#and robert refused to deal out justice

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

I’m always a bit taken aback by these posts because I never see a ‘#f u Tywin’ or a ‘#Gregor and Lorch belong in hell’ in the tags, but these posts never fail to include a ‘#Rhaegar (insert vague threat here)’

This kind of stuff is so genuinely insane to me because we still do not know what Rhaegar was doing nor do we know what his plans were. We do not have his POV to know his thoughts, which means we know very little about him, but I do know that he did not kill Elia or his children. I do know that he did not order anyone to kill his family. I do know that he never sacked Kings Landing. I do know that he died before these murders and the sacking even took place. I do know that it was Aerys who prevented Elia and her children from fleeing Kings Landing. And I do know that he didn’t look at his children’s dead bodies and call them dragonspawn.

Rhaegar gets more heat than Elia and her children’s actual killers and their captor. In my opinion, that is insanity.

Because if people actually cared about Elia and her children, then there would be way more heat for Tywin and Aerys, for Gregor and Lorch. But instead, I see posts like this all the time in both Rhaegar’s tag and the main tags, and yet these posts never mention anything about the character who ordered the deaths of Elia and her children. I see nothing about the character who raped her and brutally killed her and her son. There is nothing about the character who dragged a little girl out from under her father’s bed and murdered her in a horrific manner. And the fact that there is heat for Rhaegar instead of Aerys and Robert tells me everything I need to know and leads to me not taking posts like this seriously.

cause wth

[wearenorth]

Sansa's main reason why the North should be independent is that "The Northmen had suffered too much to ever accept the rule of an outsider again". Ok, but if you look closely, the Starks are basically the sole reason why the North suffered:

It was Lyanna Stark who ran away with Rhaegar (not hate on them, but technically that's the only narrative we can go with till GRRM gives the full story) and that, as a lot of people like to say, is the reason why Robert's rebellion started.

It was Brandon Stark who came to the Red Keep for Rhaegar "to come out and die" - Bradon openly, for everyone to hear, threatened the crown prince - mad king or no, look from whatever angle you want, that's a treason.

It was Rickard Stark who chose trial by combat thinking that he will fight someone from the Kingsguard - that's via Jaime Lannisters sort of a testament.

It was Ned Stark who rallied the North and joined Robert's rebellion leading thousands to death.

It was Ned Stark who chose to finish the war by going to lift the siege of the Storm's End.

It was Ned Stark who went to the Tower of Joy with 7 other lords from the North and chose to fight the Kinsguard. A fight that left only him and Howland Reed alive.

It was Ned Stark who decided to ignore the warning from the deserter from the NW about white walkers and his upcoming future.

It was Ned Stark who agreed to Joffrey-Sansa's marriage proposal as well as agreed to become Hand of the King and go to the South.

It was Ned Stark who made many mistakes, trusted the wrong people and ignored Cercei's warning - some of the reasons for his imprisonment.

It was Sansa Stark who ran to Cercei and told her all Ned plans - though this was cut out from the show.

It was Catelyn Stark that ordered for Tyrion to be arrested and brought to justice - which led to the Lannisters taking this as a slight and threat for them.

It was Sansa Stark who wrote a letter to Robb and most likely Catelyn too letting them know about Ned's imprisonment and supposed treason, as well as the one who called her family traitors for her own survival.

It was Robb Stark that rallied the Northern lords and raised his army and led them into battles, because Ned was imprisoned.

It was Robb Stark that sacrificed nearly 2000 men for the victory.

Though it was Robb who needed alliance with the Freys, it was Catelyn Stark who brokered this alliance on shity terms.

It was Robb Stark who demanded that Lannisters would recognise the North as an independent kingdom - something that Lannisters would never do.

It was Robb Stark who left the North mostly defenseless and who sent Theon to deal with the iron borns - which lead to their invasion to the North, Winterfell and most keeps to the west to be taken.

It was Robb Stark who broke alliance with the Freys by marrying Talisa.

It was Catelyn Stark who created discord among the North - Riverlands army by realising Jaime Lannister, which also led to Rickard Karstarks disobedience and his men's departure.

It was Robb Stark's justice that led for the remaining Karstarks to join Boltons on the Starks quest on taking back the North.

It was Robb Stark's mistakes that lead to majority of the northerners either refuse or ignore the Starks call on their quest on taking back the North.

It was Sansa Stark who demanded that the northern lords would fight for them and was refused (for example, Lord Glover).

It was Sansa Stark who didn't say anything about the Knights of the Vale and let nearly all combined army of northerners - wildlings to die - that's about 3000 men (since Boltons had about 6000 men and Ramsay said that Jon's army is half the size). But nobody seems to care about that.

It was Sansa Stark, influenced by Littlefinger, who did nothing to stop discord among the northern lords during the time Jon spent in the South. Actually, you can see how Sansa reeps benefits from it.

It was Jon Snow who decided to tell Cersei that he already bent the knee to Daenerys during peace negotiations with the Lannisters.

When Daenerys came to the North to fight for the living, it was Sansa Stark who disrespected Dany the most.

It was Sansa Stark who basically dismissed everyone's sacrifices after the Long Night.

It was Sansa Stark who broke the oath sworn in front of the Heart Tree by telling Tyrion about Jon's real parentage - what started the conspiracy to overthrow Dany. Technically, Sansa started another Dance of the Dragons.

It was Sansa Stark who wanted the northern army to "rest", instead of marching south for Daenerys.

It was Sansa Stark who brought "ten thousands northerners" to fight for Jon, who was imprisoned in the Red Keep, meaning she was ready to send thhem to fight (how she got those numbers still baffles me, cause in season 7 it was stated that northern army has fewer than ten thousands men and with with casualties from the Long Night, where everyone lost half their armies, the northern army is even smaller or maybe they didn't fight in the Long Night then).

And it was Sansa Stark who doomed the North to starvation and poverty by declaring themselves independent and by cutting all ties and help from the Iron Throne and other kingdoms. For example, there will be no one to regulate trade for 6 Kingdoms and the North, meaning that The Reach or the Vale can sale food for a bigger prices than to other regions, if the IT interferes, they'll side with 6 Kingdoms - the seller, cause the North is no longer the IT subject. And it's very well known that the North isn't rich.

Actually if you look in the history of the North while Targaryens ruled from the Iron Throne, you would see that the North had some minor conflicts, but still lived in peace. Probably, the only exception is how Cregan Stark rallied the "Wolves of winter" when he came to aid the Blacks near the end of the Dance of the Dragons.

[therobertfrasergang]

Robert Fraser in the Evening Standard, July 28, 1967

Robert Fraser had appealed his sentence for heroin possession but was denied. He ended up serving 4 months of a 6 month sentence (he'd already been in prison for 5 weeks at the time of this hearing).

The entire article is transcribed below the cut.

Evening Standard, Jul 28, 1967

‘Heroin is a killer’

Art Gallery Man Loses Appeal by Gordon Corner

The six-months prison sentence passed on Robert Hugh Fraser, 29-year-old art gallery director, on drug charges, is to stand.

This was decided in the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeals this afternoon after Lord Parker, the Lord Chief Justice, had termed heroin as a killer.

Fraser had pleaded guilty at West Sussex Quarter Sessions at Chichester to possession of 24 tablets of heroin and had been refused bail pending his trial.

The appeals of Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger and Keith Richard, who were also sentenced on drug charges, are to be heard on Monday.

Fraser’s appeal was turned down after his counsel, Mr. William Denny, who made a strong plea that the five weeks his client had already served was sufficient, had revealed that Fraser was now cured of his addiction.

Lord Parker said Fraser had been found in possession of heroin in a house raided at West Wittering: He had 24 tablets in his jacket pocket. Fraser had claimed he was a diabetic and that a doctor had prescribed for this. But this was completely untrue, for the tablets were his daily dose. Fraser by then was a heroin addict.

After being found in possession of the tablets Fraser had had the courage to go to a doctor who had started treatment of an extremely disagreeable kind. The court had been told that he was no longer an addict.

Lord Parker said the court wanted to make it clear that in considering Fraser’s case they were paying no attention whatsoever to any connection there might have been with the case of Jagger and Richard.

Good Family

What the court knew about those cases it was putting completely out of its mind in the case of Fraser. His case was approached in complete isolation.

Fraser, went on Lord Parker, could not expect any special treatment by reason of privileges through his station in life. He came from an extremely good family, had been to a famous public school and served with two renowned regiments.

But these privileges, if anything, carried greater responsibility and would tempt a court to give more rather than less in the way of a sentence.

A man in Fraser’s position was not sentenced because he was an addict. Everybody was extremely sorry for him. What he was being sentenced for was for commencing the taking of this drug.

In this particular case the court was dealing solely with heroin, and where heroin was concerned the court was satisfied that in the ordinary way, where there were no special circumstances, public interest demanded that some form of detention should be imposed.

