Well, some important news surfaced Thursday, and then some commentary that would be useful at this moment. First, while the “full” Amber Heard interview on NBC’s Dateline—a show I tend to skip since it always seems to have a white female-as-victim angle to it—is to be aired in prime time Friday, its impact has already been diluted, dissected and rendered irrelevant by today’s revelations. It is still “teasing” evidence not seen in the U.S. trial—including therapist notes that were excluded for being hearsay, meaning that they were "she said" accusations not subject to rebuttal, and given Dr. Shannon Curry's diagnosis of "histrionic personality disorder," Heard's claims here should similarly be subject to doubt.
As an update, it has been revealed that these therapist notes were written years after the alleged incidents, and were in fact reviewed by Dawn Hughes for her testimony, even though, as Dr. Curry noted, such "evidence" was inherently unreliable, since it was untestable.
Besides her claims in which she seemed to be mixing and matching different stories (like the one where she claims Depp hit her in the face, and then she "turned around" to confront him, which was the subject of comic attention on social media), but the suspicion is that other than outright lying--which a narcissist for whom it is "everyone else's" fault but their own, is apt to do because once they start on that road, they can't get off of it--Heard is "reinterpreting" incidents from her youth or "borrowing" someone else's story, like her former personal assistant accused her of doing.
There will probably
be more of the same images that were likely doctored, like that “vanity light”
image that a photo expert on YouTube demonstrated was manipulated to look more “red”
simply by increasing the contrast by 55 percent—but the damage of previous excerpts as noted yesterday to Heard's "reputation" has already been done. Furthermore, if NBC wants to be "fair," it can air a major piece of evidence that was also excluded—the
Australia audio that appears to prove Johnny Depp's version of events in regard to the
finger-tip episode. Or the actual audio from the court hearing in 2009 in regard to Heard's arrest for IPV at Sea-Tac Airport, which Heard denied happened.
Of course it is unfortunate that NBC is giving Heard a platform to continue to defame Depp without giving his team an opportunity to "cross examine" Heard on claims already determined to be largely lies by the jury; it is suspected that Heard is being paid $1 million for her "exclusive" story. That is the ethical question here, not whether Savannah Guthrie has a "conflict of interest" because her husband did work for the Depp legal team; what people seem to be really whining about is that it is "unfair" to Heard to ask her "hard" questions and make her stumble like we'd expect someone who can't keep their lies straight.
While most women who have been abused hear their abuser in Heard's voice on those audio clips, those who choose to hear themselves in Heard on those same audio clips are probably self-deceiving abusers themselves. On the audio where we hear Depp beseeching Heard to take a "breather" like boxers in a ring between rounds, instead of chasing him all over the house like she did in Australia, pounding on the door until he relented, only to try to escape to another room when she plainly wasn't looking for a positive resolution (the classic "feeling good about feeling bad" syndrome), we hear Depp finally just giving up and allowing Heard to rant and rave on and on for no apparent reason. Heard was acting like her abusive father, and was completely insensitive to the abuse that Depp had endured as a child and she was subjecting to him again.
Note also that there has been little interest in why Heard's driver's license was suspended for four years dating from when she was a teenager; one of her friends was killed in a car accident at the time of that suspension, but because she was technically a "juvenile," her arrest record (there is a mugshot of her from 2003) is under seal, so we are not allowed to know what the truth is. You can determine if this guy's report on the matter is credible or not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK2WVrQmhY8
Now there is more bad news for Heard: that a confirmed juror came forward on Thursday to speak to ABC’s Good Morning America to directly contradict the defamatory claims against the jury that Heard and her attorney have been confidently asserting. The jurors in fact mostly ignored the witness testimony from “paid experts” and “friends,” purposely paid no attention to social media, and were unmoved by Depp’s “fame.”
What they did respond to was the evidence and the credibility of the principals. They believed that it was highly probable that the images presented by Heard as evidence of abuse were manipulated. They saw that most of the drugs Depp was accused of abusing were “downers” and were not likely to induce violent behavior—in fact the photos of him taken by Heard passed-out only proved that. They found it hypocritical for Heard to complain about Depp’s drug use when she was not helping him by abusing drugs herself in his presence.
They were angered by Heard’s insistence on lying about the donations, calling it a "fiasco"; in fact this is much more sinister than people realize about the evil way Heard's mind works. She admitted on the stand that she didn't want Depp to donate the money in her name because she didn't want him to write it off for tax purposes--meaning she wanted to inflict more financial pain on him. But it really was much worse than that: she always intended on keeping that $7 million for herself--with Depp having already paid the taxes on it.
