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Celerity
Celerity's Journal
Celerity's Journal
October 14, 2021
Military security firm Ghost Robotics has built a mechanical dog capable of carrying a remote-controlled rifle on its back. The Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle (SPUR) is comprised of a 6.5mm Creedmore rifle from weapons company SWORD International combined with the quadruped unmanned ground vehicle from the robotics firm.
First seen at the US Army’s annual convention in Washington DC, as reported by The Drive, this is apparently one of the first systems like these with an actual weapon attached. It is unclear how much ammunition the gun contains, and how difficult it might be to reload. Ghost Robotics says that the robot dog can be commanded to chamber the first round from an unloaded state, clear the chamber, and ‘safeing’ the gun (when the weapon is not cocked and no ammunition is present). It can fire bullets up to a 1200-metre distance.
https://twitter.com/FeWoessner/status/1447824648448708609
The gun used in this array is reportedly not widely used by the military or other forces around the world, but US Special Operations Command is apparently in the process of acquiring light machine guns and rifles similar to this one. The report says that it is likely the human operators of the robot dog would be able to fire it using an Android Team Awareness Kit (ATAK), an app that can be installed on tablets and access on-board video cameras. It is also possible it could use artificial intelligence to detect and “lock on” to potential targets, although a human operator may be ultimately responsible for pulling the trigger. Being smaller, and robotic, the mechanical canines would be able to fit into places humans could not.
The ramifications of such a machine are not yet known, but holistically many academics and journalists have written about warfare changing with increased gamification –such as Xbox controllers used to control Boeing’s High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator in a test for the US military – or with greater distance between the human on the battlefield and their target. In February 2021 an exhibit run by MSCHF, the internet collective that has also been responsible for providing stock advice based on people’s horoscopes and trainers that contain holy water, attached a paintball gun atop Boston Dynamics’ robot dog Spot. It continued that these machines will “definitely be used by police and the military to murder people. And what do police departments have? Strong unions! Spot is employee of the month. You never need to union bust a robot - but a robot can union bust you.” The Independent has reached out to Ghost Robotics for more information and comment on such comparisons.
snip
Military robot dogs seen with assault rifles attached to their backs
https://news.yahoo.com/military-robot-dogs-seen-assault-142316640.htmlMilitary security firm Ghost Robotics has built a mechanical dog capable of carrying a remote-controlled rifle on its back. The Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle (SPUR) is comprised of a 6.5mm Creedmore rifle from weapons company SWORD International combined with the quadruped unmanned ground vehicle from the robotics firm.
First seen at the US Army’s annual convention in Washington DC, as reported by The Drive, this is apparently one of the first systems like these with an actual weapon attached. It is unclear how much ammunition the gun contains, and how difficult it might be to reload. Ghost Robotics says that the robot dog can be commanded to chamber the first round from an unloaded state, clear the chamber, and ‘safeing’ the gun (when the weapon is not cocked and no ammunition is present). It can fire bullets up to a 1200-metre distance.
https://twitter.com/FeWoessner/status/1447824648448708609
The gun used in this array is reportedly not widely used by the military or other forces around the world, but US Special Operations Command is apparently in the process of acquiring light machine guns and rifles similar to this one. The report says that it is likely the human operators of the robot dog would be able to fire it using an Android Team Awareness Kit (ATAK), an app that can be installed on tablets and access on-board video cameras. It is also possible it could use artificial intelligence to detect and “lock on” to potential targets, although a human operator may be ultimately responsible for pulling the trigger. Being smaller, and robotic, the mechanical canines would be able to fit into places humans could not.
The ramifications of such a machine are not yet known, but holistically many academics and journalists have written about warfare changing with increased gamification –such as Xbox controllers used to control Boeing’s High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator in a test for the US military – or with greater distance between the human on the battlefield and their target. In February 2021 an exhibit run by MSCHF, the internet collective that has also been responsible for providing stock advice based on people’s horoscopes and trainers that contain holy water, attached a paintball gun atop Boston Dynamics’ robot dog Spot. It continued that these machines will “definitely be used by police and the military to murder people. And what do police departments have? Strong unions! Spot is employee of the month. You never need to union bust a robot - but a robot can union bust you.” The Independent has reached out to Ghost Robotics for more information and comment on such comparisons.
snip
October 14, 2021
In the Grandpa Family editorials, we highlight creative, exciting, and ambitious people close to us. This time we met up with Malin Persson at her home just outside Malmö. So what does Malin Persson do for a living? “I never know what to say when people ask me what I do for a living, so I’ve settled on calling myself a ‘professional creative’. That includes many things: TV host, editor, public speaker, photographer, author, and designer. I’m passionate about nature and everything that’s beautiful, genuine, and sustainable; this passion permeates every project I’m working on.”
vimeo.com/631818706
It’s a crisp, sunny September morning as we begin our journey from our Malmö store to Malin’s house on the outskirts of the town. We get a glance of the house through a high shrubbery and recognize it instantly from Malin’s Instagram. What the facade promised, the inside delivered upon.
Southern Swedish Style with Malin Persson
https://www.grandpastore.com/en/grandpastore-en/grandpa-family-malin-persson-enIn the Grandpa Family editorials, we highlight creative, exciting, and ambitious people close to us. This time we met up with Malin Persson at her home just outside Malmö. So what does Malin Persson do for a living? “I never know what to say when people ask me what I do for a living, so I’ve settled on calling myself a ‘professional creative’. That includes many things: TV host, editor, public speaker, photographer, author, and designer. I’m passionate about nature and everything that’s beautiful, genuine, and sustainable; this passion permeates every project I’m working on.”
vimeo.com/631818706
It’s a crisp, sunny September morning as we begin our journey from our Malmö store to Malin’s house on the outskirts of the town. We get a glance of the house through a high shrubbery and recognize it instantly from Malin’s Instagram. What the facade promised, the inside delivered upon.
October 14, 2021
So little appears at stake in the Northern Ireland protocol yet it’s at the heart of the Brexit deadlock. But then it’s a proxy for something else.
https://socialeurope.eu/brexit-why-does-northern-ireland-matter-so-much
One of Belfast’s main hotels is called the Europa. It has a classic, pillared frontage—the previous, modernist version was turned into shards of falling glass by an IRA bomb which left a huge crater in the road outside in the early 1990s. Indeed, in the 1970s the Europa acquired the moniker ‘the most bombed hotel in Europe’. It was the favoured resting place for journalists camped in the city to report on Northern Ireland’s descent into violence and the IRA thought this the most effective signal it could send to the world. Europe’s media eventually drifted away, only returning to report on defining moments such as the paramilitary ceasefires of 1994. And now mainland European opinion finds itself scratching its collective head as to why, once more, this tiny peripheral region (population 1.9 million) is the focal point of the growing impasse between the European Union and its departed United Kingdom member.
