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Welcome one & all to the News on News situation room 🆘 for a little Q & A on Jamie’s loooong letter to the world. We have slipped into sthng less comfortable,
& we will, for now, be working under the assumption that it is the genuine letter, & not an ersatz letter, for a number of reasons which are explained here.
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Here is an index of what we talked abt:
1. Did we expect this letter?
2. What do we think of the AP’s decision not to link to the letter?
3. Did they say anything abt Miss Jessica Taylor?
4. Did they say anything abt Michael Vassar?
5. Was there New News on Alice?
6. Was there New News on John David Pressman?
7. Who is Jadzia?
8. Did we learn any more of Somni’s & Emma’s dirt-digging endeavors chez the Rationalists?
9. Any more weird Rationalist stuff?
10. Did we learn more abt the Vallejo shooting/stabbing?
11. What most surprised us from this letter?
12. What most disturbed us from this letter?
13. Does Jamie say anything abt Milo?
14. Does Jamie say anything abt their own legal case?
15. What does Jamie say abt Mz. Ziz?
16. What do they say abt conditions in jail?
17. Do they make any requests?
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Did we expect this letter? No, not at all! We were snuggled up in bed on a Saturday, musing w/ our gf abt going to a plant fair. We happened to check X, happened to see the news, & our heart stopped.
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What do we think of the AP’s decision not to link to the letter? Well, the reporter who responded to our source made a good point: it contains many abuse allegations, which AP, apparently, has not verified. The obvious follow-up q. is: does AP— does anyone— plan on trying to verify these allegations? 🤷🏻♀️ If they do, they will find them widely echoed elsewhere.
Call us a cynic: we couldn’t help but notice how, in their letter, Jamie excoriates the press for— well, for all the things we started News on News so that we could say ourself 🎭
They don’t just say the press has gotten it all wrong: they call out the press for acting as the Rationalists’ megaphone— as their uncritical mouthpiece. They call out the press’s platforming of The Unnamed Site, & ofc for their buddy-buddy relationship w/ ppl like Jessica Taylor. They call out the press’s transphobia, & its hunger for spectacle. They say no more & no less than what we have been observing for months.
Could their clear-sightedness, we wonder, have contributed to AP’s decision not to include a link— given how AP exemplifies many of the press’s failings on this story, & is, ofc, repeatedly cited by other reporters who do not have the time or inclination to get their hands dirty in primary sources like Ziz’s blog? 🤷🏻♀️ On some level, perhaps it did.
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Did they say anything else abt Miss Jessica? They expressed surprise that Miss Jessica seems to perpetually get news on their friends before they do! It was, for example, from Jessica’s twitter that they learned Emma was dead & Somni mortally wounded!
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What abt Michael Vassar, did they say anything abt Michael Vassar? They said Michael Vassar & his circle “want Ziz and her friends dead”! They detail sexual abuse Michael is said to have perpetrated, & claim he has dined regularly w/ the Russian mob! Oh, & they say he has ties to Epstein.
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Was there New News on Alice? Yes, none of it surprising, all of it dreadful: more abuses— and, oh yes, a link to Emma’s call-out post, which an adept member of our studio audience has coaxed from the jaws of the Wayback Machine 🙏 Here is Fluttershy's response to Emma's post.
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Was there New News on John David Pressman? But ofc! Do you remember, in the New News cave, when we mentioned that mystery person who threatened to bomb a Rationalist event & blame it on Ziz & friends? According to Jamie (ATJ), that person was egged on by John— &, ATJ, that person was poor Fluttershy, aka Edo. We would never have guessed Fluttershy— whom, to be fair, we never had the pleasure of meeting, but… w/ a name like Fluttershy? 🤷🏻♀️ It caught us by surprise.
On that topic, we’d like to add: in the letter, we retained all names but would normally have wanted to obscure many. We never, despite what it might look like, want to rub salt into a stranger’s traumata, w/ no idea of where they are in their life currently; & lacking, ofc, their permission to refresh old wounds 😞 Nowhere did we feel this more acutely than in the John section of Jamie’s letter.
John seems to have had both a knack & a passion for getting his victims to carry out his dirty work. We do not blame these victims— we know from personal experience what it can be like in the clutches of one like John! We hope only that all surviving John-victims can continue their healing far, far away from that boy. & that John-victims who did not survive— like Fluttershy— can continue their healing too.
W/ that said, Jamie mentions 2 of John’s victims sharing, w/ them & w/ Emma, details of John’s abuse. We believe this corroborates what @aflowerbynoothername has referred to. Word of this got back to John, who panicked, thinking these abuse narratives might get shared w/ Ziz, & then published online. If we have our timeline correct, this was one of his reasons for publishing The Unnamed Site (TUS)— in order to preemptively discredit Ziz & friends.
Jamie also mentioned sthng profoundly disturbing that John had “plans & fantasies (PAF)” of doing to Ziz.
