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A week of BP poisoning people in Iraq, the policeman who killed Breonna Taylor being rehired as a cop and the White House Correspondents’ dinner being blockaded by climate protestors

A re-reading of the news through an anarchist lens

Design by Naomi Gennery @nn.aa.ii

Hi, I’m Marcela: I’m a comedian, I live Brooklyn, and I really like to tell people how to feel about the news. After wowing zoomers all over on TikTok by giving them news with a sense of humour and anarchy, I decided to start a weekly Sunday newsletter to share my feelings about more news. 

My weekly newsletter has evolved into this beautiful Tuesday weekly news column for shado which also covers international news. I hope the newsletter keeps you informed and makes you laugh a little. We live in hell and I believe humour helps keep this place a little bit cooler.

Today I’m sharing my feelings on the cop who killed Breonna Taylor being hired to be a cop, BP poisoning people in Iraq, The White House Correspondents dinner being blockaded by climate protestors, and a Bronx Supreme Court judge being removed from criminal cases because she’s too nice to defendants.

Onto the news…

News that made me tell you cops saving cats from trees doesn’t make them good

Myles Cosgrove, the police officer who murdered Breonna Taylor, has been hired as an officer in the place called Carroll County, Kentucky because being a bad cop is apparently an asset in the policing community. 

Carroll County wanted to ensure they hired a bad cop so they figured, why not hire one with a public track record of being awful? Why else would you hire someone who is publicly known for being a bad cop other than to make sure your entire department is filled with only bad cops?

Saying a cop is a bad cop is redundant though, because the word cop denotes someone being bad. Just like the word tomato denotes a misunderstood fruit that people don’t give enough credit for being very tasty. There is no such thing as a good cop. Those videos of cops saving cats from trees are not videos of good cops. They are videos of bad cops trying to trick you into believing they are good cops by saving helpless felines. Don’t fall for it!

Myles Cosgrove was able to get a job at Carroll County because the Kentucky Law Enforcement Council didn’t revoke his police certification. 

Either the Kentucky Law Enforcement Council believes the best way to enforce the law is to make sure people who break the law are the ones enforcing the laws or the Council is reinforcing the notion that being a racist bad cop is actually just being a cop. 

It’s definitely both, because the world we live in is run by capitalist villains and villains’ minions are always criminals. Yes, the cops are capitalists’ minions but they are not the cute yellow minions you see in Disney films.

News that made me say King Charles and I have different values

This week it was revealed that British Petroleum (BP) is giving people in Iraq cancer by burning gas which releases cancer causing “pollutants” in the air. One thing you can always count on BP to do is to carry on the imperialist values of stealing people’s resources, harming the people it’s stealing resources from, saying it’s sorry about it when it’s been caught out, but never actually stopping.

I do realise these values are the same values that King Charles has – except for the fake apology part. I don’t understand how that man is not apologising profusely every day for his existence. I also don’t think people who have less money than me should pay for my narcissistic party where I’m crowned at the end. So we definitely have different values.

BP apologised to Hussein Julood whose son Ali Hussein Julood died from leukaemia as a direct result of the pollutants from oil fields run by BP. Obviously this is an empty apology because BP must know that black smoke being released into the air can’t be a good thing. No one has ever seen black smoke and thought, that smoke is perfectly healthy, and it’s so nice that I get to breathe it every day. The only smoke I’ve ever been excited to inhale is smoke from a joint.

BP’s apologies do not cover the fact that the goal of imperialism is to prioritise money over humans because colonised humans’ lives are not viewed as having value. BP wouldn’t be doing the same thing as it’s doing in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East in England for example.

BP also wouldn’t dream of letting a dark plume of dark poisonous smoke interrupt a coronation, when in fact that would be the only time that it would be acceptable to release dark smoke that is not poisonous. It’s never okay to release poisonous smoke anywhere!

