The Cornell 7

And yet another story about seven male pigs in a fraternity, this time at Cornell University, gang-raping a woman after drugging her. These seven even put out Snapchat messages saying "free pussy! come and get it!" Those messages were seen by another 50+ Cornell students, who did absolutely nothing to stop the assault. As bad as the seven disgusting perps were, those 50+ others who read the messages but did not participate in the rape, deserve some opprobrium too. And, hey, parents of the seven, that is some HORRIBLE PARENTING you did there, raising a bunch of rapists. And what is it about fraternities that turns young men into assholes and pigs? No wonder I didn't ever join one when I was in college.

The Cornell 7 story has me (and a lot of us) thinking.

I am so fucking tired of hearing about a man's future when we're talking about consequences for sexual assault and rape.

I don't care if he's 19 and has his whole life ahead of him. I don't care if he's a promising student, a star athlete, headed to medical school, or has a great career waiting for him.

I don't care if he's 70 now and what he did happened 40 years ago. I don't care if he's built a nice life since then.

He should have thought about his future before he violated someone else's.

We have spent entirely too much time worrying about what accountability might cost men who commit sexual violence, while barely acknowledging what the violence itself costs their victims.

Her education.

Her career.

Her relationships.

Her sense of safety.

Her mental health.

Her ability to trust.

Sometimes the entire trajectory of her life.

But somehow, when consequences finally reach him, we're supposed to stop and ask whether ruining his future is really fair? No.

And I am so damn tired of watching men accused of horrific things disappear quietly back into anonymity once the news cycle moves on.

At this point, I'm about ready to bring back the scarlet letter.

Tattoo it on their foreheads.

You don't get to destroy somebody else's life and then ask the rest of us to be concerned about yours.

Edited for clarity because some people refuse to read: Photos below are of 3 convicted "promising young men", Brock Turner, Austin Wilkerson, and Derek Nygaard. They were all convicted of rape or sexual assault but received ridiculously light sentences, specifically because they were "promising young men."

THIS POST ISN'T ABOUT THE CORNELL 7, or what they're accused of. It's about how even if (now that it's *finally* being investigated) they're charged and convicted, there's a very good chance that their consequences will be minimal. THIS POST IS ABOUT A HUGE PROBLEM IN OUR SOCIETY. NOT JUST THAT RAPE HAPPENS, BUT THAT THE PUNISHMENT SO RARELY FITS THE CRIME.

#potential #cornell #rape #survivor

Sarah Maria Boudreaux

Joshua Moroles

Joshua is an activist in my area. He's garnered a lot of anger and enemies with his muckraking, but he brings things to light that those in power have tried to hide. This post is a bit different. Yes, he's religious, but, as an atheist, I don't mind religious people, as long as they don't try to push their beliefs into the law.

I know many of you are carrying some heavy things right now.

Heavy feelings.

Heavy burdens.

Heavy decisions.

Things you may not talk about. Things the people around you may not even know you’re dealing with.

Sometimes it feels like if we can just make it through the day, make it to tonight, close our eyes and get some rest, maybe tomorrow will give us another chance to figure it out.

And maybe for you, it’s more than just a difficult day.

Maybe you’re living with pain every single day. Maybe you’re exhausted from fighting battles nobody sees. Maybe there are moments when you feel like throwing in the towel because you simply don’t know how much more you have left to give.

For whatever it’s worth, I want you to know something:

I’m thinking about you.

And I promise you, there are probably more people thinking about you, caring about you and hoping you’re okay than you realize.

I find comfort in prayer. I know not everyone does, and I respect that. But prayer has carried me through some difficult moments in my own life.

So today, I’m praying for you too.

For the person trying to hold their family together.

For the person worried about money.

For the person waiting on an answer.

For the person grieving.

For the person facing a decision they never thought they would have to make.

For the person smiling in public while quietly struggling inside.

For the person who is simply tired.

Keep your head up.

You don’t have to have everything figured out tonight. Sometimes making it through today is enough.

Get some rest.

