The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Democratic Socialists of America Now Planning Layoffs Amid Financial ‘Crisis’

Posted on | January 22, 2024 | Comments Off on Democratic Socialists of America Now Planning Layoffs Amid Financial ‘Crisis’

What? You’re telling me that socialists are not good at managing finances and budgets? I’m shocked — shocked! — by this revelation:

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are facing an internal bloodbath as they beg staff members to volunteer to lose their jobs amid a funding crisis.
The organization said Bread & Roses members on the National Political Committee (NPC), which functions as the board for DSA, asked for volunteers among staff and directors to step down and take a severance payment. The organization says it’s a “necessary but hopefully temporary measure” to keep the DSA afloat.
The DSA said they “should be thriving,” but they instead are seeing a “decline in revenue, membership, and overall excitement.”
“We’re living in a moment when revived labor struggles and the fight for a free Palestine are galvanizing so many Americans,” the organization said, adding it’s “treading water” and things will continue to be tough.
The DSA accused “top directors” of mismanaging “our dues by withholding essential information from elected leaders for years and imposed their own political objectives that would keep DSA in the model of a progressive non-profit rather than a mass party that is capable of getting us closer to a rupture with capitalism.”
“No one would be considering layoffs if the deficit weren’t so extreme,” the organization continued. “But now that we are in this crisis, we can’t fix it by hollowing out the organization.”

If only we could view this as a metaphor, or something.



 

Category: Progressivism

No More Statues of White Men?

Posted on | January 22, 2024 | Comments Off on No More Statues of White Men?

William Penn statue in Philadelphia

Earlier this month, Pennsylvania was in an uproar after the Biden administration announced it was “planning to permanently remove a statue of William Penn from Philadelphia’s Welcome Park to provide a ‘more inclusive experience for visitors.'” In only a matter of days, however, the administration reversed the decision — Pennsylvania is a swing state, and it’s an election year — but only now are we starting to get some explanation of what led up to this incident:

The National Park Service’s proposal to remove a William Penn statue from a historic site in Philadelphia –- quickly withdrawn amid a backlash — wasn’t a priority for some of the Native Americans the agency was required to consult with as it prepared to renovate the deteriorating plaza.
Uprooting the statue of Pennsylvania’s founder from Welcome Park also wasn’t a major point of discussion as park service officials and tribal representatives met to plan the renovation over video last year, said Jeremy Johnson, director of cultural education for the Delaware Tribe of Indians.
Rather, what tribal representatives had envisioned for the plaza is an exhibit that would highlight the culture, history, traditions and perceptions of the Native Americans who had lived there for thousands of years before Penn arrived, Johnson said.
“We do still speak highly of William Penn,” Johnson said. But tribal representatives, he said, “were really just focusing on our culture and our history and that, in a way, he was an important part of it, but … it was a small interaction compared to our overall history.”
A park service spokesperson hasn’t responded to repeated questions about the abandoned proposal. . . .
A top state Republican lawmaker, Bryan Cutler, said removing Penn’s statue to “create a more inclusive environment takes (an) absurd and revisionist view of our state’s history.” Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro pressed the Biden administration to keep the statute in its “rightful home.”
The park service said it consulted with representatives of the Haudenosaunee, the Delaware Nation, Delaware Tribe of Indians, the Shawnee Tribe, and the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, whose ancestors were displaced by the Pennsylvania colony. Such consultation with the federally recognized tribes is required under the National Historic Preservation Act.
But leaders of the Shawnee Tribe and the Eastern Shawnees, both now based in Oklahoma, like the Delawares, said they hadn’t had any discussions about it. Ben Barnes, chief of the Shawnee Tribe, said his tribe hadn’t received a customary “dear chief” letter from the agency — and he objects to removing the statue.
“William Penn was an ally of the Shawnee,” Barnes said. “As long as he lived, he kept his promise. As long as he was able to speak on behalf of the colony in western Pennsylvania, the Shawnees had a home there. … Of all the terrible human beings that inflicted tragedy upon native peoples, I don’t put William Penn in that category.”