Pragmatic solution
After all, the Northern Ireland protocol at the heart of the argument was negotiated with the UK government in late 2019, as part of the withdrawal arrangements, after the takeover of the ruling Conservative Party by a Europhobic Leave faction, led by Boris Johnson. Moreover, the problem over the region had only arisen because the UK government had chosen to adopt a ‘hard Brexit’ entailing departure from the customs union and the single market—the implications of which the prime minister’s former chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, said today Johnson had not understood. And today the vice-president of the European Commission for inter-institutional relations, Maroš Šefčovič, presented a pragmatic solution to the conflict. He offered to remove the majority of checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain, introduced as part of the protocol to avoid the risk of unregulated ware entering the single market via the Irish border. Yet late last month Johnson warned that the UK government was prepared to ‘ditch’ the protocol, via its article 16 provision for unilateral waiver. And yesterday in Lisbon, in a widely trailed speech, the (unelected) UK ‘Brexit’ minister, David Frost, called on the EU to ‘put a new protocol in place’. On Monday, Downing Street described the arbitrating role of the European Court of Justice over the protocol as a ‘central issue’—prompting a frustrated commission rejoinder about ‘ground that we have covered a million times’. The leader of Northern Ireland’s sectarian-populist Democratic Unionist Party, Jeffrey Donaldson, immediately echoed this concern about the ECJ’s oversight role. Northern Ireland however voted predominantly for Remain in the 2016 ‘Brexit’ referendum. And the regional association Manufacturing NI said no business had expressed such concern: ‘It is purely a political and sovereignty issue, and not a practical or business issue.’ Last month a group of business leaders met Frost in Northern Ireland and told him triggering article 16 would be a ‘lose-lose’ move.
Existential challenge
The European Court of Justice is, of course, also at the heart of another imbroglio in which the EU finds itself—the conflict with Poland associated with the assertion last week by its Constitutional Tribunal, with judges appointed by the nationalistic Law and Justice (PiS) government, that rulings by the court and articles of the EU treaties could not be paramount over Polish law. (The same tribunal, under independently appointed judges, had after Poland’s 2004 accession detected no contradiction with its constitution.) And there lies the difficulty. The conflict with London is no more tractable than that with Warsaw because it is not about a concrete issue of substance amenable to negotiation—whether the (not particularly healthy) British sausage can be dispatched to Northern Ireland. It is an existential challenge to the idea of Europe as anything more than a Europe des patries, bound only by intergovernmental arrangements not fundamentally affecting domestic affairs. And it is no surprise that ‘Brexit’ and legal ‘Polexit’ should be simultaneously at issue: the UK and Poland have particularly fulfilled the claim by Max Weber that nationalists believe their imagined community to have a providential ‘mission’ on Earth as a ‘chosen people’—even though this cannot, by definition, be true of all ‘nations’ at once. Realisation of that mission, inevitably, is only feasible if the ‘nation-state’ embodying the people is able to exercise untrammelled ‘sovereignty’ in the wider world—however globalised and interdependent that world might be. Any supranational arrangements, especially should these take precedence over domestic governance, are then anathema.
‘British renaissance’
Frost told the Tory party conference last week in Manchester that the ‘long bad dream’ of EU membership was over and that ‘the British renaissance has begun’. Outside the conference hall, fuel shortages and empty shelves, due to the unavailability of EU migrant labour, told a different story. But then real-world forces don’t tend to respect such grandiose ideological claims. Since Brexit at the turn of the year, there has been a fundamental realignment in Ireland, towards the ‘island economy’ advocated by the progressive Northern Ireland public official George Quigley in the 1990s. Ireland’s Central Statistics Office reported last month that, compared with the same period in 2020, imports from Northern Ireland had jumped by 60 per cent to €2.1 billion, while exports the other way had also risen sharply, by 45 per cent to €1.9 billion. Imports from Great Britain had meanwhile dropped by 32 per cent. At a fringe meeting in Manchester, Frost recognised that supply chains were being ‘reordered quite quickly’ in terms of trade between the two parts of the island. Remarkably, he concluded that ‘that’s one reason why we can’t wait very long’ for change to the protocol. A veteran Europhile journalist, who reported from Belfast in the 1970s, dryly commented: ‘Fascinating that Northern Ireland being effectively in the single market and customs union—as agreed by Lord Frost—is working so well it must be stopped.’
snip
Brexit: why does Northern Ireland matter so much?
So little appears at stake in the Northern Ireland protocol yet it’s at the heart of the Brexit deadlock. But then it’s a proxy for something else.
https://socialeurope.eu/brexit-why-does-northern-ireland-matter-so-much
One of Belfast’s main hotels is called the Europa. It has a classic, pillared frontage—the previous, modernist version was turned into shards of falling glass by an IRA bomb which left a huge crater in the road outside in the early 1990s. Indeed, in the 1970s the Europa acquired the moniker ‘the most bombed hotel in Europe’. It was the favoured resting place for journalists camped in the city to report on Northern Ireland’s descent into violence and the IRA thought this the most effective signal it could send to the world. Europe’s media eventually drifted away, only returning to report on defining moments such as the paramilitary ceasefires of 1994. And now mainland European opinion finds itself scratching its collective head as to why, once more, this tiny peripheral region (population 1.9 million) is the focal point of the growing impasse between the European Union and its departed United Kingdom member.
Pragmatic solution
After all, the Northern Ireland protocol at the heart of the argument was negotiated with the UK government in late 2019, as part of the withdrawal arrangements, after the takeover of the ruling Conservative Party by a Europhobic Leave faction, led by Boris Johnson. Moreover, the problem over the region had only arisen because the UK government had chosen to adopt a ‘hard Brexit’ entailing departure from the customs union and the single market—the implications of which the prime minister’s former chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, said today Johnson had not understood. And today the vice-president of the European Commission for inter-institutional relations, Maroš Šefčovič, presented a pragmatic solution to the conflict. He offered to remove the majority of checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain, introduced as part of the protocol to avoid the risk of unregulated ware entering the single market via the Irish border. Yet late last month Johnson warned that the UK government was prepared to ‘ditch’ the protocol, via its article 16 provision for unilateral waiver. And yesterday in Lisbon, in a widely trailed speech, the (unelected) UK ‘Brexit’ minister, David Frost, called on the EU to ‘put a new protocol in place’. On Monday, Downing Street described the arbitrating role of the European Court of Justice over the protocol as a ‘central issue’—prompting a frustrated commission rejoinder about ‘ground that we have covered a million times’. The leader of Northern Ireland’s sectarian-populist Democratic Unionist Party, Jeffrey Donaldson, immediately echoed this concern about the ECJ’s oversight role. Northern Ireland however voted predominantly for Remain in the 2016 ‘Brexit’ referendum. And the regional association Manufacturing NI said no business had expressed such concern: ‘It is purely a political and sovereignty issue, and not a practical or business issue.’ Last month a group of business leaders met Frost in Northern Ireland and told him triggering article 16 would be a ‘lose-lose’ move.
