DNC files lawsuit against Russia, the Trump Campaign, and Wikileaks.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

The Democratic National Committee filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit Friday against the Russian government, the Trump campaign and the WikiLeaks organization alleging a far-reaching conspiracy to disrupt the 2016 campaign and tilt the election to Donald Trump. 

The complaint, filed in federal district court in Manhattan, alleges that top Trump campaign officials conspired with the Russian government and its military spy agency to hurt Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and help Trump by hacking the computer networks of the Democratic Party and disseminating stolen material found there. 

“During the 2016 presidential campaign, Russia launched an all-out assault on our democracy, and it found a willing and active partner in Donald Trump’s campaign,” DNC Chairman Tom Perez said in a statement. 

“This constituted an act of unprecedented treachery: the campaign of a nominee for President of the United States in league with a hostile foreign power to bolster its own chance to win the presidency,” he said. 

The case asserts that the Russian hacking campaign — combined with Trump associates’ contacts with Russia and the campaign’s public cheerleading of the hacks — amounted to an illegal conspiracy to interfere in the election that caused serious damage to the Democratic Party.

Well damn!

Now the gloves are off.

I am not sure what kind of a chance a lawsuit like this has, but they're not wrong.

I think there is ample evidence to prove that this is EXACTLY what happened, and at the very least this lawsuit might help to reveal even more evidence which makes that fact undeniable.

Personally I am just gratified to see the Democrats grow a pair and start taking the fight to the bad guys.

Kids sue Florida Governor Rick Scott for endangering their future by not combating climate change.

Anybody else ever get the feeling that Dick Scott is a reptile? Maybe that is why climate change does not bother him.

Courtesy of the New York Post:  

A group of kids is suing Florida Gov. Rick Scott, claiming he “endangered” their future and violated their constitutional rights by not doing anything to combat climate change. 

The youngsters filed their lawsuit on Monday in Leon County Court. 

“It is the responsibility of the state to uphold the constitution, and these young people have a fundamental right to a stable climate system,” said Guy Burns, lead counsel for the eight plaintiffs, most of whom are teens.

The youths are being represented by the Oregon-based nonprofit organization Our Children’s Trust, which is supporting similar suits from children across the country. 

They range in age from 10 to 20 years old — and include climate change activists Levi Draheim and Delaney Reynolds, who expressed their outrage in a statement. 

“The reason that I’m a part of this lawsuit is because I believe that the climate change crisis is the biggest threat that my generation will ever have to face,” Reynolds explained. 

“Right now we live in what I like to call the state of denial because the state of Florida is doing nothing to address climate change, but everything to cause it. That is completely immoral,” she said. “If we ever want to have a future of living here in Florida, if my children ever want to live here in Florida, we need to start working together to implement solutions for climate change or the state of Florida won’t exist.”

Damn, these kids today are nothing short of amazing.

I think I am going to start relaxing about the future. It seems to be in pretty good hands. 

Stormy Daniels fully cooperating with federal investigators, while the Summer Zervos defamation case pushes forward. Update!

Stormy Daniels is cooperating with federal investigators probing 2016 non-disclosure agreement and $130,000 payment she received from Pres. Trump’s longtime personal attorney. https://t.co/gJagoFny4S - @NBCInvestigates

— NBC News (@NBCNews) April 10, 2018

Courtesy of NBC News: 

Adult film actress Stormy Daniels is cooperating with federal investigators looking into a $130,000 payment she received from President Donald Trump's personal attorney, multiple sources familiar with the proceedings told NBC News. 

The cooperation is in connection with a broader federal probe of the attorney, Michael Cohen, which triggered a raid on his office and hotel room on Monday.

Oh I bet Daniels is cooperating, and probably with a giant smile on her face.

It should also be noted that the investigation is focused on just on the $130,000 dollar payment to Daniels, but also the payoff that Playmate Karen McDougal received.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

The FBI agents who raided Michael Cohen’s office were reportedly looking for “records about payments to two women who claim they had affairs with Mr. Trump,” and materials related to the "National Enquirer’s role in silencing" former Playboy model Karen McDougal, according to The New York Times. The raid—which sought materials related to Cohen’s $130,000 payout to Stormy Daniels and the $150,000 payment made to McDougal from the parent company of the Enquirer—was carried out by the public corruption unit of the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan. 

Ans while all of this is going on Summer Zervos is attempting to move forward with HER defamation lawsuit.

Courtesy of CNN: 

The lawyer representing former "Apprentice" contestant Summer Zervos in her defamation lawsuit against President Donald Trump filed a memorandum opposing Trump's attempt to have the case temporarily suspended until his appeal, which is pending, has been decided. 

