non-heterosexual “parody marriages” that don’t “check out with the human design”.

• It’s (US) Presidents Day! Celebrate by reading about just how rat-fucking crazy the bunch of them were.

• And finally, LeBron James has much smarter things to say than that angry Fox News lady who thinks athletes like him should “shut up and dribble”:
  (via retweet by @KFILE)

'The best thing she did was help me create more awareness' — LeBron on Fox News' Laura Ingraham's comments https://t.co/hp5ATRyXUH pic.twitter.com/DrRUxu38Is

— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) February 17, 2018

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Daily Links #102: San Diego County harasses reporter who exposed jailhouse deaths

Kelly Davis

• Reporter ^[pictured] helps expose how incompetence and negligence led to 60 deaths in San Diego County jails. So naturally, county attorneys are now harassing her.
  (via @radleybalko)

• Popehat presents: Don’t talk to the feds, Donald Trump edition.

• Fox News frequently touts its willingness to publish things no other outlet will. That’s probably because no other outlet would accuse the US Winter Olympics team of going “darker, gayer, different” by choosing athletes based on race rather than ability.

• US college student flunks an assignment because her professor says Australia is a continent, not a country. (It’s both.)
  (via @davidmackau; retweet by @Popehat)

• Finally, I’d joke that The Onion is no longer doing satire, but to be fair, it’s impossible to tell reality and satire apart anymore.
  (via retweet by @Popehat)

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Very Late Links #98: Trump’s drone war is bloodier than ever

Predator drone

• “The first year of the Trump administration has resulted in more loss of life from drone strikes than all eight years of Obama’s presidency.”
  (via @ggreenwald)

• It really shouldn’t need to be explained why it’s wrong on multiple levels for a judge handing down a sexual assault conviction to wax wistful about how sexual assault isn’t a permitted punishment.

• Ireland has some of the toughest anti-abortion laws in the world, banning it even in cases of rape or fetal abnormality. Now the Irish government has scheduled a referendum for May to vote on whether to relax the restrictions.

• Meanwhile, a lawsuit by the Satanic Temple results in the Missouri Supreme Court striking down anti-abortion restrictions – all thanks to state Republicans’ Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
  (via @fark)

• Canadian privacy commissioner pushes for EU-style “right to be forgotten” policy, allowing Canadians to demand that websites change or take down any information about them they don’t approve of. Because that always works out so well.

• Finally, the Cleveland Indians will abandon their “Chief Wahoo” logo next year because are you even kidding me.
  (via @KFILE)

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Daily Links: 12/19/17 – Chicago police blames teen they killed for a bystander they also killed

Quintonio LeGrier (l) & Robert Rialmo
[source]

• First a Chicago cop kills a teenager ^{[both pictured]} suffering a mental breakdown and a bystander. Now the city is suing the teen’s estate, blaming him for the bystander’s death.
  (via @alan_uplc; RT: @radleybalko)

• Following a three-year civil liberties lawsuit, a Canadian court strikes down the country’s solitary confinement regime, albeit with a one-year delay to let Parliament fix issues with the law. It’s unclear where things go from here.

• It’s bad enough that some slimebag restaurant owners illegally pocket their servers’ tips. Now Trump’s Department of Labor is asking: “What if we made it legal?”
  (via @donttrythis)

• Conservative college students get an English instructor fired over her peaceful protests, demonstrate yet again who the real snowflakes are.
  (via @radleybalko)

• Trump hates the NFL for allowing players to protest, but he loves letting taxpayers subsidize new football stadiums.
  (via @radleybalko)

• Finally: We’re witnessing the wholesale looting of America.
  (via @radleybalko)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Links: 10/19/17 – Couple charged with causing trigger-happy cop’s panic attack

Deputy’s bodycam screencap

• Sevierville, TN deputy mistakes man’s cellphone for a gun, shoots at him and his girlfriend, then suffers a panic attack during which he’s forcibly disarmed by a paramedic. Naturally, the couple gets charged with causing the cop’s panic attack. ^{[bodycam screencap pictured]}
  (via @radleybalko)

• US government arrested a pregnant 17-year-old undocumented immigrant, denied her an abortion and forced her into Christian anti-abortion counseling, all the while trying to deport her. An ACLU-backed court order just shut them down.
  (via @radleybalko)

• University of Pennsylvania professor uses widely accepted teaching method to encourage participation in minority students. Racists and idiots raise a shitstorm. So the university punishes the professor.

• Oklahoma school district bans “gestures of protest”, forcing students to stand for the national anthem, revealing they don’t have a goddamn clue how the First Amendment works. The ACLU is already preparing to educate them.
  (via @GregortheMendel; RT: @Popehat)

• Meanwhile, the NFL is learning its lesson by allowing players to kneel during the anthem (for now).

