Washington Is Sick And The American People Know It

24 09 2010

By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

Peggy Noonan, a former presidential speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, pens regular columns for the Wall Street Journal.  In her latest, she states:

This [November’s] election is more and more shaping up into a contest between the Exhausted and the Enraged.[2]

Amen . . . and Barack Obama and his Democrats know it.  Their supporters are exhausted, disillusioned and demoralized; and many are angry at his policies such as the Afghan War.[3] His detractors and opponents are angry, livid, galvanized and motivated; and they consist of Republicans, Independents[4] and disenchanted Democrats, some of whom are part of the Tea Party movement.

The handwriting is on the wall—and the blood is in the water—that he is likely to be a one-term president.  White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is rumored to be leaving; and Obama brain truster David Axelrod will be too, probably sometime next year.  Top economic adviser Larry Summers is departing; and the list goes on and on.  While there is generally attrition in any White House staff because of the long hours and staggering workloads and pressures on families, these departures can be viewed as “rats leaving a sinking ship.”

Noonan cites Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee as saying prophetically:

The more [voters] know, the less they like Washington.

At long last, the light is shining through.  The innate wisdom of the American people is in the process of being heard and felt.

When I left Capitol Hill after working there for three and a half years, there was one four-letter word that stood out in my mind, and it still does today: “S-I-C-K.”  I vowed that neither of my kids would ever work there.  I had seen raving narcissists and demagogues who were not nice people—and equaled or surpassed those in Hollywood where I had grown up.

I saw senators and congressmen chasing and bedding female staffers between the ages of about 22-26, and wrecking their lives in the process.  When the women reached about 28, they were considered “over the hill,” and a new batch of fresh young faces would replace them.  I saw attractive young female staffers flock to the politicians like groupies are attracted to rock stars and other celebrities.  I saw lobbyists providing women for sex to important committee chairmen.

I saw power trips that were way out of proportion to the actual power wielded.  I saw senators and members of Congress pontificate on empty chamber floors, and pass legislation that often did not help anyone, but merely “congested” and “polluted” government for both the regulators and public alike.  Laws were put on the books almost ceremoniously to display motion and activity, even if they were truly bad laws that made little or no good sense—and none were ever taken off the books.  Programs were still being funded even though they had outlived their usefulness years if not decades before.

I saw lobbyists literally run Washington, because they had the skills and knowledge that the politicians did not have.  House staffs were small unless the member had seniority.  Hence, the input of lobbyists was essential to the passage of legislation.  They wrote it; and they got it passed and their clients benefited; and somehow—by hook or by crook—the politicians benefited financially or in other ways.  It was dirty, but those participating simply looked the other way.

In short, the American people, God love them, are waking up bigtime to the mess that is Washington, D.C.—a corrupt, politically-polarized toxic city.  Throw in the present economic problems that this country has not experienced since the Great Depression, which will be with us through at least the end of this decade[5], as well as Obama’s no-win Afghan War and other national security worries[6], and he and his Democrats are potentially in for a very rough ride.  Like Lyndon Johnson in 1968, it is doubtful whether Obama will be able to run in 2012, much less be reelected.[7]

Noonan cites the role of women in the coming election, and the fact they are worried about how the economy has been taking an enormous toll on their families, which will only get much much worse.  She quotes Rep. Blackburn as saying: “I look at this year as the Rage of the Bill-Paying Moms.”  Amen to that too . . . or as Sarah Palin calls them: the “Mama Grizzlies.”  And most of us know that those who are wise never mess with a mother Grizzly.

The chickens are coming home to roost in America, at least economically and politically.  Hold on tight.  It is apt to get very ugly.[8]

© 2010, Timothy D. Naegele


[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass).  He practices law in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles with his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, which specializes in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (see www.naegele.com and http://www.naegele.com/naegele_resume.html).  He has an undergraduate degree in economics from UCLA, as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University.  He is a member of the District of Columbia and California bars.  He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal.  Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., http://www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[2] See http://www.naegele.com/documents/TheEnragedvs.theExhausted.pdf

[3] See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/09/are-afghanistan-iraq-and-pakistan-hopeless-and-is-the-spread-of-radical-islam-inevitable-and-is-barack-obama-finished-as-americas-president and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/26/obama-in-afghanistan-doomed-from-the-start/

[4] See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/the-rise-of-independents/

[5] See, e.g., http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/173_212/-365185-1.html and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/the-great-depression-ii and http://www.realclearpolitics.com/news/tms/politics/2009/Apr/08/euphoria_or_the_obama_depression_.html and http://www.philstockworld.com/2009/10/11/greenspan%E2%80%99s-legacy-more-suffering-to-come/

[6] See, e.g.https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/emp-attack-only-30-million-americans-survive/

[7] See, e.g.https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/09/are-afghanistan-iraq-and-pakistan-hopeless-and-is-the-spread-of-radical-islam-inevitable-and-is-barack-obama-finished-as-americas-president/ and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/the-speech—is-barack-obama-smoking-pot-again/ and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/the-end-of-barack-obama/ and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/barack-obama-america’s-second-emperor/ and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/26/obama-in-afghanistan-doomed-from-the-start/ and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/is-barack-obama-a-racist/

[8] The Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer has fine article about the Tea Party movement and the likely tsunami that will engulf Obama and the Democrats, which is worth reading too.  Among other things, he points out that in the bellwether state of Ohio, former President George W. Bush is preferred over Barack Obama by 50 percent to 42 percent.

See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/23/AR2010092304746.html and http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_OH_901.pdf


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24 09 2010
naegeleblog

Obama’s Democrat Faithful Are Losing Hope, Which Spells Trouble

The National Journal is reporting:

The artist whose poster of Barack Obama became a rallying image during the hope-and-change election of 2008 says he understands why so many people have lost faith.

In an exclusive interview with National Journal on Thursday, Shepard Fairey expressed his disappointment with the president—a malaise that seems representative of many Democrats who had great expectations for Obama.

. . .

Fairey . . . said it’s easy to see why young voters are down on Obama and the Democrats. He lamented that health care reform was watered down, Tea Party activists have been emboldened, and his man has fallen short on bold campaign promises like closing Guantanamo Bay.

“There’s a lot of stuff completely out of Obama’s control or any of the Democrats’ control,” Fairey allowed. “But I think there’s something a little deeper in terms of the optimism of the younger voter that’s happening. They wanted somebody who was going to fight against the status quo, and I don’t think that Obama has done that.”

. . . [Fairey] said that he couldn’t design the same Hope poster today, because the spirit of the Obama campaign hasn’t carried over to the Obama presidency.

See http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews_excl/ynews_excl_pl3712

Cracks in the support of the Obama faithful are emerging, which at the very least may create apathy in November, and as 2012 approaches. With the Republicans, Independents and Tea Partiers energized and moving against Obama, his agenda and the Democrat Party already, disenchanted Democrats may foreshadow deep and lasting problems for him.

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26 09 2010
naegeleblog

Rahm Emanuel Leads Exodus Of Obama Aides From White House

The UK’s Independent has an article about this subject.

See http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/rahm-emanuel-leading-exodus-of-obama-aides-from-white-house-2089118.html

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27 09 2010
Katherine

Sir,
This site is outstanding and your writing lucid, even with unlovely subjects. I look forward to learning more about you and your topics.
Katherine

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27 09 2010
naegeleblog

Thank you, Katherine. How nice of you to say that. 🙂

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29 09 2010
Katherine

Sir,

I had read you in between the demands of homework supervision, runs to Tae Kwon Do, and the creation of taco night.

I’ve now had time to read more, see your education and accomplishments, and I blush to think I had the temerity to call your writing lucid.

This site is like a treasure trove, and it seems to me a source of deep wisdom.

Thank you,

Katherine

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29 09 2010
naegeleblog

Thank you again, Katherine. You are very kind. 🙂

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15 10 2010
Tom

I believe that most of the dysfunction in Washington is due to the rise of careerism in politics – a problem the Founding Fathers never imagined.

The first priority of every career politician seems to be fund raising for re-election, since the candidate with the biggest war chest usually wins. The cost of campaigning for a Congressional seat has escalated tremendously, mainly because of the high cost of television ads. Serving the constituency is a distant second priority to coddling corporate contributions and attending fund-raisers.

I grow more and more cynical with age, I guess. But I now believe that all career politicians are self-serving opportunists whose basic ethic is ambition.

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15 10 2010
Timothy D. Naegele

Thank you, Tom, for your comments.

Many of our Founding Fathers were “career politicians” too. For example, you might wish to read the “Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson,” which describes his extraordinary life through his letters and the letters of others, lovingly assembled and edited by his great-granddaughter. While he did not always aspire to be a professional politician, the demands of America kept drawing him back to government service.

See, e.g., http://www.amazon.com/review/R151AWYWI4HEVW/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

Yes, I agree with you: the costs of elections have escalated; and many politicians at the federal level spend much of their time just trying to raise money, which obviously influences their decisions. I have often said that the lobbyists “run” Washington, and they do.

Lastly, many career politicians at the federal level are narcissists, and their actions are consistent with that.

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10 02 2011
Timothy D. Naegele

It Wasn’t The Fight Webb Dreaded; It Was The Prospect Of Another Victory—And Having To Spend Another Six-Year Term In The U.S. Senate

This is a political assessment of why Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) decided not to run for reelection. Having worked in the Senate for three and a half years, and having dealt with the Senate for many years after that, I understand.

Senators only have two basic duties: (1) make speeches, and (2) try to enact legislation. The speeches get tired after a while, very tiresome; and legislation is enacted, but seldom (if ever) is it taken off the books—long after it has outlived its usefulness.

Aside from that, senators have larger staffs than members of the House; however, the need to engage in fundraising to pay for vastly more expensive campaigns is almost endless. Many of them are forced to raise money year around, and it is not a lot of fun. I have helped raise money for Senate and House campaigns, and donated to them as well.

Lastly, as the article points out:

Webb personally warned President Obama that the all-out push for health-care reform would be “a disaster” for the party. Webb’s sort of Democrat fell from favor within the party during the course of one senatorial cycle, and became a vanishing breed by last November.

When Webb declared himself out of a re-election run, it was widely supposed that he had little chance of winning anyway. This is probably true. His likely opponent in 2012 would have been George Allen, who only narrowly lost to Webb in 2006 even after running a campaign that was a classic of self-immolation. But Webb’s closest friends believe that it wasn’t the fight Webb dreaded, it was the prospect of another victory—and having to spend another term in the Senate.

He loathed the elemental chore of incumbency—the endless fundraising loop—and was temperamentally ill-suited to the pace and grind of Senate work. . . . His closest pals weren’t Beltway pundits, or his political peers, but the remaining band of Vietnam buddies that still rally to his side when summoned (as he has always rallied to theirs).

See http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-02-10/jim-webbs-senate-career-ends-peter-j-boyer-on-the-real-reason/

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24 03 2011
Timothy D. Naegele

Former Aide To Sen. John Ensign Indicted By Feds

USA Today has reported:

The husband of Sen. John Ensign’s former mistress has been charged with violating federal conflict of interest laws.

The U.S. Justice Department announced today that Douglas Hampton, a former top aide to the GOP senator, has been indicted on seven counts. The charges stem from violations of congressional rules that bar Senate employees from lobbying their ex-colleagues for one year after they stop working for Congress.

Ensign, who recently announced he would not seek another term next year, has been investigated by federal prosecutors and the Senate Ethics Committee for actions stemming from his affair with Hampton’s wife, Cynthia. Prosecutors said in December they would not charge Ensign for his role in helping Douglas Hampton obtain lobbying work.

The senator, once considered a rising GOP star, admitted in June 2009 of having the extramarital affair with Cynthia Hampton, who at the time worked for his campaign. Ensign also admitted that his parents gave the Hamptons $96,000 as a gift in April 2008.

Douglas Hampton was off Ensign’s Senate payroll as of April 30 that year. The indictment, handed down Thursday by a grand jury in the District of Columbia, alleges that Hampton represented an airline and energy company before Ensign’s Senate office as the two entities tried to get help from the federal Departments of Transportation and Interior.

The lobbying rules in Congress are aimed at slowing down what is known as the “revolving door” between working on Capitol Hill and working as a lobbyist, where one is paid to peddle influence.

Ensign is still the subject of the Senate ethics inquiry because he’ll remain[] in Congress until his term ends in January 2013. Hampton recently called on Ensign to “resign immediately” and spare his family from any further investigation.

The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said it is an “outrage” that the Justice Department would charge Hampton and not Ensign.

See http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/03/john-ensign-affair-senate-criminal-charges-/1

How outrageous is this! Ensign beds his aide’s wife, and the aide gets indicted while Ensign gets off scot free. This is how Washington works—which is among the many reasons why its “sickness” knows no bounds.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is correct that it is an “outrage.”

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8 06 2011
Liz

Dear Sir – I was directed here by the Daily Mail. I thank you so much for spotlighting this plague. No, I am not some raging teabagger, but a young, pretty cool female in her 20’s working in LA, who spent a semester in DC and was sickened by what I saw.

I actually lived with my (now ex) boyfriend for the 3 months I was there. We basically broke up because he changed from being a moralistic, altruistic, wonderful guy (he’s originally from North Carolina), into a chidlish, hormonal womanising a-hole (sorry to curse) and when I confronted him, told me that the *very prominent* congressman he worked for basically encouraged all his male staff to “think Clinton” and “go out there and get as much a** as possible”. Those were the exact words he used. I also witnessed many of the same situations you described above; and most of my peers, in one way or another, succumbed to the pressures of the older guys they were working for. I was fortunate enough to work for a really great lobbying group, staffed mostly by females.

Again, I’m not a prude – I was just hoping to get a little mileage out of the MPA I worked hard to achieve before heading back home. I’ve been pretty scarred by the sodom and gomorrah style happenings I witnessed and I just hope to God that something can be done about all of this soon, before we become the laughing stock of the world (like we’re not already!).

Best wishes, thank you for your blog and I respect your intelligence and wisdom.
-Liz

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8 06 2011
Timothy D. Naegele

Thank you, Liz, for your thoughtful and very important comments. I appreciate them greatly.

First, I am sorry that you experienced what you did. It never should have happened, period.

Second, what happens to young women on Capitol Hill should not occur at all. As stated in my article above:

When I left Capitol Hill after working there for three and a half years, there was one four-letter word that stood out in my mind, and it still does today: “S-I-C-K.” I vowed that neither of my kids would ever work there. I had seen raving narcissists and demagogues who were not nice people—and equaled or surpassed those in Hollywood where I had grown up.

Third, I am glad that you “survived” intact. I am only sorry that “most of [your] peers, in one way or another, succumbed to the pressures of the older guys they were working for.” My concern is that such experiences will scar them for life, because I have seen it happen to others. The women are used, abused, rejected and scarred.

Fourth, you ask how to prevent it, which is the key question. The only way, in my judgment, is to “tar and feather” the perpetrators, such as Congressman Anthony Weiner. He should be forced to resign from the Congress; and he should be indicted and serve time in prison. He has admitted what he has done, at least partially; however, much more will come out, I am sure—unless it is hidden from public view.

See, e.g., http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2000462/Anthony-Weiners-toe-curling-1996-interview-Cosmopolitan-revealed.html and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2000004/Anthony-Weiner-Twitter-crotch-shot-student-Gennette-Cordova-denies-affair.html and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1395011/Megan-Broussard-reveals-Anthony-Weiner-pursued-Facebook.html and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1395043/Sextee-1-The-40-year-old-Las-Vegas-blackjack-dealer-Anthony-Weiner-sent-explicit-messages-NINE-MONTHS.html and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1395041/Anthony-Weiner-Shamed-congressman-clings-opposition-calls-resignation.html and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2000386/Anthony-Weiner-scandal-2-women-claim-used-Capitol-assets-sexting.html and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1395049/Anthony-Weiner-Scandal-finally-overcomes-Weiners-wife-stand–NOT-humiliating-confession.html and http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/can_afford_to_quit_the_dc_day_job_bW10b5FRwsvEJxDTyi7MYI and http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304259304576378321851043768.html

Weiner’s actions must not be swept under the rug, as his colleagues on Capitol Hill may be prone to do. Only by criminalizing his conduct—and that of others—will it come to an end. Where are the women’s rights groups that should be calling for tough action against Weiner, and an end to such deplorable conduct? Their silence is deafening.

Fifth, “Weinergate” must be brought to a screeching halt. Like so many other spouses of our elected officials on Capitol Hill—and other powerful people in Washington—Weiner’s wife Huma Abedin is a victim too. However, lots of them know exactly what is happening, and they strike a “bargain with the Devil” because there are perks that come with power. Hillary Clinton made such a bargain; and it is somewhat surprising that such people can live with themselves.

See, e.g., http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304432304576372081387279732.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond#articleTabs%3Darticle (“A Private Life, Tested”)

Sixth, it is small wonder that such conduct continues when apologists abound. For example, one commenter has written:

Tim, I used to WORK on the hill…so none of this is new to me. Shenanigans, personal and political, have been going on since the first Constitutional Convention.

I think you have an unrealistic MORAL expectation of our leaders. I don’t. Half the congressmen I dealt with daily had side coochy, and most of their wives knew it. The wives are every bit the political creatures their husbands are, and the Faustian bargain with most of them is…”don’t get caught publicly and embarrass me. Be discreet!”

In return, the wives get invited to the right Washington parties and get nice write-ups in [the Washington Post]. In essence, [they] advance up the social pecking order as their husband advances in power. Many are lawyers, and get cushy gigs in [l]obbying firms and think tanks.

Personally, I couldn’t care less what these people do on their personal time, as long as they adhere to the Constitutional principles on which this country was founded. Needless to say, until the Tea Party came along, even the Republicans weren’t doing that. It just looks to me that you are more outraged at the moral lapse than any legal failings which, if they find any, will be miniscule at best.

Sad, and very tragic. Acceptance of the “sickness” in Washington—and Hollywood, and elsewhere in the world—will never change the culture.

Seventh, another commenter has written:

You make it sound like [Weiner] killed somebody. We don’t need to spend millions investigating some old perv having cyber-sex.

I understand such feelings; however, Americans like this one need to realize that our elected officials such as Weiner—and others in positions of power globally, who misuse their power—”kill” the human spirit, confidence and well-being of their “victims,” just as surely as if they had been killed physically. I have seen it happen. Such problems have been allowed to fester far too long already; and action is needed now, not just in the United States but in other countries where it takes place on a daily basis.

See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/28/human-trafficking/ (“Human Trafficking”) (see also the footnotes and comments beneath the article) and http://www.economist.com/node/18805463

Lastly, hang in there. There are nice and principled people in Washington too, and many of them are my friends.

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12 06 2011
Liz

Thank you Sir. The Anthony Weiner saga has left me feeling sick to my stomach, I don’t care that this guy has nothing to fall back on. He can take out student loans, go back to grad school and try and spend the rest of his life trying to eek out some admirable qualities to make up for his total hubris.

Enjoying your column.

Best
Liz

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12 06 2011
Timothy D. Naegele

Thank you again, Liz, for your comments.

Yes, I agree completely. By exposing Weiner, and making him pay with his career, it will send a message loud and clear to others in Congress—and elsewhere in Washington, Hollywood, and other centers and positions of power—that enough is enough. The chickens are coming home to roost.

Unless this is done, the “sickness” will continue and never end. I have seen it, you have, and concrete steps must be taken now to prevent it from happening in the future.

. . .

As I have said before, there are lots of nice and principled people in Washington too. Indeed, having worked on Capitol Hill and with those on Capitol Hill for many years, I would be remiss if I did not add that there are many fine and wonderful people working there. They are not like Weiner, but come to work each and every day and try to make this country better. They are idealistic and very talented—some of the brightest and most dedicated people in politics today, and in this country, from both political parties and other political persuasions (e.g., Independents)—and they are not caught up in this “sickness.”

Those who are “sick” need to be rooted out. This is why it is so important to make Weiner a “poster boy” for these issues, and force him to resign.

. . .

Again, hang in there, Liz, and keep the faith.

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13 06 2011
Timothy D. Naegele

The American Political System Is Wonderful

The American people are wiser than they are given credit for—certainly by those people in other countries—and our political system works more brilliantly than most people believe it does.

See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/america-a-rich-tapestry-of-life/ (“America: A Rich Tapestry Of Life”) (see also the footnotes and comments beneath the article)

We elected Barack Obama, whom lots of Americans hate today; and before him, we elected George W. Bush whom people hated too. He was preceded by Bill Clinton, whom people tried to impeach and remove from the presidency. Lyndon Johnson was hated too, and he was followed by Richard Nixon who was hated and forced to resign.

Clearly, our political system has “checks and balances,” and we elect presidents and then throw them out of office. Lyndon Johnson could not run for reelection; and it is not inconceivable that the same thing might happen to Barack Obama between now and next year’s elections.

We veer from conservatism to liberalism, and then back again. Reaganism was followed by Bill Clinton’s liberalism, which was followed by George W. Bush’s conservatism . . . and then by Obama’s liberalism.

MSNBC has reported:

In an exclusive interview with TODAY’s Ann Curry that will air on Tuesday’s show, President Barack Obama said that if he were Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner right now, he would resign in the wake of the scandal in which Weiner admitted to sending explicit photos of himself to women online.

“I can tell you that if it was me, I would resign,’’ Obama told Curry.

See http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43385259/ns/today-today_news; see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-1635 and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-1636 and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-1643 and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-1644

As with this issue and so many others, Obama is America’s “Hamlet” on the Potomac. He is betwixt and between, unable to do what is right. He should be calling for Weiner’s immediate resignation in no uncertain terms on moral grounds, just as Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer—the Democrats’ No. 1 and 2 leaders in the House—and other party leaders have done.

See, e.g., http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2003475/Anthony-Weiner-fate-decided-Democrats-Huma-Abedin-flies-in.html (“‘You MUST go’: Pelosi repeats calls for Weiner’s resignation as wife flies in to confront errant husband”)

Instead, Obama equivocates. We can only assume that if he finds himself in a comparable or similar situation, he will do the honorable thing and resign like Richard Nixon did. Indeed, at some point in the future, he may be tested. Also, there is the possibility that Obama might not run for reelection, just as Lyndon Johnson decided during the Vietnam War.

Obama is in the midst of four wars, and an economic depression; and it is not beyond the pale to believe that he is reviewing internal polling that paints a bleak picture of the campaign ahead—or other factors might influence his decision not to run. If so, he will likely retreat to either Chicago or Hawaii prior to January of 2013, to write his memoirs and work full time on his golf scores and presidential library.

See, e.g., http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/de-Borchgrave/2011/06/13/Commentary-Half-pregnant-strategy/UPI-97361307964099/ (“Today, President Obama has got the United States involved in four wars: Afghanistan, Iraq (where U.S. troops are still being killed), Libya and Yemen (where the confusion of a civil war gave U.S. drones open skies to target al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula)”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/barack-obama-is-a-lame-duck-president-who-will-not-be-reelected/#comment-1637 (“CNN Poll: Obama Approval Rating Drops As Fears Of Depression Rise”)

Indeed, the Associated Press has reported:

President Barack Obama says his wife and daughters aren’t “invested” in him being president and would have been fine had he decided against running for re-election. But he says they believe in what he’s doing for the country.

Asked about his family’s reaction to his wanting another term, Obama said: “Michelle and the kids are wonderful in that if I said, `You know, guys, I want to do something different,’ They’d be fine. They’re not invested in daddy being president or my husband being president.”

He says first lady Michelle Obama would be the first one to encourage him to do something “a little less stressful” if she no longer thought that what they were doing was worthwhile for the country.

See http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110614/ap_on_re_us/us_obama_family_1 (“Obama: My family would be fine with just 1 term”)

Stay tuned, as the American saga continues . . .

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28 07 2011
Timothy D. Naegele

46 Percent Of Likely U.S. Voters View Most Members Of Congress As Corrupt, And Obama Is Fading

Bravo! The American people are wiser than our politicians give them credit for being. When this number becomes closer to 100 percent, their collective wisdom will know no bounds!