In one of the exhibits attached to Tuesday's filing, Zervos details the harassment and threats she received after Trump denied her claims that he sexually assaulted her. 

"Immediately after he made each derogatory statement, I would get calls and people coming to my restaurant threatening me or my business," said Zervos, who runs a restaurant in California. 

"They would shout 'lying c--t' or 'lying b--tch' into the phone and say I should die, or say that they would drive us out of business," she said. "Several customers told me specifically that they would no longer come to my restaurant because I had lied. Other people called and placed fake take-out orders to hurt my business. I worried constantly for my safety, the safety of my family and the people I work with." 

"Because I'm a Republican and small-business owner and live among many supporters of Defendant [Trump], it was especially bad," Zervos said.

You know Donald Trump can fire Mueller, and bomb Syria until the cows come home, but clearly that is not going to make any of this go away.

Update: We are now learning that during that FBI raids of Cohen's office and residence, that they were also searching for evidence linking back to the Access Hollywood tape.

Courtesy of the NYT: 

The F.B.I. agents who raided the office and hotel of President Trump’s lawyer on Monday were seeking all records related to the “Access Hollywood” tape in which Mr. Trump was heard making vulgar comments about women, according to three people who have been briefed on the contents of a federal search warrant. 

The search warrant also sought evidence of whether the lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, tried to suppress damaging information about Mr. Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. 

It is not clear what role, if any, Mr. Cohen played regarding the tape, which was made public a month before the election. But the fact that the agents were seeking documents related to the tape reveals a new front in the investigation into Mr. Cohen that is being led by the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan.

Well isn't THAT interesting?

Judge presiding of defamation case against Bill O'Reilly refuses to keep his secret settlements secret.

Courtesy of CNN Money:  

A federal judge in New York has denied Bill O'Reilly's motion to seal settlement agreements he struck with multiple women who accused him of harassment, dealing a huge blow to the former Fox News host in a defamation suit brought last year. 

Deborah Batts, the judge presiding over the defamation suit, ruled Tuesday that O'Reilly "has failed to present compelling countervailing factors that could overcome the presumption of public access" to the agreements. 

Batts also said O'Reilly "has not even come close to rebutting this First Amendment presumption" that favors public access to documents. 

"Defendant O'Reilly asks the Court to resolve a dispute by relying on the very Agreements he seeks to shield from public view," Batts wrote. 

The judge's ruling means that certain terms of the settlements are coming to light for the first time. On Wednesday, Neil Mullin and Nancy Erika Smith, the attorneys representing the three plaintiffs, introduced to the court settlement agreements between O'Reilly and women who had sued and settled with him. The agreement struck with Andrea Mackris, a former Fox News producer who filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against O'Reilly in 2004, required all parties in the case to disclaim any of the evidence "as counterfeit or forgeries" should it be made public. 

As Smith and Mullin put it in a separate filing on Wednesday, the provision required Mackris to "lie -- even in legal proceedings or under oath -- if any evidence becomes public, by calling evidence 'counterfeit' or 'forgeries.'"

A former Fox New host had a legal settlement written up that forces a former co-worker to lie about factual information if it becomes public?

Let's chalk that up to the least surprising news of the day.  

Man I used to love to hate on Bill O'Reilly back when he actually mattered. (Might have something to do with the fact that he attacked me on national television.)

But now that he is a fucking nobody, I just enjoy watching him sink slowly into oblivion.

Alex Jones is being sued. Again.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

On Monday, attorneys for Marcel Fontaine ― a 24-year-old Boston man whom Jones’ website, Infowars, incorrectly identified as the Parkland, Florida, school shooter in a Feb. 14 article ― filed a defamation lawsuit against Jones and his publication. 

What’s more: Fontaine plans to take his case against Jones’ conspiracy-laden site to a jury instead of settling the matter behind closed doors, Fontaine’s lawyer Mark Bankston, of the law firm Farrar & Ball, told HuffPost. 

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Travis County, Texas, names Jones, Infowars, Free Speech Systems and author Kit Daniels as defendants in the case. 

Daniels’ Infowars article featured a photo of Fontaine and incorrectly identified him as the gunman who killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. 

“Another alleged photo of the suspect shows communist garb,” read part of the article, later removed from the website, that showed a photo of Fontaine wearing a popular shirt from 2005 depicting communist leaders partying. 

Good for this guy.

