The Porn Star and the President - Part VIII

 

The Porn Star and the President – Part VIII

(A Story of Lying)

Trump and Stephanie Clifford (her real name).

IN PART VII, MICHAEL COHEN TESTIFIES BEFORE CONGRESS – AGAIN. THE FIRST TIME, HE LIED FOR TRUMP. 

THIS TIME, HE CORRECTS THOSE LIES. REPUBLICANS WHO QUESTION THE WITNESS ARE LIVID.

WE PICK UP THE TRAIL AGAIN:

3/4/19: In perhaps the least surprising story of the day, The New Yorker reveals collusion between President Trump and…Fox News! 

We have seen some of the evidence before: the incessant praise for Trump from the hosts of Fox & Friends, the daily dish of Trump lovin’ fed to viewers by the perpetually outraged-at-liberals Lou Dobbs. 

We watched Heather Nauert, former Fox News Bunny, serve as spokesperson for the Department of State. 

We saw Bill Shine, disgraced former Fox executive, hired to lead the White House communications department. 

There was Sean Hannity, popping up onstage at campaign rallies besides his chunky, orange pal. 

Then it was Hannity landing seven interviews with the president and Fox landing 37 more, each chock-full of softball questions…just to be sure the president looked good. 

Sample question from any Fox interview: “Are you the best president in history, Mr. Trump?” 

Trump: “Yes, and thanks for asking.” 

Interview ends. 

 

Fox News performed its own version of “capture and kill.” 

Now it turns out, a Fox reporter had the story of Stormy Daniels and her one-night stand with Donald before the 2016 election. The network performed its own version of “capture and kill,” despite proof Daniels was telling the truth – that Trump had cheated on his third wife, now First Lady. 

“Good reporting, kiddo,” a top executive told Diana Falzone, the reporter on the case. “But Rupert [Murdoch] wants Donald Trump to win. So just let it go.” 

As a writer for The New Yorker explains:

 

Falzone discovered that the National Enquirer, in partnership with Trump, had made a “catch and kill” deal with Daniels – buying the exclusive rights to her story in order to bury it. Falzone pitched this story to Fox, too, but it went nowhere.

 

Falzone was demoted the following January “without explanation.” She sued Fox and reached a settlement. Falzone signed a non-disclosure agreement.

 

So, there you go. 

Fox News: “Fair and balanced.”  We don’t let you hear the bad news about Trump. You decide. 

Also: Non-disclosure agreements are the best kind of news.

___ 

 

3/6/19: Michael Cohen spends another day on Capitol Hill, testifying in closed session before the House Intelligence Committee. This time, he brings several suitcases filled with documents. 

The New York Times reports that Cohen will provide a series of fat checks made out to his name, all signed by the president, or Don Jr., his dear, dumb son. These checks are part of a scheme to cover up the story of Stormy Daniels, for which scheme (in part) Cohen will soon be plunked into jail. The Southern District of New York in its filings on the case named “Individual 1,” the president himself, as an “unindicted co-conspirator,” which (based on the latest revelations) is kind of fun. 

The first check to Mr. Cohen was signed on February 14, 2017, by the newly sworn President of the United States. The day before, Trump had to fire his National Security Adviser, General Michael T. Flynn, for lying to Vice President Pence about contacts with Russians. 

 

Now Trump was signing that fat check – and afterwards, he would celebrate Valentine’s Day by calling in F.B.I. Director James Comey and asking him to go easy on good old General Flynn. 

Keep all of this in mind when you hear the president insist that Comey lies and not him. 

Or Cohen lies and not him. 

Or anyone lies and not him. 

There was another check to his personal lawyer for $35,000 in March, one in April (not yet found), then one in May, drawn on the president’s personal bank account. The June and July checks are still missing. Then we have another for $35,000, signed on August 1, 2017. 

 

On that very day, White House Press Secretary Pinocchio, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, confirmed that the president had “weighed in” on a letter Don Jr. wrote about a secret meeting held in June 2016 with a group of Russian agents. 

In retrospect, you can see how ridiculous the lies told by Trump and his sycophants have been. Sanders insisted then:

 

Look, the statement that Don Jr. issued is true. There’s no inaccuracy in the statement.

The president weighed in as any father would, based on the limited information that he had.

This is all discussion, frankly, of no consequence. There was no follow up. It was disclosed to the proper parties, which is how The New York Times found out about it to begin with.

That statement itself was shot through with untruths. The meeting itself was never “disclosed.” The New York Times dug up the story thirteen months after the conclave concluded. Don Jr. initially lied about the purpose of the gathering. Then dad lied too. Finally, a whole slew of aides, including Sanders, lied to cover up the president’s role in the debacle. If you had the feeling that Team Trump might be rife with liars, you wouldn’t be dreaming. 

