The Story of My Ban on Breaking News & Religion

This is the story of how I was permanently banned on Breaking News and Religion by the owner of the website, The Unknown Sleeper. 

I have tried to leave out extraneous information, but tried to include enough information to not leave readers with many questions. I am willing to answer any question you may have. 

To start, you can find the commenting thread where TUS (the unknown sleeper) decided to ban me at BNR. Below is a screenshot of the interaction. But there is a lot of backstory than just that single thread. 

https://breakingnewsandreligion.online/2024/01/03/european-anti-zionism/#comment-6359961426

BNR has a history of normalizing anti-semitism. Jewish commenter Alex The Kay left BNR due to “blatant anti-semitism” several months ago:

A former mod on BNR, commenter Sir Tainley, submitted not one, but two threads to The Den (BNR’s conflict resolution forum) about anti-semitism on BNR.

https://theden.breakingnewsandreligion.online/2023/11/02/moderator-posting-racist-memes/

https://theden.breakingnewsandreligion.online/2023/11/03/is-holocaust-denialism-welcome-on-the-site/

Sir Tainley’s complaints about anti-semitism were ignored, as were mine. Alex The Kay’s departure due to anti-semitism was meaningless for The Urban Sleeper, despite TUS claiming to “respect” Alex. 

Sir Tainley’s first complaint was regarding slurs against the Jewish people, accomplished in comparisons between Israelis and nazis. Such comparisons are recognized by the German Government, the  International Holocaust Remembrance Association, and other relevant parties as anti-Semitic. Take the number one comment on a recent BNR thread regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

“Three months whereby 1/10 of the number of supplies needed to feed a population is a starvation programme reminiscent of what occurred in the death camps of Auchwicz, Dachau and Treblinka. Though the difference with WWII is the US is directly implicated in the mass starvation of the Gazan people by supporting this inhuman policy of the Zionist entity. The US is in fact seen as being directly responsible and is a political pariah in the world.”

In Sir Tainley’s second complaint, Sir Tainley asserted that certain comments are implicitly justifying the Holocaust and compares them to BNR comments equating Israel’s actions with nazi actions. TUS disagrees, claiming that the comments don’t imply the alleged accusations of Holocaust justification or anti-Semitism.

I also complained about anti-semitism of a mod, Rawr. Rawr repeatedly posts a cartoon which every Jew I have ever asked about agreed was an anti-Semitic cartoon. 

Now, what would TUS say about me, you should be wondering at this point. TUS thinks I am a “fake Jew” and a “troll”. TUS claims I “feign Judaism and homosexuality as a smokescreen for spewing bigotry and hate”. Specifically regarding the term ‘fake Jew”, TUS offered various reasons for calling me this name. Sometimes, he would say he thinks I am a non-Jew outright lying about being Jewish. Other times he would claim my Jewishness is illegitimate because I am atheist (Jewish atheism is a not uncommon strain of Judaism in which Jews embrace the cultural aspect of Judaism but not the religious dogma). Regardless of his reasoning for calling me fake Jew, TUS claims I am “no different from any other hatemonger you might find on Stormfront or any other similar hate sites”. 

Why?

As a gay man, I am very bothered by treatment of LGBT people across the Islamic world. Approximately 74% of Christians live somewhere with civil unions or gay marriage. Only 11% of Christians live somewhere homosexuality is illegal. Meanwhile, 52% of Muslims live somewhere homosexuality is illegal per the law, and 5% of Muslims live somewhere with civil unions or gay marriage. These statistics were determined by ChatGPT by analyzing the Pew Research Center’s global religious landscape report, and cross referencing the report with population data and laws pertaining to LGBT people across the world. 

Because Islam is significantly worse for LGBT people than Christianity (which doesn’t take ChatGPT to figure out), I was critical of Islamist doctrine on BNR. While TUS would like to call me an Islamophobe, the truth of the matter is I do not hate all Muslims. Nor am I irrationally fearful of them. I hate people who oppress, jail and execute gays, and that is unfortunately a large portion of the Islamic world. 

