This is nuts. The Guardian:

Anyone who films a partner during sex without their consent is committing the criminal offence of voyeurism, the court of appeal has ruled in a case that may affect the Crown Prosecution Service’s apparent reluctance to bring charges.

In other words the CPS thinks filming a partner during sex without their consent is and should be legal legal legal.

The ruling by three judges came at the end of an unsuccessful appeal by a man convicted of filming himself having sex with prostitutes. His lawyers argued that the voyeurism law allowed him to do so since even a bedroom is not a private place if he was there legitimately.

And he was totally there legitimately because by god he was paying for it.

In a highly unusual development in a criminal case, the court allowed someone not directly involved in events to intervene in the hearing to develop arguments that consent should be the primary issue when considering cases under the 2003 Sexual Offences Act.

…

Jon Rees QC, for Richards, told the court that even though the two women may not have consented to being filmed, if Richards was entitled to be in their bedrooms they could not have a reasonable expectation to privacy.

So he could have invited a film crew in over the women’s protests? Put the whole thing on live tv while they objected?

Emily Hunt was supported in her legal campaign by the Centre for Women’s Justice. Later on Tuesday, she said she had been told by her lawyers that the CPS was no longer resisting her judicial review claim and was now re-examining its decision not to prosecute.

A CPS spokesperson said: “What constitutes a ‘private act’ for the purposes of the offence of voyeurism had never been conclusively defined by a higher court until today.

“The CPS does not make or decide the law; that is the remit of parliament and the courts respectively. Now that this new authoritative judgment has clarified this point of law, the CPS will review its position in the judicial review brought by Emily Hunt.”

Isn’t this phobic toward guys who like to film naked women without their consent so they can share on Twitter?

Don’t mention the war.

Yesterday, Washington Post reporter Felicia Sonmez tweeted a link to a 2016 Daily Beast story about the rape allegations. The story recounts, in excruciating detail, the accuser’s version of events of what happened the night of June 30th at the Lodge and Spa at Coridellera in Colorado, where she worked as a hotel desk clerk. According to her version of events, after Bryant, then 24, invited her into his hotel room, where the two shared a consensual kiss. After that point, she told police, he allegedly barred her from leaving the room, held her by the neck and forced her to have sex with him, then told her not to tell anybody. A subsequent medical examination at a hospital in Colorado found that the victim had multiple lacerations in the vaginal area that were “consistent with perpetuating genital trauma….not consistent with consensual sex,” and that Bryant’s T-shirt had blood spots around the waistline that matched the victim’s DNA.

Presumably “perpetrating” genital trauma, not “perpetuating.”

During interviews with police, the story goes on to mention, Bryant claimed that the sex was consensual, disputed police officer’s characterization that the victim was an “attractive” woman, and threw a semen-covered T-shirt (where he claimed to have ejaculated during the encounter) at a cop when he requested it as evidence. At a subsequent press conference, however, he was much more sanguine*, apologizing to the woman and stating, “Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did.” *[sanguine is not the right word; something like “conciliatory” appears to be the intention]

Call me crazy but I still think the difference between enthusiastic participation and “No” is not all that blurry and hard to detect.

In her tweet, Sonmez did not recount any of the allegations, merely tweeting the article without context. In a follow-up tweet, which was screengrabbed by independent journalist Matthew Keys, she said that she had received death threats following her tweets, urging people to read the article. “Any public figure is worth remembering in their totality, even if that public figure is beloved and that totality unsettling,” she wrote. Another tweet included a screenshot of an email she had received containing death threats and abuse, which showed the full names of the sender. “Piece of shit. Go fuck yourself. Cunt,” the email said. She tweeted the email to underscore “the pressure people come under to stay silent in these cases.”

It’s also the “pressure” women come under to stay silent pretty much all the time. That’s not consensual either, by the way.

Mediaite later reported that the Washington Post had suspended Sonmez for her tweets, though there are conflicting interpretations as to how and why this happened. Keys quoted an anonymous Washington Post reporter stating that Sonmez was suspended not for tweeting the  Daily Beast link, but for posting an unredacted version of a screengrab of the harassing emails to her which showed the sender’s full name. In a statement to Rolling Stone, managing editor Tracy Grant did not offer much clarification. “National political reporter Felicia Sonmez was placed on administrative leave while The Post reviews whether tweets about the death of Kobe Bryant violated The Post newsroom’s social media policy,” she wrote. “The tweets displayed poor judgment that undermined the work of her colleagues.”

