“Wasps may have stung me in the testicles – but I love them anyway.” To bees, you are perfect.

Jennifer Cramblett, the white woman who sued a sperm bank for accidentally impregnating her with the sperm of an African American man, has lost her lawsuit.

In 2014, Cramblett filed a lawsuit claiming that Midwest Sperm Bank had given her the wrong sperm, mistaking a black donor for a white donor. Though the sperm bank acknowledged their mistake and gave Cramblett and her partner a refund, Cramblett sued for “wrongful birth and breach of warranty, citing the emotional and economic losses she has suffered.” The suit indicated that “raising a mixed-race daughter” had caused undue stress and pain for the family.

But on Thursday, a judge decided that Cramblett’s suit had no merit. The Washington Post reports:

“Attorneys for the sperm bank had argued that “wrongful birth” suits typically apply to cases where the child is born with a birth defect that doctors should have warned parents about; in this case, the child was healthy. Cramblett had also sought damages for a “breach of warranty.” The judge rejected both claims but said that Cramblett could refile the suit as a “negligence claim...”

Cramblett was seeking $50,000 in damages.

Image via AP.

The following correspondence between Brian Alsup and Kiese Laymon took place during the week of August 31, 2015. As John Callahan once wrote of the decades-long exchange between Albert Murray and Ralph Ellison in Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters, it is “the bounty of a rare and spontaneous friendship in which each taps into the deepest experience of each other.” Together, Alsup and Laymon reckon with black love, liberation, and shouldering the weight of white terror in America.

9/1/15

What’s good, Kiese?

I need help. This shit ain’t going be that long cause I hate writing about politics, white folks, America, and black death, which are all interchangeable things. For real, for real.

But I just had to say that America be on some shit, I swear. Some Frankenstein shit. America will create and cultivate the fuck out of a monster and then gasp and point when their creations do Incredible Hulk shit. America has been taking chunks out of niggas. Dark meat. Large, meaty chunks of black excellence, black rigor, black mental, emotional, and physical wholeness. For centuries. I’m tired of walking around and seeing partial people. Partial-ass black folks with chunks missing and blood oozing because America likes us medium rare. Partial-ass black folks trying to keep from killing a nigga or a cracker on a day-to-day basis. And Vester Lee Flanagan was one of those partial-ass black folks.

America likes to talk about gun violence in black communities, but conveniently neglects to talk about how it is the largest exporter of defense weaponry in the world. The world. These are the same muthafuckas who, since 2010, have given Saudi Arabia 90 million dollars in defense efforts to execute mass death in Yemen, then got the nerve to call brown folks terrorist.

These muthafuckas love that black/brown domestic/foreign death parallel. The country’s preoccupation with the taste of black and brown flesh is cannibalistic. But when that death is white and wholesome, two more interchangeable American terms, black grief and guilt (and death) is demanded. Whites asking, “Where are the Black Lives Matter people when [white person killed by police/black person] died?” Like, we owe them tears. Like we need to sacrifice one of us to make it right.

There have been hundreds of black folks killed by police since the start of 2014. And you got white supremacists calling for the extermination of black folks like it ain’t already happening. Yet we’re supposed to collectively offer ourselves to console white supremacy? White supremacy just let Officer Joseph Weekley, the man who killed seven-year old Aiyana Stanley Jones, walk free. They need consoling!? Fuck that. Forgive us and turn the other cheek like y’all tell us to do when y’all take one of ours.

America spends more on defense than they do healthcare. In recent years, almost 40 percent of tax dollars went to military and defense-related spending. Combined, less than 30 percent went to healthcare, education, and housing. They would much rather have people know how to kill than for them to be mentally, emotionally, physically whole.

