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State Rep. Claims He Was Blackmailed Into Planting Fake Gay Sex Rumor About Himself

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State Rep. Claims He Was Blackmailed Into Planting Fake Gay Sex Rumor About Himself

Michigan Rep. Todd Courser, the man who sent an anonymous mass email to start a fake gay sex rumor about himself to deflect attention from the real extramarital affair he had with fellow state representative Cindy Gamrat, now says he was blackmailed into sending the email by something called the “Lansing mafia” and his now-former aides.http://gawker.com/state-rep-plan...

Courser made the allegations in a new recording, which he released on his website and sent to the Detroit Free Press. Among those blamed in the recording, which is about as crazy as you’d expect, are Courser’s former aides Ben Graham, Josh Cline, and Keith Allard, plus unnamed people behind the “clandestine operations to control public officials” in Michigan.

“The e-mail was put in motion to disrupt the blackmailer and give me some clues as to the surveillance of my life. It was all done in a pressure cooker and … it put me in a situation where a bad choice was the choice that I made,” he said in the recording. “But to change the country, men and women must be able to stand unafraid even when they’re a broken messenger. And I’m a certainly a broken messenger. I have chosen to stay and make them play their hand. I think it is absolutely necessary to have these clandestine operations to control public officials be exposed. So I have refused to leave quietly and have decided that these efforts really need to come out.”

Later in the tape, Courser explained why he didn’t leave office or publicly admit the affair. “I could have resigned, this is really the option that the anonymous texter wanted and done so quietly,” he said. “But that would have allowed my personal issues to rule the day. I essentially would have submitted to the authority of the establishment machine and in doing so to protect myself and my family. And most of you would say this is the right decision. But I really thought that this would allow them to win.”

Courser apologized to his wife, who he said knew about the affair, and children, as well as Gamrat, her family, and his constituents. “I don’t know at what point I can get past the guilt and shame I feel,” he said. “But first and foremost I have to ask for forgiveness from God and I have been doing that.”

On May 20, Courser—or someone he hired—sent out an anonymous mass email to influential Michigan Republicans claiming he had been caught having sex with male prostitute behind a Lansing nightclub in attempt to, somehow, distract people from the fact that he was having an affair with Gamrat, a fellow Tea Party leader. Ben Graham, Courser’s former aide, sent a recording of the representative explaining the scheme the Detroit News earlier this month, after Courser fired him for refusing to send the mass email.

“It will make anything else that comes out after that — that isn’t a video — mundane, tame by comparison,” Courser said in that recording. “I need a controlled burn.”

Courser and Gamrat both refused to comment to the Free Press about the new recording, and the state legislature is now investigating whether both used their staff to cover up their alleged affair.


Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.


About That Twist in The Gift

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About That Twist in The Gift

At one point in the middle of Joel Edgerton’s The Gift, I thought to myself, “This movie is playing me like a violin.” It is taut throughout and includes one of the most suspenseful cinematic scenes in recent memory. It’s gorgeously shot. It juggles potential misdoing among multiple characters for a good chunk of its running time, casting suspicion and then retracting it over and over again, up to the last frame. It does that vicariously infuriating thing that the best domestic thrillers do by making its ostensible antagonist’s harassment of the protagonists seem obvious yet completely unprovable to authorities. Maybe what I responded to the most was that it’s a throwback to one of my favorite sub-subgenres, the late-summer/early-fall domestic thrillers of the ‘90s like Single White Female and The Good Son (as well as What Lies Beneath, to an extent, though it doesn’t have that film’s supernatural bent). What sets it apart from those low-key classics is its firm social consciousness.

From now on, I will be discussing spoilers. As always, I recommend seeing the movie before knowing the particulars of its resolution, though part of the reason I’m running this piece on the Monday after its Friday release is that much of its potential audience will likely already have watched it by now.

The Gift is a psychological revenge flick, and like most revenge flicks, it blurs the line between good-doing and bad behavior as a character tortures in the name of retribution. In this case, the torture is largely psychic, as was its cause: When in high school, Simon (Jason Bateman) consciously outed Gordo (Edgerton) as gay, he set in motion a scandal described as “a big storm in a small town” that brought ridicule to Gordo and caused his father to attempt to set him on fire. Twenty or so years later, Gordo is back in Simon’s life, attempting to befriend him and his wife Robyn (Rebecca Hall), by giving them gifts and inviting himself over to the house they just bought. When they recoil from “Weirdo Gordo,” the weirdo gets weirder.

It’s made clear that Gordo is, in fact, not gay. This may be an attempt to universalize this character so that he’s sympathetic to straight audiences (as a straight character who’s suffered as a result of someone else’s lie) and gay audiences (as a character who’s experienced homophobia, regardless of his orientation), alike. But it also detaches Gordo’s decided pathology (he’s socially awkward, increasingly menacing, and quite probably dangerous) from his sexual identity. Gordo is not one of those violent and unstable queers who popped up in otherwise terrific thrillers of the ‘90s like Basic Instinct and The Silence of the Lambs. Edgerton, in fact, consciously differentiates weird from queer and suggests that Gordo may also be suffering from PTSD as a result of his time serving in the military. The torture he endured for being perceived as gay came only externally, as far as we can tell.

The Gift does perpetuate the cliched narrative that merely being considered gay is enough to damage a person irreparably, an idea legally refuted by a New York appeals court in 2012 when it ruled that considering being labeled gay as defamation is “inconsistent with current public policy and should no longer be followed.” Reality isn’t so principled, though. People are attacked for being perceived as gay, teens lives are uprooted when they come out to disapproving parents and find themselves homeless. Nationwide marriage equality is not an all-purpose salve. The Gift implicitly asks us to consider this.

