Wanking Weiner

    Well, someone's got their schadenfreude going big time. Anthony Weiner's going to serve hard time, despite having destroyed his marriage and his party's campaign, undergone treatment, expressed remorse in no uncertain terms, for showing his wanker over the internet to purportedly an underage girl*.

    [*there's a whole load of suspicion over whether Russians and/or Republicans set  the known sickie Weiner up with an "underage girl" who seemed to have a Master's degree in English lit from her non-too adolescent literary references. But I guess for now we have to assume it's partly true, police penchant for lying or not.]

    Now let's compare this sentence with say Brock Turner, who raped a comatosely drunk college classmate (didn't even know her name) behind a dumpster, left her with her clothes wrapped around her ankles and her bare ass in the pine needles while Brock the perp tried to run away from 2 Swedes who fortunately happened to notice the ruckus.

    That wasn't enough for Turner - he pled not guilty, lied about his past LSD & ecstasy use, blamed his problems on things like having a disabled brother, forced the girl to go through horrendous, repetitive stigmatizing cross-examination of "what were you wearing? how much do you drink?", she of course had to go for HIV testing several times because unlike sexting you can actually get a deadly disease from real rape, and then the jerk once convicted persuaded the judge that even though he wasn't sorry about raping a comatose girl, he was sorry his swimming career was destroyed and he'd be back to just being a spoiled white kid with no scholarship and as his dad pleaded, "unable to enjoy his steak anymore". Brock Turner was sentenced to 6 months and walked out in 3.

    How old are you? How much do you weigh? What did you eat that day? Well what did you have for dinner? Who made dinner? Did you drink with dinner? No, not even water? When did you drink? How much did you drink? What container did you drink out of? Who gave you the drink? How much do you usually drink? Who dropped you off at this party? At what time? But where exactly? What were you wearing? Why were you going to this party? What’ d you do when you got there? Are you sure you did that? But what time did you do that? ....

    Then there's the policemen who shoot or choke to death or break the spines of unarmed and apprehended black males with complete impunity, even self-righteously complaining about any suspensions during investigating faked tapes, planted weapons, disappeared recordings, and wanton horrid abuse as documented by brave citizen journalists, because even those who can plainly be seen not to be interfering in the inhuman beatings are still arrested for "resisting arrest and interfering with police duty", when banging someone's head on the pavement multiple time can hardly be justified as "police duty" except in our twisted courtrooms and police unions and gung-ho Republican apologist clubs. Yes, killing someone through malfeasance of duty gets you 0 jail time and 0 record in nearly 100% of cases.

    And then there's the President, the head of our legal system, who made a habit of walking in on underage girls dressing as they tried to make it in one of the few simple and legal avenues for girls to succeed that isn't loaded with barriers to advancement. Well, it's still out on how many of these young girls he might have slept with in his lecherous mood as sleazebag-in-chief of  the beuty pageants, but we know that very few outrageous Trump actions have ever been punished to any serious extent, despite multiple lawsuits, criminal bankruptcies, defrauding people like with his false claims around his new bankrupt Puerto Rico property, his violent behavior as testified by his ex-wife, hs documented lying in court, etc. etc. Oh yes, and his dereliction in duty as the whole island of Puerto Rico is without electricity but he's tweeting about football players and just acting like a dumbfuck while people are dying and trying to recover their destroyed homes. We elected the pussy-grabber in chief, the one who told a generation that girls just want you to come up and grab their privies, that you can do whatever you want with them - how is he not Brock Turner squared or cubed? Turner at least isn't from a rich entitled pampered and crooked family, however stupid the family's excuses for his behavior. Trump doesn't have any excuse - he just embodies all this horrid paroxysms of incorrigibility.

