Tag: Sex

Republican Family Values

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It’s good that we have people such as protecting our morality.

If they weren’t busy supervising our morals, they might actually be practicing theirs on a larger scale:

A former Republican Senate staffer was arrested in Washington on Friday on federal child pornography charges in what investigators said was a crackdown on an online group that traded numerous illicit files and videos in recent months.

Ruben Verastigui is accused of receiving and possessing child pornography between last April and this month, according to a criminal complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The 27-year-old was arrested Friday evening at his apartment in Northeast Washington, where police executed a search warrant. Investigators said they found “several files of child pornography” on his cellphone, along with a chat conversation in which he allegedly discussed exchanging the files and videos. During an interview with investigators, Verastigui admitted to receiving some of the files, according to the complaint.

Verastigui worked as a digital strategist for the Senate Republican Conference as recently as last July.

………

In one conversation in April, Verastigui allegedly told a user identified as “S-1” that pornography involving “babies” was his “absolute favorite.” The user later sent him a graphic video of child abuse, court records show, followed by nine more illicit clips the following day. During the same conversation, Verastigui asked that the user come to Washington “for the purpose of sexually abusing a minor,” records show.

Investigators said they identified Verastigui from a naked photo he took in his kitchen and sent to the chat. They said the details of the room and a tattoo visible on his left arm matched a picture from his Instagram account.

………

Verastigui was active in Republican politics, most recently working as a communications manager for the nonprofit Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, which supports Republicans who back clean-energy legislation. He was no longer employed at the organization as of Saturday, according to a statement provided by spokesman Ross Gillfillan.

………

He also worked as a digital strategist for the Senate Republican Conference as recently as July, meaning some of his alleged offenses took place while he was a congressional staffer. A conference spokesperson told The Washington Post in an email: “We have just learned about this investigation and arrest. The individual has not worked at SRC since July 2, 2020.”

Before that, congressional records show that Verastigui worked as a digital director for the GOP staff of the U.S. Joint Economic Committee in 2018. A spokesperson for former committee chairman Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

A LinkedIn page for Ruben Verastigui says he also worked as a senior designer for the Republican National Committee in 2017 and 2018, designing social media ads for the Trump Make America Great Again Committee and Donald J. Trump for President. A committee spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

………

According to the LinkedIn page bearing the name Ruben Verastigui, the user was involved in several antiabortion rights organizations before his work in government, including March for Life, Students for Life America and Live Action.

Well, with THIS guy, we know why he wants more babies born, he wants more explicit photos.   **shudder**

Students for Life confirmed Verastigui worked there from Sept. 5, 2014, to Dec. 2, 2016, after he was a student involved with the group.

………

At the 2013 March for Life rally, Verastigui was introduced as the president of his college’s Students for Life group, according to a C-SPAN video of the antiabortion rights event.

“We are the generation that has been led to believe that the killing of innocent pre-born children is okay,” he told the crowd. “How many of us are missing brothers, sisters, cousins, friends because of abortion?”

We’ve hears a lot of reports of fowl foul play among Republicans, and this one is worse, though tragically less strange than the auto-asphyxia death of a Jerry Fallwell ally a few years back.

This Is the Best Thing I’ve Read This Year

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It appears that there are some women out there who are using dating apps to identify and report Capitol Hill insurrectionists.

The short version is that they change their political affiliation on the dating app, this story mentions Bumble, and when the guys start to brag to them, the screen shot the shit out of them, and then call the FBI: 

Women in Washington D.C. are taking matters into their own hands to obtain information on Capitol rioters.

After noticing an uptick in MAGA supporters on dating apps, women started wondering if the profiles could be useful to police.

“There are DOZENS of men on DC dating apps right now who were clearly here for the insurrection attempt,” Alia Awadallah tweeted. “Is that info useful at all for law enforcement?”

I know a friend of a friend who changed her preference on Bumble to Conservative. She’s matching with MAGA bros and they’re bragging and sending her pics and videos of them in the Capitol. She’s sending them to the FBI.

