"And so this judge just now denied him bail — on what ground? This guy's not going to run anywhere. It's absurd."

"[Sean Combs] has one of the nicest houses. I pass it by all the time. It's right near, not far from my little tiny condo in in Miami, Florida. He lives on Star Island. His  property is probably worth 40 or 50 million. I think he has two properties on the most expensive island, one of the most expensive islands in in the world. He's one of the most recognizable people. This decision by this judge was just vindictive. He didn't like the verdict. He thought there should be a conviction. And so, he's going to probably sentence him to a little bit of time in prison. He can't sentence him to a lot of time, but he'll probably sentence him to a little bit of time in prison in excess of the year he's already spent for having had bail denied.... He's going to come up with some pretense...."

Said Alan Dershowitz, on his podcast last night. 

"[Combs] was acquitted of anything involving violence, anything involving racketeering, anything involving, you know, sexual trafficking, all of that. He was acquitted!...  People don't go to jail for transactional sex for voluntary consensual sex based on the hope of getting an advantage. There is no such law.... Adult women should not be treated like children.

"The jury has found Sean Combs guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution but acquitted him on the most serious charges of sex trafficking and racketeering."

"Combs covered his eyes and appeared to exhale in relief as the not-guilty announcement came in. After the verdict was read, he quickly touched hands with his lawyers and turned and smiled at his family...."

WaPo reports.

Defense counsel Marc Agnifilo has asked the court to release Sean Combs back to his home in the millionaire enclave of Star Island in Miami. “This is his first conviction, and it’s a prostitution offense,” Agnifilo said. The attorney noted that the charge he was found guilty of was significantly less serious than the ones that kept him detained in a Brooklyn jail for the past nine months....

ADDED: From the NYT reporting: "Sean Combs is on his knees, his elbows on the chair where he was sitting, his head buried. He appeared to be praying. He started a round of applause, which was echoed by his family, who are jubilant." 

AND: "With a touch of levity, the judge said he assumed that Sean Combs would not want to return to the Brooklyn jail where he has been held. Mr. Combs shook his head vigorously and put his hands together in prayer." It's hard to believe, then, that the judge would send Combs back to the jail. He should go free today. 

"'Believe her,' Agnifilo beseeched the jurors in his closing arguments for Combs’s defense. 'When she says to you that domestic violence is the issue, I’m asking you to believe her.'"

"This has been a pillar of the defense’s strategy: that Combs has taken responsibility for domestic violence but is not guilty of the charges he faces."

From "Diddy and Cassie a ‘modern love story,’ defense says in closing arguments/Sean 'Diddy' Combs’s defense team called the sex-trafficking case against him 'badly, badly exaggerated' as the trial nears its conclusion" (WaPo).

"Mr. Borg Hoiby was 4 years old when his mother, Mette-Marit Tjessem Hoiby, a former waitress, married Crown Prince Haakon, the heir to the Norwegian throne, in 2001."

"Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s other children, Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus, are second and third in line to succeed their grandfather, King Harald V, 88. Mr. Borg Hoiby holds no title or official duties."

From "Son of Norway’s Crown Princess Is Charged With Rape and Sexual Assault/Marius Borg Hoiby, the stepson of Crown Prince Haakon, was charged with rape and sexual assault after a monthslong police investigation that has caused turmoil for the royal family" (NYT).

So he's not a prince, but his younger brother is a prince and his younger sister a princess. I see that when he was born, his father was in prison. Wikipedia: 

"Winners at the April tasting... included melt​ed snow that had been filtered through Peruvian volcanic rock, and deep-sea water that had been pumped up 80 miles off the coast of South Korea."

"There was water gathered from nets hung in a misty Tasmanian pine forest, and a Texas brand laced with lithium called Crazy Water.... Hotels are adding precisely designed water bars. Home wine cellars have become water cellars, where children are encouraged to select bottles with their parents. Water sommelier programs continue to grow. And of course, water influencers gather more and more followers...."

From "You’ve Heard of Fine Wine. Now Meet Fine Water. Bottled waters from small, pristine sources are attracting a lot of buzz, with tastings, sommeliers and even water cellars" (NYT).