In parallel, the checks to Cohen kept on coming – September 12, October 18, and November 21. The last of a dozen came on December 5, 2017, meaning that the president had been part of a scheme to cover up felony campaign law violations for almost a year.  

The evidence builds. Yet, in Trumpistan it makes no dent. As the Times reports:

 

“I think it’s news we knew about,” Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Reform Committee and one of the president’s staunchest allies, told reporters during a break in last week’s hearing.

 

The payments, he said, could have been for services based on a retainer, although Mr. Cohen said there was no such retainer.

 

 

Trump claims to know nothing about the payments. 

Nor should anyone, not even a clueless Rep. Jordan, forget. In April 2018, Trump could still insist to reporters aboard Air Force One that he knew nothing at all about payments to Stormy.

 

Q: Mr. President, did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?

THE PRESIDENT: No. No. What else?

 

Q: Do you know where he [Cohen] got the money to make that payment?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I don’t know. No.

 

One thing President Trump does know, is he knows how to lie.

Oddly enough, the president isn’t done tweet-ranting for the day. At 6:56 p.m. on March 6, 2019, he sums up his legal predicament this way. He didn’t do anything wrong. No, the Democrats are out to get him on anything, even “a punctuation mistake in a document.”

Cohen doesn’t have the periods or commas. 

He has the checks. 

 

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). 

In a rare display of integrity, Judge Andrew Napolitano, perhaps Fox News’s top legal commentator, explains the dangers to Trump in Cohen’s testimony in an editorial in the Washington Examiner:

 

Hidden in the Cohen testimony was an oblique reference to alleged bank and tax fraud that Cohen claimed he helped Mr. Trump commit, contributed to Mr. Trump’s wealth and has the present interest of federal prosecutors in Manhattan. Many of these events took place more than five years ago and thus are not subject to federal prosecution, so why would prosecutors be interested in them?

 

Here is where RICO comes in. RICO is the acronym for a Nixon-era federal statute, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, originally enacted to target the mob. It permits federal prosecutors to reach back 10 years to find any two criminal acts, which need not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt; prosecutors need only demonstrate that they were more likely than not to have occurred. Then the feds can seize three times the wealth that the perpetrators of these schemes amassed. That could bankrupt Mr. Trump.

 

The president has serious and powerful tormentors whom he cannot overcome by mockery alone. He needs to do more than demean them with acerbic tweets, because many of those tormentors can legally cause him real harm. He needs to address these issues soberly, directly and maturely. Can President Trump survive all this? Yes — but not if he has another week like the last one.

 

First, it’s never going to be a good week for anyone who opens a newspaper and sees his or her name attached to a sentence about the RICO Act. 

Second, Napolitano is warning that Trump can only address his problems in a sober, direct, mature fashion. 

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahaha! 

Not gonna’ happen!

___ 

 

3/8/19: Recent polls have Trump in a bit of a hole, with only 43.4% of Americans approving of the job he’s doing. Part of his problem is that most Americans believe he’s a liar. 

Mainly because he is. 

 

Only 35% said Trump. 

His former lawyer, Michael Cohen, is now a convicted felon, headed for jail. But when asked in a Quinnipiac poll, who they believed more after Cohen’s recent testimony before Congress, 50% of Americans said Cohen 

Only 35% said Trump. 

In fact, 65% of Americans said they believed Trump is not honest, and 64% think he committed crimes before taking office. Almost half, 45%, believe he has committed crimes since being elected. 

October 30-31, 2017: Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort - More Bad News on Climate

 

10/30/17: This is not one of President Trump’s best days, even though he tweeted early in the morning that there was “NO COLLUSION” between Russia and his 2016 campaign. 

Say what you will, Mr. President, but Paul Manafort, 68, your former campaign manager, just got indicted for money laundering and lying all day, every day, and lying in his sleep. 

Also indicted was Rick Gates, 45, a Manafort protégé. Gates was a part of the Trump Team up to Inauguration Day, when he was part of the largest imaginary crowd ever to attend inaugural events. (See: 1/21/17.) 

Gates is young. He has a wife and small children to worry about. He cannot relish the idea of spending twenty years in an orange jumpsuit. That means he has reason to cooperate with the Mueller investigation. 

If I were a betting man, and I am, I’d bet he’s going to flip.

Rick Gates.

 

* 

IN RELATED NEWS, George Papadopoulos, now described by Press Secretary Pinocchio as a nobody in the campaign, pleads guilty to federal charges. Trump surrogates call the young man a “coffee boy,” of no import during the campaign. The president tweets about some guy named “George,” like he never laid eyes on the man. 

