Johnny Depp will likely have to learn the same lesson again; in this society it doesn't matter what she did, only what is alleged that he did

 

Accompanying a story yesterday about the draft of a potential overturning of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court was a photograph that included a woman holding a sign that said “The Endless War Against Women.” Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and everyone’s “got one.” Of course it is also possible for men to wonder when the “endless war” against them is going to end, when anyone can be ridiculed or libeled by some anonymous woman out for “revenge” on #MeToo or some other social media format.

Thus when actress Amber Heard was allowed to publish an op-ed accusing Johnny Depp on the pages of the Washington Post of domestic abuse, Depp decided that he would engage in his own “war” against what he believed (and believes) is Heard’s hypocritical attempt to negate the truth. Depp’s defamation case against Heard is currently in court; I’ve talked about the issues here 1 and here 2,  and Heard is a difficult person to feel any sympathy for, and appears to be the real villain in their brief marriage. Heard reportedly married Depp because she was basically full of herself and saw him as a “trophy husband” and not a human being.

Why Heard wrote the op-ed claiming to be the victim of domestic violence is clear enough. She was no doubt aware of the whisperings by Depp’s friends and others who witnessed Heard’s violent and abusive behavior toward him, and wanted her “story” out there; of course with all the gender politicking in the media, the Post decided to publish it without bothering to check if Heard’s claims of “victimhood” were credible; I mean, women never lie, right?—just ask Sherri “Gone Girl” Papini.

Heard does have a history, or at least one where she couldn’t hide or lie about. She was arrested in 2009 by police at SeaTac Airport, when she was observed physically assaulting a woman who turned out to be her “partner”—yes, Heard admits to being “bisexual,” and she apparently thinks of herself as the “butch” partner in a relationship, and presumably plays the part. Her “partner” did not press charges, and has claimed since that Heard was only arrested because of “homophobia.”

Yes, Depp unknowingly married a woman who not only had a history of violent and abusive behavior, but perhaps was not really into men anyways. One suspects that if Heard was violent toward her female partners, what would stop her from being violent against a man if she thought it was “normal” behavior? It is interesting to note that Heard has a problem with maintaining relationships, likely because of her psychological “issues,” which will be mentioned later, while Depp’s other former domestic partners have testified that he was never physically abusive toward them.

To summarize what I wrote about in the above links, it was revealed in audio recordings with a therapist, as reported by The Daily Mail, that Heard was incapable of recognizing the pain caused Depp because of her abusive behavior and apparently uncontrollable violent impulses. When Depp is heard to say he has to get out of the same room when Heard becomes “manic and angry” and starts throwing “pots and whatever,” she claims that it is “irrelevant” and this doesn’t show “respect” for her. Depp asks her why he “should just let you throw” objects at him, which she again tries to brush off, leading Depp to exclaim that her behavior is “fucking irrational and violent.” Addressing Heard’s anger that Depp is trying to avoid her, he says “So a man would want to get out of that area so that he doesn't get so fucking angry that he actually does pop the fucking wife.”

 

After Depp accused her of punching him in the face and then lying about it, Heard claimed that she just “hit” him; it is only “punching” if she had “fucking decked you,” so he was “fine.” Depp is then heard telling her if their arguments get so bad they need to go into their own corners so it doesn’t escalate into violence—suggesting that it is Heard who wants these confrontations—but Heard asserts that this is “disrespectful” to her, apparently because she needs a victim to work off her aggression, like kicking a dog. When Depp says he needs to get away from her and “de-jellify my fucking brain,” Heard claims that she “can’t promise” she won’t get “physical again” and in a rare moment of self-reflection says “God I fucking sometimes get so mad I lose it.”

Depp has denied any and all abuse claims being made by Heard, and blames their toxic relationship for causing his substance abuse, and it should again be pointed out that the women in Depp’s previous relationships have testified that Depp was not abusive toward them—apparently because they were “normal.” A private nurse who worked with Heard testified that she suffers from “bipolar disorder”; The Psychiatric Times notes that people with the disorder are “at significantly increased risk for violence” and “Bipolar patients are prone to agitation that can result in impulsive aggression during manic and mixed episodes.” Thus Heard’s claims of alleged abuse from her father can be interpreted another way: frustration at her bad behavior because of her probably undiagnosed psychological disorder.