It sounds like comedy, but it's really happening. As for that water pumped up from the "deep sea," it sounds salty, and it had me wondering if it's possible for unsalty water to somehow exist below the salt water. The NYT article doesn't impinge on the fantasy of the specialness of the water, but I believe these waters are processed, are they not? That deep-sea water must be desalinated and then a chosen mix of minerals is added, right? And "water gathered from nets"? Does that sound ethereal to you... or unclean? Why not water gathered from towels hung in a steamy bathroom?

"We will never forget the names of precious American souls like Jocelyn Nungaray, Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, and many others who were savagely killed by illegal alien crime."

"Last June, 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray was brutally assaulted and murdered by two illegal aliens in her home state of Texas. To memorialize her young life and love of nature and animals, I proudly renamed the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge in Texas to the Jocelyn Nungaray National Wildlife Refuge. May this be Jocelyn’s little piece of Heaven on Earth."

From "National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month, 2025," a proclamation by President Trump (at whitehouse.gov).

"Russell Brand, the comedian and actor, has been charged with one count each of rape, indecent assault and oral rape, as well as two counts of sexual assault...."

The London Times reports.

Scotland Yard said the charges related to alleged historical sex offences against four separate women, between 1999 and 2005, and are alleged to have taken place in Bournemouth and London....

The Times gets into some of Brand's "historical" bad behavior: 

In 2000, Brand took a presenting job on MTV. He was sacked a year later after he arrived at work the day after 9/11 dressed as Osama bin Laden....

Pasting Susan Crawford posters on public property in Madison.

The fine print says "VOTE BY 04.O1/FOR SUSAN CRAWFORD."

Crawford is one of the candidates in the much-watched Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

I photographed the posters this morning, but yesterday evening, I saw the man pasting them up. I couldn't believe that he had the nerve, in daylight hours, to deface public property. How does it help your candidate to conspicuously trash the neighborhood of the people you hope to influence? Are you picturing desperate, anarchic citizens who don't care about anything but abortion?

If I were Susan Crawford, I would be distressed to have my name on something like this. I have no idea if she or her campaign has anything to do with it. The ultra-fine print might answer that question, but it's not legible in my photographs and most definitely not legible to those of driving through the underpass.

A pedestrian could stop and read the ultra-fine print. Of course, pedestrians walking through an underpass, especially if female, can feel physically vulnerable, and pasted-up posters can magnify fear. Vandalism speaks of chaos and a breakdown of vigilance. Maybe that's the idea. The woman worries about the problem of rape, and the posters offer the second-rate solution: abortion.

UPDATE: Here's the ultra-fine print:

"People who flock to fantasy conventions and signings make up an 'inherently vulnerable community'...."

"... They 'wrap themselves around a beloved text so it becomes their self-identity'.... They want to share their souls with the creators of these works. 'And if you have morality around it, you say "no."'... [I]n my conversations with Gaiman’s old friends, collaborators, and peers, nearly all of them told me that they never imagined that Gaiman’s affairs could have been anything but enthusiastically consensual. As one prominent editor in the field puts it, 'The one thing I hear again and again, largely from women, is "He was always nice to me. He was always a gentleman."' The writer Kelly Link, who met Gaiman at a reading in 1997, recalls finding him charmingly goofy. 'He was hapless in a way that was kind of exasperating,' she says, 'but also made him seem very harmless.' Someone who had a sexual relationship with Gaiman in the aughts recalls him flipping through questions fans wrote on cards at a Q&A session. Once, a fan asked if she could be his 'sex slave': 'He read it aloud and said, "Well, no." He’d be very demure.' But there were some who saw another side of the author....."

From "There Is No Safe Word/How the best-selling fantasy author Neil Gaiman hid the darkest parts of himself for decades" (New York Magazine).

That's a long article, and you are probably blocked by the paywall.  Here's Gaiman's answer (on his website). Here's the NYT article about it, "Neil Gaiman Responds to Explosive Report of Sexual Assault/'I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone,' said the best-selling author in response to allegations in New York magazine":

How does this go on for 16 years?

