You know how libertarians often seem like callous ruthless shits? Politico reports:

Three former employees of the famed Cato Institute say they were sexually harassed by Ed Crane, the 73-year-old co-founder and president emeritus of the think tank and one of the most recognizable figures in the libertarian movement.

The invisible hand up the skirt.

One former employee said Crane asked her to take off her bra. Another said he compared her breasts to pornographic images on his computer. A third said he sent her an email on breast augmentation. Crane also settled an additional sexual harassment claim by a former employee in 2012, her lawyer confirmed to POLITICO.

Oh, I beg your pardon, the invisible hand down the … Read the rest

Kelly knew about Rob Porter. He knew and did nothing; he didn’t care. Porter was unable to get a security clearance because of the allegations of violence toward women. The job Porter was doing absolutely requires a security clearance, because the Staff Secretary sees everything – all the security briefings and all the everything. Porter was doing the job without the necessary clearance, which he couldn’t get because his two former wives said he punched them. Oh and also? Hope Hicks was dating him, and she helped write the White House statement about his firing yesterday.

All totally fine, folks, just walk on, keep the sidewalks clear. Today is National Prayer Breakfast day, so Trump duly stood up and told … Read the rest

Let’s have another feel-good story. You can’t have too many in the Age of Trump.

… Read the rest

It was reported last month that the Doomsday Clock has been moved up again.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced today that it has moved its Doomsday Clock to 2 minutes before midnight, citing North Korea’s recent tests of missiles and nuclear weapons and the world’s lack of progress in confronting climate change.

“In 2017, we saw reckless language in the nuclear realm heat up already dangerous situations and relearned that minimizing evidence-based assessments regarding climate and other global challenges does not lead to better public policies,” said Rachel Bronson, the Bulletin’s president and CEO in Chicago, Illinois. Last year the clock moved half a tick, from 3 minutes to 2.5 minutes before midnight; it has been

The Trump administration doesn’t do a great job of vetting the people it hires. Maybe that’s because the Boss Man is such a rancid specimen himself that they want him to have company, or want him not to feel weird and out of step, or have no idea what a decent human being even is? Or maybe it’s because they prefer rancid specimens.

One of them has just quit because of embarrassing revelations.

A senior White House official announced Wednesday he is resigning following allegations by his two ex-wives of physical and emotional abuse.

The official, Rob Porter, served as the staff secretary and often controlled the paper flow to President Trump’s desk, along with his daily schedule. Porter also

Oh, hell.

The contestants — all pledges of Cornell’s Zeta Beta Tau fraternity — called their secret, fat-shaming sex game the “Pig Roast,” according to the Daily Sun, Cornell’s student newspaper.

The rules were simple: Would-be brothers allegedly earned points for having sex with overweight women. If there was a tie at the end of the game, the victory went to whoever had slept with the heaviest woman. New members were told not to inform the women about the contest, according to a university report.

I’m so sick of meanness. If we could just do away with this kind of recreational meanness that would get rid of a lot of utterly pointless misery in the world. … Read the rest

I haven’t been paying attention to SpaceX and I had no idea they were doing this until Maddow showed us last night. I had a hard time believing what I was seeing.

https://youtu.be/u0-pfzKbh2k

Here’s how big they are:

Every time Elon Musk and SpaceX manage to land a used Falcon 9 rocket on one of the company’s two droneships, it’s a huge achievement. It’s pretty easy to see that getting anything into space and then back again is tough, let alone putting a tube-shaped rocket on a droneship the size of a football field in the middle of the ocean, but most of the pictures of SpaceX landings don’t give you a good sense of scale. It’s easy to

Trump as seen from the other side of the pond department: Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian on Trump’s childish/despotic desire for a Big Parade of Guns n Tanks.

He’d been nagging the generals about this for a while but, according to the Washington Post, he gave the order at a meeting at the Pentagon last month.

No need for us to deconstruct the motive behind this instruction. It came after Trump was the guest at France’s Bastille Day parade, where he stood at Emmanuel Macron’s side and watched tanks, gun trucks and column after column of starchly uniformed soldiers. “We’re going to have to try and top it,” Trump said afterwards. (The actual order to military chiefs

More from the Daily Mash:

Women tell everyone to just fuck off

H/t Stewart… Read the rest

How not to sexually harass.

… Read the rest

Quentin Tarentino explained what rape is and what it isn’t.

That Tarantino’s apologia is disingenuous in the era of #MeToo could come as a surprise if you’re unfamiliar with the director’s love of depicting women having the shit kicked out of them on camera or if you’re unfamiliar with interviews he’s done in the past. Like, for example, this 2003 Howard Stern interview submitted to us by a reader in which he adamantly defends Roman Polanski’s sexual assault of a 13-year-old in 1977.

Asked by Stern why Hollywood embraces “this mad man, this director who raped a 13-year-old,” Tarantino replied:

“He didn’t rape a 13-year-old. It was statutory rape…he had sex with a minor. That’s not rape. To me, when

Oh, oops, it turns out that the teacher who was “pleasantly surprised” by the extra $1.50 a week…

…wasn’t.

So uh, @CBSNews tracked down the secretary who got the $1.50 @SpeakerRyan was so excited about and she doesn't seem super thrilled. pic.twitter.com/qZsIyJol07

— Tim Hogan (@timjhogan) February 5, 2018

… Read the rest

Now Trump is saying it’s “treason” to refrain from applauding when he speaks.

President Trump on Monday accused Democrats who did not clap during his State of the Union address of being un-American and even treasonous. His remarks came in a rambling, discursive speech at a factory in Ohio, during which he celebrated his revival of the American economy as the stock market plummeted by more than 1,000 points.

“Can we call that treason?” Mr. Trump said of the stone-faced reaction of Democrats to his speech. “Why not? I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”

Stupid pile of hamburger and polyester. Despising Donald Trump is not at all the same thing as not loving … Read the rest