During the Lake Tahoe tournament, McDougal and Trump had sex, she wrote. He also allegedly began a sexual relationship with Clifford at the event. (A representative for Clifford did not respond to requests for comment.) In the 2011 interview with In Touch Weekly, Clifford said that Trump didn’t use a condom and didn’t mention sleeping with anyone else. Another adult-film actress, Dawn Vanguard, whose screen name is Alana Evans, claimed that Trump invited her to join them in his hotel room that weekend. A third adult-film performer, Jessica Drake, alleged that Trump asked her to his hotel room, met her and two women she brought with her in pajamas, and then “grabbed each of us tightly in a hug and kissed each one of us without asking for permission.” He then offered Drake ten thousand dollars in exchange for her company. (Trump denied the incident.) A week after the golf tournament, McDougal joined Trump at the fifty-fifth Miss Universe contest, in Los Angeles. She sat near him, and later attended an after-party where she met celebrities. Trump also set aside tickets for Clifford, as he did at a later vodka launch that both women attended.
This is all while he was married to Melania and Barron was a year or two old. I think now that he has accepted Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior, evangelicals will forgive him, so this is clearly only for the record.
Also: At least he didn’t have sexual relationships outside his race.
Ruviana
Your given name is Dawn Vanguard and you need a screen name? The things I learn here!
bystander
I’m beginning to wonder if having sex with women who want money in return is a pattern in twitler’s life. Sad!
schrodingers_cat
Bringing dignity to the WH!
The Moar You Know
If he says it in public they will literally forgive him anything – although that is probably not necessary, as they seem to have arrived at that stage of Stockholm Syndrome already.
geg6
So classy.
Tom Levenson
Killer passage in that story:
Trump’s default: the only reason someone has sex with him is for the simoleons.
The Moar You Know
@bystander: Even back in his younger days, I frankly can’t see him getting laid any other way. I’m sure he’s hung like a cashew, and I bet “pleasing a woman” is right down the list with “pay your taxes” as a life priority.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
How come Dotard and Melanoma don’t have to answer any questions about this? What the fuck is going on with this country? If these stories were about Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, Michelle and HRC would have to answer the same questions over and over for the rest of their lives.
bemused
I can’t imagine any woman actually wanting to sleep with him. Eeeew. Seriously, the women he’s slept with didn’t have better men options, smarter, much more attractive with better taste and more money?
schrodingers_cat
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: He doesn’t have to answer questions about anything. Not about this or killing the DACA reprieve, calling for cuts to legal immigration. Nothing. Our media just rolls over and plays dead.
mai naem mobile
I am kind of stuck with the Playboy model wh0 he had sexytime with and he offered money to and she turned down the money and told him she did it because she liked him not for the $$$. How? Why? Was she doing some really good drugs?
Mike in NC
Enjoyed reading about the other porn star who declined a three-way with Trump because “he’s not exactly Brad Pitt”.
Elizabelle
@The Moar You Know: I am laughing. Glad no coffee was involved. Great comment.
LAO
Is the Pope Catholic? Do bears shit in the woods. Ask us a harder question!
Kay
This is why I don’t believe the 130k is hush money. It’s not enough! I give Stormy more credit than that.
It’s something but it isn’t to buy silence, and she isn’t silent anyway. This whole Stormy alibi story is bullshit.
Kay
@Tom Levenson:
He didn’t believe her because please, she likes him. Sure.
Tom Levenson
@Kay: ;-)
Chet Murthy
@mai naem mobile: It does tend to impeach the witness’ (uh) sanity? hold on reality? taste?
mai naem mobile
I think Franklin Graham said something to the effect of Stormy Daniels being a one off. Wonder what he’s going to sat now that it looks like it’s going to be more like Steve Bannons ‘at least a hundred.’
BTW, Trump definitely has two types hes attracted to. The Ivanka lookalike and the Melanoma lookalike.