    There is a definition of criminally stupid, and there are different gradations of affronts to humanity and society. Yet we also aim for the most titillating, the most prurient, the least consequential, because we're not serious about anything, we just like scoring partisan and tut-tutting points rather than addressing real problems in serious ways. Weiner's a sick man and drastically needs help, which he seems to have been trying to do, but fortunately his sickness and crimes are largely inconsequential - even an underage girl hanging out on the internet sexting with older men is unlikely to get damaged if it doesn't go further than that. I had Playboy and HBO at 11, as did most boys from my generation, and it's not like girls weren't aware as well (I remember later some 35-year-old could turn right to the semi-rape scene in The Godfather where she & her friends would get their thrills). And it's a helluva lot more open these days than back then. So what is it? a political hit job on a self-described sext-addicted idiot. It doesn't protect young girls who are much more likely to be harmed by rape by classmates than any casual arousal on the internet. It doesn't put lights on paths and parking lights that girls have to traverse dangerously at night. It doesn't stop the police I remember who'd pull over for underage girls like Bad Lieutenant except rape them rather than masturbate over them - that one I think went to jail, back in a time where police weren't *completely* excused for every outrageous event, when they were expected to calm down problems rather than exacerbate and cause the violent ends.

    It's weird times, over and over. Even the celebration that haters will have, that Weiner will quite possibly be raped in jail for a largely pathetic crime where he never even touched the girl - and meanwhile people like Arpaio defy the law and get pardoned, white racists march and kill black people and it's considered "both sides do it", demagogues will encourage the death and bludgeoning of gays and Hispanics and blacks and Muslims and anyone else outside their tiny angry world.

    I hate that I'm defending a strangely perverted pol, but at the same time I learned a lot about sin and forgiveness and understanding, the by-products of a non-believing religious upbringing, of a belief in the chance of rehabilitation rather than a pure reliance on punishment as its own reward. Hypocrisy knows no bounds, for good and for bad. Weiner will face new lows, but not as low as this country is sinking. He at least had the self-cognizance to say he's sorry. For us, we're rather sorry without the display. How much lower before we hit bottom?

    Comments

    This is tough, but as opposed to the entitled rapist you described, I honestly think Weiner has a demonstrable mental illness.  The prognosis for those adults who are attracted to children is not good, treatment, rather than prison should be the direction to take.  

    After all of the times Weiner was caught, he had to realize, as an intelligent man, what he was risking.  I don't believe he is a sociopath; I do believe he has an illness.  His life is pretty much over unless he can somehow use his intelligence to figure out how to turn this around.  For sure his marriage is over; his political future is done, but he could yet do some good.

    Mr Preppy will do just fine, and will probably marry a trophy wife.  He will (possibly) recall the rape event as a funny thing that happened on his way home from a drunk party.  "Boys will be boys...chuckle chuckle."  

    Yes, it is a weird time.  Normally I like weird, but not now.  


    I dont think Weiner's attracted to underage girls - I think he's just into / addicted to hooking up randomly on the internet. I'm pretty believing in the idea he was catfished and haven't seen anything that showed underage girls to be his M.O. sure, younger girls is kinda de rigeuer. But this was a 15 or 16 just below line of consent. How many did he hit up on like this, or was this an outlier?


    Just FWIW on the whole pedophile thing, and how it is supposedly difficult for them not to reoffend, I happened across the documentary Untouchable a couple nights ago. I came away thoroughly convinced that this is bullshit science and we are all fooled and are really doing an injustice with these pedophile registration laws. The guy who basically made up the "80% reoffend" figure that all of our sex offender registry laws are based upon, admits it in the documentary. That this figure is wrong, wrong, wrong, he's horrified by it.  He wrote it way back in the olden days for a lousy article in Psychology Today when the science of this was just starting and he nor no one else had any expertise. And all the courts just quote it and go no further. The actual figure is 3.5% repeat, less than for other types of crime.

    If anyone is interested, the documentary maker David Feige, a television writer and a former public defender in the Bronx, is the director of “Untouchable,” a feature documentary about sex offender laws summed up the whole problem in this recent op-ed for the New York Times:  When Junk Science About Sex Offenders Infects the Supreme Court, Sept. 12.