— Allison #FreeThemALL Norris (@allisonnorris) January 8, 2021

After multiple tweets about the “Bumble honeytrap” went viral, Bumble removed the politics filter in the United States to “prevent misuse.”

We have temporarily removed our politics filter in the U.S. to prevent misuse. Don’t worry; it will be reinstated in the future. 💛

— Bumble (@bumble) January 14, 2021

Because seditious racist dirt-bags and their racist sedition must be protected at all cost, because they are central to their business.

Internet apps have the ability to allow users’ personal bigotry with no liability to the platform.

That’s how it works with Uber, Lyft, AirBnB, and no, apparently, Bumble.

Yet Another Impeachable Offense

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In the sort of thing that you know woule not happen without Trump’s specific authorization, the White House liaison to the Department of Justice Requested compromising information against Trump rape accuser E Jean Carroll. 

This is illegal as hell:

The White House liaison to the Department of Justice (DoJ), Heidi Stirrup, sought out derogatory information late last year from a senior justice department official regarding a woman who alleges she was raped by Donald Trump, according to the person from whom Stirrup directly sought the information.

The revelation raises the prospect that allies of the US president were directly pressing the justice department to try to dig up potentially damaging information on a woman who had accused Trump of sexually attacking her.

E Jean Carroll, a journalist and advice columnist, sued Trump in November 2019, alleging he had defamed her when he denied her account of having been raped by him. Carroll alleges Trump sexually assaulted her in a dressing room in Bergdorf Goodman, a high-end Manhattan department store, in either late 1995 or early 1996.

………

Stirrup apparently believed the justice department had information that might aid the president’s legal defense in the suit. The attorney who Stirrup sought information from regarding Carroll said that Stirrup approached them not long after a judge had ruled the justice department could not take over Trump’s defense.

Stirrup asked if the department had uncovered any derogatory information about Carroll that they might share with her or the president’s private counsel. Stirrup also suggested that she could serve as a conduit between the department and individuals close to the president or his private legal team.

Stirrup also asked the official whether the justice department had any information that Carroll or anyone on her legal team had links with the Democratic party or partisan activists, who might have put her up to falsely accusing the president.

Just in case you are wondering, it is NOT Ok for the White house to demand that the Department of Justice do opposition research on someone who has filed a private lawsuit against the President.

The DoJ banned Stirrup from the building after this, which, considering the fact that William Barr was Trump “Fluffer in Chief” at the time, indicates just how far beyond the pale this request was.

This needs to be investigated and someone needs to face consequences for this act.

Today in the Internet of Shit

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It turns out that internet connect chastity penis locks with poor security is a very bad idea.

I know what you are thinking, “What, did hackers hold someone’s penis for ransom?”

Why yes, someone was hacking these devices to take command of their joy stick, and they were demanding Bitcoin to unlock the device, and hence the penis.

Thankfully no one was actually wearing the “Chastity Cages” at the time.

Full disclosure:  I did not even know that such a device existed, either with or without internet connectivity, until I read about this today.

My penis is in a long term exclusive engagement with Sharon*, thank you very much:

A hacker took control of people’s internet-connected chastity cages and demanded a ransom to be paid in Bitcoin to unlock it.

“Your cock is mine now,” the hacker told one of the victims, according to a screenshot of the conversation obtained by a security researcher that goes by the name Smelly and is the founder of vx-underground, a website that collects malware samples.

In October of last year, security researchers found that the manufacturer of an Internet of Things chastity cage—a sex toy that users put around their penis to prevent erections that is used in the BDSM community and can be unlocked remotely—had left an API exposed, giving malicious hackers a chance to take control of the devices. That’s exactly what happened, according to a security researcher who obtained screenshots of conversations between the hacker and several victims, and according to victims interviewed by Motherboard.