Existential challenge
The European Court of Justice is, of course, also at the heart of another imbroglio in which the EU finds itself—the conflict with Poland associated with the assertion last week by its Constitutional Tribunal, with judges appointed by the nationalistic Law and Justice (PiS) government, that rulings by the court and articles of the EU treaties could not be paramount over Polish law. (The same tribunal, under independently appointed judges, had after Poland’s 2004 accession detected no contradiction with its constitution.) And there lies the difficulty. The conflict with London is no more tractable than that with Warsaw because it is not about a concrete issue of substance amenable to negotiation—whether the (not particularly healthy) British sausage can be dispatched to Northern Ireland. It is an existential challenge to the idea of Europe as anything more than a Europe des patries, bound only by intergovernmental arrangements not fundamentally affecting domestic affairs. And it is no surprise that ‘Brexit’ and legal ‘Polexit’ should be simultaneously at issue: the UK and Poland have particularly fulfilled the claim by Max Weber that nationalists believe their imagined community to have a providential ‘mission’ on Earth as a ‘chosen people’—even though this cannot, by definition, be true of all ‘nations’ at once. Realisation of that mission, inevitably, is only feasible if the ‘nation-state’ embodying the people is able to exercise untrammelled ‘sovereignty’ in the wider world—however globalised and interdependent that world might be. Any supranational arrangements, especially should these take precedence over domestic governance, are then anathema.
‘British renaissance’
Frost told the Tory party conference last week in Manchester that the ‘long bad dream’ of EU membership was over and that ‘the British renaissance has begun’. Outside the conference hall, fuel shortages and empty shelves, due to the unavailability of EU migrant labour, told a different story. But then real-world forces don’t tend to respect such grandiose ideological claims. Since Brexit at the turn of the year, there has been a fundamental realignment in Ireland, towards the ‘island economy’ advocated by the progressive Northern Ireland public official George Quigley in the 1990s. Ireland’s Central Statistics Office reported last month that, compared with the same period in 2020, imports from Northern Ireland had jumped by 60 per cent to €2.1 billion, while exports the other way had also risen sharply, by 45 per cent to €1.9 billion. Imports from Great Britain had meanwhile dropped by 32 per cent. At a fringe meeting in Manchester, Frost recognised that supply chains were being ‘reordered quite quickly’ in terms of trade between the two parts of the island. Remarkably, he concluded that ‘that’s one reason why we can’t wait very long’ for change to the protocol. A veteran Europhile journalist, who reported from Belfast in the 1970s, dryly commented: ‘Fascinating that Northern Ireland being effectively in the single market and customs union—as agreed by Lord Frost—is working so well it must be stopped.’
snip
October 14, 2021
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/10/czech-elections-huge-win-democracy-loss-lgbtq-equality/
On Saturday, Czechs went to the polls in a dramatically close race and chose “democratic opposition” over the currently ruling populist billionaire Prime Minister, Andrej Babiš. While many celebrate this as a victory for democracy in the Czech Republic (Czechia), it is bittersweet for the LGBTQ community fearing the most conservative Parliament in the history of our country. There are many reasons to celebrate, Babiš has lost a majority, the nationalist ultra-right party (SPD) has lost two seats, the Communist Party has for the first time not managed to get into the Parliament and we will likely have a pro-European Union (EU), pro-NATO government. However, the cost of it all is the progress and possible regression in the rights of queer persons.
As it stands, Czechia is the 7th worst when it comes to LGBTQ legislation in the EU. We do not have marriage equality, there are no hate crime laws protecting our often targeted community and our country continues to forcibly sterilize trans persons if they want their legal gender changed. Marriage equality serves as a good indicator of the current state of LGBTQ acceptance in Czech politics. The marriage equality campaign “Jsme Fer” has organized a group of Parliament members (MPs) and put forward an Equal Marriage Bill that most of our community across the spectrum rallied behind, symbolizing a turning point for LGBTQ rights and acceptance in the country.
Yet, over three years passed and the bill was buried with the ending of the Parliamentary cycle. Now, the new Parliament seems much less likely to table the bill again. Out of the main advocates for queer rights, few have been re-elected with its main proponents František Kopřiva and Barbora Kořanová not making the cut. On the other hand, the ultra-conservative Christian party (KDU-CSL) has seen its best results since 1989, managing to get 23 seats in the chamber. As it stands, there are between 50-55 (out of 200) pro-equality MPs, with many who publicly oppose it and most who refuse to take a stance on our rights.
Out of the five parties that are likely to form the new right-leaning government, only one, the Pirate Party has been firmly advocating for LGBTQ rights (with only four MPs). And many from our community are worried that there is a real possibility of regression due to the strong influence of the Christian democrats and the ultra-right openly queer-phobic SPD in opposition. There are many laws in the air, not just marriage equality and our community is now becoming the target of hateful attacks that we have no legal protection from. The fear of regression is especially felt across the trans community. The Czech Republic withstands the EU push for depathologisation and, above all else, continues the inhumane practice of forced sterilization of trans persons. The new conservative majority is unlikely to change that and many fear that further regression and access to health care might be at risk for trans persons. That is mainly due to the unprecedented scapegoating of the LGBTQ community that has dominated the election campaigns across nearly all parties.
snip
The Czech elections were a huge win for democracy but a loss for LGBTQ equality
The man who will likely be the next Prime Minister opposes LGBTQ equality.https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/10/czech-elections-huge-win-democracy-loss-lgbtq-equality/
On Saturday, Czechs went to the polls in a dramatically close race and chose “democratic opposition” over the currently ruling populist billionaire Prime Minister, Andrej Babiš. While many celebrate this as a victory for democracy in the Czech Republic (Czechia), it is bittersweet for the LGBTQ community fearing the most conservative Parliament in the history of our country. There are many reasons to celebrate, Babiš has lost a majority, the nationalist ultra-right party (SPD) has lost two seats, the Communist Party has for the first time not managed to get into the Parliament and we will likely have a pro-European Union (EU), pro-NATO government. However, the cost of it all is the progress and possible regression in the rights of queer persons.
As it stands, Czechia is the 7th worst when it comes to LGBTQ legislation in the EU. We do not have marriage equality, there are no hate crime laws protecting our often targeted community and our country continues to forcibly sterilize trans persons if they want their legal gender changed. Marriage equality serves as a good indicator of the current state of LGBTQ acceptance in Czech politics. The marriage equality campaign “Jsme Fer” has organized a group of Parliament members (MPs) and put forward an Equal Marriage Bill that most of our community across the spectrum rallied behind, symbolizing a turning point for LGBTQ rights and acceptance in the country.
