I will keep saying this until it becomes popularized: you CANNOT support (or vote for) authoritarian power structures without also supporting (and voting for) abuse, including sexual abuse.
Authoritarian power structures, including hierarchies built on money, power, race, gender, religion, or any other factor, are the perfect environment in which abuse can thrive. Unearned power, trust, and authority, people taught obedience and respect for authority, people dehumanized and objectified, cult-like structures to control people... you are begging for predators and malignant personalities to come in and abuse people.
Once otherwise decent people commit to supporting authoritarianism, they have compromised with evil and will find themselves crossing lines to justify their support, often engaging in victim blaming rather than admitting that they were wrong.
I'm wondering if the imbalance in sexual predation between the two parties really matters, even though it should.
Dems have certain expectations, including compassionate governance. GOP has no such expectations, and acknowledged from the first case of Covid that dying of such was considered a TRIBUTE to Trump, both by the dead and their families. And indeed, something they were obligated by all Grandpa's Civil War stories to go all in on, despite the total lack of logic or reason.
For the GOP, corruption simply isn't the same issue as for us. It's something they expect. Cruelty and harm from elected officials is something they anticipate, as long as libs and Black Americans suffer "adequately".
Sexual predation will never be an issue among powerful men, and MAGA realized this L-O-N-G before we did.
Not only is it not an issue, it's become a 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘳. Not a bug, but a feature. The GQP 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘴 men who take what they want, from whoever they want, whenever they want, and get away with it (or escape with disgustingly minimal consequences, like these two).
"Powerful men", and women now (e.g., G. Maxwell) need to have their mind sets, biases, prejudices, sense of entitlement, etc. changed for them. It has happened. For example, a great many "Founding Fathers" were slave holders, but not now. Trump and Epstein's/Maxwell's other friends and co-conspirators going to a high security prison, such as ADX Florence for Trump and other males, and similar established for the likes of Maxwell and other female sex offenders, might get the attention of the elite.
I never could understand why the U.S. so-called Justice System, has always been allowed to treat the rich/powerful more leniently than normal: people"" (not rich/powerful.). The elite already have their benefits in being rich/powerful, so need no other incentives to be what they are: members of the obscenely, putridly parasite class. If they seem to have broken the law - e.g., raped children - try them, and if convicted send them to a male or female high security federal prison.
I sort of fear that if the the Access Hollywood tape came out now, most of America would simply breath a sigh of relief that Trump has FINALLY moved on to adult women, and someone other than his own daughter....
These days? Considering their incéstuous relations with the clergy since the rise of the so-called "moral majority," it's been going on 𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵 since Ronny Raygun's day.
It seems like, lately, you can’t run as a Republican without having a child sex offense on your record. But if you don’t, they’ll assign someone to you to make sure you are implicated.
Seriously though, the Republican Party has so many convicted child abusers it’s amazing they have any supporters. And, yeah, these criminals are everywhere in both parties and the smaller parties, but damn, they love to excuse and obfuscate any attempt at holding them accountable. Matt Gaetz was protected until he pissed off the wrong people. My brain is missing the name of the guy who was caught trolling high schools and malls for his wife, he put up the ten commandments where they didn’t belong, you know who I’m talking about, the republicans still haven’t dropped him. Moore? The Epstein files is rife with republican politicians or donors.
They cry all the time about LGBTQ people hurting children, but that’s only because they’re trying to cover for their own proclivities. I think the only reason they have support is because they have convinced enough folks that they’re the party of god and democrats are demons. Or the folks voting for them are perps themselves. It might be both. Religion doesn’t have a great track record regarding child sex crimes either.
The modern GQP equates being able to get away with heinous crimes with success and cleverness; they were 𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 to become the party of rápe, with an attitude like that.
You people don't understand the long game. Sure it might seem bad to surround yourself with sexual predators, but he is doing you a favor. If all the sexual predators are in his friend groups, you know what game night you need to avoid.
The only other times the NFL ever opened the season on Wednesday was back in 2012 (Giants v Cowboys). It was moved so it wouldn’t conflict with the DNC. Before that, it was 1948 (Rams/Lions)
King is at least facing some accountability. He was using his FB profile as his personal page, circumventing Facebook’s ban on sex offenders being on the platform. I reported it on Saturday and got it nuked.
One of the things that has infuriated me literally for decades, ever since the Spotlight scandal in the Catholic Church became apparent 25 years ago. Was that conservative Christianity and conservative political activists constantly call gay people, transgender people, and drag queens threats to children— also to families, marriage, faith, freedom, heterosexuality, morality, stability, and western civilization, such as it is.
