Category Archives: stuff that pisses me off

i should know better

Posted on by
6

It’s been a while since I’ve held my breath and visited the mephitic swamp that’s FreeRepublic. But I was curious to see how Freepers would react to Comrade Trump’s massive fine for committing fraud in New York State.

I mean, I knew, of course, that they’d be outraged. They’re always outraged about something. What I was curious about was the direction their outrage would take. Generally, Freeper outrage falls into one (or more) of five categories. 1) They’re picking on Trump unfairly, 2) Trump is too big/powerful/strong/manly to be bothered by being nibbled on by ducks, 3) Trump will have his revenge, 4) It’s a Deep State conspiracy, or 5) Blame it on women, black folks, pedophiles/perverts, communists, Satanists, etc.

To my disappointment, not one Freeper mentioned Satan. However, they almost universally agreed Trump was being victimized unfairly. Here are a few folks who figured Trump will just shrug off a half a billion in fines:

Trump could easily take out a loan against Mara-Lago since it is valued at over a billion dollars.
by Newbomb Turk

He just made $4 billion in his truth social tech stock today, I’m sure this verdict had nothing to do with it. I’m sure his poll numbers ascended as well.
by FrdmLvr

Of course it will be dismissed. Trump isn’t going to pay a dime.
by Georgia Girl 2

But even if Trump could easily pay off those unfair fines, Freepers agree that Trump himself is absolutely blameless. He’s being targeted by people who hate him because of reasons (they’re not MAGA, they’re black, they’re overweight, they’re stupid, they’re perverts, they’re sadists, they’re less than human).

once this is appealed to a NON-DEMOCRAT court, it will be tossed out like the garbage it is.
by ThePatriotsFlag

Since a lot of horrible people are in positions of authority based on Kolor, kink, and Kin…and not on merit–we need a law stating government officials can not read statements written by others–or by themselves.
A half page of notes can be allowed.
It was sickening listen to that idiot Letitia James read a statement written by someone else that made her sound intelligent. Well, kind of intelligent considering what she was saying wasn’t rational.
by GOPJ

[They think the verdict] will make they women wet and the men wishing they could get hard. They love the idea of an “enemy” suffering greatly. There are tens of millions of them. Their sadists who would be thrilled to watch any one of us tortured to death. Does anyone here really want to share the nation with these animals?
by Wpin

But obviously, there’s a shady cabal behind all of Trump’s misfortunes. It’s simply not possible that Trump himself could be to blame.

New York is just the means to an end. Obama is behind all of this.
by Daveinyork

Good chance they’ll put Trump in jail and kill him.
by sopo

Regardless, Trump will eventually triumph. He’ll have his revenge. True American Patriots will stand up in numbers too big to ignore and fight for him. They’ll make those bastards pay.

Heard PISSED OFF Truckers for Trump are starting a boycott of deliveries to NYC. They started with 10 a few hours ago and now they’re up to 20 committed. It’s spreading! GO TRUCKERS!!! SPREAD THE WORD!
by RoseofTexas

Trump will have the judge arrested. Problem solved.
by nonliberal

We are about at the point where these lawless monsters be openly defied. We are entering second amendment territory. These are no longer legitimate courts. Once the legitimacy of the courts goes down and anybody that the powers that be want to throw into jail can be done so…it’s over….and it’s on….
by TalBlack

There you go. Truckers will starve Manhattan. Judge Engoron will be jailed. There will be Second Amendment solutions for Trump’s enemies.

There are reasons I rarely visit FreeRepublic these days. It’s not the consistent vitriol and ugliness that keeps me away, though that plays a part. And it’s not because of the level of ignorance and stupidity in their comments. I avoid FreeRepublic because visiting the site tends to make me react to its followers in much the same way they react to everybody else.

I become judgmental. I mock them. I feel a certain amount of disgust for them. I see them as uninformed backward rubes. Because there’s no way an intelligent, thoughtful person can believe Barack Obama orchestrated Trump’s fraud trial, or that a group of truck drivers will punish NYC, or that Trump is in any way a patriot. I read their comments and I think, “You hateful, pathetic, fuckwitted suckers.”

I dislike feeling that way about other people. I want to feel compassion for people who are so oblivious and gullible. I used to be able to do that. Now, not so much. I don’t visit FreeRepublic very often because I find their hate and bitterness and disregard for others is infectious. And I’m gradually losing my resistance to it.