The highly-respected Rasmussen polling organization has found:

Voters are more convinced than ever that most congressmen are crooks.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 46% of Likely U.S. Voters now view most members of Congress as corrupt. That’s up seven points from June and the highest finding yet recorded. Just 29% think most members are not corrupt, and another 25% are not sure. . . .

Similarly, a whopping 85% of voters think most members of Congress are more interested in helping their own careers than in helping other people. That’s a record high for surveys stretching back to early November 2006. Only seven percent (7%) believe most of the legislators are more interested in helping others.

These findings come at a time when voter approval of the job Congress is doing has fallen to a new low. Just six percent (6%) of voters now rate Congress’ performance as good or excellent. Sixty-one percent (61%) think the national legislators are doing a poor job.

Rasmussen Reports has asked these questions monthly since June 2008 and sporadically before that.

While some believe that people hate Congress in general but love their own representative, just 31% believe their own representative is the best person for the job. Most think it’s at least somewhat likely that their own representative trades votes for cash.

. . .

Most voters don’t care much for the way either party is performing in the federal debt ceiling debate. The majority of voters are worried the final deal will raise taxes too much and won’t cut spending enough. Just 23% of Adults are at least somewhat confident that U.S. policymakers know what they’re doing when it comes to addressing the nation’s current economic problems.

. . .

Voters trust the GOP more on nine of 10 issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports including the economy, taxes, health care and national security.

Republicans lead Democrats again this week on the Generic Congressional Ballot as they have every week since June 2009.

Voters under 50 believe much more strongly than their elders that most members of Congress are corrupt. Union members share that view more than those who are not unionized.

See http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/july_2011/new_high_46_think_most_in_congress_are_corrupt (emphasis added)

Also, Barack Obama’s popularity has been plummeting, which reflects wisdom on the part of the American people too. He is an unmitigated disaster, a raving narcissist and demagogue, America’s “Hamlet on the Potomac” and “Jimmy Carter-lite,” who will not be reelected. He is perhaps the most arrogant, corrupt president of our lifetimes; and this country cannot endure four more years of his presidency or the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate.

See, https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/barack-obama-is-a-lame-duck-president-who-will-not-be-reelected/#comment-1740 (“Obama’s Support Crumbles”) (see also the article itself, as well as the footnotes and other comments beneath it); see also http://people-press.org/2011/07/28/obama-loses-ground-in-2012-reelection-bid/ (Pew Poll: Obama Blows Huge Lead; Independent Voters Abandon Him) and http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/28/african-american-middle-class-eroding-as-unemployment-rate-soars/?test=latestnews (“African-American Middle Class Eroding As Unemployment Rate Soars”—”It’s the Great Depression”) and http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/jul/01/vice-president-joe-biden-visits-las-vegas-looking-/ (“A Magellan poll . . . showed 53 percent of Nevadans were unhappy with Obama’s tenure so far”)

. . .

Last but by no means least, Nancy Pelosi—who as the House Speaker was responsible for enacting Barack Obama’s wasteful so-called “Stimulus Package” that drove up this nation’s debt, which is why there is a debt crisis today, and was responsible for enacting ObamaCare too, which is an “Obamination” of the worst magnitude—had the supreme gall to state:

What we’re trying to do is save the world from the Republican budget. We’re trying to save life on this planet as we know it today.

See http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/pelosis-reactionary-liberalism_577709.html

Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Obama are the “poster children” for what is wrong with America today.

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14 08 2011
Timothy D. Naegele

Serving On A Board Of Directors Can Be A Thankless And Brutal Experience

USA Today has reported about the political infighting and rifts within the board of directors at the acclaimed Betty Ford Center for the treatment of drug and alcohol addiction in Rancho Mirage, California.

The former First Lady’s daughter was ousted from her leadership position with the board, and resigned entirely; financial support has stopped from some of the Center’s long-time contributors; the former First Lady’s wishes for the Center’s future are being disputed; and chaos seems to be engulfing the organization as its competitors broaden their reach geographically, and as the national economy falters. None of this bodes well for the Center’s future.

See http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-08-14-betty-ford-treatment-center-funding_n.htm and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/the-economic-tsunami-continues-its-relentless-and-unforgiving-advance-globally/ (see also the footnotes and comments beneath the article)

Having served on several boards of directors, I vowed that I would never serve on another one. The “cat-fighting” and internal politics often make the most Machiavellian politics of Washington, D.C. seem like child’s play.

Egos and factions and power grabs seem to be the norm. Indeed, often the boards members are more interested in their power and positions, and the perks of being board members, than they are in advancing the worthy goals of the organization.

Many of us have found that it is a thankless job. More importantly, for those who serve on the boards of financial institutions and other large organizations, legal liability can attach to their decisions; and this alone can be brutal unless there are Directors and Officers Liability Insurance (“D&O”) policies in place that provide adequate coverage against costly litigation.

If asked today by a client about serving on a board, my gut reaction would be “no, don’t do it,” which is sad.

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16 08 2011
Timothy D. Naegele

When A Giant Named Senator Bill Walked Through Washington

William Proxmire

Having “trashed” our great nation’s capital and its politicians in the article above, and in many other writings that appear at this blog, I found it refreshing to reread what I wrote in January of 2006, as a tribute to former U.S. Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin. The article is not important because I wrote it, but rather because of the man whom it described.

I believe its contents are important enough to be read and reread by those who are interested in American government and politics at their best, devoid of the anger and hatreds that seem to dominate and mar public discourse today. Proxmire stood out, and he was special in an age when most politicians “blend in” or disappear, or are remembered for their rancor or petty partisan ways.

A few brief excerpts are worth mentioning, which hopefully will entice you to read more:

The likes of Bill Proxmire seldom pass through Washington—bringing to mind the honesty and decency of Abe Lincoln.

. . .

I probably learned more about the decency of American politics from Proxmire than anyone else. Even though he was a Democrat, he worked with legislators on both sides of the aisle, bringing civility and forging bipartisan alliances that got things done. He was at the opposite end of the spectrum from the partisan fire-eaters of today, who seem never to have met a member of the other party whom they truly like or respect.

. . .

In his last two campaigns of 1976 and 1982, it is reported that he refused to take any campaign contributions and spent less than $200 on each, out of his own pocket, to cover the costs of filing for reelection.

. . .

He championed the “little guy” on Capitol Hill, which is overrun by high-paid lobbyists representing every conceivable type of special interest.

. . .

[H]e was not the product of pollsters or teams of slick advisers; and he was not a demagogue like so many of today’s politicians.

I came to Capitol Hill as a Democrat, and later became a Republican and then an Independent. In many ways, Proxmire was the quintessential independent who marched to a different drummer.

See http://www.naegele.com/documents/AGiantHasLeftUs.pdf; see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Proxmire and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/ and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/the-rise-of-independents/

Lastly, to be totally accurate, Senator Bill seldom “walked through Washington.” He literally jogged to work, and was always on the move. 🙂

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16 08 2011
SMILIN' JACK SEZ

You hit the nail right on the head perfectly with this piece. Here’s hoping you will take up the discussion of how we can draft individuals like Senator Bill into the political arena, and save our country before Obama wins another term.

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16 08 2011
Timothy D. Naegele

Thank you, Jack, for your comments.

First, I do not believe Obama will be reelected. The handwriting is on the wall . . . unless the GOP blows next year’s elections, like it did the lame duck session of Congress last year.

See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/barack-obama-is-a-lame-duck-president-who-will-not-be-reelected/#comment-1801 (“Obama Sinks To New Lows”) (see also the article itself, as well as the footnotes and other comments beneath it)

Second, Bill Proxmire was a rare human being. However, there are other people like him out there. Some have been turned off by the system, but others will decide to run, and get elected, and serve their country. I might name some new names in the Congress, but I will refrain from doing so, because they have not been “tested” yet.

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7 10 2011
Vickie

I like this blog, because you say what you really believe. It is rare in today’s newspaper articles. I thought I’d join one just to make comments, but soon discovered that you can’t say anything in the least bit rude, or they will not post your comments. I didn’t do anything worse than our government has, but I’m learning that freedom of speech is pretty much gone in this day and time.
😦

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7 10 2011
Timothy D. Naegele

Thank you, Vickie, for your kind and thoughtful comments.

Yes, of course you are correct. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal is a prime example of such practices. If one does not hew to its “party line,” one’s comments are eradicated.

Freedom of speech is wonderful, and I salute you. 🙂

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9 02 2013
Timothy D. Naegele

When Will Obama Fall?

Obama and rifle

In an article entitled, “With Plea Deal, Jesse Jackson Jr.’s Fall From Grace Seems Complete,” Newsweek‘s John Avlon writes:

Former Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. agreed Friday to plead guilty to charges of misusing campaign funds, in an apparent bid to an end a federal investigation that threatens to also implicate his wife, former Chicago Alderman Sandi Jackson. Both had resigned their offices in recent months, reportedly as part of the congressman’s negotiations with prosecutors.

. . .

The Jackson dynasty appears to be done.

. . .

[Jackson Jr.] resigned two weeks after Election Day. His wife, a city alderman, resigned her office in January after the Chicago Sun Times raised questions about her use of campaign funds from her husband’s congressional accounts, including a $5,000 monthly consulting salary, credit-card charges and the moving of money between accounts.

This practice is apparently epidemic in the corruption-plagued Land of Lincoln.

. . .

Some swamps take a long time to drain. Stunningly, three current members of the Illinois state legislature were sworn in this year despite facing criminal charges, ranging from bribery to bank fraud.

See http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/08/with-plea-deal-jesse-jackson-jr-s-fall-from-grace-seems-complete.html; see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/barack-obama-is-a-lame-duck-president-who-will-not-be-reelected/#comment-2315 (“Will Obama ‘Unravel’ Like Nixon Did?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/ (“Washington Is Sick And The American People Know It”)

Barack Obama is an integral part of the same corrupt Chicago culture.

See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/is-barack-obama-a-racist/

When will the Obama “swamp” be drained, and how complete will be his fall from grace?

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27 09 2013
Timothy D. Naegele

The Surface Of Corruption In Washington Has Barely Been Scratched

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author Seymour Hersh is at it again, thank God!

In a riveting talk at the City University in London, which has been reported in the UK’s Guardian, Hersh opens up:

Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism—close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider.

It doesn’t take much to fire up Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been the nemesis of US presidents since the 1960s and who was once described by the Republican party as “the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist”.

He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth.

Don’t even get him started on the New York Times which, he says, spends “so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would”—or the death of Osama bin Laden. “Nothing’s been done about that story, it’s one big lie, not one word of it is true,” he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011.

Hersh is writing a book about national security and has devoted a chapter to the bin Laden killing. He says a recent report put out by an “independent” Pakistani commission about life in the Abottabad compound in which Bin Laden was holed up would not stand up to scrutiny. “The Pakistanis put out a report, don’t get me going on it. Let’s put it this way, it was done with considerable American input. It’s a bullshit report,” he says hinting of revelations to come in his book.

The Obama administration lies systematically, he claims, yet none of the leviathans of American media, the TV networks or big print titles, challenge him.

“It’s pathetic, they are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama],” he declares in an interview with the Guardian.

“It used to be when you were in a situation when something very dramatic happened, the president and the minions around the president had control of the narrative, you would pretty much know they would do the best they could to tell the story straight. Now that doesn’t happen any more. Now they take advantage of something like that and they work out how to re-elect the president.

He isn’t even sure if the recent revelations about the depth and breadth of surveillance by the National Security Agency will have a lasting effect.

Snowden changed the debate on surveillance

He is certain that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden “changed the whole nature of the debate” about surveillance. Hersh says he and other journalists had written about surveillance, but Snowden was significant because he provided documentary evidence—although he is sceptical about whether the revelations will change the US government’s policy.

“Duncan Campbell [the British investigative journalist who broke the Zircon cover-up story], James Bamford [US journalist] and Julian Assange and me and the New Yorker, we’ve all written the notion there’s constant surveillance, but he [Snowden] produced a document and that changed the whole nature of the debate, it’s real now,” Hersh says.

“Editors love documents. Chicken-shit editors who wouldn’t touch stories like that, they love documents, so he changed the whole ball game,” he adds, before qualifying his remarks.

“But I don’t know if it’s going to mean anything in the long [run] because the polls I see in America—the president can still say to voters ‘al-Qaida, al-Qaida’ and the public will vote two to one for this kind of surveillance, which is so idiotic,” he says.

Holding court to a packed audience at City University in London’s summer school on investigative journalism, 76-year-old Hersh is on full throttle, a whirlwind of amazing stories of how journalism used to be; how he exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, how he got the Abu Ghraib pictures of American soldiers brutalising Iraqi prisoners, and what he thinks of Edward Snowden.

Hope of redemption

Despite his concern about the timidity of journalism he believes the trade still offers hope of redemption.

“I have this sort of heuristic view that journalism, we possibly offer hope because the world is clearly run by total nincompoops more than ever . . . Not that journalism is always wonderful, it’s not, but at least we offer some way out, some integrity.”

His story of how he uncovered the My Lai atrocity is one of old-fashioned shoe-leather journalism and doggedness. Back in 1969, he got a tip about a 26-year-old platoon leader, William Calley, who had been charged by the army with alleged mass murder.

Instead of picking up the phone to a press officer, he got into his car and started looking for him in the army camp of Fort Benning in Georgia, where he heard he had been detained. From door to door he searched the vast compound, sometimes blagging his way, marching up to the reception, slamming his fist on the table and shouting: “Sergeant, I want Calley out now.”

Eventually his efforts paid off with his first story appearing in the St Louis Post-Despatch, which was then syndicated across America and eventually earned him the Pulitzer Prize. “I did five stories. I charged $100 for the first, by the end the [New York] Times were paying $5,000.”

He was hired by the New York Times to follow up the Watergate scandal and ended up hounding Nixon over Cambodia. Almost 30 years later, Hersh made global headlines all over again with his exposure of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Put in the hours

For students of journalism his message is put the miles and the hours in. He knew about Abu Ghraib five months before he could write about it, having been tipped off by a senior Iraqi army officer who risked his own life by coming out of Baghdad to Damascus to tell him how prisoners had been writing to their families asking them to come and kill them because they had been “despoiled”.

“I went five months looking for a document, because without a document, there’s nothing there, it doesn’t go anywhere.”

Hersh returns to US president Barack Obama. He has said before that the confidence of the US press to challenge the US government collapsed post 9/11, but he is adamant that Obama is worse than Bush.

“Do you think Obama’s been judged by any rational standards? Has Guantanamo closed? Is a war over? Is anyone paying any attention to Iraq? Is he seriously talking about going into Syria? We are not doing so well in the 80 wars we are in right now, what the hell does he want to go into another one for. What’s going on [with journalists]?” he asks.

He says investigative journalism in the US is being killed by the crisis of confidence, lack of resources and a misguided notion of what the job entails.

“Too much of it seems to me is looking for prizes. It’s journalism looking for the Pulitzer Prize,” he adds. “It’s a packaged journalism, so you pick a target like—I don’t mean to diminish because anyone who does it works hard—but are railway crossings safe and stuff like that, that’s a serious issue but there are other issues too.

“Like killing people, how does [Obama] get away with the drone programme, why aren’t we doing more? How does he justify it? What’s the intelligence? Why don’t we find out how good or bad this policy is? Why do newspapers constantly cite the two or three groups that monitor drone killings. Why don’t we do our own work?

“Our job is to find out ourselves, our job is not just to say – here’s a debate’ our job is to go beyond the debate and find out who’s right and who’s wrong about issues. That doesn’t happen enough. It costs money, it costs time, it jeopardises, it raises risks. There are some people—the New York Times still has investigative journalists but they do much more of carrying water for the president than I ever thought they would . . . it’s like you don’t dare be an outsider any more.”

He says in some ways President George Bush’s administration was easier to write about. “The Bush era, I felt it was much easier to be critical than it is [of] Obama. Much more difficult in the Obama era,” he said.

Asked what the solution is Hersh warms to his theme that most editors are pusillanimous and should be fired.

“I’ll tell you the solution, get rid of 90% of the editors that now exist and start promoting editors that you can’t control,” he says. I saw it in the New York Times, I see people who get promoted are the ones on the desk who are more amenable to the publisher and what the senior editors want and the trouble makers don’t get promoted. Start promoting better people who look you in the eye and say ‘I don’t care what you say’.

Nor does he understand why the Washington Post held back on the Snowden files until it learned the Guardian was about to publish.

If Hersh was in charge of US Media Inc, his scorched earth policy wouldn’t stop with newspapers.

“I would close down the news bureaus of the networks and let’s start all over, tabula rasa. The majors, NBCs, ABCs, they won’t like this—just do something different, do something that gets people mad at you, that’s what we’re supposed to be doing,” he says.

Hersh is currently on a break from reporting, working on a book which undoubtedly will make for uncomfortable reading for both Bush and Obama.

“The republic’s in trouble, we lie about everything, lying has become the staple.” And he implores journalists to do something about it.

See http://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2013/sep/27/seymour-hersh-obama-nsa-american-media (emphasis added); see also http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2436610/Pathetic-Award-winning-journalist-Seymour-Hersh-slams-American-press-challenging-US-governments-LIES-Bin-Laden-raid.html (“Not ONE word of official account of raid that killed Bin Laden is true, claims award-winning journalist Seymour Hersh“)

Among other things, Hersh laid bare the myths about John F. Kennedy—the most despicable president in American history—and his “Camelot” for the world to see.

See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/john-f-kennedy-the-most-despicable-president-in-american-history/

Hersh tells it like it is, not the sugar-coated pablum that comes out of Washington today, to be consumed by Americans and the world.

In the event that people have failed to notice, Americans have collective wisdom, and they have awakened to the mess that is Washington—brought to us principally by Obama and his “evil” Democrats, and their counterparts in the media.

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4 05 2014
Timothy D. Naegele

Nero And The Merriment In Washington

Obama at Washington Correspondents Dinner

It is impossible to watch any segments of the White House Correspondents Dinner last night, or read reports about it in the media, without thinking back to other dinners in history.

Surely Nero entertained lavishly for those in his favor, all the while that Rome was burning. The frivolity and merrymaking must have matched or surpassed that of Washington’s elite.

They salute each other as gods and mini-gods, all the while Russia’s dictator-for-life Putin is carving up Ukraine. First, it was Georgia and the killing of Georgians. Then it was Crimea, taken without a shot. Now it is more of Ukraine, taken by the vicious Putin’s thugs in unmarked uniforms, posing as separatists and freedom-loving democrats.

How Herren Hitler and Stalin must be rejoicing somewhere, and complimenting each other for having taught Putin so well as a KGB operative in the DDR, or East Germany. How his anger and hatred must have risen exponentially with the Soviet Union’s collapse, and the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall.

Those who fawned over Barack Obama last night are the moral equivalents of those who fawned over Nero, Hitler and Stalin on other festive occasions. People will die in Ukraine, just as they died in Georgia, and as they died under the boots of Hitler and Stalin’s forces, while the “leadership” regaled each other.

There is something very sick in Washington today, just as there was in Rome, Berlin and Moscow. Merriment was in full bloom among the narcissists and demagogues, as the “people” were dying and suffering. George Orwell might have written a sequel to his “Animal Farm,” based on the “pigs” of today.

They fiddle while Ukraine and Syria burn, and while Afghanistan and Iraq descend back into chaos. People are starving in America, and a record number are not working. Our health care system has been replaced and devastated by Obamacare, which will hurt vast numbers of Americans and shorten their lives.

All of this is occurring with almost three long years remaining of the Obama presidency. Our great nation’s founders must be aghast at what has been unfolding in the country that they birthed and loved so much. Tears must be shed and shed again over what Washington has become.

Somehow, someway, we must hope and pray that the courageous Ukrainians triumph over the deadly Putin, at the very least.

See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/russias-putin-is-a-killer/#comment-4010

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5 01 2015
Timothy D. Naegele

The End Of Hillary Clinton’s Quest For The Presidency?

Bill Clinton and prostitutes

[Photo in Daily Mail article with Bill Clinton entitled: “Latest ladies: Clinton was pictured posing for a photo with Barbie Girl (left) and Ava Adora (right), two known prostitutes who work at the Bunny Brothel in Nevada”]

The UK’s Daily Mail has a fascinating article about Bill Clinton’s sexual escapades:

A new lawsuit has revealed the extent of former President Clinton’s friendship with a fundraiser who was later jailed for having sex with an underage prostitute.

Bill Clinton’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who served time in 2008 for his illegal sexual partners, included up multiple trips to the onetime billionaire’s private island in the Caribbean where underage girls were allegedly kept as sex slaves.

The National Enquirer has released new details about the two men’s friendship, which seems to have ended abruptly around the time of Epstein’s arrest.

Tales of orgies and young girls being shipped to the island, called Little St. James, have been revealed as part of an ongoing lawsuit between Epstein and his former lawyers Scott Rothstein and Bradley Edwards.

It is unclear what the basis of the suit is, but they go on to call witness testimony from some of the frequent guests at Epstein’s island to talk about the wild parties that were held there in the early 2000s.

Flight logs pinpoint Clinton’s trips on Epstein’s jet between the years 2002 and 2005, while he was working on his philanthropic post-presidential career and while his wife Hillary was a Senator for their adopted state of New York.

‘I remember asking Jeffrey what’s Bill Clinton doing here kind [of] thing, and he laughed it off and said well he owes me a favor,’ one unidentified woman said in the lawsuit, which was filed in Palm Beach Circuit Court.

The woman went on to say how orgies were a regular occurrence and she recalled two young girls from New York who were always seen around the five-house compound but their personal backstories were never revealed.

At least one woman on the compound was there unwillingly, as the suit identifies a woman as Jane Doe 102.

She ‘was forced to live as one of Epstein’s underage sex slaves for years and was forced to have sex with… politicians, businessmen, royalty, academicians, etc,’ the lawsuit says according to The Enquirer.

Epstein’s sexual exploits have been documented since 2005, when a woman in Palm Beach contacted police saying that her 14-year-old daughter had been paid $300 to massage him and then have sex.

The claim prompted a nearly year-long investigation that led to the eventual charge of soliciting prostitution which came as part of a plea deal. He spent 13 months of a 18-month sentence in jail and remains a registered sex offender.

Several of his famous friends cut ties- including Clinton and then-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer who returned his campaign donations- but not all of them: Prince Andrew reportedly stayed at Epstein’s mansion in New York in 2010, months after he was released from jail.

Clinton’s connection to Epstein, who worked as a financier and education philanthropist before more than 40 women came forward with claims about him being a sexual predator, has been long-established, but The Enquirer also tells how the former president was also friends with some of Epstein’s seedy acquaintances.

The lawsuit claims that Clinton was friends with an unnamed woman who ‘kept images of naked underage children on her computer, helped to recruit underage children for Epstein… and photographed underage females in sexually explicit poses’.

While he cut off ties with Epstein, this woman’s abuses apparently did not end their relationship as she was reportedly one of the 400 guests at Chelsea Clinton’s 2010 wedding.

Though the lawsuit may be bringing up sexual skeleton’s from Clinton’s past, he has added to the drama of late by posing for a photo with two known prostitutes at a fundraiser in Los Angeles last month.

The drama of his extramarital affairs is apparently just one concern for Clinton family loyalists, as a Wall Street Journal article released today details how.

‘I’m not in the political camp; I’m in the friends camp. And the friends camp definitely has concerns about her running,’ the former Secretary of State’s friend Linda Bloodworth-Thomason told the paper.

See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2584309/Bill-Clinton-identified-lawsuit-against-former-friend-pedophile-Jeffrey-Epstein-regular-orgies-Caribbean-compound-former-president-visited-multiple-times.html (“Bill Clinton identified in lawsuit against his former friend and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein who had ‘regular’ orgies at his Caribbean compound that the former president visited multiple times”) (emphasis added); see also http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303287804579447503174026472 (“Hillary Clinton’s Circle Isn’t Sure She Should Run for President in 2016”) (see also list of suspicious Clinton deaths provided by Wall Street Journal commenter)

Will Bubba Clinton’s involvement be the final nail in the Clinton legacy, and derail Hillary’s candidacy once and for all?

Stay tuned . . .

