Octopus Overlords

tjg_marantz wrote: Atomic blonde producer

And a favourite Scientologist accused of raping 4 women. Surprising no one, Scientology is protecting fiercely.

Maybe at some point, we'll know the breadth of this behaviour. Until then, keep coming forward truthfully I say. Let them all lose their careers as they get convicted.

I'm just not sure how I managed to make it 42 years without raping someone. I'm Hollywooding wrong I guess.

gameoverman wrote: Thu Nov 02, 2017 9:33 pm

Blackhawk wrote: Thu Nov 02, 2017 5:07 pm I'm am overjoyed that this stuff is coming to light and being exposed. At the same time, I'm a little bothered by the guilty-when-accused approach. It would be so, so easy these days for someone to end someone's career with a revenge accusation.

It could swing the other way too. People with legitimate stories to tell might eventually be ignored for all practical purposes. A sort of 'me too' fatigue might set in. So far most of the accused have been people with sketchy reputations, what happens when/if someone the public thinks is above reproach gets accused?

Now his publicist Staci Wolfe has confirmed to Vulture that she has dropped the actor and producer as a client, while a source close to the actor confirms he has also been dropped by the talent agency CAA.

hepcat wrote: Fri Nov 03, 2017 10:54 am Wow...I mean, I'm all for women speaking up. But like McNutt, I'm a little uncomfortable with lives being destroyed without a chance to defend yourself. I know that makes me sound insensitive to the issue, but I remember what happened with the Rolling Stone article on the fraternity rape that never happened, and the Duke lacrosse rape case that turned out to be false. I just hope we aren't heading down a dangerous path that shifts away from innocent before proven guilty in all matters like this.

tjg_marantz wrote: Fri Nov 03, 2017 12:20 am

Freyland wrote:

Moliere wrote: Thu Nov 02, 2017 11:33 pm Several ‘House Of Cards’ Employees Level New Accusations Against Kevin Spacey

Tying in nicely with the concerns posted just above Moliere's post, this claimant is "anonymous". Giving Spacey the benefit of the doubt for a moment, there is nothing he can do to defend himself, not even deny it, but shit just got painted on him that will hurt him. Whatever happened to being able to face your accuser?

Nothing has happened. Everyone will get their day in court.

Women deserve more than the benefit of the doubt. It's not because there may be someone singled out who did nothing that we shouldn't keep listening to all the accusations. That pendulum needs to swing. People in power have far too long abused said power. They're the ones who are potentially fucking its up for innocents accused.

Freyland wrote:

tjg_marantz wrote: Fri Nov 03, 2017 12:20 am

Freyland wrote:

Moliere wrote: Thu Nov 02, 2017 11:33 pm Several ‘House Of Cards’ Employees Level New Accusations Against Kevin Spacey

Tying in nicely with the concerns posted just above Moliere's post, this claimant is "anonymous". Giving Spacey the benefit of the doubt for a moment, there is nothing he can do to defend himself, not even deny it, but shit just got painted on him that will hurt him. Whatever happened to being able to face your accuser?

Nothing has happened. Everyone will get their day in court.

Women deserve more than the benefit of the doubt. It's not because there may be someone singled out who did nothing that we shouldn't keep listening to all the accusations. That pendulum needs to swing. People in power have far too long abused said power. They're the ones who are potentially fucking its up for innocents accused.

Agree with everything you said except "nothing has happened". Totally untrue -- at the time of my post, it was particularly damning to his character since it seemed to support that he was the terrible person suggested by the first claimant... but anonymously. Seriously, that's foul. I want victims to speak up. But you can't snipe people's careers from the bushes.

tjg_marantz wrote: Fri Nov 03, 2017 12:23 pm

Freyland wrote:

tjg_marantz wrote: Fri Nov 03, 2017 12:20 am

Freyland wrote:

Moliere wrote: Thu Nov 02, 2017 11:33 pm Several ‘House Of Cards’ Employees Level New Accusations Against Kevin Spacey

Tying in nicely with the concerns posted just above Moliere's post, this claimant is "anonymous". Giving Spacey the benefit of the doubt for a moment, there is nothing he can do to defend himself, not even deny it, but shit just got painted on him that will hurt him. Whatever happened to being able to face your accuser?

Nothing has happened. Everyone will get their day in court.