Wait a minute — in order to renovate a park in downtown Philadelphia, the feds are required by law to consult tribes that live in Oklahoma? What the actual fuck is going on here? Personally, I have no grievance with the Shawnees, but can somebody explain to me why they should be given a de facto veto over these park plans? If this is actually required by law, then the law needs to be changed. My suspicion, however, is that this whole controversy happened because Joe Biden is president, and the people he put in change of the park service have decided that the rule should now be “no more statues of white men.” The fact that nobody at the park service is answering questions is highly suggestive of a cover-up.



 

Category: Pennsylvania

FMJRA 2.0: The Machinery of Night

Posted on | January 21, 2024 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: The Machinery of Night

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

It’s just one of those days.

Rule 5 Monday: Happy Lee-Jackson Day!
Animal Magnetism
Flappr
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

(Insert Hillbilly Joke Here)
The Daley Gator
357 Magnum
Flappr
A View From The Beach
EBL

The End of Two Football Dynasties
357 Magnum
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Whip it good!
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 01.15.24
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Trump (Predictably) Wins Big in Iowa; MSNBC (Predictably) Melts Down on Air
Flappr
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 01.17.24 (Morning Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Craziest Cult Story of the Year (So Far)
The Daley Gator
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 01.19.24 (Morning Edition)
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 1.19.24 (Early Evening Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 01.19.24 (Late Night Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

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Category: FMJRA Award

Democrats: ‘Our Voters Are Too Stupid to Understand How Awesome Joe Biden Is’

Posted on | January 20, 2024 | Comments Off on Democrats: ‘Our Voters Are Too Stupid to Understand How Awesome Joe Biden Is’

They’ve got their 2024 campaign message down cold:

On Friday’s broadcast of ABC’s “GMA3,” Biden 2024 Campaign Co-Chair Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) blamed President Joe Biden’s poor numbers among young black voters on “a lot of misinformation going on out here. There are a lot of things being said that [are] just not true.” And people basing their opinions on “incomplete” information.
Co-host DeMarco Morgan asked, “How concerned are you when it comes to the President’s ability to reach black voters? The President has an approval rating of 65% amongst black Americans aged 50 and up, but that drops down to 32% amongst black Americans under the age of 50. Are you concerned?”
Clyburn responded, “I’m concerned with the reporting of this, yes. When I see those numbers, my goodness, if there’s any truth to the numbers — which, I don’t believe them, because I talk to black people all the time. I have three black daughters. They tell me differently. My grandchildren tell me differently. So, I don’t know where those numbers are coming from. But when you ask a question and someone is basing their opinion on incomplete information or misinformation and the other side seems to be pretty good at misinformation, we know what happened in the last election, they didn’t stop when the election was over. It’s still going on now. So, there’s a lot of misinformation going on out here. There are a lot of things being said that [are] just not true. And I think that we are going to break through that when it goes one-on-one.”

What he’s saying is that black Americans are so stupid that they’re being deceived by “misinformation” from “the other side.” See, this is why the Justice Department had to send “Ricky Vaughn” to prison for a meme — the Democrats are dependent on the votes of people so ignorant they are easily tricked into thinking they can vote by text message.

If I were to accuse black people of being this stupid, it would be racist. But it’s not me that’s saying this, it’s Democrats saying it.