A victim who asked to be identified only as Robert said that he received a message from a hacker demanding a payment of 0.02 Bitcoin (around $750 today) to unlock the device. He realized his cage was definitely “locked,” and he “could not gain access to it.”

“Fortunately I didn’t have this locked on myself while this happened,” Robert said in an online chat. 

Yes Robert, you were a very fortunate person not to have been wearing when this got locked down.

We could make a movie out of this, Free the Willie.

 *Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

F%$# 2020

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The Bad Sex In Fiction Awards have been cancelled, because its organizers have concluded that 2020 already has a surfeit of badness:

It’s one of life’s simplest, funniest, most bewildering pleasures: Literary Review’s Bad Sex In Fiction Awards. Year in and year out, this annual event brings us throbbing members, swollen mounds, allusions to train tunnels and outer space, dubious meditations on female anatomy, and proliferate of use of the word “seed.” This year, not so, as its judges have “after weeks of deliberation” and a hopefully hilarious emergency meeting, decided to cancel this year’s awards. The reason: 2020 sucked enough as it is, and no one should have to endure mixed metaphors about jism, too.

Here’s Literary Review’s official word on the decision:

The judges felt that the public had been subjected to too many bad things this year to justify exposing it to bad sex as well. They warned, however, that the cancellation of the 2020 awards should not be taken as a licence to write bad sex. A spokesperson for the judges commented:

“With lockdown regulations giving rise to all manner of novel sexual practices, the judges anticipate a rash of entries next year. Authors are reminded that cybersex and other forms of home entertainment fall within the purview of this award. Scenes set in fields, parks or back yards, or indoors with the windows open and fewer than six people present will not be exempt from scrutiny either.”

Damn you.

Here is a Shocker

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It has been obvious for decades, ever since the child abuse scandal broke in the Catholic church, that John Paul II, in addition to aggressively embracing murderous right wing dictators, was wilfully blind about priests f%$#ing kids in their charge.

In response to scandals involving defrocked cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Pope Francis commissioned a study to find out what happened, and they determined that Pope John Paul II ignored repeated and credible warnings about the former priest. 

This is not a surprise.  Ignoring this sort of thing was a direct outgrowth of JPII’s view of the church and spirituality.

His successor, Benedict, was found to have been insufficiently forceful in dealing with this:

An unprecedented Vatican internal investigation has found that Pope John Paul II knew about and overlooked sexual misconduct claims against Theodore McCarrick, instead choosing to facilitate the rise of an American prelate who would be defrockedand disgraced two decades later.

The Vatican’s reportamounts to a stunning play-by-play of the kind of systemic failure that the Catholic Church normally keeps under wraps, describing how ­McCarrick amassed power and prestige in the face of rumors, and sometimes written evidence, of his sexual misconduct with seminarians, priests and teenage boys.

The report devotes a good deal of attention to John Paul II and the pivotal years of McCarrick’s rise, but it also portrays Pope Benedict XVI as trying to handle the cardinal quietly and out of the public spotlight, and Pope Francis as assuming that his predecessors had made the right judgments. It shows how U.S. bishops sanitized reports of what they knew and all but ensured that warnings would arrive at the Vatican unsubstantiated or dismissible. In Rome, church leaders found every rationale for believing a “good pastor” over a victim.

For a church that has grappled for a generation with its sexual abuse crisis, the report— 449 pages, and two years in the making — goes further than any previous effort in naming names and providing details of a coverup. Such assessments have been long requested by victims of abuse, but they are nonetheless fraught for the church, because revelations have the potential to recolor the reputations of major figures within the faith, including John Paul, who was named a saintin 2014.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

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The Justice Department is taking over the defense in the E. Jean Carroll defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump.

She alleges sexual assault, and has stated that she is lying and she has never met her. (There are multiple pictures of them together)

The government is claiming that even though the (alleged) rape occurred in the mid 1990s, that his denial of meeting her was made when he was President, so the DOJ should defend him at taxpayer expense, and that the case should be moved to federal court.

