Ground up lobster?

It is not just that the perpetrators of this cruelty enjoy it; it is that they enjoy it with one another. Their shared laughter at the suffering of others is an adhesive that binds them to one another, and to Trump.

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

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

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

And last of all the mounting wave, green and cold and plumed with foam, climbing over the land, took to its bosom Tar-Míriel the Queen, fairer than silver or ivory or pearls. Too late she strove to ascend the steep ways of the Meneltarma to the holy place; for the waters overtook her, and her cry was lost in the roaring of the wind.

Why do they support him? Because he merrily feeds the furnaces of their inner sadists who find pure pleasure in hurting others. It's the tactical and strategic use of cruelty and viciousness as a bonding agent. And an overthrowing of the old virtues of what the ancient Greeks said made a good person, in exchange for the full unleashing of the worst that humans can possibly be. It's just creating a desert of the soul, in this case the mass-soul of what used to be the United States of America, and calling it a victory:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... nt/572104/



I could easily see the CKA MAGA's being the kind of people who would yuk it up for the cameras at a lynching or a burning out of their foes, or be the drunken bros cheering on while they watched a frat-house rape in progress. And Bart's basically said that because he got his tax cuts he really doesn't care whatever else Trump does, or has done - "I got mine so fuck the rest of you". Think on that for a while.

There are no comebacks from any of this. This is the United States now, and probably for the rest of it's existence as well, however long that may actually be. Even when Trump's gone Gorsuch & Kavanaugh will still be there doing his will for the course of the next entire generation. And, as America usually leads the world in too many negative trends and patterns as well as in the positive things it used to perform, this could very well become the pattern for the rest of the world as well.

CNN: The secret of why Trump won't release his taxes

https://youtube.com/watch?v=V-tykQX4WYE[/video]

It’s been pretty clear for some time now that Republicans don’t believe in basic principles of democracy like the rule of law or due process or procedural fairness.

Republicans today instead believe that certain people or certain groups should be ‘above the law’ and immune from criticism or prosecution for any wrongdoing, while others should be ‘below the law’ and ineligible for even basic rights and legal protections or fair treatment. The latter group includes immigrants, Muslims, gays, “socialists” or any other supposed social deviant. They view everyone in world as belonging to either these Ubermenschen or Untermenschen, and there is no objective right or wrong. So when they hear about a crime or wrongdoing they’re less interested in the facts of the case or whether any wrongdoings actually occurred; instead they’re more interested in who “deserves” to be ‘sided with’. If a cop robs and murders a drug dealer or rapes a prostitute, they only ask whose side are you on - the hero police, or the lowlife dealers and hookers?

That knife cuts both ways, Beaver.

Democrats and Liberals alike want people convicted on accusations and public opinion. No charges, trial or even evidence is required anymore. Guilty before proven innocent is the new mantra of the left.

We must believe all. Evidence and facts be damned. If you don't believe every single accusation, you're labelled as 'part of the problem'

The left has made up terms like "sexual misconduct" to describe things they don't like that involves a man.

The Trump administration reportedly has obtained search warrants that would allow them access to the Facebook pages of thousands of anti-Trump protesters.

The requested data — which targets all the information in three accounts — would include information on about 6,000 individuals who “liked” an anti-Donald Trump Facebook page, according to CNN.

The ACLU is fighting the warrant, claiming it seeks information that is not relevant to the federal probe.

“What is particularly chilling about these warrants is that anti-administration political activists are going to have their political associations and views scrutinized by the very administration they are protesting,” said ACLU attorney Scott Michelman.

Requested data would go back to Nov. 1, 2016, a week before the presidential election.

One of the users targeted ran the disruptj20 page, where Inauguration Day protests were organized, CNN said.

The user, Emmelia Talarico, said in a court filing that if the government obtained her information, it would have access to her “personal passwords, security questions and answers, and credit card information,” plus “the private lists of invitees and attendees to multiple political events sponsored by the page.”

A spokesperson for Facebook said the company had fought in court to notify the three main individuals about the government’s request for their information.

Kanye West went on an extended rant in the Oval Office on Thursday at the beginning of a working lunch with Donald Trump, where he dropped the F bomb, talked about his Bipolar Disorder diagnosis, pounded on the Resolute Desk and gave the president a hug.

West said that he has come to understand that 'bravery helps you beat this game called life' and that he was misdiagnosed with a mental health disease when he was really just sleep deprived in a 10-minute speech, followed by nearly 10 minutes of questions, in which he labeled himself a 'crazy motherf***er' and called the amendment that ended slavery a 'trap door' and said it should be abolished.

He also joked about running for president in 2024 and said that Trump 'is on his hero’s journey' in the astounding remarks that seemed to amuse the former reality TV show hosting president, who told him: 'That was pretty impressive.'

Trump is 'on his hero's journey' and I'm 'a crazy motherf***er': Kanye's 10-minute Oval Office rant as he pounds the Resolute Desk, says his MAGA hat is 'a Superman cape' and jokes about 2024 run - with president responding: 'Wow, that was impressive'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6265299/Trump-says-campaigning-Kanye-rapper-visits-White-House.html
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The Left's Meltdown will be priceless.