An expert witness for Depp who examined Heard described her as having uncontrollable "rage and hostility" and had "borderline" disorder, but does that matter; Depp may think “right” is on his side, but in this gender victim obsessed society, he is definitely on the wrong side of it. But it is a fair question to ask why this has to be a lose-lose situation for Depp (or men in general) when it is clear that Heard has significant psychological and behavioral issues that she has managed to mostly keep from public scrutiny. Even if by odd chance Depp wins his case, it will be reported as how women continue to be “victimized,” and there will be no examination of violence by women, rather than the continued focus always on them being the only victims. In this society, women can kill a man and claim it was self-defense against an abuser and people are programmed to believe that without question; but if a man merely lifts a hand to counter a blow against an abusive woman, she is still the “victim.”

Depp did suffer significant harm to his career from Heard’s self-serving op-ed; the last major project he appeared in was the 2017 Pirates of the Caribbean film. In an effort to jumpstart his career, Depp filed a libel case against a British tabloid, but lost the case because it doesn’t matter what she did, only what he allegedly did. Only women are allowed the privilege of self-defense against an abuser. Unfortunately, most people assume the current case in a Virginia court won’t turn out any better for him, and Howard Stern (among others) has stated that it wasn’t a good idea to bring this case to begin with.

After all, Heard knows her audience, as she asserted during one of those “therapy” sessions: “Do you know I'm a 115, well not anymore, but I was a 115lb, almost 115lb woman,” and then in a mocking tone  “You're going to get up on the stand, Johnny, and say, she started it? Really? You can please tell people that it was a fair fight, and see what the jury and judge thinks. Tell the world Johnny, tell them Johnny Depp, I Johnny Depp, a man, I'm a victim too of domestic violence."

After a parade of witnesses who testified to her abusive behavior, Heard’s first defense witness was one of those “experts” in abused women syndrome, meaning someone with a political agenda who will believe anything they are told if it fits their preconceived notions about gender victimization; on cross-examination, her clear bias against men was brutally exposed. Interestingly, the most newsworthy claims of “abuse” to come out of that testimony was something about oral or vaginal-stimulated sex; isn’t “fingering” one of the ways lesbians have “hot sex” in the movies and cable TV series?

Heard--whose demeanor and body language at her attorney's table was the very picture of arrogance at the very least--has taken the stand and of course she played the emotional “victim” because that is what her lawyers told her to do to gain sympathy with the jury; many people have observed her poor acting skills, "crying" without shedding any actual tears, a sure sign of phoniness. 

Naturally she is only going to willingly talk about Depp’s alleged behavior and not her own; that will come during cross examination; Depp's lawyers have thus far been successful at exposing the many holes in the defense case, and one suspects that Heard's true character will also be exposed, especially by audio evidence that clearly shows that she lied on the stand. We are likely to see this version of Heard (1)...

 

...who during a 2016 deposition repeatedly lied, denied and evaded the question of her previous arrest for domestic violence against her female "wife," even refusing (with the help of a really annoying attorney) to admit that she spent a night in jail; Heard's behavior during the deposition has to be seen to be believed, and is clearly indicative of her true character.

Heard is claiming that Depp “changed” over time; Depp’s lawyers should point to the testimony of his long-time Hispanic housemaid, who after the poop-on-the-bed episode, claimed to often hearing Heard “yell at Mr. Depp and at other people” and that “She has a bad temper in my opinion, and I did not want her to yell at me…in the over 30 years I have worked for Mr. Depp, I have never seen Mr. Depp be physical with or yell at anyone.” Here, a criminal body language expert probes Heard's demeanor and comes to the conclusion that Heard is making largely false statements (2) while this criminal attorney is also sees a certain "fakeness" and incomprehensibility in her testimony (3).

But the “defense” of abusers like Heard is that because they are women, the abuse they commit isn’t relevant; that certainly is the line that the gender-biased mainstream media is feeding the public. But that is wrong: “size” is less important than the will and intent to act violently; yet society allows abusive women like Heard to believe that it will look the other way, that it is just part of their “nature,” like a mosquito buzzing around your head; besides, it’s just a “little” thing, and you have to “hope” it will go away. But you know it won’t go away, and if you don’t do something to stop it, it is going to drain your blood and possibly leave a disease inside of you.

