February 23, 2019

"The immediate reaction is born of pure emotion, prompting phrases such as 'Oh my God!' and 'He did what?' to escape your lips without thinking, to cause the breath to catch in your throat and the eyes to pop in your head."

"Friday’s news stops you in your tracks, immediately flooding your mind with more questions than you know can be answered, sending your thoughts into a spiral of tangled emotions. Anger, disgust, disappointment, shock, denial, disdain . . . all of them with the right to course through your veins, even as you await the avalanche of detail that is sure to follow the initial revelations. Sadness, too."

From "Troubling charges against Robert Kraft leave us wondering what to think" — Tara Sullivan is emoting up a storm at The Boston Globe.

In that "spiral of tangled emotions" that have "the right to course through your veins," isn't there something that makes you just want to laugh derisively? This guy had everything. Who has as much?! He had a lot more than Jussie Smollett, and he exposed himself to ruination — not for a fantasy porn star like Stormy Daniels — but for a strip mall hand job? This is stupider than what Smollett did — if he did it — so crudely staging that attack and paying for it with a check — get cash, man — which had Charles Barkley laughing at him on television and modeling the spiraling, tangled emotion called hilarity:



ADDED: Maybe hilarity is an emotion that doesn't have "the right to course through your veins." It is — as I've said — The Era of That's Not Funny. Maybe we feel we don't have the right to laugh anymore. I can see that much of the reaction to the Smollett has been that he himself committed a hate crime — a hate crime against MAGA people — and we must take umbrage and express outrage and keep a stern, grim face. Then, thank God for Charles Barkley for transgressing and inviting us into the emotion we might think doesn't have "the right to course through your veins."

And I mean to laugh at the idea of emotions with rights. People have rights, and you have a right to feel whatever you feel... including ashamed of yourself for feeling something that you disapprove of.

ALSO: Laughing at Kraft for getting a hand job in a strip mall is like laughing at Trump for eating a McDonald's cheeseburger. Why doesn't the billionaire use his money to buy the fancy version of every damned little thing that he wants? Asks the nonbillionaire.

158 comments:

rhhardin said...

Columnist orgasm.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

He’s a widower. It should be legal, as was said on Instapundit.

Unknown said...

we are being trolled by our host

Ralph L said...

Kraft should claim he has Dirty Old Man Syndrome.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

True story yesterday I was driving on Federal Highway in West Palm, same county, and there was a white girl standing on the corner who looked like she got regular meals, went to the gym, had regular showers, nice hair, dressed down a little bit, no creme rinse, I guess, standing as if she were waiting for tricks. My first thought was that they are doing another one of their stings. Next thing you know, I read the Kraft news.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

It’s easy to get girlfriends when you are rich, hard to trust them.

gilbar said...

what a FOOL he was!
HE Should bought a Private Jet, and an Island; which he could have filled with young girls (and Democratic Party members). Then he could have got his rocks off for YEARS, and NOTHING would have happened (unless the democrats somehow got voted out of office)

Unknown said...

Cops claim they will charge 200 people with solitaction
equivalent would be busting drug buyers from dealers business records

I hope Kraft receive the same penalty as AlGore

who made "surveillance video" of the act, and for what purpose?

Other celebs who popped up

1995, Hugh Grant, she got 2 million pounds in books/speaking
1997, Eddie Murphy with tranny prostitute

Amexpat said...

About Kraft: Prostitution should be legal and regulated. It should even be made into a proper profession with various types of certifications for different needs; sexual therapist, sexual masseuse, courtesan, etc. That would greatly curbed sex trafficking, underage prostitutes.

About Barkley: Refreshing that he jokes about these things and doesn't care about the reaction. Don't think you'll see him giving a groveling apology for this. Even the final crack about how all of Smollet's problems would have been solved if walked in Liam Neeson's neighborhood.

gilbar said...

Seriously, how young were the women that Robert Kraft was with? Were they old enough to drive?

Laslo Spatula said...

Seriously? You own a fucking football team and you can't even have sex with one of the cheerleaders?

Dude.

I am Laslo.

Unknown said...

Interesting how some of us think by proximity

I would not have linked Kraft to Smullet based on facts and circumstances

He bought something that was sold illegally

WWE billionaire Vince McMahon got in trouble at Florida tanning salon last year

asking for "extra service"

https://www.thedailybeast.com/she-said-vince-mcmahon-sexually-assaulted-her-in-a-tanning-booth-police-found-probable-cause-prosecutors-shrugged

Laslo Spatula said...

He should've just bought himself a twenty-year-old trophy wife.

Then the money-for-sex thing is legal.

I am Laslo.

wendybar said...

"This is stupider than what Smollett did — if he did it — " THIS, right here is the biggest joke. "IF he did it"??????? Bahahhahahhahahahha Now he is going to "claim" he has a drug problem. He has a TDS problem, and a problem LYING to the police.

Laslo Spatula said...

Finding out that the massage girl is a sex slave sucks, though.

Like finding out that organic kiwi from Whole Foods wasn't really organic at all.

