Russell Brand sentenced to 10.5 years in prison

The judge in the Russell Brand trial sentenced the convicted rapist today to 10.5 years in prison. He is still under investigation for two further rape allegations.

The revelations during his trial and about the latest accusations show him to be an utterly despicable human being. Like so many public people whose disgusting behavior is exposed, Brand played the religion card. Some months after the first accusations surfaced with the promise of more investigations to follow, he very publicly proclaimed that he had found Jesus and was baptized in the Thames river in a public ceremony.

It is usual for people to not want to question the sincerity of the religious beliefs of others but not everyone was convinced by Brand, particularly columnist Marina Hyde.

A hazmat dredger, please, to the stretch of the River Thames in which Russell Brand was recently baptised, in an event apparently conducted by TV adventurer and chief scout Bear Grylls. I know, it’s incredible: Thames Water is no longer responsible for the biggest piece of shit in the river.
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Concluding with Brand, his spiritual journey has been what you might expect of a bog-standard sex-case-turned-wingnut. He was previously a Buddhist, then earlier this year began endorsing a Roman Catholic prayer app called Hallow, and seems to have settled for now on whichever branch of the Anglican faith permits telly survivalists to rebirth you. “Week one as a Christian has been amazing,” Brand said the other day, adding that he felt “changed, transitioned”. Onlookers are unlikely to spot the difference. He still has a conspiracist TV portal in which viewers are treated to material on the deep state/Bill Gates/the plandemic – in short, all the usual suspects of the usual suspects. It’s hard to know how long his conversion will last. But you can’t help thinking there will only be room for one messiah in that relationship – and unfortunately, it won’t be Jesus.

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The rats are already eying the exits on the sinking Trump ship

In the wake of the massive repudiation of Trump and the Republicans, you can expect them to indulge in all manner of shenanigans to rush through as much of their policies as possible before the new Democratic-led congress is sworn in on January 3. But the old congress goes on a Christmas recess December 18-31 so effectively, the old congress ends on December 17, though the leaders of the chambers can bring them back into session for the rest of the year.

Some of Trump’s most vicious enablers are expected to make quick getaways before congressional investigations rain down on them for their rampant corruption and abuses and the various committees issue subpoenas for them to appear and explain their actions. Up to now, the Republican committee chairs and majorities in congress had blocked any serious attempts to check their excesses.

Already Robert Garcia, who is expected to be the next chair of the powerful house oversight committee, has issued a terse warning to Trump officials.

Robert Garcia, the Democratic congressman set to become the next chair of the oversight committee of the House of Representatives, had two words for Republicans on Tuesday evening: “Lawyer up.”

The House oversight committee serves as a “watchdog” committee and has broad authority to call witnesses, request government documents and issue subpoenas.

Garcia has previously said that, if Democrats won, he would lead investigations into Elon Musk’s role in the “department of government efficiency (Doge)”, the Trump family’s business dealings, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) abuses and the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

“We’re not starting from scratch here,” Garcia previously told Punchbowl News. “There’s an enormous amount of work that has happened that is public, and there’s an enormous amount of work that’s happened that we’ve been quietly working on for many months.”
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Ron Wyden, the Democratic senator poised to lead the Senate finance committee, also flexed on his potential future authority. “Subpoenas,” Wyden wrote on X.

With the Senate and House back in Democrats’ control, Garcia, Wyden and other congressional leaders will be able to lead and steer investigations into the US president, his allies and agenda.

“We have the power to go to the courts on behalf of the House. We have the power of contempt, and not just criminal contempt, but civil contempt that goes to the courts. We have the power of subpoena,” Garcia told Punchbowl News.

Other reports spelled out more potential investigations.
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Russell Brand convicted of rape and sexual assault

Over in the UK, Russell Brand has been convicted of rape and sexual assault and can expect a long prison sentence.

Russell Brand has been found guilty of raping a fan and sexually assaulting three other women, ending a years-long legal saga that has raised questions about how he was able to commit his crimes at the height of his fame.

Brand, 51, was described during his trial as a ruthless, calculated and manipulative sexual predator. He was convicted of raping a woman at his luxury London townhouse and of sexually assaulting women in front of his entourage at their workplaces, at a radio station and TV studio.

