Tennessee House Republican resigns after violating General Assembly discrimination, harassment policy

As lawmakers filed into the House chamber after a lunch break on Thursday, the desk of former Rep. Scotty Campbell sat empty, the characteristic lawmaker name plate missing from its front.

Campbell, R-Mountain City, resigned from the General Assembly in a sudden move Thursday, less than two hours after he told The Tennessean he had no plans to step down from a Republican caucus leadership position over a harassment policy violation.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, confirmed Thursday afternoon Campbell had issued a letter of resignation after an ethics subcommittee last month found Campbell had violated a workplace discrimination and harassment policy.

"Discrimination and harassment in any form will not be tolerated," the subcommittee memo states.

According to the memo, its findings were addressed to Sexton on March 29. The Tennessean has requested further comment from Sexton's office on when he was made aware of Campbell's violation and whether Sexton pursued any internal sanctions against Campbell before the memo was publicized.

Initially, there were no public repercussions for Campbell, the Republican Caucus vice chair, in the three weeks since the subcommittee issued their findings.

The memo was first reported by NewsChannel5, which reported at least one legislative intern complained of alleged sexually harassing communications from Campbell.

As the story broke inside the House chamber on Thursday right before lawmakers took a lunch break, Campbell sat at his desk with his head down.

He later declined to comment on the accusations that led to the ethics complaint and said he did not "at this point" have plans to resign.

"I have no comment in accordance with the General Assembly's policy," Campbell said.

Campbell never returned to the House chamber after walking out.

House GOP Caucus Chair Jeremy Faison, R-Cosby, told The Tennessean he had "just found out about" the ethics finding on Thursday morning and would need to review the details before passing judgment.

"This is all hypothetical that I'm answering right now, but if you have behaved in such a way that a bipartisan group has found you guilty, that's a problem," Faison said.

The House Workplace Discrimination and Harassment Subcommittee falls under the Ethics Committee and reviews confidential complaints in closed meetings. Rep. Pat March, R-Shelbyville, chairs the subcommittee. Democratic Reps. Karen Camper of Memphis and Bill Beck of Nashville sit on the subcommittee, along with Rep. Sam Whitson, R-Franklin.

Under the legislature’s harassment policy, an internal investigation must begin immediately after the complaints are received. The investigation would have led to a report, which would have been provided to the four-member House Ethics Subcommittee.

The subcommittee meeting convened at a fraught time in the Tennessee House, just two days after the deadly Covenant School shooting that sparked days of highly charged gun reform protests on the Capitol. Days later, House Republicans moved to expel three Democratic lawmakers who broke House rules to briefly lead a gun reform protest on the House floor.

It was an unprecedentedly political expulsion vote, as the House had not expelled a member since the 2018 expulsion of Rep. Jeremy Durham, R-Franklin, over sexual misconduct allegations involving nearly two dozen women.

In February 2017, Rep. Mark Lovell, R-Eads, left office while facing allegations of sexual harassment. Lovell, who was a freshman lawmaker, was later found to have violated the legislature’s harassment policy.

In 2019, Knoxville Democratic Rep. Rick Staples stepped down from a leadership position after the subcommittee found he violated the policy.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/tennessee-house-republican-violated-general-183346136.html

Fox News Parts Ways With Weekend Host Dan Bongino

Dan Bongino, one of the most right-leaning hosts in the Fox News stable, is leaving the network after the Fox Corp.-backed outlet and he could not come to terms on a new contract.

“Folks, regretfully, last week was my last show on Fox News on the Fox News Channel,” Bongino said on his podcast Thursday. “It’s tough. It’s tough to say that. You know, I’ve been there doing hits and working there for ten years…so the show ending was tough. And I want you to know it’s not some big conspiracy. I promise you. There’s no acrimony. This wasn’t some WWE brawl that happened. We just couldn’t come to terms on an extension.

Bongino, who joined Fox News as a contributor in 2019, began hosting the Saturday-night program “Unfiltered With Dan Bongino” on Fox News in 2021.

His departure, previously reported by Forbes, comes just days after Fox Corp. agreed to pay $787.5 million in a settlement to Dominion Voting Systems after being accused of defaming the ballot-technology company by passing along specious conspiracy theories about its role in the 2020 presidential election. Bongino was not a prominent part of the trial or slated to testify, but has been known to amplify dubious controversies, such as taking on policies that mandate getting a coronavirus vaccine, or telling social-media followers that Democrats were trying to orchestrate a coup during the 2020 presidential election.