JPL
Who has he been seeing lately? His medicine cabinet must be filled with those blue pills, just sayin.
mai naem mobile
@Kay: I think the NDA was before the election and most people didn’t think he was.going to win so maybe the $130K was reasonable at that point. I guess it’s possible it could be timed strategically to distract from his bigger problems
Steeplejack (phone)
@mai naem mobile:
Faulty or damaged self-image is a thing. Look at how many smart, beautiful Hollywood actresses end up married to archetypically sleazy business types. They’re the ones who have the balls to hit on an actress and make it seem like they’re doing her a favor.
Kay
Jake Tapper retweeted this. “How INSANE is it that none of the professional political news gatherers did the slightest bit of due diligence on the President of United States! That’s just zany!”
I love how they characterize themselves as sort of ordinary members of the public.
“I DID NOT know that!”
How, pray tell, was it supposed to “come out”? WHO was supposed to doing that? Not me! It wasn’t my job! Maybe the BILLION dollar campaign reporting industry could have, I don’t know, looked for some of this?
Shakti
@Ruviana:
It’s harder to confuse Google with a unique real name. If your name is something like Emily Smith, it’s like being anonymous. Not every porn star gets to be Jenna Jameson (still making money after she’s retired from residuals; converted to Orthodox Judaism).
LAO
@JPL: Not Melania!
Kay
Political media are now reassuring us that it doesn’t matter that nothing was reported on Donald Trump during the campaign (key fact there! TIMING) because his supporters don’t care.
So why do we need them at all? If none of this matters then they can all stay home from work, forever.
It’s a variation on Nothing Can Be Done.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO:
On behalf of Ursine Americans everywhere, I object to this vicious smear. We sneak into the Ranger stations and use the facilities like all good omnivorous killing machines. We are not barbarians.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Bill Clinton’s sex-life seems to be an almost mandatory topic of discussion (Kennedy, to a lesser degree, to illustrate the liberal media’s complicity with Dems). With virtually everyone else, unless there are recording of phone calls or medical records, pundits suddenly turn into the Grundys and sniff their icy-blue noses at “salacious” details that shan’t be discussed.
The only reason any of this surprises me is that one story that rang true to me from the campaign was the one that said that in his alleged swingin’ bachelor days between Marla and Melania, trump liked to be photographed with beautiful women, then go home alone and sit and eat candy and yell at CNN until the wee hours.
Gravenstone
@Ruviana: Pretty much my reaction as well. Maybe go with Jane Smith as your screen name?
Villago Delenda Est
Is the Pope Argentinian? Does a bear shit in the woods?
On edit: Dang, LAO beat me too it.
/shakefist
Adam L Silverman
@mai naem mobile: Just wait until it leaks out that he paid for her to have an abortion. Which is what has been circulating as RUMINT since the story of the National Enquirer paying her to kill the story and keeping it from coming out broke before the election.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: I direct you to my comment #27.
NotMax
Almost – almost – makes one pine for the golden age of “bimbo eruptions.”
:)
Kay
@Adam L Silverman:
Political media will say it doesn’t matter because the far Right will support him anyway. Which is true.
You know when it might have mattered? During the campaign. Where he won key states by 20k votes.
Campaigns aren’t about “core supporters”. They’re about 20k votes in key states. THAT’s when it mattered.
Adam L Silverman
@Kay: Actually the GOP campaign folks opposed to the President spent months shopping these stories. No one in the news media would pick them up. Check Rick Wilson’s and Liz Mair’s timelines. There are multiple allusions to these, to shopping them to the news outlets, and to getting nowhere.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: I am dully chastised.
Wait, what about all that pick-a-nick basket larceny?
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: Please don’t get my hopes up. I would love to see Evangelicals continue to defend him. What a bunch of unrepentant hypocrites.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Well, you can’t really blame them, because in our overloaded media-saturated age it’s self-evident that a presidential candidate bonking pr0n starlets is hardly the kind of eyeball-grabbing, agenda-setting story that the location and settings of another one’s email server is.
Villago Delenda Est
@LAO: They will. “Pro-life” isn’t about abortion. It’s about denying women agency, about doing whatever it takes to not allow them the sexual freedom that men enjoy.
NotMax
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
They were a thing? Dagnabbit, must’ve missed that issue of the Enquirer.