The Hollywood actor turned online influencer was accused of gaslighting his victims after the attacks, and treating women as a “disposable commodity” and a “means to an end” to satisfy his voracious sexual appetite.

The description of his acts as presented during the trial were sickening. He seemed to act like a deranged maniac with women.

Apparently police are investigating new allegations that surfaced recently.

When a state execution goes wrong

The death penalty is a barbaric practice that no civilized society should countenance. Yet the US is one of the countries that seems to take delight in executing people even though it sometimes botches the process.

The latest case involves the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in 200 years but she failed to die even after receiving the two lethal injections. What the observing journalists present described was macabre.

The lone woman on Tennessee’s death row was still alive after she was administered two lethal injections, her lawyer said in a motion seeking to halt her execution Wednesday night, a stunning development after the Supreme Court had stepped in to allow the state to put her to death.

At 8:26 p.m. local time, witnesses said “executioners had injected both syringes of lethal injection chemicals” and Christa Pike was “still alive and snoring,” her lawyers said in a federal court filing.

They said Pike “has not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat” and that curtains to the death chamber “have gone down twice.”

Journalists who witnessed the attempted execution described snoring and complaints from Pike about pain, as well as her kicking her feet so often that she knocked off the sheets laid on her. At times, the curtain was closed and journalists could only hear sounds.
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Great moments in ‘Gotcha!’ questioning

Republicans are furious with special prosecutor Jack Smith over his investigations of Trump after he said that he had found “proof beyond reasonable doubt” that President Donald Trump had “engaged in serious crimes against our nation.” Trump’s toadies have tried to smear him as a political hack and they brought him before a senate committee to grill him.

Senator Eric Schmitt from Missouri carefully laid what he thought was a trap for Smith, to suggest that he had secretly met Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis who had been doing a separate investigation, thus suggesting collusion between them. Schmitt asked Smith whether he had been in Atlanta in February 2024 and Smith, looking bewildered, said that he could not recall doing so and that he had not been in Atlanta at that time unless he had been in transit at the airport.

Schmitt then smugly produced a poster containing text messages among Smith’s staff about seat numbers for the NBA game between the Atlanta Hawks and the Golden State Warriors in February 2024. He quickly put the poster down and declined Smith’s request to take a closer look at it. He then warned Smith that he may be committing perjury and went further, calling him a ‘villain’ and a ‘dirtbag’

Unfortunately for Schmitt, he had got his facts wrong. Smith said that he recalled attending a women’s college basketball game between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Maryland Gophers at that time but that was in Maryland. So basically Schmitt had got confused by the similarity of ‘Hawkeyes’ to ‘Hawks’ and rushed to create a gotcha moment that blew up in his face.

Watch.

When questioned later about his humiliating blunder, Schmitt tried to bluff his way out, as is par for these dirtbag Trump fanboys.

The petty cruelty of Pirro and Trump

After the humiliating reversal over the charges to four people accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Reflecting Pool, US attorney and former Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro was lambasted by her cult leader Trump for backing down and saying that the pool fiasco was caused by shoddy and rushed work.

Now, no doubt in an effort to suck up to him, she has brought vandalism charges against a 41-year old homeless woman Melissa Farris for defacing a World War II memorial. As usual, her prosecution team made absurdly exaggerated statements and tried to make out that this was a grave assault on America itself.

“This was a brazen attack on one of the Nation’s most sacred monuments—an enduring symbol of freedom and a solemn tribute to the sacrifice of so many,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Charles Klug and Samuel Deau wrote in a brief that also carries Pirro’s name in the signature block.

“Rather than honoring the courage and selflessness of the World War II Veterans, Defendant chose to assault that symbol of sacrifice for her own gain and to make a public spectacle,” prosecutors added. “Defendant’s actions are not just criminal, they violate the American values that the Memorial represents.”
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While most vandalism cases get little attention from U.S. attorneys, Pirro posted twice on social media about Farris’ arrest. The prosecutor also said she was personally aggrieved by Farris’ actions.