My family, though they’ll never admit it, is more invested in doing the work of anti-blackness than any actual loving of black folks. My grandfather, a man who has shared stories of stealing meat from grocery stores to feed my mother and uncle because his job didn’t pay black folks livable wages, talks about how we always want a handout. I swear; I feel like I’m in the fucking twilight zone sometimes. My grandfather was stealing chunks of meat while white supremacy was taking it out of him. Maybe black folks got their hands out cause we ain’t got shit. I know black people that work every day but have to use their stoves for heat because the electricity is off. You know how damaging, just on a psychological level, that is? Shit is enough to make you wanna kill a muthafucka. Man, capitalism itself is a fucking hand out. And it, in tandem with white supremacy, is killing me slowly. Every. Day. All this is shit killing me. It’s fucking with me.

Is what Vester did fucked up? Yeah. Is what America did and still does to black folks fucked up, also? Hell yeah. There’s no comparison. You can’t plant seeds in shit, water it with piss, and expect flowers. You can’t.

But you already knew that,

Brian

9/3/15

What’s good, Brian?

I’m thankful for your words. They’re wide-eyed, wandering, and wonderfully black as Toni Cade Bambara. I need help, too, man. I can’t wholeheartedly disagree with anything you’ve said. Nothing. I wonder, though, if it’s possible to recognize and target white folk’s structural and personal obsession with making us “partial” while asking ourselves how we become obsessed with making ourselves whole. And if not whole, how do we black folk practice more care and compassion for each other while targeting white supremacy and heteropatriarchy?

Do you know what I mean?

At our best, we’ve refused, or at least, remixed American notions of beauty, style and grace. How do we do the same thing with American notions of violence, masculinity, gender performance, memory, forgiveness, health, and time?

Can we? Are we?

I’m really asking. I know we’re reeling from mass incarceration, predatory educational practice and policy, layers of rape culture, and generations of poverty pinioned by white folk maniacally stealing and undervaluing our labor, but how do we practice a different kind of black love that accepts the abuse we’ve suffered, the abusive roles some of us have played, while pushing back on every single thing this nation has taught us about intimacy, violence, memory, patriarchy, blackness and love?

And, honestly, if we don’t do this, do we have a chance to morally be anything other than them? Shit, are we morally any better than them? When I read your letter, brother, I wondered if you thought we were destined to partial lives of death and destruction?

I completely hear what you’re saying when you write, “You can’t plant seeds in shit, water it with piss, and expect flowers.” And while I don’t believe in that reactionary shit about us being goofy kings and queens, I do believe that I come from Ida B. Wells, Fannie Lou Hamer, and my grandmama. These are southern black women workers and lovers from Mississippi. I know that a lot of white folk have been educated to believe that those black Mississsippi women, and their children are pitiful, and, as you say, partial niggas.

But fuck them, and fuck anyone else invested in limiting the healthy choices and second chances of cis, trans, and gender nonconforming black folks.

We know that we come from the greatest, most complicated Americans to work and walk this nation. Our folk sang together, prayed together, reckoned, lost, won, and imaginatively organized direct mass action to get themselves and us a little bit more access to good love, healthy choices, and second chances. And hell yes, the nation made sure they, and we, suffered for their work. But they worked for us. And right now, around this country, various black liberation movements are working in the spirit of Fannie Lou Hamer, Ida B. Wells and my grandmama.

So I guess I’m asking, Brian, if you think these black love movements for black liberation are doomed because white folks and whiteness and white supremacy are so good at horrifically dismantling black lives, are we more than what you called seeds planted in shit and watered in piss?

I’m really asking because I love you. I’m asking because I trust you, young brother. Thank you for talking to me, Brian. Thank you for honoring and respecting your rage. This feels like black love. Let’s keep talking.

Kiese

9/4/15

Kie,

Goddamn, bruh. Thank you for asking me these hard-ass questions. Thank you for loving me. Honestly, it gets hard to do that shit sometimes. A lot of the time.

You may think I hate black folks for being partial, or we need white folks to make us—or let us be—whole. I used to. I talked so much shit about white people in that first letter and, while all true, I just hate centering whiteness in my writing. I hate writing about, as you call it, the worst of white folks. They know what they did, and still do. Because when I do, I neglect the best, and worst, of black folks.