“We thank Dan for his contributions and wish him success in his future endeavors,” Fox News said in a statement. The networks intends to air “Lawrence Jones Cross Country” in place of Bongino’s program Saturday night, while filling 10 p.m. with an encore of the weekday 11 p.m. program “Gutfeld!” Fox News plans to unveil a new schedule in coming weeks.

Bongino described the exit as amicable. “I really enjoyed myself there and you know they were good to me for ten years. I mean they allowed me to do a show called ‘Unfiltered,’ did what we wanted to do over there and covered the topics we wanted to cover. And it’s a sad day. It’s a sad day,” he said. “They did give me the opportunity to do one last show. I don’t want you to think they like, showed me the door, that’s on me, not on them. But I just thought it was best to kind of go this way for now. Like I said, it’s not acrimonious. I have a great team over there.”

Bongino is one of the most popular pundits in conservative-media circles. He has bona fides from his work as a New York City police officer and a long run as an agent for the U.S. Secret Service.

He has also hosted popular radio programs, and his show was used to replace the long-running show hosted by Rush Limbaugh. Bongino’s one-hour radio show for Westwood One also ran on the Fox Nation streaming service, but will no longer appear.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/fox-news-parts-ways-weekend-160108342.html

Man created ‘deepfake’ porn of former classmates using their old photos, prosecutor says

A man created “deepfake” pornography using old social media photos of over a dozen women while they were in middle school and high school, a prosecutor said.

Patrick Carey, 22, of Seaford in Long Island, New York, posted the explicit images involving the women’s faces to a pornographic website, according to the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office in New York.

In sharing the photos, he encouraged strangers to “harass and threaten them with sexual violence” while sharing the women’s phone numbers and where they lived, officials said.

Many women were Carey’s former school classmates, WABC-TV reported.

A judge sentenced Carey to six months in prison and 10 years probation with sex offender conditions on April 18, District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly announced in a news release. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender.

“Carey targeted these women, altering images he took from their social media accounts and the accounts of their family members and manipulating them using ‘deepfake’ technology,” Donnelly said in a statement.

“These incredibly brave women pieced together his depraved conduct and brought it to the authorities,” Donnelly added. “They were not afraid, and they were undeterred.”

Carey previously pleaded guilty to several charges, including promotion of a sexual performance by a child, second-degree aggravated harassment as a hate crime, second-degree stalking and endangering the welfare of a child in December, the release said.

Family members of the victims were not satisfied with Carey’s sentencing, according to WABC-TV.

“He didn’t get what he deserved,” one family member told the outlet.

In New York state, there are no laws regarding those who create sexually explicit “deepfakes,” according to Donnelly.

Because of this, Donnelly proposed the “Digital Manipulation Protection Act” that aims to prosecute “sexual predators and child pornographers” who make these images, she said.

The women targeted by Carey went to MacArthur High School in Levittown, according to the district attorney’s office.

Some of them said they learned Carey “screenshotted” their social media photos after getting notifications from the unspecified platforms, according to the release.

An investigation revealed Carey posted the “deepfake” images — which show the victims’ faces on the bodies of other women engaged in sex acts — by using three different usernames from August 2019 until September 2021, the release said.

Carey was arrested in September 2021 and found with multiple photos of the victims after a search of his phone, tables, social media and online accounts, according to the district attorney’s office.

In court, Carey apologized for his actions, News 12 Long Island reported.

His potential motive in targeting his former classmates wasn’t specified by Donnelly in the release.

“Deepfake” technology “can be used to make people believe something is real when it is not,” Peter Singer, a cybersecurity and defense-focused strategist and senior fellow at New America think tank, told CNBC in an October 2019 interview.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/man-created-deepfake-porn-former-162219573.html

Agenda47: Ending the Nightmare of the Homeless, Drug Addicts, and Dangerously Deranged

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISTu6JRtJTI

Read the comments on this video too.

It seems that all the past promises and future promises are missing the mark. Possibly designed for the sole purpose of making the majority believe that things are great, when the reality is, they're not.

For anyone who has dealt with the things Trump says he 'has fixed" or "Will fix" its far from reality.

VA SUCKS! Didn't fix shit IMO. Can't get through. Hard to make claims. Impossible to get coverage of many things, and if you do, it's bare minimum. Not enough VA housing or resources.

Gas in many parts was NEVER low.

Cost of living, same thing. Rent, housing – all of it. Just because the interest rates were low for a minute, banks made it impossible to qualify, denying people the ability to buy.

These are always lovely thoughts, but in reality. not much changes. What will make it different in the future?