Am I missing something here? The President of the USA paid hush money to a porn star...

[First Speaker]

...why isn't this dominating the headlines, day after day? Why aren't the cable news channels obsessing over this 24/7? When Clinton had a consensual affair with a staffer, and tried to double-talk his way out of it, it became a constitutional crisis. Imagine if he had paid $130,000 thru his lawyer to Monica! The vote to convict in the Senate would have been 100-0. Any other President would have been forced to resign immediately had this become known. We've gotten so corrupt, so cynical, so jaded, that nothing matters anymore. This "administration" hasn't lowered the bar...it's gotten rid of the bar...

[Ferrets are Cool]

1. It also implies, rather loudly, that this president is open to blackmail...

and therefore, not fit for the office.

[Wounded Bear]

2. Frankly, I think he's already being blackmailed...

[Siwsan]

13. And I wouldn't be surprised if he is blackmailing others

I've long suspect he has dossiers compiled on each and everyone who ran in the GOP primaries.

[deurbano]

30. It sure would explain some things.

[PatSeg]

49. I think you're right

He acts like both a blackmailer and a victim of blackmail. I'm sure Vlad was more than glad to share some dirt on his fellow republicans, many of whom have been acting really strangely.

[zaj]

27. Isn't paying hush money a response to blackmail?

This story is a story of him literally being blackmailed.

[zaj]

28. It's amazing how effective "spin" can be...

We aren't talking about how he *was* proven to have been blackmailed. We are talking about how he's at risk of being blackmailed.

[mitch96]

31. I think they are gonna spin it as...

The LLC paid her lawyer... for what??
The LLC is owned by tRump's lawyer, Cohen..... not trump.. They are gonna claim plausible deniability.. "I did not pay anyone".. shit
m

[dsc]

37. actually if it isn't his money he is in bigger trouble

that is what John Edwards got prosecuted for.

[mitch96]

39. GOOD!!!

Illegal political contribution???
m

[Jarqui]

61. But he thinks she looked like his daughter

so it's just a family matter ....

[kag]

74. Two words

"Ick" and "Ew"

[Grins]

67. Only if the citizens think it is offensive...

You can't blackmail someone if it's out in the open and still no one cares. The GOP knows its pliable "base".

[Skittles]

85. IMPLIES? It proves it.

[leftstreet]

3. His supporters would do the same thing

This won't move them

Sadly

[MineralMan]

4. A lot of Trump's "baser" supporters are cheering him on.

They want to imagine themselves with a porn star, and they're living through Trump. Not only don't they care, they see it as a positive thing they hope to accomplish for themselves some day.

[d_r]

5. It is sad

and amazing how evangelicals are willing to sell out their soul and support a mobster casino owner porno star as President of the United States. It boggles my mind.

[maryellen99]

12. Because they believe,with his eagerness to use nukes, that end times will occur nt

[marlakay]

33. Its all about making abortion illegal

They will sell out anything for it.

[jimmil]

57. You left out Russian Agent... N/T

[LeftInTX]

6. It happened before he was president

It also is a "he said, she said" thing.
Monica had the blue dress.
Monica is more credible than a porn star.


But, yeah I agree we have gotten low. Very low. The "Values Voters" hypocrisy is on full display. No outrage from the religious right. Trump could release a sex tape and they wouldn't care. As long as they have "their man" in the WH.

[LonePirate]

16. The timeline is exactly why. This did not happen while he was in the White House.

Plus, the media has uses evangelicals as the arbiters of moral outrage and they do not care about this porn star affair because he remains a bigot who they think will end abortion. They do. It give a damn about how he treats Melania and Baron.

[Stinky The Clown]

17. The money transfer paper trail IS his "blue dress"

His financial DNA is spread all over this.

[Owl]

68. Exactly

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

7. Because this president is so awful, immoral, chaotic

and generally fucked up that it's just another day at the office? I'm imagining a scene over at the Washington Post where a reporter goes to the editor in chief and says, "Hey, boss, I got a hot scoop about how Trump had a B & D dungeon installed in the White House where the movie room used to be!" and the editor in chief sighs and says, "It'll have to wait until we're done with the story about the orgy room in Trump Tower - you know, with the teenage hookers and the goats - and the one about his custom-made XX-Large rubber underpants he orders from China and the one about the bodies they found buried in the Rose Garden. They might be Steve Bannon and Omarosa. Write it up and I'll have a look at it tomorrow."

