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It's not all about sex. It's even worse.
By Kathryn Watson CBS News March 16, 2018, 9:47 AM
Stormy Daniels physically threatened, her lawyer says
Last Updated Mar 16, 2018 10:12 AM EDT
Stormy Daniels' lawyer claims she was physically threatened by someone. The adult film actress' lawyer, Michael Avenatti, said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Friday that someone physically threatened his client — but he declined to reveal who allegedly threatened her.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is suing Mr. Trump and Mr. Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen in an attempt to dissolve their non-disclosure agreement. Clifford claims the pact is invalid because Mr. Trump didn't provide his signature in a 2016 hush agreement.
A hearing for the lawsuit has been set for July 12 in Los Angeles.
The Stormy Daniels saga continues to plague a White House that would much rather not take questions about the story during daily White House briefings. The White House has denied the alleged 2006 affair.
In February, Cohen admitted to paying $130,000 of his own funds to Clifford in 2016, claiming the Trump Organization had nothing to do with it. But Cohen using a Trump Organization email to arrange the negotiations for the NDA.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story said that Stormy Daniels' lawyer said she was physically threatened by someone representing Donald Trump. But her lawyer only said that she had been physically threatened. The story has been updated to reflect this.
© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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03-16-2018, 09:18 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-16-2018, 09:22 AM by pbrower2a.)
And if anyone still questions whether the President is a pathological liar -- then here is proof straight from the horse's ass.
AP March 16, 2018, 8:51 AM
Trump admits he makes things up
President Trump has owned up to making things up.
For a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Mr. Trump was by his own admission unprepared — deficient in the fundamentals of the Canada-U.S. trade relationship that he'd been railing about since the campaign.
He insisted to Trudeau that the U.S. was running a trade deficit with Canada, a statement contradicted by U.S. government statistics. He was winging it, he confided to donors at a private Missouri political fundraiser Wednesday night.
"I didn't even know," he said. "I had no idea."
Others might be mortified at being caught short. Not this president.
For Mr. Trump the showman, the episode illustrated his skill at improvisation. Still, it was a rare admission that he will say things without knowing if they are true.
Mr. Trump's impulse to replace facts has defined him as a politician and as a businessman before that.
Depositions reviewed by AP from his litigious years in real estate show a history of dodgy statements about his property and wealth. Asked once about overstating the number of units sold in a Las Vegas tower, he said he didn't intend his answer to be taken literally.
In leaked audio of the Missouri fundraiser, first reported by The Washington Post, Mr. Trump says that in his meeting with Trudeau, he thought the U.S. must be running a trade deficit with Canada because the Canadians have been smart about trade and "we're so stupid."
"Nice guy, good-looking guy, comes in — 'Donald, we have no trade deficit.'" Trump recounted. "He's very proud because everybody else, you know, we're getting killed."
"I said, 'Wrong, Justin, you do.' I didn't even know. ... I had no idea. I just said, 'You're wrong.' You know why? Because we're so stupid. . And I thought they were smart."
Mr. Trump went on to say that his position was ultimately vindicated when he had U.S. and Canadian aides take a closer look at trade between the two countries. That conclusion is not supported by the numbers.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday insisted Mr. Trump was right, saying: "Well the president was accurate, because there is a trade deficit and that was the point he was making, is that he didn't have to look at the specific figures, because he knew that there was a trade deficit."
Canadian Foreign Affairs spokesman Adam Austin offered this counter: "According to their own statistics, the U.S. runs a trade surplus with Canada."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-admit...things-up/
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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We can always learn from antiquity. For good reason the best-educated people have looked to the ancients for clear-headed explanations of human nature. Human nature does not really change. We still recognize the beauty of ancient Greek art, and it is safe to assume that two millennia from now, should human civilization not be obliterated, people will still love the music of J S Bach and W A Mozart. On the other side, we recognize that the awfulness of three horrid emperors (Caligula, Nero, and Commodus), excellent at diverting the masses but failures on every moral issue.
As said the philosopher Heraclitus, ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων -- character is destiny. So did John McCain; it must be that obvious. We keep re-inventing the wheel because we must learn things the hard way when we make horrible decisions.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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I shudder whenever I hear on the news that our so-called president is making decisions for our country. Who is he to do this? He has no qualifications to be president, and deserves no respect for his behavior or policies. I think democracy has failed in the USA. It has not produced a leadership in any of the three branches of government that is worthy of the office. We can't trust the American people to make good decisions. Or is this a temporary aberration? The choices Americans have been making have been pretty bad for some time. Now it's just reached a breaking point. Where does the USA go from here?
