Good day friend,

We here at Sentenced are HARD AT WORK!

This is SENTENCED’s eighth weekly newsletter. Thank you for signing up! You will not be disappointed.

On the Firing of our PI

When we tell you there has been conflict over last week’s report from PI Fluke Dimsworth… reader, we mean there has been conflict.

Speaking candidly, Fluke has gone crazy.

We fired him last Wednesday. Folks, that’s the most notable firing of American law enforcement in the past seven days.

Here’s the start of our correspondence.

This has gone on long enough. Because of your inability to follow up and investigate the case, we are terminating our business relationship with you, Fluke Dimsworth, effective immediately.

We’ve never been involved with someone as stupid as you. You’re a moron. A big old dumbass.

Best,

Sentenced HR

Now, let us just say that Fluke is far from fully literate.

Our editors have had to do a fair amount of work to publish his reports in a manner befitting of our standards. Please don’t attack us for publishing his email like this. Once you recognize the secret reason of this editorial choice, you will feel ashamed of your words & deeds.

Thank you for letting me know but everything you have said is fake. I will speak with lawyers about wrongful fired for reasons of Title IX descrimination on mental helth and we will sue you fully until you have nothing. Could higher me back as job like “On voy”

Please think twice before crossing me because you don’t know how far I will go to invest in gate a case like the one you have put me on. And I will get your money of this also because of wrongful firing and back pay for unfair labor practice.

So your “Marxist” but dont know how to treet workers. So thats so funny youre like that and its ironic.

Dimsworth out

We ignored this. We’re pretty bad at replying to emails.

We don’t understand why he’s so fucking mad at us. Over the course of the last six weeks, we’ve paid him $20,000 in unmarked, non-sequential bills, delivered straight to a lockbox in LA’s Union Station. Shouldn’t that be enough?

Now, this next email is why we’re publishing the newsletter in this way. If what he says is true, there are serious repercussions for the way our publication continues.

This is of serious concern.

Dear Editor

This is the PI you fired on Wes.

I want you to print this letter unedited in the first section of your newsletter.

If you don’t publish this letter by the afternoon of Tue. 10 of March 25, I will go on a kill rampage Tue. night. I will kill Crazy Jake, then cruse around all weekend killing lone people in the night then move on to kill again, until I end up with a dozen people over the weekend.

I know what you did and I know the extent of what you’re willing to do if things dont go your way.

So, that’s the secret of why we published his emails, typos and all.

We hope Fluke comes to his senses. He seems to be working through some of his issues in therapy. If we knew the extent of what he was willing to do, we simply would not have hired him or published his reports.

For those of you wondering why we haven’t gone to the police, well, we did! We figured this was a situation in which it would be acceptable to loosen our morals a bit and work with America’s punitive justice system. Unfortunately, the cops took one look at our website, saw the Tao Lin stories, and decided we were pulling a prank on them.

One of our editors, Jad Kamal, is now facing a felony charge for allegedly filing a “false” police report.

Fluke, if you’re reading this, and we know you are:

Let Crazy Jake out of captivity.

This has gone on long enough.

New Plagiarism Scandal

Readers, we fucked up.

Last week, we sent out a poem that we believed to be written by Canadian poet “Rupi Kaur”, the author of “Milk And Honey.” We were mistaken.

We published a poem by Canadian poet “Ruby Carr.”

And look, not only did we fuck up on that level, the poem was also plagiarized. It was actually written by Paul Bowles in 1949.

And… it also isn’t a poem. It’s a passage from a novel called “The Sheltering Sky”.

We will be honest. We fucked up. Worse yet, we’ve made this mistake before. In fact, almost every single thing we’ve ever published has been plagiarized. Seriously, almost every single thing.

We’d say we are going to try to be better in the future, but honestly, isn’t fucking up what makes us human?

What we’ve noticed, with regards to what’s happening to our publication, is that almost every single thing that happens is something we have to apologize for. We’re sick of that. The Austin chapter has long been telling us to move forward without accounting for anyone’s effete feelings of frailty. Even though we disagree with the Austin chapter politically, we have to acknowledge the fact that… they have a point.

