YAASSS Hillary! Pander queen!!!!!!! The Ellen Show is lit AF today, and this is MFW I see Lena Dunham’s meme mom getting hype. I want to die, right now, please.
Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: E93A 40D1 FA38 4B2B 1477 C855 3DEA F030 F340 E2C7
Rush McKenzie lives in what seems like endless summer, just blocks away from the beach in Santa Barbara, California. His three-story apartment complex—with a stone courtyard and palm trees in every direction—is one of the few Section 8 complexes for low-income workers in a city that’s known to be prohibitively expensive. Many of the residents couldn’t move, even if they wanted to. But where his neighbors might joke that they’re trapped in paradise, McKenzie feels trapped in purgatory—harassed by his neighbors, he says, for being trans. He feels the legal system has sided with his harassers.
By McKenzie’s account, the residents in the apartment next door have stalked and harassed him for over a year. The problems reportedly started last Thanksgiving, when he began wearing men’s clothing. McKenzie, now 35, has been out to friends and family as transgender since he was a teenager. His father was in the Air Force, and like most military families, they moved around a lot, from Denver to Japan. After McKenzie settled in Santa Barbara in 2006, he decided to live publicly as the man he’d known himself to be for two decades. Last year, he started buying men’s t-shirts, as well as a white and green plaid flannel that still hangs in his closet.
His neighbors attend a local non-denominational church popular in the town, one that McKenzie attended prior to coming out, and he claims that the congregation didn’t respond well to his decision to live openly as a trans man. According to McKenzie, he was called everything from a “demon abomination” to a “child molester,” to his face.
McKenzie’s studio (which he shares with his calico, Katniss) shares a wall with two members of the church; he feels that the congregation’s anti-trans stance is an increasingly threatening presence in his life. In the past year, McKenzie claims that church members have threatened to have him evicted from his apartment, kidnap him, beat him, rape him, and murder him.
I spoke to a friend of McKenzie’s who asked to remain anonymous due to safety concerns. She told me that the two met a month and a half ago in a support group, and they talk on the phone regularly. During their conversations, she can hear his neighbors screaming in the background. She often drives McKenzie home after group meetings and walks him to his door to make sure he’s safe. “People stare out the window at us,” she said. She compared the palpable tension to “entering a war zone.”
McKenzie claimed that his landlord didn’t put a stop to the harassment. “He has not been supportive of me,” McKenzie said. “He has been supportive of them.” After nearly a year of constant threats, Mr. McKenzie reported the situation to the police, filing two restraining orders against members of the church on November 3. When the case went before a judge, his landlord showed up to endorse the defendants. McKenzie said he wasn’t surprised. “I’ve had a lot of trouble getting assistance and with people being respectful,” he explained.
The judge ruled against his restraining order, deciding not to extend it. Initially, McKenzie had been granted a five-yard restraining order, which would not restrict his neighbors from living in the apartment. But the judge didn’t feel continuing that order was necessary.
“She said that people are going to be intolerant,” he said. “Although the judge heard everything and believed that this was going on, she basically told me that I need to have thicker skin.”
Within that line of thinking is a dangerous, common implication: that his neighbors were right to see McKenzie’s transgender identity itself as a reasonable threat.
2015 brought two extremes in trans experience and highlighted the increasing gulf between them. At one end was pop culture visibility and media admiration of trans people, and on the other, widespread disenfranchisement within the legal systems that are supposed to protect them. The groundbreaking visibility of Caitlyn Jenner’s Diane Sawyer interview
In 2015, 23 transgender women were murdered in the U.S., and internationally, law enforcement and legal systems are failing them. In August, reports alleged that two military police officers in Brazil covered up the murder of 18-year-old Laura Vermont; they were subsequently released on bail. In June, two men attacked Stephanie McCarthy, 43, outside of a pub in Newtown, fracturing her eye socket and cheekbone. In December, her assailants were sentenced to just 100 hours of community service after leaving her partially blind.
These miscarriages of justice are profoundly normal for transgender people; many—like Rush McKenzie—learn firsthand that law enforcement and the legal system are more likely to work against than for them. I spoke to many advocates, legal experts, and transgender people in reporting this story, and I heard a common refrain: There is no justice for trans people. This is true whether it’s reporting harassment when you’re walking down the street, being treated fairly by jury members, or testifying before a judge who views your case impartially.
Jennifer Orthwein, who works as the Senior Counsel for the Transgender Law Center’s Detention Project, said over the phone that our legal system is “biased at every turn.” Hayley Gorenberg, the Deputy Legal Director of Lambda Legal, agreed, and argued that the system is stacked against transgender people “from the front end all the way through.” According to Gorenberg, this issue begins with local law enforcement.
“Police, in too many cases, aren’t seen as helpful,” Gorenberg said. “We have documented cases and multiple reports of assault—including sexual assault—by police officers. On the flip side, we have reports of police neglect, where the police are not being adequately responsive.”
One of the major issues is that police routinely stereotype trans people as sex workers. “Being profiled as a sex worker means being profiled as engaging in a crime,” Ms. Gorenberg said, bringing up the phrase “walking while trans.” “There are many trans women who have gotten targeted by police just for being out on the street, regardless of what they’re doing,” she explained.
A 2012 report from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs found that profiling and police brutality disproportionately targets trans folks, who are three times as likely to experience mistreatment from officers than cisgender people. Transgender women of color also faced the highest rates of violence overall. Despite accounting for around .02 to .03 percent of the population, 2014 estimates from NCAVP showed trans folks make up an astounding 18.8 percent of hate crimes, while people of color account for 80 percent of all LGBTQ homicides.
Gorenberg said that recognizing the intersectional dimensions of this issue is vital: “We find a compounding effect of gender identity and race—so that if people have multiple marginalized identities, they tend to add up to even worse experiences at the hands of the criminal legal system.”
Miss Diamond, a 37-year-old trans activist and community organizer, said that every trans woman—especially women of color—has their own story of what it’s like to deal with law enforcement or the courts. In our phone interview, she recalled a dispute with her husband (“his voice was a little loud”) in which neighbors called the police. Instead of asking about her safety or questioning her, she was ignored. “They asked him, ‘Are you okay? Are you safe?’ like I was abusing him,” Diamond said.