On the other hand, we know Candidate Trump had previously informed the Washington Post that “George” was a top adviser on his team. As late as August 2016 a campaign adviser (unnamed in the indictment) was suggesting “George” take a trip to Moscow and look into a deal with Russians to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. 

That means the next target of investigation may be that top campaign adviser mentioned in the coffee boy’s indictment. Different sources suggest “George” might have been talking to Sam Clovis, co-chair of the campaign. He might have been talking to Cory Lewandowski, another former Trump campaign manager. Lewandowski denies any wrong-doing, as you would expect. 

In fact, if we are to believe Sean Hannity, and the assorted liars on the Trump campaign team, all “George” was really asking about was did the Big Bosses want one lump of sugar or two?

 

We do know the F.B.I. interviewed Papadopoulos just seven days after Trump took office. Agents quickly caught him in several lies, leading to charges of obstruction of justice. If this sounds familiar it should. 

“George,” the coffee boy, lied about meeting with Russians.

(See: 12/1-2/17. When news breaks that Gen. Michael T Flynn has begun start cooperating with the Mueller probe, the White House suddenly starts referring to him as “a former Obama administration official.”)

___

 

 

10/31/17: The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announces that carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere spiked last year to levels not seen in 800,000 years. E.P.A. Administrator Scott Pruitt, tool of Big Coal and stooge of Big Oil, continues to push increased burning of fossil fuels. 

Pruitt won’t be satisfied till we drill for oil in the Rose Garden and in Hillary Clinton’s front yard.

February 14, 2018: Another School Massacre - "Now is Not the Time."

 

2/14/18: Valentine’s Day! Donald ♥’s Melania. Donald really loves Donald ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Donald + Donald = ♥.

*

 

SUDDENLY, THE DAY TURNS UGLY. At 2:21 p.m., a 19-year-old Florida man walks into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Armed with a military-style AR-15, he opens fire. In a little more than six minutes he kills fourteen students and three teachers and leaves more than a dozen wounded. 

According to Fox News the shooter casts aside his weapon and blends in with fleeing students. 

By 2:28 he has exited the building. 

Now is the time; stricken parents in Parkland.

____________________ 

“Now is not the time.” 

Press Secretary Pinocchio Sanders

____________________ 

 

This is the third massacre in the United States, involving military-style weapons in six months. Last October a killer in Las Vegas poured fire into a crowd at a country music festival. Relying on an arsenal of ten AR-15’s and other military-grade firepower, well-stocked with 100-round magazines, intent on inflicting maximum human destruction, he was able to fire thousands of rounds before police could locate his shooting position in a hotel room thirty-two floors above. This firepower allowed him to kill 58 and wound 422 human beings. 

(That toll does not involve those who were injured trying to flee; it includes only those struck by bullets.) 

Sadly, but predictably, Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress did nothing at the time. Well: besides offering “thoughts and prayers.” Press Secretary Pinocchio told reporters the next day that “now is not the time” to have a debate about guns in America. Sen. Milksop Mitch McConnell concurred. “What is clear now,” he said, “is that this is a moment for national mourning and prayer.” 

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas wasn’t focused on the guns and blood. Cornyn was angry because Democrats were “politicizing” the shooting. This, he proclaimed, was “beyond disgusting.” 

He probably forgot all the times that Republicans politicized the gun debate and warned the gullible that President Obama was going to take away all the guns – even though he never took away any – and even though paranoid gun lovers rushed out and bought another 150 million guns while he was in office. 

Cornyn must have forgotten the times Candidate Trump politicized the debate, warning that if Hillary were elected the Second Amendment would be dead.

 

In November 2017, a gunman, armed again with a military-style Ruger AR-15, the weapon of choice of modern mass murderers, shot up a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, killing 26.

 

More “thoughts and prayers” were offered by the man in the Oval Office and Republicans in Congress.

 

Now was still not the time for a discussion about guns. Thoughts and prayers would have to suffice.

 

Now a third massacre stuns the nation. It’s not quite like Sandy Hook, which was even more terrible (December 2012). In the aftermath of that slaughter right-wing crazies politicized the discussion in the most repugnant manner imaginable. Cornyn probably forgets that, too. Alex Jones first claimed the killing was an inside job, pulled off by the government to raise a “false flag” and justify taking away citizens’ guns. Later, he claimed the Sandy Hook story was “a hoax.” No one had seen any bodies.

 

The massacre had been “staged.”

