was privileged to deliver the opening keynote at this month’s FediForum, a conference for people building and supporting the open social web. My talk touched on what’s happening now, drew on my experiences building Elgg and Known and investing at Matter Ventures, and gave participants three important questions to ask themselves as they build platforms and serve communities.
Here’s the talk in its entirety, courtesy of FediForum. The transcript [is on the page.]
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Since June, Amtrak Police officers have arrested dozens of people for alleged “public lewdness” at New York City’s Penn Station, a sting operation that sent at least one person to an ICE detention facility — and which one university professor says was conducted, in part, through popular cruising apps like Sniffies.
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As reported by NYC news outlet The City on Wednesday, Amtrak Police arrested 23 people for public lewdness in June — LGBTQ+ Pride Month — after making only eight such arrests in the five months prior. “Lewdness” arrest numbers have remained high since then, according to the NYC-based Legal Aid Society, which told The City that 20 people were arrested for lewdness at Penn Station in a single day in September.
One of the people arrested in June was David, a 31-year-old gay man and healthcare worker who said he was arrested while trying to use a Penn Station urinal on his way home from visiting a friend. He was wearing a rainbow bracelet. David told The City that he was taken to a cell inside the station and handcuffed to a wall, at which point he heard one officer tell others “we got three more fag pervs.” The lewdness charge against him was eventually dropped, but David said he was “traumatized” by the experience.
Immigration attorney Danney Salvatierra also told The City that one of her clients, an asylum seeker from Mexico, was arrested by Amtrak Police while using the bathroom at Penn in July and immediately handed off to ICE agents. Salvatierra said the arrest documents did not contain a charge against her client, who spent over a month in a detention facility before being released by a judge.
Last week, City University of New York (CUNY) law professor Jared Trujillo posted a TikTok video warning others about sting operations in Penn Station bathrooms. Trujillo claims that police have been using Sniffies to lure potential cruisers to a bathroom near a police booth, then arrest them. The arrests come during a marked increase in visibility for Sniffies through print media like The New Yorker and New York Magazine, though Trujillo pointed out that the platform wasn’t the only way police have targeted travelers.
Be safe!! Amtrak officers are using Sniffies and otherwise approaching people in the men’s Amtrak bathroom at Penn Statuon and charging them with lewdness #sniffies#NYC#civilrightawyer#amtrak#pennstation
“There are other instances where officers will approach someone who’s at a urinal, the officer will touch himself or will just peer at the person, and if the person — who is there just trying to pee — responds in any way, that person is then arrested or at least charged with lewdness,” Trujillo said in his video. (In his comments to The City, David said he felt “watched” by a nearby man shortly before his arrest.) Trujillo further noted that such stings closely resemble tactics used in the past decade by Port Authority police, who settled a class action lawsuit over similar arrests in 2022, promising to end plainclothes bathroom patrols and step up sensitivity training.
“Police have long weaponized constitutionally dubious tactics to target men they perceive as gay. Officers sometimes expose or touch themselves, or leer at men, only to arrest the man — even when he has done nothing wrong,” Trujillo told Them in a statement Wednesday. “These arrests are about padding numbers, not public safety. They waste resources and inflict trauma, and the charges can carry devastating immigration and employment consequences. The Port Authority police engaged in the same conduct until Legal Aid sued and forced a settlement in 2022.”
Trujillo urged LGBTQ+ people to exercise caution when dealing with the police to reduce the chance of harm. “If you are arrested, invoke your right to remain silent and ask for an attorney,” he told Them. “Do not consent to police searching your phone.”
The arrests come during a marked increase in visibility for Sniffies through print media like The New Yorker and New York Magazine.
It’s Thursday. There are 404 days until the midterm elections. Disinformation from Dallas, Kimmel’s big ratings and making us defend Jim Comey. Read on Substack
Note: Well, Sexy Patriots, we went from the Tylenol meltdown to the UN pants-shittening to a total goddamn presidential freakout over a broken fucking escalator. We assume for today that Trump will be walking around with both of his feet and his head stuck in buckets of some kind. Despite all the dumb, we actually have some good news. One of the creepiest goddamn weirdos of all time will no longer be in a position to fuck with kids…
Na-na-na-na. Na-na-na-na. Hey Hey Hey. Goodbye! We’ve been kinda sorta paying attention to this freakshow’s tenure as superintendent and we have wondered for a while just how dumb the kids in Oklahoma must be by now. The poor little morons have been forced to eat Trump Bibles for months, half of them think Be Best is good grammar and the rest think 2 + 2 = Bigly. Plus, doesn’t this dude put off all the vibes of someone whose hard drive would get them sent away for life? That moustache definitely used to hang out on Epstein’s island. Dude is out here looking like Jim Dangle from Reno 911.