I am Laslo.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

"Friday’s news stops you in your tracks, immediately flooding your mind with more questions than you know can be answered,”

I think “strip mall hand job” pretty much covers it all. Men aren’t than complicated.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ann Althouse said...

I'm surprised none of you characters has made the old "you pay her to go away" joke.

Unknown said...

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/charles-barkley-dui-bust
DECEMBER 31--Following his arrest earlier today for drunk driving, Charles Barkley told Arizona cops that he ran a stop sign because he was in a hurry to pick up a girl who had 'given him a 'blow job' one week earlier,' which the former NBA star described as 'the best one he had ever had in his life.'

Henry said...

That's a lot of emotions for a person to have all at once.

Unknown said...

This "sex slave" thing sounds like a govt setup...
like the Mann act

In what way did the girls qualify as "slaves" in this instance?

Lewis Wetzel said...

I thought Trump would want a MacDonald cheeseburger, but one that was HUGE! THE BIGGEST MACDONALD HAMBURGER EVER MADE!
And if you apply that logic to Kraft, maybe he should have gone to the prosti with the biggest hands, so he could keep his self respect as a billionaire hoity-toity type.
I don't understand guys who use hookers. I guess I can imagine some circumstances -- say, the guy has issues that he feels make it impossible for him to find a girlfriend -- but there are lots of lonely girls in the world. It's like that incel thing. Seriously? You're a young guy and you can't find a woman to fuck you? What's wrong with you?

roesch/voltaire said...

If she is called a sex worker then she was just doing her job.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

I'm surprised none of you characters has made the old "you pay her to go away" joke.

That joke doesn’t fit because it’s a joke about being extremely sexually desirable to women. For a rich old man, it’s not really a joke, just a practical necessity.

Laslo Spatula said...

"Friday’s news stops you in your tracks, immediately flooding your mind with more questions than you know can be answered, sending your thoughts into a spiral of tangled emotions. Anger, disgust, disappointment, shock, denial, disdain..."

Evidently, Friday's news stopped HER in her tracks, but good on her for projecting such a whirligig depth of feeling on We, the "you".

Now I feel shallow because this story didn't move the needle for me, one way or the other.

But on a 'writerly' note: should she not have left "shock" off her emotional grocery list? "Anger, disgust, disappointment, denial, disdain...": let the rhythm of those 'D's roll.

I am Laslo.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Blogger Unknown said...
This "sex slave" thing sounds like a govt setup...
like the Mann act

In what way did the girls qualify as "slaves" in this instance?


Don't know about this instance, but I've heard that people offer poor women in foreign countries jobs as maids in the US, if they pay them with their wages, and when the girls get here they find out "maid" means "hooker," and they can't go back or will be let go until they've worked off the fee. Sounds pretty nasty, not a victimless crime.

Ralph L said...

the old "you pay her to go away" joke.

That's for out-call girls only. We haven't yet come up with an official strip mall pros joke, besides the obvious one. Laslo?

I once saw a hooker standing in front of a department store porch column in the nice part of town--at 2 am.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

Anything not involving the pussy is called a “job,” interesting.

Unknown said...

He should have ordered the Orange Julius

Mr. Forward said...

Handikrafts?

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

I once worked with a programmer from India in this very Palm Beach County. We all went together to an Indian restaurant, she was talking to the waiters in Hindi a little bit, and at the end of the lunch she said “don’t bother leaving a tip.” She said that the waiters said that the owners not only kept all of the tips, they took the waiters' passports as soon as they got to the US, and basically made them work as all but slaves.

Ralph L said...

OJ went to MacDonald's in his Bentley before he murdered his ex-wife.

Shouting Thomas said...

It's funny and tragic at the same time, like all of life.

Money can't buy me love. Yeah, lonely old man sex is disgusting. Who wants to know about it?

I'm playing a funeral this morning. Anybody who wants a boogie boogie themed funeral service, get in touch.

Althouse, I'm not doing Dylan.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

With both Jeffrey Epstein and R Kelly getting into more trouble, is it really true that rich dudes can buy whatever sex they want with few consequences? There have been several cases where a hooker has ratted out a famous dude, especially if he is a public cough cough servant. MeToo is actually bringing down some big fish. Are the women/girls in strip mall massage parlors actually less likely to rat a guy out? This brings us to the police and the sting operation. The libertarians say legalize the transaction of sex for money, with some regulations regarding public health and (one would think) violence or non-consensual sex. A red-light district might allow for all this. I gather the law and order types think that by treating paying for sex as a crime, they are able to work on keeping out organized crime.

Shouting Thomas said...

For a short time, we had a Korean nail salon/massage parlor in our podunk town.

Busted a year ago.

Never made it there. I swear.

Unknown said...

> I don't understand guys who use hookers.

back during the groping accusations period, Schwarzenegger, the black plow man, was reported to ask golfing buddies if they wanted to get "plo chops"

Humperdink said...

So the cops have indicated there are going to be 170+ arrests in this prostitution/sex slave ring. If they were truly sex slaves, why did they wait so long to break it up? I would have thought the urgency of freeing the sex slaves would have occurred after 5 or so instances, not 170.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

“Not the biggest name...” per Drudge

Tiger lives right nearby... Just saying.

