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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#256501: Oct 4th 2018 at 8:47:09 AM

And yet there is a calendar which shows a similar meeting in the time frame and a witness mentioned by herself which the republicans have hid away.

Not to mention allegations from other one, one of which by now being collaborated by a witness who at the very least head about it back in the day and who the FBI also hasn't questioned yet.

And I have the feeling that more and more people will come forward, ensuring that the whole case will be go to court in the media.

Larkmarn Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Hello, I love you
#256502: Oct 4th 2018 at 9:00:25 AM

What's happened with the person who saved text messages from Brett saying "okay, you'll be my alibi for this" before any accusations were even brought up?

That really seems about as smoking gun as you can get in a 30-year-old attempted rape case.

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
BlueNinja0 The Mod with the Migraine from Taking a left at Albuquerque Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
The Mod with the Migraine
#256503: Oct 4th 2018 at 9:11:29 AM

When it comes to Trump, and the defense of Kavanaugh, maybe the cruelty IS the point.

    Full article text 
Emphasis mine.
The Museum of African-American History and Culture is in part a catalog of cruelty. Amid all the stories of perseverance, tragedy, and unlikely triumph are the artifacts of inhumanity and barbarism: the child-size slave shackles, the bright red robes of the wizards of the Ku Klux Klan, the recordings of civil-rights protesters being brutalized by police.

The artifacts that persist in my memory, the way a bright flash does when you close your eyes, are the photographs of lynchings. But it’s not the burned, mutilated bodies that stick with me. It’s the faces of the white men in the crowd. There’s the photo of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Indiana in 1930, in which a white man can be seen grinning at the camera as he tenderly holds the hand of his wife or girlfriend. There’s the undated photo from Duluth, Minnesota, in which grinning white men stand next to the mutilated, half-naked bodies of two men lashed to a post in the street—one of the white men is straining to get into the picture, his smile cutting from ear to ear. There’s the photo of a crowd of white men huddled behind the smoldering corpse of a man burned to death; one of them is wearing a smart suit, a fedora hat, and a bright smile.

Their names have mostly been lost to time. But these grinning men were someone’s brother, son, husband, father. They were human beings, people who took immense pleasure in the utter cruelty of torturing others to death—and were so proud of doing so that they posed for photographs with their handiwork, jostling to ensure they caught the eye of the lens, so that the world would know they’d been there. Their cruelty made them feel good, it made them feel proud, it made them feel happy. And it made them feel closer to one another.

The Trump era is such a whirlwind of cruelty that it can be hard to keep track. This week alone, the news broke that the Trump administration was seeking to ethnically cleanse more than 193,000 American children of immigrants whose temporary protected status had been revoked by the administration, that the Department of Homeland Security had lied about creating a database of children that would make it possible to unite them with the families the Trump administration had arbitrarily destroyed, that the White House was considering a blanket ban on visas for Chinese students, and that it would deny visas to the same-sex partners of foreign officials. At a rally in Mississippi, a crowd of Trump supporters cheered as the president mocked Christine Blasey Ford, the psychology professor who has said that Brett Kavanaugh, whom Trump has nominated to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court, attempted to rape her when she was a teenager. “Lock her up!” they shouted.

Ford testified to the Senate, utilizing her professional expertise to describe the encounter, that one of the parts of the incident she remembered most was Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge laughing at her as Kavanaugh fumbled at her clothing. “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter,” Ford said, referring to the part of the brain that processes emotion and memory, “the uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.” And then at Tuesday’s rally, the president made his supporters laugh at her.

Even those who believe that Ford fabricated her account, or was mistaken in its details, can see that the president’s mocking of her testimony renders all sexual-assault survivors collateral damage. Anyone afraid of coming forward, afraid that she would not be believed, can now look to the president to see her fears realized. Once malice is embraced as a virtue, it is impossible to contain.

The cruelty of the Trump administration’s policies, and the ritual rhetorical flaying of his targets before his supporters, are intimately connected. As Lili Loofbourow wrote of the Kavanaugh incident in Slate, adolescent male cruelty toward women is a bonding mechanism, a vehicle for intimacy through contempt. The white men in the lynching photos are smiling not merely because of what they have done, but because they have done it together.