Is that so. Washington Post reporters need their colleagues to refrain from talking about rape allegations if they’re about a popular sports star? Why would that be?

It’s also very much worth noting that the Washington Post has received intense criticism for historically displaying “bias or favoritism” in its own coverage of Bryant specifically. In 2018, the paper was lambasted for publishing a glowing profile of Bryant that, among other things, downplayed the sexual assault case by claiming he created his persona “the Black Mamba” in response to the allegation. “When Bryant returned to the court, the wholesome young athlete was gone. In his place was a man who could no longer convincingly portray innocence, and Bryant says he felt free to reveal the darkness that had always lurked inside him,” WaPo’s Kent Babb writes. “Creating an alternate persona, he says now, was the only way he could mentally move beyond the events of Colorado.”

The profile was criticized for being “stuffed to the gills with utter lunacy, somehow both the goofiest and most unsettling profile of an athlete I’ve ever read,” the Daily Beast’s Corbin Smith wrote. Earlier that year, Bryant had won an Oscar for his documentary short “Dear Basketball,” which had reinvigorated the debate surrounding the 2003 allegation and raised questions of whether his reputation deserved to be rehabilitated. Sonmez does not appear to make mention of the WaPo profile or the backlash to it in her tweets, but according to WaPo staffers who spoke with Rolling Stone, there was internal criticism within the newsroom after Bryant visited the office in October 2018, where he was given a tour and a warm reception. (Neither the Washington Post nor the Washington Post Guild, the union representing WaPo staffers, immediately responded to this claim.)

In a statement, the Washington Post Guild harshly criticized the paper’s handling of Sonmez and her tweets. “We understand the hours after Bryant’s death Sunday were a fraught time to share reporting about past accusations of sexual assault. The loss of such a beloved figure, and of so many other lives, is a tragedy,” the Guild wrote. “But we believe it is our responsibility as a news organization to tell the public the whole truth as we know it — about figures and institutions both popular and unpopular, at moments timely and untimely.”

Yes but that’s the union. Management likes its sports stars.

Because Pompeo wasn’t looking childish and vindictive enough yet.

The State Department on Monday removed a National Public Radio reporter from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s upcoming trip following a days long spat with a different NPR reporter, who said Pompeo berated and cursed [her] after an interview.

It wasn’t a “spat” and it wasn’t “with” – it was Pompeo bullying a reporter. Period.

The State Department Correspondents’ Association in a statement confirmed the decision to remove NPR correspondent Michele Kelemen from Pompeo’s plane on his upcoming trip to Europe and Central Asia, calling the move “retaliation” after Pompeo’s public attack on NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly.

In other words Pompeo publicly attacked Kelly and then in “retaliation” against Kelly [for being bullied I guess] the State Department kicked out a colleague. That’s not “retaliation,” it’s just another installment of bullying.

“The removal of Michele, who was in rotation as the radio pool reporter, comes days after Secretary Pompeo harshly criticized the work of an NPR host. We can only conclude that the State Department is retaliating against National Public Radio as a result of this exchange,” Shaun Tandon, the association’s president, said in a statement.

Retaliating against NPR for…being bullied?

These people are the dregs.

Oh yay, an award for service to gender equity.

Activist and author Bettina Arndt, who has dedicated the latter part of her career to what she sees as the unfair treatment of men in today’s society, has received an Australia Day honour for her work.

In a decision certain to outrage feminists and other community members, Ms Arndt was admitted as a Member (AM) of the Order of Australia for her “significant service to the community as a social commentator, and to gender equity through advocacy for men”.

Oh that kind of “equity.” The way a white person would be providing significant service to racial equity through advocacy for white people.

The citation for her honour mentions her 2018 campus speaking tour, which was called the “Fake Rape Crisis” tour, as well as her contributions to controversial academic Jordan Peterson’s website Thinkspot.

Yes we definitely need more people saying all rape allegations are false.

Ms Arndt said she did not expect the award to silence or mollify her critics, but it would make her supporters “rather happy” to see an alternative point of view receive the imprimatur of official recognition.

Indeed. Let’s also hear the “Genocide is Good” point of view and the “What’s All the Fuss About Slavery?” point of view and the “unskilled workers are lucky to get any pay at all” point of view. The world is in imminent danger of becoming too progressive.

She also said programs to combat domestic violence unjustly demonised men – despite men overwhelmingly being the perpetrators.