Anyway, congratulations to the children of Oklahoma who would be bursting out in song today if their music programs hadn’t been cut in favor of Trump Appreciation Class. As for Ryan, well, he can kiss our asses, eat shit and fuck all the way off. Goddamn weirdo. Y’all have a blessed day.
Note two: This has nothing to do with anything, but remember those switchblade combs? Those were cool. We want to bring those back in style. Also, we did a therapy session yesterday and you can catch it here if you missed it live.
Note three: We’re getting closer to a government shutdown, and the White House’s big threat is that they would use a shutdown to fire federal workers. Someone should tell these assholes they already did that and they’re currently busy trying to rehire them all. Idiots. More: NBC News
Note four: We have got to hand it to the Onion. They made an Epstein documentary. Wired describes it as “absolutely unhinged.” It’s called “Jeffrey Epstein: Bad Pedophile.” It says a lot about where we are as a country that we rely on the Onion for this stuff instead of CNN. More: Wired
Note five: We wish we were kidding about our dumbshit president totally freaking out about a stopped escalator. He’s calling for investigations and Fox News has his back. It reminds us of the line from Ace Ventura — “Had I been drinking from the toilet, I could’ve been killed.” For a big tough guy, Trump sure is a whiny little bitch.
Note six: Senate Democrats are out with a report about what Elon Leon’s DOGE d-bags were really up to and it is infuriating. We can’t wait for a Democratic administration to lock these little shits up. More: Wired
Note seven: The French sentenced Sarkozy to five years. How the hell does every other country know how to do this except ours? More: NBC News
Note eight: Gross Stephen Miller’s gross wife is talking about having gross sex with him. Here’s a link, but we don’t recommend clicking on it. More: HuffPost
Note nine: Trump is upset that people are upset about his friendship with Epstein and the ensuing cover-up. He says Palm Beach in the 90s was a “different time.” Motherfucker child rape was still bad in the 1990s. More: Mediaite
Note 10: After a couple weeks off, South Park returned last night and Kyle’s mom (who is Jewish) went off on Bibi Netanyahu.
Note 11: The New York Times was very worried that a Trump official might get booed during one of their ass-kissing sessions. To that, we say BOOOOOOOOO!!!!! More: Mediaite
Note 12: The Tylenol thing was such a fucking disaster that Trump’s own allies are walking it back. Can you imagine the coverage if Biden… More: Independent
Note 13: Please don’t forget we have some big elections coming up in New Jersey, Virginia, California and Pennsylvania! Please get involved however you can. Those candidates need some Sexy Patriot energy. More: Pix11
Note 14: It’s honestly wild how much of a disconnect there is between Democratic leadership in D.C. and Democrats in the states. And it’s not hard to see which one is actually in touch with what voters are demanding. More: NBC News
Note 15: Just a reminder that before Kimmel was put through the ringer, plenty of corporate media outlets fired Black women with little to no public outrage. Thank you to Karen Attiah, formerly of the Washington Post, for firing back. And thanks to our friend Katie Phang for helping her.
Note 16: Two things to look forward to — Taylor Swift has a new album out next week, and the second part of Wicked will be out soon. Also, we don’t know about y’all, but we can’t freaking wait to see that new Paul Thomas Anderson movie. It seems pretty timely. More: USA Today
Note 17: It is fucking wild how hard the White House and the Republican Party are working to keep the Epstein files hidden. It’s even wilder how the people who used to want to see them don’t seem to give a shit anymore. More: CNN
Note 18: We’re starting to have a little hope that our country isn’t as dumb as it seems. The brain worm guy’s polling numbers are in the shitter. Which means he’ll probably swim in them. More: CNN, WSAV
Note 19: For today’s Happy Ending, we’re going back to South Park. If we’ve learned anything this week, it’s that comedy is leading the resistance while other institutions bend the knee and kiss the ass. We picked this clip because the Don Jr. impression had us fucking howling…
Note 20: And on that note, let’s go do some news! We sure hope y’all are having a great week. Except Ryan Walters. That dude and his creepy stache can smooch our taints. Love y’all! (snip-MORE news on the page)
Some of it is not being covered so well elsewhere, what with the proponents being women and all, so some may still be new this morning! 🙂 A bit of blue language.
But will MAGA hack companies Sinclair and Nexstar put it on their air? Who knows.
But we guess Disney got hurt right in the wallet. And it’s got to be pretty embarrassing when big Hulu documentaries are coming out and the literal stars of them (Sarah McLachlan) are declining to perform at the premieres, because of this whole censorship/fascism crisis we are in. Did you hear about that? That happened. [Billboard]
Um, we did not realize Trump was already babbling and making up “sir” stories about men with tears in their eyes in Memphis thanking him for the National Guard, but they have not been deployed.
