By David Futrelle
Three, three indictments in one! Three former Trump campaign officials are in the hot seat today. Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort is the big name on the list (along with his pal Rick Gates), for such fun things as conspiracy against the U.S. and money laundering. But even more intriguing is the GUILTY PLEA of relatively unknown Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, whom Mueller has presumably flipped, who seems to have been doing some active COLLUDING WITH THE RUSSIANS.
So here’s an open thread to discuss the news and any other indictment fun that transpires today.
NOTE: Sorry to have gone missing for so long. I’m still dealing with a combo of health issues that have made it very difficult to work. Thanks again for your patience and support.
If you haven’t had your fill of the Orange one today and want to read something so ridiculous you can’t even get mad … here you go.
Dude knows and hires the best people, right?
@Mish & Katie
I miss Francesca Torpedo too. She’s one of the sorts of people I usually take a supporting role to in real life. <3
@Katie
We discussed BDSM particularly because BDSM particularly came up. My experience as a 24 year old mostly-lesbian is limited, but the vast, vast, vast majority of men who describe themselves as "dominant" that I've encountered aren't kinky, they're just abusive and using kink to help shield them from the consequences of their choices.
I hear you on the political shit. I'm just so fucking burned out on it. How many times can I say "That's not reality. That's unkind. You should care about other people, that should be your default.".
What's not helping me is I'm drugged up and recovering from surgery right now, and I'm also kinda high on how much my appearance has improved in the past few months.
You gotta do what you have to in order to protect yourself, and right now for me that looks like lying down with my cat.
Shadowplay:
Indeed! Those appointments give me hope that I might run a government department one day. But look at this hire:
Scented fucking candles. Looks like Katie managed to plant one of our agents inside the administration.
@Katie
Hi! Welcome back! I miss Fran too… There’s a sort of permanent open thread at the Discord too, link in my ‘nym. Not everyone’s there, but it’s still a nice place ๐
As others have said, we’re discussing BDSM cos of mention of Gor, but also in at least some of the discussion because the BDSM community supposedly is all about being totally consensual and all; the number of abusers should in theory be notably less than the population at large. This is unfortunately not the case.
PeeVee:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet_quoting
Just another example of channers taking something harmless and smearing it with their own shit.
Yeah…where is Fran??
๐ ๐ ๐
Fran I hope you are good, wherever you are!
Here are my musical contributions:
Some squeaky demonising of male sexuality
Some celebration of women writing poetry, drinking tequila, eating lots of salt and otherwise living “unfeminine” lives
A nine-minute rinse-out of a no-good boyfriend
A woman describing her ex-boyfriend’s sexual preferences in detail (allegedly written about Miles Davis)…in fact pretty much anything by Betty Davis will work. She was years ahead of her time and it breaks my heart that she is more or less forgotten.
Boys wanna be Peaches
And Devo love punk girls (from the Tank Girl opening credits)
Thanks to the guy who linked Seth Abramson here. He is a good and easy to read source of information on that whole Trump affair.
Newt, yes. I am really familiar with the olden days of Usenet, being 969 years old, ?
As an aside, my autocorrect keeps wanting to change “Newt” to “Beer”.
That’s a tell in itself.
ETA, Seth Abramson is fantastic.
@WWTH
“I love Le Tigre. Actually, I heard them before I ever heard Bikini Kill. Theyโre why I heard of Bikini Kill, actually.”
<3<3<3<3<3<3<3
I was aware of Bikini Kill first, although I can't remember where I first heard them. It's a little sad, but riot grrrl and all that was what really got me into feminism, and fuck do I miss it.
Adding my agreement to the ‘I miss Fran’ chorus.
Welcome back, KatieKitten420. ๐
OT, but the Nurse who got roughed up and arrested by asshole cops for doing her job was awarded $500,000 thanks to body cam footage.
If any of you need some good news.
Saw that. She’s donating most of it, as well. Class act, she is.
@calmdown, oh no! I hope Tumblr doesn’t send you “suggestions” on who to follow, based on that horrible blog!
@mrex, definitely good news! I was heartened to see that asshole Payne fired.
