This has certainly been a week for Trump lies to meet their final resting place. Bob Mueller ended any remaining doubt that the Russians were all-in for Trump’s candidacy with his indictment of thirteen Russians from the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg. Any idea that Trump could lead Congress to any solution on DACA, let alone a just one, died in the Senate. And, least importantly to anyone not named Melania, Trump’s lies about his affairs with porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal exploded in his face.
Probably the most significant thing about McDougal’s account is that is jibes with the accounts of several women who have accused Trump of unwanted sexual advances or assault. It’s also consistent in important details with the story Stormy Daniels has told in the past. Mainly this is a commonality of locations (e.g. a private bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel), behavior and diet (a lot of television, meat and potatoes, and no alcohol), and pick-up lines and promises (condos and apartments, career opportunities). The overall effect is to bolster the assault allegations, even if both the Daniels and McDougal affairs were completely consensual.
In light of all the other scandals swirling around the White House, his sexual peccadilloes will get short shrift, but they really shouldn’t since they provide evidence of the types of behavior (if not crimes) for which men are losing their jobs and reputations left and right in this country.
It’s a welcome thing that men are suddenly being held to account for behavior that has been tolerated for too ling, but there’s something wrong with a situation where the president is immune to the kind of accountability that others are facing.
It’s also a problem that the White House continues to deny that these two affairs took place when it’s plain as the nose on Trump’s face they he and they are lying through their teeth. There’s even a potential criminal component to the way the two women were paid off (in Daniels’s case) or tricked in silence (in McDougal’s). If the payments involved can be considered undisclosed campaign contributions, then they’re lying about a potential legal matter.
So, while we’re all taking about Russia, people without proper security clearances and wife beaters in the Oval Office and DACA, we shouldn’t forget that Trump has been caught in a series of lies about his sexual behavior and that there are many ways in which this should matter.
Hang on a second. Really? I’m not sure that follows. There’s plenty of malfeasance here (and elsewhere today) without us needing to play into this particular narrative.
Both the consensual and assault cases share MO similarities outlined in the stories related by the women/victims. ie: Beverly Hills hotel, TV watching, steak and potatoes, etc.
And let’s not forget about this!
The SOS meets PRIVATELY with the two top Turkish leaders, without a translator or someone to take notes. For three and a half hours!
We have no idea what was talked about, what was agreed to.
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The one thing we know for absolute certainty, is he got rolled
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The alternative explanation is that SoS EXXON didn’t want a U.S. government official in the room when he set up some personal/professional/governmental graft with Turkey.
Never forget that this Administration is equally corrupt and incompetent. Sometimes their actions are explained by one of these choices, sometimes it’s a mix of the two.
Surely you will believe whatever the Turks publish about the meeting and how much we agreed to pay him to stay on our side, and what of Gulen? No?
Well, at this point what they say happened IS what happened.
I can think of reasons he would do this…none of them good.
But like they said in Ancient Rome….”Define `good'”
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JFC, AG has lost his fucking mind, and wants to blame you/us for the loss.
He’s all about personal responsibility, dontchaknow, just like his biggest bestest buddy and big toe Sergeant Paul.
It’s called cognitive dissonance
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In A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957), Leon Festinger proposed that human beings strive for internal psychological consistency in order to mentally function in the real world. A person who experiences internal inconsistency tends to become psychologically uncomfortable, and is motivated to reduce the cognitive dissonance. This is done by making changes to justify their stressful behavior, either by adding new parts to the cognition causing the psychological dissonance, or by actively avoiding social situations and/or contradictory information likely to increase the magnitude of the cognitive dissonance.
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It’s not that he’s lost his mind. He made the totally reasonable and not crazy at all point that if you down-rate any of his incoherent brain-farts you’re un-American.
Why do you hate America?
The donald’s sex life will come into focus when Melania leaves. I don’t believe she will stay in the WH for 3 years to be humiliated by women he has paid to have sex with.
She’s not going anywhere. I’m sure she’s under iron clad contract. She’s as mercenary as he is and knew full well what she married when she went to work for him as his ‘wife’.
Although I doubt she ever thought she’d wind up as FLOTUS and be forced to exchange her ladies who lunch lifestyle for the prison of White House fishbowl life.
Yes, that sounds just about right.
Her constant humiliation is a sad, ugly thing to witness.
But it’s hard to see her as other than a classic “gold-digger”.
“So, while we’re all taking about Russia, people without proper security clearances and wife beaters in the Oval Office…”
Wow…when did it become blasé to make statements like that about the frickin’ Administration? Any one of those things would have brought down a Democrat in the White House in short order.
This Administration has to fight so many battles on so many fronts, how can they possibly accomplish anything of substance?