Yet, over three years passed and the bill was buried with the ending of the Parliamentary cycle. Now, the new Parliament seems much less likely to table the bill again. Out of the main advocates for queer rights, few have been re-elected with its main proponents František Kopřiva and Barbora Kořanová not making the cut. On the other hand, the ultra-conservative Christian party (KDU-CSL) has seen its best results since 1989, managing to get 23 seats in the chamber. As it stands, there are between 50-55 (out of 200) pro-equality MPs, with many who publicly oppose it and most who refuse to take a stance on our rights.
Out of the five parties that are likely to form the new right-leaning government, only one, the Pirate Party has been firmly advocating for LGBTQ rights (with only four MPs). And many from our community are worried that there is a real possibility of regression due to the strong influence of the Christian democrats and the ultra-right openly queer-phobic SPD in opposition. There are many laws in the air, not just marriage equality and our community is now becoming the target of hateful attacks that we have no legal protection from. The fear of regression is especially felt across the trans community. The Czech Republic withstands the EU push for depathologisation and, above all else, continues the inhumane practice of forced sterilization of trans persons. The new conservative majority is unlikely to change that and many fear that further regression and access to health care might be at risk for trans persons. That is mainly due to the unprecedented scapegoating of the LGBTQ community that has dominated the election campaigns across nearly all parties.
snip
October 14, 2021
https://crooksandliars.com/2021/10/brett-favre-return-tanf-funds
Don't you love how the GOP hates the "welfare state" and "big government," until they can steal millions of dollars from a fund meant for feeding poor families? It's even better when one of the embezzlers turns out to be washed-up former NFL quarterback Brett Favre. Favre is on the hook now for a total of $828,000.
Ashton Pittman reported in the Mississippi Free Press that their state's auditor, Shad White (in fairness, also a Republican) completed an investigation in which he determined Favre received "payment" for speaking engagements he never attended. In the most recent letter White wrote to Favre, he said the “illegal expenditures and unlawful dispositions were made when you knew or had reason to know through the exercise of reasonable diligence that the expenditures were illegal and/or the dispositions were unlawful.” So, no innocent mistakes, here.
This was part of a larger investigation into the Mississippi Department of Human Services, whose former director, John Davis, is about to be tried for embezzlement. Under his small-government, welfare-hating guidance, White said Davis authorized "over $77 million in illegal TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] spending." SEVENTY-SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS of money that should have gone to feed needy children and their parents. Who joined Brett Favre in taking food away from Mississippi's hungry children?
snip
what a POS
and a typical MAGAt
https://twitter.com/BrettFavre/status/1322154221584732163
Brett Favre And Other Mississippi Fat Cats Steal $77M In TANF Funds
Always the ones to punch down on poor people, and always the first ones with their hands out for government funds.https://crooksandliars.com/2021/10/brett-favre-return-tanf-funds
Don't you love how the GOP hates the "welfare state" and "big government," until they can steal millions of dollars from a fund meant for feeding poor families? It's even better when one of the embezzlers turns out to be washed-up former NFL quarterback Brett Favre. Favre is on the hook now for a total of $828,000.
Ashton Pittman reported in the Mississippi Free Press that their state's auditor, Shad White (in fairness, also a Republican) completed an investigation in which he determined Favre received "payment" for speaking engagements he never attended. In the most recent letter White wrote to Favre, he said the “illegal expenditures and unlawful dispositions were made when you knew or had reason to know through the exercise of reasonable diligence that the expenditures were illegal and/or the dispositions were unlawful.” So, no innocent mistakes, here.
This was part of a larger investigation into the Mississippi Department of Human Services, whose former director, John Davis, is about to be tried for embezzlement. Under his small-government, welfare-hating guidance, White said Davis authorized "over $77 million in illegal TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] spending." SEVENTY-SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS of money that should have gone to feed needy children and their parents. Who joined Brett Favre in taking food away from Mississippi's hungry children?
snip
what a POS
and a typical MAGAt
https://twitter.com/BrettFavre/status/1322154221584732163
October 14, 2021
The United States was unprepared for the scope of President Donald Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election. By Election Day, Trump had spent months calling the election “rigged,” and historians and democracy experts warned of the damage that these false claims could make. But when the president stepped to a lectern in the White House late on Election Night and insisted he’d won, many Americans were taken aback. Much worse was still to come: Trump calling Georgia’s secretary of state, asking him to find 11,000 votes; attempting to weaponize the Justice Department; and instigating the failed January 6 insurrection. Americans are ready now. If anything, they’re overprepared. Many members of the uneasy coalition of Democrats and former Republicans who oppose Trump are frantically focused on the danger of Trump and his GOP allies trying to steal the 2022 and especially 2024 elections. This is not without justification; many of Trump’s henchmen, meanwhile, are frantically focused on stealing it. But these watchdogs risk missing the graver danger: Trump could win this fair and square. Trump winning in 2016 was a serious wound to the American experiment. His clinging to power in 2020 poured salt in that wound. Trump losing in 2024 and trying to steal the election would be even more catastrophic. But a straightforward victory—a very real possibility—could be a mortal injury.
A Trump candidacy in 2024 is almost certain, and a nomination is probable. He has already done everything except declare his candidacy officially, flirting (unusually demurely for him) with an announcement in public statements. Some skeptics still think it’s a feint, but why wouldn’t he run if he can win? In 2016, Trump won only a plurality of GOP-primary voters, and faced nearly unanimous opposition within the Republican establishment. If anything, he’ll head into 2024 with the party far more unified around him, even though polling suggests more ambivalence among GOP voters. A large group of Republicans are eyeing the 2024 race, but several have said they won’t run if Trump runs. Others, like Chris Christie, say they won’t defer to Trump, but Christie proved to be not even a speed bump for Trump in 2016. There’s no reason to think that has changed. On Saturday, Trump held a rally in Iowa featuring Senator Charles Grassley, an old-school Republican in both temperament and chronology—a symbol of Trump’s takeover of the party. Many Senate Republicans privately hope that Trump doesn’t run, but the more telling fact is that they won’t say so publicly. Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who sharply castigated Trump after January 6, has since said he would “absolutely” back Trump if he’s the Republican nominee. Could he win? Of course he could. It is unlikely—though not impossible!—that the current air of chaos and free fall around the Biden administration will continue for the next three years. (To see another example of a four-year train wreck, you’ve got to go all the way back to … the last president.)
Biden also retains certain structural advantages. Incumbents have a built-in edge, and although the future course of the pandemic is unpredictable, the economy seems likely to improve, if slowly. But the president’s approval rating has slipped definitively underwater, and the intensely polarized environment makes it hard for him to claw back favor once lost. Most worryingly for Democrats, Biden has lost favor with independent voters. Incumbency doesn’t seem to be quite the boost it once was; both Trump and Barack Obama saw their vote share slip as they ran for second terms. Besides, given the tight margins in several states, Trump wouldn’t need to gain much on Biden to beat him in a rematch. This adds up to a decent shot at Trump winning in 2024—at least an Electoral College win, as in 2016, and perhaps even the popular-vote win that has twice eluded him. I wrote on the eve of the 2020 election that a second Trump term would be more dangerous than the first, but a second Trump term beginning in 2024 would go beyond that. Some of the smartest arguments for not panicking about the future Trump threat have come from Ross Douthat, a conservative Trump critic, who argues that although Trump may indeed be an aspiring dictator, that matters little if he can’t execute. “Again and again his most alarmist critics have accurately analyzed his ruthless amorality but then overestimated his capacity to impose his will on subordinates and allies, let alone the country as a whole,” Douthat wrote recently.
