Humble Versus High and Mighty -- Sacrificing Truth to Immateriality

"He's going to keep denying that it ever happened. But he knows the truth and I know the truth."
"I was so young. Ghislaine woke me up in the morning and said, 'You're gonna meet a prince today.' I didn't know at that point that I was going to be trafficked to that prince."
"Ghislaine said, 'He's coming back to the house and I want you to do for him what you do for Epstein. I couldn't believe it."
"He wasn't rude or anything about it. He said, you know, 'Thank you,' and some kind of soft sentiments like that, and left. I just couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that even royalty were involved."
"Unfortunately there's this horrible law called statute of limitations. My lawyers said the way to get Ghislaine held accountable, the way to get Epstein held accountable, is through them calling me a liar, which I'm not. It's called a defamation suit."
"[The Duke] knows what he has done."
Virginia Roberts Giuffre

The teenager with Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell at her London home in 2001 Credit: Virginia Robert

"It is emphatically denied that the Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts. Any claim to the contrary is false and without foundation."
Buckingham Palace

He stands accused. He denies having anything whatever to do with the sordid affair. Yes, Jeffrey Epstein was his friend, but he had no idea that the man was a pedophile, a sex abuser, a rapist and a thoroughly despicable sexual deviant. Virginia Roberts Guiffre had been Epstein's possession when she was 17 years of age. At age 36, the details of her earlier life behind her, she seeks justice. She and another five accusers feel they are owed something for the ordeals they underwent as young girls emerging into womanhood when the prime predator of young girls trafficked them to select 'friends'.

The now-adult Guiffre feels she is owed some compensation, from an admission and an apology to begin with, and additional terms of solace to be determined at some future time. And because the Duke of York sexually abused her as a teenager, and he strenuously denies any such besmirching of his royal persona, she is willing to go to court, should he in self-defence call a defamation suit to disprove her accusations and clear his name.

Obviously, her recollection, her experience and her life was impacted to a deleterious result, viewed as an object to be used and abused. Her memory is of first meeting the Duke in 2001 in London at the home of Epstein's former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell; well-connected and wealthy, at a time when Guiffre was all of 17 years of underage. The photograph of the Duke with his arm around Guiffre's waist reflects that first meeting. But of course it is all an illusion. The photograph itself clearly doesn't exist.

She was directed to please the Duke, as a plaything, in a manner she had been groomed for in service to the man known to have sex-trafficked dozens of underage girls. A court unsealed documents relevant to a 2015 defamation suit that Giuffre had filed against Maxwell, revealing that she played a key role in the procurement of young girls for her very good friend Epstein. Denials come readily and easily, and this case was no different. The word of an unknown woman against that of a socialite?

In 2011 Guiffre had initially released her allegations in a British tabloid, revealing that Epstein had used her as a sex slave to be tendered as a favour to wealthy and famous friends and acquaintances. The Duke of York was one of those celebrated friends so favoured, and evidently felt no hesitation about accepting that favour. But of course that is Guiffre's recollection, her history, her life, not that of the Duke's, whose recollection is completely other.

The judge hearing the case in 2015 appeared not to hesitate either, when he struck down the allegations proffered against the Royal personage, describing them as "immaterial and impertinent". And so, the Duke of York is now considering legal action. And Guiffre is speaking out to any media site that is interested -- and many are -- to emphasize that her memory which fails to accord with the Duke's, is the correct one reflecting reality. So sue me, she says.

Transitioning from Prison to Communities : A Sex Predator In Transition from Male to Female

"For years, Harks was well aware of his uncontrollable urges and desires to touch little girls in a sexual manner, yet he told police he could not afford counselling."
"Regardless of cost, he should have sought treatment long before he molested our children."
Community petition, former victims, B.C.

"The fact that Ms. Harks is in a halfway house instead of jail is a clear example of our justice system is broken."
"[The city of Brampton, Ontario] is livid [at having Harks] dumped [on them]."
"I am asking for your [Ontario Corrections Minister] immediate assistance in our community’s desire to reverse the decision by Correctional Service Canada to ‘dump’ Madilyn Harks (formerly Matthew Harks) in downtown Brampton."
Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown

"As a mother of three, I understand and share your concerns."
"I take this matter seriously and am working diligently to ensure Brampton is a safe place for us all."
Sonia Sidhu, Member of Parliament

Matthew Harks on the left, Madilyn Harks on the right.   Calgary Police/Peel Regional Police handout

Matthew Harks is a criminal sex predator. A man who preys on young girls, preferably below the age of nine. He is a serial predator and should have been declared such. He has been recognized as a high risk to re-offend ... and re-offend ... and re-offend, and should be kept in prison permanently. "Given your progress, it is reasonable and necessary to facilitate your successful reintegration into the community", read a Parole Board of Canada 2014 decision.

What progress they could be referring to is absent from the file of public knowledge. The man's victims, mostly girls under age eight, will likely live out their lives forever blighted by this man's appetite for sex with children. He has admitted to having victimized sixty children, retaining their underwear as "trophies" of his exploits targeting children. He is also a proud possessor of child pornography.

Matthew Harks began his career as a conscienceless child exploiter and sexual predator in British Columbia where he was found guilty of several assaults against preschool girls for which he served several months of house arrest. Once paroled, he attacked another young girl. He was imprisoned and free again in three years. He was diagnosed in 2006 by a psychiatrist with an "all encompassing preoccupation with interest in sexually abusing young girls".

He was first convicted in 2004 in his long career as a serial sexual attacker, beginning in British Columbia's Lower Mainland. Out of prison, he moved to Calgary, where local authorities there expressed dismay that he had decided to move there. "He does have the option to determine where he wants to be released and he chose Calgary. I'm not sure why", said Rich Veldhoen with the Calgary Police.

In 2014, Matthew Harks began presenting himself as a woman and the Parole Board of Canada loosened conditions of supervision designed to curb risks of sexual recidivism, and that included psychiatric treatment. Released into the community, he kept committing a string of parole violations, one involving an errand of running money for a still-incarcerated boyfriend landed him back in prison for 330 days where he/she violently attacked other inmates who happened to have "childlike appearance".