Women deserve more than the benefit of the doubt. It's not because there may be someone singled out who did nothing that we shouldn't keep listening to all the accusations. That pendulum needs to swing. People in power have far too long abused said power. They're the ones who are potentially fucking its up for innocents accused.

Agree with everything you said except "nothing has happened". Totally untrue -- at the time of my post, it was particularly damning to his character since it seemed to support that he was the terrible person suggested by the first claimant... but anonymously. Seriously, that's foul. I want victims to speak up. But you can't snipe people's careers from the bushes.

Fair enough.

Although I wonder how many careers of those abused were sniped from the bushes. How many men and women were black balled for not acquiescing. All those powerful assholes did plenty sniping from bushes. They created victims, they created husbands of victims, wives of victims, children of victims. They created the atmosphere that someone might want to come forward not completely truthfully to "save" someone. It's not right but these accusations don't happen in a vacuum.

I'm willing to believe each accusation and want to see it prosecuted and I will accept the verdict of a fair trial. I'm not willing to doubt each accusation until it's proven.

Rip wrote: Fri Nov 03, 2017 11:43 am
That applies to legal justice. It never has applied to public opinion and job security. In fact job security is more tied to public opinion than it is to guilt or innocence.

Zenn7 wrote: Fri Nov 03, 2017 9:33 amWhat if Cosby hadn't come up before, and the first public accusation came out now? I don't recall public opinion being strong against him with the first one. If he had a sketchy rep, I was not aware of it. He seemed like a role model. Sure after the others came up, but not originally. How would that have played out today? Would he be immediately damned with the first one or would people start feeling that the accusers were not legit, they are just taking advantage of all this coming out?

He just seemed like an example of what you talking about.

tjg_marantz wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2017 3:48 pm Do you think he'd greet anyone but a powerless female in a bathrobe with dinner for two at the ready?

I guess she should have waited for him to try something?

stimpy wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2017 3:27 pm I think this is the inevitable negative fallout of the #metoo hivemind.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/j ... spartanntp

How does either of those constitute sexual harassment?

tjg_marantz wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2017 3:48 pm Do you think he'd greet anyone but a powerless female in a bathrobe with dinner for two at the ready?

I guess she should have waited for him to try something?

stimpy wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2017 6:20 pm

tjg_marantz wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2017 3:48 pm Do you think he'd greet anyone but a powerless female in a bathrobe with dinner for two at the ready?

I guess she should have waited for him to try something?

I hate to break it to you, but not all women are powerless.....
And I still fail to see how seeing a gun equals not being raped or harmed.

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Nov 01, 2017 9:44 am

Olivia Munn said that while visiting the set of the 2004 Ratner-directed “After the Sunset” when she was still an aspiring actress, he masturbated in front of her in his trailer when she went to deliver a meal. Munn wrote about the incident in her 2010 collection of essays without naming Ratner. On a television show a year later, Ratner identified himself as the director, and claimed that he had “banged” her, something he later said was not true.

Freyland wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2017 7:29 pm [

The Weinstein story fits sexual harassment: Person high on the food chain uses his or her position to promote an unrequited sexual relationship (I assure you, he hadn't run out of clothes to wear). I have no idea what happened with the Segal story, no real information provided other than the implication that she wanted to leave.

GreenGoo wrote: Sun Nov 05, 2017 12:40 am

Freyland wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2017 7:29 pm [

The Weinstein story fits sexual harassment: Person high on the food chain uses his or her position to promote an unrequited sexual relationship (I assure you, he hadn't run out of clothes to wear). I have no idea what happened with the Segal story, no real information provided other than the implication that she wanted to leave.

Given what we know now, it's pretty clear what Weinstein wanted to happen, planned to happen and was thwarted from happening.

Are you saying that wearing a bathrobe is sexual harassment? Maybe this is conspiracy to commit sexual assault?

If I order room service and open the door in my bathrobe when a female hotel staff member arrives, have I committed sexual harassment?

Weinstein is a scumbag, no question. I'm slightly annoyed that I seem to be in a position of defending him, because people seem to be influenced by facts that I can't find in some of these stories.

Facts are facts and feelings are feelings. They're not the same. If I'm missing something, feel free to point it out to me.

Freyland wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2017 7:29 pm

stimpy wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2017 6:20 pm

tjg_marantz wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2017 3:48 pm Do you think he'd greet anyone but a powerless female in a bathrobe with dinner for two at the ready?

I guess she should have waited for him to try something?