I'm reading "Charges against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs allege 16 years of abuse and crimes/The music mogul was arrested on charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. He is being held without bail" (WaPo).

The crimes Combs and his associates are accused of committing and covering up include sex trafficking, narcotics distribution, arson and kidnapping. Many of these alleged crimes took place at illegal sex parties that Combs referred to as “freak offs.” During these parties, Combs allegedly threw objects at the victims and dragged them by their hair.

"The new Trump movie has his campaign in an uproar...."

 

Apparently, the Cannes audience gasped at the brutality of the rape scene. The victim: Ivana.

Here's the Guardian article, "'This garbage is pure fiction': when subjects hit back at their biopics Trump has spoken out against The Apprentice, but he’s not the first celebrity to attack an unflattering big-screen portrait":

"How do we in New York reconcile the decisions of law by members of our highest court that seem disconnected with the factual realities around rape and power differentials..."

"... that lead to sexual abuse in the workplace? After this Weinstein decision, how do we give faith to victims that the system can work to hold sexual abusers like Weinstein accountable?"

Asks Cyrus R. Vance Jr. in "What It Takes to Keep Harvey Weinstein, and Men Like Him, Behind Bars" (NYT)(free access link). Vance was the Manhattan D.A. who prosecuted Weinstein.

Roseanne's political comedy: "Joe Biden raped me."

#believeallwomen. #meshoe #bergdorfdressingroom #loosemeat pic.twitter.com/yzebab8syO

— Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) April 23, 2024

Is this good satire?

"Joe Biden. He raped me right here. In the shoe department of Bergdorf Goodman... I need to sue."

I get the point: You can't trust women who say they've recovered a memory of a rape from the distant past. That's not funny as an idea. Does it become funny when a comedienne enacts it? Theoretically, it could. I don't think this did. To me, it works more as a declaration that E. Jean Carroll should not have won her case against Trump.

Does comedy need to be funny? There is some debate these days on that questioning the centrality of funniness in the performances of some artists who are categorized as comedy. For example, "Does comedy have to be funny?," by the sophomore Monika Narain, last year in the Duke student newspaper. Excerpt:

"Trump sues ABC and Stephanopoulos, alleging defamation over Mace interview."

The Hill reports.

... Stephanopoulos... said Trump had been found “liable for rape.” The jury had found Trump liable for sexual abuse under New York law, but not rape....

“Indeed, the jury expressly found that Plaintiff did not commit rape and, as demonstrated below, Defendant George Stephanopoulos was aware of the jury’s finding in this regard yet still falsely stated otherwise,” [Trump’s attorney, Alejandro] Brito continued....

ADDED: The complaint quotes 12 times that Stephanopoulos said "rape," so he really leaned into what he had to know was wrong:

"The judge later tried... to argue that the jury 'implicitly' found Trump liable for rape...."

The dishonesty of Stephanopoulos' interview is striking. He says 10 times that Trump was found 'liable for rape' in the E Jean Carroll case. He says that the jury found Trump 'liable for rape.' In fact, the jury specifically found Trump *not* liable for rape. It found him liable… https://t.co/AGr0WWnaMS

— Byron York (@ByronYork) March 10, 2024

"Tensions at The New York Times over an investigative report on Hamas' use of sexual violence in the October 7th attacks have erupted into the open..."

"... over the past week with fresh conflict surfacing nearly every day. The Times crisis reflects a series of cultural divides – between the conventional newsroom and the paper's ascendant audio division; between management and many of the rank-and-file; between factions with differing reactions to the war in Israel and Gaza; and between the two sides of yawning industry chasm over whether to handle dissent internally or air it in public. The Times Guild, the newsroom union representing nearly 1,500 journalists at the paper, filed a formal grievance yesterday with the paper.... At the heart of the newsroom tensions stands a powerful story about sexual violence during Hamas' deadly Oct. 7 attack in Israel. The story, published in late December under the byline of international correspondent Jeffrey Gettleman and two freelancers, said The Times had documented a pattern of sexual assault by Hamas as a brutal strategy...."

NPR reports.

"Three male figures surrounded her avatar in... a virtual live events program created by Meta. They touched her avatar’s breasts..."