;)
Mike in DC
I think that a fair number of “trophy wives” will put up with adultery…but only so long as it’s not too conspicuous. Public adultery equals public humiliation for them. If her husband was cheating on her before, during and after her pregnancy, that’s going to piss Melania off, even if she married for mercenary reasons.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
I’m not giving them credit for “breaking” these stories well after they were any use to voters! That’s not good enough.
They had more than 15 months. They had from 2012 onward, when the disgusting racist Donald Trump launched his campaign with birtherism.
I don’t doubt what Adam says, that these stories were “shopped”. Why didn’t political media buy?
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
^So much this. Trump _actually having sex_ is far more surprising to me than Trump bragging to everyone in sight about how much sex with hot ladies he’s totally having.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
The NYTimes had 30 years of experience covering Donald Trump. He was in their backyard! They didn’t have access to any of this? Bullshit. That’s a lie.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Serious answer: they thought “he’s a celebrity, he’s partied and done various stupid shit his whole life, if anything it’s kind of amusing, even refreshing, unlike the rest of the politicians out there who are such stick-up-the-arse buzzkills.” I have a harder time explaining why they wouldn’t take him to the woodshed for lining his pockets with charity money, because that had more obvious bearing on how he’d run the government.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: They are all in for T and his R buddies.
Shakti
@mai naem mobile:
Porn stars, Playboy models and pole dancers are very careful to draw distinctions between themselves and escorts.
Tell them you think they’re the same and watch them get furious.
If she wanted a sugar daddy or was angling for a GFE, she wouldn’t accept money right after boning because that’s way too much like being a common hooker. “Boyfriends” give gifts and experiences.
Some women really are looking for father figures so they find older men with money physically attractive. FWIW, Trump looks just like Melania’s dad.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mike in DC: and he turned up the spotlight on her. I personally dislike the whole idea of “First Lady”, but there are rumors she was against the whole thing and he forced a very public job on her. And as reprehensible a racist parasite as she is, she does seem close to her son, and unless middle schoolers are far kinder than I remember, I’m sure that kid has heard some “Hey, trump! How’s the weather at home? STORMY?” jokes.
Brachiator
Here’s the deal. Trump allegedly (OK, definitely) had sex with some of the top pr0n stars at their prime. A lot of his male supporters, especially the hypocritical Evangelicals, will feel envious, or say “right on!” And curiously enough, many of his conservative supporters shrug this off and say, ” this is just what rich guys do.”
It is the perverse flip side of the American Dream. Being rich and powerful enough to do whatever you want.
ETA: Also, as I have heard a number of times from their actual mouths, some evangelicals say that Trump is a flawed human specifically chosen by God to do His will and make America great again. This grants Trump double Teflon immunity no matter what he does. And the evangelicals cite King David as biblical proof that this is how God sometimes works.
Kay
Nothing against first responders but they’re SECOND responders in school shootings. Teachers are the first responders, and they have the casualty count to prove it.
I’d like to see some Right wing love for the teachers who are the adults who are losing their lives responding.
Maybe we can have those giant law enforcement funerals for teacher first responders, with bagpipes, where teachers can come from all over and honor their comrade cut down in the godammned war we’re conducting in high schools.
By the time the first responders get there the real first responders are already dead.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: even more so, Maggie Haberman was at one of the big tabloids (I can’t tell them apart) for years, where, even if she didn’t cover him personally, I can’t imagine trump wasn’t a frequent topic of conversation around the water cooler and at happy hour, with people who had his personal phone numbers. “YOu’ll never believe what that clown said now…. this is off the record, cause I got it from Ivanka, but…”
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: Separate, but related issue. Why do you think we have to use the facilities at the Ranger station?
p.a.
Not true of trump: he had sex with members of the human race. not sure if his species considers this taboo..
p.a.
@Kay: trumpist take: he’s providing first responders with job security.
? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?
OT: I think my interview went OK. I thought I flubbed a question that I couldn’t think of an answer to. I ultimately made an answer up. The question was to the effect of: “Tell me about a time your supervisor told you to do something a different way than what you were used to and a smart way you dealt with it” or something like that. I told the team leader that while I was escorting during a dinner service management asked me to put more people through the buffet line than usual. She then asked me what I thought about it, what I did, and what ultimately happened. I replied that I didn’t like it, that I did what management wanted, and the line slowed down/got clogged.