News that made me say Joe Biden should never be allowed to have fun

Climate Defiance, a group that is not happy with Joe Biden’s plan to continue letting oil companies heat up the world, blockaded the White House Correspondents’ Dinner to demand the end of “fossil fuel extraction on public lands.” As a person who never wants Joe Biden to enjoy anything, I’m pretty happy these people came to make his life uncomfortable.

I’m additionally happy that this happened at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. I personally don’t like the White House Correspondents’ Dinner because I think it’s a little weird for the media that is covering the presidency to party with the president. The only time the media should be partying with the president is if partying means asking him why he continues to be a capitalist vessel.

I hope that the people blocking this dinner reminded all the journalists inside that they should be doing less partying with the president and more calling him out for not taking global warming seriously and being bad at comedy.

I think that Joe and the rest of the people willing to let the world burn for money should be blocked every single time they want to go somewhere or do something. They are blockading us from enjoying our lives so we should blockade them from enjoying theirs. So every time you see a capitalist or a capitalist vessel having fun, I implore you to make sure you do something that makes them stop having fun.

News that made me say a judge wasn’t completely and totally evil, which is the equivalent of me saying I love a judge

Naita Semaj-Williams, a Bronx Supreme Court justice, is being “removed from criminal” cases because according to the prosecutors she’s “biased on behalf of the accused.” So Naita is being removed from criminal cases for not being a completely evil judge. I say not completely evil because I don’t think there is such a good thing as a good judge, unless you are a judge who is setting everyone who comes to your court free. However, if the NYPD, prosecutors, the racist NY Post, and Eric Adams think you are doing a bad job, I’m willing to concede that you are not completely evil.

💌

Being biased on behalf of the accused includes Naita yelling at the police for giving a false testimony about a teenager possessing a gun. Naita also let a man go instead of holding him for bail because she determined he wasn’t a flight risk. Of course questioning the police when they lie and not holding people in prison before they are tried are a violation of the injustice system because the purpose of the injustice system is to maintain injustice.

One defence attorney said Naita’s treatment sends a message to judges that if they don’t do what the prosecutors and NYPD want, they will “suffer professional consequences and media scrutiny.” I hate to break it to you Mr. Defense Attorney but that is the point of removing Naita from criminal cases.

The City of New York wants all judges to know that you either serve injustice or you are out like a batter who gets a fourth strike. Clearly I don’t know how baseball works, but you get my point. You can’t maintain an injustice system if judges care about justice even if they only care a little bit. That’s like maintaining an unhealthy diet by eating fruit and vegetables every day.

I took a break from the news to defend the rats of Lenapehoking (so called New York)

@feelthenewswithmarcelaTalked to some friends, for high and now I’m 1000% pro rat♬ original sound – Feel the News


See ya next week,

Marcela

What can you do?

  • I didn’t have a lot of jokes in today’s column so I’m making it up to you by sharing my friend Atheer Yacoub’s album. Atheer is a Palestinian comedian who calls out Israel in such a funny way. You can listen to her album “Denied Entry” here.
  • If you’d like me to tell you how to feel about the news live, come to Feel the News the comedy show in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn) on 6th May at 8pm. Get your tickets here.
  • If you enjoy my writing and would like me to be able to do more of it please become a paying Feel the News subscriber.
    Read articles related to themes discussed this week:
  • The Rosebank oil field would be a betrayal for future generations – we cannot let it go ahead
  • What are climate reparations?
Design by Naomi Gennery @nn.aa.ii

 

Holding on, letting go Confronting my white privilege at the prison gates Behind the Green Curtain: the truth about Big Tech’s carbon footprint Loving Spam but not its legacy Pipeline to genocide: BP’s oil route to Israel Book Club 07 The Society of the Spectacle AI, Elections and Democracy: How Big Tech hijacks our free will and prices our consciousness TopSoil: gardening as radical queer resistance Stammering in the intersections Beyond the pole: cultivating community and destigmatising sex work What is Abolition?