It’s like that time you told that corny white dude in high-waters at Columbia about James Baldwin: “When you center whiteness in your writing, you have to think about who’s being left out.”

To answer your question, yes, I know what you mean. I think the first step is for us to stop asking white folks for permission to love each other. Black folks truly swear we got this love shit on lock. But white supremacy has made us the most wishful group of partial niggas ever. We’re good at envisioning love, thinking about health, thinking about care, about what that shit could look like and how much better we could be. But when it comes to practicing it? Very few of us really know how to do it. Even fewer are honest about not knowing how to.

I’m one of them.

I would add that we also need to wrestle with American notions of responsibility, (dis)honesty, fear, failure, sacrifice, (un)imaginable change, and right and wrong. If we don’t do that we can just wrap it up. And I get why we don’t. I get it. It’s hard to live in a nation that requires your destruction and then hold yourself accountable for being (un)consciously destructive.

I promise I didn’t mean that we ain’t shit. Fuck; thank you for letting me know what I said was destructive. I think that as good as white folks are at terrorizing black efforts of love, health, time, and care, that we are twice as good at doing the work of love, as you say.

We got us. We ain’t doomed. We ain’t shit seeds. We got work to do, though. We are partial and whole and presently complicated and righteously fucked up and good and not so good and capable and broken and beautiful as fuck. I love you. I trust you. I trust us. Please, let’s talk more about this soon.

I’m thankful for the work, big brother.

Brian

Brian Alsup is a young, fat black boy from Baltimore, Maryland trying to be better. Kiese Laymon is an old, fat black boy from Jackson, Mississippi trying to be better.

[Illustration by Jim Cooke]

The New York City real estate developer accused, after wrecking his Porsche, drunk, in the Hamptons, of dragging his passenger out of the car and leaving him to die, killed time in court on Friday by counting out a thick wad of cash, the New York Post reports.

http://gawker.com/cops-nyc-devel...

Earlier this week, the Post reported that police have pulled security footage from the bar where Sean Ludwick, 42, and his victim, Paul Hansen (the father of one of his son’s friends), were drinking the night of the crash:

Sean Ludwick, who is separated from his wife, went out for drinks with Paul Hansen at 230 Down before the early-Sunday wreck, and spent much of the night unsuccessfully hitting on a blond Morgan Stanley financial adviser, according to a source close to the victim’s family.

While waiting to go before a judge in Southampton Town Justice Court on Friday morning, the Post reports that Ludwick pulled out a two-inch-thick, folded stack of bills and started counting them.

The judge ordered Ludwick to return to court on September 29th. Ludwick refused to answer questions after leaving the court room. “He’s distraught,” his attorney, Daniel Ollen, said.

Image via Sean Ludwick/Facebook. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

In an interview with the Guardian, Mindy Kaling spoke about topics ranging from body positivity to minority representation in Hollywood, to her relationship with B.J. Novak. Kaling called her relationship with Novak “intoxicating,” adding “he has always given me is the utter and total belief that I am one of the greats.”

On the oft-discussed topic of her body and dress size, Kaling says she tries to take comments in stride:

“Insults about the way I look can’t be the thing that harms me and my heart the most. It has to harm me the least. If I have a daughter, I’m going to tell her that. Far too many women are much more hurt by being called fat or ugly than they are by being called not smart, or not a leader. If someone told me that I was stupid or that I wasn’t a leader, or that I wasn’t witty or quick or perceptive, I’d be devastated. If someone told me that I had a gross body, I’d say, ‘Well, it’s bringing me a lot of happiness.’ Like, I’m having a fine time of it. Having my priorities aligned like that has helped me have a happier life, I think.”

It’s a typical interview with Kaling that covers all of the “Mindy Kaling required interview questions,” yet those questions—and Kaling’s responses—remain a fascinating reflection on the current state of celebrity; particularly the expectations of women of color. [The Guardian]

Blue Ivy gave Beyonce a very cute birthday card. Kid has some serious tracing skills. [Instagram]

• Emma Roberts and Evan Peters are back together and shopping at Sephora. [E!]
  
