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My worry would also be that this will soon expand to cover sites with any sort of "adult" or restricted content, regardless of whether it is sexual. Will we need to show our IDs to read an article about Ukraine or Gaza if it includes graphic descriptions or pictures?

Brown v. Merchants Entertainment Association and US v. Stevens pretty clearly limit obscenity as to minors to sex stuff. In Brown the Court was 7-2 that California could not require age verification for violent video games that werent also obscene, and Stevens said obscene is limited to sex and not violence.

Does "sex" include nudity and/or topless women or just sex acts?

Typically nudity requires something else in additon to nudity to be obscene. It can be obscene as to minors if its public nudity with a commercial purpose.

Public nudity (as in a place where the general public is invited such as a private restaurant) generally is a separate crime from obscenity with a lesser punishment.

Nudity + simulated sex acts/stroking self/sexually gratifying flashing is usually classified as obscenity.

Public nudity + money changing hands is a mid tier analysis. In Virginia, our supreme court has ruled if the purpose of your nudity is financial gain you cannot raise free speech claims. I had to draft a zoning interpretation this year for the City Zoning Administrator denying a business license clearance for a nude cleaning service. A few years ago though I drafted a legal memo that a planned wet t-shirt contest in a bar did not violate our obscenity ordinance due to the participants not being paid and minors not being allowed inside.

The current formula for obscenity under SCOTUS excludes bona fide artistic/literary/scientific material. The Virginia flag, the book Ulysses, the film Taxi Driver, science text books, none of these are classified as obscene given the purpose. The purpose of porn is fap material. A 20 minute video with 1 minute of the pizza delivery guy knocking and flirting with a woman and 19 minutes of sex is plainly not bona fide art within the meaning of obscenity.

So in other words nudity is obscene if:

- it also includes some other act to sexualize the nudity;
- it is being done in a public place around kids; or
- it is being done in a public place in exchange for money

Michigan for Biden

Mexican cartels have killed Americans before. Maybe they try to avoid it but it's happened several times.

Honestly this is overrated.

Dems don’t need much of a strategy other than don’t do anything too insane. Trump will drive people to the polls for them. Just stick to normal D talking points and dont have any affairs and Dems will be chilling.

Wisconsin will be close.

Texas for sure (Trump wins by 5-8%). All of the others (including GA and NC) are very much in play.

Thrilled to see that Trump is wasting time and resources in a safe state.

The more Trump reaches out to minorities, and the more minorities that join the Trump Train, will cause a domino effect in other states. Just because Trump rallied in a deep blue part of the country doesn’t mean it won’t have ramifications nationwide….

There were a handful of minorities in the crowd but it looked mostly like more of the same Trump crowd. And no one cares about this. People will forget about this rally two days from now.

It can be hard to tell whites and latinos apart from distant shots but based on the images I saw, the crowd seemed to be predominantly Hispanic.

Outrageous, but our weak President won't do anything.  RIP

It’s another country, what would you expect him to do?

Some drone strikes on known gang locations should be good.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64910394.amp
Mexican cartels know not to touch American citizens so Haitian gangs should also learn.

From what I hear the Kenyans are in Haiti with American funding so maybe we can ask them to go after this gang ?

"Transformative financial donations don't come along often in higher education. So when a donor promised a $237.75 million gift to Florida A&M University, school officials were understandably excited.

The donor was Gregory Gerami, a 30-year-old businessman from Texas who said he wanted to make sure the historically Black school's windfall would help students who needed the money most. Funds were also designated for FAMU's athletics department.

"This is more than $100 million more than we have currently in our endowment," FAMU President Larry Robinson said as he unveiled the donation at the school's spring commencement ceremony in Tallahassee, Fla. "This is just incredible."

But amazement at the large gift soon gave way to shock as questions arose about Gerami's donation. And as word of the surprise donation spread, FAMU leaders were confronted with news reports that linked Gerami to an earlier transformative gift to another school — a donation that never came to fruition."

...

"Gerami announced the donation during a May 4 commencement ceremony, in an elaborate event where he delivered a fairly standard graduation speech — before giving Robinson a belt buckle and saying he should buckle up for what was coming.

As a gigantic nine-figure check was brought onto the stage, the PA system played a montage of songs, including The O'Jays' "For The Love of Money" and "Grateful" by Hezekiah Walker.

About the $237.75 million donation, Gerami told the crowd: "By the way, the money is in the bank."

[vice president for university advancement Shawnta] Friday-Stroud later said that Gerami's speech was his idea. And last week, Robinson, the university president, apologized for the event, saying it's something that should not have happened.

The university has removed the video of the commencement from its YouTube page, along with other mentions of the donation from its website and social media channels."

...

"After the May 4 commencement, skeptics such as Jerell Blakeley, writing for the Education News Flash Substack on May 6, raised questions about Gerami, highlighting news reports connecting him to at least one earlier big college donation that fell apart.

FAMU then put the donation on pause, with Kristin Harper, chair of the board of trustees, stating in a public meeting on May 10 that "serious concerns have been raised regarding the validity of the gift, the adequacy of the due diligence processes and whether the foundation board and board of trustees have been provided ample oversight opportunity."

Last week, Robinson said engagement with Gerami had "ceased," and he began referring to the gift as a "proposed donation" that was stopped in its tracks.

As the school's foundation and board of trustees held public Zoom meetings to discuss the matter, more details about the donation emerged:

-While Gerami said the money was "in the bank," Friday-Stroud said the donation was made in the form of 15 million shares of stock in Batterson Farms, Gerami's privately held company.

-As for the gift amount of $237.75 million, Friday-Stroud told FAMU's foundation on May 9 that the sum reflected the stock being valued at $15.85 a share. But in that board meeting, it also emerged that FAMU did not have a third party analyze the valuation.

-When asked why FAMU hadn't independently verified the stock's value during discussions about the donation, Friday-Stroud said a decision was made to hold off on a third-party valuation of the stock until the university's annual financial audit, scheduled for early summer.

-Friday-Stroud said that she and Robinson were among the people who signed nondisclosure agreements requiring them to keep the donation secret from other leaders. She also cited donors' rights to privacy and confidentiality under state law.

-Robinson says he didn't tell the chair of either the school's foundation or board of trustees, who have legal and financial oversight for the institution, because he was worried that doing so might "jeopardize this transformational donation."

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/24/1251762083/famu-hbcu-mega-gift-gerami-what-happened-what-next

Talk of a merger or non-compete agreement between the BC Conservatives and BC United has collapsed in acrimony and recriminations with Falcon and Rustad accusing each other of lying and negotiating in bad faith. I'm enjoying every minute of it

I don't really have a horse in what happens in BC, but to me it seems like BC United didn't really make this offer in good faith. It basically entailed the Conservatives not running in most of the interior. You know, the part of the province where Conservatives are most likely to win seats. The Conservatives are polling neck-and-neck with the NDP, and BCU are dropping down to Green Party levels. I don't know where Kevin Falcon got the audacity to try and negotiate such a hard bargain, but there's literally zero reason for Rustad to accept such a deal. Effectively all it would do is stall BC Conservatives, let BCU hang on for dear life, and more likely than not give momentum to the NDP.