Right-wing “Christianity” is fundamentally no different than Islamic extremism

 

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently hearing a case involving the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy. Even the court’s most extreme-right justices are “confused” about Trump-anointed Texas Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s justification for denying the Biden administration its right to rescind the policy, although it should be noted that the right-wing of the Court still allowed Kacsmaryk’s illegal ruling to stand, forcing the Biden administration to continue to enforce the policy.

Kacsmaryk’s “reading” of the 1996 immigration law—another example of how the Clinton administration “worked” with the far-right of the Republican Party to pass “reform” laws, some of them which had disastrous consequences, like the financial “modernization” law—is clearly incorrect. In the Biden vs. Texas case, Kacsmaryk claimed that in regard to Spanish-speaking asylum seekers, there are only two options: mandatory detention; or return to a contiguous territory.

The 1996 immigration law makes no such claim, but Kacsmaryk argued that every administration has been in “violation” of the law since it was passed. It should come as no surprise that he is regarded as one of the extreme of the extreme-right judges nominated by Trump and confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate. Although originally under criticism for his opposition to gay rights, his extremism apparently goes far beyond that; his apparent lack of empathy for the plight of asylum seekers and the violence they are trying to escape seems distinctly “unchristian,” although to be “fair” much of this country acts “unchristian” as well. What is in the hearts of people who think in terms of "vermin" and "criminals" and not "human beings"? 

Perhaps somewhat not surprisingly Kacsmaryk was also a member of the Christian advocacy group First Liberty Institute, which is behind a case supposedly about the right of a former high school football coach in Bremerton, WA to “pray in private” when in fact it is about coercing student athletes to join him in prayer in a public forum (the football field) whether they want to or not.  Given the fact that right-wing “Christians” are so big on their “freedom,” it’s a wonder that people like this coach—Joseph Kennedy—didn’t respect the freedom of his players, instead applying  pressure  on them to do as he did, or they might be punished by falling down the depth chart.

Of course that old standby of right-wing “morality”—“pro-life—seems to be moving closer to fruition as we learn from a curiously released draft of a potential majority U.S. Supreme Court ruling that essentially claims that there is no Constitutional “right” to an abortion, and that states have every “constitutional” right to restrict or ban them outright. Now, I don’t think much of the “moral” arguments of the pro-abortion side (especially those enunciated by the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger), but I don’t think much of the hypocrisy of so-called “Christians” who think nothing of the lives of people trying to escape the violence whose ultimate source is the weaknesses and greed of Americans.

Evangelical Christianity tends to make a lot of noise, and for many pastors it is a get-rich-quick scheme, especially if they make it on television. In an article in The Atlantic last year by Peter Wehner, it was observed how Trumpism infected the evangelical movement: “The aggressive, disruptive, and unforgiving mindset that characterizes so much of our politics has found a home in many American churches” and that

The root of the discord lies in the fact that many Christians have embraced the worst aspects of our culture and our politics. When the Christian faith is politicized, churches become repositories not of grace but of grievances, places where tribal identities are reinforced, where fears are nurtured, and where aggression and nastiness are sacralized. The result is not only wounding the nation; it’s having a devastating impact on the Christian faith.

Ministers and pastors who are not sufficiently conservative to their “flock” can find themselves out of a job in their own churches, especially when churches have—similar to Iran’s Guardian Council—extremist, politicized “elders” who oppose “liberal” or “social justice” messages—as if this isn’t the “message” they think Jesus left them in the New Testament.

Meanwhile, Franklin Graham (the son of Billy Graham) recently made headlines when he asked the world to “pray” for his “friend,” Vlad the Impaler:

 

Graham predictably came under fire when it was clear that this “prayer” wasn’t that Putin should go straight to Hell where he belongs. Graham also has made “nice” with the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kirill, who like Putin has delusions of grandeur, and apparently desires the subjugation of Ukraine, since Kyiv is regarded as the "spiritual" capitol of Russia, dating from the time it was the center of Vladimir the Great's empire, who first "chose" the Greek Orthodox Church as the religion his people were to be converted to around 1000 AD.

