Yes. That smirking little “I can tell” at the end is the giveaway.

It’s more chronic bullshit than pathogical lies:

Professional speakers who are aware of branding and PR don’t get so caught up in the toxic emotion of the mob they’re addressing that they confirm the worst expectations of outside observers regarding the (highly scripted) event.

I love the sheepish look on her face as she realizes that she got caught up in this fascist spectacle to the point that she gave a big old shout-out to all the white supremacists indahouse.

It just goes to show you how idiotic his Christian fundie supporters are: born suckers.

“He has always paid women what they’re worth and paid them comparably.”

The best responses to WBC seem to be like this one in Orlando. Once the Phelps family sees that they’re not going to be physically attacked in response to their hatred and thus won’t be able to file a lawsuit, these cowardly con artists turn tail and run.

It’s interesting that conservatives go right to assuming he meant oppression or killing them (projection much?). Even more so considering that WBC is a racket that just happens to use religion to drive its litigation factory.

WBC’s go-to Pokemon, SlipAndFallacious, will be no match for it.

Even funnier will be their reaction when the intern explains to these legal scam artists that they can’t sue anyone and make money off it.

With the rise of right-wing populism thanks to the Orange Grifter he sees his moment again.

Many of them, yes. But the real point of commonality is that they’re losers or near-losers in the neoliberal economic consensus who’ve been played for suckers by the GOP establishment for 35 years and only recently woke up to the fact.

Whenever the owner of a sports team claims that a stadium will improve the local economy, it’s important to remember that “local” means “very local to him”, as in his own holdings and assets.

Bingo. Some people’s rise to fortune and fame involves repeatedly climbing several greasy poles of increasing net worth.

The newspaper link was to the Torygraph, which is slightly less awful than the Daily Mail. The other two sites look very disreputable even by the low standards of tabloids that are designed to scare easily excitable old ladies.

None of that will make it legal, as you suggest. The conference was discussing how to classify it as a mental illness, which is the opposite of normalizing it. Two attendees (including one admitted pedophile who isn’t even an academic) took the extreme outlier view that it’s a normal urge.

It won’t be. It’s becoming recognized by academics as a compulsion and mental disorder rather than just as a character flaw, but since children can’t meaningfully consent engaging in it won’t be legal in 25 years.

Related:

The new stadium is always sold as a public good: neighborhood revitalization, higher property values, more tourism dollars, civic pride, etc. It rarely works out that way.

It’s not just Atlanta. New stadiums are always boondoggles, corporate welfare for billionaires.