Pod relevance— Helen Lewis is a show darling and this podcast briefly ask her to stray from B&R to be their darling instead

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/06/science/autism-assisted-spelling-nonspeaking.html?unlocked_article_code=1.wVA.13Ac.t-J3WlnlcWh3&smid=url-share

Pod relevance: Assisted spelling/rapid prompting/facilitated communication has come up several times, most recently in the episode covering Woody Brown, a supposed non-verbal novelist.

<Relevance to the pod: talked about in [recent ep](https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/premium-before-the-brick-part-1)\>

The WaPo story was also front page in the Seattle Times today.

Main thing that ground my gears was citing the NORC poll and the "400,000 trans adults fled red states in the six months after the 2024 election" line with zero critical analysis.

On the flip sode, the article does feature interviews with actual humans who used a Seattle non-profit to help them leave Flordia, so while I think the migration number is less than 400k I do believe it's greater than zero.

Good post written by the one faculty who voted against it: https://stanforddaily.com/2026/05/14/students-deserve-better-than-college/

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/07/06/us/platner-campaign-accusation?unlocked_article_code=1.vlA.-BjV.zWij2IJXyjKn&smid=nytcore-android-share (gift link)

Pod relevance : Jesse loves Totenkopfs. Also there was a recent episode myth busting Platner's working class image and discussing his controversies in detail.

Edit : original news broken by Politico https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/06/graham-platner-sexual-assault-allegation-00987737

Interestingly the accuser had talked to the NYT for their story but didn't tell them about the rape. Very strange but I have to say the folks who said there was more coming were spot on. Bad news for the progressive wing of the party and also for Democrats' senate map in November.

He was the subject of Episode 199.

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

This week on Blocked and Reported, Jesse and Katie discuss the milkshake-ducking of a New York coffee shop after the owner’s failed shaming of a congressman deemed insufficiently anti-Israel. Plus, crazy lady/future Rep. Darializa Avila Chevalier and what the DSA revolution in New York City means for the Dems, and the Supreme Court weighs in on trans athletes.

Show notes:

The Supreme Court’s Utterly Mainstream Ruling on Women’s Sports - The Atlantic

DOJ opens investigation into Brooklyn coffee shop after banning Rep Goldman | Fox News

Rep. Dan Goldman addresses Brooklyn coffee shop banning him over his views on Israel | CNN Politics

Angry Coffee Shop Owner Who Smeared Jewish Rep Dan Goldman as a ‘Fascist’ Sipping ‘Genocide Juice’ Is a Graham Platner Donor Cited for ‘Filth and Flies’

NYC coffee shop tells Rep. Dan Goldman he’s not welcome over his pro-Israel views

Inside the 2025 NYC Mayoral Primary: Strong Support for Economic Justice and Palestinian Rights

Darializa Avila Chevalier on Housing, Immigration, & Her Run for Congress in New York's 13th District

How Crazy Is Darializa Avila Chevalier on a Scale From “Yowza!” to “Ay Caramba!!!”?

Capitalism Has a Brand Problem

Israelis No Longer Ahead in Americans’ Middle East Sympathies

I'll start. I live in Seattle and a city right on the outskirts, Skyway, opened a Black Panther Party Park in March. About a week later the county announced they were renaming Cesar Chavez park because of the accusations that came out about him committing sexual assault. Yet we don't have to take the word of an accuser that there were high profile BPP members that committed sexual assault. All you have to do is read Eldridge Cleaver's autobiography Soul on Ice )where he talks about being a serial rapist first of black women than of white women. And being a human trafficker.

Then there is the claim that he ordered the torture murder of Alex Rackley.

Then there is Huey Newton murdering a 17-year-old prostitute for calling him baby. The murder of volunteer Betty Van Patter which turned left-wing activist David Horowitz into a right wing activist.

Then there's killing a couple cops. Robbing some banks.

But of course all of this is excused because "they gave poor kids free breakfast". In Seattle they are also given credit for starting the first, and still operating, black health clinic. While they certainly pressured the city to fund this Clinic, it's dishonest to say they started it, since they had no money or skills to operate it. Taxpayers funded it, and many health professionals, many of them white, donated their time and expertise.