[PatSeg]

52. Yes, this is how I see it

With Trump, it is scandal and outrage every single day. I don't think anything Trump does or says can shock people anymore and he knows it. That is why he made the comment about being able to shoot someone on Fifth Ave. Even he seemed surprised.

[Squinch]

8. Because we suck at messaging.

And some here are saying "no sense making a big deal of it because his base loves it." That's not the point. We don't message to the deplorables. We should message to the other 70% of the country.

[ProfessorGAC]

24. Nailed It, Squnich!

We are too willing to rationalize why something really won't matter, by worrying about the 30% who will never buy in to any message coming from anybody that doesn't have "R" after their name.

Keeping pounding away at these easy issues until 30% of the other 70% see the light.

[sprinkleeninow]

55. Plus a ton.

➕ A TON.

[Pachamama]

25. +1000

[unblock]

38. it's only partly that we suck at messaging. the bigger problem is we don't own the microphone.

conversely, keep in mind that republicans *seem* much better at messaging because they *do* own the microphone.

we all know sucky songs that nevertheless become earworms just because you've heard them over and over again while great songs get forgotten because they just don't get enough airplay.


if the media instead parroted back every talking point we fed them uncritically and shouted down anything republicans ever said, well, we'd seem a lot better at messaging, too.

[LisaM]

51. Because Democrats would rather govern than message.

That's how it's been since Reagan.

Unfortunately, the electorate is getting less and less interested in actual governance, matching it with a progressively shorter attention span on issues. Things that would have been spun out for years vanish out of the public mind like yesterday's newspaper now.

[unblock]

53. and yet somehow the media gets people to care immensely about hillary's emails

or rather, a possible minor infraction involved in the timeliness of application of security patches by a systems administrator supporting the technology maintaining those emails.

[LisaM]

59. Don't get me started. When Anderson Cooper was all upset about the shithole comments....

I just wanted to scream at him about how he hectored her about her emails, too, in the so-called "debate" he moderated. All of them, Lauer, Cooper, every single debate moderator needs to be called out on this. Not to mention Comey.

Not only did they not matter, it did not need to be re-hashed over and over again. Kate McKinnon got it dead right on SNL when she played Hillary thinking, "don't ask about emails again, don't ask about emails again", then the question was "about your emails..."

WTF is wrong with this country?

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. No one is the least bit surprised by it, so that doesn't help

Everyone knew he screwed other women while married to his first two wives, so we expected he did with his third; and that he paid hush money to one (I'm not clear if he also paid her for the sex at the time, and don't really care to know) is par for the course too. The trouble is that his followers voted for him expecting that he does things like this.

[uponit7771]

10. His racist policies are worse than his personal life

[world wide wally]

11. I wonder if white women still prefer him

The GOP has successfully blurred the line between religion and simple decency for this asshole traitor

[Cosmocat]

80. I know plenty if them

nm

[L. Coyote]

14. What a great distraction from #TrumpRussia. What is Al Franken thinking now?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

20. Democrats holding ourselves to higher standards I guess

[L. Coyote]

41. We already knew that as fact. He's thinking Trump will be gone in ....

1,000,000, 999,999, 999,998, ....

[pnwest]

15. I dont understand it either. Shitstain has gotten

away with hundreds of things that would have sunk any other president. Even just the rumors of things that would be career-killers for anyone else, especially a Democrat. I don’t understand.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

18. Because his base, married or unmarried, male or female, would sleep with a porn star.

[Vinca]

19. Because "Uranium One." LOL.

I made the mistake of tuning to the call-in show on CSPAN and that's what the idiot Republicans are obsessing about.

[kysrsoze]

21. IOKIYAR

n/t

[BSdetect]

22. The shit will hit the fan soon I hope.

There is way too much evidence now being collated against drumph.

So the repugnants can go fuck themselves when their involvement comes out publicly.

[TreasonousBastard]

23. Truth is, I think a lot of people, and not just deplorables, are OK with this...

JFK and Marilyn was taken gleefully by the public, Johnson whipping his johnson out at staff meetings didn't burn anyone, Clinton's dalliances didn't bother anyone but Clinton haters... We pretend to be shocked, but we're really in awe. Always have been.