There isn’t a lot of variation to the things I do at my job and no particular incident jumped out at me. When I’m at work, time blurs.
When I was asked about why I left my recent job, I told her that I wanted more a consistent schedule and disliked working very late (2-3am). I thought I made a mistake when she said there wouldn’t consistency at this job either in the sense that I could be scheduled anywhere from one day a week or 5. I clarified by mentioning that at a banquet center in winter months (Jan and Feb), there could be a few weeks in between work days.
There was also a hypothetical scenario about a mother and her two children. The children were hanging on the outside sides of the shopping care and appeared to be having fun along with the mother. I go over and ask the mother to stop her kids from hanging on the sides of the cart, citing that it’s unsafe. The mother scowls and gets mad at me. I was then asked how I would feel about her, and how I would respond. I replied that I would apolpgize to the mother but state that I’m only trying to help her. I mentioned that I would tell a supervisor about it. You can’t force somebody to do what you want, right?
When we got to the availability section, I hesitated for a second before saying I could have open availability. The team leader picked up on it and I then explained that I would be returning to school in late August. She said that wouldn’t have a baring on whether I would be hired or not since that was sic months from now.
She ended by saying that it was nice meeting me and that the HR person would contact me in the next few days if the I got the job or not.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and not a few of his female supporters, there was more than on “He can grab my … anytime!” tee-shirts at those rallies. They’re vicariously living the trashy (-er) version of those 80s soaps through trump.
RandomMonster
Trump is set to meet with shooting victims families. I predict “Have a good time” or some equally stupid guffaw.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I can’t even justify it with a “market” analysis. If I decide that they don’t give a shit about “substance” and are just about driving clicks or whatever then it is MORE inexplicable that they didn’t cover it, not less.
Something happened here. There was some interconnected massive failure at all levels and they won’t admit it.
Amir Khalid
Of course he is. This behaviour is sordid, it’s deplorable, but it’s not in itself criminal unless there’s something illegal about where the money came from or how it ended up where it did. It’s up to Melania, as the wronged party in this, to handle this however it suits her. I just hope it suits her purposes to inflict on Donald as much humiliation and embarrassment as she can.
trollhattan
@RandomMonster:
Will he throw paper towels at them?
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This is an example of a story that is probably bringing in revenue:
So WHY? Why didn’t they cover the Trump sex stuff? It can’t be right that we are more worried about blackmail with a governor than with the president. Something went very wrong here.
mai naem mobile
I am not trying to give the media a pass but I don’t think anybody thought Dolt45 was going to win. They covered him like the joke he is. I wish Obama had gone ahead and said something about the Russian meddling. I haven’t gamed out the consequences but maybe it would have woken up some of the people who didn’t bother voting because they assumed HRC was going to win. McConnell and Ryan maybe bugger traitors than Dolt45.
James E. Powell
@FlipYrWhig:
I pretty much agree with your analysis, though it’s clearly something they would never do for a Democrat.
What was the biggest tell that the NYT was promoting Trump and harming Clinton was the way they refused to go into the story of his foundation’s payments to state AGs who were investigating Trump University. The Bondi payment was illegal. No question. The quid pro quo was also pretty evident. There would have been no end to the above the fold front page stories if it were a Democrat. If it were a Clinton, the paper would have arrived every day with little flames shooting out of the corners.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yep. But I think that some of these women may be defiantly supporting Trump, but I think that most of them would be repulsed if it were a situation where he or some other man was actually grabby.
Some of these women also try to defend Trump by insisting that he was just talking trash and not actually confessing to bad behavior. They are in denial I think.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: he’s still being graded by the press, and no small part of the public, on a curve, as if he’s not a “real” president. I don’t think it’s even conscious. He is, to borrow Molly Ivins’ phase, the only president we’ve got, but there’s a certain inability to accept that. Not an excuse for anyone, especially the would be hard-nosed, no-nonsense wise guys political reporters think they are, but I think that’s behind a lot of this, then as a candidate and now.
