I was a family law attorney for the better part of a decade. In a Bible Belt state, no less. It was pretty fair. Of course, everyone involved always thought they were getting screwed, but 99% of the time judges develop compromise rulings.

It’s impossible to know what he actually believes, I agree with that. But that cuts both ways - you can never know if he believes what he says, but you also can’t rely on reality and basic sense to cast doubt on the wackier things he says.

Jesus. Stephen Moore is one of the grandest hacks in American political discourse. The fucking Kansas City Star refuses to print anything he writes because it’s such utter bullshit. They regularly post Op-Eds by Brownback supporters.

Indeed.

I am, and it seems like it shouldn’t be such an outlier.

I think you’re inferring that from a vacuum. At least, I’ve never made that argument.

Great point. I suppose I did imply that crime shows were without problems. They clearly aren’t, and it’s such a delicate line between playing up the titillation value of an assault and recognizing that these crimes do occur.

There are all manner of horrible things that happen in the real world, but not all of them find their way into our fiction.

Which is a totally fair criticism. And certainly you can find plenty of bad examples. But if you look at a lot of, say, the popular detective shows on Netflix or PBS, you will not find that much rape (network, CSI, NCISDSLESPN...I don’t know much about those).

And dragons and shadows that come to life and zombie ice people from the north. Interesting that a person’s imagination can invent a world with magic and mythical creatures, but not one without constant rape (which is often played in a titillating fashion).

Yeah, you got Hugo, Brad Pitt (the Lt.), the Bear Jew, Wilhelm, and then the other dude that goes into the theater with the Bear.

Exactly.

I mean, GoT gets to the point where it’s unclear whether there are any sexual encounters that aren’t rape. I read the first 4 books, haven’t really watched the show, but just take the Starks, who are...sort of the heroes. At least, Catelyn and Eddard’s relationship is treated as praiseworthy. Yet the description of…

Sure, that’s fair, again, I haven’t watched every minute of that show. It’s just every time I look in, someone is being raped. I will say that with the servant girl who was raped, the fallout I saw was largely about her loss of marriage prospects (though the show treated that as an historically realistic, but…

I don’t know how meaningful this is, but my girlfriend and I agree on about 90% of the shows we watch. In situations where our tastes diverge (setting aside home renovation and British people making muffins), her shows (Game of Thrones, Outlander...) have an almost comical amount of raping. It’s every fucking episode…

Maybe flip Stein and Trump. Although, I said “willingness to pander” for a reason - I think Stein knows enough to understand what bullshit that movement is, but she wants those nutty-ass voters. Trump may be a true believer, but Stein is working for those votes.

Also a good diagram of “unwillingness to pander to the ridiculous anti-vaccine community.”

Yes, the sanest of the sane Republicans, John McCain, picked Sarah Palin as VP. The difference between Palin and Trump is a chromosome and a rich dad. Hell, Palin actually accomplished something on her own - becoming governor - so I may respect her a bit more.

Another good example:

Why is it flesh colored?