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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2018 12:03:19 GMT -5
I don't think anyone has started a Stormy Daniels thread. Heh. In ANY other administration, the strongly-supported allegation that a president had an affair with a porn star (while his wife was recovering from childbirth, no less), had unprotected sex with her, and paid her off just prior to the election would have been YUUUUUUUGE news that would have dominated the front pages to the exclusion of everything else and likely would have taken him down. (Particularly when the WSJ broke the story and its a Republican president.) With this president, of course, we're all so resigned that we don't even have a thread yet to express our horror because, really, who's surprised? Not me, anyway. Nor, alas, am I any longer surprised by the rush of evangelicals to defend him. (Never, never, never, never, do I want to hear any of those evangelicals tsk-tsking about racy or illicit behavior by Democrats again. Their credibility is utterly gone.) Anyway. I'm sure we all know about all that by now. I'll be glad to post links about it if you aren't. But in the wake of it, what I've found interesting has been Melania's reaction. God, how many times have we seen the long-suffering wife stand next to her cheating asshat of a husband, issuing statements of support, etc.? But not a peep of that kind from Melania. Their 13th wedding anniversary was this past week. Neither of them issued any sort of statement about it, and reports are that they didn't celebrate it in any public way. (Contrast that with the last two presidents -- both the Obamas and the Bushes were so clearly love matches, so clearly united couples who found consolation and strength in one another.) On the anniversary of the inauguration, Melania had no message about her husband. She tweeted a picture of herself arm-in-arm with a serviceman, talking about what an honor and amazing experience it has been to be first lady. She bailed on her planned trip to Davos with Trump. The official explanation is scheduling issues. Pfffffft. And what is she doing instead? Visiting the Holocaust Museum, and issuing an actually pretty darn good statement about it.  I honest to God think Melania never, ever wanted to be First Lady, that she is not happy in her marriage, and would much prefer to be back in New York with her son. I also think she's been a bit at sea with all the First Lady stuff -- after all, this is hardly the role she's been groomed for in life, and that dysfunctional administration is lacking in people to guide her appropriately. But I do think this, and some of you ( you know who you are  ) can despise me for it if you must -- I think she actually does want to make the best of it and be graceful and decent, and I give her points for it. And I get the distinct sense her impulse right now is to do so independently of Trump. This last week or so, it feels like she's pretending she's First Lady with someone else as president. I'll admit this -- I'd really like to see her give her cheatin' husband the bird and serve him divorce papers while he's in the White House. It's going to be interesting to see whether she ultimately drops into the usual beleaguered-political-stand-by-your-man role or not. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2018 12:19:01 GMT -5
I can only add -- and I'm sure we can all agree on this -- poor little Barron.
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Post by Vince524 on Jan 25, 2018 12:45:16 GMT -5
I agree with what you said. A few thoughts and questions.
Defending this. It's a credible accusation. However, if Trump is denying it, and someone wants to give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't do it, that's not at odds with not giving anyone else a pass when you believe the charge or it's been admitted to. I think they're nuts to just take his word for it. I mean... It's Trump.
If they're defending him on the idea that both Trump and Ms. Daniels were consenting adults, it was before he was going into politics, etc, etc... Well okay, then you can't tsk tsk when someone else gets caught with their pants down.
I'd also wonder about the outrage from people who tsked tsked at the Clinton scandal, multiple affairs, and what happened with Lewinsky. If that was okay, but this isn't, that's hypercritical too. I remember people saying 'we don't know what kind of arraignment he and Hillary have." Okay, same here. More so, Trump isn't and has never been a symbol of virtue. We all know he's cheated in the past.
I'm fine with anyone saying they don't want to judge an unproven allegation against anyone when at it's worst it wasn't a crime. Of course, I say that as someone who didn't vote for Trump, so it's not like this would be my tipping point.
I agree with Melania, and even if this would turn out to be false, it's humiliating. Or if it were true and she was somehow dandy with it. And yes, poor Baron.
And btw way, when this broke, the best comment on Twitter (And I'm going by memory) was, "Who among us haven't cheated on our wives with a porn star and asked them to spank us with a copy of a magazine with our daughter's picture on it, and wished the porn star looked more like her."
And yes, it was sarcastic
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2018 12:58:18 GMT -5
As far as whether he and Melania have an arrangement...well, yeah, who knows. Only the people in a marriage know what the deal really is.
But I really don't give a crap about the infidelity. As with Bill, that's the wife's business. It's icky, I'd rather my president be more like Barack or George as a husband, it does not speak well of his character, etc. But still, it's not the infidelity
What I DO give a crap about is the payoff just before the election. And the WSJ seems to have that pretty well wrapped up with a bow. (Just as, with Bill, I thought the Monica shenanigans were icky and inappropriate, but it was the perjury that was the problem.)
derail/ An interesting thing on the Wall Street Journal, btw -- I think their news reporters are good. I still respect it. But more and more often, their editorial writers have been sticking in stuff that sounds like it's the worst of Fox News. Not all of it, but a great deal of it. It's disturbing. A rightward slant I'm fine with -- I used to read their editorial page for "balance," for that exact reason. But lately...they've dissed climate change as unproven, for example). Increasingly, it often feels like their news department and editorial pages are from two different papers. The former feels responsible, but the latter, to me, not so much these days.