I work with a young Muslim woman who I admire and whose company I very much enjoy. She knows I am gay, and she doesn’t care. I don’t hate her, and she doesn’t hate me. I know some will call that tokenism. Unfortunately, there are very few Muslims in the gay world. 

The majority of the time my criticism of Islamism was within the rules of Breaking News and Religion. TUS appeared to get frustrated that I was able to criticize Islamist treatment of LGBT people within the rules he established, and started calling me “fake Jew” and other insults (“troll”) because of it. 

When I complained to The Urban Sleeper that calling me fake Jew was an insult that violated his own rules (no insults), he wrote to me that the rules do not preclude rudeness, and that calling me fake Jew was simply rudeness, not an insult. Despite my claim that being called fake Jew was not just rude but an insult, as the forum owner he could and did continue to call me fake Jew and other names.

When I decided I had had enough of TUS’ nastiness and rudeness, I decided to be honest with him. Given the above experience, and that there are only one or two Jews left on BNR (Who are both far less active than I ever was), I told TUS that people who own websites that are nearly Judenfrei (A German term meaning free of Jews), shouldn’t go around calling Jewish people nazis (which he regularly refers to me as). This is when he banned me.  

Notably, The Urban Sleeper claimed months ago that he and his moderation team do not “moderate for intent”. 

https://theden.breakingnewsandreligion.online/2023/09/13/rawr/#comment-6277283218

That is to say, when I claimed Rawr the mod has an anti-Semitic agenda, it was irrelevant because ‘agendas’ are not moderated. However, that is precisely what TUS banned me for: an alleged agenda of “hate”. I did not break any of BNR rules to cause TUS to ban me. He simply decided he was “fucking done” with my alleged “bigotry” and “hate speech”. 

Questions for Discussion:

1. - I made a conscious decision to stop taking The Urban Sleeper’s nastiness lying down, and be nasty back to him. Would you have made that choice? I stood up against nastiness against me, and bigotry against Jews, at the cost of my voice in the forum. Would you have done the same?
2. - AlexTheKay is a widely respected commenter, who quit BNR due to the normalization of anti-semitism. Why do you think TUS was unable to accept that his forum has slid into a place which was hostile towards Jews, particularly when I brought to the attention of TUS that Alex left due to anti-semitism? 
3. - IsTUS calling me ‘nazi’ a propaganda tactic similar to Putin claiming Ukraine needs to be de-nazified?
4. - Is anti-semitism so engrained in social media, that is impossible for many to see?
5. - If the argument is made that you are fake Jew, then what defines a real Jew? Questioning someone’s identity is a way of dehumanizing them, which is a tactic used by anti-semites. 
6. - Are all Jews supposed to have the same political ideology? When the arguments against Israel shift into attacks against Jews, then this is a clear shift towards antisemitism. 

Unknown unknowns…

No, not the Donald Rumsfeld ones.  😁  I’m talking about what goes on around us that we are cognitively unaware of.  I’m talking the real reality out there, very different than our little slice of it.  Let me take you on the journey… 

Look around you.  What do you see?  It’s called your reality (chairs, tables, windows, computer, etc.), i.e., what we think of as “real stuff.”  To you, all that exists and is real.  It’s what you “know” to exist.  It’s your (I’ll call it) “known knowns” reality.

But if you had the ability to see what goes on outside your visible light spectrum, your so-called reality, your mind would be totally blown.  It would be exactly like entering another realm of existence.

Humans are able to see only a small portion (<1%) of the Electromagnetic Spectrum, the section we call “visible light” (see image above).  Though we can’t directly see outside our little slice, we do, however, know much about it.  We know its effect on our reality. We also know its accessibility can be different for different species other than humans.  For example, “animals such as bees and snakes are able to see into the ultraviolet spectrum.  The light-sensing cells of butterflies allow them to see all kinds of light, and are considered to have the broadest visual range compared to any form of wildlife.”