“Heroin has been termed a killer and it must be remembered that anybody who takes heroin puts there body and soul into the hands of the supply or the supplier,” said Lord Parker.

The court was firmly of the opinion that a sentence of detention in the absence of special circumstances was a proper one.

The court, in considering whether the sentence was excessive, bore in mind that Fraser had the courage to go to a doctor and was now cured. But it was not satisfied that the sentence passed in any way erred in principle.

Earlier Mr. Denny had said that Fraser had an excellent background with a father who was a famous financier and had gone to a top-class public school. Five years ago he established his own art gallery in London’s West End which had met with considerable success.

Explaining how he had been introduced to the drug, Mr. Denny said that about a year ago Fraser was overworked and tired and was offered some drugs by an employee. He had never touched drugs of any kind before, but after four or five doses he was addicted.

After describing the steps Fraser had taken to get cured, Mr. Denny said: “Having heard the defendant had broken his addiction, one would have felt it possible that the Quarter Sessions would have leavened the condemnation of the offence with congratulations for its remedy.

“For here was a man who was himself the only victim of his offence. But of these matters put before the court one is bound to say that there is no indication that these matters weighed in terms of mitigation with the court.”

Greater responsibility

Mr. Denny added that there was no reason given by the court for imposing such a severe sentence.

Lord Parker then intervened to say: “I think personally that the greater the privileges of a man, his home, his background, his station in life, education at a public school and two renowned regiments—these very privileges give greater responsibility, and one is tempted to say that a man with these privileges must get more than an unfortunate man who has had no privileges.”

Lord Justice Winn also intervened during Mr. Denny’s argument and said: “Parliament must be taken to know the facts—heroin is a killer apart from complete moral destruction, death will follow inevitably from taking heroin. Only eight per cent of heroin addicts have lived for more than a few years.”

Mr. Denny said that Fraser had already served five weeks and he felt no further useful purpose would be served by keeping a person who had not harmed anyone else in prison any longer.

The resentment felt by Fraser when sentence was passed was understandable because the merits and the perspective of his particular case were lost in the events and the supercharges atmosphere in what happened in the following two days in the trial of his co-defendants Jagger and Richard.

Although Fraser had pleaded guilty he had been ordered to pay £200 costs. Jagger, who had pleaded not guilty in a case which had been fought and in which he was sentences to three months, was ordered to pay £100 costs. “One cannot see the rational of it,” said Mr. Denny.

Said Lord Justice Winn: “I cannot see that has anything to do with the sentence passed. One was for amphetamine and the other one was for heroin.”

And he added that here Fraser was getting a fresh hearing before a court which was paying no attention to the Richard and Jagger cases.

[steelbluehome]

"Actor Stan . . . does a bang-up job capturing Trump’s verbal cadence and tics, his hand gestures and his smirk, which seemed a lot less obvious in the 1970s and ’80s than they are now."

The Toronto Star (click for article)

‘The Apprentice’: A terrific portrait of the man who made Donald Trump a ‘killer’

Peter Howell

May 20, 2024

The Apprentice

3.5 stars (out of 4)

Starring Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova and Martin Donovan. Written by Gabriel Sherman. Directed by Ali Abbasi. Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival. 120 minutes.

“Attack, attack, attack!”

That’s the first rule of success laid down by Roy Cohn, the ruthless New York lawyer who takes a young Donald Trump under his wing in Ali Abassi’s terrific “The Apprentice,” one of two Canadian films that made its world-premiere Monday at the Cannes Film Festival. (The other is David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds.”)

Cohn’s other two rules for winning are “admit nothing, deny everything” and “claim victory and never admit defeat,” slogans that will resonate for decades to come.

The year is 1973. Listening very closely to Cohn’s cocky mantra is future U.S. president Trump (Sebastian Stan), who is 27 and hungry. He’s trying to establish himself as a player in New York real estate so he can get out from under the shadow of his controlling father, business tycoon Fred Trump (Martin Donovan).

Cohn (Jeremy Strong), who looks like a rattlesnake in a suit, is holding court with his henchmen in New York’s ritzy Le Club, which Trump has just joined. He’s introduced to Trump as the lawyer “who got the Rosenbergs the chair,” a reference to the notorious 1953 spy trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

This is music to Trump’s ears; the U.S. Justice Department is accusing him of racial discrimination in his housing rental deals and he needs a take-no-prisoners attorney to fight back. Cohn and Trump become fast allies in what Strong has described in interviews as “a love story.”

So begins a film, and a close relationship that continued until Cohn’s death in 1986, which answers a lot of questions about how Trump became the showboating power seeker he’s known as today. He was the eager pupil of a man who believed, to quote yet another of Cohn’s sayings: “You have to be willing to do anything to anyone to win.”

“The Apprentice” marks the second bid for the Palme d’Or by Iranian-Danish filmmaker Abbasi, who in 2022 debuted in the main Cannes competition with the crime thriller “Holy Spider.”

Actor Stan, best known for playing a brainwashed assassin in the Marvel movie “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” does a bang-up job capturing Trump’s verbal cadence and tics, his hand gestures and his smirk, which seemed a lot less obvious in the 1970s and ’80s than they are now.

His new film, a Canada/Ireland/Denmark co-production shot in Ontario, opens with bold 1970s-style credits and music, and a disclaimer that not everything that follows is based on strict fact. 

The film seems at first to be impressed by Trump and maybe even sympathetic toward him. Mention is made of a New York Times profile that admiringly compares Trump’s tousled hair to that of Robert Redford’s.

Trump has to put up with a lot of verbal abuse from his father, who scorns his son’s plans to build a luxury hotel — which we’ll later know as the landmark Trump Tower — in a dodgy neighbourhood in downtown Manhattan, at a time when New York is on the verge of bankruptcy. 

The tendency is to root for a guy like that, and to cheer him on he meets and aggressively woos his future wife, Ivana (Maria Bakalova of “Borat 2”), a successful model who demands a $100,000 payment before she’ll marry a man she rightly suspects is not to be trusted. 

Cohn, on the other hand, refuses to take money from Trump, saying he values him more as “a friend” — and it’s clear he means the kind of friends that Don Corleone has in “The Godfather.”

It doesn’t take long for Trump’s true colours to emerge as his Faustian deal with Cohn deepens. He begins referring to people as either “killers” or “losers,” and he bullies New York civic leaders to cut him sweetheart tax deals to bankroll his building binge. 

As his confidence builds, so does his swagger and he begins pulling away from Cohn, a closeted gay man who has contracted AIDS (although he denies it), which will ultimately kill him.

Trump also tires of Ivana, cruelly casting her aside following brutal sex that looks anything but consensual on her part.

How much “The Apprentice” is based on strict historical facts is hard to verify.

But none of it is hard to believe — especially a scene near the end where Trump takes credit for the three rules of success quoted above and which he attributes not to Cohn but rather to his own “natural ability.”

[kudosmyhero]

Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye (Phase 02) #5: How Ratchet Got His Hands Back

Read Date: September 27, 2022 Cover Date: May 2012 ● Writer: James Roberts ● Art: Alex Milne ● Colorist: Josh Burcham ● Letterer: Chris Mowry ● Editor: John Barber ●

Synopsis: At the Delphi medical facility, the furious Fortress Maximus dispatches the two Genericons threatening the remaining Autobots there, tearing one in half and decapitating the other with his shoulder compartment. As Ratchet and First Aid return to tending the inflicted, Pharma pulls a gun on Ambulon, accusing him of freeing the Decepticons and releasing the virus plaguing the facility, on the basis that he is a former Decepticon himself. First Aid, however, turns the tables on Pharma when he examines the Genericons' remains and discovers that they were not Monoformers, as Pharma had claimed. Ratchet puts the final pieces of the puzzle together, and requests that Pharma transform; when he refuses, Ratchet diagnoses the virus as being activated through transformation. First Aid and Ambulon have not succumbed to its effects because the former has a malfunctioning transformation cog, while the latter has no reason to transform, his alternate mode being only the leg of a prototype combiner, but Pharma will not transform because he knows this already, being responsible for the plague in the first place. Pharma shoots out a life-support system to cover his escape, rabbiting down a hidden tunnel in a CR chamber while the other medics scramble to save the lives of their patients. Backstreet fades particularly fast, forcing Ratchet to transform into ambulance mode in order to give him a full systems boost from his reboot coils. With the virus now activated within him, Ratchet sets off after Pharma.

Meanwhile, aboard the Lost Light, Tailgate meets with Ultra Magnus and requests to undergo the Rite of the Autobrand, having realized the foolishness of his earlier decision to be a Decepticon. Grudgingly impressed with Tailgate's skill set, Magnus agrees to teach him the Autobot Code, nearly driving the poor little bot out of his head with intense study of the code's ten thousand pages. Tailgate's interest is caught by clause nineteen-eighty-five; remembering the giant robots pursuing Skids, he inquires about clause nineteen-eighty-four, which Magnus informs him relates to the supposedly non-existent "thought warfare".