I don't remember who said it, but a memorable quote about Kissinger was something like "Anyone who can climb the Great Wall of China and Jill St. John is my kinda guy."

And there was Harding...

[Calista241]

29. I would agree

And when you get out of politics it’s almost a badge of honor.

Clooney and DiCaprio have enormous reputations as male sluts, and they’re still some of the biggest box office draws in the country. Nobody cares, and nobody cares that nobody cares.

[Blue_Tires]

32. Fuck that shit...

Folks weren't "OK" with Spitzer, Weiner, John Edwards, etc. so why does Donnie get a pass??

[TreasonousBastard]

44. Because it's rarely the sex itself that's the problem-- it's using the sex as a weapon...

Sometimes it works, and sometimes you get a pedophile judge almost winning.

[beachbum bob]

26. he didn't, his lawyer did

different rules are engaged when its not a democrat

[Auggie]

58. EXACTLY! But there should be a money trail ...

and if they can follow the money perhaps they can find the person who approved the payoff and from where the money came and if the payment was illegal.

And then there's this question: who's willing to get thrown under the bus for Donald Trump? You know damn well Trump okayed the payment.

[VaBchTgerLily]

34. It's absurd that the GOP and Christian Conservatives are just looking the other way!

[niyad]

35. because he is a f****** (in ALL senses of the word) a puke!

[Persondem]

36. Well get us some links to the best stories, articles, cartoons and videos

and we can perhaps take a shot at keeping this an active story. ...light a candle ...

[marble falls]

40. Who cares about the women or what she was paid, I want to know where the money came from....

campaign funds or Trump "charities", where? The where will bring him into a legal jam, not the what it was used for.

[BobTheSubgenius]

42. I agree wholeheartedly.

A very sad commentary on the current status quo. Outrageous, even.

[honest.abe]

43. The obscene ass in the WH has redefined appropriate behavior for a politician.

Its almost as if there is nothing he can do that will shock us. In fact its as if we expect it from him so its not news. Ugh.

[bigbrother05]

45. Trump had a slit trench dug under the bar

That way he doesn't have to stoop so low as to get any of the feces in his hair

[Hekate]

46. Because we are being buried under in scandals daily. Remember last Tuesday? No?

How about THIS Tuesday? Hawai'ians thought they were about to be wiped off the face of the earth and were calling their dearest to say goodbye. It was Chaos and Terror in my former home state.

If our idiot president had not been golfing, he might have ordered a response strike and Japan, South Korea, and North Korea would have been a nuclear wasteland.

When he finally did notice this colossal fubar, it was to say it was "a state matter." NO, you pathetic excuse for a human being, it was a matter of national and global security. Hawai'i, though it is surrounded by more "big water" than Puerto Rico, is a major military strategic location. And Hawai'i, though it is full of brown people too, is the 50th State.

Today is Friday. That was Tuesday.

We are benumbed and we can't keep up.

[infullview]

47. OMG! If this had been a democrat

They would have pilloried them and appointed a special prosecutor to investigate then impeached them just like they did with Bill Clinton. What a bunch of fucking hypocrites!

[gordianot]

48. Obviously it was a waste of money another bad Trump investment.

[CousinIT]

50. It's not dominating headlines because he's not a Democrat. n/t

[spanone]

54. set up an LLC and had his attorney make the payment....good Christian that he is.

[Purrfessor]

56. First Trump married and divorced two women...

paying them off in the process, then he screwed a porn star and paid her off. Now he is screwing all of us and thinking he can oan pay us off with a tiny tax cut. Well to hell with that. He will soon be introduced to Robert Mueller III. Something he didn’t plan for.

[BoneyardDem]

60. If trump can be this easily blackmailed by a porn star

there is NOTHING anyone could say to allay my concerns that he is also being blackmailed by Russia.

[Bayard]

62. I just said in another post

The only way to get his base to turn on him will be something connected to religion or guns. They could give a rat's ass about DACA, or really, even a government shutdown. Doesn't affect them personally.

Now......if he would just bring a porn start into a Southern Baptist church.........