This dismissive conduct is common when police are responding to domestic complaints or intimate partner violence. “[Trans people] know they are going to be treated with bias,” Jennifer Orthwein said. “They know how people perceive them.” Miss Diamond said that she’s unlikely to call the cops if she feels threatened, harassed, or unsafe. “I feel they are not for us,” she said. “It makes you not even trust the system.”
Miss Diamond’s struggles to be treated fairly by police mirror her experiences with the justice system itself. In 1999, Diamond was convicted of armed robbery and given a sentence of five to 20 years in jail; she would go onto serve time for a decade in a Michigan men’s prison, while her co-defendant—who was cisgender—got a far lighter sentence. “I was judged beyond the crime,” she said. “I was judged for being immoral.”
Miss Diamond claims that breaking the law was a road left open where others had been closed, a way to make ends meet or to fund the high price of transitioning (the cost of gender-reassignment surgery and hormones is commonly around $20,000). “Employment? Forget about it,” she said. “That’s why a lot of trans women go into prostitution—because the workforce isn’t very inviting. If you’re not passable, then you’re not hireable. You get the bad end of the deal.”
A perfect storm of factors leads to high trans rates of economic dislocation and struggle. According to UCLA’s Williams Law Institute, trans folks are four times more likely than the average American to live under the poverty line (earning less than $10,000), while nearly 20 percent have experienced homelessness. Trans people also experience the highest rates of suicide, as they are nine times more likely than the average population to attempt to take their own lives.
Diamond notes that it can very well be difficult for judges to understand the effects of this web of barriers, and this is why she argues that it’s important to elect trans women to these positions of authority. “If there’s a judge, then there should be a girl like me that’s a judge as well,” she said.
There are exceptions to the rule. Within days of each other, Victoria Kolakowski and Phyllis Frye became the first openly transgender judges to serve openly in the United States. Kolakowski was elected on November 17, 2010, while Frye was appointment by Houston mayor Annise Parker the following day. Meanwhile, there are a handful of trans police officers across the U.S., in cities like Austin, Texas, and Louisville, Kentucky. But in their respective professions, these trailblazers remain exceptions, and many courts and police departments lack crucial representation that could lead to greater understanding.
Those blind spots extend to the jury system itself. States like California have banned the “panic” defense, in which attorneys may suggest that a crime was “justified” if the assailant had a heat of the moment reaction due to an irrational fear of violation from a queer or transgender person. That defense was recently used in the case of Joseph Scott Pemberton, a U.S. marine who was convicted of killing a 26-year-old Filipino woman, Jennifer Laude, in a Manilla motel room after learning of her trans status. In his testimony, Pemberton’s attorney called him “a victim of the fraud committed by a sex worker.”
Such explanations have been effective in past cases, and even when trans panic isn’t asserted explicitly in criminal proceedings, it’s often implied in jury reactions. “It often seems jurors perceive transgender people’s gender expression as a form of fraud,” Jennifer Orthwein said in an email. “That seems to impact their perception of the transgender person’s credibility. Transgender people have little chance with a jury of their ‘so-called’ peers whether they are the plaintiff, victim or defendant.”
The underlying implication in these common transphobic defenses is an inhumane one: that trans people are inherently deserving of punishment.
CeCe McDonald cites jury bias as a major factor in her decision to take a 41-month plea deal—following a racially motivated attack by a group of “Neo-Nazi drunk assholes,” as McDonald describes them. The incident, in which McDonald and her friends were threatened outside of a bar, led to the death of 47-year-old Dean Schmitz. As a means of self-defense, Schmitz was stabbed with a pair of scissors.
During the trial, McDonald said that her team knew the predominantly white and cisgender jury wasn’t siding with her. “These people weren’t going to let me win,” she explained to Rolling Stone. Even aside from issues with the jury, McDonald’s trial was a complete and total disaster. “Evidence of Schmitz’s swastika tattoo was deemed inadmissible,” the magazine reported. “Schmitz’s prior assault convictions were deemed irrelevant, and the judge would allow only limited testimony about the toxicology report showing Schmitz was high on meth, feeding his aggression.”
But McDonald believes that her case was decided from the moment that she flagged down a police officer for assistance. “When you look at any case involving a person of color, you know when asking for police help, it usually ends with them dead,” she said to me, over the phone. “They didn’t come to ask any questions.” On the night of the attack, the cops had their guns drawn from the moment that they stepped out of their vehicles—and they were directed at her. McDonald thought she was going to get gunned down: “That’s what the police do.”
Like Miss Diamond and Rush McKenzie, McDonald feels that she was put in a lose-lose situation. “If a trans person decides to protect themselves, we’re criminalized and demonized, but if a person attacks and kills a trans person, that’s their right,” she said.
Why don’t officers believe trans people who report being victims of crime? When trans people are the ones on trial, why don’t we view them as innocent until proven guilty—the same right afforded to every other American?
These were the two questions my conversations repeatedly returned to. When I interviewed Chase Strangio, the staff attorney for the ACLU’s LGBT and AIDS Project, he told me that the second-class status of trans citizens is still enshrined. “We don’t believe that trans people are as human as non-trans people,” Strangio said. “I don’t think that we, as a society, genuinely believe that trans women are women and trans men are men.”
Treating trans people as less than and viewing their very identities as a form of deception—as in the case of Jennifer Laude—makes it much easier to deny them rights. When we see people is less deserving of our empathy, it also makes them less deserving of our protection.
The American Psychiatric Association only declared that being transgender would no longer be classified as a disorder in 2012, and the American public is slow to catch up even to this low bar. Last year, voters in Houston struck down a bill that would have prohibited discrimination based on gender identity in city services, employment, and public accommodations. Opponents of HERO argued that it would allow sexual predators to prey on women’s bathrooms, reflecting what Strangio noted as the persistent idea “that trans people are just men dressed up as women who intend to harm cis women.”
Strangio added, “It’s so antithetical to recognizing the humanity of someone to think that their very existence compromises the privacy of other.”
And yet, there have been no reported cases of a cisgender person being attacked in a public bathroom by someone who is transgender. It’s trans people who continue to be endangered by society; their existence does not endanger it.
