According to the Washington Post, the late Justice Antonin Scalia spent his final day on this earth surrounded by members of a secretive, centuries-old, all-male society of wealthy sportsmen called the International Order of St. Hubertus.
John Poindexter, the man who owns Cibolo Creek Ranch, and C. Allen Foster, the Washington attorney with whom Scalia traveled to the ranch, hold leadership positions within the Order, the Post reports. It remains unclear whether Scalia himself had any official affiliation with the group, however.
Named for the patron saint of hunters, the Order was founded in 1695, in the Kingdom of Bohemia, by Count Franz Anton von Sporck—it came to the United States in 1966, via San Francisco. Its motto is “Deum Diligite Animalia Diligentes,” which means “Honoring God by honoring His creatures.” (Honoring how? And which creatures?)
Poindexter told the sheriff that in the evening after Scalia and Foster’s arrival in Texas, they “had supper and talked for a while” before Scalia “said that he was tired and was going to his room for the night.” His body was found the next morning.
After the justice’s death, Poindexter told reporters that he met Scalia at a “sports group” gathering in Washington, where the Order’s U.S. chapter is ostensibly headquartered, and the Presidio County Sheriff’s report names Foster as Scalia’s close friend. At least two other men present are affiliated with the Order as well. From the Post:
Planes owned by Wallace “Happy” Rogers III and the company of A.J. Lewis III left from San Antonio and arrived at the ranch just after noon Feb. 12. The planes departed the ranch about 30 minutes apart Feb. 14, according to flight records provided to The Post by FlightAware.
Rogers owns the Buckhorn Saloon and Museum in San Antonio. He has donated $65,000 dollars to Republican candidates since 2008. Lewis is the owner of a restaurant supplier company, also based in San Antonio. He has given $3,500 to GOP candidates since 2007.
Rogers and Lewis have both served as prior officers in the Texas chapter of the International Order of St. Hubertus, according to Texas business records. Rogers spoke to a Post reporter briefly on the phone and confirmed that he was at the ranch the weekend of Scalia’s death, He declined to comment further.
Lewis did not respond to several attempts for comment.
“There is nothing I can add to your observation that among my many guests at Cibolo Creek Ranch over the years some members of the International Order of St. Hubertus have been numbered,” Poindexter told the Post in an email. “I am aware of no connection between that organization and Justice Scalia.”
If there’s one thing teens love, it’s shoving household products into their orifices to get high. But if there are two things teens love, the second one is almost definitely ISIS. At least—that’s what they think. But as it turns out, jihad is a real drag, and our lazy teens just can’t cut it.
Take 16-year-old Marlin Stivani Nivarlain from Sweden, for instance. Nivarlain had run away with her boyfriend to join ISIS last May, but as she recently explained to a Kurdish television station, she hadn’t realized what exactly it was she was getting herself into: “First it was good together, but then he started to look at ISIS videos and speak about them and stuff like that. Then he said he wanted to go to ISIS, and I said ‘OK, no problem’, because I did not know what ISIS meant or what Islam was—nothing.”
What’s more, Nivarlain was pregnant when the couple crossed into Syria before finally being given a house in the ISIS-controlled Iraqi city of Mosul. The house, however, offered neither electricity nor running water—a marked departure from her previous way of life:
In Sweden we have everything, and when I was there, I did not have anything,” she said in the interview, looking relaxed and healthy. I did not have any money either - it was a really hard life. When I had a phone I started to contact my mum and I said: “I want to go home.”
So, boys and girls, what did we learn today? ISIS: Not as fun as it seems!
And parents, do you know where your teen is? If not, the answer is still probably “ISIS.”
As Donald Trump surges in the polls, Canada is trying to make it even easier for anyone, even a horrified American, to obtain Canadian citizenship—a total coincidence, I’m sure.
The bill, proposed by Immigration Minister John McCallum, would shorten the residency requirement, meaning someone who began their application around, say, Super Tuesday, could conceivably become a citizen almost two full years before Trump’s first term ends.
There are also a host of provisions that would not affect an U.S. citizen looking to escape his or her own country, including the removal of terrorism and other crimes as grounds for the revocation of a dual citizenship.
Proponents of the bill say it’s aimed at restoring the status quo before the conservative leadership passed a restrictive immigration bill, Bill C-24, in 2014. (It would also have the effect of restoring the Canadian citizenship of Zakaria Amara, the ringleader of the Toronto 18, a group that had planned to bomb who was stripped of his dual citizenship in 2015.) Or it’s just a convenient cover story—who’s to say, really.
“Once we’re in international waters, every woman on the ship gets to make love to whoever she wants,” Sean David Morton said, with a wink.
It was not entirely clear why we couldn’t have done that already, where we were, sitting immobile on the Ruby Princess, a “grand class” yacht moored in San Pedro, California, an oil refinery and port town just south of L.A. But we were making ready to sail away from our conventional ideas about laws, up to and including the laws of cause and effect.
Morton is a radio host, among other things. Here he was one of the lead organizers of Conspira Sea, the first annual sea cruise for conspiracy theorists. While the ship looped from San Pedro to Cabo San Lucas and back, some 100 of its passengers and I would be focused on uncharted waters, where nothing is as it seems. Before we docked again, two of them would end up following me around the ship, convinced I was a CIA plant.
Elsewhere aboard, people’s vacations were already exuberantly underway, the cigarette-browned casino bustling. Those of us in the conspiracy group were crammed into a dim, red-carpeted conference room in the bowels of Deck 6 to hear Morton, a Humpty Dumpty-shaped man with a chinstrap beard and an enormous, winking green ring, explain our mission.
“Conspiracy theorists are always right,” Morton told the room. He spoke with the jokey cadence and booming delivery of his profession; he’s basically Rush Limbaugh, if Rush Limbaugh claimed to have psychic powers (Morton practices a form of ESP known as “remote viewing,” which he says he learned from Nepalese monks). It was a bit of a pander, since the room was filled with conspiracy theorists.
“In 40 years,” Morton added, “as many people will believe a bunch of Arabs knocked down the World Trade Center as will believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.” A lot of people nod.
The things that everyone thinks are “crazy” now, he said, “the mainstream will pick up on them. 2016 is going to be one of those pivotal years, not just in American history, but in human history as well.”
A solemn hush settled. Morton switched gears. “Did you hear about Deflategate?” he asked. “Those footballs were in an elevator with Ray Rice!” (The New England Patriots had been accused of illegally deflating footballs, I guess the joke was, the same way former Ravens player Ray Rice knocked his fiancée unconscious in an elevator). No discernible reaction. He tried again: “What do Brokeback Mountain and Dallas have in common? They both have cowboys who suck!” That one got a light ripple of laughter.
The Conspira Sea was conceived of and organized by Morton and Dr. Susan Shumsky, a no-nonsense New Age Jill-of-all-trades with long blonde hair and an excellent pair of rhinestone-spangled cat-eye glasses. Morton, the de facto master of ceremonies, was introducing the conspiracy cruise presenters for 15-minute individual previews of what they would be teaching in our week at sea. (The presenter schedule was removed from the internet soon after the cruise ended, but a cached version is available here.)
There was Helen Sewell, a British astrologer, and her husband Andy Thomas, a conspiracy researcher. There was Jeffrey Smith, an anti-GMO activist with no scientific credentials and a previous career in “yogic flying.” There were Sherri Kane and Leonard Horowitz, a team in both research and life, who were there to tell us how the media and the CIA control the gullible populace.
There was Laura Eisenhower, the granddaughter of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a fact that sometimes would seem significant and sometimes would not. She explained she was there to show us how to get beyond “the seven chakra system that’s been implanted within us,” and a bunch of other similar phrases I found hard to follow. There was Nick Begich, the son of the late Alaska congressman John Nicholas Joseph Begich, a low-key, sweet-natured guy who believes the government is controlling both the weather and people’s minds with the use of a research program called HAARP.
Near Begich was Winston Shrout, who runs a staid-sounding financial advice company called Solutions in Commerce, dedicated to the idea that the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have us all literally enslaved. A few seats down was Dannion Brinkley, who’s from South Carolina, and who has died and been to Heaven three times. Death, he told us, is not, in fact, real.
“That’s the biggest buncha crap on Earth,” Brinkley said disgustedly, of the idea of death. “It never happens.” The ultimate conspiracy, if you will.
Most notably, there was Andrew Wakefield, the British gastroenterologist who authored the now-infamous 1998 study that suggested there might be a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Jenny McCarthy was breathed into being because of Andrew Wakefield.
The wider world hasn’t been kind to Wakefield, who lost his medical license in 2010 and is widely described as a one-man public health disaster. Here, though, he was treated as a battle-scarred hero. The room hung on his every word.
“One in two children will have autism by 2032,” he told us, to horrified gasps. “We are facing dark times. The government and the pharmaceutical industry own your bodies and the bodies of your children.”