This is a transparent attempt to delay the case.

It is also the single most corrupt thing that any US Attorney General has ever done, because this could not have proceeded without Bill Barr specifically directing this:

The Justice Department moved on Tuesday to replace President Trump’s private legal team with government lawyers to defend him against a defamation lawsuit by the author E. Jean Carroll, who has accused him of raping her in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s.

In a highly unusual legal move, lawyers for the Justice Department said in court papers that Mr. Trump was acting in his official capacity as president when he denied ever knowing Ms. Carroll and thus could be defended by government lawyers — in effect underwritten by taxpayer money.

Though the law gives employees of the federal government immunity from most defamation lawsuits, legal experts said it has rarely, if ever, been used before to protect a president, especially for actions taken before he entered office.

“The question is,” said Steve Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor, “is it really within the scope of the law for government lawyers to defend someone accused of lying about a rape when he wasn’t even president yet?”

The motion also effectively protects Mr. Trump from any embarrassing disclosures in the middle of his campaign for re-election. A state judge issued a ruling last month that potentially opened the door to Mr. Trump being deposed in the case before the election in November, and Ms. Carroll’s lawyers have also requested that he provide a DNA sample to determine whether his genetic material is on a dress that Ms. Carroll said she was wearing at the time of the encounter.

Bill Barr makes John Mitchell look like Perry Mason.

This is real banana republic sh%$#.

The Wheel Has Turned Full Circle

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In 1987, following a series of financial and sex scandals, Jerry Falwell, Sr. took over Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s PTL club, and now following a series of financial, educational, and sex scandals Jerry Falwell, Jr. has been forced to resign as president of Liberty University.

The sex scandal to the degree that we know anything, is (AT LEAST) his wife having an affair with a pool boy (not clear if it’s THEIR pool boy) while he watched, at least part of the time.  (I’m sure that there are more details to ……… come, but I won’t be discussing them unless some crime is involved)

The educational scandals involve rapes being covered up, athletes leaving because of a poisonous and racist atmosphere, and aggressively opening last spring, which led to a Covid outbreak.

The financial ones seem to be about opacity and a rather profligate life style.

As to the resignation, it was rather chaotic, with the board announcing his resignation, and his denial, and then his announcing that he had resign:

The evangelical leader and key Trump ally Jerry Falwell Jr confirmed on Tuesday he has resigned as president of Liberty University, following a sex scandal.

The confirmation came after conflicting reports of Falwell’s status on Monday night, in the wake of a Reuters report on a sexual relationship between him, his wife and a former business associate.

The board of the Lynchburg, Virginia, evangelical institution was meeting earlier on Tuesday regarding Falwell, who was its president for more than a decade.

Liberty University said in a statement on Tuesday afternoon that the school’s trustees “acted today to accept the resignation of Jerry Falwell, Jr. as its President and Chancellor and also accepted his resignation from its Board of Directors. All were effective immediately”.

After Falwell agreed on Monday to “immediately resign then reversing course”, the university said, he sent his resignation letter through an attorney later that night.

The university’s executive committee convened on Tuesday morning and voted to accept Falwell’s resignation, recommending that the board of trustees accept it. The full board of trustees met via videoconference on Tuesday morning and “unanimously voted” to affirm the committee’s recommendation.

“The university’s heartfelt prayers are with him and his family as he steps away from his life’s work,” the statement said.

So, the University is sending him in their thoughts and prayers.  **snerk**

As I noted above, I do not know where the sexual misconduct leads, and I don’t care.

What I do know, having followed affairs at the former Lynchburg Baptist College since their Covid debacle, is that Falwell has been a supremely abusive boss, so I think that there will be a lot of evil stuff found as rocks get turned over.

With some luck, maybe some jail time.

Between Falwell and Bannon though, August has been a great month for Schadenfreude.