    My takeaway from that:

    Sex offenders can stop their behavior. Because: most do! Even most pedophiles do! Is a scientific fact. Hence Weiner's repeat behavior and his claims that he has an honest desire to stop ring hollow.


    I should have noted Dennis Hastert who got 15 months for molesting 4 kids he was coaching down to 14 years old, alond with lying to the Feds and violating bank withdrawal laws. And then there are all those priest/preacher scandals that seem to pass without charges. Only Sandusky represents anything harsh, and his crimes were much much more severe, 8 year olds, dozens of kids over decades.

    And then Weiner sends some dirty emails. 21 months in the pen. Absurd.


    I suspect you don't know the narcissist Anthony Weiner, what a nasty piece of work he can be. And I suspect that the judge, a very distinguished woman, Denise L. Cote, with a liberal background,  got a good sense of his underlying lack of remorse, and figured that this is last chance for him, he needs a shock or he is lost. Whether it's a disease or not. (If it's a disease, Trump should get the same mulligan?)

    From the last link: “The prosecutors are skeptical that I have truly changed and I don’t blame them,” he said. “I repeatedly acted in an obviously destructive way when I was caught.”

    Huma Abedin to Hillary Clinton: This man is going to be the death of me. I took that when I first read it as not entirely metaphorical.

    And no it's not about interest in underage girls. It's about being a self-centered creep who will sell anyone out for ego strokes and or fans. Gets high off of that. Just so happened liberal politics was one of the tools he used. That was insincere, mho. I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw a stick. He's they type who would throw anyone under a bus, anyone.  I actually do think he could be the literal death of someone, I think him a very dangerous man. I'm glad to see him get a sentence.

     


    I suspecsuspect you're being highly illiberal in this case. It doesn't matter the girl's motives or that she reached out to him, a public personality with a known sex fetish? I bet his point that he thought he was catfished and chats that this was a hoax got a lot of court consideration. Look at OceanKat below  - liberal people aren't liberal about everything  - he's touchy about these underage cases.


    I didn't know that  50 year old men talking 15 year old girls into getting naked and masturbating for them was a liberal value. Sometimes teen girls get excited and attracted to older men. It's happened to me. I could see how easy it would be to manipulate immature girls. Most older men don't take advantage of that. Most older men could not be entrapped.


    It's illegal, it's immoral, he's going to prison. Did he need 21 months for this crime, while cops are body slamming and killing innocent or uncharged people in the street with 0 penalty? I see so many people committing awful violent and thieving and other immoral crimes with no punishment, but then something with a bit of sex and minors gets into it and I'm supposed to be shocked into brutal retaliation mode.


    Are you suggesting everyone should get the same pass for crimes as the police? I should be allowed to body slam and kill innocent people with 0 penalty?  What change are we looking to manifest in the future? Isn't the point that cops should be held accountable not that other people should get a pass because the cops do?


    Now you're being obtuse. I'm obviously suggesting punishment should fit the crime and there should be obvious comparative scales of sentences between like and steadily worse infractions.

    No, I'm not suggesting everyone should get no time, for fuck's sake - I'm suggesting police should be punished. And that it decays the rule of law to see one class treated special and another not, ir gross discrepancies in sentencing. Martha Stewart probably deserved jail time, but less than people who stole millions and billions from unsuspecting investors or mortgage holders or other victims. Making an example and forgetting the rest is just grotesque.


    BTW, in 52 countries girls under 15 can marry with parental consent. While some of this is usurious for sure, not every country is convinced that it's immoral to see a young girl as desirable. And I would argue that the biggest issue is allowing the girls their own choice, rather than societal demanded arranged marriages and such. Yeah, 15 years is young for free informed choice, in my opinion, and most societies, but it's not a physical limit and it's certainly ahistorical, including many spring-winter marriages.


