Hello Dante? What Level Is This?

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

The Canal Street Vendors Association would like a word...

[ti-amie]

[mmmm8]

The Canal Street Vendors Association would like a word...

...In the back of the shop behind the curtain

[dryrunguy]

The NY Times just sent this out via email. The full article is paywalled.

::

Judge Unseals New Evidence in Jan. 6 Case Against Trump

According to testimony, an aide alerted Donald Trump that Mike Pence had been rushed to a secure location in the hope that he would take action to ensure Pence’s safety. Trump looked at the aide and said only, “So what?”

[ti-amie]

The NY Times just sent this out via email. The full article is paywalled.

::

Judge Unseals New Evidence in Jan. 6 Case Against Trump

According to testimony, an aide alerted Donald Trump that Mike Pence had been rushed to a secure location in the hope that he would take action to ensure Pence’s safety. Trump looked at the aide and said only, “So what?”

Of course the NY Times did this. I found a thread, written in plain English, that breaks down what Smith filed.

[ti-amie]

‘No Former First Lady Has Ever Done That’: CNN Stunned After Melania Asked $250,000 For Interview
Last updated: October 3, 2024 9:57 am
Staff Writer

In a surprising turn of events, CNN has revealed that Melania Trump, the former first lady, requested a hefty $250,000 for an interview ahead of the release of her memoir, “Melania,” set to publish on October 8. The request, communicated through her publisher, Skyhorse Publishing, has raised eyebrows in the media landscape, with experts noting that such demands are unprecedented for a former first lady.

Nearly two months ago, CNN reached out to Skyhorse to arrange an interview, only to receive an unusual response last week. An email included a “Confidentiality and Nondisclosure Agreement” outlining strict terms for the interview, alongside the hefty fee. CNN did not sign the agreement.

In a follow-up inquiry regarding the substantial fee, Skyhorse Publishing claimed the demand was sent in error. Tony Lyons, the president of the publishing house, stated, “Neither Neither Melania nor anyone from her team knew anything about the NDA, and the document that was sent reflected an internal miscommunication.” He added that had CNN signed the NDA, they would have engaged further with Melania’s team to discuss the specifics of the interview.

Typically, media outlets have strict guidelines against paying public figures for interviews, especially when it involves the spouse of a political candidate. This request, particularly given its high price tag, has sparked conversations about the Trump family role in the media landscape.

The financial request aligns with Melania’s previous speaking engagements, as records show she was compensated $237,500 for a speech at a Log Cabin Republicans event in April, one of three payments for $250,000 or more that she received for speaking that month as disclosed by former President Donald Trump’s latest financial filings. Additionally, she received $250,000 for a similar event in December 2022.

Mrs. Trump’s NDA specified that any CNN employees involved in the interview would need to sign the agreement, with a breach carrying penalties of $100,000. The document also outlined that the payment would cover not only the interview itself but also licensing for photos and excerpts from her memoir.

“This is totally unprecedented. No former first lady has ever done that,” commented Kate Anderson Brower, author of “First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies.”

Anita McBride, director of The Legacies of America’s First Ladies Initiative at American University, added that while former first ladies have traditionally received significant fees for book deals, requesting payment for a news interview is highly unusual.

“Melania Trump’s approach reflects her desire to navigate her own path without being constrained by past practices,” McBride noted.

So far, Melania has only participated in interviews with Fox News, including a recent exclusive with Ainsley Earhardt, which was her first sit-down in two years. This lack of broader media engagement further highlights the unusual nature of the payment request.

As political spouses are often viewed as part of a unified entity with their candidates, this situation raises questions about the financial dynamics within the Trump household, especially considering their reported prenuptial agreement.

“It’s super suspect that a political figure’s spouse would want to be paid for something like this,” McBride concluded, emphasizing the unexpected nature of the request amidst an already unconventional media rollout.

https://dailyboulder.com/no-former-firs ... interview/

[ti-amie]

You know what's funny about this Melania situation? Everyone, and I'm not being funny, has known for how many years now that when you see her with TFG the check has cleared but not one major news outlet has ever reported that fact. Instead they've gone along with the fantasy of her actually living with him and being his wife. They ignored the fake Melania's too. Noel Casler is the only one off the top of my head who has always said that there were Melania stand ins and have been for years.

All she's doing here is making them publicly complicit in the grift she's been running for years.

As they say don't hate the player hate the game.

[ponchi101]

The sound of the masses running to buy Melania's autobio (totally written in its entirety by herself)


(with a foreword by Xaviera Hollander)

[dryrunguy]

The sound of the masses running to buy Melania's autobio (totally written in its entirety by herself)


(with a foreword by Xaviera Hollander)

Are we absolutely certain it wasn't originally written by Michelle Obama?

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[ponchi101]

but that is not how his cult sees it...

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Trump secretly sent covid tests to Putin during 2020 shortage, new book says
“War,” by Bob Woodward, traces how Trump and Biden responded to international crisis and concludes that Trump is worse than Nixon, the president exiled by the Watergate scandal.

By Isaac Stanley-Becker
October 8, 2024 at 8:56 a.m. EDT

As the coronavirus tore through the world in 2020, and the United States and other countries confronted a shortage of tests designed to detect the illness, then-President Donald Trump secretly sent coveted tests to Russian President Vladimir Putin for his personal use.