Then there are all those other kinds of electromagnetic light waves, outside our visual ones, that are floating around out there in what we call “reality”.  These phenomena are also a real part of our existence too.  You got your infrared, ultraviolet, microwaves, radio waves, gamma rays, x-rays (again, see above image).

So, when it comes to the EM spectrum, in summary, we could call all these phenomena “known unknowns”; i.e., “known about” but can’t be “directly known” (experience) without instrumentation.  Known (about) unknowns.

Okay, now let’s go even “deeper” into “reality.”  Did you know that, fundamentally, everything around you is just a myriad of particles and forces, dancing around, and making up your reality?  It’s true.  Artistically speaking, you could think of reality as a massive “fishbowl of chaos” that, for some reason, remarkably comes together to form the visual spectrum of your reality.  (I still don’t understand how these particles and forces are able to come together, stay intact, and create stable images of external individual entities.  (I think it has something to do with amenable chemical bonding, but I don’t know.  That’s for another day.)  Continuing on with my train of thought…

Going even deeper into reality, how about those sub-atomic particles, such as neutrinos, “one of the most abundant particles in the universe.”  Did you know that “about 100 trillion neutrinos pass through your body every second.”  Whoa.  That’s mind blowing.  Or, we could go bigger; the other end of the spectrum.  How about that “dark matter” and “dark energy” floating around out there in the cosmos, baffling even the greatest minds humankind has ever known?

Okay, okay, you get the picture by now.  I have been talking about these accepted (so-called) “known unknowns.”

Now, what I’m trying to get to is the “unknown unknowns.”  What we don’t have any direct or indirect access to, or knowledge of.

We know about these “known knowns” and “known unknowns.”  But what about the “unknown unknowns?”  (Stay with me here.)  The as-of-yet undiscovered phenomena that exists and that may affect our reality, but that we do not have access to, or even awareness of?  There have to be some, no?  What could they possibly be?

Questions:

1. Since our visual reality represents what I call the a.) “known knowns” (things we can directly experience), and b.) the “known unknowns” (things we are aware of but cannot directly experience), do you c.) accept/believe that there are unknown unknowns?  If not, why not?

2. What percent of our reality do you think makes up the known knowns, the known unknowns, and the unknown unknowns?  (three categories)

3. Has this OP given you any pause about your reality?  Does it cause you to “rethink” it?  For example, how about an afterlife?  How about the Many Worlds Theory?  How about other currently inaccessible dimensions?  Branes (slices of realms)?  If you are fair, considering all that I have pointed out about what is really out there, how can you possibly dismiss these "unknown unknowns" possibilities?  Can you?

Impress me with your thoughts.

News bits: Leniency for traitors; Some Christofascist ideology; Etc.

The Intercept reports:

FEDERAL JUDGES HANDLING the criminal cases of hundreds of people charged in connection with the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol have overwhelmingly issued sentences far more lenient than Justice Department prosecutors sought, an analysis by The Intercept reveals.

In 82 percent of the 719 January 6-related cases that have been resolved, and in which the defendants have either pleaded guilty or been convicted, judges have issued lighter sentences than federal prosecutors requested, the analysis of Justice Department data through December 4, 2023, shows. They imposed the same sentences sought by prosecutors in just 95 cases and harsher sentences in only 37.

Nearly every one of the 24 federal judges handling the massive docket of January 6 cases has shown leniency toward the defendants, regardless of whether the judges were appointed by Democratic or Republican presidents, the data shows. 

Trump and his allies have repeatedly claimed that the federal judicial system has been unnecessarily punitive in its treatment of January 6 defendants, complaining that they are “political prisoners” who have been unfairly persecuted for trying to prevent the congressional certification of Biden’s 2020 election. One leading January 6 defendant compared himself to a Jew living in Nazi GermanyOpens in a new tab and saidOpens in a new tab that his “only crime is opposing those who are destroying our country.”