Strangio believes that fighting bias in law enforcement and the legal system needs to be part of a greater cultural shift, one that includes decriminalizing sex work and ending mass incarceration. But he argued that the most important thing is to further a culture of understanding. “The legal system will be an important tool, but we have to have robust movements organized around telling trans stories and trans histories,” Strangio said.
Stories like Caitlyn Jenner’s are a start, but Jenner is also white, wealthy, and famous—benefits that very few transgender people share. We are missing stories from the margins, which are worth teaching and learning from too. “It’s been really significant when members of the community have told their stories once they’re in safety,” said Hayley Gorenberg.
Gorenberg stressed that not everyone is able to tell their story—but that the ones who do are helping to create the possibility of a fair and just system. CeCe McDonald and Rush McKenzie are trying to do exactly this. The last time McKenzie and I talked, he was checking out of a local hospital, where he’s been receiving treatment for PTSD and anxiety. He explained that the frustrations of the past year have made him exhausted and angry, but he’s “tired of running.” When he returned home that evening, McKenzie posted a copy in his front window of the hate crime ordinance from the California Penal Code, as well as the state’s definition of what constitutes stalking.
But alongside the avalanche of legal paperwork, Rush McKenzie posted a handwritten note scribbled on loose-leaf notebook paper: “Trans Lives Matter.” It seems like a simple message, but that call for justice is still waiting to be heard.
Nico Lang is a Meryl Streep enthusiast, critic, and essayist. You can read his work on the Daily Dot, Salon, Rolling Stone, Vox, Washington Post, L.A. Times, BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, Mic, Daily Beast and the Guardian. He’s also the author of The Young People Who Traverse Dimensions and the co-editor of the bestselling BOYS anthology series.
Illustration by Tara Jacoby
This tweet, from the official account of casual footwear brand Crocs, has been deleted, but its inspiration will live on forever.
David Bowie’s perpetual stylistic reinvention (don’t call him a chameleon) became a standard many pop stars would come to adopt. To put his visionary genius in perspective, we assembled a reel of ‘70s and ‘80s TV clips, highlighting the ways in which Bowie’s shape-shifting tendencies were marveled at, questioned, and explained by the man himself.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/rip-david-bowi...
[Edited by Julian Muller with Erika Audie]
Have you seen a dog that looks sort of like the dog you see above roaming the streets of beautiful, sunny Puerto Vallarta? If so, you might be able to score a $1,000 reward. Because as it turns out, that dog belongs to none other than ya boy, affluenza teen Ethan Couch.
From The Daily Mail:
Virgil, a Saarloos Wolfdog, hasn’t been seen since Couch and his mom Tonya were arrested in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico on December 28, and now fears are growing about what has happened to it.
Now a relative of the Couches is offering a $1,000 reward for Virgil’s return.
Considering the state of the affluenza teen and his mother’s Mexican affairs
A note putting out a call for the missing pup was posted to the Puerto Vallarta’s SPCA Facebook page:
Which roughly translated, reads:
REWARD $1000
DOG LOST IN PUERTO VALLARTA
Lost on Colombía street.
If you have any information on her wherabouts,, please contact Misty at (817) 944-9311.
The dog answers to Virgil.
Considering Couch’s wealth, $1,000 does seem like a relatively small sum. But as The Mail writes:
Misty McWilliams, who lives in Burleson, a wealthy suburb of the Couches’ hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, slammed the phone down when Daily Mail Online called her to ask about her offer.
They seem like a nice family.
Anyway, if you find the dog, I suggest you keep it.
[h/t The Daily Mail]
Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com. Art by Tara Jacoby.
As a connoisseur of fine yogurt, you can approach life in one of two ways: get bogged down in the muck of inferior yogurt trench warfare, or you can put on your headphones and settle in with some quality yogurt—because brother, life is too short for bad curdles.
If your only source of yogurt news were the mainstream mass media, you might think that the relevant yogurt news of the week is a feud between Chobani and Dannon—Chobani has a new ad campaign alleging Dannon is not good for you, which Dannon said was false, and then Chobani objected to their objection and filed a lawsuit saying it was true, and then....
POPPYCOCK.
If you want to spend your minutes, hours, and days picking apart the minutiae of B-list yogurt legal battles, you may be my guest. I already know everything I need to know about both Chobani and Dannon: both of them are bad yogurt
http://gawker.com/5916664/most-p...
You know the kind I mean
You know the other kind I mean. Mmm. Yeah.
Little surprise Chobani, which has a history of such childish stunts, would want to publicly attempt to degrade its competitors on the grocery’s Bad Yogurt aisle, in a transparent attempt to distract consumers from the fact that Chobani tastes like milk that a cow slept it, which was then left out to rot, and then someone put some jelly in it. This is a free country, and you, the consumer, are free to choose which yogurt news outlets you follow, and which yogurt products you purchase and consume. Are you more of a sour and painful type? Or a creamy delicious type?
Don’t believe “the hype”—on the topic of yogurt (or other foods, all of which appeal to different groups of connoisseurs, which is fair).
[Photo: Flickr]
PS—Why isn’t there any plain Noosa for sale in New York City any more? Tell me now.
In November, Kristin Cavallari gave birth to her third child and named her Saylor, like Bristol Palin’s baby
In the post, titled “Meet Saylor James,” Kristin wrote:
Here is my little angel, Saylor. I couldn’t have asked for a better baby. We’re very lucky to have such a sweet, easy girl, especially since she’s the third one! I guess there was no other option! Happy new year, everyone!
“I guess there was no other option!”
I guess there was no other option.
What?
Over the last several days, I have concocted many theories as to what Kristin might have meant by this statement; none of them make any sense and all of them fall squarely into a category I’d call “distressing.”
No other option.
Kristin. What do you mean?
This has been 500 Days of Kristin.
[Photo via Getty]
You’re not crazy, John!
After a successful employee unionization drive and a good deal of corporate foot-dragging
Cheap sweaters, an exercise bike with unlimited resistance, and clever iPhone chargers highlight today’s best deals. Bookmark Kinja Deals and follow us on Twitter to never miss a deal. Commerce Content is independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale. Click here
More Deals
http://deals.kinja.com/todays-best-ap...
http://deals.kinja.com/every-goddamne...