 

Category: Democrats, Election

In The Mailbox: 01.19.24 (Late Night Edition)

Posted on | January 20, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 01.19.24 (Late Night Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
RIP Howard Waldrop and Professor Peter Schickele.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Families Of Dead People Don’t Like Self-Defense
EBL: All Creatures Great and Small
Twitchy: Nikki Haley Accused of Cheating, Pete Buttigieg’s Birthday Gave Sleepy Joe Another Chance To Make A Fool Of Himself, and We Did Nazi That Coming
Louder With Crowder: Joe Rogan LOSES IT on globalists going after farmers, “Wake up to why anybody would do that!”
Vox Popoli: Evolution and AI Fraud, The Retardery of Clown World, UATV Brave Issue, The End of Sports Illustrated, and A Strange Hill to Die On
According To Hoyt: Two announcements, Violence Inherent In the System, and What comes After Fear
Tessellations: Slight Reorientation

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Substack was a Trap
American Conservative: Will Illegal Aliens Choose the 2024 Republican Nominee in Arizona? also, What Davos Can Expect From a Republican Admin
American Greatness: The Intellectual Foundations of MAGA, Louisiana Governor Orders State to Start Tracking Cost of Illegal Immigration for Taxpayers, The Hysterical Style in American Politics, and Inflated Grades, Increasing Graduation Rates, and Deflated Test Scores
American Thinker: A Government that Sows Division and Subsidizes Madness, 2024 Promises the Expansion of the Green Energy Scam, The Final Four Cases Against Donald Trump, and ‘Their’ Democracy – Tyranny Comes to the US
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News, Animal’s Red Thursday News, and Rule Five 1980-2024 Friday
Babalu Blog: Cubans feel the effects of the Castro dictatorship’s new economic ‘package’, Cuban ambassador in Costa Rica sends ‘warning letter’ to Costa Rican lawmakers, Another Cuban mercenary for Russia is killed in Ukraine, No privileges for you! Cuba’s ruling elite impose strict rules of behavior on officials under their command, and Argentina’s Javier Milei delivers fiery speech against leftist collectivism at Davos World Economic Forum
BattleSwarm: Pro-Palestinian Makes Scene At Abbott Event, Finds Out What “Don’t Mess With Texas” Means, Soros Prosecutors = Paradise For Sex Traffickers, Post Office Firearm Ban Found Unconstitutional, and LinkSwarm For January 19
Behind The Black: Toxic and incompetent academia, Military awards satellite contracts worth $2.5 billion to three companies, Red China launches cargo ship to Tiangong-3 station, More academics demand that space activity be controlled and regulated, by them, JAXA: SLIM soft landing successful but will likely die prematurely after landing, and Today’s blacklisted American: Parents sue school and principal for punishing their son for being a football fan
Cafe Hayek: Trade and Production, also, Protectionism Is Counterproductive
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Chicago Boyz: The Giraffe and the Unicorn
Da Tech Guy: Pam and Robert Proved Right Again, Risk and Reward Under the Fedora, Progressives have transformed Martin Luther King Junior’s dream into a phantasmagorical nightmare, and Our Dynasty 1971 League World Series Is Over and What a Playoff Season it was
Don Surber: Biden holds America hostage
First Street Journal: Once again, Hamas shows who they are, Killadelphia, It was -4.1º Fahrenheit on the farm this morning, Well, of course that’s it! and Why do you peons hate Mother Gaia?
Gates Of Vienna: Take the Infidels For Everything You Can Get! Tom Vandendriessche: “Purposefully Organized Repopulation”, “Davos is the Representation of the Devil”, Citizens of the EU Pay the Poor Tax, and Paying Through the Nose For Cultural Enrichment
The Geller Report: WWIII: Pakistan Launches Strikes Inside Iran After Iran Attacked Pakistan As US Pounds More Missile Sites Inside Yemen, CBS News Reports: Democrats Voted for Nikki Haley in Iowa’s Caucuses, Democrat Proposes Resolution to Remove the Statue of Liberty, and Betrayed AGAIN: Here’s the Republicans Who Voted to Fund Biden’s Corrupt Runaway Spending
Hollywood In Toto: Whoopi Goldberg vs. Aaron Rodgers: A Tale of Two Media Narratives, Is This Saturday Night Live’s Last Chance for Survival? Origin Lets Ava DuVernay Explore Racism, Hope, and Zone of Interest Offers Unflinching Portrait of Evil