But Douthat underestimates the changed institutional landscape that would greet Trump upon reentering office on January 20, 2025. Trump would likely have unified Republican control of the House and Senate. He would have a conservative majority on the Supreme Court—and the real possibility of naming Justice Stephen Breyer’s replacement. Trump did have a Republican Congress for the first two years of his term, but he didn’t know how to use it, and both chambers were led by Republicans who were deeply skeptical of Trump and his goals. Then-Speaker Paul Ryan didn’t do much to stop Trump, but he slowed him down, as did McConnell. Now Ryan is gone, and McConnell has demonstrated his flexibility. The internal Republican resistance to Trump has been winnowed away, leaving little more than Mitt Romney in the Senate and a handful of representatives in the House. Trump is in the midst of a quest to purge them, too, targeting Republicans who voted to impeach him. He’s already forced Ohio’s Anthony Gonzalez to drop his reelection bid, and he’s doing his best to take down Liz Cheney of Wyoming. More pliable legislative and judicial branches would help Trump, but he would also have better control of the executive branch. He assembled his first administration from misfit toys and castoffs, staffers who would never have gotten such jobs in another presidency because they were too inexperienced, too incompetent, too abrasive, or too extreme. On his return, he’d do better. Those staffers are now seasoned and more able, and fewer veteran Republicans would remove themselves from consideration next time.
snip
America Is Not Ready for Trump's Second Term
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/trump-winning-2024-real-election-nightmare/620368/The United States was unprepared for the scope of President Donald Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election. By Election Day, Trump had spent months calling the election “rigged,” and historians and democracy experts warned of the damage that these false claims could make. But when the president stepped to a lectern in the White House late on Election Night and insisted he’d won, many Americans were taken aback. Much worse was still to come: Trump calling Georgia’s secretary of state, asking him to find 11,000 votes; attempting to weaponize the Justice Department; and instigating the failed January 6 insurrection. Americans are ready now. If anything, they’re overprepared. Many members of the uneasy coalition of Democrats and former Republicans who oppose Trump are frantically focused on the danger of Trump and his GOP allies trying to steal the 2022 and especially 2024 elections. This is not without justification; many of Trump’s henchmen, meanwhile, are frantically focused on stealing it. But these watchdogs risk missing the graver danger: Trump could win this fair and square. Trump winning in 2016 was a serious wound to the American experiment. His clinging to power in 2020 poured salt in that wound. Trump losing in 2024 and trying to steal the election would be even more catastrophic. But a straightforward victory—a very real possibility—could be a mortal injury.
A Trump candidacy in 2024 is almost certain, and a nomination is probable. He has already done everything except declare his candidacy officially, flirting (unusually demurely for him) with an announcement in public statements. Some skeptics still think it’s a feint, but why wouldn’t he run if he can win? In 2016, Trump won only a plurality of GOP-primary voters, and faced nearly unanimous opposition within the Republican establishment. If anything, he’ll head into 2024 with the party far more unified around him, even though polling suggests more ambivalence among GOP voters. A large group of Republicans are eyeing the 2024 race, but several have said they won’t run if Trump runs. Others, like Chris Christie, say they won’t defer to Trump, but Christie proved to be not even a speed bump for Trump in 2016. There’s no reason to think that has changed. On Saturday, Trump held a rally in Iowa featuring Senator Charles Grassley, an old-school Republican in both temperament and chronology—a symbol of Trump’s takeover of the party. Many Senate Republicans privately hope that Trump doesn’t run, but the more telling fact is that they won’t say so publicly. Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who sharply castigated Trump after January 6, has since said he would “absolutely” back Trump if he’s the Republican nominee. Could he win? Of course he could. It is unlikely—though not impossible!—that the current air of chaos and free fall around the Biden administration will continue for the next three years. (To see another example of a four-year train wreck, you’ve got to go all the way back to … the last president.)
Biden also retains certain structural advantages. Incumbents have a built-in edge, and although the future course of the pandemic is unpredictable, the economy seems likely to improve, if slowly. But the president’s approval rating has slipped definitively underwater, and the intensely polarized environment makes it hard for him to claw back favor once lost. Most worryingly for Democrats, Biden has lost favor with independent voters. Incumbency doesn’t seem to be quite the boost it once was; both Trump and Barack Obama saw their vote share slip as they ran for second terms. Besides, given the tight margins in several states, Trump wouldn’t need to gain much on Biden to beat him in a rematch. This adds up to a decent shot at Trump winning in 2024—at least an Electoral College win, as in 2016, and perhaps even the popular-vote win that has twice eluded him. I wrote on the eve of the 2020 election that a second Trump term would be more dangerous than the first, but a second Trump term beginning in 2024 would go beyond that. Some of the smartest arguments for not panicking about the future Trump threat have come from Ross Douthat, a conservative Trump critic, who argues that although Trump may indeed be an aspiring dictator, that matters little if he can’t execute. “Again and again his most alarmist critics have accurately analyzed his ruthless amorality but then overestimated his capacity to impose his will on subordinates and allies, let alone the country as a whole,” Douthat wrote recently.
But Douthat underestimates the changed institutional landscape that would greet Trump upon reentering office on January 20, 2025. Trump would likely have unified Republican control of the House and Senate. He would have a conservative majority on the Supreme Court—and the real possibility of naming Justice Stephen Breyer’s replacement. Trump did have a Republican Congress for the first two years of his term, but he didn’t know how to use it, and both chambers were led by Republicans who were deeply skeptical of Trump and his goals. Then-Speaker Paul Ryan didn’t do much to stop Trump, but he slowed him down, as did McConnell. Now Ryan is gone, and McConnell has demonstrated his flexibility. The internal Republican resistance to Trump has been winnowed away, leaving little more than Mitt Romney in the Senate and a handful of representatives in the House. Trump is in the midst of a quest to purge them, too, targeting Republicans who voted to impeach him. He’s already forced Ohio’s Anthony Gonzalez to drop his reelection bid, and he’s doing his best to take down Liz Cheney of Wyoming. More pliable legislative and judicial branches would help Trump, but he would also have better control of the executive branch. He assembled his first administration from misfit toys and castoffs, staffers who would never have gotten such jobs in another presidency because they were too inexperienced, too incompetent, too abrasive, or too extreme. On his return, he’d do better. Those staffers are now seasoned and more able, and fewer veteran Republicans would remove themselves from consideration next time.