Succeeding his/her latest release from prison the now-named Madilyn Rebecca Harks decided to move to Brampton, Ontario. "The residents of Brampton will not tolerate this repeat sex offender living amongst them" Brampton Regional Coun.Gurpreet Singh Dhillon wrote in a letter to the federal Public Safety Minister.

There is no information public relating to the transition from male to female, whether hormone therapy or sexual reassignment surgery has been involved. Several provinces including Ontario require no physical change for residents to be recognized as having transitioned; an application for legal recognition simply requires a note from a doctor affirming that the patient identifies as different than their gender at birth.

As for the Correction Service of Canada, it deems transition procedures for gender dysphoric inmates to be an "essential medical service" one for which they are prepared to pay for hormone therapy and even surgery. Before an inmate born male is permitted to be transferred to a women's prison Canada requires evidence of genital surgery.

Yet imprisonment for an unspecified length of time to ensure public safety from the predations of a serial sexual offender targeting children is an obvious and necessary solution to sexual deviance of such a seriously malevolent nature. Hamstrung by the current social climate of empathetic 'understanding' of the 'illness' of gender confusion.

Peel Regional Police‏Verified account @PeelPoliceMedia

Community Safety Advisory - Offender Being Released to Brampton Area - https://www.peelpolice.ca    22 March 2019

The Issue of Malignant Vituperation and Reasonable Debate

"Before 2014, it was unimaginable to me that I would become a poster boy for men who are assholes. I had not been a network boss or an executive with institutional power; there had been no formal complaints at work that I was aware of over the years; there were no hush-money deals or nondisclosure agreements. As things came crashing down, I became obsessed with the inaccurate stories and the pattern of salacious details taken as truth in the echo chambers of social media outrage. That foreclosed any focus on my own accountability."
"Since then, I have spent almost four years reflecting on my relations with women I dated. For some, nothing I say here will be enough or be put the right way. Even as I feel deep remorse about how I treated some people in my life, I cannot confess to the accusations that are inaccurate. What I do confess is that I was emotionally thoughtless in the way I treated those I dated and tried to date. As well, I leveraged my influence and status to try to entice women and lead them on when they were interested. There are all sorts of old-fashioned words to describe men like this: player, creep, cad, Lothario."
"But it went deeper than that. I was demanding on dates and in personal affairs. I would keep lobbying for what I wanted. I was critical and dismissive. Some women I cared about went along with things I wanted to avoid my disappointment or moods. I ought to have been more respectful and responsive with the women in my life. To them I say, you deserved much better from me."
Jian Ghomeshi, essay: Reflections From A Hashtag, New York Review of Books 

The New York Review of Books editor, Ian Buruma, has left his post after an outcry over publishing an essay by disgraced former radio host, Jian Ghomeshi, seen here outside a Toronto court in May 2016. (Mark Blinch/Canadian Press)

Jian Ghomeshi, the radio host of CBC's extremely popular "Q" social-cultural-pop-interview program was easily identifiable as an ego-driven, self-promoting star. He was, in fact, the CBC's very special star. His program so wildly popular it was syndicated and could be heard on American radio. He fell steeply and swiftly from grace when a number of women, a few at first but at last count twenty in all, went public in revealing him to be a nasty little creep of a sexually abusive predator. A revelation that brought deep satisfaction to those who detested him, and profound sadness to those who revered him.

Evidently there were rumours of his relentless pursuit of women, his autocratic and insulting behaviour with women, from female interns on the program to more seasoned women with a certain celebrity of their own. No one at the CBC evidently took them seriously; he was, after all, their star. He was, however, a shooting star and he was shot down from the heavens above to his own very personal hell. The relentless flood of news about his character along with instant condemnation from all who knew him and knew of him now identifying him as a low-life, vicious predator.

Like a beaten cur, he couldn't believe what had happened to him. But he did have enough cerebral function left to realize that he had to hire a lawyer who would be not merely competent but outstanding in her defense capabilities and that lawyer was Marie Henein. When it came to his trial, the women who had agreed to be public about their accusations, questioned professionally by the expert Ms. Henein were revealed to have enabled their own humiliation. They were so anxious to be noticed by Ghomeshi that even after he had violently manhandled them they gushed over him.

They collaborated stories and evidence in a pact to humiliate him as he had humiliated them; while they had been complicit in their own humiliation, Ghomeshi hadn't the choice. But the deft defence mounted by Marie Henein led to a discharge; not guilty as charged. Despite which he was pilloried and continues to be. This is a man who may still be a creep, but from what he has written, he understands full well what brought his downfall, identifying his own character faults and deploring them and his previous relationships with women.

Those who cling to the #MeToo movement are, however, implacably unforgiving. Ghomeshi's case is certainly one that verges on the unforgivable, but he has learned a lesson from it, and it's time for him to be able to move on, a chastened and a better man than he was. There are countless men whose behaviour is far more egregious than his, more harmful, more enduringly and relentlessly destructive. These are the men who should be outed, and many are. The thing of it is, the #MeToo movement is insatiable in its voracious appetite for revenge, and that appetite sweeps into its vortex men undeserving of such condemnation.

In the public arena of the social contract between men and women it is undeniable that women all too often get the short end of the stick. That has changed and it is continuing to change. The men that have allowed themselves to fossilize into the old order can be dealt with in ways other than their complete character assassination and professional destruction by bitter, vindictive Valkyries. Clumsy advances, male entitlement choices, these are all social errors in communication, gestures and verbal insults. There are some, like Justin Trudeau, who will never be held to account.

But these are relatively trivial, albeit insulting in comparison to the social/sexual/violent crimes that destroy women's lives. Women themselves are known to be abusive to their sex partners on occasion if and when the mood takes them. Men, however, don't die at the hands of abusive partners at anywhere near the rate that women do. Still, women have made significant gains in forwarding themselves and their aspirations as never before. The beast in some men needs more taming, but the men don't need to be destroyed in the process.