We can hear the spectacle of cruel laughter throughout the Trump era. There were the border-patrol agents cracking up at the crying immigrant children separated from their families, and the Trump adviser who delighted white supremacists when he mocked a child with Down syndrome who was separated from her mother. There were the police who laughed uproariously when the president encouraged them to abuse suspects, and the Fox News hosts mocking a survivor of the Pulse Nightclub massacre (and in the process inundating him with threats), the survivors of sexual assault protesting to Senator Jeff Flake, the women who said the president had sexually assaulted them, and the teen survivors of the Parkland school shooting. There was the president mocking Puerto Rican accents shortly after thousands were killed and tens of thousands displaced by Hurricane Maria, the black athletes protesting unjustified killings by the police, the women of the #Me Too! movement who have come forward with stories of sexual abuse, and the disabled reporter whose crime was reporting on Trump truthfully. It is not just that the perpetrators of this cruelty enjoy it; it is that they enjoy it with one another. Their shared laughter at the suffering of others is an adhesive that binds them to one another, and to Trump.

Taking joy in that suffering is more human than most would like to admit. Somewhere on the wide spectrum between adolescent teasing and the smiling white men in the lynching photographs are the Trump supporters whose community is built by rejoicing in the anguish of those they see as unlike them, who have found in their shared cruelty an answer to the loneliness and atomization of modern life.

The laughter undergirds the daily spectacle of insincerity, as the president and his aides pledge fealty to bedrock democratic principles they have no intention of respecting. The president who demanded the execution of five black and Latino teenagers for a crime they didn’t commit decrying “false accusations,” when his Supreme Court nominee stands accused; his supporters who fancy themselves champions of free speech meet references to Hillary Clinton or a woman whose only crime was coming forward to offer her own story of abuse with screams of “Lock her up!” The political movement that elected a president who wanted to ban immigration by adherents of an entire religion, who encourages police to brutalize suspects, and who has destroyed thousands of immigrant families for violations of the law less serious than those of which he and his coterie stand accused, now laments the state of due process.

This isn’t incoherent. It reflects a clear principle: Only the president and his allies, his supporters, and their anointed are entitled to the rights and protections of the law, and if necessary, immunity from it. The rest of us are entitled only to cruelty, by their whim. This is how the powerful have ever kept the powerless divided and in their place, and enriched themselves in the process.

A blockbuster New York Times investigation on Tuesday reported that President Trump’s wealth was largely inherited through fraudulent schemes, that he became a millionaire while still a child, and that his fortune persists in spite of his fumbling entrepreneurship, not because of it. The stories are not unconnected. The president and his advisers have sought to enrich themselves at taxpayer expense; they have attempted to corrupt federal law-enforcement agencies to protect themselves and their cohorts, and they have exploited the nation’s darkest impulses in the pursuit of profit. But their ability to get away with this fraud is tied to cruelty.

Trump’s only true skill is the con; his only fundamental belief is that the United States is the birthright of straight, white, Christian men, and his only real, authentic pleasure is in cruelty. It is that cruelty, and the delight it brings them, that binds his most ardent supporters to him, in shared scorn for those they hate and fear: immigrants, black voters, feminists, and treasonous white men who empathize with any of those who would steal their birthright. The president’s ability to execute that cruelty through word and deed makes them euphoric. It makes them feel good, it makes them feel proud, it makes them feel happy, it makes them feel united. And as long as he makes them feel that way, they will let him get away with anything, no matter what it costs them.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#256504: Oct 4th 2018 at 9:14:52 AM

[up]I've been saying over and over again that Trump is the Ugly American, the embodiment of everything hateful and wrong with the USA, and that is why his strongest supporters will never turn on him. In him they see the triumph of their bigoted toxic world view.

The only time they ever got even the slightest bit upset with him was when he issued a generic Happy Hanukkah tweet. That says it all.

Edited by M84 on Oct 5th 2018 at 12:15:41 AM

Disgusted, but not surprised
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#256505: Oct 4th 2018 at 9:17:33 AM

No surprise the Republicans don't want an actual FBI investigation. They just want the appearance of one.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Wildcard Since: Jun, 2012
#256506: Oct 4th 2018 at 9:23:35 AM

2016 should have been the year the Republican party died, but now because the Midwest decided to have a tantrum because they occasionally had to see a brown person or maybe hear that there is a Spanish option on their phone we have to deal with all this death, entitlement, brutality and rape apologists.

We need a new Obama type figure to take it down by 2020. Hope they rise up whoever replaces them, we know that as long they are to the left, they will Make America Better then it is right now.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#256507: Oct 4th 2018 at 9:39:50 AM

Someone as skilled at campaigning would be a boon, but we shouldn't hold out for a miracle candidate to appear.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Voltron64 Since: Jul, 2016
#256508: Oct 4th 2018 at 9:43:44 AM

[up]x4 at this point, I say we be cruel in turn...

RedSavant Since: Jan, 2001
#256509: Oct 4th 2018 at 9:44:16 AM

Surprising no one, Flake and Collins have decided to vote for Kavanaugh now that the FBI investigation has given them an out.