Now that it’s actually cold outside, Amazon’s offering great deals on dozens of sweaters and cardigans for men and women, today only. You’ll find styles from several different brands in this Gold Box deal, but the most popular ones could sell out early, so don’t waste any time getting bundled up. [Amazon Sweater Sale]
Anker, purveyor of your favorite charging gear, also makes a Wi-Fi security camera and a desk lamp, and they’re both on sale today.
http://deals.kinja.com/bestsellers-an...
The AnkerCam streams to your smartphone, tablet, or computer in 720p, and even lets you talk to the person (or pet) on the other end. It’s well reviewed at $100, but today, you can get it for $60, with no subscription fees required. [AnkerCam HD Wi-Fi Security Camera, $60 with code FQJ4OJKE]
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00T2GUHIS
The Anker Lumos desk lamp features multiple dimming levels, flicker-free LED bulbs to help with eyestrain, and an infinitely-adjustable design. There are lamps out there with more features, but this is a fantastic price. [Anker Lumos Desk Lamp, $26 with code JKCOICF6]
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015VVRJ3S
This Moga Bluetooth game controller is compatible with hundreds of popular Android games, and even if you don’t think you’d use it that often, it might be worth checking out at $8. [MOGA Mobile Gaming System for Android, $8]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...
If you missed out on last week’s $60 2DS sale (which is still available, by the way), you can get one for $85 today, but with a copy of Mario Kart 7 included. Chances are, you were going to buy that game anyway, so the deals are basically a wash. [Nintendo 2DS + Mario Kart 7, $85]
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1218527274...
http://kotaku.com/5984276/dont-l...
If you were planning on getting a little more exercise in 2016, this Lifecore Fitness Assault exercise bike offers unlimited resistance and fantastic reviews, and Amazon’s taking $300 off its usual price, today only. [Lifecore Fitness Assault Bike Trainer, $700]
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F74RX40/...
Hey, remember when Apple came out with a $100 iPhone battery case? That was fun, eh? [Lenmar iPhone 6/6s Battery Case, $20 with code SDLENBC6]
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...
Steaming your clothes might not get them as crisp as ironing, but it does a decent enough job in a fraction of the time, and for $15, why not? [Pure Enrichment PureSteam Fabric Steamer, $15 with code STEAMR15]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...
Burt’s Bees is your favorite lip balm by a wide margin
http://co-op.kinja.com/most-popular-l...
This coupon is only available when you purchase through Amazon’s Subscribe & Save program, but you can always cancel after your first package is delivered. Also, your discount won’t appear until checkout. [Extra 15% off Burt’s Bees Lip Balm]
You know those giant photos of stadiums and landscapes that let you zoom wayyyy in
http://gizmodo.com/5493928/gigapa...
Go check out some sample images if you want an idea of what this thing is capable of.
Update: Sold out, but available for a few bucks more on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...
If you can’t keep up with all of your remotes, this popular Logitech Harmony 700 can control eight of your favorite devices (from a database of 270,000) for just $60. [Logitech Harmony 700, $60]
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2014893161...
If you can’t afford an Oculus Rift and a computer to run it, this Google Cardboard-compatible View-Master headset only requires your phone, and can be yours for just $20. [Viewmaster VR With Google Cardboard Support, $20]
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01...
I can never seem to keep my salt and pepper shakers in the same place, so building both into one device definitely seems appealing. Plus, you can adjust the coarseness of the grind on both ends. Not bad for $8. [Ohuhu [2 in 1] Salt and Pepper Grinder Set, $8 with code 3I98VFW6]
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RRLTJ9S
I’m an unabashed fanboy of Nomad products, and you can save over $100 on a gift set of three today, courtesy of Best Buy.
Needless to say, with these tools at your disposal, you’ll be like some kind of USB charging mystic. [Nomad Holiday Gift Set, $80]
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/nomad-hol...
If you’ve ever been curious just how much power your various appliances and electronics are using, Belkin’s WeMo Insight Switch can monitor your energy usage, and even turn devices on or off from anywhere in the world.
Functionally, the Insight Switch is no different than a standard Belkin WeMo switch. Just plug one in between a wall outlet and the device of your choice, and you’ll be able to turn it on or off from your smartphone or Amazon Echo, and even create automatic schedules. The difference is that the Insight will monitor your device’s energy use, and even calculate its monthly cost on your power bill. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that the Insight will completely pay for itself, but it can certainly make you more mindful of what goes into your monthly bill.
Amazon will sell you an Insight for just $40 today, which is within a few cents of an all-time low, and actually $20 less than the standard WeMo Switch. We aren’t sure how long this deal will last though, so lock in your order, and start saving power. [Belkin WeMo Insight Switch, $40]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...
There are few things worse than a cord falling behind your desk, so $6 for a 6-pack of self-adhesive cable holders seems like a no-brainer. [Attmu Cable Organizer, Set of 6, $6 with code CI3PBEU7]
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R49KM7Q/
If you like going for runs with your dog, but want to keep your hands free, this cheap running belt has a leash built right in. Genius! [Homdox Running Belt With Built-In Handsfree Dog Leash, $13 with code ZKINB3CM]
http://www.amazon.com/Homdox-Coupler...
Now that you’ve seen The Force Awakens, you can relive either of the original trilogies for $35 on Blu-ray.
Star Wars Trilogy Episodes IV-VI ($35) | Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E9PMMX0/...
Star Wars Trilogy Episodes I-III ($35) | Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E9PMML2/...
You can’t control these power outlets with your smartphone, or tie them to IFTTT recipes like the Belkin WeMo line, but they sell for a tiny fraction of the cost of their smarter brethren, and can be controlled from across the room via the included remotes. It’s only a half-measure towards creating a smart home, to be sure, but they might be worth a look at the price. [5-Pack Etekcity Wireless Remote Control Electrical Outlet Switch, $21 with code DEALBIGG]
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...
Five terabytes for $110. What a world. [WD - My Book 5TB External USB 3.0 Hard Drive, $110]
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2014071516...