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13 03 2015
Timothy D. Naegele
Clinton Fatigue [UPDATED] The Washington Post‘s Charles Krauthammer has written:
She burned the tapes. Had Richard Nixon burned his tapes, he would have survived Watergate. Sure, there would have been a major firestorm, but no smoking gun. Hillary Rodham was a young staffer on the House Judiciary Committee investigating Nixon. She saw. She learned. Today you don’t burn tapes. You delete e-mails. Hillary Clinton deleted 30,000, dismissing their destruction with the brilliantly casual: “I didn’t see any reason to keep them.” After all, they were private and personal, she assured everyone. How do we know that? She says so. Were, say, Clinton Foundation contributions considered personal? No one asked. It’s unlikely we’ll ever know. We have to trust her. That’s not easy. Not just because of her history — William Safire wrote in 1996 that “Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our first lady . . . is a congenital liar” — but because of what she said in her emergency news conference on Tuesday. Among the things she listed as private were “personal communications from my husband and me.” Except that, as the Wall Street Journal reported the very same day, Bill Clinton’s spokesman said the former president has sent exactly two e-mails in his life, one to John Glenn, the other to U.S. troops in the Adriatic. Mrs. Clinton’s other major declaration was that the server containing the e-mails — owned, controlled and housed by her — “will remain private.” Meaning: No one will get near them. This she learned not from Watergate but from Whitewater. Her husband acquiesced to the appointment of a Whitewater special prosecutor. Hillary objected strenuously. Her fear was that once someone is empowered to search, the searcher can roam freely. In the Clintons’ case, it led to impeachment because when the Lewinsky scandal broke, the special prosecutor added that to his portfolio. Hillary was determined never to permit another open-ended investigation. Which is why she decided even before being confirmed as secretary of state that only she would control her e-mail. Her pretense for keeping just a single private e-mail account was “convenience.” She doesn’t like to carry around two devices. But two weeks ago she said she now carries two phones and a total of four devices. Moreover, it takes about a minute to create two accounts on one device. Ray LaHood, while transportation secretary, did exactly that. Her answers are farcical. Everyone knows she kept the e-mail private for purposes of concealment and, above all, control. For other State Department employees, their e-mails belong to the government. The records officers decide to return to you what’s personal. For Hillary Clinton, she decides. The point of regulations is to ensure government transparency. The point of owning the server is to ensure opacity. Because she holds the e-mails, all document requests by Congress, by subpoena, by Freedom of Information Act inquiries have ultimately to go through her lawyers, who will stonewall until the end of time — or Election Day 2016, whichever comes first. It’s a smart political calculation. Taking a few weeks of heat now — it’s only March 2015 — is far less risky than being blown up by some future e-mail discovery. Moreover, around April 1, the Clinton apologists will begin dismissing the whole story as “old news.” But even if nothing further is found, the damage is done. After all, what is Hillary running on? Her experience and record, say her supporters. What record? She’s had three major jobs. Secretary of state: Can you name a single achievement in four years? U.S. senator: Can you name a single achievement in eight years? First lady: her one achievement in eight years? Hillarycare, a shipwreck. In reality, Hillary Clinton is running on two things: gender and name. Gender is not to be underestimated. It will make her the Democratic nominee. The name is equally valuable. It evokes the warm memory of the golden 1990s, a decade of peace and prosperity during our holiday from history. Now breaking through, however, is a stark reminder of the underside of that Clinton decade: the chicanery, the sleaze, the dodging, the parsing, the wordplay. It’s a dual legacy that Hillary Clinton cannot escape and that will be a permanent drag on her candidacy. You can feel it. It’s a recurrence of an old ailment. It was bound to set in, but not this soon. What you’re feeling now is Early Onset Clinton Fatigue. The CDC is recommending elaborate precautions. Forget it. The only known cure is Elizabeth Warren.
See http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/early-onset-clinton-fatigue/2015/03/12/5801a542-c8d8-11e4-b2a1-bed1aaea2816_story.html (emphasis added); but see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-clinton-remains-yes-inevitable/2015/09/03/57de7cdc-5273-11e5-8c19-0b6825aa4a3a_story.html (“Unless she’s indicted, Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination“) and http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/262639-obama-not-briefed-on-clinton-investigation (“Obama not briefed on FBI’s Clinton probe“) Hillary and potentially Barack Obama are in deep trouble. Bill does not use e-mail; and Hillary knows how to erase a computer and/or server as much as the neighbor’s dog does. Hence, others tried to erase sensitive, classified documents, which should not have been on Hillary’s personal computer or server to begin with. The act of putting them there is a crime unto itself; attempts to erase them is a crime; and the efforts to achieve this result is a criminal conspiracy. Hillary’s crimes are far more serious than what Gen. David Petraeus did, but then we know that he and Gen. Stanley McChrystal were targeted and relieved of command—and effectively silenced—because they represented threats to Obama’s strategy of “cut-and-run” from Iraq and Afghanistan. What Hillary did—with co-conspirators—is at least as serious as Richard Nixon did. Moreover, Hillary knew the rules because she was a member of the impeachment inquiry staff during Watergate. To the extent that Barack Obama tries to shield her, he becomes complicit. See http://www.wsj.com/articles/obama-lobbies-the-fbi-1444862923 (“Obama Lobbies the FBI“); see also http://www.dickmorris.com/the-ed-klein-interviews-hillarys-craziness-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/ (“Hillary’s Craziness”—”She’s very much like Nixon”) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3275919/Investigation-Hillary-s-email-server-focuses-Espionage-Act-10-years-jail-FBI-agent-says-prosecuted-just-failing-tell-Obama.html (“Investigation into Hillary’s email server focuses on Espionage Act and could get her 10 years in jail as FBI agent says she could be prosecuted just for failing to tell Obama“) and http://www.dickmorris.com/hearing-reveals-smoking-gun-at-benghazi-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/ (“Hearing Reveals Smoking Gun At Benghazi“) See http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article30714762.html (“‘Top Secret’ emails found as Clinton probe expands to key aides”); see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-6976 (“The End Of Hillary Clinton’s Quest For The Presidency?“) and http://www.wsj.com/articles/hostage-to-hillary-1426203515 (“Hillary has no serious competitor even contemplating a race”—”[T]here’s little warmth between [Barack Obama] and the Clintons, and Bill Clinton is often critical in private”—”There will always be Clinton scandals because the Clintons always believe they can play by their own rules and get away with it”—”Hillary has all of Bill’s slipperiness with none of his raffish charm”) and http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-seems-tired-not-hungry-1426205650?mod=hp_opinion (“Hillary Seems Tired, Not Hungry“) and http://observer.com/2015/03/the-jeffrey-epstein-affair-imperils-hillary-clintons-presidential-prospects/ (“The Jeffrey Epstein Affair Imperils Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Prospects“) and http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/gowdy-clinton-wiped-her-server-clean-116472.html (“Hillary Clinton wiped her server clean“) and http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/a-woman-who-was-sexually-assaulted-by-bill-clinton-drops-a-bomb-on-hillary-whoa/ (“A Woman Who Was Sexually Assaulted by Bill Clinton Drops a BOMB on Hillary (WHOA!)“) and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/hillary-clinton/11536590/Ex-British-diplomat-accuses-Hillary-Clinton-of-role-in-meltdown-of-Iraq.html (“Ex-British diplomat accuses Hillary Clinton of role in meltdown of Iraq”—”Mrs Clinton operated a ‘dysfunctional’ diplomatic mission to Baghdad that allowed a lapse back into sectarian warfare after elections in 2010″—”Mrs Clinton is accused of appointing an incompetent US ambassador to Baghdad, Chris Hill, who had little experience of the region and held its people in contempt”—”[T]he US-vice president, Joe Biden, showed little interest in Iraq’s political complexities, making oafish comparisons between its sectarian civil war and Britain’s historic tensions with Ireland”) and http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-queen-travels-by-van/2015/04/16/4ca7c956-e46c-11e4-b510-962fcfabc310_story.html (Charles Krauthammer: “She rides by van: The Hillary Clinton launch”) and http://thehillarydaily.com/9-reasons-to-reject-hillary/ (Dick Morris: “9 Reasons To Reject Hillary”) and http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2015/07/29/author-on-bill-clinton-he-has-a-blonde-busty-mistress/ (“Bill Clinton: ‘He Has A Blonde, Busty Mistress’“) and http://nypost.com/2015/08/05/fbi-investigation-of-hillarys-emails-is-criminal-probe/ (“FBI investigation of Hillary’s emails is ‘criminal probe’”) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3209380/Former-attorney-general-says-classified-email-scandal-disqualifies-Hillary-Clinton-serving-president-s-prosecuted-breaking-federal-law.html (“Former attorney general says classified email scandal ‘disqualifies’ Hillary Clinton from serving as president – IF she’s prosecuted for breaking federal law“) and http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/1/hillary-clinton-emails-contained-spy-satellite-dat/ (“Clinton emails contained spy satellite data on North Korean nukes“) and http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/hillary-clinton-barack-obama-tense-meeting/2015/09/23/id/692921/?ns_mail_uid=69782&ns_mail_job=1636576_09232015&s=al&dkt_nbr=4wydhuks (“Hillary Screams at Obama: ‘Call Off Your F-ing Dogs\'”) and http://www.theamericanmirror.com/video-chelsea-asked-if-bill-preys-on-young-girls/ (“Chelsea asked if Bill preys on young girls“) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3330316/Bill-Clinton-rape-accuser-blasts-Hillary-campaigning-platform-women-s-issues-claims-knew-hotel-room-assault-tried-cover-up.html (“Bill Clinton rape accuser blasts Hillary for campaigning on platform of women’s issues and claims she knew about alleged hotel room assault and tried to cover it up“) and http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/22/exclusive-bill-rape-accuser-blasts-evil-hillary-shame-on-you/ (“Bill Rape Accuser Blasts ‘Evil’ Hillary: ‘Shame on you!’”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/boycott-the-gop-and-ignore-foreign-naysayers/#comment-7996 (“Trump Rises, Hillary Wallows“) and http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/19/inspector-general-clinton-emails-had-intel-from-most-secretive-classified-programs.html# (“Inspector General: Clinton emails had intel from most secretive, classified programs”—If American hero and former CIA Director, Gen. David Petraeus, can be subject to criminal prosecution with the possibility of being demoted, Hillary Clinton must be indicted, tried, convicted and serve time in prison. Nothing less will suffice) and https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-david-petraeus-avoided-felony-charges-and-possible-prison-time/2016/01/25/d77628dc-bfab-11e5-83d4-42e3bceea902_story.html (“How David Petraeus avoided felony charges and possible prison time“) and http://thehillarydaily.com/hillarys-email-scandal-turns-deadly/ (“Hillary’s Email Scandal Turns Deadly”) and http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Rudy-Giuliani-Hillary-Avoid-Indictment/2016/01/20/id/710157/ (“Former New York City Mayor and U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday he doesn’t think there is any way Hillary Clinton should be able to avoid facing an indictment for the ‘secretive and highly classified’ government information found on the private email server she used while secretary of state. ‘[There are] 13 violations of federal law that she arguably committed. This is about as clear as it gets. It is a crime to negligently handle top secret material\'”—”‘They treated it — in the case of [former Gen. David Petraeus] — as a major crime, and his actions are a hundredth of hers. She misrepresented about it. She’s lied about it. She said she had no top secret material. It’s absurd.’ And as Clinton ‘destroyed 34,000 emails,’ Giuliani said that he would have argued, as a prosecutor, ‘that’s evidence of a guilty knowledge . . . the destruction is evidence of guilty knowledge, evidentiary principle that you can use against someone when they’re in a situation where who knows what’s on those 34,000 e-mails.’ In addition, Giuliani pointed out, the FBI has opened a second investigation into the Clinton Foundation, which he would find ‘really worrying’ if he were her attorney”) and http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillarys-special-access-server-1453336486 (“Hillary’s ‘Special Access’ Server”—”Reviewers have found ‘several dozen emails’ containing information deemed to be at ‘confidential, secret, and top secret/sap’ levels. The SAP—special access program—reference in particular is ringing Washington alarms. A SAP usually refers to a highly covert technology program, often weaponry. Knowledge of these programs is usually restricted to small groups of people on a need-to-know basis”—”[T]he SAP news undermines Mrs. Clinton’s previous claim that the emails on her server weren’t classified ‘at the time\'”—”Mrs. Clinton put U.S. secrets at risk for the selfish political purpose of hiding her correspondence from public view. She should be held accountable”) and http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/issa-fbi-director-would-like-to-indict-clinton-and-abedin/article/2581811 (“Former House Oversight chairman: ‘FBI director would like to indict Clinton and [aide Huma] Abedin\'”) and http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/29/official-some-clinton-emails-too-damaging-to-release.html (“Official: Some Clinton emails ‘too damaging’ to release”) and https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-decides-no-further-punishment-warranted-for-petraeus/2016/01/30/b503348e-c767-11e5-8965-0607e0e265ce_story.html (“Pentagon won’t punish David Petraeus any further in sex-and-secrets scandal”) and http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/01/official-withheld-clinton-emails-contain-operational-intel-put-lives-at-risk.html (“Official: Withheld Clinton emails contain ‘operational’ intel, put lives at risk”) and http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2016/02/feds-fight-disclosure-of-hillary-clinton-whitewater-indictment-drafts-218681 (“Feds fight disclosure of Hillary Clinton Whitewater indictment drafts“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/boycott-the-gop-and-ignore-foreign-naysayers/#comment-8105 (“America’s Failed Political Establishments“) and http://www.dickmorris.com/hillary-lost-because-she-lied/#more-17286 (“Hillary Lost Because She Lied”—”[Hillary] cannot go back and delete her lies, evasions, half-truths, and distortions. They live on video tape and in our memories, ready to spring to life as soon as she lies again. This personal reputation is not something a new consultant can fix. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men cannot put Hillary back together again”) and http://www.theamericanmirror.com/hillary-had-several-abortions-kept-chelsea-for-political-appearances-bills-former-lover-says/ (“Hillary ‘had several abortions’, kept Chelsea for political appearances: Bill’s former lover”—”[I]t’s those types of actions that . . . should give every woman pause before making Hillary the first female president”—”‘She is a Gloria Steinem kind of feminist. If you’ve ever seen picture or heard Gloria Steinem, just a cold, conniving bitch\'”) What about her long-lasting affair with Vince Foster in Little Rock? And his subsequent death while working for the Clintons in the White House? Is he Chelsea Clinton’s real father, or is Webster Hubbell? And was Foster killed at the Clinton’s behest? See, e.g., http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/huge-scandal-chelsea-isnt-bill-clintons-daughter/ (“HUGE Scandal – Chelsea isn’t Bill Clinton’s Daughter?“) and http://www.theamericanmirror.com/video-chelsea-asked-if-bill-preys-on-young-girls/ (“[The] long-time rumor alleging Chelsea was the result of an affair between the Clinton lawyer [Webster Hubbell] and Hillary“) and https://www.yahoo.com/news/sinister-battle-brett-kavanaugh-over-202425923.html (“My sinister battle with Brett Kavanaugh over the truth – by [the international business editor of the UK’s Daily Telegraph] Ambrose Evans-Pritchard”—”[Patrick Knowlton] had been the first person at the Fort Marcy death location [of Vince Foster, next to the Potomac River]. . . . He said the FBI had tried repeatedly to badger him into changing his story on key facts. Each time he refused. . . . Before testifying, he suffered two days of what appeared to be systematic intimidation by a large surveillance team. . . . When Mr Knowlton appeared at the grand jury – thinking he was doing his civic duty – he says he was subjected to two and a half hours of character assassination. . . . There was little attempt to find out what he knew about the Foster death scene. . . . Few people are aware that the US federal prosecutor handling the death investigation at the outset, Miquel Rodriguez, had resigned earlier from the Starr investigation after a bitter dispute. His resignation letter – later leaked [Rodriguez materials] – said he was prevented from pursuing investigative leads, that FBI witness statements did not reflect what witnesses had said, that the suicide verdict was premature, and that his grand jury probe was shut down just as he was beginning to uncover evidence. An informed source told me his work had been sabotaged by his own FBI agents. The nub of the dispute was over compelling evidence of a wound in Foster’s neck, which contradicted the official version that Foster shot himself in the mouth and had essentially been suppressed. The key crime scene photos had vanished and the FBI labs said others were over-exposed and useless. Mr Rodriguez, by then suspicious, slipped them to the Smithsonian Institution and had them enhanced. One showed a black stippled ring like a gunshot wound in the side of Foster’s neck. This remains secret but I have seen it. The photo was pivotal. It confirmed what several people who handled the body had originally stated. I interviewed the first rescue worker on the scene and when I asked him about the mouth wound, he grabbed me, and said with frightening intensity: ‘listen to me buddy, Foster was shot right here,’ jabbing his finger into my neck. He said the FBI had pressured him too into changing his story and that official narrative was a pack of lies”) [Webster Hubbell and Chelsea Clinton] Next, in an article entitled “CHELSEA’S DIRTY TRICKS,” political pundit and former Clinton adviser Dick Morris and his wife Eileen McGann have written:
Acting as her mother’s attack dog in New Hampshire, Chelsea Clinton debuted in the Hillary Clinton campaign by deliberately misrepresenting Bernie Sanders’ position on ObamaCare and falsely claiming that he would “strip millions and millions of people of their health insurance.” The sanctimonious — and scripted — Ms. Clinton announced that she didn’t “want to live in a country that has an unequal healthcare system again.” Hillary is getting more and more desperate. Trotting the clueless Chelsea out with a hatchet in her hand is a sign that Hillary is panicking. She’s crashing in the polls and will do or say anything to knock Sanders. That’s typical Hillary. But sending out Chelsea to do the dirty work and try and scare people was a stupid strategy. Her charges are easily disproved and she’s not a credible messenger. Fortunately [for] Bernie, no one takes Chelsea seriously. She’s an opportunist who has used her family name to worm her way into jobs and positions that she’s not qualified for and would not have received if she had a different last name. As for Bernie, the Clinton attacks led to $1.4 million in new donations on that day. The attacks were patently false. Chelsea charged that Sanders wanted to dismantle ObamaCare, Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP, but she neglected to add that he wanted to replace them with one all-inclusive health care program for ALL Americans. Sanders was a sponsor of ObamaCare and helped write the legislation. He has always been an outspoken proponent of a health care plan that would go way beyond ObamaCare (Just like Hillary was when she tried to pass health care). To say that Sanders is dismantling these programs while he is replacing them with something much bigger, much better, and much more costly is a dirty trick. It’s like accusing Bernie of demolishing an old house when he is planning to replace it with a mansion and then wondering if your favorite kitchen appliances will be installed. It is beyond cynical for Chelsea to make an attack on Sanders over the issue of health care and the elderly. It is creating a fiction of the basest sort and putting it out there for Clinton operatives to use to scare people. Chelsea should go back to taking about baby care. Maybe she does know something about that. Her invention of nonexistent negatives show that, in the case of Chelsea and Hillary, the apple did not fall far from the tree.
See http://thehillarydaily.com/chelseas-dirty-tricks/ (emphasis added); see also http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3420932/Chelsea-Clinton-s-fundraising-FLOP-Soul-Cycle-event-raise-money-Hillary-bust-2700-seats-offered-just-50-bikes.html (“
Chelsea Clinton’s fundraising FLOP: Soul Cycle event to raise money for Hillary a bust as $2700 seats are offered for just $50 to fill bikes“) Also, in March 2001 Chelsea’s father-in-law, Edward Mezvinsky, was indicted and later pleaded guilty to 31 of 69 felony charges of bank fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud. He served his time at Federal Prison Camp, Eglin. Mezvinsky, Federal Bureau of Prisons # 55040-066, was released in April 2008. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Mezvinsky#Criminal_activities; see also http://www.weeklystandard.com/article/2002345 (“Chelsea’s Husband to Close Greek Hedge Fund After Losing 90% of Value”) And what about Hillary’s alleged affairs with women? While this was covered up during the life of Eleanor Roosevelt, times have changed. Anything is fair game now with respect to presidential candidates. Will she become America’s first lesbian president? See, e.g., http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/bombshell-move-over-bill-hillary-clinton-has-a-sex-scandal-of-her-own/ (“Move Over Bill. Hillary Clinton Has a Sex Scandal of Her Own!”—”Bill told me . . . that he was aware that Hillary was bisexual and he didn’t care”—”She’ll admit that she’s bisexual and has had lesbian relationships”) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3209152/Hillary-lonely-trouble-expressing-feelings-yearns-intimate-relationship-powerful-woman-claims-noted-shrink-puts-presidential-hopeful-couch.html (“‘Hillary is lonely, has trouble expressing her feelings and yearns for an intimate relationship with a powerful woman,’ claims noted shrink who puts the presidential hopeful on the couch”—”[Her] oppressive upbringing . . . has made her ambivalent towards men as well as tolerant of a cheating husband”—”She was ‘the drab girl nobody gave a second look at until Bill Clinton came alon[g]\'”—”Hillary is lonely at the top and craves a female equal”) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3427366/He-frilly-nightie-danced-playing-sax-Former-Miss-Arkansas-says-Bill-Clinton-bed-confided-Hillary-sex-women-fears-Hillary-vendetta-sleeps-loaded-semi-automatic.html (“‘He put on my frilly nightie, and danced around playing his sax.’ Former Miss Arkansas [and a one-time Miss America finalist] says Bill Clinton was so-so in bed and confided Hillary was into sex with women. Now she fears Hillary vendetta and sleeps with loaded semi-automatic”—”[W]hile his attempts at lovemaking were largely forgettable, Clinton would rarely disappoint when it came to divulging intimate and potentially damaging secrets about his wife Hillary”—”Bill revealed his wife’s preference for female lovers”—”[S]he remains convinced that Hillary Clinton is behind a plot to silence her ahead of the November election”—”‘Hillary is a lesbian,’ . . . reigniting a lingering but unsubstantiated rumor that has dogged the former First Lady for years”—”Bill didn’t mind telling me that Hillary doesn’t like sex. I take him at his word and he told me she liked females more than men”—”He would sometimes unwind by smoking a marijuana cigarette. Miller claims that she saw Clinton produce a pouch of white powder on several occasions and snort lines off her coffee table”—”[She] found the back window of her jeep shot out from the inside with a handful of shot gun cartridges left strewn across the back seat. When she reported it to the FBI she says she was nearly knocked down outside their office by a car with no plates”—”[H]er story brings to mind the accounts of other alleged Clinton accusers, such as Paula Jones and Gennifer Flowers, who say they were harassed by Democrat aides and maligned as sluts to cover the philandering President’s tracks”) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2424555/Bill-Clintons-mistress-Gennifer-Flowers-Wed-today-wasnt-Chelsea.html (” Two decades after her affair with Bill Clinton, Gennifer Flowers reveals they’d be together now if it wasn’t for Chelsea and how former president confided in her that Hillary was bisexual”—”Gennifer Flowers: Bill Clinton Told Me ‘Hillary Had Eaten More Pussy Than He Had’. . .”) Another question that has been lurking for sometime is whether she is sick, and unable to serve in office if she was elected to the presidency. See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3244750/New-book-s-health-claims-Hillary-Best-selling-political-author-says-Clinton-blinding-headaches-near-fainting-fits-interfere-campaign.html (“New book’s health claims over Hillary: Best-selling political author says Clinton has ‘blinding headaches’ and near fainting fits that interfere with the campaign“) and http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/hillary-forgets-shes-new-hampshire-here-washington_953146.html (“Hillary Forgets She’s in New Hampshire: ‘Here in Washington\'”) and http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/22/hillary-discussed-speculation-about-her-health-with-aides-in-emails/ (“Hillary Discussed Speculation About Her Health With Aides In Emails”) and http://www.dickmorris.com/the-ed-klein-interviews-hillarys-health-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/ (“Hillary’s Health???“) and http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-email-reveals-top-aide-huma-abedin-warning-state-department-staffer-that-hillary-clinton-is-often-confused/ (“Email Reveals Top Aide Huma Abedin Warning State Department Staffer That Hillary Clinton Is ‘Often Confused\'”) and http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/Sources-Question-Hillary-Clinton-Health/2016/01/07/id/708520/ (“Multiple Sources Question Hillary Clinton’s Physical Health”—”‘[A]fter her speeches, whether she did a talk or a policy speech, she . . . would come off the podium backstage — and have to sit and rest before making it back to the car because she was so fatigued, dizzy and disoriented\'”—”[J]ournalist Edward Klein has argued Clinton’s health issues are significant. ‘To this day, Hillary still suffers from many of the troubling symptoms that I wrote about in [‘Unlikeable: The Problem With Hillary’]: blinding headaches, exhaustion, insomnia, and a tremor in her hands\'”) and http://www.weeklystandard.com/article/2000738/ (“Hillary Speech Disrupted by Coughing Attack in Iowa”) and http://www.wnd.com/2016/01/choke-hillary-suffers-massive-coughing-fit/ (“CHOKE: HILLARY SUFFERS MASSIVE COUGHING FIT”—”Clinton’s health has been a question of speculation since her last coughing fit before the House Select Committee on Benghazi on October, 22, 2015”) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2268073/Hillary-Clinton-Does-Secretary-State-double-vision-blood-clot-scare.html (“Hillary Clinton: Does Secretary of State have double vision after blood clot scare?”) and http://www.wnd.com/2016/02/physician-warns-hillary-suffering-post-concussion-syndrome/ (“PHYSICIAN WARNS HILLARY SUFFERING POST-CONCUSSION SYNDROME”—”The concussion Hillary Clinton suffered in December 2012 that led to a serious blood clot requiring hospitalization may also have caused her to suffer post-concussion syndrome, with symptoms including confusion, headaches and dizziness, warns a prominent Florida physician [Dr. Daniel Kassicieh, D.O., a dual board certified osteopathic neurologist and a leading headache specialist who directs the Florida Headache and Movement Disorder Center in Sarasota, Florida]”—”‘Electing someone to be president of the United States who has post-concussion syndrome is a real concern to me\'”—”Hillary Clinton has been prescribed Armour Thyroid, a natural medication made from desiccated pig thyroid glands, for her hypothyroid condition and Coumadin – a brand name of warfarin, which initially was developed as a well-known rat poison – for her congenital tendency to form blood clots. . . . [T]he medication Clinton has taken since 1998 to deal with her blood-clotting problems may have side effects that are hazardous to her health, including blurred vision and confusion, both of which she has experienced. And a California physician warned Coumadin could be more life-threatening to her than the possibility of a recurring blood clot”—”Bill Clinton, during a question and answer session at the Peterson Foundation in Washington, on May 14, 2014, told the audience that the concussion Hillary suffered ‘required six months of very serious work to get over\'”—”After Clinton recovered sufficiently from the concussion and brain clot suffered in December 2012 to testify before Congress on Benghazi in January 2013, the New York Daily News reported she was wearing medically modified eyeglasses. Attached to each lens by transparent adhesive tape was a Fresnel prism designed to treat the double vision resulting from the concussion and blood clot”—”Clinton’s five-minute bathroom break at the third Democratic debate in Goffstown, New Hampshire, on Dec. 19, 2015, initially attributed to the distance of the woman’s bathroom from the stage, was reported to have caused a ‘flare up of problems from brain injury’ that required Clinton to sit in a chair off-stage to recover from fatigue, dizziness and disorientation”—”‘Add these published reports to the fact Hillary tends to make short public appearances and often appears fatigued, as well as her alleged forgetfulness over the last six to eight months would all point to her having some degree of post-concussion syndrome,’ Kassicieh said”—”‘Hillary Clinton has a myriad of factors that can predispose her to cognitive dysfunction that leads to unclear decision making, with post-concussion syndrome and an inadequately thyroid condition, all compounded by her advanced age. And these are only the things we know about\'”) and http://nypost.com/2017/11/07/how-brazilles-book-exposes-liberal-medias-hillary-health-coverup/ (“How [Donna] Brazile’s book exposes liberal media’s Hillary health coverup“) Hillary Clinton has said: “I’ve always tried to” tell the truth. It is remarkable that she would say this, when her life is so riddled with fraud and deceit. Perhaps she was “compromised” so many years ago that any notions of truth went out the window. Perhaps most of all, she embodies the worst of American politics and why so many Americans are angry and have lost faith in government at all levels. Perhaps government is not inherently evil, but some politicians are. See http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/19/hillary-clinton-ive-always-tried-tell-truth/ (“Hillary Clinton: ‘I’ve always tried to’ tell the truth“); see also http://thehillarydaily.com/hillary-lies-about_lying/ (“Hillary Lies About Lying”—”Hillary Clinton has been a chronic liar throughout her entire public life. Now she even lies about her lies. It’s no wonder that two-thirds of the American voters don’t believe she’s honest or trustworthy. . . . She’s reflexively, consistently, perpetually dishonest. To Hillary, the truth is just one of a number of many options for an answer”—”The truth is static — you either tell the truth or lie. You don’t try your best to tell the truth”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/boycott-the-gop-and-ignore-foreign-naysayers/#comment-8795 (“Whitewater: Hillary Clinton Draft Indictment“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/boycott-the-gop-and-ignore-foreign-naysayers/#comment-8826 (“Hillary And Her Coke Habit“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/20/the-real-russian-conspiracy-barack-obama-the-clintons-and-the-sale-of-americas-uranium-to-russias-killer-putin/ (“The Real Russian Conspiracy: Barack Obama, The Clintons, And The Sale Of America’s Uranium To Russia’s Killer Putin“) (see also the comments beneath the article) Also, Bill Clinton seems to be “slipping,” as evidenced by his September 29, 2015 performance on Erin Burnett’s CNN show—during which Burnett “fawned” over him instead of asking hard-hitting questions. See, e.g., http://www.dickmorris.com/the-ed-klein-interviews-does-bill-really-want-hillary-to-win-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert (“[H]is health is a lot worse than most people . . . understand”—”[He] may not be around much longer”); see also http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3338908/Bill-Clinton-tried-seduce-Jackie-Kennedy-Hillary-demanded-HIV-test-according-outlandish-claims-new-book.html (“Bill Clinton ‘tried to seduce’ former First Lady Jackie Kennedy”—”Clinton, who is not new to political sex scandals, allegedly found Mrs Kennedy attractive and made a move on her”—”‘We almost indulged in a wrestling match. It was most embarrassing’ . . . ‘I mean, I was flattered that I turned him on so much at my age, but Bill was just like Jack [Kennedy] in the sense that neither of them wanted to take ‘no’ for an answer. Ever since that day, I prefer not to be alone with Bill\'”) and http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/429405/vox-fairly-explains-rape-allegation-against-bill (“It’s a Bad Day for the Clintons When Vox Fairly Explains the Rape Allegation Against Bill“) and http://www.theamericanmirror.com/video-bill-clintons-hand-trembles-at-iowa-rally-blames-old-age/ (“VIDEO: Bill Clinton’s hand trembles at Iowa rally — blames old age“) and http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/17/exclusive-linda-tripp-bill-had-affairs-with-thousands-of-women/ (“‘Bill Had Affairs with Thousands of Women‘”) and http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/us/politics/bill-clinton-campaign.html?_r=0 (“It’s Still Bill Clinton, but the Old Magic Seems Missing”—”[W]hat Mr. Clinton used to do so well — and what Hillary Clinton needs, only days before the Iowa caucuses on Monday — was nowhere to be found: a polished, piercing critique of an opponent, in this case Bernie Sanders”—”[H]e occasionally meandered, leaving the audience, including some who had lined up for hours to see him, seeming more politely attentive than inspired”—”‘I have seen him speak many times, and he just didn’t seem to be the same guy\'”) and http://www.weeklystandard.com/maraniss-bill-clinton-frail-no-gleam-no-electricity/article/2000991 (“Bill Clinton ‘Frail,’ ‘No Gleam,’ ‘No Electricity\'”—”‘{N]o affect at all, just frail, like he had to conserve every ounce of energy. No gleam in his eyes, no electricity, muted\'”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/boycott-the-gop-and-ignore-foreign-naysayers/#comment-8769 (“Trump Slams Hillary Clinton As Nasty, Mean Enabler Of Husband’s Rapes And Affairs“) and http://nypost.com/2016/05/13/clinton-charity-gave-2m-to-company-owned-by-bills-friend/ (“Clinton charity arranged $2M pledge to firm owned by Bill’s ‘friend’”—”Bill Clinton’s foundation arranged a $2 million pledge to a power company partly owned by a wealthy blond divorcée — who some say is the frequent visitor to his home nicknamed ‘Energizer\'”—”Clinton even went to bat for the company when it came to lobbying for federal funds. He helped steer an $812,000 federal grant to it by endorsing the funds via then-Energy Secretary Steven Chu”—”[Like JFK before him,] Secret Service agents were even given special instructions to abandon usual protocol when the woman came by, according to journalist Ronald Kessler’s tell-all book, ‘The First Family Detail\'”—”‘Energizer’ reportedly timed her arrivals and departures around Hillary Clinton’s schedule”) and http://www.wsj.com/articles/clinton-charity-aided-clinton-friends-1463086383 (“Clinton Charity Aided Clinton Friends”) and http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/05/13/flight-logs-show-bill-clinton-flew-on-sex-offenders-jet-much-more-than-previously-known.html (“Flight logs show Bill Clinton flew on sex offender’s jet much more than previously known“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/boycott-the-gop-and-ignore-foreign-naysayers/#comment-8828 (“Bill Clinton Ditched Secret Service On Multiple ‘Lolita Express’ Flights“) and http://www.theamericanmirror.com/video-bill-clinton-wont-stop-talking-music-plays-get-off-stage/ (“Bill Clinton won’t stop talking, music starts playing to get him off stage”—”The Asian American Journalists Association was done hearing from Bill Clinton. The former president apparently talked too long and only cuing the music would get him to leave the stage — except even that wouldn’t work”) and http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/14/exclusive-witness-found-bill-clintons-alleged-rape-victim-recalls-mouth-swollen/ (“Bill Clinton Alleged Rape Scene Witness: ‘Her Mouth Was All Swollen Up…Pantyhose Ripped’”) and http://nypost.com/2016/09/14/colin-powell-wont-vote-for-her-because-of-bill-clinton/ (“Colin Powell: Bill Clinton ‘still dicking bimbos (according to the NYP)’”) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5320507/Sharon-Stone-says-Weinstein-locked-up.html (HOW HYP0CRITICAL: “‘You can’t charge a person with murder when they’ve only got a parking ticket’: Sharon Stone slams Harvey Weinstein – but risks #MeToo backlash as she warns against punishing all sexual predators the same way”) and https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/02/us/politics/bill-clinton-elections-democrats.html (“No One Wants to Campaign With Bill Clinton Anymore“) and http://www.dickmorris.com/hillary-orchestrated-the-harassment-of-monica-lunch-alert/ (“Hillary Orchestrated The Harassment Of Monica [Lewinsky]“) and https://www.the-sun.com/news/us-news/224545/bill-clinton-jeffery-epsteins-ghislaine-maxwell-lolita-express/ (“Bill Clinton poses with Epstein’s ‘pimp’ Ghislaine Maxwell and a sex slave on board private jet the ‘Lolita Express’”) and https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8579857/Bill-Clinton-stayed-Jeffrey-Epsteins-villa-orgy-island-court-docs-claim.html (“Bill Clinton stayed on Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘orgy island’ with the billionaire, Ghislaine Maxwell and ‘two young girls’ – and the pedophile said the ex-president ‘owes me favors’ unsealed documents claim“) and https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12274877/bill-clinton-flew-to-jeffrey-epsteins-orgy-island-with-two-young-girls-bombshell-ghislaine-maxwell-docs-claim/ (“Bill Clinton flew to Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘orgy island’ with ‘two young girls’, bombshell Ghislaine Maxwell docs claim”) and https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8639501/Bill-Clinton-smiles-receiving-neck-massage-Jeffrey-Epstein-victim.html (“‘Would you mind giving it a crack?’ Bill Clinton leans back and smiles while receiving neck massage from Epstein victim, 22, in never-before-seen photos during trip on pedophile’s plane to Africa in 2002 – as he addresses Dem convention TONIGHT Bill Clinton is seen in photos sitting comfortably and smiling as Chauntae Davies, 22, rubs her hands into his shoulders. They were on a trip with Jeffrey Epstein to Africa in September of 2002”) [Bill Clinton and Sharon Stone] LikeLike
18 08 2015
smilinjacksez