That’s because women are so annoying, don’t you get it?

Ms Arndt said the link between misogyny and domestic violence applied only in “deeply misogynist” countries, naming Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia as examples.

She claimed there was no evidence of such a link in “egalitarian societies” such as Australia, the United States and Britain.

Well I guess if you live in a cell with no access to any form of media you could be unaware of the evidence…

Uh…what???

CNBC reports:

The Trump administration also employs the son of Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney. The White House pays him nearly six figures to serve as a sports liaison. According to government documents, Giuliani’s son, Andrew H. Giuliani, makes $95,000 per year working for the White House. His official title is “Special Assistant to the President and Associate Director of the Office of Public Liaison.”

Joe Biden should have told Hunter Biden he couldn’t take that 50k per month job with Burisma because the only reason he was offered it was the fact that Joe was Vice President.

By the same token, and several other tokens in addition, Rudy former prosecutor Giuliani should not be letting his son profit from his (Rudy’s) close and corrupt relationship with Trump.

To put it mildly.

The 31-year-old Giuliani has served in the Office of Public Liaison, which acts as “the primary line of communication between the White House and the public,” since March 2017.

Three years ago, so he was 28 when he got the gig. Not bad pay for a kid.

He made $77,000 serving as an associate director in 2017, and got a raise in 2018 to $90,700 though his title didn’t change. In the two years he has been employed by the White House, his pay has increased by $18,000.

I’m sure he deserves every penny of it. I’m sure he works his ass off as a…a what now? A sports liaison? Meaning he watches sports on tv and then tells Trump what he saw? Sure that’s worth 95k a year. All those dinners at Trump’s hotel add up.

The son of the former New York mayor was a college golfer. He joined the Duke University golf team in 2006 but was cut from the team in 2008 after he allegedly threw an apple at a teammate and threw and broke a golf club in a parking lot. The then-college student sued the university but the case was dismissed in 2010.

So no wonder he got a White House job! He’s a natural!

Rudy Giuliani told The Atlantic that hiring Andrew “wasn’t the usual ‘hire my kid’ situation.” “He’s known the president since he was a baby,” he told The Atlantic. “Now, did he know him in the first place because he was the mayor’s son? Sure, but they also had a relationship independent of me.”

And…that’s different from the usual ‘hire my kid’ situation how, exactly?

“He doesn’t really try to be involved in anything,” an anonymous former senior White House official told The Atlantic. “He’s just having a nice time.”

Of course he is, on 95k a year and the right to throw apples at anybody he wants to except Trump.

Trump in 2014:

Trump’s administration in May 2018:

The top White House official responsible for leading the U.S. response in the event of a deadly pandemic has left the administration, and the global health security team he oversaw has been disbanded under a reorganization by national security adviser John Bolton.

The abrupt departure of Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer from the National Security Council means no senior administration official is now focused solely on global health security. Ziemer’s departure, along with the breakup of his team, comes at a time when many experts say the country is already underprepared for the increasing risks of a pandemic or bioterrorism attack.

Oops.

Ziemer’s last day was Tuesday, the same day a new Ebola outbreak was declared in Congo. He is not being replaced.

Pandemic preparedness and global health security are issues that require government-wide responses, experts say, as well as the leadership of a high-ranking official within the White House who is assigned only this role.

“Health security is very fragmented, with many different agencies,” said J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It means coordination and direction from the White House is terribly important. ”

Oops.

But hey, think of all the money we saved on that guy’s salary.

Of all the people in all the world there is probably just one person who has the very least right to ask “how did we get here?” to what he calls “the age of impeachment.” Who is that one person?

From a different corner of humanity, via Rosa Freedman:

So now the Senate Republicans are trying to figure out how they can possibly ignore what Bolton wrote.

Republican sources thought Saturday they were confident that they had the votes to defeat a motion for additional witnesses and documents, leading to an acquittal vote by the end of the week.

Pause a moment to absorb that – the fact that Senators wanted (and of course still want) to block all witnesses and documents that would show Trump’s criminal effort to weaken Ukraine and thereby the US for the sake of his own political gain. The Republican Senators wanted and still want to hide all that from us, so that Trump can continue doing things like that, and more and worse. This isn’t a parking ticket we’re talking about here.

“I can’t begin to tell you how John Bolton’s testimony would ultimately play on a final decision but it’s relevant,” Romney told reporters Monday. “And therefore, I’d like to hear it.”

