So about that Stormy Daniels interview.....

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

What’s important here is the way Trump and his circle of enablers went about trying to cover up these (alleged) affairs, while Trump himself was seeking the top political office in the country. 

Trump’s personal lawyer and his allies at the National Enquirer used nondisclosure agreements to silence these women, taking a page from the corporate playbook. 

NDAs are already far too common in the business world, used to paper over a host of misdeeds, most crucially sexual harassment and discrimination. Disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein is perhaps the most egregious abuser of NDAs, which allowed him to harass and assault women for decades. 

“Donald Trump is acting like he personally owns this information, as though he can act like a king and take any measures to control the way people talk about him,” said Heidi Kitrosser, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Minnesota Law School. “You can’t do that when you’re acting with the power of the federal government.”

Now I will admit that is important to learn, but not so much because it reveals that Trump is a misogynist who controlled women with threats of lawsuits or used his wealth to buy their silence.

But what is most important about that is what Vox reported late last night: 

Stormy Daniels’ 60 Minutes interview was, in its way, fascinating. But it ultimately failed to shed light on the two most interesting questions posed by this entire imbroglio, presumably because Daniels herself doesn’t know the answer.

1. How many other sexual partners has Trump paid hush money to? 
2. How many foreign intelligences services know about one or more of those women? 

Trump has secrets that Trump regards as worth keeping. 

And while that put Daniels under pressure, it means that entities with more power and sophistication than an adult film actress can use those secrets to put pressure on Trump. The president has successfully cultivated an image as so flaky and incompetent, that his many baffling decisions on the world stage — from leaking Israeli intelligence to the Russian foreign minister to undercutting his own administration’s policy on Qatar to mysteriously leaving Japan off a list of allies exempted from steel tariffs — generally get written off as evidence that Trump is flaky and incompetent, rather than being actively manipulated by foreign actors.

Exactly!

Now I alluded to this last night in the comments section, because that is the truly relevant point that is being revealed with this interview, and the one Karen McDougal gave a few days ago.

Donald Trump's careless lifestyle has rendered him vulnerable to blackmail, and manipulation by just just about ANYBODY. And that includes foreign governments.

I am still in the first 100 pages of David Corn's book "Russian Roulette" but I have already learned that Donald Trump went to Russia a variety of times in the 80's, 90's, and 2000's, at least once at the invitation of the Kremlin.

We know that the Russian government has a habit of gathering embarrassing information on American celebrities and politicians that can be used later, yet Trump seems to have clumsily wandered into that lion's den on multiple occasions.

What's more, according to the book, Trump bragged to friends and associates that the Russian women were "without morals," which indicates to me that his interactions with them were less than dignified, and may in fact have been truly pornographic.

And of course all of this was talked about in that Christopher Steele dossier which the conservatives are so desperate to dismiss as "fake news."

So do I think there is a "pee tape?"

Hell, I think the pee tape might only be the first course in a depravity riddled sequence of DVDs which Donald Trump is desperate to see left buried until long after he has shuffled off this mortal coil.

And it was THAT probability which was driven home last night during this interview with Stormy Daniels.

P.S. By the way I would suggest that the trolls simply give up on trying to shame Stormy on social media.....

Yes, I am. Nice to meet ya! https://t.co/kUdVLRWwu0

— Stormy Daniels (@StormyDaniels) March 26, 2018

....it simply doesn't work.

New Yorker magazine exposes Donald Trump's history of buying off women to keep his numerous extramarital affairs secret.

Trump with Karen McDougal

Courtesy of The New Yorker:  

Trump and McDougal began an affair, which McDougal later memorialized in an eight-page, handwritten document provided to The New Yorker by John Crawford, a friend of McDougal’s. When I showed McDougal the document, she expressed surprise that I had obtained it but confirmed that the handwriting was her own.

The interactions that McDougal outlines in the document share striking similarities with the stories of other women who claim to have had sexual relationships with Trump, or who have accused him of propositioning them for sex or sexually harassing them. McDougal describes their affair as entirely consensual. But her account provides a detailed look at how Trump and his allies used clandestine hotel-room meetings, payoffs, and complex legal agreements to keep affairs—sometimes multiple affairs he carried out simultaneously—out of the press. 

On November 4, 2016, four days before the election, the Wall Street Journal reported that American Media, Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, had paid a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for exclusive rights to McDougal’s story, which it never ran. Purchasing a story in order to bury it is a practice that many in the tabloid industry call “catch and kill.” This is a favorite tactic of the C.E.O. and chairman of A.M.I., David Pecker, who describes the President as “a personal friend.” As part of the agreement, A.M.I. consented to publish a regular aging-and-fitness column by McDougal. After Trump won the Presidency, however, A.M.I.’s promises largely went unfulfilled, according to McDougal. Last month, the Journal reported that Trump’s personal lawyer had negotiated a separate agreement just before the election with an adult-film actress named Stephanie Clifford, whose screen name is Stormy Daniels, which barred her from discussing her own affair with Trump. Since then, A.M.I. has repeatedly approached McDougal about extending her contract. 