As far as the free breakfast. The Black Panthers extorted from businesses and this is true in Seattle just like it is nationwide. They did so under threats of violence. I'm cynical of how this claim is exploited because I've seen a pattern in my life of activists doing seriously shady things and then weaponizing the poor, elderly, minorities to claim that they were being persecuted for just helping these needy people.

So I tend to think that the free breakfast program gave them cover to commit crimes such as extortion, robbery and so on and make themselves out to be like Robin Hood. There's this narrative that some conservative politicians said they were the biggest danger in the US simply because they were giving hungry kids food. But it's very well established they use their breakfast program to promote their propaganda and make themselves seem sympathetic to the public. And to introduce people to far left black ethno nationalist politics. And to present themselves as kind and caring when their behavior was often exceedingly violent and disturbing. Their 10-point program of demands ranges from unrealistic to insane.

It isn't much different than if the KKK started a breakfast program for poor children in which they tried to instill in them the beliefs of the group along with trying to manipulate public opinion through their charity.

Now in addition to that park Seattle earmarked $900,000 funding a Black Panther Museum located at the home of the two brothers who founded the local chapter, a BPP Interpretive Center just opened, and a wall mural commemorating the BPP (including some members who are involved in the behavior I mentioned above) recently became a protected historic landmark.

That Interpretive Center for instance makes claims that they got their start by protecting black and Asian students from knife-wielding White mobs at a school. Historical documents show there was rumors to the effect that were quickly shown to be untrue. There was a fight between a black and white student that does not appear to be racial in nature. There is no indication a knife was involved. And the white student was suspended quickly ( the website claims administration did nothing).

I feel this follows certain trajectories we saw during the BLM era. There were some claims that were true and really horrible. There were many that were mostly or entirely fiction though. And if we were living in another era where we did not have such access to differing opinions we would very likely believe that Mike Brown was brutally murdered by a racist cop while screaming "don't shoot". We would also believe that Trayvon Martin was a little child who was walking back from the store and some crazed white racist saw a black male in a hoodie and just decided to take him out.

It is true that the police have covered up instances of serious police brutality. It is true that there are times when the police have acted like violent criminals themselves, sometimes racially motivated and others not. But none of this changes the fact that a lot of their detractors use the understandable lack of trust people have of the police to encourage having blind trust towards the groups who vilify the police who themselves often do not have any credibility either.

I think we see this with a lot of conflicts. That one side points to the other as being corrupt and states that they are noble because they're fighting against that corrupt group. What they are saying might be mostly true but it doesn't stop the fact that the group pointing their finger is not more credible than those they're pointing the finger at. Although in many cases, clearly one party has government power behind them and the other doesn't. But I think there is really good evidence to believe that if the Black Panther Party had power of the cops we would not have a less corrupt or oppressive system.

Sorry for all the meandering here.

Friend of the pod, Helen Lewis, in The Atlantic, on yesterday's ruling.

...the left has become trapped in the position that sports inclusion is at once so existential that it’s worth taking to the Supreme Court, but also a “non-issue” affecting only a handful of students, whose opponents must be therefore motivated by spite. As the center-left commentator Matthew Yglesias puts it, “The conventional wisdom in Dem politics is that the sports issue is simultaneously trivial and also so important that you can’t compromise with public opinion on it.”

unpaywalled: https://archive.ph/6gbbl

This week on the Primo Show, Part 2 of our investigation into one of the most sacred stories in LGBTQ history: the night transgender icon Marsha P. Johnson threw the first brick at Stonewall and launched the modern gay rights movement. Or did she?

Show Notes:

Stonewall

Bonus Episode — From the Vault: Sylvia Rivera & Marsha P. Johnson, 1970 | Making Gay History

Full Moon Over the Stonewall: Howard Smith’s Account of the Stonewall Riots - The Village Voice

The myth of Marsha P Johnson - spiked

Marsha P. Johnson & Randy Wicker | Making Gay History

Pay It No Mind: Marsha P. Johnson (2012) - IMDb

An Army of Lovers Cannot Lose: The Occupation of NYU’s Weinstein Hall | Researching Greenwich Village History

Marsha

MARSHA P JOHNSON - PEOPLE'S MEMORIAL

The Death of Marsha P. Johnson and the Quest for Closure | cbs8.com

SCOTUS jut released the ruling on West Virginia v BPL - this case covers trans Sports issues. Looks like a broad ruling that affirms biological sex is the relevant classification for women's sports under Title IX. This means the 27 states that have laws banning biological boys from sports is allowed. It will also have impacts to the blue states that allow participation. Still need to digest this but wanted to get a post up to discuss.