Look people make mistakes, it happens to the best of us, but to purposefully  accuse somebody of a crime like this, with no evidence to back it up, is indefensible.

Which I am guessing is something that Alex Jones is about to learn the hard way.

It appears that Stormy Daniels has reinforcements.

Courtesy of  NBC News:

Adult film actress Stormy Daniels underwent a polygraph exam in 2011 about her relationship with Donald Trump, and the examiner found there was a more than 99 percent probability she told the truth when she said they had unprotected sex in 2006, according to a copy of the report obtained by NBC News Tuesday. 

Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, took the lie detector test at the request of a magazine that interviewed her in 2011, but didn’t publish the content at the time. 

The report is accompanied by a sworn declaration from the examiner, signed on Monday, March 19, 2018, attesting to the polygraph report’s authenticity. Details of the report were first published by The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

Now that by itself is pretty unfortunate news for a certain tangerine teapot tyrant.

However it was only the beginning of the shitty Trump news for today.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

A former Playboy model who claimed she had an affair with Donald J. Trump sued on Tuesday to be released from a 2016 legal agreement requiring her silence, becoming the second woman this month to challenge Trump allies’ efforts during the presidential campaign to bury stories about extramarital relationships.

The model, Karen McDougal, is suing the company that owns The National Enquirer, American Media Inc., which paid her $150,000 and whose chief executive is a friend of President Trump’s. The other woman, the adult entertainment star Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels, was paid $130,000 to stay quiet by the president’s personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen. She filed suit earlier this month.

Ms. McDougal, in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, claims that Mr. Cohen was secretly involved in her talks with A.M.I., and that the media company and her lawyer at the time misled her about the deal. She also asserts that after she spoke with The New Yorker last month after it obtained notes she kept on Mr. Trump, A.M.I. warned that “any further disclosures would breach Karen’s contract” and “cause considerable monetary damages.”

Kinda feels a little coordinated doesn't it?

Well if it is that is a damn smart play.  After all there is strength in numbers.

And speaking of numbers, they are continuing to grow.

Courtesy of Bloomberg:

President Donald Trump can’t avoid a former "Apprentice" contestant’s defamation lawsuit and may be forced to respond under oath to allegations of sexual assault and his treatment of women. 

Summer Zervos, a contender on The Apprentice in 2005, sued Trump in January 2017 alleging he “ambushed” her on more than one occasion starting in 2007, kissing her, touching her breast and pressing his genitals against her. On Tuesday, New York State Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Schecter denied the president’s request to throw out the lawsuit or delay it until he leaves office.

"No one is above the law," Schecter wrote in an 18-page decision. “Nothing in the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution even suggests that the president cannot be called to account before a state court for wrongful conduct that bears no relationship to any federal executive responsibility.” 

The ruling could subject Trump to extremely broad questions about this case and similar ones, and he might be forced to testify under oath and provide documents, said Naomi Mezey, a professor at Georgetown Law School and an expert on civil procedure.

Damn! I almost forgot about Zervos.

And if SHE can get Trump to testify under oath, that means that his other accusers might be able to do the same. 

 Remember it only took one intern, with one stained dressed, to get Bill Clinton impeached.

By the time this is over there could be over a dozen women, with a whole closet full of DNA stained clothing to bring to the courtroom.

Trump attorney's push to move Stormy Daniels case to federal court and threaten to sue her for 20 million dollars.

Courtesy of CNN: 

Attorneys defending President Donald Trump and the company of his personal legal counsel, Michael Cohen, have filed to move the lawsuit against their clients by porn star Stormy Daniels to federal court and are claiming she could owe as much as $20 million for violating a nondisclosure agreement. 

The move marks the first time attorneys for Trump himself have joined the legal action in the Daniels matter. 

Attorney Charles Harder -- best known for representing Hulk Hogan in his lawsuit against Gawker, which resulted in its bankruptcy -- is handling the case on the President's behalf. 

They allege that Daniels as many as 20 times violated the confidentiality provisions of a settlement agreement in which Cohen paid the adult film actress $130,000 through a private LLC. 

In the court filing Friday, attorneys for Trump as well as Cohen's company, Essential Consultants, LLC, stated that "EC is aware of at least twenty (20) violations by Clifford of the confidentiality provisions of the Settlement Agreement." 

Daniels' real name is Stephanie Clifford.

Daniels' attorney quickly identified what the Trump lawyers were attempting here.

The filing today is yet another bullying tactic from the president and Mr. Cohen. They are now attempting to remove this case to federal ct in order to increase their chances that the matter will be decided in private arbitration, thus hiding the truth from the public.

— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) March 17, 2018

I am telling you this case is about far more than a consensual affair. After all we already know about that.

No, Trump is worried about something else getting out to the public, that is why his name is finally associated with this case and why he is spending big money on a famous, take no prisoners, attorney.

To me it appears that Trump is more frightened of Stormy Daniels than he is of Robert Mueller.

Today's weather report sees Stormy skies ahead.

Courtesy of CNN:

A hearing date has been set for the lawsuit adult film actress Stormy Daniels filed against President Donald Trump and his lawyer Michael Cohen's company to dissolve their non-disclosure agreement. 

The hearing has been set for July 12 at the Los Angeles County Superior Court. 

Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, filed suit last week against the President. The lawsuit said Trump never signed a hush agreement to keep Daniels quiet late in the 2016 campaign about an alleged sexual encounter between the two before Trump was president.

The lawsuit said Cohen had signed it on Trump's behalf and therefore the agreement was void. Both Cohen and the White House have denied the allegations of an affair between Daniels and Trump.

The lawsuit also accuses Cohen of continuing the efforts to "intimidate Ms. Clifford into silence and 'shut her up'" by initiating a "bogus" arbitration proceeding last month without notifying Daniels or allowing due process.

Tweet from Daniel's attorney:

The President and Mr. Cohen have purposely ignored our settlement offer, thus doubling down on their efforts to muzzle Ms. Clifford and prevent her from telling the American people what happened. Time to buckle up. #basta

— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) March 13, 2018

So despite every effort by Trump's legal team this thing is definitely still moving forward.

They will of course attempt to put this hearing off, but then they have to be careful not to have it take place too close to the 2018 election cycle, or THAT will be at least one of the questions posed by reporters to GOP candidates.

Daniels has also started a fundraising campaign to help pay her legal fees.

So far it has raised more that $121,000, and that is only since yesterday.

What might be perhaps just as troubling for the Trump camp is that according to her lawyer multiple women have been inspired Daniels to consider filing their own lawsuits against Donald Trump.

Courtesy of Buzzfeed News: 

Multiple women are exploring potential legal cases against President Donald Trump, following the lead of an adult film actor who has filed a lawsuit in order to speak out about an affair she says she had with Trump in 2006, her attorney said Wednesday. 

Michael Avenatti, who represents Stephanie Clifford — better known by her professional name, Stormy Daniels — told BuzzFeed News that other women have reached out to him for representation in cases against Trump. Avenatti did not answer questions about the number of women or the nature of their allegations. 

When asked by BuzzFeed News if other women had approached him about potential legal cases, Avenatti replied, "confirmed."

An attorney for Buzzfeed also believes that he has found a way for Daniels to divulge everything she knows about Trump without defying the NDA.

Courtesy of Politico: 

BuzzFeed may have found a legal opening to allow the porn actress Stormy Daniels to discuss her alleged relationship with President Donald Trump and a $130,000 payment she received just before the 2016 election as part of a nondisclosure agreement she is now trying to void. 

The same Trump attorney who brokered the deal with Daniels, Michael Cohen, filed a libel suit in January against BuzzFeed and four of its staffers over publication of the so-called dossier compiling accurate, inaccurate and unproven allegations about Trump’s relationship with Russia. 

Now, BuzzFeed is using Cohen’s libel suit as a vehicle to demand that Daniels preserve all records relating to her relationship with Trump, as well as her dealings with Cohen and the payment he has acknowledged arranging in 2016. 

On Tuesday, BuzzFeed’s lawyer wrote to Daniels’ attorney asking that the adult film actress, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, preserve various categories of documents. Such preservation letters are often a prelude to a subpoena. If Daniels’ testimony is formally demanded in a deposition, the nondisclosure agreement would likely be no obstacle, legal experts said.

What's more this payoff by Michael Cohen is very much like the allegations in the Steele dossier, which identified him as the one "sweeping things under the carpet" for Donald Trump.

Like I said, Stormy skies ahead. 

Family of slain DNC staffer sues Fox News.

Courtesy of ABC News:

Rich was shot and killed in Washington, D.C., in July 2016. Police said he was shot several times in the back and later died at a local hospital. Rich was 27 years old and worked as a voter-expansion data director for the DNC at the time. 

The May 16, 2017, Fox News article, which allegedly contained "false and fabricated facts," according to the lawsuit, fueled conspiracy theories that Rich was murdered in connection with a massive WikiLeaks data dump of 20,000 DNC emails days after his death. 