Believe it or not: we intended for this Q & A to be, in part, for all of you who did not want to wade thru Jamie’s often-graphic abuse descriptions. We will say only that these PAF involved kidnapping & sexual assault.
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Who is Jadzia? Well, we’ve been calling her Somni! Which name does she go by currently? We dk, but may write her in an effort to find out! On that note, Jamie signs off this letter as “Michelle (JM)”. Do they go by JM now? 🤷🏻♀️ We also want to write them &, in a censored sort of way, indicate that we have seen this letter. We will attempt to ask them their name as well.
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Did we learn any more of Somni’s & Emma’s dirt-digging endeavors chez the Rationalists? Ye-es, we think so. We learned that Somni screenshotted an account of sexual misconduct by MIRI leadership, & that both Somni & Emma were in talks to make a documentary aaaall abt the Rationalists’ dirt, but that these talks got scuppered after Emma’s death & Somni’s arrest 😫
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Any more weird Rationalist stuff? Ohhhh yes. According to Jamie, the dreaded Eliezer Yudkowsky himself “popularized” the notion of an AI arms race— he, w/ ppl like Anna Salamon, wanted to gain more legitimacy for AI research, so that academics would take his org MIRI more seriously. He began whispering of an AI arms race, got taken seriously— & now there is an AI arms race, which seems to legitimate the need for MIRI 🙄 V. strange.
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Ah, did we learn more abt the Vallejo shooting/stabbing? Yes, & it came out of left field. Do you remember Ratheka Stormbjorn? Allegedly one of The Unnamed Site’s co-authors? Jamie says that Ratheka says they & Curtis Lind were “old friends”. Jamie says:
I find it strange that a member of a circle of humans who have motives to want Ziz and her friends dead, whose de facto leader has committed to going to extremes to see them imprisode [sic] or dead, just happened to be friends with the guy who murdered Emma and shot Jadzia.
It turns out that, after Emma’s death, Jamie jumped into investigating what happened in Vallejo. They say, “I did the investigation Jadzia's public defenders were too lazy or incompetent to do.” They point to:
• Lind making contradictory statements under oath & during interviews
• Emma’s mother coming to get her dead daughter’s possessions, & Lind refusing— making a (wrong) argument that, since she died on his land, he now owned all her stuff. This “stuff” included $100,000 worth of electronic/tech equipment. Lind was $50,000 in debt, & was struggling to sell his lot. This, as @aflowerbynoothername has already suggested, may have been a motive if he did attack the girls. Emma’s mother’s lawyer finally had to explain to him that he did not have a right to Emma’s stuff— but he & his family took most of it anyway, leaving only one truck.
• V. unexpectedly, Jamie repeats what we thought was the most improbable part of @AFBNON’s account: that Lind’s “best friend” Patrick McMillan is ex-CIA. Jamie clarifies: Patrick claimed “on the stand” to be ex-CIA, “but the number of years made no sense”.
• Jamie says Lind is recorded calling Patrick right before a 911 call in the days before the shooting, & believes Patrick coached Lind on what to say during various emergency calls. During these calls, Jamie says, Lind describes events which another eyewitness denies ever happened.
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What most surprised us from this letter? Oh, Jamie says that “a little birdie” told them: “Plum had a brain tumor in 2021, which caused Plum to mishead [sic] Ziz on the phone. The call was recorded, & as it turns out no threats were made. That was why Plum took the post down.”
Plum ofc refers to Jamie’s tumblr, @plumofdiscord. 🤯
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What most disturbed us from this letter? 😮💨 Jamie’s statements on Audere & on Suri.
We had, previously, been warming up to Audere. We felt protective of them, since all their classmates seemed like such haters! If what Jamie says is true, tho, we rescind our warmth, & we rescind our wanna-be protectiveness 😤 Jamie alleges severe abuse & stalking of Milo by Audere. Jamie would know this: they lived w/ Milo in a boxtruck for some time.
Also: insult to injury— do you remember that $ Audere had talked abt raising for Ziz— possibly w/in the Ziz Circle we were cruelly not invited to? Jamie writes: “This is news to me! We never saw a penny. If you were donating, you were defrauded.” 😱
As for Suri… Jamie says that Suri “hated” Emma, & that they said: “I just hate trans women that much”. Jamie believes that they encouraged Lind to walk out to Emma’s truck— & bring his gun— on the day that he shot Emma. They say a lot of other stuff abt Suri that sounds… to put it mildly, like Suri is a disturbed individual.
This is whiplash from how we’d previously written on Suri: where we were, again, feeling protective (FP). This time, we were FP against Suri’s original lawyers, who talked abt their mental health in what we thought was a degrading way. It is just all v. sad, & we’ll leave it there since we’ve never met Suri.