The information about her is bad enough, but at least the photos cleared up why Monica Lewinsky happened….Bill finally got an erection.

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16 02 2016
Timothy D. Naegele

Yes, it would seem so. Perhaps Hillary had never seen it before.

Hillary mouth open

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20 10 2015
Timothy D. Naegele

The GOP Ticket In 2016?

Donald Trump and Ben Carson

Newsmax‘s Sandy Fitzgerald has reported:

Donald Trump said Tuesday that he and fellow GOP presidential contender Ben Carson have hit a chord with voters, but it’s still way too early to say if there will be a Trump/Carson ticket in next year’s general election.

“We have a very good relationship, and we’re not as different as people think,” Trump told CNN’s “New Day” program.

“There’s certainly a different style. You know, I have great assets and he has great assets. But we are both resonating, there’s no question about it.” A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll on Monday listed Trump at 25 percent, with Carson closely behind at 22 percent, and a CNN/ORC Poll released today put Trump at 27 percent, followed by 22 percent for Carson.

“I went up a lot from my original, I’ve gone up a lot,” Trump said. “And you know, the other candidates are similar. Maybe these polls are starting to accurate out.”

Meanwhile, Trump said he likes Carson and Carson likes him, and “stranger things have happened” than the two of them joining up for a presidential campaign.

“It certainly is interesting, he said. “So many people have suggested it because we seem to be doing awfully well.”

The CNN poll also showed that Carly Fiorina’s numbers, which spiked following her star turn in the last GOP debate, have plummeted quickly since that time, and Trump said he does not know why her numbers dropped so much, from 15 percent to 4 percent in just one month.

“That’s a big drop,” he said. “I don’t know. I like Carly, actually. I don’t know why she would have dropped so much…There’s no answer to Carly. She’s talented. I’m surprised to see that much of a drop.”

Trump also addressed comments he made on Monday night in South Carolina, when he said President Barack Obama is thinking about signing an order to take away Americans’ guns.

” I heard that he wants to,” he told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota, “on your network, somebody said that’s what he’s thinking about. I didn’t think he’s signing it. That will be a tough one to sign.”

But still, he insisted, “he was thinking about it. I’ve heard it from numerous networks and read it in the papers. My source is the papers. They’re pretty good sources.”

He also talked about the continuing argument between himself and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush regarding the role of former President George W. Bush after the 9/11 atttacks.

“This all started because Jeb made the statement that under [his] brother, we were safe,” said Trump. “Well, if he would have qualified by saying after the attack, but he didn’t do that.”

“We were safe in a sense but we went into Iraq, which was a disastrous decision,” he continued. “Not Afghanistan, because that’s probably where we should have gone in the first place.”

See http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/trump-carson-2016-ticket/2015/10/20/id/697089/ (“Trump: ‘Stranger Things Have Happened’ Than a Trump/Carson Ticket“) (emphasis added); see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-7185 (“Clinton Fatigue“) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3279399/Will-Lady-Melania-Trump-s-extraordinary-journey-card-carrying-Communist-s-daughter-teenage-model-White-House-favorite-s-wife-revealed.html (“Is this America’s next First Lady? As Donald tops the polls, Melania Trump’s journey from a Slovenian Communist’s daughter and teenage model to White House favorite’s wife is revealed“) and https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/seeking-americas-lost-greatness-and-finding-trump-most-appealing/2015/10/31/2435e06e-7c12-11e5-b575-d8dcfedb4ea1_story.html (“Seeking America’s ‘lost’ greatness and finding Trump most appealing?“) and http://www.dickmorris.com/republican-debates-cut-out-the-media-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/ (“Republican Debates: Cut Out The Media“) and http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/05/politics/ben-carson-2016-childhood-violence/index.html (“A tale of two Carsons“)

If this becomes the GOP ticket, it may represent a breath of fresh air in Washington.

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26 11 2015
Timothy D. Naegele

The GOP Establishment Neanderthals [UPDATED]

GOP Establishment Neanderthals

The Washington Post has reported—in an article entitled, “Plan A for GOP donors: Wait for Trump to fall. (There is no Plan B.)”:

When Donald Trump landed in Ohio this week, he got a taste of the meager Republican super PAC efforts aimed at him: a 47-second Web video clipping together some of his most provocative comments and a small airplane trailing a banner proclaiming, “Ohioans Can’t Trust Trump.”

As the combative mogul enters his fifth month at the top of the GOP presidential field, attempts to derail him remain anemic, underfunded and unfocused — and they will probably stay that way until the Iowa caucuses in less than 10 weeks.

Most of the party’s financiers and top strategists are sitting on the sidelines. Many are reluctant to spend money against Trump after watching others fumble as they tried to handle his counterpunches. Others, citing past elections, remain confident that the race will eventually pivot away from him early next year.

The political network backed by the billionaire Koch brothers has no plans to take on Trump. American Crossroads, the super PAC co-founded by strategist Karl Rove, is steering clear and fixated on Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton instead. Right to Rise, the super PAC backing Jeb Bush, is not gearing up to attack Trump either. And major Republican donors, such as hedge-fund manager Paul Singer and the Ricketts family, have shown no interest in supporting the few organizations trying to undercut him.

“It is probably accurate to say there is very little money for these endeavors,” said Liz Mair, a Republican consultant who recently started an anti-Trump group called Trump Card. “Our group has donors and money, but it’s not like we have hundreds of people.”

Trump has reveled in the GOP’s hand-wringing over his candidacy and has taunted groups targeting him as a “disgrace.”

“I think people are surprised that, you know, they’re politicians and they’ve been doing this stuff all their lives. I haven’t. I’ve been a job producer,” Trump said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “I guess they can’t understand what’s happening.”

The absence of a big-money response to Trump is especially striking, given the mounting anxiety among GOP leaders about his lasting dominance in the race and his accumulation of incendiary statements. Some also are wary of trying to short-circuit him in a year when anger toward elites is boiling over.

“I don’t think there’s any group of establishment donors trying to take down a candidate, nor should there be,” said Fred Malek, finance chairman of the Republican Governors Association. “Who are we, the donor-fundraiser class, to dictate to the voters? The voters can figure this out.”

The fear of Trump bolting the party to run as an independent hovers, as well. Trump has repeatedly warned that if he is provoked and not treated “fairly,” he may reconsider his pledge to support whoever wins the Republican nomination.

The resistance to committing to all-out warfare has far-reaching consequences, leaving Trump poised to face only scattered challenges in the final weeks before the first contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. Several senior Republicans said this week that they expect Trump’s staying power to persist through the spring — possibly forcing the primary fight to spill into next summer’s convention.

It’s a starkly different scenario from four years ago, when a super PAC backing Mitt Romney plowed millions of dollars into TV ads hitting former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) as he began to ascend.

More than a dozen interviews with high-profile GOP financiers revealed a pervasive confidence that the party’s rank-and-file voters will ultimately reject Trump’s brand of politics.

“He is going to implode himself,” said Frank VanderSloot, the chief executive of an Idaho nutritional-supplement company who is backing Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.). He said he recently turned down a funding request from a group seeking to run anti-Trump ads.

“It’s just going to take a little time for people to take a step back and look at his track record, see who he is and how he’s changed his positions and how unprepared he is to be president of the United States,” VanderSloot said.

That view is shared by Andrew Sabin, a longtime New York donor supporting Bush.

“I’m not worried,” Sabin said. “The voters are not going to think out their candidate until a week or two before they go into the voting booth.”

Another reason wealthy donors are holding back: a widespread conclusion that it is futile to try to dislodge the New York billionaire, who has successfully parried nearly every attack.

“I’m not sure someone wouldn’t do better to take their money and throw it off a tall building,” said Henry Barbour, a Mississippi-based operative who is unaligned with any of the campaigns. “I think the voters who are for Trump are not going to move off from Trump.”

After conducting two focus groups of Trump supporters this fall, GOP consultant Frank Luntz said he has concluded that there is no political issue or stance that will turn off his supporters.

“They came to him because he is unlike any other politician,” Luntz said. “That allows him to do and say things others could not and get away with it.”

One party strategist privy to recent research on Trump voters said that none of the messages tested swayed them — including his past support for universal health care or fond words about Bill and Hillary Clinton.

“They’re in­cred­ibly angry, and he’s the first guy in their mind who speaks to that anger in a visceral way,” said the strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the findings. “They have a deep longing for that.”

Trump’s nontraditional campaign has left his opponents rattled. He has largely avoided paid ads and instead harnessed the enormous amount of free airtime he garners. He uses media coverage to drive an attack through multiple news cycles until it becomes a narrative, such as his constant swipes at Bush as “low energy.”

Some Republican campaign veterans are puzzled that no clear opposition to Trump has formed. The only significant effort was mounted by the conservative Club for Growth, which spent more than $1 million on ads in Iowa attacking the real estate tycoon. Trump remains on top there in the latest polls.

Stuart Stevens, who served as Romney’s chief strategist in 2012, said most donors and party officials have long expected the pro-Bush Right to Rise to take the lead in toppling Trump.

“I’m baffled by why Jeb Bush’s super PAC is sitting on what was $100 million when Trump represents everything Bush doesn’t seem to like,” Stevens said. “They should be going after Trump and defining him. It’s a classic opportunity for Bush to be seen as the dominating and strong alternative.”

Republicans familiar with Right to Rise’s view of the contest said the super PAC is willing to eventually make ads that contrast Bush with Trump, but at the moment is concentrating on consolidating Bush’s support among traditional Republicans, many of whom are split among Bush, Rubio, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Other Bush allies worry privately that any ad against Trump could help Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) rather than Bush. Most Bush associates would much rather have the race become a one-on-one bout vs. Trump, because they view Trump as an easier adversary.

The latest attempt to go after Trump is coming from New Day for America, a pro-Kasich super PAC that paid for this week’s Web video and airplane banner in Ohio. The organization began running a television ad in New Hampshire last week featuring a photo of Trump, President Obama and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who also is seeking the GOP nomination, that warns that “on-the-job training for president does not work.” It’s part of $2.5 million that the group said it plans to spend in the state to drive down Trump’s support.

“We had a lot of donors who, quite frankly, have been saying for a long time that someone has to stop Trump,” said Matt David, the super PAC’s chief strategist. “Between that and Governor Kasich’s willingness to stand up to Trump in the last debate, we felt best suited.”

Unlike other campaigns, David said his group is not going to approach Trump like a politician and highlight his changing positions over the years.

“We are going to treat him like what he is: a reality TV star,” he said. “This will be a very sustained effort, and it’s clearly gotten Trump’s attention.”

After the super PAC announced the anti-Trump campaign, the general counsel of the Trump Organization sent a letter to Kasich and the group’s strategists threatening to take legal action if the ads contained defamatory material.

Fred Davis, the GOP admaker crafting the super PAC’s spots, said the missive is an example of why more donors are not stepping forward to take on Trump. “I think the reason people are hesitant is that he’s a bully,” he said.

In a statement, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks called Davis “a typical consultant who works for the highest bidder.”

“Unlike most of the weak and ineffective, all-talk, no-action politicians Fred is accustomed to dealing with, Mr. Trump will not tolerate unprovoked attacks comprised of falsehoods,” she said.

Radio host Rush Limbaugh poked fun this week at the muddled anti-Trump movement. “Many in the Republican Party are just beside themselves now,” he said on his syndicated show Tuesday. “They don’t know what to do. They’re still in denial that, ‘This isn’t real, that Trump’s going to be off and doing something else once the year turns and he’s bored and made his point. He’ll go back to TV.’ ”

He went on to mock the Kasich super PAC ad, saying, “They’re wasting their money, but it’s their money to waste.”