But Laslo is right, “devastation” would have worked better than “shock.”

Unknown said...

Make Hand Jobs Cheap Again

This is the best argument I've heard for Open Borders.

William said...

I saw a news article. The place got a lot of bad reviews on Yelp. Apparently women went there for massages and were disappointed with the service.......How outraged are you supposed to be at this? It's strange that a billionaire would make use of a discount service but that's more disappointing than outrageous. . He wasn't living the dream.

Ann Althouse said...

"That joke doesn’t fit because it’s a joke about being extremely sexually desirable to women. For a rich old man, it’s not really a joke, just a practical necessity."

Your challenge is to make it fit. It seems obvious to me. If you are a billionaire and you want someone on the Stormy Daniels level, the amount of money it takes to make her go away is absurdly high. By going where they're not viewing you as a billionaire, but just another pudgy old man, you can hope to escape getting rooked.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

In the UK and Australia it’s legal. Or was when I was there. These sex traffickers are ruining it everywhere.

Unknown said...

> Make Hand Jobs Cheap Again

If there were legal McDonalds could offer a true

Happy Meal

Isn't just like shaking hands if you imagine yourself picking flowers?

Lucid-Ideas said...

Waking up from bad dreams and smoking cigarettes
Receiving a warm handjob from a mall masseuse
A cold winters eve and an arrest
A strip mall police bust with no chance for shopping

That's "retailtainment". That's "retailtainment"

(P.s. "retailtainment" - Noun - a new word recently invented within the development community for revitalizing strip malls and other dying retail outlets into event and entertainment destinations where products and services can also be purchased. Services like happy endings.)

Meade said...

Robert Kraft was horny, f**kless and losing patience.

An aide, joining him on a trip to Florida, had googled and found a high-priced escort service for his boss while hauling their bags through an airport terminal. But once onboard, he delivered the grim news: He had lost his cell phone before reaching the gate, and with it, the contact information for the escort service.

What happened next was typical: Mr. Kraft berated his aide instantly for the slip-up. What happened after that was not: He pulled into a strip mall featuring a day spa massage parlor.

When Mr. Kraft returned to the car, he handed something to his staff member with a directive: Clean it.

whitney said...

How can a lonely old widower getting off even qualify as news. Wait. I know. It's because he owns the Patriots and the Patriots are Trump's team and so really this is about Trump.

Ralph L said...

Recent TV cop shows make human-trafficking sound as bad as the sex slave industry, sometimes conflating them. I suspect they do it to help the push for open borders.

Talking to my parents and grandmother about professional hair-cutting when I was in college, I said blow job instead of blow dry. To add to my mortification, Grandma asked what one was.

Laslo Spatula said...

"...you can hope to escape getting rooked."

I looked up "rooked" on Urban Dictionary, thinking there HAD to be some sexually deviant slang meaning that has been applied to this verb at some point.

Turns out there isn't.

Too early in the morning to be disappointed by the Urban Dictionary.

I am Laslo.

Unknown said...

it's one step down from the nails business

rubbing the foot instead

nail industry is worth $8 billion

80% Vietnamese

story is started by one visit from Tippi Hendren

http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/05/05/tippi-hedren-vietnamese-refugees-nail-industry/

“We were trying to find vocations for them. I brought in seamstresses and typists—any way for them to learn something,” she told the BBC. “And they loved my fingernails.”

bleh said...

Give me a break. Who cares? I think it’s terrible that people are trying to pin responsibility on Kraft for sex trafficking. Do we treat people who buy drugs for personal use as though they’re responsible for beheadings in Mexico, etc.?

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

That should be his plea then: “Judge, Put yourself in my shoes! I was only paying her to go away!” He could say he got the idea from a law professor.

Marcus Bressler said...

Tim in Vermont is correct. The decoy whores stand in one spot. The real hookers, who are neither pretty or dress well, move along.

THEOLDMAN

I live in Jupiter, know this spa, and am so proud (NOT) of the local PD for the LONG surveillance necessary to pull this off. Unless they had sound-enabled video, good luck getting a smart defense attorney to convince his client to plead guilty. All this first offenders would get probation any way. After all, NO ONE YET has been charged with HOOMAN TRAFFICKING.

Henry said...

Laughing at Kraft for getting a hand job in a strip mall is like laughing at Trump for eating a McDonald's cheeseburger.

I think the sex-trafficking angle is what drives off the jokes. I don't have strong feelings about this foolish old man I don't know. But it's hard to start making jokes about the johns without considering who was taking their money and who was doing the work.

If there's a parallel between this and Trump and cheeseburgers it would only be in an alternate world where industrial livestock production was a black-market activity. Or if McDonalds was a sketchy outfit running puppy mills.

Laslo Spatula said...

"Lucid-Ideas said...That's "retailtainment". That's "retailtainment""

It was only a hand-job. It's not like he was down in the 'tube station' at midnight.

I am Laslo.

Unknown said...

> he handed something to his staff member with a directive: Clean it.

member, heh heh

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/us/politics/amy-klobuchar-staff.html

Then she handed the comb to her staff member with a directive: Clean it.

Laslo Spatula said...

