Bends And Tears: No honour on those cops’ badges

Secret codes amongst criminal cops are nothing new, nor is targeting whistle blowers who go after criminal cops.  But this one takes it to a new level of sadism, like the corruption in the movie, “Copland”.

Vallejo police bend badges to mark fatal shootings

They call it, “The Badge of Honor.” For a generation, a secretive clique within the Vallejo Police Department has commemorated fatal shootings with beers, backyard barbecues, and by bending the points of their badges each time they kill in the line of duty, an investigation by Open Vallejo has found. The custom was so exclusive, some officers involved in fatal shootings were never told of its existence.

But senior law enforcement and government officials say everything changed when a police captain tried to end the practice following the fatal shooting of 20-year-old Willie McCoy in February 2019. Over the next six months, the tradition became known at the highest levels of Vallejo city government and the district attorney’s office.

The captain who pushed for an investigation, John Whitney, would soon be out of a job. A former SWAT team commander with two master’s degrees, Whitney says he was forced out of the department after raising concerns about the badge-bending tradition and other misconduct. He filed a retaliation claim against the city in March.

This immediately reminded me of white supremacist gangs that get a tear tattooed near their eye after every kill.  It only has meaning to those who know.

News Break: Herman Cain, dead of COVID-19

You can ask me not to celebrate, but don’t expect me to mourn.

Laugh, possibly.

Herman Cain dies from coronavirus

Herman Cain, a onetime Republican presidential candidate and former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, has died from coronavirus, according to an obituary sent from his verified Twitter account and Newsmax, where he was launching a television show.

Cain, 74, was hospitalized earlier this month, and his Twitter account said this week he was being treated with oxygen in his lungs. It is unknown where Cain contracted the virus.

[. . .]

As a co-chair of Black Voices for Trump, Cain was one of the surrogates at President Donald Trump’s June 20 rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma — which saw at least eight Trump advance team staffers in attendance test positive for coronavirus. Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh has told CNN that Cain did not meet with Trump at the Tulsa rally.

Music Rules: “Back In Black” turned 40

AC/DC’s seventh album “Back In Black” was released on July 25th, 1980, forty years ago. If you haven’t heard it, you lived a sad life and need to get one. Back In Black is similar to Nirvana’s “Nevermind” in 1992, both records that brought harder edged music into the mainstream, creating space for all the bands that followed. Both have stood the test of time and repeat listening.

(Excuse me for a week of no posting. Other items of more substance have come up that I want to post, but I have not had internet access at home for the last few days. I’m doing this from work.)

After the commercial success of 1979’s “Highway To Hell”, AC/DC were set for mainstream breakthrough, then singer Bon Scott died. The band sought a replacement singer, choosing Brian Johnson, former singer of UK band Geordie, as suggested by producer Mutt Lange.

One story from the recording sessions was when the band wanted to record Johnson’s vocals, they couldn’t find him. At first they thought he had disappeared. They eventually found him in the studio’s rec room, playinng pool with the roadies. Exactly their type of person, down to Earth and not full of himself.

Back In Black has certified sales of 29.4 million, and an estimated 50 million worldwide. Only Jackson’s “Thriller” has sold more. Back In Black produced four hit singles (all top 40). All ten songs are standouts, not one weak moment on it.

On the opening track “Hells Bells”, the minute long instrumental section was intentional, done to make listeners anticipate Johnson’s voice. The title track was placed on side 2 to give listeners reason to try side 1.

The last single, “Rock And Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution”, has a spoken section at the beginning. It was intended to mock fundamentalist christian preachers.

Now, We Wait: It’s likely when, not if TGD collapses

Plum rains are supposed to be a spring phenomenon in Asia, but they have continued unabated in China all through June and now into July, as mentioned a few weeks ago.

Upriver of the dam, cities and towns continue to be flooded, and the water has stressed the dam without relief.  To alleviate the pressure, they opened the floodgates.  ALL of them are open, the maximum flow out of the dam (never mind using it to generate power), and it’s still not enough to deal with the flow of water.

