Employees Shocked as Lesbian Vegan Doughnut Shop Goes Out of Business

Posted on | September 9, 2022 | 1 Comment

When I first saw this story, the bland headline (“Frederick Doughnut Shop Workers Say Business Shut Down Without Paying Them”) did not prepare me for the wonderfulness I would ultimately find:

A doughnut shop in Frederick, Maryland, abruptly shut down last week, and workers said they’re owed weeks in pay.
Glory Doughnuts & Diner on W. Patrick Street felt like home, its employees said. That all changed early Friday; the landlord shut the shop down over months of unpaid rent.
Without warning, 10 people were out of a job. They said they knew the business had been struggling, and some hadn’t been paid for several pay periods.
“They had us working when they didn’t know if they were ever going to be able to pay us,” former general manager Kiska Greenberg said Monday.
Ex-employee Shelby Turner said she was disappointed.
“I really cared for them. I felt like they were part of the family,” Turner said.
Her paychecks began to bounce in recent months, she said.

(Permit me to interrupt briefly, as I point out the contrast between being “part of the family” and having your paychecks bounce.)

“I was told it was a problem with my credit union, that’s why my checks were bouncing, and it wasn’t until I called my credit union that they told me every single one was for non-sufficient funds,” she said.
Another former employee said she was facing eviction and a move that could put her child into another school district.
In a post to social media, Glory Doughnuts & Diner’s owners pointed the finger at the landlord for the abrupt closure. News4 contacted the owners several times with no response.
Greenberg asked the owners to get in touch.
“I trusted you. Please come forward. Please stop pretending to be the victim in these social media posts. You have hurt a lot of people. I believe in change. Please do what is right,” she said.

My curiosity was aroused. “What’s going on here?” I asked myself, with employees speaking of this doughnut shop as “family”? And who keeps working after the first paycheck bounces? The story didn’t actually name the owners of this small-town business, so that was my next Google search — “glory+doughnuts+owner” — and oh, boy!

Glory Doughnuts owners Alissa and Keirsten Straiter

This may shock some readers, but it wasn’t until my brother pointed it out that I realized “Glory Doughnuts” is a double entendre. Meanwhile, I found this 2015 feature profile in the local newspaper:

By 7 a.m., dozens of doughnuts line the counter at Glory Doughnuts in downtown Frederick.
Salted Earl Grey. Blackberry frosted. Double cinnamon toast. Chai tea glazed. Chocolate peanut butter. Not one ingredient from animals, 100 percent vegan.
Shop owners Alissa and Keirsten Straiter have always been the bakers at Glory Doughnuts, waking up to get donuts going by midnight or 1 a.m six days a week.
Morning help arrives around 5 a.m. so they can open two hours later. Around that time, Alissa, 25, and Keirsten, 26, become the shop’s cooks.
Their brick-and-mortar store opened at the corner of East Church Street and North East Street in May.
Both women have been in and out of the food service business since they were old enough to work. As a couple, they found themselves hosting friends and dreaming up new foods to serve, a way of life that led them to the obvious question:
“We love doing this so much — wouldn’t it be cool if we could do it everyday?”
They started out baking doughnuts in a home-based business – selling through farmer’s markets and other shops, including Cafe Nola and Cakes to Die For in Frederick and Red Emma’s in Baltimore.
Their goal was always to open up a restaurant with a full range of food.

Observe the nothing-to-see-here manner in which readers were introduced to the fact that a lesbian couple owns this small-town business. The word “lesbian” never appears in the article, by the way, as if there is some sort of agreement among newspaper editors that the dreaded “L-word” must be omitted, lest readers in bucolic Frederick (population 71,843) be incited to a hate crime. We continue:

The Glory Doughnuts menu is a tribute to times gone by and the rustic industrial design inside the store complements their outlook of hand-forged food made in small batches.
The Straiters cook up old-school comfort foods, focusing on breakfast because of their “borderline obsession with traditional American diner foods,” Alissa said.
Their menu features dishes like fried tofu “eggs,” Pabst Blue Ribbon pancakes and apple pie-stuffed French toast.
The doughnuts come in all shapes and sizes – and almost always sell out.
About seven or eight flavors are offered each day. Some of the flavors are seasonal. As summer gives way to fall, the floral flavors will melt away in favor of pumpkin, apples and caramel.
So what are their favorite flavors?
Alissa says the salted Earl Grey and raspberry tiramisu doughnuts are “last-meal worthy,” while Keirsten loves a more traditional frosted flavor. “Whenever we make the strawberry-frosted, I have to have it,” she said.
Alissa’s favorite moment is when people are surprised the meal they’re eating is vegan.
“It happens every day,” she said. “We want everyone to give it a try. Everyone is always pleasantly surprised and enjoys their meal.”
Alissa and Keirsten decided to become vegan together, when they started dating. “When we met, we actually decided to go vegan together,” Keirsten said.
With new love, they decided to focus on a new way of life. They were motivated by ideas now wrapped into the Glory Doughnuts mission statement, eating a plant-based diet to conserve natural resources, promote health and animal welfare.

(You’ve heard of “Get Woke, Go Broke”? You might say that the ultimate fate of Glory Doughnuts was foretold from the start.)

The appeal of Glory Doughnuts is expanding, drawing customers from Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.
Next week, they will play host to Baltimore Vegan Drinks, a group that hosts regular happy hours and social event for vegans, vegetarians, and the veg-curious.
Alissa and Keirsten just hired their fifth employee and are hoping to expand their weekend hours soon.
The couple lives downtown and has received a lot of support from other city businesses.
“I think this business was built by the community of Frederick,” said Alissa. Friends, family and new friends helped with the store’s construction, people supported the opening by buying fundraising T-shirts, a lucky few serve as tasters in their “test kitchen.”
“Glory Doughnuts is a group of longtime friends who have all been born and raised here in Frederick, who love Frederick to death,” Alissa said. “I want people to know when they walk through the door, we want them to feel like a friend. If you come here and eat and hang out, you are part of the Glory Doughnuts family.”

Being “part of the family” means your paycheck’s gonna bounce.

Glory Doughnuts ‘family’ members in happier days

By the way, don’t let my habitual sarcasm lead you to mistakenly assume I am against lesbian vegan doughnuts. I mean, if you’re looking for vegan doughnuts, why not get them from authentic local lesbians who seek to “conserve natural resources, promote health and animal welfare”? And get yourself some delicious inclusive diversity while you’re at it:

The Straiters have made it their mission to foster an inclusive environment. “Diversity and representation in the industry are vital. Historically, people of color and the LGBTQ+ community haven’t had the same access to opportunities as others have,” says Alissa. “Representation is important because it normalizes diversity, celebrates culture and lifts communities who may need it.”

Maybe it also “normalizes” your bouncing paycheck?

Please excuse my habitual sarcasm, but these jokes just write themselves. The whole saga of Glory Doughnuts is like an extended set-up just waiting for me to arrive with the punch lines. And please don’t get the impression that I would ever wish business failure on anyone, not even lesbian vegans who went all-in on the anti-Trump “resistance” in 2017. However, now that the business has indeed failed, hindsight offers too many tempting sarcasm opportunities for me to resist.

For example, Glory Doughnuts was featured in a 2018 Frederick Magazine article on local vegetarian restaurants that began with this sentence: “Eating out should be a joyful experience.” Ba-dum-BOOM!

How Glory Doughnuts celebrated Pride Month

In case you’re not familiar with Maryland geography, Frederick is 50 miles northwest of Washington and used to be a bumpkin town that some folks called “Fredneck,” but it’s grown a lot in the past 30 years as more and more people who work in the D.C. metro area discover that they get a much better quality of life there, if they can stand the longer commute. And so the town has become more liberal, as the upscale newcomers bring their college-educated values with them, which helps explain why a lesbian vegan doughnut shop stayed in business more than seven years in downtown Frederick. There is some irony in the fact that the Trump years were actually the heyday for Glory Doughnuts, whose anti-Trump owners apparently made their first crucial mistake by changing locations right at the start of the 2020 pandemic. Then Biden got elected, and rampant inflation sort of eroded the disposable income that folks used to have, back when gas was just $2.25 a gallon. Now the lesbian vegans are trying to explain those bouncing paychecks:

Former employees at the recently shuttered Glory Doughnuts and Diner on West Patrick Street are pursuing legal options after they say they weren’t fairly compensated for tips they received or overtime they worked.
Workers are searching for a lawyer to represent them, and at least one is planning to file a complaint with the Maryland Department of Labor for unpaid wages.

(Because they’re “part of the family,” remember?)