The Lid: Should Americans Trust Any Lawyers Pretending Earth Day China Is Just Another Grassroots Green Group? Could Trump Sweep The Primaries? and Signs Pointing to Michelle Obama Angling to Replace Joe Biden as Democrat Presidential Nominee
Legal Insurrection: Johns Hopkins Won’t Punish DEI Boss for Sending Newsletter About ‘Privilege’, “Something’s very broken in (NY) state government where there’s open discrimination going on and nobody says anything”, Woke Business Managers Rebranding “ESG” Investment as “Responsible Business”, Senate GOP to Treasury: Why Urge Banks to ‘Surveil Customer’ Transactions Using Politically Charged Search Terms? Anti-Israel Leader: Taunting NYC Child Cancer Patients Justified Because Hospital Received Donation From “Zionist”, Uvalde Families Demand Law Enforcement Face Charges After Critical DOJ Report, and Eco-Extremist Demands Farmers, Fishermen Be Tried for “Ecocide” in Latest Day of Davos Insanity
Nebraska Energy Observer: FAFO, Taking, and Scattershot Friday
Outkick: Cole Beasley Upsets Snowflakes After Pushing Back Against Guys Painting Their Nails, Dan Le Batard Producer Demands ESPN Condemn UFC Champion Sean Strickland, CJ Stroud Identifies As Christian In The #MeMe Era , Todd Bowles Asked Worst Question Ever About Playing Through Harsh Weather In A Domed Stadium, Apparently Shilo And Shedeur Sanders Are Fashion Models Now, Sports Illustrated Publisher Reportedly Laying Off Majority Of Staff As Tributes For Once Iconic Magazine Flood Social Media, and NBC Edits Out CJ Stroud Praising Jesus In Social Media Post Of Post-Game Interview
Power Line: Perjury In a J6 Trial? What Keeps the Lights On, Electric Vehicles, Cars of the Past, and Thoughts from the ammo line
Shark Tank: Buchanan Applauds Passage of Tax Relief For American Families & Workers Act
Shot In The Dark: Bach To The Future, From The “Feel Good” Files, Let’s Stir Up Another Republic-Threatening Hornet’s Nest Part I, Just Remember, Unserious, and Promotions
STUMP: Some Mortality & Morbidity Updates
The Political Hat: Having An Incorrect Meme Will Result in 5 Years Of Jail In Australia, Quick Takes – To Kill Or Not, and Firing Line Friday: Jews and American Politics
This Ain’t Hell: Long as they are happy on the rez, The VA says it is not paying for illegal alien healthcare, Sarah Cavanaugh Gets Reduced Sentence, Loyalty to the Constitution emphasized at Military Academies, Valor Friday, Trump White House didn’t know military from civilian? and Iran strikes targets in Syria, Iraq and Pakistan, Pakistan follows up by striking into Iran
Transterrestrial Musings: Mike Griffin’s New (Old) Plan, also, Peter Schickele
Victory Girls: Joy Reid Burns With Bigotry After Trump Win in Iowa, Is The Republican Primary All Over Except For The Shouting? and Blinken Pushes Two-State Solution Again, Netanyahu Says Not Happening
Volokh Conspiracy: Oral Argument in Devillier v. Texas Suggests Victory for Property Rights Likely, Fifth Circuit Grants En Banc Rehearing to Case Where Texas Claims Immigration and Drug Smuggling Qualify as “Invasion”, and Ideologically Mixed Amicus Brief Stresses Need for S. Ct. to Resolve Merits of the Trump Disqualification Case
Watts Up With That: The Cold Truth About Renewable Energy in the Pacific Northwest, The Chicago Deep Freeze has created a “Tesla Graveyard”, NACs Defeated! SEC Backs Down, ‘That’s A Stupid Question’: John Kerry Snaps At Reporter Asking Him About His ‘Carbon Footprint’ At Davos, MSNBC Damage Control: “Yes, it’s cold. Yes, the planet’s still warming.”, and Un-educated Climate Alarmists are Dumbfounded to Learn Antarctica’s Record-breaking “Heatwave” Increased Antarctica’s Ice Sheet!
The Federalist: Actual Republicans Want Nothing To Do With Nikki Haley, Survey: Two-Thirds Of Elites Say There’s Too Much Freedom In America, Why Doesn’t The FBI Want To Get To The Bottom Of Alleged Massachusetts Cash-For-Vote Scheme? Ballots Cast Without Proof Of Citizenship ‘Exploded’ After Lawfare Crippled Arizona Election Laws, Where Was ‘Neutral’ ProPublica On Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Ethics Violations? Infamous ‘Zuckbucks’ Group Tries To Election-Meddle Again — This Time With Federal Tax Dollars, and I Wonder Why Leftists Leave Comanche Imperialism Out Of Their Performative Land Acknowledgments
Mark Steyn: Day One in Court, Go Get ‘Em, Mark! Taking Them at Their Word, We Have a Jury! “Injustice Anywhere is a Threat to Justice Everywhere”, Ann and Phelim at the Steyn Trial, and Live Around the Planet: Friday January 19th

