BootmanLA

As PozBearWI noted, that's generally the case. But in the case we were discussing - the Florida obscenity charges for Paul Little (Max Hardcore) - the charges were brought in Florida, where the material was received. I'm not certain whether the DOJ manual provision in question was adopted before or after that case. But the convictions were upheld by the 11th Circuit in Atlanta - specifically holding that because the material was sent to Florida, it was acceptable to judge it by Florida's obscenity standards (which are, after all, specific to the community). I'm guessing that DOJ felt that winning the case would be harder if brought in California possibly because California's "contemporary community standards" were different enough that a conviction would be more difficult.

Most of the calls have been for him to withdraw as candidate; but yes, there are calls that he should step down so Harris can run as an "incumbent." I put that in quotes because although it's true she would then be the incumbent, I don't think she will be seen as such - not in the same sense that, say, Lyndon Johnson was in 1964, or Harry Truman was in 1948.

It's both. It's also because a goodly percentage of people just don't bother to vote at all. Studies generally show that a solid majority (like, >60%) of people who routinely don't vote have progressive/liberal sentiments; they just think it won't do any good to vote. If they voted, the right-winters (who DO turn out to vote, regularly) would never win the presidency OR a majority in either chamber of Congress.

Serious question: does NOBODY read the thread before posting the same question over and over? One of the moderators has already posted that there's a known issue at the hosting level with email being sent out. That means - drum roll - that for now, you can't get the confirming email. It means you'll have to wait, unfortunately, until that problem is fixed. This is not Google or Yahoo! or some other massive service with a thousand technicians who can be delegated to fix an issue. It's basically a (FREE) labor of love by one guy and his crew of volunteer moderators. As one of my favorite casual restaurants says on its menus, "If you are not served your order within five minutes, relax, it may be another five. This is not New York City."

Also, I'd note: I'm sure Wolfe's own films almost certainly have the proper paperwork documenting that all the performers are of legal age. And again, I'd suggest that it's pretty hard to fake porn being sent from phone A to phone B when the feds have phone B in their possession at the time the material was sent, and once they retrieve phone A, find the corresponding sending record on that phone.

Nope. Paul Little (aka Max Hardcore) was convicted of obscenity charges for material his studio actually produced. It had nothing to do with transmission of child porn or anything like that. What you may be thinking of is that he was convicted in Florida because the material was distributed there, even though it was produced elsewhere. But once you've produced obscene material (which isn't protected by the First Amendment), you can be prosecuted anywhere it's shipped (electronically, if it's online). Nobody planted material on Max Hardcore's computers or anything like that.

That's the issue I mentioned about regional ISPs using a pool of IP addresses across state lines. It's very possible (probable, even) that your ISP in Indianapolis has facilities in Louisville, and that's where the IP addresses are registered, so that's where it "looks" like you're from (based only on the IP address). As I noted, my home ISP (Cox) has its DHCP address pool based in a city 60 miles west of here, serving at least another 80 miles or so to the east from where I am, or a radius of 140 miles. Since computers (unlike phones) typically don't have any GPS capabilities, you appear to be wherever your IP address is registered to.

Easy is in the eye of the beholder. For starters, while phishing attacks are common, successful ones aren't nearly as abundant. Thanks to fairly decent spam filters and other anti-malware software, as well as people's tendency to delete email they don't recognize (not enough, but still...), it's harder to reach vulnerable people. Second, there's no "payoff" for the payload-delivering site, usually; they want money, not just to annoy people. And targeting malware would be even harder, because you'd have to craft a message specific for your target that they would be convinced to check out. Separately, there's almost always a way to tell where files like that came from, so if the malware people were forcing CP/CSAM onto someone's computer in an attempt to compromise him, forensics would probably be able to tell that it came from a malware site and wasn't actively sought out by the person. Could it be done? Probably. But I don't think it's likely.

Well, yes and no. Having HSV2 doesn't mean that you're able to spread it every time you have sex. Aside from the simple "luck" factor, the risk of transmission is lower when the infected person does not have an "active" (ie visible) infection. It can still happen, but it's not a certainty. I agree the odds are definitely in favor that he's been exposed to it and may well be carrying it. But I wouldn't say you could call it "statistically impossible".

