Tucked away in the newly released files from Osama bin Laden’s Abbottobad compound is evidence that the Al Qaeda leader may have been in contact with a high-level official at a British charity.

The files released this week, cheerily called “Bin Laden’s Bookshelf” by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, contain a footnote in one of bin Laden’s letters that gives rise to new speculation about the potential funding of terrorist networks through Islamic-based humanitarian relief organizations. The letter recounts communications bin Laden claimed to have had with “the person in charge of a relief organization calling itself ‘Islamic’ and headquartered in London.” The leader, bin Laden wrote, declined to divert funds to the Mujahideen because the organization was “watched by the intelligence and governments,” and “particularly subjected to a stricter monitoring owing to their name, which indicates their Islamic affiliation.”

So who was it?

The letter offers a few clues. Called “Implications of Climate Change,” it largely focuses on the need for devout Muslims to address the “effects associated with the enormous climate changes,” leading to “drought growth, particularly in Africa, and flooding in other regions, which in days left behind thousands dead and millions of victims forced to be displaced in Pakistan alone.” This reference, along with another mention of a widely-circulated photo of a Pakistani man holding his children above rising floodwaters, indicate the undated letter was written after Pakistan’s devastating floods of July 2010. The letter also mentions the organization’s earthquake relief work in Pakistan, apparently in response to the 2005 Kashmir earthquake that killed nearly 90,000 people.

Islamic charities that do vital work around the globe have struggled for more than a decade to get out from under racist and Islamophobic accusations about funding terrorism. Bin Laden’s letter, however, presents what looks like evidence that there is at least one such organization that actually has ties to Al Qaeda, however thin (bin Laden himself, after all, says the group declined to help his fighters). The U.K. Charity Commission told Phase Zero it did not have the means to compile a comprehensive list of all the charities that responded to specific disasters, such as the earthquake in Pakistan that the letter refers to. But there is a relatively short list of prominent British Muslim charities that a) were active around or after 2010, b) feature a recognizable Islamic reference in their name, and c) had enough funding to be involved in direct earthquake and flood aid to Pakistan. A few possible contenders:

Muslim Aid

Founded in part by Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, Muslim Aid has a long history of controversy. Formerly chaired by convicted war criminal Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, who was sentenced to death in absentia by the International Crimes Tribunal for his collaboration with the Pakistani army to murder intellectuals during the war of independence in Bangladesh, it has been investigated by the U.K.’s Charity Commission. Earlier this year, it was ordered to cease operations for a camp of undocumented Rohingyas in the Teknaf region of Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi government asked the European Union to cease funding the operation because, a senior foreign ministry official told a local newspaper, “We are not happy with the way Muslim Aid operates. Sometimes, its activities appear to be dubious, therefore, we requested the EU to stop funding it.” It is unclear whether Mueen-Uddin remains a trustee of Muslim Aid. Its leadership in 2010 included chairman Sir Iqbal Sacranie and CEO Syed Sharfuddin.

Asked for comment by Phase Zero, a Muslim Aid spokesperson offered the following statement: “Muslim Aid confirms categorically that none of its ‘leaders’ (as you describe them), or anyone else at Muslim Aid or acting on its behalf, has ever had any contact with Osama bin Laden, whether in 2010 or at any time before or since.”

Islamic Relief Worldwide

In the wake of accusations by Israel that Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) provided financial support to Hamas, as well as its inclusion on a list of 83 organizations designated by the United Arab Emirates as terrorist entities, IRW suspended its relief efforts last year and conducted an independent audit of its West Bank work. The U.K. Charity Commission and Department for International Development both reviewed the audit report and, according to a spokeswoman for the commission, were “satisfied that the charity was responding appropriately to the incident.” When contacted for comment, IRW spokesman Martin Cottingham said that the organization is actually based in Birmingham, although he said that it does have a London satellite office. Both Cottingham and Brendan Paddy, a spokesman for the Disasters Emergency Committee, an umbrella group of charities that includes IRW, strongly denied that anyone at IRW had any relationship with bin Laden. In 2010, the IRW’s chairman was Dr. Mohammed El-Alfy; it’s CEO was Saleh Saeed.

Muslim Hands

Based in Nottingham (but with a London office), Muslim Hands has been accused by the Telegraph of fronting Hamas groups, as well as by conservative (and frequently anti-Muslim) think tanks. Its chairman in 2010 was Dr. Musharraf Hussain; its founder is Syed Lakhte Hassanain, who also serves as secretary of the Muslim Charities Forum. Muslim Hands did not respond to a request for comment.

The spectre of personal communication between bin Laden and a high-ranking official in a London-based Islamic relief organization threatens to undermine the continued efforts of legitimate organizations to insulate themselves from such suspicion. Earlier this year, the Muslim Charity Forum, a broader entity of which all the above organizations are members, was stripped of £250,000 by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles after the Telegraph reported evidence of funding to a group that allegedly funded Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The full version of the letter is available here.

[Screenshot from website of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Photo by REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro.]

Contact the author at sultana.khan@gawker.com.

Police have arrested one half of the now-infamous couple that paused for a blow job in the middle of a Boston subway platform last Friday.

The Boston Globe reports that officers from Special Crimes Unit arrested Philip Urban, 50, last night in Malden, Mass., and charged him with open and gross lewdness.

The jorts-wearing Urban allegedly received oral sex from a still unidentified woman in the middle of the T platform at the State Street station last Friday at about 2:30 pm. Police identified him after a photo of the sex act—taken by a concerned straphanger—went viral.

“We received some tips, but we put a lot of time into reviewing images from our public safety cameras, and we were able to track him to Malden,” Transit Police Lieutenant Richard Sullivan told the Globe. “Conduct like that is not going to be tolerated.”

If convicted, Urban could be sentenced to three years in state prison and be ordered to pay a $300 fine. He would also be required to register on the state’s sex offender list.

Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.

Adult Friend Finder, the no-strings sex solicitation service that’s familiar to anyone who’s ever visited a porn site, was apparently just the victim of an enormous data breach, exposing millions of people who clicked banner ads hoping to get laid.

Ars Technica reports that nearly 4 million accounts’ worth of information—including “unique e-mail addresses of current and former subscribers—was leaked to a darknet message board, and has now begun to spread through Twitter. I was able to confirm that the data is still very much out there for anyone to obtain. The person behind the leak, who goes by ROR[RG], claims he hacked Adult Friend Finder because they owed a friend of his money:

ADULTFRIENDFINDER.COM > this is for owing my guy $247,938.28 BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!

You have been ROOTED ;D

Cuz Itz Pay yo DUEZ or we COMIN 4 U!!!!!!

shout outz to Hell for the bandwidth:

The message is followed by download links to 15 different files, bulging with deeply personal information like full names and sexual orientations—as well as credit card information, which the hacker conveniently removed before sharing. Security researchers (and the generally nosy) are already crawling through the data:

Word to the wise, don't use your work email address for kinky sex sites. .gov accounts anyone? pic.twitter.com/TJLhQC5pMH

May 22, 2015

ROR[RG] doesn’t seem worried. In a later forum post, he wrote that he was outside the reach of LE (law enforcement), somewhere in Thailand:

i am in thailand

it is a pervo website

they owe my guy money

had it coming clause

pay up or be fucked

i am in thailand

sux to be in the losing end and any LE here i can pay off :)

Adult Friend Finder has yet to comment on the breach.

Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: E93A 40D1 FA38 4B2B 1477 C855 3DEA F030 F340 E2C7

In 2006, Oprah Winfrey canceled an appearance on her show by Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, the parents whose 15 children had made them famous not just to fellow evangelical Christians but to the secular world as well.