Edgerton’s expressive consciousness is carefully honed to the degree that it reminds me of that of Caitlyn Jenner, whose talking points at times seem crafted for maximum inclusion and minimum offense, as if she and her people can spot the outraged tweets a mile away and are making all of the right turns. (Of course, if Gordo were actually gay, The Gift could face the same criticism that Silence of the Lambs and Basic Instinct did, that its LGBT character comes from a long line of queer psychopath stereotypes.) This is not to suggest that Edgerton or Jenner are insincere in their expressed outlooks or that they are merely putting on a show of so-called “political correctness” to maximize appeal. They should be taken at face value, since in the self-serving medium of public expression, doing the right thing and demonstrating the right thing are virtually indistinguishable. Both provide models for more compassionate living.

Taiwanese Tornado Video Proves Even Weak Tornadoes Aren't All That Weak

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Typhoon Soudelor hit Taiwan this weekend with winds equivalent to those seen in a category three hurricane, causing immense damage and killing more than 20 people. Despite its power and destruction as a typhoon, Soudelor will be remembered for giving us one of the most dramatic tornado videos ever released.

Soudelor spun up at least one tornado (and probably several more) as it came ashore this weekend in Taiwan, located a few dozen miles off the southeast coast of China. This isn’t too unusual since tropical cyclones commonly produce tornadoes as they make landfall, but this one is a unique case because the entire event unfolded in front of a vehicle’s dashcam.

You’ve probably seen the footage on your favorite website by now, and if you haven’t, everyone who’s anyone is going to play it to death because it really is a mesmerizing (if not terrifying) video. However, even among many diehard weather enthusiasts, the point to be made with this video will get buried or even go without mention in the hyperbolic virality: this video is an incredible visualization of how powerful even a “weak” tornado can be.

Here in the United States, we use the Enhanced Fujita Scale to estimate the strength of a tornado based on how much damage it produces. An EF-0 is the bottom of the scale—packing estimated winds between 65 and 85 MPH—while an EF-5 is the ground-scouring monster with winds that top 200 MPH.

The overwhelming majority of tornadoes that occur in the United States and around the world are rated low on the scale. Between 1950 and 2014, the United States saw 59,945 documented tornadoes—79% of those tornadoes (47,360) were rated EF-0 or EF-1 (or F0/F1 on the old scale), and more than half of those weaker twisters (27,303) were assigned the lowest rating on the scale.

When you watch that video of the tornado in Taiwan, keep in mind that the twister is probably a solid EF-1 when it passed the vehicle with the dashcam. It uprooted trees along the side of the road, tossed loose building debris through the air, rattled (and briefly lifted) vehicles as it passed directly over them, and the combination of flying debris and strong winds launched a pedestrian into the road. EF-1 tornadoes are relatively common on our side of the world. Heck, one touched down last week and caused extensive damage to a Walmart in Troy, Alabama.

One of the biggest challenges meteorologists and communicators face when talking about tornadoes is that so many people shrug their shoulders at anything less than those wedges that can scour the pavement from the ground and wipe a house clean from the foundation, leaving behind nothing but some pipes and screws. It’s hard to get people to accept that it doesn’t take a large or relatively strong tornado to cause significant amounts of damage and injury. The person sitting in the street in the video is clearly injured and downright lucky he or she is alive, and the results for everyone involved would have been disastrous if the vehicles were driving any faster or if the street had more traffic at that moment.

“Weak tornado” is a misnomer. It’s all relative. If your house is hit by an EF-1, most of the structure will still be there, it’ll just have fewer windows and a tree or two in the living room. If you ever hear that you’re under the threat for “weak, spin-up tornadoes,” as we so often like to call them, don’t let the term lull you into a false sense of security. All tornadoes are dangerous, and if anyone ever doubts that, show them the video of that “weak” tornado in Taiwan this weekend.

[Video via YouTube]


You can follow the author on Twitter or send him an email.

If you enjoy The Vane (of course you do!), then you’ll love the author’s new book—The Extreme Weather Survival Manual—which is available for pre-order on Amazon and comes out on October 6.

Nicki Minaj Not Pregnant, Just Enjoys Calling People "Baby Father"

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Nicki Minaj Not Pregnant, Just Enjoys Calling People "Baby Father"

Nicki Minaj, currently letting boyfriend Meek Mill tag along on her world tour (whenever he’s not busy with his job as the punching bag at Drake’s home gym), sparked rumors that she’s also letting Meek’s baby tag along in her uterus when she called him her “baby father” at a show over the weekend. But Nicki was just kidding, according to TMZ, which reports she often lovingly refers to her closest dudes as “baby father.”

Sources close to Nicki say she uses the phrase “baby father” frequently - at least twice on this tour, but it’s not the same as “father of my child.” It’s just a term of endearment for those she likes. She’s even referred to Lil Wayne as her baby daddy in the past, even though they’re just friends.

“:eight crying laughing emojis:,” Nicki added on Twitter.

Good joke by Nicki, but kind of sad for Meek. Fathering Queen Nicki’s child would have been his only W in an overflowing sea of Ls this summer.

She hasn’t entirely ruled it out, TMZ’s source adds, but “there will be a wedding before they’re picking out baby names.”

Other sources close to Nicki (Drake) report the more likely outcome is that she tells Meek they’re “better as friends.”

[Screengrab from Nicki and Meek’s “All Eyes on You” video]

Report: Upworthy's Lefty Owners Scared Employees Out of Unionization

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Report: Upworthy's Lefty Owners Scared Employees Out of Unionization

Upworthy bet millions of venture capital dollars that progressive values are the ultimate viral content. But after being forsaken by Facebook and facing layoffs, we’re told the site’s left-wing leadership has successfully fought off a staff unionization drive.

Over the weekend, I received the following anonymous message, alleging that Upworthy recently laid off six staffers and derailed an attempt by the site’s employees to form a union (Gawker Media’s editorial employees recently voted to unionize with the Writers Guild of America- East):

While Gawker, Guardian, Salon and Vice have made headlines in the media world by allowing their editorial staffs to unionize, Upworthy the feel-good rarara human rights viral website has not. The staff decided to try to unionize after 6 former Upworthy employees were laid off suddenly on a Sunday over the phone. The cofounders of Upworthy, Eli Pariser and Peter Koechley, pushed back against the staff that tried to unionize claiming that Upworthy would lose its venture capital money if people tried to unionize.