With all the money Kraft has paid Tom Brady he still couldn't get a courtesy tug from Giselle?

Are we sure she is from Brazil?

I am Laslo.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

“staff member” Isn’t that redundant?

gspencer said...

"If you are a billionaire and you want someone on the Stormy Daniels level, the amount of money it takes to make her go away is absurdly high."

And despite the high price Trump still didn't get what [i.e., her going-away] he bargained for.

David Begley said...

Ann and Meade:

Admit it. You two are loving these jokes.

Unknown said...

Orchid was too obvious a sexual name

I would have named the joint

"with six you get egg roll"

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

Now that Patriots fans know about this, look for Kraft to be taken care of by grateful fans dropping off their wives and girlfriends at his hotel from now on.

AllenS said...

"Very attractive women" standing on the street corners at night are police decoys. Here's who they arrest in Minneapolis MN.

LINK TEXT

Leland said...

The US is asked to be more like Europe in open borders, refugee resettlement, single payer healthcare, and euthanasia. But prostitution... not so much.

On the same news, there is a suggestion that there is a bigger name on the list. I suspect that person is a politician. Not sure which party... but I think the idea is to get people to attack or defend Kraft, and then drop the name of the politician and see how many hypocrites we have.

M Jordan said...

I see the sports media think this is a a hit job by Roger Goodell on the Pats for them winning too much. What a bunch of tinfoil hatters. Everyone knows this is all because Kraft supports Trump.

Unknown said...

he could have just browsed pornhub like the rest of us

rather than pulling his Peewee Herman

I'm Full of Soup said...

Is sex worker like an apprenticeship that prepares you to be a Tiger Mom?

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

It’s like when you find out a good friend needed your help but was too proud to ask.

Unknown said...

I am old enough to remember when feminists said sex work is empowering

Marcus Bressler said...

I've read the LONG and TOO detailed arrest affidavit. Short take: after they got a "tip" the cops monitored the spa. They saw only male customers who stayed inside for either 30 or 60 minutes (DUH, that's how long massages are sold for) and that made them more suspicious. They checked the dumpster and found paper with suspicious notations on them. They stopped customers who had left the spa for traffic violations - YEAHRITE - and these asshats, when questioned, told the cops what happened inside the spa. These men will probably testify to prove probable cause. Then the Keystone Cops staged a fake suspicious backpack left near the spa and made the Mamasan and her girls vacate while they pretended to search the place and while doing so placed the video cameras (they had secured a warrant). Then they recorded over 20 sessions over a period of time (I don't remember but you would think that they would only need a few) with VIVID descriptions of what went on. They busted the placed, found wet wipes and had them tested for semen (positive!) and arrest (SO FAR) the owner (who lives in a great nice house in a ritzy part of town) and the Manager (Lei who went by the name LuLu and was my personal favorite). So far NO ONE has been arrested for Human Trafficking. They allege that the women (no one else has been arrested to this point) were living there (who? the manager? I saw her walking in the upscale Palm Beach Gardens mall with her BF and GF a year ago and she certainly wasn't an imprisoned sex slave). Unless the men don't want to incur the legal fees (it's only a minor misdemeanor on first offense) and plead out to probation, no client is going to jail. The locals have been taking selfies in front of the spa like the jokes they are.

THEOLDMAN

Ralph L said...

absurdly high
Pocket change

Egg Roll
In a Faulkner story, the black pros would call "Jelly Roll" to the white johns.

Unknown said...

> suggestion that there is a bigger name on the list. I suspect that person is a politician.

please let it be Mike Pence... that thread would get 2000 comments

Amadeus 48 said...

I sense that this is a bigger story in New England THAN ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.
There is something elegant about a billionaire industrialist and sports owner getting a $50 hand job at a strip mall. Efficient, fit for purpose, appropriate mix of emotional commitment and physical payoff, no foreplay required, no post-coital regret, no need to even consider a morning-after call. I’d say Kraft got it about right. Look at all the complications Stormy (“Headlamps”) Daniels brought into Trump’s life—if he did it.

Amadeus 48 said...

“Bigger name on the list.”
I hope it’s going to be Bernie but we all know it’s Bill.

Unknown said...

> So far NO ONE has been arrested for Human Trafficking.

Didn't stop this pundit for national paper from opining...


https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/02/22/robert-kraft-charged-soliciting-prostitution-orchids-asia-patriots-trafficking-column/2955489002/

Society must raise the cost of slavery
To that end, the authorities in Florida must be commended for the extensive investigation that led to the bust of a multi-national human trafficking ring. They must further be commended for charging Kraft based on the evidence they gathered. The true test, however, will be what happens next? If the allegations are proved, to what extent will Kraft be held to account?

This fact suggests that the most effective way to eradicate sex trafficking would be to abolish male demand to purchase women and children for sex. That means the imposition of severe penalties that are designed to make it seem far more painful than pleasant to barter in human bodies. Public shame is certainly a serious penalty, but the imposition of far greater financial fines coupled with extensive prison time will be required before men as rich and powerful as Kraft feel that buying Chinese girls from local spas is not worth it.

tomaig said...