In the campaign, it colliding with Hillary Derangement Syndrome, which is related to but distinct from CDS, and seems to be deep in the DNA of the Times
NotMax
@RandomMonster
Stand on a platform and chuck boxes of Kleenex to them.
Meanwhile, he’s going to play golf at Mar-a-Lago this weekend.
Adam L Silverman
@Kay: Because Greitens hadn’t spent decades threatening to sue them for bad press. Regardless of whether he’d do it. And because Greitens doesn’t have a dumbass wannabe tough guy like Cohen who most likely has told reporters and editors to their face, in no uncertain terms, what he’s going to do to them if they publish something unflattering about Trump. And because he doesn’t have an actual lawyer like Kasowitz preempting negative reporting in a savvier way than Cohen.
That’s why.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
I’m sorry to be all purity pony about this, but may I suggest we retire the Melanoma nickname? I heard it used for Malia Obama. It was foolish then.
LaNonna
Am I the only woman, parent and grandparent that finds the lack of condoms truly horrifying in the age of STDs, HIV, and fun incurable herpes? What planet are these people living on? Seems like the most basic safe sex education was wither ignores, or perhaps not understood, i.e., unwanted pregnancies? Truly stupid.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I wonder how much of it was a kind of deal. We’re finding out a lot about Donald Trump now that he’s President, but we’re also finding out that political media on cable was a fucking sewer of sexually harassing men.
Maybe they were afraid that if they started reporting on Trump’s sexual practice Trump would throw it right back at them.
He could have and probably would have. Maybe he kept them in line because he had damaging info on Halperin and the rest.
SiubhanDuinne
@Villago Delenda Est:
Huh. I thought Adam was pretty sharp.
geg6
@Kay:
I truly think that they thought he wasn’t going to win and why humiliate the guy if he’s not going to be in the WH? They are lazy and sycophantic assholes. Plus, he made headlines every day without it. Probably thought to themselves, we’ll just put this one in the back pocket for when I need a byline some day.
NotMax
@ West of the Rockies (been a while)
Thank you. Have requested the same thing in the past. No less offensive than when the other side sickeningly made mock of Michelle’s name. We ought to strive to be better than that.
James E. Powell
@Kay:
They won’t admit to anything because for the NYT, CNN, and the rest of the press/media, it wasn’t failure, but a resounding success. We must always remember that despite anything they might say, the people who own press/media make money off of disasters and chaos. They never suffer the consequences of disorder or economic downturns. The editors and reporters get promoted, published, and sometimes win prizes when things are going badly. They almost never suffer as a result of the people they put into power or the policies they encourage. (Michael Kelly being a notable exception.)
As the legendary BartCop once put it, “Any time a person or entity makes a ‘mistake’ that puts extra money (or power) in their pocket, expect them to make that ‘mistake’ again and again and again.”
Every day I pray for the demise of the New York Times.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
too savvy to take him seriously. Remember the video of Maggie Habermann and the IIRC This Week round table laughing at Keith Ellison for predicting he’d win the nomination? He still benefits from that. Honestly, I probably might’ve laughed, too, depending on when that was. But I stopped laughing.
also too savvy to think that maybe, just maybe, there was no fire behind all the smoke they themselves made around Hillary Clinton. We all know she’s guilty of… something… but she’s such a phony she won’t tell us what that is!
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Plus Adam has those Charmin ads to back up his stand.
:)
Trivia: the backsides of the Charmin bears also had to be, um, retouched.
MisterForkbeard
@FlipYrWhig: Oh, the charity thing was discussed briefly. Usually right before it was noted that the Clinton Foundation was CLEARLY much worse.
hellslittlestangel
I think I’d respect her more if she’d taken the money.
Kay
@geg6:
I’d appreciate if they’d drop the “Trump supporters don’t care” excuse.
They don’t care now that they got him elected. They would have cared a lot if damaging information had been revealed when it mattered for 20k votes in Michigan.