• Roger Federer cried during Finding Neverland. [Page Six]
  
• Jennifer Aniston needs a separate car for her bottled water. [Us Weekly]
  
• Khloe Kardashian got her “tramp stamp,” a tattoo tribute to her father that read “Daddy” in cursive script, removed from her lower back. [TMZ]
  
• The Johnny Depp dog deportation drama continues. The most surprising part of this story is that Depp has Yorkies. [E!]
• Wearing your wedding ring after your divorce announcement is a new Hollywood trend. Ben and Jen paved the way, and now Brian Austin Green is following. [Us Weekly]

Image via Getty.

After a series of policy reversals by Hungary’s xenophobic government, on Saturday, refugees in that country from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan were able to cross the Hungarian border with Austria and continue on to Germany, the Associated Press reports.

“We are giving a warm welcome to these people today,” said Simone Hilgers, a spokeswoman for the regional government agencies responsible for supporting the migrants as they arrive at Munich’s central station. “We realize it’s going to be a big challenge but everybody, the authorities and ordinary citizens, are pulling together.”

The refugees on Saturday were greeted with cheers and food in Vienna and then again in Munich, the AP reports—a stark contrast to the cold reception they received in Hungary, the prime minister of which, Viktor Orban, bid the refugees good riddance.

The people being taken in by Germany, Orban told reporters, mostly come “from regions that are not ravaged by war. They just want to live the kind of life that we have. And I understand that, but this is impossible. If we let everybody in, it’s going to destroy Europe.”

“What will it solve if we divide 50,000 or 100,000 migrants among us, when uncountable millions will be on the way?” he asked. His argument has been echoed, the New York Times reports, by British Prime Minister David Cameron, who opposes the mandatory quotas of refugees proposed by Germany and France.

About 6,000 people arrived in Munich on Saturday and another 1,800 are expected overnight. According to the AP, Germany expects to receive about 800,000 refugees this year.

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

While promoting his new film The Departed 2: Black Mass at a press conference on Friday, Johnny Depp, who is not well, joked (?) about his recent canine controversy: “I killed my dogs and ate them under direct orders from some kind of, I don’t know, sweaty, big-gutted man from Australia.”

http://defamer.gawker.com/something-has-...

Depp got into trouble with the Australian government earlier this year when he illegally smuggled his two Yorkshire terriers into the country, where he was filming the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. According to Australian law, the dogs ought to have been quarantined.

“If we start letting movie stars — even though they’ve been the sexiest man alive twice — to come into our nation (with pets), then why don’t we just break the laws for everybody?” Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce said in May, according to the New York Daily News.

Joyce threatened to have the dogs, Pistol and Boo, euthanized. “It’s time that Pistol and Boo buggered off back to the United States.”

The actor’s fall guy, Amber Heard, faces up to 10 years in Australian prison. She received a summons to appear in Queensland court this month, the Daily News reports.

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

Six spectators including a pregnant woman were killed at the A Coruña rally in Spain after a driver lost control of his car, per The Guardian. Among the dead were four women and two men. Additionally, sixteen spectators were injured, per the latest report from the BBC.

The rally took place in the town of Carral, in Galicia, in northwestern Spain.

According to The Guardian, local media reported that both the driver and codriver were unharmed in the accident, however, a police spokesman was unable to confirm this.

“One of the drivers took the track at a much higher speed than he should have and he veered off a curve, slamming into around 20 people,” a civil guard spokesman told The Guardian.

Footage of the incident shows the car steering off-course in a cloud of dust into a spectator area just off the edge of the course.

[WARNING: Video below shows spectator injury and death.]

“The Coruña rally is in mourning,” Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy said in his official Twitter feed, as translated by The Guardian. “My deepest condolences to the bereaved and wishes for a complete recovery of those injured.”

The BBC reports that the rally has been suspended following the crash.

[H/T Road & Track]

Contact the author at stef.schrader@jalopnik.com.