Upworthy is in big trouble but it’s done a good job of keeping out of the spotlight by saying it’s “shifting its editorial direction.” Fact: After Facebook’s algorithm messed up Upworthy’s monthly uniques, the company could no longer fall back on “We give attention to stuff that matters.” They laid off 6 people without any warning, privately telling them their pageviews weren’t enough while publicly telling the media that the laid-off employees didn’t have the storytelling abilities Upworthy needed. Now the rest of the staff is scared and disillusioned. So they tried to unionize. Upworthy, the media company that says it tries to make the world a better place, said no.

Upworthy co-founder Eli Pariser has been part of the left-wing internet vanguard for almost fifteen years. For the same web activist who serves as board president of MoveOn.org to scuttle a union drive by his own workers in defense of Silicon Valley investors would undermine his image as liberal wunderkind, to say the least. According to a source, Upworthy counts the AFL-CIO among its largest editorial clients.

Over email, Pariser told me he hadn’t “said no,” as the tipster claimed, but acknowledged that he discouraged the effort because capitalists don’t like unions and things are touch-and-go right now for the site:

No, we didn’t say it wouldn’t be allowed at all — Peter [Koechley] and I told our writers we support their right to form a union, and believe unions are an important force for economic equality, but that doing this now at Upworthy could come at a cost to the company in terms of our ability to raise capital.

Upworthy editor-at-large Adam Mordecai echoed Pariser’s account:

Gawker’s unionization drive sparked the idea with our writers, the layoffs were obviously a factor too.

No one said that it wasn’t going to be allowed. Everyone was given the opportunity to weigh the pros and cons, and the writers decided against taking a vote for now, as unlike the other companies that have unionized, we’re still a startup and there was concern that it might affect our ability to raise more money down the road.

The site is admittedly struggling after getting pushed off a traffic cliff by Facebook’s ever-inscrutable newsfeed algorithm: The site’s traffic plummeted 48% between December 2014 and January of this year. Its readership has declined by roughly half since then, according to Quantcast. The realization that you’ve hitched the entire future of your media startup to a third-party algorithm over which you have no control is bad enough—scaring away your Silicon Valley patrons could be fatal. Never mind that Vice, with hundreds of millions in VC cash, just voted to unionize.


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

State of Emergency Declared in Ferguson as Protestors Arrested Outside Courthouse

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State of Emergency Declared in Ferguson as Protestors Arrested Outside Courthouse

As prominent Black Lives Matter activists, including DeRay McKesson, Johnetta Elzie, and Cornel West, were being arrested outside the St. Louis federal courthouse, the executive of St. Louis County declared an emergency in Ferguson. The St. Louis County police department, who last night exchanged gunfire with and wounded an alleged gunman, will now take over all policing in Ferguson.

The announcement came just minutes after McKeesson, West, Elzie, and dozens of others were arrested outside the St Louis’s federal courthouse, where protestors have gathered to mark the one-year anniversary of Michael Brown’s death.

UPDATE 4:04 pm: Huffington Post’s Ryan Reilly reports that McKeesson and Elzie will likely be released sometime this afternoon. Both will reportedly receive summons for federal misdemeanor trespassing charges.


Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.

Who Was the True Detective? True Detective's Bleak Finale Explained

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Who Was the True Detective? True Detective's Bleak Finale Explained

For true detectives, heaven is a place called Venezuela. Our time together is over for now, but it is not the end, fellow detectives, not unless HBO fails to pick True Detective up for a third season. Venezuela, detectives. I’ll see you there in two weeks.

True Detective episode seven, explained:

Ray Velcoro and Ani Bezzerides had sex, and an early reminder of the pair’s coupling sets an appropriately dark tone for the remainder of the finale. Rather than permit themselves a flicker of happiness, the detectives use their post-coital moment to suck cigarettes and discuss the most heinous things that have ever happened to them. Without revealing much, Ani talks about the time she was abducted and abused as a child, and Ray talks about the time he murdered an innocent man because he thought the man had raped his wife.

Following that lively exchange, we check in on Frank and Jordan Semyon, who are feeling just as chipper as their counterparts on the other side of the law. Frank wants Jordan to go to Venezuela for protection from the chaos that’s about to ensue, but Jordan wants to stand by her man. For all its blue balls of the heart, True Detective season two’s writing has remained mostly utilitarian and plot-oriented thus far, but because the finale has 90 minutes of airtime t0 fill, these two dance in circles for an eternity before getting to the point: Jordan will be going to Venezuela, and Frank will meet her there later.

Ray and Ani learn that Paul Woodrugh is dead, and in a moment of divine inspiration following the bad news, they finally solve the murder. Based on vague resemblances in two old photographs, they previously determined that Ben Caspere’s secretary Erica is actually Laura, orphaned daughter of the jewelry store proprietors that were murdered during the ‘92 robbery. Now, only by recalling that Erica/Laura briefly spoke to a set photographer on the movie shoot way back in episode 3, Ray correctly surmises that the photographer is Len, Laura’s brother and the second orphaned child, and that the siblings killed Caspere for revenge for his role in their parents’ murder. Remember, Burris and the fat drunk cop were the ‘92 robbers, and the operation was carried out with the approval of Caspere and police chief Holloway. Great detective work, Ray!

It turns out that the freaky bird mask existed for dramatic effect only. Len explains that it belonged to Caspere himself, that sick fuck, and his killers basically just wore it for fun. Laura dishes readily about the circumstances surrounding the city manager’s murder: years after her parents’ death, Laura began working Caspere’s sex parties by sheer coincidence, and immediately recognized him for who he was. Then she changed her name, dyed her hair, and got hired as his assistant. It was a smart hire for Caspere, as he evidently needed help remembering little things here and there, such as the faces of the women who attend his parties. Laura passed undetected and used the opportunity to snoop on her new boss.