They’re political professionals. They know this. Nothing Can Be Done now. I get that. That isn’t the issue
Why does whether or not Trump supporters CARE matter anyway? Who gives a shit? Do they judge whether to release facts based on the speculative probability of the most rabid partisans changing their alliances? Why is that even a measure? Are they on the Trump campaign team? It’s information. Release it don’t release it but don’t use this lame “NOT important to the President or his Team!” fake analysis.
nonynony
@Kay:
Many of them actually seem to believe that nothing they do actually matters, they’re just providing entertainment.
It’s pretty surprising to me how many alleged political “journalists” on the Twitters seem to think their job is to entertain the masses rather than to inform them. But then again that’s the business model – they harvest eyeballs for advertisers. The product is the readership, articles are merely a necessary evil to cultivate the readership.
(I guess it isn’t really pretty surprising. I still have the stereotype in my head that journalists are supposed to be Lois Lane types chasing down a story and informing the public. But Lois Lane is just as fictional as Superman is, and I should keep that in mind.)
mai naem mobile
@NotMax: Melanoma was happy enough to jump onto the birther wagon. She was happy enough to say that the grab your pussy was just locker room talk. I also don’t think she’s the sharpest knife in the drawer. My mom who only has a sixth grade education whose primary language is not english speaks better english. I could be using way worse names than Melanoma.
FlipYrWhig
@James E. Powell: I suspect that if Brad Pitt or somebody ran for president as a Democrat there would be various sexxay-time stories that the media would both giggle over and consider beneath them, rather than talking about them nonstop like Hillary Clinton’s Very Sexy Email Server. I think “politician touches someone somewhere that he’s not supposed to” is still interesting to them, though less than it used to be, but “entertainer touches someone somewhere that he’s not supposed to” is now only interesting if it’s abusive.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think that “the press” you refer to here is the NYT, some of the cable/broadcast news services, and NPR. Not too long ago, the LA Times ran a multi-part piece finding Trump deficient in all areas, but this kind of thing just gets dismissed because it’s not the NYT.
A good part of the conservative public still thinks that the press is unfairly hounding one of the greatest presidents since Reagan, and would be happy if the press simply disappeared and let Trump run loose. Most of the people I hang with don’t grade Trump on a curve, but see his as being dangerously incompetent. He is not a genial buffoon, a label that was sometimes hung on Dubya.
germy
Melania’s parents are living in the U.S. and the reason given is “so they can help care for Barron.”
Melania’s parents have ignored lots of bullshit, but I wonder if there’ll be a tipping point. Surely they hate to see their daughter humiliated.
FlipYrWhig
@nonynony: But, and I’m far from the first to say this, if the political media wanted to “entertain the masses” they would be talking incessantly abut Trump’s wang and naked b00bies, _and they didn’t_. They have a bizarre sense of what’s important AND what’s entertaining.
Kay
But they’re not a GOP political constituency, so Donald Trump will go kiss the ass of his law enforcement buddies when the teachers in that school took the bullets. And will again. The next time.
He should send his buddy DeVos down there to deliver one of her droning, idiotic lectures on how public school teachers suck. That’s always a crowd pleaser on the Right. She can bring Chris Christie.
opiejeanne
@The Moar You Know: Hung like a cashew made me laugh. Supposedly Stormy described it as looking like ALF’s nose. I choose to believe that’s only a description of appearance and not of size.
TenguPhule
@Tom Levenson:
Anyone who said that to Donald Trump was either lying or is a complete monster.
patrick II
@Kay:
That’s post election Jake Tapper. Pre-election Jack Tapper was:
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: I call Bullshit, spelling matters. Barbed-berrian is definitely what you are.
Eta, get a mani- pedi.
Brachiator
@nonynony:
This has pretty much been the model for newspapers since the mid 19th century, but does not preclude good journalism.
RandomMonster
@trollhattan: All too likely!
mai naem mobile
@germy: when Michelle’s mom moved into the WH with them to help look after Malia and Sasha(something she had done in Chicago) she was called a welfare queen.
rikyrah
Ronan Farrow nailed this article.
Villago Delenda Est
@patrick II: This, this, THIS
If Tapper thinks his work over the last year will save him from a tumbrel manifest, he’s only kidding himself.