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Trump and Pirro’s Lincoln pool problem may well get worse

Greg Sargent argues that simply because the justice department has dropped all the charges against the four people who had been accused of deliberately vandalizing the Lincoln Reflecting Pool does not mean that the problems for Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for Washington DC, who gleefully announced the indictments before later dropping them, will go away.

When the charges were dropped, they were done ‘without prejudice’ meaning that they could be filed again. Norm Eisen, the lawyer for David Hearn who had been charged with a felony that could have had him imprisoned for ten years, is first seeking to have the charges dropped ‘with prejudice’ to prevent Pirro from carrying out what Trump clearly wants, which is to charge them again. But in addition, he is seeking to have the transcripts of the grand jury proceedings that led to the indictments released, because they will show if the jurors were grossly misled by Pirro, which could result in sanctions against her.

Eisen and Hearn’s other lawyers are not letting this drop. For some time now, they’ve been seeking access to full transcripts of the grand jury proceedings—including instructions that prosecutors gave jurors on charging guidelines—to determine whether prosecutors misled them to secure Hearn’s indictment.
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The Lincoln pool fiasco reveals how despicable these people are

In the grand scheme of things, with wars going on with Iran, Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon, the mess that Trump has made of the Lincoln Pool is small potatoes. But the public humiliation of Trump that it reveals, when even his loyal cult member Jeanine Pirro had to contradict his claim of vandalism, is worth savoring even as the episode reveals how despicable and dishonest the Trump administration is.

We saw how they made up false charges to prosecute David Hearn which they dropped late Friday evening. But they also arrested and charged three other people for vandalizing the pool and now they have quietly dropped those charges as well.

Within days, Pirro’s office also moved to drop misdemeanor charges against three more people accused of the same phantom vandalism. Justin Carreno, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Cameron Thiers all faced lesser counts of destroying property worth less than a thousand dollars, and their attorneys told reporters the common thread was simple: The federal government had just spent millions repainting and relining the pool, and when the work failed, the Trump administration needed a scapegoat. The entire theory of the case — that ordinary citizens had descended on a national monument with knives to sabotage it out of political spite — evaporated once anyone with subpoena power actually looked at the evidence.

But what we must never forget is that these people do not care how many innocent people are harmed because of their determination to pursue a false narrative. They do not care if there is no evidence to support the charges. The whole point of the arrests and prosecution is not to find guilt but to use the government and law enforcement to inflict punishment and instill fear.
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Will Trump step in to rescue the Tates?

Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan represent some of the worst elements of the so-called manosphere, the world of pathetic young male losers who think that by improving their looks and adopting an aggressive macho posturing, wealth will flow to them, and that this will attract women whom they can abuse. This makes them prime targets for influencers who exploit them by telling them that their problems are because the world is controlled by a secretive cabal who keep them down, and offer them courses and dubious investment opportunities that they promise will enable them to become wealthy and break their shackles and make their dreams come true, but in fact only impoverishes them further. Louis Theroux’s documentary Inside the Manosphere that I reviewed here went inside that world and revealed its misogyny, homophobia, racism, and anti-semitism in all its ugliness.

The British-American Tates were arrested on Saturday and held in Miami after being charged by UK authorities with rape and sex-trafficking charges and an extradition request has been issued.

Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service said the new charges relate to four further victims and were brought after authorities received evidence from Bedfordshire Police in southeastern England. The charges include rape, assault, trafficking and offenses relating to “indecent images of a child and extreme pornography.”

The charges announced Saturday, which bring the total number of alleged victims in the U.K. to seven, are the latest in a long-running international legal saga involving the brothers that has spanned the U.S., Britain and Romania. The brothers have denied wrongdoing.

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E. Jean Carroll finally gets some money from Trump

Trump was found guilty by a jury in 2023 of sexual abuse and defamation of E. Jean Carroll. But he used every legal option to try and delay or prevent the release of the money, filing appeal after appeal even up to the US Supreme Court. But they all failed and today, the judge released $5.6 million in funds that had been held in escrow.

The disbursement, made public in a 14 July entry on Carroll’s case docket, indicates that the funds were released by a court-held account on 9 July – one day after judge Lewis Kaplan ordered the release of this money.

Trump, who has been fighting against the release of this money since June after the supreme court on 29 June denied his request to hear his appeal, has denied wrongdoing.
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