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 1.19.24 (Early Evening Edition)

Posted on | January 19, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 1.19.24 (Early Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: What Should A Woman Do When Confronted By A Home Invader?
EBL: Cocaine Found on Hunter Biden’s Recovered Firearm, Monsieur Spade, Mark Steyn finally faces off with Michael Mann in Court, and Sisu
Twitchy: We Thought Geraldo Retired But He Has Thoughts On Iowa, Mr. Wonderful Holds Nothing Back In Blast At PM CastroTrudeau, and Chip Roy’s Epic Rant – When Will Congress Improve Americans’ Lives?
Louder With Crowder:  Not sure who this indigenous specimen is from WEF, but it didn’t stop Elon Musk from having a field day with her on X, Reporter thinks he can play “gotcha” with UFC’s Sean Strickland over a three-year-old tweet, “This is why people hate the media”, and Bill Would Require Schools To Call Animal Control On Students Who Identify As Furries
Vox Popoli: Disintegration, Improving Democracy with Technology, The Science of Female Competition, and Bookshelf Billionaire
Draw & Talk: Sexy Plumber Sisters 1 & 2 On Kickstarter!
Stoic Observations: A Conversation About Policing
L’Ombre de l’Olivier: Drug Overdoses & Liberalization
Upstream Reviews: House of Assassins by Larry Correia
Going It Alone: Three Years Later

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: The Costs Of War At Sea
Dana Loesch: Last Week In Legal – Homewrecker Edition, Big Government Republicans Are Having Their Moment
Don Surber: Trump 1 Xi 0

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 01.19.24 (Morning Edition)

Posted on | January 19, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 01.19.24 (Morning Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: I’m Shocked To Discover Vote Fraud Going On In Illinois
EBL: Agatha Raisin, also, Funny Woman
Twitchy: 
Louder With Crowder: Twilight Star Claims It’s Such A “Gay” Movie: It’s All About Oppression!, Harvard professor lashes out at Twitter’s “scary” new name, gets slapped with epic response from Elon Musk, and Of Course, RuPaul Uses His Emmy Speech To Defend Indoctrinating Kids With Drag Queens
Vox Popoli: Brutal, Sigma Game on Substack, and The Irrelevant Media
Upstream Reviews: The Tale Of Patrick Peyton
L’Ombre de L’Olivier: Elections Are Dangerous For “Our” Democracy
Going It Alone: New Year, New Platform

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: 2% Keeps On Slipping, Slipping, Slipping Into The Future, 
Don Surber: State-sanctioned protest, 
STUMP: Academia – Dealing With Writing In The Age Of ChatGPT

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Category: Linkagery

Craziest Cult Story of the Year (So Far)

