March 30, 2023

Famed Japanese Toy Company Good Smile Has Reportedly Propped Up 4chan for Years

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.

March 18, 2023

A Clandestine Trip and a Four-Decade Secret: An Untold Story Behind Jimmy Carter's Defeat

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.”

March 18, 2023

If I were planning to arrest Trump

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

March 16, 2023

Trump is now committing crimes at a rate faster

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