China Floods Calls Into Question Sustainability Of Massive Three Gorges Dam

Seems to be part of the times, no? A once in a generation pandemic, a once in a generation flood. Parts of China is literally up to its eyeballs in water, in what the Chinese government is calling a once in 100 years flood. The Three Gorges Dam, built to stop these things, is now in the spotlight.

[. . .]

Cities in the country’s central region along the Yangtze River — China’s longest river — have been flooded in the past week due to heavy rains this monsoon season. It was reported to be the worst flood since 1998, and not 100 years have some in Beijing have said.

All told, more than 400 Yangtze tributary rivers have overflowed, with nearly 200 people dead and properties underwater.

Average rainfall is around 12% higher than last monsoon season. The economic damage from flooding is expected to reach 86.2 billion yuan ($12 billion), according to some government estimates made on Friday.

Those may be optimistic estimates.  More below the fold.

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Birth Rates: The world’s is in a slow decline

The Lancet has published a study on birth rates world wide, concluding that all nations will see reductions in population over the next eighty years.  Like we didn’t know that already.

Fertility, mortality, migration, and population scenarios for 195 countries and territories from 2017 to 2100: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study

Interpretation

Our findings suggest that continued trends in female educational attainment and access to contraception will hasten declines in fertility and slow population growth. A sustained TFR lower than the replacement level in many countries, including China and India, would have economic, social, environmental, and geopolitical consequences. Policy options to adapt to continued low fertility, while sustaining and enhancing female reproductive health, will be crucial in the years to come

[. . .]

Conclusion

Global population is likely to peak well before the end of the century. Given that we forecasted that societies tend towards a TFR lower than 1·5, once global population decline begins, it will probably continue inexorably. Within the declining total world population some countries will sustain their populations through liberal immigration policies and social policies more supportive of females working and achieving their desired family size. These countries are likely to have larger overall GDP than other countries, with the various economic, social, and geopolitical benefits that come with stable working-age populations.

The notion that it is a “problem” reeks of a boomer and corporatist capitalist whine: “Who is going to fund my pension?  Work cheap and pay massive taxes so I don’t have to?”  We should be praising Millennials and Zoomers for being environmentally, socially and fiscally aware instead of attacking them for not breeding.  Voluntary population reduction is a lot less painful than starvation, war, and environmental collapse.  You can’t fault people for saying, “I can’t afford a kid, so I won’t have any.”

The other boomer/capitalist whine is, “Who is going to pay to fix everything?”  How about you lot?  Let’s tax all wealth over $50 million at 50%, 40% from $20-50 million.  Capitalism is NOT more important than survival of the planet or species. You can’t eat or breathe dollars, no matter how rich you are.

A “writer” at the BBC has an equally capitalist-based take on it, below the fold.

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Razed, Not Raised: A failed attempt at recruitment

The US military has a long history of using unethical tactics to try and trick 13-18 year olds into being cannon-fodder for the wealthy.  I mean, conscripts.  The US Army (hereafter called “Smarmy”) released “America’s Army” in 2002 for free and continues to release updates.  More recently it created “US Army Esports” involving other FPS games to predate on the young.

This past week, the official Smarmy account was thrown off the gaming service Twitch for unethical acts.  It was falsely offering Xbox Elite Series 2 game controllers but in reality directing young people to a Smarmy recruitment page.  There was no “prize”, and no cake either.

Twitch Forces U.S. Army To Stop Tricking Viewers With Fake Giveaways

The U.S. Army has a Twitch channel that it uses to fish for potential recruits. Last week, it came under fire for issuing bans to viewers who asked about war crimes. This week, a report by The Nation dug deeper, pointing out, among other things, that the channel had a habit of running fake controller giveaways that redirected viewers to a recruitment page. Following widespread scrutiny, Twitch says it’s forced the Army to stop.

According to The Nation, the giveaways—which took place “repeatedly” in chat—offered viewers a chance to win an Xbox Elite Series 2 controller. Clicking the associated link, however, would send viewers to a recruitment page “with no additional mention of a contest, odds, total number of winners, or when a drawing will occur.”

Upon learning of this yesterday, Twitch viewers and streamers reacted with disbelief.

“The silence from Twitch on the latest wave of criticism regarding the military using the site to scam kids into sharing personal info speaks volumes,” said streamer Jayson “ManVsGame” Love on Twitter. “Imagine any other channel doing that. Feel free to manipulate your viewers as much as you like, I guess?”

