US Politics

**falken** · February 17th, 2018 11:35 AM

Originally Posted by uls

analogy

[emoji106]

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**donbuggy** · February 17th, 2018 03:01 PM

Donald Trump, a Playboy Model, and a System for Concealing Infidelity | The New Yorker
One woman’s account of clandestine meetings, financial transactions, and legal pacts designed to hide an extramarital affair.

By Ronan Farrow
February 16, 2018

In June, 2006, Donald Trump taped an episode of his reality-television show, “The Apprentice,” at the Playboy Mansion, in Los Angeles. Hugh Hefner, Playboy’s publisher, threw a pool party for the show’s contestants with dozens of current and former Playmates, including Karen McDougal, a slim brunette who had been named Playmate of the Year, eight years earlier. In 2001, the magazine’s readers voted her runner-up for “Playmate of the ’90s,” behind Pamela Anderson. At the time of the party, Trump had been married to the Slovenian model Melania Knauss for less than two years; their son, Barron, was a few months old. Trump seemed uninhibited by his new family obligations. McDougal later wrote that Trump “immediately took a liking to me, kept talking to me - telling me how beautiful I was, etc. It was so obvious that a Playmate Promotions exec said, ‘Wow, he was all over you - I think you could be his next wife.’ ”

Trump and McDougal began an affair, which McDougal later memorialized in an eight-page, handwritten document provided to The New Yorker by John Crawford, a friend of McDougal’s. When I showed McDougal the document, she expressed surprise that I had obtained it but confirmed that the handwriting was her own.

The interactions that McDougal outlines in the document share striking similarities with the stories of other women who claim to have had ***ual relationships with Trump, or who have accused him of propositioning them for *** or ***ually harassing them. McDougal describes their affair as entirely consensual. But her account provides a detailed look at how Trump and his allies used clandestine hotel-room meetings, payoffs, and complex legal agreements to keep affairs—sometimes multiple affairs he carried out simultaneously—out of the press.

Karen McDougal

**StockEngine** · February 17th, 2018 03:39 PM

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**donbuggy** · February 17th, 2018 03:45 PM

Mueller indicts 13 Russian nationals over 2016 election interference | CNN
By Kara Scannell, David Shortell and Veronica Stracqualursi
February 16, 2018

Beginning as early as 2014, the Russian organization Internet Research Agency began operations to interfere with the US political system, including the 2016 elections, according to the indictment.

The defendants allegedly posed as US persons, created false US personas and operated social media pages and groups designed to attract US audiences, the indictment reads. Two of the Russians also allegedly traveled to the United States in 2014 to gather intelligence for their operations.

The Internet Research Agency had a "strategic goal to sow discord in the US political system" including the election, according to the indictment.

Russians posted "derogatory information about a number of candidates," according to the indictment. They bought ads and communicated with "unwitting" people tied to the Trump campaign and others in order to coordinate political activities.

The indictment mentions a February 2016 memo to Internet Research Agency staff telling them to post political content on US social media sites and "use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump — we support them)." The reference to Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who challenged Clinton for the Democratic nomination, shows that the Russian government decided early on to oppose Clinton.

**uls** · February 17th, 2018 03:47 PM

**uls** · February 18th, 2018 01:35 PM

Dutch video

on America's gun addiction

(satire)

**Monseratto** · February 21st, 2018 03:21 PM

Finally... this dinosaur picked up the obvious... Hope tangerine man will do something about it.

Pat Robertson Calls for a Ban on Assault Weapons: “It’s Sensible” – Friendly Atheist

Every few years, televangelist Pat Robertson manages to say something sensible.

Like when he said our existing drug laws needed to be revisited because “criminalizing the possession of a few ounces of pot…[is] just costing us a fortune and it’s ruining young people.” Or when he mocked Young Earth Creationists by saying, “Bishop Ussher… wasn’t inspired by the Lord when he said it all took 6,000 years; it just didn’t!”

It’s happened again, proving the old adage about a broken clock.

Robertson said on today’s show that assault weapons needed to be banned because nothing good can possibly come from them. He added that expanded background checks for people buying guns were needed.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am a gun owner,” Robertson said. “I have hunted. I have shot skeet. I have gotten awards when I was in the Marine Corps for shooting. I’ve got no opposition whatsoever to shooting, but for heaven’s sakes, I don’t think that the general population needs to have automatic weapons. It just doesn’t have to have Russian-built or Chinese-built machine guns. It just doesn’t.”

“I mean it’s one thing to defend yourself with a pistol or a shotgun to hunt with, but it’s something else to have [assault weapons],” he added. “I think we can ban those things without too much trouble. They have what they call bump stocks, which you hit it and it would go automatic, we can stop that.”
“It’s just got to be,” Roberson said. “It’s sensible.”

He’s… he’s…. Christ, I can’t believe I’m saying this… Pat Robertson is right.

**donbuggy** · February 21st, 2018 10:46 PM

"Evidence collected over many years, obtained from many locations, indicates that the power of Prayer is insufficient to stop bullets from killing school children."

- Neil deGrasse Tyson