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Does Jamie say anything else abt Milo? 😮💨 Federal agents are pressuring them to testify against xir. Also they say they “have serious questions about the narrative I have head [sic] in the news, regarding the shootings… [Milo] alleged that the DHS agents who were stalking them, (posing as a neighbor), had threatened to r*pe them. I want to see the body cam footage & so should you. I would not trust the 'official' story unless I saw it with my own eyes, given how often cops & feds lie.”
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Does Jamie say anything abt their own legal case? Yes, they say that Alyssa Vance— ex-CEO of CFAR, & enthusiastic participant in The Great Witch-Hunt of 2019– who is, incidentally, close to Michael Vassar— is the one who called the police in PA, “in an attempt to convince them I had been recruited by a cult or extremist group, and falsely alleged that I had murdered my parents.”
They add that Alyssa has a history of lying to police: she had previously “told [them] that the reason Ziz protested MIRI & CFAR… was that Ziz thought [they] ‘weren't doing enough’ for AI safety.” We have seen this faux-reason repeated many times in the press!
Jamie also says their grandmother’s ex-aide has made up a convo that never happened, & that the press has been repeating this phony convo w/ relish. This might be a convo where Jamie is said to have said to their grandmother, “I’m sorry, Nona”. We have seen this line before.
& they assure us: they did not come to Maryland w/ plans to terrorize our little state! They came w/ plans that “included eating (vegan) soft pretzels with guacamole, repairing a diesel heater, & camping”.
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What does Jamie say abt Mz. Ziz? 😪 That she developed a heart condition while jailed after the murder of Jamie’s parents. She was also “starved”, denied HRT, & put in solitary.
They say, “I love her infinitely more than I could ever express.” & they credit her w/— among many other things— finally convincing them to leave Alice.
They also say that the feds have been pressuring them to make claims against Ziz, but that they have not: “She's never taken her anger out on me, or any of our friends, and I cannot even say she's ever been rude to me. She doesn't deserve her bad reputation.”
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What do they say abt conditions in jail?
The conditions are gruesome. The conditions are, incidentally, unfolding 2h 11mins away from where we are holding this Q & A rn!
We have, for weeks, been having v. worried convos w/ our gf abt Allegany County Jail— just abt small things we’ve learned that seem designed for big things: that seem designed to break down the hope of prisoners. We’ve been asking each other: “How can this be the case in Maryland?”
We’ve been treated to another side of MD: to a side where human services are proactive, well-designed, & humane— where they make a point of reaching out to, in their own words, “underserved communities”, & where they do a good job. Where they seem invested in making sure that MD residents don’t fall thru the cracks. We have been shaken to discover that this is not the only side of MD.
Allegany County Jail sounds like a terrible place. Jamie writes: “The captors here do not care if we die.” They describe pervasive medical neglect, & unbearable cell conditions. They describe getting 300-700 calories of food a day, & having their tray taken away before they can finish it. They say they are “slowly starving”. Since being in jail, Jamie’s caught Covid, & their messages to their lawyer have not been getting thru— “Oddly”.
“From what I understand,” they say, “my friends have been subjected to worse abuses.” Ziz is in “disciplinary”, which may be equivalent to solitary confinement. She is not allowed to buy food from commissary, or to “access the tablets, which contain their (insufficient) ‘legal library,’ so I doubt she can even research her case.” They heard from another inmate that guards have thrown trays of food at either Ziz or at Daniel, “screaming… ‘YOU EAT WHAT WE GIVE YOU!’” Ziz’s cell block is said to have “especially bad” conditions. They saw Ziz recently, & say, “I have never seen her look so pale & thin.” They emphasize that Ziz has a heart condition, & say, “I place a significant probability on our captors murdering Ms. Lasota through medical neglect.”
Jamie has heard that both Ziz & Daniel have been on hunger strike for most of their time in jail. They add: they “delayed” going on hunger strike themselves, “on the grounds that getting out a message like this was more important”.
This was a big reason why we decided to publish this letter immediately, & in full. We couldn’t live w/ ourself if we had done nothing after reading a line like that. We decided we’d rather risk being rash.
Oh, & Jamie adds: “even if we do die here, we would fight MIRI & CFAR's leadership all over again, if given the chance. It's worth it.”
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Last q.: do they make any requests? Yes: we wish they had revealed sthng, anything, material & tangible that we could do for them 💀 But their request is good— they say:
I ask you to help us, if you can. I encourage you to investigate the crimes of individuals at organizations like MIRI & CFAR, & to speak the truth about abusers like Alice Monday. The leadership at MIRI & CFAR, JD's cret [sic], & the Vassarites all appear to have thought that if they trashed our reputations, murder us, & jail us, then no one will believe us or even hear us.
Prove them wrong.
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That’s all for tn, everyone. Jamie says they want “public scrutiny (PS)” to come from this letter— PS aimed at the Rationalists. Oh, we hope the press chooses to publish it! In any case, you can find the full version right here. Ty so much for coming, friends, & make it home safe.
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