Alissa Straiter, who owns the business with her wife, Keirsten Straiter, told The Frederick News-Post in an interview on Wednesday that they are speaking with their former crew members and are working to pay them what they’re due.
They are looking into complaints from workers about the way tips were distributed, Alissa Straiter said. She said she and her wife will do “everything in our power” to make sure former Glory employees are adequately compensated for overtime hours.

(Amazing what the threat of a lawsuit can accomplish.)

“We obviously [harbor] no ill or negative feelings towards the former crew,” Straiter said. “We think they are due their wages, and we’re working as quickly as possible to procure those.”
But former employees at Glory say they’re worried the problems with their paychecks won’t be resolved soon.
Five former employees spoke with The Frederick News-Post on Monday about their experiences working at the diner and bakery, which closed Thursday after nearly 10 years in downtown Frederick.
It was common for paychecks to bounce when workers tried to cash them, the employees said. Some workers say they are still waiting for paychecks they should have received weeks ago.
Employees say they found out on Aug. 31 that they would be out of a job within the week. Now, as they search for work and file for unemployment, many say they face financial difficulties. They’ve raised more than $10,000 through an online fundraiser to help them through their hardship.

(“We got ripped off by lesbian vegans. Please help.”)

Many of the workers say they feel disappointed by how their time at Glory came to an end and betrayed by the shop’s owners. Some said Glory was more than a workplace. It was their home.
“I think the owners really relied on the fact that we, as employees, felt an obligation to each other, because we felt like a family,” said Jaime Allen, who started working at the diner in April. “No one wanted to quit abruptly or cause problems that would shut the whole place down, because we really, honestly loved working with each other.”

(“We were betrayed! We felt like family!”)

Straiter encouraged former Glory employees who are missing paychecks to reach out to her. She also apologized for the bounced paychecks. That should not have happened, she said.

(Your paycheck bounced? Oops! “Should not have happened.”)

On Monday, the business posted a message to its Facebook page. Glory has been struggling, the message read. The owners thought they might close at the beginning of the year, the message read, but then they made a plan with their landlord to get back on track.
Once they realized they couldn’t keep up under the terms of the agreement, they decided to close Glory. On Wednesday, Alissa Straiter declined to talk further about the circumstances around the business’s closure beyond what the Facebook post described.
Mariana Ehardt, whose company, Ehardt Investments, owns the 162 W. Patrick St. property that housed Glory, said Alissa and Keirsten Straiter were behind on rent by more than four months. She also said she has paid their utility bill for them since they moved to the property two years ago.
Glory Doughnuts previously was at 244 E. Church St. before it moved to West Patrick Street.
Alissa Straiter said she and her wife owe Ehardt less money than Ehardt says they do. Their utility payments are up-to-date, she said. They plan to hire a lawyer to represent them in their dispute with Ehardt, she said.

(Hey, if you can afford to hire a lawyer, maybe you could afford to give your “family” member the back pay you still owe them?)

She and Keirsten Straiter have a message for their former employees, she said.
“We believe all of you and the unintended hurt we’ve caused,” she read from a prepared statement. “You are all valid in your feelings and your concerns, and we’re sorry that we let you down in the end. We apologize for the lack of heads-up and lack of transition out. Everyone who’s able should support your GoFundMe to cover your additional expenses, beyond your pay.”
Former Glory employees are mourning the loss of a space that felt safe and welcoming to queer people, a community many of them are part of.

(Look, it’s not like “queer people” asked for my advice, but if they did, I’d tell them that if they are looking for a “safe and welcoming” space, maybe they should try San Francisco or Portland, instead of a bumpkin town that locals used to call “Fredneck.”)

Working at Glory was the first job former head baker Charlotte Cook had after coming out as a trans woman. She never felt worried that her coworkers would judge her, she said. She knew she was around good people.
For Kiska Greenberg, the former general manager, Glory was the first place she ever worked where nobody asked an inappropriate question about her being gay.

(What constitutes an “inappropriate question”? And in the grand scheme of things, which is worse, having to put up with “inappropriate questions” or having your paycheck bounce?)

Greenberg saw customers walk in the door and start crying because they felt so safe, she said. She was the first person one of her customers ever told they were trans.
“It’s like, we also felt this obligation to all of these people coming in,” Greenberg said. “We felt like we were doing something so important.”
“At least for me,” she later added, “it’s almost impossible to describe the heartbreak I’m feeling about the entire situation.”