"I am not going to defend his behaviour, and I don't know if what all these women [Ghomeshi's accusers] are saying is true. Perhaps it is. Perhaps it isn't. My interest in running this piece, as I said, is the point of view of somebody who has been pilloried in public opinion and what somebody like that feels about it. It was not run as a piece to exonerate him or to somehow mitigate the nature of his behaviour."
"The exact nature of his behaviour -- how much consent was involved -- I have no idea, nor is it really my concern. [I have] ambivalent feelings [about the #MeToo movement; partly positive as a] necessary corrective on male behaviour ... but like all well-intentioned and good things, there can be undesirable consequences. I think, in a general climate of denunciation, sometimes things happen and people express views that can be disturbing."
Ian Buruma, editor, The New York Review of Books

Ian Buruma, editor, The New York Review of Books   Vincent Tullo / The New York Times

And for this intrepid, honourable editor who simply wanted to place before the reading public whom he assumes is reasonable and intelligent, an argument for discussion, the wrath of Hell has descended. The outraged 'progressive' outcry that has accompanied the publication online of the Ghomeshi piece has not elicited a reasonable debate, but rather calls for this man's head -- on a pike, preferably. So, because the paying sponsors and advertisers of the venerable Review of Books see the writing on the wall from furious #MeToo-ers, he did the honourable thing, and resigned.

Another head rolled out from under the guillotine of vicious retribution visited upon any who dare question the public evisceration of any man deemed to have stepped beyond the boundaries of approved social conduct which places men in the position where women were traditionally expected to be; modest and silent and invisible.

Jian Ghomeshi and Marie Henein, National Post

Well, Now -- From this Corner the Contender for Prize Hypocrisy -- Female Accusers of Male Sexual Predation

"This development reveals a stunning level of hypocrisy by Asia Argento,"
"At the very same time Argento was working on her own secret settlement for the alleged sexual abuse of a minor, she was positioning herself at the forefront of those condemning Mr. Weinstein, despite the fact that her sexual relationship with Mr. Weinstein was between two consenting adults which lasted for more than four years."
Weinstein attorney, Benjamin Brafman

LOIC VENANCE/AFP/Getty Images

"It doesn’t really matter what I want."
"[The message sent to people who have been sexually assaulted after the two-and-a-half year saga is] don’t bother reporting. You are going to spend the next two, three years of your life being wrapped up in a system that really doesn’t care about you."
"[I] never needed any man to tell me whether I’ve been raped or not . . . . I still know what happened to me, and it doesn’t matter what the legal system thinks."
"I’m horrified by this entire system, not just by Zuker’s inadequate analysis of case law. The whole system is horrifying and people should be horrified."
"[Her self-incriminating text message...?] I didn't think it was relevant to him raping me."
Mandi Gray, teaching assistant, York University 

Mandi Gray, right, has said she probably wouldn’t participate in a new trial for Mustafa Ururyar, left, if one was ordered, noting the case has already taken two years of her life.  (Toronto Star / Alyshah Hasham and Anne-Marie Jackson)

Mandi Gray was a teaching assistant and graduate student at York University in Toronto who had an affair with Mustafa Ururyar, also a graduate student and teaching assistant there. Their casual affair in 2015 was of two weeks' duration, when they slept together with no otheer commitment of any kind. Completely consensual. From a party, she texted him, inviting him to come along to the pub: "Come drink and then we can have hot sex". He came, and they did. And she later failed to release the text message to Toronto Police when she accused Ururyar of raping her. He was originally convicted of sexual assault, but ultimately the conviction was overturned.

Another short story of false accusations has far greater repercussions in social media. The storm of revelations and accusations that erupted in Hollywood and then spread everywhere through the #MeToo movement when several actors, among them Asia Argento, accused Harvey Weinstein of raping them set a new standard in women finally getting their own back from men who had propositioned, manhandled, molested and raped them, usually from a position of power. Men in the entertainment business, in sports, in corporate life, high and mighty celebrities and local entrepreneurs alike, were accused and their lives forever changed.

Most of the accusations without doubt were credible, some veered on the edge of absurd with clumsiness being equated with violence. But there have been a number of occasions, such as the earlier court case with CBC's one-time darling Jian Ghomeshi -- whose ego led him to denigrate women and whose sexual appetite steered toward violent kinkiness -- was accused of rape. His lawyer revealed on the stand that the women accusing him sent cloying messages of endearment and conciliation to him, after the supposed rapes took place.

And now, Italian actor-producer Asia Argento, the first woman to publicly accuse Weinstein that led to a veritable landslide of other accusations, began the downward spiral of his life as a celebrated Hollywood producer, to a pathetic wreck of a man insisting he did nothing wrong, appears to have incriminating skeletons in her own designer closet. Child actor Jimmy Bennett was assaulted by her in a California hotel room in 2013; she at age 37, he 17, even while the age of consent in the state was 18.

While she accused Weinstein of rape, forcibly performing sex on her in a hotel room, she had committed rape on a child actor and settled with him afterward to the tune of $380,000 for his silence and agreeing that a photograph of them lying in bed together not be made public. However, once news became public of her accusation of Weinstein, Bennett, now 22, approached Argento to ask for $3.5 million in damages.

Child molesters are usually, but not always, men. Women are usually, but not always, the innocent party in forced violent sex. Women insist, and with good enough reason, that they be believed when they come forward with their accusations of man-handling of their intimate persons. And those women who falsely accuse men of molestation and sexual assault do no favours to the women who have genuinely suffered the misery of sexual assault.

!WOT! Canada's Feminist Prime Minister?

