Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“In this country American means white. everybody else has to hyphenate.”

White supremacy is terrorism.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

“Alexa, change the president.”

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

You are here: Home / Gun Issues / Gun nuts / Every Man His Own Master Open Thread: Crypto-Anarchy Now!

Every Man His Own Master Open Thread: Crypto-Anarchy Now!

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It’s always projection with this guys, isn’t it? Per the Austin Statesman:

… Austin police are working with international authorities to bring Cody Wilson, an Austin man at the center of a debate about 3D-printed guns, back to the country from Taiwan to face a sexual assault charge filed in Travis County on Wednesday…

Wilson missed a scheduled flight back to the United States and is thought to have left the country after a friend of the 16-year-old sexual assault victim told him that police were investigating him, Officer said…

The affidavit said a counselor called Austin police on Aug. 22 to report that a girl under the age of 17 told her she had sex with a 30-year-old man on Aug. 15 and was paid $500.

In a forensic interview on Aug. 27, the girl told authorities that she created an account on SugarDaddyMeet.com, and began exchanging messages with a man who used the username “Sanjuro,” the affidavit said…

“During this conversation, ‘Sanjuro’ identified himself as ‘Cody Wilson.’ Victim said that ‘Sanjuro’ described himself to the victim as a ‘big deal,’ ” the affidavit said.

Investigators compared the profile photos used on the SugarDaddyMeet.com account to Wilson’s driver’s license photo, and determined that they were of the same person, the affidavit said…

Of course, there’s an argument to be made that 16-year-olds ought to be able to trade sex for money, and I’m sure that argument is already being shared by Wilson’s defenders. On the other hand, when a man already has a page on the SPLC’s Hatewatch list…

… Cody Wilson is the co-founder and CEO of Defense Distributed, a company which operates in the gray area between the gun manufacturing world and the online maker community, and he is the creator of Hatreon, a racist “alt-right” crowdfunding site…

… is performing transactions on SugarDaddyMeet.com really the mark of a Genius Brain?

Extra bonus Captain Obvious points:

Reader Interactions

91Comments

  6. 6.

    NotMax

    SugarDaddyMeet.com

    So, so glad I have an adblocker. FSM alone knows what kind of ads that will invite in.

  9. 9.

    smintheus

    I’m going to repost this because it is so bizarre. Last hour Fox had Juanita Broaddrick on to declare that she thinks Christine Ford is lying. Her evidence? Ford didn’t tell people immediately about the attack, and Broaddrick cannot imagine why anybody would do that. It’s just inconceivable that you would keep it to yourself, she says.

    This is the same person who famously waited more than 20 years to make her claim public. And in the meantime she had filed an affidavit a couple year earlier declaring under oath that Clinton had not raped her and any rumors to that effect were false. This is Fox’s point person to make the “but she waited too long to be credible” argument.

    They also had some idiot former prosecutor on to dismiss the idea that the FBI should investigate. Asked about the merits of investigating further, her attitude was ‘Well all you could do is interview Ford and Kavanaugh, there is no other way of learning anything’. We’re supposed to have forgotten that there are other potential witnesses to talk to?

  10. 10.

    YetAnotherJay formerly (Jay S)

    It looks like this came to light with a responsible (and probably mandatory) report from a counselor to police. The whole premise of the site is for a high end prostitution.

  16. 16.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: As part of the Balloon Juice concierge experience that you’ve qualified for, we’ll ensure that you receive that material directly.//

  18. 18.

    TS (the original)

    @smintheus: Rachel calling out Sen Hatch from what he said with the Anita Hill investigation & what he is saying now.
    They all blow with the wind and truth is lost.

  21. 21.

    YetAnotherJay formerly (Jay S)

    @FlyingToaster: Actually I am surprised, not so much that he would engage in illegal activity, but this particular one wouldn’t have crossed my mind. I thought he was pretty much running on a financial shoestring. This was an expensive evening. Of course he leans Libertarian, so transactional sex would not be out of line in his worldview and no age limits set by government would be valid to him. But I didn’t think he had pockets that deep or particular interests in young girls.

  22. 22.

    Anne Laurie

    @Luthe:

    Can none of these assholes keep it in their pants?

    Well, “the heart wants what it wants,” per another renowned pervert. But why can’t the men with so many other options, men who are supposedly smart and well-educated, not find less damaging ways of slacking their hearts & other organs?