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(03-29-2018, 12:51 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: I shudder whenever I hear on the news that our so-called president is making decisions for our country. Who is he to do this? He has no qualifications to be president, and deserves no respect for his behavior or policies. I think democracy has failed in the USA. It has not produced a leadership in any of the three branches of government that is worthy of the office. We can't trust the American people to make good decisions. Or is this a temporary aberration? The choices Americans have been making have been pretty bad for some time. Now it's just reached a breaking point. Where does the USA go from here?
We seem to have a knack for getting into the weeds before we find the path. In fact, we seem incapable of doing it any other way.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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Bismarck said that God looks after fools, drunkards and the United States of America.
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U.S. WORKERS, MADE RICH COMPANIES RICHER, ANALYSIS FINDS
BY NICOLE GOODKIND ON 4/10/18 AT 4:46 PM
http://www.newsweek.com/republican-tax-c...ses-879800
President Donald Trump’s corporate tax cuts might not have trickled down to American workers in the way that he suggested they would.
Trump and Republican leadership have long touted their tax cuts as a massive boon to America’s working class, if not through direct tax reductions or refunds, then through the trickle-down effect of bonuses and wage increases from their employers who receive massive corporate cuts. “Tax reform is working,” Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said in January, mentioning Apple’s decision to reward a bonus of $2,500 in stock grants to some Apple employees. “Workers are coming home and telling their families they got a bonus, or they got a raise or they got better benefits.”
But a new analysis of all Fortune 500 companies found only 4.3 percent of workers will receive a one-time bonus or wage increase tied to the business tax cuts, while businesses received nine times more in cuts than what they passed on to their workers, according to Americans for Tax Fairness, a political advocacy group devoted to tax reform. The analysis also found that companies spent 37 times as much on stock buybacks than they did on bonuses and increased wages for workers.
The study looked at corporate data, news reports and independent analyses of the top companies in the United States, which represent more than two-thirds of the gross domestic product, and analyzed changes in wages and share buybacks since the announcement of the Republican tax plan in December.
“There are too many disingenuous claims that the Trump and Republican tax cuts for corporations will trickle down to the middle class,” said Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness. “President Trump and Republicans gave huge tax cuts to big drug companies, big oil and other corporations, but corporations are giving back little—if anything—to working families,” said Clemente. “In fact, this [analysis shows] that 433 corporations out of the Fortune 500 have announced no plans to share their tax cuts with employees.”
The newest projections by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the Republican tax plan led to, in part, a 2018 deficit $242 billion higher than previously estimated.
Roughly 36 percent of Americans approve of the Republican tax cuts, according to a March Quinnipiac University Poll and a CNBC poll found that 52 percent of working adults said they had not seen a change to their paychecks since the cuts were passed.
In January, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said 90 percent of all working adults would see increases in their paychecks because of the cuts.
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Jim Comey: President Donald Trump Is A Liar And Unethical
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04-19-2018, 07:19 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-19-2018, 07:21 PM by Another Xer.)
(03-29-2018, 12:51 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: I shudder whenever I hear on the news that our so-called president is making decisions for our country. Who is he to do this? He has no qualifications to be president, and deserves no respect for his behavior or policies. I think democracy has failed in the USA. It has not produced a leadership in any of the three branches of government that is worthy of the office. We can't trust the American people to make good decisions. Or is this a temporary aberration? The choices Americans have been making have been pretty bad for some time. Now it's just reached a breaking point. Where does the USA go from here?
Democracy hasn't failed in the USA it is being systematically removed from the process.
First, the President was not chosen from a democratic process. The President was chosen by the electoral college. Democracy would have produced President Clinton.
Second, gerrymandering has removed democracy from numerous states. The House of Representatives is supposed to be most responsive to the will of the people, however experts estimate that Democrats would have to win by 8 points to take the House. That is not democracy. A good example is Virginia where Democrats won statewide by 10 points and still lost the Legislature. Add voter suppression and Citizens United to the list.
The system is being rigged to make democracy a shiny front with no substance. The plutocrats are making their play for permanent power and permanent wealth. The institutions that preserve American freedom and democracy are being destroyed. We have to restore democracy in this country.
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Yes indeed. All agreed. However, the plutocrats could not have gotten so far without enough votes from the people, even if not a majority. So it is truly the peoples' job to vote correctly from now on, and thus restore democracy.
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(04-19-2018, 07:19 PM)Another Xer Wrote: (03-29-2018, 12:51 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: I shudder whenever I hear on the news that our so-called president is making decisions for our country. Who is he to do this? He has no qualifications to be president, and deserves no respect for his behavior or policies. I think democracy has failed in the USA. It has not produced a leadership in any of the three branches of government that is worthy of the office. We can't trust the American people to make good decisions. Or is this a temporary aberration? The choices Americans have been making have been pretty bad for some time. Now it's just reached a breaking point. Where does the USA go from here?
Democracy hasn't failed in the USA it is being systematically removed from the process.