Why leniency for traitors? Because our legal and court system are political and corrupt. The rule of law is an ill-defined thing. Some observers call it an essentially contested concept because it is mostly subjective at least for white collar crimes, especially by rich or powerful elites. 

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Right Wing Watch reports:

Christian Nationalist Bill Cook Says God Will Start 

Killing FBI Agents for Arresting Jan. 6 Insurrectionists

Rev. Bill Cook is the founder of America’s Black Robe Regiment and an ardent Christian nationalist who wants to see “the government of God [established] throughout every square inch of the Earth.”

In November, Cook preached at On Fire Ministries in Spokane, Washington, which is run by far-right pastor Matt Shea, a former Washington state legislator who was stripped of his committee assignments and booted out of the Republican Party in 2019 in the wake of a report detailing how he had “participated in an act of domestic terrorism” and “planned, engaged in and promoted a total of three armed conflicts of political violence against the United States Government in three states outside the state of Washington over a three-year period.”

The remarks Cook delivered were a perfect match for the venue in which they were presented, as he used his time on stage to declare that the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was a “psy op” carried out by the government and also to warn FBI agents who have been arresting insurrectionists that God will soon start killing them and sending them to Hell.

It’s good to know that God will be tidying up by murdering those evil 1/6 psy op FBI agents and sending them to Hell. 

This is just a reminder of the ongoing radicalization of at least some of American Christianity into some form of enraged, mentally deranged Christofascism.

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From the Salwart Patriot Entrepreneur Files: Axios reports:

There’s growing concern among some executives and board members at Tesla and SpaceX that Musk's drug use could be influencing his antics, The Wall Street Journal’s Emily Glazer and Kirsten Grind report. .... They fear Musk could hurt himself as well as the future of six companies he oversees. 

Musk has used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, “often at private parties around the world, where attendees sign nondisclosure agreements or give up their phones to enter,” The Journal reports.

“People close to Musk, who is now 52, said his drug use is ongoing ... Illegal drug use would likely be a violation of federal policies that could jeopardize SpaceX’s billions of dollars in government contracts.”

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Meanwhile, there’s an 

insurrectionist at the bird feeder

News bits: Another reason to fear Trump; And another; And another; Whale research

The HuffPo reports:

Trump Calls On Supporters To Put A Stop To 

‘Bags Of Crap’ Arriving At Polling Places

Critics on social media alleged that the former president was engaging in "voter intimidation" by asking followers to monitor voting locations

Former President Donald Trump on Friday urged his supporters to put a stop to “bags of crap” arriving at polling places during this year’s election, warning of potential fraud. At a rally in Mason City, Iowa, Trump echoed his false claims that the 2020 election had been stolen from him through tactics like ballot stuffing, and said that “we’re not going to let it happen again.” .... “You should all stay in those voting booths. You should stay there and watch it. If you see bags of crap coming into the voting areas, you’ve got to stop it. You can’t let it happen, because these guys are crooked as hell. They know how to cheat.”

Hm. That looks like treason and an invitation to a second insurrection to me. But heck, what do I know. I’m just a simple farm boy from the Midwest. Gosh, I hope this doesn’t amount to irrational DJT hysteria! ☹️

Q: What does a bag of crap in a voting booth or polling place look like? 

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The NYT Editorial Board opines:

By now, most American voters should have no illusions about who Mr. Trump is. During his many years as a real estate developer and a television personality, then as president and as a dominant figure in the Republican Party, Mr. Trump demonstrated a character and temperament that render him utterly unfit for high office.

As president, he wielded power carelessly and often cruelly and put his ego and his personal needs above the interests of his country.

Yeah, well sure, most American voters should have no illusions. But tens of millions of ’em do.

