Reading Time: 4 minutes I’ll admit that I once suspected that there was something uniquely and inherently debased about Catholic clerics—a bias that only hardened as the avalanche of priestly pedophilia scandals crashed in wave after horrifying wave across the planet during the past few decades. But solely scapegoating priests is demonstrably unwarranted. Research indicates that priests, monks, and […]
Crime and Punishment
Posted inCrime and Punishment
Truth loses, capitalism wins in Fox News defamation settlement
Reading Time: 4 minutes The legal settlement in which Fox News this week agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million was a victory for profit-obsessed American capitalism, not journalistic truth. The irony is that bald-faced lying for profit at the expense of truth is what landed Fox News in court in the first place. The top cable-news purveyor […]
Posted inLaw
Supreme Court picks religious case, passes on solitary confinement
Reading Time: 5 minutes There’s almost too much to choose from when attempting to sum up recent US strife: On Thursday, Missouri’s Attorney General bypassed sitting representatives to launch the most prohibitive ban on gender-affirming care yet, which would effectively deny treatment to adults and children alike. Judge Samuel Alito issued a short-term stay on a Texas judge’s revocation […]
Posted inCrime and Punishment
Who’s the worse fraud, Trump or Madoff?
Reading Time: 3 minutes As Donald Trump braces for his historic “perp walk” in Manhattan’s courthouse Tuesday amid a flurry of security preparations and supporters’ melodramatic claims that his indictment for business-fraud-related charges is all a big nothingburger, an important question remains: How much does this indictment matter? The president’s always-fervent supporters—along with not a few never-Trumpers and even […]
Posted inCrime and Punishment
NXIVM: Why are we so endlessly in thrall to deadly cults?
Reading Time: 6 minutes They’re all of one twisted mind. Donald Trump. Scientology. People’s Temple. Branch Davidians. Heaven’s Gate. NXIVM. Every personality cult that ever existed. They all weaponize charisma, weaponize it ruthlessly against innocent people’s often fragile, vulnerable, gullible psyches. Without remorse. ‘The Vow’: A disquieting plunge into the abyss I reacquainted myself with the dangerous, routinely tragic […]
Posted inCrime and Punishment
Is the sun setting on solitary confinement?
Reading Time: 6 minutes In American prisons, solitary confinement refers to the practice of keeping people in concrete boxes the size of wheelchair-accessible bathroom stalls, 22 or more hours a day, 7 days a week, for months and years on end. But this practice may be coming to an end.