Are you finally done thinking this freak can pivot to anything?
. . . about Trump’s sex life?
Cuz I mean, ya know, ick!
Yuck!
Apparently he didn’t always look like Jabba the Hutt with bad hair. But yeah, ew.
Will proof that Trump has had multiple affairs during his marriage make a difference to his loyal fans? They’ve already given him “a mulligan” for the Stormy affair. If it caused his Evangelical voters to change their minds, I haven’t read about it. I’m sure the rest will simply claim it’s all made up, part of the relentless attack on their president.
Instead, I hope that this line of investigation into his indiscretions exposes other connections as it proves his shady character and lack of judgment. I hope it does peel away some of the Trump voters, the ones who still have shreds of conscience and respect for the office.
Let me reiterate that literally no Democratic president who had even a fraction of these infractions would have lasted this long.
Actually, I don’t believe it is a “mulligan” so much as a part of GOD’S PLAN FOR MANKIND.
Seriously, I have contacts (no real friends) from back in my preacher days who claim Trump = Cyrus. The Persian king was not Hebrew or even particularly righteous, but he WAS annointed by God (presumably in a secret ceremony that he didn’t know about) to do GOD’S WILL.
This is scaring the shit out of me because I know these people. Kill someone in Times Square? Trump could gun down a kindergarten class on the Front Lawn and the Xtian right wouldn’t blink.
I don’t care if his moronic followers believe it. Those people are lost and they can stay in them damned diners and never leave for all I care.
I want the 75% (approximately) of those of us who still have some semblance of their faculties to have the benefit of evidence like this indictment provides, in this case that the investigation was not a hoax, that it has nothing to do with “crooked Hillary” but everything to do with the Russians intervening to help Trump win. It removes any doubt that the overly fair minded may have had.
There’s way more of us than there are of them. The more evidence like this that comes out, the more indictments, the more we see them unclothed on Russia, gun violence, racism etc., the more motivation there is for the 75% of us who know something’s wrong with Trump and the GOP (and all of that 75% may not be as clear that the GOP is the root of the problem, and that trump is a symptom, but we’re getting there) to overwhelm them at the polls in 2018 and beyond.
Democrats have consistently racked up victories in areas where they normally would not have, a good sign that reality is taking hold and the 75% are more motivated than ever.
Let’s not worry about convincing those who don’t want to be convinced, but shoring up the resolve of the majority that’s sick of this mess.
Tony Perkins is the Evangelical leader who said the Christian Right would give Trump a mulligan for his indiscretion, and your example is indeed chilling, if they believe Trump has been chosen by God.
More practically speaking, Christians are willing to look the other way because Trump will give them the Supreme Court power they need to overturn Roe v Wade and make abortion illegal. They will sell their souls for that.
“More practically speaking, the hypocrites running around calling themselves Christians are willing to look the other way because Trump will give them the Supreme Court power they need to overturn Roe v Wade and make abortion illegal.”
Those people can call themselves Christians all they want, it doesn’t make it true. They are lying to themselves. Like their supply-side charlatan cousins they don’t even believe their own BS.
“What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
I’m not forgetting I’m deliberately avoiding contemplating Trump’s sex life–eeeew!
No, the Daniels and MacDougal stories are of consensual sex between adults. This is absolutely not on par with his inadvertant admission of sexually assaulting women, or “inspecting” the dressing room while the Miss Teen USA contestants were changing.
Trump publicly boasted about his affairs for decades. MacDougal describes him introducing her to his family at his resorts. Melania is clearly aware of it and there is no evidence that she cares one way or another.
This is a scandal because it is against normal conventions, but it’s Bill Clinton level of scandal that starts and ends with the people involved. If Donald Trump’s only failing was his need for multiple mistresses, then I would have no problem with him at all.
Trump’s sordid sex life is relevant to the investigation because it speaks to his character and his lack of trustworthiness. In evaluating cases juries are often presented with character studies of defendants, pro and con, in order to help the prosecution or defense, and it speaks to whether they can be believed or not.
Pretty conflicted about this. I don’t like the direction this is going overall – it plays into the Puritanical nature and foundation of our culture, and that’s something, like Confederate statues, we should be hauling to museums if not to landfills.
We don’t want philosopher priests running the show. We aren’t going to get them anyway, so just forget it. Very few of the type-A/narcissists who wind up at the top are going to qualify anyway.
On the other hand anything that helps deflate this government and distract it and allows it to demonstrate more incompetence, thereby shortening its days – well it’s hard to argue with that. But for me, fundamentally, this terrible administration should fall because of its incompetence and mean spiritedness (and crimes, if they are proved). I don’t care about or want to win on the basis of some sex affair.
Just a reminder – keep your skepticism active – this is how good quality lies are crafted.