Epstein and Trump And Clinton and the Democratic National Convention

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Seriously, if Clinton gets taken down, or embarrassed, or just hauled into court, as a result of the Ghislane Maxwell trial, more power to the prosecutors.

So reports that there are photographs of show Clinton apparently receiving a neck massage from alleged Jeffrey Epstein victim Chauntae Davies don’t bother me, though I think it is mind bogglingly stupid to have them as featured speakers at the Democratic National Convention.

It is worse than a crime, it is a mistake: (Not actually a Tallyrand quote)

Hours ahead of former President Bill Clinton’s appearance at the Democratic National Convention, the Daily Mail published photos Tuesday that show Clinton apparently receiving a neck massage from alleged Jeffrey Epstein victim Chauntae Davies following a previously-reported flight that Clinton and Epstein took to Africa together in 2002, with Davies telling the Mail that Clinton was a “perfect gentleman” on the trip.

………

Donald Trump Jr. tweeted a link to the Daily Mail article, and suggested that if Clinton brought it up during his Tuesday DNC speech, it “would be a lot more interesting then garbage we saw last night.” His father, President Trump, was also once friendly with Epstein and Maxwell. After Epstein’s 2019 arrest, however, Trump said he had not spoken to Epstein in over a decade.

I get that you need to throw some bones to the Clintonistas at the convention, but the prominence being afforded to Billary is counter-productive and stupid.

Prime Candidate for an Unfortunate Accident

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I am referring, of course to Ghislaine Maxwell who was just arrested in connection to Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex ring.

There are a large number of VERY powerful people who might be implicated, and strong circumstantial evidence that Epstein was an asset of US intelligence services, so I’m pretty sure that there a number of people who have a vested interest in Maxwell never telling her story:

Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite, has appeared via video in a US court after being arrested in relation to alleged sex crimes, conspiracy and perjury involving her late close friend and convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein.

Maxwell, who was arrested at a luxury hideaway in a small town in New Hampshire early on Thursday, appeared at the state’s federal courthouse. Magistrate judge Andrea Johnstone, asked Maxwell questions about whether she understood her rights and she responded in the affirmative, using short phrases such as “I do.”

………

The 17-page, six-count indictment filed by the Manhattan US attorney charges Maxwell with a host of crimes, including conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and perjury.

The indictment described Maxwell’s relationship to Epstein as “personal and professional” – and that she was “in an intimate relationship” with him from about 1994 to 1997.

I would dearly love to see her testify, or talk to reporters.

Equal Time

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Joe Biden has denied the sexual assault allegations made against him by Tara Reade on Morning Joe.

Joe Biden has categorically denied allegations from a former Senate aide that he sexually assaulted her in 1993.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s first public comment on the allegation came at a delicate moment for his campaign.

“I recognize my responsibility to be a voice, an advocate, and a leader for the change in culture that has begun but is nowhere near finished,” Biden wrote in a Medium post on Friday morning. “So I want to address allegations by a former staffer that I engaged in misconduct 27 years ago. They aren’t true. This never happened.”

So, there you have it.

Where it goes from here, I have absolutely no idea.

There Needs to be an Independent and Aggressive Investigation of the Biden Allegations

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First, Tara Reade alleged that Joe Biden had sexually assaulted her.

Then we had reports from her brother and a fellow Congressional staffer (still anonymous) saying that she had related the alleged incident to them contemporaneously in 1993.

THEN we have what appears to be a call from her mother to Larry King in 1993 referring to this incident.

Now, we have a neighbor, one who says that she is voting for Joe Biden anyway, has announced that she was told about the alleged incident to them in 1993.

This allegation, while not definitive, is clearly credible, and bears an independent and aggressive investigation:

In March, when a former aide to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden accused the candidate of sexually assaulting her in 1993, two people came forward to say that the woman, Tara Reade, had told them of the incident shortly after it allegedly occurred — her brother, Collin Moulton, and a friend who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.