McDougal, in her first on-the-record comments about A.M.I.’s handling of her story, declined to discuss the details of her relationship with Trump, for fear of violating the agreement she reached with the company. She did say, however, that she regretted signing the contract. “It took my rights away,” McDougal told me. “At this point I feel I can’t talk about anything without getting into trouble, because I don’t know what I’m allowed to talk about. I’m afraid to even mention his name.”

The article also says that Trump offered to pay McDougal after the first time they had sex (She refused the money.), that the affair lasted nine months, and during that time he flew her around the country, and even introduced her to his family and friends.

McDougal's account essentially reinforces the story that Stormy Daniels told before Trump's attorney bought her silence, and the others that have been talked about for years.

Donald Trump's actions essentially scream about his innate insecurities, though to be honest we already knew that by the fact that he names every damn thing he touches after himself.

However these numerous sexual encounters also clearly gave the Russians plenty of kompromat to use against Trump, and we know by the fact that he worked so hard to keep them quiet, that it would be very effective in buying his cooperation.

So I ask again, does the president of the United States have a security clearance that allows him to do his job?

And if he does, how in the fuck did he get it?

Dianne Feinsten slams Republican probe into Christopher Steele while stating emphatically that "nothing in the Steele dossier has been refuted."

Courtesy of the Washington Examiner:  

Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., slammed the criminal referral of Christopher Steele by Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., saying it has numerous “flaws” and “omits key facts.” 

In a five-page analysis released Friday, Feinstein says the criminal referral is “not based on any allegation” that Steele, the author of the infamous Trump-Russia dossier, lied to FBI investigators about former Trump aide Carter Page, or what was included in the dossier. 

“[N]either provide any evidence that any of the information in Steele’s dossier is wrong. Instead, the referral is limited to a single baseless allegation: that Steele lied about his contacts with the press,” the analysis says. 

This week Grassley made public more details from the Jan. 4 unclassified criminal referral of Steele. The referral asks the Department of Justice to investigate whether Steele lied to FBI investigators about his communications with the press.

Feinstein goes on to say this:  

Feinstein’s analysis concludes that the criminal referral “fails to make a case” that Steele actually lied o the FBI. 

“The criminal referral contains no new information. All the information in the criminal referral was already available to the FBI and the Department of Justice,” the analysis concludes. “In fact, the referral relies on publicly available information and information that was provided to Congress from DOJ and the FBI.” 

In a statement accompanying the analysis, Feinstein said the Grassley-Graham referral has goals that include “undermining the FBI and Special Counsel [Robert] Mueller’s investigation, attacking Christopher Steele and deflecting attention from collusion and obstruction of justice investigations. 

“Not a single revelation in the Steele dossier has been refuted. Unfortunately, the claims in the criminal referral rely on classified information, so it’s difficult to fully repudiate them here. However, as much as possible using unclassified information, the following points lay out the flaws in the criminal referral,” she said.

Here is a link to the analysis to which Feinstein is referring.

"Not a single revelation in the Steele dossier has been refuted."

I bet that every single time that is mentioned it just pisses Donald Trump off to no end.

It really appears that the Republicans are essentially in a blind panic right now.

These tactics are so transparent and obvious that you would think they would be embarrassed to be caught using them.

It kind of makes you wonder if the Russians do not have kompromat on the entire Republican party.

Russian politician suggests that it might be time to release the Donald Trump "kompromat."

Russian politician says 'let's hit Trump with our Kompromat' on state TVhttps://t.co/Sry7e64s1q

— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) September 5, 2017

Courtesy of The Independent:  

A Russian politician has threatened to "hit Donald Trump with our Kompromat" on state TV. 

Speaking on Russia-24, Nikita Isaev, leader of the far-right New Russia Movement, said the compromising material should be released in retaliation over the closure of several Russian diplomatic compounds across the US. 

When asked whether Russia has such material, Mr Isaev, who is also director of the Russian Institute of Contemporary Economics, replied: "Of course we have it!"

You might remember that recently another Russian politician also made this statement on Russian government controlled TV:

#Russia's state TV host pours more gas on the fire, saying:
"So why did we elect such a President?
Audience claps.https://t.co/SE8PZkkxup

— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) September 1, 2017

Man I certainly hope that Robert Mueller is paying attention to all of this.