Our weak rule of law and our morally rotted political elites

An article the Daily Beast published yesterday reports about sex, drug and alcohol parties where Matt Gaetz was having fun and sex with lots of other people:

Witness Told Feds She Was Paid for Sex Parties With Matt Gaetz

When ABC News reported on Wednesday that the House Ethics Committee had acquired text messages between a young woman involved in the sex trafficking investigation and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a Gaetz spokesperson told ABC that the congressman “does not know anything about the woman you’re referencing.”

That seems extraordinarily unlikely.

The Daily Beast can now report that this woman told prosecutors in 2021 that she had sex with Gaetz at a drug-fueled party that she was paid to attend, according to the woman’s attorney.

This attorney told The Daily Beast on Thursday that the woman, in fact, received payments in connection with multiple sex parties with people in Gaetz’s circle. Her lawyer said that, in response to a subpoena, she testified about her experiences to the U.S. Attorneys investigating Gaetz. And she turned over text messages, photos, and other evidence to the Justice Department as part of its child sex trafficking inquiry into the Florida congressman, the lawyer said.

The DB article goes on to comment that the House Ethics Committee is reviewing the evidence in its inquiry into whether Gaetz paid for sex with women and with an underage teen. The Ethics Committee inquiry is looking at allegations of public corruption, solicitation of prostitution, habitual use of hard drugs, bribes or impermissible gifts, campaign finance violations, and exhibiting nude photos of sexual partners on the House floor.

The weakness in the law arises here from heavy drug and alcohol use at the parties. According to the DB, the booze and drugs addled brains and muddled memories of events. (Was I at that party?) Or, as DB put it: “The availability of vast amounts of alcohol and controlled substances gave rise to the lack of control of the hormonal imperative,” this lawyer continued, “which inspired people to engage in intimate behavior that may or may not have been because they were financially remunerated.”

There we go, lack of control of hormonal imperative that inspired people to engage in intimate behavior, maybe being paid for it or maybe not. Who knows? The people in attendance were not fully present in view of their narcotized brains, gonads and whatnot, so what can they know about it?

This nice lady who partied with Matty-poo showed party-related Venmo transactions to investigators. Between March and July 2017, she got nearly $2,500 across multiple payments from Gaetz’s then-best friend, locally elected tax collector Joel Greenberg. The descriptions Greenberg entered for her payments included “travel,” “being cool” and “stuff.” 

Being cool? Stuff? Travel?? Nude sex partner photos in the House?? 😮

Geez, all of this has to be true because no one can make it up. 

Gaetz for DJT’s VP pick!! 

MAGA!!

Gaetz self-righteously scolding us 

about a thing or two

(Gaetz Says He’s Not Watching Super Bowl 

Because of ‘Black National Anthem’ Performance

-- So there you socialist pedos and pervs!)

Have you ever heard of Pascal’s Wager?

I first heard about that concept around 10-12 years ago.  It was back when I was blogging on BigThink.com and a blogger friend of mine, @kalqlate, said “That’s the best argument I’ve ever heard on Pascal’s Wager” (PW).  I had to look it up because I’d never heard of such a thing.

Now, I can’t exactly remember what I had said in my long explanation, but evidently, my “out of the mouths of babes” remark hit the bullseye, regarding PW.  I do, however, remember basically what I said.  It had to do with “buying religion insurance.”  I.e., just saying you believe in Jesus as your Savior in order to get into Heaven.

Yesterday I was commenting with our @larrymotuz about such “bargaining tactics.” Link: http://disq.us/p/2xq7ask

Okay, first a full Wikipedia link for Pascal’s Wager here.

Now the Questions:

1. How do you feel about this PW concept? 
2. If you are a believer (in some form/faction of Christianity), have you ever felt like you were just “taking out afterlife insurance?”

Make your cases.

(by PrimalSoup)

News bits: Unintended consequences; Faux News goes silent; Etc.

About 9 years ago, California passed a law banning single use plastic bags because they were a major pollution nuisance. Those were replaced with allegedly recyclable, multiple use heavy plastic bags. The law didn’t work. The NYT writes:

Then came the reusable, heavy-duty plastic bags, offered to shoppers for ten cents. Designed to withstand dozens of uses, and technically recyclable, many retailers treated them as exempt from the ban.

But because they didn’t look much different from the flimsy bags they replaced, lots of people didn’t actually reuse them. And though they came emblazoned with a recycling symbol, it turned out that few, if any, actually were recycled.

The unhappy result: Last year, Californians threw away more plastic bags, by weight, than when the law first passed, according to figures from CalRecycle, California’s recycling agency.

Now the legislature is just going to pass a law to ban all plastic bags at store check-outs. People can buy paper bags or bring their own. The pandemic caused fears that reusable bags would spread the virus, and that led to vastly increased use of the thick plastic bags. Basically, people were using the thicker bags just once. The average time shoppers used a plastic bag was just twelve minutes.