“There are no [vaccine] exemptions anymore,” Sean David Morton piped in. “Not even if you’re Jewish. But I think Obama made an exception for Muslims.” He switched into what may have been an impression of someone with an Arabic accent: “Ay yi yi!”
He dropped back down to his normal register. With vaccines, he said, “They rape your kids. They are literally raping your kids. They literally jam something into their bodies that makes them sick.”
The presentations wrapped up and everyone started to drift away, just as the boat lurched into motion. Morton nodded darkly.
“It’s not all a great big beautiful tomorrow out there,” he assured the departing crowd. “That much I can tell you.”
At full capacity, the Ruby Princess holds around 3,084 people in 1,542 cabins, plus a 1,200-person crew. It has three dining rooms, four pools, an outdoor movie screen, a spa, a wedding chapel, a teen center, a nine-hole golf course, an art gallery, daily Alcoholics Anonymous meetings on deck 16, and a small library with the best in Lonely Planet guides and dog-eared thrillers. Inside the ship’s beating heart—a large, white marble-floored three-story atrium, decorated with a white grand piano and ringed with shops, and, because we were heading to Mexico, occasional musicians in mariachi outfits—there’s a Future Cruises kiosk. Once onboard, you must anxiously ponder how quickly you can return.
For most of the trip, except when docking for day trips in the most tourist-friendly parts of Mexico, the boat would be bounded on all sides by an endless, horizonless expanse of deep blue ocean. It was, as it turns out, quite soothing to look at after a long day of having your belief systems shaken relentlessly by the gale-force winds of alternative truth.
The Conspira Sea presenters came in two kinds: The spiritual ones talked about the heavens, angels, and their effects upon us. The earthly ones mainly talked about vaccines, which are bad and inescapable, or debt and legal issues, which are bad but can be beaten.
Earthly concerns commenced early on a Monday morning with Andrew Wakefield, down in the green-carpeted Botticelli dining room. He was in a dour mood.
“The story of my life is that I had a promising career and I flushed it down the toilet,” he said. He wasn’t overstating things: Wakefield was a gastroenterologist in London in 1998, when he and a dozen co-authors published a piece in the Lancet, claiming that eight of 12 children they’d studied had developed behavioral symptoms associated with regressive autism after receiving the MMR vaccine. The study didn’t definitively state there was a link between the MMR and autism, although now Wakefield says he believes that to be the case.
The Lancetretracted it in 2010, and 10 of Wakefield’s 12 co-authors wrote a subsequent retraction that doubled as an apology for creating conditions in which an untold number of parents became afraid to vaccinate their children. Wakefield lost his license and was accused of having been working on patenting an alternate measles vaccine of his own and of being paid by a personal injury lawyer. (Wakefield called those reports inaccurate and done with bad intent. In 2007, he sued Brian Deer, the journalist who wrote the investigative pieces about him, for libel, but eventually dropped the case. He later sued the British Medical Journal, where Deer’s stories were published, as well as Deer personally for defamation in Texas; that suit was thrown out in 2014. A judge ruled state courts there didn’t have jurisdiction over a British publication.)
Wakefield’s belief in his own theories has never wavered. He has an intense following among parents who believe their children were injured by vaccines (one told the New York Times in 2011 that he was “Nelson Mandela and Jesus Christ rolled up into one”). In a presentation that lasted an hour and a half, Wakefield told the cruise audience that the Centers for Disease Control was ignoring evidence that the MMR vaccine increases autism rates, especially among African-American boys. His main source, a CDC whistleblower, has said in a statement that he “would never suggest that any parent avoid vaccinating children of any race.”
Wakefield disagrees: He predicted a future where “80 percent of American boys” will have autism in 15 years.
Andrew Wakefield, mid-presentation, listening to a question from an audience member.
And, like every other presenter, he also had something to promote: a film called Injecting Lies, which he said will be released in April and is intended to shame and alarm “the mainstream,” particularly the California liberals who supported SB 277, the law that in June 2015 made vaccinations mandatory for children attending schools and daycares. The hope is that the movie will spur the public to demand a Congressional hearing on vaccine safety.
I clearly heard Wakefield say during the presentation that Leonardo DiCaprio was somehow involved in helping to promote the film, having gotten involved via his father George. “They’re going to put all their efforts behind it,” Wakefield told the room.
(When I asked Wakefield about the DiCaprio claim later, he denied having said it, and said I must have misheard, though other reporters in the room confirmed they’d heard it too. A representative for DiCaprio didn’t return a request for comment.)
Compared to many of the presenters, Wakefield was quite coherent, with a thesis that hung together in a logical way, at least on the surface. It was easy to see why he’s a star in the anti-vaccine world.
The question was why he was delivering a passionate defense of his life’s work not to the medical establishment, but to an audience mainly composed of retirees, in a dining room, on a boat, in the middle of the sea. The ceiling thumped; we could hear strains of music and the faint, energized cries of a Zumba class in progress.
When Wakefield opened the floor to questions, the conversation began to drift casually into the “12 alternative doctors murdered last year,” presumably by the government, which made them all look like suicides. At this point, I had to take a walk on deck and stare very hard at the ocean, because I suddenly had a terrible headache. It could have been seasickness, I suppose.
Head still throbbing, I went to see Winston Shrout and Sean David Morton, each discussing strategies to get out of debt and deal with (outsmart) the court system. In lieu of paying fines or civil court judgments with money, the way most people might, they talked about writing promissory notes and bonds and liens and submitting them to the court.
Morton’s argument, which I had to hear a few times before I fully got, was that it’s possible to become a “de jure state national,” someone who isn’t subject to federal law—and, by extension, is free from federal courts, taxes, and criminal charges.
This turned out to be a window into a fascinating, tiny segment of financial conspiracy theory. Both Morton and Shrout said things that suggested they are part of what’s called the “Redemption Movement,” which holds, among other things, that each U.S. citizen has a secret “straw man” bank account, created at birth and owned by the U.S. government, which you can gain access to if you file the right paperwork. Proponents of redemption theories also frequently claim that U.S. law is null and void, that the only valid laws are the Bible or the Uniform Commercial Code or maritime law. (The IRS has issued a lengthy, irritable response to what it calls “frivolous tax arguments.”)
Morton boasted that he’s “taken on the IRS, the SEC, the DMV” and numerous other entities “and won,” which was an interesting way to put it, as he was sued by the federal Securities Exchange Commission in 2010 and accused of $6 million in securities fraud. The feds said he’d solicited investors to a hedge fund by claiming to have psychic abilities.
In 2013, a federal court entered a default judgment against Morton, his wife Melissa, and a company owned by them, the Prophecy Research Institute, for more than $11 million. The SEC sent out a press release noting that the Mortons “never properly answered” the allegations against them, responding instead with odd and far-fetched legal filings:
“[T]he Mortons filed dozens of papers with the Court claiming, for instance, that the Commission is a private entity that has no jurisdiction over them, and that the staff attorneys working on the case do not exist.”
The same year, Morton filed for bankruptcy, which he told me was unrelated, a tactic to keep from being evicted by an unscrupulous landlord.
The Mortons’ legal woes are by no means over: This past September, they allege in court filings, they were raided by IRS agents, who held them at gunpoint, then took their computers, cell phones, a mass of files, and their marriage license, all of which they were storing in one of their cats’ bedrooms.
This incident, too, went unmentioned in Morton’s presentations on his triumphant path to financial and legal freedom. It would become a significant issue for the Mortons just after the cruise ended.
The same dizzying day, I caught the last moments of a talk by Dannion Brinkley, the man who’d died three times (lightning, during heart surgery, and during brain surgery).
But “dead” is a relative term: Brinkley’s taken numerous tours of heaven and has come to realize that no one ever truly dies. While he was there, he said, he was shown several prophecies, all of which have come true, including Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the Chernobyl disaster, and the September 11 attacks.
The first time he died, back in the ’70s, was the most transformative, Brinkley told me: “I went from a complete arrogant redneck hillbilly asshole former Marine to a spiritual being.” (Brinkley has been accused of exaggerating his military service, claiming to have been a CIA sniper in Laos when he was, as the L.A. Times reported in 1995, actually stationed in Georgia driving trucks.)
Brinkley also hugs people, diagnosing by touch what’s wrong with them, physically or spiritually. After his talk, he received a long line, massaging one lady’s hands and telling her to check her sugar, then pronouncing that another one of the reporters on board was not “appreciating herself” enough.
He embraced me last. He rubbed my lower vertebrae vigorously, then suggested that I consider switching “from the written to the visual.”
“You’ve come as far as you can in this job frame, this trajectory,” he said.
After our hug, we chatted. The thing that links everyone on board, he told me, is simple: “We’ve been around long enough to know most of what we’ve heard is a lie. Everyone here is on a search for what is real.”