Now two more sources have come forward to corroborate certain details about Reade’s claims. One of them — a former neighbor of Reade’s — has told Insider for the first time, on the record, that Reade disclosed details about the alleged assault to her in the mid-1990s.

“This happened, and I know it did because I remember talking about it,” Lynda LaCasse, who lived next door to Reade in the mid-’90s, told Insider.

The other source, Lorraine Sanchez, who worked with Reade in the office of a California state senator in the mid-’90s, told Insider that she recalls Reade complaining at the time that her former boss in Washington, DC, had sexually harassed her, and that she had been fired after raising concerns.

 These allegations are now unequivocally credible.

Drip, Drip, Drip………

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It appears that Tara Reade’s late mother called into Larry King about her alleged assault in 1993, roughly contemporaneously with the alleged facts.

I am still not convinced of the veracity of Ms. Reade’s claims, but I am far more credulous of her accusations following the emergence of this call into king’s show.

Anyone in the #MeToo community who is not demanding a rigorous and independent investigation at this time is a hypocrite, period, full stop:

A new piece of evidence has emerged buttressing the credibility of Tara Reade’s claim that she told her mother about allegations of sexual harassment and assault related to her former boss, then-Sen. Joe Biden. Biden, through a spokesperson, has denied the allegations. Reade has claimed to various media outlets, including The Intercept, that she told her mother, a close friend, and her brother about both the harassment and, to varying degrees of detail, the assault at the time. Her brother, Collin Moulton, and her friend, who has asked to remain anonymous, both confirmed that they heard about the allegations from Reade at the time. Reade’s mother died in 2016, but both her brother and friend also confirmed Reade had told her mother, and that her mother, a longtime feminist and activist, urged her to go to the police.

In interviews with The Intercept, Reade also mentioned that her mother had made a phone call to “Larry King Live” on CNN, during which she made reference to her daughter’s experience on Capitol Hill. Reade told The Intercept that her mother called in asking for advice after Reade, then in her 20s, left Biden’s office. “I remember it being an anonymous call and her saying my daughter was sexually harassed and retaliated against and fired, where can she go for help? I was mortified,” Reade told me.

Reade couldn’t remember the date or the year of the phone call, and King didn’t include the names of callers on his show. I was unable to find the call, but mentioned it in an interview with Katie Halper, the podcast host who first aired Reade’s allegation. After the podcast aired, a listener managed to find the call and sent it to The Intercept.

On August 11, 1993, King aired a program titled, “Washington: The Cruelest City on Earth?” Toward the end of the program, he introduces a caller dialing in from San Luis Obispo, California. Congressional records list August 1993 as Reade’s last month of employment with Biden’s Senate office, and, according to property records, Reade’s mother, Jeanette Altimus, was living in San Luis Obispo County. Here is the transcript of the beginning of the call:

KING: San Luis Obispo, California, hello.

CALLER: Yes, hello. I’m wondering what a staffer would do besides go to the press in Washington? My daughter has just left there, after working for a prominent senator, and could not get through with her problems at all, and the only thing she could have done was go to the press, and she chose not to do it out of respect for him.

KING: In other words, she had a story to tell but, out of respect for the person she worked for, she didn’t tell it?

CALLER: That’s true.


King’s panel of guests offered no suggestions, and instead the conversation veered into a discussion of whether any of the men on set would leak damaging personal information about a rival to the press.

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) wanted Joe Biden in the worst possible way, and now it appears that the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) got Joe Biden in the worse possible way.

Some Observation on the NY Times Article About Joe Biden Sexual Assault Allegations

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It is significant that the New York Times is finally publishing something about the Biden allegations, if just because it means that the story is now officially not beyond the pale.

While the Times article is marginally less dismissive than the ones found in WaPo or Salon, I would note that it has information that confirms Ms Reade’s account of events.
Of course, they wait to paragraph 25 to note the claim that:

The staff declined to take action, Ms. Reade said, after which she filed a written complaint with a Senate personnel office. She said office staff took away most of her duties, including supervising the interns; assigned her a windowless office; and made the work environment uncomfortable for her.