Putin, petrified of the virus, accepted the supplies but took pains to prevent political fallout — not for him, but for his American counterpart. He cautioned Trump not to reveal that he had dispatched the scarce medical equipment to Moscow, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward.

Putin, according to the book, told Trump, “I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me.”

Four years later, the personal relationship between the two men appears to have persisted, Woodward reports, as Trump campaigns to return to the White House and Putin orchestrates his bloody assault on Ukraine. In early 2024, the former president ordered an aide away from his office at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, so he could conduct a private phone call with the Russian leader, according to Woodward’s account.

The book does not describe what the two men purportedly discussed, and it quotes a Trump campaign official casting doubt on the supposed contact. But the unnamed Trump aide cited in the book indicated that the GOP standard-bearer may have spoken to Putin as many as seven times since Trump left the White House in 2021.

These interactions between Trump and the authoritarian leader of a country at war with an American ally form the basis of Woodward’s conclusion that Trump is worse than Richard M. Nixon, whose presidency was undone by the Watergate scandal exposed a half-century ago by Woodward and his Washington Post colleague Carl Bernstein.

“Trump was the most reckless and impulsive president in American history and is demonstrating the very same character as a presidential candidate in 2024,” Woodward writes in the book, “War,” which is set to be released Oct. 15.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said, “None of these made-up stories by Bob Woodward are true,” issuing a string of personal attacks on the author and saying Trump didn’t give him an interview for the book. Cheung argued that the book “either belongs in the bargain bin of the fiction section of a discount bookstore or used as toilet tissue.”

With publication on the eve of the presidential election, Woodward, who has chronicled the successes and failures of U.S. presidents for 50 years, concludes that Trump is unfit for office while President Joe Biden and his team, mistakes notwithstanding, exhibited “steady and purposeful leadership.” Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, makes several appearances in the narrative, with Woodward presenting her as a shrewd and loyal No. 2 to Biden but not an influential voice in his administration’s foreign policy.

The book is Woodward’s fourth since Trump’s upset victory in 2016. It focuses principally on the twin wars consuming Biden’s national security team — Russia’s all-out war in Ukraine, which began in February 2022, and Israel’s campaign against Hamas and other Iranian-backed proxies since the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.

The book also examines the long shadow cast by Trump over the foreign conflicts of the past four years and over the bitter U.S. political environment in which they have unfolded. And it includes candid assessments by Biden of his own missteps, including his decision to make Merrick Garland attorney general. Reacting to the prosecution of his son Hunter — by a special prosecutor named by Garland amid partisan recriminations over the Justice Department’s prosecution of Trump — the president told an associate, “Should never have picked Garland.”

Woodward reveals how Biden weighed his fate before exiting the presidential race in July, including over lunch earlier that month with Antony Blinken, his secretary of state. Blinken, reports Woodward, warned Biden in the private dining room off the Oval Office that everyone’s legacy is reduced to a single sentence — and that, if he continued to campaign and lost to Trump, that would be his legacy.

Still, Blinken believed at the end of the meal that the president was leaning toward staying in the race, underscoring how unpredictable Biden’s decision-making remained until the final moment.

(...)

As for Trump’s own decision-making process on foreign affairs when he was commander in chief, the book shows how he took in a wide range of viewpoints, including from people without relevant expertise. During a high-level meeting about Afghanistan held at one point in the Situation Room, Trump went around the table to ask everyone’s opinion.

“Mr. President, I’m the notetaker,” one person deflected.

“Oh, no,” Trump replied, “if you’re in this room, you’re talking.” The notetaker briefly shared her views.

(...)

...the book also shows how the Biden administration did little to alter its policy toward Israel even as senior U.S. officials abandoned their belief that the government in Jerusalem was operating in good faith. Already in the days after Oct. 7, Blinken’s impression of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s approach was: “It doesn’t matter how many people die. I have a mission to eradicate Hamas and it doesn’t matter how many Palestinians die. It doesn’t matter how many Israelis die.”

(...)

At the same time, support for the Biden administration’s Middle East policy came from unexpected places, the book reveals. Before the Oct. 7 attacks, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a loyal Trump lieutenant and shape-shifter who went from an outspoken critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to a trusted interlocutor, had relayed information to Biden about prospects for the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Graham believed normalization was best completed under Biden, arguing that congressional Democrats would be reluctant to lend support to a Trump-sponsored initiative. Graham promised he could deliver the Republican votes.

After Oct. 7, Graham continued to engage with the crown prince. During a March visit by the senator to Riyadh, which is recounted by Woodward, Graham proposed a phone call with Trump, so the crown prince pulled out a burner phone labeled “TRUMP 45.” In earlier meetings, the crown prince had brandished other such devices, including one labeled “JAKE SULLIVAN” for Biden’s national security adviser.

During the March call with Trump, conducted by the crown prince over speakerphone while Graham was present, the former president teased the senator for once calling for the Saudi royal’s ouster over the assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, which the CIA concluded Mohammed had ordered. Graham brushed it off, professing to have been wrong about the autocrat.

The royal court in Riyadh, however, is not the comparison Graham uses when describing visits to Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago. According to Woodward, the senator invokes an even more brutal form of authoritarianism.

“Going to Mar-a-Lago is a little bit like going to North Korea,” the book quotes Graham as saying. “Everybody stands up and claps every time Trump comes in.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... tin-biden/

[ti-amie]

I say this with all sincerity: I do not understand