Elsewhere on the ship, Rung meets with one of his oldest patients, Red Alert, concerned that the paranoia he helped the security officer overcome is returning. Red Alert insists that he heard a noise emanating from a crack in the floor of the chamber in which the Sparkeater was found, but that should be impossible, as that chamber is at the lowest point on the ship, with only outer space beyond. Despite Rung's skepticism, Red Alert produces a recording of the sound, which Rung recognizes as a distorted voice…repeating "kill me" over and over again…

Back in Delphi, Ratchet catches up to Pharma, who gleefully explains his master plan: he engineered the plague in order to shut Delphi down so that he could escape a deal he made with the Decepticon Justice Division that forced him to kill patients in order to harvest their transformation cogs for the DJD's transformation addicted-leader in return for Delphi's safety. The two Genericons—Sonic and Boom—were paid by Pharma to surrender to the facility, and once locked up together, to merge into their audio-equipment alternate mode and project a blast of weaponized sound calculated by Pharma to corrode Transformers from within: the "big bang" that contaminated all who heard it. His vigorous monologuing has blinded Pharma to one thing, however: as Ratchet slowly rusts away in front of him, his liquefied innards have pooled around Pharma's feet, infecting him. Pharma escapes to the roof of the facility with the only vaccine, but is surprised by the appearance of Ratchet's remote-projected holomatter avatar, which distracts him long enough to let Ratchet catch up and tackle him, causing the vaccine to fall off the building. Ratchet and Pharma grapple, but when Ratchet's arm breaks off, Pharma tumbles off the roof, and is left clinging onto the edge, unable to transform to jet mode and fly to safety without activating the virus. Ratchet turns to leave him to his fate, and the traitorous medic tries to shoot him in the back: luckily, the near-dead Drift appears and slices Pharma's hands off, letting him plummet to his presumed doom.

Thanks to Pharma's vaccine, saved from its fall by Ratchet's holomatter projection, the virus is cured, and everyone leaves for the Lost Light. On the return journey, Ratchet invites First Aid to succeed him as the ship's chief medical officer, recognizing both his skill, and his dedication and honor: it was he who transmitted the escalating death rates—caused by Pharma's cog harvesting—over the Wreckers: Declassified frequency. The two doctors lament the loss of both Ironfist and the old Pharma, but First Aid remarks that Ratchet will always carry part of Pharma with him. Two parts, actually: Ratchet has replaced his worn-out hands with Pharma's!

(https://tfwiki.net/wiki/How_Ratchet_Got_His_Hands_Back)

Fan Art: Ratchet and Undertone by kandagawagufu

Accompanying Podcast: ● Married with Comics: Rod Pod - episode 05

[darkmaga-returns]

Trump Cabinet picks. CNN 'will axe top stars. Biden to ask for more money for Kiev. Pezeshkian: Tehran has to deal with Washington. Houthis Target US Aircraft Carrier. Large explosion in Louisville KY

Lioness of Judah Ministry

Nov 13, 2024

Trump Cabinet picks: Here’s who’s on the list to carry out his agenda

President-elect Trump is assembling his Cabinet and senior staff for his second term in the White House before taking office in January.

Trump must nominate leaders for 15 government agencies and other top administration jobs that require Senate confirmation, along with appointing senior staff. Here’s a look at who has been tapped to serve so far…

BREAKING: President Trump Nominates Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense in Shock Move

President Trump has his Secretary of Defense and it is a name no one saw coming.

Just a short time ago, Trump announced he had selected Fox News’s own Pete Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense (DOD). He cited Hegseth’s stellar America First credentials and decorated service on as an army combat veteran. He also cited Hegseth’s book “The War on Warriors,” which analyzed the left’s betrayal of those who have risked their lives to serve our nation.

BREAKING: Trump Announces Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will Head Department of Government Efficiency (���DOGE”)

President Trump on Tuesday announced Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will head the Department of Government Efficiency.

“I am pleased to announced that the Great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”). Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies – Essential to the “Save America” Movement,” Trump said in a statement.

Dark Horse for Attorney General Is a DEI-Peddling Lawyer Who Refused to Defend Trump Against Mueller

President-elect Donald J. Trump is said to be considering New York lawyer Robert (Bob) Giuffra, co-chair of Sullivan & Cromwell, for his U.S. Attorney General pick.

While Giuffra has much legal experience, many Trump supporters see him as having questionable loyalty and lacking the fortitude needed to take on the level of partisan entrenchment at the Department of Justice (DOJ). Giuffra’s political donations include gifts to ‘Team DeSantis 2024,’ the McConnell Senate Committee, and Ted Cruz’s campaign against Donald Trump in 2016. As Trump took the lead in late summer, Giuffra donated to the Trump Victory Committee.

CNN 'will axe top stars in layoffs that'll see hundreds fired as ratings continue to tank'

CNN is planning to wield the axe on some of its high-paid staff after dismal election ratings that cap off a disastrous period for the cable news network. 

According to an explosive new report from Puck, network executives will unleash sweeping lay-offs in a bid to save the network's flailing reputation. It comes after the departure of stalwart Chris Wallace, and amid reports senior stars like Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper have both been denied raises. 

[xtruss]

US Congress May Need To Impeach Supreme Court Judges – AOC

The Democrat lawmaker has claimed recent rulings reflect an authoritarianism and abuse of power

A Nightmare For Corrupt Politicians in Washington US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks at a press conference earlier this year in Washington. © Getty Images/Drew Angerer

US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) has accused the Supreme Court of abusing its power with “Authoritarian” rulings on such issues as abortion, LGBTQ protections, and race-based college admissions, arguing that lawmakers should consider impeaching justices for breaking laws.

She told CNN on Sunday that if Chief Justice John Roberts does not voluntarily testify in a congressional probe of alleged ethics violations by Supreme Court judges, lawmakers should consider issuing subpoenas to demand answers. The New York Democrat also called for imposing more stringent ethics guidelines to help maintain a proper balance of power among the nation’s three branches of government.

“There also must be impeachment on the table,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We have a broad level of tools to deal with misconduct, overreach, and abuse of power.”

The congresswoman made her comments after a string of rulings last week in which the nation’s high court struck down President Joe Biden’s plan to wipe out $400 billion in student loan debt, blocked colleges from admitting students based on skin color, and upheld the free-speech rights of a Christian graphic artist who refused to offer her services for same-sex weddings. She also cited last year’s decision overturning Roe v Wade, a landmark 1973 ruling that had protected abortion as a constitutional right.

“The courts, if they were to proceed without any check on their power, without any balance on their power, then we will start to see an undemocratic and, frankly, dangerous authoritarian expansion of power in the Supreme Court, which is what we are seeing now,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

For instance, the court’s ruling on refusing services for same-sex weddings stripped away “the full personhood and dignity of LGBTQ people,” she said. “These are the types of rulings that signal a dangerous creep towards authoritarianism and centralization of power in the court.”

Ocasio-Cortez and other members of the far-left “Squad” group of Democrat representatives have called for expanding the court to 15 justices, arguing that “democracy is in crisis” because six of the nine current judges were appointed by Republican presidents. Biden, who would get to appoint six left-leaning justices in such a scenario, said on Thursday that expanding the court would harmfully politicize the judicial branch.

— RT | Sunday 02 July 2023

[caleebw]

President DONALD TRUMP from CALEEB A WATSON on Vimeo.

Check out My VIMEO site { LINK BELOW } vimeo.com/752085347 Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.

Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor's degree in 1968. He became president of his father Fred Trump's real estate business in 1971 and renamed it The Trump Organization. Trump expanded the company's operations to building and renovating skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses. He later started side ventures, mostly by licensing his name. From 2004 to 2015, he co-produced and hosted the reality television series The Apprentice. Trump and his businesses have been involved in more than 4,000 state and federal legal actions, including six bankruptcies.

Trump's political positions have been described as populist, protectionist, isolationist, and nationalist. He won the 2016 United States presidential election as the Republican nominee against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton but lost the popular vote,[a] becoming the first U.S. president with no prior military or government service. His election and policies sparked numerous protests. The 2017–2019 special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller established that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to benefit the Trump campaign, but did not establish that members of the Trump campaign "conspired" or "coordinated" with Russia. Trump promoted conspiracy theories and made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged or racist, and many as misogynistic.

Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, diverted military funding towards building a wall on the U.S.–Mexico border, and implemented a policy of family separations for apprehended migrants. He signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which cut taxes for individuals and businesses and rescinded the individual health insurance mandate penalty of the Affordable Care Act. He appointed 54 federal appellate judges and three United States Supreme Court justices. In foreign policy, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal, and he initiated a trade war with China. Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un three times, but made no progress on denuclearization. He reacted slowly to the COVID-19 pandemic, ignored or contradicted many recommendations from health officials in his messaging, and promoted misinformation about unproven treatments and the need for testing.

