All day yesterday I worked on computer / router issues and spent hours investigating new router security protocols and how they interact with older software. After 13 hours of that I did not feel like getting to comments. So I am just reading the many grand comments of the last few days. Keith left a comment that jogged my memory and I felt it was so good I wanted to share it with everyone. Below I will put Keith’s comment, my response, and the wonderful presentation Sheldon Whitehouse did.
Nan, I agree. I have long said over half the Republican party is voting against their economic interests and have no idea they are. Being a former Republican, the GOP stands for one thing – giving more money to rich people and helping them keep it. Everything else is window dressing to garner votes and mask this mission. The fight for conservative judges, for example, has less to do with Roe v Wade and more to do with judges who will rule in favor of corporations, owners and developers when screwed over litigants sue them. People need to re-read this last sentence as it is sadly true and of great importance. Keith
Hey Keith. Very astute of you! You see something I have only seen covered in progressive left media like TYT. You know what some call the extreme left. The ties to the Federalist Society and the groups that pushed these judges to business interests is deep. Sheldon Whitehouse gave an amazing presentation on this subject if you are interested. Surprisingly most news sites left or right want to ignore this aspect. Not in the video but I was stunned when Gorsuch wrote that a man should have died in his truck when the company he worked for told him to stay with it in the freezing cold and die rather than seek safe shelter.
But it is the gay and trans people that are the sexual perverts? Seems to me if we have to ban straight men from being on airplanes because they are unable to control themselves around women and in public.
Antonio Sherrodd McGarity tried to claim he didn’t do anything wrong and in fact “thought it was kind of kinky,” court documents allege.
Justin Rohrlich
Reporter
Pilar Melendez
Senior National Reporter
EXCLUSIVE
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
A man on a Southwest Airlines flight from Seattle to Phoenix is facing federal charges for pulling down his pants and masturbating at least four times in front of a female passenger, beginning shortly after takeoff, according to a criminal complaint first obtained by The Daily Beast.
Antonio Sherrodd McGarity was arrested by officers from the Phoenix Police Department when Southwest flight 3814 landed at Sky Harbor International Airport on Saturday, the complaint states. However, McGarity told cops that he didn’t do anything wrong and in fact “thought it was kind of kinky,” it says.
The incident started early on in the three-hour flight, when McGarity commenced his indelicate behavior, the filing alleges.
“McGarity was seated in seat 11F and the female witness was seated in seat 11E,” the complaint states. “Shortly after taking off, and while the aircraft was in the air, McGarity exposed his penis by pulling down his pants and shorts and began masturbating.”
When the female seated next to him noticed the lewd behavior, she began taking pictures of McGarity. When he fell asleep after masturbating for roughly an hour, the female passenger told a crew member about what she had witnessed and was allowed to move to another seat.
U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona
The complaint states that when the Southwest Airlines flight landed, Phoenix Police officers interviewed the woman, who reiterated she had seen McGarity masturbating “on four separate occasions, using both his left and right hands.”
McGarity was also interviewed by FBI agents, who allegedly admitted to his in-flight behavior.
“McGarity advised he asked the female witness if she minded if he masturbates,” the complaint states. “According to McGarity, the female witness put her hands in the air and said, ‘it really doesn’t matter.’”
McGarity thought the response was “kind of kinky” and believed the female was comfortable with him masturbating, the complaint adds.
In a statement to The Daily Beast, a Southwest spokesperson said McGarity had been slapped with a lifetime ban.
“On April 2, we received reports of inappropriate Customer behavior on flight 3814 from SEA to PHX. The situation was reported to Crewmembers while inflight, and the Captain contacted law enforcement to meet the aircraft upon arrival,” the airline said. “We immediately placed the passenger on our No-Fly List, resulting in a lifetime ban from traveling on Southwest.”
It was not immediately clear if McGarity had retained a lawyer.
The beloved sandwich cookie has debuted a new short film, directed by Alice Wu, to tell a sweet, touching story about the family journey of a young LGBTQ+ man.
The latest piece of work from award-winning filmmaker Alice Wu (The Half Of It, Saving Face) is a short film about coming out. We meet a young man who appears to be stumbling through his coming-out process to his parents. But there’s a twist that extends this story from the traditional coming-out story to illustrate a larger point about the process, the struggle, and the challenges that don’t end after that first conversation. It’s also an Oreo ad.