“As his face broke into a grateful smile, I felt a palpable twinge of unease rather than pleasure. In those fleeting seconds, Sri Lanka’s venerable past and bright future came together—and I felt awkwardly, uncomfortably, at the center.” This Thought Catalog essay somehow ended up in the Philadelphia Inquirer?

Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Sarah Palin praised Jeb Bush for being bilingual and the “connection” that he has with the United States’ “large and wonderful Hispanic population,” but hedged her generous opinion by saying she’d rather people “speak American.”

“I think we can send a message and say, ‘You want to be in America, (a) you’d better be here legally or you’re out of here, (b) when you’re here, let’s speak American,” she said. “Let’s speak English, and that’s a kind of a unifying aspect of the nation is the language that is understood by all.”

Last week, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley said that the Republican Party “often appears cold and unwelcoming to minorities.” Palin disagreed: “I can’t think of any Republican that I know who would have that in their heart.”

Hmm, sure.

(Also, haha, she nominated herself for secretary of energy in a hypothetical Trump administration: “If I were head of that, I’d get rid of it,” she said, referring to the Department of Energy.)

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

On Sunday, Pope Francis, addressing thousands in St. Peter’s Square, asked every European parish, religious community, monastery, and sanctuary to shelter refugees. It is not enough to say, “Have courage, hang in there,” the pope said.

“Faced with the tragedy of tens of thousands of refugees who are fleeing death by war and by hunger, and who are on a path toward a hope for life, the Gospel calls us to be neighbors to the smallest and most abandoned, to give them concrete hope,” Frances said, asking bishops in Europe to have their dioceses “express the Gospel in concrete terms and take in a family of refugees.”

“May every parish, every religious community, every monastery, every sanctuary in Europe host a family, starting with my diocese of Rome,” he continued.

Two of the Vatican’s parishes, Frances said, will take in two families. According to the Associated Press, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, a Vatican spokesman, quoted the pope’s chief alms-giver as saying the Vatican has not yet decided which families will be hosted.

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

In her will, the late Leslie Ann Mandel, an entrepreneur who lived in Manhattan, left $100,000, with instructions, to her 32 cockatiels. Her will asks that the birds continue to live in the style to which they have become accustomed: an aviary at her $4 million East Hampton home.

Mandel made her millions with her direct mailing “rich list,” the New York Post reports. She was married to sci-fi author Arthur Herzog, whose son, Matthew, Mandel named as trustee of the pet fund. Mandel died in June at the age of 69.

Mandel is not the first rich eccentric to leave money for their pets: hotel magnate Leona Helmsley bequeathed $12 million to her dog, Trouble, the Associated Press reports, although a judge later reduced the number to $2 million.

According to the Post, Mandel’s will lists each of the birds by name:

1. Wheetie
2. Port
3. Blackie
4. Zippy
5. Tara
6. Zara
7. Shasha
8. Pigeon (lol)
9. Victory
10. Alie
11. Zack 12
12. Dart
13. Cubby
14. Max
15. Baby
16. Ruthie
17. Pumpkin
18. Tattoo
19. Susie
20. Tracy
21. Margie
22. Sammy
23. Angel
24. Inky
25. Sara
26. Tundra
27. Tanteleah
28. Eva
29. Cody
30. Nicki
31. Avis
32. Dragon

(“Pigeon,” lol.)

If the birds have to leave East Hampton, Mandel dictated that they can be moved to “a protected place of similar size and dimension, made of the same materials, without a cage, for the rest of their natural lives.”

Also, the cockatiels are to share their $100,000 with her dog, Frosty, and her cat, Kiki.

Image via Shutterstock. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Next Sunday, the Chicago Bears—led by quarterback Jay Cutler—will play their first game of the regular NFL season. What will Kristin Cavallari, who is married to Jay, be doing then? Perhaps making bacon-wrapped butternut squash, as she did for a YouTube video about tailgate snacks for The Frisky last season.