Trump lost the 2020 United States presidential election to Joe Biden but refused to concede defeat, falsely claiming widespread electoral fraud and attempting to overturn the results by pressuring government officials, mounting scores of unsuccessful legal challenges, and obstructing the presidential transition. On January 6, 2021, Trump urged his supporters to march to the Capitol, which many of them then attacked, resulting in multiple deaths and interrupting the electoral vote count.

Trump is the only federal officeholder in American history to have been impeached twice. After he pressured Ukraine to investigate Biden in 2019, he was impeached by the House of Representatives for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in December. The Senate acquitted him of both charges in February 2020. The House of Representatives impeached Trump a second time in January 2021, for incitement of insurrection. The Senate acquitted him in February, after he had already left office. Scholars and historians rank Trump as one of the worst presidents in American history.[1][2] Following his presidency, Trump has remained heavily involved in the Republican Party, including through fundraisers and by making over 140 political endorsements.

[tixersdotcom]

In the previous episode of "The Torso Killer Confessions," we saw how Richard Cottingham mercilessly killed multiple women. In this episode, we will see more details about other women he killed in New Jersey and New York in the late 1960s. Detective Robert Anzilotti spent most of his career trying to get confessions out of Richard Cottingham, and he became obsessed with the cold cases on his desk. According to the detective, he became more protective as a father after hearing the gruesome ways Richard Cottingham killed his victims. Richard appeared to be a typical father of three during the day, commuting to Manhattan for his well-paying job as a computer programmer from his home in suburban New Jersey. Cottingham's facade of respectability, however, crumbled as night descended. He would then go around Times Square and take prostitutes to hotel rooms and kill them there. He also torched most of the hotel rooms to tamper with the evidence. He was caught for murdering five women, but Detective Robert Anzilotti had a gut feeling telling him that Richard was responsible for more murders. After the horrible experience he shared with the judge during his trial for Nancy Vogel, Richard was not ready to talk to Detective Robert. However, that changed when Detective Robert started gaining his trust again. When Detective Robert got promoted to chief of detectives, Richard took pride in it and implied that Robert was in a higher position because of him and his confessions. According to Robert, Richard never showed remorse while confessing to his crimes. During one of his meetings with Richard, he revealed that he had killed an 18-year-old woman by strangling her to death in the spring of 1969. She had gone missing one evening as she waited for a bus to take her back to her mother's house. Her name was Irene Blase. After hearing the gory details about how he killed Irene Blase, Detective Robert conveyed the sad news that he had discovered Irene's murderer, who was already in prison for the rest of his life to victim’s family. However, Detective Robert wanted Cottingham to continue speaking, but in order to do so, he made an odd deal with the victim's family. He asked the family if he could close the case without charging anyone, in order to get justice for the others, Irene's family agreed to the deal and let Robert close the case. After some months, Richard confessed to another murder, that of a 15-year-old girl named Denise Falasca. He lured her into his car and promised her a lift. However, he raped her and then killed her. Even though he said he didn't enjoy killing, the forensic psychologist on the show believes he did enjoy killing the victims. His youngest victim was a 13-year-old girl named Jackie Harp, who was going home after marching practice. When Jackie Harp refused to talk to Richard, he stalked her and eventually murdered her. In 2021, Detective Robert decided to retire from law enforcement. Over the course of his nearly three decades as a police officer, he was engaged in a psychological game with a serial killer for half of that time. When Richard was informed about the retirement, he asked Detective Robert to reconsider. Cottingham teased him with the prospect of one more revelation. The brutal deaths of two teenagers, Mary Ann Pryor and Lorraine Marie Kelly, who went missing in 1974 while attempting to hitchhike to a nearby shopping center. Detective Robert was just about to give in his badge when Richard started talking again. He acknowledged luring them into his car after they gave up trying to catch a bus to take them to the mall where they intended to shop. He took them to a motel instead and said he watched television with them. He kept the two girls in the motel room for three days and then drowned them in the bathtub one by one. According to Detective Robert, this particular case embarrassed him. Upon hearing the details of how he raped and murdered women ruthlessly, Detective Robert decided he would not let him get away with these murders.

Cottingham appeared in court in April of last year and confessed to killing Mary Ann and Lorraine. He received two life sentences to go along with his 200 years in jail. According to Detective Robert, he was just a game to Cottingham. Even though Detective Robert is now retired, he is still in the minds of the victims' families. He never gave up on the cases he had on his desk and gave his best to bring justice to these families. According to Cottingham himself, he has killed over 100 women. Detective Robert said it was sad that it took him so long to solve these cases; however, it highlights the fact that the police did not give up on these cold cases. Retirement was very hard for Detective Robert since he loved his job; however, he did his job well over the years.

[college-girl199328]

Trump’s lawyers have until Wednesday to explain how they tried to play two New York judges off one another by double-booking trials to potentially delay them both.

Trump already pushed back a potential late 2023 trial over duping investors to Jan. 2024, citing a conflict with the New York Attorney General’s trial over his fake financial team's seeking delay of that AG trial, but they got caught.

Judge Lorna G. Schofield in federal court and Justice Arthur F. Engoron in state court worry that they may be getting Trump has a history of leveraging his presidential-campaign activities to delay and avoid judicial proceedings," attorney Roberta Kaplan wrote in a letter sent to both parties, anticipating that should the case schedule run into 2024, Mr. Trump will begin to argue that his campaign obligations must take precedence over his participation in this case, including at trial."

One retired state judge, who asked not to be quoted because he still oversees New York legal disputes, likened the Trump tactic to a child who separately asks parents for permission to eat more and more candy to trick them both into a better deal M. McLaughlin, a law professor at Pace University, called it an apt analogy particularly because Trump eventually got caught.

"When children do this, they go from one parent to another, and if the parents aren’t aware of what the kid is doing, the kid can get away with it, but once the parent is aware the child is playing them against each other, the game is over," he said, stressing how rare it is for a lawyer to do what Kaplan did: contact a judge in a separate case to flag questionable behavior.

"I’ve never seen a situation like this where a lawyer who’s not before the court puts the court on notice on what the defendant is doing in the federal case and think Engoron is going to slam with this," McLaughlin said it was highly irregular again, and we've never seen so many actions filed against one person all over the Engoron has not yet responded to Kaplan’s in the past, but he has dragged Trump’s lawyers into his courtroom to explain their delay in at one point sanctioning the former president $10,000 a day for refusing to turn over documents and slowing down AG Letitia James’ investigation, who was eventually ordered to pay a $110,000 fine.

By contrast, Judge Schofield immediately ordered Trump’s lawyers to explain themselves in writing by March 15.

Trump’s defense attorneys, Clifford S. Robert and Alina Habba, did not respond to questions from a news team but offered a statement saying, "We maintain the utmost confidence that our client will be vindicated at the upcoming who wrote the letter on behalf of the who argue they were duped by Trump, did not respond to a request for comment, has repeatedly called out Trump for his delay tactics in another case she’s working on for journalist E. Jean Carroll, who says Trump raped her in the 1990s and defamed her when she went public decades later in that third case, a federal judge has.

The two cases in question here are vastly different, but both have an underlying anger that says Trump and the adult children he made executives used the NBC Apprentice show to knowingly hawk a crappy videophone that turned out to be a scam, and the New York AG accuses the Trumps and their family company of routinely lying to banks by faking financial statements and inflating property values.

In her letter concerning those two cases, Kaplan noted that Trump’s lawyer, Clifford Robert, agreed to a "firm" trial date in federal court only to try and push the state court trial based on Mr. Robert’s prior estimate that the trial, in that case, will take longer than the delay that the [Trumps] are now seeking in the NYAG case, "which would almost inevitably risk interfering with the January 29, 2024 trial date the court has set for this case," she wrote.

The last-minute request to postpone trials is "consistent with the pattern of delay" judges keep seeing from the Trumps, she said David Marrus, a retired state judge in Brooklyn, noted that Kaplan’s "extraordinary action in contacting this judge directly" was "aggressive and unusual explained that Kaplan could have been discreet and done it the way lawyers usually do by simply notifying the AG and letting the government lawyers do it instead.

"​​As a former judge, I would find it very disconcerting to receive a letter from a lawyer in another case," he said, adding that the tactics exhibited by the Trump team show why "transparency is really something we would expect from the lawyers who retired in 2016 and now run a civil wedding officiant service called Judges for Love.

The nation’s inundated court system—with too few practitioners and too many cases—often results in schedule scrambling, with lawyers and judges coordinating calendar dates months ahead of attorneys, double booking important hearings or trials, and hoping that one of them just that lawyers tend to lean on local, elected state judges to give way to the whims of Senate-confirmed federal judges, who have lifetime sentences and greater stature.