Villago Delenda Est
@mai naem mobile: Uday, Qusay, and Lolita all need to be searching for long term child care NOW in advance of their “vacations” at Leavenworth.
cleek
@Adam L Silverman:
i’ve been thinking lately… given that the GOP has flipped on Russia, personal morality, the deficit, security, divorce, religion, etc., because of Trump, it was only a matter of time before they got around to flipping on the rest of their most-loudly-held principles: taxes and abortion.
on abortion, they’ll flip in a fetal heartbeat, if it turns out Trump’s ladyfriend got one.
taxes… that’ll be a tough one. but i’m sure they’re capable.
Brachiator
I looked at the linked article. Jeesh, these dopes are pathetic. And some of these fools, who probably have trouble getting any dates at all, are weirdly possessive and proprietary about “their” white wimmins.
The presumption would be sad if it wasn’t so downright creepy.
TenguPhule
@cleek:
Easy, only poor people should pay taxes because they’re moochers.
Cue Debt Slavery.
TenguPhule
@cleek:
No, they’ll blame her and pretend he had nothing to do with it.
They’ll warp it beyond recognition, but anti-abortion is their nature.
TenguPhule
@Villago Delenda Est:
No need, we can take a cue from their immigration policy and throw their spawn in there to rot with them.
They wanted fucking inhumane rules, they can damn well suffer the same consequences of them.
cleek
@TenguPhule:
not too long ago, one would’ve thought being a thrice-married serial bankrupting mobbed-up playboy TV game show host from NYC who publicly lusts after his daughter wouldn’t have fit their nature either.
but, their actual nature is not actually the things they make noise about. those things are just ways to manifest their actual nature.
Stan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Not to defend our shitty media but – this is common. Shitty elected officials get graded on a curve all time unless there’s some secret. When it’s out in the open it doesn’t count.
It happened to me. I was running against an incumbent who was grossly incompetent and corrupt. Pretty much everyone in the voting jurisdiction knew it. The media knew it. So when I’d say, “he’s incompetent and corrupt” they’d yawn and ask ‘what else ya got?’. The idea that maybe we should have honest and competent elected officials was alien to them….one reporter said to me words to the effect of “hey, everyone knows your opponent is a moron and a liar, but, hey, he’s in office and everyone knew all along. So it’s not news and no one cares.”
Now its a few years later and someone else wants to run against this guy (yes, I lost). And he wants to base his campaign on “the incumbent is a moron and a liar”.
How do you think this is going to work out?
Calling trump a moron and a liar isn’t going to be enough.
LAO
HOLY MOTHER OF GOD:
INDICTMENT LINK
Jim, Foolish Literalist
it would be interesting to see what happened, but I don’t think it will. trump got elected on, pretty much, the Democrats’ platform on taxes and the safety net. Elected Republicans started cozying up to him when they were sure he didn’t mean it. And I also think they feel relief at what even now I still can’t quite believe, the trout-mouthed indifference of the broad public to the Russia story.
I’ll be curious to see how my trumpist cousins react if and when Ryan and Mulvaney can talk trump into fulfilling their boyish dreams of overturning the New Deal. I’m not sure to what degree they’re aware of their need for “government spending”
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: “vicious smear”.
Yeah, I see what you did there.
Ewww! ; )
Calouste
@TenguPhule: Nope, believing what their cult leaders tell them is their nature.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: So much this.
James E. Powell
@Brachiator:
FTFY
TenguPhule
@cleek:
Sorry, no. You may have forgotten those POS hypocritical religious leaders who were on TV begging for money and forgiveness for their sinning back in the 80’s and 90’s. The Religious right is accustomed to their leaders being cheating, lying, stealing bastards.
But abortion, oh they’ll stand by punishing the women on that until the end of time or they all die, whichever comes first.
TenguPhule
@Calouste: Their cult leaders are of the same vein as Donald Trump. Just smaller scale. The leaders can do no wrong and can commit sins which the lay person would get stoned for.
cckids
@NotMax:
Oh Christ, he’s going to brag to them how awesome Mar-a-Lago is, isn’t he? :(
Brachiator
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
I don’t often bash Melania. But I don’t have to be fair. Especially to people who relished going after Obama and his family in the most vile and often racist ways imaginable, and who still encourage people to do so.