If you’re a fan of fighting games, this specialized PS4/PS3 controller is designed specifically for you. And at $30, it’s never been cheaper. [HORI Fighting Commander 4 Controller for PlayStation 4/3, $30]
http://www.amazon.com/HORI-Fighting-...
http://www.amazon.com/ORICO-External...
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001DEYVXO/...
http://www.amazon.com/U-Shape-Self-p...
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B011BK6XG2
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007JNWQZS/...
Commerce Content is independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale. Click here
Send deal submissions to Deals@Gawker and all other inquiries to Shane@Gawker
According to government surveillance photos obtained by Mexico’s El Universal, law enforcement was tracking Sean Penn’s moves from the moment he stepped off the airplane for his notorious meeting with the country’s most wanted man.
The extremely pixelated photos (Borderland Beat says they were taken by agents with a telephoto lens) show Penn and actress Kate del Castillo arriving at Guadalajara International Airport and connecting with members of El Chapo’s inner circle. It’s still unclear what role Penn’s meeting (and bonkers Rolling Stone article
http://gawker.com/mexican-offici...
Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: E93A 40D1 FA38 4B2B 1477 C855 3DEA F030 F340 E2C7
On Monday, Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that his office, which had been investigating Governor Andrew Cuomo’s abrupt disbandment of the anticorruption Moreland Commission, in March 2014, would not bring criminal charges against the governor.
“After a thorough investigation of interference with the operation of the Moreland Commission and its premature closing, this Office has concluded that, absent any additional proof that may develop, there is insufficient evidence to prove a federal crime,” Bharara said in a statement. “We continue to have active investigations related to substantive inquiries that were being conducted by the Moreland Commission at the time of its closure.”
The statement didn’t name names, but Bharara’s office was known to have been investigating Cuomo over his decision to shutter the panel—which he had appointed himself—less than nine months into its intended 18-month lifespan ostensibly as part of budget negotiations. Even before shutting it down, Cuomo was accused of meddling in its work and blocking subpoenas, despite having claimed, a month into its existence, “Anything they want to look at, they can look at—me, the lieutenant governor, the attorney general, the comptroller, any senator, any assemblyman.”
Still, even if Cuomo isn’t going to be indicted over closing the commission, he could still be indicted as a result of investigations that grow out of things the commission found before it was closed. From Politico New York:
The Cuomo administration is still in Bharara’s crosshairs over contracts it let to build a solar panel factory as part of the Buffalo Billion, a major Cuomo initiative. Prosecutors have subpoenaed contractors and campaign donors to examine how work was awarded. Several legislators who were scrutinized by the U.S. attorney could still find themselves facing criminal charges. Bharara famously told Albany to “stay tuned,” and said in his statement that prosecutors are still pursuing other leads that came from the Moreland Commission.
Last year, Bharara’s office indicted two of the other three so-called Men in a Room of the New York State Legislature on corruption charges: former Speaker Sheldon Silver and former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos. Both were found guilty. Both convictions grew out of leads first investigated by the Moreland Commission, which the U.S. Attorney had subpoenaed after its closure.
In a statement, the governor’s lawyer, Elkan Abramowitz, said, “We were always confident there was no illegality here, and we appreciate the U.S. Attorney clarifying this for the public record.”
Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.
According to the New York Times, in her new book, Dark Money, New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer reports that the father of the billionaire Koch brothers, whose fortune they inherited, helped to construct a major Nazi oil refinery personally approved by Adolf Hitler.
The book explores the history of several wealthy families at the heart of American conservatism. From the Times:
The book is largely focused on the Koch family, stretching back to its involvement in the far-right John Birch Society and the political and business activities of their father, Fred C. Koch, who found some of his earliest business success overseas in the years leading up to World War II. One venture was a partnership with the American Nazi sympathizer William Rhodes Davis, who, according to Ms. Mayer, hired Mr. Koch to help build the third-largest oil refinery in the Third Reich, a critical industrial cog in Hitler’s war machine.
“If the content of the book is reflective of Ms. Mayer’s previous reporting of the Koch family, Koch Industries or Charles’s and David’s political involvement, then we expect to have deep disagreements and strong objections to her interpretation of the facts and their sourcing,” Ken Spain, a spokesman for Koch Industries, said.
Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.
The upcoming Republican presidential debate just did Rand Paul and Carly Fiorina the dirty.
The two were not included in the newly-announced lineup for Thursday’s debate in North Charleston, South Carolina, hosted by Fox Business Network. According to USA Today, the debate will feature the usual cast of coconuts: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz,Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich.
Rand Paul, for his part, is not into doing the second-rate debate. He told CNN that he “won’t participate in anything that’s not first tier because we have a first tier campaign.” He also called it a “rotten” thing to do, and has been tweeting angrily about it for the past hour.
Paul is so pissed that he even released a statement responding to the slight:
And there you have it: a candidate whose poll numbers have been consistently abysmal is enraged that he is not given the lectern to deliver speeches to the voters who don’t care about him.
[Image via Twitter]
Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.
In Oneida County Court on Monday, Tiffanie Irwin, the pastor of the Word of Life Christian Church, in New Hartford, New York, where a teenage boy was fatally beaten and his brother assaulted in October, turned down a plea deal, opting instead to go to trial. She is charged with second-degree murder.
Oneida County District Attorney Scott McNamara said that, had she taken the deal, the government would have recommended a sentence of no less than 18 years in prison for the pastor. If convicted, CNYCentral.com reports, Irwin faces up to 25 years.
“Cases of this magnitude, when you’re talking about homicide it’s very common for us to ask for the highest charge in the indictment,” McNamara said. “Once we asked for a plea for the highest charge in the indictment the sentence is totally up to the court. We don’t control sentence when we ask for the highest charge.”
Eight people have been indicted in Lucas Leonard’s beating death, including his father, half-sister, three church leaders, and three other church members. In November, Irwin and six others plead not guilty in. Christopher Leonard, Lucas’ younger brother, who survived his beating, testified against them. From the Associated Press:
Christopher Leonard testified that after an eight-hour Sunday service Oct. 11, pastor Tiffanie Irwin asked the Leonard family and some others to stay behind for a meeting.
The purpose?
The slight, bespectacled teenager paused, then said only: “To talk about what we had done. Lucas and I.”