And then a few paragraphs later (paragraph 38) they note:

At the time of the alleged assault, Ms. Reade said she was responsible for coordinating the interns in the office. Two former interns who worked with her said they never heard her describe any inappropriate conduct by Mr. Biden or saw her directly interact with him in any capacity but recalled that she abruptly stopped supervising them in April, before the end of their internship. Others who worked in the office at the time said they remembered Ms. Reade but not any inappropriate behavior.

(emphasis mine)

I’m not sure that this information should have been in the first paragraph, but it should have been in the first 5 paragraphs, and the statement by the interns about her abrupt removal should have been noted immediately following.

Talk about burying the lede.

Also, note that Fox News, of all people, pointed out a stealth edit of the article: (Deletion in red)

No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting, nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade’s allegation. The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable.

All the news that’s fit to print, huh?

Perspective of the Day

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If Joe Biden Had a Personal History of Dismembering Grandmothers and Feeding Them to Children as an After-School Snack, He Would Still, in My View, Be Far Preferable to Donald Trump or Mike Pence

—Liza Featherstone

Ms. Featherstone is commenting on the complete abandonment of #MeToo by the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) with regard to Joe Biden.

I do not know if the most recent allegations of assault are true or not, but it is clear that the response of the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) has been abjectly deplorable.

23 Years

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Honestly, I never expected Harvey Weinstein to get such a long sentence, but IMHO, it is well justified:

Harvey Weinstein, the titan of Hollywood turned convicted rapist, has been sentenced to 23 years in prison on Wednesday in New York.

The fallen mogul was handed down his punishment by Judge James Burke at the New York supreme court having been convicted of two counts of sexual assault. The judge imposed 20 years for a first-degree criminal sex act for forcing oral sex on a production assistant, Miriam Haley, in 2006.

He also imposed a three-year sentence for third-degree rape of a woman whom the Guardian is not naming because her wishes over identification are not clear.

The two sentences will run consecutively, meaning that Weinstein, 67, will have to complete the terms of the criminal sex act before serving the rape sentence.

Good.

Guilty, Guilty, Guilty

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Good:

Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of sexual assault in a New York court Monday, the first conviction to emerge from the dozens of misconduct allegations against the once-powerful movie producer.

The jury determined that Weinstein forced oral sex on former production assistant Mimi Haleyi at his apartment in July 2006 and raped former aspiring actress Jessica Mann at a hotel in 2013.

He was found not guilty of the most severe charges, of predatory sexual assault, which would have acknowledged a pattern that included forcing sex on actress Annabella Sciorra in 1993 or 1994.

Weinstein, 67, faces at least five years and up to 25 on the count of first-degree criminal sex act for his assault on Haleyi, and up to four years on a third-degree rape count for the Mann encounter. The judge can consider running the sentences consecutively, for a maximum of 29 years. Sentencing is scheduled for March 11.

Here’s hoping that he never sees the outside of stir again.

And the Award for Best Example of a Resignation Notice Goes To………

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Kira Zylstra, interim director of the Seattle homeless agency All Home, who hired a stripper to dance at a Seattle homeless conference.

Because I am an optimist, I am inclined to think that, upon learning about plans for Seattle and surrounding communities to replace All Home with some new agency, Ms. Zylstra intended this as a massive f%$# you who the people who were shutting down her agency, though it is possible that this was just some sort of spectacularly “Woke” cluelessness.

I am firmly on the side of this being an deliberate act, because I am an optimist:

The director of King County’s coordinating agency for homelessness is on paid leave following a dancer’s strip show at the agency’s annual conference on Monday.

Performer Beyoncé Black St. James danced topless in a sheer bodysuit, gave lap dances and kissed attendees, according to a staffer at a local housing nonprofit who attended the conference in South Seattle.

