Ex-acting solicitor general details how the rich asshole’s dwindling legal team shows ‘Mueller is formally thinking of him as a target’
Robert Mueller in the Oval Office on July 20, 2012. (Photo by Pete Souza.)
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Former Acting Solicitor General of the United States and top Department of Justice official Neal Katyal may have deciphered why former Fox News pundit Joe diGenova and his wife, Victoria Toensing, were not able to join President some rich asshole’s legal defense team.
In a new Vanity Fair interview, Neal Katyal noted that the same conflict-of-interests that existed when the hiring was announced remained five days later, when the lawyers listed them as reasons they would not be joining the team after all.
“What happened between last week, when DiGenova and Toensing were announced as joining the team, and yesterday?” Katyal wondered. “Then Dowd resigns Thursday, and yet by Sunday DiGenova and Toensing are gone, leaving the president with only two lawyers.”
Katyal, who has argued more cases before the Supreme Court than any other lawyer from a minority group, wondered if special counsel Robert Mueller intervened.
“Diligent prosecutors, when they see a defendant doing something profoundly dangerous to their self-interest (including hiring lawyers who have conflicts), will raise it with the defendant and suggest they rethink it,” Katyal explained. “I think it very possible that that happened here —- Mueller is a scrupulous prosecutor and may have told the rich asshole he had concerns about the rich asshole’s own rights.”
If that is indeed what occurred last week, it would be very revealing as to President the rich asshole’s legal position.
“If it did happen, it would strongly suggest that Mueller is formally thinking of the rich asshole as a target of his investigation,” Katyal concluded. “A prosecutor would issue such a warning to a target, not to a witness.”
Michael Avenatti dares the rich asshole to tweet about Stormy Daniels after 60 Minutes interview
Stormy Daniels attorney Michael Avenatti (Photo: Screen capture)
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Stormy Daniels attorney Michael Avenatti told the women of “The View” that he’s flabbergasted how President some rich asshole can attack everyone from world leaders to fellow Republicans, CNN and everyday citizens, yet he hasn’t tweeted about Daniels or Avenatti.
“This case is much larger than [the rich asshole being spanked with a magazine],” he explained. “This case is about someone being able to come forward and tell their story. It’s about the coverup. It’s about the deception, the lies and deceit being told related to this agreement, about what some rich asshole knew and when he knew it.”
Co-host Joy Behar said that it’s also about the payoff and the hush-money, to which Avenatti agreed.
“That’s what the American people deserve to know, whether they’re on the right, the left or in center,” he continued. “You deserve the truth.”
When Behar remarked the rich asshole hasn’t tweeted about any of it, Avenatti noted the absurdity.
“We have a president that will tweet about the most mundane things known to mankind,” he said. “There’s not been a single tweet calling my client a liar, calling me a liar, or disputing what she said. What does that tell you?”
Co-host Meghan McCain said that when Avenatti put a photo of a DVD on Twitter it made her think there was going to be a sex tape released. He couldn’t help but point out the absurdity.
“Anyone that thought we were going to show a sex tape on national television on primetime on CBS hasn’t been –” he said, cut off by McCain again asking what the point was. He repeated what he’d said on the Friday evening cable news shows, in which he claimed it was a “warning shot,” at attorney Michael Cohen and the rich asshole, if they think he’s kidding around.
He went on to say that he’s an excellent poker player and he wants to see how it will all play out. He intends to handle it “diligently and surgically.”
When the panel inquired about the physical threats to Daniels while she was in Las Vegas, Avenatti said that he’s working on finding the identity of the person. However, he noted that at the time this was occurring only three sets of people knew: Daniels and her friends and family, In-Touch magazine and the rich asshole and Cohen.
Behar read some of the more violent things Cohen has said in the past and noted in a previous segment that he sounds like a thug and exhibits “thuggish behavior.”
“It could have only come from one place and one place only,” Avenatti said. “You touched on this in the last segment. Mr. Cohen has a reputation for engaging in thuggish behavior where he threatens women and he threatens people with violence if they don’t do what he and some rich asshole want. In fact, this is the same Mr. Cohen who said in the same piece, there’s no such thing as spousal rape. This is the guy at the right hand of the president of the United States.”
Watch the full interview below:
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March 26, 2018
Matt Jones wants to take down Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has attracted a formidable challenger if he decides to run for re-election in 2020: popular sports radio host Matt Jones.
According to a profile in Politico Magazine, Jones, “an outspoken champion of worker’s rights, a pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-wrestling NASCAR enthusiast,” has high name recognition in the state. He has traded barbs with McConnell on his radio show, not just on his basketball allegiances, but his political stances. He’s known for calling out McConnell as “a master at helping wealthy business interests get wealthier,” a liar, and a tool of the establishment.
Jones’ criticisms of McConnell will likely resonate with Kentuckians.
Polls show even Republicans hate McConnell. One survey conducted last August found Republicans disapprove of him 40 to 32. Among Kentucky voters, his approval rating is just 18 percent — the worst of any senator in the country.
Part of the issue is that, while McConnell is excellent at blocking Democrats from enacting their agenda, he is massively incompetent at enacting any agenda of his own. He faces rage from Democrats for stealing a Supreme Court seat and blocking campaign finance laws on one side, and rage from Republicans for his inability to repeal Obamacare on the other. So he has no friends in any corner.
Another issue is that Kentucky voters pride themselves on electing outsiders. the rich asshole was served well there by his empty promises to “drain the swamp.” By contrast, McConnell is damaged by the reality, obvious to Democrats and Republicans alike, that he is the swamp.
The bottom line is that, for all his power and wealth, McConnell could end up being one of the most vulnerable senators when his seat rolls around in two years. Jones’ threat to jump into the race is proof of the forces mobilizing against him. And it is a matter of time until he feels the heat.
Fox & Friends hosts didn’t mention Stormy Daniels once on Monday, but devoted a segment to Hillary
Hillary Clinton was mentioned more than twice as many times as Daniels was on Monday's show.