First, the President was not chosen from a democratic process. The President was chosen by the electoral college. Democracy would have produced President Clinton.
Second, gerrymandering has removed democracy from numerous states. The House of Representatives is supposed to be most responsive to the will of the people, however experts estimate that Democrats would have to win by 8 points to take the House. That is not democracy. A good example is Virginia where Democrats won statewide by 10 points and still lost the Legislature. Add voter suppression and Citizens United to the list.
All good points, but why does any of this exist in the first place?
Another Xer continued Wrote:The system is being rigged to make democracy a shiny front with no substance. The plutocrats are making their play for permanent power and permanent wealth. The institutions that preserve American freedom and democracy are being destroyed. We have to restore democracy in this country.
You can't restore what never was to begin with. The Founders were even more afraid of the mob than any King, so they created a purposely sclerotic system that kept power in the hands of the elite. Of course, what constitutes the elite has morphed over time, but the control still resides there as it always has. The one period when that was less true was the previous 4T and 1T. The restoration of elite power began in the 2T, when the easily frightened and manipulated began to take sides that often conflicted with their own best interest. By the beginning of the 3T, the restoration was complete, though elite power was never truly diminished prior to that.
The real question has to be, can a true democratic republic actually work in the US? It seems to be possible elsewhere, though many of those places are under stress today as well. We better start working through this problem now, because AI will make matters much worse unless it's under a more humane control system than the one where Silicon Valley, and it's world-wide clones, set the rules for the rest of us.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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(04-20-2018, 08:58 AM)David Horn Wrote: (04-19-2018, 07:19 PM)Another Xer Wrote: (03-29-2018, 12:51 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: I shudder whenever I hear on the news that our so-called president is making decisions for our country. Who is he to do this? He has no qualifications to be president, and deserves no respect for his behavior or policies. I think democracy has failed in the USA. It has not produced a leadership in any of the three branches of government that is worthy of the office. We can't trust the American people to make good decisions. Or is this a temporary aberration? The choices Americans have been making have been pretty bad for some time. Now it's just reached a breaking point. Where does the USA go from here?
Democracy hasn't failed in the USA it is being systematically removed from the process.
First, the President was not chosen from a democratic process. The President was chosen by the electoral college. Democracy would have produced President Clinton.
Second, gerrymandering has removed democracy from numerous states. The House of Representatives is supposed to be most responsive to the will of the people, however experts estimate that Democrats would have to win by 8 points to take the House. That is not democracy. A good example is Virginia where Democrats won statewide by 10 points and still lost the Legislature. Add voter suppression and Citizens United to the list.
All good points, but why does any of this exist in the first place?
Another Xer continued Wrote:The system is being rigged to make democracy a shiny front with no substance. The plutocrats are making their play for permanent power and permanent wealth. The institutions that preserve American freedom and democracy are being destroyed. We have to restore democracy in this country.
You can't restore what never was to begin with. The Founders were even more afraid of the mob than any King, so they created a purposely sclerotic system that kept power in the hands of the elite. Of course, what constitutes the elite has morphed over time, but the control still resides there as it always has. The one period when that was less true was the previous 4T and 1T. The restoration of elite power began in the 2T, when the easily frightened and manipulated began to take sides that often conflicted with their own best interest. By the beginning of the 3T, the restoration was complete, though elite power was never truly diminished prior to that.
The real question has to be, can a true democratic republic actually work in the US? It seems to be possible elsewhere, though many of those places are under stress today as well. We better start working through this problem now, because AI will make matters much worse unless it's under a more humane control system than the one where Silicon Valley, and it's world-wide clones, set the rules for the rest of us.
The bright spot in the narrative about when elite power was falling and rising again, was that in the early 2T many of those who had been shut out of democracy in Dixie and in some other places were allowed in, and that was a major advance for democracy over the elites. It was not enough of an advance to hold back the resurgence of elite power that was instituted to reverse those and other progressive gains in the 2T. But restoration of that increase in democracy would help create another period of downward pressure on elite power in the remainder of this 4T, the early 1T, and again on the cusp of and early in the next 2T. The hope is that the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice, with many intervening pendulum swings.
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(12-12-2016, 01:21 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: ...Bush went into Iraq with the notion that we could leave when the new government asked us to leave. He and his minions gave the new Iraqi government that we installed the notion that they were sovereign. Bush worked out the timetable for leaving; Obama just followed it...
I dread Trump taking over the war on IS...
1) The Iraqis were willing to let us stay (and would work around the SOFA issue), but Obama didn't want to, because "IRAQ! Darth Cheney! Bushitler, Bushitler, Bushitler!" You remember, don't you Eric?
2) The war vs. IS progressed dramatically when Trump took of the gloves. I guess your astrology must've been a little off on that one... 