He’d like to hear it, as if it were some optional extra, like grated cheese on the salad.

GOP sources expect the Senate Republican leadership to reiterate to their conference the arguments they’ve been making for weeks: That seeking Bolton testimony would raise constitutional and executive privilege concerns — and argue that going through a protracted legal fight for his testimony would accomplish very little since Trump is expected to be acquitted anyway. One GOP aide told CNN Monday morning that Bolton news doesn’t change the Republicans’ underlying point — if you aren’t going to vote to remove him, why drag the process out with witnesses?

Excuse me? Their argument is that they are going to acquit him no matter what, and that’s why there’s no need for witnesses? They’re openly saying that even now that there’s stark testimony from a key official they refuse to pay any attention to it because they are going to acquit him no matter what? So I guess Trump could invited Putin to tea and hand him the keys to everything and still the Republicans would say they’re going to acquit him no matter what. Interesting.

From the Times scoop by Maggie Haberman and Michael Schmidt:

President Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser, John R. Bolton.

The president’s statement as described by Mr. Bolton could undercut a key element of his impeachment defense: that the holdup in aid was separate from Mr. Trump’s requests that Ukraine announce investigations into his perceived enemies, including [the two Bidens].

So why hasn’t Bolton testified? The trumpies told him not to of course but they can’t stop him. He doesn’t work for them any more.

Mr. Bolton’s explosive account of the matter at the center of Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial, the third in American history, was included in drafts of a manuscript he has circulated in recent weeks to close associates. He also sent a draft to the White House for a standard review process for some current and former administration officials who write books.

Oh, I see, well that’s quite different. He has a book to sell. Of course that’s far more important than the survival of Ukraine and the survival of the US with Donald Trump still squatting in the Oval Office. Never mind then Mister Bolton, you go right ahead and put yourself first.

Over dozens of pages, Mr. Bolton described how the Ukraine affair unfolded over several months until he departed the White House in September. He described not only the president’s private disparagement of Ukraine but also new details about senior cabinet officials who have publicly tried to sidestep involvement.

New details about how courageous and public-spirited they are?

For example, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged privately that there was no basis to claims by the president’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani that the ambassador to Ukraine was corrupt and believed Mr. Giuliani may have been acting on behalf of other clients, Mr. Bolton wrote.

Yet now he’s bullying Mary Louise Kelly for asking him about it. What a tower of integrity.

Mr. Bolton also said that after the president’s July phone call with the president of Ukraine, he raised with Attorney General William P. Barr his concerns about Mr. Giuliani, who was pursuing a shadow Ukraine policy encouraged by the president, and told Mr. Barr that the president had mentioned him on the call. A spokeswoman for Mr. Barr denied that he learned of the call from Mr. Bolton; the Justice Department has said he learned about it only in mid-August.

And we know Barr would never lie about anything.

Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, said the Bolton manuscript underscores the need for him to testify, and the House impeachment managers demanded after this article was published that the Senate vote to call him. “There can be no doubt now that Mr. Bolton directly contradicts the heart of the president’s defense,” they said in a statement.

Republicans, though, were mostly silent; a spokesman for the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, declined to comment.

Nothing makes any difference; nothing ever will make any difference. They’re all criminals and they know it and they’re not going to stop.

Well that’s interesting.

So…the White House will say no, but it’s too late?

But the Republican Senators will look fixedly in the other direction so it still won’t matter.

I saw the news of the CPS “pack” via LGB Alliance, who have apparently read it (someone has a password).

EXCUSE me? How are they defining “reject”?

They say rejecting someone is a hate crime (these are prosecutors, remember) and they don’t say what they mean by “rejecting.”

The bullies’ rejection, meaning things like you can’t sit at our table, should be prevented by school staff to the extent that they are able. Just plain choosing your friends or romantic prospects is not for the school to manage, let alone prosecutors.

It’s as if Stonewall has some kind of magic power to hypnotize people.

The Crown Prosecution Service has issued a new “schools pack” on ” LGBT+ Bullying and Hate Crime.”

Before we even get to the content, I have to say I don’t understand what prosecutors are doing issuing such things in the first place. Prosecutors prosecute, they don’t teach or preach or create content for schools (or hospitals or factories or any other institution). I don’t get it. Do UK schools have whole rows of “packs” that tell children what they can’t do if they want to stay out of the slammer?

