“If confirmed, I will work to restore confidence and integrity to the Department of Justice — and each of its components,” Pam Bondi vowed during her confirmation hearing in January. “Under my watch, the partisan weaponization of the Department of Justice will end. America must have one tier of justice for all.”
But since her confirmation on February 4, Attorney General Pam Bondi has done exactly the opposite, weaponizing the DOJ against Trump’s political enemies and withdrawing criminal investigations of his allies. The tone was set on her first full day, when she fired off an all-staff memo threatening to fire anyone who raised ethical or legal objections to advancing frivolous arguments in court.
Literal Mob Rule:
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"Under my watch, the partisan weaponization of the Department of Justice will end. America must have one tier of justice for all.” needs to add … “except for my handlers and their associates.”
I always wonder about people like her. What is it like inside her brain? How does she see the world and her place in it?
Broadly, she’s obviously mentally ill - no sane and rational person could make the decisions she makes. But how specifically? Is she delusional? Does she just not live in consensual reality? If not that, then what is it? Is she amoral - entirely unable to even grasp the concept of morality? Or is she so pathologically self-absorbed that she has no principles or ethics? Or is she just so greedy and/or power-hungry that she ignores everything else? Or does she have some speck of principles or morals or empathy thatvshe silences with alcohol or drugs?
I really have no idea, but I can’t help but wonder. It’s just so bizarre to me that any human being could be that utterly loathsome. What goes through their heads in those unguarded moments when they’re standing in the shower or sitting on the toilet or laying in bed? How can they not have at least some awareness of how foul they are?
Psychopathy.
5% of the population is psychopathic. No shame. No guilt. No fear. Zero motivations beyond their own amusement. Contrary to popular belief, people like her are born that way.
However, this type of brain damage is on a spectrum, and judging by opinion polls and various psychometric data over the last century, I would estimate at least 30% of the population to be categorically incapable of moral reasoning. A conservative estimate. This outsize fraction of humans possess rudimentary moral intuitions, like most mammals, but no inclination or capacity for abstract reflection.
They also do not exhibit any of the transcendental values that separate “persons” from animals. But we are forbidden from having that uncomfortable discussion because of some weird hang ups about dehumanization. Nevermind that Homo sapiens are literally animals and there’s nothing shocking about the fact that a huge fraction of us are nothing more than animals.
I would estimate at least 30% of the population to be categorically incapable of moral reasoning. A conservative estimate.
Nice bit of wordplay there!
Pretty big number you’re throwing around. 5% seems like bs to me.
Where is that number from?
If i had to make a guesstimation myself, it might be 1 in 400. Maybe
This paper estimates that 4.5% of the population
is psychopathichas psychopathic traits, and 1.2% is psychopathic by conventional standards of measurement. (Edited to correct my original misstatement, thanks to teslasaur’s reply below.)The meta-analytical results obtained allow us to estimate the prevalence rate of psychopathy in the general adult population at 4.5%. That being said, this rate varies depending on the participants’ sex (higher in males), the type of sample from the general population (higher in samples from organizations than in community samples or university students), and the type of instrument used to define psychopathy. In fact, using the PCL-R, which is currently considered the “gold standard” for the assessment and definition of psychopathy, the prevalence is only 1.2%.
Prevalence of Psychopathy in the General Adult Population: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Archive links, in case the US government deletes it along with the rest of science:
These numbers are extremely low. We are limited by our diagnostic capabilities, and a lot of psychopathy is simply passed off as narcissism, particularly among non-violent psychopaths.
If a psychopath is intelligent enough to simply get a job on Wall Street then how do we diagnose him? The PCL-22 requires him to engage in extreme behaviors. Following a profit motive doesn’t “count” and neither does voting for Trump.
This paper estimates that 4.5% of the population is psychopathic:
Has psychopatic traits*
I don’t understand why, but they dont account for sociopathy at all in that study.
I would agree that 5 % of people have psychopatic traits. To varying degrees. Many of those that take riskful jobs have psychopatic traits, it doesn’t have to be an “evil” job. Pilots, fire fighters, police, doctors, etc all have some parts of their job that is fitting for someone with traits that allows you to ignore risk to the benefit of others.
Diagnosed psychopathy is very rare in comparison.
Sociopath is not a clinically defined term. Sociopath is basically a slang term for a person with anti-social personality disorder (ASPD). ASPD can be one part of a psychopathy diagnosis but they are not the same thing.
this type of brain damage is on a spectrum
This paper estimates that 4.5% of the population is psychopathic
Has psychopatic traits*
Also known as “on a spectrum” …right?
I don’t understand why, but they dont account for sociopathy at all in that study.
Not in the DSM as such maybe?
Thanks. I corrected the misreading in my comment above.