One thing the BDSM discussion reminded me of – back in my carefree single days, I learned this from the MOC I was having sexytimes with. White gay men who are primarily attracted to MOC were at least as likely to have unacknowledged racist attitudes and behaviors as the ones who refused to consider MOC as sexual partners. When BDSM was involved, it was even worse.
It worked out well for me, because treating my sex partners as human beings got me tremendous credit. But sheesh – from the stories I heard, I’m amazed that they even gave me the chance.
@MrsObedMarsh
Scott Ostrom, 47, arrested for opening fire in a Thorton, CO Walmart, and killing 3. He’s not brown, so no outrage from the WH.
@Newt:
Usenet quoting, or Usenet? Unfortunately, the last time I looked at it the 4channers had more or less taken over the place. There was pro-Trump crap and Hillary-bashing everywhere, along with frank antisemitism, subject lines full of the N-word, etc. Didn’t matter what group. If it wasn’t empty or nothing-but-commercial-spam it looked like a list of Fox or Breitbart stories.
The time before that, it was all Obama-bashing and Bush-praising.
So it’s been colonized by RWers since at least a decade ago. :/
@errbody re: ring
Thanks, y’all! Pretty happy with how it turned out. Except it’s a bit large. For the fleshy bit, fits real well around my my giant, bony, Doomsday knuckles. But that leaves room for me fatten into it. Eventually…
@Scild
Woulda cost more to have an inside inscription as well, so no ๐
@KK
Hiya! And sorry about everything… And hiya!
@PeeVee
I’d like to see some sorta analysis contrasting the number of people murdered by white people vs brown people (non cops, non military for the sake of apples to apples, tho that’d be a worthy b side) plotted against Trump’s tweet/speech volume commenting on the events. Especially how laudatory or condemning he is. That’d be interesting. By which I mean ‘tried to tell y’all’ fuel. And I’m always looking for ‘tried to tell y’all’ fuel…
Usenet still exists? I thought Google murdered it almost two decades ago when they bought it and changed the user interface to something unusable by anyone. ๐ RIP one of the most useful forums of the late 1990โs-early 2000โs.
Someone earlier mentioned a forward by John Norman written by him in the third person. For those who want to read the whole thing, an ancient Livejournal post has a good takedown of it.
https://bellatrys.livejournal.com/331250.html
Warnings for casual ableism up there.
And for the truly interested, this official home page of Gor has a few essays on it, two by Norman himself, two by fans. One of the fan essays tries to counter Norman / Gorโs misogynistic rap by providing women-positive quotes from his works.
http://www.gorchronicles.com
Iโll let those far more learned in feminist critical theory than me take a swipe at that stuff.
And welcome back KatieKitty! I think the betting pool around here had you and Francesca so busy with the funtimes that you forgot we existed. ๐
I met Mr. Parasol because of Usenet (and IRC, but that’s another story). It’s sad to think our Meet Cute history now has 4channer stink on it.
@Axe: cool precioussss! So happy for you. May it bring you great joy, always. <3
@laserqueen: Thanks! I just realized I messed up the song title.
Officially, it's *The Continuing Story of* Bungalow Bill. (Time to stop continuing that story, assorted jerks of humanity. You've run out of plot ideas.)
@Moggie: Gosh, Scented Candles guy is merely over-his-head incompetent, not criminally incompetent. How refreshing!
And a new MRA hero emerges. Brett Ratner – one of many of the powerful men in Hollywood being accused of harassment by multiple people – is suing one of his victims for libel.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/brett-ratner-sues-woman-libel-rape-allegation-1054105
Don’t read the comments. I don’t even know why I did. They all seem to either support him and assume the woman is lying, as all women who say they are raped do. Or they only believe he’s guilty because he’s a Hollywood liberal. Because conservative men never commit rape, apparently.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/rick-perry-claims-fossil-fuels-can-help-prevent-sexual-assault-1.3660935
*headdesk*
@ Jesalin
I’m guessing sexual predators merely scoff at light from alternative energy sources?
(I’d also probably want a bit more evidence for the implication that sexual assaults only take place when it’s pitch black)
@Alan
I think it has to be the right kind of light. I’m just not sure what light source you have to use to get ‘righteous’ light.