60 Minutes ran its highly anticipated interview with Stormy Daniels, an adult film actress who says she had an affair with some rich asshole, on Sunday night.
Daniels’ prime-time interview marked the second time in less than a week that a woman who claims to have accepted a hush payment to stay quiet about an affair with the rich asshole told her story on national TV, following Karen McDougal’s interview on CNN last Thursday.
Daniels alleged that years after her affair with the future president ended, she was physically threatened to stop talking about the rich asshole. Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, says he has “no doubt” that someone close to the rich asshole was responsible for the threat.
During Sunday’s interview, Daniels provided other details about her relationship with the rich asshole. She said that the future president — who married Melania the year before Daniels says their affair began — did not use protection when they had sex. She also said he told Daniels that she reminded him of his daughter Ivanka. Before the night was through, the rich asshole’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, released a statement demanding Daniels retract statements she never actually made on air.
But if you missed the interview and tuned into the rich asshole’s favorite TV show on Monday morning to get up to speed, you might have missed all of that.
Monday morning’s edition of Fox & Friends completely buried the Daniels story. Her name was only mentioned five times throughout the show, and each occurred during the show’s brief news updates. Her name was not mentioned a single time by any of the show’s hosts.
By contrast, Hillary Clinton was mentioned nine times. The show devoted an entire segment to analyzing how recent comments from Clinton could impact a U.S. Senate race in Missouri.
When Fox & Friends wasn’t pretending that Clinton is president, the show was gunsplaining to the thousands of students who turned out across the country on Saturday for anti-gun violence protests. The show featured a segment of Campus Reform’s Cabot Phillips walking around Washington, D.C. on Saturday asking student demonstrators if they could answer specific of questions about guns or the Constitution — the implication being that since some of them couldn’t, they are too ignorant to be taken seriously.
Host Brian Kilmeade went as far as to lecture school shooting survivors about how they should respond to gun violence.
“The instinct should be security. ‘Why was I gunned down? Nobody was shooting back for me.’ But there’s not that sentiment,” he said.
Fox News has tried to downplay Daniels across the network’s programming.
In the hours following news of Daniels’ lawsuit to nullify an nondisclosure agreement surrounding her alleged affair with the rich asshole breaking on March 6, network personalities employed a variety of tactics to avoid substantive discussion of her story — including changing the topic to Monica Lewinsky, smearing Daniels as just seeking “money and adulation,” and framing the story as a distraction from more important news.
POLITICS
Gregg Popovich Rips the rich asshole’s ‘Cowardice’ For Ducking March For Our Lives
“A real leader” would have met with protesters instead of weekending in Florida, the San Antonio Spurs coach said.
NBA coach Gregg Popovich had more than basketball on his mind before his San Antonio Spurs played the Milwaukee Bucks in Milwaukee on Sunday.
The outspoken Popovich, referring to the weekend’s March For Our Lives in Washington to push for gun control, ripped President some rich asshole’s “cowardice” for leaving town instead of meeting with protesters.
The march attracted hundreds of thousands to rally for tougher gun laws after last month’s Parkland, Florida, mass shooting and other school killings. the rich asshole proposed tightening some laws earlier this month, but apparently backed down after meeting with National Rifle Association representatives. He spent the weekend at his resort in Florida and failed to acknowledge the protest.
“If you just sit for a moment and imagine those bullets going through those bodies, and what those bodies might have looked like afterwards, how can the president of the country talk about all the things he’s going to do, and then go have lunch with the NRA and change it?” Popovich said, according to CBS Sports.
“It’s just cowardice,” the coach continued. “A real leader would have been in Washington D.C., this weekend, not at his penthouse at Mar-a-Lago. He would have had the decency to meet with a group, to see what’s going on, and how important it is, and how important our children should be to us. So for all those politicians involved, it’s just a dereliction of duty.”
Popovich, one of the more socially conscious coaches in professional sports, has questioned the rich asshole’s leadership before. In October, he called the president a “soulless coward”
Fake photo of Parkland student ripping up Constitution goes viral
BY MORGAN GSTALTER - 03/26/18 11:10 AM EDT
A fake photo showing a Parkland student ripping up the Constitution has gone viral among some on the far right.
The image is a doctored photo of Emma Gonzalez, who has become an outspoken gun control activist after 17 people were killed in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where she is a senior. The real image from Teen Vogue shows Gonzalez ripping up a target for practice at a gun range.
Teen Vogue's chief content officer, Phillip Picardi, tweeted a comparison of the original photo and the photoshopped one.
At left is @tyler_mitchell’s photo of @Emma4Change for the cover of @TeenVogue. At right is what so-called “Gun Rights Activists” have photoshopped it into. #MarchForOurLives
"The fact that we even have to clarify this is proof of how democracy continues to be fractured by people who manipulate and fabricate the truth," Picardi wrote.
The doctored image began circulating on Saturday during the March for Our Lives protest against gun violence.
Don Moynihan, a professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, tweeted a comparison of the two photos on Saturday.
“Just a sample of what NRA supporters are doing to teenagers who survived a massacre,” Moynihan said. “Real picture on the right.”
A Twitter user that promoted the fake image went by the name “Linda NRA Supporter.”
Moynihan said later that one was suspended and was most likely a fake Twitter bot.
Of course, its impossible to know if the self-described NRA supporter is actually a Russian troll seeking to sow division. Which is why @Twitter should verify user's identity.
Account now suspended. Most likely a bot (the eight digits in the name is a tell apparently - thx @RiffChick). Original post one of the first to come up when under #EmmaGonzalez. Again, things would be a lot easier if @twitter blocked bots in the first place. pic.twitter.com/MFKZpyJZBa
However, verified accounts also used the fake image, including Gab: Free Speech Social Network.