See https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/plan-a-for-gop-donors-wait-for-trump-to-fall-there-is-no-plan-b/2015/11/25/91436a00-92dd-11e5-8aa0-5d0946560a97_story.html (emphasis added); see also http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/261252-gop-in-panic-over-trump (“GOP in panic over Trump“) and https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/private-memo-lays-out-how-the-gop-would-deal-with-trump-as-its-nominee/2015/12/02/78514cba-9909-11e5-94f0-9eeaff906ef3_story.html (“Private memo lays out how the GOP would deal with Trump as its nominee”) and http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/12/03/on-status-of-jerusalem-donald-trump-provokes-boos-from-gop-jews/ (“On Status of Jerusalem, Donald Trump Provokes Boos From GOP Jews”—”The businessman also questioned Israel’s willingness to negotiate a sweeping Middle East peace deal with the Palestinians”—”‘You’re not going to support me, even though I’m the best thing that could ever happen to Israel,’ Mr. Trump told the group. ‘You won’t support me because I don’t want your money’”)

The despicable GOP “establishment” needs to be hung out to dry.

Barack Obama was “a reality TV star” too, and he was elected to the presidency twice.

Ronald Reagan, who is now deified, was trashed as a “B” movie actor.

Donald Trump is in good company.

Lots of us left the GOP years ago because of its “Neanderthals,” like Mitch McConnell, George Will, Karl Rove and the like.

Many of us became Independents, which is a force to be reckoned with.

See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/the-rise-of-independents/#comment-3244 (“Record-High 42 Percent Of Americans Identify As Independents“)

If the so-called GOP “establishment” were to prevent Donald Trump from getting the party’s nomination, many of us would vote for him as an Independent, or hold our noses and vote for Hillary Clinton, or not vote at all in the general election.

The bottom line is that this would gut the GOP, like Ross Perot did in 1992.

See, e.g., http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2015/12/08/poll-trump-cruz-rubio-clinton-sanders/76948760/ (“Poll: 68% of Trump’s supporters would vote for him if he bolts the GOP“); see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/boycott-the-gop-and-ignore-foreign-naysayers/ (“Boycott The GOP And Ignore Foreign Naysayers“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/boycott-the-gop-and-ignore-foreign-naysayers/#comment-7950 (“It’s Time For The Other 13 GOP Candidates to Drop Out“)

It is often said: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Here is the worst of Washington, the Dems’ Harry Reid, and the GOP’s Mitch McConnell:

Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell

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8 12 2015
Timothy D. Naegele

The Demonization Of Donald Trump [UPDATED]

Donald Trump

In the UK’s Telegraph, Julia Hartley-Brewer has written:

Let’s be honest, no one thought it would get as bad as this.

When Donald Trump first launched this latest bid for the American presidency, we all expected him to make gaffe after gaffe, blunder after blunder, and generally expose himself as the laughable buffoon he is before a more serious candidate won the nomination.

But no one is laughing today. Not now that the property mogul has finally said something that is so shocking and awful that even his absurd hairstyle isn’t enough to make him funny anymore.

Now he is just downright dangerous.

Quite frankly, we never envisaged that the billionaire businessman would stoop this low. But he has.

Most of us probably didn’t think it was impossible to make a more shocking and immoral comment than to call Mexican immigrants “rapists and criminals” but, in the wake of the terror attacks by Islamists in Paris and California, “The Donald” has managed to do it.

Donald Trump, the man who is currently the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to win election to the Oval Office and become the leader of the free world, has called for a ban on all Muslims entering the US.

Yes, he actually said that.

It wasn’t an off-the-cuff remark, taken out of context or meant as a sick joke. It was in a press release. An actual official campaign press release, written, agreed and approved by his campaign team in advance.

He claims that his proposal is “common sense” in the wake of the recent spate of terror attacks, including the Muslim husband and wife who went on a killing spree, killing 14 people in San Bernardino, California, last week.

The Trump campaign statement reads: “Donald Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

He argued that there is “great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population” and that the ban should apply to immigrants, refugees and tourists alike.

Since releasing that statement, Trump has not backed down. On the contrary, he faced down a barrage of condemnation, saying: “I. Don’t. Care.”

And that is the problem: he doesn’t care.

Some critics have called Trump “unhinged” or “bonkers”. But here’s the truly scary thing: he’s neither of those things. He is a hard-headed businessman and he knows exactly what he is doing. And he doesn’t care.

We know he doesn’t care because he knows perfectly well that calling for a ban on the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims from entering America is something that is never going to happen. No one is going to start banning law-abiding people from entering a free, democratic country based purely on their religious beliefs.

Trump also knows that, while the ban will never happen, it will however serve to stir up racial and religious tensions in America and across the world and it may well lead to people being forced to flee their homes for their own safety, and even to people losing their lives. But Donald Trump doesn’t care.

The property mogul knows as well that what he has said has horrible echoes of the Nazis in the 1930s and that it will invite comparisons between him and Hitler. And he still doesn’t care because, like Hitler, he claims to be speaking for the masses.

He also doesn’t care because every time Trump says something more outrageous, his poll ratings go up.

But there is one other big clue that Trump doesn’t really care and it is this:

Donald Trump knows that the biggest threat to life and limb in America doesn’t come from Muslims, whether Islamist fanatics or the vast majority of ordinary Muslim-Americans leading peaceful lives.

No, Trump knows that the biggest threat to innocent Americans is actually from white Christian men.

When it comes to deaths in mass shootings like the San Bernardino terror attack, then the statistics are very clear. It is white men raised in the Christian religion who are responsible for the vast majority of those lost lives.

Yet bizarrely Donald Trump is not calling for a ban on white Christian men or, indeed, for a ban on the sale of the semi-automatic weapons that are routinely used in these attacks.

But the biggest danger right now to the American people isn’t an unknown Islamist plotting in secret. It’s a celebrity businessman who is on their TV screens every night openly and blatantly conspiring to destroy everything that is good about America.

If Americans really do want to tackle the terror threat, they should look no further than the bizarrely coiffed hate preacher standing in plain sight.

See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/donald-trump/12039227/Forget-Muslim-terrorists-Donald-Trump-is-the-real-danger-to-America.html (“Forget Muslim terrorists – Donald Trump is the real danger to America”) (emphasis added); see also http://variety.com/2015/biz/news/donald-trump-muslims-white-house-josh-earnest-1201656384/ (“White House Press Secretary: Trump’s Comments Disqualify Him from Presidency”) and http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21679792-america-and-europe-right-wing-populist-politicians-are-march-threat (“Playing with fear”—”Populist [or conservative] ideas need defeating. . . . Even when they are not in power, populists warp the agenda. . . . This newspaper stands for pretty much everything the populists despise”) and http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/us/politics/donald-trump-muslims.html?_r=0 (“Donald Trump, Under Fire, Defends Call to Block Muslims”) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3352406/Scotland-Yard-mocks-Trump-s-claims-London-police-terrified-Muslim-areas-officers-claim-tycoon-RIGHT.html (“Donald Trump is RIGHT about parts of London being so radicalised they are no-go areas for police, say serving officers”) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3351732/Trumps-Muslim-ban-pushes-GOP-chaos.html (“My critics are foolish, I’m not a bigot and I regret nothing: Trump stands by call to ban Muslim immigration despite nationwide fury – as GOP descends into chaos while he hints at independent run”) and http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/immigration/december_2015/voters_like_trump_s_proposed_muslim_ban (Rasmussen public opinion polling: “Voters Like Trump’s Proposed Muslim Ban”)

As Ronald Reagan said: “[T]here you go again.”

This hysterical article written by a bonafide hate preacher should not have been published by the Telegraph. It underscores once again—as if any emphasis was necessary—how bigoted, racist and anti-Christian some people are.

Hartley-Brewer is totally out of touch with the United States and the American people—and reality.

Presumably Barack Obama is her choice of a U.S. president, yet Americans have suffered through his presidency for seven years, with another year to come. Enough is enough. Many Americans, including members of his own party, mock and ridicule him.

Indeed, he may be the worst president in U.S. history; and Americans thought Jimmy Carter was bad.

See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/is-barack-obama-a-racist/ and http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/december_2015/voters_are_not_impressed_with_obama_s_response_to_san_bernardino (Rasmussen public opinion polling: “Voters Are Not Impressed With Obama’s Response to San Bernardino”) and http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll (Rasmussen public opinion polling: “Presidential Tracking Poll . . . shows that 43% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Obama’s job performance. Fifty-five percent (55%) disapprove. The latest figures include 23% who Strongly Approve of the way Obama is performing as president and 43% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -20”)

The sheer stupidity and cowardice of a Brit like Hartley-Brewer is mind-boggling, until it is remembered that the UK might be speaking German now if the United States had not been its “salvation” in World War II. And they ridiculed Ronald Reagan as some “two-bit cowboy” and “B” movie actor, just as they are demeaning and denigrating Trump now.

Lest they forget relatively-recent history, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush set their sights on destroying the USSR, and it is gone now, without a shot being fired. The Brits and others in Europe would still be cowering at the feet of the Soviets but for us.

Today, its successor Russia is a pygmy state, run by a KGB-trained killer, Putin. As a result of our sanctions and the fall of oil prices—which may fall even more—Putin and Russia are in a death spiral from which they will not recover.

See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/11/29/the-death-of-putin-and-russia-the-final-chapter-of-the-cold-war/ (“The Death Of Putin And Russia: The Final Chapter Of The Cold War”)

Islamophobia is un-American, but a failure of any president to defend and protect the United States and the American people is unforgivable.

Like Ronald Reagan before him, Donald Trump represents America’s future, not its past.

See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/06/islamophobia-is-un-american/ (“Islamophobia Is Un-American”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/06/islamophobia-is-un-american/#comment-7908 (“The Ugly Face of Islamophobia: Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens”); see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-7834 (“The GOP Establishment Neanderthals”) and http://www.wsj.com/articles/did-trump-just-win-1449604108 (“Did Trump Just Win?”—”Trump’s proposal, whatever the merits, looks to us like a political masterstroke, in large part because of the overwrought reactions it has prompted from Democrats, Republicans and the media alike”)

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13 03 2016
dana

some of the people coming over the southern border are exactly what trump said they are, murderers and drug dealers and rapists… he said some… how the demonizers like blm, moveon dot org and the rest have twisted this into being racist is a great example of how easily manipulated people are today… fact is, what he said was 100% true.

Liked by 1 person

13 03 2016
Timothy D. Naegele

Thank you for your comments.

I agree completely.

See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/illegal-immigration-the-solution-is-simple/ (“Illegal Immigration: The Solution Is Simple”) (see also the comments beneath the article)

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17 03 2016
Timothy D. Naegele

Will Hillary Clinton Fry? [UPDATED]

Hillary

Clearly, there is enough already to take down her candidacy. Indeed, there is reason to believe that a grand jury has been impaneled; the dominos will fall one by one; and the only thing that will save her from going to prison is a presidential pardon in the waning days of the Obama presidency.

See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/boycott-the-gop-and-ignore-foreign-naysayers/#comment-8386 (“Imagine Sweet Justice“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-7185 (“Clinton Fatigue“) and http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/273626-the-chaos-scenario-for-democrats (“The chaos scenario for Democrats”—”It’s the scenario that Republicans dream of and Democrats believe is all but impossible: Hillary Clinton being forced to drop out of the presidential race due to criminal charges over her email server. Any bombshell findings in the FBI’s investigation of Clinton could plunge the Democratic race into chaos”—”‘The super delegates . . . are most likely to feel the pressure not to cast their ballots in favor of a nominee under indictment'”—”One likely fallback would be Vice President Biden, who came very close to running for president last year. But denying Sanders the nomination could come with a heavy price, potentially alienating the millions of Democrats who cast ballots for him in the primary process”)

In an article for Fox News, Catherine Herridge and Pamela K. Browne have reported:

Less than a month after becoming secretary of state, and registering the personal email domain that she would use exclusively for government business, Hillary Clinton’s team aggressively pursued changes to existing State Department security protocols so she could use her BlackBerry in secure facilities for classified information, according to new documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.

“Anyone who has any appreciation at all of security, you don’t ask a question like that,” cybersecurity analyst Morgan Wright told Fox News. “It is contempt for the system, contempt for the rules that are designed to protect the exact kind of information that was exposed through this email set up. “

Current and former intelligence officials grimaced when asked by Fox News about the use of wireless communications devices, such as a BlackBerry, in a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) emphasizing its use would defeat the purpose of the secure facility, and it is standard practice to leave all electronics outside.

A former State Department employee familiar with the Clinton request emphasized security personnel at the time thought the BlackBerry was only for unclassified material, adding their concerns would have been magnified if they had known Clinton’s email account also held classified material.

“When you allow devices like this into a SCIF, you can allow the bad guys to listen in,” Wright added.

A February 17, 2009 email marked SECRET and cleared through the NSA says, “Ms. Mills described the requirement as chiefly driven by Secretary Clinton, who does not use standard computer equipment but relies exclusively on her Blackberry for emailing and remaining in contact on her schedule etc. Ideally all members of her suite would be allowed to use Blackberries for communication in the SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility)”

Cheryl Mills was Clinton’s chief of staff from 2009-13.

The emails, obtained by Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit also show that a specialized NSA team was brought in to assess the vulnerabilities and feasibility of using wireless communications, including within a secure facility.

The NSA State Department liaison, whose name was withheld, told Mills in a now highly redacted email: “Sometimes the distinction between what can be done and what is, or is not, recommended to be done differ; this is one of those instances. (State Department Diplomatic Security) DS’s response illustrates their level of concern based on their extensive professional expertise. “

Another memo from Mar‎ch 2009, obtained by Judicial Watch through its FOIA lawsuit, from Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Eric Boswell to Mills explicitly warned, “the vulnerabilities and risks associated with the use of Blackberries in Mahogany Row [seventh floor executive offices] considerably outweigh their convenience.” Clinton has claimed she used the personal account and BlackBerry for convenience.

Clinton never used a State Department issued BlackBerry. It is not clear from the documents whether Clinton and her team went ahead and used their BlackBerrys in SCIFs despite the concerns, including those of the NSA. Though a state department official said “no waiver allowing PDAs within Mahogany Row was granted.”

A February 18 2009 email from the State Department’s Senior Coordinator for Security Infrastructure, Donald R. Reid, states “. . . once she (Clinton) got the hang of it, she was hooked, now every day, she feels hamstrung because she has to lock up her BB up. She does go out several times a day to an office they have crafted for her outside the SCIF and plays email catch-up. Cheryl Mills and others who are dedicated BB addicts are frustrated because they too are not near their desktop very often during the working day. . . .”

The reference to a secondary office for Clinton appears to conflict with a February statement from the State Department that no stand-alone computer was set up outside Clinton’s main office on the executive floor, known as Mahogany Row, to check her personal account.

On February 25, Fox News pressed the State Department spokesman about a January 2009 email, also obtained by Judicial Watch, between Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy and then Clinton chief of staff Mills where Kennedy said it was a “great idea” to setup a stand-alone PC for Clinton to check her email.

The State Department said Wednesday no computer was set up but confirmed there was a space created to accommodate Clinton’s personal email use. ‎”There is an area dedicated to supporting the secretary outside but in the immediate vicinity of the secretary’s secure office. Secretary Clinton, as with anyone, could use such non-SCIF spaces to check personal devices,” a State Department official said.

Clinton did not use a government-issued BlackBerry that was certified as secure for government use. Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy recently told the Benghazi Select Committee that he knew about Clinton’s personal account from the earliest days, but did not understand the extent of its use, even though he sent State Department business to Clinton via the Clintonemail account.

In January 2009, Clinton signed at least two non-disclosure agreements in which she promised to protect classified information. Since then, more than 2,100 emails containing classified information have been identified, as well as 22 Top Secret that are too damaging to national security to release.

Earlier this week, Judicial Watch presented the federal court in Washington with a list of 7 Clinton aides it wants to question under oath about Clinton’s use of a private email sever when she was secretary of state.

See http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/03/16/clinton-tried-to-change-rules-to-use-blackberry-in-secure-facility-for-classified-information.html (“Clinton tried to change rules to use BlackBerry in secure facility for classified information“) (emphasis added)

As I have written:

imagine that Hillary is indicted—and it is “game over” for her presidential aspirations—and The Donald continues to sweep the field, and is the GOP nominee.

Imagine Bernie Sanders against Trump.

. . .

And imagine too, if . . . Barack Obama pardons Hillary, as he leaves the White House forever, before handing the “keys” to President Trump and his First Lady, the lovely and intelligent Melania.

For those who say it cannot happen, they are naïve.

See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/boycott-the-gop-and-ignore-foreign-naysayers/#comment-8386 (“Imagine Sweet Justice“)

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16 04 2016
Timothy D. Naegele

Ronald Kessler: Hillary Indictment On Way, But Obama Could Pardon Her

Hillary

Newsmax has reported:

Veteran journalist Ronald Kessler tells Newsmax TV that Hillary Clinton will likely be indicted before the general election for using a private email server to conduct classified government business as secretary of state — but will likely be pardoned by President Barack Obama.

“Definitely before November. Possibly in a month or two,” Kessler said Friday on “The Steve Malzberg Show.”

“By definition, putting classified information on an unsecured server is gross negligence. You saw President Obama trying to make excuses for her. I think he’s leading up to giving a pardon to Hillary, but there’s no question. She will be indicted.

“Jim Comey, the FBI director, is a man of great integrity. I think [Attorney General] Loretta Lynch is as well … not political in the way Eric Holder was. No question she will be indicted.”

Kessler — a former Washington Post reporter and author of “The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents,” published by Crown Forum — said that even if Clinton is pardoned, the damage will have been done.

“Either way, she’s going to be besmirched and it’s possible that [Vice President Joe] Biden might step in,” he told Malzberg.

Kessler also praised Donald Trump as a candidate who would be very different operating in the White House than how he appears on the campaign trail.

“People don’t understand about Donald that there are two Donald Trumps. One is the guy you see on TV who makes these provocative comments to get attention,” Kessler said.

“But as we get more into the general election, he’s going to start behaving like the Donald Trump I know … and that is a very competent, reasonable guy who built this great empire. $10 billion in assets, 22,500 employees — he didn’t do that by being a bigot or by being an idiot.”

See http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/ronald-kessler-hillary-indictment-obama/2016/04/15/id/724214/ (emphasis added); see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-8525 (“Will Hillary Clinton Fry?“)

As I have written before, such a development may have profound effects not only on the upcoming American election, but also on the global economy.

See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/16/the-obama-great-depression/#comment-8654 (“FINANCIAL ARMAGEDDON?“)

Hold on tight. What is coming may not be pretty or nice. Indeed, it may be scary and very disruptive of the lives of many Americans and others globally.

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22 02 2017
Timothy D. Naegele

Americans Hate Both Political Parties And Rightly So [UPDATED]

No Justice

American conservative social and political commentator, writer, syndicated columnist and lawyer Ann Coulter has written:

Americans thought electing a trash-talking billionaire reality TV star to the presidency of the #$%^ United States would finally be enough to convey the message that they hate both political parties. If anything, they hate Republicans more.

But the Uni-Party can’t learn. The bureaucracy, the judiciary and congressional Republicans are all openly working for the “Resistance.” It’s President Trump against the world.

In Congress, the hate for Trump is personal. Not only did he throw a grenade into politicians’ little do-nothing club, but his very existence destroys their self-conception as people with a set of skills.

While Trump was making billions of dollars building skyscrapers, developing golf courses and starring on a hit reality TV show, members of Congress were slowly working their way up the political ladder — interning at think tanks and congressional offices, taking some small government job, then running for the House or Senate, and, hopefully, marrying a woman with a large inheritance.

A stunning number of senators and congressmen are supported by rich wives — Sens. John McCain, Mitch McConnell, Richard Blumenthal, John Kerry and Ron Wyden, and Reps. Michael McCaul, Scott Peters and Paul Ryan, to name a few. Is there any other profession with as high a percentage of men sponging off their wives’ inheritances?

Then a self-made billionaire came along, violated all the rules they had lived by, and swept aside more than a dozen experienced politicians just like themselves! Not only did Trump make his own money, but he beat them at the one thing they thought they knew how to do.

How else to explain Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s sneering dismissal of Trump’s request for an investigation into voter fraud, followed — one week later! — by McConnell’s assurance that the Senate would investigate former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s phone call to the Russian ambassador?

These useless Republicans allowed a Senate seat to be stolen from under their noses in Minnesota in 2008, giving Obama the vote he needed to pass Obamacare and destroy our health care.

No, don’t investigate that! Why bother with the very foundation of democracy? How will these nitwit politicians win praise from The Washington Post without devoting all their energy to some current leftist fetish, like Russia?

At least when liberals fixate on Russia, they have a clear subversive mission.

Congressional Republicans are just nincompoops. The only thing they know is: Imitate Reagan — from 30 years ago. It would make more sense for Republicans to demand that all air traffic controllers be fired for no reason than it is for them to keep treating Putin like it’s 1950 and he’s Stalin. (We know Putin isn’t Stalin because Democrats aren’t affectionately calling him “Uncle Joe” and spying for him.)

If senators have time for hearings on Flynn’s discussions with the Russian ambassador, could they possibly squeeze in an afternoon to repeal Obamacare?

How about the campaign pledge that rocketed Trump to the White House? According to The Washington Post, at the GOP retreat last month, when Trump talked about using tax policy to help pay for the wall, Republicans expressed “confusion about what exactly he meant.”

Are they retarded? (By “they,” I mean all Republicans in Congress, except Sen. Tom Cotton and about a half-dozen others.)

If Republicans had an ounce of self-respect, right after repealing Obamacare and writing a bill taxing remittances to make Mexico pay for the wall, they’d be impeaching the ridiculous Judge James Robart. Even lawyers who oppose Trump’s travel ban agree that Judge Robart made a complete ass of himself when he blocked the executive order.

The “Resistance” claims to be terrified that Trump will not be constrained by our Constitution, but they’re the ones who are perfectly willing to disregard the Constitution simply to stop Trump.

At least since the Chinese exclusion case of 1889, the Supreme Court has made blindingly clear that “the power of exclusion of foreigners” belongs to the political branches of government: Congress and the president — not to the judiciary.

The president’s authority to exclude aliens in the public interest has been reaffirmed in dozens of cases since then. Among them:

— Harisiades v. Shaughnessy (1952): “Any policy toward aliens is vitally and intricately interwoven with . . . the conduct of foreign relations, the war power, and the maintenance of a republican form of government. Such matters are so exclusively entrusted to the political branches of government as to be largely immune from judicial inquiry or interference.”

— Shaughnessy v. Mezei (1953): “Congress expressly authorized the President to impose additional restrictions on aliens entering or leaving the United States during periods of international tension and strife. . . . (The President) may shut out aliens whose ‘entry would be prejudicial to the interests of the United States.’”

— Mathews v. Diaz (1976): “(T)he responsibility for regulating the relationship between the United States and our alien visitors has been committed to the political branches of the Federal Government. . . . (Therefore, there is) a narrow standard of review of decisions made by the Congress or the President in the area of immigration and naturalization.”

— United States v. Valenzuela-Bernal (1982): “The power to regulate immigration — an attribute of sovereignty essential to the preservation of any nation — has been entrusted by the Constitution to the political branches of the Federal Government.”

— INS. v. Aguirre-Aguirre (1999): “(J)udicial deference to the Executive Branch is especially appropriate in the immigration context where officials ‘exercise especially sensitive political functions that implicate questions of foreign relations.’”

And on and on and on.

There are lots of constitutional questions that reasonable people can disagree about. Whether the president can exclude foreigners from seven terror-prone countries is not one of them.

But congressional Republicans are happy to ignore the Constitution, ignore the balance of powers, ignore written law, even to relinquish their own constitutional authority and let the courts run our foreign policy, just to be a part of the establishment’s STOP TRUMP movement.

Instead of neurotically fixating on Russia in some fantasy camp imitation of Reagan, circa 1982, what we’d like these worthless Republicans to do is: Imitate Trump — circa now.

See http://humanevents.com/2017/02/22/american-gigolos-gop-watch-list-part-2/ (emphasis added)

There is no question that the total scumbag and “ridiculous Judge James Robart” should be impeached. And his impeachment should be just the beginning of a very long list of impeachments to rid our judiciary of lawless judges.

As Ann Coulter has written, correctly:

Even lawyers who oppose Trump’s travel ban agree that Judge Robart made a complete ass of himself when he blocked the executive order.

