Forty Percent of Police Families Experience Domestic Violence, Compared to 10% in the General Population

Police protecting the down-trodden from violence

by Thomas Neuburger

"If there's any job that domestic abuse should disqualify a person from holding, it's the one job that gives you a lethal weapon, trains you to stalk people without their noticing, and relies on your judgment and discretion to protect the abused from abusers."
—Conor Friedersdorf here, slightly paraphrased

Protecting the abused from abusers is an important role in any society — or at least a sane society. It's the role, in fact, of government itself, especially in an exploitive economic system like our own.

Capturing the organs of protection by the abusers themselves is therefore a high priority of the abusing class. This is why Reagan staffed his administration with people who hate the protective role government played, why he put anti-environmentalist James Watt in charge of Interior and the National Parks, and anti-regulationist Ann Gorsuch Burford in charge of the EPA. (Yes, she's related to that other Gorsuch.)

And apparently why we put cops, domestic abusers at a very high rate, in charge of protecting victims of abuse.

Cops being in charge of abuse — delivering it — is a commonplace these days. Putting cops in charge of protecting people from abuse is like putting pedophiles in charge of public safety at a grade school, or pedophile priests in charge of youth ministry (we had one of those in a parish I once lived in).

Pedophiles love those jobs, just as cops love the jobs they've been given. How better to commit violence than to be the only sanctioned dealers of state violence, to be licensed to kill in the name of "protecting" the abused? You even get to parade around as "heroes" for doing it.

Conor Friedorsdorf, in an Atlantic article entitled "Police Have a Much Bigger Domestic-Abuse Problem Than the NFL Does," quotes a heavily footnoted National Center for Women and Policing fact sheet: "Two studies have found that at least 40 percent of police officer families experience domestic violence, in contrast to 10 percent of families in the general population. A third study of older and more experienced officers found a rate of 24 percent, indicating that domestic violence is two to four times more common among police families than American families in general [emphasis added]." Friedersdorf's piece is well worth reading in full.

I have anecdotal evidence of this connection. Some years ago a friend of mine was a psychiatric counselor specializing in troubled families. The bulk of her clients were cop families, where the cop was the abuser. She attributes the problem to the pathological (my word) need for control by the cop — reinforced, no doubt, by a job in which "gaining and keeping control" was both an absolute requirement of every cop-involved situation, and by supervisors who encouraged or allowed the worse abuses of that requirement.

We don't hire pedophiles to guard grade school kids. Why do we hire violent cops to keep the peace? Is there something in us that's perpetuating this?
  

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

-by Noah

There you have it. Democrat Doug Jones has ever so narrowly beaten Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump's Great Perv Hope, Judge Roy Moore, in the Alabama Senate race. But, the Alabama race has distilled, for all to see, what it means to be a member of the Republican Party in 2017. Some Republicans would try to sucker you into believing that the votes and predilections of Alabama republicans don't reflect the votes and predilections of Republicans as a whole, but let's get real. The national offices of the Republican Party not only sent Roy Moore their money, they sent the hopes of their highest profile politicians, and they even sent their president; a president with his own issues when it comes to sexual assault and pedophilia to put their names on the line in support of their guy. Meanwhile at FOX "News," they've done a 180 and are blaming Moore, not for his stalking young girls but for just (vaguely) being "a bad candidate". One loon on Laura Ingraham's nightly circus show stressed that Jone's win in no way means that people might start to look toward democrats in the 2018 elections. She called Alabama "an outlier," as if a Democrat winning in Alabama for the first time in decades meant nothing. She assured FOX viewers that republicans everywhere still loved the wonderful Donald Trump. Then it was, immediately back to attacking Robert Mueller. Election? What election?

It's not just that the message of the Republican Party is now "Assault my wife. Prey on my kids. Do whatever it takes to take away my healthcare, my Social Security, ruin the lives of 'gays,' and raise my taxes." Republicans aren't running away from this message. They are campaigning on it.

Should any of this be surprising? No. It's just that they are now more arrogant and confident in their message than ever before. This is the Age Of Trump. Please keep in mind that Alabama had already elected an openly racist and homophobic senator named Jeff Sessions who was once deemed too racist for a federal court appointment but was, just this year, unanimously approved, by all republican senators, to be the Attorney General of the United States. They voted for him four times. That's four six year terms. To my knowledge, no one has accused Sessions of being a pedophile, but, it's safe to say that, in voting for Sessions four times, the people of Alabama pushed the boundaries of what is acceptable (to them at least) to the point where supporting someone who stalks teenagers right into their classrooms was inevitable.