In the suit, which was obtained by ABC News, Rich's parents, Joel and Mary Rich, claim that Fox News investigative reporter Malia Zimmerman and Fox News commenter Ed Butowsky reached out to the family under false pretenses to support stories that Seth Rich leaked DNC emails to WikiLeaks. 

The lawsuit claims that Fox News, Zimmerman and Butowsky are liable for the harm caused by the report because they "aided and abetted the intentional infliction of emotional distress" caused by the story about Seth Rich and alleges that Fox News provided with a national platform to develop what the lawsuit dubs a "sham story."

So to be clear Donald Trump's favorite news outlet is being sued for spreading "fake news."

Nice to see that irony has made a full recovery and is back in the saddle.

But Fox News is not the only Right Wing outlet being sued for spreading conspiracy theories.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

A counterprotester at the deadly white supremacist rally last year in Charlottesville, Va., is suing the media outlet Infowars, its owner Alex Jones and seven others for defamation. 

Georgetown Law’s Civil Rights Clinic filed the lawsuit Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia on behalf of Brennan Gilmore, who alleges that Alex Jones and other far-right supporters, including former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), published stories about him that damaged his reputation and mobilized an army of followers to pursue a campaign of harassment and threats against him. 

Gilmore argues he became the target of elaborate online conspiracies that placed him at the center of a “deep-state” plot to stage the Charlottesville attack and destabilize the Trump administration after he posted a video he captured on Twitter of the car attack that killed Heather Heyer and injured 36 others. 

“From Sandy Hook to ‘Pizzagate’ to Charlottesville, Las Vegas and now Parkland, the defendants thrive by inciting devastating real-world consequences with the propaganda and lies they publish as ‘news,’” Gilmore said in a statement. 

“Today, I’m asking a court to hold them responsible for the personal and professional damage their lies have caused me, and, more importantly, to deter them from repeating this dangerous pattern of defamation and intimidation.”

Damn! First YouTube removes advertising from his videos, and now Alex Jones is getting his ass sued off. 

I would say that today was a banner day for truth and justice, would you not agree?

So thanks to the pressure from those Parkland students Florida passed some gun control laws. So now the NRA is simply suing the state.

Courtesy of the BBC:  

The National Rifle Association (NRA) is suing Florida after it passed a gun control law in the wake of a school shooting that left 17 people dead. 

Governor Rick Scott, a staunch ally of the gun lobby, enacted the bill, which the NRA says violates the constitution. 

The law raises the legal age for buying rifles in Florida, but also allows the training and arming of school staff. 

It does not ban semi-automatic rifles like the one used in the 14 February massacre in Parkland. 

But it does introduce a three-day waiting period on all gun sales and a ban on bump stocks, a device that enables semi-automatic rifles to fire hundreds of rounds a minute.

The NRA filed its lawsuit on Friday just an hour after the bill was signed by the governor. 

One of its arguments is that the legislation violates the rights of young women as they are unlikely to commit violent crime.

Oh yeah, it's all about protecting young women. THAT sounds like something the NRA is well known for giving a shit about. 

By the way, whatever happened to all that "state's rights" rhetoric that the conservatives are famous for?

Not when it interferes with gun sales dammit!

It's not going to make a difference however.

As the great Joy Reid pointed out in her recent Daily Beast article, the NRA is losing.

Stormy Daniels files lawsuit claiming that her NDA with Donald Trump is null and void because he did not bother to sign it.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

Adult film star Stormy Daniels sued Donald Trump on Tuesday, alleging that he never signed the nondisclosure agreement that his lawyer had arranged with her. 

The civil suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court and obtained by NBC News, alleges that her agreement not to disclose her "intimate" relationship with Trump is invalid because while both Daniels and Trump's attorney Michael Cohen signed it, Trump never did.

Stephanie Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels, signed both the agreement and a side letter agreement using her professional name on Oct. 28, 2016, just days before the 2016 presidential election. Cohen signed the document the same day. Both agreements are appended to the lawsuit as Exhibit 1 and Exhibit 2.

The "hush agreement," as it's called in the suit, refers to Trump throughout as David Dennison, and Clifford as Peggy Peterson. In the side letter agreement, the true identity of DD is blacked out, but Clifford's attorney, Michael Avenatti, says the individual is Trump. 

Each document includes a blank where "DD" is supposed to sign, but neither blank is signed. 

Well here's another first.

There has never been a sitting president sued by an adult film star while in office.

And now there has been.

There were some very interesting revelations in this lawsuit by the way.

