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    Dinosaurs and Nachos, Very Legal and Very Cool!Anne Branigin
    11/21/18 12:51pm

    If you find out that a man you know has beaten his partner this badly, I’m going to tell you something right now.

    You don’t know that man. You know his façade. You know what his mask looks like. You don’t know him.

    Ask his partner. Ask his children. Find out who he really is. Realize that you have lived in ignorance and work to correct it. Because goddamn, we all know he didn’t just “snap” one day. That was just the one time he did something that you found out about, that’s all.

    By the time a man beats someone this badly, he has been abusing her for years.  Fucking hell, this isn’t complicated.  

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      Desperate for a Shag GilesDinosaurs and Nachos, Very Legal and Very Cool!
      11/21/18 1:19pm

      These statements always confuse me as to how they can be so convincing to some. “That’s not the man I knew” Well, yeah. You obviously didn’t know him like you thought then. Thanks for proving the point that abusers aren’t what they seem.

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      redzedDinosaurs and Nachos, Very Legal and Very Cool!
      11/21/18 1:59pm

      Sometimes I wish I had more stars to give to a specific comment. It doesn’t happen often, but this is most definitely one of them. 

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    FlamingFeministaAnne Branigin
    11/21/18 12:41pm

    What strikes me about letters of recommendation like this is how they equate being educated, accomplished and skilled at a job with being a good person incapable of the crime! Or what those characteristics have to do with the capacity to abuse in one’s private life with their spouse?! I’m really diligent about filling out my expense reports before month-end, that’s why I can’t possibly be a Road Rager!

    The other thing that galls me is how calculating hubby was, and how gullible Fudge was. She didn’t think it off that hubby sought a woman’s recommendation for a charge of DV?! Did she ask about the circumstances and just not care that Mrs. Fraser had a broken facial bone, that it happened in front of the kids and he put her out on the side of the road?! I mean, some allegations may seem specious - I’ll even allow for an actual unintended mishap (literally, an accident during an argument with an injury that gets misconstrued by someone not present) or an outright false allegation! But what part of HER FACE don’t you believe that frees your conscience to advocate for him?!

    Really, people?! Hubby, Fudge and the sentencing Judge are supposed to be smart and discerning! This letter doesn’t say that he nursed twelve sick women for multiple years or started a battered women’s shelter and THAT’S why the incident had to be a one-off...

    This is the kinda crap that let’s you know just how truly idiotic people are (despite their education/position), how they protect each other and how they somehow fail upward or fall but never land in the basement.

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      TheDrDonna Wants a Buppet of CopcornFlamingFeminista
      11/21/18 1:41pm

      Unfortunately, this is one of the root failings of capitalism. It equates a person’s value and quality with their ability to work-especially in ways that generate capital. He was a “good guy” because he was useful and skilled, while no attention is paid to his other side, because we all know that someone’s emotional qualities aren’t as important.

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      Bronx Resident Benjamin WhiteFlamingFeminista
      11/22/18 9:04pm

      This is how Ted Bundy was able to get away with being a serial killer for so long. People simply refused to believe that such a clean-cut, charming and charismatic man like him was capable of committing such brutal murders. 

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    StacyAnne Branigin
    11/21/18 1:11pm

    I’m so sick of people and their “that is not the person I know” letters in support of abusers. Just stop the nonsense! Just because you never saw him beat anyone doesn’t mean he didn’t go home every night and put his family through hell. Just because he was a good friend to you doesn’t mean he can’t also abuse his wife. UGH!

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      Squib308Stacy
      11/21/18 2:14pm

      Abusers are crafty like that, they seem like fine upstanding folks to everyone else, that’s part of the deal, usually. Even their abusees often say ‘well, he’s great most of the time, it’s just when he’s angry/drinking/both’. REDDEST OF RED FLAGS, AIGHT?