This quest for emotional comfort in one’s employment situation — like a commitment to values like “animal welfare” and “inclusion” — is all well and good, until the paychecks start bouncing. If you took a job driving a forklift in a gigantic industrial warehouse owned by a soulless corporate conglomerate, maybe it wouldn’t “feel like family,” and perhaps it wouldn’t be such an “inclusive environment” that “normalizes diversity,” but guess what? Those paychecks don’t bounce.

Learn to code, kids. Welcome to grown-up world.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

Category: Gays, Maryland

In The Mailbox: 09.08.22 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | September 9, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 09.08.22 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

An obligatory meme

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Did They Expect Crime To Go Down?
EBL: Ukrainian Honey Traps , The Queen Is Dead, God Save The Queen, and Oberlin Starts Paying Gibson’s
Twitchy: Christopher Rufo Takes Garbage Person Uju Anya Apart, also, Jemele Hill Is Being Ignorant In Public Again
Louder With Crowder: ‘She has no idea what she’s talking about’, also, Paging Elon: Former Disney CEO says they passed on buying Twitter over ‘substantial’ number of fake accounts
Vox Popoli: Amazon’s Pants are on Fire, The Real Rebel Alliance, A Clown, Dancing, and The Queen of England, RIP
Stoic Observations: Union Labor

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: The Blob’s Perpetual War
American Greatness: Mayor Bowser Declares Public Emergency to Deal With the 9,400 Migrants Bused to D.C. ‘Sanctuary City’ Since April, also, Biden, Harris Not Welcome on the Campaign Trail
American Power: The Honest Guide to College, also, Michael Shellenbarger
American Thinker: The Strange Case of Ghislaine Maxwell, also, Can the United States Stop the March to Self-Destruction?
Animal Magnetism: Vacation Totty IV
Babalu Blog: Jorge Ramos gives FL Democrat Lt. Gov. candidate ‘Karla Marx’ a pass on her affinity for Fidel Castro, Cuba’s dictatorship continues planting the ‘seeds’ of socialist revolution, and As blatant apartheid intensifies and sky-high prices get higher, Cuban hotels remain 85.6% empty
BattleSwarm: Then: Commercial Investors Are Sucking Up All American Housing! Now: They’re Losing Their Shirts!
Behind The Black: Ingenuity completes 31st flight, Russia confirms Luna-25 delayed till next year, and Today’s blacklisted American: Modern Hollywood now celebrates McCarthyism and blacklisting
Cafe Hayek: No Learning Loss Among Swedish School Children, American Law and Economics Review: Robert Cooter’s ‘The Strategic Constitution’, and Suppression of the Market Isn’t Market Failure
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday
Chicago Boyz: Another Texas Road Trip
Da Tech Guy: At Least the North Koreans Didn’t Have The Choices Californians Had, also, The level of demagoguery and disdain for our founding principles from the Biden regime has reached dangerous levels
Don Surber: Biden unravels Nixon’s best success, also, Democrat midterm plan
First Street Journal: Sometimes even The Los Angeles Times has to tell people the truth
Gates Of Vienna: Socialism is the Loser of History
The Geller Report: Lyin’ Biden Ordered the Illegal Mar-A-Lago Raid, also, The Queen Has Died
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, Don’t Know Much Biology, and Embrace the Power
Hollywood In Toto: Panic Over My Son Hunter Shows Left Won’t Cede Culture Without a Fight, also, Clerks III – Time to Close up Shop
The Lid: Biden’s Racist Tax Plan
Legal Insurrection: Fetterman Stalling, Commits to Only One Debate Weeks After Early Voting Starts, Oberlin College “has initiated payment in full of the $36.59 million judgment in the Gibson’s Bakery case”, California Residents Forced to Prepare for Rolling Blackouts as State Leadership Pushes ‘Green’ Initiatives, and DOJ Lawyer Calls Religious Liberty Organization a ‘Hate Group’
Nebraska Energy Observer: I have a problem
Outkick: ESPN Will Change Monday Night Football Theme This Year For No Reason At All, Stephen A. Smith Makes Epic Blunder About Eagles On ‘First Take’, John Daly Throws Great First Pitch At Cards Game While Rockin’ Sandals, and WWE Superstar Mandy Rose Seen Wearing Nothing But Her Title Belts
Power Line: Return of the Ice Age, Democrats and the F-Bomb, and Art of the deal, Wimpy style
Shark Tank: Taddeo Claims DeSantis Puts Politics Before The American Dream
Shot In The Dark: Renters’ Remorse, also, As Luck Would Have It
STUMP: We Get Results! The Bogus Death Spike of NC and CT are Now Gone!
The Political Hat: Skinsuiting of Marriage, also, Required Wokeness in Academia: Required To Condemn The Constitution; Required Integration Of Racial Consciousness To Teach; Required Pledge To Social Justice
This Ain’t Hell: Not enough Lithium to meet targets – Mining CEO, Democrat official arrested in connection with investigative journalist’s stabbing death, and Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, dead at 96
Transterrestrial Musings: The Space Cultural War, The “Reality-Based” Party, and Terrible News For The UK
Victory Girls: Mark Cuban to Elizabeth Warren: Screw You!, also, Meet The Newest Sideshow In the Biden Circus
Volokh Conspiracy: Extra Discovery Allowed in States’ Lawsuit Claiming Government “Colluded with and/or Coerced Social Media
Watts Up With That: Green Champion Switzerland: Jail Time If you Heat Your Home Above 19C / 66F, also, British Climate Divergence: Jacob Rees-Mogg Appointed Energy Minister, as Charles is Crowned King
Weasel Zippers: Occasional Cortex Cries: America Hates Women And I’ll Never Be President, Poll: Majority Of CNN, MSNBC Viewers Say “Disinformation” Causing Hispanics To Vote Republican, Poll: Voters Overwhelmingly Want Biden Impeached, and Peter Navarro Blames Trump’s Cabinet For Why He Lost In 2020
The Federalist: California Democrats Pass Colossal Big Labor Giveaway, To Fix Student Debt, We Must Destroy Its Source, Google Keeps Truth Social Banned From App Store Over Content Moderation While Facebook, Instagram Broadcast Shooting Spree, and Voters File Legal Complaint Accusing Wisconsin Election Commission Of Violating Federal Election Law
Mark Steyn: Lights Out in Europe, Stocking Up for the New Normal, and The Longest Reign and a Sudden End