• On the one hand, naming public buildings, particularly schools, after politicians is kinda iffy. On the other, renaming Mississippi’s (Jefferson) Davis IB Elementary School after Barack Obama is worth it just to watch racists’ heads explode.
  (via Dispatches From the Culture Wars)

• Finally, another ACLU victory: Trump administration drops its ridiculously overbroad demand for personal data on 6,000 anti-Trump Facebook users.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Links: 10/18/17 – Trump ban gets court-blocked again, redux

Daphne Caruana Galizia

• Trump’s latest travel ban gets court-blocked again by a Hawaiian federal judge the day before it was to take effect.

• Jesus. Journalist ^[pictured] who led the Panama Papers investigation was murdered with a car bomb.
  (via The Watch | The Washington Post)

• Family business bankrupted by IRS told they can’t get their stolen money back, and other civil asset forfeiture horror stories.

• Lawsuit: New Orleans DA used fake subpoenas and bogus arrests to force witnesses and victims to testify.
  (via @ethanbrown72; RT: @radleybalko)

• After weeks of player protests over criminal (in)justice, the NFL now backs a criminal justice reform bill.
  (via @radleybalko)

• Antivaccination, a play in three acts: 1) Cranks publish study claiming a link between vaccines and autism. 2) Study is widely debunked. 3) Study is retracted. And scene.

• Finally, all aboard Trainy McTrainface … train.
  (via @fark)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Links: 10/10/17 – Student expelled for sitting during Pledge

India Landry (17, l) & mother Kizzy Landry

• 17-year-old ^[pictured] sues high school that expelled her for refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. She needs to win, and every adult responsible needs to lose their job.

• Mike Pence walks out on an NFL game in a staged protest when some players knelt during the National Anthem as literally everyone knew they would.
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• To be clear: The Vice President wasted a quarter-million in taxpayer dollars to visit a sports game where he knew there would be an Anthem protest so that he could pretend to be spontaneously offended.
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• Meanwhile, it seems Trump got his way: NFL’s leadership now demands all players stand during the Anthem or they don’t play.
  (via @ggreenwald)

• Finally, the Dutch version of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver examines the US’s National Rifle Addiction problem:
  (via Joe.My.God.)

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Daily Links: 09/08/17 – Judge rules against Trump travel ban

• US federal appeals court rules Trump’s totally-not-a-Muslim ban is too restrictive, orders the US to let in more of those terrorist grandparents and fiancés.

• Fresh off losing his bogus defamation suit against Techdirt, thug-for-money-lawyer Charles Harder now launches an equally bogus SLAPP suit against Jezebel.

• NFL star Michael Bennett: Las Vegas police brutalized me because I’m Black. LVPD: We demand the NFL investigate Michael Bennett. NFL: Go hang.
  (via @greg_doucette; RT: @Popehat)

• A month after he was suspended for texting dick pics to female colleagues, Eric Bolling is out at Fox News.
  (via @KFILE; RT: @Popehat)

• Finally, precious snowflake Alex Jones is triggered by a young girl.

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Late Links: 09/03/17 – Canada forms underground railroad for Chechen gays

Kimalhi Powell

Feeling lazy this rainy weekend, so have a bunch of links in lieu of real posts.

• Major: How Canada formed its own underground railroad ^{[director pictured]} to smuggle persecuted gay people out of Chechnya. Consider how this was done in defiance of international conventions. At least some still get to be proud of their country.
  (via @Popehat)

• Federal judge axes Colorado’s public sex offender registry for constituting “cruel and unusual punishment”.
  (via @radleybalko)

• Important breaking news: Justice Department finds no evidence for crazy baseless claim Trump made some 348 crazy baseless claims ago.

• Jay Caruso at RedState on Trump and the creation of the pseudo-alpha male.
  (via @TheRickWilson; RT: @Popehat)

• Philadelphia police union chief calls Black Lives Matter “a pack of rabid animals” and “a racist hate group determined to instigate violence” … for peacefully protesting at the home of an officer who twice shot Black men in the back as they were fleeing. But he did defend a fellow cop who sported a Nazi-like tattoo.
  (via @radleybalko)

• Meanwhile, a Cleveland police union will refuse to hold the US flag for a football pregame ceremony because the Cleveland Browns management allows their players to kneel during the National Anthem, and in other news, irony has just died, please send flowers.
  (via @Popehat)

• Another woo-peddling charlatan uses legal threats to try and bully a critic into silence.

• Finally, your Headline of the day: First Amendment Protects Cinema's Right to Show Unicorn Masturbation Scene While Serving Alcohol, Says Judge
  (via @radleybalko)

If you have any story suggestions, you can leave them in the comments or send them in.