Kind of cruel, your glee and *hilarity* at the lonely, elderly widower who cared for his wife of almost 50 years as she died of cancer (2011), and how you denigrate the woman as some sort of low-class hag.
Do we know what she looks like, this alleged handjobber? Perhaps she's half Stormy's age and has a lot fewer rode-hard-and-put-away-wet miles on her than Stormy.

How is paying cash for a strip-mall hand job - something which I imagine he had done before with it causing nary a ripple - "stupider" than falsely and with malicious intent tarring tens of millions of Americans as racist, violent homophobes?

Wince said...

This is stupider than what Smollett did...

Really? Kraft didn't intentionally bring attention to his own crime.

Henry said...

This fact suggests that the most effective way to eradicate sex trafficking would be to abolish male demand to purchase women and children for sex. That means the imposition of severe penalties that are designed to make it seem far more painful than pleasant to barter in human bodies.

The author might want to commit to the same level of severity for diamond and blouse purchasers.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Smollett is so stupid that everything he does is dumber than anything Kraft could do. Smollett is one of those dumb people who is convinced he is smart.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Did I just "IQ shame" Smollett and is that still allowed?

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

See, if you are a Trump supporter, it goes from getting a strip mall hand job to buying a slave, at least in USAToday.

Tom from Virginia said...

I'll be much concerned from the New England Patriots if I hear that Gronk has retired.

Unknown said...

We are told Amazon workers are slaves

and fast food workers paid less than $15 an hour are slaves

Warren and Harris say we need to pay reparations

Ann Althouse said...

I've frontpaged Meade in a separate post.

Ann Althouse said...

"He’s a widower. It should be legal, as was said on Instapundit."

In a strip mall near you.

Ann Althouse said...

""This is stupider than what Smollett did — if he did it — " THIS, right here is the biggest joke. "IF he did it"??????? Bahahhahahhahahahha Now he is going to "claim" he has a drug problem. He has a TDS problem, and a problem LYING to the police."

It's even funnier (I think) if you get the O.J. Simpson reference. Or maybe not.

Ray - SoCal said...

I had to look up the word rooked in a regular dictionary, since I did not know it.

Neat word.

Laslow’s comment in the urban dictionary was excellent!

Ray - SoCal said...

The use of a video as a way to shame people by law enforcement just feels wrong.

Unknown said...

> "He’s a widower. It should be legal, as was said on Instapundit."

One thing America needs is more public shame about sex

if it's not local barney fife staking out the tug shop and claiming slave rings

it can be all the bad dates sent to #metoo

We hand out needles to drug users

why not rags and mags to the sex addicts?

Craig said...

Barkley is a national treasure. However, I'd say there's a 50% chance he'll be banished from the airwaves within the next year for saying something that offends some group of snowflakes.

bgates said...

Your challenge is to make it fit.

You want hand job jokes, but you're giving us punch lines to other stuff.

Unknown said...

I am not looking for a hand out

but a hand up

CWJ said...

He'll blame Chiefs fans.

Howard said...

He forget the NFL rescinded the Tuck Rule

stevew said...

This will not ruin Robert Kraft.

Ann Althouse said...

"That should be his plea then: “Judge, Put yourself in my shoes! I was only paying her to go away!” He could say he got the idea from a law professor."

That kind of is the argument escorts use. I don't know how well it works. But you are, it is said, paying for the company, and then she decides whether to have sex with you in a consensual way.

Ann Althouse said...

"Ann and Meade: Admit it. You two are loving these jokes."

Whatever the bloggable material is — funny or not — we enjoy the real-life dimension in conversation here pretty much every day.

Ann Althouse said...

Just to come back to tim's point: ""That joke doesn’t fit because it’s a joke about being extremely sexually desirable to women. For a rich old man, it’s not really a joke, just a practical necessity.""

I think a billionaire is extremely desirable to the woman, even if he's not attractive as a sexual partner. The relationship as a whole is desirable, and getting to stay for the benefits (of wealth and social access) is even more important where you don't like the sex part of the arrangement at all.

chuck said...

Well, darn, and here I was thinking of moving to Florida. But there is still Colorado...

Ann Althouse said...

"I'm playing a funeral this morning. Anybody who wants a boogie boogie themed funeral service, get in touch. Althouse, I'm not doing Dylan."

I wouldn't have suggested Dylan for a funeral. For a long time, I've thought that this would be a good funeral song.

But I wouldn't call that "boogie boogie." Actually, I wouldn't call anything "boogie boogie." What the hell is that? Different from "boogie woogie"?

If anyone is suggesting Dylan for a funeral song, I'm guessing they're naming songs that are among my least favorite Dylan songs, like "Forever Young."

stevew said...

I find it funny, not ha ha funny, that Tara Sullivan of The Boston Globe is so attached to a rich guy she probably has never met that she is flooded with emotions (anger, disgust, disappointment, shock, denial, disdain) over this incident.

I'm a lifelong Boston guy, and Patriots fan. The team's record of success under Kraft's ownership is impressive. The only emotion I became flooded with when hearing the news yesterday was amazement, specifically at the stupidity Kraft showed by putting himself in this situation. That though was quickly replaced with humor and laughter as many of my friends weighed in via text on the incident. Laughing and making fun of this smart, wealthy, dope.