With Roy Moore, Alabama republicans spoke loud and clear and voted to have their state remain 47th in education, 47th in healthcare, and 45th in the economy. They voted against Doug Jones, a conservative Democrat, but a man who dared to prosecute their beloved KKK when they bombed a black church and killed four young girls. They voted for a man who said things were better when we had slavery. They voted for a man, who like Trump, supports Putin. They voted for a man who said that 9/11 was a punishment from God for sodomy. Some of them did it in the name of "protecting babies;" in the name of Republican Jesus, from being educated, being healthy, and having economic opportunities, I suppose; not to mention to turn them over to pedophiles at the malls. "Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come to me." That's your Republican Jesus. That's your Republican Party.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

-by Noah

Remember when our Madman President and The Whore of Slovenia went to Texas after Hurricane Harvey hit and they stepped off Air Force One sporting new POTUS and FLOTUS hats that were available for purchase? Damn. These two despicable assclowns would use any disaster, natural or manmade to make a few bucks. What kind of minds are these? I can just see what would happen if we had a nuke war with North Korea. If anyone was left, the Trumps would be selling Trump hats with fallout shelter symbols on them. Hell, he's probably having them made already, in China, no less.

So, here we are. Now that Trump has endorsed the uber-creepy Roy Moore, there's this brand new Trump hat! Sure to get lots of laughs at your local Repug hangout, Repug bar, or fraternity house. Don't worry about the hat's typo. Republicans aren't into that education thing anyway. Imagine if Trump goes to Alabama to hold a rally for Moore. All those Alabama Pastors of Perversion that I mentioned in yesterday's Midnight Meme will be wearing these, as will the entire Republikook audience. I bet these hats are already selling like hotcakes at the Birmingham airport, right next to the Crimson Tide sweatshirts and tourist maps. Hell, you know all those Christian pedophile supporters are topping their Christmas trees this year with these "She Didn't Look Fourteen" hats instead of a star. Every Joseph in every town creche in Alabama is probably wearing one too!

The thing is, though, there's a whole lot of irony in using "She didn't look fourteen" as an excuse for your actions, when, if you're Trump or Moore, that's what appealed to you about her in the first place.

Roy Moore And Evangelical Churches Have A Catholic Priest Problem

Meet Roy Moore: Pedophile and sexual predator, and quite possibly the next Senator from the great state of Alabama.

-by James Newton

Roy Moore is a pedophile.

I am the father of a young girl, and if Roy Moore did to her what the Washington Post’s reporting said he did-- and I believe what the Post has written and what subsequent reports have added in support-- he might well be a dead man, and if not dead, beaten to within a inch of being so.

It turns out that this isn’t all that uncommon in the white male privileged world, probably all through society, but certainly in some sects of the Evangelical church, where the idea of “early courtship,” is still common. Where girls are molded for something called a “helpmeet,” which sounds a lot like an arranged marriage between minor girls and sick, predatory, older men. Where there are:

Adult men selecting and grooming girls who were too young to have life experience. Another word for that is "predation."

As we know, countless and uncountable Catholic priests were sexual predators and abusers with regard to the young, mostly boys, with impunity, for centuries. It appears that adult males in various evangelical sects have had a similar arrangement, have enjoyed a similar position of power with regard to young girls for a long time as well. And it appears that the Right, whatever that means, has brain-washed enough of its followers where this just doesn’t really matter. What the hell is going on in this country? We’re not perfect, I’m not perfect, but how is this not evil?

Roy Moore is a pedophile.

For the record, here’s how I define a pedophile: someone who is sexually attracted to children. By any definition, a 14-year old is a child, right? What am I missing? Oh, right. I’m not missing anything. So I doing it. I’m calling Roy Moore a sexual predator. I’m calling him a pedophile. I’m calling him evil. If he wants to sue me for libel, fine. But remember, Roy, ol’ boy, the truth is a complete defense.

Say it with me. Or don’t, whatever, but I am saying it:

Roy Moore is a pedophile.

In another sick and sort of unbelievable-- and just plain weird-- twist, some of Mr. Moore’s supporters are saying that what he did was ok because the virgin Mary was a teenager, too. Wow. OK. Let’s break that down for a second, shall we. My understanding from my Presbyterian upbringing is that part of the magic of Christianity and Jesus Christ was that Jesus was born of a virgin. Meaning that Joseph was a good and honorable man and didn’t, y’know, sexually assault, rape or otherwise prey upon or commit evil acts upon Mary? Do I need to go any further, or is the point clear?