  23. 23.

    dmsilev

    @Adam L Silverman: Representative comment, before my brain shut down out of self-defense:

    Yeah… tell me more about how such a statute [statutory rape] could possibly pass constitutional muster. This is why I hate feminazis. The only victim here is Willson.

    I’d say it was from someone trying to satirize a gun nut, but well….

  25. 25.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    I’ve always thought “Hatreon” was a little on the nose. I mean, it’s like calling naming a professional organization the Legion of Doom or something

  26. 26.

    TS (the original)

    hahaha – Rachel says “for whatever reason, the white house is refusing to request the FBI investigate this matter”

    Everyone knows the reason – bit of luck trump will tweet is out shortly.

  29. 29.

    Chetan Murthy

    @dmsilev: Even with the knowledge that it’s being written “straight”, it’s still HILARIOUS! I mean yeah, in a *weeps* kinda of way, but man oh man, I broke out laughing, it’s so funny!

    Who knew such irredeemable assholes could be so funny?

  31. 31.

    Gin & Tonic

    OK, Cody Wilson is a piece of shit, but I have a real problem with criminalizing the publishing of blueprints. This tends to be an older crowd – surely someone remembers the issues around the publication of this book.

  34. 34.

    smintheus

    @TS (the original): I asked my MAGA neighbor this evening why Trump is sticking by Kavanaugh…who shows up along with a buddy to try to rape a much younger girl, and yet the two of them still fail to achieve anything that Trump would want to have associated with himself. Kavanaugh ought to have the stink of a loser from Trump’s perspective.

    MAGA neighbor agreed that Trump can’t be happy Kavanaugh couldn’t follow through, as I knew he would.

  35. 35.

    Luthe

    @Anne Laurie: Dude, my heart wants a rich, gorgeous blonde who looks like Cate Blanchett but that doesn’t negate the need for everyone to be a consenting adult party to any hanky-panky.

    (not that I will ever land such a woman, but I can dream)

  36. 36.

    YetAnotherJay formerly (Jay S)

    @Gin & Tonic: I do remember that. At the time the decision allowed a first amendment right to publish the algorithm in a book but not ship code. The argument here is the “blueprint” is code. As I recall the encryption code restriction ended by legislation and not from constitutional grounds. I am not sure how well the legal arguments will hold up.

  37. 37.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Kayla Rudbek: The front page write up is pretty good. The comments are all over the place. I had looked over there earlier and there was nothing about it. I was actually surprised they did a post on it.

  38. 38.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Michael Bersin: I could never live in Missouri (couldn’t feel safe there — just like Texas) but lordy — if I did live in Missouri, I’d be *so* chuffed to have Claire McCaskill as my Senator!

  39. 39.

    Adam L Silverman

    @dmsilev: was that from power surge? That guy’s an immigrant (refugee) from the Balkans who claims to have served in the US Army. He’s also a neo-NAZI.

  41. 41.

    hells littlest angel

    Is it fair to judge this man by what he may have done when he was younger, back in a previous month?

  46. 46.

    Miss Bianca

    @PJ:

    I’m old enough to think you were going to link to the Anarchist’s Cookbook.

    Me, too! Especially considering the title of this post!

  47. 47.

    Adam L Silverman

    @YetAnotherJay formerly (Jay S): They’re special people over there.

    Interestingly enough there were only ever two posts about Butina over there and one was just a picture of her. This at the #1, in terms of views, firearms blog/publication. And also interestingly enough, right around when Butina got arrested the guy who started the site, owned it, and was the publisher sold the site and has completely disappeared. Coincidence takes a lot of work?

  49. 49.

    TS (the original)

    @smintheus: They didn’t mention that trump needs the protection of Kavanaugh on the SC – and/or trump has something on Kavanaugh?

    Then again – as I type, maybe trump has lost what he had on Kavanaugh – she came out and told the world.

  51. 51.

    Michael Bersin

    @Chetan Murthy:

    One of the inviolate rules of Missouri politics – never misunderestimate Claire McCaskill. She expects no quarter and gives none.

    My favorite quote about her republican opponent, current Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley:

    “…Now I know he went to Yale, I think, or Harvard, one of those, one of those fancy ones…”

    Question: And then, uh, I, I realize that you are not here in any political capacity but, do you have any thoughts on the Attorney General’s ongoing controversy about his residency and where he voted? Have you followed that at all, or are you not even paying any attention to that?