EDITORIAL NOTE: This is a good time to remind everybody that we need to burn the patriarchy to the ground. We need to douse that poisonous plant with kerosene and set fire to it. We need to gather its ashes, piss on them, drop napalm on them and burn them again. Burn the patriarchy, then drive a stake directly through the ashes where its heart used to be, and then set fire to the stake. Burn the fucker one more time. And keep burning it, over and over. Burn it for generations. Then read a good book.

an extremely grudging vote for uncle joe biden

Posted on by
16

It’s still 260+ days until the presidential election, which means a whole hell of a lot could happen to change things. But as things stand right now, I’m going to be voting—with some reluctance—for Uncle Joe Biden.

Why the reluctance? Because of his unwillingness to lean on the government of Israel to stop the genocide of Palestinians. Uncle Joe has been a much better president than I’d expected. Better than I’d hoped for, in fact. Yeah, he’s old and yeah, he makes gaffes and says stupid shit periodically. But overall, I’ve got to say he’s had an incredible number of accomplishments—especially considering the massive ongoing clusterfuck created and sustained by House Republicans.

But still, it’s impossible to be happy about casting a vote for a man who has enabled Bibi Netanyahu to physically destroy Gaza and kill tens of thousands of civilians. And for anybody who wants to argue that opposing the Israeli Defense Force is the same as supporting Hamas, go fuck yourself. What Hamas did on October 7th was monstrous. No matter how frustrated they were with the Israeli government, there’s no fucking way to justify the slaughter of civilians.

But that same notion applies to the government of Israel. The willful slaughter of more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza (10,000 of whom were children) isn’t justice for the 1100 people killed during the Hamas attack. Biden’s willingness to go along with the genocide and the destruction of two-thirds of Gaza’s infrastructure makes it almost impossible to vote for him.

Almost impossible.

Despite the many good things Uncle Joe has done domestically and internationally (and personally—the guy has effectively reduced my student loan payments to almost zero), I’m extremely unhappy with the thought of voting for him. But I will, grudgingly.

Why? Because of this one simple fact: if Biden wins re-election, we’ll have a chance to elect a better leader in 2028. But if Trump wins re-election, there’s a very good chance the US will die as a democracy and we may not have anything remotely like a fair election in 2028.

That’s incentive enough.

nobody can understand?

Posted on by
5

Here are the pertinent facts: 1) In 2021, a youth baseball nonprofit in Wichita, Kansas erected a life-sized bronze statue of Jackie Robinson—the player who broke the color barrier in major league baseball—in McAdam’s Park. 2) This year, on January 25th, after midnight, a couple of assholes cut that statue off at the ankles, loaded it onto a pickup, and drove off. There is surveillance footage of the vandalism and theft. 3) Five days later, the day before Jackie Robinson’s birthday, the Wichita Fire Department responded to a fire in Garvey Park and found the remains of the statue.

I’m appalled by this, but not terribly surprised. Open racism and hatred has become more common in the Trump era. And just to be clear, I’m not saying Trump himself is responsible for the hatred. I’m saying Trump essentially gave permission for existing racists to be more openly racist. Trump’s hate and rage made other racists feel comfortable in expressing their hate and rage.

What DOES surprise me, though, is the reluctance of so many people and so many news outlets to say what’s so plainly fucking obvious. Which is that this was clearly a hate crime. Local law enforcement officials haven’t offered an opinion about the vandals’ motive, but that’s essentially to protect any future prosecution. But how to you explain Bob Lutz, the director of League 42 (the nonprofit that installed the sculpture) saying, “Nobody can understand why this would happen.” Really, Bob? I think everybody can easily understand why it happened. Just ask around, Bob.

And then there’s Mike Freeman in USA Today. He wrote:

What happened? Was it a prank that went too far? Was it an act of racism? We don’t know yet.

We KNOW what happened. And Jesus suffering fuck, it was obviously NOT a goddamn prank. Since the two assholes involved haven’t been identified or arrested yet, we don’t have any direct admission that it was an act of racism. But given the fact that it was a statue of Jackie Robinson and that it was stolen and destroyed around his birthday, I think we’re pretty safe in saying there’s a really really really high probability that racism was the motive.

The statue will be replaced, of course. The money to replace it has already been raised. Although the original sculptor, John Parsons, is dead, the mold still exists and is viable. So the statue of Jackie Robinson will return. He’ll be back in McAdam’s Park, hand on hip, confident, smiling.