First the hush money was definitely paid to shut her up during the campaign:

Secondly Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen coerced Daniels into signing a false statment denying the affair. (I also heard on cable news that Cohen may have forged her signature on another document.)

Thirdly New York laws states that an attorney must inform their client, and get their consent, for every move made on their behalf, which means that Trump knew about all of this.

And lastly, there are pictures.

Oh man, now this just got VERY interesting indeed!

Former Alabama Senate candidate, and accused pedophile, Roy Moore needs your money.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

Embattled former Senate candidate Roy Moore is making a public plea for help to pay the legal fees he faces defending himself from a lawsuit brought by an Alabama woman who says he touched her sexually when she was 14 years old. 

In a statement posted on his Senate campaign’s Facebook page, the Republican former judge made the ask in a grievance-filled note, saying that he faced a “vicious attack from lawyers in Washington D.C. and San Francisco who have hired one of the biggest firms in Birmingham Alabama to bring another legal action against me.” 

“My resources have been depleted and I have struggled to make ends meet,” Moore wrote, saying that his legal fees could exceed $100,000. “I have had to establish a legal defense fund, anything you give will be appreciated.” 

Leigh Corfman filed a defamation lawsuit against Moore in January, part of an emerging legal strategy of litigating sexual misconduct claims through civil lawsuits when the statute of limitations has expired for criminal charges. 

In November, Corfman told The Washington Post that Moore took her to his house, undressed her and touched her sexually when he was a 32-year-old district attorney in 1979, and she was 14. The accusations shook up the Senate race in the deep-red state, and helped catapult it to wide national attention. Moore denied the accusations, maintaining that he was the victim of a conspiracy by liberal groups, mainstream media organizations and others. Corfman claims some of the statements he made defamed her.

Man I am trying very hard to come up with even an ounce of sympathy for this POS.

Nope, I got nothing.

But wait, maybe this will help.

Here's my check #RoyMoore #RoyMooreChildMolester pic.twitter.com/HwtP1UNFY8

— Agent 99 (@agent_orangutan) March 3, 2018

There you go, that, along with God's grace, should be all a religious man like Roy Moore needs to see him through these challenging times.

Man who emerged victorious from a lawsuit filed against him by Donald Trump, explains why he is doomed when Robert Mueller gets a hold of him.

Courtesy of Bloomberg News: 

Trump sued me for libel in 2006 for a biography I wrote, "TrumpNation," alleging that the book misrepresented his business record and understated his wealth. Trump lost the suit in 2011, but during the litigation my lawyers deposed him under oath for two days in 2007. We had the opportunity to ask Trump about his business and banking practices, his taxes, his personal finances and his professional relationships. 

Trump's attorney then was Marc Kasowitz, who also briefly represented the president when the Justice Department investigation first got rolling in Washington. My attorney was Mary Jo White, a former federal prosecutor steeped in many of the same legal traditions and courtroom experiences as Mueller. It didn't go well for the future president. 

Hammered by White and her deputies, Trump ultimately had to admit 30 times that he had lied over the years about all sorts of stuff: how much of a big Manhattan real estate project he owned; the price of one of his golf club memberships; the size of the Trump Organization; his wealth; his speaking fees; how many condos he had sold; his debts, and whether he borrowed money from his family to avoid going personally bankrupt. He also lied during the deposition about his business dealings with career criminals. 

Trump's poor performance stemmed in part from the fact that he was being interrogated by shrewd attorneys wielding his own business and financial records against him. But there were lots of other things that went wrong as well. 

Trump is impatient and has never been an avid or dedicated reader. That’s OK if you’d rather play golf, but it’s not OK when you need to absorb abundant or complex details. Lawyers typically prepare binders full of documents for their clients to pore over prior to a deposition, hoping to steel them for an intense grilling. My lawyers did that prior to my own deposition in the Trump lawsuit. But Trump didn’t appear to be well prepared when we deposed him, a weakness that my lawyers exploited (and that Mueller surely would as well). 

This is why Trump's lawyers, and friends are in a panic over Trump suggesting that he is "looking forward" to being interviewed by Robert Mueller.

It would appear that Trump's overwhelming arrogance and exaggerated confidence in his own intellect have convinced him that he is Mueller's equal.

That is clearly not true.

And I can hardly wait to see what happens when Trump comes to that realization as well.

Because guaranteed it will either be during, or immediately after his interview.

Pre-post update: About an hour before this was to post I learned that Trump's attorney John Dowd is now saying that, despite what Trump may have said, no decision has yet been reached on whether he will  voluntarily agree to an interview.