      A sister of a friend of mine had a first husband, and everything seemed ok. At some point he started calling her friends ‘I’m really worried about her, she’s moody, and depressed, I think she might hurt herself’ - and he’d beat the @#% out of her, push her down the stairs. She wakes up in the hospital & her friends are like ‘we’re really worried about you trying to kill yourself’. She was so gas-lit she thought ‘maybe I _did_ try to kill myself?!’ Ugly shit. She did make a break with him & fortunately that worked out & she got remarried to a real man & all really is well.

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    myopicprophetAnne Branigin
    11/21/18 12:36pm

    If you need counseling to help you refrain from such horrendous acts of violence, you are beyond help.

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      StrangerSnacksmyopicprophet
      11/21/18 12:39pm

      People also want to be like “have you tried marriage counseling?” Never, ever go to counseling with your abuser. It just gives them more ammunition.

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      redzedmyopicprophet
      11/21/18 2:00pm

      The death penalty is not inappropriate in cases like this.

      Holy shit. 

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    kped45Anne Branigin
    11/21/18 12:54pm

    I’m trying to wrap my head around that vicious of a beating being described as “sometimes good people make bad decisions”. That’s insane. This wasn’t a heated argument where he told her to shut up and smacked her once, then immediately went “oh shit...I’m so sorry for doing that, I can’t believe I did that”. This guy bit her! He broker her face! That kind of rage isn’t a “mistake” or “bad decision”.

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      Bushido--Brownkped45
      11/21/18 1:01pm

      Umm, hitting y0our partner, even in the middle of an argument, IS STILL ABUSE.

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      Cardi B's Other Shoekped45
      11/21/18 1:22pm

      And I’m sure he didn’t leave her on the side of the road because he knew a good Samaritan would stop to help her. He thought the job was done and finished it when he got out of prison. 

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    FlamingFeministaAnne Branigin
    11/21/18 12:45pm

    P.S. Now we know the reason Fudge so suddenly retreated from going after Nancy Pelosi’s job!

    As soon as she heard about this murder, she knew this man did it! And isn’t it ironic that in trying to help this undeserving negro, he cost HER a job?!

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      Sarcastro6FlamingFeminista
      11/21/18 1:16pm

      Yeah, I’m guessing that Pelosi/whomever showed her this letter and said “back off right the fuck now.”

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    selburn6Anne Branigin
    11/21/18 12:17pm

    I boggles my mind that Fudge could go with the “it seems so out of character”. Lady....maybe he never beat the crap out of YOU, but given the viciousness and extent of the beating (in front of their kids, no less)....that’s something he’s been working UP to for decades. You think Lebron just showed up in the NBA out of nowhere? No, he had to practice and develop his skills for years. Same thing with this kind of horrific beating. Mason had to work up to that. I’m guessing if you check with his exes, he probably started with slapping them. Once he realized he could get away with that, he escalated. Rinse and repeat, for years.

    It’s not “out of character”.  It’s very much “in character.”  It’s just hidden from the world.

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    Cardi B's Other ShoeAnne Branigin
    11/21/18 1:28pm

    “Thats not the person I knew!”

    Yeah, well, it’s the person his wife knew and that’s what really mattered. This wasn’t mistaken identify or a case built on flimsy evidence. He did that shit. 

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    HuskyBroAnne Branigin
    11/21/18 12:53pm

    I told y’all about Marcia Fudge.

    She’s no different than the majority of these Cleveland politician. They’re all thick as thieves and shady AF. They will vouch for one another to the nasty end and this Judge Mason DV/Murder is as nasty as it gets.

    Fudge has been able to slide by because she used to stay beneath the radar. Those days are over, now. Ol’ sista had a nice run but she might as well start getting boxes ready for her move back to the East side of Cleveland because folks are going to make damn sure she doesn’t get another term.

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    VinAnne Branigin
    11/21/18 12:40pm

    It’s one thing if your average joe or a casual acquaintance gives a pass on this behavior; it’s another thing entirely if a judge isn’t capable of realizing that these things are very rarely isolated incidents.

    This is a textbook example of why recusal is so important.

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