The jurors were also put off by Heard’s performance on the stand, her “crocodile tears” one moment and being “ice cold” the next—she was simply not credible and her stories didn’t “add up.” Depp was “stable” and thus was seen as more “credible.” In the end, while the jurors believed that both were abusive in the relationship, Heard was believed to be the principle abuser, and the claims of physical and sexual abuse made in the op-ed and on the stand were either contradicted or unproven by the evidence presented. This particular juror stated that he did not believe Depp purposely physically abused Heard at all in any way.
So, I hope we could say we are done with the Depp case, but that is unlikely since Heard, like all narcissists, has to get in the last word even if it’s a lie; since she won’t stop defaming Depp, she has to be punished somehow, and for now that is to force her to pay the damages against her, since she is behaving as if she is convinced she won’t ever have to. Meanwhile, Warner appears to insist on keeping Heard in Aquaman 2 after firing Depp from the Fantastic Beasts franchise because of Heard’s allegations; we are told that Warner is more fearful of a backlash from MeToo activists if they remove Heard from the film than they are of the appearance of hypocrisy and injustice. There is, however, a movement afoot for a mass boycott of Aquaman when it finally shows up in theaters next year if Heard is still in the final cut.
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But as mentioned yesterday when I talked about this continuing circus, this country faces other pressing moral and ethical conundrums. Despite all the sanctions against Russia and the weaponry provided to Ukraine, the Russian invasion of Ukraine doesn’t seem any closer to resolution than it did three months ago. Pro-Putin media commentators and politicians are becoming more belligerent, threatening nuclear war, and threatening invasion of the post-Warsaw Pact countries that have joined NATO.
Vladimir Putin is clearly a man who is demented, and like with Donald Trump, there are many demented people who will follow him like flies to a dung pile. The problem I see is how long Americans can keep this all up without feeling too far put upon for the sake of a country far, far away. Europeans are less sanguine about this, since Russia is right on their doorstep, but one suspects that many are wondering when this is ever going to end, and when it does, will Ukraine actually survive, and if not, was it worth it?
And things could
get worse: Chinese dictator Xi Jinping is now “directing” the Chinese military
to “prepare” for “special military operations”—essentially the same wording
that Putin continues to use in reference to his invasion of Ukraine. Is the
next “special operation” the West will face to be an imminent Chinese invasion
of Taiwan? How will the West respond when it is already facing economic pressure from its support of Ukraine?
In most "normal" people’s minds it doesn’t make sense why Russia and China are doing these things. China doesn’t “need” Taiwan, yet the delusional Xi seems to believe that it is “essential” for his own “legacy” and China’s complete control of the western Pacific and its resources. The only reason Ukraine is a “threat” to Russia is because Putin needs it to be one, in order to concoct a rationalization to deny its sovereignty and “restore” it to the former Russian Empire. How can you deal with such people who are not like “you and me” and do not respond to painful stimuli (like sanctions) like the rest of us? Putin and Xi are essentially immune from the pain their own people either are suffering or will suffer, so they simply will continue fighting to the bitter end.
But will the U.S. and the West fight to the “bitter end” to uphold democratic principles even in a European state? I somehow doubt it, and for one reason here is that while some Republicans in the U.S. Senate support continuing sanctions and military assistance, most (especially in the House) are weaponizing its peripheral effects—particularly inflation and higher gas prices—for political gain, without actually saying they oppose sanctions for fear of being on the wrong side of history. Nevertheless, many people won’t make the distinction between the moral question and the appeal to self-interest, which many Republicans are doing for partisan politics.
In the past, the resolution to this moral conundrum would have been for the U.S. and NATO to take direct military action, either sending in troops, or more likely conducting a massive air campaign in Ukraine like it did in Serbia. But given Putin’s mental state, the threat of nuclear war apparently cannot be ruled out. The question is will Putin be “satisfied” with taking eastern Ukraine, or will he simply be emboldened to take over the rest of the country, and from there the Baltic States? Will the West come to the conclusion that it did what it could for Ukraine and it can’t do more? But what then of NATO countries that Russian politicians are now threatening with invasion? Wouldn’t it be “better” to keep Russian forces occupied in Ukraine where it will drain away its military resources and money?
As I said, there is a real possibility that we may soon see the limit to how much “pain” Americans and the West are willing to accept, even if it is far less than what people in the Ukraine are suffering (or perhaps even in Russia under the sanctions). For Ukraine to survive it needs more sophisticated weaponry for many more months to come, and increasing sanctions on Russia. I would say at the moment that other than high gas prices, the “pain” is not yet too great to bear, even the inflation, to just halt the sanctions policy for now; the greater question is political cynicism on the part of those who want to make a partisan issue of those peripheral issues.
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