The siblings intended to use acid on Caspere to extract information about their parents’ execution, but Len went overboard with rage and killed him instead. And he’s on his way to kill Holloway, too, we learn at the end of Laura’s interrogation. After everything—the firefight, the rail corridor, the sex parties—a simple revenge killing feels almost quaint. Ani sympathizes and sets Laura free, putting her on a one-way bus out of town.

In order to reinforce his bad-boy vibes, and also to disguise himself now that he’s been framed for the murders of both Woodrugh and Davis, Ray dons a cowboy hat and aviators and shows up at the train station where Len hopes to kill Holloway. The pair has arranged a trade: Holloway will hand over the rare blue diamonds stolen from Len’s parents’ store if Len procures Caspere’s hard drive, which contains blackmail material on various Vinci power players possibly including Holloway himself. The hard drive has been wiped clean, but Holloway doesn’t know that. He also doesn’t know that Len is going to kill him.

Ray proposes another plan. Rather than kill Holloway, he steps in and talks cool with his old boss, hoping to have the chief confess to the ‘92 murders while Len runs a tape recorder nearby. When Holloway mentions that Caspere illegitimately fathered Len’s sister Laura, however, it is a bridge too far, and Len pulls out a knife and starts stabbing. Both men die in the ensuing shootout, and the confession tape is destroyed. Ray and Ani escape unscathed through a series of crossfades.

Now, all hope is lost for Ray and Ani in terms of exonerating themselves (Ani killed the security guard at the sex party, as may recall). They decided to flee to Venezuela, where the Semyons will also be hiding. But first, Ray and Frank must break into a house and kill a lot of people and steal a lot of money, so they can have revenge for the wrongs they’ve endured and also some spending money for their new life down south. Osip Agronov and Catalyst honcho Jacob McCandless get offed in the process. Remember McCandless? He’s dead now.

(It doesn’t matter much, but at some point I should mention that earlier, Frank found Mayor Chessani floating dead in his swimming pool like Jay Gatsby, murdered by his own son Tony. Tony had ambitions to succeed his pops as the mayor of Vinci, and you’d think he could find a way to realize those ambitions without resorting to patricide, but such is life. Given the show’s Freudian obsession with fatherhood, a dad probably needed to die eventually, and it’s just as well that it’s the booze-swilling mayor who’s done in. Given Nic Pizzolato’s penchant for allusion, it’s only surprising that Tony wasn’t named Eddie Puss.)

(Also, Rick Springfield is dead.)

At first, all goes according to plan for our heroes, and it seems like the true detectives sans Woodrugh might all live peacefully together south of the border. (If you someday happen upon the true detectives’ secret commune while exploring the backwoods of Venezuela, the password is “grizzle.” Tell them I sent you.) While on the phone with Ani, Ray finally permits himself that aforementioned flicker of happiness, flashing the first real smile we’ve seen on him or any other character all season. And that’s when we know things are about to get even worse.

Who Was the True Detective? True Detective's Bleak Finale Explained

What the hell is he doing

And get worse they do. Ray, suddenly a good dad, makes an unscheduled detour to gaze firmly at his ginger son, and his ginger son gazes back. Soon, he realizes the cops have placed a tracking device on his car. Heading to Ani and the boat would mean giving away her location, so he drives off into the woods to make his final stand. Meanwhile, the drug dealers to whom Frank promised a share of the action at a recently burned-down club show up with lots of weaponry, demanding money and the literal clothes off Frank’s back. Both true detectives are outmanned and outgunned, and both put up a valiant fight, but both end up dead. Ray doesn’t even get a chance to upload his final voice message to his son. By the way, the paternity test is in, and Ray’s the real father after all.

The villains win. Tony Chessani becomes mayor of Vinci. Kevin Burris lives. Everything sucks, and the bad, bad world’s only shot at redemption is Ani Bezzerides, who successfully escapes to Venezuela along with Jordan Semyon. In the final scene, Bezzerides passes off a cache of documents detailing Vinci’s corruption to the reporter who got his ass beat by Ray in the first episode, and who has his work cut out for him. Lest you believe that all is lost, the season ends with a faint glimmer of hope: Ani and Ray made a beautiful brown-haired baby.

After eight long episodes, it is finally done. But one question remains unanswered, and it is the most important question of all:

Who will be the true detective?

From the first softly strummed notes on the guitar lady’s guitar to the last softly strummed notes on the guitar lady’s guitar, everything has been building up to this. Like its predecessor, True Detective season two operates on a simple premise: Many detectives will enter, one detective will win. Who will be the true detective?

Everything you’ve just read—put it out of your mind. It matters little. Instead of focusing on insignificant questions like wouldn’t the F.B.I. have gotten involved in this mess at some point, or did Rick Springfield really need to die, or why didn’t Ray try harder to get the tracker off his car, he only stabbed at it for like two seconds before he gave gave up, consider meditating on something more relevant.

If one were to create a set of parameters for determining a detective’s trueness, what might those parameters be? That’s a good start. When Ani Bezzerides switched from the vape life to smoking real cigarettes, what did that say about the evolution of her character and the nature of authentic experience? Even better. How much wood would a Woodrugh rugh if a Woodrugh could rugh wood? Reader, I think you’ve got it.

Who will be the true detective? The answer might surprise you.

Who Was the True Detective? True Detective's Bleak Finale Explained

You, the viewer

The true detective is you, the viewer. When everyone died, who was there to draw meaning from the senseless carnage? You, the viewer. When Ray Velcoro took his first bullet to the chest, who considered the clues and concluded that his apparent death was a ruse? You, the viewer. When True Detective’s puppetmaster laid bad clue herring over bad clue, leading you toward McCandless, toward Holloway, toward Rick Springfield and Tony Chessani, who knew to look into Laura and Lenny instead? You, the viewer. Who is the last detective standing? You, the viewer.