Tomorrow is another day.

And maybe tomorrow doesn’t solve everything. But it gives us another sunrise, another opportunity, another conversation, another chance to figure out what comes next.

I’m thinking about you.

And tonight, I’ll say a prayer for you too.

Joshua Moroles

Howard Buffett

There is often good news out there, but you need to search for it sometimes. Trump and his criminal gang are trying their best to demoralize and frustrate everyone into just giving up, but that ain't gonna happen. We are not going to turn over our country to this gang of grifters and conmen. The resistance will never end until Trump and his gang are dead or jailed.

This is Howard Buffett, Warren Buffett’s middle son. He is 71 years old. He dropped out of college three times. He drinks Dr Pepper and like his father, looks for a McDonald’s wherever he travels.

Since the beginning of the war, his foundation has become the largest private donor to Ukraine: $1.4 billion. Over four years, he has personally visited Ukraine 27 times.

In April 2022, he saw burned-out agricultural machinery all over Ukraine and called the president of John Deere:

“How many combines are available in Europe?”

“Fifteen. All of them were supposed to go to Russia.”

“I’ll take them all. Ship them to Ukraine.”

Then came all the available New Holland equipment in Europe. Altogether, more than 100 tractors and combines have been provided to Ukrainian farmers. Free.

He tested de-mining equipment on his farm in Illinois, detonating explosives beneath rollers. When someone asked if blowing up his own tractors to find a solution was worth it, Buffett replied:

“Stop counting my tractors. If necessary, I’ll blow up a thousand of them.”

When he heard about the "Superhumans" project, the medical program to provide arms and legs for soldiers who have lost theirs, they asked if he'd be willing to kickstart the program with $1 million. Buffett asked how much was needed to build the entire center.

“$14 million" was the answer.

He replied: “Okay. Build it.”

Today, his support for Superhumans has reached $77 million, and the center has treated almost 2,000 wounded soldiers and civilians who have lost limbs due to the war.

But his largest area of spending is neither agricultural machinery nor prosthetics.

It is food: 642 million meals.

He has built, stocked and staffed mobile kitchens that go into areas where civilians, often very elderly, whose homes have been destroyed by Russian bombing.

Real help from a person who has no personal motivation to profit from Ukraine. He simply chooses to help.

Jim Hanemaayer

stupid

Yeah, it's not "nice" to call someone "stupid" but sometimes stupid is the best and perfect word. For too long, we Dems have tried to be nice and not call people (right-wingers) names, but when a steady stream of vitriol is hurled our way, it gets harder and harder to not call a spade a spade and a stupid mo-fo a stupid mo-fo. And so, here is another good one from Texan Allen Clifton.

I'm sorry, but I refuse to tolerate "stupid" just because millions of people in this country have been brainwashed and choose to be willfully ignorant.

This was the general theme of my first YouTube video I posted yesterday, which is also pinned to the top of my profile.

I'm not going to actively go out and insult people as "stupid," but if you say certain things to me, I'm going to call them out as flat-out stupidity.

I'm done pulling my punches on this nonsense.

I don't know why it's on everyone else to "listen to the opinions" of people who believe in asinine, stupid ideas based on utter nonsense rather than calling out their bullsh*t.

That's one of the biggest issues we have today. We've made it so that instead of forcing people to be better, we're just supposed to adapt and lower ourselves to be worse — to be on the same playing field as they are.

To hell with that.

Ignorance is ignorance — period.

Oh, so Donald Trump says that "artificial intelligence" is a poor name for the technology, and he's going to change it to "super intelligence" — even though absolutely nobody is going to call it that within the tech space or anywhere else outside of his sycophants — and you think that's "brilliant"?

Well, you're stupid.

Donald Trump's eldest son accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Russian oligarch with ties to Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin, and you don't think there's anything — at all — that should be investigated about that?

Well, you're stupid.

You think foreign countries pay for tariffs?

Well, you're stupid.