But mainly it’s the constant drum beat that we are a threat to children. And yet, completely unsurprisingly, it seems that most of the arrests, convictions, and sentencings that make the news concern… you’ll be very surprised about this!!… conservative Christians, conservative political and anti-LGBT activists, and Republican operatives. This has been going on for years, decades, centuries, but nevertheless, the guys that are arrested, the guys that make the news are not LGBT, but conservative Christians, conservative political activists, and conservative and professional anti LGBT a88holes.
And if there’s one thing you can give credit to Jeffrey Epstein and his circle for, none of them appear to be gay, drag queens, or transgender people. They all seem to be heterosexual, conservative, anti-gay, and often Christian men. And though I doubt anybody’s ever done a survey of the audience at the child beauty contests, where little girls as young as four or five years old are tarted up in revealing outfits with make up and fake breasts so much that they look like the only first lady you can see naked on the Internet having fake lesbian sex…
… where was I?…
Oh yes, I would bet that the audience for these things has severe overlap with heterosexual, conservative, anti gay, and often Christian men, with the full participation and approval of their heterosexual, conservative, anti-gay and often Christian wives, the mothers of those children that are tarted up to look like first ladies that you can see having fake lesbian sex on the Internet.
For some reason, this seems to piss me off, almost as much as…
Literally for decades, since it’s founding, the Boy Scouts of America, the most thoroughly heterosexual group of males you could possibly find, had a policy that positively and definitely excluded gay men and boys from being scoutmasters. For decades, while this was going on, they also had a sexual abuse problem, which they covered up literally for decades in the manner of the Roman Catholic Church, and made payouts to victims and families in the manner of the Roman Catholic Church as well. And funny thing, they weren’t Catholic, at least not always.
For decades they blamed gay men for their sexual abuse problems. But funny about that, they didn’t allow gay men or boys into the scouts. The men doing the molesting were men who were described by the scouts, the communities they lived in, families, churches, wives, and above all, THEMSELVES…
There's a pattern, all right. It's called: "Shifting Attention AWAY from US," with "us" being the perpetrators of these multiple perfidies. Nice strategy, but it apparently has a limited lifetime. The Boy Scouts got their number called not that long ago, to the point where it's no longer "The Boy Scouts of America," and their overall structure has been changed considerably as a result.
The GOP's turn is coming up, and my suspicion is that their reorientation will be even less pretty and more contentious. Beer and popcorn time, for sure.
To add: He served LESS time for the 2nd incident than he did for the first, when he should have served MORE time (given the fact that he was a repeat offender).
If the girl he abused had gotten pregnant and aborted, she would be facing life imprisonment or the death penalty for murder nowadays. But tell me again the GOP is about protecting children or life.
I’m so tired of hearing these stories about how religion and the death cult doctrine of Christianity has bled into and become the very essence of our politics. A melding of Jesus and Dear Leader was the grand finale 🇺🇸. Still, so many are quick to deny the obvious and say that this type of indoctrination is harmless, just a personal belief, or still yet for a greater good. On the left and right all I see is denial or avoidance on the subject. Must just be a few bad apples or another lone-wolf mass shooting again.
As always, 'god' and his cult are monsters. Remaining in the cult while saying you don't condone these crimes by your fellow cultists ignores the elephant in the room: That your allegedly omnipotent god is A-okay with kiddy diddling and sexual abuse.
And, because their Sky Fairy is supposed to be all-seeing, all-knowing, etc, he has stood by and watched every rape, murder, and beating in history and done nothing.
One more thought. We seem to be shocked that these folks are in the Republican Party nowadays, but many of the crimes are thirty or more years old, these people have been a part of the party the entire time. None of this is new information, it’s just been covered up enough to not reach the public. But now they no longer feel the need for coverups, or that the internet age does actually some good and keeps the coverups from being successful.
Remember, the GOP has always been this. We need to make sure to frame these stories that way, this is a theory year old case and this man is still in good standing with not only his church, but the GOP. Same with Roy Moore. Same with Trump. Same with Tuberville, Paxton, and pretty much any republican politician you care to search for. These people have been doing these crimes for decades, decades.
Why indulge in a cover-up when the leader of the party commits crimes and atrocities of multiple sorts and never has to answer for any of it. They just follow his example.
I lived in Craven County in the early '60s (Havelock, N.C., home of Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point). I suppose it wasn't any worse than any other place in the South in that era but it was sure a bastion of segregation and racism. I'm guessing it's not much better these days.