Anyway, crime is down in Memphis. It has nothing to do with shit nor shinola done by Donald J. Trump. [Tennessee Lookout]
Doctor Donald Trump says the old Ass Met Min Fin — how you say it? Words is hard — is more commonly known as “tylenol” and is definitely what causes the autism. You betcha.
Politico reports that Trump and Marco Rubio have absolutely destroyed the state of American diplomacy around the world. We knew that, but interesting details in this article. [Politico]
You guyssssssss, Tom Homan and Kristi Noem are having a diva fight about who goes on TV too much, you guyssssssss. [Daily Beast]
There was no Moral High Ground this week, because I’ve been out and about. It’ll be back later this week, but why don’t you go subscribe to it anyway? [The Moral High Ground]
A federal appeals court on Thursday evening took steps that Democratic appointees wrote could represent that best possible way of helping organizations funded by foreign aid payments to get money before a quickly approaching September 30 deadline.
It was the latest unusual sets of rulings in a case challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to cut foreign aid funding — raising the “impoundment” question about the president’s ability not to spend money that Congress has, with its control over appropriations, directed the federal government to spend — that has been up to the U.S. Supreme Court already twice this year.
On Thursday evening over the course of 30 minutes, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit took seven actions that ultimately sent the case — technically, a pair of cases — back to the district court, where it is before U.S. District Judge Amir Ali.
It was a stark sign of where we’re at: Judges on the court generally thought of as second only to the Supreme Court taking strategic steps to try to protect people and organizations’ rights due to the ways other branches — and actors within their own branch — are failing to do so. (snip-go read the rest, if you’re interested. It’s very well-written.)
This is a thread on Bluesky. One doesn’t need an account to read there. It’s also an excellent explanation.
This was an extraordinarily shrewd *and* principled resolution by the en banc court, in a case in which the various arguments in the trial court and on appeal were *almost* hopelessly entangled and hard to parse. Of greatest importance are two things: [1]
Are Good Pierogis the only pierogis you’ll ever need? Yes! Drive to Martha’s Vineyard and eat them. Tell them, “Alan Dershowitz ain’t got no panties on.” We don’t know if they’ll give you a discount, but they might laugh.
If there’s one thing anybody knows about famed lawyer Alan Dershowitz’s life and career, it’s that he has panties on, except for all the times he’s being a nudist, which by definition implies the absence of panties. One time he definitely always had panties on? When he was getting a massage at Jeffrey Epstein’s Haus of Naked. That’s a five-alarm-panty-party for Alan Dershowitz, he has always assured us.
Another time Alan Dershowitz is always wearing panties — at least as far as we’ve heard — is when he’s having his civil rights and his bill of rights and his human rights violated by the evil shopkeepers and librarians of Martha’s Vineyard, where nobody will invite him over for dinner because they hate his guts, avec ou sans panties. Apparently the Jewish Democrats on Martha’s Vineyard really loathe El Chico Desnudo. Also everybody else on Martha’s Vineyard hates him, all the other liberals, and this makes Alan Dershowitz feel lonely and, well, naked. They won’t let him come to brunch, and it’s definitely not because he’s naked and won’t stop dipping his balls in the hollandaise, why would he dip his balls there, that’s not where Alan Dershowitz’s balls go. They won’t let him do his world-renowned standing-room-only readings and lectures at the meeting room at the library, it is an outrage, it is a seven deadly sins, it is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Larry David doesn’t invite him over, Barack Obama skips his birthday parties, and now he has to sue a Martha’s Vineyard farmer’s market vendor because they wouldn’t give him a dumpling.
A pierogi, to be specific. The vendor wouldn’t give him a pierogi, so now he has to show them his pierogi.
WITH PANTIES ON.
Dershowitz explained what’s going on in exhaustive detail on his Rumble show, but first here’s a tweet:
OK, so here’s the situation, here is Alan Dershowitz’s Yelp review for “that guy at the farmer’s market with the pierogis.”
“There was the pierogi place,” he said. “They’re Ukrainian, Russian delicacies. And I had gone there a few times before, and I bought the pierogi. They were ok. They were not my grandmother’s pierogi, but they were ok.”
Alan Dershowitz just wanted some pierogis, even though they weren’t that good, just OK.
BUT THEN HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED, ALAN SAYS:
DERSHOWITZ: Can I have six pierogi?
“BIGOTED VENDOR”: No.
DERSHOWITZ: Oh, you’ve run out of pierogi? Too bad.
“BIGOTED VENDOR”: No, no, no. We have plenty of pierogi. I just won’t sell them to you.
DERSHOWITZ: What do you mean you won’t sell them to me?
“BIGOTED VENDOR”: I won’t sell them to you because I don’t approve of your politics. I don’t approve of who you’ve represented. I don’t approve of who you support.