What we will say is that this comes at a bad time for our publication. On top of our mascot’s murder, a hostage situation, and our editor Tao Lin being AWOL… now we have this?

We’ll be more careful, we’re considering analyzing the political climate and switching our allegiances and attitudes towards the wild, vulgar ways of the dirtbag left.

And… Ruby?

Once Jad beats his case, you’ll be hearing from our lawyers.

Three Jokes for Parties

This week we have some jokes for parties, written by esteemed satirist Stephen Triboulet! He’s previously written for McSweeney’s, Penthouse, and back when they were doing temporary hosts, he was a runner-up to be a guest host for The Daily Show!

These jokes are very political, so make sure you’re in the right company before you repeat them. Still, you might have some fun at cocktail parties by making these jokes, and you might just win the hearts of some of the people you speak with!

(ed. Note: We’ve bolded the punchlines to help readers with delivery.)

1. Last week, the Donald Trump presidential administration, Pete Hegseth, and the Department of War invaded Iran with an Air Force bombing campaign. But, they’re saying “The Department of War” hasn’t created the start of a war with this act… Right. That’s like me saying my wife’s divorce lawyer serving me papers isn’t the start of a “divorce”. It’s in the name, people! Divorce lawyer, Department of War! It’s not a maritime lawyer or the Department of Defense!
2. The Department of War’s illegal invasion of Iran has reportedly caused what the West chauvinistically calls “the Arab world” to explode with conflict, while also centralizing power within the Iranian government. When your country has so many ethnic, religious, and ideological factions struggling for power, an invading power could be just what’s needed to further centralize power within the country. Iran rightly sees this as an existential threat, and it seems like the relatively smaller squabbles going on within the country over human rights violations might be passed over in favor of fighting what the Shi’a Twelvers believe to be “The Great Satan”! So, what is this exactly? Is Trump trying to be the big alien from Watchmen?
3. Last week, Iran was struck by the Department of War in several places and it was truly awful. But the Iranian government is saying that they will NOT retaliate with strikes on American soil, only on army bases, naval ships, and the infrastructure of American allies. Their reasoning is that fighting a war against a foreign power whose territories proper are so far away, that isn’t advantageous to their goals in either the war or their long-term negotiations with the international community to obtain nuclear weapons. Plus, they can enact a trade war by closing the Straight of Hormuz, which they mostly control by using their air power. Considering that, it seems like there’s no telling who could win, and if America puts boots on the ground, a war of attrition would likely be won. Against all odds, it seems like the Americans are interested in doing so, no matter the casualties incurred. Morale among the American forces is low, with quality of life on the Navy’s ships seeming terrible, as far as I can see from social media posts! As the conflict is seen in popular imagination as a war fought for Israel, a foreign power— and a war fought for a religious ideology that the soldiers, who typically join the army for secular, economic reasons, don’t believe in— I think there’s reason to be concerned about the way that the soldiers themselves react to this conflict, especially with the way that our four prior wars in the region went, AND considering the possibility of a large anti-war student movement akin to the campus protests of our war in Vietnam, back in the 60s. This is the most unpopular war in American history, after all. God, you just don’t know for sure, but it really seems as if our nation’s long and storied imperialist history might catch up with us, and it’s been a long time coming. A conflict like this is frightening, especially with the involvement of not one, but two nuclear powers, and the potential of an impending nuclear Iran! Already the Polish have decided to violate the pact of non-proliferation as a result of this invasion. I really hope American quality of life isn’t impacted. As far as changing the name of the “Department of Defense” to the “Department of War” is going, yeah, I’d say they’re living up to the name! What exactly are we doing here? I mean, is this a war over oil, like the last two, or a war over establishing “democracy”? Or, perhaps… is this a war about distracting from the Epstein files?

Thanks, Stephen!

Try to memorize these, and this Saturday, March 14th, you go on out there in the world and tell these to partygoers. We guarantee you’ll be the talk of the town.

No further news.

Thank you for understanding.

We love you!

See you in a week,

Sentenced Lit​sentencedlit.org