    Senator McCaskill: Well, it would be hard not to follow it. The law is pretty clear. There’s never been an Attorney General in the history of our state that hasn’t lived in Jefferson City because the law says shall. He’s, listen, I’m a Mizzou educated lawyer, but I can keep up. [laughter] And I know what the word shall means in the law. Now I know he went to Yale, I think, or Harvard, one of those, one of those fancy ones. Um, I think they taught him the same thing, shall is shall. So if it’s shall then you must live in Jefferson City. And you are not legally entitled to vote somewhere other than where you live. Oh there’s a problem here. Either [crosstalk]…

    Question: So there is voter fraud in Missouri, is that what you’re saying?

    Senator McCaskill: Well, I, there may be. But, that’s not for me to decide. But the issue is, either he’s violating the law by not living in Jefferson City, or he’s violating the law by voting someplace he doesn’t live. One of the two.

  52. 52.

    Kent

    My thoughts on Kavanaugh today:

    1. Republicans have been claiming that Democrats UNFAIRLY withheld the attempted rape charges against Kavanaugh. The correct Democratic response? “Fine, let’s make a deal. Let’s put everything on the table. You release all the Kavanaugh documents that you have hidden away and withheld from disclosure, and we will release all the OTHER charges of sexual asault that we are still withholding.

    2. Dr. Blasey should fling all kinds of shit on the wall and say “I don’t know if its true or not, that’s why you should do an FBI investigation. For example: Blasey: “I’m worried that there are other women out there who also were assaulted by this drunken creep in high school” Republicans: “Do you have any evidence to support your assertion?” Blasey: “That would be the job of the FBI to investigate”

  53. 53.

    dexwood

    @PJ:
    That’s what I thought of, too. It;s right over there, next to copies of The Whole Earth Catalog and The Idiot’s guide to Volkswagen Repair.

  54. 54.

    Gin & Tonic

    @YetAnotherJay formerly (Jay S): The book was published outside the US. It was not just source code, it was printed in an OCR-able font with a checksum at the bottom of every page, so you could scan it, OCR it and be sure it would compile. But since it was “just a book”, there couldn’t be any import restrictions.

    I see little difference between that and blueprints for 3D printing of a gun. I know it’s a difficult issue.

  57. 57.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @smintheus:

    I’m going to repost this because it is so bizarre. Last hour Fox had Juanita Broaddrick on to declare that she thinks Christine Ford is lying. Her evidence? Ford didn’t tell people immediately about the attack,

    There’s a problem with that theory, namely that she did tell people at the time. I was reading somewhere today that a witness is prepared to come forward who knew them both in high school and will report that the story was all over the school at the time.

  59. 59.

    Shana

    My daughter who recently moved to Dallas and just looked up her sample ballot for November and is asking if there’s any reason she shouldn’t just vote straight D ticket. She’s in the 32nd district in case that makes a difference. I’m heading to bed but will check the thread in the morning. Thanks for your input.

  63. 63.

    Gin & Tonic

    @dexwood: I could be wrong, of course – I think that may have happened one time, somewhere in the past – but I think the PGP book is a better analogy to the Cody Wilson situation that The Anarchists’ Cookbook is.

  65. 65.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Chetan Murthy: I’ve never watched much TV. But I read Soledad O’Brien’s tweets from time-to-time, and it sure seems like she has NFLTG. Watching Ruhle just now, made me think she’s heading to that place. Can’t say I blame her.

  66. 66.

    Anne Laurie

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    There’s a problem with that theory, namely that she did tell people at the time.

    Well, the new story is that people were told, not necessarily that Dr. Ford told them. “It was all over the high school”. And once that narrative thread gets pulled, it leads back to the *other* teenagers at that party — Ford said there were at least 4 boys, IIRC — not to mention, what Kavanaugh and/or Judge might’ve said afterwards to their ‘locker room talk’ buddies…

  67. 67.

    Mary G

    WaPo’s been talking to people who were in prep schools in the DC area around the same time Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh were there, and it’s not a pretty picture:

    Bettina Lanyi remembers. It was 1986, and she was in eighth grade. She and a friend went to a house in Washington’s Tenleytown neighborhood packed with high school kids, including a throng of boys from Gonzaga College High School and Georgetown Preparatory School. There was a lot of beer. A few fights broke out. Lanyi recalls being pawed and kissed. It freaked her out. She hadn’t been drinking, but her friend, also an eighth-grader, had.

    Lanyi turned around to see a large freshman from one of the schools lying on top of her friend. Lanyi, then a petite 13-year-old, shoved the boy and kicked him. The boy was surprised and appealed to Lanyi to let him continue. “I’ll never get her number otherwise,” he told her. She took her friend and left.