The Note is the latest result in a multiyear collaboration between the cookie brand and PFLAG National, and is the launching point for its new #LifelongAlly campaign, which includes a $500,000 donation to the advocacy organization. Oreo senior brand manager Olympia Portale says the brand didn’t want to show another coming-out story, but worked with PFLAG, ad agency 360i, and Wu to find an insight for taking the discussion around coming out in a positive, new direction. That insight revolves around the idea that coming out isn’t just a one-and-done experience. “For many people, the only time their parents or family even acknowledge that they’re in this community is in that first moment,” says Portale. “That [subsequent] silence can last years and can be really harmful. So we wanted to show that being an ally, being supportive to family members, isn’t just about saying ‘I love you, and I support you’ in that one moment, but how you show up in an active way, so that individual feels you have their back all the time.”
Oreo’s first high-profile Pride campaign came back in 2012, the brand’s centennial year, with a Facebook post featuring a cookie stacked high with rainbow-colored icing alongside the comment, “Proudly support love!” The post was widely celebrated but also sparked a backlash, as it came amid the gay-marriage debate at the time. A decade later, LGBTQ+ rights are again at the center of the culture wars, as Texas has passed a controversial anti-trans law, and Florida has passed its “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The landscape for brands in this environment has only become more charged, as Disney has found out amid the Biden-era attacks on “woke corporations,” which take public stands on issues. After initially drawing backlash from LGBTQ+ fans and allies for remaining silent on Florida’s new law, Disney is now a constant target for Fox News and right-wing politicians for its opposition to the bill. Despite this fraught climate for brands, Oreo has continued to step into this issue with impressive creative work and zero hesitation.
This is the third consecutive year that Oreo has worked with PFLAG on its Pride campaign, which began with the 2020 short, Proud Parent. In that spot, a young woman’s father paints the yard fence as a rainbow to show his support. For Portale, the message of The Note is an extension of that first film. “What would’ve happened after the father painted the fence?” asks Portale. “That’s not exactly how we approached this project, but it’s about galvanizing a new generation of allies, to really understand that allyship is action, and it takes more than just showing up at Pride once a year.”
Oreo isn’t the only brand to create Pride work around a coming-out story. A 2016 McDonald’s Taiwan ad went viral, showing a gay son coming out to his dad over coffee at the golden arches. Last year, Doritos Mexico created a spot that shows a dad who goes on Reddit to find help to talk to his son, as part of that brand’s ongoing #PrideAllYear campaign work.
Key to Oreo’s strategy in creating content for and engaging with LGBTQ+ people has been its commitment to working with partners within the community. Portale says that this hasn’t been an overnight development, but one that has evolved over years; it has continued to get stronger particularly since partnering with PFLAG in 2020. “We couldn’t have done this without the help and support of PFLAG,” says Portale. “Partnering with them to do this kind of work, to make sure you’re not doing any harm, has been incredibly valuable. Having Alice Wu on this project was incredible and took the brand into a different space. The nuances she brought to the original idea were incredibly powerful, and took it into a different level.”
For other brands looking to replicate Oreo’s success, Portale says that first is to know what your brand stands for, and why it exists in the world. For Oreo, that is to be playful but also to bring people together. “Oreo is a family brand,” says Portale. “When you ask people their first memory about Oreos, they’ll usually talk about their family. So our goal is to provide moments for people to come together. When we think about how we can extend that into more meaningful topics or territories, we want to focus on the places when these connections between family members might be at risk. If we’re going to fight for a world where all families belong, this was a natural place for us to go.”
Stepping into more meaningful topics can be tricky territory for a brand, and one key to navigating that path is to know the brand’s voice isn’t the most important. “The Note is not Oreo’s story,” says Portale. “Oreo is there to lend our megaphone to the community we want to support, to illustrate the message we, as a brand, want to stand behind is a great place to start. How do you shine a spotlight on people whose story this belongs to?”
COOKIE! I love COOKIES. C is for COOKIE. COOKIE IS FOR ME. I do NOT like GAY COOKIES. "Sexuality" has NOTHING TO DO with the Cookie experience. Cookies are for ALL! Basically Cookies are "asexual"—why is the WOKE LEFT messing around with OREOS?!?! STOP THE INSANITY pic.twitter.com/TS3k5M4LQv
Since @oreo is "coming out" I'm going to remind everyone that OREOS SUCK. Taste like Driveway Gravel. Not MOIST. Even Nabisco knows the truth–the cookies are too DRY. Milk Reliant, not a stand alone cookie. Go with the FIG NEWTON. We don't care about Mr Fig's orientation! pic.twitter.com/1FtiQscnbU
EXCLUSIVE
Scottie's Playtime 