Onboard, there was surprisingly little talk about current events or politics. Even the occupation of Malheur Nature Preserve didn’t come up until I mentioned it one night at dinner. (To be fair, internet was like 75 cents a minute and I didn’t see many newspapers onboard.) Perhaps the idea of getting invested in who’s going to win the presidential election seems ludicrous when you’re considering a dystopian near-future of forced vaccines or the New World Order trying to depopulate the globe.
Laura Eisenhower did note during her presentation, however, that no one should vote for Hillary Clinton: “She’s definitely not human.”
Eisenhower was one of the presenters on the spiritual side, delivering a history lesson, more or less, about a vast intergalactic war. There are at least three different types of angels, by my count, as well as Reptilians (giant lizards) and “dark energy” beings called Dracos. Fairies were mentioned in passing.
It seemed garbled, but the audience was rapt, and the ideas seemed largely harmless. The same went for Susan Shumsky, the trip organizer, who gave several presentations on energy and auras and positive thinking, and for Andy Thomas, the delightful English “unexplained mysteries researcher,” who phrased everything as a question. Maybe the pyramids were built by extraterrestrials? Wasn’t September 11 maybe a “New World Order attack,” designed to make us “even more fearful”? Could Hillary Clinton be a member of The Family, also known as the Fellowship, the powerful, shadowy collection of evangelical politicians? (Actually, she could, kind of: The Family is real and Clinton has attended meetings.) And doesn’t the moon landing seem a little fake?
“I certainly hope the moon landing was real,” Thomas murmured, regretfully. “I was quite excited about it when I was a boy.”
Andy Thomas presenting a slide.
It was a relief to be hearing theories that didn’t matter. Do we care at this point if the moon landing took place in a TV studio, or if the British royal family are actually giant reptiles? Compared to the people who don’t want you to vaccinate your kids, the stakes feel rather low.
Thomas seemed significantly less tortured than many of the people on board, presenters or attendees.
“Meeting so many of you is lovely,” he told his audience, beaming at them. “So is realizing we’re not alone. Unusual beliefs aren’t so unusual. They just don’t get talked about so much. The mainstream media won’t talk about the things a lot of us believe. I absolutely think there’s a program to keep us uninformed.”
But there is hope, Thomas added. “You can live without fear. I do believe we’ll turn all this around.”
By contrast, the anti-vaccination crowd, though often friendly and personable in conversation, trafficked entirely in fear.
Sherri Tenpenny, a warm, chatty Ohio osteopathic physician, aimed to warn us about the 141 new vaccines that are currently in development, which could potentially be foisted upon all adults by 2020. Tenpenny is a star in the anti-vax world, and several attendees were specifically on the cruise to see her.
Vaccinations, Tenpenny said, have been “a dirty rotten business” for the entire 200 years they’ve existed. She argued that smallpox and polio killed far fewer people than has been commonly reported, and that while measles can be fatal to infants, it doesn’t happen all that often. Vaccines, meanwhile, can cause lifelong health problems, she said. She was furious about the California vaccination measure, warning there will soon be other, similar laws.
“It’s really no different than Nazi Germany,” she said. “The only difference is that we don’t have a number on our arms.” She handed out flyers depicting the cover of her forthcoming book: the words THEY’RE COMING FOR YOU NEXT, over a picture of a lab-coated figure extending a hypodermic needle.
Tenpenny’s lectures went slowly, plagued by technical issues. Throughout the cruise, power cords were missing, projectors would break, slides would freeze. At one point a booming announcement from the captain broke in, letting us know what the CDC had to say about the Zika virus. More than one person suggested, not quite joking, that all of these things were also a conspiracy.
While we waited for Tenpenny to come back online, Andrew Wakefield glided over and introduced himself, having discerned from my feverish note-taking and pained facial expressions that I was a reporter.
Wakefield was weary, polite, and charming, with the relaxed shoulders of a man who’s already lost everything. He was on the cruise with his wife Carmel, a former physician turned classical music DJ; they now live in Austin with their four children, and have been involved in a series of autism-related enterprises, most recently the Autism Media Channel, a documentary film concern. When not watching the presentations, he told me, he was doing yoga.
“Gawker Media,” he said, dryly, with a little smile. “They’ve never been particularly sympathetic to us.”
I agreed that was true.
“Is that the kind of story you’re writing?” he asked, neutrally. He added that it didn’t really matter what I was planning, since my editors and my advertisers and their “backers” are the ones in charge, and that he feels sorry for “you guys,” meaning reporters.
I thanked him for his concern.
Wakefield seemed philosophical about everything: his wrecked career and ruined reputation, as well as being on a boat alongside presenters talking about angels and Reptilians.
“If you offend the pharmaceutical industry, this is what happens,” he shrugged. “But I’ve never committed fraud in my life. Everything I said in that paper has turned out to be true.”
“But aren’t you, in a way, here to dig your name out of the muck?” I asked.
“I’m not here for redemption,” he said, flatly. “I’m in it to get the truth out.” Moreover, he added, “I’m never going to go away. I have no interest in what my colleagues think of me.”
He turned to Shumsky, who’d just appeared, and they started having a quiet conversation. I wandered back out into the atrium, where an exuberant Englishman was doing a “martini demonstration” for a crowd of ordinary vacationers who were literally screaming in excitement.
It would probably please the conspiracy theorists to know that midway through the cruise, a secret meeting took place. It was in my room. Information was shared, and snacks were served.
For the first few days, I’d had the impression that nobody gave a shit about me or the other reporters onboard. Most of the presenters were unfailingly welcoming and friendly. Anti-vaccine activists talked to me even after I revealed myself to be pro-vaccine. Sean David Morton found out I thought his sense of humor was a bit offensive and somewhat racist—because I accidentally said so right in front of his wife Melissa—and continued to be as polite as he could manage.
One night, I ate dinner beside Michael Badnarik, the 2004 Libertarian candidate for president, who makes a living these days lecturing on the Constitution. In the 1970s, as a young man, Badnarik had a dispute with the IRS that set him on a new course: He hasn’t paid taxes since 1994, refuses to get a driver’s license, and carries an unlicensed firearm. He allows people to pay him in silver for his speaking engagements: “When the government falls apart, I’ll still be able to buy food.” He also wants Texas, where he lives, to secede from the United States, and he plans to run for the presidency of Texas afterwards.
Badnarik declined to go on shore in Mexico. “It’s a lawless society,” he explained.
We argued good-naturedly for two hours. I had questions about his insistence that the Republic of Texas would somehow be a better or less corrupt government than that of the United States. By the end of it, he was calling me “sweetheart” and I was asking worriedly how he intends to take care of himself in a few years’ time, given that he’s unmarried, childless, and absolutely doesn’t believe in Social Security or Medicare.
“I probably don’t have to worry about retirement,” he said lightly. “I’ll probably be killed in a shootout with police.” It was hard to tell exactly where the joke began.
But all was not well elsewhere in our tiny press pen. Aside from me, there was a two-person camera and writer team from Refinery 29, who mostly kept to themselves and got off the boat two days early. There was also a team from Popular Mechanics, reporter Bronwen Dickey and photographer Dina Litovsky, who stayed the whole time, as did Colin McRoberts, a former attorney. His wife Jennifer runs a blog called Violent Metaphors, where she writes about pseudoscience and scientific literacy. She was fascinated by the cruise, but unable to go because of her schedule as a teacher. McRoberts, who now works as a consultant and is writing a book about irrational beliefs, crowd-sourced the money to buy his ticket and came instead.
At first, both McRoberts and I were let pretty much alone, even though I introduced myself as a reporter constantly and he was blogging about the cruise each day. We sat in lectures and no one asked us to leave or even really seemed to notice we’re there.
McRoberts and the Popular Mechanics ladies and I sat down to chat in one of the ship bars one afternoon to get to know each other. We promptly got spooked someone might be watching us and moved to my room.
“We’re becoming just like them,” Litovsky said wryly, as we waited for the elevator. We all shushed her.
Once in my cabin, Litovsky and Dickey said they were having a very different experience, due mainly to an article Popular Mechanics had published in 2014 about junk science, which set off everyone’s conspiracy siren. Almost immediately, they were getting cold-shouldered in a fairly nasty way, unceremoniously kicked out of a panel debate between Wakefield and Jeffrey Smith about the causes of autism (vaccines or pesticides was the sticking point), after being told that it was “not for media.” Wakefield was certainly not gliding up to them to discuss his yoga practice; instead, he reportedly kept asking them around the ship why they were really here.
“I’m pretty worried about what Popular Mechanics is planning,” Ted, the guy videoing the sessions, told me at one point. He was a devotee of Burning Man, and dressed in a uniform of colorful pajamas, to which he occasionally affixed a fuzzy, homemade tail. “They do a lot of conspiracy debunking.”
“They seem like nice women,” I told him.
“Yeah, but you never know,” he said thoughtfully. “Some of the conspiracies they’ve debunked probably deserved it, true. But a lot of them I still believe.”