Amaranthine RBG
@The Moar You Know:
It is a simple fact that, for some people, money and power are the most potent aphrodisiacs.
I knew a woman who was a Fulbright and Rhodes scholar, graduated from an Ivy law school, and then spent most of her twenties and early 30s sleeping with executives, diplomats, philanthropists, etc. who were in their 50s and 60s. And she didn’t do if for money or access. (She did get and keep little presents but nothing she could not have bought for herself if she’d wanted it.) She plugged along in her job and made partner specializing in a very narrow slice of insurance transactions that was well insulated from contact/influence of the people she was sleeping with. Oh, and she was conventionally attractive as the current saying goes.
Then she got married to someone, um, age appropriate and had children and so forth.
It baffled me then. It baffles me now. But it is a thing.
Timurid
@LAO:
But THIS is the lead story on CNN. The GOP and Trump are going to use the Florida shooting to advance their “the FBI is corrupt” narrative.
Amaranthine RBG
@LAO:
Oh. My. God.
I spent quite a bit of time thinking/fantasizing about who Mueller would indict next and how that would play out. I confess it never occurred to me that he go after Russians next, instead of Americans.
What a fantastic box that puts Trump in. Oh, no, you are not defending Manafort or Sessions, or your son in law, Donald, if you want to get upset about this, you are going to have to come up with a reason why the indictments of a bunch of Russians is somehow unpatriotic. Just fucking brilliant. And one of the many examples of why Bob Mueller is smarter than I ever will be.
Fantastic.
Timurid
@Timurid: Now with“>proper link.
stinger
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?: Those seem like acceptable responses to me, and I’ve worked in the hotel/restaurant/banquet industry. Good luck!
stinger
@Kay: They thought Trump’s candidacy was a joke and Hillary was a shoo-in, and they hate Hillary. Why bother covering him as one would a serious candidate, and why not treat her minor missteps as world-endangering issues? I’m not sure it’s any more complicated or interconnected than that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
hmmmm…….
Spanky
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Where is Karl Rove these days?
LAO
Jim, Foolish Literalist
we needs a thread on this, just so we can all blow off our cut’n’paste steam
PIGL
@Kay: thank you for this, Kay.
But you know how it is … anything to glorify the government employee in uniform.
J R in WV
@Kay:
Because these “news sources” are NOT news sources, they are bought and paid for propaganda outlets for the owners of society, wealthy plutocrats and oligarchs of America. All Russo-Republicans. All of them.
The Lodger
@NotMax: So the standards agency with the complaint about the bear butts is called NAD?
Truly, you can’t make this $#!+ up.
Boatboy_srq
@bystander: I’m beginning to think that no woman would sleep with tRump without substantial monetary compensation. And I wonder what’s in Melania’s prenup.
Older
“didn’t have sexual relationships outside his race” — Are you sure? It looks to me like most of them were human.
chopper
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
fuck, if stories like this came out about Obama he’d have been dragged in front of a congressional subcommittee.
jonas
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
It’s the MSM “political perception” grading curve: Obama (and any Democrat, really) was *expected* to act like a dignified adult, thus behavior like this would invite shocked gasps and much pearl clutching from the Beltway media. The baseline for Trump’s behavior was always “puerile asshole,” so anything he does basically gets a shrug.
jonas
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ve known people on SSDI who aren’t aware (or refuse to admit) it’s government welfare. What they think the Statue of Liberty and the words “United States Treasury” are doing on those monthly checks, I don’t know. But the denial is powerful. Even moreso for idiots who get all sorts of tax breaks, subsidies, etc. for their businesses, but won’t acknowledge they’re getting taxpayer support. Oh no, they’re totally legit rugged individuals who’ve never taken a handout in their life blah blah blah…
jonas
@TenguPhule: I agree. If Trump personally paid for hundreds of abortions, they’d let it slide. What matters is that he’s appointing judges *now* that will ban abortions in the future. If their leader had to abort his way to the top to stop abortions, they’ll take it.