“Hey Twitch, is using your platform to run scams always against the [terms of service] or does the US Army get a special exception when they’re after kids’ blood instead of money?” game developer Bruno Dias said on Twitter.

Earlier, the Smarmy had attempted to obtain personal information of players for recruitment purposes.  Instead, it was bombarded with intelligent repartee about the US military’s war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.  What did the Smarmy do in response?  It blocked and banned those who asked tough questions and linked to factual history.

U.S. Army’s Twitch Chat Is Banning People For Asking About War Crimes

Some folks have recently taken to trolling the U.S. Army’s official Twitch channel by asking in chat about the military’s well documented history of committing war crimes. The channel’s moderators have responded by banning them.

The U.S Army has a Twitch channel where the members of its esports team occasionally stream games, and earlier this week some newcomers used the chat to grill the Army about past abuses. “What’s your favorite u.s. w4r cr1me?” a Twitch user typed into the chat under the alias really_chill_guy, according to a video esports insider Rod “Slasher” Breslau shared online on July 8. Really_chill_guy then shared a link to the Wikipedia page listing U.S. war crimes. Moments after making the comment he was banned from the chat. “Nice, really chill guy, have a nice time getting banned my dude,” said the channel’s streamer at the time, Joshua “Strotnium” David, a Green Beret and 12-year veteran of the Army.

Vice reports that after Breslau’s video started making the rounds, others decided to hop into the chat as well. “Hello fellow kids,” wrote one person, according to a screencap shared by SB Nation producer Kofie Yeboah. “Oh so you like video games? Well you’re gonna LOVE dying in a foreign country to protect the interests of oligarchs back home.”

For all the farcical military talk about “none but the brave”, the US Army certainly engages in cowardly tactics.

Snyder Remarks: If you thought the racist name was bad….

Dan Snyder has been reviled for his insistence in using a racist word as a team nickname, his refusal to consider changing until recently forced to by corporate sponsors.  If those were his only problems, he might survive.

But it goes much worse.  He has been cultivating a corporate culture of intimidation, a cesspool of sexual harassment and abuse.  The complaints and complainants have not named him as a participant, but they do name him as knowing, permitting and condoning it.

NFL releases statement addressing allegations vs. Washington team: ‘Contrary to the NFL’s values’

After 15 women who worked for the Washington NFL team, in addition to two reporters who covered the club, told the Washington Post the were sexually harassed by other team employees during their tenures, the league released a statement Friday addressing the allegations through spokesman Brian McCarthy.

“These matters as reported are serious, disturbing and contrary to the NFL’s values,” the statement read. “Everyone in the NFL has the right to work in an environment free from any and all forms of harassment.”

Snyder and the NFL are just like Donald Sterling and the NBA.  When the appalling pair managed to keep their reprehensible behaviour behind closed doors and hushed, the leagues were willing to turn a blind eye.  When it hurt their corporate image and profits, then something had to be done.

Which is why it’s laughably hypocritical for Mark Cuban to be lecturing Dan Snyder about “morality”.  Cuban and the other NBA owners knew what sort of scum Sterling was, when Cuban’s own team had rampant sexual harassment under his watch.

I don’t believe the claim that cultures of harassment “just happen” and they “didn’t know about it”.  They happen because owners and management don’t take steps to prevent them, they don’t provide means for people to report without retaliation, they don’t do better vetting of those hired nor train them properly. When you don’t prevent it, you condone it.

Toxic cultures in the workplace are NOT caused by “blind spots”.  They happen because management turns a blind eye – nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more.

Where Did The Time Go?

Wednesday was an anniversary for me.  It was July 15, 2001 that I boarded a Singapore Airlines flight and left Canada to work abroad.  I left expecting a one year experience, not an entire new life in other countries.

My college has an office for job postings, and graduates are welcome to look for jobs no matter how long after graduation.  In early June 2001, I saw a posting that said “TEACH IN KOREA!”  It was always my desire to teach in Japan, but I wasn’t qualified.  I did, however, meet the requirements (at that time) to teach in South Korea.  I applied, and to my surprise was accepted.  I quickly renewed my passport through the local MP’s office (minister of parliament), and within six weeks had to pack and leave.  That was one heck of a garage sale, getting rid of everything and whittling my entire life down to two suitcases under 20kg plus a carry on.

