Stormy Monday Morning Quarterbacking

Barbara Stanwyck in Alfred Santell's Breakfast for Two (1937).

The brethren on the "Sure Trump is awful but he's not a criminal like Hillary" right have had an easy time as you'd expect deciding that "he fucked her and lied about it to the American people" is a triviality after all and they're mystified as to why anybody should care about it—

People didn't vote for Trump because of his marriage fidelity. No one cares. https://t.co/j5wZjMLfVZ

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) March 25, 2018

—but cannot comprehend that we don't care about it either, any more than we did when Bill Clinton was president, beyond the sheer fun and Trumpery of it; I especially liked the detail that the rolled-up magazine she spanked him with was not Forbes but Trump, and the scene as Stormy narrated it could just about have been played by Barbara Stanwyck:

Stephanie Clifford: Yes. So he turned around and pulled his pants down a little -- you know had underwear on and stuff and I just gave him a couple swats.

Anderson Cooper: This was done in a joking manner.

Stephanie Clifford: Yes. and-- from that moment on, he was a completely different person.

I can say on my part watching the interview has given me a much better understanding of what it is I do care about in the whole sorry episode, which has less to do with Emperor Trump himself than with Stormy, her lawyer, and Trump's thug lawyer Michael Cohen. I even tried explaining it to Ben Shapiro, but he never pays any attention to me:

Yes, we learned how Mueller can create a plea deal for Michael Cohen to testify on his extensive knowledge of Trump's Russian affairs, business and political. It's pretty interesting.

— YastronomicalOdds (@Yastreblyansky) March 26, 2018

Because Cohen's handling of this matter involves felony intimidation, for one thing—Daniels was accosted outside a gym, with her baby:

And a guy walked up on me and said to me, "Leave Trump alone. Forget the story." And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, "That’s a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom." And then he was gone.

And threatened with legal action, of course (they've mentioned suing her for $20 million) And the illegal campaign contribution, something like 2,400% over the legal limit, secret and laundered:

Narration: Trevor Potter, the former chairman of the federal election commission, says the agency’s investigations often take a long time and usually result only in monetary penalties.  But there is another scenario that could present a problem for the president: Special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election.  In March, the Washington Post reported that the “special counsel has examined episodes involving Michael Cohen,” including his efforts to launch a Trump-branded project in Moscow in the fall of 2015 when Mr. Trump was seeking the Republican nomination.

Anderson Cooper: is there any way that Special Counsel Robert Mueller could investigate the Stormy Daniels payment?

Trevor Potter: Ya that's the wildcard here.

Anderson Cooper: As a prosecutor, you wanna get leverage over somebody that you could then use to get them to give you other information on which--

Trevor Potter: Correct.

Anderson Cooper: --you're really interested in?

Trevor Potter: Correct.

So that's my favorite part, in any event. Because Cohen knows everything about Russia, from the Miss Universe 2013 down to his own strange move with Felix Sater and that Artemenko guy and the Ukraine "peace plan". Maybe even the far funnier sex in the Ritz Carlton hotel.


Everybody's using the phrase, but how many bloggers giving you the Allman Brothers with Clapton? (I've posted T-Bone Walker's original before.)