    I don’t know about everybody else, but if a boy wanted my number when I was 13 he just asked for it. More:

    Several Georgetown Prep graduates interviewed for this story who attended during the 1980s say they have fond memories of the school and the lifetime friendships they forged there. But they also corroborate the impression that alcohol was an integral part of the school’s identity at the time and that heavy drinking and disregard or mistreatment of women were widely accepted.

    “Drinking was part of the fabric of the school from the first day of freshman year to graduation,” said Bill Barbot, who graduated from Georgetown Prep in 1986 and overlapped with Kavanaugh and with Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. He went on to play guitar for the critically acclaimed indie punk band Jawbox and heads a digital marketing agency in Washington.

    So, spoiled rich kids of wealthy parents who could make trouble go away, sounds like.

  68. 68.

    smintheus

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’m not sure I believe that witness, but even so I’m not going to concede that we have to debate when Ford first mentioned the alleged attack. Nobody gets to dictate to anybody when, where, how, why, or to whom they discuss a traumatic assault they endured.

    Hell, I endured a traumatic – in fact nearly fatal – assault when I was in high school that I never talked about for at least 30-35 years. Doesn’t strike me as strange at all that I didn’t go around school discussing it. I just dealt with it and tried to move on.

  69. 69.

    Jay

    “As the circumstances become clearer about how the large, four-engine turboprop Russian Il-20M “Coot-A” surveillance aircraft was lost previous theories have been debunked. It now appears certain the incident was a result of Syrian anti-aircraft batteries attempting to engage four Israeli F-16s that were striking targets in the region at the time. The Syrian S-200 surface to air missiles accidentally hit the larger, slower Russian Il-20M surveillance plane instead of any of the attacking Israeli F-16s (and possible escorting aircraft)”

    https://theaviationist.com/2018/09/19/lets-recap-everything-we-know-about-the-russian-il-20m-shot-down-by-a-syrian-s-200-missile-system-yesterday/

  70. 70.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Mary G: When I was a grad student at Cornell, there was an undergrad frat that had several practices so debauched and immoral that they closed the damn thing down for a few years (turned the bldg into grad student housing). Sadly, the frat got reinstated.

    Practices like an initiation involving having sex with a nanny-goat. Like at breakfast a prize for the boy who had slept with the ugliest girl (by popular vote of the assembled boys). Just the rankest misogyny. And Cornell is a second-rate Ivy. You gotta wonder what happens amongst the *real* scions of wealth.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    In March, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the Census Bureau, approved a controversial question about US citizenship on the 2020 census, claiming that the Justice Department needed it for “more effective enforcement” of the Voting Rights Act. Ross said at the time and in subsequent testimony before Congress that he approved the question after the Justice Department requested in December 2017 that it be added.
    However, new documents released as part of a lawsuit by New York state against the Trump administration directly contradict Ross’s public comments, showing that the commerce secretary repeatedly lobbied the Justice Department to add the citizenship question after consulting with anti-immigration hardliners.

    Congress really needs to crack down on Trump Administration members and nominees blatantly lying to them.

    If they don’t have rules they’re actually prepared to enforce they should write some new ones, and then use them. There’s no point in holding hearings if these people are just going in there and lying constantly. Check everything else he said. Those were probably lies too. They;re lying constantly because no one is holding them accountable when they do it. We cant’t stop the daily lies to the public but if they’re before Congress there are rules that can be enforced.

  73. 73.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Mary G: yeah, I’m a little bit younger than these people, but I went to Notre Dame (probably with the siblings/cousins/friends of some of these people, and also with the elite Catholics from Chicago), so I saw a hell of a lot of drinking and very problematic attitudes about sex. There are at least two of my fellow physics majors who I would not be surprised to hear that they were rapists. Hmm, maybe that’s part of why I’ve been so on edge this past week, as it’s stirring up memories of just how threatened I felt.

    And my dad told me after I got my acceptance letter from ND that I had to know what it felt like to be drunk (in case anyone tried to spike my drinks at a party). So my first experience with getting utterly plastered was at home at the age of 17, under the parental eyes with my 10-year-old brother making fun of me. Good thing that this was before cellphone video! And that and going to some parties freshman year and breaking off some aggressive behavior convinced me that I was not going to go out on the party scene as it was far too dangerous.

  74. 74.

    Mnemosyne

    @smintheus:

    Given the way the high school rumor mill works, I find it completely plausible both that she did not tell anyone and that other people at the party knew or guessed what had happened and gossiped about it.