Sounds like the lawyers are perfectly aware that once Trump sits down with Mueller it is game over.

We are DEFINITELY going to need more popcorn.

Speaking of lawsuits, Paul Manafort also filed one against Robert Mueller.

Stop it, stop it, stop it!

Courtesy of the AP:

President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman sued special counsel Robert Mueller and the Justice Department on Wednesday, saying prosecutors had overstepped their bounds by charging him for conduct that he says is unrelated to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. 

The lawsuit by Paul Manafort, filed in federal court in Washington, is the most direct challenge to date to Mueller’s legal authority and the scope of his mandate as special counsel. It comes amid Republican allegations of partisan bias among members of Mueller’s team, which for months has been investigating whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the outcome of the U.S. election. 

The lawsuit also takes aim at Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing Mueller’s investigation and recently said he was satisfied that the former FBI director was staying within the scope of his authority.

This is a "Hail Mary" pass that will definitely get thrown out.

However it illustrates how desperate Manafort is to keep his business dealings secret.

And I would not be at all surprised that he is also doing this on behalf of Donald Trump to help keep HIS business dealings secret.

These assholes are terrified of what's coming, and that only makes me more excited for the final reveal.

American cities suing the Pentagon for failure to share information that would keep military criminals from buying guns.

Courtesy of Yahoo News:  

The cities of New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco are suing the U.S. Department of Defense over its legal failure to report service member crimes to the FBI and national gun background check database, multiple outlets reported Tuesday. 

For decades, the Pentagon has defied federal laws intended to keep firearms away from criminals like Devin Patrick Kelley, The New York Times notes. The 26-year-old was convicted of domestic assault before he purchased a rifle and killed dozens of people in Texas in November. Felonies and domestic violence convictions legally prohibit gun ownership. 

The democrat-led cities’ lawsuit now seeks to prevent more “senseless carnage” by requiring the Defense Department to fix other “deadly gaps” in the background check database and comply with existing reporting laws under federal court supervision, according to Reuters. It was filed Friday in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. 

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said his city “relies on this reporting when making the crucial decision whether a license-to-carry applicant should be permitted to carry a firearm.” 

“We’re joining in this suit because reporting these records is absolutely critical to those decisions,” he said in a statement. “The background check system only works if it contains the proper records.”

Kind of a shame that you have to sue your own government in order to force them to provide information to keep US citizens safe. 

But of course we are talking access to guns here, and the only thing more American than that is mom's homemade apple pie and using the Stars and Stripes as seat covers for your pickup truck. 

Sarah Palin is appealing the dismissal of her defamation suit against the New York Times.

Sarah Palin is appealing the dismissal of her defamation lawsuit against the New York Times. Prev: https://t.co/aQKodTao4P pic.twitter.com/dVXjHUpk1w

— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) November 21, 2017

Okay for any of you who doubted that this lawsuit was being bankrolled by somebody else, you can put those doubts aside now.

Palin simply does NOT have the spare pennies to be fighting a losing case like this on her own.

Somebody is paying the bills.

Somebody who hates the New York Times, and probably mainstream media in general.

Anybody want to hazard a guess?

A Georgia computer central to a lawsuit seeking to change the way votes are counted in Georgia was mysteriously wiped clean. Probably doesn't mean anything, right?

Courtesy of the AP: 

A computer server crucial to a lawsuit against Georgia election officials was quietly wiped clean by its custodians just after the suit was filed, The Associated Press has learned. 

The server’s data was destroyed July 7 by technicians at the Center for Elections Systems at Kennesaw State University, which runs the state’s election system. The data wipe was revealed in an email sent last week from an assistant state attorney general to plaintiffs in the case that was later obtained by the AP. More emails obtained in a public records request confirmed the wipe. 

The lawsuit, filed July 3 by a diverse group of election reform advocates, aims to force Georgia to retire its antiquated and heavily criticized election technology. The server in question, which served as a statewide staging location for key election-related data, made national headlines in June after a security expert disclosed a gaping security hole that wasn’t fixed six months after he reported it to election authorities. 

It’s not clear who ordered the server’s data irretrievably erased. 

The Kennesaw elections center answers to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brian Kemp, a Republican running for governor in 2018 and the suit’s main defendant. His spokeswoman issued a statement Thursday saying his office had neither involvement nor advanced warning of the decision. It blamed “the undeniable ineptitude” at the Kennesaw State elections center. 

After declining comment for more than 24 hours, Kennesaw State’s media office issued a statement late Thursday attributing the server wiping to “standard operating procedure.” It did not respond to the AP’s question on who ordered the action.