Who Was the True Detective? True Detective's Bleak Finale Explained

A remarkable insight from you, the viewer, dated August 5

True detecting requires patience, which you displayed hour after hour, week after week. It requires attention to detail. Remember sitting in front of the television, volume control in hand, working to suss out every impenetrable line of dialogue? Nothing gets past you, detective. True detecting requires a certain amount of empathy for your subjects, no matter how deranged they may be. After eight torturous weeks, you’re still here watching. Despite everything, you feel a perverse fondness for the gang. You gasped when Ray was killed, and you may pay him tribute by putting baby powder in your hair and donning a bolo tie for Halloween this year. Ray murdered an innocent person and psychologically tortured his own son over a pair of basketball shoes. What is the warmth you feel for the man if not the highest form of empathy, detective?

You may be inclined to believe that identifying you, the viewer, as the true detective is a cop-out. That’s fine. After weeks of building up the mystery, the spotlight is turned on a person who isn’t even a character on the show, strictly speaking. What is this, Time magazine circa 2006?

But you’re right. It is a cop-out. On a show that spent hours of your life leading you down baroque plotlines that had no bearing on its central mystery, then pinned that mystery on a pair of characters that barely had two minutes of screen-time between them, a cop-out is exactly what’s in order. You, the viewer, are the true detective because it renders irrelevant everything else we’ve been through so far, allows us to safely cast our history aside like the series of red herrings it is. You, the viewer, are the true detective, because just like True Detective, I couldn’t come up with a better way to end it.

You’ve done your job well, and it saddens me that we’ll be parting ways. The last eight weeks weren’t nothing—never nothing. That was never our story. We had some good times together, even through the drudgery. You made it all mean something. As I said before, this isn’t the end. We’ll meet in Venezuela, Barquisimeto. El Obilesco. There’s a park there. I’ll wear a white dress, and you’ll wear a white suit with a rose in your jacket. I’ll see you coming out of the crowd, head higher than everybody else.

I’ll see you in two weeks.

Maybe less.


Contact the author at andy@gawker.com.

Buy Jalopnik’s Book Of Car Facts And History Even Gearheads Don’t Know

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Barnes & Noble

Buy Jalopnik’s Book Of Car Facts And History Even Gearheads Don’t Know

So, we wrote an eBook: Jalopnik’s Book of Car Facts and History Even Gearheads Don’t Know. Snappy title, right? It’s available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, and Google Play. Just in time for National S’Mores Day! Buy it now and change your life forever.

There are a lot of stories we’ve gathered over the years that we thought were worth re-telling and we’ve collected them in one volume. Perfect as a gift for a loved one or a veiled threat for an enemy, our book is in digital form so you can surreptitiously read it on the toilet while you’re at work.

Car history is world history and the world is a strange place full of weird people.

The same spirit that has built empires has driven people to create small boxes that go very fast around twisty ribbons of pavement. Cars have spent most of modern history on the frontier of technology, and the development of something new often inspires genius. Sometimes it inspires insanity.

We’re interested in those stories that lie somewhere on the line between the two.

The disturbed writers of Jalopnik — the world’s greatest car website — have collected all the stories that Big Auto Journalism is afraid to tell. Did you know Cadillac built a mid-engined sports coupe with Luigi Chinetti and Zagato? You know Felix Wankel as the inventor of the rotary engine, but did you know he was a Nazi who was kicked out of the party? Twice.

Everyone knows that all of Henry Ford’s original cars were black, the Jeep was developed for the military, and that the turn signals on the ‘57 Chevy are timed to the rhythm of Elvis Presley’s “Blue Suede Shoes.”

But did you know the modern Buick wouldn’t exist if the company’s founder hadn’t made his fortune designing the white ceramic bathtub? Before Buick, most bathtubs were black. Were you aware that car tail lights are red because early gearheads took their lights from trains?

When would you guess the first fatal car accident was? Maybe the early 1900s? Nope. 1869.

Have you heard of the Dunkley Self-Charging Gas Motor Car? It’s the only a automobile designed to steal its own fuel. As a racing fan you know of Mazda’s great victory at Le Mans. But did you know that the car wasn’t just a Mazda but a Jaguar? And also a TVR. And a Porsche.

There are thousands of cars that are not the Volkswagen Beetle that deserve to be talked about. Although, now that I mention it, did you know the original Beetle GSR was denounced in the German parliament as a car for hooligans? It had a society-warping 50 horsepower.

This is our history and as the true automotive believer or the casual car fan it’s important to not let this history be forgotten. Car culture risks being hijacked by press release mills and idealess TV production crews who keep churning out the same faux-reality show about a shiny tattooed troll who has to get some car flipped for some amount of money or “risk losing the garage!”

It’s fake and it’s dumb and we should do everything in our power to resist it.

If you buy this book it proves to me that you also care. And I hope that you, too, have a thirst for the kind of car knowledge that only a discerning gearhead or an escaped mental patient would ever need.

Impress your friends at the pub with your tales of the Faegol twin-engined race car. The friends that don’t run screaming from the bar are your real friends.

Where To Buy:

Amazon Kindle

Apple iBooks

Google Play

Barnes & Noble


Contact the author at matt@jalopnik.com.


On Ferguson and the Enduring Resilience of Black People

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On Ferguson and the Enduring Resilience of Black People

On the anniversary of the shooting of 18 year-old Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, another young black man—18 year-old black Tyrone Harris Jr.—was shot by police officers in Ferguson.

Police say that Harris opened fire, which they then returned. In the ensuing gunfight, somehow Harris was the only one injured. If you have the luxury of taking that story at face value, congratulations, sounds like a nice life. For the rest of us, however, we who have a cursory understanding of how the police system operates in America, we remain skeptical.