Going abroad didn’t only lead to better paying work and new experiences, it was life changing.  I should write a book about it someday.

Nineteen years. Where did the time go?  And with COVID-19 likely to be around for at least two years, I may be abroad that long too.

Lyrics below the fold.

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My Take: She has no friends here (aside from the flying monkeys)

It has been a day since I had time to write, so I’ve been taking time to think about a reply to recent events and posts by Marcus Ranum and Mano Singham about a certain former FtB blogger.

Benson erroneously assumed that because MR and MS don’t regularly speaking about or for Transgender people that they must somehow automatically be against us.  That makes me wonder if she interacted with either of them while she was here.  In their posts and replies to my comments, they have always referred to me and others by name and pronouns, welcomed and treated us always with respect (*).  Given that she has flying monkeys who read and snoop under multiple names (as readily demonstrated by Giliell and others) and possibly keeps reading herself, one would think she would know this.  The continued obsession with FtB after this long is astounding.

(* She can’t see the back channel anymore, but it’s the same story there.)

I was debating with myself: What could I say about her after five years of not talking or thinking about her that would be true but not inappropriate?

Five years of not talking about her.  Yes, that’s it.  She’s irrelevant.  I’ll go back to not thinking of nor talking about her.

Cut Costs So Cuts Cost: Seattle’s plan for all-white police force

Black Lives Matter protests have had great effect at holding police accountable, of having cops defunded and defanged.  But not everyone is happy.  Those who like the status quo of white racist cops defending the ruling class won’t let that happen without a fight.

I didn’t believe this story on the first site I read it, but if an establishment lapdog like Newsweek is willing to publish it, well….

Seattle Police Say Most Non-White Officers Will be Fired if City Cuts Budget

he Seattle Police Department (SPD) announced that many of their newly hired, non-white officers would be the first let go should the city continue with drastic, politically motivated talks of budget cuts.

Seattle Police told residents Friday that current City Council discussions about cutting the department’s budget by 50 percent would be “catastrophic for public safety.” Seattle Chief of Police Carmen Best warned activist groups and council members alike that the department’s “newest, most broadly diverse officers on patrol” would be the first employees they are “forced to terminate” under the proposed budget cuts. Best wrote a letter to Mayor Jenny Durkan Friday cautioning that at least 50 percent of BIPOC officers would be the first people fired.

Translation: “If we’re going to be held accountable for the racism of white cops, then we’re going to have a whites-only police force.”

The all-white old boys’ club of policing was the cause of the violence and corruption.  How is eliminating diversity, eliminating newer and younger (and likely less corrupt) cops going to make the city safer for anyone except white people who lick boots?

Just remember not to call it racism.  The layoff of only non-white cops has nothing to do with the colour of their skin.  It has to do with the skin of those making the decision.

Lie, Deny And Decry: Cheetolini’s latest mishandling of COVID-19

Lie, deny and decry.  Because that’s all he knows how to do.

Cheetolini’s heavy handed and hamfisted approach to not dealing with COVID-19 is failure upon top of kneejerk reaction on top of failure.  He won’t admit he’s ignorant and defer to the experts, makes things worse, then tries to take away the experts’ ability to address the crisis.  If this were only about corruption and incompetence, it would be barely tolerable.  But this is about a toddler who would rather destroy all the toys than let anyone else play with them.

Except they’re not toys.  He’s an infant who found his father’s loaded gun and any attempt to talk him into putting it down only leads to more anger, threats, and fired shots.  But unlike a firearm which inevitably runs out of ammo, this one keeps generating its own bullets.  It will continue to be a danger until someone has the courage to take it away from him.

Deny:

Two months ago, Cheetolini and Desantis openly started falsifying reported numbers of positive tests, active cases and deaths, mislabelling who knows how many as “pneumonia” or other causes.  There’s no telling what the real numbers are.