"[Trudeau] remembers being in Creston for the Avalanche Foundation, but doesn't think he had any negative interactions there."
"As the PM has said before, he has always been very careful to treat everyone with respect. His first experiences with activism were on the issue of sexual assault at McGill [University in Montreal], and he knows the importance of being thoughtful and respectful."
Matt Pascuzzo, spokesman, Prime Minister's Office

"Shouldn't the son of a former prime minister be aware of the rights and wrongs that go along with public socializing?"
"Didn't he learn, through his vast experiences in public life, that groping a strange young woman isn't in the handbook of proper etiquette, regardless of who she is, what her business is or where they are?"
Editorial, Creston Valley Advance, August 2000, community newspaper, British Columbia

"It's pretty bizarre. [There are] no doubts [the described groping incident occurred]. I consider [her -- the complainant] to be of sound character and that she would not have made this up."
"It wouldn't have come to light at all, I'm sure, if the person in question hadn't gone on to become the prime minister of Canada. If he wasn't prime minister, I'm under no illusions that people would be scouring the archives of the Advance to find the great journalism that we did [back then]."
Creston Valley Advance then-editor, Brian Bell

Justin Trudeau gets inducted into the Order of Sasquatch Hunters at the Columbia Brewery’s Kokanee Summit Festival in Creston, B.C. on Sunday August 6, 2000. Postmedia file

Back then, a 28-year-old teacher of drama at a private school in Vancouver arrived in the southern interior of British Columbia for a special fund-raising event whose proceeds would help fund a memorial named for his late brother, Michel Trudeau, who had died in an avalanche accident several years previously. A female reporter in her early 20s was on scene to write a story and take photographs for her community newspaper. And that was the occasion when Justin Trudeau made inappropriate, rude and offensive physical overtures described as "groping" when the two interacted.

Trudeau had arrived in Creston for a music festival raising funds to help build a backcountry ski lodge to honour his brother's memory. The paper's publisher and then-editor verified the-then reporter's experience as she had related it to them immediately after the event had taken place. A day later that same reporter wrote the anonymous editorial chastising Trudeau for his decided lack of moral courtesy. "I know that she told me about it when I got back [from vacation] and I don't doubt she spoke to the publisher about it", affirmed Brian Bell.

That transgressor in the guise of a dedicated feminist is now the Prime Minister of Canada. Away back then he was merely a morals-challenged scion of a former Prime Minister of Canada. A political gossip/satire magazine, Frank, based in Ottawa, chose to publish that old editorial verbatim in April; perhaps to be viewed as a little jolt of reality, in a mood of mischief. Seeing in it a far greater lapse in character, however, political commentator and Trudeau critic Warren Kinsella posted the editorial on Twitter, stirring the Twitterverse to a virtual storm of condemnation/indignation/defense.

To be picked up elsewhere and everywhere on American websites such as Breitbart and The Daily Caller, and at home in the Toronto Sun, rating a post on BuzzFeed, coverage in Britain and France and even popping up in The New York Times. This, at a time when the #MeToo movement has been bringing down the high and the mighty (and suddenly defenceless) and garnering for ill-treated women a little payback for the insults, assaults and humiliations they have suffered since time immemorial. And which Justin Trudeau has personally condemned, committing to a reversal of women's place in global society.

Starting with dismissing two Liberal MPs from the Liberal caucus after being made Liberal leader, for their sexual harassment of two NDP MPs. Going on from there to condemn his former Minister of Veterans' Affairs Kent Hehr for alleged sexual harassment, consigning him to the back benches to nurse his humble regrets in isolation. Another MP from Calgary resigned from caucus for similar misdeeds as did Trudeau's deputy director of operations in the PMO. Deny the allegations they might, but repercussions were firm, administered by the feminist avenger.

And Trudeau? Well, he's awfully, awfully special. Isn't he? Who else has insisted that women's equal entitlements would rule whether or not Canada signs vital trade deals with the EU, the TPP, China, etc.?  Winning him no great applause from those incredulous sources who seem to believe, as the male chauvinist pigs they are, that women's rights have nothing to do with trade and economic ties between nations, but enabling his preening credentials to signal how very virtuous this sanctimonious child of fortune is.

But wait! He did apologize, yes he most certainly did. The day following the unfortunate incident when he must momentarily have gone stark, raving berserk soaked to the core with the brew of the unwashed masses where at the festival "thousands of people cruised the grounds", drinking, eating, taking in the music and some ungrateful women wrote inconsequential things like "It wasn't a good place to be if you're female. It was a ten-to-one ratio of men and women. I got my ass grabbed I don't know how many times. It was scary. I've never been so disgusted in my life".

A woebegone Trudeau had proffered his sincere and unreserved apology to the reporter whose sanctity of person he had transgressed by humbly informing her: "I'm sorry. If I had known you were reporting for a national paper, I never would have been so forward", having become privy to the reality that the reporter was covering festival events for the Advance, but also for the National Post and Vancouver Sun, part of the same news chain, and understanding just how vulnerable to outing as a grubby little predator he might be.

The apology was clearly contingent on the high visibility brought into focus by the realization that a national newspaper had the potential of publishing his stupid behaviour back in 2000. Some apology, that. The reporter rated an apology on the basis of who and how far her reportage reached. Not on the fact that he had violated her space and uninvited to do so, manhandled her physically. Some apology. Little could he know that it would take eighteen years for the dreaded story to be published in that same national-circulation newspaper to reveal the man's hypocrisy.

But hey, if Bill Clinton won't be held in a state of jeering condemnation for his penchant for forced sex, why should Justin Trudeau, whose admiring public will only shrug off any accusations as petty and vindictive, his actions only those of any red-blooded male? He is, of course, an embarrassment to himself, yes, but also to men who would never dream of forcing their unwanted attentions on women, much less shrugging off the incident, then going on to destroy the political lives of other men for the very same infractions he indulged in.

"The standard applies to everyone." Justin Trudeau "When women speak up it is our duty to listen to them and believe them."

