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Men behaving badly (03.17.26)

Men behaving badly (03.17.26)

Last updated on: March 17, 2026 at 7:00 am by Fred Clark

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Men behaving badly (03.17.26) 2026-03-16T17:39:24-04:00 Fred Clark

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• “Drug Dealer Granted Clemency by Trump Sent Back to Prison After Accusations of Molesting His Kids’ Nanny, Assaulting Toddler”

That report is about Jonathan Braun, just to clarify, so that you don’t get the mistaken impression that any of the other drug dealers recently pardoned or granted clemency by the president have been smacking around toddlers or pulling Trump’s Bergdorf Goodman move on their nannies.

• Also, please don’t confuse the large category of drug-dealers pardoned by Trump with the larger (overlapping) category of Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump, a distinct group that includes people like Andrew Paul Johnson, who was recently convicted of sexually abusing two children.

• Jeffrey Epstein is not in this photo along with dinner guests Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg because Jeffrey Epstein hosted this dinner and took this photo.

• “CBP supervisor accused of harboring immigrant who’s also his girlfriend and niece”

• This story has two men behaving badly, both police officers in Kenbridge, Virginia: “Woman sues Kenbridge, police after chief allegedly tipped off shooting suspect.”

• “A federal employee who police say conducted background checks for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other government agencies was arrested last week in a Bloomington (Minn.) prostitution sting.

“Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges said Department of Defense contractor Brashad Johnson, 36, of Maple Grove, was one of 30 suspects arrested as part of an undercover operation targeting people seeking to pay for sex. …”

• That ICE functionary was arrested in the soliciting-sex-from-minors sting operation conducted by the Bloomington Police in February. Don’t get him mixed up with the ICE functionary arrested in the soliciting-sex-from-minors sting operation conducted by the Bloomington Police back in November.

• Joe Lonsdale is a billionaire venture capitalist and a co-founder of the mass-surveillance company Palantir. Lonsdale also looks exactly like he should be beating up Jon Cusack or humiliating Molly Ringwald in an ’80s movie, but that’s neither here nor there. Lonsdale is someone you should be aware of, instead, because he recently said this:

If I’m in charge later, we won’t just have a three strikes law. We will quickly try and hang men after three violent crimes.

And yes, we will do it in public to deter others.

Our society needs balance. It’s time to bring back masculine leadership to protect our most vulnerable.

Sociopathic billionaires probably can’t be cured from their sociopathy, but they can be helped — and made less dangerous — by ensuring that they’re no longer billionaires.

• The Google News alert for the word “evangelical” in my RSS feed often brings me a lot of high school sports news involving private [white] Christian schools with “Evangelical” in their names. And sometimes those stories aren’t only about sports: “ECS boys basketball coach on administrative leave after alleged misconduct with student.”

• “Bishop Convicted of Systematic Sexual Abuse of Children.”

Bishop is a surname here. Jonathan Dean Bishop is a real estate lawyer from California and this story is not about a leader in the church. Phew. Stories about “serious allegations of a sexual nature” do not always involve clergy.

• But those sickening stories often do involve clergy, for reasons this one makes clear: “She was 23 at the time. Armstrong was 37 and described himself as her spiritual father.”

That’s Ben Armstrong, now 53, who is now in his Pentecostal mega-church’s version of Sex Predator Rehab (reputational rehabilitation, not the other kind). Armstrong had been serving as Bethel Church’s (Redding, California) “overseer of prophetic ministry.” He was, according to his church, a “prophet” and thus anointed by God. In his little world, in other words, he had the same unaccountable, unchecked authority that those billionaires in the photo above have in the rest of the world.

• That sense of impunity and entitlement also plays a role in stories like this: “Alaska lawmaker’s chief of staff arrested on sex trafficking and child exploitation charges.”

“A spokesperson for the Alaska Republican Party said in a statement Friday said the charges were ‘nothing short of horrifying’ and said Craig Scott Valdez has been removed from any and all positions within the Alaska Republican Party and Young Republicans.” (Valdez had served as chair of the Alaska Young Republicans since January, 2025.)

Second worst Valdez to hit Alaska in my lifetime.

• Given everything above, this story of clergy wrongdoing almost seems quaint: “Episcopal priest accused of stealing baseball cards resigns as Pittsburgh cathedral dean.”

The Rev. Aidan Smith was already under investigation by the diocese for allegedly stealing artifacts from the cathedral and selling them online. I’m going to guess that when we learn more about this story it will involve something that rhymes with Kraft Dings or Dan Fuel.

• Here’s a long lede sentence that gives us the who, what, when where, and how, but prudently avoids discussing the why: “Butler Mayor Wesley R. Dingus, a 48-year-old Republican, has been charged with two misdemeanor counts of voyeurism after a Richland County Sheriff’s Office investigation revealed he allegedly entered the bedroom of an underage related female in his care and sniffed her worn underwear on two separate occasions — conduct recorded on a hidden camera the girl set up herself, according to the Richland County Sheriff’s Office.”

Mayor Dingus should plead “parental alienation.” That may be “a widely discredited theory — frequently raised in family courts to rebut, obscure, and distract from allegations of child abuse in custody disputes,” but it’s apparently something that works for other Ohio Republicans, like state Rep. Rodney Creach, who has been accused of far worse things than panty-sniffing.

• Republicans, of course, do not have a monopoly on being predatory sex pests. Daniel Grossberg, a Democratic state representative in Kentucky, “was given a public reprimand and ordered to pay $2,000 to end a probe into allegations of sexual harassment.” And “Rep. Bob Hooper, a Burlington Democrat, says he is planning to resign from the Legislature after an internal legislative panel found that he violated the Vermont House’s sexual harassment rules.”

So, yes, this is something that happens on “both sides” of the aisle. But it’s not a “both sides” thing. It’s overwhelmingly just the one side: just the men, doing this to women and to girls.

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