snip
October 13, 2021
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/12/world/europe/eric-zemmour-macron-france-election.html
PARIS — He is the anti-immigration son of parents from Algeria. He styles himself as the great defender of France’s Christian civilization, though he himself is Jewish. He channels Donald J. Trump in an anti-establishment campaign. And he is now scrambling the battle lines before France’s presidential election in April. The meteoric rise of Éric Zemmour, a far-right author and TV pundit, has turned France’s politics upside down. Until a few weeks ago, most had expected France’s next presidential elections to be a predictable rematch between President Emmanuel Macron and the far-right Marine Le Pen that, polls showed, left voters who wanted alternatives deeply dissatisfied. Though still not a declared candidate, Mr. Zemmour, 63, shot to No. 2 in a poll of likely voters last week, disrupting campaign strategies across the board, even beyond those of Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen. “The French want to upset a political order that hasn’t won them over, and Éric Zemmour appears to be the bowling ball that’s going to knock down all the pins,” said Pascal Perrineau, a political scientist at Sciences Po University specializing in elections and the right. Mr. Perrineau warned that voters were not seriously focused yet on the elections and that polls could be volatile. Yet candidates are not taking any chances.
Mr. Macron’s campaign has focused on winning support on the right and forcing a showdown with Ms. Le Pen, in the belief that the French would reject her party in the second round of voting, as they have for decades. Now it is far less clear whom he would meet in a runoff: A strong showing in the first round could propel Mr. Zemmour into the second one, or it could split the far-right electorate to allow a center-right candidate to qualify for the finals. After weeks of ignoring Mr. Zemmour, Mr. Macron is now criticizing him, though not by name, while government ministers and other Macron allies have unleashed a barrage of attacks. Mr. Zemmour’s rise has been most unsettling for Ms. Le Pen, who is plummeting in the polls — so much so that her own father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the party founder, said that he would support Mr. Zemmour if the writer were in a stronger position. Ms. Le Pen has for years tried to broaden her base with a so-called un-demonizing strategy of moving her nationalist, anti-immigrant party from the most extreme xenophobic positions that it was known for under her father. Now she finds herself in the unusual position of being outflanked on the right.
Mr. Zemmour became one of France’s best-selling authors in the past decade by writing books on the nation’s decline — fuelled, he said, by the loss of traditional French and Christian values, the immigration of Muslim Africans bent on a reverse colonization of France, the rise of feminism and the loss of virility, and a “great replacement” of white people, a conspiracy theory that has been cited by gunmen in multiple mass shootings. As the child of Algerians who settled in metropolitan France, he has presented himself as the embodiment of France’s successful system of assimilation. He has said that the failure to integrate recent generations of Muslim immigrants lies with the new arrivals, who hate France, and not with a system that others say has not kept up with the times. Mr. Zemmour’s influence rose to an entirely new level in the past two years after he became the star of CNews, a new Fox-style news network that gave him a platform to expound on his views every evening.
His supporters include voters most deeply shaken by the social forces that have roiled French society more recently and that they now lump into “wokisme” — a #MeToo movement that has led to the fall of powerful men; a racial awakening challenging France’s image of itself as a colorblind society; the emergence of a new generation questioning the principles of the French Republic; and the perceived growing threat of an American-inspired vision of society. “In its history, France has always had a strong cultural identity, but now there’s deep anxiety about that identity,” Mr. Perrineau said. “People feel that their culture, their way of life and their political system, all is being changed. It’s enough.” “Éric Zemmour plays on that very well, on this nostalgia for the past, and this fear of no longer being a great power, of dissolving in a conglomerate that we don’t understand, whether it’s Europe or globalization or the Americanization of culture,” he added.
snip
Rise of a Far-Right Pundit Is Scrambling French Politics
Éric Zemmour, an anti-immigrant writer and TV commentator, is surging in opinion polls before presidential elections next year — and he is not yet a candidate.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/12/world/europe/eric-zemmour-macron-france-election.html
PARIS — He is the anti-immigration son of parents from Algeria. He styles himself as the great defender of France’s Christian civilization, though he himself is Jewish. He channels Donald J. Trump in an anti-establishment campaign. And he is now scrambling the battle lines before France’s presidential election in April. The meteoric rise of Éric Zemmour, a far-right author and TV pundit, has turned France’s politics upside down. Until a few weeks ago, most had expected France’s next presidential elections to be a predictable rematch between President Emmanuel Macron and the far-right Marine Le Pen that, polls showed, left voters who wanted alternatives deeply dissatisfied. Though still not a declared candidate, Mr. Zemmour, 63, shot to No. 2 in a poll of likely voters last week, disrupting campaign strategies across the board, even beyond those of Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen. “The French want to upset a political order that hasn’t won them over, and Éric Zemmour appears to be the bowling ball that’s going to knock down all the pins,” said Pascal Perrineau, a political scientist at Sciences Po University specializing in elections and the right. Mr. Perrineau warned that voters were not seriously focused yet on the elections and that polls could be volatile. Yet candidates are not taking any chances.
Mr. Macron’s campaign has focused on winning support on the right and forcing a showdown with Ms. Le Pen, in the belief that the French would reject her party in the second round of voting, as they have for decades. Now it is far less clear whom he would meet in a runoff: A strong showing in the first round could propel Mr. Zemmour into the second one, or it could split the far-right electorate to allow a center-right candidate to qualify for the finals. After weeks of ignoring Mr. Zemmour, Mr. Macron is now criticizing him, though not by name, while government ministers and other Macron allies have unleashed a barrage of attacks. Mr. Zemmour’s rise has been most unsettling for Ms. Le Pen, who is plummeting in the polls — so much so that her own father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the party founder, said that he would support Mr. Zemmour if the writer were in a stronger position. Ms. Le Pen has for years tried to broaden her base with a so-called un-demonizing strategy of moving her nationalist, anti-immigrant party from the most extreme xenophobic positions that it was known for under her father. Now she finds herself in the unusual position of being outflanked on the right.
Mr. Zemmour became one of France’s best-selling authors in the past decade by writing books on the nation’s decline — fuelled, he said, by the loss of traditional French and Christian values, the immigration of Muslim Africans bent on a reverse colonization of France, the rise of feminism and the loss of virility, and a “great replacement” of white people, a conspiracy theory that has been cited by gunmen in multiple mass shootings. As the child of Algerians who settled in metropolitan France, he has presented himself as the embodiment of France’s successful system of assimilation. He has said that the failure to integrate recent generations of Muslim immigrants lies with the new arrivals, who hate France, and not with a system that others say has not kept up with the times. Mr. Zemmour’s influence rose to an entirely new level in the past two years after he became the star of CNews, a new Fox-style news network that gave him a platform to expound on his views every evening.