Nurture
vs. Natureher brother is in on it so one has to assume the family is horrendous.Indeed, lobbying the administration can be quite lucrative, as Pam’s brother Brad is finding out. He currently represents Carolina Amesty, a former Florida legislator who allegedly scammed half a million dollars in covid relief funds by filing loan applications of [sic] behalf of businesses that either did not exist or were not as she described them. After filing a criminal complaint in January, the government had 30 days to indict Amesty. But since then, Brad Bondi and the DOJ have filed four requests for an extension “in the interests of justice.” Whether this is an attempt to work out a settlement or run out the clock is not entirely clear, but there’s no mistaking that Bondi is selling his services as a conduit to the federal agency run by his sister.
Sort of like Erik Prince and Betsy DeVos.
Or classically, the Borgias.
Is she delusional? Does she just not live in consensual reality? If not that, then what is it? Is she amoral - entirely unable to even grasp the concept of morality? Or is she so pathologically self-absorbed that she has no principles or ethics? Or is she just so greedy and/or power-hungry that she ignores everything else? Or does she have some speck of principles or morals or empathy that she silences with alcohol or drugs?
All of the above.
Except for maybe the speck of principles or morals, we all know she has none.
As intended.
The DOJ has always been a kind-of weapon, intended to legitimize the use of force against enemies of the state. This is, incidentally, why incoming Presidents are loathe to use it against their corrupt predecessors. And why DOJs tend to fixate on people with virtually no political capital (minority political leadership, black market traffickers, migrants, foreign business interests, and domestic low-level con-artists) while steering well clear of sitting politicians, large cap business executives, large church leaders, and dignitaries from wealthy allied nations.
Trump’s pogrom on migrants and minorities is spilling over into targeting people who aren’t traditionally on the DOJ’s shit list, because he’s far more concerned with the raw metrics of his department (the volume of individuals arrested and deported) than the consequences of his policies (deteriorating trade relations, impact to domestic trade and travel, long term market stability, long term labor prices, etc). And his pardons and case dismissals are a more vulgar effort at self-enrichment than has historically been seen (although hardly without precedent)
What has shifted isn’t the DOJ’s purpose but the individuals that are now considered “fair game” in the eyes of Department leadership. One could argue that this is partially Biden’s fault - he “shot at the king and missed” when the Southern District indicted Trump a few years ago. But you can go back to the Bush Era USA firing or the Nixon Saturday Night Massacre to see similar instances of Presidents using their stranglehold on the Justice Department to shape prosecutorial action.
This has been a fundamental flaw in the US political system for ages. We claim to have an independent judiciary (a joke under any extended scrutiny) but what does that mean without an independent prosecutorial agency?
The DOJ has always been a kind-of weapon, intended to legitimize the use of force against enemies of the state.
So, nobody told Merrick?
Garland was more than happy to prosecute all the goofy little J6ers, along with the traditional list of migrants and smugglers and foreign adversaries.
He just steered clear of anyone with power.
Garland was more than happy to prosecute all the goofy little J6ers
Was this a problem?
Chasing the small fry while the big fish swims away?
Some might argue it would have been more beneficial to flip defendants into witnesses and use them to prosecute the media organizers and financiers, not unlike how the FBI (finally, after decades of dragging their feet) broke up the East Coast mafia gangs.
Wasn’t that what Jack Smith was doing?
Garland waited until late November of 2022 to appoint a special counsel, after Democrats in Congress had lost their subpoena power, and put a guy with a broken leg on the case. Smith’s office focused on the Mar-a-Lago documents case, which floundered for years, before his very appointment as special counsel was rejected by a Trump appointee Judge (which they recognized was a problem going into the case clung to the venue regardless).
To my knowledge, Smith didn’t pursue any third party financiers or media figures responsible for organizing the J6 riot. His primary role was to fumble the Mar-a-Lago documents case. He did get a Grand Jury to indict Trump for inciting a riot, under a more-friendly DC venue, in August of 2023. But Smith never managed to bring the case to trial in the subsequent year and a half. The case was scuttled as soon as the election was over.
Last week she dropped fraud charges against Dr. Michael Moore and his Plastic Surgery Institute of Utah, who were indicted in January 2023 for running a fake covid vaccination scheme. The office destroyed $28,000 of medicine and sold fake vaccine cards for $50 a pop, netting almost $100,000. They even injected saline into the arms of kids who wanted the shots, at the behest parents who opposed them.
The case was set to go to trial this week, and a jury had already been selected. But then Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote Bondi a letter calling Moore “a hero for refusing to inject an experimental vaccine into the arms of patients who did not wish to subject themselves or their children to a human experiment.”
“The charges brought initially by the corrupt Biden Justice Department against Dr. Moore are a blatant attempt to punish dissent and silence those who question the safety of experimental vaccines,” she went on, demanding that the DOJ “immediately drop all charges.”
Which it did!
I know it’s not news, but all these people are utter scumbags.
This is a good substack newsletter. Like Wonkette. But my Wonkette articles got deleted from this comm for not being good enough.
Yes, it is.
This is an Aaron Rupar joint.
https://substack.com/@aaronrupar
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com
Wonkette can be kind of …reactionary, in terms of writing styles.