    Making an example and forgetting the rest is just grotesque. You're suggesting we should stop making examples and I'm suggesting we should stop forgetting the rest.

    It's possible in poor agrarian societies without education or societies where almost the only role allowed women is wife and homemaker allowing girls to at least make their own choice is likely a step up from forced marriages. In modern societies such early marriage is in almost all cases manipulation of immature girls by older men. History is one of my weakest subjects but from my reading for at least the last 500 years in Europe and America men and women waited until their mid 20's to marry. a quick search gave me this.

    http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/society/family/marriage.html

    I don't think we should seek to match the lower standards of the most misogynistic and oppressive nations or the standards of primitive and ignorant times. I hope that someday they will rise to our standards and that we will rise to even higher standards than we now hold. My dreams for a better world don't include letting 15 and younger girls choose to marry. Im my most firmly held opinion that will not result in more freedom for the girls. It will simply give clever men the freedom to manipulate them.

     

     


    No, men and women *didn't wait until their mid 20's to marry. Some did in particular circles, but Henry the VII's mother married at 12 and had him at 13, someone else notes pulling graves in Virginia with most wives around 19, and certainly we know in southern or more rural climes marrying age was frequently much younger.

    Also, age of consent to marriage as well as consent to sex are quite a different thing from average age of marriage, especially in an age of easy hookups and where many with kids are unmarried, and reflects my main point - whether looking at a young girl sexually was considered unnatural through most of human history. Yes, we have a bit different tastes or "morals" these days, but I have trouble feeling the "OMG!" shock-and-awe of it, especially since the young girls have much more say in their own attractions rather than bartered away for a dowry, political purposes or simply parental preferences, and certainly sex takes place without parental consent.

    This discussion is really more about Doc Cleveland's idea of whether someone's duellable, i.e. whether they're in compatible classes to be transacting sex. I'd think nothing of a 17-year-old having sex with a 15-year-old, but we do feel icky with a 30+ year difference. And yet our models and glamour set are often in the 15-21 age group (Playboy playmates in the 1950's and 60's were largely 17 and 18, with one 16-year-old, but tastes seem to have aged a very slight bit).


    WELL Peracles, I hereby render unto you and your kin the Dayly Heading of the Day Award for this here Dagblog Site, given to all of you from all of me.

    hahahahahaaha

    I am speechless.


    I also suspect you don't know what Weiner did. I don't think you're deliberately trying to misled us. It was not just a dick pic or dirty emails. Weiner had three skype chats with the teen, each time he convinced her to strip naked and fondle herself. If we're going to have a conversation on it we should have a conversation about his actual crimes.

    Weiner has under gone treatment just like the prior two times. He's expressed remorse and claims he's rehabilitated, just like the prior two times. It appears one of your arguments is that the third time's a charm. I don't accept that. He was basically given a pass twice before. How often should he get a pass especially considering this crime was so much more severe than the previous two.

    All societies for at least the last several thousand years have tended to trivialize sex crimes against women. As they do crimes committed by police. That's not an argument that the rare times such crimes are punished harshly that we should have matched the leniency of prior cases. It's not like there was wide spread acceptance of Turner's sentence. There was wide spread disagreement and protests over the sentence. The argument made was that the sentence should have been tougher. The whole point of BLM is that police should be held accountable for their crimes. Not that everyone should get the same pass the Turners or the police do.

    I'll be honest and say what most of us know. While sexual attraction to prepubescent girls is likely rare and can likely be classified as a mental illness most men can find teen girls sexually attractive. That's not a mental illness that's normal. I didn't just find 15 year old girls attractive I was having a lot of sex with a 15 year old girl, when I was a 15 year old boy. I eventually married her when we were 20. If I had seen a picture of my wife at 15 when I was 25 I'm sure I would still have found her sexually attractive. I would not have been turned off because she looked so young. But at 25 I wasn't still trying to have sex with 15 year old girls. By the time I was 25 I know it would be wrong for me to use the power and sophistication that comes with age to seduce and manipulate 15 year old girls into sexual encounters.