In the video, Kristin sweetens her bacon squash with “coconut sugar.” Why coconut? The Frisky asks. “I try to stay away from white sugar,” she explains. “I just think coconut is the best one out there for you.”

The video was sponsored by Smirnoff Ice® Peach Bellini. It also was—for reasons unknown—the last video The Frisky ever posted to YouTube.

This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photos via Getty]

“Sometimes, I want to wear a tie, but don’t feel like wearing one around my neck. And it’s easier to tie around my waist than to tie around my neck.” Would you like to see how Tumblr employees dress? Of course you would.

In a Friday interview with New York’s 105.1 Breakfast Club radio show, Damon Wayans offered a long and stereotypical defense of Bill Cosby. Cosby has now been accused by more than 45 women of rape and sexual assault. In July, 35 of those women—ranging in age from 44 to 80— appeared on the cover of New York magazine and shared eerily similar accounts of their rapes.

And yet, despite the large numbers of women who have come forward and overwhelming evidence that Cosby is a serial rapist, Damon Wayans sees it another way. “I just don’t believe it. I think it’s a money hustle,” Wayans said.

“Tell the truth, if I was him, I would divorce my wife, wink wink, give her all my money, and then I would go and do a deposition,” Wayans jokingly told the radio station. “I’d light [a] three-hour cigar, I’d have me some wine, and maybe a Quaalude, and I would just go off because I don’t believe he was raping.”

After offering such insight, Wayans continued:

“I believe he was in relationships with all of them and then he’s like, ‘You know what? [Cosby is] 78. It don’t work like that no more. I can’t get it up for any of y’all. Bye, bitches,’ and then they’re like, ‘Oh, really? Rape!’”

[...]

“And some of them, really, is unrapeable. I look at them and go, ‘No, he don’t want that. Get outta here!’ Look, I understand fame. I’ve lived it. Women will throw themselves at you. They just want be in your presence. There’s some that innocently will come up there, but not 40-something women. They’re not that naive.”

When Breakfast Club host Angela Yee pointed that many of the women had, in fact, come forward years before, Wayans dismissed her: “Bitch, how many times did it happen? Just listen to what they’re saying.”

Earlier today, Wayans tweeted that his words were being twisted and he urged his followers to listen to the interview. He pointed in particular to a segment of the interview where he expressed sympathy for Cosby’s victims, saying “my heart goes out to them.” You can listen to the entire interview below:

Image via AP; Video via The Breakfast Club.

The last union coal mine in Kentucky, a state where workers fought and died for the right to organize, has closed, the Associated Press reports. Patriot Coal had announced the closing of its Highland Mine, which employed about 400 hourly workers, late last year.

According to the AP, union leaders and retirees like Johnson argue that increasing environmental regulations, a chaotic coal market, and anti-union political operatives have all contributed to the union’s undoing in Kentucky:

For the first time in about a century, in the state that was home to the gun battles of “Bloody Harlan,” not a single working miner belongs to a union. That has left a bad taste in the mouths of retirees: men like Charles Dixon, who heard the sputter of machine gun fire and bullets piercing his trailer in Pike County during a long strike with the A.T. Massey Coal Company in 1984 and 1985.

“I had my house shot up during that strike,” said Dixon, the United Mine Workers local president at the time. “I was just laying in bed and next thing you know you hear a big AR-15 unloading on it. Coal miners had it tough buddy, they sure have.”

The shots fired at Dixon’s home recall the even deadlier organizing battles of the 1920s and ‘30s, many in Harlan County.

One ambush shooting in 1937 ended with the death of union organizer Marshall Musick’s 14-year-old son, Bennett, when “a shower of bullets tore through the walls of the house,” according to union leader George Titler’s book, “Hell in Harlan.”

“A lot of people right now who don’t know what the (union) stands for is getting good wages and benefits because of the sacrifice that we made,” said a retired union miner, Kenny Johnson. Johnson was arrested during the Brookside strike in Harlan County in the 1970s. “Because when we went on those long strikes, it wasn’t because we wanted to be out of work.”