Edited by RedSavant on Oct 4th 2018 at 12:44:21 PM

It's been fun.
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#256510: Oct 4th 2018 at 9:48:58 AM

I would really like one day for a Republican to actually surprise me and show me that the grandstanding isn't just for show, but I don't think it's ever going to happen.

It's too late for them.

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#256511: Oct 4th 2018 at 9:50:14 AM

Surprising no one, Flake and Collins have decided to vote for Kavanaugh now that the FBI investigation has given them an out.

You're right this is unsurprising.

Still I can take comfort in the knowledge that this has a very high chance of hurting them and their party, they deserve it and more.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
RainingMetal (Handed A Sword) Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#256512: Oct 4th 2018 at 10:04:59 AM

Guess the Republican secret police caught them and intimidated them again.

ASAB: All Sponsors Are Bad.
Bur from Flyover Country (Living Relic) Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
#256513: Oct 4th 2018 at 10:12:20 AM

Bet this’ll help the crowdfunded kitty for Collins’ opponent reach its goal.

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#256514: Oct 4th 2018 at 10:19:33 AM

[up][up]They don't need a secret police. This is just who they are.

kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#256515: Oct 4th 2018 at 10:22:30 AM

[up]We have seen the enemy. And it is self serving bastard Republicans.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#256516: Oct 4th 2018 at 10:37:51 AM

So apparently the Republicans are now running adds against health care for all. Ie one of them shows a woman trying to get a doctors appointment without success.

I'm just...

I mean, let's put aside that this is utter nonsense, let's take apart what the add is actually saying. It is saying "you nice little middle class person won't be able to go to the doctor because said doctor will be busy with the "poor people". Do you want that?"

There is a really, really nasty mind-set behind those adds.

TroperOnAStickV2 Call me Stick from Redneck country Since: Dec, 2009 Relationship Status: is commanded to— WANK!
Call me Stick
#256517: Oct 4th 2018 at 10:39:19 AM

There's a saying/proverb about that, but I don't remember it.

Hopefully I'll feel confident to change my avatar off this scumbag soon. Apologies to any scumbags I insulted.
kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#256518: Oct 4th 2018 at 10:40:18 AM

[up][up]When have the GOP not wanted to fuck the poor?

Edited by kkhohoho on Oct 4th 2018 at 12:39:51 PM

TroperOnAStickV2 Call me Stick from Redneck country Since: Dec, 2009 Relationship Status: is commanded to— WANK!
Call me Stick
#256519: Oct 4th 2018 at 10:41:49 AM

EDIT: Screw it, I think I missed an arrow.

Edited by TroperOnAStickV2 on Oct 4th 2018 at 1:46:17 PM

Hopefully I'll feel confident to change my avatar off this scumbag soon. Apologies to any scumbags I insulted.
Bur from Flyover Country (Living Relic) Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
#256520: Oct 4th 2018 at 10:42:29 AM

There’s one in MO with Hawley trying to say he’s not all about getting rid of the ACA’s pre-existing conditions clause because he had a kid with a pre-existing condition. It’s a laugh because he’s part of a lawsuit with a cluster of other AGs that are suing to get rid of just that.

Edited by Bur on Oct 4th 2018 at 12:45:34 PM

TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#256521: Oct 4th 2018 at 10:54:21 AM

Guess the Republican secret police caught them and intimidated them again.

I’m not surprised. Flake and I’m sure Collins are looking to what they see as the greater political good for their side, and that means control of the courts, especially the Supreme Court. The sham of an investigation gave them political cover to vote in favor of it. If anything further comes out about Kavanaugh later, they’ll no doubt be shocked (shocked!) and disappointed.

Edited by TheWanderer on Oct 4th 2018 at 1:57:39 PM

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
Medinoc from France (Before Recorded History)
#256522: Oct 4th 2018 at 11:32:32 AM

Well that Hope Spot was good while it lasted...

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
Reflextion from a post-sanity world (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: What's love got to do with it?
#256523: Oct 4th 2018 at 11:39:39 AM

And younote  wonder why I'm so fucking pessimistic.

Edited by Reflextion on Oct 4th 2018 at 2:39:20 PM

Someone did tell me life was going to be this way.
Kaiseror Since: Jul, 2016
#256524: Oct 4th 2018 at 11:44:57 AM

What are the odds this will demoralize Democrats and stop them from voting?

AzureSpiritStone Since: Aug, 2014
#256525: Oct 4th 2018 at 11:45:34 AM

[up] If it does, I am officially done with this country.


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