So now for the content of this bizarre CPS news item:

“Hate incidents and hate crimes can have a devastating effect on the individuals and communities who are targeted for simply being who they are. Everybody has the right to live free of persecution, but hate crime tramples upon this right.”

So said Chris Long, Chief Crown Prosecutor and CPS national lead on hate crime at the launch of a new LGBT+ Bullying and Hate Crime Schools Project pack.

He’s not wrong, but I don’t see why or how he has jurisdiction over schools. I’m not familiar with a world where prosecutors or cops provide schools with content of this kind. Schools for sure should have policies against bullying, and the staff at schools should know how to watch for it and how to prevent it and stop it. But that should be the schools’ job, not that of law enforcement.

The pack aims to protect potential victims by deterring would-be abusers and encouraging and supporting victims of identity based bullying to report incidents.

Why not just bullying tout court? It’s no more fun to be bullied for being too small or fat or nerdy or shy than it is to be bullied for “identity.”

Plus they’re not even complete about the “identity,” but they don’t admit that until later.

It has been developed by the CPS in partnership with a number of organisations, including Stonewall, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Gendered Intelligence and NASUWT.

Of course it fucking has. So it will be terrible then. Stonewall and Gendered Intelligence are shit on this subject.

In the 2018 National LGBT Survey, almost half (40%) of respondents said they had experienced things such as verbal harassment or physical violence for being LGBT+.

Nobody is “LGBT+”. That’s a grab-bag of items and no one can be all of them. If the thinking is that woolly before they even get to the content, the whole thing is going to be hopeless.

Chris Long, Chief Crown Prosecutor and CPS national lead on hate crime, said: “We know lots of hate crime isn’t reported. We hope this refreshed schools pack can help to educate young people and support victims in reporting homophobic and transphobic abuse.

“Education and working with young people is key to tackling hate crime generally. This is not about prosecution of youths, but about prevention and educating future generations on homophobic and transphobic hate crime and supporting victims in reporting hate crime.”

But, again, how is that the business of prosecutors? If it’s not about prosecution, why is the Prosecution Service meddling in it?

Now we get to the incomplete part.

A hate crime is:

“Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice, based on a person’s disability or perceived disability; race or perceived race; or religion or perceived religion; or sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation or transgender identity or perceived transgender identity.”

See what’s missing? Of course, because it always is. Sex. Sex or perceived sex. I guess there’s no such thing as hostility or prejudice based on a person’s sex any more. Misogyny? Sexism? What’s them? Never heard of them.

The CPS takes hate crime very seriously, and is determined to hold those responsible to account. Last year, the CPS secured convictions in 84% of the hate crime cases it prosecuted and, due to the severity of hate crime, the courts increased the sentences handed down in 74% of these convictions. This sends a clear message that hate crime is a scourge on Britain and will not be tolerated.

The new pack contains an updated glossary of terms and an additional scenario and exercises to help students understand the impact of homophobia and transphobia and be aware of how to report hate crime and identity-based bullying.

Teachers and schools can download the pack from this website. This is a resource for schools, so a password is required to download the pack. This can be requested by emailing LGBTHatecrimeschoolspack@cps.gov.uk.

A password is required to see what’s in this thrilling new “pack” brought to you by criminal prosecutors.

Mind how you go.

Welllllll that’s scary.

In today’s snake eats its own tail story, NPR reports on Pompeo’s abuse and lies aimed at NPR’s reporter.

Notice I simply assume Pompeo’s claims are lies. I do, yes. He has form in this area. He works for the colossal shameless brazen liar Donald Trump. He backs Trump’s lies. Kelly works for a reputable news organization, one that has its flaws (way too much fake “balance” in my view) but doesn’t just peddle lies the way Fox does. Between the two of them, it’s not Pompeo I’m going to believe.

One day after a contentious interview that was followed by an expletive-filled verbal lashing of NPR host Mary Louise Kelly, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is publicly accusing her of lying to him — “twice.”

In a statement released by the State Department on Saturday, Pompeo says Kelly first lied “in setting up our interview.”

Let’s not lose sight of how wack that is. An official State Department statement, by the Secretary of State, calls a public radio reporter a liar. That would be wack even if it were true, and since it’s not…

He does not explain how and offers no evidence. In their recorded interview from Friday, the nation’s top diplomat declined to respond when Kelly asked whether he owed an apology to Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. She was ousted from that post last year afterallies of President Trump accused her of disloyalty.