Posted on | January 18, 2024 | Comments Off on Craziest Cult Story of the Year (So Far)

Say hello to Rashad Jamal White, who insists he is not a “cult leader.” He insists on this while apparently running his social-media presence from a prison in Georgia, which makes me wonder if state officials are aware that prison inmates are using the Internet to engage in such conduct. White’s online enterprise — which some might call a cult and others might call a scam — is the grandiosely named University of Cosmic Intelligence (UCI). What sort of “intelligence” do you suppose that Rashad Jamal White is dispensing via his website, his Twitter and Instagram accounts, and his videos on TikTok and YouTube? Is this “Cosmic Intelligence” useful in some way to his followers? And how did Rashad Jamal White obtain access to this “Cosmic Intelligence”?

Did I mention, by the way, that he’s in prison? Pretty sure I did, but what I didn’t mention is that Rashad Jamal White is serving an 18-year sentence for child molestation which, I dare say, would make most sensible people leery of accepting any advice or guidance from him.

Ah, but you see, if you were a sensible person, you wouldn’t be likely to become a patron/follower of this Definitely-Not-a-Cult Leader:

A self-described spiritual guru and prophet said from prison on Wednesday that he doesn’t know the six people who police say disappeared from a north St. Louis County home in August and that he isn’t the leader of a cult.

(Well, he denied it, see? That settles it. So whatever you do, don’t defame this “self-described spiritual guru” by calling him a cult leader.)

Berkeley [Missouri] police on Tuesday accused rapper and nationwide spiritual leader Rashad Jamal of being the leader of a cult that played a role in their disappearance.
But Jamal, whose full name is Rashad Jamal White, told the Post-Dispatch in a wide-ranging phone interview from a Georgia prison, where he is serving an 18-year sentence for child molestation, that his “University of Cosmic Intelligence” is simply a spiritual YouTube channel.

(Right, and Jonestown, Guyana, was simply a rural campground.)

“I’m just giving you my opinion on a plethora of different subjects: from metaphysics to quantum physics to molecular biology to marine biology to geography to Black history to world history. I’m giving you my opinions on these things,” he said. “That doesn’t make me a cult leader.”

(Whenever you need an opinion on quantum physics or molecular biology, just go to some random guy’s YouTube channel, especially if the random guy is a child molester serving 18 years in prison.)

Three St. Louis residents – 25-year-old Mikayla Thompson, her cousin 36-year-old Ma’Kayla Wickerson, and Wickerson’s 3-year-old daughter Malaiyah Wickerson — and three other people — Naaman Williams, 30, of Washington, D.C.; and Gerrielle German, 27, of Horn Lake, Mississippi, and her 3-year-old Ashton Mitchell — left a rental home in Berkeley after they were served eviction papers in August.
They were last seen Aug. 13 at a Quality Inn in Florissant, and police on Tuesday said they were part of a cult that might have played a role.

(What kind of people seek out opinions about quantum physics from Rashad Jamal White? The kind of people who get evicted and end up at a cheap motel near the St. Louis Airport.)

Jamal said Wednesday, in what he described as his first media interview in years, that he found out about the accusations from a TV report and wasn’t surprised that police had put a “target on my back.”
“I am pretty sure I have never met these people,” he said. “I get on my phone and I give a lecture. I go live, and then I get off the phone. I do not know the people that are in my live(stream). It’s too many people.”

(Again — are Georgia officials aware that they’ve got inmates “going live” on social media from their prison cells? Is this activity allowed under Georgia prison policy? If so, why is it allowed?)

Jamal grew up in Chicago, where he said he was surrounded by violence and poverty. He watched those around him deal drugs and struggle with addiction, so he turned to poetry and rapping to share his message.
He moved to Atlanta in 2017 in pursuit of a record deal.

(OK, time for the “Aspiring Rapper Update” tag.)