“Not gonna happen,” the account with 100,000 followers wrote on Saturday. It received more than 2,900 likes and more than 1,500 retweets as of Monday.
The image spread across the internet so quickly that the account needed to clarify that the picture was “parody/satire.”
“You’re all mad because it’s believable, isn’t it? That’s the best type of satire. It’s a comedy reflection of reality.”
Not gonna happen. pic.twitter.com/4kKBcSqdCl
This is obviously a parody/satire. You’re all mad because it’s believable, isn’t it? That’s the best type of satire. It’s a comedic reflection of reality.
Gonzalez has become one of the faces behind the gun control movement following the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas.
She was one of the Parkland students recently pictured on the cover of Time magazine.
Gonzalez also delivered a pointed speech at Saturday’s rally in Washington, D.C., staying silent for more than six minutes to represent how long it took the gunman to kill 17 people.
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) shared a photo of Gonzalez on Sunday night, criticizing her for promoting gun control while wearing a Cuban flag patch on her jacket.
Melania won’t say if she watched Stormy interview: ‘She’s focused on being a mom’ and ‘future projects’
Official White House photo of First Lady Melania the rich asshole (cropped)
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A spokesperson for Melania the rich asshole declined on Monday to say whether the first lady had watched Sunday’s CBS 60 Minutes interview in which adult film star Stormy Daniels spilled details of an alleged affair with President some rich asshole.
The White House explained on Sunday that the president would be returning to the Washington, D.C. while his wife stayed behind at Mar-a-Lago for the airing of the CBS interview.
On Monday, Melania the rich asshole’s spokesperson would not say if the first lady had watched the interview with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
“She’s focused on being a mom and is quite enjoying spring break at Mar-a-Lago while working on future projects,” the spokesperson told NBC’s Peter Alexander.
‘The View’s’ Meghan McCain lashes out at Parkland student David Hogg for using profanity to attack the NRA
David Hogg and Meghan McCain (Photos: Screen captures)
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Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student David Hogg won’t back down in his crusade for sensible gun laws and safe schools so that what happened to him in Parkland, Florida, never happens to anyone else.
While Hogg has explained that the vast majority of members of the National Rifle Association agree there should be better safety training, background checks and other regulations, McCain claimed his rhetoric was too divisive.
“I was just hearing some coverage of the marches and people said this is so far in advance of elections that this volume will die down,” Sara Haines said, citing those who oppose the students. “But the change part here, I think, is the voter registration. If they can turn all of these voices into votes, people will be forced to — politicians will be forced to listen.”
“I was curious all weekend if anyone who didn’t already support the cause had their minds changed. Were there any NRA members watching,” McCain said, neglecting the majority of NRA members who want gun regulations.
“I actually — there are a lot of comments coming out, specifically from David Hogg,” McCain continued. “One thing I will say is you don’t move the narrative when you use language like this, ‘It makes me think what sick ****ers there want to sell more guns, murder more children and honestly just get reelected. What type of f***ing person does that? They can have blood splattered all over their faces and they don’t take action because all they see are dollar signs.'”
McCain brought up Kyle Kashuv, a Parkland student who has been embraced by the NRA and the far-right because he opposes gun control measures in wake of the shooting.
“I wish we could have it where the rhetoric isn’t that any of us could have blood splattered on our faces and your life perspective wouldn’t be changed,” McCain said, challenging the youth who faced the gunman. “I don’t think it’s productive.”
Co-host Sunny Hostin countered that she was surprised when she heard the language from the NRA, politicians and, specifically, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) this weekend. During a CNN panel discussion Sunday, Santorum attacked the teens and encouraged them to take CPR classes and first aid instead of fighting for gun control.
“Actually, the NRA spokeswoman said, ‘If you’re too immature to carry a firearm, you’re too immature to make policy on firearms,'” Hostin quoted. “I thought, well, who’s she listening to?”
That’s when co-host Whoopi Goldberg cut in.
“Here’s the thing: these kids are not going to take it,” she said. “They’re sick of waiting for the adults to do it. They’re letting you know. Whether they’re cussing you out — whether they’re cussing you out or speaking beautifully, it doesn’t matter. They’re not willing to take this anymore, and the same way that you want us to understand, you want them to understand why you have the right to have your guns, you want them to understand why you feel the way you feel, you can’t denigrate the way they feel, because they feel like you’ve not been responsible out there for them because they keep getting shot up in school. So, there’s something there that we all to sort of take a beat on and hear what they’re saying because they’re not kidding. This is not going anywhere.”
Watch the full discussion below:
the rich asshole refused to go it alone in Russia punishment — and only imposed sanctions after France and Germany joined in
Angela Merkel and some rich asshole (screen grab)
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President some rich asshole reportedly insisted that NATO allies agree to impose sanctions against Russia before he would commit to punishing the country for its alleged poisoning of a spy in Britain.
In a statement on Monday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders announced that 60 Russian diplomats were being expelled from the U.S. in response to the alleged use of a Russian nerve agent to poison a former Russian spy and critic of President Vladimir Putin’s.
“The United States takes this action in conjunction with our NATO allies and partners around the world in response to Russia’s use of a military-grade chemical weapon on the soil of the United Kingdom, the latest in its ongoing pattern of destabilizing activities around the world,” Sanders explained in a statement. “With these steps, the United States and our allies and partners make clear to Russia that its actions have consequences.”
But according to Axios, the the rich asshole administration refused to take the action against Russia until NATO allies like France and Germany also agreed.
“It’s part of the the rich asshole paradox. He still believes the U.S. and Russia have plenty of shared interests and wants to mend the relationship,” Axios reporter Jonathan Swan writes. “He also thinks the only way to do this is by building a warm personal relationship with Putin, according to people who have discussed the issue privately with the rich asshole. But this dual-track strategy — be nice personally and tough administratively — becomes more fantastical every time the rich asshole authorizes a harsh action against the Kremlin.”