And yes, to be fair, I could certainly say that about some liberal papers too, in the other direction, and yeah, editorial pages are supposed to be opinion and not reporting, but -- I dunno, that climate change denying editorial and a few others were just....yeah. There's some fact and scientific evidence denial there that goes beyond a political viewpoint slant. /end derail
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2018 13:47:01 GMT -5
It's interesting to compare Melania's twitter feed with Trump's. Take a look at hers: twitter.com/FLOTUSIt's, you know, pretty...normal. She, unlike Trump, issued an appropriate MLK day tweet. The only other Trump family member who seems to be even trying for anything appropriately First Family-ish is Ivanka (who sometimes comes up hilariously short -- that champagne popsicle tweet on Memorial Day, for example -- it tends to be not so much that the tweets in themselves are inappropriate, but simply that they are tone deaf to context and her position). The male members of the family are just... yeah, I won't even link to them. Eric and Don Jr. do their very best to live up to Daddy's twitter example. Either Melania has someone normal controlling her account and/or advising her on it, or she's actually trying to be First Lady-ish to the best of her ability. Of course, that's hard when your First Man is Trump. I'll never be a Donald Trump defender or anything but a ferocious detractor, but I honestly can't help but have a twinge of sympathy for Melania. (That said, I'd have more if she showed his ass the door...And yes, I'd much rather have Michelle Obama or Laura Bush (both of whom I liked a lot)... but still. ) |
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Post by Vince524 on Jan 25, 2018 15:39:06 GMT -5
Let me be clear about the arraignment thing. If someone is in a marriage like that, that's their business and that's okay. But I think it's a little easy to shrug off an infidelity by saying that without any proof. That's not the norm and if they aren't saying, yeah I banged a porn star, but my old lady was fine with it, they compared notes later, then you're just making excuses.
The payoff is more troubling, but in the grand scheme of things, is it illegal? As long as it wasn't public funds? I'm a little skeptical because I'd think Trump would have said if I'm giving you a check with this many 0's you have to sign a NDA and now she's broken it. But he hasn't come out and denied it, has he? Of course, I could also see it being a lie, and Trump being "Hey let the world think I banged a porn star."
Who knows?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2018 16:01:13 GMT -5
A watchdog group has in fact alleged that the payout was illegal: www.newsweek.com/stormy-porn-trump-campaign-payment-787115But even taking that aside, such a payout shows that Trump is in fact vulnerable to blackmail -- that he would in fact pay out to cover up unsavory truths about himself from coming out. Some people scoffed when the allegations of Russian prostitutes, the pee tape, etc., came around on the grounds that due to his scandalous past, even if those allegations were true, Trump wouldn't care, and therefore it was silly to think he'd cut any special deals with the Russians to prevent kompromat from coming out. Except that, well, if he was willing to pay Stormy $130K not to talk about this...not to mention that Steve Bannon was quoted in Fire and Fury as saying that Trump has issued many such payouts via Michael Cohen...then it's not unreasonable to to believe he might offer, oh, concessions on Russian policy to shut the Russians up about anything they might have collected on him. And it is a fact that the Republican platform was altered in a way favorable to Russian interests when Trump became the Republican nominee, that Trump has gone to some lengths to quash investigations into the Russians tampering into our elections, that he dragged his feet about implementing sanctions... |
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Post by Amadan on Jan 25, 2018 16:15:02 GMT -5
I'll admit this -- I'd really like to see her give her cheatin' husband the bird and serve him divorce papers while he's in the White House. It's going to be interesting to see whether she ultimately drops into the usual beleaguered-political-stand-by-your-man role or not. I don't think she will do that, because I think he's made it clear that the consequences if she were to do that would be terrible. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2018 16:19:36 GMT -5
No more bowls of diamonds for her.  (He might will be able to make life more miserable for her even beyond cutting off the cash, in all seriousness -- though I can imagine just cutting off the cash would probably be incentive enough to stick it out. Wouldn't be for me, but she ain't me.) |
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Post by Amadan on Jan 25, 2018 16:59:52 GMT -5
Seriously, I think it would be a lot worse than just cutting her off.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2018 17:06:04 GMT -5
I've no doubt he'd say nasty stuff about her. Of course, I'm sure she has plenty of ammunition to retaliate. But I get the distinct impression she's an extremely private person who does not want that kind of attention, period.
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Post by michaelw on Feb 14, 2018 3:29:37 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2018 8:55:51 GMT -5
Because he is good and kind, Michael. He has ever been a friend to the starving match girls shivering in the snow and hard-working orphaned porn stars. ETA: Huh. I wonder if Trump ever tweeted when John Edwards was indicted after his lawyer paid hush money to his mistress during the 2008 campaign... |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2018 11:57:40 GMT -5
To note: if you look at the wording of what cohen said:
He specifically refers to the Trump organization and the Trump campaign. He does not say that Trump himself did not reimburse him.
Note too that he said he "facilitated" the payment. That's lawyer-speak for him being a middle-man here (which, of course, we know).
Note that he also has declined to answer questions on whether he made similar payments to other women.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2018 14:00:52 GMT -5
Michael Cohen, lousy lawyer. Because (among other things) this: www.apnews.com/7511e7654b2f476489be235327843280I haven't seen the agreement, but she might be right if the NDA applied to both parties and not just to her. In any event, it was a dumb, dumb statement from Cohen no matter how you square it because you could drive a bulldozer through the holes and it raises more questions than it answers.  |
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) can despise me for it if you must -- I think she actually does want to make the best of it and be graceful and decent, and I give her points for it. And I get the distinct sense her impulse right now is to do so independently of Trump. This last week or so, it feels like she's pretending she's First Lady with someone else as president. 