He said he wanted to give back to his community, but he became disenchanted with the record industry.
Still, he has released two studio albums — “Only the Real Gon Relate,” released in March 2022, and “Promethazine and Pain (Based on a True Story),” which dropped three months ago.
The album cover for “Only the Real Gon Relate” is a re-creation of the famous Malcolm X photo where the civil rights leader is dressed in a suit and peeking through a curtain with a long gun in hand.
Jamal’s most popular song on YouTube on his personal page is titled “God Talk.” The song, released in August 2020, has more than 300,000 views. The video bounces between scenes of Jamal rapping, news clips and Jamal meditating near a river surrounded by bamboo.
The opening scene in the video defines the song’s title as: “To teach someone the truth about the origins of humans, the Gods, the planet, the secrets of Black people DNA and to enlighten one about the esoteric wisdom of the cosmos.”

(Yes, of course — when you’re seeking enlightenment “about the esoteric wisdom of the cosmos,” not to mention quantum physics and so forth, the place to find it is a random dude rapping on YouTube.)

Jamal said he decided to be more vocal about his beliefs in 2020 after the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis. He said he felt compelled to be “a voice of all people who have been oppressed.”
That’s when he created a YouTube page called The University of Cosmic Intelligence, which shares a name with the company he founded to sell lectures, classes and paraphernalia, including crystals.
That page has almost 200,000 subscribers, and includes hourslong, sometimes rambling livestreams by Jamal about the nature of the universe, the power inherent in Black and Latino people, and the enemies he says are out to get him. . . .

OK, enough with the italic fisking mode because, while that St. Louis Post-Dispatch article tells you a lot about Rashad Jamal White, they don’t even mention that this isn’t the first time law enforcement officials have been interested in followers of his Definitely-Not-a-Cult.

In August 2022, Krystal Pinkins and Yasmine Hider were living “off the grid” — illegally camping in Alabama’s Talladega National Forest near Cheaha State Park — when they attempted to rob two visitors to the park, one of whom ended up dying of gunshot wounds. Pinkins and Hider were recently sentenced to prison in that case, which seemed mysterious to many people familiar with the area. What the hell were these two women doing out in the middle of the woods on a mountainside (Cheaha is the highest point in Alabama) with no means of support?

Little did any of us suspect what the answer might be.

Followers of Charismatic
New Age Influencer Accused
of Two Different Murders in Alabama

In case you haven’t already guessed, the phrase “Charismatic New Age Influencer” in that headline refers to none other than Definitely-Not-a-Cult-Leader Rashad Jamal White. In addition to the Talladega Forest murder committed by Pinkins and Hider, there was another 2022 murder in Mobile County:

The Alabama man accused of killing his mother and injuring two other family members with a sword was fascinated by Egyptian gods and watched TikTok videos made by a conspiracy theorist, his father said.
In the weeks leading up to the Mobile County slaying of 61-year-old Helen Nettles Washam in a sword attack that also injured his brother and uncle, suspect Damien Winslow Washam, was obsessed with TikTok videos made by Rashad Jamal, whose conspiracies include that NBA players are “synthetic robots” and that babies born during the COVID-19 pandemic are “ancient souls.”
“He had started listening to some crazy group of people, like a cult or something,” Hubert Washam, Damien Washam’s father, told Oxygen. “Evidently, he had sent links to his sisters and were telling them about it, talking about the sun, and getting energy from the sun. It was just something he got into four weeks, six weeks ago. I don’t understand it.”
Hubert Washam also said his son made “disturbing” purchases before the slaying, including a knife, spiked brass knuckles, a statue of an Egyptian god and a poster of the underworld Egyptian god, Osiris.
“When I opened it up I just was hurt because maybe it seemed like there was something disturbing going on with him that we didn’t pick up on,” Hubert Washam told Oxygen. “He ordered something he definitely has absolutely no use for. I can’t understand why he would order it unless he was planning to kill us all.”
Hubert Washam said his son recently became fascinated by Egyptian gods.
“I don’t understand it. Crazy stuff — Egyptian gods of the underworld. He ordered that sword, another knife, other stuff that looked like he was planning to kill us all and burn the house down,” he said. “I just wish I could ask him now what the heck was all this stuff for.”
Helen Nettles Washam was found dead in the 6700 block of Mausap Road in the Semmes area Sunday night after the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office received a report of a deceased woman and two men suffering from lacerations.
There, they say Damien Winslow Washam, 23, used a sword to kill his mother who was pronounced dead at the scene.