But the racism that destroyed the statue in Wichita still exists.

Here’s another ‘but.’ A more important ‘but.’ BUT there are at least seven other statues of Jackie Robinson scattered around the US.

Here’s the thing about statues of real people: they’re not really a celebration of that person. They’re actually an endorsement of the values that person stood for. That’s why we’ve been tearing down statues of Civil War generals. That’s why we’ve put up statues of Jackie Robinson.

it’s the same coin

Posted on by
2

I’m almost never busy. I don’t live a busy life. But this is one of those rare instances when I’m working under a deadline. So of course RIGHT NOW there’s a LOT of really awful and really interesting and really important stuff happening everywhere. Stuff I’d ordinarily be writing about because, as you know, I have thoughts about things.

The most awful thing is the terrorist attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians. No matter how much a person might support the rights of Palestinians, no matter how much a person might despise the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government, no matter how much a person might understand the frustration and anger and boiling hatred Palestinians may feel toward Israeli policies, there’s absolutely no possible justification for an attack designed to slaughter civilians. And there’s no possible reason to celebrate such an attack.

But this is why terrorism exists, and why it works. Oppressed people strike out–not directly against the government that oppresses them, because they don’t have the military power to harm the government. They strike where they can do the most damage, and they do it KNOWING it will result in two things: 1) outrage against them and their cause, and 2) a massively one-sided retaliation. The retaliation always reveals the social and political conditions that sparked the terrorism.

Right now people are talking about Gaza. Right now, a lot of people are gleeful about the demolition of Gaza, because ‘they’ deserve it. But many people are also hearing for the first time Gaza referred to as ‘the world’s largest open-air prison.’ We’re seeing in the starkest possible light, the people who allow their anger and resentment to turn to brutality–the terrorists and the retaliators.

And because I’ve said This is why terrorism exists and why it works, some people will argue that I’m validating the attack by Hamas. So let me repeat this: There’s absolutely no possible justification for an attack designed to slaughter civilians and there’s no possible reason to celebrate such an attack. I could also say–and it would be equally true–that brutal oppression works. We’ve seen that in totalitarian regimes throughout history. That’s not a justification of brutality.

Brutality works for the brutal, terrorism works for the terrorists, racism works for the racists, patriarchy works for men, cruelty works for the cruel, selfishness works for the selfish. In all cases, ordinary decent people are the ones who suffer.

This is all deeply ugly. So it’s important to remember this: the Israeli government doesn’t represent all Jews. It’s important to remember this: Hamas doesn’t represent all Palestinians. It’s critically important to understand that oppression and terrorism the opposite sides of the same coin.

EDITORIAL NOTE: We must burn the patriarchy. If you’re wondering what the patriarchy has to do with the situation in Israel and Gaza, then you don’t really grasp the extent to which patriarchy infects culture. We need to burn it to the ground, gather the ashes, piss on them, douse them in oil and set them on fire again. Burn it and keep burning it, over and over. Burn it for generations. Then nuke it from orbit. Then have tea and cookies.

monday monday

Posted on by
Reply

It’s the first Monday in October, which means the Supreme Court of the United States is back in session. Although it’s not officially on their agenda, SCOTUS-watchers (which, I just want to say, aren’t nearly as cool as the Watchers that kept track of Highlander immortals or Buffy-era Slayers–now those folks had style) say the Court has to wrestle with this crisis-level problem: How to convince the public that the justices take seriously their ethical obligations.

The answer to which, of course, is completely fucking obvious. SCOTUS needs to actually take their ethical obligations seriously. Not just try to convince the public they’re doing that; they actually need to DO that. But that would mean chucking Clarence Thomas out on his ass. And probably Sam Alito too. And maybe finally investigate where their boy Brett K got the coin to pay off all his debts before his SCOTUS nomination process. So yeah, ain’t gonna happen.

But at least the government is still operating. Well, operating after a fashion. I mean, most of us expected to see Congress implode and a whole lot of government functions to stop this morning. Why? Because a dozen or so Republicans are acting like monkeys trying to fuck beach balls. The monkeyfucking cadre has even annoyed some of the less rabid Republicans. Don Bacon of Nebraska said, “We’re tired of fucking around with these whack jobs.”

We all are, Don. We’re all tired of them.