If Tyrone Harris Jr. lives, if some grainy cellphone footage happens to emerge and if the police are unable to lie and manipulate evidence to their liking, perhaps we will find out what truly happened. And maybe, yes, Harris did open fire on the police first! But the fact remains that no matter who fired the first shot, the entire incident was a direct result of the aggression and continued escalation of tensions by the police in Ferguson.

Those who marched in Ferguson last night went to mourn and remember the life of young Michael Brown and the approximately 1,083 Americans the police have killed since August 9, 2014. The Ferguson police showed up, yet again, in riot gear and stared down the people of Ferguson—the people who they have been entrusted to protect and serve, the people whose taxes pay their salaries—the way soldiers look at an enemy.

As I watched this all unfold last night—primarily through tweets from protesters and media on the ground—one of the pervasive messages by observers and myself was: Wow, is this really happening again? Did the Ferguson police seriously show up to what was supposed to be a peaceful protest in riot gear and tanks, again? Did they really pepper spray citizens, again? How is this possible?

Of course, this is all possible due to the single fact that this is America. This is our deeply shameful history. This is what we do.

Watching this devastatingly familiar scene, I was hit with a heaviness in my chest by a full realization of the weight and the span of violence, injustice and suffering black people have endured in America.

Truly, how are we still here? We shouldn’t be here. Slavery should have wholly broken our spirit—our grasp on reality—and banished us to an existence rooted in deep trauma and psychological handicaps that believing you are the property of another man breeds.

The burning of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma should have so opened our eyes to the fact that white people in this country will be so unsettled with us prospering and building real wealth for ourselves, that they simply will not allow it. If racist practices and intimidation didn’t work to stifle us, well they’re just take things into their own hands and burn our shit to the ground.

The daily humiliation of Jim Crow should have worn us down to weak, deferential hopeless shells in the exact way that it was designed to.

The acquittal of the cops who beat Rodney King senseless should have shattered any lingering, anemic belief in justice. We should have simply given up, given in and accepted our fate in America as less thans and undeserving of basic humanity and the protection of the Constitution.

There has not been a time in our history when this nation has not been at war with black people. Perhaps at times the battle was quieter or we were less aware, but it has always been present.

They used coded language and developed policies specifically designed to keep the boot on our necks. The social, political and financial degradation of black people has been so effective that many of us have internalized the inadequacy that our country sees in us. The work of white supremacy—which is to say, America—was done so deftly and completely that we continue to hurt and stifle our own progress and wellbeing all on our own.

The abject devaluing of us as a people is present in every arena, in every decade.

We have been used as lab rats for medical experiments because our pain is not real.

Think of the white people who rationalized a disgust with sharing a water fountain with black people but instructed us to nurse their children.

The American soldier is arguably our original and most untouchable hero. You send us off to fight and die in your wars and when black soldiers come home, they return not as the heroes they are, but as the second class citizens America has always seen them as.

We are put in situations where success is nearly impossible and when we succeed anyway, instead of marveling at that accomplishment, you boo as we smile in your face.

That we see ourselves as beautiful and openly flaunt our skin and our hair and our features when you’ve done everything possible to convince the world that we are ugly is extraordinary.

The history of suffering by black people in this country is immeasurable and unrelenting.

And yet.

We are remarkable. There is a reason that “We Shall Overcome” became an anthem during the Civil Right’s Movement. There is a reason that Maya Angelo wrote, “Still I Rise,” and young people today are chanting the lyrics of Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright.” Because we have always been, in some way or another, alright. We are still standing. And the fact that we are not only standing, but thriving and fighting is a feat of indomitable will and resilience.

I can offer no tangible solutions to avoiding what happened in Ferguson last night and a year ago. Body cameras will not solve this problem. Increased training of police officers will likely fix nothing and voting for Bernie Sanders probably won’t do the trick either. I don’t know what the solution is because American history has proven that just when we think we’ve made real progress—a black President, for example—we have white people parading through the streets with Confederate flags.

We are a miracle. Be angry, be sad, be outranged, but remember to celebrate and stand in awe of the fact that we have always found a way to survive.

So I say this: Burn down the stores. Sag your pants. Blast your music. Protest. Write. Sing. Dance. Ace their tests. Beat them at their own game. Let America know that we are here and we are alive right now and forever. Let your shining blackness blind them. Let the sound of our chants deafen them. Let our collective living manifest itself in an energy so powerful and unwavering that to deny it would be to deny the sun.

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

Image via Getty.

Dangerous Liaison: White House Staffer Arrested for Firing at Cheating Boyfriend With His Own Gun 

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Dangerous Liaison: White House Staffer Arrested for Firing at Cheating Boyfriend With His Own Gun 

A special aide to President Obama who discovered a cover-up at the highest levels of government—her Capitol Police boyfriend’s affair—is currently behind bars after allegedly taking revenge on him with his own service weapon.

Prosecutors say Barvetta Singletary, who also serves as a (dangerous) House Legislative Affairs liaison, laid her trap carefully, luring the adulterous victim to her home with the promise of sex. Then, when he was apparently incapacitated in post-coital bliss, she pounced, confronting him about the other woman.

But confess he would not, and things soon escalated—via NBC:

Investigators say Singletary asked her boyfriend to step outside, and they both went to his car. Once inside the car, police say Singletary asked to see her boyfriend’s cellphones. When he refused, Singletary reached into his bag and retrieved two cell phones and the victim’s .40 caliber Glock 23 service weapon, charging documents state.

Singletary ran back into her home and the victim followed, pleading with her to return his weapon.

That’s when she allegedly—and somewhat generously, for a scorned woman brandishing a stolen gun—offered not to shoot the boyfriend if he would give her access to his texts.

Singletary then pulled the gun out of its holster, pointed it at the victim and said, “You taught me how to use this. Don’t think I won’t use it,” the arrest warrant said.

