The quotes from her mother’s letter are absolutely fucking heartbreaking. Ugh.

A judge does not come to sentencing without having made their mind up.

In other Hollywood news, it seems that Rupert Murdoch’s house is burning down as we speak.

I agree give Nasser a chance to cut 10 years off of his sentence and name the names of US Gymnastics and others who knew this was going on. Take his sentence from 60 years to 50 years w/o parole

“A judge does not come to sentencing without having made their mind up.”

They simply exist so the victims can have the chance to express their feelings. These are read at sentencing. A judge does not come to sentencing without having made their mind up.

The monstrousness of this case seems a good time to point this out - victim impact statements desperately need to stop being a thing. A crime is equally bad whether you do it to a world-famous gymnast or a random poverty-stricken child. Whether or not the victim wants to speak should have no bearing on the punishment.

if you’d read the article you wouldn’t have to wonder, because the “treatment” is described in great detail.

Way to blame the victim asshole. They’re children being abused by a person in power, they don’t have the tools to make that judgement or to react appropiately. It’s not like there was high level institutional discussion that’s how he was “medically treating” athletes and they felt he was justified. Get fucked

Taking the high road includes relentlessly attacking Republican predators and not sitting on your ass during 8 years of daily racist scapegoating of your president, gerrymandering, and voter suppression.

Splinter’s comment section is really terrible, it’s like 45% trolls, at least.

The commentariat of Jez/Splinter/et al has not been great in the whole Franken saga, to say the least. (To be clear, there have been great, smart posts here on Jez, but way too many people willing excuse his behavior. Splinter has been a pretty solid clusterfuck of apologists all along.)

So what? You think Franken’s going to win another election after this?

As I said on Twitter, he has disappointed me, and his constituents. He should have been better than this. He needs to do himself, his family, our party, and the women he’s harmed a favor and disappear himself from public life. 

Republicans won’t care and won’t follow suit unless it’s “gay” stuff.

I think everyone knows, and I think Republicans are counting on Democrats to remove their own when something like this happens. Make no mistake, Franken absolutely needs to resign, but whereas Democrats will take the moral high ground, Republicans will not.

Absolutely.

He’d better fucking resign. Dems need to show everyone that, unlike Pubs, they are willing to kick predatory assholes to the curb.

Yes. Happens every year, just varies in intensity. This is a really bad year because all the rain last winter resulted in an unusual amount of vegetation, which then dried out over the summer in time for fire season.

Feeling depressed and hopeless lately? May I recommend Nathan the Beach Cat to cheer you up. She’s Xanax for the soul. She lives in a beautiful house on a beautiful beach in Australia and her days consist of going to the beach with her family, swimming in the ocean, and then going home to take a nap. I want this life.