People are fighting to put a pedophile, a Mr. Roy Moore of Alabama, a man twice fired from that state’s Supreme Court for ethics violations, into the United States Senate. This is a job where he becomes one of the most powerful men in the country, whose vote on a bill may one day determine, for example, if millions can or can’t have health insurance. This is who we are electing?

It’s no longer “Gob Bless America,” but God save America. Because right now we are lost.

Roy Moore is a pedophile.

UPDATE: Today's Developments Is GOP Pedophile World

Another woman is willing to testify in court that Moore locked her in his car and tried raping her when she was 16. Alabama Senate polls are neck and neck. Senator Cory Gardner R-CO), head of the NRSC, said that if Moore is elected he should be immediately expelled from the Senate "because he does not meet the ethical and moral requirements of the U.S. Senate."

The new accuser, Beverly Young Nelson, told a news conference in New York that Mr. Moore attacked her when she was 16 and he was a prosecutor in Etowah County, Ala. Ms. Nelson was represented at the news conference by Gloria Allred, a lawyer who has championed victims of sexual harassment.

“I tried fighting him off, while yelling at him to stop, but instead of stopping, he began squeezing my neck attempting to force my head onto his crotch,” Ms. Nelson said in a statement she issued at the news conference. She said Mr. Moore warned her that “no one will believe you” if she told anyone about the encounter in his car.

McConnell announced today that he believes the women who have come forward and told their stories about Moore's pedophilia. Can't get any worse? This evening, Charles Bethea reported for the New Yorker that the Moore situation is even sleazier than anyone assumed/feared:

This past weekend, I spoke or messaged with more than a dozen people-- including a major political figure in the state-- who told me that they had heard, over the years, that Moore had been banned from the mall because he repeatedly badgered teen-age girls. Some say that they heard this at the time, others in the years since. These people include five members of the local legal community, two cops who worked in the town, several people who hung out at the mall in the early eighties, and a number of former mall employees. (A request for comment from the Moore campaign was not answered.) Several of them asked that I leave their names out of this piece. The stories that they say they’ve heard for years have been swirling online in the days since the Post published its report. “Sources tell me Moore was actually banned from the Gadsden Mall and the YMCA for his inappropriate behavior of soliciting sex from young girls,” the independent Alabama journalist Glynn Wilson wrote on his Web site on Sunday. (Wilson declined to divulge his sources.) Teresa Jones, a deputy district attorney for Etowah County in the early eighties, told CNN last week that “it was common knowledge that Roy dated high-school girls.” Jones told me that she couldn’t confirm the alleged mall banning, but said, “It’s a rumor I’ve heard for years.”

How Widely Will the Sex Abuse Scandals Spread Before They're "Contained"?

by Gaius Publius

Just a heads up. The liberal-side sexual abuse scandal that's spreading widely, catching both greater and lesser lights, is not likely to let up. Large fish (for example, Harvey Weinstein) and smaller (for example, the Washington Spectator's Hamilton Fish V) are getting entangled in the net of long-delayed, entirely appropriate outrage. The circle of scrutiny is wide, enough so that even apparently innocent people, like Matt Taibbi for instance, feel compelled to post preventive pieces like this.

Spreading Like a Fire

We're in the spreading phase of this wild fire. Soon the firefighters will come to tamp it down. Will they succeed? My guess is yes. After all, the practice is apparently so rampant that the sheer number of people taken out — on our side, good progressives, yes, but also guilty of what we most claim to disavow — may prove too large, with too many of the names too prominent.

Hollywood tried circling, to some degree, its wagons around Weinstein, and those who early on defended him are coming for their own share of shame. As many have noted, yours truly included, there are many ways the Weinstein world and culture touches the larger liberal world and culture.

My best guess is that the powers that be in the left-mainstream world will look for a time to shout "Enough already. We get the point. Let's not spill any more blood," surely a move to defend those many about to be touched. Watch for that.

As an example of what still hidden from most eyes, and what will most definitely, with backstage force, remain buried from wide public view for as long as possible, consider the following.

A World Hiding Serial Harassers Hides Serial Pedophiles As Well

A world like Hollywood or mainstream politics — on both sides of the aisle — hides not only many individuals who "get away with it" because, well, they can. It hides self-sustaining and reinforcing groups of those who "get away with it" as well.

Consider Fox News, for example, as not just a place where lots of sexual abusers work(ed), but as an organization that proactively attracts and enables those people. This is not passive allowance of a crime, but proactive creation of it. If the organizational heads at Fox News were engaged in procuring people to be put into lives of prostitution, for example, we'd call the organization by a gangland term, a "prostitution ring."