The loss of the Oprah special was no obstacle to the Duggars, who continued to star in specials for Discovery Health, and who within two years had their own TLC show, 19 and Counting. But Winfrey’s about-face was a hot topic of rumor among the obsessive communities of Duggar watchers online, where it was whispered that Winfrey and her producers had cancelled the show after discovering some kind of impropriety—at best, deeply retrograde beliefs about gender roles; at worst, the possibility that eldest son Josh Duggar had molested one or more of his younger sisters.

We now know, thanks to a FOIA request filed by InTouch, that the worst of the rumors were true. In a statement to People last night, 27-year-old Josh Duggar admitted that when he was a teenager, he molested several underage girls—including some of his sisters. “Twelve years ago, as a young teenager, I acted inexcusably for which I am extremely sorry and deeply regret. I hurt others, including my family and close friends,” he said.

His parents released a statement as well: “When Josh was a young teenager, he made some very bad mistakes, and we were shocked. We had tried to teach him right from wrong. That dark and difficult time caused us to seek God like never before.”

Reading a Springdale police report filed in 2006 and released by InTouch yesterday, it seems clear Jim Bob and Michelle knew about Josh’s misconduct from the beginning—and helped him avoid prosecution.

But they weren’t the only ones who knew of Josh’s predation. So did Oprah Winfrey, her producers, the Springdale Police Department—and, apparently, a huge community of message board posters online.

All of which raises the question: When did Discovery Communications—the corporate parent of Discovery Health and TLC, which has profited off of every Duggar birth, courtship, and marriage announcement—find out?

The Duggars began starring in specials for Discovery Health, a sister network of TLC, in 2005—just two years after Josh admitted to molesting his underage sisters. As the family rose to fame, rumors about Josh’s abuse popped up on message boards and blogs, but they were never addressed by the Duggars or the networks.

We’ve reached out to TLC for comment. If you know anything regarding Josh’s misconduct and TLC’s awareness of it, email me at allie@gawker.com. In the meantime, here is a timeline of events leading up to Josh’s admission yesterday.

2002-2003: Josh molests his sisters and is quietly shipped off to a “Christian” program

According to the police report released by InTouch, Josh’s father Jim Bob (referred to in the report as “James”) first learned of Josh’s behavior in March 2002, when one victim approached Jim Bob and said that Josh touched her breasts and genitals while she slept.

Jim Bob appears not to have acted on the accusation. In July 2002, Josh, then 14 years old, admitted to the behavior to his father, prompting Jim Bob to “discipline” Josh but not report the incident to the authorities.

In March 2003, according to the report, Josh fondled a victim while he read a book to her. Jim Bob was made aware of this and several more accusations—victims accused Josh of touching their breasts and genitals while they slept, and sometimes while they were awake.

The police report suggests that four of Josh’s sisters were victims. In 2002, there were five sisters living in the Duggar house: Jana, then 12; Jill, 11; Jessa, 10; Jinger, 9; and Joy-Anna, 5.

In March 2003, Jim Bob met with “church elders” to discuss Josh’s behavior, and they decided Josh needed to enter a treatment program. He was sent to a “Christian” program consisting of “hard physical work and counseling” from March 2003 to July 2003. Josh’s mother Michelle later admitted to police that Josh did not see a counselor, and was instead sent “to a family friend who was in the home remodeling business” in Little Rock, Arkansas.

When Josh returned home in July 2003, his father and church elders took him to a state trooper to confess what he’d done. The trooper, Cpl. Hutchins, gave Josh a “very stern talk” but did not charge him with any crimes.

InTouch reports that Hutchins was later arrested on child pornography charges and is currently serving 56 years in prison.

2005: First Duggar special airs on Discovery Health

Most of the rest of the world was first introduced to the Duggar family on September 6, 2005 with the one-hour Discovery Health special, 14 Children and Pregnant Again! The show followed the family as they prepared for their 15th child, Jackson, and paved the way for many similar specials, and, ultimately, 19 Kids and Counting on TLC.

2006: Oprah learns of accusations against Josh

According to the police report and InTouch, a Duggar family appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2006 was canceled after a “61-year-old woman” emailed Harpo Studios to warn producers about Josh’s sexual misconduct. Harpo Studios forwarded the information to the Department of Human Services hotline, which trigged an investigation by the Springdale Police Department.

It’s not clear who tipped Oprah off and how she knew about Josh’s misconduct, but Jim Bob and Michelle told police that when Josh was accused of molesting his sisters, a family friend wrote down the accusations in a letter that was then placed in a book in the Duggars’ home. Sometime during 2006, the Duggars loaned the book to another person and the letter was discovered.

Throughout the Springdale Police Department’s investigation, three more Duggar specials aired on Discovery Health in 2006: Raising 16 Children on March 13, 16 Children and Moving In on March 15, and On the Road with 16 Children on June 11.

In December 2006, Springdale police interviewed the Duggars about Josh’s behavior. Jim Bob would not produce Josh for questioning—per InTouch, “when police asked Jim Bob to bring Josh in for an interview in 2006, he attempted to hire a lawyer and refused to produce his son for questioning. At least two lawyers refused to take his case.”

Police ultimately did not file charges against Josh because the three-year statute of limitations had run out.

2007: Duggar message boards reveal Josh’s sexual abuse

Though Jim Bob and Michelle decidedly hid Josh’s misconduct from the press and protected him from arrest, the secret had gotten out. They told police in 2006 that “several members of their church were aware of the situation and had been supportive of the family.”

In May 2007, the allegations surfaced online in a comment on a blog about the Duggars. Commenter “Alice”—who has since been referred to on various Duggar message boards as the originator of the rumor—wrote (emphasis added):

Let me tell you something about the precious Duggars that you don’t know. ... In January, the whole family went to Chicago and taped Oprah Winfrey show. Oprah wined and dined them for one week. You know that had to cost some pretty pennies. As you may have noticed, that show never aired and it never will. Oprah was informed that Josh, the oldest son, had been molesting his sisters. Yes, this is the truth. Oprah turned them over to the Arkansas State Police Child Protection Agency and the Washington County Child Protection Agency. They have been investigated to some length. Jim Bob Duggar told the producers of the show that he built a small church out back for his followers. HIS FOLLOWERS. GET REAL. THE MAN IS A FRAUD. In April, they were in court with their story. They have to report to Arkansas Department of Human Services every six months.. They have lied and lied about their son to protect him at their daughters expense. For some unknown reason the boy is still in the home with the girls. God only know if this is still going on. In my eyes he is a CHILD MOLESTOR. HE SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM THE HOME. What kind of parents cover up for one child and hurt the others. I do not believe that this is what God has in mind for them. Frauding the American people and taking their money and living off of it.They did not build their home by themselves. They hired it done. TheDiscovery Health Channel and the TLC channel wrote them a check for over $200,000. for the to build the house. Everything inside the house was given to them except the kitchen. They did buy that themselves. The rest is all free. ...

Alice added, “God’s honest truth that the molestation happened. It happened to four of his 5 sisters. The oldest daughter was not touched. The second daughter is the one who caught him doing this. There was no rape involved, but molested. I could go into detail, but I won’t. Of course, you can find nothing about the charges. The Duggar’s want to keep this hid. Wouldn’t you?”

Since then, Duggar fans and haters have obsessively discussed these allegations on message boards like FreeJinger.org, a tongue-in-cheek anti-fundamentalist message board dedicated to watching and examining the Duggars.

“Alice”’s comment wasn’t the only source of the rumor. A comment from a 2005 blog (now inaccessible, but preserved here on FreeJinger) that details misconduct by an anonymous son of a “political” man and leader at her church. The commenter, “concernedmom,” wrote (emphasis added):

...A few years ago ... the men of the church were meeting after church to discuss my friends teenage daughters apparel. They felt like their blouses were to tight and they should bind their chest up more, go figure. At the same time the son of one of these political men was touching one of my friends teenage daughters in a sexual way as she slept. This was found out and apologies were made although the boy was tempted by the girls tight blouses(lol). The boy was sent to one of the training centers to be punished??? My friends did not return to the home church for quite sometime after this. At this same time, the boy mentioned earlier was betrothed to a girl in the the group, both were 14 at the time. The betrothal was broken by the boys actions. ... Just this last year the family of the young man mentioned before was highlighted on the Discovery Channel, at the time they had 14 children and were about to have another and the mom was receiving a mother of the year award from our governor. Since that time the same boy was betrothed again to the same girl. He was working very hard on a campaingn for U.S. Senate for the girls father. The father lost the campaign. He immediately began looking for “sin in the camp”, as that could be the only explanation for the loss. He found that the young man betrothed to his daughter, had committed sexual sins(?) while on the campaign trail. The young man, now 16, was made to stand in fornt of the church and confess his sin. He was then told that the campaign was lost due to his sin. The weight of the world on this poor boys shoulders. I do not know what punishment the church gave but I do know that it was harsh enough for his mother to seek advise outside of the “group”, but she did eventually give in to her husband and the group. The young man and young girls betrothal is now broken. I am I nuts to see this as abuse? And what do you think can be done?

A commenter on FreeJinger adds,

So you can see, the “young man” in the story would be the son of the Discovery family (Duggars), and the politician running who goes on about “sin in the camp” would be the girl’s father. Since the Holts are a family that were featured early on in the Duggar specials, and Jim Holt seems to be running for office frequently, it makes them a likely candidate, and would mean that Josh was betrothed to a Holt daughter (twice), if this rumor is to be believed.

There are hundreds of comments like this on various Duggar blogs and message boards. Even if Discovery Health and TLC were not aware that Josh was investigated by police, it’s hard to believe that no one knew about the rumors of abuse.

2008: 19 Kids and Counting premieres on TLC

On September 29, 2008, the first episode of 19 Kids and Counting—then 17 Kids and Counting—premiered on TLC. The show has been one of TLC’s most popular programs ever since, chronicling the dating lives of the oldest Duggar children. Josh’s marriage and the births of his three children were all featured on the show. His fourth child is due in July.

2015: InTouch obtains police report through FOIA request

InTouch published a redacted version of the Springdale police report detailing Josh’s sexual misconduct on May 21, 2015. Josh admits to the abuse hours later. According to TMZ, TLC has quietly pulled 19 Kids and Counting from its lineup for the time being. A rep for General Mills tells TMZ the company has removed the show from its current advertising schedule.

Photo via TLC. Contact the author at allie@gawker.com.

Her name was Shaka and we were in the fifth grade when I decided to kick her square in the stomach. Even though I had a huge crush on her, Shaka’s pain did not matter to me. It didn’t matter to our laughing peers either. Shaka’s pain was irrelevant as I asserted my prepubescent norms of courting. Television shows like The Wonder Years and The Cosby Show jokingly conveyed to me that it was normal for boys to hit and degrade girls to get their attention.

This act was understood as nothing more than cute, childish flirting. Boys like me were excused because of our warped and accepted customs of violence—and we still are. In fact, that most western cultures accept boys hitting, degrading, or vocally shaming girls at a young age is just “boys being boys.” This is what patriarchy looks like in its most formative years of human development.

Patriarchy surrounds and consumes us. In communities across the nation where black men are viewed as violent and criminal, women are believed to be less impacted by mass criminalization because handcuffs are not placed on them as much, or because they are not slashed by broken window policies as much. But less than does not tell the entire story. Less than obscures the particular ways in which black women experience criminalization through policies such as stop and frisk.

As much acknowledges that something is happening to whom or whatever is in comparison. Black women were not lynched as much as black men. But they were lynched. Black girls are not suspended or expelled from school as much as black men. But they are expelled and suspended. Black girls and women are not murdered in incidents of community gun violence as much as black boys and men. But they are still gunned down.

Why do anti-gun violence activists refuse to say her name?

Black girls and women are not killed by police as much as black boys and men. But, yes, agents of the state kill them. No, black transgender women are not killed as much as black and brown men. But they are murdered.

Why do most anti-police brutality advocates refuse to say her name?

If we are to remain in the realm of comparative suffering, then we must offer that black women are sexually assaulted more than men. Black women are victims of domestic abuse more than men. Consider how accepting we are of using the term “wife beater” to describe a type of undershirt because, according to urban folklore, in old black-and-white movies a man wore this type of undershirt as he beat his wife. In the US military, women like LaVena Johnson who enlist to fight for their country are brutalized, killed, and have their stories quieted by the same military and government they fight for.

Why does the military refuse to say her name?

De-emphasizing the collective harms visited upon a group of black people, and our Latino brothers and sisters, by state agents, institutions, and government systems is antithetical to the best interests of our communities. It reflects a narrow comprehension of racial justice. If more of us saw these issues in gender-inclusive terms, however, it would require us to unlearn everything that makes us secure and safe—religion, century-old traditions, the comfort of capitalism. It would compel us to let go of the belief that places men at the head of the table by default.

This unlearning would destroy our comfort zones; it would shatter our paternalistic misunderstandings that tell women they are here to wholly support men in every endeavor of life, even when these men are not deserving or capable of that responsibility.

The new learning would shift how we mentor young people and how mentoring programs are funded (see: My Brother’s Keeper). Mentoring programs focused on boys would be complemented by programs that target the concerns of women and girls; and not exclusively in the context of intimate relationships, such as a mother or girlfriend. This new learning would enlist women to lead alongside men who facilitate the mentoring process.

The new learning would require those of us who work diligently and passionately against intra-community gun violence to shift our understanding of who is affected by it.

The new learning would require those of us who organize against state violence like police brutality, mass incarceration, mass deportation, and mass suspensions in poor-to-middle class black and brown communities to indict a system that damages all of us and not just some of us. We would have to seek out black and brown women, lesbian, cis, or transgender persons for our panel discussions, community roundtables, Sunday prayers at church, and policy meetings.

This new learning would require us to understand that saying Michael Brown’s name and omitting Rekia Boyd’s is perpetuating a system of white racial superiority that boasts an insidiously shrewd legacy of brutalizing and dehumanizing black and brown people of all gender identities. Complicity in our own oppression is insanity, and this insanity is killing us all. Literally.

If we acknowledge the suffering and oppression of black and brown men, then we are required to acknowledge the suffering and oppression of black and brown women. In fact, there should be a conscientious conscious effort for black and brown men to extoll their role in devaluing and erasing their female and transgender equals.

In New York City this past Wednesday, hundreds gathered in Union Square for a vigil to hear and say the name of the black women and girls who have been lost to state violence. I stood next to Martinez Sutton, the brother of Rekia Boyd, as he relived the pain of living without his little sister. Piper Anderson, the host of the event led chants of “Say Her Name.” We followed in unison. We were not the same size crowd as we were when we marched for Tryavon, Mike, and Freddie. It felt as if the lives of these women did not matter as much. Our conditioning, this patriarchal bullshit, tells us not to acknowledge these women; most of us we are hardwired not to say her name.

Laughing at boyish violence toward girls nurtures a lie: It says this girl, and her pain, are invisible. Lifting only the stories of black men who are brutalized by each other and the state equally makes the pain of black girls and women invisible, just like what I did to Shaka.

Once a person becomes invisible they no longer matter…

…like Rekia Boyd, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Natasha McKenna, Kyam Livingston, Tarika Wilson, Sheneque Proctor, Kimberlee Raandle-King, Alexia Christian, Tyisha Miller, Shereese Francis, Kayla Moore, Pearlie Golden, Michelle Cusseaux, Tanisha Anderson, Alberta Spruill, Frankie Perkins, Margaret LaVerne Mitchell, Shelly Frey, Eleanor Bumpurs, Latanya Haggerty, Kendra James, Shamel Edwards, Shantel Davis, Miriam Casey, Gabriella Nevarez, Mya Hall, Marissa Alexander, LaVena Johnson...

New learning would require us to #SayHerName.

Marlon Peterson is a national social and criminal justice advocate, writer, organizational trainer, community organizer, and educator who spent 10 years in New York State prisons. He’s on Twitter at @marlon_79.

[Illustration by Tara Jacoby]

You are a writer. You write features. You are supposed to write a feature about a very famous person at a major sporting event, but the event has not started yet, so you have no new reporting or novel insights on the subject. No one does, and no one can. This is a difficulty, perhaps even a metaphysical difficulty; if you think about it, you can see the whole futility of human experience in this. Indeed, it is possible, when you start looking at it this way, that your material is not thin and generic, but universal—maybe, in having nothing to say, you will find that you have everything to say.

Or not.

So you find Brian Phillips, in Grantland, resorting to the second person and the cosmic to address the question of how Rafael Nadal will do at the French Open, a question that will only become interesting when Nadal has begun playing at the French Open. Here’s each paragraph, distilled to the single sentence (at most) of meaning it contains.

The atmosphere changes when you arrive in this place. It galvanizes; some sort of latent potential in the air and the crowd and the crushed red brick that the tournament calls clay wakes up, startles into focus. Whatever electrons do, they do it faster in your presence, and you sense this, you see it on the faces of everyone you meet: It is one of the things you know about yourself. If you thought about this knowledge at all, it might strike you as strange, analogous in some way to the problem of the afterlife: No one can know what lies on the other side of death, and no one can know what a room is like in the moment before they enter it. Yet you do. Consciousness is a light that illuminates only itself, perhaps, but yours shines so brightly here that you have never had a need to think beyond it. When you are here, you know.

[Rafael Nadal is very famous.]

And besides, there are those faces. Imploring, earnest, eager, the jostling children begging for your signature on headbands and yellow balls and programmes officiel; they know how to find you, somehow, from the moment your car arrives, and they line your path hoping to capture any talisman, any proof of having once been in your presence. There are the faces of the security men who accompany you, scowling over their black square suits. When they see you, their eyes harden, they set their shoulders as if to say now for the real thing. Once, while you were playing here, a bare-chested man leaped onto the court and rushed toward you, wearing a white mask and brandishing a burning flare. The guards tackled him before he could reach you, and you shook one of their hands; the pictures ran in 500 newspapers.

[He is at the French Open.]

You and your rivals move around this place like heads of state, accompanied and anticipated, but it is not the same for them as for you. Not for Novak, not even for Roger, who won here once. You have won here nine times, nine in 10 years, and except for Roger, no other man on the tour has won here at all; the last retired years ago. Your dominion here has been so complete that since the first time you entered the tournament — you were 18; you won it — you have lost only one match. This place has really and deeply been yours, and so the spectators who see your entourage whisk by are more wonderstruck, and the umpires who shake your hand before a match are more grave, and the players on the other side of the net are in many cases more terrified, than they would be for anyone else. You have long since passed the point where you found anything strange in this. It is simply a circumstance, a milieu. It is a legible feature of the reality of your existence.

[He wins the French Open more than anyone else does.]

It makes you arrogant, perhaps, in the way that anyone becomes arrogant when doors are always opened for them and needs always met in advance; you are aware that your world orbits around you. In another sense, though, you have never been arrogant, because you have never had to depend on the admiration of the crowd to tell you who you are. The quality that makes you a great tennis player also insulates you from a certain kind of corruption. You have a wild current of inner strength that means you are always at your best when you are losing, when you are fighting, when you are in danger. In 2006, when Roger had never been beaten in the final of a major, you lost the first set to him 1-6 and came back to win the match. In 2013, Novak crushed you in a tiebreak to force a fifth set in your semifinal; you won it 9-7. This is another thing you know about yourself: In moments of apparent weakness, you find the thread that leads in your mind to a place where you will not be beaten. And so unlike with Novak, who wants the fans to lift him up and blames them when they decline, the quickening effect that you have on this place is somehow one-sided. The crowd is feeding on something in you, not you on something in them.

[Even when he looks like he might lose, he wins.]

And if you thought about it at all (though why would you?), you might see a paradox in this, that here, in your place of greatest safety, your success has depended on a strength that grows in proximity to failure. Which is not to say that you have flirted with failure here often. But where Roger, say, plays from the top, finds inspiration in the distance between his own glad grace and the heavy lunging of his opponent, you play from the bottom, raking your way up from desolation and mire. Your ideal shot is not un coup droit inspiré, not some exquisite display of creativity and skill; it is a cry of refusal, a forehand thrashed from 2 feet behind the baseline into the far corner, directed half at your opponent and half at the impudence of the idea that you could lose. You would never frame it that way, of course, but you have some inkling of this; hence your constant, wry attempts to paint yourself as an underdog, your unwillingness to accept, after five, six, seven titles here, that you could ever be considered a favorite. You are always alert to the possibility of a collapse that — here, at least — has always been entirely imaginary. And that tiny thrill of tension, more than anything, is a sign of the hold this place has on you.

[There are no ideas in this paragraph.]

So here is where you are: back on the red brick that everyone calls clay. Back at the place where you have enjoyed triumph after actual triumph while fleeing theoretical despair. Now, though, after two years during which you have seen your bad dreams come true almost everywhere else, this place looks more like an island than ever. Your skills have eroded, your results worsened — only not here, not yet.

[Nadal’s career is in decline.]

Last year, you arrived facing the gravest doubts of your career, then won anyway, going through David, Andy, and Novak in your last three matches, clawing your way back into two of those after dropping the first set. This year, the doubts are louder, the predictions worse. You have not won a tournament during this clay-court season. You have been passive, slow. You lost to Novak in the semifinals at Monaco. Andy, who had never beaten you on clay, destroyed you in Madrid. Then Stan, whom you’d beaten 12 times in 13 matches, did to you what you’ve so often done to others, brawling back from four set points to win 7-6 (9-7) 6-2 in the quarterfinals at Rome.

[Last year, despite that, he won the French Open.]

There was a turning point in your match against Andy. You had been sloppy in the first set, distracted; you let him run out to a 4-1 lead. At 4-2, with Andy serving, you hit a colossal down-the-line forehand to set up two break points: your chance to get back on serve. And here is where you would normally have pushed your game someplace overblown and overwrought, where you would have overwhelmed Andy by making it all mean too much, more than any other player could let it mean. Instead, at 40-15, you crushed a forehand into Andy’s deuce corner and missed the line. And then you went away. Andy won the game, and never looked back from 5-2. You looked bewildered — you’d reached for your passion and found something vague, a blank.

[This year, though, he has played even worse, even on clay.]

The idea that you could win here seems impossible. The idea that you could lose here seems impossible. Can you believe in either outcome yourself? You are a 28-year-old with a destroyed left knee and a battered back, and Novak, who wants this title more than anything, is playing unassailable tennis. Your confidence is staggered. But you are here, where you have always been invincible. And you are always at your strongest when you believe you are about to lose.

[Will he win or lose the French Open?]

Do you sense something different this year in the way people look at you? As though they wonder whether you’ve heard the news? The king, but for how much longer; the walking embodiment of the benefit of the doubt. You are the sixth seed — sixth! — in a tournament where the only man to beat you last played in 2011. Perhaps, for you, growing old will mean reenacting the same drama on a slower and slower timescale, so that the furious comeback you once would have completed in a match will now take place over the course of a month, a season. So here you are, late in the fourth set, trailing. What will you do?

[He might lose.]

Your career has always seemed heroic because you faced a larger quotient of doom than any other player, and your career has always seemed neurotic because so much of the doom seemed to originate within yourself. Now it seems real. Not for the first time, but for the first time here. And if you thought about this moment, as you must, it might strike you as analogous to the problem of … but oh, who knows. You see it coming. You have always seen it coming. No one can know what a room is like in the moment before they enter it. Here you are, with your bag and your knee and your records. It’s time. Someone is opening the door.

[It could go either way.]

Image via Getty. Contact the author at scocca@gawker.com.

Though she has been busy preparing for the birth of her third child and introducing Chicago to the world, Kristin Cavallari did work on her debut book this week. On Tuesday, she wrote on Instagram, “Great first day for the Balancing In Heels shoot all week.”

She updated us again on her progress via Instagram yesterday. “The best part about shooting at my house is I get to have my little peanuts running around,” Kristin wrote. “Shoes are from my line and will be available soon! #BalancingInHeels #bestofbothworlds”

So now we know: Balancing in Heels will include pictures. Evidence that it will include words will be presented when we find it.

This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photo via Getty]

While Hillary Clinton maintained to have only allowed “sensitive but unclassified” information to go through her private email server, that’s no longer technically the case. Earlier today, the FBI ordered that parts of an email containing information about the Benghazi attacks go from unclassified to “secret.”

The now-classified email was forwarded to Clinton by her deputy chief of staff regarding the arrests of possible suspects in Libya with the comment “FYI.” And according to State Department officials, just 23 words from a message sent in November of 2012 were redacted of the 296 total emails released today “to protect information that may damage foreign relations.”

From the Associated Press:

It is at the end of a chain of communication that originated with Bill Roebuck, the then-director of the Office of Maghreb Affairs, that pointed out that Libyan police had arrested several people who might have connections to the attack. The redacted portion appears to relate to who provided the information about the alleged suspects to the Libyans. A total of five lines related to the source of the information were affected, but only the 23 words were deleted because the FBI deemed them to be classified.

To Clinton’s credit, the information wasn’t actually classified at the time the email was sent, which means that her use of the account may very well still have been fully legal. This does, however, illustrate the the huge problems with using an unsecured account for any sort of sensitive information at all. Especially as the Secretary of State, it’s impossible to know when something could become a matter of national security.

Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com. Image via AP.

Lots of movies have a wonderful first half, followed by a blah second half. Setup is often easier than follow-through. But Tomorrowland, out today, might become the clearest example of this syndrome. And the reason Tomorrowland falls apart halfway through is because it sinks into Baby Boomer angst. Spoilers ahead...

Tomorrowland wears its Boomer wishful thinking on its sleeve. Pretty much the first proper scene, after a framing sequence, takes place at the 1964 World’s Fair. There, young Frank Walker (played by George Clooney as an adult), arrives in the midst of the retrofuturistic fins and swooshes, carrying a prototype jetpack he’s built. Frank doesn’t win the inventor contest he’s entering, but instead he gets a secret invite to a magical place: Tomorrowland.

And then, we wind up in the present day, where a young dreamer named Casey (Under the Dome’s Britt Robertson) is sneaking around and trying to prevent NASA from dismantling a launch facility through sabotage, because she’s upset that we no longer reach for the stars. And she, too, gets the pin that provides an invite to Tomorrowland.

Soon enough, Casey and the grown-up Frank are on the run from killer robots, who want to stop them from getting to Tomorrowland and setting right what’s gone wrong.

And without giving too much, the plot of Tomorrowland is pretty much all about the lost Space Age optimism and Jetsons sparkle that was the official vision of the future when the Boomers were young. The 1950s/1960s vision of cool rockets and flying robots and space colonies — and what happened to that vision in the intervening decades. Why, the film asks, did we give up on that kind of can-do, sleeve-up-rolling optimism? Why are we instead fixated on apocalypses and dystopias? What’s wrong with us?

I’m personally very sympathetic to this film’s message — I’ve written a lot about wishing that Space Age optimism (and actual space travel) would make a comeback, and about the ways that post-apocalyptic stories are a form of lazy wish-fulfillment. At the same time, this film is so unsubtle, it’s like being hit on the head with a ginormous mallet for an hour. And worse yet, the more preachy and pious the film becomes, the more muddled and unexciting it starts to feel. By the time you get to the rousing climax, all of the life has been drained out of the story.

It’s actually kind of funny that a movie whose over-arching message is about youthful optimism winds up feeling so much like you’re listening to a cranky rant about how things were so much better 50 years ago. This is somewhat counterbalanced by having the young Casey be the voice of optimism in the film, but it still feels very much as though the film itself is ranting long-windedly at you — and a lot of this, in the second half, comes via the character of Nix (Hugh Laurie).

Add to that the not-terribly-subtle Ayn Rand message in this film. It’s very common for people to ascribe an Objectivist message to Bird’s classic animated superhero film The Incredibles — but Tomorrowland is much more blatantly a John Galt fantasy, despite some muddled attempts to complicate the metaphor late in the game.

On the plus side, the cast is pretty much terrific. Clooney is at his most likable, Robertson is brilliant and nearly carries large chunks of the movie by herself, and Raffey Cassidy, as the mysterious Athena, is a lot of fun. Also, the visuals are unbelievable, as you’ve probably already seen from the trailers — this film is a design marvel, and Bird’s famous eye for huge widescreen imagery is on full display here. And as I mentioned before, the first half of the movie is pretty great, overall.

Bird already proved he could take a mediocre script and produce a fantastic movie, with Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. But this time around, he’s telling his own story, with the help of Damon Lindelof and Jeff Jensen, and he’s not content to give us a formulaic action movie — but unfortunately, the second half of the film relies to an increasing extent on action-movie cliches, while also getting more high-concept and abstract in its fervency to get its message across.

I would have loved a film that grapples, honestly, with the question of why we’re less optimistic than we were in the Kennedy era. Or a film that attempts to recharge our optimism, by showing how we really can build that future we dreamed about in the two decades following World War II. Tomorrowland is neither of those things, though. Instead, it presents us with simplistic answers, and tries to shame its own audience for liking post-apocalyptic stories. (Did you like Mad Max: Fury Road? Then Tomorrowland wants you to sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done.)

In a way, Tomorrowland feels like a companion to Interstellar: another film that yearns for the optimistic reach-for-the-stars vision as a counterpoint to the prospect of ecological collapse and apocalyptic malaise. This is obviously something that film-makers are grappling with, in the midst of a pop-cultural obsession with global worst-case scenarios, but we haven’t yet found a way to tell stories about this issue — at least, except in books, where authors like Kim Stanley Robinson have been doing it all along.

As it is, Tomorrowland starts out as a fun escapist fantasy, and serves up plenty of great eye-candy and fun set pieces, before it starts to collapse under its own weight. It’ll probably be a pretty good late-night Netflix movie, but the amazing visuals aren’t enough to make it worth seeing in theaters.

Contact the author at charliejane@io9.com.

A Pennsylvania girl’s Sweet 16 party was ruined Sunday when a torrent of human feces, dumped from a passing airplane, splattered all over the tables, chairs and decorations, got into the pool where people were swimming, and sent family members running for cover.

The only thing that didn’t end up with poop on it was the cake, which had fortunately been taken inside before the incident.

“We just got done with cake thank God, we took the cake back in, because within two minutes, something fell from the sky, it was brown, it was everywhere, it got on everything,” a guest at the Levittown, Pa., party told MyFoxPhilly.

About 40 people were affected by the literal shitstorm, but no one has determined exactly where it came from.

According to a family member who looked up flights on a smartphone app, there were 5 planes in the area at the time, any one of which could have bespoiled that sweetest of birthdays, the sixteenth, with its foul cargo.

The FAA is investigating.

[Photo: MyFoxPhilly]

On May 12, a senior at Pflugerville High School in Texas named Isaiah Thomas used what’s being reported as “a derogatory term directed towards gay people” in science class. Let’s assume the reason it’s not being said on the local news stations that are covering this story is because it’s a very bad word—probably “faggot.” In response, his teacher, Gretchen Summers told him (in his words), “How’d you like it if somebody called you a nigger?”