His supporters include voters most deeply shaken by the social forces that have roiled French society more recently and that they now lump into “wokisme” — a #MeToo movement that has led to the fall of powerful men; a racial awakening challenging France’s image of itself as a colorblind society; the emergence of a new generation questioning the principles of the French Republic; and the perceived growing threat of an American-inspired vision of society. “In its history, France has always had a strong cultural identity, but now there’s deep anxiety about that identity,” Mr. Perrineau said. “People feel that their culture, their way of life and their political system, all is being changed. It’s enough.” “Éric Zemmour plays on that very well, on this nostalgia for the past, and this fear of no longer being a great power, of dissolving in a conglomerate that we don’t understand, whether it’s Europe or globalization or the Americanization of culture,” he added.
snip
October 13, 2021
https://thebanter.substack.com/p/smug-liberals-empower-the-far-right
The liberal plot to kill Republicans
Last week on The Banter Roundtable (go listen to it now!) Ben, Bob, and I discussed how the press has an incredibly irritating habit of laying all of the blame for the current wave of Covid deaths at the feet of Democrats. Or the left in general, really. While we are living through a pandemic of the unvaccinated, somehow, the unvaccinated have been stripped of all agency. They can be assigned no responsibility for their actions and lack thereof. Instead, they are the victims of, and I kid you not, liberal smugness. Therefore, all of the death and suffering is my fault. And yours. And, naturally, Joe Biden’s. Since I am not allowed to write a page full of colourful and extremely vivid profanity to share my feelings about this narrative, I will do the next best thing: Explain what is behind this bullshit and what you can do about it. The spectrum of “blame the left” is pretty wide. It starts from liberals are smug so the right has no choice but to commit suicide by the thousands to a deliberate plot by the left to trick the right into committing suicide by the thousands. Do not be confused, though. It is all the same argument. Consider the really insane version: Liberals are tricking the right into killing themselves in droves. This idiocy flows from the open sewer pit that is Breitbart so expect it to be a mainstream Republican talking point in the near future. I am not going to link to the article any more than I would hose you down with toxic sludge, but I will give you a tiny peek inside the mind of a deranged monster:
“The left’s morality is guided only by that which furthers their fascist agenda.” Please repeat after me: Every Republican accusation is a confession. There are vanishingly few times this is not true. Putting that massive amount of projection aside, notice how MAGAs are the victims? There is not a single mention throughout the entire Breitbart screed of Republicans and their ongoing efforts to stifle vaccinations. They are simply erased from the equation. All of the fault lies with the “organized left”. That was the hysterical conspiracy lunacy version from the far right. The “rational” version of, quite literally, this same narrative is even worse. Instead of histrionics, Simon Copland at The Atlantic casually absolves the right of any role in the spread of Covid and vaccine disinformation. It’s not even really the fault of the far-right for taking advantage of the situation because if the left hadn’t been such assholes, the far-right would have been impotent. No, seriously, this is a real argument being made:
Copland is writing about Australia but he is doing exactly the same thing for his country that is being done here in America: Skipping over the entire opening act of this unfolding nightmare. Why are there protests in the first place? Why is Australia, like America, having so much trouble getting a significant holdout chunk of its population vaccinated? The answer, to the surprise of no one, is Rupert Murdoch’s right wing media empire. Both spreading misinformation and egging on violence, Murdoch’s Sky News (Australia’s version of Fox) has been more than happy to feed the fascists new recruits according to The Daily Beast:
You see, you are not a real man if you take steps to stop the spread of a deadly virus that has killed millions. What are you? Some kind of sissy boy liberal?! We expect rags like Breitbart to engage in whitewashing because Breitbart is pure propaganda for white nationalists. The Atlantic, on the other hand, is supposed to be a serious publication. Yet, the only significant difference between the two articles other than tone is that Breitbart assumes a level of diabolical intent that The Atlantic does not. The mainstream media landscape has not been much better in regards to the right’s anti-vaxxer madness. For months, the press has been either praising Florida governor Ron DeSantis for “beating Covid”, or they’ve been erasing his ongoing efforts to kill as many Floridians as humanly possible. But it gets worse. The blame for the red state Covid surge lies almost entirely with President Joe Biden. Eric Boehlert’s Press Run has been all over this:
snip
more at the link
Smug Liberals Empower The Far Right? Fuck You
There is no liberal plot to kill Republicans. There is a Republican plot to kill Republicans; a cruel and inhuman sacrifice to regain power.https://thebanter.substack.com/p/smug-liberals-empower-the-far-right
The liberal plot to kill Republicans
Last week on The Banter Roundtable (go listen to it now!) Ben, Bob, and I discussed how the press has an incredibly irritating habit of laying all of the blame for the current wave of Covid deaths at the feet of Democrats. Or the left in general, really. While we are living through a pandemic of the unvaccinated, somehow, the unvaccinated have been stripped of all agency. They can be assigned no responsibility for their actions and lack thereof. Instead, they are the victims of, and I kid you not, liberal smugness. Therefore, all of the death and suffering is my fault. And yours. And, naturally, Joe Biden’s. Since I am not allowed to write a page full of colourful and extremely vivid profanity to share my feelings about this narrative, I will do the next best thing: Explain what is behind this bullshit and what you can do about it. The spectrum of “blame the left” is pretty wide. It starts from liberals are smug so the right has no choice but to commit suicide by the thousands to a deliberate plot by the left to trick the right into committing suicide by the thousands. Do not be confused, though. It is all the same argument. Consider the really insane version: Liberals are tricking the right into killing themselves in droves. This idiocy flows from the open sewer pit that is Breitbart so expect it to be a mainstream Republican talking point in the near future. I am not going to link to the article any more than I would hose you down with toxic sludge, but I will give you a tiny peek inside the mind of a deranged monster:
“The left’s morality is guided only by that which furthers their fascist agenda.” Please repeat after me: Every Republican accusation is a confession. There are vanishingly few times this is not true. Putting that massive amount of projection aside, notice how MAGAs are the victims? There is not a single mention throughout the entire Breitbart screed of Republicans and their ongoing efforts to stifle vaccinations. They are simply erased from the equation. All of the fault lies with the “organized left”. That was the hysterical conspiracy lunacy version from the far right. The “rational” version of, quite literally, this same narrative is even worse. Instead of histrionics, Simon Copland at The Atlantic casually absolves the right of any role in the spread of Covid and vaccine disinformation. It’s not even really the fault of the far-right for taking advantage of the situation because if the left hadn’t been such assholes, the far-right would have been impotent. No, seriously, this is a real argument being made:
Copland is writing about Australia but he is doing exactly the same thing for his country that is being done here in America: Skipping over the entire opening act of this unfolding nightmare. Why are there protests in the first place? Why is Australia, like America, having so much trouble getting a significant holdout chunk of its population vaccinated? The answer, to the surprise of no one, is Rupert Murdoch’s right wing media empire. Both spreading misinformation and egging on violence, Murdoch’s Sky News (Australia’s version of Fox) has been more than happy to feed the fascists new recruits according to The Daily Beast:
You see, you are not a real man if you take steps to stop the spread of a deadly virus that has killed millions. What are you? Some kind of sissy boy liberal?! We expect rags like Breitbart to engage in whitewashing because Breitbart is pure propaganda for white nationalists. The Atlantic, on the other hand, is supposed to be a serious publication. Yet, the only significant difference between the two articles other than tone is that Breitbart assumes a level of diabolical intent that The Atlantic does not. The mainstream media landscape has not been much better in regards to the right’s anti-vaxxer madness. For months, the press has been either praising Florida governor Ron DeSantis for “beating Covid”, or they’ve been erasing his ongoing efforts to kill as many Floridians as humanly possible. But it gets worse. The blame for the red state Covid surge lies almost entirely with President Joe Biden. Eric Boehlert’s Press Run has been all over this:
snip
more at the link
October 13, 2021
Lol, Pelosi called McTurtle 'Moscow Mitch' on the Floor of the House
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1448029525019795457
October 13, 2021
Olympic High students line both sides of Sandy Porter Road in protest outside the school on Oct. 1, 2021 in Charlotte. On Sept. 13, a 15-year-old student was charged with sexual assault of a female student. Another student, a football player, had been accused of assault and told to wear an ankle monitor. The athlete played in a recent football game wearing the monitor. JEFF SINER JSINER@CHARLOTTEOBSERVER.COM
BY SERENITI SIMPSON
OCTOBER 08, 2021
Moving, inspirational, monumental. These words were used to describe a protest Oct. 1 on the Olympic High School campus. It occurred in front of the high school and the dozens of students who participated were demanding a safer environment, not only for females on Olympic’s campus, but for any female on any Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools campus. It was planned as a peaceful protest. I should know, I helped plan it.