See also http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TRANSGENDER_BATHROOMS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-02-22-19-10-17 (“TRUMP ADMINISTRATION LIFTS TRANSGENDER BATHROOM GUIDANCE“)

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5 10 2017
Timothy D. Naegele

Washington And Hollywood Scum [UPDATED]

Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey have written in the New York Times:

Two decades ago, the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein invited Ashley Judd to the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel for what the young actress expected to be a business breakfast meeting. Instead, he had her sent up to his room, where he appeared in a bathrobe and asked if he could give her a massage or she could watch him shower, she recalled in an interview.

“How do I get out of the room as fast as possible without alienating Harvey Weinstein?” Ms. Judd said she remembers thinking.

In 2014, Mr. Weinstein invited Emily Nestor, who had worked just one day as a temporary employee, to the same hotel and made another offer: If she accepted his sexual advances, he would boost her career, according to accounts she provided to colleagues who sent them to Weinstein Company executives. The following year, once again at the Peninsula, a female assistant said Mr. Weinstein badgered her into giving him a massage while he was naked, leaving her “crying and very distraught,” wrote a colleague, Lauren O’Connor, in a searing memo asserting sexual harassment and other misconduct by their boss.

“There is a toxic environment for women at this company,” Ms. O’Connor said in the letter, addressed to several executives at the company run by Mr. Weinstein.

An investigation by The New York Times found previously undisclosed allegations against Mr. Weinstein stretching over nearly three decades, documented through interviews with current and former employees and film industry workers, as well as legal records, emails and internal documents from the businesses he has run, Miramax and the Weinstein Company.

During that time, after being confronted with allegations including sexual harassment and unwanted physical contact, Mr. Weinstein has reached at least eight settlements with women, according to two company officials speaking on the condition of anonymity. Among the recipients, The Times found, were a young assistant in New York in 1990, an actress in 1997, an assistant in London in 1998, an Italian model in 2015 and Ms. O’Connor shortly after, according to records and those familiar with the agreements.

In a statement to The Times on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Weinstein said: “I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it. Though I’m trying to do better, I know I have a long way to go.”

He added that he was working with therapists and planning to take a leave of absence to “deal with this issue head on.”

Lisa Bloom, a lawyer advising Mr. Weinstein, said in a statement that “he denies many of the accusations as patently false.” In comments to The Times earlier this week, Mr. Weinstein said that many claims in Ms. O’Connor’s memo were “off base” and that they had parted on good terms.

He and his representatives declined to comment on any of the settlements, including providing information about who paid them. But Mr. Weinstein said that in addressing employee concerns about workplace issues, “my motto is to keep the peace.”

Ms. Bloom, who has been advising Mr. Weinstein over the last year on gender and power dynamics, called him “an old dinosaur learning new ways.” She said she had “explained to him that due to the power difference between a major studio head like him and most others in the industry, whatever his motives, some of his words and behaviors can be perceived as inappropriate, even intimidating.”

Though Ms. O’Connor had been writing only about a two-year period, her memo echoed other women’s complaints. Mr. Weinstein required her to have casting discussions with aspiring actresses after they had private appointments in his hotel room, she said, her description matching those of other former employees. She suspected that she and other female Weinstein employees, she wrote, were being used to facilitate liaisons with “vulnerable women who hope he will get them work.”

The allegations piled up even as Mr. Weinstein helped define popular culture. He has collected six best-picture Oscars and turned out a number of touchstones, from the films “Sex, Lies, and Videotape,” “Pulp Fiction” and “Good Will Hunting” to the television show “Project Runway.” In public, he presents himself as a liberal lion, a champion of women and a winner of not just artistic but humanitarian awards.

In 2015, the year Ms. O’Connor wrote her memo, his company distributed “The Hunting Ground,” a documentary about campus sexual assault. A longtime Democratic donor, he hosted a fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton in his Manhattan home last year. He employed Malia Obama, the oldest daughter of former President Barack Obama, as an intern this year, and recently helped endow a faculty chair at Rutgers University in Gloria Steinem’s name. During the Sundance Film Festival in January, when Park City, Utah, held its version of nationwide women’s marches, Mr. Weinstein joined the parade.

“From the outside, it seemed golden — the Oscars, the success, the remarkable cultural impact,” said Mark Gill, former president of Miramax Los Angeles when the company was owned by Disney. “But behind the scenes, it was a mess, and this was the biggest mess of all,” he added, referring to Mr. Weinstein’s treatment of women.

Dozens of Mr. Weinstein’s former and current employees, from assistants to top executives, said they knew of inappropriate conduct while they worked for him. Only a handful said they ever confronted him.

Mr. Weinstein enforced a code of silence; employees of the Weinstein Company have contracts saying they will not criticize it or its leaders in a way that could harm its “business reputation” or “any employee’s personal reputation,” a recent document shows. And most of the women accepting payouts agreed to confidentiality clauses prohibiting them from speaking about the deals or the events that led to them.

Charles Harder, a lawyer representing Mr. Weinstein, said it was not unusual for companies to enter into settlements to avoid lengthy and costly litigation. And, he added, “it’s not evidence of anything.”

At Fox News, where the conservative icons Roger E. Ailes and Bill O’Reilly were accused of harassment, women have received payouts well into the millions of dollars. But most of the women involved in the Weinstein agreements collected between roughly $80,000 and $150,000, according to people familiar with the negotiations.

In the wake of Ms. O’Connor’s 2015 memo, some Weinstein Company board members and executives, including Mr. Weinstein’s brother and longtime partner, Bob, 62, were alarmed about the allegations, according to several people who spoke on the condition of anonymity. In the end, though, board members were assured there was no need to investigate. After reaching a settlement with Mr. Weinstein, Ms. O’Connor withdrew her complaint and thanked him for the career opportunity he had given her.

“The parties made peace very quickly,” Ms. Bloom said.

Through her lawyer, Nicole Page, Ms. O’Connor declined to be interviewed. In the memo, she explained how unnerved she was by what she witnessed or encountered while a literary scout and production executive at the company. “I am just starting out in my career, and have been and remain fearful about speaking up,” Ms. O’Connor wrote. “But remaining silent is causing me great distress.”

In speaking out about her hotel episode, Ms. Judd said in a recent interview, “Women have been talking about Harvey amongst ourselves for a long time, and it’s simply beyond time to have the conversation publicly.”

A Common Narrative

Ms. Nestor, a law and business school student, accepted Mr. Weinstein’s breakfast invitation at the Peninsula because she did not want to miss an opportunity, she later told colleagues. After she arrived, he offered to help her career while boasting about a series of famous actresses he claimed to have slept with, according to accounts that colleagues compiled after hearing her story and then sent on to company executives.

“She said he was very persistent and focused though she kept saying no for over an hour,” one internal document said. Ms. Nestor, who declined to comment for this article, refused his bargain, the records noted. “She was disappointed that he met with her and did not seem to be interested in her résumé or skill set.” The young woman chose not to report the episode to human resources personnel, but the allegations came to management’s attention through other employees.

Across the years and continents, accounts of Mr. Weinstein’s conduct share a common narrative: Women reported to a hotel for what they thought were work reasons, only to discover that Mr. Weinstein, who has been married for most of three decades, sometimes seemed to have different interests. His home base was New York, but his rolling headquarters were luxury hotels: the Peninsula Beverly Hills and the Savoy in London, the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc near the Cannes Film Festival in France and the Stein Eriksen Lodge near the Sundance Film Festival.

Working for Mr. Weinstein could mean getting him out of bed in the morning and doing “turndown duty” late at night, preparing him for sleep. Like the colleague cited in Ms. O’Connor’s memo, some junior employees required to perform those tasks said they were disturbing.

In interviews, eight women described varying behavior by Mr. Weinstein: appearing nearly or fully naked in front of them, requiring them to be present while he bathed or repeatedly asking for a massage or initiating one himself. The women, typically in their early or middle 20s and hoping to get a toehold in the film industry, said he could switch course quickly — meetings and clipboards one moment, intimate comments the next. One woman advised a peer to wear a parka when summoned for duty as a layer of protection against unwelcome advances.

Laura Madden, a former employee who said Mr. Weinstein prodded her for massages at hotels in Dublin and London beginning in 1991, said he had a way of making anyone who objected feel like an outlier. “It was so manipulative,” she said in an interview. “You constantly question yourself — am I the one who is the problem?”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Mr. Weinstein said.

Most women who told The Times that they experienced misconduct by Mr. Weinstein had never met one another. They range in age from early 20s to late 40s and live in different cities. Some said they did not report the behavior because there were no witnesses and they feared retaliation by Mr. Weinstein. Others said they felt embarrassed. But most confided in co-workers.

Ms. Madden later told Karen Katz, a friend and colleague in the acquisitions department, about Mr. Weinstein’s overtures, including a time she locked herself in the bathroom of his hotel room, sobbing. “We were so young at the time,” said Ms. Katz, now a documentary filmmaker. “We did not understand how wrong it was or how Laura should deal with it.”

Others in the London office said the same. “I was pretty disturbed and angry,” said Sallie Hodges, another former employee, recalling the accounts she heard from colleagues. “That’s kind of the way things were.”

The human resources operation was considered weak in New York and worse in London, so some employees banded together in solidarity. “If a female executive was asked to go to a meeting solo, she and a colleague would generally double up” so as not to be alone with Mr. Weinstein, recalled Mr. Gill, the former president of Miramax Los Angeles.

Many women who worked with Mr. Weinstein said they never experienced sexual harassment or knew of anyone who did, and recalled him as a boss who gave them valuable opportunities at young ages. Some described long and satisfying careers with him, praising him as a mentor and advocate.

But in interviews, some of the former employees who said they had troubling experiences with Mr. Weinstein asked a common question: How could allegations repeating the same pattern — young women, a powerful male producer, even some of the same hotels — have accumulated for almost three decades?

“It wasn’t a secret to the inner circle,” said Kathy DeClesis, Bob Weinstein’s assistant in the early 1990s. She supervised a young woman who left the company abruptly after an encounter with Harvey Weinstein and who later received a settlement, according to several former employees.

Speaking up could have been costly. A job with Mr. Weinstein was a privileged perch at the nexus of money, fame and art, and plenty of his former assistants have risen high in Hollywood. He could be charming and generous: gift baskets, flowers, personal or career help and cash. At the Cannes Film Festival, according to several former colleagues, he sometimes handed out thousands of dollars as impromptu bonuses.

Mr. Weinstein was a volcanic personality, though, given to fits of rage and personal lashings of male and female employees alike. When a female guest of his had to wait for a hotel room upgrade, he yelled that Ms. O’Connor would be better off marrying a “fat, rich Jewish” man because she was probably just good for “being a wife” and “making babies.” (He added some expletives, she wrote in her memo.) His treatment of women was sometimes written off as just another form of toxicity, according to multiple former employees.

In the fall of 1998, a 25-year-old London assistant named Zelda Perkins confronted Mr. Weinstein. According to former colleagues, she and several co-workers had been regularly subjected to inappropriate requests or comments in hotel rooms, and she was particularly concerned about the treatment of another woman in the office. She told Mr. Weinstein that he had to stop, according to the former colleagues, and that she would go public or initiate legal action unless he changed his behavior.

Steve Hutensky, one of Miramax’s entertainment lawyers, was dispatched to London to negotiate a settlement with Ms. Perkins and her lawyer. He declined to comment for this article.

Ms. Perkins, now a theater producer in London, also declined to comment for this article, saying that she could not discuss her work at Miramax or whether she had entered into any agreements.

Months after the settlement, Mr. Weinstein triumphed at the Oscars, with “Life Is Beautiful” and “Shakespeare in Love” winning 10 awards. A few years later, Mr. Weinstein, who had produced a series of British-themed movies, was made a Commander of the British Empire, an honorary title just short of knighthood.

‘Coercive Bargaining’

For actors, a meeting with Mr. Weinstein could yield dazzling rewards: scripts, parts, award campaigns, magazine coverage, influence on lucrative endorsement deals. He knew how to blast small films to box office success, and deliver polished dramas like “The King’s Speech” and popular attractions like the “Scary Movie” franchise. Mr. Weinstein’s films helped define femininity, sex and romance, from Catherine Zeta-Jones in “Chicago” to Jennifer Lawrence in “Silver Linings Playbook.”

But movies were also his private leverage. When Mr. Weinstein invited Ms. Judd to breakfast in Beverly Hills, she had been shooting the thriller “Kiss the Girls” all night, but the meeting seemed too important to miss. After arriving at the hotel lobby, she was surprised to learn that they would be talking in his suite; she decided to order cereal, she said, so the food would come quickly and she could leave.

Mr. Weinstein soon issued invitation after invitation, she said. Could he give her a massage? When she refused, he suggested a shoulder rub. She rejected that too, she recalled. He steered her toward a closet, asking her to help pick out his clothing for the day, and then toward the bathroom. Would she watch him take a shower? she remembered him saying.

“I said no, a lot of ways, a lot of times, and he always came back at me with some new ask,” Ms. Judd said. “It was all this bargaining, this coercive bargaining.”

To get out of the room, she said, she quipped that if Mr. Weinstein wanted to touch her, she would first have to win an Oscar in one of his movies. She recalled feeling “panicky, trapped,” she said in the interview. “There’s a lot on the line, the cachet that came with Miramax.”

Not long afterward, she related what had happened to her mother, the singer Naomi Judd, who confirmed their conversation to a Times reporter. Years later, Ashley Judd appeared in two Weinstein films without incident, she said. In 2015, she shared an account of the episode in the hotel room with “Variety” without naming the man involved.

In 1997, Mr. Weinstein reached a previously undisclosed settlement with Rose McGowan, then a 23-year-old-actress, after an episode in a hotel room during the Sundance Film Festival. The $100,000 settlement was “not to be construed as an admission” by Mr. Weinstein, but intended to “avoid litigation and buy peace,” according to the legal document, which was reviewed by The Times. Ms. McGowan had just appeared in the slasher film “Scream” and would later star in the television show “Charmed.” She declined to comment.

Increased Scrutiny

Just months before Ms. O’Connor wrote her memo, a young female employee quit after complaining of being forced to arrange what she believed to be assignations for Mr. Weinstein, according to two people familiar with her departure. The woman, who asked not to be identified to protect her privacy, said a nondisclosure agreement prevented her from commenting.

Soon, complaints about Mr. Weinstein’s behavior prompted the board of his company to take notice.

In March 2015, Mr. Weinstein had invited Ambra Battilana, an Italian model and aspiring actress, to his TriBeCa office on a Friday evening to discuss her career. Within hours, she called the police. Ms. Battilana told them that Mr. Weinstein had grabbed her breasts after asking if they were real and put his hands up her skirt, the police report says.

The claims were taken up by the New York Police Department’s Special Victims Squad and splashed across the pages of tabloids, along with reports that the woman had worked with investigators to secretly record a confession from Mr. Weinstein. The Manhattan district attorney’s office later declined to bring charges.

But Mr. Weinstein made a payment to Ms. Battilana, according to people familiar with the settlement, speaking on the condition of anonymity about the confidential agreement.

The public nature of the episode concerned some executives and board members of the Weinstein Company. (Harvey and Bob Weinstein together own 42 percent of the privately held business.) When several board members pressed Mr. Weinstein about it, he insisted that the woman had set him up, colleagues recalled.

Ms. Battilina had testified in court proceedings against associates of former Prime Minister Berlusconi of Italy who are accused of procuring women for alleged sex parties, and the Italian news media also reported that, years ago Ms. Battilana accused a septuagenarian boyfriend of sexual harassment, a complaint that was apparently dismissed. Ms. Battilana did not respond to requests for comment. Her lawyer, Mauro Rufini, could not be reached for comment.

After the episode, Lance Maerov, a board member, said he successfully pushed for a code of behavior for the company that included detailed language about sexual harassment.

Then Ms. O’Connor’s memo hit, with page after page of detailed accusations. In describing the experiences of women at the company she had heard about, including her own, she wrote, “The balance of power is me: 0, Harvey Weinstein: 10.”

She was a valued employee — Mr. Weinstein described her as “fantastic,” “a great person,” “a brilliant executive” — so the complaint rattled top executives, including Bob Weinstein. When the board was notified of it by email, Mr. Maerov insisted that an outside lawyer determine whether the allegations were true, he said in an interview.

But the inquiry never happened. Mr. Weinstein had reached a settlement with Ms. O’Connor, she had withdrawn her complaint and there was no longer anything to investigate.

“Because this matter has been resolved and no further action is required, I withdraw my complaint,” Ms. O’Connor wrote in an email to the head of human resources six days after sending her memo. She also wrote a letter to Mr. Weinstein thanking him for the opportunity to learn about the entertainment industry.

See https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html (“Decades of Sexual Harassment Accusations Against Harvey Weinstein“) (emphasis added); but see https://www.thewrap.com/media-enablers-harvey-weinstein-new-york-times/
(“‘Harvey Weinstein’s Media Enablers’? The New York Times Is One of Them”); see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-7185 (“Clinton Fatigue“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/boycott-the-gop-and-ignore-foreign-naysayers/#comment-8828 (“Bill Clinton Ditched Secret Service On Multiple ‘Lolita Express’ Flights“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/28/human-trafficking/#comment-7566 (“The Serial Rapist Bill Cosby”—”All of us have mothers; and many of us are blessed to have daughters and granddaughters. Thus, whether we are men or women, we must stand up against what Bill Cosby and others have done, and keep on doing! The same thing should happen with respect to Roman Polanski (i.e., ‘rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor’), who is a fugitive from American justice”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/john-f-kennedy-the-most-despicable-president-in-american-history/ (“John F. Kennedy: The Most Despicable President In American History“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/is-redemption-possible-for-tiger-woods/ (“Is Redemption Possible For Tiger Woods?“) and http://www.kabc.com/2017/11/16/leeann-tweeden-on-senator-al-franken/ (“Senator Al Franken Kissed and Groped Me Without My Consent, And There’s Nothing Funny About It“) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5089713/Radio-host-former-Playboy-model-Al-Franken-GROPED-her.html (“Democratic Senator Al Franken apologizes for forcibly kissing former Playboy model and GROPING her while she slept during 2006 USO tour to entertain troops in Afghanistan“) and http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1976/4/16/live-from-new-york-its-al/ (AL FRANKEN: “I just don’t like homosexuals. . . . Hey, I was glad when that . . . homosexual got killed in Philadelphia”) and http://www.twincities.com/2008/06/04/gop-criticize-franken-over-rape-joke-in-1995-article/ (“GOP criticize Franken over rape joke in 1995 article“)

Don’t bet on this being the end of the road for Weinstein. He is representative of the Hollywood/Washington cultures that have ruled both cities for decades.

As I wrote in the article above:

I was born and raised in Hollywood/LA, and spent 21 years nonstop in Washington, D.C. When I left Capitol Hill after working there for three and a half years, there was one four-letter word that stood out in my mind, and it still does today: “S-I-C-K.”

I vowed that neither of my kids would ever work there. I had seen raving narcissists and demagogues who were not nice people—and equaled or surpassed those in Hollywood where I had grown up.

I saw senators and congressmen chasing and bedding female staffers between the ages of about 22-26, and wrecking their lives in the process. When the women reached about 28, they were considered “over the hill,” and a new batch of fresh young faces would replace them.

I saw attractive young female staffers flock to the politicians like groupies are attracted to rock stars and other celebrities. I saw lobbyists providing women for sex to important committee chairmen.

Again, S-I-C-K is the only word that describes it.

Sodom and Gomorrah have been “reincarnated” in Washington and Hollywood, where raving and depraved narcissists like Weinstein reign. They denigrate any notions of their respective religions; and they embody evil in this world.

See also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-10901 (“HOLLYWOOD HAS BEEN SICK FOR DECADES“) and https://www.thedailybeast.com/hollywoods-loud-silence-on-harvey-weinsteins-sexual-harassment-allegations (“Hollywood’s Loud Silence on Harvey Weinstein’s Sexual Harassment Allegations“) and http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/harvey-weinstein-harassment-claims-put-obamas-clintons-tough-spot-1046107 (“Harvey Weinstein Harassment Claims Put Obamas, Clintons in Tough Spot“) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4960400/Nathan-Lane-speaks-Harvey-Weinstein-threats.html (“‘You can’t hurt me, I don’t have a film career’: Nathan Lane breaks his silence on how Harvey Weinstein ‘threatened to destroy him’ and ‘threw him against a wall’ at Hillary Clinton’s birthday 17 years ago”) and http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-weinstein-hollywood-hypocrisy-20171006-story.html (“Weinstein sexual harassment controversy exposes Hollywood’s double standard“) and http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/script-reader-harvey-weinstein-bath-1202583896/ (“British Writer Claims Harvey Weinstein Asked Her to ‘Jump In the Bath’ With Him“) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4961282/Rose-McGowan-hits-monster-Weinstein.html (“‘This is who you are shaming with your silence’: Rose McGowan hits out AGAIN at ‘monster’ Weinstein and the Hollywood darlings refusing to call him out“) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4961200/Harvey-Weinstein-FIRED-Weinstein-Company.html (“Fall of the film mogul they once called ‘God’: Harvey Weinstein is FIRED from company HE founded over mounting sexual harassment claims yet STILL Hollywood refuses to call him out“)

Only fellow Jews would blasphemously call Weinstein “God,” and defend him, just as they believe that they are “chosen.”

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10 10 2017
Timothy D. Naegele

THIS WOMAN HAS NO SHAME! [UPDATED]

Hillary

Jeremy Barr has written in the Hollywood Reporter:

Former presidential candidate and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton broke her silence Tuesday afternoon and released a statement about the claims of sexual harassment and assault made against Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood mogul who donated generously to her campaigns.

“I was shocked and appalled by the revelations about Harvey Weinstein,” Clinton said in the statement. “The behavior described by the women coming forward cannot be tolerated. Their courage and the support of others is critical in helping to stop this kind of behavior.”

Clinton had not commented publicly about the allegations against Weinstein, which were brought to surface in an investigation published by The New York Times on Thursday. Her former 2016 running mate, Tim Kaine, said on CNN on Tuesday morning that he’s sure “she’ll have a word to say when the time’s right for her.”

Kaine also said that it’s too late to return donations to the pair’s presidential bid, since “the campaign’s over.”

Clinton, like former President Barack Obama and many other prominent Democrats and party campaign committees, has received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions over the years. Weinstein also held a fundraiser for her campaign in 2016. Many Democrats have returned or donated the money given to them by Weinstein.

See http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hillary-clinton-says-shes-shocked-appalled-by-weinstein-claims-1047389 (“Hillary Clinton Says She’s “Shocked and Appalled” by Harvey Weinstein Claims“) (emphasis added); see also http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4965858/Bill-Hillary-Clinton-haven-t-spoken-months.html (“Bill and Hillary Clinton ‘haven’t been speaking for months after he tossed her hand-wringing election book in the TRASH'”) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4968300/Harvey-Weinstein-s-wife-announces-LEAVING-him.html (“‘My heart breaks for the women who have suffered’: Harvey Weinstein’s wife announces she is LEAVING sex abuser movie mogul as he ‘flies to Europe for sex addiction rehab'”)

The crimes committed by Hillary and Bill Clinton are endless; and both deserve to be indicted, convicted and imprisoned for the rest of their lives—where their fellow prisoners will mete out true justice to both of them.

They are criminals through and through, and are mirror images of the degenerate, evil Harvey Weinstein.

See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-10846 (“Washington And Hollywood Scum“); see also http://nypost.com/2017/10/10/weinstein-could-face-criminal-charges-if-rape-claim-is-true/ (“Weinstein could face criminal charges if rape claim is true“)

Harvey Weinstein-SCUM

Like

11 10 2017
Timothy D. Naegele

HOLLYWOOD HAS BEEN SICK FOR DECADES [UPDATED]

Scott Feinberg has written in the Hollywood Reporter:

In the wake of the allegations of sexual assault committed by Harvey Weinstein, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released a statement, calling the disgraced mogul’s behavior “repugnant” and calling for an emergency board of governors meeting to address the issue.

“The Academy finds the conduct described in the allegations against Harvey Weinstein to be repugnant, abhorrent, and antithetical to the high standards of the Academy and the creative community it represents,” the Academy said. “The Board of Governors will be holding a special meeting on Saturday, October 14, to discuss the allegations against Weinstein and any actions warranted by the Academy.”

