Hey, there! Log in / Register
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
So
He likes a happy ending...its the Patriot way!
...I guess except against the Giants...
Anyone see Last Week Tonight? The one about public shaming?
Anyone remember the pot jokes from five years ago? Anyone? These comments will not age well. What he did is sadly legal in most of the world. Stop making jokes about a 77 year old widower. Look at the bigger picture.
It's not about paying for sex
It's not about paying for sex. It's about what is effectively kidnapping and enslavement.
Except
The prosecutors aren't alleging that ANYONE was kidnapped and enslaved.
A number of articles have
A number of articles have come out in the last several weeks about the human trafficking element being total BS. Basically, a lot of reasonable people are are not too concerned about two consenting adults engaging in the exchange of sexual services for money. Regular old prostitution isn't "sexy" enough (pun intended) to get people's attention, so police departments/prosecutors are alleged to throw in mentions of human tracking just to hold the public interest. The human trafficking element tends to magically disappear by the time those involved are actually charged with regular old prostitution-related crimes. I totally understand that there are genuine instances of human trafficking, but this stuff seems like concern trolling on the part of law enforcement.
"Hey, a prostitution ring got busted." "Who cares what consenting adults do in their private time? It should probably be legal and regulated anyway." "Oh, but people are being trafficked." "Gee, that's really serious and somebody should do something!"
do yaw "job"
and step down, bob
Weird to see the split
Weird to see the split-personality coverage on the Kraft apology- between the national media and much of the local media who give school-paper coverage to Kraft/ the Patriots already trumpeting his "contrition"
I wonder
Had this been a player or a coach, would any of this "contrition" have been acceptable or nearly enough?
He's not setting a very good example for the troops here.
Of course it would have been
As long as Pats we’re getting said player st a steep discount.
If it had been a player, the
If it had been a player, the story would have disappeared after the headline, a coach however . . . If it was me at 77, I would have told everyone to kiss my ass.
His apology would be kind of
His apology would be kind of OK with me if he had simply hired a sex worker who chose that line of work, but nowhere does this show any remorse for contributing to the market for trafficking victims.
He can afford his own football team but not a willing, discreet escort? Nah, he's only sorry he got caught. He will never see women as people.
Do you have any evidence
That the 48 and 53 year old women he's accused of hiring didn't choose that line of work?
Who knew?
Magoo blew.
I get the feeling that if he
I get the feeling that if he were ever pulled over for speeding he'd show the cops Myra's driving license and proceed to tell them what a great woman and driver she was. This man, man who barely a month ago was at the pinnacle of his success, simply cannot conceive of being in the wrong nor make a public admission of guilt.
Can't wait for the videotape(s). Because you know there's more to this story than we've been led to believe.
This is great stuff!
My friend corrrectly called it that Kraft would be trotting out Myra and that it was overdue. But you’ve put it much more eloquently. Well done.
Couldn't agree more about him
Couldn't agree more about him trotting out Myra. Absurdly distasteful. If there's any sort of afterlife, and if both Bob and Myra wind up in the same place, this should make for an interesting conversation between the two of them...
Kraft
Nice PR statement... now show some guts & get up in front of a microphone. Every guy knows what those places are all about. The only thing he's sorry for is that he got caught.
Forgive.
Forgive.
It's not over until he does "the face."
You know the one:
Don't forget the dog
Great montage
Can you fill me in on who's in the upper left and lower right?
Thanks!
Sure.
Clockwise, from top left: Jim McGreevey, former Governor of New Jersey; Eliot Spitzer, former Governor of New York; Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Governor of California; Mark Sanford, former Governor of South Carolina; Anthony Weiner, former U.S. Representative for New York's 9th Congressional District, and former President Bill Clinton. Missing: John Edwards
Form https://designobserver.com/feature/the-public-face-of-disgrace/28148/
Thanks for the info and link
I dont think I've ever seen photos of McGreevey and Sanford. That was an odd one: the old Appalachian trail worst alibi ever.
Traffic
I thought he was serviced by two American citizens, nothing to do with human trafficking. It’s the off-season which is only why this is a story, nothing else important sports wise happening.. It’s not like he went to Cambodia and slept with a 12 year old girl anyway.
Americans can be trafficked
And maybe you missed the news about how he got caught: As part of an investigation into human trafficking.
Were there any human
Were there any human trafficking charges involving that particular spa? One of the women was the spa manager 45yo and the other was was 58 yo.
any at all?
Were there any human trafficking charges levied against anyone at all?
(hint- no, there weren't)
A convenient fig leaf. It'd
A convenient fig leaf. It'd be like telling somebody during prohibition: "Hey, don't drink that moonshine! It was distilled using illegal child labor!"
...which doesn't directly say
Nor does the statement contain any apology outside of the easily cherry-pickable words “truly sorry”. Of course, every news outlet has dutifully put that phrase in their headlines.
Markey is a hypocrite
Senator Markey's rejection and donation of Kraft's political contributions to an anti- trafficking campaign is shameless. When his fellow congressman Barney Frank's boyfriend Steve Gobie a male prostitute was running a brothel out of Barney's house in DC then Congressman Markey fought against reprimanding and expelling Barney from congress. Human trafficking is a serious crime whether the victims are male or female.
Flag on the Play
False equivalence: unless there is evidence that those working in the brothel run by Sleazeball Barney's boyfriend were somehow enslaved, this is a massive false equivalence. Running a brothel is not human trafficking if the sex workers involved have agency to leave - its just running a brothel.
Examples: sex workers in European countries where brothels are legal and regulated. People who operate as "call girls". They are not enslaved, just selling something that someone else is buying on their own terms, and able to go get a different job if they choose.
There is also the slim possibility that Frank didn't know about the activity, as he was not actually the one running the operation.
Flag on the play
Do you have any actual evidence that the women working in that spa were "enslaved"?
If so, you might want to call the FL PD, because they certainly don't.
Accident of the weather
His balls were never intentionally deflated.
Kraft walking tight rope without a net by invoking Myra
By invoking his late wife, Kraft is now walking a tightrope without a net, yet the media is still reverently addressing him as "Mister Kraft." He seems to have no fear of anybody digging into the case of Michelle Robinson, the black, single mom and child abuse victim who was a prostitute for a "very well known Boston area billionaire philanthropist" Kraft's age, whose identity was such a top secret that the federal judge took the names of lawyers and court officers, lest they reveal it. Both Robinson and the unnamed john acknowledge the long-term paid sex arrangement occurred between 2007 and 2008, coincidentally just around the time Myra is thought to have become ill. One of Kraft's sons, risking his massive inheritance, stopped talking to him after the funeral. To her credit, the Globe's Joan Vennochi scratched the surface on the Robinson case in recent coverage. WRKO's Howie Carr has referenced Kraft's prior "close calls" saying, "anyone who follows the news knows what I mean."
The FL case becomes a footnote if he was living a double life with an ailing Myra while using her as a shield. He would have to step down. If not, let him clear his name.
It's stylebook, not reverence.
I haven't looked lately, but the NYT stylebook used to say that for a living person, in the first mention in an article, you refer to the person with full name and a descriptive phrase, e.g. "Universal Hub commenter Bob Leponge," and then, in subsequent mentions, you use the honorific and the last name, e.g. "Mr. Leponge". AP stylebook, on the other hand, omits honorifics and just uses the last name for second and subsequent mentions, e.g. "Leponge."
I suspect that if you read other articles in the same publications, you will (or should, if they're well edited) find that they're treating Kraft exactly the same way they treat everyone else.