"I’ve certainly had the experience of being told by lawyers, ‘I can’t do it because somebody else has scheduled a try to trump the state courts with the federal courts," said Carolyn E. Demarest, a retired New York justice who oversaw the entire commercial division in Brooklyn for more than a decade, going back and forth in a way that was basically unheard of.

"I would think any judge—including me—would be furious if I found out somebody was trying to play me," Demarest said the judge takes a firm trial date very seriously and does not schedule anything in conflict for themselves, frustrating everybody."

Outside of New York, Trump’s army of attorneys has been busy trying to slow down the FBI’s investigation of his mishandling of classified records at his gilded estate of Mar-a-Lago in South Florida, the Department of Justice review of his attempt to overturn the 2020 election to stay in office, and the Fulton County District Attorney’s have had limited success, but all of these law enforcement efforts continue to plow forward and are expected to result in multiple indictments later this year.

"Delays work for the government, but you can only run the clock out so long before judges get wise to this, and I think they’re getting the message that the legal system can be an effective strategy when you have one, or he’s being pilloried all over the country in New York, Georgia, and D.C. like he’s trying to stop the waterfall."

[esther-dot]

Robert allowed Tywin to get away with Elia and her children murders which forced Ned to hide Jon identity, he was abusive to Cersei and negligent parent to Joff, was obsessed with Lyanna and unfaithful to Cersei, failed at Trident as king by allowing two innocents death. Yet Ned(35) romanticised their friendship. Sansa(11) is evil or selfish to romanticised Joff despite seeing his cruelty but Ned is true friend to not acknowledging Robert crimes.

There are a lot of things feeding into Ned's view of Robert.

Ned has not only the brother relationship with Robert but the nostalgia for a happier time which can be a very powerful thing and make you miss or dismiss a lot.

Ned's personality which is one that isn't inclined to confrontations, tends to deny uncomfortable things and not deal with them until necessary.

Ned’s guilt over having a life that was meant for his older brother.

Ned's guilt over lying to Robert/committing treason.

Ned's fear about the consequences of the above.

Ned’s hatred of Cersei which made it easier for him to blame her than Robert.

Robert and Brandon were a lot alike and I wonder if that plays into Ned’s attachment. Brandon died in a horrific way and Robert not only dethroned a tyrant king, because of the war, he got justice for Ned's family.

Of course, this brings us back to the guilt issue. If Ned knew that Lyanna willingly went with Rhaegar, he’d have even more trauma around the death of his father and brother, the devastation of the war, and death of Elia and her children.

...you get the idea. And of course, none of that excuses Ned, does it?

I think the point being made is that people are formed by experiences. Ned’s version of Robert is stuck on who the man was, not who he is. Lyanna’s fate dictated a lot about the future for both Ned and Robert, one because he is consumed with hatred for Rhaegar, the other because he chose to love and care for Rhaegar’s son, and both of those are a different fallout for the love they had for Lyanna. That’s an interesting way to look at love and what it means for different people, what it does to them, what they do to others in the name of their love.

Anyway, the contrast of this/them, the mercy that Ned wants to offer and Robert’s inability to give justice, how Ned is complicit in injustice and a sin against the old gods, it feels wrapped up in that. People who refuse to acknowledge the wrongdoing of either man (even though Ned is a much much much much much better person than Robert) are ignoring Ned’s inner life (tortured, painful) because Ned knows he’s wrong. Ned knows he failed.

Even Robert knows he was wrong at the end. He admits his failures, so, if our dudes can do that, the fandom can too.

And, if, as you point out, the fandom ignores all of that, they can keep their mouths shut about Sansa.

[forcedsense]

before i do that lemme explain why br/uce w/ayne being autistic has always made sense and people are just stupid

1: masking. BRUCE W/AYNE IS THE MASK. He admits it multiple times, everything he does as bruce he doesnt tend to enjoy doing. He’s pretending to be what other people expect and want him to be in order to build the facade. That’s what us autistics refer to as masking. He’s actively masking not only situationally, but an altogether alternate personality, for others. Not for himself, for others.

2: hyperfixations. His entire obsession with vengeance, justice, his general refusal to leave gotham and his distaste for trying a lot of new things? He has his comfort spot (oftentimes on ceilings in the middle of the night), he’s fixated on an ultimate goal and won’t let anyone or anything get in the way of that.

3. His loved ones oftentimes view him as aloof, assholeish, uncaring. Outside watchers fully believe he might even hate alfred or his kids because hes too straight forward and honest, and oftentimes struggles to show his actual feelings. This is an autistic standpoint. No matter how loving I personally can be, people will still claim its not enough and even accuse me of hating someone i love because ‘if you love someone you don’t point out negative traits or admit you dislike this or that’. Maybe not if youre neurotypical and a fucking liar, but autistics already struggle with lying as it is. If you ask us for our opinion, you’re getting our opinion, and you need to specify if you want it in some fancy ‘not the real opiniona supportive opinion’ way.

4: If you notice, he doesn’t tend to argue with people when they call out him being B.ruce while hes bats. If they figure it out, they figured it out, he’s not going to correct them. If they don’t figure it out, oh well. Maybe he’ll tell them, maybe he wont. As he gets older, the actual cowl isnt what makes him able to be his true self anymore, and he feels freer to be T/he B/at without the cowl around people he believes are trustworthy.

5: Which is another thing, the fucking trust levels of him. In some cases, he trusts far too easily (coughs lina coughs), in most cases, he doesnt trust well at all. he’s willing to risk everything for his family, for gordon, for the league because he knows they can handle themselves, and if need be, theyll help him even while knowing he’ll never actively ask them for it in the sense neurotypicals do. He’s always adamantly aware of everything, he notices all the little details in their lives even if he doesnt speak up about it. People think hes selfish and a prick and the thing is, it’s because they don’t understand how his brain works.

As an autistic, seeing Bruces autistic traits on the big screen is a huge deal to me. Thats why S:nyders bruce meant so much to me, because even though he didnt admit to bruce being autistic the traits were still there! Roberts is amplified even more than that, theres no probable argument for ‘oh trauma made him that way!!!’ no, he was like this before his parents death canonically. he had hyperfixations, the prequel novel has an entire chapter devoted to him trying to figure out the best way to mask in front of the orphans at wayne manor and relate to them while trying to figure out what’s going on in their heads and even actively mirroring them. M/att R/eeves took a fucking fish labeled autism traits and slapped everyone in the face with it, and Rob is officially getting labeled across platforms as the best B/atman solo film to date, and the best B/atman to date.

Your best is autistic, your best is officially being labeled as the best by casual and long term viewers, comic fans, and otherwise. Denying his autism is pure ableism at this rate. Reeves didnt say ‘lets erase his traits to make him grunge’, he took his traits and refused to hide them. He‘s showing an autistic man struggling to be the vigilante he is and trying to help the world get better, and yes he actively makes things worse a lot of the time by not thinking things through all the way or being hellbent on his thought process, but so is life! He’s trying, and that’s what matters most. Denying the fact Bruce is clearly autistic, especially B/attinsons, is ableism at its finest. Thats why I’m saying I don’t think I can trust people who claim he isn’t autistic, because to deny it is to prove you don’t understand autism at all, and to deny us the one positive representation we’ve gotten in fucking years. Beyond that, a positive whos mainstream, extremely popular, and you can’t argue against it.

We’ve won, we deserve this, we’ve gone through so much hell and shit and so has he, and he‘s proven what we’re capable of too. Don’t be ableist.

[transitorri]

It's a Box With Nothing In It

Seeing the Supreme Court hearings today, really more of a job interview, for our next potential Justice of the United States Judge Jackson was asked her definition of what a “Woman” is, she refused to give an answer. Later John Roberts asked Marsha Blackburn for her definition, her response “I would say I am a woman. I am a Female, Females are women” I hope I don’t need to point out how very poor of a definition this is. But, the core of this question is actually something as a trans individual you have to grapple with, because a lot of soul searching is needed to answer it. So, here’s my experience, trying to answer that question directly.

Without going deep into the weeds on biology and that useless debate of “Well women have XX chromosomes and Men have XY and that’s biology and there’s nothing more to it.” Let us instead get even more basic, really basic. In order for a “thing” to be classified as a “thing” it has inherent in it a certain set of characteristics that we decide make it one “thing” or another “thing. Birds have feathers, plants require photosynthesis, dogs and cats are mammals and different shapes. Pretty basic stuff.

Think of this sorting as a “box” outside we label the thing “Trees” and we list the needed properties that make a “Tree” a “Tree”, leaves, bark, photosynthesis. In order for a Thing now to be a Tree and go in the “Tree Box”, it must have these properties. With this criteria in mind, let’s come back again to our idea of “Woman”, we could use ‘man’ as well, but I’m a trans woman and more people seem eager to discuss us instead of transmen who often get overlooked entirely, so let’s go with it.