Unknown said...

> I think a billionaire is extremely desirable to the woman, even if he's not attractive as a sexual partner.

Paging Anna Nicole Smith

83 year old E Howard Marshall waiting for you

exhelodrvr1 said...

"he handed something to his staff member with a directive"

Meade, I believe the above was a typo. Should read:

"He handed his member to his staff, with a directive to clean it"

mccullough said...

So the police and prosecutors want the judge or jury to watch video of a handjob so the town of Jupiter can get a $500 fine?

Once the judge says “will the defendant please rise” there will be a mistrial

Roger Sweeny said...

With all the money Kraft has paid Tom Brady he still couldn't get a courtesy tug from Giselle?

Actually, Tom Brady is paid considerably less than many other NFL quarterbacks. One reason the Patriots keep winning is that they spend money on the non-star players who make Brady effective. Every team has the same "salary cap" and every dollar spent on a quarterback means one less to spend on, for example, those second stringers who "step up" when someone gets injured.

Bruce Hayden said...

“True story yesterday I was driving on Federal Highway in West Palm, same county, and there was a white girl standing on the corner who looked like she got regular meals, went to the gym, had regular showers, nice hair, dressed down a little bit, no creme rinse, I guess, standing as if she were waiting for tricks. My first thought was that they are doing another one of their stings. Next thing you know, I read the Kraft news.”

It was almost 40 years ago, and I was winding down my time living in the DC area. Friend from HS is in town. His family was in the thrift store business, and he had just opened one up in town. After dinner at an Indian restaurant, he asked whether I wanted to see the hookers. Sure, I guess. So, we are driving along, not that far from the Capital, and he asked if I had noticed how the women were dressed. A lot of them looked like secretaries. He pointed out that that is what a lot of guys want to have sex with. He then suggested that I look at the women closely as we drove down the street. His point was that as you drove away from the Capital, over maybe a 6-8 block stretch, the women standing and walking got less white, older, heavier, and less well dressed. Their prices dropped accordingly. He knew this because his new store was in the area, and they got in a number of the less costly lasses as customers.

Then, a bit over a decade ago, I moved to the Reno area. Just the opposite. Flew in and out of that airport most every week. And you would find yourself leaving behind a limousine film wrapped to indicate that it was headed to one of the legal brothels right across the county line. Just like the hotel limousines, except flashier. What a contrast. Had a long term patent client who worked maintenance at one of the more famous brothels there, and his stories of working there are great.

Roger Sweeny said...

Once again the New England Patriots are getting into trouble over balls.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

Blogger CWJ said...
He'll blame Chiefs fans


Why? Patriots got no beef with the Cheifs. Nice of them to lose the coin toss, BTW.

I would have said it was Dolphins fans, but in that part of South Florida, you find a lot more Giants fans, except probably the cops are Dolphins fans. Its a class thing, I think.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

Blogger bgates said...
Your challenge is to make it fit.

You want hand job jokes, but you're giving us punch lines to other stuff


Thread winner.

Sebastian said...

"he exposed himself to ruination"

How so?

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

As a Patriots fan, I can say this won’t cost him so much as the sale of a single beer at Gillette Stadium <<--Gillette! Ha ha ha!

Bruce Hayden said...

Personally, I like the idea of legal prostitution, like you have in parts of NV. Historically, females have traded sex for wealth and financial security for them and their kids. Feminists have been arguing for some time that marriage is just legalized prostitution. But females of a number of species trade sex and breeding opportunities for resources. Why should we shame our females for accepting resources for sex, and our males for providing such? Even traditional dating involved this, as the females evaluated the males on their ability to provide resources by how much they were willing to spend on the dates. Women obsess about the gender wage gap, but the reality is that much of it is a result of this dynamic - males need to work harder and longer, because they ultimately expect to trade resources for sex and children, and the females can afford to work shorter hours, for fewer years, because they expect males to help them out financially, in trade for sex and bearing their children. I think that drawing the line that we do now, that exchanging sex for resources is fine, as long as it isn’t explicitly that, and nothing more, is ridiculous.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

why didnt he pay 2 Nigerians to do it?

Browndog said...

I first heard about Kraft on the radio. It sounded like he was operating a sex trafficking ring using Chinese slaves.

As a Pats fan, my heart sunk. This is what Goodell and the other owners (Jerry Jones) needed to destroy the dynasty. Then, I remembered this concept of 'fake news'.

Now that I know the extent, it's a nothing-burger.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

Another problem with the "pay her to go away” angle is the nature of humor in America, it’s funny when the less powerful side wins and in the case of the war of the sexes, *most* men are on the less powerful side of that war. So jokes about men who can just overwhelm women’s defenses and get them to just put out, like they do with James Bond, or Charlie Sheen in 2 1/2 men, resonate with men. Jokes about rich guys paying prostitutes to go away puts you on the side of the powerful laughing at the less powerful. In America, that’s just not funny, to coin a phrase. Maybe Ming the Merciless or Hillary Clinton would laugh at such a joke...