For Better or for Worse

"What the Republican establishment now know is Donald Trump is unequivocally the leader of the Republican Party. He is the one who sets the tone of what takes place in Washington."
"He is the leader of our country, both politically and from a legislative side of things, and I think they’ve learned that over the last year."
Corey Lewandowski, former Trump campaign manager

"The Fake News is working overtime. Just reported that, despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake)." "Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt?"
"Take away credentials?"
U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

The world went into a brief catatonic shock at the improbable election success of Donald J. Trump. This, despite the disbelief originally engendered that this brash, uncivil self-promoter whose manner and mannerisms betrayed an unsavoury character with brutish values made it as far as the Republican challenger of a Democratic contender for the presidency whose own lack of candor and reliability earned her a reputation that catapulted Trump in the estimation of Americans fed up with the kind of politics that bypassed their interests.

That Trump, in the final analysis, garnered sufficient votes where they counted, to be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States of America caught everyone by surprise, but possibly not the president-elect. His confidence in himself is as great as his penchant for abrupt and disruptive changes of opinions and tactics. But this man, despite his unwholesome failings as a human being has performed as president precisely as he promised his many followers that he would.

The Washington establishment has been put on its back legs, job growth has cut unemployment substantially; he cut taxes as he said he would, and workers in the U.S. have taken heart from his suspicion over free trade agreements. The stand-off with North Korea has moved into a new phase which, if it fails to denuclearize the North, may end up pacifying the two Koreas toward more than an uneasy truce. Nobel Peace Prize? The very thought pulverizes rationality.

So what might this man's legacy be? A world power who declared that his predecessor erred in allowing the Islamic Republic of Iran to continue developing highly sophisticated ballistic missiles upon which the covert and continuing secret locations devoted to steering the Iranian Republican Guard Corps to proud possession of nuclear weapons could be mounted, thanks to cooperation with North Korea but which Trump is now prepared to contest through the re-imposition of strict and stricter sanctions?

The rough character personified by Trump gains more attention through the notoriety of his sexual predation than anything he could ever accomplish on the world stage, however. The titillating stories that erupt from time to time through his own unabashed admissions of groping women, vie with women coming forward to attest to having been molested by this man whose wealth and position gave him self-perceived entitlement to take what he wanted.

The latest scandal, courtesy of a professional prostitute , Stormy Daniels, has the Democrats chortling victory in their public relations war with Trump. Here is a woman who enjoys her own notoriety as much as Trump does his. Her principles can be seen in accepting $150,000 to keep her mouth shut, while planning no such thing, focusing instead on her disquieting revelations that Trump slept with her in a one-night stand soon after the birth of his youngest child to his wife Melania.

Dollars to doughnuts Trump cares less about how the public reacted to these revelations than how his wife did, at yet another public humiliation relating to her husband's boisterous infidelity. News media are falling all over themselves in broadcasting whatever incriminating evidence they can to 'prove' what a scumbag the President of the United States is. He's a Republican, after all, and unreservedly unrepentant about all his character flaws all of which he views positively as assets others should be envious of.

On a summer night in 1969, U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy drove into a pond. As his car began to submerge into the water, he got himself out but left behind Mary Jo Kopechne, who was a passenger in his car. She perished.
A new biopic "Chappaquiddick."

So, does this latest scandal define how odiously-behaved this man is? Well he has plenty of company, none of whom ever garnered the public censure that Trump has. Where to start? Oh yes, John F. Kennedy, a serial womanizer but whose exploits were discreet and kept that way by an approving Democratic party, and respectful press corps. And brother Edward Kennedy, responsible as a philanderer who chose to leave a young woman to drown when Mary Joe Kopechne had the misfortune of an illicit alliance with this unscrupulous cad.

Win McNamee/Getty Images

More latterly, there is the lady-killer reputation that four women brought along to besmirch the much-loved character of Arkansas-governor-turned-president, and which he decided to cap off with an exploit of a mature and unrepentant skirt-chaser in a position of supreme authority over a very young and very naive intern in the White House, thrilled to bits that the President of the United States noticed little old her, then denied he had sex "with that woman". It was she who suffered censure and humiliation.

None of the previous office holders whose affairs became fodder for discreet gossip have suffered the kind of full frontal attack that Trump has. This is politics at its most wretched and pathetic.

The Cranky Pope

Hard on the heels of the explosive and exploding incidences of women revealing for the first time the identities of their sexual abusers, a phenomenon of unveiling a dark hidden secret of many men in positions of power and influence using their positions to prey on women whose careers they are capable of advancing or retarding, a public figure of immense authority has stepped into the fray, and in all likelihood not by intention but through a momentary irascible backlash flash of irritation.

"The day they bring me proof against Bishop Barros, I'll speak."
"There is not one shred of proof against him. It's all calumny. Is that clear?"
Pope Francis, Santiago, Chile

Pope Francis has accused victims of Chile’s most notorious paedophile of slander, in an astonishing end to a visit meant to help heal the wounds of a sex abuse scandal that has cost the Catholic church its credibility in the country. The Guardian

"As if I could have taken a selfie or a photo while Karadima abused me and others and Juan Barros stood by watching it all."
"These people are truly crazy, and the pontiff talks about atonement to the victims. Nothing has changed, and his plea for forgiveness is empty."
Juan Carlos Cruz, accuser

"[It is] sad and wrong [for the Pope to discredit the victims since] the burden of proof here rests with the church, not the victims -- and especially not with victims whose veracity has already been affirmed."
"He has just turned back the clock to the darkest days of this crisis. Who knows how many victims now will decide to stay hidden, for fear they will not be believed?"
Anne Barrett Doyle, online database BishopAccountability.org

Pope Francis, pressed for a comment by a Chilean journalist with respect to the status of Bishop Juan Barros whom he had named bishop of the southern diocese of Osorno in Chile at a time when victims of Barros's superior, the Rev.Fernando Karadima were accusing him of rampant sexual crimes, snapped back with the response that made it quite clear he failed to believe the accusations of the victims that Bishop Barros knew, and had even witnessed that abuse.

In one fell swoop not only turning asunder his main thrust of address in travelling to Chile with the purpose of apologizing for the horrendous misdeeds of the Catholic Church when its priests pledged to celibacy chose to pursue other avenues of satisfying their sexual desires by targeting children and parishioners for abuse. It was always widely recognized that these events took place, and that superiors within the Church sought to keep the scandal within the church, never admitting it took place, simply transferring the offending priest to another parish to repeat his sins anew.