I'm not saying he's guilty. People have raised questions about how the process works, what was alleged to have happened, etc., and I've answered those. People have made inaccurate statements about things like first time offenses and I've corrected those. I've actually never watched an episode of Law and Order or any of its spinoffs. But I'd note that nothing is compelling you to read anything I post here. You're free to skip over any post with my name on it.

"AIDS" is not transmitted. HIV is transmitted; AIDS is the condition resulting from HIV infection after one's body reaches a certain point (T-cells below 200). Typically, progressing from HIV infection to AIDS takes a significant period of time. You're correct that HIV has a low risk of oral transmission. However, that risk is elevated if you have any cuts, even tiny ones, in your mouth, or poor oral hygiene such that you might have a way in your gums for the virus to enter your system. It's still very uncommon, but it's not something that could be ruled out.

We might know that such a deranged individual exists. But I don't see any explanation of WHY that individual has chosen such a deranged action.

For about 20 years now, if not longer, I have been saying "I will vote for the Democrat even if the candidate is the reanimated zombie corpse of Adlai Stevenson" - not because I think Democrats are perfect, but because the Republican Party is that bad.

That's exactly what it is. The whole "kick out all the immigrants" thing reeks of the "pure Aryan blood" fetish of the Nazis, as is the concentration of power in the hands of a few who will never have to face an election.

You might want to look into what people get for a single count of CP/CSAM even when they plead guilty and cooperate and it's a first offense. The statutory MINIMUM is 5 years - the judge is not authorized to go ANYWHERE below that. The statutory maximum is 20 years. But those are for a SINGLE count involving a SINGLE file and for relatively (if such a thing exists) benign child porn, like a 16 year old consenting to sex on camera with someone else. Beyond that, there are guidelines: the guidelines are basically a flow chart that says, based on THIS crime, your offense "level" is X (like a rating). CP/CSAM has a fairly substantial rating. The court then applies enhancements (circumstances that increase the level) and reductions (things that reduce the level). Things like abuse, BDSM, etc. - if involved - mean the maximum can be LIFE. There are a LOT of things that can enhance a sentence, and not a lot that can reduce it - cooperation and acceptance of responsibility are the major ones, and you typically only get a one or two level reduction in the offense level for those. (The guy arrested first, whose phone they used to catch Wolf, will probably get those reductions because he agreed to help in the investigation.) I'm not suggesting Wolf will get life, or even, say, 40 or more years. But I'd be shocked if he got less than ten to fifteen years, and I would not be shocked if he got at least 20.

What I linked to was what is called the "complaint" - it's not the indictment itself but rather a statement of the facts that are being presented. It's presented to a judge when seeking an arrest warrant to charge someone with a crime. The difference between this and an indictment is that criminal complaints are used when there may not be time to present the prosecutors' case to a Grand Jury (who would issue an indictment) - for instance, when there's an ongoing criminal conspiracy and they're trying to prevent a further crime from happening. (Grand Juries typically meet for a couple of days a month for several months or a year, and hear whatever cases the Dept. of Justice wants to present to them). Criminal complaints are also used when there's a concern that evidence might be compromised by waiting. However, for felonies, once a criminal complaint is issued and the person is arrested, the prosecutors do have to actually secure an indictment (I believe they have 30 days). If the investigation continues and they uncover more evidence, they can seek a "superseding indictment" that adds additional charges, if necessary. But due process requires that there at least be an initial indictment fairly quickly, so the accused knows what he's specifically accused of. Based on the criminal complaint, he has not been charged with "sending 300 files" to anyone. That's not how this generally works; the penalty for sending one file are pretty much as drastic as sending ten, or fifty, or whatever. It's a lot easier to prove one count of something - you pick the event that's easiest to prove, and they had the receiving phone in their possession when it was sent and found the sending record on the phone seized from the defendant. That's pretty much a slam dunk. (I wouldn't be surprised if they'd gotten the phone company records and linked Wolf's known location with the geographic location of the phone at the time of the transmission for extra proof.) IF the case fell apart - a jury refused to convict, for instance - the prosecutors COULD bring charges based on other files or transmissions, but they'd be harder to prove without the send and receive records both in hand the way they appear to be in this case. Not legally. The possession of such material is a crime in and of itself. Sending such material is a crime in and of itself. The REASON you have it or send it doesn't matter; you can totally have zero interest in sex with an underaged person and it's still illegal to have or send the file. Just like, for instance, it's illegal for me to have a stash of cocaine or fentanyl. Doesn't matter whether I've never used drugs in my life or never wanted to use drugs in my life: if I have them, I'm breaking the law, and if I sell them to someone, I'm breaking the law. In fact, I suspect that quite a few drug dealers never touch the stuff themselves because they know what it can do; they're just in it for the money. But he's not charged with being a pedophile; and as I noted many posts back, we don't know - and at this point, can't know - whether he ever had sex with an underaged boy anywhere, any time. And he's not charged with that, either. He's charged with sharing child pornography (or, as others have said, child sex abuse material). Assuming the facts alleged in the criminal complaint are true (and that's what will have to be proven at trial, assuming the indictment tracks the complaint), then he did what he's charged with. Put simply, "being a pedophile (someone sexually attracted to children)" is not itself a crime. Actually having sex with a child *IS* a crime (at least in this country), but he's not accused of that. Possessing and sending CP/CSAM *ARE* crimes, and he *IS* accused of those.