Another commentator commentated: With the disreputable Donald Trump challenging the disfavored President Biden, the 2024 race has become the embodiment of Oscar Wilde’s witticism about fox hunting: “the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible.” .... “These are the times that try men’s souls,” Paine wrote, adding, “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.” .... If people don’t know by now that Trump tried to overthrow the government he was running on Jan. 6; if they don’t know that the MAGA fanatics breaking into the Capitol, beating up cops and threatening to harm Pelosi and hang Mike Pence were criminals, not “patriots” and “hostages,” as Trump risibly calls them; if they don’t know that Trump created the radical Supreme Court that is stripping women of their rights, then they don’t want to know, or they just don’t care.

The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible? Good grief, what a stinking mess.

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The Hill reports: Former federal judge: Trump’s violation of 14th amendment ‘couldn’t be any clearer’ -- Former federal judge Michael Luttig, who said he has spent the last three years studying the amendment, believes the high court — which currently leans Republican — will “likely look for every legitimate way possible” to avoid an opinion on whether Trump can be disqualified from running for office again.

The USSC merely “leans Republican”?? . . . . Bwahahahahaha!

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Beluga whale melons are used as sonar sound wave receivers to help the whales communicate, hunt for food and locate large nearby objects.

A different perspective: Why all this Trump hysteria?

 Interesting article, whether you think it is bunk or savvy:

America won't descend into an authoritarian state

A giant landfill of words has been dumped out on the subject of Donald Trump. I hate to add to the pile, but I feel I must. Unlike most participants in this industrial disaster, though, I have no wish either to praise Trump or to bury him. What I want is clarity.

The word most often associated with Trump is “authoritarian”. From the New York Times, Atlantic and Economist to the Guardian, Vanity Fair and Politico, we are told, with ritual repetition, that Trump is the second coming of Hitler or Mussolini, an aspiring dictator eager to herd his opponents into the great American gulag. Naturally, people panic. I want to calm them down. Using as few words as possible, I’m going to show that the combination of Trump and authoritarianism is an impossibility.

If you expect to become an authoritarian, you have to wield absolute control over a key institution of government such as the military (Franco, Peron, Pinochet) or a mass movement with a paramilitary wing (Lenin, Mussolini, Mao). Neither condition applies to Trump. Every federal institution is set ferociously against him. What would happen if Trump ordered the FBI or the 101st Airborne Division to start shooting Democrats? Homeric laughter would happen.

What kind of a person becomes an authoritarian? Well, it may look like fun, but authoritarianism is really hard work. You need to be in the prime of life, in your 30s or 40s (Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Mao, Castro). Very rarely, an exceptional person such Caesar is granted literal dictatorship (the Romans invented the whole idea) in his early 50s. In a clear case of ageism, however, no septuagenarian has ever been offered the job.

The authoritarian personality favours clever manipulations and conspiracies. Best in class was Stalin, who held the purely administrative job of First Party Secretary but seized total power by seeding loyalists everywhere. Trump, who was a builder of buildings, a task with a beginning and an end, can scarcely think ahead from breakfast to lunch. This is a life playing out at the Short Attention Span Theatre.

So relax. Trump is too old, too isolated, and too ADD to have a shot at dictatorship — and if he tried, the result would be comedy rather than tyranny. You still want to join the ranks of the anti-Trump resistance? Hey, that’s wonderful. You want to do battle against authoritarianism? I’m there with you. Just don’t mix up the two. I promise it will make you clearer of mind and healthier of body, and it will free us to begin to call our politicians by those vile names that actually fit.

Martin Gurri is a former CIA analyst and the author of 'The Revolt of the Public'.

https://unherd.com/2023/12/why-all-this-trump-hysteria/

As stated in the title - a different perspective. 

News bits: Tax avoidance; Biden’s attack speech; DJT’s school shooting response

Tax evasion is illegal non-payment of taxes owed. Annual tax evasion is running at about $690 billion (IRS underestimate in my opinion) to about $1 trillion/year (actual real estimate). 