Let’s make a list, I tried making one since that’s important to me as I transition to try and answer these questions. What do we define as “Woman '' well, they paint their nails, have long hair, cry more often, wear dresses and skirts, sit down to pee, birth children, have different genitals, have breasts, XX/XY chromosomes etc.

Now, let’s really go through that list. Do all women paint their nails or is it possible to be a woman and not do that? Yes, you can be a woman and not paint your nails. Wearing dresses? Having long hair? Ok, let’s skip the obvious. Birthing babies? Is it a requirement that to be called a “Woman” you must be able to bear children or do women exist who are unable to do this? I think sterile women are still defined as being women. Going down this list we can eliminate anything social, cultural and many things physical as well such as having bright voices, being physically small or even weaker than men.

Eventually, we end up having to deal with the only line in the sand left that is defensible for the definition, genitalia and chromosome pairings, but, we as a society do not examine one’s genitals to know how we’re going to interact with someone. We as humans do not go around like dogs sniffing each other's genitalia to make such a determination about what and who they are. Similarly, if a man goes to war and is injured in a way where his genitals must be amputated, is he still a man or not? Do genitals then determine if someone is ‘man’ or ‘woman’ then? Or is that another property we strip off the box because it no longer serves as a defining property?

Likewise, most people have never had themselves tested for their chromosomal pairings, it’s not a test we conduct on every infant born to determine what gender path to set them on through life. Nor do we ask to see such a test before we make a judgment about whether we call them “Mam” or “Sir”, both of which may not be labels the person identifies with at all. Most people do not even know what their exact karyotype even is, and I suspect many would be surprised to discover they're not what they thought they were. Finally the concept, the very idea of “man” and “woman” existed long before the understanding or chromosome were discovered and understood by more modern science.

With all of that said, we end up with a box that has a list of characteristics, any one of which could be stripped away until there’s nothing left at all. Does this mean the box itself doesn’t exist? Does the word “woman” mean literally nothing? Well, yes and no. The box exists but it's one with nothing in it. A concept with a loose definition of traits that are a mix of biological, cultural and social, no one ‘thing’ or even smaller collection of things defines the word. At best, a collective grouping of such traits might define someone as a “man” or “woman” but those by themselves don’t define the word, they’re an approximation of if we address someone as “Mam” or “Sir”. It’s a guess at best unless the other person lets us know certain information.

To parrot a phrase you’ve probably heard before on the topic, “Gender is a social construct”. Society and culture define what is or is not a “woman” and that encompasses behavior, fashion of dress, and most other properties. These elements are far more closely linked to what we view as a “woman” or not than our biology. That is how I loosely define “Woman” because the word itself cannot be tightly defined the way we do ‘Tree’ or ‘Bird’ unless we remove everything that makes us human at all.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

One of two thing will happen

The Supreme Court will refuse to rule on it until it has wound its way through the lower courts, delaying Trump's trials through bureaucracy

They'll grant writ of cert, but they'll say they have so many other cases to deal with that they can't schedule oral arguments until later in 2024 and won't come to a decision until summer 2025, again delaying the trials

Whenever it does make its way to SCOTUS, they are 100% absolutely going to rule in Trump's favor, directly or indirectly. They'll say that the case is moot if Trump gets re-elected, or they'll say that Jack Smith has no standing, or that it's a non-jusiticable political question that only Congress can fix, or they'll carve out a very specific loophole for Donald Trump alone in this one instance so as not to set a precedent and give Joe Biden the power to overturn 2024 if he loses (which he wouldn't do anyway). Thomas and Alito will rule for Trump no matter what, the three liberal justices will side against him, Roberts will probably side with the liberals, so it'll be up to Trump's three handpicked toadies; Barrett is the second most conservative justice on the bench behind Thomas, so she'll probably side with Trump regardless of what happens in oral arguments, and both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are morally bankrupt, so yeah, almost certainly 5-4 in Trump's favor. Maybe 6-3 if Roberts quits pretending that SCOTUS is apolitical. Everything they do is political, and we've entered a new era of jurispurdence where the law is whatever they want it to be on a case by case basis with no binding precedent; if they change their minds, the law changes with it, even if they make contradictory rulings or simply decide to ignore the text of the Constitution because if you bend over backwards and squint you can kinda sorta interpret the 1st Amendment to say "Christian Nationalism is the law of the land."

SCOTUS has always been political, but the mask has come completely off in the last decade.

[96thdayofrage]

The Supreme Court agreed to review two aspects of the actor’s case.

The seven judges reviewed Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O’Neill’s decision to let prosecutors call five other accusers to testify about long-ago encounters that never resulted in charges or police reports.

And they reviewed the questionable judge’s decision to allow the jury to hear unsubstantiated testimony from two-decade old depositions taken out of context at trial.

Judge Steven O’Neill has never explained why he allowed five women to testify in the second Cosby trial after allowing only one to do so at his first trial in 2017.

On Dec. 1–when it came to the Commonwealth’s rebuttal of the defense’s points of appeal attorney—Adrianne Jappe did not get through her opening comments before the judges began interrupting and interrogating her on the relevance of the five prior bad acts witnesses.

Justice Dougherty pointed out that one of the women – Lise-Lotte Lublin – had ‘no actual recollection of sexual contact’ but merely of losing consciousness.

Bill Cosby to be Released from Prison After Pennsylvania Supreme Court Deems Trial Tainted

Cosby DA reaches level of desperation as Supreme Court decision nears, fines comic for unkept grass

Cosby DA accused of prosecutorial misconduct for charging YC reporter amid heated email battle

Cosby DA won’t release emails that may reveal ‘locker-room banter’ about Pa. Supreme Court

DA Under Fire for Admitting Bill Cosby Gave ‘Exculpatory Account’ to Cops, Tricked by Phony Immunity Deal

Jappe angered members of the court after instructing them not ‘to consider’ statistics in their decision making, according to an aide of one of the honorable justices.

Your Content exclusively revealed on Oct. 22 that Police in Arizona are stunned after a Pennsylvania prosecutor accommodated a fugitive prostitute to testify against the comedian in 2018.

Cosby, 83, has spent the past two years in a prison outside of Philadelphia after a jury convicted him in 2018 of three aggravated indecent assault counts—and the court deemed the elderly inmate a ‘sexually violent predator’ for posing an ‘imminent safety risk to women.’

From the moment the first witness took the stand, Your Content readers were spot-on in their questioning of trial tactics and backhanded deals cut amid the retrial—going as far as filing a motion to intervene in the trial after politicians tried to silence our publication and banish Your Content reporters from the proceedings.

But we conducted more than just research, providing game-changing scoops that impacted the trial to its core:

» Jun. 1, 17′: Bill Cosby to face a jury 13-years after allegations of sexual assault were made and ultimately debunked by investigating detectives.

» Jun. 5, 17′: Cosby arrives for his first day in court. Attorneys called the proceeding ‘an attack on human dignity.’

» Jun. 6, 17′: Jurors were drowned in reasonable doubt ‘on day two’ of the trial when attorneys revealed the motivation behind the ‘witness cult’s’ testimony: a $100 million payday.

» ‘One lie begets another lie begets another lie’: The judge finally cracked down on overzealous prosecutors after they tried tricking him by rephrasing the same question six times.

» Jun. 9, 17′: The trial’s briefest yet most powerful cross examination that derailed the questionable proceeding in just fifteen minutes.

» Jun. 12, 17′: Moments before the jury left to deliberate, Cosby’s lawyers moved for a mistrial on the grounds that the chief accuser had changed her story nearly two-dozen times.

» The ‘defining moment’ of the trial erupted as lawyers outed a hand-picked George Soros district attorney who prosecuted the funnyman solely to ‘bang on his throne.’

» Jun. 13, 17′: The chief Cosby accuser unleashed a tsunami of reasonable doubt upon jurors, who continually asked the court reread her testimony to weed out the conflicting statements.

» Jun. 15, 17′: Blockbuster revelations by Your Content funneled to our tipline by a juror claimed they would not be reaching a unanimous verdict.

» Despite a deadlocked jury, the hard-nosed court ordered they return after the weekend to continue deliberating until reaching a unanimous verdict.

» Jun. 17, 17′: After the jury informed the court once more of their deadlock, the judge declared a mistrial.

» Oct. 20, 17′: The former district attorney files a lawsuit against chief Cosby accuser Andrea Constand for working hand-in-glove with his competitor, Soros-funded Kevin Steele, in effort to secure an election and conviction.

» Nov. 9, 17′: An explosive report by Your Content reveals new information about Constand’s potential motivation behind the trial.

» Nov. 22, 17′: Your Content discovered Soros’ hand-picked district attorney worked closely with Constand to coordinate television commercials amid the heated election.

» How prosecutors initially claimed the former district attorney was ‘suing Contand more or less because he blames her for cooperating with police.’