Amazon Warehouse Deals

Category: Linkagery

Can the Patriots Exceed Expectations?

Posted on | September 8, 2022 | Comments Off on Can the Patriots Exceed Expectations?

Patriots linebacker Anfernee Jennings

After a generally depressing off-season, the New England Patriots will kick off Sunday at Miami, and few sports analysts forecast either a Pats victory over the Dolphins or a winning season, for that matter.

Every year, sports writers do a pre-season “power ranking” of all 32 NFL teams and, via CBS Boston, here’s how they rate the Patriots:

Now, 14 teams make the playoffs, so you see that seven of these eight rankings project the Patriots to miss the playoffs this year. And who am I to argue with the experts? However, I am hopeful that despite all the hand-wringing from the Boston sports press over Bill Belichick’s odd choices in assistants to direct the New England offense this year, somehow those wrinkles will get ironed out. Furthermore, there are indications that the Patriots’ defense will be better overall this year. It was the breakdown of the defense at year’s end that doomed New England to be “one and done” in the wild-card playoff game, and if the defense is notably improved this year, that could help compensate for whatever struggles the Patriots endure on offense. Also, for those who credit Belichick as a cunning chess master, there is the suggestion that he’s been hiding his real offensive scheme during the pre-season.

Every time people start trying to prognosticate outcomes in football, my answer is, “We’ll see.” Whatever happens on the football field speaks for itself, and we can’t rule out the possibility that the Patriots will run roughshod over the Dolphins, racking up five or six touchdowns in a one-sided blowout. This could happen, although it’s not likely, but if New England somehow manages to squeak out a win Sunday, no matter how close the final score, it will certainly move them up in the power rankings, considering that many of the experts figure Miami to finish ahead of the Patriots in the AFC East division this season. And then, of course, there are the Buffalo Bills, who open the season tonight against the defending Super Bowl champions, the L.A. Rams. Even though it’s a home game for Los Angeles, the Bills are actually favored by the oddsmakers, which tells you how highly Josh Allen and his Buffalo teammates are esteemed by those who watch the NFL most closely, i.e., the gamblers.

Mac Jones and the Patriots are underdogs this season, and maybe that will give them some extra inspiration. Remember, nobody in pre-season last year predicted the Bengals would make it to the Super Bowl, where they just barely lost to the Rams. Let’s hope the Pats can beat the odds like that this year. Hope is about all they’ve got.

