weekly yikes report for dec 17-dec 23

Israel is no longer allowing vaccines to be admitted into Palestine. They are citing a law from 1986 that only allows import of vaccines from 10 countries. The Palestinian Ministry of Health has been importing vaccines from WHO certified countries since 1995, with the help of UNICEF. The 10 countries Israel’s old-ass law allows are, conveniently, not WHO certified. This is fucked up and leaves Palestine vulnerable to many preventable diseases like polio and whooping cough.

One of the recurring themes throughout Yikes’ short time so far is the bleakness of our criminal justice system. If you have some spare dollars, I urge you to put them towards the National Bail Fund Network. You can make a real difference in the lives of others and help decarcerate this country. If you are on twitter, #prisonculture is an indispensible follow for all the work she does and lifts up.

Getting back to the McRae Dowless election fraud sitch in North Carolina: seems like the state has known about this nonsense for at least two years. The election officials made their concerns known via meetings and a formal referral letter in early 2017, yet the local DA and US Attorney’s did squat.

“I don’t have any faith in our county elections, because they’ve allowed so much to go on and never did anything about it,” Register said in a telephone interview. “It’s as if the ones who control the politics want him in there. . . . Whoever was in line to do this, whoever is supposed to be following up on crooked elections, is not doing their job.”

Brenda Register, a resident of Elizabethtown in Bladen County

Can you blame Brenda for feeling this way? Do you think McRae Dowless is the only person in the country running schemes like this? We gotta remain vigilant about our democracy, or we’ll lose it.

Dr. Gladys West helped invent motherfucking GPS and she is being inducted into the Air Force Hall of Fame. Dr. West was part of the group of women working on computing featured in the film Hidden Figures.

Turning Point USA is a conservative youth org most famously known for wearing diapers to own the libs. They held a student summit in Palm Beach recently. Of course, the Trump admin wanted to send their coolest, most relatable conservative all star for the kids to fawn over, so they sent…Wilbur Ross. Yeah, sentient corn husk commerce secretary Wilbur Ross. Turns out it wasn’t the most popular engagement!

In real justice news: a Missouri man has been sentenced to a year in jail and must watch the film Bambi once a month. He was involved in one of the biggest poaching schemes in the state. And now, he has to watch a Disney animated movie twelve times. Not only that but he’s been fined over $50,000, and the investigation has taken down many other assholes too!

I hope you have accepted the fact that there will be a story involving @jack and/or Twitter pretty much every week. This particular tale is so batshit that there was no way I could keep from mentioning it. The Zen Mastermind of a CEO once sent his beard hair trimmings to Azaelia Banks so she could make him an amulet to ward off evil-doers. Paul F Tompkins has the only necessary take:

It’s no surprise that Scientology will go after people and publications to intimidate them into removing negative stories about their church. This week, the Church Streisand Effected it up by demanding the fairly popular feminist blog Jezebel to take down a story about Shelly Miscavige. She has not been seen in public since 2007. Leah Remini, former Scientologist and Shelly’s friend, has been vocal about her concern.

The Church denied anything was wrong and took the classic projection move of calling Leah the creepy one. They continue this tactic today, by claiming that Jezebel writing this story is actually further harassment towards Shelly. If one does the shallowest of dives into this religion, one will find many stories of ex-members who have been harassed, bullied, and died mysteriously. I am not entirely sure Shelly is even alive anymore, but I doubt David Miscavige or anyone in the Sea Org will give us closure on that.

Onto the international bribery and corruption beat! It’s a hat trick this week. Thanks to my bud Sam for giving me the heads up on these next stories.

Joy to the world: there’s a very good chance Benjamin Netanyahu will be indicted on bribery charges! The state has recommended he be charged in two of the investigations into his corruption. Can’t wait to see how this all goes down!

Malaysia is seeing over $7 billion in damages from Goldman Sachs. The state just filed criminal charges against the American bank, claiming they siphoned funds meant for development in the country. This huge fraud scam involved bribing officials and charging excessive fees on the bonds they were selling. Looks like Goldman Sachs is trying to blame the government for the $4 billion dollars that disappeared from the Malaysian development fund 1DMB (which my brain keeps reading as IMDB, making this story *very* confusing to write)

The former president of Argentina has been accused of receiving tens of millions of dollars in bribes while in office. Cristina Kirchner is a senator currently and immune from being held in pre-trial detention. She is not, however, immune to prosecution. She stands accused of running a criminal network and is suspected of receiving bribes in exchange for public works contracts.