If you want to look at her response optimistically, Summers attempted to shock Thomas into acknowledging his misdeed. If you want to interpret it pessimistically, she’s a racist who spends her days waiting to say the word “nigger,” even in hypothetical, words-as-words instances.

Thomas reported what Summers had said to his principal, Summers was put on leave, and then she resigned two days later. In KXAN’s report, above, Thomas explains, “She could have at least said the ‘N-word,’ or could have said, ‘how would you like someone calling you N-Word?’” That is true. She most likely would have avoided all of this if she had.

Thomas was also interviewed by KEYE, and said that he was offended by Summers’s language. Thomas’s mother, Charlott Swist, said, “I raised my kids not to even use that word against each other.” Swist added, “We send our kids to school to learn. Not that kind of learning, either...She owes the school and all those children a public apology.”

If Swist mentioned whether or not she raised her kids to use the word “faggot,” KEYE did not report it. In fact, there is no mention of Thomas being punished or for feeling any remorse for using a slur himself. And so, it would seem that the lesson to extract here is that one derogatory term actually does carry more weight than another. Summers’s lesson went unlearned.

[H/T Towleroad]

Hello and welcome to Shade Court. Before we honor people who have valiantly sacrificed for our nation, let’s not honor many of the people below.

In this week’s Shade Court, Cosmopolitan loses its mind, Jennifer Lopez does the minimal work required, and I finally address the grossly overblown rumor of Nicki Minaj vs Tyga.

Shade Court Docket #2015JZ000081

The Case: Bruce Jenner allowed E! to delve even deeper into his business with a two-part special, Keeping Up With the Kardashians: About Bruce. Bruce Jenner’s son and reality star in his own right, Brody Jenner, was asked why he didn’t appear on the very special episodes.

The Defendant: Brody Jenner

The Evidence: According to Us Magazine:

“No, I didn’t actually see the Kardashian special,” Jenner, 31, told Us at the Gran Centenario Angels In The Sky Event in West Hollywood. “I didn’t watch that, but I heard it went well.”

While the Hills hunk and his big brother Brandon (as well as half-siblings Burt and Casey) did not appear in the special, Brody had positive words about the two-part revelation. “I heard it was great,” he told Us. “Everything is all good.”

Emphasis mine.

The Deliberation: Now, it’s no secret that Brody has had a rocky relationship with the Kardashian Klan, which, yeah, I get that. Is it because they became more famous than him? Because Kris Jenner repeatedly spoke to his father on camera like he was an idiot? Is the narcissism in that household so suffocating that you need an oxygen mask just to last ten minutes? WHO KNOWS.

The fact is, Brody has been side-eyeing this group for some time. He didn’t even show up to Kim’s wedding but, rather hilariously, did attend her ex-boyfriend Reggie Bush’s wedding to a Kim look-alike.

You’ll also note that even though the special was about Bruce, it was still produced under the Keeping Up With the Kardashians banner, even though Bruce Jenner is not a Kardashian.

I love that he said he “heard” it was good. Oh? Who did you hear that from, Brody? And the fact that he referred to the show as “that” was sly yet revealing. Good work, Brody. XX

The Ruling: Shade

Shade Court Docket #2015JZ000082

The Case: Jennifer Lopez and Mariah Carey do not like each other; this we know to be true. Mariah Carey performed during the Billboard Music Awards and Jenny from the block pretended to be enthralled with her Instagram feed during much of the performance. Naturally, it was all caught on camera.

The Defendant: TMZ

The Evidence:

The Deliberation: The feud between The Voyage of the Mimi and JLo is one of my favorite things on Earth. They are both such unrelenting divas and the bullshit between them is so goddamn trifling and keeps reaching new lows.

JLo, girl, we know what you were doing. According to reports, she was looking at her phone during the entirety of Mariah’s performance. You have to remember that Jennifer Lopez definitely knew she was probably being filmed—she’s at a damn awards show. If nothing else, it’s 2015 and she’s in a room full of people who voluntarily attended the Billboard Music Awards, you know somebody was gonna Instagram that shit.

What’s also interesting here is that JLo’s shade-throwing amounting to her just sitting there trying to do the absolute least. The move was so delicately petty that it barely even registers on the shade scale because she didn’t even really do anything. However, I’ll allow it, because JLo’s total lack of action nonetheless let Mariah know clearly that five-hour old Instagrams were more interesting than her performance.

The Ruling: Shade

Shade Court Docket #2015JZ000083

The Case: Earlier this week, Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé dropped the video for “Feeling Myself.” If you’re like me and don’t have Tidal, you’ve watched it through Tumblr gifs, Vine videos and Tidal bootlegs. Wasn’t that fun?

In the video, Nicki wears a Givenchy mesh top emblazoned with the word “pervert” and the number 17. Within about an hour of the video being out, the internet was abuzz with the rumor that Nicki’s top was a reference—shade—to Tyga about the fact that he’s dating 17-year-old Kylie Jenner. YES SHE’S BACK AGAIN, I’M SORRY.

The Defendant: A lot of you

The Evidence:

🌳🌳SHADE ALERT🌳🌳 Is Nicki Minaj's "Feeling Myself" shirt an insult to Tyga? http://t.co/mJguChcO1F pic.twitter.com/Q7TaZTOJz0

May 20, 2015

Welp, did Nicki Minaj throw shade at Tyga and Kylie Jenner with this Givenchy jersey? http://t.co/OkOkGbH1ym pic.twitter.com/7msi7uCZWE

May 19, 2015

Did Nicki Minaj throw shade at Tyga in her new video? This photo has everyone talking...http://t.co/I8q2Z7aJ7I pic.twitter.com/gE9E2OPmCC

May 19, 2015

Shade alert! Is Nicki Minaj dissing Tyga in her "Feeling Myself'' music video? http://t.co/8UF3Iv94tm

May 20, 2015

The Deliberation: This is a neat little story, isn’t it? Nicki Minaj uses a major platform to shame Tyga over the fact that his girlfriend cannot vote. The problem is that there are zero facts to back it up, and there’s a much simpler explanation.

The only thing that bolsters this case in the favor of the defendants is that we know there’s bad blood between Tyga and the Young Money record label, of which Nicki Minaj is a member. However, that’s about the only thing in their favor. The top Nicki was wearing isn’t custom-made or even something new. It’s a Givenchy insignia that has been around for quite some time.

Further, if Nicki was indeed trying to throw shade, are we seriously supposed to believe that she just happened to recall that Givenchy made this shirt and specifically requested that her stylist put it in the video? What’s most funny about this is that here is Nicki—out here eating burgers and making carefree black girl music videos with Beyoncé—and people think that she gives even half a shit about taking shots at Tyga.

Tyga.

Tyga.

Like, a baby saying “tiger” and spelled with a “y.”

Please.

Plus, she recently tweeted something pretty nice directed towards Kylie, which would be a weird fucking thing to do after publicly calling her boyfriend a pervert.

The Ruling: Not shade

Shade Court Docket #2015JZ000084

The Case: Who even knows.

The Defendant: Cosmopolitan’s social media team

The Evidence:

~*~iDgAf~*~ 💁

May 21, 2015

🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳SHADE 🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳

May 21, 2015

send this to someone who needs it https://t.co/pegqP0gJbF

May 21, 2015

The Deliberation: What in the hell?

The Ruling: Get some help

Images via Getty; Wikipedia; Cosmopolitan. Top image by Tara Jacoby, featuring the shade artist at a young age.

Contact the author at kara.brown@jezebel.com .