A study published in the American Journal of Political Science estimates that 50 percent of Americans believe in some form of conspiracy theory: The CIA invented the crack cocaine epidemic. 9/11 was an inside job. Fluoride is seeded into the water supply to make the public easy to control.
The political scientists Eric Oliver and Thomas Wood, who authored the study, argue that conspiracy theories are, at their core, an attempt to deal with emotional distress, the kind caused by a shocking or inexplicable event: a vicious new drug coming out of nowhere, planes demolishing the World Trade Center, the president shot dead on a sunny day, riding through the streets of Dallas. Conspiracy theories provide a soothing order and, with it, reassurance.
But there’s also a reason why Americans are particularly prone to believing in conspiracy theories: In our case, quite a lot of outlandish things turn out to be true. The CIA really did conduct serious research into whether it could use mind control on its enemies, a program known as MKULTRA; it really did try to assassinate Fidel Castro through an increasingly absurd series of weaponized devices (exploding cigar, booby-trapped seashell, ballpoint pen laced with poison). The U.S. Army really did try to use elements of the “human potential” movement to try and develop “psychic spies,” known as the Stargate Project. The FBI really did run the COINTELPRO program, a series of covert operations designed to undermine and destroy political organizations from within.
And Merck, for what it’s worth, really is embroiled in an actual controversy over the MMR vaccine, albeit not one that has anything to do with autism. It is currently being sued by two former virologists, who filed suit in 2010 claiming that the company falsified data about the vaccine’s effectiveness rates against mumps, which they say has declined over time. That case is still in litigation.
The fact, then, that the folks on this boat believed some interesting stuff isn’t necessarily unusual or inexplicable. But aside from a consistently anti-vaccine slant, there wasn’t one underlying theme connecting the conspiracy theorists onboard to one another.
It was like being in a church revival with 20 different denominations shouting for your attention. I kept a running list in the back of my notebook of things that are, definitively and by all accounts, bad. By the end it read something like a paranoid Wikipedia search history:
- Vaccinations
- Mainstream media
- Merck
- The court system
- Monsanto
- TV
- Advertising
- Prescription drugs
- The legal system
- American Express
- Quicken Loans
- Negative ego
- Bill Gates
- Surveillance
- The World Health Organization
- The Centers for Disease Control
- George W. Bush
- Barack Obama, probably
- Hillary Clinton, almost definitely
If there was one consistent idea, it was that we’re all caught in a bewildering and vicious system. Someone is the oppressor, whether it’s the Illuminati or someone from the WHO trying to stick you with needles. Something must be escaped, mastered, transcended. If you’re lucky, and have the right set of tools and devices—more on those in a minute—you can break free. Even mortality and death, in this context, are little more than a vicious game, one that can be beaten.
Despite the noticeable British presence, there was something distinctly American about this, a potent mixture of self-improvement, self-delusion, get-rich-quick hopes, anti-establishment fervor, and shameless snake oilery. The cruise was the spiritual descendant of a 19th-century medicine show, where traveling non-doctors hawked a variety of pills and potions to an enraptured and desperate audience.
And many people onboard truly were desperate. Bits of tragic stories leaked out: Children they believed were injured by vaccines. Dragging legal challenges and catastrophic debts. Their homes were at risk, their credit wrecked, their spiritual foundations wracked. They were looking for a moment of connection, a last-ditch way out.
“There are people here who fear for their lives,” an attendee said, an older white man who begged me not to use his name. “Some of them have been persecuted to the point of being prosecuted. They came here to figure out how to get out of where they are.”
Sean David Morton, acting as master of ceremonies during the closing panel at the Conspira Sea.
To that end, a lot of the presenters had multiple lines of business: Sean David Morton, for example, is a psychic and a self-styled legal expert, but he also does Tarot and “cartomancy readings.” He spent part of one presentation recommending vitamin supplements and various treatments at a hospital he’s familiar with in Tijuana.
Sherri Kane and Leonard Horowitz, who refer to themselves as investigative journalists and documentarians, also sell things. They’re a good-looking pair, smiley and energetic. Most of their first presentation centered around how Hollywood is working with the CIA and people from “high levels of government” to exert mind control on the populace, who exist in a state of “psychotronic delirium.” Together, they were an Internet banner ad come to life: ONE WEIRD TRICK THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT.
Horowitz describes himself as a former dentist and public health expert, and he and Kane were selling numerous supplements, chiefly OxySilver (water with a small amount of silver in it), and Liquid Dentist (mouthwash, I think). They also handed out a 12-page catalogue of other items one could purchase: books, DVDs, healing clay, something called Love Minerals™, a small tuning fork to relieve stress, a giant one to clear energy blockages, and a substance called PrimoLife, filled with “monoatomic elements vibrating with LOVE.”
Horowitz and Kane told me later that, while they have a complete money back guarantee, nobody in their memory has ever asked for a refund.
“Because it works,” Kane explained.
“Could that lady please stand up?” Sherri Kane was pointing at me. She was smiling, although it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
We had two days left in the cruise, and we had reached the moment where the shit truly hit the fan. Somehow, this came as a surprise to me.
The chaos began at a movie screening, a film about the terrorist attacks in Paris by Kane and Horowitz. (Not to give too much away, but they believe the attacks were a false flag, orchestrated by the Qatari government in cooperation with the talent agent Ari Emanuel, Rahm Emanuel’s brother. It’s all part of a “global depopulation” effort.)
Before the film began, Kane pointed me out and dramatically requested that I reveal who I work for. I’d already introduced myself to a majority of people in the room, but I did it again.
After the film, things got weirder: Kane and Horowitz called Litovsky, the photographer, to the front of the room and accused her of taking photos of the wrong parts of the movie, the parts with photos of the websites where they sell their products.
“Why would you take photos of our sponsors?” Horowitz demanded. “HealthyWorldStore.com?”
Suddenly, everyone was yelling. Kane and Horowitz were yelling at Litovsky. Other people were yelling at them to stop. A lady got up and yelled that the flash from the camera made it hard for her to concentrate. The group’s yoga instructor, Abbie, an incredibly nice woman who happens to be Shumsky’s niece, yelled that Horowitz and Kane were guaranteeing a negative article.
“They could’ve written something really nice about this cruise, and now it’s going to be a negative spin, because of what you did,” she shouted. “You humiliated them!”
“Who are you?” Kane demanded.
“She’s a plant!” a woman yelled from the audience.
“She’s the yoga instructor,” Shumsky corrected, who’d come in during the middle of all this and was trying, occasionally, to intervene.
It went on for an agonizingly long time, but finally, everyone seemed to run out of steam. The reporters carefully left the room as a group and repaired to a bar. Afterwards, close to midnight, I went downstairs to the Internet cafe. I was sitting at a computer terminal when all of a sudden, Kane and Horowitz were standing over me with a camera.
“Did you follow me?” I asked. They said no. I felt unconvinced.
“Tell everybody who you work for,” Kane bellowed, holding the camera.
“Who owns Jezebel?” Horowitz added. “Do you even know?”
Horowitz and Kane filming the author.
They wanted to know why I was here, if I was part of the “belligerent media” who intend to smear them. Horowitz wanted me to know how badly his reputation has been damaged after his work “exposed the Hepatitis B vaccine as being the origin of HIV/AIDS.”
They asked how I felt about vaccines. I told them I’m fairly traditional, in that I think they’re a good idea. Kane had me repeat that one several times for the camera.
Over the course of an hourlong conversation, Kane and Horowitz relaxed somewhat, although they continued filming me (and I began filming and tape-recording them, meaning we were all standing there, pointing phones and cameras at each other). We talked about Americans’ undermined trust in the government and how difficult it is to have ideas that are far outside the mainstream.
They told me I was making them nervous, but they understand it was probably unintentional. We were communicating on a human level, and it felt like a bit of a breakthrough.
And then, somewhat casually, Horowitz suggested that maybe I worked for the CIA.
“Intelligence agencies that are operating on behalf of big pharma, big biotech and big banking need intelligence,” he explained. “They need to know what we’re thinking and what we’re doing.”
“I definitely do not work for an intelligence agency,” I told him.
“Well,” Kane interjected. “Sometimes people don’t even know they are.”
“I’m pretty sure I would know,” I told her.
“I would guarantee you, based on evidence, that you’re given intelligence on a need-to know basis only,” Horowitz said. “Here’s the structure: You’ve got some high level J. Edgar Hoover types who are in charge of MKUltra, COINTELPRO, and then they have underlings and assignments. They’re not told the whole picture. This is seen even in Hollywood films.”
He asked if perhaps the “sheikh of Qatar” has just bought shares in Gawker Media (I had told him that we had recently taken on outside investors). I tell him the sheikh had not. He told me the “intelligence community” frequently hires “young journalists” to do their dirty work.
I felt as though I was caught in a washing machine.
“I know you have no reason to believe me,” I said. “But I don’t work for the CIA.”