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(07-19-2018, 01:20 PM)JDG 66 Wrote: (12-12-2016, 01:21 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: ...Bush went into Iraq with the notion that we could leave when the new government asked us to leave. He and his minions gave the new Iraqi government that we installed the notion that they were sovereign. Bush worked out the timetable for leaving; Obama just followed it...
I dread Trump taking over the war on IS...
1) The Iraqis were willing to let us stay (and would work around the SOFA issue), but Obama didn't want to, because "IRAQ! Darth Cheney! Bushitler, Bushitler, Bushitler!" You remember, don't you Eric?
2) The war vs. IS progressed dramatically when Trump took of the gloves. I guess your astrology must've been a little off on that one...
The timing of it that I thought of, was off. But I did see resolution of some conflicts in 2017, so maybe I wasn't entirely off.
No, the Iraqis were not willing for us to stay.
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(07-19-2018, 01:20 PM)JDG 66 Wrote: (12-12-2016, 01:21 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: ...Bush went into Iraq with the notion that we could leave when the new government asked us to leave. He and his minions gave the new Iraqi government that we installed the notion that they were sovereign. Bush worked out the timetable for leaving; Obama just followed it...
I dread Trump taking over the war on IS...
1) The Iraqis were willing to let us stay (and would work around the SOFA issue), but Obama didn't want to, because "IRAQ! Darth Cheney! Bushitler, Bushitler, Bushitler!" You remember, don't you Eric?
Would you be OK with serving in a war zone without an iron-clad SoFA? I sure as hell wouldn't.
JDG 66 Wrote:2) The war vs. IS progressed dramatically when Trump took of the gloves. I guess your astrology must've been a little off on that one...
Let's be honest, neither President had a lot to do with pushing IS out of the way. The Iraqis finally stepped up and got the job done.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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(07-19-2018, 02:40 PM)David Horn Wrote: (07-19-2018, 01:20 PM)JDG 66 Wrote: (12-12-2016, 01:21 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: ...Bush went into Iraq with the notion that we could leave when the new government asked us to leave. He and his minions gave the new Iraqi government that we installed the notion that they were sovereign. Bush worked out the timetable for leaving; Obama just followed it...
I dread Trump taking over the war on IS...
1) The Iraqis were willing to let us stay (and would work around the SOFA issue), but Obama didn't want to, because "IRAQ! Darth Cheney! Bushitler, Bushitler, Bushitler!" You remember, don't you Eric?
Would you be OK with serving in a war zone without an iron-clad SoFA? I sure as hell wouldn't.
JDG 66 Wrote:2) The war vs. IS progressed dramatically when Trump took of the gloves. I guess your astrology must've been a little off on that one...
Let's be honest, neither President had a lot to do with pushing IS out of the way. The Iraqis finally stepped up and got the job done.
1) We had a SOFA agreement with Maliki, but Obama didn't care:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact...2cdc8d921f
..because "Our of Iraq! Darth Cheney! Bushitler!", and when Obama sent us back in 2014, he did so under the EXACT SAME TERMS that he rejected in 2011.
2) "Push away"? We're exterminating the SOBs.
3) Yes, the Iraqis are doing a better job, but if you're arguing that US military assistance hasn't been a GIGANTIC help in destroying IS, then you're being silly. The guys one the ground have no doubt that things have improved since Trump untied our hands.
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(07-19-2018, 01:39 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (07-19-2018, 01:20 PM)JDG 66 Wrote: (12-12-2016, 01:21 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: ...Bush went into Iraq with the notion that we could leave when the new government asked us to leave. He and his minions gave the new Iraqi government that we installed the notion that they were sovereign. Bush worked out the timetable for leaving; Obama just followed it...
I dread Trump taking over the war on IS...
1) The Iraqis were willing to let us stay (and would work around the SOFA issue), but Obama didn't want to, because "IRAQ! Darth Cheney! Bushitler, Bushitler, Bushitler!" You remember, don't you Eric?
2) The war vs. IS progressed dramatically when Trump took of the gloves. I guess your astrology must've been a little off on that one...
The timing of it that I thought of, was off. But I did see resolution of some conflicts in 2017, so maybe I wasn't entirely off.
No, the Iraqis were not willing for us to stay.
1) Nice to see you walk your prediction back.
2) Yes, they were:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact...367e49cff3
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Bush made an agreement to leave Iraq. Obama carried it out.
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Jake Tapper straightens out Trump's press con-job
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09-27-2018, 10:10 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-27-2018, 10:10 AM by pbrower2a.)
The testimony by Christine Ford is on the air... and it is as unflattering a view of Bret Kavanaugh as is possible.
A hand covering her mouth and nose is far worse (she was scared that she would suffocate!) than pubic hairs on a soft drink can or references to the pornographic "Long Dong Silver".
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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