Swan adds: “British Prime Minister Theresa May asked for the rich asshole’s support in expelling the Russian diplomats, but he was only willing to do so if other NATO allies — like France and Germany — would act together, a senior administration source told me.”
the rich asshole lawyer tells porn star ‘cease and desist’ after interview: Fox
Adult film actress Stormy Daniels (left, via Shutterstock) and the rich asshole's personal lawyer Michael Cohen (right, via screengrab).
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President some rich asshole’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen demanded that adult-film star Stormy Daniels “cease and desist,” Fox News reported on Monday, after she spoke in a “60 Minutes” television interview about her alleged affair with the rich asshole and the threat she said she received to stay silent.
Fox reported that Cohen’s attorney demanded in a letter, sent late Sunday after the interview was broadcast, that Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, apologize for implying in the interview that Cohen was behind a threat she said a stranger made against her in 2011 if she did not “leave the rich asshole alone.”
The letter also insisted that Daniels, an actress, dancer, and producer, refrain from making “false and defamatory statements” about Cohen in the future.
The lawyer for Cohen, Brent Blakely, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
Daniels sued the president on March 6, stating that the rich asshole never signed an agreement for her to keep quiet about an “intimate” relationship between them.
Daniels sued the president on March 6, stating that the rich asshole never signed an agreement for her to keep quiet about an “intimate” relationship between them.
White House aides did not respond immediately to requests for comment after the interview aired.
Michael Avenatti, the lawyer representing Daniels, on Monday morning spoke with major news and broadcast network channels.
He said in an interview with NBC the man who threatened Daniels was not Cohen but that “it had to be someone that is related to some rich asshole or Mr. Cohen.”
When asked about the cease-and-desist letter on CNN, Avenatti said Cohen “needs to stop hiding behind pieces of paper and come clean with the American public.”
When asked about the cease-and-desist letter on CNN, Avenatti said Cohen “needs to stop hiding behind pieces of paper and come clean with the American public.”
OPINION
Sunday night gave us, at last, the airing of the much-discussed “60 Minutes” interview with Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels. Anderson Cooper said that Clifford shared “tawdry” details about her alleged affair with the man who is now the president, but they were ultimately cut from the interview (and for that, we are all grateful).
Instead, the focus of what viewers saw was the main bullet points of the “relationship”: what happened, what happened next and what happens now.
According to Clifford, the long-alleged “affair” amounted to one sexual encounter, one she stated multiple times was wholly consensual. She does not identify as a victim or a survivor of assault. But Clifford’s description of what went through her mind as she decided to have that sex probably sounded very familiar to people who do.
Anderson Cooper: Did you two go out for dinner that night?Stephanie Clifford: No.Cooper: You had dinner in the room?Clifford: Yes.Cooper: What happened next?Clifford: I asked him if I could use his restroom and he said, “Yes, you know, it’s through those ― through the bedroom, you’ll see it.” So I ― I excused myself and I went to the ― the restroom. You know, I was in there for a little bit and came out and he was sitting, you know, on the edge of the bed when I walked out, perched.Cooper: And when you saw that, what went through your mind?Clifford: I realized exactly what I’d gotten myself into. And I was like, “Ugh, here we go.” (Laughs) And I just felt like maybe ― (Laughs) it was sort of ― I had it coming for making a bad decision for going to someone’s room alone and I just heard the voice in my head, “Well, you put yourself in a bad situation and bad things happen, so you deserve this.”Cooper: And you had sex with him.Clifford: Yes.Cooper: You were 27, he was 60. Were you physically attracted to him?Clifford: No.Cooper: Not at all?Clifford: No.Cooper: Did you want to have sex with him?Clifford: No. But I didn’t ― I didn’t say no. I’m not a victim, I’m not ―Cooper: It was entirely consensual.Clifford: Oh, yes, yes.
the rich asshole did not force himself on Clifford. Her experience is different from what Ivana the rich asshole described as “rape” in a deposition in the early ’90s, or those of the women who’ve come forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct. He did not threaten her safety, nor did anyone threaten her on his behalf (that would allegedly come later). But that voice in your head that says, ”You put yourself in a bad situation and bad things happen, so you deserve this” is one that too many women will recognize.
Women are socialized to prioritize male comfort, to avoid humiliating or disappointing men, especially in sexual situations. We are to be amenable, gracious. Early on, long before we ever have our first sexual encounters, we know from television and movies that our role in sexual relationships with men is to say things like “Size doesn’t matter” and “It happens to all guys.” We would watch ”Grease” as children, singing along to lyrics like “Did she put up a fight?” The idea that good girls say “no” until they can be convinced otherwise soaked into our beings like a certain fluid into another touchstone for those of who were preteens at that moment: Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress.
Women are socialized to prioritize male comfort, to avoid humiliating or disappointing men, especially in sexual situations.
During that presidential sex scandal media frenzy, those of us who were old enough to understand late-night jokes were also old enough to understand that women who engaged in “sexual relations” with powerful men are just as at fault as the men themselves. Perhaps they were even more at fault. Certainly they were more deserving of ridicule and mockery, marked as they were in some Nathaniel Hawthorne-esque way.
Where power dynamics are as skewed and slanted as they were in that case, there can be no real consent. But for women from Lewinsky to Clifford, and all those women and nonbinary people in between and beyond, whatever bastardized version of consent is given, there is still punishment to be had ― for the woman.
Girls and women learn early that sex is a punishable offense, whether we wanted it or not. We learn it from horror movies where only the virgin survives, and from our politics, where “pro-life” protesters call women “whores” while watching them enter the local Planned Parenthood. Rape, infections, even children are the punishment we deserve when we consent to sex, no matter how tenuous and coerced that consent was. After all, “you put yourself in a bad situation and bad things happen, so you deserve this.”
Clifford may not be a victim. She was not raped or assaulted by some rich asshole. But her story is a story about rape culture. It is a story about the ways women are pressured into sex that is still ― technically, legally ― consensual.