Thus as reported by Rolling Stone, hours before Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, “Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, head of the Russian Orthodox Church,” gave his blessing to the invasion, and “spoke to military leaders and published a statement in honor of Defender of the Fatherland Day. The cleric congratulated Putin for his ‘high and responsible service to the people of Russia,’ declared the Russian Orthodox Church has ‘always striven to make a significant contribution to the patriotic education of compatriots,” and lauded military service as “an active manifestation of evangelical love for neighbors.”

In reality we are told that Russia—perhaps not surprisingly—is the “epicenter” of far-right Christian fundamentalism in the world today. If Putin regards himself as a “Christian” that’s probably enough to discredit the faith in Russia; of course in the U.S. any “Christian” who swears by someone as immoral, unethical and corrupt as Donald Trump isn’t saying much about themselves. There is a reason why the Constitution has at least implied the need for separation of church and state: it keeps “Christians” from exposing themselves as immoral hypocrites, forever engulfed in “culture wars” that have little to do with religion but white nationalist politics.

In a 2018 article “Holy Hate: The Far-Right’s Radicalization of Religion,” the SPL Center noted that while many academics and media types have been fixated on radical Islam, “Few have discussed how right-wing extremism exploits Christianity and the Bible to radicalize and mobilize its violent adherents toward criminality and terrorism. Much like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, violent right-wing extremists—who refer to themselves as “Soldiers of Odin,” “Phineas Priests,” or “Holy Warriors”—are also inspired by religious concepts and scriptural interpretations to lash out and kill in the name of religion. Yet very little is said or written about such a connection.”

We can go back to the 1930s  when “radio priest” Father Charles Coughlin mesmerized 30 million listeners during his “sermons”—compared to Tucker Carlson’s typical audience of 3 million—spewing fascist hate in the name of “religion.” The neo-Nazi “religious” group Christian Identity sold “pure white” supremacy and virulent anti-Semitism as well as violence and murder against unbelievers of the “faith.” In the past few years, “völkisch” movements based on Nordic mythology, militia groups and other extremists like Sovereign Citizens have used “religion” and misinterpretation of Bible passages be their “guide” in justifying unlawful and violent behavior, having convinced themselves that Trump is the new “messiah.”

Of course many religious leaders have expressed concern about the damage the religious right is doing to the credibility of religion as a whole. Some even have liberal philosophies and are concerned about social justice, which they believe reflects the will of God and the teachings of Jesus far more than the preaching of hate and divisiveness from the far-right. If there is a God, would that entity really see any light in the darkness of the hearts of far-right “Christians” who make mock of the very concept? For some strange reason, I doubt it.

Somebody is going to have to "pay" for Putin's screw-ups

 

As people should know by now, anything that comes out of Vladimir Putin’s mouth is strictly for domestic consumption, and that all everyone else can do is wonder if this guy just has total contempt for what other countries and their people are seeing and hearing, or is a pathological liar who is so paranoid that he actually believes the things he says. Even Fox News’ Tucker Carlson can’t “help” him much anymore, except to make insipid claims like the “real victims” of Russia’s invasion are not Ukrainians, but Americans—which I suppose he means by price increases which he of course knows all about with his $35 million-a-year salary spouting nonsense and sewage.

The latest lie was that Putin had ordered his troops to stop attacks on the steel factory in Mariupol, and that the remaining Ukrainian resistance was going to be “starved out.” Well of course that didn’t happen, as Russian forces merely continued to bombard the plant with missile and rocket fire. It is now being reported that civilian evacuations are being permitted, but we will see how long that lasts, given Putin’s previous claim that Russian forces were going to concentrate their attacks on the Donbas region and halt further attacks elsewhere, which turned out to be not exactly true either.

Russian attacks in the Donbas, aided by Russian-backed separatists, isn’t merely a tit-for-tat reach for territory; the Donbas is where most of Ukraine’s heavy industry is located, so Russia’s attempt to absorb the region is an effort to emasculate the country. Putin also apparently hopes to capture the port city of Odessa in the south, which will essentially totally cut off Ukraine from the sea and make it even more vulnerable to Russian predations. Although NATO membership seems off the table for Ukraine, and EU membership is opposed by Austria, elsewhere Finland and Sweden have expressed interest in joining NATO, which certainly wasn’t part of the “plan.” If this occurs, it will be another strategic blunder by Putin. That is what happens when you lie and lie and lie until the concept of “trust” simply has no meaning, and nobody but other countries that also lie and can’t be trusted (say, China) are your only “friends.”

