You know how he loves titles.

Source: Gizmodo

Good Smile, one of the world’s most popular toy companies, reportedly acted as the brace for one of the internet’s worst cesspools, financially backing 4chan. The site has gone on to facilitate harassment campaigns, racism, misogyny, and homophobia while being a vortex for internet conspiracy theories.

Wired reported on Wednesday that, based on partnership agreement documents, Japanese toy company Good Smile has financially backed 4chan for nearly eight years. The merch provider is known for its Nendoroid series and other scale figurines and action figures based on multiple major IPs, especially anime, but also Warner Bros. and Walt Disney properties. The documents reportedly show Good Smile put up $2.4 million to keep the site going when it was changing hands back in 2015.

Good Smile has been connected to 4chan in past reports. Last year, based on nondisclosure documents, Wired reported that Good Smile had played a part in the site’s 2015 acquisition. Former VPs for Good Smile in the U.S. have accused the company in legal documents of trafficking in “sexually explicit” figures of underage girls, committing tax evasion, defrauding the U.S., and being involved with 4chan. According to The Hollywood Reporter, top brass at the subsidiary went to Good Smile’s offices in the U.S. back in 2019 and were told by Enna Hozumi, the VP at Good Smile US, that Good Smile Japan had “acquired” 4chan and that it was being “managed” at the company’s Tokyo, Japan headquarters. A company rep told the Reporter that Good Smile made a “passive investment” into 4chan.

The fine folks at the anonymous imageboard site 4chan have been involved in numerous harassment campaigns, such as recent attacks targeting LGBT suicide hotline workers. It’s been labeled as the seedbed for the QAnon conspiracy movement and for the incel community. The online board was cited specifically by the perpetrator of the deadly 2018 Toronto van attack who specifically targeted women. It’s otherwise continued to be a haven for far-right radicals and trolls of all shapes and sizes.

Read more: https://gizmodo.com/japanese-toy-company-good-smile-support-4chan-for-years-1850279267

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There are only two reasons to back something like 4chan: For the money, which can’t be the case since 4chan is not a money machine, or to promote fascist ideology at all costs.

Source: NYT

His longtime political mentor invited him on a mission to the Middle East. What Mr. Barnes said he did not realize until later was the real purpose of the mission: to sabotage the re-election campaign of the president of the United States.

It was 1980 and Jimmy Carter was in the White House, bedeviled by a hostage crisis in Iran that had paralyzed his presidency and hampered his effort to win a second term. Mr. Carter’s best chance for victory was to free the 52 Americans held captive before Election Day. That was something that Mr. Barnes said his mentor was determined to prevent.

His mentor was John B. Connally Jr., a titan of American politics and former Texas governor who had served three presidents and just lost his own bid for the White House. A former Democrat, Mr. Connally had sought the Republican nomination in 1980 only to be swamped by former Gov. Ronald Reagan of California. Now Mr. Connally resolved to help Mr. Reagan beat Mr. Carter and in the process, Mr. Barnes said, make his own case for becoming secretary of state or defense in a new administration.

What happened next Mr. Barnes has largely kept secret for nearly 43 years. Mr. Connally, he said, took him to one Middle Eastern capital after another that summer, meeting with a host of regional leaders to deliver a blunt message to be passed to Iran: Don’t release the hostages before the election. Mr. Reagan will win and give you a better deal.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/jimmy-carter-october-surprise-iran-hostages.html

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This has been stated and restated many times since 1980. Barnes had the sheer gall to say this about his betrayal and silence:

Mr. Barnes said he did not reveal the real story at the time to avoid blowback from his own party. “I don’t want to look like Benedict Arnold to the Democratic Party by participating in this,” he recalled explaining to a friend. The headlines at the time, he imagined, would have been scandalous. “I did not want that to be on my obituary at all.”

But as the years have passed, he said, he has often thought an injustice had been done to Mr. Carter. Discussing the trip now, he indicated, was his way of making amends. “I just want history to reflect that Carter got a little bit of a bad deal about the hostages,” he said. “He didn’t have a fighting chance with those hostages still in the embassy in Iran.”

I would make sure it leaked that the arrest was going down Tuesday, then arrest him on Monday.

than our abilities to NOT prosecute them.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/15/trump-media-investigated-possible-money-laundering?CMP=share_btn_tw

https://electrek.co/2022/03/08/how-us-made-heat-pumps-could-help-weaken-russian-power-over-europe/

President [Joe] Biden should immediately invoke the Defense Production Act to get American manufacturers to start producing electric heat pumps in quantity, so we can ship them to Europe where they can be installed in time to dramatically lessen [Vladimir] Putin’s power.

White House aides… have studied plans to dramatically scale up US production of energy-efficient heat pumps that they hoped could be used in Europe if European leaders decided to cut its imports of Russian oil, said three people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. Biden officials have weighed whether these heat pumps could be produced through the Defense Production Act, an emergency national defense law, or through procurement programs at the Department of Defense, the people said. Some advocates close to the effort have compared the idea to the “Lend-Lease Act” program through which the US sent critical supplies to the Allied nations that had been invaded by Germany in World War II.

Heat pumps are WAY more efficient than gas furnaces, though more expensive to buy initially. However, a massive increase in manufacturing will drive down the cost. This could be a win/win scenario for the US and the EU.

Source: AP

A man who survived the shooting that killed his wife at an Atlanta-area massage business last week said police detained him in handcuffs for four hours after the attack.

Mario Gonzalez said he was held in a patrol car outside the spa. The revelation, in an interview with Mundo Hispanico, a Spanish-language news website, follows other criticism of Cherokee County officials investigating the March 16 attack, which killed four people. Four others were killed about an hour later at two spas in Atlanta.

Gonzalez’s accusation would also mean that he remained detained after police released security video images of the suspected gunman and after authorities captured him 150 miles south of Atlanta. He questioned whether his treatment by authorities was because he’s Mexican.

The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Monday.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/mario-gonzalez-shooting-victim-husband-police-detain-hours-4d05ea994c092f400a7aa0332ef93c84

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Just when you think the police cannot possibly get worse, they prove you wrong.

Trump is facing an array of possible criminal charges from simple fraud, to election tampering, to racketeering and insurrection, and at some point may be indicted, then arrested.

Personally, I believe this is unlikely, as the "system" is VERY reluctant to punish the powerful, but we live in strange times

I have a hard time believing that Trump is going to take an arrest quietly. The issuance of an indictment against Trump will galvanize him to use every lever at his disposal to discredit the process, and avoid the spectacle of actually taken into custody. Aside from the battalion of lawyers he will deploy, and the members of the GOP leadership and the Right-wing media who will immediately jump to his defense, Trump will stir up his flying monkeys who will do everything from physically intervene to prevent an arrest, to threaten, or even openly attack law enforcement, DAs, judges, and AGs, in order to prevent the incarceration of their God Emperor.

Seriously, if hundreds will attack the Capitol to prevent a vote on Trump's loss, what will they do to prevent him being subject to puny mortal authority?

The media in general will LOVE this, since it means ratings galore. The nastier Trump gets, the more violence provoked, the more the media will love it. Every fascist crazy in the country will ooze out of sewer in order to make a name for themselves. The GOP will line up behind Trump and support him regardless of the evidence.The Dems will be under constant attack, and always on the defensive, with no assist from the media (who have much to gain by stoking the fire).

It seems to me that whoever goes after Trump would much prefer his much abused sclerotic arteries save them the grief of never ending death threats and doxxing. Not that such a entirely predictable fate would solve anything. Trump's heart could explode after he ate three buckets of KFC, and a million conspiracy theories would bloom.

Valentine well-wishers.