Weinstein, a member of the Academy for more than 20 years, long has been a major player at the Oscars. The two companies he founded, Miramax and The Weinstein Company, have distributed five best picture winners — The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love, Chicago, The King’s Speech and The Artist — and Weinstein himself has personally taken home one statuette, as a producer of Shakespeare.

A growing number of people, both inside and outside of the Hollywood community, have begun asking the Academy to revoke Weinstein’s membership. Meanwhile, the National Organization for Women currently is gathering signatures from the public for a petition calling for Weinstein’s ouster. And BAFTA, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, which presents the U.K.’s equivalent of an Oscar, suspended Weinstein’s membership Wednesday.

Academy CEO Dawn Hudson and newly-elected president John Bailey were traveling in Europe on Academy business over the past few days, and, in their absence, the issue of what to do about Weinstein was not formally addressed. But after returning to Los Angeles and consulting with members of the Academy’s 54-person board of governors, they have clearly conveyed that they are taking the issue seriously — but have not yet determined what, if any, further action they will take.

While Weinstein’s behavior has drawn condemnation, it may not specifically violate Academy rules, which mostly govern Oscar campaigning. The 8,427-member organization has only expelled one person in its 90-year history: Carmine Caridi, an actor who was found to have violated the Academy’s no-loaning screener policy after copies of movies that had been sent to him turned up online. But the Academy, as a private organization, technically does have great leverage over who it does and does not include in its ranks.

The Academy stopped short of kicking Weinstein out of the organization today, but it left the door open in its statement to taking “other actions.” One reservation that it may have about disciplining Weinstein for his personal behavior is that doing so would then create the expectation that it would adjudicate the behavior of other members caught up in scandals.

The Academy, which admits members for life, does not make public a list of its members’ names, but THR has independently confirmed that Mel Gibson, Roman Polanski and even Bill Cosby are on the rolls. Woody Allen never became a member. (Meanwhile, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences numbers Donald Trump among its ranks.)

The only prior occasion on which the Academy got into the business of adjudicating the personal behavior of its members was during the Red Scare, when it briefly banned blacklisted writers — who were reported to be, or had been in the past, supporters of the Communist Party — from being eligible for Academy Awards. That is now considered one of the black marks in Academy history. Several of those writers, working under pseudonyms, actually won Oscars, but not all lived to see the day when the organization apologized to the real writers and presented them with the statuettes that were rightfully theirs.

See http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/academy-calls-harvey-weinstein-claims-repugnant-calls-emergency-meeting-1047834 (“Academy Deems Harvey Weinstein Claims “Repugnant,” Calls Emergency Meeting“) (emphasis added)

What a sick, sick, pathetic joke. The Academy’s response is reminiscent of Claude Rains’ words in the 1942 film classic Casablanca: “round up the usual suspects.”

Hollywood, where I grew up, has been sick for decades. What Harvey Weinstein has been alleged to have done was nothing out of the ordinary. And because he is a Jew, he has been protected by other Jews, which is how Hollywood has worked for decades. Many are ugly, gross, unprincipled lowlifes, who prey on those who cross their paths, especially young vulnerable women.

My parents advised me at an early age not to get involved with those “in the business.” A multi-billionaire Hollywood movie mogul friend told me the same thing years ago, and said the people were not “nice,” which is an understatement. Are there fine wonderful people in Hollywood, including terrific Jews? Of course there are, but there are the true sickos and criminals too, like Weinstein, Polanski and Cosby.

See, e.g., http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4971192/FBI-Harvey-Weinstein-probe-ordered-Trump-Justice-Dept.html (“Trump’s Justice Department moves on Harvey Weinstein and orders FBI to open probe over fears he will ‘do a Polanski'”) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4974562/London-police-investigate-Hollywood-s-Harvey-Weinstein.html (“Now Harvey Weinstein is probed by SCOTLAND YARD after being accused of abuse dating back to 1980s as another English actress says sexual assault ruined her career“) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4974110/Harvey-Weinstein-investigated-rape-charges.html (“Weinstein is being investigated on BOTH sides of the Atlantic as Scotland Yard joins the NYPD in weighing up sexual assault charges against the disgraced movie mogul“) and https://www.thedailybeast.com/hollywoods-heinous-casting-couch-culture-that-enabled-harvey-weinstein (“Hollywood’s Heinous ‘Casting Couch’ Culture That Enabled Harvey Weinstein“) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4975366/Rose-McGowan-lashes-Jeff-Bezos-says-HW-raped-her.html (“I told you he raped me: Rose McGowan says Jeff Bezos killed her TV series when she objected to Amazon bailout of Weinstein Co as streaming giant’s top studio exec is accused of telling lesbian producer ‘you will like my dick'”) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4979384/Eva-Green-managed-escape-Harvey-Weinstein.html (“Bond Girl Eva Green escaped from Harvey Weinstein after he made advances on her in Paris hotel room but mogul then threatened to ‘destroy her professionally’ claims her mother“) and http://ew.com/movies/women-accused-harvey-weinstein-sexual-misconduct/harvey-weinsteins-accusers/ (“36 Women Who Have Accused Harvey Weinstein of Sexual Misconduct“) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4981048/Academy-revokes-disgraced-Harvey-Weinstein-s-membership.html (“Oscars board revokes Harvey’s lifetime membership over sexual harassment scandal meanwhile Woody Allen actress alleges Weinstein RAPED her at her London home as Scotland Yard investigates“) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4984868/PIERS-MORGAN-Kate-Winslet-s-hypocrisy-Weinstein.html (“Kate Winslet’s shameful hypocrisy over Weinstein, Polanski and Woody Allen is why I don’t believe morally repugnant Hollywood will ever change“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/boycott-the-gop-and-ignore-foreign-naysayers/#comment-9912 (“This Pedophile And Rapist Must Be Jailed For Life“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/boycott-the-gop-and-ignore-foreign-naysayers/#comment-8868 (“The Serial Rapist Bill Cosby: To Stand Trial“) and http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/kevin-spacey-anthony-rapp-sexual-advance-1202602082/ (“Kevin Spacey Accused of Sexual Misconduct by ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Actor”—”[A]ctor Rapp has accused Spacey of making a pass at him when he was 14 years old after he attended a party at Spacey’s New York apartment in 1986”) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5183933/Mira-Sorvino-heartbroken-Weinstein-blacklisted-her.html (“‘I burst out crying’: ‘Heartbroken’ Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd respond to Peter Jackson’s confirmation that Harvey Weinstein blacklisted them and stopped both from starring in Lord of the Rings because they rejected him”); see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/31/jerry-perenchio-kind-and-caring/ (“Jerry Perenchio: Kind And Caring“)

To target Mel Gibson when all he did was to tell the unvarnished truth is ludicrous, and part of the sickness and pervasive “code of silence” in Hollywood.

. . .

And yes, as I have written before, the Hollywood and Washington cultures are linked and intertwined, and essentially mirror images of each other.

See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-10846 (“Washington And Hollywood Scum“) and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4971680/Weinstein-says-wants-reconcile-wife-Georgina.html (“[Weinstein] insists he always behaved when Obama’s daughter [Malia] was around“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/john-f-kennedy-the-most-despicable-president-in-american-history/#comment-10966 (“HOW HYPOCRITICAL: A KENNEDY PROPOSES ZERO TOLERANCE IN WEINSTEIN WAKE“); see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/20/israels-senseless-killings-and-war-with-iran/#comment-544 (“Why I Write And Say What I Do”)

The Harvey Weinstein meltdown is merely the tip of an enormous iceberg of depravity that has existed in Hollywood for decades. It is ludicrous for actors and others to feign ignorance and disgust now.

Money and power, and free and unlimited sex, are like magnets that attract the most depraved creatures on the planet. To bring their “wives” to the party would be like bringing a sandwich to a banquet.

. . .

It is being asserted now that Hollywood’s depravity has existed for 100 years!

See https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/oct/19/moguls-and-starlets-100-years-of-hollywoods-corrosive-systemic-sexism (“Moguls and starlets: 100 years of Hollywood’s corrosive, systemic sexism“)

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21 11 2017
Timothy D. Naegele

FINALLY, THE LEFT IS EATING ITS OWN: BRAVO! [UPDATED]

The Clintons

Wesley Pruden, editor in chief emeritus of the Washington Times, has written a totally “softball” editorial about the sickos in Washington, Hollywood, New York and elsewhere:

These are not happy times for anybody. You can’t keep up with the serial sexual offenders without a scorecard, and the list grows longer every day and all the claims won’t fit on one scorecard. Seekers of cash settlements are advised to not take checks, and hurry to the bank and get in line before the cash runs out.

Who knew there was so much testosterone floating on the breeze in the land of the free and the home of the grabbers. We owe the French a collective apology for presuming all these years that theirs was the randiest nation. We have confronted the seducer extraordinaire, and he is us. Wanton grabbing and surreptitious squeezing have replaced baseball as the national pastime.

A second complaint has been filed against Al Franken. The lady says he grabbed a handful of her bottom and gave it a squeeze when she stood next to him for a photograph at the Minnesota State Fair. Five women — no, now it’s eight — say Charlie Rose, who looks as innocent as Mr. Peepers, told The Washington Post, which has become Harassment Central, that he had done bad things to them, including exercising “a violent temper.” But no blows, apparently, were exchanged.

Good ol’ Charlie plunged to his knees in the manner of Al Franken to go beyond a mere apology with a deep and full grovel. He has “prided myself” on being an advocate for women over his 45 years in journalism, and he is “greatly embarrassed” for having needed a learning experience but he always thought he was “pursuing shared feelings.” Good ol’ Charlie has a way with the spoken word, though these words were written down and probably passed muster with a lawyer (or lawyers).

For his part, good ol’ Al, who thought he had set the standard for the abject apology until good ol’ Charlie surpassed it, concedes that his second accuser might have had a photograph made with him, because he’s in thousands of such photographs at fairs all over Minnesota, but he doesn’t remember either the photograph or her bottom. You might think it would have made a deeper impression.

“I take thousands of photos at the state fair surrounded by hundreds of people, and I certainly don’t remember taking this picture,” Al told CNN News. “I feel badly that [the lady] came away from our interaction feeling disrespected.” Al seems to have a way with words, too.

Good ol’ Bubba thought he had put all the “interactions” he had been accused of safely to bed, after paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars to quiet the interactees of his past interactions. Bubba is 71 now, but the really bad news is that these claims of interactions could go on for decades. George H.W. Bush is 92, and he has been accused of brushing past (but not groping) convenient bottoms, and from a wheelchair.

The London Daily Mail reports “explosive new charges of sexual assault” against Bubba from four new women, and these occurred after he left the White House. Lawsuits have been threatened, and it’s probably a good thing for Bubba and Hillary that they collected all those millions from rich well-wishers who expected to do business with President Hillary. You don’t hire expensive lawyers just to get an apology.

These new accusation are 10 years old, having barely aged in the wood, like so many “explosive new charges.” The accusers, who have not yet been identified, were comely young women — apparently all legal enough though only in their late teens — employed by an investment banker, Ron Burkle, for whom Bubba was working his old presidential contacts to enable Mr. Burkle’s investment business. Bubba flew everywhere with the four ladies in Mr. Burkle’s big Boeing, which they called “Air F — k One.” Mr. Burkle merely lent his plane, not his presence.

The Daily Mail, quoting “a Democratic Party official familiar with the case,” reports that Bubba is “distraught” at the prospect of having to defend himself again in a court of law, and reports that Hillary, the guardian of the family foundation’s millions, might be even more distraught, and is “furious” with Bubba for still another sexual scandal. She is said to have offered to sic her private detectives on the women to turn up incriminations (sometimes called “dirt”) to silence them, but Bubba’s lawyers advised against it.

The Clintons, who paid out millions to silence Paula Jones and other women who accused Bubba of sexual abuse, are learning that there’s a whole new world now, and women want revenge and retaliation, not cash. It may be “he said, she said,” but “she” has learned that she can say it louder now than “he” can.

See https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/nov/20/recent-sexual-assault-charges-show-so-much-testost/ (“Who knew so much testosterone rides the capital breeze?“) (emphasis added); see also http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5104829/Charlie-Rose-FIRED-CBS-one-day-allegations.html (“Charlie Rose FIRED by CBS and PBS one day after 13 WOMEN accuse the exalted newsman of unwanted sexual advances as his co-hosts reveal their shock and horror at lewd and nude allegations“)

Pruden is wrong.

These are joyous times for lots of us who were Democrats once, but left the party years ago because it was so corrupt and, yes, “evil.”

The Republicans are “Neanderthals,” dumb and spineless, but America’s Left takes the cake in terms of being evil and un-American.

To witness them beginning—only beginning—to eat their own is a sight to behold and to relish.

We can only hope before this “cleansing” has run its course that Robert Mueller, Rod Rosenstein and their ilk are prosecuted, along with both Clintons—and sent to prison for life—for their thoroughly treasonous conduct.

See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/20/the-real-russian-conspiracy-barack-obama-the-clintons-and-the-sale-of-americas-uranium-to-russias-killer-putin/ (“The Real Russian Conspiracy: Barack Obama, The Clintons, And The Sale Of America’s Uranium To Russia’s Killer Putin“) (see also the comments beneath the article)

When they and their likes are gone, only then will true justice have been served. As bizarre as it might seem, they are every bit as evil and insidious as the monster Charles Manson who just died in prison. Each in their own way, they have worked toward destroying our great nation and its vibrant democracy.

Whether one is a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent or non-aligned, Americans of all political persuasions, religions, colors, ethnic groups and origins should rejoice that the “piper” is being paid finally, bit by bit.

And yes too, Pruden is wrong when he ignores the fact that everyone knew, or certainly those who grew up in Hollywood/LA, as I did; and those who worked on Capitol Hill, as I did. It was common knowledge.

Those being “outed” include but are not limited to (1) John F. Kennedy, whose death in Dallas may have been the result of his sexual escapades in California before that; (2) Bill Clinton, who is a serial predator; (3) Roman Polanski, who fled our country rather than serve time in our prisons; (4) Bill Cosby, who should serve the rest of his life in a prison cell; and (5) Harvey Weinstein, who is as ugly, grotesque and detestable as the human race gets, and who is certainly the “poster child” for all that has been wrong with Hollywood for literally decades.

See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/john-f-kennedy-the-most-despicable-president-in-american-history/ (“John F. Kennedy: The Most Despicable President In American History“) (see also the extensive comments beneath the article) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-7185 (“Clinton Fatigue“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/boycott-the-gop-and-ignore-foreign-naysayers/#comment-8828 (“Bill Clinton Ditched Secret Service On Multiple “Lolita Express” Flights“) and http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/roman-polanski-faces-new-extradition-898312 (“Roman Polanski Faces New Extradition Challenge Over Child Sex Conviction“) and http://variety.com/2016/film/global/roman-polanski-extradite-u-s-1201785415/ (“Roman Polanski Faces New Attempt to Extradite Him to U.S.“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/28/human-trafficking/#comment-7566 (“The Serial Rapist Bill Cosby“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-10901 (“HOLLYWOOD HAS BEEN SICK FOR DECADES“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-10846 (“Washington And Hollywood Scum“)

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5 12 2017
Timothy D. Naegele

SICKO SEXUAL PREDATOR ROMAN POLANSKI IS TARGETED FINALLY! [UPDATED]

[NOTE: Please scroll down to the bottom of these comments to see the latest news about Polanski, the fugitive from American justice, being honored at the Venice Film Festival.]

Roman Polanski

Jessica Finn has written in the UK’s Daily Mail:

The Los Angeles Police Department has refused to confirm reports it is investigating new sex abuse allegations against disgraced director Roman Polanski.

According to a report, the LAPD has opened a new investigation into the director who has lived as a fugitive since fleeing the country in 1978.

‘Yes there is an open investigation on Roman Polanski,’ an LAPD spokesperson said, according to The Sun.

While the LAPD denied the info came from their spokespeople, the Sun stand by its claims.

The LAPD didn’t deny the existence of an investigation, telling DailyMail.com the Sun report may well be accurate but the information not come from their public information office.

‘We can’t release any other information because it’s confidential due to the type of crime it is but he is listed as a suspect in a police report and it’s an open investigation,’ the Sun-sourced LAPD spokesperson said.

‘Of course anyone that comes forward wanting to make a police report listing him as a suspect – it’s always going to be investigated,’ they added.

Several woman have come forward claiming Polanski sexually abused them.

Marianne Barnard, a California artist, previously alleged that Polanski raped her on a Malibu beach when she was 10.

And a woman who has only identified herself as Robin M previously reported to authorities in Los Angeles County that she was sexually assaulted by Polanski in 1973 when she was 16.

Back in 1977 in Los Angeles, Polanski was charged with raping 13-year-old Samantha Geimer. He fled the country in 1978 to escape prison.

And five anonymous women alleged they had been sexually abused by Polanski via Imetpolanski.com, a website set up by women’s rights organisation Real Women Real Stories where victims can share their stories.

The women, currently named only as ‘Jane Does’, were aged between nine and 16 when the alleged assaults took place between 1969 and 1976.

A former actress, Mallory Millet, now 77-years-old, accused Polanksi of trying to rape her when he was high on LSD in 1970, and that he tried a second time as well.

Mallory Millet, 77, who starred in Tootsie under the stage name Mallory Jones, says she was 29 and a struggling actress when she was invited to a dinner with the director and her friends following his wife, pregnant actress Sharon Tate, being murdered by Charles Manson’s followers.

‘We went up to Roman’s suite to have some after-dinner coffee and drinks but (friends) Michael and Minda left and I was suddenly left on my own with Roman.’

‘When I had first arrived they told me that Roman was tripping on LSD and he had started behaving quite strangely – whereas I was very sober – so I thought it was time to leave anyway.’

‘But as I tried to leave he wouldn’t let me and he attempted to rape me very, very forcefully.’

She said despite the alleged encounter, Polanski met up with her again and apologized for his behavior.

‘I ended up alone with him, he tried to put his arms around me and hold me down and I had to flee for a second time.’

Mallory came forward through the website imetpolanski.com. Several such websites have popped up over the past two months for various powerful men who are being accused of similar alleged behavior for women to be able to come forward with their own stories.

‘I don’t care what age he is he needs to be punished,’ Mallory adds.

‘I’m very extreme about these things and I think rape – particularly of a young girl – is the same as murder and should be punished as such.’

The imetpolanski.com website has been set up by campaign group Real Women Real Stories, who have been encouraging women to come forward and share their stories of abuse by Polanski and other powerful men.

They aim to make a film about Polanski’s victims in a bid to bring him to justice.

The women who have accused Polanski described how the convicted child rapist sexually assaulted them in the late 1960s and 70s before he went on the run for the statutory rape of another underage girl.

Of the newest accusers, two say they were attacked by him in 1969, the same year in which his first wife Sharon Tate was murdered by members of the Charles Manson family.

It is not clear whether the alleged attacks happened before or after her slaying. The other alleged attack happened in 1976 when the woman was 12.

Polanski remains on the run after fleeing the US following his 1977 attack on 13-year-old Samantha Geimer.

He has been pleading for years to have the 1978 arrest warrant thrown out so that he can return to America.

He fled to France days before he was due to go to court over the attack. At the time, Polanski had reached a deal with prosecutors which meant he would serve a shorter sentence.

He got cold feet at the last minute and fled, convinced that he was being set up and that they would be tricked into a harsher prison term.

Geimer has long forgiven him for the attack and, earlier this year, she pleaded with authorities in Los Angeles to allow him back into the country. Courts in Switzerland and France have both refused to extradite him.

In Los Angeles, he is protected by California’s now outdated statute of limitations which, until 2016, meant sex crimes had to be prosecuted within 10 years of them happening unless new evidence which could be tested with DNA technology emerged.

The law has since changed in rape cases but crimes which none of those allegedly committed by Polanski are recent enough to now be tried.

Polanski now lives in Paris with his 51-year-old wife Emmanuelle Seigner.

_________

ROMAN POLANSKI’S ACCUSERS

Jane Doe # 1 – 1969, aged 10

Jane Doe # 2 – 1969, aged 16

Jane Doe #3 – 1972, aged 9

Renate Langer – 1972, aged 15 in Gstaad

German actress Renate Langer claimed on October 3 that she was attacked by him in Gstaad in 1972. Swiss police are investigating her accusation.

She revealed how he attacked her in an interview with The New York Times, admitting that she was too afraid to tell her parents about it at the time.

‘My mother would have had a heart attack.

‘I felt ashamed and embarrassed and lost and solo.’

[She] spoke out this year after her parents’ deaths.

Police in Switzerland, which has no statute of limitations laws, are now investigating her claims.

Mallory Millet – 1970, aged 29 in New York and a second time, unclear when

The struggling actress was invited out to dinner with the director and her friends at the Plaza Hotel in New York.

She was warned ahead of time the director was on LSD

‘We went up to Roman’s suite to have some after-dinner coffee and drinks but (friends) Michael and Minda left and I was suddenly left on my own with Roman.’

‘When I had first arrived they told me that Roman was tripping on LSD and he had started behaving quite strangely – whereas I was very sober – so I thought it was time to leave anyway.’

‘But as I tried to leave he wouldn’t let me and he attempted to rape me very, very forcefully.’

‘He would not take no for an answer and he tried to have forcible intercourse with me.’

She said despite the alleged encounter, Polanski met up with her again and apologized for his behavior.

‘I ended up alone with him, he tried to put his arms around me and hold me down and I had to flee for a second time.’

Robin ‘M’ – 1973, aged 16 in California

In August, a woman who identified herself only as Robin M. claimed at a press conference that she was attacked by Polanski when she was 16 in 1973.

She said the incident happened in southern California but would not go into further detail.

She is not suing him but offered to testify against him to stop his 1978 arrest warrant from being dropped.

At her press conference, Robin said she told one friend after the attack but did not confide in anyone else because she feared her father would kill Polanski and end up in jail.

‘The day after it happened, I did tell one friend that Mr Polanski had done that to me,’ she said, reading from a prepared statement.

‘The reason, with this exception, that I kept it to myself is that I didn’t want my father to do something that might cause him to go to prison for the rest of his life,’ she said

Marianne Barnard – 1975, aged 10 in Malibu

Barnard, an artist, said her mother arranged her meeting with Polanski when she was 10 in order for her to have her photograph taken.

‘At first I had the understanding I was just going to the beach with my mom. We were there for a little while by ourselves, and then he was there.

”First, he was taking pictures of me in the bikini, then it was with the coat then he said take off the bikini top, which I was comfortable with as I was only 10 and I often ran around with no top on.

‘But then he wanted me to take my bikini bottoms off – I started to feel very uncomfortable.

‘Then at some point I realized my mom had gone.

‘I don’t know where she went and I didn’t really register her leaving but she was no longer there … Then he molested me

Jane Doe #4 – 1976, aged 15 in Gstaad

The unidentified woman said she was 15 when she was at a dinner party with Polanski, Jack Nicholson, his girlfriend Angelica Huston, and her parents who worked in the film industry.

She told the website imetpolanski.com: ‘I sat on my left side, put his hand on my leg.

‘He then proceeded to touch my genitals and tried to squeeze and rub it with his hand, all that under the table in front of my father’s face,’ she said.

Jane Doe # 5 – 1976, aged 12

Samantha Geimer – 1977, aged 13 in Hollywood

Geimer is the most well-known of those who have accused Polanski of sexual assault. In 1977, he gave her Quaaludes before raping and sodomizing her at Jack Nicholson’s house in Los Angeles.

She was just 13 at the time. Polanski was arrested and was due to go to jail the following year after pleading guilty to a lesser charge but he fled the country at the last minute in fear that prosecutors had lied to him.

He has been on the run in France, where he is a citizen, and Switzerland ever since. Neither will extradited him to the US.

Geimer has kept in touch with him and was awarded a $500,000 settlement from him. She has spoken openly of how she has forgiven him and pleaded for a Los Angeles judge to stop the warrant for his arrest which still stands.

Charlotte Lewis – 1983, aged 16 in Paris

Charlotte Lewis, a British actress, also claims to have been assaulted by Polanski.