I hate to break it to you, but not all women are powerless.....
And I still fail to see how seeing a gun equals not being raped or harmed.

The Weinstein story fits sexual harassment: Person high on the food chain uses his or her position to promote an unrequited sexual relationship (I assure you, he hadn't run out of clothes to wear). I have no idea what happened with the Segal story, no real information provided other than the implication that she wanted to leave.

Many of the personal attacks came from Italy’s right. Libero, a conservative publication, ran an opinion by Renato Farina entitled, “First they give it away, then they whine and pretend to repent.” He added, “surrendering to a boss’s advances to make a career is prostitution not rape.”

The paper’s editor, Vittorio Feltri, said in a radio interview that the encounter must have been consensual because he didn’t physical assault her, and that she should be thankful that he forcibly performed oral sex on her.

Some Italian women remain unsympathetic as well. Author and public commentator Selvaggia Lucarelli wrote that Weinstein's alleged actions were “horrendous but it is not sexual violence.” She added that it’s not “legitimate” to bring this story up 20 years later, and described the encounter as “consensual” and not “‘abuse.‘”

Art critic and politician Vittorio Sgarbi, who’s a friend to her former partner of seven years, the Italian musician Morgan, said, “I feel that he was raped by her” and that she was the “dominant” one in the relationship. Morgan himself, who is the father of her daughter, doubted her account, citing her silence on Weinstein over the past 20 years as evidence.

Jaymann wrote: Mon Nov 06, 2017 7:20 pm Can you imagine telling someone in 1945 that Germany would be the last bastion of enlightenment and the US would elect a Nazi.

In the fall of 2016, Harvey Weinstein set out to suppress allegations that he had sexually harassed or assaulted numerous women. He began to hire private security agencies to collect information on the women and the journalists trying to expose the allegations. According to dozens of pages of documents, and seven people directly involved in the effort, the firms that Weinstein hired included Kroll, one of the world’s largest corporate intelligence companies, and Black Cube, an enterprise run largely by former officers of Mossad and other Israeli intelligence agencies. Black Cube, which has branches in Tel Aviv, London, and Paris, offers its clients the skills of operatives “highly experienced and trained in Israel’s elite military and governmental intelligence units,” according to its literature.

Two private investigators from Black Cube, using false identities, met with the actress Rose McGowan, who eventually publicly accused Weinstein of rape, to extract information from her. One of the investigators pretended to be a women’s-rights advocate and secretly recorded at least four meetings with McGowan. The same operative, using a different false identity and implying that she had an allegation against Weinstein, met twice with a journalist to find out which women were talking to the press. In other cases, journalists directed by Weinstein or the private investigators interviewed women and reported back the details.

Moliere wrote: Mon Nov 06, 2017 8:55 pm

Jaymann wrote: Mon Nov 06, 2017 7:20 pm Can you imagine telling someone in 1945 that Germany would be the last bastion of enlightenment and the US would elect a Nazi.

Uh, what?

In other, non-Nazi news...

The film executive [Weinstein] hired private investigators, including ex-Mossad agents, to track actresses and journalists.

In the fall of 2016, Harvey Weinstein set out to suppress allegations that he had sexually harassed or assaulted numerous women. He began to hire private security agencies to collect information on the women and the journalists trying to expose the allegations. According to dozens of pages of documents, and seven people directly involved in the effort, the firms that Weinstein hired included Kroll, one of the world’s largest corporate intelligence companies, and Black Cube, an enterprise run largely by former officers of Mossad and other Israeli intelligence agencies. Black Cube, which has branches in Tel Aviv, London, and Paris, offers its clients the skills of operatives “highly experienced and trained in Israel’s elite military and governmental intelligence units,” according to its literature.

Two private investigators from Black Cube, using false identities, met with the actress Rose McGowan, who eventually publicly accused Weinstein of rape, to extract information from her. One of the investigators pretended to be a women’s-rights advocate and secretly recorded at least four meetings with McGowan. The same operative, using a different false identity and implying that she had an allegation against Weinstein, met twice with a journalist to find out which women were talking to the press. In other cases, journalists directed by Weinstein or the private investigators interviewed women and reported back the details.

Moliere wrote: Thu Nov 02, 2017 11:33 pm Several ‘House Of Cards’ Employees Level New Accusations Against Kevin Spacey

Jag wrote: Tue Nov 07, 2017 10:23 amSecret Mossad private spy agency is not helping the whole "Jews controlling the global agenda thing."