Purely out of curiosity, why not turn him down outright? I don't mean in a mean or rude fashion, but if you can be clear, that might stop. Unless you're afraid he's going to go psycho on you, is there a reason not to be clear that you're not going to be interested ever again?

Viking's response prompts this addendum to my previous post: "Cold" is often a synonym for "blunt" or "direct". I usually don't see much reason to beat around the bush when I'm trying to be clear, particularly when drawing a boundary; sometimes I'm told "that was cold", but sometimes that's unavoidable. See also "ripping the band-aid off" and other similar phrases. I don't think there was any world in which this guy was going to be able to suppress his interest in "something more" to keep giving you the "something less" that you want. And I don't mean "more" or "less" in a values sense; there's nothing wrong with pure sport fucking, just as there's nothing wrong with something more involved. But "sex+socializing" IS more than "sex" alone.

This is why I've always stressed the importance of open communication (and one reason I'm generally opposed to cheaters). There's nothing wrong with wanting a very casual FB arrangement with someone; there's nothing wrong with someone wanting more than that. It's when what two people want for themselves conflicts internally that there's any issue. I think you're probably right, for what it's worth, that you've lost a "great lay". Which is regrettable, but there almost certainly would be drama coming down the road if you'd navigated a way to keep seeing him, knowing he wanted something more. Especially if there are other "great lays" that you're seeing.

Dude: according to the agent who sought the arrest warrant, the Telegram account shows files sent FROM Austin's Telegram TO the cooperating witness's Telegram. Not part of a group, not something that some rando shared with thousands of others - a direct, one-to-one transfer of files. There's no allegation that this was a "sudden fall" - just that these PARTICULAR violations of the law occurred, during this period. That's not an affirmative statement that they found no other such transfers; that's just not how an indictment works. When an indictment is issued, it has to allege specific facts [X person did Y action on or about Z date], and the job of the prosecutor is to prove those specific things as true. They do NOT want to "dump" lots of other allegations of similar behavior that may or may not be as readily provable, because that muddies the water for a jury. If the indictment said that Wolf had, say, sent 300 files to various people, then each of those would be a separate "count", and each one would have to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt in order to convict on that count. That would mean a trial lasting weeks, or months, and for what purpose? The mandatory minimums and the sentencing guidelines are already very harsh for even a single incident of CSA material. As for the poll: go ahead, if you want, but it's meaningless. None of us, unless we're chosen for the jury (assuming he doesn't make a plea deal) then what we think is irrelevant. As for the hacking option: Sure, that's theoretically possible. But since they found the transmission records *on Wolf's physical phone*, based on what I know of Telegram (particularly its encrypted chat), that means the sending/receiving took place ON THAT DEVICE, not just using his account from another machine. "Elaborate frame job" just doesn't seem that likely, at least to me. Especially since Wolf was, by all official accounts, not the original target. TTU1 was - for whatever reason - and it was only on arresting him and reviewing HIS devices that they happened on to his communications with Wolf. It's certainly not impossible for this to be an elaborate frame job, but it seems really, really overcomplicated for that to be the case.