    I have little doubt that Weiner knew what was right and what was wrong. Most of us can find a 15 year old girl sexually attractive but we choose not to do wrong. He made a choice to do something he knew was wrong. We can decide that people who choose to do what they know is wrong are mentally ill. But we still have to decide how to punish them. 21 months for a third offense of escalating criminal behavior seems fine to me.

     


    Woo hee, the 15-year-old girl that contacted him, a known sexting freak, fondled herself across the internet. Three times in months-long chats. Woo hee, steadily increasing criminal behavior.. That's worse than raping 4 fourteen-year old boys for years, or raping a drunk girl by a dumpster and leaving her unconscious naked and cold. Of course 21 months serving hard time getting ass-raped is the minimal acceptable period for rehabilitation for liking to see a girl fondle herself.  3 months or 6 months of that wouldn't get the point across surely. That the FBI released the girl's info to the press and they were contacting her within minutes of the interview? That's all Weiner's fault too. Motives aren't important - whether he thought it was a hoax or not, or that he pleaded guilty and accepted his sickness - it's outcomes. And he got his comeuppance.

    Blech.

    This isn't Polanski who drugged a 14-year-old girl and ass-raped her in a jacuzzi. This is just a mild form of not-even starfucking that used to be widespread or probably still is combined with our modern internet addictions.


    Your arguments are getting too stupid to be worth responding to. I know of no crime that should be punished by ass raping. Should we therefore never punish anyone ever with imprisonment? If you're proposing ending the prison system because there is sometimes ass raping then it's incumbent on you to come up with other solutions.

    Of course a 50 year old man talking a 15 year old girl into striping and masturbating isn't worse than r aping a drunk girl by a dumpster . Again the stupidity of that statement is astonishing. That's not an argument for giving Weiner a lower sentence. It's an argument for giving the rapist a higher sentence. That's a commentary on how often society trivializes sexual assault especially against women.

    Frankly, I could not be entrapped by a 15 year old girl texting me. I wouldn't send her a pic of my dick. I wouldn't ask her to take of her clothes. I wouldn't ask her to masturbate. So I find all this whining about entrapment to be bullshit. 15 year old girls, or boys, do stupid things. Like texting a know sex freak. They shouldn't be manipulated into stripping and masturbating when they do stupid things. Grown men should know it's immoral, illegal, and harmful to the girl and stop.

     


    I said 21 months is too long for the crime, and gave comparisons, and yes, ass raping is one of our express outcoms for "Scared Straight". Weiner is a sick person. He needs help. 21 months of gang rape  is not going to rehabilitate him, at least no more than 3, 6, 12 months.

    Do I think the 15-year-old that contacted him is scarred in any way from this? No, I do not. If there'd been physical contact or some sign of truly abusive psychological assault going on, I'd think different.

    I'm trying to remember the sentence for the football player who knocked his girlfriend out in an elevator. I know that Bill Cosby hasn't accepted any guilt for drugging and raping dozens of women over half a dozen court cases, while Weiner didn't contest his charges and accepted his guilt. I guess the lesson I get is you have to be a dumbfuck to plead guilty and throw yourself in the mercy of the court. A good lawyer would then get your sentence reduced anyway

    Okay, Ray Rice got a suspended sentence for knocking his fiancee iut cold in an elevator. Joe Mixon got a suspended sentence for punching a stranger in the face so her jaw had to be wired up. But Weiner for watching a 15-year-old who contacted him jack off over the internet? 21 months in the slammer, hard time.

    How many horrid rapes a year in this country, most unreported, most unpunished, and this is our case of setting an example, while sports stars or movie go free or get a slap. Oh well, people here I guess don't agree with my opinion.