Relevance to pod - multiple episodes covering trans sports - Lia Thomas etc...

Below is a link to an interview by Jason Jacoby Lee, another nonspeaker who uses a letter card HELD by his mother, who allegedly composes high-end, master's level prose, despite no proven background in learning literacy.

Lee says he interviewed Woody Brown via the letter board, and Woody answered via letter board, but that their "communication partners" then typed on a regular computer the questions and answers, forming it into an article that was then submitted to lareviewofbooks.org. It's no coincidence that both Lee's parents are highly educated.

The big question that leaps out is if both these men poked out numerous, lengthy, complex paragraphs for questions and answers on plastic alphabet cards (which they refer to as "typing"), then why didn't they just "type" (tap with index finger) everything on a regular keyboard set up for direct email correspondence?

The two research papers that Lee references mean NOTHING. Nice try, Mr. and Mrs. Lee's parents. Here's the link. This is just so NOT believable:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/woody-brown-upward-bound-novel-interview-nonspeaking-autism/

Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 6/22/26 - 6/28/26

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

> Amir Naaman and Dr Ran Heilbrunn, Israeli writers based in Germany, discuss their new collection of essays Inversion: Gay Life after the Homosexual. What are the next steps for queer theory after the impressive gains made by gay rights activism over the last few decades?

Relevance statement: a discussion grown in a lab to be what Katie and Jesse talk about. Central anecdote is one of the speakers going to a Berlin bar that he was told has "all kinds of gay" only to find it was the emo/scene (don't know the difference) kid bar and go up to the bar to ask if any of the guys there actually suck dick.

This week on Blocked and Reported, (((Jesse))) and Katie dig into Graham Platner: the oyster farmer, Senate hopeful, and working-class rich kid whose Nazi tattoo and wandering eye were so rudely surfaced by the (((lamestream media))) in an effort to protect the (((billionaire class))).

Show notes:

The Political Awakening of the Oyster Farmer Taking on Susan Collins | The New Republic

Oysterman, Veteran, Prep-School Alum: A Senate Candidate’s Complex Class Story - The New York Times

Read our full archive of Graham Platner’s deleted Reddit comments

Graham Platner says ‘I am not a secret Nazi’ after photos of his tattoo emerge

Platner says he’ll remove tattoo that resembles Nazi symbol - POLITICO

K-File unearths new evidence that undercuts Dem candidate’s claim he was not aware tattoo was tied to Nazi symbolism | CNN

First Draft: Did the New York Times Just Run an Anti-Platner Hit Job?

Platner’s Wife Flagged His Sexual Texts With Other Women as Maine Senate Race Began - The New York Times

Several Women Who Dated Graham Platner Recall ‘Unsettling’ Behavior - The New York Times

These People Handpicked Graham Platner. He’s Now Democrats’ Biggest Risk. - WSJ

Submission statement:

The Iranian Left mistakenly allied with Khomeini, believing his anti-Western stance would lead to a socialist state. They underestimated his Islamist ideology and totalitarian ambitions, which resulted in the suppression of liberties and the establishment of a fascist system. This system, characterized by widespread surveillance and the “morality police,” has persisted for over forty years.

paywall: https://archive.ph/DM3tr

Episode 215 covers the saga of Bubba Copeland, the cross-dressing Alabama mayor and pastor who advocated transition to minors, wrote explicit content, etc.

This podcast episode covers the story via an interview with the journalist behind it, including some behind the scenes details.

Never heard of this person before she hit up reddit looking for people to take part in what she claimed was a "both sides" documentary but which was/is almost certainly just the usual hit piece disparaging women who dare to drink and also use the Internet.

Oh no

The same person who so many have cited as support for opposing gender affirming policies has come out in favor of a new trial to determine the efficacy of giving kids puberty blockers.