Florida governor under fire over claims state is ‘cooking the books’ on Covid-19

Republican Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s faltering response to soaring new coronavirus numbers in his state is descending into acrimony, after an accusation his administration is “cooking the books” in an effort to hide the true impact of the devastating pandemic.

The claim from [Rebekah Jones] the state’s former leading Covid-19 data scientist comes as Florida smashed its own one-day record for new cases of the disease on Friday with 8,942, after two successive days above 5,000 – by far the highest figures since the pandemic began.

Decry:

Last week, the regime began attacks upon Anthony Fauci, attempts to impugn him as “incompetent and a liar” for changing his statements at the data changed.  To the ignorant who believe in absolute truths that don’t exist, that’s intolerable.

Fauci: ‘Bizarre’ White House Behavior Only Hurts the President

Anthony Fauci isn’t about to quit, despite the White House’s clumsy attempts to stain his public image. More so now than at any other point in their uneasy partnership, it seems that if President Donald Trump wants to be rid of Fauci, he’ll need to fire him. In recent days especially, the White House has stepped up efforts to discredit Fauci, a move he describes as “bizarre.”

[. . .] Fauci told The Atlantic in a series of interviews this week. “When the staff lets out something like that and the entire scientific and press community push back on it, it ultimately hurts the president.”

Lie:

Then just yesterday, the regime dictated that doctors at the CDC will no long have (first) access to the data from hospitals.  For what purpose?  To hide the real numbers from the public and from scientists?  Do a kapo like Caputo really believe they can make it go away by pretending it doesn’t exist?

Coronavirus hospital data will now be sent to Trump administration instead of CDC

Hospital data on coronavirus patients will now be rerouted to the Trump administration instead of first being sent to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed to CNN on Tuesday.

The move could make data less transparent to the public at a time when the administration is downplaying the spread of the pandemic, and threatens to undermine public confidence that medical data is being presented free of political interference.

Michael Caputo, the assistant secretary for public affairs at the department, confirmed the change first reported by The New York Times earlier in the day, saying in a statement that the “new faster and complete data system is what our nation needs to defeat the coronavirus and the CDC, an operating division of HHS, will certainly participate in this streamlined all-of-government response. They will simply no longer control it.”

Apparently, they do.  Less than twenty four hours later, the data on COVID-19 was placed into a memory hole.  Forget the CDC, no one has access to it but those in the regime.

U.S. coronavirus data has already disappeared after Trump administration shifted control from CDC to HHS

Previously public data has already disappeared from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website after the Trump administration quietly shifted control of the information to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Since the pandemic began, the CDC has regularly published data on availability of hospital beds and intensive care units across the country. But Ryan Panchadsaram, who helps run a data-tracking site called Covid Exit Strategy, said that when he tried to collect the data from the CDC on Tuesday, it had disappeared.

“We were surprised because the modules that we normally go to were empty. The data wasn’t available and not there,” he said. “There was no warning.”

CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told reporters on a conference call Wednesday that states were told to stop sending hospital information to the National Healthcare Safety Network site, the CDC’s system for gathering data, beginning Wednesday. Instead, all data will now be reported through HHS’ reporting portal, officials said, adding that the decision was made to streamline data reporting and to provide HHS officials with real-time data.

Two years ago, climate scientists took it upon themselves to protect their data, copying it and hiding it after Cheetolini ordered it destroyed.  Doctors and hospitals need to do the same, but compile and publicize the real data instead of hiding it. For everyone’s sake.

Even HMOs should know better than to falsify the numbers.  Dead people don’t pay premiums, and neither do millions of unemployed workers.

More Good News Arrived: Roosh has been kicked off youtube

That’s right.  Daryush Valizadeh, aka “Roosh” the pro-rape “return of kings” buffoon has been kicked off of youtube.  His entire account is gone, all of his videos.

I’m sure he and others will be calling this “censorship”.  I think most will agree when I call it overdue.  Now the question is, can he still live in his mother’s basement, or will he be kicked out of there too?

Would it be too much to ask youtube to jettison other channels that violate their terms of service (e.g. thunderfoot)?