He said he and his brother answered some questions during the interrogation but didn’t want to answer others.
Over what Christopher Leonard estimated was six or more hours, he was pummeled with fists and whipped with a 4-foot, folded electrical cord on the back and elsewhere, he said. He suffered injuries to his torso and genitals.
The boys’ mother, Deborah Leonard, was charged separately. She plead guilty to manslaughter in December.
Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.
Narcissa Wright used to be the fastest Zelda: Ocarina of Time player. Her best run was nearly perfect
Kotaku: You’re a high level Smash Bros player and a renowned speedrunner. Not only are you good at games, you’re good at very specific games in extremely specific ways. What drew you to that, to mastering these sorts of things instead of, like, being good at a specific genre or competing in a bigtime eSport or something?
Narcissa Wright: I grew up around games. I started playing games when I was, like, four. My friends and I played Smash on N64 and then Melee on Gamecube. We also played Soul Calibur and stuff like that. We got really competitive. Eventually it turned into traveling for tournaments and stuff, around 2005. That’s when I got more serious with Smash stuff.
As for speedrunning stuff, there were some old communities back in the day [that I followed], but I really got into it when Ocarina of Time started getting broken open. It was around 2006. I found it really fascinating. I wanted to explore it myself. Eventually, that became speedrunning.
Kotaku: In what ways did you find it fascinating? What in particular stood out to you?
Narcissa Wright: It’s this game I played through. I’d collected everything, gotten 100 percent. It felt like there was nothing left to do. But then there was something new to do. People are still finding ways to do things out of order in ways that were never expected. When I first got started, more and more new stuff was being found, so it was like this new journey to break the game open.
Kotaku: Eventually, you worked your way up to setting the world record for fastest Ocarina of Time run. Then, because that wasn’t enough, you bested your own record. At some point, though, that must have become absolutely grueling. How did that affect your feelings toward the game? Did it deepen your appreciation, or did it become a love-hate thing? Because I imagine there were times when repeating sections over and over became just, like, nightmarish.
Narcissa Wright: Certain parts of practicing were really annoying. And it does come down to this endless grind of like... you’re just sitting there and sort of waiting for everything to come together. And it’s so unlikely that it’ll come together [in any individual run] that it’s just sort of maddening.
Kotaku: What were the biggest sticking points in Ocarina? Were there any specific parts that made you want to round up every special gold cartridge edition of the game on Earth and shatter them into a million little pieces?
Narcissa Wright: So that changed over the years, because over time there were new routes, new things. So when it changes, it’s interesting because it’s brand new.
So currently—which is a little unfair to reference, because I’ve stopped playing—there’s, like, a 23 percent chance of something happening. If it does, you can continue the speedrun past the first eight minutes or so. So you have to play perfectly for eight minutes, and then only 20 percent of the time or so, you’ll actually get to continue. That’s incredibly frustrating.
But that’s after my time. There’s other stuff that’s really frustrating, though. Like, there’s this trick called ESS where you slide really fast. You have to move the control stick really precisely. And sometimes it’ll just drop because your movement is just a tiny bit off. Sometimes you have to do this frame-perfect trick that has to be done on exactly the right frame. It’s human error. You can’t be perfect every time. It sucks when you practice over and over to do something, and it comes time to do it, and you slip up by a tiny bit.
Kotaku: Why did you move away from speedrunning Ocarina of Time—and also in general?
Narcissa Wright: I was satisfied with the run I did. It did eventually get beaten, and at first I was like, “Should I go back and try to beat that?” But then I realized that I was really happy with what I’d done, and it would just be another long, long grind to shave off a few seconds. I didn’t feel like going through that again. It was like I broke out of hell after I finished it. I was free [chuckles].
But then a new route came out, and it was exciting again. If I wanted to go back into it, though, one of the problems was, there was this controller adapter that modifies the deadzone on the controller and the sensitivity of the joystick. It allows you to do speedruns more consistently. And it’s like, is that cheating? People disagree. Some people think it is, some people think it isn’t. That plus the crazy 20 percent chance thing, it all compounds to be this really un-fun thing for me.
You’ve got people using the adapter or not using the adapter, and then you have some playing on Virtual Console—the current standard version to use—and others who aren’t. This new route involves a part that crashes on the N64, but not in the Virtual Console version. So it’s like, should this count? Nobody can agree on any of the rules, and it’s this big clusterfuck. There are other games I could play instead of going back and deciding what rules I want to play by.
There’s always a controversy, though. I used to do it on the Chinese version of the game. Some people thought that was kinda sketchy. As well as resetting the console to save time. On top of that, there are always people who are like, “Well, you’re glitching to the end. That doesn’t count.” Everybody has a different opinion on what counts and what doesn’t. When you really go all the way down to the input device and everything, it all kinda falls apart in a way. It’s open to interpretation. It’s not this unified thing. It’s very subjective.
I’d like to speedrun Castlevania for the N64. That’d be fun. Goldeneye levels as well. That’s fun too.
Kotaku: Wait, Castlevania 64? Isn’t that game, you know, not very good?
Narcissa Wright: Yeah. I mean, it got alright reviews, but it has this bad legacy. People don’t like the game. For speedrunning, though, I think it’s really, really good. It’s a great length. It’s around 40 minutes. There are cool boss strategies, cool skips. All of its elements together are really beautiful. Altogether, it’s a really great speedrun.
Kotaku: I really like the idea of a game that, on its own, is mediocre or bad, but works beautifully for speedrunning. Can you go more into that? What can turn a bad game into a great speedrunning game?
Narcissa Wright: It’s a common trend, I think. I think there’s other games like that too. People like to do really wacky stuff with busted Sonic games. Games like Sonic ‘06. The game’s programmed poorly, so it makes for an interesting speedrun.
Kotaku: You haven’t been able to speedrun lately, though, right? Because your hands are messed up? What happened there?
Narcissa Wright: I think it’s all the years of playing games. But it got bad when Smash Wii U came out. I think I’m at 11,500 matches now. I played for long sessions. I was playing Melee at the same time too, and that’s even more demanding on your hands. If I play too long, it hurts a lot, and it hurts for a long time afterward. It’s been a huge problem. It’s made me feel like maybe I can’t get back into speedrunning as much as I want to with Castlevania and stuff.