Category: Football

In The Mailbox: 09.08.22 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | September 8, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 09.08.22 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

A sad day, this is. I guess we can’t make jokes about her and Keef being the last humans standing at the end of time any more.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #1833
EBL: Uncharted
Twitchy: Watch Ron DeSantis Troll Gavin Newsom Over California’s Energy Headaches
Louder With Crowder: Trans activists stage protest outside government building and poured urine on themselves. Read that again., also, Mike Rowe barbecues troll who tagged him in ‘fraud’ meme accusing him of s***ing on college graduates
Vox Popoli: Better Buckle Up, Amazon’s Diary of Anne Frank, A Cold, Dark Winter, and Grifters, Grifters Everywhere

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Up With The Carceral State, also, European Winter Holiday With Ursula Antoinette
American Greatness: California Teachers Union Accused of Spying on Parents Who Wanted Schools to Reopen
American Thinker: Democrats Dangerously Copy The Tactics Of Famous Fascists
Animal Magnetism: Vacation Totty III
Babalu Blog: Cuban dictatorship warns it will respond with force to any protests over blackouts, also, Image of the Day: Cuban children taught outdoors because their school is in imminent danger of collapse
BattleSwarm: Ukrainian Counteroffensive In Kharkiv?
Behind The Black: Red China’s Long March 2D launches two military satellites, Pushback: Libs of TikTok threatens Twitter with lawsuit if banning continues, and 1-in-5 Democrats and 1-in-3 women Democrats think men can get pregnant
Cafe Hayek: Bellante and Picone on Card and Krueger
CDR Salamander: 5 Years, 17 Lives, 1 Navy
Da Tech Guy: Education during Covid: A failing grade, I’m Old Enough to Remember when the Irish Weren’t in Favor of Authorities Locking UP Irishmen Over Religion, and A Reminder for NE Fans and Sports Radio folk
Don Surber: ITEM 1 : Vogue reported that actress Jennifer Lawrence has the sadz, Trump tried to save SF, and Tech companies take Trump’s advice and leave Red China
First Street Journal: Hold them accountable!
Gates Of Vienna: Matteo Salvini at Lampedusa, Omnicide, and Send in the Lawyers
The Geller Report: MEDIA COVERUP: Another Massive GREEN DISASTER, Amazon Took Solar Rooftops Offline Following Major Fires, Electrical Explosions, also, Dutch Farmers Topple Agriculture Minister Leading Climate Agenda
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, JWST Looks at the Tarantula Nebula, and California to Outlaw Gasoline Powered Cars
Hollywood In Toto: Adam Carolla: Actors Fear Even Criticizing COVID-19 Rules, Jennifer Lawrence’s Intolerance Hurts the Country. Here’s Why, and Barbarian Gives 2022 Another Gonzo Horror Experience
The Lid: LMAO-Fauci & White House Get Bad News In State AGs’ Censorship Lawsuit
Legal Insurrection: Unhinged ‘Comedian’ Kathy Griffin Says Vote for Democrats in November or Expect Civil War, Doocy Calls Out Jean-Pierre Over Tweet Claiming Trump Stole 2016 Election, and Update – Mandy Nagy 8 Years Later
Michelle Malkin: Whiny Media McWhiner of the Month
Nebraska Energy Observer: History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn*
Outkick: Lawmakers Question University of South Carolina Over BYU Cancellation, Adult Man Snags Ball Intended For Young Girl, PGA Tour Revokes Cam Smith’s Parking Spot, Remove Photos Of Him At TPC Sawgrass After Jump To LIV Golf, and Absolute Scenes Unfold At Dodger Stadium As Craig Kimbrel Continues To Dominate With Frozen’s ‘Let It Go’ As Walk-Out Song
Power Line: Triumph of the shill: What say you?
Protein Wisdom: Hump Day Shrapnel
Shark Tank: Demings Releases Pro-abortion Ad Attacking Rubio, Who Responds
Shot In The Dark: Conflict Of Interest, also, Out There With All Those 19-Year-Old Cooks
This Ain’t Hell: Short takes, Calling All Barracks Lawyers: Legal Question, and How’s That Again?
Victory Girls: Fetterman Campaign Has Lots Of Problems
Volokh Conspiracy: The Dormant Commerce Clause and Geolocation: Some Background About Federalism
Watts Up With That: Electric Cars Are Not “Zero-Emission Vehicles”
Weasel Zippers: Biden Claimed He Knew Nothing About Raid On Trump Home – But Search Warrant Shows He Set Events Into Motion That Led To It, 1:4 Democrats Believe Men Can Become Pregnant, and Baltimore Issues Boil Water Advisory After E.Coil Bacteria Found In System
The Federalist: Court: Fauci, Biden Officials Must Cough Up Records Of Collusion With Big Tech, To Restore Americans’ Faith In Elections, Fix Sloppy Record-Keeping , and Brittany Aldean Has Nothing To Apologize For
Mark Steyn: Ins and Outs, also, The Biggest Scandal in History