In effect, this is what the Pontiff himself has done, irrespective of his sincere apology on behalf of the Catholic Church. Loyal Catholics who had been abused had attempted for years to apprise the church hierarchy of what was occurring only to hit a blank wall of indifference and disbelief. Sexual abuse and the cover up of the church is legendary. The Archbishop of Santiago eventually apologized for refusing to believe victims once they spread their stories at large and they became news of shocking importance.

Yet knowing that the victims' stories had been substantiated, Pope Francis still chose to believe that the man he named as Bishop, a former Karadima protege, could honourable and in good faith be accepted by the Osorno community as their church authority, in so doing repeating the very routine the church always engaged in when confronted by such abuse. As far as the Osorno controversy was concerned where people refused to consider Bishop Barros as their bishop, Pope Francis spoke of the controversy as "stupid".

This, from a man claiming himself to be dedicated to serving the people, not the classical indulgences of the church hierarchy. "Isn't the pastoral problem that we're living (in Osorno) enough to get rid of him?" asked Juan Carlos Claret, spokesman for a group of Osorno lay Catholics whose three-year campaign against Barros no doubt added to the Pope's rejection of the claims by parishioners that they could not respect an insider who had stood by and done nothing to help stop the abuse.

This is the church establishment which has vowed to do penance for the past, for having accused victims of slandering and attacking the church with unsubstantiated claims. And which Pope Francis set out to reverse, assuring Catholics that the church had much to apologize for and he was the man to assuage the wounds. Instead, he has chosen to open a new wound by the expedience of reverting to the former stance of the church, accusing the accusers.

A "tremendous error" in judgement by the Pope, according to to German Silva, political scientist at Universidad Mayor in Santiago, that will reverberate in Chile and beyond.

Consensual Sex

"After getting sexually assaulted in September, and going through a lot of trouble with the police department, the justice system, and society in general, my abuser was arrested yesterday, on August tenth."
"Let's hope for the best. Perseverance finally came a long way for me, even after I had lost all hopes. Let's all keep fighting together and one day, most cases like mine will find justice."
"Now something is actually being done. I know that I was able to help other women. I had to fight for my rights."
"I said, 'No, this isn't happening.' I said, 'No, I don't want this to happen.' I definitely made it clear. I tried to pull myself away from him. There is no way that it was consensual."
"During the whole situation, I honestly thought that I was going to die because of all the choking, because of all the hitting, because of all the physical abuse."Melodie Morin, 18, University of Ottawa student

Melodie Morin said Ottawa police initially told her the sexual assault she reported in September 2015 had been a "misunderstanding." Nine months later, the suspect was arrested while re-entering Canada via the Ottawa airport earlier this week. (CBC)

When 27-year-old Ayham Aloulabi arrived at Ottawa International Airport on Wednesday, he was immediately arrested. He now has a court date on August 22 to answer to charges of sexual assault and overcoming resistance by attempting to choke. Charges had been laid in December of 2015, and an arrest warrant issued, but by then he had left Canada.

Melodie Morin's experience with police and the justice system left her at her young age fairly disillusioned. When she had gone to police, their attitude was that there was no case, since the man she identified as her attacker, a fellow student, had informed them it was his impression that the sex had been consensual.

A friend began an online petition leading police to continue the investigation. "The conclusions of the investigator may have been premature, as not all investigative avenues have been exhausted", the police explained later.

In September of 2015 Melonie had reported having been sexually assaulted at a venue she had been invited to, as a birthday celebration. She said she had been choked, raped and spat upon. After that violent assault she described her attacker as behaving as though nothing unusual or untoward had occurred. He even courteously walked her home.

Once there, she called police, who took her to hospital, where she underwent a rape-kit test, and had the bruises she had suffered documented. A month later, she was informed by police that the case was closed. No explanation at that point how the bruises were occasioned when her attacker informed police that he had been under the impression that sex was consensual.

Justice served, better late than never?

Strange Version of Justice

"[Larry Takahashi's sexual fantasies] no longer lead to deviant thinking. [He has expressed an] understanding of the impact [his] crimes had on [his] victims."
"You admitted to having more victims than those in the crimes for which you were convicted."
"You said it was possible that you had other victims whose charges against you were stayed or that you were not charged with."
"You are capable of extreme violence [while approving partial release]. You planned and pursued the victims; you were a cold, callous sexual offender with no regard for the plight of the victims."
Parole Board of Canada

Takahashi, shown here in an undated file photo, was sentenced to three life sentences for a series of sexual assaults in Edmonton in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The above is the epitome of a conflicted ruling, making little sense in its conclusion, given the circumstances and observations made in the case of the psychopath whose heinous crimes impacted the lives of dozens upon dozens of victimized women, their families and the wider community shocked and terrorized at the realization of a sociopathic menace in their midst threatening public security

In the late 1970s Edmonton society became aware of a psychopathic threat against the safety of women that extended into the early 1980s, committed by a man wearing a sky mask, earning him the sobriquet of "balaclava rapist". The man was caught and arrested in 1983 and the community learned that Larry Takahashi was an unrepentant sadist whose victims' lives would never be the same again after he had demolished the structure of their existence.

He was charged with 70 horrendous sexual offences committed against 23 victims who included pregnant women and university students. A plea bargain was arranged with Takahashi agreeing to plead guilty to 14 charges; three of rape, six counts of forcible confinement and disguise with intent, and two counts of sexual assault with a weapon, and aggravated sexual assault. Whose official terms vaguely describe the violence and terror he inflicted on his vulnerable victims. 

This conscienceless psychopath was believed by investigating police to have assaulted over 100 women, one of whom miscarried twins after the attack in her apartment building. Another of the assaults he committed was that of a mother whose children were present as their mother was sexually assaulted. His victim-count obviously extended in a wider circle than the women he directed his violence against.