 

(One might wonder what kind of ghoul would want to see the riddled bodies of six-year-old children and their teachers.)

 

It hadn’t been the “right time” to talk about gun massacres in July 2012. That was when another heavily armed man, supplied with military-style firepower and large magazines, killed and wounded 58 in an Aurora, Colorado theater.

 

It wasn’t the “right time,” when a terrorist used the same kind of firepower to attack the Pulse Night Club in Orlando, Florida in 2016. The toll in that massacre: 49 dead, 58 wounded.

 

It was, however, always the “right time” according to Republicans, often heavily funded by the N.R.A., to talk about the Second Amendment. It was always the “right time” to shout that any restrictions on gun purchases would mean an end to our cherished freedoms. It was always the “right time” to howl that anyone who offered up contrary opinions hated the Constitution. It was always the “right time” to offer up stupid pro-gun arguments. Stones can kill, too, gun-lovers proclaimed. Did we want to outlaw stones? What about cars and knives?

 

Hell, I could do better than that. I could argue that there are all kinds of options for those intent on perpetrating mayhem. Baseball bats and crowbars can kill! And pitchforks! Did we want to disarm farmers? Don’t forget croquet mallets. You could run down a victim with a riding lawnmower. And mulch them. A fork to the throat might do the job. Did we want to ban cutlery?

 

The only way to stop a bad guy with a fork or stone or riding mower was a good guy with a fork or stone or riding mower, we were told. Americans had to buy more guns (and keep mower blades sharp) if they expected to be safe.

 

They bought those guns, just as the N.R.A. claimed would be prudent, but they found too late, they were not safe.

 

You could dodge a psychopath on a riding mower. You could run from a man with a stone. If someone attacked you with a fork you could parry with a fork – or maybe brain them with a dining room chair or a plate.

 

You could not easily stop an armed killer with an AR-15. Kindergartners at Sandy Hook were torn apart in a hail of fire. The shooter in Las Vegas fired from a position hundreds of feet above. He could have had a giant pile of stones and couldn’t have done much damage to anyone save some unlucky individual directly below. At Stoneman Douglas one of the wounded was hit five times and survived. Another victim was struck nine times and did not.

 

Now was the time to discuss guns in America.

 

And what made it different this time was that’s exactly what many of the teen survivors decided to do.

 

Naturally, faced with all the carnage and pain and tears, the right-wing crazies decided the best defense was to claim the left had coached the students and their parents to attack the Second Amendment.

 

Shameless.

March 8, 2018: A Fresh Batch of Lies from the White House

 

3/8/18: Another crazy day in Trumpistan: The New York Times reports on possible witness tampering by the president. 

Also: We have fresh news involving Stormy Daniels, the porn star currently trying to sue the Orange Buffoon. 

____________________ 

If Stormy had proof, she would be sued if she revealed it.

____________________ 

 

Perhaps you watched Press Secretary Pinocchio yesterday, as she went through her daily contortions. Her job was to make it sound as if the Buffoon was as innocent, when it comes to Ms. Daniels, as a neophyte in a nunnery. Had Trump ever had an affair with Stormy? Never, Sanders said. Who then paid the $130,000 settlement to her? Trump? No. Why was Stormy paid to begin with? Pinocchio didn’t wish to comment. Did Trump know about the payment? Who would think it! Pinocchio tried to claim the porn star was lying, because the president had just won an “arbitration” case in which his lawyers blocked Daniels from speaking out. 

Either Sanders is lying, 

or the president is letting her lie, and not correcting her.

By the way, court documents, including a settlement agreement, show Daniels could be sued for damages in excess of $1 million if she revealed images, emails or other evidence she might have which would support her claims. 

Evidence! Damn it! (See also: 1/26/18.)

 

So, to recap: Trump didn’t pay to shut up Stormy. His lawyer paid out of pocket. Trump didn’t know about the settlement. Stormy was lying. But if Stormy had proof, she would be sued if she revealed it – even though she couldn’t because the affair never happened. Finally, Trump knew all about the “arbitration” case, even though he had no idea what he was suing Daniels to stop her from talking about. (See: 4/26/18.) 

Really, with Trump in the White House, never a dull day passes. Did you know a friend of the president, David Pecker, publisher of the National Enquirer, allegedly paid another $150,000 for a story Karen McDougal, a former Playboy Bunny, had written about an affair with Trump? 

Pecker’s decision to pay, but bury the story to help his pussy-grabbing pal, also came during the lead up to the 2016 election. 

That might also turn out to be illegal. (See: 12/13/18.)