The fact that Congress managed to avoid stepping on a rake is seen as a sort of victory, although it’s not clear for whom. I mean, we’ll have to go through this same bullshit again in a couple of months. It’s not a victory for Kevin McCarthy, who is now solidly in the cross hairs of the monkeyfucking cadre. Matt Gaetz (Jesus suffering fuck, I still can’t believe this bouffant fuckwit is actually a sitting Member of Congress) has said publicly that nobody trusts McCarthy. Gaetz says he intends to press a Congressional motion to boot McCarthy directly in the balls (well, remove him from the Speaker’s position, which is much the same thing).

What’s interesting, though, is the anti-monkeyfuckers are murmuring about possibly expelling Gaetz IF he follows through on his attempt to kick McCarthy in the balls and IF the ongoing Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz (for being corrupt and doing drugs and getting horizontal with underage girls) finds he probably did all the awful shit everybody thinks he did. One anonymous Republican is reported (by FOX News, if that matters) as saying this about Gaetz: “No one can stand him at this point. A smart guy without morals.”

Nobody trusts McCarthy, nobody can stand Gaetz, and neither of them has any morals at all.

“You let me be Speaker of the House and I’ll supply you with beach balls.”

Speaking of somebody without morals who nobody can stand, Comrade Trump’s civil fraud trial begins today in New York City. It’s a bench trial rather than a jury trial, so it should be wrapped up pretty quickly. I mean, the judge has already ruled that the Trump Organization deffo committed fraud. He also revoked Trump’s New York business licenses, which will likely mean Trump will lose control over dozens of New York properties. Essentially, the trial is to determine how big a fine Trump will pay. The prosecutor is asking for US$250 million. A quarter of a billion here, a quarter of a billion there…it adds up..

By the way, Trump says he’ll testify if called. Yeah, I’m just going to leave that there.

So it’s going to be an ugly few weeks for Republicans. And rightly so. You know, among all the truly awful things the GOP has done in the last couple of decades, one of the worst things is they’ve changed us. By ‘us’ I basically mean people who prefer to be kind and considerate to other folks, even if we disagree with them. People who didn’t take pleasure in seeing other people suffer. The GOP has changed us into people who viscerally enjoy watching MAGA Republicans go at each other like rabid sewer rats.

I don’t like this about myself, but I WANT to see the GOP destroyed. I WANT to see McCarthy lose his Speaker position, I WANT to see Gaetz expelled from the Republican Party, I WANT to see Comrade Trump lose his businesses and his money and his freedom. I WANT to see him convicted and imprisoned. I don’t just want those things to happen; I want to WITNESS them. I want to see them humiliated, afraid, defeated, and lost.

I don’t like that about myself, but there it is. I’ve let those monkeyfuckers change me. I’ll never forgive them for that.

ask the questions, get the answers

Posted on by
7

Here’s what I think (at this particular moment) will happen: the current case Comrade Trump is facing–the documents case–won’t go to trial. I suspect his lawyers will convince him to try to work out some sort of plea arrangement.

I say that because…wait. Just to be clear, I am NOT a lawyer. I’ve banged around the US criminal justice system for many years and I’ve seen a lot of legal/criminal stuff, but I haven’t been to law school and there’s a LOT of stuff I don’t understand.

Okay, that’s out of the way. I say this case won’t go to trial for a very simple reason: I don’t see any defense to the charges. You can read the indictment yourself, but in very simple terms, Comrade Trump is accused of a) hanging on to documents he wasn’t legally allowed to have in his possession, b) lying about having those documents, c) hiding those documents from the people looking for them, d) getting other folks to lie about those documents, and e) getting other folks to help hide them.

If the facts are against you, bang on the law. If the law is against you, bang on the facts. If the facts and the law are against you, bang on the table.

So the case comes down to some pretty simple questions and answers. So let’s ask the questions and get the answers.

  1. Was Trump authorized to have possession of those documents? Nope.
  2. Did he have possession of them? Yep.
  3. Did he have reason to believe those documents ‘could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation’? Yep.
  4. Was he asked to return them? Yep.
  5. Did he return them? Yes, some of them. And he hasn’t been charged in regard to those particular documents.
  6. Did he return all of them? Nope.
  7. Did he lie about returning all of them? Yep.
  8. Did he get other folks to lie about returning all of them? Yep.
  9. Did he hide them from the folks who were trying to find them? Yep.
  10. Did he get other folks to help him hide them? Yep

The only question that MIGHT be in dispute is that first one. Comrade Trump claims the Presidential Records Act authorized him to keep those documents. Does it? Nope. This is what the Act says:

Upon the conclusion of a President’s term of office, or if a President serves consecutive terms upon the conclusion of the last term, the Archivist of the United States shall assume responsibility for the custody, control, and preservation of, and access to, the Presidential records of that President.