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New York Magazine reports about Faux News:

Frequent viewers of conservative media are well acquainted with [former FBI informant] Alexander Smirnov. Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity have said that his allegations are key to what they describe as the “Biden crime family” — the narrative that Hunter Biden accepted millions of dollars in bribes from the energy company Burisma to give to his father in exchange for then-VP Biden making a Ukrainian investigation into Burisma go away. According to the watchdog group Media Matters, Hannity alone featured 85 segments in 2023 on the allegations. (Republican politicians also trusted the source: Last July, Representative James Comer and Senator Chuck Grassley released an FBI record detailing the unsubstantiated allegations, describing Smirnov as a “trusted FBI informant implicating then-Vice President Biden in a criminal bribery scheme.”)

Fox News viewers have heard plenty about the lesser charges Hunter Biden is facing, including possession of a firearm as a drug user and tax evasion. But after prosecutors provided evidence that the corruption allegation was false, there was no mention of the story on Hannity on Thursday — or anywhere in Fox News’s prime-time programming, for that matter. (Chuck Grassley’s office has also stood by his public release of the unsubstantiated allegations.)  

In June 2020, Smirnov told his FBI handlers that he had two meetings in 2015 in which Burisma executives told him that they hired Hunter Biden as a consultant to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.” Smirnov claimed that Burisma paid Hunter Biden $10 million for his trouble. But prosecutors state that Smirnov never provided any evidence for this explosive allegation.

Faux News is what cynical, lying kleptocratic tyranny looks like, because that is what it stands for.

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The NYT reports that operatives in the TTKP (Trump Tyranny & Kleptocracy Party, formerly the Republican Party) are planning a massive attack on what is left of abortion rights once DJT gets back in power: 

Allies of former President Donald J. Trump and officials who served in his administration are planning ways to restrict abortion rights if he returns to power that would go far beyond proposals for a national ban or the laws enacted in conservative states across the country.

Behind the scenes, specific anti-abortion plans being proposed by Mr. Trump’s allies are sweeping and legally sophisticated. Some of their proposals would rely on enforcing the Comstock Act, a long-dormant law from 1873, to criminalize the shipping of any materials used in an abortion — including abortion pills, which account for the majority of abortions in America.

“We don’t need a federal ban when we have Comstock on the books,” said Jonathan F. Mitchell, the legal force behind a 2021 Texas law that found a way to effectively ban abortion in the state before Roe v. Wade was overturned. “There’s a smorgasbord of options.”  

“I hope he doesn’t know about the existence of Comstock, because I just don’t want him to shoot off his mouth,” Mr. Mitchell said of Mr. Trump. “I think the pro-life groups should keep their mouths shut as much as possible until the election.”  

The New York Times reported on Friday that Mr. Trump had told advisers and allies that he liked the idea of a 16-week national abortion ban but that he wanted to wait until the Republican primary contest was over to publicly discuss his views.  

National abortion ban legislation would affect only a small fraction of abortions, given that nearly 94 percent happen in the first trimester, before 13 weeks of pregnancy, and would present obstacles for women who experience severe complications later in pregnancy.

Sensing that talking about abortion is a no-no before the election, DJT himself denies he supports a nationwide ban. He calls the NYT reporting fake news. TTKP anti-abortionists are acutely aware that majority public opinion supports abortion access in most cases, so they operate in as much secrecy and deceit as they can. They want to surprise us!

Breaking news: New York judge whacks Trump real hard where it hurts the most, his cash pile

Thanks to Susan for bringing this news bit to my attention. Everyone is reporting about this. The Hill writes:

Trump ordered to pay $355M in New York fraud case

A New York judge on Friday ordered former President Trump to pay nearly $355 million in penalties in a civil fraud case that has dealt a stark blow to his family’s business empire.

Judge Arthur Engoron’s 92-page decision came just weeks after closing arguments in the case capped a months-long trial during which Trump frequently lambasted the judge and the prosecutor who brought the case.

With interest, the figure Trump and his business must pay could surpass $450 million, according to the New York attorney general’s office.

Engoron found Trump, the Trump Organization and several top executives, including his adult sons, liable for fraud before the trial began. The verdict is at the sole discretion of Engoron, because there was no jury at the trial.

The fine is some $16 million less than the $370 million the attorney general’s office asked the judge to force Trump to pay. It also blocks Trump from participating in New York business for three years.

Trump’s adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, were ordered to pay more than $4 million each, and were both barred from serving as officers or directors of any New York corporation or other legal entity for two years.

The Hill writes in another article:

Trump lashes out after New York fraud ruling

Former President Trump lashed out against a judge’s ruling Friday banning him from running companies in New York for three years and ordering him to pay more than $350 million as part of a closely watched fraud case.

In a series of posts on his Truth Social platform after the decision, Trump railed against Judge Arthur Engoron and said there “were No Victims, No Damages, No Complaints.”

He went on to further criticize Engoron and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) in multiple posts, saying the New York case was a “witch hunt” and that he was fined “$355 Million based on nothing other than having built a GREAT COMPANY.”

DJT will probably appeal this all the way up to the USSC.

Q: Will this help DJT more than hurt him? He's really, really pissed:

Grumpy Trumpy flanked by his goon lawyers