Oh yeah, SOMEBODY was very nervous about the data that was stored on that computer. 

And possibly for good reason.

Attorneys for woman claiming Donald Trump groped her subpoenas all campaign documents pertaining to women being touched inappropriately. Update!

Courtesy of Buzzfeed:  

A high-stakes legal showdown is brewing for President Donald Trump, as a woman who said he groped her has subpoenaed all documents from his campaign pertaining to “any woman alleging that Donald J. Trump touched her inappropriately.” 

The subpoena — whose contents have not been previously reported — was issued in March but entered into the court file last month. The White House did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Trump’s attorney. 

Summer Zervos, a former contestant on the Trump’s reality TV show The Apprentice, accused Trump of kissing and grabbing her when she went to his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2007 to discuss a possible job at the Trump Organization. After Zervos made the accusation last October, just weeks before the election, Trump denied her accusation and called it a lie. 

She responded by suing him for defamation. As part of that suit, her lawyers served a subpoena on his campaign, asking that it preserve all documents it had about her.

They also asked for “all documents” concerning other women who have accused Trump of groping them, including Jessica Leeds, Mindy McGillivray, Rachel Crooks, Natasha Stoynoff, Temple Taggart, Kristin Anderson, Cathy Heller, Jill Harth, and Jessica Drake. The subpoena seeks “all documents concerning any accusations that were made during Donald J. Trump’s election campaign for president, that he subjected any woman to unwanted sexual touching and/or sexually inappropriate behavior.” Last year, Trump tweeted a blanket denial, saying, “Nothing ever happened with any of these women.”

Trump lawyers of course have been trying to have this case dismissed by claiming that their client is immune from civil suit while in office, and have tried to dismiss this subpoena as overly broad and designed to dredge up dirt to use to impeach him.

So far those arguments do not appear to have worked.

And I hope that holds true, because I think we all would like to see these documents exposed in a court of law.

I would also like to see the "pussy grabber" take the stand and attempt to blame the victims for getting their naughty parts too close to his tiny little hands.

Update: By the way here are just some of the women who spoke out against Trump's sexual victimization.

These women spoke out against @realDonaldTrump for the sexual assault and rape he committed on them. Their voices matter.#MeToo pic.twitter.com/n5ONX4JWTM

— William T. Riker (@RikerResist) October 16, 2017

Texas teen sues after being expelled for refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Courtesy of ABC News:  

A lawsuit says a Houston student's Constitutional rights were violated when she was expelled for not standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. 

Randall Kallinen, an attorney for 17-year-old India Landry's family, said the civil lawsuit was filed Saturday against the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District and a high school principal. 

The lawsuit says Landry, who'd been sitting for the pledge in class, was expelled Monday after doing that in the principal's office. The lawsuit says Landry returned to school Friday after the principal reversed course, saying Landry could sit. 

Landry, who is black, told KHOU she doesn't think "the flag is what it says it's for, for liberty and justice and all that." 

Denying a child an education because they are exercising their 1st Amendment rights?

Oh Texas, you never disappoint.

No, you cannot sue Black Lives Matter.

Courtesy of CNN:

The Black Lives Matter movement cannot be sued, a federal judge ruled Thursday, dismissing a case against the group and an activist brought by a police officer injured during protests after the July 2016 fatal shooting of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 

Black Lives Matter is not an entity, but a social movement, Louisiana Middle District Judge Brian A. Jackson wrote. "Therefore, all claims against 'Black Lives Matter' must be dismissed because social movements lack the capacity to be sued." 

The suing Baton Rouge police officer, who remained unnamed in the lawsuit, said he was hit by concrete or rock-like objects while responding to a demonstration led by DeRay Mckesson for Black Lives Matter and had "several serious injuries," according to court documents. 

Protests, vigils and memorials sprang up nationwide after the shooting of Sterling by police outside a Baton Rouge convenience store. In a graphic cellphone video that was widely shared on social media, police officers can be seen on top of the African-American man before shots were fired. 

The injured officer said Mckesson and Black Lives Matter were liable for his injuries because they were negligent and should have known the protests would turn to riots and become violent.

Well that is just ignorant.

It is too bad this officer was injured, but his anger is misplaced.

That would be like if you sued the free love movement in the 60's because a hippie got your daughter pregnant.  

Or if you sued Christianity because your grandmother gave her life savings to some televangelist.

I really feel that a lot of the anger and vitriol directed at BLM is the result of racism and that a lot of people really do not understand the movement.

If you are one of those visiting this link may prove helpful.