I will keep saying this until it becomes popularized: you CANNOT support (or vote for) authoritarian power structures without also supporting (and voting for) abuse, including sexual abuse.
Authoritarian power structures, including hierarchies built on money, power, race, gender, religion, or any other factor, are the perfect environment in which abuse can thrive. Unearned power, trust, and authority, people taught obedience and respect for authority, people dehumanized and objectified, cult-like structures to control people... you are begging for predators and malignant personalities to come in and abuse people.
Once otherwise decent people commit to supporting authoritarianism, they have compromised with evil and will find themselves crossing lines to justify their support, often engaging in victim blaming rather than admitting that they were wrong.
One major kind of abuse encourages and empowers other forms of abuse. Big surprise there ... NOT!
I'm wondering if the imbalance in sexual predation between the two parties really matters, even though it should.
Dems have certain expectations, including compassionate governance. GOP has no such expectations, and acknowledged from the first case of Covid that dying of such was considered a TRIBUTE to Trump, both by the dead and their families. And indeed, something they were obligated by all Grandpa's Civil War stories to go all in on, despite the total lack of logic or reason.
For the GOP, corruption simply isn't the same issue as for us. It's something they expect. Cruelty and harm from elected officials is something they anticipate, as long as libs and Black Americans suffer "adequately".
Sexual predation will never be an issue among powerful men, and MAGA realized this L-O-N-G before we did.
Not only is it not an issue, it's become a 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘳. Not a bug, but a feature. The GQP 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘴 men who take what they want, from whoever they want, whenever they want, and get away with it (or escape with disgustingly minimal consequences, like these two).
EXACTLY!
Great point, Joan!
I was here when your post came through, (but I don't LIVE here. HONEST!)
"Powerful men", and women now (e.g., G. Maxwell) need to have their mind sets, biases, prejudices, sense of entitlement, etc. changed for them. It has happened. For example, a great many "Founding Fathers" were slave holders, but not now. Trump and Epstein's/Maxwell's other friends and co-conspirators going to a high security prison, such as ADX Florence for Trump and other males, and similar established for the likes of Maxwell and other female sex offenders, might get the attention of the elite.
I never could understand why the U.S. so-called Justice System, has always been allowed to treat the rich/powerful more leniently than normal: people"" (not rich/powerful.). The elite already have their benefits in being rich/powerful, so need no other incentives to be what they are: members of the obscenely, putridly parasite class. If they seem to have broken the law - e.g., raped children - try them, and if convicted send them to a male or female high security federal prison.
Nice to dream, sometimes.
p;rij send them to jail whenever appropriate.
But God's forgiveness yadda yadda bucks & votes something quantum redo from start.
The Jesus Get Out of Jail Free card. No expiration date.
Rethuglicans - the party of Slime and Sleaze!
Given who the current POTUS is, is it really so surprising that the GQP is a pedopalooza these days?
Considering that nearly the entire Republican party wants to be just like Donnie Dumbass, this result is effectively intuitively obvious.
I sort of fear that if the the Access Hollywood tape came out now, most of America would simply breath a sigh of relief that Trump has FINALLY moved on to adult women, and someone other than his own daughter....
These days? Considering their incéstuous relations with the clergy since the rise of the so-called "moral majority," it's been going on 𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵 since Ronny Raygun's day.
It seems like, lately, you can’t run as a Republican without having a child sex offense on your record. But if you don’t, they’ll assign someone to you to make sure you are implicated.
Seriously though, the Republican Party has so many convicted child abusers it’s amazing they have any supporters. And, yeah, these criminals are everywhere in both parties and the smaller parties, but damn, they love to excuse and obfuscate any attempt at holding them accountable. Matt Gaetz was protected until he pissed off the wrong people. My brain is missing the name of the guy who was caught trolling high schools and malls for his wife, he put up the ten commandments where they didn’t belong, you know who I’m talking about, the republicans still haven’t dropped him. Moore? The Epstein files is rife with republican politicians or donors.
They cry all the time about LGBTQ people hurting children, but that’s only because they’re trying to cover for their own proclivities. I think the only reason they have support is because they have convinced enough folks that they’re the party of god and democrats are demons. Or the folks voting for them are perps themselves. It might be both. Religion doesn’t have a great track record regarding child sex crimes either.
𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑐𝑟𝑦 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝐿𝐺𝐵𝑇𝑄 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑛, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡’𝑠 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦’𝑟𝑒 𝑡𝑟𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑐𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑐𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑠.