The moment Trump ceased to be POTUS and President Uncle Joe took over, Trump lost custody and control of his presidential authority over the records. Claiming the Presidential Records Act can be interpreted differently is a weak argument, but Trump’s lawyers apparently intend to offer it in court–and with Judge Cannon presiding, it may be allowed.

But will it work? Will a jury buy it? Highly unlikely. Why? Because the National Archives repeatedly TOLD Trump IN WRITING about his legal obligation to surrender control over his records. They repeatedly asked him to return documents he’d retained illegally, and gave him multiple opportunities to do so. The fact that he DID return some but still chose NOT to return others is evidence that he understood what the National Archives repeatedly told him–that he wasn’t authorized to keep those fucking documents.

But he kept them anyway.

So as far as I can see (and, again, I’m NOT a lawyer), Comrade Trump’s ONLY defense is that he was too fucking stupid to understand the repeated warnings given to him and his lawyers about returning classified documents EVEN THOUGH he understood it enough to return some of them.

If that’s the only defense he’s got, Trump’s choices are limited. Either go to trial and hope like hell for a MAGA-infected juror who’ll vote to acquit despite the evidence OR come to some sort of plea arrangement. He might offer to plead guilty to a lesser offense in exchange for…something. No prison time, probably. Maybe in exchange for not being indicted on a Seditious Conspiracy charge in the January 6th insurrection.

I’m not saying I LIKE this as a result. I’m just saying I think this is what’s going to happen.

Obviously, Trump won’t enter into a plea negotiation soon. He’ll delay it as long as possible, as long as he can continue to raise funds off his pending trial. But eventually, in my opinion, he and his lawyers will start talking about a plea arrangement. The case against him is just too strong.

please tell me this doesn’t say what i think it says

Posted on by
9

Two semi-related things. First, I have a new bike (about which I will almost certainly write, because that’s the sort of thing I do), but I’ve also been uncharacteristically busy, so unable to ride it as much I’d like. I’ve done a few short jaunts around the area, but that’s it.

Second, over the last couple of years, I’ve developed a habit of stopping when I see bike path graffiti. Sometimes the graffito is chalk art, sometimes it’s bits of philosophy, sometimes it’s a sort of editorial opinion. Regardless of what it is, the notion that somebody has deliberately made their way down a bike path and stopped to express themselves pleases me. I keep telling myself I should start photographing all those graffiti; it might make an interesting project.

So last Thursday, when I took a short ride, and saw some bike path graffiti, I did just that. Stopped, read it, photographed it, then went on my way. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the graffito itself since a) my mind was largely occupied by what I’d been working on before I went for a ride and b) a word in the graffito had been smudged out.

This greenspace is located between a commercial area and some townhomes.

It wasn’t until later, when I actually looked at the photo, that I tried to figure out what the smudged word was…and why it had been smudged out.

The [blank] never happened… but it should have!!!

Google Lens has an image-to-text application, so I tried that first. It suggested The halogen never happened, which didn’t make a lick of sense.

I tried to think of things that should have happened but didn’t. Because a lot of bike path graffiti deals with either matters of the heart (you know, stuff like Chad hearts Becky) or inspirational comments (like ‘Life is Good’), I initially focused on words that would make the phrase sweet or celebratory. The first smudged letter seems to be a ‘b’ or an ‘h’. Boyfriend…no. Backstory…no. Bahamas…maybe? The Bahamas never happened, but it should have. Possible.

Then I just tried to find words that would fit. Hangover…possibly, if the writer was into self-punishment. Harlequin…unlikely. Horseplay…don’t think so. Hologram…probably not. Holo…oh, fuck.

I’m hoping this isn’t as ugly and hateful as I think it might be.

Holocaust? The last smudged letters COULD be and ‘s’ and a ‘t’. And Iowa has increasingly become a Red-MAGA state. Our governor and legislature have been actively encouraging and passing more hateful, authoritarian policies. So this sort of irrational hate is very possible. It doesn’t matter that Jews make up less than 1% of Iowa’s population; antisemitism is never based on reality.