“It’s not about you,” Horowitz told me graciously. “I know you’re telling me your truth.”
Horowitz encouraged me to find out who our new shareholder is, and whether Gawker CEO Nick Denton “established his billions on the up-and-up.” I promised to consider it. We all hugged gingerly, and I immediately went to bed.
“All the speakers here are really courageous,” Susan Shumsky told me, late in the cruise, over a dinner of rubbery fish, the dining room pitching from side to side and the glassware rattling.
Shumsky has had a fascinating life: She spent 22 years on an ashram, and seven years on the personal staff of the Mahirishi Mahesh Yogi, who first led the Beatles to enlightenment, or at least to LSD, and whom John Lennon later denounced as a fraud. Since 1989, she’s been living in an RV with no fixed home base, crisscrossing the country, leading spiritual cruises, writing books, and consulting privately. She clears people’s energy fields and teaches them how to communicate with God. “Or higher beings, or your higher self,” she said. “Whatever you want to call it.” She’s a staunch, old-school feminist, who’s never married or had kids: “I enjoy my own company,” she said, smiling.
Shumsky was apologetic about Kane and Horowitz chasing the reporters around the boat, and she made it clear that she didn’t necessarily share the beliefs of every single speaker. But she believed all of them were united by their courage, and by the bad things that happened to them when they went public with their beliefs.
“They’ve stepped on a limb,” she said. “Several have been terribly smeared in the media.” The idea was to provide a place for a healthy, free exchange of ideas. “I love the camaraderie of a cruise ship.”
The next morning, Shumsky had to intervene again. Horowitz and Kane had jumped out at Litovsky and Dickey and tried to hand them a huge stack of photocopies. (These turned out to be of the junk science article and information from Wikipedia about Hearst, the magazine’s parent company.) Horowitz got very close to Dickey, trying to shove the paper in her hands. Larry Cook, an anti-vaccine activist, intervened. He and Horowitz got in a heated shoving match, with Dickey pinned up against a wall behind them.
With Shumsky’s help, Horowitz and Kane were corralled on one side of a hallway, while Dickey, Litovsky, and I were on the other. Cook stood between us and Horowitz and refused to move.
“I won’t tolerate that behavior,” he said afterwards. (He later revealed, in a low-key manner, that he’d been praying for us, and that a crowd of angels had descended on the boat for protection.)
Dickey, Litovsky, and I took Shumsky aside and told her, heatedly, that we needed to be assured that we were going to be free from harassment for the rest of the trip. As this negotiation was taking place, Wakefield appeared. He wanted the reporters to come inside the conference room and watch a presentation he was about to deliver.
We declined, having already planned as a group to attend another presentation about building “wishing machines.” Wakefield asked over and over for someone from the media to come in.
McRoberts agreed to go, but as it turned out, Wakefield had really wanted Popular Mechanics, because the first part of his new lecture was a screed against them. McRoberts, as the sole representative of the media, had the aggrieved speech delivered to him personally. He described it on Violent Metaphors, politely, as an “uncomfortable” experience.
It was a bit of a debacle, from a PR perspective. Sean David Morton and Dannion Brinkley were quietly assigned by the trip organizers to make sure the Horowitz/Kane dream team didn’t continuing hassling “the girls,” as everyone began referring to the reporters. (I was the youngest of “the girls.” I am nearly 30.)
“We got you,” Brinkley told me at dinner that night, giving me another lengthy hug. He looked at me thoughtfully and started to tell me something he’d just discerned about my future.
“You’ve got two choices,” he began. He promised to tell me the rest later. We never got around to it.
“I’m not an attorney,” Sean David Morton told us, in one of his last presentations. “I’m not a member of the British aristocratic registry. I don’t belong to the private bar association.” He was referring to a belief that “BAR” stands for “British Accredited Registry” or “British Aristocratic Registry,” and that the American Bar is secretly controlled by the Queen of England. That’s not, to the best of my knowledge, true.
Although his wording was unusual, Morton was clear with his audience that he is not licensed as an attorney. He referred to himself as an “attorney in law” as opposed to an “attorney at law,” which would be a person who went to law school, passed the bar exam and is licensed to practice law.
Morton also clarified that nothing he told anybody should be construed as legal advice, that it was all “for entertainment purposes only.” He allowed that he’s had “some successes and some mistakes,” but added, “I’ll tell you there’s paperwork you can file to establish your status as a free-living person.”
It still seemed legally perilous to me, after sitting through another hour of it. Many people aboard disagreed. One of Morton’s devotees was a gruff, friendly woman who emphatically denied me permission to use her name. I liked her very much. She told me that September 11 was an inside job, the Sandy Hook massacre was filmed on a movie set, and that the government is injecting something into the chicken sold at both Church’s and Popeye’s for mind-control purposes.
In turn, I told her, when she asked, that I thought some of the stuff we were hearing wasn’t necessarily true.
“What’s your source of information?” she scolded me. “Keep an open mind.”
She was there, she told me, to get out of debt. She’d come all this way to listen to Winston Shrout and Sean David Morton. I was actively anxious about what would happen if she went home and started showering a judge or a credit card company with garbage.
One night, we ended up in the bar together, all the reporters and her. We toasted each other’s health and I asked if she’d gotten what she came for.
“They should have said that all this is just introductory information,” she said, politely. “Then I would not have been here.”
She was hoping to grab some private time with Sean David Morton, she added, where she’d demand specifics on what she needs to free herself from the grasp of the feds.
“I know some people that this stuff is working for,” she told me, her voice dropping confidentially. “They’ve got black cards and everything. And once you reach a certain point [financially], they make you sign a nondisclosure form.”
Morton, she vowed, was going to show her what she needs to know.
That seemed worrisome. After his last lecture, I approached Morton. He was sweating heavily and looked unhappy to see me. During his presentation, he’d mentioned that one of the people he’s advising in a non-lawyer capacity is named Dennis Dale Bailey. I Googled the name and saw that Bailey is a Kansas financial adviser, charged with defrauding his clients in 2013. (The Kansas Securities Commission says Bailey pleaded guilty to fraud of over $250,000, a felony, on October 1, 2015. He is scheduled to be sentenced in late March.)
When I asked Morton if the Bailey he was advising was the same person, his wife Melissa overheard. “I told you not to use his name,” she hissed. Then she left the room.
Morton looked back at me, grimacing. We stood together in silence for a second, swaying with the motion of the boat. He sat down. I apologized for getting him in trouble, then asked about the $11 million judgment entered against him and Melissa. He maintained that the SEC’s case was bunk, and that, furthermore, he’s settled that debt by writing the court a bond for “50 million bucks,” which he argued has put the matter to rest.
“They haven’t bothered us again,” he said. “The whole deal was more of an embarrassment to them, I think.”
I still felt a little disquieted. “I worry you’re advising people to file this kind of stuff themselves,” I told him. “It seems extremely risky.”
“I’m not advising people to do that,” Morton responded, emphatically. “You have to study this stuff. I am not telling people to do this in a half-assed way on their own.”
A day later, the woman who came here to see Shrout and Morton reported back. She looked relieved: Morton has told her exactly what to do, she said, what forms to file, and she was going to do it.
“I knew he wouldn’t play me,” she said.
On our final day at sea, the media-related tensions continued. During a panel discussion, Horowitz produced his printouts again. Jeffrey Smith, the anti-GMO activist, insisted all the media leave a “strategy session” on “how to change the world.”
I was starting to feel fairly sour about all of it; it was hard not to feel as though we’d spent a week at sea either getting yelled at, chased around, or having bullshit energetically rammed into our ears. It didn’t help that the boat was steaming back towards Los Angeles from Cabo San Lucas at top speed; it was gray outside and the ship was pitching and rolling. At another early dinner, I glumly drank a ginger ale with the Popular Mechanics girls, then retired to the bathroom to vomit.
Unexpectedly, my heart softened at the very last panel, when all the presenters gathered together to tell us what we’ve learned. We were back in the windowless conference room, with every one of the characters arrayed before us; it was like the Wizard of Oz, with more tax evasion.
Sean David Morton was resplendent in a hideous silk tie, showing off a similar tie he’d just given to Dannion Brinkley. They posed together proudly. Kane and Horowitz were there, looking both defensive and in love. Susan Shumsky took a seat opposite me and smiled at me tentatively.
Morton asked everyone what what the “moral of the story” was. Wakefield and Tenpenny talked about vaccines. Horowitz and Kane delivered some jabs about the biased media. Helen Sewell, the astrologer, resplendent in a hot pink tea dress, told us about how Uranus (which she pronounces “Urine-us”) is affecting us all. She praised the bravery of her fellow speakers.
“You’re all Promethean spirits,” she said gently. “You’ve all awakened, and you’re shining your Uranian light into Pluto’s underworld.”
Nick Begich, the kind and reasonable “government is controlling the weather” guy, delivered a genuinely lovely speech, one that touched obliquely on the week’s shitstorm.