He began his criminal pursuit of violent sex inflicted on women through furtive activities like surveillance and masturbation, graduating over time to sexual assault with a weapon. By the time he was apprehended his last victim was informed by police that had they not taken him into custody when they did, he would have progressed to killing his victims for greater gratification of his sexual pathology.

At the time he was terrifying the public he was a married man with a child, living a normal life by day, transforming himself into a violent sexual predator at night. His final victim was 23 years old and pregnant with twins, when she was followed to her apartment building and attacked by him in a freight elevator. From there he dragged her into a storage room, beating and raping her.

Her abduction seen by a witness, police were called, and when they arrived and knocked on the storage room door, he used his karate black belt experience to knock the officers over and escaped. As he left his karate studio ten days later, police arrested him. He was convicted in 1984 on 14 counts of rape, to three concurrent life terms plus 73 years.

Of that life sentence he has served 30 years and is now 63 years of age.  Back when he had served less than a decade and a half he was eligible for escorted day passes under Canada's justice and parole system. Since then he had been given intermittent escorted day passes which led to years of parole events where he would be sent back to prison after violating release conditions.

Psychiatric assessments of recent vintage describe the man as "selfish, callous and remorseless" and still reporting sexual fantasies about committing his violent rapes, leading the Parole Board of Canada to consider him of moderate-to-high-risk of reoffending He is now once again on day parole even as the Correctional Service of Canada recommended full parole be granted.

Conditions of his release mandate return to a secure facility at night and that he not approach college and university campuses, while abstaining also from drugs, alcohol and computers. Parole Board spokesman Patrick Storey extolled Takahashi's admissions of sexual fantasies as a sign of progress, and his having fulfilled a number of jobs in prison to be to his further credit.

The previous Conservative government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper had designed a "life means life" bill to eliminate precisely this type of routine parole hearing formulation for those convicted of heinous crimes against society. Canada's definition of "life" in prison makes a lie of its very clearly stated punishment meted out in response to dreadful crimes.

In previous trials at reintegration into society for this unrepentant sexual narcissist he repeatedly ran counter to the restrictions placed on his behaviour and exposure to temptation. He used alcohol to excess, repeatedly contacted another convicted sex offender, and contracted for massage from a female therapist in his halfway house, violating release conditions.

And the justice system, each segment at odds with its counterpart, sees fit in the final analysis, to have this monster vacate incarceration for freedom to disport himself as his undisciplined carnal id advises him.

Takahashi, 61, was living a double life as a model citizen with a wife and child during the day, and a rapist by night. He started his crimes by peeping into women’s windows and masturbating, which quickly escalated to breaking into women’s homes and raping them while wearing a balaclava.
Hammermeister was 23 and pregnant with twins when she was attacked in the freight elevator of her Edmonton apartment as she was returning home about 1 a.m. on March 6, 1983.
Takahashi dragged her to a storage room and raped her while hitting her face and head.
A witness called police, and when officers arrived and knocked on the door, Takahashi, a black belt in karate, opened the door, knocked down the officers and fled.
Ten days later, a tactical team arrested Takahashi as he left his karate studio.
Takahashi admitted to attacking 30 women but police believe he could be responsible for more than 100 attacks.
In 1984, Takahashi was convicted on 14 counts of rape, sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated sexual assault and disguise with intent between 1979 and 1983, and sentenced to three concurrent life terms, plus 73 years.
- See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/put-him-back-in-jail-says-victim-of-rapist-larry-takahashi-1.679152#sthash.uaLQPnA6.dpuf

Takahashi, 61, was living a double life as a model citizen with a wife and child during the day, and a rapist by night. He started his crimes by peeping into women’s windows and masturbating, which quickly escalated to breaking into women’s homes and raping them while wearing a balaclava.
Hammermeister was 23 and pregnant with twins when she was attacked in the freight elevator of her Edmonton apartment as she was returning home about 1 a.m. on March 6, 1983.
Takahashi dragged her to a storage room and raped her while hitting her face and head.
A witness called police, and when officers arrived and knocked on the door, Takahashi, a black belt in karate, opened the door, knocked down the officers and fled.
Ten days later, a tactical team arrested Takahashi as he left his karate studio.
Takahashi admitted to attacking 30 women but police believe he could be responsible for more than 100 attacks.
In 1984, Takahashi was convicted on 14 counts of rape, sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated sexual assault and disguise with intent between 1979 and 1983, and sentenced to three concurrent life terms, plus 73 years.
- See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/put-him-back-in-jail-says-victim-of-rapist-larry-takahashi-1.679152#sthash.uaLQPnA6.dpuf

Bestowing The Gift Of His Favours

"Everyday, over a three-year period, Mr. [Jian] Ghomeshi made it clear to me that he could do what he wanted to me and my body. He made it clear that he could humiliate me repeatedly and walk away with impunity."
"When I went to the CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] for help, what I received was a directive that yes, he could do this, and  yes, it was my job to let him. The relentless message to me from my celebrity boss [Ghomeshi] and the national institution [CBC] we worked for were that his whims were more important than my humanity and my dignity."
Kathryn Borel, former CBC producer

Laura Pedersen / National Post    Kathryn Borel, the complainant in the Jian Ghomeshi case, delivers a statement to media after Jian Ghomeshi's court date at Old City Hall in Toronto on Wednesday.

Former immensely popular host of the CBC show Q, Jian Ghomeshi must most certainly have felt that he had escaped the worst that could conceivably happen to him when it was revealed in 2014 that he was a sexual predator, preying on vulnerable women with whom he worked and on other women with whom he had casual relationships, who eventually decided to bring attention to this man's clear contempt for women, leading him to abuse them with impunity.

On May 12, at the Old City Hall courts in downtown Toronto, Mr. Ghomeshi signed a peace bond. Which meant that he was enabled to bypass a civil trial. The criminal trial that had earlier taken place saw him exonerated by Ontario Court Judge Bill Horkins who reached the conclusion that three complainants whose history with Ghomeshi gave rise to an assortment of sexual charges, were not credible. As victims of sex abuse their emotional reactions to what they had experienced seemed illogical to his logical mind.