Alternatively, this Supreme Court might simply find a pretext for striking down the Respect for Marriage Act. At this point, with the Court firmly in the hands of right-wingers, you can't really put anything past them; and if Trump were elected this November, expect at least Alito (age 74) to resign so that Trump could appoint a 40-year old replacement who's just as far right. You might even see Thomas (age 75) doing the same, although he's privately said he wants to stay on as long as he's able. Our only prospects for regaining sanity on the Court lie in Alito and Thomas both dying during Democratic presidential terms where we also have the Senate (because I can't see either retiring under those circumstances). Gloomy outlook to say the least.

Lastly: a former KGB sleeper agent publicly praised one of Project 2025's architects in Russia on the country's flagship state-owned television network, gloating that under the policies they're supporting, the US would have no reason to support Ukraine at all. The nation that is described as our chief adversary by the State Department is openly promoting this project. This isn't another so-called Russian hoax (which wasn't a hoax at all); this is an outright admission that Project 2025 has Russia's approval. In a sane country not infected with Trump Adoration Syndrome, this should be enough to end his campaign. The fact that it's not should be sobering.

I should add: The fact that Trump feels compelled at all to disavow knowledge of Project 2025 tells me his campaign realizes that this is scaring the shit out of swing voters. This is a stinking albatross that needs to be hung around Trump's neck every day until the election.

The side effects of PrEP aren't fictional, but they're not something everyone experiences, and they're something your doctor should be monitoring, in any event. It's not like you take PrEP for a month and suddenly your kidneys fail; rather, in SOME people, their kidney functions are gradually impaired, and if that's the case, you can ask to be switched from an oral medication to Apretude (the long-lasting injectable PrEP that does not have the impact on your kidneys that oral PrEP *may*). And each Apretude injection lasts for two months, so you go in six times a year for a shot, and that's it. But you may find that PrEP doesn't impact your renal function at all.

That's an issue for the courts, not surprisingly. Here's my "best guess" on what would happen. There are basically two paths an attack on same-sex marriage could take. The first is (kind of) already underway, where people challenge whether same-sex marriages are entitled to the same kind of legal status that opposite-sex marriages have always received. The idea that the Court might be open to this kind of attack is one I explored elsewhere, where a Supreme Court opinion from this term basically said that a U.S. citizen married to a foreign national did not have her rights violated when the State Department refused to grant her husband a visa to enter the US, on the grounds that this wasn't a "right" she had in the first place. In other words, just because you're a citizen who is married doesn't mean your marriage does anything for your spouse's rights. Take that principle outside of immigration, and suddenly there are a lot of new questions, like benefits. In theory, those questions were answered already, but this Court has shown it's willing to toss decades-old precedent when it doesn't like the results, and I could easily see at least 5 of the 6 conservatives on the Court doing the same for same-sex marriage, and eating away at how states, counties, cities, and private entities must recognize same-sex marriages. The second way is a head-on challenge, where someone sues to overturn Obergefell directly. Obergefell is the decision that said states could NOT prohibit same-sex marriages. If that's overturned, the way that Roe was overturned, every state that still has a law on the books banning same-sex marriage would find those laws back in effect immediately. And then it's a state-by-state fight to see what remains. Some states enacted marriage equality without a court ordering them to. In those states, same-sex marriages would presumably continue undisturbed. Call this Group A. Some states enacted marriage equality under court order, but those states nonetheless enacted it, so it would require a repeal of state law in order to stop any future same-sex marriages. This is Group B. Some states have never enacted marriage equality at all; they've simply had to grant the licenses because SCOTUS said states can't refuse. But on the books, there's still a law saying you can't do that. This is Group C. So, back to overturning: Group A states won't see any changes. Group B and Group C states would have more to sort out, but the general rule is, marriage is a contract, recognized by the state, and in every state I know of, the state can't impair that contract. So they'd almost certainly have to allow those marriages to continue, even if the state repealed marriage equality (Group B) or just started barring them again (Group C). But that doesn't mean that they couldn't start fucking around the edges, like saying employers don't have to give benefits to a married spouse if that spouse couldn't marry the employee today. So yeah, this is a serious issue.