A national spokesman for the United Mine Workers, Phil Smith, expressed concern that now that the union is absent from Kentucky, business interests will exploit the lack of protections: “When the coal industry rebounds to the extent that it does, and non-union operators take a look around and see that there’s no union competition, and they’ll see that they can begin to cut wages, they can begin to cut benefits, they can begin to cut corners on safety, they’ll do that.”

Bill Bissett, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, an industry group, disagree. “I just don’t think there’s that level of discontent between the company and working coal miners, which I think is a very good thing,” he said.

“If anything, they’ve won,” Bissett continued. “They’ve worked themselves out of a job.”

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

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Almost 300 ralliers came out in support of county clerk-turned-anti-gay martyr Kim Davis yesterday, many of whom (at least according to their signs) appear to have spoken directly with God and/or Jesus himself.

The generally horrifying display of ignorance and hate took place outside of the Carter County Detention Center in Grayson, Kentucky, where Davis is currently being held for refusing to follow federal law. She could, of course, be freed should she decide to continue doing the job for which she was hired, but Kim Davis says nah.

Which is to say, she is now a formidable GOP contender. Thanks to Twitter, you can see her loyal constituents below.

If anyone can figure out what this is actually supposed to mean, please do let me know.

Selfie!

The Matador Youth were out in full force.

And as with all harbingers of the Apocalypse, The Weather Channel was on the scene.

Honestly, sure, why not run—everyone else is!

Which is why the man above has never let his hair become unkempt, never eaten fat, never mixed fabrics in clothing, never trimmed his beard, never torn his clothes, never masturbated, never watched porn, neve—

Surprisingly, even Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes made an appearance:

According to NPR, the day ended with a bagpipe-led rendition of God Bless America, which we can only imagine was simultaneously loud, grating, and terrifying. In other words: The perfect end to the rally.

Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com. Screenshot via The Courrier-Journal.

Marble Falls (Tex.) beat San Antonio John Jay 15-9 Friday night, and the above video is purportedly from that game. We have no other context to it, other than the title which alleges the umpire was targeted by John Jay players “because of a bad call.”

That’s all we know! The newspaper writeup doesn’t mention the incident and we have no other information. If you can explain this bizarre play, please let us know.

Update: Reader Luis links us to an article explaining the incident is being investigated:

Late in Jay’s 15-9 loss at Marble Falls, one defensive back ran from 7 yards away into the back of an official watching a run play unfold 9 yards in front of him.

After the referee’s fell to the turf after the first hit, another player standing to the right of the referee and several yards away led with his helmet and dove into the official.

Both players were ejected. Northside ISD athletic director Stan Laing said the video was “very disturbing.” Laing said the district is investigating the sequence of events leading up to the pla, and the University Interscholastic League is aware of what happened.

“The question of what instigated that is what we’re trying to figure out,” Laing said.

h/t to John

To contact the author of this post, write to tim@deadspin.com (PGP key) or find him on Twitter @bubbaprog.

A man with a handgun ambushed two Las Vegas police officers as they waited at a stop light on Sunday, firing three shots and hitting one officer in the hand, KVVU-TV reports.

Authorities say the gunman approached the patrol car shortly after noon, reached inside the vehicle and began firing. He then ran away and was apprehended after a short foot chase.

According to one witness, the suspect surrendered peacefully. From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

“He didn’t resist or put up a fight,” Robert Benjamin, 44, said.

Benjamin was “flying a sign for Jesus” on the corner when he heard three gunshots. He saw the officer who was unharmed chase the shooter, a man in a red T-shirt.

The man dropped the gun and ran into the street toward the median, where he surrendered, Benjamin said.

“I just hope that young man finds Jesus,” he said.

The wounded officer was then taken to a nearby hospital with non-life threatening injures. Police have not disclosed the suspect’s possible motive.

A Las Vegas police spokesperson said officers have been riding in patrol cars in pairs since Friday, when another officer was shot in the leg responding to a reported prowler.

[Image via Twitter/Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department]