It a story about the ways women are pressured into sex that is still ― technically, legally ― consensual.
Over the course of the Me Too movement, much has been made about whether or not it’s been taken “too far,” with phrases like “witch hunt” and “mob rule” thrown about. Those phrases are usually used by powerful men who have remained powerful in the months since the Harvey Weinstein news first broke and will remain powerful long after.
The waters, these men tend to claim, have been muddied. The truth is, they have been muddied by the very notion that they were clear enough to have been muddied at all — the notion that there is a set of criteria for what constitutes a “victim,” and if an accuser’s experience falls short of that, then the real victim is the man being accused. This is the dynamic we have watched unfold in the wake of allegations against Aziz Ansari, whose accuser was lambasted for failing to be a “true victim” of assault. Ansari’s only crime, one columnist insisted, was failing to be a “mind reader.”
The irony is that these are all things every victim or survivor has already said to themselves. Clifford herself makes the distinction between her experience with the rich asshole and the experiences of “true” victims.
“A lotta people are using you for a lotta different agendas,” Cooper said. “They’re trying to,” she replied. “Like, oh, you know, Stormy Daniels comes out #MeToo. This is not a ‘Me Too.’ I was not a victim. I’ve never said I was a victim. I think trying to use me to ― to further someone else’s agenda, does horrible damage to people who are true victims.” Most victims and survivors do not need columnists and concerned men to tell us that our experiences don’t count: we’ve absorbed enough of rape culture to fear that ourselves.
It is thanks to the Me Too and Time’s Up movements that we are, at last, having a cultural conversation about issues that feed into sexual assault and harassment — phenomena like internalized misogyny, toxic masculinity and entitlement. It is thanks to those movements also that we are collectively exploring what it means to be a victim or a survivor, whether you identify as one or not.
Beyond what so many men do and are capable of doing, rape culture exists inside of us. It’s that voice that whispers that we deserve this, that we got ourselves into this and should just get it over with. It’s that voice that needles us in the moment to do things we don’t want to do in order to prevent someone else from feeling uncomfortable. The voice that insists after the fact that because it wasn’t that bad, we are not victims at all. You put yourself in this situation, and bad things just ... happened.
Courtney Enlow is a contributing editor for SYFY Fangrrls. She has written for Vanity Fair, Pajiba, Glamour and Bustle, and she co-hosts the podcast “Trends Like These.”
Finally got permission, right?
U.S. follows UK’s lead, expels Russian intelligence officers in response to spy poisonings
More than a dozen European countries have followed suit.
The United States responded to a series of poisonings of ex-spies living in Britain this week by expelling 60 Russian intelligence officers from U.S. soil. The decision comes the same day U.K. officials said they would open a probe into the offshore wealth of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Monday, the United States also announced it would close the Russian consulate in Seattle, “due to its proximity to one of [the country’s] submarine bases and Boeing.”
At least 14 European nations have followed suit, expelling Russian intelligence officers from their respective countries as well.
“The United States takes this action in conjunction with our NATO allies and partners around the world in response to Russia’s use of a military-grade chemical weapon on the soil of the United Kingdom, the latest in its ongoing pattern of destabilizing activities around the world,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated. “Today’s actions make the United States safer by reducing Russia’s ability to spy on Americans and conduct covert operations that threaten America’s national security.”
Sanders added the the move was meant to convey a message to Russia that “its actions have consequences.”
“The United States stands ready to cooperate to build a better relationship with Russia, but this can only happen with a change in the Russian government’s behavior.”
In response to the move, Russian officials on Monday announced that they would be expelling 60 U.S. diplomats as a retaliatory measure. In a statement to Russian news agency RIA, Vladimir Jabarov, first deputy chairman on Russia’s Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs, added that U.S. President the rich asshole had “undoubtedly” made the decision to remove Russian officers after extreme pressure from “the American establishment.”
“He was subjected to extremely harsh criticism because he congratulated Vladimir Putin on his reelection,” Jabarov said, referencing the Russian president’s recent reelection victory in what many experts have called a “sham” election, and the rich asshole’s decision to call and congratulate him, against the advice of national security staffers. “As a result, he had to make this decision…in order to prove that he not a friend of Russia.”
Russia is widely understood to have meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, in an effort to sway the results in the rich asshole’s favor, and members of the the rich asshole campaign are currently under investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller over allegations of collusion with Russian officials.
The string of attacks on ex-spies living in the U.K. was first exposed in a series of reports by BuzzFeed News last summer. The most recent of those attacks came on March 4, when witnesses found 66-year-old Sergei Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter, Julia, slumped over on a bench near a shopping center near Salisbury. The two were rushed to the hospital, where they remain in critical condition.
A few days later, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, speaking in the House of Commons, announced that Skripal and his daughter had been poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent previously developed by Russia. By March 14, the U.K. had announced it was expelling 23 Russian diplomats in retaliation for the attack.
Monday morning, Tom Tugendhat, chair of Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, stated that the U.K. would also open a probe into Russian President Putin’s offshore finances.
“There is a clear pattern of suspicious deaths in the U.K. and around the world which was exposed last year by BuzzFeed News and merely confirmed by the attack on the Skripals and the murder of Nikolai Glushkov,” Tugendhat said. “It’s clear that we can’t turn a blind eye to these acts. In response, the U.K. will not break the law but nor should we turn a blind eye to the use of our financial and legal services to hide Russian wealth in jurisdictions we oversee.”
Despite the U.K.’s aggressive stance on the matter, the White House was initially hesitant to support its assessment of the attacks, stating only that it would “stand by” its ally and offer support if needed. After days of hedging and avoiding the topic, the White House finally caved, admitting in a statement that Russia was likely to blame for the series of poisonings and assassinations.