When the victim again refused to give her the passwords, Singletary said, “Your phone is more important than me holding the gun on you.”

But his texts were apparently more important than the arguably crazed woman pointing a gun at him—he refused to unlock the phone. And unlike the two-timing bastard, Singletary kept her word: cops say she fired off a round in his general direction. The victim ran off into the night and in a somewhat bone-chilling detail, a neighbor says he watched Singletary wipe her fingerprints off the gun with a towel before police arrived.

Singletary, it may surprise you to learn, no longer has access to the White House. Technically.
http://gawker.com/secret-service...


Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

The founder of a charity group that was displaced from its Venice Beach office by Snapchat’s expansi

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The founder of a charity group that was displaced from its Venice Beach office by Snapchat’s expansion says that “a Snapchat executive told her he had noticed one of her homeless clients sweeping the street with an old broom, so he offered to buy the organization a new one.” Kindness—it’s affordable :)

Crossfit Exceptionalism Finally Meets The Holocaust

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Crossfit Exceptionalism Finally Meets The Holocaust

There are few things as funny as crazed Crossfit evangelism. There are also few things as funny as someone doing something dumb and narcissistic at a war memorial. This weekend, the two finally and inevitably met, when famous Crossfit evangelist Dave Driskell did a handstand on top of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin.

The memorial consists of 2,711 concrete slabs of different heights. The meaning of the slabs is up for debate, but it seems to want to evoke several things. A proper cemetery, for massacred Jews who were dumped into pits, is one obvious reading. Another is that the memorial aims to convey the feeling of a subtle but intimately disorienting chaos lurking underneath a facade of normalcy. Some people like the memorial, many others do not.

Some people walk along the corridors created by the slabs. Some people sit in the park nestled into the memorial and check their phones. Some people get drunk or sunbathe. Others choose to do handstands, and those people probably do Crossfit.

This particular Crossfitter deleted his Instagram post after harsh criticism in the comments. Here we commemorate his act.

[via Buzzfeed]


Contact the author at jordan@gawker.com.

500 Days of Kristin, Day 197: A Fun Question for Kristin

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500 Days of Kristin, Day 197: A Fun Question for Kristin

Kristin Cavallari recently consented to an interview with the beauty blog Byrdie.com, which resulted in the instant classic blog post, “How Kristin Cavallari Does It All (and Still Looks Amazing).” We’ve already discussed a couple questions from the interview, like “Where do you find inspiration for the content on your app?” and “What sites do you visit for health and beauty inspiration?”

Fine questions, both. The answers, in brief: Kristin is inspired by herself; she is not “a big internet girl.”

But what about a fun question? Did Byrdie ask Kristin any of those?

Byrdie: A fun question for you—have you ever shared any beauty tips with your husband, Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler?

Cavallari: Jay is about as manly as they come; he takes two seconds to get ready and isn’t too hung up on his looks. With that being said, the only thing I’ve ever shared, or that he’s ever been receptive of, is when I gave him an eye cream by RéVive. That’s about all he does. He doesn’t even have to wash his face that often, which makes me incredibly envious because I would have acne if I didn’t wash my face!

Hm, guess not.


This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photo via Getty]

Marco Rubio Explains Science: A Human Cannot Become a Cat

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Marco Rubio Explains Science: A Human Cannot Become a Cat

Yesterday, Marco Rubio went on national television to reaffirm his awful anti-abortion beliefs to the public. And of course, to confirm that humans are not, in fact, cats.

The defense comes in the wake of last week’s GOP debate, during which Rubio affirmed his stance against abortion even in the case of rape or incest. But first, Rubio made sure to point out that, while economic policies may evolve—scientific understandings? Those are timeless.

I believe all human life, regardless of the circumstances of coming into being, is worthy of the protection of our laws... I’m always going to err on the side of life. And I think that’s a timeless principle. Surely our economy has evolved, but when it comes to issues like the value of human life, that’s timeless.

I apologize for this, but he does go on.

The value of life is timeless. The idea that human life is worthy of the protection of our laws is not something that, over time, anyone should evolve on. I mean, you can change your economic policies if the economy’s different.

CNN New Day host Chris Cuomo, who must have done something terrible to deserve this, then attempts to explain to the petulant child in a suit that science has not actually come to a conclusion.

Rubio begs to differ. “Let me interrupt you. Science has—absolutely it has. Science has decided... Science has concluded that—absolutely it has. What else can it be?”

And then.

“It cannot turn into an animal. It can’t turn into a donkey. The only thing that that can become is a human being.”

Brief, stunned silence.

“Senator,” Cuomo says, baffled. “I understand that, but it’s oversimplifying it a little bit.... It having a DNA map—so does a plant. It’s about when it becomes a human being.”

Rubio’s dead, lightless eyes blink back at us. What does that have to do with donkeys, he wonders.

“It begins at conception,” Rubio offers.

“That’s your faith. That’s not science.”

“Yes it is,” counters Rubio.

Cuomo’s eyes begin to bleed. He suggest calling in scientists to explain otherwise.

Rubio is undeterred. “Well, if they can’t say it will be human life, what does it become then? Could it become a cat?”

He chuckles. He made a funny joke. He tweets it.

America weeps.


Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com.

Google Has Become Alphabet; This Means Virtually Nothing For You

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Google Has Become Alphabet; This Means Virtually Nothing For You

Google announced Monday that it’s now part of a new umbrella company called Alphabet, which will separate its core internet businesses (still called Google) from Google execs’ various side projects (like trying to live forever, building self-driving cars controlling everything in your home).

Officially, the reason is that Google’s many tentacles became too diverse and difficult to manage, and organizing under Alphabet will give them more independence. Google just—as The New York Times notes—pulled a Berkshire Hathaway, adopting the holding company model Warren Buffet uses for his assorted, unrelated businesses. But the Times implies another motivation for Alphabet: appeasing investors who think Google has lost focus on its core business (which is not search—it’s advertising).

