monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

what a maroon.

the base wanted someone who was blatantly racist and wouldn’t pretend to be anything else. And that’s what they got...
Krugman

IS MICHAEL WOLFF MAKING THINGS UP IN HIS TRUMP BOOK?

in a tweet Maggie Haberman of the NYT wrote:

Barrack said he spoke to Wolffe once, says he never said the quote attributed to him to Wolffe or anyone. "Totally false," Barrack said by phone just now.

Tom Barrack adds, "It's clear to anyone who knows me that those aren't my words and inconsistent with anything I've ever said." He says Wolffe never ran that quote by him to ask if it was accurate.

Maggie is as far from a Trump partisan as it gets.

Now, Wolff doesn't claim to be quoting Barrack, but a friend of his, which is very convenient. And Fire and Fury heavily relies on these "anonymous friend" or "friend of a friend" accounts.

But Barrack pretty clearly denies it. And the more damning accusation is that Wolff never ran the quote by him. That would have been easy to do. And I think we're going to see a lot of those complaints about Fire and Fury. Failing to do that does look like bad faith. And it's much harder for Wolff to overcome than just Barrack's denial. It smacks of Rolling Stone UVA journalism in which you run third party quotes without checking them.

"A Rape on Campus" is a Rolling Stone magazine article, written by Sabrina Erdely and originally published on November 19, 2014, that describes a purported group sexual assault at the University of Virginia (UVA). According to Los Angeles Times columnist Jonah Goldberg's summary of the story "It is an account of a sober, well-planned gang rape by seven fraternity pledges at the direction of two members." Erdely only used Jackie's first name and gave pseudonyms to other students discussed in the story.

Within the first day following publication, Phi Kappa Psi's fraternity house at UVA was vandalized with spray-painted graffiti that read "suspend us", "UVA Center for Rape Studies", and "Stop raping people". In addition, several windows were broken with bottles and cinder blocks, and police officials said that the group received "disparaging messages" in social media.

In the Columbia Journalism Review, Bill Grueskin called the story "a mess—thinly sourced, full of erroneous assumptions, and plagued by gaping holes in the reporting". It was later revealed Erdely had not interviewed any of the men accused of the rape.

Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple rejected Erdely's statement, saying that the severity of the accusations she was reporting required "every possible step to reach out and interview them, including e-mails, phone calls, certified letters, FedEx letters, UPS letters and, if all of that fails, a knock on the door. No effort short of all that qualifies as journalism."

On November 4, 2016, after 20 hours of deliberation, a jury consisting of eight women and two men found Rolling Stone, the magazine's publisher and Erdely liable for defaming Eramo.[ On November 7, 2016, the jury decided that Rolling Stone and Erdely were liable for 3 million dollars in damages to Eramo.

On November 9, 2015, Phi Kappa Psi filed a $25 million lawsuit against Rolling Stone in state court "to seek redress for the wanton destruction caused to Phi Kappa Psi by Rolling Stone's intentional, reckless, and unethical behavior. On June 13, 2017, the lawsuit was settled for $1.65 million.

A further lawsuit by a number of members of the fraternity was greenlighted by a court of appeals on 19 September 2017, after originally being dismissed by a lower court in June 2016.

Someone burned down the house of one of Roy Moore's accusers today.

'Why don't these people come forward sooner?' is the continual question from the right-wing. Well...

"That fire is still under investigation by the Etowah County Arson Task Force," said Natalie Barton, public information officer with the Etowah County Sheriff's Department.

According to Johnson and neighbor Kevin Tallant, other neighbors witnessed a young man who had a history of public intoxication walking around the house before and during the blaze.

Johnson said she has not yet heard from law enforcement how or why the fire started, except that it started at the back of the house.

'Why don't these people come forward sooner?' is the continual question from the right-wing. Well...

Trump and Sanders - the least funny joke in town. Asked about Trump's threatened suit to stop the publishing/sales of Wolff's book, Sanders replied as follows...

Quote:

“The President absolutely believes in the First Amendment. But as we’ve said before, the President also believes in making sure that information is accurate before pushing it out as fact when it certainly and clearly is not,” [Sarah Huckabee] Sanders said

Senators refer Trump dossier author for federal investigation

Two top Republican senators have formally recommended that the Justice Department and FBI investigate the author of the controversial anti-Trump “dossier,” in the first known criminal referral from Congress as part of lawmakers’ Russia probes.

Their letter cited potential violations of a section of the criminal code pertaining to making false statements or concealing facts. A committee tweet said investigators had reviewed material that revealed "significant inconsistencies in statements provided to authorities."

“I don’t take lightly making a referral for criminal investigation. But, as I would with any credible evidence of a crime unearthed in the course of our investigations, I feel obliged to pass that information along to the Justice Department for appropriate review,” Grassley said in a statement.

The dossier was authored by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, who was hired by opposition research firm Fusion GPS. In their brief letter, the GOP lawmakers cited potential violations for false statements “the Committee has reason to believe Mr. Steele made regarding his distribution of information contained in the dossier.”