    "Manipulated" - ah yes, like my underage friends running after REM manipulated into sex, or my roommate's girlfriend accidentally picked up by Dee Dee Ramone. Crass manipulation, horrid. Because God knows the North Carolaina girl tweeted the disgraced NY pol for civics lessons and political messaging, not to finger her twat for a webcam. Southern girls wouldn't do such a thing.


    There are many problems with our justice system and prison system that we need to work on to make change. But your argument that Cosby raped 60 women went free and I just raped that one bitch so I should go free too doesn't hold any water at all with me.


    For fuck's sake, I didn't say he should go free - I said the sentence should fit the crime and similar cases - I said this numerous times. Quit being a moron intentionally - it gets very annoying.

    Finished.


    PP - I think you have presented a strong case for Weiner and your sentiments do align pretty well with mine. Yes, she reached out to him and this comes close to being entrapment in my view but still Weiner apparently knew full well he was sexting with a 15 year old. So, I would feel much more comfortable if all but one of the 21 months were suspended and he was ordered to stay off the internet for the rest of the sentence.

    I'm not sure I get the relevance of your reference to adolescent boys and our Playboys. Weiner, of course, was an adult when he texted his weiner. On the other hand, you are correct of course when you point out that many who have done far worse have skated. Finally, there certainly appears be a political dimension to the draconian punishment meted out. Both left and right loathe the man.


    Thsnks. The Playboy bit was just to note that our society is ogling quite young girls while partly pretending our tastes have grown more mature. The biggest chunk of models are 13-15, the 2nd slightly less is 16-18, and then it tapers off quickly. Granted part of the audience is those near that age, but much isn't.


    WhoWhatWhere with The Hill claimed it was a girl just under 17 and other conflicting details that can't be discerned from a sealed case. It may be a 2nd girl, it may be the court ignored the protestations (since Weiner had already pled gulty), whowhatwhere can simply be wrondg or... I have a friend who suffered a long sentence from a DA wanting to turn something fairly minor into a big re-election showcase, so I'm not buying all of the story face value.


    That's fair. Mens rea is critical in this case.


    Here was Alternet's followup, wondering how this 15-year-old is quoting passages from Bukowski and transgressionis writer Chuck Palahniuk, along with reminding that Weiner actually was catfished several times. (yes, it should have clued him in to go offline, but weak personalities are known to be weak....)


    My initial thought was she was getting instructions from an adult - hence my suspicion that this whole case smells of entrapment. But the prosecutor says Weiner knew her age. I think we agree this is a critical question.


    I think they have a way of playing it both ways, that he didn't know her age but should have, or that he thought she was underage even when she wasn't which makes him still guilty. Anyway, I was hoping this would be cleared up.


    "The alleged 15-year-old victim of Anthony Weiner’s sexting escapades lives in Gastonia, North Carolina. Coincidentally or not, Lara and Eric Trump visited the local GOP office in Gastonia just three days before her TV appearance." - WhoWhatWhere

    And just coincidentally a bunch of Abedin's and thus Hillary's emails appear on Weiner's laptop, and Trump's team of course is ready to tweet this out within hours of pussygate, with Giuliani bragging about his crew inside the FBI feeding him the inside dope on the case.

    If the FBI is willing to set up dumb kids with explosives to frame them for "terrorism", I've no doubt there could be malfeasance in this. How a "liberal" judge as AA says fits in, not sure, but if the girl's motives are not allowed in court, I'm guessing Weiner didn't get a very sympathetic ear on any of the evidence.

    There's another possibility I'll wait on relating to why Weiner wasn't charged until now.


    He knew that might be the sentence when he did the plea agreement, it was stated. The sentence was crafted for one person only, Anthony Weiner. He nonetheless was trying to see if he could get away with convincing the judge not to execute that. Why not, I guess, you never know what you can get away with. The judge agreed with the two (female) prosecutors and the plea agreement: And then there's the "do unto Anthony as he would do unto others" thing, from the Times Sept. 20 report, (my underlining):

    In Mr. Weiner’s plea agreement, prosecutors had said a sentence within the range of 21 to 27 months would be “fair and appropriate.”