» Jan. 11, 18′: Your Content attends a dinner with the funnyman for an exclusive tell-all before the retrial: ‘We’re Ready.’

» Jan. 28, 18′: Soros’ hand-picked district attorney is accused of destroying evidence and allowing perjury to secure a conviction. The FBI ‘cannot confirm nor deny’ an investigation into the accusations.

» Mar. 28, 18′: An exclusive Your Content investigation revealed that the presiding judge carried out an extramarital affair with a staffer of a key witness.

» Apr. 7, 18′: A juror is overheard by a Your Content reporter calling the comic ‘guilty’ immediately after being selected to serve on the panel.

» Apr. 10, 18′: Your Content exclusively reports that the prosecution intends to fly a wanted fugitive to testify, and they wined and housed the prostitute-turned-witness.

» Apr. 12, 18′: A key witness makes a bombshell revelation and confirms she previously sold Quaaludes to friends and never obtained the pill from Cosby.

» The moment Janice Dickinson revealed Robert De Niro partied at a nightclub that was full of ‘sex, drugs, cocaine and tea.’

» As their stories collided, accusers turned blame to magazine editors at New York Magazine of ‘condensing and editing’ their statements to publish on the cover.

» Your Content was first to report that the chief Cosby accuser claimed the comic tricked her into the situation by bribing her with ‘baked goods.’

» The powerful opening statement that painted the chief Cosby accuser as an ‘inconsistent money-hungry con artist.’

» How Gloria Allred’s representation of too many victims nearly derailed the case on day one.

» Apr. 15, 18′: Chief Cosby accuser Andrea Constand officially provides the sixth conflicting story as cross examination continued.

» Apr. 16, 18′: Constand is asked to reread all of her inconsistent statements back to the jury.

» When Hollywood’s heaviest-hitting private detective Scott Ross served Constand with a second subpoena as she left the courtroom.

» Apr. 16, 18′: At one point, testimony from the chief accuser became too confusing for the court and jurors, and Judge Steven O’Neill ordered she go home and do ‘homework’ over the weekend before returning to court Monday.

» Apr. 17, 18′: Your Content captured exclusive photographs of a staffer employed by the hand-picked Soros district attorney documenting each move Cosby made outside of the courtroom.

» Apr. 18, 18′: A key witness lost credibility when it’s discovered Cosby hadn’t been dubbed ‘America’s Dad’ until 1984, not 1982, as she claimed.

» It is discovered that Cosby never called Temple University to speak with chief accuser Constand, university staff reveal.

» Apr. 25, 18′: Closing arguments for the second trial begin. The defense drops a powerful remark: ‘A case that was rejected. A case that was revived. I’ll show you the sequence.’

» Jurors asked the court to re-play the testimony of Margo Jackson, who said the chief accuser confided in her and claimed she could accuse Cosby and ‘get money to go to school and open a business.’

» Unsatisfied jurors question the court: ‘We understand we could see things again?’ The judge allowed it and replayed the chilling testimony that accused Cosby’s accuser of falsifying her claims in pursuit of money.

» Prosecutors pulled an unprecedented stunt and compared Cosby to Casey Anthony in effort to hide the jurors from the media and public.

» Your Content flies the Canadian ex-boyfriend of chief Cosby accuser Andrea Constand to Philadelphia for an exclusive sit-down interview. He reveals the accuser’s family ‘despises black people’ and ‘used Cosby for revenge on all black people.’

» Soros’ hand-picked district attorney went through great lengths to keep his Florida father in the loop at all times—even divulging information about what jurors munched on during breaks.

» Oct. 10, 19′: Your Content obtains thousands of exclusive e-mails from the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office. Among the exclusive e-mail revelations:

» ‘First Order of Business, Lock Up That Creep Bill Cosby.’

» ‘Old Man’ Cosby’ Would Die If Jailed, Prosecutors Joked

» DA Mocked #MeToo Before, During & After Trial

» In 2015, DA Steele Claimed There Was An ‘Air-Tight’ Case Against Bill Cosby, Turns Out There Wasn’t

» Jun. 23, 20′: Bill Cosby is granted the opportunity to go before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in a first-ever virtual hearing.

» Aug. 26, 20′: Your Content makes a groundbreaking discovery that indicates the presiding judge assigned himself to the Cosby trial.

But we are not done. If the court has proven to be just, it has also reinforced how few voices in American media can be trusted to listen to you.

This exceptional moment serves as a call to action for Your Content. We refuse to fall in line with the out-of-touch media establishment—and we will not accept the ‘official’ version of events as told by news agencies that side with power and ignore the untold stories.

Your Content will continue to deliver the truth, and not the spin of politicians or those who failed you.

As the world of professional story-tellers spend the next several months trying to explain their embarrassment, while the lamestream media is held to the fire, we proudly declare: Your Content is the people’s paper, and the only publication that power fears.

Cosby, 83, has spent the past two years in a prison outside of Philadelphia after a jury convicted him in 2018 of three aggravated indecent assault counts—and the court deemed the elderly inmate a ‘sexually violent predator’ for posing an ‘imminent safety risk to women.’

As Your Content readers know, Judge Steven O’Neill assigned himself the privilege of presiding over the Cosby trial.

[thevindicativevordan]

Metallo

I wanted to talk about one of my favorite DC villains, a guy who I’ve always thought was incredibly cool. A guy who I’ve thought makes a really awesome contrast for Superman. A guy who has never been in stories that have utilized his potential in my eyes:

Let’s talk about Metallo.

Metallo’s Background

He’s one of Superman’s oldest Rogues, and also one of the Rogues who has gone through the most revamps. The Golden Age Superman fought a guy called Metalo aka George Grant who created a suit of armor made out of the strongest metal on Earth (something that would resurface in the Grant Morrison revamp during the New 52) and a super strength serum that made him Superman’s physical equal. In an odd way he was an evil proto-Iron Man/Post Crisis Lex Luthor:

The John Corben take wouldn’t show up until the 1950s, created by Robert Bernstein and Al Plastino. This was the foundation for the modern conception of Metallo:

Right off the bat Corben was positioned as an Anti-Superman, predating Bizarro who wouldn’t show up until later. Corben worked as a journalist to cover up his real activities as a murderer and thief. An accident that nearly killed him and crippled his human body, forced him to accept a deal with a scientist to transfer his mind to a new artificial body. The scientist transferred his mind into an android body covered in synthetic bulletproof skin, gifting Corben with super strength. The synthetic skin idea would be used in Byrne’s revamp and the DCAU incarnation. He was initially powered by uranium, but was told he would need Kryptonite to fuel himself permanently. Corben would also act as a romantic rival for Clark via wooing Lois with his pretense of being Superman’s secret identity.

Ultimately John Corben would die in his debut issue, after mistaking a museum prop for the actual Kryptonite he needed to power himself. I often wonder if the character might have been better off if he had not been killed off in his debut, similarly to how the Joker was saved from dying in his debut by editorial. There were many intriguing ideas present in Corben’s creation: He was a romantic rival for Clark Kent, he used his journalism in a similar if villainous way as Superman did, and he was powered by the very thing that could kill Superman while still possessing enough raw strength to stand on equal terms with the Man of Steel. If they had kept him around, fleshed him out more, might Metallo have enjoyed more long term respect?

 Regardless, Corben’s death paved the way for the third Metallo: His brother Roger Corben.

Roger likewise had a lot of interesting ideas that would eventually get folded into the modern Metallo. He was not a petty thief, but had a personal vendetta with Superman over the death of his brother. Superman accidentally caused the very accident that crippled Roger, adding to the man’s feud. Roger was also a leader within the Skull organization, rather than the small time criminal his brother was. This Metallo’s design would form the basis for the Geoff Johns/Gary Frank revamp during Secret Origin, and I suspect the Johns conception of Metallo as a member of a wider organization and whose transformation was caused by Superman has it’s roots here.

Sadly the take on a more fleshed out Metallo would not last. The Roger Corben version of Metallo would meet his end with the rest of the Pre-Crisis Superman Rogues Gallery in the seminal Alan Moore story Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?

Enter John Byrne:

During his Post-Crisis revamp of the Supermythos, Byrne returned to the John Corben take of a petty thief injured in an accident, who is rebuilt by a mad scientist Professor Vale. Byrne added his own twist though, with the scientist believing Superman to be the first scout in a full blown Kryptonian takeover of Earth, and specifically crafted Metallo to be an Anti-Superman weapon powered by Kryptonite. Metallo was to be humanity’s defense against the threat of Superman, an idea that would be revisited in Johns’ and Morrison’s revamps. Unfortunately petty thieves don’t make for great heroes, and Metallo killed Vale, ultimately coming into conflict with Superman not over any desire to protect humanity, but to simply eliminate a thorn in his side.

This incarnation of Metallo has basically served as the basis for his appearance in outside media, with a design that blatantly draws on the popular Terminator films.