“We liked the name Alphabet because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity’s most important innovations, and is the core of how we index with Google search,” wrote Larry Page, co-founder of Google and one of the chiefs, along with Sergey Brin, of Alphabet.

“Alphabet” functions as a tidy metaphor for the company that mediates (and monetizes) nearly everything we do on the web, though. As former Gawker EIC Max Read pointed out, Google is positioning itself as the Alpha and the Omega, some kind of internet god whose control over our experience the name “Google” is too small and silly to encompass.

Nice, comforting thought for a Monday.

The new CEO of Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, will be Sundar Pichai, who’s been in charge of Chrome OS and Android for some time.

[abc.xyz]


QUIZ: Who Are These People?

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QUIZ: Who Are These People?

One of the most common questions one asks when reading celebrity gossip and entertainment news is, “Who is that?” Because for every Rihanna, there are about 57 people named, like, Jenna or Danny something. There were plenty of them in the “news” today.

Think you have what it take to name them? Find out by taking this quiz:


Contact the author at bobby@jezebel.com.

Images via Instagram/Getty/Splash

Rick Perry's Campaign Doesn't Have Any Money to Pay His Staffers

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Rick Perry's Campaign Doesn't Have Any Money to Pay His Staffers

Rick Perry is a day late and a literal dollar short to the Republican primaries—his campaign reportedly stopped paying staffers last week because he has no money left.

According to the Washington Post, fundraising dollars ran out last week, prompting some overly optimistic staffers to convert to a volunteer basis.

Perry, who has struggled to gain traction in his second presidential run, has stopped paying his staff at the national headquarters in Austin as well as in the early caucus and primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, according to a Republican familiar with the Perry campaign who demanded anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Perry campaign manager Jeff Miller told staff last Friday, the day after the first Republican presidential debate, that they would no longer be paid and are free to look for other jobs — and, so far at least, most aides have stuck with Perry — according to this Republican.

Perry’s not bowing out—his super PAC is expected to pick up some of the slack—but sources tell the paper he’s going to have to make some humiliating compromises like “flying commercial” and “traveling without an entourage.”

Advisors say he needs “one breakout performance” to get the dollars flowing in again.

Is Donald Trump laughing so hard he’s actually bleeding? I wouldn’t bet against it.


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

Donald Sterling Sues TMZ and Ex-Mistress, Says They Edited Tape to Make Him Sound Racist

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Donald Sterling Sues TMZ and Ex-Mistress, Says They Edited Tape to Make Him Sound Racist

Donald Sterling, a billionaire who used to own a basketball team and found it unseemly for his mistress to be seen in public with black people, is suing his former mistress and gossip site TMZ for allegedly altering the leaked tapes that led to his public downfall.

Sterling claims that V. Stiviano, the mask-wearing sidepiece who recorded her private meetings with Sterling, “illicitly” taped his infamous racist rant without his knowledge, and that either Stiviano or TMZ edited the tapes to “reflect conversations … that either never occurred, were grossly distorted and/or stated out of context.”http://deadspin.com/exclusive-the-...

Recall that NBA investigators discovered last year that Sterling offered Stiviano money to claim the tapes were faked, and that he publicly said “I wish I just paid her off” after the scandal broke. Recall also that, in between the release of the tapes and his lifetime ban from the NBA, Sterling tried the “doctored tapes” defense, then admitted weeks later that the recordings were real.http://deadspin.com/donald-sterlin...

Stiviano has maintained that she didn’t leak the tapes herself, and that Sterling knew she’d recorded their conversations.

Meanwhile, Sterling’s lawsuit against his wife Shelly—from whom he divorced last week—is ongoing. He claims that Shelly never paid him his share of the $2 billion proceeds from the sale of the Clippers to Steve Ballmer, which she executed by having him declared “mentally incapacitated” by two doctors and taking over sole ownership of the team.

[Photo: AP Images]

Gizmodo Google Creates Alphabet, a New Company to Rule Them All | Jezebel Lexi, Won’t You Think of A

Report: Ben Affleck Made His Wife Nanny the Kids While He Wifed Up the Nanny

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Report: Ben Affleck Made His Wife Nanny the Kids While He Wifed Up the Nanny

Perhaps Ben Affleck’s not been given the credit he deserves—not for his filmography, or his gambling prowess, if you want to call it that—no—I’m talking about credit for his unbelievable powers of persuasion.

See, according to Page Six, Affleck managed to convince his wife, Jennifer Garner, to watch their kids on their Bahamas vacation while he cheated on her with their nanny, who was there to watch their kids on their Bahamas vacation. And say what you want about Affleck, but it takes a real mensch to ensure the kids still have adult supervision while he’s off cheating on his wife. Sorry did I say mensch? I meant schmuck.

But wouldn’t you know it, his incredibly brazen plan worked—sort of:

Affleck, an avid gambler, had initially asked Ouzounian to join him on a flight back to LA from the Bahamas — while his clueless spouse stayed behind with their three kids, a source said.

“He assured her it was OK. Technically, he was her boss,’’ the source told Hollywood Life.com.

“But along the way, he convinced her to go to Las Vegas with him for [a] poker tournament. They even stopped and picked up Tom Brady for the trip. While in Vegas, Ben hid Christine the entire time.

Unfortunately, it would seem Affleck’s charisma only stretches so far: Garner, who presumably woke up and realized she was nannying her own kids while simultaneously paying a full-time nanny to sleep with her husband, eventually “flipped out” and fired Ouzounian.

So what did Ben do? Surely, you’re thinking, Ben did something—I mean, the man risked his marriage to jet off into the sunset with the hot nanny. He must have done something. Well your naïveté sickens me.

“Ben did nothing about it.”

The morals of the story, here, I think are twofold: 1) never trust Ben Affleck and 2) yeah, no, really, don’t trust Ben Affleck.


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

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