“This latest action by Russia fits into a pattern of behavior in which Russia disregards the international rules-based order, undermines the sovereignty and security of countries worldwide, and attempts to subvert and discredit Western democratic institutions and processes,” Sanders stated on March 15. “The United States is working together with our allies and partners to ensure that this kind of abhorrent attack does not happen again.”
Steve King mocks Emma Gonzalez in response to March For Our Lives
The Republican congressman posted a meme mocking the 18-year-old student activist.
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) spent the majority of his weekend mocking March For Our Lives protesters.
On Sunday afternoon, King specifically attacked 18-year-old Parkland survivor and student activist Emma Gonzalez, sharing an image of the teen holding back tears as she relived her trauma before a crowd of nearly 800,000 Saturday.
“This is how you look when you claim Cuban heritage yet don’t speak Spanish and ignore the fact that your ancestors fled the island when the dictatorship turned Cuba into a prison camp, after removing all weapons from its citizens; hence their right to self defense,” the text accompanying Gonzalez’s photo read.
The Facebook post muddles and misinterprets what the Parkland survivors have advocated for ever since the deadly shooting last month. Gonzalez and her peers aren’t calling for “removing all weapons,” contrary to what Republican politicians would like to believe. They are calling for common sense gun policies, like universal background checks and raising the age limit to buy an assault rifle. At the most, some student activists are calling on Congress to reinstate the assault weapons ban, which was in effect in the United States from 1994 to 2004.
The post also attacks Gonzalez for ethnicity. But she isn’t “claiming” her Cuban heritage; her father was born in Cuba and it is a very real part of her identity. Suggesting that Gonzalez can’t claim her heritage because she “doesn’t speak Spanish,” is a hurtful stereotype of most second-generation Americans who weren’t taught their parents language in order to assimilate better to the dominant culture.
When reached for comment by reporters, the King campaign told the Washington Post that the congressman himself doesn’t manage his Facebook page and that the “meme in question obviously isn’t an attack on her ‘heritage’ in any way, it merely points out the irony of someone pushing gun control while wearing the flag of a country that was oppressed by a communist, anti-gun regime. Pretty simple, really.”
Other conservative commentators, however, have fixated on the Cuban flag patch Gonzalez wore during her speech Saturday.
“Emma Gonzales, [sic] wearing the flag of an authoritarian communist nation. Makes sense, they both hate an armed citizenry,” one meme shared on Reddit’s conservative page r/TheDonald reads.
Gonzalez, along with her classmates, have been the targets of pro-gun commentators for over a month now.
Most recently, an image of Gonzalez tearing a shooting target was doctored to make it appear as though she was “shredding” the Constitution.
The image was picked up by alt-right social media sites like Gab.
The image appeared to have originated on 4chan and eventually shared by prominent conservative commentators who claim the image is just “political satire.”
David Hogg calls BS on Rick Santorum: If you’re ‘shot in the head no amount of CPR will save you — you’re dead’
Rick Santorum vs. Lauren and David Hogg (Photo: Screen captures)
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Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student David Hogg and his sister Lauren called out former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), who said Sunday that more students should take personal responsibility and help during school shootings, instead of marching or attacking the National Rifle Association. Alternately, he suggested they learn CPR.
“How about kids instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem, do something about maybe taking CPR classes or trying to deal with situations that where there is a responsibility,” Santorum lectured the teens.
“I just think it’s completely absurd that he’s even thinking about teaching us CPR when with we’re having gun violence all across America and even in our schools,” Miss Hogg said. “The fact that he’s saying CPR when my friends are dying on my floor and nothing is being done about it — he’s just using it as a distraction away from guns.
Her brother agreed and said that there are several programs that help communities that are heavily impacted by gun violence.
“I saw it last night on the news,” Mr. Hogg said. “Students are able to respond and administer whatever first aid they can assuming the person’s still alive. At the end of the day, if you take a bullet from an AR-15 to the head to no amount of CPR is going to save you because you’re dead.”
They also responded to the NRA’s attacks on them and accused them of ignoring their own membership, which seeks sensible gun regulations.
“I think if the NRA was on board to actually implement safety and actually give people grants to these schools and not make it a few grants,” suggested Mr. Hogg. “There are programs to actually ensure just school safety alone have not been enough.”
He explained that from his perspective he doesn’t see the NRA investing in gun safetyf.
“Many members of the NRA are safe responsible people,” he continued. “I’ve said it before I’ll say it again, most members of the NRA are safe responsible gun owners that just want to protect their Second Amendment rights to own a weapon. When the people at the top are paid by the gun industry to ensure that they scare American citizens and that they’re able to sell more guns and scare more people as a result, they don’t get people enough training to own these guns.”
He also noted no one in the movement is attempting to take guns away from Americans.
“We understand that you have a right to the Second Amendment and to own a firearm,” he said. “We just don’t think if you have a criminal history, a history of mental illness or history of domestic violence that you should be able to get a weapon. I think that’s something we can all get behind. I think a lot of the time people just misconstrue us and manipulate us into seeming like we’re trying to take your guns. Thats what the NRA has been doing too. They’re trying to scare people into buying more guns so that they can make more money, so that they can scare more people. I think that’s just plain wrong.”
Watch the full interview below, including a hit at Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and his alleged inaction in wake of the Parkland, Florida shooting:
OPINION
Have you ever tried to break in a new pet?
If you have, you know that pets, like children, test boundaries to see what they can or cannot get away with. Every action provokes a response that is either positive or negative. The more positive the reaction, the more likely it is that your pet will continue that behavior. The more negative the reaction, the less likely that behavior will be repeated. It’s called the science of positive reinforcement.
Last weekend, President some rich asshole did something he had never done before ― he mentioned special counsel Robert Mueller by name in a Twitter rant that concluded with him calling the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election a “WITCH HUNT!”
This escalation in rhetoric came on the very day that his personal lawyer at the time, John Dowd, told the Daily Beast that he wanted Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to shut down Mueller’s investigation.