She said he forced himself on her as she auditioned for a role in one of his films in Paris in 1983. By this time, Polanski was already on the run for having raped Geimer six years earlier.

She reported her accusations to police in Los Angeles but not in Paris where the alleged attack took place.

In 2010, she said: ‘Hollywood is giving the wrong message to pedophiles.’
‘He sexually abused me and manipulated me in the worst way,’ she claimed.

‘He forced himself upon me.

‘He took advantage of me and I have lived with the effects of his behavior ever since. He has scarred me.’

The role was for Pirates, Polanski’s film, and she was given the part.

See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5145113/LAPD-opens-new-investigation-Roman-Polanski.html (“LAPD ‘opens a new investigation into disgraced director Roman Polanski after TEN women came forward to accuse him of rape or sexual assault'”) (emphasis added); see also https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/rambling-reporter/roman-polanski-will-skype-venice-film-festival-premiere-1227913 (“Roman Polanski Will Skype Into Venice Film Festival Premiere“)

This total sicko is being targeted, and justice may be done. Like Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton, Polanski is the “poster child” for depravity in Hollywood and globally.

At the very least, they should be imprisoned where their fellow inmates will mete out true justice to each of them.

See also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-10846 (“Washington And Hollywood Scum“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-10901 (“HOLLYWOOD HAS BEEN SICK FOR DECADES“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/28/human-trafficking/#comment-7566 (“The Serial Rapist Bill Cosby“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-7185 (“Clinton Fatigue“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/john-f-kennedy-the-most-despicable-president-in-american-history/ (“John F. Kennedy: The Most Despicable President In American History“) (see also the extensive comments beneath the article)

Lastly, the great tragedy is that the pedophile Polanski—a fugitive from American justice—is feted as royalty and honored, when he should be spending the rest of his life in a U.S. prison.

Hollywood and its global counterparts have no shame or honor. At the very least, they and their films should be boycotted by Americans. And the #MeToo movement should be front and center in such a boycott.

See, e.g., https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/venice-film-festival-awards-revealed-1237684 (“Venice: Todd Phillips’ ‘Joker’ Wins Golden Lion, Roman Polanski Wins Silver Lion“)

Rapist Roman Polanski

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15 12 2017
Timothy D. Naegele

BOYCOTT HOLLYWOOD AND ITS FILMS! [UPDATED]

Hollywood has been full of sexual predators, and sick, for 100 years. The only way that its depravity can be brought to an end is to boycott its films—just as America’s football fans have been boycotting the NFL and its teams.

See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/is-barack-obama-a-racist/#comment-11243 (“Crush the NFL!“) and http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-box-office-challenges-20171223-story.html (MOVIEGOING HITS 22-YEAR LOW)

The latest evidence of its sickness is chronicled in an article by Jennifer Smith for the UK’s Daily Mail:

Mira Sorvino was left ‘heartbroken’ by Peter Jackson’s confirmation on Thursday that she and Ashley Judd were blacklisted by Harvey Weinstein because they fought back when he sexually harassed them.

The actress responded on Twitter to Jackson’s revelation, telling fans that she ‘burst out crying’ when he confirmed her fears this week.

‘Just seeing this after I awoke, I burst out crying. There it is, confirmation that Harvey Weinstein derailed my career, something I suspected but was unsure.

‘Thank you Peter Jackson for being honest. I’m just heartsick,’ she said.

Judd responded in her own tweet but was less surprised, saying: ‘I remember this well.’

On Thursday, Jackson told Stuff how Weinstein vetoed Judd and Sorvino from his Lord of the Rings Trilogy in the late 1990s.

Jackson was eager for them to be involved in the Miramax production but said that Weinstein put a stop to it.

‘I recall Miramax telling us they were a nightmare to work with and we should avoid them at all costs. This was probably in 1998.

‘At the time, we had no reason to question what these guys were telling us – but in hindsight, I realise that this was very likely the Miramax smear campaign in full swing.

‘I now suspect we were fed false information about both of these talented women – and as a direct result their names were removed from our casting list.’

Judd was among the first women to speak out against the 65-year-old in an explosive New York Times article in October.

She told how Weinstein confronted her in a hotel room in 1997 wearing just a bathrobe and asking her for a massage.

She refused but the pair went on to work together in several films to come. The bathrobe incident took place a year before Lord of the Rings went into production.

Sorvino’s accusations against Weinstein take a similar shape.

Sorvino said Weinstein had confronted her in 1995 in a hotel room and that he ‘chased’ her ‘around’ while trying to get her to have sex with him.

Her claims were published for the first time in a New Yorker article which mirrored the Times piece.

In it, author Ronan Farrow said: ‘Four actresses, including Mira Sorvino and Rosanna Arquette, told me they suspected that, after they rejected Weinstein’s advances or complained about them to company representatives, Weinstein had them removed from projects or dissuaded people from hiring them.’

During his own interview, Jackson told not just of Weinstein’s treatment of the actresses but said he behaved shamefully with everyone else involved in the film.

He added that Weinstein and his studio ‘controlled’ the film’s production and that the mogul and his brother Bob ‘behaved like second-rate Mafia bosses’.

‘They weren’t the type of guys I wanted to work with – so I haven’t,’ he said.

Judd responded to Jackson’s remarks with less surprise, saying: ‘I remember this well.’

It was the first time New Zealand director Jackson has commented on the scandal which now engulfs Weinstein.

While his Lord of the Rings trilogy began with Miramax, Weinstein was never involved in producing the final versions.

In the early stages of production, Jackson claimed Weinstein told him that he did not like his vision to adapt the legendary literary tale into several films.

At the time, Jackson wanted to tell the story in not three but two different films.

He claims Weinstein wanted just one and, to make him fall in line, gave Jackson and his wife Fran a month to find another studio who would agree to their way of things.

If they could not find a replacement, they would go with Weinstein’s plan to make just one film, he recalled.

New Line was the studio which stepped in at the 11th hour and proposed the idea of the trilogy.

‘Although his name had to be on the Lord of the Rings credits for contractual reasons, he was not involved in the movies we ended up making,’ Jackson said.

Weinstein flatly denies any and all accusations of sexual misconduct.

See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5183933/Mira-Sorvino-heartbroken-Weinstein-blacklisted-her.html (“‘I burst out crying’: ‘Heartbroken’ Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd respond to Peter Jackson’s confirmation that Harvey Weinstein blacklisted them and stopped both from starring in Lord of the Rings because they rejected him”) (emphasis added)

As stated in my article above and in the comments beneath it, I was warned about such depravity by my parents when I was growing up in Hollywood/LA; and I saw it firsthand in Washington, D.C. when I worked on Capitol Hill—and I can name “names” of the predators and their victims.

It was so sick and depraved that I vowed neither of my kids would ever work on the Hill.

Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd were not “babes in the woods,” or neophytes. Sorvino’s father Paul is a distinguished actor, who had been in the business for years; and Judd is the daughter of country music singer Naomi Judd and the sister of Wynonna Judd.

Imagine, just imagine what has happened to naïve, unsophisticated and unsuspecting ingénues who rolled into the entertainment capital of the world, Hollywood; or into the political, economic and military capital of the world, Washington—seeking fame, or wanting to serve their country.

As I have written above:

The Harvey Weinstein meltdown is merely the tip of an enormous iceberg of depravity that has existed in Hollywood for decades. It is ludicrous for actors and others to feign ignorance and disgust now.

Money and power, and free and unlimited sex, are like magnets that attract the most depraved creatures on the planet.

. . .

[E]veryone knew, or certainly those who grew up in Hollywood/LA, as I did; and those who worked on Capitol Hill, as I did. It was common knowledge.

Those being “outed” include but are not limited to (1) John F. Kennedy, whose death in Dallas may have been the result of his sexual escapades in California before that; (2) Bill Clinton, who is a serial predator; (3) Roman Polanski, who fled our country rather than serve time in our prisons; (4) Bill Cosby, who should serve the rest of his life in a prison cell; and (5) Harvey Weinstein, who is as ugly, grotesque and detestable as the human race gets, and who is certainly the “poster child” for all that has been wrong with Hollywood for literally decades.

See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-10901 (“HOLLYWOOD HAS BEEN SICK FOR DECADES“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-11304 (“FINALLY, THE LEFT IS EATING ITS OWN: BRAVO!“) and http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-california-marijuana-sales-20180101-story.html (“Recreational pot sales roll out in California, with celebratory ‘blunts’ and big crowds“) and https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/californias-marijuana-legalization-creates-opportunity-hollywood-1070970 (“Marijuana Is Legal in California, Now Here Come the Hollywood Endorsement Deals“) and http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/01/photos-sanctuary-state-signs-pop-california-highways-new-year-felons-illegals-ms13-welcome/ (“Sanctuary State Signs Pop Up on California Highways for the New Year: ‘Felons, Illegals and MS13 Welcome!'”) and http://variety.com/2018/dirt/real-estalker/harvey-weinstein-georgina-chapman-hamptons-estate-1202676932/ (“Harvey Weinstein and Georgina Chapman Sell at Huge Loss in the Hamptons“)

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16 12 2017
🚨💥Tweeting 4 TRUTH #MAGA💥🚨 (@CNC_Dude)

I’m in, that’s for sure, and this is definitely added to Boycotting the NFL and MANY media outlets (MOST Actually)! I used to never miss a home game at Raymond James Stadium, but when I saw Mike Evans and DeSean Jackson kneeling, I was 100% done with the NFL, and I truly mean that, and there’s a handful of others that we’d sometimes go with, and they’re done too!

Anyways, as far as Hollywood goes, my favorite actor WAS Robert DeNiro, but that ended last year, along with several others, but this here seals the deal for Hollywood as a whole as my principles are more important than any damn movie that’s put out, believe that!!

In the last 12 months I’ve now boycotted CNN, NBC, ABC, New York Times, Washington Post, and many others, as well as ALL the NFL and now Hollywood!! In the end they ALL lose as their worth will be continuously declines will all those that want nothing to do with them…..and that’s a fact.

Liked by 1 person

16 12 2017
Timothy D. Naegele

Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I agree completely.

Having grown up in Hollywood/LA, I have always had a love of its movies. But the Weinstein, Polanski and Cosby scandals are merely the tip of an enormous iceberg of depravity.

Standing alone, they make clear that dramatic steps must be taken to rock the industry so that sexual predators are driven from it.

Money talks. And the absence of money, stemming from boycotts of Hollywood’s films and the NFL’s games, perhaps speaks loudest.

Lastly, I am boycotting the same sources that you are, which I never did before.

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7 01 2018
Timothy D. Naegele

HOLLYWOOD’S SICKNESS CONTINUES UNABATED: BOYCOTT ITS FILMS! [UPDATED]

Merle Ginsberg has written for Page Six:

When Hollywood’s most prestigious organization, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) — the group of nearly 7,000 actors, directors and other industry types who dole out the Oscars — expelled Harvey Weinstein on Oct. 14, audiences applauded. But by acting so swiftly, a mere nine days after the New York Times first reported allegations of sexual assault against the movie producer, the outfit now finds itself facing a dilemma.

Put simply: What to do with the rest of them?

“Harvey opened the floodgates,” said one male Academy member. “Now the Academy’s drowning in a tide of s—t. They don’t know what hit them.”

What hit, of course, were more alleged horror stories about so many other members: Kevin Spacey assaulting multiple young men, Dustin Hoffman sticking his hands in women’s pants, director Brett Ratner forcing himself on actresses. Ben Affleck seen on video groping a female host on “Total Request Live.” Screenwriter James Toback accused of sexual misdeeds by nearly 40 women. (As of this past Tuesday, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said it is considering criminal charges in five cases against Toback. He, Spacey, Hoffman and Ratner, deny the claims against them.)

“[We] can’t regret [kicking out Harvey] because [we] didn’t really have a choice,” said one male member of AMPAS’ board of governors. “Some members were quite vehement. But [we] didn’t have time to really weigh out the repercussions.”

The emergency meeting to deal with Weinstein was conducted by the 54-member board of governors — which includes Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Whoopi Goldberg and Laura Dern — after it received a Change.org petition with 100,000 signatures calling for his ouster.

“But they didn’t give themselves time to plot out how to deal with this going forward,” said one prominent female AMPAS member. “Kathleen Kennedy [producer of the ‘Star Wars’ series] and some other female governors panicked and felt compelled to act. They thought [Weinstein] could hurt AMPAS’ cred. Some of them did admit this was a slippery slope. But I don’t think they imagined how slippery. It’s definitely caused some problems and fights among the board members.”

And it’s not just new allegations that are haunting the Academy. What to do about two of the most notorious accused sexual predators in Hollywood, Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski, who were charged years before the Weinstein stories broke? Or, for that matter, Casey Affleck — who last year won the Best Actor Oscar — and the two settled cases of sexual-harassment against him? (Cosby and Affleck deny the accusations.)

Now, a barrage of petitions, complaints and letters are hitting Academy CEO Dawn Hudson and newly elected president John Bailey about these other men.

Hudson had no comment, but her office reissued her original statement on the matter, which read in part: “[A] task force will finalize procedures for handling allegations of misconduct, assuring that we can address them fairly and expeditiously. This process will ultimately guide the board of governors in assessing if certain allegations warrant action regarding membership. Those procedures will be sent to you in the new year.”

Mused another AMPAS member, “Dawn may not know what they’re going to do next. That’s why the statement’s so vague. The board says they’re going to take action, but what action? It will have to be case by case. They must revisit and reinvent the rules of membership — and it’s gonna get nasty.”

To join AMPAS, you must work in the production of theatrically-released films and be recommended by two members — unless you are already an Academy Award nominee, in which case you are automatically considered for inclusion.

Before Weinstein, there had only been one example of revoked membership: “Godfather” actor Carmine Caridi in 2004, who’d loaned out Academy screeners that wound up being sold.)

Indie filmmaker Cameron Bossert filed a petition to the Academy in early November, asking it to bar Casey Affleck from presenting this year’s Best Actress trophy, as is the tradition with the reigning Best Actor.

“I just wanted to help hold the Academy responsible for their really broad statement, that ‘the era of willful ignorance and shameful complicity in workplace harassment is over,’ ” Bossert told us. “My petition wasn’t the best way of doing this, since the Affleck case was settled out of court already. But the Academy said they were taking it into consideration, and I stopped the petition at 20,000 signatures.”

Edward Lozzi, a veteran publicist who represents two of the more than 50 women who claim abuse by Bill Cosby, has written a letter to the Academy and asked AMPAS members to do the same, as he simultaneously wages a social-media campaign calling for Cosby’s ouster.

“I asked. . . why people like that are still in when you’re sacking others? Most of the public doesn’t even know who Harvey Weinstein is. There’s been no response to my letter,” he said. “It would be nice for [the] Academy to let us know they are not totally apathetic.”

Meanwhile, Marianne Barnard, a Santa Barbara, Calif., artist who’s the fifth woman to claim Polanski sexually assaulted her when she was underage, launched a Care2 petition on Oct. 18, demanding the Academy eject him. So far, no response.

Some Academy members are fed up with the feet-dragging.

“None of [us] really know what the governors are thinking on this subject. They rarely tell us anything until they’ve decided. Then we have to read it in the trades or get a curt e-mail from Dawn, usually after it appears in the press. All we can do is roll our eyes,” said one longtime member. “I’m in favor of taking a very measured approach and not a knee-jerk reaction.”

Variety co-Editor-in-Chief Claudia Eller asked Hudson on Nov. 1 if the organization was “giving any thought” to the Casey Affleck situation. Hudson replied, “Yes, we are. Of course we are. We’re giving thought to all of this.”

But insiders say thinking about it isn’t enough.

“They keep saying that,” said another female member. “But, right now, it’s easier to get someone an Academy Award than to get them expelled from the Academy.”

See https://pagesix.com/2018/01/06/academy-members-now-regret-banning-weinstein-so-hastily/ (“Academy members now regret banning Weinstein so hastily“) (emphasis added); see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-11585 (“BOYCOTT HOLLYWOOD AND ITS FILMS!“) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/john-f-kennedy-the-most-despicable-president-in-american-history/#comment-10966 (“HOW HYPOCRITICAL: A KENNEDY PROPOSES ZERO TOLERANCE IN WEINSTEIN WAKE“)

Hollywood’s tepid response, or non-response, was predictable. One hundred years of its sexual and moral depravity, and the code of “protecting its own,” does not change overnight.

It certainly will not change at all if sexual predators and deviants like Harvey Weinstein, Roman Polanski and Bill Cosby are given a pass.

Like the NFL, Hollywood’s films, the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes and anything and everything related to Hollywood must be boycotted. Nothing less will suffice.

Otherwise, the multi-decade stench and filth of Hollywood will never be eradicated. Women who have been victims know this better than anyone.

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26 04 2018
Timothy D. Naegele

Finally, The Beginning Of Justice For Hollywood’s Serial Rapist, Bill Cosby [UPDATED]

Hillary, Chelsea and Bill Cosby

Earlier comments of mine dealt with the accusations against Cosby.

See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/28/human-trafficking/#comment-7566 (“The Serial Rapist Bill Cosby“)

Today, Michael R. Sisak and Claudia Lauer have written for the Associated Press:

Bill Cosby was convicted Thursday of drugging and molesting a woman in the first big celebrity trial of the #MeToo era, completing the spectacular late-life downfall of a comedian who broke racial barriers in Hollywood on his way to TV superstardom as America’s Dad.

Cosby, 80, could end up spending his final years in prison after a jury concluded he sexually violated Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. He claimed the encounter was consensual.

Cosby stared straight ahead as the verdict was read, but moments later lashed out loudly at District Attorney Kevin Steele and called him an “a–hole” after the prosecutor asked that the former TV star be immediately jailed because he might flee. Cosby denied he has an airplane and shouted, “I’m sick of him!”

The judge decided Cosby can remain free on bail while he awaits sentencing. No sentencing date was set.

Cosby waved to the crowd outside the courthouse, got into a car and left without comment. His lawyer Tom Mesereau declared “the fight is not over” and said he will appeal.

Shrieks erupted in the courtroom when the verdict was announced, and some of his accusers whimpered and cried. Constand remained stoic, then hugged her lawyer and members of the prosecution team.

“Justice has been done!” celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, who represented some of Cosby’s accusers, said on the courthouse steps. “We are so happy that finally we can say women are believed.”

The verdict came after a two-week retrial in which prosecutors put five other women on the stand who testified that Cosby, married for 54 years, drugged and violated them, too. One of those women asked him through her tears, “You remember, don’t you, Mr. Cosby?”

The panel of seven men and five women reached a verdict after deliberating 14 hours over two days, vindicating prosecutors’ decision to retry Cosby after his first trial ended with a hung jury less than a year ago.

Cosby could get up to 10 years in prison on each of the three counts of aggravated indecent assault. He is likely to get less than that under state sentencing guidelines, but given his age, even a modest term could mean he will die behind bars.

Constand, 45, a former Temple women’s basketball administrator, told jurors that Cosby knocked her out with three blue pills he called “your friends” and then penetrated her with his fingers as she lay immobilized, unable to resist or say no.

It was the only criminal case to arise from a barrage of allegations from more than 60 women who said the former TV star drugged and molested them over a span of five decades.

“The time for the defendant to escape justice is over,” prosecutor Stewart Ryan said in his closing argument. “It’s finally time for the defendant to dine on the banquet of his own consequences.”

Another prosecutor, Kristen Feden, said Cosby was “nothing like the image that he played on TV” as sweater-wearing, wisdom-dispensing father of five Dr. Cliff Huxtable on “The Cosby Show.”

Cosby’s retrial took place against the backdrop of #MeToo, the movement against sexual misconduct that has taken down powerful men in rapid succession, among them Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Kevin Spacey and Sen. Al Franken.

The jurors all indicated they were aware of #MeToo but said before the trial they could remain impartial. Cosby’s lawyers slammed #MeToo, calling Cosby its victim and likening it to a witch hunt or a lynching.

After failing to win a conviction last year, prosecutors had more courtroom weapons at their disposal for the retrial. The other accusers’ testimony helped move the case beyond a he-said, she-said, allowing prosecutors to argue that Cosby was a menace to women long before he met Constand. Only one other accuser was permitted to testify at Cosby’s first trial.

Cosby’s new defense team, led by Mesereau, the celebrity attorney who won an acquittal for Michael Jackson on child-molestation charges, launched a highly aggressive attack on Constand and the other women.

Their star witness, a longtime Temple employee, testified that Constand once spoke of setting up a prominent person and suing. Constand sued Cosby after prosecutors initially declined to file charges, settling with him for nearly $3.4 million over a decade ago.

“You’re dealing with a pathological liar,” Mesereau told the jury.

His colleague on the defense team, Katheen Bliss, derided the other accusers as home-wreckers and suggested they made up their stories in a bid for money and fame.

But Cosby himself had long ago confirmed sordid revelations about drugs and extramarital sex.

In a deposition he gave over a decade ago as part of Constand’s lawsuit, Cosby acknowledged he had obtained quaaludes to give to women he wanted to have sex with, “the same as a person would say, ‘Have a drink.'” The sedative was a popular party drug before the U.S. banned it more than 30 years ago.

Cosby also acknowledged giving pills to Constand before their sexual encounter. But he identified them as the over-the-counter cold and allergy medicine Benadryl and insisted they were meant to help her relax.

The entertainer broke racial barriers as the first black actor to star in a network show, “I Spy,” in the 1960s. He created the top-ranked “Cosby Show” two decades later. He also found success with his “Fat Albert” animated TV show and served as pitchman for Jello-O pudding.

Later in his career, he attracted controversy for lecturing about social dysfunction in poor black neighborhoods, railing against young people stealing things and wearing baggy pants.

It was Cosby’s reputation as a public moralist that prompted a federal judge, acting in response to a request from The Associated Press, to unseal portions of the deposition.

Its release helped destroy the “Cosby Show” star’s career and good-guy image. It also prompted authorities to reopen the criminal investigation, and he was charged in late 2015.

The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission. Constand has done so.

See http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BILL_COSBY_PAOL-?SITE=TXMCA&SECTION=US&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2018-04-26-14-21-06 (“Bill Cosby convicted of drugging and molesting a woman“) (emphasis added); see also http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5661907/Guilty-Bill-Cosby-lashes-DA-asks-bail-revoked.html (“‘He doesn’t have a plane, you a**hole’: Guilty Bill Cosby screams out in court tirade, after DA claims he is a flight risk and asks $1M bail be revoked as disgraced comic faces dying in jail for sexually assaulting drugged woman”). But see https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/bill-cosby-settles-defamation-claims-brought-by-seven-women-1199829 (“Bill Cosby Settles Defamation Claims Brought by Seven Women“)

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22 12 2022
Timothy D. Naegele

Nothing Is New In Washington

Compare https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11563397/70M-salmon-3M-bee-friendly-highways-Odd-riders-attached-1-7T-omnibus-bill.html (“$70 million for salmon, $3 million for bee-friendly highways and $3.6 million for the Michelle Obama trail: Some of the odd riders attached to the $1.7T omnibus bill”) with https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/ (“Washington Is Sick And The American People Know It”)

It’s Christmas, and every competent lobbyist in Washington got something. This is the way Washington works.

VolDOG58 commented on MailOnline:

“The people are being robbed in broad daylight by these power hungry, spending other people’s money. the[y] should be in jail or shot”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11563397/70M-salmon-3M-bee-friendly-highways-Odd-riders-attached-1-7T-omnibus-bill.html?ito=twitter_share_comment_text#comments

dontbecontrolled added on MailOnline:

“Washington DC is the most c o r r u p t place on earth.”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11563397/70M-salmon-3M-bee-friendly-highways-Odd-riders-attached-1-7T-omnibus-bill.html?ito=twitter_share_comment_text#comments

See also https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-823941a7a7a7e8e354d3ce64ac8b5d99 (“Jan. 6 report blames Trump, aims to prevent return to power”)

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26 03 2024
Timothy D. Naegele

Public Corruption

Pelosi has been a public servant all of her life, like Joe Biden:

“Nancy Pelosi buys up to $5m in Databricks stock for Big Tech portfolio”

https://mol.im/a/13228859

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