  75. 75.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Kayla Rudbek: Wow, your parents were some clear-headed folk. Props to them. Makes me think about a young female relative, and how to broach this subject with her parents in ….. 4.5 years. Thanks for the idea!

  76. 76.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Chetan Murthy: Dad was also an ND alum, so he knew the drinking culture very well indeed. And make sure that she knows and freely consents! I’d had small glasses of wine as a social thing at home on holidays as a tween and teen (Italian Catholic and Dad had been JAG in Germany so we had no Protestant nonsense) but I was surprised that two double 7-and-7s got me that plastered that quickly. It taught me that it wasn’t going to be easy for me to estimate how much I was drinking.

    And nowadays I get heartburn from alcohol, so I don’t drink much for that reason. Why bother doing something that is only going to make me feel worse?

  77. 77.

    Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]

    @Kay: I’ve always been partial to seeding “known awkward facts” into the questioning. If the questionee decides to lie under oath, A quick refutation, with evidence, contempt of congress charge with the committee, haul them to prison in the congressional basement, and call the next witness/adjournment. They can get questioned the next day after they’ve had an evening to reflect on their mistakes. (Don’t let them have new clothes I’d say, but I’m nasty like that).

    All above-board and legal.

  78. 78.

    burnspbesq

    @Anne Laurie:

    why can’t the men with so many other options, men who are supposedly smart and well-educated, not find less damaging ways of slacking their hearts & other organs?

    Serious question?

    Forbidden fruit syndrome. The fact that it’s illegal makes it hotter.

  81. 81.

    Adam L Silverman

    @dmsilev: Nope. I go over there and read the comments now and then for a horrified chuckle. Also, ole Surge there ain’t the sharpest knife in the plastic chopstick drawer. He uses the same handle on social media, or did before he got banned. Took me under five minutes to track down who he was. Also, that dude is the size of me, Cole, and any three of you all combined. Tier 1 operator my tuchas!

  82. 82.

    burnspbesq

    I keep trying to convince myself that Capito might be a wild card in a floor vote on Kavanaugh. She has a daughter who went to Duke. She’s probably heard some stories from said daughter (just because the lacrosse players were exonerated doesn’t mean that sexual assault isn’t a problem at Duke).

    But she’s a Republican, so this is almost certainly the triumph of hope over experience. We’ll see.

  83. 83.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jay: Which itself raises new questions given that these are Russian batteries, which means the Russian aircraft profiles should be entered into the system for targeting deconfliction.

  87. 87.

    J R in WV

    @burnspbesq:

    Capito voted to stop or overturn a banking regulation one week, and the next week her husband was named state VP for Wells Fargo. She takes after her father, WV’s last governor convicted of Federal crimes. Arch Moore took his whole family, kids, their spouses, the whole clan, to Europe, paid for out of a suitcase full of cash.

    Only thing on the credit cards was the airfare. Arch kept a quarter of a million dollars in cash in his desk drawer in the governer’s office, friend and coworker of wife’s saw it with his own eyes. Arch wasn’t shy about that, he bragged about it. if you wanted a state appointment job, you gave Arch an envelope full of big bills.

    Arch was busted when the Feds turned his prime sidekick, who then wore a wire while Arch requested and received big bribes in his limo. Spent time wearing orange jumpsuits at an AFB in Alabama, doing yard work. Then spent his long retirement as a wealthy ex-politician highly regarded by state Republicans.

  89. 89.

    BCHS Class of 1980

    I have a slightly different question. My neighbor is a true wing that I usually avoid discussing anything with about politics. Well, she was talking about a story from work and she used the phrase, “#MeToo is rape culture.” I misunderstood and thought she’d left a couple of words; she hadn’t and insisted that sentiment wasn’t political, while I insisted it was, and we won’t speak for a couple of days. Oh well.
    My question is: has anyone seen that phrase used in the fever swamps? I would’ve thought that the wingnuts would deny that the MeToo concept exists. Is this an attempt at appropriation or just a one-shot?

  90. 90.

    Chetan Murthy

    @BCHS Class of 1980: I think it’s simpler than that. It’s like #AllLivesMatter, eh? I mean, it’s a way of taking the accusation and throwing it back: it doesn’t matter if it’s rational, reasoned, supported, or totally batshit insane. It’s in-group signaling, plain and simple.

    She’s your neighbor, and you probably want to maintain cordial relations with her. Me, I’d cut that asshole off permanently. But then, I’m an introvert living in SF, so there aren’t a lotta RWNJs amongst the older folk I tend to hang around with.

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