And so Ghomeshi was found not guilty in the original trial where three different women testified against him, speaking of how he had violently assaulted them. The evidence did not meet the strict demands of a criminal trial to convict an accused; clearly the police and the lawyers involved had performed a less than sterling job of questioning the women, and the women themselves, though their experiences were those of sexual attacks, handled their own testimony poorly.

"In a perfect world, people who commit sexual assault would be convicted for their crimes. Jian Ghomeshi is guilty of having done the things that I've outlined today. So when it was presented to me that the defence would be offering us an apology, I was prepared to forego the trial. It seemed like the clearest path to the truth.    A trial would have maintained his lie, the lie that he was not guilty, and it would have further subjected me to the very same pattern of abuse that I am currently trying to stop", stated his accuser.

In response, Jian Ghomeshi admitted that he "crossed boundaries inappropriately." That "A workplace should not have any sexualized tone. I failed to understand how my works and actions would put a co-worker who was younger than me, and in a junior position to mine, in an uncomfortable place. I did not appreciate the damage that I caused, and I recognize that no workplace friendship or creative environment excuses this sort of behaviour, especially when there is a power imbalance as there was with Ms. Borel", he stated.

Despite being found not guilty in March in the sexual assault trial involving three women, and with the final charge dropped by the Crown, Jian Ghomeshi could still have a difficult time moving forward with his career. (Chris Young/Canadian Press)

He is acknowledging 'inappropriate' behaviour, but certainly not the more damning sexual attacks that had unnerved and frightened and violently wounded the women he preyed upon. Kathryn Borel is made of sterner stuff than the previous complainants, as a highly intelligent, principled and empowered woman who in the final analysis dealt a death blow to the hope that must have arisen in Mr. Ghomeshi's brain at the dismissal of complaints in the previous criminal trial.

His mea culpa was placed by her firm and unequivocal assessment of his character and his actions into the perspective that reflected the reality of how he had conducted himself, his blase entitlement, his belief that there was nothing he could do that should not be accepted as the right of a powerful and valued entertainment personality perpetrating indignities and violence against women helpless to defend themselves in a social and justice structure that is weighted to victimize women.

Canada's Maleficent Psychopath Free To Live Normally

"The fact her children are here ... as a parent, I'm concerned. I feel horrible for her children -- I can't believe she actually had kids -- but they should not be here, or feel welcome."
"If she was out of the country, why come back?"
"A child should not have to pay for a parent's crime, but that's unfortunately what will happen."
Don Selkirk, father of three schoolchildren, Montreal

"Our community is dealing with a difficult situation and many of you have questions and concerns. Please be assured that your children are safe when they are at school."
"It has been confirmed that several parents in our community were approached by a reporter going door to door this past Sunday and asking if people knew that Karla Homolka was living in the area."
"As you know, under Quebec law, all children have the right to privacy and an obligation to be in school. This is why I cannot comment any further or provide any personal information about any family."
school principal Joanne Daviau 

"Like it or not, she has the right to live her life like any other person, without being subject to threats and harassment and being hounded to the point that she seeks refuge in her own home and is afraid to leave."
"I think it behooves the authorities to make a statement just to calm the air and indicate there will be no police action. If anyone needs protection here, it's probably her."
Montreal criminal lawyer Eric Sutton

"The Châteauguay police would like to remind people that it cannot confirm the identity of a person living in the area or not."
"Its mission is to promote peace, order and quality of life of all of its citizens and visitors in the area, in respect with the Canadian and Quebec charters of rights and liberties."
Châteauguay police statement

Since her release from prison, Karla Homolka has spent her life in Quebec and the Carribean. Reports that she's now living in a Quebec town with her family are prompting concerns in the community. (Radio-Canada)

Notoriously repugnant, a woman who willingly enjoyed helping her husband rape, torture and murder young girls, and who sacrificed her own sister to his warped sexual appetite causing her death as well, is now living a secure life as a married woman and mother of several children. She succeeded in making a plea deal with the Crown in exchange for a lighter sentence. That agreement meant that she would point police in the direction of evidence that would incriminate her husband in the suspected crimes.

Video footage was discovered detailing the gruesomely vicious violation of schoolgirls by a man who had before their abduction and torture and eventual murder, been a rapist-at-large. With the reduced sentence guaranteed Karla Homolka, she served eleven years in prison while her husband Paul Bernardo remains in prison. She escaped the full brunt of the penalty for her own horrendous crimes under any social moral code let alone the law, as guilty as he was of those horrible crimes against the humanity of those young women whose families will never stop mourning them.

While the families of  Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French will forever live in the anguish of knowing what their children had suffered, and how they had suffered, Homolka, renaming herself  Leanne Teale, has remarried and had children of her own. And parents of children in the Montreal suburb of Chateauguay, discovering that this dreadful excuse for a human being, a prime accessory in the horrible torment and murder of young girls only slightly older than her oldest child, is able to live a comfortable normal life amongst them in their middle-class setting, sending her children to the Centennial Park Elementary School where their own children attend school, are justifiably horrified.

The community of 47,000 people is understandably reeling over the knowledge that among them lives this pariah, a woman without conscience, born without the normal human compassion that people have for one another. It defies credulity that someone who had taken part willingly and with pleasure in the dreadful sadistic agony inflicted on helpless girls who were kidnapped, taken out of their comfortable existence as children only to be hurled into a living hell, can now be considered to have paid her 'due' to society.

Hers is a debt that no prison sentence can expunge. 

"This is scary. What do you tell your children? You never expect something like that here. It's a calm, collected community."
"I'd like parents to step up and make a stink. I don't think it should be left alone. If it hadn't surfaced, we would have never known. I could have sent my kids there for a birthday party."
"I feel bad for her kids, but I don't deserve to be uncomfortable sending my kids to school. People like that don't deserve second chances."
Alana Syvret, 31, Chateauguay