A journalist at The Root says the Rev. Jesse Jackson sexually harassed her after a speech at a previous employer, claiming he grabbed her thigh before saying, “I like all of that right there!”

Danielle Young, a writer-producer at The Root, detailed her experience with Jackson in a 2,000-word post published on Monday, alleging that Jackson touched her inappropriately while taking a photo with him after a keynote speech by the “living legend” at a “very popular” media company.

“I walked toward Jackson, smiling, and he smiled back at me,” Young wrote. “His eyes scanned my entire body. All of a sudden, I felt naked in my sweater and jeans. As I walked within arm’s reach of him, Jackson reached out a hand and grabbed my thigh, saying, ‘I like all of that right there!’ and gave my thigh a tight squeeze.”

The unexpected touch, Young said, left her “shocked, to say the least,” and uncomfortable in a room full of colleagues. So, she started to laugh, she said.

“And I continued to giggle as he pulled me in closer, stared down at my body, smiled and told me he was only kidding,” Young continued. “The entire time, my co-worker snapped photos.”

Young’s post included seven photos of herself with Jackson, including one in which Jackson’s right arm is around her neck while his left arm embraces Young’s arm across her body. Both Young and Jackson are smiling in five of the photos. In another, Young, who said she was “visibly uncomfortable” at the time, is pointing directly at the camera, “asking [Jackson] if we can just take the picture,” according to her post.

Paingod wrote: Tue Nov 07, 2017 11:45 am

Jag wrote: Tue Nov 07, 2017 10:23 amSecret Mossad private spy agency is not helping the whole "Jews controlling the global agenda thing."

When I heard about this, it seemed pants-on-head insane. I'm still having trouble believing it. "Hey baby, wanna see my bathtub" is a far cry from "Hey baby, I've hired a corporate intelligence firm to track your movements, insinuate themselves in your life, and provide me intel on your family to see if you're blabbing about my bathtub thing."

Moliere wrote: Tue Nov 07, 2017 11:23 am At least he has experience playing a President.

Jag wrote: Tue Nov 07, 2017 12:33 pm his yacht

A New York billionaire's company has pleaded guilty to illegally importing wildlife parts, after inspectors found a big-game hunter's haul of elephant tusks, a mounted tiger head and bar stools covered with reticulated python hides on the company's 150-foot yacht at Port Everglades.

The yacht M/Y Mystere C.I., arriving from Italy on a transport ship in late 2007 was outfitted with a decorating scheme of dead animals: rugs made of zebra, jaguar, lion, leopard and tiger. Cigarette cases covered with reticulated python skin. An entire stuffed lion.

Because these wildlife parts were being imported into the United States -- even if they weren't to be sold -- the company required permits, and it didn't have any, federal prosecutors said. The law is intended to discourage poaching of endangered species.

The yacht is owned by Ruzial Ltd., a Cayman Islands company that federal prosecutors said existed only to hold title to the yacht.

Signing the guilty plea was the company's sole director, Tamir Sapir, a Soviet-born billionaire who owns several Manhattan office buildings. Ruzial pleaded guilty to attempting to import 29 wildlife items, including specimens of protected species. U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas ordered Ruzial to pay criminal and civil fines of $150,000.
...
The yacht arrived at Port Everglades on Dec. 18, 2007, to begin a Caribbean cruise. But a Customs inspector entered, saw all the wildlife parts and called in inspectors from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who found items from several protected species.
...
Asked why no individuals were charged, he said the yacht was owned by a corporation, so that's the entity that could be charged. He also said individuals involved might be outside the jurisdiction of the United States but declined to be more specific.

He estimated the value of the contraband at $100,000. The tusks, skins and other items will be turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for use in educational programs. The yacht was not seized, Acosta said.
...
Sapir, born in Tbilisi, Georgia, emigrated to Israel in 1973 and then to the United States. He parlayed a New York taxi medallion and an electronics store into a real estate fortune, Russian oil investments and the ownership of several prominent midtown and downtown buildings. He was listed at 522nd on the Forbes list of the world's richest people, with an estimated worth of $1.4 billion.

Isgrimnur wrote: Tue Nov 07, 2017 12:47 pm

Jag wrote: Tue Nov 07, 2017 12:33 pm his yacht

Sun-Sentinel, 2009.