F**king Mondays: The Monsters Among Us

Russell Brand is in very serious trouble.

Your favorite “F**king Mondays” column is here with a chef’s selection of stories to dig into! This week’s tips:

Russell Brand’s #MeToo moment

I saw Russell Brand perform standup live in Washington DC roughly 10 years ago and was genuinely taken aback by how charismatic he was in person. Television doesn’t adequately capture Brand’s magnetism, or how much power he is able to exert over people around him. The audience was mostly female, and I suspected almost all of them would have succumbed to his advances had he picked them out after the show (something Brand apparently did quite often).

Named 'Shagger of the Year' three years in a row by the Sun newspaper in the mid-2000s, Brand was well known in media circles for being a shameless Lothario. But according to a four year long investigation by several prominent British media organizations, Brand was also a violent sexual predator (via the Guardian):

Russell Brand has been accused of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse over a seven-year period at the height of his fame.

The allegations between 2006 and 2013 were the result of a joint investigation by the Sunday Times, the Times and Channel 4 Dispatches. Brand denies the allegations.

Five alleged victims, four of them anonymous, were interviewed in the Dispatches documentary aired on Saturday night….

According to the paper’s report, one of the women said Brand entered into a relationship with her while he was 31 and she was still a 16-year-old schoolgirl. She reportedly said he referred to her as “the child” during an alleged emotionally abusive and controlling three-month relationship.

She told Dispatches the presenter once “forced his penis down her throat”, making her choke, which led her to punch him in the stomach to make him stop.

More allegations are now emerging, and one woman has now filed a police report about an alleged sexual assault which took place in central London in 2003.

Brand preempted the story which broke on Saturday, Sep. 16th with a message to his Youtube followers proclaiming his innocence:

Brand’s monologue is extremely revealing for one major reason: he asserts without a shred of evidence that this was a “coordinated attack” by the “mainstream media” designed to silence him because he was getting “too close to the truth”.

Extremely charismatic narcissists are rarely used to being confronted with hard truths, particularly about themselves. So instead of dealing with the actual accusations or the accusers, Brand is constructing an alternate reality that makes him the victim. Fortunately for Brand, he has cultivated a conspiracy theory prone audience for years, so only has to imply it is a Deep State plot to shut him up about Covid vaccines, Anthony Fauci or the war in Ukraine etc.

Brand also has prominent supporters in the Alt media world with influencers like Jordan Peterson, Elon Musk and Andrew Tate leaping to his defense. This could make him even more dangerous going forward if he decides to weaponize his media connections and dangerously misinformed audience.

However, the allegations are incredibly well documented and as more information comes out, Brand is going to have to do a lot more than claim “the mainstream media” is out to get him.

Liberal Jews are destroying America

Jews received this warm Rosh Hashanah message from the ex president over the weekend:

Blaming Jews for everything is all the rage these days with fellow conspiracy theorist Elon Musk declaring earlier this month that a Jewish organization was responsible for Twitter’s financial woes, and JFK implying Jews created Covid-19.

In fairness to Trump, he did blame Jews for destroying Israel suggesting he is more of an idiot than an antisemite.

Decency in the Senate!

Marjorie Taylor Greene is outraged that the Senate is not forcing Sen. John Fetterman to wear a suit when he shows up to work:

Shouting “liar” during a sitting President’s State of the Union speech, stalking members of Congress, and assaulting teenage activists outside the Capitol is apparently a much better example of setting etiquette and respect for our institutions.

Bill Maher backs down

This definitely wasn’t because Maher couldn’t get any decent guests to betray the thousands of workers striking for better wages in Hollywood…. (via the NYTimes):

Bill Maher said on Monday that he would delay the return of his show, just days after he had said it would resume despite the ongoing screenwriters’ strike against Hollywood studios.

Mr. Maher said he reversed his decision to restart his weekly HBO show, “Real Time With Bill Maher,” because contract negotiations between Hollywood studios and striking screenwriters were set to resume this week.

Mr. Maher said in a post on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that his earlier decision to restart the show — which he announced last week — came when “there was no end in sight” to the strike. His change of heart followed similar reversals from talk show hosts like Drew Barrymore and Jennifer Hudson over the weekend.

In case you missed it

Our own Bob Cesca on why concerns over Biden’s age are almost entirely warrantless:

The truth is if Biden were napping during cabinet meetings or was generally disengaged in the White House, we’d hear about it through leaks to the press. We always do. It happened during Ronald Reagan’s second term. But nothing about Biden. In fact, everything we’ve observed about both foreign trips, legislative negotiations, and policymaking indicates that Biden is fully engaged. How else has the administration been able to win so often, including bipartisan legislation on infrastructure and guns, of all things. The only way that happens is with Biden’s 50 years of experience in that town.

Read the rest here.

See you next week!

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