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"I looked up "rooked" on Urban Dictionary, thinking there HAD to be some sexually deviant slang meaning that has been applied to this verb at some point.

Turns out there isn't."

I once used the word "rook" while talking to my mother, and she literally raised an eyebrow, like I was swearing, or at least saying something indelicate. I don't usually use off-color language, especially not with her, but I didn't think "rook" would be a problem. Now I'll have to avoid saying "craft", or "Crafty Beaver".

At least I didn't say "garner".

bbkingfish said...

Poor Robert Kraft. Everybody is so unfair to him.

Making fun of Robert Kraft for getting a handjob in a strip mall is like making fun of Donald Trump for having an affair with a washed up porn actress, then paying her a $140K bribe to keep her piehole shut about it, and then lying about both the affair and the payoff. How terribly unfair.

JML said...

I'll never look at Kraft Mayonnaise in the same way ever again...

Hand jobs don't suck...but blow jobs are better...

At least he didn't pay by check...

He had to do it, his balls were over inflated.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"$140K bribe "

Haven't you ever heard of a legally binding contract?

Oh well, contracts aren't binding on minors or women.

Browndog said...

Liberals hate Kraft because they hate Trump.

....and everyone else that deosn't hate him.

Never give these people power.

WK said...

You don’t become a billionaire by overpaying for services. I believe there is a moneyball joke in this saga somewhere as well. It just needs to be teased out.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

what about Bernie getting a heart massage-- did anyone mention that?

JAORE said...

Hand jobs....hamburgers. Thank goodness hookers have two hands. Come on Powerball.

JAORE said...

Ron, Ron Perlman. C'mon over here buddy. I want you to shake hands with Mr. Kraft. He owns the Patriots.

Bill Peschel said...

You don't pay a prostitute for a handjob. You pay her to go away.

Or so I've been told.

This reminds me of the story of the woman who approached James Joyce and said, "May I kiss the hand that wrote 'Ulysses'?"

He said, "No, it does other things, too."

mockturtle said...

Years ago, a well-to-do, married with children, male state legislator from our Seattle suburb was caught having sex with another male at a public rest stop. This sort of liaison is not uncommon. Apparently, it is the anonymity of the encounter as well as the risk of being caught that make this appealing.

Rory said...

"Laughing at Kraft for getting a hand job in a strip mall is like laughing at Trump for eating a McDonald's cheeseburger. Why doesn't the billionaire use his money to buy the fancy version of every damned little thing that he wants?"

I wanna say something about trickle down.

Ken B said...

There are lots of kinds of fake news. Doing a big story about a guy jay walking is fake news because it’s intended to distract. This is that kind of fake news.

PS a hand job from pretty much anyone but a leper is wiser than screwing Stormy Daniels.

Lewis Wetzel said...

I am about the farthest thing from a feminist, but I think it is a really bad, and very male thing, to do what Kraft is said to have done. You have reduced the the intimate male-female relationship, the core of human life on earth, to the bare bones of the objectifying male fantasy. Find woman, giver her money, she performs a humiliating sexual service for you. You go home and never see her again.
It would be something like paying a woman who looks like your ideal mom to tell you are such a good son and she loves you very much, when you've got a perfectly good mom out there, somewhere, who would do the same thing if you just brought her a damn card and some damn flowers.

CWJ said...

tim in vermont -

"Why? Patriots got no beef with the Cheifs."

Kraft does.

Lewis Wetzel said...

The other day on the coast there was some male TV news drone who died after some very strange S&M play with a grindr-man at at a hotel. Death as a result of inserting methamphetamine into place it should not be inserted. It was not their first grindr "date."
The TV news guy left behind a wife and children.
Am I not supposed to say that this is wrong? Forbidden behavior? Because it was between consenting adults? Think of the wife and kids, humiliated, their lives shattered.

mockturtle said...

Lewis, you're spot-on. To bring such shame on your family is despicable. But, alas, mens' brains are often located between their legs.

mockturtle said...

PS: See my post at 9:46.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Bruce Hayden wrote:
". . . Feminists have been arguing for some time that marriage is just legalized prostitution. . . ."
You could just as well say that prostitution is the patriarchy's way of mocking marriage. I guess I am on a roll, here. Don't get me started on the wickedness of divorce.

mockturtle said...

Another family, whom I knew well, was destroyed when their prominent and successful father was found dead in the trunk of his car in another city. They found he had been killed after a homosexual tryst.

narciso said...

Yes but why is this story important when Kraft isnt even the biggest fish John havens of Morgan Stanley probably is.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Here is story about the weird KTLA guy: https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/chris-burrous-autopsy-methamphetamine-1203146648/
A wife and just one child, a young daughter.

Seeing Red said...

What I think is I don’t care.

wwww said...

It's horrific--not funny--because the women were trapped on the premises and forced to do it. They were not given access to showers, kitchens, and were not allowed to leave the building. They were trafficked by evil people who told them they would be given legitimate jobs.

These cops saved them through their detective work. They are heroes.

& they were as surprised as anyone this billionaire celebrity was frequenting such a place.