Amazon Warehouse Deals

Category: Linkagery

R.I.P., Queen Elizabeth II

Posted on | September 8, 2022 | Comments Off on R.I.P., Queen Elizabeth II

When she was just a 14-year-old girl, and England stood alone against Hitler’s terrifying Nazi war machine, Elizabeth inspired her nation by going on the BBC to broadcast a message full of hope and courage: “We are trying to do all we can to help our gallant sailors, soldiers, and airmen, and we are trying, too, to bear our own share of the danger and sadness of war. We know, every one of us, that in the end all will be well. For God will care for us, and bring us victory and peace.”

Unlike some of her children and grandchildren, Queen Elizabeth always strove to uphold the essential dignity of her royal status. She was loved by her subjects, and her death today at age 96 brings to an end a reign that is likely to be remembered fondly by future generations.

Category: Great Britain

White House ‘Targeted Me by Name,’ Says Feminist Vaccine Skeptic Naomi Wolf

Posted on | September 8, 2022 | 2 Comments

When COVID-19 policy critic Alex Berenson got banned from Twitter last year, he sued them, and his account was reinstated after it was revealed that White House officials singled him out by name at an April 2021 White House meeting with representatives of social-media companies.

In June 2021, two months before Berenson was banned from Twitter, the platform banned Naomi Wolf, the famed feminist author of The Beauty Myth who had become outspoken in expressing concerns about COVID-19 vaccine risks, especially for women. In a post Wednesday on the alternative platform Gettr, Wolf said her lawyers had informed her that “documents from Missouri AG Eric Schmitt’s lawsuit” showed she had been “singled out” by “the White House itself.” You don’t have to agree with Wolf (about vaccines or anything else) to be outraged by the idea of government officials pressuring social media companies to censor controversial content by labeling it “misinformation.”

Wolf’s critics would say she has published false or, at least, unverified claims about COVID-19 vaccine risks, and my point is: It doesn’t matter.

People publish discredited nonsense every day — astrology, hello? — and have been doing so since the invention of writing. You can order books from Amazon about witchcraft and alien abductions and all sorts of crazy conspiracy theories (and if you order through my affiliate links, I’ll get a commission), but so what? If people are literate, and yet ignorant enough to believe blatant falsehoods, this points to a problem with our education system, which cannot be solved by banning the publication of things we don’t want them to read, because who will decide such questions?

Were it in my power to decide who should be banned from Twitter, my first decision would be to un-ban myself, but then there’s a long list of people I’d be happy to ban from the platform. Of course, my enemies can congratulate themselves on the unlikelihood of such a hypothetical scenario, but what about the enemies of Alex Berenson and Naomi Wolf?

Invoking the authority of “science,” political appointees at the White House used the emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext to demand that Twitter censor what they deemed “misinformation” relevant to public policy. If you think that is acceptable, would you also be in favor of the White House pushing to censor critics of the administration’s policy on the economy, energy policy or military affairs?

Those who might defend deplatforming Naomi Wolf would probably argue that “misinformation” about vaccine risks in the middle of a pandemic is so potentially harmful as to justify extraordinary measures. To them, I would answer: Question the timing.

See, this has been my basic cause of skepticism for more than a year. Federal taxpayers footed the bill to make COVID-19 vaccines “free,” which in effect was a massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to the pharmaceutical industry. The government ordered millions upon millions of doses of these vaccines and, within a few months, a majority of the population had been inoculated. A huge public-health success, right? Ah, but this was not enough. By spring of 2021, despite the success of the vaccine program, it became clear that a certain percentage of the population simply wasn’t interested in getting vaccinated, at which point Biden administration officials began talking about the need to make the vaccine mandatory. This is where the war against “misinformation” originated, and my cynical suspicion was this: Big Pharma wanted more customers for their product, and vaccine mandates were the proposed solution to their marketing problem. It was about profits, not health.