Tax avoidance is the practice of legally avoiding paying any more taxes than are owed. As time passes rich people and rich businesses get their lawyers and lobbyists to (1) buy congress and order it to pass more laws that increase the scope of what is legally not taxable, and (2) infiltrate the IRS as employees** who write new multi-billion dollar tax loopholes into existing laws. Over time, this could lead wealthy people and entities to pay little or no taxes. Over the years, both Dems and Repubs in congress and the White House have supported increasing tax avoidance loopholes for the rich and powerful. 

** The NYT wrote in 2021:

Lawyers from top accounting firms do brief stints in the Treasury Department, with the expectation of big raises when they return

The largest U.S. accounting firms have perfected a remarkably effective behind-the-scenes system to promote their interests in Washington. Their tax lawyers take senior jobs at the Treasury Department, where they write policies that are frequently favorable to their former corporate clients, often with the expectation that they will soon return to their old employers. The firms welcome them back with loftier titles and higher pay, according to public records reviewed by The New York Times and interviews with current and former government and industry officials.

From their government posts, many of the industry veterans approved loopholes long exploited by their former firms, gave tax breaks to former clients and rolled back efforts to rein in tax shelters — with enormous impact.  

After lobbying by PwC, a former PwC partner in the Trump Treasury Department helped write regulations that allowed large multinational companies to avoid tens of billions of dollars in taxes; he then returned to PwC.

An article the Rolling Stone published gives an update on tax avoidance:

AMERICA’S WEALTHIEST FAMILIES held an astounding $8.5 trillion in untaxed profits in 2022. According to a report from the nonprofit Americans for Tax Fairness, which analyzed Federal Reserve data, “one in every six dollars (18 percent of the nation’s unrealized gains is held by these roughly 64,000 ultra-wealthy households, who make up less than 0.05 percent of the population.” The report comes as the Supreme Court gears up to decide a case that could preemptively block any efforts to tax the wealth of billionaires.

Neener, neener, I got a bigger, . . . er boat!

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Everyone is reporting about Biden's speech attacking DJT as a threat to democracy. Some report it like this:

Joe Biden Just Delivered the Speech

Democrats Have Been Desperate for Him to Give

Biden delivered a point-by-point denunciation of Donald Trump’s actions around Jan. 6, casting the 2024 election as a stark choice and calling his predecessor a ‘loser’

Time will tell if Biden stays on the attack and if it changes public opinion.

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Rolling Stone reports:

A DAY AFTER a gunman killed a sixth grade student and wounded five other people at Perry High School northwest of Des Moines, Donald Trump returned to the state at a campaign event and told residents that they “have to get over it.”

During his speech at Sioux Center, Iowa, the former president gave his thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families, emphasizing that “we’re really with you as much as anybody can be.” After stating the tragedy was “terrible” and “horrible,” Trump insisted: “We have to get over it. We have to move forward. We have to move forward.”

Well, it appears that maybe the pro-mass school shooting crowd has moved sending beyond thoughts and prayers to really being with the directly affected as much as anybody can be. 

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The quiet part said out loud: 

Trump attorney Alina Habba on Thursday suggested that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh would “step up” and rule in favor of the former president because he “fought for” him.

CNN host Phil Mattingly was taken aback as he played the clip on Friday.

“If a Democrat said that about the Justice Department or Merrick Garland or fill-in-the-blank here, there would be an absolute implosion. That's bonkers,” he said.

“She's saying the quiet part out loud,” replied panelist Jon Avlon. “She's saying that Brett Kavanaugh will step up and side with the president because he appointed him. That goes against every basic idea of law and independence of the judiciary. And frankly, it puts Kavanaugh in a bit of a box.” 

“That’s not how this works,” tweeted national security attorney Bradley Moss. “Imagine for a second if a lawyer for Clinton, Obama or Biden said this. It’d be a massive scandal at Fox,” he added.

“Alina Habba saying the quid pro quo part out loud here,” wrote MSNBC legal analyst Katie Phang.

There it is folks. The situation can’t be much clearer. The authoritarian radical right openly and publicly expects partisan loyalty and political payback even from Supreme Court justices, not loyalty to the democracy or the Constitution and rule of law.