“We used to be able to break bread with people we disagreed with,” he said, “while looking for solutions together.” Change and human connection are still possible, he added, looking at no one in particular, “if you pull back long enough to recognize the human being in front of you.”
I thought about the anti-vaccine activists politely arguing with me about measles at dinner, or Michael Badnarik dreaming of his glorious, independent Texan republic. I thought about Larry Cook stepping in to defend us, sending down his protective order of angels. Or Horowitz and Kane, who, after they’d stopped filming and interrogating me that night, told me how they met at a conference thousands of miles from home, though both were born and raised in Philadelphia.
It’s actually very sweet, I realized, that two people with such a unique worldview found each other. They live on a beautiful estate in Hawaii now, Horowitz said, “although the bad guys are trying to take it away.”
And then, to my great delight, Winston Shrout, the other semi-legal adviser, revealed something unexpected.
“I do operate in different realms,” he told us amiably, in his Oklahoma drawl. “I set there on the galactic roundtable with Saint Germaine. We plot out what needs to be done.” Plus, he revealed, “I do quite a bit of work with fairies and elves.”
One particular “incarnate fairy,” he said, is very powerful. In 2011, he asked her to move the prime meridian. She did that, and then he filed an enormous lien “against all 12 of the Federal Reserve banks.”
Sean David Morton, left, talking to Winston Shrout.
Those two things, taken together, have had a tremendous impact: “At this point here, the Federal Reserve has been completely dismantled.” It hasn’t, but he got a round of applause anyway.
Shrout said that he and a team of galactic warriors are almost done making the “major corrections” needed in the universe, including plugging up a black hole that’s been interfering with some financial issues.
“We expect great things certainly by the Chinese New Year,” he told us.
The moral of the story is this, Shrout added: “When all the corrections have been made and the systems are functioning properly, when you have the opportunity to be free, what will you do?”
A lot of people in the room, he said, “have been at war so long, that’s all we know. All we know is conflict. But shortly, it will stop. So what will you do to honor the peace?”
I suddenly felt wonderfully lucky, that all of us could be here together, getting in touch with the furthest reaches of what anyone can believe.
And who’s to say, anyway, what’s true and what is bullshit? Somehow, after a week on the boat, the notion of truth seemed remote. I walked outside, into the soothing darkness, where the ocean was surging against the sides of the ship. I stood there for awhile, staring at the rolling, vast blue-black water, its mysteries all safely hidden below the surface.
Hours after we disembarked from the cruise, both Morton and and his wife Melissa were arrested. They were charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States by filing false tax returns with the IRS, and by submitting what an indictment calls “fictitious financial instruments” as a means of paying off debt, including to the IRS, numerous banks, and the California Franchise Tax Board.
“Driven by insatiable greed and a blatant disregard for the tax code, Mr. and Mrs. Morton have a long history of allegedly filing bogus tax returns and fictitious instruments claiming fraudulent refunds,” Erick Martinez, special agent in charge of the IRS Criminal Investigation unit, said in a statement.
If convicted, each faces a maximum of more than 600 years in prison.
In Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2003 memoir, Living History, she chronicles both her time as First Lady and the journey she took along the way. A journey that apparently included a deep, personal friendship with none other than Isis...
After the war, my father started a small drapery fabric business. He enlisted all of his children when we were old enough to help with the printing. His success brought us to Park Ridge, Illinois, an American town right out of a Norman rockwell illustration. Here we pose in our 1959 finery with our cat, Isis.
How might Hillary’s relationship with Isis affect her potential presidency? Can someone who’s cavorted so intimately with Isis put her prejudices aside for the good of the country? And does Hillary miss Isis?
Donald Trump would—probably!—like you to believe that his constant tangential connection to racism is a coincidence, rather than a direct function of his presidential campaign. Alas, things keep happening that sure seem to point to the contrary.
Like, last week, we learned that a not-so-small percentage of Donald Trump supporters in South Carolina wished the Civil War had gone differently. And on Monday night, according to WHO 13 in Iowa, a high school basketball team with black and Latino players were serenaded with chants of “U-S-A” and “Trump! Trump! Trump!” Further, the Perry High players said the opposing fans from Dallas Center-Grimes High also used Trump’s literal policy positions as taunts.
According to players, chants like, “Trump, Trump, Trump,” were said and they were trying to intimidate Perry players by reciting things Trump has said about what he plans to do with immigrants and their children if he is elected.
Steve Watson, an official for Dallas Center-Grimes, confirmed to WHO 13 that the chants did take place. Shammond Ivory, a Perry player, told the TV station that they hear racist chants “everywhere” they go.
“It’s honestly disrespectful. That’s how I take it. I hear it during the game, on and off the court. Everywhere I go,” Ivory said.
Perry High principle Dan Marburger alluded to another recent incident of racism experienced by his students:
“We had an Instagram issue two weeks ago with a conference school, and I’ll say the school administrators took care of it very well,” Marburger said.
In a related story, Donald Trump was endorsed today by David Duke.
If you look very closely at America, you can see the poor physically growing apart from the rich, like a polar bear drifting out to sea on a broken chunk of ice.
A new report out today from the Economic Innovation Group (a “centrist” think tank funded largely by civic-minded tech executives) examines inequality in a somewhat novel way: by zip code. By gathering data on education levels, housing, income, poverty rates, employment, and business development in every zip code in America, they were able to show not just a raw picture of aggregate inequality across the country, but a geographically detailed picture of where the winners and losers in our economy are—and where they are going.
The report calculates that “more than 50.4 million Americans still live in distressed communities (the lowest-scoring 20% of zip codes), many unable to move to economic opportunity.” These “distressed” areas of the country are concentrated in the South, in the faded Rust Belt areas abandoned by industry, and in some inner cities. And the more hopeful elements of life are actually receding away from the least prosperous areas.
The economy—measured as businesses and jobs—is slowly vanishing from the country’s worst-off rural and urban areas. From 2010 to 2013, the most distressed 10 percent of zip codes lost 13 percent of their jobs and saw more than one in 10 business establishments close. During that same period, the most prosperous 10 percent of zip codes saw employment rise by a staggering 22 percent and the number of business establishments rise by 11 percent.
Not only is the economy moving away from the poor areas of our country; the people are as well.
In total, 84.4 million people—more than 27 percent of the U.S. population— reside in the one-fifth of zip codes where prosperity levels are highest. More Americans reside in the most prosperous 10 percent of zip codes than any other decile: 45.8 million people.
That is more than twice the number of people living in the most distressed 10 percent of zip codes.
It’s tempting to just imagine that if this continues on for a while longer, eventually the poorest parts of America will all be empty ghost towns, and we can rope them off and forget about them. Except for the fact that fifty million people live in them today.
If you squint your eyes until everything looks blurry, it is, in fact, possible to view this election as something other than terrifying. This new interview with former Mexican president Vincente Fox about Donald Trump’s plan to force Mexico to pay to build a wall to keep Mexicans out of the U.S. makes it seem almost funny.
The wall is one of Trump’s key inroads with racists and people who have Mexican friends alike across the United States. Trump—who has filed for bankruptcy four times!—has been emphatic that Mexico should cover the cost, saying “They will pay for it because they have really ripped this country off.”
“We’re not paying for it. You know how easy that is?” Trump, who really does know, explained to Sean Hannity last August.
“I’m not gonna pay for that fucking wall,” Fox told Jorge Ramos this week. “He should pay for it. He’s got the money.”
Al Jazeera America has removed the satirical piece originally posted on this link, which included commentary on our company that we believe was not appropriate given its imminent closure. Our goal in the closing stages of AJAM online and on TV is to honor the exceptional journalism and journalists that distinguished our brand, to maintain the respect that we have always shown to those we have covered since our launch, and to uphold our promise to deliver the highest quality journalism to our readers until the very last. We believe the satirical piece originally at this link failed to live up to these goals. We offer our apologies to our readers and to our staff.
Filed under the topic categories of “humor,” “internet,” “journalist,” and “media,” the essay carried the byline of Prof. Jeff Jarvis—a parody Twitter account run by the developer Rurik Bradbury dedicated to mocking the various absurdities of the tech and media industries in a manner so deadpan that Jarvis’ foils frequently miss the fact that the account is a joke. The published piece, titled “Six hot media startups to watch in 2016,” is very much in the same vein.
It’s not entirely clear who at Al Jazeera America decided to delete the essay—which described the channel as an “innovative mash-up of aging Qataris and US millennials”—or whether the Qatari government, which is known to punish its critics, had any involvement. The essay’s editor, David Johnson, told Gawker that he is “not authorized to talk” and referred us to an Al Jazeera America spokesperson. When reached by telephone, that spokesperson, Jocelyn Austin, referred us to the editor’s note quoted above. She declined to elaborate further. Following that phone call, another spokesperson from the P.R. firm Kekst & Company passed along the following statement:
Keenan, My name is Molly Morse and I work with Al Jazeera America on public relations matters. We are not commenting on the piece you emailed about but I can refer you to the editor’s note that appears on the site and is pasted in below
The essay’s author responded to the deletion and Al Jazeera’s wanting explanation in proper form (on Twitter):
Anyway: We encourage you to read the essay in its archived form here.