Melania Trump's destructive message to sex crime victims

Why Trump wasn't present during wife's procedure
Editor's Note:Elie Honig is a former federal and state prosecutor and currently a Rutgers University scholar. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion articles on CNN.

(CNN) — In an interview with ABC News, first lady Melania Trump said that victims of sexual assault "need to have really hard evidence" before coming forward. She added, "I do stand with women, but we need to show the evidence. You cannot just say to somebody, 'I was sexually assaulted' or 'you did that to me' because sometimes the media goes too far. ..."

The hypocrisy is jarring. Trump proclaimed that she "stand(s) with women," yet, in the next breath, opined that sex crime victims should not be believed unless they produce independent corroborating evidence for their allegations. In fact, Trump badly misconstrues how sex crime cases and investigations actually work. At the same time, she sends a dangerous message that threatens to discourage sex crime victims from coming forward to hold their attackers accountable.

Elie Honig

Trump's statement is problematic because it distorts the law. Simply put, testimony is evidence. A core purpose of any trial is to elicit testimony and to enable the jury to evaluate the credibility of the witness. By her words, Trump promoted a problematic misconception that witness testimony -- particularly if that witness is a victim of a sex assault -- should not be believed, or should not be believed enough to visit consequences on the accused.

To the contrary, the law places great weight on the testimony of a witness, even if that witness stands alone. Judges commonly instruct juries that even the testimony of one witness, if credited, can be enough to convict a defendant in a criminal trial beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the highest standard of proof known to our legal system -- and that's even in the absence of other corroborating evidence.
Trump's comments also are wrong from an investigative perspective. Law enforcement officers, and the public generally, do not expect victims of other types of crime to hunt for and obtain independent evidence. We do not expect robbery victims to dust for fingerprints, or fraud victims to track down bank records or hacking victims to run computer forensics. Why should it be any different for sex crime victims?

Related Video: Melania says a lot with very few words 04:05

While victims sometimes do possess other evidence beyond their own testimony, it simply is not the responsibility of any crime victim to procure outside evidence. The victim's job is simply to tell law enforcement what happened. Law enforcement then pursues other evidence that may (or may not) support the victim's account.

This is how things are done -- and for good reason. For victims to pursue external evidence on their own, first, is potentially dangerous and, second, may not comport with the law, which could render that evidence unusable at trial.

But Trump's comments are most problematic because they discourage sex crime victims from coming forward in the first place. Sex crimes already are badly underreported across the United States. Conservative estimates show that at least 60% of sex crimes are never reported to law enforcement.
Indeed, it is extraordinarily difficult for sex crime victims to come forward for a complex combination of reasons. Victims fear that they will be shamed, stigmatized or disbelieved, or that they will be subject to retaliation by their attackers. It is noteworthy that, in the same interview in which she further stigmatized sex crime victims, Trump also proclaimed that she is "the most bullied person" in the world.

Trump's message is particularly insidious because it is extraordinarily rare and difficult for young sex crime victims to come forward, particularly against authority figures. More than 85% of sex assaults against children go unreported to law enforcement. It also is exceedingly common for young victims who do come forward to do so many years after they have been attacked. As time passes, independent evidence inherently becomes more difficult to obtain. Therefore, Trump's warning to victims that they should not come forward without external evidence, if heeded, disproportionately could benefit offenders who target children.

Often, it takes one victim with the courage and support network to come forward to embolden others to do the same. We have seen serial sexual predators from Jerry Sandusky to Larry Nassar to Bill Cosby brought to justice largely because first one victim -- and then many others -- came forward about events that happened years ago. This unequivocally is a powerful and positive trend in criminal justice and more broadly.

In her comments, Trump badly misused her platform as first lady to send a destructive message to sex crime victims: Don't speak up on your own, because you will not be believed.

Senate Democrats accepted an offer Thursday from Senate Republicans to confirm 15 lifetime federal judges in exchange for the ability to go into recess through the midterms, allowing endangered Democrats to campaign.

The calculation by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his caucus was simple: That Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would be able to confirm roughly 15 judges if he kept the Senate in session for the next few weeks anyway. So Democrats OK’d an offer to confirm three Circuit Court judges and 12 Circuit Court judges as the price to pay to go home for election season.

Under Senate rules, even if Democrats fought the nominees tooth and nail and forced the Senate to burn 30 hours of debate between each one, McConnell would have gotten them all confirmed by Nov. 1. Democrats could have conceivably left a skeleton crew of senators in Washington to force the GOP to take roll call votes on the judges over the next few weeks, although that tactic is not typically employed by the minority.

Some liberal activists are urging Democrats to show more fight after Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court; Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos even said that Democrats “need a new Senate leader” after the agreement was struck.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren told the caucus that she opposed the deal, the lone Democrat to voice displeasure, according to a person briefed on the meeting.

McConnell and President Donald Trump will now have confirmed 84 judges over the past two years, including two Supreme Court nominees, after the deal. Democrats also allowed a package of judges to be confirmed in August as a condition of going home.

Though Senate Democratic leaders advised the agreement to their members on Thursday afternoon, several senators said on the way to the votes they were unaware what exactly their leadership had just agreed to. Any Democrat could have objected to the deal as McConnell read it on the Senate floor, but none did.