This version of Metallo would also acquire a variety of powers thanks to making a deal with Neron that included the ability to transform parts of his body into weapons, transfer his consciousness into any technological or mechanical device, and manipulate his size:

Personally I’ve always loved that powerset upgrade, and think it’s crucial it sticks. It let him kick the shit out of Superman AND Batman in Loeb Superman/Batman, which basically solidified for me that this dude was a badass you didn’t want to mess with. Shame he’s never come close to matching that initial impression since.

The DCAU mostly used the Byrne revamp’s take, but they did change a few aspects which would end up carrying over to the mainline version. Most important was the replacing of Vale with Lex Luthor as the mind behind Metallo’s creation, something that would be incorporated in both Johns and Morrison’s later revamps.

One aspect that they introduced that didn’t carry over, that was still utilized to great effectiveness in the show, was that Corbyn’s transformation had robbed him of most physical sensation. He couldn’t taste, smell, touch, all the little things that made us human, and that drove him nuts. Ultimately he would learn that Lex was responsible for what happened to him, and he would swear a grudge against both Lex and Superman. Malcom McDowell was a fantastic choice to play Metallo, and is still the guy I “hear” when I read Metallo’s dialogue.

Now we come to the guy who crafted the next big revamp of Metallo: Geoff Johns.

This version of Metallo incorporated a ton of aspects from the multiple revamps that had preceded it, in much the same way Secret Origin did to Superman as a whole, while also adding a few new twists that I consider essential to the character now.

Like the DCAU, Luthor was the one who transformed Corben into Metallo. Like the Roger Corben take, this John Corben was accidentally crippled in a fight with Superman that gave him a personal vendetta against the Man of Steel.  Similar to Byrne, this Metallo was created to be an Anti-Superman weapon. Corben and Lois had had a brief romantic relationship, similar to the original debut of Corben. Johns even incorporated some of the Golden Age Metallo by having Corben suit up in a mech suit made of “Metallo”, the strongest metal on Earth to fight Superman before the accident. Johns also added a key bit of lore that I love, that Corben served as a soldier under General Sam Lane, and became the man’s surrogate son, the child he always wanted as opposed to Lois and Lucy. Here Corben is motivated to fight Kal-El by a mix of xenophobia, need to impress his father figure, desire to impress Lois, and a simple dose of blood lust.

The last major revamp came from Grant Morrison during the New 52:

Morrison kept a lot of the Johns revamp: Corben was a soldier serving under Sam Lane, he had a brief romantic relationship with Lois, he was distrustful of Superman’s heroics, and his transformation into Metallo was connected to Lex. However Corben was a much more sympathetic figure under Morrison than under Johns, genuinely believing Superman to be a threat, he volunteered to be merged with the Metal-0 superweapon (another callback to the original Metalo) to defend humanity, but Brainiac hijacked his cybernetics and turned him into a weapon. 

While Metallo would get another visual revamp for Rebirth, posted in the first image, Corben has more or less stayed within the confines that Byrne/Johns/Morrison established.

How I would use Metallo

I said earlier that Metallo is a guy I loved that I’ve never thought has lived up to his potential. He’s a villain with a lot of cool ideas, he’s a villain who has been continuously used by a lot of my favorite writers, but he’s never lived up to the Anti-Superman characterization that’s baked into him. Too often he’s just been a glorified henchman, or a petty thug, rarely if ever challenging Superman except in the most basic physical sense. I think that’s a great disservice to the ability of the character to be a much more important Rogue. That writers so often refuse to focus on him or any of the Rogues beyond Lex also hasn’t done him any favors. Instead of creating countless new OCs that are tossed aside by the next writer, someone needs to come on board with a passion for revamping the classics.

A lot of Superman’s Rogues suck not because they aren’t cool or don’t bring any interesting ideas, but because the ideas don’t do a good job in contrasting with Superman’s attributes. Metallo is a great example of this, look at all the interesting ideas creators have crafted around him, yet none of them have really been able to push those ideas as a way to explore and contrast Superman, so we get basic “Metallo tries to kill Superman, fails, Superman sends him back to jail” stories. That’s a failure of creativity in my eyes. I think that by choosing from some of the revamps listed above, a better, cooler, more interesting Metallo can be crafted.

The basics as established by Byrne/Johns/Morrison are great! The essential ideas that should be incorporated from all of the revamps listed above are:

1. Corben needs to have a military background as in Johns/Morrison. The petty thief origin is too dull, there’s nothing really to be mined there from a characterization standpoint. As a soldier Corben can serve as an interesting critique and contrast of Superman as an icon of America. The “American Way” has always been a dicey add-on to the original “Truth and Justice” motto. Often it’s been used to cast Superman as an obedient stooge of the government, as he was in The Dark Knight Returns, a characterization that has dogged him ever since. I think Corben can serve as an interesting character to explore Superman’s relationship with the American military-industrial complex. I would have Corben be what said complex wants Superman to be, at least in the beginning: A human WMD they can aim and fire, who will always follow orders no matter how reprehensible they are, who has a firm “America First” mindset. That way you can contrast the mainline Superman, and show that Superman is not that while also establishing what “The American Way” means in his eyes. Or you can have Superman drop that aspect of his motto in-universe, out of disgust for how his government perverts it. Either option is fine with me, I didn’t mind when Superman renounced his American citizenship.

2. If Lois often has to end up working with Clark’s exes, whether it’s Lana, Diana, or whoever, I think it’s only fair that Clark has to end up facing down an ex from Lois’ past. It’s important to show that Lois had a life before Clark showed up, and I think Corben is a good way to explore some of that. He’s the possessive ex-boyfriend who doesn’t respect Lois’ personal space and is convinced he can “win her back” via sheer determination. You can also compare and contrast the way Clark courted Lois, did Clark occasionally make the same pigheaded assumptions as Corben did? Corben debuted as a romantic rival for Superman, and I think that aspect still has merit. I also like his status as Sam’s surrogate son, it adds for some nice tension with Clark’s father-in-law that the guy he actually wanted to marry Lois was transformed into a weapon to kill the guy who ended up being his son-in-law. 

3. Corben is a true believer in the threat Superman poses, and is willing to take on the transformation into Metallo to protect humanity. It’s xenophobia yes, but with all the Evil Superman stories going around, it’s hard not to sympathize at least a little bit with Corben’s viewpoint, which tie into a deeper attribute of Corben’s I think needs to be brought up: Corben should be a sympathetic villain. I wouldn’t make him a bloodthirsty psycho, Superman has plenty of those. Corben should have villainous valor, willing to tackle on whatever threats to humanity are out there, whether Superman or others. I would make Corben instead someone who has the genuine desire to protect humanity, but lacks Superman’s concern for collateral damage. In that way you could contrast the two’s brand of “heroics”, Superman’s loyalty to humanity as a whole over one nation, and concern with protecting lives first and foremost, Corben’s desire to protect humanity’s future for the “greater good” even if it costs a few lives in the here and now and loyalty to America above all else. 

4. I like the idea of Superman being inadvertently responsible for the accident that cripples Corben and mandates his transformation. It adds to his sympathy, helps justify why Superman might continue to believe Corben could find redemption (he wants Corben to change and also wants to find a way to earn Corben’s forgiveness one day), and provides a good personal reason for why Corben would hate Superman, blaming Supes for his current state. I would also have him blame Sam and Lex as well, but he would subdue those resentments for as long as he remained working for the military. Only after he finally snaps would he target those two.

5. Finally I would keep the ability to shapeshift his body into weapons, and to manipulate technology. I would have Corben emulating Adam Jensen from Deus Ex, able to “hack” tech around him for his own purpose, armed with a variety of weapons that make him a huge threat not just to Superman but to everyone. Finally I would get rid of the Kryptonite heart. I’m tired of every battle with Metallo going the same way: He shows up, blasts Superman with kryptonite radiation, Superman lies on the ground gasping in pain, Metallo stands around gloating like a moron instead of finishing Supes off, Supes beats him by tricking him or by someone else intervening. I want to see Metallo as an Anti-Superman weapon realized beyond jus the Kryptonite. How about incorporating the DCAU version’s lack of feeling, so that Metallo doesn’t feel pain from Superman’s blows or his powers? How about giving him an internal temperature controller, so he can’t be melted by heat vision or frozen by arctic breath? How about an invisibility cloak that hides him from Superman’s vision, sound mufflers that let him sneak up on Supes even with his hearing, basically go WILD with his Anti-Superman status, let us see a real fight between someone who can counter each of Superman’s powers! You have Kryptonite Man and Lex for the villains who mainly make use of Kryptonite against Superman, I think Metallo should go in a different direction. Morrison making it so that “Metal-0″ was already powerful enough to hurt Superman is all the justification you need as to why he still poses a threat in my opinion.

I’ll go over the basic arc I’d want to see him undergo and the kinds of stories I think he’s positioned to tell in another post.