In a statement released this afternoon, the University of Missouri announced it has fired Melissa Click, the media professor who was filmed calling for “muscle” to protect student protestors from journalists during campus demonstrations in November.
Pam Henrickson, chair of the University of Missouri Board of Curators, wrote the bulk of the statement and stated that the board believes Click’s “conduct was not compatible with university policies,” citing her specifically her decision to “encourage potential physical intimidation against a student.”
After reviewing the report and Dr. Click’s response, and, after extensive discussion, the board voted last night in executive session to terminate the employment of Dr. Click. She has the right to appeal her termination. The board went to significant lengths to ensure fairness and due process for Dr. Click.
The board believes that Dr. Click’s conduct was not compatible with university policies and did not meet expectations for a university faculty member. The circumstances surrounding Dr. Click’s behavior, both at a protest in October when she tried to interfere with police officers who were carrying out their duties, and at a rally in November, when she interfered with members of the media and students who were exercising their rights in a public space and called for intimidation against one of our students, we believe demands serious action.
The board respects Dr. Click’s right to express her views and does not base this decision on her support for students engaged in protest or their views. However, Dr. Click was not entitled to interfere with the rights of others, to confront members of law enforcement or to encourage potential physical intimidation against a student.
Though Click’s call for “muscle” was ultimately what propelled her into infamy, the school cited several incidents—including Click helping to block a car in the October Homecoming parade, as well as a confrontation with a different student photographer just before the “muscle” comment—in its justification for firing her.
Click, who received outside law firm Bryan Cave’s report on Feb. 12 and responded a week later, will be able to appeal, and given the circumstances of the board’s decision, she may. Earlier this month, the American Association of University Professors sent a letter to Mizzou interim chancellor Dr. Hank Foley alleging that the school’s decision to suspend Click in January without a hearing violated her due process. Mizzou Faculty Council Chair Ben Trachtenberg repeated that claim to the Columbia Missourian in an interview after the announcement of her firing:
“The board had every opportunity to use our existing processes and chose not to,” Trachtenberg said. “Regardless of what one thinks about Melissa Click or her behavior, she was entitled to a fair process, not one created on the fly, containing at least one judge (Steelman) who had written in the Washington Post how the case should come out.”
Indeed, David L. Steelman, identified as a member of the Board of Curators, wrote an op-ed just days before Click was suspended calling for her to be fired. In her response to the report received by the board, Click wrote that it “omits a number of crucial descriptions and events that give context to my actions at both the MU Homecoming Parade on October 10, 2015, and the events on Carnahan Quadrangle on November 9, 2015.”
The Mizzou protests have remained a contentious political issue in the state. In January, more than 100 state lawmakers asked for Click’s head, and the victory of Concerned Student 1950—which ousted Mizzou’s chancellor and president—has evolved into a policy question in Missouri’s current race for governor. Here is the particularly purple-faced Peter Kinder, the current lieutenant governor who is running for the state’s top job, promising that he would make sure the school’s football team would never go on strike again.
You can read the full report regarding Click here, her response to it here, and the board’s letter to Click notifying her of her dismissal here.
The company currently employs—at least—dozens of people in Manhattan, where its American headquarters are based—and CEO Henry Blodgett has plans to hire even more employees, if you can believe it.
But relatively little is known about what Business Insider does on this small island on the east coast of New York state, which has a population of just 1.6 million.
The company’s main office is situated in an urban area of Manhattan called Flatiron, while it also has other discrete, cramped home offices in the living rooms of its employees.
Gawker visited this site to see what we could find out. Business Insider’s security guard did not allow us to enter any of its buildings.
This map shows where Business Insider’s American headquarters are in relation to the New York outposts of other media giants.
The trip there was arduous and plagued with obstacles. At one point during the two-block trip, I was forced to take a detour.
Having visited a nearby deli less than two weeks ago, I was eagerly anticipating a visit to its biggest media customer, probably. This is the first Business Insider logo I encountered in New York; it was at Business Insider’s main Flatiron site.
The logo was attached to a glass wall. When I arrived there were several people coming in and out of the entrance, possibly working on a story for the Business Insider website.
I was turned away by a very rude security guard at the front desk who asked me, “Can you not?”
In order to gain access to Business Insider’s offices, visitors must have a prearranged appointment with a Business Insider employee.
This is what the American flag above the Business Insider campus looks like. The main building is simply called “150 Fifth Avenue.”
The majority of the entrance was off limits, requiring an employee badge to enter. (“CAN YOU NOT,” the security guard asked again as I took this image.)
Around the Flatiron campus, there are also some pleasant walking routes for Business Insider employees to use at the end of a busy day or maybe even during their lunch break.
This shelter was also outside the building although it’s unclear why it’s there or who is meant to use it.
An on-site pizza place provides Business Insider employees with somewhere to eat when they’re not at their desks. There were over a dozen pizzas on show as I walked by.
The fake plants in 150 Fifth aren’t particularly high but they’re incredibly long when measured horizontally.
This fire alarm in the Business Insider lobby was also intriguing. It’s unclear what Business Insider uses it for exactly.
This trash can outside the office had a strange Styrofoam container with something red on the inside. It could have just been marinara sauce, but it could also be something more exciting.
The Business Insider offices share a street address with a clothing store for promiscuous young adults called LF. It is “very dangerous” if you prefer that your teen not dress like a 2012 Coachella attendee.
Leaving the store proved difficult. When I returned to the Gawker offices, a pack of aggressive dogs were reluctant to let me in. I managed to get out in the end.
It wasn’t long ago that portable, USB-powered external hard drives maxed out at 2TB, but Seagate’s new Backup Plus manages to double that, and you can pick one up for an all-time low $120 today. That price even includes 200GB of Microsoft OneDrive storage for two years, which is a $96 value on its own.
We’re not sure how long this deal will last, so if you need to keep a lot of storage in your travel bag, or plugged into your Xbox One, I’d grab this quickly. [Seagate Backup Plus 4TB + 200GB Microsoft OneDrive, $120]
Note: Sometimes, Dell pulls these deals without warning, so make sure you see the gift card in your cart before checking out.
If you own a TiVo DVR with four or more tuners, you can hook up TiVo Minis to your secondary TVs to access all of your recordings and live TV, with no cable boxes or additional fees required. For a limited time, you can snag a refurbished Mini from Amazon for $70, which should pay for itself over time compared to renting equipment from your cable company. [Refurb TiVo Mini, $70]
If cold winter air is chapping your lips and drying out your hands, this single-room $19 Honeywell humidifier can make things a little more comfortable for up to 20 hours on a single tank of water. Obviously, there are bigger, more powerful humidifiers out there, but with this should get the job done if you’re on a budget. [Honeywell HUL520W Mistmate Cool Mist Humidifier, $19]
If you aren’t thrilled with your mattress, but don’t want to pay hundreds of dollars to replace it, a 3" Simmons Curv memory foam topper can make it feel brand new.
As part of an Amazon Gold Box deal, you can grab a king or California king for $135, a queen for $110, or smaller sizes for even less, today only. Those represent roughly $25-$35 discounts, and the best prices Amazon’s ever listed. Just don’t sleep on it; these discounts will only last until the end of the day, and they could sell out early. [Simmons Curv 3" Memory Foam Toppers, $70-$135]
For a limited time, Target’s offering a BOGO deal on select console games. Your options are pretty limited, but Rainbow Six Siege, Far Cry 4 Complete Edition, and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate are all solid choices. [BOGO Select Games]
TriggerPoint’s “GRID” is one of the most popular foam rollers on the market, and Amazon’s offering the black 13" model for $31 today. You’ll even get some instructional videos to help you get started. [TriggerPoint GRID Foam Roller With Instructional Videos, $31]
For just $6 today, you can sip your drinks in style with a four pack stainless steel drinking straws. I own this exact set, and use them for everything from Coke Zero to Moscow Mules. And don’t worry, they come with a little tube cleaner to help you wash them. [MIU COLOR® 18/10 Stainless Steel Drink Straw, Set of 4, $6 with code 7GNUT2LM]
Before you head out on your next outdoor adventure, you might want to pick up some of this sub-$20 survival gear. I’m especially interested in the Gonex paracord grenade, which includes an eye knife, cotton tinder, flint, fishing tools, and more.