As much as I hate to say it…or even think it…holocaust seems to fit.

In the first photograph, you can see there’s another graffito just a few feet away. One word, maybe one short line. I didn’t even stop to look at it. Again, my mind was largely elsewhere when I stopped. But tomorrow, weather permitting, I’ll get back on the bike and ride this path again to see what it says. Maybe it’ll add some clarity.

I’m really hoping somebody can decipher that smudged word in a more positive way. But even if there IS a better interpretation, I’m disheartened by the fact that my worst-case rendering seems so very possible.

EDITORIAL NOTE: We must burn the patriarchy. Burn it to the ground, gather the ashes, piss on them, douse them in oil and set them on fire again. Burn the patriarchy, then drive a stake directly through the ashes where its heart used to be, and then set fire to the stake. Burn the fucker one more time. And keep burning it, over and over. Burn it for generations. Then nuke it from orbit. Then have tea.

Also? Include antisemitism.

ADDENDUM: I went back yesterday to look at the other graffito. It’s also been smudged, which leads me to assume it was equally ugly. I can’t make out the word, though it seems to start with ‘JE’. Here it is:

indelible

Posted on by
3

I didn’t watch the Trump Show on CNN last night. The notion that any serious news channel would give Comrade Trump a national platform to speak was ridiculous and offensive. I understand CNN’s desire to draw viewers; viewers draw advertising and advertising pays the bills. I get it. But to sacrifice journalistic integrity in order to…wait. Who am I kidding? Journalistic integrity? CNN started sacrificing that when it saw Fox News making serious coin by openly prostituting itself.

So no, I didn’t watch CNN last night. That said, I will admit to being curious about it, especially when I learned Kaitlan Collins would be given the job. She always seemed like a solid reporter. I mean, nobody would be able to stop Trump from his firehose lying, but maybe Collins would find some journalistic equivalent of a whip and a chair, and keep Trump partially at bay. It seemed unlikely, but not entirely out of the realm of possibility.

Reader, I was wrong.

This morning I’ve watched a few clips of that horrorshow. And Jesus suffering fuck, it was like that scene in Aliens when the xenomorphs are shredding the Colonial Marines. Kaitlan Collins tried her best, but she was overrun. Not just by Trump’s lies, but by the audience as well.

Since it was a supposed ‘town hall’ affair, I assumed there’d be a live audience. It never occurred to me that CNN — or any actual news organization — could be so massively stupid as to gather an audience “[c]omprised of Republicans and otherwise undeclared voters planning to participate in the 2024 GOP primary.” In other words, they invited a Trump-friendly crowd.

Let me just say that again. CNN voluntarily and knowingly held a ‘town hall’ meeting in New Hampshire, the most conservative state in New England (I mean, their goddamn motto is “Live free or die”), hosting the only twice-impeached POTUS in history — a man who fomented an actual insurrection in an attempt to illegally remain in office — the day after he’d been found liable for sexual assault, and then invited an audience of his followers to attend.

That is deeply stupid. That is stupid all the way down at the cellular level. CNN basically asked Kaitlan Collins to interview a great white shark in a pool of sharks and then spooned in chum. They fucking ate her alive.

At one point, Trump turned to Collins and called her a “nasty person.” And the audience laughed. Laughed and applauded. All I could think about was Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who testified under oath about being sexually assaulted by Trump’s SCOTUS nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. When asked why she was so confident about her memory of the assault, Ford said:

“Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

Emotional trauma is literally encoded on memory. The levels of norepinephrine and epinephrine in the brain sparked by the trauma sort of tattoo that experience onto the hippocampus — the part of the limbic system that consolidates information from short-term memory to long-term memory. Beyond the physical trauma of the assault, it was the casual, unthinking cruelty of the laughter that seared itself on Dr. Ford’s memory.

Cruel laughter. Trump called a respected television journalist a “nasty person” and his supporters cheered and laughed. It was exactly what they wanted. It’s what CNN gave them.

I was not surprised by Trump’s behavior last night; that’s who he is (and CNN had to know that). I’m shocked, but not surprised by the behavior of the audience; that’s who Trump supporters are (and CNN had to know that). But I am surprised and outraged that CNN, knowing who they were dealing with, deliberately brought those two explosive elements together and allowed them to detonate on a nation audience.

Fuck CNN in the neck.