Sexual assault is something I have always been passionate about because it affects so many young females and males across the world daily. Sexual assault is always thrown on the back burner and the voices of victims are silenced. No more, no more letting people silence our voices, we will be heard. The protest at Olympic was not only to demand a safer environment on campus, but to let the women whose voices were ripped from them know that we hear them — and we stand with you and will no longer let anyone silence your voice. Every day females walk around in fear of what could happen to them in this crazy world. Why do we have to feel that same fear on our campus as well?
Last week, several Olympic volleyball players were benched due to participating in the Oct. 1 protest. I was one of them. Let me paint this picture for you: After being under criminal investigation for a sexual assault crime, an Olympic football player was able to play in a football game, but the young women who were just pleading to feel safe on campus got punished. No one is saying the player is guilty or innocent, but when something like getting your phone taken away in class can get you benched, why should someone under criminal investigation get to play? After it was announced that the volleyball players would be punished for protesting, I handed in my jersey because I refuse to play for a team or school that punishes its athletes for taking a stand. The fact that the school will punish those who speak out could make others who want to speak out afraid to do so.
Honestly, I think that is the goal — if you can keep these victims’ voices silenced you don’t have to deal with it and then once again sexual assault will be thrown on the back burner. Statements from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools were released essentially saying that the protest was an infringement of safety. I feel as though having people on campus who harm the female students is a bigger infringement of safety. The administration at Olympic also felt another problem with the protest was that it interrupted a school day. I’m sorry that one 7-hour school day was interrupted, but sexual assault victims’ lives are affected forever.
Yes, words like moving, inspirational and monumental were used to describe the amazing, peaceful protest at Olympic. To see so many people fighting for a cause that I hold deep to my heart was so touching. The fight is not over. We want sexual assault to be talked about more in schools. We want the administrations to listen. We need sexual assault taken more seriously and need precautions put in place to keep females safe on campus. We ask for the support of the community because we are not finished. Our voices will be heard. This is only the beginning to a new and safer future.
Sereniti Simpson is a 16-year-old junior enrolled in the CMS early college program. Her home school is Olympic High School.
Teens like me just want to feel safe on our CMS campus
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/article254858217.htmlOlympic High students line both sides of Sandy Porter Road in protest outside the school on Oct. 1, 2021 in Charlotte. On Sept. 13, a 15-year-old student was charged with sexual assault of a female student. Another student, a football player, had been accused of assault and told to wear an ankle monitor. The athlete played in a recent football game wearing the monitor. JEFF SINER JSINER@CHARLOTTEOBSERVER.COM
BY SERENITI SIMPSON
OCTOBER 08, 2021
Moving, inspirational, monumental. These words were used to describe a protest Oct. 1 on the Olympic High School campus. It occurred in front of the high school and the dozens of students who participated were demanding a safer environment, not only for females on Olympic’s campus, but for any female on any Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools campus. It was planned as a peaceful protest. I should know, I helped plan it.
Sexual assault is something I have always been passionate about because it affects so many young females and males across the world daily. Sexual assault is always thrown on the back burner and the voices of victims are silenced. No more, no more letting people silence our voices, we will be heard. The protest at Olympic was not only to demand a safer environment on campus, but to let the women whose voices were ripped from them know that we hear them — and we stand with you and will no longer let anyone silence your voice. Every day females walk around in fear of what could happen to them in this crazy world. Why do we have to feel that same fear on our campus as well?
Last week, several Olympic volleyball players were benched due to participating in the Oct. 1 protest. I was one of them. Let me paint this picture for you: After being under criminal investigation for a sexual assault crime, an Olympic football player was able to play in a football game, but the young women who were just pleading to feel safe on campus got punished. No one is saying the player is guilty or innocent, but when something like getting your phone taken away in class can get you benched, why should someone under criminal investigation get to play? After it was announced that the volleyball players would be punished for protesting, I handed in my jersey because I refuse to play for a team or school that punishes its athletes for taking a stand. The fact that the school will punish those who speak out could make others who want to speak out afraid to do so.
Honestly, I think that is the goal — if you can keep these victims’ voices silenced you don’t have to deal with it and then once again sexual assault will be thrown on the back burner. Statements from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools were released essentially saying that the protest was an infringement of safety. I feel as though having people on campus who harm the female students is a bigger infringement of safety. The administration at Olympic also felt another problem with the protest was that it interrupted a school day. I’m sorry that one 7-hour school day was interrupted, but sexual assault victims’ lives are affected forever.
Yes, words like moving, inspirational and monumental were used to describe the amazing, peaceful protest at Olympic. To see so many people fighting for a cause that I hold deep to my heart was so touching. The fight is not over. We want sexual assault to be talked about more in schools. We want the administrations to listen. We need sexual assault taken more seriously and need precautions put in place to keep females safe on campus. We ask for the support of the community because we are not finished. Our voices will be heard. This is only the beginning to a new and safer future.
Sereniti Simpson is a 16-year-old junior enrolled in the CMS early college program. Her home school is Olympic High School.
Profile Information
Gender: FemaleHometown: London
Home country: US/UK/Sweden
Current location: Stockholm, Sweden
Member since: Sun Jul 1, 2018, 07:25 PM
Number of posts: 43,261