[Pepsidog]

63. Until we all unite behind a concerted and sustained effort to deal with our Fox and Murdoch

problem, nothing will change. With the exception of the issue of slavery and succession, Murdoch has done more damage to our country and divided us more than anyone in our history. While Fox is incredibly profitable, we have seen that their on air hate-mongers are deeply flawed. In the past year or so Fox has split with both on air talent and Management over allegations of sexual harassment and racists comments. I’m sure many more Fox personalities have skeltons in the closet. Just like Ken Langone and Dick Grasso allegedly set up Spitzer, the left needs to devise a strategy to topple Fox and/or its personalities. These low-life scum must be held accountable and it’s time to subject them and their past to the same scrutiny that caused the likes of Al Franken to resign. Same goes for the hypocritical evangelical right and their leaders. That whole lot is infested with immoral,money hungry scam artist. Let’s hire Fusion GPS to start.

[GETPLANING]

64. This administration hasn't lowered the bar -

It has dug a trench

[workinclasszero]

65. Bill Clinton got IMPEACHED for consensual sex

The republicans had a field day over that one. The evangelical religious right had apoplectic foam at the mouth fits over it.

So.............................


When do the Shitler impeachment hearings begin?

[apnu]

66. Actually he was impeached for lying under oath about cheating on his wife.

Just keeping history straight here.

Carry on.

[workinclasszero]

70. Oh, he told a lie?

Shitler tells lies about lies 24/7/365 so I ask again.......

When does Twitler's impeachment trial start??

[apnu]

72. Got to get Trump under oath first.

Its OK, to lie all you want, while not under oath that is.

Bill Clinton was under oath when he was caught.

This is why Trump is doing everything in his power to not talk to Mueller's people. He knows, and his handlers know, Trump can't help but lie. If Mueller gets him under oath, he will commit perjury, bet on it.

[workinclasszero]

77. Dang it

Still waiting on Mueller and a blue wave democratic controlled House then.

I hope to see Dumpf on trial before I die.

[AtheistCrusader]

83. I'm still waiting to see George W Bush on trial....

[workinclasszero]

84. If there was any justice in this world....

Yeah

[AtheistCrusader]

82. When he lies under oath, and there is incontrovertible evidence he is lying.

Why do you think they are spinning so hard to shut down Muellers investigation? If they can keep him out of a court room/deposition scenario, he can lie all day.

They won't let him testify about anything until they're done using him to accomplish various goals (mostly burning down everything Obama accomplished.) After that, they'll let him testify about anything, and talk himself into a concrete cell.

[apnu]

69. It doesn't rate much because everybody knows Trump is a serial cheater

And that was well known before the election, and during the election. Yet Hillary lost crucial Midwestern states by small margins by voters who knew this of Trump and pulled the lever anyway.

The Evangelical crowd has been taking multiple victory laps over Trump, totally ignoring his infidelity and godlessness.

[7962]

71. The response you'll get is "this happened before he was in office". nt

[Beartracks]

73. Repubs have been groomed to believe porn-fucking...

... is okay as long as you're not an evil, godless, commie/socialist Democrat liberal, which of course is ALL Democrats, because of course that makes sense.

==========

[Orsino]

75. The alleged mistress has long since recanted her story.

There's no one to interview, beyond Trump's own lawyer who blew the cover-up.

[Honeycombe8]

76. Because it's not uncommon for Presidents to have flings & affairs, and keep 'em quiet.

Bush Sr. JFK. FDR. Eisenhower. Clinton. And more.

[Sophia4]

78. I want to see a congressional investigation into Trump's financial dealings with women

who accuse him of sexual misconduct and pay-offs.

[jmbar2]

79. The Overton window has been moved considerably by Trump regarding moral behavior

I just hope it isn't permanent. God I miss Obama!

[AtheistCrusader]

81. You understand Clinton was under oath, in a deposition for a sexual harrassment case right?

Bill committed perjury. Sucks, but he did. He handed them a weapon. They were only too gleeful to use it against him.


Trump isn't under oath. If Trump ends up testifying under oath and lies, he'll get fucked over too.
We may actually see it happen, as the religious right starts having second thoughts about keeping him around.

[fescuerescue]

86. Once Mueller learns of this

He'll subpoena the porno star.

I can't imagine that she'll go to jail for Trump.

[kimbutgar]

87. Iokiyat

It’s ok if you are twitler.