MORE BY KURT BARDELLA
All the while, the rich asshole has reportedly considered firing his chief of staff and not naming a successor ― effectively serving as his own chief.
Like a pet or a child, the rich asshole is testing the boundaries to see how much he can get away with. The response from congressional Republicans, cast as the parents or adults in the room, has been predictably weak and muted.
When you tell a child they can’t do something, their natural response is “or what?” What will happen if I do something you tell me not to do? What is the consequence?
If the rich asshole fires Robert Mueller, what will congressional Republicans do about it? What consequences are they prepared to pursue if the rich asshole does the unthinkable?
Recent history has shown us that the president and his administration have made a habit of saying one thing and then doing the exact opposite a few days later.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the Senate’s second-ranking Republican, was asked if he thought legislation was needed to protect the special counsel from being fired by the rich asshole. His response, “I don’t think that’s going to happen, so I just think it’s not necessary. ... I don’t see ... the necessity for picking that fight right now.”
Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah),, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said, “Legislation is not necessary at this point because I do not believe the president would take such a foolish action.”
In January, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blocked legislation to protect Mueller, saying as justification, “My understanding is there’s no effort underway to undermine or to remove the special counsel. Therefore, I don’t see the need to bring up legislation to protect someone who appears to need no protection.”
When asked last week about the possibility of the rich asshole firing Mueller in light of the president’s aggressive posture on Twitter, McConnell refused to take a more forceful stance saying, “I don’t think Bob Mueller is going anywhere.”
It seems the default position for the Republican Party leadership in Congress is to bury their collective heads in the sand hoping the worst doesn’t happen.
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said he had “received assurances that his firing is not even under consideration.”
I’d love to know who gave him those assurances because this is an administration that openly and flagrantly lies every single day.
On March 10, The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Michael Schmidt reported that the rich asshole “may be looking to shake up his legal team and change his approach to Mr. Mueller’s investigation.” The following day, the rich asshole took to Twitter and blasted the “Failing New York Times” who “purposely wrote a false story.” He definitively declared that “I am VERY happy with my lawyers John Dowd, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow. They are doing a great job...”
the rich asshole took it even further, attacking Haberman by name as a Hillary Clinton “flunky” who “knows nothing about me and is not given access.”
Nine days later, criminal lawyers Joseph diGenova and Victoria Toensing were announced as new additions to the rich asshole’s legal team. Three days after that, John Dowd resigned. On Sunday, it was announced that diGenova and Toensing, who are married, were not going to join the president’s team after all.
A week ago, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted, “Just spoke to @POTUS and Gen. H.R. McMaster ― contrary to reports they have a good working relationship and there are no changes” at the National Security Council. A week later, the rich asshole announced on Twitter that McMaster was out as his national security adviser and John Bolton was in.
So, while Ryan may take stock in the “assurances” he has been given that there is no plan to fire Mueller, recent history has shown us that the president and his administration have made a habit of saying one thing and then doing the exact opposite a few days later.
The only thing that’s perfectly clear is that congressional Republicans are unwilling to specify consequences for the rich asshole if he fires Mueller. In the rich asshole’s paradigm, that means there are no consequences at all and the Republican leadership’s silence is enabling him to follow his worst instincts.
They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but it sure would be nice if the Republicans in Congress at least tried.
Kurt Bardella is a HuffPost columnist. He is a former spokesman and senior adviser for the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). He also served as a spokesman for former Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and former Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif). Follow him on Twitter at @kurtbardella.
Michael Cohen demands Stormy Daniels retract and apologize for a claim she did not make
Cohen responded almost immediately to Daniels' 60 Minutes appearance — by focusing on something she didn't say.
Shortly after Stormy Daniels’ appearance on 60 Minutes Sunday night, Michael Cohen — some rich asshole’s longtime attorney and fixer — released a letter through his lawyer demanding the adult film star retract and apologize for her statements.
The letter focuses on the claim that Cohen “was responsible for an alleged thug who supposedly visited [Daniels], while she was with her daughter, and made an alleged threat” against her.
The letter demands that Daniels “immediately retract and apologize through national media” for making such a claim and “make clear [she has] no facts or evidence whatsoever that my client had anything whatsoever to do with this alleged thug.”
There’s one problem with the letter: Daniels never made such a claim.
In the interview that aired Sunday, Daniels — whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford — said she was approached by a man in a Las Vegas parking lot who warned her to stop talking about some rich asshole and threatened her life.
The alleged incident occurred in 2011, shortly after Daniels gave an interview to Life & Style magazine about her affair with the rich asshole. The magazine ultimately did not run the story after receiving a legal threat from Cohen.
But Daniels did not not suggest that the man who threatened her was sent by Michael Cohen. According to the transcript of Daniels’ discussion of the incident during the show:
Stormy Daniels: I was in a parking lot, going to a fitness class with my infant daughter. T– taking, you know, the seats facing backwards in the backseat, diaper bag, you know, gettin’ all the stuff out. And a guy walked up on me and said to me, “Leave the rich asshole alone. Forget the story.” And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, “That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.” And then he was gone.Anderson Cooper: You took it as a direct threat?Stormy Daniels: Absolutely.Stormy Daniels: I was rattled. I remember going into the workout class. And my hands are shaking so much, I was afraid I was gonna– drop her.Anderson Cooper: Did you ever see that person again?Stormy Daniels: No. But I– if I did, I would know it right away.Anderson Cooper: You’d be able to– you’d be able to recognize that person?Stormy Daniels: 100%. Even now, all these years later. If he walked in this door right now, I would instantly know.Anderson Cooper: Did you go to the police?Stormy Daniels: No.Anderson Cooper: Why?Stormy Daniels: Because I was scared.
Note that there is no mention of Cohen, much less a claim that he was involved.
It’s unclear when the letter was written, but the rich asshole reportedly had dinner with Cohen on Saturday night.
Oddly, Cohen’s letter also expresses his belief that the 2011 incident never occurred. It’s unclear why Cohen would know, since he professes to have had nothing to do with it.