 

* 

SWITCHING TOPICS, Reince Priebus, Donald McGahn, and their lawyers have been concerned enough about Trump’s approaches to them, since both are potential witnesses in the Russian investigation, to report questionable contacts to Special Counsel Robert Mueller. 

Priebus’s contact seems fairly benign. 

McGahn’s encounter is more problematic and occurred this past January – after he had already given sworn testimony – and after The New York Times ran an article about Trump’s attempt to fire Mueller in June 2017. 

Based on talks with people who had been briefed on both meetings, the Times reported yesterday: 

After the article was published, the White House staff secretary, Rob Porter, told Mr. McGahn that the president wanted him to release a statement saying that the story was not true, the people said.

 

Mr. Porter, who resigned last month amid a domestic abuse scandal, told Mr. McGahn the president had suggested he “might get rid” of Mr. McGahn if he chose not to challenge the article, the people briefed on the conversation said.

 

Mr. McGahn did not publicly deny the article, and the president later confronted him in the Oval Office in front of White House chief of staff, John F. Kelley, according to the people.

 

The president said he had never ordered Mr. McGahn to fire the special counsel. Mr. McGahn replied that the president was wrong and that he had in fact asked Mr. McGahn in June [emphasis added] to call the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, to tell him that the special counsel had a series of conflicts of interest that disqualified him for overseeing the investigation and that he had to be dismissed.

 

Or to put it plainly, if McGahn is correct, then Trump had asked him to lie about what happened last summer. 

In legal circles that sounds just like attempted witness tampering. 

In fact, it sounds like witness tampering if you deliver mail, pick up garbage or teach middle school. Because it is.

May 3, 2018: The Mayans and Germans Never Saw It Coming - Do Americans Now?

 

5/3/18: It appears the Trump legal team is giving up. Ty Cobb resigns. Don McGahn is looking for an exit. Rudy Giuliani says, “f**k it,” and tacitly admits the president has been lying all along. 

Trump did know about the $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, Rudy admits, even though the president has repeatedly told the American people he didn’t. 

____________________ 

The list of bootlickers, grovelers and sycophants that bring ruin upon our democracy will be long, assuming we have a system twenty years from now, where the possibility of publishing such a list exists.

____________________ 

 

For fifteen months, as Trump has run amok, trampling our nation’s core values, vilifying the free press, threatening to jail political foes, and tweeting madly in an effort to cast a pall over the Department of Justice and the F.B.I., this blogger has had one consolation. The American people seemed not to be falling for his tricks. 

Opinion polls gave me hope. (I’m not like Trump. I don’t believe in polls only when they reflect what I want to believe.) They showed, generally, that the American people were not buying his bull. 

Now the polls are starting to narrow. Taken in aggregate, opinion polls are highly accurate. A month ago, the president was down in most job approval ratings by 10-15 points. Now almost every poll shows his ratings moving in a positive direction, assuming you love Trump. Reuters/IPSOS had him down 39 percent to 58 percent, approval/disapproval, on April 10. Yesterday, the same poll put him at 49% to 49%. The Rasmussen poll, which tends to be an outlier, has had the president fluctuating, up a little, down a little, in recent weeks. Monmouth had him down 14 points on March 5. On April 30 he had closed the gap to 3.

 

As a former history teacher, I realize full well opinions vary. I understand what Sophocles meant, two millennia ago, when he said, “The wise are doubtful.” 

I know I could be wrong in what I think about Mr. Trump. 

Yet, I do know history. From everything I can tell, Trump represents an existential threat to our system of government. I believe the U.S. Constitution will be imperiled if Republican toadies (I don’t mean all Republicans) dominate Congress after 2018. I believe the rule of law might be doomed, at least until 2025, if Trump wins a second term. The list of bootlickers, grovelers and sycophants that bring ruin upon our democracy will be long, assuming we have a system twenty years from now, where the possibility of publishing such a list still exists. 

A study of history shows that human societies routinely fail to see disaster coming. Or they do, but have no idea how to respond. The Mayans failed to deal with environmental degradation. First their food supply collapsed. Then their society degenerated amid city vs. city warfare. The German people elected Adolf Hitler. Once in power he broke loose from restraint and unleashed hell. The Chinese have an untenable imbalance between male and female births (they admit 114 males are born for every 100 females; and many experts believe that ratio is even farther out of balance) and a society top-heavy with an aging population that a youthful cohort will find impossible to support. A sixth of the U.S. economy revolves around healthcare. Whether you like Obamacare or loathe it, over time the costs will be unsustainable. 

My biggest worry, however, is Donald J. Trump. I do not doubt at all that he’d close The New York Times and jail political opponents without trial if he believed he could only save himself.

Mayan civilization collapsed.