    In its memo to Judge Cote, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, the government also noted that Mr. Weiner, while in Congress in 2007, co-sponsored the “Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act,” a bill to require sex offenders to register their email addresses and instant-messaging accounts. The prosecutors said Mr. Weiner had, in public remarks, said “the internet is the predator’s venue of choice today.”

    “Notwithstanding that he obviously grasped the importance of protecting minors from predatory conduct on the internet,” the prosecutors wrote, Mr. Weiner “readily engaged in extensive, inappropriate communications” with the girl. Such conduct, the prosecutors said, “suggests a dangerous level of denial and lack of self-control,” warranting a prison sentence.

    I think he was crying in recognition that he would recommend this sentence if he were on the other side. Weiner always struck me as more Inspector Javert than Jean Valjean, as someone who really needs to learn to feel other's pain. He has scared me way back with his zealotry and hypocrisy when he was on the city council, he is a ruthless person, who will stop at nothing to get what he wants or needs or believes: The woman Anthony Weiner smeared speaks out The victim of the race-baiting attack that launched his political career talks to Salon, June 10, 2011. If I were the judge, I would look at the facts here of repeat offending and agreement to a plea and see a player in every sense of the word and say no, I'm not buying your tears. It is about who gets favorable treatment and who doesn't, that is precisely what it is about.


    It's not about my tears - I'm sick of arbitrary justice, and the legal system used for political takedowns. I don't particularly care about Weiner or his political start in this case - they way Chuck Johnson & others engineered all this is part of my big issue, and then pile on that a to me unusual sentence considering all the rapists and such who walk every day.... Yeah, they made their point, but it has little to do with online sexting and more to do with "we can use the FBI and other parts of government to get to anyone". Maybe it's not as bad as on of Putin's hits because Weiner's such a goddamned idiot, but I don't take much of it at face value. 


    I don't see any political motivations on the plea deal and the suggested sentence therein. I do see a man who thinks of other people as his playthings, and who thinks others should be made to adhere to a rigid moral code that does not apply to him because he's special. Again, what I have seen about his behavior, he frightens me. If this sentence doesn't reform his attitude about being above morals and law, at least it will ensure that he never has much power over others again.

    About the girl being entrapment bait: catching them before they do real damage, I'm fine with that. I'm fine with doing that with possible sex offenders, even the whole TV show thing. What is wrong is isolating them from society after they get out, because most of them don't repeat. Yes, there is the danger of what is forbidden makes it more exciting. That is a price we have to pay. We don't stop forbidding murder because it makes it more exciting to some serial killers.


    p.s. Call it schaudenfraud if you wish. But I've read up on the man for years and he has truly always scared the heck out of me as someone who thinks he is above the law because he thinks he's better smarter and wiser than anyone else and thinks everyone else should be subject to all kinds of nanny state laws except him. Perfect textbook example of someone who needs to be "made an example." He likes to push the envelope and see what he can get away with, to prove his superiority.  I actually think the sentence is merciful, it is a last ditch attempt to see if he can be fixed as a human being before he does something far more dangerous And I furthermore suspect he knows it and that he is saveable only if he is treated as toughly as he would treat others.


    He seemed a slightly milder form of asshole than Rahm Emmanuel, but what do I know, you know the NYC culture & figures

    But the WhoWhatWhere article is interesting. I'm still waiting for something besides sentencing to come out of that, but that's probably tied into the whole Russian investigation. Even now I greatly suspect there's some other related news that's not making it out yet.

    But at the moment Breitbart is taking a victory lap - that should scare you more than Weiner

    ("schadenfraud" - nice neologism, right up there with "frankenweenie")


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