Just remember, every accusation is a confession.
You’re thinking of Roy “Mallrat” Moore. What. A. Sleaze.
The modern GQP equates being able to get away with heinous crimes with success and cleverness; they were 𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 to become the party of rápe, with an attitude like that.
Well Mary, were she to have existed, was impregnated when she was of a tender age...
"It seems like, lately, you can’t run as a Republican without having a child sex offense on your record. "
What we didn't know 'family values' meant, I guess? eww.
Someone isn't legit GOP without a soul-crushing redemption story.
All about "getting better", and someone who hasn't won't get elected. (Or offered a ministry.)
You people don't understand the long game. Sure it might seem bad to surround yourself with sexual predators, but he is doing you a favor. If all the sexual predators are in his friend groups, you know what game night you need to avoid.
The only game night I do is Monday Night Football. And Sunday Night Football.
The two game nights I do are MNF and SNF. Oops, there is also Thursday Night .... and they opened the season on Wednesday.
Among the game nights I do .....
You're not alone! 😉
The only other times the NFL ever opened the season on Wednesday was back in 2012 (Giants v Cowboys). It was moved so it wouldn’t conflict with the DNC. Before that, it was 1948 (Rams/Lions)
King is at least facing some accountability. He was using his FB profile as his personal page, circumventing Facebook’s ban on sex offenders being on the platform. I reported it on Saturday and got it nuked.
Well done.
One of the things that has infuriated me literally for decades, ever since the Spotlight scandal in the Catholic Church became apparent 25 years ago. Was that conservative Christianity and conservative political activists constantly call gay people, transgender people, and drag queens threats to children— also to families, marriage, faith, freedom, heterosexuality, morality, stability, and western civilization, such as it is.
But mainly it’s the constant drum beat that we are a threat to children. And yet, completely unsurprisingly, it seems that most of the arrests, convictions, and sentencings that make the news concern… you’ll be very surprised about this!!… conservative Christians, conservative political and anti-LGBT activists, and Republican operatives. This has been going on for years, decades, centuries, but nevertheless, the guys that are arrested, the guys that make the news are not LGBT, but conservative Christians, conservative political activists, and conservative and professional anti LGBT a88holes.
And if there’s one thing you can give credit to Jeffrey Epstein and his circle for, none of them appear to be gay, drag queens, or transgender people. They all seem to be heterosexual, conservative, anti-gay, and often Christian men. And though I doubt anybody’s ever done a survey of the audience at the child beauty contests, where little girls as young as four or five years old are tarted up in revealing outfits with make up and fake breasts so much that they look like the only first lady you can see naked on the Internet having fake lesbian sex…
… where was I?…
Oh yes, I would bet that the audience for these things has severe overlap with heterosexual, conservative, anti gay, and often Christian men, with the full participation and approval of their heterosexual, conservative, anti-gay and often Christian wives, the mothers of those children that are tarted up to look like first ladies that you can see having fake lesbian sex on the Internet.
For some reason, this seems to piss me off, almost as much as…
Literally for decades, since it’s founding, the Boy Scouts of America, the most thoroughly heterosexual group of males you could possibly find, had a policy that positively and definitely excluded gay men and boys from being scoutmasters. For decades, while this was going on, they also had a sexual abuse problem, which they covered up literally for decades in the manner of the Roman Catholic Church, and made payouts to victims and families in the manner of the Roman Catholic Church as well. And funny thing, they weren’t Catholic, at least not always.
For decades they blamed gay men for their sexual abuse problems. But funny about that, they didn’t allow gay men or boys into the scouts. The men doing the molesting were men who were described by the scouts, the communities they lived in, families, churches, wives, and above all, THEMSELVES…
As thoroughly heterosexual, God-fearing men.
I think I’m starting to sense a pattern here.
There's a pattern, all right. It's called: "Shifting Attention AWAY from US," with "us" being the perpetrators of these multiple perfidies. Nice strategy, but it apparently has a limited lifetime. The Boy Scouts got their number called not that long ago, to the point where it's no longer "The Boy Scouts of America," and their overall structure has been changed considerably as a result.
The GOP's turn is coming up, and my suspicion is that their reorientation will be even less pretty and more contentious. Beer and popcorn time, for sure.
King served a total of 8 years behind bars for his crimes. Had he not been an xtian, he'd have gone away for life.
Christian privilege.
To add: He served LESS time for the 2nd incident than he did for the first, when he should have served MORE time (given the fact that he was a repeat offender).