"... and pressed their torsos rhythmically against her, telling her that she wanted it. A fourth took photos of the incident in the app. 'My physical body was responding,' said [Nina Jane] Patel, 45, a virtual reality researcher and consultant with the Zero Abuse Project, describing the 2021 attack. 'I was very uncomfortable. Fight or flight mode kicked in.' Meta declined to comment on the incident...."

From "Attacks in the metaverse are booming. Police are starting to pay attention. A growing cohort of activists are urging police forces to grapple with sexual attacks in virtual reality, but prosecuting digital abuse could be tricky" (WaPo).

“People kill each other all the time in video games but we don’t call them murderers,” said Aya Gruber, a law professor at the University of Southern California who has studied rape laws and called jail a “blunt tool” for addressing online behavior.... 

Many of the earliest adopters of virtual reality came from the video game industry — a sector that has struggled with racism, sexism and harassment. These issues exploded into the public in the 2014 phenomenon known as “gamergate,” when internet trolls organized to harass women in gaming circles....

"I was exploring Horizon Worlds, using the Oculus headset... where a British schoolgirl under the age of 16 was allegedly 'gang-raped' by a group of online strangers."

"The police are investigating whether, under the legislation, there is any crime here to prosecute. I used inverted commas around 'gang-rape,' since the crime of rape is narrowly defined as someone being penetrated against their consent. That didn’t happen here: the child was alone with her VR headset, possibly thousands of miles from her antagonists, and was physically unharmed.... Does the fact that the girl’s attack happened virtually mean it didn’t really happen at all? Or, given that we are all going to — at least according to the business plans of Zuckerberg and Elon Musk — spend more and more time in a virtual world, does this mean that this is our new reality, a Wild West in which male sexual predators have the time of their lives?..."

Writes Helen Rumbelow "Young, female and vulnerable: a ‘rape’ in the virtual world/As police investigate the sexual assault of a girl’s VR avatar, Helen Rumbelow puts on a headset and ventures into the metaverse" (London Times).

"[T]he feminist movement I once knew... has lost its moral compass. It is moribund, hijacked, 'Palestinianized' and Stalinized."

"It is, at best, an arm of the Democratic Party, which shows every sign of restraining if not betraying Israel."

Writes the venerable feminist author Phyllis Chesler, in "Response to Hamas horror shows the feminist movement has lost its moral compass" (NY Post).

Feminists, including academics and human-rights-organization officials, rose up and at least cried out when Afghan, Saudi, Iranian, Pakistani, Yazidi and Ukrainian women were raped, kidnapped into sex slavery or murdered.... Rape in a war zone is considered a crime — as long as the victims are not Jews.

"[T]here’s... recorded evidence, documented on TV comedy specials and on [Russell] Brand’s own radio show during the 2000s..."

"... that Brand relentlessly harassed women he worked with, sexualizing and dehumanizing them on air, and then belittling them to the public when they objected. This was the particular insidiousness of aughts-era misogyny, which people like Brand propagated but absolutely didn’t invent: the idea that if girls, or young women, complained about how they were being treated, they were joyless scolds, too uncool to get the joke and too ugly to be concerned about anyway. The trap was that women were expected to cheerfully participate in their own objectification or risk being not just exploited but also vilified.... Brand’s raptorial sexuality was his personality, his unique selling point, and for a very long time he was handsomely rewarded for it. If people really want to reckon with the legacy of such strikingly recent cultural misogyny, in other words, it’s best not to comfort themselves too soon with the idea that Brand was in any way an anomaly."

Writes Sophie Gilbert, in "Russell Brand Wasn’t an Anomaly/The former TV host and actor was a mascot, at best, for a media culture that routinely dehumanized and hypersexualized young women" (The Atlantic).

Gilbert links to a 5-star review of a new documentary, "Russell Brand: In Plain Sight review – so many red flags ignored for so long/From demeaning sexual remarks on radio to offering his assistant naked to Jimmy Savile, every disturbing detail of this cogent documentary makes it mind-boggling that these alleged abuses have taken so long to surface" (The Guardian). Excerpt: