Stormy Daniels: Like Trump, Only with Gigantic Breasts

If you can watch enough Fox News and convince yourself eight other people, a slew of F.B.I. and Justice Department leaders and countless reporters are liars, whereas Donald J. Trump (a.k.a. "Big Orange Buffoon") is a pillar of virtue, then you might think the president is having a good week.

In reality, it appears we are about to learn that Stormy Daniels is Donald J. Trump with gigantic breasts.

Stormy Daniels may be prepared to spill some Trump beans.

3/20: Tuesday gets off to a bad start when President Buffoon calls Shirtless Strongman Vladimir Putin to congratulate him on winning an election in which leading opposition candidates were barred from running. 

As we all know by now:

Donald

♥’s

Vladimir

Unfortunately, for the couple, Republican Senator John McCain responds with this harsh assessment:

[A]n American president does not lead the free world by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections. And by doing so with Vladimir Putin, President Trump insulted every Russian citizen who was denied the right to vote in a free and fair election to determine their country’s future, including the countless Russian patriots who have risked so much to protest and resist Putin’s regime.

White House Press Liar Sarah Sanders admits later that the Big Orange Buffoon did not bother to mention Russian meddling in the 2016 election or ask about the nerve agent used in an attempted assassination of a Kremlin critic on British soil.

Apparently, the two pals talked mostly about office pools and March Madness. Putin is picking Trump University to win it all.

Donald does love Putin, it would seem; but not as much as Stormy and Karen!

  

3/21: John O. Brennan served the C.I.A. for twenty-five years. He left government service and then returned, serving as head of the agency from 2013 to 2017. In theory, if you watch a lot of Fox News, at least, Brennan could be just another liar picking on poor Donald J. Trump. After F.B.I. Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was fired, late Friday night, March 16 (just 26 hours before he was scheduled to retire), Brennan tweeted this response, aimed at the Big Orange Buffoon:

When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but will not destroy America... America will triumph over you.

So, if you watched Fox, you had to now convince yourself: 1) McCabe was a liar, out to get Donald; 2) James Comey was a liar; 3) Brennan was also a liar; 4) former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was a liar, too.

A fifth “liar,” retired four-star General Barry R. McCaffrey, had harsh words the same day. “Reluctantly,” he tweeted, “I have concluded that President Trump is a serious threat to US national security. He is refusing to protect vital US interests from active Russian attacks. It is apparent that he is for some unknown reason under the sway of Mr Putin.”

But what does McCaffrey know! All he has are three Purple Hearts, two Silver Stars for valor, and two Distinguished Service Crosses to his name.

  

Brennan attacked Trump again on MSNBC on Tuesday. “I’m saying that perhaps the Russians have something and that’s why Mr. Trump is concerned,” he told the show’s hosts. He could not say what that “something” might be, but added, “Mr. Trump knows better than any one of us whether or not the Russians may have something on him.”
 

3/22: John Dowd, lead lawyer in the Buffoon’s dealings with the Mueller investigation, suddenly resigns. 

Sources tell reporters Dowd believes he cannot control his client. Trump reportedly believes Mueller is the Anti-Christ.

I’m joking—but you can believe almost anything where Trump is involved.

We are then told Dowd’s replacement will be Joseph diGenova—famous for floating the theory on Fox News that evil forces at work inside the F.B.I. and Justice Department are working to “frame” Donald J. Trump.

Ironically, just eleven days earlier, Trump had used a pair of tweets to attack the fake news people at The New York Times:

The Failing New York Times purposely wrote a false story stating that I am unhappy with my legal team on the Russia case and am going to add another lawyer to help out. Wrong. I am VERY happy with my lawyers, John Dowd, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow. They are doing a great job and.....” “...have shown conclusively that there was no Collusion with Russia..just excuse for losing. The only Collusion was that done by the DNC, the Democrats and Crooked Hillary. The writer of the story, Maggie Haberman, a Hillary flunky, knows nothing about me and is not given access.

So, now Haberman had lied. That would make Liar #6 (not counting all the liars at the F.B.I. and Justice), if we follow Trump’s count.

After months of increasing tension, the Orange Buffoon also decided to replace National Security Advisor H.R. 

McMaster. McMaster first irritated his boss when he said the proof that Russia meddled in the 2016 election was “incontrovertible.”

  

And it might be possible, if you have the attention span of a cocker spaniel that you forget that moment on March 1, when Trump told a spokesman for the National Security Council that any story about McMaster being replaced was “fake news.” “I was just with President Trump and H.R. McMaster in the Oval Office,” the spokesman, Michael Anton, said in a statement provided to reporters.” Trump, Anton added, “told McMaster that he is doing a great job.”

The situation hardly improved Thursday night. First, a variety of White House aides told reporters Trump was prepared to sign the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill the next day, and keep the U.S. government running.

The evening ended with a “bang” (if you will excuse the word) when Anderson Cooper interviewed Karen McDougal, former Playboy Playmate of the Year, who explained in great detail that she had had a ten-month long affair with then Businessman Big Orange Buffoon back in 2006 and 2007. She mentioned that the first time they had sex he offered to pay her, which took her aback.

She’s sorry now, she told Cooper, sorry she helped Trump cheat on Melania, his third wife. In one creepy exchange she described being spirited through a back entry, into Trump Tower and ushered up to Donald and Melania’s penthouse suite. She said it made her feel dirty and she asked to leave. You wonder: Was Trump going to ask her to be “intimate,” maybe on his own marital bed? Well, you never know—unless you watch Fox News. Then you know! The White House denies this affair took place; but no one in the White House (or on Fox News) can explain why a friend of Donald’s would pay McDougal $150,000 for her story rights and then refuse to publish her tale just weeks before the 2016 election.

This would make McDougal Liar #7.

3/23: President Trump wakes early. He watches Fox News. All the Fox pundits and Fox babes are calling the spending bill terrible. 

Trump considers taking decisive action—which apparently he never thought of doing the night before. “I am considering a VETO of the Omnibus Spending Bill based on the fact that the 800,000 plus DACA recipients have been totally abandoned by the Democrats (not even mentioned in Bill) and the BORDER WALL, which is desperately needed for our National Defense, is not fully funded,” he tweets.

Congressional leaders are left scrambling to try to deal with an impending government shutdown. At 11:38 the Buffoon announces, again via tweet: “News conference at the White House concerning the Omnibus Spending Bill. 1:00 P.M.” 

Get that veto pen ready!!!

No one inside the White House has any idea what the Buffoon is going to do, including the Buffoon.

Eventually, Trump appears at the podium for a rambling discussion on why he is going to sign the bill after all, even though the bill is “ridiculous” and “terrible” and, well, what can he do? He needs the money to fund the military—which you figure he must have known all along. Well, don’t blame him for what will soon turn into a huge budget deficit for the coming fiscal year!

He’s only the president!

What Congress should do, he explains to a listening nation, is give up the “power of the purse,” and allow him to line-item veto any elements of any funding legislation he doesn’t personally like.

Alas, someone needs to explain to poor Donald that this matter has already been decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. In Clinton v. City of New York (1998), the court considered a law passed with strong Republican backing in Congress and with approval from President Billl Clinton, to allow presidents to do just that.

In a 6-3 ruling, the highest court in the land declared the law unconstitutional.

3/24: Hundreds of thousands of Americans join the “March for Our Lives” in the nation’s capital on Saturday. They are gathered to demand action to stem the bloody tide of gun violence that stains this great nation. There are also “sibling marches” in 800 towns and cities, including marches in 390 congressional districts across the land. New York City marchers number 175,000. Paul McCartney is there in remembrance of his friend, John Lennon, gunned down by an armed psychopath in 1980.

The teenagers who did so much to organize the marches—and fuel them with passion—lead the way. More than a thousand young people from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where the most recent massacre occurred, attend D.C. events and help fuel the fervor. Survivors of slaughter speak eloquently. Emma Gonzalez reads the names of the 17 who died at her school. Then she stands in silence for six minutes and twenty seconds, the exact time it took for one unbalanced young man, armed with an AR-15, a military-style weapon designed for battlefield use, to kill or wound 34 of Gonzalez’s classmates.

34.

Students from across the nation, who have witnessed the scourge of too many guns play out, also speak up. Edna Chavez, 17, from Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles, tells the crowd about her brother, Ricardo, who had been shot and killed. “I have learned to duck from bullets before I learned to read,” she explains. Then she leads the crowd in a chant: “Ricardo! Ricardo!”

Trevon Bosley, a high school student from Chicago who had also lost a brother, also talks. “I’m here to speak for those youth who fear they may be shot while going to the gas station, the movies, the bus stop, to church or even to and from school,” he says. “I’m here to speak for those Chicago youth who feel their voices have been silenced for far too long.” Other marchers in D.C. and at other locations included parents who lost six-year-old sons and daughters at Sandy Hook in 2012 and Lauren Milgram, 12, herself a survivor of that heinous attack.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s granddaughter also steps up to the mike. “My grandfather had a dream that his four little children would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” nine-year-old Yolanda Ree King tells the D.C. crowd. “I have a dream that enough is enough. That this should be a gun-free world.

“Period.”  

That much is a utopian dream—but you can hardly fail to be impressed with the spirit of these young people who wish to make America a better, safer place to live. Well: unless you speak for the NRA.

Marchers included NBA star Dwayne Wade and Golden State Warriors Coach Steve Kerr.

The NRA weighed in with this: “Today’s protests aren’t spontaneous. Gun-hating billionaires and Hollywood elites are manipulating and exploiting children as part of their plan to DESTROY the Second Amendment and strip us of our right to defend ourselves and our loved ones.”

In a video clip released the day before, an NRA representative, Colion Noir, criticizes the Parkland survivors and what he describes as “a march for their lies.”

Apparently, the Second Amendment is the only amendment he actually likes. “To all the kids from Parkland getting ready to use your First Amendment to attack everyone else’s Second Amendment at your march on Saturday, I wish a hero like Blaine had been at Marjory Douglas High School last month.”

Blaine, in this case, would be Blaine Gaskill, the school resource officer who quickly shot and killed another school shooter at Great Mills High School in Maryland earlier the same week.

Noir continued angrily, “Because your classmates would still be alive and no one would know your names. And because the media would have completely and utterly ignored your story the way they ignored his.”

You could quickly pick holes in Noir’s response if you liked. You could start by noting that these kids undoubtedly wish no one knew their names now—because their names are only known because they speak for seventeen dead friends. You could also note that none of the leaders of the “March for Our Lives” were suggesting disarming police. You could even google “Gaskill” and find 200,000 stories that mentioned him by name. Then you could mull over the tragedy of Jaelynn Willey 17, shot in the head and left brain dead by an armed classmate before Officer Gaskill could respond and ask if perhaps that didn’t actually prove the Parkland survivors had a point.

But you had to stifle the reflex to vomit at the NRA’s attack on teens who were tired of seeing friends sprawled in puddles of blood.

They weren’t out to destroy the Second Amendment any more than teen who know friends who were killed by drunk drivers want to close down liquor stores and bars just because they argue for stricter enforcement of drunk-driving laws. They were insisting, by the hundreds of thousands, that too many Americans with violent tendencies had too easy access to too many types of weapons.

And, yes, they were exercising their rights.

In Florida there is evidence that the anti-gun-violence movement organized by young Americans may stir teens to register and vote. That’s a third right we cherish and we can hope hundreds of thousands of young people register and then cast their ballots this fall. The NRA might not like it; but that’s still how democracy works.

3/25: With less than three hours to go, before Stephanie Clifford (a.k.a. Stormy Daniels) does her interview on 60 Minutes, I check Trump’s Twitter feed. He last tapped away at 8:45 this morning: “President Donald J. Trump Proclaims March 25, 2018, as Greek Independence Day: A National Day of Celebration of Greek and American Democracy” 

Nothing since.

Oddly enough, the Tweeter-in-Chief, who never hesitates to insult a perceived enemy, a critic, or those who pose legal impediments—who likes to label any unflattering story “fake news”—has never yet tweeted about Stormy.

He has not called her a “liar,” like so many women who have accused him of sexual assault. He has not taken on her attorney directly, has not labeled a single appearance by that lawyer or Ms. Clifford “fake news.”

Something tells me she’s got the goods on the Big Orange Buffoon; and something tells me the Buffoon is going to be hoping neither the First Lady nor Barron, his youngest son, tune in tonight.

Daniels might be sporting impressive fake boobs. It’s starting to look like the seamy story she’ll tell is real news.

The White House denies any affair ever occurred. That would make her Liar #9 just this week.

Daniels may in fact possess evidence, and possibly even a dress stained with Donald’s “seed,” that will blow his denials to Kingdom Cum. True. Stormy is a shameless promoter, a media- saavy performer, a business person interested only in making a buck and touting her brand. She is, in that sense, Donald J. Trump’s doppelganger, if Donald J. Trump sported gigantic boobs.

A porn time bomb may be ticking under the Big Orange Buffoon's bed.

Donald J. Trump and David Dennison Are Having a Bad Week

3/15-3/21 (Year II, Days 55-61): Good news, America, we have survived another seven days of Donald J. Trump. I think I speak for almost all of us—except for Sean Hannity and his loyal see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, think-no-evil fans—in saying recent news developments have been wild. True, the employment picture across the country is bright, particularly in the field of high-priced lawyers. You could argue Trump is keeping the legal community in business all by himself.

Good job, sir!

There has, of course, been another school shooting in Maryland and so far, the big Republican idea to deal with the problem is to study the effect of video games on the thinking of young Americans.

Also: right-wingers believe the key to addressing the problem is to insult students who are protesting, just because they are the ones getting shot and bleeding all over the school. Recently, a Maine Republican running for office had to drop out of the race after it was revealed he had labeled two leaders of the student protest movement as: 1) “a skinhead lesbian;” 2) “a bald faced liar.”

Still, you can’t say Donald J. Trump doesn’t have great ideas about how to make America Safe Again. In a speech yesterday in New Hampshire, he talked about the opioid crisis and argued again for building a border wall. We’re going to have that wall—and “keep the damn drugs out.” Trump also pushed the idea that Congress should pass laws to allow for the execution of big time drug dealers.

I suppose you can argue we need a big, beautiful wall to keep the drugs out and we need to execute drug “kingpins,” too. I, for one, might add that we should build the wall around many of the biggest pharmaceutical companies, the ones that mass produce the pills and secretly pay doctors to push their prescription. And if we’re really serious about executing people, how about John Kapoor, the billionaire founder and CEO of Insys, a company that was a leader in pushing legal opioids for years. Last October, Kapoor was arrested on charges of racketeering, conspiracy and fraud.

Or, how about Dr. Michael Kostenko? Kostenko wrote more than 40,000 prescriptions for opioids in just two years. In one especially busy week the West Virginia doctor managed to write 325 prescriptions and dispense 19,000 pills.

Since our topic is courts and the justice system, we should note that the Big Orange Buffoon continues to keep state and federal courts humming. Friday morning, March 16, Michael Avenatti, lawyer for the porn actress Stormy Daniels, appeared on Morning Joe to talk about pending legal action involving his client (real name: Stephanie Clifford) and Donald J. Trump. When asked by hosts on the show, “Has you client been threatened?” Avenatti answered succinctly, “Yes.” Had she been threatened with physical harm? “Yes.” Had threats come from Trump himself? Avenatti responded with a wry smile, “I am not at liberty to deny or confirm that.”

Instead, he said Ms. Clifford would answer such questions in an interview with 60 Minutes scheduled to air March 25.

In the meantime, the Treasury Department slapped additional sanctions on Russia for meddling in the 2016 election.

Yet, for some odd reason, Trump has never felt the urge to call out Vladimir Putin by name. In fact, he has often offered kind words. Twice in the past, he defended Putin from charges of being a “killer.” During a December 2015 talk with the hosts of Morning Joe, before the Buffoon decided the two hosts were lowlifes (see below), then Candidate Trump insisted Putin was a better leader than President Obama. 

When Joe Scarborough noted that Putin “kills journalists that don’t agree with him,” Trump showed not one bit of concern.

“He’s running his country and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country. I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe, so you know.”

In February 2017, Bill O’Reilly labeled Putin a “killer” again, this time in a Fox News interview (the only kind the Buffoon will now do) with the newly sworn in leader of the Free World.

Trump replied, “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. Well, you think our country’s so innocent?”

Think about that response for a moment.

Then throw in the fact Trump has said he believed Putin never meddled in the 2016 election because Putin told him he did not.

Then throw in the fact that Trump—just on Tuesday—called Putin to congratulate him on winning re-election.

Then add this: Putin wins elections because he blocks leading opposition candidates from running.

Putin also orders agents in Great Britain to assassinate his enemies using nerve gas.

Finally, consider how fishy this looks if you realize how happy the Big Orange Buffoon is to insult any American who criticizes him in any way .

Just a few examples should make the point. The insults have included: news anchor Chuck Todd, a “sleepy son of a bitch” (also N.F.L players who protest against Trump); “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz; “liberal clown” Ariana Huffington; “dummy dope” writer Harry Hurt III; “crazy Bernie” Sanders; “Sloppy Steve” Bannon; “gym rat” Senator Ben Sasse; news anchor “Psycho Joe” Scarborough; “sleazy” Congressman Adam Schiff; “major loser” Cheri Jacobus, a GOP consultant; “low-life” correspondent Lisa Belkin; “low-I.Q.” Mika Brzezinski (also Maxine Waters); “dumb as a rock” CNN host Don Lemon; “disgusting” Alicia Machado, former Miss Universe winner; Katie Tur, a reporter who “should be fired” (also Jemele Hill); Senator “Jeff Flake(y);” “the very foul-mouthed” Senator John McCain; the “very cowardly” F.B.I. director James Comey and the dozen or more “liars” who accused him of sexual assault during his campaign.

Friday night, the 16^th, we saw again the scant respect Trump has for the rule of law. Just 26 hours before he was scheduled to retire and begin collecting a pension based on two decades of service, F.B.I. Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was summarily fired. True, you could question McCabe’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email scandal; but you could hardly deny this was a vindictive political move, ordered by Trump, carried out by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and intended to punish a law enforcement official who blocked the Buffoon’s path to untrammeled power.

(McCabe will almost surely win a battle over denial of due process when he takes this matter to the courts.)

That same evening, Michael D. Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer, was filing an unprecedented legal brief in federal court. What Cohen was seeking was to block a legal action filed on behalf of Stormy Daniels in the California courts and transfer matters to federal jurisdiction. 

Incredibly, in his filing Cohen identified his client as  both Donald J. Trump  and “David Dennison.”

You can’t make this up!

The President of the United States, to use the Buffoon’s official title, is operating for certain legal purposes under an alias!

So, let’s recap. The Wall Street Journal first broke the story that Cohen paid $130,000 in hush money to Stormy—twelve days before the 2016 election. Cohen now claims, variously, that Trump knew nothing about the hush money—that he, Cohen, paid out of his own pocket and never used campaign funds, which would be illegal—and that to raise cash he took out a home equity loan.

That may be one of the dumbest cover stories you’ve ever heard. But for a time it looked like gagging the porn star (legally only) was going to work. The parties to the settlement, a tightly-written non-disclosure agreement (NDA) included “Peggy Peterson,” whom we soon learned was Daniels, and a mysterious individual identified only as “David Dennison.” And that NDA stipulated a penalty of $1,000,000 any time “Peterson” broke her silence about her affair…with...um...“Dennison.”

It was obvious to anyone who didn’t make a regular habit of watching Tucker Carlson’s nightly dog and pony show, who “Dennison” was; but now Donald/David and his lawyer were claiming that Ms. Clifford had already violated the NDA twenty times, meaning she had accrued $20,000,000 in damages to this point.

It’s a free country—so far. That means you have every right to watch Fox News and lap up all the crap they peddle. You can believe Trump is truthful and Andrew McCabe is a liar. You can believe Trump is truthful and James Comey is a liar. You can believe Trump is truthful and Stormy is the liar. You can believe the porn star has no proof and Cohen and Donald/David only want to keep her story out of the public eye because…

Oh, hell!

There’s no logical explanation for why they would squeeze a porn star for $20 million—except that she has plenty of proof and its damning.

The situation the man in the Oval Office found himself  in did not improve over the following weekend.

Saturday morning, March 17, the Orange Buffoon slept in late. His first tweet did not issue till 10:00 a.m. and his heart barely seemed in it. “Happy #StPatricksDay” was all he tapped out. You could argue, I suppose, that he was showing rare restraint because he did not refer to Ireland as a “shithole” country.

True. He did warm up by lunch and continued attacking the rule of law. Tweet #2 for the day was as follows: “As the House Intelligence Committee has concluded, there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump Campaign. As many are now finding out, however, there was tremendous leaking, lying and corruption at the highest levels of the FBI, Justice & State. #DrainTheSwamp.”

Like the cornered rat he clearly feels he is, Trump kept squeaking. Tweet #2 followed: “The Fake News is beside themselves that McCabe was caught, called out and fired. How many hundreds of thousands of dollars was given to wife’s campaign by Crooked H friend, Terry M, who was also under investigation? How many lies? How many leaks? Comey knew it all, and much more!” 

Finally, he let loose with a furious blast: “The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime. It was based on fraudulent activities and a Fake Dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC, and improperly used in FISA COURT for surveillance of my campaign. WITCH HUNT!”

Sunday morning, Trump was up early and tappity-tapping again. At 7:02 he tweeted: “Wow, watch Comey lie under oath to Senator G when asked “have you ever been an anonymous source...or known someone else to be an anonymous source...?” He said strongly “never, no.” He lied as shown clearly on @foxandfriends.”

(At this point, it seems clear, if the hosts on Fox & Friends claimed bagels were sentient, Trump would tweet he agreed.)

At 7:22 Trump denied in yet another tweet that notes Andrew McCabe says he took after meetings with the president actually exist. Keep in mind, this is a man who can insist he never had an affair with a porn star—but if she has evidence and spills it he’s going to take her to court for $20 million. Trump’s tweet denial read: “Spent very little time with Andrew McCabe, but he never took notes when he was with me. I don’t believe he made memos except to help his own agenda, probably at a later date. Same with lying James Comey. Can we call them Fake Memos?”

Finally, at 7:35 the Orange Buffoon came completely unglued: “Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans? Another Dem recently added...does anyone think this is fair? And yet, there is NO COLLUSION!”

That was it with the tweeting for the day. Trump climbed into a limo and disappeared down the road, headed for one of his private clubs to spend Sunday afternoon playing yet another round of golf.

The Big Orange Buffoon started Monday the same way he ended Sunday, tweet-raging about the Mueller investigation. First, he assumed fans were watching Fox News every morning, just as he does. Tweet #1 came at 7:16 a.m. and appeared to bend time: “.@seanhannity on @foxandfriends now! Great! 8:18 A.M.” 

Tweet #2 came an hour later, but lacked specificity: “A total WITCH HUNT with massive conflicts of interest!”

One was left to ponder. Did he mean the “witch hunt” involving Russians or the “witch hunt” involving the porn star?

Hard to know.

Certainly, we can assume his mood did not improve as the day progressed. The stock market took a tumble after it was revealed Facebook was duped into allowing a data-mining operation to steal the personal information of 50,000,000 users. What was the name of the company that did the duping and mining? Cambridge Analytica! Who used that firm during his or her campaign for president?

No, not Hillary Clinton!

It was Donald J. Trump.

Christopher Wylie, who helped start the company before turning whistle blower, explained how stolen data could be used in a political campaign: 

Cambridge Analytica will try to pick at whatever mental weakness or vulnerability that we think you [for example, the potential Trump voter whose data has been mined] have and try to warp your perception of what’s real around you. If you are looking to create an information weapon, the battle space you operate in is social media. That is where the fight happens.

And what kind of sleazy rats run Cambridge? Naturally, there had to be at least one Russian-American, Aleksandr Kogan, involved. Professor Kogan lied to Facebook, the site now claims, and wedged a digital foot in the door.

Channel 4 News in Britain, where Strategic Communications Laboratories Group (SCL), the parent company of Cambridge, is located, recently began investigating SCL/Cambridge business practices. An undercover reporter “posing as a fixer for a very wealthy client” from Sri Lanka was sent to seek assistance from SCL Chief Executive Alexander Nix. 

Here’s how Nix explained [punctuation follows British practice] company methods:

In one exchange, when asked about digging up material on political opponents, Mr Nix said they could “send some girls around to the candidate’s house”, adding that Ukrainian girls “are very beautiful, I find that works very well”.

In another he said: “We’ll offer a large amount of money to the candidate, to finance his campaign in exchange for land for instance, we’ll have the whole thing recorded, we’ll blank out the face of our guy and we post it on the Internet.”

Offering bribes to public officials is an offence under both the UK Bribery Act and the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Cambridge Analytica operates in the UK and is registered in the United States.

…Mr Nix told our reporter: “…we’re used to operating through different vehicles, in the shadows, and I look forward to building a very long-term and secretive relationship with you.”

Along with Mr Nix, the meetings also included Mark Turnbull, the managing director of CA Political Global, and the company’s chief data officer, Dr Alex Tayler.

Mr Turnbull described how, having obtained damaging material on opponents, Cambridge Analytica can discreetly push it onto social media and the internet.

He said: “… we just put information into the bloodstream of the internet, and then, and then watch it grow, give it a little push every now and again… like a remote control. It has to happen without anyone thinking, ‘that’s propaganda’, because the moment you think ‘that’s propaganda’, the next question is, ‘who’s put that out?’.”

Mr Nix also said: “…Many of our clients don’t want to be seen to be working with a foreign company… so often we set up, if we are working then we can set up fake IDs and websites, we can be students doing research projects attached to a university, we can be tourists, there’s so many options we can look at. I have lots of experience in this.”

In the meetings, the executives boasted that Cambridge Analytica and its parent company Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL) had worked in more than two hundred elections across the world, including Nigeria, Kenya, the Czech Republic, India and Argentina.

Monday night a spokesman for the company denied that any illegal activities had actually occurred.

Tuesday, Nix was dismissed from his job by his own board of directors.

And, just for fun, who do you think worked with Cambridge on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, possibly in an illegal fashion, to shape the 2016 election? How about one-time Trump campaign manager Cory Lewandowski?

Not to mention—but, yes, him too—“Sloppy Steve” Bannon.

That was just one batch of bad news for the Buffoon but danger signs continued to multiply. Senators Lindsay Graham and John McCain, who do have principles, warned him not to fire Robert Mueller. “If he tried to do that, that would be the beginning of the end of his presidency, because we’re a rule of law nation,” Graham said. Congressman Trey Gowdy, famous for leading the Benghazi investigation and no friend generally of Democrats, said if Trump was innocent he “should act like it.”

Even cowardly Republican leaders began sniffing enough shit to realize it might be time to start distancing themselves from the Trump Manure Pile. Senator Marco Rubio said Andrew McCabe “should’ve been allowed to finish his job through the weekend” and not fired late Friday night. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan mustered up a fragment of courage and had a spokesperson say: “As the speaker has always said, Mr. Mueller and his team should be able to do their job.”

Senate Leader Mitch McConnell came out of hiding long enough to tell reporters that, yes, Mueller should be allowed to finish his work.

Tuesday, March 20, Trump’s only tweet for the day was in celebration of an event I am willing to bet most Americans who do not personally own pitchforks did not know was real.

“Our Nation was founded by farmers,” Trump tippity-tapped on his trusty iPhone. “Our independence was won by farmers. And our continent was tamed by farmers. Our farmers always lead the way -- we are PROUD of them, and we are DELIVERING for them! #NationalAgricultureDay”

I waited anxiously all afternoon and evening, praying the Big Orange Buffoon would tweet again. Perhaps: “Our farmers produce asparagus and Brussels sprouts and other foods I hate. I did not boink a porn star! NO COLLUSION!”

I thought that would be cool.

When Donald J. Trump finally sat down for dinner later—almost surely eating alone, because you figure Melania has to be fuming—we also knew that a Playboy Bunny had filed suit asking the right to tell the story of a ten-month affair she claims to have had with Citizen Trump in 2006.

During the campaign she had been prepared to sell the story when the National Enquirer swooped in and bought up the rights for $150,000. But the company that owns the magazine never intended to publish it because, let’s face it, that magazine has very high standards of journalism.

I’m joking!

The owner is a friend of Donald J. Trump and this was standard practice at the National Enquirer, to help friends, using what was called “capture and kill” to bury the story and keep the Bunny quiet.

Now the Bunny insists other promises made as part of the deal were not kept and she should have the right to take back her tale (tail!) and make it public.

Also, her new lawyer claims Michael D. Cohen (yes, that guy again) was “secretly involved” behind the scenes, possibly in cahoots with the Bunny’s own lawyer at that time, in an effort to insure her affair was hushed up.

But wait, there’s more!

A New York judge also ruled on Tuesday that a defamation case filed against Trump, on behalf of Summer Zervos, a former contestant on The Apprentice, can proceed. A defense motion seeking a dismissal or continuance until after the Buffoon left office was rejected. This means Trump could end up being deposed and may have to answer questions under oath. Zervos’s case looks strong at first glance because then Candidate Trump insisted during the campaign that all the women who had accused him of sexual misconduct were “liars,” that all of their claims were “false stuff” and “total fiction.”

So it could come down to Trump’s word vs. Zervos’s and Trump’s word vs. the words of a dozen other accusers.

I think it’s safe to say, Donald J. Trump and his good friend David Dennison both have to be worrying.

P.S. The Playboy Bunny is scheduled to do an interview with Anderson Cooper on Thursday night.

A Daily Dose of Trump: A Porn Star Sues the President; Another Witness is Cooperating with Mueller

YOU MUST ADMIT.

It’s never dull in Trumpistan.

3/7: At 5:44 a.m., the Emperor is already up and tweeting. We can assume he spent a restless night and slept alone in his bedroom. In case you missed it, the First Lady cannot be amused today. Stormy Daniels, the porn star paid $130,000 in hush money during the 2016 campaign, is now suing Donald J. Trump. She says the non-disclosure agreement she signed just before the election is actually invalid because Trump (alias: “David Dennison” in the document) did not sign it.

"David Dennison" poses with his porn-star friend.

Meanwhile, Gary Cohn, the Emperor’s top economic advisor in the White House, is resigning. Considered by many to be one of the few “grownups” in the building, Cohn apparently couldn’t stomach Trump’s decision to impose steep tariffs on aluminum and steel.

In more bad news for Trump and his closest circle, Sam Nunberg, who pretty much got the entire Trump campaign off the ground in 2015, has agreed to testify before a Grand Jury on Friday. On Monday, Nunberg, who had been subpoenaed as part of the Mueller investigation was threatening to rip up the subpoena on national television. He wasn’t going to “waste 80 hours of his time” complying with a records request and said Mueller would be crazy to arrest him. On sober second thought he decided he would cooperate. Also, he would soon be entering rehab.

The bad news for Trump & Co.? Mueller is seeking documents and electronic records, from November 1, 2015, till the present, involving Nunberg and:

Stephen K. Bannon

Michael D. Cohen

Rick Gates

Hope Hicks

Corey Lewandowski

Paul Manafort

Carter Page

Keith Schiller

Roger Stone

And…..Donald J. Trump!

You can see why this might bother the Emperor and his team. Gates has already pled guilty.  Manafort is under house arrest, awaiting trial. Hicks just quit her White House post after being grilled for nine hours by Mueller’s investigators. Cohen is in the news for arranging the payoff to the porn star and Schiller has admitted he was “on guard” outside Trump’s hotel room in Moscow the night in 2013 when his boss was offered the warm company of several prostitutes to share his bed.

If you missed that story because all you do is binge on Fox News, and fume about Hillary’s emails, Schiller says nothing illicit occurred. Around 2 a.m. he wandered off to his own room for a snooze.

And, I think we can all agree there is nothing whatsoever in the Emperor’s past that would make you ever think he would stoop so low. Prostitutes! No way. Trump is a man of impeccable morals.

Cough, cough.

Last but not least, George Nader, a Lebanese-American gentleman is also cooperating with Mueller’s investigation. Nader often works as an advisor to Crown Prince Mohammed and the United Arab Emirates. Normally, he travels in rarified circles.

On January 17, however, he was stopped by F.B.I agents after landing at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. They handed Nader a subpoena, relieved him of his electronic devices and questioned him for two hours. This meant he missed his next flight to Mar-a-Lago, where he had hoped to help the Emperor celebrate the first year of his reign.

What did the F.B.I. want to know? And what is Mueller now asking Nader about? One possibility is that Nader funneled money from the U.A.E. into the Trump campaign. That would be flatly illegal.

Nader also attended a meeting in the Seychelles Islands (population: 94,677) in January 2017. If you’re like me, you’re going to have to look the islands up to find out where they are. But Nader found them. So did Erik Prince, brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, founder of Blackwater Security, and a man who was then serving as an informal advisor to the Trump transition team. Who else flew to the islands just because it was so convenient to meet there?

Kirill Dmitriev, representing Vladimir Putin!

You can probably guess where this is going. Dmitriev managed a powerful Russian trust fund, sanctioned by President Obama.

According to The New York Times, Nader has since been questioned repeatedly about a variety of meetings, including at least one with Jared Kushner and Stephen K. Bannon at the White House.

Mr. Prince has denied any secret deals might have been involved in this meeting. Oh, no. He just happened to run into Dmitriev and they had a friendly drink.

In the Seychelles.

Pure coincidence!

A Daily Dose of Donald J. Trump: "Character is Destiny" Edition

“CHARACTER IS DESTINY,” the Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said. For Trump and his minions this is clearly the case. When you cram the White House with bullies, wife-beaters and foul-mouthed louts, people notice.

Trump finishes behind Buchanan in presidential ratings.

Consider results from a recent Quinnipiac poll: 61% of Americans said they did not like Trump as a person.

Only 3 in 10 said they did.

Even worse, only 1 in 5 Americans (18%) believe the president has been faithful to his third wife. 

At this point, Melania is probably part of the majority—who thinks he has not. 

Is Trump even fit to be president? Four Americans in ten (41%) think he is. A sizable majority (57 percent) say he’s not. Men tend to give him a pass in that regard, splitting on the question 49-49 %. Only 33 % of women believe the Emperor deserves his seat in the Oval Office today. Again, a sizable majority (56 %) believes Trump acts more like an autocrat than a normal president.

In other words, the polls are not looking particularly good for the Emperor at this point in his reign; but Trump is a half-full-or-more kind of guy, you could say. This past month he took a look at all the polls—at least all the good ones his sycophantic staff dared place on his desk. Trump saw the glass was more than half full and never noticed it was filled with brackish swamp water.

He was so thrilled by what he saw he had to tweet the news: “Great Pollster John McLaughlin now has the GOP up in the Generic Congressional Ballot. Big gain over last 4 weeks. I guess people are loving the big Tax Cuts given them by the Republicans, the Cuts the Dems want to take away. We need more Republicans!”

I am a fact-based kind of guy and I have puzzled over polls for many years. And I was seeing a glass that appeared less than half full and less by a lot. I decided to do some checking. Who was this pollster the Emperor loved? According to a story from 2014, Republican candidates had been warned not to use McLaughlin’s services because he had “a recent history of missing the mark by wide margins” in races he tried to predict.

Trump supporters, as we know, like to insist the polls were rigged in 2016 and totally, totally off. Not true at all. If you know how to add 2 + 9 and get 10.89 you know they were off by only 1%. Clinton was expected to win the popular vote by 3.2%. She did, but not in key states, and only by 2.1%.

So let’s look at the trends in regard to the generic ballot—where Trump sees a glass that is looking so good. (You figure he can look in the mirror and believe his hair looks good; so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised.) In this poll registered voters (usually) are asked which party they prefer to control Congress in the coming election. According to RealClearPolitics here are the results.

See if you can spot a trend:

In fact, if you go all the way back to January 2017 you won’t find a single poll, and there have been more than 150, in which Republicans hold a lead. By comparison, the GOP had an average lead of 2.4% in 2014 and won by 5.7%. They led in generic ballot polling in 2010, too. Surveys showed them ahead by 9.4%. They won by 6.8%. The last time the Democrats were up during a midterm election year was 2006. Polls gave them a 11.5% lead.

They won by 6.8.

Polling results aren’t much better for the Emperor himself. Again, see if you can spot the trend:

We know that the trends can change, but so long as the Emperor remains delusional in his approach to governing—which is to say, probably for the next three years—we should not expect to see much difference. Character is destiny, after all. Trump did get a bump right after the tax cuts passed. But chaos in the White House, accusations of an affair with a Playboy Bunny, tone-deaf dealings with survivors of the Stoneman Douglas shooting, and a general bullying streak that percolates out of the Oval Office won’t help him win any friends in days to come.

Right now, his best bet is to subvert the Constitution and lock his political opponents up. That’s the tactic Vladimir Putin prefers—and we know how much Trump admires Mr. Putin.

And there’s always “hope,” I suppose, for Emperor Trump. This week the Communist Party was poised to alter the Chinese constitution and allow Xi Jinping to serve as president for life if he so desires.

Trump’s reaction to the news was telling and even Fox News was forced to address the topic. Naturally, they gave the Emperor his usual pass. Trump actually seemed to like the idea of Xi ruling for life and when he spoke at Mar-a-Lago his fat-cat friends apparently agreed. Here’s how Fox told the tale:

“He’s now president for life. President for life. And he’s great,” Trump said, according to a recording obtained by CNN. “I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot someday.”

Trump’s remarks were reportedly met with laughter and applause during a luncheon for Republican donors at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Pause for a moment to think how Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly (this would have been before he got banned for sexually assaulting a bevy of beautiful co-workers) would have responded if President Obama had made similar comments. 

“Obama loves communism!” they would have screamed. 

“Obama said a dictator was ‘great.’ He wants to be a dictator himself!” 

“Obama hates America! Obama wants to kick over your Chirstmas tree and confiscate all your guns!”

Nope. Not at Fox News, not during the reign of Emperor Donald I. The Emperor can suck up to dictators of every kind.

It’s all going to be just fine, Fox News assures its listeners every morning, afternoon and evening; but they seem to forget. Character is destiny. If Heraclitus is correct, the Emperor is surely screwed.

*

FOR A DAILY LOOK AT THE SECOND YEAR OF THE REIGN  OF EMPEROR DONALD THE FIRST, GO TO: "EMPEROR TRUMP, YEAR II: CHAOS AND INCOMPETENCE CONTINUE."