I don’t have health insurance right now. I’m trying to get that settled. I walked into a physical therapy place, but they told me I need a doctor’s note and insurance. I want to get that figured out in 2016. In the meantime, I’ve been doing stuff like hand exercises—just trying to stretch my hands and take care of them. I also took a two week break from console gaming, and that’s helped a bit. But I still can’t do those long sessions.
This is a common problem, too. A lot of people have this problem. Particularly Smash players. But I think it happens in other games too. I think StarCraft players get hand problems as well, but I don’t know as much about that.
Kotaku: I think people are only just beginning to realize how much people who play games all the time—professional streamers, eSports players, etc—can tax their own health. It feels like this thing where people ask so much of them, so they keep pushing themselves past their limits. Like, did you see the thing with [popular Twitch streamer] MANvsGAME admitting to drug usage in pursuit of ultra-long marathon casts? I think people view “playing video games all day” as the easiest job on Earth, but there’s so much you’ve gotta do to get and keep people’s attention. Some of that stuff has lasting consequences.
Narcissa Wright: Definitely. And I heard about the MANvsGAME thing, for sure. Mostly, though, I know about hand issues in hardcore console gamers.
Kotaku: How has your audience responded to your hand issues and subsequent shift away from speedrunning? It seems like you’ve lost quite a few Twitch followers in recent times. I’ve also seen some people being astoundingly shitty on YouTube. I mean, I get that it’s YouTube, but jeez. There are some merciless motherfuckers on there.
Narcissa Wright: There’s people who understand, and they’re still trying to support me and everything. That’s really good. But there’s a lot of people who moved away, especially after my speedrunning stuff died out more. Speedrunning was definitely something people really enjoyed.
But I was sort of running out of motivation for that as well. It wasn’t just the hand issue. That’s when I got back into Smash again. It was like, “OK, time to take a break from this mindless repetition.” Time to actually play with other people instead of just grinding this single-player thing over and over.
A lot of people don’t like my content now, but that’s fine. They can go watch something else.
Kotaku: What are you using your Twitch channel for now? I saw that you’ve been doing art, which is awesome, but it’s also methodical and without concrete direction. I think you might have accidentally taken up speedrunning’s polar opposite. Why’d you decide to start doing that on stream?
Narcissa Wright: I used to do some painting in the past, but not on stream so much. So I’ve been doing that a little bit. It’s been fun and challenging. I think art is really, really hard, by the way. It’s quite a bit harder than video games [laughs]. It’s so open-ended. Making things look right... I don’t know, I find it very challenging.
It’s also something to do. It’s not too stressful on my hands. It’s not a focus, though. I’m also spending a lot of time sort of vlogging—just talking to the chat and stuff. That’s been fun, but I’m interested in a bunch of different things. First I want to get my hands better and get back into gaming. But I’m also interested in trying some other stuff too, and it feels kinda scattered—like I don’t have a direct focus on what I’m doing.
For example, I have an idea for this online board game, and I’m trying to learn how to code it. I’m streaming that more. So there’s a lot of different things. I sort of think of the stream as an environment, and I go there and hang out. It’s sort of a different way of doing streaming.
Before I was so focused on speedrunning. People would come to my stream for speedrunning, and they’d find the same content every time. And they’d like it, and they’d get into it. It got a lot of momentum like that. But now I don’t really have that momentum. It’s challenging. But I feel like it’s a good time for me to explore different things and try things.
I had ideas for all these speedruns on top of what I’m doing, but the motivation kinda fizzled out. I had to be honest with myself and not force it. I think if I’d have forced it, it would’ve failed to be genuine, and people would’ve realized that I wasn’t enjoying it. I’d rather stay true to my motivation and passion.
Kotaku: You mentioned that you have an idea for a game. What is it? How does it work? Is it inspired by what you’ve learned while speedrunning, dissecting games in this super specific way?
Narcissa Wright: It’s an idea for a game I’ve had for about ten years. It feels like it’s time to make it.
Game creation and speedrunning are similar in a way. If you play a game a lot, you start to see what is actually optimal to do from a winning perspective, what makes the game fun or interesting, what gives the player agency.
The game I’m thinking of is this multiplayer game, and I want it to be kind of strategic. It’d be interesting exploring what can be done, what makes it good. What I liked about speedrunning is that you’re trying to play optimally. Even with fighting games like Street Fighter or Smash, it’s like a lot of risk-reward and maximizing efficiency. So I want to make something that’s really deep, but not stagnant.
At this point I mostly just have rules for the game, but those are subject to change. As for the theme, I’m not sure exactly. I kinda have some ideas, but there’s still a lot to do. It’s just something I really want to get done. It would be really cool, I think.
Kotaku: You also recently decided to transition and undergo hormone replacement therapy, which is a massive life change. You’ve been pretty open about it online, which strikes me as necessary when you make a living streaming, but also terrifying given that the Internet... well, the Internet can be overwhelmingly mean, especially when it comes to something people don’t fully understand.
Narcissa Wright: Yeah, the Internet is definitely not always a nice place. But it felt like this was a long time coming. I just sort of kept pushing it back and pushing it back. I finally decided to accept myself. A lot of people do not understand, and a lot of people leave really mean comments all the time. It’s kind of draining.
But at the same time, I have zero regrets. I know I’m doing the right thing. People can either get over it, or they can go watch someone else.
Kotaku: Yeah, it seems like people have been pretty nasty recently. I saw that you got DDOS-ed.
Narcissa Wright: I have no idea why people do that. It just sort of started happening recently. It was ongoing for, like, a month, and it was a huge pain. I finally got a VPN, and I think that’s fixed it for the most part.
It happened in the past too, though. Years ago, I got DDOS-ed. It was similarly irritating.
Kotaku: I saw that you switched your Twitch chat to subscriber-only as well. Were people using that as another place to be shitty?
Narcissa Wright: It was a signal-to-noise ratio thing. Even before [the transition], there were a lot of random comments. It was mildly irritating. I knew that by having the sub wall up, I could clear all of that out and talk more directly to people. Instead of being spammed by giant ASCII toucans or whatever [laughs]. I feel good about my decision.