It does not matter, for purposes of this discussion, whether you believe what Naomi Wolf or any other critic has said about the potential risks of COVID-19 vaccines. What matters is that the White House pressured social media companies to deplatform vaccine critics at the same time they were pushing to make these vaccines mandatory and, if my cynical hunch is correct, this push for vaccine mandates was basically about lining the pockets of Big Pharma — a corrupt motive, because how much do Democrats stand to gain in campaign contributions from Big Pharma?

“Follow the money,” as Deep Throat famously advised Woodward and Bernstein, and I suspect some diligent reporter could collect a Pulitzer Prize for exposing what was going on behind the scenes at the Biden White House during the time when they decided that COVID-19 vaccines should be mandatory, and that critics of their policy should be banned from social media. The whole scene reeks of corruption.

And, just incidentally, I have never liked Naomi Wolf, for reasons both general and specific. But we are living in a time of Fear and Loathing, when the going gets weird and the weird turn pro, and we find ourselves on the same side as people we never expected to become our allies.

All the good people are banned from Twitter, you know.

Category: Conspiracy Theories, Health Care

Suspect In Memphis Woman’s Murder Began His Criminal Career at Age 11

Posted on | September 7, 2022 | 2 Comments

Well, his first arrest was at age 11, although he might have been perpetrating felonies ever since he learned to walk:

The Tennessee man charged in the abduction and murder of a woman who vanished Friday as she was jogging in Memphis has a lengthy juvenile criminal record that dates to 1995, when he was 11 years old, court documents reveal.
Cleotha Abston has been charged with various crimes every year from 1995 to 2000, when he was sentenced to 24 years in prison for kidnapping a Memphis lawyer, according to documents obtained by NBC News.
Just two years after he was released in 2020, Abston, 38, is now charged with the death of Eliza Fletcher.
Listed in the documents are multiple offenses, including convictions for a rape charge from 1998, when he was 14, and a kidnapping charge from 2000, when he was 16.
Felicia Hogan, a spokesperson for Shelby County Juvenile Court, said in a statement Wednesday that the court found that Abston “committed rape when he was 14 years old.” She did not provide further details.
“Because of the severity of the crime, the statute says this offense information is releasable even though at the time Abston was a juvenile,” Hogan said. “There is no information being released on when, to whom or where this rape happened. The rest of his juvenile record is sealed and there are no other records to be released.” . . .
Tennessee Lt. Gov. Randy McNally said Tuesday that had Abston remained in jail for the full 24 years [for the 2000 kidnapping], Fletcher would still be alive.
“It is simply disgraceful that this individual did not serve his full sentence for his previous crimes,” McNally tweeted.

In fairness, as the story explains, it isn’t as if Abston was the beneficiary of some kind of Soros-funded liberal policy. He had served more than 500 days in jail prior to being sentenced, and all Tennessee prison inmates are eligible to “earn” up to a 15% reduction in their sentences. So subtracting the previous “time served” prior to sentencing and then adding in his “earned time” as an inmate, there wasn’t anything unusual about the length of Abston’s sentence.

When I first mentioned this case Sunday, Eliza Fletcher still hadn’t been found, but Monday afternoon a body was found in an abandoned duplex, and Tuesday officials confirmed that it was Fletcher, the heiress to a billion-dollar fortune who chose to work as a kindergarten teacher.

What a beautiful person, a school teacher singing to her students.

Eliza Fletcher was killed by a career criminal. Lives like hers are lost because we care more about criminals than law abiding citizens.
pic.twitter.com/hdVAXSJGDB

— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) September 6, 2022

By all accounts, Eliza Fletcher was a wonderful human being, whereas the guy who killed her . . . Well, I guess I forgot to mention that Cleotha Abston’s brother Mario is a convicted felon who was busted with drugs and a pistol, and his father, Cleo Henderson, “is currently in prison for second-degree murder and is scheduled for release in 2044.” So everybody in the entire family is a criminal, it would seem.

There’s no “moral to the story” here. It’s just one of the very best people getting killed by one of the very worst. Not much to add.

Category: Crime, Tennessee