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Lostinabook

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Posts posted by Lostinabook

    Larry Nassar

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    This judge had just spent SEVEN DAYS listening to 156 victims explain, in graphic detail, what this monster did to them and how it destroyed their lives, while the whiny little shit dismissed their testimony as "women scorned" and complained that it was mean to make him listen. Anyone who could sit and listen to those girls testify, day after day, in tears, describing the irreparable harm that was done to them, and not be filled with utter disgust and contempt for this evil SOB, would not be human. So the judge is human. She expressed what most humans probably feel about Nassar, and then she sentenced him according to the law. She did her job. I don't think she owes anyone an apology, let alone a resignation.

     

     

    And she *LISTENED* She didn't just mark them off and hurry on to the next person; she responded personally after each statement. She was willing to enter into each of their stories as much as possible during the few minutes that they spoke. 

    • Like 18

    Larry Nassar

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    But you know who should be unbenched, since he did allow his personal feelings about the case to determine the sentence for a rapist? Judge Aaron Persky, who thought that prison was way too harsh a punishment for a nice rich white boy (and fellow Stanford athlete), just for raping an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. He was a nice boy who made one little mistake, and so he got 3 months in county jail instead. He even used the victim's own statement against her, quoting the phrase "the damage is done" to bolster his belief that sending Brock to prison wouldn't really accomplish anything.

     

    I wish I could like this a million times.

    • Like 7

    Larry Nassar

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    And The Lansing State Journal has just posted an article with the statement Amanda Thomashow (she reported the assault but was informed that she simply didn't get the difference between assault and treatment) received from MSU vs. the one that MSU circulated internally. Ugh.

    • Like 6

    Larry Nassar

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    I watched live from the beginning of Rachael Denhollander's statement to the end of the judge's statement, & I didn't remember her saying that she wished that she could give Nassar an unconstitutional punishment, so I found and searched a transcript of her remarks. She didn't. On January 16 she said, "Our Constitution does not allow for cruel and unusual punishment. If it did, I have to say, I might allow what he did to all of these beautiful souls -- these young women in their childhood -- I would allow someone or many people to do to him what he did to others", but I thought she was directly responding to a victim impact statement? I could be wrong about that though--I couldn't find a source that placed the statement specifically. I still don't get the outrage. If she said that during a trial, then that would be inappropriate, but he'd already entered a guilty plea and as far as I can tell, it's not weird for judges to get very personal during sentencing.

     

    I find it bizarre that people (in general, not specifically this forum) are griping about a judge having too much empathy for the victims, having too much of a connection with them, being too supportive of their pain, providing them with too much encouragement as each woman ended her statement. We live in a country where judges will disregard abused/assaulted women/children during sentencing, where judges will victim blame during sentencing, where judges will coddle the convicted perpetrator during sentencing. 

    • Like 14

    Larry Nassar

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    I think the make-up of the organization put them at risk. The greed and pride of the people in charge, looking to say how great their organization is or how much prestige, publicity, and honor could they gain from their girls.

     

    The refusal to accept, look into, or otherwise acknowledge much less address anything that might derail their grandeur. It's the same attitude that allowed the atrocities to continue at Penn State. 

     

    Aly Raisman here:  “I have represented the USA in two Olympics and have done so successfully,†Raisman said. “And both USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee have been very quick to capitalize and celebrate my success, but did they reach out when I came forward?  â€œNo,†and then she paused."

    • Like 8

    Larry Nassar

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    I'm with Celia. Frankly, after listening to the judge read the letter Nassar wrote (and apparently what she read were the least offensive bits) I thought she showed great restraint.

     

    Back to the original topic, here's an article from the Lansing State Journal re: how Nassar avoided charges in 2014 and how much work and prep Rachael Denhollander had to do in order to confidently present her case.

     

     

    • Like 7

    Larry Nassar

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    Thank you for connecting the dots. I didn't realize Ms. Smith was in the courtroom and that Ms. Denhollander was addressing her in person. 

     

     

    She wasn't. Her minions protested on her behalf. As they did the day before when another survivor called her out.

    • Like 1

    Larry Nassar

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    Couple of links:

     

    Here's Rachel Denhollander speaking a month ago--much of it about USAG.

     

    Here's an article which addresses some of the reasons why it took so long to stop Nassar. There are also links to many previous articles.

     

    some of the girls said he abused them with other people in the room.

     

    Yep. He'd hold his body so that the parent couldn't see what he was doing. In at least one instance when a girl complained to authorities (can't remember if it was police or coaches?), she was told she didn't understand the subtle differences between abuse and treatment.

    • Like 3

    Larry Nassar

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    Oh, and if you listen to all the closing statements, the prosecutor talked about how there are *still* people in the community who think he's innocent, who think he was set up re: the child porn charges. The judge's closing statement was super long, but you should at least listen to the excerpts she read from Nassar's letter.  They are appalling and in direct opposition to the assurances from his attorney that "Larry feels sorry for what he's done" and to Nassar's "apology"/statement.

    • Like 4

    Larry Nassar

    in The Chat Board

    Posted · Edited by Lostinabook

    Rachael Denhollander's victim impact statement. She is a lawyer and sounds almost prosecutorial as she goes through why this went on for so long. She excoriates MSU.

     

    edited to add link to the statement

    • Like 9

    Looking for warm, super comfy sweatshirts/hoodies for the colder months! Recommendations?

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    I wore the same 2 sweatshirts that I got from a thrift store last winter and I'm pretty sure all of Northeast Ohio thinks I don't wash or change my clothes.  So I need some recs for warm sweatshirts/hoodies that are maybe a little cute, too?  That may be a stretch; I just need a bigger selection and our house gets COLD!

     

    Thank you!   :)

     

    I have a micro-grid hoodie from Melanzana that I *love*, but they're not cheap, and I have no idea how shipping works since I bought it in the store. It's so nice though because it's not boxy, and it's thin & warm!

    Will you cry in awe?

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    I kept hearing about how amazing totality was, and I expected it to be cool, but it was unbelievable. I don't know why, but it was an overwhelmingly moving experience and I did tear up which I *never* would have expected. At all. Even my stoic dh and dd were stunned by how magnificent totality was (although not to the point of choking up--they still think that's silly).

    • Like 2

    Why is the search on this board SO BAD??

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    Plus, what are they going to install that's a better search engine than Google?

     

    When the search engine here worked well you could search for words in the title only, the thread author and the specific board. For instance, I knew that a particular poster had started a thread about coffee. Later I wanted to know what processes had been recommended, so I looked up that specific thread and got it. Doesn't work any more. So...it provided a much narrower search AND sorting by date. With google you just get a mess of posts, many times with duplicates.  Again, it wouldn't frustrate me nearly so much if the search engine here hadn't once been amazing.

    Opioid State Of Emergency

    in The Chat Board

    Posted

    The current situation with Opioids in  the USA is critical, because of the huge numbers of people involved and many as you wrote are dying.  And, it seems to be very  different, because many of the people involved apparently began using the Opiods for legitimate reasons, after an injury or surgery.  Not simply because they wanted to get "high" on some drug(s). 

     

    Sam Quinones talks about this in his book Dreamland. It's been a couple of years since I read it, but iirc, he basically puts the blame for the black tar heroin epidemic at the feet of the executives at the drug company which produces Oxycontin.They trained their salespeople to tell doctors that oxy was non-addictive and could be used as much as the patient desired. Many of those patients then ended up addicted and when insurance quit paying for the scrips switched to black tar heroin. 

    • Like 1
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