“I agreed to come on your show today,” Pompeo replied, “to talk about Iran.”

Kelly pushed back, telling Pompeo, “I confirmed with your staff last night that I would talk about Iran and Ukraine.” She later said she specifically flagged her intention to do so in writing, noting, “I never agree to take any topics off the table.”

And why should she? Why does Pompeo think he gets to stonewall us on an issue very much of public concern? He’s not hiding sensitive intel, he’s refusing to discuss Trump’s grotesque crimes against Ukraine and all of us. It’s not national security or diplomatic secrets, it’s omertà.

Pompeo asserts Kelly again lied “in agreeing to have our post-interview conversation off the record.”

Now why the hell would she do that? Why would she want to hear from Pompeo off the record? She’s not there to gossip with him, she’s there to report on him. She doesn’t want to swap secrets, she wants to know wtf he thinks he’s doing, for a news story, because we all want to know and we have a right to know.

In his statement on Saturday, Pompeo further berates Kelly. “It is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency,” he writes. “This is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this Administration. It is no wonder that the American people distrust many in the media when they so consistently demonstrate their agenda and their absence of integrity.”

In other words “wa wa wa wa wa wa wa.”

He ends the statement with an assertion that appears to falsely imply Kelly was unable to locate Ukraine on a map.

“It is worth noting,” he concludes with no further explanation, “that Bangladesh is NOT Ukraine.”

The childish stupidity and cheapness of that simply astound me.

I’m not the only one.

Five Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — ranking member Bob Menendez of New Jersey; Cory Booker, also of New Jersey; Ed Markey of Massachusetts; Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Tim Kaine of Virginia — responded caustically on Saturday to Pompeo’s statement.

“We write to express our profound disappointment and concern regarding your irresponsible statement this morning about NPR Reporter Mary Louise Kelly and the corrosive effects of your behavior on American values and standing in the world,” the senators wrote in a letter to Pompeo. “At a time when journalists around the world are being jailed for their reporting — and as in the case of Jamal Khashoggi, killed — your insulting and contemptuous comments are beneath the office of the Secretary of State.”

Exactly. This is not what Secretaries of State are supposed to do.

Way beneath.

Originally a comment by G Felis on The caucus has become a mob.

An interesting fact about cognitive dissonance development theory: From the start (Leon Festinger in the late 50s), it was more or less just an article of faith that the unpleasantness of cognitive dissonance is a spur for people to resolve it, and so a direct cause of cognitive developments such as attitude or belief change. Eventually, someone came along and asked the obvious question: whether cognitive dissonance is actually unpleasant for everyone, or if it’s variable like most psychological phenomena. It turns out, it’s the latter. Discomfort at cognitive dissonance is not universal, it’s distributed across the population in slightly skewed bell curve, just like nearly every feature of psychology, with some people feeling very high levels of discomfort with dissonance, others feeling none at all, and most falling somewhere in the middle (with what appears to be a slight skew towards more rather than less discomfort). Many people simply experience no discomfort at all from believing A and not-A simultaneously, or even from contradicting themselves from one breath to the next. Claire’s comment recognizes the variability by noting that cognitive dissonance is agonizing “for most people,” but I want to add that Senators simply aren’t “most people.”

The connection between a lack of discomfort with cognitive dissonance and the Cluster B personality disorders is pretty obvious if you’ve ever had experience with Cluster Bs: Narcissists especially not only feel no discomfort at all with cognitive dissonance, they will deliberately inspire cognitive dissonance in others through gaslighting. And narcissism, sadly, is an all-too-common pathology among career politicians. So I don’t think Republican Senators are unable to back down due to cognitive dissonance or any sort of moral “sunk cost” of the dark road they’ve come down; they’ve all deliberately courted and encouraged the darkest impulses of their electorate for decades for their own benefit. The “southern strategy” of aligning the Republican Party with white supremacy dates back to Goldwater and Nixon campaigns in the 60s, after all. Even Republican politicians who haven’t actually drunk that Kool-Aid have been serving it up for their entire career at this point, and they clearly have no compunction whatsoever about it. Thus, their fear is almost certainly a matter of prosaic calculating self-interest, not any sort of cognitive dissonance. They know that a majority of the Republican base is highly invested in their racist authoritarian hero, and they fear the electoral consequences of not toeing the Trumpist line. With regard to everyone who ISN’T a part of the Republican voter base, they also fear the electoral consequences of covering up for a transparently corrupt and incompetent president, which is why they’re trying to make the whole impeachment trial go away as quickly and with as little fuss and attention as possible. Happily, that strategy doesn’t seem to be working very well.