The Dell XPS 13 is still the Windows laptop to beat, and you can get one packed with 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, and a 3200x1800 IPS touchscreen for just $1,000 today. That’s not exactly cheap, but it’s undoubtedly a bargain if you expect a lot out of your laptop. [Dell XPS 13, $1,000]
Unlike those disposable chemical hand warmers, this Zippo lasts for up to 6 hours at a time, and can be reused by filling it with a splash of lighter fluid. Plus, it just looks really cool hot. [Zippo 6-Hour Chrome Hand Warmer, $10]
Not only can this LED desk lamp put out three different color temperatures at four brightness settings; it can also charge your phone via its built-in USB port. What more could you possibly need? [ANNT LED Touch Desk Lamp with USB Charging Port, $26 with code MLXJQ3LE]
Smartphone camera lens attachments have been around for years, but I’ve always held off because I didn’t want to use a specific case on my phone, or pay for a new set of lenses every time I bought a new device. This clip-on solution from Aukey though seems to be a more versatile alternative, and looks like an awesome option at $10.
Unlike most lens add-ons, Aukey’s 3-in-1 kit uses a clamp to attach to your device, which means it should work with virtually any smartphone. Once that clip’s in place, you get to choose from three different lenses: Fisheye, wide angle, and macro. A handful of Amazon reviewers have uploaded sample photos and videos, and they look pretty great to my eyes, particularly the close-up macros.
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You might think that in a year when the Academy Awards have been under fire for lacking diversity, the powers that be would ask the first trans performer nominated for an Oscar to take the stage at some point during Sunday’s ceremony. Even if Hollywood remains transphobic for the foreseeable future, even if no one attending or behind the scenes of the Oscars speaks out about trans discrimination or educates themselves about trans issues or strikes up a friendship with a trans person or ends up liking trans people even in the abstract, having a trans performer onstage would be a feather in the cap, a way of deflecting criticism and saying, “Hey, look—we actually can be inclusive (even if we don’t think much of black people in the industry).” At the very least, it would be a good PR move.
Guess what the Oscars didn’t do? (You know where this is going.) They didn’t invite ANOHNI, the only transgender performer to be nominated for an Oscar (and one of, like, two transgender people to be nominated for an Oscar in history) to take the stage during Sunday’s ceremony. ANOHNI (whose work you may know from when she performed under the name Antony Hegarty, of Antony and the Johnsons, before she was out as trans) is nominated in the Best Original Song category for writing the lyrics to “Manta Ray” from the documentary Racing Extinction. Of course, not every nominee in every category is asked onstage, but many nominated for Best Original Song are, given that the producers like to have musical performances break up all the talking and there is limited opportunity to do so given the nature of what’s being celebrated.
I am the only transgendered performer ever to have been nominated for an Academy Award, and for that I thank the artists who nominated me. (There was a trans songwriter nominee named Angela Morley in the early ‘70s who did some great work behind the scenes.) I was in Asia when I found out the news. I rushed home to prepare something, in case the music nominees would be asked to perform. Everyone was calling with excited congratulations. A week later, Sam Smith, Lady Gaga, and the Weeknd were rolled out as the evening’s entertainment with more performers “soon to be announced.” Confused, I sat and waited. Would someone be in touch? But as time bore on I heard nothing. I was besieged with people asking me if I was going to perform.
Though ANOHNI and her “Manta Ray” duet partner J. Ralph were not asked to sing their nominated song, Lady Gaga, the Weeknd, and Sam Smith will perform their nominated songs. Additionally, the ceremony will feature a “special performance” from non-nominee Dave Grohl. To clarify her interpretation of the snub, ANOHNI writes:
I want to be clear — I know that I wasn’t excluded from the performance directly because I am transgendered. I was not invited to perform because I am relatively unknown in the U.S., singing a song about ecocide, and that might not sell advertising space. It is not me that is picking the performers for the night, and I know that I don’t have an automatic right to be asked.
But if you trace the trail of breadcrumbs, the deeper truth of it is impossible to ignore. Like global warming, it is not one isolated event, but a series of events that occur over years to create a system that has sought to undermine me, at first as a feminine child, and later as an androgynous transwoman. It is a system of social oppression and diminished opportunities for transpeople that has been employed by capitalism in the U.S. to crush our dreams and our collective spirit.
Amen. ANOHNI’s resolution is one that seemingly more and more are coming to this year: boycott. She concludes:
So I have decided not to attend the Academy Awards this election year. I will not be lulled into submission with a few more well manufactured, feel-good ballads and a bit of good old fashioned T. and A. They are going to try to convince us that they have our best interests at heart by waving flags for identity politics and fake moral issues. But don’t forget that many of these celebrities are the trophies of billionaire corporations whose only intention it is to manipulate you into giving them your consent and the last of your money. They have been paid to do a little tap dance to occupy you while Rome burns. These are the last days of a great American fake-out sponsored by ExxonMobil, Walmart, Amazon, Google, and Philip Morris. America, a country that is no longer contained by physical borders, aspires only for more power and control. I want to maximize my usefulness and advocate for the preservation of biodiversity and the pursuit of human decency within my sphere of influence.
“He’s not particularly saying,” Matyas said. “We’ve talked to him, interviewed him. We still don’t have a reason...He has not divulged enough info for us to say [why].” From the AP:
Authorities say Dalton ferried passengers as an Uber driver the evening of the attacks, and a passenger said he reported Dalton’s erratic driving to police shortly before the shootings began, and that the recklessness started after he received a phone call.
Matyas said that call doesn’t appear to be “any type of trigger mechanism” for the crimes.
Paul Vlachos, an attorney for Dalton’s family, told ABC News that the shooter’s wife, Carol, told him “he’s been acting differently in the last couple of days and his wife asked him and he said he was tired.”
“Jason by all accounts was a fairly gregarious character. A good father. Well-known in the community. Well-liked. There was nothing to indicate that something like this would occur,” Vlachos said.
As many as three to four people were killed and as many as 20 people hurt in a shooting at Excel Industries, a manufacturing plant in Hesston, Kansas. Harvey County Sheriff T. Walton told local media that the shooter was an employee, and that he had been killed by authorities.
Excel Industries describes itself as a “leading manufacturer of turf care products.” From the Wichita Eagle:
An employee who said he was in the plant at of the time of the shooting said he heard gunshots and people shouting to get out of the building.
“Everybody was running,” said the employee, who did not to give his name.
He said the man, whom he recognized as a co-worker, seemed to be on a rampage.
“He was coming at everybody,” the employee said.
He said he noticed two weapons: an AK-47 and some type of handgun.
There are currently four to five crime scenes in this case, the sheriff said.
Update – 10:25 pm
Sheriff Walton told reporters that four to seven people, including the gunman, may have been killed in Thursday’s shooting spree. “We have numerous people shot inside the building, we have a number of people killed inside the building,” the sheriff said. “I don’t have an exact count for you right now.”
The gunman opened fire at at least three different points on his way to the manufacturing plant. “Those are all connected,” Walton said. “He was traveling and shooting from his car.”
Pity Lloyd Blankfein, CEO and Chairman of Goldman Sachs, who has had to drop the asking price of one of the houses he owns on the Hamptons by $4 million, The Real Deal reports, from $17 million to $13 million.
He’s also switched brokers, from Sotheby’s International Realty to the Corcoran Group. Blankfein built the 6,500 square foot Sagaponack home at 121 Parsonage Lane in 2000, but has been trying to get rid of it since he and his wife Laura bought an even larger, $32.5 million property in Bridgehampton. (The couple mostly live in their $25.7 million Manhattan penthouse, at 15 Central Park West.)
Last spring, a contractor doing construction work on Blankfein’s new house sued the investment banker after he was knocked off a scaffolding, the New York Daily News reported. The next hearing in that case is set for March 9.
The final Republican debate before so-called next week’s “Super Tuesday” series of primaries got real rowdy real quick, with Marco Rubio attacking Donald Trump over his having hired undocumented immigrants to work on one of his real estate projects in the 1980s.
Indeed, back in 1980, Donald Trump hired 200 undocumented Polish workers to demolish the Bonwit Teller building to make room for Trump Tower. For six months, those workers worked 12-hour shifts, 7 days a week, and were paid $5 an hour (if they were paid at all).
“We worked in horrid, terrible conditions,” one of the workers, Wojciech Kozak Kozak said in 1998, after years of litigation. “We were frightened illegal immigrants and did not know enough about our rights.”
Trump said he didn’t know the workers were undocumented. “All we did was to try to keep a job going that was started by someone else,” he told the New York Times. “In fact, we helped people and it has cost a lot of money in legal fees.”
The case was settled in 1999 and sealed, 19 years after demolition began and 16 years after the suit was filed.
“There are people that borrow $36,000 to go to Trump University, and they’re suing him now,” Rubio said. “And you know what they got? They got to take a picture with a cardboard cutout of Donald Trump.”
Trump stammered through a defense, but couldn’t really come up with anything better than “I’ve won most of the lawsuits,” which is not actually true: of the two class action suits, one is ongoing, and in the other a judge has found Trump to be personally liable for damages to some 5,000 people, who are presently being deposed to determine what they are owed.