So here you had two widely separated murder cases in Alabama — Semmes is more than 250 mile south of Mount Cheaha — in the span of a few months, and both of them involved suspects described as “followers” of Definitely-Not-a-Cult-Leader Rashad Jamal White. In the Talladega Forest case, “It’s unclear how Hider and Pinkins came to know one another, but both were linked to Jamal”:

Videos and social media posts from earlier this year show Pinkins with one of Jamal’s most vocal and devoted disciples, a Memphis woman who describes herself as a real estate agent and a “sovereign empress” and has a small following online as another self-styled New Age spiritual leader. . . . Hider not only began re-sharing Jamal’s videos in the months leading up to the murder and parroting some of his obsessions, but was also tagged into a group photo by the same Memphis woman.” . . .

Describing one of his jailhouse video lectures:

“The oppressors seek to label me a pedophile because I had the courage to speak out against them and expose their lies, plots, and plans within their Satanic kingdom,” he said, “as opposed to labeling me what I really am, which is a Black activist, scientist, philosopher, historian, philanthropist, author, revolutionary poet, and a public speaker working hard to raise the vibration of the collective consciousness.” He likened himself to, among others, Martin Luther King Jr., Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Left Eye, Princess Diana, Michael Jackson, Kanye West, Bill Cosby, and Kobe Bryant—all of whom, he asserted, were assassinated, brought down by false charges, or “put under MK-Ultra” for trying to expose the unspecified Satanic plots and schemes he seeks to uncover.
“Rashad Jamal spoke out and now he gets falsely accused of child molestation,” Jamal added. “Let him who has eyes see clearly.”

Well, well, well . . . And now Missouri officials have linked this Definitely-Not-a-Cult-Leader to six missing people last seen at a cheap motel near the St. Louis airport. Remember what I said about the “Love Has Won”/“Mother God” cult?

[A]lmost anyone could have their own cult nowadays, because the Internet provides access to an effectively unlimited supply of gullible followers. Nearly all of [cult leader Amy] Carlson’s followers were the kind of dopeheads we used to call “burnouts,” people who’d done too much LSD and permanently fried their cerebral cortex. These wild-eyed kooks are interviewed for the documentary and let’s just say that none of them seem to have a very firm grasp on reality. . . .
What sort of lessons can we learn from this? To me, it’s about how the Internet creates niche echo chambers of like-minded people. Even the tiniest fraction of a single percentage point of the population represents an audience of thousands, when you realize that there are 1.2 billion English-speaking Internet users worldwide (one-tenth of one percent = 1,200,000). Given the basic mathematics of the equation, it’s not really strange that “Mother God” Carlson could get 20,000 online followers, of whom about two dozen moved to Colorado to join her cult IRL.

Some of Rashad Jamal White’s videos had hundreds of thousands of views, and while it’s impossible to know how many hard-core disciples this Definitely-Not-a-Cult-Leader may have, the available facts suggest that it’s not a small number. He’s got dozens, certainly, and possibly even hundreds of committed followers. Because everybody wants to know about quantum physics and “the esoteric wisdom of the cosmos,” and this random dude posting TikTok videos from a Georgia prison cell seems to know what he’s talking about, right? “Cosmic Intelligence”!

Here’s some wisdom for you: Crazy People Are Dangerous.



 

Category: Aspiring Rapper Update, Racism
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