Behold the disgusting blob of flesh who pretends to be a real boy.

For completeness, here is Pompeo’s nasty stupid childish “statement” in full, on official State Department letterhead.

NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly lied to me, twice. First, last month, in setting up our interview and, then again yesterday, in agreeing to have our post-interview conversation off the record. It is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency. This is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this Administration. It is no wonder that the American people distrust many in the media when they so consistently demonstrate their agenda and their absence of integrity. 

It is worth noting that Bangladesh is NOT Ukraine. 

He actually said that. He told her she doesn’t even know where Ukraine is, she disputed his claim, he had his stooges bring them an unmarked map and she pointed to Ukraine on the map. Nobody said anything about Bangladesh.

What.a.tool.

The other day in Quebec:

A man charged with killing a Quebec City sex worker was allowed to have what the Parole Board of Canada deemed “inappropriate” sexual relations with women — despite the “serious and worrisome risk.” 

Eustachio Gallese had been allowed to meet women “only for the purpose of responding to [his] sexual needs,” since he was granted day parole in March 2019, according to parole board documents.  

What was he in prison for? Murdering a woman.

He was in prison for murdering a woman, so they gave him day parole so that he could get his “sexual needs” met…by another woman. Whom he murdered.

Heads up: there is no such thing as “sexual needs.” Wants, yes, urgent intense importunate wants yes, but needs, no. Nobody dies of wanting sex. If you frame male sexual wants as “needs” you make it seem as if women owe men sex, and that’s just to institutionalize rape.

Gallese, 51, was charged Thursday with second-degree murder in the death of 22-year-old Marylène Levesque, whose body was found by police in a hotel room in Quebec City’s Sainte-Foy neighbourhood on Wednesday evening.

Gallese’s desire for sex was not more important than Marylène Levesque’s life. That’s not even a close call.

Gallese was sentenced in 2006 to life in prison with no chance of parole for 15 years for the 2004 second-degree murder of Chantale Deschênes who, according to parole documents, he struck on the head with a hammer and stabbed several times, enraged by her decision to leave him. 

So, maybe possibly not the kind of guy who should be on day parole to get his sexual “needs” met? Granted, many violent criminals mature out of their violent tendencies, and long prison sentences are not a self-evident social good, and retribution is even less so, but all the same…if they’ve decided he’s not safe to release yet, they have no business deciding he’s safe to release for the few hours it takes to fuck and then kill a woman.

Véronique Hivon, the justice critic for the Parti Québécois, said the case shows a certain “nonchalance” in the way violent crimes against women are treated. 

Coupled with a deadly seriousness about the idea that men have sexual “needs” that require giving them access to women’s bodies.

Sandra Wesley, the director of Stella, a Montreal-based sex workers’ organization, said the case is “very concerning” because the parole board appears to have given Gallese tacit permission to hire prostitutes, knowingly putting them at risk.

“They identified that this man was a potential danger to women and wasn’t ready to have proper relationships with women but figured that he could then go see sex workers.”

Oh no, I’m sure they were thinking he could find a genuine girlfriend in the course of an afternoon.

Pompeo thinks we don’t yet understand what a pig he is, and he wants to make sure we grasp the true depth of his piggishness.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday attacked an NPR correspondent who reported that he berated and cursed at her following questioning over Ukraine, claiming “she lied to me” and describing her actions as “shameful.”

“NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly lied to me, twice. First, last month, in setting up our interview and, then again yesterday, in agreeing to have our post-interview conversation off the record,” Pompeo said in a statement. “It is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency.”

Kelly says she told them what she was going to ask about, and that she never said their post-interview “conversation” was off the record. Now which of them are ya gonna believe? Does Pompeo have a history of integrity we can turn to for help in believing his claims?

listens

I’ll take that as a “no.”

Pompeo did not challenge the details of Kelly’s claims about his statements or demeanor during their conversation.

He said what he said and did what he did, but he’s outraged, outraged, that she reported both.

“This is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this Administration. It is no wonder that the American people distrust many in the media when they so consistently demonstrate their agenda and their absence of integrity,” Pompeo said Saturday.

Says the guy who did nothing while Trump ruined Marie Yovanovitch’s life.