I dislike call-out culture & the attack on songs or other such things. But this is different. This is human trafficking & the police are heroes.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

Kraft does

I am sure any beef he has with the Chiefs he got over it in the Super Bowl owner’s suite.

Earnest Prole said...

Let the elderly widower have his sad strip-mall handjob in peace.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

On the plus side, I bet he never has to pay for it again.

Amexpat said...

Sex trafficking and women coerced into prostitution is a real issue. But are most John's aware of this? It seems over the top to blame Kraft for that.

It's likely that there are plenty of products that we all buy that are made by child labor or in factories where the workers are coerced to work in horrible conditions. If we were aware of it we might forego, but the blame is not on the consumers but on the factory owners and government entities for not stopping it.

Kevin said...

Strip club, strip mall, sometimes the instructions get confused.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

“It was only a hand-job. It's not like he was down in the 'tube station' at midnight.”

Fucking brilliant!

I don’t laugh at Kraft for getting a handjob. Who cares? How is it even news? I laugh at him for lacking even the minimal self-discipline necessary to protect his dignity. I often laugh at Trump for the same reason. Doesn’t mean I don’t like the guy.

traditionalguy said...

OK. Humor is back again. Now we can enjoy the Trumpster buying children that are in a car.He has a troll the media gag on Twitter that cannot be missed.

AlbertAnonymous said...

I've said this before...

I told my wife long ago, if you wake up in the middle of the night and want to have sex, just give me a signal like, maybe, grab it and stroke it 3 times.

And if you wake up in the middle of the night and don't want to have sex, grab it and stoke it 300 times.

FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Clyde said...

I think Hank said it best: Mind Your Own Business

eddie willers said...

a courtesy tug from Giselle

Made the whole thread worth it.

rehajm said...

Now that Patriots fans know about this, look for Kraft to be taken care of by grateful fans dropping off their wives and girlfriends at his hotel from now on

Kraft is just the money. Now if it was Belichick...

rehajm said...

At 77 he still gets horny. Good on ya, mate.

wwww said...

"Sex trafficking and women coerced into prostitution is a real issue. But are most John's aware of this? It seems over the top to blame Kraft for that."

He's a billionaire and has plenty of $$ to fly to places like Amsterdam where prostitution is legal and regulated. Or he could have put aside the $$ to find someone, a mistress or self-employed, upper-end escort. If he wanted, he's got enough $$ he could pay for a background check or investigator if he cared to check out the background of the pimps.

I don't agree with any form of prostitution. But I do think there are degrees of depravity. Women who are held captive can't consent. These women didn't get a choice. Johns know that trafficking is a possibility. A place like this, there are signs that trafficking could be happening, which makes it utterly disgusting for a John to visit such a place.

That a billionaire w/ plenty of options for sex, would choose to do so -- ugh. Morally depraved behaviour. None of the women spoke English, they couldn't leave the premises w/ held captive, they had restricted access to showers. He's not able to ask the women anything, to see if they are in there of their own free will, unless he speaks their language.

Michael K said...

Remember Red Sanders, UCLA's greatest football coach, died in a hotel, room humping a hooker.

A better end than the The TV news dude who died humping another dude with an overdose of amyl nitrate and amphetamines in him.

He left a wife and 9 year old daughter. The day after Christmas.

Marcus Bressler said...

Not slaves. Allowed to leave. Total bullshit. It was an upscale rub and tug.

THEOLDMAN

wwww said...

This wasn't a sting on prostitution. It was a investigation & sting operation on a multi-million dollar trafficking operation spread throughout the state.

Passports taken away. Living in the mall. Working 7 days a week. Unprotected sex with thousands of men a year. Not getting paid. Moved every 10 to 20 days.

Sheriff William D. Snyder of Martin County. "I would never consider them prostitutes -- it was really a rescue operation." "I made this decision that we had enough of that: Let's go after the traffickers."

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

> Passports taken away. Living in the mall. Working 7 days a week. Unprotected sex with thousands of men a year. Not getting paid. Moved every 10 to 20 days.

I have never heard law enforcement stereotype or exaggerate... Like that Sheriff in Broward.
There is no way they could be trying to convert a victimless crime into a crime with victims.

Its great the cops ran a sting and filmed patrons. I hope Jupiter FL end male masturbation in their district. I forsee they can prevent a lot of crime by participating and enabling the crime.

Unknown said...

<a href=https://www.wpbf.com/article/suspicious-backpack-helped-investigators-uncover-human-trafficking-ring/26477877</a?
Jupiter police said they videotaped both of Kraft’s alleged sex acts with female employees at the spa, which is under investigation for human trafficking charges.
A source said police got cameras into the business where some of the females were living, by putting a “suspicious” backpack in the parking lot and evacuating the business for three hours while they supposedly investigated.
The video surveillance took place over five days.
A source who has knowledge of the case said police saw Kraft at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa on the night of Jan. 19, and then pulled him over after he left, telling him it was a routine traffic stop.
Kraft was said to be in a Rolls Royce and wearing his Superbowl ring.
He returned the next day, Jan. 20, according to the source, and then flew out to watch the Patriots win the AFC Championship in Kansas City.