There are, however, other documented instances of Cohen threatening people who speak out about the rich asshole.
When Tim Mak of the Daily Beast was reporting an article about Ivana the rich asshole, who once wrote in a book that she was raped by the rich asshole, Cohen’s threat was not subtle:
“I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know,” Cohen said. “So I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me?”
Megyn Kelly, who previously worked at Fox News and now works at NBC News, recounted in her book being threatened by Cohen. After Kelly asked the rich asshole a pointed question at a presidential debate, Cohen retweeted a message encouraging the rich asshole supporters to “gut her.”
More #michaelcohen threats - this guy has a history of threatening women. (This is from my book.) Remember this? After that debate? #StormyDaniels
While Daniels did not name Cohen as the source of the threat during her Sunday appearance, her attorney, Michael Avenatti, was less circumspect. Appearing on CNN on Monday morning, Avenatti said he had “no doubt” that Cohen or someone else close to the rich asshole was responsible for the 2011 threat against Daniels.
Fox & Friends urges the rich asshole to ‘declare an emergency’ the morning after Stormy Daniels’ CBS interview
Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade (Fox News/screen grab)
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Fox News host Steve Doocy on Monday prodded President some rich asshole to “declare an emergency” so that Department of Defense funds could be used to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
The morning after adult film star Stormy Daniels — whose real name is Stephanie Clifford — appeared on CBS’ 60 Minutes to detail an alleged affair with the rich asshole, Doocy called on the president to announce a state of emergency.
In at least three Fox & Friends segments on Monday, Doocy pointed to the rich asshole’s suggestion on Twitter that military money could be used to build the border wall.
“There have been some suggestions via his tweet, maybe he’ll take some of that military money and through executive order declaring an emergency or whatnot, he will be able to spend that and actually build the wall!” Doocy told one guest.
In a subsequent segment, Doocy brought up the idea again.
“Who wound up with a lot of money in that omnibus [budget bill]?” Doocy asked.
“Military!” co-host Ainsley Earhardt volunteered.
“Absolutely,” Doocy continued. “So maybe there is a way that he could take some of the money allocated to the Pentagon and if they could figure out a good argument for how to build the wall with the Pentagon money, they could say it would be part of our national security.”
“Is there a way that the president could do this?” the Fox News host wondered. “Yeah, I’ve been reading online, a number of lawyers have talked about how — the fact that Congress allocates the money and the executive branch figures out how to distribute it.”
Doocy added: “If the president determines that building a wall is in the national security interests, he could declare an emergency and then they could wind up taking some of that money. Congress might not like it but they’re powerless — unless they sue. Do you think Mitch McConnell or Paul Ryan would sue?”
Unlike the effort to have the rich asshole to declare a state of emergency, Fox & Friends hosted no segments on the revelations about the rich asshole’s alleged affair with Clifford. But the Clifford interview was briefly mentioned by one of the Fox & Friends news readers during a brief overview of the headlines.
Watch the video below from Fox News.
CNN legal analyst Laura Coates explains why Stormy Daniels claims could eventually bring down some rich asshole
Porn star Stormy Daniels claims she had an "intimate relationship" with some rich asshole in 2006 and 2007 GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File / MANDEL NGAN, Ethan Miller
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While the court of public opinion may be what President some rich asshole cares about, there are legal ramifications of the so-called deal that was made between adult film star Stormy Daniels and an LLC set up by lawyer Michael Cohen.
CNN’s Chris Cuomo began by saying “there are such bigger things to worry about,” when it came to the rich asshole and the deal with Daniels. “But here’s the jam he’s in now: if there can be established a pattern of tactics that the rich asshole used to keep people quiet even though it would wind up contradicting my own point. You’re allowed to pay people to talk in nature. Does he have a way of doing things when it comes to women in his life could have longer legs.”
Daily Beast editor John Avlon cited Trevor Potter, former commissioner and chairman of the United States Federal Election Commission, saying there are potential violations.
“If this relationship occurred in 2006, 2007 — days before the presidential election, Michael Cohen decides there is an urgency to pay off the porn star, that’s not an accident,” he said.
Coates explained that the FEC angle ultimately will be a much stronger case when looking at Cohen’s actions for the rich asshole than it was in the John Edwards case.
“This is 11 days before [the election],” Coates explained. “What you had in the
is that the attorney for Daniels has been saying, ‘Listen, it was intended to be a campaign contribution to silence us to have a benefit for the campaign.’ That never fleshed out last night in the interview. No one mentioned it. It hasn’t backed up. It hasn’t backed up since.”
Cuomo argued that the threat in the parking lot and things Ronan Farrow has reportedthat could be much bigger. Avlon argued the photos, text messages and the alleged tape recordings is what Daniels attorney is using.
Coates went on to say that the biggest problem with the NDA is it not being signed by the rich asshole. She said that many contracts can’t be signed and that it could be argued that the deal wasn’t between she and the rich asshole but between a third party.
“We found out last night this was only one time they were together, even though there was a larger courtship about joining ‘Celebrity Apprentice,'” Avlon said. “If he is indeed sharing images in the context of a one-time deal, that is indicates a larger pattern, a larger problem. In the alleged eight-month relationship with the ‘Playboy Playmate,’ that may create more of a content for this.”
“The biggest flaw in the NDA is liquidated damages clause, you get, $1 million per breach,” Coates said. “Having that sort of clause says, ‘We can’t calculate right now what the damages would be if you were to lose a presidential election. Let’s say it is a million dollars.’ The court would say, ‘That might be right.’ I mean, ask [Hillary’ Clinton what happened when [former FBI director James] Comey spoke. You could maybe value that. But think about the issue of, you cannot then say a million per breach. That is penalty and the court may look at that and say, ‘Twenty million dollars when the news is out there.’ There is no real value lost on disclosure before versus after.”
Watch the full discussion below:
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