Which leads us to the other main point of this piece. It looks like there is or has been a pedophile ring operating in many of the Hollywood circles inhabited by good "liberal" people like Harvey Weinstein.

This comes from former child actor Corey Feldman via Zero Hedge:

For years, actor and former child star Corey Feldman has been warning anybody who would listen that Hollywood is a place where adults have more inappropriate contact with children than probably anywhere else in the world.

So it’s unsurprising given the renewed focus on sexual assault and harassment brought about by the Harvey Weinstein scandal that Feldman’s accusations would receive renewed attention, considering he made the media rounds as recently as 2016 to talk about how a pedophile ring in Hollywood abused him and his friend, fellow actor Corey Haim – actions Feldman blames for Haim’s eventual death from a drug overdose.

And yesterday, he returned to the “Today” show and, during an interview with Matt Lauer vowed to release the names of six men who he alleges participated in the abuse of himself, Haim and other young stars. The interview followed Feldman’s announcement in a YouTube video last week that he was launching an Indiegogo page to try and raise money for a feature film about pedophilia in Hollywood that he hopes to direct. However, as Lauer pointed out, Feldman’s target budget - $10 million – appears lofty. But the former child star appears determined to tell his story the way he wants it to be told.

See the video above for Feldman's interview with, to my ears, a defensive Matt Lauer asking the questions. A brief segment:

LAUER: “Why are you talking to me? Why aren’t you talking to the police right now?”

FELDMAN: “I told the police. In fact if anyone wants to go back to 1993, when I was interviewed by the Santa Barbara Police Department. I sat there and gave them the names. They are on record. They have all of this information, but they were scanning Michael Jackson. All they cared about was trying about to find something on Michael Jackson.”

LAUER: “Who you said, by the way, did not abuse you.”

FELDMAN: “Who Michael was innocent. And that was what the interview was about with the pollice in 1993. I told them, he is not that guy. And they said, maybe you don’t understand your friend. And I said, no, I know the difference between pedophiles and somebody that is not a pedophile because I have been molested. Here’s the names, go investigate. And let me push this forward, there are thousands of people in Hollywood that have the same information. Why is it all on me? Why is it, if I don’t release the names in the next two months, six months or a year, I’m the bad guy. I’m the victim here. I’m the one who has been abused. I’m the one who is trying to come forward and do something about it.”

LAUER: “But —“ [crosstalk]

FELDMAN: “Please, I’m sorry. There are thousands of people out there, Matt, who have this information. Any one of those child actors that went to the teenage soda pop clubs with me when I was a kid, know who those people are and the people who ran it. Anybody can go back through history and look at the Teen magazines and say what was the name of that venue they were promoting and who ran that venue own who endorsed it.”

If you noted the references to "soda pop clubs" in Feldman's comments, one name that keeps coming up is "Alphy's Soda Pop Club." We're in Rumorville here, so I'll just link to one piece discussing it. Names associated with Alphy's club, of which Feldman and Corey Haim appear to be founding members, include then-teens like "Alyssa Milano, Nicole Eggert, Ricky Schroeder, Drew Barrymore, Alfonso Ribero, Scott Grimes" and more. Many, few, or none of those people may have been victims, but still, that's a lot of name people.

Notice too that Feldman mentions "soda pop clubs," plural. Are there more?

In addition, Feldman has blamed a "Hollywood mogul" for his friend and fellow child actor Corey Haim's death, not as a direct cause, but an indirect one (Haim died after years of substance abuse):

In 2011, Feldman claimed that a "Hollywood mogul" who abused Haim was to blame for his death.[93] The 2013 memoir by Corey Feldman, Coreyography, details the sexual abuse he and Haim suffered as young actors in the film industry; during the filming of Lucas, Feldman stated that Haim "allowed himself to be sodomized",[94] and "had been tricked into engaging in a painful session of anal sex by a man on the movie set. The man told Haim that sex between men and boys was normal in Hollywood, saying that 'all the guys in the entertainment world do it.'

Note also the inability to people to criticize Kevin Spacey, as his name rises again into this discussion. Not part of any "ring" per se; there are no such allegations. But he has a past that includes admitting he "may have" handled a 14-year-old inappropriately. Will his current status as a darling of the left play mitigate the renewed criticism he may encounter?

Bottom Line

Again, just a heads up. Your takeaways for now:

• This scandal could grow very very big, implicating many.

• If a coverup comes, it will come in force. Watch for it.

• If a coverup comes, everyone involved in making it seem lighter that it should be, or making it go away, is complicit.

Just saying. This will absolutely be a test of mainstream liberal, and possibly progressive, adherence to a principle which that culture claims to honor deeply.

GP