Will History Repeat: July 14th is Bastille Day

As the title says, it’s Bastille Day in France, the day in 1789 when revolutionaries stormed the Bastille and freed seven prisoners.  Today is the 230th anniversary of the Fête de la Fédération, the celebration in 1790 commemorating the events one year earlier.  Some saw this as the end of the revolution with King Louis XVI retaining his role, and a negotiated or peaceful transition.  History proved that to be folly, merely the start of a decade long event.

Something tells me the US is in for a similarly rough ride, and its 250th anniversary in 2026 won’t be a peaceful one.

Here’s Rush’s “Bastille Day” (lyrics) from their third album, the second they released in 1975:

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Whined And Opined: Bari Weiss quits the New York Timid

Did I say New York Timid?  I meant the New York Times.

Bari Weiss was hired in 2017 to “write opinion pieces” for the NYT’s notoriously far rightwing editorial page.  She laughably called herself “forward thinking” while being as much a neocon as anyone on Fox Nuisance, a perfect fit for a paper that kowtowed to Wall Street.

On Thursday, however, Weiss resigned, claiming “bullying” and “imposed self-censorship”, whatever that means.  It sounds less like an accusation of impropriety and more like she jumped before she was pushed.

NY Times Opinion Editor Bari Weiss Resigns, Accuses Staffers of ‘Constant Bullying’

Bari Weiss resigned from her position as a staff editor and opinion writer for the New York Times Tuesday, citing a “hostile work environment” and blaming the publisher for allowing it. She also decried newsroom practices, writing in her resignation letter that “self-censorship has become the norm.”

[. . .]

A representative for the Times told TheWrap in response to Weiss’ accusations, “We’re committed to fostering an environment of honest, searching and empathetic dialogue between colleagues, one where mutual respect is required of all.”

Weiss’ resignation follows that of Times’ op-ed editor James Bennet, who left the publisher in June following backlash over a column written by conservative Senator Tom Cotton.

To quote Glenn Greenwald from 2017:

The NY Times’s Newest Op-Ed Hire, Bari Weiss, Embodies its Worst Failings — and its Lack of Viewpoint Diversity

Controversy erupted on April 14 over the New York Times’s hiring of neoconservative climate-skeptic and anti-Arab polemicist Bret Stephens as the paper’s newest Op-Ed page columnist, hired away from the Wall Street Journal’s right-wing op-ed page. But just two days after it unveiled him, the paper’s op-ed page, with much less fanfare, announced that it had also hired a carbon copy of Stephens named Bari Weiss, also from the Wall Street Journal op-ed page, to “write and commission the kinds of quick-off-the-news pieces” that will “amplify the section’s already important voice in the national conversation.”

In her short tenure, Weiss (pictured, right) has given the paper exactly what it apparently wanted when it hired her. She has churned out a series of trite, shallow, cheap attacks on already-marginalized left-wing targets that have made her a heroine in the insular neocon and right-wing intelligentsia precincts in which she, Stephens, and so many other NYT op-ed writers reside. 

Exactly as she was doing a decade ago as a “pro-Israel” activist at Columbia and thereafter at various neocon media perches, her formula is as simple as it is predictable: She channels whatever prevailing right-wing grievance exists about colleges, Arabs or Israel critics (ideally, all of those) into a column that’s supposed to be “provocative” because it maligns minority activists or fringe positions that are rarely given platforms on the New York Times op-ed page.

One cannot talk about Weiss’s “journalistic standards” when she has no standards.  In her mind, fact checking (definition 2) means preventing facts from being checked.

The Wrap: New York Times Editor Savaged for ‘We Are All Fascists’ Column: ‘Bari Weiss Should Be Fired’

New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss dropped another incendiary column on social media Wednesday afternoon, using the paper to denounce liberal intolerance on college campuses and beyond.

[. . .]

The critics immediately pounced on her latest piece Wednesday, seizing on an internal link in Weiss’ story to a fake Antifa Twitter account to launch a broader attack.

It says a lot when a kneejerk reactionary and rabid islamophobe like Sam Harris is one of Weiss’s cheerleaders.  He blathered on twitter, “It has been shocking to see the nytimes
succumb to the hysteria, dogmatism, and cruelty of ‘woke’ identity politics. This is how real journalism ends.”

That tells me her departure is a good thing.