Kotaku: Have there been upsides to shining a spotlight on your transition for you personally? Have you found support in gaming communities, especially the ones you’ve cultivated?
Narcissa Wright: Yeah, there’s a lot of that. I got a huge surge of support initially, and it still kinda continues. But there’s also the huge negative crowd, which you can see in YouTube comments and on various other websites.
People try to drag down others for some reason. Maybe they just don’t understand it. It’s OK. I still get a lot of support from a lot of people, and I have close friends I talk to. I just feel good about everything.
Kotaku: In light of negativity you’ve received pre- and post-transition, have you ever had moments where you considered leaving the public eye? Even regardless of people being garbage-spewing toilet monsters, does it all just get exhausting, essentially being on stage all the time?
Narcissa Wright: I’m someone who has a lot of opinions about stuff, but I’m very shy. I don’t share a lot of stuff sometimes. I’m pretty quiet. Like, I tweet pretty rarely, even though I have a lot of followers.
So sometimes I’m pretty reclusive or private, but I’m also public as well. It’s kinda weird. We live in this society we can’t be totally reclusive and alone. I’m making a living off the Internet, right? And I want to share the things I’m interested in. I want to make stuff. I want to stream. I want to share my experiences. But it’s also weird.
Kotaku: Totally. You also have that side of yourself where you just want to be off on your own, in your own head, without pressure to perform or accountability to thousands of people. These days, though, you can never completely get away. If you’re a bigtime Twitch streamer or even just a power user on a service like Twitter or Instagram, life becomes a sort of performance.
Narcissa Wright: Oh for sure. I want to be accountable for myself. I do a lot of reading on my own. There’s that side of me as well.
I’m really grateful that I’m able to live off the Internet, but it’s at this borderline where I have some money saved up, but I’m losing some each month. I’m gonna be moving, and I’m gonna try to move to a cheaper place. Hopefully that will ease up tension with money issues. And I’d like to get on health insurance.
Kotaku: Does the knowledge that you have finite money and users slipping away because you’re doing so much experimentation with your stream put pressure on you? Do you feel like you have to heal up your hands asap and get back to doing what people want you to?
Narcissa Wright: I’m definitely taking it one step at a time. I don’t plan on going and doing something because that’s what everyone wants to see. I know people want to see certain things out of me, but I want to focus on what I’m actually passionate about.
Maybe that’s kind of ungrateful. It’s like, “I’m only gonna do what I’m passionate about; now please pay for my existence.” Maybe that’s super entitled. But I feel like I’m at my best when I can work on things I’m actually passionate about. Stuff that’s actually meaningful, instead of meaningless.
So it’s one step at a time. Am I worried? Not really. I’m kinda optimistic. I think everything will work out.
Kotaku: What’s next for you? What’s your plan for 2016?
Narcissa Wright: Move to a cheaper place, get situated, get my hands looked at and taken care of, get health insurance, and continue streaming. I’ve been streaming almost every day. It’s been different things. Sometimes it’s a vlog thing, sometimes I’m doing something like making a Mario Maker level or something [Editor’s note: one of Narcissa’s levels nearly drove Patrick mad
I want to keep doing code too. I just started trying to figure out some code stuff. I’d like to work more with that, and I think I’d like to do it on stream. I want to make my game, or at least make progress on it.
Kotaku: Thanks for your time!
To contact the author of this post, write to nathan.grayson@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @vahn16.
If Donald Trump wins the presidency, he will have a job for four years. If not, he may not have a job ever again.
According to a survey conducted by the brand consultant agency BAV Consulting, since the start of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the Trump brand of hotels, housing developments and golf courses has slowly been losing its market in its biggest consumer base: rich people. Politico broke the results down in a feature on Monday:
In categories such as “prestigious,” “upper class” and “glamorous” the Trump name has plummeted among high-income consumers. Within the same group, it is also losing its connection with the terms “leader,” “dynamic” and “innovative”—quite a blow for a man who criticizes others for being “low energy” and considers himself an industry trailblazer.
The losses have been especially notable in Trump’s wealthier customers, with those earning incomes over $150,000 reacting most harshly. The survey reported that people felt that Trump was “obliging” and “upper class” far less than the start of his campaign—50 percent less, in fact.
Perhaps this is a learning experience for us all, though. Maybe in the financial textbooks of the future, the chapters detailing decision-making strategies will include a warning against offending entire religions
[Image via Getty]
Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.
At least 17 people were killed when Islamic State militants attacked a shopping mall in Baghdad on Monday night, the New York Times reports. Five members of the Iraqi security forces were among the dead. Forty people were wounded.
Amid a gun battle that raged for nearly two hours, officials initially feared a hostage crisis was in the works. But when the battle was over, they said most of the deaths had been caused by a car bomb that initiated the attack and by two suicide bombers who struck at the entrance to the mall, which houses mostly women’s clothing stores known for discount prices.
According to SITE Intelligence Group, ISIS took responsibility for the attack on social media, saying that a total of four militants had been involved.
Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.
Residents of Whitesboro voted on Monday to keep the village’s seal, which, according to the village’s website, “depicts a friendly wrestling match that helped foster good relations between [village founder Hugh White] and the Indians.”
According to Syracuse.com, 212 people participated in the informal vote. Of those, 157 favored keeping the seal, rather than replacing it with something less bellicose. Mayor Patrick O’Connor said he wasn’t surprised by the result.
“I am aware that people are upset about it,” he told the Village Voice this summer. “I could understand why people would have concern about it. But, [as with] everything else, I think you have to take all the facts into consideration.”
“If people take the time to do that and they reach out to us, or they do the research themselves, it’s actually a very accurate depiction of friendly wrestling matches that took place back in those days.”
Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.
The militiamen who are still holed up at a wildlife refuge in Oregon waiting for creamer and tampons
According to the Associated Press, armed anti-government militiaman Ammon Bundy
The armed men have been staked out at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge since January 2, despite the ranchers at the center of their protest turning themselves in to authorities.
Other activities they’ve found to keep their minds occupied include co-opting government equipment to knock down fences, eating vegan jerky, and generally avoiding the attention of law enforcement. For a group of ranchers living in freezing squalor, they sure have kept busy.
[Image via Getty]
Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.
