PHAWKER.COM – Curated News, Gossip, Concert Reviews, Fearless Political Commentary, Interviews….Plus, the Usual Sex, Drugs and Rock n' Roll

Artwork by CHUNKY BEEF NEW YORKER: As [Sandy Hook mass murderer] Adam [Lanza]’s isolation deepened, Nancy’s naïveté began to blur into denial. She started making plans to move with Adam, possibly to Seattle, although she didn’t mention those plans to [his father] Peter. She had also suggested to a friend that she’d be living with Adam for a “very long time,” a situation that could have been upsetting for a young man too set on independence to let his father help him with his coursework. Nancy’s mixture of hovering appeasement and disregard for professional help now seems bewildering. Yet similar […]

  PC WORLD: Julian Assange doesn’t use the blustering rhetoric you might expect from the founder of the activist publishing group WikiLeaks. Assange is responsible for leaking documents that have changed America’s political landscape— State Department cables and Iraq War logs—yet to a South by Southwest audience on Saturday, he spoke quietly and matter-of-factly even when uttering the most inflammatory statements. “Who really wears the pants in the [Obama] administration?” Assange asked during a Skype call with the SXSW audience. “Is it the intelligence agencies or is it the civilian part of that administration?” The obvious answer from Assange’s perspective: The […]

  You can read the story HERE. RELATED: EXCERPT: How To Grow Up To Be A Debaser

  NEWSWEEK: Nakamoto has six children. The first, a son from his first marriage in the 1980’s, is Eric Nakamoto, an animation and 3-D graphics designer in Philadelphia. His next five children were with his second wife, Grace Mitchell, 56, who lives in Audubon, N.J., and says she met Nakamoto at a Unitarian church mixer in Cherry Hill, N.J., in the mid-1980s. She recalls he came to the East Coast after leaving Hughes Aircraft, now part of Raytheon, in his 20s and next worked for Radio Corporation of America in Camden, N.J., as a systems engineer. MORE ASSOCIATED PRESS: Dorian […]

Illustration via MODDB BY JOHN WRUBEL Last night at the National Constitutional Center, NPR’s Intelligence Squared hosted a debate for broadcast on the limits of executive power, specifically is the president exceeding the constitutional powers of his office when, absent due process, he orders a fatal drone strike on an American citizen living abroad who is suspected of aiding or abetting terror plots that would harm American citizens or the homeland. Such was the case with the fatal drone strike executed against Anwar Al-Awlaki (pictured below, right, with mouse ears) , a charismastic Imam and advocate for Jihad who was […]

Photo by CASEY KONSTANTIN FRESH AIR Last summer, four alleged leaders of rival prison gangs worked together to coordinate a hunger strike at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison. They were protesting long-term, indefinite incarceration in solitary confinement. Each of the men were in solitary when they launched the strike. One of them, Todd Ashker, has been in solitary for more than 20 years. On the first day of the strike, 30,000 prisoners across the state’s prison system refused their meals. The story of how the four prisoners coordinated the hunger strike, and the larger issue of how solitary confinement has […]

[Artwork via FREAKING NEWS] U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT: As Russia spins a false narrative to justify its illegal actions in Ukraine, the world has not seen such startling Russian fiction since Dostoyevsky wrote, “The formula ‘two plus two equals five’ is not without its attractions.” Below are 10 of President Vladimir Putin’s recent claims justifying Russian aggression in the Ukraine, followed by the facts that his assertions ignore or distort. 1. Mr. Putin says:  Russian forces in Crimea are only acting to protect Russian military assets. It is “citizens’ defense groups,” not Russian forces, who have seized infrastructure and military facilities […]

Vice News continues to kick ass on its Ukraine coverage. Turns out Vice isn’t just for Brooklyn hipster assholes — and those who aspire to become Brooklyn hipster assholes — anymore. PREVIOUSLY: Russian Roulette 2 PREVIOUSLY: Ukraine Burning

The Philadelphia Flower Show, yesterday, by PETE TROSHAK