In the meantime, NATO countries have managed to avoid sending in their own troops into Ukraine, which is a fair trade-off for a few cents more on consumer products, which was already happening anyways because of the end of pandemic lockdowns and people having money to spend and not enough product available to spend it on. What we are seeing in the fighting is that Russian military planners learned the wrong lessons from their previous adventures in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria. Last month Griff Witte in the Washington Post noted that as in Afghanistan, in Ukraine the Russians underestimated the opposition and overestimated their own capabilities:

The invading troops met fierce resistance from outgunned fighters defending their homeland. International allies, including the United States, rushed to aid the underdogs. And a war that Moscow had seen as a chance to show off its might became instead a bloody and embarrassing display of weakness.

The U.S. didn’t do much better in over twice the number of years, but the U.S. never committed the kind of firepower and heavy weapons in Afghanistan that the Russians did, preferring to “assist” the Afghan security forces, which apparently required this assistance to have any backbone in response to the Taliban attacks, which it quickly lost when the U.S. left the country. In Chechnya, the Russians faced a relatively weak but persistent insurgency, but Russian forces showed a remarkable degree of incompetence, where as many Russian troops were killed by “friendly fire” as by Chechen forces. And in Syria, it was a “test run” of the effectiveness of terror bombing, which in Ukraine has only managed to accomplish increased hatred of, and resistance against. Russia.

Of course everything relied on a quick blitzkrieg strike on the ground, capturing Kyiv and overthrowing the government, in which Russian forces failed miserably. Striking in the middle of winter and early spring thaws wasn’t very smart (even the Germans weren’t that dumb) to begin with. But in other ways the Russians have been their own worst enemy, overestimating their big machinery against advanced U.S. and NATO shoulder-fired anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons.

For example, it was the belief that in reducing crew members in a tank from four to three—removing the shell loader by installing a revolving carousel around the turret’s base which automatically loads the gun—makes the tank more difficult to hit because of its lower profile; in fact it is even more susceptible to a competently aimed shoulder-fired weapon. Here we see the turret of a Russian tank somehow dismembered from the rest of the tank:

 

Ukrainian special forces showed the “jack in the box” effect of hitting a Russian tank in the “sweet spot,” where once ignited, the explosive power of all the Russian shells sends the turret high into the air:

 

 

This has also been a problem with Russian infantry vehicles, where NATO vehicles of the type do not have “manned” turrets, and shells are hand loaded (as in NATO tanks) from protected compartments. Russian tank crews are no doubt obliterated from such hits, and we are told it takes 12 months to fully train a new tank crew.

The Russian military has also taken a “hit” by the downing of one their advanced Su-35S fighter aircraft:

 

We are told that the advanced targeting system that supposedly can track a stealth aircraft and took years to develop was found largely intact for analysis and countermeasures. China purchased a number of Su-35s with this technology, and although it is assumed that they will of course steal the technology through reverse-engineering, this will do them little good if the technology is already “out-of-date.”

And then there was the “pride” of the Russian fleet, the refitted with advanced weaponry cruiser Moskva, which embarrassingly sank for competing reasons in the Black Sea:

 

 

It is speculated that one “advancement” not made was to the ship’s 40-year-old fire suppression system, and that can be largely to blame for its sinking. Thus despite being out-manned and out-gunned, Ukrainian forces with a motive to fight have not only slowed or stopped Russian advances, they have reduced Putin to those crazed Hitler rages that we see in the German film Downfall, and who knows what insanity he is still capable of, no matter how many Russians need to go out for slaughter:

 

 

Of course the present failures of Russian forces in Ukraine has to be blamed on someone, and of course Putin is framing his war as a defensive move against the U.S.-led NATO forces, while conveniently leaving out the part that he just screwed-up, and the Russian people are paying for that in blood:

 

 

But then Hitler didn't have nuclear weapons, and Putin does, which only makes him more dangerous.