TLC has removed 19 Kids and Counting from its schedule after one of those kids, Josh Duggar, confirmed that he molested four of the others, his sisters, as a teenager. “The fate of the show is uncertain,” a source told TMZ Friday. The network had just run a 19 Kids and Counting marathon the previous day.

Advertisers are also pulling out, TMZ adds, citing a rep for General Mills who said the company has “blacklisted” the Duggars for future ad buys.

Mama June will be so happy.

Meanwhile, Rep. Mike Huckabee publicly stood by his “good friends” the Duggars, saying that “good people” sometimes do disgusting things (like, according to police reports about Josh Duggar, touching girls’ “breasts and genitals” while they slept, and “fondling” one girl while he read a book to her).

“Josh’s actions when he was an underage teen are as he described them himself, ‘inexcusable,’ but that doesn’t mean ‘unforgivable.’ He and his family dealt with it and were honest and open about it with the victims and the authorities,” Huckabee wrote on Facebook.

“No purpose whatsoever is served by those who are now trying to discredit Josh or his family by sensationalizing the story. Good people make mistakes and do regrettable and even disgusting things.”

Huckabee argues there was no need for the family (who likely make more than TLC’s standard $25,000 to $40,000 per episode, and whose huge house is rumored to have been paid for by the network) to publicly disclose anything about the abuse in Josh’s past, because his sisters didn’t want it.

He would have a much stronger case if the Duggar brand didn’t revolve around the family being champions of biblical morality.

Josh Duggar resigned from his job with the conservative Family Research Council after issuing a public statement earlier this week.

[h/t TMZ, Screengrab via TLC]

“I apologize, both for my language and for my tone.” — Hillary Clinton advisor Philippe Reines, in an email to Michael Hastings following their testy exchange in September 2012 over Clinton’s response to the attacks in Benghazi, Libya. (Reines told Hastings to “fuck off,” among other things.)

The email appeared in a batch of Benghazi-related emails released today by the State Department in response to widespread scrutiny about Clinton’s private email account, which she used to conduct official State Department business. Reines, one of Clinton’s most devoted disciples, is known for scuffling with reporters.

Full exchange (begins at the bottom):

From: Michael Hastings
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 09:17 PM
To: Reines, Philippe
Subject: Re: Our Exchange

Hi Philippe:

Thanks very much for the note. I appreciate it.

I have deep sympathy for what your team and the families of the victims are going through. In Baghdad years ago, someone I cared for very deeply lost her life with three others in the service of promoting our values overseas. This experience probably added to the intensity behind my questions and responses as well.

In the interest of diplomacy and extending an olive branch: we should get a drink sometime, off the record.

Best, Michael

---

On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 8:18 PM, Reines, Philippe I wrote:

Hi Michael

As you can imagine this has been an intense time for everyone at the State Department, including me.

While I stand by the fundamental principles at issue here, that does not justify my unprofessional response to your emails. I particularly do not want my words to be a distraction from this tragedy.

I apologize, both for my language and for my tone.

Philippe

You can read the rest of the emails published today here.

H/T Lachlan Markay

Why were evangelical reality star and conservative political activist Josh Duggar’s parents Jim Bob and Michelle so slow to act on the revelation that their eldest son had molested his younger sisters—and, ultimately, so lenient? Documents about sexual abuse from the cult-like homeschooling program the family follows—which focus on public image and lay heavy blame on the victims of assault—may help answer the question.

You see, the Duggars aren’t just “Quiverfull” breeders and Bible adherents—they’re also adherents of the Advanced Training Institute, a Bible-based homeschooling program run by alleged cult figurehead Bill Gothard. Months before the family had to deal with the revelation of Josh Duggar’s past sexual abuses, they were coping with sexual abuse allegations against Gothard.

Gothard last year denied accusations that he had sexually harassed or assaulted 34(!) women, claiming “I have never kissed a girl nor have I touched a girl immorally or with sexual intent.” He was 79 years old at the time.

Although Gothard was forced to resign as the head of the Advanced Training Institute due to the accusations, the Duggars apparently still follow the organization’s teaching plans, which include lessons on how to deal with sexual abuse in the home.

These lessons were creepy when Recovering Grace (a site run by former followers of Gothard’s “cult”) and the Jezebel-reader community site Powder Room published them in January, but they’re even more disturbing now, in light of Josh Duggar’s admission this week that he abused his younger sisters as a teen.

Especially this one: “Lessons From Moral Failures in a Family,” which describes a hypothetical scenario in which parents discover that “an older brother was guilty of sexually abusing younger ones in his family.” When the older brother had “repented,” he’s asked a series of questions—including “What teaching could have been given to each child [emphasis ours] to resist evil?” and “What factors in the home contributed to immodesty and temptation?”

“The damage to the younger children, the ridicule to the cause of Christ, the shame of detailed publicity, and the scars to the life and reputation of the boy were indescribably painful to the family and their friends,” it continues, before the boy describes where he went wrong and what lessons he learned.

(It’s worth pointing out that the scenario isn’t based on Josh Duggar, whose abuse reportedly occurred in 2002. “Lessons from Moral Failures” was published in the ‘90s.)

The lessons are frighteningly light on personal responsibility, and heavy on blame for the victim—condemning younger sisters for dressing “immodestly,” and parents for exposing the boy to temptation by having him change his sisters’ diapers. The document also blames porn, advising families to “pray for protection from pornography.”

Recovering Grace notes that “of the four listed consequences of sexual abuse, three concentrate on damage to public image.”

According to Recovering Grace, ATI’s Counseling Seminar curriculum also includes a handout on “Counseling Sexual Abuse,” which examines the many ways that a victim could have brought abuse on him or herself by “defrauding” God: Did you dress immodestly? Were you, perhaps, associating with “evil” friends? You should consider whether you’re guilty and apologize to God.

Only then does it move on to what to do “if” the abused was miraculously “not at fault.” That advice basically consists of saying “It could be worse. At least I’ve still got my Spirit. And if I have to choose, I’d rather have that than not be sexually abused!”

There is no mention of the idea that no one should have to choose.

It’s not certain that the Duggars came across either of these specific documents during their decades of ATI-approved homeschooling, but their association with Gothard’s institute is well-documented. Jim Bob Duggar and Bill Gothard have been photographed together, and Jim Bob and Michelle are listed as speakers at last month’s ATI Family Conference in Big Sandy, Texas.

At last year’s conference, one of the speakers was Jinger Duggar, one of Josh Duggar’s younger sisters.

“Lessons From Moral Failures in a Family”

[h/t Samantha Field via Sarah Galo, Photo: Getty Images]

Though the official tally is still being taken, it appears that Ireland has voted overwhelmingly in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage, the Associated Press reports. Leaders from both sides of the debate have said that the “Yes” voters won—the only thing left to determine is by how much.

“We’re the first country in the world to enshrine marriage equality in our constitution and do so by popular mandate. That makes us a beacon, a light to the rest of the world of liberty and equality,” Leo Varadkhar, a Cabinet minister who came out at the beginning of the campaign, told the AP. “So it’s a very proud day to be Irish.”

Voters in Dublin appear to have voted around 70 percent in support of same-sex marriage, Varadkhar said, and no districts—even in conservative, rural areas—have yet reported rejecting the measure.

“Obviously there’s a certain amount of disappointment, but I’m philosophical about the outcome,” David Quinn of the Iona Institute, a Catholic group that campaigned against same-sex marriage, told RTE. But there was nothing to be done about what was “obviously a very impressive victory for the ‘yes’ side.”

The vote legalize same-sex marriage comes barely more than 20 years after Ireland decriminalized homosexuality, in 1993. David Norris, an Irish senator who led that campaign, said he was pleasantly surprised by the level of support for the referendum.

“It was wonderful the vote was so overwhelming,” Norris told the New York Times. “The straight people of Ireland have said welcome to the Irish family. This should be a template for the rest of the world.”