Kira Zylstra, organizer of the conference at South Seattle College, has been placed on leave as of Thursday, according to Denise Rothleutner, chief of staff for the King County Department of Community and Human Services.  

………

Zylstra has led All Home, King County’s coordinating agency homeless services, since January 2018. But her job could soon become obsolete as Seattle and King County prepare to replace All Home, which has been criticized as weak and ineffective, with a new regional authority on homelessness. Zylstra was paid about $123,000 a year, according to a county spokesperson.

(emphasis mine)

You do understand why I think that this might be a “F%$# You” to the powers that be in and around Seattle, because one way or the other, she is likely to soon be out of a job.

The performance was in the same room as a catered lunch at All Home’s annual conference, this year at South Seattle College with the theme of “Decolonizing our Collective Work.”

………

In a short video, St. James, a Spokane-based entertainer who identifies as a trans woman on her Facebook page, can be seen doing high kicks in a revealing bodysuit and with silver pasties.

In any case, this is profoundly weird.

H/t Bear who swims.

Pity the Poor Disrespected Rapist

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Kelly Bachman desrves more than applause, she deserves her own network television program:

With her heart racing as she went onstage, Kelly Bachman knew she had to speak up.

“I’m a comic,” the 27-year-old said to open her routine, in a video later shared on social media. “It’s our job to name the elephant in the room. Does anybody know what that is?”

A few people nodded and muttered in affirmation. Most of the crowd, a hodgepodge of 20- and 30-something performers at a basement bar in Manhattan, was dead silent.

“It’s a Freddy Krueger in the room, if you will,” she said. “I didn’t know we had to bring our own mace and rape whistles.” At that point, a handful of people in the back of the room started booing her. One yelled, “Shut up!”But Bachman didn’t need to say more for the crowd to notice who she was talking about: Sitting in a green velvet booth was Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood mogul accused of sexually abusing or harassing more than 80 women.

………

For her part, Bachman is taking one thing away.

“If Harvey Weinstein is calling me rude,” she quipped, “I’m putting that on my résumé.”

Get this woman a network show.

I’ve Made Jokes about the Home Root Canal Kit, But………

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The folks hawking an at-home rape kit have exceeded even my tasteless sense of humor, and God help them, they are serious:

It should perhaps come as no surprise that in the post-Theranos (and mid-Tia) world, someone, somewhere would attempt to “disrupt” the rape kit. The MeToo company, a start-up based in Brooklyn and created by Madison Campbell, has created — in theory — the first at-home, self-managed forensic exam, intended to be used by survivors of sexual assault. Campbell calls her product the “MeToo kit,” and its slogan adopts the ethos and language of its namesake movement: “Your experience. Your kit. Your story. Your life. Your choice.”

But many in the sexual-assault advocacy and legal professional communities have voiced concerns about the MeToo kit’s viability in the criminal justice system. At the end of August, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel sent the company a cease-and-desist letter, accusing it of violating several sections of Michigan’s Consumer Protection Act. Nessel stated, “This company is shamelessly trying to take financial advantage of the ‘Me Too’ movement by luring victims into thinking that an at-home-do-it-yourself sexual assault kit will stand up in court … Career prosecutors know that evidence collected in this way would not provide the necessary chain of custody.” This week, New York attorney general Letitia James joined Nessel’s call for Campbell to cease and desist, stating her concern that the MeToo kits would “deter individuals from seeking professional care.”

Ebony Tucker, advocacy director of the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, echoes the attorney generals’ concerns. “When evidence is taken as part of a forensic exam in a rape case, there has to be a very clear order of who came into contact with the evidence: who had access to touch it, see it, know where it was,” she says. These measures are taken in order to ensure evidence isn’t tampered with, and to prevent that claim from being made in court. Done at home, by oneself, there would be countless opportunities to contaminate evidence — and any defense attorney would know that.

The entire concept becomes even more horrifyingly clueless as you read further down in the story.

The whole “Disruption” culture is really a complete sh%$ show.