DERSHOWITZ: What is it about my politics that you don’t–
“BIGOTED VENDOR”: I’m not gonna tell you. I just don’t like your politics.
Love it when vendors at the farmer’s market are like “Forsooth, I don’t approve of you! I forsake you! You shan’t have six pierogis today, not to put in your belly, not to eat with panties on, not to slather in your Alan Dershowitz ball-ondaise sauce and save for later!” It’s just how farmer’s market vendors talk.
“The clear implication was that he opposed me because I defended Donald Trump on the floor of the Senate,” Dershowitz added. “I think that’s illegal.”
Alan Dershowitz is a very famous lawyer.
It gets better, because there’s video of at least part of the situation, or at least the aftermath, don’t worry it’s safe for work. Dershowitz was also filming, because he is a serious lawyer and we imagine he knows that sometimes cops and ICE agents and pierogi vendors are full of lies.
Therein, you can see the cop gently explaining to Alan Dershowitz The Very Famous Lawyer that according to his own understanding, restaurants can refuse service, but if he wants to pursue it further, he can pursue it civilly. Oh yes, Alan Dershowitz says! He is going to put this on the internet too, Alan Dershowitz says! That’ll be the end of this reign of terror for this pierogi seller whose pierogis are OK but not like Alan Dershowitz’s grandmother’s pierogis!
If you’d like to listen to Dershowitz debate the cop for one hundred hours on whether it’s OK for people to discriminate against Alan Dershowitz based on his protected class of sucking so much, that’s in that video. You can’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or race, so how is it fair to discriminate against Alan Dershowitz on the basis of fuck that guy, we hate him? He asks to speak to the manager. The cop explains that actually he’s in charge right now. Dershowitz explains he’s lived here for 53 years and nobody has ever sent him home without pierogi in his belly. He accuses the extremely patient cop of “silencing” him. The cop gently explains that he is causing a disruption, that multiple people have complained, and that no, he may not stand next to the pierogi stand and tell people not to go to the pierogi stand. Alan Dershowitz explains that he would like to get some lemonade.
The user who posted the video says:
“I met Allen Dechowitz [sic] today. I stopped him from harassing a vendor who wouldn’t serve him pierogi at the farmer’s market on Martha’s Vineyard.”
The pierogi person, or the person who is presumably the pierogi person, replied, “Hey, thank you so much!”
Again, Dershowitz rushed to get on Rumble and talk about all of this, and he did so wearing a Martha’s Vineyard Farmer’s Market T-shirt. If you choose to subject yourself to this, skip to 3:54 or so in the video. He talks for a LONG VERY LONG TIME, about how the farmer’s market is on QUASI public land, and he pronounces QUASI like SWAYZE.
He explains that he really wanted to go to the farmer’s market that day because it was corn day, and he got there early, because corn day. He says corn day wasn’t supposed to be until August 1, but he had “insider information” that told him corn day would be this weekend instead.
So that’s insider corn day trading, by his own legal admission, somebody should sue Alan Dershowitz for tortious corn day.
In the Rumble video, Alan Dershowitz is much more agreeable than he is on the video with the cop, so we can only imagine what the actual encounter with the pierogi vendor was like. He does mention that when he was told that the pierogi vendor identifies as non-binary and uses the pronoun “they,” Alan Dershowitz responded, “I’ll use whatever language I choose to use, that’s a matter between me and my grammarian,” and when he said “grammarian,” it was like he was gesturing to the Great Grammarian in the Sky, so that might have also contributed to why Alan Dershowitz did not receive any pierogi, for himself or for his grammarian.
In the video, Dershowitz creates his own new metric for whether it’s OK to discriminate, based on the categories of “race, religion or politics,” which is, legal factcheck, not what it is. (The nice cop also tries to explain that to him.)
Dershowitz says he wrote an op-ed about this, he has sent an email to Sean Hannity — yes because the pierogi person was mean to him — and then, having babbled for over 10 minutes about this, starts explaining other times he’s faced discrimination on Martha’s Vineyard, just for being Alan Dershowitz too much. He’s discriminated against by the book fair, he’s discriminated against by the library, he’s discriminated against by the synagogue — he says they hate Israel — and blah blah blah blah blah Alan Dershowitz.
And then we turned off the video.
If you, like us, don’t want to watch the whole video, here is a screengrab of Alan Dershowitz making an Alan Dershowitz face while he complains.
So that is what has happened. Everybody on Martha’s Vineyard still hates Alan Dershowitz and Alan Dershowitz did not get a pierogi, therefore SUING.
Cannot hardly wait for Pam Bondi’s press conference on how she’s filed charges against the pierogi stand for discrimination and anti-semitism and also probably announcing that she found the real Epstein files in the pierogi stand’s fryers, they were there the whole time. (snip)