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to "listen to the opinions" of people discussing tariffs who try to argue that foreign governments pay these taxes when it's an indisputable fact that American importers and consumers are the ones who pay the overwhelming majority of these tax hikes.

If someone genuinely doesn't understand how tariffs work, I'm willing to explain tariffs to them to help better inform them. That said, I'm not going to act as if a completely false assertion based on pure bullsh*t fed to them by a liar and the right-wing media backing him is somehow a "valid point" — because it's absolutely not.

You actually think the economy is "better than ever" and we're "in a new golden age" all because Trump says so, despite the fact that literally nearly every economic metric is worse now than it was when he took office?

Well, you're stupid.

Job growth, GDP growth, inflation, gas prices, oil prices, diesel prices, and the unemployment rate (slightly) — all worse under Trump.

You believe Democrats can "rig" elections even though Republicans currently control the White House, Senate, and House — all power they obtained while Democrats were in charge — and both of Trump's presidential wins came while a Democrat was president, plus he won key Democrat-run swing states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania in each of those elections?

Well, you're stupid.

You think the world "respects the United States more than ever" under Trump's leadership when all of our allies can't stand us and our enemies are laughing at us, as we have an unhinged, blithering idiot of a president going on multiple social media rants practically every day to whine and cry about everyone being so "unfair" and "mean" to him and spread blatant lies about how everything he does is so "great" and the "best ever," but the "fake media" only tries to attack him, like a petulant child throwing a hissy fit?

Well, you're stupid.

You actually believe everything Trump says about this now nearly eight-month war in Iran that he's claimed we've "won" over 40 times and that the Iranian government is "begging to make a deal" — another claim he's made multiple times over the past few months, despite the fact that reality tells an entirely different story?

Oh, and you believed him when he said we "totally obliterated" Iran's nuclear capabilities in 2025, but then had to go to war with them just a few months later over their "imminent ability to build a nuclear weapon" — even though both statements can't possibly be true?

Well, you're stupid.

You believe Trump as he continues to insist that the Reflecting Pool surface failure was the result of "vandalism," despite both his Department of Justice and the contractor admitting that it was faulty installation. In addition to that, after months of Trump claiming they had "video evidence" of the vandalism that he wouldn't show, he had to admit that no such evidence actually existed — despite the pool being under 24/7 video surveillance — yet he keeps insisting the surface was "cut and sliced by vandals," which is clearly a lie. However, despite all of that, you still believe him and won't admit that he's been lying this entire time and has tried to get innocent Americans charged with nonexistent crimes just so he wouldn't have to admit he made a mistake?

Well, you're stupid.

You actually believe he's building that ballroom for "national security" and that no taxpayer dollars will be used for its construction?

Well, you're stupid.

Again, I'm not going to listen to the "opinions" of people who think that a president who spends nearly every weekend out golfing and has attended massive sporting events all over the country is somehow worried about "national security" and his inability to be "kept safe in public spaces" to justify the building of that idiotic vanity project.

You actually believe that Trump's bans on CNN, MS NOW, and Politico aren't a direct attack on the First Amendment and the freedom of the press?

Well, you're stupid.

There are three things in this country we have to get back to:

1. Doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do.

2. Calling out ignorance and treating it as such.

3. Pointing out blatant hypocrisy and calling it out every single time.

I'm all for everyone having the right to their own opinion — but not their own facts.

Additionally, just because someone has the right to do something doesn't make it right.

I can support someone's right to free speech to say horrible things, but that doesn't mean I have to sit back and not push back against their ignorance, or not judge them for being ignorant, simply because they have the right to be a terrible person who says disgusting things.

Calling out blatant stupidity and ignorance is the right thing to do.

They have the right to say whatever horrible thing they want to say, just like I have the right to call them a piece of sh*t.

First Amendment, baby!

Refusing to allow those who are willfully ignorant to deteriorate discourse in this country by turning indisputable facts into a "matter of opinion" because they would rather double down on delusions than admit that they were wrong is the right thing to do.

I'm tired of letting the lowlifes win. It's time we demand better — from all of us.

Allen Clifton