Update, 1:25 p.m. – The New York Times reports that supporters of same-sex marriage have an insurmountable lead. More than 60 percent of elligible voters participated in the referendum.

Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Iran has sent a small number of troops to help Iraq retake a major oil refinery from the Islamic State, the Associated Press reports. The Iranians will operate artillery and heavy weaponry in support of advancing Iraqi ground troops.

The move comes as the U.S.-led coalition air strikes against ISIS across the region continue, staging 22 strikes since Friday. From the AP:

Two US officials said Iranian forces had taken a significant offensive role in the Beiji operation in recent days, in conjunction with Iraqi Shia militia. The officials were not authorised to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on Friday on condition of anonymity.

One official said Iranians were operating artillery, 122mm rocket systems and surveillance and reconnaissance drones to help the Iraqi counteroffensive.

U.S. officials have not opposed Tehran-backed Shia militias’ involvement in the fight against ISIS so long as they operated under the command of the Iraqi government. Iran was previously accused of sending troops into Iraq to fight against ISIS in March.

Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

On Saturday, an Ohio judge acquitted Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo of manslaughter, the New York Times reports. During a November 2012 car chase, Brelo, who is white, and other police officers, fired 137 rounds at Timothy Russell and his passenger, Malissa Williams, who were black and unarmed.

Throughout the trial, prosecutors argued that, after other officers had stopped firing, Brelo climbed on the hood of Russell’s car and fired 15 shots at the pair, killing them. This, they said, was evidence that Brelo had acted recklessly.

“We’re asking our officers, based on their training, not to be compelled by fear to kill people when there’s other reasonable, objectively reasonable, options available to you,” said assistant county prosecutor James Gutierrez in his closing arguments. “And there was. He wanted to kill.”

Brelo’s lawyers argued that he—and the other officers—believed that they had been shot at. “What would make him want to shoot through the windshield at another human being?” defense attorney Patrick D’Angelo said. “Could it be that he was shot at? Could it be that he reasonably perceived that the occupants of the Malibu were shooting at him? That’s what all the other officers perceived. That’s what Officer Brelo perceived.”

A Justice Department report from December on the city’s police department found “reasonable cause to believe that CDP engages in a pattern or practice of the use of excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

Cleveland is still awaiting the results of an investigation into the killing last year of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, which was ruled a homicide.

Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Josh Duggar, the eldest child of the 19 Kids and Counting celebrity-evangelical clan, admitted Thursday that when he was a teenager he molested several underage girls, including some of his sisters. His admission was shocking to many—but not to all: Plenty of people have known about Josh’s abuse for years, including Oprah, Duggar friends and church members, the Springdale police, and a large number of Duggar obsessives online.

Which makes us wonder: What do you know about the Duggars?

If you’ve worked on their show at TLC (or work at TLC in general), met them at a fan event, heard a rumor about them that you’d like to share, email me at allie@gawker.com or share below the post.

To start us off, here’s one story about matriarch Michelle Duggar, from a woman who says she worked on the show in 2008 (I’ve edited for brevity and added emphasis):

In 2008 I worked on the set of what was then known as “17 Kids and Counting” and I have something to tell you. ...

During this time, the Duggars had very limited exposure to what they called the “outside world” and so most of the crew members being from larger cities, we were all very surprised at how very little they knew or understood about places like New York, Los Angeles, and London. All of their perceptions of these places were the most exaggerated stereotype cariacatures as if their only source of news was from locally produced religious cartoons from the 1980s. As in, LA is full of surfer dudes and Valley girls, and everyone in New York talks and walks like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, walks in packs carrying switchblades, spray paints graffiti at every turn, with the only safe haven oddly being the mighty Trump Tower. Yes, Trump Tower was Jim Bob’s go-to when talking anecdotally about the elegance of lavish and luxurious places. ... They didn’t own a television or had an Internet connection at that time, so, really, next to second hand church gossip, the local newspaper was really their only link to anything outside of Arkansas. The producers of the show had instructed crew members to not ever engage in conversation on our own with Jim Bob or Michelle in fears that we may either say something normal that they would find objectionable or that they would say something to where we’d react funny because we weren’t used to their level of “unwordliness” I think it was put.

We were constantly reminded that we were not to upset them or taint their version of the world, which is why they wanted limited conversation. Even a lighthearted conversation that might actually educate them about something they were horribly ignorant about was seen as tainting their view. It was very much like being told to not tell your little sister about Santa Claus.

So, during the leadup to their first family trip to New York to appear on the Today Show, Michelle started approaching some of us about New York and if it’s “scary for kids”. Because Michelle came to us, it was acceptable to entertain conversing with her but producers would always rush over and monitor the conversation. That very day we had a couple of crewmembers new to the set not familiar with the drill. She had directed this question to four of us who all happened to be standing together. As tempting as it was to give some ridiculous answer, the producer’s face reminded us to just be polite and give her the answer she wants. Well, the followup question is when it went completely off the rails. “Well, I hear the city is overrun by ..... gays... has that been causing a lot of problems?” One of the new crewmembers laughed and said “Why don’t you ask “Jimmy”? (Changed his name) and then proceeds to yell over his shoulder “Hey, Jimmy, you giving the city lots of problems???” Jimmy as you can guess, was gay, but this fact was completely lost on the Duggars.

It took her a minute to process that the joke answer might mean that there might really be one of these gays she’s always heard about nearby! In her house, even! She pulled the producer over to the corner and started yelling at him and demanding to know if what was just said was a joke, and that she wants to see Jimmy. We’re all watching this go down from a distance dying inside at how funny this was, and how shit is about to really hit a very big fan. The producer is now in a very tough position, because Jimmy is a veteran of the industry and is excellent at what he does, but now the Duggars’ weird uncultured Pollyanna worldview is threatening to disrupt the production staff. We could see the producer trying to calm her down and offering to have a talk with Jimmy (who we all thought was at a rig about 500 feet away, far enough out of ear shot) when suddenly Jimmy appears. ...

Michelle asked point blank “So ... you’re .... gay???” The four of us are staring at this from a distance as if we’re on the edge of our seats, completely shocked that someone in 2008 would even do that, and Jimmy ... suddenly strikes a pose like a model in a pinup photo, and responds “Well, darling, depends on who’s asking!” Holy shit, the four of us watching were doubled over in pain laughing so hard at this. ...

Well, when we returned, we found out that Jimmy was removed, fired from the set, and transferred to another production, and that none of us are to breathe a word of what we saw to anyone. The official reason given to pacify the Duggars was that he was “fired due to causing conflicts with the talent”. Talent! Amazing how such a small sentence can contain so much hyperbole. He was fired 100% because he was gay and for no other reason. The conflict was because he was gay. Of course, he wasn’t really fired fired, but taken off this particular crew. Jimmy was super cool and took it all in stride, and understood the reasoning and the delicate balance the producers needed to have to please these stupid people. And the reason he never came forward or made a stink was because he was paid a bonus and moved to a more desirable production. The dramatics of the “firing” was inflated for the Duggars’ benefit, stupid enough to believe that normal people from more progressive parts of America would support the removal of a gay person from a job filled with union democrats. (Another secret they weren’t aware of!)

...They kept a very tight lid on this incident, because on future tapings when new crews would be swapped in, they were suspiciously more and more straight-edged Christian than you’d typically see on the set of a television show, any television show, outside of the 700 Club. As long as the Duggars are comfortable and safe from the scary city gays, all went according to plan. ...

Sorry this was so long, I guess I could have just told you that Michelle got someone fired because they were gay, but I thought setting the scene is important to the story. Enjoy!

Photo via TLC. Contact the author at allie@gawker.com.

“If you go to a party in Williamsburg or Bushwick now and wear a Hillary [Clinton] pin...people are going to be like, ‘Right on.’” Cool party!