Well now, the second incident was with a female relative, so at least he was keeping it in the family.
I’m guessing she was a teenager and he and his lawyer were willing to trash her reputation.
If the girl he abused had gotten pregnant and aborted, she would be facing life imprisonment or the death penalty for murder nowadays. But tell me again the GOP is about protecting children or life.
It's great that Republicans have an 'R' after their names, just like movies, it tells parents that they are inappropriate for children under 17.
I’m so tired of hearing these stories about how religion and the death cult doctrine of Christianity has bled into and become the very essence of our politics. A melding of Jesus and Dear Leader was the grand finale 🇺🇸. Still, so many are quick to deny the obvious and say that this type of indoctrination is harmless, just a personal belief, or still yet for a greater good. On the left and right all I see is denial or avoidance on the subject. Must just be a few bad apples or another lone-wolf mass shooting again.
Over at Christian Post someone unironically said that taking young kids to church was “the best indoctrination”.
Ha! As opposed to what other kind of indoctrination?
Oh, you know, public school….
You mean the Party of Pedo Protectors had a convicted pedo give the blessing at one of their events? I'm shocked. SHOCKED, I tells ya!
Ya gotta love all 'em good christian folk who attend Pastor Pedo's church, too, eh? If there really was a god....
....they would need a dozen lightning rods on that church.
Or a skyward-facing loudspeaker broadcasting a loop of Public Apologies to the Ceiling.
𝐻𝑜𝑤 ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑎 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑖𝑠𝑛’𝑡 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑐?
About as hard as keeping Grindr operating at a Republican convention.
Not to toot my own horn, but I am getting 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 at predicting what the next FA article is going to be. Called this one on Friday. :)
Although, to be fair, that was 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 a day ending in Y.
Let's test this. What will tomorrow's article be about? : )
Some version of "Shit is fucked up and shit".
Christian(s) behaving badly.
Bet heavily. It's a sure thing.
If Hemant ever has to change the name of his blog, "Christians Behaving Badly" would be a good name, if slightly redundant.
Not only that it wouldn’t be all-inclusive either, given the sheer amount of woo-woo of all stripes.
How about "Religious Idiots Behaving Badly"?
There's also snake oil being shilled by the Gwyneth Paltrows of the world (Goop, anyone?)
The odds on Kalshi suck. Hardly worth the effort.
Tomorrow? Dunno. But here's one we're likely to be seeing soon, since it's an update to a story Hemant ran an article on back in July: https://apnews.com/article/arapaho-christian-god-nations-ceremony-wind-river-1fbc7065317d503ca7c72fa1cba2ef96
As always, 'god' and his cult are monsters. Remaining in the cult while saying you don't condone these crimes by your fellow cultists ignores the elephant in the room: That your allegedly omnipotent god is A-okay with kiddy diddling and sexual abuse.
https://i.redd.it/m4vvx0omn8g21.jpg
That god, in the form of a halo-wearing bird, impregnated an underage girl that was not its wife.
The ABCs of xtianity: Adultery, Bestiality and Child molesttion.
And, because their Sky Fairy is supposed to be all-seeing, all-knowing, etc, he has stood by and watched every rape, murder, and beating in history and done nothing.
One more thought. We seem to be shocked that these folks are in the Republican Party nowadays, but many of the crimes are thirty or more years old, these people have been a part of the party the entire time. None of this is new information, it’s just been covered up enough to not reach the public. But now they no longer feel the need for coverups, or that the internet age does actually some good and keeps the coverups from being successful.
Remember, the GOP has always been this. We need to make sure to frame these stories that way, this is a theory year old case and this man is still in good standing with not only his church, but the GOP. Same with Roy Moore. Same with Trump. Same with Tuberville, Paxton, and pretty much any republican politician you care to search for. These people have been doing these crimes for decades, decades.
Why indulge in a cover-up when the leader of the party commits crimes and atrocities of multiple sorts and never has to answer for any of it. They just follow his example.
They also know that 𝘩𝘪𝘴 DoJ will never come after them.
Well... not unless they say tepidly unkind things about his dictator vanity projects, anyway.
THIS DoJ won't come after them. The next administration might just be a different matter.
Depends on IF there is a next administration and WHO is in charge of it.
Craven County. Really? Craven? You can't make this stuff up.
That was my first reaction too. Huge eyeroll.
I lived in Craven County in the early '60s (Havelock, N.C., home of Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point). I suppose it wasn't any worse than any other place in the South in that era but it was sure a bastion of segregation and racism. I'm guessing it's not much better these days.